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
● TX-Sen: The cavalry is finally coming to try to prop up Republican Sen. Ted Cruz in Texas: Politico reports that the hardline anti-tax Club for Growth plans a "seven-figure" investment in the race on Cruz's behalf. It may have once seemed unthinkable that outside groups would have to spend to defend a GOP incumbent in a state where Democrats haven't won a statewide election in 24 years—the longest such streak in the nation—but Republicans are reportedly becoming increasingly worried about the race tightening in recent weeks, which coincides with both candidates beginning to run TV ads.
And Cruz really does need the help. The conservative Washington Examiner reports that he's been having a hard time getting donors to cough up money, partly because they're more worried about defending vulnerable House incumbents in the Lone Star State. But that's not the only reason: Cruz's years of trashing the party establishment have also turned off a lot of would-be contributors. This guy perfectly sums up how everyone feels:
"The bulk of these donors can't stand Cruz," said a connected Republican operative in Texas, on condition of anonymity.
Cruz's struggle to raise funds was already evident in the second quarter of this year, when he raised only $4.1 million compared to the huge $10.4 million haul brought in by Democrat Beto O'Rourke. That left Cruz trailing, with $9.3 million in the bank to $14 million for his opponent.
Thanks to its immense size and numerous media markets, Texas is a very expensive state for outside groups to play in, so it's very telling that they feel compelled to come to Cruz's aid. Polls have consistently found Cruz ahead, but he has averaged only a modest lead in recent weeks. It's a remarkable thing to behold, but Texas really could be in play this year.
Senate
● ND-Sen: The Democratic group Majority Forward has begun airing a TV ad that hits Republican Rep. Kevin Cramer for selling out the roughly 300,000 North Dakotans who have a pre-existing conditions by voting to remove protections on them when he backed Trumpcare. The ad also blasts Cramer for voting to let insurance companies charge five times more for people over age 50.
● NM-Sen: Some observers had speculated that little-known Republican nominee Mick Rich might drop out of the race against Democratic Sen. Martin Heinrich after former Gov. Gary Johnson jumped in as the Libertarian nominee, but Rich shows no sign of going anywhere. Indeed, Tuesday was the last day for him to get off of the ballot, but he stayed put.
Early August internal polls from Rich and Democrats have all pointed to Rich being in second ahead of Johnson. However, those surveys were conducted shortly before Johnson officially joined the race this month.
● WI-Sen: The Koch-affiliated Concerned Veterans for America is making another $800,000 TV ad buy to attack Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin. Meanwhile, Baldwin's latest ad goes after Republican state Sen. Leah Vukmir for being in a national leadership role with the right-wing American Legislative Exchange Council, which the spot says "is funded by corporations to lobby state governments." The narrator lambasts Vukmir for favoring tax breaks for the wealthy, weaker safety standards at nursing homes, and the end of Wisconsin's SeniorCare healthcare program.
● WV-Sen: Turns out we won't be hearing more about "Cocaine Mitch" after West Virginia's Supreme Court rejected a bid from disgraced coal baron Don Blankenship to run on the Constitution Party line in defiance of the state's "sore loser" law following his loss in the May Republican primary. Blankenship's only remaining option would be to mount a write-in campaign, making it much less likely he would take more than a trivial number of votes at the expense of Republican nominee Patrick Morrisey.
● Senate: The Koch-affiliated Americans for Prosperity has announced it will spend more than $5 million to run TV ads attacking Democrats in four key Senate races:
MO-Sen: Claire McCaskill (D-inc): $2.1 million
MT-Sen: Jon Tester (D-inc): $500,000
TN-Sen: Phil Bredesen (D): $2 million
WI-Sen: Tammy Baldwin (D-inc): $820,000
Gubernatorial
● CT-Gov: Former Hartford chamber of commerce leader Oz Griebel, who lost the 2010 GOP primary for lieutenant governor, has qualified for the ballot as an independent. However, a recent Quinnipiac poll found Griebel taking just 4 percent of the vote, far behind Democrat Ned Lamont and Republican Bob Stefanowski, who earned 46 percent and 33 percent, respectively. Furthermore, Griebel only had $12,000 on-hand as of July 10, and it remains to be seen whether he can even run a real race, let alone have a chance to pull off a major upset.
● FL-Gov: On his first full day as the GOP's nominee for governor, Rep. Ron DeSantis immediately showed us how he plans to campaign. In an appearance on Fox News on Wednesday morning, DeSantis warned Floridians not to "monkey this up" by electing his Democratic opponent, Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum, who not at all incidentally is vying to become the state's first black governor. In the same clip, DeSantis also called Gillum "articulate."
After three years of listening to Trump bellow the quiet parts loud, we shouldn't forget that savvier Republicans are still eminently capable of dog-whistling—but DeSantis was nevertheless too loud even for Fox. Later that same day, an anchor announced on-air that the network does "not condone this language."
House
● ME-02: With Honor Fund, which is supporting a bipartisan slate of veterans this cycle, has dropped $600,000 to support Democrat Jared Golden. There's no copy of any ad available yet.
● OH-01: The conservative Congressional Leadership Fund is making its first TV ad buy with six figures against Democrat Aftab Pureval, and it has no qualms about engaging in racism. Their spot claims Pureval is a hypocrite for bemoaning special interests despite having once worked at a so-called D.C. lobbying firm, which they allege made millions "helping reduce payments to families of Americans killed by Libyan terrorism." Meanwhile, threatening shots of the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, masked militants, and photos of the 1988 Lockerbie airliner bombing play in the background.
Here's the truth: This spot quite simply uses thinly veiled racism and deception to try to tie Pureval, who is of Indian and Tibetan descent, to scary-looking Muslim terrorists. Indeed, when Pureval was an attorney at the big D.C. law firm White & Case, he worked on antitrust litigation, not the "special interest" lobbying the GOP's ad insinuates. Furthermore, GOP Rep. Steve Chabot himself voted for the 2008 Libyan Claims Resolution Act, which White & Case had helped negotiate between Libya and American victims' families, and President Bush signed the agreement into law the month before Pureval even began at White & Case.
● PA-08: Democratic Rep. Cartwright has debuted another TV ad going after Republican John Chrin over his weak ties to the area he's seeking to represent in Congress. The ad features a fake office meeting in New York City where consultants present a Chrin impersonator with a chart that shows it will cost a lot less to run for Congress in Pennsylvania than in New Jersey, where he actually lives, and they resolve to go to Pennsylvania. The spot also hits Chrin for being a rich Wall Street banker, implying he's out of touch with this relatively working-class district.
● VA-02: The burgeoning signature fraud scandal weighing down GOP Rep. Scott Taylor's re-election campaign just keeps getting worse. Now, a local Democratic operative, who was apparently the first person to publicly accuse a Taylor staffer of submitting fake petitions on behalf of an independent candidate, says the congressman himself phoned her and threatened her with legal action on behalf of the aide she'd called out on Twitter, Heather Guillot.
The woman, Lindsey Terry, first became aware of the fraud because the signature of a former neighbor, Eileen Eady, who'd moved away several years earlier appeared on the petitions submitted by Guillot. Terry, who told Talking Points Memo that Taylor's tone on their call was "frantic," said that Taylor, a former Navy SEAL, referenced Terry's relationship with Eady in an ominous way: "I do know that you were [Eady's] neighbor; we had somebody drive by," Terry recounted Taylor saying.
Taylor's campaign refused to comment in response to this story, though TPM says he had previously acknowledged his call to Terry and, in a since-deleted tweet, accused her of defaming Guillot and hinted, "Lawsuit coming??" Well, there is indeed legal action pending, but it's in the form of a special prosecutor, who's busy looking into the signature fraud allegedly perpetrated by Taylor's team.
● VA-07: In a deeply disturbing development, the Republican super PAC America Rising obtained a full and unredacted version of an application for federal security clearance submitted by Democrat Abigail Spanberger, a former CIA agent who is running against GOP Rep. Dave Brat in Virginia's 7th Congressional District. America Rising then shared the application, which contains extensive personal information, with another super PAC, the Congressional Leadership Fund, which in turn provided the file to media outlets to attack Spanberger for briefly working as a substitute English teacher at a Saudi-run school 15 years ago.
The disclosure of the highly sensitive application, which includes a candidate's medical history and Social Security number, was so shocking—experts consulted by BuzzFeed called it "perhaps unprecedented"—that in a cease-and-desist letter Spanberger sent to CLF, she charged, "I am not aware of any legal way that CLF could have this document."
That assertion was backed up by a highly unusual move made by the Associated Press after one of its reporters received a copy of Spanberger's application "on background," meaning the source could not be revealed. However, after the AP’s attorneys reviewed the materials, it opted to break the background agreement and divulge its source because, according to a spokesman for the Spanberger campaign, CLF "had no capacity to obtain this legally."
CLF claims that it received the application as a result of a Freedom of Information Act request to the United States Postal Service, where Spanberger had applied for a position as a postal inspector at the same time she sought a job at the CIA. (It was while she was waiting to hear back that she taught English—and waited tables; she then went to work for the USPS before joining the CIA.) An attorney for Spanberger questioned this claim, saying, "In this unredacted form, this is not a document that the government can provide under the Privacy Act."
However, according to BuzzFeed, the Postal Service did indeed provide America Rising with Spanberger's full security clearance application, though that most definitely does not mean it should have done so. As one expert, Bradley Moss, told BuzzFeed, if the application was disclosed negligently, "Someone at the USPS FOIA office is getting fired."
Moss didn't address the even scarier prospect that the disclosure might have been intentional, but on a conference call Spanberger hosted for reporters on Wednesday afternoon, former CIA officer and Barack Obama advisor Ned Price suggested it could have been. Price noted that Spanberger had requested her own records in December (a standard research tactic) and still has yet to receive them. America Rising, by contrast, saw its FOIA request filled in just three weeks, an improbably short period of time for any such request. Given the unusual haste, the notion that the disclosure was the result of negligence "strains credulity," said Price.
● VA-10: According to a recently filed FEC report, Giffords PAC's recent TV ad against republican Rep. Barbara Comstock was for a sizable $985,000.
Primary Recap
● AZ-Sen: Rep Martha McSally, the favored candidate of the GOP establishment, decisively defeated former state Sen. Kelli Ward 52-28; disgraced former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio took just 20.
McSally will take on Democratic Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, who faced no serious primary opposition, in what will be an expensive contest to succeed retiring GOP Sen. Jeff Flake. Either nominee would be the first woman elected to represent Arizona in the Senate, while Sinema would be the chamber's first openly bisexual member. A Sinema win would also give Team Blue their first Senate victory here since Dennis DeConcini won his final term in 1988.
The last poll we saw of the general election was late July survey from the GOP firm OH Predictive Insights for ABC15 that gave Sinema a 48-44 edge over McSally. Establishment GOP groups have spent much of their time and money helping McSally win the primary rather than attacking Sinema, but that will change. McSally also gave a preview to the ugly campaign she'll run in her victory speech on Tuesday when the former combat pilot called her general election with Sinema, who opposed the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq in the early 2000s, as "between a patriot and a protester." Daily Kos Elections rates this contest as a Tossup.
● AZ-Gov: Arizona State University professor David Garcia, who narrowly lost the 2014 general election for state schools superintendent, beat state Sen. Steve Farley 49-34 in the Democratic primary to take on GOP Gov. David Ducey. The governor himself turned back a quixotic challenge from former Secretary of State Ken Bennett 70-30. A Garcia win would make him the state's first Latino governor since Democrat Raul Castro left office in 1977.
Ducey hasn't been particularly popular during his tenure, and a survey from Morning Consult gave him a 41-43 approval rating for the second quarter of 2018. Garcia is also hoping that the spring teacher's strike and enthusiasm around the "Red for Ed" movement to increase teacher pay and school funding will give him an opening.
However, Ducey begins the general election with a daunting $3.2 million to $147,000 cash-on-hand edge, and he's already getting plenty of outside support. The Arizona Republic recently reported that the RGA had already put $9.2 million toward this race, some of which has already been spent and the rest of which is devoted to fall TV ad reservations. (In an earlier Digest, we incorrectly wrote that the RGA had already spent $9 million attacking David Garcia.) So far, major national Democratic groups haven't directed money towards this contest, but we'll see if that changes now that the primary is over. We rate the general as Lean Republican.
● OK-Gov: Wealthy mortgage businessman Kevin Stitt defeated former Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett 55-45 in the GOP primary runoff. In late June, Cornett led with 29 percent, while Stitt narrowly secured the second runoff spot by beating Lt. Gov. Todd Lamb 24.4-23.9.
Stitt will take on former Attorney General Drew Edmondson, who won the Democratic nomination without a runoff in June, in the general election to succeed termed-out GOP Gov. Mary Fallin. While Oklahoma is an incredibly red state, the state's awful budget situation and recent teachers strikes have made Fallin extraordinarily unpopular. Morning Consult gave her a 19-74 approval rating during the second quarter of 2018, while an early August poll from the GOP firm Right Strategy Group found her with an ever worse 11-80 score.
Stitt, like all the major GOP candidates, has been calling for a break with the status quo, and the first-time candidate (who rarely has so much as voted) has pitched himself as a political outsider who can turn around the economy. However, Stitt's company, Gateway Mortgage Group, has attracted scrutiny for its practices during the Great Recession. In 2008, Gateway faced allegations of fraud in three states and ended up paying fines to each while losing its license in Georgia. It was also penalized in five additional states in 2008 and 2009 for having lenders who weren't properly licensed. Cornett and his allies tried in vain to make Gateway an albatross for Stitt, but Team Blue may have more luck in November.
Polling has been pretty scarce here. A mid-July survey from SoonerPoll found Edmondson edging Stitt 40-39, while the same sample had Cornett beating the Democrat 43-35. Right Strategy Group's early August poll gave Edmondson a nearly identical 41-40 lead, though it didn't find Cornett performing any better. We currently rate the contest in this dark red state as Likely Republican, but we're keeping a close eye out for more developments.
● AZ-01: Retired Air Force officer and perennial candidate Wendy Rogers defeated state Sen. Steve Smith 44-38 in the GOP primary to take on freshman Democratic Rep. Tom O'Halleran.
This seat, which includes part of northern Arizona as well as some of the Tucson suburbs, narrowly backed both Mitt Romney and Donald Trump. However, this race may just be a bridge too far for Team Red in a year where they're largely on the defensive, and Rogers' bad electoral history (she has unsuccessfully run for office each cycle beginning in 2010) isn't going to inspire much confidence. National Democrats aren't taking any chances, however, and House Majority PAC reserved $1.1 million here in March. We rate this as Likely Democratic.
● AZ-02: Former Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick, who represented the neighboring 1st District until she unsuccessfully ran for the Senate in 2016, beat former state Rep. and 2016 nominee Matt Heinz 41-31 in what was a nasty Democratic primary. Kirkpatrick had the backing of the DCCC as well as former Tucson Reps. Gabby Giffords and Ron Barber, and EMILY's List spent over $500,000 to help her in the primary for this competitive open seat.
National Republicans also got their preferred candidate in this Tucson-area district, but it was surprisingly close. Tucson Hispanic Chamber of Commerce leader Lea Marquez Peterson dispatched former Army intelligence professional Brandon Martin, who spent less than $10,000 during his entire race, only 34-29. Marquez Peterson spent a hefty $329,000 during the pre-primary period (which the FEC defines as July 1 through Aug. 8), so it doesn't seem like this was a case of a favored candidate just not taking a race seriously.
Republicans already face a tough challenge as they try to hold a seat that swung from 50-48 Romney to 50-45 Clinton, and Marquez Peterson's showing against such weak opposition isn't going to make things any better for them. However, both sides have reserved a serious amount of money here. The Democratic groups DCCC and House Majority PAC have invested a combined $1.18 million, while the NRCC has devoted close to $2 million towards defending the district. We currently rate this as a Tossup, though we'll evaluate where things stand now that the primaries are over.
● AZ-07: Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego turned back a primary challenge from state Sen. Catherine Miranda 75-25 in this safely blue Phoenix seat. There was some speculation last year that Miranda, who infamously endorsed Republican Doug Ducey when he successfully ran for governor in 2014, would get financial help from Ducey's allies, but she ended up raising barely more than $31,000 for her entire campaign.
● FL-05: Freshman Democratic Rep. Al Lawson turned back a primary challenge from former Jacksonville Mayor Alvin Brown 60-40 in this safely blue northern seat. Brown hoped to perform well in Jacksonville while preventing Lawson from running up the score in his Tallahassee-area base, but it was not to be. Brown carried Jacksonville's Duval County 60-40, but Lawson handily carried the district's other seven counties.
● FL-06: Wealthy businessman Michael Waltz, a retired Green Beret commander and a former Dick Cheney foreign policy adviser, defeated fellow businessman and veteran John Ward 42-30 in the GOP primary to succeed GOP gubernatorial nominee Ron DeSantis. On the Democratic side, Clinton-era Deputy National Security Adviser Nancy Soderberg, who had the support of national Democrats, beat travel agency owner John Upchurch 56-23.
This seat, which includes all of Volusia County in the Orlando area as well as some of Jacksonville's southern suburbs, has been trending hard to the right over the last decade. Barack Obama defeated John McCain 50-49 here in 2008, but he lost it 52-47 to Mitt Romney four years later. In 2016, Donald Trump pulled off a decisive 57-40 win. However, Soderberg has been an impressive fundraiser, and she could make things interesting if this seat snaps back to the left this year. We rate this as Likely Republican.
● FL-07: State Rep. Mike Miller beat businessman Scott Sturgill 54-30 in the GOP primary to take on freshman Democratic Rep. Stephanie Murphy. This suburban Orlando seat moved from a very narrow Obama win to a solid 51-44 Clinton, and Republicans began the cycle hoping to target it. However, with the political climate being so bad for Team Red, they seem to be devoting their attention elsewhere. Miller himself does have experience winning in a competitive state House seat, but his fundraising hasn't been very strong so far.
Still, national Democrats don't seem quite ready to declare victory. House Majority PAC ran ads here in February for Murphy and they have close to $2 million reserved in the Orlando market, but it's possible much of that money could end up going to the neighboring 6th District instead. We rate this as Likely Democratic.
● FL-09: Freshman Rep. Darren Soto turned back a Democratic primary challenge from his predecessor, former Rep. Alan Grayson, 66-34 in this safely blue Orlando-area seat. Grayson, who gave up a previous version of this seat in 2016 to unsuccessfully run for Senate, attracted awful headlines during that campaign on topics ranging from potential ethics violations to alleged domestic abuse. Soto didn't hesitate to remind voters about them this time around, and local Democratic groups also consolidated behind the incumbent.
● FL-15: State Rep. Ross Spano defeated former state Rep. Neil Combee 44-34 in the GOP primary to succeed retiring GOP Rep. Dennis Ross. On the Democratic side, attorney Kristen Carlson, a former general counsel for the Florida Department of Citrus, defeated Navy veteran Andrew Learned 53-32.
Democrats haven't seriously targeted this central Florida seat, which moved from 52-47 Romney to 53-43 Trump, since 2010. But Spano, who may be best known for sponsoring a successful resolution this year declaring pornography a "public health risk" and expressing "the need for education, prevention, research and policy change to protect citizens of this state," has not been a very strong fundraiser so far. Carlson notably outraised Spano $229,000 to $144,000 though Aug. 8 (each candidate self-funded an additional $75,000). So far, neither national party has reserved air time here, and we rate this contest as Likely Republican.
● FL-16: Attorney David Shapiro defeated perennial candidate Jan Schneider, who was the Democrats' nominee in 2016, by a 55-45 margin for the right to take on GOP Rep. Vern Buchanan. This Sarasota-area seat went from 54-45 Romney to 54-43 Trump, and while Shapiro has been a strong fundraiser, the wealthy and well-funded incumbent is in no danger of being outspent. A late July poll from St. Pete Polls for Florida Politics gave the incumbent a 44-35 lead, and national Democrats haven't booked any airtime here. However, a progressive group called Floridians for a Fair Shake has been spending against Buchanan, while Buchanan himself has been hammering Shapiro on the airwaves. We rate this as Likely Republican.
● FL-17: State Sen. Greg Steube defeated underfunded veteran Bill Akins 62-19 in the GOP primary to succeed retiring Rep. Tom Rooney in this safely red Sarasota-area seat. State Rep. Julio Gonzalez, who had endorsements from Sen. Marco Rubio and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, finished with a surprisingly weak 18 percent.
Steube, who had the NRA's support, got $783,000 in outside spending help from the radical anti-tax Club for Growth, while the more establishment-aligned Conservative Leadership Alliance spent $200,000 to aid Gonzalez. Steube may also have benefited when Atkins and Gonzalez joined forces in July to question his military record, a move that drew an angry rebuke from Rooney.
● FL-18: Former State Department official Lauren Baer, who had the support of national Democrats, beat Navy veteran Pam Keith 60-40 in the primary to take on freshman GOP Rep. Brian Mast.
This coastal district, which includes St. Lucie County, Martin County, and the northern part of Palm Beach County, moved from 51-48 Romney to 53-44 Trump, but the incumbent won't be easy to beat. Mast, an Army veteran who lost his legs in Afghanistan, is a strong fundraiser, and he's been smart about breaking with the GOP leadership on key issues like an assault weapons ban while still reliably voting with Trump.
Baer, who picked up an endorsement from EMILY's List the day after the primary, is also well-funded. So far, the Democratic group House Majority PAC has reserved $420,000 here. We rate this as Likely Republican.
● FL-27: Former University of Miami President Donna Shalala, a longtime Clinton ally who served as secretary of health and human services in the 1990s, beat state Rep. David Richardson 32-28 in the Democratic primary; former Miami Beach Commissioner Kristen Rosen Gonzalez was a distant third at 18. The result was much closer than the 32-20 Shalala lead that even Richardson's poll found earlier this month. On the GOP side, Spanish-language TV journalist Maria Elvira Salazar beat former Miami-Dade County Commissioner Bruno Barreiro 41-26.
This Miami-area seat went from 53-46 Obama to 59-39 Clinton, and entrenched GOP Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen's retirement gives Democrats one of their best pickup opportunities anywhere in the nation. Still, this is also another seat with a large Cuban-American population that often supports Democratic presidential candidates while backing the GOP for almost everything else. Salazar has also raised a credible amount of money.
However, both national parties seem to be planning to devote their resources to the neighboring 26th District, where Republican Carlos Curbelo is trying to fend off businesswoman Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, and there's no sign that Team Red is preparing to expend any resources towards defending this seat. We rate this as Likely Democratic.
● OK-01: Wealthy businessman Kevin Hern defeated former Tulsa County District Attorney Tim Harris 55-45 in the GOP primary runoff for this safely red seat; in June, Harris led with 27 percent while Hern took 23.
Hern decisively outspent Harris $340,000 to $69,000 during the pre-primary period, but he may have benefited more from the lack of outside spending this time. Back in June, Hern was on the receiving end of plenty of ads from the anti-tax Club for Growth, which attacked Hern for donating to Democrats. However, the Club's endorsed candidate lost the first round of the primary, and they never went after Hern in the runoff.
One person who may not be so happy to see Hern in Congress is former Rep. Jim Bridenstine, who resigned to lead NASA this year. A text message went out to the local media in the final week of the June campaign from Bridenstine's personal phone claiming that Hern was improperly using the former congressman's image and name in his ads, The message went on to gripe that "[v]oters should know that Kevin Hern initiated a run against me in 2016 and poll tested messages that included terrible lies about me." But like the Club, Bridenstine kept quiet for the runoff.
Ad Roundup
