At the Races: Don’t forget the Motor City (counts votes slowly)

By Niels Lesniewski, Daniela Altimari and Mary Ellen McIntire

Posted August 8, 2024 at 2:30pm

Welcome to At the Races! Each week we bring you news and analysis from the CQ Roll Call campaign team. Know someone who’d like to get this newsletter? They can subscribe here.

Michigan’s congressional primaries were overshadowed nationally by the debut of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as the running mate of current Vice President and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris — but not to the campaign committees and their outside supporters.

The NRSC’s independent expenditure arm launched its first ad of the cycle targeting Rep. Elissa Slotkin just hours after she won the nomination to succeed Sen. Debbie Stabenow, and as our friend Bridget Bowman reports for NBC News, it’s part of a $10 million campaign.

On top of that, OneNation, which is the policy affiliate of the Senate GOP leadership-aligned super PAC Senate Leadership Fund, launched the first salvo in a $9.4 million campaign also targeting Slotkin.

The Democrats, likewise, were quick to unveil ads in Michigan and other states this week. The DSCC’s independent expenditure arm has a new ad as part of a previously announced buy going after the GOP nominee, former House Intelligence Chairman Mike Rogers, for his post-congressional career.

Slotkin and Rogers were declared winners of their primaries early on Tuesday night, but don’t expect that to happen when they face each other in a November race rated Tilt Democratic, or when Harris and Walz go up against the Republican ticket of Donald Trump and Sen. JD Vance in a state rated Toss-up.

The heavily Democratic 13th District based around Detroit provides a reminder of why. At midnight, The Associated Press estimated that only about 2 percent of ballots had been counted, and the call that incumbent Rep. Shri Thanedar won renomination didn’t come until 2:12 a.m. on Wednesday. He ultimately prevailed in the primary by about 20 points.

Starting gate

Bad news for Good: A recount of the June 18 Republican primary in Virginia’s 5th District confirmed Rep. Bob Good, who chairs the House Freedom Caucus, lost to state Sen. John McGuire.

And for Bush: Missouri Rep. Cori Bush became the fourth House incumbent, and second progressive Democrat, to lose a primary this year after pro-Israel groups and others supporting Tuesday’s winner, St. Louis Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell, spent more than $12 million. Groups backing Bush or opposing Bell spent $3.3 million. Other Missouri primaries picked nominees for the deep-red 3rd District and a Democratic challenger for Sen. Josh Hawley.

Is Newhouse next? Washington state’s all-party primaries send the top two vote-getters to the November ballot, so the 25 percent that GOP Rep. Dan Newhouse got Tuesday means he’s not toast yet. But another Republican finished with 31 percent and a third got 19 percent. If that sentiment holds in November, Newhouse starts out with 50 percent of Republicans against him. Washington’s primaries also set a rematch for Democratic Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Pérez against Republican Joe Kent and picked nominees for open seats in the 5th and 6th districts, where the races are rated Solid Republican and Solid Democratic, respectively.

But wait, there’s more: Nominees were picked Tuesday for huge battles ahead for Senate and the open 7th District, among other seats, in Michigan. Voters in Kansas picked a challenger for Democratic Rep. Sharice Davids and tapped a former House member to run for an open seat.

And we’re still not done: Tennessee held its primaries on Thursday, and Rep. Andy Ogles held off a challenge from Courtney Johnston, a member of the Nashville Metro Council, winning with 57 percent of the vote. But his troubles didn’t end with the victory. Ogles this week confirmed that the FBI seized his cellphone and said it was his understanding that the probe was “investigating the same well-known facts” surrounding mistakes his campaign made on financial reports.

RIP: Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, who died last month after a battle with pancreatic cancer, was eulogized by Harris in Houston last week. The vice president remembered the Texas Democrat as “unrelenting,” Justin Papp reports.

