Leading Off:
● MT-AL, UT-04: Are you a Republican congressional candidate who wants to look like a fantastic fundraiser without actually doing any of that pesky fundraising? Well, I know someone you should talk to. No, it's not that woman at the liquor store who keeps urging you to buy 300 lottery tickets. No, it's not that prince in your spam folder. No, it's not that political consultant who tells you if you plant these three beans and water them daily, they'll eventually sprout into a magic beanstalk that leads directly to an FEC account in the clouds that's already loaded with $3,000,000 for you to spend. And whatever you do, don't talk to New Hampshire GOP Rep. Frank Guinta, who will just say, "Get a loan from your parents!" No, Marco Rubio is the guy to ask!
You see, before Rubio was frustrating everyone from his debate coach to his dentist, he was the clear underdog against Florida Gov. Charlie Crist in the GOP Senate primary. As the Tampa Bay Times' Adam Smith explains in a great 2010 article, in the summer of 2009, Rubio resisted calls to just get out of Crist's way and run for attorney general, but his stubbornness could only take him so far. Rubio had only raised $340,000 from April to June, and he knew if he turned in another weak quarter, he'd lose any hope of looking like a viable candidate.
So Rubio took a big risk on direct mail to temporarily augment his fundraising. Direct mail brings in tons of money from small donors, but it costs so much to implement that candidates end up netting very little moola. Rubio and his team knew full well that they wouldn't be keeping most of his cash, but that wasn't the point: By turning in an eye-popping quarter, Rubio could draw lots of attention and endorsements from Crist-hating Republicans, who would send money to him that he could actually use later.
And it worked like a charm. In October, Rubio reported that he'd raised $1 million for the quarter. The well-funded Club for Growth quickly endorsed him and suddenly, Rubio's once-hopeless campaign had momentum. People eventually found out that Rubio had burned through most of the cash that he'd brought in, but by then, it didn't matter. As one of Rubio's advisors later put it, his direct mail stunt "was one-third confidence in our long-term prospects, one-third rolling of the dice, and one-third smoke and mirrors."
For all of Rubio's problems in 2016, his 2009 move worked out pretty damn well for him. So it's no surprise to see that some Republican candidates are still utilizing direct mail, even though they undoubtedly know how much it'll cost them.
However, while Montana's Ryan Zinke and Utah's Mia Love used direct mail during their 2014 campaigns, they haven't given it up at all, even though they're now incumbents. During the final three months of 2015, Zinke raised a monster $577,000 but spent $597,000, leaving him with slightly less money in the bank than he had before. Love's in a similar boat: She raised $314,000 but spent $302,000, so she only netted a little bit of cash.
Both Zinke and Love sit in red districts, but each of them face credible Democratic contenders. State Superintendent of Public Instruction Denise Juneau raised $262,000 during her first quarter in the race, and unlike Zinke, she kept most of it. Juneau trails Zinke $744,000 to $240,000, which isn't bad for this early in the race. Montana went for Romney 55-42, but the state still elects Democrats to downballot offices (Democratic Sen. Jon Tester won a tough race in 2012, for example), and it's not out of the realm of possibility that Juneau can pull off a win.
Doug Owens actually came close to beating Love during last year's GOP wave. This time around, the DCCC has named him to their "Red to Blue" program, which promises to help Democratic candidates the committee regards as its strongest recruits in the seats it considers its top priorities. Owens hauled in $350,000, which is actually more than Love, and he only trails her $781,000 to $500,000 in cash on hand. Love won't be easy to unseat, but she's drawn some bad headlines for improperly billing taxpayers for her travels.
Unlike Rubio, Zinke and Love are already in Congress, so why are they still relying on scammy fundraising tactics? It's possible that they just don't care. After all, they won in 2014 while using direct mail, so why shouldn't they keep dancing with the one that brung 'em? Both members may also be hoping to just expand their donor list through direct mail: While they may need to waste a ton now to acquire more donors, they can contact those people later through much cheaper methods. Still, given how little cash Zinke and Love are netting, it doesn't seem like they're doing this right now.
Both members may also hope that, by repeatedly turning in what look like massive quarters, they'll create buzz for future races. Indeed, one Montana political science professor noted that Zinke's "shock and awe" strategy signals he's a serious contender for higher office. Tester is up for re-election in 2018 and if Zinke wants to take him on, raising a lot of money is a good way to do it.
