As the sitting governor, Bullock has already won two hard-fought elections in 2012 and 2016, and he had a strong approval rating in the few available polls. Bullock is also starting with very high name recognition and should be able to raise ample money, making him a far more imposing challenger than the existing field of little-known Democratic contenders. Indeed, businesswoman Cora Neumann had raised the most money and was likely the Democratic frontrunner before Monday, but she quickly bowed out of the race and endorsed Bullock.
Bullock’s decision to run provides Democrats with their best shot at ousting Daines, but it will still be an uphill battle. Montana backed Trump by a punishing 56-35 in 2016, and there’s little indication—at least not yet with eight months to go until Election Day—that Trump will fare significantly worse there in November. Furthermore, Daines has done little to endanger himself beyond any generic Republican incumbent.
In an era where fewer and fewer voters are willing to split their tickets, especially in federal races, Bullock will have a tougher time convincing Trump-leaning voters to cross over for him when the stakes appear higher. However, there’s still a real chance he could pull off an upset win, and his running expands for Democrats what has long been a narrow path to flipping the Senate.
Indeed, while Bullock will have to convince thousands of Trump supporters to vote for him, he managed to do so just four years ago. Asking voters to split their tickets for a federal race rather than a state-level election is a more difficult task, which is why Daines is still favored. But if anyone can put this race in play for Democrats, it’s Bullock, which is why Daily Kos Elections is changing our rating on this race from Safe Republican to Lean Republican.
Senate
● AL-Sen: The local GOP firm WT&S Consulting is out with a new poll of the March 31 GOP runoff that gives former Auburn University football coach Tommy Tuberville a 49-43 lead over ex-U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions. The only other poll we’ve seen of this runoff matchup was an early February Mason-Dixon survey that had Sessions ahead 49-42. That poll, though, was taken weeks before Tuberville outpaced Sessions 32-31 in the Tuesday primary.
● AZ-Sen: GOP Sen. Martha McSally is out with a late January poll from Fabrizio Lee showing her leading Democrat Mark Kelly 47-45. A February survey from the GOP firm HighGround Public Affairs and a March survey from the Democratic group Public Policy Polling both found Kelly 5-7 points ahead.
● Georgia: Candidate filing closed Friday for Georgia’s May 19 party primaries, and the state has a list of contenders here.
A primary runoff will take place July 21 for any races where no one takes a majority of the vote. However, the state has an unusual law that also requires candidates competing in the November general election in every race besides president to take a majority to avoid another runoff. Confusingly, the runoff for state-level general elections is set for Dec. 1, while the second round for federal general elections is on Jan. 5, 2021. (The special election for the U.S. Senate is governed by a different set of rules, which we’ll discuss in our GA-Sen-B item.)
● GA-Sen-A: GOP Sen. David Perdue won this seat in an expensive 2014 general election, and seven Democrats filed to take him on in a red-leaning state that has gradually been becoming more competitive. Libertarian Shane Hazel is also in, so there’s a chance that no one will take the majority of the vote needed to win outright in November.
The candidate most familiar to readers is probably Jon Ossoff, who was the Democratic nominee for the historically expensive 6th District special election in 2017. The other two noteworthy contenders are former Columbus Mayor Teresa Tomlinson and Sarah Riggs Amico, who lost the 2018 general election for lieutenant governor by a close 52-48 margin.
Ossoff ended 2019 with a $1.5 million to $472,000 cash-on-hand lead over Amico, while Tomlinson had $319,000 on-hand. Perdue had $7.8 million to defend himself in a race that Daily Kos Elections rates as Lean Republican.
● GA-Sen-B: Almost immediately after Georgia’s candidate filing deadline closed on Friday, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution obtained a police report describing how D.C. Democrats’ top choice for this fall’s special election for the Senate was accused of harming his estranged wife just last week.
Pastor Raphael Warnock, who has the support of the DSCC, is one of 20 candidates running for the final two years of former GOP Sen. Johnny Isackson’s term. Warnock’s wife, Ouleye Warnock, told police that her husband had run over her foot with his car after an argument on March 2.
The report says that first responders were “not able to locate any swelling, redness, or bruising or broken bones” on Ouleye Warnock’s foot, and the candidate was not charged. Raphael Warnock also told police that he’d tried to drive “slowly” away from his wife’s home that night and that he then heard her accusing him of running over her foot. When the AJC asked him if he’d harmed his wife, Raphael Warnock said that “it didn’t happen.”
