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●House: House Republicans just narrowly passed their Trumpcare bill on Thursday, voting to kick tens of millions off of their insurance and make health care unaffordable for countless Americans. Daily Kos Elections mapped out the 2016 presidential election result for all 217 House Republicans who voted in favor of the bill here.

Of the 23 members who hold districts that voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016, 14 Republicans voted for the bill, as did another 10 of those whose seats Trump won with less than 50 percent (excluding districts in Utah, where conservative independent Evan McMullin drew substantially from Republicans). Democrats need to gain exactly 24 Republican-held seats while defending all 194 of their own to capture control of the House in 2018, and these 24 Trumpcare supporters will likely be prime targets.

This second map, which is at the top of this post, illustrates how every House Republican member voted and whether their district favored Clinton or Donald Trump in 2016. Only 11 of the 20 Republicans who voted no came from districts that Trump carried, even fewer than the 14 in Clinton seats who favored the bill.

Finally, this chart shows the 2016 and 2012 presidential results and the 2016 House results for the 24 Republicans who voted yes in seats where Trump got less than 50 percent of the vote, aside from Utah. Ranking the districts from Trump's worst to best margin, the Republican in the bluest seat to support the bill was Rep. Carlos Curbelo, whose heavily Cuban-American Miami-area Florida 27th District favored Clinton by a staggering 57-41.

I’m Kelly Mazeski and I’m running for Congress to hold Peter Roskam (IL-06) accountable for voting for the Republican health care plan that makes you pay more and get less, and causes 24 million Americans to lose coverage.

Like many in the Daily Kos community, I really struggled with our health care system.  At one point, I even lost my health insurance.  I’m deeply concerned that as a cancer survivor and the mother of a daughter with a rare illness, people with pre-existing conditions like us will lose health coverage if the Republican plan becomes law.

Roskam wants us to believe, “Under no circumstances can people be denied coverage because of a pre-existing condition.”

With all due respect, Congressman, my doctors saved my life from breast cancer.  So I trust them over you and Donald Trump when the largest association of physicians says, “Americans with pre-existing conditions will be stuck in second-class health care coverage – if they are able to obtain coverage at all.”

That’s simply unacceptable.  The Affordable Care Act isn’t perfect.  There are many things we can do to improve the current law, but Trumpcare, that Roskam voted for at every stage is a massive step backwards.

What’s worse is if Roskam and just one other Republican would have voted no, this terrible bill would not have passed the House.  Crain’s Chicago Business wrote:

Had Reps. Randy Hultgren of Plano, Adam Kinzinger of Joliet and Peter Roskam of Wheaton voted "no" instead of "yes," a measure that passed 217-213 would have lost, assuming all other members' votes remained unchanged. In fact, had two of the three switched, the measure would have failed on a tie 215-215 vote.

Roskam helped pave the way for the health care vote back in March as a member of the House Ways and Means Committee, where he voted for an age tax, which would allow insurance companies to charge people over age 50 five times as much as they charge others.  Estimates by AARP have found that the age tax in the AHCA could hike insurance premiums for people ages 60-64 by more than $3,000 a year — to almost $18,000 annually. People between 50 and 59 would see a $1,500 hike to almost $13,000 a year.

As I begin my campaign, I’m inspired by the amazing support the Daily Kos community is giving to defeat Republicans like Peter Roskam.

Donate $25 to Help Me Defeat Peter Roskam

I’m incredibly humbled by the attention my campaign has received by announcing on the day of the health care vote from all five local broadcast networks to the New York Times.

But this is going to be a very long, difficult and expensive campaign.  While it’s encouraging that  the Cook Political Report moved IL-06 from Likely Republican to Lean Republican, following Roskam’s vote, it also means Washington Republicans and the Koch Brothers will spend millions against me to defend Roskam’s seat.

I need your support on the ground, online and with campaign donations. I promise to work hard every day on the campaign trail and in Congress to stand up to Donald Trump and the Republicans who would rather give a massive tax cut to billionaires instead of protecting and expanding health care coverage for millions of Americans.

Sign up on my website, follow me on Facebook and consider giving $25 to help me defeat Peter Roskam next November.

Thank you and I look forward to working with the members of Daily Kos to take back the House in 2018!

It’s been a long time since I’ve posted or commented. Had to delete my diaries . . .  long story, 

I do believe people need to know about a great candidate who can take down Rep. Peter Roskam in Congressional IL-6, a swing district.

