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

● Minneapolis, MN Mayor: Filing closed last week in Minneapolis, Minnesota’s largest city, which is hosting a race for mayor on Nov. 2 using instant-runoff rules. Voters will also be presented with two ballot measures that would replace the city police department with a new “Department of Public Safety’’ and greatly strengthen the mayor’s power in city government.

Democratic incumbent Jacob Frey is seeking a second term in office after defeating Mayor Betsy Hodges and several other rivals in 2017 following five rounds of ranked-choice tabulations. Frey, like every mayor, has had to contend with the coronavirus pandemic during the last year, but he’s also had to deal with the direct fallout of George Floyd’s murder at the hands of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin.

While Melvin Carter, Frey’s counterpart in neighboring St. Paul, has no serious opposition this fall, the situation is quite different just across the Mississippi River. Several notable Democrats in deep blue Minneapolis have qualified for the ballot including activist Sheila Nezhad, former state Rep. Kate Knuth, Marine veteran Phillp Sturm, and nonprofit director A.J. Awed. And though Frey ended July with a huge cash-on-hand lead over his rivals, Nezhad and Knuth have brought in credible sums.

Campaign Action

All of these candidates, along with Frey, sought the endorsement of the Minneapolis Democratic Farmer-Labor Party, a boost in a city that hasn’t elected a Republican mayor in decades. The DFL’s endorsement has been hard to come by, though, as no candidate has managed to reach the necessary 60% threshold among party delegates since 2009. This year was no exception, as Nezhad fell short of winning the endorsement over Frey 53-40. That’s better than the 28% Frey earned during a crowded race four years ago, but his second-place showing indicates an openness to an alternative among the DFL faithful, 4,800 of whom participated in the balloting.

Issues around policing and government accountability have become an important topic in this race, which is unsurprising given that this is the first local election in the city since Floyd’s murder last May. The city endured a tumultuous year of protests and calls to improve relations between law enforcement and residents, particularly those of color. Recently, Frey and Police Chief Medaria Arradondo agreed to reduce the level of police interactions with the community by ending traffic stops for minor violations. However, Frey’s opponents have attacked him over other moves, including restoring funding for the city’s police department to pre-Floyd levels.

Notably, there’s also a ballot measure that will be voted on concurrently with this contest that would dramatically overhaul policing in Minneapolis: The measure would replace the Minneapolis Police Department with a “Department of Public Safety’’ and shift more control of the department to the city council. Frey is opposed to the referendum, taking the position that police accountability can coexist with traditional policing, while Nezhad and Knuth have publicly supported the measure.

Another measure going before voters, which advocates say will increase government accountability, also has large implications for the power of the city’s mayor. This second referendum would transition Minneapolis away from its current system of government towards a “strong-mayor” format.

Currently, Minneapolis operates under a so-called “weak-mayor” system, where the mayor acts in concert with the city council to legislate. However, the true power of the mayoralty is derived from the visibility that goes along with the title.

A vivid example of this type of system in action came in 2018 in Tallahassee, Florida, where former Mayor Andrew Gillum served as the face of the city’s response to Hurricane Michael while he was running for governor. In reality, though, all Gillum could do was act as the spokesperson for the city’s response, as real responsibility rested with the city council. A few major cities across the country operate similarly, such as Phoenix, Fort Worth, and San Jose.

In a strong-mayor system, by contrast, the mayor acts as a genuine chief executive while the city council serves more as a traditional legislative body. Frey has not outright endorsed the shift to a strong-mayor system, but he’s expressed a desire for more clarity between the city council and mayor, saying, “Our system does not provide for a clear line of accountability—not for constituents, not for our partners, and not for departments.” Some candidates, such as Nezhad, have expressed concern that such a shift would have a marginalizing effect on underrepresented communities whose main source of power in local government comes from their city council members.

Governors

● AK-Gov: Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy confirmed Friday that he would seek re-election, but he may face his predecessor in next year’s top-four primary.

