Though you'd heard the last from Mississippi's Chris McDaniel? Think again.
Leading Off:
• MS-04: Despite hinting at a 2015 run for statewide office, tea partying state Sen. Chris McDaniel announced on Thursday that he would seek re-election instead. But we haven't heard the last from McDaniel, who came very close to unseating Sen. Thad Cochran in last year's Republican runoff. There has been plenty of talk about McDaniel challenging Rep. Steven Palazzo in the 2016 primary, and McDaniel himself fanned the rumors in a meeting with the Clarion-Ledger, saying he "would prefer a federal position."
Palazzo isn't exactly the strongest incumbent in the world. Despite his support from the state GOP establishment and his big spending edge, Palazzo only won renomination against former Rep. Gene Taylor by a 50-43 margin. By contrast, McDaniel carried the district 58-42 in the Senate runoff. Of course, we can't exactly do an apples-to-apples comparison between Taylor and McDaniel. Taylor was a former Democrat (albeit a very conservative one), but he still had a good reputation for his work helping the Gulf Coast rebuild from Hurricane Katrina. By contrast, no one can question McDaniel's Republican credentials.
Taylor got no real outside support during his primary bid, but McDaniel should be able to count on the help of some of the groups that targeted Cochran last year. The Club for Growth especially made noises about going after Palazzo in 2014, but they had little incentive to support a former Democrat like Taylor. McDaniel is much more their type, and if they get involved, Palazzo could be in real trouble. No matter what happens, this Gulf Coast seat should be an easy Republican hold. Romney won 68-32 here, and it's hard to imagine any Democrat taking it who isn't named Gene Taylor.
Senate:
• CA-Sen: With former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa out of the race, several Southern California politicians are looking even more closely at jumping in. Rep. Adam Schiff is the latest to confirm that he's looking for a path to victory; Reps. Loretta Sanchez and Xavier Becerra also recently said that they're analyzing the post-Villaraigosa terrain. Any of these candidates would have a tough time against fellow Democrat and Attorney General Kamala Harris, who currently has the race to herself and has much better name recognition than any of her potential rivals.
• NH-Sen: It's going to be a while before we know if Democratic Gov. Maggie Hassan will challenge Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte, but Crossroads GPS is already spending $230,000 on radio ads hitting Hassan's economic record. Maybe Crossroads thinks that if they give Hassan a taste of what she could expect in a Senate race, she'll stay on as governor instead and deprive Democrats of their toughest candidate. While both sides expect Hassan to take on Ayotte, the governor has said very little about her 2016 plans.
• WI-Sen: The Russ Feingold chatter perked up last week when he announced he'd step down as a special State Department envoy to Africa, but now, for the first time, the Huffington Post reports that Feingold has actually been talking to supporters about a potential comeback bid. It's all based on anonymous sources, though, and given how much of a lone wolf Feingold is, you have to wonder how close any "source close to Feingold" actually is. We can keep reading tea leaves until we o-d on Darjeeling, but until Feingold formally quits his job next month, our only choice is to wait.
Gubernatorial:
• LA-Gov: The rivalry between Gov. Bobby Jindal and his likely successor, Sen. David Vitter, is very well-documented. But the National Journal's Karyn Bruggeman is one of the few journalists to get either Republican to talk about it on the record. Jindal in particular isn't subtle about his feelings, telling Bruggeman, "If you turn [your recorder] off, I'll tell you what I really think about him." Ouch, though not quite as stinging as former Democratic Gov. Edwin Edwards' "you dont have anything nice to say...go ahead and talk about David VItter [sic]" tweet.
For their part, the senator's office took a thinly veiled shot at Jindal's presidential ambitions, basically promising that Vitter will actually confront the state's problems rather than spend every free moment in Iowa and New Hampshire. Of course, whatever chance Vitter may have ever had to be president disappeared in 2007 after his prostitution scandal came to light, but a little self-righteousness never hurt anyone.
Jindal is publicly neutral in this year's gubernatorial contest, but his inner circle is supporting Public Service Commissioner Scott Angelle, who served in several positions in Jindal's administration. Bruggeman tells us that the governor's chief fundraiser and former media consultant are both helping Angelle, who starts off the race largely unknown. One prominent Republican is publicly taking sides though, with former President George H.W. Bush endorsing Vitter on Thursday.
• MO-Gov: Sad news came out of Missouri on Thursday after state Auditor Tom Schweich, a Republican candidate for governor, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The cause of death is not yet known, but police believe that Schweich committed suicide.
