Morning Digest: Convicted criminal stars in new ad boosting New York congresswoman

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

● NY-24: Rep. Claudia Tenney launched a new campaign ad on Thursday touting an endorsement from Donald Trump—the very same day a jury convicted her number-one patron on 34 felony charges in a Manhattan courtroom.

"I'm here for Claudia," the audience hears Trump say of the upstate New York Republican. "She has been incredible." The quote, as journalist Luke Radel notes, comes from a 2018 campaign event Trump held with Tenney in Utica—an election she lost and a city she no longer represents.

But it's no surprise that Tenney, who predictably denounced the trial after the verdict was announced, is continuing to hug her party's felonious master tightly even as she touts herself as a supporter of law enforcement. But the most revealing part of this ad is that the seemingly secure incumbent devotes the remainder of it to attacking a longshot intra-party foe.

"Mario Fratto is pro-crime," the narrator declares of the little-known attorney challenging Tenney in the June 25 primary for the conservative 24th District. The ad goes on to play audio of Fratto saying, "I can go pretty far left … Trump crossed many lines."

Tenney defeated Fratto 54-40 in 2022, an unimpressive showing in a primary for a well-funded congresswoman who, just like now, also enjoyed Trump's backing in that campaign. However, that previous race took place under some unusual circumstances that aren't present this time around.

Two years ago, New York courts imposed a new congressional map that radically reshaped district lines upstate. Tenney had represented the old 22nd District, and much of her Utica-area base remained there after redistricting. But the new 22nd also added Democratic areas like Syracuse, transforming it from a district Trump had carried 55-43 to one Joe Biden would have won 53-45.

The revamped 24th District in the Finger Lakes region, meanwhile, contained just 6% of Tenney's constituents, but due to the departures of multiple Republican congressmen, it was an open seat. It was also much redder than the 22nd, since it would have backed Trump by a 57-40 margin.

Tenney decided it was better to run for a more conservative district even if it meant taking her chances with voters who didn't know her. The choice was understandable: Even in the old, pro-Trump 22nd, Tenney had managed to lose her bid for a second term to Democrat Anthony Brindisi in 2018, and she only won a rematch two years later by just 109 votes.

Tenney's decision to switch districts deterred any established local politicians from challenging her for the new seat, but Fratto decided to give it a go. While Tenney's huge financial lead and support from Trump more than offset her weak ties to the new 24th, her relatively modest 14-point win was enough to encourage Fratto to try again this cycle.

Tenney ended March with a $668,000 to $472,000 cash on hand advantage over Fratto, who is self-financing almost all of his renewed effort. Notably, that gap is considerably smaller than Tenney's advantage at any point in the 2022 race. (Updated figures are due June 13.)

The challenger has argued that Tenney, who has a long history of far-right rhetoric, is an outsider who is still not right-wing enough for her new constituents. Fratto kicked off his effort last year by claiming that, since their first battle, the incumbent had "doubled down on the bad policies that filled the carpet bag she dragged into our district last year, moving over 100 miles from her childhood home to stay in office."

Tenney, though, now has considerably more name recognition than she did two years ago. And while the Democratic-run state legislature passed a new map that made the 22nd District, which is held by freshman GOP Rep. Brandon Williams, a top pickup opportunity for Democrats, the alterations to the 24th weren't dramatic. Tenney currently represents close to 90% of the revamped seat, which would have favored Trump by an even wider 59-39 margin in 2020.

Tenney, however, is taking Fratto seriously enough to think he's worth targeting on the airwaves. She's one of almost two dozen House members from both parties who face a notable intra-party challenge, though so far, the 2024 primary cycle hasn't been particularly bad for incumbents.

Some Republicans, like Indiana Rep. Victoria Spartz and Texas Rep. Tony Gonzales, have had to fight hard for renomination. But the only loss for a sitting member so far came about in an incumbent vs. incumbent matchup following a round of court-ordered redistricting, with Alabama Republican Jerry Carl the luckless casualty.

Carl may have company in this unwelcome club before long, however, as Tenney is one of several members under pressure during a busy month of primaries taking place throughout June.

Governors

● Vermont: Candidate filing closed Thursday for Vermont's Aug. 13 primary, but there won't be much action this year.

Republican Gov. Phil Scott and Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats, both previously announced they would seek reelection despite speculation to the contrary, and neither drew any major opposition. Democratic Rep. Becca Balint, who holds the Green Mountain State's only House seat, also is on a glide path to victory.

● WV-Gov, WV-Sen: Retiring Sen. Joe Manchin changed his party registration from Democratic to unaffiliated on Friday, which means that we're probably stuck with at least two more months of speculation over whether he could run for the Senate or governor as an independent. Axios writes that Manchin, who will still caucus with the Democrats, is "more serious about a potential governor's run" than seeking reelection.

The state gives such candidates until Aug. 1 to turn in signatures representing 1% of the total vote in the last contest for the seat they're seeking, which comes to about 7,800 for governor and 5,900 for Senate.

