SC-01: Two weeks ago, South Carolina Rep. Mark Sanford had two GOP primary challengers, but now he has none. On Friday, wealthy businessman and Marine veteran Ted Fienning announced that he was dropping out of the race for this red Charleston-area seat, saying only that he and his wife “realized that we need to focus on our two young sons and growing our businesses.” About a week earlier, defense analyst Tom Perez announced that he was being deployed with the military oversees, and wouldn’t be back before next year’s primary.

However, Sanford can’t rest easily with so much time before the candidate filing deadline. While enough voters may have forgiven the former governor for his infamous 2009 sex scandal (people who actually hike the Appalachian Trail may still be angry with Sanford for turning their activity into a euphemism), he still pulled off an unexpectedly weak 56-44 primary win against an underfunded state representative last year. Since then, Sanford has emerged as one of Donald Trump’s most vocal critics in the Republican Party. A few months ago, Sanford notably told Politico's Tim Alberta that Trump "has fanned the flames of intolerance" and says he can't "look the other way" as Trump lies.

As Sanford’s 2013 comeback showed, GOP voters can tolerate many personal indiscretions, but Sanford is definitely playing with fire by picking a fight with Trump, who remains popular with Republicans. Sanford himself may not care, telling Alberta, "I'm a dead man walking. If you've already been dead, you don't fear it as much. I've been dead politically." Still, you can’t beat someone with no one, and we’ll see if Sanford picks up a new primary foe. Trump carried this coastal seat, which takes up part of Charleston and its suburbs, 54-40.

TX-16, TX-23: Over the weekend, Democratic state Rep. César Blanco announced that he would seek re-election rather than run for either House seat. Blanco initially expressed interest in challenging GOP Rep. Will Hurd in the swingy 23rd District, though he said he was being encouraged to seek the safely blue 16th if Rep. Beto O'Rourke left to run for the Senate. O'Rourke ended up doing just that, and Blanco, whose seat is almost entirely in the 16th, initially didn’t rule out a bid for this El Paso seat while the legislature was in session.

CT-Gov: Over the weekend, Connecticut Port Authority Chair Scott Bates announced that he would not join the crowded Democratic primary. Bates picked an odd way to make his plans clear, writing a long op-ed in The Day with candidate-like phrases such as, “I grew up in a middle-class family in the small town of Mystic,” and, “I’ll put three ideas out there that I think should be at the core of our governing agenda in Connecticut.” If you skipped the last paragraph, you’d probably be sure Bates would be on the ballot.

Still, Bates does conclude, “I need to carry out the duties of my role as Deputy Secretary of the State and do all I can as chairman of the Connecticut Port Authority to help build the infrastructure that creates jobs and economic growth. I can’t do either job right from the campaign trail running for governor.” It certainly does feel that Bates, who could have been the first governor from southeastern Connecticut since the 1880s, either building up his profile for a run for something, or is at least auditioning for another appointed post.

NC Redistricting: In a major victory for voting rights on Monday, the Supreme Court affirmed a lower court ruling issued last year that had struck down 28 of North Carolina’s 170 state legislative districts on the grounds that Republicans had unconstitutionally used race in drawing these maps in the first place. These lines will now have to be redrawn, and new elections will be held under them, most likely next year or possibly even later this year. When that happens, Democrats could finally break the GOP’s years-long veto-proof supermajorities in the legislature, which Republicans have used to run roughshod over democratic norms and impose a radical conservative agenda on an evenly divided swing state.

So why did the courts determine these lines were invalid? Republicans had taken seats like the 21st State Senate District in Fayetteville—the tentacular monstrosity shown in this map—that had a plurality of African-American voters and made them majority black. Republicans claimed that they were required to do so under the Voting Rights Act so that black voters could elect their candidates of choice, but that argument was entirely pretextual.

That’s because black voters, even in plurality-black districts, were already able to elect their preferred candidates—typically, black Democrats. Republicans merely sought to pack as many black voters into as few seats as possible in order to make surrounding seats whiter. In the South in particular, blacks tend to vote overwhelmingly Democratic while whites vote heavily for Republicans, so reducing the black population in these neighboring seats quite simply made it easier for the GOP to win them.

Unfortunately, there’s one big hitch. Though the courts have ordered new maps, the very same Republicans who benefitted from the gerrymanders that were just struck down will get to draw up those new lines. Whatever new districts they produce, Republicans will now claim that they’re only taking partisanship (and not race) into account. We know this because the exact same thing happened with the state’s congressional map, which was also struck down as an illegal racial racial gerrymander but reconstituted (so Republicans said) as a purely partisan construct—something the Supreme Court still tolerates.

But the GOP will still face new constraints on how it can use race when it goes back to the literal drawing board, and that could make all the difference. The now-invalidated maps were so brutally effective that Republicans won veto-proof three-fifths majorities every election since they were first put in place following the 2010 census. That even includes last year, when North Carolina elected Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper to office.

