Morning Digest: Why is a random GOP candidate in Nebraska airing ads about an abortion ballot measure?

And where did he get the money to do so?

Commercial against Nebraska abortion rights amendment (Credit: Rob Schafer for Board of Regents)

NE Ballot

A Republican who's a lock for reelection to the University of Nebraska's Board of Regent is spending heavily on campaign ads—but not for his own race. Instead, Rob Schafer is airing TV spots aimed at sinking an amendment to restore abortion rights in the state, a move that allows anti-abortion activists to obtain the cheaper advertising rates set aside for candidates.

Schafer's ads are carbon copies of the spots being run by the groups opposing the abortion rights amendment, except for the disclaimer at the very end. In one ad featuring an adoption attorney, a version from the Nebraska Family Alliance identifies it as the sponsor, while Schafer's virtually identical ad rather incongruously concludes with on-screen text saying, "PAID FOR BY ROB SCHAFER FOR BOARD OF REGENTS."

The "why" is easy to understand. While Nebraska's elections for its Board of Regents are officially nonpartisan, Schafer should have no trouble dispatching Democrat Gary Rogge in November for another six-year term. In the May top-two primary for this post, Schafer ran up a 55-26 lead on Rogge, and his 5th District is safely red: According to VEST data from Dave's Redistricting App, Donald Trump carried it 61-37.

Schafer's district also happens to include the state's two largest media markets, Omaha and Lincoln, which together cover 88% of Nebraska's population, according to calculations from The Downballot.

That makes Schafer's campaign the perfect vehicle for ads attacking Initiative 439, the abortion rights measure, as well as those supporting a rival amendment, Initiative 434, which would write the state's existing 12-week ban into the constitution and leave the door open for further restrictions.

(Yet another Schafer spot instructs voters on how to fill out their ballots, this one a copy of an ad from Protect Women and Children and the mirror-image of one from reproductive rights supporters.)

The impact has been profound. For every $100 Schafer has spent airing ads related to the two amendments in Lincoln, the chief group supporting Initiative 439 is spending $244. In Omaha, the difference is even starker: A $100 ad buy for Schaffer costs Protect Our Rights $336, according to data shared with The Downballot.

And Schafer is spending quite a bit: Over the last week, he shelled out $215,000. Protect Our Rights, meanwhile, spent just shy of $1 million, but even though it laid out 4.6 times as much, its ads only reached 1.8 times as many viewers. Not only has that been a huge boon to the anti-abortion side, TV stations are also missing out on hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars in revenue by allowing Schafer to run these ads.

That gets us to the "how," which is much murkier. In his most recent campaign finance disclosure, which ran through Oct. 1, Schaffer reported having just $19,000 in his war chest—not remotely enough to run the flight of ads he's been responsible for. (TV stations demand cash on the barrelhead.) So where has the money come from?

New reports are not due until Oct. 28, just days before the election, but Schaffer's last filing offers some possible clues.

One of Schaffer's biggest donors, to the tune of $25,000, was Sen. Pete Ricketts, the wealthy former governor who was a chief funder of the drive to place Initiative 434 on the ballot. GOP megadonor Tom Peed, who has also heavily bankrolled the amendment, gave another $25,000 while the company he owns, Sandhills Global, dropped in the same amount. We'll know next week whether they've continued their largesse—and whether it's gone toward airing Schafer's ads.

Whatever the source of Schaffer's funding, his ad campaign seems to be taking advantage of a possible legal loophole. Under state law, campaigns are limited to making expenditures either "in assistance of, or in opposition to, the nomination or election of a candidate" or for "the qualification, passage, or defeat of a ballot question."

The ambiguous way the statute is drafted leaves open the perverse possibility that candidates are permitted to spend money on ballot measures—or that ballot measure campaigns can spend money on candidate elections. It may well be, however, that lawmakers intended no such thing, a question that the courts would have to resolve.

Senate

MD-Sen

Kamala Harris makes a direct-to-camera pitch for Angela Alsobrooks in the Maryland Democrat's latest ad, with the vice president telling the audience, "Angela is the kind of partner I need." Harris, like Barack Obama a few weeks ago, also informs the viewer of the stakes. "Control of the United States Senate could come down to Maryland," she says, "so I'm counting on you to support my friend Angela Alsobrooks."

House

CO-03

Democrat Adam Frisch received a cross-party endorsement on Monday from Pueblo Mayor Heather Graham, a Republican who leads the largest city in Colorado's 3rd District.

