The Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, and Stephen Wolf, with additional contributions from the Daily Kos Elections team.
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Leading Off
● FL Ballot: The Florida Supreme Court on Monday gave the green light for a proposed constitutional amendment to protect abortion rights to appear on the November ballot. The court’s conservative majority, though, heightened the stakes of that vote with a separate decision that allows a new six-week abortion ban approved by Gov. Ron DeSantis to take effect in the next 30 days.
To amend the state constitution, reproductive rights advocates need at least 60% of voters this fall to vote “yes” on their amendment to guarantee the right to an abortion until fetal viability, which is 22 to 24 weeks into a pregnancy. State election authorities confirmed in January that the campaign had collected the requisite signatures, but Republican Attorney General Ashley Moody argued that the measure was confusingly worded.
The justices, however, disagreed. “The people of Florida aren’t stupid,” Chief Justice Carlos Muñiz said at oral arguments in February. “They can figure this out.” The decision makes this the first voter-initiated ballot measure on abortion to make the 2024 ballot anywhere in the nation.
While the state has moved to the right over the last decade, progressives have reasons to think the amendment can win the necessary supermajority now that it’s on the ballot. A tracking poll from Civiqs, which shows that voters nationwide believe abortion should be legal most or all of the time by a 62-35 margin, also finds that a 57-39 majority of Floridians feel the same way.
The Supreme Court also allowed an amendment to legalize recreational marijuana to go before voters in November despite Moody’s objections to that measure as well. The ruling comes about three years after justices blocked two similar amendments from appearing on the 2022 ballot after determining that they included misleading language.
1Q Fundraising
The first fundraising quarter of the year, covering the period of Jan. 1 through March 31, has come to an end, and federal candidates will have to file campaign finance reports with the FEC by April 15. But as per usual, campaigns eager to tout their hauls are releasing numbers early, which we’ve gathered below.
- DE-AL: Sarah McBride (D): $625,000 raised
- SC-01: Catherine Templeton (R): $500,000 raised (in eight weeks)
- VA-10: Dan Helmer (D): $490,000 raised, $800,000 cash on hand
Election Night
● WI Ballot: Voters in Wisconsin on Tuesday will decide on a pair of conservative-backed proposals to amend the state constitution that election administrators are warning will make their jobs harder and potentially create chaos in this perennial swing state. Republicans are encouraging voters to support both Question 1 and Question 2 while Democrats want them to vote “no” on each.
Question 1 would prohibit election administrators from accepting help or funds from “private donations and grants.” Question 2, likewise, would “provide that only election officials designated by law may perform tasks in the conduct of primaries, elections, and referendums.”
The amendments come after years of conservative conspiracy theories about Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s role in the 2020 presidential election. Republican Sen. Ron Johnson was happy to appeal to Big Lie fanatics in a digital ad in which he declared, “These will basically ban Zuckerbucks.”
However, there hasn’t otherwise been much of an effort either in support of or against either amendment. “I am not aware of any huge expenditures of funds on either side,” University of Wisconsin Law School professor Rob Yablon informed the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel just before Election Day.
The campaign follows a similar effort in Louisiana, where voters backed a comparable amendment in a 73-27 landslide in October, and even the amendment opponents are pessimistic the result will be different in the Badger State.
“These things generally pass,” Common Cause in Wisconsin executive director Jay Heck acknowledged to Semafor. Heck also noted that the GOP majority in the state legislature placed them on the ballot during what they knew would be a low-turnout election, saying, “We call this the sour grapes amendment. It’s the last gasp of the gerrymandered Republican legislature.”
But while there may not be much suspense about the result, there’s more uncertainty and worry among voting rights advocates about what happens next, especially concerning Question 2. Election law expert Victoria Bassetti told Bolts’ Alex Burness that, because the amendment is so vaguely written, it’s not clear what volunteers might or might not be able to do as they try to assist local election administrators.
Bassetti predicted that clerks “are going to see help that they previously relied upon fade away, are going to face substantial litigation risks, and are going to be unable to call upon expert advice and help from a variety of fields, including IT, security, and ballot design.”
Sam Liebert, who has served as a clerk for three small municipalities, argued that the amendment’s proponents are just fine with any chaos that might unfold, though. “This only plays into the narrative that our system is broken, by making it more broken,” he informed Burness.
● Anchorage, AK Mayor: Alaska’s largest city holds its officially nonpartisan primary on Tuesday, and nine candidates are competing to face far-right Mayor Dave Bronson in a likely May 14 runoff. A second round of voting would be averted if one candidate secured more than 45% of the vote, but the Anchorage Daily News writes that “few” observers think this will happen. (The state’s new top-four primary does not apply to this contest.)
