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IN THIS EDITION

Hitting the trail with Johnson: Inside the fight for the House

On the ground in the swingiest of swing states

Republicans’ short-lived Cornhusker crisis

How to get into a congressional leader’s phone

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Hitting the trail with Johnson: Inside the fight for the House

Welcome to The Readback, our weekend digest featuring the best of Punchbowl News this week – a quick roundup of all our scoops, analysis and Capitol Hill insight you won’t find anywhere else. We’ve also included a few of our favorite outside reads from the week.

One of Punchbowl News’ goals in the run up to an election season and a potential shift in power is to spend time with congressional leaders as they bounce around the country.

Every congressional leader – or at least the ones with real ambitions and the ability to execute – goes out on the road to help their colleagues and collect chits for the future. Of course, their stated goal may be simply to “help the team.” But their next political race is in the back of most leaders’ minds.

I arrived in Philadelphia Wednesday morning to meet up with Speaker Mike Johnson. Johnson is in the midst of his first campaign season as the top House Republican.

One year ago, Johnson had no political operation and he was flying on commercial flights back to Shreveport, La., every weekend. Now, he travels with a massive entourage, using chartered airplanes and cocooned by a gigantic Capitol Police detail. At nearly every stop, he tells the crowd how many cities and states he’s been to – more than 220 cities in 40 states.

Johnson went from raising less than $1 million each election cycle to raising nearly a quarter-billion dollars. His days are filled with campaign events, motorcades, speeches and phone calls to candidates and donors. Not to mention, he has to manage the House Republican Conference.

A few things stuck out to me during my time with Johnson in Pennsylvania.

1) Johnson has improved. The once halting and stilted speaker is now pretty smooth – if a bit nerdy and wonky – on the campaign trail. He’s self deprecating. He asks donors for advice with a smile on his face. He has a campaign speech down. Big donors are growing to like him. The accidental speaker has settled into his job.

2) Johnson works hard to tie himself to former President Donald Trump. Not an event goes by where he doesn’t talk about his relationship with the former president.

But during a campaign event at an event in Newtown, Pa., a tony suburb of Philadelphia, one man asked Johnson what he would say to voters who don’t want to vote for Trump because of his character flaws. The man told Johnson he had a lot of friends who were leaning towards voting for Vice President Kamala Harris because they are “hung up” on Trump’s “character.” Here’s what Johnson said:

3) The trip to Pennsylvania was interesting for another reason. Johnson went to all sorts of districts, ranging from red-meat conservative pockets to middle-of-the-road swing districts. For example, he spoke at a Lancaster County Republican Party dinner. But hours before, he was with Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.). Fitzpatrick represents the exact kind of district that Johnson’s critics said he’d never be able to go into.

My colleague Ben Brody reported that Johnson is going to get a break this weekend. He’s flipping the coin Saturday at the LSU vs. Ole Miss game in Baton Rouge.

What I’m watching/reading/listening to: I’m about to start Amir Tibon’s “The Gates of Gaza.”

– Jake Sherman

New podcast alert: Don’t miss the latest edition of The Readback podcast, taking you behind the scenes with our reporters dissecting their top stories each week. You can listen here.

Reach out to readback@punchbowl.news with feedback. Enjoy The Readback.

On the ground in the swingiest of swing states

HARRISBURG, Pa. — Hello from the Keystone State where things are certainly starting to heat up weeks out from Election Day.

I spent the week in central Pennsylvania and the Philadelphia suburbs covering two key House races, as well as looking at Gov. Josh Shapiro’s involvement in helping Democrats get control of Congress and the White House. But, let’s focus on the House.

First up, PA-10: This is shaping up to be a pretty fascinating contest between six-term GOP Rep. Scott Perry and Democratic challenger Janelle Stelson.

Perry, a former House Freedom Caucus chair, is facing some trouble against Stelson, a well-known local TV anchor who has crushed the incumbent in fundraising. Recent polls show that Perry and former President Donald Trump are currently down in the R+5 district.

