Morning Digest: GOP spin tries to manage expectations ahead of Pennsylvania House special election

Pennsylvania Republican Rick Saccone

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

● PA-18 (special): In what seems to have become a tradition, national Republicans are complaining about how bad their candidate is just ahead of a competitive special election. The victim this time is Rick Saccone in Pennsylvania's 18th Congressional District, a seat that Trump won 58-39. With just days ahead of his race with Democrat Conor Lamb, Republicans have told Politico's Alex Isenstadt that Saccone is doing almost everything, but especially fundraising, wrong. Unnamed Republicans even say that they've seen private polls give Lamb a "narrow" lead.​​​

​This isn't the first time that they've taken issue with Saccone's campaign. All the way back in December, Republicans also told Politico that they worried he couldn't raise a serious amount of money, and a few suggested that local Republicans were already trying to recruit another nominee for the regularly scheduled election. One nameless Republican operative even declared that there was "enough out there with Saccone to make him so wacky that Republicans—particularly moderate Republicans in the suburban areas—say this isn't my cup of tea," though we still don't know what they were talking about.

And it seems that Saccone's fundraising issues never went away. Saccone raised $703,000 during the first seven weeks of the year, which was considerably less than the $3.3 million Lamb took in during that time. National Republicans recount trying to walk the state representative through the basics of fundraising, and they say that NRCC chair Steve Stivers had to keep prodding him along. And Corry Bliss, who heads the major super PAC the Congressional Leadership Fund, even said on the record that "[c]andidate quality matters, and when one candidate outraises the other 5-to-1, that creates real challenges for outside groups trying to win a race."

Isenstadt also writes that the GOP was "horrified" with the few and underwhelming TV ads Saccone did run, and felt his social media strategy was amateurish. Even the White House reportedly felt Saccone was lousy, and they actually considered scrapping a planned fundraiser with Trump because they felt the candidate couldn't draw enough donors (the event was ultimately canceled because of the school shooting in Florida). However, while some White House officials wondered if Trump should cancel his planned campaign visit with Saccone to avoid embarrassment if Tuesday goes badly, Trump says he'll go anyway because he'll get blamed for a defeat no matter what.

Many of the Republicans that spoke to Isenstadt are likely trying to lower expectations ahead of Tuesday, as well as pin any loss or weak win on Saccone rather than Trump or the GOP brand. However, a few did say that it was unfair to blame Saccone entirely, acknowledging that the political climate was bad and that Lamb was a strong opponent. They also said that the outside groups that have been spending heavily to boost Saccone also have had a tough time. They argue that the GOP's earlier ads focusing on the tax bill and Nancy Pelosi "failed to move the needle," which could explain why, in the final weeks of the race, the GOP has taken to attacking Lamb's career as a prosecutor.

So, does this kind of airing of grievances mean the GOP thinks they're about to lose? As we said at the top, this is actually pretty routine behavior from Team Red. Days ahead of a closely-watched 2014 special for Florida's 13th, Republicans also told Politico that their nominee was horrible. Unnamed Republicans bashed David Jolly's campaign against Democrat Alex Sink as "a Keystone Cops operation, marked by inept fundraising," and they faulted the 41-year-old recently-divorced candidate for campaigning with his girlfriend, who was 14 years younger than him. However, Jolly ended up pulling off a 2-point margin, though he and the NRCC never would have anything resembling a good relationship.

Last year alone, we saw these kinds of articles about Ron Estes in Kansas' 4th; Greg Gianforte in Montana (and this was before he assaulted a reporter); and Karen Handel in Georgia's 6th. The GOP also won all three, though they badly underperformed Trump in Kansas and Montana and only matched him in Georgia. In any case, while the GOP seems to have some real, long-term concerns about Saccone, this likely is a large amount of expectation setting. If Lamb wins what's normally a very red seat, Team Red can blame it on Saccone for all the reasons they laid out to Politico. And if Saccone wins by as much as a single vote, the GOP will again crow that Democrats just win moral victories and that everything is great heading into November.

Meanwhile, we have one last bit of outside spending. The Democratic group Patriot Majority has dropped another $100,000 into the race.

