The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, Stephen Wolf, and Carolyn Fiddler, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Daniel Donner, James Lambert, David Beard, and Arjun Jaikumar.
Leading Off
●TN-Gov: We have two new polls of the Aug. 2 GOP primary for governor of Tennessee, and they both find the race very much up for grabs.
The Arizona-based GOP firm Data Orbital gives Rep. Diane Black a slim 24-23 lead over former state cabinet official Randy Boyd, while former Higher Education Commission member Bill Lee is just behind with 19 percent; state House Speaker Beth Harwell brings up the rear with 10. The GOP firm Triton Polling & Research, which is polling on behalf of the Tennessee Star, finds Boyd leading Black 33-27, while Lee and Harwell take 20 and 7 percent, respectively.
Black released two polls in May that showed her ahead of Boyd by double digits. However, her first negative TV spot notably went after Boyd while spending considerably less time attacking Lee and completely ignoring Harwell, so she's certainly acting like Boyd is her main threat.
Boyd himself is pushing back on her attempts to portray him as a Trump-skeptical moderate with a commercial arguing that Black is the one who fails the Trump test. The spot features video from the 2016 campaign of Katie Couric asking four House members, including Black, what they thought of Trump's plan to make Mexico pay for his wall, which the congresswoman laughs off before declaring, "First of all you can't build a wall. That won't work." The rest of the ad argues that Black has repeatedly voted against border security and hits her for a vote from her time in the state legislature that would make it easier for undocumented immigrants to get driver's licenses.
Boyd has also rolled out another ad starring former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee vouching for the candidate's pro-Trump credentials and declaring that Boyd is being falsely attacked by "[p]rofessional politicians and special interests." Another spot stars his cousin, Fred Boyd, touting his old family gun store before declaring that the candidate "is going to be the best governor this state has ever had defending the 2nd Amendment." The ad ends with the two cousins firing at a target as Fred Boyd implores the audience not to "miss the mark on this one."
Black herself is up with another commercial arguing that Boyd's company hired a lobbyist who would "make hunting illegal." She is also out with a spot that features Eddie Farris, the sheriff of Putnam County in Middle Tennessee, defending her on immigration. Farris argues that before 9/11, sheriffs and state troopers "asked Tennessee to regulate all drivers, citizens and non-citizens." He goes on to say that, after they realized the law needed to be changed, Black led the way to fix it. He concludes that Black "voted for the wall, and she backs the blue."