Bill Walker, an independent who was elected to his only term in 2014, told the Anchorage Daily News he was giving “very serious consideration” to seeking a comeback. The only other notable politician who has expressed interest in running so far is former state Rep. Les Gara, a Democrat who formed an exploratory committee last month and recently said that, while he hasn’t made a final decision, he’s “likely” to get in.

If Walker runs, he’ll continue a long and eventful career in Last Frontier politics. Walker got his start as a Republican in the 1970s as a member of the city council, and later mayor, of Valdez, and he went on to serve as general counsel for the Alaska Gasline Port Authority. Walker first ran for governor in 2010 when he challenged incumbent Sean Parnell, who had ascended to the state’s top post the previous year after Sarah Palin resigned, but he lost the GOP primary 50-33.

Walker decided to seek a rematch with Parnell as an independent in 2014, but while early surveys from the Democratic firm Public Policy Polling gave the incumbent only lukewarm approval ratings in this red state, Parnell looked secure in a three-way contest that included Democratic nominee Byron Mallott. All of that dramatically changed around Labor Day, though, when Mallott dropped out and became Walker’s running mate, which made the independent candidate the de facto Democratic nominee.

Parnell suddenly found himself in a much tougher race than he’d anticipated, and one he wasn’t adequately prepared for: While the Republican’s campaign belatedly tried to buy TV ad time, there just wasn’t much left to purchase in a state that was hosting an ultra-expensive Senate race between Democratic incumbent Mark Begich and Republican Dan Sullivan. Indeed, while Parnell ended up launching a hard-hitting commercial against Walker, he could only air it in the Juneau media market, where just around 10% of the state lives. Ongoing questions about how Parnell handled sexual-assault cases in the state National Guard only made things worse for the governor.

Walker ended up unseating Parnell 48-46 even as that year’s red wave was propelling Sullivan to victory, but the new governor faced a tough four years in office thanks to a budget crisis from declining oil revenue. Walker, with Mallott at his side, planned to take advantage of a recent court decision that would have allowed him to claim the Democratic nomination in 2018 while still identifying as an independent, but he decided to run without any party support after Begich made a late entry into the race.

Dunleavy, like Parnell four years before, very much looked like the frontrunner in this three-way race thanks in large part to Alaska’s red hue, and the Walker and Begich camps spent the next several months arguing that the other should drop out. Ultimately, it was Walker who ended up leaving the contest and endorsing Begich weeks ahead of Election Day after Mallott resigned following a sexual harassment scandal. It wasn’t enough to stop Dunleavy, though, from beating Begich 51-44, with another 2% going to Walker.

Dunleavy made his own enemies early in his tenure after he oversaw draconian budget cuts, including a retaliatory reduction in funds for the Alaska Supreme Court after it ruled against him in an abortion rights case. This led a bipartisan group to launch a recall campaign against him in 2019, but the pandemic ended up dramatically slowing their signature gathering.

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 it’s not clear how many signatures are still needed. There also haven’t been any recent polls to indicate if Dunleavy is vulnerable either in a recall campaign or in a regular election.

No matter what, though, Alaska will be in for a very different gubernatorial election than any state has ever had next year thanks to the passage of a 2020 ballot measure. Starting in 2022, all the candidates for congressional, legislative, and statewide races will compete on one primary ballot, where contenders will have the option to identify themselves with a party label or be listed as “undeclared” or “nonpartisan.” The top four vote-getters will advance to the general election, where voters will be able to rank their choices using ranked-choice voting.

● HI-Gov: Businesswoman Vicky Cayetano announced over the weekend that she would compete to succeed termed-out Gov. David Ige, a fellow Democrat, in next year’s race. Cayetano joins two high-profile contenders, Lt. Gov. Josh Green and former Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell, in the primary.

