The Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, and Stephen Wolf, with additional contributions from the Daily Kos Elections team.
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LEADING OFF
● NY Redistricting: New York’s bipartisan redistricting commission approved a new congressional map on Thursday, but the state legislature—where Democrats enjoy supermajorities—could still reject the plan.
And they might yet do so, since the map is chiefly focused on protecting incumbents. The new lines would largely lock in the status quo by shoring up one congressman from each party while giving Democrats a small boost against a vulnerable Republican in a third district.
However, national Democrats have been urging lawmakers to take a more aggressive approach to mitigate the damage from widespread Republican gerrymandering across the country.
Check out Stephen Wolf’s story for details on which districts would be affected and how Democrats could reject this map and draw their own.
SENATE
● MT-Sen, MT-02: Republican Rep. Matt Rosendale ended his week-old campaign for the Senate Thursday, though only after he’d spent nine months telling everyone that he planned to run.
Rosendale’s departure means that wealthy businessman Tim Sheehy, who has the support of Donald Trump and the NRSC, will now almost certainly avoid a competitive June 4 primary to take on Democratic Sen. Jon Tester. Rosendale tells Politico he has not yet decided if he’ll seek reelection to the House, but he could face opposition from fellow Republicans who launched bids to succeed him in the expectation that his seat would be open.
● NJ-Sen: EMILY’s List has endorsed former financier Tammy Murphy ahead of the June 4 Democratic primary.
● TX-Sen: The Republican pollster National Public Affairs shows GOP incumbent Ted Cruz deadlocked 44-44 in a hypothetical general election against Democratic Rep. Colin Allred, though the horserace portion of the survey came after questions about respondents’ views on “the flow of illegal immigrants entering the United States through the southern border.” The sample favors Donald Trump 42-35 against Joe Biden. NAP did not mention whether this poll was taken for a client.
● WI-Sen: A spokesperson for Eric Hovde has told multiple media outlets that the wealthy businessman will announce next week that he’ll seek the GOP nod to take on Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin.
GOVERNORS
● ND-Gov: Lt. Gov. Tammy Miller announced Thursday that she will run to replace her boss and fellow Republican, retiring Gov. Doug Burgum. Miller joins Rep. Kelly Armstrong in the June 11 primary to lead this dark red state, though other candidates could still get in ahead of the April 8 filing deadline.
Miller, who was appointed to her current post in late 2022, has never won elected office before, but she has plenty of political connections. In 2006, she became CEO of Border States Electric, a large electrical distribution company, and she was still serving in that capacity in 2017 when longtime political writer Rob Port reported that unnamed state GOP officials were trying to recruit her to take on Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp. Miller ultimately sat the race out, though, and Rep. Kevin Cramer went on to oust Heitkamp as Armstrong was winning the race for his now-open House seat.
Miller left Border States in 2019 when Burgum picked her to serve as his administration’s chief operating officer. The governor gave her another promotion in 2022 when he appointed her to replace Lt. Gov. Brent Sanford, who resigned to rejoin the private sector.
HOUSE
● IL-07: Chicago City Treasurer Melissa Conyears-Ervin earned the endorsement of the influential Chicago Teachers Union on Wednesday for her March 19 Democratic primary bid against longtime Rep. Danny Davis. Conyears-Ervin is one of four Democrats hoping to deny renomination to Davis in this safely blue seat.
● IN-04: Republican Rep. Jim Baird did indeed file for a fourth term ahead of the Feb. 9 deadline, though that still may not quiet chatter that he could retire from this dark red seat. Howey Politics relayed speculation in September that Baird could drop out after winning the May 7 primary so that party leaders could make his son, state Rep. Beau Baird, the new nominee.
In any case, the older Baird should have little trouble winning that primary. The congressman ended 2023 with a $351,000 to $86,000 cash on hand lead over the only other Republican candidate who has reported raising any money, businessman Charles Bookwalter. State Rep. Craig Haggard, who formed a campaign account in November so he could run whenever Baird retired, is seeking reelection to the legislature.
● IN-08: Former Trump staffer Dominick Kavanaugh joined the May GOP primary to replace retiring Republican Rep. Larry Bucshon shortly before filing closed last week, and the 28-year-old first-time candidate reportedly has been implying he’ll have his old boss’ backing.
