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
● OH-14: Here's something you don't see everyday: Despite holding down a 54-42 Trump district, GOP Rep. David Joyce is airing a TV ad where he touts how he stood up to Trump when the latter tried to take away funding for the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative and how he bucked congressional leadership when they tried to take away healthcare protections for patients with pre-existing conditions, although he doesn't acknowledge this was a vote against repealing Obamacare.
Normally, we would expect to only see Republicans in much bluer seats running away from Trump, like Minnesota GOP Rep. Erik Paulsen did in his first ad last month in a suburban Minneapolis district that went 51-41 for Clinton. Joyce faces Democrat Betsy Rader in a contest we rate as Likely Republican, but this district only voted 51-48 Romney six years ago, and Joyce's ad is a sign Trump could be a drag even in red-leaning seats like this one.
Senate
● AZ-Sen: DefendArizona, which is supporting Rep. Martha McSally over state Sen. Kelli Ward in the GOP primary, has added $923,000 to its ad buy and debuted two new spots (here and here). The first ad hits Ward for supposedly being weak on stopping terrorism and supporting cuts for military funding. The second one bemoans the allegedly false attacks against McSally, calling it "fake news" and "Democrat [sic] lies" that she supports a so-called "age tax," and they also highlight her military service.
Adding to Ward's troubles is the third candidate in the primary, disgraced former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio. The Washington Examiner reported that two disgruntled senior staffers who had previously left Ward's campaign after she allegedly mistreated them had recently joined Arpaio's campaign and were "out for revenge." Arpaio's team has been training their fire on Ward this month, and the two hardliners battling it out could easily boost McSally as they tear each other down.
● IN-Sen: The Republican firm Trafalgar Group has surprisingly released a poll that has Democratic Sen. Joe Donnelly leading by a wide 51-39 against Republican Mike Braun in a race that has seen almost no polling since the May primary. However, if a poll looks too good to be true, it should be treated with a healthy dose of skepticism, particularly one from a partisan GOP pollster who could have an ulterior motive.
Indeed, the survey also tested the horse race after asking voters how they would vote if Donnelly voted for or against Trump's Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Counterintuitively, Trafalgar finds Donnelly falling to a 39-39 tie if he votes for Kavanaugh yet holding a 45-38 lead if he votes against him.
We've seen very little polling on how the upcoming Supreme Court confirmation vote could affect the standing of vulnerable red-state Democratic senators up for re-election this fall, and it's very difficult to surmise whether there will even be a tangible difference in their standing depending on how they vote.
● NM-Sen: It's official: Former Gov. and Libertarian Party presidential nominee Gary Johnson will run for Senate as the Libertarian candidate this fall. Johnson's move comes after state Land Commissioner Aubrey Dunn, who like Johnson had only been elected to office as a Republican, dropped out of the race after winning the June primary.
Johnson gives the Libertarians their best hope of victory against Democratic Sen. Martin Heinrich and unheralded Republican nominee Mick Rich, but it's still a very slim hope against an uncontroversial incumbent in a Democratic-leaning state in a Democratic-favoring year. Indeed, Heinrich's campaign recently released a poll from GBA Strategies that had him winning by a 47-29 landslide over Rich, with Johnson taking 22 percent. Johnson's best chance would be if Rich dropped out, but he's shown no signs of doing so, and even that likely wouldn't be enough for the Libertarians to win their first-ever federal or statewide race.
Gubernatorial
● FL-Gov: SurveyUSA has polled each party's contest with the Aug. 28 primaries swiftly approaching, and they give GOP Rep. Ron DeSantis just a 40-38 edge over state Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam. Almost every poll has found DeSantis with an advantage since he began advertising his endorsement from Trump earlier this summer, but they have disagreed over just how much he's ahead.
On the Democratic side, SurveyUSA has former Rep. Gwen Graham and former Miami Beach Mayor Philip Levine tied at 22-22 apiece, while billionaire developer Jeff Greene takes 16 and Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum earns 11. This is the first survey in nearly two months that hasn't found Graham ahead. Levine got more good news when the Democratic pollster SEA Polling & Strategic Design dropped a survey where he sports a 27-24 lead over Graham, while Gillum takes 15 and Greene earns 13. SEA tells us they conducted the survey on behalf of a group unaffiliated with any campaign.
