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.
Subscribe to The Downballot, our weekly podcast
Leading Off
● Maricopa County, AZ: Joe Biden's victory in Arizona's giant Maricopa County—the fourth-largest in the nation—brought a 72-year streak to an end by making him the first Democratic candidate for president to carry the county since Harry Truman. But rather than figure out why their stronghold collapsed and try to fix it, Republicans in the legislature have responded with a plan to crack Maricopa into four separate counties, packing voters of color into a safely blue rump county less than two-fifths the size of the current one and creating three red counties with white majorities.
- Republicans rightly fear losing their grip on Maricopa's county government. In 2020, the GOP only narrowly retained its 4-1 advantage on county's Board of Supervisors. Given intense Republican infighting and the country's leftward trend, Democrats have a strong shot at flipping the board next year.
- Bigger is actually better. Republicans claim they're driven by good-government motivations, but Maricopa makes sense as-is, since it includes all of Phoenix and the vast majority of its suburbs. Contrast the nightmare in the similarly sized Atlanta metro area, which is spread across 29 counties and suffers brutal traffic congestion as a direct result of its extreme balkanization.
- The plan is a mess—literally. The text of the legislation describes the boundaries of the proposed new counties, but it's replete with errors. (Sample weirdness: "South on the northwestern point where Gila County to the point where such line intersects"—say what?) Our map of the proposal, therefore, reflects our best guesses, but any errors, well, belong to the bill's sponsors.
Republicans have a plan for enacting their proposal despite near-certain opposition from Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs. Read more about the proposal's prospects, and check out our map.
Senate
● CA-Sen: Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff on Thursday earned the endorsement of homestate colleague Nancy Pelosi on the condition that Sen. Dianne Feinstein doesn’t run again. Almost no one seems to think the incumbent will be competing in the 2024 top-two primary, though, and the former speaker made it clear she’s for Schiff in an open-seat race.
Another 14 members of California’s 40-person Democratic House delegation also announced they’re backing Schiff: Julia Brownley, Jim Costa, Anna Eshoo, Jimmy Gomez, Jared Huffman, Mike Levin, Ted Lieu, Grace Napolitano, Jimmy Panetta, Scott Peters, Brad Sherman, Eric Swalwell, Mike Thompson, and Juan Vargas. The group made their choice even though the top-two primary includes Rep. Katie Porter, while fellow Rep. Barbara Lee reportedly plans to run as well.
● IN-Sen, IN-Gov: Howey Politics reports that sources close to Attorney General Todd Rokita say that the Republican will likely run for re-election next year rather than campaign for Senate or governor.
● TX-Sen: Politico’s Marianne LeVine writes that an unnamed source close to Democrat Julián Castro says that the former Housing and Urban Development secretary is considering taking on Republican incumbent Ted Cruz, who is one of the party’s few viable 2024 Senate targets. Castro and his identical twin brother, Rep. Joaquin Castro, have publicly or privately mulled a number of statewide bids over the past decade, but neither man has ever gone for it.
Rep. Colin Allred has been talked about for a while as a possible Cruz foe, and LeVine relays that Lone Star State Democrats are also looking at state Sen. Roland Gutierrez and state Rep. James Talarico: None of this trio, though, has said if they’re thinking about it. Cruz’s 2018 foe, former Rep. Beto O’Rourke, did not respond to LeVine’s inquiries about his own interest, though he just got off a 55-44 loss to GOP Gov. Greg Abbott. O’Rourke said in his November concession speech that “this may be one of the last times I get to talk in front of you all.”
Governors
● MS-Gov: While several Republicans have spent the last year talking about challenging Gov. Tate Reeves in the Aug. 8 primary, no serious intra-party opponents stepped up before filing closed Wednesday. The governor will instead go up against physician John Witcher, a Mississippi Against Mandates leader who was fired in 2021 for switching patients' prescriptions from remdesivir to ivermectin, the horse dewormer the FDA has warned should never be used to treat or prevent COVID. One other candidate is also in: In the unlikely event no one takes a majority, a runoff will be held Aug. 29.
Public Service Commissioner Brandon Presley, likewise, faces only two little-known foes in the Democratic primary. Independent Gwendolyn Gray is running as well, and her presence could be enough to keep Reeves or Presley from winning the majority on Nov. 7 needed to avert a second round on Nov. 28. The runoff, which was approved by voters in 2020, replaced the infamous Jim Crow-era electoral system that was in force for over a century.
House
● CA-30: Former Los Angeles City Attorney Mike Feuer on Thursday became the latest Democrat to join next year's packed top-two primary to replace Senate candidate Adam Schiff in California's safely blue 30th District, which includes part of L.A. as well as all of Burbank and Glendale. Feuer launched his campaign with an endorsement from Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, whose city is home to just over half of the 30th's denizens.
