Morning Digest: How Democrats flipped the Tulsa mayor's office—two months early

Top-two lockouts suck ... especially when they happen to you

Oklahoma Democrat Monroe Nichols, who finished first in Tuesday’s primary for mayor of Tulsa (credit: Monroe Nichols Facebook)

Leading Off

Tulsa, OK Mayor

Oklahoma Democrats won a shock victory on Tuesday night when they flipped control of the mayor's office in Tulsa—two months ahead of schedule.

The results saw a pair of Democrats, state Rep. Monroe Nichols and Tulsa County Commissioner Karen Keith, advance to the November general election for the right to lead Oklahoma's second-largest city. Republicans, meanwhile, got completely locked out of the race for a post they've held for the last 15 years.

Nichols narrowly outpaced Keith 33.1-32.6 in the seven-person primary, while businessman Brent VanNorman fell just short of a general election berth with 31.8%. Now Nichols and Keith will face off in the hopes of succeeding retiring Republican Mayor G.T. Bynum, who chose not to run for a third four-year term.

The ballot in this officially nonpartisan race did not feature party labels, but the three leading competitors took different approaches on the matter of partisanship. VanNorman, who trails Keith by 710 votes, made it clear during the campaign that he was a conservative Republican, while The Oklahoman's William Wertz says that the two Democrats "did not emphasize" their own party affiliation.

Nichols, who would be Tulsa's first Black mayor, enjoyed the backing of both former Mayor Kathy Taylor and former Gov. Brad Henry, both of whom were the last Democrats to hold their respective offices. Taylor, whose unsuccessful 2013 comeback campaign was managed by Nichols, said her protégé represented generational change.

"Karen and I—Karen’s a bit older than me," Taylor said of Keith, who at 70 is three decades older than Nichols, according to Tulsa Public Radio. "We both had our time to serve." 

But Keith, a former TV reporter who was first elected to the county commission in 2008, has argued her experience is vital for the city. Keith has also campaigned as a moderate who can "work across party lines": She's earned endorsements from the local police and firefighter unions and has said she'd make the permitting process easier for developers.

That positioning could help Keith win over Republicans, who no longer have a candidate of their own, in a city where conservatives make up a sizable portion of the electorate. Donald Trump carried the city 49-45 in 2016, while Joe Biden took it 51-46 four years later, according to VEST data from Dave's Redistricting App.

VanNorman had dismissed both his rivals as "liberal Democrats," but he had trouble securing enough Republican support to advance. He waited until the end of May to announce his bid and only began advertising a few weeks before the election, News on 6 reported.

Bynum, the outgoing mayor, also remained conspicuously neutral during the primary, and he may not have been especially sorry to see VanNorman fall short: During the campaign, VanNorman attacked Bynum's administration for taking an insufficiently hardline stance on immigration.

Until now, Tulsa Republicans had never feared a general election lockout since their now-broken winning streak began in 2009. Republican Dewey Bartlett, the son and namesake of a late governor and senator, that year convincingly won both the Republican primary and general election to succeed the retiring Taylor.

Two years later, however, Tulsans voted 55-45 to approve a ballot measure that ended the city's traditional party primary system and instituted its current nonpartisan setup. The new system originally wasn't an impediment for Bartlett, who fended off Taylor's comeback effort 56-44 in 2013. The incumbent, however, had to watch his back in 2016 (a schedule change moved mayoral elections to presidential years) against a member of his own party.

That fellow Republican was Bynum, whose grandfather had led the city in the 1970s. Bynum faulted Bartlett's handling of education and notably refused to say whether he'd back Donald Trump. He unseated Bartlett in a 56-38 landslide, with some of his best showings coming from heavily Democratic areas.

Bynum, who continued to present himself as a moderate, attracted national attention in 2020 when he attended the first rally Trump had held since the start of the coronavirus pandemic—an event that critics warned would spread the disease locally. (One prominent attendee, 2012 presidential candidate Herman Cain, died a short time later after testing positive for COVID.)

