We Did it: A busy week ahead for primaries and fundraising — New polls bring Sun Belt worries for Trump

Jul 13, 2020

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Quick Fix

— Happening this week: Tuesday is full of important downballot primaries and runoffs, while Wednesday brings a major fundraising deadline that already has some Republicans worried.

— Four polls in the Sun Belt show a tight race, an ominous sign for President Donald Trump in three states that are crucial to any winning electoral map for him.

— The palace intrigue has already begun in California on replacing Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), should she be picked as Joe Biden's running mate, and they win in November.

Good Monday morning. Today would've been the first day of the Democratic convention. Email me at zmontellaro@politico.com and follow me on Twitter at @ZachMontellaro.

Email the rest of the POLITICO campaigns team at sshepard@politico.com, jarkin@politico.com and amutnick@politico.com. Follow them on Twitter: @POLITICO_Steve, @JamesArkin and @allymutnick.

Days until the Maine primary and Alabama and Texas primary runoffs: 1

Days until the Democratic convention: 35

Days until the Republican convention: 43

Days until the 2020 election: 113

Happening This Week

We have a busy week ahead of us, with major primaries and runoffs on Tuesday and the quarterly filing deadline for Senate and House candidates on Wednesday. Here's what we're watching for:

Tomorrow's elections can be divided into four buckets: Two big Senate primary runoffs in Texas and Alabama, some battleground House primary runoffs in Texas, a handful of GOP House primaries in safe red seats — and, well, Maine.

In the first bucket: In Alabama, Republicans are choosing between former Auburn football coach Tommy Tuberville and former Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Trump has thrown in for Tuberville, continuously denigrating his former attorney general on Twitter. The winner here will ultimately face Democratic Sen. Doug Jones. In Texas, Democrats MJ Hegar (who has been endorsed by the DSCC) and Royce West are facing off to face GOP Sen. John Cornyn.

The house races split into two buckets. First, we have the runoffs in districts that could play into control of the House in November. Democrats are picking nominees in TX-10, TX-24 and TX-31, while Republicans are facing off in TX-22 and TX-23. (We'll have more on these races tomorrow.) The second bucket is the Republican primaries in ruby-red House districts in Alabama and Texas, which we broke down for you last week.

Our last bucket is Maine, which is having its regular primaries today. The interesting twist here is that the state has ranked-choice voting, so if a candidate does not secure 50 percent plus 1 percent of the vote, it goes into an instant runoff. (Ask now-former GOP Rep. Bruce Poliquin about it!) Democrats are picking who will face GOP Sen. Susan Collins , but the DSCC-backed Sara Gideon is expected to win in a field that also includes Betsy Sweet and Bre Kidman. The Republican race to watch in is ME-02, for the right to face freshman Democratic Rep. Jared Golden. The field includes Adrienne Bennett, Eric Brakey and Dale Crafts, and in a poll last week from the pro-ranked choice group FairVote, none was near 50 percent.

But that's not all this week! We also have the quarterly filing deadline on Wednesday, which will give us a look at the finances of House and Senate candidates (along with the super PACs that choose to file quarterly and not monthly.) One big thing Republicans are worried about is online fundraising, POLITICO's Elena Schneider, James Arkin and Ally Mutnick reported.

"The money guarantees Democrats nothing heading into November 2020. But with President Donald Trump's poll numbers sagging and more GOP-held Senate races looking competitive, the intensity of Democrats' online fundraising is close to erasing the financial advantage incumbent senators usually enjoy. That's making it harder to bend their campaigns away from the national trend lines — and helping Democrats' odds of flipping the Senate," they wrote. "Republicans have a new online donation tool backed by Trump, WinRed, which they have hailed as an answer to their ActBlue problem. But a dozen Republican Party strategists and donors warned in interviews that not enough GOP campaigns are taking active steps to properly use the tools at their disposal to haul in money."

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Presidential Big Board

POLLS POLLS POLLS —Three CBS News/YouGov polls in the Sun Belt shows a tight race on the presidential level, something that should be a worrying sign for Trump in states that are basically must-wins for him. In Florida , Biden is at 48 percent to 42 percent for Trump (1,229 registered voters; July 7-10; +/- 3.5 percentage point MoE). In Texas, Trump is at 46 percent to 45 percent for Biden (1,212 registered voters; July 7-10; +/- 3.3 percentage point MoE). And in Arizona, both Biden and Trump are at 46 percent each (1,099 registered voters; July 7-10; +/- 3.8 percentage point MoE).

— A Dallas Morning News/UT Tyler poll is a bit more favorable for Biden in the state. Biden is at 46 percent to 41 percent for the president. (1,887 registered voters; June 29-July 7; +/- 2.24 percentage point MoE).

CONVENTION SPOTTING — Republicans have tapped Jeff Miller, a longtime fundraiser, to be the national finance chair for the Jacksonville convention, POLITICO's Alex Isenstadt reported.

VEEPSTAKES — Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) has barreled into the veepstakes conversation. Biden's vetting team "has stepped up information-gathering on Duckworth recently, scrutinizing her legislative record and talking to her colleagues," POLITICO's Natasha Korecki wrote. "A contingent of Duckworth-for-VP backers, including high-dollar donors and a politically active veterans group, has intensified efforts on her behalf in the past two weeks, pushing her as the best choice for Biden's running mate."

