Morning Digest: Kansas Democrats land first major contender for governor's race

Cindy Holscher wants extend her party's winning streak to three in a row

State Sen. Cindy Holscher, Democratic candidate for governor of Kansas (credit: Cindy Holscher Facebook)

Leading Off

KS-Gov

State Sen. Cindy Holscher on Thursday became the first prominent Democrat to enter the race for Kansas' open governorship, a post that Republicans are optimistic about flipping next year.

Holscher, who also considered running for the U.S. Senate last month, acknowledged that she's in for a difficult race to succeed Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly, who is prohibited from seeking a third term.

Kansas hasn't backed a Democratic presidential nominee since Lyndon Johnson carried it in 1964, and Donald Trump's 57-41 win last year extended that streak (which it shares with eight other states). Voters have been more amenable to sending Democrats like Kelly to the governor's mansion—a building known as Cedar Crest—but only for so long.

Democrats haven't won more than two consecutive elections for governor since 1972, when Robert Docking won a fourth and final two-year term. That same year, Kansas voters also approved an amendment extending terms to four years, and neither party has won three gubernatorial elections in a row in the intervening decades.

Holscher told the Topeka Capital-Journal's Jason Alatidd that pessimistic Democrats suggested she should sit this election cycle out. These skeptics, she said, told her that "if a Republican comes in and does all the damage that we think they'll do, then it'll be easier for a Democrat or the party to win in 2030."

The state senator, however, said that wasn't an acceptable option for her. She argued that with Republicans in firm control of both chambers of the legislature, it remains vital for a Democratic governor to "provide a check on some of the horrible policies that likely will come forward from the extremists who have control."

As a warning, Holscher recounted what unfolded a decade ago when Republicans last had total control of the state government and Republican Gov. Sam Brownback had free rein to implement his radical tax cut "experiment."

"Our schools were losing teachers because of the budget crisis and underfunding," she told Alatidd, adding that she'd seen one of her daughter's teachers working a weekend job at Target to make ends meet. Holscher said that the encounter helped motivate her to run for the legislature in 2016, when she challenged a Republican state representative.

During that campaign, Holscher said she wanted to "end the Brownback disaster" and won a seat in Johnson County, a longtime GOP bastion in the Kansas City suburbs where school funding was a major issue. Holscher earned a promotion to the state Senate in 2020, the same year Joe Biden became the first Democratic presidential nominee to carry her county since Woodrow Wilson in 1916.

Holscher, though, said she worries a new Brownback-like disaster could befall the state under another Republican governor, especially as the Trump administration continues with its draconian cuts to the federal government.

"What I'm hearing from voters is that they're expressing fear, they're expressing anxiety over the cuts that have been made on the federal level," she said, "and they're worried about what can happen on the state level."

While Holscher is the first notable Democrat to enter the race, she may not be the last. Observers have speculated for months that Lt. Gov. David Toland, who is the only Democrat other than Kelly who holds statewide office, could also run.

Toland, however, has remained quiet about his plans, and there's no consensus among prognosticators about his future. While the Kansas Reflector wrote last month that Toland is "widely expected to run for governor," the Sunflower State Journal also reported that "there have been no signs so far that Toland is interested."

The Kansas City Star further mentions state Senate Minority Leader Dinah Sykes and state Sen. Ethan Corson as possible Democratic candidates. Like Toland, though, neither appears to have said anything publicly about their interest in running.

Republicans, by contrast, already have a competitive primary underway. The two main contenders are Secretary of State Scott Schwab and former Gov. Jeff Colyer, who spent seven years as Brownback's lieutenant governor but only held the top job for a year. Several other Republicans are also publicly or privately eyeing the race.

Senate

NH-Sen

Private equity attorney Philip Taub, a major GOP donor, tells the National Journal that he's interested in a possible Senate bid but will "take the next couple of months" to consult supporters before making up his mind. So far, Republicans have yet to land a notable candidate for New Hampshire's open Senate seat, while Democrats have rallied around Rep. Chris Pappas.

Governors

ID-Gov

After trying to oust him in 2022, Donald Trump has endorsed Idaho Gov. Brad Little for a third term—even though the 71-year-old Little has not yet said whether he'll run again. Three years ago, Trump backed Lt. Gov. Janice McEachin in the GOP primary, but Little turned her back by a 53-32 margin and easily won the general election.

