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
● Miami-Dade County, FL Sheriff: Donald Trump on Wednesday endorsed Rosie Cordero-Stutz, an official with the Miami-Dade Police Department, in her quest to win the first election for sheriff of Florida’s most populous county since they were last held in the 1960s. Both parties are anticipating a competitive race for a post that is sure to emerge as one of the most prominent law enforcement offices in the state.
Cordero-Stutz is facing a packed and expensive primary on Aug. 20, but even before Wednesday’s news, she already had one important supporter in Rep. Carlos Gimenez, a major Trump ally who backed her in February. The Miami Herald’s Doug Hanks notes that the congressman’s daughter and son-in-law are also key consultants for Cordero-Stutz.
Trump and Gimenez’s support for Cordero-Stutz could help her overcome a major financial deficit. Former Miami City Commissioner Joe Sanchez, a Florida Highway Patrol Trooper, has led the pack to date, ending March with $289,000 available between his campaign and an allied political committee.
Two former Miami-Dade Police majors, Mario Knapp and Ignacio Alvarez, respectively finished the month with $214,000 and $181,000 at their disposal. Cordero-Stutz, by contrast, was in fourth with only $125,000, which placed her just ahead of Jose Aragu, a current major with the Miami-Dade Police, at $115,000.
Yet another county police veteran, Ernie Rodriguez, had $82,000, but according to data compiled by Florida Politics’ Jesse Scheckner, none of the seven other Republicans who filed reports had more than about $30,000 banked.
The frontrunner on the Democratic side appears to be Miami-Dade Chief of Public Safety James Reyes, who oversees the county’s corrections, fire, and police departments. Reyes joined the race in January and picked the endorsement of County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava the following month.
Reyes’ entry came months after the contest was thrown into chaos after the favorite to win the newly revived sheriff’s office was hospitalized following a suicide attempt. Miami-Dade Police Director Freddy Ramirez, a Democrat whose position was the equivalent of the long-defunct sheriff’s post, was the overall frontrunner until July, when he shot and wounded himself after what authorities called a “domestic dispute” with his wife.
The news, as Hanks put it, “reset” the entire contest. Chatter immediately ensued about a Democratic replacement for Ramirez, who ended his campaign in September. That replacement wound up being Reyes, who was made public safety chief in November.
Reyes made up for lost time with a strong opening fundraising quarter. The $327,000 he had banked at the end of March gave him access to more money than any candidate from either party.
The only other Democrat with a sizable war chest is funeral home operator Rickey Mitchell, a former Miami-Dade Police lieutenant, who had $214,000 thanks largely to self-funding. The remaining two Democrats who filed quarterly reports, former federal investigator Susan Khoury and Miami Dade Police Major John Barrow, had little to spend.
One thing both parties have in common is that their main candidates both live in neighboring Broward County rather than in the jurisdiction they want to serve. WLRN’s Daniel Rivero says that Reyes, who has touted his upbringing in the Miami-Dade city of Hialeah after leaving Cuba, has been a Broward County resident since 2008. Reyes says he lives “a stone’s throw away from the county line,” pledged to Rivero he’d return to the county he calls “home” should he win.
Cordero-Stutz, for her part, made her own move from Hialeah to Broward County in 1997, though she did not respond to Rivero’s inquiries about her future plans. (Trump, whose Mar-a-Lago lair is one county north of Broward in Palm Beach, presumably doesn’t care where she resides.)
Several other candidates, though, made it clear they do live in Miami-Dade County. But while residency might become a political issue, it’s not a legal one: Miami-Dade doesn’t require its sheriff to be a resident, which is in line with all but two of the state’s 67 counties.
The eventual winner will claim a job that hasn’t been an elected post since the Lyndon Johnson era. But following decades of corruption, including allegations that Sheriff T.A. Buchanan ran a burglary ring, voters in what was still called Dade County backed a 1966 referendum to turn the office into an appointed one. (Buchanan was ultimately acquitted.)
