Leading Off:
● AZ-01: The DCCC is out with a Global Strategy Group poll giving Democrat Tom O'Halleran a wide 46-36 lead over Republican Paul Babeu. While Mitt Romney carried this northern Arizona seat 50-48 en route to a 53-44 statewide win, this sample gives Hillary Clinton a 47-42 edge here. That seems reasonable, though, given that most polls have shown her locked in a tight race for the state's 11 electoral votes. Last month, an earlier GSG poll for the D-Trip had O'Halleran up 45-38.
This seat is one of the very few Democratic-held congressional districts in the nation that Romney carried, and we expected Team Red to make this a top target. However, as we've noted before, Republican outside groups have barely reserved any money to help Babeu, who has less money than O'Halleran. Early voting, which is popular in Arizona, began Oct. 12, and Babeu has been getting badly outspent on TV by O'Halleran and his allies since Labor Day. And while Democrats are continuing to air ads, House Majority PAC canceled $301,000 in planned spending here over the last week, which reads like a sign of confidence. Even Babeu has acknowledged that he's down: A few weeks ago, his campaign released a poll showing O'Halleran leading 39-36.
Team Blue has been relentlessly highlighting the child abuse that happened under Babeu's watch at a Massachusetts school he once ran; Babeu has denied that he knew what was happening, but court documents, the testimony of his former students, and Babeu's own words contradict that. It seems that national Republicans have just decided that someone with Babeu's past is just too damaged to be worth spending money on. With polls and both sides' spending pointing to an O'Halleran win, Daily Kos Elections is moving this race from Tossup to Lean Democratic. We'll still want to see if Team Blue keeps spending here or if a well-funded GOP group like the Congressional Leadership Fund gets involved in the next few weeks, but the signs are good for O'Halleran.
3Q Fundraising: Be sure to check out our third quarter Senate fundraising chart, which we're updating as new numbers come in.
● AR-Sen: Conner Eldridge (D): $269,000 raised, $60,000 loaned, $69,000 cash-on-hand
● AZ-Sen: John McCain (R-inc) (here and here): $2 million raised, $4.6 million cash-on-hand
● IA-Sen: Patty Judge (D): $1.1 million raised, $374,000 cash-on-hand
● KY-Sen: Rand Paul (R-inc): $827,000 raised, $1.8 million cash-on-hand
● LA-Sen: John Fleming (R): $750,000 raised, $120,000 loaned, $1 million cash-on-hand; Rob Maness (R): $222,000 raised, $201,000 cash-on-hand; Foster Campbell (D): $362,000 raised, $250,000 loaned, $988,000 cash-on-hand; Caroline Fayard (D): $193,000 raised, $200,000 cash-on-hand
● NC-Sen: Richard Burr (R): $2.5 million raised, $7.2 million cash-on-hand; Deborah Ross (D): $4.3 million raised, $1.1 million cash-on-hand
● NV-Sen: Joe Heck (R): $2.2 million raised, $3.3 million cash-on-hand
● PA-Sen: Pat Toomey (R-inc): $4.4 million raised, $6.2 million cash-on-hand
Senate:
● AR-Sen: For some reason, GOP Sen. John Boozman is running a negative ad against Democrat Conner Eldridge. Arkansas is almost certainly going to be one of Donald Trump's best states and Eldridge has very little money and no major outside support, so it's not clear why the incumbent is doing this.
● GA-Sen: A little while ago, Republican Sen. Johnny Isakson launched an attack ad against Democrat Jim Barksdale, an unusual move for an incumbent who usually polls in the double digits. Roll Call recently wrote that, while Georgia Republicans don't think Isakson is in real danger of losing his seat, there's a very good chance that he'll take less than 50 percent of the vote next month.
The Peach State requires a January runoff for any federal contest where no wins a majority, and while weak off-year Democratic turnout would probably prevent Isakson from losing, it would mean two extra months of campaigning and fundraising for him that he'd rather avoid. (Republican political operatives looking for temporary work may feel different.)
Indeed, three recent polls show a runoff is a real possibility. A Lucid poll finds him leading Barksdale 49-39 (the sample gives Hillary Clinton a 44-40 edge), while an Abt SRBI survey for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution has the senator ahead 47-32. (Trump leads 44-42.) Opinion Savy has the incumbent just avoiding a runoff with a 51-42 lead, and Trump carrying Georgia 50-46.
