The Latest: Two Big Endorsements Announced
RECENT ENDORSEMENTS
TX-34: Mayra Flores
OH-13: Madison Gesiotto Gilbert
For current endorsements, please visit: https://freedomworksforamerica.org/
2022 GENERIC BALLOT VOTE
Note: According to Sabato’s Crystal Ball, their model shows that “if the generic ballot polling ends up as roughly tied (as it is now), the model would suggest something like a 15-seat net gain for Republicans. A Republican lead of 10 points would correspond with a net gain of more like 30 seats.”
Additionally, according to the Cook Political Report, “every metric we use to analyze the political environment — the president’s approval rating, the mood of the electorate, the enthusiasm gap — all point to huge gains for the GOP this fall. But, those metrics are bumping up against an increasingly ‘sorted’ House with few marginal seats and few incumbents sitting in the “wrong district.” As such, the more likely scenario for this fall is a GOP gain in the 15-25 seat range.”
- Republicans: 45.9% — Democrats: 42.7%
- Spread: Republicans +3.2
- Republicans: 44.8% — Democrats: 42.5%
- Spread: Republicans +2.3
- Spread: Republicans +3
U.S. CENSUS DATA & REDISTRICTING UPDATE
Florida: Asks the Governor for congressional map
New Hampshire: “N.H. Supreme Court names special master, sets dates in redistricting suit”
- “The New Hampshire Supreme Court has named a special master and set court dates to resolve a lawsuit over congressional redistricting should Republican lawmakers and Gov. Chris Sununu remain at an impasse over a new congressional map for the state. The Supreme Court said assigning a master for the case, Stanford Law School professor, Nathaniel Persily, and setting a timetable for hearings, are ‘preliminary steps’ that ‘in no way precludes the legislature from enacting a redistricting plan.’”
Ohio: Federal panel puts dispute over maps
UPCOMING PRIMARY ELECTIONS:
| IN OH | NE WV | ID KY NC OR PA | AL AR GA | CA IA MS MN NJ NM SD | ME NV NO SC | VA | CO IL NY OK UT | MD | AZ KS MI MO WA | TN |
| 5/3 | 5/10 | 5/17 | 5/24 | 6/7 | 6/14 | 6/21 | 6/28 | 7/19 | 8/2 | 8/4 |
UPCOMING FILING DEADLINES:
| AZ NJ | NY TN VA | ND | MD OK | MI | WA | VT | WY | MA MN | AK KN WI | CT HI |
| 4/4 | 4/7 | 4/11 | 4/15 | 4/19 | 5/20 | 5/26 | 5/27 | 5/31 | 6/1 | 6/7 |
HOUSE WATCH LIST:
GOING ON OFFENSE: U.S. HOUSE
| State | CD | PVI (2022 Estimate) | Incumbent/ GOP Candidate | CoH(‘21 Q4) |
| AZ | 2 | R+6 | Tom O’Halleran (D) | $1,272,591 |
| AZ | 6 | R+3 | Retirement (D) | N/A |
| CO | 8 | R+1 | Lori Saine | $140,611 |
| GA | 2 | D+3 | Bishop Sanford (D) | $392,909 |
| GA | 6 | R+12 | Jake Evans | $1,204,780 |
| IA | 3 | R+3 | Cindy Axne (D) | $2,104,780 |
| IL | 11 | D+5 | Catalina Lauf | $148,241 |
| IL | 14 | D+4 | Lauren Underwood (D) | $2,096,240 |
| KS | 3 | R+2 | Sharice Davids (D) | $2,384,611 |
| ME | 2 | R+6 | Jared Golden (D) | $1,426,268 |
| MI | 7 | R+2 | Elissa Slotkin (D) | $4,508,719 |
| MI | 8 | R+1 | Dan Kildee (D) | $1,744,516 |
| MI | 10 | R+3 | John James | $1,252,460* |
| MN | 1 | R+8 | Jeremy Munson | $297,144* |
| MN | 2 | EVEN | Angie Craig (D) | $3,682,612* |
| NJ | 7 | R+2 | Tom Malinowski (D) | $2,748,801 |
| NV | 1 | D+3 | Dina Titus (D) | $838,192 |
| NV | 3 | D+2 | Susie Lee (D) | $1,789,060 |
| NV | 4 | D+3 | Steven Horsford (D) | $1,678,907 |
| TX | 15 | D+1 | Retirement (D) | N/A |
| VA | 2 | R+3 | Tommy Altman | $19,336* |
| VA | 7 | D+1 | Bryce Reeves | $390,407* |
| VA | 10 | D+5 | Jeanine Lawson | $545,734* |
| WA | 8 | D+1 | Kim Schrier (D) | $687,778 |
| WI | 3 | R+4 | OPEN | N/A |
HOUSE UPDATES:
ALL: “House GOP sets its sights on Biden country”
- “House Republicans are so confident of snagging easy seats en route to regaining the majority this November, their big-spending outside super PAC is now targeting congressional districts President Biden won by as much as 16 points, Axios has learned. Driving the news: The Consumer Price Index report being issued at 8:30am ET Tuesday is expected to show annual inflation surging to 8.4% in March — the highest rate since December 1981. With Biden’s approval numbers already languishing in the negatives, Republicans are going for the kill.”
