Leading Off:
● PA-Sen: The polling out of Pennsylvania has been good for both Hillary Clinton and Katie McGinty lately. Susquehanna, a Republican pollster, finds McGinty leading GOP Sen. Pat Toomey 42-40 and also has Clinton on top of Donald Trump, 46-37. Those spreads are both a little more optimistic than what we see in HuffPo's averages for either the Senate or the presidency, but this is now also the fourth poll out of six taken in the last month that have McGinty ahead.
The fifth was a PPP survey that had Toomey up just 1, and the sixth, for what it's worth, was a strange outlier from Quinnipiac that gave Toomey a 10-point lead. (Quinnipiac also acknowledged in a new Washington Post piece that when it releases eye-catching polls, they generate headlines that in turn help juice student recruitment.)
Meanwhile, McGinty has released her second ad of the general election, an unmemorable positive spot in which she presents herself as representing the interests of ordinary Pennsylvanians.
Senate:
● GA-Sen: JMC Analytics, a Republican pollster, sparked a ton of chatter on Monday with a new survey that gave Hillary Clinton a remarkable 44-37 lead on Donald Trump in Georgia. But while this is the third poll in a row to show Clinton either tied or leading, it's a bit perplexing that GOP Sen. Johnny Isakson still has a wide 39-30 lead on his Democratic challenger, businessman Jim Barksdale, with Libertarian Allen Buckley at 4.
Still, despite the margin, the raw numbers aren't particularly good for Isakson, who has been in office since 2004 but has clocked in under the 50 percent mark in all four public polls conducted this year. Clinton hasn't yet expanded her campaign to Georgia, but if she does, Isakson could be in for a much tougher race than he bargained for.
● IL-Sen: On Monday, Democratic Rep. Tammy Duckworth released a poll of the Illinois Senate race, courtesy of Normington Petts, that shows her with a 44-37 lead on GOP Sen. Mark Kirk. Duckworth's memo also includes some previously unreleased trendlines from July that gave her a much slimmer 40-38 edge. Interestingly, those earlier numbers weren't too different from a Kirk poll conducted around the same time that found him ahead 42-40, but even those numbers were not particularly auspicious for a Republican incumbent running in a hostile state.
And hostile it is: Duckworth's poll also finds Hillary Clinton beating Donald Trump 51-32, which it says is unchanged from last month. That, argues Duckworth, shows that Clinton hasn't experienced any kind of post-convention bounce in Illinois, meaning Duckworth's increase in strength has been independent of the top of the ticket. And even Kirk's poll didn't really disagree, giving Clinton a 46-33 lead. Frustratingly, this race almost never gets polled—that's what happens when you're not running in a swing state—but combining these numbers with the lack of ad reservations from Republican group's on Kirk's behalf confirms the GOP faces serious headwinds here.
● NV-Sen: A new trio of YouGov presidential polls also included some numbers on Nevada's Senate race, which show GOP Rep. Joe Heck leading former state Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto, his Democratic opponent, 38-35. That's a lot of undecideds, of course, but even more notable is Hillary Clinton's relatively soft performance: She edges Donald Trump just 43 to 41. That's actually not out of line with what we've seen in Nevada generally, but there has been minimal polling overall in the Silver State, and few surveys have been high-quality. One possibility is that pollsters are having trouble reaching Spanish speakers (Nevada has the fifth-highest Hispanic population in the country), but that hasn't prevented Clinton from racking up strong results in Latino-heavy states like Florida and Arizona.
Gubernatorial:
● WV-Gov: Even though the RGA and Republican Bill Cole have spent heavily of late on negative ads, Democrat Jim Justice has produced a new poll from Global Strategy Group showing his lead is undiminished. The survey finds Justice up 47-37, which is very similar to the 44-32 margin we saw when GSG last went into the field in West Virginia way back in December. The difference now is that Justice is closing in on the 50 percent mark, which would represent a remarkable act of political death-defiance in a state that has trended so implacably Republican at the federal level.
But what's really interesting is that we've now seen eight polls of this race dating back a year, and every single one of them has had Justice out in front. His latest internal didn't include any presidential numbers, but we know that Hillary Clinton is getting crushed (a PPP poll from May had Donald Trump ahead 57-30), so it's all the more notable that Republicans haven't been able to squeeze out a single survey with Cole ahead.
House:
● CA-46: Former state Sen. Lou Correa has long been the favorite to succeed Rep. Loretta Sanchez in the House, and now he's earned Sanchez's own blessing. Correa faces fellow Garden Grove Mayor Bao Nguyen, a fellow Democrats, in the November general election; Correa led the way in June's top-two primary by a sizable 44-15 margin.
● FL-10: Former state Democratic Party chair Bob Poe, like many wealthy candidates, tries to make a virtue of self-funding in his latest TV ad. Says Poe, "We know special interest money controls Congress, and nothing will change as long as they're in control. That's why I'm funding my own campaign. I'm Bob Poe—I don't owe the special interests anything." Framed this way, though, it sounds like he's suggesting we stock Congress with multi-millionaires. A recent poll from the DCCC gave the committee's favored candidate, former Orlando police chief Val Demings, a wide 48-18 lead on Poe in the Aug. 30 primary.
● ME-02: The liberal group End Citizens United says it will go on the air later this month to help Democrat Emily Cain, who is hoping to unseat freshman GOP Rep. Bruce Poliquin. The ad is not available yet, but ECU says the buy is for "more than $200,000" and will run for a week.
● WA-07: While some votes still remain to be counted, the latest ballot dump on Friday in Washington's dark blue 7th Congressional District increased state Rep. Brady Walkinshaw's lead over King County Councilman Joe McDermott for the second spot in the top-two primary, prompting McDermott to concede the race. McDermott congratulated both Walkinshaw and state Sen. Pramila Jayapal, the first-place finisher, but did not issue an endorsement. (All three are Democrats.) As of Monday afternoon, Jayapal's share of the vote stood at 41.9 percent while Walkinshaw was at 21.2 and McDermott, who is no relation to retiring Rep. Jim McDermott, was at 19.3.
Grab Bag:
● International: This year's presidential election has been completely bonkers, but if you want to see some real chaos, head across the Atlantic to the U.K., where the British are still feeling the aftershocks of June's vote in favor of "Brexit." Both of the country's two largest political parties have experienced serious leadership crises, but while the Tories resolved theirs quickly, for Labour, the row is far from over. Check out the August edition of the Daily Kos International Elections Digest for a full run-down, as well as updates on elections in Germany, Japan, Australia and more. And if you aren't currently subscribed to the Digest, sign up here today.
● Primaries: On Tuesday, voters in Connecticut, Minnesota, Vermont, and Wisconsin will cast ballots for their state's downballot primaries, and Jeff Singer has put together a preview of all the key races. One of the top contests to watch is in Minnesota's 2nd Congressional District, where Republicans are on the verge of nominating a racist, misogynist radio host who'd be a very poor fit (to say the least) for this open suburban swing seat. Check out our roundup for the full rundown, and join us at Daily Kos Elections starting at 7 PM ET for our liveblog.
The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir and Jeff Singer, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Daniel Donner, James Lambert, and Stephen Wolf.