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The elections to watch in 2023

Three races for governor in red states that keep getting redder. The first elections for mayor in some major cities — Chicago, Houston, Phoenix, Philadelphia — since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. A state supreme court seat in Wisconsin that the winner will hold for a decade. The next presidential election may be two years away, but there will be plenty of important votes along the way.

Here are the ones to watch.

Can a Democrat hold on in Kentucky? Gov. Andy Beshear won his first term by a 0.4-point margin, narrowly unseating an unpopular Republican by promising to keep Medicaid expanded and end his predecessor’s battles with public school teachers.

He did that, spent two years battling the COVID-19 pandemic, and ended 2022 with an approval rating above 60%. Re-electing him, their only incumbent governor on the ballot this year, is national Democrats’ top electoral priority.

Republicans will pick their nominee on May 16, and Attorney Gen. Daniel Cameron surprised some of them last year by joining that race; he’s a protégé of Sen. Mitch McConnell, and a favorite to replace him if he retires in 2026.

Donald Trump endorsed Cameron a month later, as did the anti-abortion Susan B. Anthony List, whose founder Marjorie Dannenfelser told Semafor that Cameron was a “hero” for defending the state’s abortion ban at the Supreme Court, while Kentucky voters were rejecting a related ballot measure.

Cameron starts the year as the Republican to beat. Kelly Craft, Trump’s wealthy ex-U.N. Ambassador, entered the race a few months later, endorsed by incoming House Oversight chair Rep. James Comer. Two other Republicans in statewide office are running, and filing closes on Jan. 6. – plenty more time for speculation about “Papa” John Schnatter, whose castle sits on 16 acres outside of Louisville.

Can Republicans unite in Mississippi and Louisiana? Republicans start off stronger in the year’s other races for governor. Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves, who led a GOP sweep four years ago, is running for re-election; Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards, an anti-abortion Democrat who Republicans never figured out what to do with, is term-limited out.

Reeves had to get past a popular Democrat to win in 2019, and with that threat gone, Secretary of State Michael Watson and Republican House Speaker Philip Gunn have entertained speculation about running. Watson even conducted a poll to gauge his strength, though neither man clashes much with Reeves; both the governor and Gunn want Mississippi to be the 10th state with no income tax.

Democrats don’t have much of a bench in Mississippi, and state Public Service Commissioner Brandon Presley, the second-most famous male member of his family, could walk to the nomination if he wants it. They’re similarly bereft in Louisiana, where state Transportation Secretary Shawn Wilson is the only Democrat now running.

Republicans have more candidates looking at the race in Louisiana, and Attorney Gen. Jeff Landry is already in it. Like Cameron in Kentucky, he spent the months after last summer’s Dobbs decision fighting to enforce his state’s abortion ban, battling the city of New Orleans over local Democrats’ opposition to it, even holding up money from the state bond commission to make local leaders relent.

That hasn’t warded off competition, yet. Sen. John Kennedy, fresh off his easy 2022 re-election, is still looking at it. So is Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser, who put a poll in the field right before the state’s librarian sued him over claims that he retaliated when she reported his corruption. Nungesser speculated last year that opponents were dragging him into a scandal “because they don’t like my political stance.”

Abortion wars in Virginia. The battle for Richmond will play out all year, starting next week with special elections.

Republicans start out with a four-seat majority in the House of Delegates, and Democrats start with a 21-19 majority in the Senate. On Jan. 10, voters in the Virginia Beach-based 7th state senate seat will pick a replacement for Republican Rep.-elect Jen Kiggans, and a Democratic victory there would expand their majority to 22-18.

There’ll be another special election after Feb. 21, when state Sen. Jennifer McClellan is likely to win a vacant seat in Congress; then primaries on June 20, with multiple match-ups between Democrats shoved into new districts; then the election itself.

We’ve already seen Democrats cast the special senate election as a way to prevent Governor Glenn Youngkin from ever getting a GOP majority that could revisit abortion law, and we’ll see if Republicans develop a response to that.

Chicago, and other reckonings for mayors. It’s been 40 years since Chicago voters ousted a mayor after a single term. Lori Lightfoot is on the verge of a repeat, with eight challengers in the Feb. 28 primary, encouraged by extraordinarily weak polling for the incumbent. If no one gets 50 percent of the vote next month, two candidates advance to an April 4 runoff.

Lightfoot had never held office before her 2019 win, and made enemies with her handling of the pandemic and response to record-high murder rates. Other Democratic mayors of Democratic cities were drained by the last four years, too. In Philadelphia, Mayor Jim Kenney won two terms as a progressive police reformer, and spent the second one taking the blame for rising crime, barely concealing his fatigue.

The victor of the May 16 Democratic primary is all but certain to win in November, and five Democrats left the city council to run, with ex-mayor Michael Nutter, who’s blamed his successor for the crime backslide, still looking at it.

Progressives coalesced behind Kenney in 2015, and ex-city council member Helen Gym is trying to make that happen again for her. In Houston, too, progressives have multiple choices for mayor; state Sen. John Whitmire, 73, is running as a business-friendly Democrat who’ll reduce homelessness and crime.

Democracy in Wisconsin. On Feb. 21, Republicans start defending the 4-3 conservative majority on the state supreme court, and Democrats start trying to flip it. It’s a years-held goal that took on new urgency after the Trump campaign’s multiple 2020 lawsuits to overturn the election here, and after the conservatives signed off on a map that locked in the GOP’s legislative gerrymander.