Meanwhile, UNITE HERE Local 355, which supports Levine, is putting six figures behind an ad buy targeting Graham. Their TV ad accuses Graham and her family's company of trying to make millions off of a proposed megamall development project that they claim would pay low wages, exacerbate traffic, and could encourage environmental destruction on the eastern edge of the Everglades. Graham hasn't taken a public position on the mall's development and no longer sits on the company's board, but Levine and Greene have attacked her over it anyway.
● NY-Gov: Politico reports that Gov. Andrew Cuomo has been spending big over the past month with the Democratic primary coming up on Sept. 13. Cuomo dropped a large $7.5 million from July 17 through Aug. 13, and he still had a monster $24.4 million in the bank after starting the race with a huge war chest. By contrast, actress and activist Cynthia Nixon spent only $607,000 during the same period and ended up with only $442,000 on-hand.
● OK-Gov: Following recent attacks by businessman Kevin Stitt against former Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett for supposedly deviating from Republican orthodoxy, Cornett has fired back with a negative spot of his own ahead of the Aug. 28 primary runoff. Cornett's ad begins by mentioning Stitt's attack that he supposedly favors so-called "sanctuary cities," followed by Cornett calling it "a bunch of Bull Stitt," a label used multiple times in lieu of the word bullshit. The narrator also calls Stitt's company "one of the 15 shadiest mortgage lenders in the entire country."
House
● CA-39: The Congressional Leadership Fund has launched a TV ad that tries to portray Democrat Gil Cisneros as shady. They note how he won millions in the lottery and accuse him of investing in companies that do business in Iran and avoid paying taxes.
They also bring up an allegation of sexual harassment against him by Democratic state Assembly candidate Melissa Fazli one month before the June primary. However, it's worth noting that no major media outlet has jumped on the story despite having had months to look into the allegations. Furthermore, while two of Cisneros' Democratic rivals in the primary said at the time that the accusations "cannot be ignored," all six of his major Democratic foes swiftly endorsed him after he advanced to the general election against Republican Young Kim.
● FL-06, FL-17: With Honor Fund, which has been supporting a bipartisan group of veterans running this cycle, has launched a $145,000 ad buy for businessman and Army veteran Michael Waltz in Florida's 6th District and a $100,000 ad buy for state Sen. and Army veteran Greg Steube in Florida's 17th District. Both candidates are running in the GOP primaries for their respective seats.
● FL-26: The DCCC has released an internal poll from GBA Strategies conducted in mid-July that gives Republican Rep. Carlos Curbelo a 48-41 lead over Democrat Debbie Mucarsel-Powell. This is the first poll we've seen of the general election so far, but Democrats argued Curbelo's sizable lead was a consequence of Mucarsel-Powell only having 22 percent name ID, which will certainly increase once voters have watched more of each candidate's ads and have paid more attention to the race. However, it remains to be seen whether Mucarsel-Powell will be able to maintain a positive image once voters become more familiar with her.
● MA-03: SEIU Local 5000, which is one of Massachusetts' largest unions with more than 22,000 members statewide, has endorsed Democrat Dan Koh ahead of next month's primary for this open seat.
● NY-27: Republican leaders in New York's 27th Congressional District met on Tuesday night to discuss what to do about Chris Collins, but they still haven't come up with a way to get the indicted congressman off the ballot. Collins, who was charged with insider trading last week, very much wants to bail, but New York's restrictive laws make it difficult to remove his name—unless he pleads guilty.
Since Collins probably isn't about to cut a deal with prosecutors, Republicans will have to find some other trick, but no matter what they try, Democrats say they'll sue to block any sort of switcheroo. Even if Republicans are ultimately successful, a lawsuit would delay their ability to name a replacement since there wouldn't be any actual vacancy to fill. That would help Democrat Nate McMurray, who is currently the only major-party candidate actually running for this seat.
And if turns out the GOP can't ditch Collins? Hoo boy. Let's just say that would be one massive debacle.
● OH-15: GOP Rep. and NRCC chair Steve Stivers holds a 55-40 Trump seat that's a few points redder than the neighboring 12th District, but he doesn't appear to be taking anything for granted in his race against little-known Democrat Rick Neal after Republican Troy Balderson won last week's 12th District special election by just a 50-49 margin over Democrat Danny O'Connor. Stivers has launched two new ads that highlight his supposed support for affordable health care and a federal balanced budget amendment, although of course Stivers leaves out that he voted to repeal Obamacare and for Trump's debt-increasing tax cuts for the rich.
