Check out our slate of Daily Kos-endorsed candidates

AZ-01: On Friday, notorious Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arapio endorsed wealthy rancher Gary Kiehne in the crowded Aug. 30 GOP primary. This swing district barely includes any of Maricopa, but Arapio is a powerful name in Arizona Republican politics.

Kiehne, who narrowly lost the 2014 primary, has almost completely self-funded his bid. However, Kiehne, ex-Secretary of State Ken Bennett, and 2014 9th District nominee Wendy Rogers all ended up spending just over $200,000 each from July 1 to Aug. 10. The top spender was Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu, who dropped $243,000. We haven’t seen any polls since March, when a Babeu internal gave him a clear lead. 

However, Politico says that unnamed “local Republicans [are] worried he'll win the Aug. 30 primary only to struggle in a potentially winnable general election.” And they have good reason to be worried about Babeu, who has attracted a string of ugly headlines over the years. Most notably, Babeu was exposed in a home video speaking warmly about the abusive treatment of students a school for troubled youth he once ran had engaged in—after long denying he ever had any knowledge of the abuse.

Romney carried this seat just 50-48 and 2012 Democratic Senate nominee Richard Carmona took it 49-46 even as he was losing by that same margin statewide, so this is hardly safe Republican territory. The Democrats have rallied behind Tom O'Halleran, a former Republican state senator who faces token primary opposition.

AZ-04: A little while ago, a group called Right Way started spending money against Rep. Paul Gosar, a member of the tea party friendly Freedom Caucus, in this safely red northern Arizona seat. So far, Right Way has deployed at least $227,000, and Arizona Capital Times reports that they’ve run a few cable ads. Gosar appears to be taking the race at least somewhat seriously, since he spent $197,000 during the pre-primary period; during this period two years ago, Gosar spent less than $10,000 on his uncompetitive contest.

Gosar’s primary foe, pastor Ray Strauss, is nothing to write home about. Strauss has raised very little money, and he only spent $28,000 from July 1 to Aug. 10. And while Right Way’s expenditures aren’t trivial, they’re nothing like the huge sums that the GOP establishment spent against Kansas Rep. Tim Huelskamp in their successful bid to deny him renomination earlier this month. Still, this under-the-radar contest is worth keeping one eye on just in case.

AZ-05: Unsurprisingly, the primary for this safely red Mesa seat is an expensive affair. Ex-GoDaddy Christine Jones, who took a distant third place in the 2014 gubernatorial primary, has loaned her campaign $1.66 million, and she’s swamped her rivals on the airways. From July 1 to Aug. 10, Jones outspent state Senate President Andy Biggs $1.09 million to $342,000. Jones has run plenty of commercials, including a new spot promoting herself as the only non-career politician in the race. 

Biggs, who won $10 million in the 1993 Publishers Clearing House sweepstakes, has loaned himself $150,000 during the entire campaign. However, Biggs has the help of the anti-tax Club for Growth, which has spent at least $530,000 here so far and has run ads against Jones. Two other Republicans are also in. Ex-Maricopa County Commissioner Don Stapley has spent just $172,000 during the pre-primary period, though that’s a whole lot more than the $66,000 that state Rep. Justin Olsen deployed. 

Stapley has been running a pretty odd commercial that features an animated version of Biggs screaming, “Shut down the government!”, which the narrator dismisses as “[l]ots of enthusiasm but no real solutions.” The narrator goes on to call Jones a carpetbagger, and accuse them both of just being ladder climbers, before calling Stapley “a sensible, effective conservative.” That’s… not a message that usually resonates in GOP primaries these days. A pair of recent polls, including a Stapley internal, show a tight race between Biggs, Jones, and Stapley.

AZ-Sen: Until now, Sen. John McCain has almost completely ignored ex-state Sen. Kelli Ward, his Aug. 30 GOP primary opponent. While the pro-McCain super PAC Arizona Grassroots Action has aired a series of commercials against Ward, McCain has focused his fire on Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick ahead of the general election. But something seems to have changed, since Politico has gotten ahold of a McCain TV spot that attacks Ward for the first time.

McCain runs with the same message as his allied super PAC, with the narrator insisting that, “In a dangerous world, Arizona can’t afford Kelli Ward in the Senate.” She goes on to accuse Ward of opposing fully funding the military, says that Ward “tried to stop local law enforcement from working with counter-terrorism officials,” and features a snippet of Ward saying she’d respond to ISIS with “restraint and realism.” The rest of the commercial praises McCain on national security.

