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
● IN-AG: Decatur County Prosecutor Nate Harter announced Tuesday that he would challenge scandal-ridden Indiana Attorney General Curtis Hill for the GOP nomination at the June party convention. There's a lot of uncertainty surrounding this contest, though, including whether Hill will even be allowed to complete his term.
In 2018, four women accused Hill of groping them at a party in March of that year, which prompted widespread calls from Hill's fellow Republicans for him to resign—calls he's refused to heed. The Indiana Supreme Court later appointed Myra Selby, a former justice, to preside over Hill's October 2019 disciplinary hearing and issue a report.
Campaign Action
In February, Selby concluded that the attorney general had committed battery and had "used his state office staff and others to engage in a public campaign to defend himself and intimidate the complainants." She also recommended that the Indiana Supreme Court suspend Hill's law license for 60 days without an automatic reinstatement afterwards. It's up to the justices to make the final decision on what Hill's punishment will be, though, and they have not yet announced their verdict.
It's also unclear if Hill would be able to remain in office if his law license is suspended for any length of time. State law does require the attorney general to have a valid license, but there isn't any agreement whether or not a suspended license would be acceptable. The state House, with GOP Gov. Eric Holcomb's support, tried to clarify this last month by passing an amendment that would remove the attorney general from office if their license were suspended for at least 30 days, but the provision died in the Senate.
Hill remains in office for now, and he's made it clear he's running for re-election. Both parties in Indiana select nominees for attorney general at conventions rather than in party primaries, and the GOP gathering is scheduled for June 20. However, no one knows if in-person gatherings will be possible by then, and Indy Politics writes that party leaders are looking at alternatives.
Before Tuesday, Hill faced intra-party challenges from attorney John Westercamp and former Department of Revenue Commissioner Adam Krupp. Krupp, though, announced Tuesday that he was exiting the contest and endorsing Harter, the Decatur County prosecutor who launched his own campaign that day. A crowded field won't necessarily help Hill, either, since GOP rules require candidates to win a majority of the delegates in order to be nominated. If no one hits this threshold, then the candidate with the lowest amount of support is eliminated and voting continues until someone wins a majority.
Democrats, who operate under the same rules, will hold their nominating convention on June 13, but Team Blue has already decided to make this a virtual event. Former Evansville Mayor Jonathan Weinzapfel and state Sen. Karen Tallian are both running to become the first Democrat to serve as Indiana attorney general since early 2001.
Election Changes
Please bookmark our statewide 2020 primary calendar and our calendar of key downballot races, both of which we're updating continually as changes are finalized.
● Georgia: Voting rights advocates have filed a lawsuit asking a federal judge to delay Georgia's June 9 primary at least until June 30, saying it would not be safe to conduct it any earlier. Plaintiffs are also asking for the implementation of a number of other safety measures, such as curbside voting, as well as the elimination of touchscreen voting machines, which they say pose a health hazard.
● Idaho: While Idaho officially says that its upcoming all-mail primary is taking place on May 19, Republican Gov. Brad Little has issued an order specifying that absentee ballots will be counted so long as they are received by June 2, with no deadline for postmarking them. To reflect this, we have updated our calendar to recognize June 2 as the date of the primary.
● Michigan: Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, both Democrats, have appealed a federal judge's ruling that delayed the candidate filing deadline from April 21 to May 8 and halved the number of signatures candidates are required to submit.
● New York: Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo will reportedly issue an executive order to mail absentee ballots to all voters for New York's June 23 primaries and special elections. Previously, Cuomo had waived the excuse requirement to vote absentee.
Senate
● GA-Sen-A: Jon Ossoff, who was Team Blue's nominee in the 2017 special election for the 6th District, is up with his first TV spot for the June primary.
Ossoff tells the audience that "like all our nurses and doctors, my wife Alisha is at the hospital every day, putting herself at risk to save lives during this crisis." He continues, "We need to make sure our medical teams have every resource they need. We'll get through this together, but it's never been clearer we need to stand up to the health insurance companies that have bought off Congress."
Ossoff is one of three notable Democrats competing to take on GOP Sen. David Perdue, and he ended March with by far the most money of any of his intra-party competitors. Ossoff outraised former Columbus Mayor Teresa Tomlinson $1.02 million to $607,000 during the first three months of the year, and he had a $1.83 million to $436,000 cash-on-hand lead. Sarah Riggs Amico, who was the 2018 nominee for lieutenant governor, hauled in $159,000 during this time and had $279,000 in the bank. If no one takes a majority in the primary, a runoff would take place in August.
Whoever wins the Democratic nod will be in for a very expensive race against Perdue. The incumbent raised $1.65 million during the first quarter, and he had a hefty $9.05 million in the bank.
