As Donald Trump continues to harm his party’s prospects down the ballot, Daily Kos Elections is moving six contests in the direction of the Democrats. We're also issuing a new rating in a seventh race, the all-Democratic general election for Washington’s 10th Congressional District. You can find all our Senate, gubernatorial, and House ratings at each link.
• IA-Sen (Lean R to Tossup): Polls out of Iowa have consistently shown close contests both in the presidential race and for Senate, continuing the string of bad news that Republican Sen. Joni Ernst has endured all year.
Ernst faces a well-funded challenge from Democrat Theresa Greenfield, prompting major outside groups from both sides to spend massive sums and reserve even more advertising time for the fall. National Republicans may have hoped that they could weaken Greenfield by going on the offensive right after her June primary win, but surveys taken since then have continued to find the race neck-and-neck.
This is now the second time we've moved Iowa's Senate race to a more competitive rating, following our shift from Likely Republican to Lean Republican in May. While Iowa backed Trump by double digits four years ago, all signs indicate it's returning to swing state status, at least for 2020. It may still retain a slight edge for the GOP, but at this point, neither a Greenfield win nor an Ernst victory would surprise us. If Greenfield does come out on top, however, that very likely means Democrats have won enough seats in other, friendlier states to flip the Senate.
• MO-02 (Lean R to Tossup): Republicans are on the defensive in many well-educated and affluent suburban seats that have shifted to the left in recent years, and you can count Missouri's 2nd Congressional District among them. Republican Rep. Ann Wagner won only 51-47 two years ago in a contest that didn’t attract much outside spending, and that wasn’t an isolated showing: Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill carried the district 50-48 in 2018 even as she was losing statewide by a 51-46 margin. Just two years earlier, Donald Trump had won the 2nd 53-42.
This fall, Wagner faces a tough challenge from Democratic state Sen. Jill Schupp. While the well-connected congresswoman (she was appointed ambassador to Luxembourg in 2005 after she served as a Republican National Committee co-chair) ended June with a large financial advantage, Schupp has brought in the type of money she needs to run a serious campaign, outraising the incumbent in the second quarter. A mid-August poll for Schupp’s allies at House Majority PAC showed her ahead 45-42 with Biden up 48-46, and so far, no one has released contradictory data. Wagner will put up a tough fight, but this is anyone's race.
• NC-11 (Safe R to Likely R): Republican Madison Cawthorn seemed a sure bet to become the first member of Congress born in the 1990s after he claimed the Republican nomination in a late June upset, but the contest for North Carolina's 11th District in the Appalachians has suddenly started looking much less predictable.
The DCCC released an in-house poll in early August that found Cawthorn beating Democrat Moe Davis just 46-41, with Trump ahead just 48-46 in a district he’d won by a strong 57-40 margin in 2016. Davis' team soon publicized a July EMC Research survey that showed Cawthorn ahead by an even smaller 42-40 margin, though that release did not include presidential numbers—but Republicans haven't put out any polling of their own.
Cawthorn has also attracted intense scrutiny—all of it bad—in the last month, which may be helping to put this race in play. Most seriously, three women have accused him of unwanted sexual advances. Cawthorn was further criticized for describing his visit to Adolf Hitler's vacation home, the Eagle's Nest, as an item on his "bucket list" and calling Hitler "the Führer." In addition, he's been on the defensive for suggesting his hopes of attending the Naval Academy were derailed by his 2014 auto accident that left him without the use of his legs, even though he had already been rejected by the school before the crash. This seat is red enough that Cawthorn is still the clear favorite, but an upset cannot be dismissed.
• NJ-11 (Likely D to Safe D): Republican Rosemary Becchi did her party a solid in January when she dropped out of the primary against establishment favorite Tom Kean Jr. in New Jersey's 7th District and instead launched a bid against freshman Democratic Rep. Mikie Sherrill in the 11th, but she’s struggled to gain traction in her new race.
This suburban North Jersey seat used to be solidly Republican turf but it’s moved to the left in recent years, and Sherrill crushed her GOP foe 57-42 last cycle. The GOP brand has only taken a further hit in areas like this since then, and it would take a very strong opponent to give Sherrill a real race this cycle. Becchi is not that opponent: She ended June with a massive $3.4 million to $310,000 cash-on-hand deficit, and there's no indication that the same Republican power brokers who helped engineer her district hop have any interest in repaying her now.
• NY-01 (Likely R to Lean R): While New York’s 1st District swung from 50-49 Obama to 54-42 Trump, Republican Rep. Lee Zeldin has a difficult reelection fight ahead of him.
Zeldin only won 51-47 last cycle against an opponent with weak ties to this eastern Long Island seat, and his current Democratic challenger, Stony Brook University professor Nancy Goroff, looks like a much tougher foe. Goroff has raised a credible amount of money so far, and she’s also capable of self-funding.
Crucially, we’ve seen three polls from Goroff and her allies that suggest that the political climate will be very different than it was the last time Trump was on the ballot here. In July, a Public Policy Polling internal for 314 Action Fund showed Zeldin leading 47-40 and the presidential race tied 47-47, while in August, Goroff’s team released a Global Strategy Group poll that showed her trailing 47-42 and Biden ahead 46-42. Most recently, the DCCC dropped its own numbers from Tulchin Research that had Goroff in the lead 48-46 with Biden out front by a 51-45 margin. We have yet to see any contradictory numbers from the GOP.
Zeldin still has the advantage here, though. Two of those Democratic polls found him in front, and the congressman is a strong fundraiser who will have the resources he needs to fight back. Long Island Republicans also habitually perform well further down the ballot, so Zeldin has a good chance of prevailing even if Biden carries the 1st District. However, this contest is looking considerably more competitive than it did just a month ago.
• TX-07 (Tossup to Lean D): Army veteran Wesley Hunt is one of the GOP’s most heralded recruits of the cycle, but even he faces an uphill battle in yet another suburban seat where his party’s fortunes are in decline. Texas' 7th District in an ancestrally red slice of West Houston swung dramatically from 60-39 Romney to 48.5-47.1 Clinton, setting the stage for Democrat Lizzie Fletcher to unseat longtime Rep. John Culberson 53-47 two years later.
So far, there’s no indication that the voters who abandoned the GOP over the last few years are looking to return. Indeed, with statewide polls showing the closest presidential race in Texas in decades, it’s far more likely that Joe Biden will do well locally at the top of the ticket and give Fletcher a boost.
Hunt still has the resources to put up a very tough fight, and national Republicans are preparing to spend millions here to help him in the fall. But unless something dramatic changes, Hunt is going to need to garner quite a few crossover voters to win, and that’s not a good position for a challenger to be in.
• WA-10 (Safe D: Lean Strickland): Two Democrats, former Tacoma Mayor Marilyn Strickland and state Rep. Beth Doglio, advanced from the top-two primary for Washington's 10th Congressional District, but it's Strickland who looks like the early favorite in the general election.
Strickland led Doglio 20-15 in the first round of voting, and she soon picked up an endorsement from former state Rep. Kristine Reeves, who took third with 13%. While Doglio has campaigned as a progressive, Strickland, a former head of the Seattle Chamber of Commerce, has a reputation as more of a moderate. That should make her an easier sell to Republican voters who don’t have a candidate of their own.
One-party general elections can be unpredictable since party affiliation isn’t a factor, and a Doglio victory is very possible this fall, especially since we haven't yet seen any polling. Still, for the moment at least, Strickland appears to be the frontrunner.
Want more great elections coverage like this? Sign up for our free daily newsletter, the Morning Digest.