Yet now it will be harder for Republicans to retain that hammerlock going forward. Democrats only need to gain four seats in the 120-member state House to break the Republicans’ 74-46 supermajority (one nominally Democratic member frequently sides with Republicans). Exactly when the GOP will face its moment of truth remains to be seen, though. The lower court had originally called for special elections to take place this year, but the Supreme Court vacated that part of the ruling and told the district court to issue new findings in regard to timing. That means special elections could still happen in 2017, though it’s more likely that the new maps won’t be used until the regularly scheduled elections next year, when the entire legislature will go before voters.

Whatever schedule is chosen, Democrats have a major chance to set North Carolina in a new direction. Republicans have turned the Tar Heel State into an experiment in hardline conservative governance and made it ground zero in the battle over voting rights. With redrawn districts, Democrats could finally provide a firm check against Republican legislative abuses by sustaining Cooper’s vetoes and restore sanity to North Carolina’s government.

Pres-by-LD: Daily Kos Elections' project to calculate the 2016 presidential results for every state legislative seat in the nation takes on South Carolina, a solidly Republican state where Democrats still do hold some conservative seats. You can find our master list of states here, which we'll be updating as we add new data sets; you can also find all of our calculations from 2016 and past cycles here.

Donald Trump carried South Carolina 55-41, a swing to the right from Mitt Romney’s 55-44 win in 2012. The GOP has held the state House since the 1994 Republican wave, and they captured the Senate in 2000. Team Red has an 80-44 lead in the House and a 28-18 edge in the Senate (one Democratic-held House seat is vacant, and Daily Kos Elections assigns open seats to the party that last held them). The entire House is up every two years, while the Senate is only up in presidential cycles.

We’ll start with a look at the House. Trump carried 86 of the 124 seats, taking three Obama seats while losing two Romney districts. Unlike in neighboring North Carolina and Georgia, ticket splitting actually benefited Democrats here. Seven Democrats hold Trump seats, while only state Rep. Kirkman Finlay is the one Republican in a Clinton seat. Of those seven Democrats, four represent seats that also backed Romney, while another Democrat holds a Romney-Clinton district.

The Democrat in the reddest House seat is Michael Anthony, who won his eighth term 55-45 even as his HD-42, which is located south of Spartanburg, went from 55-44 Romney to 60-37 Trump. Those other three Democrats in Romney/seats also represent districts that swung right and gave Trump at least a 19-point margin of victory. Finlay, the one Republican in a Clinton seat, won a third term 59.5-40.5 as his HD-75, which is located in the Columbia area, moved from 56-43 Romney to 48-45 Clinton.

Democrats haven’t had much luck in statewide races in South Carolina recently, and the GOP-drawn House map was designed to make it even tougher for Team Blue to flip the chamber. One way to illustrate the GOP’s advantage is to sort each seat in each chamber by Clinton's margin of victory over Trump and see how the seat in the middle—known as the median seat—voted. Because both chambers have an even number of seats, we average the two middle seats to come up with the median point in the chamber. In the House, the median seat backed Trump 59-37, quite a bit to the right of his 55-41 statewide win.

We’ll turn to the Senate, which won’t be up again until 2020. A bit surprisingly, Trump won all 33 Romney seats, while Clinton carried each of the 13 Obama districts. No Republicans hold Clinton seats, while five Democrats represent Trump turf. The Democrat in the reddest seat is none other than Vincent Sheheen, who was Team Blue’s 2010 and 2014 gubernatorial nominee. Sheheen won re-election last cycle without any GOP opposition even as his SD-27, located in the northern part of the state, swung from 55-44 Romney to 59-38 Trump.

Three other Democrats hold seats that backed Trump by at least a 10-point margin. The Republican in the bluest seat is John Courson, who led the chamber from 2012 to 2014 and was indicted on ethics charges earlier this year. Courson’s SD-20, which is located in the Columbia area, went from 54-44 Romney to just 48-46 Trump, and it could be a Democratic special election target if Courson needs to resign. Trump carried the median seat 58-38, also well to the right of the state.

MN-Gov: Minnesota political tip sheet Morning Take reports that Republican businessman Stewart Mills is considering running for governor next year, although there’s been nothing on the record from Mills himself. Mills had used his considerable personal fortune to finance two heavily contested House races against Democratic Rep. Rick Nolan in 2014 and 2016, but he just narrowly fell short both times. The businessman previously hadn’t ruled out a third attempt at the 8th Congressional District in 2018, which swung hard to Trump last year, but after Nolan announced on Friday that he would not run for governor, Mills might be more eager to run in a race with no incumbent. 

Meanwhile, Republican state House Speaker Kurt Daudt has been talking about running for governor, and Morning Take says he does indeed plan to announce a bid soon, which has reportedly been delayed by a lawsuit over legislative funding. At this point it might be easier to list who is not thinking about a 2018 Minnesota gubernatorial campaign, but so far the current major GOP candidates include Ramsey County Commissioner Blake Huffman, state Rep. Matt Dean, and Hennepin County Commissioner Jeff Johnson, who was the 2014 Republican nominee. Several other Republican state legislators have also expressed interest in a potential campaign.

