The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, Matt Booker, and Carolyn Fiddler, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Daniel Donner, James Lambert, David Beard, and Arjun Jaikumar.
Leading Off
● Pres-by-CD: The next stop in our 50-state tour to calculate the results of the 2020 presidential election by congressional district is Kansas, which saw Donald Trump turn in the weakest performance by a Republican since 1992. While his 56% share of the vote was the same as it was four years ago, the toplines mask what is by now a familiar story: Suburbs that had once reliably voted for the GOP continued to march to the left, while a weaker showing by third-party candidates helped boost Joe Biden's take. As always, we've brought you county-by-county data, as well as a a large-scale map of the results.
The ongoing transformation in suburbia was best demonstrated in the 3rd Congressional District, located in the Kansas City area, which just eight years ago supported Mitt Romney by a 54-44 margin. Hillary Clinton then flipped the district in 2016, winning by a narrow 47-46 spread, but Joe Biden blew it open in November, romping to a 54-44 win—the same margin as Romney, and a 20-point cascade in under a decade.
Against this backdrop, Democratic Rep. Sharice Davids was able to wrest this seat from Republicans in the 2018 blue wave; they did little to try to win it back last year. The deep-pocketed outside groups that spent hundreds of millions of dollars to return the House to GOP hands completely ignored Davids' re-election bid, in which she defeated Republican Amanda Adkins 54-44, matching Biden's performance.
Campaign Action
Elsewhere in the state, which by and large is much more rural, Trump won comfortably. While Democrats had hoped to compete in the open 2nd District, where they narrowly fell short in the midterms, Trump's solid 56-41 win wasn't much different from his 56-37 victory four years earlier, and Republican state Treasurer Jake LaTurner defeated Democrat Michelle De La Isla, the mayor of Topeka, by a similar 55-41 margin. The other two districts, the "Big" 1st and the 4th, both went for Trump by even wider margins.
Republicans could fight back against Democratic gains in the suburbs, however, by further locking in minority rule through gerrymandering. In fact, Kansas Republicans openly campaigned against Democrats' efforts to roll back the GOP's legislative supermajorities last year, with their state Senate president at the time saying, "I guarantee you we can draw four Republican congressional maps [sic]"—she meant districts—so that they could "take[] out" Davids.
The plot worked, as Democrats in the legislature fell just short of winning the seats they'd need to be assured of upholding vetoes by Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly. That means if Republicans can remain unified, they can ram through a new map that splits up the Kansas City region and leaves Davids with a much redder district—but that's a big "if." The Kansas GOP has for the longest time been bitterly divided between conservative and more moderate factions, and while the latter bloc has been decimated in recent years, Republican leaders are likely to have a hard time enforcing perfect discipline.
Part of the problem is that raw partisan politics often take a back seat to parochial interests in redistricting. For instance, if an influential Republican lawmaker with a base in the KC area is eyeing a challenge to Davids in 2022, they may not want to see the 3rd District carved up too aggressively, lest such a map usher in too many unfamiliar voters—and open the door for another ambitious politician to seek a promotion.
This, of course, is purely hypothetical, but it's reflective of many dramas we saw play out in redistricting a decade ago. If she's lucky, then, Davids may therefore be saved by a combination of GOP disunity and individual self-interest.
P.S. If you haven't done so yet, you'll want to bookmark our complete data set with presidential results by congressional district for all 50 states, which we're updating continuously.
Senate
● PA-Sen, PA-Gov: Democratic Lt. Gov. John Fetterman reiterated Friday that he was taking "a serious look" at running for the Senate and had also ruled out a bid for governor.
In response to Fetterman's new comments, former Republican Rep. Ryan Costello engaged in some Twitter trash-talk, declaring, "If I ran I would smoke Fetterman in the suburbs." We double-checked and can confirm he did not mean he would spark a joint with the lieutenant governor in Lower Merion. We also double-checked and can confirm that Costello is the last person who should be talking smack, because in 2018, he huffily abandoned his bid for re-election after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court undid the GOP's gerrymander and made his 6th Congressional District bluer.
