The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, Stephen Wolf, and Carolyn Fiddler, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Daniel Donner, James Lambert, David Beard, and Arjun Jaikumar.
Leading Off
● TN-02: State Rep. Jimmy Matlock recently went up with a spot ahead of the Aug. 2 GOP primary taking Knox County Mayor Tim Burchett to task for a critical 2005 vote from his time in the state Senate to keep chamber's longtime Democratic leader in charge even though the GOP had just won a one-seat majority.
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The 15-second commercial doesn't go into much detail about this long-ago incident, though. Instead, a newspaper clipping flashes by saying that Republicans were angry at Burchett for denying them the Senate speaker's position as the narrator also relays that then-state Sen. Burchett voted to put Democrats in charge. He then asks if Burchett would "vote to put Nancy Pelosi in charge, too?"
Matlock also recently rolled out a closing ad starring retiring Rep. Jimmy Duncan. Duncan, who has represented this seat since 1988, tells the audience that Matlock "is one of the finest men I've ever known," and the narrator proclaims that Matlock is a businessman who will stand with Trump.
Burchett and Matlock are two of four noteworthy candidates competing for this safely red Knoxville seat, and while there is no polling to speak of, Roll Call's Simone Pathé writes that insiders believe that they're the frontrunners. Burchett's Knox County base makes up just over 60 percent of this seat, but Duncan's support could be helping Matlock make up ground.
From July 1 to July 13 (which the FEC defines as the pre-primary period), Matlock also outspent Burchett by a wide $203,000 to $88,000 margin. Matlock owns an eponymous tire business as well, and his campaign told Roll Call that they think his company and their ads have helped him in the campaign; one of Matlock's ads even began with a man exclaiming that he's "the tire guy!"
The other two candidates to watch next week are businessman Jason Emert and Tennessee Air National Guard Lt. Col. Ashley Nickloes. Emert, who also serves as chair of the Young Republicans National Federation, spent $102,000 during the pre-primary period. Nickloes, who was deployed in the Middle East until April, spent just $52,000, but a group close to the GOP establishment called the Republican Main Street Partnership has spent $100,000 on ads to support her.
Senate
● FL-Sen: The Democratic group Majority Forward is unloading $2.7 million on TV ads opposing Republican Gov. Rick Scott in Florida's Senate race. Their commercial calls him out for vetoing "$200 million in healthcare funds" and cutting funding for seniors' home health care, children's vaccinations, rural hospitals, and treatment for opioid addiction. They hit Scott for instead supporting tax cuts for corporations and the rich.
● ND-Sen, NV-Sen: The conservative group One Nation has launched an ad that attacks Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp for supposedly voting against the interests of veterans. However, as Josh Israel astutely noted at ThinkProgress, Republicans are relying on Heitkamp's votes against short-term funding resolutions in 2016, even though they've been running ads praising Nevada GOP Sen. Dean Heller for his work on behalf of veterans despite him having cast the exact same votes as Heitkamp against those funding measures, making their context-free attack against Heitkamp look phony.
Meanwhile, the NRSC has gone up with another ad that ties Heitkamp to Hillary Clinton. The spot again uses a 2015 clip where Heitkamp praised Clinton during her presidential campaign, and it follows up by showing a segment where Clinton is defending so-called "sanctuary cities” to argue Heitkamp is in favor of them, too.
● NV-Sen: GOP Sen. Dean Heller is out with his first TV spot for the general election, which features several veterans praising him for standing up for them.
● WI-Sen: Restoration PAC is returning to Wisconsin to put $750,000 behind a TV ad buy to boost businessman Kevin Nicholson in next month's Republican primary. Their latest spot hails him as a "combat veteran, outsider businessman, a family man, [and] a conservative."
● WV-Sen: The Mitch McConnell-aligned One Nation is going back up on TV to support Republican state Attorney General Patrick Morrisey's campaign against Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin after unexpectedly cancelling a $750,000 ad buy last week. Politico's Alex Isenstadt reports that they're planning to spend $2.4 million in August.
Meanwhile, Senate Majority PAC is spending $350,000 to go after Morrisey. Their latest ad once again uses footage of a CBS News interview where Morrisey visibly squirms when confronted with how his wife's firm made $1.5 million lobbying for a pharmaceutical company that Morrisey awarded with a lucrative state contract, all while West Virginia struggled with the opioid overdose epidemic.
Gubernatorial
● FL-Gov: With just a month to go until the Democratic primary, Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum is finally making his first TV ad buy, which is for $60,000 on cable. The energetic spot features Gillum introducing himself as the son of a bus driver who went on to become mayor. Gillum touts how he took on the NRA, and he proposes investing $1 billion in education and passing Medicare-for-All.
Meanwhile, former Miami Beach Mayor Philip Levine is putting $1.5 million behind a new TV ad where he is on a boat in an algae-infested waterway. Levine bemoans how Tallahassee Republicans "have ignored our environment, short-changed our schools, and endangered lives." He points to his record as mayor, where he helped raise the minimum wage, ban assault weapons, and protect the environment.
