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
● NY State Senate: While Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo beat actress and activist Cynthia Nixon 65-35 in Thursday's primary, six of his eight allies at the Independent Democratic Conference (IDC) lost their Democratic primaries. Republicans have controlled the New York state Senate since World War II aside from brief periods in 1965 and 2009-2010, but Thursday brings Democrats within striking range of forging a real and lasting majority.
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The IDC's defeat was a long time coming. The group first voted with the GOP to give the minority party control of the New York state Senate in 2013 even though Democrats nominally had a majority, and they'd stuck with Team Red for years to keep them in charge and block progressive legislation. While the IDC announced earlier this year that they'd rejoin the mainstream Democratic caucus, their many detractors understandably were not appeased after years of dealing with the renegade senators and their pledges to reunify.
In the biggest upset of them all, attorney Alessandra Biaggi toppled IDC leader Jeff Klein lost 55-45; four years ago, Klein turned back a serious primary challenger 65-35. In another surprise, state Sen. David Valesky, a founding member of the IDC, lost to Syracuse University administrator Rachel May 52-48. Former New York City Comptroller John Liu also beat Tony Avella 53-47 four years after losing to him by the same margin.
State Sens. Marisol Alcantara, Jesse Hamilton, and Jose Peralta all joined the IDC after the 2016 elections in what turned out to be a big mistake. Hamilton even infamously tried to appease his angry constituents with fliers suggesting that the initials "IDC” actually stood for "Immigrant Defense Coalition." They weren't fooled, and Hamilton lost to attorney Zellnor Myrie 54-46, while former New York City Councilor Robert Jackson and former mayoral aide Jessica Ramos ousted Alcantara and Peralta 55-40 and 55-45, respectively.
The only two IDCers who survived were Diane Savino, who won 67-21, and David Carlucci, who prevailed 55-45. Additionally, Simcha Felder, who never was a member of the IDC and remains a member of the GOP caucus, decisively won.
Democrats, with Felder included, nominally hold a bare 32-31 majority, but the IDC made taking the chamber a herculean task. However, the math got a whole lot better on Thursday. All the defeated senators hold seats Hillary Clinton carried by double digits, so mainstream Democrats shouldn't have much trouble winning in November. The reddest of the bunch is Valesky's Syracuse-area SD-53, which went from 62-36 Obama to 54-40 Clinton, while Klein's seat was next at a hefty 74-24 Clinton.
All this means that, even if Felder remains in the GOP caucus while Savino and Carlucci remain difficult, Democrats only need to net three seats to hold a bare majority. Clinton carried 40 of the 63 districts, all of which are up this year, and especially with five Republicans retiring, this goal finally looks attainable this year.
● NY-AG, NY-18: New York City Public Advocate Tish James, who had the support of Gov. Andrew Cuomo and much of the state's Democratic establishment, defeated law professor Zephyr Teachout 40-31 in the Democratic primary for state attorney general, with Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney taking 25. James will be the clear favorite in November in this very blue state, and she'd be the first black woman elected statewide.
Maloney's defeat also means that national Democrats won't have a swingy open seat to defend this year. Maloney had won renomination to New York's 18th Congressional District in June (the state frustratingly holds its federal primary and June and state primary in September), but he decided to run for statewide office. If Maloney had won his primary for attorney general, Democratic leaders would have quickly needed to pick a replacement nominee for his House seat, which went from 51-47 Obama to 49-47 Trump. However, Maloney said he'd run for re-election if he lost his statewide primary, so there won't be a switcheroo.
Republicans have nominated Orange County Legislator James O'Donnell for this Hudson Valley seat. In this political climate, it's tough to see O'Donnell putting this seat into play against an incumbent, and we rate this race as Safe Democratic.
Senate
● MT-Sen: Democratic Sen. Jon Tester is out with a spot accusing Republican Matt Rosendale of lying about being an actual rancher, with several actual farmers then decrying Rosendale as a phony. Rosendale does own a $2 million ranch in Glendive, but back in May, Talking Points Memo reported that he'd never owned cattle and he'd admitted to leasing out his land.
