Morning Digest: Steve King may finally pay the price for ignoring his district for white nationalism

Iowa Rep. Steve King (R)

Our race ratings: Senate | Governor | House

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

● IA-04: Democrats tried in vain to unseat white nationalist Rep. Steve King in both 2012 and 2014 in northwestern Iowa's conservative 4th District, so J.D. Scholten very much has his work cut out for him as he tries to prevail next week. However, a new poll suggests the Republican incumbent could finally be in for a reckoning. A survey from the Democratic firm Change Research gives King just a 45-44 edge even though this district voted 53-45 for Romney and went for Trump by an even wider 61-34 margin.​

​King's campaign, however, very quickly responded with a own poll of their own from WPA Intelligence putting the congressman up by a hefty 52-34 margin. We haven't seen any other polls since early September, so we don't have a good sense for who is closer to the mark. At the very least, though, King is acting like he thinks he's safe. Scholten, a former baseball player for the local Sioux City Explorers, outraised King by an enormous $923,000 to $227,000 from July 1 to Oct. 17, and as a result, Scholten has reportedly been running TV ads unanswered for two weeks while King has yet to air a single advertisement.

What King's been doing rather than running ads is rubbing shoulders with international white supremacist candidates and hate groups. This includes an August meeting with the far-right Austrian Freedom Party, which has historical ties to the Nazi Party, that King took during a trip to Eastern Europe that, gallingly, was paid for by a Holocaust memorial group.

During this same trip, King also gave an interview to a website allied with the Freedom Party where he asked what diversity brings to America "that we don't have that is worth the price? We have a lot of diversity within the U.S. already." King also used that same interview to call Jewish financier George Soros a force behind the "Great Replacement," a view prevalent among the far-right that white Europeans are being deliberately "replaced" by people of color in a scheme fomented by Jews.

Congressional Republican and King's donors have tolerated his racism for years with at most just minor rebukes, but a few of them went a bit further than usual on Tuesday. The Minnesota dairy company Land O'Lakes, which was facing calls for boycotts over its donations to King, at last decided that they wouldn't contribute to him anymore.

And even NRCC chair Steve Stivers, who just a day after the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre defended the anti-Semitic ads his committee has been running, tweeted out a condemnation. Stivers declared that King's "recent comments, actions, and retweets are completely inappropriate." He added, "We must stand up against white supremacy and hate in all forms, and I strongly condemn this behavior." That's all mild stuff given everything that King has been doing for so long, but it's more than he's gotten from his allies up till now.

Scholten is also running a commercial that highlights more of King's extracurricular activities. The narrator charges that King is "creating headlines at home for the wrong reasons," as local newspapers appear on-screen with the headlines "Steve King backs white nationalist for Toronto mayor" and "King backs white nationalist." However, most of the ad hits King for using taxpayer money at a private club and on taxpayer trips. Another Scholten commercial features several local Republicans calling King "divisive" and "angry," and praising the Democrat for actually being a presence in the district.

It's still going to take a lot for this message to resonate with voters who have supported King for so long and also overwhelmingly backed Trump. Still, it's possible that King has finally alienated just enough conservatives to give Scholten an opening. Daily Kos Elections is therefore moving this race from Safe Republican to Likely Republican.

Senate

● MT-Sen, IA-01: The United Association of Plumbers is spending $500,000 on a TV spot in support of Democratic Sen. Jon Tester and $225,000 on a TV buy against GOP Rep. Rod Blum.

● ND-Sen: While recent polls have shown Republican Kevin Cramer well ahead of Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, major outside groups on both sides are continuing to spend here in the final week. Senate Majority PAC has another ad hitting Cramer, while the Senate Leadership Fund is up with another spot against Heitkamp.

● TN-Sen: The Senate Leadership Fund is running a new ad ginning up terror over the migrant caravan slowly making its way north from Central America on foot. Using language almost identical to a Congressional Leadership Fund ad airing in Minnesota's 1st District, the narrator here spews the usual lies: The caravan consists of "illegal immigrants" (no, they're refugees who will be turned back if their applications for asylum aren't granted) and "criminals and gang members" (when pressed, the Trump administration has provided literally zero evidence for this claim).

The spot then features a clip of Democrat Phil Bredesen, who says, "A few thousand very poor people going to our border is not a threat to our—is not a threat to our security." The ad naturally bashes Bredesen for saying so, but of course, he's exactly right. In Tennessee, though, fact-free fear-mongering like this is probably going to be effective.

