Leading Off:
● MO-Sen: Mason-Dixon is out with one of the very few public polls we've seen lately of the Missouri Senate race, and they show Republican Sen. Roy Blunt edging Democrat Jason Kander 47-46. With so little polling, though, it's tough to know what's going on in the Show Me State, but each party is acting like it's close. Roll Call recently reported that unnamed officials from both sides agree the contest is tight, and that neither knows what will happen.
Outside groups from each party are also continuing to spend heavily here. Some Democrats also privately told Roll Call that they're afraid that the undecideds are disproportionately conservative Trump supporters who will end up backing Blunt in the end. However, Republicans aren't acting confident that the undecideds will sweep Blunt to a second term.
Kander, an Afghanistan veteran who currently serves as Missouri's secretary of state, has run one of the strongest campaigns anywhere in the nation. Kander's ads, including the already-legendary spot that featured him assembling a rifle while blindfolded, have helped him frame this race as a choice between a man who served his country in uniform and a longtime politician who has gotten rich off the system.
Blunt and his allies, meanwhile, have hit back and tied Kander to Hillary Clinton, who is likely to lose the Show Me State. While none of the GOP's commercials have been anywhere near as effective as Kander's spots, we still had good reason to believe Team Red's message would carry the day in a state as conservative as Missouri. But even Republicans aren't behaving as thought they trust Missouri's red hue to automatically propel Blunt to victory. Blunt may yet win, but it's still remarkable that we've come so far that a Kander victory no longer feels like it would be a major upset. Daily Kos Elections is therefore changing our rating from Lean Republican to Tossup.
Senate:
● IL-Sen: GOP Sen. Mark Kirk has a long and revolting history of saying racist stuff, but somehow he managed to top himself at a debate Thursday night with his Democratic opponent, double-amputee Iraq veteran Tammy Duckworth:
Duckworth: "My family has served this nation in uniform, going back to the Revolution. I'm a daughter of the American Revolution. I've bled for this nation. But I still want to be there in the Senate when the drums of war sound, because people are quick to sound the drums of war, and I want to be there to say, 'This is what it costs—this is what you're asking us to do.' And if that's the case, I'll go. Families like mine are the ones that bleed first. But let's make sure the American people understand what we are engaging in, and let's hold our allies accountable, because we can't do it all."
Kirk: "I had forgotten that your parents came all the way from Thailand to serve George Washington."
This is just sick. Fortunately, in all likelihood, we won't have to put up with Kirk much longer. Polls show Duckworth with a wide lead and Hillary Clinton with an even bigger one. What's more, major outside groups on both sides continue to ignore this contest, meaning they strongly suspect Kirk's political career is not long for this world.
We were planning to make this move even before this latest garbage came out of Kirk's mouth, but that just cements it for us: We're changing our rating on this race from Lean Democratic to Likely Democratic, and it's even on the cusp of being safely in Team Blue's hands. Our only slight hesitation is that polling has been infrequent, and that Kirk is an incumbent who's managed to avoid scandal (at least, the types that don't involve saying racist crap). But we may yet move this race again, and if we do, it'll be another column over to the left.
● LA-Sen: We have another poll of the Nov. 8 jungle primary, this time from the University of New Orleans:
State Treasurer John Kennedy (R): 22
Rep Charles Boustany (R): 15
Public Service Commissioner Foster Campbell (D): 15
Rep. John Fleming (R): 10
Attorney Caroline Fayard (D): 10
We've seen a few other polls here over the last week or so, and there isn't a lot of agreement about what will happen next month. An independent poll from Mason-Dixon found Republican John Kennedy decisively taking one of the two spots that would take him to a December runoff, while Democrat Foster Campbell looks favored to take the other slot. A poll from Southern Media & Opinion Research for their paid subscribers also found Kennedy far ahead, but with Campbell and GOP Rep. Charles Boustany locked in a tight race for second. Meanwhile, a Market Research Insight poll for an unidentified client found a close three-way race between those three candidates for the two runoff posts.
