The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, Stephen Wolf, Daniel Donner, and Cara Zelaya, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, James Lambert, David Beard, and Arjun Jaikumar.
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Leading Off
● CA Ballot: A new poll from UC Berkeley shows a ballot measure to amend California's constitution to explicitly enshrine the right to abortion and contraceptives passing by a landslide margin, with 71% of voters saying they support it and just 18% opposed. The numbers are similar to those from other recent surveys, reinforcing just how popular abortion rights are and pointing the way for other states to take similar action.
Two already are: Like their counterparts in the Golden State, Democratic lawmakers in Vermont voted to place an amendment on the November ballot to guarantee "personal reproductive autonomy," while activists in Michigan, who gathered a record number of signatures, are very close to qualifying a similar measure there. While we don't have polling from either state yet, there's every reason to think majorities are in favor of both of these amendments, particularly since conservative Kansas recently rejected an attempt to write abortion rights out of its constitution by an 18-point margin.
The different approaches to actually putting a constitutional amendment before voters in California and Vermont compared with Michigan are also important to take note of. In most states, only the legislature can refer amendments to the ballot, and often supermajorities are required to do so. Others require lawmakers to pass the same amendment twice, in successive sessions separated by an election, before voters can weigh in. Only in around a third of states can voters themselves collect signatures to place amendments on the ballot—a very useful tool in states with recalcitrant Republican majorities in the legislature.
At the moment, Democratic lawmakers have sufficient numbers without needing any GOP votes to send an abortion rights amendment to voters in almost a dozen states. Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, New Mexico, Oregon, and Rhode Island could all do so right away (though likely not in time for this year), while Connecticut, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Jersey, and New York—which require passage in two sessions—would take a little longer.
Voters could also move forward themselves in several Republican-controlled states, including Arizona, Florida, Montana, and Ohio. (Data even suggests that Missouri and Nebraska could be amenable as well.) Activists can do the same in Colorado, where Democrats hold the legislature but aren't likely to reach the two-thirds supermajority needed to amend the state constitution. Colorado and Florida present further obstacles, though: In most states, only a simple majority of voters is necessary to amend the constitution, but in Colorado, 55% support is needed, while in Florida, the threshold is 60%.
Democrats have every reason to move forward as soon as possible: Not only would the adoption of amendments like these further protect abortion rights, there's a good chance they would also energize turnout. It may be too late for 2022, but Democrats should jump at this clear-cut opportunity to identify as the party that will defend the right to an abortion.
Senate
● PA-Sen, PA-Gov: Franklin & Marshall College's first poll since the parties selected their nominees in May finds Democrats up big in both statewide races. For Senate, Democrat John Fetterman leads Republican Mehmet Oz 45-36, while Democrat Josh Shapiro is winning by 48-36 over Republican Doug Mastriano for governor. Neither Republican has led in any public poll since winning their respective primaries.
● WA-Sen: Republican Tiffany Smiley is running two new ads on abortion that appear to be included as part of a new $648,000 ad buy, pushing back on recent Democratic attacks on the topic. Both ads feature Smiley sitting down while talking to the camera to tell voters she is "pro-life" but is opposed to a "federal abortion ban." One of the ads also devotes half its run time to criticizing Democratic Sen. Patty Murray as an ineffective senator who is trying to scare voters, while the other sees Smiley also claim she'll fight for women's access to contraception, healthcare, childcare, and eldercare.
Governors
● MA-SoS: The conservative Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance has released a poll from GOP firm Advantage, Inc. that includes matchups for the Sept. 6 primaries, though the survey asks voters several questions about state fiscal issues and Joe Biden's handling of the national economy before getting into the horse races.
For the Democratic primary for secretary of state, longtime incumbent Bill Galvin leads Boston NAACP President Tanisha Sullivan 55-14. Advantage had also tested Republican primary matchups, but the sample size was below the 300 respondent minimum that Daily Kos Elections requires for inclusion in the Digest.
● NM-Gov: EDF Action has released a mid-July poll from Democratic firm GQR that found Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham with a modest 48-44 lead over Republican Mark Ronchetti. There have been few publicly available polls here this year, but the handful that have been released have generally also found the governor narrowly ahead.
● RI-Gov: On Thursday, Secretary of State Nellie Gorbea unveiled the first attack ad from any candidate ahead of the Sept. 13 Democratic primary but quickly found herself backtracking after citing a right-wing site as one of a few news headlines referenced to argue that her main rival, Gov. Dan McKee, was corrupt.
