Our race ratings: Senate | Governor | House
The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, Stephen Wolf, and Carolyn Fiddler, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Daniel Donner, James Lambert, David Beard, and Arjun Jaikumar.
Leading Off
● House: Daily Kos Elections is very pleased to share our new chart rounding up third-quarter fundraising numbers for every competitive House race in the country—and, this time, for every race in the country as well. In our post, you'll find data for the 100 contests we currently rate as competitive, and, in a separate spreadsheet, you can also peruse the stats for every major-party candidate on the ballot this November who filed a fundraising report with the FEC.
Campaign Action
The topline numbers are eye-popping, to say the least. Despite the incumbency advantage the GOP ought to have, Democrats outraised Republicans in 261 races, while the reverse was true in just 132 contests—and that's without including any self-funding. (Republicans have left an additional 39 Democratic-held seats uncontested, while Democrats only failed to field a candidate in three Republican districts.)
In the battlegrounds that will likely decide the fate of the House, the statistics are even more wildly lopsided: Democrats outraised Republicans in fully 93 of the 100 most competitive seats, as shown in this map. And the hauls themselves are extraordinary—at least for one side. Sixty-two Democrats in the top 100 races raised more than $1 million each in the third quarter, with only two being incumbents. In the many years we’ve been tracking this sort of data, we’ve never seen figures anything like this. (By contrast, only 16 Republicans brought in over $1 million—14 of them incumbents.)
Of course, money is far from the only factor that will determine who wins the House next month. But these numbers do ensure that Democrats will have the resources they need to get their message out over the stretch run. And the enormous upsurge in Democratic fundraising, powered extensively by grassroots donors, shows an intense enthusiasm that is not matched on the Republican side.
Senate
● AZ-Sen: The NRSC has launched a TV ad making use of recently unearthed comments from before Democrat Kyrsten Sinema was elected to Congress, calling Arizona "crazy" (Sinema blamed the Arizona GOP for making the state this way) and facetiously referring to her state as the "meth lab of democracy."
● FL-Sen: In a damning new exposé, the New York Times reports that Republican Gov. Rick Scott’s supposedly "blind” trust for his nine-figure fortune is anything but and is actually designed merely to remove the appearance of conflicts of interest, while still letting Scott and his wife, Ann, make investment decisions that intersect with public policies the governor is influencing. As a result, Scott’s public actions have presented him with many opportunities for personal enrichment.
A first-time candidate in 2010, Scott was a wealthy businessman who once led a hospital company that was caught orchestrating the largest Medicare fraud in U.S. history and got slammed with a record $1.7 billion in penalties. However, Scott repeatedly took the Fifth Amendment and walked away without any punishment—but with a $10 million severance package and stock options worth up to $300 million.
Scott immediately faced questions about his finances after his election as governor, so he formed what he called a "blind" trust with $74 million in assets in March of 2011. But the Times reports that Scott skirted this setup by transferring millions in assets to his wife, and then failed to disclose them, only divulging them when compelled by Senate ethics rules as a federal candidate. Ann Scott reportedly managed investment accounts that may have exceeded the value of the governor’s, and their equity portfolios were similar, giving Rick Scott a way to essentially see the impact on his "blind" trust.
And the conflicts of interest are plenty. Shortly after winning the governorship in 2010, Scott mandated drug testing for state workers and urged the legislature to require it for welfare recipients, and he also pushed the state’s Medicaid system to pivot toward what’s known as "managed care." All of these moves provided a business opportunity for the chain of 32 clinics the Scotts had a stake in, but as his ownership stake became a growing liability, he soon sold his shares. Scott also held investments in a drug company earning millions from Medicaid, and even a natural gas pipeline whose review he expedited.
Republican lawmakers in the state capital were only too happy to shield Scott from scrutiny. In 2013, they passed a law that "made the mere existence of a blind trust an absolute defense against charges of conflicts of interest," and the model they followed precisely mirrored Scott’s sham setup. The state’s own ethics code bans officials from owning stakes in companies that Florida regulates or does business with, but after this new law took effect, the state’s ethics commission rubber-stamped Scott’s trust.
