Court-ordered Florida congressional map
Leading Off:
• FL Redistricting: Redistmas came two months early for Democrats, as the judge overseeing the end stages of Florida's long redistricting saga just recommended one of the plaintiffs' proposed congressional maps over competing plans from the Republican-controlled legislature. Now Judge Terry Lewis' recommendation will head to the state Supreme Court for further review. However, the high court previously ruled against Republicans, so there's good reason to believe the GOP won't have much luck getting anything changed in its favor.
The two sides were mainly squabbling over a handful of districts in South Florida. Fortunately for Democrats, the trial court's ruling, if it stands up on appeal, means that vulnerable freshman Republican Rep. Carlos Curbelo's 26th District will not become redder as the legislature intended but will instead see Obama's margin of victory expand from 6 points to 11.5 percent. While Republicans in Miami-Dade County have a tendency to outperform Mitt Romney's numbers thanks in part to Cuban-American voters, that's still a tough hill for any Republican to climb these days, meaning Curbelo will be very vulnerable next year.
Elsewhere in the state, the map will likely affect several other congressional incumbents. First-term Democratic Rep. Gwen Graham's 2nd District loses much of its Democratic base in Tallahassee and, with Romney carrying the revised version by over 30 points, it would be extremely difficult for her to win re-election there. Graham hasn't announced her plans yet: She could run for Senate instead, wait until 2018 to run for governor, or try defeating fellow Rep. Corrine Brown in the primary for the redrawn 5th District.
On the other hand, the Republican-held 13th District would have voted for Obama by 10.6 points now that the entirety of the city of St. Petersburg is included within its borders. That makes it a very strong pickup shot for Democrats, especially if ex-Gov. Charlie Crist runs, as he's all-but-announced that he will. Republican incumbent David Jolly saw the writing on the wall early and jumped into the Senate race rather than take his chances here.
Another big prize for Democrats is Republican Rep. Dan Webster's 10th District in Orlando, which flips from a Romney seat to one that Obama carried by 22 percent. Webster, who has been pursuing a bizarre campaign for speaker of the House, has acknowledged that this seat would be unwinnable for him. As a result, the neighboring 9th District, which is being vacated by Democratic Rep. Alan Grayson, drops down to just a 12.7 percent Obama margin of victory, but with the Democratic trend in Central Florida, along with presidential turnout, Democrats should be favored to retain it.
No other districts change by a significant enough margin to affect the likely 2016 partisan outcome. Overall, we can expect Democrats to net two seats as a result of redistricting: There's a good chance they'll pick up FL-10, FL-13, and FL-26 while losing FL-02. If Democrats can hold on to the open 18th District (which is unaffected by this map), Florida's delegation would wind up with 15 Republican seats and 12 Democratic seats. That's still a big advantage for the GOP, considering Obama carried the state twice, but it's definitely an improvement.
You can find the court's decision here, along with the 2012 presidential results calculated by Matthew Isbell for districts 1-19 here and districts 20-27 here, under "Coalition's First Map." A detailed version of the map itself is available here, under the header "Coalition Plaintiffs Proposed Congressional Map (CP-1)."
3Q Fundraising:
Senate:
• CA-Sen: The Field Poll give us a look at the June top-two primary for this open seat, and they continue to find state Attorney General Kamala Harris and Rep. Loretta Sanchez, a fellow Democrat, taking the two spots that would send them to the general. Harris takes first with 30 while Sanchez is in second with 17. GOP Assemblyman Rocky Chavez is in third with 9, while former state Republican Party chairs Tom Del Beccaro and Duf Sundheim take 6 and 3 respectively. Field found the five candidates in the same order in May, but the percentage of undecideds has dropped from 58 to 34.
Forty-two percent of Republicans are undecided versus 25 percent of Democrats, so Team Red's contenders have some room to grow. But none of the trio of Republicans are very well-known and if no one breaks out from the pack, they might continue to split the GOP vote enough to send both Democrats to the general. That would be bad news for Harris: While Sanchez has run a shaky campaign, she's the more conservative of the two Democrats. If Sanchez gets to the general and wins over Republicans while holding onto enough Democrats, she could pose a threat to Harris.
• FL-Sen: Democratic Rep. Alan Grayson, whose multiple hedge funds have prompted many questions about whether he's complying with House ethics rules, now says he's shut down the funds that were incorporated in the Cayman Islands, a notorious offshore tax haven. Grayson has insisted the funds were empty (despite financial filings attesting to the contrary) and has now only closed them because their filing fees were supposedly set to increase. Mmhmm. Oh, and Grayson won't provide any documentation to verify that the funds are being shuttered.
Meanwhile, there's still the main fund, based in Delaware. That one's still operating. To channel George Costanza, "The Grayson Fund: Money for Congressmen."
