The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, and Stephen Wolf, with additional contributions from Daniel Donner, David Jarman, Steve Singiser, James Lambert and David Beard.
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Leading Off
● NY-22: Air Force veteran Sarah Klee Hood on Thursday announced that she’s challenging freshman Republican Rep. Brandon Williams in New York’s 22nd District, a constituency in the Syracuse and Utica areas that Joe Biden took 53-45 but where Democrats have long struggled down the ballot. However, there’s an increasing chance that New York will have a new congressional map next year, which could see the district turn bluer.
Republicans flipped a long-ago incarnation of this Syracuse-based seat in 1980, and the only two times they’ve lost it during the ensuing four decades of maps were when Democrat Dan Maffei pulled off nonconsecutive victories in 2008 and 2012. Klee Hood, a member of the Town Board for the small community of DeWitt, sought to end that streak last year, and though she raised only about $170,000 when she sought the Democratic nomination she held frontrunner Francis Conole to a 40-35 victory.
Conole reportedly has decided not to run again, and Klee Hood, who currently has the primary to herself, is arguing she’ll do far better on the financial front this time. She told the National Journal that she’s since left her full-time job in order to focus on her campaign, saying, “I have called in the last few weeks more people for fundraising than I had the entire cycle last year.”
Last year, Williams overcame $1 million in primary spending from the Congressional Leadership Fund and defeated businessman Steve Wells, whom the powerful GOP super PAC evidently believed was a more electable option to replace retiring Republican Rep. John Katko. But the CLF and NRCC put aside any doubts about Williams in the general election and spent a combined $5.8 million to help him, compared to $4.3 million its Democratic counterparts shelled out to boost Conole. Williams ultimately won 50-49 in a race where he enjoyed some major help at the top of the ticket: According to calculations from Bloomberg’s Greg Giroux, Republican Lee Zeldin beat Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul 53-47 here as Williams was pulling off his tight win.
However, there’s a growing possibility that the new congressman won’t be defending the same boundaries he won in 2022. Hochul and Attorney General Tish James recently filed a brief in support of a lawsuit asking that the court-drawn congressional and state Senate maps used in 2022 be replaced by maps drawn by the state's bipartisan redistricting commission. A trial-level court rejected that request last year, but plaintiffs have appealed that ruling to an intermediate appellate court. The case could ultimately wind up before the Court of Appeals, New York's top court, which is about to undergo some major changes.
It was the Court of Appeals, ruling in a separate case last year, that ordered a lower court to draw those new maps in a sharply divided 4-3 decision. But the conservative majority behind that opinion is no more: Chief Judge Janet DiFiore unexpectedly announced her resignation in July, and after Hochul's previous nomination went down in flames, she's now nominated one of the dissenters, Judge Rowan Wilson, to take DiFiore's place. Meanwhile, to fill Wilson's slot as associate judge, Hochul has nominated Caitlin Halligan, a former state solicitor general.
While Wilson and Halligan have yet to be confirmed by the state Senate, there's been no sign of sharp opposition that greeted Hochul's first pick, Judge Hector LaSalle, whom many progressives feared would have been likely to side with DiFiore's faction on many issues, including this one. There's no assurance that a new-look Court of Appeals will agree with the plaintiffs in this latest redistricting challenge (and in any event, the intermediate Appellate Division must still rule first), but Hochul's new brief suggests she thinks it might.
Even with a favorable ruling, there’s no telling how a new congressional map might shape up. The Democratic-run legislature wound up drawing new maps last year after the redistricting commission deadlocked, but the Court of Appeals determined that lawmakers lacked the power to step into the breach. If the courts ultimately sends the process back to the commission, another stalemate is likely, so Democrats may be hoping that this time, the Court of Appeals does in fact allow legislators to create their own map. If so, we can expect the 22nd—as well as several other Republican-held seats—to be reshaped to suit Democrats’ preferences, just as their original map did.
Williams, who resides in GOP colleague Claudia Tenney’s 24th District, cited the uncertainty over the maps to justify why he’s held off on following through on his campaign pledge to move into the district he represents. The congressman, who lives about 2 miles outside of his constituency, tells syracuse.com, “There's no consensus about redistricting, so we're not going to make a commitment until we know what's going to happen.”
1Q Fundraising
The deadline for federal candidates to submit their fourth quarter fundraising totals is April 15.