Bynum, however, still won reelection 52-29 against a Democratic foe a few months later, earning the majority of the vote that he needed to avoid a runoff. The mayor decided not to run again this year, however, which set off the primary that resulted in a Democratic pickup well before November.

The Downballot Podcast

What Split Ticket's models say about November

One of the best things to emerge from Election Twitter is Split Ticket, a site—like ours—devoted to rigorous analysis of elections. We're delighted to welcome founder Laskhya Jain on this week's episode of The Downballot podcast to tell us about how Split Ticket came to be and how he learned to trust the data over his vibes. He also gives us a sneak preview of the next update to his Senate model and spotlights several House races he thinks could be bellwethers in November. We knew we'd found a kindred spirit because we could have gone on for hours, but we're sure we'll have Lakshya on again!

Co-hosts David Nir and David Beard also discuss the shock Democratic flip in the race for Tulsa mayor, where Republicans got locked out of the general election in Tuesday's primary. Is Nir now a convert to the wisdom of top-two primaries? They then drag Utah Republicans for their naked attempt to eviscerate citizen-sponsored ballot initiatives just so they can keep gerrymandering before returning to Alaska to catch up on the surprising exit of a top GOP recruit in the state's House race.

The Downballot podcast comes out every Thursday morning everywhere you listen to podcasts. To make sure you never miss an episode, just click the button below:

You can also find a complete transcript here.

House

FL-13

A new survey for St. Pete Polls for the news site Florida Politics unexpectedly finds Democrat Whitney Fox leading far-right Rep. Anna Paulina Luna 48-44 in Florida's 13th District, a constituency that Republicans aggressively gerrymandered just two years ago.

Fox, who is a former official with the local Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority, is not the only Democrat that respondents favor. Kamala Harris outpaces Donald Trump by a similar 51-46 spread, four years after Trump carried the current incarnation of this St. Petersburg-area seat by a decisive 53-46 margin. The poll also finds former Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell edging out Republican Sen. Rick Scott 49-46 here.

It's too early, however, to say whether this poll portends a dramatic swing to the left in a crucial area in Florida, or whether its sample was simply too left-leaning. The only previous survey we've seen of the 13th District was a Fox internal conducted more than three months ago that placed Luna ahead 51-46. In addition, no major outside groups from either party have booked any ad time for any of Florida's House races, including this one, though there's still time for that to change.

FL-15

Florida Democrat Patricia Kemp has released a mid-July internal poll from Change Research that shows her trailing Republican Rep. Laurel Lee by a small 44-41 margin in the 15th District, which is based in the Tampa area. The poll was concluded on July 19, two days before Kamala Harris replaced Joe Biden as the Democrat's national standard-bearer. The 15th District in 2020 favored Donald Trump 51-48, which mirrored his performance statewide.

Kemp, who serves on the Hillsborough County Commission, launched her campaign in late March at a time when it looked like Lee might not even win renomination. Trump had recently taken to social media to call for "great MAGA Republicans" to challenge Lee, who was the only member of Florida's congressional delegation to endorse Gov. Ron DeSantis' doomed presidential bid. No serious candidates heeded Trump's call, though, and he later did an about-face and endorsed Lee ahead of her easy primary win last week.

But while Kemp had no intra-party opposition at all, she's struggled to convince donors that Lee is beatable. Kemp brought in less than $300,000 during the first four months of her campaign to unseat the well-funded incumbent. The challenger, though, is hoping that this poll, which is the first survey that anyone has released here, will convince skeptics to take a second look at her race.

MN-02

Former federal prosecutor Joe Teirab may have won the GOP primary to take on Democratic Rep. Angie Craig two weeks ago, but the Republican Party in Minnesota's 2nd District still hasn't decided if it will even endorse him.

