Morning Digest: Republican quits Minnesota governor's race over GOP's treatment of his state
Chris Madel says he can't support his party's 'retribution on the citizens of our state'
Leading Off
MN-Gov
Attorney Chris Madel announced Monday that he was dropping out of the Republican primary for governor of Minnesota because he could no longer be a member of a party that’s called for “retribution on the citizens of our state.”
“United States citizens, particularly those of color, live in fear,” Madel said in a video posted two days after ICE agents killed Alex Pretti in Minneapolis. “United States citizens are carrying papers to prove their citizenship. That’s wrong.”
Madel, who was one of several Republicans campaigning to replace retiring Democratic Gov. Tim Walz, also expressed his pessimism about the GOP’s prospects of winning the governor’s office or flipping Minnesota’s open U.S. Senate seat.
“National Republicans have made it nearly impossible for a Republican to win a statewide election in Minnesota,” he said.
Madel rose to prominence over the last few years by representing Ryan Londregan, a Minnesota state trooper who was charged with fatally shooting a Black motorist named Ricky Cobb in 2023. The high-profile criminal case ended the next year when prosecutors dismissed the charges after concluding they couldn’t “prove that Mr. Londregan’s actions were not an authorized use of force by a peace officer.”
Madel launched his campaign last month against Walz, and he remained in the race after the governor stunned everyone early in 2026 by ending his campaign for a third term. Madel soon attracted attention again when he announced that he would do pro bono legal work for Jonathan Ross, the ICE agent who fatally shot Renee Good.
Madel, though, tells the Wall Street Journal he had already decided to end his campaign the night before Pretti’s death. He says that he was unhappy that a recent candidate debate ended without anyone mentioning ICE’s ongoing operations in Minnesota or Good’s death.
“They didn’t ask one question about immigration but they asked about abortion,” Madel explains of his frustration. “It’s like, what are your priorities here?”
Many other North Star State Republicans, though, remain hopeful about their party’s chances to replace Walz.
The biggest name in the Aug. 11 primary arguably belongs to MyPillow founder Mike Lindell, a notorious election conspiracy theorist whom Donald Trump said last month “deserves to be governor of Minnesota.”
The GOP field also features state House Speaker Lisa Demuth, businessmen Patrick Knight and Kendall Qualls, state Reps. Peggy Bennett and Kristin Robbins, and former state Sen. Scott Jensen, who was Walz’s 2022 opponent.
Democrats, meanwhile, are waiting on Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who has strongly signaled she intends to run. Klobuchar has repeatedly demanded that Trump withdraw ICE forces from Minnesota, and she said over the weekend that she would not vote for a bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security, which includes ICE.
Her stance, however, has been less muscular than that of some other Minnesota Democrats, including Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, who is running this year for the state’s other Senate seat.
“We need to completely overhaul this agency and start over,” Flanagan told the Wall Street Journal shortly before Pretti’s killing. Flanagan has also sharply criticized her chief rival for the Democratic nomination, Rep. Angie Craig, over ICE, which has emerged as a central point of contention in the race.
In the same piece in the Journal, the paper characterized Craig as “warn[ing] that Democrats risk going too far in their response and could alienate independent voters.”
“Most Minnesotans and most Americans want secure borders, and they want violent criminals off our streets,” she said, “but they don’t want to see families ripped apart.”
Craig voted against the DHS funding bill that Klobuchar now says she opposes, but the measure passed with the support of seven Democrats after House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries reportedly declined to formally whip his caucus against it.
Election Night
Special Elections
Minnesota will host two special elections on Tuesday, though only one is contested.
That battle, for the seat held by the new mayor of St. Paul, Kaohly Her, will be extremely one-sided, however. Her’s district, 64A, voted for Kamala Harris by an overwhelming 84-13 margin in 2024, making Democrat Meg Luger-Nikolai, a labor attorney, the heavy favorite over Republican Dan Walsh, who’s lost two prior bids for the same seat.
Not far to the east in District 47A, Democrat Shelley Buck, a nonprofit executive, is the only candidate listed on the ballot. She’s running to replace Amanda Hemmingsen-Jaeger, a fellow Democrat who won a special election for the state Senate in November.
Redistricting Roundup
MD Redistricting
Democrats in the Maryland House have introduced a new congressional map that would make the state’s lone Republican district much bluer, but a key legislative leader remains opposed to redrawing the lines.
Senate President Bill Ferguson’s hostility comes despite a call from Democratic Gov. Wes Moore urging him to allow the map to come up for a vote.
“I believe in democracy,” Moore said in comments to reporters last week. “I believe in letting the people’s voices be heard, and I know Senate President Ferguson does as well. I know President Ferguson doesn’t want to stand there and say, ‘No vote.’”
Ferguson, though, appears ready to say just that.
