Morning Digest: Flesh-eating parasite attacks district where GOP governor has stalled on calling special election

"If this isn’t cause for calling a special election, I don’t know what is," says Democratic candidate

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott with Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins. (Credit: Greg Abbott Facebook)

Leading Off

TX-23, FL-20

Republican governors in two red states with congressional seats that have been vacant for almost two months still have not called special elections, even as a grave new agricultural threat just surfaced in one of them.

That threat is the New World screwworm, a fly whose eggs, laid in the wounds of warm-blooded animals, transform into flesh-eating larvae that can kill their hosts. The fly poses a particular risk to livestock, though it can also harm wildlife, pets, and even humans.

Thanks to aggressive eradication efforts, the screwworm, which is endemic in South America and the Caribbean, has largely been kept out of the United States. But that changed this month, when the USDA announced that an infestation had been found in a calf in Zavala County, Texas.

It so happens that Zavala County is located in the southwestern corner of Texas’ 23rd Congressional District, which has been without representation since mid-April, when Republican Rep. Tony Gonzales resigned after the House Ethics Committee said it would investigate a relationship he had with a former staffer.

That, the Texas Tribune reports, has left frustrated ranchers without a voice on Capitol Hill who can advocate for them within the federal government. Both candidates running in the November general election, Republican Brandon Herrera and Democrat Katy Padilla Stout, say they’ve sought to help ranchers, but, lacking any formal authority, their abilities are limited.

However, Herrera, a far-right “gunfluencer” who had been challenging Gonzales before he quit, has avoided calling on Gov. Greg Abbott to schedule a special election. Padilla Stout, by contrast, has said the new crisis demands one.

“We have an emergency that is specifically in the district,” she told the Tribune. “If this isn’t cause for calling a special election, I don’t know what is.”

Under Texas law, Abbott has no fixed timetable for calling an election, though the Constitution instructs that governors “shall issue Writs of Election to fill such Vacancies” when they arise.

Abbott’s refusal to act could therefore spur a legal challenge, but for unclear reasons, it hasn’t—at least not yet. If no special election is held, that could leave constituents unrepresented until Congress reconvenes in January, a gap of 264 days.

A similar situation is playing out in South Florida, albeit without the menace of flesh-eating parasites.

There, the majority-Black 20th District has been vacant since late April, when Democratic Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick stepped down amid an escalating ethics investigation and a pending criminal trial on corruption charges.

Like Abbott, Gov. Ron DeSantis has wide leeway over when to call a special election, and like Abbott, he still hasn’t done so—something he’s frequently done in the past, including in this very district.

Following Democratic Rep. Alcee Hastings’ death in 2021, DeSantis dragged his feet for a month before finally scheduling an election, and he only did so after a candidate filed a lawsuit seeking that he be ordered to do so.

Yet even when DeSantis did take action, he set a timetable that resulted in the district remaining vacant for at least 280 days—around twice as long as the wait in previous specials.

It wasn’t hard to imagine why DeSantis might have behaved as he did. The safely blue 20th District was certain to elect another Democrat to succeed Hastings, so leaving it unfilled as long as possible prevented the party from replenishing its caucus.

But when it’s suited him, DeSantis has moved quickly. In one case in 2022, for instance, DeSantis waited just 13 days to set an election for a deep-red district in the state House—a seat Republicans had little chance of losing.

In Texas, though, that’s a real worry for the GOP, even though it shouldn’t be.

Republicans originally drew the heavily Latino 23rd as a solidly red district and left it that way when they further gerrymandered the state’s congressional boundaries last year. Under the new map, the district would have voted for Donald Trump by a 57-42 margin—exactly as it had under the old lines.

But boomeranging attitudes toward Republicans among many Latino voters have changed the calculus. Combined with Herrera’s extensive history of extremism and bigotry, Democrats believe Padilla Stout has a real shot at an upset in the fall.

And in a lower-turnout special election—the sort Democrats have dominated during Trump’s second term—her chances could be even better. If Abbott never calls one, though, Democrats will never find out.

Nancy Mace's spectacular crashout

Senate

GA-Sen

Donald Trump endorsed Rep. Mike Collins in the wee hours on Sunday, a move that came just two days before the Republican primary runoff to face Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff.

Trump, writing on Truth Social at 12:56 AM ET, both praised “‘MAGA’ Mike Collins” and took the time to bash Derek Dooley, a former University of Tennessee football coach backed by Gov. Brian Kemp.

“I don’t know Derek Dooley, and neither does anyone else, but he seems like a nice person,” Trump said of Collins’ opponent, the son of the son of late University of Georgia coach Vince Dooley. “Unfortunately, he has lived outside of Georgia for most of his life, didn’t vote in 2020 or 2016, and said that I lost Georgia in 2020 when, in actuality, the facts have now proven that I won by a lot!”

