Emily Yu:

Welcome to the third season of State AG Pulse. In this season, we’re selecting one story every week from the state AG news. Over the next 10 minutes, we’ll take a quick dive into that story to analyze the impact of AGs as regulators and consumer protection guardians, and provide tips to help your business work successfully with state AGs.

Stephen Cobb:

Welcome to another edition of State AG Pulse. My name is Stephen Cobb. I’m here with my colleague Emily Yu. Emily, welcome to the podcast.

Emily Yu:

Thanks for having me, Stephen, and excited to be here.

Stephen Cobb:

Absolutely. We are talking elections today, as folks have seen in the headlines. Our conversation is going to be interesting because it’s a tale of two different outcomes. National headlines for anyone who pays attention to elections have shown a lot of democratic success across the country on initiatives in Ohio, a Supreme Court race in Pennsylvania, county commissioner race in Pennsylvania, both houses in Virginia, and the Kentucky governor’s race. But what the headlines really aren’t and haven’t focused on are the state AG races, which are taking place in Louisiana, Kentucky, and Mississippi. And those really showed a uniform Republican success across the board, bucking trends, even in places like Kentucky where the incumbent Democratic governor was incredibly successful in his reelection. So let’s go through each of these, and talk a little bit. Let’s start off with Louisiana.

Emily Yu:

Sure. So actually in October, current AG Jeff Landry won his primary election for governor. So he won with enough percentage of the vote that he was elected outright to governor. There were two candidates, Liz Murrill and Lindsey Cheek. They are the two candidates for AG who’ve advanced to the runoff election, which will be held on November 18th.

Stephen Cobb:

And just for those who aren’t as familiar, Louisiana, a couple states, has what’s called an open primary where everyone runs in the general, and if no one gets over 50%, it goes to that runoff vote. Louisiana has been renowned for this for decades, which always makes elections there unique. Jeff Landry won big, as you mentioned, in October. Liz Murrill almost got to 50% herself. I’m anticipating a big win for her coming up on November 18th. Let’s look at Kentucky a little bit because Kentucky was really interesting. You had the incumbent governor, Andy Beshear, former attorney general himself, coming through with success, called relatively early that Tuesday night, ultimately getting around 53% of the vote in a state Donald Trump won by about 20 points. But on the flip side of that, Russell Coleman pulled away with almost 60% of the vote for Republicans. So that is an incredibly large split ticket.

Emily Yu:

Yeah, and I think that tracks with this last governor AG election cycle where Governor Beshear was elected, and his challenger in this governor’s race, current AG Daniel Cameron, won the AG’s office. So it seems like Kentucky is pretty used to doing split ticket voting, at least in the most recent set of elections before this.

Stephen Cobb:

Obviously the Beshear name in Kentucky is one of political royalty, so that certainly comes with some benefits and high name recognition. The new AG-elect, shall we say, is a former US attorney from Kentucky, so he probably had the benefit of some name recognition himself. I think one of the things that is all too prevalent in state AG races is just that. It is a lack of name recognition. And so when somebody comes in, and already has, statewide, or [across] a large portion of the state, has recognition of who they are and what they do, they tend to be at a great advantage. And it’s tough, oftentimes, for state AG candidates of either party to raise sufficient funds so they can break in from media content and direct mail to really get their name out there and establish who they are and how they’re different from their opponent.

Emily Yu:

Russell Coleman is a former McConnell staffer, as was current AG Daniel Cameron, and I can’t imagine that McConnell connection didn’t help with fundraising, and profile-raising efforts for the current and the incoming AG in terms of boosting their profiles.

Stephen Cobb:

It is interesting, but it’s also two different sides of the same coin. As you mentioned, both AG Cameron and AG-elect Coleman are former McConnell staffers, but that certainly worked out better for Coleman this time than it did Cameron running for the top of the ticket. Switching ever so briefly to Mississippi, AG Lynn Fitch reelected with nearly 60% of the vote. I don’t think this was a particular surprise to everyone there. Jerry Kilgore and I had written a profile doing a little political prognosticating article the other week, and one of the things we noted is that AG Fitch has been a staple in Mississippi politics for quite some time, having served not just in staff roles, but then I believe she was a two-term treasurer before becoming AG. So the high approval ratings mixed with that institutional presence within Mississippi I think that no one was surprised to see her reelected, and reelected convincingly.

Emily Yu:

And I think a lot of the Democratic strategy, and some of those other elections around other parts of the country where Democrats had bigger wins, was to rally around the post-Dobbs abortion access state that we’re in now. But I don’t think that was probably a successful strategy for AG Fitch’s challenger to focus on, what with Mississippi being the state from which the Dobbs case came from, I’m pretty sure the Mississippians still hold those same views even post-Dobbs.

