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
● Data: Outside of the U.S., many countries give their electoral districts helpful names that tell you where they're located, in contrast to the United States' prosaic, utilitarian system that yields bland, unmemorable monikers such as "California's 47th Congressional District." Today, we're here to fix that.
Now, not all of the parliamentary constituencies in the United Kingdom have names that trip off the tongue in as mellifluous a fashion as "Vale of Glamorgan" or "Forest of Dean," but most of them at least contain a specific reference to the town, county, or neighborhood where they're located. Not so here, though. Where the heck is California's 47th District anyway? Without a map at hand, you can't know. This is a problem that's long bothered us at Daily Kos Elections, so we've finally decided to do something about it.
The result is our new spreadsheet of geographic descriptions of all 435 congressional districts, as well as the largest places (by population) within each district. It won't definitively settle any arguments about what we should call these districts—in fact, it's already kicked off some more!—but it does offer an easy shorthand that describes where in each state every congressional district is found.
We offer two different approaches to the problem, one qualitative and one quantitative. The former is based on a crowdsourcing effort where we asked the Daily Kos Elections community to come up with brief yet inclusive and descriptive names (later edited by our staff) that would help someone without a detailed geographic knowledge about a particular state to mentally place a district within it.
The latter uses census data to identify the three largest places in each congressional district and show how much of the district they each take up. Using the qualitative approach, California's 47th can be described as "the Long Beach area," while quantitatively, we can say its biggest places are Long Beach (54%), Garden Grove (15%), and Westminster (8%).
For a detailed walkthrough of our methodology and data, please check out David Jarman's new post, and be sure to bookmark our Google doc that houses all of this new information in one place. And if you have suggested refinements to our geographic descriptions, please let us know!
Senate
● AL-Sen: Former Auburn football coach Tommy Tuberville did the one thing you can't do in modern GOP politics this month when he loudly and repeatedly trashed Donald Trump. Tuberville, who is seeking the GOP nod to challenge Alabama Sen. Doug Jones, told a local GOP gathering, "I'm pissed off at Donald Trump that our vets can't get health care."
Tuberville didn't stop there. Instead, he continued, "And if I ever get to see him, I'm going to tell him that. ... That's Donald Trump's fault. That's his fault. He's got to get it done." Tuberville, perhaps immediately realizing that he'd gone too far, continued by calling himself "a Donald Trump guy" and insisting that Trump has "had to fight every battle by himself" and that "[n]obody is standing up for him."
It took very little time for another primary candidate, state Rep. Arnold Mooney, to jump on Tuberville and call for him to apologize to Trump. Tuberville then tried to frame himself as the true Trump supporter and tweeted that Mooney was a "Never Trumper." Tuberville used that same thread to insist, "My point is this: Donald Trump has done more for our Veterans and our military than any President we've ever had and he was dealt a big mess by Congress and Obama."
It's unlikely that criticism of Tuberville will remain confined to Twitter, and it may indeed have greater consequences for him. Back in late May, party fundraiser Perry Hooper told NBC that Trump had quizzed him about the GOP field at a White House meeting a few weeks before, and that Trump "specifically asked" him about Tuberville. Hooper further recounted that Trump "asked me about Coach Tub, and he asked if he was with me in 2016, and I told him he was," and speculated that Trump was open to endorsing Tuberville.
Trump hasn't acted in the subsequent two months, though, and he may not be so eager to support a guy who just said he was "pissed off" at him.
● AZ-Sen: Skincare company executive Daniel McCarthy says he's reached a "conclusion" about whether he should challenge appointed Sen. Martha McSally in the GOP primary. McCarthy didn't reveal what he's decided to do, though he has a conference call with supporters scheduled for Wednesday where he says he'll discuss what "his thoughts are for potentially running for United State Senate." Donald Trump endorsed McSally in late June.
● CO-Sen: Former Gov. John Hickenlooper showed very little interest in serving in the Senate at all until Sunday, when he didn't rule out a potential bid against GOP incumbent Cory Gardner.
Hickenlooper told SiriusXM's Chris Frates that he was "still 100% right now focused" on running for president, though he acknowledged he'd "be a fool" if can't break 2% in the polls but stayed in. Frates then asked Hickenlooper if this meant he was considering a Senate bid, and the former governor once again said how focused he was on the White House. However, when Frates inquired if this meant he was ruling out a campaign against Gardner, Hickenlooper responded, "I've never ruled out anything."
