Obama, Clinton Stumping Hard for Congressional Races

After nearly five months of ripping into Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton suddenly has a new list of enemies on the campaign trail: Republican candidates in competitive down-ballot races.

Clinton’s pivot is an unmistakable sign that she and her top aides have never felt more confident about victory on November 8…

…Determined to capitalize on her opponent’s her opponent’s recent struggles, Clinton has picked up her pace of campaigning, and in the final two weeks of the 2016 race, she will crisscross the country to vouch for Democrats in tough congressional races.

Her ultimate goal is to secure a Democratic-controlled Senate — crucial to a Clinton administration’s ability to set an aggressive first-term agenda.

President Barack Obama is also turning up the heat in several competitive Congressional battles around the country. Obama directly criticized Republican Rep. Darrell Issa at a fundraiser in La Jolla, California on Sunday. Here in Colorado today, Obama formally endorsed Democrat Morgan Carroll in CD-6. As the Aurora Sentinel reports, here’s the full statement of Obama’s endorsement:

“I’m proud to endorse Morgan Carroll for the United States House of Representatives,” Obama said. “Over the last eight years, we’ve made tremendous strides towards making our nation safer, stronger, and fairer, but it’s clear that to continue this progress, we need to send more commonsense leaders like Morgan Carroll to Congress to get things done for the middle class. Morgan Carroll is a champion for Colorado families — fighting for good-paying jobs and better wages, and isn’t afraid to take on the tough fights, like defending a woman’s right to make her own healthcare decisions, passing tough campaign finance and lobbying reform laws, making sure we keep our sacred promises to our nation’s veterans and their families, and addressing the crushing burden of student loan debt felt by so many Colorado students. Morgan Carroll is the kind of tough and smart leader who will build on all we’ve accomplished and take our nation forward, and that’s why I know Coloradans can count on Morgan Carroll.”

Coffman is touting  his own list of endorsements, though they are decidedly less interesting than President Obama’s backing:

Coffman rolled out his own partisan praise last week, announcing the endorsement of area Republican mayors and county commissioners.

We wrote last week that the worst-case-scenario for Republicans was that disaffected GOP voters just wouldn’t bother voting at all. But if Obama and Clinton are confident enough about the top of the ticket with two weeks left that they are going to focus their efforts on down-ballot races…well, the worst-case-scenario for Republicans might have changed significantly.