Morning Digest, sponsored by Liftoff Campaigns: How Dick Durbin plans to decide whether to seek a sixth term
He still won't say when he'll make up his mind, but he is explaining how
Leading Off
IL-Sen
Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin, when asked about his timeline for announcing whether he'll seek a sixth term next year, would only tell Capitol Fax reporter Isabel Miller, "Soon." Pressed as to whether that might mean this month or the next, Durbin repeated, "Soon."
Miller then asked the 80-year-old incumbent, who is the second-ranking Democrat in the Senate, about the "sort of factors" he'd rely on to come to a decision. Durbin's response, in full:
Whether I'm still physically able, mentally able to deal with the issues. This press conference is an indication that I still have my wits about me. And when it comes to the physical side of it, up and moving around, taking nourishment.
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Senate
LA-Sen
Rep. Clay Higgins said Thursday that he'd remain in the House rather than challenge Sen. Bill Cassidy, though he was anything but gracious toward the incumbent in a statement announcing his decision.
"A MAGA America First Republican candidate will emerge, my Brothers and Sisters, and that Louisiana Patriot Republican nominee will be held accountable to stand by their promise to We the People of Louisiana," predicted Higgins, a member of the House Freedom Caucus.
Cassidy already faces opposition in the GOP primary from Treasurer John Fleming, whom Higgins did not mention in his missive. Other Republicans are also considering running to punish Cassidy for his 2021 vote to convict Donald Trump over the Jan. 6 riot.
Michigan
Step aside, Dan Osborn: Former Democratic Rep. Andy Levin tells Inside Elections' Jacob Rubashkin that he's received encouragement to run for five different posts in his home state of Michigan next year, including Senate, governor, attorney general, and two different House districts—the 10th and 11th. (Osborn, a comparative slouch, has talked about pursuing a mere four offices in Nebraska.)
Levin cautions that he's not "preparing a run" for any of these races, all of which will or could be open next year. In 2022, Levin lost a bid to remain in Congress following redistricting after he opted to run against a fellow Democratic incumbent, Haley Stevens, in the 11th instead of seeking the open 10th—against the wishes of many fellow Democrats.
Stevens, who might run for Senate, won that matchup in a 60-40 landslide while Republican John James, who's likely to run for governor, won the 10th District by just half a percentage point in the general election.
Governors
TN-Gov, TN-06
Republican Rep. John Rose finally brought an end to his long "non-announcement tour" with an actual announcement: On Thursday, he kicked off a bid for Tennessee's governorship, setting up a clash with a much better-known member of Congress and leaving behind an open seat in the state's conservative 6th District.
Rose's big obstacle is Sen. Marsha Blackburn, who's already won statewide twice before and released an internal poll earlier this year that showed her demolishing Rose by a 71-13 margin—a survey Rose never answered with contrary data. Blackburn has not yet launched a campaign herself, but she's taken concrete steps toward a run that includes airing TV ads.
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The main thing Rose has going for him is his personal wealth, which reportedly stands at more than $50 million. (He made his buck by starting and later selling a company called Transcender Corp. that provides exam prep materials for IT professionals.) But even if Rose spends down his kids' inheritance to win, he'll still start off in a daunting hole in the likely event Blackburn joins him in the race to succeed term-limited Gov. Bill Lee.
The competition for Rose's House seat should be stiffer. The 6th District, one of three that Republicans used to chop up the blue city of Nashville, voted for Donald Trump by a wide 67-32 margin, according to calculations by The Downballot. Its less-gerrymandered predecessor was last open in 2018, when Rose won a contested multi-way primary to succeed Rep. Diane Black, who lost the GOP nod for governor to Lee.
You can stay on top of every open House seat in the country by bookmarking our continually updated tracker.
House
FL-01, FL-06
Both Democrats running in a pair of April 1 special elections in Florida have announced that they've raised eye-popping sums despite seeking deep-red congressional districts.
Just ahead of Thursday night's deadline to report fundraising totals to the FEC, Josh Weil, a public school math teacher, said he's raised $10 million in his race against Republican state Sen. Randy Fine in Daytona Beach-area 6th District. Meanwhile, gun safety activist Gay Valimont told supporters last week that she'd brought in $6.7 million as she battles state Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis for the Pensacola-based 1st District.
Fine, by contrast, reported raising just shy of $1 million to date while Patronis has taken in $2.1 million. Even with the Democrats' massive hauls, though, a win for either would be a massive upset: According to calculations from The Downballot, Donald Trump carried the 1st District 68-31 last year and won the 6th by a 65-35 spread.
Mayors & County Leaders
Buffalo, NY Mayor
State Sen. Sean Ryan has earned the backing of the Working Families Party, a progressive third party that has long been influential in New York politics, ahead of the June 24 Democratic primary for mayor of Buffalo.
The endorsement comes a month after Ryan picked up the support of the Erie County Democratic Committee, which has sometimes come into conflict with the WFP in prior races. Most notably, in 2021, Democratic leaders backed then-Mayor Byron Brown, while the WFP supported an intraparty challenger, India Walton. Walton upset Brown in the primary, but the incumbent went on to win the general election as a write-in candidate.
Ryan's main opponent in June is acting Mayor Christopher Scanlon, who became the city's leader last year when Brown resigned to head western New York's state-run gambling agency. Former city Fire Commissioner Garnell Whitfield and Common Council Member Rasheed Wyatt are also seeking the Democratic nomination.
Missed yesterday's continuation of the long running discussion on low propensity vs high propensity voters, whether good or bad turnout is better for Dems these days, etc. A nuance I think gets missed sometimes is that turnout is not just a sliding scale that will deliver a fixed result depending where it lands. I think objectively in 2024 Democrats suffered from poorer base turnout than 2020, but at the same time Republicans hit and may have even exceeded their 2020 turnout (which was already quite high, but just swamped by Democrats plus Gary Johnson or Trump voters that flipped to Biden). So in 2024 we would have preferred for higher turnout among Dems, but lower turnout among Republicans. I don't think it's a given that lower 2024 turnout would have been immediately better for us (could have come from even greater Dem dropoff) or that higher 2024 turnout would have meant a GOP landslide (Republicans might have been close to maxed out).
But yes the pattern is clear that with *very* low turnout (like the OH-06 special we got within single digits) that partisan engaged Democrats made up a disproportionate share and dropoff hit Republicans harder, so it would not shock me to see this dynamic continue for WI-Supreme Court and other races. Another note: trying to parse early vote statistics remains murky at best in states with partisan voter registration; in a state without it like Wisconsin, good luck. County comparisons don't tell you who's turning out in those counties.
Durbin needs to retire. Have a 30-40 year old replace him in the Senate with fire in their belly.