“I appreciate their thoughts and advice,” he responded. “The world is uncertain, the world is crazy, and we have a limited amount of time and energy and focus, and we have to put it where it matters most.” Those issues, he said, included a state budget shortfall, affordability, and “policies that truly and actually protect Marylanders against the Trump administration.”
Out of public view, though, Ferguson’s interactions with Moore have grown even frostier. According to the Baltimore Banner, Ferguson confronted Moore at a meeting last week, handing the governor a printout of donations by Moore staffers to Ferguson’s primary opponent, Bobby LaPin.
The encounter, which Moore confirmed when asked by reporters, “wasn’t hostile,” said unnamed sources who spoke with the Banner, but was intended to make Moore “aware of the donations if he wasn’t.”
The map that is moving through the House is reportedly based on a plan recommended last week by an advisory commission convened by Moore. The legislature, however, does not appear to have made data files describing its version available to the public yet.
The new plan also includes a proposed constitutional amendment that would go before voters in November. That amendment is not legally required to enact a new map, but it would temporarily enshrine the new districts into the constitution, potentially insulating them from legal review. A challenge would, however, still be possible before any new map is used.
4Q Fundraising
CO-08: Shannon Bird (D): $374,000 raised
NV-03: Susie Lee (D-inc): $800,000 raised, $2.3 million cash on hand
Senate
Alabama
Candidate filing closed Friday in Alabama for the state’s May 19 primary, and the Alabama Daily News has a list of contenders for federal and state offices. Primary runoffs are set for June 16 for any contests where no candidate wins a majority of the vote in the first round.
While Lt. Gov. Will Ainsworth hinted last month that he could make a late entry into the GOP primary for the state’s open U.S. Senate seat, neither Ainsworth nor any other big names ended up launching a last-second effort.
There were also no surprises in the race for governor, where GOP Sen. Tommy Tuberville looks poised for a rematch against former Democratic Sen. Doug Jones, or any of the state’s seven U.S. House seats.
There was some drama surrounding a familiar name, though, much further down the ballot.
Former U.S. Rep. Mo Brooks, who waged a disastrous 2022 bid for the upper chamber, announced on the final day of filing that he would challenge GOP state Rep. Jamie Lomax for renomination. A defiant Lomax responded by highlighting Brooks’ public falling out with Donald Trump four years ago and labeling his new opponent an “anti-Trump blogger.”
Governors
MI-Gov
Wealthy businessman Perry Johnson announced Monday that he would enter the Republican primary for governor of Michigan, a contest he failed to qualify for in 2022 after he fell victim to a fraudulent petition signature scandal.
Johnson, though, is hoping his personal resources will help him gain traction in a busy Aug. 4 nomination race where his many rivals each have a monthslong head start. The newcomer tells the Detroit News’ Nolan Finley that he’ll spend $9 million of his own money during the first 60 days of his campaign, including on ads that will run during the Super Bowl.
Johnson’s opening spot features a narrator touting him as the “world leader in quality and perfection” who will “revolutionize our government.” This message isn’t exactly revolutionary itself, though: BridgeDetroit’s Malachi Barrett notes that Johnson “has used almost literally the same ad” during his first gubernatorial campaign and subsequent presidential run.
Both those efforts ended before primary voters could render their verdict on his message. Johnson’s 2022 campaign to face Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer fell apart after election officials determined that he was one of five Republican candidates who had failed to turn in enough valid signatures to get on the ballot.
Johnson quickly turned his attention toward seeking a far bigger prize, and he announced in early 2023 that he was running for president. His new effort, though, also came to an unceremonious end after he failed to secure enough support in the polls to get a spot on the debate stage.
Johnson, though, believes he’ll have the chance to be the GOP’s nominee to replace Whitmer, who cannot seek a third term.
The frontrunner in this busy primary is Rep. John James, who has led in the polls and has extensive financial support from the powerful DeVos family. The 44-year-old James is more than three decades younger than the 78-year-old Johnson, but Johnson’s team argues the contrast will still work in the businessman’s favor.
“He’s got more energy than anyone I know and certainly more than John James,” consultant John Yob tells Finley of his candidate.
The GOP field also features former Attorney General Mike Cox, former state House Speaker Tom Leonard, state Senate Minority Leader Aric Nesbitt, and pastor Ralph Rebandt.
On the Democratic side, Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson is the favorite against Genesee County Sheriff Chris Swanson.
NH-Gov
Physician Julia Williams, who is the daughter of former Gov. John Lynch, tells the New Hampshire Union Leader that she’s interested in seeking the Democratic nomination for her father’s old post.
Williams, who works as an official at the Massachusetts-based health care system Mass General Brigham, says she’s “currently evaluating” whether to take on Republican Gov. Kelly Ayotte. No major Democrats have committed to running against Ayotte, who was decisively elected in 2024 even as Kamala Harris was carrying New Hampshire.