Amanda Howland saw the vision in 2016 when no one else did — including the sleeping DCCC. On her own, with little money, she pulled in 42% of the vote. She has the name recognition and from 2016 on she has built a great team. Give her a look, volunteer and donate if you can!

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●AZ-02: Another PPP poll pitting a generic Democratic challenger against a Republican House incumbent from the new progressive group Save My Care once again—as you'd expect—finds dismal news for Republicans. This time, the target Save My Care has in its sights is Rep. Martha McSally, who became the poster child for the GOP's reckless charge to repeal Obamacare when she reportedly exhorted her colleagues just before the vote with the Leeroy Jenkins-style battle cry, "Let's get this fucking thing done!"​

​McSally could wind up done next year, too, since she currently trails an unnamed "Democratic opponent" 50-43. Now, don't get too excited: The other day, after Save My Care released a similar poll in Nevada, we explained why generic tests like these must be viewed with great caution. However, there's another result from this survey that should actually worry McSally even more: her job approval rating, which stands at an awful 35-56.

Now, it's still extremely early, and plenty of politicians have turned around terrible numbers by Election Day before. But data like these could still be meaningful, because they might inspire strong challengers to run against McSally. Indeed, we've seen a huge upsurge in interest among Democrats compared to last year, when the party struggled to land worthy recruits.

And now we have word that one of those potential challengers—perhaps the biggest name of all—is indeed considering: Former Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick, who represented the neighboring 1st District until this year, and had reportedly been considering a comeback bid in the 2nd, just confirmed that she has indeed moved to Tucson and is thinking about the race.

Would Kirkpatrick make a good candidate, though? It's hard to say. On the one hand, she won difficult races in the 1st, a seat that had gone for Mitt Romney, even managing to hang on in the 2014 GOP wave. On the other, she badly lost her challenge to Sen. John McCain last year by a 54-41 margin, and the carpetbagger charges would be obvious. However, it very much looks like we're headed toward a contested primary, so local Democratic voters will have the chance to hash these issues out ahead of the general election.

We are in a tough fight in the IL 6th district. Our current Rep, Peter Roskam, is against a woman's right to choose in any case. Rape, incest, woman's health at risk -- doesn't care.

He is supporting legislation that is very cleverly worded. It would insist that every viable fertilized embryo -- yes, those fertilized eggs in storage from fertility clinics, would be required by law to be brought to term. (I guess not by the actual parents, but be made available to others.)

While this sounds like an interesting way for a fertility clinic to earn some extra income, the whole thing just seems so ridiculous that I can't imagine it passing. More likely, it is one of those bills set up to pander to the base with enough foolishness in it that it won't ever be brought to the floor, but the candidate can say that he tried. Jill has a cute response that hits to the point, below the fold.

Republican Peter Roskam recently asked this question in an interview: "Why can women have abortions if rapists can't be executed?"

Roskam equates rape with abortion. If an expectant mother is suffering from a serious illness, and the proper medical procedure is to interrupt the pregnancy to prevent the death of the mother, Roskam says that is the same as rape. And he wants to legislate all of these social issues, including in-vitro fertilization. (Make it a rule that all embryo's are brought to fruition. As in born. Federal law.) We think that Roskam is a right wing nut job who doesn't represent the sixth district.

Matt Frei's diary: Evangelical and environmental?

If the green movement truly wants to convert America it needs to convert more evangelical Christians. Let me explain.

This week, I spoke to Pastor Tri Robinson from the Vineyard Church in Boise, Idaho, who described to me his journey from scepticism to conviction about the need to tackle climate change via the Bible.

This is a growing trend inside the evangelical movement.

Pastor Tri described himself as both a "tree-hugger and a social conservative".

He is against abortion and for caps on carbon emissions. And he prays that he won't have to choose between the two at the next election.

But that is exactly what awaits him because for now there is no prominent conservative politician on the horizon who is, to put it bluntly, both pro-life and pro-planet.

Remember how the last Republican convention was electrified by the call to "drill baby drill"?

Pastor Tri and his flock are looking for a political home.

The candidate who is able to give them one, who can straddle the divide between social conservatism and environmental activism, who can recruit God in the service of the planet, is onto a winner.

We are politically active. We think politically. We act politically.

Guess what?

Most American’s don’t.

Putting ideals into little boxes that are "liberal" or "progressive" hurts us more than it helps us.

