Morning Digest

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The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, and Stephen Wolf, with additional contributions from Daniel Donner, David Jarman, Steve Singiser, James Lambert and David Beard.

Leading Off

• New York: New York's Democratic-led state legislature passed a bill over the weekend to move elections for county and town government from odd-numbered to even-numbered years, and while Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul said she still needs to review the legislation, she sounds likely to sign it. "I would say having elections in the year when there's more people turning out for either a presidential or a gubernatorial race, it increases turnout," said the governor, "and more people voting in these elections is always better for democracy."

The bill would impact races for county executive and county legislature as well as for town supervisor and town legislature, though it would only take effect starting in 2025. As a result, this year's races for executive in populous communities like Dutchess, Erie, and Suffolk counties would still proceed as planned, and the winners would still earn four-year terms. However, winners in 2025 and 2027 would be elected to abbreviated terms in order to realign the calendar.

But even if Hochul approves the bill, many local contests, including all elections in New York City, will still be conducted in odd-numbered years for the foreseeable future. The state constitution, explains Spectrum News, determines the timing of elections in municipalities that are classified as cities or villages for offices such as mayor. It also governs the calendar for other posts, like district attorney and sheriff, that are elected at the county level. However, the legislation's impact would still be considerable, since it would affect all counties outside of New York City as well as New York's 933 towns, which are collectively home to almost half the state's 20 million residents.

Supporters are eager to bring even more elections into alignment, but the hurdles are much higher. "This is the first step," Assemblywoman Amy Paulin, one of the cosponsors of the legislation, told Gothamist. "The next step [is] changing elements to the constitution." State law requires both chambers to pass a potential constitutional amendment during two successive sessions of the legislature with an election in between before it can get on the ballot, so the soonest voters could weigh in would be 2025.

Republicans, though, have made it clear they think the bill on Hochul's desk already goes too far. Onondaga County Executive Ryan McMahon, whose jurisdiction includes Syracuse, claimed in remarks to The Post-Standard that Democrats were pursuing these reforms "to have one-party rule in every level of government."

But McMahon, who holds an office the Democrats have never won since its creation in 1961, is one of many Republicans who've benefited from the status quo. Despite the fact that Democratic candidates for president have won Onondaga for three straight decades, the incumbent prevailed by a comfortable 55-45 margin in 2019, and he looks like the favorite this fall against Democratic County Legislator Bill Kinne.

The New York Association of Counties, which has argued a calendar shift would prevent voters from focusing on local races, also expressed its opposition. But cosponsor James Skoufis, a Democratic senator who first proposed similar legislation in 2013, pointed to low turnout in odd years as reason why change is needed.

"Why are you afraid of higher turnout?" Skoufis asked GOP critics. "As it stands right now in a lot of these local town county elections, you have 20 or so percent of voters deciding the outcome for the entire jurisdiction. Why are you so afraid of 50, 60, 70% of voters determining who should hold these local positions?"

Research has shown that moving off-year elections to even-numbered years boosts voter participation considerably, with one study finding that turnout in municipal races had tripled after similar reforms were introduced in California. That higher turnout also tends to yield a voter base that's more reflective of citizens as a whole, compared to the whiter and more conservative electorates that typically show up in odd years.

Governors

• MS-Gov: New campaign finance reports show that Republican incumbent Tate Reeves outraised Public Service Commissioner Brandon Presley, who has no Democratic primary opposition, $660,000 to $355,000 during May and finished the month with a $9.4 million to $1.7 million cash on hand edge.

• NC-Gov: Donald Trump over the weekend backed Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, the far-right frontrunner in next year's Republican primary. The indicted Trump used the occasion to laud Robinson, who has his own litany of antisemitic, Islamophobic, and transphobic screeds, as "one of the great stars of the party, one of the great stars in politics."

House

• NY-22: VoteVets has endorsed DeWitt Town Board member Sarah Klee Hood, who is an Air Force veteran, in the Democratic primary to face GOP Rep. Brandon Williams.

• RI-01: Lt. Gov. Sabina Matos has released the first poll we've seen of the packed Sept. 5 special Democratic primary, and her internal from Expedition Strategies gives her a 22-9 edge over former state Rep. Aaron Regunberg. A hefty 43% plurality remain undecided with almost three months to go before the contest.

• UT-02: The Salt Lake Tribune reports that several more notable Republicans have entered the September special primary to succeed outgoing Rep. Chris Stewart ahead of Wednesday's deadline.

Henry Eyring, an assistant professor at Duke University's business school who also advises the management consulting firm Cicero Group, says he will try to reach the ballot by competing at the convention rather than collecting signatures; Eyring is the grandson and namesake of a high official in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The other new arrivals are state party official Jordan Hess, Leeds Mayor Bill Hoster, Stewart aide Celeste Maloy, and former congressional staffer Scott Reber, though they don't appear to have specified which route they'll take try to reach the ballot as of Monday evening.

Legislatures

• ME State House: Tuesday brings us a special election in Maine for a Democratic-held state House seat that Donald Trump carried in 2020. Democrat Clinton Collamore, who was charged with forging signatures in order to qualify for the state's public financing system, resigned in February after pleading not guilty, and two former state representatives are competing to replace him. Trump, according to data from Dave's Redistricting App, scored a 52-45 victory in the 45th District, which includes portions of Knox and Lincoln counties.

The Democrats are fielding Bremen Selectman Wendy Pieh, who served two separate stints in the lower chamber from 1996 to 2000 and 2006 to 2010; Pieh previously tried to return to the state House in 2020 under the old map, but she lost the primary. The Republicans opted for Abden Simmons, a member of the Waldoboro Select Board who was elected to the state House in 2016 only to lose his seat two years later. Simmons campaigned for the state Senate in 2022, and his efforts ended in a 55-45 general election loss to Democrat Cameron Reny.

Republicans, the Bangor Daily News writes, haven't won a competitive legislative special since 2015, but GOP outside groups have outspent their counterparts $19,000 to $4,000 to try to change that. But Democrats, who currently hold an 81-67 edge in the 151-member chamber, will remain firmly in the majority no matter what: Two non-aligned members also sit in the state House, with only this seat vacant.

• NH State House: A high-stakes special election for the New Hampshire state House that looked likely to take place less than two months from now won't happen until mid-September, thanks to an unexpected development at Friday's filing deadline.

Had only one candidate from each party entered the race for Rockingham County's 1st District, a general election would have taken place on Aug 1. But because two Republicans entered the race, a primary will instead take place on that day, with a general on Sept. 19.

That primary will feature Jessica Sternberg, an official with the New Hampshire College Republicans who just graduated from the University of New Hampshire this spring, and Northwood Selectman Jim Guzofski, the lone official in his town to vote against holding a special election at all. Sternberg's announcement a week ago was greeted with praise by a variety of GOP officials and operatives on Twitter, suggesting she's the party favorite, though it's possible they were unaware of Guzofski's filing at the time, since he hasn't so much as tweeted about his campaign.

The lone Democrat to join the contest, meanwhile, was former Nottingham Selectman Hal Rafter, who fell just 25 votes short in his campaign for the same district last year. He'll now have the chance to raise money and knock doors with his eye toward winning in September while Sternberg and Guzofski will first have to fight it out for the GOP nomination.

Rockingham's 1st District is a swingy multi-member district that elects three people to the state House, though only the seat formerly held by Republican Benjamin Bartlett is vacant, following his resignation in April. In 2022, the six candidates who ran here were all bunched very close together when final votes were tallied, with the top three—all Republicans—earning jobs in the legislature.

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