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
● Media Markets: A further round of redistricting following the 2022 midterms has scrambled the congressional map in five states, but the newest version of one of our venerable data sets is here to help unscramble things. Daily Kos Elections is pleased to present our updated database detailing the relationships between media markets and congressional districts nationwide, as calculated by contributing editor David Jarman.
These relationships are critical to understanding how campaigns, outside groups, and parties spend their money on the single biggest expense for most House races: advertising on broadcast television. But because the boundaries of media markets are determined by things like TV viewing patterns and broadcast signal reach, they're never congruent with electoral districts. Instead, we have to see how the two—always imperfectly—overlap.
And when district lines change, those overlaps change, too. Louisiana's dramatically revamped 6th District offers a vivid example as shown on the map at the top of this story (click here for a larger version).
The previous iteration was a much more compact constituency centered in the state's Capital Region, with 84% of its residents living in the Baton Rouge media market. But that conservative district was radically reshaped thanks to a lawsuit brought under the Voting Rights Act, which prompted legislators to craft a version of the 6th that would allow Black voters to elect their preferred candidate.
That in turn required a majority-Black and decidedly blue district, which lawmakers—for a variety of reasons both parochial and petty—decided should stretch some 250 miles from Shreveport in the state's northwestern corner to Baton Rouge in the center.
As a result, just a quarter of the inhabitants of the new-look 6th lived in the prior version, and the list of overlapping media markets likewise got jumbled. Now only about 40% of the 6th District lives in the Baton Rouge market, while the rest are divided in roughly similar proportions between Shreveport, Lafayette, and Alexandria.
Anyone hoping to advertise on broadcast TV in the current 6th, therefore, would have to consider spending in multiple markets, whereas before, Baton Rouge alone covered almost the entire district. This transformation will consequently make TV advertising more expensive in the 6th, which could push candidates to rely more on alternatives like cable or digital ads.
Similar adjustments will be necessary in Alabama, Georgia, New York, and North Carolina, all of which will also use new maps this fall. You can find all of this data, both for the 2022 districts and this year's, at the link.
Senate
● NV-Sen: Donald Trump endorsed Army veteran Sam Brown on Sunday two days after Noble Predictive Insights, a firm that sometimes works for conservative groups, released a survey showing Brown with a blowout 53-15 lead over former diplomat Jeff Gunter going into Tuesday's Republican primary. Noble tells Daily Kos Elections that the poll wasn't conducted for any client. These results are very similar to Brown's 52-14 edge in an internal poll that the Tarrance Group conducted for his campaign last month.
Brown has long been the favorite of national and state Republicans, while Gunter has self-funded millions for ads that don't appear to have had a significant impact. The winner will take on Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen in this swingy state.
Governors
● NJ-Gov: Conservative radio host Bill Spadea plans to enter the GOP primary for next year's open gubernatorial race a week from Monday, reports the New Jersey Globe's David Wildstein. The field already includes former Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli, who lost an unexpectedly close race in 2021, as well as state Sen. Jon Bramnick and former state Sen. Ed Durr.
House
● ME-02: A super PAC funded by the Club for Growth is unexpectedly spending about $80,000 on radio ads just days before Maine's primary to boost state Rep. Mike Soboleski over his House colleague, Austin Theriault, in the race to take on Democratic Rep. Jared Golden. Theriault, however, has long looked like the overwhelming favorite to win the nomination: He's been endorsed by Donald Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson, and as analyst Rob Pyers notes, he's dramatically outspent Soboleski.
● MO-01: AIPAC's spending on behalf of St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell ahead of his Aug. 6 Democratic primary faceoff against Rep. Cori Bush has now crossed the seven-figure mark. New reports filed with the FEC show the group's affiliated United Democracy PAC putting another $640,000 behind the ad blitz, adding to the $390,000 it previously dropped. Bush has yet to see any outside spending on her behalf.
Ballot Measures
● AZ, FL, & NV Ballots: The Democratic firm Beacon Research and the GOP outfit Shaw & Company Research have polled three swing states for Fox News and find amendments to enshrine abortion rights easily passing even though Donald Trump leads in each state.
In Arizona, voters back a proposed amendment 70-27 while Trump leads Joe Biden 51-46 in a two-way race and 46-41 with third parties included. If the proposal qualifies for November's ballot, as appears likely, it would need a simple majority to become law.
