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.
● Election Night: If I Were a Richmond: The big night is just about here, and we have a lot of exciting races in store on Tuesday from coast to coast. We’ll be liveblogging Tuesday’s election results at Daily Kos Elections starting at 7 PM ET, and tweeting as well. We’ve put together our hour-by-hour guide to the major contests as well as our key race tracker we’ll be updating throughout the night.
The main action will of course be in Virginia, where Democrats are looking to defend the governorship. Contributing editor David Jarman has compiled a set of county benchmarks that will help you make sense of returns as they come in to see if Democrat Terry McAuliffe is hitting his targets, or whether Republican Glenn Youngkin is positioned for a win. Old Dominion Democrats are also looking to hold the positions of lieutenant governor and attorney general, and their newly won majority in the state House of Delegates. To keep track of the state House battlefield, we’ve put together a guide to the key contests.
But it’s not just Virginia that’s for election lovers. While there’s little question that Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy will win a second term in New Jersey, both parties are hoping to score wins in the state House and Senate. There’s also a very crowded Democratic primary in the special election for Florida’s 20th Congressional District, a pair of House specials in Ohio, and a competitive race for a Republican-held seat on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.
Campaign Action
We also have competitive mayoral contests in Albuquerque, Atlanta, Boston, Buffalo, Cleveland, Minneapolis, Seattle, St. Petersburg, and many more cities. We’ll further be watching races for county executive, district attorney, and sheriff across the country, as well as a pair of high-profile ballot measures in Minneapolis that would replace the police department with a new Department of Public Safety as well as greatly strengthen the mayor’s office.
You can find all this, and even more, in our hour-by-hour guide to election night. We also have 14 legislative races in eight different states on tap, which we’ve listed here; you can find more about the big races to watch in our Special Elections item below.
We’re also pleased to announce that the annual Daily Kos Elections’ prediction contest is back! Once again, the exceptional Green’s Bakery is generously sponsoring our annual prediction contest. For more details, including contest rules and our submission form, click here.
We hope you’ll join us starting at 7 PM ET at Daily Kos Elections and on Twitter for our coverage of what will be an eventful election night!
● CO Redistricting: As expected, the Colorado Supreme Court has approved the new map adopted by the state’s independent congressional redistricting commission in September. Under the 2018 amendments that created the commission and its separate legislative counterpart, the court is required to assess any maps to ensure they adhere to criteria laid out in the state constitution and accept input from interested parties. The justices concluded that the map’s challengers did not meet the constitution’s high standard of review: whether commissioners engaged in an "abuse of discretion."
Those challengers included Latino voting rights advocates, who argued that the state constitution provided greater protections for racial and language minority groups than specified in the Voting Rights Act. The court, however, agreed with the commissioners, ruling that language in the constitution does not afford such groups additional protections. The justices also rejected complaints from Democrats that the commission failed to properly prioritize the creation of competitive districts.
The end result is a map that could easily result in equal representation for Republicans and Democrats, despite the fact that the state voted for Joe Biden by a comfortable 55-42 margin last year. That’s because the new 8th District, based in the Denver suburbs, would have gone for Biden 51-46 and in fact would have voted for Donald Trump 46-45 in 2016. The map also makes the 7th, another Denver-area seat, several points redder, taking it from 60-37 Biden to 56-42 Biden—and Hillary Clinton would have carried it just 47-44. In a tough year for Democrats, then, Republicans could wind up with a 5-3 majority.
Conversely, the Republican seat that Democrats were most eager to target—the 3rd District, held by conspiracy theorist Lauren Boebert—would shift a couple points to the right, from 52-46 Trump to 53-45 Trump. That very likely puts it out of reach for Democrats, at least for 2022 if not beyond.
Thanks to Colorado’s 2018 amendments, the legislature and governor no longer play a role in redistricting, meaning that the new congressional map is now law. The state Supreme Court is also reviewing the commission’s legislative proposals, but they’ll likely pass muster for the same reasons. While it’s possible that these maps could face further legal challenges through normal lawsuits, the Supreme Court’s interpretation of state law regarding the Voting Rights Act probably forecloses what would have been the most potent avenue of attack.