As one of the few women of color in the GOP caucus, Love also gets plenty of attention, and she may want to run in 2018 if Sen. Orrin Hatch retires. (Hatch said in 2012 that this would be his last term, but he's since declined to rule out another campaign.) But even if they win re-election this year, a complacent campaign could lead to a weak victory for either member, which could shatter their future dreams. But one thing's for sure: As long as candidates need to inflate their totals, direct mail companies aren't going out of business.
Senate:
● AL-Sen: Former Marine Jonathan McConnell has all but begged outside groups to come to his aid in his March 1 primary against Sen. Richard Shelby, but no one's rushing to spend money on what looks like a hopeless race. But Shelby's allies aren't hesitating to help the well-funded GOP senator.
Citizens for a Sound Government, which is run by former Senate GOP operatives, has bought $45,000 in TV ads, and they recently spent $413,000 here. The group is actually trying to crowdfund a new pro-Shelby digital ad, which seems like the biggest waste of money since my ill-fated "Give me money so I can take off work to watch the Star Wars Holiday Special" Kickstarter campaign. A similar-sounding group, Citizens Super PAC, has also spent $309,000 on TV and online ads for Shelby. The Citizens is largely funded by coal mining businessman Robert Murray.
● CA-Sen: Six years after rich guy Steve Poizner lost the GOP gubernatorial primary to the even-richer Meg Whitman, Poizner is talking about running statewide again. Poizner, who served one term as state insurance commissioner, didn't say if he wanted to run for something in 2018 or if he's interested in this year's Senate race. If Poizner wants to be on the 2016 ballot, he needs to file by March 16.
● FL-Sen: On Friday, Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid went through the motions of trying to convince Rep. Alan Grayson to drop out of the race. Reid has made it no secret that he prefers Rep. Patrick Murphy to Grayson, so it's not surprising that Reid decided to use a recent New York Times report documenting some of the ugly details about Grayson's hedge fund business as an excuse to throw a few blows at him. Among other things, Reid said that "Grayson claims to be a progressive, but it seems like he has no moral compass."
Reid couldn't have possibility believed that someone as stubborn as Grayson would listen to him, so he couldn't have been too disappointed when Grayson announced that he wasn't going anywhere. Grayson made sure to tag Murphy as a "corrupt establishment errand boy," while accusing Reid of "personally attacking the clear choice of Florida Democrats, making the party into a circular firing squad." The Florida Democratic primary is Aug. 30.
● IN-Sen: On Tuesday, the Indiana Democratic Party announced that they would challenge Republican Rep. Todd Young's ballot petitions at the Feb. 19 state Election Division hearing. According to Hoosier Democrats, Young did not collect enough valid signatures in the state's 1st Congressional District to get on the May primary ballot: Under Indiana law, Senate candidates need 500 valid signatures from each of the nine districts. Young's primary rival, tea partying Rep. Marlin Stutzman, smells blood, and he announced on Friday that he was also challenging Young's place on the ballot. However, the NRSC has come to Young's defense, and they're arguing Team Blue is only "trying to trick the voters of Indiana."
In order for Young to get thrown off the ballot, three of the four Election Commission members need to rule against him. There are two Democrats and two Republicans, so if the challenge breaks down along party lines, Young is safe. Young claims he has enough valid signatures, but it's not clear if he's bluffing. Clerks in the three counties that make up the 1st say they've certified 501 signatures, which would be just enough for Young. However, Indiana Public Broadcasting did an independent count, and they found that Young only had 497 valid petitions in the 1st. Democrats believe that Stutzman would be easier to beat than Young in this conservative state.
This is the second race in a row where the Election Commission needed to rule if a GOP Senate candidate could be on the ballot. In 2012, Sen. Dick Lugar's rivals charged that he hadn't been an Indiana resident in decades. But after state Attorney General Greg Zoeller reaffirmed an old advisory opinion that said otherwise, the Commission ruled unanimously ruled that Lugar was eligible to seek re-election. (Lugar ended up losing his primary.) This is a very different matter and we'll need to wait to see how the Commission members go, though unnamed Republicans tell Howey Politics that they don't think either GOP member will rule against Young.
● MD-Sen: Now that Rep. Elijah Cummings has decided not to run for the Senate, Democratic Rep. Donna Edwards is the only credible African American candidate here. However, the Congressional Black Caucus' PAC declined to endorse her on Thursday, and board members tell Politico that they're unlikely to reconsider.
Politico reports that part of the reason the Edwards doesn't have a good relationship with several members of the Congressional Black Caucus, which led them to spurn her. However, an old rival also showed up to exact some long-awaited vengeance against Edwards. Ex-Democratic Rep. Al Wynn, whom Edwards unseated in 2008, argued that because a number of prominent Maryland African American politicians are supporting her primary rival Chris Van Hollen, the CBC shouldn't interfere. According to one Democratic lawmaker who was at the meeting, "The room accepted this as reasonable. It is premature to weigh in when black leadership is heavily leaning toward Van Hollen."
