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

Leading Off

● TX-AG: Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush, who is the son of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, announced Wednesday that he would attempt to unseat scandal-ridden Attorney General Ken Paxton in the Republican primary.

Bush, unlike most of his family, has been a devoted Donald Trump acolyte, and he previewed just what kind of campaign he’d be running this week with, of all things, beer koozies. That swag depicted outlines of the two shaking hands above a Trump quote reading, “This is the only Bush that likes me! This is the Bush that got it right. I like him.” We’re guessing that the image was not drawn up by the land commissioner’s uncle, the noted Dallas-based painter George W. Bush.

The younger Bush, though, has much to gain in today’s GOP by groveling before the man who once tweeted that Jeb Bush “has to like the Mexican Illegals because of his wife,” who is also George P. Bush’s mother. Trump said of this primary last week, “I like them both very much. I’ll be making my endorsement and recommendation to the great people of Texas in the not-so-distant future.” Trump didn’t hint which man he preferred, though Politico relayed that “most insiders think” that Paxton will be his choice.

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Paxton was one of the ringleaders of the failed lawsuit aimed at convincing the Supreme Court to overturn Trump’s defeat, and it would be a surprise if his multiple scandals deterred Trump at all. The attorney general was indicted for securities fraud during his first months in office in 2015, though things soon stalled due to ongoing legal challenges. He was re-elected 51-47 in 2018, but the case remains ongoing.

In November, the AP reported that the FBI was investigating unrelated allegations that Paxton had used his office to aid a wealthy ally named Nate Paul in exchange for favors. He’s also facing a whistleblower lawsuit from four former senior aides who say they were fired after they reported this behavior to law enforcement. Among other things, this quartet claims that Paul helped their former boss remodel his home and, upon the attorney general’s recommendation, hired a woman Paxton was involved in an affair with.

Bush, meanwhile, has faced a very different set of challenges during his time in office, so much so that the Quorum Report’s Scott Braddock recently said that he was so weak that “[h]is name doesn’t even come up in the Legislature.” That’s a position few would have foreseen even a few years ago for a member of what had once been one of America’s most powerful families: Bush, who was a prominent Latino surrogate for Republicans like his grandfather and uncle, was a rising star well before he ran for office himself, and some allies even graced him with the nickname “47.“

Bush won the 2014 race to succeed Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson, who left to unsuccessfully run for lieutenant governor, without much trouble, but, as Richard Parker recently wrote in Politico, he quickly antagonized his party with his plans to renovate the Alamo.

Bush’s proposal to move the Cenotaph, a monument carved by a Confederate sympathizer that commemorates only the mission’s Anglo defenders, in particular infuriated nativists. Bush argued he was just trying to relocate a structure that was falling apart, but his detractors framed his plan as a threat to Texas’ past. Patterson even launched an anti-Bush comeback campaign for 2018, declaring, “Texas history is the Alamo.” Bush, who had Trump’s endorsement, massively outspent Patterson in the primary and avoided a runoff, but his 58-30 victory did not impress observers.

Bush’s Alamo troubles didn’t disappear following his re-election. In 2019, another former opponent posted a fake story on Facebook claiming that Bush wanted to put up a statue of Antonio López de Santa Anna, the Mexican general who took the mission in 1836. The land commissioner responded by calling this a “flat-out racist” distortion, but his fellow Republicans very much did not have his back. Dan Patrick, the state’s powerful lieutenant governor, instead jumped in to accuse Bush of “derid[ing] anyone who disagrees with the Alamo redesign as a small vocal minority who are liars and racists.”

Texas Democrats haven’t won a statewide race since 1994, but Team Blue is hoping that an acrimonious primary could give them an opening, especially if Paxton comes out on top. The Democratic field currently consists of former Galveston Mayor Joe Jaworski and prominent civil rights attorney Lee Merritt.

Senate

● FL-Sen, FL-27: While Florida Politics reported last month that Miami City Commissioner Ken Russell was considering a bid against Republican Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar, the Democrat announced Thursday that he would challenge GOP Sen. Marco Rubio instead. Russell will face Rep. Val Demings, whose staff has confirmed she’ll run, in the primary.