— Before Rep. Val Demings (D-Fla.) served in Congress, she was chief of police in Orlando. POLITICO's Matt Dixon and Maya King took a deep dive at Demings' record as chief, and found that a "review of police data, court documents and interviews with those who dealt with Demings as police chief revealed widespread dissatisfaction with her responses to incidents of brutality during her four-year tenure, from 2007 to 2011, and earlier a brief stint as a deputy chief overseeing the department's patrol bureau".

THE REELECT — Is Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale in hot water? The Washington Post's Michael Scherer and Josh Dawsey reported that "Parscale, despite his self-promotion, increasingly finds himself out of favor with his boss and hemmed in by newly hired staffers and recently promoted advisers". In a statement to The Post, Parscale strongly pushed back: "This is the same tired story being shopped every week by the same lowlife anonymous sources who are putting their own personal interests ahead of the president and his campaign".

— Allies in and around the Trump campaign are floating that Michael Flynn should join the president on the trail, POLITICO's Anita Kumar and Gabby Orr reported.

FIRST IN SCORE — WEB WARS — Planned Parenthood Votes is launching its first digital ads in the presidential race, targeting Trump and boosting Biden. The ads are backed by five-figures and will run in a handful of competitive states. "Imagine a leader who builds us up, not tears us down," the ad says about Biden. (There's also a 30-second and 15-second cut.)

THE OTHER GUYS — Howie Hawkins officially won the Green Party's nomination over the weekend. POLITICO New York's Bill Mahoney has a look at his roots in the Empire State.

BOOKIN' IT — Chuck Rocha, a senior adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders' (I-Vt.) former presidential campaign, is publishing a book "detailing the campaign's strategy to win over Latino voters — and his own excruciating decision to turn down an offer to run the campaign," POLITICO's Laura Barrón-López reports.

STAFFING UP — Some senior staff hires for Biden in Iowa: Jackie Norris will be a senior adviser and Lauren Dillon will be state campaign director, per the AP's Thomas Beaumont.

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Down the Ballot

NEXT ONE UP? — Never too early for some good ol' palace intrigue in the Golden State, where politicos are mulling who could replace Harris, should she be named Biden's running mate and the ticket wins in November. People close to Gov. Gavin Newsom "say he's had no discussions on a decision — one he wouldn't even begin to consider until the beginning of 2021, and only in the event Democrats win the White House with Harris on the ticket," POLITICO California's Carla Marinucci wrote . But Democrats in the state note the "parol game is on," with names that are being bandied about including Secretary of State Alex Padilla, state Attorney General Xavier Becerra, Reps. Karen Bass, Barbara Lee and Adam Schiff, Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis Tsakopoulos and many more.

POLL POSITION — The Dallas Morning News/UT Tyler poll also tested tomorrow's runoff. The poll found Hegar at 32 percent to West's 20 percent, with the remainder indicating other or undecided (898 registered voters; +/- 3.27 percentage point MoE).

The poll also tested potential general election matchups between Cornyn and either West or Hegar. Cornyn led Hegar 37 percent to 26 percent, and led West 37 percent to 25 percent. The CBS/YouGov Texas poll, among likely voters, had Cornyn at 44 percent to Hegar's 36 percent, and Coryn's 43 percent to West's 37 percent.

— The Arizona CBS/YouGov poll had Democrat Mark Kelly at 46 percent to GOP Sen. Martha McSally's 42 percent (which is the best poll we've seen for McSally in a bit).

THE CASH DASH — Just a couple more days!

— MI-Sen: Democratic Sen. Gary Peters raised $5.2 million in the quarter and had over $12 million in the bank, per The Detroit News' Craig Mauger . Republican John James raised $6.4 million, but did not announce a cash on hand total.

— FIRST IN SCORE — AR-02: Democrat Joyce Elliott announced that she raised over $600,000 in the quarter, and will report $715,000 in the bank. $460,000 of that haul came in June alone, according to her campaign.

— FIRST IN SCORE — GA-07: Democrat Carolyn Bourdeaux raised $625,000 and will report $760,000 in cash reserves. She got over 11,000 contributions in the quarter.

— IN-05: Democrat Christina Hale announced she raised $541,000 and has $726,000 in the bank.

— MN-02: Freshman Democratic Rep. Angie Craig raised $725,000 and has $2.5 million in cash on hand.

— PA-07: Republican Lisa Scheller raised $885,000 in the quarter. She did not announce a cash on hand total.

— TX-32: Republican Genevieve Collins raised over $750,000 and gave herself a $235,000 personal loan. She'll report over $1.1 million in the bank.

TECH TALK — Facebook is reportedly mulling a freeze on political advertising ahead of November. Bloomberg's Kurt Wagner reports that the social media giant "is considering imposing a ban on political ads on its social network in the days leading up to the U.S. election in November," but says that discussions are ongoing and that nothing has been finalized.

ON THE AIRWAVES —Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) is out with a new ad promoting the Paycheck Protection Program and her role writing it, while attacking Democrat Sara Gideon for attacking Collins over the program even as her husband's law firm benefited from it.

— Democrat Dana Balter, who is facing GOP Rep. John Katko in NY-24, is out with a new ad tying Katko to Trump. "When it matters, John Kakto votes with Donald Trump, and against us," the ad's narrator says.

CODA — HEADLINE OF THE DAY: "Protesters carrying a caribou heart rush stage at Dan Sullivan campaign event in Anchorage" — from the Anchorage Daily News.

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