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
● AL-02: House Republicans got their third retirement in as many days (and second in less than 24 hours) on Friday when Rep. Martha Roby announced that she would not seek a sixth term in Alabama's 2nd District.
Campaign Action
While the GOP doesn't need to worry much about holding Roby's 65-33 Trump seat, which includes part of Montgomery and the nearby Wiregrass region, her departure means that the party's tiny 13-woman House caucus may yet get smaller. Indiana Rep. Susan Brooks decided to call it a career just a month ago, and Republican primary voters in North Carolina's 3rd District recently passed on the chance to nominate a woman in a safely red special election.
Roby, who was previously a Montgomery city councilor, first ran for a predecessor version of this seat in 2010 against freshman Democratic Rep. Bobby Bright. Bright was mayor of Montgomery when he managed to narrowly flip what was an open seat in 2008, and the GOP establishment wanted Roby as their nominee to reclaim it.
First, though, Roby had to get through a primary against businessman Rick Barber, a tea partier who made national news with an ad where actors dressed as the Founding Fathers listened to his diatribes against Barack Obama, and George Washington concluded, "Gather your armies." Barber forced Roby into a runoff, but while his spots got even more feverish (Zombie Abe Lincoln compared Obamacare to slavery), Roby dispatched him 60-40.
Roby faced a tough campaign against Bright that fall. While John McCain had carried the seat 63-36, Bright was still well-liked from his time as mayor, and he had one of the most conservative voting records of any Democrat in Congress at the time. However, the hostile political climate was too much for him, and Roby pulled off a narrow 51-49 win.
Roby never had to worry about a general election again, and she quickly fit in well with the GOP establishment. Roby attracted some attention in 2015 during Hillary Clinton's marathon testimony about the attacks on the U.S. embassy in Benghazi when she tried to shame the former secretary of state for introducing "a little note of levity at 7:15," but she was generally a pretty low-key member. However, she also didn't have a great relationship with anti-establishment forces at home, and she pulled off an unimpressive 66-28 win over an underfunded tea party leader in 2016.
That was nothing compared to the firestorm Roby would ignite a few months later, though. After the Access Hollywood tape was released in October that featured Donald Trump bragging about sexually assaulting women, Roby announced that she would not support her party's presidential nominee. Her conservative detractors then launched a general election write-in campaign against her, and while it didn't come close to unseating Roby, the effort had a very noticeable impact. While Trump carried her seat 65-33, Roby turned back her underfunded Democratic rival by just a 49-41 margin, with the rest going to write-ins.
After that scare, Roby very quickly became a loyal Trump ally. Her enemies didn't forget about her heresy, though, and four Republicans filed to challenge her for renomination. Unfortunately for anti-Roby forces, though, her best-known opponent was none other than Bright, the former conservative Democratic congressman who now was running as a Republican. Roby only attracted 39% of the vote in her primary, but Bright beat state Rep. Barry Moore 28-19 for the second spot in the runoff.
While Roby's bad showing demonstrated how angry much of the base still was, they weren't exactly onboard with Bright, who had voted to make Nancy Pelosi speaker a decade before. Trump also did Roby a solid in the runoff by tweeting out his endorsement for her, which may have killed any chance of victory for Bright.
Roby's team didn't leave anything to chance, though, and they used their massive fundraising advantage to run ads hitting Bright for his Pelosi vote. Roby ended up winning renomination 68-32, and that fall, she won her final general election without any write-in headaches.
P.S. This long streak of Republican retirements may only just be getting started. Republican Rep. Billy Long, a five-term congressman from Missouri who isn't usually known as a political prognosticator, sounded like a gleeful Democratic operative when he popped off in a Tweet on Friday afternoon. "Wow! That makes 3 in 3 days before the August break!" he exclaimed. "Wait until after - that's when a plethora usually retire. Many decide over the break once they've been home for 5 weeks that it's tough to come Back to DC." Congress is now on a luxuriant six-week hiatus, so we'll be very eager to see if Long's prophecy proves true come September.
Senate
● AZ-Sen, IA-Sen, NC-Sen: Advertising Analytics reports that the conservative group One Nation, a nonprofit run by allies of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, is spending a combined $2.4 million on early TV spots in Arizona, Iowa, and North Carolina that will begin in the first week of August. None of the ads are online yet, but Politico writes that the Iowa commercial praises GOP Sen. Joni Ernst for fighting to repeal a tax credit for electric cars that the narrator casts as "boondoggles like vehicle tax credits for the rich."
● NC-Sen: The National Journal has obtained a poll from the GOP firm Diversified Research on behalf of wealthy businessman Garland Tucker, and it gives Sen. Thom Tillis a 40-30 lead over Tucker in the primary. This is the first survey we've seen testing Tillis, who has Donald Trump's endorsement, in a head-to-head matchup with Tucker.
Diversified Research is a firm that did some work for the NRCC in the 2000 cycle but we've seen very little from them since. The first and last time we wrote about them was in 2015, when we noted that their website dated back to 1999 and very much looked like it. That site has since gone down, and they do not seem to have a new one up.
