2020 Generic Ballot / Recruitment / Fundraising / Ratings Megathread v2

[Storr]

Peterson only got $23K from individuals this quarter compared to Fischbach who got $81K in donations from individuals.

https://twitter.com/allymutnick/status/1184234312083873792

Peterson is probably doomed at this point. He should retire, to avoid an embarrassing defeat.

If I were in his position I'd retire, unless he has promises of money from the DCCC or somewhere else.

[Storr]

Rep. Elise Stefanik’s PAC devoted to electing Republican women to the House has made its first set of endorsements-

https://mobile.twitter.com/ElizLanders/status/1186614776962732032

Why are they endorsing Karen Handel? She is a persistent underperformer, and is controversial.

Well, there aren't that many Republican women running for Congress to choose from.

[Storr]

https://www.sltrib.com/news/politics/2019/11/06/former-nfl-player-burgess/

NFL Legend Burgess Owens is running to beat Rep. Ben McAdams in the Salt Lake Burbs

"He is also the author of the books “Liberalism or How to Turn Good Men into Whiners, Weenies and Wimps" and “Why I Stand: From Freedom to the Killing Fields of Socialism” and is a frequent Fox News commentator."

Oh, okay....

[Storr]

Now that the NC map appears somewhat final, Dems have begun to scope out the new safe seats. Deborah Ross, former Wake state legislator and 2016 Senate candidate has entered NC02. Kathy Manning who ran a competitive campaign for NC13 in 2018 has filed for the new NC06.

Hopefully a solid Democratic candidate emerges for NC-8, as it's the most competitive (53.2% Trump, 44.1% Clinton in 2016) of the 8 Republican seats in the new map.

[Storr]

Mark Walker update:

https://twitter.com/kirk_bado/status/1202604632293421056

Running for the senate would be a bad, bad idea.

He lives in the new Democratic 6th District, so that may be some of his logic? I'm not sure how much voters in the new 13th (many who are currently represented by Walker) would actually care, though.

[Storr]

The NRCC is on twitter right now writing press releases against Wexton in VA-10.




How are we this stupid? How?

I feel with her district it's simply that a lot of big donor party insider types live there. The party kept spending tons of cash in VA-10 last year despite it being an obvious triage.

[Storr]

CA-50 primary poll shows Campa-Najjar with 31%, Issa with 21%, and DeMaio with 15%

https://twitter.com/Politics_Polls/status/1232567753405583361?s=20

This poll tells us two things: that Campa-Najjar will be the Democratic nominee again, and that Issa is almost certain to be the Republican nominee at this point. Now that Hunter is out of office and off to prison, this seat is no longer in jeopardy, and is therefore Safe R.

I really, really don't want Issa back in Congress. I understand someone like Pete Sessions running again (though moving to a different solidly conservative district is still slimy imo) because he lost reelection. But why did Issa "retire" just to run (and likely will win) two years after retiring? That doesn't strike me as a time frame where he reasonably could claim that he focused on his family, took time away from the pressure cooker of DC, or something similar and is now ready to return to public life. I get that Hunter being convicted and resigning is a special circumstance which gives Issa an opportunity in a solidly conservative district. But, running again so soon says to me he only "retired" because he could see his district was rapidly shifting towards the Democrats (winning by <1% in 2016 with it going 50.7% Clinton to 43.2% Trump) and he didn't want to have the "stain" of losing his seat.

[Storr]

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/06/gop-candidates-posts-demeaned-muslims-and-mocked-parkland-shooting-survivor-241429
To show just how bad the house GOP has been this cycle, CA 10th was the median seat in 2018.

LOL. The guy claims he was hacked, but the posts were deleted/hidden from public view on the day he launched his 2018 House Campaign in March of that year. What a joke.

At least the attack ads write themselves in a 40% Hispanic district:
“We dream of returning them to Mexico where their actual families & homes are!” Howze wrote, with the hashtag #DeportThemAll.

[Storr]

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/11/pelosi-super-pac-fall-ad-buys-248431

The House Majority PAC (D, Pelosi-aligned) is adding a second round of ad buys this fall (their first round of spending can be viewed here). This is the breakdown by market:

Spending Breakdown by Market:
Los Angeles: $3.25 million
New York City: $3.1 million
Las Vegas: $1 million
Binghamton, N.Y: $930,000
Albuquerque, N.M.: $920,000
Salt Lake City: $900,000
Atlanta: $860,000
Detroit: $775,000
Syracuse, N.Y: $730,000
Oklahoma City: $725,000
Fresno, Calif.: $675,000
Charleston, S.C.: $630,000
Champaign, Ill.: $510,000
Savannah, Ga.: $480,000
Bakersfield, Calif.: $410,000
El Paso, Texas: $350,000
Utica, N.Y.: $310,000
Pittsburgh: $300,000
Miami: $250,000
Philadelphia: $200,000
Odessa, Texas: $200,000
St. Louis: $165,000
La Crosse, Wis.: $120,000
Lansing, Mich.: $115,000
Phoenix: $100,000
Portland, Maine: $70,000
Bangor, Maine: $50,000
Presque Isle, Maine: $17,000

Odessa, Texas? I suppose that's for TX-23.