"Adam Frisch knows Pueblo and Pueblo knows him," Graham said of the candidate, who is waging his second campaign to flip a western Colorado seat that Donald Trump carried 53-45 four years ago.

Frisch stunned almost everyone in 2022 when he lost to far-right Rep. Lauren Boebert by just 546 votes, but she went on to shock the political world herself a year later by opting to run for the safely red 4th District on the other side of the state.

Frisch's general election battle against attorney Jeff Hurd, who won the GOP primary the same night the congresswoman triumphed in the 4th, has generated considerably less attention than a second faceoff against Boebert would have, though the Democrat is still hoping for an upset.

Frisch remains a formidable fundraiser even without Boebert as a foil, allowing him to outspend Hurd by a lopsided $4 million to $480,000 spread during the third quarter of 2024. Conservative outside groups, led by the Koch Network's Americans for Prosperity, have deployed over $800,000 to keep their nominee from being completely overwhelmed.

However, larger GOP organizations seem convinced that Hurd, who doesn't have anything like Boebert's baggage, will still prevail without much trouble, and they've directed their resources elsewhere. Their Democratic counterparts are also spending on other contests.

NJ-07

The House Majority PAC has launched a $4 million ad buy to support Democrat Sue Altman's bid to unseat GOP Rep. Tom Kean in New Jersey's swingy 7th District, a race that major Democratic outside groups had bypassed until now. 

HuffPost's Daniel Marans reports that most of HMP's funds will go to financing TV ads for a constituency that's entirely contained in the New York City media market, which is the most expensive in the country. The remaining $400,000 will be used to pay for digital ads to flip this North Jersey seat, which includes suburban and exurban areas west of New York City.

HMP's first spot portrays Kean, who previously served in the state legislature, as a politician who has spent "23 years in Trenton and D.C. trying to strip away women's rights." The commercial shows a photo of a "Make America Great Again" sign but does not directly mention Donald Trump, who lost this district 51-47 four years ago.

Some local observers had speculated that HMP and the DCCC, which sponsored one of two recent surveys that found Kean up just 2 points, had held their fire due to Altman's long history of conflict with longtime party boss George Norcross. Norcross' brother, Rep. Donald Norcross, notably refused to say Altman's name in June when the 1st District congressman declared, "The Democrat ticket is the one that I will be supporting." 

But Politico's Matt Friedman said last week that he'd seen "no evidence" for the claim that the Norcross family was pressuring national Democrats to leave Kean be. Micah Rasmussen of the Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics seemed to concur, telling Friedman that he did not want to "recklessly throw around an allegation" because he had "no idea" what the true reason for Democrats' alleged hesitancy might be.

Former Rep. Tom Malinowski, who narrowly lost reelection to Kean in 2022 after getting badly outspent, has also warned his party about "making the same mistake again and again." Malinowski, though, last week offered up his own theory to the New Jersey Globe about why the 7th District is the "orphan" of seats in the region. 

"One disadvantage this district has always had is that it’s the New York media market," Malinowski told reporter Zach Blackburn. "It’s super expensive, but it’s not New York, so it doesn’t have the same patronage as some of the New York races or the California races."

Marans, for his part, says that an unnamed source likewise pointed to the high cost of airing ads in the 7th District, though they offered a somewhat different take on why the major groups had waited until now. National Democrats, Marans writes, "needed some time to see Altman’s momentum show up in polling and the security of knowing that the funds were not needed to shore up higher-priority candidates in neighboring states."

National Republicans, by contrast, have not hesitated to get involved in the race. The conservative Congressional Leadership Fund has spent about $3 million to protect Kean, an effort that includes ads dubbing her a "radical."

NY-01, NY-04

A pair of new House polls from Siena College for Newsday give Long Island Democrats the best results they've seen all cycle in a region that's swung hard against them since the last presidential election.

Siena shows Republican Rep. Nick LaLota outpacing Democrat John Avlon by a close 47-44 margin in New York's 1st District, which includes the eastern and northern parts of Suffolk County. Respondents also favor Kamala Harris 49-48 four years after Donald Trump scored a comparably slim victory here.

The school, meanwhile, shows Democrat Laura Gillen dispatching GOP incumbent Anthony D'Esposito in a 53-41 landslide in their rematch for the 4th District, which is based in southern Nassau County. Harris enjoys a comparable 54-42 advantage in a seat that favored Joe Biden 57-42 in 2020.