● NC Redistricting: A committee in North Carolina’s Republican-run state Senate passed the GOP’s new congressional redistricting proposal in a party-line vote on Monday. The map would enshrine gerrymandered districts that would give Republicans 10 seats in the state’s House delegation to just four for Democrats, and possibly even give the GOP an 11-3 advantage.
Most notably, the plan would split the Piedmont Triad (the region in the north-central part of the state made up of the cities of Greensboro, Winston-Salem, and High Point) between three different districts, despite the fact that Republicans had to reunite that very same area after state courts blocked the GOP’s previous map in 2019. Under North Carolina law, Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper would not be able to veto any maps passed by Republicans.
● OH Redistricting: Ohio’s Republican-dominated redistricting commission has, as expected, missed its Oct. 31 deadline to draft a new congressional map, kicking the process back to the state legislature. That development came a month after lawmakers missed their own Sept. 30 deadline to come up with a new map, which punted the task to the commission in the first place. Now Republicans will be able to adopt new districts with less support from Democrats than would have been necessary previously, or even none at all.
● OK Redistricting: Republican lawmakers in Oklahoma have released a new draft congressional map that, as expected, would make the state’s only competitive seat safely red by shattering the Oklahoma City area and dividing it between three districts. Under the old map, 92% of Oklahoma County is contained in the 5th and just 8% in the 4th; the new proposal would place a full third of the county—a portion that voted 54-43 for Joe Biden and includes its most heavily Latino precincts—into the 3rd and 4th Districts.
As a result, the 5th District, which voted for Donald Trump by a 51-46 margin last year, would instead have gone for Trump 58-39 according to Dave’s Redistricting App. This gerrymander would insulate Republican Rep. Stephanie Bice from future challenges after she unseated Democratic Rep. Kendra Horn in a close 52-48 contest in 2020.
● GA-Sen: Herschel Walker’s allies at 34N22 Leadership have publicized a mid-October Republican primary poll from OnMessage Inc. that finds the former NFL player sacking state Agriculture Commissioner Gary Black 74-6.
● NJ-Gov: Rutgers University: Phil Murphy (D-inc): 50, Jack Ciattarelli (R): 42 (June: 52-26 Murphy)
● NV-Gov: Rep. Mark Amodei tells The Nevada Independent that he will run for re-election to his reliably red northern Nevada House seat rather than enter the Republican primary for governor. The congressman went on to predict that there would be an ugly nomination fight to take on Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak, saying, "Republicans aren’t famous for forgiving and forgetting after a primary. And I’m not saying that disparagingly."
● NY-Gov: New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio last week set up a fundraising committee that could be used in a potential campaign for the Democratic nod.
● TX-Gov: YouGov’s new survey for the Texas Hispanic Policy Foundation and Rice University gives Republican Gov. Greg Abbott a tiny 43-42 edge against 2018 Senate nominee Beto O’Rourke, who has not yet announced his plans, in a hypothetical general election. Back in June, a Public Opinion Strategies internal for Abbott showed the incumbent ahead 52-42; UT Tyler has also released a few polls this year, but they inexplicably did not identify any candidate’s party affiliation.
YouGov also tests a scenario where actor Matthew McConaughey runs as an independent and finds Abbott defeating O’Rourke by a slightly larger 40-37 spread as 9% goes to McConaughey. The self-described "aggressively centrist" Oscar winner has spent the year flirting with a bid, though he’s declined to say which party, if any, he’d run with.
YouGov also takes a look at the GOP primary, and it finds Abbott in strong shape to win renomination. This portion of the survey, which sampled 405 Republican voters, has the governor defeating former Florida Rep. Allen West 64-13, with another 5% going to ex-state Sen. Don Huffines.