And boy, has it ever done well. Between Scott’s ascension to the governorship in 2011 and his last available report in 2017, Scott’s faux blind trust tripled in value, all the way to $215 million. And that’s not even counting his wife’s assets: Together, the Scotts have net worth between $254 million and $510 million. That enormous wealth has had electoral consequences, too, as Scott spent $83 million of his own fortune on his two razor-thin gubernatorial victories. And this year, he’s pumped a monster $39 million into his Senate race as of the end of September, roughly three times the amount he has raised from donors.
Throughout his entire race against Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson, Scott has attempted to portray the incumbent as a career politician who is only in it for himself, even though Nelson’s wealth is orders of magnitude smaller. But as this latest report indicates, it’s a classic act of Rovian projection, since it’s actually Scott who’s repeatedly used public office to enrich himself by countless millions.
Meanwhile, Scott has unveiled his first TV ad attempting to capitalize on recent Hurricane Michael, with the spot praising his leadership preparing Florida for the storm and its aftermath. Furthermore, it blasts Nelson over a recent VoteVets ad where a Navy veteran had called Scott unworthy of wearing his customary Navy cap because of how he failed to stand up for veterans; it elides the fact that Nelson himself didn’t make the attack, as a way of contending that the Democrat mocked Scott’s military service.
● NV-Sen: Democrat Jacky Rosen has debuted a response ad to a recent Senate Leadership Fund spot that fear-mongered over immigration and the gang MS-13. Rosen’s commercial calls the GOP’s attack "another spineless lie" and notes that Republican Sen. Dean Heller "voted against bipartisan immigration reform." The narrator says the truth is that Rosen was one of 11 Democrats to vote for the "criminal immigrant bill that made it easier for federal officials to detain and remove gang members," and the ad praises her for working across party lines.
● TX-Sen: After running an entirely positive campaign until now, Democrat Beto O’Rourke is going up with his first negative TV ads against Republican Sen. Ted Cruz. Sitting in a simple setting, O’Rourke speaks directly to the camera in his first ad and calls out Cruz for being "the only senator to vote against moving forward" with a bipartisan conversation on immigration reform, noting that the incumbent "vowed to deport every DREAMer" and is "selling paranoia and fear" instead of solutions.
The second spot is similarly shot and features O’Rourke excoriating Cruz for trying to repeatedly roll back protections for pre-existing conditions and take away health care for millions. O’Rourke blasts Cruz for having "shut down the government for 16 days because he thought too many people had health care," and he closes by calling for expanding Medicaid and ensuring there is universal health coverage.
The final ad also has very modest production values and showcases O’Rourke assertively speaking straight to the camera to berate Cruz for wanting to take tax dollars out of public schools and turn them into vouchers at a time when "nearly half of the school teachers in Texas are working a second job just to make ends meet." O’Rourke blasts Cruz for being "the deciding vote in putting Betsy DeVos in charge of our children’s public education,” and he calls for paying teachers a living wage with a dignified retirement, and letting them "teach to the child," not to the test.
● Polls:
- CA-Sen: 1st Tuesday Campaigns: Dianne Feinstein (D-inc): 43, Kevin de Leon (D): 30
- CA-Sen: SurveyUSA for local media: Feinstein (D-inc): 40, de Leon (D): 26 (June: 46-24 Feinstein)
- FL-Sen: St. Pete Polls for Florida Politics: Rick Scott (R): 49, Bill Nelson (D-inc): 47 (Sept.: 47-47 tie)
- NJ-Sen: Quinnipiac: Bob Menendez (D-inc): 51, Bob Hugin (R): 44 (Early Oct.: 53-42 Menendez)
- TN-Sen: Ipsos for Reuters and the University of Virginia: Marsha Blackburn (R): 47, Phil Bredesen (D): 44
This is the first poll we’ve seen from Florida since Hurricane Michael hit the Panhandle last week. Florida Politics says that "respondents in portions of the Panhandle, specifically the Panama City media market, where Michael delivered his lethal blow, are under-sampled," and that "a slight plurality of these voters typically supports Republican candidates."
Ipsos’ survey finds far better results for Bredesen than other recent independent polls, though it still has him trailing.
