Morning Digest: A veteran House Democrat has been pushed to the brink in Denver

New spending and polling show Dianna DeGette could be running her last race

Democratic Rep. Diana DeGette of Colorado. (Credit: Diana DeGette Facebook)

Leading Off

CO-01

Late spending and new polling suggest that longtime Democratic Rep. Diana DeGette may be in serious trouble heading into her faceoff against a younger and more outspoken opponent in next week’s primary.

Until recently, the battle between DeGette and former attorney Melat Kiros had drawn no attention from outside groups.

The left-wing Justice Democrats, though, kicked off the month of June with a $200,000 outlay on mailers and digital ads to boost the 29-year-old Kiros, whom they endorsed last year.

DeGette’s allies—chiefly brand-new super PACs that have yet to disclose any donors—soon responded, ultimately pouring in more than $1.2 million to help the congresswoman, who has represented Colorado’s safely blue 1st District since 1997.

Some of the messaging has turned negative. One spot from a pro-DeGette outfit called Mile High Accountability asserts that Kiros only “recently moved to Denver,” a criticism the Colorado Sun labels “misleading.”

Kiros grew up in the city and returned there after she was fired by the New York law firm of Sidley Austin, which had signed a letter decrying antisemitism in the wake of the Oct. 7 attacks.

Kiros, a junior associate, published a blog post in response, criticizing the letter for labeling calls for “elimination of the State of Israel” as antisemitic and saying that “conflat[ing] such bigotry with the geopolitical question of Israel’s legitimacy is one of the greatest travesties in this conflict.”

Mile High Accountability, though, believes Kiros has crossed the line she sought to delineate. Its spot cites a Denver Post column that criticized her for views “laced with antisemitism.” That column referenced a video Kiros posted in March with text saying Democrats “fellate Israel” and “suck shit.”

The ad also says that “Kiros’ backers want to defund our police. Abolish the United States Senate. Withdraw from NATO,” and adds, “Donald Trump loves Democrats like Kiros.” (The narrative very closely hews to the “redbox” on DeGette’s campaign site.) In a statement to the Colorado Sun, Kiros’ campaign said she “does not believe” in any of these positions.

The Justice Democrats have gone on the attack, too. One of the group’s ads slams Trump for “deporting our neighbors, funding genocide, and rigging the economy” and says that “Diana DeGette, bankrolled by ICE contractors and Big Pharma, has been voting right along with him.”

DeGette, 68, has raised and spent more than double what Kiros has, but she’s nonetheless lucky to have even reached the primary in the first place.

In March, the incumbent came close to a career-ending disaster when Democrats in the Denver-based 1st District gathered to endorse a candidate. Kiros prevailed by a wide 67-33 margin, leaving DeGette just above the 30% mark needed to secure a spot on the primary ballot. Had she fallen below that threshold, her campaign would have ended immediately because she did not pursue the alternate option of collecting signatures.

DeGette, though, had good reason to hope that the vastly larger electorate next week would be more favorable to her. Just 235 delegates participated in the March convention—a far cry from the 133,000 voters who cast ballots in the Democratic primary in 2018, the last time DeGette faced an aggressive left-wing challenge (she won 68-32).

But a new survey from Data for Progress commissioned by the Justice Democrats suggests that may not be the case. That poll shows Kiros ahead 41-36, with a third candidate, University of Colorado Regent Wanda James, taking 6%. (The site that published the poll, Zeteo, did not include the sample size, but Data for Progress has a track record of surveying sufficiently large numbers of respondents.)

Still, though, 18% of those surveyed were undecided, meaning that even if the numbers are accurate, DeGette could still prevail. Whoever wins, though, will be the heavy favorite in November in a district that voted for Kamala Harris by a wide 77-21 margin.

Georgia gives Trump a black eye

Election Recaps

IN-SoS

Max Engling, a staffer for Sen. Jim Banks, won the Republican nomination for Indiana secretary of state by defeating beleaguered incumbent Diego Morales and two other candidates at a GOP convention on Saturday.