NV-Gov: Republican state Attorney General Adam Laxalt has not yet formally declared his expected 2018 gubernatorial campaign, but he recently released a poll from Remington Research taken in late may that showed him with a 46-37 lead over Democratic Clark County Commissioner Steve Sisolak in a hypothetical general election. Sisolak had said back in January that he was considering a bid, with the Las Vegas Review-Journal reporting at the time that he expected to announce his plans by April, but that month came and went without any formal decision. However, Sisolak did recently reaffirm that interest and asserted that his own internal polls did not agree with Laxalt’s numbers, but with almost no other polling of this race, it’s hard to tell where things stand.

Laxalt reported raising over $600,000 since April, while Sisolak has a significant amount of cash left over from his 2016 re-election campaign that he can use on a statewide race, although the commissioner noted it was somewhat less than the $3.8 million he had at the beginning of 2017. Laxalt appears to have locked up significant support ahead of a potential GOP primary, but state Treasurer Dan Schwartz has previously said he’s considering running too. Few other candidates seem eager to run on the Democratic side, but ex-state Treasurer Kate Marshall and Rep. Dina Titus have both previously said they’re thinking about it.

TN-Gov, TN-Sen: Republican Sen. Bob Corker has been coy about his 2018 intentions for a while, but his plans came a little more into focus in a recent interview. Corker stated that he was leaning toward running for a third term in the Senate next year unless “something else” came up, but that he was “not interested” in a gubernatorial bid and that it wasn’t included in the “something else.”

Corker would have been biggest-named candidate if he had run in next year’s GOP primary to succeed term-limited Gov. Bill Haslam, but many prominent Republicans are already considering the race anyway. State Sen. Mae Beavers and a pair of lesser-known state government officials are already running in the GOP primary, while state House Speaker Beth Harwell, state Senate Majority Leader Mark Norris, and Knox County Mayor Tim Burchett have all said they’re considering it.

FL-Gov: GOP Rep. Ron DeSantis, a close ally of tea party-friendly groups like the Club for Growth, reportedly has been considering running for governor of Florida for a while, but he’s said little publicly. However, DeSantis recently told Politico that he “appreciate[s] the encouragement I've received about the 2018 governor's race,” and is “considering how I can make difference and will decide my plans by the fall.” Politico’s Marc Caputo also writes that DeSantis has met with donors about a possible run for state attorney general as well, and the congressman wants to assess how much money he can raise before deciding on anything.

If DeSantis gets in, he’ll face a very expensive GOP primary with state Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam. But DeSantis, who served in the Navy Judge Advocate General's Corps in Iraq before winning his seat, hopes he can emulate the strategy that allowed termed-out Gov. Rick Scott to upset Attorney General Bill McCollum in the 2010 primary. DeSantis would likely try to portray Putnam, who has never left elected office since he won a state House seat at the age of 22, as a career politician.

While Caputo writes that DeSantis knows he would get outspent by Putnam, who has $10 million in the bank, he wouldn't be starting his fundraising quite from scratch. DeSantis has $2 million in his House account and $750,000 in a super PAC, and he can transfer a large part of his cash (though not all) to a gubernatorial campaign. However, it’s worth noting that when DeSantis ran for the Senate in 2015 to replace the temporarily-retiring Marco Rubio, his fundraising wasn’t incredible. DeSantis brought in a total of $4.5 million from the start of the cycle until he dropped out of the race when Rubio turned around and sought re-election in late June of 2016.

Campaign finance rules would be different for a gubernatorial campaign and DeSantis would be facing a completely different field of opponents, so his fundraising could go completely differently in 2018 if he runs. Still, Putnam already has more than twice as much cash at his disposal than DeSantis managed to raise in 18 months, and he may have the connections to widen his lead.

If DeSantis ran and beat Putnam, he may give Democrats a better chance to win the general. DeSantis is a member of the hardline House Freedom Caucus, and he echoed Trump on Monday just after the weekend’s terror attacks in London when he argued that Mayor Sadiq Khan insisted that terrorism is “part and parcel” of city life. What Khan actually said last year was that “part and parcel of living in a great global city is you gotta be prepared for these things [terrorism], you gotta be vigilant, you gotta support the police doing an incredibly hard job, you gotta support the security services,” but that doesn’t sound as surrendery has Trump and DeSantis would like it to. Of course, as outgoing Gov. Rick Scott and Trump’s own narrow wins have shown, flawed candidates can very well win in this swing state.

Three other notable Republicans have expressed interest in running. State Sen. Jack Latvala, a powerful Tampa Bay Republican, says he’ll decide sometime in the summer. State House Speaker Richard Corcoran, a Scott antagonist, insists he won’t decide until next year, but he’s begun fundraising for a possible bid. Eccentric rich guy "Alligator" Ron Bergeron also says he’ll decide around August.

