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Leading Off
• WA-Gov: Former Rep. Dave Reichert announced Friday that he was coming out of retirement to run for governor of Washington, a decision that gives Republicans the most prominent candidate they could have landed this cycle for an office they last won in 1980. Reichert, who has famously flirted with running statewide for over a decade but had never done so until now, kicked off his first race since his 2016 reelection by telling KING 5 that he still opposes abortion rights while insisting he wouldn't try to change the state's pro-choice policies.
It remains to be seen, though, if Reichert will be the only former GOP congressman competing in the top-two primary to succeed Democrat Jay Inslee, who is retiring after three terms. Jaime Herrera Beutler, who served alongside Reichert for eight years, reportedly has been considering her own campaign for months, though we haven't heard anything about her deliberations since May.
Reichert did lose one intra-party rival Friday, however, when physician Raul Garcia said he'd switch over to the race to face Democratic Sen. Maria Cantwell. Richland school board member Semi Bird is the only other notable Republican still competing in the governor's race, but he's yet to attract much attention. The Democratic field includes Commissioner of Public Lands Hilary Franz and state Sen. Mark Mullet, while Attorney General Bob Ferguson has an exploratory committee for his own all-but-assured campaign.
Reichert has a long history in Evergreen State politics, including several close wins in a swing seat, though he was last seriously tested at the ballot box in 2010. The Republican, who spent years as a member of the task force working to apprehend the notorious Green River Killer, was appointed sheriff of heavily Democratic King County in 1997, a post that he easily held in that year's elections and won again without opposition in 2001. He attracted national attention weeks after that uncontested victory when he announced the arrest of Gary Ridgway in connection with the killings; Ridgway would go on to plead guilty to murdering 49 women, though some investigators think he could have been responsible for dozens more.
In 2004, Reichert ran for the open 8th District in the Seattle suburbs, a constituency that had long sent Republicans to the House even as it often supported Democrats further up the ballot, and both parties made the contest a priority. Democrats argued that the sheriff's opposition to abortion rights and gun safety laws made him too conservative for the district, but Reichert's fame helped propel him to a 52-47 victory against radio host Dave Ross even as John Kerry was beating George W. Bush here 51-48.
The new congressman faced another tough contest two years later as Bush's unpopularity dragged down Republicans nationwide, and former Microsoft manager Darcy Burner did all she could to tie Reichert to the administration and Iraq War. Local journalist Michael Hood also questioned Reichert's efforts to bring the Green River Killer to justice, charging that the incumbent didn't deserve credit for arresting Ridgway because, among other things, he had waited years to test crucial DNA evidence. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer published its own story in which two of Reichert's old supervisors criticized him, with one saying he "actually was more of an impediment to the investigation."
Reichert, though, continued to highlight his law enforcement history while arguing that Burner, a first-time candidate, had little experience in public life. The congressman also sought to campaign as a moderate even as he accepted fundraising help from Bush, and held on in a close 51-49 race. The two used similar arguments against one another in their 2008 rematch, but Burner and her allies hoped that Barack Obama's strength at the top of the ticket would be the difference-maker. However, that's not what happened: While Obama took the 8th in a 57-42 landslide, Reichert actually expanded his margin of victory to 53-47.
Democrats weren't so optimistic about beating the congressman during the 2010 red wave, though another Microsoft alum, Suzan DelBene, impressed observers by holding him to a 52-48 margin. That would prove to be the last competitive race of Reichert's congressional career, though. The state's Redistricting Commission reconfigured the 8th District, replacing several liberal-leaning communities with more conservative rural areas, shrinking Obama's 2008 margin to just 51-47. Serious Democrats were consequently reluctant to challenge the battle-tested Reichert, who secured his fifth term 60-40 as DelBene was winning the race to replace Inslee in the 1st.