Other Races
● WV Supreme Court: West Virginia's 3rd District GOP Rep. Evan Jenkins lost his Senate primary in May, but he's found an escape hatch and announced he will run for state Supreme Court this fall. That option became open after the GOP moved to impeach the entire court over a major corruption scandal, but in a devious move, they waited until after an Aug. 14 deadline passed to hold special elections this year so that GOP Gov. Jim Justice's appointees could flip the court to a Republican majority through at least 2020. However, two Democratic justices resigned early, forcing two special elections to take place this year.
Primary Recap
● MN-Sen-B: Appointed Sen. Tina Smith decisively beat Richard Painter 76-14 in the Democratic primary. Painter, the former ethics lawyer for the George W. Bush White House, only joined the Democratic Party after flirting with a run for this seat as either an independent or a #NeverTrump Republican, and while he generated plenty of retweets for his anti-Trump musings, he never had much support on the ground. Smith begins the general election for the final two years of this term as the clear favorite over GOP state Sen. Karin Housley in a race we rate as Likely Democratic.
● WI-Sen: State Sen. Leah Vukmir, who had the support of the state GOP establishment, defeated businessman and Marine veteran Kevin Nicholson 49-43 in the primary to take on Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin. This was a very expensive contest, with Nicholson benefiting from over $10 million in spending from groups supported by billionaire megadonor Richard Uihlein. Vukmir received $2.5 million in air support from groups funded by Diane Hendricks, another billionaire megadonor, and the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce. However, while Nicholson pitched himself as a conservative outsider, he had trouble explaining away his long history as a Democrat.
Baldwin has already been on the receiving end of plenty of ads, with groups funded by the Koch brothers and Uihlein outspending Baldwin's allies $4.2 million to $1 million. However, Baldwin is very well-funded herself, and she had $6.7 million on-hand in late July. A July poll from Marist did give Baldwin a 55-38 lead, but data has been pretty scarce here. It's not going to be easy for Team Red to defeat Baldwin in this swing state in a tough year for their party, but big GOP donors seem very inclined to try. We rate this contest as Lean Democratic.
● CT-Gov: Wealthy businessman Bob Stefanowski defeated Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton, who had the state party endorsement, 29-21 to win the GOP nomination in a five-way race. On the Democratic side, Ned Lamont, another wealthy businessman who notably defeated Sen. Joe Lieberman in the 2006 primary before losing the general election to Lieberman's independent campaign, beat Bridgeport Mayor Joe Ganim in an 81-19 landslide. Both nominees have mostly been self-funding their campaigns.
While Connecticut is usually is a reliably blue state in federal races, it's been very open to sending Republicans to the governor's office. The state's bad economic situation has also helped make outgoing Democratic incumbent Dan Malloy (who beat Lamont in the 2010 primary) extremely unpopular, giving Team Red a strong chance to flip this seat. However, Trump could cause Stefanowski plenty of trouble in a state he lost 55-41 two years ago. Stefanowski pitched himself as a Trump ally during the primary, and he received a Trump endorsement tweet on Wednesday. Daily Kos Elections rates this as a Tossup.
P.S. Former Secretary of State Susan Bysiewicz, who dropped out of the race for governor to run for lieutenant governor with Lamont's endorsement, ended up defeating labor organizer Eva Zimmerman 62-38. On the GOP side, state Sen. Joe Markley defeated New Britain Mayor Erin Stewart, a Republican rising star who also left the gubernatorial race to run here, 48-33. In Connecticut, candidates for governor and lieutenant governor run in separate primaries but are either elected or defeated in November as a ticket.
● WI-Gov: On Tuesday, state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Evers defeated Professional Fire Fighters of Wisconsin president Mahlon Mitchell 42-16 to win the crowded Democratic primary to take on GOP Gov. Scott Walker.
Walker is facing his toughest race yet, but he and his allies start out with a massive financial advantage over Evers. They're making full use of it already: The state Republican Party announced Tuesday evening that they'd launched a $500,000 TV and digital ad buy arguing that Evers had failed to protect students in the classroom. Their spot claims that Evers knew that a teacher had viewed pornographic material at school and had made "sexual remarks about the bodies of middle school girls," but says Evers "sided with the union and refused to revoke the teacher's license."
