The Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, and Stephen Wolf, with additional contributions from the Daily Kos Elections team.
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This is the last Morning Digest before the Daily Kos Elections crew takes off for Thanksgiving. Our next edition will hit your inboxes on Tuesday morning. Have a great holiday!
Leading Off
● CA-16: Democratic Rep. Anna Eshoo announced Tuesday that she would retire after 16 terms of representing Silicon Valley in Congress, a declaration that came the day after San Jose Spotlight first broke the news. The departure of Eshoo, whom Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi once described as "one of my dearest friends in the world," is likely to set off a crowded and expensive race to replace her in California’s dark blue 16th District.
All contenders will face off in the March 5 top-two primary, which coincides with the state’s presidential primary. Joe Biden carried this Bay Area constituency 75-22 in 2020, so there’s a good chance that Democratic candidates will claim both spots in the Nov. 5 general election.
Eshoo’s potential successors will have only about three weeks to decide whether they’re running, though an unusual state law gives them a little extra time to make up their minds. The candidate filing deadline is set for Dec. 8, but it’s automatically extended to Dec. 13 in races where no incumbent files for reelection.
However, one longtime Democratic politician doesn’t sound like he’ll need much time to decide. Santa Clara County Supervisor Joe Simitian told Spotlight that a "formal announcement" would be coming soon, and he’d begin the race with a hefty $680,000 stockpiled thanks largely to a 2009 special election that never took place.
Simitian, who at the time was a member of the state Senate, declared during the early months of Barack Obama’s presidency that he was raising money in case then-Rep. Mike Honda resigned to join the new administration. A job offer never came, though, and Honda remained in the House until his career ended after another Democrat, Ro Khanna, unseated him in 2016.
But Simitian not only ended last year with almost $500,000 still in the bank, he also expanded his war chest this year as rumors intensified that the 80-year-old Eshoo would retire soon. The supervisor made it clear last December that he wouldn’t oppose Eshoo, but he told the Spotlight, "This is a committee I have had in place for a number of years and I continue to keep it alive so that if and when the opportunity presents itself, I am ready to go."
Simitian, though, may not be the only local Democrat that’s now ready to go. Both Spotlight and The San Francisco Chronicle report that Assemblyman Evan Low will run; the latter adds that he and Simitian are each "expected to make announcements next week." Low, for his part, told Spotlight he was still looking at the race.
The Chron predicts that Low, who at 40 is three decades younger than Simitian, will "make age a factor." Conversely, the paper notes that Simitian may emphasize his local roots against Low, who represents a mere 5% of the 16th in the legislature.
Low himself attracted national attention in early 2010 when he became the youngest gay mayor in the country by assuming the chief executive post in Campbell, which is located in Eshoo’s current seat. However, Low last cycle moved to Sunnyvale, which is in the 17th, after redistricting scrambled the legislative map; the Chronicle, though, says that the assemblyman still has a home back in Campbell.
Spotlight additionally reports that another state legislator, state Sen. Josh Becker, is considering running as well. Becker, who serves about 60% of Eshoo’s constituents, didn’t confirm this, saying instead of the congresswoman, "Let’s take a moment to celebrate her years of service before we rush to find her successor."
Finally, former San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo tells Spotlight he is indeed thinking about running despite saying in September that he wouldn’t seek office this cycle. Liccardo (who had a brief cameo on the HBO comedy "Silicon Valley") was termed out early this year as leader of San Jose, which is home to about 40% of the 16th’s denizens.
Eshoo’s own career in local politics began at a time when Silicon Valley was anything but the Democratic bastion it is today, and she even lost her first House race to a Republican. Eshoo, whose parents were both Christian refugees from the Middle East, began a four-year stint as chair of the San Mateo Democratic Party in 1978, watching Ronald Reagan carry the county 49-37 against President Jimmy Carter in the middle of her tenure. (Pelosi during those years served as party chair for Northern California and later the entire state.) Eshoo, who was also chief of staff to Assembly Speaker Pro Tempore Leo McCarthy in the early 1980s, would win office herself in 1982, when she was elected to the county board of supervisors.
