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By Elena Schneider | 02/09/2017 10:00 AM EDT


With Kevin Robillard

The following newsletter is an abridged version of Campaign Pro's Morning Score. For an earlier morning read on exponentially more races - and for a more comprehensive aggregation of the day's most important campaign news - sign up for Campaign Pro today. (http://www.politicopro.com/proinfo)

SPECIAL SEASON - GOP convention to select nominee in vacant KS-04 is another test for the power of Trump connections in the Republican Party: The first special election of Donald Trump's presidency kicks off Thursday night, when 126 Kansas Republican delegates will select the nominee who will likely replace GOP Rep. Mike Pompeo in Congress. Kansas state Treasurer Ron Estes appeared to an early favorite, but Alan Cobb, a Trump adviser, has leaned heavily on his White House connections in pitches to delegates. "Chatter is that Estes is falling flat and Cobb is gaining ground," said one Kansas Republican operative. "Estes is not terribly inspiring in his pitch, and Cobb's pitch is that he's
tight with the Trump administration."

- "Ron started early, contacting delegates, so he knows the delegates the best and has the most personal connections to them," said the state GOP chairman Clay Barker. "But Alan probably has the most organized campaign, putting up videos on social media and using targeting to influence delegates. He seems to have a more systematic, organized push." Other candidates running including former Rep. Todd Tiahrt, radio talk show host Joseph Ashby, attorney George Bruce and Wichita City Councilman Pete Meitzner.

- State Republicans are concerned that Kansas recently lost much of its seniority on the Hill, so they want a strong personality with connections to elevate the state's status. "In Congress, we'll have three freshmen and a sophomore, so having someone in with the president gives us some clout," said another Kansas GOP source, which could be an asset for Cobb's candidacy.

- Strange to be tapped for Sessions' Senate seat: "Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley is expected to formalize the announcement on Thursday morning and Strange will be quickly sworn into the Senate. Strange ... had announced he would run for Sessions' seat regardless of whether he received the appointment. " Full story.

RE-GROWING PAINS - "Obama's party-building legacy splits Democrats," by POLITICO's Gabriel Debenedetti: "A painful Democratic rift over Barack Obama's political legacy is finally bursting into the open. For years, the former president's popularity among Democrats stifled any public critiques of his stewardship of the party ... But now that Obama and the political operation that succeeded his campaign, Organizing For Action, have expressed interest in playing a role in the task of rebuilding, it's sparking pitched debates over how much blame he deserves for the gradual hollowing out of a party that now has less control of state elected positions than at any other time in nearly a century.
That degree of mistrust ... is already showing signs of hampering Obama's former Labor Secretary Tom Perez as he pursues the chairmanship of the Democratic National Committee." Full story.

GUV WATCH - "RFK's son to run for Illinois governor," by POLITICO Illinois' Natasha Korecki: "Chris Kennedy, son of the late Robert F. Kennedy, has announced he's running for Illinois governor, ending months of speculation. 'We need change. Not incremental change, fundamental change,' Kennedy said in a video statement announcing his candidacy Wednesday. 'I believe in working with others and not telling them what to do. I believe that compromise is not surrender. That's how I think our state should work.' The move was a clear broadside to Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner, who has been engaged in an epic fight with the state legislature, which has left the state without a budget for 19 months.
Kennedy, a Chicago businessman who once managed the Merchandise Mart, has increased his public profile since last spring and met with groups across the state to discuss the possibility of running for governor." Full story.

- "Chicago billionaire J.B. Pritzker announced Wednesday that he's 'seriously considering' running for Illinois governor in 2018," via NBC Chicago.

Days until the 2017 election: 274.

Days until the 2018 election: 638.

Thanks for joining us. You can email tips to the whole Campaign Pro team at sbland@politico.com, eschneider@politico.com, krobillard@politico.com and dstrauss@politico.com.

You can also follow us on Twitter, where we tweet about campaigns and our moods: @politicoscott, @ec_schneider, @politicokevin and @danielstrauss4.

ON THE RECORD - "POLITICO Pro Q&A: Former Rep. Joe Heck," by Campaign Pro's Elena Schneider: "Former Rep. Joe Heck was one of Senate Republicans' star candidates in 2016, but he fell victim to a clear division in that year's election results. In every state President Donald Trump won, GOP Senate candidates won. Where he lost, they lost, too - and Heck's home state of Nevada was one of the states Trump lost. So Heck has left government, though he hasn't left government work yet. The Republican will split his time between Las Vegas and Washington as the president of government relations for RedRock Strategies, a consulting firm that worked on his House and Senate campaigns. Heck spoke with
POLITICO about his new work, his big decision to unendorse Trump in October 2016, weeks before the election, and whether he harbors any future political plans." Full story.