Nonpartisan on paper, the ballot will contain two candidates aligned with Republicans and two aligned with Democrats. Dan Kelly, who lost his seat on the court in a 2020 upset, was the best-known conservative candidate until the trial of convicted Waukesha parade killer Darrell Brooks. Jennifer Dorow, the judge presiding over the Brooks case, entered this race right after the conviction, infuriating Kelly, and raising the possibility that two Democrats (Everett Mitchell  and Janet Claire Protasiewicz) get the most votes and make it through to the April 4 election.

That’s not likely, but both parties see the risk and the opportunity. A liberal majority could revisit the legislative gerrymander that’s locked in GOP control in Madison for the next 10 years, and a conservative majority won’t. “I do believe that if a more progressive judge wins that race, we’ll see activity,” Gov. Tony Evers told Semafor in an interview last year.

National: Jim Rutenberg, Ken Bensinger, and Steve Eder investigate how the “red wave” of junk polling might have affected candidates’ own spending decisions … Madison Fernandez and Zach Montellaro review how key states may change their election laws… Jennifer Medina asks Hispanic evangelical leaders if they’re sticking with Trump or want President DeSantis.

Illinois: Tom Schuba and Andy Grimm analyze last year’s falling Chicago crime numbers, and why voters heading into the mayoral election don’t feel safer.

Virginia: Megan Messerly explains how the special election in Virginia Beach is turning on abortion, as Republicans accuse Democrats of turning the issue into a “scare tactic.”

Wisconsin: Henry Redman listens in on a meeting where conservative state supreme court candidates discussed what they could do for the GOP base.

The GOP’s once-a-century debacle

Nineteen Republicans brought the House of Representatives to a standstill on Tuesday, opposing GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy’s bid for speaker, and pushing the contest to multiple ballots for the first time in 100 years.

“They dug a hole that they can’t get out of,” said Rep. Brian Mast, R-Fla. before the votes began. “They’ve been out in front with the media, saying they’re not going to do this, and they just keep moving the goalposts.”

Nobody could say they weren’t warned. McCarthy, the last member of the GOP leadership team that took over after the 2010 landslide, always had opponents to his right, inside and outside of the House Freedom Caucus. He’d recruited House candidates who were likelier to support him for speaker. His political organizations spent money to beat Republicans who were likely to oppose him.

The GOP’s weak midterm result gave those Republicans an angle, and they used it on Tuesday. Only one of the holdouts came from the Tea Party class McCarthy helped recruit in 2010; most arrived in Congress during Donald Trump’s presidency or later, including four newly elected freshmen, and hailed from safe Republican seats. From the first ballot to the third, they didn’t budge, except for some who switched from supporting Arizona Rep. Andy Biggs, or others for speaker, to supporting Jordan.

The two hundred and three Republicans voting for McCarthy spent the afternoon hoping that the rebels would get over themselves, asking why the concessions leaders had made already — including a rule that would make it easier for members to remove the speaker — hadn’t been enough for them.

Democrats, left out of the process, were more amused than baffled. Why, asked Pennsylvania Rep. Matt Cartwright, did McCarthy keep offering deals to “koo-koo birds” in his party instead of reaching out to the “vast swath of Democrats” who weren’t making right-wing demands? Why, asked New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, did arch-conservative Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz. ask her whether members of her own party would leave the floor to lower the threshold for the speaker, letting McCarthy take power?

“Some of the Republicans who are holding out were wondering if that was true,” Ocasio-Cortez recounted. “And I said absolutely not.”

As McCarthy stayed stuck, Democrats started to have some fun. “Vote for a brother!” progressive New York Rep. Jamaal Bowman shouted out to Florida Rep. Byron Donalds. “Reparations!”

Donalds was taken aback, until Bowman explained that he should join him and vote for House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries and end the madness.

“I don’t want a MAGA psychopath to become speaker,” said Bowman.

Donalds walked back into the chamber for the third ballot. When his name was called, he switched his vote from McCarthy to Jordan. The House adjourned shortly after, and as they left, some members walked past the room where their families had expected to take swearing-in photos with the new speaker. There wouldn’t be one until Wednesday, at the earliest.

Adams for Senate, “Your Pocket.” The GOP nominee in next week’s special election keeps aligning himself with Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who carried the district in 2021, even as Democrats warn that Youngkin would sign a 15-week abortion ban if Republicans take the state senate. ”I will stand with Gov. Youngkin and cut taxes,” says Adams.

At his second swearing in, DeSantis takes aim at Biden

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was sworn in for a second term on Tuesday, describing the state as a “refuge of sanity” and an economic dynamo. He used the words “free” or “freedom,” which did not appear in his 2019 address, 12 times, building on the “free state of Florida” theme he’d developed during the pandemic. And he spent one out of every eight words on a topic he’d ignored four years ago, when Donald Trump was in the White House: Washington.

“Fighting for freedom is not easy because the threats to freedom are more complex and more widespread than in the past,” said DeSantis. “The threats can come from entrenched bureaucrats in D.C., jet-setters in Davos, and corporations wielding public power.”

DeSantis indicted the Biden administration for “open borders,” for an “inflationary spending binge,” and “an energy policy that has crippled our nation’s domestic production,” though the governor, too, had made moves to limit drilling on protected lands. Florida, he said, had battled the federal government while becoming a refuge for people fleeing states that “embraced faddish ideology at the expense of enduring principles.”

It was more or less what DeSantis has been saying for two years, updated as needed with the latest passed bill or humiliated leftist in Florida. This time, it was delivered outside the Old Capitol, part of an inauguration schedule that scrapped the traditional parade but added a “toast to one million mamas,” before an inaugural ball that, unlike the last one, did not disclose its donors.

• Seven days until special legislative elections in Virginia…
• 49 days until the special election for Virginia’s 4th district…
• 56 days until Chicago’s mayoral election …
• 91 days until Wisconsin’s state Supreme Court election …
• 672 days until the 2024 presidential election