ME-Gov

Republican state Sen. Rick Bennett is holding out the possibility that he might run for Maine's open governorship—as an independent. Maine has a long tradition of strong bids by third-party candidates, including some notable victories, but no serious unaligned candidates have entered next year's race.

Bennett may find the prospect more tempting, though, because a new law will allow independent candidates to raise more money than they'd been permitted to in the past. Democrats and Republicans are allowed to accept a maximum of $2,075 per election, meaning donors can give that sum for both primary and general elections, for a total of $4,150. (The same is true at the federal level.)

Because independents don't run in a primary, they'd only been permitted to raise $2,075 all told. The new law now creates a "primary election period" for independent candidates so they can raise as much as major-party hopefuls, even though they don't actually have to campaign to win a nomination.

In addition, while Maine uses ranked-choice voting in all primaries and in general elections for federal office, candidates in state-level races need to win only a plurality in the general election. That disparity stems from an advisory opinion issued by the Maine Supreme Court in 2017, but some lawmakers are hoping to push the court to reconsider by adopting legislation that would explicitly apply ranked-choice rules to general elections for state races.

MS-Gov

State Agriculture Commissioner Andy Gipson on Wednesday became the first prominent candidate from either party to enter the race to succeed Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves, a fellow Republican who will be termed out of office—in 2027.

While Gipson currently has the field to himself, the conservative Magnolia Tribune suggests that he felt he needed to launch his campaign so far from Election Day because one likely primary rival is already making moves. Writer Russ Latino says that state Auditor Shad White is in the midst of a "relentless" drive to win over backers and donors, a push that's "forcing others to move earlier than they would probably like."

The contest to replace Reeves will likely attract many more Republicans, but we'll wait a while before diving into this contest. That's because, while anyone following U.S. politics today has spent most of their lives in the era of the permanent campaign, even we have our limits here at The Downballot.

Our general practice is to only talk about a race when it's no more than two years off, so we won't be saying much about 2027's races until after Election Day this fall. However, we do make an exception when a notable contender like Gipson announces a campaign ahead of this time frame.

We've dealt with the situation several times in the past, including in 2023, when Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop announced a bid for governor 26 months ahead of New Jersey's Democratic primary. As we just saw this week, though, it didn't work out well for him.

NJ-Gov

Fresh off winning this week's primary, Democrat Mikie Sherrill earned a high-profile endorsement Thursday from former Gov. Christine Todd Whitman, a former Republican who is the only woman ever elected to lead New Jersey.

Whitman, who won the first of her two terms in 1993, praised Sherrill's leadership skills to the Philadelphia Inquirer and added, "Beyond that, it would be really nice to have another woman." She also argued that Republican Jack Ciattarelli would "bring MAGA in full force" to the state.

Whitman was the most prominent Republican in the Garden State in the 1990s—and was even talked up as a potential running mate for George W. Bush in 2000—but she's long been on the outs with the GOP. Whitman opposed Donald Trump during all three of his general election campaigns and announced in 2022 that she was leaving the Republicans to co-chair Andrew Yang's new "Forward Party."

House

AZ-01

In a wide-ranging piece about potential House candidates with nontraditional backgrounds, Nathan Gonzales reports that Army veteran Jimmy McCain has decided not to enter the busy Democratic primary to take on Republican Rep. David Schweikert. McCain, who is the son of the late Sen. John McCain, registered as a Democrat and backed Kamala Harris last fall.

Gonzales has far more information about other possible congressional hopefuls, so we encourage you to read his article.

Separately, finance executive Conor O'Callaghan took his name out of contention on Thursday by endorsing former TV anchor Marlene Galan-Woods' campaign. Both ran in 2024, with Galan-Woods and O'Callaghan placing third and fourth in the Democratic primary, respectively.

FL-05

Conservative podcaster Mark Kaye, a former radio host in the Jacksonville area, said this week that he would challenge Rep. John Rutherford in the Republican primary for Florida's conservative 5th District.