Edwards is relying on heavy black support to help her overcome Van Hollen's huge financial edge in the April primary. The CBC PAC could have given her a boost: PAC board members often stump for endorsed candidates and encourage black church goers to back them. However, if Van Hollen's African American allies help him make enough inroads with black voters, it's going to be very hard for Edwards to overcome her financial deficit.
● NV-Sen: Hey look, Sharron Angle is talking about running for the Senate again! The Nevada filing deadline is March 18.
● PA-Sen: If Katie McGinty doesn't win the April Democratic primary, it won't be because she lacked labor support. The Philadelphia Building & Construction Trades Council, which includes 40 Philadelphia unions, has endorsed McGinty. The group's business manager is John Dougherty, whom PoliticsPA calls "perhaps the most powerful union leader in the commonwealth." McGinty, who used to serve as Gov. Tom Wolf's chief of staff, faces 2010 nominee Joe Sestak and Braddock Mayor John Fetterman for the right to take on Republican Sen. Pat Toomey. Sestak has more money than McGinty, but she has the support of influential state and local Democrats; Fetterman has struggled to raise cash.
House:
● AZ-01: So far, this has not been the best campaign for Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu. Most seriously, an old video surfaced proving that, despite Babeu's protests to the contrary, he knew about the abusive practices that happened under his watch while he served as a school headmaster. Babeu's campaign for the GOP nod also doesn't seem to be firing on all cylinders: Babeu filed his statement of candidacy with the FEC three months late, and he repeatedly filed to run in the wrong district. But Babeu's fundraising has been going well at least. Babeu raised $308,000 during the final quarter, and he had $250,000 on hand on Dec. 31.
The good news for Babeu is that he has more money than two of his three major primary rivals. State House Speaker David Gowan only has $158,000 in the bank: Very little of Gowan's legislative district is in the 1st so if he doesn't have the money to get his name out, he'll have a tough time winning. Ex-Secretary of State Ken Bennett, who ran for governor last cycle, had $170,000 on hand. However, rancher Gary Kiehne has been largely self-financing his bid, and he had $529,000 available. Kiehne came very close to winning the 2014 primary and given Babeu's problems and Bennett and Gowan's relative lack of funds, he may be able to pull it off this time. Another candidate, 2014 9th District nominee Wendy Rogers, entered the race last month.
The winner is likely to face Tom O'Halleran, a former Republican state senator who recently joined the Democratic Party. Romney only carried this seat 50-48 but O'Halleran's own fundraising has been pretty bad: At the end of the year, he had just $172,000 in the bank. The DCCC notably passed O'Halleran over for their "Red to Blue" program and instead listed him in the second-tier "Emerging Races," a good indication that, while they think he can win, they're not happy with how his campaign is progressing so far.
● IA-02: While Democratic Rep. Dave Loebsack has struggled in midterm years, he's won this 56-43 Obama seat with ease in presidential cycles. It doesn't look like 2016 will be any different: While Republican state Sen. Mark Chelgren kicked off his campaign in early October, he didn't report raising any money during the next three months. In any case, Chelgren is probably too extreme to win here without a massive GOP wave.
● IL-15: The Club for Growth recently launched a TV spot to help state Sen. Kyle McCarter's cash-strapped GOP primary campaign against Rep. John Shimkus, and we now have an idea of the size of the buy. According to The News-Gazette, the Club has spent about $275,000 so far, which is a bit less than the $400,000 it recently dropped in two other seats. Shimkus has a huge financial edge over McCarter, and an unanswered poll gave the congressman a 65-13 lead, so McCarter is going to need a lot more help from the Club if he wants to pull off an upset on March 15.
● NH-02: GOP state Rep. Jack Flanagan has expressed interest in challenging Democratic Rep. Annie Kuster, and he stepped down as majority leader a few months ago to prepare for a bid. Flanagan hasn't announced that he's in yet, but WMUR reports that he will kick off his campaign in early March. Obama carried this seat 54-45 and Kuster is a very strong fundraiser, so Flanagan will have his work cut out for him.
● NJ-09: Democratic Rep. Bill Pascrell may face a challenge from a well-known North Jersey politician, but it doesn't sound like he'll be sweating bullets over it. Former Paterson Mayor Jeffery Jones has been a rival of Pascrell's for decades, and there's been some recent speculation that Jones will challenge the congressman this year. Jones himself only said "no comment" when asked about his plans, and sources close to him told Paterson Press that Jones will announce what he's doing sometime in the next few weeks.
