June 5, 2020 Press Releases

DSCC FRIDAY TAKEAWAYS: MOMENTUM FOR GREENFIELD AFTER “DECISIVE” WIN–GOP OPPOSING ENHANCED UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFITS–REPUBLICAN DEFENSIVE SPENDING GROWS

GREENFIELD, BULLOCK, LUJAN ADVANCE TO GENERAL ELECTION. Democrats continue to expand the map as they nominate strong Democratic challengers to take on vulnerable Republican incumbents and to hold on to open seats. This week, Theresa Greenfield, Governor Steve Bullock, and Congressman Ben Ray Luján all advanced to the general election after winning big in Iowa, Montana, and New Mexico respectively.

Theresa Greenfield is the candidate Republicans did not want to face in the general election: she has repeatedly outraised Senator Joni Ernst, polling shows a tightening race, and independent election analysts have shifted this race in Democrats’ direction because of Theresa’s campaign. Now, Washington Republicans have been forced on defense and are prepared to spend millions of dollars in the general election trying to bail out the increasingly vulnerable and unpopular incumbent.

Governor Steve Bullock has put Montana on the map, consistently outraising Senator Steve Daines. The popular two-term governor and former attorney general has won three statewide elections while building a record of working across party lines to deliver real results — from growing Montana’s economy and expanding health care coverage, to championing campaign finance reform and protecting public lands.

Congressman Ben Ray Luján enters the general election in a strong position to hold this open Democratic Senate seat. The longtime political leader in New Mexico is a relentless advocate for the priorities of working families and his campaign momentum only continues to grow – he has raised more than $1 million four quarters in a row, and he once again outraised the entire Republican field last quarter.

AFTER GREENFIELD’S “DECISIVE” WIN, NEW POLL SHOWS ERNST LOSING. Just days after Theresa Greenfield’s “decisive win” in Tuesday’s primary, new public polling shows Theresa in a strong position heading into the general election and holding a slight lead over incumbent Senator Joni Ernst, 45-43. Read more about the competitive Iowa race in a memo from the Greenfield campaign that details how Theresa’s big win in an election with record-breaking Democratic turnout, her huge margins of victory in pivot counties and rural Iowa, and her impressive grassroots support and fundraising show she’s in a strong position to defeat Senator Joni Ernst and flip this seat. Read the memo here.

Read the news coverage:

Des Moines Register: Theresa Greenfield to take on Joni Ernst in high-profile battle for U.S. Senate seat
The Gazette: Greenfield rolls up decisive win in race for Democrats’ U.S. Senate nomination
Iowa Starting Line: Greenfield Leads Ernst In New Poll; First Ads Launch
Quad Cities: Iowa Democratic Party Chair Mark Smith: ‘Theresa Greenfield will be a champion for our working families’
KHQA: Theresa Greenfield wins U.S. Senate Democratic primary, will challenge Sen. Joni Ernst
WQAD: Voters choose Theresa Greenfield to run for US Senate

MCCONNELL’S DARK MONEY GROUP ANNOUNCES MORE DEFENSIVE SPENDING. One Nation, the Washington-based dark money group aligned with Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and affiliated with the GOP Super PAC Senate Leadership Fund, announced that they will spend $27 million this summer on additional ads in Senate battlegrounds. A few key points on the latest defensive spending from national Republicans:

Once again, this is A LOT of defense. Just like with the SLF reservations so far this cycle, there is not a single offensive investment in this summer spending. Republicans are instead being forced to double down on defending an increasingly long list of vulnerable incumbents in Arizona, Colorado, Iowa, Maine, Montana, and North Carolina.

Iowa and Montana are firmly in play. GOP spending in these states should make clear: these will be some of the most competitive races on the map and they are at very real risk of flipping to Democrats in 2020. The second- and third-biggest of these ad buys from One Nation are going to Senate races in Iowa ($5.3M) and Montana ($3.9M).

North Carolina is becoming the GOP’s biggest defensive liability. More than one-third of One Nation’s entire reservation ($10.2M) is in North Carolina — reinforcing again just how weak Senator Tillis remains.

BOTTOM LINE: McConnell’s allies dumping millions into dark money ads spreading false attacks and propping up weak GOP incumbents is yet another sign of how strong Democratic challengers and grassroots momentum have continued to push Republicans further on defense and expand the Senate map in our direction this cycle.