Stephen Cobb:

I think what you’ve seen is, in many states, regardless of political ideology, the issue of women’s reproductive rights has proven to be a successful one for Democrats, and liberals generally, in not just Ohio on Tuesday night, but in the 2022 cycle. That also included places like Kentucky and Montana. And so that is an interesting policy area to watch and how it will affect electoral politics in the cycles ahead. Can we look ahead to 2024 where we have, I believe elections in 10 states. Five open seat races. North Carolina, General Stein is running for governor. This is the exact same thing that happened eight years ago with the sitting attorney general running for governor, and Josh Stein coming along with him. It’ll be a question of whether at this point General Stein has the coattails to bring along the Democratic candidate for AG. Oregon, General Rosenblum retiring after, I believe, this is her third term if I’m not mistaken. And so that should be a presumably safe democratic seat, but it’ll be interesting to see how that plays out. What do you make of Indiana, Missouri, Montana?

Emily Yu:

It should be safe to say those would be lean or even harder Republican leaning states

Stephen Cobb:

Those are going to be uphill races for Dems. I believe all of the incumbents in those states have gotten about 60% of the vote. The only outlier is Missouri, which the AG is currently appointed who is finishing out the term of AG Schmitt, I believe, after his ascension to the US Senate. And so I know that there’s a primary going on for the Republican nomination there, so that’s going to be one to keep an eye on. Similar situation in West Virginia where AG Morrisey is, like AG Stein down in North Carolina, is seeking the governor’s mansion. And so while that has been a traditionally safe Republican state in the past years, it’ll be interesting to see how that primary process …

Emily Yu:

Yeah, I think you’re right. I think those are going to be elections where the primaries are going to be more interesting and more of a deciding factor than the general election. And yeah, just to add a note onto the Missouri AG’s race with current AG Bailey having been appointed, I do think he’s seemingly been making a pretty big effort to raise his name and profile to do well in that primary.

Stephen Cobb:

Now, Emily, let’s take a moment, and discuss very briefly. We have a new AG in Louisiana coming in. The odds on favorite, it’ll be Ms. Murrill. We have an AG-elect in Kentucky, and we have the reelection of AG Fitch in Mississippi as we discussed. Is there anything that you observed through the campaign process that you think will be unique either in the second term for AG Fitch, or in the first term for the incoming new AGs in Kentucky and Louisiana as far as their priorities and manner of regulatory oversight and advocacy?

Emily Yu:

Sure. I’ll start with Louisiana. Liz Murrill. I think it’s interesting that she is a former solicitor general. Having worked in an SG’s office myself before joining Cozen, and I know that those offices have already handled very high profile cases. I know that she’s taken on some really high profile cases in her office, and I think she’s in a great position to ascend to the AG’s office. Mr. Coleman, coming from the US Attorney’s office-

Stephen Cobb:

Let’s pause just ever so slightly for Louisiana. I think one of the things to watch with Ms. Murrill: in many offices, it is the solicitor general’s office who takes a leadership role as it pertains to such issues as joining multistates, suing the federal government, or doing sign-on letters. And so having been intimately involved in that process, I’m sure, for General Landry for many years, I would expect her to continue to be on the front foot in those areas as well. But I apologize. I interrupted you. You were switching over to Kentucky to talk about AG-elect Coleman.

Emily Yu:

Yes. So I think it’s really interesting. His background is as a former US attorney. I think that would lend itself naturally to him having a very crime-focused administration, very law-and-order focused administration.

Stephen Cobb:

Makes a lot of sense. And I think finishing out with Mississippi, I think AG Fitch really focused on the fact that this is going to continue to be business as usual for her. In following her campaign rather closely, I didn’t see anything that made me think that there was going to be any wild changes in the priorities in the office. So needless to say, it was a very busy election Tuesday with lots of different successes up and down the ballots in Louisiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, legislative races in Virginia, judicial races in Pennsylvania, ballot measures in Ohio. And as we alluded to, there will be 10 races to keep your eyes on as it affects state AGs going into 2024. And so we will make sure to keep our listeners adequately apprised of what’s next, and what to expect. Emily, thanks so much for joining me on the podcast, and we hope everyone will tune in for our next episode. Thanks so much.

Emily Yu:

You have been listening to State AG Pulse, brought to you by Cozen O’Connor’s State AG Group, and The State AG Report. Please leave us a five star rating, and of course, tune in again next week.