The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, Stephen Wolf, Daniel Donner, and Cara Zelaya, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, James Lambert, David Beard, and Arjun Jaikumar.
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Leading Off
● NH-Sen: Deep-pocketed Republicans are taking action two weeks ahead of 2022's final Senate primary to ensure that the party nominates state Senate President Chuck Morse rather than retired Army Brig. General Donald Bolduc, a far-right conspiracy theorist who has posted wide leads in two recent polls even though he's raised very little money. Politico reports that White Mountain PAC, an organization that was only set up on Tuesday, has reserved as much as $4.1 million on an ad campaign to promote Morse in the Sept. 13 primary to take on Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan.
The opening spot praises Morse as a border hawk, something the candidate himself has also been doing in his own commercials, without mentioning Bolduc or Hassan. White Mountain PAC is so far the only major outside group to get involved here, though there's still time for that to change. The GOP firm Medium Buying relays that the Democratic organization Senate Majority PAC has also booked ads for Sept. 2 through Sept. 13, but there's no other information yet about the topic of those commercials.
White Mountain PAC's move comes a week after Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell bemoaned that "candidate quality" could keep the GOP from seizing the majority, and there's plenty of speculation that his allies are behind the effort to stop Bolduc. The retired general's spokesperson very much sees it that way, as he characterized the ad campaign as a "last ditch and losing effort by the establishment to prop up one of their own."
Senate Leadership Fund, which bankrolled another super PAC earlier this summer as part of a successful effort to block Eric Greitens in the Missouri Senate primary, did not respond when Politico asked for a comment. However, the story notes that White Mountain PAC's treasurer is a former NRSC finance director.
Election Night
● Primary Night: Mass Effect: Massachusetts goes to the polls Tuesday for the second-to-last primary night of the 2022 cycle, with polls closing at 8 PM ET for what the Boston Globe characterizes as a "bizarre and mostly sleepy state primary."
While it originally looked like there would be a crowded Democratic nomination fight to succeed Republican Gov. Charlie Baker, who announced his retirement in December of last year, Attorney General Maura Healey lost her only intra-party opponent in June when state Sen. Sonia Chang-Díaz ended her campaign. Republicans have an unsettled contest between Trump's candidate, former state Rep. Geoff Diehl, and wealthy businessman Chris Doughty. However, since every poll shows Healey easily beating each Republican, it may not matter much who emerges on Tuesday.
The Democratic primary for secretary of state has been a bit more eventful, but two new YouGov polls for different colleges show seven-term incumbent Bill Galvin well positioned to fend off Boston NAACP head Tanisha Sullivan. The survey for UMass Lowell puts Galvin ahead 56-21, while UMass Amherst shows him fending off Sullivan by a smaller, though still wide, 49-30 margin. The winner should have no trouble prevailing in the fall in this very blue state.
Finally, Democrats have a tumultuous primary to serve as district attorney for dark blue Suffolk County, which is home to Boston and the nearby communities of Chelsea, Revere, and Winthrop. Baker appointed Kevin Hayden in early January to succeed Rachael Rollins, a criminal justice reformer who left to become U.S. attorney for Massachusetts.
Boston City Councilor Ricardo Arroyo quickly announced a challenge, and he earned endorsements from prominent progressives like Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey, Rep. Ayanna Pressley, and Boston Mayor Michelle Wu. That quartet, though, all withdrew their support on Wednesday a week after the Globe reported that the challenger was twice accused, but never charged, with sexual assault while he was in high school in the mid-2000s. Arroyo has denied the allegations, but the woman who accused him in 2005 says she stands by what she told the police back then.
Senate
● Polls:
CO-Sen: The Tarrance Group for the Republican Attorney General’s Association: Michael Bennet (D-inc): 48, Joe O’Dea (R): 47
FL-Sen: Clarity Campaign Labs (D) for Progress Florida and Florida Watch: Marco Rubio (R-inc): 46, Val Demings (D): 45 (July: 45-45 tie)
NV-Sen: Fabrizio Ward (R) and Impact Research (D) for the AARP: Catherine Cortez Masto (D-inc): 44, Adam Laxalt (R): 40, Barry Rubinson (IAP): 2
The Colorado poll was released shortly after the Democratic firm Public Policy Polling publicized its own numbers showing Bennet ahead by a very different 46-35 margin. PPP also found Libertarian Brian Peotter grabbing 7%, while the Tarrance Group does not appear to have presented him as an option.
Governors
● AZ-Gov: Kari Lake was one of many Republicans who called for the FBI to be abolished after it searched Mar-a-Lago, and Democrat Katie Hobbs is now running an ad arguing this shows how dangerous her opponent is. The commercial first uses clips of Lake saying, "I don't think abortion should be legal" and "[p]ut cameras in the classroom," before the spot features footage of her appearance on far-right host Steven Crowder's show. "You really think it's important to disband the FBI?" Crowder asks, to which Lake replies, "100%."
