Florida Republican Randy Fine (credit: Randy Fine campaign X account)
Leading Off
FL-06
Republicans are dusting off an old playbook we last saw them use during the early years of the first Trump administration: preemptively blaming their own candidate for jeopardizing their chances in a special election they should have zero trouble winning.
The latest to come out swinging is Gov. Ron DeSantis, who scheduled next week's special election for Florida's 6th Congressional District after Rep. Mike Waltz resigned to become Donald Trump's national security advisor. (Waltz, incidentally, has been having a rough week.)
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"Regardless of the outcome in that, it's going to be a way underperformance from what I won that district by in 2022 and what the president won it by in November," DeSantis told reporters on Tuesday.
"They're going to try to lay that at the feet of President Trump," he went on. "That is not a reflection of President Trump. It's a reflection of a specific candidate running in that race."
That specific candidate is state Sen. Randy Fine, a MAGA extremist who locked down the GOP nomination in January with little effort after earning Trump's endorsement. "Little effort" seems to have defined his approach to the general election, too.
Fine has been outraised by his Democratic opponent, public school math teacher Josh Weil, by absurd margins: Weil recentlyreported raising $8.8 million between Jan. 9 and March 12 while Fine's haul was just $560,000 during that same period. And Punchbowl reported Tuesday that Weil has been on TV since early March while Fine only went on the airwaves last week.
That disparity prompted none other than NRCC chair Richard Hudson, the man tasked with electing Republicans to the House, to chide that Fine "needs to do better."
"I would have preferred if our candidate had raised money at a faster rate and gotten on TV quicker," Hudson told reporters on Monday. "But he's doing what he needs to do. He's on TV now. We're going to win the seat. I'm not concerned at all."
It's hard to square Hudson's claim that he's "not concerned at all" with the fact that he openly took his candidate to task in front of the press, but one thing Fine has done to pick up the pace of his fundraising to simply write checks to his own campaign—for $600,000 so far, all since Thursday. He's also gotten a $2 million infusion of aid from a pair of conservative groups that recently began airing ads on his behalf.
Democrats by and large don't seem to be thinking an upset is in the cards, but for the first time in recorded history, they're definitely rooting for DeSantis to be right.
Trump carried the 6th District 65-35 last year while DeSantis won it by an even wider 68-31 spread in 2022, according to VEST data from Dave's Redistricting App. That sets the stage for an overperformance by Weil, which would add to the string of strong Democratic showings in special elections across the country this year.
It was in 2017, when a similar pattern first surfaced, that Republicans began trashing their special election nominees as a way to deflect from the intense rage Trump was generating among higher-propensity voters. It was also a way to ignore the deeper structural problems that prophesied trouble for the GOP heading into the midterms.
In Georgia's 6th, Karen Handel was "privately derided" by White House staffers "as a frequent candidate for public office who isn't the kind of fresh face necessary to win."
In Kansas' 4th, Ron Estes "r[a]n a horrible campaign," said one GOP strategist. "Hasn't raised much money, his ads are abysmal—no energy."
In Montana, Greg Gianforte's campaign had Republican operatives "whispering in private: 'This race is closer than it should be." And that was before he assaulted reporter Ben Jacobs.
In Ohio's 12th, Troy Balderson "underwhelmed his party's strategists and lagged in fundraising," reported Dave Weigel.
And in Pennsylvania's 18th, Rick Saccone was lacerated—on the record—by the head of a top GOP super PAC for running a "joke" campaign. "If we had a candidate who could walk and chew gum at the same time," said Cory Bliss, "we would have won that race."
Notably, all of these attacks came before votes were counted in any of these races, all of which proved to be needlessly close calls for Republicans—except the last one, which they lost. (It was only afterwards that one GOP strategist tried to blame the defeat on Saccone's facial hair: "It's a porn stache. He should have lost the mustache.")
The pile-on is not limited to DeSantis, who, like many other Florida Republicans, personally despises Fine. On Tuesday, GOP lawmakers defeated legislation Fine had sponsored to allow students to carry guns on campus, an almost unheard-of fate for a Republican bill in the conservative-dominated state legislature. The senator who provided the crucial vote to kill the proposal told The Floridian last month, "I don't care for Sen. Fine. You can put that on the record."
One anonymous Florida GOP operative who spoke to NBC this week expressed similar sentiments, saying that among fellow Republicans, "there would be no tears shed for Fine if he snatched defeat from the jaws of victory." Democrats would feel the same way.
