At the Races: And then there were two

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By Daniela Altimari, Mary Ellen McIntire and Niels Lesniewski

Liz Cheney is the top GOP surrogate for Kamala Harris, while Fred Upton disclosed Thursday that he’s already cast his ballot for the Democratic presidential nominee. Adam Kinzinger is campaigning for Democratic Senate hopefuls Colin Allred of Texas and Lucas Kunce of Missouri. And Jaime Herrera Beutler is focused on her own race for commissioner of public lands in Washington state.

The rest of the House Republicans who voted to impeach Donald Trump for inciting the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol and have since left Congress are largely keeping a low profile this election season. Only two of the 10 GOP members who crossed the former president and bucked their party when they cast a historic vote against him in January 2021 remain in the House, and both are on the ballot this year.

Rep. David Valadao, a dairy farmer from California’s Central Valley, is facing a tough reelection against Democrat Rudy Salas, a former state assemblyman, in a district Joe Biden would have won by 13 percentage points had the current district lines been in place.

When asked by Spectrum News last week whether he intends to vote for Trump this year, Valadao pivoted. “I have to focus on winning my race, and that’s my top priority. And I’ve purposely gone out of my way to make sure I’m not getting involved in anything presidential,” he said.

Trump has cast a larger shadow over the race in central Washington’s conservative 4th District, where Rep. Dan Newhouse is locked in an intense battle against fellow Republican Jerrod Sessler. (Washington state’s nonpartisan primaries allow for two members of the same party to advance to the general election.)

Sessler attended Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally outside the White House on Jan. 6, 2021, but says he did not enter the Capitol that afternoon. Sessler has received Trump’s endorsement, while Newhouse has drawn the former president’s wrath.

Newhouse beat a Trump-backed GOP challenger in the 2022 Republican primary, but Sessler expressed confidence that Trump will play a major role in the race.

“Right here in central Washington, where I live, this is a lot of farmland and these are red-blooded Americans who want somebody that they can trust and they can believe in,” Sessler told The Spokesman-Review. “And this is certainly an important race to President Trump.”

Starting gate

Homing in on the heartland: Iowa, where Republicans hold the governor’s office, majorities in both chambers of the legislature and all four congressional seats, has emerged as an unlikely House battleground. We caught up with Lanon Baccam, the Democrat hoping to unseat Republican Rep. Zach Nunn in Iowa’s 3rd District.

Bacon and the blue dot: Representing a swing district in Nebraska, Republican Rep. Don Bacon has been in tough political battles before. But this year, he faces his biggest challenge against Democrat Tony Vargas. We report from Omaha, where demographic changes, two abortion-related ballot questions and an influx of spending by national Democrats battling to win the district’s single Electoral College vote are shaping one of the nation’s most competitive races.

A high-profile New York race: New York Rep. Mike Lawler is campaigning for reelection as a moderate, but at a recent “Back the Blue” rally in the 17th District, he leaned into a top Republican issue. He’s facing Democrat Mondaire Jones, who is seeking a comeback to Congress in a competitive Hudson Valley race.

Vague plans, clear critiques: John T. Bennett reports on the vice president’s town hall Wednesday night, which featured plenty of specific criticisms of Trump but few policy specifics.

ICYMI

Peltola poll problem: A Republican internal poll suggests that Alaska’s ranked choice voting may not be a path to victory for Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola. Politico reported that the Cygnal survey found Republican Nick Begich would prevail on the third round of counting. Meanwhile, GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski said over the weekend that she hopes Peltola is reelected, Alaska Public Media reported.

CA 47: An internal Republican poll shows Scott Baugh leading Dave Min in the Toss-up race in California’s 47th District.

Trump transition: Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin, the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, is raising concerns about the Trump campaign not signing on to presidential transition paperwork. “It appears your decision may be at least partially driven by your intent to circumvent fundraising rules that put limits on private contributions on the transition effort and require public reporting,” Raskin wrote in a letter, as reported by Rebecca Shabad at NBC News.

Reevaluating: House Majority PAC canceled nearly $1 million in ad reservations for Wisconsin’s 1st District, where Democrat Peter Barca is seeking to oust Rep. Bryan Steil. Meanwhile, the Congressional Leadership Fund is pulling ads promoting Republican George Logan in Connecticut’s 5th District, which Biden carried by 11 percentage points in 2020.

#NESEN: Senate Leadership Fund, the top Senate GOP super PAC, is wading into Nebraska’s Senate race with a $3 million investment to support Sen. Deb Fischer in her race against Dan Osborn.

What we’re reading

Micro-targeting Harris with dueling messages: An Elon Musk-backed super PAC is running ads targeting Muslim voters in Michigan and Jewish voters in Pennsylvania with starkly different messages, 404 Media found. The ads, which appear on Snapchat, aim to convince Muslim voters that Harris is staunchly pro-Israel because she is beholden to her Jewish husband, a strategy Democrats say plays into anti-Jewish stereotypes. Meanwhile, the Pennsylvania ads paint Harris as antisemitic and falsely claim she backs denying weapons to Israel.