While this set of polls shows a far closer fight in the 1st District, both parties have been acting as though the 4th is considerably more competitive. Democratic outside groups have spent over $10 million to help Gillen avenge her narrow 2022 loss, while their GOP counterparts have dropped almost $4 million to aid D'Esposito. The last poll we saw here was a late August internal for the pro-Democratic House Majority PAC that showed Gillen ahead by a much tighter 50-47 spread.

D'Esposito, though, attracted the kind of national attention no politician wants when the New York Times reported he'd given a part-time job in his congressional office to a woman he was having an affair with. It's possible that this story explains why Republicans are spending far less than their Democratic counterparts in a race where Gillen enjoys a huge financial advantage, but it hasn't led the GOP to triage D'Esposito. 

Republicans have been far more confident in LaLota's prospects at the other end of Long Island. LaLota and the Congressional Leadership Fund released a pair of polls weeks ago that respectively showed him ahead by 8 and 10 points, and Democrats never offered up contradictory data.

CLF and most other outside groups are also behaving like they believe their numbers because they've spent essentially nothing here during the general election. The one major exception is a Democratic group called Welcome PAC, which has been responsible for most of the $1.3 million that's been spent to help Avlon since the primary, but larger outfits have yet to engage here.

PA-10

The NRCC is now booking ad time to help far-right Rep. Scott Perry hold in in Pennsylvania 10th District. AdImpact, which first reported the news, had tracked only $39,000 in new spending as of Tuesday morning, though that number will almost certainly rise as more data comes in.

Independent Expenditures

The House Majority PAC is continuing to cancel ad reservations, reports Politico's Ally Mutnick, in a series of moves that all reflect Democratic confidence. Their Republican counterparts at the Congressional Leadership Fund, however, just cut back on their bookings for a seat the GOP had hoped to flip.

CLF is pulling back from Connecticut's 5th District to the tune of about $370,000, reports Punchbowl's Mica Soellner, after previously reserving $1.1 million for the race. The super PAC had yet to spend anything to boost Republican George Logan's bid against Democratic Rep. Jahana Hayes, though their allies at the NRCC have put in more than $900,000 while the DCCC has fought back with $600,000 in expenditures.

The lone recent poll of the race, an early October survey from Emerson, found Hayes up just 49-46; two years ago, she survived a scare against Logan by less than a percentage point. CLF, however, may be seeing something different in its own polling, prompting the move to downsize its reservation.

The latest HMP cuts, by contrast, all come in districts that Democrats currently hold. Four are especially straightforward, involving races where Democratic incumbents look to be in solid shape for reelection—so much so that HMP has not yet spent anything in any of these contests despite making large reservations earlier in the cycle.

• KS-03 (Rep. Sharice Davids): $320,000 cut, out of $800,000 previously reserved

• MI-03 (Rep. Hillary Scholten): $600,000 cut, out of $1.3 million previously reserved

• OH-01 (Rep. Greg Landsman): $1 million cut, out of $1.9 million previously reserved

• PA-17 (Rep. Chris Deluzio): $1 million cut, out of $1.8 million previously reserved

Mutnick also says that HMP is pulling an unspecified sum from the two House races in New Hampshire, where Rep. Chris Pappas is seeking a fourth term in the 1st District and where Maggie Goodlander is looking to hold the open 2nd District for Democrats. The super PAC had reserved $4.3 million in airtime across the two districts.

In addition, HMP is cutting $1.5 million from the Philadelphia media market, which Mutnick says, somewhat surprisingly, had been intended to protect New Jersey's open 3rd District. D.C. Republicans, however, have shown no interest in that seat, which voted 56-42 for Joe Biden.

The news may come as a disappointment to Democrat Ashley Ehasz, who is hoping to unseat GOP Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick in Pennsylvania's 1st District (another constituency located in the Philadelphia market) but has yet to receive any love from major Democratic groups. HMP has, however, been using its massive $13 million reservation in Philly to protect Rep. Susan Wild in the 7th District.

In recent days, HMP also canceled bookings in Nevada in another sign of Democratic strength. The lone move in the opposite direction has been in Wisconsin's 1st District, a GOP held seat where the PAC sliced its reservations in half.

To help you keep track of all these late moves, bookmark our continually updated House race triage tracker. And to stay on top of spending by the four largest House groups, bookmark our independent expenditure tracker, which we've just updated with the most recent week's data.

Ballot Measures

OR Ballot

Oregon is the only state in the nation where lawmakers can't impeach statewide elected officials, but that would change if voters approve Measure 115 next month. The proposal would apply to the governor, attorney general, secretary of state, treasurer, and commissioner of labor and industries.

