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-Sen: Louisiana Democrats got a credible candidate to take on Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy on Wednesday when Shreveport Mayor Adrian Perkins announced that he would run. Perkins, who would be the state's first Black senator, quickly received an endorsement from former Sen. Mary Landrieu, who lost re-election to Cassidy in 2014.
Candidate filing closes on Friday, and it's unlikely that any other notable names will enter the race. All the contenders will face off on one ballot on Nov. 3, which is the same day as the presidential election; if no one takes a majority of the vote, the top two candidates, regardless of party, would advance to a Dec. 5 runoff.
Campaign Action
Louisiana, which backed Donald Trump 58-38, has become a very rough state for most Democrats over the last decade, and Cassidy is very much the favorite to win a second term. Still, Perkins gives his party a candidate with a compelling backstory and a geographic base of support. Perkins, like Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards, completed West Point's intense Army Ranger training, and he went on to serve three tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. Perkins obtained the rank of captain, and he also was decorated with a Bronze Star.
Perkins returned home to Shreveport after his military service, and in 2018 he challenged Mayor Ollie Tyler, a fellow Democrat. Perkins, who was a first-time candidate, entered the contest with little name recognition. However, as the Shreveport Times would write, he proved to be a strong campaigner and fundraiser, and he took first place against Tyler and six other opponents in the all-party primary.
Perkins, who at 33 was 40 years younger than Tyler, portrayed himself as an agent of change for Louisiana's third-largest city. Tyler, by contrast, didn't do much campaigning, and she also raised considerably less money than her opponent. The paper added that the incumbent struggled to convince voters she could deal with violent crime, especially after she hesitated to remove an unpopular police chief. Ultimately, Perkins ended up unseating Taylor in the runoff in a 64-36 landslide.
While Perkins demonstrated two years ago that he can run a strong race, he's going to be in a considerably more difficult contest with Cassidy in this red state. The senator ended June with $6 million in the bank, while Perkins will be starting from scratch with only about three-and-a-half months to go before Election Day.
Perkins also likely will begin this race with little statewide name recognition. Only 12% of the state's residents live in the Shreveport media market, so most Louisianans won't have seen much of Perkins on TV during his tenure as mayor. Additionally, Shreveport, which is located in the northwest corner of the state near the Texas border, is located quite a ways away from Louisiana's larger population centers. It takes around four hours to drive from Perkins' community southeast to the state capitol of Baton Rouge, and at least an additional hour to reach New Orleans.
If Perkins is to pull off a victory, he'll likely need to recreate the coalition that allowed Edwards to win re-election as governor by a 51-49 margin last year against Republican Eddie Rispone. Edwards benefited from high turnout among African American voters in and around New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and Perkins' Shreveport.
The governor also did very well in the state's well-educated suburbs including Jefferson Parish, a large and historically Republican area just outside of New Orleans. And while Rispone still won most of the state's rural areas, he didn't perform nearly as well as Republicans usually do there.
Perkins will need a lot to go right for his campaign, and for a lot to go wrong for Cassidy, in order to make this close, especially with Trump at the top of the ticket. Still, as we always say, Democrats should run viable contenders in longshot races in case something unexpected happens, and Perkins now gives Team Blue a credible candidate here.
ELECTION CHANGES
● Arkansas: A state court judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed by three Arkansas voters asking that all voters be allowed to vote absentee in any election this year without an excuse, ruling that the plaintiffs had failed to show they would be harmed by existing state law. The judge did, however, take note of a 1985 case from the Arkansas Supreme Court in which the justices said they "do not believe the legislature meant for an absentee voter explain in detail the 'reason' for being absent on election day."
An attorney for the plaintiffs expressed his satisfaction with the outcome, saying that Republican Secretary of State John Thurston had "acknowledged that any excuse to be unavailable is good under the prior Supreme Court decision and that specifically COVID is a valid excuse." The plaintiffs had also requested that officials be ordered to send absentee ballot applications to all voters and to pay for return postage for ballots, but with the case dismissed, those claims are now dead as well.
● Connecticut: Lawmakers in Connecticut's Democratic-run legislature have introduced a bill to allow all voters to request an absentee ballot for the November general election due to the coronavirus pandemic. Democratic Gov. Ned Lamont urged legislators to pass the measure, which will reportedly come up for a vote in the state House on Friday and the Senate on Tuesday.
