The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, Stephen Wolf, Carolyn Fiddler, and Matt Booker, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Daniel Donner, James Lambert, David Beard, and Arjun Jaikumar.
Leading Off
● Fundraising: Daily Kos Elections is pleased to present our second quarterly fundraising charts of the 2020 election cycle for both the Senate and the House.
An unnamed Senate Republican strategist recently told the Wall Street Journal that when it came to fundraising, "We're scared to death by what we see," and our data shows that they're right to be. Team Blue's candidates decisively outraised Republicans in almost every competitive Senate contest, and even in several races where the GOP holds a clear advantage.
In North Carolina, which both parties agree could be the seat that decides control of the chamber, Democrat Cal Cunningham outpaced Republican Sen. Thom Tillis $7.3 million to $2.5 million; Tillis still ended June with a small $6.9 million to $6.6 million cash-on-hand lead, but he's going to have a tough time maintaining it if things don't change dramatically in the next few months.
Campaign Action
In Maine, which is another race that both parties badly need to win, Democrat Sara Gideon also outraised Republican incumbent Susan Collins by a massive $9.3 million to $3.5 million margin. Collins did have a $5.6 million to $5.4 million cash-on-hand lead at the end of June, but she almost certainly has already lost it: After Gideon won her primary last week, she received $5.6 million that progressive activists raised via Crowdpac and ActBlue to support Collins' eventual Democratic opponent following the senator’s the decisive vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court in 2018.
Democratic candidates also outraised Republicans in Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Iowa, and Montana by wide margins as well, which are all races that have attracted millions in outside spending already. Additionally, Team Blue's contenders outpaced their rivals in Alaska, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, and South Carolina.
Republicans hold a clear advantage in each of those contests, but well-funded Democrats could complicate things for the party in power and force them to divert resources that are badly needed elsewhere. And Alabama Sen. Doug Jones, who is the most vulnerable member of the Senate, holds a massive cash advantage over Tommy Tuberville, who won his party's nomination on Tuesday.
The Senate news wasn't quite all bad for Republicans. Michigan Republican John James outraised Democratic incumbent Gary Peters $6.4 million to $5.2 million. However, the senator still enjoys a $12 million to $9.2 million cash-on-hand lead, and most polls also show Peters well ahead.
Meanwhile in the House, Democratic incumbents are continuing to raise money at a pace that would have been unthinkable just four years ago. California Rep. Katie Porter brought in an astounding $2.5 million, while another seven Democrats who flipped GOP-held seats last cycle cleared $1 million. An additional 23 Democrats on competitive turf also took in at least $600,000 for the quarter.
By contrast, a total of 11 Republicans running to unseat Democrats raised at least $600,000 from donors. As we've noted before, we are comparing Democratic incumbents with Republican challengers in most of these races, but that just reflects the reality of next year's battlefield: The GOP has to go on offense, so the races that will determine control of the House will take place in districts held by well-funded Democrats.
We've said throughout this cycle that if Republicans can't match resources with Democrats, they're going to have a very hard time taking a majority, and that's all the more true with Trump's declining poll numbers.
Still, there were some bright spots for GOP challengers. Young Kim outraised Democratic Rep. Gil Cisneros $1.2 million to $557,000 in their rematch for California's 39th District (Cisneros self-funded another $100,000), though the incumbent still had a small $1.7 million to $1.6 million cash-on-hand lead.
The other Republican recruit to clear $1 million was Ashley Hinson, who outpaced Democratic Rep. Abby Finkenauer $1.1 million to $869,000 in Iowa's 1st District, though Finkenauer maintained a hefty $2.7 million to $1.6 million.
And perhaps the biggest (pleasant) surprise for Republicans was Alek Skarlatos, who outraised longtime Democratic Rep. Peter DeFazio $915,000 to $312,000 in Oregon's 4th District, which is a contest that hasn't been on many people's radars. Skarlatos, however, spent a sizable $253,000 on fundraising services to bring in that haul, and DeFazio still had a big $1.7 million to $453,000 cash-on-hand lead.
Election Changes
● Iowa: Republican Secretary of State Paul Pate has asked Iowa's Legislative Council for permission to send absentee ballot applications to all voters ahead of the November general election. Under a new law recently passed by the state's Republican-run legislature, the Legislative Council, a special body that is empowered to act when lawmakers are not in session, must approve such a move. Republicans hold an 11-to-9 majority on the panel. Election officials in Iowa's seven-largest counties had previously said they were preparing to send out applications on their own.
● Rhode Island: Rhode Island's Democratic-run state House has passed a bill to send absentee ballot applications to all voters for the state's Sept. 8 primary and the November general election, but the Democratic president of the state Senate, Dominic Ruggerio, says he opposes the measure. The bill would also waive the requirement that voters have two witnesses or a notary sign their ballots.
