Daily Kos Elections Live Digest: 8/14

by Daily Kos Elections for Daily Kos Elections

Daily Kos Staff Emeritus

Friday, Aug. 14, 2020 Friday, Aug. 14, 2020 at 6:00:04am PDT

Welcome to the Daily Kos Elections Live Digest, your liveblog of all of today's campaign news.

Please note: The Live Digest is a 2016 and 2020 Democratic presidential primary-free space. It’s also a place to discuss elections, not policy.

Friday, Aug 14, 2020 · 2:58:32 PM +00:00 · Jeff Singer

FL-18: EMILY’s List has endorsed Navy veteran Pam Keith, who unsuccessfully sought the Democratic nod here last cycle, in Tuesday’s primary to face Republican Rep. Brian Mast.

Friday, Aug 14, 2020 · 3:09:26 PM +00:00 · Jeff Singer

CO-03: Republican Lauren Boebert continues to try and change the far-right image she’s spent years building up with a new commercial called “Helping Others.” Boebert tells the audience, “For years, I volunteered to counsel at-risk women at the Garfield County jail. After their release, some lived with my family, and others, I offered jobs.”

Friday, Aug 14, 2020 · 3:19:18 PM +00:00 · Jeff Singer

KY-06: Democrat Josh Hicks has launched an opening ad campaign that his team says is a “six-figure buy on cable, broadcast, and digital.” Hicks tells the audience, “We don’t have enough members of Congress who understand what it feels like to grow up poor … to struggle to put food on the table or struggle to pay for health insurance premiums.”

Hicks goes on to talk about his time in the military, the police, and in law school, and how he found out that “just having a law degree doesn’t make you somebody. We don’t have enough folks in Congress who knows what that feels like.” He then pitches himself as someone who in Congress would be “on the doggone floor shouting, and we’re gonna do stuff that helps these people, my people.” The ad does not mention Republican Rep. Andy Barr.

Friday, Aug 14, 2020 · 6:30:11 PM +00:00 · Jeff Singer

TX-Sen: Republican Sen. John Cornyn, who falsely said a month ago that it was unclear if children can contract the coronavirus and transmit it (they can), is using his first general election TV spot to talk about ... school reopenings.

The commercial stars a mother identified as Becky praising the senator for having “helped get money right to the local school districts so that they could provide a healthy environment.” Cornyn, who is shown wearing a facemask bearing the Texas flag, adds in a voiceover, “We need to do everything we can to ensure that our schools are safe. Then, we can get our kids back in the classroom.” The Republican firm Medium Buying reports that this spot is running for $330,000 on cable.

Friday, Aug 14, 2020 · 6:43:41 PM +00:00 · Jeff Singer

MA-04: On Thursday, former Alliance for Business Leadership head Jesse Mermell earned an endorsement from state Attorney General Maura Healey in the Sept. 1 Democratic primary. Healey’s move came hours after her former senior advisor, Dave Cavell, dropped out of the contest and backed Mermell.

Another Democratic candidate, public health expert Natalia Linos, has also launched her opening TV spot for $35,000. Linos argues she has the medical experience needed during the coronavirus pandemic.

Friday, Aug 14, 2020 · 6:58:21 PM +00:00 · Jeff Singer

NE-01: Republican Rep. Jeff Fortenberry has never faced a close race in this eastern Nebraska seat, but he just went up with a negative TV spot against Democrat Kate Bolz. Fortenberry emulates Donald Trump and tries to link Bolz to China, with the narrator decrying how the state senator took a trip there in 2018 and said that Nebraska could learn from the country. Fortenberry himself visited China in 2016.

This district, which includes Lincoln and nearby rural areas, backed Donald Trump by a wide 57-36 margin in 2016. However, the state Democratic Party recently released a survey from Strategies 360 that showed Trump ahead just 48-46 here; the memo also said that Bolz was within "striking distance" of Fortenberry, though it did not provide any numbers.

Fortenberry’s decision to go negative months before Election Day could be a sign that he’s seeing similar results in his own polling. However, it’s also possible that congressman, who ended June with $2 million in the bank, is just playing it safe and attacking Bolz before she can properly defend herself.

Friday, Aug 14, 2020 · 7:55:36 PM +00:00 · Jeff Singer

OH-01: Republican Rep. Steve Chabot is using his opening TV ad to argue that Democrat Kate Schroder ran up a $2.7 million deficit as the Cincinnati Board of Health’s finance chair in what the narrator describes as “mismanagement.” Schroder’s team quickly pushed back and said, “There was no $2.7 million budget deficit. As a member of the Cincinnati Board of Health, Schroder is required to balance the budget, something the Board did in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic.”

