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
● NJ-08: New Jersey Rep. Rob Menendez is pushing back on Hoboken Mayor Ravi Bhalla's attempts to link him to his scandal-ridden father, Sen. Bob Menendez, in a new commercial ahead of their June 4 Democratic primary for the dark blue 8th District.
"My opponent wants to run against my father because he's scared to run against me," the congressman tells the audience. "That's on him."
Menendez doesn't say anything more about the senator, who is currently on trial for corruption, or Bhalla, whom he does not mention by name. The incumbent instead argues he's an ardent liberal, declaring, "I'm protecting health care coverage for pre-existing conditions, and I'm defending abortion rights from the MAGA Republicans."
The younger Menendez has not been implicated in any of his father's alleged crimes, but that hasn't deterred Bhalla from arguing that North Jersey voters should fire the "entitled son of corrupt Bob 'Gold Bars' Menendez."
The mayor told the New Jersey Monitor earlier this month that his opponent is a "replication of the same apparatus" of donors and advisors who spent years aiding the senator. "We need to change, to get to a place with people who are not anointed by way of their connections with powerful people, but are elected with the qualifications."
Bhalla's allies at the super PAC America's Promise have spent over $200,000 on digital ads making a similar argument. "Prosecutors say Sen. Menendez took gold bars, a Mercedes, and thousands in bribes in exchange for political favors," declares the narrator, continuing, "But Rob says he strongly believes in his father's integrity and values, and he's refused to give his father's dirty money back."
Rob Menendez has pushed back by insisting that Bhalla was quite happy with his record in office before he decided he was vulnerable. "Ravi used to text me and thank me for what we were doing and what good advocates we were for Hoboken," he told the Monitor. "So clearly, only one thing has changed, and that's the one thing Ravi wants to talk about."
Menendez has also declared that he shouldn't be punished for his father's alleged crimes, an argument that several prominent Democrats agree with. "People should be judged in terms of their own actions," said Rep. Andy Kim, who announced a bid for Bob Menendez's Senate seat just one day after he was indicted.
Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman, who has repeatedly called for expelling his indicted colleague, also told Politico last month that he doesn't "have anything against" Rob Menendez. "I don't believe that he was part of all of the depravity and all that kind of sleaze."
Bob Menendez's trial began May 13, and it's generated plenty of headlines. "Defense Blames Senator Menendez's Wife as Bribery Trial Starts," the New York Times titled one of its articles. (The senator's marriage to Rob Menendez's mother, Jane Jacobsen, ended with a 2005 divorce; Bob Menendez later married Nadine Menendez, who was indicted with him last fall.)
However, there may not be a verdict before voters decide the congressman's political fate on June 4. The trial was paused for a week on Tuesday after jurors were trapped in a courthouse elevator, something that happened one day after the jurors were forced out of their regular meeting room because someone left the sink faucets running for the weekend. "Don't all get into one elevator," the judge jokingly warned the jurors as they prepared to leave.
The Downballot
● We're heading across the pond for this week's episode of "The Downballot" after the UK just announced it would hold snap elections—on July 4, no less. Co-host David Beard gives us Yanks a full run-down, including how the elections will work, what the polls are predicting, and what Labour plans to do if it finally ends 14 years of Conservative rule. We also take detours into Scotland and Rwanda (believe it or not) and bear down on a small far-right party that could cost the Tories dearly.
But don't worry, we haven't forgotten about the Stars and Stripes! We also recap some of Tuesday's top election results, including one Democratic primary in Oregon that has D.C. Democrats breathing a sigh of relief. And we circle back to several big stories that we've covered recently, including a huge triumph for Missouri Democrats in the fight to protect direct democracy and restore abortion rights.
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
● NV-Sen: Democratic Rep. Jacky Rosen on Wednesday debuted her first negative ad against Army veteran Sam Brown, a commercial that comes almost three weeks ahead of a GOP primary where he is the frontrunner. Rosen's narrator declares that Brown "said abortion should be banned without any exceptions for rape or incest," a position he previously called "non-negotiable."
Brown has tried to back away from the stringent anti-abortion positions he voiced during his failed 2014 bid for a seat in the Texas state House and 2022 primary campaign for Nevada's other U.S. Senate seat. Brown told NBC in February that he opposed a national abortion ban in a story where his wife also disclosed that she'd had an abortion before meeting him.
Rosen's team, however, made it clear they weren't going to accept Brown's new stance. They highlighted how he submitted a questionnaire last cycle saying he believed abortion should only be allowed if a mother's life was at risk. Brown's team said in response that the questionnaire was filled out by a staffer who did not have permission to speak for the candidate.
Brown has yet to win the GOP primary, but he looked like the probable nominee even before he released an internal poll this week that showed him easily fending off his nearest foe, former diplomat Jeff Gunter, 52-14. Rosen seems to agree that it's better to begin attacking Brown three weeks early than to wait for him to defeat Gunter and another longshot opponent, 2022 secretary of state nominee Jim Marchant.
Governors
● NH-Gov: The conservative site NH Journal has released a survey from Praecones Analytica that shows former Sen. Kelly Ayotte beating former state Senate President Chuck Morse 50-28 in the September primary to succeed their fellow Republican, retiring Gov. Chris Sununu. Praecones has conducted several polls of New Hampshire for this outlet since 2019, but we haven't seen much from them for downballot races.
This is the first survey that anyone has publicized of the GOP primary since January when a YouGov poll for UMass Lowell gave Ayotte a similar 54-22 edge.
