Morning Digest: How an election conspiracy theorist could lose ... in a GOP primary

The Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, and Stephen Wolf, with additional contributions from the Daily Kos Elections team. Subscribe to The Downballot, our weekly podcast Embedded Content Leading Off ● Johnson County, KS Sheriff: Republican voters in Kansas' largest county could do something almost unthinkable in the Trump-era GOP: replace an incumbent fond of spreading election conspiracy theories with a challenger who has expressed faith that votes are being counted fairly. That incumbent is Sheriff Calvin Hayden, who has spent the last three years probing local elections in Johnson County, a populous suburban region outside of Kansas City that has swung sharply to the left in recent years. The Kansas City Star writes that, while Hayden has said little about what he's looking into, he seems focused on an election software company called Konnech. According to the Star, however, local election officials used Konnech's products to manage personnel in 2020, not for any voting-related tasks. Konnech, which has been at the center of other right-wing conspiracies, has dismissed Hayden's efforts as a "baseless investigation for the past several years into nonexistent election fraud." Hayden announced Monday that his inquiry, which has not resulted in any charges, "is no longer active," though he nevertheless made it clear he's not letting the matter go. "It's absolutely not over," the two-term sheriff said at a primary debate the following day. "It's now not being actively investigated until we get more information." Hayden's intra-party foe, former undersheriff Doug Bedford, had a different take. Bedford accused Hayden of wasting taxpayer money on his crusade while refusing to provide local officials with any actionable information. "We've had a lot of elections since the 2020 election," Bedford said at Tuesday's debate. "If there is an issue going on with our election process, tell us what it is." Bedford added that he would terminate Hayden's probe if he found it lacking. "Yes, I would look into the investigation to find out if there is anything there," he said. "If there's nothing there, then I would immediately shut down the investigation, and it would be closed." The two candidates also presented very different responses when they were asked if they trust Johnson County elections. "Honestly I can't say that I do," Hayden insisted, "knowing what I know and knowing the information we have uncovered." Bedford, by contrast, argued that "there's been no evidence at this point that proves we can't trust it." Still, Bedford, like his opponent, did not provide an answer when the moderator asked if he'd accept the results of the Aug. 6 primary. Bedford also used the forum to take Hayden to task for calling local elected officials "communists" at a far-right conference last year. The sheriff is no stranger to such crowds: As Star columnist Derek Donovan writes, Hayden addressed the 2022 national gathering of the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, which the Anti-Defamation League has classified as an "anti-government extremist group." Whoever wins the GOP nomination will face Prairie Village Police Chief Byron Roberson, a Democrat who was the first Black person to lead a police department in the county. Roberson cited the success of local Democrats in recent years when he told the Star back in March, "The political conditions in Johnson County would have to say a Democrat is a favorite." That's a very different state of affairs than Johnson County Democrats are used to. After Woodrow Wilson carried the county in 1916, Democrats would not do so again for more than a century. During that long stretch, Republicans could usually depend on its support in tight statewide elections. (One such beneficiary was the late Sen. Bob Dole, whose strong showing in Johnson County helped him narrowly win reelection during the 1974 Watergate wave.) The area's longstanding GOP leanings were tested in the 2010s, though, after then-Gov. Sam Brownback's radical tax cuts devastated local schools and hardline Republicans replaced pragmatists in the legislature. Still, the GOP remained the dominant faction: Donald Trump took the county 47-44 in 2016, while Hayden won his first general election uncontested. But Johnson County, like many other well-educated suburban enclaves, reacted to the Trump administration by punishing the party down the ballot. Democrats Laura Kelly and Sharice Davids both carried the county in 2018 as they were respectively flipping the governorship and the 3rd Congressional District. Joe Biden's 53-45 victory here two years later finally snapped the GOP's winning streak at the top of the ticket, though Hayden won his second term, again without opposition. Johnson County again helped Kelly and Davids prevail in 2022, and the Democrats' strong showing in local school board elections last year was another sign that it wasn't done moving to the left downballot.

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Jul 11, 2024 - 18:00
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Morning Digest: How an election conspiracy theorist could lose ... in a GOP primary

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

Subscribe to The Downballot, our weekly podcast

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Leading Off

● Johnson County, KS Sheriff: Republican voters in Kansas' largest county could do something almost unthinkable in the Trump-era GOP: replace an incumbent fond of spreading election conspiracy theories with a challenger who has expressed faith that votes are being counted fairly.

