The Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, and Stephen Wolf, with additional contributions from the Daily Kos Elections team.
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Leading Off
● 2Q Fundraising: Daily Kos Elections is pleased to unveil our new charts rounding up second-quarter fundraising numbers for the House and Senate. Our data includes figures for every incumbent seeking reelection, as well as any notable challengers or candidates seeking open seats.
Several members of the House will be fighting for renomination this summer against noteworthy primary foes, and some of those primary challengers are bringing in serious sums of money. One of these contenders is Courtney Johnston, a member of the Davidson County Metro Council who's challenging scandal-ridden Rep. Andy Ogles in the Aug. 1 Republican primary for Tennessee's 5th District.
Johnston, who began her campaign in April, decisively outraised the freshman congressman $720,000 to $265,000 in her inaugural fundraising quarter. And despite her late start, Johnston also ended June with a $500,000 to $250,000 cash advantage over Ogles in this safely red constituency in Middle Tennessee that Republicans aggressively gerrymandered two years ago.
Ogles, though, is betting that his many problems―including an apparently fabricated life story―won't be enough to prematurely end his career in Congress. The congressman is airing an ad that features audio of Donald Trump praising him as an ardent conservative who "bravely stood up against the Biden administration's unconstitutional COVID mandates."
Other challengers who've drawn notice, however, haven't fared as well as Johnston financially, such as former Yavapai County Supervisor Jack Smith. While Kevin McCarthy wants Republican voters in Arizona's 2nd District to punish Rep. Eli Crane for voting to end his speakership, McCarthy's extensive donor network is largely taking a pass on Smith.
Instead, it was Crane who massively outraised Smith, pulling in a hefty $1.4 million while his opponent managed a feeble $80,000 haul; the incumbent's cash edge was even more lopsided.
"You make your bed, you sleep in it," an unconcerned Crane told the New York Times earlier this month in an interview in which he speculated that his challenger is suffering because he has the same name as the special counsel appointed to prosecute Trump in the Jan. 6 and classified documents cases.
Detroit City Councilwoman Mary Waters likewise will need to overcome a staggering financial gap if she's to beat Rep. Shri Thanedar in the Aug. 6 Democratic primary for Michigan's 13th District.
Waters did not emerge as Thanedar's main opponent until late May after former state Sen. Adam Hollier failed to make the ballot, but she quickly earned an influential endorsement from Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan. However, while the $100,000 that Waters raised during the second quarter was an improvement on her meager $10,000 haul in the first quarter, she had just $20,000 left over as of June 30. Thanedar, who is self-funding most of his effort, was light-years ahead with a $5 million war chest.
Still, Waters has hopes of unseating Thanedar, whom critics like Duggan argue has done a poor job representing his constituents. Waters, who has a long history in local politics, has also argued that the majority-Black city of Detroit needs an African American member of Congress. (Thanedar is Indian American, while Detroit's other representative, Rashida Tlaib, is Palestinian American.)
The Downballot
● Unnamed "senior Democrats" are at it again, saying they're "resigned" to losing in November. On this week's episode of "The Downballot," host David Nir and guest host Joe Sudbay go hog-wild on the defeatists, explaining why humility and fortitude must be the order of the day. They also delve into polling data showing that the top of the ticket is not destiny: Regardless of what happens in the race for the White House, you don't need to be huffing hopium to believe that Democrats are still very much in the game further down the ballot.
And no one believes that more than our guest this week. Shaniqua McClendon runs Vote Save America, the activism arm of the Pod Save America network, which is dedicated to helping progressives across the country get involved at all levels. McClendon explains how the Pod Save crew leverages its reach to engage grassroots activists, and why VSA is devoted to ensuring small donors get the biggest bang for their buck. She also tells us about some of her top races and how listeners can get involved at votesaveamerica.com.
Never miss an episode! Subscribe to "The Downballot" wherever you listen to podcasts. You'll find a transcript of this week's show right here by Thursday afternoon. New episodes every Thursday morning!
Senate
● NJ-Sen: NBC reported Wednesday that Sen. Bob Menendez has informed people close to him that he’s decided to resign, a development that comes one day after he was convicted of corruption in federal court. Menendez, though, told CBS in response, “I can tell you that I have not resigned nor have I spoken to any so called allies.” He added, “Seems to me that there is an effort to try to force me into a statement. Anyone who knows me knows that's the worst way to achieve a goal with me.”
