California Democratic Rep. Jim Costa
:
• CA-16: Rep. Jim Costa is one of the biggest pains in the Democratic caucus. Despite representing a seat that Obama won 59-39, Costa has one of the most conservative voting records of any House Democrat, with him notably supporting the Keystone Pipeline this year.
Costa is also a notoriously bad campaigner who nearly cost his party a seat last year. Costa had barely scrapped by in 2010 against a little-known Republican foe, so he should have known better than anyone how bad Democratic turnout in the Central Valley gets in midterms. But instead, Costa barely spent any money against another Some Dude Republican, only to win by just 1,334 votes. While Costa should be safer in a presidential cycle, his $80,000 haul from the last quarter shows that he's still content to take re-election for granted. However, Costa's voting record and weak wins may finally be about to catch up with him.
Emily Cahn reports that Democratic Assemblyman Henry Perea was already thinking about challenging Costa, and the congressman's recent votes for the Trade Promotion Authority has only encouraged labor groups to work even harder to court him. Perea tells Roll Call that he hasn't met with anyone about a Costa challenge and refused to say anything else, but he notably did not rule anything out.
Of course, it's worth noting that Perea isn't exactly a fire-breathing liberal himself. Perea heads the unofficial Assembly "Moderate Caucus," and he notably tried to delay part of California's emissions bill. However, labor seems to have decided that he'd at least be an upgrade from Costa. About 31 percent of CA-16 overlaps with Perea's Assembly seat, so he'd start out with decent name recognition if he got in. Still, an upcoming U.S. Supreme Court decision could force California to redraw its congressional districts, and no one's going to make any moves until they know who their would-be constituents are.
Labor sounds pissed enough at Costa that they'll try recruiting someone else if Perea passes. The AFL-CIO already spent money against Democratic Rep. Ami Bera as a warning over trade, and they're likely to spend even more in the cheaper Fresno market if they think they have a shot to replace Costa with a better Democrat. However, beating Costa isn't a sure thing. Because of California's top-two primary law, we could see a general election between Costa and a more liberal Democrat, and Republican voters could definitely help put him over the top (though Perea may have enough crossover appeal to negate this issue). Obama has also pledged to help members like Costa who draw primary challengers over the trade deal, and his support could make a real difference. There are a lot of unknowns here, but the prospect of replacing Costa with a stronger and more progressive (if still not incredibly liberal) option is just too good to ignore.
Senate:
• CO-Sen: State Attorney General Cynthia Coffman has been mentioned as a potential GOP opponent for Sen. Michael Bennet, but she hasn't shown a lot of excitement about the idea. The NRSC may have ended up looking elsewhere anyway, but an ugly intra-party fight will probably take her out of contention once and for all.
State Republican Party Chairman Steve House has publicly accused Coffman and former Rep. Tom Tancredo of conspiring to oust him, and alleges that they threatened to spread false rumors about him cheating on his wife if he wouldn't resign. Coffman is denying the charges, but this story isn't going away. One unnamed Colorado Republican summed things up well, noting that "[o]ur state party chair basically just accused the state's chief law enforcement officer of at least participating in, and possibly coordinating, an extortion scheme. Who cares if [House] actually had an affair or not?" Needless to say, the national GOP is going to want to stay as far away from all this as possible.
Gubernatorial:
• IN-Gov: On behalf of former Angie's List CEO Bill Oesterle, Republican pollster Bellwether Research takes a look at next year's general election, and they find Republican Gov. Mike Pence is still very much in danger. Pence trails 2012 opponent John Gregg 41-40, and ties state Superintendent Glenda Ritz 42-42. (The third declared Democratic candidate, state Sen. Karen Tallian, was not tested.) Additionally, Hoosiers agree that the state needs a new governor by a 54-32 margin, though plenty of these voters are likely Republicans who will come home in the end. This is the first poll we've seen in months, and it appears that Pence hasn't recovered from the firestorm over the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
Oesterle, a former campaign manager for ex-Gov. Mitch Daniels, has been considering challenging Pence in the GOP primary, and he may be hoping that this survey will convince party elites that they need a new nominee. However, it looks like Oesterle may have actually surveyed a hypothetical primary and not have liked what he saw. Oesterle notes that he had Bellwether sample an extra 200 GOP voters but he didn't release those numbers, which is pretty telling. An April Bellwether poll for Howey Politics found that Pence is still popular enough with GOP voters, and this new survey doesn't give us any reason to think that's changed.
It also doesn't help that wealthy auto dealer Bob Thomas has been flirting with a primary bid of his own, and he and Oesterle could split whatever anti-Pence vote there is. There's no doubt that Pence would rather avoid an intra-party contest so he can concentrate on recovering for the general, but right now there's little reason to think that he's in danger of losing renomination.
• VT-Gov: Democratic Rep. Peter Welch is debating whether he'll seek the open governorship or stay in the House (he promises a decision "soon"), but two prominent Green Mountain Democrats won't stand in his way if he opens door number one. State House Speaker Shap Smith has confirmed that he's seriously thinking about a gubernatorial bid, but Seven Days quotes him saying that he'll defer to Welch. Former state Sen. and current Google official Matt Dunne also is very interested in running to succeed outgoing Gov. Peter Shumlin, but he too says he "would absolutely step aside" for Welch. There are several other Democrats who could run for governor, but none of them have shown as much public interest as Welch, Smith, or Dunne.
