Leading Off:
● MO-Gov: Every election cycle, there's always some donor somewhere who winds up in trouble with the law or the tabloids, and when the story breaks, the opponents of whomever that guy gave money to call on the recipient to return the contribution or give it to charity. The unlucky candidate typically acquiesces after a few bad headlines, reluctantly cuts a check for $1,000 or $2,000, and life moves on.
But when the original donation is for a cool $1 million, boy does that ever change the calculus. In Missouri, there are no campaign contribution limits whatsoever, and wealthy conservatives have showered lavish gifts on their favored Republican candidates for governor (obviously for no consideration in return whatsoever, no siree!): Billionaire Rex Sinquefield, for instance, has given seven figures to former prosecutor Catherine Hanaway. But it's a different million-dollar donation that's at issue here, one from Silicon Valley venture capitalist Michael Goguen to former Navy SEAL Eric Greitens.
The problem? Goguen is being sued by a woman named Amber Laurel Baptiste, who has accused him of breaching an agreement to pay her $40 million as recompense, she says, for making her his sex slave over a 13-year period. Baptiste claims that Goguen had promised to rescue her from the human traffickers who had brought her to the U.S. (the two met at a strip club) but alleges the opposite happened. During their relationship, Goguen was married twice; while he disputes the abuse charges, both he and Baptiste concur that the $40 million settlement was aimed at stopping Baptiste from going public with a lawsuit against him alleging he had injured her during sex.
But after paying one $10 million installment, Goguen refused to pay out any further, calling the deal "extortion." That led to Baptiste's suit—the very sort of thing he was hoping to avoid in the first place—and it also led to his departure from his employer of 20 years, Sequoia Partners, one of the top venture firms in the country. (The company claims it was mutual.)
It's a massive public mess for Goguen, of course, but also for Greitens. As of the end of last year, Greitens had $3.4 million in his campaign war chest and faces an extremely competitive GOP primary, so parting with $1 million would be a massive blow. And even if he could just send the money back, the sheer size of the donation magnifies the "taint factor," since why else would Goguen give Greitens so much if he weren't hoping to elect a governor beholden to him?
At a Republican debate Thursday night, Greitens' rivals pounded him. Hanaway said he should give Goguen's donations to a women's shelter, while Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder pointed out that a super PAC supporting John Kasich just said it would turn over $250,000 it received from Goguen to charities fighting human trafficking. Greitens refused to budge, saying that "unlike career politicians, I'm not going to convict someone in the court of public opinion."
That phony high-minded dodge won't save him, though. "Innocent until proven guilty" is a foundational principle inside the courthouse, but it doesn't work on the campaign trail. Greitens can expect to hear about this from now through the Aug. 2 primary, and there's only one way to make the bleeding stop if he wants the chance to take on Democrat Chris Koster in the general election. But the cure is almost as painful as the disease, and it shows why even the greediest politicians shouldn't want to live in a world with limitless campaign contributions.
Senate:
● AZ-Sen: The Merrill Poll, a group we've never heard of before, finds GOP Sen. John McCain locked in a tight general election. McCain leads Democratic Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick 41-40; ex-state Sen. Kelli Ward, McCain's primary challenger, was not tested. Merrill describes itself as "an independent public opinion poll conducted by Dr. Bruce Merrill, a professor emeritus at Arizona State University who is nationally recognized for his work in survey research." We haven't seen many other general election polls in recent months. The Behavior Research Center gave McCain a 38-37 edge in February, while Strategies 360 found McCain leading 51-36 in December.
● PA-Sen: With a new endorsement from Sen. Bob Casey, Democrat Katie McGinty has pretty much completed a clean sweep of the Pennsylvania establishment; previously, Gov. Tom Wolf and ex-Gov. Ed Rendell, among many other current and former officials, had given her their backing. But will that actually translate into victory? Recent polling has been scant, but a survey earlier this month from Harper Polling, a Republican outfit, found McGinty trailing her chief rival for the nomination, ex-Rep. Joe Sestak, by a 33-17 margin.
