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
●PA-17: On Friday, the firm Medium Buying reported that the NRCC had canceled its entire TV reservation to aid Republican Rep. Keith Rothfus in what's looking like an increasingly uphill battle against Democratic Rep. Conor Lamb in Pennsylvania. A few weeks ago, Medium reported the committee had cut its reservation, which the NRCC said stood at $3.8 million in late April, for the period of Sept. 12 to Oct. 8. The NRCC soon insisted that they were only redirecting their money to the final weeks of the campaign and hadn't reduced their spending by "one penny." Well, now they've reduced their spending by every single penny.
Campaign ActionThe move is very bad news for Rothfus, but it's not unexpected. The state's new court-drawn congressional map threw the once-safe Rothfus into the same suburban Pittsburgh seat as Lamb, who had won a tough special election in March for a much redder district. The new 17th District went from 52-47 Romney to just 49-47 Trump, and Lamb posted a wide 51-39 lead on a July poll from Monmouth. The GOP didn't respond with better numbers, and just before Labor Day, Politico reported that Rothfus was one of a few GOP incumbents who was worried that the NRCC would cut them loose and use the money they'd reserved on more winnable races.
While the pro-Trump America First PAC booked $726,000 here last month, Rothfus probably shouldn't expect much more help. The New York Times recently reported that the well-funded Congressional Leadership Fund was frustrated that the NRCC hadn't abandoned weak incumbents, and the paper used both Rothfus and Virginia's Barbara Comstock as examples. (So far, the NRCC is still spending to aid Comstock.)
While Rothfus is being left to fend for himself, he's not completely without resources. The congressman wisely stockpiled a war chest during the years when he was running in a safely red seat, and he ended June with $2 million on-hand. However, Lamb is a very strong fundraiser who had a similar amount, and his demonstrated in his March special election that he's very capable of running a strong campaign. Rothfus was already in for a very tough fight, and the NRCC's vote of no-confidence is only going to make it even tougher.