Separately, Republicans say they will refile a lawsuit seeking to block officials from sending absentee ballots to voters for Connecticut's Aug. 11 primary after Lamont issued an executive order letting all voters cast absentee ballots. The state Supreme Court, where the case had originally been brought, ruled that it was the wrong venue for the matter and told plaintiffs they would have to file their case with a lower court.
● Nevada: Republican Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske says she will not send absentee ballots to all voters as she did before Nevada's June primary, which was conducted almost entirely by mail, and instead plans to hold an in-person election, claiming she lacks the funds. However, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reports that a special session of the legislature is likely, and Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak says he supports legislation that would ensure that voters "can participate in the election safely."
Senate
● GA-Sen-A: A Garin-Hart-Yang poll for Democrat Jon Ossoff shows him leading Republican Sen. David Perdue by a narrow 45-44, while Joe Biden is ahead 47-43. The survey comes at a time when outside groups from both parties have been airing ads or making reservations, and Politico's James Arkin writes that another organization will soon come to Ossoff's aid. Duty and Honor will reportedly spend $5 million here in August.
● KS-Sen: On Tuesday, retiring Sen. Pat Roberts endorsed Rep. Roger Marshall in the Aug. 4 Republican primary to succeed him.
Politico reported the next day that the Senate Leadership Fund, a well-funded super PAC run by allies of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, would deploy $1.2 million on positive commercials promoting Marshall starting on Thursday. SLF's ad campaign comes as a group with Democratic ties called Sunflower State PAC has been spending a reported $3 million on spots designed to hurt Marshall and boost former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, whom Republicans fear could jeopardize their hold on this seat if he beats the congressman next month.
● TN-Sen: Former Ambassador to Japan Bill Hagerty picked up an endorsement on Wednesday from Sen. Marsha Blackburn in the Aug. 6 Republican primary to succeed Tennessee's other senator, retiring incumbent Lamar Alexander.
Meanwhile, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul is starring in a new commercial from his allies at Protect Freedom PAC promoting orthopedic surgeon Manny Sethi, who is Hagerty's main intra-party rival. While Paul doesn't mention Alexander, who is an ardent but low-key conservative, he seems to slam the senator by declaring, "Tennessee is too conservative a state to keep sending Democrats in Republican clothing to represent Tennessee. Manny Sethi is the real deal."
● TX-Sen: The first poll out of Texas since Air Force veteran MJ Hegar won last week's Democratic runoff finds Republican Sen. John Cornyn leading their matchup 47-38, but it nonetheless contains plenty of good news for Democrats, who are hoping to win their first Senate race in the Lone Star state since 1988.
For starters, Quinnipiac's survey has Joe Biden edging out Donald Trump 45-44, a slight uptick from last month's poll, when Trump led 44-43. That suggests that undecided voters in the Senate race, contrary to what you'd usually find in a red state like Texas, lean toward Democrats, a conclusion buttressed by the crosstabs: While self-identified Republicans support Trump 89-6 and Cornyn 88-5—almost identical shares—Democrats back Biden 94-3 but Hegar just 82-6. If she can consolidate Democratic voters who support Biden behind her banner as well, she can start to close that gap.
Hegar is also far less well-known than Cornyn, who was first elected to the Senate in 2002. Cornyn has a 41-24 favorability rating, while Hegar's stands at 24-19, meaning fully 56% of voters don't yet have an opinion of her, compared to a third for the incumbent. That gives her space to improve her standing, so long as she can get her name out. That's always a difficult task in America's second-largest state, but Hegar says she raised $1 million in the week since she secured her party's nomination—a huge surge compared to the $1.7 million she brought in during the second quarter of the year.
Cornyn's relatively low name recognition for someone who's been in office for two decades also stands out, but that, too, likely reflects Texas' vast size and fast-growing population. One notable thing, though, is that Cornyn hasn't crossed 50% in a single poll all cycle long. That's a contrast to his last race in 2014, which he won in a blowout, regularly polling above 50. Cornyn has always tied himself very closely to Trump, so if Biden does indeed carry Texas, that could spell doom for the GOP's hopes of keeping this seat.
