Morning Digest: Two red-state Democrats are putting Senate races in play with huge cash hauls
We have some very exciting news: This week, David Nir and G. Elliott Morris will record the Strength In Numbers podcast live and in-person in Washington, DC—and we’d love it if you’d join us! Our session will take place on Thursday, April 23, at 11:15 AM at the America Votes State Summit, which is being held at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center (the address and directions can be found here). David and Elliott will dive deep into the hard data they’re relying on to make sense of the 2026 midterms, from special elections to rigorous polling. We’ll also be releasing an exclusive new poll explaining why voters are down on Democrats—and how to win them back. Plus, we’ll be taking your questions in an extended Q&A session! The first 75 listeners who RSVP can attend free of charge. (If you already have a ticket for the America Votes conference, you do not need to RSVP.) Just click below: We really hope to see you there, and we’d love to chat with you after the show, too! And if you’d like to support The Downballot by becoming a paid subscriber, we’d be extremely grateful for your help. Morning Digest: Two red-state Democrats are putting Senate races in play with huge cash haulsAnd answers to our many other first-quarter fundraising questions
Leading OffShortly before the end of the first fundraising quarter of 2026, we posed five questions about the midterms that the new numbers would help us answer. Now that we have data for every noteworthy candidate for the Senate and House assembled into our must-have charts, we can answer each of these questions in detail and shed new light on this year’s elections. 1) Did two new Democratic Senate challengers open with a bang? Oh yes. Former Rep. Mary Peltola hauled in $8.6 million during the opening quarter of her campaign to unseat Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan in Alaska, while former National Security Council advisor Alex Vindman raised $8.2 million for his bid against GOP Sen. Ashley Moody in Florida. Sullivan was well behind with $1.7 million raised. Moody likewise trailed badly, taking in $2.6 million. Both incumbents still maintained a modest lead in cash on hand thanks to their long head starts in fundraising. Sullivan finished March with a $7.1 million to $5.7 million advantage over Peltola, while Moody had a $7.1 million to $6.4 million edge against Vindman. The challengers’ strong opening hauls, though, give them reason to be optimistic that they’ll soon overtake their respective opponents. Both Peltola and Vindman can also focus on what will still be tough general election battles rather than worry about needing to spend huge sums to win their primaries. Peltola faces no serious intraparty opposition, while Florida state Rep. Angie Nixon, the only other notable Democrat challenging Moody, finished last month with just under $180,000 in the bank. 2) Did a major endorsement and strong polling help a Minnesota Democrat reduce a big fundraising gap? While Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan’s fundraising improved during the first three months of 2026, she still has far less money available than Rep. Angie Craig, her main rival in the August Democratic primary for Minnesota’s open Senate seat. Flanagan raised $1.4 million, an improvement on the $980,000 she took in during the final three months of 2025. This was also the first fundraising quarter in which Flanagan, who began running in February of last year, exceeded $1 million. But Craig, who raised $2.5 million during the most recent quarter after taking in $2 million the previous quarter, remains dominant in the money race. The congresswoman ended March with a $4.9 million to $1.1 million cash lead. Despite her huge financial advantage, though, Craig is the underdog in the primary for the seat held by retiring Democratic Sen. Tina Smith. Both sides released polls in the first weeks of the year showing Flanagan leading, and Smith endorsed the lieutenant governor the following month. There’s been no fresh data, however, since January. On the Republican side, meanwhile, Michele Tafoya, a former sportscaster who launched a bid in January, far outraised her intraparty rivals as she tries to score an upset win in this light blue state. Tafoya, who has the NRSC’s support, took in $2 million during her opening quarter and finished with $1.9 million banked. Navy SEAL veteran Adam Schwarze, by contrast, had just over $220,000 on hand, while none of the other GOP candidates had six figures in their respective campaign accounts. 3) Does the oldest Republican in the House have to sweat his primary? Probably not. Rep. Hal Rogers, who is seeking a 24th term at the age of 88, faces veteran GOP operative Kevin Smith, who’s in his early 40s and once interned for Rogers, in the May 19 primary for Kentucky’s deep-red 5th District. Smith, though, has struggled to convince donors that it’s time for change. The challenger raised less than $90,000 during his opening quarter and loaned himself around $20,000 more. Rogers, for his part, took in more than $240,000. The congressman, who has represented eastern Kentucky since 1981, ended March with about $1.1 million on hand, compared to little over $80,000 for Smith. 4) Who has the upper hand in the packed primary for Steny Hoyer’s seat? Former Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn once again rallied liberal donors across the country and far outraised each of the 23 other Democrats running in the June 23 primary for Maryland’s blue 5th District. Dunn, who rose to prominence for his defense of the Capitol on Jan. 6, announced his campaign in early February and raised more than $2 million during the following two months. The haul wasn’t a surprise, though, as Dunn proved to be a prodigious fundraiser during his unsuccessful 2024 campaign for the neighboring 3rd District. He finished the most recent quarter with $1.45 million banked. One well-heeled opponent, though, had slightly more money available. Healthcare executive Quincy Bareebe, who’s been self-funding almost her entire campaign, loaned herself another $2.3 million during this quarter and had about $1.5 million on hand. Bareebe, like Dunn, unsuccessfully ran for Congress two years ago, but her campaign attracted far less attention. Though she loaned herself a little more than $200,000 for a primary challenge against Hoyer, she went on to lose in a 72-10 landslide. Hoyer, for his part, is backing a third candidate. The retiring incumbent has endorsed Del. Adrian Boafo, who raised $460,000 and had about $400,000 on hand. While that’s far less than what either Dunn or Bareebe has at their disposal, Boafo’s institutional support could give him an advantage in this packed race. Five other Democrats ended the quarter with six-figure sums in their campaign accounts. Prince George’s County Councilmember Wala Blegay leads this cohort with just over $300,000 on hand. She was followed by public safety consultant Harry Jarin, state Sen. Arthur Ellis, former Prince George’s County Executive Rushern Baker, and Del. Nicole Williams. 