House
● MI-13: Wayne County Clerk Cathy Garrett has determined that former state Sen. Adam Hollier failed to file the 1,000 voter signatures required to qualify for the August Democratic primary in his rematch against freshman Rep. Shri Thanedar. Garrett's office concluded that only 863 signatures were valid while 690 were not, including some due to apparent fraud.
The Detroit Free Press' Clara Hendrickson writes that state law allows Hollier or someone else "aggrieved" by his disqualification to appeal to the secretary of state or a state court. Hollier responded to the decision stating that he would "continue to talk to my family, friends, supporters, and Pastor about the way forward" over "the coming days."
If Hollier's disqualification stands, Thanedar would lose his best-funded primary challenger. A few underfunded Democrats are also challenging the incumbent, including Detroit City Councilmember Mary Waters, though Waters had just $5,000 in cash on hand at the end of March.
● NC-03: Republican Rep. Greg Murphy announced Tuesday that he has been diagnosed with a tumor at the base of his skull called a pituitary macroadenoma and will undergo surgery soon to have it removed. Murphy said his doctors thought the tumor was benign and that his prognosis "is excellent," though he didn't specify a timeline for his absence beyond saying he hoped to return to work "soon."
● OK-04: Defending Main Street has launched what Punchbowl News reports is a $500,000 ad buy to help Rep. Tom Cole fend off self-funder Paul Bondar in an unexpectedly expensive June 18 Republican primary. The super PAC, which supports candidates like Cole who are close to the House GOP leadership, attacks Bondar as a wealthy outsider from Texas who wants to buy a House seat in Oklahoma.
The ad features a clip where KFOR reporter Spencer Humphrey asks Bondar if he was doing their video interview from Texas, to which the challenger responds, "I'm in an office right now." Humphrey doesn't accept that answer and inquires, "Is that office in Texas?" After first deflecting, Bondar acknowledges, "No, I'm not in Oklahoma right now."
What the commercial does not include, likely owing to time limitations, is the 10 seconds of silence that followed when Humphrey first asked if the candidate was in Texas. "You're … you're … you're cutting out for me," Bondar finally said before eventually acknowledging he wasn't in Oklahoma.
● SC-04, SC-03: Republican Gov. Henry McMaster has endorsed Rep. William Timmons ahead of the June 11 primary for the Spartanbug-area 4th District, where far-right state Rep. Adam Morgan is challenging the incumbent. McMaster previously took sides last month in the crowded GOP primary for the neighboring 3rd District by backing Air National Guard Lt. Col. Sheri Biggs for a safely red open seat in the Greenville area.
● House: The Congressional Leadership Fund, which is the largest Republican super PAC involved in House races, announced on Wednesday that it had booked $141 million in fall TV ad reservations across 37 media markets.
CLF's initial foray comes almost seven weeks after its Democratic counterpart, the House Majority PAC, kicked things off by booking $146 million in 50 different markets. In the 34 markets where the two PACs overlap, CLF has reserved more airtime in 22 of them.
But there are 16 markets where HMP had previously made reservations that CLF has yet to touch, including Las Vegas, Boston, and Washington, D.C. By contrast, CLF has expanded the playing field to include just one additional target, Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola in Alaska, a race where Democrats have yet to book time.
To keep track of all of this data, bookmark our ad reservation tracker, which we update whenever these PACs or the DCCC and NRCC make new announcements. Note that all of these reservations are made by media market, so we've included our assessment of which race or races they're likely directed at, though these priorities can change.
Ballot Measures
● SD Ballot: South Dakota election officials announced that supporters of a ballot initiative to adopt a top-two primary system have submitted sufficient signatures for their constitutional amendment to appear before voters in November. However, Republicans passed a law earlier this year that allows 30 days for opponents to challenge signatures and for signers to withdraw theirs.
If the amendment survives any challenges and wins voter approval, it would end party primaries and create a two-round system where all candidates run on a single "primary" ballot for governor, Congress, state legislature, and county-level posts. The top two finishers, regardless of party, would then advance to the November general election. A similar system is currently used in California and Washington.
South Dakota is a dark red state where Democrats last won a statewide election in 2008, so GOP primaries—which are closed to non-Republicans—are often the only contests that matter. Republicans strongly oppose the amendment while Democrats, who currently let independents vote in their primaries, have not formally taken a position.
Voters rejected a separate top-two proposal by 55-45 in 2016. However, that proposal differed in a key way by removing party labels from the ballot entirely, while this latest one would let candidates pick their party label.
Mayors & County Leaders
● Anchorage, AK Mayor: Former Anchorage Assembly Chair Suzanne LaFrance declared victory over Republican Mayor Dave Bronson on Tuesday, one week after the officially nonpartisan general election to lead Alaska's largest city.
LaFrance, a Democratic-backed independent who previously headed the local equivalent of a city council, led Bronson 54-46 as of Wednesday, with Alaska Public Media reporting that there aren't enough untabulated ballots left to change the result. Despite the impossible math facing the incumbent, though, LaFrance said Tuesday that he'd yet to concede to her or talk about the transition.
Bronson narrowly won this post in 2021 (Anchorage is the rare major American city where terms last an odd number of years) and spent the next three years attracting the wrong kind of attention. The incumbent's tenure was defined by strange decisions like shutting off the city's water fluoridation program and getting into ugly fights with the Assembly's progressive majority.
LaFrance's victory makes her the first woman elected mayor of Anchorage and the second to ever hold this post. The first was Austin Quinn-Davidson, who became interim mayor in the fall of 2020 but did not compete in the election that Bronson won the following spring.
Poll Pile
- NC-Gov: Change Research (D) for Carolina Forward: Josh Stein (D): 44, Mark Robinson (R): 43 (45-43 Trump) (Feb.: 43-42 Robinson).
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