Gubernatorial
● AK-Gov: On Tuesday, Democratic Lt. Gov. Byron Mallott abruptly resigned from office over what he called "inappropriate comments," and he also left independent Gov. Bill Walker’s ticket. Health and Social Services Commissioner Valerie Nurr’araaluk Davidson, who is not registered with any party, was quickly sworn in as lieutenant governor and became Walker’s new running mate, though Mallot’s name will remain on the ballot. As of Wednesday afternoon it’s not at all clear what Mallot said; Walker said he learned of an unspecified incident on Monday, but declined to say more.
● CT-Gov: The Connecticut Mirror reports that the RGA-affiliated group Chance PAC is spending $300,000 on TV ads this week, and will spend an average of $430,000 in the final two weeks of the race. Democrat Ned Lamont held a huge $5.5 million to $748,000 cash-on-hand edge over Republican Bob Stefanowski at the end of September, and Stefanowski is counting on Chance PAC’s help to avoid getting utterly swamped on TV.
Chance PAC’s newest commercial tries to tie Lamont to unpopular departing Gov. Dan Malloy and argues Lamont would just double down on his agenda. Meanwhile, independent Oz Griebel has a very small TV buy.
● NM-Gov: The New Mexico Political Report’s Matthew Reichbach reports that the RGA is spending $339,000 on a TV buy in support of Republican Steve Pearce. Polls have consistently shown Pearce trailing Democrat Michelle Lujan Grisham, but we haven’t seen any surveys in October.
The RGA’s spot echoes Pearce’s commercials and argues that Lujan Grisham’s company "got a lucrative state contract," which it characterizes as, "A contract that paid millions, profiting from seriously ill patients." The narrator then declares that she "understated her full payout" and "cashed in while seriously ill patients paid more for their health insurance."
As we’ve written before, Delta Consulting, which Lujan Grisham co-founded with state Rep. Deborah Armstrong, was paid $2 million to run the state’s high-risk pool from 2014 to 2017; Lujan Grisham divested her interest in the company last June, and it’s still run by Armstrong, who is also her former campaign treasurer.
While the GOP has argued that it was wrong for politicians to receive this lucrative state contract, the Albuquerque Journal wrote that state law allows elected officials and state legislators to contract with the state government as long as there is a competitive bidding process and the elected officials publicly disclose their interests, and that Lujan Grisham and Armstrong appear to have met both conditions.
● OH-Gov: Republican Mike DeWine’s campaign is out with two ads that make the extremely dubious argument that Democrat Richard Cordray was to blame for the state’s bad economic situation during the Great Recession, when Cordray was … state treasurer and later state attorney general. DeWine, who now holds that office, should know better than anyone how little that argument makes sense, but unfortunately, this kind of strategy has worked for the GOP in Ohio before.
During the 2016 Senate race, Republicans aired commercial after commercial against former Gov. Ted Strickland, reminding the audience of all the economic problems that Ohio went through during his governorship (with a few massive exaggerations thrown in). Those commercials didn’t bother to mention that he was in charge during the height of the Great Recession, when the problems with the global economy were out of the hands of any governor (much less any state treasurer or state attorney general).
But as flimsy as the premise was, the ads had their intended effect, and Strickland ended up losing in a landslide; the GOP is betting he’s still toxic. These new ads feature images of Strickland and Cordray together and characterize the Great Recession as the "Strickland-Cordray era." And as the Columbus Dispatch points out, the spots don’t even accurately describe what happened in 2010. They also assert, without any evidence, that Cordray will raise taxes, when the Democrat has really pledged not to do so.
● OR-Gov: Democratic Gov. Kate Brown’s new spot argues that the state needs a leader who will stand up to Donald Trump, but that Republican Knute Buehler is very much not that person. The narrator declares that Buehler, who has marketed himself as a pro-choice Republican, "wants to restrict access to abortion" and wants to shortchange public schools.
The commercial also asserts that Buehler "cheered Trump’s pardon of the arsonist ranchers who sparked the Malheur standoff." That’s a reference to Trump’s July decision to pardon Dwight and Steven Hammond, who were convicted of arson on federal lands in 2015 and each sentenced to five years in prison. The next year, a band of armed militants seized control of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon and said they were trying to bring attention to the Hammonds, though the brothers distanced themselves from their cause.
Trump pardoned the Hammonds in July, and Buehler tweeted, "Justice has been served for Dwight and Steven Hammond. They were treated unfairly and a pardon is the appropriate remedy. They are good people, not terrorists."
