Morning Digest: An independent is challenging a GOP congressman. He'd rather face a Democrat.

Why Republican Rep. Michael Baumgartner is airing ads to boost his preferred opponent

Washington Rep. Michael Baumgartner (credit: Michael Baumgartner Facebook)

Leading Off

WA-05

Republican Rep. Michael Baumgartner is trying to prevent an independent candidate, firefighter and Marine veteran Nate Powell, from advancing to the general election in Washington’s conservative 5th District by elevating one of the Democrats on next month’s primary ballot. Powell, though, has some deep-pocketed allies who are spending heavily to ensure that he gets to face the congressman in the fall.

Baumgartner is airing ads, first flagged by Inside Elections’ Jacob Rubashkin, that “attack” retired diplomat Carmela Conroy in terms designed to appeal to left-leaning voters. Conroy, the spot’s narrator says, “doesn’t fit our district” because she wants “higher taxes for the rich, and Obamacare for everyone.”

Conroy, who’s raised the most of any challenger in the race, ran against Baumgartner two years ago when the 5th District, based in the eastern part of the state, became open after Republican Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers said she’d retire. However, she got blown out by a 61-39 margin and ran well behind the top of the ticket. According to calculations by The Downballot, Donald Trump carried the district 54-43.

The very night she lost, she announced she’d run again, but she failed to deter a large crowd of other candidates from piling in. That included Powell, who kicked off an independent bid in January and started receiving some hefty outside support earlier this month, as CNN’s Patrick Svitek noted.

That help has come from two super PACs that were both stood up this cycle. One, Together for Working People, has spent a bit less than $200,000 on the race so far; it’s a project of a progressive advocacy group called Fuse Washington.

Fuse made a splash in 2022 when it helped Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Perez win the 3rd District at the other end of the state, and Together for Working People has spent $110,000 to aid her reelection campaign this year.

The other, Fire House PAC, was only launched in April and has already spent more than $600,000 on Powell’s behalf. Its origins are much more opaque, though. The group’s minimalist “about” page reveals no details, though it’s also endorsed three other firefighters, including two Democrats—Bob Brooks in Pennsylvania’s 7th and Sam Forstag in Montana’s 1st—and one independent, Mike Thurow in Wisconsin’s 6th.

However, Fire House’s main contributor is a dark-money nonprofit called Contours, Inc., which is also the top donor this cycle to the Working Class Heroes Fund, a super PAC started by Nebraska independent Dan Osborn after his unsuccessful Senate bid in 2024. (Osborn is running again this year.)

Fire House has been running TV and digital ads attacking Baumgartner and talking up Powell, but it’s also taken aim at Conroy by emphasizing her loss two years ago.

“Our country is hanging on by a thread,” begins the narrator in one spot. “If we want a check on Trump, we have to beat Michael Baumgartner and win the House. Carmella Conroy had her chance in 2024, and she lost—big time, by a whopping 20%. We can’t risk that again.”

The ad then praises Powell as “[t]he only candidate who will fight for Medicare for All, beat Baumgartner, and stop Trump.”

The congressman seems to agree with Powell’s take that he’d be the tougher opponent.

In addition to Baumgartner, Powell, and Conroy, another nine candidates—including five other Democrats and four more independents—are running in the Aug. 4 primary. All candidates will appear on a single ballot, with the top two vote-getters, regardless of party, moving on to the November general election.

---

The Downballot only exists because of our readers. We have no deep-pocketed corporate backers and no billionaire sugar daddies. That means we can always tell the truth without fear—something major media conglomerates increasingly refuse to do—because the only people we’re beholden to are you.

But it also means we need folks to sign up as paid subscribers so that we can become financially sustainable for the long term. If you’re able to support our work, we hope you’ll upgrade today.

---

The Downballot's first-ever live podcast!

Senate

ME-Sen

Former government official David Costello has ended his campaign for Senate, leaving just pharmaceutical executive Saundra Pelletier to challenge former state Senate President Troy Jackson at Saturday’s Democratic convention to pick a new nominee.

Jackson, though, is all but certain to prevail, as nearly all of the 500 delegates elected at local party meetings last weekend have expressed their support for his candidacy.

MT-Sen

Even though Montana Democrats remain divided over whether to support Democrat Alani Bankhead or independent Seth Bodnar in November’s Senate race, Republicans are already going after Bodnar on television.

A group called More Jobs, Less Government is running a new ad, first flagged by CNN’s Patrick Svitek, that attacks Bodnar over his tenure as president of the University of Montana. While he served in that role, 18 female employees sued the school, alleging sex discrimination. The university denied the allegations but ultimately settled for $350,000 in 2024.

Bodnar was not named as a defendant, but the plaintiffs accused him of wrongful conduct, which the ad highlights.

“The U.S. Senate. America’s good ol’ boys club. Seth Bodner would fit right in,” begins the narrator. “Eighteen women sued U of M accusing President Bodnar of running a good ol’ boys club. They said Bodner called one woman moody. Told her to smile more. Women paid less. Jobs handed to men. U of M settled to sweep it under the rug.”

