Leading Off:
● AK-AL: Rep. Don Young first took office all the way back in 1973, making him the longest-serving Republican in the House. Young owes his remarkable longevity to a number of factors, one of which is his close relationship with labor unions. That sets him apart from most members of his party, but Alaska is an unusual state and has the third-highest union density in the nation, after only New York and Hawaii.
So it's notable that a pair of maritime unions, which have both supported Young for years, are considering switching sides and backing Young's Democratic challenger, Steve Lindbeck, the former CEO of Alaska's public radio and television networks. At issue is a contract for ship escort and oil spill prevention services that the operators of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline are set to award to a non-union company, Edison Chouest, which would take away 250 jobs from the current contractor, Crowley Marine, a union shop.
Young has refused to speak out against the expected move, with a spokesman saying that it would not be "appropriate" to weigh in on "a decision for a private corporation." That's a keen demonstration of why Republicans seldom have warm relations with organized labor, since it's pretty difficult to keep union members happy while still doing the bidding of major corporations. (As Lindbeck has pointed out, Edison Chouest employees, family members, and affiliated companies have given $250,000 to Young and his legal defense fund since 2008.)
And the two unions that are wavering on Young together represent some 10,000 members. That might not sound like a lot, but despite its great size, Alaska's population is tiny, and as of last year, it was home to 60,000 unionized employees, so we're talking about a significant fraction of the state's union members. It goes without saying, though, that even if these unions defect and move over to Lindbeck, he faces long odds against Young. But Young has had a couple of close scrapes over the last decade, winning with less than 51 percent of the vote in both 2008 and, more notably, the GOP wave year of 2014. Alaska appears to be trending bluer as a whole, so if Young's old allies decide they've finally had enough of him, he could very well be vulnerable.
Senate:
● CA-Sen: On behalf of the Los Angeles Times and the University of Southern California, SurveyMonkey gives us our first look at the all-Democratic general election between Attorney General Kamala Harris and Rep. Loretta Sanchez since last week's top-two primary. They give Harris a strong 47-22 lead with registered voters, with 26 percent saying they would just skip this race.
The people who plan to vote in the presidential race but abstain from the Senate contest are, unsurprisingly, mostly Republicans. Sanchez is the more conservative of the two candidates; if she's going to overtake Harris, she needs to find a way to convince Republicans to actually vote and vote for her, but not offend Democrats while doing it. That won't be an easy balancing act.
● LA-Sen: On behalf of Rebuild Louisiana, a group that backs Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards, Anzalone Liszt Grove takes a look at the November jungle primary for this open seat. Unsurprisingly, they find GOP state Treasurer John Kennedy ahead of his many opponents with 24 percent of the vote, which would send him to the December runoff. However, it's a tight race for the other runoff spot.
Public Service Commissioner Foster Campbell, a Democrat backed by Edwards, edges GOP Rep. Charles Boustany 14-11. Democratic attorney Caroline Fayard is just behind at 9, and GOP Rep. John Fleming takes 7. The only other recent poll we've seen came from Southern Media & Opinion Research on behalf of conservative businessman Lane Grigsby: They gave Kennedy 32, and found Boustany edging Campbell 10-9, with Fleming at 5.
Fleming's influential allies at the Club for Growth are making an early attempt to pry some conservatives away from Boustany. The Club's first spot, an issue ad, attacks the Export-Import Bank, which the narrator calls "a petri dish of corruption and graft." The spot continues by noting that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton support it, and so do Boustany and Democratic Rep. Cedric Richmond. The spot ends with a request for the viewer to call both Boustany and Richmond, but it's clear they're just hoping to link Boustany to national Democrats; if Richmond, who represents a safely blue New Orleans seat, gets a few calls, the Club probably won't give a shit. There is no word on the size of the buy.
● NH-Sen: A little while ago, the conservative group One Nation launched an ad that accused Democratic Gov. Maggie Hassan of not spending enough money to combat New Hampshire's heroin epidemic. Hassan's team cried foul and even Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte's team publicly asked One Nation to pull the spot, saying that the heroin crisis should not be politicized. One Nation refused, and the Democratic group Senate Majority PAC is hoping to take advantage of the controversy.