• WV-Gov: Now that would-be primary candidates Patrick Morrisey and David McKinley have ruled out running, the state GOP has begun to close ranks around state Senate President Bill Cole. On Wednesday, Rep. Evan Jenkins endorsed Cole, who has no credible intra-party rivals left on the horizon.
House:
• CA-17: Rep. Mike Honda only narrowly defeated fellow Democrat Ro Khanna in last year's general election, and Khanna is back for another round. Honda didn't seem very likely to retire in the face of another expensive battle, and he removed any doubt on Tuesday when he announced that he'll seek a ninth term.
• FL-06: Former Rep. Sandy Adams, who was bounced from the House after just one term thanks to poor choice she made after redistricting, has officially launched a comeback bid in Florida's 6th Congressional District. In 2012, Adams opted to run against a much better-known and more powerful fellow Republican, Rep. John Mica, in the redrawn 7th District; predictably, she got crushed by a 60-40 margin. The neighboring 6th was unoccupied at the time, and Adams should have run there instead, so her decision now can be seen as an effort to undo that mistake.
But while Adams will have a better shot this time since the seat is open (GOP Rep. Ron DeSantis is running for Senate), she doesn't have the primary to herself. Former New Smyrna Beach Mayor Adam Barringer is already in the race, and several other Republicans are looking. Given the safely red nature of this district, we're likely to see more candidates enter.
• FL-09: Another Democrat has expressed interest in succeeding Rep. Alan Grayson if he runs for Senate. This time it's political consultant William Phillips, who worked with NextGen Climate last year. Phillips confirms he's been talking to donors but isn't committed to a bid yet, describing his interest on a scale of one to ten as a seven. If the well-funded NextGen Climate decides to play in this primary, their support could definitely help Phillips, though it's far to early to say if that will happen.
Obama won this Orlando-area seat 62-37, so it's no surprise that other Democrats are eyeing it. State Sen. Darren Soto has already said he's running if it opens up, and Grayson's district director Susannah Randolph is also publicly considering. Additionally, biotech entrepreneur Dena Minning, who is also Grayson's girlfriend, is reportedly looking at a campaign.
• NV-03: Democrats have been searching for a candidate for this suburban Las Vegas 50-49 Obama seat, but would-be candidates are choosing to run in the bluer 4th District instead. Jon Ralston reports that the DCCC has contacted state Senate Minority Leader Aaron Ford about a possible bid for NV-03, but there's no word if he's interested. Ford would need to give up his seat in the legislature to run and Ralston predicts that he will instead work to retake the chamber next year, and possibly seek the governor's office in 2018.
Likely GOP Senate candidate Joe Heck currently holds the 3rd, and state Senate Majority Leader Michael Roberson looks poised to run to succeed him. If we do see a leader vs. leader battle here, Roberson would start out with a territorial advantage. All of Roberson's seat is in NV-03, while Ford's district is mostly located in the nearly NV-01.
Grab Bag:
• Demographics: A population analysis from Bloomberg is probably designed to show that Marco Rubio may have an easier time winning Florida's presidential primary than Jeb Bush, but what it really gives us is a reminder of just how much churn there is in any given electorate over even a short period of time.
They find that of the 5.46 million people who voted for Rubio the last time he was on the ballot (2010), 5.05 million or 92 percent are still registered to vote there. But of the 5.14 million people who voted last time Bush was on the ballot (2002), only 3.35 million or 65 percent are still on the state voter rolls. The remaining 35 percent either died, moved away, or went to prison. In addition, of Florida's 12.9 million current registered voters, nearly three-quarters haven't seen Bush's name on the ballot, because they moved to the state or aged into the electorate since 2002, exacerbated by low turnout even among Florida's registered voters.
That effect may be particularly pronounced in a transient state like Florida (a state that many people move to each year, and also one where many recent transplants are senior citizens, who then tend to, well, die). But it's a reminder that even in a state where people are less likely to move in or out, name recognition really isn't all it's cracked up to be if there's been a decade or more where you've been out of the public eye.
• Ideology: You've probably seen how researchers can quantify politicians' ideology on a left-right scale by creating a web of comparisons to all other politicians through their votes (like DW-Nominate) or their contributors (CrowdPAC). It turns out there are even more things you can use to create that same web of connections, with a result that matches DW-Nominate and CrowdPAC (as well as one's own intuitive sense of who goes where on the spectrum). Pablo Barbera, for instance, has discovered that you can perform that same analysis with candidates' Twitter networks. (His graph also includes major media outlets as reference points.)
• Redistricting:
Gerrymandering cost Democrats House seats in pretty much every part of the country, and nowhere was worse than the Lower South. In a new piece, Stephen Wolf creates non-partisan maps of the region that would better reflect the will of voters while keeping communities intact. As you can see from the map above, non-partisan redistricting would have given Team Blue a chance to net about eight House seats (colored light blue) in 2012, half of the 16 they would have needed to flip the chamber.
The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir and Jeff Singer, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, and Daniel Donner.
