Leading Off:
● PA-Sen: Suffolk University just released its first look at Pennsylvania's competitive Senate race, and it gives Democrat Katie McGinty a surprisingly large 43-36 lead on Republican Sen. Pat Toomey. The same poll, conducted Monday through Wednesday of this week, gives Hillary Clinton a 46-37 advantage over Donald Trump.
If McGinty unseats Toomey, Democrats will have a very good shot at retaking the Senate, so Team Blue will understandably be elated by this result. However, there's good reason to be skeptical. Until now, only one other poll has shown McGinty ahead, a Marist survey from two weeks ago that had her leading by a much smaller 47-44 margin. Meanwhile, the Huffington Post Pollster average, which includes this new Suffolk poll, still has Toomey ahead 44-41.
Clinton's 9-point lead on Trump is also quite a bit stronger than her own 43-40 average edge in the state, suggesting that Suffolk's sample might be too blue. The numbers could also reflect a potentially temporary convention bounce, particularly since the Democrats' gathering is taking place in Pennsylvania.
A few weeks ago, Quinnipiac brought Democrats some ugly numbers in the Keystone State, and we'll say now what we said then: It's always better to look at the average of the polls rather than let one eye-popping survey, whether it shows good or bad results, influence your views of a race. If McGinty and Clinton have really pulled far ahead of the GOP, other groups should show it soon; if they haven't, well, Suffolk is just one poll.
Senate:
● AZ-Sen: Sen. John McCain's new TV ad goes where so many Republican ads from this campaign have gone before and hits Democrat Ann Kirkpatrick on Obamacare. The spot once again features a clip of Kirkpatrick describing her vote as "also the one I'm most proud about." The narrator then argues the program is devastating Arizona, while McCain is "leading the fight to stop Obamacare."
● CA-Sen: The Public Policy Institute of California takes another look at the all-Democratic Senate race, and there aren't any surprises. Attorney General Kamala Harris, the favorite of national Democrats, leads Rep. Loretta Sanchez 38-20; in May, before the top-two primary, they had Harris up 34-26. PPIC finds that 28 percent of voters, including half of Republicans, say that they would just skip this race; among Republicans who plan to support one of the two Democrats, Harris leads 16-15. Sanchez needs to win over most conservatives to have a shot in November, and this is only the latest poll to show that she's nowhere close to getting the support she needs.
● CO-Sen: On Wednesday evening, Republican Darryl Glenn finally released a statement about a strange story that's been dogging him lately. Back in 1983, the Colorado Springs police responded to a call from one Ernest Glenn, who claimed that his 18-year-old son had struck him in the face; the police report identified the culprit as "Darryl Lemon Glenn," but the charges were dropped a few months later.
In interviews over the last month, Glenn has said he has no knowledge of the incident and speculated that the alleged assailant may have been a different Darryl Glenn, or his late half-brother, Cedric Glenn. (Ernest Glenn is also deceased.) However, the Denver Post recently acquired court documents from the case, and the signature of the person identified as "Darryl Glenn" looks very much like the candidate's. Indeed, a handwriting analyst who spoke to the Post said she believes that "it's the same person who signed both."
In response, Glenn issued a statement on Wednesday night insisting yet again that he had never been arrested, despite what the court records show. But very strangely, Glenn also said that "when a reporter asked me if I had ever been arrested, I said no because I honestly did not remember this event. When I expressed a belief that I had never been arrested, I was being honest." So which is it? Was he never arrested, or did he just not remember getting arrested?
And since all the evidence indicates that Glenn was in fact arrested, how do you forget a thing like that? Glenn addressed that question by saying he tried to forget the violence that permeated his household growing up: "To survive, you block as much of it out of your head as you can in the moment." He added that, after discussing the incident with his mother, he now believes that his father struck his mother, that Glenn intervened, and that his father then filed a false police report accusing Glenn of being the perpetrator.
Had Glenn not told such a complicated story, few would have been interested in an incident from the distant past, when the candidate was only a teenager. But by apparently trying to conceal the event, Glenn has ensured extensive news coverage. Whatever may have happened, this is an object lesson in why candor is always the right approach on the campaign trail.
● FL-Sen: In the wake of a Politico report detailing allegations of physical abuse against his ex-wife, Alan Grayson's struggling Senate campaign lurched into further disarray. In the latest development, Grayson's political director and three field staffers quit, and one of his major union backers, the Communications Workers of America, said it would have to re-evaluate its support. (And it's not the first time Grayson staff has bailed: In December, three top aides, including his campaign manager, all quit.)
That follows on the heels of Grayson's explosion at a Politico reporter who questioned him about the accusations; two progressive groups rescinding their endorsements; and his digital consulting firm dropping him as a client. It's about as bad a week as you can have in politics, and there's no sign things are going to get any better any time soon.
