Thune Campaigns in Nine Red and Purple States as GOP Groups Shift Senate Money Away From North Carolina and Georgia

Senate Majority Leader John Thune spent a Friday this month in northwest Iowa with Rep. Ashley Hinson, and her race tells you how the map has moved. Republicans couldn't have pictured Iowa as a tossup a year ago. It is one now.

Hinson is running against Democratic state legislator Josh Turek for the seat of retiring Republican Sen. Joni Ernst. Thune put the stakes in plain terms in a joint interview on her campaign bus: "I'm absolutely convinced that she flat has to win, and if she doesn't, we're not going to be in the majority."

A nine-state tour

Beyond Iowa, Thune has campaigned with Republican Senate candidates in Nebraska, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Mississippi, Kentucky, Florida and Minnesota. He is headed to Ohio in the coming days to help Sen. Jon Husted, who faces former Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown.

The Iowa stops were retail politics: a Sioux City chamber of commerce luncheon, a tour of the Iowa Air National Guard's refueling wing, a business roundtable and a packed high school football game. His pitch was to "turn out the vote."

Thune also knows he isn't a universally welcome guest. He said he wouldn't be offended if some Republicans didn't want to campaign with him. Some on the right blame him for the failure of the SAVE America Act, which would require proof of citizenship to vote and mandate voter ID nationwide. Trump has criticized him over the same failure.

Where the money is moving

The Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC closely aligned with Thune, moved money earlier this month from Georgia to Kansas. It had initially pledged $44 million to help Rep. Mike Collins unseat Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff. Ossoff has led consistently in polling, and the Daily Wire's October poll roundup put his average lead at 8 points.

GOP spending groups have also left North Carolina, where former Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper led former RNC chairman Michael Whatley by 9 points in the same roundup. That money is going to Kansas, where Sen. Roger Marshall is in a single-digit race against Methodist pastor Adam Hamilton. Kansas is not a state Republicans expected to defend this hard.

Cook Political Report lists six Republican-held toss-ups this cycle. Mississippi and South Carolina, once safe bets, have recently shifted toward Democrats, according to Cook.

In Texas, the poll roundup showed Democrat James Talarico ahead of Attorney General Ken Paxton. A New York Times/Siena survey had Talarico up 51% to 45%. Republicans are still spending tens of millions of dollars there.

The race by race picture

The numbers cited in early October are tight in most of the contested states:

• Maine: Democrat Troy Jackson led Sen. Susan Collins 47.6% to 47.5% in the RealClearPolitics average.
• Ohio: Brown led Husted 47% to 44%, a point narrower than a week earlier.
• Iowa: Turek led Hinson by less than a point in the RCP average.
• Michigan: Democrat Abdul El-Sayed led Republican Mike Rogers by 3.5 points.

The RCP generic congressional ballot average showed Democrats ahead 51.2% to 42.7%, an 8.5-point gap. More than a million Americans had already voted at that point.

The arithmetic is unforgiving. Republicans hold 53 seats and cannot lose more than three without losing the majority. Their House margin is 218-214.

What Thune says, and what Democrats say

Thune told Fox News Digital in Fremont, Nebraska, where he was supporting Sen. Pete Ricketts, that many races are "jump balls." "They're margin of error races, and there are some that are maybe a little out of the margin," he said. He added that polling, "like it has been in past elections, under-reflects the Republican vote."

He also said he isn't giving up on any race. Yet the money moves point the other way for at least a couple of states.

Hinson, for her part, acknowledges voters have concerns. She argues Iowans are "pretty savvy people" who understand "this is a six-year term."

Democrats see an opening. AP reporting from Iowa describes voter frustration with Trump, his war in Iran, and high gasoline and grocery prices. Turek, like several other Democrats running in red states, is telling voters he would be a bipartisan voice in Washington. Obama is set to campaign with El-Sayed in Detroit.

Open questions

Thune's polling-error argument has precedent in his own telling, and Collins in Maine is known for outrunning her numbers. A miss big enough to save North Carolina and Georgia would have to be far larger than that. Whether Republican voters are undercounted in the polls will be settled by the results on Nov. 3, with Ohio and Iowa among the first tests of whether Thune's late travel is enough.