Reichert enjoyed similarly easy campaigns the next two cycles, but Democrats renewed their interest in challenging him in 2017 as Donald Trump threatened to wreck the party's prospects in longtime GOP suburban strongholds such as this one. Pediatrician Kim Schrier was one of several candidates to launch a bid against him, but Reichert, who'd volunteered that he'd cast a write-in vote for Mike Pence, ended up delighting Democrats when he decided to retire. Schrier ultimately flipped the seat, defeating Republican Dino Rossi 52-48, and still holds it today.
Reichert, who went on to become a lobbyist, has largely stayed out of the news since leaving office, but Democrats are hoping to achieve what they couldn't during the Bush years and tie him to his party's leader. "As a congressman Dave Reichert voted in line with Trump 92.5 percent of the time," Franz tweeted on Friday. "More so, Dave Reichert has repeatedly taken extremist anti-choice positions throughout his long career in politics, including voting to criminalize abortion."
If Reichert were to prevail next year, he'd find himself in rare company: Only two governors currently represent states won by the opposite party's presidential nominee by margins wider than Washington's in 2020, Republican Phil Scott of Vermont and Democrat Andy Beshear of Kentucky. Biden's 19.2-point victory in the Evergreen State in fact slightly edged out Trump's 18.6-point win in Louisiana, where Democrat John Bel Edwards serves as governor.
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Senate
• IN-Sen: Wealthy egg farmer John Rust has announced that he'll take on Rep. Jim Banks in the GOP primary for this open seat, but it looks like he'll first need to convince his local party leader to even let him onto the ballot before he can fully focus on beating the frontrunner.
The Indiana Capital Chronicle Leslie Bonilla Muñiz explains that the state only allows candidates to seek the nomination of the party they actually belong to, and while Indiana doesn't have party registration, there are two ways to meet these criteria. The easiest option is for a candidate to have cast their two most recent primary votes with the party they say they're affiliated with, but Rust doesn't meet this requirement: As reporter Adam Wren first highlighted, the last two primaries he participated in were the GOP's 2016 contest and the 2012 Democratic race.
Rust's only other option is to convince his local party chair to certify that he's a Republican, a task that falls to Jackson County Republican Party Chair Amanda Lowery. Lowery was noncommittal when contacted by Muñiz, saying, "Any kind of decision I'm going to make, I'm going to have a conversation with Mr. Rust first." Banks, who up until now has faced no serious intra-party opposition, isn't waiting to find out if Rust will even be on the ballot, though, as he's already blasting him as "a liberal Democrat trying to run in the GOP Primary."
• MD-Sen: Rep. Jamie Raskin announced Friday night that he'd stay in the House rather than enter the Democratic primary to succeed retiring Sen. Ben Cardin. Raskin, who is one of the most prominent progressives in the lower chamber, was the last well-known potential candidate who was talking about entering the race, though there's still time for others to join. The nomination contest is currently a battle between Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks, Rep. David Trone, and Montgomery County Councilmember Will Jawando.
Governors
• KY-Gov: The RGA's Kentucky Values affiliate is continuing to air ads portraying Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear as an ally of the "radical left," but Beshear's side still is running considerably more spots than the opposition. According to the GOP firm Medium Buying, the governor and the DGA have outspent the RGA and conservative Bluegrass Freedom Action $4.6 million to $2.4 million on TV and radio, which comes out to a 2-1 advantage in gross rating points. Republican Daniel Cameron's own campaign has still not returned to the airwaves since the mid-May primary.
House
• AK-AL: The conservative site Must Read Alaska says that businessman Nick Begich III, a Republican who last year took third place in both last year's instant-runoff special election and subsequent campaign for a full term, is considering waging another bid against Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola. So far no serious Republicans have joined the race to take back the reddest seat in the chamber with a Democratic representative.
• CA-31: Democratic Rep. Grace Napolitano announced Saturday that she would not seek a 14th term and was endorsing state Sen. Bob Archuleta, who would be the oldest known freshman to ever join the House, to succeed her.
But as we’ll discuss, a trio of other Democrats declared their candidacies for this seat in the eastern San Gabriel Valley before Napolitano confirmed her departure. Joe Biden carried this majority Latino constituency, which is home to Los Angeles suburbs like El Monte and West Covina (not quite just two hours from the beach), 64-33, and a pair of Democrats could advance past the top-two primary.
