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Welcome to the Daily Kos Elections Live Digest, your liveblog of all of today's campaign news.

Please note: This is a 2016 and 2020 Democratic presidential primary-free zone

GOP Rep. Carlos Curbelo won re-election 53-41 even as Clinton carried his seat 57-41
GOP Rep. Carlos Curbelo won re-election 53-41 even as Clinton carried his seat 57-41

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Pres-by-CD: It's cold outside, so our ongoing project to calculate the 2016 presidential results for all 435 congressional districts nationwide is heading to Florida where it's warmer. You can find our complete data set here, which we're updating continuously as the precinct-level election returns we need for our calculations become available.

Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton 49-48, just a small shift to the right from Mitt Romney's 50-49 loss to Barack Obama in 2012, but one that made all the difference in deciding Florida's 29 electoral votes. Note that is the first cycle where Florida used its new court-drawn congressional map after the state's previous Republican-drawn map was struck down for violating the state's voter-approved law against political gerrymandering. (Note also that our 2012 numbers for Florida, adjusted retroactively for redistricting, come from the state, so any comparisons between 2012 and 2016 aren't quite apples-to-apples.) Clinton carried the same 13 congressional districts that Obama won while Trump took the same 14 Romney seats, but there were some big swings in both directions.

We'll start with a look at the two Republicans who hold Clinton/Obama seats. Florida's 26th District, which is located around Miami and includes Key West, shifted from 55-44 Obama to 57-41 Clinton. However, that didn't stop Republican Rep. Carlos Curbelo from decisively winning a second term by a 53-41 margin in his rematch with ex-Democratic Rep. Joe Garcia. During the 2014 GOP wave, Curbelo unseated Garcia 51.5-48.5 in the old, more conservative version of the 26th.

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Welcome to the Daily Kos Elections Live Digest, your liveblog of all of today's campaign news.

Please note: This is a 2016 and 2020 Democratic presidential primary-free zone

Tuesday, Jan 17, 2017 · 5:19:55 PM +00:00 · Jeff Singer

Pres-by-CD: It’s cold outside, so our ongoing project to calculate the 2016 presidential results for all 435 congressional districts nationwide is heading to Florida where it’s warmer. You can find our complete data set here, which we're updating continuously as the precinct-level election returns we need for our calculations become available.

Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton 49-48, just a small shift to the right from Mitt Romney’s 50-49 loss to Barack Obama in 2012, but one that made all the difference for deciding Florida’s 29 electoral votes. Note that is the first cycle where Florida used its new court-drawn congressional map after the state's previous Republican-drawn map was struck down for violating the state’s voter-approved law against political gerrymandering. (Note that our 2012 numbers for Florida, adjusted retroactively for redistricting, come from the state, so any comparisons between 2012 and 2016 aren't quite apples-to-apples.) Clinton carried the same 13 congressional districts that Obama won while Trump took the same 14 Romney seats, but there were some notable huge in both directions.

We’ll start with a look at the two Republicans who hold Clinton/ Obama seats. Florida’s 26th District, which is located around Miami and includes Key West, shifted from 55-44 Obama to 57-41 Clinton. However, that didn’t stop Republican Rep. Carlos Curbelo from decisively winning a second term 53-41 in his rematch with ex-Democratic Rep. Joe Garcia. During the 2014 GOP wave, Curbelo unseated Garcia 51.5-48.5 in the old and more-conservative version of the 26th.

Outside groups on both sides spent heavily on this race, but Curbelo decisively outspent his Democratic foe. Garcia narrowly defeated the DCCC’s favored candidate in the primary, and he brought some ethical baggage and strange behavior to the general election: Most notably, Garcia actually said that Hillary Clinton "is under no illusions that you want to have sex with her, or that she's going to seduce you." Team Blue may be able to do much better in the future against Curbelo if they manage to nominate someone else. However, Republicans frequently do well downballot in the Miami area even as traditionally Republican Cuban-American voters have become more hospitable to Democratic presidential candidates. This seat is blue enough that Curbelo shouldn’t be entrenched, but he certainly won’t be easy to beat.

The neighboring 27th District, which includes much of Miami, shifted even further to the left: Obama carried the seat 53-46, while Clinton won 59-39 here. Democrats haven’t seriously targeted longtime Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen in a long time, and she pulled off a clear 55-45 win last year against Scott Fuhrman, a Democrat who used his personal money to run some ads but had little outside help. However, this was Ros-Lehtinen’s closest race since her initial 1989 special election victory. Ros-Lehtinen is an institution in the Miami area and it will be very difficult for national Democrats to find a viable candidate. However, this seat may be anti-Trump enough that a credible Democrat can at least make the incumbent sweat.

Two Republican incumbents lost their seats last year after redistricting made their seats considerably bluer than before. Obama only carried the suburban Orlando 7th District by an extremely tight 49.41-49.37, but Clinton won a convincing 51-44 here. Republican Rep. John Mica couldn’t run quite far enough ahead of Trump and lost 51.5-48.5 to Democrat Stephanie Murphy. But Mica really should be blaming himself, rather than Trump, for his loss. Mica did very little to prepare for a tough race after redistricting hit, and he refused to do so much as hire a campaign manager. Mica hasn’t ruled out a comeback bid, but national Republicans probably wouldn’t want him back.

The St. Petersburg-based 13th District shifted far to the right, but not by quite enough to save Republican incumbent David Jolly. While Obama carried the redrawn seat by a clear 55-44, Clinton won just 49.6-46.4; Jolly lost his re-election campaign to Democrat Charlie Crist by a very similar 52-48 margin. Jolly had awful relationship with the party leadership, and the NRCC didn't run any ads to help him, allowing Jolly to get swamped on the airwaves. Jolly has expressed interest in a 2018 rematch, which his would-be allies at the NRCC probably aren’t celebrating.

