Republican state Sen. Christine Drazan has launched her second campaign for governor of Oregon (credit: Christine Drazan Facebook)
Leading Off
OR-Gov
Republican state Sen. Christine Drazan announced Monday that she would seek a rematch against Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek, the Democrat who beat Drazan in a tight three-way race in 2022.
Drazan, who is seeking to become the first Republican to lead the state in four decades, is also Kotek’s first prominent challenger. No other notable Republicans have signaled an interest in running in the May 19 primary, although the March 10 candidate filing deadline is still several months away.
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Drazan will once again face a difficult time prevailing statewide in reliably blue Oregon, which backed Kamala Harris 55-41 last year, but she’s hoping voters are ready to eject Kotek.
Only a handful of polls have tested Kotek’s standing during her tenure, but one recent survey placed her on positive ground. Morning Consult gave the incumbent a 48-40 approval rating during the third quarter of the year, though that was still one of the lower scores it found for governors across the country.
Kotek and Drazan have a long history of opposing one another, and not just at the ballot box. Kotek was serving as speaker of the state House in 2019 when Drazan, who had been elected to the chamber the previous year, convinced fellow Republicans to oust their leader and install her instead.
The two rising stars went on to compete in a closely watched 2022 general election to replace Democratic Gov. Kate Brown, who was termed out.
Drazan believed that a public backlash against Brown, who was finishing her tenure with weak approval ratings, would help her become the first Republican to win the governor’s office since the late Vic Atiyeh secured reelection in 1982. Drazan’s allies also hoped that a widely anticipated GOP wave would help sweep her to victory.
Complicating things for everyone, though, was the campaign of former state Sen. Betsy Johnson, a conservative Democrat who was running as an independent. Johnson threatened to siphon support from both major party candidates. While she echoed Drazan in faulting Kotek’s approach to dealing with homelessness in Portland, she also warned the Republican “would be Oregon’s first anti-choice governor.”
Kotek ultimately pulled off a 47-44 victory over Drazan—who did not benefit from the Republican tsunami so many observers expected—while Johnson finished a distant third with just 9%.
Drazan, though, was far from done in Oregon politics. She successfully campaigned to return to the state House last year, and her caucus made her minority leader once again.
Last week, though, she received a promotion when local county commissioners appointed her to succeed state Sen. Daniel Bonham, who had resigned to join the Trump administration. While Drazan doesn’t want to be in the Senate for long, her new job gives her new gubernatorial campaign a key boost: Members of the upper chamber are allowed to raise money while the legislature is in session, something that those in the House are forbidden from doing.
But while Drazan has spent her second stint in the legislature once again arguing that Kotek is the embodiment of a failed status quo, one notable Oregon politico won’t be echoing those talking points this time. Johnson, whom Kotek recently appointed to a state board, responded to Drazan’s entry by praising the governor.
“From my experience working with her on international recruitment, I saw Governor Kotek’s incredible personal attention and commitment trying to secure a major investment for rural Oregon,” Johnson said in a statement for Kotek’s campaign.
The governor’s supporters also believe that a backlash against Donald Trump, who badly lost Oregon in all three of his campaigns, will hinder Drazen in her return engagement.
The Democratic Governors Association faulted the challenger for “cowering to Trump as he sends the National Guard into Portland in a clear abuse of power” in a statement praising Kotek for “fighting back against Trump’s cuts to Medicaid and SNAP.”
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Republican Gov. Mike Braun announced on Monday that he’d convene Indiana’s legislature for a special session next week, but the top Republican leader in the state Senate says that support for mid-decade redistricting is lacking.
“The votes still aren’t there for redistricting,” Molly Swigart, a spokesperson for Senate President Pro Tempore Rodric Bray, said in a statement following Braun’s announcement.
That’s the exact same quote Swigwart gave last week, apart from the addition of the word “still.” What’s changed since then is Braun ramping up the pressure by calling a special session. A spokesperson for the state House GOP also said Monday that Republicans in the lower chamber have enough votes to move forward.
Once lawmakers gather next week, the clock will start ticking. Under state law, the session must wrap up no later than Dec. 13.
KS Redistricting
Almost a month after Kansas Republicans began circulating a petition to convene a special session of the legislature, state Senate President Ty Masterson said in a statement on Monday that his caucus is ready to move forward. The House, however, is not.
The previous day, the Associated Press reported that GOP leaders are still “struggling to get the last few signatures needed” so that they can further gerrymander the state’s congressional map.