The amendment, which legislators placed on the ballot, would require two-thirds of the House to impeach officials for "malfeasance, corrupt conduct in office, willful neglect of constitutional duty or other felony or high crime." It would likewise take two-thirds of the Senate to remove anyone following a trial. 

The call to amend the Beaver State's constitution, the Oregon Capitol Chronicle's Randy Stapilus writes, attracted new urgency last year after Democratic Secretary of State Shemia Fagan acknowledged that she'd worked as a paid consultant for a cannabis company at the same time her office was concluding an audit into how the state regulates such businesses.

While Fagan, who was still subject to a recall, ultimately resigned, lawmakers argued the scandal showed that Oregon needed to be like the other 49 states―at least when it comes to impeachment. Ballotpedia writes that there's no organized group opposing Measure 115, which enjoys bipartisan support in the legislature.

SD Ballot

Mason-Dixon, polling on behalf of the University of South Dakota, finds a narrow 50-47 plurality of voters in favor of a proposed amendment that would allow abortion through the first trimester of pregnancy. However, that's a notable drop from the 53-35 lead that Amendment G, which would overturn South Dakota's near-total abortion ban, enjoyed in Mason-Dixon's last survey in May. We haven't seen any other numbers from this rarely polled state.

The firm finds an even more dramatic swing against Amendment H, which would bring the top-two primary to South Dakota. Mason-Dixon now shows voters rejecting the plan 56-40, while it previously led 55-33.

The proposal would end party primaries and create a two-round system where all candidates run on a single primary ballot for governor, Congress, state legislature, and county-level posts. The top two finishers, regardless of party, would then advance to the November general election. A similar system is currently used in California and Washington. 

Mason-Dixon additionally shows a 51-44 majority opposing Initiated Measure 29 to legalize marijuana, which is only a slight change from its 52-42 deficit in the spring.

Mayors & County Leaders

Portland, OR Mayor

The Portland city auditor's office released a report Monday concluding that City Commissioner Rene Gonzalez had broken the city's campaign finance law by using $6,400 in taxpayer funds, as well as city resources, to improve his Wikipedia page. 

Chief Deputy Auditor Reed Brodersen faulted the mayoral candidate for hiring a company tasked with "developing and posting an edit to Gonzalez’s Wikipedia page meant to bolster Gonzalez’s status as a 'Democrat.'" The report continued by saying that the commissioner, who holds an officially nonpartisan office, "could not identify any reason why a Wikipedia edit pertaining to his status as a Democrat related to city business."

Gonzalez responded to the findings, which included a $2,400 fine, by highlighting Brodersen's connections to the head of a progressive group that backs one of his rivals, fellow Commissioner Carmen Rubio.

"Would you trust a referee that owns a house with and was in a romantic relationship with the opposing team’s head coach?" asked Gonzalez, who is competing against Rubio and 17 other candidates in next month's ranked-choice election.

Poll Pile

• AZ-Sen: Highground Public Affairs: Ruben Gallego (D): 52, Kari Lake (R): 42 (47-46 Trump) (late Sept.: 51-41 Gallego)

• NM-Sen: Research & Polling for the Albuquerque Journal: Martin Heinrich (D-inc): 51, Nella Domenici (R): 40 (50-41 Harris) (mid-Sept.: 50-38 Heinrich)

• NV-Sen: Fabrizio Ward (R) & Impact Research (D) for the AARP: Jacky Rosen (D-inc): 49, Sam Brown (R): 44 (47-46 Trump) (June: 47-42 Rosen)

• NC-Gov: SurveyUSA for High Point University: Josh Stein (D): 50, Mark Robinson (R): 34 (47-46 Harris) (early Sept..: 51-37 Stein)

• AL-02: Schoen Cooperman Research for Protect Progress (pro-Shomari Figures): Shomari Figures (D): 49, Caroleene Dobson (R): 38 (50-41 Harris) (unreleased early Sept. poll: 49-38 Figures)

• CA-45: Normington, Petts and Associates (D) for the DCCC: Derek Tran (D): 48, Michelle Steel (R-inc): 45 (49-42 Harris) (July: 47-47 tie)

• MI-10: DCCC Analytics (D): John James (R-inc): 47, Carl Marlinga (D): 47 (49-49 presidential tie)

• MT-01: Impact Research (D) for Monica Tranel: Ryan Zinke (R-inc): 46, Monica Tranel (D): 45, Dennis Hayes (L): 4 (Aug.: 46-44 Zinke)

• NY-19: SurveyUSA for NewsChannel 13: Josh Riley (D): 46, Marc Molinaro (R-inc): 42 (48-47 Harris)

• NY Ballot: Siena: New York Equal Rights Amendment: Yes: 69, No: 22 (54-37 Harris) (mid-Sept.: 64-23 Yes)

SurveyUSA's last North Carolina poll was done for different client, WRAL.

