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
●VA-05: GOP Rep. Tom Garrett used a long and rambling Thursday press conference to announce that he would run for a second term in Virginia's 5th Congressional District after all. Garrett's declaration ended a very confusing 24 hours that began when his chief of staff quit and Politico reported that Garrett was thinking of dropping out of the race. The congressman soon only said he would not be resigning, and he promised to say more later. Republicans also began openly speculating about whom local party leaders would pick to replace him if he ended his re-election campaign.
Campaign ActionGarrett held his press conference Thursday afternoon, and we still can’t believe everything we heard with our own ears. Garrett began his roughly 25-minute monologue by saying he had spent more time on it than he has "on anything in a long time" does because he wanted to "get this right," and well ... maybe he should have hired an editor. Garrett spent several minutes talking about his work in the state Senate and in his one term in Congress and declared several times, "I did that," which left viewers thinking he was about to declare he was leaving the political stage.
But Garrett instead went on to describe how furious he was that the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies made it difficult for University of Virginia women's basketball coach Joanne Boyle to adopt a young girl from Senegal and exclaimed, "This is the worst country in the world except for the other ones." Garrett frequently returned to talking about Boyle throughout the half-hour address.
And he didn't stop there. Garrett, who frequently banged his speech against his hands, complained about an unnamed person who considered challenging him whom he said called him"a cancer on our nation" and said that the real cancers were people who used that kind of vitriol. Garrett also complained that a would-be foe (it's not clear if it's the same person) had lied and said he hadn't condemned last year’s white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, which is in his district.
Garrett continued and said “our nation was founded by imperfect people like a slave-owner named Jefferson on near-perfect ideas,” and he launched into a discussion about the imperfections of King David, Moses, and Thomas Jefferson. Garrett soon admitted that, "Yesterday, in frustration, I said I don't know if I want to do this anymore," before declaring, "There's no way in heck I won't be back here in 2019." He also apologized “for the way this played out,” and explained his chief of staff’s departure with “sometimes in life you decide to do different things” and, “Stuff happens.”
GOP leaders may be wishing Garrett had just gotten a little more frustrated so he would retire and let them pick a new nominee. While this seat went from 53-46 Romney to 53-42 Trump, anonymous House Republicans have complained all year that Garrett has been not taking his re-election campaign seriously, and this not-retirement isn’t going to make his naysayers feel any better. Garrett has been a weak fundraiser, and Democratic nominee Leslie Cockburn held a $271,000 to $133,000 cash-on-hand edge over him in mid-April. Garrett admitted on Thursday that his fundraising hasn't been great, but said he'd post better numbers in the next quarter.