To succeed, the petition needs the support of two-thirds of the membership of each house of the legislature. Republicans have supermajorities in both chambers, but they can only afford four defections each in the 40-member Senate and the 125-member House.
Thanks to a handful of dissenters, though, legislative leaders have been unable to seal the deal. According to the Sunflower State Journal, the House is “somewhere in the neighborhood of eight votes short.”
The holdouts include state Rep. Mark Schreiber, a relative pragmatist who told the AP that he “did not sign a petition to call a special session, and I have no plans to sign one.”
“Redistricting by either party in midcycle should not be done,” he added.
Should House Republicans make up their shortfall, a special session would begin on Nov. 7.
NC Redistricting
Voters in North Carolina who’ve been challenging the state’s congressional map in federal court since 2023 are seeking to broaden their attack to include the new gerrymander that Republicans passed last week.
The plaintiffs’ new complaint attacks the GOP’s map for targeting the 1st District, a constituency with a large Black population that’s represented by a Black Democrat, Rep. Don Davis. Litigants argue that the revamped version “intentionally discriminates against minority voters” in violation of the Constitution and the Voting Rights Act.
NY Redistricting
A group of New York voters has filed a lawsuit challenging the state’s 11th Congressional District, saying it violates the state Constitution by diluting the voting strength of Black and Latino voters.
In their complaint, plaintiffs argue that the 11th District, which includes all of Staten Island and several neighborhoods in southwestern Brooklyn, should be redrawn to link Staten Island “with voters in lower Manhattan to create a minority influence district.” Their attorneys include the Elias Law Group, one of the most prominent Democratic law firms.
UT Redistricting
The Utah Republican Party has abandoned its efforts to repeal the state’s anti-gerrymandering laws through an “indirect” ballot initiative after the state’s top elections official—also a Republican—reportedly said the plan likely violated the state Constitution.
Instead, the GOP says it will seek to qualify a traditional initiative asking voters to undo Proposition 4, the redistricting reform measure they adopted in 2018.
Under the indirect approach, Republicans wanted to use an untested provision of state law to refer a repeal vote to the legislature rather than to voters. However, Bryan Schott of Utah Political Watch reports that Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson told the party that she “would reject the measure on constitutional grounds.”
As The Downballot previously explained, Utah’s rules for indirect initiatives may themselves violate the state Constitution, since they were created by statute and are not found in the Constitution itself.
Plaintiffs who have long been challenging the GOP’s gerrymandered congressional map also argued that because the courts previously ruled that a 2020 attempt by Republican lawmakers to repeal Proposition 4 was unconstitutional, any effort to repeal it via indirect initiative must also be unconstitutional.
Now, Republicans must gather almost 141,000 signatures by Feb. 15 to place their measure on the ballot. If they’re successful, they would then have to convince voters to abolish anti-gerrymandering reforms that they approved by a narrow 50.3 to 49.7 margin seven years ago.
While dozens of special elections are on tap next week, Tuesday’s action is confined to one overwhelmingly Republican constituency in northern Alabama. The 12th House District favored Donald Trump 89-10, according to calculations by The Downballot, so the only question is how closely Republican Cindy Myrex’s showing against Democrat Matt Glover will compare with the presidential numbers.
Senate
LA-Sen
State Rep. Julie Emerson on Monday became the latest Louisiana Republican to announce a primary campaign against Sen. Bill Cassidy, who voted to convict Donald Trump following the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol.
Emerson, whose role as chair of the Ways and Means Committee makes her a prominent player in state politics, said two months ago she was “waiting to see” if Rep. Julia Letlow ran before deciding what to do. Emerson, though, did not mention Letlow, who is still keeping everyone guessing about her plans, as she launched her new campaign.
But Cassidy, whose call for Trump to receive a Nobel Peace Prize was only his latest attempt to get back on MAGA’s good side, is sure to face an expensive and crowded renomination fight no matter what Letlow does.
Emerson joins a field of challengers that includes Louisiana Treasurer John Fleming, state Sen. Blake Miguez, St. Tammany Parish Councilwoman Kathy Seiden, and Public Service Commissioner Eric Skrmetta. Candidates need to win a majority of the vote to avoid a runoff.
ME-Sen
Daira Smith-Rodriguez said Friday that she was ending her month-old Senate campaign and endorsing Gov. Janet Mills, a decision she said she made to prevent oyster farmer Graham Platner from winning next year’s Democratic primary.
