Daily Kos Elections Live Digest: 8/16

Dear readers, the Daily Kos Elections Live Digest is over. We hope you all enjoyed yourselves, and we'll see you all again at The Downballot Morning Digest!

Poll Pile:

For a poll to be included in the Digest, we require several pieces of information about each survey. These include, but are not limited to, the name of the pollster, the survey's sample size, and the dates the poll was conducted. You can read more about these requirements and others in this explainer.

• AZ-Sen: WPA Intelligence (R) for the Club for Growth: Ruben Gallego (D): 48, Kari Lake (R): 46

• MT-Sen: RMG Research for the Napolitan Institute: Jon Tester (D-inc): 49, Tim Sheehy (R): 44 (57-39 Trump with third-party candidates)

• WI-Sen: TIPP Insights (R) for American Greatness: Tammy Baldwin (D-inc): 50, Eric Hovde (R): 43 (47-47 presidential tie in two-way, 46-45 Harris with third-party candidates)

We also include additional notes on polls when warranted. Regarding the Montana Senate poll, the Napolitan Institute is a foundation run by longtime pollster Scott Rasmussen, who also leads RMG Research. Rasmussen is not affiliated with Rasmussen Reports, the company he founded. Since Rasmussen's 2013 departure, Rasmussen Reports has become a purveyor of far-right election conspiracy theories.

• CA Ballot: UC Berkeley's new poll for the Los Angeles Times finds a 56-23 majority of California voters in favor of an initiative that would increase the punishment for several crimes related to drug possession and theft whose penalties were reduced a decade ago. This new plan, which will be identified on the ballot as Proposition 36, would roll back parts of Proposition 47, the 2014 measure that the California District Attorneys Association and big-box retailers have been attacking. 

Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom and Democratic legislative leaders are urging a "no" vote on what they've called a "draconian" proposal to increase penalties for many non-violent crimes. 

Newsom last month predicted its passage would mean "increases the size of our prison population by tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, over the next decade at a profound cost to the taxpayers." The governor on Friday signed several bills to combat retail theft and other crimes, and he's hoping this will convince voters that this approach is better than what Proposition 36 offers.

Several notable Democrats, however, aren't convinced. San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria, San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, and San Francisco Mayor London Breed are all urging a "yes" vote. "Many of us supported Prop. 47. I certainly did," Mahan argued Thursday. "But it needs to be reformed because we went from mass incarceration to a massive failure of accountability. And what we really need is mass treatment."

Ad Roundup:

• AZ-Sen: Ruben Gallego (D)
• MT-Sen: Jon Tester (D-inc) - anti-Tim Sheehy (R)
• WI-Sen: Project 72 WI - pro-Tammy Baldwin (D-inc); Restoration PAC - anti-Baldwin (part of $3 million buy)
• MI-07: Curtis Hertel (D)
• NY-19: Marc Molinaro (R-inc)

• AZ Ballot: A state court has ruled that a campaign to change Arizona's electoral system submitted 536,000 valid voter signatures, well over the nearly 384,000 required to put the constitutional amendment on November's ballot. However, opponents are still waging other legal challenges, which must be resolved by the Aug. 22 deadline to finalize measures for the ballot.

If the amendment, which would be numbered Proposition 140, qualifies and wins voter approval this fall, it would abolish partisan primaries starting in 2026. Instead, all candidates regardless of party would run on a single first-round "primary" ballot, though it does not specify how many would advance to the November general election.

Anywhere from two to five candidates could advance depending on a decision by the governor, currently Democrat Katie Hobbs, and the legislature, presently controlled by Republicans. However, they're allowed to choose different numbers for different posts. If three or more contenders are allowed to move forward, then "voter rankings" would be used to determine the winner.

Proposition 140 also would require "additional candidates" to advance in contests where more than one person can be elected, such as for the state House and the state Corporation Commission. It would also be up to the governor and legislature to decide how many contenders could move forward within the parameters of the amendment.

If these state leaders failed to agree on all of these details by Nov. 1, 2025, though, it would be up to the secretary of state―a post currently held by Democrat Adrian Fontes―to make these calls. The legislature may only change the number of candidates who can advance "[n]ot more than once every six years."

