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
● Primary Night: The ultra-expensive Democratic primary in Maryland occupies center stage on Tuesday, but as Jeff Singer details in our multi-state preview, the battle between Angela Alsobrooks and David Trone isn't the only big race to watch.
Republicans in southern West Virginia will decide whether to swap out their congresswoman for a convicted Jan. 6 rioter on the same night that Democrats in the Baltimore suburbs could nominate a Capitol Police officer who protected the very body he wants to serve in.
Two major mayoral races on opposite sides of the country are also on tap: One could end the career of one of Alaska's most prominent hard-right Republicans, while the other resembles a plotline straight out of "The Wire."
Check out our preview an in-depth dive into these races and many more, including a pair of contests that could launch a new generation of dominance for West Virginia's most prominent Republican family—or turn into a personal embarrassment for the state's junior senator.
We'll be liveblogging all of these races at Daily Kos Elections on Tuesday night, starting when the first polls close at 7:30 PM ET. Join us for our complete coverage!
Senate
● Senate: Politico's Burgess Everett reports that One Nation, a dark money group tied to Senate Republican leadership, has reserved an additional $70 million for ad buys targeting five Senate seats held by Democrats, bringing its total spending this cycle to $88 million. The amount for each state, which is considerably larger than what Medium Buying recently reported, is:
- Michigan: $9.4 million beginning in August
- Nevada: $5.9 million beginning June 18
- Ohio: $28.6 million beginning May 22
- Pennsylvania: $18.6 million beginning in mid-June
- Wisconsin: $7.5 million beginning in August
This includes TV, digital, radio, and mail ads that Everett says will center on inflation and immigration.
Everett previously reported how One Nation had reserved $17.9 million in Montana, but one major swing state contest is conspicuously missing from the group's list: Arizona. In another recent story, Everett and Politico's Ally Mutnick relayed that Republican groups have not reserved significant sums to aid Republican Kari Lake, signaling they may lack confidence in her ability to win.
While the two reporters also noted the NRSC is "preparing to launch a joint TV ad buy" with Lake's campaign, such coordinated expenditures would be limited to about $720,000 in total. That amount is far short of what outside groups could spend on their own, though they could still target Arizona later in the cycle if Lake looks more competitive.
● NJ-Sen: Donald Trump on Saturday endorsed Mendham Mayor Christine Serrano Glassner in the June 4 Republican primary. Serrano Glassner is running to the right of self-funding businessman Curtis Bashaw, who said he would remain in the race despite Trump weighing in.
The New Jersey Globe's David Wildstein notes that Bashaw has secured the important "county line" in more than half of New Jersey's counties, but Trump's endorsement has often given GOP primary candidates a major boost. (While Rep. Andy Kim's lawsuit successfully ended the county line ballot format for the Democratic primary, the ruling did not apply to the GOP side this year.)
Governors
● ND-Gov: Rep. Kelly Armstrong has publicized the first poll we've seen of North Dakota's June 11 Republican primary, a survey from Guidant Polling & Strategy that finds him crushing Lt. Gov. Tammy Miller 60-19. Miller's team responded by criticizing Armstrong for sharing his data.
"Confident campaigns don’t release internal polls and spend hundreds of thousands of dollars falsely attacking their opponents," a spokesperson told InForum's Rob Port. Miller did not, however, provide any contrary polling.
Armstrong won the state GOP's endorsement last month after Miller skipped the convention, and Sens. John Hoeven and Kevin Cramer also backed Armstrong shortly before party delegates convened. Miller has the support of retiring Gov. Doug Burgum, who appointed her to her current position early last year.
● VT-Gov: Republican Gov. Phil Scott announced he would seek reelection this fall for a fifth two-year term, putting to rest any slim hopes that the popular incumbent might retire.
While Vermont has become one of the bluest states in the country in federal elections, voters have been much more open to splitting their tickets at the state level. Thanks to this habit, Scott won reelection in a landslide in both 2020 and 2022 despite Democrats winning by blowout margins at the federal level both years.
Scott still lacks a prominent Democratic challenger ahead of the May 30 filing deadline. Some notable figures such as former Gov. Howard Dean and former Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger previously expressed interest in running, but Scott's decision to run again could deter big-name Democrats from jumping in.
However, Democrats and their progressive allies in the legislature hold supermajorities that allow them to override vetoes, and there's a good chance they'll maintain that advantage after November.
House
● AZ-03: Former state Sen. Raquel Terán's allies at Progress Now AZ have publicized a late-April poll from TargetSmart that shows her leading former Phoenix City Councilmember Yassamin Ansari 30-20 in the July 30 Democratic primary. A 37% plurality are undecided, while a pair of underfunded candidates split the balance.
The group released this survey about two weeks after Ansari dropped her own internal from Lake Research Partners that found her beating Terán 32-21, which is almost a mirror image of TargetSmart's results. We haven't seen any other polls this year of the race to replace Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego, who is leaving this safely blue Phoenix-based seat behind to run for the Senate.
● MI-08: Retired Dow Chemical Company executive Mary Draves on Monday launched her first ads ahead of the Aug. 6 Republican primary for this open swing seat, and the Detroit News' Melissa Nann Burke reports she's putting $58,000 behind her opening TV and digital ads. But she didn't have to wait even a day for a response from her main-intra party foe, as 2022 nominee Paul Junge debuted his own spot attacking her.
