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
● LA-Gov: Campaign finance reports covering July and August were due for Louisiana's gubernatorial candidates on Thursday. During that timeframe, Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards raised $1.5 million and spent $5.5 million, mostly on TV ads, according to The Advocate. But despite the heavy spending, Edwards still has $5.7 million left in the bank with a month to go before the Oct. 12 all-party primary.
Campaign Action
Edwards' two Republican rivals, meanwhile, filed very different reports from one another. Wealthy businessman Eddie Rispone loaned his campaign another $1.5 million, taking his total self-funding to $11.5 million since kicking off his bid in December. (He raised just $138,000 from donors during the reporting period.) Rispone has used his personal largesse to go on a huge advertising blitz, shelling out $5.2 million over the summer, though he still has $6.3 million in his campaign account and presumably can write himself another huge check at any time.
Rep. Ralph Abraham, by contrast, once again brought up the rear on all fronts. He took in $744,000, spent just $634,000, and had only $1.4 million left for the stretch run. However, all polls have still shown him in second place, despite Rispone's spending spree, and that includes a new internal from GOP pollster Remington Research that Abraham's campaign released on Thursday.
The survey, like almost every other, shows Abraham forcing the governor into a runoff, with Edwards at 45 and Abraham at 27 while Rispone sits in third with 19. That, however, is not particularly good news for Abraham, seeing as an early June Remington poll found Edwards at 42 while Abraham held a considerably larger 34-8 lead on Rispone. If these trends continue, Rispone could very well close the remaining gap in the final weeks of the race.
Remington's numbers also show Edwards ahead of both Republicans in hypothetical runoffs, with a 49-44 edge on Rispone and a similar 48-44 advantage over Abraham. Once again, though, that shows a fall-off for the congressman, who tied Edwards at 45 in his June poll while Rispone trailed by a larger 49-38 margin. Undoubtedly Abraham put out this data in an attempt to show he's still Edwards' likeliest foe in the event of a runoff, but his claim on that spot is looking as thin as it ever has.
And speaking of all this TV spending, the airwaves continue to grow ever more crowded as we head toward the election. A new spot for Edwards features a series of Army officers who graduated West Point the same year as the governor, all of whom praise his leadership. To emphasize Edwards' military background (he served for eight years, retiring with the rank of captain), one cites the Cadet Prayer, which exhorts adherents to "choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong."
Abraham, meanwhile, touts his work as a doctor treating children in his latest ad, saying he wants to "create a safe, prosperous state—one that our children will be proud of and never have to leave" as various footage of kids and babies rolls. It's an oddly apolitical advertisement, the sort you'd expect to see in a red state … from a Democrat.
Senate
● MA-Sen: On Friday, New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez endorsed Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey ahead of a potential Democratic primary challenge from Rep. Joe Kennedy III. Markey has been a strong ally of AOC in advocating for her Green New Deal proposal, and her endorsement follows the DSCC earlier in the week affirming that it would support the incumbent senator, an unsurprising move given their long-standing policy of supporting incumbents.
House
● AZ-06: EMILY's List has endorsed physician Hiral Tipirneni, who was Team Blue's 2018 nominee in the neighboring 8th District, for the Democratic nomination in the less-red 6th District. EMILY's endorsement is especially notable because Tipirneni isn't the only pro-choice woman in the Democratic field: 2018 6th District nominee Anita Malik also supports abortion rights, and businesswoman Stephanie Rimmer is running too, although it's unclear what her stance on abortion rights is.
Meanwhile, Malik has released a late-August poll by John Zogby Strategies that shows her with a 20-13 lead over Tipirneni, while Rimmer is close behind with 12%.
● CA-48: The Congressional Leadership Fund has released a poll by TargetPoint that finds Orange County Supervisor Michelle Steel, a Republican, tied 42-42 with freshman Democratic Rep. Harley Rouda. This is the first survey we've seen here this cycle.
● IL-15: Despite recently forming an exploratory committee, Republican state Rep. Mike Marron announced he won't run to succeed retiring GOP Rep. John Shimkus.
● KS-01: Finney County Commissioner Bill Clifford is the latest Republican to join the primary for this heavily red seat in western Kansas. Clifford faces former Lt. Gov. Tracey Mann, and other candidates are also considering bids to succeed GOP Rep. Roger Marshall, who is running for Senate.
● NJ-03: Former Burlington County Freeholder Kate Gibbs, a Republican, has formed an exploratory committee and says she will make a decision about running against freshman Democratic Rep. Andy Kim "in the coming weeks." The New Jersey Globe's David Wildstein writes that Gibbs is considered a "top-tier recruit for Republicans" and would likely have the backing of the Burlington County GOP.
County party endorsements are a major asset in a state where endorsed candidates are put on their own separate column on the ballot. Burlington County contains 45% of the 3rd District's 2016 Trump voters, while the remainder are in Ocean County.
● NY-27: Embattled Republican Rep. Chris Collins reiterated that he doesn't know if he'll run for re-election next year following a court hearing on Thursday regarding his indictment for insider trading. The federal district court gave Collins until Sept. 23 to let it know whether the congressman would appeal some of the court's rulings. If he does appeal, it could cause a delay in the trial date and in turn delay Collins' decision about whether to seek re-election.
● WI-05: An Associated Press reporter tweeted on Friday that Republican state Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald is "all-but certain" to get into the race to succeed retiring GOP Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, relaying that Fitzgerald also changed his Twitter handle to "@FitzgeraldforWI." Fitzgerald has previously said he is considering a bid for this seat.
● WI-07: Mosinee Mayor Brent Jacobson says he's considering running for the Republican nomination in the upcoming special election for this red-leaning seat. Mosinee only has around 4,000 residents, so Jacobson, who is also an attorney, would likely start with very little name recognition.
Mayoral
● Nashville, TN Mayor: Nashville Metro Councilor John Cooper defeated incumbent David Briley by a 69-30 landslide in a runoff election on Thursday to become the next mayor of Tennessee's largest city.
Briley becomes the first incumbent mayor to lose re-election since the city of Nashville and Davidson County consolidated, forming what's known as the "Metro" government, in 1962. Briley, however, had never previously sought a full term in office: He only took over this position after former Mayor Megan Barry resigned last year and won a special election to serve the balance of her term.
Briley had long been in danger of losing his post after finishing well behind Cooper's 35% in the first round of voting and only narrowly beating out conservative candidate Carol Swain 25-22 for second place. Cooper, who is the brother of Nashville-area Rep. Jim Cooper, mainly self-funded his campaign for the first round of voting, but he received an infusion of cash and endorsements during the runoff that proved to be too much for Briley to overcome.
Though both are Democrats, Cooper and Briley presented starkly different messaging in the second round of voting. Cooper positioned himself as a pragmatist who would "work for all Nashvillians" and support policies that would promote growth in all of the city's neighborhoods. Throughout the campaign, he zeroed in on economic issues as the most important matters facing Nashville.
Briley, meanwhile, waded into national issues more frequently and made his progressive bona fides a central element of his campaign. One of his final acts before the election was signing an executive order that calls for state legislators to repeal a law that bans "sanctuary cities" in Tennessee. On the local front, Briley touted his strides on affordable housing, and described a deal struck on that issue as one of his greatest achievements during his time in office.
