Morning Digest: Trump-backed GOP chair ramps homophobia to 11 in House bid

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

Leading Off

● CO-05: Colorado Republican Party chair Dave Williams is getting massively outspent ahead of the June 25 primary to succeed retiring GOP Rep. Doug Lamborn, but the Donald Trump-backed candidate has managed to make national headlines by calling for the burning of LBGTQ+ pride flags.

"Burn all the #pride flags this June," the state party's official account tweeted without hesitation Monday, the same day it sent out an email under Williams' name sharing a video emblazoned with the words "God Hates Flags"—a reference to the infamous "God hates fags" slogan frequently deployed by the Westboro Baptist Church, a hate group.

The same email also included a graphic in which the outermost letters of the phrase "PRIDE MONTH" gradually darken until all that remains is a rainbow-colored word at the center: "DEMON."

At least one Republican was furious with Williams' homophobic messaging. Aurora City Councilmember Curtis Gardner told 9 News' Marshall Zelinger on Thursday that he had changed his party registration from Republican to unaffiliated as a result. "To be clear, God hates no one - not those in the LGBTQ+ community and not Dave Williams," Gardner wrote on Facebook. "These hateful comments are despicable."

Several still-Republican candidates also told Colorado Public Radio they were angry at Williams. State Rep. Mike Lynch, who is seeking the nomination in the neighboring 4th District, said Williams and his allies were trying to "distract from their horrid performance over the years," adding, "Everybody is sick of us taking this to a level of violence. You know, burning stuff is kind of a violent act."

Williams, unsurprisingly, didn't care about these intra-party critics. "We make no apologies for saying God hates pride or pride flags as it’s an agenda that harms children and undermines parental authority," he informed USA Today's Minnah Arshad.

In a separate interview with Colorado Politics' Ernest Luning, Williams dismissed Democratic Attorney General Phil Weiser's warning that the burning pride flags could be prosecuted as a crime if it involves "vandalizing property, harassing individuals, or causing physical harm to others."

"Free speech a crime?" Williams retorted. "So the AG thinks it’s okay to burn an American flag but pride flags are off limits?"

But while Williams seems to be soaking up the free attention, neither he nor his allies are spending much to boost his candidacy in this month's primary for the 5th District, a reliably red seat based in the Colorado Springs area.

The Colorado Sun's Sandra Fish reports that outside groups have dropped $1.3 million to either attack Williams or boost his intra-party rival, conservative radio host Jeff Crank. By contrast, Fish notes that there's been no outside spending to help Williams.

Two of Williams' main antagonists are Conservatives for American Excellence and America Leads Action, which have devoted themselves to stopping hardline candidates who could cause headaches for the House GOP leadership. (Speaker Mike Johnson is backing Crank.)

Americans for Prosperity, which is part of the Koch network, is also supporting Crank's effort. But the involvement of AFP, which unsuccessfully tried to stop Trump from winning the GOP's presidential nominee, apparently motivated Trump to endorse Williams back in March.

Williams' own campaign also isn't airing many ads to help him overcome this onslaught, as Fish writes that Crank has outspent him $54,000 to $15,000 on TV. Lamborn, for his part, is backing Crank over Williams, who unsuccessfully tried to defeat him in 2022. (Lamborn also bested Crank in 2006 and 2008, but Crank says they've become friends in the ensuing years.)

Plenty of local Republicans would be just fine if voters defied Trump and humiliated Williams, a former state representative and election conspiracy theorist whose 15 months as party chair have been defined by infighting and extremism.

Among other things, Williams' critics have taken him to task for using party resources to promote his bid, starting the moment he announced his campaign with a launch email sent through the party's official email account. The state GOP since then has paid for mailers attacking both Crank and AFP.

And Williams' own race is by no means the only one this year where the state Republican Party has boosted hardliners and attacked their rivals.

The GOP generated attention in April by not only backing far-right Rep. Lauren Boebert in the 4th District but also tweeting that one of her opponents, conservative talk radio host Deborah Flora was "boot licking fake journalists who only help Democrats." That tweet came after Flora spoke out when Williams ejected Fish, who works for the nonpartisan Colorado Sun, from a party event for being a "fake journalist."

