Dems focus on pre-existing conditions with ACA lawsuit looming

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MIDTERM MESSAGING — Democrats rolled out their latest broadside in the midterms, hitting Republicans across the country on protections for pre-existing medical conditions. Arguments in a lawsuit kicked off yesterday in Fort Worth, Texas, where 20 largely conservative states are suing to scrap the entirety of the Affordable Care Act after Congress functionally gutted the law’s individual mandate ( POLITICO’s Paul Demko broke down the details of the case).


And with that, Democrats went on the offensive, calling out both Republican incumbents and challengers for not having a plan to protect people with pre-existing conditions, a popular provision of the law. Two Republican Senate candidates — Patrick Morrisey in West Virginia and Josh Hawley in Missouri — are parties in the lawsuit as their states’ attorneys general. The DSCC targeted every battleground Republican, saying not one has come out opposing the lawsuit and several have explicitly backed it, while some Democrats, like Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill, are launching a monthlong campaign on pre-existing conditions. In House races, Democrats are tying the case to congressional Republicans’ failed attempt to repeal the law in 2017. Republican Rep. Jason Lewis (R-Minn.) “even celebrated his vote in the White House Rose Garden,” his Democratic challenger Angie Craig said in a statement.

Republicans have tried for months to cut off this attack, with many pledging to defend Americans with pre-existing conditions. Hawley wrote an op-ed in the Springfield News-Leader, defending some of the more popular provisions of the ACA: “Insurers should also be required to cover individuals with pre-existing conditions and young people on their parents’ insurance, up to age 26.” — but few plans have been laid out by Republicans to do that. Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.), the most endangered Republican Senate incumbent, backs a bill that would ban insurers from denying coverage or charging more to people with a pre-existing condition. But the bill offers a fairly hollow protection: As The Wall Street Journal reported in August, insurers would “still be able to exclude any coverage related to [a pre-existing] condition, however, and could vary premiums based on age and gender.”

— FIRST IN SCORE — Majority Forward, which is tied to the Democratic Senate Majority PAC, is going up with a new ad in North Dakota striking a similar theme. The ad accuses GOP Rep. Kevin Cramer of “siding with the insurance industry.”

ANOTHER PRIMARY NIGHT PREVIEW — Voters head to the polls in Delaware today in one of the last primary nights of the year. Democratic Sen. Tom Carper is looking to hold off a challenge from his left from Kerri Evelyn Harris, a military veteran and community organizer. POLITICO’s Steven Shepard and James Arkin: “Carper has been in statewide elected office for four decades — longer than his challenger, Kerri Evelyn Harris, has been alive. And though Delaware has transformed from a political battleground to a reliable blue state in that time, Carper’s long moderate record has made him vulnerable to criticism from the left ahead of Thursday's primary. Harris, a 38-year-old Air Force veteran, has slammed Carper for a voting record that she says is too friendly toward banks and pharmaceutical companies, and too hostile toward the environment.

“But, most of all, Harris — a biracial lesbian who is trying to be the first successful primary challenger of a Democratic senator since 2010 — says Carper and other political leaders are out of touch with everyday Delawareans. … But Carper says he isn’t going to be caught flat-footed by Harris’ challenge. ‘For as long as I can remember, I've campaigned as if I were 20 points behind — every race — and as if my opponents were 10 feet tall. And I'm certainly doing that here,’ Carper said last week.”

Good Thursday morning. For something fun, check out this oral history from DCist’s Matt Blitz on the Nationals’ racing presidents. As always email me at [email protected] or DM me at @ZachMontellaro.

Email the great Campaign Pro team at [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] and [email protected] and [email protected]. Follow them on Twitter: @PoliticoScott, @ec_schneider, @DanielStrauss4, @JamesArkin and @MaggieSeverns.

Days until the 2018 election: 61.

Upcoming election dates — Sept. 11: New Hampshire primaries. — Sept. 12: Rhode Island primaries. — Sept. 13: New York (state-level) primaries.