Schweich had a long career in public life, serving as chief-of-staff to U.N Ambassador John Danforth and as a high-ranking official in George W. Bush's State Department. Schweich won his post as auditor in 2010 by unseating Democrat Susan Montee, and he won re-election in 2014 with no major party opposition. National Republicans attempted to recruit Schweich for Senate and gubernatorial runs in 2012, but he chose to stay put. Schweich entered the gubernatorial race in January, where he was to face former Speaker Catherine Hanaway in the primary.
House:
• CA-21, 36, 52: We're starting to see some movement on the House recruiting front out in California, which has hosted a number of competitive congressional races the last couple of cycles after an independent commission drew new lines to replace the state's previous bipartisan gerrymander. Here's what's happening:
In the 21st District, based in the heavily Latino Central Valley, 2014 Democratic nominee Amanda Renteria almost certainly won't run against GOP Rep. David Valadao a second time because she's reportedly taking a job with Hillary Clinton's not-yet-a-campaign campaign. Renteria proved to be a strong fundraiser but lost 58-42 thanks to the GOP wave, plus a Democratic electorate that is unusually prone to sharp drops in turnout in midterm years. Barack Obama won this seat 55-44, so Democrats absolutely must find a credible challenger here. Emily Cahn reports that the DCCC has talked to physician Joaquin Arambula, whose father, Juan Arambula, is a former assemblyman.
Meanwhile, further south in the Palm Springs area, Republicans would really like to knock off Democratic Rep. Raul Ruiz in the 36th District. Indio Mayor Lupe Ramos Watson sounds pretty interested, and she met with the NRCC last week in D.C. Indio is a fast-growing town with a population of 76,000, and it's blue turf, but elections are conducted on a non-partisan basis, so Ramos has never appeared on the ballot there as a Republican. And while Obama only carried the district by a narrow 51-48 spread, Ruiz managed a solid 54-46 win last year despite the strong headwinds, so he won't be easy to beat in a presidential year.
Finally, way down in San Diego in the 52nd District, Marine Corps vet Jacquie Atkinson is also looking at a run, and she, too, visited with the NRCC—together with Ramos Watson. Atkinson has an unusual profile: She was wounded in Iraq while serving as a platoon commander, and now she serves on Mayor Kevin Faulconer's LGBT Advisory Board. (Atkinson is gay.) But Democratic Rep. Scott Peters survived a high-octane challenge from Republican Carl DeMaio last cycle, winning 52-48. Again, with presidential year turnout, things will likely get harder for the GOP in this 52-46 Obama district, not easier.
• CA-44: State Sen. Isadore Hall's path to Congress got a little easier on Thursday, after Los Angeles Councilor Joe Buscaino announced that he would not run for this safely Democratic open seat. South Gate City Councilmember Maria Davila and South Gate City Clerk Carmen Avalos have both been mentioned as potential candidates but neither of them has said anything about their intentions.
• MS-01: We've been expecting a crowded Republican field for the May special election, and that's what we're getting. State Sen. Nancy Collins, District Attorney Trent Kelly, and former Jackson Councilor Quentin Whitwell all kicked off their campaigns on Thursday. And while businessman Boyce Adams and Transportation Commissioner Mike Tagert haven't confirmed their plans, they are expected to run.
However, we can already say good-bye to state Rep. Chris Brown. Brown entered the race on Tuesday but exited on Thursday, saying that he needs to take over his father's RV dealership. But American Eurocopter Vice President Sam Adcock is reportedly considering jumping in, and he may have some personal money to spend. The filing deadline isn't until March 27, and it might be a while before this field takes shape.
Other Races:
• Chicago Mayor: One of the big questions ahead of the April 7 runoff is what supporters of businessman Willie Wilson and Ald. Bob Fioretti will do now that their first choice has been eliminated. Wilson, who took 11 percent on Tuesday, is particularly enjoying his potential role as kingmaker.
Until now, it looked very likely that Wilson would back Cook County Commissioner Jesus "Chuy" Garcia, something Wilson even promised to do on Monday. Wilson's relationship with Mayor Rahm Emanuel also hasn't been good, with him calling the incumbent's attempt to get him thrown off the ballot "tantamount to voter suppression and disenfranchisement."
However, Wilson has already met with both candidates about a possible endorsement. Wilson said on Thursday that he'll decide who to support in the next 10 days, and he'll be asking them how quickly they'll eliminate red light cameras, how many closed public schools they'll reopen, and how they'll ensure city jobs and contracts are awarded fairly.
P.S.: Check out this cool interactive map from the Chicago Tribune with a ward-by-ward look at Tuesday's primary results.
