Frequent candidate Danny Tarkanian (R), who last year was elected to the Douglas County Commission after a long string of electoral defeats, is again running for Congress. This will be his fourth quest for the US House in a third different district, in addition to two Senate races. Previously, he lost a pair of campaigns in the 3rd CD and one in the 4th District. This time, Mr. Tarkanian is challenging six-term Rep. Mark Amodei (R-Carson City) in the northern Nevada 2nd District Republican primary. It is likely he will return to his losing ways, as Rep. Amodei is a heavy favorite for re-nomination.
Freshman Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-Yonkers), who himself won a Democratic challenge campaign against then-Rep. Eliot Engel (D) in 2020, now finds himself on defense. Last week, Westchester County Legislator Vedat Gashi announced his own primary challenge against the new Congressman, and now the other two contenders, pastor Michael Gerald and activist Manuel Casanova, have both dropped out to give the former man a clear shot at defeating Rep. Bowman. The New York primary is June 28th, and this could become a primary worth watching.
After rejecting the Ohio legislature’s first congressional map the state Supreme Court has yet to take action on the new plan they received weeks ago. With candidate filing already complete and the impending primary scheduled for May 3rd, the court responded yesterday to say that the previous rendered decision was the final action. If another ruling is to occur, then new lawsuits must be filed. Immediately, the National Democratic Redistricting Committee began preparing a filing.
Republicans argue that the Ohio constitution does not give the state judiciary the power to draw or impose redistricting maps. Therefore, this could be a protracted fight that the federal courts may have to mediate since yesterday’s statement suggests the court will again reject the congressional map once another suit is filed. If the legislature then refuses to draw another map, chaos could then ensue and the May 3rd primary, at least for the district elections, would likely be postponed. Without rejecting the map, the plan currently before the panel would stand. Scott Pruitt (R) is a former Environmental Protection Agency Director under President Donald Trump and two-term ex-Oklahoma Attorney General. Reports are surfacing that he is gauging his potential support to enter the special election to replace the resigning Senator Jim Inhofe (R).
Since the special Senate election is following the regular election calendar, with the eventual winner serving the remaining four years on the current term, the candidate filing deadline is April 15th for the June 28th state primary. A runoff, if no contender attracts majority support, will occur on August 23rd. Officially in the Republican primary Senate race are US Rep. Markwayne Mullin (R-Westville), former state House Speaker T.W. Shannon, state Sen. Nathan Dahm (R-Broken Arrow), and ex-Inhofe chief of staff Luke Holland, who the outgoing Senator has endorsed. In addition to Mr. Pruitt, former Congressman J.C. Watts is also reportedly considering launching a Senate campaign. Former Congresswoman Kendra Horn is likely to become a consensus Democratic candidate. The Dean of the House, serving 49 consecutive years, Alaska at-large Rep. Don Young (R-Ft. Yukon) passed away during a flight back to his home state on Friday, thus ending a congressional career that spanned almost 80% of the time that Alaska has been a state. Mr. Young, 88 years of age, is the fifth 2020 congressional election winner who has since passed away. A special election will be called to fill the remainder of the term, the first time the at-large seat has been open since the 1973 special election that elected Mr. Young.
There is some uncertainty about the special election procedure since the state has changed its election laws and adopted a top-four jungle primary system. The Alaska Department of Law personnel will prepare an advisory briefing for Gov. Mike Dunleavy (R) who must call the special election no less than 60 but no more than 90 days from the date of the official vacancy. In this case, that date is March 18th. This means the first special vote must be completed on or before June 16th. The regular Alaska primary is August 16th, but questions are being asked about whether the special general and the regular primary can or should be scheduled concurrently. Last month, New York state Assemblyman Colin Schmitt (R-South Salem) released his own BK Strategies internal survey posting him to a one-point, 38-37%, slight advantage over Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-Cold Spring) who is the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Now, Rep. Maloney counters those results with his own Global Strategy Group poll. The GSG study (3/10-13; 500 NY-18 likely general election voters) posts the Congressman to a 49-37% advantage.