Senate

● IN-Sen: With two months to go before the GOP primary, Rep. Luke Messer is now joining his rivals on TV. Messer is spending $250,000 on an opening buy, and his introductory ad stars his two teenage daughters. They say that they want to tell the audience about their dad before the "fake news" fills the airwaves, and they describe the congressman as a Trump ally "who lives his values every single day." It's certainly a lot more upbeat than Rep. Todd Rokita's opening commercial, where he declared that "liberal elites" are the ones who "riot in our streets and attack our police."

Politico also reports that an outside group called American Economic Freedom Alliance is about to start a $200,000 TV buy for the next 12 days that "touts Messer's support for tax reform and ending tax credits for illegal immigrants."

● MS-Sen-A: State Sen. Chris McDaniel is keeping everyone guessing if he'll continue his June GOP primary challenge to Sen. Roger Wicker or run in the special election for Mississippi's other Senate seat in November, but Wicker isn't wasting any time hitting his still-opponent. McDaniel supported Ted Cruz during the 2016 presidential primary and bashed Donald Trump at a time when it was still acceptable for GOP politicians to do so, and Wicker's new TV spot aims to make McDaniel eat his words two years later. The TV commercial features a narrator declaring that McDaniel called Trump "not conservative," characterized his supporters as "disturbing" and "delusional," and opposed Trump's agenda.

This isn't going to be the last time we hear about this, either. The conservative Washington Examiner reports that Wicker's national GOP allies, who don't want the state senator as their nominee for either Senate race, are going to also bludgeon McDaniel as a Trump-hater. Indeed, national Republicans used this tactic to great success during the first round of the Alabama Senate primary last year. Rep. Mo Brooks also had criticized Trump while supporting Cruz, and his foes ran ad after ad after ad arguing that Brooks sided with the likes of Nancy Pelosi and Elizabeth Warren over Trump. The commercials did their job and Brooks badly lost, though national Republicans weren't able to find a similar hook against Roy Moore.

Gubernatorial

● AZ-Gov: The Arizona Education Association, which local NBC reporter Brahm Resnik says is the largest teachers' union in the state, has endorsed Arizona State University professor and 2014 state schools superintendent nominee David Garcia over state Sen. Steve Farley in the late August Democratic primary. The race to take on GOP Gov. David Ducey hasn't attracted too much attention, but the Republican Governors Association got our attention when they reserved $3.4 million in TV time to help Ducey in the fall.

● CO-Gov: Former state Treasurer Cary Kennedy is the only major Democratic candidate who is trying to get on the June primary ballot by advancing through the April 14 state party convention (also known as assembly) rather than through the expensive task of collecting signatures, and it looks like that was a good strategy.

Colorado Democrats held their nonbinding caucuses on Tuesday as the first step in the process of picking delegates to their convention, and Kennedy won 50 percent of the vote at the preference poll. This doesn't necessarily predict each candidate's strength at the convention, much less in the primary (some candidates are avoiding the convention altogether, so it's not a surprise that they attracted little support on Tuesday). However, it means it's likely that Kennedy will have the support of at least 30 percent of the delegates, which is the minimum she needs to make the primary ballot.

However, one of Kennedy's rivals got some bad news. Businessman Noel Ginsburg only won 2 percent of the vote on Tuesday. Ginsburg is both collecting signatures and appealing to convention delegates, but that's risky: If Ginsburg takes less than 10 percent of the delegates in April, he can't make the ballot no matter how many signatures he has. (Candidates who just skip the assembly don't need to worry about meeting that 10 percent threshold.) The campaign said Wednesday that they were evaluating what to do next.

On the GOP side, state Attorney General Cynthia Coffman is the one candidate who is depending on the April convention to advance. However, while Treasurer Walker Stapleton has committed to gathering signatures to reach the ballot, Colorado Politics reports that he's also considering competing in the assembly as a way to try to stop Coffman from advancing to the primary. While the GOP didn't do a statewide preference poll at their caucuses, some counties did, and Stapleton's allies were encouraged by his strong performance and Coffman's weak showing.