It’s not clear why McCain is launching a late attack on Ward. While McCain has a horrible relationship with his party’s base, Ward doesn’t look strong enough to capitalize on his problems. Ward has raised very little money, and she’s received no support from major outside groups. A pro-Ward super PAC did recently launch a $500,000 ad against McCain, but that’s still chump change compared to the $1.9 million that Arizona Grassroots Action has shelled out so far. The only recent poll we’ve seen, a Data Orbital survey that the group says was not conducted for any clients (though the firm’s owner clearly is rooting for McCain), gave the senator a wide 50-29 lead. 

It’s possible McCain is just being cautious ahead of the primary. But polls show McCain locked in a competitive race with Kirkpatrick, and it’s unlikely he’d expend resources against Ward if he though victory was assured. Ward is undoubtably a weak candidate but McCain may have just burned so many bridges with his party over the years that even she’s giving him a tough time.

FL-01: The Aug. 30 primary for this safely red Pensacola seat is coming up soon and unsurprisingly, state Rep. Matt Gaetz has outspent his rivals. From July 1 to Aug. 10, Gaetz dropped $252,000; the super PAC North Florida Neighbors is also up with a new ad for him. State Sen. Greg Evers, who represents about two-thirds of this seat, should be Gaetz’s main rival. However, Evers has been a weak fundraiser, and he spent just $37,000 during this time. Thanks to a loan, real estate developer Chris Dosev spent $160,000 during this period. And while unheralded attorney Rebekah Johansen Bydlak only spent $102,000, it was still much more than Evers.  

WA-07: State Sen. Pramila Jayapal handily took first place in Washington's top-two primary earlier this month, earning a spot in the general election with 42 percent of the vote. She'll face state Rep. Brady Piñero Walkinshaw, a fellow Democrat who took second with 21 percent, for the right to succeed retiring Rep. Jim McDermott in this dark blue seat in Seattle. Thanks to her first-round showing, as well as the money she's raked in as the result of an endorsement from Bernie Sanders, Jayapal has the edge in November.

But Walkinshaw earned the backing of the third-place finisher, King County Councilor Joe McDermott, who ended up with 19 percent of the vote. He also has the support of LGBT groups who are eager to see another gay person enter Congress, so Walkinshaw can't be counted out. And while Washington's primary is often predictive of general election results, races between members of the same party are much rarer and much harder to handicap. We're therefore starting this race off with a rating of Lean Jayapal.

FL-02: The primary for this safely red seat, which includes Panama City and part of the Tallahassee area, has become another expensive battle between the GOP establishment and tea party-friendly forces. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy is backing urologist Neal Dunn, who has done some self-funding. During the pre-primary period, Dunn outspent attorney Mary Thomas $412,000 to $332,000.

However, the anti-tax Club for Growth has deployed a hefty $524,000 so far, and they’ve run commercials arguing that Dunn is not a true conservative. They seem to have gotten under Dunn’s skin (or whatever the equivalent of that is for urologists), since he’s out with a response spot. It’s not online, but Bloomberg reports that Dunn attacked the Club as a “D.C. special interest group” that’s “lying about me too because, like Trump, they know I won’t play their games.” Meanwhile, a group called Right Way has spent at least $126,000 accusing Thomas of not being the real right-winger.

There’s a third Republican in the race, George HW. Bush-era U.S. Attorney Ken Sukhia. But Sukhia has had trouble raising money, and he spent just $36,000 in the pre-primary. No one seems to think that Sukhia is worth attacking, so naturally he’s running a commercial arguing that he’s the only one not slinging mud. For some reason, Sukia’s voice suddenly gets really deep when he brags that he brags that he has the NRA’s highest rating and the backing of Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions and National Right to life.

NC-Sen: While polling has long shown that GOP Sen. Richard Burr could be vulnerable this year, we've been concerned by the fact that major outside Democratic groups like the DSCC and the Senate Majority PAC haven't made any moves to support former state Rep. Deborah Ross. But recently, Republicans have started spending in North Carolina, which suggests they're genuinely worried about their fortunes in the Tar Heel State. Hillary Clinton now has a 4-point lead over Donald Trump, and the New York Times reports that private GOP surveys say the same thing.

So it would be quite stunning if Democrats really aren't interested in this race, which leads us to believe that they're hoping to sneak up on Republicans. By waiting as long as they have, Democrats have avoided months of well-funded GOP attack ads smearing Ross as an unacceptable liberal. In fact, several Republican strategists in North Carolina who recently spoke to the National Review say they're increasingly anxious about Burr's fate, particularly because he hasn't gone up on TV—that he's treating his re-election “as if nothing were different."