Nor are the party's efforts at self-sabotage confined solely to solidly red turf. Last month, the GOP endorsed a pair of weak candidates, former state Reps. Janak Joshi and Ron Hanks, in primaries for competitive House seats.

Even Trump wasn't on board for the Joshi endorsement, though. Instead, he threw his backing this week to the national party favorite, state Rep. Gabe Evans, in his campaign to take on Democratic Rep. Yadira Caraveo in the swingy 8th District. Trump has yet to take sides in the contest to replace Boebert in the 3rd District, where Democrats are meddling in the primary to try to ensure Hanks will be their opponent in November.

Senate

● UT-Sen: The Salt Lake Tribune's Bryan Schott reports that former state House Speaker Brad Wilson has stopped airing TV and radio ads and that he doesn't have any time reserved for the final weeks of the June 25 Republican primary.

Wilson, who has been self-funding most of his bid to replace retiring Sen. Mitt Romney, did not respond to Schott's inquiries even as observers speculate that he's decided this contest is no longer winnable. "When a campaign comes off the air right as ballots are dropping, it’s a bad omen," said GOP consultant Mary Anna Mancuso.

Riverton Mayor Trent Staggs may also be getting some ill tidings of a different type as early voting this week. While Staggs earned Donald Trump's endorsement hours before he won the state party convention in late April, there's been relatively little outside spending on his behalf as Election Day nears. The only pro-Staggs independent expenditures on the FEC's site is $532,000 from Protect Freedom PAC, a group affiliated with Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul. (Paul, ironically, hasn't endorsed Trump.)

Staggs likely could use the help, as he brought in an underwhelming amount of money through early April and didn't have much time to ramp up his operation. Updated FEC reports are due June 13, so we'll know by then if Trump's backing energized MAGA donors who like Staggs' pitch to "replace Joe Biden’s favorite Republican with Donald Trump’s favorite Republican in Utah."

It's a very different situation for Rep. John Curtis, a well-funded candidate who comes closest in temperament to the outgoing incumbent. (Romney himself has not taken sides.)

Curtis has benefited from $6.6 million in outside spending that's mostly come from two groups, Conservative Values for Utah and Defend American Jobs. The former is financed by Jay Faison, a North Carolina businessman who funds a group aimed at blocking Republicans who might be hostile to the party's leadership, while Defend American Jobs is a crypto-aligned group.

The field also includes wealthy businessman Jason Walton, who has not benefited from any outside group aid.

House

● CA-45: Tulchin Research's new internal for Democrat Derek Tran shows him trailing Republican Rep. Michelle Steel just 42-41 in the first poll we've seen of the contest for this western Orange County constituency. The memo did not include respondents' preferences for president; Joe Biden prevailed 52-46 here in 2020.

● CO-03: Republican pollster co/efficient's new survey finds attorney Jeff Hurd leading former state Rep. Ron Hanks 27-9 in the busy June 25 GOP primary, with a hefty 52% of respondents undecided. Colorado Politics reports that the poll was done for "an outside party that hasn’t been involved in the primary."

● LA-03: Axios' Juliegrace Brufke writes that Garret Graves "has been toying with the notion of challenging" fellow GOP Rep. Clay Higgins in the 3rd District as he also mulls taking on Republican incumbent Julia Letlow in the 5th. The report comes at a time when Graves is keeping everyone guessing what he'll do with weeks still to go before Louisiana's July 19 filing deadline, but according to Brufke, this Hamlet on the Bayou routine got old long ago with House Republicans.

"He creates a lot of his own problems," one unnamed member said, adding that Graves "literally goes out of his way to go after people." Brufke also reports that two of his colleagues were angry when Graves put their names on an invitation for a fundraiser without their permission.

Higgins and Speaker Mike Johnson, who serves the 4th District, have publicly encouraged Graves to defend his revamped 6th District in the November all-party primary even though, at 59-39 Biden, it's all but unwinnable for him. The same might be true of a race against Higgins: According to calculations from Daily Kos Elections, Graves currently represents just 8% of the new 3rd District compared to 81% for Higgins.

● VA-05: Two new polls paint a conflicting picture of the June 18 primary between Republican Rep. Bob Good and state Sen. John McGuire. A Neighborhood Research and Media survey for Good's allies at Champions of Freedom PAC finds the incumbent leading 39-30.

