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By Theodoric Meyer | 12/18/2015 10:00 AM EDT


With Kevin Robillard and Scott Bland

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)

MAP MEETING - Democrats huddle on redistricting: The Democratic Governors Association, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee met Thursday at DGA headquarters to launch an effort to control the 2020 redistricting process. "Just the fact that it happened, and that we all agreed there needed to be coordination, was a triumph," DGA executive director Elisabeth Pearson told Campaign Pro. The committees focused on where they had overlapping targets and looked at ways they could "make sure there's no overlap and that every dollar is spent wisely," Pearson said.

- The committees are looking at ways to work together on field operations, targeting and candidate recruitment. The effort is still in the early stages, but starting now is seen as necessary to catch up to Republicans. "Democratic folks out of D.C., donors, I think there's been a palpable shift" in their approach to state races, Pearson said. The DGA started an "Unrig The Map" effort last summer, targeting 18 states where governors play major roles in redistricting.

THE DIGITAL CAMPAIGN -"The NRCC's sly foray into the hipster-Americana trade," by Campaign Pro's Theodoric Meyer: http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=01304399dc5bbb681e3a10a802bcad8f938fe5b771ae7aed3647a1df925953c7

Days until the 2016 election: 326.

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

You can also follow us on Twitter, where we tweet a lot about campaigns and occasionally about how Martin Luther coined the word "poltergeist": @politicoscott, @ec_schneider, @politicokevin, @theodoricmeyer, @kyledcheney.

THE TWO HINOJOSAS - One Ruben Hinojosa tries to replaces another: Democratic Rep. Ruben Hinojosa, who represents Texas' 15th District, is retiring next year. One of the candidates to replace him: another Ruben Hinojosa. "Democrats say the coincidence could confuse voters, leading some to vote for the relative youngster- who unsuccessfully ran under a different name for Hinojosa's seat in 2012 - thinking they're casting a ballot for the man who represented their South Texas district for two decades," The Texas Tribune's Jim Malewitz reports. "'From the party's perspective, I am concerned,' said Ricardo Godinez, chair of the Hidalgo County Democrats. 'It's an open seat, and it's hard to get
voters to vote in the first place, and to have them fully informed.'"

- "The concerns have bubbled up to Washington, where Rep. Hinojosa and his staff openly talked about asking the party to change the candidate's name on the ballot, listing him instead as Ruben Ramon Ramirez - the name he used in the 2012 Democratic primary when he drew about five percent of the vote." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=01304399dc5bbb68c3b5ff856771fe7222ce128bd6373dd632193b454d697d28

OUTSIDE MONEY - Senate Majority PAC goes after Toomey to kick off digital campaign: http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=01304399dc5bbb68a1d98261ef796e3403629d26ec94fa1ed78c341c6d2e0ace

ANNALS OF CAMPAIGN FINANCE - FEC elects Petersen as chairman: The Federal Election Commission elected Matthew Petersen its new chairman on Thursday. Petersen, one of three Republican commissioners on the six-member commission, will take over from Chairwoman Ann Ravel, a Democrat, next year. Petersen has served on the commission since 2008 and has done one previous stint as chairman. The chairman of the bitterly divided agency doesn't have much power, and Petersen isn't expected to make many waves. "I've learned to take a more low-profile approach," he told the Center for Public Integrity's Dave Levinthal recently. "I don't feel any need to have my face out there any more than it is." Steven
Walther, one of the Democratic commissioners, was elected vice chairman.

POLLING WITH THE STARS - Global Strategy Group answers some burning questions as Star Wars opens: The Democratic polling firm found partisan divides on three Star Wars-related questions in an online survey. Our favorite: Agree or disagree - "Darth Vader is a victim of circumstance." Democrats say yes, 52 percent to 38 percent, while Republicans say no, 56 percent to 38 percent. It's easy to see how the Galactic Senate became paralyzed. See the rest of the results, including questions on the morality of selling droids and the destruction of the Death Star, here: http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=01304399dc5bbb68bdff3ea928a674dfddc641c5d778331902bdbaf3f3a5931e

