The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, Stephen Wolf, Carolyn Fiddler, and Matt Booker, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Daniel Donner, James Lambert, David Beard, and Arjun Jaikumar.
Leading Off
● PR-Gov: Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rosselló announced on Sunday that he would not seek a second term in 2020 and that he would also step down as head of the pro-statehood New Progressive Party (PNP), but he refused to resign from office despite massive protests calling for his departure. Rosselló has been in hot water over the last two weeks after a series of chats sent between the governor and his allies leaked where participants lobbed misogynist and homophobic attacks and joked about Puerto Ricans who died during Hurricane Maria.
Campaign Action
However, Rosselló was already in a precarious position before this month. The U.S. commonwealth has been in the midst of a horrific debt crisis for years, and things got even worse when Maria devastated the island in 2017 and led to a mass exodus of hundreds of thousands of residents. Rosselló's situation deteriorated in July when two former senior officials in the Rosselló administration were arrested by the FBI for allegedly directing federal funds to allied contractors.
Days later, Puerto Rico's Center for Investigative Journalism released hundreds of pages of chats sent between Rosselló and his top allies and cabinet members from 2018 into January of this year. These messages included an exchange where Chief Fiscal Officer Christian Sobrino Vega said he was "salivating to shoot" San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz, to which the governor responded, "You'd be doing me a grand favor." Yulín Cruz, who is a member of the Popular Democratic Party (which supports Puerto Rico remaining a commonwealth rather than becoming a U.S. state) and has been a prominent critic of Rosselló and Donald Trump, is currently running for governor.
Those were far from the only awful messages. Rosselló attacked former New York City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, who is from Puerto Rico, writing that people should "beat up that whore." Sobrino Vega also declared that singer Ricky Martin, who is gay, "is such a male chauvinist that he fucks men because women don't measure up. Pure patriarchy." Sobrino Vega also joked about the bodies filling the morgues after Maria, saying, "Now that we are on the subject, don't we have some cadavers to feed our crows?" (CNN writes that "crows" is a reference to the administration's critics.)
Massive protests quickly began calling for Rosselló to resign, and demonstrators were not deterred when he said Sunday that he just wouldn't seek re-election. There have also been plenty of calls for the governor to be removed from office, and on Friday, Puerto Rican House of Representatives President Carlos "Johnny" Méndez created a committee to advise him whether Rosselló had committed impeachable offenses. If a majority of the House voted to impeach, then it would take two-thirds of the Senate to vote to oust Rosselló.
However, it's not clear who would become governor if Rosselló is convicted or finally quits. Normally Secretary of State Luis Rivera Marin would take over if the governorship became vacant, but Marin himself will resign at the end of the month because of his own role in the chat scandal. The next person in the line of succession is Justice Minister Wanda Vazquez, who is a Rosselló appointee. One thing is certain, though: Now that Rosselló isn't running again, the last time any Puerto Rico governor won re-election will remain a quarter century ago in 1996.
Senate
● AZ-Sen: Republican Sen. Martha McSally, who has a long history of campaign finance issues, has agreed to pay more than $23,000 as part of a settlement with the FEC relating to violations stemming from the 2014 elections, when she first won her House seat by just 167 votes out of 219,000 cast. The FEC found that McSally had taken $319,000 in excess contributions during that race from a total of 117 people, exceeding the $2,600 per donor limit in effect at the time. The commission also found that McSally hadn't correctly disclosed $33,000 in donations from PACs that same cycle.
While we can’t say, of course, whether those illegal funds made the difference for McSally in such a close race, this latest denouement shows just how feeble the FEC’s enforcement has become—thanks in no small part to Republican efforts to gridlock the commission. In McSally’s case, a long series of serious campaign finance violations only resulted in a modest fine five years—and three hotly contested elections—after the fact. Belated, weak resolutions such as this one create an incentive for unscrupulous candidates to break the law and hope they don't have to deal with the political or legal consequences until it's too late to matter.
