“President Biden and his campaign have spent the past several weeks courting a particularly skeptical group of voters: Democrats,” Axios reports.
“His targeted appeals to the Democratic base reveal a campaign that’s currently more focused on energizing — or reclaiming — its core supporters than on making overtures to swing voters.”
“Polls suggest the strategy may be working as some Democrats are beginning to return to the president.”
A new CNN poll finds most of the country was divided over whether Donald Trump is being treated more harshly (34%) or more leniently (34%) than other criminal defendants.
“Republican legislative leaders in Ohio say they are negotiating with Democrats to assure President Joe Biden appears on the state’s November ballot, but the exact shape of the solution remains murky,” the AP reports.
“A political arm of Planned Parenthood is launching a $10 million voter engagement campaign in North Carolina to elect candidates in favor of abortion rights this year as reproductive rights surge further into the 2024 spotlight,” The Hill reports.
“The Biden campaign is in talks with former President Obama about appearing with President Biden at a star-studded Los Angeles fundraiser in mid-June,” Axios reports.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) has “drastically” stepped up his political efforts to boost Republicans in competitive races, which is raising questions about his future aspirations, Punchbowl News reports.
Louisiana’s Republican-controlled legislature has passed a bipartisan bill to redraw the state’s Supreme Court districts and create a second majority-Black district amid an ongoing Voting Rights Act lawsuit seeking to compel just such an outcome.
Gov. Jeff Landry and other Republicans have argued in favor of the proposal to avoid further litigation costs. Lawmakers previously approved a new congressional map in January following similar VRA litigation in a separate case.
The current Supreme Court map was last redrawn in 1997 after a previous lawsuit, and only one of its seven districts is majority-Black in a state that is roughly one-third Black overall. The new map would unite parts of the Baton Rouge area and northeastern Louisiana into a new 2nd District that would be 55% Black and would have favored Joe Biden 60-39 according to calculations from Dave’s Redistricting App using VEST data.
If this map becomes law, the 2nd would very likely elect a Black Democrat this fall to replace retiring GOP Justice Scott Crichton, who is white.
MICHIGAN 8TH DISTRICT. One declared candidate who did not submit his name is Democrat Dan Moilanen, the executive director of the Michigan Association of Conservation Districts. Moilanen announced in December that he’d run to replace retiring Democratic Rep. Dan Kildee in the competitive 8th District, but he ended March with just $2,000 in the bank before ending his campaign on April 9.
Four Democrats did file to succeed Kildee in this central Michigan constituency: businessman Matt Collier, state Sen. Kristen McDonald Rivet, Flint Mayor Sheldon Neeley, and state Board of Education President Pamela Pugh. McDonald Rivet finished last month with a $671,000 to $290,000 cash on hand advantage over Collier, who served as mayor of Flint three decades ago, while Pugh and Neeley respectively had just $55,000 and $24,000 to spend.
The GOP primary also consists of four candidates. The roster features retired Dow Chemical Company executive Mary Draves, 2022 nominee Paul Junge, state Board of Education member Nikki Snyder, and Some Dude Anthony Hudson, who ran for president earlier this cycle.
Junge, who is self-funding most of his effort, ended March with a $1.1 million to $91,000 cash on hand advantage over Synder, while Draves launched her campaign during the opening days of the new quarter. Junge lost the 2022 general election to Kildee by a wide 53-43 two years after Joe Biden took the 8th just 50-48, and his detractors are hoping Draves can put up a serious fight in the primary.
PENNSYLVANIA U.S. SENATOR. “Sen Bob Casey’s campaign announced on Thursday he intends to participate in three debates with GOP opponent David McCormick this fall, one in Philadelphia, one in Pittsburgh, and one in Harrisburg, ahead of the Nov. 5 general election,” the Pennsylvania Capital Star reports.
“The Capital-Star reached out to the McCormick campaign for comment shortly following the announcement from Casey’s campaign. The McCormick campaign responded with a link to a post on social media from McCormick that read, ‘Glad to hear it. See you there.’”
KANSAS 2ND DISTRICT. State House Majority Leader Chris Croft, a Republican, has announced he won’t run to succeed retiring GOP Rep. Jake LaTurner in this Republican-favoring district.
OREGON 5TH DISTRICT. 314 Action Fund has announced a $500,000 digital and mail buy in support of state Rep. Janelle Bynum, which represents the first notable outside spending of the May 21 Democratic primary to face freshman GOP Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer. Bynum, who has the support of Gov. Tina Kotek and national Democrats, is going up against 2022 nominee Jamie McLeod-Skinner.
VIRGINIA 10TH DISTRICT. Prince William County Board of Supervisors Chair Deshundra Jefferson has endorsed Del. Dan Helmer in the crowded Democratic primary on June 18 for this open safely blue seat. Prince William County makes up roughly one-fourth of the 10th District.