Three open seats changed hands last year as well. Democrat essentially conceded the North Florida 2nd District after redistricting turned it deeply red, while Republicans wrote off the Orlando 10th after the new map made it unwinnable for a Republican. However, the 18th District along the Treasure Coast was all-but-untouched by redistricting, and it hosted an expensive battle. The seat shifted from just 51-48 Romney to 53-44 Trump, and Republican Brian Mast defeated Democrat Randy Perkins by a stronger 54-43.

The remaining congressional districts were afterthoughts in the general election, and most of them look like they’ll stay that way. The one possible exception is the 25th District, which stretches from Hialeah around Miami to Florida’s southern Gulf Coast. The seat still backed Trump, but his 50-48 win was a huge drop from Romney’s 55-45 win. However, this is another area where the GOP is strong downballot, and Republican Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart probably won’t be vulnerable outside of a Democratic wave year for a while.

Tuesday, Jan 17, 2017 · 6:43:48 PM +00:00 · Jeff Singer

AL-Gov: Republicans have controlled Alabama’s governorship since Bob Riley narrowly won in 2002, and that winning streak is likely to continue into 2018 in this very conservative state. Still, a few Democrats are eyeing this contest, hoping that termed-out Gov. Robert Bentley’s sex scandal and ex-state House Speaker Mike Hubbard’s felony conviction will convince voters that it’s time for a change. State House Minority Leader Craig Ford expressed interest back in October, and now Sue Bell Cobb, a former state Supreme Court chief justice, is talking about getting in.

Cobb won the chief justice post 51-49 in 2006, making her one of the last Democrats to win statewide. Cobb expressed interest in running for governor back in 2010 but stayed out, and she ended up resigning her post in 2011. Cobb’s early departure, which she said was to done in order to spend more time with her family, allowed Bentley to appoint a new chief justice, which did not sit well with the trial lawyers who spent heavily to get Cobb elected in 2006. 

Cobb later wrote a piece for Politico Magazine titled, "I Was Alabama’s Top Judge. I’m Ashamed by What I Had to Do to Get There.," where she denounced the role outside groups, including trial lawyers and labor, played in judicial races. Cobb also recently endorsed Alabama Sen. Jeff Session’s nomination for U.S. attorney general. Yellow Hammer State Democrats don’t exactly have a formidable bench, but it’s possible that Cobb has just burned too many bridges to win a contested primary. Cobb says she’s being encouraged by supporters to run for governor in 2018, though she says she hasn’t made a decision.

And it wouldn’t be an election year in Alabama if we didn’t get to whip out one of our favorite headlines, “Parker Griffith Can Lose.” That’s right: 2014 Democratic nominee Parker Griffith, who lost to Bentley 64-36 before the governor’s scandal became public, says he’ll “probably” run again. Griffith was a conservative Democrat who won a competitive open U.S. House seat race in northern Alabama in 2008, but joined the GOP the next year. Griffith’s new party had little use for him, and he lost the 2010 GOP primary to Mo Brooks by a brutal 51-33. Griffith did not get the message and challenged Brooks two years later in the GOP primary and lost by a considerably worse 71-29. Griffin still did not get the message and mulled running against Brooks as an independent in 2014, only to rejoin his original party and lose to Bentley. We assume if Griffith runs for governor again it will be as a Democrat, but you never know with this guy.

Tuesday, Jan 17, 2017 · 6:53:38 PM +00:00 · David Nir

MO-Sen: So far, Rep. (and former RNC co-chair) Ann Wagner is the only Republican to even hint at challenging Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill in 2018: "She's immensely beatable," Wagner opined last year, before offering the requisite pablum about being focused on 2016 her re-election. On paper at least—as a female candidate who lives just a few miles from McCaskill in west St. Louis County and has extensive fundraising experience—Wagner ought to be the GOP establishment's dream candidate.

But this being Missouri— the same Missouri where Trump prevailed by nearly 20 points—there's no shortage of other Republicans who could run. Some, like Wagner, we've already discussed, but the National Journal's Kimberly Railey has offered up a few more potential names, including state Attorney General Josh Hawley, Rep. Sam Graves, state Treasurer Eric Schmitt, and state House Speaker Todd Richardson

Most of these candidates fall to the right of Wagner, who is already taking intra-party flak after having "un-endorsed" Trump before capitulating and ultimately saying she'd vote for him last year. (In fact, former state party chair Ed Martin tweeted a picture of a "Trump for President" poster over a "Wagner for Congress" sign, with a spray-painted red circle-and-slash symbol defacing Wagner's emblem.) So even if Wagner does run—something that, as it happens, is looking less likely as of last weekthere would almost certainly be an opening for a more reliably partisan option.

Hawley in particular is especially ambitious: a Yale Law grad, he's served in his current post for just one week and likes to claim he was deeply involved in winning the Hobby Lobby case that allowed employers to refuse to provide contraceptive coverage if doing so violated the company's "sincerely held religious beliefs." (Reality: He didn't get anywhere near oral arguments before the Supreme Court and was the last attorney listed on the plaintiffs' brief.) It probably wouldn't be too far off to consider him a Show Me State version of Ohio "Treasurer" Josh Mandel.

Graves, meanwhile, has been in office since 2001 and represents a district that stretches across the entire north of the state, so he'd have a distinct geographic base from which to run in a primary. (Fun fact: Ted Cruz's 2016 campaign manager, Jeff Roe, cut his teeth as Graves' top aide.) The genial, center-right Schmitt hails from suburban St. Louis, where he served two terms in the state Senate in a seat inside the 2nd Congressional District currently represented by Wagner .