House

● AZ-08: Venture capitalist Blake Masters has publicized a mid-May internal from Fabrizio, Lee & Associates that shows him leading Donald Trump's endorsed candidate, attorney Abe Hamadeh, 28-16 in the July 30 GOP primary to replace retiring Rep. Debbie Lesko. Another 14% back former Rep. Trent Franks, who resigned in scandal in 2017, while Lesko's pick, state House Speaker Ben Toma, clocks in at 8%.

The poll was completed about a week before the Arizona Republic's Laura Gersony obtained texts from early 2023 in which Hamadeh chatted with Masters, who'd also lost a bid for higher office the previous fall, and mocked election conspiracy theorists.

"No matter what happens I'm winning right now. I'm not lumped in with crazies with election stuff because I'm so close at 280," wrote Hamadeh, who lost the race for attorney general to Democrat Kris Mayes by that number of votes. "But the crazies love [me] because they see me fighting."

Hamadeh, who still publicly denies he lost, responded to the news by blasting Masters as a "Friend' turned snake." His campaign also argued Hamadeh "has been labeled a crazy time and time again" and "chooses to laugh about it rather than back down from the fight." Gersony wryly noted, "It was unclear how that applied to his remark about not being 'lumped in with crazies.'"

Masters, who has disputed the outcome of the 2020 election but accepted his own defeat for Senate two years later, had a different take on his former allies' words to him.

Hamadeh "privately mocked people who believed that he was fighting for election integrity," Masters told Gersony. "[H]e will gladly mock his supporters as crazy and laugh behind their backs, while pretending to be their champion in public."

● NY-16: Politico reports that the National Black Empowerment Action Fund plans to spend "an initial half million dollars" to aid Westchester County Executive George Latimer's primary challenge against Democratic Rep. Jamaal Bowman by reaching out to Black voters and local officials. The group is run by former AIPAC staffers, and Politico says "more spending is anticipated." AIPAC's own super PAC has already spent around $8 million on Latimer's behalf ahead of the June 25 primary.

● OK-04: Roll Call's Aidan Quigley takes a deep dive into the unexpectedly expensive Republican primary for Oklahoma's 4th District and reports that, according to data from AdImpact, self-funding businessman Paul Bondar has outspent veteran Rep. Tom Cole $3.3 million to $1.35 million on the airwaves.

Cole, though, has benefited from another $3.4 million in support from Americans 4 Security PAC, which tells Quigley that it plans to deploy a total of $4 million to help the Trump-endorsed incumbent secure renomination on June 18. Another two groups close to the GOP leadership, American Action Network and Defending Main Street, have also spent more than $500,000 combined to aid Cole.

Cole and his allies have repeatedly slammed Bondar as an interloper from Texas, an attack the challenger has struggled to respond to. In his latest attempt at a parry, Bondar told Quigley that he's also from other states that aren't Oklahoma.

"My opponent wants to label me as a Texas guy, all this kind of thing, and put labels on me, but I’ve been around in a number of different states," said Bondar, who grew up in Wisconsin and later moved to Illinois. "I think our country and the state of Oklahoma needs new representation … so I decided to make a run for this particular seat."

Bondar has also defended his ties to the Sooner State in his commercials, though he's broken the first rule of political advertising by repeating his opponent's attacks against him.

"Tom Cole says Paul Bondar doesn't live in Oklahoma," a narrator says before showing footage of the challenger at "his home in Stonewall" and the barren tract of land where he's "building his forever home in Caddo." Quigley notes that, while the Stonewall property that Bondar is renting is indeed in the 4th District, the town containing his "forever home" isn't. (Caddo is in GOP Rep. Josh Brecheen's 2nd District.)  

The rest of the ad goes on to argue that Cole is the one who's been absent from the Sooner State, with the narrator faulting him for not having "voted in person in Oklahoma once in 20 years." The spot continues by claiming that Cole's neighbors say they haven't seen him, though any such testimonials are left out of this ad.

Cole may have years to get used to seeing such messages about himself, though. "Regardless of this outcome, I am going to run a reelection campaign in 2026," Bondar tells Quigley. "Tom is 75 years old. I think people are going to quickly understand that, at some point, either really soon or not too far off, I will be the next congressman of this district, based on my level of commitment to this state."

Poll Pile

The conservative groups Carolina Leadership Coalition and Carolina Partnership for Reform on Wednesday publicized a late April poll from Meeting Street Insights that found Democratic statewide candidates ahead even as Donald Trump led 40-35:

• NC-Gov: Josh Stein (D): 44, Mark Robinson (R): 37, Mike Ross (L): 4, Wayne Turner (G): 2
• NC-AG: Jeff Jackson (D): 43, Dan Bishop (R): 41
• NC Supreme Court: Allison Riggs (D-inc): 42, Jefferson Griffin (R): 40
• NC Superintendent: Mo Green (D): 43, Michele Morrow (R): 40

Ad Roundup

• AZ-Sen: Ruben Gallego (D)
• NJ-08: Ravi Bhalla (D)
• SC-03: Sheri Biggs (R)