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
●PA-06: On Sunday, Republican Rep. Ryan Costello announced he was dropping his bid for re-election, a move that utterly shafts his own party because it comes after last week’s candidate filing deadline. Costello’s suburban Philadelphia seat got quite a bit bluer due to court-ordered redistricting, and the new version of the 6th District went from 51-48 Obama to 53-43 Clinton. It would have been tough enough for the GOP to hold it with Costello, but his decision to bail so late in the game will force his party to find a last-second replacement for a very challenging race against Democrat Chrissy Houlahan.
Campaign ActionThe biggest question left is whether Costello’s name will remain on the May primary ballot or whether he’ll remove it. The congressman told The Delaware County Daily Times that he hadn’t made this decision yet and would discuss it with party leaders. Team Red undoubtedly would prefer that he stays in the primary, if only in name.
The only other GOP candidate is tax attorney Greg McCauley, an unknown contender with no money in the bank, no public profile, and no apparent network of support: In other words, he’s exactly the type of person they don’t want as their nominee for an already-tough race. If Costello’s name stays on the ballot, he should have little trouble beating McCauley and claiming the nomination: Costello could then drop out and allow local Republican leaders to pick a new nominee.
But if Costello were to instead remove his name from the primary ballot, Team Red’s situation would go from bad to worst. Republicans would either have to try beating McCauley with a write-in campaign or knock McCauley off the ballot by challenging his petitions and then waging a write-in bid. If that fails, they’ll just resign themselves to his candidacy.
Normally, we’d assume that Costello would be a team player and technically remain in the race until he’d won the nomination, but he’s already chosen to make life miserable for his party. Had he just decided to retire a little while before the March 20 filing deadline, Republicans could have recruited another candidate who could have hit the ground running, and whose name would actually be on the primary ballot.
But while it’s surprising and catastrophic for the GOP that Costello has let all this happen to them, it’s not shocking that he ultimately decided to call it quits. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court recently put in place a new congressional map to ensure fairer elections, and Costello was not happy that he’d need to run in a seat Clinton had carried by 10 points instead of one she’d taken by just half a percentage point.