If Stapleton can keep Coffman from securing the support of at least 30 percent of the convention delegates, he can knock off his strongest opponent well before June: A recent poll showed Stapleton leading Coffman in the primary 26-13, and no one else taking more than 8. The state party says candidates can decide as late as the day of the assembly if they want to participate.

● GA-Gov: The political arm of the Georgia Association of Educators, which is one of the largest teachers' groups in the state, has endorsed former state House Minority Leader Stacey Abrams in the May Democratic primary against former state Rep. Stacey Evans.

● NV-Gov: Ryan Bundy, a son and ally of notorious rancher and far-right hero Cliven Bundy, announced on Thursday that he would run for governor as an independent. The younger Bundy argued none of the current candidates would protect Nevada's "constitutional" right to all the land and resources in the state, where the federal government owns 85 percent of the land.

The family has been at odds with the federal government since the early 1990s when Cliven Bundy, who lives in rural Nevada, refused to pay grazing fees by declaring that only the local government had any jurisdiction over his land. Cliven and Ryan Bundy, along with Ryan's younger brother, made national news in 2014 when they engaged in an armed standoff at their ranch with the law enforcement officials who had come to impound some of their cattle over the unpaid fees.

Two years later, Ryan Bundy and his militia (known to much of the internet as Y'all Qaeda) took over the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon for 41 days to protest the imprisonment of another family of like-minder ranchers for arson. Bundy was acquitted by an Oregon court in November, and charges were dismissed against him from the 2014 standoff after the judge found there was prosecutorial misconduct. It's unclear how much of an effect Bundy will have on the race, but it's very likely that any votes he attracts will mostly come from the GOP column.

Attorney General Adam Laxalt is the clear front-runner in the June GOP primary, but Treasurer Dan Schwartz is going up with his first ads. Schwartz has two 15-second offerings: He pledges to fix the state's education issues in one ad, and goes after Laxalt for "taking money from about every lobbyist and casino in town" in the other. Schwartz's campaign says that the ads, which are running on cable and online, are backed by a six-figure buy.  

● OH-Gov: The state AFL-CIO has thrown its support behind Democratic primary front-runner Richard Cordray.

● RI-Gov: Former Democratic Secretary of State Matt Brown took the political world by surprise when he said this week that he was considering an independent bid, and he tells WPRI's Ted Nesi that he'll make his final decision "within several weeks." It sounds like Brown's prepared to run a campaign that will likely take some votes away from Gov. Gina Raimondo.

Brown, who has been out of office since 2007, criticized the "massive concentration of wealth that leaves a lot of people out" and "environmental destruction that is a real problem for us but also our kids and our grandkids." That sounds like a good platform for a Democratic bid, but Brown says on his website that he thinks being an independent will let him work across party lines (even though there aren't exactly many Republicans in powerful positions in the state). But while Republicans should be happy to have Brown running as a left-wing spoiler, the chair of the state GOP instead attacked Brown immediately by referencing the campaign finance scandal that derailed his 2006 bid for the Democratic Senate primary.

House

● CA-48: In a big surprise, former Orange County Republican Party Chair Scott Baugh pulled papers for a bid against GOP Rep. Dana Rohrabacher on Wednesday evening. Baugh hasn't announced he's in as of Thursday afternoon or filed to run, but the deadline is Friday, so we won't need to wait long. And it doesn't look like Rohrabacher will be retiring at the last minute, either: Rohrabacher has filed with the state to run, and state officials tell the Los Angeles Times that it would take a court order to get him off the ballot. More than a few Democrats are nervous that Baugh and Rohrabacher could secure the top two spots in June and lock Team Blue out of the general election in a competitive seat, though other Republicans are also in.

Unlike plenty of other candidates, Baugh, who served in the state Assembly until 2000, actually begins the race with a large war chest: At the end of December, Rohrabacher held just a $713,000 to $545,000 cash-on-hand edge. That's because in early 2016, Baugh began raising money for a bid to succeed the incumbent whenever he retired, thinking that would be soon.

