Morning Digest: Florida Republicans prepare to re-gerrymander their map, too

They're offering shifting rationales, but their partisan goal is unmistakable

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (credit: Ron DeSantis Facebook)

Leading Off

FL Redistricting

Republicans in Florida's legislature have taken their first steps toward redrawing the state's congressional map, following recent comments from Gov. Ron DeSantis advocating such a move.

The GOP currently holds 20 seats in the Sunshine State's House delegation, compared to just eight for Democrats. New districts, however, could give Republicans an additional two to three seats, or perhaps more.

That could happen soon. In a press release issued Thursday, state House Speaker Daniel Perez said that he would create a new committee to study the possibility of mid-decade redistricting.

Perez argued that a recent redistricting ruling by the Florida Supreme Court "raises important and distinct questions about the applicability and interpretation of certain provisions of the so-called 'Fair Districts' provisions of the Florida Constitution and their intersection with Federal law."

In that ruling, the conservative-dominated court determined that Republicans were permitted to dismantle the predominantly Black 5th District because it was an impermissible racial gerrymander. Challengers had argued that the district was protected under the Fair Districts amendments, but the court said the federal constitution's Equal Protection Clause overrode those amendments.

According to Perez, the court's decision also implicates other districts. Though he didn't specify which, he was likely referring to other majority-minority districts such as the heavily Latino 9th District in Orlando and the plurality-Black 24th District in Miami, which also has a large Latino population.

There's good reason not to take Perez's justification at face value, however, particularly because DeSantis has offered an entirely different rationale for wanting to revisit the state's map.

In remarks late last month, DeSantis claimed that Florida's districts were "malapportioned" because of "the way the population has shifted around Florida just since the census was done in 2020." However, redistricting can only be carried out on the basis of decennial census data and not on mid-decade estimates produced by the Census Bureau.

Perhaps to address this problem, Donald Trump said on Thursday that he'd directed the Department of Commerce "to immediately begin work on a new and highly accurate CENSUS based on modern day facts and figures" that would also, in violation of the Constitution, not count unauthorized immigrants.

Such a plan would face an almost absurd number of problems, both legal and logistical, as MSNBC's Steve Benen explains. In addition, it's not clear whether Trump imagines the federal government might conduct a new census in the middle of the decade—something that Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene recently began agitating for—or whether he's hoping to shape how the next census in 2030 will be carried out.

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The inside scoop on Texas Dems' walkout

Governors

GA-Gov

Attorney General Chris Carr filed a lawsuit in federal court on Thursday over a Georgia law that gives Lt. Gov. Burt Jones a huge advantage in fundraising ahead of next year's Republican primary for governor. We explained the law—and why it rests on fragile legal ground—in depth in a previous edition of the Morning Digest.

Morning Digest: A Georgia Republican says he alone can raise unlimited sums. His rivals have other ideas

OH-Gov

Democrat Amy Acton has released an internal poll showing her with a tiny 47-46 deficit against Republican Vivek Ramaswamy in next year's race for Ohio's open governorship.

This survey, conducted by Impact Research, is the first poll we've seen of this matchup since April, when Ramaswamy posted a 50-45 advantage in a YouGov poll for Bowling Green State University.

Acton, who served as the state's health director during the early months of the COVID pandemic, publicized her poll a week after new campaign finance reports showed just how far ahead Ramaswamy is in the money race.

The Republican, who has Donald Trump's endorsement, finished June with $7.4 million in the bank, to just over $800,000 for Acton. A pro-Ramaswamy super PAC has also collected millions more, and it has no counterpart on the Democratic side.

Neither Acton nor Ramaswamy currently has any serious intraparty opposition in the race to succeed Republican Gov. Mike DeWine, who is termed out, though neither has cleared their respective fields just yet.

Former Rep. Tim Ryan has expressed interest in seeking the Democratic nod, and he's promised a decision sometime this summer. Former Sen. Sherrod Brown has also said he's eyeing the race, though he now appears more interested in trying to return to the Senate.

On the GOP side, Lt. Gov. Jim Tressel has talked about running even though polls show him badly losing to Ramaswamy.

VA-Gov

Democrat Abigail Spanberger's first negative TV ad deploys footage of Republican Winsome Earle-Sears' instantly infamous CNN appearance last week in which she awkwardly refused to say if she supported Donald Trump's draconian cuts to the federal workforce.

"Do you support the president’s purge of the federal workforce, yes or no?" reporter Manu Raju asks in Spanberger's spot. Earle-Sears responds, "Oh, OK. If this is the way you want to go, then go ahead. I’m just not going to participate, because I want to talk about real issues."

Spanberger's narrator interjects, "Really? Not a real issue that thousands of Virginians are losing their jobs?"

Spanberger, who has far outraised Earle-Sears throughout the campaign, is using her giant war chest to decisively outspend her rival on the airwaves. AdImpact reports that Spanberger and her allies have spent or reserved $3.4 million in air time for the general election, compared to just under $540,000 for Earle-Sears' side.

House

AL-01

State Rep. Rhett Marques tells the Alabama Daily News he'll consider seeking the dark red 1st District if Rep. Barry Moore, a fellow Republican, leaves to run for the Senate. That's a likely scenario, as Moore scheduled an announcement for Aug. 15 at a location well outside his southern Alabama constituency.