Two notable Democrats are running in addition to Warnock: former U.S. Attorney Ed Tarver and businessman Matt Lieberman, the son of former Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman. The top Republican candidates are wealthy Sen. Kelly Loeffler, who was appointed to this seat in December, and Rep. Doug Collins, a notorious Trump sycophant.
All contenders will face off on one ballot in November, and in the all-but-certain event that no one takes a majority, the two candidates with the most votes, regardless of party, will compete in a runoff on Jan. 5. The few polls we’ve seen have shown both Loeffler and Collins taking the top two spots, which would lock Democrats out of the second round, though many voters remain undecided.
Team Blue’s path to victory also grew more complicated in recent days when state Rep. Valencia Stovall, a Democrat who was first elected in 2012 to a seat south of Atlanta, filed to run as an independent. Stovall doesn’t have much of a chance to advance to the runoff, but she could take enough support from the Democratic candidates to send Loeffler and Collins to the January finale. Daily Kos Elections rates this contest as Lean Republican.
● ME-Sen: The conservative group One Nation has debuted another TV ad supporting Republican Sen. Susan Collins, this time by praising her work in the fight against diabetes
● TX-Sen: Nonprofit director Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez, who took 13% in the first round to finish in third place, has endorsed state Sen. Royce West over Air Force veteran MJ Hegar in the runoff for the Democratic nomination. Hegar outpaced West by 22-15 earlier this month.
Meanwhile, the Koch-aligned Americans for Prosperity is spending $500,000 on a TV and digital ad buy for Republican Sen. John Cornyn. Their spots (here and here) praise Cornyn on health care and Trump’s tax cuts.
Gubernatorial
● UT-Gov: Scott Rasmussen is out with a new poll for the Deseret News and the University of Utah that gives former Ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman a 32-20 lead over Lt. Gov. Spencer Cox in the June GOP primary, while former state House Speaker Greg Hughes and businessman Jeff Burningham are tied for a distant third with 7% of the vote each. The firm found Huntsman with a similar 35-25 edge over Cox a month ago.
● VA-Gov: With the historic 2020 legislative session recently coming to an end, some Democratic lawmakers are starting to make noise about whether they will run for governor next year, when Democratic incumbent Ralph Northam will face term limits. State Sen. Jennifer McClellan says she’s considering and will decide in April, and Del. Jennifer Carroll Foy is also viewed as a likely candidate, although there’s no direct word from her on her interest yet.
House
● CA-16: The Associated Press projects that Democratic Rep. Jim Costa will face Republican Kevin Cookingham in the general election for this reliably blue seat in the Fresno area. Costa leads with 38% of the vote with 85,000 counted, and Cookingham beats Democratic Fresno City Councilor Emeralda Soria 36-20 for the second general election spot.
● CA-25: On Sunday, former GOP Rep. Steve Knight conceded defeat in the top-two primary for this open seat. Democratic Assemblywoman Christy Smith and Navy veteran Mike Garcia, a Republican, will face off in the May 21 special election for the final months of former Democratic Rep. Katie Hill’s term. The two will then compete again in November for the full-two year term in this northern Los Angeles County seat, which swung from 50-48 Romney to 50-44 Clinton.
There is one odd development from last week’s contests we want to address, though. Both the first round of the special election and the top-two primary were on the ballot, but the results were a bit different. With 100,000 votes counted as of Monday afternoon, Smith takes first place in the regular primary with 31%, while Garcia leads Knight 25-20 for second place. However, Smith has a larger 34% in the special election, while Garcia also outpaces Knight by a considerably bigger 27-18 spread. So, why would the same voters act so differently when presented with essentially the same assortment of candidates?
One big reason is that the candidates were listed in a very different order in both the regular and special elections. Each county in California randomizes its candidate list for each election, and Smith and Garcia had more favorable ballot positions in the special in Los Angeles County, which makes up 83% of this seat (the balance is in Ventura County), than they did in the regular contest.
Making matters more complicated is that Los Angeles County now uses a digital voting screen for its elections (the machine prints a paper ballot) and because there were so many candidates, voters had to scroll between three different screens to see all of their choices in each of the 25th District races. As a helpful reader points out, Smith was listed as the very first candidate in the special election, while she was fifth in the regular race.
However, while Knight was just above Garcia on the special ballot, there were seven people listed between the former congressman and Garcia in the regular top-two. Indeed, Garcia was the second-to-last candidate listed in the regular race, so anyone who wanted to vote for him would have had to scroll to almost the very end to find him.
