When I read Dave Wasserman and Nate Cohn on twitter, there’s a constant message that there are districts no one is paying attention to that could be pick-ups for Democrats. A lot of these don’t have much money being spent on them. Readers have been asking me to raise some money in such races. So I’m doing one last fundraiser. I’m starting with five candidates suggested by reader KVP — they’re all from Florida, which I like cos it’s swinging Democrat this year and some candidates here are very low in terms of cash on hand. I’ll add anyone to this list that you want as long as that candidate hasn’t been on a previous fundraiser. I’m looking especially for low cash-on-hand candidates that could use the money. We’ve spent on 87 races so far, but the playing field is probably a lot larger than that, so this seems like a good idea to me.
By the way, it’s not that these longshots will only come in if Dems run the table elsewhere. A longshot could come in that swings control of the House. This is an unpredictable environment.
Yutsano
I know RAAAAHM!!! but this article he wrote for The Atlantic is giving me hope. And yeah, buck it all: I think if we get a good enough GOTV we’ll get the damn Senate. No one knows what’s going to happen in seven days.
And my birthday present to myself today is I’m going to vote this evening and drop off my ballot on my way home from work.
Doug!
@Yutsano:
He is bad though. The Greenwaldians are right about that.
Big R
Don’t know if you’re taking Senate candidates, but David Baria in Mississippi is doing everything right. He’s running as a proud Democrat, he’s pro-choice, pro-ACA (and pro-single-payer), pro-labor, pro-BLM, etc., etc., etc. He’s spent the last six months barnstorming all over the state. Not O’Rourke level barnstorming on either the size or the number of visits, but he’s hit every population center and a lot of rural communities as well. And there’s a barnburner of a special Senate election to drive AA turnout (with Mike Espy on the ballot) on the same ballot.
Espy’s a good shot; I don’t think he needs more money. Baria’s a long shot who can take the seat if everything breaks, which is how I understand this round of fundraging.
Doug!
@Big R:
I was thinking just house but maybe I’ll add in Baria.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Yutsano: Sounds like a great b-day present, happy b-day.
beth
Joe Cunningham here in SC-1 just got the Post and Courier’s endorsement – something they don’t give to Democrats very often and polls are showing him tied with the Palin-esque Trumpette who beat Mark Sanford. She’s run an extremely nasty campaign. He’s a pretty long shot and he’s a moderate Dem who refuses to support Nancy Pelosi but you take whatever hope you can get in a red state.
Doug!
@beth:
Oh, yeah I saw that pic of him eating at Magnolia’s. I’ll add him later.
Doug!
@beth:
Added him.
schrodingers_cat
Are we writing postcards or raising funds for the Indo-American carpet bagger, Kulkarni. His district is now R lean from solid R
donnah
Watching MSNBC and their coverage on the ground in Houston is interviewing Latinos. They’re saying that candidates and canvassers are not contacting them. Several of the members of the community said they felt disenfranchised and left out of the campaign process for midterms. One man acknowledged that he had received pamphlets from Democrats, but no action door-to-door.
I hope someone in the Democratic Party hears this and sends some boots on the ground to that area. We cannot assume that Latinos will vote because of immigration. They care about health care and jobs and issues locally like funding for hurricane relief. They deserve attention and their votes are important.
Dev Null
dKos diarist here notes a 400% match for Heitkamp.
And I dunno if Scholten (running against Steve King) and Janet Garrett (Jim Jordan) were in your previous ActBlue fundraisers – I contributed but didn’t check the beneficiaries, but thinking perhaps Scholten (R+6) and Garrett (R+14) could use the bucks … . Steve King just got denounced by Steve Stivers, head of the GOP congressional campaign group, which could be a shot in the arm for Scholten.
What’s your take on contributing directly to Janz (Nunes) (R+10.5), McMurray (Collins) (R+4) and Campa-Najjar (Hunter) (R+6.5)?
Any of those 5 Dems underfunded? I’ll contribute directly if so.
I contributed directly to Lucy Macbath (Handel) this weekend, I think she’s 4.5 in the hole.
Raoul
I’ve gone in fairly big with the Data for Progress program. They’ve been looking for state legislative races that could be significantly assisted by modest money bumps. I mean, what Heitkamp or Booker can raise in one cocktail party could quite possibly swing a whole state house or senate blue. And with voting systems needing major security updates, and redistricting coming in a matter of a few years, we’ve gotta build the apparatus to fund (and volunteer for!) state legislatures. The GOP figured this out a couple decades ago.
dataforprogress.org/blog
eta: maybe Heitkamp is worth fundraisng for even at the last minute. I honestly don’t know. She hauled in a ton after Kav, but maybe her burn rate is insane – she’s in a very hard spot.
Doug!
@Dev Null:
We got all or nearly all of those that you mention.
Doug!
@Raoul:
Thanks
Doug!
@schrodingers_cat:
I’ll add him
Dev Null
Looks like Heitkamp has all the $ she needs:
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/heitkamp-shares-wealth-2-7-million
Where do you get funding numbers, FEC?
Doug!
Added Kulkarni
beth
@Doug!: Thanks. Win or lose, he’s run an impressive campaign and is a young Dem to keep an eye on.
Turgidson
Audrey Denney – CA-01.
No one is polling this one, it’s in mostly rural Northern California up by the Oregon border. Doug LaMalfa is her Trump lickspittle opponent. There seems to be a lot more enthusiasm for her than Dems tend to get. Could be one of the under the radar surprises.
