Alan Abramowitz: "Part of former President Trump's relatively strong polling against President Biden in both national and state polls is surprisingly robust support from Black voters."
"However, the Black vote has been overwhelmingly Democratic in presidential elections for more than a half century, and there has been little sign of major improvement for Republicans in recent elections."
"Exit polling from the 2022 midterms and turnout patterns from the 2024 primary season also call into question polling that shows Republicans on the verge of a big breakthrough with Black voters."
A new Associated Press-NORC poll finds that Democrats are more likely to report feeling "fearful" or "angry" about the prospects of another Donald Trump term than Republicans are about the idea of Joe Biden remaining in the White House.
"The emotional reaction Trump inspires may work in his favor too, though, since the poll also found that Republicans are more excited about the prospect of a Trump win than Democrats are about a Biden victory."
NEW HAMPSHIRE 2ND DISTRICT. Former Executive Councilor Colin Van Ostern on Thursday became the first major candidate to announce a bid to succeed Rep. Annie Kuster, a fellow Democrat who unexpectedly announced her retirement the previous day. However, there are many other local Democrats being talked about as possible contenders in the Sept. 10 primary, and they have a while to decide before the June 14 filing deadline.
Van Ostern was Kuster's campaign manager during her 2010 campaign for Congress, when she narrowly lost to Republican Charlie Bass. But just two years later, he won a seat on the state's powerful Executive Council on the same day Kuster avenged her defeat by unseating Bass.
In 2016, Van Ostern was his party's nominee for governor, but he lost by a narrow 49-47 margin to Republican Chris Sununu, who was his colleague on the Executive Council.
Van Ostern reemerged on the political scene following the 2018 elections when he put his name forward to become secretary of state, a post that's filled by the legislature rather than by voters. Van Ostern hoped that the new Democratic majorities in both the state House and Senate would end the 42-year-run of incumbent Bill Gardner, a nominal Democrat who had infuriated voting rights advocates by serving on Donald Trump's bogus voter fraud commission.
But Gardner, who spent his decades in office protecting the Granite State's first-in-the-nation presidential primary, maintained enough support from a minority of Democrats to hold on in a 209-205 vote. Van Ostern did not seek public office again until launching his House campaign this week.
He's unlikely to have the primary to himself, though. Reporters mentioned several Democrats as possible contenders in the hours after Kuster's retirement announcement, and the Concord Monitor reports that one of them, former Executive Councilor Andru Volinsky, is considering. We haven't seen any public statements from Volinsky, however, who lost the 2020 primary for governor to state Sen. Dan Feltes 51-46 two months before Sununu beat Feltes in a landslide.
The Granite Post News also names a few other Democrats as possibilities:
- State Rep. Angela Brennan
- Former state Sen. Matt Houde
- 2018 gubernatorial nominee Molly Kelly
- Regional Planned Parenthood official Kayla Montgomery
- State Rep. Laura Telerski
On the Republican side, 2022 nominee Bob Burns tells the New Hampshire Journal he's all but certain to try again, one cycle after his 56-44 loss to Kuster. The site also says that businessman Vikram Mansharamini, who took a distant fourth place in the 2022 Senate primary, is thinking about running. Finally, the Union Leader mentions former state Rep. Steve Negron, who lost to Kuster by double digits in both 2018 and 2020.
ARIZONA U.S. SENATOR. "Kari Lake, a Republican Senate candidate in Arizona who has amplified former president Donald Trump's false claims about rigged elections, has decided not to defend statements she made about a top election official in the state's most populous county who sued her for alleged defamation," the Washington Post reports.
"Attorneys for Lake, her 2022 campaign for governor and an affiliated nonprofit group on Tuesday asked a judge to begin the process of determining damages as part of a lawsuit brought by Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer (R), in his personal capacity."
PENNSYLVANIA U.S. SENATOR. "Dave McCormick, a top GOP recruit in Pennsylvania's Senate race, has a crucial concern as he gets ready for a bruising election: Getting his party — and former President Donald Trump — on board with mail-in-ballots," Politico reports.
