The Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, and Stephen Wolf, with additional contributions from the Elections Daily Kos team.
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● Cobb County, GA Board of Commissioners: A Georgia court ruled Thursday that the Democrat-run Cobb County Board of Commissioners violated the state constitution using his own district map for the 2022 election to replace a gerrymander that Republican state legislators enacted for this diverse county with nearly 800,000 residents in the suburbs of Atlanta. Election will be postponed for the two districts that have been this year, which require special elections with new primaries, probably in 2025.
The chairman of the County Board of Elections indicated that the council probably not appeal, meaning the GOP gerrymander will go into effect. Democrats ended 36 years of GOP rule in 2020 by winning a 3-2 majority made up of three black women, while two Republicans are white. However, the ruling could temporarily cost Democrats that majority in a county that Joe Biden won 56-42 and he quickly went left during the last decade.
The 2nd and 4th Democratic districts were this year, and according to VEST data on Dave’s Redistricting App, both districts will turn dark blue under the GOP map. That gerrymander ensured that Donald Trump won the 1st and 3rd districts, where the Republican incumbents who were re-elected last cycle will not be back until 2026. Meanwhile, the county seat of the president of the Commissioner Lisa Cupid, a Democrat, remains on the ballot this fall. .
County election officials noted that state law it would seem to allow Democratic incumbents Jerica Richardson and Monique Sheffield will remain in office until special elections are held in the 2nd and 4th districts, respectively. However, Republican lawmakers moved Richardson’s home out of his 2nd District, and some legal experts argued that this could force him out of office even before his term is over because of the state’s residency requirements.
However, if state officials instead determine that she and Sheffield must resign when their terms were originally set to end, or if Richardson is forced to resign early over the residency issue, then Democrats will lose their majority.
However, Democrats can still win a majority after the special election if they hold the county seat this fall. However, Cobb was quickly diversified and democratic tendencyand the GOP map could limit Democratic gains in future elections.
The governors
● DE-Gov: State election officials have concluded that Democratic Lt. Gov. Bethany Hall-Long violated state campaign finance law for failing to disclose nearly $300,000 her campaign paid her husband, campaign treasurer Dana Long, over the past few years to repay what they said were personal loans to the campaign.
The investigation found that these repayments totaled $33,000 more than the sum of Long’s loans. Long also told investigators that he had “never read” the campaign finance laws regarding the loan repayment despite serving as treasurer for two of his wife’s previous campaigns. One of those was his 2016 bid for lieutenant governor as part of a ticket with Gov. John Carney, who is now term-limited and endorsed Hall-Long.
Officials released their report following a records request by WHYY News, which noted that such violations could constitute a misdemeanor that carries a penalty of up to a year in prison. However, state Elections Commissioner Anthony Albence indicated that he would not press charges, and Democratic State Attorney General Kathy Jennings issued a statement agreeing that state law defined the violations too narrowly for her to be successfully pursued.
Campaign finance issues have dogged Hall-Long’s candidacy almost from the moment she joined the race in September. After the resignations of top staffers, he paused his fundraising for most of October as his campaign said it was conducting an internal audit. However, the state investigator strongly contested the methodology and results of the audit, which claim to remove Hall-Long.
WHYY previously discovered that the campaign received $25,000 from donors who gave more than the legal limit, including from PACs that are not registered with the state. (Hall-Long said in response that she would refund excess donations). However, that report did not deter the state Democratic Party and EMILYs List from endorsing Hall-Long earlier this month. The Democratic Lieutenant Governors Association also recently began spending heavily on him.
Hall-Long faces New Castle County Castle Executive Matt Meyer and National Wildlife Federation head Collin O’Mara in the Sept. 10 primary. It remains to be seen how damaging these latest revelations will be. U recent survey only was an early July poll by Slingshot Strategies for Citizens for a New Delaware Way, which opposes Hall-Long. That poll found her and Meyer tied 27-27 with O’Mara at 7%.
House
● MN-05: Rep. Ilhan Omar released an internal survey by Lake Research Partners that finds his cruising to a 60-33 blowout in the Aug. 13 Democratic primary against former Minneapolis City Councilman Don Samuels, who lost by a surprisingly close 50-48 in 2022. However, Omar spent much more heavily this time around after not running any TV ads last cycle, and Samuels hasn’t shared contradictory numbers since a February poll by Victoria Research & Consulting. found it 49-30.
Ballot measures
● The Ball: An Arizona state court said Friday that a legislative panel led by Republicans cannot use the phrase “born human being” to describe an abortion rights ballot initiative in the pamphlet that will be sent to all registered voters before the November election, considering that it has banned “partisan” language for a constitutional amendment that is likely to to qualify Republican legislative leaders he promised soon to appeal the decision.
● MI Redistricting: A federal court he approved the new state Senate districts that Michigan’s independent redistricting commission recently adopted to replace the map used in 2022, which the same court shot down in December about how cartographers rely on race to an unacceptable degree. Actors had already indicated they did not object to the commission’s new map.
We previously detailed how the new Senate map makes significant changes to the demographics of several districts in the Detroit area, but its partisan effects are more modest and largely limited to a few districts. Unlike the new state House map that commissioners previously adopted for this year’s elections as part of this same litigation, the new Senate map will not be used until 2026, since the upper house is only for election in the years of half term.
Poll Pile
Note: All of these polls were conducted after Joe Biden’s departure from the presidential race and feature matchups between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris.
Roundup of announcements
Campaign Action