Kaye attracted attention last year when he said he'd been "fired" by Cox Media for creating and spreading an AI-generated image of Donald Trump surrounded by Black voters. The company, though, said it had already decided to part ways with him before the incident.

Rutherford is a longtime elected official from Jacksonville who served as its sheriff before he was elected to the House in 2016. Last year, he won renomination by a 67-33 margin against an underfunded opponent, a performance that was neither close but also not impressive for a veteran incumbent.

Kaye, though, is wasting no time attacking the 72-year-old congressman. The challenger declared, "The only thing this guy fights for is the last cup of jello at the congressional cafeteria, plus he's one of the least transparent congressmen in the entire world."

FL-19

Chris Collins, who has served both as a U.S. representative from New York and as an inmate in federal prison, has decided to add Florida congressman to his resume.

Collins said Wednesday that he'd enter the Republican primary for the open 19th District, a dark-red seat that includes Fort Myers and the Cape Coral areas. Considerably more of Collins' former voters may know about this than his future voters, though, as he made his announcement on WBEN—a talk radio station in Buffalo.

"Trump's back in office," he told host Joe Beamer. "I'd like to go back and be his sidekick, if you will." Collins is running to succeed Republican Rep. Byron Donalds, who is the frontrunner to become Florida's next governor.

Collins, who turned 75 last month, is a longtime upstate New York politician who won a House seat in 2012 by unseating future Gov. Kathy Hochul. His career seemed to be over, though, in 2019 when he resigned and pleaded guilty to his part in an insider-trading scheme.

"People feel sorry for me. They shouldn't," a tearful Collins told the court at his sentencing. "I stand here today as a disgraced former member of Congress that will have that asterisk by my name."

Donald Trump, though, did feel sorry for Collins, who was one of the first members of Congress to endorse his 2016 presidential bid. In 2020, Trump pardoned the ex-congressman just two months into what was supposed to be a 26-month prison sentence.

Collins, who relocated to southwestern Florida, also left whatever contrition he'd once felt behind. He told the Washington Post last year, "They came after me like they came after Trump."

Collins has now entered a GOP primary that includes Jim Oberweis—who is a former state senator from Illinois—as well as Marine veteran Mike Pedersen and businessman Jim Schwartzel.

Collins, however, may not be the only one-time Republican congressman from another state who wants redemption in Florida. Former North Carolina Rep. Madison Cawthorn, who had his own turbulent tenure, expressed interest in seeking Donalds' seat back in February. Cawthorn, however, doesn't appear to have said anything else about a comeback over the intervening months.

IL-09

Democratic operative Miracle Jenkins, who worked for retiring Rep. Jan Schakowsky's reelection campaign in 2018, has joined the race to succeed his one-time boss. Four other notable Democrats are vying to succeed the congresswoman in Illinois' solidly blue 9th District.

MA-09

Mattapoisett Select Board member Tyler Macallister, who is better known as the star of the reality TV show "Harpoon Hunters," told local Republicans this week that he would challenge Democratic Rep. Bill Keating in Massachusetts' 9th District.

This constituency, which includes Cape Cod, is the least Democratic of the Bay State's nine congressional districts, but it still tilts to the left. Kamala Harris prevailed here 55-44, according to calculations by The Downballot.

MO-02

Former St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Adam Wainwright said Wednesday that he would not challenge Republican Rep. Ann Wagner as a Democrat next year.

Wainwright, whose name was included in a recent Democratic poll testing prospective candidates against Wagner, didn't rule out a future campaign for office in comments to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. But the former right-handed hurler, who has not said which party, if any, he belongs to, added that the "time for me, if ever, is not right now."

NH-01

Former state Sen. Tom Sherman, who had been considering a bid for New Hampshire's open 1st Congressional District, has instead endorsed former Portsmouth City Councilor Stefany Shaheen. Sherman has also been weighing a run against Republican Gov. Kelly Ayotte but doesn't appear to have said anything further since first floating the idea last month.

OH-13

Every Republican in Ohio's congressional delegation, including Sens. Bernie Moreno and Jon Husted, has endorsed former state Sen. Kevin Coughlin as he seeks a rematch with Democratic Rep. Emilia Sykes following his 51-49 loss last year. Coughlin is the only Republican candidate in the race, and no other potential names have emerged.

