Morning Digest: Bob Menendez won’t be on tonight’s primary ballot, but he may in November

The Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, and Stephen Wolf, with additional contributions from the Daily Kos Elections team.

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Leading Off

● NJ-Sen: On Monday, Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez filed for reelection as an independent after previously declining to run in Tuesday's Democratic primary following his indictment on corruption charges last September. But the Garden State will host several other competitive nominating contests on Tuesday night—including one that features the senator's son, Rep. Rob Menendez—which Jeff Singer previews in a detailed rundown.

The elder Menendez submitted 2,465 voter signatures, 800 of which must be valid. However, the New Jersey Globe's David Wildstein reports that Menendez "has no campaign staff and is managing his own race," which complicates matters for him since his ongoing trial is expected to last into July, according to NBC. What the incumbent might do if convicted is unclear, but the deadline for independents to withdraw is Aug. 16.

If Menendez does appear on November's ballot, it's by no means a given that he would post a serious threat to Democratic frontrunner Andy Kim's chances, seeing as New Jersey last elected a GOP senator in 1972, when liberal Republican Clifford Case won his final term. Menendez has posted abysmal approval ratings in polls taken since his indictment, and an April survey of a potential three-way matchup from Farleigh Dickinson University found Kim leading either of his potential Republican opponents with Menendez in single digits.

Senate

● MI-Sen, MI-10, MI-08: Michigan's bipartisan Board of State Canvassers has concurred with the Bureau of Elections' recommendations regarding which candidates should be disqualified for lacking valid voter signatures. In doing so, the board on Friday rejected Democrats' request to investigate alleged signature fraud by the campaigns for the leading GOP Senate candidates: former Reps. Mike Rogers and Justin Amash, and self-funding businessman Sandy Pensler.

However, the board disqualified other congressional candidates. The only contender for the upper chamber to lose his place on the ballot was Democrat Nasser Beydoun, a former American Arab Chamber of Commerce leader waging a longshot Senate bid.

In the light red 10th District, the board barred Wayne State University Board of Governors member Anil Kumar and social justice activist Rhonda Powell from running in the Democratic primary to challenge GOP Rep. John James. Kumar ended March with a massive cash on hand advantage in the primary thanks to self-funding. Five Democrats remain in the race including 2022 nominee Carl Marlinga, who narrowly lost to James last cycle.

In the competitive 8th District held by retiring Democratic Rep. Dan Kildee, the board disqualified state Board of Education member Nikki Snyder, a Republican who badly struggled with fundraising. Snyder was also booted from the ballot over signature issues in a prior 2020 House bid. This time, Snyder's team alleges that they fell victim to fraud from a consultant. The main GOP candidates on the ballot are 2022 nominee Paul Junge and retired Dow Chemical Company executive Mary Draves.

● MT-Sen: Wealthy businessman Tim Sheehy appears to be the first prominent Republican to run a TV ad focused on Donald Trump's felony convictions. Sheehy's commercial baselessly accuses Democratic Sen. Jon Tester of supporting "state-sponsored political persecution led by Joe Biden and the radical left." The spot also notes that Tester voted to remove Trump from office both times he was impeached.

Governors

● PR-Gov: Puerto Rico Gov. Pedro Pierluisi lost Sunday's primary to serve as the standard bearer for the pro-statehood New Progressive Party to Resident Commissioner Jenniffer González, who has served as Puerto Rico's non-voting member of Congress since 2017. González leads 56-44 with about 80% of precincts reporting as of Tuesday morning.

The PNP, which is known in Spanish as Partido Nuevo Progresista, includes people who also belong to both of the mainland's major parties, and Pierluisi and González were on opposite sides of that divide. Pierluisi caucused with the Democrats in the eight years he preceded González as resident commissioner, while González is a Republican.

The Republican Governors Association also took an interest in this race, as AdImpact reported in mid-May it had spent close to $200,000 on pro-González ads.

Pierluisi, though, faced far more serious obstacles in his unsuccessful quest to become the first governor to win reelection since Pedro Rosselló back in 1996. Puerto Rico is still recovering from the devastation of Hurricane Maria in 2017, and blackouts remain frustratingly frequent. Other long-running problems include the rising cost of living and a shortage of physicians.

The Popular Democratic Party, which supports Puerto Rico continuing its current commonwealth status and tends to align with the Democratic Party, is hoping all of this will help it return to power after eight years. Jesús Manuel Ortiz, who is a member of the House of Representatives of Puerto Rico, won the PDP nod by beating Sen. Juan Zaragoza 61-39.

They won't have the Nov. 5 general election ballot to themselves, though. Former Sen. Juan Dalmau is running as part of an alliance between the Puerto Rican Independence Party (PIP), which wants Puerto Rico to separate from the United States, and the Citizen Victory Movement (MVC), which has appealed to younger voters.

This partnership, known as "the Alianza," is a notable change from 2020, when the two parties fielded opposing candidates. MVC's nominee that year, Alexandra Lúgaro, took third place with 14%, while PIP's Dalmau was just behind. Pierluisi himself only defeated his PDP rival 32-31 in 2020, so the new alliance led by Dalmau could have a big impact.