Tucker entered the primary in early May and said that he'd be willing to self-fund up to $1 million to finance his campaign before donations arrive, and he did indeed throw down $850,000 of his own money for the quarter. However, the donors have yet to arrive, and Tucker raised a mere $190,000 through the end of June. That didn't stop Tucker, who began airing ads on Fox in May, from spending a hefty $931,000, but he had just $108,000 left in the bank at the end of the month.
Gubernatorial
● KY-Gov: The DGA-affiliated Bluegrass Values has debuted two new 15-second TV ads, both of which praise Democrat Andy Beshear's tenure as state attorney general. The first clip touts his work fighting for women who are victims of sexual assault, and the second spot lauds him for standing up to stop child predators.
Meanwhile, the RGA-backed Putting Kentucky First has launched a TV spot trying to link Beshear to national Democrats on immigration, whom they accuse of wanting open borders and healthcare benefits for undocumented immigrants. The GOP's spot claims Beshear opposes a ban on sanctuary cities, but they ignore how Beshear called the GOP's ban effort unnecessary because Kentucky has no sanctuary cities.
● LA-Gov: Wealthy GOP businessman Eddie Rispone is up with his second TV spot ahead of the Oct. 12 all-party primary, and he once again tells the audience how much he agrees with Donald Trump on immigration. Rispone begins by declaring, "I stand with President Trump on immigration. The media says that's racist. What a bunch of political correct nonsense!" Rispone once again doesn't mention either of his rivals, Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards or GOP Rep. Ralph Abraham.
House
● CA-21: Former GOP Rep. David Valadao has not yet confirmed that he'll seek a rematch against freshman Democratic Rep. TJ Cox, but McClatchy's Kate Irby reports that his team has already announced a September fundraiser in D.C. with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, NRCC chair Tom Emmer, and other prominent leaders. Irby also notes that the website that the invite directs attendees to does not work.
● MI-08: The National Journal recently reported that former GOP Rep. Mike Bishop was considering a rematch with freshman Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin, and while he did not rule it out when asked, MIRS' Kyle Melinn writes that he seems unenthusiastic about the idea. However, the GOP currently doesn't have any other obvious options in Michigan's 8th District, and Melinn adds that Bishop may be willing to come out of his involuntary retirement if his party needs him.
Bishop recently said of 2020, "My philosophy is to never say never and keep the options open," and he added, "I think the district wasn't meant to have gone the way it did." GOP mapmakers certainly did everything they could to make sure that this very gerrymandered seat wouldn't, in Bishop's words, "go the way it did," and they were successful for most of the decade. However, while this Lansing-area seat moved from 51-48 Romney to 51-44 Trump, it swung hard to the left last year: Slotkin beat Bishop 51-47, and according to Bloomberg's Greg Giroux, both Democratic gubernatorial nominee Gretchen Whitmer and Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow carried it as well.
Bishop added, "I think given the right candidate, there's a likelihood it will flip back." Whether Bishop, who was left for dead for a month by a prominent GOP super PAC, is that "right candidate" or not remains an open question. Right now, though, there aren't any obvious choices for his party. Mellin writes that state Sen. Sen. Lana Theis doesn't want to run, state Rep. Hank Vaupel "isn't thrilled about the prospect either," and former state Sen. Joe Hune recently got a new job. He adds that "a pair of Oakland County business executives are tossing around the idea of running," but there's no other information about who they are.
Mellin also notes that Slotkin's strong fundraising and the idea of sharing a ticket with Donald Trump in this suburban seat also isn't very appealing to Republicans, including Bishop. The former congressman still isn't sure how he lost his hometown of Rochester, but he does have plenty of unsavory memories of going door-to-door in the district and encountering angry voters who only wanted to talk about Trump. Bishop recounts, "I wanted to ask, 'Do you want to talk about what I've done in Washington, D.C.?" and the answer was, "They didn't."
While it sure doesn't sound like Bishop, who recently took a new job as co-president of a D.C.-based group, is looking forward to another campaign like that, he's not a no. Melinn concludes that Bishop may be willing to suck it up and run if he sees a path to victory, if the NRCC is willing to give him plenty of financial support, and if his party needs him. And right now, it sounds like his party may well need him.
● NC-09: The hardline anti-tax Club for Growth is out with a TV ad attacking Democrat Dan McCready, trying to label him with the rhyming moniker "Greedy Dan McCready." They claim a nonprofit "special interest outfit McCready helped run" had spent $450,000 on lobbying state government for what they call "costly state energy regulations" that helped McCready's own business, supposedly leaving North Carolinians on the hook for "$149 million per year in extra fees."
Despite running a solar energy business to help fight climate change, the ad attempts to mislead the viewer into thinking McCready is only out to line his own pocket, making no mention of what his business actually does. Furthermore, the Club relies on an article in the conservative Washington Examiner that doesn't actually prove consumers are paying $149 million per year in higher fees due to the pro-renewable energy regulations, merely stating that it's a charge by critics while supporters disagree. The figure they cite comes from a think tank funded by the Koch brothers, who've spent millions opposing climate regulations.
