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.
● Primaries: We had more runoffs in Georgia on Tuesday. We'll cover the outcomes the next Digest, but in the meantime, you can find the raw results here.
Leading Off
• GA-Gov: On Tuesday, Secretary of State Brian Kemp defeated Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle in the GOP primary runoff for governor of Georgia in a 69-31 landslide. In November, Kemp will face former state House Minority Leader Stacey Abrams, who decisively won the Democratic nomination in May, in what is shaping up to be a hotly contested election.
Campaign Action
Cagle, who had spent much of the race as the frontrunner, had led Kemp 39-26 the May primary and should have favorite in the runoff. But things quickly went wrong for him after one of his former opponents released damaging audio from a conversation with Cagle he'd secretly taped. The recordings made Cagle look like the worst sort of venal, calculating politician, and as his campaign struggled to respond, Kemp picked up Donald Trump's support in a surprise. In today's cult-of-personality GOP, that was enough to seal Cagle's doom.
Democrats had been watching the Republican firefight with glee, but they haven't held the governor's mansion since Roy Barnes lost re-election in 2002. However, Team Blue hopes that Abrams will break their losing streak. Abrams, who would be the first black woman to serve as governor of any U.S. state, is a strong fundraiser, and she's counting on turning out black voters (especially black women), young people, and other voters of color who traditionally have made up a smaller share of midterm electorates compared to presidential elections.
Kemp also gives Abrams an opponent who could not only inspire Democrats to head to the voting booths but also cost Team Red moderate voters. While Cagle was a fairly bland establishment figure (albeit one close to the NRA), Kemp has run Trumpesque-ads pitching himself as a "politically incorrect conservative." In one particularly infamous spot, Kemp declared, "I got a big truck, just in case I need to round up criminal illegals and take 'em home myself." However, the Republican nominee still has a bit more room for error than Abrams in a state that backed Trump 50-45, and Daily Kos Elections rates the general as Lean Republican.
Georgia also has an unusual law that could complicate the race. If no one takes a majority of the vote on Nov. 6, the top-two candidates will face off in a Dec. 10 runoff, and with Libertarian Ted Metz and independent Larry Odom on the ballot, there's a real chance this could happen. (Confusingly, any runoff for federal races wouldn't be until January.) It's hard to say how a December runoff might impact turnout, which adds some extra unpredictability to this contest.
2Q Fundraising
You can bookmark our chart to track the second-quarter fundraising reports in all of the competitive Senate races. Our House fundraising chart can be found here.
● MN-Sen-B: Richard Painter (D): $156,000 raised, $76,000 cash-on-hand
● MT-Sen: Matt Rosendale (R): $909,000 raised, $639,000 cash-on-hand
● WI-Sen: Kevin Nicholson (R): $1 million raised, $770,000 cash-on-hand; Leah Vukmir (R): $669,000 raised, $817,000 cash-on-hand
Senate
● IN-Sen: The conservative group One Nation has launched an ad featuring a "small manufacturing company" owner talking about how great Trump's tax cuts supposedly are, yet the narrator attacks Democratic Sen. Joe Donnelly for voting against the tax cuts.
● MT-Sen: Republican Matt Rosendale is spending at least $250,000 to launch a new TV ad that opposes Democratic Sen. Jon Tester. Rosendale bashes what he calls Tester's false campaign attacks, and he blasts Tester for becoming a "multi-millionaire" while serving in the Senate and buying a "cosmopolitan castle on Capitol Hill." However, while Rosendale has tried to portray himself as just an average Joe in his ads, he of course makes no mention that his own net worth is between $7 million and $32 million.
Gubernatorial
● AK-Gov: Campaign finance reports are in for all the candidates covering the period from Feb. 2 to July 20. Independent Gov. Bill Walker took in $221,000 during this time and ended with $337,000 in the bank, which is the largest war chest of anyone in the contest. Former Democratic Sen. Mark Begich, who jumped into the race at the beginning of June, raised $133,000 and had $96,000 in the bank.
Former state Sen. Mike Dunleavy, the frontrunner in the Aug. 21 GOP primary, hauled in $164,000 and had $43,000 left over. Dunleavy's allied super PAC Dunleavy for Alaska raised $521,000 and had $42,000 on-hand. Finally, former Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell, who only entered the race in early June, took in just $22,000 and had $9,000 in the bank.
● CO-Gov: The RGA's first TV ad attacking Democratic nominee Jared Polis charges that he's a radical who will turn Colorado into California, using a cheesy Scrabble board setup to spell out the portmanteau of "radicalifornia." They claim he wants higher taxes and to put people out of work.
● FL-Gov, FL-Sen: The conservative Associated Industries of Florida is out with a poll of the Aug. 28 Democratic primary for governor that gives former Rep. Gwen Graham a 24-16 lead over former Miami Beach Mayor Philip Levine. Billionaire developer Jeff Greene takes 13, while Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum and businessman Chris King take 12 and 4, respectively. AIF tells us the poll was in the field July 16 through the 18th.