Feuer is a longtime local office holder who got his start back in 1995 when he was elected to the City Council, and he later won races for the state Assembly and city attorney. He went on to campaign for mayor last year, but his effort was hindered by allegations that his office concealed evidence in a long-running criminal investigation involving over-billing by the Department of Water and Power, a scandal that resulted in a guilty plea for one of Feuer's former top deputies.
Feuer, who struggled to raise money, ended up dropping out ahead of the nonpartisan primary and endorsing Bass. Feuer got some welcome news in August, though, when federal authorities announced that the city attorney was not a target in their probe.
Feuer joins a field of Democratic congressional candidates that already included:
- Tech businessman Joshua Bocanegra
- Assemblywoman Laura Friedman
- 2022 candidate Maebe A. Girl
- Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education member Nick Melvoin
- State Sen. Anthony Portantino
Actor Ben Savage, the former "Boy Meets World" star who unsuccessfully ran for West Hollywood City Council in 2022, has also filed with the FEC, though he has not yet announced he's in. Joe Biden carried this seat by a 72-20 margin, so there's a very good chance that two Democrats could advance out of the top-two primary.
There's no obvious frontrunner in this field, which still has plenty of time to expand, though Primary School notes that Bocanegra stands out as the contender who has tried to bring back the dead. Popular Science interviewed Bocanegra in 2015 about his company's efforts, and he explained:
"We'll first collect extensive data on our members for years prior to their death via various apps we're developing. After death we'll freeze the brain using cryonics technology. When the technology is fully developed we'll implant the brain into an artificial body. The artificial body functions will be controlled with your thoughts by measuring brain waves. As the brain ages we'll use nanotechnology to repair and improve cells. Cloning technology is going to help with this too."
Bocanegra further predicted, "We believe we can resurrect the first human within 30 years," so we have another 22 years to see if he was right. His campaign website, though, does not mention anything about resurrection: Instead, he writes that he started "a med-tech startup where I assembled a team of scientists and researchers to extend human life through advances in robotics, artificial intelligence and medical nanotechnology."
Judges
● WI Supreme Court: Former Justice Dan Kelly’s allies at Fair Courts America, a super PAC funded by megadonors Dick and Liz Uihlein, have launched a $500,000 opening TV ad campaign ahead of the Feb. 21 nonpartisan primary, a move that comes around the same time that the contest’s other conservative, Waukesha County Circuit Judge Jennifer Dorow, is also airing her first TV spot. Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Janet Protasiewicz is in the midst of her own $700,000 buy; Dane County Circuit Court Judge Everett Mitchell, who is also a Democrat, has not yet gone on the air.
The pro-Kelly group, which previously spent $250,000 on radio spots, opens with a narrator warning, “Madison liberals are trying to take over the Wisconsin Supreme Court. That’s why we need to elect conservative Justice Dan Kelly.” Dorow’s commercial, meanwhile, touts her service as the judge at the trial of Darrell Brooks, who was convicted of killing six people at the 2021 Waukesha Christmas parade. The ad shows footage of Brooks’ SUV right before it slammed into the crowd and people fleeing afterwards. WisPolitics says the spot is airing for $60,000.
Mayors and County Leaders
● Chicago, IL Mayor: A new pollster called 1983 Labs, which says it's not affiliated with anyone running in the Feb. 28 nonpartisan primary, has released a new survey showing several candidates within striking distance of securing one of the two spots in the likely April runoff:
Mayor Lori Lightfoot: 16
Wealthy perennial candidate Willie Wilson: 14
former Chicago Public Schools CEO Paul Vallas: 10
Cook County Commissioner Brandon Johnson: 9
Rep. Chuy Garcia: 7
Alderman Sophia King: 6
State Rep. Kam Buckner: 6
Activist Ja'Mal Green: 6
Write-in/ other: 1
Alderman Roderick Sawyer: 1
Undecided: 22
We've seen several other polls in the last month, but there's no consensus at all on the state of the race.
● Des Moines, IA Mayor: While Des Moines Mayor Frank Cownie came close to losing his 2019 re-election bid to a fellow Democrat, he has not ruled out seeking a historic sixth term this year as the leader of Iowa's largest city. Cownie, who is the capital city's longest-serving leader, told the Des Moines Register that he was not ready to announce if he'll compete in the November nonpartisan contest.
City Council member Josh Mandelbaum, though, isn't waiting for an answer, and he kicked off his own campaign for mayor on Monday. The candidate filing deadline isn't until September, so this race may take a while to take shape no matter what Cownie does.
● Lincoln, NE Mayor: Republican Gov. Jim Pillen this week endorsed state Sen. Suzanne Geist's campaign against Lincoln Mayor Leirion Gaylor Baird, who is one of the few prominent Democrats in the state. Gaylor Baird, Geist and another Republican, Christian radio executive Stan Parker, are all campaigning in the April nonpartisan primary, and the top two vote-getters will advance to the May general election.
