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
● MO-Gov: While Republican Gov. Mike Parson remains the clear favorite in conservative Missouri, national Democrats are launching a well-funded ad campaign against him for the first time. The Kansas City Star reports that a group linked to the DGA called A Stronger Missouri began a $5 million TV buy on Wednesday that will run for five weeks.
The opening commercial argues, "For years, Parson racked up gifts and perks from lobbyists and special interests, including private jet flights, football tickets, golf outings, and more." The narrator continues, "For the expenses that lobbyists didn't cover, Parson billed taxpayers, and got caught. He took gifts for himself but opposed lower healthcare costs for us, leaving Missouri families vulnerable during the crisis."
Campaign Action
The DGA's move will come as welcome news to Democrat Nicole Galloway, who was in danger of being badly outspent by Parson's allies. Parson and Galloway each ended June with a similar $1.5 million on-hand, but Uniting Missouri PAC, a group that's partially funded by the RGA, held a hefty $5.1 million to $1.6 million financial advantage over the pro-Galloway PAC Keep Government Accountable.
Uniting Missouri PAC has also been spending heavily to help Parson. The Star reports that the group is "currently committed" to spending $8.3 million in the time between the Aug. 4 primary and the November general election, and it has a new commercial against Galloway.
There have only been a few polls here over the last two months, and they don't agree at all about how competitive this contest is. In mid-July, a YouGov survey for Saint Louis University had Parson ahead just 41-39, while Donald Trump sported an unimpressive 50-43 lead in a state he carried 56-38 four years ago. A mid-August poll from the Republican firm Remington Research for the Missouri Scout newsletter, though, had Parson up by a stronger 50-43 margin, but they did not release presidential numbers.
A late August poll from the GOP firm Trafalgar Group had Parson and Trump ahead 51-36 and 52-41, respectively. As we recently noted, Trafalgar attempts to account for so-called "shy" Trump voters—those who, due to an alleged "social desirability bias," are reluctant to tell pollsters that they support Donald Trump—an approach that has produced decidedly mixed results in the past.
Senate
● AK-Sen: The progressive group 314 Action Fund has announced a new "six-figure" broadcast TV buy against Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan. The commercial argues that the incumbent has "voted against letting us get cheaper prescription drugs from Canada."
● IA-Sen: Democrat Theresa Greenfield's new commercial stars former Republican state Rep. Walt Tomenga, who served from 2005 to 2009. Tomenga tells the audience that he's voted for Republican Sen. Joni Ernst before but can't do it this time because Washington has changed her. Tomenga then references Ernst's infamous "Make 'Em Squeal" ad from 2014 by declaring that "instead of castrating the pigs, she became a sheep." He goes on to say Greenfield is different and will work across party lines.
● MI-Sen: Progress Michigan's monthly poll from the Democratic firm Public Policy Polling finds Democratic Sen. Gary Peters leading Republican John James 47-39, while Joe Biden enjoys a smaller 48-44 edge in the state. PPP showed Peters ahead by the same 47-39 spread last month, with Biden leading by a similar 49-43.
● NC-Sen, NC-Gov: East Carolina University has released a new survey of its home state:
- NC-Sen: Cal Cunningham (D): 44, Thom Tillis (R-inc): 44 (mid-Aug.: 44-40 Cunningham)
- NC-Gov: Roy Cooper (D-inc): 50, Dan Forest (R): 40 (mid-Aug.: 52-38 Cooper)
The survey also finds Donald Trump ahead 49-47, which is a small shift from the 47-47 tie the school found a few weeks ago.
● Ad Reservations: Politico's James Arkin reports that groups close to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell have added millions to TV buys in five GOP-held seats:
- AZ-Sen: $10.6 million from Senate Leadership Fund
- GA-Sen-A: $6.1 million from Senate Leadership Fund
- IA-Sen: $11 million from Plains PAC
- ME-Sen: $1.6 million from Senate Leadership Fund
- NC-Sen: $10.8 million from American Crossroads
Plains PAC first made its appearance during the Kansas Senate primary where it spent $3.3 million on a successful effort to stop former state Secretary of State Kris Kobach from winning the GOP nod. FEC reports filed after the contest was over revealed that Senate Majority PAC had funded the group, which came as no surprise.
Gubernatorial
● NH-Gov: On Wednesday, Rep. Annie Kuster endorsed state Senate Majority Leader Dan Feltes ahead of next week's Democratic primary.
House
● AK-AL: EMILY's List has endorsed Alyse Galvin, an independent who won the Democratic nomination last month.
● GA-06: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that Everytown for Gun Safety has reserved $1.2 million for TV time beginning on Sept. 15, as well as another $500,000 in digital advertising, to aid freshman Democratic Rep. Lucy McBath. The group spent over $4 million here last cycle ahead of McBath's upset victory over Republican incumbent Karen Handel, who is running to regain this seat.
