Leading Off
● GA-06: A few final polls of Tuesday's special election in Georgia's 6th Congressional District all point to a runoff—if, of course, pollsters are accurately forecasting the universe of voters likely to show up. That's no easy task for any special election, but particularly for one where Trump may be disproportionately juicing turnout for one side.
Campaign Action
Democrat Jon Ossoff's high-water mark is 45, which he sets in two polls, one from Landmark Communications and the other from Revily Research, a firm we've never heard of before. (Landmark is a GOP firm but polled on behalf of WSB-TV, a local news channel, while Revily's interest in this race is unknown.) Strangely enough, both outfits also have Republican Karen Handel in second place with the exact same share of the vote, 17.
Meanwhile, Republican pollster Clout Research (formerly known as Wenzel Strategies) dissents a little bit. They find Ossoff at 41, but more interestingly, they have Republican Bob Gray at 17 and Handel at 15. That's the first time any pollster hasn't showed Handel in second place. This points to something weird, though: the tremendous consistency we've seen across almost all the polling of this race. For such a difficult-to-model election, we ought to be seeing much more variation.
The Daily Kos Elections aggregate of all available polls finds Ossoff at 42, with Handel at 16 and Gray at 12, though for all we know, all this data could be wrong. In a rundown on the massive get-out-the-vote operations all candidates are waging, Politico's Elena Schneider reports that pollsters on both sides think Ossoff "may be slightly closer to the 50-percent threshold" than their numbers indicate because they aren't properly capturing Democratic enthusiasm. We could, in other words, have something of a mirror-image of November's polls on our hands. We'll find out for sure very soon.
The polls close at 7 PM ET on Tuesday, and Daily Kos Elections will be hosting a liveblog to track the returns as the come in. Note: If someone takes a majority in the all-party primary, they win outright, but if no one wins a majority, then the top-two candidates regardless of party will advance to a June 20 general election.
1Q Fundraising
● IN-Sen: Todd Rokita (R): $321,000 raised, $1.55 million cash-on-hand (note: has not declared yet)
● MO-Sen: Claire McCaskill (D-inc): $2.8 million raised, $3 million cash-on-hand
● MT-Sen: Jon Tester (D-inc): $2 million raised, $3.2 million cash-on-hand
● RI-Sen: Sheldon Whitehouse (D-inc): $710,000 raised, $1.8 million cash-on-hand
● ND-Sen: Kevin Cramer (R): $321,00 raised, $641,000 cash-on-hand (note: has not declared yet)
Senate
● ND-Sen: As North Dakota's lone House member, early Trump-backing Rep. Kevin Cramer quickly became one of the GOP's top potential recruits to take on Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp in 2018, but it appears that his habit of verbally shoving both feet into his mouth—he most recently defended Press Secretary Sean Spicer's offensively historically illiterate Hitler comment—has sent some anxious D.C. Republicans looking elsewhere. An adviser to state Sen. Tom Campbell says his boss "definitely" will run for Senate or House next year, with a decision potentially coming in a few weeks. Campbell is wealthy and could self-fund seven figures if he does challenge Heitkamp.
For his part, Cramer recently said he's still considering the race, but might not decide for a few more months. However, if someone like Campbell gets in soon and drops $2 million on his campaign as his adviser suggested he might, Cramer could be facing a serious fundraising deficit if he waits too much longer to pull the trigger.
● NV-Sen, NV-01, NV-04: Despite being the lone Republican facing re-election in 2018 in a state that voted for Hillary Clinton, Democrats don't appear too eager just yet to jump into the race against Sen. Dean Heller. While Rep. Dina Titus has so far been the only prominent Democrat to publicly consider running, her recent fundraising totals seem to indicate otherwise. Titus brought in just $70,000 over the last three months and had only $274,000 on hand, which suggests she might be more inclined to seek re-election to her safely blue Las Vegas-based 1st District instead of switching that money over to a Senate campaign.
