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By Zach Montellaro | 10/05/2018 10:00 AM EDT


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)

PROGRAMMING NOTE: Morning Score will not publish on Monday, Oct. 8. Our next newsletter will publish on Tuesday, Oct. 9.

A BLUE (CASH) WAVE - House Democrats are feeling giddy ahead of the FEC reporting deadline in 10 days. DCCC Chairman Ben Ray Lujan told reporters that a whopping 60 House Democratic candidates raised north of $1 million. Of those 60, half raised more than $2 million, and eight brought in at least $3 million. Some historical context, from my colleagues Elena Schneider and Rachael Bade: "In the third quarter of 2016, only 21 House candidates from both parties raised over $1 million - including the speaker of the House, six self-funders and another six incumbent Republicans. Only eight non-incumbent Democrats cleared the $1 million mark without self-funding at this point in the last election."

MORE Q3 NUMBERS - TX-Sen: GOP Sen. Ted Cruz told supporters at a rally he raised over $12 million, The Texas Tribune reported.

- MT-AL: Democrat Kathleen Williams raised $2.1 million.

- NJ-11: Democrat Mikie Sherrill said she raised over $2 million, via the New Jersey Globe.

- NY-01: Democrat Perry Gershon raised more than $1.5 million.

- OH-12: Democrat Danny O'Connor raised nearly $6 million, Cleveland.com reported. The caveat, of course, is that he was on the losing side of an expensive special election. Since the special election on Aug. 7, he has raised $2.3 million, with more than $1 million cash on hand.

SCOTUS WARS - North Dakota Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, one of the few senators who had remain undecided on Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, told WDAY's Kevin Wallevand that she will vote against his confirmation. "Both sides horribly handled the process around this nomination," she said in a lengthy statement issued after the interview. "In addition to concerns about his past conduct, last Thursday's hearing called into question Judge Kavanaugh's current temperament, honesty, and impartiality." Heitkamp also noted that this may hurt her politically. "If this were a political decision for me, I certainly would be deciding the other way," she told WDAY. "History will judge you, but most
importantly you will judge yourself."

All eyes now turn to the last holdout Democrat - West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin - and three Republicans: Sens. Jeff Flake, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski. Flake and Collins both signaled confidence in the FBI investigation, the POLITICO Congress team reported. John Bresnahan reported Thursday morning that Manchin "sounds like he's leaning 'yes'," but that he "doesn't want to be the 50th vote for Kavanaugh, but it seems like he'd be OK with being the 51st or 52nd, barring any new developments."

Happy Friday! One interesting read: A former Obama staffer is trying to crowdsource opposition research, Bloomberg Businessweek's Joshua Green reported. As always, email me at zmontellaro@politico.com or DM me at @ZachMontellaro.

Email the great Campaign Pro team at sbland@politico.com, eschneider@politico.com, jarkin@politico.com and dstrauss@politico.com. Follow them on Twitter: @PoliticoScott @ec_schneider, @JamesArkin and @DanielStrauss4.

Days until the 2018 election: 32.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP SAYS A RED WAVE IS COMING ON ELECTION DAY. Is he right or will the tide turn blue? Compete against the nation's top political minds in the POLITICO Playbook Election Challenge, by correctly picking the winning candidates in some of the most competitive House, Senate and gubernatorial races in the country! Win awesome prizes and eternal bragging rights. Sign up today! Visit politico.com/playbookelectionchallenge to play.

POLLS POLLS POLLS - A poll in VA-10 gives Democrat Jennifer Wexton a lead over GOP Rep. Barbara Comstock. The poll from Christopher Newport University's Wason Center found Wexton up, 51 percent to 44 percent, among registered voters (a second model with just voters who "said they were definitely going to vote and were very enthusiastic about the coming election" gave Wexton an 11-point lead). The poll surveyed 794 registered voters Sept. 23-Oct. 2.

- GOP Rep. Vern Buchanan is leading Democrat David Shapiro in a new FL-16 poll. In the University of North Florida poll, Buchanan leads 49 percent to 40 percent. The poll was in the field from Sept. 30 to Oct. 2 and polled 551 likely voters.

- And now, a brief aside on polling methodologies. For a variety of reasons, we usually only highlight live caller, independent polls in the main section of Score. But, as The New York Times' "live" polling has demonstrated, it has become difficult to get people to answer their phones and take a poll. One new approach that caught my attention was the Los Angeles Times/Berkeley IGS polling in California House districts (which was loaded with good news for Democrats), that used emails from the state voter file to reach voters. David Lauter thoughtfully wrote about the benefits and drawbacks of this model, and I want to hear from you about alternative methods of polling. Email me your thoughts
(this is not an invitation to bomb my inbox with press releases about polls).

CAMPAIGN FINANCING - Indiana Republican Mike Braun has fueled his campaign on loans - which are largely backed by banks that he has ties to. The Daily Beast's Lachlan Markay reports that Braun has received personal loans from a bank whose "political action committee donated to his statehouse campaign in 2014, and to his re-election effort two years later"; another bank where a top official "lists Braun as a personal reference on a publicly available version of his résumé"; and a third whose CEO "is a personal friend of the candidate." The loans all carry "an interest rate ranging from 4 percent to 4.75 percent," lower than what is advertised on some of the bank's websites.

A BIT MORE SUNSHINE? - The FEC issued guidance regarding "dark money" groups and their donors, which could lead to more donors being unmasked. The new guidance, which ultimately came following a lawsuit from CREW, says any group making more than $250 in express advocacy ads needs to disclose the identity of donors who contributed over $200 for political purposes. But, this comes with some major caveats: These donors will not appear on 24- or 48-hour reports, instead only appearing on quarterly reports. Disclosures in this third quarter will not be complete, either. The new guidance states donations "received on or after August 4 are subject to disclosure for independent expenditures
disseminated on or after September 18," meaning donations that funded expenditures for the majority of the quarter won't appear, according to an analysis from the Campaign Legal Center.