- “A poll commissioned by Must Read Alaska over the weekend shows that Sarah Palin has both a chance of winning the race for Congress, but also has a high negative factor and could hand the race to the leading candidate supported by Alaska Democrats — Al Gross.”
- Sarah Palin (R): 31%
- Al Gross (I): 26%
- Nick Begich (R): 21%
- Christopher Constant (D): 7%
- Josh Revak (R): 3%
- Tara Sweeney (R): 2%
- Another candidate not listed: 4%
- Undecided: 6%
MI-10 (We’ve endorsed John James): “Republican John James reports raising $1.5M for U.S. House race”
- “Republican John James raised $1.5 million in the first 60 days of his race for a Metro Detroit seat in the U.S. House, according to his campaign. James, a former U.S. Senate candidate and a businessman from Farmington Hills, will file his first disclosure of his new bid for Congress on Friday. But his campaign said his cash haul, which is a significant total, will likely place him among the top non-incumbent candidates for the U.S. House nationwide in fundraising.”
MN-01 (We’ve endorsed Jeremy Munson): Jeff Ettinger (D) raised $148,000 in 17 days
VA-02 (Tommy Altman on Watch List): Rep. Elaine Luria raised $1.18 million in ‘22 Q1; $3 million cash-on-hand
- Note: VA-02 is moving from a R+1 CD to a R+3 CD.
WY-AL: Rep. “Liz Cheney’s record fundraising haul”
- “Now, the Cheney camp is prepared to announce that it raised an eye-popping $2.94 million in Q1 of 2022, bringing her total haul for the cycle to more than $10 million. With four months left to go in the primary campaign, Cheney has $6.8 million on hand.”
SENATE WATCH LIST:
Below are the current seven Senate races and the candidates FreedomWorks for America is watching for potential upcoming endorsements.
SENATE UPDATES:
IA-SEN: Rep. “Abby Finkenauer can’t appear on Democratic primary ballot, Iowa judge rules”
- “U.S. Senate candidate Abby Finkenauer cannot appear on Iowa’s June 7 Democratic primary ballot, a judge ruled Sunday. The late night ruling, which reverses a state panel’s decision, is a major setback for Finkenauer, who is competing for the Democratic nomination to challenge U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, a Republican.”
MO-SEN: “Greitens’ fade reorders Missouri Senate race”
- “Hartzler’s survey found Schmitt in third place with 16 percent of the vote, unchanged since the campaign’s last poll. A poll by Remington Research — owned by Schmitt’s consulting firm Axiom Strategies — conducted just after the new Greitens allegations put Schmitt at 24 percent, Greitens at 21 percent and Hartzler at 19 percent.”
MO-SEN: “Senate Conservatives Fund endorsed Missouri Republican Eric Schmitt for Senate”
- “‘No one will pursue the truth more doggedly than Eric Schmitt. He will join Rand Paul, Ron Johnson, and others in uncovering the facts about how Joe Biden, the Democrats, and the media are trying to steal our freedom and destroy everything that made America great,’ Senate Conservatives Fund Executive Director Mary Vought wrote in an email sharing the endorsement.”
NC-SEN (We’ve endorsed Ted Budd): “Tide turns for Trump favorite in key Senate race”
- “Donald Trump came to town at just the right moment — in time to witness his chosen candidate finally emerge as the front-runner in the state’s contentious Senate primary. After struggling for months to take the lead, polls released last week show GOP Rep. Ted Budd has a commanding advantage, ending speculation that the former president badly miscalculated with his early and unexpected endorsement of the little known House member.”
NV-SEN (We’ve endorsed Adam Laxalt): “Nevada: The epicenter of the midterms”
- “Nevada is shaping up to be the political epicenter of this year’s midterms, with the battleground state hosting a competitive governor’s race and majority-making Senate contest, while three of the state’s four House seats are likely to be among the most closely watched races on the congressional landscape.”
- “The race between Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto and, most likely, Republican former Attorney General Adam Laxalt, is the marquee matchup that may determine which party will hold the Senate majority next year.”