Republicans have long telegraphed that they planned to use this story to undermine Evers if he won the primary and even tested out a similar radio spot against him in October. Of course, it's bogus: The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel explains that Evers was hamstrung because, at the time of the incident, state law only allowed for a teacher's license to be suspended over conduct that endangered "the health, safety, welfare or education" of a student.
In response to this case, Evers worked with Walker and the GOP-led legislature to toughen the law to allow suspensions for using school equipment to view pornography. Of course, Team Red will do whatever they can to portray Evers as reckless and weak before he can respond. For his part, Walker has spent months running positive ads, and he went up with a new one right after the primary.
Polling, meanwhile, has been pretty light here. A July survey from Marist gave Evers a huge 54-41 lead, which seemed too good to be true. By contrast, a Marquette poll from June had Walker ahead 48-44, while a PPP poll for Evers himself from May gave him a 49-45 lead on Walker. However, Walker himself told his supporters just days before the primary that he might start out trailing in the polls, so he might also be seeing numbers showing him in bad shape (or he could just be trying to scare donors into action).
However, Evers allies aren't sitting by while the GOP attacks him. A Stronger Wisconsin, a group backed by the Democratic Governors Association, quickly launched a $1.8 million ad buy. Their commercial praises Evers as a caring teacher who rose to be state superintendent, and contrasts him with politicians like Walker "who only care about politics."
In any case, even if Evers is ahead, his challenge will be to withstand the GOP's money onslaught until he can refill his campaign coffers or outside groups can further come to his aid. For now, Daily Kos Elections rates this race as Lean Republican.
● VT-Gov: GOP Gov. Phil Scott fended off a primary challenge from Some Dude Keith Stern 68-32. A recent approval poll from Morning Consult found Republicans in the state souring on their governor after he signed a bill to tighten gun restrictions in April over loud conservative objections, and there was some speculation that he could have an unexpectedly bad showing. However, Scott's moderate image should be an asset in November in a blue state that has a history of electing GOP governors, and we rate this as Safe Republican.
Still, Vermont Democrats did make history on Tuesday when they nominated former utility company executive Christine Hallquist. Hallquist, who her primary 48-22, is the first transgender person to win a major party nomination for governor anywhere in the country.
● CT-05: Former high school teacher Jahana Hayes, the 2016 National Teacher of the Year, defeated former Simsbury First Selectwoman Mary Glassman, a longtime local politician who narrowly won the state party endorsement, by a dominant 62-38 margin in the Democratic primary for this open seat. If Hayes wins in November, she would become the first black woman and the first black Democrat to represent Connecticut in Congress. On the GOP side, former Meridian Mayor Manny Santos, who was the party-endorsed candidate, defeated retired psychology professor Ruby O'Neill 52-27.
This western Connecticut seat moved from 54-45 Obama to a narrower 50-46 Clinton, but while the GOP tried hard to find a viable candidate, they came up well short. None of the three Republicans were very strong fundraisers, but Santos was still the weakest of the lot. He raised a grand total of $25,000 from mid-February through the middle of July, an extremely weak haul for any House contest.
The deep unpopularity of outgoing Gov. Dan Malloy makes Connecticut the rare state with something of a headwind for Democrats, but with Republicans playing defense across the country, Hayes is the heavy favorite. Daily Kos Elections is moving this race from Lean Democratic to Likely Democratic.
● MN-01: Businessman and former U.S. Treasury official Jim Hagedorn defeated state Sen. Carla Nelson 60-32 in the GOP primary for this open southern Minnesota seat. Hagedorn will take on former Defense Department official Dan Feehan, who faced little opposition in the Democratic primary, in the contest to succeed Democratic gubernatorial nominee Tim Walz in a district that swung from 50-48 Obama to 53-39 Trump.
Hagedorn was Team Red's nominee against Walz in both 2014 and 2016 (he also dropped out of the GOP primary here in 2010). While 2014 was a rough year for Democrats nationwide, Republicans gave up on this race months before Election Day, and Walz won 54-46. Neither party gave Hagedorn much of a chance in 2016, either, so it was quite a surprise when he held Walz to a 50.3-49.6 victory.
