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
● MO-Gov: On Monday, state Auditor Nicole Galloway kicked off her campaign for governor, giving Democrats a top-tier candidate for 2020. Galloway has served as auditor since her appointment four years ago, and she's the only Democrat remaining in statewide office after 2018. Last year, she prevailed by a 50-45 margin to win a full term even as incumbent Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill was simultaneously losing by 51-46, demonstrating that she could appeal to a Republican-favoring electorate.
Campaign Action
Galloway will, however, face a very difficult general election if she wins the nomination. Republican Gov. Mike Parson ascended to his office from the lieutenant governor's position after former GOP Gov. Eric Greitens resigned in disgrace last year, and he's expected to kick off his bid for a full term sometime next month. Missouri has become an increasingly red state thanks to a large population of white voters who are evangelical Christians and/or who don't hold a college degree, and those demographic groups should help Trump easily win the state again next year.
Parson had been a relatively uncontroversial governor until signing a law in May that banned abortion after only eight weeks of pregnancy, often before women even know they are pregnant. The only exception in the ban is if an abortion is deemed necessary to "avert the death of the pregnant woman or ... a serious risk of substantial and irreversible physical impairment," and the legislation had no exception for rape or incest. Planned Parenthood and the ACLU subsequently filed a lawsuit over the law last month, and opponents are also trying to veto it through a 2020 ballot initiative.
Despite Missouri's strongly Republican lean, Galloway's candidacy gives Democrats a fighting chance here if everything goes right, and she leaned hard into economic issues and corruption in state politics in her kickoff video. If she's elected, she would be the first woman to become Missouri governor.
Senate
● CO-Sen: On Friday, Secretary of State Jena Griswold announced she won't be joining the crowded Democratic primary to take on vulnerable GOP Sen. Cory Gardner next year. Griswold had formed an exploratory committee last month and already raised $200,000, and she would have been the only current statewide officeholder in the running had she joined the race.
However, Griswold was only elected to her first term in office last November, and with less than a year on the job, she may have preferred to continue on as Colorado’s top elections official. But at only 34 years old, Griswold will have plenty of time to build up profile in her current position before seeking higher office if she chooses to.
● IA-Sen: Linn County Supervisor Stacey Walker recently declared that he wouldn't be joining the Democratic primary to take on Republican Sen. Joni Ernst next year. Walker wrote that he wanted to run a strongly progressive campaign to draw a sharp contrast with Ernst, but he lamented that he didn't have a viable path to the nomination because of "Washington elites," a thinly veiled reference to the DSCC endorsing real estate executive Theresa Greenfield upon her entry into the race earlier this year. Had he run and won, Walker would have become Iowa's first black senator.
● TN-Sen: Republican Bill Hagerty resigned as U.S. ambassador to Japan last month, but he still hasn't formally declared his all-but-certain bid to succeed retiring Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander next year despite already receiving Trump's endorsement. However, Hagerty recently said he's working on getting "re-engaged" with Tennessee and plans to spend time traveling the state. He further hinted that he would be able to talk "very soon about what we're going to do."
Meanwhile, former state Sen. Jamie Woodson said she won't be joining the Republican primary, but not every Republican appears on board with Hagerty. Indeed, freshman Rep. Tim Burchett recently appeared at an event with orthopedic surgeon Manny Sethi, who has already joined the race. Burchett himself had previously not ruled out running, so this move suggests that his candidacy may be unlikely.
● TX-Sen: Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez, a community organizer focused on immigrant, worker, and Latino communities, has announced she's joining the Democratic primary for Senate. Tzintzún Ramirez has been one of the more prominent organizers for progressive causes in the Latino community, and she vowed to run a campaign that didn't shy away from progressive values. The Texas Observer reports that she was encouraged to run by a top field director for former Rep. Beto O'Rourke's 2018 campaign. Tzintzún Ramirez joins a primary that includes 2018 House candidate MJ Hegar, state Sen. Royce West, Houston City Councilor Amanda Edwards, and former Rep. Chris Bell.
Gubernatorial
● KY-Gov: The RGA's latest TV ad continues their strategy of trying to tie Democrats to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and nationally prominent Democrats such as Hillary Clinton, whom they claim are "liberal radicals." The spot argues that Democratic nominee Andy Beshear "stood with Hillary Clinton" and claims that, as state attorney general, Beshear sued to "stop Trump's agenda." Of course, they don't reveal that Beshear had signed onto an effort to stop Trump from using the courts to strike down Obamacare and take health care away from potentially hundreds of thousands of Kentuckians.
● LA-Gov: Republican Rep. Ralph Abraham is launching his first TV spot, and he's putting $2 million behind the opening statewide buy. The atypical commercial introduces Abraham wearing what appears to be an aviator's jacket from his past military service, with footage that starts focused on his shoes and slowly pans up to show his entire figure as he smiles without saying anything. All the while, voiceovers from news coverage describe him as the "Republican congressman from North Louisiana" who "has been President Trump's go-to ally in Louisiana." One news clip deems him the "Republican frontrunner" to take on Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards, making no mention of his major GOP rival in the October all-party primary, businessman Eddie Rispone.
