Morning Digest: The House battleground has moved deep into Trump turf

We look at three longtime GOP districts that are seeing heavy spending

Minnesota Democrat Jake Johnson (credit: Jake Johnson Facebook)

Leading Off

MN-01, OH-15, NV-02

Both parties are spending heavily in House districts that Donald Trump carried by double digits, broadening the battlefield to include turf that Democrats have not seriously contested in many years.

The players on these expanded front lines include groups beyond the usual suspects, such as the DCCC and NRCC. One notable participant is Your Community PAC, a Democratic-aligned group that has spent $1.5 million since the start of September in Minnesota’s 1st District to help Democrat Jake Johnson unseat Republican Rep. Brad Finstad.

This outlay represents nearly all of the independent expenditures the FEC has tracked from either side as of Thursday, though Republicans are reportedly deploying resources as well. Punchbowl News reported Tuesday that a group affiliated with House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, who represents another Minnesota district, would spend $600,000 to help Finstad.

All this spending comes after a frustrating decade for Democrats in southern Minnesota. The 1st District was once one of the most competitive House seats in the nation, but it shifted hard to the right in 2016 after Trump took over the Republican Party.

That year, Democratic Rep. Tim Walz narrowly won a sixth term against Republican rival Jim Hagedorn despite those headwinds, but his decision to wage an ultimately successful bid for governor in 2018 gave the GOP a major opening in an otherwise tough election cycle. Hagedorn prevailed by a slim margin that year, and he hung on during another close race in 2020 as Trump once again decisively carried his district.

Hagedorn seemed to be finally on track for an easy victory when he sought a third term, but he died in early 2022, prompting an August special election. Both parties anticipated that Republicans, who looked set for a strong midterm cycle, would easily hold the district, so it was therefore a big surprise when Finstad beat back Democrat Jeff Ettinger by just a 51-47 margin. That result would foreshadow the GOP’s disappointing election night three months later.

Finstad, though, rebounded quickly from his near miss. He won a rematch against Ettinger 54-42 that fall, and he easily secured his second full term in 2024 following a race that both parties—this time correctly—viewed as uncompetitive.

Democratic groups, however, are taking a much closer interest in Johnson, a public school math teacher. While the House Majority PAC, the top pro-Democratic super PAC in House campaigns, hasn’t begun spending here, it released a poll late last month showing Johnson with a narrow 47-46 advantage over Finstad. (No other recent surveys have been made public of this contest.)

But Your Community PAC, an affiliate of the deep-pocketed Sixteen Thirty Fund, is picking up the slack—and Finstad isn’t the only once-secure Republican it’s going after.

In central Ohio, Your Community, HMP, and other groups have spent a total of just over $1 million since September aimed at defeating Republican Rep. Mike Carey in the 15th District. Conservative groups, led by the campaign arm of the Republican Main Street Partnership, have deployed roughly $700,000 to help Carey against Democrat Don Leonard.

Leonard, an Ohio State University professor who is seeking office for the first time, is trying to flip a constituency that would have backed Trump 55-45 in 2024. But Trump’s weak approval ratings give Democrats the chance to reassert themselves in what used to be one of the nation’s premier swing states, and Leonard’s allies say he has the chance to be part of this breakthrough. Last month, HMP released a survey giving him a 46-45 edge.

Carey’s district, like Finstad’s, was competitive turf during the early 21st century, but GOP gerrymandering took it out of play well before Trump’s rise. The 2010 Republican wave propelled Steve Stivers to a decisive win over freshman Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy, the Democrat who had narrowly defeated him two years before, and Republican mapmakers soon seized their chance to protect the new congressman.

Stivers easily held the seat for the rest of the decade, and there was no question a fellow Republican would replace him after he resigned in 2021 to lead the state Chamber of Commerce.

That candidate was Carey, a former coal company lobbyist who secured Trump’s endorsement ahead of his triumph in a busy primary. But while Carey had no trouble in the ensuing special election or in either of his next two campaigns, well-funded groups from both parties have now converged on the first competitive election for Ohio’s 15th District in over a decade and a half.

GOP groups are also hoping to shore up seats that normally are never at risk—including a seat in Nevada that hasn’t elected a Democrat in its more than 40 years of existence.

That seat is the 2nd District, a constituency in the northern part of the state that Trump last carried 56-42. But Republicans are spending heavily to aid Air Force veteran David Flippo, a candidate whom retiring Rep. Mark Amodei has loudly denounced for relocating from Las Vegas earlier this year to run for Congress.