MARYLAND U.S. SENATOR. Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks’ new ad campaign features an all-star cast of state Democrats assembled together to offer their support in the May 14 primary to succeed retiring Sen. Ben Cardin.
Alsobrooks’ message begins with testimonials from Gov. Wes Moore and Sen. Chris Van Hollen, who holds Maryland’s other seat. Viewers in the Baltimore and Washington media markets are each then presented with a different collection of local elected officials. (Each market is home to almost half of the state’s residents.)
The former version features Baltimore County Executive Johnny Olszewski, who is the frontrunner in the primary for the open 2nd District in the Baltimore suburbs, as well as Rep. Kweisi Mfume, who represents most of the city. Viewers in the Washington suburbs, meanwhile, hear from Reps. Steny Hoyer and Glenn Ivey.
Both versions go on to showcase Rep. Jamie Raskin, who is one of the most prominent progressives in the state, and state Comptroller Brooke Lierman. The audience then sees Alsobrooks standing outside before many rows of backers, who include Rep. John Sarbanes and other local officials. The crowd concludes the commercial by cheering in unison.
Alsobrooks’ main intra-party foe, Rep. David Trone, has considerably fewer Maryland politicians on his side, though he hasn’t been shy about featuring his supporters in his own ads. A new spot showcases Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger, who is retiring from the seat Olszewski is seeking, while a previous message starred state Attorney General Anthony Brown. (Cardin is the one member of the state’s Democratic delegation who has not taken sides in the race for his seat.)
Alsobrook is hoping that her superior institutional support will help her overcome a huge advertising disadvantage against Trone, a self-funder who began airing TV spots a full year before the primary.
New data from AdImpact underscores just how big this particular gap has grown. The firm says that Trone has spent or booked $38 million worth of commercials, compared to just $2.6 million for Alsobrooks. There hasn’t been any major outside spending yet that might balance the scales, and it remains to be seen if that will change with less than three weeks to go.
FLORIDA 15TH DISTRICT. Former state Rep. Jackie Toledo announced on Thursday that she wouldn’t join the Republican primary against Rep. Laurel Lee after previously indicating she was considering a bid. Toledo ran against Lee for the GOP nomination when this district was open last cycle, but she took a distant third with just 12%; Lee beat state Sen. Kelli Stargel for the nomination by a comfortable 41-28 margin.
Lee already faces multiple primary challengers after Donald Trump called for her ouster last month, apparently because she had initially endorsed Ron DeSantis for president. We’ll know soon enough if any late entrants emerge since the filing deadline is Friday.
MICHIGAN 13TH DISTRICT. While hedge fund manager John Conyers III told Politico in September that he was planning to announce “soon” that he’d challenge freshman Rep. Shri Thanedar in the Democratic primary, the son and namesake of the late longtime congressman never went forward with his bid.
Four candidates, though, are hoping to deny renomination to Thanedar in the 13th District, a safely Democratic seat that includes much of Detroit and its southwestern suburbs. The most prominent challenger is Adam Hollier, a former state senator and state cabinet official who lost last cycle’s crowded primary to Thanedar 28-24. Hollier finished March with $570,000 in the bank, but Thanedar’s personal wealth left him with a huge $5.1 million war chest.
Detroit City Councilwoman Mary Waters, who holds a citywide seat, is also running, and while she had a mere $5,000 to spend, her campaign could still pose a problem for Hollier.
Thanedar’s victory over Hollier, who is Black, set him up to become the first Indian American to represent Michigan in Congress while also leaving Detroit without an African American member of Congress for the first time since the early 1950s. Waters is also Black, and she could cost Hollier support from voters who might otherwise back him over Thanedar.
The field also includes two unheralded candidates, former Southfield Clerk Sherikia Hawkins and perennial candidate Mohammad Alam. All of Southfield is located in Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib’s neighboring 12th District, though it’s unlikely Hawkins has much of a base at home: She resigned in 2022 after submitting a no contest plea on election felony charges.
UTAH GOVERNOR and U.S. SENATOR. Multiple Utah candidates running for either Congress or governor need a strong performance when Republicans gather for their state convention on Saturday—and those who fall short will see their campaigns come to an immediate end, well before the June 25 primary.
That’s because, as we’ve written before, hopefuls can advance either by turning in the requisite number of signatures or by taking at least 40% of the vote when party delegates gather, but the first option is prohibitively expensive and time-consuming for many contenders.
Even candidates who have already qualified for the ballot, though, almost always still take part in the convention, and there’s no indication that any big names are skipping out this year. Democrats will also hold a parallel convention on Saturday, but there’s considerably less competition for most races in dark-red Utah.