The CLC analysis also notes that "the FEC signaled it will 'exercise its prosecutorial discretion' for the next quarterly reports, due October 15. This could be a signal to dark money groups that they can ignore their disclosure obligations for this next quarterly report and the FEC will let them get away with it." What does this all mean in the end? "It seems unlikely we're going to get much disclosure before Election Day," Brendan Fischer, the CLC's federal reform program director, told Score.

The future of dark money disclosure is uncertain. The lower court ruling that led to this guidance could be appealed up to the Supreme Court. And even if it isn't, that doesn't guarantee transparency. "Moving forward, it appears likely that political operatives and deep-pocketed donors will continue to find ways to evade disclosure," Fischer said.

AD ROUNDUP - The whole campaign team watched more than 45 new ads released Thursday. One to highlight: GOP Rep. Mike Coffman in Colorado's 6th District, in which he pushes back against attack ads and distances himself from the president. "Mike Coffman promised he would stand up to [President] Donald Trump," the ad reads, citing The Denver Post. "And he has."

- FIRST IN SCORE - The Congressional Leadership Fund released a new ad attacking Democrat Lizzie Pannill Fletcher in TX-07, tying her to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. "Pelosi's PAC is backing Fletcher's campaign with over $2 million," the ad said, referring to spending from House Majority PAC. "She'll do anything to get Fletcher elected." It also criticizes her on health care.

- FIRST IN SCORE - Democrat Betsy Dirksen Londrigan released a new ad in IL-13. It pushes back against various attacks, and slams GOP Rep. Rodney Davis on health care. "Davis voted 11 times to gut protections for pre-existing conditions," the ad says. "Lies can't change his record."

- The DSCC is spending more money in New Jersey to back up Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez. Advertising Analytics has tracked $520,305 in new coordinated television reservations between the DSCC and his campaign.

TRUMP ON THE TRAIL - Trump rallied in front of a crowd of 10,000 people in Rochester, Minn., to push voters to elect Republicans in several battleground seats. The Minneapolis Star Tribune's Judy Keen, Kelly Smith and Stephen Montemayor: "He also launched an attack on Democratic Sen. Tina Smith, bringing her opponent Karin Housley on stage to speak for a moment and saying that 'nobody ever heard of' Smith. ... Trump summoned two other congressional candidates to the stage. Second District Rep. Jason Lewis spoke for several minutes as the president stood by. Lewis was followed by Jim Hagedorn, who's running in southern Minnesota's First District.

- A Florida House Republican candidate wanted nothing to do with the president on the trail. POLITICO Florida's Marc Caputo: "Trump's political team wanted to rally in Florida next week beside Ron DeSantis, the Republican nominee for governor, and the Republican who hopes to succeed him in the House. But sources familiar with the talks say the congressional candidate, Michael Waltz, declined amid concerns about the risks of publicly stumping with Trump, and instead wanted the president to headline a private fundraiser in his central Florida-based district. Both prospective events fell through in the end."

DEEP DIVE - Illinois has dug itself into a deep financial hole and has a "banana republic" of a state government, so why does billionaire Democrat J.B. Pritzker want the top job? And can he fix the state? Theodoric Meyer digs in for POLITICO Magazine. "The question, it seems, is not whether Pritzker is likely to be Illinois' next governor, but why he would want the job. Barring a sharp reversal in the polls, he is on track to coast into office. Once he gets there, however, he'll be confronted with perhaps the most daunting policy challenges facing any governor in the country. Looming over the campaign is not just the question of whether either candidate has a real plan to fix the state, but
whether anyone can."

MIDTERM MESSAGING - Republicans have caught on to "Medicare for All" as a way to tar Democrats across the country. But in several races, ads have "mischaracterized" some of the candidates' positions on health care, according to The Washington Post Fact Checker's Glenn Kessler, who notes they don't always back what they've being accused of supporting. BuzzFeed News' Molly Hensley-Clancy on the strategy: "Republican campaigns and strategists are betting that, particularly in the country's most competitive House districts, the party's embrace of Medicare for All is actually a Democratic vulnerability. ... The ads against moderates who haven't backed Medicare for All, Republicans say, are fair
game in part because the health care plan has become so entrenched in the Democratic Party."

AGENDA ITEM - More than one hundred House Democratic candidates sent a letter to Congress saying they want campaign finance reform to be the first thing addressed in 2019. The reforms, which were pushed by the Democratic group End Citizens United, argue for "limited the influence of big donors on campaigns" and "disclosure of all political spending" (it probably goes without saying, but sweeping campaign finance reform that both chambers agree on and that the president will sign would be incredibly difficult to find).

PRESIDENTIAL ENDORSEMENT - Trump endorsed Republican Diane Harkey, who is running in CA-49. "She will be a great supporter of President Trump's America First agenda in Congress, especially on tax reform and deregulation," Lara Trump, the president's daughter-in-law and senior adviser for his campaign, said in a statement.

PACKING IT IN - Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) is weighing stepping down from the DNC, while he continues to deny allegations of domestic abuse. Ellison, who is running for attorney general in Minnesota, told a local radio station he is "taking into consideration" resigning as deputy chair of the DNC so he can focus on his campaign, CNN's Colin McCullough reported.

FIRST IN SCORE - ENDORSEMENT CORNER - EMILY's List is endorsing Democrat Kendra Horn in Oklahoma's 5th District.

CODA - QUOTE OF THE DAY: "I know that my tone was sharp, and I said a few things I should not have said," Kavanaugh said of his hearing performance in a op-ed for The Wall street Journal.

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