GOP dread over possible Kobach nomination in Kansas

On Thursday, the top operative for Senate Republicans' campaign arm appeared on a private Zoom call organized by GOP operatives to discuss the party's efforts to stave off a Democratic takeover.

During the presentation, National Republican Senatorial Committee executive director Kevin McLaughlin warned that if hardline conservative Kris Kobach wins next Tuesday's Kansas Senate primary, it could doom the GOP Senate majority — and perhaps even hurt President Donald Trump in a state that hasn't voted Democratic since 1964.

“The Senate majority runs through Kansas,” McLaughlin warned, according to people familiar with the call.

The new warning came after a flurry of Democratic meddling has scrambled the closing weeks of a primary race that had otherwise gotten back on track. Senate Republicans have opposed Kobach for a year, fretting that he can’t win a Senate contest after losing the 2018 gubernatorial race, and have warned about him consistently in public and in private.

After failing to woo Secretary of State Mike Pompeo into the race, Republicans had mostly rallied behind Rep. Roger Marshall, who was leading Kobach comfortably in internal polling earlier in the summer. But after nearly $5 million was dumped in by a super PAC with ties to Democrats to elevate Kobach and bash Marshall’s image, Republicans acknowledge that the primary is a dead heat.

A Kobach victory would upend the battle for control of the Senate. Democrats haven't won a Senate race in Kansas since the 1930s, but with Kobach on the ballot, Republicans would be forced to sink millions into trying to defend a seat party officials believe should have stayed safely in their column.

Republicans are already stretched thin on a Senate map that features more than a half-dozen GOP incumbents in competitive races. GOP leaders concede the fight to keep the Senate has gotten harder in recent months but believe the party still can maintain control if it isn't dumping money into places like Kansas.

Democrat Barbara Bollier, a state senator and former Republican, faces only nominal opposition in her primary and has outraised all of her potential GOP foes.

Trump has remained on the sidelines in the race, frustrating some Republicans who believe a late endorsement could deliver a victory to Marshall, whom they view as much more electable.

Republican officials, including Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.), the NRSC chairman, have spoken with the president as recently as last week about making an endorsement in the race, believing that he could single-handedly alter the current trajectory, according to multiple people familiar with the conversations. Internal Republican polling has shown a Trump endorsement would shift potential Kobach supporters towards the president’s pick, according to a Republican familiar with the data.

The president discussed the race with his political advisers on Air Force One last week returning from an event in Texas. Trump indicated he was unlikely to intervene, according to people familiar with the discussion.

During the in-flight conversation, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) pointed out Marshall’s previous support for John Kasich in the 2016 presidential primary, according to two sources briefed on the discussion. CNN first reported on the conversation. A person familiar with the White House’s thinking disputed the idea that Cruz’s comment swayed the president but acknowledged that it made it harder for Marshall to earn the endorsement.

All of the candidates have relied on Trump’s name and his supporters, even without his backing. An ad from Senate Leadership Fund, the GOP super PAC aligned with Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, featured a photo of Trump and Marshall, with a narrator saying Trump has called Marshall a “great friend.” A recent Kobach ad featured heavy use of footage from an October 2018 rally Trump held boosting Kobach's gubernatorial campaign, with a small insignia in the corner making the date clear.

Two years ago, Trump endorsed Kobach the day before the 2018 gubernatorial primary, and Kobach defeated then-Gov. Jeff Colyer by 343 votes. Kobach then lost to now-Gov. Laura Kelly, a Democrat, by five percentage points. Trump has expressed frustration with expending political capital for Kobach only to see him lose, according to Republicans familiar with the discussions.

Recent polling has shown this year's primary coming down to the wire. One recent GOP survey showed Marshall with 33 percent support compared to 30 percent for Kobach, with busienssman Bob Hamilton and former NFL player Dave Lindstrom trailing, according to multiple officials who described the poll.

Additionally, an internal survey conducted for the NRSC last week showed that in a general election matchup, only 54 percent of Republican primary voters would back Kobach, while 29 percent would instead to vote for Democrat Barbara Bollier, according to three people familiar with the data, which has been presented to the White House. That much potential crossover support for Bollier, who has the backing of major Kansas and national Democrats, could doom Republicans' chances in the race.