The polls have consistently found GOP Rep. John Fleming, a favorite of tea party types, far behind, though he released a poll earlier this month showing Campbell taking first and the three major Republicans tied for second place. Right now, Kennedy seems to be the most likely candidate to advance to December, but there's still a lot of fog surrounding this contest. As the old saying goes, the only jungle primary poll that matters is on jungle primary day.
● WI-Sen: Well, this isn't ideal. While national Democrats and Republicans canceled most of their relatively few ad reservations in Wisconsin, weeks ago with Democrat Russ Feingold posting clear leads against Republican Sen. Ron Johnson, Senate Majority PAC has announced that they're coming back in with a late $2 million boost for Feingold. The group says it's just a precautionary move that they can afford due to some recent strong fundraising, but with several tight Senate races to deal with across the country, a $2 million commitment isn't a trivial expenditure.
Aside from a Loras College poll, no released surveys have shown Johnson ahead during the entire campaign. However, while recent polls agree that Feingold is leading, they disagree by how much. In mid-October, the respected Marquette Law School dropped a survey showing Feingold up just 46-44, but a more recent Monmouth survey gave Feingold a stronger 52-44 edge. Feingold's allies also put out a PPP survey showing him up 47-41, while in the last week, two conservative polls released numbers showing Feingold up by just 2 or 3 points. The Daily Kos Elections polling average gives Feingold a 48-43 advantage.
While the NRSC and the Senate Leadership Fund have mostly ignored this race, a few other conservative groups are advertising here. The Club For Growth began a $750,000 ad campaign in mid-October, while the pro-Johnson super PAC Reform America Fund recently put in $1.3 million . Maybe Senate Majority PAC just feels they need to spend $2 million to counter them and prevent an upset. We'll see if any other major Democratic organizations decide Feingold needs help, and if other GOP groups smell blood and rush in to save a seat that they seemed to have written off ages ago.
● Polls: Today's Senate and gubernatorial polls:
● FL-Sen: PPP (D) for Americans for Responsible Solutions: Marco Rubio (R-inc): 46, Patrick Murphy (D): 46 (48-44 Clinton) (Oct.: 44-38 Rubio)
● FL-Sen: St. Leo: Rubio (R-inc): 44, Murphy (D): 39 (52-39 Clinton) (Sept.: 44-35 Rubio)
● GA-Sen: Quinnipiac: Johnny Isakson (R-inc): 54, Jim Barksdale (D): 40 (44-43 Trump) (Sept.: 55-34 Isakson)
● NC-Sen: Quinnipiac: Richard Burr (R-inc): 48, Deborah Ross (D): 47 (47-43 Clinton) (Oct.: 46-46 tie)
● NC-Gov: Quinnipiac: Roy Cooper (D): 49, Pat McCrory (R-inc): 47 (47-43 Clinton) (Oct.: 48-46 Cooper)
Two new Senate surveys in Florida show Republican Sen. Marco Rubio is still far from out of the woods, but PPP's 46-46 tie is only the second publicly released poll from anyone in October that doesn't show the incumbent leading Democratic Rep. Patrick Murphy. St. Leo's 44-39 Rubio advantage is much closer to the senator's 46-41 polling average lead, but their monster 52-39 edge for Hillary Clinton is far larger than her own 46-43 advantage in the polling aggregate, calling into question the survey's overall accuracy.
Meanwhile, Quinnipiac once more sees Republican Sen. Johnny Isakson easily clearing the 50 percent threshold needed to avoid a January runoff in Georgia, even though Trump is now struggling to win the Peach State. The school also continues to find razor-tight races in North Carolina, with Democratic Attorney General Roy Cooper narrowly ousting Republican Gov. Pat McCrory but Republican Sen. Richard Burr just barely turning back a challenge from Democratic ex-state Rep. Deborah Ross. Both results are right in line with the state's polling averages for Senate and governor.
