Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest: New polls show Iowa's Senate race moving away from Democrats

Republican Joni Ernst

Republican Joni Ernst

Leading Off:

• IA-Sen: What a difference a few weeks makes. It wasn't that long ago that Republicans were privately conceding that Joni Ernst was a few points behind Democrat Bruce Braley in the Iowa U.S. Senate contest. However, more recent polls have shown either a very tight race or have given Ernst the lead. And on Saturday night, things came to a head when Selzer & Co., on behalf of the Des Moines Register, released a survey showing Ernst up 44-38 on Braley. Frustratingly, though, the Register did not release crosstabs, making it difficult to peer under the hood.

But Selzer has a good reputation in Iowa, and this survey in particular seemed to fill Democrats with a little extra dread and Republicans with a little extra enthusiasm. Please read below the fold for our analysis of Selzer's track record, and what these numbers mean for Braley.

As is our wont at Daily Kos Elections, though, we wanted to see if Selzer's reputation is supported by the facts, so we've taken a closer look at their recent polling. Here are their final polls from October onward in 2010:

• IA-Gov: Selzer: Branstad (R) 50-38; actual: Branstad (R) 53-43; error: +2 R

• IA-Sen: Selzer: Grassley (R) 61-30; actual: Grassley (R) 64-33; error: +0

And 2012:

• CO-Pres: Selzer: Obama (D) 47-43; actual: Obama (D) 51-46; error: +1 R

• IA-Pres: Selzer: Obama (D) 49-45; actual: Obama (D) 52-46; error: +2 R

Overall, this is a very good but very limited recent record. Going back a little further to 2008, Selzer surveyed Indiana, Iowa, and Michigan days before the presidential race, as well as the Indiana gubernatorial contest. Both Indiana polls and the Michigan one were right on the mark, while they overestimated Obama's margin in Iowa by about 7 points.

Selzer's also regularly polled Iowa's first-in-the-nation presidential caucuses. In 2008 they correctly predicted Obama and Mike Huckabee's victories, but in 2012 they found Rick Santorum 9 points behind Romney just days before he narrowly won the contest. In addition, Selzer conducted a few 2012 national polls for Bloomberg. In June of that year, they raised eyebrows when they found Obama with a 13-point lead over Romney; in their next and final national poll in September, they settled on a much more reasonable 6-point lead for the president. (Obama won by about 4.)

In any case, whether Selzer is right about Ernst's 6-point edge or not, there's little doubt that Braley has lost whatever lead he may have had a few weeks ago. The Braley campaign released a memo shortly after Selzer's poll dropped arguing that they were only losing because the Republicans were outspending them. They wrote that if spending levels were even, they would be tied and could rely on the Democratic ground game to pull off a narrow win.

On Sunday, the DSCC also released a Harstad poll showing Braley and Ernst deadlocked at 42-42 each. Harstad does have a decent if limited track record, but it's not a positive sign at all if the best poll the Democrats can muster only shows them tied. Public Policy Polling is set to release a new survey on Tuesday, and they've indicated on Twitter that they'll show Ernst ahead.

It's unclear what happened in the last few weeks. Neither candidate appears to have said or done anything recently that could have changed the race. It's possible Ernst wasn't actually trailing back then, and the Republicans were simply lowering expectations. The Braley camp may actually have a point about Republican spending swamping them. As the chart below shows, the GOP has dominated the airwaves in Iowa recently:

Spending in the Iowa Senate race

Fortunately, Democrats have more airtime reserved for the final weeks of the contest than the GOP does, which could help even things out. But Braley has only himself to blame for his obstinate refusal to paint Ernst as the lunatic she is. If he'd only taken a page from Harry Reid, Braley might not be in this situation, because right now, there's little doubt that a Senate seat that Democrats thought they'd easily keep only a few months ago is in real danger of going to the Republicans.