As a result, the county, which was renamed Miami-Dade following a 1997 referendum, was for decades the only one in the state that did not elect its top law enforcement official. The county mayor instead appointed the director of the Miami-Dade Police Department, an equivalent post.
However, in a statewide election in 2018, Florida voters approved a measure called Amendment 10 to require that each county elect a sheriff and several other local offices, including tax collectors and election supervisors. Only Miami-Dade, Broward, and Volusia counties were impacted by these changes.
Gimenez, who was county mayor at the time, denounced Amendment 10 as the product of outsiders seeking to make decisions for his county, but his arguments went nowhere. Amendment 10 passed 63-37 statewide, which was more than the 60% it needed to go into effect, even though it fell below that benchmark in each of the three affected counties.
Senate
● MD-Sen: Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks’ new ad campaign features an all-star cast of state Democrats assembled together to offer their support in the May 14 primary to succeed retiring Sen. Ben Cardin.
Alsobrooks’ message begins with testimonials from Gov. Wes Moore and Sen. Chris Van Hollen, who holds Maryland’s other seat. Viewers in the Baltimore and Washington media markets are each then presented with a different collection of local elected officials. (Each market is home to almost half of the state’s residents.)
The former version features Baltimore County Executive Johnny Olszewski, who is the frontrunner in the primary for the open 2nd District in the Baltimore suburbs, as well as Rep. Kweisi Mfume, who represents most of the city. Viewers in the Washington suburbs, meanwhile, hear from Reps. Steny Hoyer and Glenn Ivey.
Both versions go on to showcase Rep. Jamie Raskin, who is one of the most prominent progressives in the state, and state Comptroller Brooke Lierman. The audience then sees Alsobrooks standing outside before many rows of backers, who include Rep. John Sarbanes and other local officials. The crowd concludes the commercial by cheering in unison.
Alsobrooks’ main intra-party foe, Rep. David Trone, has considerably fewer Maryland politicians on his side, though he hasn’t been shy about featuring his supporters in his own ads. A new spot showcases Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger, who is retiring from the seat Olszewski is seeking, while a previous message starred state Attorney General Anthony Brown. (Cardin is the one member of the state’s Democratic delegation who has not taken sides in the race for his seat.)
Alsobrook is hoping that her superior institutional support will help her overcome a huge advertising disadvantage against Trone, a self-funder who began airing TV spots a full year before the primary.
New data from AdImpact underscores just how big this particular gap has grown. The firm says that Trone has spent or booked $38 million worth of commercials, compared to just $2.6 million for Alsobrooks. There hasn’t been any major outside spending yet that might balance the scales, and it remains to be seen if that will change with less than three weeks to go.
● Utah: Multiple Utah candidates running for either Congress or governor need a strong performance when Republicans gather for their state convention on Saturday—and those who fall short will see their campaigns come to an immediate end, well before the June 25 primary.
That’s because, as we’ve written before, hopefuls can advance either by turning in the requisite number of signatures or by taking at least 40% of the vote when party delegates gather, but the first option is prohibitively expensive and time-consuming for many contenders.
Even candidates who have already qualified for the ballot, though, almost always still take part in the convention, and there’s no indication that any big names are skipping out this year. Democrats will also hold a parallel convention on Saturday, but there’s considerably less competition for most races in dark-red Utah.
The main event at the GOP conclave will likely concern the race to replace retiring Sen. Mitt Romney. One hopeful, attorney Brent Orrin Hatch, got some unwelcome news Thursday when election officials announced he’d only turned in 21,000 of the necessary 28,000 petitions he needed to succeed with the signature route.
Hatch, who is the son of the late Sen. Orrin Hatch, himself acknowledged to the Deseret News weeks ago that gathering enough petitions was “daunting” and his status was “up in the air.” The deadline to submit signatures was April 13, so it’s now convention or bust for Hatch.
