The GOP cavalry comes to the N.H. Senate primary, but is it too late?

WASHINGTON — If it’s Friday ... The world mourns the death of Queen Elizabeth II. … President Biden travels to Ohio for the groundbreaking of a semiconductor factory. … Vice President Harris visits NASA’s Johnson Space Center. … Secretary of State Blinken meets with the NATO Secretary General. … The Democratic National Committee’s summer meetings continue in Maryland. … The abortion rights measure is back on the ballot in Michigan. … Democrats blast Senate candidate in South Carolina over white voter comments. … 57% say Biden hurt economy in new NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll.

But first: Don’t look now, but establishment Republicans are making a last-minute play in the final pivotal primary on the Senate map: New Hampshire.

Republican Gov. Chris Sununu finally waded into the race Thursday to endorse state Senate President Chuck Morse over retired Brigadier Gen. Don Bolduc. Calling Morse the “best candidate to” defeat Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan, Sununu touted Morse’s record in the Senate, adding: “The stakes in this election are too high.”

Those stakes are clear. Bolduc, who has led most public polling for much of the race despite lackluster fundraising, still falsely claims former President Donald Trump won the 2020 election, recently questioned whether the FBI should still existafter it searched Trump’s Mar-a-Lago as part of an investigation into the mishandling of classified documents and called Sununu a “communist sympathizer” whose family “supports terrorism.” 

Put simply — Bolduc is not likely the kind of candidate who can keep a purple state like New Hampshire on the battlefield at a time where Republicans desperately need to be on offense, not defense. That’s why a new GOP group popped up with plans to spend $4.5 million boosting Morse (and why Democrats are spending millions to sink him). 

Senate Republicans were desperate for Sununu to run himself, and if he had, New Hampshire would likely be one of the top races in the country right now. He spurned those efforts, and is now throwing the party a bone in the final days before the election. But it’s not clear whether the last-minute rescue effort will be successful. 

Republicans need states like New Hampshire to be in play, not just in the battle for Senate, where they’ve been forced to cut spending in places like Arizona to boost other struggling candidates, but as they look toward flipping the House and going into 2023 with a durable majority. Sununu is expected to cruise to re-election, so motivating Republicans with hopes of flipping a Senate seat could pay dividends down ballot. 

The GOP is signaling that they expect, or hope, New Hampshire will be competitive in the fall — Senate Leadership Fund, the super PAC aligned with Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, has $22 million in fall ad buys booked there.

But if Bolduc wins and Republicans triage this state weeks later, it’ll be yet another race where candidate recruitment put the GOP on their heels in a state that should be very much within reach. 

That was the decline over the first half of the year in the number of donors who contributed to GOP candidates and committees through the online fundraising platform WinRed, according to a Politico analysis of campaign finance filings. 

Around 913,000 donors gave through WinRed in the first six months of the year compared to 956,000 who used the platform over the prior six months. Meanwhile, the number of individual donors who used the Democratic platform ActBlue grew by 24%. 

The analysis also undercut a theory that Trump was hoarding small-dollar donors for himself. A small portion of online donors — 13% — gave solely to Trump’s PAC, while 70% have not given to Trump’s PAC, donating instead to other GOP candidates and groups. 

The data highlights a broader fundraising problem for Republicans, which has fueled criticisms of some GOP leaders, including National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman Rick Scott. He defended his leadership of the committee in a memo to donors, per Politico, writing, “Republican candidates and our party are in a better position now than we were three months ago.” 

Other numbers to know:

230: The number of Afghan children who are alone in the U.S. as their parents or caregivers remain in Afghanistan, per the Office of Refugee Resettlement, NBC News’ Courtney Kube, Julia Ainsley, Abigail Williams and Dan De Luce report.

4 points: Democrats’ lead on the generic ballot in a new NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll, with 48% of registered voters saying they’d prefer a Democratic candidate and 44% saying they’d prefer a Republican. 

57%: The share of Americans in that survey who said Biden has weakened the economy.

44%: The share of registered voters in a Politico-Harvard poll who said abortion was “extremely important” to their congressional vote. That was a higher share than past election cycles, but higher percentages of people ranked inflation, the economy and jobs, and guns as more important to their vote. 

The Michigan Supreme Court ruled Thursday that voters will be able to weigh in on whether to amend the state constitution to protect abortion rights, welcome news for Democrats in the battleground state. 