● TX-04: On Sunday, Donald Trump announced that he was nominating GOP Rep. John Ratcliffe to succeed Dan Coats as director of national intelligence, a post that requires Senate confirmation. This rural northeast Texas seat, which includes part of the territory that the legendary Democratic Speaker Sam Rayburn represented for decades until his death in 1961, backed Trump 75-22.
Texas special election law requires all the candidates to compete in an all-party primary. If no one takes a majority of the vote, there would be a runoff between the top-two vote-getters, regardless of party.
● House: The NRCC has added several more incumbents to its Patriot Program, indicating which seats it expects to be highly competitive in 2020:
AK-AL: Don Young
FL-18: Brian Mast
IL-13: Rodney Davis
KS-02: Steve Watkins
KY-06: Andy Barr
MN-01: Jim Hagedorn
OH-01: Steve Chabot
TX-24: Kenny Marchant
Most of these races are either already competitive or have a strong potential to become competitive. However, Kentucky's 6th and Kansas' 2nd stand out as strongly conservative seats where Democrats don't have seemingly top-tier candidates, at least not yet.
Mayoral
● Baltimore, MD Mayor: A number of Democrats are considering running for mayor of Baltimore next year, and one familiar name plans to decide soon. Last year's nominee for governor, Ben Jealous, who is a former NAACP president but has more recently become a consultant for electronic cigarette maker Juul, reportedly has been eyeing this race for a while, and his political advisor tells the Baltimore Sun's Ian Duncan that Jealous has set a Labor Day deadline to decide.
Jealous ran for office for the first time last year when he joined the crowded Democratic primary to take on GOP Gov. Larry Hogan. Jealous won the nomination by a surprisingly decisive 40-29 margin, and he carried the city of Baltimore by an even larger 43-20. However, Jealous had very little money left after he claimed the Democratic nod, and Hogan and the Republican Governors Association quickly went on the attack before he could defend himself. 2018 was a good Democratic year, but Hogan's popularity and the expensive campaign against Jealous helped the incumbent pull off a 55-44 victory.
Jealous started a Baltimore-based investment firm a few months after that defeat, and his group quickly picked up one unsavory client. Jealous is currently a consultant with Juul, a career choice that has opened the former NAACP president to criticism as vaping rates among teens skyrocket. Juul said back in May that Jealous was advising their CEO "on youth prevention and other social impact goals," but a report released Thursday by the U.S. House Oversight and Reform committee argues that the company is interested in anything but "youth prevention." The report revealed that Juul has spent more than $200,000 on programs meant to "convey its messaging directly to teenage children," and also "recruited thousands of online 'influencers' to market to teens."
These programs, which continued as recently as last year, included a five-week summer camp in Baltimore for children as young as third graders set up and paid for by a Juul group. At a recent hearing, California Democratic Rep. Katie Hill accused Juul of sponsoring the camp in order to obtain data on student's test scores and activity logs, and she tweeted afterwards, "I can only imagine the possible uses of that data in the hands of big tobacco."
If Jealous runs next year he could be in for another very crowded primary, and just like in the gubernatorial election, it only takes a simple plurality to win. Unlike in the gubernatorial race, though, the Democratic mayoral nominee won't have to worry about the general election in this very blue city.
So far, the only notable declared mayoral candidate is former state Deputy Attorney General Thiru Vignarajah. Vignarajah ran for Baltimore City state's attorney in June of 2018, and he took 23% while finishing last in a three-way contest. However, he may be better known for his role for arguing the state's case against a new murder trial for Adnan Syed, who was the subject of the first season of the podcast "Serial."
Back in 2016, a Baltimore judge granted Syed, who had been convicted in 2000 for slaying his former girlfriend, Hae Min Lee, a new trial because he had received ineffective legal counsel; this ruling was upheld two years later by the Maryland Court of Special Appeals. Vignarajah had already left the state attorney general's office by 2018, but he continued to argue on behalf of the state against a new trial. Vignarajah appealed to Maryland's highest court, known as the Court of Appeals, and in March, the justices sided with the state and denied Syed a new trial.
Several other Charm City Democrats are talking about joining the race, and they have a while to decide before the January filing deadline. Jack Young was elevated from City Council president to mayor in May after incumbent Catherine Pugh resigned in disgrace, and while he initially said he was planning to run for his old job next year, he's now considering campaigning to keep his new post.
Former Mayor Sheila Dixon is also talking about running again. Dixon resigned in 2010 after she was convicted of stealing gift cards that were supposed to help needy families, but she didn't lose her solid base of support. Dixon ran for her old job in 2016, and she only narrowly lost the primary to Pugh 37-35. Dixon launched a write-in campaign just a month ahead of the competitive general election and collected second place with 52,000 votes, which was good for a 58-22 loss.
Those aren't the only Democrats talking about running. City Council President Brandon Scott, who was picked by the Council to succeed Young as its head by unanimously defeating one of the new mayor's allies, confirmed that he's eyeing the mayoral race. So are state Sen. Bill Ferguson; former Baltimore Police Department spokesman T.J. Smith; and Del. Nick Mosby, who ran in 2016 but dropped out and endorsed Pugh.