On the Republican side, state Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam has launched a new ad that goes after Republican Rep. Ron DeSantis on taxes. Amusingly, Putnam tries to portray DeSantis as a scary libruhl for wanting a 23 percent sales taxes that would massively raise taxes on the working class. While Putnam doesn't mention it by name, the policy DeSantis supported is a so-called "flat tax" that would eliminate the income tax and other progressive taxes by replacing them with a single national sales tax rate, a deeply regressive policy that's actually associated with right-wing hardliners.
● GA-Gov: On Tuesday, not long before the polls closed in the GOP primary runoff, the RGA launched their first TV ad against Democrat Stacey Abrams.
The narrator declares that Abrams is "the most radical liberal to ever run for governor," and is "a career politician funded by Nancy Pelosi's liberal California friends." The spot then features a clip of Hillary Clinton saying she's "thrilled" Abrams won the nomination and "looks forward to supporting her," before the narrator goes back to saying Abrams "wants you to pay more in taxes" to support her "liberal, big government ideas."
● HI-Gov: A super PAC called Be Change Now, which is backed by the Hawaii Regional Council of Carpenters, is up with a spot against Gov. David Ige ahead of the Aug. 11 Democratic primary.
The commercial features a recording of the false missile alert that went out in January, as well as news reports about the incident, and it features a dramatization of someone trying to log into Ige's Twitter account but not remembering the password. The narrator then declares that it took Ige 38 minutes to tell residents that the warning was bogus, and his excuse was "he forgot his Twitter password." (Yes, that's actually what the governor said.) The spot then implores the audience not to forget to vote.
According to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, Be Change Now is spending at a total of at least $367,000 against Ige or to aid Rep. Colleen Hanabusa in the primary.
● IL-Gov: Victory Research: J.B. Pritzker (D): 45, Bruce Rauner (R-inc): 30, Sam McCann (Con): 5, Kash Jackson (Lib): 2 (May: 47-32 Pritzker)
● OK-Gov: Businessman Kevin Stitt is up with his first ad ahead of his Aug. 28 GOP primary runoff against former Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett. The spot features his wife extolling Stitt's faith and business background, adding, "Today we have six children, so yes, we're pro-life."
● WI-Gov: Democrat Matt Flynn has found himself in hot water over his reaction to the backlash against last month's revelations that Flynn, when he was an attorney for the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, had "played a central role" in shielding priests who had sexually abused children from prosecution. At a recent news conference, Flynn lashed out at those calling on him to drop out of the race as being part of the "victimology elite," and he bemoaned how supposed "identity politics" by elite Democrats had driven people to vote for Trump.
Flynn has so far stubbornly stayed in the race, and his major Democratic rivals have yet to urge him to quit. However, this story staying in the news can't possibly be doing his campaign any good ahead of next month's primary.
House
● CA-04: EMILY's List has endorsed Jessica Morse's campaign against GOP Rep. Tom McClintock. Morse faces a tough race in a seat that backed Trump 54-39, but she's been a good fundraiser. At the end of June, McClintock held just a $671,000 to $536,000 cash-on-hand lead over Morse, who went through a competitive primary in early June.
● CA-24: Republican Justin Fareed is out with a poll from Olive Tree Strategies giving freshman Democratic Rep. Salud Carbajal just a 47-46 lead in their rematch for this Santa Barbara-based seat. In 2016, Fareed held Carbajal to a modest 53-47 win even as this district was moving from 54-41 Obama to 57-36 Clinton, but it seems very unlikely that Carbajal would be in much danger now that he's the incumbent and Team Red is facing a tough political climate.
Carbajal also outpaced Fareed and another Republican 54-46 in the June top-two primary, so it doesn't feel like he's in imminent danger, despite what this poll suggests. Carbajal also ended June with a hefty $1.56 million to $246,000 cash-on-hand edge over Fareed.
● FL-17: In a strange move, state Rep. Julio Gonzalez joined forces this week with longshot candidate Bill Akins to question state Sen. Greg Steube's military record at a rally to protest Steube's participation at a Concerned Veterans for America town hall. Retiring Rep. Tom Rooney, who has not taken sides in the Aug. 28 GOP primary to succeed him, was not happy, and he told the Sarasota Herald-Tribune he was "really disappointed in Julio for participating in this thing with Mr. Akins—I think it's totally beneath him to do this."
Steube served in the Judge Advocate General branch in Iraq, and he was ultimately charged both with deciding what to do with captured terrorists who had attacked soldiers as well as in planning operations to capture and interrogate insurgents. Steube told the paper that, while he never said he had been awarded a combat badge, he was consistently "in harm's way." His certificate of release also says that he served in a designated imminent-danger pay area.
Gonzalez, who served as a flight surgeon aboard a Navy ship, was not convinced. He argued that Steube falsely described himself as a combat veteran several times. Gonzalez pointed to an article from Steube's 2016 run for the state Senate where he argued that his time as a combat veteran was one of the reasons he was most qualified candidate.
Akins, who served in Vietnam, organized a demonstration this week in front of a townhall organized by the Concerned Veterans for America, a member of the Koch brothers' political network, that Steube was speaking at. Gonzalez told the paper he'd helped Akins organize the event in response to several complaints he'd received from veterans about Steube.
