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
● NJ-03: There goes another one! On Wednesday afternoon, the AP called the race in New Jersey's 3rd Congressional District for Democrat Andy Kim, who leads Republican Rep. Tom MacArthur 49.9 to 48.8. Remarkably, Kim's victory means that Democrats will now hold an 11-to-1 advantage in the Garden State's congressional delegation, which is the biggest edge the party has enjoyed since 1912 and ties their all-time record share of the delegation.
Campaign Action
Kim's win was the fourth red-to-blue flip in New Jersey this year, and the most difficult. Though Barack Obama had carried the 3rd 52-47, it moved to the right in 2016, giving Trump a 51-45 win. What's more, this gerrymandered district, located in South Jersey, has long had a very pronounced Republican lean further down the ballot: Democrat Jon Adler captured it as an open seat in 2008 but lost it just one term later, and it had remained comfortably in GOP hands ever since—until now.
A big part of the reason was MacArthur himself. Last year, he gained widespread notoriety—and the deep enmity of progressives everywhere—when he authored an amendment that would have allowed insurers to eviscerate coverage for those with pre-existing conditions, allowing the House's once-dead Obamacare repeal effort to pass (it later failed in the Senate). He also was the lone New Jersey Republican to vote in favor of the GOP's tax giveaway, which hurt many taxpayers in his district by limiting the amount of state and local taxes they could deduct on their federal returns.
Kim, a former national security adviser to Barack Obama, was able to capitalize on both, and he proved to be a very strong fundraiser, critical both because the wealthy MacArthur was able to self-fund seven figures, and because this district straddles two very expensive media markets, New York City and Philadelphia. Kim will now become the second Korean-American ever to serve in Congress, and the first to do so as a Democrat.
Uncalled Races
● ME-02: While a Maine election official had suggested that the tabulation of the instant runoff for the state's 2nd Congressional District might take place on Wednesday, Secretary of State Matt Dunlap said Wednesday afternoon that his office would "try to finish" on Thursday.
Senate
● CO-Sen: Former state Sen. Mike Johnston told the National Journal this week that he was still seriously considering seeking the Democratic nod to take on GOP Sen. Cory Gardner and would decide by the end of this year.
● MS-Sen-B: The Democratic group Senate Majority PAC has announced that it'll be airing TV ads ahead of the Nov. 27 special, and Medium Buying says the commercials will begin Friday. SMP is investing $407,000 in this race, where GOP Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith is the favorite against Democrat Mike Espy.
Politico recently reported that the NRSC plans to spend more than $1 million here, while Mississippi Victory Fund, a super PAC run by state GOP strategist Henry Barbour, plans to spend another $600,000, so Team Red very much doesn't seem to be taking this race for granted. Interestingly, Politico also adds that the RNC transferred almost $1 million to the NRSC for this race before Sunday, when progressive blogger Lamar White released footage of Hyde-Smith "complimenting" a supporter by declaring, "If he invited me to a public hanging, I'd be on the front row." Hyde-Smith's apparent eagerness to witness a lynching while running against a black opponent generated a national firestorm, but it's not clear if it has done her any damage at home.
On that question, Politico says that the GOP remains confident in its chances and just doesn't want to take anything for granted. That may be true, especially since Republicans would need to try very hard to lose a federal statewide race in a state as red as Mississippi. However, SMP's involvement is more interesting, and there's no word yet what it’s thinking. We haven't seen any polling of this officially nonpartisan race since the first round of the election on Nov. 7, where Hyde-Smith and Republican Chris McDaniel took a combined 58 percent, while Espy and another Democrat took 42.
● NJ-Sen, OR-Sen: Democratic Sens. Cory Booker and Jeff Merkley are both up for re-election in 2020 and talking about presidential bids. However, for now at least, only Booker can pull a Lyndon Johnson and run for both posts at once. A few weeks ago, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy signed a bill to allow a U.S. senator or House member to run for re-election and for the presidency or vice presidency at the same time. The bills' sponsors said the existing state law probably already allowed this, but they pushed this legislation so it would be completely clear.
By contrast, Oregon law currently prohibits anyone from running for more than one office in the same election, which would prevent Merkley from running for re-election and for the White House at the time. However, the Willamette Week reports that Merkley has been quietly asking legislators to change the law so he could run for both offices at once, and his office soon confirmed he was interested in this change. The magazine writes that, while Democrats control both chambers of the Oregon legislature, the state Senate is more conservative than the House and may be resistant to this proposal.
House
● FL-03: Republican Rep. Ted Yoho is a member of the nihilist Freedom Caucus, so don't be surprised if he decides he no longer believes in something else: his pledge to serve just four terms in Congress. In a piece on Yoho's easy election night victory, the Gainesville Sun's Daniel Smithson reminds us that when Yoho first ran for Florida's 3rd District in 2012, he said he'd spend no more than eight years in the House. However, Yoho doesn't seem to have spoken about this promise in quite some time, and he may be trying to worm away from it.
