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By Zach Montellaro | 07/18/2018 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)

There are few people who know more about this year's battle for the House than Dan Sena and John Rogers, the executive directors of the DCCC and NRCC, respectively. Yesterday, my colleagues Elena Schneider and Steve Shepard got the two of them on stage together at the POLITICO Pro summit, where they laid out their cases for why their party will prevail come November.

For Sena and the Democrats, it is all about the breadth of the battleground map and the candidates they're running in each district. "For us, it's the size of the battlefield, the sheer scope of the battlefield, how large the number of races we have running, the quality of our candidates," Sena said during the panel. "We're going to win it in the field with our campaigns and with our candidates' stories, which is why they have such financial resources and have raised in such large amounts, and are fueled heavily by grassroots money." For anyone who has talked to any DCCC official in the last few months, this probably sounds familiar. But there's truth to it, too: Cook Political Report has
33 currently GOP held seats listed as toss-up or worse - and that's not even looking at lean/likely seats that could potentially start to move once the fall campaign kicks into gear. Rogers argued that this cycle was "very volatile" and that the battleground might not be as big as everyone thinks.

Rogers and Republicans hope to return to a tried-and-true playbook: tie candidates to House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi. "I think these races become about Nancy Pelosi whether or not either of us want them to," Rogers said. "I think these races become about Nancy Pelosi whether these candidates try and run and hide from her or not." He talked up Pelosi's low approval rating just about everywhere (HuffPost has her hovering at 29 percent favorable to 49 percent unfavorable in the national polling average), while Sena argued Democrats have been able to bust that mold, pointing to the election of Rep. Conor Lamb (D-Pa.) as an example. At least 20 Democratic candidates have said this cycle
that they wouldn't back her for speaker, an attempt to defang this line of attack along the lines of what Lamb did in Western Pennsylvania.

- FIRST IN SCORE - And to that point: Democrat Brendan Kelly is emphasizing that he won't support Nancy Pelosi in his first general election TV ad and that "as a prosecutor, I'm fighting corrupt Republicans and Democrats." Kelly, who is running in Illinois' 12th District, said he believes "we need new leaders in both parties" in the ad. It will start airing Wednesday across the district.

ROBY WINS RUNOFF - After Rep. Martha Roby (R-Ala.) looked to be in serious trouble after getting below 40 percent in her GOP primary, she cruised to victory last night in the primary runoff. The race was called at about 9:30 p.m., where she had two-thirds of the vote, with just under half of all precincts reporting in, to former Rep. Bobby Bright's third. One big takeaway from Campaign Pro's Scott Bland: "The primary revealed again how deeply Trump has transformed Republican Party politics, with Roby's split putting her - previously a well-liked conservative in good standing with her base - in political jeopardy before Trump himself helped bail her out. Support for the president has played
an outsized role in Republican primaries all year long, including the South Carolina race that saw one of Trump's highest-profile GOP critics in Congress, Rep. Mark Sanford, lose renomination."

Good Wednesday afternoon. Former Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) wrote a troll-y op-ed in The Wall Street Journal encouraging voters to back Rep. Joe Crowley (D-N.Y.) on the Working Families line over Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. As always, you can email me at zmontellaro@politico.com or DM me at @ZachMontellaro.

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

JUST RELEASED: View the latest POLITICO/AARP poll to better understand Arizona voters over 50, a voting bloc poised to shape the midterm election outcome. Get up to speed on priority issues for Hispanic voters age 50+, who will help determine whether Arizona turns blue or stays red.

What role will Hispanic voters over 50 play in Arizona this Fall? Read POLITICO Magazine's new series "The Deciders" which focuses on this powerful voting bloc that could be the determining factor in turning Arizona blue.

Days until the 2018 election: 111.

Upcoming election dates - July 24: Georgia primary runoffs. - Aug. 2: Tennessee primaries. - Aug. 7: Kansas, Michigan, Missouri and Washington primaries.

Upcoming primary filing deadlines - Louisiana: July 20.

THE FINAL Q2 TALLY - A lot of endangered Republicans were outraised this quarter by a Democratic challenger: 56, to be exact. And it's not a trend that's slowing down. Campaign Pro's Elena Schneider: "It's a financial trend line that has gotten worse for Republicans candidates over the last year, even as megadonors pour millions into the House GOP super PAC - a reflection of Democratic intensity that has coursed through the party's donors and voters since President Donald Trump's election. The picture is even grimmer for Republicans in open, battleground districts, where a slew of retirements has put even more seats up for grabs. More than two-dozen Democratic candidates in those districts
also topped GOP opponents in fundraising, and 19 of those Democrats also led in cash on hand."

- One potential saving grace for (some) Republicans? The "Death Star" that is the Congressional Leadership Fund: "The group already raised a best-ever $66 million in 2017 and is set to pour record sums of super PAC money into this year's House race. 'We set the public goal of $100 million, and we will far exceed that,' said Corry Bliss, executive director of the Congressional Leadership Fund. But he also warned that the group would not save everyone this fall, saying: 'Those who are not willing to help themselves should not complain when outside support does not come their way,' he said."

** Presented by AARP: There's only one true deciding factor in this year's elections: 50-plus voters. They won't be ignored and their votes are up for grabs. Medicare, Social Security, support for family caregivers, and prescription drug costs are all on the line-so you can be sure they'll be voting in record numbers.
aarp.org/vote **

NEW CA-48 POLL - Democratic challenger Harley Rouda narrowly leads incumbent GOP Rep. Dana Rohrabacher in a new Monmouth poll in California's 48th District. The poll - which was in the field from July 11-15 and surveyed 402 voters - has Rouda leading 46 percent to 43 percent in Monmouth's "all potential voters" model. A historical midterm model has him up 47 percent to 45 percent while a turnout surge model has him up 48 percent to 44 percent. All of the results are within the poll's margin of error.