● MS-Gov: Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves is going up with the first negative TV ad of the Republican primary ahead of his Aug. 27 runoff against former state Supreme Court Chief Justice Bill Waller Jr. The spot links Waller to Democratic nominee Jim Hood and claims they both want to raise taxes and expand Obamacare in Mississippi, arguing that Reeves instead is the true conservative in the race.
● MT-Gov: Republican Rep. Greg Gianforte has released a poll from Moore Information taken in early July that shows him dominating the GOP primary for governor next year. The survey gives the at-large congressman a 56-17 lead over state Attorney General Tim Fox, while state Sen. Al Olszewski earns just 5%. This is the first publicly available poll of the race, and it's unclear just how much of Gianforte's advantage is from a name recognition edge over his opponents.
● WV-Gov: Writing for The Parkersburg News and Sentinel, opinion columnist Steven Allen Adams reports that Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin is expected to announce on Sept. 2 whether or not he'll run for governor next year. He also speculates that state Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, who narrowly lost 2018's Senate race to Manchin as the Republican nominee, is "actively running for something," but which office is unclear. Furthermore, Adams relays that the signs largely point to GOP Secretary of State Mac Warner seeking re-election instead of running for higher office.
Adams also reports that some observers view former state Commerce Secretary Woody Thrasher as a stalking horse for Manchin, with his Republican primary campaign against party-switching GOP Gov. Jim Justice just a ruse to make Justice spend his resources in the primary before potentially facing Manchin in the general.
House
● CA-50: Roll Call reports that GOP Rep. Duncan Hunter was photographed at a Fourth of July event with a man named Kris Wyrick who was flashing the "OK" sign, which has increasingly been used as a white supremacist symbol by those who want plausible deniability if called out. Hunter later deleted the photo from his social media pages after reporters dug into Wyrick's lengthy associations with white supremacist groups and white power imagery, as well as his history of violently attacking protesters, but Hunter's explanation of the photo did not put the matter to rest.
At the time Hunter was first pressed on Wyrick's white supremacist ties, a staffer for Hunter said Wyrick was merely "a stranger in a parade who wanted to be in a picture." But Roll Call's latest report suggests the two may actually have a deeper relationship than that. A 2017 YouTube video shows Wyrick saying he knows Hunter and his family personally and calling the congressman a "great man." When later confronted, Hunter's spokesperson backpedaled and conceded that Hunter had seen Wyrick at previous events in their hometown of Alpine and that his father, former Rep. Duncan Hunter Sr., had "mentioned [Wyrick] a couple of times."
Hunter himself is no stranger to virulent racism and xenophobia. After his indictment for illegally misusing campaign resources for personal benefit, Hunter faced the closest race of his career last year in this red-leaning district against Democrat Ammar Campa-Najjar. In that contest, Hunter resorted to nakedly racist attack ads that insinuated Campa-Najjar, a Christian of Mexican and Palestinian descent, was covertly an Islamist terrorist. Campa-Najjar is back for a rematch this cycle, and Hunter has continued to use Islamophobic attacks to try to save his political career ahead of his trial next month.
● IN-05: State Treasurer Kelly Mitchell could be making a move—literally—to run in the open GOP primary, with Howey Politics reporting that she’s put her house up for sale to move into the 5th District. (House candidates, however, are only required to live in the state they're seeking to represent, not the district they’re running for.) Previous reports had said Mitchell is considering, but we have had nothing directly from her yet about her interest or potential lack thereof.
Meanwhile, Howey reports that Republican state Sen. Victoria Spartz "has reportedly signaled to supporters she won't run," and that fellow Republican Leah McGrath, who is the deputy mayor of Fishers, has confirmed on the record that she herself won't run.
● MN-07: Democratic Rep. Collin Peterson turned back underfunded Republican Dave Hughes by a small 52-48 margin last year, and Team Red is hoping to land a much stronger 2020 candidate to take on the veteran incumbent in this conservative seat.
The Star Tribune reports that there's been talk that former Lt. Gov. Michelle Fischbach could run, and she very much sounded interested at a recent party fundraiser. After an attendee asked her if she would challenge Peterson, Fischbach reportedly responded that she was "working through the details."
Fischbach was the president of the state Senate in late 2017 when Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton appointed Lt. Gov. Tina Smith to the U.S. Senate. Fischbach automatically became the lieutenant governor once Smith resigned, but she argued that she could still remain in the legislature because she was only serving as Dayton's "acting lieutenant governor." Democrats filed a lawsuit in response, but Fischbach resigned from the legislature before a judge had a chance to rule.
Fischbach's time as lieutenant governor ended early this year along with Dayton's term, and for now at least, she's out of elected office. However, her husband still leads Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life, which the Star Tribune reports could give her access to money from donors across the country opposed to abortion rights. Fischbach herself recently took a job with the Central Minnesota Builders Association.
Other Republicans may also be eyeing this 62-31 Trump seat. Minnesota Morning Take writes that there's "buzz" that state Rep. Jeff Backer is considering, but we haven't heard anything from him yet. Hughes is also running again.
