The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, Stephen Wolf, Carolyn Fiddler, and Matt Booker, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Daniel Donner, James Lambert, David Beard, and Arjun Jaikumar.
Leading Off
●TX-Sen, TX-31: 2018 Texas Senate nominee Beto O'Rourke has reportedly decided to run for president rather than against GOP Sen. John Cornyn, and while that's disappointing news to Democrats, Team Blue is hardly out of options here. Retired Air Force Col. Kim Olson, who was the Democratic nominee for state agriculture secretary last year, expressed interest just before Thanksgiving, and she told the Huffington Post's Dana Liebelson this week that she "will run where I can win and best serve Texans."
Campaign ActionOlson lost her race to Republican Sid Miller 51-46 at the same time O'Rourke was losing to Sen. Ted Cruz 51-48. As we wrote back in November, Olson is a retired Air Force colonel who was one of the service's first women pilots, and she handed out packets of wildflower seeds as a campaign calling card to emphasize her roots as a third-generation farmer.
Olson's military career, however, came to an end with a black mark in the mid-2000s when the Pentagon charged her with steering government contracts to a private South African security firm of whose American branch she'd become the director. She ultimately pleaded guilty to two lesser offenses in military proceedings but did not suffer a reduction in rank, and was given an honorable discharge. Olson has been open in discussing her story (she devoted a chapter to it in her memoirs), and it did not feature prominently in her campaign, though of course things could be different in a future race.
Olson isn't the only potential Democratic candidate. Rep. Joaquin Castro reportedly has been considering running should O'Rourke pass, and he declined to rule anything out this week. Castro's identical twin brother, former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro, is currently running for president, and while some Democratic insiders told the Texas Tribune a few weeks ago that they hoped he might take on Cornyn, he's shown no interest in doing this. A Julian Castro spokesperson didn't reply to the Huffington Post's Liebelson when she asked for comment about the Senate race.