Leading Off:
● AL-02: Over at the National Journal, Kimberly Railey profiles a March 1 GOP primary we haven't talked much about. In this solidly Republican Montgomery-area seat, third-term Rep. Martha Roby faces an intra-party challenge from Becky Gerritson, who heads a local tea party group.
On the surface, it doesn't look like there's much to see here. Unlike Eric Cantor, the tea party's most famous primary victim, Roby actually appears to be taking her race seriously. The incumbent raised a solid $310,000 over the last quarter of 2015, and she holds $884,000 on hand. While Gerritson brought in a non-trivial $105,000, she burned through most of it and only has $31,000 in the bank. And while a few minor tea party-friendly groups have endorsed Gerritson, major organizations like the Club For Growth haven't gotten involved yet. It's very hard to beat a scandal-free incumbent in a primary, and Gerritson just doesn't look like she has what it takes to defeat Roby.
However, there's another level to this race that could make things a bit more interesting than it seems. Alabama is one several states that will hold its downballot primary on the same day as its presidential primary. Normally, incumbents like Roby benefit from this arrangement. Presidential contests tend to draw out more casual voters who don't care much about the other races on the ballot, and will often just select the incumbent because it's the name they recognize.
But as Roll Call's Eli Yokley recently noted, there's a good chance that Ted Cruz and Donald Trump will turn out voters who utterly despise the GOP establishment and will lash out at their incumbents. Cruz and Trump should do well especially in Deep Southern states like Alabama: In 2012, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich took a combined 64 percent of the vote, while Mitt Romney only won 29 percent.
Still, in the words of Dr. Horrible, sometimes there's a third, even deeper level, and that one is the same as the top surface one. Even in this caffeinated age, most tea party candidates still fail to unseat establishment Republicans, especially without any major outside help. While ultra-conservatives across the country will try to replicate Dave Brat's victory over Cantor, Cantor was the only congressional Republican to lose renomination to a tea partier last cycle. Most Republicans have learned to take their primaries seriously, and they're often very good about portraying themselves as solid conservatives who are fighting the good fight against liberals.
Ultimately, it's very difficult to see Gerritson prevailing on March 1, at least without help from well-funded groups like the Club for Growth. But this contest is worth keeping an eye on just in case. Roby is a bit of a canary in a coal mine: If she wins without much trouble, it'll be a good indication that the crazy presidential primary isn't about to cost GOP incumbents renomination. But if Roby has an unexpectedly tough time or even loses, a lot of Republican congressmen are going to get nervous very fast.
Senate:
● IN-Sen: Rep. Todd Young is out with his first ad for the GOP primary. The ad talks about Young's humble beginnings and military career before emphasizing his conservative record and beliefs.
The whole thing is pretty typical of an intro ad, though there are a few weird shots. The narrator mentions that Young grew up mopping floors in the family small business, and the camera shows what looks like an outline of a kid with a broom made out of blue paper. Later in the spot there's also an odd moment where Young is leaning against a table and staring smugly at the camera while other well-dressed people look on: It almost feels like an outtake from an ad for a law firm or a TV show about lawyers. There's no word on the size of the buy, though Young's campaign says that they'll be airing ads from now until the May 3 primary.
House:
● CA-25: Santa Clarita Water Board Member Maria Gutzeit, who had raised very little money in her bid for Congress, dropped out of the race to unseat freshman GOP Rep. Steve Knight on Thursday. Democrats had recently begun coalescing around attorney Bryan Caforio, who had picked up an endorsement from nearby Rep. Brad Sherman, an influential member of California's delegation. Agua Dulce Town Councilman Lou Vince is also in the race. Last cycle, Democrats go shut out in the top-two primary, allowing Knight and another Republican to advance to the general election. This time, no other Republicans are running, so that won't happen again.
● FL-26: Way back in August, reports began to spring up that ex-Rep. Joe Garcia was interested in a rematch with freshman Republican Carlos Curbelo. Garcia told Politico back then that while he wasn't ruling anything out, "[r]ight now, I'm walking out of Publix with some fried chicken. That's what I'm doing right now." It appears that Garcia has finally finished his chicken: He told the Miami Herald on Friday that he'll decide in the next week.