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Democrats pulled off an astonishing upset in a special election for the Pennsylvania Senate on Tuesday night, as East Petersburg Mayor James Andrew Malone defeated Lancaster County Commissioner Josh Parsons by a 50-49 margin to flip an ancestrally Republican district that Donald Trump carried by 15 points last year.
Democrats also easily held a vacant seat in the state House to restore their narrow majority in the chamber.
We sent a breaking news alert last night updating subscribers about both of these races, with a deep dive into Malone's shock win. Click here for our complete recap.
Senate
MI-Sen
Democratic Rep. Hillary Scholten, who had hinted she might run for Michigan's open Senate seat, said on Tuesday that she'd seek reelection to the House instead. In 2022, Scholten flipped the 3rd District in the Grand Rapids area after the state's independent redistricting commission made it bluer. She won a second term last year by a 54-44 margin while Kamala Harris carried the district 53-45, according to calculations from The Downballot.
Former Florida Rep. David Jolly, who served in the House as a Republican but later became an anti-Trump independent, now says he's considering a bid for governor as a Democrat and tells Politico he'll decide in the next six to eight weeks.
Three years ago, Jolly also explored a gubernatorial run, even going so far as to say, "I likely will be an independent candidate for governor in 2022," but he did not make the race.
Jolly won a special election for the Tampa-area 13th District in 2014, but two-and-a-half years later, he lost to another Republican-turned-independent-turned Democrat, former Gov. Charlie Crist, after court-ordered redistricting turned the district bluer. Following the most recent census, though, Republicans re-gerrymandered the district, prompting Crist to wage a second unsuccessful campaign to reclaim the governorship.
SC-Gov
Republican state Sen. Josh Kimbrell, who's been weighing a bid for South Carolina's open governorship, told a GOP gathering this week that he's formed an exploratory committee and is "very likely" to run. So far, though, no one has yet entered the race to succeed term-limited Gov. Henry McMaster.
Kimbrell is a hardcore social conservative who previously hosted a Christian radio show and has been a prominent advocate for anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ legislation. In 2014, he was arrested and charged with criminal sexual conduct for allegedly fondling his three-year-old son. Prosecutors dropped the case the following year, saying that there was "insufficient evidence to prove the elements of this crime beyond a reasonable doubt."
TN-Gov
Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn still has yet to announce a bid for governor, but she sounds all but certain to go for it.
"I intend to run," Blackburn recently told the Tennessee Journal. "I will win, and we'll make certain that Tennessee is the most conservative state in the country."
Blackburn's chief rival in the GOP primary for the state's open governorship, Rep. John Rose, finally kicked off his campaign last week after a prolonged "non-announcement tour." The two are vying to succeed Gov. Bill Lee, who is barred from running again by term-limit laws.
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House
GA-06
State Sen. Sonya Halpern, who so far is the only notable Democrat to publicly express interest in running for Georgia's 6th District, just filed paperwork with the FEC ahead of a possible bid. The safely blue 6th, located in Atlanta's western suburbs, is likely to be open next year since Democratic Rep. Lucy McBath is reportedly preparing a campaign for governor.
IA-02, MI-10
Inside Elections' Jacob Rubashkin shares some details from a pair of recent paywalled reports about possible Democratic candidates in two potentially competitive House districts in the Midwest.
In northeastern Iowa's 2nd District, Rubashkin says that state Rep. Lindsay James is a target of Democratic recruiters and adds that former U.S. Attorney Kevin Techau, who was appointed by Barack Obama, is "seriously considering" a bid. Both are the first Democratic names to emerge as prospective challengers to Republican Rep. Ashley Hinson, who was not a major target last year. Donald Trump carried the district 54-44.
Meanwhile, in eastern Michigan's swingy 10th District, Rubashkin reports that former prosecutor Christina Hines is "taking steps toward running" for what will likely be an open seat. Last year, Hines lost a bid for Macomb County prosecuting attorney to Republican incumbent Peter Lucido 57-43. Rubashkin also mentions two new names: Tim Greimel, the mayor of Pontiac, and Stacy Ziarko, who runs the local chamber of commerce called Connect Macomb.
While Republican leaders in New York's conservative 21st District still have yet to tap a special election nominee after deliberating for months, the state's small but influential Conservative Party announced its support for state Sen. Dan Stec this week.
The party's chair, Gerald Kassar, also told the Times Union that he'd be pleased with two alternatives, Assemblyman Chris Tague and conservative activist Liz Joy. If Republicans were to nominate a candidate the Conservative Party is not happy with, however, Kassar suggested his organization might leave its ballot line blank.