- IN-Sen: Jim Banks (R): $1.3 million raised, $2.26 million cash on hand
- CA-30: Ben Savage (D): $25,000 raised, additional $77,000 self-funded, $83,000 cash on hand
- CA-40: Young Kim (R-inc): $830,000 raised, $900,000 cash on hand
- MN-02: Angie Craig (D-inc): $685,000 raised, $430,000 cash on hand
- NJ-05: Josh Gottheimer (D-inc): $1.1 million raised, $14.2 million cash on hand
- NV-03: Susie Lee (D-inc): $500,000 raised, $400,000 cash on hand
- NV-04: David Flippo (R): $131,000 raised, additional $87,000 self-funded, $163,000 cash on hand
- NY-19: Marc Molinaro (R-inc): $639,000 raised
- TX-23: Tony Gonzales (R-inc): $1.31 million raised, $1.27 million cash on hand
Senate
● CA-Sen: While Rep. Ro Khanna called for incumbent Dianne Feinstein’s resignation Wednesday after both Politico and NBC reported that her fellow Senate Democrats feared she wouldn’t be returning from what’s been a nearly two-month medical leave, other members of the delegation aren’t joining him right now.
Speaker Emeritus Nancy Pelosi, who supports fellow Rep. Adam Schiff in the contest to succeed the retiring incumbent, notably responded instead, “I don’t know what political agendas are at work going after Sen. Feinstein in that way. I’ve never seen them go after a man who was sick in the Senate in that way.” Khanna, several observers noted, backs colleague Rep. Barbara Lee in the contest to succeed the retiring Feinstein, and Lee may have the most to gain from an vacant Senate seat. Gov. Gavin Newsom has promised to appoint a Black woman should a vacancy open up, and several observers have predicted he’d choose Lee.
Feinstein herself put out a statement Wednesday evening reading, “I intend to return as soon as possible once my medical team advises that it’s safe for me to travel.” The senator also asked for Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to temporarily replace her on the crucial Judiciary Committee, where her absence has allowed Republicans to delay Joe Biden’s judicial nominations. However, that sort of switch midway through the session would require significant Republican support, and the GOP minority doesn’t appear interested in going along.
● PA-Sen: Franklin & Marshall College's inaugural poll of this race finds Democratic Sen. Bob Casey with a 42-35 edge over rich guy Dave McCormick, whom GOP leaders badly want to run. The incumbent also enjoys a larger 47-31 advantage against state Sen. Doug Mastriano, which is similar to Mastriano's losing margin last fall against now-Gov. Josh Shapiro.
● UT-Sen: Utah state House Speaker Brad Wilson revealed Thursday that he’d formed an exploratory committee for a potential primary bid against Sen. Mitt Romney, who has yet to announce if he’ll be seeking a second term after spending the first as Donald Trump’s favorite GOP chew toy. Wilson’s hardly the only big name who could run, though, as Rep. Chris Stewart’s team didn’t shoot down a report about his own interest.
Wilson did not commit to anything either, telling Fox 13, “I'm going to make a decision over the course of the next few months as I go around the state and listen to what people are looking for.” The speaker, who did not attack the incumbent, also presented himself as someone who could “get a lot of people with very differing opinions together,” which is not what we’d expect to hear from a member of Trump’s GOP. But Romney’s side, reports the Salt Lake Tribune, was not happy at all when they heard Wilson would be filling out paperwork for a potential challenge.
The Deseret News reports Stewart, who has been an ally of GOP extremists, is thinking about it, and the only comment his spokesman offered was that he had “no comment on the race at this time.” Local and national observers also continue to talk up Attorney General Sean Reyes as a possible hardline foe for Romney. The most recent thing we heard from his camp was in November when an advisor said the attorney general was “certainly set up to run, but it does not mean he's considering it.”
The Tribune additionally relays that two more names are “said to be considering” a campaign: state Sen. Mike Kennedy, who lost to Romney in 2018, and former Trump national security adviser Robert O’Brien. Fox 13 also name-drops real estate executive Thomas Wright, who took 8% in the 2020 nomination contest for governor, and former state Rep. Becky Edwards, who lost the 2022 Senate primary to incumbent Mike Lee 62-30.