The ad substantively focused on an FBI investigation into McKee's administration over a since-canceled education consulting contract with a business called the ILO Group before praising Gorbea for supporting small businesses and affordable housing, childcare, and eldercare. However, one of the headlines that appeared on screen, titled "A Blatant, Corrupt Power Grab by Rhode Island's Governor," referenced an opinion piece that ran in the right-wing National Review criticizing Mckee over his unrelated extension of pandemic emergency orders (the author of that piece had taken an anti-masking position and criticized the teachers' unions).
Gorbea's campaign took down the ad hours later following fierce criticism, but she said she stood by its accusation of pay-to-play politics in the governor's administration and that her campaign would go back on the air with an edited version that removed reference to the National Review article (the campaign also had to make another edit after erroneously superimposing a WPRI-TV graphic over a WJAR station reporter discussing the ILO investigation). However, McKee and some of his prominent union supporters called on Gorbea to take the ad down entirely.
● TX-Gov: For his first general election ads, Democrat Beto O'Rourke has released two spots (here and here) timed to coincide with Texas' near-total abortion ban coming into effect on Thursday that hammer GOP Gov. Greg Abbott for signing the "most extreme" such ban in the nation, noting that there are no exceptions for rape or incest and providers face potential prison sentences and fines of $100,000.
House
● AZ-01: Democrat Jevin Hodge has released the first public poll in the race for Arizona's swingy 1st District, a survey from GQR that shows him tied with Republican Rep. David Schweikert at 47 apiece, with just 6% of voters undecided. Joe Biden would have won Arizona's 1st District, which is based in northeastern Phoenix and Scottsdale, by a slim 50-49 spread.
● MI-10: The first two polls of the race in Michigan's open 10th Congressional District since the state's primary earlier this month have dropped one right after the other, and they tell very different stories. Former Judge Carl Marlinga, the Democratic nominee, publicized an internal poll from Target Insyght on Wednesday afternoon showing him with a 47-45 edge on Republican John James, while the following day, local tipsheet MIRS News released a survey it commissioned from Republican pollster Mitchell Research that had James in front 47-38. Donald Trump would have carried the redrawn 10th, based in Macomb County just to the north of Detroit, by a slender 50-49 margin.
● MT-01: Former Republican Rep. Ryan Zinke was and is the target of at least 18 investigations into his conduct during his brief tenure as a member of Donald Trump's cabinet, and now one has concluded that he engaged in wrongdoing: The inspector general of the Interior Department, where Zinke served as secretary from 2017 to 2019, released a report on Wednesday concluding that Zinke had made statements to investigators "with the overall intent to mislead them" and violated his "duty of candor" as a government officials.
At issue was a request by two Connecticut tribes, the Mohegan and Mashantucket Pequot, to build a casino, an endeavor that required the approval of the federal government. The casino was to be built in East Windsor, a few miles from an MGM-operated casino just over the border in Springfield, Massachusetts. Zinke neither signed off on the request nor rejected it, but instead "returned" it to the tribes, claiming it was "premature and likely unnecessary."
That refusal to act prompted the tribes to file a lawsuit and also led members of Congress from Connecticut to ask that Zinke's inaction be investigated. They charged that Zinke and his staff had been improperly influenced by lobbyists for the Nevada-based MGM, which naturally opposed the project. The investigation ultimately turned not on the question of MGM's influence but about whether Zinke had been truthful in explaining to investigators why he had "returned" the tribes' request
The inspector general determined he had not been, pointing out, for instance, that Zinke claimed he had not discussed his decision with anyone outside of the Interior Department, even though he had—including with Republican Dean Heller, who at the time represented Nevada in the Senate. Zinke, who is seeking to return to Congress in Montana's new 1st District, disputed the report's findings, claiming they were "wrong."
(The tribes did eventually receive approval but the new casino remains on hold, as both the Mashantucket Pequot and the Mohegan said they needed to concentrate on their existing casinos, which saw a steep dropoff in business during the height of the pandemic.)
● NY-10: Assemblywoman Yuh-Line Niou, who narrowly lost Tuesday's Democratic primary to attorney Dan Goldman by 26-24 but has not yet conceded, didn't rule out running on the Working Families Party ballot line in this dark-blue district in November, telling the Washington Post that she is "currently speaking with WFP and my community about how we can best represent the needs of this district."
Ad Roundup