The biggest tell is that the "issues" page on Yoho's campaign website, where he once laid out his personal term-limits pledge and even said he supported a constitutional amendment to enforce such limits, was at some point scrubbed of any such reference. In fact, the phrase "term limits" no longer comes up on his site at all.
Plenty of politicians have broken such promises, of course, among them the man Yoho beat in a Republican primary six years ago: Rep. Cliff Stearns, who during his first run for Congress in 1988 said he'd "be out of the House after 12 years." Stearns stuck around twice as long, and Yoho made an issue of it on the campaign trail, bashing the incumbent as a "career politician" and vowing, "After 8 years in Washington, I'll come home."
It worked, as Yoho, a large-animal veterinarian, narrowly ousted Stearns by a 34-33 margin, with some assistance from decennial redistricting. Since then, he's had no trouble winning re-election in this conservative north Florida district, which backed Trump 56-40 and Mitt Romney 57-42. But if Yoho doesn't keep to his word, he could find himself on the receiving end of the same business he once delivered to Cliff Stearns.
● NC-03: Utah Rep. Rob Bishop isn't the only House Republican who pre-announced his retirement: In April, North Carolina Rep. Walter Jones' campaign said this would be his last election too; Jones won without opposition. (Incidentally, that made him just one of three Republicans not to face a Democratic opponent this year, the fewest since just one went unopposed in the post-Watergate election of 1974.) North Carolina's 3rd District, which includes the Outer Banks, backed Donald Trump 61-37.
While Jones himself didn't announce his retirement at the time (rather, a consultant said he wants to "go home and spend some time with the wife and the children and the dog"), he addressed his departure in an interview last month, saying he'd grown "sick and tired" of the "influence of money" on politics. It's fair to say, though, that his Republican colleagues won't miss him. During his time in Congress, Jones put together one of the most eclectic records imaginable and regularly was a thorn in his party's ass. You don't even need to take our word for it: In early 2015, Jones himself bragged, "I like to be a thorn in people's asses."
Perhaps appropriately, Jones began his long and unusual political career as a Democrat. Jones' father, Walter Jones Sr., was a Democratic congressman who served from 1966 until he decided to retire in 1992. The younger Jones, who had served as a Democratic state representative for a decade, ran to succeed his father in 1992 and competed in the primary for the dramatically redrawn 1st District, which was now majority black. Jones lost the runoff to Eva Clayton, who would be the first African-American to represent North Carolina in the 20th Century, 55-45; the elder Jones would die in office a few months later.
Jones switched parties in time for the 1994 election and challenged 3rd District Democratic Rep. Martin Lancaster, who represented some of the same territory that Jones' father had once held. Jones made sure to tie the four-term incumbent to President Bill Clinton, who was unpopular here, and he ran a commercial that showed the two Democrats jogging together. Jones unseated Lancaster 53-47, and he never faced a close general election again.
Jones spent most of his first decade in Congress as a reliable Republican vote who didn't draw much attention. However, he first made national news in 2003 when he was one of two Republican congressmen who, angry at France's opposition to the Bush administration's plans to invade Iraq, directed the House cafeterias to redub French fries "freedom fries" and French toast "freedom toast."
However, Jones eventually came to regret all of this, and within a few years, he was one of the few Republicans in Congress to oppose the Iraq War. The congressman first realized he had made a mistake by voting to take the country to war after he attended the funeral of a local Marine killed in Iraq during the first month of the conflict. He soon began sending letters to the families of soldiers killed in Iraq or Afghanistan in what he called his "mea culpa to my Lord." By December of 2017, he had sent over 12,000 of these messages.
Jones attracted a primary challenge in 2008 over his opposition to the Iraq War, but he took 59 percent of the vote and got to rest easy for a few years. However, Jones never stopped being an iconoclast. He notably was one of the few Republicans who voted for the Dodd-Frank banking reform law, and he voted against John Boehner during the 2013 and 2015 speakership elections.
Some establishment-oriented Republicans tried to take him out in the 2014 primary, and they spent big on former George W. Bush aide Taylor Griffin. Jones won, but by just 51-45. The close shave didn't change Jones' behavior, and Griffin sought a rematch two years later. However, fewer primary voters were in the mood to punish Jones this time, and he won with 65 percent of the vote.
Jones continued to test how much he could vote against his party's leadership during the first two years of the Trump administration. He notably voted against the House version of Trumpcare and the GOP leadership's tax bill, and he was the only Republican in the chamber to vote against repealing major parts of the Dodd-Frank Act.
This time Jones faced a primary challenge from Craven County Commissioner Scott Dacey, who ran ads arguing that the district needed a strong Trump ally, and retired Marine Phil Law. Jones, whose campaign said during this battle that he would not seek re-election in 2020, beat Law 43-29. While Jones didn't come close to losing, his last campaign did demonstrate that a majority of the GOP electorate was ready for change, so it's probably just as well that he's calling finally it quits.
