The penultimate (we think!) edition of our House ad reservations tracker is live. Here are the highlights:
AK-AL: The DCCC made an investment in Democrat Steve Lindbeck for the first time, but it's just for a very small $22,000 joint buy.
CA-10: Democrats must sense a real opportunity to beat GOP Rep. Jeff Denham, because the DCCC and HMP each added more than $1 million in the last week to help Michael Eggman, for a total of $2.4 million in new spending. And there's nothing new on the Republican side.
CA-25: The DCCC tossed in an additional $460,000 for Democrat Bryan Caforio and the NRCC put in $414,000 for Rep. Steve Knight. Total Democratic spending is way higher in this race, $2.9 million versus $830,000.
CO-06: This Denver-area race is incredibly expensive (over $11 million for both sides so far), so these sums are relatively small in comparison, but it's still worth noting that the Democrats threw in an extra $854,000 for Morgan Carroll while the NRCC cut $404,000 from its efforts to protect Rep. Mike Coffman (though the Congressional Leadership fund added $122,000).
FL-07: As we noted recently, the NRCC made a huge move to help Rep. John Mica, reserving $1.4 million in media time, their first real aid for this race. The DCCC responded with $656,000 extra for Democrat Stephanie Murphy.
FL-18: CLF added another $526,000 to help veteran Brian Mast, while Democrats are still leaving wealthy businessman Randy Perkins to rise or fall on his own. Perkins, though, isn't letting himself get outgunned: He recently put another $3 million of his own money into his campaign, bringing his total investment to $8.8 million.
IA-01: Two weeks ago, CLF said in a press release it would shell out $250,000 on behalf of Rep. Rod Blum, but it looks like their total expenditure is now more like $590,000. Democrats have added $360,000 for Monica Vernon.
IL-10: Last week, the DCCC cut its net spending for Democrat Brad Schneider by some $762,000. (To be precise, the D-Trip cancelled an $838,000 reservation for the final week of the race but added around $75,000 for so-called "hybrid" ads run jointly by the committee and the campaign.) That move had suggested a certain level of confidence on the part of D.C. Democrats, but now they appear to have had a change of heart. While it's not yet reflected on our chart, Politico's Theodoric Meyer reports that the DCCC is sending $1 million back into the district because Schneider's "facing a tight race despite Clinton's huge lead."
But here's a sign of just how weird this race is: The NRCC has been airing a new ad praising GOP Rep. Bob Dold! for standing up to Donald Trump! Well, at least Republican agree that Trump is electoral rat poison in this suburban Chicago seat. According to the AP, the NRCC's entire $1.1 million reservation for the penultimate week of the campaign has been devoted to this spot.
IL-12: HMP has long had $263,000 on the books for the final week of the campaign to help Democrat C.J. Baricevic, and now, in a bit of a surprise, the NRCC has thrown together a $199,000 joint reservation with GOP Rep. Mike Bost, also for that last week. Bost had otherwise looked pretty secure for re-election, so this could just be insurance.
IN-09: A few days ago, we learned that the NRCC was unexpectedly spending $650,000 to shore up Republican Trey Hollingsworth. Now, thanks to our chart, we know that the total amount is twice that, $1.1 million. That's a lot of money for a seat that should never have been in play in the first place. HMP, meanwhile, is tacking on $130,000 more for Democrat Shelli Yoder.
ME-02: Last week, the CLF yanked $306,000 from this seat while HMP added $212,000, but this time around, both parties are on the same page. HMP and the DCCC have added a combined $383,000, while CLF has booked an additional $579,000.
MN-02: While far-right former radio host Jason Lewis wasn’t the NRCC’s ideal nominee for this swingy seat, they’re intent to support him to the bitter end. The NRCC has added $601,000 to their buy, taking their total investment to $1.1 million. The committee reserved several million dollars early in the Twin Cities that they could use for either this race or MN-03 or MN-08, so they’re not throwing new money into this race. The DCCC also added almost $500,000 here, though it’s also money from their Twin Cities reservation that they hadn’t earmarked for one of the three Minnesota seats.