• MD-Sen: Chris Van Hollen is spending $70,000 in the Baltimore media market on the first ad of the Democratic primary, and he's focusing on improving his name recognition in the Baltimore area.
Van Hollen's spot reminds voters that he's the "son of a Baltimore native," and includes some nice words from the Baltimore Sun about his record. The commercial also seems to be aimed at pre-butting primary rival Donna Edwards' charges that he's not liberal enough by including a snippet from a Time Magazine story calling him a "hero to environmentalists, education groups, and gun control advocates." Both Van Hollen and Edwards hail from the Washington suburbs, and both will be focusing on getting their names out in the Baltimore area where they're not well-known yet.
• NV-Sen: The NRSC is out with their first TV ad of the cycle anywhere, though Jon Ralston reports it's running for a paltry $8,000: In other words, it's a video press release that exists so journalists, not Nevada voters, will see it. The spot hits Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto for her support for the Obama Administration's deal with Iran, and it features lots of explosions.
Gubernatorial:
• KY-Gov: Mason-Dixon takes a look at this underpolled contest, and they give Democrat Jack Conway a 43-41 edge against Republican Matt Bevin. The only other survey we've seen out of Kentucky in months was from SurveyUSA, and they gave Conway a 42-37 lead. We've had some issues with Mason-Dixon's numbers in the past but right now, beggars can't be choosers.
While Bevin has actually begun to spend real money on ads, national Republicans still haven't signaled when or if they'll return to the airwaves to help him. Democrats are still active here though: Kentucky Family Values, a DGA-aligned group, is out with a new spot once again assailing Bevin's business record.
• LA-Gov: Well, maybe national Republicans actually are worried about a Democratic upset next month. The RGA is making its first foray into the state by launching a $1 million ad buy that will run until the Oct. 24 jungle primary. Their first spot attacks Democrat John Bel Edwards pretty much the exact way we knew Team Red would attack him: The narrator accuses Edwards, a self-described conservative Democrat, of being an "Obama liberal," and argues he wrote the bill "to expand Obamacare in Louisiana," and wants to raise taxes.
Polls consistently show Edwards and Republican David Vitter securing the two spots in the jungle primary that would sent them to a Nov. 21 runoff, and it's very unlikely that the RGA thinks they can knock Edwards down to third place. But a recent independent poll gave Edwards a 44-41 lead against Vitter in the likely runoff, and another survey for an anti-Edwards group had the Democrat up 50-38. Until now, Edwards has been able to skate by without taking any major blows from Vitter or Jay Dardenne and Scott Angelle: All three Republicans believe that they'll have an easier time in the runoff against Edwards than against a fellow Republican in this red state, and they're content to leave Edwards alone for now.
We expected Vitter and his allies to wait until the jungle primary was over before they turned their sights on Edwards. But national Republicans seem to think that if they don't start attacking Edwards now, they may not have enough time to effectively define him as an Obama lackey in the month between the jungle primary and the runoff. It also doesn't help Team Red that Vitter has been taking some damage, especially over his 2007 prostitution scandal, and he may be limping into the runoff with weak favorable ratings. Edwards will now need to prove a bit earlier than he expected that he can stay competitive with Vitter once the GOP attacks begin.
While Vitter looks set to advance to the runoff, his GOP foes aren't giving up. Dardenne is out with a new spot where he speaks to the camera and decries "Washington style politics," and invites voters to follow him "beyond politics and anger." Dardenne doesn't mention any of his opponents, but it's clear he's contrasting himself with Vitter. Vitter is also out with a new spot: His commercial features a disabled veteran and his wife describing how Vitter's Senate office quickly got him the critical care he needed after the VA Clinic showed no interest in helping.
• NH-Gov: While many New Hampshire Democrats are reluctant to choose between Executive Councilor Colin Van Ostern and potential primary rival Portsmouth City Councilor Stefany Shaheen, Rep. Annie Kuster is wasting no time backing Van Ostern. Van Ostern was Kuster's campaign manager during her unsuccessful 2010 House bid and the two are close, so her decision comes as little surprise.
House:
• CA-21: On Friday, Democrat Connie Perez became the second Democrat to enter the race against Republican Rep. David Valadao. National Democrats were very unimpressed by Fowler Councilor Daniel Parra's second quarter haul (he hasn't released his totals from the last three months yet), but Perez will have a lot to prove. Perez works for a large certified public accounting group, but she has no campaign experience. Perez was appointed by Gov. Jerry Brown as regional representative to the State Lottery Commission Audit Committee, so she may have some useful political connections. Parra's camp started attacking Perez as a carpetbagger when her name first surfaced (Perez is from this district but works in Pasadena), and they're also arguing she only just joined the Democratic Party. Obama won this Central Valley seat 55-45 but Valadao is a formidable opponent, and Team Blue will need a strong candidate to beat him.