Garcia ran several points behind gubernatorial nominee Charlie Crist in 2014, and national Democrats have made it clear that they want businesswoman Annette Taddeo to be their nominee this year. However, activist Andrew Korge, who is the son of a prominent Democratic fundraiser, has signaled that he'll get in, so we could be in for a three-way primary before too long.
● KY-06: National Democrats have made some noises about challenging Republican Rep. Andy Barr, but they suffered a big setback when popular sports radio host Matt Jones decided not to run. Team Blue has found a non-Some Dude candidate though, as minister Nancy Jo Kemper has kicked off a bid here. Kemper headed the Kentucky Council of Churches in the late 1990s and early 2000s, where she fought the horse-racing industry's attempt to allow slot machines at race tracks. Kemper is close to ex-Lt. Gov. Crit Luallen, and she says she's been in contact with the DCCC.
Kemper is going to need a lot to go right for her if she wants to unseat Barr. Romney carried this seat, which includes Lexington, 56-42, though Jack Conway reportedly took it during his unsuccessful gubernatorial bid last year. Kemper also describes herself as "wavering between moderate and liberal, depending on the issues," and if Barr feels threatened, he won't hesitate to paint her as a self-described liberal.
● LA-04: Sure, why not. On Friday, ex-GOP state Sen. Elbert Guillory announced that he would seek this open North Louisiana seat. Guillory ran for lieutenant governor last year and took just 8 percent in the jungle primary, so he's not going to scare anyone off. Interestingly, a previous report said that Guillory was flirting with a run for the 3rd District, which contains a majority of his old seat. No other notable Republicans have entered the race yet, though several have expressed interest.
● NY-24: Democrats couldn't recruit Syracuse Mayor Stephanie Miner to challenge freshman Republican John Katko, but Miner's throwing her backing behind former Senate staffer Colleen Deacon. Deacon also has the support of Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, her former boss, and Sen. Chuck Schumer. Attorney Steve Williams, Deacon's main primary foe, has ex-DCCC head Steve Israel in his corner; professor Eric Kingson is also in the mix, though the Democratic establishment is not enthusiastic about him.
● OH-08: While veteran Warren Davidson looked like just Some Dude when he entered the GOP primary to succeed John Boehner, tea party-friendly conservatives are taking a liking to him. The well-funded Club For Growth helped lift Davidson out of obscurity when they endorsed him earlier this month, and influential Rep. Jim Jordan is now backing him. Jordan represents a neighboring Ohio seat but much more importantly, he heads the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus. Jordan says that he and the caucus will do whatever it takes to elect Davidson, which is a powerful signal to anti-establishment conservative voters and donors that Davidson should be their guy.
Davidson faces state Rep. Tim Derickson, state Sen. Bill Beagle, and a ton of random Republicans in the March primary for this safely red southern Ohio seat. Derickson has the backing of most GOP elected officials in Butler County, a suburb of Cincinnati where half the seat's population lives, while Beagle is hoping to consolidate support in the smaller part of the seat around Dayton.
● OR-05: Oregon's 5th District is one of those marginal Democratic seats (Obama only carried it 51-47) that Republicans have always tried to make a play for but have never managed to pry loose. But Colm Willis, a former lobbyist for Oregon Right to Life, is going give it another go for the GOP, and he has a new poll from Magellan Strategies that shows Rep. Kurt Schrader leading by just a 43-37 margin.
Willis, however, has yet to file any fundraising reports with the FEC, so who knows if he can even raise any money. What's more, the NRCC hasn't included him on their Young Guns web page, which lists the candidates they're eager to boost, even some pretty weak ones. And if Republicans couldn't manage to unseat Schrader in 2010 and 2014, though, they aren't likely to pull it off in 2016. But again, this is one of those seats you can't take for granted—though Schrader never has. (However, if for any reason he's thinking about retiring—not that we have any reason to believe he is—this would be a smart year to do so.)