Other Races
● MS-LG: Mississippi state Sen. Chris McDaniel, a longtime ally of neo-Confederate groups who almost ousted the late Sen. Thad Cochran in the 2014 Republican primary, announced Monday that he'd challenge Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann in this year's nomination contest for one of the most powerful offices in this red state.
McDaniel, who entered the race just two days before candidate filing closed, asked his audience, "Do you want a Trump or DeSantis, or do you want a Mitt Romney or a Liz Cheney?" The state senator argued he was trying to beat Hosemann in the Aug. 8 primary by casting the incumbent, who leads the state Senate, as a moderate whose "beliefs align more with the Democratic Party than they do with the party of Reagan and Goldwater."
Among other things, McDaniel faulted Hosemann for appointing his Democratic colleagues as committee chairs, supporting a Medicaid expansion for postpartum mothers, and telling Trump's bogus "election integrity" panel to "go jump in the Gulf" back in 2017. "There is no honor in compromise," he declared, "There is only weakness in surrender." Hosemann's team responded to the challenge by defending his conservative credentials and blasting McDaniel as "the least effective politician in the state with the largest ego."
Two little-known candidates also are competing for the GOP nod, and their presence could prevent either Hosemann or McDaniel from winning the majority of the vote they'd need to avoid a runoff on Aug. 29. Governors and lieutenant governors compete in separate elections, and whoever wins this primary will be the favorite against Ryan Grover, a graphic designer who was the one Democrat to file, to take what's arguably the most influential job in Mississippi politics.
The lieutenant governor controls the state Senate's committee assignments, including chairmanships, which gives them a massive amount of influence over what legislation does or does not pass. The state Supreme Court in 1987 upheld the office's powers, much to the disappointment of one dissenting justice who called the post "a powerful legislative creature, a super-senator, vested with sufficient legislative authority to virtually dominate the entire Senate."
McDaniel is aiming to become this "super-senator" nearly a decade after he almost joined the U.S. Senate by toppling Cochran. McDaniel rallied the still-powerful tea party to take on the incumbent, whom he also went after for being too willing to compromise, and he immediately earned endorsements from anti-establishment groups who also detested the veteran appropriator. Cochran, meanwhile, never seemed to recognize what direction his party was heading in, and he didn't have the fire-in-the-belly conservatism that primary voters craved.
McDaniel, a former radio host who had a long record of delivering speeches at Sons of Confederate Veterans gatherings, emerged as the frontrunner even after some of his old misogynistic rantings surfaced. (To take just one example: "It's so interesting to see this woman basically using her boobies to—I shouldn't have said that—using her breasts to run for office.") McDaniel also seemed to ride out ugly headlines describing how one of his allies was arrested for covertly filming Cochran's ailing wife, Rose Cochran, at her nursing home.
McDaniel outpaced the incumbent 49.5-49.0 in the primary, but the presence of a minor third candidate kept him from taking the majority he needed to win outright. The state senator still seemed to be on track for a knockout win a few weeks later, though, even after one of his top staffers was found locked inside the Hinds County courthouse hours after officials finished tabulating votes there.
What instead followed, though, was a truly nasty three-week runoff that did not go according to plan for McDaniel. Cochran highlighted his long ties to the state's Black voters to encourage this heavily Democratic group to vote in the Republican contest, a strategy that made all the difference. The senator, powered by strong turnout in predominantly African American areas, won 51-49, a result that McDaniel and his allies refused to accept. The defeated challenger instead argued in court that Democratic voters had illegally voted in the GOP primary and demanded a new election, which he never got.
McDaniel, who did win another term in the state Senate the next year, announced in 2018 that he'd challenge Mississippi's other Republican senator, Roger Wicker, but the two never faced off. Cochran, who was in poor health, resigned a short time later, and McDaniel quickly entered the officially nonpartisan special election to succeed the man he still refused to accept had beaten him. But his campaign against appointed Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, who had Donald Trump's endorsement, never caught fire, and he finished a distant third in the nonpartisan primary with just 16%.
McDaniel once again remained in the state Senate, and he was a vocal opponent of the 2020 drive to retire the 126-year-old state flag, which prominently displayed the Confederate battle emblem, in the face of a boycott by the NCAA and SEC. He argued the plan was part of the "rise of a very intolerant faction on the American Left," and he dismissed a poll showing that voters wanted to do away with the banner as "absolute nonsense." The GOP-dominated legislature ended up retiring the flag, and voters went on to approve a new design months later.
McDaniel now is once again going after an incumbent from his own party, though this time, he's sacrificing his spot in the upper chamber in order to do it. He said at his kickoff that he actually has always respected Cochran, who died in 2019, and would like to meet the late senator's family: The Clarion-Ledger, referencing the illicit recording of Rose Cochran, wrote, "They have thus far refused to meet with him in the nine years following the scandal."
