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.
● GA-Gov: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that former Sen. David Perdue is "seriously considering" launching a Republican primary bid against Gov. Brian Kemp, an idea that seemed very unlikely just a few weeks ago. Perdue's allies also, in the words of reporter Greg Bluestein, say that "Trump is expected to quickly endorse him" if he gets in.
Perdue has not said anything publicly, but Bluestein writes that several sources say he's "conflicted" about the idea, though "others say he's leaning toward a challenge." One unnamed ally also said that Perdue was factoring in Kemp's strength against 2018 Democratic opponent Stacey Abrams in their widely-expected rematch, with Bluestein relaying that "Perdue would only run if he felt Kemp was so politically damaged that he couldn't defeat Abrams in November."
Until August, there was no serious talk of Perdue, who lost re-election to Democrat Jon Ossoff in the January runoff, going up against Kemp. While the governor infuriated Trump last year when he refused to go along with his plan to overturn Joe Biden's victory in the state, Perdue stuck by him in June when he introduced Kemp at June's party convention; the AJC also reported that Perdue privately told the incumbent earlier this year that he'd be supporting his re-election.
Campaign Action
Things began to change two months ago, though, when Trump's Save America PAC unsubtly released a Fabrizio Lee poll arguing that, with Trump's support, the former senator would be favored to defeat Kemp. The idea initially still seemed unlikely: The conservative Washington Examiner published a story days later saying that, while Perdue's fellow Republicans believed he could run for the Senate if NFL player Herschel Walker "implode[d]," they doubted he'd go up against Kemp. Around that time his cousin, former Gov. Sonny Perdue, also backed the governor.
The ex-senator, however, never took the chance to publicly dismiss any talk of a gubernatorial run. Trump himself was hardly dissuaded either, and he used a late September rally to single Perdue out in the crowd and ask, "Are you running for governor, David? Did I hear he's running?" And while Perdue showed no public indication he was really thinking about it, Bluestein now writes that he's spent "recent weeks" talking to his allies about a potential campaign against Kemp.
● IA Redistricting: Iowa's Republican-run state Senate and House approved the second set of congressional and legislative maps proposed by the state's nonpartisan Legislative Services Agency in almost unanimous votes on Thursday, sending the plans to Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds for her signature.
● MA Redistricting: Massachusetts' Democratic-run state Senate has passed new legislative maps, about a week after the state House did the same thing. The plans now go to Republican Gov. Charlie Baker for his signature. While Baker could veto the maps, they passed both chambers almost unanimously. Lawmakers have yet to introduce any congressional redistricting proposals.
● NC-Sen: While the Justice Department reportedly told retiring Sen. Richard Burr on Jan. 19 that it would drop an investigation into allegations that he engaged in insider trading last year after receiving classified briefings about the coronavirus as chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, the Securities and Exchange Commission confirmed this week that it was probing the Republican.
On Thursday, the SEC said in a court filing that in February of 2020, just weeks before the emerging pandemic tanked the stock market, Burr dumped $1.6 million in stocks and quickly called his brother-in-law, Gerald Fauth. The minute after that 50-second call was complete, says the SEC, Fauth called his own broker and ultimately sold between $97,000 and $280,000 in shares that day. The SEC further said it was investigating both men for insider trading.
Burr announced in 2016 that his third term would be his last, and both parties have competitive primaries to succeed him. Should Burr vacate his seat before his term ends in January of 2023, though, a fellow Republican would replace him for the rest of the term because state law requires Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper to appoint a new senator from a list of three names provided by the state GOP.
● AR-Gov: The Republican firm Remington Research Group has dropped a survey of next year's GOP primary that shows Donald Trump's endorsed candidate, former White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, steamrolling state Attorney General Leslie Rutledge 73-16.
● MD-Gov: Former U.S. Secretary of Labor Tom Perez this week earned endorsements from AFSCME Council 3 and AFSCME Council 67, which Maryland Matters says together represent "more than 50,000 state, county, municipal, school board, and higher education employees" in the state, ahead of next year's Democratic primary.