● NE-01: Republican Rep. Jeff Fortenberry got our attention a few weeks ago when the seemingly safe incumbent launched an ad against Democratic state Sen. Kate Bolz, and he's continuing to run negative commercials. The spot once again attacks Bolz for saying two years ago that Nebraska could learn from China; Fortenberry himself visited the country in 2016.
● NV-03: Freshman Democratic Rep. Susie Lee has launched an ad campaign focusing on Republican Dan Rodimer's "alarmingly violent rap sheet," and the Nevada Independent reports that it will run for six figures. The narrator describes Rodimer's past as "vicious assaults, brutal beatings, domestic violence, as documented in his girlfriend's calls to 911."
As we've written before, Rodimer pleaded guilty to battery after a 2010 altercation and was later accused of, but never charged with, assault two additional times. In late July, more than a month after he won the primary, the Associated Press also reported that police responded to two 911 calls in 2018 from Sarah Duffy, who was Rodimer's girlfriend at the time and is now his wife, against the candidate.
The AP says that Duffy's first call accused Rodimer of domestic violence. No one was charged, though, and the police responding to the incident wrote afterwards, "there was no crime, just a verbal argument and we did not want to embarrass them or make them any more upset."
Later that year, Duffy told the 911 dispatcher that Rodimer had stolen $200,000 in jewelry, firearms, and cash from her days ago and had sent her photos of what he'd taken. The officer wrote, "I advised (Duffy) to give a 1 week 'cooling period' to see if male returns home and they can resolve this matter without police involvement as this is largely a civil matter." No charges were filed in this matter, either.
Rodimer campaign manager Alex Melendez told the AP in response, "Dan and his wife have five kids and like every couple, they have had some verbal disputes over the years." Melendez said the couple went to dinner after the first incident, and said of the second that "no items ever left the residence. Some items were moved to another location in the house and the firearms remained locked in a safe."
● House: On Tuesday, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce announced that it was endorsing 23 freshmen Democrats, a decision that came after plenty of infighting from within the traditionally conservative organization. The development, though, comes at a time when the Chamber's electoral influence has been on the wane. While the group used to be one of the largest outside spenders for Republicans in primaries and general elections, it's spent just $2 million so far this cycle.
Mayoral
● Honolulu, HI Mayor: Democrat Keith Amemiya earned an endorsement this week from City Councilwoman Kym Pine, an independent who took fourth place with 15% of the vote in last month's nonpartisan primary.
Election Changes
Please bookmark our litigation tracker for a complete summary of the latest developments in every lawsuit regarding changes to elections and voting procedures as a result of the coronavirus.
● Georgia: Republican commissioners in Gwinnett County, a populous and rapidly diversifying suburb of Atlanta, have voted along party lines to reject sending out applications for absentee mail ballots to all 600,000 of the county's registered voters, declining to join neighboring DeKalb County and its Democratic county commission's decision to mail applications to all voters for November.
● Iowa: Officials in Woodbury County, one of three relatively sizable Iowa counties where Trump and Republicans are suing to invalidate absentee ballot requests that officials had sent with pre-filled information on the applications, have announced they will not appeal a recent state court ruling tossing out 14,000 requests that voters had already submitted. However, Democrats are separately waging their own lawsuit challenging the disqualification of pre-filled request forms, which is pending before a lower state court.
● Montana: The Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee have filed a lawsuit in federal court arguing that Democratic Gov. Steve Bullock lacked the power to issue his directive last month allowing counties to choose whether to mail every voter a ballot this fall. All 56 counties chose to implement full vote-by-mail for the primary, and a sizable majority of them, including both Democratic-leaning and Republican-leaning ones and all but one of its eight largest, have opted to do so in recent weeks, meaning a majority of Montana voters will automatically receive ballots for November if Bullock's order remains in place.
● Ohio: Republican lawmakers passed a bill in the state House along party lines that would prohibit executive branch officials from altering election procedures without legislative approval even in a public health emergency, sending it to Republican Gov. Mike DeWine. This move that comes in response to DeWine having unilaterally delayed the March primary back when the pandemic first began to hit critical mass. DeWine has not indicated that he is considering any last-minute changes this fall and has not expressed a clear position on the bill, but GOP legislators could override a veto with near-unanimous GOP support thanks to their gerrymanders giving them just barely more than the three-fifths supermajority needed.
● Pennsylvania: A group called the Fair Elections Center has filed a lawsuit in state court asking that voters who requested mail ballots but don't receive them in time to cast them be able to obtain their ballots electronically instead. However, those voters would still have to download and print out such ballots to return a physical copy. The plaintiffs also want voters to be able to designate someone to pick up their previously requested but undelivered mail ballot for them in the week before Election Day, which would otherwise leave too little time to send them via mail, let alone to try to also return them by mail.