● LA-Sen: On behalf of Fox 8 and Raycom Media, Mason-Dixon gives us our first independent poll of the November jungle primary in months. They show Republican John Kennedy and Democrat Foster Campbell grabbing the top two spots that would take them to a December runoff:
State Treasurer John Kennedy (R): 24
Public Service Commissioner Foster Campbell (D): 19
Attorney Caroline Fayard (D): 12
Rep. Charles Boustany (R): 11
Rep. John Fleming (R): 10
Ex-Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke (R): 5
2014 Senate candidate Rob Maness (R): 3
The only other poll we've seen in the last month was an internal for Fleming that showed Campbell easily taking first place with 25 and Fleming, Boustany, and Kennedy tied for the second slot with 16 percent each.
P.S.: While Duke's 5 percent in this poll is thankfully pretty small, it was large enough to earn him a place in the Nov. 2 candidates debate.
● PA-Sen: The well-funded pro-Hillary Clinton super PAC Priorities USA is out with their first spot linking Republican Sen. Pat Toomey to Donald Trump. Democrat Katie McGinty and Senate Majority PAC both recently ran ads that featured an infamous clip of Trump agreeing that "[t]here has to be some form of punishment" for a woman who gets an abortion, followed by a clip of Toomey suggesting "that we have penalties for doctors who perform" abortions, and Priorities does the same thing. There is no word on the size of the buy.
● Polling Roundup: Here are today's Senate and gubernatorial polls:
● FL-Sen: Lucid: Marco Rubio (R-inc): 45, Patrick Murphy (D): 44 (45-39 Clinton)
● FL-Sen: Opinion Savvy: Rubio (R-inc): 46, Murphy (D): 46 (49-45 Clinton) (Oct. 12: 48-44 Rubio)
● FL-Sen: Cherry Communications (R) for Florida Chamber of Commerce: Rubio (R-inc): 51, Murphy (D): 37 (46-42 Clinton) (Sept.: 46-42 Rubio)
● NC-Sen: Lucid: Richard Burr (R-inc): 46, Deborah Ross (D): 44 (42-41 Clinton)
● NC-Gov: Lucid: Roy Cooper (D): 50, Pat McCrory (R-inc): 43 (42-41 Clinton)
● IN-Gov: Ball State: John Gregg (D): 48, Eric Holcomb (R): 43 (43-37 Trump)
Democrat Patrick Murphy had his best polling day in quite some time, with an Opinion Savvy survey showing a 46-46 tie with Republican Sen. Marco Rubio being the first released poll of any sort over the last two months not to find Rubio leading. Lucid found a similarly close race with Rubio ahead just 45-44 in their first survey of the race. The Florida Chamber of Commerce published an internal poll from Cherry Communications where Rubio crushes Murphy 51-37, but those numbers simply doesn't jive with the Daily Kos Elections average, where Rubio leads by a much more modest 46-41. Of course, we'll have to wait for confirmation from other surveys to see if the Senate race really has tightened.
Lucid's debut North Carolina poll finds voters narrowly favoring another term for Republican Sen. Richard Burr over Democrat Deborah Ross by 46-44, right in line with the polling average. However, they show Democrat Roy Cooper ousting incumbent Republican Gov. Pat McCrory by a relatively strong 50-43 spread, which is larger than Cooper's Pollster average lead of 48-44, but not by all that much. Respondents also favored Clinton 42-41, but Lucid unfortunately included Jill Stein even though she isn't on the ballot, and she registered at 2 percent.
Finally, Ball State gives us its first Indiana gubernatorial general election matchup and finds Democrat John Gregg beating Republican Eric Holcomb 48-43. Gregg has only trailed in one poll ever back in August, but this state is polled far less frequently than others, and Gregg likely has to count on split-ticket voters if Trump maintains the 43-37 lead that Ball State measured here.
Gubernatorial:
● NJ-Gov: With termed-out Gov. Chris Christie's approval ratings in the gutter in this blue state, the 2017 GOP gubernatorial nomination isn't looking like an incredibly valuable prize right now. But Team Red's prospects probably aren't so bad that they need to just hand it off to 1980s "Saturday Night Live" cast member Joe Piscopo. However, Piscopo reportedly met with Christie on Thursday about a possible bid. But as Steve Kornacki reminds us, Piscopo mulled a 2005 gubernatorial run as an independent, but that went nowhere.