Rosendale has repeatedly called himself a rancher (the Tester campaign makes use of several clips of him saying that at the start of their ad), but his own campaign has gradually stopped identifying him as such. TPM writes that in June, Rosendale's press releases stopped calling him a "Glendive rancher" and also removed "rancher" from his website's tagline for him. Over time, the word "rancher" was also removed from his biography, and days ago it disappeared from his Twitter bio. Still, other Rosendale website and special media pages still call him a rancher.
Rosendale also got some bad headlines this week of a different nature. On Thursday, the Daily Beast published audio of the Republican telling attendees at a July D.C. event that the top strategist for the NRA's Institute for Legislative Action had assured him they'd spend heavily to help him in August. The NRA did indeed launch a $400,000 buy against Tester in September, just a little later than Rosendale said he was told the spots would come.
Candidates are not permitted to coordinate with outside groups like the NRA-ILA, whose expenditures must be made independently of the campaigns they're supporting. Of course, it'd be naïve to assume illegal coordination doesn't happen, but when it does, it normally takes place behind closed doors. The fact that Rosendale spoke so openly of his knowledge of the NRA's plans is very unusual, and experts consulted by the Daily Beast suggest that he may have run afoul of the law. Such cases are notoriously hard to prove, though, so Rosendale is unlikely to face any consequences.
On the other side, the National Education Association's political arm has launched a $1 million buy against Rosendale.
● OH-Sen: On Thursday, Rep. Jim Renacci became the latest in a long line of Republicans to attack Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown over allegations that he once committed domestic violence, citing records from his 1986 divorce. That divorce included claims that Brown had "bullied" and shoved Larke Recchie, his wife at the time. But Recchie, who has been a political supporter of Brown for decades, has publicly defended him ever since his 1992 campaign for the House and did so again on Thursday.
Earlier this week, a website called "Me Too Ohio" sprang up with a video that referenced excerpts from Brown's divorce; the Cleveland Plain-Dealer's Andrew Tobias writes that a "trail of digital footprints" ties the site to a prominent GOP consultancy called Majority Strategies that works for Renacci. Renacci has denied any involvement in the site, but he didn't back away from the charges, issuing a statement declaring that Brown's "well-documented history of domestic violence is deeply troubling," and adding, "Ohioans deserve to know all the facts, and judge his fitness for public office for themselves."
Brown's campaign quickly released a statement from Recchie in which she decried the site as "disgusting," saying she was "dismayed that Congressman Renacci would do something this shameless, despite the fact that I've already addressed this matter."
During Brown's 1992 House bid, Recchie said, "Divorce can often be an unfriendly ordeal, and ours was no exception. There was a lot of hurt on both sides, and it led only to angry words." Years later, amidst Brown's successful Senate run in 2006, Recchie filmed a pre-emptive ad with Brown's current wife to rebut the charges, but GOP incumbent Mike DeWine never raised them on the campaign trail and Brown's spot never aired. Republican Josh Mandel did try to relitigate the matter six years later when he challenged Brown in 2012, but Recchie reiterated her support for Brown and repeated that the allegations were "angry words" from "an unfriendly ordeal."
● Senate: The Democratic groups Senate Majority PAC and Priorities USA have announced that they'll spend a joint $18 million in digital ads in Senate races in Arizona, Florida, Indiana, Missouri, and North Dakota. SMP will spend another $3 million across Montana, Nevada, Tennessee, and West Virginia.
● Polls: We have plenty of new Senate polls, including some surveys from some rarely polled battlegrounds:
Most of these come from a set commissioned by Fox News, which for years has employed the Democratic firm Anderson Robbins and the GOP group Shaw & Company to conduct all its polling. While it would be tempting to assume that Fox's numbers would show the same sort of conservative bias that Fox shows in everything else they do, that hasn't been in the case. In 2014, for instance, Fox's final surveys (which were released almost a month before Election Day) generally overestimated Democrats.