ON THE AIRWAVES — Congressional Leadership Fund is airing its first ads in GOP Rep. Dave Brat’s VA-07 today, according to Advertising Analytics, which has tracked about a quarter-million in TV spending from the House Republican super PAC flowing into Richmond over the next two weeks. Brat faces Democrat Abigail Spanberger, a former CIA officer whose unredacted security clearance application was obtained by CLF’s researchers due to “ human error” by the U.S. Postal Service in response to a public records request. CLF has since criticized Spanberger for teaching English at a Saudi-funded Islamic school in Virginia that became controversial after a former valedictorian was convicted of supporting terrorism. (The CIA did not find Spanberger’s employment controversial enough to deny her a security clearance — she disclosed the job on her application and started working for the agency in 2006.)

RECOUNT LIKELY IN MA-03 — The Democratic primary to replace retiring Rep. Niki Tsongas looks like it could be heading for a recount. With 100 percent of precincts reporting, 52 votes separate Democrats Lori Trahan and Dan Koh. Koh, who is trailing, released a statement saying the result won’t be known for days due to provisional ballots and that his campaign “will be reviewing the process for a recount to ensure everyone who voted is properly counted,” while Trahan has declared herself a winner. The Boston Globe’s Matt Stout reported that the state Secretary of State ordered “local election officials to seal all counted ballots, according to his office. A spokeswoman called it a ‘precautionary measure’ in case of a recount, which under state law could stretch a final decision well into mid-September.”

POLLS POLLS POLLS — Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson and GOP Gov. Rick Scott are tied in a new poll of the Florida Senate race. The Quinnipiac University poll found both men had 49 percent in their poll that was in the field from Aug. 30-Sept. 3 that surveyed 785 likely voters.

— Democratic Sen. Joe Donnelly has a slim lead in the Indiana Senate race. In a new NBC News/Marist poll Donnelly leads Republican Mike Braun 44 to 41 percent, with 8 percent for Libertarian Lucy Brenton among likely voters. In a head to head, Donnelly is up over Braun 49 percent to 43 percent. It was in the field from Aug. 26-29, with 576 likely voters surveyed.

OFF THE BALLOT — Independent Shaun Brown, who is running in VA-02, was kicked off the ballot by a judge for “out and out fraud.” The Virginian-Pilot’s Bill Bartel: “Just before making his ruling, Richmond Circuit Judge Gregory Rupe told Democratic Party lawyers he agreed with their arguments that Brown needed to be removed because members of Rep. Scott Taylor’s campaign staff collected fraudulent signatures to assist Brown and many petitions may have been illegally notarized before being turned into the State Department of Elections. … Brown, who lives in Hampton, said afterwards that she intended to appeal his ruling. …

“The congressman had been subpoenaed by the Democrats to testify Wednesday, but he did not attend after his attorney successfully argued Virginia law protected him from such demands while the House of Representatives is in session.”

SHOWING RECEIPTS — Florida Democratic gubernatorial nominee Andrew Gillum released receipts from trips that are tied to a state ethics investigation. But POLITICO Florida’s Matt Dixon and Marc Caputo report that the receipts “offer little in the way of concrete evidence regarding who paid for key elements of the travel. Gillum’s biggest political liability following his surprising Democratic primary win last week has been the ongoing FBI probe into [Tallahasse’s] taxpayer-funded Community Redevelopment Agency. Gillum, who as mayor chairs the CRA, has been accused of no wrongdoing and has stressed that he is not the target of an investigation.”

BIG MONEY — Amazon founder (and Washington Post owner) Jeff Bezos and his wife MacKenzie made their first big jump into politics. The Wall Street Journal’s Reid Epstein: The couple made “a $10 million contribution to a super PAC that aims to elect military veterans to Congress. … [I]t is to With Honor Fund, a year-old super PAC that backs veterans of both major parties who are running for House seats. Federal Election Commission filings show the organization had raised $7 million between its launch last October and the end of July. Rye Barcott, the founder of With Honor Fund, said the Bezoses shared his group’s goal of building a ‘cross-partisan coalition’ of House members willing to work with the other party.”

— Fred Smith, the CEO of FedEx, hosted a fundraiser for GOP Rep. Marsha Blackburn's Tennessee Senate campaign on Tuesday, according to an invitation obtained by Score.

