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
● MA-Sen: On Saturday, Rep. Joe Kennedy III announced that he would challenge Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey in next September’s Democratic primary, setting up what will be one of the most high-profile nomination fights of the cycle.
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Whoever wins should have little trouble prevailing in the general election in this very blue state, but along the way we’re sure to see a very expensive intra-party fight. At the end of June, Kennedy had a small $4.2 million to $4.1 million cash-on-hand edge over the incumbent, and each man has the connections to raise a whole lot more.
Kennedy will be 40 on Election Day while Markey will be 74, and the congressman has spent the last month arguing that he can bring change to the political system Markey’s inhabited since before Kennedy was born. However, this primary is anything but a traditional battle between the party establishment and an insurgent outsider, and any ideological fault-lines are hard to find.
To begin with, Kennedy is a member of the most prominent political family in the Bay State, and perhaps in all of America—a grandson of Robert F. Kennedy and a great-nephew of both former President John F. Kennedy and longtime Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy. Joe Kennedy is also a four-term House member who served as a DCCC regional vice chair during the last election, so he’s been an ally of the party leadership. He was chosen to give the official Democratic response to Donald Trump’s State of the Union address in 2018.
Markey, who was first elected to the House in 1976 and won a 2013 special election to the Senate, also very much looks the part of member of the party establishment. However, the senator has the endorsement of New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who very much does not. Markey and Ocasio-Cortez have worked together to promote the Green New Deal, and AOC recently praised Markey by calling him “the generational change we’ve been waiting for.”
The DSCC is also in Markey’s corner, though it remains to be seen how much money, if any, they’ll spend to defend him in a contest that’s taking place less than two months before Election Day. In addition, Markey has the backing of several prominent Massachusetts Democrats. While fellow Sen. Elizabeth Warren is close to Kennedy, who was her student in law school, she’s sided with the incumbent. The senator also has the endorsement of five of the state’s eight other House members as well as Boston Mayor Marty Walsh.
Despite that support for Markey, two recent polls have shown Kennedy with a lead in the primary. A Suffolk University survey found Kennedy winning 35-26 in a four-way race, with no one else even clearing 1%; in a two-way race, Kennedy’s edge increased to 42-28. (Labor attorney Shannon Liss-Riordan and business executive Steve Pemberton were already challenging Markey, and Pemberton said earlier this month that he would not defer to Kennedy.)
Meanwhile, a Change Research poll for the pro-charter school group Education Reform Now Advocacy had Kennedy winning by an even larger 42-25, while Pemberton and Liss-Riordan took 7% and 5% respectively. However, despite these early deficits, Markey has repeatedly said that he won’t retire and will fight to keep his seat next year.
Senate
● CO-Sen: In a true blink and you'll miss it campaign, former Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce chair Denise Burgess dropped out of the Democratic primary on Thursday just four days after she entered the race to take on GOP Sen. Cory Gardner. Burgess denied that she quit the contest because of a Colorado Sun investigation into her tax liens, though she acknowledged that she owes about $36,000. The now-former candidate just said, "We really thought we had big momentum," but, "We did not."
Believe it or not, though, this isn't the shortest Colorado Senate campaign in recent memory. In 2004, then-Rep. Mark Udall announced that he would seek the Democratic nod for what was an open seat, but he dropped out less than 24 hours later and endorsed state Attorney General Ken Salazar's ultimately successful campaign. Udall won the other Senate seat in 2008 without any serious intra-party opposition, though he lost re-election to Gardner six years later.
● KS-Sen: Wealthy businessman Wink Hartman recently confirmed that he's still considering seeking the GOP nod for this open seat even though he'd need to face his old running mate, former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach. Hartman, who was Kobach's candidate for lieutenant governor last year, said that his decision would have nothing to do with the former secretary of state.
Both men originally ran for governor in 2017, with Hartman at one point slamming Kobach aggressively, saying he was "not doing his current job, he's not going to do his next job, and he keeps auditioning for new positions wherever he can find them." But Hartman ended up dropping out well before the primary, and he soon joined Kobach's ticket as his number two. Hartman loaned their joint campaign a total of $2.31 million, which made up the majority of the $3.65 million that Kobach brought in, but the ticket lost to Democrat Laura Kelly 48-43.