● GA-06: Freshman Democratic Rep. Lucy McBath faces a rematch with former GOP Rep. Karen Handel, whom she unseated in a 50.5-49.5 upset in 2018. Several other Republicans initially planned to run against McBath but ended up dropping out, and Handel doesn’t face any serious intra-party opposition.
This seat, which includes Atlanta’s affluent northern suburbs, was solidly red at the start of the decade, but it has dramatically swung to the left during the Trump era. The district went from 61-37 Romney to 48-47 Trump, and, despite the taint of Republican voter suppression that marred her election, Democrat Stacey Abrams carried it 51.0-47.5 during the 2018 contest for governor. McBath ended December with a $2 million to $829,000 cash-on-hand lead over Handel.
● GA-07: GOP Rep. Rob Woodall decided to retire months after winning re-election by a shockingly narrow 433-vote margin against Democrat Carolyn Bourdeaux, and both parties have crowded contests to succeed him. This seat, which includes Atlanta’s northeast suburbs, is another well-educated diverse district that has been lurching to the left in the Trump era. Georgia’s 7th District moved from 60-38 Romney to 51-45 Trump, and Democrat Stacey Abrams carried it 50-49 despite being hampered by the flawed 2018 election for governor.
Bourdeaux is one of six Democrats who filed to run here. The field also includes state Sen. Zahra Karinshak; state Rep. Brenda Lopez Romero; former DNC official Nabilah Islam; former Fulton County Commission chair John Eaves, who held office outside the district; and 2016 nominee Rashid Malik. Bourdeaux, who began running soon after her narrow defeat, ended 2019 with an $863,000 to $422,000 cash-on-hand lead over Karinshak, who has the support of VoteVets, while none of the other four candidates had more than $60,000 available.
Seven Republicans are competing to replace Woodall. The only elected official in the contest is state Sen. Renee Unterman, who bizarrely talked about becoming a Democrat just a few months before she ran here. Emergency room physician Rich McCormick, who has the support of the anti-tax Club for Growth, and former Home Depot executive Lynne Homrich also have plenty of resources at their disposal.
Also in the race are businessman Mark Gonsalves; teacher Lisa Noël Babbage; perennial candidate Eugene Yu; and Zachary Kennemore, whose campaign Facebook’s url is “Zach Kennemore For President.” Another Republican, former education executive Lerah Lee, ended up dropping out in early February.
Lee actually brought in more money from donors during the final quarter of 2019 than any of the other Republicans, though most of them have been self-funding. Unterman ended December with a $765,000 to $533,000 cash-on-hand lead over McCormick, while Homrich and Gonsalves had $399,000 and $126,000 to spend, respectively. None of the other contenders reported having any money available at the end of last year.
● GA-09: A total of 10 Republicans filed to run to succeed Senate candidate Doug Collins in this safely red seat in the northeastern part of the state. Collins only announced he was seeking a promotion last month, so we won’t see any fundraising reports from any of the candidates until mid-April.
The current elected officials in the race are state Sen. John Wilkinson and state Reps. Matt Gurtler and Kevin Tanner. Former Gov. Nathan Deal is supporting Tanner, and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution recently reported that Gov. Brain Kemp’s allies are also backing him.
The field also includes former Rep. Paul Broun, who gave up the neighboring 10th District to unsuccessfully run for party’s Senate nomination in 2014 and lost to Collins here in 2016. Former Forsyth County party chair Ethan Underwood and three others round out the field.
● GA-13: Rep. David Scott has long been one of the lousiest members of the Democratic caucus, but he may have once again avoided a serious primary challenge in this safely blue seat in the southwestern Atlanta suburbs. The three Democrats running to take on Scott are former East Point Mayor Jannquell Peters, former Cobb County party chair Michael Owens, and former state Rep. Keisha Waites, who we hadn’t mentioned before.
Waites was last on the ballot in 2018 when she challenged incumbent Robb Pitts in the Democratic primary for Fulton County Commission chair and lost 51-49, and it’s not clear when she decided to take on Scott. Waites only opened up a fundraising committee over the weekend, though, while both Peters and Owens raised very little money during 2019. Scott ended December with $428,000 on-hand.