Senate
● CO-Sen: The NRSC recently launched an ad against Democrat John Hickenlooper that featured footage of a house burning after a lethal 2017 explosion in the town of Firestone, which quickly brought an angry response from the woman who lost two of her loved ones in that tragedy. Erin Martinez, who was injured in the blast that killed her husband and brother, put out a statement calling the ad showing her old home on fire "horrifying," and she told the committee to take it down. The NRSC, though, soon said that it would keep running the spot anyway.
The Colorado Sun also write that the commercial itself "lacks context." The NRSC argued that as governor, Hickenlooper did not do anything to punish Anadarko, the company that owned the defective oil and gas well that caused the explosion, and that he'd even taken a donation from it afterwards. However, Jesse Paul writes that there's no indication that Hickenlooper, who had also accepted money from the company before the blast, showed Anadarko any sort of favoritism.
And while no one at Anadarko was sanctioned for the blast during Hickenlooper's governorship, Paul writes that this was because state regulators were waiting for the National Transportation Safety Board to conclude its own probe. The investigation ended in October of 2019, which was less than a year after Hickenlooper left office, and the company that had acquired Anadarko was fined $18.25 million a few months later.
● GA-Sen-B: Appointed Sen. Kelly Loeffler is running a TV commercial that attacks her fellow Republican, Rep. Doug Collins, for having worked as a defense attorney. The narrator engages in one of our least favorite tactics of attacking lawyers for providing those accused of crimes with their constitutional right to legal representation, contending that Collins "helped violent criminals and even gang members get out of jail—some struck again."
● KY-Sen: Democrat Amy McGrath has released a survey from Garin-Hart-Yang Research Group that shows Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell ahead 45-41, which is similar to his 43-40 edge in January. The sample for this July poll shows Donald Trump up 53-41 in a state he carried 63-33 four years ago.
House
● KS-02: On Thursday, Rep. Ron Estes, who represents the neighboring 2nd District, endorsed state Treasurer Jake LaTurner over his indicted colleague, incumbent Steve Watkins, in the Aug. 4 Republican primary. Estes argued that Watkins' "actions have unfortunately put this seat in danger of being handed over to a Nancy Pelosi liberal who doesn't represent our Kansas values."
Watkins got some potentially worse news the following day when the prominent anti-abortion group Kansans for Life, which had earlier issued a dual endorsement for the congressman and LaTurner, announced that it would now only back LaTurner.
Watkins also said Friday that he would "temporarily and voluntarily step aside from my committees," though this decision may not have been so voluntary. The House GOP's own rules require indicted members to resign their committee posts, but Watkins' office said on Wednesday that he would not be doing this. However, as Roll Call noted at the time, the congressman's continued defiance could have compelled Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy to convene the Republican Steering Committee to forcibly oust him, a move that could have been very embarrassing for Watkins.
McCarthy, for his part, said Friday that he was still backing Watkins next month.
● MI-03: Libertarian Rep. Justin Amash confirmed on Thursday night that he would not seek re-election this year as either an independent or as a member of the Libertarian Party. The deadline for independent candidates to run for Congress passed on Thursday, and the Libertarians have until Monday to officially submit a nominee to the state.
● MI-13: The state AFL-CIO has endorsed Rep. Rashida Tlaib in her Aug. 4 Democratic primary rematch against Detroit City Council President Brenda Jones; as Primaries for Progress notes, the group supported Jones two years ago.
Jones, for her part, has struggled to raise money to compete with the well-known and well-funded Tlaib. Jones brought in just $97,000 during the second quarter of 2020, and she had a mere $12,000 on-hand at the end of June. Tlaib, by contrast, raised $766,000 during this time and had $1.3 million to spend.
● NY-12: Attorney Suraj Patel, who is challenging Rep. Carolyn Maloney for the Democratic nomination in New York's 12th Congressional District, is one of several plaintiffs in a new lawsuit asking that election officials be required to count any absentee ballots they received by June 30, regardless of whether they bear a postmark.
Under New York law, ballots are valid so long as they are postmarked by Election Day—in this case, June 23—and received within a week. However, because ballot envelopes included prepaid postage, many never received a postmark, since the postal service does not require postmarks when postage has been prepaid. As a result, many ballots that were placed in the mail on time are at risk of not getting counted.
Patel currently trails Maloney 41.7 to 40.1, though only tallies for votes cast in-person have been released so far. One other candidate, Emily Gallagher, is also a party to the suit. She is behind Brooklyn Assemblyman Joseph Lentol, who has served in the legislature since 1973, by a 58-42 margin. The remaining plaintiffs are all voters who fear their ballots will not be counted.
