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

● OK-Gov: In a big surprise, two-term Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Instruction Joy Hofmeister told the Tulsa World Wednesday that she was leaving the Republican Party and seeking the Democratic nomination to take on GOP Gov. Kevin Stitt.

Hofmeister, whose party switch gives Team Blue its first statewide elected official in this dark red state since early 2011, said of Stitt, “Through extremism, partisanship, ineffective leadership, he is hurting our education system, our health care, our infrastructure.” The former lifelong Republican continued, “And unfortunately, Gov. Stitt has hijacked the Republican Party in Oklahoma.”

Hofmeister also was a vocal critic of the governor’s handling of the pandemic well before she launched her campaign. Last year, Stitt’s appointees to the Oklahoma State Board of Education ignored Hofmeister’s objections by voting to only make its coronavirus school response plan voluntary. Also in 2020, the superintendent spoke out against a successful bill that banned school districts from requiring students to be masked.

Campaign Action

She didn’t hold back on Wednesday when taking Stitt to task over the coronavirus, arguing, “When you understand now how critical it was to have had a leader who contemplated expert advice and opinion and set an example to help protect Oklahomans, we could have avoided thousands of people dying.” When the paper asked what she’d have done differently if she were governor, Hofmeister responded, “I wouldn’t have churned through four state epidemiologists in the middle of a pandemic.”

Hofmeister won her current post by waging a successful primary campaign against incumbent Janet Barresi, who had inflamed the party base by supporting Common Core, the national academic standards that were the subject of numerous conservative conspiracy theories during the Obama era. ​

Hofmeister, by contrast, was a first time candidate who had previously been appointed by then-GOP Gov. Mary Fallin to the state board of education, where she often ended up opposing Barresi’s proposals. Hofmeister ended up outright winning the three-way primary with 58% of the vote (Barresi took third), and she prevailed 56-44 in the general election.

Hofmeister was charged by state prosecutors two years later for allegedly being part of a conspiracy to illegally fund an independent group during that 2014 primary, but the charges were dismissed the following year. Hofmeister was then forced into a primary runoff in 2018 by Linda Murphy, who went after the incumbent for supporting the tax increase that funded the first teacher pay raise in almost a decade. Hofmeister went on to win renomination 57-43 before decisively prevailing again in November.

Hofmeister’s only opponent in next year’s Democratic primary so far is Connie Johnson, a former state senator who lost the 2018 nomination contest 61-39 after waging an underfunded campaign against ex-state Attorney General Drew Edmondson. Edmondson’s subsequent defeat against Stitt, though, underscores just how difficult it will be for anyone to beat the governor.

Democrats three years ago spent plenty of energy tying Stitt to the termed-out Fallin, who sported horrible approval ratings thanks in large part to the massive budget cuts she oversaw, policies that forced many school districts to switch to four-day weeks. However, while Stitt ran well behind Donald Trump’s 65-29 performance from two years before, he still defeated Edmondson by a convincing 54-42 margin.

The governor’s allies have also been arguing that he’s in solid shape for re-election. A late June survey from the GOP firm Amber Integrated for the conservative Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs showed Stitt with a 59-32 approval rating.

P.S. Hofmeister appears to be the first nonjudicial statewide elected official anywhere to switch parties while in office since 2018, when New Mexico Land Commissioner Aubrey Dunn left the GOP to become a Libertarian; Dunn ran for the Senate that year rather than seek re-election but dropped out ahead of former Gov. Gary Johnson’s entry into that race. The last person to make this switch from Republican to Democratic seems to be Nebraska Auditor Kate Witek in 2006, who went on to lose her bid for a third term that fall.

Redistricting

● AR Redistricting: Both chambers of Arkansas’ Republican-run legislature have passed the GOP’s new congressional map, which splits the state’s largest county three ways to dilute the strength of Black voters and Democrats, sending it to Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson for his approval. The gerrymandered map would shore up Republican Rep. French Hill in the 2nd District, which saw competitive elections the last two cycles. Hutchinson says he’ll decide whether to sign it into law next week, though a veto would be shocking.

● NJ Redistricting: New Jersey Supreme Court Chief Justice Stuart Rabner has tapped Philip Carchman, a retired state appellate judge, as the tiebreaking member of the state’s Apportionment Commission, which will handle legislative redistricting. Carchman was not on the list of tiebreakers proposed by the two parties in August, which contained no overlapping names, allowing Rabner, who was appointed to his post by Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine, to make his own choice.

Carchman also has his roots in Democratic politics, though he was first named to the bench in 1986 by Republican Gov. Tom Kean. According to the New Jersey Globe, Carchman made some donations to Democratic candidates in the early 1980s, but the last occasion was the year before his appointment. In 2004, he took a leave of absence to serve as the administrative director of the state’s court system before returning to the courtroom in 2008 and retiring in 2012. Carchman will now be in the position of choosing between legislative maps proposed by Democrats and Republicans on the commission, which must complete its work by March 1.

In August, following a slightly different process, the state Supreme Court named former Justice John Wallace, who’d been put forth by Democrats, as the tiebreaker for New Jersey’s separate congressional redistricting panel.