REPUBLICANS OPPOSE EXTENDING ENHANCED UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFITS. Nearly 43 million Americans have filed for unemployment in recent months, but Majority Leader McConnell and Senate Republicans claim there’s no “urgency” for further action to address this economic and public health crisis. In fact, Senate Republicans are refusing to extend enhanced unemployment benefits that expire at the end of July. And while tens of millions of Americans have lost their jobs and employer-provided health coverage, McConnell and Senate Republicans have no plan to help make it easier for millions of uninsured Americans to get health insurance, and are plowing forward with a dangerous lawsuit to tear down the entire health care law that protects people with pre-existing conditions.

NEW DSCC VIDEO HIGHLIGHTS GOP SENATORS’ LATEST REFUSAL TO HOLD TRUMP ACCOUNTABLE. The DSCC released a new digital video highlighting Republican senators’ refusal to hold President Trump accountable for the tear gassing of peaceful protesters who were speaking out against violence against Black Americans to clear the way for a presidential photo op. When asked to respond, GOP Senators feigned ignorance or dodged the questions. Some vulnerable Republicans even defended him.

The Republican Senators’ silence is more alarming in the wake of former Secretary of Defense James Mattis’ stunning rebuke of Trump. Mattis wrote, “Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people—does not even pretend to try. Instead he tries to divide us.” In the past, Republican senators praised the Marine general and said the country needed a “Mattis clone” to replace him at the Pentagon. Now, Senate Republicans are once again standing with Trump while they “shrug off” Mattis’ declaration that the president is making “a mockery of our constitution.”

WATCH THE VIDEO:

TRUMP VISITS MAINE, COLLINS IS NOWHERE TO BE FOUND. Trump visited Maine to tour a factory producing Coronavirus testing equipment– but Senator Susan Collins was “conspicuously absent” — instead hosting a virtual fundraiser for her campaign and the Maine Republican Party, which is working to re-elect Trump. The vulnerable incumbent has a long history of ducking the question of her support of the president – Collins has refused to say whether she’s voting for Trump for 537 days and counting.

Read the coverage:

HEALTH INSURANCE CEO PAY DWARFS CDC’S INFECTIOUS DISEASE RESEARCH BUDGET. A new report from Axios this week shows that health care CEOs raked in four times the CDC’s budget to study and prepare for infectious diseases last year. These “big payouts” for corporate executives came after every single Senate Republican on the ballot voted for the GOP tax giveaway that gave top insurance and pharmaceutical companies “a $100 billion bonanza” in tax savings over the next decade. And now, after gifting a massive windfall to big corporations, not a single Republican senator has spoken out to oppose President Trump’s proposed “big cuts” to the CDC in his budget blueprint and years of Trump “slashing the government agencies responsible for handling the coronavirus outbreak.”

REPUBLICANS FACE “MESSY” KANSAS PRIMARY. Monday was the filing deadline for the U.S. Senate race in Kansas and Republicans are left with a “messy” primary, forcing them to spend in a state they previously took for granted and giving them “a headache” they can’t afford. Whoever emerges from the GOP’s bruising primary will face a “strong candidate” in physician Barbara Bollier, who’s posted the biggest fundraising numbers of the entire field and remains in a dead heat with the Republican candidates according to a recent poll.

POLITICO: GOP faces messy Kansas primary after Pompeo Senate dream dies
Cook Political Report: With No Pompeo, Kansas Senate Primary Is One of Republicans’ Messiest

MCSALLY CALLS FOX NEWS POLL “STUPID” IN FOX INTERVIEW. In an interview this week with Fox Business’ Stuart Varney, unelected Senator Martha McSally called a Fox News poll that showed her trailing combat veteran and former astronaut Mark Kelly by 13 points “stupid” and “jacked up,” showing a new level of desperation as the vulnerable unelected senator continues “doing terribly” in the polls.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRvsC2-RPXI&feature=youtu.be

REVEREND WARNOCK SPEAKS ON THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT LEGACY AND THE ATLANTA PROTESTS. Reverend Raphael Warnock sat down with NPR this week to discuss the Civil Rights movements’ legacy in Atlanta and shared his own experience speaking from the same pulpit as Martin Luther King Jr. after demonstrations in response to the killing of George Floyd. Listen to the full interview here.

An excerpt from Reverend Warnock’s sermon this past Sunday: “Our remembrances of the past are always more simple than the complexity of the past. There is a world that some long for that is passing away and in its last breath. There are some…who want to sow the seeds of division because they had no vision. They cannot lead us, so they seek to divide us.”