Napolitano, who at 86 is the oldest member of the lower chamber, is only the second representative to announce they're retiring and not campaigning for another office; the first was Indiana Republican Victoria Spartz, who unexpectedly announced her departure just days after being sworn in for her second term in January. (Another 10 House members are seeking a promotion to the Senate.)
Napolitano, unlike Spartz, has long been the subject of retirement speculation, and several Democrats have been preparing to run here for a while. One of them is Archuleta, who set up a campaign committee back in April and confirmed he was in on Saturday.
Archuleta, who currently represents 18% of the district in the state Senate, is often identified as a moderate, an image he's very much cultivated: When the Orange County Register asked Archuleta during his successful reelection contest last year to rank his ideology on a 10-point scale with one as the option furthest to the left, the Democrat volunteered that he was a five. That campaign took place the year after a former staffer filed a still unresolved suit against Archuleta for alleged sexual harassment and retaliation, allegations he's denied.
Archuleta, who will be 79 when the 119th Congress is seated in January of 2025, would be all of three days older than the oldest known House freshman in history, Kentucky Republican William Lewis, was when the latter was sworn in following his 1948 special election. (The House’s website gives this distinction to Illinois Republican James Bowler, but he was only 78 when he won his own 1953 special.) However, because Archuleta would need to wait almost two months between Election Day and the start of the new Congress before he could take office, Lewis would still maintain his title as the oldest non-incumbent ever elected to the House.
However, Archuleta was hardly the first notable Democrat to enter this race. Citrus Community College Trustee Mary Ann Lutz, a former Napolitano staffer and Monrovia mayor who talked about succeeding her old boss all the way back in 2017, announced her campaign in mid-June.
Baldwin Park Planning Commissioner Ricardo Vazques, who narrowly lost a race for the city council last year, likewise filed with the FEC a month ago and told the Los Angeles Times Friday he was in. State Sen. Susan Rubio, whose legislative district is home to more than 70% of the 31st's residents, also said Friday she'd run. The paper identifies Rubio as a moderate, though the senator launched her campaign by emphasizing issues like LGBTQ+ rights, gun safety, and environmental protection.
An unnamed advisor for former Rep. Gil Cisneros, finally, says the current Department of Defense undersecretary has received encouragement to run. Cisneros in 2018 flipped the old 39th District in an expensive battle against Republican Young Kim, but he lost their rematch two years later. According to data from Daily Kos Elections, all of five of Napolitano's current constituents live within the boundaries of Cisneros' old seat.
While many of Napolitano's would-be successors have spent years waiting for the incumbent to retire, she was once the one who was in that holding pattern. The now-congresswoman, who grew up in Texas' Rio Grande Valley, spent two decades as a secretary and claims processor for Ford Motor Company, and she was working there in 1986 when she was first elected to Norwalk's city council. Napolitano won a seat in the state Assembly in 1992, and she soon set her eyes on running for Congress once Democratic Rep. Esteban Torres retired from what was then the 34th District.
Torres had pledged to seek another term in 1998 shortly before he instead announced his departure just three days before the filing deadline, timing that Napolitano argued was done to help Jamie Casso, who was both his son-in-law and chief-of-staff. She had good reason to think this: Torres' late declaration meant that anyone who'd already filed to seek a state office wouldn’t be able to simply remove their names to run here. But Napolitano, who had told supporters she'd drop her own planned bid for the state Senate if Torres retired, had given herself enough flexibility to switch races, and she was Casso's only intra-party foe.
Napolitano, who already represented about 60% of this seat, began the contest with a big advantage in name recognition, but Casso used every chance he could to tie himself to Torres. Casso also benefited from endorsements from many of the congressman's colleagues, the state party, several unions, and every local state legislator other than Napolitano herself, and he portrayed his opponent as soft on crime.