Russell previously raised about $750,000 for a 2018 campaign for the 27th Congressional District, but he dropped out after the Republican state legislature passed a revised resign-to-run law shortly before the filing deadline that would have forced him to give up his current post no matter how the election turned out.

● MO-Sen: Republican Rep. Vicky Hartzler has scheduled a “Special Campaign Announcement” for June 10, and Show Me State politicos widely expect the six-term congresswoman to declare she’s running for Missouri’s open Senate seat. Hartzler is a prominent religious conservative who has continued to stand out as one of the biggest opponents of LGBTQ rights in the GOP caucus.

Governors

● AL-Gov: It just wouldn’t be an election year in Alabama if state Auditor Jim Zeigler didn’t talk about running for higher office. On Wednesday, just after Republican Gov. Kay Ivey announced she would seek re-election in 2022, Ziegler told the Alabama Political Report that he was thinking about challenging her for renomination.

Zeigler, who is termed-out of his current post, acknowledged, “I have the platform to run, but I don’t have the financial resources to run,” though he insisted, “There are people who are working on a plan.” He added that he’d need another month to decide if a gubernatorial run would be practical.

While there is no shortage of officeholders who want to run for governor, few have self-published a novel depicting themselves doing so. Zeigler, though, took the road less traveled with a tome titled, “The Making of the People’s Governor 2018,” which was published a year ahead of what was supposed to be a campaign to succeed termed-out Gov. Robert Bentley, a fellow Republican with whom the auditor had long feuded. The description read, “Several of the usual suspects ran for governor with no track records of having stood up against the abuses of the Bentley administration. But one candidate had stood up in the Bentley years and, in 2018, stood out from the rest.”

However, subsequent events quickly turned this book into pure alternate history. Ivey took over the governor’s office in 2017 after Bentley resigned in disgrace, and she won a full term in her own right the next year. Zeigler himself created an exploratory committee for a potential bid against Ivey, but he ended up seeking re-election instead. Zeigler said in late 2018 that he had formed an exploratory committee for a 2020 Senate race, but he never filed FEC paperwork, much less actually ran.

● ME-Gov: SurveyUSA has conducted a poll for Our Power, a group that supports setting up a consumer-owned energy company in Maine, that shows Democratic incumbent Janet Mills outpacing former Gov. Paul LePage 45-38. LePage has yet to make it completely clear that he’ll actually try to reclaim his old job next year, but Pine Tree State political watchers agree the Republican nomination would be his if he wants it.

● NY-Gov: Andrew Cuomo appears to be hedging on his hedging: The scandal-plagued Democrat will host a $10,000-a-person fundraiser later this month, despite dodging a reporter’s question back in March asking whether he plans to seek a fourth term as governor. Cuomo will have to file a campaign finance report on July 15 detailing his fundraising for the first half of the year, so that will give us a sense of how much his cash flow has—or hasn’t—dried up amid multiple investigations into allegations of corruption and sexual misconduct.

● OR-Gov: State House Speaker Tina Kotek, who’s been mentioned a possible candidate for Oregon’s open governor’s race next year, isn’t ruling out a bid, with a spokesperson saying she’s “focused on completing the legislative session” (which concludes at the end of the month) and would “consider her future in the coming months.”

However, notes the Willamette Week’s Rachel Monahan, Kotek has pissed off fellow Democrats for caving to GOP obstructionism and giving Republicans veto power over the next set of congressional districts, despite wide Democratic majorities in the legislature. One prominent politician who’s unhappy is Rep. Peter DeFazio, who’s said his own re-election plans have been clouded in part because Kotek “created even more uncertainty by giving away the Democratic advantage of redistricting, so inevitably the congressional districts are going to court.”

Monahan also mentions conservative Democratic Sen. Betsy Johnson, whose name has come up before as a potential independent candidate—an option she considered but declined in 2016. According to unnamed sources who spoke to Monahan, an unspecified entity fielded a poll recently asking voters how they’d feel about a Democrat-turned-independent running for governor. Johnson declined to comment.