Ayotte has reason to be optimistic in her quest for a second-two year term as leader of the Granite State. (Neighboring Vermont is the only other state that elects its governors to two-year terms rather than four-year ones.) Since the 1920s, only one governor has been denied a second term: Republican Craig Benson, who narrowly lost in 2004.
Lynch, though, was the challenger who pulled off this once-in-a-century feat. The Democrat proved to have far more staying power, and he won three more terms before deciding not to run again in 2012.
NM-Gov
Businessman Doug Turner, who fell far short in the 2010 Republican primary for governor of New Mexico, announced last week that he would wage a second campaign for the office.
Turner, the founder of a public relations firm, was one of five GOP candidates on the ballot 16 years ago hoping to succeed the state’s termed-out governor, Democrat Bill Richardson. That effort went poorly: Susana Martinez emerged as the frontrunner and defeated her nearest competitor 51-28, with Turner a distant third with 12%. Martinez went on to win the office that fall.
Turner, who does not appear to have sought office since then, is once again competing in a busy primary to replace a termed-out Democratic governor. The field of GOP hopefuls running to succeed Michelle Lujan Grisham features former state Public Regulation Commissioner Jim Ellison, Rio Rancho Mayor Gregg Hull, state Sen. Steve Lanier, and businessman Duke Rodriguez.
The Democratic primary on June 2 features two heavyweight candidates, Bernalillo County District Attorney Sam Bregman and former U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland. Former Las Cruces Mayor Ken Miyagishima is also running, but he had little money available when the most recent reporting period ended in October.
OR-Gov
Former NBA player Chris Dudley on Monday announced he was entering the Republican primary to take on Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek, a Democrat who now holds the office that Dudley almost won in 2010.
Dudley, a journeyman center who spent seven of his 16 seasons with the Portland Trailblazers, ran that year for a post that the GOP last won in 1982 when the late Victor Atiyeh secured his second and final term. Dudley, who defeated several fellow Republicans, ended up in a closely watched race against former Gov. John Kitzhaber, a Democrat who was looking to regain the job he’d been termed out of eight years before.
The race between the 6’1” Kitzhaber and the 6’11” Dudley was tight until the end, but that year’s red wave wasn’t quite enough to put the Republican nominee over the top in what The Downballot believes is the tallest gubernatorial election in American history. Kitzhaber triumphed 49-48, a tight loss that was still the closest any Republican has come to winning the governorship since Atiyeh.
One prominent former Dudley supporter, however, is skeptical that the returning candidate, who has not sought office in the ensuing decade-and-a-half, can win an office that’s continued to elude the GOP.
“Personally, I do not think Chris has a chance,” Andrew Miller, a lumber businessman who donated over $500,000 to Dudley’s first effort, told Oregon Public Broadcasting. “Nice guy, but too timid for political campaigning and easily swayed by the rat pack of consultants and high dollar donors who think they are political geniuses.”
Dudley joins a May 19 primary lineup that includes state Sen. Christine Drazan, whose 47-44 loss to Brown in 2022 represented the smallest margin of defeat for any GOP gubernatorial candidate since Dudley. The GOP field also features Marion County Commissioner Danielle Bethell and state Rep. Ed Diehl.
House
CA-14
State Sen. Aisha Wahab announced Saturday that she was entering the race to succeed Rep. Eric Swalwell, a fellow Democrat who is running for governor of California, in the 14th Congressional District.
Wahab, whose 2018 election to the Hayward City Council made her one of the first Afghan Americans elected to office anywhere in the United States, quickly demonstrated her extensive support from party activists.
The state senator took more than three-quarters of the vote that same day at a local Democratic event, and East Bay Insiders says this performance puts her on track to secure the state party endorsement next month.
Wahab, though, is hardly the only Democrat looking to replace Swalwell in this East Bay constituency. The field also includes businesswoman Rakhi Israni, Democratic operative Matt Ortega, and Melissa Hernandez, who is president of the board of the Bay Area Rapid Transit system.
It’s possible that two Democrats will advance out of the June 2 top-two primary for this constituency, which includes the communities of Fremont and Hayward. Kamala Harris would have carried the revamped version of the 14th District by a 65-31 spread.
FL-20
Luther Campbell, a founder of the Miami-based rap group 2 Live Crew, said Monday that he was stepping down as a high school football coach because of “my potential run for Congress.” Campbell added that he would decide whether to run on Feb. 15.
While Campbell didn’t specify in his social media post what race he was looking at, he spent the first months of 2024 talking about waging a Democratic primary challenge to Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick. But while Campbell said it was “gonna be very hard for me not to run” for the 20th Congressional District, he didn’t ultimately put his name forward.