By contrast, Grayson's opponent in next month's Democratic primary, fellow Rep. Patrick Murphy, has earned some new backing: The Florida Professional Firefighters Association, which represents 24,000 firefighters and emergency medical personnel throughout the state, endorsed Murphy on Wednesday, joining several other large labor groups, such as AFSCME, SEIU, and the Florida Education Association, which had done so previously.
● IL-Sen: In a distressing development, the two Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs employees who had filed a workplace retaliation lawsuit against Democratic Rep. Tammy Duckworth have now backed away from a settlement agreement the parties had reached last month. The plaintiffs claim they were insulted when the Duckworth campaign released a statement following the deal's announcement calling the case "frivolous"; if that's true, then it was a major blunder for Duckworth's team to say anything other than "We're glad the matter has been settled" until the ink was dry.
Now the case may proceed to trial next month, though the upside for the plaintiffs seems very limited: Initial reports on the settlement said it amounted to just $26,000. The plaintiffs later said that the amount was closer to $40,000, with $21,000 going to their attorneys and $9,000 going to each plaintiff, but those are still very small sums. And if these lawyers were willing to take such a pittance in the first place, proceeding (very likely on contingency) to an expensive trial does not seem like a winning move.
So is there another reason for the about-face? The plaintiffs insist that they "received no pressure" from the campaign of Republican Sen. Mark Kirk "to reject the settlement offer," in the worlds of the Daily Herald. But Kirk's campaign manager did acknowledge speaking to the two plaintiffs, saying they had reached out to the campaign "to tell their story." That's an odd way of putting things, especially since one of the plaintiffs told the Herald, "We are both nonpolitical people." Duckworth has to hope that a new settlement can be reached, but if not, a trial could serve as a major distraction and resurrect an issue that looked like it had been put safely to bed.
● IN-Sen: GOP Rep. Todd Young is going up with his first spot against Democrat Evan Bayh, who unexpectedly entered this race earlier this month. Young's spot, which Politico says is "part of a six-figure buy," argues that Washington changed Bayh.
The narrator says that Bayh cashed out and became a "super lobbyist," and quotes a Gawker article (which is probably a first for a GOP campaign ad) calling Bayh "the living embodiment of everything corrupt and dispiriting about American politics." The second half of the commercial praises Young's military career, and pledges he'll "stand up to the Clinton-Obama agenda." This is likely the first of many Republican ads that will try to frame this race as a battle between a Republican Marine veteran and a Democratic lobbyist.
Gubernatorial:
● IN-Gov: The Republican Governors Association is going up with its first TV spot since Gov. Mike Pence dropped out of the contest two weeks ago. The commercial ignores Lt. Gov. Eric Holcomb, Team Red' new gubernatorial nominee, and instead ties Democrat John Gregg to Hillary Clinton. The commercial features a clip of Gregg saying, "I was one of Hillary Clinton's honorary chairmen," and the narrator insists that Gregg "did nothing to protect Indiana coal jobs." It then shows Clinton saying, "we're gonna put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business."
The coal industry only employs about 4,000 people in Indiana, so it's a bit odd that Team Red is going with this line of attack. The GOP has also been hitting Ted Strickland on coal in the Ohio Senate race, even though the industry isn't exactly dominant there either. The GOP must believe that this attack resonates even with rural voters who don't depend on coal jobs.
● OR-Gov: Clout Research takes a look at the under-polled gubernatorial contest, and finds Democratic incumbent Kate Brown leading Republican physician Bud Pierce just 43-42.
As we've noted before, Clout is run by the former team that brought us Wenzel Strategies, a Republican group that was one of the worst polling firms in the business. And like the Wenzel of old, Clout's sample looks implausibly red: Hillary Clinton leads Donald Trump just 43-40 here, even though Clinton has made no obvious moves to target Oregon. (Obama won the state 54-42.) And check out this actual paragraph from the polling memo (emphasis added):
In terms of gender turnout, while Oregon men have lagged badly behind women in terms of turnout in the last few election cycles, one might surmise that this is partly because the last two Republicans to run with the GOP nomination have been less than a "man's man". This is something you cannot say about Donald Trump, so, if there is anything positive that can be said about the prospect of Trump at the top of the ticket, it could be his ability to motivate non-traditional male voters to come out and pull the lever for him – and for other Republicans down-ticket. If that happens, Pierce stands to gain a great deal.
We can't even add any jokes to that.
One thing to note is that this is only the third Oregon gubernatorial poll we've seen all year. Last month, a Pierce internal gave Brown a 39-37 while iCitizen, a group we've never heard of, had Brown up 42-35. So far, neither national party has shown any interest in targeting this race. Daily Kos Elections continues to rate this contest as Likely Democratic.