● Polls:
- AK-Gov: Alaska Survey Research (D) for "consortium of varied interests": Mike Dunleavy (R): 43, Bill Walker (i-inc): 27, Mark Begich (D): 26 (Early Oct.: Dunleavy 47, Walker 27, Begich 23)
- CO-Gov: Magellan Strategies (R): Jared Polis (D): 47, Walker Stapleton (R): 40
- FL-Gov: St. Pete Polls for Florida Politics: Andrew Gillum (D): 47, Ron DeSantis (R): 46 (Sept.: 47-45 Gillum)
- GA-Gov: Ipsos for Reuters and the University of Virginia: Brian Kemp (R): 47, Stacey Abrams (D): 46, Other: 4
Magellan says this poll was "fielded and paid for by several clients of Magellan Strategies," and they "are not working for or with any candidates for governor or independent expenditure committees with an interest in the Colorado election for governor." In September, Magellan and the Democratic firm Keating Research did a joint poll for the nonpartisan healthcare advocacy group Healthier Colorado that gave Polis an identical 47-40 lead.
This is the fourth poll from Georgia taken in October to give Kemp a 1- or 2-point lead; the Democratic firm Public Policy Polling showed a 46-46 tie. If no one takes a majority, this will go to a Dec. 4 runoff.
House
● AR-02: The Republican-aligned America First Action is making a foray into Arkansas’ 2nd District with a $400,000 ad buy to help Republican Rep. French Hill. Politico reports that Republicans have "a smidge of concern" about the district but still think it’s out of reach for Democrat Clarke Tucker.
● CA-10: The NRCC has added $800,000 to aid Republican Rep. Jeff Denham after his Democratic foe Josh Harder demolished him in third-quarter fundraising by a staggering $3.5 million to $642,000. However, Denham still had a $1.9 million to $1.5 million advantage in cash on hand, and the Congressional Leadership has a total reservation here of $3.3 million to help defend him.
● CA-22: American Values PAC has made an $81,000 ad buy to oppose Republican Rep. Devin Nunes.
● FL-26: Democrat Debbie Mucarsel-Powell’s newest TV ad finds the candidate recounting that her father was murdered "by a criminal with a gun" when she was just 24, holding the last picture she took with him throughout the commercial. Mucarsel-Powell promises to stand up to the NRA "because no one should have to say goodbye to a loved one with a photo."
Meanwhile, the Congressional Leadership Fund’s latest ad tries to "other" her in this heavily Latino district by calling her only the Anglicized name of "Debbie Powell," arguing she "doesn’t share our values," and recycling dubious attacks over her husband’s business interests. Of course, this tactic is truly odious, because Mucarsel-Powell is actually an immigrant from Ecuador and thus unquestionably Latina.
● IA-01: Republican Rep. Rod Blum may have received welcome news earlier this week when national Republicans finally made ad buys on his behalf, but he’s still campaigning like he’s desperate, judging by his new TV ad against Democrat Abby Finkenauer. The spot goes full-on Ed Gillespie and uses images of heavily tattooed Latino men in El Salvador to argue Finkenauer wanted to "put criminal illegal aliens back on Iowa streets."
The ad also has the chutzpah to accuse Finkenauer of wanting to "end Medicare as we know it," when she favors expanding it and Blum’s party leadership is talking of cutting it. Finally, it hits Finkenauer for supporting "late-term abortions" and "selling fetal body parts."
● IA-04: The group American Values PAC is out with an $81,000 TV and radio buy against GOP Rep. Steve King. Their TV spot begins by calling King out for "flying around Europe, meeting neo-Nazis and giving them access in Washington." The narrator then declares that King's fellow Republicans don't even trust him, and that he was excluded from the Farm Bill negotiations.
However, after also hitting King on the trade war that is costing Iowa billions, the commercial declares that King's "blind support for the president let it happen." Calling King out for his neo-Nazi ties and for being bad on local issues may be a good strategy for winning over voters in a conservative seat that Trump carried with 61 percent of the vote, but calling him a Trump supporter seems very counterproductive here.