SMP's $1.1 million ad praises Hassan for "bipartisan leadership" in expanding treatment and law enforcement to help combat the opioid problem. It then condemns One Nation's ad, arguing that "Kelly Ayotte's special interest backers will do anything to help her win, even exploiting the human tragedy of addiction. Sad. Very sad."
● OH-Sen: The Senate Majority PAC is running a new ad attacking GOP Sen. Rob Portman for his support of trade agreements, particularly with China, and blames him for "300,000 lost jobs" as a result. (The only sourcing for that statistic is listed on-screen as just "Bureau of Labor Statistics.") The narrator then briefly praises Democrat Ted Strickland for fighting "against unfair trade deals" before quickly turning back to Portman. In an uncomfortable finish, the narrator slams Portman as the "best senator China's ever had," as that caption is emblazoned on a photo of Portman sitting alongside then-Chinese Commerce Minister Bo Xilai (whose head is framed by a Chinese flag) as the two signed an agreement concerning textiles back in 2005, when Portman was the U.S. trade representative. It's hard not to feel that this borders on race-baiting. According to Cleveland.com's Jeremy Pelzer, the buy is for $1.1 million.
● WI-Sen: While Republican Sen. Ron Johnson's first ad essentially pretended that Johnson is still a political outsider and not actually, you know, a senator, Democrat Russ Feingold's new spot goes after Johnson's voting record. The narrator notes that "before Sen. Johnson left for Washington, he paid himself $10 million, a sweetheart corporate payout." The commercial then attacks Johnson's votes for tax breaks for companies shipping jobs overseas.
Gubernatorial:
● MO-Gov: Oh look, another ad from retired Navy SEAL Eric Greitens! Greitens, one of the four Republicans competing in the August primary, continues to argue that this race is a battle between career politicians "who are deeply corrupt" and himself, a "conservative patriot." For some reason, Greitens dresses in all black and stands in front of a black backdrop.
● UT-Gov: Utah polling fans, this is your lucky week. SurveyUSA takes a look at the June 28 GOP primary between Gov. Gary Herbert and Jonathan Johnson, the head of Overstock.com, and they give Herbert a strong 69-24 lead. This is the first poll we've seen here in about a month, but previous surveys also show Herbert demolishing Johnson.
Last month, the governor drew some bad headlines after he told a group of lobbyists that he'd meet with them whenever they wanted, and even memorably dubbed himself "Available Jones." However, this poll indicates that the controversy hasn't hurt Herbert nearly enough to cost him re-election. Johnson's team insists that "internal polling shows that as we continue to inform voters of Jonathan's plan for the future and Herbert's misdeeds on Common Core, raising taxes and his 'Available Jones' comments, they quickly move towards Jonathan."
Johnson also recently said that he's really trailing by "just" 10-11 percent in his polls, though he hasn't released any actual surveys. Herbert has been badly outspending Johnson on TV and early voting has already stated, so even if Johnson is right that he'll surge once voters hear his message, he's quickly running out of time to broadcast it. Unless Johnson pulls off a massive upset in two weeks, the November general election looks like it will be a snoozer. Herbert leads Democrat Mike Weinholtz 55-34, though Johnson only edges Weinholtz 38-35.
● VT-Gov: Ex-state Sen. Matt Dunne is out with the first TV spot of the August Democratic primary. Dunne links himself to Sen. Bernie Sanders, a pretty safe move in Sanders' home state and a place where Sanders won 86 percent of the Democratic primary vote in March. Dunne tells the audience, "What Bernie Sanders started, we need to finish. This campaign is about making Bernie's vision a reality right here in Vermont." Dunne goes on to pledge he won't take corporate campaign contributions and will "ban corporate money from politics one and for all."
Dunne's primary rivals, ex-Sen. Peter Galbraith and former state Transportation Secretary Sue Minter, have also backed Sanders, and the senator isn't publicly supporting anyone here yet. According to Seven Days, Dunne's campaign has ordered $22,000 in airtime for the next week.