Cherfilus-McCormick went on to easily win another term, but she was indicted last year for allegedly using stolen federal funds to finance her victorious 2021 primary campaign. Cherfilus-McCormick faces intraparty opposition on Aug. 18 from former Broward County Commissioner Dale Holness, whom she defeated by all of five votes in that contest.
IA-01, IA State Auditor
Attorney Taylor Wettach announced Monday that he was exiting the Democratic primary to face GOP Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks in southeastern Iowa and would instead run for state auditor.
Wettach’s switch leaves former state Rep. Christina Bohannan as the heavy favorite to advance past the June 2 primary into what would be her third general election match against Miller-Meeks in the 1st Congressional District. Bohannan lost to the incumbent 53-47 in 2022, then held her to a 50.0 to 49.8 win in 2024 as Donald Trump was carrying this constituency 54-45.
Wettach’s new campaign, meanwhile, makes him the first notable Democrat running to defend the only statewide office that his party currently holds. Wettach is campaigning to succeed state Auditor Rob Sand, who is giving up this post to run for governor.
IA-02
State Rep. Shannon Lundgren said Monday that she was ending her campaign to replace Rep. Ashley Hinson, a fellow Republican who is running for the U.S. Senate, in Iowa’s 2nd Congressional District.
State Sen. Charlie McClintock and former state Rep. Joe Mitchell are now the two main candidates competing in the June 2 Republican primary for this constituency in northeastern Iowa.
The Democratic side features retired Army nurse Kathryn Dolter, state Rep. Lindsay James, and pastor Clint Twedt-Ball. Donald Trump carried the 2nd District 54-44 in 2024, but state Democrats hope that their strong showing in last year’s special legislative elections gives them an opening.
IA-03
State Rep. Jennifer Konfrst said Monday that she was dropping out of the Democratic primary and endorsing state Sen. Sarah Trone Garriott’s campaign to defeat Republican Rep. Zach Nunn.
Konfrst’s departure leaves Trone Garriott as the only serious Democrat challenging Nunn in Iowa’s 3rd Congressional District, a competitive seat that includes the state capital of Des Moines and the southwestern part of the state. Donald Trump carried this constituency 52-47 in 2024.
IN-04, IN-05
Donald Trump on Friday endorsed Reps. Jim Baird and Victoria Spartz, who are respectively seeking reelection to Indiana’s 4th and 5th Congressional Districts. Both constituencies are safely red.
Baird, 80, filed paperwork with state election officials earlier this month despite persistent chatter that he would retire. Baird faces opposition from state Rep. Craig Haggard in the May 5 primary for the 4th District, which includes western Indianapolis suburbs and part of west central Indiana.
Spartz, for her part, currently doesn’t have any serious intraparty opponents in the neighboring 5th District, and she’s hoping that won’t change ahead of the Feb. 6 filing deadline.
Spartz has frequently frustrated her party’s leadership, including Donald Trump, by making grand pledges to oppose GOP priorities only to repeatedly back down. Trump, according to Puck News, responded to Spartz’s initial refusal to support him on a budget vote last February by “screaming” at her over the phone. The congresswoman soon fell into line.
Trump, though, has decided he can count on Spartz’s loyalty going forward. He used his Friday Truth Social missive to tell central Indiana Republicans that “SHE WILL NOT LET YOU DOWN!”
NJ-12
Army veteran Matt Adams on Monday announced he was joining the Democratic primary for New Jersey’s open 12th Congressional District, while redistricting expert Sam Wang also filed FEC paperwork for a potential campaign for the Democratic nod.
Adams, the New Jersey Globe writes, was elected in 1995 to serve on the council for Middlesex Borough and left office six years later. The candidate currently does legal work in the defense sector.
Wang, for his part, works at Princeton University as a neuroscience professor and as director of its Gerrymandering Project and the Electoral Innovation Lab. Wang, who has been a prominent elections analyst on TV and social media for over a decade, told the Globe, “I confirm that I plan to seek the Democratic nomination for the 12th Congressional District.”
This constituency is held by Democratic Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, who is not seeking reelection to this safely blue seat.
Poll Pile
ME-Gov (D): Hart Research (D) for Nirav Shah: Nirav Shah: 35, Angus King III: 13, Hannah Pingree: 13, Shenna Bellows: 11, Troy Jackson: 9.
Correction: This piece incorrectly stated that Luther Campbell would decide by Feb. 15 if he’d run for Congress. Campbell wrote his decision would come on that date.
The news came too late in the morning, but Alexander Vindman is entering the Democratic primary in FL to face Sen Ashley Moody in the special U.S. Senate race this year.
https://floridaphoenix.com/2026/01/27/whistleblower-alexander-vindman-to-seek-florida-democratic-nomination-for-senate/
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/01/26/klobuchar-delays-governor-campaign-launch-as-border-patrol-killing-upends-minnesota-00748621
MN-Gov: Sen. Amy Klobuchar will enter by a week from today.