● TX-Sen: On Monday, state Sen. Royce West announced that he would join the Democratic primary to face GOP Sen. John Cornyn. West, who represents about half of the city of Dallas, was first elected to his safely blue seat in 1992, and he doesn't appear to have faced a competitive primary since then.
West kicked off his campaign with the support of a number of local Dallas figures, including longtime Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, former Mayor and U.S. Trade Rep. Ron Kirk, and Emmitt Smith, the former Dallas Cowboys Hall of Fame running back. During his speech West channeled Texas' most famous former U.S. senator and declared, "I will be a LBJ-type senator who sits down and gets the job done."
West joins a crowded primary that includes former Rep. and 2006 gubernatorial nominee Chris Bell, Air Force veteran and 2018 House candidate MJ Hegar, and Houston City Councilor Amanda Edwards. Either West or Edwards would be Texas' first black U.S. senator.
Gubernatorial
● LA-Gov: With less than three months to go before Louisiana's Oct. 12 all-party primary for governor, wealthy businessman Eddie Rispone is putting more than $1 million behind his opening TV ad. Rispone's commercial doesn't mention either Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards or Rep. Ralph Abraham, a fellow Republican who has not gone on the air yet. Instead, Rispone ties himself as closely to Donald Trump as possible.
Rispone begins by telling the audience, "I supported President Trump against Hillary, gave him money, put a bumper sticker on my truck, and I support our president more than ever against these liberal lunatics running now." Rispone goes on to pledge, "I will work with President Trump to protect our constitutional rights, to ban sanctuary cities, and end taxpayer benefits for illegal immigrants in Louisiana." The commercial ends with a picture of Rispone standing next to Trump.
A Rispone spokesman says that this spot will air for two weeks with more than $1 million behind it, and he couldn't resist some trolling by saying this sum is probably more money than Abraham has in the bank. The campaign may not be bluffing because Rispone, who has self-funded almost his entire effort, enjoyed a huge $9.8 million to $1.3 million cash-on-hand edge lead over the congressman on July 4.
The GOP ad tracking firm Medium Buying also backs up Rispone's claims, reporting on Monday that they'd tracked at least $1.2 million so far for this buy. Medium adds that Rispone's buy is worth about 2,000 gross ratings points, or GRPs, in each of Louisiana's seven media markets, which, as we'll explain, is well above saturation level.
GRPs is a term that is rarely encountered by lay people but is used universally by media buyers because it measures advertising impact across markets in a uniform way, regardless of how cheap or expensive ads actually are. GRPs gauge how many times, on average, members of your target audience have seen your ad, with one GRP equal to 1% of the audience watching an ad one time. In this case, where the buy is for 2,000 GRPs, a buyer might say that 100% of the audience has watched this spot 20 times, though of course it could also mean that 50% has seen it 40 times.
An old rule of thumb holds that a message advertised on broadcast television has reached saturation levels at 1,000 GRPs—in other words, when 100% of your audience has seen it 10 times. But in the modern multi-platform media landscape, abetted the rise of DVRs, that number has crept ever higher, though there's no universal agreement about what constitutes saturation nowadays. Still, the 2,000 GRPs that Medium says that Rispone's buy is worth will almost certainly reach nearly his entire intended audience.
Bear in mind, though, that these figures only take into account Rispone's spending on television. To connect with its complete universe of targeted voters, a modern campaign must advertise on other media (including radio and online) and contact voters directly (by means such as mail or door-knocking).
House
● FL-16: On Monday, Democratic state Rep. Margaret Good announced that she would challenge GOP Rep. Vern Buchanan in this Sarasota-area seat. Good, who represents the Trumpiest Democratic-held seat in the legislature, gives Team Blue a battle-tested candidate for what will be a challenging race.
