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
● CO-08, CO-05: The Colorado Republican Party has endorsed former state Rep. Janak Joshi ahead of the June 25 primary over state Rep. Gabe Evans, who's favored by national Republicans and won the GOP's district convention last month.
The choice may seem perplexing because Joshi previously represented Colorado Springs, which is far removed from the swingy 8th District in the northern Denver suburbs and Greeley area. He's also struggled to raise money this cycle after badly losing his last two campaigns while still living in Colorado Springs
However, as Colorado Politics's Ernest Luning noted, the state GOP may be driven more by its dysfunction and animosity toward Evans than sober electoral calculations. Led by chair Dave Williams, the party changed its rules last year to allow it to pick a favorite in contested primaries this cycle, replacing a previous policy of neutrality.
In backing Joshi, the GOP noted that Evans had refused to fill out the party's questionnaire, which specifically asked candidates to disavow Americans for Prosperity, the political network founded by the Koch family.
AFP was one of the most powerful supporters of tea party Republicans during the Obama administration. However, it fell out of favor with GOP hardliners during the Trump era and backed Nikki Haley's unsuccessful campaign against Trump. AFP has endorsed Evans and conservative radio host Jeff Crank in Colorado's open 5th District, where Crank just happens to be running against Williams, the party chair.
Joshi and Evans are vying for the right to take on freshman Democratic Rep. Yadira Caraveo, who won a very tight race in 2022 for this competitive seat, which supported Joe Biden by a slim 51-46 margin. Caraveo has had no trouble either securing her party's support or raising money: She ended the first quarter with almost $2 million banked, compared to just $340,000 for Evans and $120,000 for Joshi.
The Downballot
● Democrats may be in the minority in the Missouri Senate, but you wouldn't know it after they staged an epic filibuster that just forced Republicans to abandon a cynical ploy to undermine direct democracy and thwart abortion rights.
Joining us on "The Downballot" this week is state Sen. Lauren Arthur, one of the participants in Democrats' record-breaking legislative marathon. Arthur breaks down the GOP's scheme to con voters into making it harder to amend the state constitution and explains how Democrats hung together through a 50-hour filibuster to protect cherished civil rights.
Co-hosts David Nir and David Beard also recap Tuesday's primaries, punctuated by Angela Alsobrooks' victory in the Democratic primary for Maryland's open Senate seat in the face of a $60 million onslaught. The Davids also highlight a big flip in Alaska, where a Democratic-backed independent is on course to unseat Anchorage's far-right mayor once final votes are tallied.
Subscribe to "The Downballot" wherever you listen to podcasts to make sure you never miss an episode. You'll find a transcript of this week's episode right here by Thursday afternoon. New episodes come out every Thursday morning!
Senate
● NE-Sen-A: The Nebraska Democratic Party said on Wednesday that it would not support independent Senate candidate Dan Osborn after Osborn declared in a press release that he would be "declining the endorsement of every party and politician in America."
Democrats had reportedly been considering endorsing Osborn, who recently publicized an internal poll that showed him trailing Republican Sen. Deb Fischer by a small 37-33 margin. State party chair Jane Kleeb confirmed those reports in a statement on Wednesday, saying that Osborn had "asked us to keep our ballot line open so we could form a coalition." Now, however, the state's filing deadline has passed, so Kleeb says Democrats will instead put forward a write-in candidate.
House
● IN-03: Former Republican Rep. Marlin Stutzman may be on a glide path back to Congress, but he might find something unpleasant waiting for him there: an old ethics investigation.
As a new report from Politico reminds us, just before Stutzman left Congress following his failed 2016 Senate bid, the House Ethics Committee said it was looking into whether the congressman had improperly used campaign funds to pay for a family vacation to Southern California in 2015.
That trip, on which Stutzman was accompanied by his wife and two children, featured visits to Universal Studios and Capitol Records, according to a review by the Office of Congressional Ethics. Stutzman denied any allegations of wrongdoing and said he held meetings related to his campaign while in the Los Angeles area.
We never found out more, though: The clock ran out on the investigation when Stutzman's congressional tenure ended on Jan. 3, 2017, since the committee only has jurisdiction over sitting members. But that could change next year, in the likely event that Stutzman, who narrowly won a primary for his old seat last week, also wins the general election for Indiana's conservative 3rd District.