3Q FUNDRAISING

● NC-Sen: Cheri Beasley (D): $1.5 million raised, $1.7 million cash-on-hand

● PA-Sen: Carla Sands (R): $500,000 raised, additional $3 million self-funded, $3 million cash-on-hand

● SC-Gov: Joe Cunningham (D): $360,000 raised

● FL-13: Ben Diamond (D): $300,000 raised, $500,000 cash-on-hand; Audrey Henson (R): $205,000 raised (in 20 days)

● IA-01: Ashley Hinson (R-inc): $1 million raised

● KS-03: Sharice Davids (D-inc): $825,000 raised

● MD-01: Heather Mizeur (D): $335,000 raised

● MT-02: Monica Tranel (D): $244K raised

● NE-02: Tony Vargas (D): $400,000 raised

● SC-01: Nancy Mace (R-inc): $950,000 raised

Senate

● PA-Sen: Former Ambassador to Denmark Carla Sands is spending a hefty $1 million on her opening TV spots well ahead of next year’s Republican primary, and the Philadelphia Inquirer writes that the ads will air on Fox News.

It will probably not shock you to learn that Sands begins by playing up her ties to Donald Trump even though he’s already endorsed one of her intra-party foes, Army veteran Sean Parnell. A bit more surprisingly, though, Sands uses footage of Trump BFF Vladimir Putin in her montage of America’s adversaries accompanied by more familiar GOP targets like Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

Governors

● NJ-Gov: Recently filed campaign finance reports show that Republican Jack Ciattarelli has actually outspent Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy for the next month’s general election, $8.9 million to $5.7 million despite getting outraised $13.3 million to $10 million. However, because both candidates have accepted public funds that limit their total spending $15.6 million, it simply means Murphy has more cash left for the stretch run: $7.3 million to just $1.2 million for Ciattarelli.

What’s more, outside groups, including those funded by the DGA and teachers’ unions, have helped Murphy more than make up the gap: Collectively, they’ve spent $12.6 million on the governor’s behalf, while the RGA and a small-time pro-Ciattarelli super PAC have put in less than $500,000. Four years ago, the RGA spent $2.4 million against Murphy, in a race he ultimately won 56-42.

● PA-Gov: The Republican firm Susquehanna Polling & Research’s newest poll of the GOP primary finds 2018 Senate nominee Lou Barletta well in front with 27%, while state Sen. Scott Martin, who has formed an exploratory committee but has yet to announce, is a distant second with 6%. Susquehanna this time did not test state Sen. Doug Mastriano, whom several media reports identify as a likely candidate: Back in March, Barletta led Mastriano 20-11.

House

● AZ-06: Democrat Adam Metzendorf, who just left a corporate job with the Phoenix Suns and Phoenix Mercury pro basketball teams, has announced a bid against Republican Rep. David Schweikert in Arizona’s 6th Congressional District. This traditionally conservative district in the Phoenix suburbs hosted a hotly contested election last year, but Schweikert hung on by a 52-48 margin, and Donald Trump prevailed by a similar 51-47 spread. Redistricting is underway, though, and the state’s independent commission could revamp the district in unpredictable ways.

● IA-03: Democratic Rep. Cindy Axne, who’s still considering a bid for governor, said this week that she’s waiting on the outcome of the redistricting process to decide whether or not to seek re-election. Republicans in the Iowa legislature recently rejected a set of maps proposed by the state’s nonpartisan advisory agency, which could ultimately lead to GOP gerrymanders.

● IN-05: Former Democratic state Rep. Melanie Wright has kicked off a bid against freshman GOP Rep. Victoria Spartz in Indiana’s 5th Congressional District, which Republicans just gerrymandered to make much redder. Wright served three terms in a district that has lurched sharply to the right in recent years, losing by a 55-45 margin in 2020 as Donald Trump was carrying her seat by a punishing 64-31 spread.

● TX-38: Army veteran Wesley Hunt has released a Moore Information survey of an extremely hypothetical Republican primary for the proposed 38th Congressional District that gives him a 38-19 lead over former Rep. John Culberson, who lost re-election in 2018 in the current 7th District. Kathaleen Wall, who spent massive amounts of her own money during the last two cycles only to lose GOP primaries for two other Houston-area seats, the 2nd and 22nd, is in third with 9%.

Don’t dig out those Wall t-shirts or Culberson for Congress fossil cases yet, though. The Texas Tribune’s Patrick Svitek, who first shared the poll, tweets, “Haven’t gotten any word these other folks are interested in running, but sounds like campaign picked several local Republicans w/ primary name ID to establish baseline.”

Mayors

● Albuquerque, NM Mayor: In his first TV ad ahead of the Nov. 2 nonpartisan election, Bernalillo County Sheriff Manny Gonzales touts his humble local roots and service in the Marines and police. The commercial, which does not mention Democratic incumbent Tim Keller, goes on to praise him as “a tough on crime county sheriff” who has “a plan to turn our city around [that] starts with fighting crime and ending the homeless epidemic.”

● Atlanta, GA Mayor: SurveyUSA’s new poll for WXIA-TV Atlanta finds former Mayor Kasim Reed leading the Nov. 2 nonpartisan primary with 18%, with City Council President Felicia Moore taking the second spot in the likely runoff with 8%. Four other contenders are just behind with 5% each: attorney Sharon Gay, City Councilmen Andre Dickens and Antonio Brown, and businesswoman Rebecca King, who has attracted little attention so far.

Most other polls we’ve seen over the last few months, including a mid-September Gay internal, have shown Reed and Moore far ahead of the rest of the field.

● Los Angeles, CA Mayor: EMILY’s List has endorsed Democratic Rep. Karen Bass ahead of next June’s nonpartisan primary for this open seat.

Bass last week also unveiled endorsements from eight fellow Southern California House members, though only Reps. Ted Lieu and Lucille Roybal-Allard represent any of the city.