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
● CA-48, IL-06, IL-12: In an interesting new experiment, the New York Times has partnered with Siena College to poll almost 100 House races, with the results getting updated on the Times website live, as each interview is concluded. That means, of course, that while a poll is in the field, the early numbers won't be useful and in fact should be disregarded, since they'll reflect sample sizes that are too small; even the Times itself grays out early results and warns, "Don't take this poll seriously until we reach at least 150 people." We recommend waiting until these polls reach 300 respondents, which is generally considered the minimum acceptable number for any poll.
Fortunately, we already have full results for the first three contest that Siena has polled (you can see polls that are in-progress here). All show extremely tight races in GOP-held seats:
- CA-48: Harley Rouda (D): 45, Dana Rohrabacher (R-inc): 45
- IL-06: Sean Casten (D): 44, Peter Roskam (R-inc): 45
- IL-12: Brendan Kelly (D): 43, Mike Bost (R-inc): 44
Campaign Action
In a move that's rare but shouldn't be, the Times also cautions at the top of each writeup, "But remember: It's just one poll." That's always been our mantra: A poll is just a single piece of data, and it should never be taken as gospel but rather read in conjunction with all other available information, including other polls.
So what do other polls of these races say? Well, there haven't been many, but in July, Monmouth found a similarly close battle in California's 48th, with Rouda ahead 46-43. By contrast, in Illinois' 6th, another July poll for a Republican firm, Victory Research, that said it doesn't have a client in the race, gave a wider lead to Roskam, putting him up 44-37 on Casten. And in Illinois 12th, we haven't seen any surveys since April, when Public Policy Polling found Bost up 44-39 on behalf of a Democratic super PAC. (In fact, if you scroll down toward the bottom of each poll, you'll see the Times has included summaries of these other polls.)
In all three cases, the Times concludes, "Our poll result is about what was expected," and we agree: Everything we know suggests these races should be competitive, and indeed they are. One thing to note, though, is that while the horserace is neck-and-neck in each of these districts, Trump's approval rating varies quite a bit. He puts up a lousy 40-54 score in California's 48th and a brutal 36-57 in Illinois' 6th, both of which he lost in 2016. However, in Illinois' 12th, which he carried 55-40 two years ago, he's predictably doing better, with a 48-46 rating.
P.S. There are some other cool features worth checking out for these new polls. For instance, the Times offers alternate results depending on different turnout scenarios that yield different electorates, such as "The types of people who voted in 2014" or "The types of people who voted in 2016" (the latter is typically better for Democrats, but not always). They also look at different possible methods of weighting, such as what happens if you don't weight by education levels, which their standard model does.
In addition, there are other questions asked of respondents (like Trump's approval rating and a generic congressional ballot), a variety of crosstabs, and an unusually transparent look at response rates, broken down by different demographic groups. In addition, if you scroll to the very bottom of each page, you can even find the microdata for each poll—that is, a spreadsheet containing every answer to every question, something that pollsters almost never make public.
Senate
● DE-Sen: Sen. Tom Carper held off a Democratic primary challenge from Air Force veteran and activist Kerri Harris 65-35 on Thursday. While Carper came nowhere close to losing, this wasn't a bad performance for Harris, who had nothing close to the money or name recognition that the former congressman and governor had at his disposal. Carper should have little trouble winning a fourth term in November.
● IN-Sen, MT-Sen, ND-Sen: Despite once writing an essay on how he promised not to negatively campaign, Mike Pence is set to star in TV ads where he attacks Democratic Senate incumbents in Indiana, Montana, and North Dakota. Politico reports that Pence hits the Democrats on taxes, Obamacare, and immigration.
● MS-Sen-B: A spokesperson for Donald Trump announced on Friday that he'll appear at a campaign rally in Jackson, Mississippi for Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith on Sept. 14. Trump endorsed the appointed incumbent over hardline GOP challenger Chris McDaniel just last month.
● MT-Sen: The size of the buy was $383,000 for a recent NRA ad attacking Democratic Sen. Jon Tester.