● MN-08: 2018 Democratic nominee Joe Radinovich has announced that he will not seek a rematch against GOP Rep. Pete Stauber, who defeated Radinovich by a 51-45 margin last year when Minnesota’s 8th Congressional District came open following Democratic Rep. Rick Nolan’s retirement.
● NC-09: Stand Up Republic, which was founded by anti-Trump conservative Evan McMullin, and American Values PAC are spending $500,000 to run TV ads against Republican state Sen. Dan Bishop ahead of next month's special election.
The groups’ initial spot features footage of the 2017 Charlottesville white supremacist rally, asking if viewers "remember when neo-Nazis marched in Charlottesville and killed a young woman?" The narrator then says that, after they were banned from social media, Bishop took the side of the white supremacists by investing in the website Gab, which became a haven for white supremacists and other openly far-right groups. The ad further notes that Gab was where the Pittsburgh Tree of Life synagogue mass shooter announced his planned killing spree, and it blasts Bishop for merely claiming his support for the extremist site was about "free speech."
The second ad in this buy attacks Bishop for politically benefiting off of last year's election fraud scheme orchestrated by the campaign he supported to elect Republican Mark Harris in this same district. The spot argues that the criminality of the Harris operative at the heart of the scheme was an open secret, and after the fraud resulted in the vote being voided, the narrator excoriates Bishop for changing state law to require a new primary so that he could become the nominee in the redo election. (Under the previous law, the GOP would have been stuck with Harris a second time.)
The Charlotte Observer also describes other ads by the two groups that feature former GOP state Supreme Court Justice Bob Orr and Bishop's 2018 state Senate primary challenger, Beth Monaghan, endorsing Democrat Dan McCready over Bishop.
● NJ-02: On Tuesday, former construction company CEO David Richter announced that he'd seek the GOP nod to take on freshman Democratic Rep. Jeff Van Drew.
The New Jersey Globe's Nikita Biryukov writes that Richter, who ran the eighth-largest construction company in the world, has the ability to self-fund a campaign. However, while Biryukov says that Richter grew up "not far" from the 2nd District, he currently lives in Princeton, a community that is both geographically and culturally distant from this coastal South Jersey seat. At the very least, though, Richter appears to give the GOP a credible candidate for this 51-46 Trump seat, which is something they very much lacked last cycle.
Democrats were concerned this spring when Van Drew raised just $116,000 during the first quarter of 2019, but he very much picked up the pace during the following three months. The incumbent took in $632,000 during the second quarter, and he ended June with $546,000 in the bank.
● NY-15: Marlene Cintron, the president of the Bronx Overall Economic Development Corp., announced last week that she was joining the crowded Democratic primary for this safely blue seat. Cintron's organization, which is part of the overall New York City Economic Development Corporation, is a government agency that describes its role as "provid[ing] incentives and assistance to new and expanding firms in the Bronx."
● NY-27: Democrat Nate McMurray, who lost by a slim 49.1-48.7 margin against Republican Rep. Chris Collins last year after the latter was indicted for insider trading, has announced he's seeking a rematch against the vulnerable congressman. However, it isn't even clear whether Collins will run again, let alone whether he'll make it out of a Republican primary.
Still, a recent Republican poll by Tel Opinion Research found Collins, whose trial begins in February 2020, holding onto a 60% favorable rating among GOP primary voters. Given the strong Republican lean of this district, which backed Trump by an intimidating 60-35, McMurray would almost certainly need Collins to once again emerge as his opponent to have an opening.
Legislative
● VA State House: On Friday, days after election officials rejected his appeal to get on the ballot, GOP Del. Nick Freitas announced that he’d run a write-in campaign to keep this 60-36 Trump seat against Democrat Ann Ridgeway this November. House Speaker Kirk Cox said later that day that, while Virginia Republicans had explored the idea of trying to get someone else listed on the ballot as the party’s nominee, the party had decided that their best option is to back Freitas’ bid.
House Majority Leader Todd Gilbert didn’t sound so enthusiastic about the idea the previous day, though. On Thursday, after a former Freitas aide wrote a Facebook post accusing the party of trying to stop the delegate's write-in campaign in order to get a new Republican nominated, Gilbert responded, “Oh YOU must be the mastermind behind the scenes who would rather run a write-in campaign than try to get a Republican on the ballot in an otherwise safe district when control of the state government is at stake.” However, Gilbert said of Freitas on Friday, “We are fully on board with everything we can do to help him return to Richmond.”
Freitas got into this situation after he failed to properly file candidacy papers, and election officials rejected the local GOP’s attempts to award him the nomination anyway. However, Freitas could end up winning this fall in this very red seat despite not being listed on the ballot. Freitas’ campaign manager estimated last month that a write-in campaign could cost up to $150,000 but said that the campaign has $500,000 in the bank. Team Red will very dismayed to be spending anything, though, in a year where their narrow 51-49 state House majority is very much at risk.
P.S. The last time a write-in campaign succeeded in Virginia was 1989 when state United Mine Workers leader Jackie Stump defeated Democratic Del. Donald McGlothlin.
