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
● GA-Sen-B, GA-06: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Greg Bluestein reports that freshman Democratic Rep. Lucy McBath is considering running in next year's special election to succeed Georgia Sen. Johnny Isakson, a Republican who will resign at the end of 2019.
Campaign Action
Last year, McBath won an upset victory for the 6th Congressional District by unseating GOP incumbent Karen Handel 50-49. Handel and several other Republicans are running to try to retake this ancestrally red seat, and Bluestein writes that some state and national Democrats want McBath to seek re-election in her competitive district rather than enter the Senate race.
A number of other Peach State Democrats are publicly or privately considering running, and Bluestein lists DeKalb County Chief Executive Michael Thurmond as another local politician who has been "kicking the tires." Thurmond was elected state labor commissioner back in 1998, which made him one of the first two African Americans to win a statewide race in Georgia. (Thurbert Baker also made history that day when he was elected state attorney general.)
Thurmond gave up his post in 2010 to challenge Isakson, but his campaign didn't attract much national attention in a cycle where Senate Democrats had to defend a host of vulnerable seats. Thurmond lost 58-39, but his career rebounded in 2016 when he was elected to lead DeKalb County, a large and heavily Democratic constituency in the Atlanta area. Back in July, Thurmond sounded very unlikely to run in the regularly scheduled election to take on GOP Sen. David Perdue.
Bluestein also writes that some state Democrats are encouraging the Rev. Raphael Warnock to run. Warnock is the pastor of the famous Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, where Martin Luther King Jr. once held the pulpit. Warnock, who is also a voting rights advocate just like King was, considered challenging Isakson in the 2016 cycle, but ended up passing on what was very much a longshot race. Earlier this year there were reports that Warnock was considering running against Perdue, but while he never publicly ruled anything out, his allies told the AJC back in April that he was unlikely to get in.
Senate
● MA-Sen: There's been some speculation that freshman Rep. Ayanna Pressley could challenge Sen. Ed Markey in a Democratic primary, and she isn't exactly tamping down the rumors. The Boston Globe recently asked Pressley about her political future and she replied, "I'm not thinking beyond the next hour, and that is the truth." Pressley added, "I just follow the work. Wherever the work takes me, that's where I go." There's also talk that Pressley could run in a 2021 special election if Sen. Elizabeth Warren is elected president or joins another Democratic administration.
Gubernatorial
● KY-Gov: The GOP firm Medium Buying reports that the DGA affiliate Bluegrass Values has so far reserved $4 million in TV time from Sept. 24 through Election Day.
House
● CA-53: Democratic Rep. Susan Davis is retiring from this reliably blue seat, and there are plenty of Democrats in the eastern San Diego area who could run to succeed her.
San Diego County Democratic Party chair Will Rodriguez-Kennedy played Great Mentioner and named some possibilities, but it's not clear if any of them are considering running. Rodriguez-Kennedy said that San Diego City Council president Georgette Gómez is "[f]irst on almost everyone's list," and he also name-dropped state Sen. President Pro Tem Toni Atkins, San Diego County Supervisor Nathan Fletcher, and 2018 49th District candidate Sara Jacobs. California's filing deadline is in December.
One local politician did quickly say no, though. Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, who is married to Fletcher, tweeted, "There is ZERO chance I will run for Susan Davis' Congressional Seat. Final." Now there's a nice, definitive way to make it clear you're not running for office that we wish so many other politicians would emulate.
● IN-05: On Thursday, state Treasurer Kelly Mitchell became the first noteworthy Republican to announce a bid to succeed retiring GOP Rep. Susan Brooks. Mitchell lived outside of this suburban Indianapolis seat earlier this summer, and Howey Politics said last month that she was looking for a home in the 5th District.
Before she was elected to her current post, Kelly worked in the treasurer's office as director for the investment fund TrustINdiana. In 2014, Kelly ran to succeed her boss, Richard Mourdock, and she won the general election 58-37.
The Indianapolis Star writes that Kelly has been "uncontroversial compared to" Mourdock, a tea party favorite who lost the 2012 Senate general election. When Mourdock gave a speech in 2014 comparing the direction of the nation to Nazi Germany, Kelly responded by saying, "I don't think comments of that sort are appropriate at any time." The paper characterized that response, mild as it was, as "one of the stronger rebukes of Mourdock's comments among Republicans who were present."
However, Kelly seems to recognize that in the Trump-era GOP, those sorts of comments are now appropriate all the time. Kelly used her announcement video to declare that the American dream is "under constant attack from the radical left." In case there was any question about who Kelly was talking about, the screen fills with footage of, among others, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, presidential candidates Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris, freshmen Reps. Ilhan Omar and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and MSNBC host Rachel Maddow.