However, while Rohrabacher initially didn't deny Baugh's claim that he was fundraising with the congressman's permission, their relationship soured after Baugh told the Orange County Register he wasn't "going to engage in speculation" when they asked if he might run against Rohrabacher if he didn't retire. Rohrabacher put out an angry statement declaring that Baugh "represented to me and many of my supporters/donors that he would never run against me and was only raising money for when I retire. Baugh now seems to be evolving out of that commitment," and told him to return the donations. Baugh didn't, and it seems that the two haven't recovered from their falling out.

This ancestrally red seat, which includes Newport Beach and Huntington Beach, swung from 55-43 Romney to 48-46 Clinton. Democrats hope that a favorable climate and Rohrabacher's Putin ties will give them an opening, and a number of well-funded candidates are running. However, it's worth noting that Baugh isn't the first well-funded fellow Republican to enter the race. Businessman Stelian Onufrei contributed $235,000 of his own money to his campaign by Dec. 31, and he had $134,000 on-hand at the end of December; Onufrei said over the summer that he'd self-fund a total of $500,000.

However, Baugh has more money at his disposal and more connections, and with so many Democrats in the race, he could introduce another headache to Democrats who are worried about being locked out of the general election.

● IL-03: On Thursday, with less than two weeks to go before the March 20 Democratic primary, Bernie Sanders endorsed Marie Newman's challenge to Rep. Dan Lipinski. Sanders carried this Chicago-area seat 54-45 during the 2016 presidential primary, so he may be able to move some votes in Newman's direction.

Early voting recently began here, and Lipinski and his allies are now taking to the airwaves in force. Late last month, Lipinski ran a positive spot touting his local roots and arguing that he was standing up against "bad trade deals" and for equal pay for women. This time, the narrator begins by arguing that Newman and her allies were falsely attacking him, and that he's voted against Trump "again and again and again" (according to FiveThirtyEight, Lipinski has voted with Trump 35 percent of the time, more than all but 10 other House Democrats).

A pro-Lipinski group called United for Progress, whose major benefactors include a trio of wealthy executives, is also spending on an ad. Their spot is one of those kitchen-sink ads that throws a lot at an opponent and hope something sticks. The group has spent $436,000 here so far, including $363,000 on TV.

● IN-09: This southern Indiana seat went from a tough 57-41 Romney to a brutal 61-34, but Democrats hope that freshman Rep. and recent Tennessee transplant Trey Hollingsworth's weak ties to the state, as well as a favorable political climate, will give them an opening. Indiana University Professor Liz Watson, who previously served as a senior Democratic staffer on the U.S. House's Committee on Education and the Workforce, is facing civil rights attorney Dan Canon in the May primary. Watson is out with a poll from Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research giving her a 40-27 edge. At the end of December, Watson led Cannon $276,000 to $112,000 in cash-on-hand.

● MA-07: Longtime Democratic Rep. Mike Capuano faces a September primary challenge from Boston City Councilor Ayanna Pressley in this safely blue seat, and while this very much looks like another establishment vs. anti-establishment battle, things are a bit more complicated on the ground.

In the past, Capuano has enjoyed plenty of support from labor, which is a huge force in local politics. And indeed, while Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, a former head of the Boston Building Trades who remains a key union ally, hasn't publicly taken sides yet, local politicos widely expect him to side with the incumbent. Not all labor groups may follow his lead, however. Harris Gruman, the executive director of the state SEIU, recently told the New York Times that Capuano has been a "very active" ally. But Gruman also noted that the majority of the union was, like Pressley, "predominantly people of color and women," and said that "with Trump as president and a sense of racial and social injustice at a heightened level," his union's endorsement was up for grabs.

Not many local or state politicians have endorsed Pressley, but plenty sound like they'll remain neutral. Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey haven't taken sides yet, and they may not ever. Warren's spokesperson says they "have no plans to get involved with primaries across the state," while Markey's team praised both candidates equally and said he won't endorse "at this time."

Two of Capuano's colleagues in the all-Democratic House delegation are also remaining neutral, at least for now. Rep. Seth Moulton, who unseated John Tierney in a 2014 primary, said recently that he "would be a hypocrite" if he supported an incumbent in a intra-party race, and retiring Rep. Niki Tsongas also isn't taking sides. The other six members, including well-known Rep. Joe Kennedy III, are supporting Capuano. So is Georgia Rep. and civil rights era legend John Lewis, who backed him on Wednesday.

