Morning Digest: Conservative Hawaii Democrat earns high-profile primary challenge
"You’re not an independent if you’re voting with Donald Trump," says a top surrogate
Leading Off
HI-01
State Sen. Jarrett Keohokalole announced this week that he would challenge Rep. Ed Case, a fellow Democrat and longtime Hawaii politician who has always been one of the party's more conservative members of Congress during his two stints on Capitol Hill.
"We desperately need urgency, energy, and passion to make things happen that actually help us," Keohokalole, who at 41 is more than three decades Case's junior, said in his kickoff. Another speaker, former Gov. Neil Abercrombie, went after Case's record by telling the crowd, "You're not an independent if you're voting with Donald Trump."
Case, who reiterated that he's running again for the safely blue 1st District, shrugged off the criticism. The incumbent told Hawaii News Now that he took issue with what he saw as Keohokalole's argument that "I owe 100% of my votes, 100% of my positions, to one part of the Democratic Party."
The 72-year-old Case, who was born in what was then the Territory of Hawaii seven years before it became a state in 1959, also believes his longevity continues to benefit his constituents. Case, who represents most of Honolulu, insisted the 1st District would be worse off if it lost his seniority, including his spot on the influential Appropriations Committee.
"In such a time of uncertainty, why would you want to change horses from somebody that has that much influence in Congress and whose influence is growing in Congress?" he asked.
Keohokalole's campaign against the congressman comes two decades after none other than Case tried to pitch himself as the change candidate when he tried to deny renomination to a much older opponent.
Case, who was first elected to represent the 2nd District in 2002 after eight years in the state legislature, decided to oppose Sen. Dan Akaka in the 2006 Democratic primary. Fifty-three years old at the time, Case launched his campaign against the 82-year-old Akaka by saying it was time to "phase in the next generation."
"A small state like Hawai'i especially relies upon a continuity of seniority, experience, and relationships," Case told the Associated Press during the race. "What Hawai'i doesn't want and cannot afford is for that continuity ever to be broken."
Akaka, though, defended his continued service with language similar to what Case is using now.
"It's very important to Hawai'i to maintain senior positions there as long as we can," the senator said. "When changes are necessary, the people in senior positions can do it and do it well."
Akaka highlighted his opponent's support for the Bush administration's war in Iraq and also benefited from the backing of the state's Democratic establishment—a powerful force that was not at all happy with Case's primary challenge.
"He was seen as an outsider and a troublemaker when he took on Akaka," political scientist Ira Rohter told Politico three years after that campaign. "Case was violating local codes by challenging someone who was an incumbent."
Akaka prevailed 55-45 before easily securing what would be his final term in office. After two more failed campaigns for office, Case eventually restarted his stalled political career in 2018 when he won Hawaii's other House seat.
The congressman has continued to frustrate his party's leaders during his second go-round. He drew attention earlier this year when he became one of just four Democrats to support a GOP bill to require prospective voters to prove their citizenship before registering.
Case, though, has developed a much better relationship with influential Democrats at home than he previously enjoyed. He's also had no trouble winning renomination ever since his return to Congress.
Keohokalole, who was first elected to the legislature in 2014, will have a challenging time overcoming Case's incumbency and establishment support, but one recent contest might give him reason for optimism.
State House Speaker Scott Saiki, who spent the better part of the decade as one of Hawaii's most powerful politicians, narrowly lost renomination last year to challenger Kim Coco Iwamoto. Gov. Josh Green said just before the results came in that Saiki's defeat would be "somewhat of a shock to the system at the Legislature."
Keohokalole is hoping there's far more voltage heading Case's way next year.
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Senate
FL-Sen
Public school teacher Josh Weil, who had been the only notable Florida Democrat running against Republican Sen. Ashley Moody, dropped out of the race on Thursday, citing health issues.
A couple of other Democrats have expressed interest in running, including former National Security Council advisor Alexander Vindman and former Brevard County school board member Jennifer Jenkins.
NC-Sen
Republican National Committee chair Michael Whatley announced his campaign for North Carolina's open U.S. Senate seat on Thursday, a move that came almost a week after Donald Trump provided Whatley with his "Complete and Total Endorsement."