The 18th CD should be competitive in 2022, though the seat did become slightly more Democratic in redistricting. It is now rated as D+3. Rep. Maloney was re-elected in 2020 with a 56-43% margin in what was then an 18th CD that carried an EVEN rating. Many Republican leaders have been expressing fear that should resigned Governor Eric Greitens win the party’s open US Senate nomination the general election could be lost. Mr. Greitens left the Governor’s office in 2018 because of legal charges and an extra-marital affair. The charges were later dropped due to prosecutorial misconduct, but there was clear evidence of the affair.
A new Trafalgar Group survey (3/9-13; 1,075 MO likely Republican primary voters; live interview, interactive voice response, online, and text) gives credence to the previous analysis. Paired individually with two Democrats, Mr. Greitens only ties former state Sen. Scott Sifton, 45-45%, and holds the smallest of leads, 46-45%, over Iraq/Afghan War veteran Lucas Kunce. Yet, US Rep. Vicky Hartzler (R-Harrisonville/Columbia) would defeat Sifton, 57-37%, and Kunce, 56-39%. Attorney General Eric Schmitt (R) would also easily top the two Democrats (Sifton: 54-40%; Kunce: 55-40%). Earlier, in their 2/22-24 Republican primary poll, Trafalgar posted Mr. Greitens to a 31-23-17% Republican primary lead over Mr. Schmitt and Rep. Hartzler, respectively. Incumbent Sen. Roy Blunt (R) is not seeking a third term. New Hampshire is one of four states yet to complete congressional redistricting, and it appears their process will drag on a while longer. Gov. Chris Sununu (R) yesterday said that he will veto the version of the map that is working its way through the legislature. The plan would make the politically marginal 1st District, the eastern seat whose electorate has defeated more incumbents since 2004 than any CD in the country, more Republican. In turn, seeing this CD likely heading toward a new Republican Representative and away from Democratic incumbent Chris Pappas (D-Manchester) would provide Democratic Rep. Annie Kuster (D-Hopkinton/Concord) a safe Democratic seat.
Gov. Sununu was quoted as saying that New Hampshire is a “purple state,” therefore he believes Republicans should have the opportunity to compete for both of the state’s CDs. It remains to be seen how this two-district plan unfolds. The legislators and Governor have time, however. The candidate filing deadline is not until June 10th for the very late September 13th primary election. Postponing the May 3rd Ohio primary is becoming more of a reality, as the state Supreme Court rejected for the third time the proposed state House and Senate maps as political gerrymanders. The state Supreme Court continues to disqualify the maps, and the redistricting commission members cite the Ohio state Constitution saying that a court may not order the adoption of a specific plan. The high court again took no action on the congressional map.
With the candidate filing deadline already passed (March 4th), and the May 3rd primary rapidly approaching, the state postponing the nomination elections is becoming a very real possibility. The options would be to hold two primaries, one for the statewide races and one for the district contests, but that would add a great deal of expense and confusion, or postpone the entire primary election. Republican Party officials claim that voting would have to be delayed until a date in July if the election must move. Both federal and state notification deadlines would begin again if a new primary is scheduled, hence the reasoning behind a long postponement. McLaughlin & Associates, polling for the Zeldin for Governor campaign, just released a new ballot test poll for the New York Governor’s race (3/9-11; 800 NY likely general election voters; live interview & text). The results surprisingly show US Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-Shirley; East Long Island) inching past Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) in the staunchly Democratic state. According to McLaughlin, Rep. Zeldin posts a 45-44% edge. The pollsters found the Governor dropping into an unfavorable zone on her job approval ratio, 44:48%. They rate President Biden’s performance as a much worse 43:55% positive to negative.
Part of the explanation for the strong Republican showing is that New York City only accounts for approximately 34% of the respondent sample when the population represents about 43% of the statewide total. McLaughlin, however, weighted the responses to balance the sample imbalance. |
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