IL-07

State Rep. Kam Buckner announced this week that he'd seek reelection to the legislature rather than enter the busy primary to succeed retiring Rep. Danny Davis, a fellow Democrat.

MI-10

Former prosecutor Christina Hines has received the endorsement of EMILYs List ahead of next year's Democratic primary in Michigan's 10th District, which Republican Rep. John James is leaving behind to run for governor.

Hines, who unsuccessfully ran for Macomb County prosecuting attorney last year, is the only woman in the four-person contest for the Democratic nod.

Republicans, meanwhile, finally landed their first candidate when prosecutor Robert Lulgjuraj released a launch video on Thursday afternoon, but his kickoff appeared to garner zero media attention (outside of this newsletter, at least).

NJ-07

Former Department of Agriculture official Megan O'Rourke has entered what was already an exceptionally crowded Democratic primary to face Republican Rep. Tom Kean.

"My entire career, I’ve fought to help put nutritious, affordable food on the table and to combat climate change for families in New Jersey," O'Rourke, who worked on climate change issues during the Biden administration, said in a statement. She added that "the Trump Administration is working to undermine and devastate those efforts on a daily basis."

O'Rourke is the seventh notable Democrat to announce a bid to flip New Jersey's 7th District. The field already included Navy veteran Rebecca Bennett, attorney Vale Mendoza, businessman Michael Roth, physician Tina Shah, businessman Brian Varela, and former Summit Councilman Greg Vartan.

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.

TX Redistricting

Texas Republicans escalated their efforts to crack down on a walkout by Democrats in the state House on Thursday when Sen. John Cornyn issued a statement saying that FBI Director Kash Patel had "approved my request for the FBI to assist state and local law enforcement in locating runaway Texas House Democrats."

Multiple branches of the bureau, however, as well as the Department of Justice, declined to comment to NBC News about Cornyn's claim. More importantly, Democrats face no criminal charges that could subject them to the authority of federal law enforcement agents, and Texas law enforcement officials have no power over them outside the state.

In addition, the quorum-busting lawmakers have not hidden from view. Since leaving Texas on Sunday, they've held multiple press events in several other states. It's not clear why Cornyn thinks Texas officials require federal help to interpret YouTube livestreams featuring Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and a backdrop festooned with the URL "jbpritzker.com" to understand that at least some Democrats might be in Illinois.

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Attorneys General

VA-AG

Democrat Jay Jones' first TV ad of the general election features a trio of law enforcement officials praising him as an ally who will "put violent criminals and drug traffickers" in prison.

The spot, which the Hill says is part of a six-figure opening buy, comes two weeks after Republican Attorney General Jason Miyares launched ads portraying Jones as weak on crime.

Prosecutors & Sheriffs

Hennepin County, MN Attorney

Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty announced Thursday that she would not seek a second term as the top prosecutor for Minnesota's largest county, which means this high-profile post will be open for the second consecutive election cycle.

Moriarty campaigned as a criminal justice reformer in the 2022 race to succeed longtime incumbent Mike Freeman, a fellow Democrat who opted to retire after serving a combined 24 years across two nonconsecutive stints. (Democrat Amy Klobuchar, who was both Freeman's successor and predecessor, held this office in 2006 when she was elected to the U.S. Senate.)

In that previous race, Moriarty turned in a 58-42 win against Martha Holton Dimick, a former judge who was backed by the police unions, and the Minnesota Reformer's Max Nesterak writes that she "largely delivered" on her pledge to focus on rehabilitating offenders rather than putting them in prison.

Moriarty's influence had its limits, though: Democratic Gov. Tim Walz reassigned a murder case in 2023 to Attorney General Keith Ellison after Moriarty offered a plea deal that would have sent the two teenage defendants to juvenile detention.

Moriarty told the Minnesota Star Tribune's Jeff Day that her decision had nothing to do with critics' complaints—she called herself "one of the most stubborn people on the face of the earth"—and she predicted that she'd be replaced by someone who shares her values.

Last time, Moriarty was one of seven candidates who ran in the officially nonpartisan primary to replace Freeman, and the contest to succeed her could be just as busy. All candidates will face off on a single ballot next August, with the top two vote-getters advancing to a fall general election. The next attorney for Hennepin County, a solidly blue community that includes Minneapolis, is likely to be a Democrat.

State Rep. Cedrick Frazier, who co-chaired Moriarty's transition team, expressed interest in running on Thursday and promised a decision in the "coming days."

Attorney Matt Pelikan, who lost to Ellison in the busy 2018 primary for attorney general, also tells Day he's considering. Former acting U.S. Attorney W. Anders Folk and Hao Quang Nguyen, who leads the trials and appellate divisions in the attorney's office for neighboring Ramsey County, also expressed interest.

Former state House Majority Leader Ryan Winkler, who ran last time, told Day he was open to another try but hadn't made up his mind. Winkler took a close third in the 2022 primary, but Dimick narrowly edged him out.

Day, though, got no response when he contacted two people he described as "rumored candidates." Those people are Saraswati Singh, a Ramsey County prosecutor who took sixth place in the previous contest, and former state Senate Minority Leader Melisa Lopez Franzen, who waged a brief campaign for U.S. Senate this year but dropped out in May.

Dimick, however, said she won't be running again.