The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, Stephen Wolf, and Carolyn Fiddler, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Daniel Donner, James Lambert, David Beard, and Arjun Jaikumar.
Leading Off
● PA-Gov: Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf has been in strong shape for re-election all cycle, and he continued his dominance by widely outraising his Republican challenger, former state Sen. Scott Wagner, over the last several months. But the most amazing detail to come out of the candidates' new financial reports is the fact, uncovered by Daily Kos contributing editor Adam Bonin, that Wagner reported losing $631,000 in campaign funds between June 5 and Sept. 17 thanks to unsuccessful investments in a brokerage account.
As Bonin notes, it's astoundingly irresponsible to invest donor money, as Wagner's huge losses show. In fact, an earlier report saw Wagner's investments drop by an astonishing $1.5 million, though in other periods, he's seen gains—but that's exactly the point: The extreme volatility of investing in securities poses a huge risk to funds that contributors are entrusting to you. What's more, the stock market has made solid gains this year (the S&P 500 is up over 9 percent in 2018), so how in the hell did Wagner manage to lose so much money while most investors were doing well?
Wagner both gambled with his campaign funds (which he shouldn't have done) and lost big (which seemingly only he was capable of). For a struggling campaign, that can't possibly make donors happy.
Race Ratings Changes
● IA-Gov (Lean R to Tossup): While Iowa's sharp turn to the right in 2014 and 2016 gave Republicans reasons for optimism about this contest, Donald Trump's unpopularity is giving Democrats the chance to go on the offensive in this longtime swing state. That's bad news for GOP Gov. Kim Reynolds, who faces a serious challenge from wealthy Democrat Fred Hubbell.
Polling for this race has been very limited, but a recent survey from the Iowa-based firm Selzer & Company gave Hubbell a 43-41 lead, and he's remained competitive financially without self-funding since the primary. At this point, there is little evidence to suggest that Reynolds has a meaningful edge, and we're moving this contest accordingly.
Senate
● AZ-Sen: DefendArizona has pumped another $1 million into its ad campaign against Democrat Kyrsten Sinema, once again hitting her over a bill to fight human trafficking (here and here). Both spots use state legislative committee hearing testimony to try to portray Sinema as supposedly wanting to let men get off easy when they're accused of soliciting sex from underage girls by claiming they didn't know the victims were minors.
However, as we've previously explained, Sinema and all but one other legislator on the panel ultimately voted for the bill after it allowed a defense against additional child prostitution charges if the victim was 15 or older and the perpetrator "could not reasonably have known the age of the minor," and the perpetrator would still face charges for solicitation. Furthermore, as a former social worker, Sinema has worked to pass several other bills to stop child trafficking.
● ND-Sen: Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp's latest TV ad hits Republican Rep. Kevin Cramer for being a corrupt sellout during his time in public office. The spot highlights how Cramer gave himself a $23,000 raise—roughly a one-third increase in his salary—when he was on the state commission that regulates utilities, all while taking $43,000 in campaign contributions from the energy industry and voting 17 times to raise utility rates. Finally, it notes that Cramer paid his wife $150,000 from his federal campaign accounts.
● MS-Sen-B: Donald Trump has rescheduled his rally for appointed GOP Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith to Oct. 2; the original event was canceled due to Hurricane Florence.
● WV-Sen: In an apparent sign of confidence that Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin is favored in this ancestrally Democratic yet very Trump-friendly state, the DSCC has canceled the first two weeks of its October ad buy in West Virginia. The DSCC still has time reserved from Oct. 16 through Election Day, but this is just the latest piece of evidence that Republican Patrick Morrisey is struggling in a contest that Daily Kos Elections recently moved from Tossup to Lean Democratic. However, there are still several weeks until Election Day, and Manchin is still far from guaranteed to win.