Dooley, who both failed to vote during Trump’s first two campaigns and acknowledged to supporters in February that “the president lost Georgia,” was already the underdog even before MAGA’s master gave him this last-second piece of bad news.

Collins, an election conspiracy theorist who ran ads during his 2022 House campaign claiming, “[Y]ou count the legal votes that were cast in the state of Georgia, Donald Trump won this state,” led Dooley 41-30 in the first round of the primary on May 19.

And while the congressman’s campaign was thrown into crisis days later after he parted ways with his longtime strategist over a tweet mocking rape allegations against former NBC News host Matt Lauer by the wife of a pro-Dooley operative, the story doesn’t seem to have changed the trajectory of the race.

A JMC Analytics poll showed Collins ahead 55-39 after days of bad press at the end of May, and no other surveys have been released in the ensuing weeks.

Governors

FL-Gov

Democratic state Rep. Dotie Joseph entered the race for Florida’s open governorship just ahead of Friday’s candidate filing deadline, saying she was moved to run by Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings’ recent decision to drop out of the race following a prostate cancer diagnosis.

Demings’ departure had left former Rep. David Jolly as the only notable Democrat running, but Joseph said she wanted to give voters a choice. According to the Miami Herald, she said that “while she respects Jolly’s turnaround from Republican to Democrat, ‘his record speaks for itself.’”

The winner of the Democratic nomination will likely face Republican Rep. Byron Donalds, who has Donald Trump’s endorsement, in the general election.

GA-Gov

Lt. Gov. Burt Jones received an endorsement Sunday from Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, the term-limited incumbent Jones is campaigning to replace, just ahead of Tuesday’s Republican primary runoff. Jones, whom Donald Trump backed last year, faces billionaire Rick Jackson, who has been airing ads linking himself to Kemp.

The winner will take on former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, who secured the Democratic nomination last month.

House

CA-04, CA-14, CA-43

The Associated Press on Friday evening called the second general election spot in three House races in California.

Longtime Rep. Mike Thompson learned that evening that he’ll face a competitive battle in the 4th District against venture capitalist Eric Jones, a fellow Democrat who had been in third place in the week-and-a-half since the June 2 top-two primary but pulled into second as more ballots were counted.

With almost all of the vote in, Thompson is in front with 41%, while Jones narrowly outpaced Republican Ray Riehle 22-21. Jones and his allies spent millions during the first round arguing that the 14-term incumbent is no longer the right person to represent this reliably blue constituency, which includes part of California’s wine country and other communities like the college town of Davis. They now have almost five more months to make their case.

The vacant 14th District in the East Bay will also host an all-Democratic general election. State Sen. Aisha Wahab took a strong first with 38%, while BART board president Melissa Hernandez defeated Republican Wendy Huang 17-13 for the second slot in the fall.

Wahab and Hernandez, though, will face off again much sooner. The two Democrats, as well as Huang and eight other candidates, are competing on Tuesday in the special election to replace Democrat Eric Swalwell, who resigned in disgrace in April. A runoff would take place on Aug. 18 if no one wins a majority of the vote, so voters in the 14th could end up filling out ballots in four separate elections this year.

Finally, Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters will have nothing to worry about now that she’ll face a Republican rather than another Democrat in the 43rd District, a constituency in and around South Los Angeles that favored Kamala Harris 73-24.

Waters is far ahead with 64%, while Republican Cristian Morales beat out Democrat Myla Rahman 17-15 for second. Rahman argued she’d be a “more energetic, younger, more relatable” representative than the 87-year-old Waters, but she raised little money to advance her case against the 18-term incumbent.

FL-07

Democrat Alan Grayson, a former congressman who long ago morphed into a perennial candidate, jumped into the race for Florida’s 7th District right before the filing deadline.

Several Democrats were already running to take on scandal-plagued GOP Rep. Cory Mills, though the DCCC recently endorsed former NASA chief of staff Bale Dalton, the fundraising leader.

FL-11

Lake County Commissioner Anthony Sabatini gave up his bid for Florida’s open 11th Congressional District and endorsed former County Property Appraiser Carey Baker in the GOP primary on Friday. Baker, who lost reelection in 2024, had filed to run just days earlier, after Sabatini had been in the race for more than a month.

Sabatini had unsuccessfully challenged the state’s longstanding resign-to-run law, which would have required him to give up his post to seek the seat held by retiring GOP Rep. Daniel Webster. Sabatini refused to quit his current job, though, saying on social media that “[i]t would be irresponsible to do so because there’s too much on the line for Lake County.”

