School Choice Loses

Our latest book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics. Among other things, it discusses state and congressional elections.

Eli Hager and Jeremy Schwartz at Pro Publica:

Coming into this week’s election, Donald Trump and Republicans had hoped to reverse that sort of popular opposition to “school choice” with new voucher ballot measures in several states.

But despite Trump’s big win in the presidential race, vouchers were again soundly rejected by significant majorities of Americans. In Kentucky, a ballot initiative that would have allowed public money to go toward private schooling was defeated roughly 65% to 35% — the same margin as in Arizona in 2018 and the inverse of the margin by which Trump won Kentucky. In Nebraska, nearly all 93 counties voted to repeal an existing voucher program; even its reddest county, where 95% of voters supported Trump, said no to vouchers. And in Colorado, voters defeated an effort to add a “right to school choice” to the state constitution, language that might have allowed parents to send their kids to private schools on the public dime.

Expansions of school vouchers, despite backing from wealthy conservatives, have never won when put to voters. Instead, they lose by margins not often seen in such a polarized country.

Trump Off the Maine Ballot

Our recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses the state of the parties. The state of the GOP is not good. Trump and his minions falsely claimed that he won the election, and have kept repeating the Big Lie.  And we now know how close he came to subverting the Constitution. 

Zach Montellaro at Politico:

Maine’s top election official ejected former President Donald Trump from the state’s ballot on Thursday, declaring him ineligible to serve as president because of his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on Congress.

The ruling by Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, a Democrat, is certain to inflame a roaring national debate over whether the Republican presidential frontrunner should be allowed to hold power again.

The decision makes Maine the second state in two weeks to disqualify Trump’s candidacy due to the constitutional bar on officeholders who supported or “engaged in insurrection or rebellion.” Last week the Colorado Supreme Court barred Trump from the state’s Republican primary ballot under a similar interpretation of the 14th Amendment.

Bellows’ decision on Thursday increases the pressure on the U.S. Supreme Court to step in and ultimately decide Trump’s fate — as the Colorado GOP petitioned the justices this week to do.

Unlike the Colorado ruling, this one comes from an individual officeholder affiliated with the Democratic Party. And Maine, unlike Colorado, has been a presidential battleground in recent years; under an unusual state law, it cast one of its Electoral College votes for Trump in both 2016 and 2020.

Trump was quick to attack the decision, with an aide calling it “partisan election interference.” But his removal from the ballot in two states remains a stark illustration of his deep legal and political vulnerabilities.

Bellows, who made the call in Maine because state law requires the secretary to adjudicate ballot challenges to candidates’ eligibility, defended her decision in her determination.

“I am mindful that no Secretary of State has ever deprived a presidential candidate of ballot access based on Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment,” Bellows wrote. “I am also mindful, however, that no presidential candidate has ever before engaged in insurrection.”

The Colorado Decision and the GOP Nomination Contest

 

Our recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses the state of the parties. The state of the GOP is not good. Trump and his minions falsely claimed that he won the election, and have kept repeating the Big Lie.  And we now know how close he came to subverting the Constitution.   

Maggie Haberman at NYT:

It may take weeks to find out whether the decision by the Colorado Supreme Court to declare Donald J. Trump ineligible to be on the state primary ballot will hold.

But its short-term political impact was clear by the time Mr. Trump stepped off a stage on Tuesday night in Iowa, where he learned of the ruling shortly before a scheduled campaign rally began.

Allies of the former president posted on social media that the ruling was an outrage, one that the U.S. Supreme Court needed to rectify.

Colorado’s top court found that Mr. Trump had incited an insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, and should be barred from the ballot under the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. Mr. Trump could remain on the ballot regardless — the Colorado justices put their ruling on hold as appeals are likely to proceed — but Mr. Trump’s team was hardly dwelling on that detail.

Even if Mr. Trump remains on the ballot, any court having said that Mr. Trump incited an insurrection will be used against him in a general election, in ways his advisers know could be damaging. But the Republican primary is different. Officials with Mr. Trump’s rival G.O.P. campaigns privately feared that the decision would be seen as an overreach by Democrats, one that could bolster his current lead among Republicans in the Iowa caucuses on Jan. 15, and in the primaries immediately after.