Whatley's kickoff came just a few days after former Gov. Roy Cooper delighted Democrats nationwide by launching his own campaign to replace retiring GOP Sen. Thom Tillis. Neither Whatley nor Cooper has any credible intra-party opposition in sight, and both men are already focusing on winning what will be one of the most closely watched Senate races in the nation.
Cooper has won six statewide races while Whatley has never sought public office before, but one GOP pollster is arguing that the Democrat is anything but the favorite next year. Victory Insights, which says it has no client, finds the two apparently tied at 44 apiece in the very first poll we've seen of this matchup.
But while Whatley is making his first bid for office, he's anything but a political outsider. The new candidate's long resume includes work on George W. Bush's Florida recount team in 2000; a stint as chief of staff to then-Sen. Elizabeth Dole; and an executive role at a firm that lobbies for the oil and gas industry.
Whatley took over as chair of the North Carolina Republican Party in 2019 and presided over a largely successful election cycle that saw Trump and Tillis narrowly win statewide as the GOP whittled down the Democratic majority on the state Supreme Court. Cooper, though, still convincingly won reelection that year.
Whatley, as CNN reported last year, responded to Trump's loss to Joe Biden by helping the GOP's master spread lies about the race. He told a radio station weeks after the election, "Regardless of how these lawsuits come out around the country with the presidential race, we do know that there was massive fraud that took place."
Whatley later denounced the Jan. 6 attack in a now-deleted tweet, but he had no interest in blaming his party for the violence.
"Most of the people that have been arrested were not necessarily Republican voters," he said the next month. "There's certainly Trump supporters in there, but we've also seen others and we're gonna unequivocally condemn those actions."
There was one Republican, though, whom Whatley was fine condemning. After the state GOP censured Sen. Richard Burr for voting to convict Trump for the riot during his second impeachment, Whatley expressed unhappiness with Burr for casting that vote "in a trial that he declared unconstitutional is shocking and disappointing."
Whatley's party performed well in the 2022 elections, which saw Rep. Ted Budd win the race to replace the retiring Burr and Republicans take control of the state Supreme Court. Conservative justices soon gave the Republican-dominated legislature the green light to pass a brutal congressional gerrymander that would flip three Democratic-held House seats in 2024.
Whatley, though, was no longer in charge of the state GOP by then. Trump picked him to lead the RNC early last year, and he remained there after Trump took back the White House. Whatley will now be stepping down to focus on his Senate campaign, and Trump has already chosen Florida state Sen. Joe Gruters to succeed him.
Governors
NM-Gov
Rio Rancho Mayor Gregg Hull announced Thursday that he would seek the Republican nomination for governor of New Mexico, a kickoff that comes nearly two months after he abruptly postponed a planned June 2 launch.
Hull played down that long delay this week by telling his backers, "Despite unfounded rumors, I am reaching out to you to confirm my commitment." Longtime political writer Joe Monahan, though, says that the mayor wasn't prepared to run in June and had "erred by going public with a planned announcement date and then bailing out."
Hull's belated launch still makes him the first notable Republican to enter the race to replace Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, who is termed out, though several others are considering.
Former Rep. Yvette Herrell, though, probably won't be one of them. Business Insider reporter Bryan Metzger flags that Donald Trump nominated Herrell for a post in the Department of Agriculture in mid-June, an announcement everyone seems to have missed because the White House identified her as "Stella," the first name she rarely uses.
SC-Gov
Republican Rep. Nancy Mace, who's been teasing a bid for governor since the start of the year, is staging what she calls a "major address on the future of South Carolina" on Monday morning. The event's host is listed as "Nancy Mace for Governor," so as far as what she might be announcing, your guess is as good as ours.
House
GA-10
State Rep. Houston Gaines just became the first major Republican to launch a bid for Georgia's 10th Congressional District, which recently became open after Rep. Mike Collins joined the race for Senate.