● NY-16: On Friday, the Associated Press called the June 23 Democratic primary for New York's safely blue 16th Congressional District for educator Jamaal Bowman, prompting longtime Rep. Eliot Engel to concede shortly thereafter. With 77,000 votes tallied, Bowman led Engel 56-40; while there are still votes left to count, the AP writes that its "analysis of absentee ballots returned so far indicated Friday that Bowman's lead from votes cast in person is too large for Engel to overcome."
The veteran congressman's wide defeat in this district, which includes southern Westchester County and the northern Bronx, would have been a huge surprise just a few months ago. Engel first won this seat in a 1988 primary to succeed Rep. Mario Biaggi, who had been indicted on corruption charges and decided to resign before he could be expelled, though he remained on the ballot. (Biaggi would later spend 26 months in prison.)
Engel went through a competitive nomination fight in 2000, but he was routinely re-elected over the following 18 years. In 2018, Engel turned back a self-funding opponent by a wide 74-16 margin, and he became chairman of the House Foreign Relations Committee the following year after his party returned to the majority.
However, the seat transformed during Engel's long tenure. While Engel, who is Jewish, originally represented a district that was majority white, it's now very diverse thanks to subsequent redistricting and demographic changes, with a population that's 37% white, 31% Black, 25% Latino, and 6% Asian American. That gave Bowman, who is Black, an opening, and he took it: Bowman argued early in the campaign that Engel had lost touch with his constituents, and that he'd become too close to corporate interests.
Bowman still looked like a longshot against the well-funded Engel until this spring, but things quickly began to change. First, Engel was the subject of an unflattering—and widely shared—profile in the Atlantic in early May, which reported that he'd holed up in his D.C.-area home for the duration of the pandemic, not even returning to New York when the state's first coronavirus epicenter was identified in his district. Bowman also got some good news in early June when educator Andom Ghebreghiorgis dropped out of the race and endorsed him, which helped Bowman solidify support from voters looking to dump the incumbent.
The race truly picked up national attention days later, though, when on his first trip back to the district in months, Engel was caught on camera pleading for more time to speak at a press conference saying, "If I didn't have a primary, I wouldn't care," a gaffe that Bowman and his allies quickly framed as a commentary on the congressman's feelings about his race and his constituents. The blunder caught national attention and helped turbocharge Bowman's fundraising, allowing him to keep pace with Engel during the campaign's stretch run.
Engel and his allies still decisively outspent Bowman, but the challenger and groups like the Working Families Party and the Justice Democrats deployed enough to let Bowman get his message out. Bowman's side seized on Engel's words, but also stressed the challenger's progressive views and his remarkable life story. Bowman was raised by a single mother and lived in public housing, crediting rent stabilization policies for allowing his family to leave. He then became a teacher in the Bronx and went on to found a new public school there and serve as principal, helping kids from circumstances like his own.
Ultimately, that message very much resonated and helped Bowman pull off a major victory for progressives nationwide.
● UT-04: The conservative super PAC Congressional Leadership Fund has released a survey from Moore Information that gives Republican Burgess Owens a wide 43-34 lead over Democratic Rep. Ben McAdams, while Libertarian John Molnar takes another 5%; the sample also found Donald Trump ahead 46-40 here. This is the first poll we've seen of the contest for this seat in the Salt Lake City suburbs.
This district backed Trump 39-32 four years ago, while another 22% went to conservative independent Evan McMullin, and it's possible that the GOP could flip it even in a good year for Democrats. Owens, though, doesn't seem to be remotely interested in appealing to the area's many Trump skeptics. Indeed, as Media Matters' Eric Hananoki reports, Owens appeared in May on an internet program aligned with the bonkers QAnon conspiracy theory.
While Owens didn't talk about QAnon during his interview, he repeatedly asked the audience to support his campaign. He also told his hosts, "Thank you for all you guys are doing, because I'm just, I'm just part of the team. I just do my part as everybody does theirs."
Owens used the program to share his own far-right talking points as well, saying that Democrats have "an evil leadership that will use, abuse, and discard anyone for their power, even people within their own race," and that "the true evil is socialist, Marxist communists who have woven deeply in the Democratic Party and for decades have used misery as a political tool, strategy, so that people feel helpless, hopeless and vote for Democrats."
When Utah Policy asked Owens' campaign for a response, they replied, "We'll have to Google what 'QAnon' is." They also included a truly awful statement from an NRCC spokesperson asking, "Did I miss your story on Ben McAdams appearing on Russia conspiracy network MSNBC?"
Ad Roundup
