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
● CO-Sen: Former Gov. John Hickenlooper announced on Thursday that he was both ending his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination and that he would give a potential Senate run against GOP incumbent Cory Gardner "some serious thought."
Campaign Action
While Hickenlooper spent months saying that he did not want to serve in the upper chamber, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer never gave up trying to recruit him even after the former governor launched his White House campaign. The New York Times' Jonathan Martin also says that Schumer was the one who publicized a recent Garin-Hart-Yang poll that showed Hickenlooper dominating in a hypothetical Senate primary, though it's not clear if the DSCC was the one that paid for that survey.
However, a Hickenlooper Senate campaign is not yet a done deal. The Denver Post's Nic Garcia wrote hours before Hickenlooper ended his presidential run that he was still deciding whether he wanted to take on Gardner.
A number of other Democrats are currently running here, and a few of them sound ready to run against the former governor if need be. Former state House Speaker Andrew Romanoff was asked Thursday if Hickenlooper's plans would impact his own, and he responded, "No."
State Sen. Angela Williams went even further and previewed the argument she could use against Hickenlooper in a primary. Williams, who would be the first black woman to represent the state in Congress, said of Hickenlooper, "He's been attacking the progressive values of a lot of women and people of color on important issues, including health care," and she added, "And that's very unfortunate and disappointing. So I think he'll have some challenges on his hands."
Senate
● MN-Sen, MN-02: Minnesota Morning Take reports that former Rep. Jason Lewis is expected to announce next week at the Minnesota State Fair that he'll seek the GOP nod for the Senate rather than his old House seat.
Gubernatorial
● IN-Gov: Democratic state Sen. Eddie Melton's team says that he will likely decide whether to run for governor sometime after Labor Day. Melton announced back in June that he was forming an exploratory committee for a possible bid against GOP Gov. Eric Holcomb, but he never actually set up a new campaign account.
Melton's strategist, Orrin Evans, said last month that, because the donation limits for his legislative campaign were about the same as they would be for a gubernatorial run, Melton decided to just keep using his state Senate campaign account. Evans added, "If he chooses to formally announce for governor, then he will file as a statewide candidate and file a gubernatorial committee." Because Melton is still officially just running for re-election rather than for governor, he didn't need to file a July 15 campaign finance report.
● KY-Gov: Kentucky Lt. Gov. Jenean Hampton filed a lawsuit on Thursday against Gov. Matt Bevin, a fellow Republican and her nominal boss, that argued that his administration illegally fired two of her senior aides this year. This is the latest, but most severe, fight between the two former allies in the last year, and it comes only a few months before Bevin faces the voters in November.
Bevin picked Hampton to be his running mate back in 2015, but the two have had a bad relationship for a while. While Hampton said that she wanted to run for re-election on Bevin's ticket this year, the governor spent months talking about finding a new number two. In late January, just before the filing deadline passed, Bevin finally announced that state Sen. Ralph Alvarado would be his candidate for lieutenant governor rather than Hampton.
Hampton's term lasts until December, and it's created quite a toxic situation in the state capitol. In late January, days after Bevin replaced her on the ticket, Hampton hit the like button on a tweet reading, "I hope Matt Bevin's car won't start tomorrow morning and he's locked out of his house with nowhere to go. Yeah, I said it. #ThankUNext." The like immediately attracted attention and stayed up for an hour and a half. After removing it, Hampton herself tweeted, "For the record, I UNINTENTIONALLY hearted a tweet that was derogatory to @GovMattBevin. I don't pile onto mean-spirited tweets! #FatThumbs."
Around that same time, Hampton's chief of staff Steve Knipper received a notice from a Finance Cabinet official that fired him without giving a reason. Knipper had just filed to seek the GOP nod for secretary of state, a move that defied Bevin's directive that required any appointed members of the administration to resign if they run for office. Hampton attempted to reappoint Knipper, but Bevin's Personnel Cabinet ignored her wishes. Knipper ended up taking a distant third in the primary.
