Missouri GOP gubernatorial candidate Peter Kinder
Leading Off:
• MO-Gov: Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder is hoping his second shot at a gubernatorial bid goes a bit better than his first. In a campaign kick-off on Sunday in the town of Dellwood, Kinder joined the already-wild GOP primary to succeed term-limited Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon next year. It was an unusual place for a Republican rally: Dellwood is adjacent to Ferguson, and like its neighbor, it was scarred by riots after a grand jury declined to indict the police officer who killed Michael Brown.
But Kinder, of course, was unconcerned about abuses of police power. Rather, he focused on the vandalism that followed Brown's death, accusing Nixon of failing to deploy the National Guard "while Ferguson burned." Kinder's been saying this kind of thing all along: Earlier this year, he attacked Barack Obama and Eric Holder for participating in "incitement of the mob" and "encouraging disorder in Ferguson," and even went in for some old-school red baiting by claiming the Department of Justice was "staffed with Marxists and black radicals." So in that sense, Dellwood was the perfect spot for a Republican who wants to run on a bellicose law-and-order platform.
Kinder himself, though, hasn't always walked the straight-and-narrow. His putative 2012 bid ended in a fiery wreck after a former stripper accused him of harboring an obsession with her a decade-and-a-half earlier, to the point that he became "very aggressive" with her during her performances and even "hurt" her physically. (It didn't help that the story surfaced because he took a selfie with her, years after she'd broken off contact with him, at a bar known for its "pantsless parties.") Around the same time, Kinder was also forced to repay the state for $35,000 in hotel bills he'd charged to taxpayers for trips to decidedly non-official activities like tea party events and even the World Series.
Ultimately, Kinder gave up on his gubernatorial hopes but managed to narrowly win another term as lieutenant governor after barely surviving a difficult primary. This time, he'll face a challenging primary of a different sort. A wide array of candidates is poised to beat each other up, including former U.S. Attorney Catherine Hanaway (bankrolled by conservative zillionare Rex Sinquefield), state Sen. Mike Parson (inspired to run out of fury over Auditor Tom Schweich's suicide, which he attributed to negative attacks from Hanaway's allies), former Navy SEAL Eric Greitens (a one-time Democrat with a resume straight out of central casting), and businessman John Brunner (your classic Republican richie rich with money to burn).
This race is already nasty, and with the aggro Kinder's entry, it'll only become more so. Meanwhile, state Attorney General Chris Koster, the only Democrat in the race, can sit back and enjoy the fireworks.
2Q Fundraising:
• CA-Sen: Kamala Harris (D): $1.6 million raised, $3 million cash-on-hand
• CO-Sen: Michael Bennet (D-inc): $2 million raised, $4.3 million cash-on-hand
• NV-Sen: Joe Heck (R): $572,000 raised, $1.4 million cash-on-hand
Senate:
• AZ-Sen: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has now dropped a third poll from Fabrizio Lee that, shall we say, stands out from the crowd. This time, in Arizona, they find GOP Sen. John McCain leading Democratic Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick by an eyebrow-raising 53-38 margin. The only other public poll of this matchup came in May from PPP, which had McCain ahead just 42-36, so hey, you say, maybe Fabrizio is right?
Well, they also have McCain earning a 56-37 job approval rating, which stands in sharp contrast to multiple PPP surveys. PPP last saw McCain with an execrable 36-51 approval score; while the firm is notorious for giving almost every politician weak ratings, they've consistently found McCain at the bottom of the national heap. Fabrizio has also produced too-good-to-believe numbers for Republicans in Nevada (Joe Heck up 50-36) and New Hampshire (Kelly Ayotte up 52-41), so this is all starting to feel like an exercise in narrative-building more than anything else.
• FL-Sen, 13: It's funny: After all that effort Democrats expended last year to turn Florida's 13th District blue, it looks like a late round of court-ordered redistricting will finally do the trick instead. According to a spokesman, GOP Rep. David Jolly, who narrowly won a hotly contested special election to the House just over a year ago, is "seriously considering" a bid for Senate and will announce his decision "early next week."