Party officials were supposed to make a decision on Tuesday night, but they instead narrowly voted to table the matter. Several GOP leaders, as the Minnesota Star Tribune's Sydney Kashiwagi recently explained, remain angry with Teirab over his actions prior to securing the Republican nod for this suburban constituency in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area.

Teirab originally announced that he'd drop out of the primary if his opponent, attorney Tayler Rahm, prevailed at the party's convention in April. While earning the party's endorsement isn't the same thing as winning its nomination, many activists―especially on the Republican side―expect candidates to drop out if the delegates back someone else.

Teirab, however, said days before the gathering that he'd continue on to the primary no matter what because he felt that Rahm, who had struggled to raise money, was too flawed to beat Craig. Rahm easily won at the convention, but he proved Teirab right when he announced last month that he was suspending his bid in order to join Donald Trump's campaign.

Rahm's name, however, remained on the primary ballot, and he continued to send out mailers to primary voters. It didn't amount to much, though, as Teirab convincingly beat Rahm's zombie campaign in a 76-26 drubbing.

But Republicans were nevertheless not ready to unite around their nominee. Joe Ditto, who chairs the 2nd District GOP, recently told Kashiwagi that his fellow committee members were "pretty split" on the matter.

"A lot of them want to unite behind the winner of the primary," he said, "and others are still bitter about the way things went down." That bitterness manifested itself again on Tuesday when the party declined to back its own nominee.

Ditto says that, because the 2nd District GOP hasn't endorsed Teirab, it can't use party resources to help him defeat Craig. The state-level Republican Party, however, isn't bound by those rules, and it made it clear it would do what it could to help its candidate prevail in a tough district that Joe Biden carried 53-45 four years ago.

NJ-09

State Sen. Nellie Pou is now the sole remaining Democrat seeking to replace the late Rep. Bill Pascrell on the November ballot after Assemblyman Benjie Wimberly became the third candidate in as many days to drop out of the race on Wednesday. Gov. Phil Murphy went on to endorse Pou's bid for the reliably blue 9th District. Party leaders will meet on Thursday to formalize Pou's nomination.

NRCC

The National Republican Congressional Committee announced two additional fall TV reservations on Wednesday, with $800,000 going to the Harlingen, Texas, media market and another $720,000 direct to Des Moines, Iowa.

Unusually for such an announcement, the committee identified specific districts it has in mind for both reservations. In a press release, the NRCC said the Harlingen booking is intended to help defeat Democratic Rep. Vicente Gonzales in Texas' 34th District while the Des Moines reservation is aimed at protecting Republican Rep. Zach Nunn in Iowa's 3rd.

Such statements, however, are not hard-and-fast promises, since reservations can always be canceled or directed toward other districts in those same markets. You can stay on top of House ad reservations by the four largest outside groups by bookmarking our continually updated tracker.

Ballot Measures

AZ Ballot

A constitutional amendment to change Arizona's electoral system will be on the general election ballot, but the Arizona Mirror's Jerod MacDonald-Evoy reports that ongoing litigation could result in votes on Proposition 140 not getting counted.

MacDonald-Evoy explains that, while a state court judge ruled that backers of the proposed amendment had submitted a sufficient number of signatures, the state Supreme Court determined that the lower court had not properly addressed evidence alleging that many of those signatures were duplicates.

Arizona's highest court has ordered the case be reopened, and MacDonald-Evoy writes that the justices will almost certainly have the final say on the lawsuit. While Proposition 140 is set to remain on the ballot, that won't matter if the courts ultimately determine it should not have gone before voters in the first place.

Minimum Wage

At least five states will vote this fall on ballot measures to raise their minimum wage or expand their law's reach. Stateline's Elaine Povich has a look at each of these contests, which will take place in Alaska, Arizona, California, Massachusetts, and Missouri. Activists in Oklahoma also submitted signatures for a measure of their own, but they say that "the delay tactics orchestrated and led by the political insiders at the Oklahoma State Chamber," the state's affiliate of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, will likely keep it off the 2024 ballot.