I reported on the latest concerns GOP leadership and Freedom Caucus allies have about losing Perry’s seat. Speaker Mike Johnson was in the district on Friday to campaign for Perry and HFC aides will door-knock for him up until Election Day.

I sat down with Perry at a local diner to talk about the race. He opened up about where his conservative values stem, how colleagues are helping him and why he opposes toning down his hardline positions to try to win over voters.

“When you say ‘moderate your position,’ what you mean is be more like Washington,” Perry said. “I don’t think [my constituents] want me to be more like Washington.”

But Perry is also seeking to appeal to voters through his compelling personal story to counter what he views as a fake narrative that he’s an extremist.

“Other than the caricature the press has painted of me, I’m a pretty regular guy,” he said.

Stelson, meanwhile, is running a pretty standard Democratic campaign. She’s focused on abortion rights, democracy issues and the economy.

I attended her event with military leaders earlier this week. During the event, Stelson criticized GOP leadership for putting Perry on the House Intelligence Committee this year despite a federal investigation into his role in attempting to overturn the 2020 election.

Stelson has a natural advantage of having high name ID and has made some early allies in Congress. The New Democrat Coalition’s campaign arm and individual members have funneled nearly $50k to her.

I first talked to Stelson before the Democratic primary back in April. She told me she was hoping to appeal to independent and Republican voters who want an alternative to Perry.

“Where I would find myself is a pragmatist who is willing to reach across the aisle,” she said.

PA-01: In Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick’s (R-Pa.) district, second-time Democratic challenger Ashley Ehasz is arguing that her race is closer than being reported.

Ehasz ran against Fitzpatrick in 2022 but lost by roughly 10 points in the Bucks County seat.

The district is supposed to be competitive for Democrats. But Fitzpatrick is one of the most bipartisan members of Congress who frequently bucks his own party on hardline policies. Ehasz is attacking Fitzpatrick on abortion access, as well as his ties to Johnson and his votes for Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) for speaker last year.

What I’m watching: I’m watching Monsters: the Lyle and Erik Menendez Story on Netflix. Yeah, I know I am living up to the strange stereotype of women who love true crime.

– Mica Soellner

Republicans’ short-lived Cornhusker crisis

You could be forgiven if you didn’t know until recently that Nebraska has a Senate race this year. (Actually, they have two!)

After all, it’s a ruby-red state, and Sen. Deb Fischer (R-Neb.) doesn’t even have a Democratic opponent.

But Dan Osborn, an independent looking to unseat the two-term Republican, surged out of nowhere. Polls had Osborn tying or narrowly ahead of Fischer, and Republicans were dumbfounded at how it even got to that point. The DSCC isn’t even involved in the race. And Fischer, who’s very low key, hardly stokes controversy.

Was Fischer asleep at the wheel? Overconfident? Was something else at play?

Regardless of the reason, Republicans stepped in as they grew increasingly worried about a complete catastrophe unfolding in a year in which the party has several pickup opportunities and shouldn’t even have to think about states like Nebraska.

Rep. Adrian Smith (R-Neb.) appealed to some of his fellow House Republicans for cash help on Fischer’s behalf, as we wrote in Friday’s AM edition. That’s an extraordinary ask for a Senate seat that shouldn’t even be in play.

The NRSC even started spending money there late last month — albeit a relatively small sum, but that’s money that can’t be used in battleground races where Republicans have a real shot at flipping Democratic-held seats.

Finally, some answers: We also scooped some new polling data on Fischer’s race in the Friday AM edition. The survey, commissioned by Fischer’s campaign, shows the incumbent ahead of Osborn by six points.

It attributes Fischer’s polling bump to two factors — reminding voters that former President Donald Trump has endorsed Fischer, and a concerted effort to portray Osborn as a far-left Democrat masquerading as an independent.

These are accomplished, of course, through advertising. And Republicans have been telling Melanie and me for a while now that they believe Fischer’s campaign went up on the airwaves way too late, which effectively allowed Osborn to go unchecked, in their view.