Senate:

•  LA-Sen: ORC International, partnering with CNN per usual, ventures down to the Bayou State. According to ORC, there isn't going to be much drama in the November all-party jungle primary. In their likely voters model, ORC finds Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu at 43 percent, far from the majority she needs to win outright in November. Among registered voters Landrieu is at 45 percent: There don't appear to be enough undecideds in either model to give Landrieu a chance to hit 50 percent.

Both models have Bill Cassidy far ahead of fellow Republican and tea partier Rob Maness: Among likely voters Cassidy leads Maness 40-9 in the jungle primary, and among registered voters it's a 35-8 lead. The only thing Democrats would love more than Landrieu taking a majority in November would be for Maness be her opponent in December. However, Maness doesn't have much money available, and unless tea party groups are willing to spend big for him in the next few weeks, it's very hard to imagine him winding up in a runoff with Landrieu. If ORC is anywhere close to the mark, it looks inevitable that we'll have a December runoff between Landrieu and Cassidy.

There's plenty of uncertainty about what would happen in December. Among likely voters, ORC finds Cassidy edging Landrieu 50-47; among registered voters, Landrieu leads 51-45. To add even more uncertainty, we don't know what turnout would look like in December. The last time Louisiana held a runoff for U.S. Senate was 2002, and it's fair to say plenty has changed since then. For what it's worth, there was less than a 1 percent turnout drop in 2002, in a contest that Landrieu ended up winning 52-48.

• NC-Sen: ORC also takes a look at the Tarheel State and finds what virtually everyone has found recently: Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan has a small but durable lead. Among likely voters, Hagan leads Republican rival Thom Tillis 46-43, with Libertarian Sean Haugh at 7. Among registered voters Hagan has a larger 46-39 edge, with Haugh at 9. This is far from the first time ORC has shown the GOP doing better among likely voters, though the gap is smaller here than it's been in other states.

Interestingly, OCR finds Tillis a bit more popular than Hagan: They give him a 47-40 favorable rating, while pegging Hagan's rating at 46-47. This is the opposite of what PPP found recently: They had Hagan disliked with a 43-48 approval rating but Tillis hated with 34-48 favorables. In a race this close, this could end up being very important. If CNN is right, then there may be a tangible number of undecideds who like Tillis; if PPP is correct, then he may have a tougher time appealing to this group.

•  SD-Sen: Local South Dakota pollster Nielson Brothers takes a look at the weird three-way Senate contest between Republican Mike Rounds, Democrat Rick Weiland, and Larry Presser, a former Republican senator running as an independent. They find Rounds leading Weiland 39-26, with Pressler at 24, similar to what we've seen in some other polling.

However, they also asked about hypothetical two-way matchups: In a Rounds vs. Weiland race, Rounds leads 45-37, while he would only edge Pressler 40-39. It's worth noting that it's too late for any candidate to actually take himself off the ballot, though. The best Weiland or Pressler could do would be to stop campaigning and endorse the other.

However, Neither Weiland or Pressler have given any indication that they're ready to drop out of the race. It may be tempting to look at this poll and conclude that Democrats should pressure Weiland to pull the plug on his campaign, much as they did in Kansas, but as we've noted in the past, there's no guarantee that such a move would really help stop Rounds. Pressler has been a terrible fundraiser and is largely coasting by on his old name recognition. Pressler even acknowledge his own un-seriousness by declaring at the outset, "If I win, I might demand a recount."

Weiland, meanwhile, is actually running a real campaign, and there's no question Pressler's hurting him far more than he is Rounds. If Pressler won't budge, Democrats might have more luck running ads arguing that Pressler is the real conservative in the race (whether or not he actually is). That could at least drive some Republicans from Rounds and some Democrats from Pressler.

It's also worth noting that Nielson Brothers does not have a good reputation. In late October of 2010, they found Republican Dennis Daugaard leading his Democratic opponent Scott Heidepriem only 43-40 in South Dakota's gubernatorial contest. Days later, Daugaard won 62-38, a horrific 21-point error. The group did better in the U.S. House race, finding Democratic incumbent Stephanie Herseth Sandlin leading Republican Kristi Noem 42-40; Noem won 48-46, a 4-point miss. The group has also posted some very inconsistent results in local races.

