The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, Carolyn Fiddler, and Matt Booker, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Daniel Donner, James Lambert, David Beard, and Arjun Jaikumar.
Leading Off
● Pres-by-LD: As it so often does in odd-numbered years, Virginia will host the most important elections of 2021, with voters casting ballots in races for governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general, as well as for all 100 seats in the state House. To help better understand these key legislative races, Daily Kos Elections is pleased to release new data breaking down the results of the 2020 presidential election for each House district, including detailed calculations for every seat.
Democrats retook control of Virginia's legislature two years ago for the first time in a quarter century, aided in part by a new court-ordered House map that undid a GOP gerrymander that had been in place since 2011. Under this map, Joe Biden won 60 districts—the same number as outgoing Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam carried based on his 2017 performance, though the overlap wasn't perfect (more on that at the end).
Normally, the state would have drawn new districts this year—a task that voters reassigned from lawmakers to a bipartisan commission in approving a new constitutional amendment last year—but thanks to delays in the production of census data, Virginia will once again use the same map.
Democrats went into the 2019 elections with a narrow 51-49 deficit in the House after a massively successful campaign two years earlier saw them pick up 15 seats. That streak continued, as the party wound up winning 55 seats to 45 for the GOP. Every Democrat sits in a district both Biden and Northam carried, meaning that five Republicans occupy Biden turf.
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However, it's Republicans who are on offense this year. After two straight cycles of gains, Democrats simply have more districts to defend, particularly because off-year turnout is likely to revert to form. During the Trump era, energized progressives found new reasons to donate, volunteer, and vote, but maintaining that enthusiasm now that Democrats enjoy majorities both in D.C. and Richmond will almost certainly be harder.
Those off-year electorates had often been unkind to Team Blue downballot in the Old Dominion, which is why Biden's performance shouldn't be taken as a definitive benchmark. In fact, we already know that Biden tended to outperform Democrats further down the ticket last year—in New Hampshire, for instance, our data shows that Republicans managed to retake the legislature in 2020 even though Biden carried a majority of districts. That problem is likely to grow only more acute without the stimulus of a presidential election on the ballot.
And that means we can expect many Virginia House Democrats to face tough re-election campaigns even though their districts are, on paper, ostensibly blue. Most are freshmen or sophomores who benefited from the back-to-back wave years. Among the top protection targets is second-term Del. Chris Hurst, whose HD-12 in the southwestern part of the state is the least-blue among Democrats, having backed Biden 52-46.
Other similarly situated newer lawmakers include Martha Mugler (HD-91), Joshua Cole (HD-28), Alex Askew (HD-85), Kelly Convirs-Fowler (HD-21), Elizabeth Guzman (HD-31), and Nancy Guy (HD-83), all of whose seats backed Biden by margins of 15% or less. Many of the districts that will be most heavily contested this year are in the Virginia Beach region on the southeastern shore of the state, an area with a large military presence, including Mugler's, Askew's, and Guy's.
One rare longtime legislator under threat is Del. Roz Tyler, whose HD-75 in the Southside region along the North Carolina border is one of just 11 in the whole state that got redder on the presidential level between 2016 and 2020, voting for Hillary Clinton 54-44 but Biden by a narrower 53-46. (Clinton, incidentally, won 56 seats overall.) After two straight elections without a GOP opponent, Tyler had an unexpectedly closed scrape in 2019, winning by just a 51-49 margin over Republican Otto Wachsmann, who's back for a rematch.
This is by no means an exhaustive list of seats that could be in play this fall, but we'll revisit the topic later this year once nominees are finalized. Democrats will make their picks in a June 8 primary, while Republicans are utilizing a variety of methods to chose theirs, including conventions, though June 8 remains the deadline for everyone to finalize their nominations.
And while Democrats are focusing on holding on to their recent gains, they do have some pickup opportunities. Most enticing is HD-66 in the Richmond area, which at 54-44 Biden is the bluest seat held by a Republican. What's more, the district's occupant, former state House Speaker Kirk Cox, is running for governor, meaning the seat is open.
There's also an unusual Virginia law that allows candidates to run for two offices at once, meaning a number of delegates who are seeking statewide positions are also running for re-election, so it'll be a little while before we know if some other seats come open. One important district in this category is HD-84 in Virginia Beach, which is represented by Republican Del. Glenn Davis, who's running for lieutenant governor. Davis' district backed Biden 51-48 but is moving in the right direction for Democrats, since it went for Donald Trump 49-45 four years earlier.
And lastly, there's that matter of the imperfect overlap between the Biden and Northam districts. The lone seat that Biden carried but that Northam did not is HD-62, also in the Richmond area: Republican Ed Gillespie won it 51-48 in the 2017 governor's race but Biden prevailed 51-47 last year. That trend could entice Democrats to target Republican Del. Carrie Coyner. The one district that went in the other direction was HD-81 in Virginia Beach, represented by Republican Del. Barry Knight. Northam won it 52-47 but Trump carried it 51-47.