For years, events that would thwart other politicians have at best slowed Mr. Trump’s forward motion, with the prominent exception of his loss in the 2020 election to Joseph R. Biden Jr. Throughout 2023, Mr. Trump has exploited as political fodder events that would have sunk other candidates — such as being indicted four times, on 91 felony charges — with a Republican electorate that has been told Democrats are threatening their way of life.

Broke State Republican Parties

 Our most recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses campaign finance.

Jim Geraghty at NRO:

On the menu today: The seemingly frozen-in-amber GOP presidential primary is getting most of the attention and headlines, but under the radar, in at least a quartet of key states, the state Republican parties are collapsing — going broke and devolving into infighting little fiefdoms. Even worse for the GOP, these aren’t just any states — Arizona, Colorado, Michigan, and Minnesota all rank as either key swing states or once-purple states that would be tantalizing targets in a good year. Meanwhile, the Georgia state Republican Party is spending a small fortune on the legal fees of those “alternate” Republican electors from the 2020 presidential election. If Republicans are disappointed with the results of the 2024 elections — for the fourth straight cycle, mind you — a key factor will be the replacement of competent, boring, regular state-party officials with quite exciting, blustering nutjobs who have little or no interest in the basics of successfully managing a state party or the basic blocking and tackling involved in helping GOP candidates win elections.

Good Night for Dems

Our latest book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses state and local elections.  Republicans have lost ground in big cities.

Caroline Vakil at The Hill:

Democrats had a lot to celebrate on Tuesday night.

In one of the most closely watched races of the year, Democratic candidate Heather Boyd beat Republican Katie Ford in the special election for a Pennsylvania state House seat outside Philadelphia, allowing them to keep control of the lower chamber.

The race was seen as particularly critical since Democrats feared Republicans would use a potential majority to push through restrictive measures relating to abortion and LGBTQ issues.

Meanwhile, in Jacksonville, Fla., Democrats scored an upset after Donna Deegan (D) won the mayoral race there against Republican Daniel Davis, who was backed by DeSantis. The election offered Democrats some relief given Duval County’s red leanings, suggesting that Democrats can still be competitive in the state even as Florida has trended Republican in recent years.

Meanwhile, in Colorado Springs, independent candidate Yemi Mobolade won the mayoral race against Republican Wayne Williams, a former Colorado secretary of state. The election delivered yet another blow to Republicans given that El Paso County, where Colorado Springs is situated, was a county that former President Trump won by 11 points in 2020.

With the Jacksonville flip, the largest city with a Republican mayor is Fort Worth, TX (pop.  918,915).

For folks who don't know Jacksonville, the city and county are the same government. Wrong to think this is another "big" Dem city. It has outlying rural areas and a significant number of military retirees. It's a slightly red-leaning bellweather for the state. Why this is a bfd

— Michael McDonald (@ElectProject) May 17, 2023

Aaron Blake at WP:

All told, according to the Daily Kos Elections numbers, Democrats have overperformed the 2020 presidential results by an average of six points across 18 state legislative races this year. (And again, that was a good election for them.) They’ve also beaten their 2016 margins by an average of 10 points.

And that doesn’t include the highest offices on the ballot thus far in 2023. In a crucial Wisconsin state Supreme Court race, the Democratic-aligned candidate won by 11 points, ending 15 years of conservative control of the court. And in the only special congressional election of 2023 so far, in Virginia, Democrats beat their 2020 margin by double digits.

Picking Your Opponent

Our book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses state and congressional elections. 

In the 2012 Missouri  Senate race, incumbent Democrat Claire McCaskill ran ads during the GOP primary campaign saying that Todd Akin was "too conservative."  The idea of the "attack ad" was to drive GOP voters to Akin, her weakest potential foe.  It worked.  Other campaigns have tried variations of the "pick your opponent" ploy.  Even in California.

Sandra Fish at The Colorado Sun:

The Democratic Governors Association is financing a group running TV ads boosting the profile of Greg Lopez, one of two Republican candidates for governor in Colorado.