● GA-14: GOP Rep. Tom Graves announced in December that he would retire from this safely red seat in the northwestern part of the state, and nine Republicans are running to take his place. The only sitting elected official running is state Rep. Kevin Cooke, though former state School Superintendent John Barge, who badly failed to unseat then-Gov. Nathan Deal in the 2014 primary, and former state Rep. Bill Hembree are also in.
Another notable candidate is construction company owner Marjorie Greene, who has a habit of spreading far-right conspiracy theories about the 2017 Las Vegas massacre. Rounding out the field are Air Force veterans Ben Bullock and Clayton Fuller; neurosurgeon John Cowan; Army veteran Andy Gunther; and auto dealer Matt Laughridge, who unsuccessfully ran for the state Senate in 2013.
The only two candidates who had any money at the end of 2019 were Greene and Bullock, who were previously running in the 6th and 7th Districts, respectively. Greene, who has self-funded most of her campaign, had $648,000 on hand to Bullock’s $79,000.
● IN-01: Retiring Rep. Pete Visclosky took sides in the crowded May Democratic primary to succeed him by endorsing North Township Trustee Frank Mrvan on Saturday. Mrvan also earned an endorsement from the United Steelworkers of America District 7 in this reliably blue northwestern Indiana seat.
● LA-05: Republican Luke Letlow announced Monday that he was resigning as chief of staff to retiring Rep. Ralph Abraham to run for his open seat, and Abraham immediately endorsed him in this safely red northeast Louisiana district. Letlow served as Abraham’s campaign manager during his initial 2014 bid, though Letlow has not run for office himself before now.
Two fellow Republicans, state Rep. Lance Harris and Ouachita Parish Police Juror Scotty Robinson, were already running in the November all-party primary, and others have shown an interest in getting in ahead of the July filing deadline.
● NC-11: Donald Trump announced on Friday evening that he was picking GOP Rep. Mark Meadows, who had said he would not run again last December, to serve as his newest chief of staff. Meadows, who has not yet announced when he’ll resign from the House, will replace Mick Mulvaney, a former South Carolina congressman who has now been exiled appointed special envoy for Northern Ireland.
It’s not clear when a special election would take place for the final months of Meadows’ term, though Aubrey Woodard, who serves as chairman of the 11th Congressional District GOP, says he thinks it would be concurrent with the regular November contest. Notably, a special would take place under the old district lines that were struck down in 2019, not the newly redrawn ones in use in the regular election for the full term in the next Congress. Both parties would choose nominees by executive committee instead of a special primary.
The first round of the regular primary to succeed Meadows took place on Tuesday, and businesswoman Lynda Bennett and businessman Madison Cawthorn both advanced to the May runoff. The Democratic nod for this 57-40 Trump seat was won outright by Air Force veteran Morris Davis.
● NJ-02: On Sunday, the Democratic Party committee in Atlantic County, which is the largest county in the 2nd District and has 41% of its total Hillary Clinton 2016 voters, gave its endorsement (also known as the all-important “organization line”) to mental health advocate Amy Kennedy. Consequently, Atlantic County Freeholder Ashley Bennett dropped out of the primary and endorsed Kennedy, and Kennedy also earned the endorsement of the state chapter of the Communications Workers of America just days before. Meanwhile, Democratic Sen. Cory Booker has endorsed political science professor Brigid Callahan Harris, who has the support of much of the rest of the local party establishment.
A new ALG Research poll for the New Jersey Working Families Party also found Kennedy leading Harrison by 21-8, while 2018 candidate Will Cunningham took 6% and Bennet sported just 4% before she dropped out. However, a large majority of voters were still undecided. The WFP has not endorsed anyone in this race so far.
● NM-02, NM-03: Both parties held their pre-primary conventions over the weekend, and the results could make a big difference in determining the shape of the June primaries. Candidates need to win at least 20% of the delegates to make it onto the primary ballot without gathering signatures, and whoever takes first at the party gathering also gets the top spot on the ballot. New Mexico’s candidate filing deadline is on Tuesday, so any candidates who performed poorly at the conventions won’t have long to decide whether to keep their campaigns going.
In the 2nd District, 2018 GOP nominee Yvette Herrell beat oil businesswoman Claire Chase 66-33, while businessman Chris Mathys barely registered with 1%. Chase launched a large TV buy a few weeks ago, but it doesn’t seem to have done enough to sway delegates. The winner of the GOP primary will take on freshman Democratic Rep. Xochitl Torres Small, who narrowly beat Herrell last cycle to win this 50-40 Trump seat in the southern part of the state.
