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

● Pres-by-LD: Daily Kos Elections has calculated the 2020 presidential results for every state Senate and state House district in New Mexico, where Democratic primary wins against several conservative state senators removed a huge roadblock for progressives. You can find all of our district-level data nationwide at this bookmarkable permalink.

We’ll start with the 42-member state Senate, where members are elected to four-year terms during presidential cycles. Joe Biden carried 29 seats to Trump’s 13 as he was prevailing statewide by a wide 54-43 margin, and Democrats won a similar 27-15 majority after netting one seat. That small shift, though, obscures just how much more progressive this Senate is compared to the one it replaced.

While Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s 2018 win gave her party the state government trifecta for the first time in eight years, conservative Democrats in the upper chamber spent the next two years weakening legislation to increase the minimum wage and blocking efforts to legalize marijuana and to repeal a 1969 law that made it a felony to perform an abortion in most cases. (Anti-abortion laws like this are currently unenforceable because of Roe v. Wade, but the conservative U.S. Supreme Court threatens to change all that.)

Campaign Action

In June of last year, though, five of those conservative Democratic incumbents lost to progressive primary foes. Republicans managed to flip two of those districts in November, but Democrats more than made up for it by taking three GOP-held seats. Team Blue then used their newfound influence this year to finally do away with the abortion ban, institute paid sick leave, and legalize marijuana.

Democrats were able to do this in large part because, while they weren’t able to win any Trump seats last year, Republicans only prevailed in two Biden districts. One of those two Republicans is Mark Moores, who won re-election 53-47 as Biden was taking his Albuquerque-based seat 51-46. Moores’ crossover appeal didn’t translate to a wider stage when he ran in last month’s special election for the 1st Congressional District, though, as his 60-36 defeat against Democrat Melanie Stansbury was slightly wider than Trump’s loss in that seat.

The other Republican on blue turf is Joshua Sanchez, who beat Democrat Pamela Cordova 51-49 in a nearby district that voted for Biden 51-49; Cordova had won the Democratic nomination several months earlier by unseating conservative incumbent Clemente Sanchez.

We’ll now turn to the House, which is up every two years and where Biden won 47 districts compared to 23 for Trump. Democrats won a 44-26 majority in 2020 after the GOP netted two seats, but Republican state Rep. Phelps Anderson became an independent in February after he voted to repeal the state’s anti-abortion law.

Altogether, there are three Republicans in Biden seats. The one with the toughest turf is William Rehm, who won another seat around Albuquerque 53-44 even as his constituents favored Biden 51-46.

Unlike in the Senate, though, one Democrat does represent a Trump seat: Candie Sweetser won her third term 54-46 while Trump scored a 54-44 victory in her seat in the southwestern corner of the state. Anderson, meanwhile, won re-election as a Republican without opposition last year in a Roswell-area seat that Trump took by a giant 74-23.

While Land of Enchantment Democrats have had majorities in both chambers of the legislature for decades with only a few interruptions, Lujan Grisham’s presence gives the party control of the redistricting process for the first time since the early 1990s. Lawmakers this year created a bipartisan advisory redistricting commission to propose maps for Congress, the legislature, and other posts, but legislators still can amend these proposals or reject them entirely and draw their own maps from scratch.

2Q Fundraising

● FL-Sen: Marco Rubio (R-inc): $4 million raised; Val Demings (D): $4.6 million raised (in one month), $3 million cash-on-hand

● NC-Sen: Pat McCrory (R): $1.24 million raised

● OH-Sen: Tim Ryan (D): $2.28 million raised, $2.6 million cash-on-hand

● PA-Sen: John Fetterman (D): $2.5 million raised; Kevin Baumlin (D): $360,000 raised

● FL-Gov: Nikki Fried (D): $813,000 raised (in June), $2.18 million cash-on-hand

● GA-Gov: Brian Kemp (R-inc): $3.9 million raised, $9 million cash-on-hand; Vernon Jones (R): $650,000 raised

● SC-Gov: Joe Cunningham (D): $634,000 raised

● TX-Gov: Greg Abbott (R-inc): $18.7 million (in final 10 days of June), $55 million cash-on-hand

● AZ-02: Daniel Hernandez (D): $250,000 raised

● FL-13: Ben Diamond (D): $380,000 raised; Eric Lynn (D): $368,000 raised, $500,000 cash-on-hand

● FL-16: Vern Buchanan (R-inc): $594,000 raised

● GA-10: Matt Richards (R): $100,000 raised (in one month)

● IA-02: Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-inc): $480,000 raised, $1.1 million cash-on-hand

● IL-17: Esther Joy King (R): $393,000 raised

● SC-01: Nancy Mace (R-inc): $863,000 raised, $926,000 cash-on-hand

Senate

● AL-Sen: Businesswoman Jessica Taylor announced Thursday that she would join the Republican primary for Alabama’s open Senate seat.

Taylor’s only prior run for office was her 2020 bid for the 2nd Congressional District, where she briefly generated some attention when she organized three other Republican women to campaign together as the “Conservative Squad.” (The others were Minnesota’s Michelle Fischbach, South Carolina’s Nancy Mace, and Texas’ Beth Van Duyne.) Taylor’s campaign came to an end months later, though, when former state Rep. and eventual winner Barry Moore narrowly edged her out 20.5-19.9 for the second spot in the runoff.

