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
● Jacksonville, FL Mayor: The race to lead Jacksonville, which at nearly 1 million residents is both Florida's biggest city and the largest in the country with a Republican mayor, will head to a May 16 runoff between Democrat Donna Deegan and Republican Daniel Davis after no candidate secured a majority of the vote on Tuesday night.
Deegan, a former local TV news anchor, finished first with 39%, while Davis, the CEO of the Jacksonville Chamber of Commerce, took the second slot with 25% after a nasty and expensive intra-party battle with City Councilmember LeAnne Cumber, who ended up in fifth place with just 8%. Overall, the four Republican candidates collectively accounted for 51% of the vote while Deegan and another Democrat combined for 48% (an independent took 1%), which was by far the best showing for Democrats in a first-round election since 1995.
Republicans, however, have largely controlled city politics since they ended a century of Democratic dominance in Jacksonville three decades ago, when Mayor Ed Austin switched parties while in office in 1993. Since that time, they've only lost one mayoral contest. That defeat came in 2011, when Democrat Alvin Brown scored a major upset in an open seat contest, a win that also made him the city's first Black chief executive. Four years later, however, Brown narrowly lost to Republican Lenny Curry, who is now term-limited.
One recent positive development for Democrats, though, came in 2020, when Joe Biden became the party's first presidential candidate to carry Duval County (whose residents can all vote in Jacksonville elections) since Jimmy Carter, beating Donald Trump by a 51-47 margin. The electorate in presidential years, however, differs considerably from those in local elections, and turnout was unusually low on Tuesday.
And despite their stronger showing at the top of the ticket, Democrats fared poorly in elections for the City Council, where Republicans currently hold a 14-5 majority. That bottom line won't change, since the GOP is assured of winning 12 seats and Democrats just two, with another five headed to a runoff with one candidate from each party. That desultory outcome came despite the fact that a coalition of civil rights groups successfully challenged the city's most recent redistricting plan as an unconstitutional racial gerrymander that harmed Black voters and persuaded a judge to adopt one of their own maps instead.
The GOP's grasp on the council could prove a significant obstacle to Deegan should she prevail in May, since it only takes a simple majority of all members elected (or two-thirds of members present) to override a mayor's vetoes. But before she can even think about that problem, she'll will first have to get past Davis, a former councilmember himself who to date has outraised Deegan by a wide $6 million to $1.2 million margin.
The Downballot
● It's just barely springtime in an off year, but there's been loads of election news lately, so co-hosts David Nir and David Beard have a super-sized roundup on this week's episode of The Downballot. The Davids recap the first round of voting in the race for Jacksonville mayor (which saw Democrats do unusually well) and the collapse of an effort to recall New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell before turning to big batch of 2024 updates.
On tap for the Senate: The GOP's desperate effort to compete with Democratic fundraising enthusiasm by recruiting self-funders; why Republicans are afraid the guy who succeeded John Boehner in Congress will try to challenge Sherrod Brown; and how Democrats' plans to clear the field in Michigan may not succeed. Plus developments in the battle for New Hampshire's governorship, a key House seat in Wisconsin, and the saga of Tennessee's answer to George Santos.
New episodes of The Downballot come out every Thursday morning. You can subscribe on Apple Podcasts to make sure you never miss a show, and you'll find a transcript of this week's episode right here by noon Eastern Time.
Governors
● NH-Gov: Republican Gov. Chris Sununu, who hasn't ruled out seeking an unprecedented fifth two-year term as governor, says he'll decide on whether to pursue a longshot campaign for president "sometime in the summer." However, Sununu could still run for governor even if a White House bid crashes and burns, since New Hampshire's primary for state office—in contrast with its presidential contest—is always one of the last in the nation: It's always held in September, with the filing deadline in June.
Judges
● WI Supreme Court: "What a jerk!" So says a woman in progressive Judge Janet Protasiewicz's latest ad slamming conservative Dan Kelly for likening Social Security to slavery—an infamous quote that both Protasiewicz and her allies have used in previous ads. In a lengthy 2013 blog post, Kelly indeed made that very comparison:
Remember involuntary servitude? I know – we need to reach back into antiquity for the definition. Its essence is the requirement that, against your will, the benefit of your work goes to someone else without receiving anything in exchange. […]
We all see involuntary servitude every day, but without recognizing it for what it is. […] When the recipients are people who have chosen to retire without sufficient assets to support themselves, we call the transfer Social Security and Medicare. And it's welfare when the recipients are those who don't create enough to sustain themselves during their working years.
In a book he penned the following year, Kelly added that affirmative action was also slavery: "Neither can exist without the foundational principle that it is acceptable to force someone into an unwanted economic relationship," he wrote. "Morally, and as a matter of law, they are the same." (Is there anything that doesn't qualify as slavery in his mind?)
Kelly even included the chapter this passage was drawn from when he submitted an application to be appointed to a vacant state Supreme Court seat in 2016, though he refused to answer questions about it after then-Gov. Scott Walker tapped him for the job. Four years later, Kelly lost his bid for a full term to progressive Janet Karofsky in a landslide.
As she keeps putting new spots on the airwaves, Protasiewicz continues to dominate in ad spending: According to AdImpact's latest figures, she's spent $9 million versus just $500,000 for Kelly. Though conservative outside groups have outspent their liberal counterparts, $5.5 million to $2.5 million, as the New York Times' Reid Epstein recently explained, the rates that television stations charge to campaigns are approximately a third as much as those paid by third-party organizations, so Protasiewicz's side has run far more total advertisements.
Mayors and County Leaders
● Chicago, IL Mayor: Former Gov. Pat Quinn, who came close to pursuing a bid for mayor himself, has endorsed former Chicago Public Schools CEO Paul Vallas in his April 4 runoff against Cook County Commissioner Brandon Johnson. Prior to the first round of voting, Quinn had backed Rep. Chuy Garcia, who ideologically is much closer to the progressive Johnson, but Vallas served as Quinn's running mate during his unsuccessful bid for a second term as governor in 2014.