The ballot initiative could boost turnout and, if recent elections are any indication, that could benefit Democrats. Kansas voters came out in droves in August to oppose a constitutional amendment that would have eliminated the right to an abortion under state law. And Democrats have narrowed the margin or won special House elections since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. 

That could be pivotal as Democrats work to hold onto three statewide seats with Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Secretary of State Joceyln Benson, and Attorney General Dana Nessel all facing competitive re-election races. Democrats across the state have put abortion access front-and-center in their campaigns amid a court fight over abortion laws in the state. 

And it’s likely welcome news to Democrats in Michigan’s multiple competitive House seats — as Democratic Reps. Elissa Slotkin and Dan Kildee look to fend off GOP challengers, and as Democrats eye a pickup opportunity in Michigan’s 3rd District after GOP Rep. Peter Meijer lost his primary to a Trump-backed challenger. 

Elsewhere on the campaign trail:

Arizona Senate: Saving Arizona, a super PAC primarily funded by billionaire Peter Thiel that boosted Republican Blake Masters in the primary, is going back on the airwaves with a $1.5 million ad buy and an attack ad targeting Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly, Politico reports. But Thiel has apparently not donated additional money to the group, and it’s not clear yet who is funding the new effort. 

Florida Senate: GOP Sen. Marco Rubio placed a $1.5 million ad buy over the next week, per AdImpact as Democratic Rep Val Demings continues to outspend him on the airwaves. 

Georgia Senate: Republican Herschel Walker’s latest ad accuses Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock of being racially divisive, but that has also provided Democrats “an opportunity to further highlight some of the more controversial comments [Walker] has made over the years about race,” write NBC News’ Marc Caputo and Henry Gomez.

Ohio Senate: Asked whether President Biden should run for re-election, Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan didn’t give a straight answer, and instead called for “new leadership across the board.” 

Pennsylvania Senate: Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, a potential 2024 contender, campaigned with Republican Mehmet Oz on Thursday as he looks to make gains in the suburbs, per the Philadelphia Inquirer. 

South Carolina Senate: Some Democrats are calling on their Senate nominee, state Rep. Krystle Matthews, to drop out of the race after leaked audio showed her making “disparaging” remarks about white voters, per the AP. 

Maine Governor: Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin returned from his trip to Maine after campaigning for former GOP Gov. Paul LePage and denounced LePage’s previous controversial comments, but said LePage “misspoke,” per the Washington Post.

Texas Governor: A new group has booked $6 million on ads, per AdImpact, attacking Republican Gov. Greg Abbott over his response to recent mass shootings in the state and a slew of other issues. It’s not clear who is behind the group, known as Coulda Been Worse, which took its name from Abbott’s comments at a press conference after the mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde. 

New Hampshire-01: GOP Sen. Ted Cruz traveled to New Hampshire Thursday to campaign for Karoline Leavitt ahead of next week’s GOP primary. 

In a new ad, Republican Senate nominee J.D. Vance blasts his opponent, Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Ohio, on crime.

“I was raised on this street where my grandma taught me that in America, kids can dream big. But we had something then that Ohio kids don’t have today: safety,” Vance says in the ad, before alleging, “streets are exploding with drugs and violence while liberals like Tim Ryan attack and defund our police.”

The ad features a clip of Ryan telling a crowd that he believes, “the current criminal justice system is racist.” Then, Vance tells viewers, “Tim, fight the criminals, not the cops.”

Vance’s campaign said in a release that the new ad is part of an ongoing seven-figure ad buy. Since the May Ohio Senate primary, Vance has spent just under $475,000 on TV ads alone, while spending another $1.6 million in ad buys with the National Republican Senatorial Committee, according to AdImpact. Ryan has already spent over $13 million on ads in the same time frame. 

Former Trump advisor Steve Bannon has been charged with conspiracy and money laundering in New York.

ABC News was the first to report that a federal grand jury is looking into Trump’s Save America PAC as part of a broader investigation into the leadup to the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the Capitol.

State senators in South Carolina on Thursday rejected a near-total abortion ban in a special session.

In Nevada, a politician who police claim was upset about negative stories about himself was arrested for the killing of an investigative journalist. 

The Justice Department threatened to appeal to a higher court if a U.S. District Judge didn’t reinstate their access to sensitive documents found at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago.