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
● NY-24: GOP Rep. John Katko recently went up with his first negative TV spot targeting his Democratic rival, Dana Balter, which repeatedly features an audio clip of Balter saying, "Um, well, you would have an increase in taxes" to argue that she would jack up taxes on central New York. Balter quickly went up with a response ad in an attempt to push back, but her spot kicks off with a big and avoidable mistake that is liable to undermine its effectiveness.
Campaign Action
Balter begins by asking viewers if they've seen Katko's ad, and to refresh their memories, she plays the exact same "you would have an increase in taxes" clip that Katko is hammering her with. Balter then charges that the audio is "completely out of context," saying, "I support tax cuts for working families." (You can read more on the context here.) Balter then slams Katko for supporting the GOP tax bill, which "gives most of the benefits to the wealthy and corporations."
In taking the approach that she does, Balter has broken the cardinal rule of campaign ads: Never repeat your opponent's attacks. By doing so, Balter puts herself on the defensive almost immediately in her own commercial, forcing her to expend valuable seconds before she can go on offense. Even worse, by re-using this unflattering audio snippet, she's allowing the recording to reach a wider audience even as she tries to debunk it. In replaying the audio, she runs the risk that viewers will remember that short and unfavorable clip rather than her longer defense.
There are better ways to counter this kind of negative ad. Balter has the right idea to pivot to hitting Katko over his own policies and votes, but instead of trying to defend herself, she should attack her opponent precisely because he's running misleading ads. Indeed, that's what you'll typically see candidates in Balter's position do. Balter should start off by saying something like, "John Katko's attacking me with bogus attack ads. I support tax cuts for working families. He voted to lower them for corporations." That would allow Balter to address and counter the charges without repeating them and giving them a wider audience, and it would also leave her with more time to deliver her own message.
Primary Day
● Primary Day: Putnam on the Ritz: Tuesday brings us our final multi-state primary night of the year as voters go to the polls in Arizona and Florida. We also have runoffs in Oklahoma for contests in which no one took a majority of the vote in the late June primary. As always, we have a preview of the races to watch.
Florida Democrats have a competitive primary for governor, while Trump-backed Rep. Ron DeSantis looks poised to defeat longtime frontrunner Adam Putnam. We also have plenty of House contests to watch in all three states. Polls close in most of Florida at 7 PM ET, and we'll begin our liveblog then. You can also follow us on Twitter, where we'll be live-tweeting the results. And check out our calendar for a look at the remaining primary nights to come.
Senate
● FL-Sen: The Democratic group Majority Forward is up with a new spot hitting Republican Gov. Rick Scott over Florida's red tide toxic algae crisis, and it’s part of a $2.9 million ad buy. The narrator argues that Scott "savaged environmental safeguards and slashed 700 million dollars from water protection," but gave big sugar and other corporate polluters a pass. A few weeks ago, Scott went up with his own ad that tried to pin the problem on Sen. Bill Nelson before Democrats could attack the governor over it.
● MT-Sen: The NRSC has released a poll from WPA Intelligence that has Republican Matt Rosendale up 47-45 over Democratic Sen. Jon Tester. There have only been a couple of polls of this contest, so it's very difficult to know whether this survey is accurate or just bluster, but a July survey from GOP outfit Remington Research had Tester ahead 49-46.
● NV-Sen: Democratic firm PPP has released a poll on behalf of Protect Our Care, and it finds Democratic Rep. Jacky Rosen sporting a 48-43 lead over Republican Sen. Dean Heller. The survey shows Heller with an abysmal 34 percent approval rating and 52 percent disapproval rating, which is worse than Trump's 43-53 net disapproval, suggesting Heller could have trouble generating enthusiasm among the GOP base. This result is slightly better for Rosen than her 44-42 lead in PPP's early May poll, although a July survey from Suffolk found Heller narrowly ahead by 41-40.
Gubernatorial
● AK-Gov: An RGA-backed group called Families for Alaska's Future has launched what they say is a three-week $400,000 TV buy in support of Dunleavy. The Anchorage Daily News also writes that the group has reserved an additional $700,000 in spots on the ABC-affiliate KTUU from Sept. 26 to Election Day. Their opening spot doesn't mention Walker or Begich and instead argues that Alaska's economy is horrible and Dunleavy is a needed change.
Actually, only about 35 seconds of the minute-long ad is devoted to that message. The commercial then has the narrator list the group's top contributors, before the PAC's chair is heard declaring he approves the message. The final 15 seconds shows the long onscreen text-disclaimer as the music continues to play and some picturesque images of Alaska fill the screen.
It's kind of like how pharmaceutical ads have to spend so much time listing their gory potential side effects, which they do as happy people are shown frolicking in the background and peppy music plays. We assume Alaska election law requires outside groups to devote a considerable amount of their commercial's length to this kind of thing, but sadly, the RGA does not need to list the potential side effects of having Mike Dunleavy as governor.
Meanwhile, the state AFL-CIO endorsed independent Gov. Bill Walker over Democrat Mark Begich on Friday. The group's president also unsubtly said that Walker's best chance against GOP nominee Mike Dunleavy would be if the general election were just a two-way race. Begich and Walker's camps have discussed the possibility of one of them dropping out, but there's no sign that either candidate is planning to exit the race. The deadline to get off the general election ballot in Alaska is Sept. 4.
● FL-Gov: St. Pete Polls is out with one last survey of Tuesday's Democratic primary, and they give former Rep. Gwen Graham a 32-25 lead over Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum; former Miami Beach Mayor Philip Levine is not far behind with 22, while billionaire developer Jeff Greene lags at 11. This is the best performance for Gillum in any poll in ages, aside from an unusual internal for his campaign from Change Research that had him in the lead with 33 and Graham and Levine each with 22. It's also an improvement for Graham from St. Pete's survey from last week where she edged Levine just 27-25, while Gillum took 21.
● KY-Gov: On Saturday, GOP Gov. Matt Bevin announced that he would seek re-election next year. Bevin had shown some public indecision about his plans, and he didn't even rule out a 2020 primary bid against Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell back in June. Morning Consult gave Bevin an awful 29-57 approval rating for the second quarter of 2018, but he's running in a very red state where local Democrats have suffered some high-profile defeats in recent years.
● NV-Gov: While Democrat Steve Sisolak's first general election TV reservation reportedly wasn't set to start until Sept. 11, he's already gone up with what his campaign is calling a "substantial" six-figure TV buy. His opening ad goes after Republican Adam Laxalt for opposing GOP Gov. Brian Sandoval's 2015 law to fund schools and raise teacher pay. Laxalt has been airing commercials against Sisolak since the expensive Democratic primary ended in mid-June.
House
● CA-50: SurveyUSA has released the first publicly available poll since Republican Rep. Duncan Hunter was indicted last week, and they give him a modest 47-39 lead over Democrat Ammar Campa-Najjar. That's a massive drop from the 62-36 edge Republican candidates won over Democrats in the June top-two primary, but Hunter's vote share is exactly the same as the 47 percent he took in June. This district voted 55-40 Trump and an even tougher 60-38 Romney, which is a very steep hill for Campa-Najjar to climb, but this poll indicates the race could be competitive, even if Hunter is still favored.
Hunter may end up being saved by the red lean of his district, but he'll likely be hurting for the funds to run a strong campaign, and one reason why: lawyers. Bloomberg reported that Hunter, who was indicted for illegally spending campaign funds for personal use, has also spent $614,000 of his campaign funds on eight different law firms. While those kinds of payments are generally legal, Hunter only had $350,000 in cash-on-hand at the end of June. Furthermore, his legal troubles undoubtedly have hurt his capacity to raise the funds he'll need to run both his re-election campaign and legal defense.
● CO-06: We now have the size of the buy for a recent Congressional Leadership Fund attack ad against Democrat Jason Crow: a hefty $764,000.
● FL-15: St. Pete Polls is out with one more survey of Tuesday's GOP primary for Florida Politics, and they give former state Rep. Neil Combee a 32-29 lead over state Rep. Ross Spano, with none of the other three candidates breaking 8 percent. Two weeks ago, St. Pete had Combee up 36-30.
● ME-02: The conservative Congressional Leadership Fund's latest ad attacking Democrat Jared Golden focuses on ... his tattoos. Indeed, the spot blasts him for voting against a bill to prohibit welfare recipients from spending that money on tattoos, tobacco, alcohol, and lottery tickets, and the very next scene features a prominent shot of the tattoos on Golden's right arm. They also attack him for opposing Trump's tax cuts, and the ad closes with the image of a man's back with a fake "Liberal Jared Golden" tattoo of the candidate's face.
However, Golden said he voted against that bill in the state House because federal law already banned the use of welfare cash for such expenses. Furthermore, one of those very tattoos they're trying to use against him represents his unit in the Marines when he served in Iraq and Afghanistan, and tattoos are extremely common among service members.
● MO-02: On behalf of the local political newsletter the Missouri Scout, the GOP firm Remington Research is out with a poll giving GOP Rep. Ann Wagner a 51-40 lead over Democrat Cort VanOstran. This suburban St. Louis seat moved from 57-41 Romney to 53-42 Trump, but so far, major outside groups have not reserved any money here.
● NV-03: The National Association of Realtors, who have a tendency to spend considerable money supporting candidates, have flipped from endorsing Republican Danny Tarkanian last cycle to backing his Democratic opponent, Susie Lee, this year. NAR didn't reveal why they made the change, only noting that their decision-making process doesn't consider endorsements from past cycles.
● NY-19: So much for that: Former Law and Order actress Diane Neal's fictional legal background didn't transfer much to the real world, since the state Board of Elections disqualified her from appearing on the ballot after invalidating many of her petition signatures. Neal, who has been running a quixotic campaign as an independent, says she'll appeal in court.
● NY-27: Republican state Sen. Michael Ranzenhofer says he's no longer seeking his party's nomination to replace indicted Rep. Chris Collins on the ballot.
● WV-03, WV Supreme Court: Republican Rep. Evan Jenkins lost the May primary for Senate, but he'll be on the ballot anyway this fall after GOP Gov. Jim Justice appointed him to the state Supreme Court. West Virginia Republicans are trying to impeach their entire Supreme Court over a corruption scandal and flip it from majority Democratic to entirely Republican, and they deviously stalled the process until immediately after a deadline passed this month so that special elections wouldn't have to be held until 2020.
However, one Democratic justice had already resigned and later pleaded guilty to one count of fraud, and another who hasn't been charged with any crime resigned earlier this month so that there would a special election for her seat this year. Jenkins will resign his House seat when he is sworn in, so we may end up having a congressional special election concurrently with the November general election.
Ad Roundup