The DGA donated $1.5 million to Strong Colorado for All in recent weeks. That state-level super PAC then donated $600,000 to Colorado Information Network, another state-level super PAC that began airing the ads last week. The $600,000 is the only contribution Colorado Information Network reported in a filing made Monday with the Secretary of State’s Office.

The Colorado Information Network booked at least $915,000 worth of TV ads featuring Lopez to run through the June 28 primary. The group reported about $401,000 of that spending in its Monday report.

The ads stress Lopez’s conservative credentials on abortion, gay marriage and former President Donald Trump.

“Greg Lopez holds views that are too extreme and out-of-touch for Colorado,” DGA spokeswoman Christina Amestoy said. “Voters need to know what he believes in, what he would push on the state, and just how dangerous of a governor he could be.”

Although the ad features ominous music and concludes by saying that Lopez is “too conservative for Colorado,” it appears aimed at swaying conservative Republicans to select him over University of Colorado regent Heidi Ganahl in the gubernatorial primary.

More on the potential for the tactic to backfire:

 

How California’s unusual primary system can lead to unusual strategies and unusual results.

I wrote about a GOP-leaning senate district where two Dems may be on the Nov ballot and what it says about California’s 10 year top two experiment:https://t.co/xy5eQutXBq pic.twitter.com/PzDsl7w6ua

— Ben Christopher (@FromBenC) June 13, 2022

Good Primary Day for Democrats

In Defying the Odds, we discuss state and congressional elections as well as the presidential race.

At NYT, Jonathan Martin and Adam Nagoourney report that moderates prevailed in Colorado and Kentucky, and that Oklahoma voters endorsed Medicaid expansion.

Amy McGrath, a former Marine fighter pilot who built a formidable campaign war chest, emerged Tuesday as the Democratic nominee to take on Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, fending off a challenge from the left that highlighted the party’s ideological divisions.

In Colorado, John Hickenlooper, the state’s former governor, survived a rough campaign to win his Democratic Senate primary, propelling him to a general election challenge to Senator Cory Gardner, a Republican and top target for Democrats looking to capture control of the Senate.

And in Oklahoma, voters narrowly approved expanding Medicaid coverage to at least 200,000 lower-income adults, according to The Associated Press, an affirmation of Obamacare in an overwhelmingly Republican state. The results, coming as the state battles the coronavirus pandemic, was a repudiation of President Trump and Republican state leaders who had opposed the Medicaid expansion and who supported a court case seeking to overturn President Barack Obama’s signature health care plan.

In Colorado, Republicans nominated another loony who hurts the party brand and could lose an otherwise safe seat.  Carl Hulse at NYT:

Lauren Boebert, a political novice and gun-rights activist who has spoken approvingly of the pro-Trump conspiracy theory QAnon, claimed an upset primary victory on Tuesday night against Representative Scott Tipton of Colorado, unseating a five-term incumbent endorsed by President Trump.

Ms. Boebert, 33, is the owner of Shooters Grill in Rifle, Colo., and has gained attention in recent days for defying pandemic restrictions by keeping her restaurant open. She previously grabbed headlines for confronting a former Democratic presidential candidate, Beto O’Rourke, over his pledge during an appearance in the state to seize assault rifles.

“I am here to say: Hell, no, you’re not,” Ms. Boebert, who encourages employees in her restaurant to openly carry guns, told him during a town-hall meeting in Aurora. Gun rights have been at the center of the state’s political clashes for years after new restrictions imposed after mass shootings.

More recently, Ms. Boebert defied state orders against opening her restaurant until the Garfield County sheriff obtained a cease-and-desist order against her.

Congratulations on a really great win! https://t.co/rMpFiV6LvY

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 1, 2020

The Senate Is Up for Grabs

In Defying the Odds, we discuss state and congressional elections as well as the presidential race. The update looks at political and demographic trends through the 2018 midterm.  Our next book will explain 2020. As of early May, the signs are negative for the GOP

E.J. Dionne at The Washington Post:

Montana Gov. Steve Bullock (D) says that when he first announced he would run for the U.S. Senate, he “didn’t know what Montana and the country was going to look like in the short period thereafter.” With the covid-19 crisis, all his time has been taken up by being a governor, not a candidate. So far, that has only helped him in his campaign to unseat Republican Sen. Steve Daines.