Eshoo decided to seek a promotion in 1988, challenging freshman Republican Rep. Ernie Konnyu, who had been accused of sexually harassing two of his aides, in a longtime GOP stronghold that was then numbered the 12th District. Eshoo beat her nearest primary foe 43-37 (California wouldn’t vote to adopt the current top-two primary system until 2010), but she got some unwelcome news that same night when Stanford Law School professor Tom Campbell denied renomination to Konnyu in a 58-42 landslide.
Campbell, who had previously served in the Reagan administration, presented a much tougher foe for Eshoo in a race that would eventually cost $2.5 million, or $6.5 million in today’s dollars. The Democrat tried to argue that Campbell, who campaigned as a moderate, was still too far to the right and even distributed potholders to bolster her argument that Campbell believed women belong in the kitchen. Eshoo, the Los Angeles Times wrote, also tried out "an unusual tactic that might appeal to some in the high-technology capital—an eight-minute videotape of Eshoo on the issues that is to be hand-delivered to 110,000 homes."
But Campbell nonetheless prevailed 51-46, running ahead of the top of the GOP ticket. According to analyst Kiernan Park-Egan, George H.W. Bush defeated Democrat Michael Dukakis in the 12th by a tiny 50.1-49.9 margin; that same night, Bush became the last Republican presidential nominee to ever carry the Golden State.
Eshoo, who would remain on the board of supervisors, got a second chance to run for Congress in 1992 when Campbell left to wage the first of what would be three failed Senate campaigns. Eshoo ran under a revamped map for what was now the 14th District, but she wasn’t the only Democrat who wanted to flip this longtime GOP stronghold. Eshoo, fellow Supervisor Tom Nolan, and Assemblyman Ted Lempert initially pledged to avoid negative campaigning in their primary, but a prominent labor group yanked Lempert from its three-way endorsement over his tactics.
The Central Labor Councils of San Mateo and Santa Clara, as The San Francisco Chronicle wrote, were unhappy with the assemblyman’s ads attacking Eshoo for accepting large donations from a waste-hauling company that wanted to build a new landfill. However, he earned yet more scorn for a mailer suggesting that Nolan, who would have been the state’s first gay member of Congress, was almost entirely backed by LGBTQ+ groups; that same flier also charged that Eshoo’s chief supporters were "National Feminist (Political Action Committees)’’ and the ‘‘National Organization for Women.’’
Eshoo beat Lempert 40-36, though it initially looked like she’d be in for another tough general election against Republican Tom Huening. However, while Huening had the support of Silicon Valley tycoons like Hewlett-Packard co-founder David Packard, Eshoo had the advantage of running at a time when longtime moderate Republican voters were realigning toward the Democrats.
Eshoo won 57-39, a win that made her the first Democrat to represent this area in more than five decades as well as Congress’ second-ever Assyrian American member. (The first was Adam Benjamin, an Indiana Democrat who served from 1977 until his death in 1982.) Bill Clinton, per Park-Egan, also beat Bush 53-27 in the district, with independent Ross Perot grabbing 20%. Those landslide wins represented the beginning of a new era in Silicon Valley politics, and Eshoo would never again need to worry about GOP opposition.
Eshoo would also have little to fear from fellow Democrats even as subsequent maps shrunk her longtime San Mateo County base, which was always smaller than the Santa Clara County portion of the seat. (Santa Clara County makes up 84% of what’s now the 16th, while San Mateo forms the balance.) But thanks to the advent of the top-two primary, Eshoo’s last two elections were closer than usual since she faced a fellow Democrat in the general election both times. However, she still won her final race by a comfortable 58-42 margin.