● NJ-Gov: Stockton University's new poll shows Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy with a 50-41 lead against Republican Jack Ciattarelli, which is exactly what the school found last month as well.
● VA-Gov: Republican Glenn Youngkin earned plenty of coverage (much of it unflattering) when he ran a commercial starring a parent who in 2012 tried to get Toni Morrison's Pulitzer Prize-winning classic "Beloved" banned from Fairfax County Public Schools, and Democrat Terry McAuliffe quickly went up with a response commercial. His spot is centered around an African American mother who tells the audience, "Nothing is more important than my children's education. So when I heard about Glenn Youngkin wanting to ban books by prominent Black authors, it scared me."
● NH-01: 2020 Republican nominee Matt Mowers has released a Cygnal poll of the current 1st District to argue he's the heavy favorite to again win the nomination to take on Democratic incumbent Chris Pappas. The survey gives Mowers the lead with 34% of the vote, while former TV reporter Gail Huff Brown was a distant second with 7%.
● OR-05: Attorney Jamie McLeod-Skinner announced Thursday that she would challenge moderate Rep. Kurt Schrader in the primary for this redrawn seat.
McLeod-Skinner entered the race with an endorsement from Milwaukie Mayor Mark Gamba, who had originally said he'd run again following his 69-23 primary defeat last year. Schrader, for his part, has yet to say if he'll run for re-election in the 5th District, which contains his hometown of Canby, or the new 6th, which includes more of his current constituents. The 5th District, which includes southern Portland suburbs and central Oregon, supported Joe Biden 53-44.
McLeod-Skinner, who says she would be Oregon's first LGBTQ member of Congress, served as Team Blue's 2018 nominee in the safely red 2nd District. McLeod-Skinner raised $1.3 million for her campaign against veteran Republican Rep. Greg Walden but lost 56-39, which still was the closest general election of the congressman's long career. (Walden retired the following cycle.)
McLeod-Skinner then ran for secretary of state last year and took last in the three-way primary with 28%; the winner, with 36%, was Shemia Fagan, who went on to prevail in the general election. Afterwards, McLeod-Skinner served a stint as interim city manager of the small community of Talent.
McLeod-Skinner didn't mention Schrader in her announcement but said earlier this month, "Normally I wouldn't consider challenging an incumbent Democrat. However, with Kurt Schrader, I don't have to make much of an argument to persuade a lot of people." Schrader himself made national headlines in January when he comparing the idea of impeaching Donald Trump to a "lynching," a statement he ended up apologizing for. The congressman since then has shown skepticism towards Biden's infrastructure bill, saying in September, "It would have to be way under $1 trillion for me to get remotely interested."
● WV-02: National Research, working on behalf of GOPAC, has released the first poll we've seen of the incumbent vs. incumbent Republican primary for this redrawn northern West Virginia seat, and it shows David McKinley leading Alex Mooney 44-29. GOPAC doesn't appear to have taken sides, though Politico's Ally Mutnick notes it has donated to McKinley in the past.
● Los Angeles, CA Mayor: Businessman Ramit Varma announced Wednesday that he was joining next year's crowded open seat race. Varma, who pledged to self-fund at least $1 million, seems most interested in appealing to conservatives in this very blue municipality, as he argued that the city government was spending money on healing centers in order to be "woke."
● Where Are They Now?: An investigator with the Albany County Sheriff's Office filed a criminal complaint in state court on Thursday accusing former Gov. Andrew Cuomo of forcibly touching an unnamed woman at the governor's mansion last December, a misdemeanor. However, Albany County District Attorney David Soares said in a statement that he was "surprised to learn" of the complaint and would not issue any further comment. The Albany Times Union reported that the complaint had been filed "prematurely" and said that law enforcement officials had not yet decided whether to charge Cuomo, according to unnamed sources.