Justin Glick over at Next American City writes:

I just finished Tony Judt’s piece in the NYRB on how to revive social democracy, and perhaps it’s just because I myself strongly sympathize with social democratic ideals, but I think a lot of what he has to say will resonate for many Americans on both the left and the right.

I just spent time on the campaign trail with several candidates that do not pass the local litmus test of what fits in a "progressive" box but by my experience are extremely progressive.

The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, Stephen Wolf, and Carolyn Fiddler, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Daniel Donner, James Lambert, and David Beard.

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●MT-Sen: National Republicans were disappointed when ex-Rep. Ryan Zinke took a Trump cabinet post rather than challenge Democratic Sen. Jon Tester, and they weren't happy when Attorney General Tim Fox also announced that he would stay out of the Senate race. Their attention has since turned to Matt Rosendale, who was elected state auditor just last year. Roll Call's Simone Pathé reports that Rosendale is "expected" to decide within the month, and an unnamed person close to Rosendale insists he's "95 percent there."

However, Republicans aren't unanimous in how they feel about him. On the one hand, Rosendale was born in Maryland and still has the accent to prove it. As a counterpoint, his defenders note that Rosendale lived in Montana for years before first seeking office in 2010. Some Republicans also think that Rosendale could help neutralize Tester's everyday Montanan image, noting that the auditor shares the same buzzcut that Tester has emphasized in his campaign ads.

But Rosendale's fundraising ability may also be an issue. During his 2014 House race, where he took a close third place to Zinke in the GOP primary, Rosendale loaned his campaign $1.3 million, but raised only $187,000 from donors. Still, though a few other Republicans are already running or considering, no one seems to be standing out yet, so despite his weaknesses Rosendale would have the chance to become his party's frontrunner.

The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, Stephen Wolf, and Carolyn Fiddler, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Daniel Donner, James Lambert, and David Beard.

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●VA-Gov: Monmouth is out with their first poll of this fall's Virginia governor's race, and they have Republican Ed Gillespie and Democrat Ralph Northam tied 44-44; 3 percent back Libertarian Cliff Hyra, while 9 percent are undecided. One optimistic sign for Northam is that Trump posts an awful 22-60 disapproval rating among voters who aren't supporting either major party candidate. By contrast, Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe, who is termed out, has a 42-34 approval rating with this group.

We've only seen one other independent poll since last month's primary, and it showed a very different result. A month ago, Quinnipiac showed Northam up 47-39. Just after the primary, Gillespie's team released a Public Opinion Strategies poll giving him a 46-45 lead over Northam. Days later, Harper Polling, a GOP group that doesn't seem to have been polling for a client, showed a 46-46 tie. In any case, both parties are going to fight very hard to score a win here this fall.

The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, Stephen Wolf, and Carolyn Fiddler, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Daniel Donner, James Lambert, and David Beard.

●MD-06, MD-Gov: Ah, just what Democrats have been clamoring for: a rich moderate former banker who likes to punch at the left is running for president! All the luck in the world to Rep. John Delaney. Later, bro.

Anyhow, Delaney's decision to leave Maryland politics behind for the national scene impacts two elections next year. One is the race for governor, which he'd been contemplating for some time. With Delaney gone, other candidates either in the contest or considering it now no longer have to worry that he might flood the race with his own money (estimated net worth: $215 million).

Beyond that, though, Delaney doesn't have much of a base or even a profile outside of his congressional district, which includes a large portion of Montgomery County in the D.C. suburbs, as well as some heavily Republican territory in the ancestrally red northwest corner of the state. Based on those considerations alone, he probably wasn't keeping anyone out of the primary for the right to take on GOP Gov. Larry Hogan.

Rather, it's that House seat where Delaney's departure will be more acutely felt. Maryland was one of just a handful of states where Democrats controlled the redistricting process ahead of the 2012 elections, and lawmakers redrew the GOP-held 6th District to make it more amenable to a Democratic candidate—specifically Rob Garagiola, the state Senate majority leader at the time. The old 6th had gone 58-40 for John McCain in 2008, but the current version voted 56-42 for Barack Obama that year.

In a surprise, though, Delaney, then a political newcomer, used his personal wealth and an endorsement from Bill Clinton to crush Garagiola 54-29 in the primary. Delaney went on to unseat longtime Republican Rep. Roscoe Bartlett by a wide 59-38 margin, making his hold on this district look secure. Looks, however, proved deceiving, as Delaney nearly got a huge shock the following cycle, beating back an unheralded GOP opponent by just a single point in 2014.

