The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, Stephen Wolf, Carolyn Fiddler, and Matt Booker, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Daniel Donner, James Lambert, David Beard, and Arjun Jaikumar.
Leading Off
Donald Trump continues to drag his party down across the ballot nationwide, especially in suburban districts that were friendly to the GOP just a few years ago, which is why Daily Kos Elections is moving our race ratings for nine more contests in the Democrats’ direction. You can find all our Senate, gubernatorial, and House ratings at each link.
● SC-Sen (Safe R to Likely R): Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham is still very much the favorite in a state that hasn’t elected a Democrat to statewide office since 2006, but Democrat Jaime Harrison is putting up a very strong fight. A number of polls have shown Graham only narrowly ahead, or even tied, and Republicans haven’t released any contradictory numbers in months.
Perhaps most importantly, though, surveys also show Donald Trump in considerably worse shape in South Carolina four years after he carried it by a wide 55-41 margin: FiveThirtyEight’s polling average currently shows him ahead just 50-44 there. It would still be a massive surprise if Joe Biden carried the Palmetto State, but the better he does, the fewer crossover voters Harrison will need to defeat Graham.
Campaign Action
Graham has the far easier path to victory in this conservative state, and Harrison needs almost everything to go right to pull off an upset, including many factors beyond his control. However, the GOP’s continued decline even in red states like this gives the well-funded Harrison an opportunity that South Carolina Democrats haven't enjoyed in ages.
● GA-06 (Tossup to Lean D): Democrat Lucy McBath narrowly unseated Republican Karen Handel in a major 2018 upset, but now the new incumbent has the advantage for their rematch. The GOP brand has only declined in well-educated suburban seats like this one over the last two years, and McBath ended June with more than three times as much money in the bank as Handel.
Even Handel’s allies agree that McBath has gotten stronger as the cycle has continued. Earlier this month, the NRCC publicized a poll that showed McBath ahead 48-46, which actually represented a decline for Handel, whom the same pollster found leading 49-47 in April. This district is still competitive enough for Handel to win, but the prevailing winds are against her.
● IN-05 (Lean R to Tossup): Like so many other affluent and well-educated suburban areas, Indiana's 5th Congressional District has shifted sharply to the left in recent years: After voting for Donald Trump 53-41 in 2016, it supported Democratic Sen. Joe Donnelly 48.4-47.9 in 2018, and last year, Democrats performed very well in local elections. A late June poll for Democrat Christina Hale, a former state representative, showed the trend continuing, with Joe Biden leading Trump 53-43.
The seat, sited in the Indianapolis suburbs, became considerably harder for Republicans to defend when Rep. Susan Brooks, one of the few women in the House GOP caucus, chose to retire a year ago. To succeed her, Republicans nominated a sub-par candidate, state Sen. Victoria Spartz, whom Inside Elections said was so "stridently conservative" that she wound up with "very few allies in Indianapolis, even among Republicans."
Hale's poll found her beating Spartz 51-45, and while Spartz's allies at the Club for Growth finally just responded with their own survey showing the Republican up 47-40, they rather tellingly did not include any numbers for the presidential race. At this point, we simply wouldn't be surprised if Hale succeeded in flipping the 5th District despite its ancestrally Republican roots.
● NE-02 (Lean R to Tossup): National Democrats made a mistake in writing off nonprofit executive Kara Eastman in 2018, who wound up losing to Republican Rep. Don Bacon just 51-49, but they won't make the same error this year. A pair of Democratic polls taken in the spring and early summer showed a very tight rematch between the two candidates, but most importantly, they also found Joe Biden up by 7 and then 11 points. Republicans never answered with contradictory numbers of their own.
It's a familiar story: Nebraska's 2nd Congressional District, centered around the city of Omaha, includes historically Republican suburban areas that have turned on Donald Trump, who won here 48-46 four years ago. Bacon, a retired Air Force brigadier general, is one of the GOP's more formidable incumbents, but Eastman has turned into a strong fundraiser and won't lack the resources she needs this time.
● NY-02 (Lean R to Tossup): This seat along the South Shore of Long Island backed Trump by a solid 53-44 margin and it remains conservative turf, especially further down the ballot, but Democrat Jackie Gordon is running a well-funded campaign to flip it. The same cannot be said for Republican Andrew Garbarino, who ended June with a $1.1 million to $104,000 cash-on-hand deficit.
No one has released any polling here, but we do have one solid indication that the GOP is worried: The conservative Congressional Leadership Fund recently announced that it was reserving $1.9 million to defend this open seat. If Republicans fail to hang on, we won't be surprised.
● OH-10 (Safe R to Likely R): Veteran Republican Rep. Mike Turner has always pulled off decisive wins in this Dayton-based seat that supported Trump 51-44, but he could be vulnerable in a bad political climate against a strong opponent. There are also some indications that Turner isn’t taking his contest for a 10th term as seriously as he should.
