The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, Stephen Wolf, and Carolyn Fiddler, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Daniel Donner, James Lambert, and David Beard.
Leading Off
● WI-Gov: Wisconsin Democrats still don't have any noteworthy candidate yet to run against Republican Gov. Scott Walker, who is expected to seek a third term in 2018 but has not formally announced yet. However, Democratic state Sen. Kathleen Vinehout established a campaign committee in mid-June, and she recently told the AP that she's still considering whether to run or not but hasn't officially jumped in. The senator said she has no timeline for when she might reach a decision.
Campaign Action
Vinehout has represented a rural western Wisconsin legislative seat centered around Eau Claire since 2006 that flipped from 54-44 Obama to 49-45 Trump, and she narrowly won re-election in the 2010 and 2014 GOP waves, meaning she has experience winning over just the sort of Obama-Trump voters that Democrats will likely need to persuade if they're to oust Walker next year. However, Vinehout's record includes a checkered past on abortion rights, and she only took a measly 4 percent in the 2012 gubernatorial recall Democratic primary, so it's unclear just how enthusiastically she'll be received by the party base if she does run next year.
Of course, having any legitimate contender run is better than no viable candidate whatsoever. A handful of other Democrats have previously expressed interest in running here, including Madison Mayor Paul Soglin, Jefferson County District Attorney Susan Happ, Assemblyman Dana Wachs, and businessman Andy Gronik, but there's no sign of how keen they are on actually joining the race.
A new Marquette poll recently gave Walker an evenly split 48 percent approval rating to 48 percent disapproval, and he could be vulnerable next year. However, the governor's national donor network will assuredly give him all the funds he needs to bludgeon the eventual Democratic nominee on the airwaves, and he won't be an easy target.
Senate
● WI-Sen: The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports that wealthy businesswoman Nicole Schneider is the latest Republican who has ruled out challenging Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin next year, according to an unnamed source close to Schneider, although there's no word from Schneider herself. While Schneider doesn't appear to have run for office before, her wealth gives her the potential to self-fund.
Baldwin could be vulnerable as she seeks a second term in a state Trump carried by less than 1 point last November, and Marquette recently found she has an evenly split 38 percent approval rating with 38 percent disapproval. Republicans have yet to land any prominent candidates, but several have previously said they're at least thinking about it, including wealthy businessman Eric Hovde, state Sen. Leah Vukmir, state Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, state Rep. Dale Kooyenga, and others.
Gubernatorial
● MA-Gov, MA-Sen: Despite Massachusetts typically being a blue state, the first MassINC poll of the cycle for WBUR to test 2018 matchups finds good news for Republican Gov. Charlie Baker. The first-term governor enjoys a gaudy 64 percent favorable rating with just 15 percent expressing an unfavorable opinion, while also trouncing the relatively unknown Democrats who have formally kicked off their campaigns against him. Baker leads Newton Mayor Setti Warren 53-26, former state budget Chief Jay Gonzalez 55-22, and environmentalist Bob Massie by 55-25. By contrast, the poll finds Baker up just 48-36 against Democratic state Attorney General Maura Healey, who hasn't joined the race but is much better known than any of the announced candidates.
That narrower lead over Healey could be a sign that Baker could be vulnerable against a more prominent challenger in a state where Trump's favorable rating is a horrific 28-65. However, Healey and many of Massachusetts' top Democrats have been very reluctant to inch toward challenging Baker, who appears to be in the driver's seat to win a second term.
Unsurprisingly for a state that's so blue at the federal level, MassINC also has great news for Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren. Although she won a fiercely contested race in 2012 to oust GOP Sen. Scott Brown, Warren is cruising to a second term over her relatively obscure opponents, and her smallest lead in this poll is still a lopsided 60-29.