In Maine, House Speaker Sara Gideon, a Democrat seeking to end the long career of Republican Sen. Susan Collins, says the pandemic has “laid bare the inequities that already existed” and underscored the need for a “vision of what it means to work together and for each other instead of trying to sow divisiveness.” This brings home Gideon’s case against Collins’s willingness to ally with President Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), two of the most divisive figures in American politics.

Colorado’s former governor John Hickenlooper, a Democrat with a good chance of ousting incumbent Republican Sen. Cory Gardner, expresses a sense of gravity about this campaign that he never felt in his races for mayor of Denver or governor.

“I will never forgive myself if I lose it,” Hickenlooper told me, “and I will do everything in my power, I will work as hard as humanly possible, to make sure that I win this, just because I feel in my bones that our democracy has been so weakened by this relentless partisanship, the constant division.”

And Democrat Cal Cunningham, a veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan who is facing incumbent Republican Sen. Thom Tillis (N.C.), says that many North Carolinians today feel “an urgency that did not exist prior to March of this year” about “health coverage . . . about jobs, the economy.”

Issues that were once “percolating for many” are now “personal for everyone.”

If Bullock, Gideon, Hickenlooper and Cunningham all win, Democrats will likely take over the U.S. Senate and end McConnell’s days as majority leader.

Cruz Outhustles Trump

Melanie Mason and Mark Z. Barabak write at The Los Angeles Times:

Donald Trump has won more votes and carried more states than any Republican. Still, he stands a fair chance of losing the GOP nomination because up to now he largely ignored one of the most rudimentary aspects of a presidential run: securing loyal delegates.

In state after state in recent weeks, the Cruz campaign has trounced Trump in those battles, building on work to identify and organize supporters that Cruz began months ago. Those successes are improving Cruz's odds of emerging as the Republican nominee if Trump falls short of winning a majority of delegates.

“You have to think of this whole process as having two different tracks to it. There's the primary process — that's about winning and allocating delegates,” said Ben Ginsberg, a veteran Republican election lawyer.

But “the story that will really be more important to what happens in Cleveland,” he said, “is the delegate-selection track. They're two connected but separate skill sets.”

At NBC, Benjy Sarlin reports on Colorado:

Cruz took all 13 of the delegates up for grabs on Saturday to complete a clean sweep of the state. Delegates endorsed by his campaign swept all seven Congressional District conventions held over the last week as well, which added another 21 delegates. Another three slots are reserved for state party officials.

"Today was another resounding victory for conservatives, Republicans, and Americans who care about the future of our country," the Cruz campaign said in a statement Saturday night.

...

On Saturday, Trump backers passed out flyers at the convention site with official campaign slate of 13 delegates and 13 alternates accompanied by their three-digit number position on the 600-plus person ballot. Seven of the names, however, directed people to the wrong number and one delegate's name was misspelled. Other candidates did not have errors on their slates.

In one case, an erroneous number corresponded with a Cruz supporter. A second flyer handed out by the Trump campaign contained four mismatched names and numbers.
Among the names listed incorrectly on both flyers: Becky Mizel.

It was the second major error concerning campaign materials this week. On Thursday, a Trump slate of three names in the 7th Congressional District convention contained two that weren't listed on the ballot. The campaign's state director, Patrick Davis, said they failed to pay the necessary fees to qualify.

Newsmax reports on weird comments from Trump's convention manager:

In an appearance Sunday on "Meet the Press," Manafort was asked about his longtime friend Roger Stone's quote last week that if Cruz tries to sway Trump delegates on a second vote at the GOP convention this summer he was prepared to "disclose the hotels and the room numbers of those delegates who are directly involved."

But Manafort told "Meet the Press" it is Cruz's campaign that is using dirty tricks.
"It's not my style. It's not Donald Trump's style," Manfort said. "But it is Ted Cruz's style."