But while Democrats may have benefitted from Burr’s lackadaisical approach, the flipside of their own strategy, of course, is that no one's been hammering the incumbent either, and it leaves little time for a final sprint to the finish. However, that can work in a year like this one, when Republican chances appear to be collapsing badly. Assuming help arrives, Ross could have a real shot of surfing in on a Trump wave, so we're moving our rating on this race from Likely Republican to Lean Republican.

FL-04: A recent poll showed ex-Jacksonville Sheriff John Rutherford leading well-funded attorney Hans Tanzler III, the son of a former mayor of Jacksonville, by a decisive 31-13 in the primary for this safely red seat. But Tanzler, who has lent his campaign $400,000, still outspent Rutherford $542,000 to $302,000 in the pre-primary period. (Aka that other PPP in American politics.) However, several of Tanzler’s ads, which feature him in cowboy gear and riding around on a horse, are pretty stupid, so maybe he’s not benefiting from people seeing them. State Rep. Lake Ray spent $124,000 during this time, and St. Johns County Commissioner Bill McClure dropped only $92,000.

Tanzler is getting some extra help from a PAC called Conservative Outsider, which has spent at least $204,000 for him. Bloomberg reports that their spot attacks Rutherford as “weak on the Second Amendment” and “liberal on immigration.”

PA-Sen: Pennsylvania, like North Carolina, is another state that's gone south lately for Donald Trump, with all four public polls this month finding Hillary Clinton ahead by double digits—twice Barack Obama's margin in 2012. (The same New York Times piece referenced above also says that Republican internal polls agree.) And that appears to have benefited Democrat Katie McGinty, who has now pulled into a dead-even tie with GOP Sen. Pat Toomey and has led by small margins in all four of those August polls.

McGinty didn't come into this race with an impressive electoral resume: Her only prior bid for office was in 2014, when she finished fourth in that year's gubernatorial primary with just 8 percent of the vote. She also needed a lot of help from the DSCC to make it past ex-Rep. Joe Sestak, the 2010 nominee, in the this year's primary. The story of the general election, though, hasn't been about McGinty but rather about Toomey's inability to achieve sufficient separation from Trump. That puts this seat very much in play, and so we're moving our rating from Lean Republican to Tossup.

FL-06: GOP Rep. Ron DeSantis spent a year running for the Senate, and a number of local Republicans got into the race to succeed him. However, DeSantis decided to seek re-election when Sen. Marco Rubio parachuted back into the Senate race, and most of DeSantis’ would-be successors exited the House race. However, state Rep. Fred Costello, who lost to DeSantis 39-23, decided to stay in and try his luck against the incumbent. Unsurprisingly, DeSantis outspent Costello by a wide $308,000 to $113,000, and no major outside groups have done anything to help Costello. Romney carried this Volusia County seat 52-47, but Democrats don’t have any strong candidates.

CO-06: If there's a GOP-held House district that's gonna be ground zero for the Trumpocalypse, Colorado's 6th may well be it. This seat, located in suburban Denver, voted for Barack Obama by a 52-47 margin and has both a high median household income and high levels of educational attainment, meaning it's home to the kind of voters who've deserted Trump in droves. Republican Rep. Mike Coffman is aware of this, which is why he recently ran a TV ad promising he'd "stand up" to Trump—but then he utterly biffed the follow-up: When reporters asked if he'd actually rule out voting for Trump, Coffman said no.

Coffman's trying to walk an almost impossible line, and he just made things harder for himself. Still, despite his missteps, he's a very strong fundraiser and managed to win re-election 2012 even as Obama was carrying his seat. Democrats, though, have a strong fundraiser in state Sen. Morgan Carroll running here, and unlike her opponent, she hasn't made any mistakes. We're shifting this race from Lean R to Tossup.

FL-07: Redistricting made Republican Rep. John Mica’s suburban Orlando seat considerably bluer, but Democrats didn’t land a credible candidate until late June, when former Defense Department official Stephanie Murphy jumped in. National Democrats are clearly excited about this contest, and two House groups have reserved a combined $3.8 million in fall TV time. However, Murphy’s late start didn’t leave her much time to raise money, and as of mid-August, Mica holds a huge $789,000 to $154,000 cash-on-hand edge. Obama and Romney ran about evenly here (our data suggests Obama won it by a hair.)