Fox also gave Team Blue some very favorable numbers in last year's Alabama Senate special. In October, a month before several women publicly accused Republican Roy Moore of predatory behavior, Fox found him tied with Democrat Doug Jones at a time when every other poll gave Moore a clear lead. Their final poll, which was in the field in the last days of the race, found Jones up by a gaudy 50-40, but the Democrat ended up winning by a tight 50-48 margin.
So, let's look at the numbers. This North Dakota poll is the first survey we've seen here at all in months. Heitkamp is one of the most vulnerable, if not the most vulnerable, Democrats in the Senate, given that she's seeking re-election in a state Trump carried 63-27, so it's certainly plausible if she's down. Still, while a 4-point deficit isn't anything to celebrate, it's not insurmountable.
In most other states, by contrast, we have some recent data with which to compare this latest pile, but not a lot. Marist recently released polls for Indiana, Missouri, and Tennessee. Fox and Marist show very similar results in Missouri, while in the other two states, Marist's margin was 5 points better for the Democrats than Fox's. We don't have much else to work with, though, so we don't have a good sense for who is on target. Still, both sets of polls point to tight races in all three states, which is what we'd expect.
Recent polls from two local GOP firms have also shown a close contest in Arizona, with OH Predictive Insights giving McSally a 49-46 lead, while Data Orbital has Sinema ahead 46-42. Fox's numbers are much closer to Data Orbital's, though, so we'll have to see which side other pollsters come down on.
Gubernatorial
● FL-Gov: Democrat Andrew Gillum has launched his first broadcast TV ad of the general election, in what his campaign says is "a seven-figure statewide broadcast and cable buy." The candidate narrates the minute-long ad and begins by saying he can still hear his grandmother telling him to "go to school. Mind your teachers. Get your lesson. And one day, bring that education home."
Gillum continues by saying his grandmother's words were "a reminder that if we were going to get anywhere in life, we would get there together," adding, "This could be our story, Florida. Written by and for anyone who has ever been told that they don't belong. Been counted out. Or been told that they can't make a difference." He concludes by pledging to "bring home affordable health care. We can bring it home for better jobs and better wages. We can bring it home for education that our children deserve."
● MS-Gov: Democratic Public Service Commissioner Brandon Presley took his name out of the running for statewide office next year with a tweet on Wednesday declaring he'd run for re-election instead. Presley is often mentioned as a rising star in Mississippi Democratic politics, and national Democrats unsuccessfully courted him for a Senate bid this year.
● Polls:
AZ-Gov: Anderson Robbins and Shaw & Company for Fox News: Doug Ducey (R-inc): 51, David Garcia (D): 40
TN-Gov: Anderson Robbins and Shaw & Company for Fox News: Bill Lee (R): 55, Karl Dean (D): 35
Polling for both races has been limited. In Arizona, the GOP firm Data Orbital gave Ducey a similar 49-41 lead, while a recent PPP survey for Garcia gave the governor a much-smaller 44-43 edge. Ducey and his allies at the RGA have been overwhelming Garcia on the airwaves, so it would make sense if Team Red has carved out an early lead here.
In Tennessee, a recent Marist poll gave Lee a smaller, but still imposing, 53-40 lead.
House
● AZ-02, MI-08, NJ-07: This week, the NRCC launched a TV ad against Arizona Democrat Ann Kirkpatrick that featured footage of the late GOP Sen. John McCain criticizing her during their 2016 Senate race, with a narrator declaring, "In 2016, Senator McCain warned us. ... Arizona rejected Kirkpatrick before. It is time to do it again." McCain's relatives were not happy, and their spokesperson told CNN the family "believes it is unfortunate that the Senator's image is being weaponized this election season." The NRCC was not deterred, though, and they responded by arguing the spot "speaks for itself."
The NRCC also recently went up with a commercial in Michigan featuring 2014 footage of McCain criticizing Democrat Elissa Slotkin while she was testifying before the Senate. The family's spokesperson doesn't seem to have put out a statement about this particular ad, though former McCain adviser and close family friend Rick Davis said they weren't happy his image was being "weaponized" here, either.