● VA-Gov: Insider Advantage (R) for Fox 5: Glenn Youngkin (R): 47, Terry McAuliffe (D): 45, Princess Blanding (Libertarian): 2
● FL-20: The Democratic firm Expedition Strategies, working on behalf of the group Pro-Israel America, has released the first, and likely only, Democratic primary poll we’ve seen since July, but it finds no favorite heading into Tuesday:
A 27% plurality of respondents are undecided in a contest where only a simple plurality is needed to prevail. Hardy has attracted attention in this contest for his opposition to U.S. military aid to Israel, but Pro-Israel America has not endorsed anyone or otherwise gotten involved in this race
● OR-06: Amy Ryan Courser, who was the Republican nominee last year in the current 5th Congressional District, has announced that she’ll run in the new 6th District.
Courser, a former Keizer city councilor who raised all of $232,000 last time, attracted no serious outside help in her 2020 campaign against Democratic Rep. Kurt Schrader, but she held the incumbent to a surprisingly modest 52-45 victory as Joe Biden was prevailing by a larger 54-44 spread; since then, Courser has spent her time spreading conspiracy theories about the presidential election. Schrader himself has yet to announce if he’ll run in the new 5th or 6th District.
● TX-15: Nonprofit official Eliza Alvarado announced in late October that she would seek the Democratic nod for the redrawn 15th District, a Rio Grande Valley seat that supported Donald Trump 51-48 last year. Other contenders may end up running now that Rep. Vicente Gonzalez has confirmed that he’ll run in the more secure 34th District rather than defend this constituency, but they don’t have too much time to decide: The Texas Tribune notes that the Texas secretary of state’s office has confirmed that the candidate filing deadline will be Dec. 13, which is one of the earliest in the nation.
● TX-34, TX-AG: Democrat Rochelle Garza, a former attorney for the ACLU, said on Monday that she’s abandoning her bid for Congress to instead run for state attorney general next year. Garza had entered the race for Texas’ 34th Congressional District after Democratic Rep. Filemon Vela decided to retire earlier this year, but after Republicans passed their new gerrymandered congressional map, Rep. Vicente Gonzalez announced that he’d seek re-election in the redrawn 34th rather than in the 15th District, which he currently represents.
In deferring to Gonzalez—and avoiding a primary battle she’d likely have lost—Garza earned an endorsement from the congressman for her new campaign. She’ll still face a competitive primary, though, with two other notable Democrats already declared, civil rights attorney Lee Merritt and former Galveston Mayor Joe Jaworski. Republicans also have a contested fight for their nomination: Incumbent Ken Paxton, who is under indictment for securities fraud, has drawn challenges from state Land Commissioner George P. Bush and former state Supreme Court Justice Eva Guzman.
● VA-07: Far-right state Sen. Amanda Chase has filed FEC paperwork for a potential campaign against Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger next year, though she has not yet announced a bid. What Chase has done, though, is spread conspiracy theories about Tuesday’s race for governor by baselessly accusing Democrats of "cheating."
● NY-AG: Incumbent Tish James’ decision to seek the Democratic nomination for governor means that New York will host an open seat race for one of the most prominent attorney general offices in the country. There are plenty of Democrats who could end up running here, but the eventual nominee should have no trouble prevailing in next year’s general election for an office the Republicans haven’t won since 1994.
One familiar name who has already taken action is law professor Zephyr Teachout, who said in early October she’d run for attorney general if James didn’t and filed campaign paperwork Thursday. Teachout waged a high-profile, but unsuccessful, 2014 primary campaign from the left against then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo, and she was Team Blue’s nominee two years later for the swingy 19th Congressional District in the Hudson Valley.
Teachout went on to run for attorney general in 2018 after incumbent Eric Schneiderman resigned in disgrace, and she hoped that she’d be able to excite progressives for her campaign against James, who was New York City public advocate at the time, and Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney. James, though, beat Teachout 40-31, with another 25% going to Maloney.
The City’s Josefa Velásquez also reported on Oct. 21 that Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez was sounding out supporters about a potential campaign to succeed James. A source close to Melinda Katz, who is the top prosecutor in neighboring Queens, also told Velásquez that "she’s certainly going to be ready to run" for an open seat.