Democrat Desiree Tims raised a notable $381,000 during the second quarter while Turner took in just $77,000—the most obvious sign that he may be sleepwalking—and he ended June with an unimpressive $577,000 to $336,000 cash-on-hand lead. It would be a very big deal if Turner were to lose two years after he turned back a credible opponent 56-42, but this district should be competitive enough at the presidential level to make this contest worth watching.
● TX-03 (Safe R to Likely R): While Texas' 3rd Congressional District isn't among the top tier of targets for Lone Star State Democrats this year, it carries the unusual distinction of having the highest proportion of college degree-holders of any seat in the country that the GOP still holds. The trends are favorable for Democrats, too, as the 3rd moved from 64-34 Romney to a smaller 55-41 Trump, and Ted Cruz only carried it 51-48 last cycle.
Attorney Lulu Seikaly, who is the daughter of Lebanese immigrants and would be the first woman of color to represent this suburban Dallas district, is still the heavy underdog to freshman Republican Rep. Van Taylor. However, a Seikaly poll last month had Taylor ahead just 43-37 and actually found Biden in front 47-45. Even Taylor's own new polling, which put him up 48-35 and, predictably, didn't include presidential numbers, suggests he's not a lock. We saw unexpectedly close margins in a number of House races in Texas last year, and this is the sort of turf that could surprise us if Democrats enjoy a landslide.
● TX-21 (Lean R to Tossup): Like so many other congressional districts in various Texas suburbs, the 21st has charged toward Democrats over the past decade. Despite the extreme Republican gerrymander that sutures Austin and San Antonio together with the Hill Country, the collapse has been particularly swift here: Mitt Romney carried the district 60-38 in 2012, followed by a 52-42 win for Donald Trump in 2016, and then a 49.6 to 49.5 squeaker for Ted Cruz in 2018. A mid-July poll for Democrat Wendy Davis found Joe Biden up 50-47 and freshman GOP Rep. Chip Roy ahead just 46-45. As usual this cycle, Republicans have not responded with any different results.
Roy, a former Cruz chief of staff and a member of the nihilist House Freedom Caucus, hasn't seemed to grasp the changes that are taking place around him and remains a strident Trump ally. Davis, meanwhile, has capitalized on the high profile she brought into the race and become one of the party's best fundraisers this cycle. And though she famously lost her 2014 gubernatorial bid in a landslide, her ability to win Republican turf when she served in the state Senate should not be overlooked: In 2012, she won re-election despite the fact that her district went 53-45 for Romney on the very same day.
● TX-25 (Safe R to Likely R): Stop us if you've heard this one before: Another rock-ribbed Republican district in Texas has edged its way into competitive territory, thanks to the same gyrations that have shaken the GOP nationwide under Trump. To see Texas' 25th do so, however, is as surprising as it gets, but here we are. A recent in-house poll for the DCCC, which seemed to astonish the committee itself, found Joe Biden edging out Donald Trump 47-46 and gave Republican Rep. Roger Williams just a 45-43 lead on Democrat Julie Oliver, an attorney. If Republicans have polling that paints a different picture, they haven't shared it.
Just four years ago, Williams' district, which is part of a brutal GOP gerrymander that dismembered the state capital of Austin six ways, went for Trump by a wide 55-40 margin. It's moved toward Democrats, but Ted Cruz still won it 52-47 in 2018—and believe it or not, there are nine other Republican-held districts where Cruz did worse. And though Oliver has raised a creditable sum for an under-the-radar race, Williams maintains a huge cash advantage. Nevertheless, it's worth keeping an eye on this one.
Senate
● 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 buy 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."
● 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 explains that according to experts, "it doesn't match the Affordable Care Act's protections."
● TX-Sen: Republican Sen. John Cornyn, who falsely said a month ago that it was unclear whether 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 only 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.
House
● CO-03: Republican Lauren Boebert continues to try escape from the far-right image she's spent years cultivating 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."
● 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. Keith is vying with attorney Oz Vazquez for the Democratic nomination.
● KY-06: Democrat Josh Hicks has launched his opening ad campaign, which his team says is backed by a "six-figure buy on cable, broadcast, and digital." In his spot, 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, explaining that 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 the House, 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.
● 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."
● 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. Meanwhile, another Democratic candidate, public health expert Natalia Linos, has launched her opening TV spot for a reported $35,000. Linos argues she has the medical experience needed during the coronavirus pandemic.
● 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 Democratic state Sen. 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.
The 1st 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 on the House race.
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.
● 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 ought to be talking about right now, given the turmoil that has surrounded his own campaign.
● 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 for the 3rd District, which is based in Collin County in the Dallas-Fort Worth suburbs.
● 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 a 43-41 margin.
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.
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