As the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Greg Bluestein notes, Gaines is a close ally of Gov. Brian Kemp, who also owns a home in Gaines' legislative district. (Kemp lives in the governor's mansion in Atlanta, but Athens is his hometown.) Kemp, though term-limited, remains a powerful figure in state politics but has often clashed with MAGAworld—most recently over the Senate contest.
Gaines is certain to have company before long, though. Citing the exceptionally nasty primary that Collins won in 2022 when the 10th District was last open, Bluestein says that next year's race "could become an all-out GOP brawl."
IL-02
Allies of former Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. have released a poll showing him leading in next year's Democratic primary for Illinois' 2nd District, which he used to represent.
Lester & Associates finds Jackson with a 21-11 edge over his nearest opponent, Matteson Village Clerk Yumeka Brown, with Cook County Board Commissioner Donna Miller taking 10%. Four other contenders earn 5% or less, while a hefty 43% of respondents are undecided.
Politico's Shia Kapos, who first shared the survey, writes that Jackson's supporters put out the poll to convince him to run. But Jackson, who resigned in 2012 before serving a year-and-a-half in prison on corruption charges, may not need much persuading: Kapos writes that the ex-congressman's team will hold a kickoff event on Sunday before starting to collect signatures for his still-undeclared bid, a process that campaigns can begin on Tuesday.
IL-07
Democratic Rep. Danny Davis announced Thursday that he would retire after 15 terms representing Illinois' 7th District and endorsed state Rep. La Shawn Ford to succeed him in what's already a busy primary to represent Chicago's West Side and downtown.
Ford, who was first elected to the legislature in 2006, took just 1% of the vote in the city's packed 2019 race for mayor, but Davis' support may make him the frontrunner heading into next year. Ford, though, is only one of the many Windy City politicians who have been waiting for Davis to call it a career in one of the most Democratic House seats in the nation.
City Treasurer Melissa Conyears-Ervin, who unsuccessfully challenged the incumbent in 2024, also announced Thursday morning that she'd run again.
Conyears-Ervin drew unfavorable headlines during that last campaign thanks to a report from the city's Board of Ethics that determined there was "probable cause" that she committed ethics violations by firing two aides who had accused her of abusing her powers. The treasurer, who denied any wrongdoing, lost to Davis 52-21 in a race that featured three other candidates.
Two other local Democrats recently began running under the (ultimately correct) belief that Davis would retire: former Cook County Commissioner Richard Boykin, who is the congressman's former chief of staff, and Forest Park Mayor Rory Hoskins.
Businessman Jason Friedman, by contrast, said in April he was going to run no matter what the incumbent did, and used the intervening months to amass a war chest of more than $900,000. John McCombs, a Marine veteran who is also a standup comic, also entered the race in late June, but he raised little during the final days of the second quarter.
The field is likely to grow larger now that Davis has made his plans known. The Chicago Sun-Times reports that state Rep. Kam Buckner, former Chicago Alderman Walter Burnett, and labor leader Anthony Driver are all considering whether to run.
Davis, who is 83, is retiring after close to half a century in public office. Davis was elected to the Chicago City Council in 1979, a post he still held four years later when Harold Washington became the city's first Black mayor. Davis, who is also Black, was a Washington ally during the subsequent "Council Wars" that pitted most of the body's white members against Washington's supporters.
Davis hoped to ascend far higher in local politics, but his rise repeatedly stalled out over the following decade.
He unsuccessfully challenged Rep. Cardiss Collins for renomination in 1984 and 1986; ran an abortive 1989 campaign to finish Washington's term after the mayor died; and lost a 1990 race for Cook County treasurer. Davis did win a promotion later in 1990 to the county's Board of Commissioners, but his 1991 campaign for mayor ended with a lopsided loss to incumbent Richard Daley.
Davis finally got his chance to move up in 1996 when Collins retired from the 7th District. He won the competitive 10-way primary by defeating his nearest opponent, Alderman Dorothy Tillman, 33-20, ahead of what would be the first of many easy general elections.
Davis would enjoy a long career in the House, though it was hardly because he was content to remain there. The congressman tried several times to secure other offices from 2006 through 2011, including a third campaign for mayor—all without success.