Leading Off
● GA-Gov: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that former Sen. David Perdue is "seriously considering" launching a Republican primary bid against Gov. Brian Kemp, an idea that seemed very unlikely just a few weeks ago. Perdue's allies also, in the words of reporter Greg Bluestein, say that "Trump is expected to quickly endorse him" if he gets in.
Perdue has not said anything publicly, but Bluestein writes that several sources say he's "conflicted" about the idea, though "others say he's leaning toward a challenge." One unnamed ally also said that Perdue was factoring in Kemp's strength against 2018 Democratic opponent Stacey Abrams in their widely-expected rematch, with Bluestein relaying that "Perdue would only run if he felt Kemp was so politically damaged that he couldn't defeat Abrams in November."
Until August, there was no serious talk of Perdue, who lost re-election to Democrat Jon Ossoff in the January runoff, going up against Kemp. While the governor infuriated Trump last year when he refused to go along with his plan to overturn Joe Biden's victory in the state, Perdue stuck by him in June when he introduced Kemp at June's party convention; the AJC also reported that Perdue privately told the incumbent earlier this year that he'd be supporting his re-election.
Campaign Action
Things began to change two months ago, though, when Trump's Save America PAC unsubtly released a Fabrizio Lee poll arguing that, with Trump's support, the former senator would be favored to defeat Kemp. The idea initially still seemed unlikely: The conservative Washington Examiner published a story days later saying that, while Perdue's fellow Republicans believed he could run for the Senate if NFL player Herschel Walker "implode[d]," they doubted he'd go up against Kemp. Around that time his cousin, former Gov. Sonny Perdue, also backed the governor.
The ex-senator, however, never took the chance to publicly dismiss any talk of a gubernatorial run. Trump himself was hardly dissuaded either, and he used a late September rally to single Perdue out in the crowd and ask, "Are you running for governor, David? Did I hear he's running?" And while Perdue showed no public indication he was really thinking about it, Bluestein now writes that he's spent "recent weeks" talking to his allies about a potential campaign against Kemp.
Redistricting
● IA Redistricting: Iowa's Republican-run state Senate and House approved the second set of congressional and legislative maps proposed by the state's nonpartisan Legislative Services Agency in almost unanimous votes on Thursday, sending the plans to Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds for her signature.
● MA Redistricting: Massachusetts' Democratic-run state Senate has passed new legislative maps, about a week after the state House did the same thing. The plans now go to Republican Gov. Charlie Baker for his signature. While Baker could veto the maps, they passed both chambers almost unanimously. Lawmakers have yet to introduce any congressional redistricting proposals.
Senate
● NC-Sen: While the Justice Department reportedly told retiring Sen. Richard Burr on Jan. 19 that it would drop an investigation into allegations that he engaged in insider trading last year after receiving classified briefings about the coronavirus as chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, the Securities and Exchange Commission confirmed this week that it was probing the Republican.
On Thursday, the SEC said in a court filing that in February of 2020, just weeks before the emerging pandemic tanked the stock market, Burr dumped $1.6 million in stocks and quickly called his brother-in-law, Gerald Fauth. The minute after that 50-second call was complete, says the SEC, Fauth called his own broker and ultimately sold between $97,000 and $280,000 in shares that day. The SEC further said it was investigating both men for insider trading.
Burr announced in 2016 that his third term would be his last, and both parties have competitive primaries to succeed him. Should Burr vacate his seat before his term ends in January of 2023, though, a fellow Republican would replace him for the rest of the term because state law requires Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper to appoint a new senator from a list of three names provided by the state GOP.
Governors
● AR-Gov: The Republican firm Remington Research Group has dropped a survey of next year's GOP primary that shows Donald Trump's endorsed candidate, former White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, steamrolling state Attorney General Leslie Rutledge 73-16.
● MD-Gov: Former U.S. Secretary of Labor Tom Perez this week earned endorsements from AFSCME Council 3 and AFSCME Council 67, which Maryland Matters says together represent "more than 50,000 state, county, municipal, school board, and higher education employees" in the state, ahead of next year's Democratic primary.