For his part, Rounds is trying to push back by claiming he has a poll showing him up 18 points. Weirdly, though, Rounds' camp didn't release any identifying features about this poll—not even the name of the pollster. Rounds has been very reactive throughout this race, often responding clumsily to any attacks or suggestions he's in danger. Maybe Rounds is just being cautious, but his actions suggest that he doesn't feel like he has this race in the bag yet.

Gubernatorial:

• AK-Gov: Some good news for Team Blue way up north: A state court judge rejected a Republican lawsuit to undo the "unity ticket" created when Democrat Byron Mallot dropped his bid for governor and became independent Bill Walker's running mate. The plaintiff, a local GOP official, said he'd consider appealing but there's no word yet on his decision. Given that thousands of overseas ballots have already been mailed, though, it's hard to see a higher court wanting to muck things up at this late date.

In any event, in the two-way race between Walker and GOP Gov. Sean Parnell, the limited polling has consistently shown Walker ahead. In fact, a new Rasmussen poll gives him a 47-42 lead—the same survey that found Mark Begich trailing by 5 in the Senate race. No, we're not judging the state of play here based on Rasmussen, but the overall indicators are quite poor for Parnell, so we're moving this race from Lean Republican to Tossup.

•  MA-Gov: There's been a lot of uncertainty about the state of play in Massachusetts. In the last week a MassINC poll showed Democrat Martha Coakley leading Republican Charlie Baker by 10 points, while surveys from SocialSphere and Rasmussen showed a very tight contest; a different MassINC poll of the 6th Congressional district also indicated that Baker could win statewide. On Monday, three more polls came out, and each points to a tight race in November.

On behalf of the Boston Herald, Suffolk released their first general election poll and found Coakley leading Baker 44-43. They give Democrats realistic leads in other races, so it's unlikely they oversampled Republican voters. They give Coakley a 46-42 favorable rating, compared to Baker's 45-27 rating. What could end up helping Coakley is outgoing Democratic Gov. Deval Patrick's popularity: He's sitting on a solid 55-39 favorable rating.

Western New England University also surveys this contest, and they find Baker leading 44-43. They find similar numbers as Suffolk all around: Coakley posts a 46-38 favorable rating compared to Baker's 47-24. As we'd expect they found Democratic Sen. Ed Markey with a 20-point lead over his no-named Republican challenger so again, it doesn't look like this poll is unreasonably Republican-leaning. YouGov, on behalf of UMass Amherst, finds a very similar result: They give Baker a 46-45 lead among likely voters, but have Coakley up 42-37 among registered voters.

Massachusetts is a very blue state, albeit one that isn't afraid to elect Republican governors, and we still expect Coakley to pull off a win here. Coakley appears to have improved as a candidate since her disastrous 2010 Senate race, and it's Baker who's been the one to put his foot in his mouth this time around. Still, right now it looks like Baker is making this a real race and can pull off a win. As a result, Daily Kos Elections is changing our race rating here from Likely Democratic to Lean Democratic.

• ME-Gov, 02: A new UNH (sigh) poll of Maine for the Portland Press Herald and the Maine Sunday Telegram finds Democratic Rep. Mike Michaud edging GOP Gov. Paul LePage 40-38, with independent Eliot Cutler at a dismal 12 percent. That's not too different from UNH's June numbers, which had Michaud up 40-36 and Cutler at 15, and very similar to the Huffington Post Pollster average.

However, among UNH many flaws is its insistence on tacking on House-level polls to its statewide surveys, despite its failure to contact a sufficient number of respondents to get a decent read on those House races. (UNH constantly does this in its home state of New Hampshire, too.) So yeah, the school is claiming that Republican Bruce Poliquin has a 40-30 lead on Democrat Emily Cain in Maine's open 2nd District, but they only sampled 220 voters, well below acceptable minimums. Even Poliquin's own internal (which had a reasonable sample size) had him down 4 points.