When Piscopo is mentioned at all these days, he's usually noted as a former C-list celebrity. But that would be to ignore his appearance as a holographic comedian in the awful 1988 "Star Trek: The Next Generation" episode "The Outrageous Okona." For a taste of how bad that whole affair was (though for many reasons that had nothing to do with Piscopo), here's a portion of The A.V. Club's review:
The first warning sign hits you in the opening credits: "Joe Piscopo as The Comic." You have to be a certain age to see that name and be horrified, but even if you don't recognize the presence of one of the eighties worst break-out comedic actors, your heart is sure to break once you realize why "Okona" needs a "The Comic." Data wants to be funny. And now he's going to take lessons.
So yeah, this guy should totally be governor of New Jersey.
House:
● CA-44: The all-Democratic general election for this Compton seat has been a pretty quiet affair. However, Business Insider has an interesting report about why Greg Glassman, the CEO of the exercise company CrossFit, is getting involved, and why the two candidate's differences when it comes to soda warning labels could make a real difference next month.
As Maxwell Tani writes, Glassman tried to lobby state Sen. Isadore Hall last year to convince him to drop his opposition to a legislative bill that would require some drinks with high sugar contents to carry a health warning label. However, Glassman says he became furious after Hall canceled their meeting twice without warning and refused to return his calls. Glassman soon learned that Hall was running for Congress, so he met with Hall's opponent, ex-Hermosa Beach City Councilor Nanette Barragan. After learning that Barragan shared his views about labeling soda, as well as a distaste for beverage companies' political influence, Glassman became an active Barragan supporter.
Barragan has not only benefited from donations from Glassman and the public affairs firm representing CrossFit. As the article notes, Barragan has campaigned at CrossFit gyms in the district, and Glassman and his company have used social media to support her. Barragan is also arguing that Hall is too close to the soda industry.
Hall has more money to spend than Barragan and the backing of Gov. Jerry Brown and retiring Rep. Janice Hahn, and he's probably still favored. However, Glassman is giving Barragan the chance to get her name out outside of the usual political channels. And in a race where both candidates largely hold similar views on major issues, their division over soda labeling does introduce some unpredictability.
We saw something similar in the 2012 all-Democratic race for California's 35th District. Then-New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, angry with Rep. Joe Baca's conservative positions on guns, ran ads against the incumbent, helping Gloria Negrete McLeod pull off an upset. Glassman isn't spending anything like Bloomberg-like money here, at least not yet, but he is making this contest a bit more interesting.
● NV-03: We have dueling internal polls in this swingy suburban Las Vegas seat. On Thursday, Democrat Jacky Rosen dropped a Global Strategy Group survey showing her leading Republican Danny Tarkanian 44-37; an unreleased July poll found her down 44-39. Presidential results were not included in the memo, and the campaign did not respond to a request for that information.
Tarkanian's allies at the NRCC soon countered by releasing a Tarrance Group poll showing him leading 38-33, with two minor candidates grabbing a combined 10 percent of the vote. This sample favors Donald Trump 44-40, and Republican Senate nominee Joe Heck 47-43. Obama carried this seat 50-49 and while most polls show Trump doing better than Romney in the Silver State, this seat has a high median income and high proportion of college graduates, so it seems unlikely that Trump is doing that well here.
The two-party vote in the congressional race also seems very low for this close to the election. An early October Tarrance poll for Tarkanian and the NRCC also showed Tark up 42-37, with the two minor candidates grabbing 6 percent together. If Tarrance is right, it means that about the same proportion of former Tarkanian and Rosen voters shifted to undecided or to a third party candidate as Election Day got closer, which is hard to believe. However, since Rosen didn't provide presidential numbers or mention either minor candidate in her memo, it's tough to know what to make of her poll. Both parties are spending heavily here, and neither candidate seems to have a clear edge right now.
● NY-03: The NRCC canceled almost their entire $1.8 million ad reservation for this Long Island seat two weeks ago, and with polls showing Democrat Tom Suozzi leading Republican Jack Martins by double digits, it wasn't hard to see why. While Martins produced a shoddy poll showing a tied race, it doesn't appear to have convinced any major GOP groups to reinvest in him. National Democrats held off on reserving any money for this seat, and they've also shown little interest in changing that. While House Majority PAC ran a cable ad attacking Martins, it was for only $240,000, and there's no indication that they're preparing a major blitz here.
Obama only carried this seat 51-48, but this is an affluent and well-educated suburban area where Hillary Clinton should make gains, which doesn't help Martins. We're not quite ready to take this seat off the big board yet, but both parties are acting like Suozzi is far ahead, and Daily Kos Elections is moving this race from Lean Democratic to Likely Democratic.