● UT-01: Election Day was scarcely a week ago, but we already have our first retirement of the next election cycle. In fairness, Republican Rep. Rob Bishop announced last year that this term would be his last—a term he easily and predictably secured in a rout, given the deep-red hue of Utah's 1st District. (It voted 50-22 for Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton, with conservative independent Evan McMullin just a hair behind and also at 22, and Mitt Romney won here 77-20 four years earlier.)
Of course, politicians who make such promises often change their minds, but this isn't some long-ago term limits pledge that Bishop, who's 67 and first won office in 2002, is hoping voters will now forget. While he doesn't appear to have reiterated his plans to step down since the election, Bishop did recently give an interview to the Salt Lake Tribune in which he complained about how much it sucked to get cast into the minority after Democrats took the House in 2006. Now that the same thing has happened again, he says he's "not going in with a whole lot of anticipation of something being very positive," so he definitely doesn't sound like someone who wants to stick around.
Bishop could certainly still reverse course, but that would be news if he did. In the meantime, local Republican politicians—of which there's no shortage—are undoubtedly plotting their moves to succeed the congressman, though our old friend the Great Mentioner has yet to make an appearance. In any event, Bishop wins the honor of being the first member of Congress to appear on our 2020 House open seat tracker, though since many of his colleagues will wind up sharing his feelings about life in the minority, he's certain not to be the last.
● NRCC: Republican Rep. Tom Emmer has been chosen by his caucus to lead the National Republican Congressional Committee, the House GOP's official campaign arm dedicated to protecting incumbent members and winning seats from Democrats. Emmer was unopposed and replaces Ohio Rep. Steve Stivers, who served in the post for one term. Emmer occupies Minnesota's solidly conservative 6th District and easily won a third term last week, so his campaign duties are unlikely to interfere with his re-election chances. Democrats will soon pick a new chair of their own to head the DCCC.
Mayoral
● Chicago, IL Mayor: On Wednesday, about a week after she was re-elected as Illinois state comptroller, Susana Mendoza announced that she was joining the already-crowded 2019 race for mayor of Chicago. State Rep. La Shawn Ford also jumped in this week. Mendoza and Ford, like all the major candidates in this very blue city, are Democrats.
Mendoza's move was not a surprise, especially since just before Election Day, a video leaked of her saying she was running for mayor. Her team said at the time that this footage was stolen from her campaign, and that Mendoza had only filmed it in case she decided to run for mayor right after winning statewide. The video didn't seem to cause Mendoza any problems at the ballot box last week, though, and she was re-elected 60-37.
Mendoza would be the city's first Latina mayor, as well as the second woman to ever hold this office. She's also a longtime ally of the powerful and controversial state House Speaker Mike Madigan. She's reportedly been courting several of retiring Mayor Rahm Emanuel's allies and donors as well, but she made sure to distance herself from the incumbent in her announcement video. Mendoza declared that, while she was city clerk, she had "fought Mayor Emanuel's efforts to drastically raise city sticker prices."
Ford, who represents much of the West Side in the state House, also announced he was in this week. If he won, Ford would be the second African American elected mayor. Ford is known for promoting criminal justice reform, including his support for microloans for former offenders and legislation to prevent private-sector employers from asking applicants about their criminal history, a reform known as "ban the box."
Ford has also generated some headlines over his career, and he was indicted for bank fraud in 2012. Ford always maintained his innocence and argued that he was targeted because of his race and position, and two years later, prosecutors dropped the charges in exchange for his pleading guilty on a single misdemeanor tax fraud charge. The Chicago Sun-Times wrote at the time that this was a "rare and embarrassing climbdown for the U.S. Attorney's office." Earlier this year, Ford also got attention when he went on Fox & Friends and argued that Emanuel should work with the Trump administration to tackle gun violence, declaring, "As long as we're divided and fighting against the president, it's not going to happen."
A number of other notable candidates are already in the race. Here is the full list as of Wednesday:
- Cook County Circuit Court Clerk Dorothy Brown
- Former Chicago Board of Education President and 2011 candidate Gery Chico
- Former White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley
- Attorney Amara Enyia
- State Rep. La Shawn Ford
- Former Chicago Police Board President Lori Lightfoot
- Former Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy
- State Comptroller Susana Mendoza
- Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle
- Former Chicago Public Schools Chief Executive Officer Paul Vallas
The candidate filing deadline is Nov. 26. All the candidates will face off in the nonpartisan Feb. 26 primary, and in the very likely event that no one takes a majority of the vote, there will be an April 2 runoff.
Ballot Measures
● Ballot Measures: As Stephen Wolf details, states and cities across the country resoundingly supported ballot measures this November to enact a slew of reforms on voting rights, redistricting, campaign finance, and even the structure of our electoral system itself. In an era when Republicans have enacted voting restrictions and historically extreme gerrymanders in state after state, and when even Democrats in some places have failed to do everything they can to protect the right to vote, many of these measures were a major advance for the cause of free and fair elections.