● TN-Sen, TN-Gov: Marist's first poll of Tennessee's statewide races finds Democrat Phil Bredesen holding a 48-46 lead over Republican Marsha Blackburn in the race for the Volunteer State's open Senate seat. This survey is consistent with the general body of polling in this race showing a modest Bredesen lead, although surveys from highly regarded independent pollsters like Marist have been very infrequent here.
Meanwhile in the race to succeed Republican Gov. Bill Haslam, Marist has Republican Bill Lee holding a comfortable 53-40 edge over Democrat Karl Dean. However there has been almost no other polling of this contest, unlike the Senate race.
● TX-Sen: Texans Are, which is supporting Republican Sen. Cruz, has made an additional $200,000 ad buy to oppose Democrat Beto O'Rourke. There's no copy of any new ads available yet.
Gubernatorial
● FL-Gov: St. Pete Polls' first survey of the general election finds Democrat Andrew Gillum enjoying a 48-47 advantage over Republican Ron DeSantis. Gillum has so far narrowly led in every poll since the Aug. 28 primary.
Gillum also ended August with far more cash-on-hand than DeSantis. Gillum and his allied PAC held a $4.23 million to $1.52 million edge over DeSantis and his allies. Gillum, who won the Aug. 28 primary in a shocker, also outraised DeSantis $4 million to $276,000 from Aug. 25 to the 31st. Gillum's haul includes a pair of $1 million checks from the DGA and prominent donor Donald Sussman, which underscores just how quickly a few donors can reinvigorate either campaign. The RGA recently reserved $7.4 million in air time, so don't expect Team Blue's dominant financial advantage to last long.
● GA-Gov: The University of Georgia has conducted their first general election poll on behalf of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and they find a 45-45 tie between Democrat Stacey Abrams and Republican Brian Kemp, with Libertarian Ted Metz earning 2 percent. However, Georgia is the only state in the country to hold regular partisan primaries yet require a general election runoff between the top-two finishers if no candidate wins an outright majority, and this poll did not test a hypothetical Dec. 4 runoff with just Abrams and Kemp. Surveys have been very infrequent here, and this is the first one to actually include the Libertarian candidate.
● MI-Gov: Campaign finance reports are now available covering the dates of July 23 to Aug. 27, and both Democrat Gretchen Whitmer and Republican Bill Schuette finished the period with $1.5 million in the bank. Overall, Whitmer has raised $5 million this year compared to $3.5 million for Schuette.
● OK-Gov: We've got a live one here, folks: It turns out that businessman Kevin Stitt, whom Oklahoma Republicans recently nominated as their candidate for governor, is a full-blown anti-vaxxer. Here, in comments he made to a conservative PAC in February that have now been surfaced by the Daily Beast, he can be found waging a one-man war on reason:
"I believe in choice. And we've got six children and we don't vaccinate, we don't do vaccinations on all of our children. So we definitely pick and choose which ones we're gonna do. It's gotta be up to the parents, we can never mandate that. I think there's legislation right now that are trying to mandate that to go to public schools, it's absolutely wrong. My wife was home schooled, I went to public schools, our kids go to Christian school, and that's back to a parent's choice."
How, we're wondering, does Stitt decide which of his children should remain healthy and which should be allowed to get sick—and harm others? And despite his frequent invocations of the importance of "choice," we're also guessing that we can figure out his views on reproductive rights without straining our brains overmuch.
● WI-Gov: Polling for the progressive group High Ground Action Fund, Democratic firm PPP has Democrat Tony Evers holding a 49-45 lead over Republican Gov. Scott Walker. That margin is almost identical to their 49-44 Evers advantage in their mid-August poll, and it's consistent with other recent surveys showing Walker to be very vulnerable.
House
● CO-06: The conservative Congressional Leadership Fund is continuing to caricature attorney and Army combat veteran Jason Crow as bad for fellow veterans in their second ad on the topic. This one repeats CLF's original charge that Crow missed meetings while serving on the state Board of Veterans Affairs as problems at the national Department of Veterans Affairs were coming to light, and adds that Crow "cashed in while veterans got ripped off, defending a corporate executive who stole millions from a veterans' hospital."