Richardson, an attorney whose father also led state House Republicans and nearly served as speaker himself, is from the state's rural southeastern corner and, like Schmitt, would be considered a mainstream conservative in Missouri Republican politics. In the past, we've also mentioned Reps. Billy Long and Vicky Hartzler as possibilities, but like this new quartet of candidates, they haven't said anything, either.

Tuesday, Jan 17, 2017 · 8:32:39 PM +00:00 · Jeff Singer

IL-Gov: State Sen. Kwame Raoul, a Chicago Democrat who succeeded none other than Barack Obama in the Illinois state Senate, has been mentioned as a possible statewide candidate for a while, but has never gone for it. However, at a recent breakfast honoring Martin Luther King Jr., Raoul didn’t rule out a bid against GOP Gov. Bruce Rauner, saying that he doesn’t “ever close any doors.”

Ex-Gov. Pat Quinn, who lost his seat to Rauner 50-46, was also at the event, and Quinn didn’t rule out a comeback. When asked if he’s interested in a rematch, Quinn said he would “take a look at that at the right time.” Just before the 2014 election, Quinn posted an anemic 31-54 approval rating in PPP’s final poll. Quinn also had a turbulent relationship with labor, and he did not please teachers’ unions when he chose former Chicago Public Schools chief Paul Vallas, who hails from the Michelle Rhee school of education "reform," as his running mate in 2014. (Case in point: This week, Rauner appointed Vallas to the Chicago State University Board of Trustees and is recommending him to serve as chair.) The Democratic primary to face Rauner may be crowded and if Quinn runs, his name recognition could help him slip through with a plurality. Still, it’s unclear if there is anyone who actually wants Quinn to run again, except for maybe Bruce Rauner.

Two other Democrats were also at the breakfast and publicly confirmed their interest for the first time. Billionaire J.B. Pritzker, who is probably the only Democrat capable of outspending the wealthy Rauner, said he was “willing to step up because we've got to win.” Businessman Chris Kennedy, a son of the late Robert F. Kennedy, also said he was still considering whether or not to run. Last month, an unnamed Kennedy aide told Politico that Kennedy was planning to announce his campaign after New Year’s Day. However, there were similar reports back in 2009 that Kennedy was about to announce a Senate bid, but he didn’t end up running.

Tuesday, Jan 17, 2017 · 9:01:22 PM +00:00 · Jeff Singer

MN-Gov: A number of Republicans are considering running to succeed retiring Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton, and we can add another to the potential candidate list. Mike Lindell, the “CEO and Inventor” of the Minnesota-based company MyPillow (which runs a shit-ton of ads on Pandora), tells Alpha News that he’s thinking about getting in. Lindell was an ardent Donald Trump supporter during the presidential campaign, so we can guess what kind of campaign he’d run.

Indeed, Lindell also has a Trumpesque business background. MyPillow has faced plenty of lawsuits and fines over false claims about its curing powers. Last year, 10 California district attorneys sued the company for false and deceptive advertising; that same day, MyPillow settled for about $1 million in fines, and removed its medical claims from its California ads. MyPillow also had their Better Business Bureau grade change from A+ to F over their ads. (No, we didn’t expect this Digest to have an item about the ethics of pillows either.)

Tuesday, Jan 17, 2017 · 9:33:41 PM +00:00 · Jeff Singer

NJ-Gov: On Tuesday, GOP Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno announced her long-awaited campaign for governor in this fall’s election. Back in 2009, Chris Christie chose Guadagno as his running mate, and their victory made her the first lieutenant governor in the state’s history. However, Guadagno used her kickoff speech to go after her boss’ use of taxpayer money for a state helicopter and for the New Jersey State House renovation.

New Jersey is a blue state and Christie has horrible approval ratings, so it makes sense for Guadagno to promise change. Guadagno and Christie also have a horrible relationship and took opposite sides on some high-profile ballot measures last year. Back in November, Christie even went out of his way to deliver a fuck you to Guadagno. The lieutenant governor was supposed to give the keynote speech to the New Jersey State League of Municipalities conference, a highly anticipated speech ahead of her planned bid. But Christie swopped in at the last minute and took Guadagno’s slot and used his speech both to criticize her opposition to the Christie-backed tax increases (though he didn’t mention her by name) and to say he wouldn’t be resigning from office early.

Guadagno will face Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli and Steve Rogers, a Trump fan who is also a member of the Board of Commissioners in the small North Jersey town of Nutley, in the June GOP primary. Ex-Saturday Night Live cast member Joe Piscopo is also considering getting in, because apparently life actually is too long to avoid watching Joe Piscopo mull a run for office. Democrats have a very good chance to retake the governorship this November. Former Goldman Sachs exec Phil Murphy has the backing of most of New Jersey’s prominent Democrats, while Assemblyman John Wisniewski is hoping to use Murphy’s Wall Street resume against him. State Sen. Ray Lesniak is also in, at least for now

Tuesday, Jan 17, 2017 · 9:44:33 PM +00:00 · Jeff Singer

MN-GovAnd in perfectly Trumpy fashion, Lindell proceeded to say that he didn't mean what he'd just saidLindell insists that while “[p]eople have called me,” about a run, he’s “said absolutely not.” But Lindell didn’t completely take his name out of contention, saying that, “Anything can happen with Mike Lindell.” (Just like his hero, Mike Lindell seems to enjoy referring to himself in the third-person.)

Tuesday, Jan 17, 2017 · 10:07:34 PM +00:00 · David Nir

GA-06: One piece just clicked into place for investigative filmmaker Jon Ossoff: On Tuesday, fellow Democrat Josh McLaurin dropped out of the expected special election for Rep. Tom Price's House seat and endorsed Ossoff, a former staffer for Reps. John Lewis and Hank Johnson, in his stead. McLaurin, a local attorney and political novice, said he "promised to step aside if a clear frontrunner emerged" in order to maximize the chances that a Democrat would make the runoff, and he called Ossoff precisely that frontrunner.