In addition to private entreaties, Republicans opposed to Kobach have sounded the alarm consistently and publicly. The NRSC blasted Kobach on the day he announced last year. Sen. Pat Roberts, who is retiring from the seat, endorsed Marshall last month despite previously pledging to stay neutral, and Senate Leadership Fund is spending nearly $2 million on positive ads boosting Marshall, according to recent FEC filings. Additionally, a GOP-linked super PAC that won't have to disclose its funding until after the primary, has spent more than $3 million to run TV ads attacking Kobach.

The president has intervened privately in the race. He called David McIntosh, the head of the conservative Club for Growth, to ask the group to stop running ads attacking Marshall, according to people familiar with the conversation, which was first reported by The New York Times.

Many Kansas Republicans hoped Trump would endorse and boost Marshall to ease their concerns about the fall. One veteran Republican operative in the state, who requested anonymity to speak frankly, said Trump likely knows “if he doesn’t have Kansas, the Senate majority is fried.

“Republicans were hopeful the president would be doing something by now already — and are agitating that if he’s going to do it, he better do it quickly,” the GOP operative said.

Kelly Arnold, a former state GOP chairman, told POLITICO Trump’s endorsement put Kobach over the top in 2018. But while many Republicans would like to see him endorse Marshall, Arnold said Republicans on the ground are unsure where he stands.

“All of our candidates are making a bid to get his support [and to] try to show to the voters that they are the president's closest supporter. It is important,” Arnold said. “They're definitely making that play to try to earn the president's endorsement and the president's supporters here in Kansas.”

While Trump hasn't weighed in, other Republicans are trying to help Marshall close things out. Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker, made an appearance on a local radio station last week and hammered Kobach as a threat to the GOP majority. After the radio appearance, Gingrich agreed to sign a fundraising email for Marshall and to record a robocall for him.

In the call, going out to Kansas voters, Gingrich calls Marshall a “committed pro-life conservative, a great supporter of President Trump.” While he doesn’t mention Kobach, he does say, "Too much is at stake to take a chance on anyone else."

“Every poll I’ve seen says that Kobach can't win a general election,” Gingrich said on the radio. “[Kobach] did the worst statewide numbers when he ran for governor of any Republican in the last more than a decade. He's weaker now. Kobach is the Schumer candidate, and people just need to understand that.”

Alex Isenstadt contributed to this report.

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Progressives, Black Caucus set for Missouri showdown

Progressives are trying to take down another Democratic House incumbent in a primary this week — Missouri Rep. Lacy Clay— but the effort by the left has set off another clash with the Congressional Black Caucus.

Some of the biggest names on the left are rallying around Cori Bush, a registered nurse and Black Lives Matter activist who is making her second run against Clay, a 10-term incumbent whose family has represented the St. Louis-based House seat since the late ’60s.

The attempt to oust Clay has infuriated his allies in Congress — especially in the CBC, which his father, then-Rep. Bill Clay, co-founded. After watching a handful of their urban white colleagues defeated in recent years, senior Black Democrats have aggressively fought back against progressives who they say unfairly challenge members of their caucus.

Tuesday's contest is one of the last chances for the left to grow their ranks before the end of the 2020 primary season. Slow ballot-counting initially obscured the size of their wins in New York’s June primaries, but the weeks followed brought three huge gains for progressives. Their preferred candidates ousted veteran Rep. Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.) from his Bronx district and captured open seats in New York City and its suburbs — wins that sent a surge of energy to Missouri.

“It was kind of like, ‘OK they won. So, OK, maybe we can get another one,’” Bush said in an interview. “People just automatically started paying attention to us. We had an uptick in fundraising, an uptick in volunteers and more media. That was a great boost to our campaign in these last final weeks.”

Clay and his allies feel confident of victory, particularly because he dispatched Bush by a 20-point margin last cycle. But Bush’s operation is now better funded, more organized and has a formidable coalition of supporters.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is intimately involved in the race, helping Bush, a 2020 surrogate for his presidential campaign, with fundraising and joining her for livestream events. Meanwhile, Justice Democrats, the organization which helped propel now-Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) to victory, and Fight Corporate Monopolies, a new outside group formed by Sanders allies, are airing TV ads on her behalf.