● MN-Sen: Former GOP Rep. Jason Lewis spent years as a conservative radio shock jock spewing racist and misogynist hate across the airwaves, and it probably won't surprise you to learn he also has a history of on-air anti-Semitism.
CNN's Andrew Kaczynski reports that during a 2013 show, Lewis argued that the GOP had "dual loyalties" to Israel in part because of "a very strong American Jewish lobby." Lewis also claimed that a number of former senior Bush administration officials, including former UN Ambassador John Bolton, were dual citizens of Israel and the United States. (Bolton is neither Jewish nor Israeli.)
Lewis' rants were unearthed by CNN after he declared that Democratic Rep. Ilan Omar was anti-Semitic. Lewis is the GOP primary frontrunner to take on Democratic Sen. Tina Smith.
Gubernatorial
● AL-Gov: GOP Gov. Kay Ivey announced Thursday that she has been diagnosed with lung cancer, but she declared that she would remain in office and that her treatments would "have a minimal impact on my schedule." Ivey said that her doctors told her the "treatment has a very high rate of success."
● WV-Gov: The National Journal reports that two Democrats are close to deciding whether they'll challenge GOP Gov. Jim Justice. Kanawha County Commissioner Ben Salango said on Sept. 13 that he expected to make up his mind over the following seven to 10 days, so that would put his deadline at right about now.
Salango, who is the founding partner of a Charleston-based law firm, was appointed in 2017 to a vacant seat on the three-member commission for the state's largest county. The following year, he was elected to a full term without any opposition. During his time in office Salango helped build the Shawnee Sports Complex, which the local ABC affiliate reports has been responsible for a big increase in business for local hotels and restaurants.
State Sen. Ron Stollings also has talked about running since Sen. Joe Manchin announced he'd stay out of the race, and he recently told the National Journal he was "95% in already." Stollings, who works as a physician, said the only reason he hasn't already announced a bid is that he wants to make sure his patients will have access to care if he wins. Stollings, who describes himself as a "centrist," won his fourth term 57-43 last year in a southern West Virginia seat that had backed Donald Trump by a massive 78-19 spread.
The National Journal also says that there's been talk that TV personality Mark Bowe could run, but there's no information about his interest. Community organizer Stephen Smith currently has the Democratic primary to himself.
House
● CA-50: San Diego Union-Tribune columnist Michael Smolens wrote Friday that state Sen. Brian Jones was expected to launch a bid against indicted Rep. Duncan Hunter, a fellow Republican, in "the next week or so." Jones himself said that Republicans couldn't take the chance that Hunter could advance past the March top-two primary and lose this conservative seat to Democrat Ammar Campa-Najjar, and he added that he'd have an announcement in the upcoming week.
Jones is a longtime politician in inland San Diego County. Jones, who had been serving in the Assembly, defeated his Democratic rival 53-47 last year to win an open state Senate seat that Donald Trump had carried 50-44. Jones' new constituency takes up 87% of the 50th Congressional District, and Smolens writes that the senator "has strong ties to local faith-based organizations."
However, while Jones says he might run to try to stop Hunter, who is scheduled to stand trial in January for corruption, from making it out of the top-two primary, he may end up helping the embattled congressman by splitting the GOP vote. While he may scare a few local Republican candidates out of the race, Smolens says that former conservative radio host Carl DeMaio isn't going to defer to Jones.
Smolens adds that, while Jones had been waiting to see whether former 49th District Rep. Darrell Issa would run before making up his own mind, the senator appears ready to run no matter what he ends up doing. Issa had previously suggested that he'd run against Hunter if he wasn't confirmed as director of the U.S. Trade and Development Agency by Nov. 3, and Jones recently said, "It doesn't make sense for others to wait until Nov. 3."
Issa's confirmation hearings were indefinitely delayed on Thursday while the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee waits to see his FBI file, and the former congressman hasn't said if he'd stick to his early November decision deadline. California's filing deadline is in December.
● IL-14: It's quite fitting that GOP state Sen. Jim Oberweis, who has a terrible record running for office, would release a poll from McLaughlin & Associates, which has a terrible record helping Republicans running for office. However, McLaughlin's newest survey, which was finished all the way back in early August, is strange even for both of them. They find freshman Democratic Rep. Lauren Underwood beating Oberweis 47-38, which is quite a surprising result coming from a firm that's notorious even in Republican circles for providing very rosy numbers for its clients.