A separate Hobbs spot focuses on Lake's support for a pre-statehood law that the narrator says could sentence "any person in Arizona who helps a pregnant woman get an abortion" to "two to five years in prison." The Democrat is also pushing back on GOP ads that portray her as weak on border security with another piece of her own starring two border county sheriffs. "Katie Hobbs will deliver whatever resources are needed to keep you safe," says Pima County's Chris Nanos, while Santa Cruz County's David Hathaway argues, "I'm tired of the talk. Katie Hobbs is about action."
● ME-Gov: The Maine Republican Party is up with an ad that tries to portray Paul LePage in an unusually sympathetic light, while a Democratic group called Better Maine is using its own spot to remind viewers of LePage's many offenses as governor. Neither commercial mentions Democratic incumbent Janet Mills, whom LePage is hoping to unseat.
The state GOP, which earlier this year received about $4 million in funding from the RGA, focuses on LePage's difficult upbringing. "He left home at age 11," says the narrator, "to escape the repeated beatings of his alcoholic father. He lived on the streets of Lewiston and worked odd jobs just to survive." The commercial continues by describing LePage as "a governor for all Mainers," arguing he "understands the struggles we face, and he knows how to turn things around."
Better Maine, which is financed by the DGA and EMILY's List, has a very different take on LePage's tenure. After playing a quick clip of him saying, "I'm gonna deck ya!" the narrator faults him for "trying to cut funding for our public schools, and he opposed a pay raise for Maine teachers." The spot goes on, "LePage defunded a family planning program, slashing funding for cancer screenings and women's healthcare … LePage even opposed funding for Meals on Wheels."
● OR-Gov: Democrat Tina Kotek's new commercial on gun safety for the three-way race for governor only attacks independent Betsy Johnson while ignoring Republican Christine Drazan, which represents a bit of a different strategy from what we've seen from the other two candidates so far. The narrator, a mother identified as Angela, tells the audience, "To hear that Betsy Johnson opposed red flag laws to keep guns out of the hands of people like the Uvalde shooter and opposed background checks and safe storage laws? I'm a hard no."
Drazan and Johnson, by contrast, each launched ads in August going after both of their rivals. Drazan's commercial argued that Kotek and Johnson, who was a conservative Democrat until last year, both supported termed-out Democratic Gov. Kate Brown's agenda, while the Republican would represent change. Johnson's piece, by contrast, depicted Kotek and Drazan as occupying opposite ends of the political extreme, saying that the Democrat is weak on public safety while Drazan "wants to make abortion illegal."
● Polls:
FL-Gov: Clarity Campaign Labs (D) for Progress Florida and Florida Watch: Ron DeSantis (R-inc): 48, Charlie Crist (D): 45 (July: 47-44 DeSantis)
GA-Gov: TargetSmart (D) for Stacey Abrams: Brian Kemp (R-inc): 48, Stacey Abrams (D): 46, Shane Hazel (L): 3
NV-Gov: Fabrizio Ward (R) and Impact Research (D) for the AARP: Steve Sisolak (D-inc): 41, Joe Lombardo (R): 38, Ed Bridges (AIP): 4, Brandon Davis (L): 3
House
● NC-13: The Democratic firm Public Policy Polling finds a 40-40 deadlock between Democrat Wiley Nickel and Republican Bo Hines in this 50-48 Biden seat in Raleigh's southern suburbs. The only other recent numbers we've seen came from an early August RMG Research poll for Hines' supporters at U.S. Term Limits, and it had him up 44-39. (That release also misidentified the Democrat as "Wally Nickel.")
Attorneys General
● CO-AG: The Tarrance Group's aforementioned survey for the Republican Attorney General's Association shows a 44-44 tie between Democratic Attorney General Phil Weiser and Republican John Kellner, who serves as a district attorney for four counties in or near the Denver suburbs. This is the first survey we've seen of this contest.
Ballot Measures
● MI Ballot: On Wednesday, the two Republicans on Michigan's Board of State Canvassers both voted against their Democratic counterparts to deny certification to an initiative that seeks to amend the state constitution to enshrine a right to abortion and other reproductive health services, creating a deadlock that keeps the measure off the November ballot. Supporters of the measure promptly said they would appeal to the state Supreme Court.
The state Board of Elections had already recommended certification the previous week after proponents had turned in a record-breaking amount of voter signatures, but the GOP canvassers justified their decision to block approval by claiming that missing spaces on some of the lines of the amendment text presented to those voters rendered it invalid. The GOP board members similarly voted to block a voting rights expansion amendment on the grounds that it failed to tell petition signers what sections of the constitution it would amend, and backers of that measure are also appealing.
Michigan's Supreme Court has a 4-3 Democratic majority, but the Sept. 9 deadline to finalize the ballot is quickly approaching. Should the court end up putting the abortion amendment on the ballot, Michigan Right to Life has reserved $16 million in TV ad time to oppose it.
Ad Roundup
Dollar amounts reflect the reported size of ad buys and may be larger.