Bush had raised nearly $570,000, compared to Clay’s $744,000 by mid-July. The incumbent went into the final few weeks with three times more cash-on-hand — but Bush and her allies have outspent Clay on the airwaves by at least $250,000, according to data from the ad-tracking firm Advertising Analytics.

The race represents one of the final battles this cycle between progressives and the CBC, which rallied forcefully behind Reps. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio) and Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.). Both won handily, but the caucus is eager to run the table in St. Louis and ward off challenges in future cycles.

Some CBC members were “quite unhappy” over Sanders’ “political trespassing by endorsing [Clay’s] opponent,” said Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, the only other Democrat in Missouri's delegation and a former CBC chair.

Adding to their consternation is the fact that the congressman has signed on to co-sponsor bills on two top liberal issues: Medicare for All and the Green New Deal. “Lacy Clay is no moderate Democrat,” Cleaver said.

But Bush and her allies say Clay is an absent politician. Progressives have leveled a litany of accusations against the congressman: that he sided against then-President Barack Obama’s attempt to shield retirement savings from greedy Wall Street financiers, that he is beholden to corporate PACs, and that he hasn’t been a forceful enough advocate for working families.

Bush, her endorsers say, is uniquely suited for the moment.

“Cori has lived through the reality of being a Black woman in this country,” said Jamaal Bowman, the middle-school principal who beat Engel, the House Foreign Affairs chair, in June.

Justice Democrats is also in Bush’s corner for round two.

“With the Black Lives Matter movement sweeping the entire nation, it would be fitting for one of the main leaders of the Ferguson movement to be elected to Congress,” Justice Democrats executive director Alex Rojas said in a statement. “There’s a new generation of leaders shaped by this movement who want to bring the urgency on the streets into elected office.”

Despite the liberal group’s involvement, Ocasio-Cortez herself has not backed Bush this time. Last cycle, Ocasio-Cortez campaigned alongside Bush in St. Louis in the weeks after she ousted then-Rep. Joe Crowley. This time, she's noticeably absent, a likely sign of the uncomfortable politics around challenging an incumbent. (Ocasio-Cortez and Clay serve on a committee together.)

Meanwhile, Clay is taking the challenge seriously. He’s dropped negative mailers and one heated attack ad that said Bush profits off politics like President Donald Trump and that she claims to be "the pastor of a church that doesn’t exist.”

Clay’s campaign declined to make him available for an interview. But in a statement to POLITICO, he cast the election as “a simple choice” between his opponent’s “empty rhetoric” and his “real results.”

“She claims to be a Democratic Socialist,” he wrote in the statement. “But when it comes to pocketing campaign contributions, she’s a crony capitalist to the max. A real progressive wouldn’t take campaign money and put it in her own pocket.”

Clay touted his endorsements from Democratic groups, including Planned Parenthood, the Congressional Progressive Caucus and the CBC. And he knocked Bush for paying herself more than $22,000 from her campaign accounts in the second quarter. (Bush has said she needed to draw a salary to support her and her family after pausing her nursing job to become a full-time candidate).

To win, Bush will need high support among young people and white voters. She also needs to peel off some of Clay’s support in the Black community, particularly in St. Louis County, outside the city limits.

She attributes her loss two years ago in part to a car accident that sidelined her in a key stretch of the election. This time she comes armed with higher name ID from both her 2018 run and her appearance in the popular Netflix documentary “Bringing Down the House,” which also featured Ocasio-Cortez.

“When I’m knocking, people are saying, “Oh, hey, I saw you on Netflix! You’re in that documentary,’” she said.

But the element of surprise that helped Ocasio-Cortez in 2018 is not something Bush can use to her advantage this year.

The CBC readied its defenses immediately following the midterms. They’ve framed progressive challengers as outsiders coming into a district to target longstanding members that have spent years ingrained in the community. Clay also has the backing of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which rolled out a new policy at the beginning of the cycle to inhibit primary challenges against incumbents.

“His constituents are not looking for an unknown, inexperienced person who touts left-leaning talking points as their representative. I think they want someone who can bring some stability,” said Rep. Anthony Brown (D-Md.), a CBC member. “I think a lot of people are anticipating a Biden administration, where relationships matter.”