9NEWS fact-checked the claim that Crow was absent from vital duties at the state board and wrote that, while he did miss a third of the meetings, the all-volunteer body had no actual authority over VA hospitals. Instead, the state Board's power is limited to making recommendations and to advocating for veterans.
And indeed, while Crow was on the board in 2013, they did just that: Several months before the problems at the VA became widely known, the board issued a report that called attention to the long wait times at VA hospitals. Ralph Bozella, who served as chair during Crow's tenure, also denounced the CLF's attacks, declaring that Crow had "dutifully served veterans across the state—from his tireless efforts helping bring the new VA hospital to Aurora, to his work on the homelessness facility in Fort Lyon that served veterans."
Colorado Politics also investigated the new claim that Crow defended a corporate executive who allegedly stole millions from VA hospitals. They write that in 2013, Crow spent a month representing Jonathan Saunders, who was charged with fraud and identity theft over a $2 million agreement with a Texas VA hospital. Saunders ended up enlisting another attorney, and he pleaded guilty two years later. Attacking attorneys because of who they've represented is a favorite GOP move—the NRSC went after Arizona Senate nominee Kyrsten Sinema days ago in just this vein—since Republicans have no problem denigrating the right to due process that's a foundational part of our justice system.
● IA-01: A new Democratic super PAC called Change Now, which is funded by the SEIU, the League of Conservation Voters, and other groups, has launched a $497,000 TV buy against GOP Rep. Rod Blum, with another $58,000 going to a radio buy. Change Now says they plan to spend more than $5 million nationwide this cycle, though they have not yet revealed a target list.
● KS-03: The Congressional Leadership is doing something we've seen a few GOP ads do and present a local Republican Party official as an everyday concerned citizen. One of their two new ads (here and here) stars a woman named Alana Roethle appearing with her four children to argue that Democrat Sharice Davids wants to eliminate ICE and concluding that Davids is "too risky for Kansas families." McClatchy quickly published a story noting that Roethle is secretary of the Kansas Republican Party, something the spot unsurprisingly did not note.
These spots are only the latest ads over the last month from GOP Rep. Kevin Yoder and his allies that have argued that Davids would put families at risk by abolishing ICE. Davids herself recently pushed back with a spot declaring that Yoder and his "special interest friends" were "twisting my words," and that she doesn't want to abolish ICE but does favor "bipartisan immigration reform."
● KY-06: The conservative Congressional Leadership Fund is out with a poll from Fabrizio, Lee and Associates arguing that their ad barrage against Democrat Amy McGrath is paying dividends. They give GOP Rep. Andy Barr a small 49-45 lead, while the memo says that an unreleased early June poll had McGrath ahead 51-38. A DCCC survey released right after McGrath won her May primary had her up 52-37.
● MA-03: On Friday, Dan Koh announced that he would seek a recount for Tuesday's Democratic primary, where he currently trails Lori Trahan by 52 votes. Under state law, local election registers need to finish their recounts by Sept. 17.
● MN-01: Republican Jim Hagedorn has released a survey from Harper Polling that gives him a wide 47-33 lead over Democrat Dan Feehan. This is the first poll we've seen of the race for this southern Minnesota seat, which swung from 50-48 Obama to 53-38 Trump. Feehan's team responded by saying their own polling "shows very different results," but they haven't released contradictory numbers yet.
● OH-12: Democrat Danny O'Connor narrowly lost last month's special election to Republican Troy Balderson (who was sworn in on Wednesday), but post-special FEC reports reveal that he begins their November rematch with a hefty $1 million to $93,000 cash-on-hand lead.
● House: Predictable: The leaders of the NRCC have walked away from discussions with their counterparts at the DCCC over a proposed agreement to bar the use of stolen materials in campaign ads. Republicans refused to agree not to use stolen information that becomes public through the press or by other means, making any potential deal almost pointless, since Vladimir Putin can just shove whatever damaging information he'd like to get out there through the Julian Assange puke funnel.