ICYMI

Tim who?: He’s not Republican Rep. Michael Waltz or singer Tom Waits, but most people had little idea who Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz actually is despite his career in Congress and election to two terms as Minnesota governor. So like a lot of people in the profession, our newsroom has been trying to fill the gaps since he was chosen on Tuesday, starting with how people and groups reacting to the choice described him, how the Harris campaign introduced him and how the Trump campaign responded, and what members of the House elected in the same year as he was said. We also had detailed looks at his role on agriculture and health care, and how the pick affects potential contributors on Wall Street.

Gambling on elections: A group of House and Senate Democrats wants the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to move forward with a ban on political betting markets backed by Wall Street. “Election gambling fundamentally cheapens the sanctity of our democratic process. Political bets change the motivations behind each vote, replacing political convictions with financial calculations,” the lawmakers wrote in a Monday letter to CFTC Chairman Rostin Behnam. Oregon Democrat Jeff Merkley, the lead Senate signatory, previously expressed his concerns in an MSNBC opinion piece.

Shah faces Schweikert: Amish Shah, a medical doctor and former state legislator, won the July 30 Democratic primary to face incumbent Rep. David Schweikert, R-Ariz., in the 1st District. The race is rated Tilt Republican by Inside Elections, and there was a crowded primary to get the chance to challenge the incumbent on November’s ballot. Another Arizona Democratic primary, for the open 3rd District seat, is heading for a recount with 42 votes separating Yassamin Ansari and Raquel Terán.

Ad watch: House Majority Forward released ads in several House races this week, including a television ad supporting Maine Rep. Jared Golden, a radio ad supporting North Carolina Rep. Don Davis and a digital ad targeting California Rep. Mike Garcia. Florida Sen. Rick Scott announced a statewide ad buy focusing on Harris. And the DSCC released its first ad against Tim Sheehy in Montana, accusing the Republican of advocating to privatize public lands.

Security funding: The top senators on the panel that provides funding for the Department of Homeland Security questioned whether the Secret Service needs more money after the attempted assassination of Trump, CQ Roll Call’s Chris Johnson reports. That appears to have led to a delay of the department’s fiscal 2025 funding bill.

Picking a successor: Jackson Lee’s children endorsed Sylvester Turner, the former Houston mayor, to succeed her in the House. Turner is among several Democrats who have been in touch with the county party officials who will pick a new candidate to be on the November ballot on the same day that there’s a special election to serve the rest of Jackson Lee’s current term. Another candidate vying for the seat is Amanda Edwards, a former intern for Jackson Lee who lost the Democratic primary to her in March.

From Congress to the forest? Former House member Jaime Herrera Beutler is leading the field of contenders in the primary for Washington state lands commissioner. Herrera Beutler, a Republican who lost her bid for a seventh term in Congress two years ago, got about 23 percent of the vote on Tuesday in a seven-candidate field, according to the Washington State Standard.

What we’re reading

Lame duck alert: Not to look past Election Day, but the folks at the Congressional Research Service are already getting ready for the lame-duck session, updating their handy chart and report on what actually gets done during the post-election sessions with plenty of references to our CQ Vote Studies.

Minnesota markets: While he’s not from a true swing state himself, Walz may be more familiar to voters in parts of Wisconsin that share media markets with Minnesota, Torey Van Oot writes for Axios in the Twin Cities.

Wellstone’s imprint: After Paul Wellstone died in a plane crash in 2002, the family of the liberal Democratic senator from Minnesota established a training program for up-and-coming progressives. One of the first attendees, according to The Nation? A high school teacher named Tim Walz.

Meddling: A group tied to House Democratic leaders is spending nearly $1 million on ads that boost an underfunded perennial candidate for the state’s at-large congressional district in an effort to help Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola. “The group appears to be attempting to game Alaska’s complicated electoral system to ensure Peltola has the best odds of prevailing in November,” Politico reports.