VA-Gov: Democrat Tom Perriello debuted two new ads on Monday (here and here) ahead of Virginia’s June 13 gubernatorial primary. The first spot features his most nationally prominent endorsers, with Elizabeth Warren praising Perriello as a fighter for hard-working families interspersed with footage of Perriello’s rallies with Bernie Sanders and Barack Obama, the latter of which was from his old 2010 re-election campaign. Perriello closes the segment by promising to fight for everyone and leave “no region or race behind” contrary to Donald Trump’s values. The second ad showcases Perriello talking to the camera to bemoan Trump’s attacks on our nation’s values while asserting that he’ll advocate for Virginians of all backgrounds and a fairer economy.

GA-Gov: On Saturday, House Minority Leader Stacey Abrams announced that she would seek the Democratic nomination for governor. That same day, the influential group EMILY’s List threw its backing behind Abrams even though another Democratic woman, state Rep. Stacey Evans, is also running. If Abrams wins the general election, she would be Georgia’s first African American governor (and the first female black governor of any state), while either Abrams or Evans would be the first woman to serve as governor of the Peach State.

WI-Gov: Two new Democrats have recently weighed in about their interest in a possible gubernatorial bid. Madison Mayor Paul Soglin, who has served for three separate tenures over the past four decades, said he’s thinking about running after previously refusing encouragement to do so last year. However, his close association with the progressive enclave of the state capital could prove to be a negative with swing voters, a notion with which the mayor himself said he had long agreed. Meanwhile, Professional Fire Fighters of Wisconsin president Mahlon Mitchell, who was Team Blue’s nominee for lieutenant governor in the 2012 recall, refused to rule out a campaign, stating that he has not “made any plans to run” and thought that it was too early for anyone to make a decision.

Republican Gov. Scott Walker is expected to seek a third term in 2018, but Democrats still have no noteworthy candidate to speak of in the race. State Rep. Dana Wachs and businessman Andy Gronik both said that they were considering the race back in early spring and would reveal more about their plans “soon,” but we haven’t heard anything from either of them in the intervening months.

IA-Gov: Republican Kim Reynolds got her promotion from lieutenant governor to governor last month after Terry Branstad resigned to become ambassador to China, but it looks like not all her fellow Republicans are on board with her. Cedar Rapids Mayor Ron Corbett, a former state House speaker, has been considering a bid since December, and he told the Quad City Times that he plans to announce he’s running at the end of June, though there’s no direct quote from Corbett definitively saying he’s running.

Corbett is the guy who back in February teased a "big surprise" at the end of his final state of the city address. That "big surprise" turned out to be Corbett singing "Sweet Home Cedar Rapids," a tribute he wrote to the tune of "Sweet Home Chicago.” We’re content to wait for Corbett to actually say “I’m running for governor” just in case this is another fake out and he’s actually announcing that the Sweet Home Cedar Rapids Experience is going on a multi-state tour.

IA-02: Republican Michael Bousselot, who was chief of staff to Gov. Terry Branstad before Branstad resigned to become ambassador to China, has been mentioned as a possible candidate against Democratic Rep. Dave Loebsack, but it looks like he’s decided to do something else. Bleeding Heartland notes that Bousselot has taken a job with Summit Agricultural Group as “managing director and head of external relations,” and the gig is over in the 4th District.

MN-01: On Monday, ex-state Sen. Vicki Jensen became the first noteworthy Democrat to announce that she would seek this open southern Minnesota seat. This district swung from 50-48 Obama to 53-38 Trump, and Jensen was one of the Democratic victims of the region’s lurch towards Trump. In 2012, Jensen won her first term in the state Senate 53-47 even as Romney carried her seat 51-46. But four years later, Jensen lost re-election 59-41 as Trump was taking her district 58-34. Other Democrats have made noises about running here, and former Assistant Secretary of Defense Dan Feehan reportedly is planning to get in.

MT-Sen: Confirming reports from last Friday, Montana’s GOP state Attorney General Tim Fox announced on Monday that he indeed would not run for Senate against Democratic incumbent Jon Tester in 2018. His opting out of the race deprives Republicans of what would have been one of their strongest potential recruits against the two-term incumbent in this Republican-leaning state. State Sen. Al Olszewski and businessman Troy Downing are already running for the GOP, but Fox’s declining to enter the race leaves many state Republicans to keep searching for a better-known standard-bearer among the party’s relatively deep bench.

NY-19: During the first three months of 2017, Democratic attorney Antonio Delgado raised $300,000 (with no self-funding) for a campaign against freshman GOP Rep. John Faso, even though Delgado said his campaign was still in the “exploratory phase.” Unsurprisingly, Delgado has dropped from the exploratory phase into normal space and announced that he’s running for this this Hudson Valley seat. A number of other Democrats are eyeing this race as well or are already running.