- And the president's endorsement in the Florida GOP gubernatorial primary has helped lift Rep. Ron DeSantis over Adam Putnam. POLITICO Florida's Marc Caputo: "DeSantis has featured the Trump endorsement in his mail and TV ads, which he began running last month. Now that the ads have sunk in, DeSantis leads Putnam 42 percent to 30 percent, said Tony Fabrizio, a top Republican pollster who asked the questions about the governor's race in a broader survey he took for an unspecified political group that's not involved in the governor's race. The primary is Aug. 28."

VOTING MACHINE PROBLEMS - One of the top voting machine makers admitted that a "small number" of their systems had remote access software. Motherboard's Kim Zetter: "In a letter sent to Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) in April and obtained recently by Motherboard, Election Systems and Software acknowledged that it had 'provided pcAnywhere remote connection software ... to a small number of customers between 2000 and 2006,' which was installed on the election-management system ES&S sold them. ... ES&S is the top voting machine maker in the country, a position it held in the years 2000-2006 when it was installing pcAnywhere on its systems. The company's machines were used statewide in a number of
states, and at least 60 percent of ballots cast in the US in 2006 were tabulated on ES&S election-management systems."

BREAK FROM THE NORM - Normally, sitting members of Congress won't endorse against their colleagues in the same party during a primary. Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) broke that norm, endorsing Kelli Ward - and not House colleague Rep. Martha McSally (R-Ariz.) - in the Arizona Senate primary. The Arizona Republic's Yvonne Wingett Sanchez: "In a statement announcing the endorsement, Gosar questioned McSally's conservative Republican credentials, a public broadside to the conservative image she has been peddling to primary voters as she seeks the GOP nomination for Arizona's open Senate seat. 'We cannot afford another establishment patsy who promises one thing and votes differently,' Gosar's
statement said."

ON THE AIRWAVES - The Republican Governors Association is going after two Arizona Democratic candidates on ICE. Campaign Pro's Daniel Strauss: "The two ads target David Garcia and Kelly Fryer, two of the three Democrats competing in the primary to challenge Gov. Doug Ducey. Garcia has called to overhaul the federal immigration agency while Fraser's campaign website includes a page titled 'Abolish ICE Now.' The RGA is spending $1 million on the ad buy, according to a Republican with knowledge of the spending."

- The Congressional Leadership Fund added at least $253,000 more to its buy in Ohio's 12th District, per Advertising Analytics. (That figure could rise.) Danny O'Connor, the Democrat in the district, also released a new ad bashing his GOP opponent Troy Balderson on his support of the GOP tax plan and raising the age for entitlement programs.

- Americans for Prosperity, a group financed by the Koch brothers, is spending $1.8 million in Missouri on TV and digital ads attacking Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill. The ad attacks McCaskill for using her private plane to travel the state during a portion of her recent RV tour, and for voting against Republicans tax cuts last year.

COALITION BUILDING - Not every Democrat is racing to the left to appease an emboldened grassroots. Roll Call's Shawn Zeller: "Blue Dog Democrats tend to move to the right in election years, which is understandable given that they typically represent swing districts. ... And lately no district has swung more than Illinois' 10th, in the affluent suburbs north of Chicago. Democratic Rep. Brad Schneider is currently serving his second, nonconsecutive term ... In 2017, Schneider was a relatively loyal Democrat ... But this year, he's tied with Texas' Henry Cueller with the second-lowest CQ party unity score among Democrats as of the end of June, 68.5 percent, trailing only Arizona Rep. Kyrsten
Sinema."

THE 2020 SHADOW PRIMARY - If you're running for president, you basically have to write a book. Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) will be the latest potential 2020 candidate to do so, per The New York Times' John Williams: "Penguin Press has announced it will publish Ms. Harris's 'The Truths We Hold: An American Journey,' in January 2019. The memoir and current-events primer, in a mixture well-known to campaign books, will include sketches of both Ms. Harris's upbringing and her governing principles."

- And if you're looking for the next online battleground, Trump 2020 campaign manager Brad Parscale has his eyes on YouTube. Bloomberg's Emily Chang and Toluse Olorunnipa: "Parscale said that Trump's 2020 campaign has already begun using YouTube more than it did in 2016, a trend he expects to continue as users migrate from television to online video. 'I do think that YouTube will play a larger role than it did in 2016,' in the Trump campaign's digital efforts, he said. 'We're going to monitor where eyes are going. And I think YouTube continues, and Google continues, to work on that platform and make improvements.''

CODA - QUOTE OF THE DAY: "The gray hairs on my head, most of them, were grown as a result of Republican super PAC money, when I was chairing the DCCC," former Rep. Steve Israel to POLITICO.

** Presented by AARP: Americans 50 and over are the nation's most powerful voting bloc. In fact, more than 60 million of them voted in 2016-and this year, they're more motivated than ever to making sure that their voices are heard in Washington.
They're frustrated with broken government. And they're fed up with politicians who'd rather get into fights than get results. The issues they care about most including Medicare, Social Security, support for family caregivers and prescription drug costs, are all on the line. America's 50-plus voters have put the candidates on notice. Anyone who ignores them will feel it on Election Day. aarp.org/vote **

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