Leading Off:
● WA Treasurer: On Friday, Washington's secretary of state certified the results of the state's Aug. 2 primaries, cementing an atrocious and under-reported outcome in this year's open treasurer's race. Thanks to Washington's top-two primary, a pair of Republicans will advance to the November general election, meaning no voter will be able to cast a ballot for a Democrat—this in a state that hasn't voted for a Republican for president since the Reagan landslide of 1984.
In fact, Washington hasn't elevated a Republican to the treasurer's office since 1952, when Republican Charles Maybury won a 1-point squeaker the same year Ike was cruising to victory. That trend should have and would have continued this year, had a perfect storm of suck not materialized, as just two Republicans ran for treasurer along with three Democrats. Under the top-two system, all candidates run together on a single primary ballot, and the two highest vote-getters move on to the general election, regardless of party. And because that trio of Democrats managed to split the vote ever so precisely, the two GOP candidates were able to take the top two slots, though it was very close.
As a consequence, the final battle will take place between Benton County Treasurer Duane Davidson, who wound up in first with 25 percent of the vote, and finance executive Michael Waite, the runner-up with 23. The top Democrat was state Sen. Marko Liias, who took finished just out of the money with 20 percent, while pension consultant John Comerford grabbed 18 and former Port of Seattle Commissioner Alec Fisken ended with 13. In other words, even though primary voters backed Democrats by a 52-48 margin overall, they won't get the chance to back a Democrat in the fall.
We've seen this same phenomenon before, but this is the first single-party statewide election ever to take place in Washington. That's just terrible for democracy. California also uses a top-two primary, and there, polls show that many Republican voters simply plan to sit out this year's Senate race between Democrats Kamala Harris and Loretta Sanchez. But at least we know that California, a very blue state, would likely have elected a Democrat to succeed retiring Sen. Barbara Boxer anyway. Washington, by contrast, almost certainly would have voted in another Democrat as treasurer, so the situation here is particularly perverse.
Supposed "good-government" reformers naïvely believed that eliminating partisan primaries would somehow crank down partisan gridlock by forcing office-seekers to moderate their views in order to win. Not only has that not happened, but voters have repeatedly been denied the opportunity to vote for the party of their choice thanks to debacles like these. It's long past time for proponents to acknowledge their mistake and advocate for a return to proper primaries—and proper democracy.
Senate:
● FL-Sen: We haven't seen a poll of the Aug. 30 Democratic primary in weeks, but national party favorite Patrick Murphy evidently feels good about his chances against fellow Rep. Alan Grayson. Politico reports that Murphy has stopped advertising before the primary, and his allies at Senate Majority PAC and Floridians for a Strong Middle Class have also decided to preserve their resources for the fall. Politico also says that a Murphy poll from a few weeks ago gave him a 20-point lead over Grayson, though we don't have any other details.
Murphy will likely take on Republican incumbent Marco Rubio, who also seems to have his primary against rich guy Carlos Beruff locked up. That's not stopping Rubio from airing a positive commercial featuring a constituent praising him for helping her daughter get life-saving medication; however, the Tampa Bay Times reports that it's the NRSC, not Rubio's campaign, that's paying for the commercial so the senator can better preserve his resources.
Rubio only entered this contest in late June after spending most of the cycle running for president. However, there was never any doubt that national Republicans would do all they could to help him hit the ground running, and he has $4.6 million in the bank as of Aug. 10, a bit more than Murphy's $4 million.
● IA-Sen: CBS/YouGov: Chuck Grassley (R-inc): 45, Patty Judge (D): 38; July: Grassley 45-37 (40-40 presidential tie).
● IL-Sen: GOP Sen. Mark Kirk is simply incapable of not saying offensive shit. Referring to $400 million the U.S. paid to Iran earlier this year as part of a settlement that the State Department said was also used as "leverage" to ensure the safe return of five American prisoners held by the Iranians, Kirk excreted this verbal diarrhea:
"We can't have the president of the United States acting like the drug dealer-in-chief."