That's a selfless attitude that the Democratic Party—hell, all humanity—could use more of. As we've noted before, all candidates from all parties would run on a single ballot, with the top two vote-getters advancing to a runoff regardless of party if no one clears 50 percent. With too many Democrats in the field, there's a good chance the left-leaning vote could get split and send two Republicans to the second round. McLaurin wisely understood this problem and instead chose to be part of the solution.

However, two other Democrats are still in the race, former state Sen. Ron Slotin and former state Rep. Sally Harrell. But Ossoff's campaign is unquestionably the furthest along: He launched with an endorsement from Lewis (who's been in the news a little bit lately, you might have seen), said he's already secured $250,000 in donation pledges, and is the only candidate to hire professional staff so far, including fundraisers who worked for Deborah Ross' Senate race in North Carolina and a pollster.

Given the compressed timeframes special elections always run on, plus the difficult odds Democrats face in this conservative district, Slotin and Harrell really need to think hard about whether they're helping the party by staying in the race, or whether they'd serve the cause better by following McLaurin's lead.

Tuesday, Jan 17, 2017 · 10:11:07 PM +00:00 · Jeff Singer

NV-Gov: Republican Attorney General Adam Laxalt hasn't publicly said much about his 2018 plans, but all signs point to him running for governor. Last month, Sen. Dean Heller decided to seek re-election rather than campaign for the governor's office, and Jon Ralston wrote that Laxalt “indicated” that he might run for the state’s top job even if Heller did too. A little while later, Lt. Gov. Mark Hutchison also announced that he wouldn’t seek the GOP nod either. 

This week, we also learned that Laxalt raised a hefty $1.2 million during 2016, more money than any Nevada Republican has ever raised this far from Election Day: Laxalt could use the money to run for re-election or for governor. Robert Uithoven, a Laxalt consultant, also says that while his 2018 “decision is yet to be made,” Laxalt’s viability for a successful campaign in either office is without question.” Every cycle, there are always plenty of politicians who look poised to run for office but surprisingly back out, so nothing’s guaranteed. But if Laxalt isn’t a gubernatorial candidate, he’s doing a convincing job playing one.

While termed-out GOP Gov. Brian Sandoval has a reputation as a moderate, Laxalt has a very different profile. Laxalt became an ardent Donald Trump supporter once Trump wrapped up the GOP nod, and as Ralston put it, the attorney general likes to hold himself out as Nevada's "One True Conservative." Democrats may have an easier time against a creature of the far-right like Laxalt than they may have against Heller or Hutchison, but that doesn’t mean he’ll be a pushover. 2018 will also be the first time that Nevada Democrats have needed to run without Harry Reid and his top aides leading their formidable voter turnout effort. 

The Democratic field is also only slowly taking shape here. Clark County Commissioner Steve Sisolak is the only Silver State Democrat to publicly talk about running, and he has about $3 million in the bank that he can transfer to a gubernatorial campaign. According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Sisolak expects to announce his plans by the end of April. However, state Senate Majority Leader Aaron Ford hasn’t ruled out his own bid, while rich guy Steve Cloobeck is reportedly trying to convince Ford and Sisolak to defer to him.

Tuesday, Jan 17, 2017 · 10:21:09 PM +00:00 · David Nir

VA-Sen: A day after the Washington Examiner reported that conservative radio host and rabid Trump booster Laura Ingraham was looking at a run against Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine next year, Ingraham confirmed on the record ("after taking a deep breath") that she's "considering" the race. Ingraham seems to be a bit out of the loop, though: She claims she "did hear through the grapevine that Eric Cantor was considering running"—"That would be a fun primary, don't you think?" she added—but the former congressman unambiguously ruled out a comeback a month ago. (Try reading the Digest more often.) Ingraham certainly wouldn't be the first media figure to talk up a vaporware bid for political office in the service of boosting ratings, though.

Tuesday, Jan 17, 2017 · 10:27:49 PM +00:00 · Jeff Singer

CO-Gov: On Tuesday, ex-state Sen. Mike Johnston kicked off his bid for the Democratic nod to succeed termed-out Gov. John Hickenlooper next year. Johnston is a former Obama education adviser who notably backed a law that allowed undocumented immigrants who graduated from Colorado high schools to pay in-state tuition at state universities. So far, businessman Noel Ginsburg is the only other declared Democratic contender. However, a number of other politicians are publicly or privately considering, most notably ex-Sen. Ken Salazar. 

Tuesday, Jan 17, 2017 · 10:32:31 PM +00:00 · Jeff Singer

TN-Gov: GOP businessman Randy Boyd has reportedly been considering a campaign to replace termed-out Gov. Bill Haslam next year, and he recently stepped down as commissioner of the state's Department of Economic and Community Development. Boyd has now confirmed his interest publicly, saying he’ll consider during the first two weeks of February

Tuesday, Jan 17, 2017 · 10:34:59 PM +00:00 · David Nir

IA-Gov: Last month, former Gov. Tom Vilsack refused to rule out a comeback bid for his old job, but a return to the campaign trail is now looking very unlikely. On Tuesday, Vilsack, who spent the last eight years in D.C. as Barack Obama's agriculture secretary, accepted a job as CEO of the U.S. Dairy Export Council, an industry lobbying group. That's not the kind of position you'd typically accept if you're expecting to run for office again, but promoting the dairy business is probably popular in Iowa, so this is a bit different than your usual K Street lobbyist gig.