Meanwhile, fellow Democratic Rep. Ruben Kihuen raised $310,000 over the same period and had $277,000 on hand. That's a decent re-election haul for someone who first won his swingy 4th District in Las Vegas' northern suburbs just last year, but it again falls short of what it would take to run a Senate race. For comparison, Heller brought in $1.4 million during last quarter and started April with $2.6 million in the bank, so if either of Kihuen or Titus simply thinks they can wait until later in the cycle to kick their fundraising into high gear for a Senate bid, they could find themselves at a sizable cash disadvantage.
● OH-Sen, MI-Sen, PA-Sen: We now have first-quarter FEC reports from a trio of Republican congressmen weighing Senate bids in the Midwest, but while one is raising the kind of money you'd need for a statewide race, two others have hit the snooze button.
Ohio Rep. Pat Tiberi, who represents a district in the Columbus suburbs, took in $1.4 million between Jan. 1 and March 31 and has a massive $6.3 million in the bank. That puts him in a better position than alleged state Treasurer Josh Mandel, who raised $1.5 million during the same timeframe but has only $2.5 million on hand. Meanwhile, Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown raised $2.4 million and has $5 million in his campaign account.
Next door in Michigan, though, Rep. Fred Upton, who hasn't ruled out a bid against Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow, pulled in just $190,000 and has $593,000 in cash-on-hand. Stabenow, by contrast, raised $1.3 million and is sitting on $4.3 million in her war chest. And over in Pennsylvania, Rep. Mike Kelly brought in only $182,000 and has $835,000 left over. The man Kelly is thinking about running against, Democratic Sen. Bob Casey, raised $2.7 million and has $3.8 million in his coffers.
● TX-Sen: Democratic Rep. Joaquin Castro says he's still thinking about a Senate bid, but his first-quarter fundraising haul was not exactly Texas-sized. Castro took in $213,000 and has $283,000 in cash-on-hand—fine (if a bit light) for an incumbent in a safe House district, but not remotely enough to propel a statewide campaign. The one Democrat already in the race, Rep. Beto O'Rourke, also didn't raise very much prior to March 31—$208,000, with $535,000 in the bank—but he announced his Senate campaign on the last day of the quarter, and media reports suggest he saw a big influx in donations right after his launch. Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, meanwhile, raised $1.7 million and has $5.2 million on hand.
● WV-Sen, WV-03: Republican Rep. Evan Jenkins is reportedly the NRSC's preference to challenge Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin in 2018, and he has previously said that he is considering the prospect. However, Jenkins' $367,000 fundraising haul in the last three months isn't an especially intimidating amount, although he did end March with $1 million on hand. Nonetheless, Manchin himself pulled in only $552,000 during the last quarter and finished it with $2.2 million in the bank, so if Jenkins does decide to seek a promotion, he won't have a daunting amount of catching up to do.
Jenkins might not have the Republican primary to himself if he does run though, since state Attorney General Patrick Morrisey is also widely seen as a potential Senate candidate. However, Morrisey can't directly transfer whatever he has on hand for his state campaign to a federal race, and he could only utilize those funds by giving them to a separately run super PAC.
Gubernatorial
● FL-Gov: Former Democratic Rep. Gwen Graham, who has looked like a very probable gubernatorial candidate for some time, is holding a reception on Wednesday evening with her father, former Gov. Bob Graham, and the invitation promises that the younger Graham "will be sharing some exciting news." However, unnamed aides say Graham will not be announcing a bid for governor, so who knows?
● MD-Gov: Democratic Rep. John Delaney, who didn't rule out a bid against GOP Gov. Larry Hogan when asked last fall, now says he's "absolutely considering" the race. Last cycle, the wealthy Delaney contemplated running for the Senate seat left open by Democrat Barbara Mikulski's retirement but ultimately begged off.
And there's more movement elsewhere within the Democratic field, in part because the legislature's most recent session just came to an end. Businessman Alec Ross, who previously said he was looking at the contest, says his own decision is "imminent." It sounds like he'll run, since he says he's already staffing up. But state Del. Maggie McIntosh, who chairs the House Appropriations Committee, is going the other way and says she's not going to join the primary.