All signs point to a Jolly run, as Republicans flagrantly gerrymandered the 13th to excise the southeastern quadrant of the city of St. Petersburg—you can see it here clear as day—that's predominantly African American and therefore heavily Democratic. In a new ruling, Florida's Supreme Court made it clear that that kind of chicanery won't fly and has demanded a redraw. If that missing portion of St. Pete were re-united with the rest of the city, a hypothetical new district drawn by Matthew Isbel shows that Barack Obama would have won 54 percent of the vote, a sizable bump from the 50 percent he took under the current lines.
What's more, with ex-Gov. Charlie Crist weighing another comeback bid, Jolly would potentially be facing some heavy-duty opposition. Crist carried the existing 13th by a 50-43 margin, according to Daily Kos Elections' preliminary calculations, even as he lost 48-47 statewide, and that missing chunk of south St. Petersburg—where Crist actually lives—went for him by an astounding 81-16 spread.
Crist still isn't a sure bet to run, but facing a multi-pronged threat to his continued congressional career, you can see why Jolly is searching for an escape hatch. But the confines of a GOP Senate primary won't be very friendly either. Jolly's a relative moderate who, after all, won a blue district. If he does seek a promotion, he'll be facing off against the likes of fellow Rep. Ron DeSantis, the Club for Growth's golden boy, and Lt. Gov. Carlos Lopez-Cantera, who seems like your typical anodyne Republican the establishment could easily love.
Jolly's best chance would involve a crowded primary fight that he can win with a narrow plurality. But in this scenario, like a team two games out of first place hoping to make the playoffs in the final week of the season, Jolly wouldn't control his own destiny. In politics, just like in real life, sometimes your fate is simply out of your hands.
• IN-Sen: As expected, Rep. Todd Young announced over the weekend that he's joining the GOP primary for Indiana's open Senate race. Young just raised $1 million in the most recent quarter, putting him atop the fundraising pack. His two rivals took in far less: $600,000 for fellow Rep. Marlin Stutzman and just $200,000 for Eric Holcomb, a top staffer for retiring Sen. Dan Coats.
Democrats would love to see Holcomb and Young, who both hail from the business-oriented, establishment wing of the party, fight over the same pool of voters and allow Stutzman to sneak through, but if Young keeps swamping Holcomb, it may not be much of a fight. And there's still another obstacle looming for Stutzman's candidacy: State Sen. Mike Delph continues to hover around the edges of the race and now says he'll make up his mind about running by the end of September.
Like Holcomb and Young, Stutzman and Delph would compete for a similar demographic, angry tea partiers (though Delph is a bit more of a social conservative). However, Delph has flirted with statewide bids before and declined in the past, as he did in 2012 with that year's Senate contest. He also previously said he'd decide on this race in a couple of months ... a couple of months ago. So for now, we have a three-way Republican battle, while the lone Democrat running, ex-Rep. Baron Hill, gathers his resources in the hopes of staging an upset next year.
• NH-Sen: As Republican legislators keep Democratic Gov. Maggie Hassan deliberately pinned down by waging a protracted budget fight, a second GOP pollster has coughed up numbers showing Sen. Kelly Ayotte over the 50 percent mark in a hypothetical matchup. The latest comes from the Tarrance Group, on behalf of a conservative group called Citizens for a Strong New Hampshire, which finds Ayotte up 51-44 on Hassan; previously, Fabrizio Lee (for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce) put Ayotte on top 52-41. In between those two, the Senate Majority PAC released its own survey, from PPP, that had Hassan ahead 45-44.
• PA-Sen: Katie McGinty, the chief of staff to Gov. Tom Wolf, seems to be the last real hope of Democrats who'd like to see an alternative to Joe Sestak, and she may actually be interested. According to PoliticsPA, she just participated in a weekend retreat in Martha's Vineyard hosted by the DSCC and attended by some 15 Democratic senators. Sestak, who recently was reported to be the target of a very modest rapprochement effort by Harry Reid, was invited to join in as well but he declined.