However, we've also now entered a new phase of the campaign. Both candidates are now airing TV ads ahead of the April 26 primary, and each is getting some outside support: EMILY's List says it'll spend $1 million on McGinty, while a mysterious super PAC called Accountable Leadership has reportedly shelled out $500,000 for Sestak. In a big state with multiple media markets like Pennsylvania, though, those sums are not especially large, so it's hard to say how this one will play out. Indeed, given the paucity of polling and the difficulty of getting a read on a primary like this, we may not know until election night.
Gubernatorial:
● VT-Gov: I don't think many people were clamoring for Democrat John Moran, who lost his seat in the state House in 2014, to run for governor. In any case, Moran has announced that he won't make the race. However, the Democratic primary may get a little larger soon. WPTZ reports that ex-state Sen. Peter Galbraith, who is better known for his diplomatic career, "is expected to make his announcement at the Statehouse" in the next few days. Ex-state Sen. Matt Dunne and former state Secretary of Transportation Sue Minter have been running for months.
House:
● CA-20: When longtime Rep. Sam Farr announced that he was retiring from this safely blue Central Coast seat a few months ago, a number of local politicians made noises about running to succeed him. However, when Monterey County prosecutor Jimmy Panetta, the son of ex-Rep. and former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, got in, all the other prospective candidates ended up deferring to him. Filing closed Wednesday and unsurprisingly, Panetta faces no credible opposition. Panetta also earned Farr's endorsement the next day.
● FL-01: While state Sen. Greg Evers, state Rep. Matt Gaetz, and Escambia County Supervisor of Elections David Stafford have all expressed interest in running for this safely red seat, Pensacola Mayor Ashton Hayward avoided saying anything about his plans. However, Hayward now tells the Sunshine State News that he "hasn't ruled it out." Pensacola is the largest city in the district, so Hayward would probably start out with some good name recognition if he got in.
● NC-12: North Carolina's new congressional filing deadline is March 25, but plenty of prospective candidates are still holding off on running. The state's new map has not yet been approved in federal court, and no one's sure when new district lines will finally be set in stone. State Rep. Rodney Moore says he plans to run against Rep. Alma Adams, whose district was dramatically redrawn, in the June Democratic primary, but he admits he's waiting to see what the courts do. Fellow state Rep. Tricia Cotham also says she's in a holding pattern, but she quietly filed with the FEC. (Hat-Tip Politics1). Ex-state Sen. Malcolm Graham is the only notable Democrat who has officially declared that he's facing Adams in this safely blue Charlotte seat.
Grab Bag:
● Where Are They Now?, FL State House: Ex-GOP Rep. David Rivera, who always seems to be under investigation for something, is trying to resurrect his political career by returning to the Florida state House. Rivera was elected to Congress in 2010, but he got tossed 54-43 after he was linked with an illegal effort to prop up Justin Lamar Sternad, a ringer who was running in the Democratic primary to face Rivera. Rivera ran for his old Miami-area congressional seat the next cycle, but he took just 7 percent in the primary.
On Wednesday, a day after Rivera's former roommate Marco Rubio exited the presidential contest, Rivera announced that he would seek the open HD-118. Rivera of course still has about a billion ethical black clouds hanging over him. Ana Alliegro, an on-again off-again Rivera girlfriend who went to prison for breaking campaign finance laws as Sternad's campaign manager, told police that a few weeks ago, the ex-congressman fell asleep at her house. When Alliegro asked him to leave, she says that Rivera grabbed her arm and took away her phone: Rivera denies he was even there.
Rivera is still under federal investigation for his role in the Sternad affair, and he's fighting other charges from his last tenure in the state House. (If we summed up everything, we'd be here all month.) HD-118 backed Obama 51-48 so even if Rivera somehow survives the GOP primary, he has a lot to worry about in the fall.
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.