Mayors & County Leaders

Cobb County, GA Board of Commissioners

The Cobb County Commission voted on Tuesday evening to accept the gerrymandered map that Georgia's Republican-controlled state legislature passed after the 2020 census to weaken Democrats, eschewing any further legal appeals. The vote came a month after a state court ruled that the Democratic-led commission violated the state constitution by adopting its own map for the 2022 elections.

That ruling ordered new elections next year for the two district-level seats that would have been up in 2024. However, the countywide seat of Commission Chair Lisa Cupid, a Democrat, will remain on the ballot this fall.

If Cupid wins reelection against Republican Kay Morgan, her party will likely keep their 3-2 edge next year despite the GOP's meddling. That's because Republicans made the two constituencies that were supposed to be up in this cycle, the Democratic-held 2nd and 4th districts, dark blue in order to shore up two seats where Republicans won four-year terms in 2022.

But Democrats could still temporarily lose their majority until next year because the GOP map moved Democratic Commissioner Jerica Richardson's home out of her district. The commission deadlocked Tuesday when it tried to decide whether residency requirements meant that Richardson had to give up her seat now or if she could keep serving the rest of her term.

Richardson, reports the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, says she'll remain at her post unless she's officially notified that she must step down, though she predicted there would be more litigation.

Cobb County, which is located northwest of Atlanta, for decades had a well-deserved reputation for being safely Republican turf.

"Every year they release two liberal Democrats in the wild here so they don't become an endangered species," a local GOP state representative joked to the New York Times in 1994 before turning darker. "If Bill Clinton came into the district," he warned, "he probably would not see the light of day again."

However, the area transformed dramatically in recent years, and Joe Biden's decisive 56-42 victory in Cobb County helped him become the first Democrat to carry Georgia in the 21st century. The elections of Richardson, Cupid, and fellow Democrat Monique Sheffield also ensured that Black women would hold a majority on the commission, something that once would have been unthinkable in a place that was a destination point for conservative voters in the era of white flight.

Poll Pile

• AZ-Sen: Beacon Research (D) and Shaw & Company Research (R) for Fox News: Ruben Gallego (D): 56, Kari Lake (R): 41 (50-49 Harris in two-way, 48-47 Harris with third-party candidates)

• NJ-Sen: National Research Inc. (R) for Curtis Bashaw: Andy Kim (D): 38, Curtis Bashaw (R): 33

• NV-Sen: Strategies 360 (D): Jacky Rosen (D-inc): 50, Sam Brown (R): 38 (48-42 Harris with third-party candidates)

• NV-Sen: Beacon and Shaw for Fox: Rosen (D-inc): 55, Brown (R): 41 (50-48 Harris in two-way, 48-46 Harris with third-party candidates)

• NC-Gov: Beacon and Shaw for Fox: Josh Stein (D): 54, Mark Robinson (R): 43 (50-49 Trump in two-way, 48-47 Trump with third-party candidates)

Fox's polls also find abortion rights amendments in Arizona and Nevada passing by landslide margins of 73-23 and 75-21, respectively.    

Ad Roundup

• MI-Sen: One Nation - anti-Elissa Slotkin (D); Great Lakes Conservatives Fund - pro-Mike Rogers (R)

• MT-Sen: Tim Sheehy (R) - anti-Jon Tester (D-inc)

• NV-Sen: Jacky Rosen (D-inc) - anti-Sam Brown (R) (here and here)

• PA-Sen: Keystone Renewal PAC - anti-Bob Casey (D-inc) (here and here)

• WI-Sen: One Nation - anti-Tammy Baldwin (D-inc)

• DE-Gov: Bethany Hall-Long (D)

• NH-Gov: Joyce Craig (D)

• CO-08: Yadira Caraveo (D-inc)

• MI-08: Paul Junge (R) - anti-Kristen McDonald Rivet (D) (here, here, and here)

• OR-05: Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R-inc)