● SC-Gov: State Sen. Mia McLeod, who’d been considering a bid for governor since January, announced on Thursday that she’d challenge Republican Gov. Henry McMaster next year. McLeod, who’s served in the legislature since 2010, would be South Carolina’s first Black governor and the first Black woman to hold the post anywhere in the country. She joins former Rep. Joe Cunningham in the Democratic primary.

House

● CA-25: Navy veteran Quaye Quartey, who describes himself as the son of a “mother raised in the Jim Crow South” and a father who immigrated from Ghana, has joined the field of challengers looking to unseat freshman Republican Rep. Mike Garcia. Other notable Democrats running include 2020 nominee Christy Smith and Simi Valley City Councilwoman Ruth Luevanos.

● FL-13: St. Petersburg Deputy Mayor Kanika Tomalin says she’s considering a bid for Florida’s open 13th District, now that her boss, term-limited Mayor Rick Kriseman, has said he won’t seek the Democratic nomination. Meanwhile, Democratic state Rep. Michele Rayner, who’s also been looking at the race, says she has a “special announcement" planned for June 14.

● NY-01: Democrat Nancy Goroff had been considering a second bid for New York’s 1st Congressional District after her 55-45 loss last year and promised a decision this summer, but it seems like she’s made up her mind not to run, since she just attended the campaign kickoff for another candidate, Suffolk County Legislator Kara Hahn. Also at the event was 2018 nominee Perry Gershon, who lost to Goroff in last year’s primary. Gershon, however, had never said anything about a potential third run.

● OH-15: Former Rep. Steve Stivers announced Wednesday that not only was he endorsing state Rep. Jeff LaRe in the crowded August Republican primary to succeed him, his campaign committee would also run commercials supporting LaRe. The first spot features Stivers, who resigned last month to lead the state Chamber of Commerce, praising LaRe’s law enforcement background and conservative credentials. There is no word how much Stivers, who had $2.4 million on-hand at the end of March, will deploy for this race.

It’s very unusual to see an ex-House member’s old campaign make this kind of investment in the special primary to replace them, though Stivers isn’t even the only Ohio Republican to do this. Pat Tiberi’s campaign committee aired a commercial in 2018 that starred the congressman-turned-lobbyist praising Troy Balderson, who went on to win the 12th District.  

● TX-08: On Thursday, retired Navy SEAL Morgan Luttrell became the first notable Republican to announce a bid to succeed retiring Rep. Kevin Brady in this safely red seat north of Houston.

Luttrell is a first-time candidate, but he has some notable connections. The new contender is the brother of Marcus Luttrell, a longtime ally of former Gov. Rick Perry and a fellow Navy SEAL whose book “Lone Survivor” was adapted into a 2013 movie starring Mark Wahlberg. The Luttrells were high-profile Perry surrogates during his doomed 2015 presidential bid, and Morgan Luttrell later went on to serve as one of his senior advisors at the U.S. Department of Energy.

Mayors

● Arlington, TX Mayor: Former City Councilman Michael Glaspie is taking on former police officer Jim Ross in a runoff election on Saturday. In the first round of voting on May 1, Ross led Glaspie 47-21. Ross has been endorsed by outgoing Republican Mayor Jeff Williams as well as the Arlington Police Association. Glaspie, meanwhile, has picked up endorsements from four of the other five candidates who were on the ballot for the first round of voting, including City Councilman Marvin Sutton, who was Glaspie’s closest challenger for the second runoff spot.

Glaspie has taken more progressive stances on issues such as policing, education, and housing. Ross, as a former police officer, has been strongly supportive of current police practices in the city. He has broken with Republican orthodoxy at times, though, such as supporting some expansion of transit in the city.

● Detroit, MI Mayor: The local firm Target-Insyght has released a survey showing Mayor Mike Duggan leading Anthony Adams, who previously served as a deputy mayor, 64-15 in the August nonpartisan primary. The November general election will take place even if one candidate wins a majority of the vote, but this poll indicates that Duggan won’t have much to worry about in his bid for a third term.