The assemblywoman, though, worked hard to frame the election as a choice between a proven community leader and an inexperienced newcomer more than two decades her junior, telling the L.A. Times, "I don't know what this young man has done, but people in this district expect you to pay your dues." Napolitano's team also blasted Casso for living outside the seat, declaring, "It is the height of arrogance for Casso to choose to live outside the district and thumb his nose at the good people who do live there, in effect, telling them that their communities aren't good enough for him." Casso responded by saying that he lived just "four houses outside of the district," but that did nothing to deter his opponent.
Napolitano, who had EMILY's List's support, enjoyed a financial edge as well, and she increased it with a $150,000 loan ($280,000 in 2023 dollars) at 18% interest. Napolitano, who said she needed to offset IRS penalties for cashing in her Ford pension before she was 65, would hold a "debt retirement" fundraiser a decade later after the interest rate was dropped to 10%.
This contest was conducted using a blanket primary where all the candidates ran on one ballot but only the top vote-getter from each party advanced to the general election, a system the U.S. Supreme Court later struck down in 2000 for violating political parties' rights to association. (California voters would approve the current top-two rules in 2010.) Napolitano outpaced Casso 37.4-36.6―a margin of 618 votes―with Republican Ed Pérez taking 22%. The Democratic nominee months later would beat Pérez 68-29 in the first of what would be many easy general election wins.
Napolitano, who had pledged to serve just three terms, announced in 2003 she was abandoning that promise because "[t]hat's only six years," but she had no trouble remaining in Congress afterwards. Her only notable opposition came in 2016 when Democratic Assemblyman Roger Hernandez faulted her for living 9 miles outside what was now the 32nd District, and the current top-two rules meant that his 51-25 primary deficit still earned him a place in the general.
But Hernandez's already-underfunded campaign collapsed after his ex-wife, the aforementioned Susan Rubio, was granted a three-year restraining order against him for alleged physical abuse. The assemblyman announced he was dropping out months later even though he'd still be on the ballot, and Napolitano won 62-38.
• MD-02: Baltimore County Executive Johnny Olszewski, reports Maryland Matters, has spent the last month raising money for a potential campaign to succeed longtime Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger, though Olszewski's team made it clear he'd only run if his fellow Democrat retired. Ruppersberger's spokesperson, meanwhile, reiterated that the 77-year-old incumbent "has not made any decisions regarding 2024."
• MI-07: 2022 Republican nominee Tom Barrett has filed FEC paperwork for his long-anticipated second bid for this competitive open seat. Meanwhile on the Democratic side, state Sen. Sarah Anthony confirmed Friday that she would not run, a development that came days after former state Sen. Curtis Hertel set up a campaign account. Inside Elections reported last month that neither party expects Barrett or Hertel to face serious intra-party opposition as they campaign to succeed Senate candidate Elissa Slotkin, the Democrat who beat Barrett 52-46 last year.
• NC-??: An attorney for Scott Lassiter, a former Apex Town Council member who filed a lawsuit last month alleging that state House Speaker Tim Moore helped destroy his marriage, said last week that the matter "has been resolved," but neither side provided any additional information. Moore, a Republican who reportedly plans to draw a new congressional district for himself, previously acknowledged he had an "on-again, off-again, very casual, nothing-consistent type of relationship" with Lassiter's estranged wife, but said he'd "fully understood that she was separated."
• OH-09: Former state Rep. Craig Riedel on Friday earned an endorsement from 7th District Rep. Max Miller, a close Trump ally whose constituency is located about 30 miles to the east, in the GOP primary to take on Democratic incumbent Marcy Kaptur.
• OR-05: 2022 Democratic nominee Jamie McLeod-Skinner said Thursday she was postponing her weekend announcement after testing positive for COVID, telling her supporters, "[W]e will be rescheduling the in-person event to later this month. In the meantime, there will still be a special announcement from Jamie in the next few days."
Mayors & County Leaders
• Houston, TX Mayor: EMILY's List has endorsed Democratic Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee in the Nov. 7 nonpartisan primary for mayor.
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