AZ-Gov: State Sen. Steve Farley became the second noteworthy Democrat running for governor against Republican incumbent Doug Ducey when he announced his campaign on Monday. Farley, who runs a graphic design and art company, represents a Democratic-leaning seat in the Tucson area and serves as assistant minority leader, giving him a prominent perch in the legislature. He joins Arizona State University professor David Garcia, who narrowly lost a 2014 race for state education superintendent, in the Democratic primary.

Ducey, who is the wealthy ex-CEO of Cold Stone Creamery, has so far demonstrated few vulnerabilities in this red-leaning state. However, Arizona trended strongly Democratic last year when it favored Donald Trump by just 3.5 percent, and its growing Latino population gives Democrats hope that they can put the state into play for future races.

WA-05: At 52-39 Trump, this eastern Washington seat isn’t exactly hospitable to Democrats. Still, Spokane City Council President Ben Stuckart is out with a poll from EMC Research arguing that he has a path against Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, a member of the GOP leadership. The survey gives McMorris Rodgers a 49-42 lead, and that 37 percent of voters give her a poor rating, the same percentage as those who give her a good or excellent review; an additional 22 rate her as “only fair.”

The poll also says that, “A brief message battery shows that Ben Stuckart’s biography and issue positions are clearly appealing to Democrats and Independents,” and propels him to a 51-42 lead. However, McMorris Rodgers will likely have more resources to get her message out instead. At the end of March, McMorris Rodgers only had $273,000 in the bank, but the well-connected incumbent likely can raise a whole lot more if she feels seriously threatened. By contrast, Stuckart had about $50,000 on-hand.

FL-27: Talking head/political consultant Ana Navarro, one of the most prominent anti-Trump Republicans in the country, on a possible bid for Florida's 27th Congressional District: "But at this time it seems to me that it requires a level of masochism that I have not yet reached." We'll check back in with her once she reaches the appropriate level of masochism.

GA-06: Democrat Jon Ossoff’s latest ad for the upcoming June 20 special election skewers Republican Karen Handel over her controversial failed effort to defund Planned Parenthood while serving as vice president of the Susan G. Komen Foundation in 2012. It features several women who survived breast cancer thanks to early detection lambasting Handel for using her leadership role at a breast cancer charity to try to eliminate funding for an organization that provides critical cancer screenings.

MN-Gov, MN-08: 

GA-Gov: On Thursday, state Sen. Michael Williams announced that he was joining the crowded GOP primary to succeed termed-out Republican Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal. Williams, who used to own a barber shop chain, first won his exurban Atlanta seat in 2014 by spending $300,000 of his own money to unseat an incumbent in the primary. Williams says he’ll use a “significant sum” of his fortune on his campaign, and he attacked the GOP-led state government for failing to deliver “basic conservative legislation.”

Williams was the first Georgia elected official to back Donald Trump, and he’s wasted no time pitching himself as the Trumpiest candidate in the land. Even before he announced, Williams took the time to troll one of his primary rivals, state Sen. Hunter Hill, on Twitter, arguing that Hill hadn’t “work[ed] to elect Trump but now you use his name for votes?” Williams followed up by telling the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that Hill was “wrong for a candidate to prey on loyal Trump supporters for their votes based on false pretenses.”

A number of Georgia Republicans have already kicked off their bids. Secretary of State Brian Kemp also launched his campaign by trying to portray himself as Georgia’s Donald Trump. By contrast, the AJC recently noted that Casey Cagle, who has served as lieutenant governor since 2007, did not even mention Trump in his campaign kickoff; Cagle is close to the pre-Trump Republican establishment and business groups. Hill, who represents an affluent Atlanta seat that turned against Trump, hasn’t ignored Trump the same way that Cagle seems to be doing, arguing that Williams “thinks he is the only Georgian allowed to support President Trump.” However, Williams has geared his campaign more towards local issues like his support for school vouchers.

The primary field may get even larger before too long. Ex-Rep. Jack Kingston, who represented a Savanna seat for 22 years before narrowly losing a 2014 Senate primary, has been talking about getting in. Kingston went on to serve as a Trump campaign advisor, and he’s become a pro-Trump talking head on CNN. Nick Ayers, a former head of the Republican Governors Association and a top aide 2016 campaign to Mike Pence, is also reportedly considering, and other Peach State Republicans may also run. If no one takes a majority in the primary, there will be a runoff.

However, while state House Speaker David Ralston didn’t rule out a bid three months ago, he did seem to back away from a possible gubernatorial run in late May. Ralston gave a speech declaring, "I intend for my focus, this year and next, to be where it has always been, and that is on the Georgia House of Representatives and the good people of Georgia that we represent." That’s not a no, but it doesn’t sound like he’s planning to give up his position in the state House for a risky statewide bid.