Otherwise occupied: Punchbowl News reached out to vulnerable Democrats in Congress and found that many of them are skipping the convention in Chicago later this month. That’s not unlike some swing-district Republicans, who were similarly busy the week their party gathered in Milwaukee.

The count: 193

That’s the number of times, out of 1,327 chances, that the embattled Newhouse, whom Trump branded a “weak and pathetic RINO” on Saturday, voted against a majority of House Republicans since January 2021, according to a CQ Vote Studies analysis by our colleague Ryan Kelly. The analysis includes votes for which majorities of the two parties were on opposite sides, and it assigns a “party unity” score based on how often a lawmaker votes with or without his side. The data shows 13 House Republicans who were in Congress at the same time had lower party unity scores than Newhouse’s, but he is the only one who committed the mortal sin of voting in 2021 to impeach Trump after his supporters rioted at the Capitol. The 13 include many members whom the GOP will be spending millions of dollars this fall to keep from losing their seats, including Pennsylvania’s Brian Fitzpatrick (552 votes against his majority), Nebraska’s Don Bacon (268 votes), California’s Young Kim (257 votes), New York’s Andrew Garbarino (251 votes) and California’s Ken Calvert (195 votes). Garbarino, for example, has Trump’s “Complete and Total Endorsement.”

Nathan’s notes

As a high school teacher taking on a Republican in a rural Minnesota district nearly 19 years ago, Democrat Tim Walz didn’t exactly strike political handicappers as a guy who was going places, but Nathan writes that he had good timing.

Key race: #IA01

Candidates: Republican Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks is an ophthalmologist, a former state senator and a veteran who is seeking her third term in the House. She faces Democrat Christina Bohannan, a former state representative who teaches constitutional law at the University of Iowa. It’s a rematch of their 2022 contest, which Miller-Meeks won by almost 7 percentage points.

Why it matters: The 1st District is one of two competitive seats in Iowa that could determine which party controls the House, and it’s on the DCCC’s list of districts that Democrats are seeking to flip this year. The race is rated Lean Republican by Inside Elections with Nathan L. Gonzales.

Cash dash: Miller-Meeks raised $3.5 million since the 2022 election, while Bohannan, who entered the race in August 2023, has raised $3.4 million. Bohannan had $2.4 million on hand as of June 30 to Miller-Meeks’ $2.3 million.

Backers: Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds and Attorney General Brenna Bird are supporting Miller-Meeks, as are House GOP leaders. Bohannan was endorsed by EMILY’s List and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s Fight Like Hell PAC. She is also part of the DCCC’s “Red to Blue” program, which provides Democratic challengers in competitive, Republican-held districts with organizational and fundraising support.

What they’re saying: Democrats have centered the campaign on abortion access. A new state law that took effect in July bans abortion once fetal cardiac activity can be detected, which usually occurs around six weeks into pregnancy, before many people even know they’re pregnant. Bohannan’s first ad, released this week, accuses Miller-Meeks of helping to pass that measure, even though she was not in the state legislature at the time. Miller-Meeks received an A+ rating from Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America and was a co-sponsor of the bill during the last Congress that would have prohibited all abortions nationwide without exception; however, she didn’t sign on as a co-sponsor of the measure during the current Congress. Miller-Meeks accused Democrats of embracing an “extreme” position on abortion and focusing on it as a way to avoid discussing economic issues and border security.

Terrain: The district is in the southeastern portion of the state, reaching from the Illinois border to the Missouri border and to the fringes of the Des Moines metropolitan area. It includes the cities of Davenport and Burlington as well as Iowa City, home to the University of Iowa. Along with the 3rd District, it is the least Republican of the state’s congressional districts: Biden lost the 1st by less than 2.4 percentage points, according to Inside Elections.

Wild card: In 2020, Miller-Meeks won the seat by a scant six-vote margin. In June, she beat an underfunded and largely unknown right-wing GOP primary foe by 12 percentage points, a race that some observers deemed surprisingly close.