According to calculations by The Downballot, the Akron-area 13th District was the most evenly divided district on the presidential level in 2024, going for Kamala Harris by just 183 votes—a difference of less than 0.05 percentage points. However, the district could change if Republicans seek to gerrymander Ohio's map further this summer, when state law requires them to pass new lines. Democrats have urged the GOP to maintain the status quo and re-pass the existing map.

TN-07

A surprising number of Democrats have expressed interest in taking aim at an unlikely target: Tennessee's conservative 7th District, which is set to become vacant following Republican Rep. Mark Green's announcement this week that he'd resign at an unspecified later date.

The 7th District backed Donald Trump 60-38 last year, and Green turned in an identical performance even after his estranged wife accused him of infidelity.

But Democrats, as James Downs writes in the National Journal, are encouraged by their big overperformances in recent special elections. They're also hoping that the GOP's decision to gerrymander the neighboring 5th District in 2022, which involved cracking the loyally blue city of Nashville three ways and placing part of it in Green's district, will give them a large and motivated base of voters for what could be a low-turnout contest.

State Rep. Vincent Dixie sounds the most enthusiastic about running, and he tells the Tennessee Lookout's Sam Stockard he's "about 98.3% sure" he'll do it. Fellow state Rep. Bo Mitchell also informs the Nashville Scene that he's thinking about a bid and will decide "in the coming days."

In addition, former Nashville Mayor Megan Barry, who was Green's opponent last year, released a statement saying she was thinking about another try. State Rep. John Ray Clemmons, for his part, told Stockard the party should consolidate behind one candidate, but he didn't say if he wants to be that candidate.

Stockard and Downs also name several other possible Democratic contenders, including former Nashville Mayor John Cooper, businessman Darden Copeland, former Tennessee State University President Glenda Glover, Clarksville Mayor Joe Pitts, and state Sen. Jeff Yarbro. State Sen. Charlane Oliver, though, tells Stockard she won't run.

Meanwhile, Republicans continue to pile into the primary for the as-yet unscheduled special election. The latest entrant is Army veteran Jon Thorp, who announced on Thursday. Thorp, though, admitted that he hasn't cast a ballot in 24 years because he was unhappy with his choices, a decision that's unlikely to go over well with Trump-obsessed primary voters.

Two other candidates were already seeking the GOP nod: former state cabinet member Matt Van Epps and Montgomery County Commissioner Jason Knight, an Army veteran who would be the first Black Republican to represent the state in Congress.

A few other Republicans previously expressed interest in running, and several more are now talking about entering the race.

Michael Lotfi, an official with the state branch of Americans for Prosperity, tells Stockard that he's both considering and would be a "pretty flawed candidate."

Lotfi offered that blunt self-assessment six years after GOP lawmakers expressed disgust that then-House Speaker Glen Casada gave him a state job even though he'd be doing no work for the legislature. Lotfi instead was brought on to handle political work for Casada, which included launching attacks on women who had accused one of the speaker's allies of sexual assault. Casada stepped down later in 2019 because of an unrelated scandal.

Republican operative Alice Rolli, meanwhile, tells Axios' Nate Rau that she's thinking about running. Rolli campaigned for mayor of Nashville in 2023 but badly lost the officially nonpartisan contest to Democrat Freddie O'Connell.

Stockard and Rau also mention several other Republicans as possible contenders, including a trio of political operatives—Chris Burger, Brian Clifford, and Mark Moore—as well as country singer John Rich and House Speaker Cameron Sexton. However, none of these people, including Rich of the duo Big & Rich, has said anything publicly about running.

VA-11

Energy policy expert Amy Roma has released her first TV ad ahead of the June 28 Democratic primary in Virginia's vacant 11th District, saying she "know[s] how to use all those levers of power to stop Trump's agenda" and promising to "jam up every single dangerous and illegal Trump policy in Congress and the courts."

In a poll of the race recently released by allies of Fairfax County Supervisor James Walkinshaw, who was the first Democrat on the airwaves, Roma was shown taking just 1% of the vote. Walkinshaw, meanwhile, had a giant 41-8 lead over his nearest opponent, state Sen. Stella Pekarsky.

