Leading Off
● Ad Reservations: The final edition of our House ad reservations tracker is live. (We're not crying, you're crying.) In it, we follow TV and radio bookings made by the four largest outside groups that spend on House races: the DCCC and House Majority PAC for Democrats, and the NRCC and Congressional Leadership Fund for Republicans. Here are the highlights and lowlights:
● AZ-01: If Republican Paul Babeu was hoping that GOP outside groups would come to his aid in the final days of the race, he's going to be disappointed. The NRCC did a small $52,000 joint buy with Babeu weeks ago, but never returned to the airwaves, and the Congressional Leadership Fund never got involved here either. While Romney won this seat 50-48, Babeu has an awful past, and it seems that D.C. Republicans just decided he wasn't going to defeat Democrat Tom O'Halleran.
● AZ-02: While the Congressional Leadership Fund launched a $625,000 buy for GOP Rep. Martha McSally a few weeks ago, national Democrats never aired any ads here, and that didn't change in the final weeks of the race. Romney won this Tucson seat by just a 50-48 margin, but McSally is a formidable fundraiser, and national Democrats evidently decided that Matt Heinz wasn't a good investment.
● CA-07, CA-10: Both parties had millions reserved in the Sacramento media market that they hadn't earmarked for a particular race yet, and this was the week to make final decisions. On the Democratic side, the DCCC directed $383,000 towards helping Rep. Ami Bera in the 7th and $841,000 to help Democrat Michael Eggman defeat GOP Rep. Jeff Denham in the 10th. The NRCC directed $1.86 million all to the 7th; they had $1.63 million in Sacramento last week that they had left to allocate, so they've also added an additional $230,000 in new money over the last week. Their allies at the Congressional Leadership Fund also began a completely new $1.68 million buy in the 10th.
● CA-21: House Majority PAC added $433,000 in the final week in their quest to unseat GOP Rep. David Valadao in this Bakersfield area seat.
● CA-25: The DCCC must like what they're seeing in this northern Los Angeles County seat, since they added $741,000 to their buys against GOP Rep. Steve Knight. Republicans added nothing, and national Democratic groups have outspent national Republicans $3.6 million to $832,000 total. Knight is a pretty weak fundraiser, but while he's outraised Democrat Bryan Caforio, he hasn't enjoyed the same type of financial edge that so many other incumbents do. From July 1 to Oct. 19, Knight outspent Caforio just $932,000 to $802,000, so Team Red is getting badly outgunned overall here.
● CA-49: The DCCC added another $421,000 against Republican Rep. Darrell Issa. National Republicans unsurprisingly have spent nothing to help Issa, the wealthiest member of Congress.
● CO-06: One week ago, HMP added $410,000 to their buy against GOP Rep. Mike Coffman but this week, our source says they've canceled $560,000. This information could be wrong, however, especially since there's no reason to think this race has grown any less competitive. (As we've noted in the past, this data isn't easy to assemble, and sometimes there can be mistakes.) But whatever the case, the DCCC is behaving consistently: Last week, they added $444,000, and this week they threw down another $269,000. We saw a dance from the GOP last week, when the NRCC canceled $404,000 at the same time that CLF was adding $122,000; this time around, CLF just added $52,000. We have no polling here, so it's tough to know what either side is thinking.
● FL-07: The DCCC has added $227,000 against GOP Rep. John Mica. While Mica is running a lazy campaign, his allies at the NRCC have added $273,000 as they try to save the veteran congressman from himself.
● FL-18: The NRCC has added $212,000 as they try to pick up this open Treasure Coast seat. Wealthy Democrat Randy Perkins is self-funding his campaign, and national Democrats canceled all their ads buys a few weeks ago.
● FL-26: Neither party added any money this week, but there's one statistic worth flagging. Together, the DCCC and HMP have spent $5.67 million to try and unseat Republican Rep. Carlos Curbelo, while the NRCC and CLF spent $5.1 million. However, Curbelo has utterly destroyed Democrat Joe Garcia on the money front; between Aug. 11 and Oct. 19, Curbelo outspent Garcia $2.28 million to $627,000, and some of Garcia's spending came from before his contested Aug. 30 primary. (Curbelo faced no primary opposition.)