Jones won the mayor's office in 2010 after being badly outspent, but he took fourth place during his re-election campaign four years later. Residents were frustrated with Jones' response to a snowstorm and by a controversy over his cabinet's overtime pay, and Pascrell and his allies mobilized against him. By contrast, Pascrell decisively won a competitive 2012 Democratic primary against fellow Rep. Steve Rothman, and he carried Patterson's Passaic County with 90 percent of the vote. Pascrell is almost 80, but his campaign is collecting petitions to get him on the ballot. It's not clear if Jones plans to challenge Pascrell in the Democratic primary or in the general as a Republican or an independent. Obama won this seat 68-31.
● NY-05: Back in December, state Sen. James Sanders set up a campaign account to challenge Rep. Gregory Meeks in the primary for this safely blue Queens seat, but he never announced he was in. And now, he may never get the chance: Citing a source close to Sanders, the Queens Chronicle reports that the senator was recently interviewed by the FBI "regarding the senator's allocation of discretionary city funding when he was a councilman." A couple also recently told the New York Post that Sanders wanted kickbacks in exchange for funding their non-profit, an accusation Sanders denies.
● NY-22: On Thursday, businessman Steve Wells kicked off his bid for the GOP nod. Wells serves as the state GOP's upstate regional finance chair, so it sounds like he has some good connections, and the Madison County Republican Committee immediately endorsed him. Wells runs American Food and Vending Corp., which Syracuse.com describes as "one of the nation's fastest-growing food service companies," so he may have the ability to self-fund if he wants to. However, primary rival Claudia Tenney, a conservative assemblywoman, wasted little time attacking Wells' Republican bona fides, arguing that he'd donated thousands to Democrats. Democrats haven't had much luck finding a good candidate here, though Broome County Legislator Kim Myers hasn't said no yet.
Wells will face Tenney and former Broome County Legislator George Phillips in the GOP primary. Neither Tenney nor Phillips are exactly ideal candidates for an open seat that Romney only narrowly won: Tenney is a tea partier and Phillips hasn't had much electoral success. But if Republicans still aren't happy with their choices, they may be stuck. On Friday, ex-state Sen. and 2006 nominee Ray Meier announced that he would not run. Ex-UN Food Director Catherine Bertini expressed interest in this open seat a little while ago, but she's been quiet about her plans.
● TX-29: The state AFL-CIO has throw its support behind Rep. Gene Green, who faces a challenge from ex-Harris County Sheriff Adrian Garcia in the March 1 Democratic primary. While Garcia is hoping that the seat's overwhelmingly Hispanic electorate will choose him over Green (Garcia is Latino and Green is Caucasian), prominent local and national Hispanic legislators have endorsed Green, and the incumbent has a huge financial edge.
Grab Bag:
● Demographics: Pew Research issued a remarkably thorough study several months ago showing that the American middle class has slowly shrunk over the decades since 1970 (though with one caveat that's sort of good news: more people moved up than down in that period). They did break the changes down across occupations, but there was one glaring omission. Pew didn't seem to factor in the great economic variation from place to place in the United States, and that the economy has gotten much spikier than it used to be (i.e. an increasingly large disparity between thriving metropolitan areas and dwindling rural areas).
Pew has now released some additional data, looking at the changes at the state level. Unfortunately (probably hampered by limited data from older Censuses), they only cover the period between 2000 and 2014, but even in that limited time frame, the pattern still clearly exists. Only Hawaii saw its middle class (defined as households making between two-third and two times the inflation-adjusted median income, taking household size into account) grow in that period, while it shrank in 49 states.
The sort-of-good news, if you disregard the harm to the broader economy that's caused by the shrinking consumer purchasing power associated with increasing economic inequality, is that in 42 states, more people moved up into the upper tier than down into the lower tier. The states where that didn't happen were Alaska, Delaware, Idaho, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming.
Undercutting that positive news, though, is that in all but four states (essentially the states that saw the fracking boom: North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Wyoming), the inflation-adjusted median income went down in that same period from 2000 to 2014. However, it's worth noting that real income hasn't fallen much since 2000. And also, 2000 is a bit of an anomaly, basically the economy's all-time high-water mark at the tail end of the 1990s economic expansion, so using that as a starting point instead of 1970 like in the larger study distorts the impact.
The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir and Jeff Singer, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Daniel Donner, and Stephen Wolf.