● NY-24: Siena is out with another poll of this Syracuse seat, and while they have Hillary Clinton up 44-34, they give Republican Rep. John Katko a massive 54-31 lead over Democrat Colleen Deacon. Two weeks ago, just before the 2005 Donald Trump "Access Hollywood" tape was released, Siena showed Katko leading 53-34, and Team Blue hasn't released any contradictory polling. Daily Kos Elections is moving this race from Tossup to Lean Republican.
The silver lining for Deacon is that her allies aren't acting like they think Katko has this large of a lead. In fact, in the last week, the DCCC directed an additional $604,000 to this seat. The Washington Post also reports that President Obama recently recorded a TV ad for Deacon, so Democrats are still behaving like they believe she can win this. National Republicans also don't appear to have cut any of their planned ad buys here. However, even if Katko's lead is only half of what Siena thinks it is, Deacon's not in a good place right now, and she's running out of time to change that.
● Ad Reservations: The newest edition of our House ad reservations tracker is live. Some new changes, particularly a big batch from the pro-GOP Congressional Leadership Fund, became public prior to our latest update, so we won't rehash those. Also note that these figures reflect all TV and radio reservations from Labor Day through Election Day, so much of this money has already been spent. Now, let's get down to business:
● CA-10, CA-07: The DCCC continues to flood late money in to help Democrat Michael Eggman in the 10th, adding $1.1 million and taking their total reservation to $2.5 million. CLF is helping the GOP keep pace, with a brand-new $2.9 million reservation for Republican Rep. Jeff Denham (the group previously had nothing booked here). At the same time, CLF cut its entire $1.1 million from 7th, which is also in the Sacramento market, but the NRCC moved $900,000 in to boost Republican Scott Jones against Democratic Rep. Ami Bera. A possible hand-off between Republican groups?
● CA-21: House Majority PAC added $481,000 here on behalf of Democrat Emilio Huerta, taking its total to $1.1 million. CLF also made the first substantial GOP buy with $527,000, to aid Rep. David Valadao.
● FL-18: HMP cut its entire remaining $474,000 here, meaning Democrat Randy Perkins now has zero outside air support. But as we've noted, Perkins is very wealthy, so Democrats might just be expecting him to carry his own weight. CLF, meanwhile, added $388,000 to help Republican Brian Mast.
● IA-03: Even though a recent DCCC internal found Democrat Jim Mowrer trailing GOP Rep. David Young 49-46, the committee is still a believer, adding $437,000 in the last week to help his cause.
● IL-10: Huh. The D-Trip cancelled $762,000 in spending on behalf of Democrat Brad Schneider, with whom it's jointly run a lot of so-called "hybrid" ads in order to get around limits on outside spending groups coordinating with campaigns (see this Politico piece for more on how that works). This race is super-hard to get a read on because both sides recently released polls showing their candidates up, but they also both had almost identical numbers on the presidential race, where Hillary Clinton is crushing. So is the DCCC just feeling very confident here? Difficult to say.
● ME-02: HMP added $212,000 to help Democrat Emily Cain, while the NRCC cut $306,000 from its reservation on behalf of GOP Rep. Bruce Poliquin. These are fairly sizable sums for a super-cheap district like this one.
● MI-08: For the first time, we're seeing some outside help for Democrat Suzanna Shkreli: The DCCC now has a $222,000 joint booking with her.
● NY-19: This district was not on the new list of races CLF recently announced, but they're throwing down a hefty $1 million here (part of the seat is covered by the New York City media market, though, so even seven figures only goes so far). In total, Democrat Zephyr Teachout is getting far less outside support that Republican John Faso: $1.2 million versus $4.1 million.
● PA-08: The most expensive race we're tracking just keeps getting more so: The DCCC upped its buy by $426,000, while together, the NRCC and CLF added $520,000, taking total reservations here to $11.8 million. This seat is located in the expensive Philadelphia media market, hence the huge sums.
● TX-23: The DCCC and HMP together added $843,000 to help Democrat Pete Gallego; the GOP made no corresponding moves.
● VA-10: Perhaps in response to (or anticipation of) CLF's $1.1 million increase here, the two big Democratic groups added $601,000 combined.
● Ad Roundup:
● IL-Sen: Independent Voices for Illinois puts $125,000 behind an attack on Democrat Tammy Duckworth that tries to tie her to imprisoned ex-Gov. Rod Blagojevich, featuring the two women who sued Duckworth for workplace retaliation and have previously appeared in an ad for Republican Sen. Mark Kirk.
