www.cookpolitical.com/…
Cook’s Political Report shifted five Republican held districts, four announced today and one yesterday. Florida CD-26 has been moved from tossup to lean Republican, but the others are all in favor of Democratic candidates, including three new tossups, CA CD-45, NC CD-9, and NJ CD-3 (announced by David Wasserman yesterday).
Pennsylvania CD-10 was also moved from likely Republican to Lean Republican.
Cook’s Report currently has 27 Republican districts in the tossup category in addition to 10 Republican districts that are lean Democrat or better. For comparison, only three Democratic districts are tossups or worse.
CA-45: Walters | Lean R to Toss Up ←
FL-26: Curbelo | Toss Up to Lean R →
NJ-03: MacArthur | Lean R to Toss Up ←
NC-09: OPEN (Pittenger) | Lean R to Toss Up ←
PA-10: Perry | Likely R to Lean R ←
But Cook’s has better news for a few Republican incumbents that have districts that voted for Clinton in 2016.
On the bright side for Republicans, a handful of their battle-tested incumbents appear to be defying the "blue wave" in Democratic-leaning seats. Recent campaign polling shows Reps. David Valadao (CA-21), Carlos Curbelo (FL-26), John Katko (NY-24) and Will Hurd (TX-23) with impressive initial leads in districts Hillary Clinton carried. This week, Curbelo moves from Toss Up to Lean Republican.
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Kansan Governor’s Race Moved to Tossup
Cook’s Political Report has moved the race for Kansas Governor to tossup after Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach cinched his nomination for the Republican primary.
State Senator Laura Kelly won the Democratic primary last week and will face Kobach as well as independent Greg Orman, a businessman running as an independent.
The rating of the race was moved from likely Republican to tossup because of Kobach’s win.
Kobach has long been a vocal supporter of former Gov. Sam Brownback and his policies. Brownback was very unpopular when he left office this spring and many voters now oppose the deep tax cuts that led to steep reductions in funding for education and other government services. Kobach is also a close ally of President Trump, who endorsed him in the primary. In a pre-primary poll of likely Republican primary voters, Trump’s job approval rating was just 69 percent, which is lower than it should be. Trump had appointed Kobach to be the vice chairman of his now defunct Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, which collapsed under the weight of controversy. All this provides Democrats with ample fodder to wield against Kobach.
While Orman could siphon votes away from Kelly, he is also likely to win over some Republican votes, especially from Colyer supporters looking for an alternative to Kobach. Three-way races are complicated equations. In a state as Republican as Kansas, the GOP nominee would normally be at least a slight favorite, but Kobach is controversial enough to put this race in the Toss Up column.
www.cookpolitical.com/…
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More analysis and news.
From TPM: Scott Walker facing toughest race: talkingpointsmemo.com/…
From Washington Post: This is how a wave builds: www.washingtonpost.com/…
From Huffington Post: Trump wreaking havoc on GOP Governors’ primaries: www.huffingtonpost.com/…
CNN: Democrats Lead Generic Vote by 11%: www.cnn.com/…
Quinnipiac Poll: Democrats have 9% advantage in generic poll: poll.qu.edu/...