Good Tuesday morning, I'm Jake Sherman and welcome to your political playbook audio briefing.

Stay tuned after the show for a message from Business Roundtable.

Tonight is the special election in North Carolina's ninth congressional district between Dan Bishop and Dan McCready.

Nearly $20 million has been spent in this race.

The Democrat McCready has spent $4.7 million. Bishop has spent $1.7 million. And the NRCC and CLF have spent to combine $5.4 million. All the groups involved in this race say the same thing. Internal polling has the two candidates within a few points of each other, all within the margin of error. As you know by now, the district went for Donald Trump by a dozen

points. Democrats don't have much business holding the seat. Whatever happens tonight, whoever wins

this race, there's going to be a lot of spin. So we wanted to decode what you'll hear tomorrow today.

If Bishop wins, Republicans are going to gloat that they were able to beat a candidate, McCready,

who was running for Congress for more than two years and who spent $4 million. They could say Republican districts are not,

in fact, crumbling like Democrats say they are. Of course, this is true, but not the whole story.

The Republican Congressional Coalition was once built off seats like this, suburbs and exurbs.

If Democrats keep it close, it could highlight some of the

Republicans enduring problems in traditional strongholds. The good for the Republican Party,

if Bishop wins, it would show that the NRCC and CLF, who were almost sworn enemies last

cycle, have learned to take cues from one another and win races. If McCready wins, the Democrats

win a seat that Trump won by a dozen points just

three years ago. Republicans could be in trouble and no amount of spin will be able to cover that up.

This isn't a modestly red seat. This is a solidly red seat. Combined an embarrassing loss

with countless Republicans jumping shift for retirement, and that's a troubling picture for

the House GOP in 2020. Republicans are already complaining about Bishop.

They say he was a bad candidate with the baggage of a notorious bathroom bill in the North

Carolina legislature.

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