Ah yes, our nation's first black president cast in the role of drug dealer. How familiar, coming from Kirk, who last year declared fellow Sen. Lindsey Graham was a "a bro with no ho," adding, "That's what we'd say on the South Side"—a predominantly black part of Chicago. The same Kirk who also said that "the black community" is "the one we drive faster through." He can't shut up soon enough.
● IN-Sen: Democrats have responded to last week's Monmouth poll showing former Sen. Evan Bayh with a 7-point lead on GOP Rep. Todd Young with not one but two internals of their own. One, conducted by Garin-Hart-Yang, comes from the Bayh campaign itself and finds the Democrat up 55-39 on Young. A GHY poll last month taken for the DSCC had Bayh ahead 54-33, so Bayh's standing hasn't changed while Young, according to the firm's new memo, has consolidated his support among fellow Republicans. The memo didn't include numbers for any other race, except to note that Bayh still earns 20 percent of the Republican vote, compared to just 2 percent for Hillary Clinton.
A new Global Strategy Group poll for the Senate Majority PAC looks similar, with Bayh ahead 54-36. (Like GHY, GSG didn't provide data on either the presidential or gubernatorial contests.) More than anything else, these polls appear aimed at Republicans: Four straight Democratic surveys have all had Bayh well over 50 percent, with comfortable double-digit leads. Monmouth begs to differ, but Republican polls, apparently, do not, and that silence speaks far louder. Democrats undoubtedly want to break the GOP's spirit and convince them it's not worth their time to fight here.
And hopefully, it'll pay off, because Democrats would rather not get embroiled in a fight over Bayh's residency. Just a week ago, Indiana election officials marked Bayh as an "inactive" voter for a second time in two years, after postcards sent to his Indianapolis condo got bounced back as undeliverable because he was forwarding his mail to D.C. Several hundred thousand voters have the same designation, but most are dead—few are trying to run for Senate.
A listing of "inactive" is only a preliminary step toward getting removed from the voting rolls; voters can regain "active" status by actually voting, as Bayh did in November of 2014 via absentee ballot. But Bayh's responses to this ongoing issue continue to underwhelm. In an interview with Politico, Bayh unhelpfully compared himself to retiring Sen. Dan Coats and former Sen. Dick Lugar, both Republicans, saying they both "had to juggle representing Indiana while also having a presence in Washington, D.C." and claiming there's "no difference" between he and they.
But Coats faced a lot of questions about where he lived when he launched his own comeback bid in 2010, and Lugar, of course, lost renomination in large part thanks to his own residency issues. What's more, at least Lugar was actually serving in the Senate at the time. Bayh hasn't had to "juggle" any duties as a representative of Indiana for the last six years. This will all be moot if the GOP simply gives up on the Hoosier State, but until we have proof of death, Bayh simply has to keep his guard up.
● NC-Sen: Republicans have bemoaned that Sen. Richard Burr hasn't aired any general election ads yet. In fact, Democrat Deborah Ross has beaten Burr to the air by releasing her first TV commercial on Monday. The ad features an actor playing Burr (no, not Leslie Odom Jr.) calling Ross, and telling her to "stop saying that Washington's not working," explaining that it's "working just fine for me." Ross goes on to accuse "Burr" of taking millions from special interests, cashing out, and voting to raise taxes on working people while cutting his own, something he readily agrees to before he hangs up in a panic when she calls him out on it. Ross' campaign only says the ad is "backed by a significant six-figure buy."
● NV-Sen: At the beginning of the month, the NRSC went up with a commercial arguing that, during Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto's second term as attorney general, rape, armed robbery, and murder all rose in Nevada. Masto is out with a response ad where she appears in what looks like a courtroom and tells the audience that crime actually declined, which is why she's been endorsed by law enforcement groups.
Masto then says she's "proud of my record cracking down on meth, protecting seniors from scams, and holding banks accountable for defrauding homeowners." The ad does begin a little defensively (Masto could have just talked about how crime fell without referencing the GOP's ad), but she's right to spend most of the time touting her accomplishments in office instead of just arguing that the GOP is lying about her. It's also good that Masto's talking about her time as attorney general rather than letting the GOP's attacks just define her tenure for her.
