Morning Digest: Why the House GOP is giving up on Nevada

It's "white flag raised," says the state's top political guru

Republican Drew Johnson (front) is getting little financial support for his House bid in Nevada (credit: Drew Johnson for Congress)

Leading Off

Nevada

The official campaign arm of the House GOP just added another Nevada hopeful to its list of featured candidates, but D.C. Republicans aren't matching words with deeds. In fact, the National Republican Congressional Committee seems to have given up on the Silver State entirely—a remarkable development given how often it's hosted competitive congressional elections.

The NRCC's decision to highlight conservative columnist Drew Johnson, who is hoping to unseat Democratic Rep. Susie Lee in the Las Vegas area's 3rd District, is at odds with the committee's refusal to reserve any advertising time to back him.

According to The Downballot's ad reservation tracker, neither the NRCC nor the closely allied Congressional Leadership Fund have booked so much as a dollar's worth of airtime in the Las Vegas media market, which covers three swingy districts, including the 3rd. Their Democratic counterparts, however, have reserved more than $7 million to support Lee and two other incumbents, Dina Titus in the 1st and Steven Horsford in the 4th.

Johnson isn't the only Nevada Republican featured on the NRCC's "Young Guns" list, which is invariably characterized as a "coveted" honor but doesn't seem to be much of a get these days. The committee previously placed former North Las Vegas Mayor John Lee, who is challenging Horsford, on the same roster, but he's also been left to fend for himself.

But that's still more than it's done for Titus' opponent, Army veteran Mark Robertson, who's gone completely ignored by the NRCC apart from a perfunctory press release sent out after the June primary.

Despite the swingy nature of all three districts—thanks to careful Democratic gerrymandering, they all went for Joe Biden by about 7 to 8 points in 2020—GOP power brokers have good reason to be down on their chances in Nevada.

Most notably, these three Republican House candidates collectively raised less than $700,000 through June 30, and they had to spend what little they had ahead of the primary, leaving them with under $200,000 combined. By contrast, the three Democratic incumbents have together raised just shy of $10 million and had around $6.5 million in the bank.

Even more damning, as the Nevada Independent recently pointed out, the GOP candidates themselves had only reserved a total of $25,000 in TV time, with all of that paltry sum coming from Lee in the 4th. Each Democrat, meanwhile, had booked at least $1 million—and that's on top of reservations made by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the House Majority PAC.

That prompted the Independent's Jon Ralston to sum up the situation in succinct fashion: "White flag raised."

While all of these races could still wind up close—and none are likely to be blowouts—time is pretty much up for Republicans to make a move. Campaigns further up the ticket have absolutely flooded the state with ad spending, and there's more on the way.

As of a week ago, data from AdImpact showed that Kamala Harris and Donald Trump planned to spend another $29 million in Nevada, while more recent numbers from the media tracking firm say an additional $49 million is yet to come in the state's hotly contested Senate race.

With the airwaves already so saturated, latecomers will find themselves paying higher and higher advertising rates—and for campaigns that are already struggling financially, that's a dire problem. Johnson, Lee, and Robertson don't need to outspend their opponents, but they at least need to get their names in front of voters. Right now, they aren't doing that, and the situation looks unlikely to change.

House

House Majority PAC

The pro-Democratic House Majority PAC announced Friday that it was reserving an additional $1.1 million in ad time in the media markets the cover Iowa's 1st District, as well as $400,000 in Wisconsin's 3rd District. (HMP did not provide a breakdown of how much money would go toward each market.) Those seats are respectively held by GOP Reps. Mariannette Miller-Meeks and Derrick Van Orden.

NRCC

Along with Drew Johnson in Nevada (see our Leading Off item above), the NRCC added several other lesser-known GOP House candidates to its Young Guns list on Friday. They include Neil Parrot (in Maryland's 6th), Paul Hudson (Michigan's 3rd), Russell Prescott (New Hampshire's 1st), Mike LePetri (New York's 3rd), and Orlando Sonza (Ohio's 1st).

At this late date, however, actual spending matters far more than any signaling, and the NRCC has yet to invest in any of these races. What's more, it's unlikely to: The committee has not booked any ad reservation time in most of the media markets that cover these districts, and new fundraising reports filed on Friday show that it's badly trailing the DCCC in cash on hand.

Ballot Measures

CO Ballot

Colorado Voters First, which is the campaign behind a ballot measure to institute a top-four primary, has released an internal poll showing Proposition 131 ahead 64-25. The survey, from the Colorado-based Democratic firm Keating Research, was finished just before Labor Day and is the first poll we've seen of this proposal. Proposition 131 (also known as Initiative 310), would implement a system similar to that used in Alaska. 

The campaign got a boost on Thursday when Democratic Gov. Jared Polis endorsed the measure, writing, "I think instant runoff voting is better than our current system because it gives voters more choices." Earlier this year, Polis signed a bill that could keep ranked-choice voting from being used statewide, but he's said that he'd respond to the passage of Proposition 131 by taking "prompt and good faith actions" to realize its goals by 2028.

Poll Pile

• VA-Sen: Research America for University of Mary Washington: Tim Kaine (D-inc): 49, Hung Cao (R): 43 (47-46 Harris)

Ad Roundup

• AZ-Sen: Ruben Gallego (D) - anti-Kari Lake (R)

• MI-Sen: NRSC - anti-Elissa Slotkin (D) (here and here)

• NM-Sen: Nella Domenici (R) - anti-Martin Heinrich (D-inc)

• NV-Sen: Jacky Rosen (D-inc) - anti-Sam Brown (R); NRSC - anti-Rosen (here and here)

• WI-Sen: DSCC - anti-Eric Hovde (R)

• NH-Gov: New Hampshire Democratic Party - anti-Kelly Ayotte (R)

• CO-03: Adam Frisch (D) - anti-Jeff Hurd (R)

• IA-03: Lanon Baccam (D) - anti-Zach Nunn (R-inc)

• MI-08: NRCC - anti-Kristen McDonald Rivet (D)

• MN-02: Joe Teirab (R)

• NE-02: Don Bacon (R-inc); DCCC - anti-Bacon

• NY-19: Congressional Leadership Fund - anti-Josh Riley (D)

• NY-22: John Mannion (D)