● Polls: Here's Johnny!

• AZ-Sen: HighGround Public Affairs (R): Martha McSally (R): 47, Kyrsten Sinema (D): 45
• AZ-Sen: Marist for NBC: Sinema (D): 47, McSally (R): 44, Angela Green (G): 6 (Sept.: 45-43 Sinema)
• FL-Sen: Suffolk for USA Today: Bill Nelson (D-inc): 45, Rick Scott (R): 43
• FL-Sen: University of North Florida: Nelson (D-inc): 47, Scott (R): 46 (Sept.: 45-45 tie)
• IN-Sen: Cygnal (R): Mike Braun (R): 49, Joe Donnelly (D-inc): 46
• MI-Sen: Glengariff Group for the Detroit News & WDIV-TV: Debbie Stabenow (D-inc): 53, John James (R): 36 (early Oct.: 53-35 Stabenow)
• MO-Sen: Cygnal (R): Josh Hawley (R): 49, Claire McCaskill (D-inc): 46
• OH-Sen: Baldwin Wallace University: Sherrod Brown (D-inc): 51, Jim Renacci (R): 32 (early Oct.: 50-33 Brown)
• TX-Sen: Dixie Strategies (R) for CBS 11: Ted Cruz (R-inc): 52, Beto O'Rourke (D): 42 (Sept.: 46-42 Cruz)

HighGround did something a bit unusual with their poll: They say they weighted the sample to give Republicans a 10-point advantage over Democrats "based on the current trend in ballot returns" because as of Monday, "GOP advantage in Early Ballot returns is 10.6 percent."

Weighting by party based on early votes is a risky move, even in states like Arizona where the early vote will make up a significant portion of the total vote, because the early vote can be very volatile. Indeed, Garrett Archer, an analyst at the secretary of state's office, tweeted Tuesday that Democrats have been closing the gap in returned ballots over the last three days, and added, "Pending a complete reversal of fortunes the party split will almost certainly move to the single digits in the next couple of days."

And not only is are the early voting numbers a moving target, they may or may not resemble the final electorate, including all those who vote on Election Day itself. HighGround's choice to peg its weighting to a partial accounting of just the early vote is therefore liable to produce misleading data.

While McCaskill is only down a few points in this poll, she's unfortunately trailed in every poll we've seen since the start of October, when Fox had it tied 43-43. Many of those polls, including Cygnal's survey, were done by GOP firms, but she looks to be in a tough place in a state where Democrats don't have much room for error.

Gubernatorial

● AK-Gov: The Democratic Governors Association is swooping into Alaska's gubernatorial race at the last minute with its first TV ad, a spot attacking Republican Mike Dunleavy on crime. According to an independent expenditure report flagged by reporter Nat Herz, the buy is for $481,000, which should go a pretty long way in a cheap state like Alaska.

This contest abruptly became a two-way race a week-and-a-half ago after independent Gov. Bill Walker unexpectedly dropped out, a development that improved Democrats' chances of picking up this governorship. Since then, though, we haven't seen any usable polls of the race to indicate movement one way or the other, but the DGA's move indicates they see an opportunity.

● SD-Gov: The RGA isn't airing ads in this unexpectedly competitive contest, but the Argus Leader reports that they donated $600,000 to Republican Kristi Noem's campaign over the last week on top of the $500,000 they'd previously sent her.

● Polls: David Letterman!

• AZ-Gov: HighGround Public Affairs (R): Doug Ducey (R-inc): 55, David Garcia (D): 35
• AZ-Gov: Marist for NBC: Ducey (R-inc): 55, Garcia (D): 42 (Sept.: 49-39 Ducey)
• CT-Gov: Quinnipiac: Ned Lamont (D): 47, Bob Stefanowski (R): 43, Oz Griebel (I): 7 (early Oct.: 47-39-11 Lamont)
• FL-Gov: Suffolk for USA Today: Andrew Gillum (D): 45, Ron DeSantis (R): 44
• FL-Gov: University of North Florida: Gillum (D): 49, DeSantis (R): 43 (Sept.: 47-43 Gillum)
• GA-Gov: OpinionSavvy for Fox5: Stacey Abrams (D): 48, Brian Kemp (R): 47, Ted Metz (L): 2 (Oct. 21-22: 48-48 tie)
• MI-Gov: Glengariff Group for the Detroit News & WDIV: Gretchen Whitmer (D): 50, Bill Schuette (R): 38 (early Oct.: 47-35 Whitmer)
• OH-Gov: Baldwin Wallace University: Richard Cordray (D): 39, Mike DeWine (R): 39 (early Oct.: 40-37 DeWine)
• RI-Gov: Fleming & Associates for WPRI & Roger Williams University: Gina Raimondo (D-inc): 45, Allan Fung (R): 34, Joe Trillo (I): 9 (Sept.: 43-36-7 Raimondo)

A mid-October Connecticut survey from Sacred Heart University gave Lamont a similar 40-36 lead, with Griebel at 8.