Gubernatorial:
● IL-Gov: Back in May, in response to speculation that he might run for governor in 2018 against GOP incumbent Bruce Rauner, Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin refused to rule anything out, only giving a boilerplate declaration that he has "no other aspirations for any other office." On Thursday, in response to questions about his future plans, Durbin gave a similar response, though he added that, "There are other good people out there. If I take a step back hopefully some of them will emerge and step up" to run for governor. Durbin also recently publicly encouraged businessman Chris Kennedy, a former chair of the University of Illinois Board of Trustees and son of Robert F. Kennedy, to challenge Rauner.
However, while Durbin doesn't seem poised to make a bid of his own, he still hasn't definitively ruled it out with a simple, "I'm not running." Durbin currently serves as the Democrats' "whip" in the Senate—the party's second highest-ranking position in the chamber—and he's acting like he has the votes to keep his post next year. However, Politico reports that Washington Sen. Patty Murray, who currently holds the number four post, is refusing to rule out a challenge. All of Durbin's body language strongly suggests that he wants to stay in D.C. as whip, and that he wants someone else to beat Rauner. However, if Durbin loses his powerful perch in Congress, a gubernatorial run could suddenly become a lot more appealing.
● MO-Gov: One month ago, the Missouri gubernatorial race looked to be going Democrat Chris Koster's way, and even Republican Eric Greitens released a poll showing Koster up 45-42. However, October polling hasn't looked so rosy for Team Blue. A few weeks ago, Monmouth dropped a survey showing Koster up 46-43, quite a drop from his 51-40 advantage in August. And now, Mason-Dixon gives Koster just a 46-45 edge; they had him up 52-33 in July, but that was before Greitens won the GOP nod.
Meanwhile, the GOP pollster Remington Research has also surveyed this contest a few times, though their results have been very volatile. In a poll released Oct. 22 for the political newsletter Missouri Scout, they had Koster up 48-39. Just a few days later, they released a survey for the Missouri Times that showed Koster leading only 47-45. We don't have much data to work with, and the polls still consistently give Koster some sort of lead, but the contest feels quite a bit tighter than it did only recently.
House:
● IN-09: While both parties had avoided airing ads in this conservative southern Indiana seat for most of the campaign, that's changed dramatically in the last two weeks. House Majority PAC has directed $815,000 to help Democrat Shelli Yoder, while the NRCC has dropped a hefty $1.1 million for Republican Trey Hollingsworth.
Romney won this seat 57-41, and even disastrous 2012 GOP Senate nominee Richard Mourdock narrowly took it while he was losing 50-44 statewide. However, Hollingsworth is far from an ideal nominee. He only moved to Indiana from Tennessee just before he launched his campaign last year, and the well-funded Yoder has run commercials hitting him for it. Hollingsworth and his family are wealthy, so it's even more notable that the NRCC is spending here rather than trusting the Hollingsworth clan to self-fund its way to victory as it did in the primary. Yoder and her allies have also released a trio of surveys in the last few weeks showing her narrowly behind or tied with Hollingsworth, and the GOP's decision to spend here says much more than any contradictory polls ever could.
This is still very tough turf for Democrats, and we still expect Hollingsworth, flawed as he is, to win in November. But with both parties spending like they believe an upset is a serious possibility, Daily Kos Elections is moving this race from Likely to Lean Republican.
● KS-01: How can we miss Tim Huelskamp when he won't go away? Back in the August GOP primary, physician Roger Marshall unseated the congressman by a punishing 56-44 margin in this safely red seat. Huelskamp, a member of the nihilist House Freedom Caucus, not only alienated the GOP leadership, he pissed off agricultural interests over his crusade against farm subsidies. But apparently, Huelskamp isn't taking his wide defeat to heart: Earlier this month, he filed papers with the FEC to set up a 2018 campaign.
Huelskamp hasn't announced any plans, and he doesn't even seem to have publicly expressed interest in a comeback. But on Thursday, he sent out a fundraising email attacking Marshall for "already join[ing] the Washington insider crowd including lobbyists who work for President Obama."