● VT-Gov: Lt. Gov. Phil Scott is up with his second TV spot ahead of the Aug. 9 GOP primary. Scott tells the audience that Vermonters "want to trust their government," and says that "we can't tax people anymore." (Scott's probably not actually calling for the abolition of all taxes in Vermont.) Scott instead says that they need to grow the economy. The commercial does not mention former Wall Street investor Bruce Lisman, Scott's primary foe.
On the Democratic side, ex-state Sen. Matt Dunne brags that Vermont "has always played a special role: the conscience of our country," saying that it was the "first to ban slavery, to stand up to Joe McCarthy, and to say 'love is love.'" Dunne says that the country needs Vermont's leadership again, as an image of Donald Trump flashes by; Dunne emphasizes universal healthcare and the environment. Dunne faces ex-state Sen. Peter Galbraith and ex-state Transportation Secretary Sue Minter next month. On Thursday, Minter earned an endorsement from ex-DNC Chair Howard Dean, who served as governor from 1991 to 2003.
House:
● AZ-02: Ex-state Rep. Matt Heinz is out with the first spot ahead of the Aug. 30 Democratic primary to face GOP Rep. Martha McSally. Heinz emphasizes his medical career, and bemoans that Congress don't subscribe to the oath "do no harm." Heinz pledges to take on special interests and improve healthcare and the economy, concluding that "we can cure what's wrong with Washington."
Heinz faces ex-state Rep. Victoria Steele next month. Steele has been a weak fundraiser, so it's no surprise that the DCCC recently added just Heinz to their Emerging Races program. Heinz has a $420,000 to $57,000 cash-on-hand edge over Steele, but that pales in comparison to McSally's $2.57 million warchest. Romney only narrowly carried this Tucson seat, but national Democrats don't appear to have made any fall TV reservations here so far, though it's possible they're waiting for the primary to conclude.
● FL-02: With a month to go before the primary for this safely red seat, we have yet another ad from attorney Mary Thomas. The candidate argues that taxes, "big government regulations," and a "president [who] refuses to destroy radical Islamic terrorists" are the reasons American families are hurting.
● KS-01: With days to go before the primary for this safely red western Kansas seat, Rep. Tim Huelskamp is unleashing another ad against physician Roger Marshall. The commercial starts with a vicious-looking dog, as the narrator declares, "Roger Marshall's special interest attack dogs are back again. Attacking Tim Huelskamp's conservative record." The commercial then argues that Marshall's allies at Ending Spending, a group that has aired ads here, also backs Hillary Clinton, "opposes Donald Trump, and are protected by liberal Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel." The spot doesn't go into any detail whatsoever, and it's pretty odd to see Rahm used as a conservative boogeyman this far away from Illinois.
● WA-07: State Rep. Brady Walkinshaw is out with another TV spot days before the top-two primary for this safely blue seat. Various people praise Walkinshaw as a progressive who finds solutions and unites diverse groups.
● WI-01: Paul Nehlen is up with a minute-long TV spot for his longshot primary bid against Paul Ryan, and he hits the speaker on immigration. The commercial features a group of protesters outside Ryan's home holding up posters identifying loved ones that they say were killed by undocumented immigrants. Their leader, Julie Golvach, notes that Ryan "has a fence. He has security. He has everything to make sure his three children are safe." Golvach goes on to say that she, and all the assembled, deserved the same thing, and talks about her deceased son, Spencer.
Golvach concludes by tearfully saying to "Paul Ryan and other politicians that don't think a border is worth it, this is the loss, and I hope that they don't have the same experience I have, because I hope that they will change their minds and start securing the border." At the end, she asks voters to consider Nehlen. The campaign says that the ad is part of a "significant purchase," though they didn't give an amount: At the end of June, Nehlen had $146,000 in the bank. The GOP primary is Aug. 9.
● WY-AL: Pulse Research, a group we've never seen before, takes a look at the Aug. 16 primary for this safely red seat. (Note that "Pulse Research" is a different group than "Pulse Opinion Research," an offshoot of Rasmussen.) On behalf of the Casper Star-Tribune and Wyoming PBS, they give Liz Cheney, the daughter of ex-Vice President Dick Cheney, a 21-9 edge over state Rep. Tim Stubson; state Sen. Leland Christensen grabs 4.
At the end of June, Cheney had a massive $641,000 to $83,000 cash-on-hand edge over Stubson, with Christensen having just $43,000 in the bank. Pulse did not release any favorable ratings for the candidates, so it's unclear if the undecided voters are disinclined to back Cheney, who only moved to Wyoming in 2012 and angered plenty of Republicans with her aborted 2013 primary campaign against Sen. Mike Enzi.
The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir and Jeff Singer, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Daniel Donner, James Lambert, and Stephen Wolf.
