Morning Digest: Democrats land first major candidate for top 2026 Senate race

Former Rep. Wiley Nickel launches a bid to unseat Republican Thom Tillis in perennially swingy North Carolina

Former Rep. Wiley Nickel (at left) is the first prominent Democrat to enter the North Carolina Senate race (credit: Wiley Nickel campaign)

Leading Off

NC-Sen

Former North Carolina Rep. Wiley Nickel will announce this morning that he's seeking the Democratic nomination to take on Republican Sen. Thom Tillis in what will be one of the country's top Senate races in 2026.

Nickel, who opted not to run for a second term last year after Republicans gerrymandered his seat, is the first prominent Democrat to join the race, but he may not be the last. Nickel's launch comes as former Gov. Roy Cooper considers his own potential campaign against Tillis. NOTUS reported last month that Cooper won't decide until after his fellowship at Harvard's public health school ends in late May.

Nickel responded to The Downballot's questions about whether he'd continue to run if Cooper gets in by praising Cooper's record as governor before saying, "I'll cross that bridge if we get there." Nickel, a former state senator, touted his work with Cooper in state government but added that "things are urgent right now and it's not in my bones to sit on the sidelines."

Nickel earned a promotion to Congress in 2022 by winning an expensive election to represent the 13th District, which at the time was a competitive court-drawn constituency in the Raleigh area.

That same night, however, Republicans flipped control of the state Supreme Court. The court's new conservative majority soon gave GOP legislators the green light to craft the type of aggressive partisan gerrymander that Democratic justices had previously blocked.

Lawmakers responded by passing a map that dramatically revamped the 13th District, replacing Democratic-leaning communities with dark red rural turf. Nickel was left with the prospect of running for a district that would have overwhelmingly favored Donald Trump in 2020—one that no Democrat could have hoped to hold.

Faced with that reality, Nickel said he would not seek a second term in late 2023, charging that "Republicans have rigged the system to favor themselves." But he also made it clear he wasn't done with politics: Nickel pointed out that while GOP legislative leaders may have made it impossible for him to win another term in the House, they "can't gerrymander a statewide election."

In now joining that statewide election, Nickel is seeking to link Tillis to Trump, who carried North Carolina by a narrow 51-48 margin last year.

"Donald Trump is shredding our constitution and billionaires are cutting Medicare, dismantling FEMA, and taking a sledgehammer to our education system," Nickel told The Downballot. "It's happening right now, and Thom Tillis is cheering them on."

We’re not writing off the possibility that the Senate will be in play next year—and you shouldn’t either. The Downballot will keep you informed of every important development in every important race, so if it looks like the Senate is up for grabs, you’ll be the first to know. Please consider supporting us as a paid subscriber so that we can keep bringing you the news you need. Thank you!

Election Recaps

St. Louis, MO Mayor

Alderwoman Cara Spencer unseated St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones in Tuesday's officially nonpartisan general election, winning in a 64-36 landslide. In 2021, Jones won a close race against Spencer, a fellow Democrat, but the challenger successfully argued that the mayor had done a poor job leading the city.

1Q Fundraising

• NM-Gov: Deb Haaland (D): $3 million raised (in nine weeks)

• KY-06: Andy Barr (R-inc): $2 million raised, $5.3 million cash on hand (considering Senate bid)

Senate

NH-Sen

Former Gov. Chris Sununu said Tuesday that he would not seek New Hampshire's open U.S. Senate seat, an announcement that came just two days after Donald Trump publicly urged him to run.

"He came to my office, came to the Oval Office, and met with Chris Sununu, and I support him fully," Trump said Sunday of his fellow Republican. "I hope he runs. I think he'll win that seat."

But Republicans will need to do without Sununu—who also turned down his party's pleas to run for the Senate in 2020 and 2022—in next year's race to replace retiring Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen. (Shaheen won this seat in 2008 by unseating Sununu's brother, John Sununu.) No notable Republicans have stepped forward yet to take on Rep. Chris Pappas, the only declared Democratic candidate.

The GOP's most eager potential contender remains former Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown, who said last month that he expects to decide by early summer. Trump does not appear to have publicly talked up Brown, who served as his ambassador to New Zealand during his first administration.

The only other prominent Republican who has expressed interest in running is real estate developer Jack Franks, who said in January he was thinking about a bid. Franks, however, does not appear to have said anything about this race in the four weeks since Shaheen revealed that she would not be seeking a fourth term.

NM-Sen

Democratic Sen. Ben Ray Lujan has not announced his reelection campaign yet, but longtime New Mexico political writer Joe Monahan says that "[i]t's assumed" he'll run. Monahan adds that no notable Republicans have expressed interest in challenging Lujan in this Democratic-leaning state.

TX-Sen

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced Tuesday evening that he was launching his long-awaited campaign to unseat Sen. John Cornyn in next year's Republican primary.

But Paxton, an ardent Donald Trump ally who tried to overturn the 2020 election, may not be the only prominent Republican who challenges the four-term senator. Rep. Wesley Hunt is also considering a bid to represent the nation's second-largest state. Because Texas, like many other Southern states, requires that candidates take a majority of the vote to avert a runoff, a three-way race could wind up going to overtime.

Paxton, who has survived multiple corruption scandals that threatened to end his career—or even send him to prison—has long insisted that Cornyn is insufficiently loyal to Trump and conservative voters.