This seat's huge swing to the right gives Team Red a big opening in a year where they're mostly on the defensive, and Daily Kos Elections rates this as a Tossup. However, Hagedorn is far from an ideal nominee. The conservative Washington Examiner published an op-ed in April where author Philip Wegmann highlighted Hagedorn's history of misogynist comments (to take just one example, Hagedorn expressed his admiration to John McCain for choosing Sarah Palin as his running mate in 2008 with a "On behalf of all red-blooded American men: THANK YOU SENATOR McCAIN, SARAH'S HOT!"), birther ramblings, and comments about "ungrateful" and "dead Indians."
● MN-05: State Rep. Ilhan Omar defeated former state House Speaker and 2010 gubernatorial primary runner-up Margaret Anderson Kelliher 48-30 in the primary for this safely blue Minneapolis seat. Omar, who had endorsements from Dayton, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, and the state party, would become the nation's first Somali-American member of Congress. Omar, along with Rashida Tlaib (the Democratic nominee in a safely blue Michigan seat), would also be the first Muslim woman to serve.
● MN-08: Former state Rep. Joe Radinovich beat former Duluth TV host Michelle Lee 44-28 in the Democratic primary for this competitive seat in the Iron Range in the northeast corner of the state. Radinovich, who was retiring Rep. Rick Nolan's campaign manager in the very tight 2016 race, will take on St. Louis County Commissioner Pete Stauber, a former college hockey player who had little GOP primary opposition.
This seat is ancestrally blue, but it swung hard from 52-46 Obama to 54-39 Trump. Nolan's win despite those headwinds gives Democrats reasons for hope here, but the area's politics also introduce some complications. The local economy is heavily dependent on extractive industries, particularly mining, and the GOP has scored points here by declaring that Democrats' environmental policies will hurt residents. Radinovich has argued that copper-nickel mining can be done safely, but Team Red is almost certainly going to try and portray him as anti-mining.
Both national parties are planning to spend heavily. The conservative Congressional Leadership Fund has earmarked $2.6 million in ad time for this seat, while outside groups from each side have reserved millions in the Minneapolis media market that they could divide between this district and others as needed. We rate the general as a Tossup.
● WI-01: Ironworker Randy Bryce defeated Janesville School Board member Cathy Myers 60-40 in the Democratic primary for Speaker Paul Ryan's open seat. Bryce will take on attorney Bryan Steil, a longtime friend of Ryan's who won the GOP nod 52-15 in a primary against five weak opponents.
This southern Wisconsin seat moved from 52-47 Romney to 53-42 Trump, but Team Blue is betting it can be competitive, especially now that Ryan's leaving. Bryce himself has generated a good deal of attention, both very positive and very negative. Bryce entered the race last year with a strong announcement video promoting him as a blue-collar American who will stand up to the GOP, which helped him raise gobs of money and pick up the support of the DCCC, Bernie Sanders, and several unions.
However, Bryce has attracted some bad headlines over the last year. Notably, he only paid off some old debts, including $1,300 in child support and a $2,000 loan from almost two decades ago, well after he kicked off his campaign.
In July, CNN also reported that Bryce had been arrested nine times. While his two most recent arrests in 2011 and 2018 were for civil disobedience at political protests, he pleaded guilty in 1998 for driving while under the influence of alcohol and was arrested three more times over the next few years for driving with a suspended license. Myers unsuccessfully tried to convince primary voters that Bryce's past mistakes would cost him the general election, but she was almost certainly right when she predicted that the GOP would attack him over them.
In late July, Bryce held a hefty $1.68 million to $631,000 cash-on-hand lead over Steil. However, it will be a challenge for any Democrat to flip a seat that Team Red gerrymandered to stay Republican. We rate the general as Lean Republican.
● MN-AG: Rep. Keith Ellison won the five-way Democratic primary with 50 percent of the vote, with state Rep. Debra Hilstrom a distant second with 19 percent. Ellison's victory came days after his former girlfriend, Karen Monahan, publicly accused him of physical abuse and said she had a recording of an incident. Monahan went on to say that she doesn't currently have access to the recording and wouldn't share the "embarrassing and traumatizing video that impacts both families" in any case, while Ellison says the video did not exist because the incident never happened. The GOP is fielding former state Rep. Doug Wardlow.
Ad Roundup