Hickenlooper used that same "I haven't ruled anything out" language about this race back in December, but he went on to spurn the DSCC's attempts to recruit him and run for president instead. Hickenlooper has also sounded averse to the very idea of even serving in the Senate, saying in February, "I'm not cut out to be a senator." In June, when Hickenlooper was asked about calls to run for the Senate instead, he responded, "Well, if the Senate's so good, how come all those senators are trying to get out" by running for president. Hickenlooper even said last month that several of his presidential campaign staffers encouraged him to drop out and take on Gardner instead, but he has yet to heed their call.
However, if Hickenlooper decided that he was cut out to be a senator, a recent poll finds that he'd start out dominating the primary. On behalf of an unidentified client, the Democratic firm Public Policy Polling released a mid-July survey a few weeks ago that showed Hickenlooper leading former state House Speaker Andrew Romanoff 44-12, while no other candidates broke 4%.
● KS-Sen: Republican Bryan Pruitt, a former director of the conservative blog RedState, announced Monday that he would launch what he acknowledges is a "long shot" bid. Pruitt is a Wichita native who currently lives in D.C., though he says he's moving back to Kansas. Pruitt would be the first gay GOP senator.
● NE-Sen: On Monday, GOP Sen. Ben Sasse announced that he would seek re-election. Sasse has occasionally ruffled Donald Trump's feathers by criticizing #BothSides, but he's never failed to vote the White House's way on a major issue. There's also no indication that Trump is looking to defeat Sasse.
While there was some talk last year that Sasse could have a serious primary foe, his only notable intra-party opponent is businessman and former Lancaster County Republican Chairman Matt Innis. Innis, who entered the race on Friday, argued that the incumbent has been insufficiently supportive of Trump and accused him of "abandoning the Agriculture Committee to get a more 'glamorous' committee assignment" by joining the Judiciary Committee. It's unclear if Innis, who owns a lighting and cabling contracting business, has access to any serious funds.
There was also some chatter that GOP Gov. Pete Ricketts could challenge Sasse even though he'd repeatedly said he wouldn't, and the governor definitively took his name out of contention on Monday by endorsing Sasse.
Gubernatorial
● AK-Gov: Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy has spent his first eight months as Alaska's chief executive doing little more, it seems, than making new enemies and inflaming old ones. That's inspired the governor's opponents to launch a campaign to recall him from office, and unlike many such efforts, this one appears to be serious.
The organization behind the recall, Alaskans to Recall Mike Dunleavy, has three primary sponsors from all corners of the political landscape: Usibelli Coal Mine chairman Joseph Usibelli, a former Dunleavy supporter who is furious with the governor's draconian budget cuts; former Republican state Sen. Arliss Sturgulewski; and Vic Fischer, the last surviving member of Alaska's 1955 constitutional convention. The Midnight Sun describes this trio as "heavy hitters" and and notes that Usibelli in particular could help fund the effort thanks to his personal wealth.
If Dunleavy is removed from office, he would be succeeded by Lt. Gov. Kevin Meyer, a fellow Republican. However, recall organizers have a number of difficult hurdles to clear before they can make the ballot.
For starters, the recall campaign needs to collect signatures in two phases. First, organizers need signatures from about 28,500 Alaska voters, which represents 10% of the number of votes cast in the 2018 general election. There is no deadline to turn these petitions in, though organizers say they hope to be finished no later than December.
If it's successful, the recall committee would then have to go back and collect signatures all over again. This time, it would need over 71,000 signatures, which is 25% of the votes cast last year, though there's no deadline for this, either. If organizers can meet this goal, a recall could take place 60 to 90 days after signatures are certified.
Recall proponents also must allege that Dunleavy has committed specific offenses that meet the state's grounds for recall. Under Alaska law, an official can only be recalled for "(1) lack of fitness, (2) incompetence, (3) neglect of duties, or (4) corruption." This differs from the practice in other states, where only voters' signatures are needed for a recall to go forward, and can lead to legal challenges that can make it harder for a recall to proceed or block one altogether.
One such instance came about in 1992, when an attempt to recall Gov. Wally Hickel foundered after the Fairbanks Superior Court "determined that certain grounds for recall were legally sufficient and other grounds were not." Dunleavy's detractors will, likewise, almost certainly wind up in court on this issue, so they need to make sure their arguments fit the legal criteria.