Attorneys General

TX-AG

Former Department of Justice official Aaron Reitz announced Thursday that he was entering the Republican primary for attorney general of Texas, a powerful post that's open because incumbent Ken Paxton is running for the Senate.

Reitz is a well-connected conservative activist who worked for Paxton before Donald Trump tapped him to run the influential Office of Legal Policy. While Reitz spent just a few months in that role, he earned some big admirers in MAGAworld. FBI Director Kash Patel responded to his departure by saying that "now it's time to deliver on his next mission."

Reitz left no doubt about how he sees that new mission. He launched his campaign for attorney general by proclaiming, "If we lose Texas, we lose the Republic. As attorney general, I'll use every ounce of legal firepower to defend President Trump, crush the radical Left, advance the America and Texas First agenda, and look out for everyday Texans."

Reitz joins state Sen. Mayes Middleton, who says he's already self-funded $10 million, in the GOP primary. Democrats are still awaiting their first notable candidate for an office they last won in 1994.

Mayors & County Leaders

Albuquerque, NM Mayor

Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller got some welcome news this week when he learned that all of his opponents had given up trying to qualify for about $750,000 in public financing. The city requires candidates to obtain $5 contributions from at least 3,780 registered city voters by June 21, and Keller, a Democrat, was 80% of the way there as of June 6.

Keller faces 10 opponents on the Nov. 4 nonpartisan ballot, including both Democrats and Republicans. It takes a majority of the vote to avoid a December runoff.

Boston, MA Mayor

Allies of Mayor Michelle Wu are spending $250,000 on commercials targeting nonprofit head Josh Kraft, Politico reports.

The new ad from Bold Boston PAC tells viewers that Donald Trump's donors "gave big to Kraft's super PAC," while saying Wu is the one standing up to "Trump and the MAGA Republicans who are attacking our city." Kraft's backers have spent over $2 million attacking Wu's performance in office.

The two candidates, who both identify as Democrats, are the only two serious contenders running in this fall's officially nonpartisan race.

New Orleans, LA Mayor

A new poll shows New Orleans City Councilwoman Helena Moreno securing 47% in the Oct. 11 contest for mayor, which is just a few points shy of the majority she needs to win outright.

The poll, conducted by Faucheux Strategies as part of the New Orleans Crime Coalition's annual survey, also finds City Councilman Oliver Thomas leading former Judge Arthur Hunter 22-9 for the second spot in a potential runoff.

A recent poll from the Republican firm JMC Analytics showed Moreno taking 52%, which would be enough for her to win without a second round of voting. This post is held by termed-out Mayor LaToya Cantrell, who, like all three of her would-be successors, is a Democrat.

New York, NY Mayor

An internal poll for a candidate for New York City comptroller is the first to find Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani leading former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, putting him up by a 35-31 margin with every other contender in the single digits. However, the survey, conducted by Public Policy Polling, did not attempt to simulate the city's ranked-choice voting rules that will be used in this month's Democratic primary.

The poll, which was paid for by City Councilman Justin Brannan, also found Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine up 30-19 on Brannan in the primary for the open comptroller's post. The sitting comptroller, Brad Lander, opted to run for mayor rather than seek reelection; he's in third place at 9% in his race.

At the same time, though, a poll from a Bronx-based LGBTQ group called Destination Tomorrow looks a lot more like other recent data, finding Cuomo up 56-44—after a ranked-choice simulation. This survey was conducted by Honan Strategy Group, which has previously polled on behalf of Tusk Strategies, a firm working with Cuomo. Destination Tomorrow, however, says it "is not endorsing any candidate."

Meanwhile, Cuomo continues to train his fire on Mamdani, airing a new TV ad that includes footage of recent protests in Los Angeles as a narrator blasts the assemblyman as "dangerously inexperienced" and asks, "Trump is coming for New York. Who do you think can stop him?"

Mamdani's latest spot, by contrast, is a positive one, featuring the candidate giving a high-energy speech in which he says that "we can guarantee cheaper groceries" and "freeze the rent for more than 2 million tenants." He caps his oration by declaring, "We are done settling for less!"

In our last Digest, we misidentified the congressional District that California Rep. Brad Sherman represents. Sherman serves the 32nd District, not the 30th.