Political Roundup for May 30th, 2018

Break the snow globe. Last night Tracey Rosebud (D) held MS-LD-30 by a surprisingly low 4-point margin.

Governor:

AK-Gov: Former Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell (R) is considering jumping into the race for Governor. Treadwell was Lt Governor from 2010 to 2014 and made an unsuccessful GOP primary run for Senate in 2014.

CA-Gov: 2010 GOP gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman has endorsed Antonio Villar for governor. Whitman is hosting a fundraiser for the former Los Angeles mayor on Thursday night in Silicon Valley.

KS-Gov: State Sen. Laura Kelly (D) has picked fellow state Sen. Lynn Rogers (D) to be her lieutenant governor running mate. In case you were wondering this is not an all female ticket as Lynn Rogers is a Kansas member of the “Southern Male Politicians with Female Names Club”.

MD-Gov: On Tuesday Gov. Larry Hogan launched a $1.3 million statewide TV campaign to remind Maryland voters why they like him so much.

MI-Gov: After shaking up his campaign businessman Shri Thanedar (D) is back on the air with a new TV ad ahead of the August Democratic primary. Hopefully Michigan Democrats will nominate this guy.

MO-Gov: ICYMI Gov. Eric Greitens (R) will resign effective June 1st. Lt. Gov Mike Parson (R) will take over as governor and serve out the remainder of Greitens’ term which expires in 2020.

VT-Gov: Gun rights supporting state Sen. John Rogers (D) will not run for governor. Rogers, a conservative Democrat from rural Vermont, had been considering running for governor in either the Democratic primary or as an independent. Gov. Phil Scott (R) has come under some criticism from gun rights supporters for signing three gun control bills in April. Scott faces a minor some dude challenger in the GOP primary while the Democratic primary is a contest between transgender utility executive Christine Hallquist, environmental activist James Ehlers, dance festival founder Brenda Siegel and eighth grader Ethan Sonneborn.

WI-Gov: Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett (D) will not make a 4th attempt to run for Governor. Barrett lost to Gov. Scott Walker (R) in 2010 and again during the recall election of 2012. He also lost a bid for the Democratic nomination for governor in 2002 as well. Without Barrett it leaves only 10 Democrats currently running for governor. State Superintendent Tony Evers; Madison Mayor Paul Soglin; state Sen. Kathleen Vinehout, state Rep. Dana Wachs, former state Rep. Kelda Roys, political activist Mike McCabe; businessman Andy Gronik, Josh Pade, state firefighters union leader Mahlon Mitchell and former state party leader Matt Flynn are all seeking the Democratic nomination for governor.

Senate:

AZ-Sen: The latest poll by Remington Research Group of the GOP primary has Rep. Martha McSally leading by a wide margin with 42%, followed by pardon criminal former Sheriff Joe Arpaio at 25% and Kelli Ward at 23% with 10% undecided.

FL-Sen: Sen. Bill Nelson (D) has been in office a thousand years? Republican Gov. Rick Scott’s latest $2.2 million buy for THIS brilliant new TV as shows exactly how a campaign should be run. Scott hits Nelson for being in politics since 1972 and says 45 years is plenty.

MN-Sen: Rocky de la Fuente ( D , R , Does it Matter?) is running for Senate in a 5th state! De la Fuente has qualified for the ballot to run for Senate in Minnesota. He is also currently running for Senate in California, Florida, Washington and Wyoming!

MT-Sen: The Club for Growth announced it will spend another $250,000 on TV ads on behalf of state Auditor Matt Rosendale (R). This will bring their total spending on behalf of Rosendale to over $880,000. Rosendale faces a four-way GOP primary with his main opponent being Judge Russell Fagg. The winner of the GOP primary will face Sen. Jon Tester (D) in November.

RI-Sen: Looks like we won’t have Lincoln Chafee ( R , I , D) to kick around anymore. The former United States Senator and Governor of Rhode Island has decided not to seek elective office in 2018. Chafee had originally considered a run for governor and then in April said he was considering a run for US Senate in the Democratic primary versus Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D). Hopefully the end of Chafee’s political career will serve as a warning to other politicians to avoid advocating for the French abomination known as the Metric system.

UT-Sen: In case there was any doubt the latest Dan Jones & Associate poll has Sen-elect Mitt Romney leading state Rep. Mike Kennedy by a 67% to 24% margin. We only wish Mitt did this well the last time he ran for Senate against a Kennedy.

WV-Sen: A DSCC internal “poll” shows Sen. Joe Manchin leading West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey by a 52% to 40% margin. Like all internals this one should probably be taken with a huge grain of salt. This poll gave Donald Trump a 59% approval rating in West Virginia. Trump won 68.5% of the vote in West Virginia in 2016 and recent polls put Trumps approval ratings in West Virginia well into the 60s. An earlier WPA Intelligence poll had Morrisey leading Manchin by a 46% to 44% margin and even Manchin’s own internals had a much tighter 8 point race so make what you will of this latest DSCC press release poll.

House:

CA-11: It looks like another rabid anti-Semite might sneak onto the ballot as a “Republican” in an unwinnable district. John Fitzgerald is the only “Republican” listed on the ballot in this D+21 district’s top two primary. Fitzpatrick has expresses some fairly insane anti-Semitic nonsense on his website. Fitzgerald is facing Dennis Lytton (D) and Chris Wood (NPP) for the second spot in the top two primary for the right to lose to Rep. Mark DeSaulnier (D). Fitzgerald is the latest in what seems to be a surprisingly large group of publicly anti-Semitic lunatics running for Congress this year. Neo-Nazi Arthur Jones is running in IL-3, alt-right lunatic Paul Nehlen is running in WI-1 GOP primary, anti-Israel conspiracy theorist Leslie Cockburn is the Democratic candidate in VA-5 and BDS supporter Scott Wallace (D) won the Democratic primary in PA-1.

