Last week, the Cygnal polling firm released its results for the Alabama Governor’s race, and now their Yellowhammer State Senate numbers are public.  The poll (8/17-18; 600 AL likely Republican primary voters; live interview, interactive voice response system, and text) finds US Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Huntsville) opening with a healthy 41-18-3-2% GOP primary lead over former Alabama Business Council president and CEO Katie Britt, businesswoman Jessica Taylor, and ex-US Ambassador Lynda Blanchard, respectively.  

Last week a story appeared suggesting that Illinois Democratic leaders are planning to collapse Rep. Adam Kinzinger’s (R-Channahon) seat in redistricting to help feed retiring Congresswoman Cheri Bustos’ (D-Moline) and second-term US Rep. Lauren Underwood’s (D-Naperville) districts with more Democrats. 
 
Ms. Underwood defeated state Senator and frequent candidate Jim Oberweis (R) by only a 51-49% margin in a seat that previously elected Republicans on a consistent basis.  The redistricting move hasn’t deterred one potential 2022 Underwood challenger, however.  Retired Army officer Mike Pierce (R) announced yesterday that he will oppose Rep. Underwood in the new 14th. 
 
Though Democratic map drawers want to make both the Bustos and Underwood’s seats more favorable to their party, doing so might be more difficult than meets the eye.  Mr. Kinzinger’s district backed former President Trump by 17 percentage point margins in both 2016 and 2020.  Therefore, if they want to use the Kinzinger Democrats to strengthen the two districts, one to the west and the other east, they will also free an even larger number of Republicans going into other CDs, thus potentially making another neighboring Democratic district weaker.  

Patrick Ruffini, the co-founder of the Echelon Insights survey research firm, explains some of the latest polling that finds Gov. Gavin Newsom in a close recall race in a state that overwhelmingly favors his party.  Mr. Ruffini comments that the racial segmentation is at the heart of Newsom’s problem.  While white voters favor the recall 51-49%, Hispanics are split 50-50%, and even 35% of blacks support his removal.  Since Gov. Newsom is not getting the typical Democratic support from the minority coalitions, his status in relation to the September 14th recall election becomes tenuous. 

Former Gov. Jeff Colyer (R), a physician, announced he is withdrawing from the 2022 Governor’s race because he was just recently diagnosed with prostate cancer.  At this point, the Republican nomination appears to be Attorney General Derek Schmidt’s to lose. 
 
A highly competitive race was forecast between the two men, but without Mr. Colyer’s candidacy, AG Schmidt must be viewed as the prohibitive nomination favorite.  This analysis remains unless a new strong opponent emerges.  Gov. Laura Kelly (D) is seeking re-election.   A Kelly-Schmidt general election will likely be forecast as a toss-up.

For the second time, reports are surfacing that Republican Senate hopeful Herschel Walker threatened gun violence against a significant other.  In this case, however, the accuser is speaking posthumously.  Myka Dean made the allegations against the former football star in 2012 in a police report.  Though she passed away in 2019, the police report has now appeared publicly just after Mr. Walker filed a Senate campaign committee with the Federal Election Commission.

Despite a very low probability of ousting Sen. Ron Wyden (D) next year as he seeks a fifth full term, a third Republican has announced his candidacy.  Grant County Commissioner Sam Palmer is now a declared candidate joining frequent statewide campaigner Jo Rae Perkins, and Prineville Mayor Jason Beebe.  Mr. Wyden, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, is a lock for re-election.

The candidate field attempting to deny California Rep. David Valadao (R-Hanford) re-election continues to grow.  Last week, five-term state Assemblyman Rudy Salas (D-Bakersfield) declared his candidacy.  As the weekend began, Republican Adam Medeiros, a member of the King County School Board, also publicly announced his intention to become a congressional candidate. 
 
The total field of Valadao opponents now reaches seven, but under the California top two jungle primary qualifying system, the chances of a Republican other than the GOP incumbent advancing into the general election are remote at best.  The most likely general election pairing is Mr. Valadao defending his seat against Assemblyman Salas.

At the end of last week, the Democratic Governors Association doubled its previous contribution to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D) effort to defeat the recall campaign, the election for which is scheduled for September 14th.  The DGA announced a $3 million contribution is coming to aid Newsom’s, twice as much as the $1.5 million previously given, bringing their national donation total to $4.5 million.
 
Change Research released their California recall survey, and while it appears potentially as an outlier, it is clearly the best news Mr. Newsom has heard in several weeks.  The Change poll (8/22-25; 782 CA likely recall election voters; online) finds the Governor rebuffing the recall drive by a 57-42% count.  The numbers are well outside of what other pollsters are reporting, so either this survey is a significant outlier or the beginning of a new trend.
 
In the replacement race, conservative Republican political pundit Larry Elder, under heavy attack from the media, continues to lead.  In this poll, Mr. Elder holds 27% preference with Democrat Kevin Paffrath a distant second at just 6% support.  

US Senate candidate and former US Ambassador to Slovenia Lynda Blanchard (R) tacitly admitted she is considering ending her bid for federal office and moving into the Governor’s race to launch a Republican primary challenge to incumbent Kay Ivey.  Ms. Blanchard exiting the open Senate contest would largely leave a two-way Republican contest between US Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Huntsville) and former Alabama Business Council president/CEO Katie Britt to succeed retiring Sen. Richard Shelby (R).  Democrats do not yet have a Senate candidate.

Countering Listener Group’s Political Matrix Poll survey (released 8/22; 1,000 FL likely voters; interactive voice response system) that finds Sen. Marco Rubio (R) holding a 55-45% advantage over Rep. Val Demings (D-Orlando) but where 52% of the Democrats were supporting the Republican incumbent, Change Research released their new Florida poll (8/14-17; 1,585 FL likely voters; online), and they see Rubio holding a 47-44% edge.  The partisan crosstabs were not released but it is clear with this type of aggregate ballot test that both party bases are firmly behind the candidate from their own political entity, which is, of course, the typical pattern.