This poll is a bit better for Graham than a recent survey from St. Pete Polls that showed her tied 22-22 with Greene, while Levine was just behind at 19. However, a number of polls from the early spring and summer gave Levine the lead, and the contest seems to have shifted since Greene jumped in and began spending heavily.
According to Politico's Marc Caputo, Greene has spent $10.2 million on TV in just a month, and he has the personal wealth to spend a whole lot more. By contrast, Levine has spent $15 million over the last eight months, while Graham has deployed $4.7 million since early June. As Caputo also notes, it's more than just Greene's spending that could be causing Levine problems. Both candidates are wealthy Jewish men from South Florida, so they likely are competing for a similar group of voters.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump will be coming to Tampa for a July 31 rally to support Republican Rep. Ron DeSantis ahead of next month's GOP primary for governor. He's also going to support Republican Gov. Rick Scott in his general election bout against Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson, whom Trump's press release amusingly misnamed as former Democratic Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson.
● IL-Gov: Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner just landed himself in ethical hot water after attending a campaign event where a political ally who is running for Chicago mayor handed out $300,000 in cash from his charitable foundation, including $100,000 that had been donated by Rauner himself. Mayoral candidate Willie Wilson and Rauner had recently both addressed a church congregation in Chicago's South Side, and Wilson gave out the cash to passersby after the event.
Politico reports that election experts said Rauner likely didn't break the law, since he wasn't actually present when Wilson dispensed the cash, and Rauner argued the event was to help people pay their property taxes instead of a campaign event. However, in a state that's notorious for corruption, the appearance of possible vote-buying can't be helpful to the unpopular governor's image, even if he didn't technically commit a crime.
● KS-Gov: Republican firm Remington Research has released a poll with two hypothetical general election matchups in Kansas, and they show the race is highly dependent on what the field looks like after next month's primaries. If Republican Gov. Jeff Colyer wins the primary for a full term, he leads Democratic state Sen. Laura Kelly 38-28, with independent businessman Greg Orman taking 10. However, if Secretary of State Kris Kobach is the GOP nominee, Kelly actually leads by 36-35, with Orman at 12.
Remington claims no campaign paid for this survey, but their parent company is Axiom Strategies, one of whose senior vice presidents, Travis Smith, has consulted for Colyer's campaign. Furthermore, it's notable that this release didn't include any numbers for the Republican primary, where Kobach is Colyer's main rival, and this release could be intended to argue Colyer is the more electable of the two candidates.
● MA-Gov: Republican Gov. Charlie Baker is an overwhelming favorite over whichever unheralded Democrat wins Team Blue's nomination, but that isn't stopping national Republicans from dropping money on this race. Commonwealth Future, which is funded by the RGA, has made more than $4.1 million in TV ad reservations from early August through early October. It seems unlikely the GOP is truly worried about the popular governor losing, but it's possible they're eager to run up the score in an attempt to elect more Republicans down-ballot on his coattails.
● MI-Gov: It feels like the Aug. 7 GOP primary is turning into a referendum on which candidate spent the least time doing his day job. Attorney General Bill Schuette launched a spot against Lt. Gov. Brian Calley a few weeks ago arguing that Calley took classes at Harvard while skipping much of the legislative session, and now Calley's newest spot begins with a narrator declaring "Bill Schuette is off duty." The commercial goes on to say that Schuette barley worked 104 full days during his eight years as attorney general, and when he was at work, he used "government staff to make secret real estate deals, and now the FBI is involved."
That last line references an early July Detroit News story about how an attorney named Mike Nichols, who was a co-host at a recent fundraiser for Democratic frontrunner Gretchen Whitmer, requested that Ingham County Prosecutor Carol Siemon open a grand jury investigation over whether Schuette broke any laws when he used his office staff as witnesses to multimillion-dollar sales of property he'd inherited in the Virgin Islands. Siemon referred Nichols' request to the FBI because it was "the most appropriate investigative body for this matter." The bureau has not said if they're investigating the matter.
On the Democratic side, former Detroit Health Commissioner Abdul El-Sayed is up with a new spot where he tells the audience that corporate greed explains why health care and auto insurance are so expensive and why air and water are poisoning children. El-Sayed says he stands for "state-level Medicare-for-All, to reverse the rates on auto insurance, and to de-Devos our public schools."
● OH-Gov: In an against-type choice, Ohio's Fraternal Order of Police has endorsed Democrat Richard Cordray, a former state attorney general, over current GOP Attorney General Mike DeWine in the race for governor. The FOP, which is the state's largest police union and represents 30,000 members statewide, has historically favored Republicans and had endorsed DeWine in his losing 2006 Senate race. However, they previously backed Democrats against DeWine when he won elections for attorney general in 2014 and 2010, the latter of which was when he narrowly ousted Cordray from office.
House
● CO-06: Democrat Jason Crow is out with a poll from Global Strategy Group that gives him a small 47-45 edge over Republican Rep. Mike Coffman. That's a smaller lead for Crow than the 44-39 edge that PPP gave him in February in a survey for the progressive group End Citizens United, but Team Red has yet to release any polls of their own giving the incumbent the lead.