NBC’s original story broke shortly after New Jersey's other senator, Cory Booker, announced he'd lead a drive to expel his colleague if he refused to quit. Menendez, who remains a member of the Democratic caucus, turned in enough signatures in May to run in the general election as an independent, and he'd have until Aug. 16 to withdraw his name. We have more in our last Digest about what could happen next with the Senate seat that Menendez has held since 2006.
Governors
● DE-Gov: EMILYs List has endorsed Lt. Gov. Bethany Hall-Long, who would be the second woman to serve as governor of Delaware, ahead of the Sept. 10 Democratic primary.
● MO-Gov: The nasty Aug. 6 Republican primary for governor of Missouri is less than three weeks away, and Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft is about to learn if his membership in one of the state's most prominent political families will help him overcome a massive financial deficit.
Campaign finance reports covering the second quarter of 2024 show that despite spending most of the contest with a lead in the polls, Ashcroft's side once again brought in less money than both of his main intraparty rivals, Lt. Gov. Mike Kehoe and state Sen. Bill Eigel. The winner will be the favorite to succeed their fellow Republican, termed-out Gov. Mike Parson, in this conservative state.
Including affiliated committees (which each of the main GOP contenders has), Kehoe hauled in $4.5 million and finished June with $6.3 million in the bank. One of Kehoe's most ardent contributors is Rex Sinquefield, a GOP megadonor who has a long history of financing state Republicans. (Sinquefield, as a 2014 Politico profile detailed, is devoted to advancing three "idiosyncratic passions: promoting chess, dismantling the traditional public school system and eliminating income taxes.")
Eigel and his allied committee, meanwhile, took in about $810,000 and ended last month with $830,000 banked for the homestretch. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch's Kurt Erickson wrote last month that Eigel, a far-right instigator who once compared GOP state Senate leaders to Darth Vader, has largely focused on raising money from small donors.
Ashcroft and his backers took in a smaller $720,000, though the $1.5 million they had banked was still twice as much as what Eigel could deploy. Ashcroft is the son and namesake of John Ashcroft, who served as Missouri's governor and senator before he became George W. Bush's first attorney general, in 2001, and this lineage helps explain why the secretary of state initially began the race with a wide lead in the polls.
However, Kehoe's side is hoping that their well-financed attacks have made conservatives reconsider if they want a second Gov. Ashcroft. One memorable commercial depicts Chinese-speaking cows branded with a hammer and sickle accusing Ashcroft of having "testified in support of a law allowing the Chinese Communist Party to buy land here in Missouri."
Another spot attacked Ashcroft's comments at a February forum where he expressed skepticism that veterans should receive special benefits. "I don't think we ought to say if you're in the military, we'll give you this discount, but everybody else has to pay twice as much," the audience hears Ashcroft declare. "I don't think that's good government."
Those words do not go over well with the spot's star, a disabled Army veteran named Joey Vineyard. "Jay Ashcroft thinks veterans like me don't deserve benefits?" Vineyard incredulously asks the audience. "A Merchant Marine Academy dropout like Jay Ashcroft shouldn't be going after veterans."
Ashcroft's side has countered with their own messages declaring that Kehoe has backed tax increases and "voted four times to sell our land to China." Ashcroft has also gone ever deeper into anti-Chinese sentiment by circulating a picture of Kehoe dressed for a Lunar New Year event.
Both statewide elected officials haven't put the same amount of energy into attacking Eigel that they have into going after one another, though that doesn't mean he's going unscathed: A group called the Heartland Conservative Coalition has run commercials portraying Eigel as a "self-serving" phony conservative who also voted to "give" China "our farmland."
Each of these three men is campaigning as an ardent conservative, though, as Erickson notes, there are big differences in how they're presenting themselves. Kehoe, for his part, is arguing he's a reliable politician who can work with others to advance right-wing goals. "[I]f you want a flame-thrower, or somebody who throws hand grenades, or screams and hollers at you, I'm probably not your guy," the lieutenant governor recently told the Springfield Daily Citizen.