New Jersey Democrat Tom Malinowski also recently went up with a positive spot that showed McCain praising him during a 2013 hearing. However, Malinowski's campaign says the candidate had been in touch with McCain's representatives about using this footage as early as February, when they initially used it in a web ad, and "[t]hey expressed no objections to Tom using this footage or speaking about his work with Senator McCain."
● MI-08: It's rare that we call a political ad a must-watch, but Democrat Elissa Slotkin's new minute-long TV ad is a must-watch.
The candidate describes how her mother had survived breast cancer, "but her pre-existing condition hung over all of us." Slotkin goes on to say that her mother lost her job years later and along with it her health insurance, and couldn’t afford the premiums, "and that's when she was diagnosed with stage 4 ovarian cancer." Slotkin adds that she took a leave from her job at the CIA to take care of her and rushed her wedding so her mother could see it, and the ad shows a clip of her mother giving a speech at the event in what was "one of her last really good days."
Slotkin goes on to say that when she saw GOP Rep. Mike Bishop "smiling at the White House after voting to gut protections for pre-existing conditions, something inside me broke." She concludes by declaring, "Mr. Bishop, that's dereliction of duty, and it's a fireable offense."
● NY-19: The NRCC is picking up right where their allies at the Congressional Leadership Fund left off and launched a racist ad against Antonio Delgado, a black Democratic candidate. The ad intercuts footage of Delgado giving a speech about compassion as a candidate with clips of a music video from his career as a rapper.
Delgado spent his time as a rapper addressing social and political issues, including white supremacy, in his songs, but you certainly wouldn't know it from the ad. Instead, the audience just sees quick clips of him rapping things like "Gotcha sweatin' this like ya having sex to a porno flick," "Criticize—it’s what a patriot does," and "God bless Iraq," as well as a heavily bleeped clip that the NRCC's text explains had the "N-word" and an “F-word." In case that was all too subtle, the ad frequently shows a picture of Delgado in a hoodie.
● NY-27: The deadline to finalize and print ballots is at the end of this month, so local Republicans don't have much time left to figure out how to swap out indicted Rep. Chris Collins for a fresh nominee. Team Red's hope is that if Collins is running for a local position, they can nominate someone else for a congressional seat, but Democrats say they'll sue to block any kind of switch.
Multiple sources tell the Buffalo News that discussions for getting Collins off the ballot have centered on getting him nominated instead for a post at the town board in Clarence, where he lives. The problem is that no seats on the Clarence Town Board are up for election this year, so Republican leaders have reportedly spoken to two different councilors about resigning so Collins can be nominated to run for their vacant seats.
The report said that town councilor Robert Geiger and another unnamed GOP board member had been approached about stepping down for Collins. Geiger denied to the Buffalo News he'd been asked to consider resigning, but he didn't quite rule it out, saying he'd "really have to run it over with my wife and family," and adding, "You know what? I really like what I'm doing." However, Republicans aren't quite putting all their chips on Clarence. There's also been talk of Collins running for local positions in the nearby communities of Eden and Amherst.
Republicans have also reportedly talked about appointing Collins as GOP elections commissioner for Erie County. However, Collins would need to resign to take that job, which he may not want to do. As the paper points out, Collins, who was indicted for insider trading, could lose leverage for plea negotiations with prosecutors once he leaves Congress. Collins would not need to resign to run for local office, however.
● OH-01: The progressive group Change Now has a $457,000 buy against GOP Rep. Steve Chabot.