Davis, though, remained largely safe in his seat in Congress despite generating unwelcome questions by praising Sun Myung Moon, who declared himself the messiah in a 2004 reception on Capitol Hill where Davis carried a crown that was placed on Moon's head, and Louis Farrakhan, notorious for his long record of antisemitism.
Things started to change in 2020 when Davis took just 60% of the vote in a four-way primary. He experienced a much bigger scare two years later when anti-gun violence activist Kina Collins, who this time was his only serious opponent, ran a well-funded effort arguing he'd missed too many votes to be effective.
Davis prevailed just 52-46 after winning a late endorsement from President Joe Biden. Davis secured that same 52% again last year, but Conyears-Ervin, Collins, and two minor challengers fractured the anti-incumbent vote, allowing Davis to avoid serious risk in what would be his final campaign.
MO-05
Longtime Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver has drawn a new primary challenger even as Donald Trump is pushing Republicans to dismantle his Kansas City congressional district.
Hartzell Gray, a political organizer and former radio host, questioned whether the 80-year-old incumbent was suited for the current political environment in comments to KCUR.
"This moment doesn't require us to get back to a status quo, this moment requires an unapologetic progressive," he said.
Another candidate, attorney and Air Force veteran Jordan Herrera, joined the race in February, but he finished June with less than $6,000 in the bank.
As for Cleaver, he informed Axios in May that he was undecided about seeking a 12th term, though now he says that's been his plan all along.
"I announced that I was going to run for reelection the night I won the last election," Cleaver told KCUR. "That was to make sure that any rumors otherwise could be nipped in the bud right there on election night last year."
Cleaver also recently indicated that he'd run again even if Missouri's GOP-dominated legislature heeds Trump's call to gerrymander the solidly blue 5th District.
"I'm a football player," he told Punchbowl. "When you tell me you're going to run over me, then I become a little more physical. I'm not going to just lay down."
NC-11
Farmer Jamie Ager has launched a bid for North Carolina's conservative 11th Congressional District, making him the second notable Democrat seeking to challenge Republican Rep. Chuck Edwards.
"I've worked with my hands, I've been on a farm, I've done these things," Ager told the Smoky Mountain News. "I've seen the challenges of being a working person trying to make it work. That's different than a lot of people."
Ager's cattle and hog farm has been in his family for four generations, but he's also a member of a politically well-connected Democratic clan. As the Asheville Citizen Times explains, his brother, Eric Ager, is a member of the state House, serving the district that his father, John Ager, held before him.
Most notably, Ager's grandfather, Jamie Clarke, represented the 11th District for three non-consecutive terms in the 1980s, winning and losing a string of five extremely close elections all decided by under 2 points. Then as now, the 11th occupied the western corner of the state, though in its current iteration, Republicans have gerrymandered it in their favor: Donald Trump carried it 54-45 last year, while Edwards won a second term 57-43.
Ager joins Air Force Veteran Moe Davis in the primary. Davis ran for a prior version of this district in 2020 but lost to Madison Cawthorn 55-42.
NE-02
Just five days after joining the Democratic primary for Nebraska's open 2nd Congressional District, ophthalmologist Mark Johnston abandoned his bid, telling the Nebraska Examiner he did not feel he could keep up with the rest of the field financially.
Democrats still have four notable candidates running to flip this swingy GOP-held seat, however. Businesswoman Denise Powell led the way in fundraising during the second quarter, bringing in more than $420,000—one of the stronger hauls among Democratic candidates running in Republican districts.
NJ-07
Former Department of Agriculture official Megan O'Rourke is interested in joining the busy Democratic primary to face Republican Rep. Tom Kean, the New Jersey Globe's David Wildstein reports.
Five notable Democrats are already competing for the right to take on Kean in New Jersey's 7th District, a competitive constituency based in the southwestern suburbs and exurbs of New York City. Calculations by The Downballot show that Donald Trump prevailed here by a tight 49.6 to 48.5 margin, four years after Joe Biden carried it 51-47.
NY-17
Is former Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney considering a comeback bid? According to the chair of the Westchester County Democratic Party, he isn't.
