Hi All,
Welcome to the second installment of Not 4 Nothin. In this post, I’ll be talking about Tuesday’s special State Legislature elections in Wisconsin and Iowa, as well as a special Congressional Election in Pennsylvania. Finally, there is an interesting story playing out in the Illinois Governor’s race that I think deserves some attention.
Wisconsin State Senate District 10
In a huge upset, a Democrat was able to win in a State Senate that not only has been controlled by Republicans for almost two decades, but one that Trump won 55%-38%. Patty Schactner, a Medical Examiner in the district, was able to peel away a seat in a heavily gerrymandered district – something that could spell trouble for Republicans and could point once again to a chance of a Democratic Midterm wave.
Dr. Schactner ran a perfect campaign for the district, focusing almost entirely on the opioid epidemic without being painted as “just another” anti-Trump liberal in a conservative area. She was able to improve on Hillary Clinton’s performance in the district by 28% – an almost unheard of swing in just 14 months. Though this election won’t change the balance of power in Madison, take it from the (once) powerful governor, Scott Walker: “Senate District 10 special election win by a Democrat is a wake up call for Republicans in Wisconsin”.
Iowa State House District 6
Though the Democrats were unable to take this seat, they showed enormous strength in an area that – as with the Wisconsin 10th – heavily favored Trump in 2016. Jacob Bossman, a staffer for Senator Chuck Grassley, was able to win the seat, but only by 400 votes. And, while a win is a win, the final tally showed a swing of +18% for Democrats over totals from the Presidential race. In addition to these two races, there were State Legislature elections in South Carolina and another one in Wisconsin, where Democrats were able to improve upon their 2016 totals by significant margins.
Pennsylvania 18th Congressional District
After seemingly never ending cycle of Rob Quist in Montana, Jon Ossoff in Georgia, and Doug Jones in Alabama, it would be easy to think that we were done with special elections and could go on preparing for the Midterms. Fortunately for the Democrats, there is one more chance to embarrass Trump and capture even more momentum heading into next November.
The PA-18 is a very conservative district that takes up most of the southwest corner of Pennsylvania, but does not include the City of Pittsburgh or many of its more moderate suburbs. The seat had been held since 2003 by a gun toting, anti-choice, hyper conservative named Tim Murphy.
But, in a not-entirely-unexpected turn of events, it seems that Congressman Murphy also enjoyed cheating on his wife. When his mistress revealed to him that she was pregnant, this very religious and pro-life Republican sternly advised her to have an abortion. When the affair was revealed, Murphy said he would retire at the end of his term, but when the texts about getting an abortion were subsequently leaked to a news station, Murphy resigned his seat.
His resignation has set up a Special Election to take place on March 13. Now, this election will happen in two phases. There is of course the first round in March, but that will only be to fill out the remainder of Murphy’s term – so whoever wins will have to immediately run for reelection in November. That being said, a Democratic win in this race could provide more momentum than Alabama, New Jersey, and Virginia combined.
This is a heavily Republican district – it is 92% white and a Republican has controlled it since 2003. But, Trump and the GOP are already worried about disturbing trends they see coming out of the district.
First of all, the Republican nominee for the seat, Rick Saccone, has made few friends with the State GOP for his knack for putting the party in awkward situations due to his unyielding conservatism (think of a Pittsburgh-based Ted Cruz). Additionally, Saccone has been slow to raise money and thanks to that, his campaign has not run a single ad yet in the district (though, as I will discuss later, he is getting significant support from outside groups).
The Democrat on the other hand, has already made a name for himself as an active candidate and a prolific fundraiser. Connor Lamb is a 33 year old former federal prosecutor, and Marine Corps veteran. He was born and raised in the area before attending college and law school at UPenn.
Lamb has been able to walk the same line that Doug Jones walked in Alabama – that helping your constituents should be more important than party ideology. And Lamb’s approach has been working. While Congressional District polls are notoriously difficult to conduct, this race has been downgraded from Likely Republican to Lean Republican by Cook Political Report and Sabato’s Crystal Ball.
