The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, Stephen Wolf, Carolyn Fiddler, and Matt Booker, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Daniel Donner, James Lambert, David Beard, and Arjun Jaikumar.
Leading Off
● NC-Sen: North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis has been an ardent supporter of Donald Trump, but he may be about to find out the hard way that in today’s Republican Party, any dissent whatsoever is enough to inspire a primary challenger.
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Tillis, who is running for re-election in a state that Trump carried only 50-46, announced a few days ago that he’d vote in favor of a resolution that would overturn the White House’s declaration of an emergency along the country’s southern border. That instantly made him some enemies at home, with several Tar Heel State Republican activists telling the News & Observer’s Brian Murphy that they’d welcome a primary campaign against the senator.
However, it’s easy to call for a primary challenger, but it’s quite another thing altogether to actually find someone willing and able to run a strong campaign against an incumbent. So far, no notable Republicans have said they’re even interested in mounting a crusade against Tillis. The only potential candidate mentioned in the article is Rep. Mark Walker, and he doesn’t seem to be chomping at the bit to run. Still, the congressman, who back in 2014 endorsed starting a “little war with Mexico,” didn’t rule out campaigning against Tillis when given the chance.
Walker, who said he considered Tillis a good friend, told Murphy, “Voting with the Democrats on something this important, I don’t see where that helps him.” When Murphy asked Walker if he might run, the congressman said he was “not suggesting that at all at this point,” which is hardly a no. Walker added that he believed that Tillis had “opened the door” to a challenger, but that ”I’m not going to sit here and tell you that that’s me.” With good friends like that, who needs good enemies?
Walker, who worked as a Baptist pastor before he was elected to office, does have some experience taking on the GOP establishment and winning. Walker ran for an open seat in the Greensboro area in 2014 and reached the GOP primary runoff with Rockingham County District Attorney Phil Berger, Jr. Berger was the son and namesake of Phil Berger, who was and remains the leader of the state Senate, and he held a big financial edge over Walker going into the contest.
The elder Berger even used his national influence to get the Republican State Leadership Committee—the entity tasked with helping GOP legislative candidates—to funnel $75,000 to a super PAC to help him out on his son’s campaign. However, it was Walker who pulled off a solid 60-40 win, and he hasn’t faced a serious primary or general election challenge since then. Walker, like so many former anti-establishment candidates, has become a member of the party leadership since then, with him being elected Republican Conference vice chair in November.
Senate
● AZ-Sen: Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego tells The Intercept that he'll decide whether or not to run for the Senate by the end of March. However, Gallego has already pushed back his timeline for deciding a few times this cycle. Gallego said late last year that he expected to decide by early January, and said in mid-January that he was "basically making the final decision and we'll have that in the next couple weeks." Gallego would face retired astronaut Mark Kelly in the primary.
● GA-Sen: Stacey Abrams, who was Team Blue's 2018 gubernatorial nominee, told the New York Times this week that she was considering running for president in 2020 in addition to a possible bid against GOP Sen. David Perdue and a 2022 rematch with GOP Gov. Brian Kemp. While Abrams said earlier this year that she'd decide on her plans by the end of this month, she told the paper the decision will come by late March or early April. An unnamed "person with direct knowledge of her planning" recently told the paper that the announcement would likely come in mid-April.
● KS-Sen: The Kansas City Star reports that Dave Lindstrom, who formerly played in the NFL for the Kansas City Chiefs in the 1970s and 1980s, is "gearing up" to run for Senate as a Republican. Lindstrom isn't officially in the race yet, but said he just wants "to assess the feasibility" of a potential bid.
Lindstrom currently serves as chair of the Kansas Turnpike Authority, and he was the lieutenant governor nominee on the GOP's unsuccessful 2002 gubernatorial ticket. Since the end of his football career, Lindstrom previously owned several Burger King franchises and served on the Johnson County commission for a decade.
● OR-Sen: On Tuesday, Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley announced that he would seek a third term this cycle rather than run for president. Merkley is unlikely to face any serious primary opposition, and he should have little trouble in the general election in a state Clinton carried 50-39.
House
● GA-07: On Tuesday, 2018 Democratic nominee Carolyn Bourdeaux unveiled an endorsement from Roy Barnes, who is Georgia's most recent Democratic governor.
● NC-03: Retired Marine Col. Richard Bew is the latest Democrat to jump into the 3rd District special election after filing opened this week. Bew, who retired from the Marine Corps last year after 29 years of service, served as a combat pilot in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Europe, and he also once worked as a top legislative aide to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
In this coastal district where there's a large military presence and numerous veterans, Bew backed up his opposition to offshore oil drilling by arguing that the military is already treating climate change as a fact, not something that's up for debate. Bew, noting that the armed forces provided his family with “great healthcare,” also cited access to affordable care as a major focus of his campaign, an issue that many successful Democratic candidates had emphasized in 2018.
● NC-09: Former GOP Mecklenburg County Commissioner Matthew Ridenhour filed paperwork with the FEC on Tuesday to open a fundraising committee, but has not yet announced he's in. The filing deadline for the special election is March 15.
● NJ-02: The National Journal's Alex Clearfield asked engineer Hirsh Singh about running against freshman Democratic Rep. Jeff Van Drew and writes that he "is neither ruling it in nor out." Singh ran here last cycle for what was an open seat, and let's just say his campaign did not go well. At all.
When Singh entered the race, he reportedly assured local GOP leaders that he'd pour $2 million of his own money into his bid. However, his financial disclosures later revealed that, rather than being a multimillionaire, his actual assets sat somewhere between $51,000 and $115,000. He also listed between $1,000 and $15,000 of those assets as coming from casino winnings, writing in the description, "Hit black 13 on Roulette in Atlantic City after the first annual GOP Leadership Summit ;-)." Yes, Singh really included that winky emoticon in his official financial disclosure statement.
However, Singh got a ;-( from voters on primary night when former Atlantic County Freeholder Seth Grossman beat him 39-31; Grossman's own campaign also turned out to be a disaster, yet he, like Singh, also hasn't ruled out another try this cycle. Singh's campaign ended up spending a total of $144,000, an amount we're told is considerably less than $2 million.
● NV-02: While GOP Rep. Mark Amodei flirted with retiring last cycle, he told the Nevada Independent's Jon Ralston on Monday he was "looking forward to running in the 2020 Republican primary against the 14 to 20 Republican hopefuls who can't wait to put their foot between my shoulder blades."
Ralston writes that he'd been hearing chatter for weeks that 2018 GOP gubernatorial nominee Adam Laxalt and his team were "talking about how Amodei was going to retire and the seat was Laxalt's for the taking." Amodei heard the same talk, including from Laxalt himself, and said he was not pleased that so many Republicans seemed to be thinking, "We all love you, just hurry up and die" when his career was still very much alive.
The irritated congressman says that he told Laxalt's old campaign manager, as well as several lawmakers who might also want to run for an open seat, "Anyone who wants to feel froggy, the water is fine .… But with all due respect, do a little homework." Amodei has never faced a serious primary challenge, and so far, there's no sign that one is on the horizon. Trump carried this northern Nevada seat 52-40, and Democrats haven't made a serious effort to flip it in a long time.