And here's how else you know this poll is bizarre: Michaud leads LePage by 21 points in the more-liberal 1st District but trails by 17 in the 2nd. That sort of spread makes no sense, because the 2nd is Michaud's very own district, which he's represented for over a decade. Then again, UNH never makes a whole lot of sense.

• RI-Gov: Rasmussen finds Democrat Gina Raimondo with a small 42-37 lead on Republican Allan Fung in the woefully underpolled Rhode Island governor's race—and it's not as though tossing Rasmussen on to the pile really adds much to our understanding of anything, ever. But here's a detail worth noting: Perennial candidate Robert Healey, the founder of the "Cool Moose" Party, will once again appear on the ballot as a replacement candidate for the Moderate Party.

Healy doesn't just have a massive head of hair and an awesome beard. He's also managed to take double digits on the Cool Moose line in multiple prior elections. His best showing came in the 2010 lieutenant governor's race, when he earned 39 percent of the vote—though Republicans didn't field a candidate. But in a close election, Healey could sway the result, especially since the Moderate Party took almost 6.5 percent in the last race for governor, more than double the margin between winner Lincoln Chafee and runner-up John Robitaille.

• WI-Gov: Gravis Marketing (R) for Townhall.com: Mary Burke (D): 50, Scott Walker (R-inc): 45 (Aug.: 47-47 tie).

House:

• IA-03: Just a week after Republican David Young went dark in Des Moines, The Hill reports that he's cancelling his entire $107,000 ad buy in the Omaha media market all the way through Election Day. Omaha covers about a fifth of Iowa's 3rd Congressional District, so to put things in perspective, it would be a bit like running for mayor of New York City but skipping all of Manhattan. What's more, Young isn't "expected" (per The Hill) to go back up in Des Moines until some time in October, so Democrat Staci Appel has the chance to really dominate the airwaves.

• IL-12: Here's a nice line to add to state Rep. Mike Bost's legendary résumé of anger: dog killer. I usually eschew block quotes, but you're just going to want to read this one yourselves:

The earliest episode dates back to 1986, when a neighborhood beagle named Rusty bit Bost's 4-year-old daughter. The report filed by animal control officials indicates that the girl provoked the attack by chasing the dog. She ultimately had to get 19 stitches on her face.

According to court records, Bost was displeased that authorities would not be able to deal with the 10-year-old dog immediately. So he got his handgun, drove to Rusty's owner's home, and shot the dog to death while it was penned in an enclosure.

Or as Wonkette put it, he "Second-Amendmented the beagle to death, just as Adams and Jefferson would have wanted." Click through to the full Huffington Post piece for more, including the fact that Bost (who was somehow acquitted for dog killing) failed to report the theft of a gun from his home—which he didn't know had been stolen until the police showed up at his home and informed him the weapon had been used by one man to threaten another.

Just what the world needs more of: a guy with an unhinged temper and a reckless attitude toward firearms.

• MA-06: Richard Tisei must really want to tear out his hair. Last cycle, he came oh-so-close to defeating Democratic Rep. John Tierney before arrogance undermined him at the end. This time, he looked poised to deliver the coup de grâce ... until Iraq vet Seth Moulton took the honors and finished off Tierney in the Democratic primary. Now, however, a spate of polls has shown Moulton with a pretty consistent 8-point lead on Tisei, so Tisei's released his own internal from Dave Sackett at the Tarrance Group showing him with a bare 41-40 edge, while 9 percent support independent Chris Stockwell.

However, the other data from Tarrance's memo isn't actually good news for Tisei, even though it's presented as such. In particular, Sackett notes that Tisei's name recognition is 10 points higher that Moulton's. That simply means Moulton has more room to grow while Tisei is bumping up against a possible ceiling. Sackett also claims that the "political environment" in the 6th is "favorable" to Tisei because Obama has a 48 percent disapproval rating. But plenty of Democrats are holding on in states and districts where the president is much more unpopular, so all things considered, those aren't terrible numbers.