"He said, 'I would have called you if I was planning to run,'" Suzanne Berger told City & State's Austin Jefferson, following a report from Axios last month that the ex-congressman was eyeing a return.
But after Jefferson's story ran, a former Maloney aide who insisted on anonymity told Berger that the one-time chair of the DCCC was indeed looking at the race, saying (in the reporter's words) that "Berger may have misunderstood him when they spoke."
Maloney himself, however, did not return calls for comment. Jefferson concluded that Maloney's team may be offering up anonymous tidbits "to test the waters for a potential campaign, while still offering county Democratic leaders the impression that he is not currently planning to run."
He explains that, following his shock defeat in 2022, Maloney "drew criticism from some corners of the district for not taking the time to ingratiate himself in communities that he had never represented before." It's not clear, however, whether having an associate suggest that the Democratic leader of a key county may have failed at basic listening comprehension might result in successful ingratiation.
Attorneys General
GA-AG
Former House Minority Leader Bob Trammell on Wednesday became the first Georgia Democrat to announce a campaign for attorney general.
Trammell, who narrowly lost reelection in 2020 after Republicans spent over $1 million to beat him, is hoping to replace Republican incumbent Chris Carr, who is leaving to run for governor. The Republican side is currently a duel between a pair of state senators, Bill Cowsert and Brian Strickland.
KS-AG
Kansas Democrat Chris Mann announced this week that he would seek a rematch against Attorney General Kris Kobach, the far-right Republican who narrowly beat him in 2022. Mann, an attorney and former prosecutor, is the first notable Democrat to seek an office that his party last won in 2006.
Kobach, whose voter suppression crusade during his earlier stint as secretary of state made him a national GOP star—and national Democratic villain—revived his stalled political career three years ago by beating Mann 51-49.
While there was some speculation last year that Kobach could run to replace termed-out Gov. Laura Kelly, the Democrat who won her office in 2018 by defeating him, the attorney general's team said this week that he'd seek reelection.
Mayors & County Leaders
Miami, FL Mayor
Far-right agitator Laura Loomer has revived speculation that Republican Rep. Carlos Gimenez, whom she is anything but a fan of, could run for mayor of Miami this year—and he's not exactly denying it.
Loomer tweeted that Gimenez wants a career change because he's "reportedly pissed off" that he lost his bid to chair the House Homeland Security Committee to New York Rep. Andrew Garbarino. Gimenez responded, "Once again, Loomer doesn't have the faintest idea of what she's talking about," but he didn't address her claim about a potential job switch.
One local observer believes that, while Loomer is anything but a trustworthy source, she might have stumbled on something.
"[I]f The Simpsons is prophetic and a broken clock is right twice a day, then why can't Loomer be onto something?" Elaine de Valle writes in Political Cortadito. (The beloved animated show's uncanny penchant for predicting the future has earned the phenomenon its own Wikipedia page. Loomer's soothsaying has not.)
De Valle previously reported that Gimenez is indeed interested in seeking the mayor's office, though the congressman has yet to confirm as much.
The officially nonpartisan race to succeed Republican Mayor Francis Suarez, who is term-limited, remains set for Nov. 4 despite the City Commission's attempt to move it to next year.
A state appeals court on Thursday upheld a lower court decision saying that such a change cannot take place without voter approval. Suarez responded by saying the city is "exploring further appellate options."
Unless a higher court views things differently, the candidate filing deadline for this fall's election will remain Sept. 20.
Correction: In our item on Illinois' 2nd Congressional District, we incorrectly stated that former Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr.'s team would start collecting signatures to qualify for the ballot on Sunday, Aug. 3. He is holding an event on Sunday. By law, campaigns are permitted to start gathering signatures on Tuesday, Aug. 5.
In yesterday's Morning Digest, we incorrectly described Liam Elkind as a businessman. He is a nonprofit executive.
Just amazing that Ed Case has managed to survive this long in a solidly Democratic district. Best of luck to Keohokalole.
CA-45: Michelle Steel is not seeking a rematch with Derek Tran.
https://x.com/cameron_arcand/status/1951049820816416912