A little while ago, we reported that Masto had a commercial starring a breast cancer survivor accusing Republican Rep. Joe Heck of voting to defund Planned Parenthood and threatening to shut down the government over it. It turns out she actually has two different commercials (here and here) starring a different woman for each.
● OH-Sen: This is not encouraging. YouGov and Monmouth are both out with new polls of Ohio's Senate race, and they both show Republican Sen. Rob Portman with a clear lead over ex-Gov. Ted Strickland even as Hillary Clinton carries the state. YouGov gives Portman a 46-39 edge as Clinton beats Trump 46-40, and Monmouth has Portman up 48-40 while Clinton leads 43-39. Unfortunately, other recent polls also show Portman running far ahead of Trump: The HuffPost Pollster average gives Portman a 45-39 lead while Clinton is up 45-42.
Monmouth finds that Portman is actually pretty unknown with respondents, who hold just a 28-20 favorable view of him. The problem for Team Blue is that Strickland has a negative 23-37 image with those same voters. In the last month, only one other pollster has asked about either candidate's image: In mid-July, PPP found Portman with a meh 31-37 job approval rating, but gave Strickland an atrocious 29-49 favorability score.
As we've noted before, Republicans have been relentlessly hammering Strickland on the airwaves. In ad after ad, including a brand new spot from the NRSC, they've argued that when he was governor at the end of the last decade, Strickland was to blame for Ohio's job losses, and they've attacked him for draining the state's once-flush rainy day fund. Strickland was governor during the worst of the Great Recession, but the GOP of course isn't going to mention that. They're simply content to portray Strickland as irresponsible, and these polls indicate that their approach is working. Voters may not be in love with Portman, but right now they're choosing him over Strickland, and Trump just isn't dragging the senator down enough.
And while Democrats have run ads attacking Portman, there have been almost no positive commercials aired for Strickland. The well-funded Portman has the resources to run ads promoting himself, and he's been doing it for months. Indeed, Portman is out with a new spot starring retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey, who identifies himself as the Clinton administration's drug czar, praising Portman's work on drug policy. Portman also released another ad featuring a local factory owner and his employees commending the senator for saving their company.
Meanwhile, Strickland, who has had trouble raising cash during this campaign, only recently went up with his first ad. The good news is that it's still only August, and both Monmouth and PPP find that Portman is still pretty undefined. If Democrats can damage Portman's image with voters and tie him to Trump, they might yet be able to score pickup a here. But if enough Clinton voters agree with the GOP that Strickland was a disastrous governor, Portman's going to be very, very tough to beat.
While Democrats need to attack Portman, they also need to give voters a reason to back Strickland, and they can't do that as long as Republicans are the only ones saying anything about his governorship. As we've said before, Strickland needs to fight back against these bogus slams on his tenure and make it clear why drawing down the state's emergency funds was the right thing to do during such a grave crisis. It's an argument he can most certainly make. He just needs to actually make it.
Gubernatorial:
● MO-Gov: Republican Eric Greitens is out with his second general election ad, and he's once again emphasizing his non-profit work. The commercial features a veteran identified as Tim Smith saying he was diagnosed with PTSD, and that he had a tough time readjusting to home. Smith praises Greitens and his non-profit for helping him, saying that Greitens saved his life.
● MT-Gov: Democratic Gov. Steve Bullock is out with his second commercial and unsurprisingly, he touts himself as a bipartisan problem solver. The narrator praises Bullock for fighting back against "wealthy landowners that tried to block access for fishing," and winning "a landmark victory for public access rights." Bullock is also lauded for standing up for Second Amendment rights and balancing the budget without creating new taxes.
House:
● FL-02: Politico reports that Ending Spending, a group that's close to the GOP establishment, is spending $126,000 on TV ads against Mary Thomas a week ahead of the Republican primary. Thomas, who is backed by the anti-tax group the Club for Growth, faces House leadership favorite Neal Dunn in this safely red north Florida seat.