The CBC’s loyalty to incumbents extends beyond their own members. The caucus backed Engel over Bowman, though Bowman is Black. Bowman said in an interview that he wished he would have been considered for an endorsement, but that he did not take it personally.

Bowman — one of three minority candidates to knock off a white Democratic incumbent in a city district over the past two years — described the growing primary challenges within the party as an “ideological one” rather than a “generational battle in Congress.”

“I always considered it more of a healthy tension within the factions of the Democratic Party and within the factions of the Congressional Black Caucus,” Bowman said. “We need space for disagreement, debate and dialogue to create an America that works for everyone.”

Bush views CBC’s support for incumbents differently, challenging the caucus to research the candidates before blindly endorsing. Black Caucus leaders need to more closely scrutinize their incumbents’ records “to see what this person has actually done for their district,” Bush said.

“I don’t care that somebody’s name was on a membership of something,” she said. “That does not entitle them to hold the seat.”

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The pandemic is eating away at the illicit marijuana market

The legal marijuana industry has spent years battling illegal sellers who have eaten away at its market share and undercut its prices.

But the coronavirus has proven to be a boon for legal pot shops, as customers fear the risks associated with inhaling questionable products and are nervous about letting sellers into their homes.

Legal operations have moved quickly to take advantage of the situation, seizing on relaxed rules to expand shopping options in states across the country, including curbside pickups and deliveries.

Also, pandemic-frazzled Americans are simply getting stoned more often.

“It's understandable that people may be more hesitant to get their products from sources that are unregulated,” said Kris Krane, CEO of 4Front Ventures, which operates dispensaries in multiple states. “They may not want to go to their dealer’s house, or they may not want to have their dealer come into their house, at a time when people are social distancing and not supposed to be interacting with people that they don't know.”

In addition, cities that never allowed pot shops in their towns, even in states where marijuana is legal, are rethinking the local bans in search of fresh tax revenue. And more people than ever are registered as medical marijuana patients: Florida added nearly 5,000 patients a week in June, and more than 50,000 since March.

The data is murky — credible sales figures on illegal marijuana transactions are inherently difficult to come by — and it’s likely that those sales are also booming as anxious Americans smoke more weed while hunkered down. But many close industry watchers believe the current circumstances are pushing more Americans into state-legal markets. Revenues are expected to hit $17 billion this year, according to New Frontier Data — a 25 percent spike over 2019.

Mitch Baruchowitz, managing partner at cannabis investment firm Merida Capital Partners, argued in a paper in May that the pandemic is “cannibalizing” the illegal market. He hasn’t seen anything in the ensuing months to change that assessment.

“The vast majority of the current growth in the cannabis space is being driven by consumers transitioning from the black market to the legal market,” Baruchowitz wrote.

The boom in sales is driven in large part by new legal markets, particularly the start of recreational sales in Illinois and Michigan. But even some states with relatively mature markets have seen big spikes in sales. In Oregon, for example, monthly revenues jumped from just below $70 million during the first two months of this year to more than $100 million in May and June.

Trulieve, Florida’s biggest retailer, doubled its fleet of delivery drivers across the state to keep up with demand.

“Obviously we all understand because we're living it, that there is an increased anxiety level, which can trigger increased consumption,” said Kim Rivers, the company’s CEO.

The California problem

Even with this year’s rapid growth, however, the legal marijuana market is still dwarfed by illegal sales, which New Frontier estimates at $63 billion for this year.

Nowhere is the underground weed market a bigger problem than in California, where it’s estimated that 80 percent of marijuana sales are still from illegal sources — and most industry officials are deeply skeptical that the pandemic will significantly alter that reality in the short term.

One of the major challenges state regulators have faced since voters legalized recreational marijuana in 2016 is moving consumers away from the thousands of shops made legal under California’s medical cannabis law. That supply chain has existed since 1996.

According to Josh Drayton, communications director for the California Cannabis Industry Association, growth in the illegal market has likely outpaced that of legal businesses during the pandemic, in part because they offer products for significantly cheaper prices. Legal marijuana products cost an estimated 40 percent to 50 percent more than their unregulated competitors, after expenses related to taxes and testing are tacked on.