Gubernatorial
● NH-Gov: State Senate Majority Leader Dan Feltes has earned an endorsement from AFSCME Council 93 in the September Democratic primary to take on Republican Gov. Chris Sununu. Feltes' campaign says that this is the twelfth labor group to back him.
● VT-Gov: The Democratic primary to take on Republican Gov. Phil Scott just grew even more negative with former state education secretary Rebecca Holcombe's second TV ad of the campaign, in which she slams her top rival on vaccinations. Referring to the coronavirus, Holcombe says that "our next governor will need to ensure that when a vaccine is available, it's properly administered." However, while calling Lt. Gov. David Zuckerman "a nice man," she nevertheless blasts him because "he's questioned the science behind vaccines," and adds, "The anti-vaxxers call him their hero."
Holcombe has attacked Zuckerman on this front for some time, including in debates, though this is her first television ad to address the topic. In 2015, when he was a member of the state Senate, Zuckerman vocally opposed an amendment to eliminate the state's so-called "philosophical" exemption to the state's mandatory vaccination laws, which passed by a wide margin and soon became law. When Zuckerman ran for lieutenant governor the following year, a leader of the anti-vaccination movement in the state said of his opposition to the repeal, "I think David at the time was regarded by many as a hero."
House
● FL-19: The NRA has endorsed state Rep. Byron Donalds in the crowded and very expensive Aug. 18 Republican primary for this open seat.
● MI-13: The local pollster Target Insyght finds Rep. Rashida Tlaib leading Detroit City Council President Brenda Jones 52-24 in their Aug. 4 Democratic primary contest. Target Insyght's April survey had Tlaib ahead by a considerably smaller 43-34 margin, and we haven't seen any other polls from anyone in the intervening time.
● KY-06: The progressive group Bluegrass Voters Coalition has publicized a poll from Bluegrass Data Analytics that shows Democrat Josh Hicks leading Republican Rep. Andy Barr 50-48. We haven’t seen any other surveys from this 55-39 Trump seat in the Lexington area.
Last cycle, Barr defeated Amy McGrath, who is now Team Blue’s nominee for Senate, 51-48 after a very expensive race. Hicks hasn’t attracted the type of national attention that McGrath did four years ago, but he still raised just over $600,000 during the second quarter of 2020. Barr took in slightly more, though, and he ended June with a wide $2.2 million to $892,000 cash-on-hand lead over Hicks. Daily Kos Elections rates this seat as Likely Republican.
● NJ-03: The conservative super PAC Congressional Leadership Fund has released a poll from Basswood Research that shows freshman Democratic Rep. Andy Kim leading Republican David Richter 45-42; the sample also shows Donald Trump ahead 49-46 in a South Jersey seat he carried 51-45 four years ago. This is the first survey we've seen here.
● NY-15: While we still don't have any official election results out of New York City for last month's primary—now more than four weeks distant—City Councilman Ritchie Torres appears to be all but assured of victory in the Democratic primary for the open 15th Congressional District.
Torres, whose campaign is permitted to observe the count, tweeted out a tally on Wednesday of what he says are most of the absentee ballots cast in his race. Those figures, when combined with the in-person vote released on election night, give Torres a wide 32-18 lead over his nearest opponent, Assemblyman Michael Blake—a margin of 7,800 votes. Torres says that margin is greater than the number of uncounted ballots remaining, meaning there's no way for Blake or anyone else to overtake him.
However, these numbers have yet to show up in any publicly available data sources, even the city's own. As a consequence, the Associated Press has not issued a call in this race, and it's not clear when it might be able to. The New York City Board of Elections has said it won't release any results until all votes are tallied, but it also hasn't said how many votes remain to be counted, so there's no telling when it will finish.
● OH-01: Democrat Kate Schroder has unveiled a survey from GQR that shows Republican Rep. Steve Chabot narrowly ahead 48-46. The poll also finds Joe Biden carrying this Cincinnati-area seat 50-45 four years after it backed Donald Trump 51-45. The only other survey we've seen here was a mid-May poll by the DCCC that had Chabot up by a larger 50-43 (the committee argued that Schroder would gain ground once she became better known), while Biden posted a similar 50-46 edge.