A pair of hardline conservative outfits, the Club for Growth and House Freedom Caucus, together have spent $1.2 million since September to promote Flippo and attack Democrat Teresa Benitez-Thompson. Democrats, however, have yet to file any independent expenditures to promote Benitez-Thompson, who served as majority leader during her time in the state Assembly.

The Nevada Independent flagged Wednesday that a third right-wing group, Restoration of America PAC, was set to begin spending $750,000 on ads praising Flippo’s military service. Flippo, however, is continuing to face unwelcome questions about his record during his time in the Air Force.

The Washington Post reported last month that he’d falsely said that he won a Bronze Star with a special distinction for heroism in combat on multiple occasions. While Flippo was awarded a Bronze Star in 2004 for managing aviation fuel distribution in Ohio, he did not receive the much rarer distinction of a Bronze Star with a “V device,” which is reserved only for those who demonstrate valor under fire.

Flippo, whose campaign told the Post his repeated claims about his medal were “an honest mistake,” recently said to NPR in a piece published Wednesday that he was “taking ownership” of what happened. The candidate, though, used that same interview to say that his grandchildren were the reason he’d worn a hat with “V” pins in public appearances.

“You know if you’ve lived with grandkids, and you know, you kind of know, when you ask them to put those things on your hat,” the candidate said. “Actually, answer me this. I do have another hat that’s just like it, because you misplace one or whatever, and that does not have any V devices on it, so, and I was like ‘where did that other V device go?’ So, the grandkids ended up doing that.”

NPR’s report came out one day after the Reno Gazette Journal published a separate story in which the candidate’s former commanding officer, retired Col. Steven Lawlor, told the paper he’d “relieved” Flippo in 2008 “shortly thereafter for loss of confidence in his ability to command.”

Flippo’s campaign responded by defending his service and seeking to discredit Lawlor by calling him “a veteran turned union organizer.”

Lawlor in turn said his only connection to the labor movement came when he worked as a shop steward at a Tennessee post office. He also said he’d backed Trump in all three of his campaigns, and when the Gazette Journal asked whether he’d ever affiliated with the Democratic Party, he responded, “Not only no, but hell no.”

As Republicans find themselves on the defensive in deep red turf, the House battleground is only likely to expand further in Democrats’ favor.

Ally Mutnick of Punchbowl reported Wednesday that Everytown, a gun safety group funded by former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg, was “taking over a ton” of reservations from HMP. While information is still coming in about where Everytown intends to be active and how much it might spend, Mutnick noted that its intervention would “free up HMP resources to run ads elsewhere in the final weeks.”

The Downballot Podcast

The Senate battlefield is exploding

Republicans are giving up on races that would have once been unthinkable to abandon—and rushing to save candidates in states we can scarcely believe are competitive. On this week’s episode of The Downballot podcast, co-hosts David Nir and David Beard examine the fallout from the GOP’s decision to abandon North Carolina’s Senate contest, combined with its last-minute rescue mission in Kansas of all places. Perhaps the most amazing thing: The Republican spending spree doesn’t even seem to be working.

The Davids also talk with Eric Ming at the State and Local Election Alliance, an organization devoted to deep downballot elections where control over the machinery of democracy is at stake. Eric walks us through some of SLEA’s top targets, including a judge in Nevada known for always favoring Republicans, a MAGA election administrator in Colorado who’s simply terrible at her job, and the leader of one of Texas’ biggest counties who just shut down a bunch of polling sites in Black and Latino neighborhoods.

3Q Fundraising

• AK-Gov (Aug. 9 through Oct. 2):

  • Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins (D): $2.1 million raised, $1.2 million cash on hand

  • Bernadette Wilson (R): $500,000 raised, $200,000 cash on hand

  • Treg Taylor (R): $270,000 raised (over half self-funded), $100,000 cash on hand

  • Dave Bronson (R): $35,000 raised, $28,000 cash on hand

• OH-07: Brian Poindexter (D): $2.4 million raised

Governors

TX-Gov

The Democratic Governors Association and wealthy Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker are each giving $1 million to Texas Democrat Gina Hinojosa, who’s locked in a close race with Republican Gov. Greg Abbott despite a massive financial disadvantage.

That huge gap, however, has diminished considerably following a gigantic spending spree on Abbott’s part. Thanks to Texas’ lack of campaign finance limits and Abbott’s long tenure—he’s now seeking a fourth four-year term—the governor entered the year with nearly $106 million in his war chest.