He wasn't specific on the tactics he was alleging, but did repeat moderator Chuck Todd's word "threatening," before adding, "You go to his county conventions and you see the Gastapo tactics."

Crossroads, Fundraising, Coordination

At Bloomberg, Annie Linskey reports that Crossroads GPS initially had fundraising problems, the result of a disappointing 2012.

The donor freeze started thawing in September when polling began to tighten in a number of races and big-names such as Sheldon Adelson started opening their wallets. He wrote a $10 million check to Crossroads GPS in September, a nonprofit arm of the Rove organization. GPS, as a nonprofit, is not required to disclose its donors. Adelson's windfall was leaked to the news media. "Typically donors who support Crossroads are pretty sophisticated consumers of political information," Law said. "My guess is donors paid attention to what they saw on sites like Real Clear Politics."

The group scraped together $36 million to put into television for Senate races in the last 90 days of the campaign, according to figures provided by Crossroads. It was the lead spender in Colorado, Arkansas and Alaska, where GOP Dan Sullivan is about 8,000 votes ahead of Democrat Mark Begich.

However, resources weren't arriving evenly or predictably. That forced Crossroads and some of the other GOP groups to cooperate this year in ways they've never done before. One example came in October when Crossroads realized there was a "hole in our budget" for Colorado, Law said.

Law emailed Brain Baker at Ending Spending Action Fund, the super-PAC backed by TD Ameritrade founder Joe Ricketts and the two worked out a deal—the Ricketts group would go up on the air and continue pounding incumbent Democrat Mark Udall while Crossroads took a week off. "Ending Spending filled a gap," Law said. "The take away for all of us was sharing information and strategy was smart for all of us." Udall lost to Republican Cory Gardner.

The Night of Crossroads

Two years ago, some on the left and the right criticized Karl Rove for the defeat of Crossroads-backed candidates.  The midterm is different as Michael Beckel, Carrie Levine, and Dave Levinthal write at Slate:

Groups connected to Rove and the Koch brothers were among the biggest winners in Tuesday’s midterm elections. Of the 10 U.S. Senate races where either the Rove-linked nonprofit Crossroads GPS or its sister super PAC, American Crossroads, was active, their favored candidates prevailed in at least six—with the Alaska Senate race still too close to call at this writing and a runoff election coming next month in Louisiana. Similarly, of the nine U.S. Senate races where the Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity was active, its favored candidates also prevailed in at least five contests. Only in New Hampshire and Michigan did the Crossroads groups and Americans for Prosperity see defeat.

In the Granite State, incumbent Sen. Jeanne Shaheen kept Republican challenger Scott Brown, who previously represented Massachusetts in the U.S. Senate, at bay. And in Michigan, Rep. Gary Peters defeated former Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land to win an open-seat race. As of press time, incumbent Sen. Mark Begich, D-Alaska, was trailing GOP challenger Dan Sullivan, the state’s former attorney general and natural resources commissioner, by about four percentage points.

Ultimately, the current occupant of the White House decided the 2014 election, said Steven Law, president of American Crossroads. “This election was about President Obama,” Law said in a statement. Levi Russell, a spokesman for Americans for Prosperity, did not respond to requests for comment.

The Sunlight Foundation reports:

Two years ago, when we took the post-mortem of the presidential-year elections, powerhouse conservative spenders like Crossroads GPS, American Crossroads and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce had almost nothing to show for the tens of millions of dollars they funneled into that campaign. In 2014, conservatives turned the ship around, drubbing their liberal rivals in a year in which independent groups on both sides dropped unprecedented amounts of money.

The three conservative organizations mentioned above all had success rates under 20 percent two years ago. This year? Each group batted .800 or above. With several races remaining to be decided, the National Republican Senatorial Committee also boasts a 94 percent success rate.

Nicholas Confessore reports at The New York Times:

American Crossroads and its affiliated nonprofit group spent $50 million on political advertising, and at least $20 million more on so-called issue ads, a spokesman said. The groups dominated outside spending in Alaska, where the Crossroads groups put about $7 million into television advertising, and Colorado, fielding close to $14 million, which helped crush Senator Mark Udall, the Democrat who was once favored to win.

