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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Leading Off
● DCCC: The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee just rolled out the first installment of its Red to Blue list highlighting candidates it thinks have the best shot at winning Republican seats in November, but some of them still have to make it through contested primaries first.
State Rep. Janelle Bynum is competing with two other notable intra-party foes to take back a central Oregon seat that Republican Lori Chavez-DeRemer flipped last cycle, and a third could be on the way soon. Yet Bynum may not be the favorite to advance: Her top opponent is Jamie McLeod-Skinner, who was the party's nominee in 2022 and has released polls showing her far ahead—but could be vulnerable due to some ugly allegations that she mistreated her staff.
Check out Jeff Singer's piece for more on the inaugural Red to Blue class―including why the DCCC is counting on one inductee to avoid a disaster in California's top-two primary.
4Q Fundraising
Senate
● MT-Sen, NV-Sen: Major outside groups from both parties that are involved in Senate races announced this week their first TV ad reservations for the general election, a move that allows these super PACs to lock in cheaper ad rates before high demand for pushes prices up.
Politico reports that the pro-Democratic Senate Majority PAC has booked $27 million to defend Montana Sen. Jon Tester and $36 million to protect Nevada Sen. Jacky Rosen. For Republicans, NBC says that the Senate Leadership Fund is reserving $24.6 million in Montana, with its allies at American Crossroads booking a similar $23.3 million in that state. SMP's ads will start sometime in the summer, while the GOP's spots are set to begin Sept. 3 and continue through Election Day.
● NJ-Sen: Republican Curtis Bashaw, a developer who is the former executive director of the New Jersey Casino Reinvestment Authority, announced Monday that he would run for the Senate. Bashaw would be the state's first gay member of the upper chamber, though he'd need exceptional luck to win a state that hasn't elected a Republican to the Senate since 1972.
● WV-Sen: Candidate filing closed Saturday for West Virginia's May 14 primary, and the state has a list of contenders here.
Republican Gov. Jim Justice, who has the backing of the NRSC and its allies, looked like the favorite to win the state's Senate race even before Donald Trump endorsed him in October and Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin announced his retirement the following month. Rep. Alex Mooney and five other Republicans are still hoping to deny him the GOP nod, but every poll we've seen has found Justice far ahead.
Still, Mooney and his allies at the well-funded Club for Growth are betting that they can pull off an upset by questioning the conservative bona fides of Justice, who was elected governor as a Democrat in 2016 and switched parties the next year. Justice's side has hit back with ads attacking Mooney's past career in the Maryland state legislature and portraying the Club as an anti-Trump outfit.
Justice's critics are also hoping that ongoing news stories about his family's business problems will finally hurt him. Most recently, Carter Bank, which is trying to collect $300 million in defaulted loans, notified stakeholders and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission last week that it "plans to pursue aggressively all remedies afforded it to collect all amounts due and owing by the Justice Entities."
Three Democrats are waging longshot bids in what's become one of the reddest states in the nation. Wheeling Mayor Glenn Elliot and Marine veteran Zachary Shrewsbury were unexpectedly joined last week by disgraced coal baron Don Blankenship, who lost the 2018 Republican primary for this seat.
Governors
● DE-Gov: New campaign finance reports show New Castle County Executive Matt Meyer finishing 2023 with a hefty $1.7 million to $688,000 cash on hand advantage over Lt. Gov. Bethany Hall-Long in the race for Delaware's open governorship, though the two won't face off until the Sept. 10 Democratic primary.
A third Democrat, National Wildlife Federation leader Collin O'Mara, has not yet announced he's joining the race to replace termed-out Democratic incumbent John Carney, but he's already begun seeding his war chest and finished December with $870,000 available, thanks mostly to self-funding.
Meyer outraised Hall-Long, who paused fundraising for most of October while her campaign conducted an internal audit, $675,000 to $171,000 over the course of last year. The Delaware News Journal also notes that Meyer self-funded an additional $200,000, while Hall-Long transferred another $650,000 from other committees to her new effort.
Republicans last won the governorship in 1988, and so far they don't seem to be making a serious effort to end that drought. The only announced GOP candidate appears to be retired Rehoboth Beach police officer Jerrold Price, who launched in early December but only reported bringing in $5,000 from a loan. The First State's filing deadline for major party candidates is July 9, which is later than any state but Louisiana.
● NJ-Gov: Republican state Sen. Jon Bramnick announced over the weekend that he would compete in next year's race to succeed New Jersey's termed-out governor, Democrat Phil Murphy. Bramnick, who earned the title "Funniest Lawyer in New Jersey" in what Politico's Matt Friedman calls "a State Bar Association contest decades ago," launched his 2025 effort from a comedy club where he sometimes still takes the stage.
Bramnick has stood out for years as a rare Republican critic of Trump, giving him crossover appeal that helped him win reelection last year 53-46 in a seat that Joe Biden took 58-41 in 2020. But the state senator, who previously served as the state Assembly's minority leader, hasn't faced a primary opponent since well before Trump came on the political scene.