House

● KS-02: Former Rep. Nancy Boyda unexpectedly kicked off a comeback bid shortly before filing closed Monday when she announced that she would seek the Democratic nod to reclaim Kansas' 2nd District, which GOP Rep. Jake LaTurner is retiring from after just two terms.

Donald Trump carried this seat in the eastern part of the state 57-41 in 2020, but Boyda may have to concentrate on her Aug. 6 primary before she can focus on this uphill battle. Her opponent is businessman Matt Kleinmann, who was on the University of Kansas basketball team that won the national championship in 2008.

Boyda, as we profiled in detail five years ago, defeated GOP Rep. Jim Ryun in a truly shocking 2006 upset for what was already a conservative seat. But she faced a tough battle to keep it the next cycle against state Treasurer Lynn Jenkins and, unlike Kleinmann, she did not have a winning 2008.

The congresswoman made the fateful decision to convince the DCCC to cancel a $1.2 million TV reservation, arguing that "Kansas voters should control Kansas campaigns" and that the state should be able to “run our election without Washington interference." The NRCC responded to this unilateral disarmament by continuing its offensive, and Boyda lost 51-46 as John McCain was carrying her seat 55-43.

Boyda, who was one of just five Democratic House members to be defeated in this historically blue year, soon became a cautionary tale. DCCC chair Chris Van Hollen told a press conference months later that the former congresswoman had left him a contrite voicemail that she wanted him to play for any vulnerable members who were thinking about rejecting the committee’s help.

Boyda herself took a post at the Department of Defense early in the Obama administration, but she didn't quite give up on winning elected office again. The Democrat launched a bid for the U.S. Senate seat in 2019, but she raised little money and dropped out well before the new year.

There were no big last-minute surprises, meanwhile, on the GOP side, where five candidates are campaigning to replace LaTurner. The frontrunner appears to be former Attorney General Derek Schmidt, who lost a tight race to Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly in 2022. The other notable names are Jeff Kahrs, who is LaTurner's former district director, and businessman Shawn Tiffany.

The only poll we've seen here was a mid-May co/efficient poll that showed Schmidt dominating with 44% as Kahrs and Tiffany respectively took just 4% and 3%. (The firm told Daily Kos Elections that its survey was conducted for a private client "but not any candidate or candidate’s committee.")

Tiffany, though, is hoping to get his name out with an opening ad campaign that emulates the 1961 Jimmy Dean song "Big John," with a narrator describing him as a heroic cowboy as a choir chants, "Big Shawn."

And for anyone who still hasn't had their share of 2008 nostalgia after seeing Boyda's comeback, this isn't the first time that a campaign has parodied this classic. Shawn's effort bears more than a passing resemblance to the "Big John" video that Texas Sen. John Cornyn ran that year, a presentation that attracted national mockery but did little to stop the Republican from winning reelection.

● MI-13: Former state Sen. Adam Hollier said Sunday that he was ending his campaign for the Democratic nod, an announcement that came three days after state election officials rejected his attempt to appeal Wayne County Clerk Cathy Garrett's determination that he'd failed to turn in enough valid signatures.

Hollier's involuntary departure establishes Detroit City Councilwoman Mary Waters as freshman Rep. Shri Thanedar's only serious intra-party opponent in this safely blue seat. While Waters raised very little money through March, she's hoping that this will change now that Hollier is off the ballot, especially now that Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan is supporting her.

● MT-02: Donald Trump endorsed state Auditor Troy Downing just one day before the Republican primary for Montana's 2nd District. The move came after Downing and his allies released a trio of surveys showing him leading former Rep. Denny Rehberg in this nine-person field; no one has released any contradictory numbers.

● TX-18: Longtime Democratic Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee announced Sunday that she has pancreatic cancer and is undergoing treatment. Jackson Lee's statement did not include details about her prognosis, saying only that she would likely be "occasionally absent from Congress" and that she hopes to be "back at full strength soon."

Jackson Lee has easily held down this dark-blue Houston seat ever since her initial 1994 election. While she ran for Houston mayor last year and lost the nonpartisan runoff by a wide 65-35 margin to fellow Democrat John Whitmire, the congresswoman bounced back in March by winning renomination 60-37 against a well-funded primary challenger.

Ad Roundup

• MT-Sen: Jon Tester (D-inc); Last Best Place - anti-Tim Sheehy (R-inc)
• NV-Sen: Jacky Rosen (D-inc) (in Spanish); Jeff Gunter (R) (in Spanish, here and here)
• ND-Gov: Kelly Armstrong (R); Tammy Miller (R)
• MT-02: Denny Rehberg (R) - anti-Troy Downing (R)
• ND-AL: Julie Fedorchak (R)
• VA-05: John McGuire (R) - anti-Bob Good (R-inc); Conservative Outsider PAC - pro-Good
• VA-10: Protect Progress - pro-Dan Helmer (D)