Ad Roundup

• MD-Sen: Larry Hogan (R) (here and here)

• MI-Sen: Senate Leadership Fund - anti-Elissa Slotkin (D)

• MT-Sen: SLF - anti-Jon Tester (D-inc)

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

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

• OH-Sen: End Citizens United - anti-Bernie Moreno (R) (here and here) ($250,000 buy); SLF - anti-Sherrod Brown (D-inc)

• PA-Sen: Dave McCormick (R) - anti-Bob Casey (D-inc); McCormick

• TN-Sen: Gloria Johnson (D) - anti-Marsha Blackburn (R-inc)

• TX-Sen: Ted Cruz (R-inc) - anti-Colin Allred (D); Allred - anti-Cruz (in Spanish)

• VA-Sen: Tim Kaine (D-inc) (in Spanish)

• WI-Sen: Tammy Baldwin (D-inc) - anti-Eric Hovde (R); Hovde - anti-Baldwin; SLF - anti-Baldwin; 

• MO-Gov: Mike Kehoe (R) (here and here)

• NH-Gov: New Hampshire Democratic Party - pro-Joyce Craig (D)

• AZ-01: House Majority PAC - pro-Amish Shah (D); Republican Jewish Coalition - anti-Shah (D)

• CA-13: HMP - anti-John Duarte (R-inc)

• CA-27: George Whitesides (D) - anti-Mike Garcia (R-inc)

• CA-41: Ken Calvert (R-inc) - anti-Will Rollins (D)

• CA-47: Scott Baugh (R)

• CO-08: HMP - anti-Gabe Evans (R) (here and here); RJC - anti-Yadira Caraveo (D-inc)

• CT-05: George Logan (R); HMP - anti-Logan

• IA-01: Congressional Leadership Fund - anti-Christina Bohannan (D); DCCC - anti-Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-inc)

• IA-03: DCCC - anti-Zach Nunn (R-inc)

• MI-07: Tom Barrett (R) - anti-Curtis Hertel (D)

• MI-10: Natural Resources Defense Council - anti-John James (R-inc); CLF - anti-Carl Marlinga (D); RJC - anti-Marlinga (D)

• MN-02: Angie Craig (D-inc)

• NE-02: NE-02: Don Bacon (R-inc) - anti-Tony Vargas (D); CLF - anti-Vargas; HMP - anti-Bacon; DCCC - anti-Bacon 

• NH-01: Chris Pappas (D-inc)

• NM-02: Gabe Vasquez (D-inc) - anti-Yvette Herrell (R) (in English and Spanish)

• NV-02: Greg Kidd (I)

• NY-04: Americans for Contraception - anti-Anthony D’Esposito (R-inc); HMP - anti-D’Esposito

• NY-17: Mike Lawler (R-inc); Americans for Contraception - anti-Lawler; HMP - anti-Lawler; HMP - pro-Mondaire Jones (D); 

• NY-18 Pat Ryan (D-inc) - anti-Alison Esposito (R); HMP - anti-Esposito; Esposito

• NY-19: Americans for Contraception - anti-Marc Molinaro (R-inc); HMP - anti-Molinaro

• NY-22: Brandon Williams (R-inc); HMP - anti-Williams

• OH-13: HMP - pro-Emilia Sykes (D-inc); HMP - anti-Kevin Coughlin (R)

• OR-05: CLF - anti-Janelle Bynum (D)

• TX-15: HMP - anti-Monica De La Cruz (R-inc)

• VA-02: CLF - anti-Missy Cotter Smasal (D)

• WA-03: HMP - anti-Joe Kent (R)

• WA-06: Emily Randall (D)

• WI-03: Rebecca Cooke (D) - anti-Derrick Van Orden (R-inc); HMP - anti-Van Orden (here and here)

• WI-08: Kristin Lyerly (D) - anti-Tony Wied (R)

• FL Ballot: Republican Party of Florida - anti-marijuana amendment

• MO Ballot: Missourians for Constitutional Freedom - pro-abortion amendment

• NE Ballot: Protect Our Rights - pro-abortion rights amendment and anti-abortion restrictions amendment (here and here)

• OH Ballot: Citizens Not Politicians - pro-redistricting amendment