Obama carried the redrawn version of this district 55-44, and this predominantly Hispanic seat will not be Trump territory. However, GOP Sen. Marco Rubio will likely do far better here than Romney unless the polls are badly overestimating him, so Garcia may not be able to count on the top of the ticket carrying him across the finish line.
● IA-03: While polls haven't looked great for Democrat Jim Mowrer in this Des Moines seat, HMP is spending an additional $330,000 for him. The GOP is also directing more money to help Republican Rep. David Young, with the NRCC and CLF adding a total of $593,000 here. (Some of the CLF's money was probably from a reservation in the Omaha market that they hadn't assigned to this seat or NE-02.)
● IL-10: Last week, Politico reported that the DCCC was sending another $1.1 million to try and unseat GOP Rep. Bob Dold!, and that's now reflected on our chart. The DCCC recently had cut $762,000 from their effort to help Democrat Brad Schneider, but evidently they had a change of heart.
● IN-09: We recently reported that the DCCC was spending in this open GOP-held seat, and we now know that they've allocated $641,000 for the final week. The NRCC added a smaller $173,000 to help carpetbagger Trey Hollingsworth hold on.
● MI-01: Together, the DCCC and HMP added $217,000 to try and flip this northern Michigan seat.
● MN-02, MN-03, MN-08: The DCCC had about $1.5 million reserved in the Minneapolis media market that they could use for any of these three seats while the NRCC had $1.1 million, and they've both decided what to do with it all. In the open GOP-held 2nd, the DCCC has assigned $569,000, while the GOP has sent $585,000. In the 3rd, the DCCC has sent $498,000 to try and unseat Rep. Erik Paulsen, while the NRCC has directed $613,000. (Last week, Politico reported that HMP was directing $800,000 to the 3rd, but that's not reflected in our chart, which does sometimes conflict with media reports.) In the 8th, the DCCC has sent $593,000 to defend Rep. Rick Nolan, but the NRCC doesn't appear to have sent much extra.
● MT-AL: HMP recently began spending against GOP Rep. Ryan Zinke, and the NRCC has now directed a small $153,000 toward defending him.
● NE-02: The DCCC has directed another $487,000 to help Rep. Brad Ashford hold his seat, while the CLF added $284,000. (Again, at least some of the CLF's money was probably from a $263,000 reservation in the Omaha market that they could have used for either this race or IA-03.)
● NJ-05: If GOP Rep. Scott Garrett wins re-election, he'll do it without much outside help. Neither the NRCC nor the Congressional Leadership Fund spent anything on Garrett's behalf, while national Democrats came to well-funded Democrat Josh Gottheimer's aid early in the race.
● NV-03, NV-04: This is another race where both parties had money unassigned to a particular race that they had to spend now. The DCCC has $907,000 unallocated, and they sent that amount to try and pick up the open 3rd. However, they also deployed another $214,000 against Rep. Cresent Hardy in the 4th. The NRCC had $1.1 million to assign to either seat, and they've also added some more money to that: They're sending another $845,000 to the 3rd and $930,000 to the 4th.
● NY-19: While Democrat Zephyr Teachout has decisively outraised Republican John Faso in this open Hudson Valley seat, GOP outside groups have spent far more than their Democratic counterparts. The DCCC made some effort to rectify that in the final week by directing $474,000 here, while the NRCC and CLF deployed an additional $211,000 total.
● NY-21: While the Congressional Leadership Fund began a $406,000 ad campaign a few weeks ago to help Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik, national Democrats never came in and advertised for Democrat Mike Derrick. Stefanik also went negative in the final month of the race and even ran an ad encouraging progressives to choose Green Party nominee Mike Funiciello instead, but she may have just been acting out of caution rather than out of fear.
● NY-22: The NRCC sent another $173,000 to help Republican Claudia Tenney in this Utica seat, while HMP doled out another $65,000.
● PA-08: Long the most expensive race on our chart, it's only getting more expensive in the stretch run. For the final week, the DCCC and HMP added a total of $759,000, while the NRCC added another $329,000.
● PA-16: HMP recently launched an ad for Democrat Christina Hartman, and we now know it was part of a $370,000 buy for the final week of the contest. The conservative American Action Network began a $436,000 ad campaign for Republican Lloyd Smucker a few weeks ago.
● TX-23: The DCCC added a sizable $671,000 to help Democrat Pete Gallego retake his west Texas seat from GOP Rep. Will Hurd. Team Red added nothing new, though Hurd is a strong fundraiser who may just be able to carry his own weight.