Republican lawmakers, who oppose this voter-initiated proposal and ranked-choice voting more generally, have placed their own amendment on November's ballot that would require separate party primaries. If both the GOP's Proposition 133 and the aforementioned Proposition 140 passed, only the one with the most "yes" votes would go into effect.

• OH Ballot: On Friday, Secretary of State Frank LaRose and his fellow Republicans on Ohio's Ballot Board voted along party lines to adopt a thoroughly deceptive ballot summary for an initiative that would amend the state constitution to end gerrymandering and require fairer maps for 2026. 

The GOP's language would turn the underlying amendment's purpose on its head, and redistricting reform supporters swiftly vowed to sue. The deadline to finalize the ballot language, however, is quickly approaching, and the Republican majority on the Ohio Supreme Court is a potential obstacle for reformers.

If the GOP's summary stands, Ohioans would be asked to vote "yes" or "no" on an amendment to "[r]epeal constitutional protections against gerrymandering approved by nearly three-quarters of Ohio electors participating in the statewide elections of 2015 and 2018, and eliminate the longstanding ability of Ohio citizens to hold their representatives accountable for establishing fair state legislative and congressional districts."

Those 2015 and 2018 amendments, however, have done little to stop the GOP from implementing its desired gerrymanders. Instead, they were put on the ballot by the Republican legislature to undermine voter-led efforts at reform and contained loopholes designed to allow continued gerrymandering. Indeed, voters have not been able to hold their officials accountable for redistricting since the GOP has won three-fifths supermajorities in every election since 2012, even when Democrats won more votes that year.

The GOP's ballot language furthermore claims that a new redistricting commission would be "required to gerrymander the boundaries of state legislative and congressional districts," trying to invert the amendment's partisan neutrality mandate into its opposite. That formula requires that, if at all possible while complying with other legal requirements, the proportion of districts favoring each party may not vary by more than 3 percentage points from the party's statewide support based on recent statewide elections.

Under the system adopted last decade, Republican legislators and executive officials retain the power to pass gerrymanders along party lines despite those amendments containing language that ostensibly prohibits partisan gerrymandering. Yet after the 2020 census, Republicans passed new gerrymanders, the state Supreme Court struck them down, and that process repeated until the court had overturned two congressional maps and five sets of legislative maps.

However, because the court lacked the ability to implement its own maps last cycle, Republicans ran out the clock and got away with using gerrymandered maps in 2022. Hardline Republicans gained a 4-3 majority on the court in that election by replacing moderate Republican Justice Maureen O'Connor, who retired due to age limits and is now leading the redistricting reform effort. With the court's blessing, Republicans passed new legislative gerrymanders last year.

By contrast, the 2024 proposal would remove elected legislative and executive branch officials from the redistricting process entirely and create a citizens' commission with five Democrats, five Republicans, and five unaffiliated members. Several restrictions would limit who could serve on the commission, and members would need some cross-party support to pass new boundaries. The amendment details several criteria for drawing maps to protect communities and ensure partisan balance.

This is not the first time that LaRose and his fellow Republicans on the state Ballot Board have tried to hobble a progressive amendment with biased language. Last year, the body also voted along party lines to rewrite the summary for the proposed abortion rights amendment. Among other things, this new summary replaced the word "fetus" with "unborn child" and told voters the amendment would "[a]lways allow an unborn child to be aborted at any stage of pregnancy, regardless of viability if, in the treating physician's determination, the abortion is necessary to protect the pregnant woman's life and health."

Reproductive rights advocates took the matter to the state Supreme Court, but they scored just a small victory when the body ordered the Ballot Board to swap the words "state of Ohio" out for "citizens of the state of Ohio" in a passage describing who had the power to limit access to the procedure. Despite all this, though, voters approved the amendment by a decisive 57-43 margin.

• DE-Gov: A super PAC that's been running ads against Lt. Gov. Bethany Hall-Long ahead of Delaware's Sept. 10 Democratic primary for governor has released an internal poll from Slingshot Strategies that shows her trailing New Castle County Executive Matt Meyer 27-23 ahead of next month's contest. 

Another 11% back National Wildlife Federation leader Collin O'Mara, while a 31% plurality are undecided in the primary to succeed termed-out Democratic Gov. John Carney. (An additional 7% opt for an unnamed "someone else" even though these are the only three choices.) Whoever wins the nomination to replace Carney, who supports Hall-Long, will be favored in the general election to lead this loyally blue state.