● LA-04: The Club for Growth recently endorsed state Rep. Mike Johnson in the jungle primary for this safely red Shreveport seat, and they're now spending $100,000 on an ad campaign for him. Their commercial promotes Johnson as a family man who fights tax increases and "is convinced that career politicians are morally and financially bankrupting our country."
Johnson's main GOP opponents next month are Shreveport City Councilor Oliver Jenkins, who has done some self-funding, and physician Ralph Baucum. Ex-state Sen. Elbert Guillory is also in, and while he raised a considerable $511,000 from July to September, he burned through most of it without devoting much money to paid media. Attorney Marshall Jones is the lone Democrat running, and while he has very little money, he may be able to consolidate enough Democratic support to grab one of the two runoff spots on Election Day.
● MD-06: This suburban D.C. seat backed Obama 55-43, and Donald Trump won't be an asset for Team Red in an area as affluent and well-educated as this. Democratic Rep. John Delaney looked safe for most of the cycle, but he unexpectedly started running negative ads against Republican Amie Hoeber in September. Hoeber's wealthy husband, Qualcomm co-founder Mark Epstein, bankrolled a super PAC called Maryland USA that ran ads against Delaney. However, it appears that Maryland USA is no longer advertising on TV or radio, and Hoeber hasn't picked up where they left off. Hoeber's chances in this seat where never great, and without much outside support, Daily Kos Elections is moving this contest back from Likely to Safe Democratic.
● Ad Reservations: The penultimate (we think!) edition of our House ad reservations tracker is live. Here are the highlights:
● AK-AL: The DCCC made an investment in Democrat Steve Lindbeck for the first time, but it's just for a very small $22,000 joint buy.
● CA-10: Democrats must sense a real opportunity to beat GOP Rep. Jeff Denham, because the DCCC and HMP each added more than $1 million in the last week to help Michael Eggman, for a total of $2.4 million in new spending. And there's nothing new on the Republican side.
● CA-25: The DCCC tossed in an additional $460,000 for Democrat Bryan Caforio and the NRCC put in $414,000 for Rep. Steve Knight. Total Democratic spending is way higher in this race, $2.9 million versus $830,000.
● CO-06: This Denver-area race is incredibly expensive (over $11 million for both sides so far), so these sums are relatively small in comparison, but it's still worth noting that the Democrats threw in an extra $854,000 for Morgan Carroll while the NRCC cut $404,000 from its efforts to protect Rep. Mike Coffman (though the Congressional Leadership fund added $122,000).
● FL-07: As we noted recently, the NRCC made a huge move to help Rep. John Mica, reserving $1.4 million in media time, their first real aid for this race. The DCCC responded with $656,000 extra for Democrat Stephanie Murphy.
● FL-18: CLF added another $526,000 to help veteran Brian Mast, while Democrats are still leaving wealthy businessman Randy Perkins to rise or fall on his own. Perkins, though, isn't letting himself get outgunned: He recently put another $3 million of his own money into his campaign, bringing his total investment to $8.8 million.
● IA-01: Two weeks ago, CLF said in a press release it would shell out $250,000 on behalf of Rep. Rod Blum, but it looks like their total expenditure is now more like $590,000. Democrats have added $360,000 for Monica Vernon.
● IL-10: Last week, the DCCC cut its net spending for Democrat Brad Schneider by some $762,000. (To be precise, the D-Trip cancelled an $838,000 reservation for the final week of the race but added around $75,000 for so-called "hybrid" ads run jointly by the committee and the campaign.) That move had suggested a certain level of confidence on the part of D.C. Democrats, but now they appear to have had a change of heart. While it's not yet reflected on our chart, Politico's Theodoric Meyer reports that the DCCC is sending $1 million back into the district because Schneider's "facing a tight race despite Clinton's huge lead."