Good won her state House seat last year in an expensive special election by defeating the congressman's son, James Buchanan, by a 52-45 margin in a district that had backed Donald Trump 51-46. Good won re-election later that year in a close 51-49 contest against Republican Ray Pilon, who gave up this seat to unsuccessfully run for the state Senate in 2016. Good is now one of four state House Democrats in a Trump district.
Good's 2018 successes did not foreshadow doom for the elder Buchanan, though. Democrats fielded a well-funded candidate named David Shapiro, but the congressman beat him 55-45. Buchanan's battle with Shapiro did deplete much of his war chest, but he still had a respectable $517,000 in the bank at the end of June. Buchanan is also one of Congress' wealthiest members, so he may be able to self-fund if he feels threatened enough.
Buchanan's seat, which includes much of the Sarasota area, backed Trump 54-43, so it's also considerably more conservative than the state House district where Good beat his son last year. Florida's 16th District was also friendly turf for the rest of the Republican ticket last year: According to analyst Matthew Isbell, all five statewide GOP candidates carried the seat. Even Nikki Fried, whose narrow victory in the race for agriculture commissioner gave Team Blue their one statewide win, lost the 16th District 53-47.
● IL-06: Former state Rep. Jeanne Ives, a far-right social conservative who almost beat then-Gov. Bruce Rauner in last year’s GOP primary, announced that she would challenge Democratic freshman Rep. Sean Casten. Surprisingly, Ives said that former Rep. Peter Roskam, an establishment ally whom Casten defeated in 2018, is supporting her. Ives will face former Lt. Gov. Evelyn Sanguinetti, who was Rauner’s running mate last year, in the primary for this suburban Chicago seat.
Ives decided to challenge Rauner in late 2017 after the governor signed a law allowing public funding for abortions. Ives’ bid quickly received $2.5 million from conservative mega donor Richard Uihlein (Illinois has no campaign finance limits), which is largely what kept her campaign afloat. However, Ives still spent the entire contest as the underdog against the wealthy governor, whom she tried to portray as a liberal.
Ives infamously used a racist and transphobic ad to make that case. Her spot included a deep-voiced actor in a dress telling the governor, “Thank you for signing legislation that lets me use the girls’ bathroom.” The commercial also included a man in a hoodie wearing a bandana around his face expressing his appreciation to Rauner for ostensibly making the state “a sanctuary state for illegal immigrant criminals,” as well as a woman sporting in a pink protest hat meant to invoke the Women’s March saying that the governor now had Illinois families “pay[ing] for my abortions.”
This spot attracted plenty of attention, but every poll still showed Rauner beating Ives. However, the Democratic Governors Association decided to launch a late attempt to try to take down the governor in the primary. The DGA ran commercials in the final week of the contest pretending to call Ives out as "too conservative" in a barely disguised effort to boost her with, well, conservatives. It almost worked, but Rauner prevailed by a very weak 51.5-48.5. However, according to analyst and Daily Kos Elections contributor Drew Savicki, Ives carried the 6th District 50.2-49.8.
Rauner was already in bad shape before his close shave, and Ives did absolutely nothing to help out her old rival after the primary was over. Instead, she continued to pillory Rauner until the last possible moment. Days before Election Day, Ives was asked if she’d done everything she could to aid Rauner in the general and she responded, “That was never my job. I was very upfront with people." Ives did say she’d vote for Rauner over Democrat J.B. Pritzker, but she also took the time to (correctly) predict the governor would lose.
Ives certainly looks like a very poor fit for a suburban seat that swung from 53-45 Romney to 50-43 Clinton, but Sanguinetti’s first months on the campaign trail have not been impressive either. Sanguinetti raised just shy of $100,000 from donors (she had to self-fund to get herself into the six digits), and she only had $70,000 to spend at the end of June. Meanwhile, Casten raised $706,000 during the quarter and had $900,000 on-hand.