In late May, Hampton's deputy chief of staff Adrienne Southworth was also fired by the Bevin administration for no stated reason, a move that left the lieutenant governor with just one remaining staffer. Hampton was furious, and she tweeted in response, "CALLING PRAYER WARRIORS: Yesterday, person(s) unknown initiated unauthorized personnel action ending employment of my talented, stellar Deputy Chief Adrienne Southworth, against my wishes. Pray for me as I battle dark forces." This time, Hampton did not blame #FatThumbs or delete her message.
What Hampton did do, though, was tell administration officials that only she had the authority to hire and fire her staff, but she was no more successful in getting Southworth reinstated than she was with Knipper. Blake Brickman, Bevin's chief of staff, later said he'd authorized the Finance Cabinet to sack Southworth for performance reasons.
Hampton even went to Attorney General Andy Beshear, who is Bevin's Democratic opponent this year, to ask for a legal opinion. Last week, Beshear's office concluded that Hampton was right and that she had the power to hire and fire her own staffers. On Thursday, Hampton filed her lawsuit against Bevin that asked the court to declare that Knipper and Southworth's terminations were "wholly and legally ineffective."
House
● AR-02: 2018 Democratic nominee Clarke Tucker announced on Thursday that he would run for the state Senate next year, which is something he's been planning to do for a while. Tucker lost to Hill 52-46 last year, and so far, no notable Democrats have shown any obvious interest in running for this 52-42 Trump seat in central Arkansas. The state's filing deadline is in mid-November.
● FL-01: The Florida Bar announced this week that they would not discipline GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz for his February tweet aimed at former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen. Just before Cohen was to testify before the House Oversight Committee about Trump's malfeasance, Gaetz, who is himself an attorney, tweeted and later deleted, "Hey @MichaelCohen212 - Do your wife & father-in-law know about your girlfriends? Maybe tonight would be a good time for that chat. I wonder if she'll remain faithful when you're in prison. She's about to learn a lot..."
The state bar quickly launched an investigation, but concluded this week that they had "no probable cause to believe that Gaetz violated any of the Rules Regulating The Florida Bar." The bar will only issue Gaetz a "letter of advice" that would be "essentially advising him not to do it again." Gaetz's actions are still being investigated by the House Ethics Committee to see if he engaged in witness intimidation, and the congressman has refused to cooperate with their inquiry.
● GA-07: On Thursday, state Sen. Zahra Karinshak joined the Democratic primary for this competitive open seat in Atlanta's northeast suburbs.
Karinshak was an intelligence officer during the Gulf War, and she later became legal counsel to Democratic Gov. Roy Barnes when he successfully fought to remove the Confederate battle emblem from Georgia's state flag in the early 2000s. Karinshak ran for office herself last year, and she won an open GOP-held Senate seat by a 54-46 margin.
During her first months in the legislature, Karinshak stood out as a prominent opponent of the state's new law that bans abortion after just six weeks, which is before many women even know they're pregnant. That bill was championed by state Sen. Renee Unterman, who is one of the many Republicans running here to succeed retiring Rep. Rob Woodall.
● IN-05: No notable Republicans have entered the race to succeed GOP Rep. Susan Brooks in the two months since she announced her retirement, but one potential candidate sounds ready to decide soon. State Sen. John Ruckelshaus told Howey Politics, "Hopefully around Labor Day we'll come to some kind of conclusion." Ruckelshaus is a nephew of William Ruckelshaus, who resigned as deputy U.S. attorney general in 1973 during the Watergate scandal as part of the "Saturday Night Massacre," and the state senator says the two talk weekly.
Plenty of other local politicians are still publicly or privately considering running, and Howey adds that former Bureau of Motor Vehicles head Kent Abernathy is one of the Republicans who has been acting like he plans to run. We haven't heard anything from Abernathy.
● NC-09: Politico reports that the DCCC has now reserved a total of $626,000, which is larger than what we previously reported, for the Sept. 10 special election.
