Morning Digest: Alabama's Doug Jones, winner of massive 2017 upset, launches bid for governorNo Democrat has won the post since 1998, but the likely GOP nominee has a particular vulnerability
Leading OffAL-GovFormer Sen. Doug Jones announced Monday that he would run for governor of Alabama—a move that gives Democrats a major candidate in a difficult race and sets up a likely rematch with the Republican who unseated Jones in 2020. “[W]hat we have heard all along is that Alabama wants their next governor to be someone who lives here, who works here, who listens to the people of this state, who understands the people of this state,” Jones said in a video posted to social media. “And Alabama wants their next governor to be someone who treats this state with grace and dignity and not just like a rest stop on the way to the Florida beach.” While Jones did not name Sen. Tommy Tuberville, who faces no serious opposition in the GOP primary, he’s made it no secret what he thinks of his once and future rival. “This is pure ego; he is a failed U.S. senator,” Jones said in May after Tuberville announced he would run to succeed GOP Gov. Kay Ivey, who is termed out, rather than seek a second term in the Senate. Jones’ new campaign comes almost a decade after he scored a miraculous 2017 victory in the special election for the seat that Jeff Sessions gave up to begin his short and unhappy stint as Donald Trump’s first attorney general. Jones had earned national attention as the state’s top federal prosecutor during the Clinton administration by successfully prosecuting the Ku Klux Klan members who murdered four Black girls in the 1963 bombing of Birmingham’s 16th Street Baptist Church, but few gave him a chance of winning in Alabama. Everything changed, though, when multiple women accused Roy Moore, the Republican nominee, of preying on them when they were teenagers. Jones prevailed 50-48 in a result that made him the first Democrat to win statewide in nearly a decade. Jones, though, faced a far tougher task in 2020 when he went up against Tuberville, whose tenure as Auburn University’s football coach made him both a beloved and reviled figure in Alabama. While Jones put up a fight, few were surprised when Tuberville unseated him 60-40 as Donald Trump was carrying the state 62-37. Jones faces another tough campaign as he tries to become the first Democrat to win the governor’s mansion since 1998, when Don Siegelman secured his sole term in a landslide victory over Republican incumbent Fob James, who had just gone through an ugly renomination campaign. A recent survey showed Tuberville defeating Jones 53-34 when voters were asked who they’d support in a still-hypothetical rematch campaign. The Republican firm Cygnal, which conducted the survey, informed The Downballot that the poll was not done on behalf of a client. Jones, however, believes that Tuberville not only shouldn’t be governor, but that he isn’t even eligible to serve in the first place. “All the evidence indicates he has not lived in Alabama for the requisite period of time,” Jones told WVTM 13 in May. “He refuses to turn over tax returns to show that he has.” Tuberville has long faced questions about when precisely he returned to Alabama after he left Auburn in 2008. Tuberville went on to coach in other states and voted in Florida in 2018. He switched his voter registration to Alabama in March of the following year, but he still owns property in the Sunshine State. These concerns weren’t much of a problem for him in his 2020 Senate race, either legally or politically. The U.S. Constitution requires only that members of Congress must be “an Inhabitant” of their state when they’re elected, and even though Tuberville’s opponents tried to portray him as an outsider, he won both the primary and general election handily. But Tuberville, who continued to spend extensive time in Florida after being elected to represent Alabama, might have a harder time waving off these issues in next year’s race. The Alabama state constitution requires candidates for governor to have lived in the state for seven years, and the senator’s critics say that he hasn’t. While no one appears to have challenged Tuberville’s qualifications in court yet, the state Democratic Party promised this spring that it would file a legal challenge against him. These concerns haven’t prevented Tuberville, who faces no serious opposition in the GOP primary, from emerging as the frontrunner. Many of his fellow Republicans, however, reportedly are unhappy with what they see as a complacent campaign. “He acts like he doesn’t have to answer to anyone—not the party, not the voters,” an unnamed GOP insider told Bill Britt of the Alabama Political Reporter. Britt writes that Tuberville has refused to speak to local GOP groups and has instead only made his case at fundraisers that are off-limits to the public. One of Britt’s sources griped, “They walk into a room and act like they own the place. That kind of arrogance might work in Washington, but it doesn’t play well in Alabama.” Redistricting RoundupMO RedistrictingOrganizers seeking to block Missouri’s new congressional gerrymander have filed a lawsuit charging that Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins drafted misleading language to describe their proposed veto referendum to voters—even as a different GOP official is trying to unleash federal immigration enforcement on signature collectors. Earlier this month, Hoskins released a summary of the legislation targeted by the referendum that says the bill “repeals Missouri’s existing gerrymandered congressional plan that protects incumbent politicians, and replaces it with new congressional boundaries that keep more cities and counties intact, are more compact, and better reflects statewide voting patterns.” People Not Politicians, which is leading the campaign against the map, responded by bringing a lawsuit in state court seeking to replace the secretary’s language—or do away with it entirely. In its complaint, the group argues that Hoskins’ description of the bill that created the map “is intentionally argumentative and likely to create prejudice,” which would violate state law. The organization says that none of Hoskins’ characterizations are accurate, since the new map would still protect incumbents and would still constitute a gerrymander, among other things. The map would carve up the solidly blue 5th District in the Kansas City area, with the aim of unseating Democratic Rep. Emmanuel Cleaver. Map opponents also argue that Hoskins was not empowered to draft a ballot summary in the first place, saying that the law authorizes the secretary of state to do so only for ballot initiatives that propose a new law, not referendums that seek to repeal one. People Not Politicians must collect around 115,000 signatures by Dec. 11 to place its referendum on the ballot, and it says it’s already gathered more than 200,000. Those efforts, though, are under attack by state Attorney General Catherine Hanaway, who claimed without evidence in a pair of social media posts late last week that organizers “are reportedly employing illegal aliens.” Hanaway said that she had referred the matter to ICE, a move that Richard Von Glahn, the executive director of People Not Politicians, said amounted to “political intimidation and thuggery” in comments to the Kansas City Star. Hoskins and Hanaway previously filed a federal lawsuit arguing that the proposed referendum violates both the state and U.S. constitutions, even though Missourians used the referendum process once before to reject a congressional map—in 1922. People Not Politicians has also sued Hoskins for seeking to reject signatures that organizers collected after the legislature passed its new map but before Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe signed it into law. Organizers say that Hoskins lacks the authority to issue any such rejection. The dispute, which could affect more than 90,000 signatures, is set to go to trial next month. SenateMI-SenFormer Michigan GOP co-chair Bernadette Smith announced Thursday that she would oppose former Rep. Mike Rogers in the Aug. 4 primary for the state’s open Senate race. However, Smith, who stepped down from her post earlier this month, will have a difficult time defeating Rogers, who narrowly lost last year’s general election for Michigan’s other Senate seat and has Donald Trump’s endorsement for his second effort. Before she can even focus on that campaign, though, she needs to earn a place on the ballot in a state where even major candidates routinely get disqualified. Under state law, candidates must submit 15,000 valid signatures by April 21, but the Michigan Advance writes that Smith’s relatively late start has cost her valuable time to accomplish this burdensome task. GovernorsCA-GovAttorney General Rob Bonta tells the Los Angeles Times he is now considering joining the large crowd of Democrats running for California’s open governorship. The news represents a reversal for Bonta, who said in February that he wouldn’t run for higher office. Now, though, he says he’ll decide on a gubernatorial bid “definitely sooner rather than later.” Bonta’s deliberations came just days after KCRA reported that he’d spent close to $500,000 on legal fees after members of the politically well-connected Duong family, which owns a recycling company, were targeted in a high-profile federal probe. Bonta, who received large donations from the Duongs but has not been accused of wrongdoing, tells the L.A. Times his legal expenditures were necessary because he wanted to help investigators “get them all the information that they wanted” from him. Politico separately writes that there has been “chatter” that Democratic Assemblymember Buffy Wicks could also join the race. There’s no word from Wicks about her interest, though Politico says that, like Bonta, she’s waiting on polling before deciding. FL-GovBusinessman James Fishback said Monday that he would enter the Aug. 18 Republican primary for Florida’s open governorship. Fishback used his kickoff announcement to charge that Rep. Byron Donalds, who is favored to become the state’s first Black governor, is “a slave to his donors.” Fishback joins former state House Speaker Paul Renner in trying to wrest the GOP nomination from Donalds, while Lt. Gov. Jay Collins is still publicly considering whether to run. Two polls conducted earlier this month both showed Donalds exceeding 40%, while none of the other three options took more than 3% of the vote in either survey. NE-GovFormer state Sen. Lynne Walz announced Monday that she was forming an exploratory committee for a possible campaign against GOP Gov. Jim Pillen. Walz, a distant cousin of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, tells the Nebraska Examiner she’ll decide early next year whether she’ll seek the Democratic nomination. Pillen, though, may have far more to fear from his own party in this conservative state. Businessman Charles Herbster, whom Pillen defeated in a close 2022 primary, has spent the last several months talking about a rematch. He recently told the Examiner that “Governor Pillen’s shortcomings make it hard to say no.” NY-GovRep. Mike Lawler endorsed fellow New York Rep. Elise Stefanik on Monday ahead of the Republican primary for governor, a race that Lawler had wanted to enter until party leaders successfully pressured him to defend his competitive House seat instead. Lawler was complimentary toward his colleague, though earlier this year, he could be found throwing shade at his would-be rival. Lawler griped in July that Stefanik was doing the GOP “a disservice” by waiting to announce her campaign until after New York City and other municipalities held local elections on Nov. 4, saying, “I don’t, frankly, think she can wait that long.” Stefanik did indeed wait that long, kicking off her bid against Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul on Nov. 7. However, she’s still waiting to learn whether Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman will oppose her in the primary.
