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, David Beard, and Arjun Jaikumar.
Leading Off
● Primary Night: Republican fears of getting Blankenshipped turned out to be a tad overblown. While sketchy reports of last-minute secret polls claimed that disgraced coal baron Don Blankenship had surged into a late lead in the GOP's Senate primary in West Virginia, it was not to be. Instead, the race went to state Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, who defeated Rep. Evan Jenkins by a 35-29 margin, with Blankenship well behind at 20. (The good news for Blakenship: His parole ended on Tuesday night, too.) Democrats had spent heavily to help ensure a win for Morrisey, figuring him the weaker of the two non-Blankenship candidates. Now he’ll now move on to face Sen. Joe Manchin, one of the most vulnerable Democratic senators up for re-election this fall thanks to the Mountain State's strong Republican lean.
Campaign Action
Meanwhile, in Indiana, wealthy former state Rep. Mike Braun sent the political dreams of two more Republican congressmen to an early grave. Braun, despite starting out the race as the third wheel, won the GOP primary for Senate in the Hoosier State with 41 percent, while Reps. Todd Rokita and Luke Messer trailed with 30 and 29, respectively. (Kind of appropriately, the two congressmen, who have had a long and bitter rivalry dating to their college years, ended up locked in tight race for the meaningless prize of finishing in second.) Braun now gets to do battle with Democratic Sen. Joe Donnelly, who, like Manchin, is very much at risk in November, and for similar reasons.
Sandwiched between Indiana and West Virginia is the state of Ohio, where self-funding Rep. Jim Renacci proved to be the one GOP congressman capable of actually winning a Senate primary on Tuesday night. However, Renacci's 47-32 win over businessman Mike Gibbons, who spent plenty of his own money but had few allies, was somewhat underwhelming. Renacci will face a tougher time against Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown, if for no other reason than the Buckeye State's demographics aren't quite as rough for Democrats as those of its neighbors.
Ohio was also witness to a pair of blowout gubernatorial primaries. Richard Cordray, the former head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, utterly demolished ex-Rep. Dennis Kucinich, pasting him by a 63-22 margin. That sets up a rematch of sorts with state Attorney General Mike DeWine, who beat Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor 60-40 for the GOP nod. In 2010, when Cordray was attorney general, DeWine unseated him by little over 1 percent amidst the GOP wave. 2018, suffice it to say, is shaping up a bit differently.
Finally, there was one surprising result in the U.S. House. In an upset, Rep. Robert Pittenger lost his bid for a third term to Pastor Mark Harris by a slim 49-46 in the Republican primary for North Carolina's 9th District, making Pittenger the first congressional incumbent to go down to defeat this year.
Pittenger only defeated Harris by a razor-tight 134 votes in the 2016 primary after a court ordered Republican legislators to redraw the congressional map, but it's nevertheless surprising that Harris was able to avenge his defeat this year. Two years ago, three-fifths of the seat was new to Pittenger thanks to redistricting, and he’d had two years since then to introduce himself to his new constituents. But even in his initial 2012 victory, he posted unintimidating margins.
Harris will go on to face Democrat Dan McCready, who has been a prodigious fundraiser. This gerrymandered district stretching from suburban Charlotte to Fayetteville went for Donald Trump by a 54-43 margin, but McCready’s strengths had already put it on the radar, and now that it’s an open seat, it should become more competitive still.
We’ll have a comprehensive rundown of the remaining big House primaries in the next Digest. In the meantime, you can find a link to all of the results here.
Senate
● MT-Sen: Former Judge Russ Fagg is going up with the first negative TV ad of the June 5 GOP primary. The narrator praises Fagg for supporting "the death penalty for illegal aliens who rape and murder, because right and wrong is black and white." (Subtle!) The ad then charges that state Auditor Matt Rosendale opposes the death penalty and "says 'It's time to get rid of it.'" Fagg has already run spots declaring that "criminal illegal aliens threaten America," so he seems to have decided that demonizing undocumented immigrants is his ticket to a general election with Democratic Sen. Jon Tester.
Tester himself is up with a new ad that features veterans praising him for fighting for them when the Department of Veterans Administration falls short. The spot comes a little more than a week after Trump demanded that Tester resign for his role in torpedoing Ronny Jackson's nomination to lead the VA. Trump accused the senator of peddling false rumors about Jackson, who withdrew his nomination after numerous reports came out alleging he drank on the job and over-prescribed medications like narcotics, and a super PAC called America First Action began a buy echoing Trump. Tester's new commercial seems to be his way to push back on these attacks without framing it as a battle between him and Trump, who decisively carried Montana.
Gubernatorial
● IA-Gov: Republican pollster Remington Research has conducted a survey of the Democratic primary for governor on behalf of the radio station KBUR AM/FM, making this the first poll we’ve seen of the race all year. Despite the large field of candidates, Remington reports businessman Fred Hubbell has a large plurality of 46 percent, while state Sen. Nate Boulton earns 20 and labor leader Cathy Classon takes 7. Hubbell has been spending very heavily on ads compared to his rivals, so it’s not a surprise the poll shows him in first. But if this poll is accurate, his fellow Democrats don’t have much time before the June 5 primary to cut into his edge if they hope to win outright or deny anyone the 35 percent of the vote needed to avoid having the state party convention decide the nomination.