● VA-05: The conservative Congressional Leadership Fund dropped another $87,000 for the final week of the race, taking their total investment to $861,000. However, while the DCCC added another $15,000 to their joint buy with Jane Dittmar, they only spent $68,000 here total, and HMP never engaged in this contest.
● VA-10: This is another very expensive race where both parties are just throwing more money in. The DCCC added $814,000 to use against GOP Rep. Barbara Comstock, while the NRCC added a similar $793,000. The CLF canceled $95,000, though that's just a drop in the bucket here.
● WI-08: The NRCC added another $91,000 to help Republican Mike Gallagher defend this open Green Bay seat.
Senate
● MO-Sen: Politico reports that VoteVets is making a last-minute $900,000 ad buy in support of Democrat Jason Kander. They reuse their mid-October spot, which praises Kander for serving in Afghanistan after 9/11 while saying Republican Sen. Roy Blunt was busy adding a pro-tobacco company rider onto a homeland security bill, noting that several of Blunt's family members are lobbyists.
● WI-Sen: Almost exactly a month after the NRSC canceled their $1.1 million reservation, they're making a last-minute ad buy that Politico says is just short of $1 million. Their spot goes after Democrat Russ Feingold, arguing that he's gotten rich off the special interest money he says he hates. Several other groups on both sides of the aisle have made buys in the final days of the race.
Meanwhile, the Democratic group End Citizens United has added $550,000 to their TV buy, taking their total television investment for the final week of the race to $1.05 million.
● Senate: The conservative Senate Leadership Fund scraped together an additional $12 million to spend in the final week of the campaign. We already knew they were spending about $2 million in Wisconsin (the actual number is $2.2 million). Most interestingly, they're spending another $3.2 million in Florida, which national Democratic groups have mostly ignored. SLF is also deploying another $1.4 million in Indiana, $1.9 million in Missouri, $1.7 million in North Carolina, and $1.3 million in Pennsylvania.
● Polls: It's the final countdown...
● FL-Sen: OpinionSavvy: 50-46 Rubio (R-inc) (49-45 Clinton)
● FL-Sen: Quinnipiac: 50-44 Rubio (R-inc) (46-45 Clinton)
● MO-Sen: Remington Research (R) for the Missouri Times: 48-44 Blunt (R-inc) (51-39 Trump)
● MO-Gov: Remington Research (R) for the Missouri Times: 46-45 Greitens (R) (51-39 Trump)
● NC-Sen: Quinnipiac: 49-45 Ross (D) (47-44 Clinton)
● NC-Gov: Quinnipiac: 49-47 Cooper (D) (47-44 Clinton)
● NH-Sen: ARG: 49-46 Ayotte (R-inc) (48-43 Trump)
● NH-Sen: MassINC: 51-45 Ayotte (R-inc) (40-39 Trump)
● NH-Sen: Suffolk: 44-42 Ayotte (R-inc) (42-42 presidential tie)
● NH-Gov: ARG: 48-44 Sununu (R) (48-43 Trump)
● NH-Gov: MassINC: 49-44 Sununu (R) (40-39 Trump)
● NH-Gov: Suffolk: 41-37 Sununu (R) (42-42 presidential tie)
● NV-Sen: JMC Analytics: 45-43 Cortez Masto (D) (45-45 presidential tie)
● PA-Sen: Quinnipiac: 48-47 McGinty (D) (48-43 Clinton)
Quinnipiac gives Deborah Ross one of her best polls in a while. This is also one of the very few surveys we've seen showing Ross running ahead of gubernatorial candidate Roy Cooper and Hillary Clinton, even if only slightly. The school also has Katie McGinty with a 1-point lead in Pennsylvania. That would be nothing to write home about, except that Quinnipiac has usually given Republican Sen. Pat Toomey better numbers than almost anyone else. Toomey actually hasn't led in a single poll in our database over the last two weeks, and the Daily Kos Elections polling average now gives McGinty a 45-41 edge.
