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
●CO-Gov: On Tuesday, state Treasurer Walker Stapleton took the unusual step of asking Colorado’s secretary of state to toss the signatures his campaign had collected in order to make the June GOP primary ballot, declaring that the company he'd hired, Kennedy Enterprises, had engaged in fraud. Stapleton, who’d been his party’s presumptive frontrunner, will now compete in this Saturday's state party convention (also known as the party assembly), where he'll need to earn the support of at least 30 percent of the delegates to continue on to the primary. If Stapleton doesn't hit this threshold, his campaign is over.
Campaign ActionUntil now, Stapleton's campaign had assumed that they would amass enough petitions to make the primary ballot without going through the assembly, but they'd considered competing at the convention anyway to try to keep Stapleton’s main rival, state Attorney General Cynthia Coffman, from winning enough support to move on.
That's because, unlike Stapleton, Coffman decided that she’d rest her hopes of advancing to the primary solely by way of the convention and would not gather any signatures. (Coffman’s decision was likely borne out of necessity: Republican consultants say it costs some $250,000 to petition your way onto the ballot these days, money her campaign simply didn’t have.) But Stapleton now needs to devote his efforts to making sure he has enough backing to advance rather than on stopping Coffman from doing so.
Yet despite this setback, he may be in good shape heading into the weekend. Back in March, a number of counties held nonbinding caucuses, and Stapleton's allies were encouraged by his strong showing. Coffman, by contrast, performed weakly in those caucuses, which is what had led Stapleton’s supporters to think they might be able to put an end to Coffman’s campaign at the convention.