Rooney was not happy with the protest and told the paper, "Greg got (an) Iraq campaign ribbon, got combat pay, and has a combat fitness report. I think most people would agree he served in combat." He also expressed his displeasure with what both Akins and Gonzalez were doing.
● KS-03: Attorney Sharice Davids is up with what we believe is her first TV ad ahead of the crowded Aug. 7 Democratic primary, although EMILY's List began running spots for her earlier this month. Davids’ commercial features her describing her humble origins and how opportunity took her "[f]rom a waitress to the White House" as an Obama fellow, but that too many don't have opportunity anymore.
Meanwhile, GOP Rep. Kevin Yoder is also going up with his first ad. Yoder talks about growing up on a farm and working through college and declares, "If we're willing to overlook our partisan differences, we can remove barriers to success."
● KY-06: GOP Rep. Andy Barr is going up with his first TV spot. The minute-long ad features Barr's wife telling his two young daughters how he was "born and raised in Central Kentucky" before she rattles off a loooonnnngggg list of places and events in the district that he's visited.
● OH-12: Democratic groups House Majority PAC, Priorities USA, and For Our Future are putting $140,000 behind a joint digital ad and field effort ahead of the Aug. 7 special election. Their digital commercial blasts Republican Troy Balderson for favoring a $2 trillion tax cut for the rich that would be paid for by raising taxes on the middle class and increasing health insurance premiums for middle-aged adults who aren't yet old enough for Medicare.
Meanwhile, the NRCC really tries to make fetch happen with an ad tying Democrat Danny O'Connor to former Gov. Ted Strickland. The GOP dusts off the playbook they successfully used against Strickland during his 2016 Senate campaign by reminding the audience of all the economic problems (with a few inaccuracies about the state's budget thrown in) that Ohio went through during his governorship without mentioning that he was in charge during the height of the global Great Recession.
And how do they connect O'Connor, who was in college at the time, to Strickland? The narrator declares that O'Connor "endorsed failed Gov. Ted Strickland," before she spends most of the rest of the commercial attacking the former governor.
Grab Bag
● Deaths: New York Republican Guy Molinari, a longtime powerbroker in the fractious world of Staten Island politics who once served as the area's congressman and borough president, died Wednesday at the age of 89.
Molinari was a mentor to several prominent local Republicans, including Reps. Susan Molinari (his daughter and successor), Vito Fossella and Mike Grimm. He also was a longtime ally to James Molinaro, his successor as borough president. However, the two temporarily fell out when Molinaro opposed Dan Donovan, who was close to Molinari, as district attorney. Molinari and now-Rep. Donovan ended up on opposite sides this year when Molinari defied most of the Staten Island GOP establishment and backed Grimm's unsuccessful primary bid against Donovan. (Update: This item originally said that Molinari opposed Donovan for district attorney.)
Molinari ran a formidable machine on Staten Island, though he made his share of enemies during his decades in local, state, and national politics. Perhaps most infamously, he generated headlines in 1994 when he declared that Karen Burstein, the Democratic nominee for attorney general, was unfit to serve because she was a lesbian. Molinari's allies, including gubernatorial nominee George Pataki, distanced themselves from his comments, but Burstein ended up narrowly losing weeks later.
Primary Recap
● GA-06: Prominent gun safety activist Lucy McBath won Tuesday's Democratic primary runoff by defeating businessman Kevin Abel 54-46. McBath will take on GOP Rep. Karen Handel in a very highly educated suburban Atlanta seat that moved from 61-37 Romney to 48-47 Trump.
Last year, Handell won the closely watched special election for this seat 52-48 in what was the most expensive House race in American history. So far, neither national party has made any ad reservations in the Atlanta media market, and Daily Kos Elections rates the general election for this historically red seat as Likely Republican. Handell also held a wide $1 million to $151,000 cash-on-hand lead over McBath at the start of July.
However, McBath, who got involved in gun safety efforts after her 17-year-old son was murdered by a gunman in 2012, does have some prominent allies. Everytown For Gun Safety, a group founded by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, aired TV ads for McBath during the May primary, and if they spend on her in the fall, they could give her a lift. McBath, who previously worked for decades as a flight attendant for Delta Air Lines, has also criticized the GOP-led state government for punishing the company after it severed ties with the NRA, an issue that Team Blue is hoping will resonate in the suburbs.
● GA-07: Georgia State University professor Carolyn Bourdeaux beat businessman David Kim 52-48 in the Democratic runoff to face GOP Rep. Rob Woodall. This diverse suburban Atlanta seat, which is centered around Gwinnett County to the northeast of the city, moved from 60-38 Romney to a smaller 51-45 Trump.
So far, neither national party has made ad reservations here, and Daily Kos Elections rates the general as Likely Republican. Woodall also began July with a wide $529,000 to $98,000 cash-on-hand lead over Bourdeaux. However, Bourdeaux has been a strong fundraiser, and if she can replenish her war chest now that she's won the nomination, she'll have the resources to give the four-term incumbent his first serious challenge ever.
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