We also have a final note on methodology. Election officials in Virginia do not assign votes cast before Election Day to precincts, and thanks to the surge in popularity of mail and early voting fueled by the coronavirus pandemic, these pre-Election Day votes represented 63% of the state's total. We distributed these unassigned votes using an approach we call the Total Ballot method, which we've described in detail in our methodology statement.
We have high confidence in this approach, but because it necessarily involves estimates, the results for every district have unknowable error bars. While these are unlikely to be more than a percentage point in either direction, they could impact very close races. Most notably, Republican Del. Bobby Orrock's HD-54 in the Fredericksburg area (located about halfway between D.C. and Richmond) went for Trump by just 13 votes. It's very possible, therefore, that Biden actually carried the district, but there is simply no way to know for certain since the state cannot provide more accurate data.
P.S. You can find all of our district-level data at this bookmarkable permalink.
Senate
● AZ-Sen: Solar energy executive Jim Lamon, who this week became the first notable Republican to run against Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly, is reportedly spending at least $338,000 to air an introductory TV spot.
Referencing his line of business, Lamon says, "I've spent my career bringing power to the people," then decries "another kind of power" that "political elites" use to "divide, distract, and sell out our children's future. (This riff features photos of Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, and Kelly, as well as news footage of someone smashing a glass door following the murder of George Floyd.) He finishes, "We have the power to take their power away." In total, he uses the word "power" half a dozen times in 30 seconds.
● PA-Sen: Republican Rep. Guy Reschenthaler has reportedly been considering a bid for Pennsylvania's open Senate seat, but he sounds more than ready to defer to Army veteran Sean Parnell if he runs. In new remarks, Reschenthaler called Parnell "our best candidate" and continued, "He ran an incredible House campaign even though he didn't prevail," referring to his unsuccessful challenge to Democratic Rep. Conor Lamb last year. "He's got a lot of respect with the base of the party and he has the ability to fundraise nationally," said Reschenthaler. "No one will outwork him."
Governors
● CA-Gov: SurveyUSA's new poll for KABC-TV Los Angeles finds respondents saying they would vote against recalling Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom by a 47-36 margin. SurveyUSA also inquired which candidate voters would choose as Newsom's replacement, but none of his would-be successors have yet to register much support. A plurality of 38% said they wouldn't back anyone, while another 26% were undecided; 2018 Republican nominee John Cox led the named options with just 9% of the vote.
Cox is hoping to boost his appeal, though, with a $5 million ad buy that features him accompanied by a 1,000 pound brown bear. It remains to be seen if this spot will actually move voters, but it's almost certainly allowed Cox to get more publicity that he received for any of his three campaigns for office in Illinois, for president in 2008, or during his last campaign against Newsom. It still may not be quite as much attention as he wants, though: Cox griped on Wednesday that "[t]he coverage yesterday was all about the bear" rather than about the governor's policies.
● MD-Gov: Maryland Matters' Josh Kurtz reports that former DNC chair Tom Perez, who's been considering a bid for governor, has created what's known as a "527" organization, though his exact plans for it are unclear. The term takes its name from a provision of the Internal Revenue Code that in fact governs nearly all political committees, including campaign committees and super PACs.
Groups that are labeled simply as 527s, however, are prohibited from "express advocacy" on behalf of specific candidates or parties and typically engage in issue advocacy instead. That's a giant loophole, though—for instance, the notorious Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which played a key role in sinking John Kerry's campaign for president in 2004, was a 527—so Perez can probably find ways to use the vehicle to promote himself.
Meanwhile, Kurtz's colleague Bruce DePuyt says that another Maryland Democrat looking at the race, former state Attorney General Doug Gansler, "is expected to announce his plans later this spring" and has hired a campaign manager.
● MI-Gov: Former Republican Rep. Pete Hoekstra's name isn't one we expected to pop up as a potential candidate for governor, and perhaps he feels the same way: When asked by WLNS' Tim Skubick whether he might run, Donald Trump's former ambassador to the Netherlands said he would "have to talk to his wife." Hoekstra, who represented western Michigan's conservative (and heavily Dutch) 2nd District for nearly two decades, sought the governorship once before in 2010 but lost the GOP nomination 36-27 to Rick Snyder, who went on to win that fall.
Two years later, Hoekstra's political career came to a screeching halt during his failed challenge to Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow. In that race, he deployed a flagrantly racist ad during the Super Bowl starring a woman of Asian descent speaking in broken English, featuring bon mots like, "Debbie spend so much American money. You borrow more and more, from us" and "Your economy get very weak. Ours get very good. We take your jobs. Thank you, Debbie Spend-it-now." Backlash to the spot torpedoed Hoekstra's campaign, which he went on to lose by a punishing 59-38 margin.
That brand of overt racism, though, was very much in vogue among Republicans just a few years later, so it wasn't a surprise in 2017 when Trump tapped him to serve as ambassador to the Netherlands, where Hoekstra was born before emigrating to the U.S. as a child. Hoekstra's overseas tenure ended with Joe Biden's ascension to the White House, but given his past performance in statewide races, the Michigan GOP might not be so eager to welcome him back.