Gubernatorial:
• OR-Gov: Republican state Rep. Knute Buehler has upgraded from "in no hurry" to make up his mind to "will decide by the end of September" whether to run for governor. If he were to go for it and earn the GOP nomination, he'd likely wind up in a rematch with Democratic Gov. Kate Brown, who beat him by a fairly comfortable 51-43 margin in the 2012 race for secretary of state. The only Republican currently running in next year's special election is physician Bud Pierce.
House:
• AZ-01, 04: Former state House Speaker Andy Tobin, who ran a crummy race in Arizona's 1st Congressional District last year and lost a contest he should have won, has opted not to try again. Tobin had hoped that the Supreme Court would nuke the state's independent redistricting commission and give the GOP a chance to draw an even friendlier district (and preferably one that took in more of his home turf), but that didn't happen.
However, the press release Tobin issued regarding his decision referred only to the 1st District; in an odd twist, he claimed last week that he'd been approached to run in the adjacent 4th District, which would set up a primary against incumbent Republican Rep. Paul Gosar. Why Tobin would seek out a difficult challenge like that is a mystery, but the specificity of his statement means he still bears watching.
• CA-46: We'll know very shortly whether Rep. Loretta Sanchez has a ghost of a shadow of a prayer of beating state Attorney General Kamala Harris in next year's Senate primary, or whether she's just operating her campaign headquarters out of Fantasyland. (See, Fantasyland is an attraction at Disneyland, which is actually in her congressional district and ... jokes are always funnier when you explain them, right?) Er, anyway, Sanchez pointedly did not rule out dropping back down to run for re-election after her disastrous opening weekend, and she'll have to cough up fundraising numbers for the quarter by Wednesday night. (Harris took in $1.6 million.)
It's probably for this reason that we haven't seen much action yet in the race to succeed her, despite the fact that the 46th is solidly blue, though former state Sen. Lou Correa was quick to jump in. But there's now another nibble, from Anaheim City Councilor Jordan Brandman, who just filed paperwork with the FEC. However, Brandman comes with some baggage: A couple of years ago, he was accused of plagiarizing Wikipedia articles for a report that Orange County paid him $24,000 to prepare.
• FL-09: Newly-minted Senate candidate Alan Grayson has, predictably, wasted no time loud-mouthing off, and would-be successors are likewise wasting no time in lining up to replace him. The latest is Grayson's own district director, Susannah Randolph, whom Marc Caputo describes as well-connected: She's tight with a lot of big donors, and her husband is Orange County's tax collector and a former state representative.
As Caputo also notes, though, it's possible that Grayson's girlfriend, businesswoman Dina Minning, could run herself, creating a potential rift in the Grayson-sphere. Indeed, Randolph may already be signaling that she expects exactly that to happen: She declined to endorse her own boss in his Senate bid, so perhaps he plans to return the favor.
Randolph will also face some tough competition in the Democratic primary. Several other candidates are already running, including state Sen. Darren Soto, who probably has the inside track. Aside from his built-in electoral base, one key advantage for Soto is that he's of Puerto Rican heritage, like many of the voters in this district.
Also on Sunday, the first Republican hopeful joined the race, Kissimmee Vice-Mayor Wanda Rentas. Republicans will have an incredibly hard time pulling off an upset in this 61-37 Obama seat, but the 9th could yet see its borders change as the result of new redistricting ordered by Florida's Supreme Court.