Alaskans to Recall Mike Dunleavy is focusing on the first three grounds for recall. In their grounds-for-recall statement, organizers argue that the governor violated state law by refusing to appoint a Superior Court nominee within the legally prescribed 45 days. They also allege that he misused state funds by sending out taxpayer-funded mailers that made partisan statements about his opponents and supporters.
They further go on say that Dunleavy improperly used his line-item-veto to "attack the judiciary and the rule of law," a reference to the governor's attempt to retaliate against the state Supreme Court by cutting $335,000 in funding after it upheld a ruling that protected abortion rights. Finally, they charge Dunleavy with mistakenly vetoing $18 million more in funding than he intended to.
However, despite the fact that even some notable Republicans are on board with the recall, the evidence is mixed about just how unpopular Dunleavy is. Morning Consult's survey from the second quarter of 2019 gave the governor a positive 49-32 approval rating, an improvement from his 42-29 mark in the first quarter—figures that suggest hasn't alienated enough people to put his career in imminent danger.
However, two summer polls from the Democratic firm Patinkin Research Strategies offered a very different picture. In late June, before Dunleavy vetoed funding for the University of Alaska system and the state's Senior Benefits Program, the governor's approval rating stood at an already-bad 41-57. But in the days immediately after the veto, his score plunged to 31-64. Of course, it's going to be a while before any recall can get to the ballot, so there's plenty of time for the governor's numbers to move further—either up or down.
● AR-Gov: On Monday, Lt. Gov. Tim Griffin announced that he would seek the GOP nomination to succeed termed-out Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson … in 2022. It's rare, but not unheard of, for serious candidates to kick off campaigns for higher office this early: Then-California Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom notably launched his successful 2018 gubernatorial campaign in February of 2015. Of course, California is a far larger and more expensive state to run for office in than Arkansas.
Griffin, who previously represented the Little Rock area in Congress from 2011 to 2015, likely is hoping to get started early to try to deter his many possible intra-party rivals. The potential candidate who has generated the most chatter is former White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the daughter of former Gov. Mike Huckabee.
● LA-Gov: GOP Rep. Ralph Abraham's campaign says that he's reserved $2 million in TV time ahead of the October all-party primary, and that they'd "be adding to that significantly as we get closer to the election." Abraham's team also says that he'll go up with his first spot next week. Both Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards and wealthy Republican Eddie Rispone are already running commercials.
● PR-Gov: On Monday, the Puerto Rican Supreme Court agreed to hear a lawsuit challenging Pedro Pierluisi’s legitimacy as governor, and attorneys submitted their arguments the following day.
Senate President Thomas Rivera Schatz is arguing that Pierluisi cannot lead the island because his chamber never confirmed him as secretary of state, the job that is first in line for the governorship. The commonwealth’s constitution requires the secretary of state to be confirmed by both chambers of the legislature, but Pierluisi was sworn in to that post last week and only received an affirmative vote from the House just before he took over as governor on Friday.
However, a 2005 law that says that the secretary of state doesn’t need to have received legislative confirmation from both chambers if they need to take over as governor: The plaintiffs are asking the Supreme Court to strike down this legislation as unconstitutional. While the Senate was to hold confirmation hearings this week for Pierluisi for the secretary of state’s post, they canceled them after he indicated that he’d only leave the governor’s office if the court ruled against him.
The Associated Press wrote on Tuesday that legal experts expect a decision within days, and that it can’t be appealed. Justice Secretary Wanda Vázquez would become governor if the Supreme Court rules against Pierluisi.
● UT-Gov: Jon Huntsman is resigning his ambassadorship ahead of a possible run for office … again.
This time, Huntsman has announced that he'll depart as ambassador to Russia in early October and return to Utah. Huntsman, a Republican, did not address his future political aspirations, but he's reportedly spent months considering a 2020 bid for his old job as governor of Utah. Lt. Gov. Spencer Cox is already running in the primary and reaffirmed Tuesday that he wouldn't defer to Huntsman, saying instead, "If he decides to run for governor again, it would make me a better candidate."
Several other Republicans have been considering getting in as well, and businessman Spencer Eccles didn't rule out joining the contest this week. Eccles hails from an influential business family that has been active in Utah since the late 19th Century and is known for their philanthropy.
Eccles (not to be confused with his father and namesake) has a long history of his own in Beehive State public life. In 1997, he was chosen to develop and oversee the downhill events for the 2002 Olympic Winter Games in Salt Lake City. In 2009, Gov. Gary Herbert appointed him to serve as head of the Governor's Office of Economic Development, and the Deseret News writes that Eccles helped convince a number of major companies to relocate to Utah or expand their operations. He went on to form a private equity firm after leaving the administration.