The PAC, called Citizens for a New Delaware Way, previously released a Slingshot poll conducted in early July that showed Hall-Long and Meyer deadlocked 27-27, with O'Mara at 7%. The group argued that Hall-Long lost support during the intervening time because of its ad campaign, as well as over a series of news stories suggesting she repeatedly violated state campaign finance law.    

We've seen two other polls conducted in the last several weeks. A mid-July Public Policy Polling survey for Hall-Long's allies at the Democratic Lieutenant Governors Association showed her beating Meyer 31-19, while an early August poll from Concord Public Opinion Partners on behalf of Education Reform Now Advocacy showed Meyerahead 30-23. (It is unclear if ERNA, which supports charter schools, has a rooting interest in this contest.) Both releases also found O'Mara taking just shy of 10% of the vote.

• NJ-Sen: New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez officially ended his campaign to keep his seat as an independent on Friday by withdrawing his name from the general election ballot, a move that came on the final day to take this action. Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy also announced earlier in the day that he would appoint his former chief of staff, George Helmy, to replace Menendez for the remaining months of the 118th Congress after the convicted senator's resignation takes effect on Aug. 20. 

Menendez, who remains a member of the Democratic caucus, said earlier this year that he wanted to run as an "independent Democrat" if his federal corruption trial resulted in "my exoneration," but those hopes were dashed last month when a jury found him guilty on all 16 counts. And while the senator later announced his resignation, he only confirmed Friday that he was also ending what was left of his reelection effort.

Rep. Andy Kim, who won the Democratic primary in June, is favored to defeat Republican businessman Curtis Bashaw in the fall general election for a full six-year term. New Jersey hasn't elected a GOP senator since moderate Republican Clifford Case secured his final term in 1972, and this dark blue state is unlikely to break that streak this year.

• NH-Gov: Saint Anselm College's new poll of New Hampshire's Sept. 10 primaries gives us a rare look at each party's contest to succeed retiring Republican Gov. Chris Sununu. On the Democratic side, former Manchester Mayor Joyce Craig posts a 37-28 advantage over Cinde Warmington, who is a member of the state's unique and influential Executive Council. Another 31% of respondents remain undecided, though, with almost a month to go.

In the Republican primary, former Sen. Kelly Ayotte enjoys a wide 59-25 advantage over former state President Chuck Morse. Ayotte, who narrowly lost reelection in 2016 to then-Gov. Maggie Hassan, decisively outraised Morse through mid-June, she picked up Sununu's endorsement earlier this month. 

Morse, who had the governor's support during his failed 2022 primary bid for Hassan's Senate seat, responded by highlighting Ayotte and Sununu's past criticisms of Donald Trump, but the GOP's supreme master has yet to take sides here. That continuing neutrality is unwelcome news for Morse's quest to regain the office he held for two days in January of 2017 after Hassan joined the Senate and Sununu waited for his own term to begin. (New Hampshire has no lieutenant governor, and the Senate's leader is first in the line of succession.)

• NH-01: Saint Anselm College takes a look at the Sept. 10 GOP primary to take on Democratic Rep. Chris Pappas in New Hampshire's light blue 1st District, and it finds a hefty 59% majority saying they're undecided. 

When it comes to the living, breathing candidates running to represent eastern New Hampshire, Manchester Alderman Joe Kelly Levasseur holds a 15-10 lead over former Executive Councilor Russell Prescott, with another 9% picking businesswoman Hollie Noveletsky. A fourth Republican, businessman Chris Bright, secures another 5%.

Both Levasseur and Prescott have long histories in Granite State politics. Levasseur, who was first elected to his citywide post in 2011, has remained in office despite numerous instances of Trump-like outbursts, including a 2013 incident where the police chief accused him of calling officers "dopes, clowns, jerks, buffoons." He was later censured by his colleagues after the state's attorney general concluded he'd made "unfounded" allegations about officers trying to intimidate him.

But while voters at home have continued to reelect Levasseur, his numerous attempts to win other offices have almost always gone poorly. These include a 2016 bid to cost Pappas his seat on the state's unique Executive Council that ended in a 49-46 defeat, and a failed 2022 campaign for a spot in the 400-member state House.