Yutsano
@Big R: @Doug!: I saw him when Morning Joe was down there. Since they have two seats open grabbing one was always in the realm of possibility especially if we can get both to the runoffs. Mississippi allows run offs if no one gets to 50% outright, which is what both Espy and Baria are aiming for. And yes Baria was all about issues like healthcare and getting Mississippi better representation of their full population. He nt, I impressed me except some asshole keeps shrugging it off because Mississippi is permanent red. In this environment. I’m assuming nothing.
realbtl
I think the Rs are scared here in MT. They are running “Be sure and vote” ads with Trump, the punchable Fox guy Hannity? and a couple of Fox Anchor babes (sorry can’t call them journalists). Never seen that in 18 years here.
Immanentize
@Doug!: Supporting Bartee is risky!!! The Mississippi race is a “Non-Partisan” race where there are two republicans holding about 30% and Espy about thirty percent. Bartee is pretty much no where. To move to the late November run-off (if no one gets 50%) Espy has to beat one of the two republicans which is barely doable. If Bartee starts taking more votes, they will not come from the republicans, but from ESPY! Meaning likelihood would then be a two-republican run off.
Please consider NOT adding Bartee. Please!!
ETA spelling.
ETATA I don’t know who Dave Baria is in the Mississippi race?? But please do not fund anyone against Espy. Love, Imm.
Big R
@Yutsano: Worth noting there’s only two candidates in Baria’s race, so there’s no runoff. But yes, Espy’s explicitly running for second, which at this point looks like a mistake (Hyde-Smith is probably unbeatable in a head-to-head, and McDaniel has turned into a pumpkin).
Big R
@Immanentize: Hi, there are two Senate races in Mississippi this year.
Mike Espy is running in the special election for Thad Cochran’s seat, which is, as you note, a “jungle primary” with a top-two runoff.
David Baria is running against Roger Wicker in the other election.
Five minutes of Googling would have told you this.
Turgidson
@Immanentize:
Bizarrely there are two senate races in Mississippi this November. Baria is running against incumbent Roger Wicker. That race isn’t getting any attention because everyone assumes Wicker will cruise to a win. Which is likely, but this year, with Espy also on the ballot in the other race, it could be more interesting than people expect.
Immanentize
@Big R: @Turgidson:
Ah yes, Cochran’s retirement. Sorry, I thought it was the Dem running g against Espy.
Nevermind… /s RRD
John Revolta
There’s a race in Nebraska worth mentioning. Retired AF General and Trump bootlicker Don Bacon is being challenged by a woman named Kara Eastman
in Nebraska’s 2nd Cong District (Omaha) which has often gone Dem in the past.
Dev Null
@Immanentize: You’ve probably seen it, and others have no doubt mentioned it already, but 538 has a cool tool for looking at the latest polling in individual House districts:
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2018-midterm-election-forecast/house/california/1/
This for CA-01, needless to say. Type the district or candidate name into the search box at the upper left, and bingo, the state of the race.
I assume it’s the same for the Senate, but haven’t looked.
OTOH I found their House map almost unusable: it changes color tones as I mouse over the map, so I have to pull the mouse entirely off the map to get a sense of district leaning. Nor do they delineate states, which is more of a hindrance than you’d guess.
vpap.org has a neat UI for candidates – I found it much more convenient than the FEC database – but it’s only for VA … I haven’t found affiliates in other states … but didn’t spend much time looking.
Samuel Ward
Kendra Horn, Oklahoma 5. I don’t know if she has been on a previous list, but
this district (Oklahoma City) has begun to show purpleish in some local elections.
I think this one is under everyone’s radar.
Dev Null
@Dev Null: To respond to my own question about Steve King, Eric Levitz at NYMag quotes The Hill to say that Change Research, a Dem polling org, finds King leading Scholten by only 1 point.
But David Wasserman says that Scholten had 10x cash-in-hand in mid-October, so Scholten doesn’t need help as much as other reps.
WaterGirl
@donnah:
Someone who tweets, which is not me, should tweet that to Beto’s twitter feed.
Radiumgirl
Got off my butt and donated. Now I’m going to an event to text for candidates. Signed up to canvass in Pa on the weekend. If everyone does just a little bit — it’ll make a huge difference.
Dev Null
DougJ, quick question (which you’ve probably answered multiple times, sorry…)
ActBlue disburses the $ as they come in, correct? If you add a candidate, that candidate gets disbursals from subsequent donations, right?
TIA …
KVP
Thanks for your generosity, folks. The Democratic candidates on Doug’s list from FL are all really qualified — exactly the kind of people I’d want representing me. Nancy Soderberg, for example, is an Obama Admin alum. I sure hope we can get some or all of them across the finish line.
Re: state races — the Dems who are running in Central & N. FL are also highly qualified and just good, decent people. And the Dems worked hard to leave few, if any, races unopposed this year. Since the statehouse has been in Rep control for 20 years, it’s about time we flipped it. I didn’t have the heart…or the nerve…to ask for $$$ for those races though, since I’ve already begged Doug several times for help with the Congressional races.
? ? ? ? ?
Marcopolo
@Turgidson: I second, third, fourth, and fifth this. I gave a donation to Audrey a long long time ago (June 30) and another donation at the 3Q deadline (because she sent a lovely thank you postcard for the first donation). I think the original contribution was because of someone here at BJ suggesting her. Then I went to her campaign website, watched a couple of her vids & gave. She is one of the few House races I gave to that appeared to have little or no chance of winning but look where we are now–there are serious race watchers saying lightning could strike in northern CA.
Anyways, that’s my 2 cents.
Despite my apprehension about what will happen on election night I will have lots of races to watch. I just checked my donation list and apparently I have given at least $25 to 37 (I know it is insane) House candidates. And maybe only 3-5 of them are the candidates that the race watchers have placed firmly as D wins.
Dev Null
@Marcopolo: Less than but close to that amount. Spread the love, jackals …
Doug!
@Dev Null:
Yes that’s right.