That kind of Trumpesque rhetoric may be a hit with GOP primary voters, but it might not play too well in a seat that's been shifting away from the GOP in recent years. This district moved from 58-41 Romney to 53-41 Trump, and last year, former Democratic Sen. Joe Donnelly narrowly prevailed here 48.4-47.9 even though he lost 51-45 statewide.
A number of other local Republicans are eyeing this seat. Former state Sen. Mike Delph has been considering for a while, and he recently told Howey that he'll decide after Indiana's Nov. 5 local elections.
● ME-02: This week, 2018 GOP Senate nominee Eric Brakey announced that he'd challenge freshman Democratic Rep. Jared Golden. Brakey, who gave up his seat in the state Senate last cycle, is the first notable Republican to enter the race for this competitive northern Maine seat, but his last race was not impressive.
Brakey raised just under $1 million for his long-shot bid against Sen. Angus King, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats. Just before Election Day, Brakey tweeted that the left has "failed at selling socialism to the American people," and that progressives were now resorting to the "mass importation of new voters to transform our political culture." Brakey denied his message was racist, saying the country's immigration system wasn't "a poverty relief program." Brakey ended up losing to King statewide 54-35, and he lost the 2nd District 50-41.
● NC-09: The NRCC is out with yet another TV spot against Democrat Dan McCready ahead of Tuesday's special election that labels him "McGready." The NRCC deployed $501,000 here in recent days while the DCCC dropped a larger $525,000, but the NRCC has outspent their Democratic counterpart by a grand total of $3.1 million to $1.2 million during this contest. Meanwhile, the Democratic group House Majority Forward is out with a positive spot. Advertising Analytics reports that House Majority Forward has spent a total of $979,000 on this race.
● TX-07: The well-funded GOP super PAC Congressional Leadership Fund is out with a poll from TargetPoint Consulting that gives Army veteran Wesley Hunt a small 45-43 lead in a hypothetical general election against freshman Democratic Rep. Lizzie Fletcher. Last year Fletcher unseated longtime GOP incumbent John Culberson 52.5-47.5 in a very expensive race for this West Houston seat. This district swung from 60-39 Romney to 48.5-47.1 Clinton, and Beto O'Rourke beat GOP Sen. Ted Cruz here 53-46 last year.
Hunt, who has House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy's endorsement, is one of the the national GOP's favorite candidates. Hunt also raised a hefty $514,000 during his first quarter in the race, which was more than any other House GOP challenger in the nation and not too far behind Fletcher's $564,000 haul. The only other notable Republican who has entered the race so far is Cindy Siegel, a former member of Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County board of directors, but she took in just $108,000 from donors in her opening quarter and self-funded another $153,000.
● TX-17: GOP Rep. Bill Flores' Wednesday retirement announcement came as a big surprise, but attorney Wes Lloyd quickly expressed interest in seeking the Republican nod to succeed him. Lloyd spent six years running the local GOP club in Waco's McLennan County, which is the largest county in the seat, and Gov. Greg Abbott also appointed him to the Brazos River Authority board.
● TX-31: In a development we’ve always dreamed of but never thought we’d actually get to write about, an actor from The Room, the 2003 so awful it’s great cult classic film, has announced a bid for Congress.
Via the Texas Tribune’s Patrick Svitek, our (ok, only Jeff Singer’s) new favorite Democrat in the whole country is Dan Janjigian, who was on Armenia’s two-man bobsledding team during the 2002 Winter Olympics shortly before his star turn as the drug dealer Chris R. (The character is only in one scene and just referred to as “Chris R.”) Janjigian was later played by Zac Efron in The Disaster Artist, the 2017 Oscar-nominated movie about the making of The Room.
On Thursday, Janjigian announced he was launching a bid for the Democratic nod against veteran GOP Rep. John Carter in Texas’ 31st Congressional District, a 54-41 Trump seat in Austin’s northern suburbs. Carter won an unexpectedly expensive contest just 51-48 last year against MJ Hegar, who is now running for the Senate, and he could be vulnerable again in a seat that GOP Sen. Ted Cruz carried only 50.5-48.4. Sadly, though, we doubt that this district has enough fans of trash cinema in the electorate to give Janjigian much of an opening. Though maybe he could try raising money as Chris R and see what happens.
