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
● CA-22: National Democratic groups have become increasingly involved in the effort to boost former Assemblyman Rudy Salas and ensure the party doesn't get locked out of the general election after the March 5 top-two primary. The DCCC recently began running coordinated commercials with Salas' campaign, and AdImpact relays that they've now reserved $690,000 for TV ads. Meanwhile, Politico reports that House Majority PAC has begun an $850,000 TV ad buy to support Salas.
Salas is seeking a rematch against Republican Rep. David Valadao following a 52-48 loss last cycle, but the pair is also competing against Democratic state Sen. Melissa Hurtado and former Fresno City Councilman Chris Mathys, a Republican. After Valadao voted to impeach Trump following Jan. 6, Mathys nearly outpaced the incumbent in last cycle's top-two primary. If those two once again split Republican voters close to evenly and Salas and Hurtado do the same with Democratic voters, there's a risk both Republicans could advance to November.
In the last three months of 2023, Valadao led the field with $436,000 raised and $1.4 million in cash on hand, while Salas brought in $276,000 and had $295,000 left over to start the year. However, both Valadao and Salas had a wide edge over their intraparty opponents: Mathys raised just $9,000 from donors, self-funded $325,000, and had $306,000 cash on hand, while Hurtado raised only $20,000 and had $5,000 in the bank.
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