Morning Digest: Prosecutor ousted by DeSantis suddenly faces tougher path to a comeback

But just how independent is her independent opponent?

Florida Democrat Monique Worrell (left) is campaigning to regain her post as state attorney for the Orlando area (credit: Monique Worrell Facebook)

Leading Off

Orange and Osceola Counties, FL State Attorney

The race to serve as the top prosecutor in the Orlando area took another dramatic turn on Wednesday afternoon when Republican Seth Hyman announced that he was dropping out and endorsing State Attorney Andrew Bain, an independent whom GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed to his post.

The Republican Party of Florida said the following day that it would not nominate a replacement candidate, setting up a two-way race between Bain and the Democratic nominee, former State Attorney Monique Worrell. The development likely complicates Worrell's path now that Bain no longer has to worry about Hyman pulling votes from his right flank.

Worrell, who is trying to regain the office that DeSantis permanently suspended her from last year, responded to Hyman's departure by blasting him as a "ghost candidate" and tying Bain to his benefactor.

"Bain is DeSantis' handpicked puppet," she said in a statement, "and this November we are fighting to ensure that residents once again have a democratically elected State Attorney with the courage and independence needed to ensure we keep our communities safe."

Worrell was elected in 2020 without any Republican opposition to serve as state attorney for Florida's Ninth Judicial Circuit, which is made up of both Orange and Osceola counties. (The state's 67 counties are divided into 20 judicial circuits, most of which include more than one county.) However, while Joe Biden carried this jurisdiction by a wide 60-39 margin, DeSantis' ability to unilaterally suspend local officials meant that she was anything but secure in her new job.

The governor used that power last summer when he removed Worrell for ostensibly failing to seek serious penalties in violent crime cases and appointed Bain in her place. Worrell, who argued her prosecution rate was comparable to that of her predecessors, blasted the move as the actions of a "dictator" and a "smokescreen for Ron DeSantis' failing and disastrous presidential campaign."

Worrell, who was the only Black woman who was serving as a state attorney in Florida, immediately made it clear that she'd run again in 2024. Bain, for his part, initially filed to seek a full term as a Republican in April, but he switched course days and abandoned his party label.

The appointed incumbent insisted that he'd always planned to run as an independent, claiming his team had incorrectly listed him as a Republican on his candidacy papers before correcting the mistake soon after. (The Orlando Sentinel reported in June that local voting records show that Bain has never been a registered Republican.)

Worrell, however, wasn't the only challenger skeptical of Bain's claims to be an independent voice.

"I think Andrew Bain's core beliefs are whatever Gov. DeSantis tells them they should be," said Thomas Feiter, who sought the GOP nomination. Feiter, however, badly lost last month's primary to Hyman, who said this week he was backing Bain to stop Worrell from returning to office.

P.S. Worrell isn't the only Central Florida Democrat running to regain the prosecutor's office that DeSantis ousted them from. Her counterpart in Tampa's Hillsborough County, Andrew Warren, was removed by DeSantis in 2022 for, among other things, refusing to prosecute people who obtain or provide abortions. The Republican that the governor chose to replace Warren, Suzy Lopez, is seeking a full term in a county that Biden carried 53-46.

Senate

MD-Sen

EMILYs List is devoting more than $2 million to a TV ad campaign in what appears to be the first major outside spending to help Democrat Angela Alsobrooks since she won May's Democratic primary for Maryland's open U.S. Senate seat.

The commercial does not mention Alsobrooks but rather focuses on Republican Larry Hogan, saying he's opposed abortion rights his entire career.

"As governor, he vetoed legislation protecting abortion access, then withheld funding to train abortion providers," declares the narrator. "The Washington Post says it's an example of how 'an anti-abortion leader can thwart' access for women."

Hogan began running ads right after the primary claiming he'd "support legislation that makes Roe the law of the land in every state," and until now, he'd received little pushback on the airwaves.

The Washington Post reported Tuesday that, according to data from AdImpact, Hogan had booked around $8 million in TV time, compared to less than $1 million for Alsobrooks. The Democrat, however, finished the second quarter of 2024 with more cash on hand than Hogan, so that disparity will close as Election Day approaches.

MT-Sen, MT-01

A new AARP poll of Montana, the first high-quality survey of the state in quite some time, shows Republican Tim Sheehy with a sizable 49-41 lead over Democratic Sen. Jon Tester while Libertarian Sid Daoud takes 4%. This survey, which was jointly conducted by the Democratic pollster David Binder Research and the Republican firm Fabrizio Ward, also finds Donald Trump defeating Kamala Harris 56-41, which is similar to the results in 2020.

These new numbers were released shortly after the election analysis site Split Ticket debuted its Senate polling average, which showed Sheehy edging out Tester by just under a point. According to 538's polling database, Tester has led in just one publicly available poll since March. 