Republicans put up a b.s. excuse for pulling out, claiming Democrats had broken a pledge not discuss the talks publicly—even though NRCC chair Steve Stivers himself mentioned the discussions at a public talk in June. Now the NRCC is free to do Putin's biding, though in any event, the agreement wouldn't have bound super PACs, and we've already seen the Congressional Leadership Fund display a willingness to once again use ill-gotten information against Democrats, just as they did last cycle.
Meanwhile, we now have the size of the ad buys for several recent commercials, mostly on TV, in several highly competitive House races:
CA-25: House Majority PAC: $199,000 against Steve Knight (R-inc)
CA-48: Congressional Leadership Fund: $267,000 against Harley Rouda (D)
IA-01: House Majority PAC: $66,000 against Rod Blum (R-inc)
MI-08: House Majority PAC: $79,000 for Elissa Slotkin (D)
NE-02: Congressional Leadership Fund: $96,000 against Kara Eastman (D)
NJ-03: House Majority PAC: $206,000 against Tom MacArthur (R-inc)
NJ-07: House Majority PAC: $219,000 for Tom Malinowski (D)
NY-19: House Majority PAC: $321,000 against John Faso (R-inc); $41,000 radio buy for Antonio Delgado (D)
NY-22: Congressional Leadership Fund: $205,000 against Anthony Brindisi (D)
Mayoral
● Chicago, IL Mayor: Multiple media outlets report that Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle will announce Monday that she's created a campaign committee as she considers whether to run for mayor of Chicago in 2019. Preckwinkle, who is unopposed for re-election in this year's general election, also serves as county Democratic Party chair. Preckwinkle would be the first black woman to serve as mayor, as well as the second African American or woman elected to the post.
Preckwinkle is perhaps the most prominent politician who has shown interest in running to succeed Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who surprised the city on Tuesday when he announced he wouldn't seek a third term. However, while Preckwinkle is close to labor and quite powerful at home (the Chicago Sun-Times called her "one of the few remaining true machine bosses in the state's Democratic Party), she does have her detractors. She has faced scrutiny over her handling of the county's finances, and there was a backlash over a soda tax that she passed last year but that the board of commissioners soon voted to repeal under pressure from the beverage and restaurant industry.
In March, Preckwinkle faced a Democratic primary challenge from former Chicago Alderman Bob Fioretti, who made the aborted tax a centerpiece in his campaign. Preckwinkle ended up beating Fioretti, who had taken just 7 percent of the vote in the 2015 race for mayor, 61-39 countywide, and she won a similar 62-38 victory in the parts of the county located in Chicago.
Democratic Reps. Luis Gutierrez and Mike Quigley also expressed interest in running after Emanuel's announcement. Gutierrez is retiring from Congress after 26 years of representing a heavily Hispanic seat, and he originally said he planned to move to Puerto Rico. However, Gutierrez said on Wednesday that he was rethinking his plans and would consider a mayoral bid.
Gutierrez doesn't seem to be in any hurry to raise money, though, saying he's "not going to open up a campaign. I am simply going to continue to talk," and he's said that his top "priority" is helping his daughter win a city council seat next year. The Sun-Times also notes that Gutierrez has talked about running for mayor several times in the past but never gone for it.
Quigley, who won Emanuel's old North Side seat in a 2009 special election, also said he was interested. Quigley notably only won renomination with 62 percent of the vote this year against a group of underfunded opponents, so he may have some issues to work out with his geographic base. But Quigley, like Preckwinkle, has nothing to worry about in his general election campaign this year, nor would he need to give up his seat to run for mayor. The candidate filing deadline is in late November.
● Civiqs, the new online polling company that is owned by Kos Media (the parent company of Daily Kos), is hiring a new director of data science. This position is responsible for the accuracy and efficiency of Civiqs' research methodology, and for building new features and products based on the automated Civiqs survey platform. The director will work closely with Civiqs' team of researchers and software engineers to design and implement sampling methodologies, data integrity protocols, and statistical models for analyzing polling data. For more information, and instructions on how to apply, click here.
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