But here's a sign of just how weird this race is: The NRCC has been airing a new ad praising GOP Rep. Bob Dold! for standing up to Donald Trump! Well, at least Republican agree that Trump is electoral rat poison in this suburban Chicago seat. According to the AP, the NRCC's entire $1.1 million reservation for the penultimate week of the campaign has been devoted to this spot.
● IL-12: HMP has long had $263,000 on the books for the final week of the campaign to help Democrat C.J. Baricevic, and now, in a bit of a surprise, the NRCC has thrown together a $199,000 joint reservation with GOP Rep. Mike Bost, also for that last week. Bost had otherwise looked pretty secure for re-election, so this could just be insurance.
● IN-09: A few days ago, we learned that the NRCC was unexpectedly spending $650,000 to shore up Republican Trey Hollingsworth. Now, thanks to our chart, we know that the total amount is twice that, $1.1 million. That's a lot of money for a seat that should never have been in play in the first place. HMP, meanwhile, is tacking on $130,000 more for Democrat Shelli Yoder. (Also see our more detailed writeup of this race above.)
● ME-02: Last week, the CLF yanked $306,000 from this seat while HMP added $212,000, but this time around, both parties are on the same page. HMP and the DCCC have added a combined $383,000, while CLF has booked an additional $579,000.
● MN-02: While far-right former radio host Jason Lewis wasn't the NRCC's ideal nominee for this swingy seat, they're intent to support him to the bitter end. The NRCC has added $601,000 to their buy, taking their total investment to $1.1 million. The committee reserved several million dollars early in the Twin Cities that they could use for either this race or MN-03 or MN-08, so they're not throwing new money into this race. The DCCC also added almost $500,000 here, though it's also money from their Twin Cities reservation that they hadn't earmarked for one of the three Minnesota seats.
● MN-03: After previously cutting its entire remaining reservation on behalf of Democrat Terri Bonoff, HMP is reportedly roaring back in with a late $800,000 blast directed at GOP Rep. Erik Paulsen. (This data is not yet included in our chart.) We know that Trump's been performing very poorly in this suburban Minneapolis district, but Paulsen had been keeping his head well above water. It's possible that the incumbent's finally having trouble staying afloat after all this time. The DCCC also has directed $627,000 from their general Twin Cities pool to this seat. The NRCC recently went up with their first commercial here, and we now know that it's part of a $518,000 buy.
● MN-08: HMP has thrown in $712,000 extra for Rep. Rick Nolan while CLF has countered with a hefty $1.5 million to boost Republican Stewart Mills. This comes in spite of a recent HMP poll that had Nolan up 49-41; a subsequent SurveyUSA poll, however, put Mills ahead 45-41. Note that this is all new money from both groups, rather than funds getting earmarked from a general Twin Cities pool.
● NH-01: On Thursday, we reported that the NRCC had cancelled its entire remaining $2 million reservation on behalf of GOP Rep. Frank Guinta, effectively triaging him. Now the committee has confirmed the move, though amusingly, it insists it's still "very confident" in the congressman.
● NJ-05: Sometimes media reports or press releases conflict with the information in our chart, but sometimes, they tie out perfectly. Pleasantly, this is the latter sort of case: NJ.com reports that HMP is spending an additional $650,000 on cable TV ads hitting GOP Rep. Scott Garrett, which is exactly the same sum our data shows. National Republicans still haven't allocated any money to help Garrett against well-funded Democratic rival Josh Gottheimer. A month ago, Garrett's allies in the far-right House Freedom Caucus urged the NRCC to spent to save him, but their pleas seem to have fallen on deaf ears.
● NV-03, NV-04: In the last week, the DCCC dumped far more money into the 3rd than the 4th: $1.1 million versus $320,000 ($900,000 which was drawn from its pre-existing Las Vegas pool, meaning around $500,000 was new money). At the same time, HMP shifted $638,000 from the 4th to the 3rd. The 4th is traditionally much more Democratic, while the wealthier 3rd is a designated Trump Toxicity Zone; in fact, it had even seemed for a little bit like the 3rd might be a better pickup opportunity for Team Blue than the 4th. It's hard to read much into either move, though.