Cayetano served as first lady of Hawaii while her husband, Ben Cayetano, was governor two decades ago, but she’s never sought elected office in her own right. Indeed, Civil Beat reporter Kevin Dayton wrote last month that Cayetano, who leads the local division of the laundry giant PureStar, had “generally had not been politically active” until last year, when she co-chaired independent Rick Blangiardi’s successful campaign to succeed Caldwell as mayor.

Despite her political pedigree, Cayetano sounds like she plans to pitch herself as an outsider if she runs for governor, saying in July that, like Blangiardi, she would bring “a new perspective on the problems that we face.”

P.S. This will be the second time that Caldwell has gone up against a member of the Cayetano family. In 2012, a decade after his governorship ended, Ben Cayetano campaigned for mayor of Honolulu in a campaign focused on his opposition to the still-controversial multi-billion dollar ​​Honolulu Rail Transit Project. Caldwell, by contrast, ran as the pro-rail contender and ended up winning 54-46.

● IA-Gov: Deidre DeJear, who was the 2018 Democratic nominee for secretary of state, announced over the weekend that she would challenge Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds. DeJear won her 2018 primary by narrowly defeating Jim Mowrer, who had waged two well-funded bids for Congress, but she lost the general to GOP incumbent Paul Pate 53-45.

DeJear joins state Rep. Ras Smith in the primary, and either one of them would be Iowa’s first Black statewide elected official. Two other prominent Hawkeye State Democrats, Rep. Cindy Axne and state Auditor Rob Sand, are also considering getting in.

● MN-Gov: Dermatologist Neil Shah announced earlier this month that he would seek the GOP nomination to take on Democratic Gov. Tim Walz, and he said over the weekend that he’d already brought in $100,000. Shah began his campaign with the typical Trump-era griping about Walz’s public health protocols and invectives against the “woke mob.”

● NY-Gov: There are several Democrats who could challenge soon-to-be-Gov. Kathy Hochul in next year’s primary, and former New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn now isn’t ruling out joining the contest or campaigning for lieutenant governor. Quinn ran for mayor in 2013 to succeed her ally, Michael Bloomberg, and while she spent much of that contest as the frontrunner, she ended up taking third in the primary with 16% of the vote.

Meanwhile, there’s plenty of speculation that Attorney General Letitia James and state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli could also get into the governor’s race. On Friday, after the Gotham Gazette’s Ben Max directly asked the comptroller if he was thinking about running for governor (the relevant portion begins at the 41:20 mark), DiNapoli responded he’d “probably say” he still planned to run for re-election but added that he was flattered to be mentioned.

He continued that he felt Hochul deserved time to settle into her new job and that Empire State politicians should “give it all a few months to see what the lineup is for next year, but I do expect to be on the ballot.” When Max asked when he felt he’d need to make a decision about running for governor, DiNapoli said he hadn’t thought about it much and didn’t have “a personal deadline.”

James, by contrast, doesn’t appear to have said anything publicly yet about her interest in the days since Andrew Cuomo announced his resignation, though that’s hardly stopped her backers from musing about the idea. Party strategist L. Joy Williams, whom the New York Times identified as a James ally, noted last week that several former state attorneys general, including Cuomo, have been elected governor, and, “It’s naïve to think she couldn’t do the same, if not with a broader coalition and energy behind her campaign, if she decides to run.”

● VA-Gov: The Republican firm co/efficient released new numbers on Friday that show Democrat Terry McAuliffe edging out Republican Glenn Youngkin 47-45 in this fall’s election. The survey was publicized days after a different co/efficient poll for a group called Conservatives for Clean Energy had McAuliffe ahead by a wider 45-40 spread; there’s no word on a client for this new survey.

House

● FL-20: Broward County Commissioner Dale Holness earned an endorsement this week from the state branch of the SEIU ahead of the November special Democratic primary. Holness is one of the five soon-to-be-former elected officials competing in the 11-way nomination contest to succeed the late Rep. Alcee Hastings in this safely blue seat.