Romney was actually Trump’s endorsed candidate when he first went up against then-state Rep. Kennedy, who is not related to the Kennedy who did beat Romney in a Senate race, the late Massachusetts Democrat Ted Kennedy. Mike Kennedy narrowly won the party convention, an event that’s long been dominated by activists who are far more ideologically extreme than their party's electorate at large, but Romney fended him off 71-29 in the primary two months later. Kennedy revived his career in late 2020 when party delegates picked him to fill a vacant state Senate seat, and he held it two years later without opposition.
Former Rep. Jason Chaffetz also expressed interest in February, though the Fox talking head has since then also talked about a possible nomination battle against Gov. Spencer Cox. But the campaign manager for Chaffetz’s successor, Rep. John Curtis, played down speculation the congressman could challenge Romney on Thursday, declaring, “He’d like to stay where he can get the most done for Utah. He doesn’t think it makes sense to start all over by running for U.S. Senate.”
Govenors
● KY-Gov: The RGA's State Solutions Inc. affiliate is beginning its TV offensive with a spot targeting Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear for vetoing a bill last month that bans gender-affirming care for young trans people, something the GOP legislature quickly overrode. The Dispatch's David Drucker says the ad is airing for six figures, but there are no other details about the size of the buy.
House
● IN-03: Army veteran Jon Kenworthy, who recently finished a stint as an aide to Sen. Mike Braun, this week joined the GOP primary for this safely red seat.
● IN-05: Howey Politics reports that GOP state Rep. Chuck Goodrich plans to launch his campaign for this gerrymandered open seat after the legislative session ends on April 27. Goodrich previously filled out FEC paperwork in mid-March.
● NY-03: CNBC reports that former Rep. Tom Suozzi is now considering seeking the Democratic nod to try to wrest his old Long Island constituency back from the globally infamous George Santos. That's a big shift from late January when Politico wrote that Suozzi, who left in 2022 to wage a failed primary bid against Gov. Kathy Hochul, had "mostly been noncommittal" about a comeback bid.
Mayors and County Leaders
● Denver, CO Mayor: Former state Sen. Mike Johnston this week earned the backing of former Mayor Federico Peña, whose 1981 win made him first Latino elected to lead Denver, ahead of the June 6 nonpartisan general election.
● Philadelphia, PA Mayor: Former City Council member Derek Green said Thursday he was suspending his campaign to win the May 16 Democratic nomination, a move that came days after former colleague Maria Quiñones Sánchez made the same announcement. Green, like Quiñones Sánchez, noted that most of his main intra-party foes have vastly more money than him, telling the Philadelphia Inquirer he’d decided to leave after “realizing how we get to the end of this race and the dollars that are necessary to do what we need to do.”
Grocer Jeff Brown also earned the backing of the city’s police union on Thursday, an endorsement that comes after a tough few days for him. A judge on Monday issued a temporary order banning Brown’s super PAC allies from spending more money on his behalf, a move that came after the Philadelphia Board of Ethics filed a lawsuit claiming that Brown and the group had improperly coordinated. The candidate called the allegations a “political hit job” at the following day’s debate, but it was his answer about whether Philadelphia should keep sending much of its trash for disposal in the predominantly Black city of Chester that drew considerably more attention.
When moderator Shiba Russell asked Brown if he’d continue this practice despite “accusations of pollution and environmental racism,” he responded that, while he’d need to think about it, “Chester is Chester. I’m worried about Philadelphians and how their lives are.” When Russell followed up by asking, “So you don’t care about Chester?” Brown declared, “I do care, but I don’t work for them if I’m the mayor. I work for Philadelphia, and the trash has to go somewhere, and whoever gets it is going to be unhappy with it.”
Former City Controller Rebecca Rhynhart and former Council members Cherelle Parker and Helen Gym immediately slammed their opponent’s answer. Parker, who is Black, declared his “response is the same way you treat the Black and brown community,” and she later said at the debate she’d work with local leaders to address public health “including my good friend, Mayor Thaddeus Kirkland of Chester.” Brown’s spokesperson said the next day, “To suggest that his focus on serving Philadelphians over residents of another municipality is somehow racist is a lie and the kind of distortion we’ve come to expect from some of the other candidates.”
The Inquirer’s Anna Orso also writes that, while Brown’s side has been one of the top TV spenders for most of the campaign, that’s changed during the last two weeks. Orso says that Brown has deployed less than $100,000 a week, putting him behind self-funder Allan Domb as well as Gym and Rhynhart.