Thursday's crop of polls gave Donald Trump some of his best numbers out of New Hampshire ever, and the magic trickled down to Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte. And after a string of bad surveys, Republican gubernatorial nominee Chris Sununu also posted small leads. Ayotte has consistently run ahead of Trump: The Daily Kos Elections polling average, which does not yet factor in these surveys, has her up 46-45, while Trump trails 45-40. If this was just a bad batch for Granite State Democrats, that's one thing, but if the presidential race is really this tight in New Hampshire, Hassan's going to have a tough time pulling off a win.
House
● IA-01: Republican Rep. Rod Blum is out with another poll from the bizarrely-named "the polling company, inc./WomanTrend," and it gives him a 52-41 lead over Democrat Monica Vernon; presidential numbers were not included. A month ago, the polling company, which is run by Donald Trump's campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, had Blum up 52-36, while Hillary Clinton led 39-37 in this Cedar Rapids seat.
The last Democratic poll we saw was a mid-October survey that had Vernon up 48-47. Both parties are continuing to spend heavily here, so it seems unlikely that they think that Blum is leading by this much, though Vernon hardly seems to be in the driver's seat. Obama won 56-43 here in 2012, but it's unlikely that Hillary Clinton will match that unless the Iowa polls are very off. In any case, we won't need to wait very long to see if this survey is right.
● MN-02: Democrat Angie Craig is out with a GBA Strategies poll giving her a 45-40 lead over Republican Jason Lewis, with Independence Party nominee Paula Overby at 9; the sample gives Hillary Clinton a 43-38 edge in this suburban Twin Cities seat. An early October Craig poll had her up by a similar 46-42 margin, while Lewis' survey from around that time had him up 36-33. The only independent survey we've seen, a mid-October SurveyUSA poll, had Craig up 46-41, though Overby wasn't included.
● NH-01: Carpetbagging rich guy Shawn O'Connor proved himself a clown long ago; now he's just demonstrating that he's a total schmuck. Earlier this year, after O'Connor received an understandably less-than-warm welcome from Granite State Democrats, he abandoned his bid for the party's nomination in New Hampshire's 1st Congressional District and decided the best way to prove his progressive bona fides would be to run as an independent and thus undermine the chances of the real liberal in the race, ex-Rep. Carol Shea-Porter.
On his way out the door, O'Connor went berserk, threatening to sue Shea-Porter for defamation and claiming that some state senator had alleged that O'Connor "had planned to purchase and place rats in the kitchen" of a restaurant owned by a prominent local Democrat. You can see why the locals loved him so much.
So it's no surprise that O'Connor, who's been polling in the low double-digits, has ramped up his bizarre and offensive behavior, calling the progressive pro-Israel group J Street a "pro-Iranian lobby" and demanding that Shea-Porter return donations the organization has bundled for her over the years. He's even running a TV ad saying that Shea-Porter has taken "$140,000 from a lobbying organization that supports Iran, a state sponsor of terrorism which funds ISIS." That sounds even worse than many Republican ads we've seen.
But what makes this truly obnoxious, though, is that last year, back when he was still a Democrat, O'Connor traveled to J Street's offices in D.C. and sought the group's endorsement! For him to turn around now and tell rank lies about an organization whose support he tried to earn is truly craven. J Street ultimately endorsed Shea-Porter in her race against GOP Rep. Frank Guinta, and fortunately, Democrats and Republicans alike seem to think her odds of victory are strong. But that's no thanks to O'Connor, and with any luck, we'll never hear from him again after Tuesday.
● NY-01: Siena returns to this Long Island seat, and the news is not remotely encouraging. They give Republican Rep. Lee Zeldin a 57-36 lead over Democrat Anna Throne-Holst, up from 53-38 a month ago. While Obama narrowly carried this district, Siena has Donald Trump crushing 51-38, a big improvement from his 43-40 edge on early October. Even if Siena's sample is too red, that's still a huge hole for Throne-Holst to climb out of.
There has been some outside spending, so at least national groups aren't acting like this is over. National Democrats have spent a combined $703,000, while the Congressional Leadership Fund has deployed $545,000 over the course of this campaign for Zeldin. However, those sums don't go so far in the ultra expensive New York City media market as they would in many other contests, so no one is exactly saturating the airwaves. (For the sake of comparison, national Democrats have spent a total of $2.5 million in NJ-05, which is also located entirely in the New York City market.) We'll find out where this race stands soon, but Team Blue definitely has reasons to be pessimistic here.
The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, and Stephen Wolf, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Daniel Donner, and James Lambert.