Tuesday, Jan 17, 2017 · 10:56:23 PM +00:00 · Jeff Singer

Where Are They Now?: Perhaps the only career move as predictable as an ex-House member becoming a lobbyist is a disgraced ex-Staten Island Republican congressman becoming the co-host of a pro-Trump show. No, not Mike Grimm, he’s busy trying to get his law license back now that he’s out of jail: It’s that other disgraced ex-Staten Island Republican congressman. Vito Fossella, who served in the House for 12 years, will be part of a pro-Trump TV show for the conservative site Newsmax. 

Fossella’s congressional career went up in flames in 2008 after he was arrested for drunk driving, and a woman who was not his wife showed up to bail him out. That incident led voters to learn that Fossella had a secret second family, and convinced him not to run for re-election that year. Fossella has occasionally flirted with a comeback but never gone for it. But now, Fossella will be co-hosting a show where he will talk to Trump voters from swing counties about why they love them some Donald and “sit down for dinner, break bread and engage in organic conversations with American families.” Boring, but maybe Newsmax wouldn’t approve a show where Fossella would sit down for dinner, break bread and engage in organic conversations with second American families.

Tuesday, Jan 17, 2017 · 11:12:23 PM +00:00 · David Nir

CT-Gov: Trumbull First Selectman Tim Herbst just became the second Republican to form an exploratory committee for a gubernatorial run next year, joining Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton in the preparatory phase of the contest. After he came very close to winning a race for state treasurer in 2014, Democrats tried to unseat him from his post as selectman the following year and nearly did.

Herbst returned the favor by helping to raise money to defeat Democratic legislators in 2016 and successfully targeted a state representative he'd beaten in a race for student body president in college 15 years earlier. Herbst seems to take particular relish in needling Democrats, who like him just about the same. But he represents a town of just 36,000 souls, and even his piss-and-vinegar attitude might not be enough to win a GOP primary if, as expected, bigger names get in.

Tuesday, Jan 17, 2017 · 11:21:51 PM +00:00 · Jeff Singer

Cleveland, OH Mayor: Mayor Frank Jackson, a Democrat, hasn’t announced if he’ll seek a fourth four-year term this year, but he can expect some opposition if he does. City Councilor Jeffrey Johnson, who has been a frequent Jackson critic, announced this week that he would face him in the non-partisan race. Johnson is arguing that Jackson hasn’t done enough to help “the least of us” and has instead aided corporate interests. All the candidates will compete in the Sept. 12 primary, and the top two vote-getters will face off in November.

Johnson, who served on the Cuyahoga County Commission and in the state Senate in the 1980s and 1990s, was once a rising Democratic star, and he was a serious congressional candidate in 1998. However, Johnson was indicted during the race for accepting campaign contributions in exchange for helping grocers land state licenses, and he was sentenced to 15 months in prison. In 2009, Johnson successfully relaunched his political career by winning his council seat. 

Tuesday, Jan 17, 2017 · 11:28:19 PM +00:00 · David Nir

ME-Sen: Though independent Sen. Angus King has caucuses with the Democrats for four years and has generally been a reliable vote, Democratic ex-state Rep. Diane Russell isn't ruling out a challenge to King next year, but she wouldn't play spoiler—indeed, she almost certainly couldn't. Russell was a leader in the successful effort to pass a ballot measure last fall that instituted ranked-choice voting for future Maine elections, so she wouldn't risk pulling votes away from King, since if she didn't win, her supporters' ballots would get reallocated, and those votes would very likely go to other left-leaning candidates.

The sharp reduction in spoiler risk could, in fact, encourage lots of hopefuls to pile in. Former state Sen. Cynthia Dill, who ran against King in 2012 as the Democratic nominee and came in a distant third with just 13 percent of the vote, also isn't saying no to a repeat bid. But, says Dill, she thinks that if ranked-choice voting (also known as instant-runoff voting) survives a legal challenge, "it will increase the number of candidates but likely not impact the result," adding she still expects King. So far, no Democrats or Republicans are running, though Gov. Paul LePage claims there's a "high likelihood" he'll get in.

Republican Attorney General Adam Laxalt hasn't publicly said much about his 2018 plans, but all signs point to him running for governor of Nevada. Last month, Sen. Dean Heller decided to seek re-election rather than campaign for the governor's office, and Jon Ralston wrote that Laxalt “indicated” that he might run for the state’s top job even if Heller did too. A little while later, Lt. Gov. Mark Hutchison also announced that he wouldn’t seek the GOP nod either. 

This week, we also learned that Laxalt raised a hefty $1.2 million during 2016, more money than any Nevada Republican has ever raised this far from Election Day: Laxalt could use the money to run for re-election or for governor. Robert Uithoven, a Laxalt consultant, also says that while his 2018 “decision is yet to be made,” Laxalt’s viability for a successful campaign in either office is without question.” Every cycle, there are always plenty of politicians who look poised to run for office but surprisingly back out, so nothing’s guaranteed. But if Laxalt isn’t a gubernatorial candidate, he’s doing a convincing job playing one.

While termed-out GOP Gov. Brian Sandoval has a reputation as a moderate, Laxalt has a very different profile. Laxalt became an ardent Donald Trump supporter once Trump wrapped up the GOP nod, and as Ralston put it, the attorney general likes to hold himself out as Nevada's "One True Conservative." Democrats may have an easier time against a creature of the far-right like Laxalt than they may have against Heller or Hutchison, but that doesn’t mean he’ll be a pushover. 2018 will also be the first time that Nevada Democrats have needed to run without Harry Reid and his top aides leading their formidable voter turnout effort. 

The Democratic field is also only slowly taking shape here. Clark County Commissioner Steve Sisolak is the only Silver State Democrat to publicly talk about running, and he has about $3 million in the bank that he can transfer to a gubernatorial campaign. According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Sisolak expects to announce his plans by the end of April. However, state Senate Majority Leader Aaron Ford hasn’t ruled out his own bid, while rich guy Steve Cloobeck is reportedly trying to convince Ford and Sisolak to defer to him.

