Morning Digest: Mandela Barnes drops bid for governor just ahead of Wisconsin's volatile Democratic primary
Four major candidates have now quit the race, including one who got back in
Leading Off
WI-Gov
Former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes announced Thursday he was dropping out of the turbulent Democratic primary for Wisconsin’s open governorship, a move that comes less than two weeks before the Aug. 11 contest.
Barnes, who fell just short of unseating Republican Sen. Ron Johnson in 2022, said in a video that it has “become very clear who our nominee is gonna be.” While Barnes did not mention anyone by name, recent polls have shown state Rep. Francesca Hong, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, with a huge lead over the rest of the field.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, though, reported that the former lieutenant governor’s departure came as the paper was investigating previously unreported “allegations that Barnes was taking advantage of his role in the party to have sexual encounters with young adult women.”
The paper said that the state Democratic Party hired a law firm last year to look into “similar claims,” but the investigation “found nothing actionable” because the allegations were “anonymous and unspecific.”
Barnes’ team told Politico Thursday “there are no allegations of misconduct or wrongdoing against Mandela.”
The development is a mirror image of how Barnes’ last campaign unfolded. Just before the Democratic primary for Senate in 2022, all of Barnes’ major rivals dropped out in the face of his daunting advantage in the polls, allowing him to win the nomination in a walk. He then lost to Johnson by a slender 50-49 margin.
Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, who has the support of retiring Gov. Tony Evers, is now Hong’s main intraparty opponent. Crowley, however, has struggled to convince Democrats that he’s the best choice to take on Rep. Tom Tiffany, the likely Republican nominee.
Recent polls from State Navigate and Marquette Law School showed Hong with more support than Crowley and Barnes combined. The two remaining contenders, former state Cabinet official Joel Brennan and state Sen. Kelda Roys, barely registered in either survey.
Crowley, who dropped out of the race early this month before reactivating his campaign 10 days later, is hoping that Barnes’ backers will take a new look at him. One subset of voters, however, can’t help him now even if they wanted to.
A judge on Wednesday rejected a lawsuit seeking to allow absentee voters to cast new ballots if their original choice dropped out of the race. In addition to Barnes, Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez and former state Cabinet member Missy Hughes remain on the ballot despite ending their campaigns.
Election officials had already received 112,000 mail ballots by the time that ruling was handed down.
David Nir here, publisher of The Downballot! We love scouring the news to bring you the most important stories on the most important elections every day, but it takes a lot of work—and a lot of resources. If you’re able to help sustain our operations by becoming a paid subscriber today, we’d be incredibly grateful.
Governors
TN-Gov
A new poll shows Sen. Marsha Blackburn with only a small lead ahead of Thursday’s Republican primary for Tennessee governor, a contest she’s dominated from the start.
The GOP firm OnMessage shows Blackburn outpacing Rep. John Rose just 35-31. State Rep. Monty Fritts, who has raised little money against his well-funded rivals, takes an unexpectedly strong third place with 26%, while the remaining 9% of respondents are undecided.
Pollster Wes Anderson told the Nashville Banner’s Sarah Grace Taylor that, while one of his partners works for Rose, the new poll was not conducted for his campaign. Anderson instead said that the survey was done for what Taylor characterized as an unidentified “corporate client.”
Blackburn’s team told Taylor in response that their own polling showed her doing considerably better, but it refused to share its numbers. In the past, though, the frontrunner was anything but reluctant to blast out prior internal polls showing her far ahead.
Obituaries
Harry Mitchell
Former Rep. Harry Mitchell, an Arizona Democrat who flipped a Republican-held seat in Arizona during the 2006 Democratic wave but lost reelection during the 2010 GOP landslide, died this week at the age of 86, his son announced Wednesday.
Mitchell was a popular figure who had previously served in the state Senate and, before that, as mayor of Tempe, where a 35-foot-tall abstract statue was erected in his honor. In 2006, he took on Republican Rep. J.D. Hayworth in what turned out to be one of the most competitive House races of the year.
He ultimately prevailed 50-46 in what was then numbered the 5th District, a win that helped his party retake the majority in the House after 12 years of Republican control.
Mitchell defended his new seat two years later by fending off Republican David Schweikert, a former Maricopa County treasurer, by a 53-44 margin, but that comfortable win didn’t deter the challenger from trying again in 2010.
Though it put his political career at great risk, Mitchell supported Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act, a decision Republicans were all too happy to attack him for. Schweikert, who predicted that “[t]he sheer fact that he voted for Obamacare will basically end his career,” unseated Mitchell 52-43—almost the inverse of their first bout—as the GOP was returning to the majority.
Mitchell never again sought elected office, while Schweikert would continue to serve in Congress despite several close calls at the ballot box. Schweikert, though, opted to wage a disastrous campaign for governor rather than seek a ninth term in what’s now numbered the 1st District, a swing seat Democrats are aiming to flip this fall.
Poll Pile
MI-Sen (D): Emerson College for WLNS and WOODTV:
Abdul El-Sayed: 54, Haley Stevens: 39.
SC-Sen (R): Emerson for Nexstar:
Ralph Norman: 22, Darline Graham (inc): 19, Russell Fry: 12, Mark Sanford: 11, Mark Lynch: 7, all others 2% or less, undecided: 25.
TX-Sen: Beacon Research and Shaw & Company Research for Fox News:
James Talarico (D): 51, Ken Paxton (R): 48.
CT-Gov (D): Change Research for Impact CT:
Ned Lamont (inc): 48, Josh Elliott: 27.
May: 58-20 Lamont.
MI-Gov (R): Emerson:
John James: 40, Perry Johnson: 32, Mike Cox: 9, Aric Nesbitt: 3.
Cox and Nesbitt each dropped out of the race but remain on the ballot.
TX-Gov: Beacon and Shaw:
Greg Abbott (R-inc): 50, Gina Hinojosa (D): 49.
WI-Gov: RMG Research for Napolitan News Service:
Francesca Hong (D): 44, Tom Tiffany (R): 43.
David Crowley (D): 46, Tiffany (R): 43.
CO-03: Keating Research for Dwayne Romero:
Jeff Hurd (R-inc): 46, Romero (D): 45.
FL-24 (D): National Victory Strategies:
Shevrin Jones: 35, Oliver Gilbert: 28, Kendrick Meek Jr.: 9, all others 2% or less.
TN-05 (R): Tusk Strategies for Invest in Tomorrow Coalition (anti-Andy Ogles):
Ogles (inc): 37, Charlie Hatcher: 33.
In our last Digest, we misidentified the 2008 Democratic Senate nominee in Idaho. He is Larry LaRocco, not LoRocco.
I find it funny that Fox buried the lede on Abbott only tracking a point ahead of Hinojosa in their article mentioning Talarico polling ahead of Paxton.
The Wisconsin governor's race is like a bad soap opera. I'd like a word with the scriptwriters.