● Polls:
- FL-Sen: Marist for NBC News: Bill Nelson (D-inc): 48, Rick Scott (R): 45 (June: 49-45 Nelson)
- IN-Sen: Ipsos for Reuters and the University of Virginia: Joe Donnelly (D-inc): 46, Mike Braun (R): 43
- MI-Sen: Ipsos for Reuters and the University of Virginia: Debbie Stabenow (D-inc): 55, John James (R): 35
- OH-Sen: Marist for NBC News: Sherrod Brown (D-inc): 49, Jim Renacci (R): 35 (June: 51-38 Brown)
- OH-Sen: Ipsos for Reuters and the University of Virginia: Brown (D-inc): 50, Renacci (R): 39
- PA-Sen: Ipsos for Reuters and the University of Virginia: Bob Casey (D-inc): 53, Lou Barletta (R): 37
- WI-Sen: Ipsos for Reuters and the University of Virginia: Tammy Baldwin (D-inc): 52, Leah Vukmir (R): 39
Marist is one of a few pollsters that release different versions of its surveys: one where respondents are asked if they'd like to vote for named third-party candidates, and one where respondents are asked if they support an unnamed "other" person. For instance, in this Ohio poll, Brown leads 49-35 in the first version, with Libertarian Bruce Jaynes at 4 and Green Party candidate Philena Farley at 2. In the second version, Brown leads 52-39, while "other" takes just 1 percent (the Libertarian and Green aren't included).
When given the choice, Daily Kos Elections uses poll questions that identify third-party candidates by name—in this case, Marist's first version—since this comes closer to simulating what voters will actually encounter on their ballots.
Gubernatorial
● FL-Gov: Billionaire environmentalist Tom Steyer has announced he's spending another $5.2 million to help elect Democrat Andrew Gillum as governor, bringing his total involvement in the race to $6.6 million. Politico reports that this latest tranche includes $2.5 million for digital ads, $1 million for a union-affiliated group called For Our Future, $800,000 on mailers, and $750,000 on field. Notably, that doesn't appear to include TV ads in a state whose size makes it cost exorbitant sums to saturate the air waves.
● GA-Gov: Democrat Stacey Abrams' newest ad features three people defending her from Republican attempts to portray her as weak on children's safety. One woman then reminds the audience that Republican Brian Kemp "pointed a gun at a teenager in his own ad," with another asking, "Who does that?" That's what we've been wondering for months.
● ME-Gov: Campaign finance reports are newly available for the period covering July 18 through Sept. 18, and Democrat Janet Mills led the way in fundraising, with $798,000 raised compared to $377,000 for Republican Shawn Moody. However, Moody had a $397,000 to $394,000 lead in cash on hand, in part thanks to previous self-funding.
Meanwhile, the two notable independents in the race have even fewer resources at their disposal. As the lone candidate participating in public financing, state Treasurer Terry Hayes has received $1.15 million in funds so far, but she only had $212,000 left over and will have to raise more in small donations to qualify for additional public funds. Lastly, self-funder Alan Caron had a similar $201,000 on hand.
● MN-Gov: The latest campaign finance reports in Minnesota's gubernatorial race show Democrat Tim Walz and Republican Jeff Johnson are neck and neck, each raising $1.3 million since late July and holding $1 million on hand. However, Democrats are likely to have a spending advantage when factoring in outside spending. Indeed, national Republicans don't appear keen on Johnson's chances, and the RGA cut back on its ad reservation earlier this month.
● NM-Gov: Republican Steve Pearce's newest TV ad sinks to a new low by attacking a dying man who appeared in an ad for Democrat Michelle Lujan Grisham to defend her. Pearce had recently tried to slime Lujan Grisham by accusing her company, Delta Consulting Group, of "shady self-dealing" by raking in "millions overcharging vulnerable New Mexicans, fleecing poor patients" with higher health insurance premiums. However, Lujan Grisham's response ad featured the same man Pearce is now attacking, attorney Diego Zamora, who has pancreatic cancer and touted Lujan Grisham's company for making the state's high-risk insurance pool available to critically ill patients like himself.
Pearce tries to portray Zamora as unreliable because he once represented a state senator accused of corruption, Phil Griego, and had seen his law license suspended for 20 months over embezzlement. However, Zamora's brother said he had negotiated Griego's resignation and did not represent him at his subsequent criminal trial. We've long despised ads that attack lawyers because of who their clients are, since it's usually an assault on the fundamental American right to due process itself.
Furthermore, the Santa Fe New Mexican reports that Zamora had struggled with drug addiction in the late 1990s, and during his recovery program, he voluntarily reported to the state bar about the embezzlement and acted to repay it. The same state Supreme Court that temporarily disbarred Zamora wrote that he fully cooperated and had shown genuine remorse for his misconduct.
● WI-Gov: New fundraising reports show Republican Gov. Scott Walker outraised Democrat Tony Evers by $2.3 million to $1.9 million in August. Walker maintains a $4.1 million to $1.6 million cash-on-hand lead after Evers had to spend money to win his Aug. 14 primary, but outside groups on both sides have also spent heavily here.