● Fort Worth, TX Mayor: Tarrant County Democratic party Chair Deborah Peoples will face Mattie Parker, a former chief of staff to outgoing Mayor Betsy Price, in a runoff election on Saturday to be the next mayor of Texas’ fifth largest city. Peoples led Parker 34-31 in the first round of voting on May 1.

The race has attracted attention from some of the biggest names in Texas politics, as Peoples has picked up support from Democratic Reps. Marc Veasey and Eddie Bernice Johnson and 2018 Texas Senate nominee Beto O’Rourke, while Parker nabbed endorsements from Republican Gov. Greg Abbott and third-place finisher Brian Byrd. Some major national groups have also been paying attention to this contest, with EMILY’s List throwing its backing behind Peoples.

Parker was a strong fundraiser during the first round of voting, and during the most recent fundraising period, she raised $750,000 while spending $970,000. Peoples, by contrast, was not an especially prolific fundraiser prior to May 1, and while she’s since picked up the pace, she still trailed widely on the financial front , raising $405,000 and spending $365,000.

Diversity and equity, particularly as they relate to policing, have emerged as dominant topics during this race. Peoples has been outspoken about focusing on the needs of Fort Worth’s residents of color to create better relationships between those communities and the police. She’s frequently spoken about family members who’ve served in law enforcement and her general support for police but has emphasized the need for significant reforms.

Fort Worth is rapidly diversifying, with the white population in the city shrinking from 57% in 1990 to just over a third in 2018. As such, Parker has tried to steer clear of some of the more incendiary racial rhetoric typically seen from Republicans: For instance, there’s been little talk of “critical race theory” (as there was in last month’s race for school board in the town of Southlake, just to the north). Instead, Parker has acknowledged the different viewpoints communities of color may have, saying “You have a responsibility, especially when you’re a young white woman living on the west side of Fort Worth, to listen more, understand the plight of our community.”

Parker has still taken many traditional GOP positions on criminal justice issues, though. She has the backing of the Fort Worth Police Officers Association and has lavished praise on the city’s police department and its current police chief. She also opposes curtailing the doctrine of qualified immunity, which currently shields police officers from liability in civil suits, an idea that Peoples supports.

Regardless of who is elected, one of the first matters the next mayor of Fort Worth will have to grapple with is the trial of Aaron Dean, a white police officer who shot and killed Atiana Jefferson, a Black Fort Worth resident, in her home in 2019. Dean, who was indicted on murder charges, is tentatively set to go to trial in August.

Other Races

● Staten Island, NY Borough President: If the long-awaited comeback campaign of former Rep. Vito Fossella, a Republican who retired from Congress in 2009 after the public learned about his second family, is feeling like a surprisingly low-key affair, it may be because it’s mostly been missing Vito Fossella. THE CITY’s Clifford Michel notes that Fossella has barely raised any money ahead of the June 22 instant-runoff primary, has no website or social media presence, and has done few campaign events.

Fossella’s name recognition may still allow him to win the GOP nomination this month, though two of his intra-party rivals are waging more vigorous campaigns. New York City Councilman Steven Matteo has the backing of the borough’s Republican Party, while former party chair Leticia Remauro has the support of the Conservative Party. Remauro, who made news in December when she compared law enforcement officers enforcing indoor dining bans to Nazis, recently told THE CITY that she wouldn’t be giving up the Conservative Party’s ballot line for the general election if she loses the GOP primary.

Democrats are hoping that GOP infighting could give them a better chance to retake an office that has been in GOP hands since the 1989 election, but they may face a similar issue. Mark Murphy, who was the 2012 nominee for the Staten Island-based 11th Congressional District, has the support of the local party, but he’s also created a third party called “Staten Island First.“ Murphy has declined to say if he’d run under this party label if he loses the Democratic nomination, merely saying, “I am a Democrat. I always support Democrats.” Murphy’s three primary rivals in turn have taken him to task for adopting a party name so similar to Donald Trump’s infamous slogan.