The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, Stephen Wolf, and Carolyn Fiddler, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Daniel Donner, James Lambert, and David Beard.
Leading Off
● NV-Gov: On Thursday, Democratic Clark County Commissioner Steve Sisolak announced he was running for governor in 2018, making him the first prominent candidate from either party to jump into the race to succeed term-limited Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval. Sisolak serves as chairman of the seven-member commission in a county that covers the greater Las Vegas area and over two-thirds of the Silver State's population, giving him a prominent springboard for higher office.
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Sisolak's commission record will also give opponents chances to attack him, though, particularly over a controversial $750 million hotel tax to pay for part of a new $1.9 billion football stadium to bring the Oakland Raiders to Las Vegas. However, Sisolak starts the race with over $3 million in cash on hand since he can transfer leftover funds from his 2016 re-election campaign to a statewide contest.
Democrats regained both legislative chambers in 2016 amid Hillary Clinton's 48-46 victory statewide, and they quickly set about passing an ambitious progressive agenda only to see Sandoval veto measures such as a Medicaid buy-in health care public option and automatic voter registration. Consequently, if Democrats win the gubernatorial race next year for the first time since 1994, they could gain unified control over state government for the first time in over a quarter century, meaning the stakes are enormous in this evenly divided swing state.
Despite those high stakes, this race has been surprisingly slow to develop. Republican state Attorney General Adam Laxalt is widely expected to run and appears to be his party's front-runner at the moment, but he has yet to even acknowledge publicly that he's actively considering it. Laxalt released a poll in early June that had him leading Sisolak 46-37, but with practically no other polling of the race, it's hard to know where things stand. It's not even certain that both men will win their respective parties' nominations, since Republican state Treasurer Dan Schwartz has previously said he was considering it, while wealthy Democratic businessman Stephen Cloobeck has reportedly been quite interested too.
Senate
● ND-Sen: When we last checked in with Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp back in March, she said she'd decide whether to seek re-election "this summer." Well, it's officially summer, but now a new report from Politico's Burgess Everett says Heitkamp is still "months away" from making any sort of announcement. Based on her comments to Everett, Heitkamp sounds quite torn, but she did raise $1.6 million in the first quarter of the year—a very large sum for tiny North Dakota, and not the kind of haul that suggests an imminent retirement.
Meanwhile, the guy that Republicans had once viewed as their top hope, Rep. Kevin Cramer, now says he's "50-50" on running and had previously said he might not make up his mind until the end of the year. But Cramer, thanks to repeated foot-in-mouth incidents, has seen his star dim, and he's really not doing anything to endear himself to his fellow party members.
Cramer told Everett, "I have the luxury of never having to say: 'I'm not running.' So that will frustrate people for a long time." It sure will! Indeed, Republicans have already expressed worries that Cramer's dithering will dissuade other candidates from entering the race. And whether he does or doesn't go for it, whoever runs for the GOP will consequently have a shorter runway thanks to Cramer's delay. It's almost the best-case scenario for Heitkamp, who is almost assuredly the only person who could hold this seat for Democrats.
● NV-Sen: Even though it looks like Democrats just landed a major recruit to take on GOP Sen. Dean Heller next year in the form of freshman Rep. Jacky Rosen, fellow Rep. Dina Titus says she's still considering a bid. According to the National Journal, Titus, who back in April said she'd decide by early summer, now says she'll make up her mind after a poll she's conducting "is completed this week."
After wooing Rosen into the race, though, D.C. Democrats likely won't be thrilled if they then have to deal with a contested Senate primary. They may get one anyway: Rosen reportedly has the backing of former Sen. Harry Reid, who is still tremendously influential in the Silver State, while Titus is a rare Nevada Democrat who's been unafraid to cross Reid—and won. If Titus sticks to her timetable, we'll at least know soon enough.
House
● AZ-02: Former 1st District Democratic Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick has been considering running for Arizona's 2nd Congressional District after recently moving to Tucson, and she told the Arizona Daily Star on Wednesday that she will form an exploratory committee, but stopped short of announcing she was running. Kirkpatrick only represented a small slice of the Tucson area in her old district, but she only narrowly lost the 2nd to longtime GOP Sen. John McCain in her unsuccessful 2016 Senate race and could be a formidable candidate against vulnerable Republican Rep. Martha McSally.
McSally's struggles in this 50-45 Clinton seat have helped entice several other Democrats into running or thinking about doing so, and Kirkpatrick will have to get past the primary first if she does run. The current Democratic field includes: former state Rep. Matt Heinz; ex-state Rep. Bruce Wheeler; accountant Mary Matiella, who was formerly an assistant secretary for the Army; and hotel operations manager Billy Kovacs.
● CO-07: EMILY's List endorsed state Rep. Brittany Petersen on Wednesday ahead of the 2018 Democratic primary for Colorado's 7th Congressional District, which current Democratic Rep. Ed Perlmutter is leaving open to run for governor next year. Petersen is so far the only noteworthy woman who has jumped into the race for Democrats, and EMILY's backing could be a sign that they don't expect another prominent woman to join the primary, although fellow state Rep. Tracy Kraft-Tharp has previously said she's considering it. Petersen currently faces state Sens. Andy Kerr and Dominick Moreno in the Democratic primary for this 51-39 Clinton seat located in Denver's western and northern suburbs.