The AARP also gives us our first look at the race for the 1st District in the western part of the state, where Republican Rep. Ryan Zinke leads Democrat Monica Tranel 49-43 in their rematch. The release did not break down the presidential results between Montana's two House districts. Trump carried this district 52-45, while Zinke beat Tranel 49-46 in 2022.

Governors

NH-Gov

Sen. Maggie Hassan issued a late endorsement of former Manchester Mayor Joyce Craig on Thursday evening, just ahead of Tuesday's Democratic primary for New Hampshire's open governorship. Craig faces Executive Councilor Cinde Warmington in a race that has turned sharply negative in its final weeks.

VA-Gov, VA-LG

Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears announced her long-anticipated campaign on Thursday to succeed a fellow Republican, termed-out Gov. Glenn Youngkin, in next year's race to serve as governor of Virginia.

Earle-Sears joined the content almost a year after Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger kicked off her own bid to replace Youngkin, and either would be the first woman to lead the state. Earle-Sears, who immigrated from Jamaica as a child, would also be Virginia's second Black governor. The first was Democrat Douglas Wilder, whose historic 1989 victory made him the first African American elected governor of any state.

Earle-Sears, though, may need to wait a while longer to learn whether she'll first need to get through a competitive battle for the GOP nomination against Attorney General Jason Miyares, who also wants Youngkin's job. Miyares responded to the news of Earle-Sears' imminent launch earlier on Thursday with a statement declaring, "We all need to be focused on this November's elections before even thinking about next year."

A poll conducted in March by the GOP firm Cygnal showed Earle-Sears defeating Miyares in a 44-16 landslide, but the attorney general has reason to hope an actual primary might go better. While Earle-Sears has been an ardent Donald Trump ally, she made news after the GOP's disappointing performance in the 2022 midterms when she suggested it was time for him to step aside.

"What we saw was, even though he wasn’t on the ballot, he was, because he stepped in and endorsed candidates," she told the Washington Post. "And yet, it turns out that those he did not endorse on the same ticket did better than the ones he did endorse. That gives you a clue that the voters want to move on. And a true leader knows when they have become a liability to the mission."

Earle-Sears has since rallied behind Trump, but Miyares or another intraparty opponent would almost certainly remind voters about her comments.

Earle-Sears' decision to seek higher office also means that there will be an open-seat battle to succeed her as lieutenant governor, an important post that's charged with breaking ties in the state Senate. While Democrats currently hold a small 21-19 majority, vacancies and special elections could change the math before the Senate next holds elections in 2027.

While prospective GOP candidates for the number-two job had been waiting on Earle-Sears to announce her decisions before making their own plans, the Democratic contest has been underway for months. The field consists of state Sens. Ghazala Hashmi and Aaron Rouse, Prince William County School Board chairman Babur Lateef, and Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney.

Until a few years ago, almost no one would have guessed that Earle-Sears, a Marine veteran, might be the party's standard-bearer in 2025. After she became the first Black Republican woman to serve in the state House when she unseated longtime Democratic Del. William Robinson in 2001, she said that her daughter's health precluded her from seeking a second term. She later launched a longshot bid against Democratic Rep. Bobby Scott in the safely blue 3rd Congressional District in 2004, losing 69-31.

The former delegate, who went on to serve as an appointee on the state Board of Education, briefly returned to electoral politics more than a decade later in 2018 when she urged Virginians to write in her name for U.S. Senate rather than vote for Republican nominee Corey Stewart, whom she argued was a "charlatan" with ties to white supremacists. Fewer than 0.2% of voters wrote down anyone's name, though, in a race that saw Democratic incumbent Tim Kaine easily beat Stewart.

But Earle-Sears, who went on to chair the pro-Trump Black Americans to Re-elect the President in 2020, reemerged in full force in 2021 when she campaigned for lieutenant governor. Earle-Sears won the party's nomination after she attracted attention with advertising showing her holding an assault rifle while wearing a skirt and blouse, and she made the weapon a signature part of her political brand. 

Democrats hoped that her support for Texas' six-week abortion ban, as well as her refusal to say whether she'd received the COVID vaccine, would drag her down in a state that Joe Biden had decisively carried. The political climate was dramatically different in 2021 than it was just a year earlier, however, helping Earle-Sears defeat Democrat Hala Ayala 51-49 as Youngkin and Miyares were winning their own close races.

P.S. While Virginia still technically allows parties to select their nominees through a convention or a party-run "firehouse primary," both Democrats and Republicans will almost certainly use a traditional state-run primary. A 2021 state law requires all absentee voters to have the chance to take part in nomination contests, prompting Republicans to select all of their congressional candidates this year through a regular primary. (Democrats have favored primaries for many years.)

House

AK-AL

A new poll for Republican Nick Begich and the NRCC conducted by Cygnal shows Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola with a tiny 46-45 edge in the contest for Alaska's at-large House seat as Donald Trump matches his 53-43 margin from 2020. The memo, which was first shared by the National Journal, did not mention the state's instant-runoff process. This is the first poll we've seen of this contest in the last six months.