All told, Republican outside groups spent about $205 million on television advertising in Senate races, according to a Democrat tracking media purchases, who agreed to share the information on condition of anonymity, while Democratic groups spent $132 million.

For many conservative strategists, this election was a dress rehearsal for the next one. Beginning next year, they face the prospect of a formidable presidential contender in Hillary Rodham Clinton and a Democratic Party that is itself quickly mastering the mechanics of unlimited fund-raising.

“The key to success in most endeavors, including politics, is learning and adaptation,” said Stuart Stevens, who served as a top strategist to Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign. After Tuesday, Mr. Stevens said, “Republicans have that experience — and it’s an advantage.”

Crossroads GPS v. Udall and Landrieu

Crossroads GPS goes after Mark Udall and Mary Landrieu as Washington insiders who back Obama and Obamacare.

Crossroads GPS v. Mark Udall

Crossroads GPS continues to hammer Senator Mark Udall (D-CO) on his support for Obama in general and Obamacare in particular.  In another ad, it goes after the "war on women" (see earlier ad).

Crossroads GPS v. Mark Udall

Crossroads GPS is running an ad against Mark Udall.  The Washington Examiner reports:

One of the leading pro-Republican outside groups will try to chip away at Sen. Mark Udall’s support among women with a new ad launching Tuesday.

Crossroads GPS, the nonprofit arm of the Karl Rove-backed group American Crossroads, will debut a television advertisement throughout Colorado urging women voters to “vote ‘no’ on Mark Udall.”

Udall, a Democrat, has maintained a commanding lead over Republican Rep. Cory Gardner among women, whose support could decide the outcome of this key Senate race.
The ad, “Talk,” features four women chatting around a kitchen island about the upcoming election.

“We aren’t single-issue voters,” one woman says. “We care about good jobs that support our families.”

Four years ago, Frank Luntz offered some good advice:

Connecticut GOP Senate candidate Linda McMahon spent more than $40 million of her own money, much of it on ads that often did her more harm than good. The most memorable featured two chatty women in a car talking about McMahon's job-creation capabilities. When one asked whether the other thought McMahon could shake things up in Washington, the two chirped in confected unison, "Oh, yeah." The response from viewers: Oh, no. No actors. Ever.

NBC Poll: Arkansas, Kentucky, Colorado

Mark Murray reports at NBC:

In Arkansas, Rep. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., leads incumbent Democratic Sen. Mark Pryor by five points among likely voters, 45 percent to 40 percent, with two minor candidates getting a combined 5 percent.

In Kentucky, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., is ahead of Democratic challenger Alison Lundergan Grimes by eight points among likely voters, 47 percent to 39 percent, with Libertarian David Patterson getting another 8 percent.

And in Colorado, incumbent Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., is up by six points over Rep. Cory Gardner, 48 percent to 42 percent.

 

Crossroads Groups and Senate Races

American Crossroads has radio ads for Senate races in North Carolina and Alaska.



 In Colorado, Crossroads GPS has an issue advocacy ad against Mark Udall and Obamacare:

 

Oppo Summer!

At The Hill, Cameron Joseph and Alexandra Jaffe report:

The battle for the Senate is shifting fully into opposition research season after Georgia's Tuesday primary decided one of the final marquee Senate matchups.

Campaigns across the country are beginning to crack their research books to leak embarrassing and incriminating stories about their opponents, seeking to disqualify them as the general election season heats up.

On Wednesday alone, the New York Times reported that Sen. John Walsh (D-Mont.) plagiarized much of his 2007 master’s thesis, Michigan papers continued their coverage of questions surrounding Michigan Senate candidate Terri Lynn Land’s (R) financial disclosures (which are missing any record of a joint account with her husband, which she’s said is being used to pump millions of their money into the race), and Iowa Republicans continued to make hay out of Rep. Bruce Braley’s (D-Iowa) poor attendance record at Veterans Affairs Committee hearings.