A very large group of other Democrats are also still considering, though so far, no one has yet to take the plunge. Hogan, meanwhile, remains pretty popular, though as the Baltimore Sun notes, he's swimming against the tide of history: If he wins re-election, he'd be the first Republican governor to do so since Theodore Roosevelt McKeldin won a second term in 1954.
However, Maryland has only had two Republican governors since then, one of whom was none other than Spiro Agnew, after Democrats nominated a segregationist with just 30 percent of the vote in 1966 and many liberals crossed party lines to back Agnew. (Agnew, of course, went on to become Richard Nixon's vice president, then resigned on corruption charges less than a year before Watergate brought down his boss.) The other was Bob Ehrlich, who was defeated for re-election by Democrat Martin O'Malley in 2006.
● MI-Gov, MI-05: Democratic Rep. Dan Kildee raised $205,000 and had $675,000 on hand after the first three months of 2017, which Politico reports he could transfer to a state campaign if he decides on a bid to succeed term-limited GOP Gov. Rick Snyder in 2018. Kildee didn't rule out running for governor last June. but doesn't seem to have said anything about it publicly more recently. (Correction: Kildee spoke again about this race in February, but his stance did not appear to change.) Detroit Health Director Abdul El-Sayed and ex-state Senate Minority Leader Gretchen Whitmer have both already announced their candidacies for Team Blue.
● MN-Gov: Last fall, Republican state House Speaker Kurt Daudt said he'd look at a gubernatorial bid "at some point," but he doesn't seem to be looking very hard. In new remarks, Daudt put on his best dinner-theater production of Hamlet, saying, "I kind of go back and forth. Some days I think there's a lot more I can do in the job I have now. I really don't know if it's something I want to go through or not."
Considering how hard it is to run for office, especially at the statewide level, this is not the kind of attitude you want to take into a campaign. That's especially true when you face the prospect of a very crowded field, as is the case here: No fewer than 13 different notable Republicans have said they're either considering the race or haven't ruled it. Interestingly, though, no one has yet taken the leap on the GOP side, while five Democrats are already running.
● SC-Gov: If Yancey McGill sounds like he could be a tragic character from a sad Gaelic folk song, the former lieutenant governor's bid for governor in 2018 is living up to be the modern electoral equivalent. A longtime former Democratic legislator who finally switched parties in 2016, McGill raised a pathetic $58,000 during the first three months of the year, which isn't even in the same league of what it would take to be a credible threat in the Republican primary against recently elevated Gov. Henry McMaster and former state Department of Health and Environmental Control director Catherine Templeton.
● VA-Gov: The Virginia Education Association teachers union recently endorsed Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam, and they released a new poll from PPP to give us the lastest view of the June 13 gubernatorial Democratic primary. The survey finds Northam leading ex-Rep. Tom Perriello by a healthy 42-28 clip, and Northam's allies might have published these numbers to counter a recent Quinnipiac poll, where Perriello instead led by 25-20. However, even if PPP's read of the race is closer to the truth, they still found that only a slight majority of primary voters had formed an opinion about each candidate yet, meaning Northam's lead could easily change as the two Democrats become better-known over the next two months.
● WY-Gov: Although Republicans are highly favored to succeed out-going GOP Gov. Matt Mead in this dark-red state, few candidates have previously said much publicly about their intentions. Former Rep. Cynthia Lummis, state Treasurer Mark Gordon, and Secretary of State Ed Murray had all refused to rule out a campaign last June, and now Murray says he's "open to the possibility," but will wait until later this year to decide. The Casper Star-Tribune reports that unnamed GOP insiders also thought that all three Republicans might run, as could 2014 gubernatorial primary runner-up Taylor Haynes, 2016 House primary candidate Darin Smith, and ex-state House Speaker Ed Buchanan, the latter two of whom both didn't close the door on a gubernatorial bid.