Velásquez added that state Sen. Mike Gianaris, who is the chamber’s deputy majority leader and the head of Team Blue’s state Senate campaign arm, was also interested, while Assemblyman Clyde Vanel has said he’s thinking about it as well.
City & State also mentioned Maloney as a possibility, though he’s currently busy running the DCCC and hasn’t shown any obvious interest in another A.G. bid. Maloney didn’t need to sacrifice his House seat to run for attorney general in 2018 because New York at the time held federal primaries in June and state-level nomination contests in September, which allowed Maloney to be able to continue seeking re-election following his statewide defeat. However, after Empire State Democrats regained control of the state Senate in 2018, they consolidated the primaries the following year, so any House member this time would need to choose which post to run for.
The Albany Times Union also name-drops Rep. Kathleen Rice as a potential candidate, but she also hasn’t given any indication she’s thinking about it. Rice ran for attorney general in 2010 when she was Nassau County district attorney and lost the primary to Schneiderman by a narrow 34-32 margin. She was talked up as a possible contender eight years later following Schneiderman's departure, but Rice decided to stay in the House.
● TX-AG: YouGov, working on behalf of the Texas Hispanic Policy Foundation and Rice University, finds Donald Trump’s endorsed candidate, scandal-ridden incumbent Ken Paxton, holding a giant 54-18 lead over Land Commissioner George P. Bush in the Republican primary. This survey sampled 405 Republican voters.
● Special Elections: There are numerous special elections across the country on tap for Tuesday. You can find a list of those races and the presidential results of those districts here, and we’ll preview a couple of the more intriguing contests below:
ME-HD-86: This Republican district in the Augusta area became vacant after former Rep. Justin Fecteau moved out of the district. Augusta City Council member Raegan LaRochelle is the Democratic candidate taking on Army veteran James Orr, a Republican.
This district leans Democratic at the presidential level, backing Hillary Clinton 50-43 in 2016 and Barack Obama 59-37 in 2012. Despite this, Republicans have held this seat since 2014. Democrats control this chamber 79-65 with five independent/third party members and one other seat vacant.
MI-SD-28: This Republican district that takes in areas north and west of Grand Rapids became vacant after former Sen. Peter MacGregor was elected treasurer of Kent County last year. The Democratic candidate is former Kent County Commissioner Keith Courtade and the Republican is state Rep. Mark Huizenga.
This district is Republican leaning turf, supporting Donald Trump 58-38 in 2016 and Mitt Romney 61-38 in 2012 and. Joe Biden was able to turn in a stronger performance than other recent Democrats in this district, though, with Trump winning by a smaller 56-42 spread last year.
● Buffalo, NY Mayor: The race to lead Queen City will be one of Tuesday’s higher-profile contests, but if there are a large number of write-in votes, it could delay the announcement of a winner.
WBFO writes that the Erie County Board of Elections will report on election night roughly how many votes were cast for Democrat India Walton, who is the only candidate on the ballot, and how many write-ins there are. However, it won’t be able to initially verify how many of those write-ins were cast for Mayor Byron Brown until a hand-count takes place, which Democratic Elections Commissioner Jeremy Zellner says may not happen until all mail-in ballots have arrived on Nov. 15. There will almost certainly be plenty of legal wrangling if things are close.
● Cincinnati, OH Mayor: City Councilman David Mann is using his first and only TV ad ahead of Tuesday’s general election to accuse his fellow Democrat, Hamilton County Clerk of Courts Aftab Pureval, of seeking to "defund the police" and having a plan to "pull cops off our streets."
The Cincinnati Enquirer writes that the Pureval plan cited in the commercial doesn’t say anything about growing or shrinking the size or budget of the police force, while the clerk himself has said, "We need more officers." Pureval also has stated that he’s opposed to defunding the police.
