How Do Crackpot Republicans At The NRSC See The Senate Races Unfolding? -- A Non-Confidential Memo

lesser evil

All-- not some-- of the public polling show the Republicans losing the Senate in November. The newest Marist poll of Arizona voters, for example, was released yesterday by NBC News. First time candidate, Democrat Mark Kelly, is eviscerating incumbent Republican Martha McSally 53-41%-- in a traditional Republican state that Trump won 1,021,154 (49.5%) to 936,250 (45.4%) in 2016 and where Republican Doug Ducey beat Democrat David Garcia in the 2018 guberatorial election-- in the middle of the "blue wave"-- 1,330,863 (56.0%) to 994,341 (41.8%).

In Michigan, where Republicans said they could knock off unimpressive backbencher Gary Peters, a new poll by SSRS, out yesterday from CNN, their candidate, John James falls flat with 38% to Peters' 54%.

The most current poll from North Carolina, Change Research's battlegrounds survey for CNBC, shows mediocre and unimpressive Democrat, Cal Cunningham, besting equally mediocre and unimpressive Republican Thom Tillis 49-42%.

Even in a state as Trumpist as Montana-- he beat Hillary there 279,240 (56.2%) to 177,709 (35.7%)-- the most recent Senate poll shows Democrat Steve Bullock ousting Republican Steve Daines 46-44%.




On average, Democrats are ahead in Senate battlegrounds Arizona, Maine, North Carolina, Iowa, Montana, Colorado and Michigan and competitive in Georgia and maybe even in Alabama. But on Sunday McConnell's NRSC chairman, Senator Todd Young (IN) and executive director Kevin McLaughlin released a boneheaded memo to the press asserting the GOP still has a pathway to keeping their majority. It wasn't really written for the media. It was written for fat-cat GOP donors, like Stephen Schwartzman of Blackstone who just gave a McConnell-controlled PAC a $10 million check, to persuade them to keep giving. The memo is filled with ridiculous propaganda that challenges the credulity of the authors to anyone other than someone desperately hoping to be convinced. The media recognizes it as fantasy and wishful thinking. Fat-cat GOP donors don't. Enjoy:

With just 100 days until Election Day, conventional wisdom is that the Senate Majority is the Democrats’ to lose.

And judging by any commonly accepted metric-- fundraising, spending, generic ballot, right track/wrong track, etc.-- one can see why.

From 30,000 feet, things look pretty bleak.


But, as Lee Corso says, “Not so fast.”


There are currently eight Senate races that are within the margin of error.
Candidly, considering all that is going on, that is nothing short of a miracle for Republicans.

We are in, arguably, the most unsettled environment since the 1960s. Our country is facing a once in a century global pandemic. Democrats held a partisan impeachment trial and have outspent Republicans by more than $60 million in Senate races-- cycle to date-- and by significant margins in every single targeted race. People have been locked in their houses for months, schools are toying with not opening in the fall and protestors and looters have taken over many of our major American cities.

Yet, despite it all, Republicans have proven remarkably resilient and remain well positioned to hold their Senate majority.

How could that be?


Republicans have one distinct advantage: Democrats.

[This is true... but so is the converse: the Democrats have one distinct advantage: Republicans and this year the Republicans are more fucked up than the Democrats.]

Voters despise the policies championed by today’s Democrat party. Suburban voters in key battleground states loathe the Green New Deal. When asked about specific aspects of the program 78% of voters oppose the Green New Deal, and 62% oppose it strongly.

They reject calls to defund the police. Over 60% of voters in North Carolina and over 70% in Georgia oppose defunding the police. Even in Colorado nearly 60% of voters think Democrats are out to lunch on this issue.

They have no interest in forgiving everyone’s student loan debt and 54% of voters oppose efforts to make college tuition-free.

And they aren’t ready to take a risk on ethically challenged, untested Democrat candidates (we’re looking at you John Hickenlooper, Steve Bullock, Sara Gideon and Mark Kelly) whose mere presence in Washington will enable Chuck Schumer and the Squad [an idea that exists only in the minds of Fox brainwashed Republicans] to realize their dream of turning the United States into a socialist dystopia. [Sounds familiar?]

If I were a Democrat, and the road to the Senate Majority hinged on wins in Kansas, Georgia, Montana, and Iowa, I would not feel too good about it.

But, as my six-year-old daughter says, “you do you, boo.”

SIDE BAR: It’s worth noting that Maine, despite Democrats throwing everything-- including the kitchen sink and multi-million-dollar slush funds at it-- is not among those eight margin races previously referenced. The fact that Susan Collins is leading outside the margin of error is a testament not only to her deep, personal relationship with Mainers, but also to voters’ reluctance to take a flyer on a weak, untested, ethically challenged candidate like Sara Gideon. This race, however, will remain close to the end in spite of Gideon, not because of her.

I’m not going to call Senate Democrats hypocrites, but for a group of folks who claim they want to get money out of politics, they sure do raise and spend a lot of money on politics. Democrats have spent over $180 million in key Senate races, cycle to date. They’ve also reserved another $220 million between now and election day. Allegedly ‘anti-money in politics Democrats’ will end up spending north of a half billion dollars on Senate races alone. Yahtzee!!