In the same piece, Skubick also mentions a couple of other Republican possibilities we hadn't yet encountered: veteran Rep. Fred Upton and state Rep. Julie Calley, who is married to former Lt. Gov. Brian Calley, himself an unsuccessful candidate in the 2018 GOP primary for governor. As Skubick notes, though, Michigan Republicans have yet to land a single big-name candidate to take on Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
● NE-Gov: Politico's Alex Isenstadt reports that agribusinessman Charles Herbster's recent entry into the primary was truly unwelcome news for the fellow Republican he's hoping to succeed, termed-out incumbent Pete Ricketts, and the governor is "determined to keep Herbster out of power."
So far, Ricketts' most public act of aggression came at a press conference last week where he accused the candidate of moving his company's headquarters out of Nebraska―an allegation he made the very day that Herbster was kicking off his own campaign. There could be a whole lot more ahead, though, as the extremely wealthy Ricketts has the resources to truly savage Herbster, who also will likely have access to plenty of money himself.
Isenstadt also takes a deep look at the source of this "bad blood" between Ricketts and Herbster, which appears to go back to the 2014 primary. Herbster himself briefly ran in that contest before dropping out and donating an eye-popping $860,000 to a fellow candidate, state Sen. Beau McCoy. McCoy in turn went on to target Ricketts for co-owning what he characterized as the "gay-friendly" Chicago Cubs baseball team, an attack Isenstadt describes as "deeply personal" considering that Ricketts’ sister is gay.
Ricketts won that primary while McCoy placed third, but that was hardly the end of his feud with Herbster. Indeed, Republicans believe that one of the reasons Ricketts wants to stop Herbster now is that the two could end up running against one another for president. There's a whole lot going on here, and we recommend reading the whole Politico piece.
The only other candidate currently in the GOP primary is another wealthy contender, University of Nebraska Regent Jim Pillen, and Ricketts seems to like him a lot more. While the governor has said he'll wait for the field to take shape before endorsing anyone, Isenstadt points out that his longtime political advisor is working for Pillen's campaign.
House
● FL-13: Former Defense Department official Eric Lynn kicked off a campaign for Florida's 13th Congressional District on Wednesday, a day after Democratic Rep. Charlie Crist announced a bid for governor. Lynn ran for this seat in 2016 and raised large sums but eventually deferred to Crist, who went on to defeat Republican Rep. David Jolly.
Speaking of Jolly, he's been talking about running for governor as an independent, but the Tampa Bay Times Steve Contorno says the former congressman "may run" for his old seat. Jolly has not yet said anything about the possibility himself, though, including what party banner—if any—he might run under.
Mayors
● Cincinnati, OH Mayor: Cincinnati held its nonpartisan primary to succeed termed-out Mayor John Cranley on Tuesday and two of his fellow Democrats, Hamilton County Clerk of Courts Aftab Pureval and City Councilman David Mann, advanced to the November general election. Pureval took first with 39% while Mann beat out another Democrat, state Sen. Cecil Thomas, 29-16 for the second-place spot.
Pureval, who would be the first Asian American elected to this post, is framing the general election as a battle between an outsider and a longtime political insider. Pureval cited the many corruption scandals surrounding city government, saying, "We've got to change the dysfunction and disorder that's going on at City Hall."
Mann, whom WVXU says "has never been tinged with impropriety or corruption" during his decades in local politics, has argued in turn that only he has the experience to lead the city. "You can't just get yourself elected mayor and start leading on day 1," Mann said, adding, "I know Aftab wants to suggest that he's run a government agency, but it's minuscule compared to the city of Cincinnati."
Both contenders are office holders, but the 38-year-old Pureval has been in the public eye for far less time than his 81-year-old foe. Pureval himself won his first race in 2016 when he was elected to his current post; he then challenged Republican Rep. Steve Chabot in 2018 for a seat that includes about three-quarters of Cincinnati (the balance is in the 2nd District) and lost the very expensive campaign 51-47. Pureval decided to run for re-election last year rather than seek a rematch against Chabot, and he beat his Republican foe 57-43 as Joe Biden was carrying Hamilton County by a similar 57-41 margin.
Mann, by contrast, was elected to the City Council in 1974 and served as mayor twice in the 1980s and 1990s, a time when the post had little actual power and merely rotated among council members (none other than Jerry Springer held the job a few years before Mann). He went on to win a seat in the U.S. House in 1992 before losing re-election to Chabot two years later (Cranley also would lose to Chabot in 2006), but he returned to the City Council in 2013.
● Seattle, WA Mayor: Casey Sixkiller, who serves as a deputy mayor, announced Tuesday that he would compete in the August nonpartisan primary to succeed his boss, retiring incumbent Jenny Durkin.
Sixkiller, who is the son of the legendary University of Washington quarterback Sonny Sixkiller, does not appear to have sought elected office before, though he has a long history in local government. The new candidate also previously helped the Cherokee Nation, which he is an enrolled member of, open its first office in D.C.