“That’s what he has suggested,” Vanderburgh County GOP Chairman Mike Duckworth told Thomas Langhorne of the Evansville Courier & Press. Duckworth added that he’s not the only local chair in this 21-county constituency “trying to substantiate what he’s saying about his connection to Trump.”
Duckworth, however, said he wasn’t sure about Kavanaugh’s recent history in this safely red district in southwestern Indiana. The candidate says he was born and raised in what’s now the 8th District, and Langhorne writes that he’s cast ballots there during the last several election cycles. However, Langhorne adds that Kavanaugh’s LinkedIn shows that he’s held jobs outside the Hoosier State, and that he began his most recent gig in September in Washington, D.C.
● MD-06: Former Del. Neil Parrott, who was the GOP nominee the last two cycles, announced just before filing closed last week that he would run to succeed his old opponent, Democratic Senate candidate David Trone.
Parrott lost his last campaign to Trone 55-45 after the wealthy congressman ran ads blasting him for once proposing that HIV positive people should be denied medicine unless they got a tattoo “in a spot covered by a bathing suit” in order to warn potential sex partners about their status.
One Republican who will not be campaigning here, though, is Woodsboro Mayor Heath Barnes, who withdrew his name before the deadline. Joe Biden carried the 6th District 54-44 in 2020.
● MI-10, MI-07, MI-13: 2022 Democratic nominee Carl Marlinga this week picked up the support of the Michigan Education Association, which describes itself as “the state’s largest school employee union,” for his campaign against GOP Rep. John James in the 10th District. The only other non-incumbent the MEA backed for the House is Curtis Hertel, a former state senator who has no notable intraparty opposition in the Aug. 6 Democratic primary to replace Democratic Senate candidate Elissa Slotkin in the swingy 7th District.
The same cannot be said for Marlinga, who is far behind the best-financed contender in the race to take on James in a suburban Detroit constituency that Donald Trump narrowly carried in 2020. Physician Anil Kumar, a member of the Wayne State University Board of Governors who has unsuccessfully run for the House twice before, finished the year with a $756,000 to $161,000 cash on hand advantage over Marlinga thanks largely to self-funding. None of the other Democratic candidates had six figures in their campaign accounts at the close of the fourth quarter, while James had $2.3 million banked.
The MEA also threw its backing behind several Democratic incumbents, including 13th District Rep. Shri Thanedar. The freshman congressman, unlike his colleagues, faces serious primary opposition in August against the man he narrowly beat two years ago, former Michigan Veterans Affairs Agency director Adam Hollier; Detroit City Councilwoman Mary Waters also joined the contest this week for this safely blue seat. Thanedar, who is self-funding most of his effort, finished 2023 with a $2.6 million to $407,000 cash advantage over Hollier.
● ND-AL: Public Service Commissioner Julie Fedorchak announced Thursday that she would enter the June 11 primary to succeed Rep. Kelly Armstrong, a fellow Republican who is running for governor. Fedorchak told reporters that she would compete for the party’s endorsement at its early April convention but says she’ll remain in the race even if she didn’t get it.
Fedorchak was state director for Sen. John Hoeven in 2012 when then-Gov. Jack Dalrymple appointed her to fill a vacancy on the three-person body that regulates utilities. (The person she was chosen to replace was Rep.-elect Kevin Cramer, who is now North Dakota’s other senator.) Fedorchak had no trouble winning a 2014 statewide special election to keep the job, and she won her most recent campaign 71-29 in 2022.
Fedorchak joins a field that already includes former state Sen. Tom Campbell and former state Rep. Rick Becker, and it may grow larger still. Cass County District Court Judge Wade Webb tells KFGO he’s also thinking about seeking the GOP nod.
● PA-03: While state Rep. Chris Rabb filed FEC paperwork in the fall for a potential primary challenge against Democratic Rep. Dwight Evans, he did not submit his name before Tuesday’s candidate filing deadline. Evans’ only intraparty foe in this dark blue constituency is former Philadelphia Register of Wills Tracey Gordon, who does not appear to have set up a fundraising account yet.
Gordon lost renomination 32-30 last year to attorney John Sabatina after a turbulent four years in office. Among other things, five former public employees have filed lawsuits alleging that Gordon fired them because they wouldn’t donate to her campaign. The Philadelphia Inquirer also reported last year that Gordon allowed her daughter to sell Philadelphia Eagles shirts out of her office.