Meanwhile, in Nevada, abortion rights supporters recently submitted signatures for an amendment to enshrine access in the state constitution, and the poll finds it passing 73-22 while Trump leads Biden 50-45 in a two-way race and 45-40 with third parties in the mix.
Finally, in Florida, where an abortion rights amendment has already qualified for the ballot, respondents support it 69-27 despite favoring Trump 50-46 in a two-way matchup and 47-40 with third parties added in. The same poll also finds an amendment to legalize marijuana passing by a 66-32 margin. Unlike the other two states, Florida requires a 60% supermajority to approve constitutional amendments.
All three states also have major Senate elections this fall, but these releases did not include any results for those races.
● CO Ballot: Democratic Gov. Jared Polis has signed a bipartisan bill that could prevent a potential ballot measure seeking to adopt a top-four primary and ranked-choice general election from going into effect until certain conditions are met—which might be never. However, Polis claimed he would "take prompt and good faith actions to successfully implement the will of the voters" if voters approved the proposal, and leading legislators from both parties took a similar position.
The initiative itself is still a work in progress. Proponents have filed multiple versions with the secretary of state's office, but one of the leading options would abolish separate party primaries and have every candidate run on a single primary ballot. The top four candidates regardless of party would advance to a November general election that would be decided using ranked-choice voting. This reform would be similar to the one that voters in Alaska approved in 2020 and first used last cycle.
However, the new law Polis just approved prevents ranked-choice voting from being used in federal and state-level elections until local governments in at least a dozen counties that meet certain demographic criteria adopt it for their own elections. The secretary of state would also need to analyze its impact, including how it might affect "historically under-represented communities."
Some of these local governments, however, are in heavily conservative areas. Because Republicans across the country have broadly opposed ranked-choice voting, it's possible that the new law's conditions may never be met.
Backers of the top-four primary and RCV general election have until Aug. 5 to gather roughly 124,000 voter signatures to qualify for November's ballot. As a statutory measure, it would need just a simple majority of voter support to become law, unlike constitutional amendments, which require 55%. However, some of these proposals have been tied up in litigation until recently, delaying supporters from beginning to gather signatures.
The reform effort has largely been led by wealthy former healthcare CEO Kent Thiry, who previously considered running for governor as a Republican in 2018. Thiry has spent big on successful ballot initiatives that he's claimed would empower centrist voters, including creating an independent redistricting commission and opening party primaries to unaffiliated voters.
However, Thiry may have another motive this time: Should his proposal be adopted, it could allow him to run for governor on a center-right platform and avoid a Republican primary dominated by far-right voters.
Legislatures
● MN State Senate, MN-03: State Sen. Kelly Morrison, who faces no opposition in the Aug. 13 Democratic primary for Minnesota's open 3rd Congressional District, resigned from the legislature on Thursday. That decision ensures a special election for her Senate seat will be held simultaneously with the November general election, which Democrats hope will make it easier to retain their one-seat majority in the chamber.
Because the Senate normally goes before voters only in midterm years, Republican hopes of regaining a majority this fall will rest on this race alone. However, Morrison's 45th District, based in the Minneapolis suburbs, supported Joe Biden by a 57-41 margin in 2020, according to VEST data from Dave's Redistricting App, so Democrats will be favored to hold it.
But had Morrison, who is likely to succeed retiring Rep. Dean Phillips in Congress, instead waited until after this year's elections to vacate her seat, that would have set up a mid-winter special election with unpredictable turnout. It also could have led to a prolonged period of deadlock at the start of next year's legislative session with a Senate tied at 33 members apiece. (This year's session ended last month.)
One Democrat, former state Sen. Ann Johnson Stewart, immediately announced she'd seek Morrison's seat. Johnson Stewart ran against Morrison in 2022 after new maps placed them in the same district but dropped out shortly after local Democrats endorsed Morrison. She'll face a special primary that will also take place on Aug. 13, but just as it was two years ago, a party endorsement is likely to be dispositive.
Axios' Torey Van Oot further noted that Morrison announced her departure minutes after the deadline for candidates for other offices to withdraw their names. As a result, it appears that Republican state Rep. Andrew Myers, a potential candidate for Morrison's seat, won't be able to run in the special because he'd already filed for reelection. An alternative, Van Oot says, might be 2022 GOP nominee Kathleen Fowke, who lost to Morrison 56-44.
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