KS-03: Kansas' 3rd Congressional District represents a serious long shot for Democrats, and indeed, GOP Rep. Kevin Yoder just released an unanswered internal poll showing him with a 53-36 lead on businessman Jay Sidie. But the same survey also contained a major warning sign: It put Hillary Clinton up 44-38 on Donald Trump, in a suburban Kansas City seat that Mitt Romney carried 54-44 just four years ago. Such a large swing away from the GOP at the top of the ticket has the potential to put candidates further down the ballot in jeopardy.

This is still Kansas we're talking about, though, and Yoder has an enormous cash-on-hand lead. However, Republicans in the Sunflower State have been in the midst of a long-running cataclysm of their own, and voters are finally starting to take out their anger over the radical budget cuts foisted by Gov. Sam Brownback, whose conservative allies got pummeled in GOP primaries earlier this month. Brownback actually lost this district 50-47 despite winning statewide 50-46 two years ago, and his popularity has only cratered further since then.

In addition, the DCCC has included Sidie on its "Emerging Races" list, so between that, Brownback's miserable standing, and Yoder's own polling, that's enough for us to put this race on the big board. We're moving it from Safe Republican to Likely Republican.

FL-09: While Rep. Alan Grayson’s Senate bid has imploded, his wife, pharmaceutical lobbyist Dena Grayson, may still be able to replace him in the House next year. Grayson, one of three notable Democrats seeking this safely blue Orlando seat, has largely been self-funding her bid, and she spent $260,000 during the pre-primary period. Susanna Randolph, a former Grayson aide, spent a similar $224,000; state Sen. Darren Soto outspent both with $340,000. There have been no recent polls.

FL-10: During the primary period, Orlando Police Chief Val Demings outspent ex-state Democratic Party Chair Bob Poe $486,000 to $410,000. Michael Bloomberg’s super PAC Independence USA has also spent a considerable $469,000 on a spot for Demings so far, so at the very least, the wealthy Poe isn’t drowning her out on the air. The DCCC is backing Poe Demings, and a recent poll from the committee showed Demings far ahead of Poe and underfunded state Sen. Geraldine Thompson, and no one has offered any contradictory numbers. This Orlando seat is safely blue.

WV-Gov: Despite the state's hard right turn over the last two decades in presidential contests, West Virginians had still been willing to vote for Democrats on the local level. At least they had been, until Team Blue was hit with widespread defeats in 2014, which included the loss of both chambers of the legislature for the first time since the 1930s. We therefore slotted in this year's open-seat race for governor as Lean Republican—and even that felt somewhat optimistic. But perhaps old habits are dying hard in the Mountain State, because a string of eight polls dating back a year have all shown coal billionaire Jim Justice, the Democratic nominee, leading his Republican opponent, state Senate President Bill Cole.

That includes a recent Justice internal that showed him ahead 47-37, though ordinarily, we wouldn't be too moved by private polls. However, Cole's response was fairly stunning: When asked about the numbers, he acknowledged that it's "plausible" he's trailing, and then declared, "I have every intent of crossing the finish line first." Who makes that kind of outright admission? And what kind of candidate meekly says he has "every intent" of winning, rather than insisting he will win?

Not a very good one, nor a very confident one, that's for sure. And national Democrats seem to think they have a legit shot here. Even though Justice has been self-funding his campaign, the Democratic Governors Association just starting running a flight of attack ads backed by a $234,000 buy. The Republican Governors Association has already spent $1.1 million here, and they'd love to finally notch this win and lock in a statehouse trifecta. But even though Donald Trump will score a big victory here this fall, the GOP's chances at picking up the governorship have grown worse, not better, so we're moving this race to Tossup status.

FL-11: Redistricting made GOP Rep. Dan Webster’s old Orlando House seat unwinnable for Team Red, and he decided to run for the open and safely red 11th District instead. Webster faces a primary with Justin Grabelle, the former chief of staff to retiring Rep. Rich Nugent. Webster ran quixotic speakership campaigns against both John Boehner and Paul Ryan last year, but while the GOP establishment may not be in much of a hurry to help the incumbent, they’re not exactly throwing money at Grabelle either. During the pre-primary period, Webster outspent Grabelle $155,000 to $88,000. There has been no major outside spending on either side.

Webster only represents 18 percent of the new 11th though, so his financial edge may not help too much. Two months ago in Virginia, Republican Rep. Randy Forbes decided to run for a completely new district after court-ordered redistricting also made his seat safely blue. Forbes massively outspent his primary foe, state Del. Scott Taylor, but lost 53-41. There’s no guarantee this will happen to Webster, but it’s a big warning sign for him.