House:
● CA-46: Last week, the AP called the top-two primary here for Democrat Lou Correa, a former state senator, and Some Dude Republican Bob Peterson. This Orange County district backed Obama 61-36, and Correa will have nothing to worry about if he gets to face a Republican in the general election. However, as of Tuesday afternoon, the secretary of state's count has Garden Grove Mayor Bao Nguyen, a Democrat, edging Peterson 14.6-13.8 for the second general election spot. There are still ballots to tabulate and the AP hasn't retracted their call yet, but it looks like this contest isn't quite put to bed.
Correa will still be the clear favorite even if he has to face Nguyen. While Correa represented about 75 percent of this district until the end of 2014, most of Nguyen's constituents are in another seat. Nguyen also has raised very little cash, so he wouldn't have an easy time getting his name out. Demographics should also work in Correa's favor: Sixty-seven percent of the population is Hispanic, while Asian-Americans only make up 13 percent of the district. Still, while Nguyen would face tough odds in November, an upset wouldn't be completely out of the question, while Correa would be safe against Peterson.
● IA-03: While the DCCC initially added this seat to their "Emerging Races" list instead of their top-tier "Red to Blue" program, we suspected they'd upgrade it after the June 7 Democratic primary concluded. And sure enough, veteran Jim Mowrer was added to Red to Blue on Tuesday; Mowrer is facing freshman Republican Rep. David Young in a 51-47 Obama seat.
Only two seats remain on Emerging Races: NY-19, where the DCCC is probably just waiting for the June 28 primary to conclude, and NY-21, where retired Col. Mike Derrick looks like a serious longshot against freshman Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik. It's pretty likely that the DCCC will add some extra seats to Emerging Races to boost some lesser-known contenders at some point.
● NJ-05: The pro-Democratic House Majority PAC is taking aim at GOP Rep. Scott Garrett in the group's first general election ad of the 2016 cycle. The spot lambastes Garrett for his views on gays, referencing various critical editorials and news reports that lambasted Garrett as "repugnant" and a "shameless bigot" after it came out that he'd refused to pay dues to the NRCC because of the committee's support for gay candidates. Unfortunately, there are no clips of Garrett ever speaking his mind aloud, but hopefully the headlines alone will do the trick.
Roll Call says the ad is airing on cable for $80,000, which is very little in the New York media market, but it's nevertheless a signal about the importance of this race to national Democrats. Garrett will face former Josh Gottheimer, a former aide to both Clintons, in November.
● NY-22: The NRCC has made it clear that they don't want the very conservative Assemblywoman Claudia Tenney to be their nominee in this competitive upstate seat, and the establishment-friendly group Defending Main Street is spending $75,000 on an ad supporting her main primary rival, businessman Steve Wells. The narrator implores voters to "send a conservative businessman to fix Washington and make America great again." (Boy, it must have hurt to write that last bit!) The rest of the commercial promotes Wells as a bland "conservative outsider businessman." Ex-Broome County Legislator George Phillips is also competing in the June 28 primary.
● OK-01: Businessman Tom Atkinson's primary campaign against GOP Rep. Jim Bridenstine hasn't attracted much attention, but Bloomberg Politics reports that Atkinson is going up with a TV spot. Atkinson pledges to fight for a balanced budget amendment and cut federal spending by 4 percent, and he also says he'll reject his congressional pension. But there isn't much reason to think that Bridenstine is vulnerable in the June 28 primary, and it doesn't sound like Atkinson is actually giving voters a reason to oust the incumbent. This Tulsa seat is safely red.
● WA-07: State Sen. Pramila Jayapal, one of the three main Democrats competing for this safely blue Seattle seat, is up with the first TV spot of the campaign. Jayapal tells the audience how she came to America for college, and went on to be an advocate for immigrants. She goes on to describe how she fought to stop "illegal deportations by the Bush administration," fought for immigration reform, pushed for apprenticeship programs, and helped negotiate Seattle's $15 minimum wage. The top-two primary is in August.
The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir and Jeff Singer, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Daniel Donner, James Lambert, and Stephen Wolf.