• MN-02: It's not Larry Lessig-level, but Bill Maher's political cluelessness is pretty striking. Maher, as you'll recall, named GOP Rep. John Kline the target of his "Flip a District" project, aimed at removing a Republican from Congress. Not only did he pick a pretty entrenched incumbent, though, Maher's people are disavowing Democrat Mike Obermueller. The executive producer of Maher's TV show (who apparently is in charge of Maher's political operation) declared, "We don't care who people vote for," as long as it's not Kline. Newsflash: There's only one way to beat John Kline!

But it's the worst of all possible worlds for Obermueller. Even though Maher's refusing to campaign for him, Kline is, rather predictably, trying to tie Maher and Obermueller together. A Kline spokesman lambasted Obermueller for wanting to "campaign with someone who was fired by ABC for saluting 9/11 terrorists and calling our troops 'cowardly.'" (That's a skewed reference to this incident.) Maher really needs to rethink what he's doing here.

• MN-07: Now here's how you respond to a poll you don't like. Last week, Republican state Sen. Torrey Westrom released an internal showing him down 45-40 against veteran Democratic Rep. Collin Peterson. But Peterson's saying nuts to that, with a Global Strategy Group survey that gives him a fat 53-29 lead. GSG also says Peterson has a remarkably hale 58-19 favorability rating. Both sides are still spending like there's a race here, but Peterson just gave the NRCC some serious food for thought.

• NY-01: Could Democratic Rep. Tim Bishop actually be in better shape than we fear? Last cycle, Bishop came very close to losing after Republicans hammered him for helping a constituent, Eric Semler, obtain a permit for a fireworks display, then allegedly asking for a campaign contribution. Bishop denied there was any sort of quid pro quo, but the story got worse last year when new emails emerged, including one from Bishop saying "just call me the friggin mailman" for securing the permit—then immediately suggesting his staff reach out to Semler for a donation.

However, a recent Siena poll found Bishop with a 51-41 lead on his GOP opponent, state Sen. Lee Zeldin, and now two new Republican polls are showing the race tied. One is from Public Opinion Strategies on behalf of the American Action Network (an organization run by Saudi lobbyist Norm Coleman) and has Bishop and Zeldin both taking 46 apiece, with Bishop's favorables at a much-less-bad-than-I'd-feared 44-41. A Harper poll finds a similar 44-44 tossup. (It's not clear if this survey was conducted in-house or for a client.)

No, I wouldn't get too comfortable if I were Bishop, but if the best GOP internals have the game all knotted up, then that's probably a pretty decent sign.

• NY-24: A new Public Opinion Strategies poll for Republican John Katko shows his race with Democratic Rep. Dan Maffei tightening. Maffei now leads by just a 46-43 margin, compared to 43-36 back in July. Democrats haven't released any polls of their own, but a recent Siena College survey gave Maffei a much more comfortable 50-42 advantage.

Grab Bag:

• Deaths: Congress lost one of its most unusual former members on Sunday, with the death of ex-Rep. Jim Traficant at age 73. Traficant is probably best known for being the last House member to be expelled, in 2002, after being convicted on numerous federal corruption counts (and then running for re-election anyway in 2002 from inside federal prison). He'll also be remembered for his ill-fitting 70s wardrobe, bizarre mullet/pompadour hybrid hair, and short, hyperbolic speeches on the House floor, often ending with "Beam me up, Mr. Speaker!"

Traficant was technically a Democrat during his 17-year run in the House, though he was characterized by a bombastic populism that didn't really fit in anywhere, pro-pork and pro-labor at the same time as it was anti-big-government and anti--elite-intellectual. After 1994, he voted more frequently with the GOP than the Democrats, and by the end of his stint in the House, he was truly a man without a party, serving on no committees and with neither caucus willing to let him be a member.

