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

Leading Off

● VA-07: State Sen. Amanda Chase, the self-described “Trump in heels” who gave her fellow Republicans plenty of headaches even before her unsuccessful campaign for governor this year, announced Wednesday that she would take on Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger. Chase had said last week that she would wait until the redistricting process, which is being handled by the Virginia Supreme Court, was finished, but she changed her mind and decided to kick off a campaign now.

Chase joins a nomination battle that includes Bryce Reeves, a fellow state senator who joined with a majority of their colleagues in voting to censure her in January for spreading lies about the 2020 election and calling the Jan. 6 rioters “patriots.” The contest also features communications consultant Taylor Keeney and ​​Tina Ramirez, while Del. John McGuire has filed with the FEC ahead of a possible campaign. However, these candidates don’t know yet if local Republicans will select their nominee using a traditional primary, a convention, or through a party-run firehouse primary.

It also remains to be seen how redistricting will impact this suburban Richmond seat. Joe Biden won the current 7th District by a 50-49 margin, while, according to Bloomberg’s Greg Giroux, Republican Glenn Youngkin took it 55-44 in this month’s race for governor.

Campaign Action

Chase herself has spent years picking fights with just about everyone. In 2019, she swore at and berated a police officer at the state capitol who told her that she couldn’t park her car in a secure area, and Chase’s refusal to apologize led Chesterfield County Sheriff Karl Leonard to withdraw his endorsement of her re-election campaign. Chase responded to Leonard’s snub by backing his independent opponent’s unsuccessful campaign and falsely accusing the incumbent of making Chesterfield a “sanctuary city.” The Chesterfield County GOP in turn voted to eject her from the party.

Chase was still re-elected to her reliably red seat, but the Senate GOP found itself in the minority. After her Republican colleagues kept Tommy Norment on as their leader, though, Chase announced that she’d leave the party caucus in protest, a move that left her with just one minor committee assignment.

She drew far more attention when she campaigned for governor, including for her December 2020 Facebook post calling for Trump to “declare martial law" to stay in office. The state senator also said that month that she was bolting the party and running as an independent after the Virginia GOP opted to hold a convention instead of a primary, a move she framed as “the only way to bypass the political consultants and the Republican establishment elite who slow play the rules or even cheat.”

Chase backed down just a week later and went back to campaigning as a Republican, but she outright said months later she’d go back to running as an independent if Pete Snyder, a wealthy businessman she accused of trying to claim the nomination through underhanded means, prevailed at the convention.

Chase spent the final days of her campaign in the news when one of her aides brandished an AR-15 at another driver. Chase, who was in the vehicle participating in a virtual candidate event at the time, told the audience at the time, “Speaking of a Second Amendment moment, we just had to—oh, my goodness—we are exercising our Second Amendment rights right now [in] our car, where we had somebody road rage, trying to get in front of—get on us.” The state senator heavily promoted the story afterwards.

All of this wasn’t enough, however, for her to win over party delegates. Youngkin led Snyder 33-26 in the instant runoff contest while Chase took third with 21%, and she didn’t rise much further than that before she was eliminated from contention after the fifth round of tabulations. Chase soon disappointed Democrats by supporting Youngkin instead of abandoning the party again, and she characteristically spent the final days of the general election making evidence-free allegations that Democrats were “cheating.”

Redistricting

● GA Redistricting: Republicans in Georgia’s legislature have released a new draft congressional map that’s largely similar to a proposal they put out in September. As before, the chief aim of the new map is to make Democratic Rep. Lucy McBath’s blue-leaning 6th District in the Atlanta suburbs unwinnably red, principally by making the adjacent 7th District, held by Democratic Rep. Carolyn Bourdeaux, appreciably bluer. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that votes on the plan are “likely to follow later this week.”