● NJ-Gov: Stockton University's new poll shows Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy with a 50-41 lead against Republican Jack Ciattarelli, which is exactly what the school found last month as well.
● VA-Gov: Republican Glenn Youngkin earned plenty of coverage (much of it unflattering) when he ran a commercial starring a parent who in 2012 tried to get Toni Morrison's Pulitzer Prize-winning classic "Beloved" banned from Fairfax County Public Schools, and Democrat Terry McAuliffe quickly went up with a response commercial. His spot is centered around an African American mother who tells the audience, "Nothing is more important than my children's education. So when I heard about Glenn Youngkin wanting to ban books by prominent Black authors, it scared me."
House
● NH-01: 2020 Republican nominee Matt Mowers has released a Cygnal poll of the current 1st District to argue he's the heavy favorite to again win the nomination to take on Democratic incumbent Chris Pappas. The survey gives Mowers the lead with 34% of the vote, while former TV reporter Gail Huff Brown was a distant second with 7%.
● OR-05: Attorney Jamie McLeod-Skinner announced Thursday that she would challenge moderate Rep. Kurt Schrader in the primary for this redrawn seat.
McLeod-Skinner entered the race with an endorsement from Milwaukie Mayor Mark Gamba, who had originally said he'd run again following his 69-23 primary defeat last year. Schrader, for his part, has yet to say if he'll run for re-election in the 5th District, which contains his hometown of Canby, or the new 6th, which includes more of his current constituents. The 5th District, which includes southern Portland suburbs and central Oregon, supported Joe Biden 53-44.
McLeod-Skinner, who says she would be Oregon's first LGBTQ member of Congress, served as Team Blue's 2018 nominee in the safely red 2nd District. McLeod-Skinner raised $1.3 million for her campaign against veteran Republican Rep. Greg Walden but lost 56-39, which still was the closest general election of the congressman's long career. (Walden retired the following cycle.)
McLeod-Skinner then ran for secretary of state last year and took last in the three-way primary with 28%; the winner, with 36%, was Shemia Fagan, who went on to prevail in the general election. Afterwards, McLeod-Skinner served a stint as interim city manager of the small community of Talent.
McLeod-Skinner didn't mention Schrader in her announcement but said earlier this month, "Normally I wouldn't consider challenging an incumbent Democrat. However, with Kurt Schrader, I don't have to make much of an argument to persuade a lot of people." Schrader himself made national headlines in January when he comparing the idea of impeaching Donald Trump to a "lynching," a statement he ended up apologizing for. The congressman since then has shown skepticism towards Biden's infrastructure bill, saying in September, "It would have to be way under $1 trillion for me to get remotely interested."
● WV-02: National Research, working on behalf of GOPAC, has released the first poll we've seen of the incumbent vs. incumbent Republican primary for this redrawn northern West Virginia seat, and it shows David McKinley leading Alex Mooney 44-29. GOPAC doesn't appear to have taken sides, though Politico's Ally Mutnick notes it has donated to McKinley in the past.
Mayors
● Los Angeles, CA Mayor: Businessman Ramit Varma announced Wednesday that he was joining next year's crowded open seat race. Varma, who pledged to self-fund at least $1 million, seems most interested in appealing to conservatives in this very blue municipality, as he argued that the city government was spending money on healing centers in order to be "woke."
Grab Bag
● Where Are They Now?: An investigator with the Albany County Sheriff's Office filed a criminal complaint in state court on Thursday accusing former Gov. Andrew Cuomo of forcibly touching an unnamed woman at the governor's mansion last December, a misdemeanor. However, Albany County District Attorney David Soares said in a statement that he was "surprised to learn" of the complaint and would not issue any further comment. The Albany Times Union reported that the complaint had been filed "prematurely" and said that law enforcement officials had not yet decided whether to charge Cuomo, according to unnamed sources.