Taylor opened her new bid with a video portraying herself as an opponent of Kamala Harris, who just happens to be the most high-profile woman of color in the government. Taylor, like many Republicans before her, also repeatedly mispronounced the vice president’s name.

● CO-Sen, CO-Gov: The Colorado Sun's Mike Littwin takes a look at the GOP’s potential fields for Senate and governor, though there aren’t a whole lot of new names on either list. Indeed, Littwin relays that, while a GOP source argued that Sen. Michael Bennet and Gov. Jared Polis could be in for tough re-elections, his contact “didn’t—couldn’t?—name a single Republican who might be able to take advantage of the headwinds that he sees for Democrats.”

In the Senate race, Littwin mentions that some Republicans “are encouraging” former state Rep. Clarice Navarro to run, but there’s no word on her interest. Navarro, though, is currently serving as the district director for none other than far-right extremist Rep. Lauren Boebert, which is not likely to be a resume asset in a state that Joe Biden carried 55-42.

Speaking of Boebert, Littwin says that Bennet’s team always asks him if there’s any chance that the congresswoman will run, but he describes that prospect as a “longshot.” There’s also no sign she’s at all interested in a statewide race, though Littwin notes that “no one knows what Boebert will do or say at any moment.” The Democratic firm Global Strategy Group did recently test out that extremely hypothetical scenario in their poll for ProgressNow Colorado and found the incumbent ahead 51-38.

Turning to the gubernatorial contest, Littwin says that George Brauchler, who was Team Red’s 2018 nominee for attorney general, “is sometimes said to be considering a run.” Brauchler originally entered that year’s governor race before dropping down to attorney general, but he ultimately lost 52-45.

● GA-Sen: Republican Rep. Buddy Carter all but admitted he’d run for the Senate if former football star Herschel Walker stays out of the primary, saying that he even has an announcement “on the shelf and ready to go.” Carter also reaffirmed that he’d back Walker if he chooses to take on Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock.

● PA-Sen: Political consultant Craig Snyder recently filed paperwork with the FEC for a potential bid for the GOP nomination, but he hasn’t committed to the race yet. Snyder founded a PAC in 2016 to support Hillary Clinton and has remained ardently anti-Trump since then, so he may not be much of a factor if he does get in.

Governors

● AK-Gov: Former Democratic state Rep. Les Gara announced Wednesday that he had formed an exploratory committee for a potential bid against Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy, and he said that he hopes to decide whether to run by the end of summer. Gara, who retired in 2018 after 16 years in the legislature, is the first notable Democrat who has taken any steps toward running.

Dunleavy’s detractors were hoping they’d get the chance to oust him from office well before the 2022 election, but it’s unclear how close pro-recall forces are to collecting enough signatures to force a vote. The deadline for the Recall Dunleavy campaign to turn in the 71,000 valid petitions they’d need isn’t until early June of next year, but their efforts were dramatically slowed by the pandemic.

Recall Dunleavy said in late April that it had collected 58,000 signatures, but there have been no updates since then. Campaign chair Meda DeWitt told the Associated Press this week that the group was looking over its petitions to “make sure we know what we have, very specifically,” and she said recall leaders would meet soon and provide more information about their efforts. DeWitt added, “Can I tell you that we’re going to submit all of our signatures to the Division of Elections on X-day? No, I cannot tell you that right now.”

● MA-Gov: Republican Gov. Charlie Baker said Wednesday that he’d decide “soon" whether or not he’d seek a third term, though he didn’t hint which direction he was leaning. Baker’s fundraising has been slow for much of the last year, though observers noted that his nearly $91,000 haul from June was dramatically larger than the $3,400 he brought in during the previous month.

● MI-Gov: While businesswoman Lena Epstein, who was the 2018 Republican nominee for Michigan’s 11th Congressional District, has occasionally been mentioned as a potential gubernatorial candidate, she said this week that she wanted former Detroit Police Chief James Craig to run.

House

● AZ-02: State Rep. Daniel Hernandez recently earned an endorsement from the Arizona Federation of Teachers for next year’s open seat Democratic primary.

● OH-11: Cuyahoga County Councilwoman Shontel Brown unveiled an endorsement Thursday from the American Federation of Teachers ahead of the Aug. 3 Democratic primary.

● OH-15: Protect Freedom PAC, which is run by allies of Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, is spending at least $200,000 to promote former state Rep. Ron Hood ahead of the Aug. 3 Republican primary. Hood, as Inside Elections’ Jacob Rubashkin notes, gained national infamy in 2019 when he introduced a bill that would force doctors who performed an abortion to either face murder charges or “reimplant” an ectopic pregnancy, a procedure that the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists says is impossible.  

The ad, other than a brief line about how Hood “protected the unborn,” doesn’t get into any of those ugly details, though, and instead breaks out the bad puns early. The narrator compares Hoods’ opponents to used car salesmen before imploring viewers to “look under the Hood.” He then goes on to portray the candidate as a “proven Trump conservative” without noting that Trump himself is supporting another contender, coal company lobbyist Mike Carey.