Pressley hasn't taken issue with any of Capuano's votes or positions, but she's argued that as a woman of color, she'll bring a much-needed new perspective to Congress, and that the seat needs an activist instead of just a "reliable vote." Pressley also has argued that this seat, which is by-far the most racially diverse in the state, has "changed a great deal" since Capuano was first elected in 1998, but "[t]he only thing that hasn't changed is its representation." For his part, Capuano is arguing that his experience and seniority are vital. The only poll that's been released was a MassInc survey that showed Capuano up 47-35 last month.

● MD-06: Rep. Anthony Brown, who represents a nearby seat, endorsed wealthy businessman David Trone's campaign in the June Democratic primary. Trone and his family have given Brown $35,000 since his first House bid in 2015, but the two insist they've known and supported each other for years.  

● NH-01: Republicans have struggled to land a candidate who can raise a credible amount of money for this open swing seat, but they may get one soon. Bruce Crochetiere, who runs a local technology company, tells WMUR that he's considering and expects to decide "very soon." Some Republicans are speculating that Crochetiere could be the fabled self-funder that national Republicans want, though it's not clear how much of his own money Crochetiere would be able and willing to spend.

● NY-21: While businessman and former TV personality Dylan Ratigan has attracted the most attention ahead of the June Democratic primary, he's far from the only candidate hoping to take on GOP Rep. Elise Stefanik. Small businesswoman Katie Wilson has been nominated by the Working Families Party, a left-leaning third-party that usually endorses the Democratic nominee. (In New York, it's common for major party candidates to also be the nominees of smaller like-minder parties.) Wilson has been running for this rural seat since June, but she had just $16,000 on-hand at the end of December.

● PA-05: This week, state Rep. Margo Davidson filed with the FEC to seek the Democratic nomination for this new 63-34 Clinton seat based around Delaware County. We are not fans of hers.

● PA-07: The state SEIU, which represents 80,000 employees in the state, endorsed pastor Greg Edwards in the May Democratic primary for this swing seat.

● PA-09: This new rural seat, which includes the old coal mining areas northwest of the Philadelphia region, went from 57-41 Romney to 65-31 Trump, and it's certainly an unlikely Democratic pickup opportunity. However, Democrats got an interesting candidate this week when Denny Wolff, a dairy farmer who served as the state's agriculture secretary from 2003 to 2009, announced he was in. Wolff was running to succeed GOP Rep. Lou Barletta in the old 11th District, which had backed Trump 60-36, before court-ordered redistricting created a new seat here. Wolff had a $154,000 war chest at the end of December, with about half his cash coming from himself.

On the GOP side, former state Revenue Secretary Dan Meuser, who was also seeking the old 11th, is up with his first spot. The commercial, which is running on Fox News, touts Meuser's local roots and business background.

● TX-02: One of the biggest surprises on Tuesday was that GOP businesswoman Kathaleen Wall narrowly failed to make the runoff despite airing ad after ad after ad and having the support of Gov. Greg Abbott and Sen. Ted Cruz. However, the Houston Chronicle gives us some insight into what may have gone wrong for her. While Wall spent about $6 million here, far more than all her rivals combined, she was not exactly impressive in person. The paper notes that at events "she struggled to remember talking points during forums. Her campaign also avoided interviews with the media, turning down repeated interview requests with the Houston Chronicle." And after watching this cringe-inducing video of a time Wall did speak, we can see why. State Rep. Kevin Roberts and retired Navy SEAL Dan Crenshaw will compete in the May 22 runoff.