● Polls:
- FL-Gov: Marist for NBC News: Andrew Gillum (D): 48, Ron DeSantis (R): 43
- FL-Gov: Quinnipiac: Gillum (D): 54, DeSantis (R): 45
- KS-Gov: Civiqs (D) for the Crawford County Democratic Party: Laura Kelly (D): 41, Kris Kobach (R): 39, Greg Orman (I): 9, Jeff Caldwell (L): 5
- MI-Gov: Ipsos for Reuters and the University of Virginia: Gretchen Whitmer (D): 52, Bill Schuette (R): 39
- OH-Gov: Marist for NBC News: Mike DeWine (R): 44, Richard Cordray (D): 44 (June: 46-42 DeWine)
- OH-Gov: Ipsos for Reuters and the University of Virginia: DeWine (R): 45, Cordray (D): 44
- OR-Gov: Clout Research (R): Kate Brown (D-inc): 42, Knute Buehler (R): 41 (July: 43-42 Buehler)
- PA-Gov: Ipsos for Reuters and the University of Virginia: Tom Wolf (D-inc): 55, Scott Wagner (R): 38
- WI-Gov: Ipsos for Reuters and the University of Virginia: Tony Evers (D): 50, Scott Walker (R-inc): 43
Quinnipiac's Florida poll is from the same sample that showed Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson up 53-46, which seemed too good to be true. However, what's not too good to be true is that Gillum has led in every single poll that's been released since last month's primary. With these polls included, Daily Kos Elections' polling average gives Gillum a 47-42 lead.
In Kansas, we have our first-ever public stand-alone poll of a horse race matchup from new Democratic pollster Civiqs (which is owned by the same parent company as Daily Kos), and the numbers are very similar to a recent PPP survey that found Kobach ahead just 39-38, with Orman also at 9. However, Civiqs finds Trump with a terrible 46-50 favorability rating, which is extremely low for a state he carried 56-36; PPP, by contrast, had him at 50-45.
Clout Research has never been one of our favorite pollsters. Unfortunately, we don't have much other data to work with. Earlier this month, local GOP firm Hoffman Research released a poll independent of a client that showed Brown up 49-39. The conservative No Supermajorities PAC responded with a poll giving Bueller a 43-41 edge.
We also have just two other polls out of Wisconsin since the start of September, but the other numbers we've seen have also been good for Evers. The Democratic firm PPP had him ahead 49-45 at the beginning of the month, and Marquette gave him a 49-44 lead less than two weeks ago.
House
● CA-50: Days after Chris Collins unleashed an ad in New York that featured his Democratic foe speaking in Korean, fellow indicted GOP Rep. Duncan Hunter is finding ways to be even more xenophobic.
In a Monday address to a local group of Republicans, Hunter told the audience that Democratic rival Ammar Campa-Najjar is named for Yasser Arafat, and added that Campa-Najjar's grandfather was part of the 1972 attack at the Munich Olympics that killed several Israeli athletes. Campa-Najjar, who was born in 1989, never knew that grandfather, who died in 1973, and has condemned his actions, but Hunter doesn't remotely care about that.
Hunter also hinted that Campa-Najjar was part of an attempt by "Islamists" to infiltrate the government. Campa-Najjar is a practicing Christian, but again, Hunter doesn't remotely care. For good measure, Hunter also rambled on about immigration and asked, "Why do people think they deserve to be Americans? Why do you think you deserve to come here?" and concluded, "The answer is: You don't." He also declared that the Justice Department, which indicted him last month for allegedly misusing campaign money, was "trying to destroy Trump's family, his friends, his associates and him."
● FL-07: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has endorsed Rep. Stephanie Murphy, making her one of the few Democrats to earn the business giant's backing.
● KS-02: While Kansas Republican Steve Watkins has often talked about his role in starting and building the defense contractor VIAP Inc., a new Kansas City Star report reveals that the House candidate did neither of those things.