The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, Stephen Wolf, and Carolyn Fiddler, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Daniel Donner, James Lambert, and David Beard.

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●NV-Sen, NV-03: Can Democrats be this lucky? Businessman Danny Tarkanian, a deeply flawed perennial candidate who has lost five races as a Republican in the Silver State, had been considering another bid for the 3rd Congressional District, but he announced on Tuesday that he'll mount a primary challenge from the right against GOP Sen. Dean Heller. Heller is likely the most vulnerable Republican senator facing re-election next year since he's the only one whose state voted for Hillary Clinton, and Heller already has a major Democratic opponent in the form of Rep. Jacky Rosen.​

​Tarkanian may have notoriously failed to win public office yet, but his unrelenting conservatism and famous name—his father, Jerry Tarkanian, was the legendary UNLV basketball coach—keep helping him snatch the GOP nomination. Tarkanian's most recent election saw him run for Nevada's 3rd Congressional District in the Las Vegas suburbs in 2016. Little Tark beat then-state Senate Majority Leader Michael Roberson, the party establishment's preference, in the Republican primary, but Tarkanian went on to lose 47-46 to Rosen herself even as Trump flipped that seat and won it 48-47. Tarkanian's previous failures include losing a race for the 4th Congressional District in 2012 and the Senate in 2010.

One reason Tarkanian would be such a weak candidate if he ousts Heller to secure the nomination is his record of failure in his business career. Tarkanian and his family had guaranteed bad loans in a venture to build an "equestrian destination resort." He then had to declare bankruptcy in 2012 after being hit with a $17 million judgment and ended up settling the matter for $525,000. Democrats mercilessly attacked Tarkanian as a shady businessman last year on top of using his several failed runs for office to portray him as a desperate power-seeker. Team Blue would likely be pleased if next year's Senate contest turns into a rematch of Tarkanian and Rosen on even bluer turf.

The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, Stephen Wolf, and Carolyn Fiddler, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Daniel Donner, James Lambert, and David Beard.

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●PA-15: Pennsylvania Rep. Charlie Dent, one of the least-conservative Republicans left in the House and a frequent Trump critic, announced on Thursday evening that he would not seek an eighth term next year, saying the White House had "taken the fun out of dysfunction." Dent, who first won his Lehigh Valley seat in 2004, had always won re-election with ease, and Democrats have never seriously targeted him. Although Republicans redrew this seat, which includes the cities Allentown and Bethlehem, to become several points redder in the last round of redistricting, Dent's departure gives Democrats a much better chance to capture it than if he stuck around again.​

​While Trump carried Pennsylvania's 15th District 52-44, Mitt Romney won it by a narrower 51-48 margin four years before, and Democratic Sen. Bob Casey actually won this seat by a small 50-48 spread during his 2012 re-election campaign. But Republicans should be able to keep this race competitive: In 2014, even as deeply unpopular GOP Gov. Tom Corbett was losing re-election 55-45 statewide, he still just barely won the 15th 50.3-49.7.

A few days before Dent announced his departure, he picked up a primary challenge from state Rep. Justin Simmons, who argued that the congressman "sides with the Democrats and gloats at sticking it to Republicans and the president." Dent very much does not want Simmons to succeed him, and he predicted on Friday that a "centrist, pragmatic Republican" would join the race "imminently."

Since Dent's decision to call it quits, a second legislator has already jumped in, state Rep. Ryan Mackenzie. Mackenzie may or may not be the pragmatist Dent has in mind: The Morning Call describes him as "more conservative than Dent," but also says he's more friendly with the congressman than Simmons is (though given the animosity between Simmons and Dent, that wouldn't be hard). Democrats would prefer to face a tea partier like Simmons rather than a more low-key opponent in the Dent mold, but they'll be looking to put this seat in play no matter who the GOP nominates.

A few other Republicans are eyeing this seat. Morning Call reports that Lehigh County Commissioner Marty Nothstein, who won a gold medal in cycling at the 2000 Olympics, has said he's interested, though there's no quote from Nothstein. Dauphin County Commissioner Mike Pries tells the paper that he's been asked to run, and that he is thinking about it.

The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, Stephen Wolf, and Carolyn Fiddler, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Daniel Donner, James Lambert, and David Beard.