That's because "there’s absolutely no problem or constraint on the Ethics Committee deciding to reopen the case," as congressional ethics expert Meredith McGehee told Politico. Stutzman responded by saying that the incident "was over eight years ago," but that doesn't appear to be an obstacle to resuming the investigation. The only question is whether the committee will choose to do so, but we won't find out until next year.
● KS-02: Republican pollster co/efficient has surveyed the Aug. 6 Republican primary and finds former state Attorney General Derek Schmidt with a wide 44-4 lead over Jeff Kahrs, a former staffer for retiring GOP Rep. Jake LaTurner, while businessman Shawn Tiffany takes just 3%. The firm tells Daily Kos Elections that its survey, the first we've seen of the race, was conducted for a private client "but not any candidate or candidate’s committee."
● LA Redistricting: A divided Supreme Court on Wednesday granted a request to stay a recent lower court ruling that barred the use of Louisiana's new congressional map, allowing that map to be used for this year's elections while an appeal plays out.
As a result, Democrats will once again find themselves likely to gain a seat thanks to major changes made to the 6th District as a result of earlier litigation before a federal court in Baton Rouge. Due to that case, which found that the state was required to draw a second district where Black voters could elect their preferred candidates under the Voting Rights Act, lawmakers revamped the conservative 6th so that it would have a Black majority.
The resulting district would have voted for Joe Biden by a 59-39 margin, a huge shift from Donald Trump's 64-34 showing in the majority-white version that was used in 2022. That was dire news for GOP Rep. Garret Graves, who suddenly found himself in a 6th District that was all but unwinnable for his party.
After the new map was adopted in January, however, a separate group of plaintiffs challenged it as an unlawful racial gerrymander before a different court in Shreveport. That court agreed, ordering the state to once again come up with a new plan.
But both the original VRA plaintiffs and the Republican officials who were tasked with defending the new map asked the Supreme Court to block the Shreveport court's ruling from taking effect. The VRA plaintiffs said that the decision was legally unsound and also had come too late in the election cycle, while the state focused on the latter argument.
The high court granted the state's request, though its three liberal members voted to oppose the stay. In a dissenting opinion, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson argued that there was still sufficient time for the Shreveport court to conduct proceedings to come up with yet another replacement map. In a footnote, she also said that the VRA plaintiffs' fears of undergoing another election with a map that fails to protect Black voting rights were too speculative to warrant intervention.
Graves had previously insisted he would seek reelection, expressing his belief that the new-look 6th District would get struck down. But now that it's been reinstated for at least this year, Graves' electoral future again looks doubtful, though the congressman told nola.com Wednesday afternoon that he would not comment on his plans.
● LA-02: Progressive activist Devin Davis announced Tuesday that he would challenge Democratic Rep. Troy Carter in Louisiana's Nov. 5 all-party primary.
Davis' announcement came a day before both candidates learned they'd be running under the congressional map passed by the legislature in January rather than in a district with different boundaries. The congressman, however, already represents over 80% of the redrawn, but still safely blue, 2nd District, which stretches from New Orleans west to the southern Baton Rouge suburbs. (See our LA Redistricting item for more.)
NOLA.com's Meghan Friedmann writes that the group Davis leads, Voters Organized to Educate, has played an important role in helping liberal candidates defeat Democratic incumbents in a pair of recent high-profile races.
A VOE candidate, Susan Hutson, unseated Orleans Parish Sheriff Marlin Gusman in a closely watched 2021 race that represented a major win for criminal justice reformers.
The next year, Friedmann says the group was "key" to Davante Lewis' win over Public Service Commissioner Lambert Boissiere III in a contest where Lewis emphasized clean energy. The only time Davis himself, though, appeared on the ballot was in March, when he unsuccessfully challenged state Sen. Royce Duplessis for a seat on the Louisiana Democratic Party’s State Central Committee.
● MI-13: Democratic Rep. Shri Thanedar, who faces a competitive primary in August, is spending more than $800,000 of taxpayer money on TV and radio ads and billboards promoting his work in Congress, according to a new report from the Detroit News's Melissa Nann Burke.