NV-SEN (We’ve endorsed Adam Laxalt): “A Really Bad Sign for Dems in Nevada”
- “New polling shows Republican challengers pulling slightly ahead of Nevada Democratic Sen. CATHERINE CORTEZ MASTO and Gov. STEVE SISOLAK, per the Reno Gazette Journal’s James DeHaven. Biden’s approval rating in the state sits at a bleak 35%. The Nevada Independent’s Jon Ralston, breaking down the poll, says it’s even worse than it looks for Dems: ‘a red wave is building that could carry a weak slate of GOP candidates to wins.’”
OH-SEN: “Ohio GOP Senate hopeful [Mike Gibbons]: Middle class doesn’t pay fair share”
- “Mike Gibbons, a leading Republican Senate candidate from Ohio, said at a media event last fall that middle-class Americans don’t pay “any kind of a fair share” of income taxes. ‘The top 20% of earners in the United States pay 82% of federal income tax — and, if you do the math, and 45% to 50% don’t pay any income tax, you can see the middle class is not really paying any kind of a fair share, depending on how you want to define it,’ Gibbons said.”
OH-SEN: JD Vance Hints at Abolishing the Electoral College and Says America Isn’t a First-World Country
- Original Tweet: https://twitter.com/JDVance1/status/1513241867726512133
PA-SEN: “Trump endorses Oz in key Senate race”
- “In a key contest in the battle for the Senate majority this fall, the former president announced Saturday that he is backing Oz, praising the celebrity television doctor in a statement as ‘Pro-Life, very strong on Crime, the Border, Election Fraud, our Great Military, and our Vets, Tax Cuts, and will always fight for and support our under-siege Second Amendment.’”
PA-SEN: “Trumpworld Goes Into Meltdown After Trump Endorses Dr. Oz”
- “The infighting only intensified as more conservative commentators and politicos lined up to take shots at Trump’s endorsement. ‘It’s like Donald Trump’s staff is sabotaging Trump by convincing him to make the worst possible endorsements,’ conservative radio host Erick Erickson tweeted. ‘This endorsement could divide MAGA in the only way that matters: he could lose America First conservatives over it,’ Breitbart News’ Joel Pollak wrote.”
PA-SEN: “McCormick’s Q1 haul in PA GOP primary”
- “Pennsylvania Republican Dave McCormick’s U.S. Senate campaign raised more than $4.3 million in the first three months of the year, his campaign tells Axios. Why it matters: That substantial haul leaves McCormick in a strong position to compete ahead of a May 17 primary in which his chief rival, celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz, scored former President Trump’s endorsement last week.”
UT-SEN: “Romney, now a GOP maverick, undecided on future in politics”
- “Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) says he hasn’t decided whether to run for re-election in 2024, when he could be on the same ballot as Donald Trump if the former president seeks another bid for the White House. Romney has cast several high-profile votes putting him at odds with the GOP base — including two votes to convict former Trump on impeachment charges. He became the first senator in history to convict a president of his own party in an impeachment trial in 2020.”
OTHER RACES:
President (2024): “The Dark Money Rises”
- “At least a dozen potential 2024 presidential candidates already have active dark money groups working to boost them — hiring staff, building small-donor lists, running ads and developing policy to lay the groundwork for national campaigns — all of it funded by secret donors, reports Scott Bland. — Who are we talking about here? Biden, Trump, MIKE PENCE, MIKE POMPEO, PETE BUTTIGIEG, NIKKI HALEY, Sens. BEN SASSE (R-Neb.), TOM COTTON (R-Ark.), TIM SCOTT (R-S.C.), MARCO RUBIO (R-Fla.), Govs. LARRY HOGAN (R-Md.) and PHIL MURPHY (D-N.J.).”
- “Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has raised more than $100 million for his reelection effort, the first gubernatorial candidate in the Sunshine State — and perhaps the entire country — to reach the nine-figure milestone solely through donations. The staggering sum not only gives DeSantis an unprecedented leg up on the Democrats attempting to unseat him this November”
GA-GOV: “Trump pours money into a midterm race for the first time”
- “Former President Donald Trump’s political operation is plowing cash into Georgia’s Republican gubernatorial primary — his organization’s first major financial investment in a midterm race and an indication that he’s willing to dig into his massive war chest to defeat his foes. Trump’s Save America PAC has transferred $500,000 to a super PAC devoted to defeating Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, whom the former president has targeted over his refusal to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results.”
TX-GOV: “Gov. Greg Abbott’s plan to bus migrants to Washington, D.C., will be voluntary”
- “Abbott said he’s responding to the Biden administration announcement that it will lift a pandemic-era emergency health order that allowed immigration authorities to turn away migrants at the border, even those seeking asylum.”
THE FINAL COUNTDOWN:
- Days until the 2022 midterm elections: 207
- Days until the 2024 election: 935
POLITICAL STORIES OF INTEREST:
FOX Business: “Political ad spending soaring in this year’s midterm election”
- “According to figures from AdImpact, a nationally known ad tracking firm, $450.1 million was spent during the first three months of this year by campaigns, outside groups such as super PACs, and party committees to run ads. That’s a massive 184% increase from the $158.1 million spent to run ads in the same period during the 2018 midterm cycle.”