● NV-Gov: Nevada's gubernatorial race has been slow to develop as no noteworthy Republicans have formally launched a campaign yet in the race to succeed term-limited Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval, but things are indeed moving behind the scenes. GOP state Treasurer Dan Schwartz recently gave an interview with the Nevada Independent in which the multi-millionaire former businessman announced he was planning on forming an exploratory committee and would be willing to self-fund at least $500,000 if he runs.
Schwartz also had sharp words for the ostensible Republican primary frontrunner, state Attorney General Adam Laxalt, who hasn't officially jumped into the race yet but is seen as an almost certain candidate. It wouldn't be the first time that Schwartz has crossed key players in the state party, as he has previously clashed with GOP legislative leaders over the state budget.
Schwartz even says he commissioned a poll from consultant Doug Schoen that shows him trailing Laxalt just 34-30, which would indicate that the race is still wide open between the two of them. However, Schoen's professional reputation is … less than stellar. The former Bill Clinton adviser is a frequent Fox News "Democrat" whose firm gave poor advice to Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign (they were not hired the second time) and notoriously editorialized that Obama should have not sought a second term in 2012. It's possible that this prospective primary really is that close, but it ought to take more than a Schoen poll to convince Schwartz's skeptics.
House
● CA-25: Non-profit director Katie Hill has released a new poll from Strategies 360 to argue that she's the more electable option for Democrats than attorney Bryan Caforio, who was Team Blue's nominee against GOP Rep. Steve Knight in the Los Angeles-area 25th District last year. Hill's claim, however, relies on what's known as an "informed ballot" test, where respondents are prompted with both positive and negative information about the candidates and then asked their choice. The problem with these kinds of questions is that campaigns rarely unfold in real life the way they do on a survey questionnaire.
That's why we always prefer to look at the so-called "initial ballot" test, in which candidates are pitted against one another at the start of a poll without any background material. Here, though both Democrats trail the congressman, Caforio has the slight edge (which Strategies 360 oddly describes as an "identical" performance). Knight leads Caforio 48-43, while he beats Hill 49-42. That's unsurprising given that Caforio did just run here last year, and even Hill's memo acknowledges that he "starts with higher name ID": 45 percent know him, though a comparable figure is not offered for Hill.
That's replicated in the poll's test of the primary, which is described a bit opaquely but seems to put Caforio ahead 21-12 on Hill, with geologist Jess Phoenix taking 5 percent. Since California has a top-two primary in which all candidates from all parties run together on a single ballot, with the top two vote-getters (regardless of party) advancing to the general election, this question presumably included Knight, and presumably he was far out in front, but his actual share of the vote isn't included.
Hill goes on to say that she's up 48-46 on Knight after the informed ballot, while the memo gives Knight a 51-43 lead over Caforio. That's certainly quite a spread, but we don't really know what its roots are. Strategies 360 says that it offered "balanced" positive and negative messages for all candidates, but it only reveals the content of its message about Caforio (which it says "closely followed" the attacks the NRCC used in 2016 claiming Caforio represented "Big Oil" in his legal practice) and not any descriptions of Knight or Hill herself.
In her press release touting this poll, Hill said she was "up 4" on Knight, but that 49-45 score reflects a scenario that could never come to pass, since it describes an intermediary question between the initial and informed ballots where respondents are only given positive information about the candidates. (Caforio here trails again, 50-45.) Ultimately, the most useful information remains the initial ballot, and that shows about what you'd expect: the two Democrats are considerably less well-known than the incumbent, but he himself is nevertheless potentially vulnerable.
Caforio himself recently released his own poll (from PPP) that, on the surface, looks very similar to Hill's, since Caforio lagged Knight 47-43. However, Caforio's survey attempted to poll next June's primary electorate, while Hill's tried to paint a picture of the November 2018 general election. That makes Caforio's poll quite a bit more optimistic, since the electorate that turns out for California's primaries is almost always more Republican-leaning one that shows up for the main event.
Which poll is right? We can't say, of course, until we have more data to compare these two. But we have a long road ahead of us yet, and it may be quite a while before we see another survey here. In the meantime, the Democrats will continue to fight it out for supremacy.