● MA-01: On Monday, Holyoke Mayor Alex Morse announced that he would challenge longtime Rep. Richie Neal, who chairs the House Ways and Means Committee, in the Democratic primary for this reliably blue Western Massachusetts seat. Neal has attracted plenty of criticism in progressive circles for being slow to use his powerful position to obtain Donald Trump’s tax returns, and Morse argued in his kickoff that the incumbent “has been largely silent on the issues that matter most. He’s been absent, unaccountable, and unavailable.”
Neal has served in Congress since 1989, which is the same year that Morse was born. However, Morse is no political novice. Back in 2011 he was elected mayor at the age of 22, a win that made him his city’s first gay leader.
Neal faced a primary last year from attorney Tahirah Amatul-Wadud, who attracted some outside attention but raised little money, and the incumbent won 71-29. Neal didn’t need to spend much on that battle, and he ended June with close to $4 million in the bank.
● MI-08: The National Journal writes that former GOP Rep. Mike Bishop is considering seeking a rematch against freshman Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin. There's no word from Bishop about his plans, but MIRS recently reported that other potential GOP candidates are waiting to see what the former congressman will do before making their own decisions. Slotkin denied Bishop a third term last year by unseating him 51-47 in a Lansing-area seat that had backed Donald Trump 51-44 two years before.
This was a very expensive race, and it could have been more expensive still. In late September, the conservative Congressional Leadership Fund announced that they were cancelling a $2.1 million ad reservation they had planned for this district, and unnamed Republicans told Politico that they had seen polls showing Bishop in bad shape. The CLF's apparent triage decision was always quite perplexing, though, since most available polls showed a tight race, and other major groups on both the right and the left continued to pour in money.
We still don't know what the CLF was thinking, but they untriaged the race in the final week and went up with a $1 million buy. However, that late investment wasn't enough to save Bishop from Slotkin, who outspent the incumbent by a massive $7.4 million to $3.4 million margin when all was said and done. According to Bloomberg's Greg Giroux, Slotkin's victory came at the same time that Democratic gubernatorial nominee Gretchen Whitmer, who also hails from the Lansing area, carried the 8th District 51-46; Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow won the seat by a small 49.4-49.0 spread.
Slotkin has continued to be a strong fundraiser this cycle. The incumbent hauled in $729,000 during the second quarter of 2019, and she ended June with over $1 million in the bank. By contrast, Bishop had just shy of $400,000 at this point in the last cycle.
● NC-09: Democrat Dan McCready is out with a poll from ALG Research that shows him locked in a 46-46 tie with Republican Dan Bishop ahead of the Sept. 10 special election. This is the first poll we've seen from anyone in well over a month.
● NY-09: On Saturday, community organizer Adem Bunkeddeko announced that he would seek a rematch against Rep. Yvette Clarke in the Democratic primary for this safely blue Brooklyn seat. Last year, Bunkeddeko held Clarke to a surprisingly close 53-47 win.
During his last race, Bunkeddeko emphasized the need for affordable housing, a very potent issue in this area, and he argued that Clarke had no major accomplishments in Congress. Clarke even admitted she didn't take her challenger seriously: After Bunkeddeko declared at a debate that he "understand[s] that Ms. Clarke is upset by the fact that she has a competitive primary," she interrupted, "Upset? I'm laughing!"
Clarke sounded a whole lot less complacent when asked about a rematch in February. She told the New York Times she "definitely will not be caught by surprise," and she said she'd reorganized her district office since her 2018 race. However, Clarke ended June with just $182,000 on-hand, which is hardly an insurmountable cash lead.
● NY-27: The Buffalo News writes that attorney and Fox News contributor Beth Parlato is "tentatively slated" to announce a bid for the GOP nod on July 29. Indicted Republican Rep. Chris Collins, who is scheduled to stand trial in February for insider trading, has said that he'll announce if he'll run again before the end of the year.
