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
●AZ-Gov: Democrat David Garcia has released an internal poll from PPP that finds him trailing by just 44-43 against GOP Gov. Doug Ducey. There has been almost no polling here, but those numbers aren't too different from PPP's January poll for Garcia, where he led by 43-42.
Campaign ActionRepublicans are certainly acting like this is a close race, since the Republican Governors Association had reserved millions for TV ads here back in February, and they just released their first attack on Garcia. The spot fearmongers over Garcia's support for abolishing ICE, the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, claiming he would allow immigrants to bring drugs and crime into Arizona by opposing Trump's border wall.
With his allies doing the dirty work for him, Ducey is sitting back and running positive ads. His latest commercial takes credit for job growth and touts his efforts to police the Mexican border. The spot even praises him for giving teachers a 20 percent raise by 2020, although he omits how that measure only came about thanks to the threat of striking teachers and would still leave salaries well below the national average.