Eccles was asked on Sunday if he was interested in running for governor and responded that he was "flattered," though he avoided saying he was looking at the race. Eccles did take the time to badmouth his would-be primary foes, though, saying he was watching the developing field and was "concerned."
● WA-Gov: This week, GOP state Sen. Phil Fortunato announced that he would run for governor of Washington. The last time the GOP won the governor's office was the 1980 election, and the very conservative Fortunato, who acknowledged that "the rank or the mainstream Republicans are not excited about me running," may not be the ideal candidate to lead them out of the wilderness.
Fortunato has served in the Senate from a conservative seat east of Tacoma since 2017, and he's made quite a bad impression during that brief time. Earlier this year, he proposed a bill that would require any legislator who wanted to pass a law dealing with guns to "pass Criminal Justice Training [Center] firearm training requirement for each firearm that you want to regulate."
Also this year, Fortunato took to the Senate floor after freshman Democratic colleague Joe Nguyen, who is the chamber's first Vietnamese American member, passed his first bill. Fortunato joked, "I'd like to know how you get 'win' out of Nguyen," and Nguyen was not amused by this or by a similar remark from Minority Leader Mark Schoesler. The Democrat told The Stranger how "exhausting" it was "[w]hen people ridicule my name on the Senate floor. When they make racist comments unknowingly on a regular basis. When I have to explain institutional racism to members of my own caucus sometimes."
That's not all. Earlier this year, as Washington was suffering its worst measles outbreak in two decades, Fortunato joined the rest of the GOP caucus in voting against a successful bill that no longer allows parents to invoke personal or philosophical reasons in order to prevent their children from receiving vaccinations for measles, mumps, and rubella. Fortunato even tried amending the bill to allow children to receive vaccinations for just one of the three diseases as an alternative to the combined MMR vaccine, even though ThinkProgress notes that "a single-ingredient vaccine isn't even available, and taking two shots of the MMR vaccine is 97% effective."
Fortunato may still be a better contender for Team Red than Loren Culp, the police chief in the tiny eastern Washington community of Republic (pop. 1,100) and the party's only other declared candidate. Last year, Culp made headlines when he announced that he wouldn't enforce Initiative 1639, a gun safety ballot measure that had just passed 59-41. Culp's stance drew a very favorable response from far-right rocker Ted Nugent, who posted a typo-ridden "Chief Loren Culp is an Anerican freedom warrior. Godbless the freedom warriors" message to his Facebook page.
House
● AL-02: On Monday, former state Rep. Barry Moore announced that he would run in the GOP primary to succeed retiring Republican Rep. Martha Roby. Moore challenged Roby last year but had trouble raising money, and he lost the race for the second GOP runoff spot 28-19 to former Democratic Rep. Bobby Bright.
● MN-07: This week, Republican Dave Hughes, who twice came fairly close to being the luckiest Some Dude candidate in America, announced that he would challenge Democratic Rep. Collin Peterson for the third time.
Hughes first ran against Peterson in this conservative northwestern seat back in 2016. Hughes raised all of $20,000 and major outside groups from both sides spent nothing, but he held Peterson to an unexpectedly close 52.5-47.5 win. That surprising result came as this seat was moving hard to the right from 54-44 Romney to 62-31 Trump.
Two years later it was almost the exact same story all over again. While Trump endorsed Hughes over Twitter, there was again no serious spending from either party. Hughes raised a total of $219,000 and self-funded another $42,000, which, while much more than last time, was still a tiny haul. However, Hughes lost only 52.1-47.8, which was a little better than his previous showing.
It's quite possible that a stronger Republican will enter the race after Peterson's two close calls, but we haven't heard anyone so much as mentioned yet. For his part, Peterson says he'll decide whether to seek re-election in January or February.
● NM-02: State political writer Joe Monahan reported on Tuesday that oil businesswoman Claire Chase plans to enter the GOP primary to take on freshman Democratic Rep. Xochitl Torres Small "in the weeks ahead." Chase, who chairs the New Mexico Oil and Gas Association and is the past president of the Independent Petroleum Association of New Mexico, can reportedly self-fund.
● TX-10: GOP Rep. Michael McCaul has still shown up on retirement watchlists despite announcing his re-election bid back in January, but he doesn't seem inclined to join the Texodus and call it a career. On Tuesday, McCaul tweeted, "I just had my best fundraising quarter ever and we are building a strong campaign that has already knocked on 10,000 doors," and he concluded, "Full steam ahead."
