Leading Off:
● Polls: We have several new Senate polls in our hands, from a trio of pollsters. Here are the numbers, along with trendlines from the most recent prior poll and the presidential results in each state:
IA-Sen: Marist: Chuck Grassley (R-inc): 52, Patty Judge (D): 42 (July: 52-42 Grassley) (35-35 Clinton-Trump tie)
NC-Sen: PPP (D): Richard Burr (R-inc): 41, Deborah Ross (D): 37, Sean Haugh (Lib): 5 (June: 40-37-5 Burr) (43-41 Clinton)
OH-Sen: Marist: Rob Portman (R-inc): 48, Ted Strickland (D): 43 (July: 44-44 tie) (39-35 Clinton)
PA-Sen: Marist: Katie McGinty (D): 48, Pat Toomey (R-inc): 44 (July: 47-44 McGinty) (45-36 Clinton)
WI-Sen: Marquette: Russ Feingold (D): 50, Ron Johnson (R-inc): 39, Phil Anderson (Lib): 7 (July: 46-40-7 Feingold) (47-37 Clinton)
Note that Marist tested registered voters while both PPP and Marquette looked at likely voters. But there's something very interesting going on when comparing voter screens. Marquette also provided data on what registered voters think, and they're slightly more favorable for Republicans: Feingold leads 47-38, while Clinton's up 42-33. By the same token, Marist offered breakdowns for respondents who say they'll "definitely" vote in November. This group was more bullish for Democrats: Among them, Grassley's up just 48-47 and Portman 47-43, while McGinty's lead stretches to 51-44. Clinton's margins are also wider in every case.
This is very atypical. Usually, the tighter a pollster screens, the better the numbers look for Republican candidates, simply because Republican voters are historically more likely to vote. But both Marist and Marquette see the opposite happening. That suggests there's an enthusiasm gap between Democrats and Republicans, possibly because Republicans are particularly depressed about Donald Trump, or because Democrats are particularly scared of him, or both. If this proves to be a nationwide phenomenon that continues through Election Day, it'll be a rough experience for the GOP.
Senate:
● AZ-Sen: Democratic Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick is slotting a new ad into her current $1.5 million statewide buy, and this one goes hard at John McCain for his steadfast support of Donald Trump. It's a really fantastic spot that bears watching in full. It shows repeated clips of a surly McCain saying he'll back the GOP nominee, interspersed with footage of Trump insulting McCain. It also features Trump's instantly infamous "Second Amendment people" threat, as well as McCain stammering when asked if he'd trust The Donald with the nuclear codes. Just devastating—and McCain won't be the last Republican to undergo this treatment.
● IN-Sen: Democrat Evan Bayh's out with a new ad, reassuring voters that he's not really very much of a Democrat at all. He begins by saying, "I broke with my own party to vote against raising your electric bills—it was a tax on every Hoosier home and business, and I said no." He goes on: "I work with Republicans to require the federal government" to balance its budget, then concludes, "I don't answer to party leaders or any president. I answer to the people of Indiana." Well, that is the message a Democrat seeking statewide office in Indiana probably needs to run on.
● NV-Sen: Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto goes hard at Republican Joe Heck in a new TV ad, with a narrator slamming him for voting to defund Planned Parenthood 10 times, and even supporting an effort to shut down the government in order to eliminate Planned Parenthood funding. A good spot with a tight focus.
● OH-Sen: In the previous Digest, we mentioned that former Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland was expected to launch his first TV ad of the general election this week, and now we have a copy of it. It's a minute-long spot that's starts out biographical (Strickland was the first in his family to go to college, his father worked in a steel mill), then focuses on Strickland's opposition to "every bad trade deal, " from NAFTA to the present. The narrator continues on to discuss Strickland's other priorities, one of which doesn't commonly appear in campaign commercials: "an infrastructure bank to repair roads, bridges, and water systems." From an economic perspective, this is great policy; let's hope it's also good politics.
Unfortunately, Strickland stepped on his paid media rollout thanks to some very unfortunate remarks he made Monday at a union event in which he said that Justice Antonin Scalia's death "happened at a good time" because it led to a deadlock when the Supreme Court ruled on a crucial case in March that could have undermined labor rights. The comments (which were capture on tape) surfaced on Wednesday, prompting Strickland to apologize, but this is just not the kind of thing you can say on the campaign trail.