By contrast, a WPA Intelligence poll shows McGuire ahead 41-31. The latter survey was conducted for the Virginia Faith and Freedom Coalition, which did not indicate if it has a rooting interest in this contest.

Neighborhood Research and Media's sample size was just 301 voters while WPA's was only 300, which both just barely meet Daily Kos Elections' minimum of 300 respondents for inclusion in the Digest.

Attorneys General

● MO-AG: The Associated Press' Geoff Mulvihill highlights that the Republican Attorneys General Association is staying out of the Aug. 6 GOP primary between appointed incumbent Andrew Bailey and Trump attorney Will Scharf. Mulvihill notes that several prominent RAGA donors are backing Scharf, who is a protege of powerful conservative Leonard Leo.

Leo is the influential activist who co-chairs the Federalist Society and has spent decades pushing the nation's courts far to the right. He and his allied Concord Fund have donated a total of $2 million to the state affiliate for the Club for Growth called the Missouri Federal Committee, which in turn is airing ads to attack Bailey and promote Scharf. Another mega donor, Paul Singer, has given the challenger's side $1.4 million, while the national Club for Growth has pitched in $500,000.

Bailey also has some big contributors in his corner, though so far they haven't been as financially generous as Scharf's supporters. Mulvihill says that the largest donation to the attorney general's PAC has been $500,000 from Carolyn and Mike Rayner, who are part of the family that owns the agribusiness giant Cargill.

Gov. Mike Parson appointed Bailey after their fellow Republican, Eric Schmitt, was elected to the Senate in 2022. Bailey, who was Parson's general counsel, made a name for himself as a hardline culture warrior in his first months in office by issuing an order essentially banning gender-affirming care for anyone in the state.

Even some fellow Republicans argued the attorney general had gone too far by prohibiting treatment for adults, including Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft, who is the GOP frontrunner to succeed Parson. Bailey rescinded his order just before the governor signed a bill outlawing such care for minors.

The Kansas City Star notes that there's little policy difference between Bailey and Scharf, who have each spread lies about the 2020 election. However, that's hardly stopped the challenger from arguing Republicans need an attorney general who isn't connected to state government.

"There are a lot of stones that the Jefferson City establishment would rather remain unturned," he told Jewish Insider last year. "I would see my job as attorney general as diligently flipping those stones."  

Scharf has also touted his connections to Trump, saying at an event last month, "Currently, I have one client. His name is Donald J. Trump and I have fought for him in courtrooms across America all the way up to the United States Supreme Court." Trump, though, has not taken sides in the primary between his lawyer and Bailey, who is also campaigning as an ardent MAGA ally.

The attorney general has also tried to make the people who are supporting Scharf a liability for his opponent. "I’m surprised that Wall Street and coastal elites would want to buy an office in Missouri for a New Yorker," Bailey told Mulvihill of Scharf, who grew up in New York City and Florida. The attorney general has also highlighted how a 2013 article by the Palm Beach Post listed Scharf's parents as present at a party for Planned Parenthood.

Ballot Measures

● AZ Ballot: Republican lawmakers voted along party lines to place a statutory measure on November's ballot that would impose harsh penalties on undocumented immigrants and set up a legal battle over conflicts with federal and state law. Republicans circumvented Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs's veto pen by placing their measure directly before voters, and it needs just a simple majority to become law.

The measure would make illegally crossing the border from Mexico a state crime, enabling state judges to order deportations. Undocumented immigrants who sell fentanyl resulting in someone's death or who use fraudulent documents to obtain work authorization or public benefits could face new felony charges.

Soon after the vote, Latino civil rights advocates filed a lawsuit in state court to block the proposal from the ballot. Their complaint argues that it violates federal law and the single-subject limit for state laws by including provisions unrelated to immigration such as the fentanyl penalties.

Longstanding Supreme Court precedents have given the federal government supremacy over setting immigration laws. However, Republicans in Texas and other states have recently begun passing their own laws similar to the Arizona proposal in hopes that the Supreme Court's new far-right supermajority will reverse those precedents. Lower courts have put Texas' law on hold for now, but an eventual Supreme Court ruling appears likely.