It would be a surprise if Bronson, despite his many scandals, fails to take first place, but three different challengers all appear to have a shot at securing the crucial second slot. The local Democratic Party is backing both former state House Majority Leader Chris Tuck, who identifies as a Democrat, and former Anchorage Assembly Chair Suzanne LaFrance, who isn’t registered with any party. The final serious candidate is another independent, former Anchorage Economic Development Corp. CEO Bill Popp.
We may not know who advances, though, until well after Election Day. The Alaska Daily News says that election officials can only process about 10,000 ballots a day, a number that represents a small fraction of the more than 75,000 votes that were cast in the 2021 primary for mayor. (Anchorage is the rare major American city where terms last an odd number of years.) Anchorage’s Assembly, which is the equivalent of a city council, is set to certify the results on April 23.
Governors
● IN-Gov: The FEC announced last week that it was fining Republican Sen. Mike Braun’s federal campaign $159,000 for failing to properly report information about loans and other transactions during his successful 2018 Senate bid, problems his team blamed on his old treasurer. The news comes a little more than a month ahead of the May 7 primary for governor, a race in which Braun is the frontrunner.
● NJ-Gov: Republican state Sen. Jon Bramnick said Friday that he’d raised $800,000 during the first nine weeks of his campaign, a haul that the New Jersey Globe says qualifies him for a 2-to-1 match in public funds. Bramnick and 2021 nominee Jack Ciattarelli so far are the only notable Republicans competing in next year’s primary to replace the termed-out incumbent, Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy, while a trio of Democrats have also launched bids.
● VA-Gov: The GOP firm Cygnal shows Lt. Gov. Winsome Sears with a wide 44-16 lead over Attorney General Jason Miyares in a hypothetical 2025 primary matchup for the right to succeed fellow Republican Glenn Youngkin, who is termed out as governor.
Cygnal informs Daily Kos Elections that this survey was conducted for Virginians for Responsible Government, a group run by former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, and says that its client has no rooting interest in the Republican primary. A late February poll from another GOP group, Differentiators, gave Sears a similar 48-17 advantage.
Neither Sears nor Miyares has announced their plans for next year, but it would be a massive surprise if at least one of them doesn’t campaign for governor. It also remains to be seen if the GOP will pick its nominee through a traditional state-run primary, though a relatively new state law makes the latter option more likely.
A law passed in 2021 requires that all absentee voters have the chance to take part in nomination contests, which makes it more difficult for parties to opt for conventions or party-run “firehouse primaries.”
● WV-Gov: Political columnist Steven Allen Adams writes that businessman Chris Miller’s allies at West Virginia Forward are launching a $1.4 million buy targeting Attorney General Patrick Morrisey ahead of the May 14 GOP primary, an offensive that comes after millions in attacks from pro-Morrisey outside groups lobbed at Miller.
West Virginia Forward is led by Matt Miller, who is the candidate’s father and the husband of Rep. Carol Miller. Adams notes that its largest donor is a group associated with the GOP’s 2016 gubernatorial nominee Bill Cole who, like Chris Miller, runs several car dealerships. (The person Cole lost to in the general election, termed-out Gov. Jim Justice, left the Democratic Party the following year and is now the GOP’s frontrunner for Senate.)
Miller’s detractors aren’t so fond of his chosen profession, though. The Club for Growth, which supports Morrisey, has spent $1.4 million on ads since early February that have accused Miller’s company of selling “dangerous” used cars and taking $3 million in loans through the Paycheck Protection Program—an initiative his mother voted for.
Another pro-Morrisey outfit called Black Bear PAC has deployed $768,000 against Miller, though Adams says that some of that represents payments to the Club. (The Club in turn has provided nearly all of Black Bear’s funding.) Black Bear’s commercials have accused Miller of previously expressing support for legalizing drugs.
Adams does not mention any comparable spending for or against the other two notable Republican candidates, former Del. Moore Capito and Secretary of State Mac Warner.
House
● MN-05: Former Minneapolis City Council member Don Samuels has publicized a late February internal from Victoria Research that shows him trailing Rep. Ilhan Omar 49-30 in the August Democratic primary, with the remaining 21% undecided. The memo argues that Samuels, who lost to Omar by a narrow 50-48 margin last cycle, will once again make the race close once he gets his message out. The release does not mention any of the other candidates who have announced bids against the incumbent.
● NE-02: Democratic state Sen. Tony Vargas has released a late February poll from Global Strategy Group that shows him leading GOP Rep. Don Bacon 46-43 in their rematch for this Omaha-based seat. The Nebraska Examiner, which first reported the survey, did not mention where respondents were asked about their preferences in the presidential election.
Bacon’s team, rather than supply contradictory data, told the Examiner’s Aaron Sanderford in response that it was focusing its polling efforts on the May 14 primary. The campaign did publicize a Meeting Street Insights internal conducted around Valentine’s Day that found the incumbent beating businessman Dan Frei in a 67-15 blowout. Sanderford, though, points out this survey was conducted just after Frei entered the race.