[Storr]

Inside Elections made several rating changes this afternoon.

https://insideelections.com/ratings/house/2020-house-ratings-may-22-2020

Toward Democrats
NY-22 (Brindisi): Tossup > Tilt D
UT-04 (McAdams): Tossup > Tilt D
IL-14 (Underwood): Tilt D > Lean D
NJ-03 (Kim): Tilt D > Lean D
NV-03 (Lee): Lean D > Likely D
CA-10 (Harder): Likely D > Safe D
CA-45 (Porter): Likely D > Safe D
NY-19 (Delgado): Likely D > Safe D
TX-21 (Roy): Likely R > Lean R
MT-AL (OPEN, R): Safe R > Likely R

Toward Republicans
CA-25 (Garcia): Likely D > Tilt D
NC-09 (Bishop): Likely R > Safe R
OH-12 (Balderson): Likely R > Safe R
TX-02 (Crenshaw): Likely R > Safe R
TX-31 (Carter): Likely R > Safe R

Why is TX-02 safe R? Bad candidate and poor fundraising?

[Storr]

TX-31 and to an arguably lesser degree TX-2 are Safe R b/c we couldn’t recruit a credible candidate.  If Mike Collier ran in TX-2 and Hager ran in TX-31 then that would be a different conversation, but they didn’t and no one else stepped up to the plate.

I think you are overstating how much candidate quality makes a difference. As long as the Democrats have someone halfway competent then they should at least run close to Biden. Obviously these districts are not really prime targets in the way TX-24 and TX-22 are (and to TX-10 and TX-21 to an extent), but the direction they're headed in is clear. Putting them at Safe R might be going a bit far.

Absolutely 100%.



It is pretty incredible that I would only rate 13/36 federal house districts as Safe R in Texas. I will be completely honest, places like TX 25 and TX 6 are not flipping this time, but they are not Safe R. If this map was left in place indefinitely (it wont be) I would expect Democrats to have a 23-13 dem delegation by 2031. It would be a total dummymander (it already is sort of even now) Even places like TX 26 and TX 17 would shift out of the Safe R column (though I'd still give them to the GOP even then).

Another sleeper Texas seat is the 27th which is already majority Hispanic (40% non-Hispanic White).

[Storr]

Other Sanders endorsements today besides Charles Booker's:

Cori Bush (MO-1) - AOC hasn't supported her this time and Lacy Clay should win, but she is at least a serious challenger and he can't take the win for granted.
Samelys Lopez (NY-15) - HP move given how far behind she is and the risk of Diaz beating Torres, who is almost as progressive and even backed Sanders.
Jamaal Bowman (NY-16) - a sign of Engel continuing to lose control of his primary, I think.
Mondaire Jones (NY-17).
Mike Siegel (TX-10) - probably the frontrunner in his primary.

Romanoff has a lot of Colorado state legislature endorsements but the big name progressives out of state don't seem to care for him.

I doubt Bernie wants to piss off his likely future Senate colleague by endorsing his way behind in the polls primary opponent.

[Storr]

https://twitter.com/NilesGApol/status/1275964432372424704

The suburban whiplash is real.

Trends are real.

[Storr]

The rating changes in Texas are a sign of better things to come for Texas Democrats.

Yeah, that's what stands out to me too.

[Storr]

Inside Elections with a ton of rating changes:

https://mobile.twitter.com/JacobRubashkin/status/1291804033368432641

LOL @ FL-26 at tilt D. Even with Gillum crashing with Cubans he still won this district. If Biden is winning FL, he likely carries this by double digits. Game over

I'm 100% on board with NC-8 being competitive.

[Storr]

Final FL-19 poll (St. Pete’s Polls):

Donalds 23.4%
Askar 21.6%
Figlesthaler 16.4%
Eagle 15.5%
Henderson 10.7%

Other 12.3%

https://floridapolitics.com/archives/359381-final-poll-shows-byron-donalds-leading-casey-askar-surging

Also:

https://twitter.com/ByronDonalds/status/1295718050302500866?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoog...

Random, but I was browsing through Donalds' twitter and found a cool tribute to Herman Cain:
https://twitter.com/ByronDonalds/status/1288861884742012928?s=20

[Storr]

Mike Espy raises $700,000 since RBG's passing.

https://twitter.com/MikeEspyMS/status/1308112217074798600?s=20

I'm curious how much the more high profile democratic senate candidates have raised.

I appreciate that his campaign used the Confederate uniform Hyde Smith photo for that graphic.

[Storr]

Holy sh*t... $6 million for Cal in North Carolina in three days. Insane.

And $3 million in Alaska I can only assume is enough to buy all ad slots from now until election day.

[Storr]

There's no way. Even a top level grifter couldn't raise that much there.

There's no doubt most of it is from MAGA-stans that donated because of their hatred of Omar, as opposed to actual Lacy supporters that live in the district.

[Storr]

My God!

https://twitter.com/mkraju/status/1316748664837222400?s=20

Populism

[Storr]

https://twitter.com/JMilesColeman/status/1318410519569682432?s=20

Wow, I definitely consider changing Iowa to Lean D pretty darn bold. Of course, I'm not going to complain, but that's pretty surprising imo.

[Storr]

Burgess Owens illegally raised $135,500 from donors who had maxed out their contributions already.

lmao

[Storr]

isn't this pointing to a double digit pickup of seats?

Yes. ~15 sounds right to me.