“[A]s a survivor of military sexual assault, I cannot, in good conscience, indicate support or remain silent if there is even a possibility that someone who questions the reality of this crisis could be elevated to the United States Senate,” wrote Smith-Rodriguez, a civilian contracting officer in the Air Force. Platner has argued that the 2013 Reddit post Smith-Rodriguez cited does not reflect his current views.
Axios went on to report on Monday that Platner had parted ways with campaign manager Kevin Brown less than a week after announcing Brown’s hiring. Brown, though, said he was leaving so quickly for reasons that had nothing to do with the ongoing fallout over the news that the candidate had a tattoo of a Nazi symbol on his chest.
“I started this campaign Tuesday but found out Friday we have a baby on the way,” Brown told Axios. “Graham deserves someone who is 100% in on his race and we want to lean into this new experience as a family, so it was best we step back sooner than later so Graham can get the manager he deserves.”
Platner, who brought Brown on following what Politico characterized as a campaign shake-up, did not immediately announce a replacement.
Governors
SD-Gov
Rep. Dusty Johnson holds a tiny 28-27 edge over incumbent Larry Rhoden in the June 2 Republican primary for governor of South Dakota, according to a new poll from Mason-Dixon.
Wealthy businessman Toby Doeden and state House Speaker Jon Hansen are behind with 15% and 10%, respectively. The survey, which was conducted on behalf of the University of South Dakota and South Dakota News Watch, finds that 21% are undecided.
A runoff would take place if no one wins at least 35% of the vote, though it doesn’t appear that a second round of voting has ever been needed in a gubernatorial primary. The eventual GOP winner will be the heavy favorite in a state where Democrats last won the governorship in 1974.
Rhoden has yet to announce his plans, but he appears set to seek a full term.
Rhoden, who was elevated from the lieutenant governor’s office in January after Kristi Noem resigned to join Donald Trump’s cabinet, kept political observers guessing for months whether he’d run next year. The new governor, though, seemed to finally end the uncertainty in August by launching a campaign site.
“Some of the other candidates have been raising money for years or have their own fortunes to draw from. I don’t have those advantages,” Rhoden told recipients. “If you’d like to see me continue to serve as Governor, I would humbly ask you to consider a donation so that I have enough money to run a competitive campaign.”
Fine antagonized fellow Republicans before, during, and after his victory in April’s special election for Florida’s 6th District, but none of his opponents had raised much money from donors in the weeks before Trump backed the incumbent.
MA-06
Former Lynn Mayor Tom McGee tells Politico he will not enter the Democratic primary for Massachusetts’ open 6th District.
NY-10
New York City Comptroller Brad Lander has told supporters he’s decided to challenge Rep. Dan Goldman in next year’s Democratic primary for the 10th Congressional District, Peter Sterne reports in City & State.
Lander, who cross-endorsed Zohran Mamdani in the June ranked-choice primary for mayor, had previously appeared more interested in pursuing a job in a Mamdani administration than in opposing Goldman. The comptroller, though, didn’t rule anything out when Sterne contacted him on Monday.
“I’m very focused on helping Zohran win next Tuesday, and I’ll focus on after that, after that,” Lander said—an answer that Sterne says Lander repeated as the conversation continued.
Lander, though, isn’t the only New York City Democrat who is looking to oppose Goldman next year in the 10th, a safely blue constituency based in Lower Manhattan and northwestern Brooklyn.
While City Councilmember Alexa Aviles hasn’t publicly committed to running, Sterne writes that she plans to enter and is “very likely” to secure the endorsement of the local Democratic Socialists of America.
Jewish Insider also reported last month that former Assemblymember Yuh-Line Niou, who narrowly lost to Goldman in 2022, has also informed backers that she intends to seek a rematch. She has not taken any obvious steps toward a run since then, however.
Ranked-choice voting is limited to municipal primaries in New York City, so a busy field of opponents would almost certainly make it easier for Goldman to win renomination with a plurality.
Trump’s backing last year helped Ogles defeat Nashville Metro Councilor Courtney Johnston 57-43 in last year’s primary, which set him on course for an easy win in a constituency Republicans gerrymandered in 2022. Democrats, though, think that Ogles is weak enough to be vulnerable should he advance again.
TN-07
A new internal poll from Democratic state Rep. Aftyn Behn shared exclusively with The Downballot finds her trailing in the Dec. 2 special election for Tennessee’s conservative 7th District but argues she can still pull an upset.