Indigenous GOTV: Jennifer Bendery made the long journey to the tribal lands of rural Arizona for this HuffPost report on the effort to get Indigenous voters to the polls, even when there’s a 3-mile walk involved.

Estate sale: Possessions of former Florida Rep. Corrine Brown, who was convicted and sentenced to federal prison back in 2017 in connection with a bogus charity, went up for sale at her former house in Alexandria, Va., last weekend. The Washington Post interviewed attendees at the sale, none of whom knew details about the congresswoman.

Making money matter: If you live in a deep-red or deep-blue state with no competitive races, where do you make your political donations? Increasingly, the answer is out of state. The Boston Globe examined FEC data and found donors in Massachusetts, a safe blue state with no competitive contests, are giving to PACs and candidates far from the Bay State’s borders.

Obsessed with Sams: The Washington Post dug into the Trump campaign’s fixation with Ian Sams, the bespectacled Harris aide whose frequent appearances on Fox News seem calibrated to goad the former president (he was once a Roll Call Hill Climber).

Bruce! Bruce Springsteen already endorsed Harris and Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz, and now he’s on the trail. First up, a get-out-the-vote rally with Harris and former President Barack Obama in Georgia. Obama and The Boss will be in Philadelphia for an event on Oct. 28 as well. A campaign official said there would be other concerts in battleground states.

Taylor? While Springsteen will be on the trail, there’s no logical place for another notable Harris endorser to join the candidate. Taylor Swift’s “The Eras Tour” has shows this week and next, and the Kansas City Chiefs play “Monday Night Football” on election eve. Still, that’s not stopping Democrats from doing what they can to go after the Swiftie vote, including in Miami Gardens, Fla., as The Washington Post reported.

The count: 13 percent

Of the 2.7 million Republicans who have voted early across the seven swing states (Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan) so far this year, that’s the share who are the new or unreliable voters that get-out-the-vote efforts are designed to turn out.

Major news outlets have been reporting that Republicans have embraced early voting this year despite their deep skepticism of the practice in 2020. Data from L2, a voter data provider, however, shows they haven’t quite caught up with Democrats.

According to L2’s data, 362,136 registered Republicans who may or may not have cast a vote in 2020 but didn’t vote in the 2022 midterm elections have cast votes in the seven swing states through Wednesday. That’s less than the 468,979 such registered Democrats (14.7 percent of their early voters in these states) and 381,070 voters who don’t identify with either of the two major parties (33.1 percent of their early voters).

There is also a gender gap in the early returns. Women have cast 3.95 million (55.5 percent) of the 7.1 million early votes in swing states, and 683,105 (56.3 percent) of the 1.2 million infrequent/unreliable voters who have already weighed in are women.

Key race: #NY04

Candidates: Freshman Rep. Anthony D’Esposito faces a rematch with 2022 opponent Laura Gillen, a former Hempstead town supervisor.

Why it matters: D’Esposito won here two years ago to help Republicans secure the House majority, but he’s been among the most vulnerable members all cycle. In an interview in the 4th District last week, Gillen said she’s in a better position this year after entering the race earlier and noted she didn’t have to contend with a late-cycle primary. A Siena College poll released this week showed Gillen up 53 percent to 41 percent, with a 4.4 percent margin of error.

Cash dash: Gillen outraised D’Esposito. At the end of the third quarter she had raised $5.7 million and had $3 million on hand, while D’Esposito had raised $4.2 million and had $1.7 million on hand. Outside groups led by the DCCC and HMP have spent heavily to boost Gillen and oppose D’Esposito, but the NRCC and CLF have also supported his campaign.

Backers: House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries attended a rally for Gillen last week. The New Democrat Coalition Action Fund also endorsed her campaign, as did groups like Planned Parenthood and Giffords. D’Esposito is backed by several law enforcement groups, the NFIB and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

What they’re saying: D’Esposito, a former New York Police Department detective, has focused on security, safety and immigration. Gillen has focused on issues such as abortion but has also made immigration a priority, similar to how Democratic Rep. Tom Suozzi emphasized the issue during a special election earlier this year in the neighboring 3rd District.

Terrain: The district is on Long Island, a region where Republicans had success in the 2022 midterms. Biden would have won the seat by 15 percentage points in 2020, while D’Esposito won in 2022 by 3.6 points. Inside Elections rates the race as a Toss-up.

Wild card: The New York Times reported last month that D’Esposito hired his fiancée’s daughter to work in his district office and also hired a woman with whom he was having an affair to work in that office. D’Esposito called the story a partisan “hit piece” and recently told CNN he never had a personal relationship with the woman. Gillen’s campaign released an ad focused on allegations of misconduct against D’Esposito while he was serving as a police officer, but not directly about this latest report.

Coming up

Reports suggest that Beyoncé could be making her campaign trail debut for the cycle. The Washington Post and NBC report she’ll be appearing with Harris in Houston, the Grammy winner’s hometown, on Friday as Harris is set to hold a rally on abortion.