Recent polls in Michigan have disagreed about whether the race has gotten closer over the last few weeks or if Whitmer is still far ahead, and Glengariff falls in the consistent lead for Whitmer camp.

While Raimondo looked very vulnerable for much of the cycle, recent polls have found her in good shape. An early October University of New Hampshire poll gave her a 48-34 lead, with Trillo at 5. A few weeks ago, SocialSphere found Raimondo up 45-34, with Trillo all the way up to 17.

Trillo is a conservative independent who has been taking votes from Fung, so if he loses steam in the final days, Fung should pick up support. However, Fung's allies don't seem very optimistic that this will happen. The RGA's state affiliate went off the air last week, and there's no sign that they'll be airing ads in the final week of the contest.

House Playing Field

Most of the action on Tuesday came in districts that have been part of the battleground for quite some time, but there were still a few notable developments in races that had lately receded from view or simply never got much attention in the first place.

● CA-21: The NRCC is evidently going ahead with their flight of ads for the last week before Election Day, since they've just posted a new spot online attacking Democrat T.J. Cox as a carpetbagger. Back in September, the committee canceled all of their October ad time in an apparent vote of confidence in GOP Rep. David Valadao but they held onto their booking for the final week. They may wind up needing it, since the House Majority PAC jumped in with a $247,000 buy last week.

● MI-08: The Congressional Leadership Fund apparently gave up on GOP Rep. Mike Bishop in late September, cancelling a $2.1 million ad reservation they had planned for this district. But on Tuesday, the CLF raced back in with a $1 million buy to attack Democrat Elissa Slotkin. The spot abuses a clip of Slotkin flubbing a line at a recent rally: Instead of saying "country before party," she said "party before country" before quickly correcting herself (which you can see here). CLF's ad, of course, treats this mistake as betraying Slotkin's true beliefs, which is utter garbage.

The CLF's apparent triage decision was always quite perplexing: Except for one Democratic survey, every available poll has given Bishop small leads. Of course, it's always possible that big-money groups like CLF were seeing things at odds with the public data, but apparently they're no longer feeling so gloomy. The NRCC, for its part, never let up here, spending $3.3 million so far, while the DCCC and HMP have spent $3 million.

● NH-01: The House Majority PAC announced news ads in seven districts on Tuesday, six of which are familiar battlegrounds (FL-27, IA-03, IL-13, NY-22, WA-03, and WA-08), but one of which hadn't seen any outside spending from the four major House groups until now: New Hampshire's 1st Congressional District. This notoriously volatile seat is open this year with the retirement of Democratic Rep. Carol Shea-Porter, but limited polling has shown Democrat Chris Pappas leading Republican Eddie Edwards.

Pappas has also outraised Edwards two-to-one, and no one has behaved as though this seat might change hands. While it's possible Pappas' fortunes have dipped, it seems more likely that this is either an "abundance of caution"-type move, or simply one coming at the wishes of a donor with a particular interest in this race.

● VA-10: Advertising Analytics reported Tuesday that House Majority PAC had canceled their entire $800,000 ad reservation for the final week of the race. The group had canceled $1 million last month, and they never ended up spending anything against GOP Rep. Barbara Comstock.

Comstock still looks she's in as much trouble as ever, but she still has one group of Beliebers. The NRCC has stubbornly refused to abandon her despite the bad polls and the Congressional Leadership Fund's refusal to get involved here, and they spent another $650,000 on her in the week of Oct. 21 to Oct. 28, taking their total investment to just under $4.4 million. A week from now the NRCC's devotion to Comstock is going to either look very wise or very foolish, and we're betting on option two.

House

● MI-13: On Friday, Detroit City Council President Brenda Jones kicked off a last minute-write in campaign for this safely blue seat against Democratic nominee Rashida Tlaib. There is no GOP nominee here.