● FL-18: Republican Rep. Brian Mast easily dispatched a well-funded Democratic foe to win the then-open 18th District by 54-43 in 2016, but national Democrats nonetheless appear keen on giving him him a strong challenge next year despite this Palm Beach and Treasure Coast-area seat favoring Trump 53-44. Amid speculation that the DCCC was trying to recruit him into the race, Democratic Palm Beach County State's Attorney Dave Aronberg refused to rule out running, which is the first we've heard from him directly. Palm Beach County covers about 39 percent of the 18th District, and Aronberg's history of winning competitive races could make him a formidable candidate if he were to run.
● SD-AL, SD-Gov: Sioux Falls Mayor Mike Huether left the Democratic Party to become an independent late in 2016, setting off speculation that the mayor of South Dakota's largest city would seek higher office next year in this conservative state. However, Huether announced on Thursday that he would not run for South Dakota's lone congressional district in 2018 to succeed Republican Rep. Kristi Noem, who is vacating it to run for governor. The mayor has previously said he was also considering running for the open governor's office next year, but his recent announcement made no mention of his plans regarding that or any other race.
South Dakota has elected Republican governors for an unbroken streak of four straight decades, and Huether could struggle to break through as an independent even if he could successfully distance himself from his former party's historically unpopular label here. In addition to Noem, state Attorney General Marty Jackley is already running in the GOP primary, while state Senate Minority Leader Billie Sutton joined the race on the Democratic side earlier in June.
● WI-01: Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan has never faced a close House race since his initial 1998 victory in southeastern Wisconsin's 1st District, which includes Racine, Janesville, and part of Milwaukee's notoriously conservative suburbs. However, Ryan's newfound unpopularity as leader of the House Republican caucus and a key architect of his party's radically conservative health care bill has sparked interest from a handful of Democrats in running against him in 2018. Hailing from Ryan's own town, Democratic Janesville School Board member Cathy Myers jumped into the race on Thursday with the support of the city's local Democratic state senator, meaning she could have some juice in the primary.
Ryan recently drew another noteworthy Democratic challenger when ironworker Randy Bryce announced his own candidacy Wednesday with a highly polished hard-hitting ad. That spot generated major media buzz and helped his nascent campaign raise over $100,000 within the first 24 hours. An Army veteran and union leader, Bryce cuts a distinctly blue-collar profile that could appeal to just the sort of working-class white voters who helped turn Wisconsin from blue to red last year.
However, Bryce's past electoral track record is less than stellar: He lost a state senate general election in 2014, a 2013 primary for Racine County Education Board, and an Assembly primary in 2012. Nonetheless, his well-orchestrated kickoff and labor connections could mean he has what it takes to run a strong campaign in 2018.
One other Democrat, David Yankovich, first joined the race in late May. While Yankovich has a wide Twitter following and has written for outlets like HuffPost, the Ohio-based political activist lacks strong ties to the district and could face potent charges of carpetbagging.
Regardless of whom Democrats nominate, this is a tough district that Republicans have successfully gerrymandered to prevent Ryan from losing, resulting in a seat that favored Trump 53-42 and Romney 52-47. Ryan will also have countless millions to unleash a nuclear barrage of attack ads if he needs to, making the Democrats' path to victory even more daunting. However, if Ryan and congressional Republicans continue to face significant blowback from their despised health care bill and Trump's toxic unpopularity, there just might be a chance that the speaker could wear out his welcome in his district, much like former Democratic Speaker Tom Foley did when he lost his swingy seat in the 1994 Republican wave.
Mayoral
● Seattle, WA mayor: This week saw two different polls about the primary election field for the Seattle mayoral race with completely different sets of results in the top-two primary, reflecting the unsettledness of the race after incumbent mayor Ed Murray's surprising decision to drop out shortly before the filing deadline. The SurveyUSA poll for KING-TV finds ex-mayor Mike McGinn in the lead at 19 presumably thanks to his high name recognition. He’s followed followed by ex-U.S. Attorney Jenny Durkan at 14, activist Nikkita Oliver at 9, state Sen. Bob Hasegawa at 8, state Rep. Jessyn Farrell at 6, and activist Cary Moon at 3.
On the other hand, a poll from Wilson Strategic taken for Washington State Wire only sampled landlines, which is a major problem in today’s relatively cell phone-only environment that likely causes it to poorly gauge Seattle’s transient and young voters. For what it’s worth, that survey puts Durkan in first at 30, followed by Hasegawa at 9, McGinn at 6, Moon at 4, Oliver at 3, and Farrell at 2. The poll also asks about Murray, and 22 percent of respondents say they'd vote for him if he were running, with 46 percent sticking with their previous choice. The SurveyUSA poll similarly found that 33 percent would vote for Murray if he were on the ballot, with 50 percent saying “other candidate.”
Why is that last question relevant? Murray, despite his dropout, is now interested in running a write-in bid, and is taking the idea seriously enough to commission his own poll this week about it. Murray says he'll decide next week whether to proceed, no doubt aware that his poll results still won't reflect the actual difficult practicalities of running a write-in bid in a city of 650,000. Murray, however, is now free of the main problem that forced him out of the race, since the plaintiff in the lawsuit alleging that Murray sexually abused him in the 1980s withdrew his case in mid-June.
