Friend, 

Turns out, Mitch McConnell was right.

In August, he said in public what I'm sure most of us were thinking for a while: the Republicans might not win the Senate back because "candidate quality has a lot to do with the outcome."

Candidate. Quality.

Can you imagine being in charge of trying to get JD Vance, Dr. Oz, Herschel Walker, and Blake Masters into the Senate? I'd complain about "candidate quality" too.

But as we have pointed out these races are still very close. The entire GOP doesn't care what Dr. Oz did to dogs or about Herschel Walker's abortion scandal. They don't care that JD Vance and Blake Masters are quite openly authoritarian. They're all in the 40s in polls. All have a chance to win. So we have to double down and do the work. Are you with us?

If you're McConnell, you have to be thinking this is 2010 all over again – where the GOP blew a chance at the Senate by nominating candidates too crazy for voters. This time it's worse. And it's not like he's getting much help from his "friends" either – the guy most openly gunning for his job released an 11-point plan that would eliminate Social Security and Medicare while raising taxes on Americans making less than $400k per year so they have more "skin in the game"... 

And of course, McConnell's ultimate "candidate quality" problem himself, Donald Trump, said that McConnell had a "death wish" for doing things like supporting the Electoral Count Act – then veered into attacking McConnell's wife. Perfectly normal things for the perfectly normal ultra-MAGA GOP.

The latest polls show things tightening a little, but Democrats still have the momentum because voters are picking up just how crazy these ultra-MAGA candidates are. 

We have to keep hammering the point home. We're up in key swing states right now with targeted digital ads to make sure Masters and Vance and Oz and Walker can't pretend to act normal and hope voters forget the rest. If you want to help us win these races, now's the best chance. 

Can you pitch in now and help The Lincoln Project tell the story in the way that only we can?

Thank you for keeping us in this fight for democracy.

-Joe Trippi

Senior Advisor

@JoeTrippi on Twitter