Opposition research dumps, always a key facet of campaigns, have become even more important with shrinking newsrooms and burgeoning outside groups such as American Bridge on the left and, this cycle, the GOP’s response with America Rising. At the same time, what used to be “October surprises” are now coming earlier as campaigns and super-PACs spend on early TV and candidates look to damage each other in the spring and summer.

A tracker for America Rising found an unhappy Walsh coming out of a fundraiser:



In Michigan, America Rising counters on the personal financial disclosure front:

Gary Peters loves to rail against companies that move overseas for tax purposes. He supports cracking down on offshore tax havens, voted for a bill that would crack down of offshore tax evasion, and said that the U.S. needs to keep corporations from exploiting offshore tax shelters.

But, according to his personal financial disclosure, Gary Peters owns between $15,001 and $50,000 worth of stock in Medtronic Inc:

In June, Medtronic bought Covidien Plc. The new combined company will be based in Ireland for tax purposes and the move would free up almost $14 billion that Medtronic would avoid paying taxes on in the U.S.

Peters talks a big game, but when it comes right down to it, he profits from companies that avoid paying U.S. taxes.

Meanwhile, Crossroads GPS deploys votes and quotes against Kay Hagan (D-NC) and Mark Udall (D-CO):

Crossroads GPS v. Mark Pryor & Mark Udall

From Politico Morning Score:

Crossroads GPS, the nonprofit arm of the Crossroads organization, is out with new television ads in Arkansas and Colorado. The Arkansas spot hits Pryor on Obamacare. The Colorado ad criticizes Democratic Sen. Mark Udall for calling new EPA regulations “a good start” and asks Coloradoans to urge him to support the Keystone XL pipeline. Both ads begin today; the Arkansas ad is backed by more than $435,000, while the Colorado spot has $460,000 behind it. Arkansas: http://youtu.be/aFdKquc3Csg, Colorado: http://youtu.be/yeDx1MV6QZU

Crossroads GPS Against Udall and for Gardner

The Denver Post reports on issue advocacy ads from Crossroads GPS:

Two new ads that focus on Colorado’s U.S. Senate race and energy policies debuted today, with one spot praising Republican Cory Gardner and one panning the Democrat he wants to unseat, Sen. Mark Udall.

The ad critical of Udall is airing in Denver and looks at new EPA regulations. The ad praising Gardner is airing in Colorado Springs and praises him for supporting the Keystone XL pipeline project, which Udall opposed last week in a procedural vote.

Democrats Had a Bad Night and a Worse Morning

James Hohmann writes at Politico:

Tuesday night was bad for Democrats, good for the GOP establishment and great for incumbents of both parties.

Going into the latest round of primaries, top Republicans feared that Sen. Thad Cochran would fall in Mississippi, immigration hard-liner Tom Tancredo could win their gubernatorial nomination in Colorado and GOP Rep. Richard Hanna would lose a primary in New York because he had endorsed gay marriage.

Such a scenario would have kept one of the country’s reddest states on the map of competitive Senate races through the fall and badly damaged the Republican’s Senate challenger in Colorado — not to mention spurred days of negative coverage presenting the tea party as ascendent and the GOP as intolerant.

But the Republican nightmare didn’t happen: Cochran and Hanna won, Tancredo lost and Rep. James Lankford trounced his Ted Cruz-backed rival in an Oklahoma Senate primary, avoiding a widely expected runoff.

The Wall Street Journal reports on a development that is much worse for Democratic prospects:

The U.S. economy contracted at a worse pace than previously estimated in the first quarter, marking its sharpest pullback since the recession ended five years ago.

Gross domestic product, the broadest measure of goods and services produced across the economy, contracted at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 2.9% in the first three months of the year, according to the Commerce Department's third reading released Wednesday. That was the fastest rate of decline since the first quarter of 2009, when output fell 5.4%.

Commerce had previously estimated output fell by 1% in the first quarter as manufacturers drew down inventories rather than produce new goods and as unusually harsh weather kept consumers at home and shut down work sites. Exports also declined after a surge late last year.
In its third GDP reading, based on newly available data, Commerce said first-quarter consumer spending and exports were even weaker than previously estimated.

Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal had predicted Wednesday's report would revise GDP growth down to a 2% decline.