● IN-Sen: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce placed a seven-figure buy to argue Democratic ex-Sen. Evan Bayh is an Obama-loving liberal, but Republican Todd Young will stand against Washington overreach. Senate Majority PAC calls Young a Washington insider who games the system for his own personal benefit at the taxpayers' expense.
● MO-Sen: Republican Sen. Roy Blunt is out two spots attacking Democrat Jason Kander (here and here). The first one calls him a lying liar who tells lies about Blunt's record, claiming instead that Kander is the one in the pocket of special interests, not Blunt. The second one links Kander to Hillary Clinton, asserting that he will be a blank check for her liberal agenda. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce lays down $1 million to argue Kander looks out for trial lawyers like himself instead of Missouri farmers, calling him too liberal for Missouri. Susan B. Anthony List hits Kander for supporting abortion rights.
● NC-Sen: The DSCC labels Republican Sen. Richard Burr as a self-serving Washington insider who screwed over everyday North Carolinians at the bidding of special interests so that he could enrich himself.
● NH-Sen: Democrat Maggie Hassan promises she will focus helping New Hampshire families by prioritizing education, healthcare, and small business, not special interests. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce touts Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte's independence and blasts Hassan for proposing tax increases. They notably frame Ayotte as a check against Clinton, although they use the less explicit "next president" instead of calling her by name. Politico reports their buy is for $665,000
● NV-Sen: The DSCC hammers Republican Joe Heck for serving special interests via tax breaks for big corporations paid for by cutting education and raising taxes on the middle class. People for the American Way ties Heck to Donald Trump in a Spanish ad, playing the infamous clip where Trump calls Mexican immigrants rapists.
● PA-Sen: Democrat Katie McGinty praises rewarding hard work and helping the middle class, claiming Republican Sen. Pat Toomey instead wants to rig the game to help big corporations and Wall Street while opposing equal pay.
● MT-Gov: Republican Greg Gianforte rolls out three ads (here, here, and here). The first one says Democratic Gov. Steve Bullock and East Coast liberals want to let in dangerous Syrian refugees who supposedly harbor radicals. The second hits Bullock for siding with campaign donors and environmental special interests over Montana jobs and coal, while the third calls him corrupt.
● VT-Gov: Republican Phil Scott has a self-identified Democrat tout his plans for the economy while criticizing Democrat Sue Minter for wanting to raise taxes.
● CA-49: House Majority PAC puts down $660,000 to argue that Republican Rep. Darrell Issa is everything that's wrong with Washington, referencing a damning New York Times exposé on how he has used his congressional perch to massively increase his already staggering wealth. They praise Democrat Doug Applegate as a retired Marine colonel who will put his country first.
● CO-03: Congressional Leadership Fund berates Democrat Gail Schwartz for supposedly being weak on crime.
● FL-13: People for Pinellas characterizes Democrat Charlie Crist as a career politician who will say and do anything to get elected.
● FL-18: Republican Brian Mast promises that he will protect Social Security. The Congressional Leadership Fund features the Army medic who responded to Mast when the latter was gravely wounded in combat and lost both of his legs. They excoriate Democrat Randy Perkins for what Republicans frame as belittling Mast's military service.
● FL-26: ClearPath goes up with a $200,000 cable buy in both English and Spanish that applauds Republican Rep. Carlos Curbelo for working across the aisle to fight climate change and encourage clean energy production.
● NE-02: Republican Don Bacon has a former maintenance officer extol his leadership during his tenure at Offutt Air Force Base.
● NY-03: Democrat Tom Suozzi links Republican Jack Martins to corrupt politicians in Albany and asserts he will stand up to the special interests instead.
● WA-07: Democrat Pramila Jayapal's latest spot thumps along to the beat of dance music while college students bemoan the staggering cost of college, with Jayapal promising to make college debt-free
● WI-08: Republican Mike Gallagher swears to always protect Social Security. Democrat Tom Nelson contrasts himself with Gallagher, claiming he wants to make the rich pay their fare share, raise the minimum wage, and strengthen Social Security, while contending Gallagher wants more tax breaks for the wealthy, opposes a minimum-wage increase, and wants to cut Social Security to the poverty line. He closes by noting Gallagher still supports Trump.
The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, and Stephen Wolf, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Daniel Donner, and James Lambert.