• Election Outlook: Monday's installment of the Daily Kos Election Outlook finds Democratic odds of retaining control of the Senate down to 33 percent; against that backdrop, though, we look at the different directions the Alaska and North Carolina races have taken, and discuss why, although pollster ratings are very helpful, we don't incorporate them into our model.

Ads & Independent Expenditures:

• AK-Sen: Democratic Sen. Mark Begich continues to link himself to Republican colleague Lisa Murkowski. In the past, Murkowski has not been happy to be mentioned in Begich ads.

• AR-Sen: Republican Tom Cotton continues to demonize Democratic Sen. Mark Pryor over Obamacare, featuring a woman describing how the program is destroying her business.

• CO-Sen: Senate Majority PAC spends another $138,000 against Republican Cory Gardner.

• GA-Sen: Republican David Perdue portrays himself as fiscally responsible, calling for cutting government spending. On the Democratic side, Georgians Together spends $410,000: The group recently ran this spot against Perdue.

• KY-Sen: Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell goes positive. His spot features a constituent praising him for getting her daughter back after she was kidnapped by her father and taken to Mali.

• LA-Sen: Republican Bill Cassidy's new spot is backed up by a $400,000 buy. The ad starts out fine, with three women saying they voted for Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu in the past but are pissed at her over Obamacare.

The ad gets a little tone-deaf when one of the women, identified as "Ginger," declares that Landrieu is "just trying to scare us with nonsense about Social Security, Medicare, and veterans." I know she's calling Landrieu's attacks nonsense not the issues themselves but this still feels weird, especially since there's no attempt to defend Cassidy here. And for some reason Cassidy comes off as more than a little creepy at the end of this ad. It's hard to say what's up: He doesn't usually seem as unnerving in his ads as he does this time. The whole thing just has a weird vibe to it.

For her part, Landrieu goes positive on military issues. She features a veteran praising her work saving local bases and working hard for soldiers.

• MI-Sen: AFSCME ties Republican Terri Lynn Land to billionaires, arguing her policies hurt working families. Also on the Democratic side, the local branch of the League of Conservation Voters spends $245,000.

• MN-Sen: Republican Mike McFadden continues to portray Democratic Sen. Al Franken as a blind Obama loyalist, accusing him of voting with the president 97 percent of the time. The narrator pledges that if McFadden votes with any party or president 97 percent of the time, he'll resign.

• NC-Sen: Republican Thom Tillis blames Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan for doing nothing to stop the rise of ISIS, accusing her of skipping Armed Services Committee meetings at a critical time. Also on the GOP side, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce features legendary NASCAR driver Richard Petty praising Tillis. As Daily Kos Elections community member JacobNC reminds us, Petty actually ran for office himself in 1996. He lost his race for North Carolina secretary of state to Democrat Elaine Marshall 53-45.

On the Democratic side, Senate Majority PAC has two new spots against Tillis (here and here). The first goes after Tillis on equal pay for women, while the second hits him on education.

• NH-Sen Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen talks about her how she puts New Hampshire first. The ad is positive, though it's no coincidence that "Put New Hampshire First" is Republican opponent Scott Brown's slogan. NextGen Climate also spends $600,000 against Brown.

• AR-Gov: Asa Hutchinson calls for a lot of positive stuff.

• CT-Gov: Democratic Gov. Dan Malloy continues to portray Republican Tom Foley as a heartless rich guy. Foley's own spot accuses Malloy of having no plan to fix the economy beyond raising taxes.

• FL-Gov: The NRA adapts a spot they've been running in several different contests to go after Democrat Charlie Crist. The Florida GOP also goes after Crist, using his own words to portray him as a flip-flopper.

• HI-Gov: Republican Duke Aiona calls for a living wage.