This will be the third time in three months that the two Democrats have run against one another. Back in August, Tlaib narrowly beat Jones 31-30 in a six-way primary to succeed former Rep. John Conyers, who resigned last year in the wake of a sexual harassment scandal. However, the state also held the special election primary for the final months of Conyers' term on the same day as the statewide primary, and it was Jones who beat Tlaib 38-36 in a four-way race.

The special general election will also be Nov. 6, and Jones will be on the ballot there. All of this means that, unless Jones' write-in gambit somehow succeeds, Jones will serve in Congress from November to early January, after which Tlaib will take the seat for the full two-year term.

However, it's possible that Jones won't even be in the House that long. Jones is unsurprisingly reluctant to resign from her powerful post on the Detroit City Council just to serve as a lame-duck member of Congress for two months, where she'll also be guaranteed to be in the minority party. Jones said earlier this month that she'd only take her seat in Congress if the House Committee on Ethics ruled that she could remain a member of the city council during her brief stint in D.C., but they have yet to announce a ruling. If Jones' write-in campaign did beat Tlaib next week, this problem would go away … but that's a huge if.

● NE-02: While major Democratic groups haven't spent anything here and polls show GOP Rep. Don Bacon leading Kara Eastman, the conservative Congressional Leadership Fund is still running an ad in the final week.

● NY-01: The conservative Great America PAC is spending $350,000 in TV, radio, and digital advertising against Democrat Perry Gershon in a race that hasn't attracted much outside attention.

● NY-24: The super PAC Change Now has announced that they'll spend $400,000 on TV ads against GOP Rep. John Katko in the final week of the race.

● PA-10, VA-05: The radical anti-tax Club for Growth is airing TV ads to help Republicans in two red seats where recent polls show them struggling. The Club says they're spending $400,000 to aid Rep. Scott Perry in Pennsylvania and $350,000 to help Denver Riggleman (who, despite what Donald Trump thinks, is not a congressman yet).

● SC-01: With just a week left before Election Day, Republican Rep. Mark Sanford is still refusing to endorse state Rep. Katie Arrington, who unseated him in the GOP primary earlier this year and is now facing a much tougher-than-expected campaign in the general election against Democrat Joe Cunningham.

Sanford has long been critical of Arrington, particularly over her stance on offshore oil drilling: During the primary, Arrington supported the idea as a way of tying herself to Trump and attacked Sanford for not standing with her. But after Arrington secured the Republican nomination, she claimed she'd always opposed such drilling, which is widely unpopular in this coastal district with important tourism and fishing industries. After this shameless about-face, Sanford justly berated Arrington for attempting to perpetrate "a complete lie."

While a Sanford endorsement likely wouldn't move many votes, Arrington doesn't need a #Republicansindisarray storyline dogging her in the final days of the race, particularly with signs showing Cunningham closing. On Monday, the NRCC jumped in with an $87,000 TV buy to prop up their candidate, and the New York Times now reports that Republicans are "nervous" because the race is "tight."

The DCCC and House Majority PAC haven't yet gotten involved here, but 314 Action, a progressive group devoted to helping electing STEM candidates (Cunningham is an ocean engineer) said via press release on Tuesday that it would be spending an additional $110,000 on TV ads here, bringing their total to $400,000. Their spot, naturally enough, attacks Arrington for backing offshore drilling and says Cunningham opposes it. Arrington remains favored thanks to this district's conservative tilt, but this is yet another seat the GOP shouldn't have to worry about but is sweating anyway.

● TX-22: Dear God, this is revolting. At a recent campaign event, a woman pressed Republican Rep. Pete Olson on some intolerable remarks he'd made about his Democratic opponent. Olson's response is as pathetic as his comments were appalling:

The unnamed constituent persisted with questions, asking Olson why he had called his Democratic challenger in the 22nd Congressional District, Sri Preston Kulkarni, an "Indo-American carpetbagger."

In a video of a previous campaign stop obtained by CNN, Olson described Kulkarni, who is of Indian heritage, as a "liberal, liberal, liberal Indo-American who's a carpetbagger" and questioned whether donations raised for him through the online fundraising site ActBlue were "coming from overseas."

"Why would you mention his race?" the woman demanded.

"I didn't mention his race. Carpetbagger's not a race," Olson responded. During an extended back and forth, Olson never directly addressed why he mentioned Kulkarni's ethnicity.