Another six candidates, including Riverton Mayor Trent Staggs and conservative activist Carolyn Phippen, are also relying on delegates to keep their campaigns going. Staggs and Phippen, who are campaigning as hardliners, have reason for hope, though, as delegates tend to be more right-wing than the primary electorate.
Three candidates are guaranteed a spot on the ballot: Rep. John Curtis; former state House Speaker Brad Wilson; and one we hadn’t previously mentioned, businessman Jason Walton, who is CEO of a pest control company. Walton, who has promoted himself as an ally of far-right Sen. Mike Lee, self-funded $2.5 million during the first quarter of 2024, which was about ten times as much as he raised from donors, and he ended March with $910,000 banked.
In the race for governor, incumbent Spencer Cox was the only one of the five Republican candidates who successfully pursued the signature route. State Rep. Phil Lyman initially planned to collect petitions, but he abandoned that effort in late March. The rest of the field consists of former state GOP chair Carson Jorgensen and two little-known contenders.
Lyman’s far-right views may help him win over delegates, though his bid almost crashed to a halt this week because of a strict state campaign finance law. The Salt Lake Tribune’s Bryan Schott writes that Lyman missed the state’s Monday deadline to submit his latest financial disclosure forms and only turned them in with minutes left in the 24-hour grace period. Schott says that, if Lyman had failed to meet that second deadline, he would have been “disqualified from the race.”
Those tardy reports revealed that Lyman took in a notable $800,000 since January thanks largely to a mysterious new company that appears to be connected to his family. He also benefitted from a loan from a former Texas congressional candidate named Johnny Slavens, who lost the 2016 GOP primary 75-11 against the late Rep. Sam Johnson but later returned to his home state of Utah.
There was a late surprise in the 2nd Congressional District on Thursday evening when Lee endorsed Green Beret veteran Colby Jenkins over freshman Rep. Celeste Maloy. Those two contenders, along with perennial candidate Ty Jensen, are each depending entirely on the convention to advance. Even with Lee’s support, though, it would still be a surprise if Jenkins prevented Maloy from hitting the 40% threshold she needs to continue her reelection campaign for this reliably red seat.
There’s less drama surrounding the other two GOP House members who are seeking reelection on dark red turf. Rep. Blake Moore, who has turned in enough signatures to move forward, only faces a pair of little-known intra-party foes in the 1st District, while fellow Rep. Burgess Owens has no opposition for renomination in the 4th.
Finally, the GOP race to replace Curtis in the conservative 3rd District features nine candidates. The four who have submitted the requisite 7,000 signatures are Roosevelt Mayor Rod Bird, state Auditor John Dougall, businessman Case Lawrence, and former state party chair Stewart Peay.
Five more need to win over delegates, including perennial candidate Lucky Bovo, former Senate aide Kathryn Dahlin, former state Rep. Chris Herrod, state Sen. Mike Kennedy, and Utah Young Republicans chairman Zac Wilson.
House
● AZ-08: A grand jury has indicted 11 Arizona Republicans who participated in Donald Trump’s attempt to steal the 2020 election by serving as a slate of fake electors, a list that includes state Sen. Anthony Kern, one of several Republicans running in the July primary for this GOP-favoring open seat. Kern’s campaign quickly indicated he would remain in the race.
While the charges against the senator may not be much of a negative with Republican primary voters given their party’s widespread embrace of election denialism, Kern has struggled to raise money so far. He finished March with just $70,000 in the bank, putting him far behind several rivals, including 2022 Senate nominee Blake Masters and Trump’s pick, 2022 attorney general nominee Abe Hamadeh.
The list of indictees includes another state senator, Jake Hoffman, as well as two former candidates who ran for the U.S. Senate in recent years: far-right conspiracy theorist and former state party chair Kelli Ward and businessman Jim Lamon.