VIAP, which is a subsidiary of the global company Versar Inc., existed for years before Watkins was hired by them as a consultant, and former Versar executives say Watkins had little to do with its success. Versar's former president and CEO even told the paper that Watkins was "nobody that I've heard of," while most former board members reached by McClatchy also said they had no memory of him. One of Versar's co-founders, who likewise said he didn't remember Watkins, added that VIAP wasn't even built as such but rather was "spun off from the parent company"
Over the summer, Watkins had tweeted that he'd "owned an engineering and securities company," and "grew that outfit from three people to 450 people," adding, "There were times when I did not take pay to make sure my employees could make ends meet." His campaign told the Star at the time he was talking about VIAP. Watkins had said similar things on the campaign trail as well, bragging he knew "what it's like to have to sweat it and work to make payroll, to not take any salary so you can make ends meet." However, he finally acknowledged to the paper last week that he "didn't own it, no ... when I say I helped start and grow, it was operational."
This isn't the first story to suggest that Watkins, who faces a tough fight against Democrat Paul Davis, is far from an ideal nominee for Team Red. Last week, the Lawrence Journal-World reported that Watkins hasn't run any TV ads since he won the early August GOP primary, and he also hasn't reserved any TV time in the Topeka area. However, the conservative Congressional Leadership Fund has been airing plenty of attack ads to try and weaken Davis, and a recent Siena poll showed Davis ahead just 45-44.
● MI-11: EMILY's List has launched a $567,000 TV buy against Republican Lena Epstein; we do not have a copy of the spot yet.
● MN-01: The NRCC's newest spot tries to portray Democrat Dan Feehan, an Army veteran, as anti-military. The commercial first hits Feehan, who also served in the Department of Defense, for supporting the Obama administration's nuclear agreement with Iran, and the audience can hear the sounds of bullets in the background. The ad then misleading shows a truncated clip of Feehan saying, "every time the Army complains, every time the Marine Corps complains … I ask them to please stop. Stop complaining."
The Washington Post points out the full quote features Feehan expressing a very different idea:
"Every time the Army complains, every time the Marine Corps complains, the ground side in particular, every time the Navy complains, I ask them to please stop. Stop complaining, because at the end of the day I worry about the Air Force."
The paper also notes that this is by no means the only GOP ad that tries to make a Democratic veteran seem anti-military. Most notably, Colorado Democrat Jason Crow has been on the receiving end of several spots that argue he let down veterans by skipping meetings at an all-volunteer local VA board.
● NJ-02: NRCC chair Steve Stivers has said out loud what we've all long known: that Team Red has "written off" this open GOP-held seat. Republicans nominated Seth Grossman, an underfunded candidate with a habit of making racist, sexist, and anti-Muslim remarks, and the NRCC announced two months ago that they wouldn't support his campaign. A recent Stockton University poll gave Democrat Jeff Van Drew a 55-32 lead.
● NJ-05: Republican John McCann has sparked outcry after the home of a supporter of Democratic Rep. Josh Gottheimer was defaced with swastikas, which somehow prompted McCann to publish a Facebook post blaming Nancy Pelosi and California Rep. Maxine Waters for the hate-crime. That claim was made even more absurd given that one of the Gottheimer supporter's campaign signs was also defaced with a #MAGA hashtag, and even NRCC chairman Steve Stivers said McCann's statement was not "appropriate or correct." McCann has been struggling to gain traction in a light-red district where Gottheimer has proved to be a formidable campaigner, and this latest incident helps show why.
● NJ-11: With Honor Fund is spending another $197,000 on digital ads for Democrat Mikie Sherrill.
● NY-21: Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik looks secure this year, so it's interesting that she's decided to launch a negative TV spot against Democrat Tedra Cobb. That doesn't necessarily mean Stefanik is in trouble, of course. Last cycle, Stefanik ran ads against Democratic foe Mike Derrick less than a month before Election Day, but she ended up winning 65-30. We'll see if anything more comes of this.
● OH-01: Democrat Aftab Pureval got some very unwelcome news on Wednesday after the Cincinnati Enquirer reported that he paid for a poll of his congressional race in January from his campaign account for the Hamilton County clerk of courts (his current position), before he had launched his House campaign. Pureval and his staff have maintained that the poll was for both races, which would be legal under state and federal campaign finance regulations. However, the Enquirer has now obtained a copy of the polling questions, and not one of them was for the 2020 clerk of courts race.
Consequently, Pureval may have broken campaign finance laws that prohibit using his local-office campaign account to pay for purely congressional campaign activities like polling. The state Elections Commission previously voted to investigate Pureval's clerk of courts spending, and if violations are found, he could face fines and even see the case referred to a prosecutor.