● OK-05: While former GOP Rep. Steve Russell didn't rule out a comeback bid weeks after his shocking loss against Democrat Kendra Horn, he doesn't sound interested in the idea now. Roll Call's Laura Castro Lindarte recently took a look at what several former Republican members of Congress are up to now, and she writes that Russell has returned to Oklahoma City to become a pastor at a Baptist church.
Russell didn't address the possibility that he'll try to regain his seat, but he seems done with politics for now. The former congressman said in an email, "I have also found that the meanest people in any church are usually nicer than most people in politics," and added, "On a more personal level, I am finishing up my private pilot's license, enjoying family and sleeping in my own bed. … It is nice to get my life back."
Russell ran a complacent campaign last year and had Republicans questioning for a while if he even wanted to run for a third term, so his party probably won't be sad if he decides to keep his life and stay out of politics. However, no matter who runs, this 53-40 Trump seat will be a top GOP target. Horn has been fundraising accordingly, and she took in $583,000 during the second quarter and had $795,000 in the bank at the end of last month.
Two Republicans, state Sen. Stephanie Bice and businesswoman Terry Neese, are in, and each raised $181,000 during the second quarter. Neese self-funded an additional $350,000, and she ended June with a $518,000 to $171,000 cash-on-hand lead.
● TX-21: On Monday, 2014 Democratic gubernatorial nominee Wendy Davis announced that she would take on freshman GOP Rep. Chip Roy in Texas’ 21st District (or as Roy’s own House site identified it through Monday, Texas’ 21th District). Davis enters the race with the support of a number of prominent House Democratic leaders, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi, as well as nine of the state’s 13 Democratic members of Congress.
Davis was a longtime politician in Fort Worth who was mentioned for years as a rising Democratic star especially after 2012, when she held her state Senate seat 51-49 even as Mitt Romney was carrying the district 53-45. Davis became a national progressive hero the following year after she waged a 13-hour filibuster to stop an anti-abortion bill (even the brand of pink sneakers she was wearing on the Senate floor attracted massive attention).
Davis decided to run for governor in 2014, but she had a tough time gaining traction against Republican Greg Abbott, especially during such a hostile climate for Democrats. Davis ended up losing statewide 59-39, and she lost the 21st District by the same spread. Davis later relocated from Fort Worth to the Austin area.
This seat, which includes parts of the Austin and San Antonio areas as well as part of the Texas Hill Country, went from 60-38 Romney to 52-42 Trump. While this has been safely red turf for decades, 2018 was very different. Roy, a former chief of staff to Sen. Ted Cruz, won the general election last year against Democrat Joseph Kosper by a narrow 50-48 margin at the same time that Cruz was carrying the seat just 49.6-49.5.
Roy rose to nationally infamy in May when he blocked a $19 billion disaster relief bill, a move that frustrated many of his fellow House Republicans. However, the whole matter doesn’t seem to have hurt Roy’s fundraising. The freshman hauled in $402,000 for the quarter and ended June with $656,000 cash-on-hand.
● VA-10: Republican Rob Jones, a Marine veteran who lost his legs in an explosion in Afghanistan and went on to become a Paralympian, announced Monday that he would challenge freshman Democratic Rep. Jennifer Wexton. Jones, who is close to Florida Rep. Brian Mast, kicked off his campaign with a video that blamed #BothSides for extremism in Congress.
Republicans held this seat for decades, but it shifted hard to the left from 50-49 Romney to 52-42 Clinton. Republican incumbent Barbara Comstock still held on in 2016, but Wexton ousted her 56-44 two years later. The NRCC ended up foolishly spending more to save Comstock than they spent on any other House candidate in the nation, and that race has become a cautionary tale for Republicans. After that debacle, we'd be surprised if national Republicans sink much money here this cycle, especially since Trump is still likely to be a big liability in this affluent and well-educated suburban seat.
Wexton isn't taking this district for granted, though. The freshman raised $503,000 during the last quarter, and she ended June with $764,000 in the bank.