The congresswoman also benefited from her ties to Pelosi, though the longtime Democratic leader’s influence could do only so much when Eshoo ran for the top Democratic spot on the powerful Energy and Commerce Committee following the 2014 election. Eshoo ended up losing the high-profile contest to New Jersey’s Frank Pallone, though the congresswoman would remain a senior member of the panel.
election recaps
● UT-02: Celeste Maloy beat Democrat Kathleen Riebe in Tuesday's special election to succeed Maloy's old boss and fellow Republican, former Rep. Chris Stewart. Maloy leads 57-34 (the balance is split between five minor candidates) with the Associated Press estimating that 70% of the vote is in, though the margin could shift as more ballots are tabulated. Donald Trump carried this gerrymandered constituency 57-40 in 2020.
Maloy will return the 435-member chamber to its full complement of 222 Republicans and 213 Democrats, though this won't last long into the new year. New York Democrat Brian Higgins will resign in the first week of February, while Ohio Republican Bill Johnson will depart by mid-March to lead Youngstown State University. (See our OH-06 item below.)
● Salt Lake City, UT Mayor: Democratic incumbent Erin Mendenhall appears to have decisively defeated former Mayor Rocky Anderson, a former Democrat who no longer identifies with any party, in Tuesday's officially nonpartisan race. Mendenhall leads 59-34 with 38,000 ballots counted, while a third candidate named Mike Valentine takes the balance. This is the first mayoral contest in city history conducted using instant-runoff voting rules, though it doesn't look like ranked-choice tabulations will be needed to determine the winner.
Anderson, who waged a third-party campaign against President Barack Obama from the left in 2012, acknowledged on election night that, while there are still more ballots to tally, his comeback prospects are grim. "I think the writing’s on the wall," he said, "but I was advised by the elections clerk not to concede until the ballots come in. So it’s not a formal concession, but I do think it would take a minor miracle for this to turn around right now.”
While Salt Lake City is a rare bastion of Democratic strength in this red state, Mendenhall had the support of GOP Gov. Spencer Cox in her bid for a second term. State Rep. Phil Lyman, a far-right extremist who is challenging Cox for renomination, backed Anderson.
Senate
● CA-Sen: Following Rep. Barbara Lee’s failure to win the endorsement of delegates to the California Democratic Party’s convention last weekend, Politico reports that unnamed Democrats say the congresswoman might instead seek reelection to the House. However, Lee’s team immediately pushed back on the notion. "The congresswoman is running one race, and that is to be the next senator for California," said a top campaign adviser.
Lee earned the support of 963 convention-goers, just ahead of the 933 who backed fellow Rep. Adam Schiff. In percentage terms, that gave Lee a small 41-40 edge but still left her far short of the 60% needed to win the party’s official endorsement. (Another 16% of delegates voted for Rep. Katie Porter.) The endorsement can serve as a boost to campaigns because candidates who win the party’s official seal of approval are listed by name in a special section of the voter guide that each county sends to all voters, which is a bit like having someone else pay for a mailer to every voter in their district.
● MT-Sen: A new survey from GOP pollster co/efficient finds wealthy businessman Tim Sheehy leading Rep. Matt Rosendale 40-24 in next year’s Republican primary, though the matchup remains hypothetical since Rosendale still has yet to launch a campaign. Co/efficient tells Politico that it is "not supporting any candidate in the race," but its memo praises Sheehy and dings Rosendale (sample phrase: "Matt Rosendale’s weakness as a candidate is evident"). A late October poll from a pro-Sheehy super PAC put him up by a smaller 38-35 margin.
House
● California: The California Democratic Party’s weekend meeting also resulted in endorsements for several House candidates campaigning for open seats or against vulnerable Republican incumbents:
- CA-03: Jessica Morse
- CA-12: Lateefah Simon
- CA-13: Adam Gray
- CA-22: Rudy Salas
- CA-27: George Whitesides
- CA-41: Will Rollins
- CA-45: Kim Nguyen
- CA-47: Dave Min
Most of these candidates were already favored to advance past the March top-two primary, with two potential exceptions: Min, whom we covered in our last Digest, and Nguyen, who has struggled to raise money against GOP Rep. Michelle Steel.