● PA-16: We recently learned that the DCCC was reserving airtime against GOP Rep. Mike Kelly in this Erie-area seat, and the National Journal says their opening buy is for $120,000.
● TX-06: EMILY's List has endorsed Democrat Jana Lynne Sanchez in the open seat race for this 54-42 Trump district. We haven't seen any spending or reservations by major outside groups here.
● TX-23: The conservative Congressional Leadership Fund's latest ad does its best to try to portray Democrat Gina Ortiz Jones as an "other" in a district with a large Hispanic population by calling her simply "Gina Jones" and leaving off "Ortiz" in a new attack ad over Medicare-for-All and taxes. Ortiz Jones is a Filipina-American whose immigrant mother's surname is Ortiz, a Spanish last name also common among Texas Hispanics, and this omission is a subtle attempt to obscure her ancestors' shared connection to Spanish colonialism.
● UT-04: GOP Rep. Mia Love has a new TV ad that the Deseret News describes as linking Democrat Ben McAdams to the Clintons and Nancy Pelosi, even though McAdams has promised he won't support Pelosi for speaker. Meanwhile, McAdams is out with his first negative spot, which goes after Love for her recent campaign finance scandal.
The ad accuses Love of having "gone Washington" as she's shown next to Donald Trump, and it blasts her for taking $1 million in allegedly illegal contributions and keeping the money to run misleading ads attacking McAdams. The commercial also touts McAdams' record of bipartisanship and not raising taxes, in contrast to Love facing ethics questions regarding misuse of taxpayer money for deceptive mailers.
● House: Our newest sizes-of-the-buy from House races across the nation. First up is the DCCC:
- AZ-01: $214,000
- AZ-02: $121,000
- CA-10: $65,000
- CA-25: $330,000
- CA-45: $380,000
- CA-48: $356,000
- CO-06: $445,000
- FL-26: $444,000
- IA-03: $192,000
- IL-06: $372,000
- IL-13: $282,000
- KS-02: $378,000
- KY-06: $226,000
- ME-02: $289,000
- MI-08: $318,000
- MI-11: $212,000
- MN-01: $539,000
- MN-08: $500,000
- NJ-07: $298,000
- NM-02: $235,000
- NV-03: $375,000
- NV-04: $508,000
- NY-19: $213,000
- NY-22: $69,000
- OH-01: $153,000
- TX-07: $345,000
- VA-02: $107,000
- VA-10: $567,000
- WA-08: $518,000
Now the NRCC:
- AZ-02: $121,000
- FL-26: $435,000
- MI-08: $315,000
- MN-01: $332,000
- MN-02: $177,000
- MN-03: $334,000
- NJ-03: $279,000
- NM-02: $178,000
- NV-04: $380,000
- NY-19: $160,000
- PA-01: $264,000
- TX-07: $348,000
- TX-23: $242,000
- VA-02: $260,000
- VA-10: $422,000
- WA-08: $484,000
● Polls:
- CA-21: SurveyUSA for ABC30: David Valadao (R-inc): 50, TJ Cox (D): 39
- CA-45: Siena for the New York Times: Katie Porter (D): 48, Mimi Walters (R-inc): 43
- MI-08: Greenberg Quinlan Rosner (D) for Elissa Slotkin: Elissa Slotkin (D): 47, Mike Bishop (R-inc): 43
- MN-02: SurveyUSA for KSTP: Angie Craig (D) 48, Jason Lewis (R-inc): 45
- PA-07: Siena for the New York Times: Susan Wild (D): 50, Marty Nothstein (R): 42
This is the first poll we've seen for California's 21st, a Central Valley seat where the NRCC recently canceled air time for all of October in a sign of confidence for Valadao's re-election prospects. SurveyUSA gives Trump a 48-43 job approval rating here, which seems very high even factoring in past poor Democratic turnout in non-presidential races.
Porter recently released a poll giving her a slightly smaller 46-43 edge, while a mid-August DCCC survey had her up 49-46.
This is the first poll we've seen in Michigan's 8th since April. The memo says an unreleased August poll had Bishop up 47-43.
Other polls have also found a close race in Minnesota's 2nd. An early September survey for Lewis had him ahead 46-45, while a PPP survey for the progressive group Protect Our Care had Craig up 48-45.
The only other poll we've seen for Pennsylvania's 7th was a Monmouth poll that gave Wild a much smaller 47-45 lead.
Ad Roundup