That's a not-so-subtle knock on Eigel, who generated national attention last year when he deployed a flamethrower at an event. He responded to the outcry by tweeting that, while he'd been burning only cardboard, "[Y]ou bring those woke pornographic books to Missouri schools to try to brainwash our kids, and I'll burn those too - on the front lawn of the governor's mansion."
Ashcroft, for his part, is situating himself somewhere in between those two rivals. While the secretary of state has avoided pyrotechnics, he's made a name for himself by threatening to block funding from libraries that stock what he calls "inappropriate materials in any form that appeal to the prurient interest of a minor."
Ashcroft also utilized the power of his office last year to craft proposing ballot summary text for a series of proposed abortion-rights amendments that falsely declared their passage would "allow for dangerous, unregulated, and unrestricted abortions, from conception to live birth, without requiring a medical license or potentially being subject to medical malpractice." A state court ultimately rewrote his summaries after determining they were "replete with politically partisan language."
It remains to be seen which of these pitches will resonate most with voters, as polls released in June showed everything from an 8-percentage-point lead for Ashcroft to a 4-point advantage for Kehoe. Most of these surveys found Eigel in a distant third place, though not every firm agrees that he's too far back to pull off a surprise. As of Wednesday, however, we have yet to see any polls conducted this month.
Things are considerably quieter on the Democratic side, though two contenders are hoping GOP infighting will give them an opening in what used to be a swing state. Those two candidates, who both hail from Springfield in southwestern Missouri, are state House Minority Leader Crystal Quade and businessman Mike Hamra, whose company operates almost 200 restaurants nationwide.
● VA-Gov: Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger reports raising $3.45 million during the first six months of the year for her 2025 bid for governor of Virginia, and she finished June with $5.4 million in the bank. Spanberger lost her only major primary opponent in April when Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney switched to the race for lieutenant governor.
Two prominent Republicans, Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears and Attorney General Jason Miyares, are eyeing this race, but we're going to need to wait longer to learn how much they have banked. Cardinal News' Dwayne Yancey explains that since neither Republican has filed paperwork to run for governor, their respective PACs aren't subject to the same disclosure schedule as Spanberger is.
House
● AZ-03: Former Phoenix City Councilwoman Yassamin Ansari has publicized an internal poll giving her a double-digit advantage over former state Sen. Raquel Terán in the July 30 Democratic primary―a development that came around the same time that the crypto industry began a $1.4 million buy to help Ansari.
We'll start with the Lake Research Partners survey for Ansari that shows her ahead 41-30 in the nomination battle to replace Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego, who is running for Senate, in the safely blue 3rd District. Another 4% opt for pediatrician Duane Wooten, while the remaining 21% are undecided. This is the first poll we've seen here since May.
Terán's outside group allies, including the Congressional Hispanic Caucus' BOLD PAC, were massively outspending Ansari's backers through this week, but that changed when Protect Progress dropped $1.4 million to aid Ansari.
California Rep. Linda Sánchez, who heads BOLD, was quick to argue that the crypto industry was trying to "silence the voices of over half a million Latinos in a majority-Latino district in order to buy a seat in Congress." (Terán would be Arizona's first Latina member of Congress, while Ansari would be the first Iranian American to represent the state.)
This isn't the first time that BOLD and crypto groups have come into conflict in a Democratic primary. Protect Our Future PAC, which was financed by the soon-to-be-disgraced Sam Bankman-Fried, deployed a massive $11.3 million in the 2022 primary for Oregon's new 6th District to help economic development adviser Carrick Flynn get past state Rep. Andrea Salinas. But Salinas, who had help from BOLD, prevailed 37-18, and she went on to narrowly win the general election.
● MI-07, MI-10: Inside Elections has sponsored a survey from Noble Predictive Insights that finds Republican Tom Barrett flipping Michigan's open 7th District by beating Democrat Curtis Hertel 48-41. Counterintuitively, though, a Deadline Detroit poll from local firm Target Insyght shows Democrat Carl Marlinga with a comparable 49-43 lead against freshman Republican Rep. John James in the more conservative 10th District.