- “A group of Democratic strategists is trying to spread a novel organizing tactic in this year’s election. Technically, it’s called “paid relational organizing,” but it boils down to this: paying people to talk to their friends about politics. Democrats think it helped them win the Senate in 2020 — and are hoping the get-out-the-vote strategy will help limit the pain of a brutal 2022 election environment.”
Washington Examiner: “GOP governors’ group swamps Democratic rivals in cash haul over first quarter”
- “The Republican Governors Association raised $33.1 million in the first quarter, besting the Democratic Governors Association by nearly $10 million during the first three months of the election year.”
Politico: “DCCC’s Record-Setting Haul”
- “The DCCC reports that it raised $52.4 million in the first quarter of 2022, including $21.3 million in March alone. The numbers set new record hauls for both the first quarter and March during an on-year. It’s also $11 million more than the $40.9 million that House Republicans’ campaign arm raised during Q1. The DCCC also says it has $113.2 million cash on hand.”
ABC News: “Secret Service paying over $30K per month for Malibu mansion to protect Hunter Biden”
- “Hunter Biden is apparently spending his father’s presidency living in luxury in Malibu — and so is his taxpayer-funded security detail. The Secret Service detail protecting the president’s controversial son has been paying more than $30,000 a month to rent out a swanky Malibu, California, mansion for nearly a year, sources familiar with the matter tell ABC News.”
Axios: “Doug Sosnik: Six key states to watch for 2022”
- “The six political hotspots for 2022 — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Nevada — are also expected to decide the 2024 election, former longtime senior Bill Clinton advisor Doug Sosnik writes in his latest midterms memo, shared first with Axios. Why it matters: All have competitive governors’ races in November. Five of the six (minus Nevada) were the only states to vote for the winning presidential candidates in both 2016 and 2020. And President Biden’s approval is underwater in all of them.”
- “Sosnik said he included Nevada in this group of battleground states because the margins in 2016 and 2020 were less than 2.5%.”
- “These are the states ‘still in the midst of a political transformation that has been driven by economic and demographic changes,’ he writes. That impacts how people vote. So does the national political mood, reflected in the president’s approval rating.”
Politico: “The new White House rule: Do not talk about Joe Manchin”
- “As another round of talks on a climate and spending bill ramps up, aides and advocates are under strict orders to keep their mouths shut — lest they antagonize the all-important senator.”
Axios: “Gmail filters more likely to weed out GOP emails”
- “Driving the news: New research shows Gmail was substantially more likely to mark Republican fundraising emails as spam during the heat of the 2020 campaign, while Yahoo and Outlook disproportionately flagged Democratic ones. Why it matters: Email forms a huge and growing part of both parties’ fundraising operations. Any disparity in the messages making it into recipients’ inboxes can have huge effects on message dissemination and fundraising during the crucial months leading up to an election.”
Wall Street Journal: “Democrats Search for Midterm Vote Strategy as Biden Poll Numbers Lag”
- “President has touted job growth and infrastructure spending, but voters remain anxious on inflation, Ukraine and direction of country.”
Ballotpedia: “54.3% of the nation’s state legislators are Republicans”
- “Ballotpedia’s March count of the 7,383 state legislators found that 54.2% are Republicans and 44.4% are Democrats. Fun fact: at least one state is adding new legislative seats this cycle. … Republicans control 62 of the country’s 99 legislative chambers, while Democrats control 36. The Alaska House of Representatives is the only chamber controlled by a multipartisan, power-sharing coalition.”
The Hill: “McConnell: ‘Actually possible’ for GOP to screw up midterms with ‘unacceptable’ candidates”
- “Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Tuesday said the political atmosphere is good for Republicans heading into the midterms but warned that the party could bungle its chances if ‘unacceptable’ candidates win their primaries but go on to lose in November.”
Punchbowl News: “Biden is Deep Underwater”
- “President Joe Biden’s approval ratings in this poll are just abysmal. Only 33% of adults overall approve of Biden’s job performance as president, while 54% disapprove. The “strongly disapprove” rate is 43%. Among Hispanics, just 26% approve. With whites, it’s 31%. With adults age 18-34, Biden is at 21% approve, 58% disapprove. Yeah, it’s bad.”
Axios: “More women are running for statewide offices than ever before”
- “There are roughly 65 women running for governor across the country this cycle, with more Republicans than Democrats making the bid, according to data from the Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP). Why it matters: More women than ever before are running for statewide offices, including governor, secretary of state and U.S. Senate. The 2018 midterm cycle was defined, in part, by a record number of women running for the House.”