Still, Bramnick insisted to the New York Times' Tracey Tully that he wouldn't change his approach for a statewide bid. "I'm not going to try to thread the needle," he said, referring to the tension between appealing to Trump-loving primary voters and a more moderate electorate at large. "I don’t think that’s what people want. They want authenticity."
Bramnick joins a nomination battle that includes former Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli, who announced a second bid days after losing the 2021 general election to Murphy by a surprisingly narrow 51-48 spread. Friedman adds that conservative radio host Bill Spadea "has also been making the rounds in New Jersey for a potential gubernatorial run."
The Democratic field is also still taking shape. Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop and former state Senate President Steve Sweeney both announced last year, though Tully adds that Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, as well as Reps. Josh Gottheimer and Mikie Sherrill, are each "expected" to launch their own campaigns at some point.
● WV-Gov: Six Republicans are competing to replace GOP Gov. Jim Justice, who cannot run again because of term limits, though every public poll has shown Attorney General Patrick Morrisey leading the pack. Morrisey, who lost the 2018 Senate race to Democratic incumbent Joe Manchin 50-46, also has the support of the Club for Growth.
Morrisey's main intra-party foes all come from notable political families in the Mountain State. The field includes former Del. Moore Capito, the son and namesake of Sen. Shelley Moore Capito; wealthy businessman Chris Miller, whose mother is Rep. Carol Miller; and Secretary of State Mac Warner, whose relatives have also been involved in West Virginia politics. (Morrisey, for his part, first ran for Congress in New Jersey in 2000.)
Two little-known Republicans are also in, while Huntington Mayor Steve Williams has the Democratic side to himself.
House
● CA-20: Election officials have posted a preliminary list of candidates who filed for the upcoming special election for California's vacant 20th Congressional District, which will feature a somewhat different roster than the regularly scheduled election for a full two-year term.
The three most notable Republicans are running in both races for this conservative district: Assemblyman Vince Fong, Tulare County Sheriff Mike Boudreaux, and casino owner Kyle Kirkland, though Fong's eligibility for the regular election is the subject of a legal challenge by Secretary of State Shirley Weber. A few lesser-known candidates are running only in one election or the other.
In the special, all candidates from all parties will appear together on a single ballot on March 19; if no one gets a majority, a runoff between the top two vote-getters—regardless of party— will take place on May 21. Prior to that, all contenders for the regular election will run in the March 5 primary, which is also a top-two affair. However, it's not possible to avoid a second round in November by taking more than 50%.
● FL-13: Sabrina Bousbar, a former official with the Department of Health and Human Services, has joined the Democratic primary for Florida's 13th Congressional District, a Republican-leaning seat in the St. Petersburg area. Politico's Kimberly Leonard says that Bousbar, the daughter of immigrants from Colombia and Morocco, would be the first Gen Z woman elected to Congress. She will compete against Whitney Fox, a former Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority official, and a handful of other candidates for the right to face freshman GOP Rep. Anna Paulina Luna.
● MD-02: Del. Harry Bhandari, who filed paperwork for a possible congressional bid before Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger announced his retirement last week, became the first Democrat to join Maryland's newest open-seat House race on Monday. Bhandari was born in Nepal and grew up in a village that lacked electricity, according to the Baltimore Sun's Lia Russell, before emigrating in 2005 to the United States, where he became a teacher and later won a seat in the Maryland legislature in 2018. He currently represents about 16% of the 2nd Congressional District, according to calculations by Daily Kos Elections.
● MI-08: Flint Mayor Sheldon Neely, who recently filed paperwork with the FEC, tells MLive's Ron Fonger that he's "planning on making an announcement in February" about whether he'll join the Democratic primary for Michigan's open 8th District. Flint is the largest city in the district and makes up about a tenth of its population, according to data from Daily Kos Elections. A large number of candidates in both parties have previously launched bids for this swingy seat.
● ND-AL, ND-Gov: Former state Sen. Tom Campbell announced Friday that he would run for the House seat held by fellow Republican Kelly Armstrong rather than continue to run against the congressman in the June 11 primary for governor. Campbell joins a nomination contest that includes former state Rep. Rick Becker, who became a Republican once again after challenging Sen. John Hoeven as an independent last cycle.
The pair is likely to have company before too long, though, as Rob Port writes at InForum.com that more Republicans are considering. State Tax Commissioner Brian Kroshus says he expects to decide "soon," while businesswoman Kathy Neset, whom Port calls "a luminary of the North Dakota oil industry," is also talking about getting in. Port additionally relays that people close to state Rep. Greg Stemen say he's thinking about joining the race, though the lawmaker wouldn't comment when asked.