Georgia Democrat Jon Ossoff (at center), with supporters
Georgia Democrat Jon Ossoff (at center), with supporters

One piece just clicked into place for investigative filmmaker Jon Ossoff: On Tuesday, fellow Democrat Josh McLaurin dropped out of the expected special election for Georgia’s 6th Congressional District and endorsed Ossoff, a former staffer for Reps. John Lewis and Hank Johnson, in his stead. McLaurin, a local attorney and political novice, said he "promised to step aside if a clear frontrunner emerged" in order to maximize the chances that a Democrat would make the runoff, and he called Ossoff precisely that frontrunner.

That's a selfless attitude that the Democratic Party—hell, all humanity—could use more of. As we've noted before, if Rep. Tom Price is confirmed as Donald Trump’s healthcare czar, all candidates from all parties would run on a single ballot in a special election, with the top two vote-getters advancing to a runoff regardless of party if no one clears 50 percent. With too many Democrats in the field, there's a good chance the left-leaning vote could get split and send two Republicans to the second round. McLaurin wisely understood this problem and instead chose to be part of the solution.

However, two other Democrats are still in the race, former state Sen. Ron Slotin and former state Rep. Sally Harrell. But Ossoff's campaign is unquestionably the furthest along: He launched with an endorsement from Lewis (who's been in the news a little bit lately, you might have seen), said he's already secured $250,000 in donation pledges, and is the only candidate to hire professional staff so far, including fundraisers who worked for Deborah Ross' Senate race in North Carolina and a pollster.

Given the compressed timeframes special elections always run on, plus the difficult odds Democrats face in this conservative district, Slotin and Harrell really need to think hard about whether they're helping the party by staying in the race, or whether they'd serve the cause better by following McLaurin's lead.

State Sen. Kwame Raoul, a Chicago Democrat who succeeded none other than Barack Obama in the Illinois state Senate, has been mentioned as a possible statewide candidate for a while, but has never gone for it. However, at a recent breakfast honoring Martin Luther King Jr., Raoul didn’t rule out a bid against GOP Gov. Bruce Rauner, saying that he doesn’t “ever close any doors.”

Ex-Gov. Pat Quinn, who lost his seat to Rauner 50-46, was also at the event, and Quinn didn’t rule out a comeback. When asked if he’s interested in a rematch, Quinn said he would “take a look at that at the right time.” Just before the 2014 election, Quinn posted an anemic 31-54 approval rating in PPP’s final poll. Quinn also had a turbulent relationship with labor, and he did not please teachers’ unions when he chose former Chicago Public Schools chief Paul Vallas, who hails from the Michelle Rhee school of education "reform," as his running mate in 2014. (Case in point: This week, Rauner appointed Vallas to the Chicago State University Board of Trustees and is recommending him to serve as chair.) The Democratic primary to face Rauner may be crowded and if Quinn runs, his name recognition could help him slip through with a plurality. Still, it’s unclear if there is anyone who actually wants Quinn to run again, except for maybe Bruce Rauner.

Two other Democrats were also at the breakfast and publicly confirmed their interest for the first time. Billionaire J.B. Pritzker, who is probably the only Democrat capable of outspending the wealthy Rauner, said he was “willing to step up because we've got to win.” Businessman Chris Kennedy, a son of the late Robert F. Kennedy, also said he was still considering whether or not to run. Last month, an unnamed Kennedy aide told Politico that Kennedy was planning to announce his campaign after New Year’s Day. However, there were similar reports back in 2009 that Kennedy was about to announce a Senate bid, but he didn’t end up running.

Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill (D)
Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill (D)

So far, Rep. (and former RNC co-chair) Ann Wagner is the only Missouri Republican to even hint at challenging Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill in 2018: "She's immensely beatable," Wagner opined last year, before offering the requisite pablum about being focused on 2016 her re-election. On paper at least—as a female candidate who lives just a few miles from McCaskill in west St. Louis County and has extensive fundraising experience—Wagner ought to be the GOP establishment's dream candidate.

But this being Missouri— the same Missouri where Trump prevailed by nearly 20 points—there's no shortage of other Republicans who could run. Some, like Wagner, we've already discussed, but the National Journal's Kimberly Railey has offered up a few more potential names, including state Attorney General Josh Hawley, Rep. Sam Graves, state Treasurer Eric Schmitt, and state House Speaker Todd Richardson

Most of these candidates fall to the right of Wagner, who is already taking intra-party flak after having "un-endorsed" Trump before capitulating and ultimately saying she'd vote for him last year. (In fact, former state party chair Ed Martin tweeted a picture of a "Trump for President" poster over a "Wagner for Congress" sign, with a spray-painted red circle-and-slash symbol defacing Wagner's emblem.) So even if Wagner does run—something that, as it happens, is looking less likely as of last weekthere would almost certainly be an opening for a more reliably partisan option.

Hawley in particular is especially ambitious: a Yale Law grad, he's served in his current post for just one week and likes to claim he was deeply involved in winning the Hobby Lobby case that allowed employers to refuse to provide contraceptive coverage if doing so violated the company's "sincerely held religious beliefs." (Reality: He didn't get anywhere near oral arguments before the Supreme Court and was the last attorney listed on the plaintiffs' brief.) It probably wouldn't be too far off to consider him a Show Me State version of Ohio "Treasurer" Josh Mandel.

Graves, meanwhile, has been in office since 2001 and represents a district that stretches across the entire north of the state, so he'd have a distinct geographic base from which to run in a primary. (Fun fact: Ted Cruz's 2016 campaign manager, Jeff Roe, cut his teeth as Graves' top aide.) The genial, center-right Schmitt hails from suburban St. Louis, where he served two terms in the state Senate in a seat inside the 2nd Congressional District currently represented by Wagner .