● NM-03: Environmental attorney Kyle Tisdel announced Thursday that he would join the crowded Democratic primary for this open northern New Mexico seat. Tisdel highlighted his work protecting Navajo interests, saying he "won protection for over 20,000 acres in the Santa Fe National Forest from being sold for oil and gas development, and halted federal approval for hundreds of fracking permits across Greater Chaco for failing to consider the cumulative impacts on people and the environment."
Meanwhile, former Department of Agriculture official Rob Apodaca announced Thursday that he was suspending his campaign after the death of his brother. Apodaca's statement didn't address the possibility that he could re-enter the primary.
● TX-23: Former Rep. Pete Gallego has endorsed 2018 Democratic nominee Gina Ortiz Jones's second bid for this now-open seat.
● TX-24: While former state Rep. Ron Simmons had been mentioned as a possible GOP candidate for this open seat, he said Thursday that he wouldn't be running for office this cycle.
● DCCC: The DCCC has added six seats to its target list:
FL-16: Republican Rep. Vern Buchanan
IA-02: Open (Democratic-held)
MI-03: Independent Rep. Justin Amash
MT-AL: Open (Republican-held)
OH-12: Republican Rep. Troy Balderson
VA-05: Republican Rep. Denver Riggleman
The only one of these seats where Democrats don't yet have at least one noteworthy candidate is Ohio's 12th District. Last August, Republican Troy Balderson won a special election for this seat by a 50-49 margin against Democrat Danny O'Connor, and he prevailed in their November rematch by a larger 51-47 spread. Trump won this central Ohio seat 53-42.
Grab Bag
● Deaths: Carl Weiss Jr., a physician who spent much of his adult life trying to prove that his father had not assassinated the legendary Louisiana politician Huey Long in 1935, died Aug. 1 at the age of 84. Weiss was just three months old when his father, Carl Weiss Sr., and Long were both fatally shot at the state capitol in Baton Rouge that Long had been instrumental in constructing.
Long had left the governorship to become a U.S. senator by 1935, but he still remained the state's leader in all but name. That year, Long supported legislation that would have gerrymandered Benjamin Henry Pavy, who was Carl Weiss Sr.'s father-in-law, out of his judgeship. Weiss confronted the senator at the capitol, and while there's no question that Long's bodyguards ended up shooting Weiss (his body was riddled with 61 bullet holes), other details about that event remain in dispute to this day.
According to the official version of events, Weiss shot Long once before the senator's bodyguards took out the assassin. Skeptics, including some historians, allege that Weiss only punched Long in the mouth, though, and the senator's guards overreacted by firing wildly and accidentally killing the man they were supposed to be protecting. The bodyguards then supposedly covered up what they'd done by blaming Weiss for the shooting.
Carl Weiss Jr. championed this theory, and he was hardly the first person to suspect this is what really happened. A year after Long's death, the Bureau of Investigation for MONY Life Insurance Co. wrote a report declaring, "There is no doubt that Weiss attacked Long, but there is considerable doubt that Weiss ever fired a gun. ... There is no doubt that his death was accidental, but the consensus of more informed opinion is that he was killed by his own guard and not by Weiss." Because it ruled that Long's death was the result of an accident rather than a murder, MONY paid the senator's widow double indemnity. The company only released this report in 1985, 50 years after Long and Weiss died.
Carl Weiss Jr. spent years trying to prove that his father had not murdered Long, but the question was never resolved. The younger Weiss eventually learned the location of his father's lost gun and acquired custody of it in the early 1990s after a long court battle. He allowed the State Police to test the weapon for a new investigation into Long's death, but they ultimately concluded that Carl Weiss Sr. had indeed murdered Long. Carl Weiss Jr., though, has argued that the elder Weiss didn't even have the gun with him when he confronted Long at the capitol.
Carl Weiss Jr. also gave a forensic scientist named James Starrs permission to exhume his father's body in 1991 to look for clues. Starrs ultimately decided that there were "grave and persuasive doubts" that the elder Weiss had been Long's killer, but that hardly settled the matter, especially since Long's own corpse was never examined.