We say “soon-to-be-former” because of an unusual element in Florida’s so-called “resign-to-run” law. The state requires any state-level elected officials who are seeking federal office to submit an irrevocable letter of resignation at least 10 business days before they file to run if the two positions’ terms overlap. However, while each resignation needs to take effect on or before the general election, which is Jan. 11 in this case, the office-holders are allowed to continue at their current posts until then.

Indeed, as the South Florida Sun-Sentinel wrote last month, Holness specified that his departure would take effect at 7 PM ET on Jan. 11, which is the precise moment the polls are to close. State Rep. Bobby DuBose, meanwhile, set his resignation for 11:59 PM that day, which allows him to stay in office until the last possible minute. Two other candidates, state Sen. Perry Thurston and state Rep. Omari Hardy, will leave exactly 24 hours earlier; only Broward County Commissioner Barbara Sharief didn’t specify when she would relinquish her post.

None of these resignations can be revoked, so all five of these people will be out of their current jobs on Jan. 12 even though at least four of them will lose the November Democratic primary. The field also includes former Palm Beach County Commissioner Priscilla Taylor and self-funding businesswoman Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, who were not impacted by this state law.

● IL-13: Financial planner David Palmer, a first-time candidate who played basketball in college and later overseas, said Thursday that he’d run for the Democratic nomination to face Republican Rep. Rodney Davis. Palmer speculated that the seat could become more Democratic after redistricting is complete, though he said he’d keep running no matter how the new maps turned out.

● SD-AL: State Rep. Taffy Howard filed FEC paperwork earlier this month for a possible GOP primary bid against incumbent Dusty Johnson, though she hasn’t committed to running yet. Howard confirmed her interest in the race in an interview with the Rapid City Journal last week but added she was still thinking about it and there was “nothing official” about her would-be campaign.

attorneys general

● MI-AG: State Rep. Ryan Berman last week became the first notable Republican to announce a campaign against Democratic Attorney General Dana Nessel, but he’s unlikely to be the last. The Detroit News writes that 2018 nominee Tom Leonard, a former speaker who lost to Nessel 49-46, is “expected” to run.

Both parties pick their nominees for attorney general and secretary of state, as well as for seats on the state Supreme Court and for education boards, at party conventions rather than through traditional primaries. While the GOP usually holds its event in August, it voted over the weekend to hold its convention in late April to give its eventual nominees more time to prepare for the general election.

legislatures

● Special Elections: There’s one special election in Connecticut on tap for Tuesday:

CT-SD-36: This Democratic district that takes in parts of Greenwich, New Canaan, and Stamford became vacant when former state Sen. Alex Kasser resigned in June, citing stress from her ongoing divorce. Kasser was elected to the state Senate in 2018, ousting five-term GOP Rep. Scott Frantz 50-49, and she was re-elected 51-49 over Ryan Fazio last year.

Fazio is back as Team Red’s nominee for this race, while Democrats nominated attorney and gun safety advocate Alexis Gevante. Gevante has the backing of Democratic Gov. Ned Lamont, while Fazio has been endorsed by 2018 gubernatorial nominee Bob Stefanowski and former state House Minority Leader Themis Klarides, both of whom are considering running for governor next year.

This district has shifted favorably for Democrats in recent years, moving from a 54-45 win for Mitt Romney in 2012 to a 57-39 win for Hillary Clinton in 2016, with Biden likely doing even better last year. Kasser’s narrow wins show this district has remained somewhat redder downballot, though, and Connecticut has been a tricky state for Team Blue in legislative special elections.

Democrats control this chamber 23-12 with just this seat vacant, meaning their veto-proof majority is on the line, though Democrats don’t have a veto-proof majority in the state House anyway.

Mayors

● Cleveland, OH Mayor: Retiring Mayor Frank Jackson announced last week that he was endorsing his longtime ally, City Council President Kevin Kelley, in the crowded Sept. 14 nonpartisan primary.