Democrats also held their convention in the reliably blue 3rd District, a northern New Mexico seat being vacated by Senate candidate Ben Ray Luján. Attorney Teresa Leger Fernandez scored a decisive win by taking 42% of the vote, while Sandoval County Treasurer Laura Montoya just made the ballot by earning 20%. First Judicial District Attorney Marco Serna was in third with 13%, while state Rep. Joseph Sanchez took 12%. Three other candidates took 5% of the vote or less: former CIA agent Valerie Plame, former New Mexico deputy secretary of state John Blair, and attorney Kyle Tisdel.
● NY-17: While former Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino didn’t rule out running for this reliably blue open seat back in October, the Rockland/Westchester Journal News reports that the Republican has decided not to go for it. Party leaders instead expect that Astorino, who was the 2014 GOP nominee for governor, will try to oust Democratic state Sen. Pete Harckham in a 52-45 Clinton seat.
● TX-02: Navy veteran Elisa Cardnell announced Monday that she was dropping out of the May Democratic runoff and endorsing attorney Sima Ladjevardian, who outpaced her 48-31 in Tuesday’s primary to take on freshman GOP Rep. Dan Crenshaw. However, Cardnell’s team says she has not decided whether or not to withdraw her name from the runoff ballot yet.
Texas will complete its canvass for the first round of the primary on Sunday, and Caldwell will have three days after that to formally withdraw from the runoff. Her campaign manager said, “We’re exploring that option and talking with the party about what’s best for this race … We haven’t made a decision at this time.”
This northern Houston seat backed Donald Trump by a 52-43 margin, but GOP Sen. Ted Cruz took it by just a narrow 50-49 spread. However, while Ladjevardian has raised a credible amount of money since she entered the race in December, Crenshaw is already proving to be one of the strongest fundraisers in the House GOP. The incumbent ended Feb. 12 with a $2.66 million to $389,0000 cash-on-hand lead over Ladjevardian.
Legislative
● Special elections: There are two special elections on tap for Tuesday:
MI-HD-34: This is a Democratic district in Flint that became vacant last year when former Rep. Sheldon Neeley was sworn in as mayor of the city. Neeley’s wife, Cynthia Neeley, won a 10-candidate primary to become the Democratic nominee. The Republican is Adam Ford, who once ran for this seat in 2008, losing to then-Rep. Woodrow Stanley 84-16.
The Neely family is very likely to remain in control of this deep blue seat that went for Hillary Clinton 85-12 and Barack Obama 91-8. Republicans have a small 58-51 advantage in this chamber, which Democrats are hoping to win back this fall, with just this seat vacant.
NH-HD-Merrimack 24: This is a Republican seat in the Hooksett area that became vacant when former Rep. Dick Marple died last year. This is a multi-member district with four seats in total; the other three are all under GOP control.
The Democratic candidate for this seat is educator Kathleen Martins and the Republican is paramedic Elliot Axelman. Axelman has been endorsed by Gov. Chris Sununu and Matt Mowers, a GOP candidate for New Hampshire’s 1st Congressional District.
This is a solidly, though not overwhelmingly, Republican district that backed Donald Trump 53-43 and Mitt Romney 54-45. Democrats control this very large chamber 233-164 (with one Libertarian member); this seat and one other are vacant.
Mayoral
● Honolulu, HI Mayor: Former GOP Rep. Charles Djou announced on Monday that he would not run in this year’s contest to succeed termed-out Democratic Mayor Kirk Caldwell. Djou, who became an independent in 2018, said that he would not be able to run for office this year because he will soon be attending the U.S. Army War College.
Election Result Recaps
● Los Angeles County, CA District Attorney: With 1.23 million ballots counted as of Monday afternoon, incumbent Jackie Lacey is just below the majority of the vote she needs to avoid a November general election. Lacey is at 49.999% (yes, really), while former San Francisco District Attorney George Gascón leads public defender Rachel Rossi 27-23 for second. All three candidates are Democrats in this nonpartisan race, though both Gascón and Rossi have been running to Lacey’s left.
While Lacey is still incredibly close to winning outright, she’s been moving in the wrong direction as more ballots have been tabulated: On Wednesday afternoon, when a total of 966,000 voters had been counted, Lacey was taking 50.7%.
Source: http://feeds.dailykosmedia.com/~r/dailykosofficial/~3/J5l65CWf354/-Morning-Digest-Montana-Democrats-land-their-top-candidate-to-challenge-GOP-Sen-Steve-Daines