The party also endorsed each Democratic House member who hadn’t already announced their retirement: This included Reps. Tony Cardenas and Anna Eshoo, who each said days later that they would not run again.
Finally, delegates did not endorse anyone in the contests for the open 30th and 31st Districts. Over in the 40th, Tustin Unified School District trustee Allyson Muñiz Damikolas’ 58-42 majority over retired Orange County Fire Capt. Joe Kerr was just below the 60% she needed to receive the endorsement: Both contenders are campaigning to take on GOP Rep. Young Kim.
● CT-05: Former state Sen. George Logan, who narrowly lost to Democratic Rep. Jahanna Hayes last year, has released a new internal poll from Public Opinion Strategies showing Hayes with a small 43-41 lead. The pollster’s memo did not, however, include numbers for a likely rematch between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, who carried Connecticut’s 5th District 55-44 in 2020.
● IA-03: The progressive group VoteVets, which helps elect Democratic veterans to office, has endorsed former U.S. Department of Agriculture official Lanon Baccam in his bid for Iowa’s 3rd Congressional District. Baccam joined the Iowa National Guard after 9/11 and served in Afghanistan as a combat engineer. He is looking to unseat first-term GOP Rep. Zach Nunn
● MD-03: Two state lawmakers recently entered the race for Maryland’s open 3rd Congressional District, Dels. Terri Hill and Mike Rogers, making them the third and fourth notable Democrats to seek this solidly blue seat. Already running in the primary to succeed retiring Rep. John Sarbanes are state Sen. Sarah Elfreth and Del. Vanessa Atterbeary.
Hill ran for Congress under the last map in the 2020 special election to succeed the late Rep. Elijah Cummings in the safely Democratic 7th District. However, the entire primary field was overshadowed by former Rep. Kweisi Mfume, who was campaigning to return to the House after a 24-year absence. Mfume beat Cummings’ widow, Maya Rockeymoore Cummings, 43-17, while Hill took fourth place with 7%.
● MI-08: Mitchell Rivard, who serves as chief of staff to retiring Democratic Rep. Dan Kildee, tells Puck he’s considering running to replace his boss in this swing seat. Rivard, who co-chairs the House Chiefs of Staff Association, says he’ll use Thanksgiving to decide if he’ll enter the August Democratic primary.
Genesee County Sheriff Chris Swanson and former Senate Minority Leader Jim Ananich, though, each say they won’t seek to succeed their fellow Democrat.
● MN-03: Democratic Rep. Dean Phillips, who is waging a suicidal bid for president, tells Axios that he’ll make up his mind about whether he’ll seek reelection to the House over the Thanksgiving holiday. Since Minnesota’s filing deadline is not until June 4—the same day as the final presidential primaries—Phillips can theoretically enjoy seven more months of punishment and still run for another term.
However, local Democrats in the 3rd Congressional District will hold a convention on May 4 to decide whether to officially endorse anyone; while participation isn’t obligatory, most Minnesota candidates seek out party support, and many drop out ahead of the primary if they fail to get it.
Over the weekend, Phillips hinted that he’d bail, bragging that he agrees with those who’ve said, "I’ve torpedoed my career in Congress." (Confused? Phillips continued, "America would be in better shape if more politicians were willing to torpedo their careers." He has a point! Just not in the way he thinks.)
● NY-26: Assembly Majority Leader Crystal Peoples-Stokes, who is the second-ranking Democrat in the legislature’s lower chamber, is the latest prominent politician to say she’s considering a bid for New York’s soon-to-be-vacant 26th Congressional District. Peoples-Stokes was noncommital, though, telling WBEN, "I have not said yes, and I have not said no." Local party leaders will pick nominees for the expected special election to succeed Rep. Brian Higgins, who recently said he would resign in February.