Leading Off
● Election Night: If I Were a Richmond: The big night is just about here, and we have a lot of exciting races in store on Tuesday from coast to coast. We’ll be liveblogging Tuesday’s election results at Daily Kos Elections starting at 7 PM ET, and tweeting as well. We’ve put together our hour-by-hour guide to the major contests as well as our key race tracker we’ll be updating throughout the night.
The main action will of course be in Virginia, where Democrats are looking to defend the governorship. Contributing editor David Jarman has compiled a set of county benchmarks that will help you make sense of returns as they come in to see if Democrat Terry McAuliffe is hitting his targets, or whether Republican Glenn Youngkin is positioned for a win. Old Dominion Democrats are also looking to hold the positions of lieutenant governor and attorney general, and their newly won majority in the state House of Delegates. To keep track of the state House battlefield, we’ve put together a guide to the key contests.
But it’s not just Virginia that’s for election lovers. While there’s little question that Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy will win a second term in New Jersey, both parties are hoping to score wins in the state House and Senate. There’s also a very crowded Democratic primary in the special election for Florida’s 20th Congressional District, a pair of House specials in Ohio, and a competitive race for a Republican-held seat on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.
Campaign Action
We also have competitive mayoral contests in Albuquerque, Atlanta, Boston, Buffalo, Cleveland, Minneapolis, Seattle, St. Petersburg, and many more cities. We’ll further be watching races for county executive, district attorney, and sheriff across the country, as well as a pair of high-profile ballot measures in Minneapolis that would replace the police department with a new Department of Public Safety as well as greatly strengthen the mayor’s office.
You can find all this, and even more, in our hour-by-hour guide to election night. We also have 14 legislative races in eight different states on tap, which we’ve listed here; you can find more about the big races to watch in our Special Elections item below.
We’re also pleased to announce that the annual Daily Kos Elections’ prediction contest is back! Once again, the exceptional Green’s Bakery is generously sponsoring our annual prediction contest. For more details, including contest rules and our submission form, click here.
We hope you’ll join us starting at 7 PM ET at Daily Kos Elections and on Twitter for our coverage of what will be an eventful election night!
Redistricting
● CO Redistricting: As expected, the Colorado Supreme Court has approved the new map adopted by the state’s independent congressional redistricting commission in September. Under the 2018 amendments that created the commission and its separate legislative counterpart, the court is required to assess any maps to ensure they adhere to criteria laid out in the state constitution and accept input from interested parties. The justices concluded that the map’s challengers did not meet the constitution’s high standard of review: whether commissioners engaged in an "abuse of discretion."
Those challengers included Latino voting rights advocates, who argued that the state constitution provided greater protections for racial and language minority groups than specified in the Voting Rights Act. The court, however, agreed with the commissioners, ruling that language in the constitution does not afford such groups additional protections. The justices also rejected complaints from Democrats that the commission failed to properly prioritize the creation of competitive districts.
The end result is a map that could easily result in equal representation for Republicans and Democrats, despite the fact that the state voted for Joe Biden by a comfortable 55-42 margin last year. That’s because the new 8th District, based in the Denver suburbs, would have gone for Biden 51-46 and in fact would have voted for Donald Trump 46-45 in 2016. The map also makes the 7th, another Denver-area seat, several points redder, taking it from 60-37 Biden to 56-42 Biden—and Hillary Clinton would have carried it just 47-44. In a tough year for Democrats, then, Republicans could wind up with a 5-3 majority.
Conversely, the Republican seat that Democrats were most eager to target—the 3rd District, held by conspiracy theorist Lauren Boebert—would shift a couple points to the right, from 52-46 Trump to 53-45 Trump. That very likely puts it out of reach for Democrats, at least for 2022 if not beyond.
Thanks to Colorado’s 2018 amendments, the legislature and governor no longer play a role in redistricting, meaning that the new congressional map is now law. The state Supreme Court is also reviewing the commission’s legislative proposals, but they’ll likely pass muster for the same reasons. While it’s possible that these maps could face further legal challenges through normal lawsuits, the Supreme Court’s interpretation of state law regarding the Voting Rights Act probably forecloses what would have been the most potent avenue of attack.