● ID-01: State Rep. Luke Malek is the latest Republican to express direct interest in running for western Idaho's overwhelmingly GOP 1st Congressional District, which will be an open seat after Republican Rep. Raúl Labrador launched his gubernatorial campaign. Malek is an attorney who is serving his third term in the legislature, and he would join ex-state Sen. Russ Fulcher and former Lt. Gov. David Leroy in the Republican primary if he runs.
● NV-03, NV-Sen: Perennial losing GOP candidate Danny Tarkanian's name surfaced recently as a possible contender for House or even Senate in 2018, and we now have word directly from baby Tark himself. Tarkanian says he's "probably going to end up" running for the 3rd District again after just narrowly losing 47-46 to Democratic Rep. Jacky Rosen for an open seat last year. However, Rosen is reportedly running for Senate next year against GOP incumbent Dean Heller, which Tarkanian says "changed everything" (cue the overly dramatic made-for-TV movie soundtrack). Consequently, Tarkanian say he is "not closing the door on anything" in reference to a primary challenge to Heller following the latter's vocal opposition to Trumpcare.
As the son of legendary former UNLV basketball coach Jerry Tarkanian, the younger Tarkanian has capitalized on his family name, wealth, and unrelenting conservatism to make five unsuccessful attempts for office as a Republican. Tarkanian's most recent campaign saw him beat the party establishment's preferred candidate in the primary, then fail to maintain the GOP's hold on the 3rd District in Las Vegas' southern suburbs even as that House seat flipped from 50-49 Obama to 48-47 Trump last November.
Given his glaringly flawed business record and image as a non-stop office-seeker, Democrats would undoubtedly love to see Tarkanian help the GOP snatch defeat from the jaws of victory once again, especially if he were to miraculously oust Heller in the primary for what is Democrats' best Senate pickup opportunity next year.
● PA-16: Democratic non-profit executive director Jess King announced her candidacy on Tuesday for Pennsylvania's GOP-held 16th Congressional District, which encompasses Lancaster, central Reading, and part of the Philadelphia suburbs. King hails from Lancaster, where she leads an organization that promotes small business and encourages entrepreneurship. She has not previously run for office before, and it's unclear if she has the skills needed to mount a strong campaign, but she might have some useful connections.
Republican Rep. Lloyd Smucker defeated a well-funded Democratic opponent 54-43 to win a then-open seat last year, outpacing Donald Trump's 51-44 victory in this historically Republican-leaning district. However, some Democrats are hopeful that 2018 could see a change in fortunes for Team Blue in a district that narrowly voted for Obama in 2008. Former Warwick schools superintendent John George is already running in the Democratic primary, while 2016 nominee Christina Hartman has previously said that she was considering a second attempt in 2018.
● WI-01: On Tuesday, VoteVets endorsed ironworker Randy Bryce in the Democratic primary to take on Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan in this southeastern Wisconsin House seat. An Army veteran and union leader, Bryce recently launched his campaign with a big media splash that helped him raise over $100,000 in the first 24 hours. Ryan will assuredly be an extremely tough opponent in this 53-42 Trump seat, but Bryce isn't the only Democrat seeking to pull off the upset, as Janesville School Board member Cathy Myers and activist David Yankovich are also both running.
Grab Bag
● Demographics: Daily Kos Elections previously published a comprehensive guide to the 115th Congress members and their districts back in January. Now, we're pleased to announce that we have updated demographic statistics from the 2015 American Community Survey on the proportion of adults with college degrees and median household income by congressional district in the three states that underwent substantial redistricting ahead of 2016: Florida, North Carolina, and Virginia.
Educational attainment strongly correlated with the presidential swing between 2012 and 2016, so these numbers are an especially valuable metric. The guide also has our presidential results by congressional district for 2016, 2012, and 2008, along with recent House and Senate election results. Be sure to bookmark this resource, since we'll be keeping it up-to-date as special elections produce new members and new data becomes available.