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●MI-11: On Monday, Rep. Dave Trott, a Michigan Republican serving only his second term in the House, announced he would not seek re-election, making him the third House Republican to retire in a competitive seat in just the last five days. Trott's 11th Congressional District, which awkwardly loops around the Detroit area to take in Troy, Novi, and Livonia thanks to one of the worst GOP gerrymanders in the country, backed Donald Trump 50-45, not much different than Mitt Romney's 52-47 win here four years before. This area is quite red down-ballot, but it's not impossible turf for Democrats. In 2014, as Democrat Gary Peters was winning his Senate seat 55-41, he carried this district 49-47.

Trott won his second term 53-40 in a race that attracted little outside attention, but Democrats were already showing more interest in what is Michigan's best-educated congressional seat before Trott called it quits. Haley Stevens, a former chief of staff to Barack Obama's 2009 automotive industry task force, entered the race in late April and raised a credible $320,000 over the following two months, while Fayrouz Saad, a former director of Detroit's Office of Immigration Affairs, kicked off her campaign in July. Other Democrats could also eye this seat now that they won't need to run against Trott, a wealthy former foreclosure attorney.

It didn't take very long for local Republicans to start expressing interest in this seat. State Sen. Marty Knollenberg says he's considering getting in. Knollenberg's father, Joe Knollenberg, represented the old 9th District from 1993 until he lost to now-Sen. Gary Peters in 2008. Plymouth Township Supervisor Kurt Heise tells the Detroit News's Melissa Nann Burke that he's "looking at it very seriously." State Rep. Mike McCready, who is termed-out next year, also says he'll consider.

The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, Stephen Wolf, and Carolyn Fiddler, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Daniel Donner, James Lambert, and David Beard.

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●VA-Gov: Three groups released polls of November's race for governor in Virginia on Tuesday, and … well, it feels like it's Choose Your Own Adventure Week in the Old Dominion (again).

If you think the race is a tossup, turn to page 1. Mason-Dixon gives Democrat Ralph Northam a 44-43 lead over Republican Ed Gillespie in their first poll since January. If you think it’s even closer than that, stay on page 1. Fox, which as usual employs the Democratic firm Anderson Robbins Research and the GOP group Shaw & Company Research, has a 42-41 lead for Northam with likely voters. Among registered voters, it’s 42-38 Northam; when a pollster offers both options, Daily Kos Elections always goes with likely voters. On Monday, Suffolk University also had the two tied 42-42, so this pair of polls seem to back that reading up.

But if you think Northam is blowing Gillespie out of the water, turn to page 10. Quinnipiac gives the Democrat a huge 51-41 lead, even better than the 44-38 edge they found a month ago. According to Larry Sabato, unreleased private polls also have Northam up, but "more modestly" than what Quinnipiac found.

If you think Northam's leading, but not by nearly 10 points, turn to page 5. On Monday, the University of Mary Washington published a poll conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International that had Northam leading 44-39.

If you think Gillespie is ahead, there's a blank page at the end where you can write whatever you want. But while no released survey has shown Gillespie with any lead in months, wary Democrats and optimistic Republicans will remember that polls gave Team Blue clear leads in the 2013 gubernatorial race and the 2014 Senate race, but the Democrats only narrowly won each race. However, the polls were much better during last year's presidential contest.

The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, Stephen Wolf, and Carolyn Fiddler, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Daniel Donner, James Lambert, David Beard, and Arjun Jaikumar.

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●AZ-Sen: In a major surprise, Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake announced on Tuesday that he would not seek re-election next year. In explaining his retirement, Flake professed his love for the Senate but, in a speech on the chamber's floor, decried the "coarseness" of politics in the era of Donald Trump and, without calling out Trump by name, criticized his "[r]eckless, outrageous, and undignified behavior." Ultimately, though, Flake's decision seems to have come down to the viability of his own political career. "The path that I would have to travel to get the Republican nomination is a path I'm not willing to take, and that I can't in good conscience take," he told the Arizona Republic.​

​Flake's diagnosis of his own woes is not misplaced. Flake has long been one of Trump's most vocal critics in the GOP while at the same time serving as loyal vote for him in the Senate. This approach earned Trump's vocal ire and seemed to turn off almost everyone in Arizona, Democrats and Republicans alike: Polls had shown Flake badly losing the GOP primary to former state Sen. Kelli Ward, a badly underfunded fringe figure who herself had lost to Sen. John McCain 51-40 last year, and in trouble against Democratic Rep. Kyrsten Sinema in the general election.

