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Capitol View®
Bill Wareham

Daily Digest: Pols know where to find you

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Happy Tuesday. Here's the Digest:

1. How did that campaign get my phone number? As campaigns move on to November, you can expect plenty of more messages urging you to vote, and not just texts, but also emails, direct mail, contact on social media platforms and personal visits to your home.  For some, receiving something as personal as a text message from a campaign can feel like a privacy violation. But it’s perfectly legal and easier than most people realize for candidates to figure out your phone number, where you live and if you’re likely to vote this fall. And in some cases, you may be unknowingly sharing your information with campaigns. (MPR News)

2. Sen. Tina Smith isn't running away from work Planned Parenthood — she's embracing it. "I am here as a United States senator," the Democrat said Friday, standing in front of the federal courthouse in St. Paul. "But I am also here as a woman who has been a volunteer and an executive at Planned Parenthood." Smith stood alongside officials and volunteers for Planned Parenthood at a press conference to push back on the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh, President Donald Trump's pick to serve on the United States Supreme Court. "The stakes are high," she continued. "President Trump believes he can count on Judge Kavanaugh to be that decisive fifth vote to overturn Roe [v. Wade]." Smith was an executive for Planned Parenthood in Minnesota and North and South Dakota from 2003 to 2006 before she entered politics. Now she's embracing that role in Washington and in a close election fight with Republican state Sen. Karin Housley. (MPR News)

3. CD1 and CD8 loom increasingly large in midterm math. Republicans are defending dozens of congressional seats across the country in districts vulnerable to a Democratic takeover, but there are few Democratic-held House seats where the GOP might turn the tide. Two of the biggest pickup chances are in Minnesota. Democrats, who need 23 seats to take back the House, have been helped this year by a lightning-rod president, GOP retirements and a revved-up base, so Republicans are working hard to grab Minnesota’s Congressional Districts 1 and 8. (St. Cloud Times)

4. In Wisconsin, gubernatorial race heats up. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and his allies tried to change the conversation of his re-election campaign on Monday, as bad news continued to pile up for the two-term Republican incumbent. The Republican Governors Association launched a new attack ad against his Democratic opponent, Tony Evers, while Walker opened a new front in the campaign by tweeting that Evers, the state schools chief, hasn't done enough to close the achievement gap. Polls over the past month have shown the race between Walker and Evers, a low-key career educator, to be a dead heat in Wisconsin, which is closely divided between Republicans and Democrats. But in a bad sign for Walker, the polls also show independent voters who have been critical to his narrow victories in the past are moving away from Walker. (AP via Star Tribune)

5. Will non-voters affect midterms? Although these days more Americans say they're enthusiastic about voting in a midterm election than at any point in the last two decades, come Election Day, nonvoters will still probably be the norm. For every 10 adults eligible to vote, only about four cast a ballot in the 2010 and 2014 midterm elections. You have to go back to the turn of the 20th century to find a midterm election when a solid majority of people voted (of course, back then, the right to vote was far more limited, so the eligible voting pool was smaller, more male and more white). Every election cycle there's a lot of attention on who voted and why. But there's another important question: Who is not voting — and what impact does that have? (NPR via MPR News)