● Seattle, WA Mayor: While most labor endorsements have gone to City Council President Lorena González, the Washington State Council of County and City Employees backed former City Council President Bruce Harrell last week. The two Democrats will face off in the November nonpartisan general election, and the results of the Aug. 3 top-two primary indicate it could be a close fight: While Harrell initially held a wide 38-29 lead right after election day, his edge has dropped to 34-32 as more mail-in ballots have been processed.  

Obituaries

● Former Rep. Paul Mitchell: a Michigan Republican who became an independent in December of last year during the final weeks of his two terms in Congress, Mitchell died Sunday at the age of 64 after being diagnosed with ​​stage IV renal cancer.

Mitchell was generally a reliable vote for the Trump administration, but he used his surprise July 2019 retirement announcement to voice his disgust with Donald Trump and his racist tweet against four women of color in the Democratic House caucus. The following year, Mitchell explained his departure from the GOP saying, “​​This election simply confirms for me that it’s all about power first, and that, frankly, is disgusting and demoralizing.”

Mitchell, who was a wealthy businessman, former member of the St. Clair City Council, and onetime state GOP finance chair, used his personal funds to wage two expensive campaigns over the last decade for two different constituencies. In 2014, he ran to succeed retiring Rep. Dave Camp in the open 4th District in the center of the state and poured $3.56 million of his own money into his bid. Mitchell ran a memorable commercial where he demonstrated his ability to “shoot a crossbow and play the accordion—just not at the same time,” and he concluded that “we need more job-creating, crossbow-shooting, accordion-playing outsiders in Congress.”

Local primary voters didn’t quite agree. While his main rival, state Sen. John Moolenaar, was outspent, he likely benefited from pre-existing name recognition and Camp’s support. The contest turned nasty late, with both Moolenaar and Mitchell attacking each other’s conservative credentials. While polls showed a tight race, Moolenaar beat Mitchell 52-36 and went on to easily prevail in the general election.

Mitchell got another shot two years later when GOP Rep. Candice Miller retired from the 10th District, a safely red suburban seat that ​​includes northern Macomb County and Michigan’s “Thumb” region and does not border the 4th. Mitchell threw down the very same $3.56 million of his own money he’d spent two years before, but this time, the result was very different. State Sen. Phil Pavlov, unlike Moolenaar in 2014, didn’t have the resources to effectively go negative, and Mitchell defeated him 38-28.

Mitchell decided not to run again in 2020 and supported state Rep. Shane Hernandez as his successor, but wealthy businesswoman Lisa McClain claimed the GOP nomination and later the seat.

International

● Canada: Liberal Party Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called an early election on Sunday, sending Canadians back to the polls in just over a month on Sept. 20. Trudeau announced that his government needed a mandate to deal with the pandemic and the economic recovery, but is widely seen as looking for a legislative majority after having led a minority government for the past two years. Trudeau first took power in a 2015 landslide, but losses in 2019 pushed his more centrist party into a minority government that had to rely on the more progressive New Democratic Party (NDP) to pass legislation through Parliament.

The Conservative Party actually won a 34-33 plurality of votes over the Liberals in that election, but the Liberals won more seats thanks to their voters being more efficiently spread across the country. In recent polling, the Liberals have had a lead on the Conservatives of anywhere from 5 to 15 points, which would almost certainly lead to a Liberal majority government. The state of play is illuminated by the Conservative Party’s opposition to calling an early election, despite it nominally giving them an opportunity to take power two years early; they even released this very strange Willy Wonka themed video criticizing Trudeau for calling an early vote.

The NDP is polling up a few points from its 2019 result but faces the usual struggle of translating that support into seats in a first-past-the-post system. Having won just 7% of seats on 16% of the vote, they will look to gain seats and overtake the Bloc Quebecois (BQ) as the third largest party in Parliament. BQ, a Quebec separatist party, is polling at similar levels to 2019 and will look to hold on to the gains they made in that election.