House Triage: We have some reports of the DCCC and House Majority PAC reservation changes in several seats. Unfortunately for Team Blue, it looks like Democrats are scaling back its reservations in a few tough districts in Minnesota, Florida, and Nebraska.
MN-08, MN-01, MN-02: The situation in Minnesota’s 8th is the most disappointing. According to journalist Sam Brodey, the NRCC blasted out an AdvertisingAnalytics email on Tuesday saying that the DCCC had canceled $1.2 million in buys they'd planned to use to defend the 8th and would instead redirect their money to the 1st (another open Democratic seat) and against GOP Rep. Jason Lewis in the 2nd.
The sum could actually be a bit lower, though: The Duluth News Tribune wrote later that same day that the NRCC had "forwarded to media members television scheduling information on Tuesday that seemed to show" the DCCC "moving more than $800,000 in advertising spending away from the 8th District and into Minnesota Districts 1 and 2."
Whatever the number is, the DCCC didn't deny the reports that they’re taking money out of the 8th. A recent Siena poll gave Republican Pete Stauber a hefty 49-34 lead over Democrat Radinovich, and while that margin might have been a bit optimistic for the GOP, this doesn't look like a move Team Blue is making this move out of a position of strength.
Daily Kos Elections had rated all three of these Minnesota seats as Tossups, but in light of these latest developments, we’re moving the 8th District to Lean Republican, making this the first Democratic-held seat we think Republicans are favored to pick up in November. That said, there are very few other districts like this: Only a dozen Democrats sit in seats that Donald Trump won, and only one other open seat (as it happens, Minnesota’s 1st) is comparably red. This fate, therefore, is unlikely to befall many other Democratic districts.
FL-16, FL-15: In Florida, Medium Buying reports that the DCCC has canceled TV time it had booked in the Tampa media market for the final week of the campaign. All of GOP Rep. Vern Buchanan's 16th District and close to 90 percent of the open 15th District are located in the Tampa market.
It's not clear exactly how much advertising was cut for either seat, but it appears the bulk of the cuts were in the 15th. AdvertisingAnalytics tweeted on Monday afternoon that they'd seen $816,000 cut from the 15th so far, while the campaign of 16th District Democratic nominee David Shapiro had said just before the cancelations that the DCCC had $114,000 in planned buys there. However, since we're working with such disparate information, it's hard to know exactly what the DCCC is deducting from each seat; it's also possible the cancelations are coming from a reservation they had yet to allocate to either district.
Whatever the case, the move signals a lack of confidence in flipping either district. In recent polls, both Buchanan in the 16th and Republican Ross Spano in the 15th have led. Both, however, were always reaches: Daily Kos Elections rates both seats “Likely Republican.”
NE-02: Finally, House Majority PAC told Roll Call Tuesday that they were pulling their ad reservations for Nebraska's 2nd and directing them towards Iowa's 3rd, which looks more winnable. (Though a state line separate them, both seats are in the Omaha media market.)
In Nebraska's 2nd, a late September Siena poll gave Republican Rep. Don Bacon a 51-42 lead over Democrat Kara Eastman, while Bacon's own poll also showed him up by 9; Eastman responded with a poll that gave Bacon a smaller 49-45 edge. Iowa's 3rd, by contrast, has looked like a competitive fight between GOP Rep. David Young and Democrat Cindy Axne for a long time. We rate Nebraska's 2nd as Lean Republican and Iowa's 3rd a Tossup.