We'll start with the race to succeed Democrat Elissa Slotkin, who is leaving the 7th behind to run for the Senate. NPI, which sometimes does work for conservative clients, finds Donald Trump outpacing Joe Biden 44-40 when third-party candidates are included and 50-42 in a head-to-head, a turnaround from Biden's tight victory 49.4-48.9 here in 2020.
The survey also shows Republican Mike Rogers, who represented a previous version of this Lansing-based constituency more than a decade ago, with a narrow 48-47 advantage over Slotkin in their likely Senate matchup. (Slotkin leads wealthy businessman Sandy Pensler 49-43, but Pensler is the underdog against Rogers in the Aug. 6 primary.) This is the first poll we've seen of the 7th since winter.
Democrats are hoping that Barrett, who failed to unseat Slotkin 52-46 two years ago, is benefiting from lingering name recognition from that bout. Hertel, who like Barrett is a former state senator, won't lack the resources to get his name out, though: The Democrat outraised Barrett $1.3 million to $1.1 million, and he enjoyed a considerably larger $3.1 million to $1.5 million cash on hand lead at the end of June. Neither man has an opponent in next month's primary.
Over in the 10th, meanwhile, Target Insyght has Marlinga leading James by seven points two years after the former Macomb County judge lost their first contest by a surprisingly slim 49-48 margin. (Marlinga, as we'll discuss, has a contested primary.) The release did not include presidential or Senate numbers for a suburban Detroit seat that Trump carried 50-49 in 2020. This is the first general election poll anyone has released here.
Target Insyght sometimes does work for Democrats, and one of its clients last cycle was Marlinga. National Democrats, though, remained skeptical of the firm's surveys showing Marlinga beating the GOP's two-time Senate nominee, and major donors and outside groups directed their money elsewhere.
Marlinga's tight loss, though, doesn't appear to have inspired those doubters that 2024 will be better. The candidate ended June with only $158,000 in the bank and, unlike Hertel, he has to focus on winning the Democratic nod next month.
Marlinga's best-funded intra-party foe is financial adviser Diane Young, who had $129,000 available. Another Democrat, gun safety activist Emily Busch, had just shy of $100,000 to spend. James, who has no primary opposition, ended June with $3.9 million banked.
● NY-19: Republican Rep. Marc Molinaro has publicized an internal poll from Cygnal that shows him defeating Democrat Josh Riley 47-38 in their rematch from two years ago. This is the first survey we've seen of the contest for the 19th District, which is based in southeastern upstate New York.
The memo, which was first published by Politico, did not mention 2024 presidential numbers for a constituency that President Joe Biden carried 51-47 in 2020. Molinaro went on to beat Riley 51-49 two years later, on the same night that, according to data from Bloomberg's Greg Giroux, Republican Lee Zeldin outpaced Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul 53-47 in the district.
Both candidates have been preparing for an expensive second bout, and Riley ended June with a wide $4 million to $2.3 million cash advantage.
Mayors & County Leaders
● San Francisco, CA Mayor: Supervisor Aaron Peskin has earned the endorsement of SEIU 1021, which Mission Local's Joe Eskenazi calls "by far San Francisco's largest union," for the November instant-runoff general election.
Prosecutors & Sheriffs
● Albany County, NY District Attorney: Albany County District Attorney David Soares announced Wednesday that he would wage a write-in campaign this fall, a declaration that came weeks after he lost the Democratic primary 55-45 against criminal defense attorney Lee Kindlon. Republican Ralph Ambrosio is also running to serve as the top prosecutor for a county that favored Joe Biden 65-33 in 2020.
Soares appeared to be a reformer himself when he was first elected in 2004, following his primary victory over his own boss, then-District Attorney Paul Clyne, but those days are long over. Instead, it was Kindlon who successfully went after Soares over his ardent opposition to policies like the state legislature's bail reforms in 2019. Kindlon also faulted Soares for initially accepting almost $23,000 in bonuses from a state grant meant to support his subordinates.
Poll Pile
- VA-Sen: Virginia Commonwealth University: Tim Kaine (D-inc): 49, Hung Cao (R): 39 (39-37 Trump with third-party candidates)
- MO-AG: Co/efficient for Andrew Bailey (Republican primary): Bailey (R-inc): 34, Will Scharf (R): 13
Ad Roundup
Campaign Action