● NC Redistricting: A committee in North Carolina’s Republican-run state Senate passed the GOP’s new congressional redistricting proposal in a party-line vote on Monday. The map would enshrine gerrymandered districts that would give Republicans 10 seats in the state’s House delegation to just four for Democrats, and possibly even give the GOP an 11-3 advantage.
Most notably, the plan would split the Piedmont Triad (the region in the north-central part of the state made up of the cities of Greensboro, Winston-Salem, and High Point) between three different districts, despite the fact that Republicans had to reunite that very same area after state courts blocked the GOP’s previous map in 2019. Under North Carolina law, Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper would not be able to veto any maps passed by Republicans.
● OH Redistricting: Ohio’s Republican-dominated redistricting commission has, as expected, missed its Oct. 31 deadline to draft a new congressional map, kicking the process back to the state legislature. That development came a month after lawmakers missed their own Sept. 30 deadline to come up with a new map, which punted the task to the commission in the first place. Now Republicans will be able to adopt new districts with less support from Democrats than would have been necessary previously, or even none at all.
● OK Redistricting: Republican lawmakers in Oklahoma have released a new draft congressional map that, as expected, would make the state’s only competitive seat safely red by shattering the Oklahoma City area and dividing it between three districts. Under the old map, 92% of Oklahoma County is contained in the 5th and just 8% in the 4th; the new proposal would place a full third of the county—a portion that voted 54-43 for Joe Biden and includes its most heavily Latino precincts—into the 3rd and 4th Districts.
As a result, the 5th District, which voted for Donald Trump by a 51-46 margin last year, would instead have gone for Trump 58-39 according to Dave’s Redistricting App. This gerrymander would insulate Republican Rep. Stephanie Bice from future challenges after she unseated Democratic Rep. Kendra Horn in a close 52-48 contest in 2020.
Senate
● GA-Sen: Herschel Walker’s allies at 34N22 Leadership have publicized a mid-October Republican primary poll from OnMessage Inc. that finds the former NFL player sacking state Agriculture Commissioner Gary Black 74-6.
Governors
● NJ-Gov: Rutgers University: Phil Murphy (D-inc): 50, Jack Ciattarelli (R): 42 (June: 52-26 Murphy)
● NV-Gov: Rep. Mark Amodei tells The Nevada Independent that he will run for re-election to his reliably red northern Nevada House seat rather than enter the Republican primary for governor. The congressman went on to predict that there would be an ugly nomination fight to take on Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak, saying, "Republicans aren’t famous for forgiving and forgetting after a primary. And I’m not saying that disparagingly."
● NY-Gov: New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio last week set up a fundraising committee that could be used in a potential campaign for the Democratic nod.
● TX-Gov: YouGov’s new survey for the Texas Hispanic Policy Foundation and Rice University gives Republican Gov. Greg Abbott a tiny 43-42 edge against 2018 Senate nominee Beto O’Rourke, who has not yet announced his plans, in a hypothetical general election. Back in June, a Public Opinion Strategies internal for Abbott showed the incumbent ahead 52-42; UT Tyler has also released a few polls this year, but they inexplicably did not identify any candidate’s party affiliation.
YouGov also tests a scenario where actor Matthew McConaughey runs as an independent and finds Abbott defeating O’Rourke by a slightly larger 40-37 spread as 9% goes to McConaughey. The self-described "aggressively centrist" Oscar winner has spent the year flirting with a bid, though he’s declined to say which party, if any, he’d run with.
YouGov also takes a look at the GOP primary, and it finds Abbott in strong shape to win renomination. This portion of the survey, which sampled 405 Republican voters, has the governor defeating former Florida Rep. Allen West 64-13, with another 5% going to ex-state Sen. Don Huffines.