• MN-02: Former conservative radio host Jason Lewis has promised that we'll hear about his plans soon, and sure enough, he's opened a campaign committee with the FEC. Lewis hasn't announced that he'll run in the GOP primary yet, but we probably won't need to wait too long for him to declare.
• NY-19: Well, took him long enough. Republican Assemblyman Pete Lopez has been mulling a bid for this open swing seat since January, and he finally announced on Thursday that he's in. Lopez joins ex-Assembly Leader John Faso, whom Lopez used to work for, and businessman Andrew Heaney in the primary. Both Faso and Heaney brought in north of $600,000 during the last three months, and Lopez will need to hope that his long delay doesn't hold him back.
• VA-10: Former Rep. Jim Moran, who used to represent the neighboring 8th District until last year, tells Roll Call's Simone Pathé that businesswoman LuAnn Bennett, his third ex-wife, is considering a bid against GOP Rep. Barbara Comstock. Bennett herself is not commenting, but she's reportedly talking to the DCCC. Pathé suggests Bennett, who runs a real estate management firm in DC, would be a capable fundraiser, and she may have some ability to self-fund.
So far, Democrats have no one running here, though a few other candidates are in the mix. Among them are state Del. Kathleen Murphy (who picked up Comstock's seat in a special election earlier this year) and state Sen. Jennifer Wexton; neither has ruled it out, but both face re-election next month and are unlikely to announce any further plans before then. Other possibilities include college professor Karen Schultz and non-profit director Cathleen Magennis Wyatt, though neither has said anything publicly.
• WA-07: Retirement rumors for Democratic Rep. Jim McDermott briefly surfaced on Friday, though McDermott took to Twitter to bat them down. McDermott, who has represented the Seattle area in the House since 1988, has a firm lock on the district, but he is 78, so it's plausible. The rumor also had him endorsing Ed Murray as a replacement; Murray was seen as McDermott's heir-apparent for many years when he was a state legislator, but now that's he's getting settled in as Seattle mayor, a trip to the pit of dysfunction that is the House may not seem like much of a step up any more.
Legislative:
• LA State Senate: Now this is a great ad. Just drop whatever you're doing and watch this soon-to-be-classic spot from Democrat Mickey Murphy.
Did you watch it yet? No? Why not? Ok, I'll summarize. Murphy reminds voters that he's a former drill sergeant and asks the viewer, "Don't you wish you could say this to Gov. Jindal?" The ad then shifts to "Jindal"'s point-of-view as Murphy tells him to drop down and give him 49 pushups, one for all the other states he's visited. The camera moves up and down as Murphy scolds Jindal for special deals for lobbyists and poor job training and lack of college affordability. I'm not doing it justice though: Go watch it.
Murphy is running for the open SD-12, located north of Lake Pontchartrain. Romney won this seat 66-32, but this area is still amenable to conservative Democrats. Termed-out state Sen. Ben Nevers pulled off a narrow win in 2011 despite being heavily targeted by the GOP, and a termed-out Democratic state representative represents much of this area.
Mayoral:
• Columbus, OH Mayor: Here's a story City Council President Andrew Ginther doesn't want with less than a month to go before Election Day. The Ohio Ethics Commission is investigating Ginther and three other past and present councilors over a trip they took with lobbyist John Raphael to last year's Big Ten Championship. Raphael is the same person who admitted to using the Ohio Democratic Party as a vehicle to bribe several politicians, including Ginther, in exchange for city contracts for red light cameras. (Ginther has not been charged with anything.)
Last year, Ginther used $250 in campaign funds to pay for the Big Ten trip. Multiple groups say that the fair-market value of the trip is $750, and Ohio law requires elected officials to disclose any differences over $75 between the fair-market value and what they paid. Ginther did not do this: His campaign says they looked into the matter and decided that since the tickets were on Ginther's campaign finance report, he didn't need to do anything else.
Ginther faces Franklin County Sheriff Zach Scott, a fellow Democrat, in next month's general election. Scott doesn't have the money or endorsements his rival has, but he's hoping that Ginther's recent string of bad press will give him an opening.
• Memphis, TN Mayor: Voters went to the polls for the non-partisan general, and City Councilman Jim Strickland unseated Mayor A C Wharton by a decisive 42-22 margin. Memphis does not have a runoff in the mayoral contest.
Wharton had won easily in 2011, but the city's crime rate hurt his popularity. A sex scandal that cost the Housing and Community Development Division director his career, and a controversy over a major police body camera contract also caused Wharton some problems: While Wharton may not have been directly involved in either story, the news was enough to harm him politically. Strickland's win makes his the first white mayor of Memphis since Dick Hackett narrowly lost re-election in 1991.
The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir and Jeff Singer, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Daniel Donner, and Stephen Wolf.
