At the Races: Audit-ioning for Trump
The CQ Roll Call newsroom tracks campaigns around the country, sharing the best stories, with some extras, in this At the Races newsletter.
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Lawmakers have returned to D.C., and Democrats are still looking for a path forward for their overhaul of elections, campaign finance and lobbying laws. But they aren’t waiting on Congress to act. The DSCC announced this week it was investing $10 million in a new “Defend the Vote” program to track new restrictions, engage in lawsuits and fund “on-the-ground voter protection staff in coordinated campaigns,” according to a press release.
Meanwhile, Republicans are still grappling with former President Donald Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen. Morning Consult reports that
some GOP strategists are concerned
Trump’s focus on the past could hurt the party’s efforts to win back control of Congress in 2022. Multiple Republicans have said Trump’s decision to cast doubt on the legitimacy of elections
contributed to the GOP’s losses in a pair of Senate runoffs
in Georgia earlier this year, which handed Democrats control of the chamber.
Republicans are looking to win back one of those Senate seats in Georgia next year, as well as one in Arizona. The Grand Canyon State has become ground zero for Trump’s election falsehoods, culminating in
an ongoing audit
in Maricopa County, which is already affecting Senate races. Last month, Trump chided Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, now a Senate candidate, saying that Brnovich was “always on television promoting himself, but never mentions the Crime of the Century, that took place during the 2020 Presidential Election.”
On Monday, Brnovich
told the Justice Department
that his office “will not tolerate any effort to undermine or interfere with our State Senate’s audit.” The Arizona audit has attracted other GOP Senate hopefuls, including
former Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel
and former Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens, who
skipped GOP events in the Show-Me State
to witness the audit instead.
Starting gate
Fallback position?
If efforts in Congress and the courts don’t undo new voting restrictions in red states, Democratic election law attorney Marc Elias says
Democrats should object to seating
House members elected under those laws, CQ Roll Call politics editor Herb Jackson writes.
Indebted:
Five House Democrats representing the more
moderate end of the caucus threw some doubt
on the future of President Joe Biden’s agenda, CQ Roll Call’s Paul M. Krawzak and Lindsey McPherson report. House Republicans’ campaign arm is targeting four of them:
Carolyn Bourdeaux
of Georgia,
Stephanie Murphy
of Florida,
Kurt Schrader
of Oregon and
Dean Phillips
of Minnesota.
Prebuttal to ‘socialism’ attacks?
Phillips and another targeted House Democrat, Pennsylvania’s
Chrissy Houlahan
, are
forming a caucus
focused on “stakeholder capitalism,” CQ Roll Call’s Jim Saksa writes.
Follow the Mooney:
The Office of Congressional Ethics is investigating whether West Virginia GOP Rep.
Alex X. Mooney
used
campaign funds for personal use
, CQ Roll Call’s Chris Marquette reports.
Trending:
Stu Rothenberg looks at how the decline in split-ticket voting
could affect the fight for the Senate
in 2022.
ICYMI
Everybody in the pool
: The DCCC has
named 18 new House members
to its leadership team, including regional vice chairs
Angie Craig
of Minnesota,
Scott Peters
of California and
David Trone
of Maryland, as House Democrats seek to defend their narrow majority in the midterms. “With their diverse array of backgrounds and experiences, we are on an even stronger footing to recruit candidates, build powerful campaigns, and deliver for the American people,” Chairman
Sean Patrick Maloney
of New York said in a statement.
Battle for the Senate:
In Pennsylvania, Rep.
Madeleine Dean
has
ruled out a Senate run
, meaning Montgomery County Commissioner Val Arkoosh may be the highest-profile woman in the Democratic primary. In Arizona, Brnovich
jumped into the GOP Senate primary
this week. In Alabama, retiring GOP Sen.
Richard C. Shelby
is
backing his former chief of staff
, Katie Britt, in her bid to replace him. That’s bucking Trump, who’s endorsed GOP Rep.
Mo Brooks
(who
nabbed a Club for Growth endorsement
this week). And in New Hampshire, GOP Gov. Chris Sununu said
it’s going to be a “really long time”
before he makes a decision about running for Senate.
Trump’s pick:
North Carolina Rep.