The survey, conducted by Workbench Strategy a week after the Oct. 7 primaries, shows Republican Matt Van Epps, a former member of Gov. Bill Lee’s Cabinet, leading Behn by a 51-41 margin. Four independent candidates, meanwhile, split 7% of the vote; when pressed to choose between the two major-party options, Van Epps’ edge narrows slightly to 52-44.
Given that Donald Trump carried the 7th District 60-38 last year, Workbench’s read indicates that the gap has been roughly halved. With Van Epps already over 50%, though, Behn would need to both win over undecided voters and convince some of her opponent’s supporters to switch sides or stay home.
The pollster’s memo contends that Behn can make up ground by juicing turnout among Black voters and those under 50, particularly in Davidson County, which is by far the bluest in the district because it includes a slice of the city of Nashville. It also says that Democrats need to emphasize “the existing doubts about Matt Van Epps many conservative voters hold, making sure that they know they have alternatives.”
Though Workbench doesn’t elaborate, that could include boosting candidates like Army veteran Jon Thorp, who launched his campaign as a Republican before dropping out of the primary to run as an independent.
TX-10
State Sen. Sarah Eckhardt jumped into the race for Texas’ 10th District on Monday, giving Democrats a credible candidate for a conservative constituency that’s now open following Republican Rep. Michael McCaul’s retirement.
Under the GOP’s new gerrymander, which links the Austin suburbs to vast rural areas north of Houston, the 10th District would move slightly to the left but would still remain heavily Republican. The revamped district would have supported Donald Trump last year by a 60-38 margin, down just a bit from his 62-37 win under the old lines.
Eckhardt’s father, notes the Austin American-Statesman, was the late Rep. Bob Eckhardt, who represented the Houston area in Congress for six terms starting in 1967. Her mother, Nadine Eckhardt, was an aide to Lyndon Johnson when he served as Senate majority leader; according to the Texas Observer, famed LBJ biographer Robert Caro “reportedly called her the most perceptive person he’d ever spoken to regarding Lyndon Johnson.”
The younger Eckhardt first won an election for the state Senate in 2020. She was reelected to a four-year term just last year, so she doesn’t need to give up her current position to run for McCaul’s seat.
Poll Pile
NJ-Gov: co/efficient (R): Mikie Sherrill (D): 48, Jack Ciattarelli (R): 47. The firm says this poll was “[n]ot sponsored by any candidate or candidate’s committee.”
VA-AG: CNU: Jason Miyares (R-inc): 46, Jay Jones (D): 45 (early Oct.: 49-43 Jones).
Seattle, WA Mayor: Change Research (D) for the Northwest Progressive Institute: Katie Wilson: 45, Bruce Harrell (inc): 40 (both candidates are Democrats).
Seattle, WA Mayor: DHM Research for The Stranger: Wilson: 42, Harrell (inc): 38.
Correction: We incorrectly described North Carolina’s 1st Congressional District as “plurality-Black.” It has a white majority and a large Black population.
I love how Virginia Dems are being just as curt and overruling the Rs in the ongoing procedural votes for the redistricting move going on today and Wednesday. Makes my bleeding liberal heart sing with joy after what NC Rs did last week.
You started this, Rolldemort, Kehoe and Phil Berger. Now Scott Surovell and L. Louise Lucas will finish it.
With one week until the Prop 50 election, things are looking good for Yes and California Democrats in the mail ballot return data!
I did a quick thread on BlueSky with more details, but the bottom line is the electoral makeup of this special election looks better than the 2024 Presidential election...AND there are signs the partisan makeup of ballots might not change much over the next week.
I love how Virginia Dems are being just as curt and overruling the Rs in the ongoing procedural votes for the redistricting move going on today and Wednesday. Makes my bleeding liberal heart sing with joy after what NC Rs did last week.
You started this, Rolldemort, Kehoe and Phil Berger. Now Scott Surovell and L. Louise Lucas will finish it.
With one week until the Prop 50 election, things are looking good for Yes and California Democrats in the mail ballot return data!
I did a quick thread on BlueSky with more details, but the bottom line is the electoral makeup of this special election looks better than the 2024 Presidential election...AND there are signs the partisan makeup of ballots might not change much over the next week.
https://bsky.app/profile/awildlibappeared.bsky.social/post/3m4b5updyuc2c