FL-22

Palm Beach County Mayor Sara Baxter abandoned her three-day-old bid for Florida’s open 22nd District, just hours after Donald Trump posted on Truth Social Thursday evening that he “would rather have her stay on the Palm Beach County Commission (where so many important things are happening!), than run for Congress.”

Trump called Baxter a “fantastic person, and highly qualified” but said that “on a somewhat selfish basis,” he wanted her to seek reelection—another request she complied with.

Trump didn’t specify any reasons for his affection for Baxter, but last month, she cast the deciding vote to give his family business control over the name “Donald J. Trump International Airport.” That’s how Palm Beach International Airport will soon be known following a vote by the Florida legislature to rename it earlier this year.

Several other Republicans are still running for the open 22nd District, which the GOP’s new gerrymander made much redder, though Trump didn’t express a particular preference for any alternatives. The most prominent Democrat running is businesswoman Pia Dandiya, who has already raised more than $1 million.

MD-05

Former Capital Police officer Harry Dunn is airing a new ad attacking Del. Adrian Boafo over the support he’s received from the crypto industry in the Democratic primary for Maryland’s open 5th Congressional District.

The spot’s narrator begins by charging that “crypto billionaires are spending millions to buy Maryland’s election.” It then reads aloud recent comments by Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen, who recently held a press conference criticizing the torrent of money that’s flooded into the race on behalf of Boafo.

“They are spending because they believe the beneficiary of their spending—in this case, one candidate, Adrian Boafo—will be a dependable vote in support of their special interests,” he said. Van Hollen has not endorsed anyone in the contest.

To date, Boafa has been the beneficiary of more than $8 million in outside spending, with a pro-crypto super PAC called Protect Progress shelling out nearly $5 million and AIPAC’s political arm deploying close to $3 million.

The rest of the large field of hopefuls vying to succeed retiring Rep. Steny Hoyer has received just $135,000 in third-party aid, all of which has gone toward former Prince George’s County Executive Rushern Baker.

MI-13

State Rep. Donavan McKinney on Friday earned endorsements from the Michigan AFL-CIO and the state’s branch of the United Auto Workers in his bid to unseat Rep. Shri Thanedar in the August Democratic primary for the safely blue 13th District.

NJ-09

A week and a half after New Jersey’s primaries, the Associated Press finally called the Republican primary in the 9th District for Clifton City Councilwoman Rosie Pino, who will take on Democratic Rep. Nellie Pou in November.

Pino defeated attorney Tiffany Buress, the wife of former New York Giants wide receiver Plaxico Burress, by a narrow 51-49 margin.

Following Pou’s unexpectedly close 51-46 win in 2024, Republicans had hoped that this district, which is home to many Latino voters, would present a ripe opportunity for them in the midterms.

But many of those same voters have already swung back toward Democrats. Donald Trump unexpectedly carried the 9th by a 49-48 margin two years ago, a huge turnaround from Joe Biden’s 59-40 edge in 2020. However, in last year’s election for governor, the district returned to form as Democrat Mikie Sherrill also posted a 59-40 win, according to calculations from the New Jersey Globe.

NY-17

A mystery group with apparent links to Republicans is spending $1.5 million to air ads seeking to tie former National Security Council official Cait Conley to ICE ahead of the June 23 Democratic primary in New York’s competitive 17th District.

The new negative spots, from an outfit called Progressive Champions PAC, highlight consulting work Conley did for an AI firm that has touted its involvement with the data surveillance giant Palantir and the Department of Homeland Security.

“True activists fought ICE’s atrocities,” a voiceover intones, “but Conley kept collecting. That’s not progressive—that’s profiteering.”

Conley, the frontrunner for the Democratic nod to take on GOP Rep. Mike Lawler, called the charges “false” in a statement. She slammed the ad’s sponsor as a “MAGA Dark-Money Super PAC” but also pointed a finger at her top rival, Rockland County Legislator Beth Davidson.

Davidson, she charged, “has actually called on these outside groups for support in a desperate attempt to save her flailing campaign, directing them with a redbox message they are now mirroring exactly.”

“Red boxes” are dedicated sections on a campaign’s website that are designed to circumvent laws forbidding candidates from coordinating with outside groups. Davidson’s redbox calls on her supporters to air TV ads with a message very similar to that used in the PAC’s new ad, but she disavowed the new campaign.

“Hearing that a dark money group formed by Republicans is trying to create chaos in our Democratic primary here in #NY17,” she wrote on X. “I want to be clear the GOP has no place here. Stay out.”

Conley also sought to tie the effort to other recent attempts by Republicans to meddle in Democratic primaries, most of which have been unsuccessful. Punchbowl’s Ally Mutnick noted that Progressive Champions uses the same Alabama bank as an outfit called Real Change PAC, which sought to interfere in recent Democratic races in New Jersey and Maine.