Richardson, an attorney whose father also led state House Republicans and nearly served as speaker himself, is from the state's rural southeastern corner and, like Schmitt, would be considered a mainstream conservative in Missouri Republican politics. In the past, we've also mentioned Reps. Billy Long and Vicky Hartzler as possibilities, but like this new quartet of candidates, they haven't said anything, either.

Latest map of Democratic House members who won't attend Trump's inauguration.
Latest map of Democratic House members who won't attend Trump's inauguration.
Campaign Action

So far, 60 of the 194 Democratic members of the House have announced they will not attend Donald Trump’s inauguration ceremony on Friday, with more adding their names to the list with every passing hour. The remaining 134 are either attending or have not made their intentions clear. As shown above, we’ve mapped out the districts of who is and isn’t going, with each district equally sized so that compact urban districts don’t get overshadowed (you can see a larger version here).

To find out more about each member and the districts they represent, check out our comprehensive guide to the 115th Congress members and districts, which contains our calculations of the 2016 presidential election results for each congressional district, along with a whole host of other statistics.

Using those presidential results, we’ve also mapped out the presidential outcome by district for each member who says he or she will not attend the inauguration (see the graphic below the fold). Overall, those members who are skipping tend to come from relatively safely Democratic districts, though there are some notable exceptions. Rep. Carol Shea-Porter, who represents New Hampshire’s 1st District, actually sits in a seat that Trump carried by 48-47, making her the only Trump-district Democrat on the list of no-shows so far.

Meanwhile, a couple of Oregon Congress members—4th District Rep. Peter DeFazio and 5th District Rep. Kurt Schrader—both represent very swingy districts that Hillary Clinton only narrowly won, and both also say they won’t be at inauguration. Given the broad range of Democrats who’ve said they’ll be elsewhere on Friday, it won’t be surprising to see a lot more names added to the list as the week progresses, so we’ll be updating this map regularly.

Tuesday, Jan 17, 2017 · 11:25:27 PM +00:00 · Stephen Wolf

This story has been updated to reflect that 60 Democrats have now said that they would not attend Trump’s inauguration. Democrats only need 21 more abstainers to break the record set in 1973, when 80 members boycotted Richard Nixon’s re-inauguration.

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WASHINGTON, DC - MARCH 25:  Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) (L) greets Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) (C) before Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani's address to a joint meeting of the United States Congress in the House Chamber at the U.S. Capitol March 25, 2015 in Washington, DC. Ghani and Afghanistan Chief Executive Officer Abdullah Abdullah have been in Washington all week for meetings with President Barack Obama, Secretary of State John Kerry, Defense Secretary Ash Carter and other administration officials.  (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Florida GOP Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen
WASHINGTON, DC - MARCH 25:  Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) (L) greets Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) (C) before Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani's address to a joint meeting of the United States Congress in the House Chamber at the U.S. Capitol March 25, 2015 in Washington, DC. Ghani and Afghanistan Chief Executive Officer Abdullah Abdullah have been in Washington all week for meetings with President Barack Obama, Secretary of State John Kerry, Defense Secretary Ash Carter and other administration officials.  (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Florida GOP Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen

It’s cold outside, so Daily Kos Election’s ongoing project to calculate the 2016 presidential results for all 435 congressional districts nationwide is heading to Florida where it’s warmer. You can find our complete data set here, which we're updating continuously as the precinct-level election returns we need for our calculations become available.

Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton 49-48, just a small shift to the right from Mitt Romney’s 50-49 loss to Barack Obama in 2012, but one that made all the difference for deciding Florida’s 29 electoral votes. Note that is the first cycle where Florida used its new court-drawn congressional map after the state's previous Republican-drawn map was struck down for violating the state’s voter-approved law against political gerrymandering. (Note that our 2012 numbers for Florida, adjusted retroactively for redistricting, come from the state, so any comparisons between 2012 and 2016 aren't quite apples-to-apples.) Clinton carried the same 13 congressional districts that Obama won while Trump took the same 14 Romney seats, but there were some notable huge in both directions.

We’ll start with a look at the two Republicans who hold Clinton/Obama seats. Florida’s 26th District, which is located around Miami and includes Key West, shifted from 55-44 Obama to 57-41 Clinton. However, that didn’t stop Republican Rep. Carlos Curbelo from decisively winning a second term 53-41 in his rematch with ex-Democratic Rep. Joe Garcia. During the 2014 GOP wave, Curbelo unseated Garcia 51.5-48.5 in the old and more-conservative version of the 26th.

Outside groups on both sides spent heavily on this race, but Curbelo decisively outspent his Democratic foe. Garcia narrowly defeated the DCCC’s favored candidate in the primary, and he brought some ethical baggage and strange behavior to the general election: Most notably, Garcia actually said that Hillary Clinton "is under no illusions that you want to have sex with her, or that she's going to seduce you." Team Blue may be able to do much better in the future against Curbelo if they manage to nominate someone else. However, Republicans frequently do well downballot in the Miami area even as traditionally Republican Cuban-American voters have become more hospitable to Democratic presidential candidates. This seat is blue enough that Curbelo shouldn’t be entrenched, but he certainly won’t be easy to beat.

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Alabama Republican Roy Moore (center)
Alabama Republican Roy Moore (center)

Leading Off

Campaign Action

AL-Gov: The notorious Roy Moore may have been suspended from his job as chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, but of course, he's undeterred from pursuing his political future (as well as an appeal of the ruling that removed him from the bench). Moore says that GOP Gov. Robert Bentley's office interviewed him as a possible candidate to replace Sen. Jeff Sessions, assuming Sessions is confirmed as Trump's attorney general, and also adds that his supporters are asking him to run for governor, since Bentley will be term-limited next year.