Schroder won the Democratic nomination in late April in a primary that was delayed for six weeks because of the coronavirus pandemic, and she's quickly established herself as a strong fundraiser. Schroder outpaced Chabot $622,000 to $303,000 during the second quarter of 2020, though the incumbent ended June with a $990,000 to $503,000 cash-on-hand lead.
● TX-03: Democrat Lulu Seikaly is out with a poll from GSG that shows her trailing freshman Republican Rep. Van Taylor only 43-37 in a race that hasn’t attracted much attention yet from national groups, while Libertarian Christopher Claytor takes 5%.
The sample also shows Joe Biden ahead 47-45 in this seat, which is based in Collin County in the Dallas-Fort Worth suburbs. This well-educated district has long been safe Republican turf, but that’s been changing in recent years: The constituency moved from 64-34 Romney to a smaller 55-41 Trump, and GOP Sen. Ted Cruz only carried it 51-48 last cycle. Still, this area has thus far remained reliably red down the ballot, and Taylor won his 2018 open seat race without any trouble.
● WA-03: In her opening TV spot, Democrat Carolyn Long tells the audience that her mother died from a cancer her family didn’t know she had because “she was more afraid of medical bills than her diagnosis.” Long goes on to say that “corporate money and partisan politics” means that politicians won’t fix the problem, even during the current crisis, but she will prioritize it.”
Long lost to Republican Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler last cycle 53-47 after an unexpectedly competitive contest, and their rematch is also shaping up to be an expensive affair. Herrera Beutler outraised Long $763,000 to $661,000 during the second quarter, and the incumbent ended June with a $1.8 million to $1.6 million cash-on-hand lead. This southern Washington seat backed Trump 50-43, and Daily Kos Elections rates this contest as Likely Republican.
Other Races
● Miami-Dade County, FL State's Attorney: Former local ACLU deputy director Melba Pearson has released a poll from Independence Campaigns that shows her trailing incumbent Katherine Fernández Rundle just 39-38 in the Aug. 18 Democratic primary. We haven't seen any other surveys of this contest between the longtime state's attorney and Pearson, who is running to Fernández Rundle's left. No other candidates are running in the general election, so whoever prevails in next month's primary will win this seat automatically.
● St. Louis County, MO Executive: Democrat Sam Page was elevated from chairman of the St. Louis County Council to county executive last year after Executive Steve Stenger was charged in, and later pleaded guilty to, his part in a local corruption scandal, and he faces an expensive Aug. 4 party primary for the final two years of Stenger's term. Whoever wins next month will be the clear favorite in November in this blue county.
Page's two main intra-party foes are St. Louis County Assessor Jake Zimmerman and businessman Mark Mantovani. Zimmerman kicked off his campaign last year saying that he could bring needed reform to county government, and he's since argued that Page has done a poor job handling the coronavirus pandemic. Mantovani, who narrowly lost the 2018 primary to Stenger, has also positioned himself as an alternative to the status quo.
Page, for his part, has said that he's working hard to restore trust in county government after Stenger's fall and that he took the right steps to combat the pandemic.
● Wayne County, MI Prosecutor: Incumbent Kym Worthy, who has held this post since 2004, faces a credible challenge from the left in the Aug. 4 Democratic primary from defense attorney Victoria Burton-Harris. No Republicans are competing in the general election in this heavily blue county, which is home to Detroit and several nearby communities.
As the Detroit Free Press' John Wisely explains, Burton-Harris has pledged to follow the lead of other progressive prosecutors nationwide, saying, "I'm ready to change the practice of punishment only in response to crime, and I instead want to focus on prevention and intervention." The challenger has additionally emphasized her opposition to cash bail, while Worthy has said that, while she wants that system changed, she wants to keep it in place for some cases.
Burton-Harris has declared that Worthy has not done enough to stop police officers who are known to have lied from testifying, saying, "We can't prosecute cases that they've worked on, because of their history of untruthfulness." Last week, Worthy's office released a list of 35 officers with credibility issues; the incumbent said she began this in October and plans to issue updates every quarter. Worthy has also argued that she's made many of the changes Burton-Harris is calling for already, including a program to divert people from jail who need treatment for mental illness or drug addiction.