ME-Gov: Ex-state Republican Party head Rick Bennett, who served as Maine Senate president in the early 2000s, has been considering running for this open seat for a while. Bennett tells the Bangor Daily News that he expects to decide in the early summer. Bennett has been active in Maine politics for decades. He was Team Red’s nominee for a U.S. House seat in 1994, but he lost to future Gov. John Baldacci 46-41. Bennett ran for the U.S. Senate in 2012, but he took third place in the primary with 18 percent of the vote.

MI-Gov: In late April, businessman Shri Thanedar set up a campaign committee to seek the Democratic nomination, but he said nothing publicly about his plans. Thanedar recently spoke to the Detroit News and told them he hasn’t decided whether to run. Thanedar, who was at the high-profile Mackinac Policy Conference, added that some unnamed attendees told him not to get in.

Polling: The New York Times’ Nate Cohn reported back from this year’s convention for the American Association for Public Opinion Research, about how the nation’s pollsters are trying to learn from their mistakes in the 2016 election. His excellent recap finds that pollsters are optimistic about being able to deal with the three main categories of errors that affected their 2016 conclusion: the need to weight for education to make sure that samples don’t contain too many college-educated voters, the problem of late-breaking undecided voters, and the need to refine who fits within likely voter screens.

OH-05: Republican Rep. Bob Latta doesn't appear to have made many enemies in his conservative northwest Ohio seat, but Van Wert County Commissioner Todd Wolfrum has announced that he will challenge him in the primary. Wolfrum, an attorney who writes weekly conservative newspaper columns, argued in his kick off that “conservatives in northwest Ohio and around the country have been largely betrayed by the Republicans we have sent to Washington.” Only about 4 percent’s denizens live in Van Wert County, and Wolfrum will likely need a whole lot of things to go right to have a shot. This seat went from a tough 54-44 Romney to 60-35 Trump.

GA-06: With just over two weeks left until the June 20 runoff in Georgia's 6th Congressional District, we finally have something we've never publicly seen before: a poll with a proper trendline. Republican pollster Landmark Communications has taken a second survey for local news station WSB-TV, and this time they find Democrat Jon Ossoff narrowly edging Republican Karen Handel 49-48; back in early May, Landmark's first poll had Handel up 49-47.

That makes Landmark the only outfit to test the race twice since the April 18 primary, which is helpful because smart analysts know that for a true apples-to-apples comparison, you have to look at two polls conducted by the same pollster using the same methodology. So while the contest remains incredibly tight, Ossoff has to feel good about its direction. Indeed, Landmark's initial poll is so far the only one conducted after the primary to show Handel ahead. Five others have put Ossoff on top, so you really have to wonder whether Republicans have failed to offer up any contradictory polls simply because they don't have any.

Indeed, the worry on the GOP side seems to be escalating. A new "nonprofit" created by several Trump campaign alums called America First Policies says that it's going to spend $1.6 million on new TV ads, adding to the already enormous sums that other Republican groups have poured into this race for months. (The spots are not available yet.) But will this really be the million bucks that turns things around, or has the GOP reached the point of diminishing returns?

AZ-01: Kevin Cavanaugh, a former police officer who briefly served as deputy sheriff of Pinal County, will seek the GOP nomination to face freshman Democrat Tom O’Halleran. The Arizona Daily Star’s Tim Steller says that Cavanaugh briefly ran for Pinal sheriff last year, but he ended up supporting the winning campaign. State Sen. Steve Smith is already running for this northern Arizona district, which narrowly backed both Trump and Romney.

AZ-02: Several Democrats are considering challenging GOP Rep. Martha McSally in this Tucson seat, which flipped from 50-48 Romney to 50-45 Clinton, and the Arizona Daily Star’s Tim Steller adds a new potential contender to the list. Mary Sally Matiella, a CPA who served in the Obama Defense Department as assistant secretary of the Army for financial management and comptroller, says she’s interested. Matiella has the backing of Bill Roe, a longtime local Democratic leader. While Matiella is aware that the GOP would brand her as a D.C. bureaucrat, she does have an interesting backstory. Matiella was born into a family of migrant farmworkers, and she went on to earn a master’s degree in education from the local University of Arizona.

However, ex-Rep. Ron Barber, who narrowly lost to McSally in 2014, has a different potential candidate in mind. Barber is urging Ann Kirkpatrick, who represented the 1st District before unsuccessfully running against Sen. John McCain last year, to get in. Kirkpatrick, who says she’s moved to the 2nd District for family reasons since her defeat, has been considering running. Barber did speak well of Matiella, but said he’s “concerned, as I am in any race, that we find the candidate who has the best chance to win.”

Activism: We're pleased to tell you about a brand new tool for political engagement called Advocate, which boasts longtime friend of Daily Kos Elections Ben Schaffer as an advisor. Advocate is an activism platform that lets individuals track key races either in their own areas or anywhere across the country, and it also allows campaigns (like Jon Ossoff's) to "claim" their pages, Yelp-style, to provide updates to their supporters and offer them opportunities to get involved.