“While there may be a short-term uptick in sales coming from consumers concerned about safety, many more consumers will be even more concerned about price now that they are out of work,” said Jackie McGowan, founder of Green Street Consulting.

Efforts to step up enforcement actions against illegal businesses and educate consumers about the differences between regulated and unregulated shops have largely been put on hold due to budgetary constraints.

Drayton also pointed to a dearth of cannabis-related legislation being considered in the state capitol as a sign that illegal operations will continue operating unchecked even as the legal market grows.

“Without a strong education campaign, which cannot be afforded during these times, I think we're going to stay in these parallel paths for quite some time,” he said.

One positive the industry has seen in recent weeks is an increase in the number of cities considering cannabis revenues as a tool for plugging coronavirus-related budget gaps. While the proliferation of licensed shops could put a dent in the unregulated market in the future, these jurisdictions are likely years away from seeing cannabis shops open in their borders.

Still, the potential for the legal market to expand in the next few years and put more pressure on unregulated businesses gives industry observers in California a reason for hope.

Michigan faces a similar problem in quashing illegal sales: The vast majority of cities in the state — including Detroit — still don’t allow recreational pot shops to operate. In addition, marijuana cultivation is still ramping up in the state, since full legalization only took effect in December.

“Demand, especially in the adult-use market, is still higher than the supply as the production in the industry continues to grow,” said Andrew Brisbo, executive director of Michigan’s Marijuana Regulatory Agency. “That keeps prices still higher than I think they will be in the long term.”

Cash crunch could drive more legalization

Industry officials are divided on whether the pandemic is eroding the illicit marijuana market, but there’s little doubt that the current economic troubles will push more states to consider legalization.

That’s in large part because states' desperation for cash is only going to grow. Even if marijuana taxes would only make a difference at the margins, it undoubtedly will prove enticing to lawmakers.

Some New York lawmakers are pushing this idea, after legalization efforts failed in each of the last two years. They’ll likely face even greater pressure to enact recreational sales if New Jersey voters pass a recreational legalization referendum in November, as expected.

Even in deep red states, the idea is likely to get a good look. A Republican lawmaker in Oklahoma has argued the state should look at allowing recreational sales, suggesting it could raise $100 million per year.

Kevin Sabet, president of Smart Approaches to Marijuana, a national advocacy group that opposes legalization, doesn’t believe those arguments will prove decisive.

“This pandemic will give lawmakers who already support legalization another talking point they’ll emphasize,” Sabet said. “I don’t think this is going to change minds.”

But Krane, of 4Front Ventures, points to the end of alcohol prohibition as a historic template for what might happen with marijuana in the coming months.

“Alcohol prohibition was largely ended as a result of the Great Depression, as the country was in desperate need of new sources of revenue,” Krane argued. “It went from something that was seen as politically impossible to a political necessity in a very short amount of time, and I think we're seeing a similar situation here.”

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Cuccinelli relaxed oversight of DHS intel office

Before the Department of Homeland Security’s intelligence arm put together intelligence reports about journalists, its leaders advocated for less internal oversight of the office.

Several months ago, the leadership of the Office of Intelligence and Analysis asked DHS’s second-in-command, Ken Cuccinelli, to limit a department watchdog from regularly reviewing the intelligence products it produces and distributes.

Cuccinelli signed off on the move, according to two sources familiar with the situation, which constrained the role of the department’s Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties in approving the intelligence office’s work.

Before the policy change, I&A had to get the civil liberties watchdog’s signoff to distribute its intelligence products to law enforcement partners. If CRCL didn’t sign off on a product, one of the sources said, the head of I&A could appeal to the deputy secretary — the office where Cuccinelli now sits. The policy change gave I&A more latitude to quickly share products with partners. But former DHS officials say it may have contributed to the intelligence shop’s recent missteps.

In the months since the change, I&A’s work has drawn withering criticism. The Washington Post reported last week that the office distributed an intelligence report documenting communications between protesters over the Telegram messaging app. The Post also reported that I&A compiled intelligence reports on journalists covering DHS’s response to protests in Portland, Oregon against racism and police brutality. Those reports, according to the paper, were based on public information from the journalists’ Twitter feeds. But they still raised significant concerns in DHS, and the department released a statement saying acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf told the office to end the practice and had “ordered an inquiry” into the situation. Senior DHS leadership also deposed the intelligence office’s acting chief, Brian Murphy.