Junge's commercial, which uses footage from Draves' introductory ad, insists that she's far from the ardent conservative she presents herself as. The narrator declares that when Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer "needed a trusted ally, she picked Mary Draves for her climate change council to push her green agenda." There is no word how much Junge is spending on this spot.
● MN-05: Rep. Ilhan Omar won Saturday's Democratic convention, narrowly surpassing the 60% threshold needed to earn the party's endorsement and access its resources ahead of the Aug. 13 primary.
Omar's main challenger, former Minneapolis City Council member Don Samuels, won support from 39% of delegates after a third candidate, former National Guard recruiter Tim Peterson, dropped out and endorsed Samuels just before the vote.
Samuels, who held the incumbent to a narrow 50-48 win in the 2022 primary, said he would continue his campaign following the convention.
● MT-02: Elect Principled Veterans Fund has released a survey from Cygnal that shows its endorsed candidate, state Auditor Troy Downing, lapping former Rep. Denny Rehberg 28-12 in the June 4 Republican primary for this conservative open seat in eastern Montana. Almost 40% of respondents are undecided, while none of the other seven Republicans hit double-digit support.
The memo disclosed that a previously unreleased mid-April poll gave Downing a smaller 21-11 edge against Rehberg. A Downing internal conducted around that time by Guidant Polling & Strategy showed him beating the former congressman 38-26. No one has released any contradictory data in the two months since candidate filing closed.
● OK-04: American Action Network, a dark money group aligned with House GOP leadership, has begun airing a TV ad that praises longtime Rep. Tom Cole on immigration ahead of the June 18 Republican primary, where he faces a challenge from businessman Paul Bondar.
● SC-01: A mysterious new super PAC called South Carolina Patriots has spent more than $1 million on TV and mail ads opposing GOP Rep. Nancy Mace, reports The Post and Courier's Caitlin Byrd, and could be linked to allies of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, whom Mace voted to depose last year.
The PAC hasn't yet disclosed its donors, but Byrd notes that it received $15,000 from the American Prosperity Alliance, which is backed by McCarthy allies and has already been running ads against Mace.
● VA-10: Retiring Rep. Jennifer Wexton endorsed state Sen. Suhas Subramanyam on Monday over 11 other candidates in the June 18 Democratic primary to succeed her in Virginia's 10th District.
Wexton, who is not seeking a fourth term due to worsening symptoms of a neurodegenerative disease, praised the state senator to the Washington Post as someone who has won "tough fights" for progressive causes while still being able to work with Republicans "to make progress on the issues we care most about."
Wexton's decision is a boost to Subramanyam in a busy race where no candidate had emerged as the clear frontrunner. The field includes five other current or former legislators: state Sen. Jennifer Boysko; Dels. Dan Helmer, Michelle Maldonado, and David Reid; and former state House Speaker Eileen Filler-Corn. Also in the running are defense contractor Krystle Kaul and former state Education Secretary Atif Qarni.
There has been relatively little outside spending here so far, though that could change in the final month of the primary. The biggest independent expenditure to date was the $218,000 that VoteVets has spent for Helmer, an Army veteran. (Helmer finished in fourth place in the 2018 primary that Wexton won, a campaign that took place the year before he was first elected to the legislature.)
Democratic Majority for Israel has also spent $120,000 to aid Filler-Corn. Additionally, the Indian American Impact Fund announced last week that it would launch a $250,000 mail campaign to help Subramanyam, who would be both Virginia's first Indian American and Hindu House member.
The Democratic nominee will be favored in a Northern Virginia House seat that backed Joe Biden 58-40. The most prominent member of the four-person GOP field is former state homeland security official Aliscia Andrews, who lost to Wexton 57-43 in 2020.
Mayors & County Leaders
● Cobb County, GA Commission: The Georgia Supreme Court has reversed a lower court that ruled in January that the Cobb County Commission could not redraw the map used to elect commissioners, saying that the plaintiffs had failed to show they were injured by the new map.
However, the Supreme Court's decision was based on procedural grounds and did not address whether the Democratic-run county could override an attempt by the Republican-dominated state legislature to gerrymander the commission map. In a concurring opinion, one justice urged the populous Atlanta-area county "to act with all dispatch in obtaining a final answer on the legal merits."
Poll Pile
Siena College surveyed multiple swing states on behalf of the New York Times, and it included Senate horserace matchups in four of them. (The Pennsylvania poll was also co-sponsored by the Philadelphia Inquirer.) The Senate results from the likely voter portions of each poll are below:
- AZ-Sen: Ruben Gallego (D): 46, Kari Lake (R): 43 (49-43 Trump in two-way, 44-35 Trump with third-party candidates)
- NV-Sen: Jacky Rosen (D-inc): 41, Sam Brown (R): 41 (51-38 Trump in two-way, 44-30 Trump with third-party candidates)
- PA-Sen: Bob Casey (D-inc): 46, Dave McCormick (R): 44 (48-45 Trump in two-way, 41-37 Trump with third-party candidates)
- WI-Sen: Tammy Baldwin (D-inc): 49, Eric Hovde (R): 42 (47-46 Trump in two-way, 40-39 Trump with third-party candidates)
Ad Roundup
Campaign Action
