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, and David Beard.
Leading Off
●VA-Gov: Monmouth is out with their first poll of this fall's Virginia governor's race, and they have Republican Ed Gillespie and Democrat Ralph Northam tied 44-44; 3 percent back Libertarian Cliff Hyra, while 9 percent are undecided. One optimistic sign for Northam is that Trump posts an awful 22-60 disapproval rating among voters who aren't supporting either major party candidate. By contrast, Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe, who is termed out, has a 42-34 approval rating with this group.
We've only seen one other independent poll since last month's primary, and it showed a very different result. A month ago, Quinnipiac showed Northam up 47-39. Just after the primary, Gillespie's team released a Public Opinion Strategies poll giving him a 46-45 lead over Northam. Days later, Harper Polling, a GOP group that doesn't seem to have been polling for a client, showed a 46-46 tie. In any case, both parties are going to fight very hard to score a win here this fall.