KS-03

Democratic Rep. Sharice Davids earned an endorsement this week from the Kansas Farm Bureau, a powerful group that, according to the Kansas City Star's Jonathan Shorman, never backed Davids in any of her previous campaigns for the 3rd District. The Bureau supported GOP incumbent Kevin Yoder in his failed 2018 reelection bid against Davids, while it remained neutral in the congresswoman's subsequent two races.

While Davids' constituency is largely concentrated in the Kansas City suburbs, Shorman notes that GOP mapmakers added more rural areas to it in 2022 in an unsuccessful effort to defeat her by making her district redder. Still, the current incarnation of the 3rd District favored Joe Biden 51-47 in 2020, and healthcare executive Prasanth Reddy faced an uphill battle even before he pulled off an unexpectedly weak victory in last month's Republican primary.

MD-06

The Maryland-based firm Gonzales Research finds Republican Neil Parrott with a small 41-39 lead over Democrat April Delaney in the open 6th District, which has been in Democratic hands since the 2012 elections. Gonzales did not include presidential numbers for this seat, which backed Joe Biden 54-44 four years ago.

The only other poll we've seen here was an August Public Opinion Strategies internal for Parrott that also showed a 2-point race, though it found Delaney ahead 42-40. That release likewise did not include presidential data for this constituency, which stretches from exurban areas to the northwest of Washington, D.C., all the way to Maryland's western border.

OR-04

The National Republican Congressional Committee has launched its first TV ad targeting freshman Democratic Rep. Val Hoyle, whose 4th District along Oregon's southern coast is a longshot target for the GOP. The NRCC, though, is hoping that a corruption scandal involving a cannabis company run by former Hoyle donors will give Republicans an opening in a seat that Joe Biden carried 55-42 in 2020.

The ad features clips of local reporters talking about a dispensary chain called La Mota, whose owners are under federal investigation over tax liens and unpaid bills. Viewers hear various anchors reference a "federal investigation into Hoyle's alleged connections to a cannabis business" and how "[f]ederal investigations have subpoenaed Hoyle's grant to La Mota's nonprofit … while leading the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries."

As Shumway notes, however, the congresswoman has not been accused of any wrongdoing by authorities. Hoyle, who was the state's labor commissioner before she joined Congress, has defended her actions in recent media appearances and sought to distance herself from La Mota CEO Rosa Cazares.

Hoyle acknowledged to KVAL-TV last month that she'd advocated for her department to award a $554,000 grant to a nonprofit co-founded by Cazares after an initial application was rejected, but she disputed suggestions that she'd done anything improper.

"I did not put my finger on the scale," Hoyle said in her interview with KVAL. "We wanted to avoid even the appearance of impropriety." She also informed Cazares in 2022 she'd write letters of recommendation for her, but Hoyle used her August media appearance to say she'd been "taken advantage of" and "lied to."

"As soon as I found out that they lied on the application, tried to defraud the government, I didn't want anything to do with her and called for them to be held accountable," Hoyle told KVAL.

Air Force veteran Monique DeSpain, who is Hoyle's Republican rival, has argued that a January subpoena of Hoyle's old office means that the Democrat herself is under federal investigation, a conclusion Hoyle sharply rejected.

"That is a bold-faced lie," Hoyle said. "I did not have an impact on the grant. I both haven't been contacted, no records of mine have been subpoenaed."

According to the Oregon Capitol Chronicle's Julia Shumway, the NRCC is spending $200,000 to air its new spot, though a report filed with the FEC shows the committee has laid out just $100,000 so far.

Hoyle also recently launched a negative ad of her own featuring a clip of DeSpain telling a reporter she was "very pleased with the U.S. Supreme Court's decision" to overturn Roe v. Wade. DeSpain insisted in response that she would oppose any efforts to interfere with Oregon's existing laws protecting abortion rights.

Ad Roundup

• FL-Sen: Debbie Mucarsel-Powell (D) - anti-Rick Scott (R-inc) (in English and Spanish)

• IN-Gov: Mike Braun (R) ($500,000 buy); Jennifer McCormick (D) (here and here)

• NC-Gov: Mark Robinson (R) - anti-Josh Stein (D)

• NH-Gov: Kelly Ayotte (R) - anti-Joyce Craig (D); Put New Hampshire First (DGA affiliate) - anti-Ayotte

• AZ-06: Kirsten Engel (D) - anti-Juan Ciscomani (R-inc); Ciscomani - anti-Engel

• CA-45: Michelle Steel (R-inc)

• IA-03: Lanon Baccam (D)

• KS-03: Sharice Davids (D-inc); Davids - anti-Prasanth Reddy (R)

• NH-01: Chris Pappas (D-inc)

• NV-03: Susie Lee (D-inc)

• NY-19: Marc Molinaro (R-inc) - anti-Josh Riley (D)

• PA-08: Matt Cartwright (D-inc)

• TX-15: Michelle Vallejo (D) (in Spanish)

• FL Ballot: Smart & Safe Florida - pro-marijuana amendment