● NY-19: Another $386,000 from the DCCC and another $468,000 from CLF. While Democrat Zephyr Teachout has raised more money than Republican John Faso, Faso's getting much more outside help: $4.5 million versus $1.5 million.
● NY-24, NY-22: HMP had a pool of $391,000 that could have gone toward either the 22nd or the 24th; now we know it's all gone toward the latter, to help Democrat Colleen Deacon. That's good news, as far as it goes, because public polling has shown Deacon faring very poorly against freshman GOP Rep. John Katko. But if Democrats are still willing to spend money on Deacon, hopefully it means she still has a chance.
● PA-08: Pennsylvania's 8th remains the single most-expensive race on our chart: Democrats just upped their buys by almost $900,000 while Republicans did so to the tune of $1.5 million. That brings all actual and planned spending from Labor Day through Election Day for the four major House groups to $14.2 million.
● VA-05: Here's another race where the DCCC is getting involved for the first time, but again, it's a small joint buy for just $54,000. That pales in comparison to the $774,000 the CLF already announced they were unleashing on Democrat Jane Dittmar.
● VA-10: Close behind Pennsylvania's 8th in terms of total cost is Virginia's 10th, and it, too, just got even more expensive. The DCCC added a huge $1.8 million to help Democrat LuAnn Bennett, while CLF is sending in another $783,000 for GOP Rep. Barbara Comstock.
● WI-08: Interestingly, even though the DCCC cut most of the money it planned to spend here on Democrat Tom Nelson in the face of bad polls, they've now added $77,000 back, while HMP has thrown in an additional $158,000. But we haven't seen any recent polling, so we don't know if Nelson's actually gotten closer to Republican Mike Gallagher.
Ad Roundup:
● MO-Gov: Democrat Chris Koster features a police detective praising his leadership during the Ferguson unrest in 2014, noting how he tried to "bridge the divide." Koster touts his endorsement from Missouri's Fraternal Order of Police, which isn't a union that normally backs Democrats.
● NV-Sen: Senate Majority PAC ties Republican Joe Heck to Trump in Spanish by noting they both want to defund Planned Parenthood.
● FL-18: Democrat Randy Perkins put out three segments (here, here, and here). The first one provides some much-needed pushback to Republican attacks over his disaster-relief company, highlighting how his efforts helped communities recover from tragedy. The second spot accuses Republican Brian Mast of lying about giving back the money he took from sugar-industry interests and says he took donations from the backers of a Miami-to-Orlando rail line despite claiming he opposes it. The final ad links Mast to Trump, lambasting him for standing by his party's nominee even after Trump's groping-tape scandal. However, that spot could have made better use of Trump's actual offensive statements instead of leaving it up to viewers to understand the crucial context.
● UT-04: The Congressional Leadership Fund released a rare semi-positive ad where they praised Republican Rep. Mia Love as a conservative who shares Utah's values, unlike Democrat Doug Owens, whom they tie to Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton.
● NC-Sen: EMILY's List (D); $1.4 million buy.
● PA-Sen: Chamber of Commerce attacks Democrat Katie McGinty with a seven-figure buy. DSCC. National Education Association slams Republican Pat Toomey.
● MO-Gov: Eric Greitens (R).
● MT-Gov: Greg Gianforte (R).
● NC-Gov: RGA.
● NH-Gov: Colin Van Ostern (D).
● IA-01: Monica Vernon (D).
● KS-03: Congressional Leadership Fund (R).
● MI-07: Gretchen Driskell (D).
● NH-01: Shawn O'Connor (I).
● NY-19: John Faso (R).
● NY-22: Claudia Tenney (R).
● PA-08: Congressional Leadership Fund (R).
● PA-16: American Action Network (R).
● TX-23: Congressional Leadership Fund (R).
● WI-08: Mike Gallagher (R).
