Leading Off:
• AZ-02: Americans for Responsible Solutions' new spot stars its founder, Gabby Giffords. Giffords spends most of the minute-long ad praising southern Arizona, before describing her successor and former staffer, Democratic Rep. Ron Barber, as someone who will fight for constiuents. This is the first time Giffords has appeared in an ad for Barber during this race. Giffords, who survived an assassination attempt in 2011, remains a popular figure in this Tucson-area seat.
On the GOP side, Martha McSally has a positive Spanish ad on education. YG Network also spends $234,000 for Team Red: The group recently ran this spot.
Head below the fold for ads in races from across the country.
Senate:
• AR-Sen: Citizens United (yes, that Citizens United) spends $220,000 against Democratic Sen. Mark Pryor.
• CO-Sen: The SEIU spends $145,000 against Republican Cory Gardner, while the U.S Chamber of Commerce spends $501,000 against Democratic Sen. Mark Udall.
• GA-Sen: Ending Spending reserves another $2 million in support of Republican David Perdue.
• IA-Sen: Priorities for Iowa portrays Republican Joni Ernst as honest, while arguing Democrat Bruce Braley is lying about his support for equal pay for women.
• KS-Sen: Republican outside groups have been reluctant to support Sen. Pat Roberts, but one organization is coming to his aid. Ironically that group's name is Ending Spending, but whatever: They're dishing out $1 million to help him against independent Greg Orman. Orman is also getting some help from The Committee to Elect an Independent Senate, but their spot is only running for $17,000 so far.
• KY-Sen: Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell has another Obamacare horror story.
• ME-Sen: Democrat Shenna Bellows' spot stars none other than Stephen King, who criticizes Republican Sen. Susan Collins' conservative votes. I'm told that while King was filming the ad, he had time to write an entire novel.
• MN-Sen: Hometown Freedom Action Network spends $346,000 against Democratic Sen. Al Franken.
• NC-Sen: The DSCC ties Republican Thom Tillis to the Koch brothers and other groups that outsource jobs. Tillis himself continues to attack Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan for missing Armed Services Committee meetings as ISIS grew.
• NH-Sen: The DSCC ties Republican Scott Brown to outsourcers.
• DSCC: Various pro-Democratic expenditures.
• Freedom Partners: Pro-GOP expenditures in CO-Sen, IA-Sen, KS-Sen, and FL-02.
Gubernatorial:
• CT-Gov: Democratic Gov. Dan Malloy continues to portray Republican Tom Foley as a heartless rich guy.
• FL-Gov: NextGen Climate has a Spanish spot against Republican Gov. Rick Scott.
• ID-Gov: Democrat A.J. Balukoff portrays himself as a job creator in one of those mock-action movie trailer type of ads.
• IL-Gov: Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn portrays Republican Bruce Rauner as corrupt.
• MA-Gov: Republican Charlie Baker has a positive Spanish spot, though a little weirdly it has various people speaking English when they declare they're voting for Baker.
• RI-Gov: Republican Allan Fung takes a page from the recent Democratic primary, and portrays Gina Raimondo as a shady Wall Street ally.
• SC-Gov: Republican Gov. Nikki Haley talks about her jobs record.
• WI-Gov: The League of Conservation Voters argues that Republican Gov. Scott Walker is allowing a mining company to pollute drinking water.
• Americans for Responsible Solutions: Various expenditures: All are pro-Democratic with the exception of ME-Sen.
• Independence USA: This group has pledged to spend $25 million on the midterms and given that they're bankrolled by Michael Bloomberg, you better believe they're good for it.
Despite the fact that Republicans are usually the ones to use Bloomberg as a punching bag, he's supporting candidates from both parties. Independence USA will start by spending $2.3 million for Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder. The group is also backing the GOP in MA-Gov, CA-52, IL-10, and PA-08. Bloomberg is getting involved on the Democratic side in MI-Sen, PA-Gov, RI-Gov, CA-31, and MA-06. He is also supporting a gun control referendum in Washington and a ballot measure that would introduce the top-two primary to Oregon.
• VoteVets: Pro-Democratic expenditures in AR-Sen, MI-Sen, and HI-01. The group recently went up with spots (which you can find here, here, and here).
House:
• CA-17: Californians for Innovation spends $101,000 for Ro Khanna, who is in a general election with fellow Democrat and incumbent Mike Honda.
• CA-52: Democratic Rep. Scott Peters contrasts himself with Republican Carl DeMaio, accusing DeMaio of making millions off taxpayer-funded contracts but refusing to take a pay cut during the recession.
• CO-06: Republican Rep. Mike Coffman complains that Democrat Andrew Romanoff is running false ads, before hitting him will what I'm sure is a 100 percent true attack on Obamacare.
• CT-05: Democratic Rep. Elizabeth Esty features her family praising her record.
• FL-02: The Congressional Leadership Fund reserves $600,000 to help Republican Rep. Steve Southerland.
• FL-26: Democratic Rep. Joe Garcia has three new spots (here, here, and here). The first two portray Republican rival Carlos Curbelo as a tea party extremist, making good use of a Curbelo gaffe where he called Social Security a Ponzi Scheme. The third ad is positive.
• MI-06: Can money will a competitive race into being? We're about to find out. Larry Lessig's Mayday PAC is spending a whooping $1.5 million against Republican Rep. Fred Upton. The group's ad accuses Upton of being in the pocket of special interests and voting against the middle class. Until now, no outside group spent any real money in support of Upton or his Democratic foe Paul Clements. On paper Upton's 50-49 Romney seat is very competitive, but he's never won any less than 55 percent in a general election, though 2012 was his low water mark. We'll see if Mayday can move the dial but this race remains a serious longshot for Team Blue.
• MN-07: Democratic Rep. Collin Peterson promotes his work on the Farm Bill.
• MN-08: The NRA spends $750,000 against Democratic Rep. Rick Nolan.
• NY-23: The National Association of Realtors spends $258,000 for Republican Rep. Tom Reed.
• Chamber: Various pro-Republican expenditures from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
• DCCC: Various pro-Democratic expenditures.