House
● CA-25: Democrats are hoping to give Republican Rep. Steve Knight another stiff challenge after Hillary Clinton won his suburban northern Los Angeles County seat by 50-44 in 2016, and vulcanologist Jess Phoenix became the latest Democrat to enter the race on Monday. Phoenix is a first-time candidate whose campaign skills are largely unknown. However, she reportedly has the support of 314 Action, which is a political committee founded by Shaughnessy Naughton, a chemist who unsuccessfully ran for House in Pennsylvania and is now trying to recruit more scientists to run for office against anti-science Republicans. Non-profit executive director Katie Hill is already running as a Democrat, while 2016 nominee Bryan Caforio is reportedly considering a second bid against Knight too.
● IA-01: Iowa Democrats took a beating in 2016, which saw Donald Trump carry the state's northeastern 1st District by 49-45 and Republican Rep. Rod Blum win a second term against a vigorous Democratic challenger. However, this district supported Barack Obama by 56-43 just four years earlier, and Democrats don't appear ready to throw in the towel just yet, but we can at least cross one name off the list. Ex-state Sen. Steve Sodders had previously refused to rule out a campaign, but now says he won't run. State Rep. Abby Finkenauer recently set up an FEC campaign account and is considering the race, while a few other legislators and local officials haven't ruled it out.
● OK-01: Former Tulsa County District Attorney Tim Harris has joined the Republican field for the dark-red House seat being left open by Rep. Jim Bridenstine, who everyone is convinced will fulfill a pledge to serve only three terms. (If Bridenstine has confirmed these plans publicly since he was mostly recently sworn in, though, we haven't seen it.) Two other Republicans are already running, former Army intelligence officer Andy Coleman and businessman Kevin Hern. This district voted for Donald Trump by a punishing 61-33 margin.
● MT-AL: Wealthy Republican businessman Greg Gianforte previously said he'd raised $1.5 million for his special election bid for Montana's lone congressional seat, but for some reason, he refused to clarify whether he'd done any self-funding, as he had in last year's gubernatorial race (to the tune of $6 million). That was an odd choice, since now we have Gianforte's FEC report, and his final tally for the first quarter of the year was $1.6 million—with nothing coming out of his own pocket.
Given the difficulties Republicans have had raising money in special elections in both Georgia (where there's a fractured field) and Kansas (where there wasn't), that's a surprisingly energetic haul. Gianforte has spent heavily, though, and has $542,000 left over.
Meanwhile, his Democratic opponent, musician Rob Quist, raised $900,000 in the first quarter, though he's since issued a press release saying his total fundraising had reached $1.3 million by April 11. Quist has been more frugal and had $692,000 in the bank as of March 31.
● NJ-05: Former Rep. Scott Garrett, an anti-gay extremist who was mercifully unseated by Democrat Josh Gottheimer last year, hadn't ruled out a rematch with the man who beat him, but now Donald Trump has rewarded him with one of his most bizarre nominations to date: Trump has chosen Garrett to serve as head of the Export-Import Bank. What makes this so lunatic is that Garrett, a proud member of the Freedom Caucus, had long railed against the Ex-Im Bank (as it's colloquially known), decrying it as a vehicle for "crony capitalism."
As Rep. Steny Hoyer, the number two Democrat in the House, put it, "Once again, President Trump has selected a nominee to lead an agency that individual believes should not exist and has tried to destroy." And if enough Republican senators agree, then Garrett's appointment could be in doubt, as he'd have be confirmed by the Senate in order to serve.
Garrett's extremely unpopular even within the GOP—the NRCC didn't lift a finger to help him last year after he refused to pay his dues because he was unhappy the committee supported gay candidates—so it's not unimaginable that his nomination could run aground. That could conceivably put him back in the running for a congressional comeback bid, but the NRCC won't want him this time any more than last.