That incumbent is Sheriff Calvin Hayden, who has spent the last three years probing local elections in Johnson County, a populous suburban region outside of Kansas City that has swung sharply to the left in recent years. The Kansas City Star writes that, while Hayden has said little about what he's looking into, he seems focused on an election software company called Konnech.

According to the Star, however, local election officials used Konnech's products to manage personnel in 2020, not for any voting-related tasks. Konnech, which has been at the center of other right-wing conspiracies, has dismissed Hayden's efforts as a "baseless investigation for the past several years into nonexistent election fraud."

Hayden announced Monday that his inquiry, which has not resulted in any charges, "is no longer active," though he nevertheless made it clear he's not letting the matter go.

"It's absolutely not over," the two-term sheriff said at a primary debate the following day. "It's now not being actively investigated until we get more information."

Hayden's intra-party foe, former undersheriff Doug Bedford, had a different take. Bedford accused Hayden of wasting taxpayer money on his crusade while refusing to provide local officials with any actionable information.

"We've had a lot of elections since the 2020 election," Bedford said at Tuesday's debate. "If there is an issue going on with our election process, tell us what it is." Bedford added that he would terminate Hayden's probe if he found it lacking.

"Yes, I would look into the investigation to find out if there is anything there," he said. "If there's nothing there, then I would immediately shut down the investigation, and it would be closed."

The two candidates also presented very different responses when they were asked if they trust Johnson County elections.

"Honestly I can't say that I do," Hayden insisted, "knowing what I know and knowing the information we have uncovered."

Bedford, by contrast, argued that "there's been no evidence at this point that proves we can't trust it." Still, Bedford, like his opponent, did not provide an answer when the moderator asked if he'd accept the results of the Aug. 6 primary.

Bedford also used the forum to take Hayden to task for calling local elected officials "communists" at a far-right conference last year. The sheriff is no stranger to such crowds: As Star columnist Derek Donovan writes, Hayden addressed the 2022 national gathering of the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, which the Anti-Defamation League has classified as an "anti-government extremist group."

Whoever wins the GOP nomination will face Prairie Village Police Chief Byron Roberson, a Democrat who was the first Black person to lead a police department in the county. Roberson cited the success of local Democrats in recent years when he told the Star back in March, "The political conditions in Johnson County would have to say a Democrat is a favorite."

That's a very different state of affairs than Johnson County Democrats are used to. After Woodrow Wilson carried the county in 1916, Democrats would not do so again for more than a century. During that long stretch, Republicans could usually depend on its support in tight statewide elections. (One such beneficiary was the late Sen. Bob Dole, whose strong showing in Johnson County helped him narrowly win reelection during the 1974 Watergate wave.)

The area's longstanding GOP leanings were tested in the 2010s, though, after then-Gov. Sam Brownback's radical tax cuts devastated local schools and hardline Republicans replaced pragmatists in the legislature. Still, the GOP remained the dominant faction: Donald Trump took the county 47-44 in 2016, while Hayden won his first general election uncontested.

But Johnson County, like many other well-educated suburban enclaves, reacted to the Trump administration by punishing the party down the ballot. Democrats Laura Kelly and Sharice Davids both carried the county in 2018 as they were respectively flipping the governorship and the 3rd Congressional District. Joe Biden's 53-45 victory here two years later finally snapped the GOP's winning streak at the top of the ticket, though Hayden won his second term, again without opposition.

Johnson County again helped Kelly and Davids prevail in 2022, and the Democrats' strong showing in local school board elections last year was another sign that it wasn't done moving to the left downballot. Regardless of the outcome of the showdown between Hayden and Bedford, Roberson and Democrats throughout the region are hoping this trend will continue into November.

The Downballot

● There are half a million elected offices in the United States, and the presidency is just one of them. This week on "The Downballot," co-hosts David Nir and David Beard revisit why they started the show in the first place: to cast a spotlight on those other 499,999 races. If you're a progressive feeling understandably depressed and/or scared right now, it's more important than ever to remember we can still have a huge impact further down the ticket—and there's lots of reason to think that even if Democrats lose the White House, they can score major victories elsewhere. And no matter what, the more seats we win, the firmer our bulwark against fascism.