And as The Cincinnati Enquirer’s Jason Williams notes, “mismanagement” may be the last thing that Chabot should be talking about right now given the turmoil that has surrounded his own campaign.

Friday, Aug 14, 2020 · 8:06:00 PM +00:00 · Jeff Singer

TX-03: Republican Rep. Van Taylor has released a survey from Public Opinion Strategies that shows him leading Democrat Lulu Seikaly 48-35, while Libertarian Chris Claytor grabs 8%. Inside Elections, which first reported the poll, confirmed that the campaign did not include any presidential numbers of this seat, which is based in Collin County in the Dallas-Fort Worth suburbs.

Taylor’s survey comes weeks after Seikaly publicized her own poll from GSG that gave the incumbent a smaller 43-37 edge, while Claytor was at 5%. The sample also found Joe Biden ahead 47-45 in a well-educated district that has been moving to the left in the Trump era. The constituency moved from 64-34 Romney to a smaller 55-41 Trump, and GOP Sen. Ted Cruz only carried it 51-48 last cycle. Still, this area has thus far remained reliably red down the ballot, and Taylor won his 2018 open seat race without any trouble.

Friday, Aug 14, 2020 · 8:12:15 PM +00:00 · Jeff Singer

VA-05: Democrat Cameron Webb has unveiled a Global Strategy Group survey that shows him trailing Republican Bob Good just 44-42, while Donald Trump posts a 47-45 lead in a seat he carried 53-42 four years ago. The only other poll we’ve seen here was a late June Public Policy Polling survey for Webb’s allies at 314 Action that had Good ahead by the same 43-41 margin.

Friday, Aug 14, 2020 · 8:19:46 PM +00:00 · Jeff Singer

AK-Sen: Independent Al Gross uses a new TV spot to go after Republican incumbent Dan Sullivan for taking money from drug companies that outsource production to China while voting against “letting us by the same medicine at lower cost from Canada.” Gross then echoes Tina Fey’s 2008 parody of a famous Alaskan of yesteryear by declaring that “while we can't quite see Russia from here, we can see Canada. We should be able to buy medicine there.”

Friday, Aug 14, 2020 · 8:23:21 PM +00:00 · Jeff Singer

GA-Sen-A: Sen. David Perdue, like so many Republicans who have campaigned and voted against Obamacare for years, is now running an ad talking about the importance of covering pre-existing conditions. Perdue sponsored a 2019 bill with the stated goal of covering people with pre-existing conditions, but the Atlanta Journal-Constitution writes that “experts claim it doesn’t match the Affordable Care Act’s protections.”

Friday, Aug 14, 2020 · 8:29:12 PM +00:00 · Jeff Singer

Ad Roundup:

Friday, Aug 14, 2020 · 8:49:07 PM +00:00 · David Nir

MA-01: The Justice Democrats say they're "going full steam ahead" to help Holyoke Mayor Alex Morse in his bid against Rep. Richie Neal in next month's Democratic primary, after the president of the College Democrats of Massachusetts offered a narrow apology to Morse for the "harm" caused by the "homophobic attacks" that followed the publication of the letter they sent him regarding his alleged behavior toward students—but not for sending the letter itself.

Morse nonetheless appeared to accept the apology, commending CDMA president Hayley Fleming for her "thoughtfulness." He also added, "I understand that my interactions with some members of your organization may have left them feeling uncomfortable," emphasizing "how sincerely I regret having made anyone feel uncomfortable."

Friday, Aug 14, 2020 · 9:41:36 PM +00:00 · David Nir

Election Changes

• New Jersey: Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy has announced that all New Jersey voters will be sent a mail ballot for the November general election, which is what the state did for its July primary. There will also be at least one in-person voting location in each of the state's 565 municipalities, the largest of which is Newark, with 282,000 people. Voters will also be able to return ballots via secure drop boxes.

• Pennsylvania: Democratic Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar, who is the defendant in a lawsuit brought by voting rights advocates, has told the state Supreme Court that it should order that all ballots mailed by Election Day and received within three days should be counted, putting Boockvar in agreement with plaintiffs.

Boockvar's about-face came, according to court filings, after the Postal Service's general counsel sent her a letter warning of "a significant risk" that some mail voters would "not have sufficient time to complete and mail" their ballots to meet Pennsylvania's Election Day receipt deadline. The justices would still need to sign off on the change before it could go into effect.