● FL-04: Attorney Hans Tanzler III, whom polls show trailing ex-Jacksonville Sheriff John Rutherford ahead of next week's GOP primary, is out with a new commercial. Sadly for those of us who enjoy making fun of Tanzler, this commercial does not feature him pretending to be a cowboy. Instead, the narrator praises his work as a federal prosecutor "putting narco terrorists behind bars," before talking up how he helped small businesses against the IRS as a tax lawyer. It also features a quote from an unnamed former CIA director of counterterrorism calling him "the most prepared to lead the effort to stop terrorism."
Meanwhile, a pro-Rutherford group called Conservatives United has spent at least $66,000 against Tanzler. Their commercial shows Tanzler in his cowboy gear as the narrator insists that "Tanzler acts like a cowboy, but he's actually a high-priced lawyer and political insider who got rich off our tax dollars." And what would an attack ad be in a Florida GOP primary without an appearance from Charlie Crist, the former Republican governor who is now running for Congress as a Democrat? After the narrator accuses Tanzler of using his connections to get a political job, he argues that he used his money to back Democrats and Charlie Crist. And sure enough, there's also an animation of Crist holding a bag of money. This Jacksonville seat is safely red.
● FL-09: With a week to go before the Democratic primary for this safely blue Orlando seat, we have our first attack ad. Susannah Randolph, the former district director to departing Rep. Alan Grayson, goes after state Sen. Darren Soto. The commercial features footage it says is from three days after the Pulse massacre, where Soto is shown being asked if he regrets his A rating from the NRA. (According to Florida Politics, Soto currently has a D rating from the group.)
The narrator then charges Soto for voting with the NRA "seven times against gun control" before promoting Randolph as someone who stands with Obama on guns. Randolph then appears and says that "[i]f you're standing with the NRA, you're failing to keep our kids safe." Pharmaceutical lobbyist Dena Grayson, the wife of Alan Grayson, is also running here. There have been no recent polls.
● FL-13: While Rep. David Jolly's decision to ditch his Senate race in June and run for re-election gave Republicans their only realistic chance at holding onto Florida's 13th Congressional District, a St. Petersburg seat that Obama carried 55-44, national Republicans were not exactly jumping for joy. It's no secret that Jolly has had an awful relationship with the NRCC for years, and things only got worse in April when they publicly accused the congressman of lying about them in a 60 Minutes segment about campaign fundraising. When Jolly kicked off his re-election campaign, all the NRCC would say is that they were not consulted in his decision.
National Democrats are clearly taking this contest seriously, with the House Majority PAC reserving $1.47 million in fall advertising to help Democrat Charlie Crist. However, Politico reported last week that Team Red still is showing little interest in aiding Jolly. The congressman claims he hasn't spoken to NRCC chair Greg Walden in over a year, and that's certainly believable. And the NRCC still has little to say, remarking to Politico, "We will not comment about commitments for financial support or anything else"—a pretty good sign that they're not in a hurry to throw money Jolly’s way. In the same piece, an unnamed Jolly ally also called the committee "a bunch of assholes."
Jolly was a lackluster fundraiser even before he pledged to stop personally asking for donations during his Senate bid, and his feud with the NRCC sure isn't helping things. From July 1 to Aug. 10, Jolly raised just $69,000. While Crist took in a similar $71,000 during this time (and loaned himself an additional $33,000), the Democrat holds a big $678,000 to $294,000 cash-on-hand edge. If DC Republicans continue to treat Jolly like he has the plague, he's going to get badly outspent in the fall, something he can ill afford in a seat this blue.
● FL-18: Both parties have their primaries for this swingy south Florida seat on Aug. 30. The only poll we've seen on the Republican side was an internal from Brian Mast, an Army veteran who lost both his legs in Afghanistan, that showed him leading Martin County School Board member Rebecca Negron by a wide 39-19. We were skeptical that Mast had enough name recognition to take the lead, but he actually spent a surprisingly large $422,000 from July 1 to Aug. 10. Negron still outspent him during the pre-primary period with $512,000, but Mast looks like he's in a better position than we had thought he was.