● House: House Majority PAC, one of the main outside groups on the Democratic side, has announced that they've reserved $43 million in fall TV time in 33 different media markets. HMP only listed the media markets where they've made reservations, but we've also included our best guesses as to which House districts they're specifically targeting or defending in parentheses. You can find our spreadsheet here that tracks which media markets make up each House district and state:

• Phoenix, AZ: $1,170,000 (AZ-01, possibly AZ-09)
• Tucson, AZ: $480,000 (AZ-02)
• Los Angeles, CA: $5,215,000 (CA-25, CA-39, CA-45, CA-48, CA-49)
• Sacramento, CA: $1,540,000 (CA-10, possibly CA-07)
• San Diego, CA: $1,242,000 (CA-49, possibly CA-50)
• Denver, CO: $1,760,000 (CO-06)
• Washington, DC: $1,880,000 (VA-10)
• Miami, FL: $1,119,500 (FL-26 & FL-27)
• Orlando, FL: $1,930,000 (FL-07, possibly FL-06)
• West Palm Beach, FL: $420,000 (FL-18)
• Cedar Rapids, IA: $540,000 (IA-01)
• Des Moines, IA: $600,000 (IA-03)
• Chicago, IL: $1,042,500 (IL-06)
• Topeka, KS: $240,000 (KS-02)
• Lexington, KY: $564,000 (KY-06)
• Boston, MA/Manchester, NH: $762,500 (NH-01)
• Bangor, ME: $616,000 (ME-02)
• Portland, ME: $1,008,000 (ME-02)
• Presque Isle, ME: $70,000 (ME-02)
• Detroit, MI: $1,129,000 (MI-11 & MI-08, possibly MI-07)
• Lansing, MI: $162,000 (MI-08, possibly MI-07)
• Minneapolis, MN: $3,520,000 (MN-02, MN-03, MN-08, possibly MN-07)
• Kansas City, MO: $660,000 (KS-03, KS-02)
• St. Louis, MO: $530,000 (IL-12)
• Omaha, NE: $896,250 (NE-02 & IA-03)
• Las Vegas, NV: $2,790,000 (NV-03 & NV-04)
• Albany, NY: $210,000 (NY-19)
• New York City, NY: $1,325,000 (NJ-03, NJ-07, NJ-11, NY-01, NY-11, NY-19, possibly NJ-05)
• Philadelphia, PA: $2,970,000 (NJ-02, NJ-03, PA-01, PA-06, PA-07)
• Dallas-Ft. Worth, TX: $2,200,000 (TX-32)
• Houston, TX: $1,980,000 (TX-07)
• San Antonio, TX: $850,000 (TX-23)
• Seattle, WA: $1,694,250 (WA-08)

While early ad reservations help lock in cheaper rates, they can be adjusted or cancelled, so this list could change (and it will definitely grow). Note also that in several cases, such as New York and Los Angeles, media markets overlap with multiple districts. That doesn't mean HMP is necessarily planning to target every race in each market, though, and they could also shift resources from one race to another within the same market.

Grab Bag

● Deaths: Republican Charley Thone, a Nebraska Republican who represented the state in the House in the 1970s and served a term as governor before losing re-election to Democrat Bob Kerrey, died Wednesday at the age of 92. Thone served as a state and federal prosecutor and as state GOP chair, and he narrowly lost a 1964 bid for lieutenant governor. In 1970, after incumbent Rep. Robert Denney withdrew from the race following the primary after being nominated for a judgeship, district members of the GOP state central committee votes 18-15 to make Thone their nominee for a Lincoln-area seat.

Thone served for eight years, and in 1977, he was a member of the House Select Committee on Assassinations, which looked into the deaths of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King. Thone insisted on open meetings, which earned him the label "the conscience of the committee" from Walter Cronkite. Ultimately, the committee concluded there was no evidence of a conspiracy against JFK.

Thone gave up his House seat in 1978 to run for governor, and he decisively won both the primary and general election. Notably, Thone vetoed a 1979 bill to abolish the death penalty. He was the first governor to back Ronald Reagan's 1980 presidential bid, and Thone successfully advocated for him to pick George H.W. Bush as his running mate over former President Gerald Ford. However, the state's agricultural industry was hit hard by a recession, and he lost his 1982 re-election campaign to Kerrey (who would later serve as a senator) 51-49. Thone returned to private life afterwards, though he notably received a shout out at the 1988 Republican National Convention when Bush, who was at the podium about to accept the presidential nomination, spotted the former governor in the crowd and said "Hi, Charley."