● PA-10: Army veteran Bob Forbes said just before filing closed Tuesday that he had not collected enough signatures to make the April 23 Democratic primary ballot to take on far-right Rep. Scott Perry. Six other Democrats, however, are still in the hunt.
● SC-06: Longtime Rep. Jim Clyburn announced Wednesday that he’s stepping down from Democratic leadership, though he reaffirmed that he would still run for reelection to his safely blue seat. “Events of the last several years have made it clear that the greatness of America is at peril,” said Clyburn, “and the threats to our continued pursuit of ‘a more perfect Union’ are real.”
● TX-26: The Texas Tribune’s Matthew Choi takes a deep dive into the 11-way March 5 Republican primary and notes that three members of Texas’ House delegation are backing far-right media figure Brandon Gill: 5th District Rep. Lance Gooden; 22nd District Rep. Troy Nehls, and 13th District Ronny Jackson, whom Donald Trump unsuccessfully tapped to lead the Department of Veterans Affairs in 2018. The Trump-endorsed Gill, like his father-in-law, Dinesh D’Souza, is an election denier.
Gill’s main intra-party foe in the race to replace retiring GOP Rep. Michael Burgess in this reliably red seat appears to be Southlake Mayor John Huffman, who has former Gov. Rick Perry and 24th District Rep. Beth Van Duyne on his side. However, as Choi notes, the fundraising contest between them isn’t close. Gill, who self-funded more than half of his haul, ended 2023 with a $439,000 to $286,000 cash on hand lead over Huffman, while businesswoman Luisa del Rosal had only $127,000 available.
Former Denton County Judge Scott Armey, who lost the 2002 runoff to Burgess in a major upset, at least doesn’t have such high expectations this time: Armey, who is the son of former Majority Leader Dick Armey, finished December with only $67,000 in the bank. Candidates need to win a majority to avert a May 28 runoff.
● WI-03: Democratic state Rep. Katrina Shankland has publicized an internal poll from Blueprint Polling arguing she’s a stronger candidate against GOP Rep. Derrick Van Orden than businesswoman Rebecca Cooke, who is the only other notable Democrat running in the Aug. 13 primary. Blueprint finds Van Orden leading Shankland by a small 49-47 spread, while respondents back the incumbent 50-44 against Cooke.
● WI-08: Brown County Director of Administration Chad Weininger tells the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Lawrence Andrea that he’s interested in running to replace Rep. Mike Gallagher, a fellow Republican who unexpectedly announced his retirement over the weekend.
Weininger, who was elected to the state Assembly in 2010 but retired four years later, tried to regain elected office last year when he challenged Democratic incumbent Eric Genrich in the officially nonpartisan race for mayor of Green Bay.
The city, according to Dave’s Redistricting App, supported Joe Biden 53-45 in 2020, but Weininger seemed to have a strong chance to score a pickup after outpacing Genrich 47.3-46.6 in the first round of voting. The mayor, though, turned things around in the general election by highlighting Weininger’s anti-abortion stances, and he prevailed 53-47.
There’s plenty of time for more Republicans to join the race for this 57-41 Trump seat in northeastern Wisconsin ahead of the June 3 filing deadline, though state Rep. John Macco says he won’t be a candidate.
The only notable Republican in the race so far is former state Sen. Roger Roth, whose uncle, Toby Roth, represented a previous version of this seat from 1979 to 1997. Roger Roth, then a state representative, tried to get to the House in 2010 by challenging Democratic Rep. Steve Kagen, but he ended up losing the primary 48-32 to Reid Ribbile, who defeated Kagen that fall.
Roth ultimately returned to the legislature in 2014 by getting elected to the Senate, and he prevailed in the packed 2022 primary for lieutenant governor by beating his nearest opponent 30-18. However, the ticket led by Tim Michels lost 51-48 to the Democratic team of Gov. Tony Evers and Sara Rodriguez.
PROSECUTORS & SHERIFFS
● Cook County, IL State’s Attorney: Attorney Clayton Harris has picked up the backing of Rep. Delia Ramirez, a progressive freshman who is one of the most prominent Latino politicians in the state, ahead of the March 19 Democratic primary.
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