Somewhat surprisingly, self-funding physician Mark Freeman spent only $318,000 during the pre-primary period. That's far from a trivial amount, but the wealthy Freeman isn't exactly saturating the airwaves. Freeman infamously accused President Obama of "driv[ing] a wedge between the races" and giving African Americans "free stuff," rhetoric that probably wouldn't play well in the general in a seat that Romney carried only 52-48.
A few other Republicans are running here, but they haven't spent too much cash. Attorney Rick Kozell spent $256,000 during the pre-primary period, and he got a little attention for a commercial where he declared that "Hillary Clinton should be in prison." Ex-state Rep. Carl Domino, who lost the 2014 general election 60-40 even with the GOP wave on his side, recently went up with an ad where he pledged to work with Donald Trump "to make America great and safe again." Unfortunately for Team Blue, who would love to see a Domino repeat, he only deployed $126,000 during this time, so he probably won't be the GOP's standard-bearer again.
The Democratic contest is a duel between wealthy businessman Randy Perkins, the DCCC's preferred candidate, and attorney Jonathan Chane. Not surprisingly, Perkins outspent his rival by a massive $1.4 million to $189,000 during the pre-primary period. The two have been airing ads attacking one another, so Perkins seems to be taking Chane's campaign at least somewhat seriously.
● FL-19: We knew that wealthy former Ambassador Francis Rooney was decisively outspending his GOP primary foes, and now we know just how decisively. During the pre-primary period, Rooney spent a massive $2.28 million, with Chauncey Goss, a former aide to Paul Ryan and the son of ex-Rep. Porter Goss, shelling out $259,000. Retired Secret Service agent Dan Bongino, a former Maryland congressional candidate who moved to Florida last year, dropped $208,000. Bongino also had a fun Sunday that ended with him telling Politico's Marc Caputo to "shut the fuck up! … Go fuck yourself, you piece of shit!" This seat, which includes Naples and Fort Myers, is safely red.
● FL-23: With one week left before the primary in Florida's 23rd Congressional District between former DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz and law professor Tim Canova, Florida Atlantic University is out with a poll giving Wasserman Schultz a 50-40 edge, making this the first independent survey released here. In the days following Wasserman Schultz's resignation as DNC chair after Wikileaks released a series of unflattering emails stolen from the committee, Canova commissioned a poll that gave her a similar 46-38 advantage. The pro-Wasserman Schultz group Patriot Majority subsequently released a poll showing her up 59-26.
This contest has turned into one of the most expensive House primaries of the year. Despite her problems, Wasserman Schultz has always been a strong fundraiser, and she began the contest with a huge warchest. However, Canova raised huge sums of money from Bernie Sanders supporters unhappy with Wasserman Schultz's role in the Democratic presidential primary. From July 1 to Aug. 10, Canova outspent the incumbent $1.53 million to $873,000.
However, as the polls demonstrate, Canova still has a tough task on Aug. 30. Hillary Clinton took about 70 percent of the vote here in the March presidential primary, so Canova needs to win over a huge proportion of Clinton voters to have a shot. The Florida Atlantic University survey indicates that he's making progress, but he doesn't have much time left. This south Florida seat is safely Democratic.
● FL-26: Ex-Rep. Joe Garcia is hoping to get a rematch with freshman Republican Rep. Carlos Curbelo in November, but he needs to get past businesswoman Annette Taddeo in next week's Democratic primary first. Taddeo, who is backed by the DCCC, started the primary with far less name recognition, and she even released a poll in May showing her badly trailing. However, Taddeo decisively outspent Garcia during the pre-primary period by a $520,000 to $175,000 margin.