So why would Oberweis release such a bad, and also stale, result? McLaughlin's memo, which was posted on a blog run by a GOP state representative, argues that Oberweis pulls into a 51-37 lead after "a series of issue message questions" are asked. Unsurprisingly, they don't provide the language of those "issue message questions."
The poll goes on to argue that Oberweis is the clear frontrunner in the March primary to take on Underwood, but they're even less convincing here. To begin with, their primary poll only samples 200 Republicans, which is well below the 300-person minimum that Daily Kos Elections requires in order to write up a poll. (The general election sample is exactly 300.) And as Politico notes, the poll left off a few candidates while another contender, former Trump administration official Catalina Lauf, announced she was in well after the survey was completed.
● MA-04: Democratic state Sen. Paul Feeney, who represents a seat in the Attleboro area, said Thursday that he would spend "the coming days" considering whether he'll run to succeed Senate candidate Joe Kennedy III.
State Rep. Tommy Vitolo, a freshman who represents part of Brookline at the northern end of the seat, also hinted that he'll decide if he's entering the Democratic primary in the coming weeks. Vitolo said, "Within the next few weeks people either have to get in or be out. It's hard to imagine coming in later than that and putting together successful campaign, but the exciting thing about elections is there are always new ways of doing things." However, state Sen. Cynthia Creem said she would not run.
● WI-07: Wisconsin Public Radio reports that Wausau School Board president Tricia Zunker is considering seeking the Democratic nomination in the upcoming special election.
Mayoral
● Des Moines, IA Mayor: Former state Sen. Jack Hatch, who was the 2014 Democratic nominee for governor of Iowa, announced Thursday that he would challenge Mayor Frank Cownie in this November's nonpartisan race. Cownie, a fellow Democrat, was first elected in 2003, and he's already the longest-serving mayor in Des Moines history. A few other candidates are running, and if no one takes a majority on Nov. 5, there would be a runoff Dec. 3.
Hatch, who works as a developer, argued that the city needs to do a better job improving infrastructure and mental health care. He also said that Des Moines' new zoning code "fast tracks" development projects, which will mean less input from the neighborhoods that will be impacted.
Hatch announced his campaign on the day of the filing deadline. He explained, "I waited this long because I was hoping someone else would get in," but, "Nobody has. I've got seven weeks to make a case." Hatch also acknowledged he was the "underdog." Cownie won his last re-election campaign in 2015 with 80% of the vote. Hatch was last on the ballot during the 2014 GOP wave when he lost to Republican Gov. Terry Branstad 59-37.
Grab Bag
● Where Are They Now?: Donald Trump nominated former Rep. Bruce Poliquin, a Maine Republican who narrowly lost re-election to Democrat Jared Golden last year, to lead the Board of Securities Investor Protection Corporation on Friday. While this is a volunteer post, it still requires U.S. Senate confirmation. Poliquin may want to hold off on updating his business cards, though, because other sitting and former U.S. House members have had a decidedly mixed record getting confirmed for Trump administration posts.
Most notably, former California Rep. Darrell Issa's bid to become director of the U.S. Trade and Development Agency has been stalled for a year, which is a fate that Poliquin would certainly prefer to avoid. That's still better than what happened to former New Jersey Rep. Scott Garrett in 2017, though, when his nomination to head the Export-Import Bank was outright voted down. However, Garrett later was hired for a job at the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Some of Poliquin's other former colleagues have also had problems getting through the Senate. Also in 2017, Trump picked Pennsylvania Rep. Tom Marino to be director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy. However, Marino withdrew in the face of a devastating report that revealed he'd pushed legislation at the behest of the pharmaceutical industry to deliberately hobble the DEA's ability to crack down on the black market flood of prescription narcotics. (Marino was re-elected in 2018, but he resigned early this year.) This summer, Trump picked Texas Rep. John Ratcliffe to be director of national intelligence, but he bailed after less than a week.
Poliquin also could end up waiting a while even if he does ultimately get approved. Trump nominated former Louisiana Rep. John Fleming for a post at the Department of Commerce in June of last year, but he only got the affirmative vote from the Senate in March. At least Poliquin will be comforted to know that, unlike in his home state of Maine, the U.S. Senate does not use instant-runoff voting.