5) How much danger does a far-right favorite pose to a Utah congresswoman? Money isn’t everything in politics, but former state Rep. Phil Lyman seems determined to find out if it’s anything. Lyman’s campaign told the Salt Lake Tribune he made a “deliberate choice” not to ask for contributions during the first weeks of his campaign to deny renomination to GOP Rep. Celeste Maloy. His team also notified the FEC that he would not be submitting a fundraising report this quarter because he did not raise or spend enough to hit the minimum threshold that obligates candidates to file disclosures, which is just $5,000. Lyman says he’s instead focused on winning enough support at the GOP’s convention on April 25 to make the June primary ballot, with a spokesman saying, “The race is a convention race on April 25, and his focus has been entirely on delegates, not donors.” Maloy, for her part, raised a little more than $300,000 and had about $460,000 banked to defend herself. Why do we always include a request that our readers sign up as paying subscribers in every newsletter? Because we only want to rely on the people who rely on us. If we depended on fickle corporate benefactors or soulless ad networks, they wouldn’t care if we stopped publishing tomorrow. But we know that you look forward to seeing The Downballot in your inbox every day. So if you’re able, we’d be extremely grateful if you’d help us remain a reader-supported site by upgrading to a paid subscription. SenateCO-SenState Sen. Julie Gonzales received an endorsement from the Colorado AFL-CIO on Thursday in her uphill campaign to defeat Sen. John Hickenlooper in the June 30 Democratic primary. Gonzales launched her bid in December by calling for Democrats to replace Hickenlooper, who has cultivated a moderate image during his long career in Colorado politics, with an “insurgent progressive.” The challenger, however, has struggled to raise the money necessary to broadcast her message. New campaign finance reports show that she ended March with just over $110,000 in the bank, while Hickenlooper had more than $4 million at his disposal. Third-party groups have yet to spend money to promote or attack either candidate. The winner, though, should have no trouble against state Sen. Mark Baisley, who has the GOP field to himself. Baisley had a meager $6,000 available (not a typo) for his long-shot effort in this increasingly Democratic-friendly state. GovernorsWY-GovRepublican Gov. Mark Gordon finally said Thursday that he would not attempt to seek a third term as Wyoming’s chief executive. The announcement ends years of speculation that Gordon might wage a legal challenge to a state law limiting governors to just two terms, a challenge that would likely have succeeded. A spokesperson for Gordon, however, once again did not rule out the possibility he could seek a different office this fall. The governor has occasionally been mentioned as a possible candidate for the state’s open U.S. Senate or House seats, though there’s no indication he’s preparing to enter either contest ahead of the May 29 filing deadline. Attorneys General & Secretaries of StateMI-AG, MI-SoSWashtenaw County Prosecutor Eli Savit effectively locked down the Democratic nomination for Michigan attorney general at Sunday’s endorsement convention, while Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist did the same in the race for secretary of state. Savit defeated Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald on the convention floor. He’ll take on Eaton County Prosecutor Doug Lloyd, who won the Republican nomination at the GOP’s endorsement convention last month, in the fall general election to replace Democratic Attorney General Dana Nessel, who cannot seek a third term. Gilchrist, meanwhile, beat both Ingham County Clerk Barb Byrum and former Michigan Lottery Commissioner Suzanna Shkreli. He’ll go up against Macomb County Clerk Anthony Forlini in the contest to succeed term-limited Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, who is the Democratic frontrunner for governor. Benson is competing in a traditional primary on Aug. 4, and Gilchrist was one of her opponents until he switched races in January. That decision meant that a far smaller electorate would decide whether he’d get to advance to the general election: Party delegates in Michigan choose their nominees for attorney general, secretary of state, the state Supreme Court, and statewide education and university boards. Though nominees for these posts won’t officially be designated until the parties hold further conventions in August, the endorsement convention allows both Democrats and Republicans to unofficially select their preferred candidates and give them a head start in the general election. ObituariesDavid McKinleyFormer Rep. David McKinley, a West Virginia Republican who was elected to Congress during the 2010 red wave and left office after losing renomination to a fellow incumbent in 2022, died last week at the age of 79. McKinley, as The Downballot wrote in our look at his career on the occasion of his defeat, was a longtime fixture in Mountain State politics, going back to his first election to the legislature in 1980. After serving as state GOP chair in the 1990s, he became an influential figure as Republicans gradually grew dominant in what had long been a heavily Democratic state. The 2020 census, though, marked the beginning of the end of his decades-long career. West Virginia lost one of its three U.S. House seats, pushing both McKinley and fellow Rep. Alex Mooney to fight it out for the 2nd District in the northern part of the state. The two colleagues waged a nasty battle, but Mooney, who had Donald Trump’s endorsement, won decisively. Poll Pile
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