Thanedar is permitted to spend these funds thanks to an old privilege granted to all members of Congress known as franking, which ostensibly allows elected officials to communicate with their constituents.
But as Burke notes, Thanedar is allotting 44% of his office budget to this ad campaign, compared to less than 5% for the typical House member. That's left him with much less money to hire staff: He's devoted just 38% of his budget to paying aides—far less than the 78% that the average representative spends.
(Last year, neighboring Rep. Rashida Tlaib slammed Thanedar for allegedly poor constituent service, claiming that "his residents are calling my office asking for my assistance because he is absent from doing his job" after Thanedar attacked Tlaib's statements regarding Israel and Hamas.)
Thanedar's use of his franking privileges in this way is unusual not just because of the size of his expenditures but also because he's personally wealthy and has extensively self-funded many of his runs for office. That includes this year's campaign, to which he's already given more than $3 million. As a result, Thanedar enjoys a huge cash advantage over his two main rivals, former state Sen. Adam Hollier and Detroit City Council member Mary Waters.
● NJ-03: A pair of progressive groups are together spending almost $400,000 to boost Assemblyman Herb Conaway ahead of the June 4 Democratic primary for New Jersey's open 3rd Congressional District.
314 Action, which supports candidates with science backgrounds, is running a new ad that reminds viewers that Conaway is a physician, repeatedly calling him "Dr. Herb." A narrator says that Conaway will "protect abortion rights and make prescription drugs more affordable." According to the New Jersey Globe, 314 is putting $170,000 behind the spot.
Conaway also served in the Air Force, which is why VoteVets, a group that backs military veterans, is coming to his aid as well. The group's new ad touts the lawmaker as the only candidate "with experience taking on extremists to get progressive priorities signed into law."
It specifically praises Conaway for fighting "to restore funding for Planned Parenthood" and says he helped "guarantee the right to abortion right in the New Jersey Constitution." The bill cited by the ad codified the right to an abortion, which had previously been recognized by the state Supreme Court, as a statute. Democrats abandoned a separate effort to amend the constitution in 2022.
VoteVets says it's spending $220,000 on its effort. The 3rd District, which straddles both the Philadelphia and New York City media markets, is notoriously expensive to advertise in, but according to the Globe, 314 plans to advertise on cheaper cable and streaming platforms rather than on broadcast TV. VoteVets is likely taking a similar approach.
Conaway's main opponents in the primary are Assemblywoman Carol Murphy and civil rights attorney Joe Cohn.
● NY-16: AdImpact reports that the hawkish pro-Israel group AIPAC, through its affiliated United Democracy Project, has booked at least $1.9 million to start its long-anticipated offensive against Rep. Jamaal Bowman ahead of the June 25 Democratic primary. We do not yet have a copy of the first spot from AIPAC, which supports Westchester County Executive George Latimer.
● OK-04: The June 18 Republican primary for Oklahoma's dark red 4th District has turned into an unexpectedly expensive contest between longtime Rep. Tom Cole and wealthy businessman Paul Bondar thanks to the latter's ample self-funding, according to new reporting from Oklahoma Voice's Barbara Hoberock. Bondar has spent at least $2 million on TV ads and has hinted there may be more to come.
Cole has spent a smaller $560,000 on TV ads, but he also has outside support. A super PAC called Americans 4 Security has spent $1 million on ads hitting Bondar, while a dark money group connected to House GOP leadership, the American Action Network, recently began spending an unknown sum on TV ads supporting Cole. However, candidates are entitled to lower TV ad rates than outside groups under federal law, meaning Bondar's money goes further.
Cole has criticized Bondar for only recently moving to Oklahoma—so recently that he last voted in the March 5 GOP primary in Texas. Hoberock further notes that Bondar has never previously voted in the Sooner State and only registered there on April 3, just one day before he filed to run for Congress. However, Bondar claims he's "here to stay" and will run again if he loses this year.
A few underfunded Republicans are also on the ballot, and there would be an Aug. 27 runoff if no candidate takes a majority next month.
● TX-23: AIPAC's United Democracy Project has reserved at least $934,000 to help Rep. Tony Gonzales fend off gun maker Brandon Herrera in the May 28 Republican primary runoff, according to AdImpact. The group's opening spot utilizes a clip of Herrera telling a tasteless joke that Gonzales has also featured in his own ads.