OBAMAS HITS THE TRAIL — Former President Barack Obama is getting back on the trail on Friday. POLITICO’s Edward-Isaac Dovere: “The Friday speech will be at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, after which he’ll fly to Irvine, California, for an event on Saturday highlighting all seven Democrats running in districts currently held by Republicans, but carried by Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election. All seven are part of Democrats’ path to taking the majority in the House.

“Obama will then be in Cleveland next Thursday to campaign for Richard Cordray, his former head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Obama urged Cordray, who was previously the Ohio attorney general, into the race for governor, and has been eager to see him win. Also on the schedule already, according to his office: an event in Pennsylvania, and a fundraiser for the National Democratic Redistricting Committee in New York City.”

— Michelle Obama will hold voter registration rallies is in Las Vegas and Miami at the end of this month, the AP’s Darlene Superville and Julie Pace reported.

— Former Vice President Joe Biden stumped for Democrat Mikie Sherrill in New Jersey’s 11th District, POLITICO New Jersey’s Matt Friedman reported.

UNDER THE RADAR — Democrat Phil Bredesen has been running a competitive race for Senate in Tennessee. He just doesn’t want any national attention for it. New York’s Gabriel Debenedetti: “Bredesen isn’t trying to be the bomb-thrower in the race, and he doesn’t seem to mind when people call him boring. His pitch is hypercompetence and experience at a time of deep displeasure with D.C. dysfunction. He spends more political energy on the Tennessee Valley Authority, the state’s brutal opioid epidemic, and the local Asian carp problem than on any national issue, let alone Trump, whom he doesn’t mention much. (‘Look, I’m not running against Donald Trump,’ Bredesen says in one of his ads.)”

— Bredesen used a state law to save about $300,000 in property taxes. The Tenneseean’s Joel Ebert: “Although Bredesen said in 2012 the Greenbelt program ‘ought to be tightened up,’ a spokeswoman for his campaign said recently he was not ashamed about taking advantage of the law.”

TIME FOR SOME FOOTBALL — The NFL season officially kicks off tonight (I’m prepared to write off my Jets in about three weeks), and some Republican strategists are eager to drum up another wave of culture wars ahead of the midterms. BuzzFeed News’ Tarini Parti and Henry Gomez: “‘I can’t imagine there is a single voter who will cast a ballot exclusively on the issue of NFL kneeling, but it’s a powerful tool against liberals who are trying to make cultural inroads into a conservative electorate,’ said Josh Holmes, a Republican strategist close to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. … The president has continued his criticism of football players in tweets and at rallies — keeping the issue in the national spotlight and giving Republican candidates a chance to force red-state Democrats to make a tough choice: alienate some of the Trump voters they are chasing, or risk angering the liberal base energizing and financing their campaigns.”

FAULTY FILINGS — The contractors who convert Senate candidates’ FEC filings from the paper filings to the disclosures published online are making huge errors. The Center for Public Integrity’s Rosie Cima: “The culprit? Bad data entry. Unlike those running for the presidency and U.S. House, U.S. Senate candidates don’t file campaign finance reports electronically — they file on paper, which must then be converted to electronic documents in a process that involves two government agencies, three private companies and countless low-paid workers, many of them overseas, and some who may be hostile toward U.S. interests. … A Center for Public Integrity investigation found errors in more than 5,900 candidate disclosures representing over $70 million, all of them traceable to the U.S. government’s conversion of paper into electronic data.”

GROUND GAME — Planned Parenthood is pouring tens of millions into its ground game ahead of the midterms. Pro Health Care’s Alice Miranda Ollstein: “Planned Parenthood on Wednesday unveiled a $20 million campaign to boost voter turnout in battleground states along with plans to collaborate with the progressive advocacy group Color of Change and the SEIU on a separate $30 million program targeting infrequent voters. … The voter mobilization, including TV and digital ads, begins Saturday. It is focused on swing states with competitive races, including Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Minnesota, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.”

CODA — QUOTE OF THE DAY: “We didn’t have any down time — I canceled the August recess,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, when asked what fun thing he did over the summer by Roll Call.

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