Redistricting turned this seat into a district that backed Obama 55-44, and Donald Trump is not going to be an asset for Curbelo here. However, Republicans often do better in the Miami area downballot, and Curbelo has almost $2 million in his warchest. Garcia had $306,000 in the bank on Aug. 10, while Taddeo had $248,000 left to spend. National Democrats have reserved a combined $5 million in fall reservations, so at least Curbelo won't have the airwaves to himself while the Democrats regroup from the primary.
● NE-02: After winning it in 2008, the Obama campaign decided not to target Nebraska's 2nd District a second time in 2012, and Mitt Romney carried the Omaha seat by a 53-46 margin. (Maine and Nebraska are the only states that award an electoral vote to the winner of each congressional district.) However, Hillary Clinton's camp just announced that the Omaha media market will be part of an overall $80 million ad campaign that will last until October.
It's unclear if Clinton is actually targeting Nebraska's electoral vote or if she’s trying to reach into the part of western Iowa that watches Omaha television. But either way, it's good news for freshman Democratic Rep. Brad Ashford, since the better Clinton does in his district, the fewer conservative crossover voters he'll need to beat retired Air Force Brig. General Don Bacon. So far, neither Clinton nor her allies have targeted Maine's 2nd Congressional District, where Republican Rep. Bruce Poliquin is seeking re-election.
● NJ-05: The House Majority PAC aired ads against Republican Rep. Scott Garrett in June and July, and Garrett is now going up with his first commercial. Garrett's team immediately goes after Democratic foe Josh Gottheimer, with the narrator arguing that Gottheimer and "DC special interests" are attacking Garrett "to hide their dangerous agenda." Garrett then appears and argues that Gottheimer thinks that more tax dollars should go to DC while Garrett wants to "keep as much money as you possibly can in your own wallet." After leading with warnings of "dangerous agenda," that just feels like such a letdown.
Romney won this North Jersey seat 51-48, but Garrett has alienated many of his old business allies through his anti-gay rhetoric and opposition to the Export-Import Bank. Both candidates are well-funded, though Gottheimer has been raising cash at a much faster clip. In early August, the DCCC released a poll showing Garrett up 44-42, and the GOP has not dropped any contradictory numbers.
● VA-10: Real estate developer LuAnn Bennett, the Democratic nominee for this competitive Northern Virginia seat, is out with her first commercial. The narrator praises Bennett for raising three boys after her husband died, and also for growing her family business. Bennett then tells the camera, "In business, you bring everyone to the table and work to get results. Congress just doesn't get that."
Bennett faces Republican freshman Rep. Barbara Comstock in what will be an expensive contest. Romney narrowly carried this seat, but with Donald Trump in bad shape in the Old Dominion, Comstock will almost certainly need plenty of Hillary Clinton voters to back her. However, Comstock has a reputation as a strong campaigner, and with both parties already unveiling huge reservations here, the incumbent isn't going down easily.
● Fundraising: A truly remarkable fundraising gulf opened up between the two parties' official House campaign committees in July, following a period of growing pessimism on the part of Republicans over just how ruinous Donald Trump will be to their fortunes. In July, the DCCC pulled in a huge $12 million while the NRCC managed just $4 million. In June, by contrast, the gap was much smaller: $12.1 million for the Democrats to $9.3 million for the GOP. And, we should note, Democrats keep coming out ahead despite having many fewer members in Congress and still facing long odds of retaking the House. But after seeing numbers like these, the odds are starting to feel a little bit shorter.
Republicans aren't just crying into their corn flakes, though. The Congressional Leadership Fund, which was once invariably described as having "close ties to John Boehner" but now appears to have understandably morphed into a Paul Ryan vehicle, just announced plans to spend $10 million on TV ads in 12 different House districts, including fall TV ads in nine of them. All of the seats are familiar targets (three on offense, nine on defense), except for the GOP-held CA-25, which makes this the first time we're seeing money earmarked for this district for the stretch run. But since it's in the pricey Los Angeles media market, CLF is only spending on GOTV, not airtime. You can keep track of all publicly announced fall TV ad reservations with our handy spreadsheet.
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.