Indeed, two of America's most important allies showed us just that over the past week. The Davids recap monumental elections in the United Kingdom and France that saw voters across the spectrum reject the far right. The results, though, look very different. The U.K. just ushered in a massive majority for the center-left Labour Party for the first time in 14 years, while France's parliament is now split between three major blocs that themselves have internal divisions. What comes next is anyone's guess, but we can at least say that extremism and xenophobia failed to carry the day.

Never miss an episode! Subscribe to "The Downballot" wherever you listen to podcasts. You'll find a transcript of this week's show right here by Thursday afternoon. New episodes every Thursday morning!

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Governors

● Delaware: Candidate filing closed Tuesday for Delaware's Sept. 10 primaries, and the state has a list of contenders here. Louisiana is now the only state left where major party candidates can file to run for Congress in 2024, though its July 19 deadline is coming up soon.

The most competitive primary in Delaware will likely remain the three-way Democratic nomination battle to succeed the First State's termed-out governor, Democrat John Carney. The race between Lt. Gov. Bethany Hall-Long, New Castle County Executive Matt Meyer, and National Wildlife Federation leader Collin O'Mara is an unusual one, though, because contested Democratic primaries for governor have been few and far between here.

As we wrote last year, one of the last instances occurred in 1984 when former state Supreme Court Justice William Quillen defeated former Gov. Sherman Tribbitt, though he was rewarded in the general with a double-digit loss to Republican Mike Castle. (Quillen's daughter, Tracey Carney, is Delaware's current First Lady.)

Democrats didn't have a serious fight again until 2008 when John Carney, who was lieutenant governor at the time, competed against state Treasurer Jack Markell for the right to succeed termed-out incumbent Ruth Ann Minner. Markell pulled off a surprise 51-49 victory after an expensive contest, while Carney returned to statewide office two years later by winning the state's lone House seat. (Castle left to wage a 2010 Senate bid that ended in an upset primary loss against the soon-to-be infamous Christine O'Donnell.)  

Everyone expected the primary to replace Markell to be an easy win for former Attorney General Beau Biden, but things instead went into a holding pattern after he died in 2015 following his battle with brain cancer. Carney eventually entered the 2016 race and this time earned the nomination without opposition ahead of two easy general election victories.

Whoever wins the nod to replace Carney will likely be in for an easy win in this blue state, though state House Minority Leader Mike Ramone wants to pull off a surprise for the GOP. 

Carney, for his part, is campaigning to succeed his fellow Democrat, Wilmington Mayor Mike Purzycki, as leader of the state's largest city. Former city Treasurer Velda Jones-Potter, though, is hoping to put up a strong fight in the Democratic primary: The winner is all but assured victory in this dark blue municipality.

Delaware's two congressional races, by contrast, lack much drama. Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester has no serious opposition in the contest to replace retiring Sen. Tom Carper, while state Sen. Sarah McBride is similarly poised to succeed Blunt Rochester. (All three are Democrats.) 

Blunt Rochester would be both the first woman and first Black person to represent the state in the upper chamber, as well as the first Black Democratic member of the House to ever make the leap to the Senate. McBride, for her part, would be the first openly trans person to ever serve in Congress.

House

● CA-16: Former San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo has publicized an internal poll from Lake Research Partners that shows him leading Assemblyman Evan Low 39-28 in the all-Democratic general election in this Silicon Valley constituency. We haven't seen any other polls in the two months since a recount funded by Liccardo's allies ended the candidacy of a third Democrat, Santa Clara County Supervisor Joe Simitian.   

● NH-02, MI-08: A new survey for Public Policy Polling for former Biden administration official Maggie Goodlander's allies at Principled Veterans Fund finds her defeating former Executive Councilor Colin Van Ostern 35-13 in the Sept. 10 Democratic primary for New Hampshire's 2nd District. 

This poll was first publicized by the National Journal's James Downs, who discovered it on a PVF social media page that had just four followers as of Tuesday afternoon. That same X account previously tweeted out a late May internal from PPP that showed Van Ostern ahead 22-10. We have seen no other surveys of the nomination contest to succeed retiring Rep. Annie Kuster.

PVF last month also shared a late June PPP survey of the Aug. 6 Democratic primary to replace retiring Democratic Rep. Dan Kildee in Michigan's swingy 8th District, though that internal doesn't appear to have attracted any wider notice. The poll gives state Sen. Kristen McDonald Rivet a 32-19 advantage over businessman Matt Collier, an Army veteran whom PVF has spent money to help, with State Board of Education President Pamela Pugh at 8%.

