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
●FL-Gov, FL-06: On Sunday, the Washington Postreported that Republican Rep. Ron DeSantis "spoke four times at conferences organized by a conservative activist who has said that African-Americans owe their freedom to white people and that the country's 'only serious race war' is against whites." Indeed, video recording shows DeSantis praising the organization behind the conferences in 2015, and other featured speakers include infamous white nationalists like Steve Bannon, Sebastian Gorka, and Milo Yiannopoulos.
Campaign ActionIn just the two weeks since DeSantis won the GOP primary to face Democrat Andrew Gillum, he had already sparked outcry over using plainly audible racist dog-whistles in saying his African-American opponent was "articulate," yet would "monkey [things] up" if elected. Furthermore, a Democratic opposition research group revealed that DeSantis was a moderator of a hate-filled Facebook group trafficking in conspiracy theories and racist attacks.
In a surprising move, DeSantis announced he was resigning immediately on Monday. However, the reason was, unsurprisingly, to focus on his campaign this fall, not because of the growing signs of his problems with racism in his campaign against a Democrat who could become Florida's first black governor. Consequently, DeSantis' House seat will remain vacant until the next Congress is sworn in, since federal law mandates ballots be mailed out to military and overseas voters no later than 45 days before Election Day, a deadline that's less than two weeks away.