But Moore, who is now 69 years old, sought the governorship once before, and that adventure didn't go so well. Back in 2010, he earned just 19 percent of the vote in the GOP primary, enough for a weak fourth-place finish. (Bentley ultimately won the nomination in a runoff.) Moore, however, may not have anything better to do. His term on the court is not up until 2019, but he can't run again due to age limits, so if he loses his appeal, another statewide bid might sound like fun.

And in case this all sounds weirdly familiar, this is the second time Moore's been kicked off bench: Back in 2003, Moore got the boot after he refused to comply with a federal judge's order to remove a monument of the Ten Commandments from the grounds of the state supreme court. But even though his defiance of the law earned him a national reputation as the "Ten Commandments judge," it evidently didn't endear him to primary voters, so there's no reason to think a second attempt would go any better.

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CLEVELAND, OH - JULY 20:  Political talk radio host Laura Ingraham delivers a speech on the third day of the Republican National Convention on July 20, 2016 at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump received the number of votes needed to secure the party's nomination. An estimated 50,000 people are expected in Cleveland, including hundreds of protesters and members of the media. The four-day Republican National Convention kicked off on July 18.  (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)
CLEVELAND, OH - JULY 20:  Political talk radio host Laura Ingraham delivers a speech on the third day of the Republican National Convention on July 20, 2016 at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump received the number of votes needed to secure the party's nomination. An estimated 50,000 people are expected in Cleveland, including hundreds of protesters and members of the media. The four-day Republican National Convention kicked off on July 18.  (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

According to unnamed "knowledgeable sources" who've spoken with the right-wing Washington Examiner newspaper, conservative radio host Laura Ingraham is reportedly considering a bid against Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine in Virginia next year, though she’s declined to comment. Ingraham is a major Trump booster and fits right in with the president-elect's "movement," as she's an extreme nativist reactionary on the topic of immigration. (She once said that Trump's proposal to ban Muslim immigration was "not broad enough.")

That could give her a path to the GOP nomination if Republican voters are looking to nominate someone on the "Trump track," though Trump himself only won a narrow 35-32 plurality over Marco Rubio in last year's primary. But that could also set Ingraham on a collision course with a political upstart whose career she's credited with launching: Rep. Dave Brat, the man who unseated Eric Cantor back in 2014. Aside from some ill-considered attack ads run by Cantor, Brat's penniless campaign received its greatest exposure on Ingraham's radio show. (Like Ingraham, Brat is virulently hostile to immigration, and even compared DREAMers who want to serve in the U.S. military to ISIS recruits.)

And Brat could also run for the Senate. Last year, when Virginia Republicans were preparing for a potential special election in the event that Kaine were to be elected vice president, Brat said he'd "consider" the race. That eventually of course did not come to pass, and since Election Day, Brat's been very elliptical about his interest. Amusingly, he claims he's "already won the election" over Kaine because he'd just use the same "outsider" message he rode to victory over Cantor, which demonstrates an apparent lack of understanding about the differences between running in a Republican primary in a conservative district versus a general election in a light blue state, but more power to him.

Be that as it may, there probably isn't room for both Brat and Ingraham in the same contest. And meanwhile, the GOP establishment is waiting to see whether Northern Virginia Rep. Barbara Comstock will make a go of it. She'd likely be the party's strongest candidate, but she'd face some difficulty winning the nomination if she faces someone advocating a purer form of hatred. After all, Rubio, whose "base" is pretty much the same NoVa suburbs that Comstock represents, couldn't even carry Virginia.

Alternate scenarios illustrating how Alabama could add a second VRA district or lose its sole black Congress member without the Voting Rights Act.
Alternate scenarios illustrating how Alabama could add a second VRA district or lose its sole black Congress member without the Voting Rights Act.

The 1965 Voting Rights Act was the crowning achievement of the civil rights movement. By ending the electoral system of racial apartheid across the South, the VRA finally guaranteed that millions of African Americans could exercise the one right that helps them protect every other right. A key way that the law did so was by mandating the creation of majority-minority districts to ensure that non-white voters living in areas with strongly racially polarized voting could elect their preferred candidates. Nonetheless, as we celebrate the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. on Monday, the rights of black voters are seriously threatened.

Alabama was the epicenter for the battle over civil rights, starting with the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955 and culminating with the marches from Selma to Montgomery for voting rights in 1965. Those marches saw participants brutally beaten by a law enforcement regime determined to maintain white supremacy. In one form or another, those attacks continue to this day: Rep. John Lewis, a legendary civil rights leader who nearly lost his life while marching for voting rights in Alabama, was just subject to a vituperative assault by President-elect Donald Trump, who remarkably claimed that Lewis was “all talk.”

And despite the successes of the Voting Rights Act, Alabama still offers a potent example of how black voting power is still under siege. Following the 2010 census, white Republicans controlled the congressional redistricting process across nearly the entire South, and they aimed to draw districts that complied with the VRA as minimally as possible. In multiple states, Republicans even drew racial gerrymanders that went so far that courts ruled them unconstitutional. Alabama’s population is roughly two-sevenths African American, but white Republicans drew a congressional map that elected just a single black representative out of seven, as shown on the above map in the center (see here for a larger version).

As the map on the left demonstrates, it was easily possible for Alabama to draw a second majority-minority district to allow black voters to elect their candidate preference, resulting in a congressional delegation that proportionally reflects the state’s racial balance. Alabama is not alone in this regard, as nearly every Southern state could have drawn another congressional district to elect black and Hispanic voters’ candidate preference. America requires major electoral reforms to increase representation of communities of color when a mere 22 percent of House members nationally are not white, compared to 38 percent of the country’s population overall.

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