"In a call Wednesday to update other Pennsylvania congressional campaigns on the state of his race, McCormick said he's "really worried" about mail-in voting and that he and the GOP need to erode the Democrats' "built-in advantage" on mail-in ballots."
"But a main problem is convincing the GOP base to trust mail-in voting after Trump has repeatedly alleged mail-in voting is more susceptible to fraud."
COLORADO 4TH DISTRICT. The Republican vacancy committee on Thursday evening unexpectedly picked former Parker Mayor Greg Lopez, who is not running for a full term, to be the party's nominee for the June 25 special election to replace former Rep. Ken Buck. Lopez, who lost both the 2018 and 2022 primaries for governor, should have no trouble prevailing in Colorado's reliably red 4th District. (Democrats will choose their nominee on April 1.)
Lopez's nomination came as welcome news for Rep. Lauren Boebert, who urged delegates to choose a placeholder to "avoid giving an unfair advantage to any one particular candidate" competing in the concurrent June 25 Republican primary for a full two-year term. Boebert, who is trying to make the jump from the 3rd District to the 4th, did not run in the special after accusing Buck of timing his resignation as part of "a swampy backroom deal to try to rig an election."
While Buck has denied that he deliberately did anything to hurt his now-former colleague, Boebert's detractors hoped that the 98 delegates who convened Thursday would choose one of her opponents and thus give this person an advantage in the primary. That's not what happened, though, as Lopez beat out Logan County Commissioner Jerry Sonnenberg 51-46 during the sixth and final round of balloting.
In addition to Sonnenberg, six other Republicans who lost on Thursday are campaigning for the full term: former state Sen. Ted Harvey; state Reps. Richard Holtorf and Mike Lynch; former congressional staffer Chris Phelen; Hispanic Energy Alliance chairman Floyd Trujillo; and perennial candidate Peter Yu. Conservative radio host Deborah Flora, like Boebert, did not compete in the special but is running to be a member of the next Congress.
MISSOURI U.S. SENATOR. Marine veteran Lucas Kunce, who is the Democratic frontrunner to take on Republican Sen. Josh Hawley, is airing what he says is the first TV ad from any Senate campaign focused on in vitro fertilization. The Huffington Post says the spot is backed by "five-figure" buy.
Kunce's ad stars a mother identified as Jessica who begins by telling the audience how the procedure allowed her daughter to be born, then lights into the incumbent. "Josh Hawley has proven that he won't protect IVF," she declares, "and he would let politicians make me a criminal." She concludes, "I want Josh Hawley to look me in the eye and tell me that I can't have the child that I deserve."
The senator has insisted he's "pro-IVF," but critics have highlighted his 2019 vote to confirm Sarah Pitlyk as a federal judge despite her strong opposition to IVF. The Guardian last month also published a story explaining how some of the arguments contained in the Alabama Supreme Court's decision threatening the procedure are similar to those advanced by Hawley a decade ago when he represented Hobby Lobby in its successful lawsuit to avoid providing birth control coverage for its employees.
NEW JERSEY GOVERNOR. The New Jersey Globe's David Wildstein reports that U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs official Shereef Elnahal, a Democrat who previously served in Gov. Phil Murphy's cabinet, is considering a bid to succeed his old boss next year. Wildstein adds that Elnahal, who would be the nation's first Muslim governor, "is not expected to make any moves until after the 2024 election."
NORTH CAROLINA GOVERNOR. North Carolina Lt. Governor Mark Ronan (R) insulted Beyoncé's singing abilities, called her a "skank," and said she was teaching "young women how to be hyper-sexual whores," The Root reports.
TEXAS U.S. SENATOR. Marist College finds Republican Sen. Ted Cruz leading Democratic Rep. Colin Allred 51-45, with respondents favoring Donald Trump by a larger 55-44 spread. This is Marist's first look at this race, as well as the first poll we've seen here since Allred won the March 5 primary.
NEW JERSEY U.S. SENATOR. Candidate filing closed Monday for New Jersey's June 4 primaries, and the New Jersey Globe has a list of contenders. Not everyone who turned in paperwork will necessarily make the ballot, though, since anyone can challenge the validity of a candidate's petitions.