This suburban Denver swing seat has hosted a number of expensive races, and this year won't be any different. At the end of June, Coffman held a $1.6 million to $1.3 million cash-on-hand edge over Crow, and both parties have reserved millions in fall TV time here.
● FL-06: St. Pete Polls takes a look at the Aug. 28 Democratic primary for Florida Politics, and they give former deputy National Security Advisor Nancy Soderberg, the favored candidate of national Democrats, a 30-13 lead over travel agency owner John Upchurch, while radiologist Stephen Sevigny takes 10.
Sevigny, who has self-funded much of his campaign, recently began airing four cable TV spots. One of those commercials goes after Soderberg, who moved to the district from Jacksonville, arguing that she doesn't know the community. The other three are positive and emphasize health care.
● FL-16: Republican Rep. Vern Buchanan is making a large $500,000 buy for a TV ad that goes negative on Democrat David Shapiro. The spot attacks him as a hypocrite for owning stock in companies responsible for environmentally disastrous oil spills, pharmaceutical companies that have profited from the opioid epidemic, and gun manufacturers, despite Shapiro claiming he supports the environment, wants to fight drug addiction, and favors gun-safety measures.
● FL-27: Rep. Carlos Curbelo has endorsed former Spanish-language TV journalist Maria Elvira Salazar in the Aug. 28 GOP primary to succeed retiring Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. This 59-39 Clinton seat is one of Team Blue's best pickup opportunities in the nation, but Salazar has been raising a credible amount of money since she entered the race at the beginning of the year, and she ended June with $578,000 on-hand. Former Miami-Dade County Commissioner Bruno Barreiro, whose own poll found him trailing Salazar 24-10, had only $180,000 to spend.
Salazar still has considerably less money available than most of the Democrats, though. Former University of Miami President Donna Shalala, the frontrunner in next month's primary, had $1.1 million on-hand, while state Rep. David Richardson and former journalist Matt Haggman had $762,000 and $746,000 in the bank, respectively. However, former Miami Beach Commissioner Kristen Rosen Gonzalez had only $81,000 in the bank.
● KS-03: Teacher Tom Niermann's latest Democratic primary ad features scenes of him and students in a classroom while he narrates and speaks to the camera. Niermann skewers the "Brownback tax disaster" for cutting billions in funding from Kansas schools and promises he'll stand up to Trump to ensure schools are fully funded.
● MO-02: Law professor Cort VanOstran is going on TV two weeks ahead of the Aug. 7 Democratic primary to take on GOP Rep. Ann Wagner in this suburban St. Louis seat. VanOstran tells the audience how his mother was diagnosed with terminal breast cancer, but because she had insurance, the family was able to focus on being together. VanOstran then pledges to fight cuts to healthcare and pledges to protect Medicare and Social Security.
Wagner recently went up with an early TV spot that touts her humble origins and work as a U.S. ambassador. The ad's narrator is soon revealed to be her son, an Army Ranger. It's unusual to see Wagner run ads here, but with $3.39 million in the bank, she certainly can afford to.
This seat has been reliably red for years, but Wagner has good reason to take this contest seriously. This highly educated suburban district moved from 57-41 Romney to 53-42 Trump even as the state of Missouri was going hard in the opposite direction, and VanOstran is the best-funded Democrat who has run in this area in a long time. VanOstran ended June with a credible $541,000 on-hand, while primary foe Mark Osmack had just $49,000 to spend. VanOstran's war chest is certainly considerably smaller than what Wagner has to spend, but he does have the resources to get his name out.
● NJ-05: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which in recent years has become firmly aligned with the establishment wing of the Republican Party, has endorsed Democratic Rep. Josh Gottheimer in this high-income suburban district.
● PA-17: Wowzers: Monmouth has released the first publicly available poll of the unusual member-on-member general election in the newly redistricted 17th District, and the result is nothing short of stellar for Democratic Rep. Conor Lamb. Monmouth's survey has him trouncing Republican Rep. Keith Rothfus by 51-39, which is a major improvement over Hillary Clinton's 49-47 loss to Donald Trump in this suburban Pittsburgh district that the state Supreme Court created after it struck down the GOP's gerrymander earlier this year.
Lamb undoubtedly is benefiting from the exposure he gained from winning a hard-fought March special election in the old and much redder 18th District. Indeed, Daily Kos Elections' David Beard points out that Monmouth gives Lamb an excellent 44-17 favorable rating despite all the millions Republicans spent to beat him earlier this year. However, he's still running in a district that's 80 percent new to him and just 44 percent new to Rothfus.
Both Lamb and Rothfus have been prodigious fundraisers in the second quarter, but Lamb still led the way. He raised $871,000 to Rothfus' $689,000, and Lamb had a narrow $2.1 million to $2.07 million cash-on-hand advantage as well. However, national Republicans have already reserved a huge $3.8 million here, and Rothfus won't go down without putting up a tough fight. But if this poll is even in the right ballpark in terms of accuracy, Republicans could be in deep trouble in this relatively well-educated suburban district.