● PA-08: Republicans were dismayed that they couldn't convince popular Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick to seek another term in this swing seat. But that Fitzpatrick wasn't their last hope: There is another. On Thursday, Brian Fitzpatrick, a former FBI agent and the congressman's younger brother, announced that he would run here. Fitzpatrick, who doesn't have any electoral experience, is emphasizing his work fighting political corruption. His family name is also likely to be an asset here, though his brother hasn't endorsed him yet.
Fitzpatrick won't have a clear path to the GOP nomination though. State Rep. Scott Petri has been running here for a while, and he raised $300,000 during his first three months in the race. Iraq War veteran Dean Malik, ex-Bucks County Commissioner Andy Warren, and neuropsychologist Marc Duome (who kicked off his bid at the same time as Fitzpatrick with a lot less fanfare) are also seeking the GOP nod, but they'll have a hard time snagging it away from Fitzpatrick or Petri. Democrats have their own competitive primary between state Rep. Steve Santarsiero and businesswoman Shaughnessy Naughton.
● WY-AL: Liz Cheney has been flirting with a bid for this safely open red seat pretty much from the moment it opened up, and unnamed sources tell Morning Consultant that she'll announce she's in "within days." Cheney ran a disastrous campaign against Sen. Mike Enzi last year and dropped out long before the primary. But if Cheney runs this time, she won't need to convince voters to fire a popular incumbent, and she may have learned some useful lessons from her last adventure.
While some Cowboy State Republicans are still angry with Cheney for going after Enzi, some of the wounds have healed. Former Sen. Alan Simpson and the Cheney family got into a nasty fight during the last campaign, but Simpson now says he'll support Cheney if she runs. State Sen. Leland Christensen and state Rep. Tim Stubson are already in, and we have a while to go before the May 27 filing deadline. However, Kerry Drake of WyoFile.com says that Wyoming Catholic College president Kevin Roberts won't join them in the race.
Legislative:
● WV State Senate: A brief but hot dispute over how a vacancy in West Virginia's state Senate must be filled came to an end on Friday, when the state Supreme Court ordered Democratic Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin to name a Republican to the seat. The conflict arose when state Sen. Daniel Hall quit earlier this month to take a lobbying job with the NRA: Hall had been elected as a Democrat but later changed parties to join the GOP. State law appeared to be in conflict, as one provision said replacements must belong to the same party as the lawmaker at the time of his resignation, while another suggested they should be a member of whatever party the legislator was when he was first elected.
Republicans obviously said the former should apply, while Democrats insisted on the latter. The high court sided with the GOP, and Tomblin immediately said he would follow the court's ruling. Had the court gone the other way and told Tomblin to appoint a Democrat, that would have deadlocked the chamber at 17 members for either side. But with this ruling, the Republicans will retain an 18-16 majority, as they had before Hall resigned.
Mayoral:
● Baltimore, MD Mayor: Campaign finance reports were due Wednesday, and we have our first good look at each candidate's resources ahead of the late April Democratic primary. Businessman David Warnock loaned himself $1 million, and he has $927,000 on hand, more than any of his opponents. State Sen. Catherine Pugh is up next with a $664,000 warchest, while attorney Elizabeth Embry has $393,000.
Ex-Mayor Shelia Dixon resigned in disgrace in 2009, but she has $320,000 available for her comeback attempt. City Councilman Nick Mosby and Councilman Carl Stokes lag behind with $203,000 and $155,000 respectively. A recent poll gave Dixon a 27-18 lead against Pugh, but the ad war hasn't really begun yet. It only takes a simple plurality to secure the Democratic nomination, which is tantamount to election in Baltimore City.
● Portland, OR Mayor: On Thursday, Sarah Iannarone entered the open seat mayoral race. Iannarone, a restaurant owner who also works as an assistant director at Portland State University's First Stop Portland program, doesn't have any political experience. However, she is close to Nancy Hales, the wife of the outgoing mayor, and she could get some traction as the only woman in the race. Iannarone faces state Treasurer Ted Wheeler and Multnomah County Commissioner Jules Bailey in the May non-partisan primary; in the event that no one takes a majority, the top two vote-getters will advance to the November general.
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.