The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, Stephen Wolf, Carolyn Fiddler, and Matt Booker, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Daniel Donner, James Lambert, David Beard, and Arjun Jaikumar.
Leading Off
●Fundraising: Daily Kos Elections is pleased to present our second quarterly fundraising charts of the 2020 election cycle for both the House and the Senate!
Campaign ActionWe've included every race we expect to be competitive in next year's general elections as well as open seats in otherwise safe districts that feature primaries. We also list contests where incumbents potentially face a credible primary challenge, members of Congress who might retire or run for higher office, and under-the-radar contests where a candidate raised or self-funded an unexpectedly large sum.
The big takeaway is that, despite some Democratic fears (and GOP hopes) that Team Blue's crowded presidential primary would divert donors from the congressional battlefield, the House class of 2018 is continuing to raise money at a pace that would have been unthinkable little more than two years ago.
Two of the most astonishing hauls, in fact, came from members who unseated GOP incumbents just last fall: California Rep. Katie Porter hauled in just shy of $1 million for the quarter, while New York Rep. Max Rose raised about $800,000. An additional 28 Democrats who flipped seats last year also raised over $500,000 during the quarter.
Last year, Democratic challengers managed to outraise many Republican incumbents―often quite dramatically. The reverse, however, has not been the case this cycle. It's still early, and the GOP does have some solid fundraisers, but so far, none of them are outpacing Democratic incumbents.
Case in point: Two Republican challengers, Wesley Hunt in Texas and Tom Kean Jr. in New Jersey, did take in over $500,000 from donors during the quarter. Democratic incumbents, however, outraised both of them: Rep. Lizzie Fletcher outpaced Hunt $564,000 to $514,000, while Rep. Tom Malinowski led Kean $560,000 to $505,000.