Ted Budd
’s campaign
released a poll
this week showing that Trump’s recent endorsement could give Budd a boost. The poll of 500 likely GOP primary voters, conducted by Rob Autry of Meeting Street Insights, showed former Gov. Pat McCrory with an early advantage, leading the primary field with 45 percent, while 19 percent backed Budd and 12 percent backed former GOP Rep. Mark Walker. When voters were informed of Trump’s endorsement, 46 percent supported Budd, 27 percent backed McCrory and 8 percent backed Walker.
Florida man:
William Braddock, who is running to replace departing Democratic Rep.
Charlie Crist
in Florida’s 13th District, was caught on a
secret recording obtained by Politico
threatening to send a “Russian and Ukrainian hit squad” after GOP primary rival
obtained a stalking injunction
against Braddock, saying he was plotting to murder her.
S 1 watch:
The National Democratic Redistricting Committee this week launched a digital ad buy and web video as well as billboards in Arizona, Georgia and Pennsylvania to push for Senate passage of S 1, dubbed the For the People Act, Democrats’ overhaul of election, campaign finance and lobbying laws. The digital ads will run through next week on Facebook and other platforms. Meanwhile, the progressive group Indivisible this week launched a grassroots push, called Deadline for Democracy, in support of the measure. It will include in-person events across the country, the group’s co-executive director Ezra Levin said. “We already have activists in literally every state,” he told ATR.
Remember him?
Former Arizona GOP Rep. Matt Salmon
launched a run for governor
this week.
Power of the purse:
Winning for Women PAC, which supports Republican female candidates, offered its first wave of endorsements this week, backing nine House freshmen:
Young Kim
and
Michelle Steel
of California;
María Elvira Salazar
of Florida;
Ashley Hinson
and Mariannette Miller-Meeks of Iowa;
Nicole Malliotakis
of New York;
Stephanie Bice
of Oklahoma;
Nancy Mace
of South Carolina; and
Beth Van Duyne
of Texas.
On the airwaves:
The group Pro-Israel America United is up with a
new ad
, hitting Minnesota Democratic Rep.
Ilhan Omar
for comments she made about Israel. The ads are running on network TV stations and on cable news channels in the Minneapolis media market. Jeff Mendelsohn, the group’s executive director, called Omar’s comments dangerous and said they “embolden terrorist groups.” Omar, in a statement last week, said, “I was in no way equating terrorist organizations with democratic countries with well-established judicial systems.”
Banking bitcoin:
Donors to House Republicans have a new option for their campaign contributions: cryptocurrency. The NRCC said it would begin accepting such donations using the payment company BitPay.
Pay no mind to that guy over there:
Lawyer Matt Putorti said he raised more than $100,000 in the first 15 hours after launching his campaign against House GOP Conference Chair
Elise Stefanik
in New York’s 21st District. Putorti is Stefanik’s second Democratic challenger so far. His announcement earned a statement from Stefanik’s campaign denouncing the “second socialist Democrat” to run in the upstate district.
What we’re reading
Prodding the O.G.:
New York Rep.
Jamaal Bowman
, a progressive who defeated longtime Rep. Eliot L. Engel in a 2020 Democratic primary,
spends some time with NPR
in his Bronx-area district and talked about how his younger, more diverse class of lawmakers could push older members of Congress (he calls them the O.G. reps — as in original gangsters) to be more responsive to constituents in communities like his.
Expanding the map:
Republicans are looking to make Senate races in Nevada and New Hampshire more competitive by recruiting prominent challengers,
Bloomberg Government reports
.
The Trump nod:
CNN looks at how Trump-endorsed candidates
have not yet been able to clear primary fields
in some Senate races. HuffPost explores how some GOP Senate hopefuls who criticized Trump in the past
are now vying for the former president’s endorsement
. And Politico reports that Trump’s team has
had to push back on candidates
who falsely claim they have his endorsement.
Where the Chips fall:
Texas Rep.
Chip Roy
’s 2022 campaign will be a test of whether a GOP candidate can succeed after sometimes bucking the party and criticizing Trump, The Wall Street Journal writes in
this profile
. Although Roy didn’t join the 10 Republicans who voted to impeach Trump after Jan. 6, he has angered the former president enough for Trump to say he would probably be “
successfully primaried in his own district
.”