The GOP's Senate lineup shrunk just before the deadline when former TV reporter Alex Zdan announced he was dropping out. His departure leaves developer Curtis Bashaw, who picked up Zdan's endorsement the next day, and Mendham Borough Mayor Christine Serrano Glassner as the main Republican candidates campaigning in this solidly blue state.
Rep. Andy Kim, meanwhile, is the heavy favorite for the Democratic nomination after his top rival, former financial analyst Tammy Murphy, unexpectedly dropped out just ahead of the filing deadline.
VIRGINIA 2ND DISTRICT. Navy veteran Missy Cotter Smasal publicized an endorsement Wednesday from Rep. Bobby Scott of the neighboring 3rd District, which she says gives her the support of all six Democrats in Virginia's House delegation. Cotter Smasal, who is also on the DCCC's Red to Blue list, faces attorney Jake Denton in the June 18 primary to face freshman GOP Rep. Jen Kiggans.
GEORGIA 3RD DISTRICT. The Club for Growth followed Donald Trump's lead on Thursday by endorsing Brian Jack, a former aide to Trump, in the May 21 Republican primary to succeed retiring Rep. Drew Ferguson. The move comes at a time when the Club's long-running on-again-off-again feud with the GOP's master seems to be firmly in the "off" setting. "[W]e're back in love, we're deeply in love," Trump himself proclaimed early this month.
Jack, who launched his campaign a day before filing closed three weeks ago, faces six intra-party rivals, and a June 18 runoff would take place if no one secures a majority in the first round. Jack's most prominent foes in this dark red seat in the southwestern Atlanta exurbs appear to be former state Rep. Philip Singleton and a pair of former state senators, Mike Crane and Mike Dugan.
ARIZONA 2ND DISTRICT. Former Yavapai County Supervisor Jack Smith tells the Sedona Red Rock News that he'll challenge freshman Rep. Eli Crane in the July 30 Republican primary, an announcement that comes a little more than two weeks after he filed paperwork with the state. Donald Trump carried this sprawling seat in northeastern Arizona 53-45 in 2020.
Crane was one of the eight House Republicans who voted to end Kevin McCarthy's speakership last year, but when the paper asked Smith how he'd have voted, he dodged the question by saying, "I wasn't there." The challenger instead made geography the center of his argument for why he'd do a better job representing this sprawling seat, saying, "Unlike my opponent … I live in a rural setting."
FLORIDA 15TH DISTRICT. In a development that almost feels like a parody of what Republican politics have become in 2024, two different far-right trolls appear to be eying a primary campaign against Rep. Laurel Lee in Florida's 15th District.
Lee County Republican Party Chairman Michael Thompson informs the conservative site Floridian Press that Rogan O'Handley, a conspiracy theorist who tweets under the handle "DC_Draino," told him he "has not ruled anything out."
Despite the coincidental names, Lee County is not located in Lee's 15th District—in fact, it's more than 100 miles away—but that didn't stop Thompson from opining that O'Handley is "exactly what CD-15 and America is looking for in a Congressional Rep, an America First Christian Conservative who supports President Trump."
Laura Loomer, meanwhile, asked her social media followers on Monday whether she should take on Lee, a move that came one day after Trump called for someone to target the incumbent. Loomer, unlike O'Handley, is no stranger to running for Congress, but like Thompson, she hasn't let geography confine her.
The self-described "proud Islamophobe" predictably got crushed by Democratic Rep. Lois Frankel in South Florida's solidly blue 21st District in 2020, but then trekked some 200 miles north to target Rep. Dan Webster in the GOP primary in the 11th a cycle later.
Loomer held Webster to a shockingly small 51-44 win last cycle and initially announced that she'd seek a rematch, but she revised those remarks last July and said she was still considering. We hadn't heard anything new about her 2024 plans, however, until this week. (For what it's worth, the 15th District does at least neighbor the 11th.) The deadline to file for Congress is April 26.
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