• IL-Gov: Several new ads for Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn (here, here, and here). The first portrays Republican Bruce Rauner as corrupt, accusing him of bribing a board member who voted his way on a deal (the word bribe isn't used but the ad's not subtle). The second talks about Quinn's work saving a tornado-ravaged town. The third goes back to hitting Rauner's business record.

• KS-Gov: The NRA is chipping in $146,000 to help Republican Gov. Sam Brownback.

• ME-Gov: The DGA-backed Maine Forward portrays Republican Gov. Paul LePage as an ultra conservative who's presiding over a failing economy.

• RI-Gov: Democrat Gina Raimondo goes positive on jobs. The ad features Democratic Sen. Jack Reed, who will be on ballot with Raimondo and is seen as safe. Republican Allan Fung goes after Gina Raimondo on 38 Studios, a video game company that took loans from the state before it went out of business.

• WI-Gov: Republican Gov. Scott Walker continues to portray Democrat Mary Burke as someone who tried to tax everything in Wisconsin.

• AR-02: Democrat Patrick Henry Hays goes negative, portraying Republican French Hill as a corrupt banker.

• AZ-02: Democratic Rep. Ron Barber hits Republican Martha McSally on college tuition and student loans.

• CA-17: Democratic Rep. Mike Honda goes positive in his first spot. The congressman faces fellow Democrat Ro Khanna in the general election.

• CA-21: Republican Rep. David Valadao.

• CO-06: The DCCC hits Republican Rep. Mike Coffman on women's reproductive rights.

• FL-02: Two new spots from Republican Rep. Steve Southerland (here and here). The first features a female veteran criticizing Democrat Gwen Graham for being part of a war on women. The second is similar, featuring a male veteran describing how Southerland helped him and also criticizing Graham's attacks as "shameful."

• GA-12: Democratic Rep. John Barrow decries how much Congress sucks, and emphasizes how he turned down congressional perks. There are a billion ads by incumbent members of Congress like this, but Barrow's spot still favorably stands out. Barrow's definitely one of the more charismatic candidates out there and he's able to do a good job selling the idea that he's different from the rest of the House.

• IL-12: The NRCC portrays Democratic Rep. Bill Enyart as someone who votes against the middle class.

• LA-05: The Club for Growth goes after Republican Rep. Vance McAllister, attacking him both over his personal problems (the congressman was caught on camera kissing a woman who wasn't his wife) and for supporting Obamacare. McAllister is facing a jungle primary with several other Republicans in November and while the Club is backing businessman Zach Dasher, they don't mention him in the ad at all.

• LA-06: Lenar Whitney, one of the many Republicans facing off in the jungle primary, describes herself as a "conservative mom."

• MN-08: Democratic Rep. Rick Nolan features a local veteran describing how the congressman helped him. The DCCC goes negative against Republican Stewart Mills, continuing to portray him as an out-of-touch rich guy who doesn't care about the middle class.

• ND-AL: Democrat George Sinner.

• NH-01: Democratic Rep. Carol Shea-Porter hits former Republican Rep. Frank Guinta for doing nothing to stop the NSA from spying on Americans. Guinta's spot features his wife and mother praising him.

• NH-02: Democratic Rep. Annie Kuster goes after Republican Marilinda Garcia on women's health.

• NY-18: Democratic Rep. Sean Maloney.

• NY-24: Two new spots from the NRCC (here and here). The first accuses Democratic Rep. Dan Maffei of not doing enough to protect his constituents from crime and terrorism. The second praises Republican John Katko's record as a crime fighter.

• WI-06: Republican Glenn Grothman.

• Chamber: Various pro-GOP expenditures from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

• House Majority PAC: New pro-Democratic ads in AZ-02, IL-12, MN-08, and NY-01. Via a press release, the size of the buys range from $89,000 to $278,000.

• National Association of Realtors: Various expenditures for candidates from both parties.

• NRCC: Various pro-GOP expenditures.

The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, with additional contributions from Jeff Singer, David Jarman, Steve Singiser, and Taniel.