So what will Flake's abrupt departure mean for Arizona's Senate race? With Flake running, the GOP was on a path toward nominating Ward, a woman best known for hosting a town-hall meeting about "chemtrails," a bonkers conspiracy theory that holds that the vapor contrails produced by airplanes are actually mind-control chemicals. Several less, ah, exotic Republicans also hadn't previously ruled out bids of their own, but had they joined in while Flake was still in the race, they might have actually saved his hide by splitting the anti-incumbent vote. Of course, had Flake "survived" in this manner, it could have left him crippled for the general election—and inspired furious Trump supporters to simply stay home.

Now the GOP will hope a stronger alternative emerges, but can this as-yet-unnamed savior make it through even a Flake-less primary, or will the likes of Ward successfully be able to sabotage any such hopes? A, if not the, key reason Flake's approval rating tanked so hard with Republican voters is because of Trump's relentless attacks, so can any replacement avoid stoking Trump's wrath for an entire year? As CNN notes, Trump has now personally attacked one in five GOP senators. Anyone seeking to step into Flake's shoes might fare no better.

However the GOP sorts itself out of this mess, Democrats will stay on the offensive. Arizona, which voted for Trump by a slim 48-45 margin—the closest presidential result in the state in two decades—is one of just two states where Democrats have a good chance to pick up a Senate seat from the GOP, and Sinema is a top recruit. But no matter what happens here, Republicans have to be worried about what it means when a scandal-free, 54-year-old first-term senator decides to call it quits rather than face his party's base. Plenty of other incumbents might just feel the same way.

The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, Stephen Wolf, and Carolyn Fiddler, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Daniel Donner, James Lambert, David Beard, and Arjun Jaikumar.

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● House: The Democratic group Patriot Majority USA has just published a second big batch of House polls conducted by Public Policy Polling, and the numbers look very positive for Democrats. All of the districts tested are held by Republicans, and the results are summarized in the table below:

(Note: NJ-02 can be found in a separate memo.)

As you can see, most of these polls featured generic Democrats rather than actual candidates, so as usual we urge caution in interpreting this data. But the reliance on these unnamed stand-ins reflects a happy problem for Democrats: We have so many races with multiple credible contenders that it simply wouldn’t make sense to pick a single name out of the pile. (And if you’re trying to poll quickly and cheaply in a whole bunch of districts, you also don’t want to ask about every possible candidate.)

And those margins, as you can see, represent a very unhappy problem for Republicans. Some particularly stand out, such as the two Texas seats, which are home to longtime GOP incumbents who haven’t ever been seriously threatened. The same is true for Peter Roskam in Illinois, who’s cruised to re-election in his last several races.

Overall, these numbers are much better than those in Patriot Majority’s last set of polls taken last month, which largely showed a bunch of very close races in dozen GOP-held seats. PPP polled a different set of districts this time, so we can’t make any direct comparisons, but if these results are in fact reflective of the overall House picture, Democrats should be able to make things competitive next year.

The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, Stephen Wolf, and Carolyn Fiddler, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Daniel Donner, James Lambert, David Beard, and Arjun Jaikumar.

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●AL-Sen: The shocking pedophilia revelations regarding Republican nominee Roy Moore in the upcoming Senate special election have drawn astonishing condemnation from top national Republicans. However, major state Republicans have yet to desert their reprehensible nominee, and we can count GOP Gov. Kay Ivey among them when she said the following on Friday:

"I'm going to cast my ballot on December the 12th, and I do believe the nominee of the party is the one I'll vote for," Ivey said. "I believe in the Republican Party, what we stand for, and most important, we need to have a Republican in the United States Senate to vote on things like the Supreme Court justices, other appointments the Senate has to confirm and make major decisions. So that's what I plan to do, vote for Republican nominee Roy Moore."

[...]

She was asked if she believed Moore's accusers.

"I certainly have no reason to disbelieve any of them," Ivey said. "The timing is a little curious. But at the same time, I have no reason to disbelieve them."

It represents breathtaking moral bankruptcy for Ivey to back a candidate whom she admits she believes is a pedophile simply because they'll further her party's quest for power, but this is the same sort of partisanship-over-everything attitude that put Donald Trump in the White House. However, a critical number of typical GOP voters may not share her stance, unlike in last year’s presidential race.​

​Change Research is the latest pollster to find Democrat Doug Jones surging into a lead. The firm says Jones is winning by 46-43, which represents an improvement for him compared Moore's 44-40 edge in their previous survey, which was in the field from Nov. 9 through Nov. 11 immediately as the scandal was breaking.