● VA-Gov: Insider Advantage (R) for Fox 5: Glenn Youngkin (R): 47, Terry McAuliffe (D): 45, Princess Blanding (Libertarian): 2
House
● FL-20: The Democratic firm Expedition Strategies, working on behalf of the group Pro-Israel America, has released the first, and likely only, Democratic primary poll we’ve seen since July, but it finds no favorite heading into Tuesday:
- Businesswoman Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick: 15
- Broward County Commissioner Dale Holness: 14
- Broward County Commissioner Barbara Sharief: 13
- State Sen. Perry Thurston: 10
- State Rep. Bobby DuBose: 6
- State Rep. Omari Hardy: 5
A 27% plurality of respondents are undecided in a contest where only a simple plurality is needed to prevail. Hardy has attracted attention in this contest for his opposition to U.S. military aid to Israel, but Pro-Israel America has not endorsed anyone or otherwise gotten involved in this race
● OR-06: Amy Ryan Courser, who was the Republican nominee last year in the current 5th Congressional District, has announced that she’ll run in the new 6th District.
Courser, a former Keizer city councilor who raised all of $232,000 last time, attracted no serious outside help in her 2020 campaign against Democratic Rep. Kurt Schrader, but she held the incumbent to a surprisingly modest 52-45 victory as Joe Biden was prevailing by a larger 54-44 spread; since then, Courser has spent her time spreading conspiracy theories about the presidential election. Schrader himself has yet to announce if he’ll run in the new 5th or 6th District.
● TX-15: Nonprofit official Eliza Alvarado announced in late October that she would seek the Democratic nod for the redrawn 15th District, a Rio Grande Valley seat that supported Donald Trump 51-48 last year. Other contenders may end up running now that Rep. Vicente Gonzalez has confirmed that he’ll run in the more secure 34th District rather than defend this constituency, but they don’t have too much time to decide: The Texas Tribune notes that the Texas secretary of state’s office has confirmed that the candidate filing deadline will be Dec. 13, which is one of the earliest in the nation.
● TX-34, TX-AG: Democrat Rochelle Garza, a former attorney for the ACLU, said on Monday that she’s abandoning her bid for Congress to instead run for state attorney general next year. Garza had entered the race for Texas’ 34th Congressional District after Democratic Rep. Filemon Vela decided to retire earlier this year, but after Republicans passed their new gerrymandered congressional map, Rep. Vicente Gonzalez announced that he’d seek re-election in the redrawn 34th rather than in the 15th District, which he currently represents.
In deferring to Gonzalez—and avoiding a primary battle she’d likely have lost—Garza earned an endorsement from the congressman for her new campaign. She’ll still face a competitive primary, though, with two other notable Democrats already declared, civil rights attorney Lee Merritt and former Galveston Mayor Joe Jaworski. Republicans also have a contested fight for their nomination: Incumbent Ken Paxton, who is under indictment for securities fraud, has drawn challenges from state Land Commissioner George P. Bush and former state Supreme Court Justice Eva Guzman.
● VA-07: Far-right state Sen. Amanda Chase has filed FEC paperwork for a potential campaign against Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger next year, though she has not yet announced a bid. What Chase has done, though, is spread conspiracy theories about Tuesday’s race for governor by baselessly accusing Democrats of "cheating."
Attorneys General
● NY-AG: Incumbent Tish James’ decision to seek the Democratic nomination for governor means that New York will host an open seat race for one of the most prominent attorney general offices in the country. There are plenty of Democrats who could end up running here, but the eventual nominee should have no trouble prevailing in next year’s general election for an office the Republicans haven’t won since 1994.
One familiar name who has already taken action is law professor Zephyr Teachout, who said in early October she’d run for attorney general if James didn’t and filed campaign paperwork Thursday. Teachout waged a high-profile, but unsuccessful, 2014 primary campaign from the left against then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo, and she was Team Blue’s nominee two years later for the swingy 19th Congressional District in the Hudson Valley.
Teachout went on to run for attorney general in 2018 after incumbent Eric Schneiderman resigned in disgrace, and she hoped that she’d be able to excite progressives for her campaign against James, who was New York City public advocate at the time, and Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney. James, though, beat Teachout 40-31, with another 25% going to Maloney.