Ward ran in the 2016 primary and held the late Sen. John McCain to a relatively narrow 51-40 win before McCain won his final term that fall. She went on to lose the 2018 primary for an open seat 55-28 against Rep. Martha McSally, who herself lost the general election to then-Democrat Kyrsten Sinema. Lamon, meanwhile, lost the 2022 primary 40-28 to Masters, who was defeated by Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly in the general election.
● FL-15: Former state Rep. Jackie Toledo announced on Thursday that she wouldn’t join the Republican primary against Rep. Laurel Lee after previously indicating she was considering a bid. Toledo ran against Lee for the GOP nomination when this district was open last cycle, but she took a distant third with just 12%; Lee beat state Sen. Kelli Stargel for the nomination by a comfortable 41-28 margin.
Lee already faces multiple primary challengers after Donald Trump called for her ouster last month, apparently because she had initially endorsed Ron DeSantis for president. We’ll know soon enough if any late entrants emerge since the filing deadline is Friday.
● KS-02: State House Majority Leader Chris Croft, a Republican, has announced he won’t run to succeed retiring GOP Rep. Jake LaTurner in this Republican-favoring district.
● OR-05: 314 Action Fund has announced a $500,000 digital and mail buy in support of state Rep. Janelle Bynum, which represents the first notable outside spending of the May 21 Democratic primary to face freshman GOP Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer. Bynum, who has the support of Gov. Tina Kotek and national Democrats, is going up against 2022 nominee Jamie McLeod-Skinner.
● VA-10: Prince William County Board of Supervisors Chair Deshundra Jefferson has endorsed Del. Dan Helmer in the crowded Democratic primary on June 18 for this open safely blue seat. Prince William County makes up roughly one-fourth of the 10th District.
Legislatures
● MI Redistricting: Michigan’s independent redistricting commission has voted to withdraw its appeal of a ruling by a federal district court that had blocked the use of the state’s legislative maps after concluding that commissioners improperly relied on race when drawing districts in the Detroit area.
The case had been appealed to the Supreme Court, which had previously refused to stay the district court decision pending appeal. The commission subsequently passed a new state House map that the lower court approved last month for use in this year’s elections. Commissioners have begun drawing a new state Senate map as well, though it won’t take effect until 2026 since elections for the upper chamber are held only in midterm years.
Judges
● LA Redistricting: Louisiana’s Republican-controlled legislature has passed a bipartisan bill to redraw the state’s Supreme Court districts and create a second majority-Black district amid an ongoing Voting Rights Act lawsuit seeking to compel just such an outcome.
Gov. Jeff Landry and other Republicans have argued in favor of the proposal to avoid further litigation costs. Lawmakers previously approved a new congressional map in January following similar VRA litigation in a separate case.
The current Supreme Court map was last redrawn in 1997 after a previous lawsuit, and only one of its seven districts is majority-Black in a state that is roughly one-third Black overall. The new map would unite parts of the Baton Rouge area and northeastern Louisiana into a new 2nd District that would be 55% Black and would have favored Joe Biden 60-39 according to calculations from Dave’s Redistricting App using VEST data.
If this map becomes law, the 2nd would very likely elect a Black Democrat this fall to replace retiring GOP Justice Scott Crichton, who is white.
Prosecutors & Sheriffs
● Orange & Osceola counties, FL State Attorney: Florida Politics reports that appointed incumbent Andrew Bain filed paperwork this month to seek a full term as an independent even though he’d previously qualified as a Republican. GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis picked Bain last year after permanently suspending Democratic State Attorney Monique Worrell for allegedly failing to seek serious penalties in violent crime cases.
Worrell, who’d previously released data to argue her approach was comparable to her predecessors’, responded to her ouster last summer by blasting DeSantis as a “dictator” and announcing she’d run to reclaim her post. Two Republicans also have filed ahead of Friday’s deadline.
Joe Biden carried this two-county district, which includes Orlando, 60-39, while Democrat Charlie Crist beat DeSantis here 52-47 during the governor’s 2022 landslide win.
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