Falling upward:
Tim Shepherd lost his job as an evangelical Christian missionary eight years ago when he came out as a gay man. The experience is now central to the Democrat’s campaign to become Missouri’s first gay senator, The Kansas City Star writes in
this profile
.
Hold the line:
The Intercept obtained a
recording of a Zoom call with Sen. Joe Manchin III and donors
that offers insight into where the moderate West Virginia Democrat is on the filibuster and other issues.
Moving on:
Virginia’s outgoing Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam is set to leave office
popular among Black political leaders
in the commonwealth, despite a 2019 scandal over a racist photo from his school yearbook, according to The New York Times.
The count: 65 percent
That’s how many Capitol Hill staffers, including a plurality of Democrats, said “no” when asked if the GOP will “pay a political price for blocking a Jan. 6 commission,” according to CQ Roll Call’s latest Capitol Insiders Survey of congressional aides. Just 11 percent of the 44 Republican respondents to the question thought there would be a political price to pay, a figure that grows to only 38 percent for the 29 Democratic respondents. By comparison, 48 percent of Democrats and 77 percent of Republicans said there would be no price. The rest, including one independent respondent, were not sure. CQ Roll Call emailed the survey to staffers on June 7 and they had until June 9 to respond.
Nathan’s notes
If you can’t watch the whole country next year, Nathan L. Gonzales says you’ll probably
know which party is going to win control of Congress
if you focus on four states: Arizona, Florida, Georgia and North Carolina.
Candidate confessions
Florida Rep.
Val B. Demings
tends to use her enthusiasm for her 2003 Harley-Davidson Road King Classic motorcycle to symbolize her defiance of the GOP caricature of Democrats as weak and ineffectual. Her
official House profile
mentions it. Her
video launching her campaign
to challenge Republican Sen.
Marco Rubio
ends with pictures of her riding it. Demings
told MSNBC’s Joy Reid
this month that she doesn’t plan to give up the hobby anytime soon. “I intend to be on that motorcycle quite a bit,” she said, adding that she wanted to remind voters “who I am” and of her record in the Orlando Police Department. She served on the motor patrol police force and ultimately headed the department during a four-year stretch that saw a
43.6 percent dip
in violent crime.
Shop talk: Jonathan Kott
Kott, a former senior adviser and communications director to Manchin, joined the lobbying firm Capitol Counsel this week as a partner. Most recently, he was a senior adviser to Sen.
Chris Coons
, a Delaware Democrat.
Starting out:
Kott says his first entry into politics came as an intern in the New York office of the Department of Housing and Urban Development: “I got to help people in New York City, where I’m from, get homes. That is why I got into politics.”
Most unforgettable campaign moment:
“Drinking moonshine and singing ‘Country Roads’ with
Joe Manchin
in a holler in West Virginia in 2018,” Kott recalled, using the West Virginia term for a remote area. It happened during a campaign event after the West Virginia University football team won a game. “For a guy who grew up in New York City, I did not imagine that is how I’d be working on campaigns,” he laughed.
Biggest campaign regret:
“I gained 40 pounds and got shingles when I first moved to Iowa,” he said, recalling his work in the state in 2004 for Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman’s presidential campaign.
Unconventional wisdom:
“You can be the communications director for two senators at the same time, and not go crazy,” Kott said, referring to 2016 when he served in that role for both Manchin and Coons. Another bit of wisdom from Kott: “Twitter is not real life. Building personal relationships is the best way to communicate on Capitol Hill, not social media.”
Do you know someone who works in campaigns whom we should feature for Shop Talk? Email us at
attheraces@cqrollcall.com
.
Coming up
Trump’s revenge tour kicks off next week as the former president plans to hold a June 26 rally in Wellington, Ohio, to boost Republican candidate Max Miller, a contender in the 16th District where he is challenging GOP incumbent
Anthony Gonzalez
, one of 10 House Republicans to vote for Trump’s impeachment.
Photo finish
After reenacting her swearing-in Monday in the Capitol’s Rayburn Room, New Mexico Democratic Rep. Melanie Stansbury gets a hug from her father, James Stansbury. (Caroline Brehman/CQ Roll Call)
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