The military has used a system of electronic absentee delivery and printed-copy return for years, and numerous lawsuits across the country during the pandemic—including one in Pennsylvania—have already resulted in making that option available to voters with visual impairments who otherwise cannot vote a secret ballot in-person. However, no court has yet made this method more widely available like these plaintiffs are requesting.
● Texas: Texas' all-Republican Supreme Court has issued a short-term stay temporarily blocking Democratic officials in Harris County, the state's most populous, from sending unsolicited absentee mail ballot applications to all 2.4 million voters this fall until a lower court decides whether to more permanently prohibit it. Texas law requires voters to have an excuse to vote by mail unless they're 65 or older, and Republican state Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a separate lawsuit in state court yesterday, prompting Harris County Clerk Chris Hollins to announce he would only send applications to voters aged 65 and up pending the outcome of the litigation, which the Supreme Court stay now prohibits.
Primary Result Recaps
● MA-01: Veteran Rep. Richie Neal defeated Holyoke Mayor Alex Morse 59-41 in a nationally-watched Democratic primary battle for this safely blue seat in western Massachusetts. While Neal, who chairs the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, didn't come close to losing on Tuesday, this was his most competitive primary since 1992, when he prevailed 48-34 in a contest that took place after redistricting.
● MA-04: With 149,000 ballots counted in the Democratic primary, Newton City Councilor Jake Auchincloss leads former Alliance for Business Leadership Jesse Mermell 22-21—a margin of 1,430 votes, with fellow Newton City Councilor Becky Walker Grossman at 18%. It is not clear how many ballots remain to be counted, and the Associated Press has not called the race to succeed Rep. Joe Kennedy in this safely blue seat.
The day after the primary, Secretary of State Bill Galvin successfully persuaded a state judge to allow ballots to be counted that were received "on time and had not been tallied as of the end of last night.” Galvin said in a statement, “Existing state laws lack procedures for the counting of state primary ballots after Election Day.” Later that day, Galvin’s team put out another release saying, “The judge has issued the order. The count will take place tomorrow.”
All the candidates in this crowded field ran against the Trump administration, but Auchincloss, who is a former registered Republican, attracted plenty of scrutiny over his loyalties and past statements. Among other things, Auchincloss worked for Republican Charlie Baker's successful 2014 campaign for governor, and he campaigned as an "Obama-Baker" voter. In 2016, Auchincloss also urged a local superintendent not to punish Newton students who had flown a Confederate flag outside their high school.
Auchincloss wrote back then that, while the community was right to "denounce this act of bigotry," the school district would be violating the free speech protections for students laid out by the U.S. Supreme Court decades ago by disciplining them. He added, "I doubt you would ban a Black Lives Matter banner, for example, and I know you would not ban an LGBT flag, though these might sincerely upset some students." During his campaign, Auchincloss acknowledged he "should have been a better ally" back then" and was wrong to view the incident as a free speech issue.
Auchincloss, though, raised plenty of money and benefited from heavy spending from a super PAC funded in part by his parents. Some progressives called for other candidates to drop out in order to stop Auchincloss, but only two contenders, Dave Cavell and Chris Zannetos, ended up exiting the contest before Election Day. EMILY's List, which didn't endorse anyone, did go after Auchincloss in its advertising, though it also targeted City Year co-founder Alan Khazei.
Mermell, who earned endorsements from Cavell and Zannetos as well as state Attorney General Maura Healey, seemed to have the most momentum heading into the primary, but she didn't have Auchincloss' resources. Mermell ended up performing well in Brookline and Newton in the Boston suburbs, which were also home to all seven of the candidates who were still in the running on Tuesday. Mermell struggled, though, in the southern part of the seat near Rhode Island where none of the contenders had a geographic base of support.
Auchincloss, by contrast, managed to take first or second place in towns in this area, which may have been due in large part to his heavy spending. That showing might have made all the difference in this very crowded contest.
● MA-06: Democratic Rep. Seth Moulton easily defeated women's health advocate Jamie Zahlaway Belsito 78-12 to win renomination in this reliably blue seat north of Boston.
While several Democrats showed an interest in taking on Moulton in late 2018 when he spearheaded a futile effort to keep Nancy Pelosi out of the speaker's chair, no strong opponents emerged even while Moulton was waging an equally doomed run for president. Both Belsito and Moulton's other intra-party foe, attorney Angus McQuilken, attracted very little money or outside support, and Moulton had no trouble against them.
● MA-08: Democratic Rep. Stephen Lynch beat physician Robbie Goldstein 67-33 in this safely blue seat in the southern Boston area. Lynch has long been one of the more conservative members of the Democratic caucus, especially on abortion rights, but he's never come close to losing at home. Goldstein also struggled to raise enough money to get his message out in the expensive Boston media market.
Ad Roundup