This has scared Trump and his allies into pouring money into the district to help Saccone’s sleepy campaign. These are not complete numbers, but according to my research, Trump’s 45 Committee Super PAC has already dumped over $250,000 into the race, and they show no signs of slowing down. Ending Spending, a Super PAC controlled by the Ricketts family (owners of the Chicago Cubs and close friends of Trump), has also started spending money in the district. The fact that Republican-aligned Super PACs are investing hundreds of thousands of dollars to defend a district where Democrats haven’t even been able to field a candidate since 2012 shows you how worried the GOP is about this race.
Mike Pence and several high profile Republicans have already scheduled visits to the district to prop up Saccone, and Trump will be attending a rally in the district today. However, an interesting tidbit is that while this would seem to be prime-Trump country, he was only able to improve upon Mitt Romney’s totals in the district by .2%. This tells us that this is a heavily Republican district, but not one that is tied exclusively to Trump – so it is unclear what effect his endorsement will have on undecided voters.
Overall, this is definitely a campaign to watch. If Democrats are able to win (or even come close to winning) in a district that is so Republican-leaning, then they will have captured a huge amount of momentum heading into Midterm season.
In Prison, Rod Blagojavech Still Playing a Role in Illinois Politics
I found it strange earlier this week when Bruce Rauner, the billionaire Republican Governor of Illinois placed 30-minute ads on stations in St. Louis. The Illinois Governor’s race is seen as one of the most likely pickup opportunities for Democrats in 2018 – with J.B. Pritzker (a billionaire whose family has endowed the medical school at U Chicago and the law school at Northwestern), Chris Kennedy (son of RFK), and Daniel Biss (a young, rising star in the Illinois Democratic Party) all fighting to take on Rauner in the general election.
Pritzker has already spent almost $15 million of his own money in the primary, and shows no signs of slowing down. Governor Rauner knows this and has been spending tons of his money attacking Pritzker in the hope that he can damage Pritzker enough to avoid a general election matchup. Still, 30-minute spots are rare in politics (think of the Paid Programming ads for the Magic Bullet that air at 6am on Sunday mornings) – so it was strange to see Rauner place that spending.
However, according to POLITICO, Rauner has a specific reason for buying these weird ad slots. Remember the former Governor of Illinois, Rod Blagojavech? He was impeached in 2009 and is currently serving a 14 year federal sentence for attempting to sell President Obama’s former Senate seat. It turns out that at some point while the FBI was monitoring Blagojavech, he had a 15 minute phone conversation with J.B. Pritzker, where Pritzker is continuously asking the then-Governor for an appointment to a government position. Now, at no point does Pritzker offer to bribe Blagojavech, but the ad does a great job of getting the viewer to view it as a mafia-esq deal going down on an FBI wiretap.
Pritzker has claimed that this conversation has been edited to make him look bad. But this is more of an issue of optics for the Democratic billionaire – as he is clearly heard pleading for a job from a Governor who would later be convicted of selling off appointments to rich people in the state. I have pasted a link to the ad here – it is about 15 minutes long, and certainly worth listening to if you have time.
I don’t know how this will end up playing in Illinois. On one hand, it obviously paints Pritzker in a bad light and will certainly be in the news up until the primary in March. However, Rauner is one of the least popular Governors in the country, and he’s already at a disadvantage being in such a liberal state. Unlike other blue-state Republican Governors – Charlie Baker in Massachusetts and Larry Hogan in Maryland – Rauner has not established good relationships with the Legislature. Therefore, I think he will remain one of the most endangered Governors in 2018, but only time will tell…
That does it for this post, remember feel free to unsubscribe at any time (I promise I won’t take it personally!). If you know anyone who you think would like to receive these notes, send their email address to NotFourNothin@gmail.com. I am currently working on a webpage so that I can archive past posts, and I will let everyone know when that is up and running.
-Tyler
(Sources: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, CNN, Ballotpedia, Daily Kos, Des Moines Register, Daniel Nichanian, and POLITICO)
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