Several other Republicans, however, say they won't run for the House, including former Rep. Rick Berg, former Indian Affairs Commissioner Scott Davis, state Insurance Commissioner Jon Godfread, and state Rep. Eric Murphy.
Meanwhile, state Board of Higher Education member Kevin Black wasn't quite a no, but he sounds unlikely to go for it. "At this point I'm not considering a run," he said. State Sen. Jon Casper responded similarly. "While I have no plans to run this year," he said, "I know we only have one vote in the House and how important that is to the state."
Finally, Port mentions that, while former Lt. Gov. Brent Sanford keeps getting mentioned as a possible candidate for House or governor, he's stopped talking publicly despite "typically being very responsive to my inquiries."
● NE-02, NE-03, NE-Sen-B: The Nebraska Examiner's Aaron Sanderford reports that the Nebraska Republican Party refused to endorse any of the five members of the state's all-GOP congressional delegation at a gathering on Saturday—and is even supporting primary challenges against three of them.
None of these incumbents seem to think the party's endorsement was a prize worth seeking, though, as Sanderford writes that not a single one even applied for it. He adds that the party's fundraising has plunged since 2022, when activists opposed to then-Gov. Pete Ricketts beat out his loyalists to take control of the organization.
It's still possible, though, that one upstart could cause problems for a sitting Nebraska congressman. Businessman Dan Frei, who is challenging Rep. Don Bacon in the swingy 2nd District, held then-Rep. Lee Terry to a shockingly weak 53-47 primary win a decade ago, and Democrats would love it if he softened up Bacon ahead of this year's general election.
By contrast, Rep. Adrian Smith has little to worry about in the dark red 3rd District from John Walz, an engineer who ended 2023 with a negative balance in his campaign account. And Ricketts, who was appointed to the Senate last year, is well-situated against Air Force veteran John Glen Weaver, who ran a little-noticed 2022 campaign in the 1st District. The person who easily beat Weaver, Rep. Mike Flood, does not currently face an intra-party opponent, nor does Sen. Deb Fischer.
● NY-03: Republican Mazi Pilip's newest TV ad is replete with fabricated imagery that invents moments that never happened, even going so far as to have Joe Biden photobomb a press conference he didn't attend.
As Business Insider's Bryan Metzger documents, one altered photo shows former Rep. Tom Suozzi speaking at an event outside the Capitol hosted by the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus in December of 2020 promoting a COVID relief bill.
The original image depicts then-Rep. John Katko and Rep. Abigail Spanberger wearing masks, but those have been removed or concealed. Former Rep. Elaine Luria, meanwhile, has been interposed between Suozzi and Katko, while Biden—who was not president at the time—has been dropped in behind Suozzi's left shoulder.
Another photo purports to show Suozzi shaking hands with Biden in the Oval Office. However, as Inside Elections' Jacob Rubashkin notes, it's actually taken from a picture of the two at a United Federation of Teachers event in New York City celebrating Teacher Union Day in 2019. Because that gathering was held after a walk to raise money to fight breast cancer, many of the attendees, including Suozzi and Biden, wore pink ribbons. Those have been photoshopped out of Pilip's ad.
In addition, Metzger points out that the Oval Office that the two politicians were dropped into was Donald Trump's, not Joe Biden's, based on a comparison of how the decor shifted when the presidency changed hands. Pilip does not appear to have commented on the new ad.
● SC-01: Dan Hanlon, who served as GOP Rep. Nancy Mace's chief of staff until last month, filed FEC paperwork last week for a potential primary challenge against his old boss. Hanlon has not said anything publicly, but an unnamed source confirmed to Business Insider that the filing is authentic.
● TN-05: Freshman Republican Rep. Andy Ogles has spent almost his entire congressional career fending off questions about whether he fabricated large parts of his life story, but party leaders aren't interested in dumping him like they did George Santos. In fact, quite the opposite.
The Tennessee GOP just passed new rules that would make it even harder for candidates to meet its strict definition of "bona fide" Republican and therefore able to run under its banner. And it just so happens that these new by-laws would keep two of Ogles' would-be opponents off the August primary ballot.
Jeff Singer has more on the changes that some GOP leaders may not have fully understood even as they voted them into place.
● WV-01: Rep. Carol Miller's only Republican primary foe is former Del. Derrick Evans, who served 90 days in prison for his participation in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. Evans resigned from the legislature days after the riot after only about a month in office and attracted media attention when he began talking about taking on Miller, but there's still little indication that the incumbent is in any trouble. Donald Trump won this district in the southern half of the state 70-29.
● WV-02: State Treasurer Riley Moore has spent most of this contest on a glide path to replace Rep. Alex Mooney, a fellow Republican who is leaving this seat behind to run for the Senate. Moore is the nephew of Sen. Shelley Moore Capito and also has Mooney's backing. Of his four primary foes, his most prominent rival appears to be retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Chris Walker, who launched his campaign this month. This seat in the northern part of the state favored Donald Trump 68-31.
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