The City’s Josefa Velásquez also reported on Oct. 21 that Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez was sounding out supporters about a potential campaign to succeed James. A source close to Melinda Katz, who is the top prosecutor in neighboring Queens, also told Velásquez that "she’s certainly going to be ready to run" for an open seat.
Velásquez added that state Sen. Mike Gianaris, who is the chamber’s deputy majority leader and the head of Team Blue’s state Senate campaign arm, was also interested, while Assemblyman Clyde Vanel has said he’s thinking about it as well.
City & State also mentioned Maloney as a possibility, though he’s currently busy running the DCCC and hasn’t shown any obvious interest in another A.G. bid. Maloney didn’t need to sacrifice his House seat to run for attorney general in 2018 because New York at the time held federal primaries in June and state-level nomination contests in September, which allowed Maloney to be able to continue seeking re-election following his statewide defeat. However, after Empire State Democrats regained control of the state Senate in 2018, they consolidated the primaries the following year, so any House member this time would need to choose which post to run for.
The Albany Times Union also name-drops Rep. Kathleen Rice as a potential candidate, but she also hasn’t given any indication she’s thinking about it. Rice ran for attorney general in 2010 when she was Nassau County district attorney and lost the primary to Schneiderman by a narrow 34-32 margin. She was talked up as a possible contender eight years later following Schneiderman's departure, but Rice decided to stay in the House.
● TX-AG: YouGov, working on behalf of the Texas Hispanic Policy Foundation and Rice University, finds Donald Trump’s endorsed candidate, scandal-ridden incumbent Ken Paxton, holding a giant 54-18 lead over Land Commissioner George P. Bush in the Republican primary. This survey sampled 405 Republican voters.
Legislatures
● Special Elections: There are numerous special elections across the country on tap for Tuesday. You can find a list of those races and the presidential results of those districts here, and we’ll preview a couple of the more intriguing contests below:
ME-HD-86: This Republican district in the Augusta area became vacant after former Rep. Justin Fecteau moved out of the district. Augusta City Council member Raegan LaRochelle is the Democratic candidate taking on Army veteran James Orr, a Republican.
This district leans Democratic at the presidential level, backing Hillary Clinton 50-43 in 2016 and Barack Obama 59-37 in 2012. Despite this, Republicans have held this seat since 2014. Democrats control this chamber 79-65 with five independent/third party members and one other seat vacant.
MI-SD-28: This Republican district that takes in areas north and west of Grand Rapids became vacant after former Sen. Peter MacGregor was elected treasurer of Kent County last year. The Democratic candidate is former Kent County Commissioner Keith Courtade and the Republican is state Rep. Mark Huizenga.
This district is Republican leaning turf, supporting Donald Trump 58-38 in 2016 and Mitt Romney 61-38 in 2012 and. Joe Biden was able to turn in a stronger performance than other recent Democrats in this district, though, with Trump winning by a smaller 56-42 spread last year.
Mayors
● Buffalo, NY Mayor: The race to lead Queen City will be one of Tuesday’s higher-profile contests, but if there are a large number of write-in votes, it could delay the announcement of a winner.
WBFO writes that the Erie County Board of Elections will report on election night roughly how many votes were cast for Democrat India Walton, who is the only candidate on the ballot, and how many write-ins there are. However, it won’t be able to initially verify how many of those write-ins were cast for Mayor Byron Brown until a hand-count takes place, which Democratic Elections Commissioner Jeremy Zellner says may not happen until all mail-in ballots have arrived on Nov. 15. There will almost certainly be plenty of legal wrangling if things are close.
● Cincinnati, OH Mayor: City Councilman David Mann is using his first and only TV ad ahead of Tuesday’s general election to accuse his fellow Democrat, Hamilton County Clerk of Courts Aftab Pureval, of seeking to "defund the police" and having a plan to "pull cops off our streets."
The Cincinnati Enquirer writes that the Pureval plan cited in the commercial doesn’t say anything about growing or shrinking the size or budget of the police force, while the clerk himself has said, "We need more officers." Pureval also has stated that he’s opposed to defunding the police.