● OH-06: Republican Rep. Bill Johnson announced Tuesday that he would resign from the House next year to become president of Youngstown State University, a move that will set off a special election to replace him in an Ohio seat that shifted from purple to dark red over the last decade. Donald Trump carried the 6th District, which is based in southeastern Ohio and the Youngstown area, 64-35 in 2020.
Johnson’s new contract stipulates he’ll begin his new job on March 15, and the Republican said he’d remain in the House "for several more months." However, anyone who wants to run for a full term has only until the Dec. 20 filing deadline to decide if they’ll compete in the regularly scheduled March 19 primary.
Last week, the university’s Board of Trustees unexpectedly announced that it had offered its top job to Johnson in an emergency meeting that it had called just two hours earlier. The congressman, who responded at the time that he was still considering whether to accept, does not appear to have even been publicly discussed as a potential candidate for the presidency before then. The Vindicator’s David Skolnick adds that the board "failed to disclose why it considered the offer to Johnson an emergency when plans have been to have a president in place by mid-2024."
Unhappy students, alumni, and faculty members quickly responded by focusing on Johnson’s hard-line views, his lack of academic qualifications, and the process involved in his selection. One letter from alumni objected to Johnson’s opposition to same-sex marriage, his support for Donald Trump’s Muslim travel ban, and his vote against recognizing Joe Biden’s win in 2020. The school’s faculty union also argued that no faculty, students, or staff were allowed to formally make their case about Johnson or anyone else considered for the presidency.
However, the Board of Trustees, which includes members connected to major Johnson donors, nonetheless voted 8-1 Tuesday to approve a formal contract for the new president. The vote, reports WKBN, "was met by boos and yelling from the full crowd in attendance," but Johnson quickly announced he’d accept his new role.
Johnson’s sudden career shift comes 13 years after he unexpectedly won a seat in Congress by upsetting Democratic Rep. Charlie Wilson (not to be confused with the famous Texas Democrat with the same name). Johnson, a businessman who had previously served in the Air Force, founded a group advocating sales tax "holidays" shortly before he began eyeing a 2010 campaign against Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan in the now-defunct 17th District.
Johnson ended up passing on a campaign for what was at the time a safely blue seat and decided to take on Wilson in the neighboring 6th instead. However, his prospects initially seemed just as grim. While the 6th had supported John McCain 50-48 the previous cycle, Wilson had secured his second term in a 62-33 landslide. Still, the fact that McCain had matched George W. Bush’s 2004 margin of victory in the district even as the state as a whole was swinging toward Barack Obama was an early warning about the Democratic Party’s prospects in Appalachia.
Johnson, who looked very much like a Some Dude when he launched his effort, beat veterinarian Donald Allan 43-37 in the primary, and he generated little attention for most of his campaign. Even House Minority Leader John Boehner, who represented a different Ohio district, would acknowledge the challenger "was not on anyone’s charts" as late as August.
However, Johnson’s team released polls late in the race arguing he had a chance to win, and the NRCC responded by launching an ad campaign in the final month of the contest. Wilson recognized he was in danger during the final stretch and ran his own ads attacking his opponent on outsourcing jobs, but that year’s red wave carried Johnson to a 50-45 victory.
Wilson was determined to retake his seat even after the GOP’s new gerrymander extended McCain’s margin of victory to 53-45, but the region’s continued shift to the right presented an insurmountable obstacle. Johnson won their 2012 rematch 53-47 as Mitt Romney carried the revamped 6th 55-43. (Wilson would die a few months later, following a stroke.)
Democrats still showed some optimism about beating Johnson in 2014, but the race never became a major priority, and he beat former state Rep. Jennifer Garrison 58-39. The 6th fell completely off both parties’ watch list after that, and the congressman would go on to win each of his next four terms with at least 68% of the vote as his once-swingy constituency became dark red turf during the Trump era.
● VA-07: The Washington Post mentions Stafford County Board of Supervisors Chair Pamela Yeung as a possible contender to succeed her fellow Democrat, retiring Rep. Abigail Spanberger. The New Republic separately name-drops a pair of Republicans, state Sen. Bryce Reeves, state Sen.-elect Tara Durant, but there’s also no word on their interest.