Republicans believe the new polling data shows that once Fischer’s message finally got out, the contest righted itself.

Crisis averted? I was in Fort Wayne, Ind., with Senate Minority Whip John Thune on Thursday evening as he was campaigning for Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.), who’s running for Senate. Thune has traveled to Nebraska in recent weeks as part of a broader effort to prop up his leadership bid by helping raise money and campaign for GOP candidates and incumbents.

Thune told me that while the race has been “a lot closer than people thought it would be,” it’s clear that GOP voters are “coming home” to Fischer and the party writ large.

“We knew that once she got up on the air, [the race] would right itself,” Thune said, adding that Osborn was “getting away with” defining himself as someone he’s not.

Republicans now feel like they can breathe a bit easier knowing that the race could be trending back in Fischer’s direction. While few GOP operatives actually thought Fischer could lose, there was — and clearly still is — some consternation over what many view as an unnecessary diversion.

By the way… We’ll have much more for you from Fort Wayne early next week, focusing on Thune’s campaign for the GOP Conference’s top job as well as his outlook on the rest of the 2024 Senate map.

What I’m watching: Well, now that the Phillies’ season is over, there’s always the Great British Baking Show. Sigh.

— Andrew Desiderio

How to get into a congressional leader’s phone

I’m fascinated by how advocates actually get attention in Washington. After all, it’s a city where almost everything from the subway ads to the graffiti is a protest or a procurement pitch.

That’s especially true in tech, where trying to pass legislation often means fighting a ton of the most advanced and well resourced lobbyists in town.

On Thursday, I wrote about how advocates for the Kids Online Safety Act are pushing Speaker Mike Johnson to advance the bill. A group backing KOSA is buying ads that will appear on smartphones within two miles of Louisiana State University’s homecoming football game this weekend, on what is more or less Johnson’s home turf.

The coalition certainly didn’t invent following lawmakers — or even leadership — home. Still, I’m impressed by just how close the KOSA supporters have managed to get this time: If, as expected, Johnson attends the game, all he has to do is open a browser window on his phone to see the ad.

The pro-KOSA campaign targets an audience of one, and for good measure, tosses in thousands of the speaker’s fellow Louisianans.

Geofencing — the digital technique for advertising in a particular area — isn’t always how this sort of advocacy is done. Back in June, for instance, KOSA backers targeted Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer not with phone ads but with a billboard in Times Square designed to rile up his constituents. (Schumer himself lives in Brooklyn.)

The bill passed the Senate with 91 votes in July, though it always had lots of momentum in the chamber.

I asked Alix Fraser, who’s running the Louisiana campaign, to explain the difference in technique. Fraser, who didn’t organize the New York campaign but worked with those who did, said geofencing Manhattan would have been enormously expensive and would send the ad to a lot of people who were visitors, not Schumer constituents.

Plus, he said, football is about as emotionally central to Louisiana as Times Square is physically central to New York.

“The idea of the football game came from someone who works with us who lives in Louisiana,” Fraser told me. “They said, ‘Football’s life here.’”

But Tiger Stadium doesn’t really have a prominent billboard and a mobile billboard on a truck wouldn’t get past the parking lot. So: geofencing.

Clever political actions offer no guarantees. KOSA faces an uphill battle in the House this year no matter what, and lawmakers don’t ascend to leadership without getting used to a haranguing.

On the other hand, sometimes the best way to overcome professional lobbying, qualms about bill language and inter-personal squabbles among lawmakers is to make a show of raw political force and urgency.

In other words, get constituents involved.

What I’m reading: Over at “Wired,” my friend Issie Lapowsky has a great profile of Jake Sullivan, the White House national security adviser, and his work to keep China from beating the U.S. in tech. I meant to just read it in spurts, but I got sucked into the tale of a brainiac betting the whole world on his evolving view of the United States’ strategic role.

– Ben Brody