Pollsters have widely found that the revelations against Moore appear to have hurt him badly, though they disagree over just where things stand. Given the difficulty of polling in such a shifting environment, it's hard to know if Jones really has taken a lead or whether more Republican partisans will behave like their governor and hold their noses to vote for Moore.

The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, Stephen Wolf, and Carolyn Fiddler, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Daniel Donner, James Lambert, David Beard, and Arjun Jaikumar.

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●ME-Gov, ME-01: Democratic Rep. Chellie Pingree didn't rule out running for governor back in December of 2016, but we'd seen no sign since then that she was at all interested. However, the Bangor Daily News' Lance Dutson writes that Pingree is privately telling supporters that "she is seriously considering a run," and that she's "expected to make her decision very soon."​

​The Democratic field is still taking shape, and there's no clear frontrunner. The best-known candidate is probably Attorney General Janet Mills, though she's never run statewide before. (In Maine, the attorney general is selected by the legislature.) Pingree has represented the southern half of the state in Congress since 2009, and if she runs, she'd start with plenty of name recognition and connections. Pingree's 1st Congressional District, which includes Portland, backed Obama 60-38 and Clinton 54-39, and Team Blue would be favored to hold it without her.

On the GOP side, businessman Shawn Moody, who owns several auto body and repair shops in the state, announced he was running on Tuesday. Moody ran for governor in 2010 as an independent and took fourth place with 5 percent of the vote. But despite that inauspicious performance, some key members of GOP Gov. Paul LePage's campaign team are backing Moody. Notably, Moody’s campaign has signed on Lauren LePage, the termed-out governor's daughter and sometimes spokesperson, and political advisor Brent Littlefield. The governor himself appointed his former rival to serve as a trustee for both the University of Maine System and Maine Community College System after the 2010 election.

LePage so far has not taken sides in the GOP primary, though WCSH'sDon Carrigan says there's speculation that he'll back Moody. A few other Republican candidates are also LePage allies, most notably ex-state Department of Health and Human Services Commissioner Mary Mayhew and state House Minority Leader Ken Fredette. State Senate Majority Leader Garrett Mason, who is close to the state's conservative Evangelical political network, and state Senate President Mike Thibodeau, who has come into conflict with LePage, are also in for Team Red.

The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, Stephen Wolf, and Carolyn Fiddler, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Daniel Donner, James Lambert, David Beard, and Arjun Jaikumar.

Leading Off

●IL-Gov: Monday brought us our first candidate filing deadline of the 2018 election cycle, as campaigns in Illinois were required to submit petitions in order to appear on ballot for next year's primary, which will take place on March 20. We've put together a calendar of every state's filing deadlines, primaries, and (where applicable) runoffs, which you'll want to bookmark and keep handy. You can find a list of candidates who have filed in Illinois for each race here.

At Daily Kos Elections, we spend a good deal of time writing about who might or might not run for office, and filing deadlines give us a chance to take stock of where each important race stands now that their fields are set. As the deadline passes in each state, we'll review every notable Senate, gubernatorial, and House contest and give our take on the lay of the land.

However, there are a few caveats to take into account. Most importantly, a race isn't necessarily set in stone after the deadline. Illinois, in fact, regularly offers good examples of this. Because candidates have to collect a certain number of signatures from voters to qualify for the ballot, they can and do get thrown off if they don't file enough valid petitions (and often, these petitions are challenged by opponents). We regularly see this sort of thing happen in Pennsylvania, New York, and Colorado, among other states, but many others don't require signatures to get on the ballot, so these kinds of issues don't arise in most places.

Sometimes we face a very different problem: Candidates will file properly and on time, but their names won't appear on official candidate lists provided by election officials for days after the deadline. It's therefore important to recognize that bureaucratic slowness might explain the absence of a particular candidate's name on a particular state's list, rather than a shock last-minute retirement. Two of the most problematic states in this regard are New Jersey and West Virginia, but this issue can crop up anywhere.

And even after a deadline passes, candidate fields can change. Candidates can drop out, or be removed from the ballot for other reasons, such as a failure to meet residency requirements. Sometimes, a new candidate can even get swapped in after a deadline, if a nominee quits and state law provides a mechanism for substituting a replacement. We'll continue to provide updates on all such fluctuations.