● MI-Gov: EPIC-MRA is the latest pollster to wade into Michigan's general election for governor, and their survey has good news for Democrats even though the primary isn't until Aug. 7. The firm tested two of the major Democrats against state Attorney General Bill Schuette, the Republican front-runner, and they found leads of 43-38 for former state Senate Minority Leader Gretchen Whitmer and 44-38 for wealthy businessman Shri Thanedar, respectively.
Whitmer's edge is similar to Thanedar's despite the latter's obvious flaws as a candidate. However, that's a notable achievement for Whitmer, given that she hasn't even begun airing ads yet. By contrast, Thanedar has been spending heavily on ads for months yet hasn't faced any paid media attacks over his vulnerabilities.
Meanwhile, Schuette has released a poll from Public Opinion Strategies that has him beating Lt. Gov. Brian Calley by a wide 42-20 in the Republican primary. Schuette has so far led every primary survey by a substantial margin.
House
● CA-39: The DCCC has now released the ads it's airing in California's 39th District, and while we'd initially speculated they might be positive ads designed to boost Navy veteran Gil Cisneros, the committee's preferred candidate, instead they're running a pair of ads on both television and radio attacking two of the main Republican contenders.
One TV spot goes after former state Senate Minority Leader Bob Huff, saying he's repeatedly supported tax increases, including one shipping container levy that the California Chamber of Commerce dubbed a "job killer." The other slams Orange County Supervisor Shawn Nelson for promising to cut pensions, then allegedly signing up for "the most lucrative pension available." The narrator also sneers that Nelson "drove a taxpayer-funded $44,000 plug-in Prius."
As you may have sensed, the messages in both of these ads—name-checking the Chamber of Commerce, sniffing at hybrid cars—feel more targeted toward conservative-leaning voters. The DCCC's goal here is likely to drive down support for both Huff and Nelson among Republicans, which would almost certainly have the effect of boosting the third major GOP candidate in the race, former Assemblywoman Young Kim. That would be an acceptable trade, so long as it helps ensure the other person who makes it past next month's top-two primary is a Democrat.
Exactly who that will be remains very much uncertain, though. While the D-Trip added Cisneros to their Red to Blue list last month, the influential California Teachers Association has endorsed pediatrician Mai Khanh Tran.
● CA-50: Democrat Ammar Campa-Najjar has released a poll from Tulchin Research that has him leading the other candidates vying to take on Republican Rep. Duncan Hunter in the June 5 top-two primary. The poll, which surveyed 500 likely primary voters, has Hunter at 39 percent and Campa-Najjar at 14 percent. El Cajon Mayor Bill Wells, another Republican, comes in third at 8 percent, and Democrats Bill Molloy and Josh Butner each pull 6 percent. Twenty-five percent of the poll’s respondents were undecided.
● ID-01: The Club for Growth endorsed former state Sen. Russ Fulcher months ago for next week's GOP primary for this safely red seat, and they've very much been putting their money where their mouth is. The Idaho Press-Tribune reports that the Club has spent about $515,000 on advertising since March. No other major outside groups have gotten involved here, and none of the candidates have spent heavily.
● NM-01: With Honor, a group that's backing a bipartisan slate of veterans in races around the country this year, has gone up with a new TV ad on behalf of former U.S Attorney Damon Martinez, a Democrat and Army Reserves veteran. The ad praises his work during the Obama administration fighting gangs and drug cartels, while it blasts Trump for firing him.
● NM-02: Water-rights attorney Xochitl Torres Small has debuted her first TV ad ahead of the June 5 Democratic primary, which features her walking along irrigation waterways in a heavily agricultural area. She relays how she has spent her career fighting for the rights of New Mexicans who rely on access to scarce water resources, particularly in rural New Mexico. She promises to stand up to D.C. and protect New Mexico's public water and land.
Other Races
● NY-AG: In a stunning turn of events, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman resigned on Monday night, just three hours after the New Yorker reported that four women with whom Schneiderman had had romantic relations accused him of physical assault, including two who spoke on the record. Ironically, Schneiderman, a Democrat who'd emerged as one of Donald Trump's most aggressive courtroom adversaries, had publicly congratulated the New Yorker last month after the magazine won a Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of the #MeToo movement.
Following Schneiderman's resignation, state Solicitor General Barbara Underwood became the state's acting attorney general. The task of picking a permanent replacement, meanwhile, falls to the legislature, where both chambers vote collectively on a successor. Because Democrats dominate the larger lower house, they'll have control of the process, but it's possible that they'll simply let Underwood stay on as a placeholder.
That's because the position of attorney general is on the ballot this fall, and Democrats may prefer not to give one candidate a leg up as a temporary incumbent ahead of the Sept. 13 primary. This being New York, there are of course plenty of potential contenders, and many names will circulate. But rather than chase this whirlwind, we'll wait until we have firm declarations of intent both from the legislature and from candidates themselves.