● MA Redistricting: Both chambers in Massachusetts’ Democratic-run legislature passed a new congressional map by wide margins on Wednesday, though a number of Democrats voted against the plan and several Republicans voted for it. The new map is largely similar to the one it would replace and would likely keep the state’s nine-member House delegation all-Democratic. Republican Gov. Charlie Baker could conceivably veto the map, though Democrats enjoy wide supermajorities. (The Senate approved the map 26-13, which just meets the two-thirds threshold, though roll calls on overrides can often differ.)

● NH Redistricting: A committee in New Hampshire’s Republican-run state House passed new maps for Congress and its own chamber on a party-line vote on Wednesday. The congressional plan would make the 1st District considerably redder in order to target Democratic Rep. Chris Pappas; it would also represent the most radical revamp of the state’s two districts in 140 years.

The state House map, meanwhile, would likely preserve the GOP’s majorities, but it’s almost impossible to analyze because lawmakers have provided no data files for it—just 10 different PDFs, one for each county. It also appears to retain New Hampshire’s unique "floterial” districts, despite their unpopularity with many legislators and voters.

● NV Redistricting: Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak signed Nevada’s new congressional and legislative maps on Tuesday evening, the same day that the Democratic-run legislature passed them. For more on what the new districts will mean, check out our earlier summary.

● OH Redistricting: A committee in Ohio’s Republican-run state House has advanced the GOP’s new congressional redistricting plan along party lines, but now it faces a fresh obstacle on the chamber floor: A band of Republican extremists are threatening that they won’t vote for the map unless party leaders take up an entirely unrelated bill they’re pushing to curb COVID vaccine mandates. House Speaker Bob Cupp nevertheless insists the map will pass and says a vote is scheduled for Thursday.

● OK Redistricting: Oklahoma’s Republican-run state House passed the GOP’s new congressional redistricting plan on Wednesday on a largely party-line vote, with all Democrats and one Republican voting against. The map would make the 5th District, which is the state’s only competitive seat, safely red by cracking the Oklahoma City area between three different districts.

● WA Redistricting: In a bizarre twist to an already bizarre story, Washington’s bipartisan redistricting commission released congressional and legislative maps late on Tuesday night local time—after admitting earlier in the day that it had missed the Monday deadline to complete its work and acknowledging that the state Supreme Court would take over the redistricting process. The commissioners once again did not offer any substantive explanation for why they failed to finish on time, saying only that they could “see no reason why the Court can’t” consider their maps.

Senate

● GA-Sen: Former state Rep. Josh Clark, a Republican who retired in 2014 after two terms in the legislature, announced this week that he would run for the U.S. Senate.

● PA-Sen: Former Ambassador to Denmark Carla Sands has announced a new $1 million TV and digital ad campaign well ahead of the May Republican primary. The self-funder tells the audience, “We need conservatives in Washington with the backbone to stand up to Nancy Pelosi and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and their radical, socialist agenda.”

● VT-Sen, VT-AL: VT Digger writes that a trio of Democrats, state Senate President Pro Tem Becca Balint, Lt. Gov. Molly Gray, and state Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale, have each “indicated” that they wouldn’t go up against Rep. Peter Welch if he ran for Vermont’s open Senate seat but could instead campaign to succeed him in the lower chamber.

The only one who was quoted was Ram Hinsdale, who said, “I personally don’t have a fire in my belly to run against Congressman Welch if he pursues the Senate seat.” Gray, meanwhile, said she’d use the Thanksgiving holiday to think about her 2022 plans. Vermont is the only state that still hasn’t elected a woman to either chamber of Congress.

Governors

● AZ-Gov: Several prominent African American leaders in Arizona denounced Democratic Secretary of State ​​Katie Hobbs days after a federal jury awarded $2.75 million in damages to a state Senate staffer named Talonya Adams, a Black woman who claimed that she was fired in 2015 after complaining about being paid less than her white male colleagues.

Hobbs, who was the chamber’s minority leader at the time, was not a defendant in Adams’ lawsuit against the Senate, which was controlled by Republicans. However, she did testify that she had been part of a group that fired Adams, saying its members “agreed that we had lost trust and confidence in Ms. Adams, and that was why that decision [to fire her] was made.”