Worthy has the backing of a number of prominent Michigan Democrats, including Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Sen. Gary Peters, and Rep. Brenda Lawrence, as well as a number of unions. Burton-Harris, who is a first-time candidate, has the endorsement of several local city councilors, as well as Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Data
● Pres-by-Executive Council: Last cycle, Democrats took a 3-2 majority on the New Hampshire Executive Council, a powerful body unique to the Granite State, and they're fighting to keep control this fall. Daily Kos Elections is out with new data, which was crunched for us by elections analyst Bill Coningsby, of the 2016 presidential and 2018 gubernatorial results for all five districts. You can find our overview here, as well as the results broken down by county for 2016 and 2018.
In New Hampshire, many of the powers that, in most other states, would belong to the governor or the state legislature reside instead with the Executive Council. As Tracy Hahn-Burkett recently explained in the Concord Monitor, the five councilors are tasked with approving any state contracts over $10,000 as well as the governor's appointments to the judiciary and state agencies, gubernatorial pardons, and a large portion of the budget. The councilors, like the governor and state legislators, are elected every two years.
Republican Gov. Chris Sununu had a friendly Executive Council during his first two years in office, but things have been far different since Democrats took control after the 2018 elections. Sununu nominated state Attorney General Gordon MacDonald to be chief justice of the state Supreme Court last year, but the Executive Council rejected that appointment along party lines after Democrats argued that MacDonald was too ideological for the job. Last month, the three Democrats also voted down other Sununu nominees for state posts.
While Democrats hold a majority now, the Executive Council district map is not friendly for Team Blue. The Republican legislature gerrymandered the body in 2012, and Donald Trump carried three of the five seats in 2016 even as he narrowly lost to Hillary Clinton 47.6-47.2. Last cycle, Sununu took four districts while he was defeating Democrat Molly Kelly 53-46. However, the map could have been even worse if Republicans had aimed for a 3-2 majority instead of a riskier 4-1 edge after 2010, which backfired and enabled Democrats to win majorities in 2012 and 2018 after the GOP spread their voters too thinly.
We'll start with a look at District 1, which proved to be one of the pivotal constituencies in 2018. This seat, which includes the northernmost part of the state, supported Clinton 48-47, while Sununu took it 52-47 two years later. Despite Sununu's victory here, though, Democrat Michael Cryans, who had lost three competitive races here over the last few years, unseated Republican incumbent Joe Kenney 51-47. Kenney, who was Team Red's nominee for governor back in 2008, is running to regain the seat this year.
Just to the south is District 2, which sprawls across the state—including the state capital of Concord, part of the Seacoast region, and New Hampshire's southwestern corner—to take in as many Democratic-leaning voters as possible. In a non-gerrymandered map, many of these voters would more naturally be placed into the council's other four districts. But thanks to this gerrymander, District 2 is easily the most Democratic of the five seats at 52-42 Clinton and 52-46 Kelly. Democratic incumbent Andru Volinsky, who won 58-42 in 2018, is leaving to run for governor against Sununu in the September primary, and six Democrats and two Republicans are competing to succeed him.
District 3, by contrast, is the body's most conservative seat, though it's still winnable for Team Blue. This southeastern New Hampshire constituency, which is home to Portsmouth, backed Trump 50-45 and Sununu 56-43. Republican incumbent Russell Prescott is retiring two years after he won re-election by a narrow 49-48, and two Democrats and three Republicans are running to replace him.
Republicans did flip District 4, which is home to Manchester and nearby areas, last cycle when Democrat Chris Pappas left to successfully run for the U.S. House. The seat backed Trump 49-46, while Sununu took it by a large 57-43 spread: The district is currently held by freshman Republican Ted Gatsas, who won it 49-47 a year after he lost reelection as mayor of Manchester, and three Democrats are running here now.
Democrats made up for that loss in 2018 in District 5, which includes Nashua and other communities in the southern part of the state and supported Trump and Sununu 48-47 and 54-45, respectively. Democrat Debora Pignatelli, who previously served on the Executive Council from 2005 through 2011 and 2013 through 2015, waged another comeback campaign last year and unseated Republican incumbent Dave Wheeler 51-47. Wheeler is running again this year for his old post.
P.S. You can find our master list of statewide election results by congressional and legislative district here, which we'll be updating as we add new states. Additionally, you can find all our data from 2018 and past cycles here.
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