Gubernatorial:
● NC-Gov: PPP (D): Roy Cooper (D): 43, Pat McCrory (R-inc): 42 (June: 41-41 tie) (43-41 Clinton). Meanwhile, McCrory and Cooper each have new positive TV ads. McCrory's is about his accomplishments as governor, while Cooper's is about his family and priorities, narrated by his daughter as home video footage rolls.
● NH-Gov: Two Republicans are out with the first ads of New Hampshire's gubernatorial primary, which won't take place until the ridiculously late date of Sept. 13. The first is from Executive Councilor Chris Sununu, who touts his experience running a ski resort before saying he'll cut regulations and taxes—and promises, as every Granite State Republican invariably does, not to institute a sales or income tax. Apparently, though, Sununu's spot went out a little earlier than intended. According to WMUR, Sununu planned to release his spot on Wednesday, but he accidentally sent around a public link ahead of time … that state Democrats got ahold of and immediately trashed via press release.
Not an auspicious start, which Manchester Mayor Ted Gatsas, one of Sununu's GOP rivals, was only too happy to point out, calling the rollout "embarrassing" and "botched." Gatsas also took the opportunity to launch his own ad, and he offers a much more stridently conservative message. In the spot, Gatsas talks up his frugality as mayor, then explicitly says he'll not only "veto" any sales or income tax but that he'll "fight for a constitutional amendment to eliminate the income tax once and for all."
● VT-Gov: What happens when two candidates in a three-way race get down into the muck? So often, it seems, the unmuddied third option wins. That's what happened in the Democratic primary for Vermont's open governorship on Tuesday night, when former state transportation secretary Sue Minter defeated former state Sen. Matt Dunne by a healthy 51-39 margin, while former state Sen. Peter Galbraith managed just 9 percent.
Dunne's campaign suffered a late meltdown after he was accused of siding against wind power in an effort to persuade Galbraith to drop out and endorse him. But even though the flip-flop earned some praise from Galbraith, it didn't work, and just days later, Galbraith publicly berated Dunne as a "fucker" for allegedly flip-flopping on another issue, Dunne's pledge not to self-fund his campaign. Given the final outcome, Dunne's expedience may well have been the product of desperation, but Vermont Democrats are probably pleased that Minter, who avoided the entire mess, will be their standard-bearer.
And it won't be an easy race. Republicans, for once, did the sane thing and nominated Lt. Gov. Phil Scott, who defeated wealthy businessman Bruce Lisman by a 61-39 margin. Scott is the rare moderate Republican who has significant crossover appeal: In dark blue Vermont, he won his two re-election bids with 57 and then 62 percent of the vote. But despite the state's reputation as a liberal bastion on the federal level, Vermont has a long history of supporting Republicans for state office, electing Jim Douglas governor four times from 2002 to 2008, for instance. (Vermont governors serve two-year terms.)
Indeed, the RGA is already signaling that it intends to compete here. The committee released a TV ad immediately following the primary, an anodyne positive spot that says Scott will work "hand-in-hand with leaders of all parties." There's no word on the size of the buy, so it could be a feint, especially since Donald Trump won't make life easy for Republicans. But Scott's a smart pol, saying all the way back in May that he wouldn't support Trump, and he has it in him to make this a real contest. Daily Kos Elections currently rates this race a Tossup.
House:
● FL-04: A new poll from the University of North Florida finds former Jacksonville Sheriff John Rutherford maintaining a sizable 31-13 lead on ersatz cowboy Hans Tanzler III in the GOP primary for this dark red open seat, while state Rep. Lake Ray is at 10 and everyone else is in single digits. That's very similar to UNF's late June poll, which had Rutherford up 27-13 on Tanzler. Thirty-eight percent are still undecided in this latest survey, but with less than three weeks left until the Aug. 30 primary, there's little time for Tanzler (or Ray) to alter the calculus.