Hobbs apologized to Adams in 2019 after Adams won a $1 million verdict that was later tossed out by saying she “should have been a stronger ally in this instance.” Her campaign last week responded to the jury’s award in Adams’ second trial by saying that “the Republican majority chief of staff acted as her supervisor and the ultimate decision-maker regarding the termination of her employment.”

Adams, who was rehired in 2019 after a judicial order, didn’t agree. After the conclusion of the case, she said, “As it relates to Katie Hobbs, she’s had multiple opportunities to call out discrimination based on race and sex, she’s had multiple opportunities to support other women and women of color, even myself, and each time she’s failed.”

Six Black leaders also responded with a statement of their own, saying, “We ask that all persons, especially people of color, reconsider any support for Katie Hobbs to become the next governor of Arizona” due to her actions regarding Adams’ firing. The group includes NAACP state President Charles Fanniel; Sandra Kennedy, who is a Democratic member of the powerful Arizona Corporation Commission; and former state Rep. Art Hamilton, who in the 1980s was a leader in the high-profile fight to establish a Martin Luther King holiday over the opposition of Republican Gov. Evan Mecham.

Hobbs is the most prominent Democrat competing in next year’s primary for governor. The field also includes former state Rep. Aaron Lieberman and former homeland security official Marco López, who each were quick to criticize Hobbs following the jury’s decision.

● GA-Gov: Conservative radio host Martha Zoller on Wednesday asked former Sen. David Perdue about reports that he was considering challenging Gov. Brian Kemp in next May’s Republican primary, and Perdue very much did not rule anything out. “The fact that your phone is blowing up and my phone is blowing up, tells us something,” he argued, adding, “We have a divided party in Georgia right now.” CNN also reported that day that several unnamed Peach State Republicans expect Perdue to make up his mind “soon.”

● NE-Gov: Republican Lt. Gov. Mike Foley said last week that he’d run for his old job as state auditor next year rather than enter the open seat race for governor.

House

● CA-14: A few Democrats have already expressed interest in running in the June top-two primary to succeed Rep. Jackie Speier, who announced her retirement on Tuesday. The current configuration of this seat, which contains most of San Mateo County and some of San Francisco to the north, backed Joe Biden 78-20, and the new district will likely look very similar when redistricting is done. California’s filing deadline is in mid-March.

San Mateo County Board of Supervisors President David Canepa and Millbrae City Councilmember Gina Papan each quickly said they were considering, while Assemblyman Kevin Mullin, who worked as Speier’s district director when she was in the legislature, tweeted Wednesday that he was also thinking about it and would “have more to say about the race soon.”

State Sen. Josh Becker also didn’t rule out the idea when asked, while Redwood City Councilmember Giselle Hale, who is also an executive at the firm Political Data Inc., said she was waiting for redistricting to conclude before deciding. San Mateo County Supervisor Dave Pine, meanwhile, did not respond to Politico’s inquiry about his interest.

The Los Angeles Times also mentioned Assemblyman Phil Ting, who is the only San Francisco-based politician on the list, while Bay Area News Group added Redwood City Councilmember Alicia Aguirre’s name as a possibility. Assemblyman Marc Berman, meanwhile, quickly said no.

● CA-21: Former Rep. TJ Cox on Wednesday endorsed Democratic Assemblyman Rudy Salas’ campaign against Republican Rep. David Valadao, a move that takes Cox out of contention for 2022.  

● KY-05: While Republican Rep. Hal Rogers has been on the retirement watchlist for several cycles, the 83-year-old incumbent announced this week that he was running for a 22nd term in his ultra-red eastern Kentucky constituency.  

● ME-02: Republican Liz Caruso, a longtime opponent of the Central Maine Power hydropower corridor project who was a spokesperson in last month’s successful Question 1 campaign to block it, announced this week that she was joining the June GOP primary to take on Democratic Rep. Jared Golden. Caruso is also a selectman in Caratunk, a community with a population of about 70. (And you thought New Hampshire state representatives had tiny constituencies.)