• IL-11: Republicans didn't have much luck trying to unseat Democratic Rep. Bill Foster in last year's wave (he hung on by a 7-point margin), and they're not apt to fare much better next year ... but at least a couple of people want to try. The latest is Lisle Township Trustee Michael Tams, who has filed paperwork with the FEC but doesn't seem to have made any kind of public announcement. (Lisle, for what it's worth, has a population of 116,000, about two thirds of which is in the 11th District.) GOP DuPage County Board member Tonia Khouri has also opened a campaign committee, but has yet to announce her plans. (Hat-tip: Politics1)
• MD-06: Maryland's 6th Congressional District was gerrymandered (albeit not especially well) by Democrats to elect one of their own, so in theory, Rep. John Delaney should have little trouble holding it down. However, he took less than 50 percent and scraped by with a 1-point victory in last year's GOP wave, so that fact might explain why Washington County Commission President Terry Baker just said he'll run for this seat next year. Of course, the presidential electorate should be much more favorable to Team Blue, but there's also an outside shot that Delaney could run for Senate (he still hasn't ruled it out), so an open seat would represent a bit more of an opportunity for Republicans. Baker joins Del. David Vogt in the GOP primary.
• MI-10: Wealthy businessman Paul Mitchell, who spent $3.6 million of his own money in a losing bid for Congress last year, isn't hesitant about playing the role of "rich guy going district shopping to buy a House seat." He just joined the GOP primary in retiring Rep. Candice Miller's 10th District, which covers Michigan's proverbial northeastern "Thumb." In 2014, Mitchell got swamped in the Republican primary two districts away in the 4th (which takes up a big hunk of the central part of the state), losing 52-36 to now-Rep. John Moolenaar. Several other Republicans are already running for Miller's seat, and the top dog among them is state Sen. Phil Pavlov.
• NV-03: Nevada Republicans really, really want to hold on to the swingy 3rd District, what with Joe Heck running for Senate and all, and they're going all-out to rally behind state Senate Majority Leader Michael Roberson. Next month, just about every GOPer in the state, from Gov. Brian Sandoval and Sen. Dean Heller down to the lowliest Assembly backbencher, is gathering for a reception in Las Vegas on Roberson's behalf.
But as we all know with today's Republican Party, there's almost always someone who's purchased his own snare drum and sheet music and has no intention of taking direction from the establishment's bandleaders. In this case, that drum soloist is named Danny Tarkanian, who just announced on Monday that he'd join the GOP primary. He also has the unusual distinction of both having a famous name (his dad was a legendary—and controversial—basketball coach at UNLV) and earning perennial candidate status thanks to his frequent and unbroken string of losses.
However, Tark has also managed to win the occasional primary, and when he last ran for Congress (in the neighboring 4th District in 2012), he narrowly edged Barbara Cegavske, the establishment choice. (She's now Nevada's secretary of state.) It's very possible he could do something similar again. Tarkanian, like a lot of conservatives, is pissed at Roberson for leading the fight on behalf a package of tax hikes Sandoval pushed through earlier this year. It's not often you have Republicans on record supporting tax increases, so this gives Tark as juicy a hook as a tea partier will ever get.
But Tark has massive flaws of his own, including a $17 million judgment against his family over a loan for a failed "equestrian destination resort" that he and his family personally guaranteed. It's not clear whatever happened in that case (Tark said he'd appeal, and the last published stories are almost three years old), but you can bet that Roberson will dig into it. No Democrats are running here yet, but the prospect of a blood-soaked GOP primary and a Tarkanian nomination have to be encouraging.
Other Races:
• Special Elections: The Johnny Longtorso Report reports:
Georgia HD-48: This is an open Republican seat located in the Atlanta suburbs in Roswell. One Democrat is running, Jimmy Johnson, who ran for this seat in 2014 and lost 65-35. Two Republicans are also in the race, businessman Dave McCleary and retired physician Betty Price. This district went 60-38 for Mitt Romney in 2012.
Georgia HD-80: This is also an open Republican seat, just north of Atlanta. One Democrat is in the race, attorney Taylor Bennett. There are also three Republicans running: attorneys Catherine Bernard and Loren Collins, and former Brookhaven Mayor Max Davis. Bernard ran for this seat in 2014, losing the primary to the previous incumbent by a 75-25 margin. This district went 56-43 for Romney.
The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir and Jeff Singer, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, and Daniel Donner.