HouseGA-14State Sen. Colton Moore said Saturday that he was considering running in the upcoming special election to replace Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a fellow Georgia Republican who announced her resignation from Congress the previous day. Most of Moore’s colleagues in the legislature would probably be just fine if he became someone else’s problem. Moore has frequently antagonized fellow lawmakers in both chambers and ultimately got himself booted from the Senate GOP caucus in 2023. His ouster came after he harangued members for not holding a special session to defund the office of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, with two senators saying they’d received threats after Moore singled them out on social media. Dalton City Councilman Nicky Lama has also talked about running as a Republican in this dark-red seat. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution additionally mentions a few other Republicans as possible candidates: Senate Majority Leader Jason Anavitarte; physician John Cowan; businessman Matt Sawhill; and Clayton Fuller, who serves four counties as district attorney for the Lookout Mountain Judicial Circuit. Both Cowan and Fuller ran for the previous version of the 14th District in 2020 after GOP Rep. Tom Graves retired. Fuller finished a distant fourth, but Cowan advanced to a primary runoff with Greene. Cowan, who went on to lose to Greene, signaled he was interested in pursuing a rematch against the congresswoman last week, though that was before she announced she would quit rather than seek reelection. MI-11Term-limited Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has given her endorsement to state Sen. Jeremy Moss, who is seeking the Democratic nod for Michigan’s open 11th District. Moss faces businessman Don Ufford and Anil Kumar, who is a member of the Wayne State University Board of Governors, in the race to replace Rep. Haley Stevens, who is running for Senate. Kamala Harris carried the 11th District, which is based in the suburbs northwest of Detroit, by a 57-41 margin last year, according to calculations by The Downballot. TX-31Offer Shlomi, best known as the pitchman for the ShamWow and the Slap Chop, has joined the Republican primary to take on longtime Rep. John Carter in Texas’ conservative 31st District. In addition to his late-night infomercial career, Shlomi (also known as Vince Offer and Vince Shlomi) has faced some legal troubles over the years. In 2009, he was arrested following a violent altercation with a sex worker, though no charges were filed. Two years later, he was sued by a former personal assistant, who alleged he had harassed and groped her. (Both parties later agreed to dismiss the suit.) Carter, 84, is the second-oldest Republican in the House, though he recently said he’d seek a 13th term. So far, however, he has yet to attract any notable opponents whose claim to fame is uttering the catch-phrase “You’re gonna love my nuts” on TV. UT-01State Sen. Nate Blouin on Sunday morning joined what’s now a busy Democratic primary for Utah’s revamped 1st District, which will become reliably blue under the new congressional map. “2026 gives Utah a rare chance to elect a progressive to Congress from a district that has consistently voted blue,” he told the Deseret News. “I’m running on a record of standing up and going against the grain, while others try to run from their values.” The field could expand again, as Salt Lake City Councilwoman Eva Lopez Chavez did not rule out a bid herself last week in an interview with ABC4. Already running for the Democratic nod are former Rep. Ben McAdams, former state Sen. Derek Kitchen, and state Sen. Kathleen Riebe. Poll Pile
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