● MI-06: Advertising Analytics reports that the DCCC has booked $136,000 in airtime for the week of Oct. 23. This is the first time that national Democrats have reserved TV time in the race against GOP Rep. Fred Upton, though the Conservative Leadership Fund set aside $400,000 to help him in September. A recent DCCC poll gave Upton, who has represented the Kalamazoo area since 1987, a 49-46 lead over Democrat Matt Longjohn.
● NE-02: The Democratic group House Majority PAC recently announced that it was pulling its ad reservations for Nebraska’s 2nd and directing them towards Iowa’s 3rd, which looks more winnable. National Journal says this amounts to $228,000 in ad money, and that there are now no national Democratic groups advertising in the Nebraska contest.
● NY-19: The conservative Congressional Leadership Fund has found a different way to launch racist attacks on black Democrat Antonio Delgado. Its new TV ad for once doesn’t mention his prior career as a hip-hop artist, but instead insists he wants to "change Medicare into a $32 trillion welfare program," "opposes tougher work requirements for able-bodied adults on food stamps," and wants to protect "New York City’s $3 billion handout."
● NY-22: On Wednesday, former GOP Rep. Richard Hanna endorsed Democrat Anthony Brindisi over Republican Claudia Tenney. The move isn’t a big surprise, since Hanna contributed $1,000 to Brindisi last year and endorsed Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump in 2016. There’s also little love lost between Hanna and Tenney, who unsuccessfully tried to unseat him in the 2014 primary.
● NY-24: Republican Rep. John Katko’s new spot stars John Walsh, the longtime host of "America’s Most Wanted." Walsh tells the audience that he’s "walked the halls of Congress since my 6-year-old son Adam was murdered in 1981, and I’ve never seen it this dysfunctional," but that Katko is different. Walsh declares that Katko "will work with anyone to make our community better."
● SC-01: The environmental group 314 Action Fund has launched a $125,000 buy against Republican Katie Arrington.
● VA-02: While GOP Rep. Scott Taylor insisted back in August that when it came to his petition-gathering scandal, "if anyone in my campaign did anything that was wrong" or illegal "I would fire them in a second," new campaign finance reports reveal he continued to pay four staffers accused of forging signatures to get independent Shaun Brown on the ballot. Roll Call reports that Taylor paid out "payroll" and "campaign consulting" fees to them as recently as Sept. 12.
● WI-01: The Congressional Leadership Fund recently launched a spot characterizing Democrat Randy Bryce as a "deadbeat dad," and the Bryce campaign has published a letter from his ex-wife defending him and taking umbrage at the GOP’s attacks. Faye Boudreaux wrote that "D.C. politicians are putting our family’s personal business all over the news and television, right where our son can see it," and that, "In the 12 years that Randy and I have been blessed with our son, we have always worked together to put him first."
● WV-03: VoteVets is up with an ad as part of its $450,000 ad campaign for Democrat Richard Ojeda that argues that Republican Carol Miller is in the pocket of the drug companies causing the opioid crisis.
The commercial features a local Iraq veteran named Nick Ganser telling the audience he was injured in an explosion and "for my pain, they gave me a Purple Heart and a bottle of Oxycontin. I was hooked." Ganser declares that Miller "profited off my addiction. Her family owns tens of thousands in drug company stock, and she’s taken thousands from drug companies flooding West Virginia with pills." Ganser concludes that he "served, and now I’m fighting a new war. Carol Miller’s just serving herself." Ojeda has run similar spots against Miller.
● Polls:
Michigan’s 2nd, which includes Holland, Muskegon, and part of the Grand Rapids area, backed Mitt Romney and Donald Trump 56-43 and 56-38, respectively, and we rate it as Safe Republican. However, physician Rob Davidson has raised a credible amount of money, and GOP Rep. Bill Huizenga had only a small $655,000 to $601,000 cash-on-hand lead at the end of September.
Both memos for Michigan’s 11th reference previously unreleased polls. The Stevens poll memo says that she went from a 44-36 lead in mid-August down to a 42-37 edge on Oct. 4, before she moved to 44-34 in this new survey. The Harper poll says that Stevens had a 34-29 lead in August and is down to a 36-35 edge now. We don’t have the exact sample sizes and field dates for any of those earlier surveys. An independent Siena poll from the first week of October gave Stevens a 45-38 lead.
The DCCC released its poll of Pennsylvania’s 16th about a week after Siena’s survey gave Kelly a larger 50-42 lead.
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