"I often think about putting a gun in my mouth," Herrera said on a podcast. "So I'm basically an honorary veteran." The narrator goes on to reference an April story from Jewish Insider's Marc Rod, charging that Herrera "glorifies Nazis and mocks the Holocaust."
While the commercial does not mention Israel, Rod explains in a new piece why AIPAC feels it needs to stop Herrera, focusing on the candidate's response last month to a tweet asking if he'd "pledge to fight for ending foreign aid for foreign wars, Israel included,"
"We can’t claim to be 'America First' while pushing spending bills like the most recent foreign aid package that gave almost $100 billion to every country except the US," Herrera wrote. (Rod notes the person who posed the question identified themselves as a supporter of Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes.)
AdImpact says that Gonzales and his allies have deployed more than $3.7 million during the runoff to promote the congressman and attack Herrera. The challenger's side, by contrast, has spent just shy of $500,000 for the second round of voting.
● VA-05: The hardline Club for Growth announced on Tuesday that it would back Rep. Bob Good in Virginia's June 18 Republican primary, though it remains to be seen whether the deep-pocketed group will take to the airwaves to help the incumbent fight back against an onslaught of outside spending.
Bloomberg reported early this month that American Patriots PAC, a group funded by Republican megadonors Ken Griffin and Paul Singer, had reserved $3 million to boost state Sen. John McGuire's bid to deny renomination to Good. The super PAC, according to the FEC, has already deployed just under a third of that amount as of Wednesday, while other organizations looking to replace Good with someone more friendly to party leaders have spent $1.3 million on the race.
Good, meanwhile, has benefited from about $900,000 in outside help, with most of that coming from Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul's Protect Freedom PAC. However, that's still far less than what McGuire's backers have spent or booked for the final weeks of a race in which Good may already be well behind. McGuire released a poll last week showing him with a 45-31 lead on Good, who has yet to release data that might contradict this bleak picture.
Prosecutors & Sheriffs
● Alameda County, CA District Attorney: The Alameda County Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday evening to place a recall election targeting District Attorney Pamela Price on the Nov. 5 general election ballot rather than hold a separate contest on an earlier date.
Price, who was elected in 2022 as a criminal justice reformer, will need to convince a majority of voters in this dark-blue East Bay county to vote "no" this fall. If the "yes" side wins, though, it would be up to the five-member Board of Supervisors to choose a new district attorney.
The group behind the recall, Save Alameda for Everyone, is insisting that Price has done a poor job combatting violent crime in her jurisdiction, which includes the cities of Oakland and Berkeley, during her brief time in office. Her detractors have plenty of money to advance their argument, as The Oaklandside writes that the recall campaign has hauled in over $3 million from last summer through the end of March.
Price's team has pushed back by touting her successes in office, arguing that Republican donors are trying to "undermine the results of a free and fair election" and "jeopardize the historic progress achieved in recent years." The Oaklandside, however, says that the campaign to counter the recall, Protect the Win for Public Safety, took in a total of just $118,000 last year and through the first quarter of 2024.
Price's backers may have more success fundraising, though, now that they know the recall will coincide with the presidential race. While a summer recall vote could have disproportionately attracted voters angry with Price, she may instead benefit in a higher turnout contest—a prospect that might in turn buoy her supporters.
However, while the Alameda County Democratic Party last year voted to oppose the recall, one prominent local Democrat seems quite happy with the idea of no longer having Price in office.
Rep. Eric Swalwell, whose 14th District includes just under half of the county, has been engaged in a social media battle with Price, whom he's labeled as "soft on crime." Price has in turn argued that Swalwell, who worked for her predecessor, was highlighting crimes that were "a long-standing problem that predates the current DA."
Price's battle to keep her post comes two years after voters in neighboring San Francisco decisively recalled Chesa Boudin, another progressive whose critics portrayed him as unable to contain crime. Hedge fund manager Philip Dreyfuss, who was one of the top donors to the successful effort to oust Boudin, is playing a similar role in this year's campaign to remove Price from office.
Ad Roundup
Campaign Action