The main event at the GOP conclave will likely concern the race to replace retiring Sen. Mitt Romney. One hopeful, attorney Brent Orrin Hatch, got some unwelcome news Thursday when election officials announced he’d only turned in 21,000 of the necessary 28,000 petitions he needed to succeed with the signature route.
Hatch, who is the son of the late Sen. Orrin Hatch, himself acknowledged to the Deseret News weeks ago that gathering enough petitions was “daunting” and his status was “up in the air.” The deadline to submit signatures was April 13, so it’s now convention or bust for Hatch.
Another six candidates, including Riverton Mayor Trent Staggs and conservative activist Carolyn Phippen, are also relying on delegates to keep their campaigns going. Staggs and Phippen, who are campaigning as hardliners, have reason for hope, though, as delegates tend to be more right-wing than the primary electorate.
Three candidates are guaranteed a spot on the ballot: Rep. John Curtis; former state House Speaker Brad Wilson; and one we hadn’t previously mentioned, businessman Jason Walton, who is CEO of a pest control company. Walton, who has promoted himself as an ally of far-right Sen. Mike Lee, self-funded $2.5 million during the first quarter of 2024, which was about ten times as much as he raised from donors, and he ended March with $910,000 banked.
In the race for governor, incumbent Spencer Cox was the only one of the five Republican candidates who successfully pursued the signature route. State Rep. Phil Lyman initially planned to collect petitions, but he abandoned that effort in late March. The rest of the field consists of former state GOP chair Carson Jorgensen and two little-known contenders.
Lyman’s far-right views may help him win over delegates, though his bid almost crashed to a halt this week because of a strict state campaign finance law. The Salt Lake Tribune’s Bryan Schott writes that Lyman missed the state’s Monday deadline to submit his latest financial disclosure forms and only turned them in with minutes left in the 24-hour grace period. Schott says that, if Lyman had failed to meet that second deadline, he would have been “disqualified from the race.”
Those tardy reports revealed that Lyman took in a notable $800,000 since January thanks largely to a mysterious new company that appears to be connected to his family. He also benefitted from a loan from a former Texas congressional candidate named Johnny Slavens, who lost the 2016 GOP primary 75-11 against the late Rep. Sam Johnson but later returned to his home state of Utah.
There was a late surprise in the 2nd Congressional District on Thursday evening when Lee endorsed Green Beret veteran Colby Jenkins over freshman Rep. Celeste Maloy. Those two contenders, along with perennial candidate Ty Jensen, are each depending entirely on the convention to advance. Even with Lee’s support, though, it would still be a surprise if Jenkins prevented Maloy from hitting the 40% threshold she needs to continue her reelection campaign for this reliably red seat.
There’s less drama surrounding the other two GOP House members who are seeking reelection on dark red turf. Rep. Blake Moore, who has turned in enough signatures to move forward, only faces a pair of little-known intra-party foes in the 1st District, while fellow Rep. Burgess Owens has no opposition for renomination in the 4th.
Finally, the GOP race to replace Curtis in the conservative 3rd District features nine candidates. The four who have submitted the requisite 7,000 signatures are Roosevelt Mayor Rod Bird, state Auditor John Dougall, businessman Case Lawrence, and former state party chair Stewart Peay.
Five more need to win over delegates, including perennial candidate Lucky Bovo, former Senate aide Kathryn Dahlin, former state Rep. Chris Herrod, state Sen. Mike Kennedy, and Utah Young Republicans chairman Zac Wilson.
ARIZONA 8TH DISTRICT. A grand jury has indicted 11 Arizona Republicans who participated in Donald Trump’s attempt to steal the 2020 election by serving as a slate of fake electors, a list that includes state Sen. Anthony Kern, one of several Republicans running in the July primary for this GOP-favoring open seat. Kern’s campaign quickly indicated he would remain in the race.
While the charges against the senator may not be much of a negative with Republican primary voters given their party’s widespread embrace of election denialism, Kern has struggled to raise money so far. He finished March with just $70,000 in the bank, putting him far behind several rivals, including 2022 Senate nominee Blake Masters and Trump’s pick, 2022 attorney general nominee Abe Hamadeh.
The list of indictees includes another state senator, Jake Hoffman, as well as two former candidates who ran for the U.S. Senate in recent years: far-right conspiracy theorist and former state party chair Kelli Ward and businessman Jim Lamon.
Ward ran in the 2016 primary and held the late Sen. John McCain to a relatively narrow 51-40 win before McCain won his final term that fall. She went on to lose the 2018 primary for an open seat 55-28 against Rep. Martha McSally, who herself lost the general election to then-Democrat Kyrsten Sinema. Lamon, meanwhile, lost the 2022 primary 40-28 to Masters, who was defeated by Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly in the general election.
0 comments on “The Political Report – April 28, 2024”