● TX-Sen: On Tuesday, state Sen. Royce West picked up an endorsement from the Texas branch of the American Federation of Teachers for the July Democratic primary runoff.
West faces retired Air Force pilot MJ Hegar in the contest to take on GOP Sen. John Cornyn. Hegar outraised West $1.58 million to $361,000 during the first quarter of the year, while West self-funded an additional $40,000; Hegar ended March with a $1.1 million to $121,000 cash-on-hand. Cornyn took in $2.58 million during this time and had a huge $12.89 million war chest at the end of the quarter.
Gubernatorial
● MT-Gov, NH-Gov: Politico reports that the RGA's state affiliates have reserved $3.6 million in TV time in each of these contests for commercials that will start in early September. Republicans are hoping to win the contest to succeed termed-out Democratic Gov. Steve Bullock in Montana and defend GOP incumbent Chris Sununu in New Hampshire.
Sununu won't learn the identity of his Democratic opponent until the September nomination contest, but Montana's June 2 primary is coming up quickly. Plenty of votes will be cast well before then, though: Republican Secretary of State Corey Stapleton announced last month that all 56 Montana counties plan to conduct the state's primary by mail, and that ballots will be mailed out to registered voters on May 8.
We haven't seen any polls of either side's primary all year, but the GOP's money race remains as one-sided as ever. Rep. Greg GIanforte raised $100,000 from donors from March 16 through April 15 and self-funded an additional $500,000. Attorney General Tim Fox was far back with $36,000 raised in the last month, while state Sen. Al Olszewski took in just $7,000.
Montana requires candidates to establish separate accounts for the primary and the general elections, so candidates also have two war chests: They have money they can use to win the primary, and funds they can only utilize if they advance to the general election. A victorious primary candidate may use leftover primary money in the general election, but candidates who lose their party's nomination need to either refund their remaining primary funds or donate the money to a nonprofit.
Unsurprisingly, Gianforte held a large lead over both his intra-party rivals in both primary and general election cash-on-hand on April 15. Gianforte led Olszewski $310,000 to $42,000 in primary cash, while Fox had just $21,000 to spend. Gianforte also had $546,000 in general election funds to Fox's $161,000, while Olszewski had only $27,000.
Things are far less lopsided on the Democratic side. Businesswoman Whitney Williams raised $127,000 from donors and self-funded another $50,000 during the last month, while Lt. Gov. Mike Cooney took in $62,000. Cooney, though, held a $173,000 to $138,000 cash-on-hand lead for the primary, while Williams led in general election funds $216,000 to $70,000.
House
● FL-13: Businessman Matt Becker, who had raised very little for his campaign, announced this week that he was dropping out of the August GOP primary to face Democratic Rep. Charlie Crist.
● SC-01: In a blast-from-the-past, former Sen. Jim DeMint threw his support behind Mount Pleasant Town Councilwoman Kathy Landing this week in the June 9 GOP primary to face freshman Democratic Rep. Joe Cunningham. State Rep. Nancy Mace has most of the major endorsements in this race, including from House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and the anti-tax Club for Growth, and she had considerably more money than the rest of the GOP field. However, if there's anyone who would defy party leaders and go his own way, it's Jim DeMint.
The hardline DeMint was elected to the House in 1998 and later the Senate in 2004, and he frequently fought his party's leadership in both chambers. The senator surprised everyone at the end of 2012 when he announced he was resigning to become president of the conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation, but that career change did not work out well for him. After years of internal fighting, Heritage's board fired DeMint in 2017 for what its head described as "significant and worsening management issues that led to a breakdown of internal communications and cooperation."
Landing will hope that DeMint is still viewed favorably in this coastal South Carolina seat, though, because she's badly trailing Mace in the money contest. Mace outraised Landing $295,000 to $92,000 during the first quarter of 2020 (Landing self-funded another $8,000), and she ended March with an $806,000 to $344,000 cash-on-hand lead. Two other Republicans are running, and while they each had very little money, they could prevent anyone from taking the majority of the vote needed to avoid a June 23 runoff.
Cunningham will have a tough task defending this 53-40 Trump seat, but he'll have the resources he needs to put up a very serious fight. The freshman congressman hauled in $692,000 for the quarter, and he ended last month with a huge $2.46 million war chest.
● WI-07: Democrat Tricia Zunker is up with her first TV spot for the May 12 general election for what has become a very red seat. The narrator praises Zunker as a "community leader we can trust to put politics aside and deliver on healthcare and jobs when we need it most." The commercial also argues that Republican Tom Tiffany "opposed the law the protects patients with pre-existing conditions who are most at risk for COVID-19." The narrator continues, "And he spoke against the bipartisan bill signed by President Trump to help small businesses hit hard by the pandemic."