Engling, who had the support of Banks and Attorney General Todd Rokita, outpaced Knox County Clerk David Shelton 53-39 on the second and final ballot. Morales, whose four years in office have been defined by a non-stop series of scandals ranging from spending taxpayer dollars on overseas trips to awarding no-bid contracts to campaign contributors, finished a distant third with just 8%.

In the general election, Engling will face off against Marine veteran Beau Bayh, who won the Democratic nomination at a convention earlier this month, and Libertarian Lauri Shillings.

Former Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard, a former Republican running under the banner of his newly created Lincoln Party, also said Saturday that he’d turned in enough signatures to make the ballot. Election officials still need to verify that about 37,000 of the 52,500 signatures Ballard announced he’d collected are valid.

Governors

SC-Gov

Donald Trump endorsed South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson for governor while reaffirming his earlier support for Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette on Friday, but there’s no question which Republican is riding high heading into Tuesday’s runoff.

While Evette, who remains termed-out Gov. Henry McMaster’s sole pick, edged out Wilson 29-26 in the first round of the primary on June 9, every publicly available poll has shown Wilson well ahead.

The attorney general twisted the knife again early Friday by releasing a new internal poll from National Public Affairs showing him winning 52-34. Trump took to Truth Social later that day to tell Palmetto State Republicans they “can’t go wrong” backing either candidate, while Sen. Tim Scott quickly responded by announcing that Wilson was his choice for governor as well.

The news capped off a dire week for Evette’s campaign.

On Monday, Wilson publicized an endorsement from Rep. Ralph Norman, who finished third in the first round of the primary. Wilson already had the support of Rep. Nancy Mace, who backed him on election night after finishing fifth, while Evette has yet to gain any significant endorsements for the runoff.

Evette got some more unwelcome news Tuesday afternoon when the Washington Post’s Natalie Allison reported that Trump, who had just backed Randy Feenstra’s failed primary campaign for governor of Iowa, was “considering hedging his bet” in South Carolina by endorsing both candidates.

Trump didn’t take immediate action, but he got another reason to avoid being stuck backing a loser mere hours later when billionaire Rick Jackson upset Burt Jones, Trump’s pick to lead neighboring Georgia.

Trump still insisted on Friday that South Carolina Republicans have a “Wealth of Riches” to choose from between Wilson and Evette, but that’s not how the lieutenant governor’s detractors see things. Allison explained that even though the Ohio-raised Evette relocated to South Carolina more than two decades ago, some GOP activists are still skeptical of her Midwestern roots.

The South Carolina-born Wilson, the son of longtime Rep. Joe Wilson, brought the topic up himself at a recent debate when he was asked to say something he appreciated about his opponent. Wilson answered, “I do believe Pam loves the state of South Carolina. She chose to move here from Ohio because she saw an opportunity here, and I commend her for that.”

Evette was anything but happy with this ostensive praise. She responded, “So, to all the people like myself who didn’t hit that lottery of being born here, you just heard the attorney general tell you you’re really not a South Carolinian.”

Some of Evette’s critics, though, think she’s too much a part of South Carolina in one decidedly detrimental way. Allison notes that conservative activists who have spent years battling McMaster, a longtime fixture of the state’s GOP establishment, likewise distrust Evette, who was his running mate in both 2018 and 2022.

“By definition of her current title, Pamela has to carry that mantle of status quo simply because Henry McMaster is the definition of status quo,” GOP activist Nathan Leupp told the Post and Courier. “It’s just a much harder sell.”

Poll Pile

• LA-Sen (R): BDPC for Alton Ashy (pro-Julia Letlow):

  • Julia Letlow: 40, John Fleming: 38.

  • Unreleased June poll: 40-38 Fleming.

• AZ-01 (R): NextGen Polling:

  • Jay Feely: 25, Joseph Chaplik: 23, John Trobough: 6, undecided: 46.

  • April: 24-15 Chaplik.