● NM-01: The field for New Mexico's blue-leaning 1st District, which is centered around Albuquerque and is being left open thanks to Democratic Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham's bid for governor, has been somewhat slow to take shape. So far, Albuquerque City Councilor Pat Davis is the only Democrat to formally announce a bid, but local political blogger Joe Monahan reports that Deb Haaland, the chair of the state Democratic Party, is also "expected" to run, though he doesn't cite any specific sources. Monahan adds that unnamed "Dem insiders" think that Bernalillo County Commissioner Maggie Stebbins, who has been considering a bid, won't go for it. No Republicans are running as yet for this seat, which voted 52-35 for Hillary Clinton.
● TX-30: Looks like we need to place Democratic Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson on retirement watch. Johnson, who is 81 years old and has held public office continuously since 1973, reported raising all of $1,000 in the first quarter of 2017 and has a mere $54,000 in the bank. Johnson represents a safely blue district in Dallas, so she wouldn't be at risk for re-election, but all House Democrats have to pay dues to the DCCC—and more importantly, she's earned primary challenges for the last three cycles. She's won every time with about 70 percent of the vote, but a negligible fundraising haul like this one could inspire a stronger opponent to run against her.
Mayoral
● Seattle Mayor: Seattle Mayor Ed Murray, who's up for re-election for the first time in 2017, got his first (and probably only) real opponent today, and it's a familiar face; it's the one-term incumbent he defeated in 2013, Mike McGinn. Despite polls that showed Murray flattening McGinn in the run-up to that election, Murray wound up winning by only a narrow 52-48 margin, as McGinn's base, who are disproportionately younger voters, either were being missed by the polls or waited until the last minute to get motivated.
Murray's tenure has been successful and uncontroversial from a policy perspective; the main obstacle lurking ahead for the openly-gay Murray is a recently-filed lawsuit by a man alleging that Murray sexually abused him in the 1980s when the alleged victim was underage. Murray is forging ahead with his re-election plans (and new TMI details suggest the lawsuit may not have much staying power), but McGinn, with high name recognition and a loyal base, might leap to the front of the pack if Murray did drop out.
Even if Murray stays in, though, McGinn's entry likely freezes other major candidates positioned to Murray's left from entering. That most notably includes Socialist Alternative Party city councilor Kshama Sawant, though she currently seems more interested in building her brand and hasn't really expressed any interest in this year's mayoral race. Consequently, Murray and McGinn are the likeliest duo to advance from the top-two primary to the November general. (There's already one other inexperienced challenger in, Black Lives Matter-allied lawyer Nikkita Oliver.)
"Murray's left," of course, is all relative; Murray's mostly across-the-boards progressive, and it would be hard to get to his left in most other cities. In fact, McGinn isn't so much to Murray's "left" as the race will be more fought on an establishment/anti-establishment axis (and McGinn's stumbles as mayor mostly related to his difficulties in forging links to "establishment" stakeholders). As we just saw in Los Angeles with Measure S, real estate development/density issues will be the likely flashpoint.
Legislative
● Special Elections: Did you know there's a special election taking place in the Atlanta 'burbs on Tuesday? Okay, but this isn't the one you're thinking of.
Georgia SD-32: This is a seat located north of Atlanta. It was vacated by Republican Judson Hill, who is running in that other Georgia special election (the one in the 6th Congressional District). Eight candidates filed for the open primary here, including three Democrats: attorney Christine Triebsch, director Exton Howard, and pediatrician Bob Wiskind. Also running are five Republicans: consultant Hamilton Beck, railroad conductor Matt Campbell, physician Roy Daniels, surgeon Kay Kirkpatrick, and tax attorney Gus Makris. If nobody gets a majority, the top two finishers will go to a runoff in May. This seat went 67-31 for Mitt Romney in 2012.
We haven't yet calculated the 2016 presidential results for this seat, but there's a good chance that many Republican voters there, like those in the 6th Congressional District, were hostile to Trump and thus gave him a lower share of the vote than Romney won four years earlier.
The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, and Stephen Wolf, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Daniel Donner, and James Lambert.