• Montgomery Mayor: If Republican Mayor Todd Strange was hoping for a quiet re-election campaign, he's going to be disappointed. On Thursday, Democratic State Board of Education Vice President Ella Bell kicked off her campaign. Bell joins Democratic Montgomery County Commission Vice Chairman Dan Harris and former Rep. Artur Davis, a Democrat-turned Republican, in the August non-partisan primary. Interestingly, the Montgomery Advertiser notes that Bell "hasn't looked at polling numbers, and has no immediate plans to do so," which is certainly an interesting strategy.
Grab Bag:
• Demographics: The Center for American Progress (and some of the demographics bigwigs associated with it, like William Frey and Ruy Teixeira) has put together an impressive package of charts and graphs extrapolating the national electorate's composition over the previous and coming decades, back to 1974 and all the way out to 2060. The main article has a number of interesting features, including a chart showing what year each state will tip into majority-minority status (big targets on track to flip include Texas, where the voting-eligible population becomes majority-minority in 2019, and Georgia, where it happens in 2036). There are also charts showing the minority percentages among the nation's children and -- this will be the real difference-maker, in the distant future -- minority percentages among the nation's elderly.
Even cooler, though, are the interactive features on a separate page, which let you select the U.S. or any particular state, and then slice-and-dice the electorate over the decades. You can switch back and forth between race, age group, marital status, and education; you can switch back and forth between CVAP, registered voters, and actual voters; you can even switch chart output formats.
• Demographics: The Public Religion Research Institute launched a new interactive feature on Wednesday called the "American Values Atlas," which lets you access a treasure trove of polling data (conducted by PRRI themselves, though Pew and Gallup also do a lot of religion-themed polling) on policy issues, but also on the demographic questions of who belongs to what religion, and where they live (which, as we've pointed out often, is a hugely important part of political geography, but something that the Census Bureau doesn't cover, meaning we need to look elsewhere for data).
If you're looking for an executive summary, PRRI hits a few of the big findings. America has ceased to be a majority-Protestant nation, and in 19 states, white Christians (of all denominations together) have ceased to be a majority. Even as Christians become a smaller segment of the country, at the same time, Christians are becoming less white as well. This is especially true among Catholics, who are increasingly Latino, but even among evangelical Protestants as well; there has been strong recent growth among Latino evangelical churches, for instance.
Also worth noting is the rise of the "unaffiliated," people with no religious membership at all. They now comprise 22 percent of the population, and that's poised to grow significantly: young people (34 percent) are three times as likely to be unaffiliated as senior citizens (11 percent). Other non-Christian affiliations are poised to grow as well (based on the age of members): Hindus and Muslims have an average age of 36. Compare that with white evangelicals, who have an average age of 54.
The deluge of PRRI data prompted a variety of interesting new maps and charts from other sources over the last few days, as well; a good starting point may be the collection of maps that the Washington Post put together, parsing out which states have a Catholic plurality, which have an evangelical plurality, and which have an unaffiliated plurality. It also contains dozens more maps looking at each particular religion, and what percentage of people in each state are adherents.
(click to enlarge)
If you want to see all that information condensed to one map, though, our Dreaminonempty put together a composite map above that looks at whether states have a Catholic, Protestant (all Protestant, not just evangelicals), or Mormon plurality, and how dominant that plurality (or majority) is.
Kyle Kondik and Geoffrey Skelley of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics delved further into the political implications of this new data, noting the high correlation between states that have a high evangelical percentage, and states that gave a larger share of the vote to Mitt Romney in 2012. They also scatterplot some other religious groups as well, finding a similar (but not as strong) relationship between percentage of "unaffiliated" in a state, and its Obama percentage in 2012. Catholicism doesn't generate as strong a correlation, though it's interesting to see that there's a stronger relationship based on percentage of white Catholics vs. percentage of Hispanic Catholics (think about, say, the difference between how Massachusetts and Rhode Island vote, vs. how Texas and Arizona vote).
There's one other element to this question, though, that we should add to the discussion: there's a strong correlation between how white evangelicals in a state vote, and how white
non-evangelicals in a state vote.
To put it another way, Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi are both among the states with the most conservative white evangelicals and white non-evangelicals; Hawaii, Illinois, and Oregon are among the states with the most liberal white evangelicals and white non-evangelicals. (The graph above is based on 2008 exit poll data, not the new PRRI data.) So there's a feedback loop; it may not be that making a state more evangelical will make it more conservative ... but rather, that living in a state that's more conservative (and racially-fraught), and taking your social cues from everybody else around you, means that white people are more likely to vote Republican regardless of their religious beliefs.
The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir and Jeff Singer, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Taniel, and Dreaminonempty