FIRST IN SCORE - NRSC airing radio ad attacking Casey on guns - The NRSC will air a radio ad attacking Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey on gun rights this weekend. The ad will run on country music radio in Harrisburg during the Great American Outdoor Show, a massive gun show taking place there this weekend that includes an NRA-sponsored country music concert. "Judge Gorsuch defends your right to own a gun," the ad's narrator says. "To protect your rights, call Senator Bob Casey and tell him to support Judge Gorsuch. The last time Casey voted on the Court, he gave his vote to the anti-gun liberals. Isn't it time he cast a vote for us?" Listen to the ad here.

AIR GORS ONE - Judicial Crisis Network ups national ad campaign: The conservative group boosting Trump's Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch is adding to its TV ad campaign today, expanding to $2 million across cable stations nationwide. The ad features the former Obama administration attorney, Jane Nitze, who also clerked for Gorsuch and endorsed him. Watch the ad here.

ON THE HILL - "What was Mitch McConnell thinking?" by POLITICO's Burgess Everett and Seung Min Kim: "Elizabeth Warren couldn't have scripted it any better if she'd tried. Reading a letter from civil rights icon Coretta Scott King opposing Jeff Sessions for a federal judgeship in 1986, the liberal Massachusetts senator was reprimanded by Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader so loathed by Democrats. Warren was then gaveled down by Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) and told to take her seat. ...But there's no question the confrontation galvanized Warren's army of liberal fans. McConnell's rebuke - 'She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted' - became an instant
meme on the left. On the other side of the aisle, Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas) said he heard Warren is 'doing fundraising off it. I frankly don't think it's anything to be proud of.'" Full story.

- "Hours before she was rebuked by the Senate, Elizabeth Warren announced the release of her new book," by The Washington Post's Amber Phillips: "Hours before Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) read a letter on the Senate floor Tuesday night that would make her Wednesday's buzziest political story, her publisher sent a tweet. Warren's new book, 'This Fight Is Our Fight,' will be out in April." Full story.

- "Jeff Sessions Confirmed as Attorney General, Capping Bitter Battle," by The New York Times' Eric Lichtblau and Matt Flegenheimer: "Senator Jeff Sessions was confirmed on Wednesday as President Trump's attorney general, capping a bitter and racially charged nomination battle that crested with the procedural silencing of a leading Democrat, Senator Elizabeth Warren. Mr. Sessions, an Alabama Republican, survived a near-party-line vote, 52 to 47, in the latest sign of the extreme partisanship at play as Mr. Trump strains to install his cabinet. No Republicans broke ranks in their support of a colleague who will become the nation's top law enforcement official after two decades in the Senate.
But the confirmation process - ferocious even by the standards of moldering decorum that have defined the body's recent years - laid bare the Senate's deep divisions at the outset of the Trump presidency." Full story.

DNC RACE - "Perez adds endorsements from top state officials in DNC race," by Campaign Pro's Daniel Strauss: "Former Labor Secretary Tom Perez picked up the endorsements of two prominent state party chairs Wednesday in the race to lead the Democratic National Committee: Ohio Democratic Party Chairman David Pepper and Pennsylvania Democratic Party Chairman Marcel Groen. The two party leaders hail from battleground states that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton lost in the 2016 presidential election." Full story.

ADMINISTRATION SPEED READ - "Trump struggling to fill one of the worst jobs in Washington," by POLITICO's Eliana Johnson: "Controlling the message coming out of Donald Trump's White House may seem like an impossible task - and it's one that many are hesitant to try right now. The White House has gone without a full-time communications director since Trump was sworn in last month, and although chief of staff Reince Priebus is spearheading a robust effort to fill the position, his overtures to several Republican communications professionals have been met with disinterest, according to a half-dozen sources with knowledge of the situation. At least two candidates have turned down the job, a
position normally coveted by Washington political operatives, according to another source familiar with the conversations. Trump's unusual involvement in crafting his own message - and his insistence on doing so from his perch in the West Wing - poses a challenge for any aide whose responsibility it would be to shape the narrative arc of his administration." Full story.

- "Trump sets himself up to win, regardless of court's decision," by POLITICO's Eli Stokols: "Hundreds of thousands of people listened to government lawyers defend President Donald Trump's executive order on immigration in court-but that didn't stop the president from restating the argument himself on live television Wednesday. Trump's position-that his executive power to make national security decisions should supersede the judiciary-is as much about politics as the law itself. With the White House bracing for a setback from the San Francisco-based Ninth Circuit court, the president cast his policy blocking refugees and visa-holders from seven Muslim-majority nations as a common-sense move
thwarted by the establishment. 'That was a preemptive strike, what Trump said today,' said a source who speaks with the president frequently. 'He's already playing the usual cards, saying 'The system is rigged' and accusing liberals of regulating from the bench.'" Full story.

CODA - QUOTE OF THE DAY: Responding to Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank, who called President Trump an "asset" to the country, Warriors star Stephen Curry said: ""I agree with that description," Curry said, "if you remove the 'et,'" The Mercury News reported.

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