PRESIDENTIAL SPEED READ - "Rubio baiting Cruz on immigration was months in the making," by POLITICO's Eli Stokols: "According to conversations with operatives close to the Rubio campaign, his staffers knew from the get-go that the Florida senator's work on the immigration bill as part of the Gang of Eight was his most glaring weakness. But it was also clear from some of their earliest meetings that they saw an opening to go after Cruz. They focused their opposition research efforts on that target and saw promise in Cruz's complicated positioning on legalization. As they compiled data on Cruz, building on the file amassed by former Texas Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst during his unsuccessful 2012
Senate primary run, Rubio's team sensed an opportunity - not just on the immigration issue, but to needle a candidate they viewed as overconfident and untested, especially when pressured by opponents' attacks." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=01304399dc5bbb6896715022f8e457d63ee4aaa97dcc605d2f2059ab77b012f5

- "Former Trump aide collects money to promote a Rubio-Kasich conspiracy theory," by The Washington Post's Jenna Johnson: Roger Stone "says he plans to use money donated to the Committee to Restore America's Greatness super PAC to 'finance a hard-hitting television and radio campaign' that will accuse Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) of striking a "secret deal" with one of his rivals to weaken Trump's candidacy for the White House. ... Stone, a conservative operative who left Trump's campaign in August, appears to have posted a letter on the super PAC's website on Thursday that accuses Rubio of forging a "secret alliance" with Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) to destroy Trump. Stone alleges that Rubio's
'well-heeled backers will funnel millions to Kasich,' who will then mount a 'massive multi-million dollar paid television attack on Donald Trump in the early primary states.' In exchange for attacking Trump, Stone claims that Rubio has promised to make Kasich his vice president." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=01304399dc5bbb68196feed051c836b37f079477045dff597fe353ccab9e55ea

- Speaking of Trump: The Washington Post's Stephanie McCrummen reports from Donald Trump rally in Arizona on Wednesday. When it was over, "as the thousands of cars exited the parking lot, a young man in the bed of a pickup truck would begin yelling at two Latinos in the car behind him. 'Mother***ing tacos! Go back to Mexico! Go back to Mexico! Nobody wants you!'" http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=01304399dc5bbb683071dbaf0ff149a94bf29a61da4b1e4f9dd03fe42c5725b0

- "Bernie Sanders wins the day," by POLITICO's Gabriel Debenedetti: Bernie Sanders had a good day on Thursday. First, the campaign announced it had collected more than 2 million contributions- a sign of Sanders' popularity among small donors - raising $3 million since Monday alone. Then Sanders formally picked up his biggest labor endorsement, smiling alongside the leadership of the Communications Workers of America in Washington. At noon, the biggest news yet: million-member liberal group Democracy For America - founded by close Clinton ally and surrogate Howard Dean - was throwing its support behind Sanders in its first-ever presidential endorsement."
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=01304399dc5bbb688fffc84aa5c4f2351e24ac76c14f46a5eb2fda2fede95fee

-"Bernie Sanders campaign accessed confidential Clinton data," by BuzzFeed's Evan McMorris-Santoro and Ruby Cramer: The Democratic National Committee has suspended Bernie Sanders' access to the party's 50-state voter file in response to a software glitch that allowed the Sanders campaign to access Hillary Clinton's internal voter data. The DNC move effectively freezes Sanders' field organizing program six weeks from the first caucuses and primaries." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=01304399dc5bbb681c87fdefc557bb69c018ad93f7a02cf29ff9033bab27ae77

- "Mike Huckabee cuts salaries of senior staff," by POLITICO's Daniel Strauss: Mike Huckabee's campaign, which recently lost its chief spokeswoman, has slashed senior staffers' salaries, too. "The salary reductions took place over the past few weeks ... The abrupt departure of Alice Stewart, Huckabee's communications director, was partly due to disagreements within the communications shop about the direction of the campaign and partly because of the salary cuts, several Republicans inside and outside the campaign said." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=01304399dc5bbb688bbc2eb11d6bb2e720a1b1f4b9a75ddac293210a0c44c3c9

CORRECTION: Morning Score misstated the first name of a Democratic Senate candidate running in Pennsylvania on Thursday. He is John Fetterman. Morning Score regrets the error.

CODA - QUOTE OF THE DAY: "I think it'll make me look smart to not go into some place where there's a lot of danger." - Ben Carson, on his decision to cancel planned trips to Israel and Africa. http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=01304399dc5bbb686da8326309cd5b41569988217d5aad864ab736924c7410d0

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