But facing what’s been by far his most competitive race, Abbott has spent down most of his stockpile. According to new fundraising reports, he had $17.3 million on hand as of Sept. 24, compared to $4.1 million for his opponent.

However, despite his spending avalanche, Abbott holds just a 48 to 46 lead over Hinojosa in an aggregate of polling compiled by FiftyPlusOne. The New York Times, which first reported the new contributions to Hinojosa, characterized the infusion as reflecting a broad belief among Democrats that she could “pull off an improbable upset.”

“There’s been not enough attention on her race,” Pritzker told the paper. “Gina is running really a spectacular campaign, and I’m really pleased to be able to support her. And I think hopefully we’re going to see others join in in supporting her, as they have been for James Talarico.”

POLL PILE

All polls must comply with The Downballot’s requirements.

• IA-Sen: CNN/SSRS:

  • Ashley Hinson (R): 45, Josh Turek (D): 43.

• KS-Sen: GBAO for Adam Hamilton:

  • Hamilton (D): 46, Roger Marshall (R-inc): 41, David Graham (L): 7.

  • Hamilton (D): 49, Marshall (R-inc): 44.

• MI-Sen: Guidant Polling and Strategy for Public First Action:

  • Abdul El-Sayed (D): 48, Mike Rogers (R): 43, all others 1% or less.

  • El-Sayed (D): 49, Rogers (R): 45.

  • Public First Action, which is supported by the AI company Anthropic, tells The Downballot it hasn’t taken sides in this race or any of the others below.

• OH-Sen: CNN/SSRS:

  • Sherrod Brown (D): 49, Jon Husted (R-inc): 43.

• TX-Sen: Guidant for Public First Action:

  • James Talarico (D): 47, Ken Paxton (R): 44, Ted Brown (L): 4.

• IA-Gov: CNN/SSRS:

  • Rob Sand (D): 51, Zach Lahn (R): 42.

• MI-Gov: Guidant for Public First Action:

  • Jocelyn Benson (D): 50, John James (R): 45.

• NY-Gov: Emerson College for PIX11:

  • Kathy Hochul (D-inc): 52, Bruce Blakeman (R): 40.

• OH-Gov: CNN/SSRS:

  • Amy Acton (D): 50, Vivek Ramaswamy (R): 42.

• PA-Gov: Quinnipiac University:

  • Josh Shapiro (D-inc): 59, Stacy Garrity (R): 34.

  • July: 53-40 Shapiro.

• PA-Gov: Susquehanna Polling & Research:

  • Shapiro (D-inc): 52, Garrity (R): 31.

  • March: 58-36 Shapiro.

  • Susquehanna, a conservative firm, did not say if this poll was done on behalf of a client.

• TX-Gov: Guidant for Public First Action:

  • Greg Abbott (R-inc): 46, Gina Hinojosa (D): 44, Pat Dixon (L): 4.

• VT-Gov: State Navigate:

  • Phil Scott (R-inc): 46, Amanda Janoo (D): 43.

• NC-01: GQR for Don Davis:

  • Davis (D-inc): 47, Laurie Buckhout (R): 39, Tom Bailey (L): 8.

  • Unreleased September poll: 42-40 Davis.

• NC-01: Neighborhood Research and Media:

  • Davis (D-inc): 51, Buckhout (R): 41.

  • The memo did not mention Bailey.

  • Neighborhood Research head Rick Shaftan wrote in the release that he’s a Buckhout supporter who is releasing the poll to urge her and GOP Senate nominee Michael Whatley “to stop running 1980s-style personality campaigns and instead draw contrasts on issues, polarize the electorate, and win.”

• TN-05: Impact Research for Chaz Molder:

  • Charlie Hatcher (R): 46, Molder (D): 41, all others 1% or less.

  • Aug.: 48-40 Hatcher.

• TX-02: Impact Research for Shaun Finnie:

  • Steve Toth (R): 46, Finnie (D): 37.

• MD Ballot - Question 3 (redistricting amendment): University of Maryland, Baltimore County:

  • No: 53, Yes: 25.

• VT-LG: State Navigate:

  • Molly Gray (D): 59, John Rodgers (R-inc): 32.

In our previous Digest, we incorrectly stated that Scott Colom would be Mississippi’s first Black senator. He would be the state’s first Black senator since Reconstruction.