● TX-24: On Monday, former Irving Mayor Beth Van Duyne became the first notable Republican to launch a bid to succeed retiring GOP Rep. Kenny Marchant. As our new dataset demonstrates, Van Duyne hails from the largest community in this seat: Irving makes up about 20% of the 24th District and Van Duyne won re-election there with 69% of the vote in 2014, which is the most recent time she was on the ballot.
Van Duyne drew plenty of attention the following year for her Islamophobic rhetoric. In February, after she learned that the Islamic Center of Irving had created a panel to use Islamic law in order to issue non-binding decisions in civil disputes, Van Duyne reacted with an incendiary Facebook post. Van Duyne tapped into right-wing paranoia by declaring, “Sharia Law Court was NOT approved or enacted by the City of Irving,” and adding, “Our nation cannot be so overly sensitive in defending other cultures that we stop protecting our own.”
The next month, Van Duyne endorsed a bill in the Texas legislature that would prohibit state judges from using foreign law in their rulings, which critics argued would unfairly target Muslims. Van Duyne appeared across the national conservative media to promote the legislation, which ended up failing.
Van Duyne was again in the spotlight in September of 2015 when a 14-year-old Muslim student named Ahmed Mohamed was arrested at his Irving high school for bringing a homemade clock to campus that authorities said looked like a “movie bomb.” Van Duyne defended the school and the cops and labeled the clock a “hoax bomb,” even though her own police force had concluded that Mohamed had meant no harm.
Unsurprisingly, Van Duyne went on to become a Donald Trump surrogate during the 2016 campaign. In October, after the “Access Hollywood” tape seemed to doom Trump’s campaign, Van Duyne crafted an op-ed that reaffirmed her support for him. She wrote, “Am I disgusted by what Trump has said about women? Yes. Do I agree that he’s the best we Republicans have to offer? No. Will I be voting for him? Absolutely,” and added, “At the end of the day, I’m comparing Trump to Clinton, not to God.” Van Duyne later took a post in Trump’s Department of Housing and Urban Development, which she resigned on Friday just ahead of her campaign launch.
There are plenty of other Republicans who could run here: As our data shows, four state senators and 13 representatives hail from districts that overlap at least partially with the 24th District. One of them is hard-right state Rep. Jonathan Stickland, who announced last month that he would retire from the legislature. However, just after word of Marchant’s retirement broke on Sunday night, Stickland tweeted, “The United States Congress needs REAL conservative leadership, and it needs it NOW. #tcot #24 #2020,” a message that the Texas Tribune writes has politicos wondering about his plans.
● UT-01: This week, Utah Credit Union Association head Scott Simpson confirmed that he was considering seeking the GOP nod for this safely red open seat and would decide before the end of the year. Simpson was brought on to serve as the state GOP's executive director by chairman Rob Bishop, who was elected to this seat in 2002 and is now retiring. Simpson also left that year, and he soon took over at his current position.
Simpson added that, unless someone self-funds, he doesn't expect this primary to cost more than $250,000. However, Utah Policy's Bob Bernick writes that a long-ago fight could end up coming back to haunt Simpson.
Back in the late 1990s and early 2000s, the credit unions and banks were engaged in an expensive political feud with one another. Bernick writes that this conflict ended a long time ago, "But a whole lot of money, and a whole lot of political capital, was spent in those fights – with a few legislators losing their seats (and winning them back later) over the bank/credit union bare-knuckle political brawls." Simpson himself agreed it was "probable" that he could face some opposition in a GOP primary because of this old battle.
Legislative
● VA State House: On Tuesday, the Virginia State Board of Elections rejected GOP Del. Nick Freitas’s attempt to get back on the ballot. Freitas, who failed to qualify for re-election after he didn’t submit the necessary paperwork in time, can still go to court to try to get his name listed this November, but he hasn’t said yet if that’s the route he’ll take. Freitas said last week that he’s willing to run a write-in campaign to keep this 60-36 Trump seat.
Mayoral
● Nashville, TN Mayor: Metro Councilor John Cooper outpolled Mayor David Briley 35-25 in Thursday's nonpartisan primary, and Cooper has now released a weekend poll from the Democratic firm Global Strategy Group that shows him dominating the incumbent 59-26 in the Sept. 12 runoff.