Unfortunately for Democrats, they have a fatal flaw, and all the money on earth can’t make up for it. It is the one thing voters crave the most, and Democrats don’t have it. In a word, it’s: authenticity.

Campaign finance reform is a perfect example. Every Democrat candidate is running on it. They each claim to hate dark money. Yet every single one benefits from it...A LOT of it.

The NRSC has been doing all we can to close the money gap, consistently outraising the DSCC and laying down the largest IE buy in committee history. We have started spending earlier and more aggressively than ever, and we enter the final stretch with more lead on the target than the DSCC.

And while Democrat challengers are printing money it seems few, if any, people are paying attention to one, fairly significant, data point: cash on hand. After all, you can raise all the money you want, but if you aren’t banking any of it, what good is it? Anyone who does take the time to look would see that-- with only one quarter of fundraising left-- many Republican Senate candidates actually have a cash-on-hand advantage over their Democrat opponents going into the final 100 days.

For the first 17 months of the cycle, Democrats largely had the airwaves to themselves. That all changed when the NRSC went up in June, and it certainly will not be the case for the next 100 days.

And where we are spending, it is working. [Remember I mentioned "fantasy" above?]

In Arizona, the more voters get to know the real Mark Kelly, the less they like him. We have been informing Arizonans about Kelly’s close, personal, financial relationship with China, and his image has eroded by 12 points in just seven weeks. Additionally, China is the number one issue voters recall about him (38%).

In Colorado, John Hickenlooper’s net favorability rating has plummeted by 20 points since he entered the race. Hickenlooper’s image is now underwater in the Denver suburbs, at 42% favorable and 45% unfavorable, and when you ask what issue or action people most associate with Hickenlooper, far and away the number one answer is “dishonest and corrupt.”

Things are just as bad for Sara Gideon, whose image has also cratered by 20 points and she is now decidedly underwater with independents. Focus group respondents consider her “weak,” “naïve,” and “unprepared,” and Gideon is also struggling with the revelation that she covered up for an alleged sexual predator for her own political gain. A whopping 67% of independents are less likely to vote for Gideon after learning of her cover up, with 54% much less likely. But, hey, at least she rearranged the chairs!

In North Carolina, Thom Tillis has already been outspent by $18 million to date with much more coming. His opponent, Cal Cunningham, started this cycle largely undefined but we are already working our magic to fix that. We’re up with ads hitting Cal for his coziness with the far-left, and we’ve already seen his net favorability drop in a short period of time. This race will not be easy, and Tillis has ground to make up, but Tillis has already shown he’s ready for this fight and his record of leadership is a stark contrast to Cunningham’s habit of hiding in Chuck Schumer’s basement.

Finally, it would appear Iowans aren’t fans of people who evict mom and pop businesses for personal financial gain or support Nancy Pelosi’s death tax. Unfortunately for Theresa Greenfield, she loves both. Iowans have responded in kind and her negatives have gone up 21 points, and it is only July!

Between a favorable map and $200 million spent cycle to date, Democrats have always had a numbers advantage in the battle for the Senate majority.

Despite that, and an incredibly favorable environment, the race for the Senate majority is still dead even.

That is a testament to the strength of our candidates.

Beating incumbents is hard. In fact, Democrats have only beaten three GOP incumbent Senators in the last three election cycles.

They will need to beat at least that many to win in November.


All in, more than $500 million will be spent on Senate campaigns alone in the next 100 days.

There is a ton of uncertainty right now, but the one thing we can guarantee is that the world will look a heck of a lot different on November 3rd than it does today.

Republicans are well-positioned to defy conventional wisdom and hold our Senate majority.

I hope the Republicans lose their Senate majority. I hope McConnell, Gardner, McSally, Ernst, Tillis, Perdue, Collins, Daines, Sullivan, Graham, Loeffler, Cornyn and the rest off them all lose their seats. But there is only one Democrat I'm cheering for because of what she is offering as an alternative. That Democrat is Paula Jean Swearengin who is running to replace Trump enabler Shelley Moore Capito in West Virginia. The DSCC is ignoring that race entirely. Capito has raised $4,443,824, most of it legalistic bribery, while Paula Jean has raised $592,933. There is no outside spending in the race at all. The DSCC and 2 groups it pretends not to control-- End Citizens United and the Senate Majority PAC-- have already spent over $4 million against Susan Collins, over $8 million against Joni Ernst, about $3.7 million against Cory Gardner, almost a million against Martha McSally, and over $1.5 million against Daines. But not even enough for a poll in West Virginia. Speaking to Cathy Kunkel, a House candidate in the state, over the weekend, she noted that Republicans who have spent the last 3 years defining themselves by their support for Trump, as her opponent, Alex Mooney has and as Capito has, may be in for a rude awakening. "Here in West Virginia-- as around the country-- voters are not impressed by Trump's handling of the pandemic," she told me. "Running on Trump's coattails is not the strategy it was 4 years ago." If you want to help a long shot candidate in a state the Democrats are ignoring again, please click on the Blue America 2020 Senate thermometer above and contribute what you can to Paul Jean's campaign.