PVF's account previously shared a PPP internal from early June that placed McDonald Rivet ahead with 23% as her two intra-party rivals deadlocked with 10% each. The only other poll we've seen of this nomination battle was an early May Global Strategy Group survey for McDonald Rivet that had her leading Collier 34-14.

● TX-23: Gun maker Brandon Herrera's plan to seek a recount for his tight May GOP runoff loss to Rep. Tony Gonzales quietly came to an end last month after he didn't pay a large enough deposit and failed to properly state which precincts he wanted to be recounted. Gonzales fended off Herrera 50.6-49.4—a margin of 354 votes—in a sprawling constituency in West Texas and the San Antonio area that Donald Trump carried 53-46 four years ago.

● UT-02: Greet Beret veteran Colby Jenkins announced Wednesday that he will seek a recount for his tight June 25 Republican primary against Rep. Celeste Maloy, though there likely won't be a final resolution until late this month.

Jenkins made his plans known the day after the 13 counties in Utah's dark red 2nd District finished their canvass and left Maloy holding a 50.1-49.9 lead—an advantage of 214 votes. Utah only allows recounts when the margin between the candidates is within 0.25% of the total votes cast, and until Tuesday, Maloy's lead was just outside that window.

The Deseret News' Brigham Tomco writes that state election authorities must now conduct their own canvas and certify the results by July 22. If Jenkins is still eligible for a recount, he'd have seven days to request one: Tomco says that the whole process could last through July 29.

P.S. Tomco notes that the last congressional primary recount in Utah took place in 1994 in the GOP nomination battle for the 3rd District, though it resulted in Emery County Commissioner Dixie Thompson widening his advantage over real estate developer Tom Draschil from 156 to 185 votes. That year's red wave, however, was far from enough to prevent Democratic Rep. Bill Orton from decisively fending off Thompson 59-40.

Ballot Measures

● LA Ballot: Republican mega-donor Lane Grigsby sent out an email to state legislators on Tuesday imploring them to hold a special session to authorize a state constitutional convention, a move that NOLA.com's Meghan Friedmann characterized as a "last-minute push" to revive this stalled element of Gov. Jeff Landry's far-right agenda. 

So far, though, key GOP members of the state Senate don't appear receptive to Grigsby's call. Sen. Franklin Foil, whom Friedmann says has long wanted a new state constitution, nonetheless told her, "It was a long spring, and I think initially people were worried that this was being rushed and needed more time for proper vetting." 

Senate President Cameron Henry, who has expressed skepticism about Landry's drive to replace the Pelican State's governing document, also communicated to the Louisiana Illuminator's Julie O'Donoghue, "Nothing to report." Two-thirds of each chamber is required to authorize a convention, and while the House supplied the needed numbers in May, the legislative session ended weeks later without the Senate taking any action.

State election officials say that a proposed constitution would need to be drafted by next month for the plan to appear on the general election ballot. Legislators, however, could instead wait until early September if they wanted to ask voters to weigh in on Dec. 7, which is the day that any runoffs would take place.

Poll Pile

The Republican pollster Remington Research Group has conducted surveys of key Senate battlegrounds on behalf of the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers, an organization that has run ads attacking President Joe Biden's clean energy agenda. Note that all presidential numbers include third-party candidates:

  • AZ-Sen: Ruben Gallego (D): 47, Kari Lake (R): 47 (49-42 Trump)

  • MI-Sen: Elissa Slotkin (D): 47, Mike Rogers (R): 43 (45-42 Trump)

  • MT-Sen: Tim Sheehy (R): 50, Jon Tester (D-inc): 45 (56-36 Trump)

  • NV-Sen: Jacky Rosen (D-inc): 48, Sam Brown (R): 46 (47-40 Trump)

  • OH-Sen: Sherrod Brown (D-inc): 50, Bernie Moreno (R): 44 (51-41 Trump)

  • PA-Sen: Bob Casey (D-inc): 49, Dave McCormick (R): 48 (48-43 Trump)

  • TX-Sen: Ted Cruz (R-inc): 53, Colin Allred (D): 43 (49-39 Trump)

  • WI-Sen: Tammy Baldwin (D-inc): 48, Eric Hovde (R): 48 (49-43 Trump)

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