Referring to Cornyn, Paxton told Tucker Carlson in February, "I'll bring out what he said about Trump and how disparaging he was against Trump in 2016 and just in this last election saying he shouldn't run and he's not the guy." The attorney general has also slammed Cornyn for voting to provide aid to Ukraine and for successfully shepherding a gun safety bill following the 2022 school massacre in the South Texas city of Uvalde.

Cornyn, who lost his bid for Senate majority leader in November to John Thune, has responded by touting himself as a still-powerful ally of the administration. In a statement following Paxton's entry, the incumbent greeted his new challenger, who spent nearly nine years under indictment for securities fraud, by blasting him as a "fraud." (Federal prosecutors reached an agreement with Paxton last year that allowed him to avoid trial.)

Cornyn continued by highlighting the separate infidelity allegations that were part of Paxton's 2023 impeachment, charging that "Ken claims to be a man of faith but uses fake Uber accounts to meet his girlfriend and deceive his family." (The state Senate acquitted Paxton, who proceeded to launch a revenge campaign to deny renomination to Republican state representatives who impeached him in the first place.)

The senator has yet to turn his focus to Hunt, but the congressman hasn't been reticent about attacking his would-be foe. Hunt complained to CNN this month that Cornyn had—unlike the MAGA faithful—sought "move on" from Trump after the 2020 election.

"Now, he's scrambling to rewrite history—hoping voters will forget he ever turned his back on the very movement that built our momentum and delivered the majority for Republicans, specifically the Senate," said Hunt.

Hunt, who at 43 is 30 years younger than Cornyn, also unsubtly declared, "The United States Senate is not a retirement community. It's a battleground for the soul of this nation." Hunt and Paxton, who is 62, have yet to go after one another, though that would almost certainly change if the congressman runs.

All three Republicans are trying to secure an all-important endorsement from Trump, who for now seems content to watch them each compete for his favor. CNN reported that Hunt had even pitched himself to Trump's team as the only one who could win a general election in Texas, which is quite the claim given that Democrats haven't won a single statewide race there since 1994.

Democrats, however, hope that an ugly GOP feud will give them the kind of opening that's eluded them for the last 30 years. Former Rep. Colin Allred, who unsuccessfully challenged GOP Sen. Ted Cruz for the state's other Senate seat last year, is considering running again, and other Democrats could also try to achieve a historic breakthrough.

What were we saying just above about the chances the Senate could be in play? If Texas comes online, it will be. You can help make sure that The Downballot can keep covering all the news out of the Lone Star State by becoming a paid subscriber.

Governors

OH-Gov

Businessman Vivek Ramaswamy publicized an endorsement on Monday from Rep. Jim Jordan, who has long been an influential far-right voice in state and national politics. Ramaswamy also received the backing of two lesser-known members of Ohio's House delegation, Reps. Michael Rulli and Dave Taylor.

WI-Gov

Former Gov. Scott Walker ruled out running to reclaim his old job on Monday evening, though he'd never shown any real interest in trying to avenge his 2018 loss to Democratic Gov. Tony Evers. But we may have Walker to kick around in a future cycle: The 57-year-old Republican told The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel's Laura Schulte, "I'm a quarter century younger than Biden, I've got time, but it won't be in '26."

No prominent Republicans have announced campaigns against Evers, who has yet to say if he'll seek a third term. The Journal-Sentinel previously reported that the governor will likely wait to announce a decision until after the completion of the state's biennial budget process, which two years ago concluded in early July.

House

CA-25

Hemet City Councilmember Joe Males announced Tuesday that he'd run as a Republican against Democratic Rep. Raul Ruiz in California's 25th District, which is based in eastern Riverside County and Imperial County in the southeastern corner of the state. Ruiz won his seventh term 56-44 last year against an unheralded opponent as his constituency was moving hard to the right: Kamala Harris carried the 25th by just a 50-48 margin, four years after Joe Biden took it 57-41.

NJ-07

Businessman Michael Roth, whom Politico describes as a "top official" in the U.S. Small Business Administration early in the Biden administration, says he's considering joining the developing Democratic primary to face Republican Rep. Tom Kean.

Reporter Matt Friedman, who adds that Roth is "likely" to run, also relays that there's "buzz" surrounding a possible campaign by physician Tina Shah. Shah, who served as a senior advisor to then-U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, considered running last cycle but ultimately decided not to, and she hasn't said anything publicly about her plans for next year.

NY-04

Hempstead Town Supervisor Don Clavin said Tuesday that he'll run for a judgeship in Nassau County this fall, a decision that likely means that the Republican won't challenge Democratic Rep. Laura Gillen next year. Clavin, who won his current office by unseating Gillen in 2019, was briefly mentioned as a possible candidate for New York's 4th Congressional District earlier this month, but he never publicly talked about running for Congress.

PA-07

Carol Obando-Derstine, who recently stepped down as a supervisor for the Lehigh Valley-based utility company PPL, will announce a campaign for the Democratic nomination for Pennsylvania's swingy 7th District sometime in the next few weeks, multiple sources tell Tom Shortell of LehighValleyNews.com. Obando-Derstine, a one-time staffer for former Sen. Bob Casey, did not comment when Shortell asked her about her interest in entering the primary to face Republican Rep. Ryan Mackenzie.

Mayors & County Leaders

New York, NY Mayor

The pro-Andrew Cuomo super PAC Fix the City has launched an opening $5.6 million ad campaign to boost the ex-governor, and it's not going to have much competition on the airwaves for a while. AdImpact reports that the PAC's spending represents 99% of all the current ad reservations for the June 24 Democratic primary in New York's race for mayor.