Ballot Measures
● MO Ballot: The Missouri Supreme Court said on Monday that it would not consider an appeal by Republican Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft seeking to overturn a ruling that rejected the summary language he drafted for a set of ballot measures that would enshrine the right to an abortion into the state constitution. Late last month, an appeals court largely upheld a lower court that had rewritten Ashcroft’s summaries, saying that the secretary’s versions were "replete with politically partisan language."
The decision should clear the way for abortion rights advocates to start collecting signatures to place one of their proposals on the ballot, but what will transpire next is uncertain. Proponents had initially filed 11 different petitions with different wording and took six of Ashcroft’s descriptions to court, with the apparent idea being that supporters would settle on one version to put before voters.
But one organizer, noting that the legal battle cost activists precious time, did not sound optimistic, according to St. Louis Public Radio’s Jason Rosenbaum. "Ashcroft has intentionally sabotaged this process over the past nine months," said Mallory Schwarz of Abortion Action Missouri. "And now due to his actions, any campaign is left to evaluate the damage and see what is possible to move forward on this timeline that should have been done six months ago." Schwarz’s organization, notably, did not even mention the Supreme Court’s ruling on its social media accounts.
One rival group, however, is moving ahead. Jamie Corley, a former Republican political operative and artist, launched a separate effort over the summer to qualify a more restrictive measure for the ballot, arguing that a more limited right to an abortion would be more likely to succeed. Corley’s organization, called the Missouri Women and Family Research Fund, recently began gathering signatures, but it, too, is also embroiled in a lawsuit against Ashcroft challenging similarly misleading ballot summary language.
Legislatures
● NC State House: State Rep. Tricia Cotham, a former Democrat whose party switch earlier this year gave North Carolina Republicans supermajorities in the legislature, has announced that she’ll seek reelection. While Cotham was elected to a solidly blue district as a Democrat last year, her fellow lawmakers recently passed new gerrymandered maps that made her district considerably redder. However, the radically redrawn 105th District would have supported Donald Trump by just a 50-48 margin, so it will likely still be competitive next year, and furious Democrats will be eager to oust her.
● PA State House: Democratic state Rep. John Galloway, who won a local judgeship unopposed earlier this month, tells LevittownNow.com that he’ll resign his current post on Dec. 15. That will set up a pivotal special election that will once again determine which party controls the Pennsylvania House, though the timing is still unclear.
Two Democrats have nonetheless said they’ll run for the soon-to-be-vacant seat: Melanie Bidlingmaier, who is Galloway’s chief of staff, and Donna Petrecco, the vice chair of the Bucks County Housing Authority. There won’t be a primary, however, as party leaders choose nominees in Pennsylvania special elections.
Mayors & County Leaders
● Bridgeport, CT Mayor: State Judge William Clark on Friday set Jan. 23 as the date for the new Democratic primary for mayor, a ruling that came weeks after Clark overturned the results of the September primary over election fraud concerns. The date was chosen after Mayor Joe Ganim and challenger John Gomes agreed that a redo was needed. No other candidates will appear on the ballot for the new primary: The winneer will advance to a Feb. 27 general election against Republican David Herz and independent Lamond Daniels.
Ganim ostensibly beat Gomes in that first primary, but state election officials later announced that they would investigate a surveillance video where a woman appears to be repeatedly inserting documents into a ballot drop box. Clark, however, did not have the authority to stop the Nov. 7 general election rematch between Ganim and Gomes, who ran as the state Independent Party’s nominee. Ganim won 41-40 and will remain mayor through the new primary, though he won’t be sworn in on Dec. 1.
Ad Roundup
Correction: This piece incorrectly stated that the Feb. 27 general election in Bridgeport would only take place if challenger John Gomes won the Jan. 23 Democratic primary. It will happen whether Gomes or Mayor Joe Ganim wins the primary.