The butt-hurt Costello loudly whined at the time that the new maps were "1,000 percent partisan," a Democratic gerrymander in "disguise," and even "racist" (!). He not only demanded that the justices be impeached (they weren't), he quit his campaign after the filing deadline, leaving his fellow Republicans just with a random weirdo on the ballot (he lost). Costello may not be planning to fire up a blunt down at the Galleria, but given the bridges he's burned, he's not liable to smoke anyone—or anything—any time soon.
House
● MD-01: Former Democratic Del. Heather Mizeur threatened to challenge Republican Rep. Andy Harris next year after he almost incited a fist-fight on the floor of Congress during Wednesday night's certification of the Electoral College vote, which he twice voted against. Mizeur's warning came after Maryland Democrats demanded that Harris resign over his role in egging on the terrorist mob that ransacked the Capitol earlier that same day, saying that he and his fellow Republican instigators "have blood on their hands."
Mizeur was last seen on the electoral scene in 2014, when she ran a creditable race for the Democratic nomination for governor, casting herself as the most vocally progressive option and narrowly finishing third behind two much better-known and better-funded rivals. However, Harris, the lone Republican in the state's congressional delegation, would be almost impossible to defeat under the state's current map, since his 1st District, based on the Eastern Shore, is dark red.
But Maryland, which sends seven Democrats to the House, is one of the few states where Democrats will have unfettered control over redistricting, and HuffPost's Kevin Robillard reported that one party operative sent him a text following Wednesday's tragic events that included a tweet about Harris' near-brawl and read simply "8-0." Indeed, as map-making aficionados well know, Democrats could easily draw new lines that would create eight solidly blue districts, with boundaries that look much neater than the hideous mess they crafted a decade ago. The only obstacle to maximizing their advantage is the parochial self-interest of current Democratic incumbents.
● MD-06: Former Del. Aruna Miller has filed FEC paperwork for a bid in Maryland's 6th Congressional District, but she's not planning to challenge Rep. David Trone, a fellow Democrat. Rather, she explains, she's preparing for the possibility that Trone might run for governor, something he's reportedly considering, which would once again create an open seat. Miller ran here the last time this seat was open in 2018 and finished second in the primary, losing 40-31 to the self-funding Trone.
● NM-01: Victor Reyes, who serves as legislative director for Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, announced Friday that he'd seek the Democratic nomination if Rep. Deb Haaland is confirmed as Joe Biden's secretary of the interior. Reyes would be the state's first LGBTQ member of Congress.
Mayors
● Boston, MA Mayor: Politico's Stephanie Murray reports that a number of Boston politicians are considering entering this year's mayoral race now that Joe Biden has nominated incumbent Marty Walsh to serve as secretary of Labor:
- Boston Chief of Economic Development John Barros
- State Sen. Nick Collins
- City Councilor Annissa Essaibi-George
- City Councilor Michael Flaherty
- Chief of the Mayor's Office Health and Human Services Marty Martinez
- State Rep. Aaron Michlewitz
- State Rep. Jon Santiago
- Suffolk County Sheriff Steve Tompkins
State Sen. Sonia Chang-Díaz and City Councilors Ricardo Arroyo and Ed Flynn were also mentioned, but they've each said they won't run. Boston Magazine's David Bernstein additionally writes that former City Councilor Josh Zakim, who lost the 2018 secretary of state primary, didn't quite rule out running, though he sounded unlikely.
Tompkins did confirm his interest to Boston Magazine's David Bernstein, saying, "I think that this race calls out loudly for a male of color with executive experience who knows how to run a big operation." City Councilors Andrea Campbell and Michelle Wu, who are the only notable candidates currently in the contest, are both women of color. So is City Council President Kim Janey, who would become acting mayor if Walsh is confirmed by the Senate.
Both Campbell and Wu announced bids last year when politicos expected Walsh to run for a third term, and they made it clear Thursday that they'd be continuing their campaigns. It remains to be seen if Janey would run in her own right if she's elevated to the mayor's office, though unnamed friends told the Boston Globe's Milton Valencia that they'd be surprised if she didn't at least consider.