A DHS spokesperson declined to comment on this reporting.

Nate Snyder, who worked in I&A during the Obama administration, told POLITICO the reports would have worried CRCL if they had reviewed them.

“If CRCL had been part of the product review process, they would have immediately raised issues on the recent reports on the release of the products developed on journalists, and also various other things,” he said.

Congressional Democrats have sent the department a blizzard of letters in recent days regarding its activity in Portland. Democrats on the Senate intelligence committee sent a letter to Murphy before his removal asking a host of questions, including how the office collects open source intelligence on protesters. The letter also asked if the civil liberties unit had reviewed the intelligence office’s Portland-related work.

And the Democratic chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, along with the chairman of its intelligence and counterterrorism subcommittee, also pressed Murphy for answers on the intelligence reports regarding journalists.

“This is a shocking misuse of the information-sharing apparatus meant to protect American communities,” they wrote.

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German leaders warn of coronavirus resurgence, condemn protest

German politicians warned Sunday of a coronavirus resurgence and called for vigilance after thousands of people, defying calls to wear masks and take other precautions, protested in Berlin against measures to curb the pandemic's spread.

Markus Söder, the premier of the regional state of Bavaria and a potential candidate to succeed Chancellor Angela Merkel, warned on Twitter that "we have to expect that corona will come back again with full force. I am very worried about the rising case numbers in Germany. Total alertness is needed, and that's why now is not the time for easing restrictions or naive carelessness."

He also expressed skepticism about launching the German Bundesliga football league without any restrictions.  "Ghost games, yes, but I find stadiums with 25,000 spectators difficult to imagine. That would be the wrong signal," he said.

In a separate interview with the Sunday edition of the Bild newspaper, he warned that the virus "would remain a constant challenge which will keep us permanently under pressure."

Germany has won international praise for its handling of the pandemic and the country has been hit less hard than other European nations such as Italy, Spain and France. But the Robert Koch Institute, the government's main biomedical body, warned last week that the number of reported cases has been rising since the beginning of July.

Söder's concerns were echoed by Saskia Esken, co-leader of the Social Democrats, Merkel's junior coalition partners. In an interview with newspaper Der Tagespiegel, Esken, said she "simply saw the realistic danger of a second wave," cautioning that a return to pre-pandemic habits could undermine the fight against the virus.

On Saturday, Esken lashed out at the protesters in Berlin, thundering on Twitter: "Thousands of Covidiots are celebrating themselves as 'the second wave,' without distancing, without masks. They are putting at risk not only our health, but our successes against the pandemic, to revive the economy, education and society. Irresponsible!"

Health Minister Jens Spahn also chimed in. "Yes, demonstrations should be possible in Corona times. But not like this. Distancing, hygiene rules and facemasks are meant to protect us all," he said. On Friday, he raised the alarm about rising infection numbers and called on holiday returnees to get tested to prevent the spread of the virus.

Anja Karliczek, Germany's education minister, on Sunday called for requiring students to wear masks inside schools when they return to classrooms in the fall.

It's "comprehensible when [regional] states want to forgo the social distancing rules at schools because the spatial conditions would only allow limited in-person classes," Karliczek told the Sunday edition of daily Welt.

"However, in-person classes will only work when additional hygiene regulations and rules for wearing masks and social distancing in school yards and corridors are strictly observed," she said.

The states of Berlin, Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg have already introduced such requirements. In Germany, education policy is primarily the responsibility of regional states.

Police said some 17,000 people took part in Saturday's demonstration in Berlin, organized to protest government-enforced restrictions. The gathering was organized with the title "The end of the pandemic — day of freedom." Some participants claimed the virus was "the biggest conspiracy theory," according to media reports.

Olaf Sundermeyer, an expert on the far right, cautioned that many people don't believe that the coronavirus exists. Speaking to German broadcaster ARD, he said that protesters believed the pandemic would be an invention to subdue the people: "Many say they are being systematically lied to."

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