● WI-05: GOP Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner is retiring from the safely red seat he's held since 1979, and a number of suburban Milwaukee Republicans have already expressed interest in running to succeed him. 2018 Senate nominee Leah Vukmir, who gave up her state Senate seat to unsuccessfully challenge Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin, said Thursday that she was considering and would decide in the "coming days." While Vukmir lost statewide 55-45, she carried the 5th District 57-43.
If Vukmir runs, she may face a familiar primary rival. Businessman and Marine veteran Kevin Nicholson tweeted shortly after Sensenbrenner's announcement that "[t]here will be time to make a decision about this race later." Nicholson ran for the Senate last year and benefiting from over $10 million in spending from groups supported by billionaire megadonor Richard Uihlein.
However, while Nicholson pitched himself as a conservative outsider, he had trouble explaining away his long history as a Democrat. This included, but was not limited to, his time as president of the College Democrats of America during the 2000 election and his speech at that year's Democratic National Committee in support of Al Gore.
Vukmir, by contrast, received "only" $2.5 million in air support from groups funded by Diane Hendricks, another billionaire megadonor, and the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce. However, her GOP bona fides were never in question, and she had the support of the state party establishment. While early polls gave Nicholson the lead, Vukmir beat him 49-43 overall and by much more than that in the counties included in the 5th District
Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald also says he's considering running. Fitzgerald was a key ally of Gov. Scott Walker and he's been a persistent thorn in the side of Tony Evers, the Democrat who unseated Walker last year. Fitzgerald won another four-year term in 2018, so he could remain in the legislature if he lost a congressional run.
State Sen. Chris Kapenga also expressed interest, though he said he had no timeline to decide. Waukesha County Executive Paul Farrow (please hold off on those "crucial Waukesha County" jokes―we have 11 months to go before this primary) also said he was thinking about running and plans to decide later this month. However, Farrow sounds unlikely to run against Vukmir, who he called "a great voice for the conservative movement and her constituents." Farrow also said that Fitzgerald would be "great."
The Associated Press also reports that state Sen. Dale Kooyenga, former Trump state director Vince Trovato, and Ben Voelkel, who serves as spokesman for Sen. Ron Johnson, are all considering. However, while former Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch was quickly mentioned as a possible candidate, unnamed sources close to her tell WisPolitics that she's focusing on a potential 2022 bid for governor.
Mayoral
● Baltimore, MD Mayor: 2018 Democratic gubernatorial nominee Ben Jealous announced Thursday that he would not run for mayor of Baltimore next year. Jealous declared, "I really haven't closed the door on running for governor again, and Baltimore deserves a mayor who's not thinking about running for governor in a couple years. Baltimore needs a mayor who wants to serve two terms." Jealous had been criticized for working as a consultant for the electronic cigarette maker Juul, which will likely be an issue in a future run for office.
Grab Bag
● Where Are They Now?: On Wednesday, federal prosecutors officially dropped the corruption charges against Illinois Republican Aaron Schock, who resigned from the House in disgrace back in 2015. Back in March, the government unexpectedly reached a deal with Schock where they agreed to clear him if he avoided any further legal trouble over the following six months, paid back taxes to the IRS, and reimbursed his congressional campaign committee for $68,000. Schock did not plead guilty to anything, and he's free to run for office again.
Back in November of 2016, about a year-and-a-half after he resigned from Congress, Schock was indicted on 24 counts of violating federal law, including theft of government funds, filing false tax returns, charging the government for 150,000 miles he never drove, using campaign money to buy himself a 2015 Chevrolet Tahoe, and using government and campaign money to pay for private plane travel, like he did with a Chicago Bears game.
However, the case never went to trial. The following year, Schock's attorney alleged that prosecutors had asked inappropriate questions about his sex life, including whether he was gay. A House attorney also said that investigators may have broken the law by instructing one of Schock's congressional staffers, who was acting as an informant, to take materials from his district office.
The Justice Department ended up appointing a new team of prosecutors, and Schock's trial was rescheduled for June of this year. However, there was little indication that prosecutors were looking to give Schock a deal anywhere near as favorable as the one he received in March. As part of the agreement, Schock admitted that, in addition to seeking reimbursement for miles he hadn't driven, he'd sold tickets to events—including 46 World Series tickets and eight Super Bowl tickets—for profit, which helped him earn $42,000 that he had not reported to the IRS.
Schock didn't seem particularly contrite after the deal was reached earlier this year, telling CBS that a "rogue prosecutor" had pursued him in a case "without merit," and waving away all his misdeeds by saying he should merely have done a better job filing his paperwork. Schock also didn't rule out running for office sometime in the future, saying, "At 37 years old, I don't think I'll ever say never."