“The Senate has enough good ol’ boys,” the spot concludes. “Don’t send Seth Bodnar.”

More Jobs, Less Government recently disclosed that it had spent more than $200,000 to run digital ads hitting Bodnar, though it’s not clear how much it’s spending on TV.

Before last month’s primary, the group sought to elevate a different Democrat, former state Rep. Reilly Neill, apparently in the belief that she’d be less likely to drop out than Bankhead. That gambit failed, but Bankhead has repeatedly rejected the idea that she might leave the race and has instead called on Bodnar to end his campaign.

Bodnar doesn’t seem likely to, either. Last week, he reported raising $1.8 million in the second quarter of the year and has almost $1 million on hand. During that same timeframe, Bankhead brought in just $41,000 and had $21,000 in her bank account. Republican Kurt Alme, meanwhile, raised $1 million and had almost $1.5 million left over.

Candidates in Montana have until Aug. 9 to remove their names from the general election ballot.

SC-Sen

Mark Sanford is back again—again. America’s most famous wayward hiker announced on Thursday that he’d run in the Aug. 11 special primary to pick a Republican Senate nominee to replace the late Lindsey Graham.

In March, Sanford, the former South Carolina governor who served two separate stints in Congress, decided to run for his old seat in the House once more. However, he dropped out just a month later and indicated he was done with politics forever—a decision that evidently didn’t stick.

While Sanford might prefer an amble along a gentle trail, he’ll instead endure a brief sprint to the primary, where he’ll be the underdog against several rivals who have more money and less baggage. Those contenders include appointed Sen. Darline Graham, the late senator’s sister, and Reps. Ralph Norman and Russell Fry. Would-be candidates have until Monday to file.

Senate Majority PAC

The Senate Majority PAC, which is the largest pro-Democratic super PAC involved in Senate races, announced an additional $54 million in fall TV reservations across four races where it had already booked ad time.

The new investments include:

• Alaska: $2 million, on top of a previous $10.6 million, for $12.6 million total

• Iowa: $17 million, on top of a previous $13.4 million, for $30.4 million total

• North Carolina: $11 million, on top of a previous $31.4 million, for $42.4 million total

• Ohio: $24 million, on top of a previous $40 million, for $64 million total

SMP has also previously announced reservations in Georgia ($20 million), New Hampshire ($10.2 million), Maine ($24 million), and Michigan ($20 million).

Governors

WI-Gov

Three Wisconsin Democrats are suing to allow absentee voters to request new ballots ahead of their volatile Aug. 11 primary for governor, which has seen multiple candidates drop out in recent weeks, and even one who quit and then returned to the race.

More than 90,000 mail ballots have already been returned, according to officials, meaning these voters may have cast votes for contenders who are no longer in the race. Under longstanding rules, they would have been allowed to “spoil” their ballots and receive a new one, but the Wisconsin Elections Commission voted earlier this month to issue new guidance to county clerks sharply limiting the practice.

In their lawsuit, which was filed in a state court in Dane County, plaintiffs object to the commission changing its guidance in the middle of an election. They ask that the court affirm the right of voters to spoil their ballots and bar the commission from saying otherwise.

House

MI-07

Activist William Lawrence, a cofounder of the Sunrise Movement, is on the receiving end of new ads slamming him over comments he made that the role played by older Black leaders in the Democratic Party “really defangs the white left.”

The new spots, which were first flagged by Punchbowl’s Ally Mutnick, come from the Rolling Sea Action Fund, a super PAC launched by the Congressional Black Caucus. The group recently disclosed that it was spending $125,000 on radio and digital ads in the Democratic primary for Michigan’s 7th District.

The ad first brings up a truncated version of a tweet that Lawrence posted in 2021 saying, “If Joe Biden lets Joe Manchin write his climate plan, Biden’s climate legacy will be one of cowardice and betrayal - just like Obama.”

A narrator continues, “In a podcast, Lawrence called Black leaders ‘a big problem’ who ‘defanged the white left’ and ‘put us in an impossible position.’”

Lawrence made those remarks, which were unearthed by HuffPost earlier this month, on his own podcast in 2024. He did not apologize but instead said, “I regret how this specific point was expressed.”

Lawrence faces two other candidates in the Aug. 4 Democratic primary: former Navy SEAL Matt Maasdam and former diplomat Bridget Brink. The three are vying to take on Republican Rep. Tom Barrett.

Poll Pile

• GA-Sen: Fabrizio Ward (R) and Impact Research (D) for AARP

  • Jon Ossoff (D-inc): 52, Mike Collins (R): 43

• GA-Gov: Fabrizio and Impact for AARP:

  • Keisha Lance Bottoms (D): 48, Rick Jackson (R): 46

• ID-01: SurveyUSA for Sarah Zabel:

  • Russ Fulcher (R-inc): 45, Kaylee Peterson (D): 35, Zabel (I): 6

• NY-17: co/efficient (R):

  • Mike Lawler (R-inc): 50, Cait Conley (D): 45

  • The pollster says its survey was “[n]ot sponsored by any candidate or candidate’s committee.”