MN-03: After previously cutting its entire remaining reservation on behalf of Democrat Terri Bonoff, HMP is reportedly roaring back in with a late $800,000 blast directed at GOP Rep. Erik Paulsen. (This data is not yet included in our chart.) We know that Trump's been performing very poorly in this suburban Minneapolis district, but Paulsen had been keeping his head well above water. It's possible that the incumbent's finally having trouble staying afloat after all this time. The DCCC also has directed $627,000 from their general Twin Cities pool to this seat. The NRCC recently went up with their first commercial here, and we now know that it’s part of a $518,000 buy.
MN-08: HMP has thrown in $712,000 extra for Rep. Rick Nolan while CLF has countered with a hefty $1.5 million to boost Republican Stewart Mills. This comes in spite of a recent HMP poll that had Nolan up 49-41; a subsequent SurveyUSA poll, however, put Mills ahead 45-41. Note that this is all new money from both groups, rather than funds getting earmarked from a general Twin Cities pool.
NH-01: On Thursday, we reported that the NRCC had cancelled its entire remaining $2 million reservation on behalf of GOP Rep. Frank Guinta, effectively triaging him. Now the committee has confirmed the move, though amusingly, it insists it's still "very confident" in the congressman.
NJ-05: Sometimes media reports or press releases conflict with the information in our chart, but sometimes, they tie out perfectly. Pleasantly, this is the latter sort of case: NJ.com reports that HMP is spending an additional $650,000 on cable TV ads hitting GOP Rep. Scott Garrett, which is exactly the same sum our data shows. National Republicans still haven’t allocated any money to help Garrett against well-funded Democratic rival Josh Gottheimer. A month ago, Garrett’s allies in the far-right House Freedom Caucus urged the NRCC to spent to save him, but their pleas seem to have fallen on deaf ears.
NV-03, NV-04: In the last week, the DCCC dumped far more money into the 3rd than the 4th: $1.1 million versus $320,000 ($900,000 which was drawn from its pre-existing Las Vegas pool, meaning around $500,000 was new money). At the same time, HMP shifted $638,000 from the 4th to the 3rd. The 4th is traditionally much more Democratic, while the wealthier 3rd is a designated Trump Toxicity Zone; in fact, it had even seemed for a little bit like the 3rd might be a better pickup opportunity for Team Blue than the 4th. It's hard to read much into either move, though.
NY-19: Another $386,000 from the DCCC and another $468,000 from CLF. While Democrat Zephyr Teachout has raised more money than Republican John Faso, Faso's getting much more outside help: $4.5 million versus $1.5 million.
NY-24, NY-22: HMP had a pool of $391,000 that could have gone toward either the 22nd or the 24th; now we know it's all gone toward the latter, to help Democrat Colleen Deacon. That's good news, as far as it goes, because public polling has shown Deacon faring very poorly against freshman GOP Rep. John Katko. But if Democrats are still willing to spend money on Deacon, hopefully it means she still has a chance.
PA-08: Pennsylvania's 8th remains the single most-expensive race on our chart: Democrats just upped their buys by almost $900,000 while Republicans did so to the tune of $1.5 million. That brings all actual and planned spending from Labor Day through Election Day for the four major House groups to $14.2 million.
TX-23: Democrats added $648,000 here while Republicans increased their buy by $377,000.
VA-05: Here's another race where the DCCC is getting involved for the first time, but again, it's a small joint buy for just $54,000. That pales in comparison to the $774,000 the CLF already announced they were unleashing on Democrat Jane Dittmar.
VA-10: Close behind Pennsylvania's 8th in terms of total cost is Virginia's 10th, and it, too, just got even more expensive. The DCCC added a huge $1.8 million to help Democrat LuAnn Bennett, while CLF is sending in another $783,000 for GOP Rep. Barbara Comstock.
WI-08: Interestingly, even though the DCCC cut most of the money it planned to spend here on Democrat Tom Nelson in the face of bad polls, they've now added $77,000 back, while HMP has thrown in an additional $158,000. But we haven't seen any recent polling, so we don't know if Nelson's actually gotten closer to Republican Mike Gallagher.