Making this racist dog-whistling even more absurd is that Kulkarni is a descendant of Texas founding father Sam Houston via his mother, Margaret Preston. Olson's casual racism is the sort of bigotry unleashed by Trump's GOP, but his attempt to back away from his caught-on-tape statements suggests even Olson knows they might not play well in his district. Texas' 22nd is a historically conservative district based in the suburbs south of Houston, but like many similar swiftly diversifying suburban areas in the state, it responded poorly to Trump: While Mitt Romney carried this district 62-37, Trump won it just 52-44.

This race hasn't attracted any outside attention, but Kulkarni has done a creditable job fundraising, almost keeping pace with the incumbent. And soon enough, we'll find out whether voters in the 22nd are starting to feel about Olson the way they do about Trump.

● TX-32: The Humane Society Legislative Fund has launched a $307,000 TV ad against GOP Rep. Pete Sessions.

● Polls: I'm Mike Wallace, I'm Morley Safer, and I'm Ed Bradley. All this and Andy Rooney tonight on 60 Minutes!

• CA-50: SurveyUSA for KGTV-TV & the San Diego Union-Tribune: Duncan Hunter (R-inc): 48, Ammar Campa-Najjar (D): 45 (Aug.: 47-39 Hunter)
• FL-27: Anzalone Liszt Grove (D) for the DCCC: Donna Shalala (D): 49, Maria Elvira Salazar (R): 39 (mid-Oct.: 44-39 Shalala)
• NC-02: SurveyUSA for the Civitas Institute: George Holding (R-inc): 49, Linda Coleman (D): 40 (Sept.: 44-43 Coleman)
• NY-19: Monmouth University: Antonio Delgado (D): 49, John Faso (R-inc): 44 (Sept.: 48-45 Delgado)
• NY-27: Siena for New York Times: Chris Collins (R-inc): 44, Nate McMurray (D): 40 (mid-Oct.: 46-43 Collins)
• OH-07: Mellman Group (D) for Ken Harbaugh (D): Bob Gibbs (R-Inc): 45, Ken Harbaugh (D): 38
• PA-01: Siena for the New York Times: Brian Fitzpatrick (R-inc): 47, Scott Wallace (D): 46 (mid-Oct.: 50-43 Wallace)
• PA-10: Susquehanna Polling (R) for ABC27: Scott Perry (R-inc): 49, George Scott (D): 46
• UT-04: Dixie Strategies (R) for KUTV: Ben McAdams (D): 50, Mia Love (R-inc): 43

The Democratic firm Change Research also is out with a number of polls from some red seats.

This is the first poll we've seen out of California's 50th in almost a month. A Campa-Najjar internal finished on Oct. 1 gave Hunter, who is under indictment, a 45-44 edge.

The DCCC's poll of Florida's 27th comes as both parties have been spending heavily for what once looked like a likely Democratic pickup. During the week of Oct. 21- Oct. 28 the DCCC and House Majority PAC threw down a total of $670,000 here, while the NRCC and Congressional Leadership PAC spent $932,000.

The SurveyUSA poll of North Carolina's 2nd for the conservative Civitas Institute is the first poll we've seen since their last poll in early September. Major outside groups on both sides have been spending plenty of money here since then, but this poll indicates that Holding is the one who has benefited.

The only other poll we've seen out of New York's 19th this month was a mid-October Siena poll that had Faso up 44-43.

The Harbaugh internal was done in the first week of October. The only other survey we've seen here was Change Research's recent poll, which gave Gibbs a similar 49-43 edge. Harbaugh is a very strong fundraiser but it would take a lot to flip this conservative northeastern seat, which moved from 54-44 Romney to 63-33 Trump.

Siena finds a big swing to the right in Pennsylvania's 1st from just two weeks ago. What probably happened was that their second sample was considerably more conservative than their first, since Trump went from a 42-53 approval rating to a 47-49 score. It's very unlikely that Trump got a lot more popular really quickly here, though that hardly means we should just assume this poll is wrong and the first one was on-target.

Other October polls also disagree a bit on the state of the race. Monmouth gave Fitzpatrick a 50-46 edge at the start of the month, and the congressman released poll from around then giving him a 50-42 lead. However, the GOP firm TargetPoint Consulting dropped a mid-October poll on behalf of an unidentified client that gave Wallace a 49-45 lead.

While Pennsylvania's 10th looked like an unlikely Democratic target even a few weeks ago, this is the second poll this week to give Perry just a small lead. A recent Siena poll had Perry up 45-43.

The only other poll out of Utah's 4th to give McAdams any sort of lead was an early October internal that had him up 47-46. Both a mid-October University of Utah poll and a recent Siena poll showed a tie here, so this Dixie poll feels a bit too good to be true.