● MN-02: The most consequential primary on Tuesday night came not in Paul Ryan's home district but rather in the Minneapolis suburbs, where acid-tongued radio host Jason Lewis easily swept aside two more conventional candidates. Lewis took 49 percent of the vote while businesswoman Darlene Miller, who had the endorsement of retiring Rep. John Kline, finished with 31; former state Sen. John Howe, who appeared to give up in the stretch run, wound up with just 14 percent.
The outcome is a true debacle for Republicans, because not only does Lewis have a long history of racist and misogynist rhetoric, it's all captured on tape, thanks to his radio program. We've cited many of his outbursts in the past, but just to give you a sense of what kind of an a-hole Lewis is, here's one of his very worst:
"I never thought in my lifetime where'd you have so many single, or I should say, yeah single women who would vote on the issue of somebody else buying their diaphragm. This is a country in crisis. Those women are ignorant in, I mean, the most generic way. I don't mean that to be a pejorative. They are simply ignorant of the important issues in life. Somebody's got to educate them.
"There's something about young, single women where they're behaving like Stepford wives. They walk in lock-step—is that really the most important thing to a 25-year old unmarried woman—uh, getting me to pay for her pills? Seriously? Is that what we've been reduced to? You can be bought off for that?
"You've got a vast majority of young single women who couldn't explain to you what GDP means. You know what they care about? They care about abortion. They care about abortion and gay marriage. They care about 'The View.' They are non-thinking."
You can—and should—listen to the audio here. And there's much more like it. What makes this even more devastating for the GOP is that Lewis is not only going up against a well-funded Democratic opponent, that Democrat is also a woman, health care executive Angie Craig. That kind of matchup will only throw Lewis' hateful beliefs into even starker relief.
And the NRCC seems to know it. The committee declined to congratulate Lewis on his victory, even as it sent out routine attaboys to other candidates who prevailed on Tuesday. It also hasn't added Lewis to its Young Guns program for top races, a notable omission. In fact, this is now the fourth vulnerable open GOP-held seat where Republicans wound up with the precise candidate they did not want; previous debacles include Michigan's 1st, Nevada's 3rd, and New York's 22nd Congressional Districts. None of these are layups for Democrats, including Minnesota's 2nd, but the lunatics' ongoing hostile takeover of the GOP is definitely making life easier for Team Blue.
● UT-04: A new Dan Jones & Associates poll for UtahPolicy.com find freshman GOP Rep. Mia Love with a 51-38 lead on her Democratic challenger, attorney Doug Owens. That's very similar to a Love internal from Y2 Analytics that had her up 51-36 last month, but it's a far cry from the startling 51-45 advantage SurveyUSA saw for Owens back in June. What's bizarre, though, is that the Dan Jones poll was in the field for an astounding 22 days, from July 18 all the way through Aug. 8 (a normal field period is three days).
That covers an exceptionally tumultuous period in American politics that includes both parties' national conventions and Donald Trump's ensuing meltdown. It's almost impossible to get a proper read when a poll is out for that long under ordinary circumstances, let alone against such a backdrop, so it's hard to put much stock in these numbers.
● WI-01: Well, that turned out to be a total snooze-fest. Despite a lot of hype—and inevitable comparisons to Eric Cantor—House Speaker Paul Ryan completely smashed his upstart primary challenger, businessman Paul Nehlen, with a dominant 84-16 victory on Tuesday night. The race was accurately called by Republican pollster Remington Research, which found Ryan ahead 80-14 late in the game. But not so much for another GOP outfit, PMI, which conducted an internal for Nehlen a month ago showing Ryan leading by "just" a 43-32 margin. That's a 57-point miss, and no, the race didn't break late.
● WI-08: Being a state senator evidently doesn't matter as much as you might think: On Tuesday night, Marine veteran Mike Gallagher put the full suplex on state Sen. Frank Lasee, sending him into oblivion with a punishing 74-20 win. Gallagher (no relation to the watermelon-smashing prop comic—we think) outspent Lasee three-to-one, and he also had the endorsement of retiring Rep. Reid Ribble, but the final margin was still wider than we would have expected. That's already all in the past now, though, as Gallagher immediately has to turn around and do battle with Outagamie County Executive Tom Nelson, a top recruit whom Democrats are excited about. We rate the race for this swingy seat a Tossup.
The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir and Jeff Singer, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Daniel Donner, James Lambert, and Stephen Wolf.