CA-39: Democrat Andy Thorburn released his final TV ad. Thorburn is one of 4 serious Democrats running in the primary here. The two leading Republicans are Bob Huff and Young Kim.

CA-48: The Democrats are spending big money trying to bash Republican Scott Baugh in order to prevent him from reaching a top two runoff with Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Moscow). The Democrat aligned House Majority PAC has just dropped $650,000 in ads against Baugh. It is pretty clear who Democrats are scared of and who smart Republicans should vote for in the primary in this R+4 district.

FL-9: Former Vice President Joe Biden proves he is just another DINO Republican stooge by endorsing Rep. Darren Michael Soto (DINO) over progressive hero Alan Grayson (Real Democrat) in the Democratic primary.

FL-15: A new St Pete Poll of the GOP primary has state Rep. Ross Spano 29%, former St Rep Neil Combee 23%, Sean Harper 4%, Danny Kushmer 4%, psychologist Ed Shoemaker 4% andCurt Rogers 2%. Rep. Dennis Ross (R) is retiring from this R+6 seat.

MN-8: Republicans are growing optimistic about former St. Louis County Commissioner Pete Stauber’s chances at picking up the seat of retiring Rep. Rick Nolan (D) and view this R+4 district as one of the best GOP pickup opportunities this cycle.

NM-1: Using expletives in your campaign TV ads is apparently not a winning strategy. Albuquerque City Councilman Pat Davis (D) has dropped out of the race for Congress and endorsed fellow Democrat Debra Haaland. Davis’ claim to fame was thinking it was a good idea to use the F-word when talking about the NRA in a 15 second broadcast TV ad. Meanwhile a new Alburquerque Journal poll has former U.S. Attorney Damon Martinez leading a 6 way Democratic primary with 22% of the vote, followed by Debra Haaland at 19%, Antoinette Sedillo Lopez 17%, the foul mouth Pat Davis at 5%, Damian Lara at 4% and Paul Moya at 3%.

NY-18/NY-AG: Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D) is forming an exploratory committee to run for New York Attorney General. Maloney is currently running for re-election to his R+1 seat. New York election law is unclear about what is allowed here since the law was written under the assumption that state and federal primaries would occur on the same day. But things in New York politics are rarely simple and a 2012 federal lawsuit forced New York to hold federal primaries earlier than mid September. Of course New York’s dysfunctional legislature failed to agree on new unified primary date so New York now has one federal primary day and one state primary day and New York taxpayers get stuck paying for an extra unneeded election. Maloney could continue on with his re-election to the House and only drop that bid after he wins a Democratic primary for Attorney General. How a Maloney run for statewide Attorney General would effect his campaign for re-election remains to be seen. The statewide Democratic primary electorate is considerably more liberal than the voters in NY-18. Maloney is facing a serious re-election challenge from Orange County Legislator James O’Donnell (R) and if Maloney does become the Democratic candidate for Attorney General his replacement candidate in NY-18 would only have a little over a month and a half to put together and raise money for a Congressional campaign in a swing district.

NY-21: Former MSNBC talking head and congressional candidate Dylan Ratigan (D) told a gathering of Democrats that we would have voted for Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton in 2016. The 46 year old Ratigan has never voted in his life. The hypothetical Trump voting Ratigan is facing 4 other Democrats in the June 26th primary for the right to face Rep. Elise Stefanik (R) in this R+4 district.

Old PA-15/new PA-7: Democrats have selected PA-7 Democratic candidate Susan Wild to run in the special election for the old PA-15 seat of retired Rep. Charlie Dent (R).

Old PA-7/new PA-5: Democrats have selected PA-5 Democratic candidate Mary Gay Scanlon to run in the special election for the old PA-7 seat of retired Rep. Pat Meehan (R). This confusion was brought to you by the partisan hacks on the PA Supreme Court who redrew the PA congressional maps 4 elections into a 5 term cycle in order to help the Democrats win more Congressional seats this year.

State, Local & Other:

California VBM: We are tracking the California vote by mail ballot returns on a daily basis as the votes come in. As of May 29th the statewide ballot returns seem to be more Republican than they were in 2016 by about 4.6 points, going from D+15.2 in 2016 to D+10.6 this year. But Left Coast Libertarian (our ballot return tracker) has noticed that the GOP returns relative to 2016 are better for the GOP in non-competitive highly Democratic districts than they are in the competitive districts which could spell trouble for the GOP’s attempt to lock Democrats out of the top 2 runoff in a few key seats. We strongly recommend you click the link and read his excellent work!

NE-State Treasurer: Kent Bernbeck who is planning a run as an independent for Nebraska state treasurer is challenging the state law that requires candidates to collect roughly 120,000 signatures in order to run for statewide office as an independent. The previous threshold was 4,000 before the law was changed in 2016. Requiring 120,000 signatures to run for office in a state with a population of 1.9 million is insane! Bernbeck’s lawsuit could have repercussions in other states that have restrictive ballot access rules like this.

WATN: 2012 Green Party presidential candidate Roseanne Barr had her TV show on ABC cancelled after a series of Tweets that were in line with the usual insanity Barr has been spouting for the last 10 years.