In addition, organizations like Daily Kos can put together slates of candidates they've endorsed, which in turns allows users to drill down and learn more about each campaign and the actions you can take to get them elected. Right now on our page, you'll see Ossoff and Robert Jackson, who's running for the New York State Senate against a "Democratic" incumbent who sides with the GOP, but we'll be adding more candidates as we issue more endorsements throughout the election cycle.

You can sign up here to check it out and start following—and taking action on behalf of—your favorite candidates today.

IA-Gov: Democrat John Norris, a former state party chairman and chief of staff to ex-Gov. Tom Vilsack, is the latest candidate to join the primary for governor in 2018. Norris has never held elective office, although he did narrowly lose a state House race in 1990 and lost 55-43 challenging GOP House Rep. Tom Latham in 2002. However, Norris appears to be very well-connected in Iowa state politics, and he’s reportedly close to former Sen. Tom Harkin’s donor base, meaning he could have some serious fundraising potential. Norris joins an increasingly crowded primary field that includes state Sen. Nate Boulton, state Rep. Todd Prichard, fellow former state party chair Andy McGuire, and several other noteworthy candidates.

IL-Gov: There are still roughly nine months until the March 2018 Democratic primary and 17 months until the general election, but Democratic billionaire investor J.B. Pritzker has released yet another minute-long gubernatorial TV ad, with this one being the first to attack Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner. Pritzker appears on camera in the slickly produced spot to skewer Rauner for forcing a years-long budget crisis that has caused cuts to services combating domestic violence, providing mental health care, supplying senior care, and fighting drug-abuse prevention during the state’s opioid crisis. He closes by arguing Illinois needs someone who will stand firm against Trump.

NM-Gov: Republican pollster the Tarrance Group has released a survey from late May of next year’s open gubernatorial race that shows Democratic Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham leading GOP Rep. Steve Pearce by just 47-43 in a hypothetical general election. Lujan Grisham has been in the race for several months, but Pearce is not a formal candidate, and it’s possible that this survey was released to entice him into the race since it’s unclear who sponsored it. Pearce’s chief of staff had previously said in early May that the congressman would take the “next couple of months” to decide, but local political blogger Joe Monahan has previously reported that he’s not expected to run.

A mere 4-point lead appears to be a rather favorable result for the hardline Pearce given New Mexico’s blue lean and the unpopularity of term-limited GOP Gov. Susana Martinez and Trump. Polling for this race has been sparse, and there’s still a very long time until the general election, so it’s hard to say where the horse race stands right now. However, given the struggles Republicans have been having finding a candidate and Lujan Grisham’s dominant early position in the Democratic primary, party insiders potentially don’t see the quite same picture that Tarrance portrays. Pearce himself previously failed spectacularly by 61-39 in the open 2008 Senate race against Democratic Sen. Tom Udall, so he may be reluctant to give up his strongly conservative southern New Mexico House seat next year for another risky statewide bid.

TN-Gov: On Friday, Tennessee state Sen. Mark Green announced that he would not re-enter the GOP primary for governor. Green had launched a bid at the beginning of the year, but dropped out after Donald Trump nominated him to become secretary of the Army. Green's bid to serve in Trump's administration ran aground over his long history of disparaging remarks about Muslims and LGBT people, and after he pulled his nomination, he considered relaunching his campaign for governor.

However, state Sen. Mae Beavers, a fellow social conservative from Middle Tennessee, entered the race before he made his decision. If Green and Beavers ran, they likely would have been competing for a similar pool of primary voters, and Green acknowledged a few days ago that her campaign may have made it tougher for him to win. Green did not mention Beavers when he announced that he wouldn’t run, but it’s very possible that her decision to run played a part in convincing Green not to get back in the race.

However, we may not have heard the last from Green. His statement said that “[s]everal options exist in the near future to do this and I will continue discussions with people around the state and Washington as I find the best path of service,” which could be a sign that he’s interested in a Senate or House bid.

Meanwhile, another Tennessee Republican may be making a move in the near future. Rep. Diane Black, who is one of the wealthiest members of Congress, has been publicly considering a bid for a while. Black recently told The Hill’s Scott Wong that she’s still deciding on her 2018 plans, but state and national Republicans expect her to run for governor and say she could announce as soon as this summer.

But even if Black has already decided to run, congressional matters could delay her kickoff for a while. Black is chair of the House Budget Committee, and she’s a key player in discussions on tax and spending changes. Party rules would likely force Black to stop down as chair after she announced a bid for governor, something she probably won’t want to do for a while, especially if she thinks she can score some high-profile legislative wins in Congress ahead of a statewide campaign. (It’s possible that Green is interested running for Black’s 6th Congressional District, though his entire Senate seat is in GOP Rep. Marsha Blackburn’s 7th District.)