Golden’s most prominent adversary is former Rep. Bruce Poliquin, a Republican who has never recognized his 2018 loss. Poliquin outraised Golden $880,000 to $635,000 during the opening quarter of their rematch, though the incumbent ended September with a $1.3 million to $870,000 cash-on-hand edge. State Rep. Mike Perkins is also running for Team Red, but he had a paltry $25,000 available at the end of the third quarter.  

● NC-02: Spectrum News’ Reuben Jones reported Wednesday that Democratic Rep. G. K. Butterfield has decided to retire rather than seek re-election in the new version of North Carolina’s 2nd District, which supported Joe Biden just 51-48 under the new Republican gerrymander. Butterfield’s office didn’t confirm or deny anything and instead told Jones “the official announcement will be made later today or tomorrow.”

● NC-06, NC-Sen: State Sen. Valerie Foushee announced Wednesday that she was entering the race to succeed her fellow Democrat, retiring Rep. David Price, in the new version of this safely blue seat in the Chapel Hill-Durham area. Foushee, who back in 2004 became the first Black woman elected to the Orange County Board of Commissioners, kicked off her campaign with endorsements from state Sens. Natalie Murdock and Mike Woodard, who had previously shown some interest in running here themselves.

Virologist Richard Watkins also said Wednesday that he was dropping his campaign for the Senate in order to run for the 6th District. Watkins in 2018 took 6% in his long-shot primary campaign against Price, and he had just $60,000 on-hand in September for his latest campaign.

The pair joins a March primary that includes Durham County Commissioner Nida Allam and state Sen. Wiley Nickel. The filing deadline is Dec. 17.

● NC-14: Republican state Sen. Ralph Hise has confirmed that he’s interested in running for this open seat in western North Carolina. Hise is the author of the new GOP gerrymander that passed earlier this month, though he says he was caught by surprise along with everyone else when Rep. Madison Cawthorn announced days later that he’d run for the 13th District instead of here.

● PA-07: Republican state Rep. Ryan Mackenzie has filed FEC paperwork for a potential bid against Democratic Rep. Susan Wild. Mackenzie campaigned for Congress back in 2018 when GOP Rep. Charlie Dent retired, but he dropped out well before the primary.

● TX-34: Democratic state Rep. Alex Dominguez said Wednesday that he would run for an open seat in the state Senate instead of for Congress. Dominguez showed some interest last month in campaigning for the 34th Congressional District, but he started to back off after Democratic Rep. Vicente Gonzalez decided to run here instead of in the 15th District.

Attorneys General

● SD-AG: Last week, South Dakota’s Republican-run state House voted overwhelmingly to begin an impeachment inquiry into state Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg, who pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges in August for striking and killing a man with his car last year. House Speaker Spencer Gosch indicated after the vote that the special committee investigating Ravnsborg might issue a report when lawmakers reconvene in January. It would take a simple majority in the House to impeach the attorney general, followed by a two-thirds vote in the state Senate to remove him.

Legislatures

● VA State House: As expected, Democrats have asked for recounts in two close races for seats they hold in the Virginia state House. Republicans won 50 seats in the chamber on Nov. 2 to 48 for Democrats; they also lead in the two elections headed to a recount: Republican A.C. Cordoza is up 94 votes on Democratic Del. Martha Mugler in District 91 in Hampton Roads, while Republican Karen Greenhalgh is currently beating Democratic Del. Alex Askew by 127 votes in District 85 in Virginia Beach.

Because the margin in both contests is under 0.5%, the state will pay for the recounts. There’s no telling how long they’ll take, though, and it could be a while: A 2017 recount in a House race didn’t start until Dec. 19 of that year (and because it ended—rather questionably—in a tie, it wasn’t resolved until early January). While it’s very unlikely either outcome will change, a vote tabulation error previously sliced Mugler’s deficit in half and in fact prompted her to rescind her earlier concession. If both races were to flip, the two parties would wind up in a 50-50 tie, necessitating a power-sharing agreement.