Stec is one of several Republicans hoping to succeed Rep. Elise Stefanik, whose nomination as U.N. ambassador is finally set to move forward next week after Senate Republicans put it on hold for months due to the House GOP's narrow majority. Local Democrats, by contrast, moved much faster in naming dairy farmer Blake Gendebien as their standard-bearer almost two months ago.
WI-03
EMILYs List, the influential Democratic group devoted to electing pro-choice women, has endorsed businesswoman Rebecca Cooke as she seeks a rematch with Republican Rep. Derrick Van Orden in Wisconsin's 3rd District. At the moment, Cooke has the primary to herself, but other notable Democrats are also eyeing the race.
Final fundraising numbers ahead of next week's pivotal race for the Wisconsin Supreme Court show Judge Susan Crawford holding her own despite Elon Musk's massive cash infusion on behalf of former state Attorney General Brad Schimel.
New reports show Crawford raised $17.3 million between Feb. 4 and March 17 while Schimel took in just $7.3 million. For her entire campaign, Crawford has brought in $26.5 million, which WisPolitics says is "a record for any judicial candidate in U.S. history." Schimel has raised a little more than half that sum, $14.3 million.
CNN's David Wright adds that groups linked to Musk have dumped in more than $20 million, though at least on the airwaves, Crawford and her allies have enjoyed an edge, both in total spending and in the number of ads they've run.
The Democratic firm Honan Strategy Group finds former Gov. Andrew Cuomo leading Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani 41-18 in the busy June 24 Democratic primary for New York City mayor and defeating him 51-23 in the fifth round of tabulations for this ranked-choice contest. The survey was conducted for Tusk Strategies, whose CEO backs Cuomo but says that the candidate was not involved with the poll.
Every poll that's been released has found the former governor far ahead of the rest of the field, but his many critics hope that Cuomo's lead is due to his near-total name recognition rather than any personal popularity. Honan's numbers show Cuomo with a 54-42 favorable rating, which indicates that a large portion of the electorate remains hostile to him four years after he resigned in disgrace. The pollster, though, says that Cuomo's score has also improved from its last survey a month prior.
Oakland, CA Mayor
Former Oakland City Councilman Loren Taylor has publicized an internal poll that shows him trailing former Rep. Barbara Lee, a fellow Democrat, by a narrow 45-41 margin in the April 15 special election for mayor. The Democratic firm Blueprint Polling says that Lee enjoyed a wide 46-25 advantage last month, but we haven't seen any independent polling of the race to replace Sheng Thao, whom voters ousted in a recall last year.
Lee, who represented Oakland in the House for 27 years, has been the frontrunner ever since she launched her campaign in January. Taylor, however, is arguing that the 78-year-old ex-congresswoman, who is three decades his senior, "has not shown a history of making the hard, difficult decisions."
Seven other candidates are also competing in this ranked-choice election, but none have generated much attention. The winner will be up for a new four-year term in November of next year.
Former Louisiana Sen. J. Bennett Johnston, a moderate Democrat who served from 1972 to 1997, died Tuesday at the age of 92.
Johnston, who was a state senator from Shreveport, first rose to prominence in what was still a heavily Democratic state when he competed in the packed 1971 Democratic primary for governor. He ultimately lost a tight runoff to Rep. Edwin Edwards, whose experience during that difficult campaign motivated him to change Louisiana's electoral rules and institute the state's all-party primary system.
Johnston waged an intra-party challenge the next year against Sen. Allen Ellender, a longtime politico who had once been an important ally of Huey Long, but Ellender's death weeks before the primary paved the way for Johnston to decisively win the seat. Johnston had no trouble keeping it until 1990, when he faced an unexpectedly tough battle against former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke.
Johnston didn't view Duke, who had been elected to the state House as a Republican the previous year, as a serious opponent for much of the race, and he'd acknowledge being "disappointed" by his 54-43 margin of victory. Duke went on to lose the governorship to Edwards in the nationally watched 1991 "race from Hell," while Johnston did not seek reelection to the Senate in 1996.
The Advocate's Tyler Bridges has much more on the big campaigns that bookended Johnston's long statewide career, as well as his lengthy service in the Senate, in his obituary.
Obama endorsed Crawford in the WI Supreme Court race: https://bsky.app/profile/barackobama.bsky.social/post/3lla32k4mts2l
FL-6 poll from
@StPetePolls
Fine (R) - 48.3%
Weil (D) - 44.2%
other - 2%
Already voted
Fine (R) - 43.1%
Weil (D) - 51%
other - 1.3%
https://floridapolitics.com/archives/728263-poll-shows-cd-6-special-election-within-margin-of-error/