● House: We have some new size-of-the-buys for DCCC ads:
- AZ-01: $156,000
- AZ-02: $163,000
- CA-10: $65,000
- FL-26: $405,000
- IA-03: $119,000
- IL-06: $95,000
- KS-03: $126,000
- NM-02: $200,000
- NY-22: $125,000
- TX-07: $388,00
- VA-02: $146,000
- VA-10: $377,000
● Polls:
- FL-15: Greenberg Quinlan Rosner for Kristen Carlson: Kristen Carlson (D): 48, Ross Spano (R): 47
- ND-AL: Anderson Robbins and Shaw & Company for Fox News: Kelly Armstrong (R): 48, Mac Schneider (D): 34
- OK-05: VCreek/AMG for Steve Russell: Steve Russell (R-inc): 49, Kendra Horn (D): 35
- PA-07: Monmouth: Susan Wild (D): 47, Marty Nothstein (R): 45
- VA-07: Siena for New York Times: Dave Brat (R-inc): 47, Abigail Spanberger (D): 43
Aside from North Dakota, these are the first polls we've seen of all these races, or in the case of Pennsylvania, the first we've seen in a very long time. The most eye-popping are the numbers from Florida's 15th, an open GOP-held seat in the Tampa suburbs that voted 53-43 for Trump but a narrower 52-47 for Mitt Romney. This seat is not high on Democratic target lists (we rate it Likely Republican), but it'll be interesting to see whether Spano or his allies respond with contradictory data—something we've rarely seen from the GOP this cycle.
In Pennsylvania's 7th, Monmouth notes something unusual about their results: Using their registered-voter model, Wild has a wider 46-40 lead, compared with her 47-45 edge among likely voters above. Given the enthusiasm gap favoring Democrats this year, you'd expect that those who say they're likely to vote would lean more in the Democratic direction, and indeed, that's been the case in almost every other Monmouth poll.
Is there something about Democratic voters in the Lehigh Valley that sets them apart from those elsewhere, or was this survey just somehow funky? We'll need to see other polls to know one way or the other, though it's also worth noting that Trump's 47-49 approval rating is little different from his 49-48 win here, which is an atypically small drop-off.
Finally, the Siena/New York Times poll in Virginia's 7th confirms that Brat faces a difficult re-election, despite the fact that his district voted 51-44 for Trump, though Trump's approvals now stand at 47-46 in this survey. These numbers help explain why the GOP is spending considerable sums on scurrilous attacks against Spanberger.
Primary Recap
● RI-Gov: Gov. Gina Raimondo defeated former Secretary of State Matt Brown 57-34 in Wednesday's Democratic primary, with the balance going to former state Rep. Spencer Dickinson. On the GOP side, Cranston Mayor Allan Fung beat state House Minority Leader Patricia Morgan 56-40. This sets up a rematch with Raimondo, who beat Fung 41-36 in 2014 (most of the balance went to the late Robert Healey of the Moderate or "Cool Moose" Party).
Rhode Island is almost always a reliably blue state, but there's good reason to think we're in for another competitive race. Raimondo has had to deal with some bad headlines, and she's never been very popular during her tenure. Morning Consult gave her a 44-46 approval rating for the second quarter of 2018, while a late July Fleming & Associates poll gave her a bare 50-48 favorable rating. The Ocean State has also been more than willing to send Republicans to the governor's office while backing Democrats for almost everything else. The only poll we've seen in months was the Fleming & Associates poll from late July that gave Raimondo a bare 39-37 lead over Fung, with independent Joe Trillo, a former GOP state representative and 2016 Trump state chair, taking 6.
Raimondo is a strong fundraiser, and she held a $2.4 million to $227,000 cash-on-hand lead over Fung in early September. The governor also wasted no time launching a negative spot on Wednesday arguing that Cranston is doing poorly under Fung despite his many tax increases. However, the media soon reported that Raimondo's ad used footage of storefronts in Providence in place of footage of Fung's Cranston, and Raimondo removed the ad from YouTube.
While Raimondo begins the general with a massive financial edge, Fung may avoid being dramatically outspent. WPRI's Ted Nesi writes that Fung is expecting to get $1 million from the state's public-matching-funds program, while Raimondo is not seeking matching funds. Outside groups will also be spending here. The DGA recently transferred $1 million to the state, while the RGA has reserved $1.5 million for TV time. The RGA-affiliated group Rhode Island Forward also launched their first general election spot on Wednesday, though they’d run some ads against Raimondo months ago.
Fung will have his work cut out for him to beat Raimondo in a year that's so unfavorable to his party. Still, the close 2014 race and Raimondo's meh numbers give Team Red an opening, and we rate the general as Lean Democratic.
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