The Arizona GOP's proposal harkens back to their infamous 2010 anti-immigrant law, Senate Bill 1070. Derided as the "Show Me Your Papers" law, it made it a crime for immigrants to not carry legal documentation with them, and it required law enforcement to check the immigration status of anyone they stopped or arrested for an unrelated reason if they suspected them of being an unauthorized immigrant. Opponents sued and argued it facilitated racial profiling, but the Supreme Court upheld that provision while striking down some others.

Arizona Republican lawmakers have been rushing to put measures on the ballot this year because Democrats have a serious chance to erase the GOP's two-seat majorities and gain unified control over state government for the first time in six decades. A voter-initiated abortion rights amendment will likely also qualify for the ballot, and Democrats have argued that the GOP is trying to crowd the ballot with so many measures that voters won't take the time to read through and understand them.

Acknowledging the threat of potential unified Democratic governance, the GOP's immigration measure also contains a provision that gives legislative minority leaders what the Washington Post's Arelis Hernández describes as "unprecedented authority" to defend the law in court. That would ensure that Republicans have legal standing even if Democratic legislative leaders, Gov. Katie Hobbs, and state Attorney General Kris Mayes refuse to defend it.

Prosecutors & Sheriffs

● Milwaukee County, WI District Attorney: The Recombobulation Area's Dan Shafer highlights that Kent Lovern is completely unopposed in the race to replace his boss and fellow Democrat, retiring District Attorney John Chisholm, now that candidate filing has closed. Lovern could be around a long time: Chisholm was first elected in 2006 while his immediate predecessor, Democrat Michael McCann, won this post all the way back in 1968.

● Orange & Osceola counties, FL State Attorney: The conservative majority on the Florida Supreme Court voted 6-1 along ideological lines to uphold GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis' permanent suspension of Democratic State's Attorney Monique Worrell. Worrell, who is campaigning for her old job as the top prosecutor for the Orlando area, responded to Thursday's ruling by saying the state's highest court "rubber-stamped a political stunt."

DeSantis last August removed Worrell for ostensibly failing to seek serious penalties in violent crime cases, a move that came months after she released data to argue her approach was comparable to her predecessors. Worrell, who was the only Black woman to serve as state attorney for any of Florida's 20 judicial circuits, said of her dismissal, "This is simply a smokescreen for Ron DeSantis' failing and disastrous presidential campaign."  

The Republican that DeSantis picked to succeed her, Andrew Bain, filed to run as an independent in April for this blue jurisdiction. Joe Biden carried Orange and Osceola counties 60-39 in 2020, while Democrat Charlie Crist beat DeSantis here 52-47 during the governor's 2022 landslide win. Two Republicans, defense attorneys Thomas “Fighter” Feiter and Seth Hyman, are running in the Aug. 20 party primary.

Poll Pile

• MI-Sen: Mitchell Research for Michigan News Source: Elissa Slotkin (D): 39, Mike Rogers (R): 36 (48-48 presidential tie in two-way, 46-45 Trump with third-party candidates) (May: 40-36 Slotkin)
• NC-Gov: East Carolina University: Josh Stein (D): 44, Mark Robinson (R): 43 (48-43 Trump) (Feb.: 41-40 Robinson)
• PA-10: Franklin & Marshall College: Scott Perry (R-inc): 45, Janelle Stelson (D): 44 (44-38 Trump)

Ad Roundup

• FL-Sen: Rick Scott (R-inc) (here and here)
• MT-Sen: One Nation - anti-Jon Tester (D-inc)
• OH-Sen: Sherrod Brown (D-inc)
• AK-AL: Mary Peltola (D-inc)
• GA-03: Club for Growth - pro-Brian Jack (R) ($120,000 buy)
• MI-08: Paul Junge (R) - anti-Mary Draves (R)
• NE-02: Don Bacon (R-inc)
• NV-04: David Flippo (R) - anti- John Lee (R)
• OK-04: Americans 4 Security PAC - pro-Tom Cole (R-inc) and anti-Paul Bondar (R)
• SC-01: South Carolina Patriots PAC - anti-Nancy Mace (R-inc)
• UT-03: Mike Kennedy (R)
• VA-05: Conservative Outsider PAC - anti-John McGuire (R)