MI-Sen: Republicans recently landed their first candidate willing to take on Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow in businesswoman Lena Epstein, but evidently, they're still on the hunt for someone better. According to Crain's Detroit Business, a group of "metro Detroit business professionals" are trying to encourage 36-year-old businessman and Iraq War veteran John James to run, and a friend of James' says he's considering, though James himself isn't commenting. James, a first-time candidate, would be the first African-American to represent Michigan in the Senate were he to run and win.

MT-Sen: National Republicans were reportedly hoping that Attorney General Tim Fox would challenge Democratic Sen. Jon Tester, but it sounds like they’re going to need to settle for some disappointment. Politico, citing two unnamed GOP sources, reports that Fox has decided not to run, though Fox has yet to say anything.

According to one D.C. Republican, Senate Republicans have Rep.-elect Greg Gianforte to blame. Gianforte was Team Red’s 2016 nominee against Democratic Gov. Steve Bullock, and he was reportedly interested in a 2020 run to replace Bullock once term limits kicked in. However, Republicans already felt that Gianforte was a weak candidate before he was slapped with a misdemeanor assault charge last week for body slamming a reporter. Fox has been interested in running for governor, but he may have been reluctant to go through a primary with the wealthy Gianforte. But now that Gianforte is looking a whole lot less impressive, Fox’s calculations appear to have changed.

CA-45: EMILY’s List, an influential group dedicated to electing pro-choice Democratic women, endorsed its first House challenger of the cycle on Friday, backing law professor Katie Porter. Porter already had the support of Sen. Kamala Harris, whom Porter worked for when Harris was attorney general, and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren. Porter is one of three noteworthy Democrats competing to face GOP Rep. Mimi Walters for an Orange County seat that shifted from 55-43 Romney to 50-44 Clinton, and these endorsements could help her raise money and stand out from the rest of the field.

NY-Gov: Although he he hasn’t formally declared his bid for a third term yet, well-funded Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo appears to be in the driver’s seat in this absurdly expensive and decidedly blue state, but a few Republicans are nonetheless interested in possibly challenging him in 2018. Dutchess County Executive Marc Molinaro had previously been mentioned as a possible candidate, and he confirmed that interest in a Thursday fundraising email by saying he’s “giving serious thought to running.” Meanwhile, it turns out that Syracuse-area state Sen. John DeFrancisco had refused to rule out a campaign back in March.

Republicans have so far struggled to find a challenger against Cuomo, but former hedge fund manager Harry Wilson, who lost the comptroller’s race in 2010, and tea-partying wealthy businessman Carl Paladino, who lost to Cuomo in 2010, have both previously said they’re considering it.

MN-Gov, MN-08: On Friday, Democratic Rep. Rick Nolan announced that he would not join the crowded race for governor of Minnesota. Nolan instead said, “The challenges and consequences of the issues facing our Nation in Washington are too important for me to walk away from at this time,” so it sounds like he’ll seek another term in his competitive Iron Range seat.

Nolan’s decision will likely come as a relief to national Democrats who want to hold the 8th Congressional District. The ancestrally blue rural seat dramatically swung from 52-46 Obama to 54-39 Trump, and it likely would have been tougher for Team Blue to hold without an incumbent. Nolan himself defeated wealthy Republican Stewart Mills 49-47 during the 2014 GOP wave, and he won their 2016 rematch by an ever-tighter 50.2-49.6 margin as Trump was romping to victory here.

Democratic legislative candidates still do relatively well in the 8th District, so Team Blue may have still been able to hold the seat without Nolan. However, national Democrats will probably be happy to have a battle-tested incumbent running rather than taking a chance on a new candidate. Still, it’s likely that Nolan will be in for another tough contest in 2018. Back in February, Mills didn’t rule out a third try. It’s possible that national Republicans would prefer a different candidate this time, but they’re likely to spend heavily here once again regardless of who steps up in the end.

RI-Gov: Cranston Mayor Allan Fung, who lost by just 41-36 as the 2014 Republican nominee, has been expected to seek a rematch with Democratic Gov. Gina Raimondo next year, and he recently said that he is indeed considering running again, with a decision to come later in 2017. Rhode Island is a strongly Democratic state in federal elections, and its legislature has been overwhelmingly Democratic for over half a century, but Republicans have long been competitive in gubernatorial elections—indeed, Raimondo’s 2014 election was the first Democratic gubernatorial victory in 24 years.

The governor’s often rocky tenure has led to speculation that she might even not seek re-election. However, so far she has said that she’s planning on running again, and Raimondo is sure raising money like she’s going to. Her vulnerability has nonetheless helped spur several other Republicans to consider the race in addition to Fung, ex-state Rep. Joseph Trillo, who headed Trump’s state campaign, and a handful of businessmen who might be able to substantially self-fund. However, while state Rep. Robert Nardolillo expressed interest in running for governor, he instead launched a longshot Senate bid against Democratic incumbent Sheldon Whitehouse last month.