Frei, who lost the 2014 primary to then-Rep. Lee Terry by a shockingly small 53-47 margin, hasn’t released his own numbers, and he almost certainly won’t over the next month and a half. That’s because Sanderford writes that Frei’s team says it doesn’t have the money to pay for polling.
● NH-02: State Sen. Donovan Fenton announced Monday that he’s decided to stay out of the September primary to replace his fellow Democrat, retiring Rep. Annie Kuster. Former state Sen. Melanie Levesque also took her name out of contention by backing former Executive Councilor Colin Van Ostern, who is the only notable Democrat running so far.
● PA-12: Emgage, a super PAC dedicated to turning out Muslim voters, is spending at least $100,000 on advertising to help Rep. Summer Lee ahead of her April 23 Democratic primary, with the amount evenly split between TV and digital spots.
The commercial argues that Republicans are funding attacks on Lee and declares she’s “working with President Biden to bring western PA over $1 billion.” Moderate PAC, which received funding last cycle from Republican megadonor Jeff Yass, so far has spent $437,000 to attack Lee and promote her intra-party foe, businesswoman Bhavini Patel.
● SC-01, SC-03, SC-04: Candidate filing closed Monday for South Carolina’s June 11 primary, and the state has a list of candidates here. Runoffs will take place on June 25 in any contests where no one secures a majority of the vote.
There were no last-minute surprises in any of the state’s competitive congressional primaries, though we did learn which GOP races are crowded enough to make runoffs a possibility.
That could happen in the 1st, where a pair of challengers are trying to wrest the nomination from Rep. Nancy Mace in the 1st District, and in the 3rd, which features a total of eight Republicans running to replace retiring GOP Rep. Jeff Duncan. But in the 4th, state Rep. Adam Morgan is Rep. William Timmons’ sole intra-party opponent, so that one will wrap after the first round.
Most of the attention will be on Mace’s renomination battle for a conservative seat based in coastal South Carolina and the Charleston suburbs following her October vote to end Kevin McCarthy’s speakership. The congresswoman’s main foe is former state cabinet official Catherine Templeton, who tells The Post and Courier’s Caitlin Byrd that she raised $500,000 during her first eight weeks in the race. Marine veteran Bill Young is also running, but he’s attracted little attention.
Mace hasn’t revealed her first quarter haul, but she’s already airing animated ads depicting Templeton as an establishment puppet who can’t speak for herself. The spot, without any irony, ends with a photo of Mace giving the thumbs up next to her top supporter, party master Donald Trump.
Obituaries
● Bill Delahunt: Former Rep. Bill Delahunt, a Massachusetts Democrat who represented Cape Cod and areas south of Boston from 1997 until his 2011 retirement, died Saturday at the age of 82.
Delahunt began his career in the early 1970s as a city councilor in Quincy and then the state House before becoming district attorney of Norfolk County in 1975. He made one prominent enemy during his 22 years as the county’s top prosecutor: Testimony during the 2013 trial of James “Whitey” Bulger revealed that the infamous mobster despised Delahunt. (The district attorney makes an appearance in the 2000 nonfiction book “Black Mass.”)
Delahunt waged an abortive House campaign in the early 1990s, but he got another chance in 1996 following the retirement of Democrat Gerry Studds, who was the first openly gay member of Congress. Delahunt’s path to the nomination in the now-defunct 10th District was anything but easy, though, as a recount initially affirmed that Philip Johnston, a former state and federal human services official, had defeated him by 175 votes.
But everything changed a month ahead of Election Day when a judge ruled that hundreds of ballots had been improperly marked as blank by electronic scanners—a problem that would foreshadow Florida’s infamous hanging chads in 2000. The newly tabulated ballots resulted in Delahunt winning by 119 votes, an outcome Johnston learned about at a campaign event right after he stepped off the stage with Hillary Clinton.
After Delahunt’s victory was upheld in court, he had an easier time beating state House Minority Leader Edward Teague 54-42 in the general election. “I’m the first native son of Quincy since John Quincy Adams to hold this congressional seat,” Delahunt declared in 2010 when he announced his retirement following a career that never again featured another cliffhanger election. Another Democrat, Bill Keating, held the seat during that year’s GOP wave, and Keating continues to represent what has since been renumbered the 9th District.
Ad Roundup
- NV-Sen: Jacky Rosen (D-inc) (in English and Spanish)
- PA-Sen: Bob Casey (D-inc); Dave McCormick (R)
- UT-Sen: Conservative Values for Utah – pro-John Curtis (R); Conservative Outsider PAC – pro-Brent Orrin Hatch (R)
- WV-Gov: Patrick Morrisey (R)
- IN-03: Marlin Stutzman (R)
- PA-10: Janelle Stelson (D)