Prescott, for his part, has a political career going back decades that includes three campaigns in the 2000s against Maggie Hassan, a Democrat who is now the state's junior U.S. senator. Prescott narrowly defeated her in his 2002 reelection campaign for the state Senate, but Hassan won their tight rematch battle two years later. Prescott stormed back during the 2010 red wave and unseated Hassan, but the Democrat ended any talk of a fourth bout by successfully running for governor in 2012.

Prescott himself made the jump to the powerful Executive Council in 2016 and narrowly won re-election two years later before retiring in 2020. He decided to relaunch his career again last cycle by challenging Pappas, but he ended up taking just fourth place in the primary with 10% of the vote.

Pappas' constituency was once one of the most politically volatile seats in the entire nation, but it's become more friendly for Democrats over the last few years. Joe Biden carried the 1st District 52-46 in 2020, while Pappas won his most recent campaign 54-46 against Karoline Leavitt, the election denier who beat Prescott in the primary. (Leavitt is now a national spokeswoman for the Trump campaign.)

National Democrats, though, aren't treating Pappas as safe. The powerful Democratic group House Majority PAC has reserved $4.3 million in ad time in the media markets that cover the 1st District, though some of that money could instead be used to defend the more liberal 2nd District. Major GOP outside groups, however, have yet to book any time here.

• NH-02: Saint Anselm College also surveys both parties' Sept. 10 primaries for the 2nd District, where Democratic Rep. Annie Kuster is retiring after six terms representing western and northern New Hampshire.

On the Democratic side, the school shows former Biden administration official Maggie Goodlander with a 41-31 advantage over former Executive Councilor Colin Van Ostern, who has Kuster's endorsement. A poll conducted a month ago by GQR for Goodlander's allies at EMILYs List gave her a 43-27 advantage over Van Ostern, who narrowly lost the 2016 general election for governor to Republican Chris Sununu. 

Saint Anselm, meanwhile, finds 57% of Republicans are undecided about who their nominee should be. The voters who have made up their minds aren't flocking to one option either: The poll finds a 16-16 deadlock between Lily Tang Williams, who was the 2016 Libertarian Party nominee for Senate in Colorado, and businessman Vikram Mansharamani, with businessman Bill Hamlen at 6%. Williams took third place in the 2022 primary for this seat, while Mansharamani finished fourth in that year's Senate primary. 

The 2nd District, which is home to Nashua and the state capital of Concord, favored Joe Biden 54-45 in 2020.

• AZ-01, CA-45, PA-10: The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the official campaign arm of House Democrats, has released a trio of polls showing its candidates locked in tight races against Republican House incumbents.

In Arizona's 1st District, Impact Research shows Rep. David Schweikert deadlocked 48-48 against former state Rep. Amish Shah, who won his competitive Democratic primary just before this poll went into the field. This is the first survey we've seen of the general election for this competitive constituency based in northeastern Phoenix and Scottsdale. 

Joe Biden carried the 1st District 50-49 in 2020. (All 2020 presidential results for House districts have been recalculated for the district lines that will be used in 2024.) The memo for this poll, as well as for the other two races, did not mention who local voters planned to support in this year's presidential race.

Over in California's 45th District, Normington Petts likewise shows GOP Rep. Michelle Steel tied 47-47 against her Democratic foe, attorney Derek Tran. The only previous poll we've seen from this western Orange County seat was an early June Tran internal from Tulchin Research that placed Steel ahead by a small 42-41 margin. Biden prevailed 52-46 here four years ago, but plenty of voters in this old GOP bastion still back Republicans down the ballot even as they’ve become more open to supporting Democrats overall.

Finally, Upswing Research's survey of Pennsylvania's 10th finds the Democratic nominee, former TV news anchor Janelle Stelson, with a 48-47 advantage over Republican Rep. Scott Perry, who is one of the most prominent election conspiracy theorists in Congress. The last poll we saw here was an early June survey from Franklin & Marshall College that placed Perry ahead 45-44.

Donald Trump in 2020 scored a 51-47 victory in this seat, which includes the state capital of Harrisburg and the nearby York area. Democrats, though, got some welcome news last year when the party took control of the Board of Commissioners in Harrisburg's Dauphin County for the first time since at least 1919—and possibly ever—a result they're hoping will set the stage for more gains this fall.