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By James Arkin | 09/24/2018 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.

ALL IN THE FAMILY - Over the weekend, a Democratic candidate released an eye-popping new ad featuring six of Republican Rep. Paul Gosar's nine siblings encouraging voters to boot him from office. "Paul Gosar the congressman isn't doing anything to help rural America," says one of his sisters. "Paul's absolutely not working for his district," says one of his brothers. The ad from Democrat David Brill features several more comments along those lines, and it quickly went viral.

Gosar responded with a few tweets aimed at his sibs: "My siblings who chose to film ads against me are all liberal Democrats who hate President Trump. These disgruntled Hillary supporters are related by blood to me but like leftists everywhere, they put political ideology before family. Stalin would be proud," he wrote in one tweet.

Gosar's mother eventually weighed in, telling The New York Times she was "shocked" and "crushed" by the video.

It's the latest in a bizarre trend of family opposition featuring in 2018 congressional campaigns. Last week, Congressional Leadership Fund released an ad featuring James Bryce, the brother of WI-01 Democratic nominee Randy Bryce, announcing that he would vote for Republican Bryan Steil and not his brother to replace retiring House Speaker Paul Ryan. The Bryce brothers' mother, Nancy, criticized the ad for pitting her sons against each other "for political gain." James Bryce later called it "unconscionable" that the Bryce campaign used his mother for reaction.

It's not just sibling rivalries: earlier this year, the parents of Kevin Nicholson, who lost the Republican Senate primary in Wisconsin, donated to Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin. Nicholson criticized his parents in a Fox News op-ed, saying it represented "intolerance" of political philosophy.

It's unclear how many more family rivalries are playing out behind the scenes, but if these public ones are any indication, there could be some awkward Thanksgiving dinners a couple weeks after Election Day.

Good Monday morning. Your usual host Zach Montellaro is taking a well-deserved vacation (I won't comment on his timing), and I'm filling in for a week. Shoot me tips, notes, jokes or just say hello: jarkin@politico.com/@JamesArkin.

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

Days until the 2018 election: 43.

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FRIDAY NIGHT DEBATE LIGHTS - Republican Sen. Ted Cruz and Democratic Rep. Beto O'Rourke faced off in their first debate Friday night, via your Score author: "Sen. Ted Cruz hammered Rep. Beto O'Rourke as an ultra-liberal out of step with his state and O'Rourke trashed Cruz as a slick politician unfit for his office in the first debate of the Texas Senate race Friday night, a pivotal moment in an unexpectedly close race that has captured national attention. Cruz spent the debate seeking to squash the enthusiasm that has O'Rourke running close in the polls ... . Cruz tied O'Rourke to Hillary Clinton, Sen. Bernie Sanders, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and other national Democratic figures
unpopular in Texas, criticized him as soft on drugs and labeled him a gun-grabber."

For his part, O'Rourke "described Cruz as a divisive partisan who played politics and shirked his Senate duties to run for president."

Related: O'Rourke raised more than $9 million online in August for his Senate bid, per Campaign Pro's Scott Bland: "The online haul puts O'Rourke on pace to have one of the most prolific fundraising quarters of any Senate candidate in history, excluding self funders. In the past two months, O'Rourke has raised nearly $12 million online - already more than the eye-popping $10.4 million he brought in from April through June of this year. By comparison, Cruz raised $4.1 million in the second quarter of this year and $13.2 million from January 2017 through June 2018, according to his latest campaign finance report."

** 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 **

DIGITAL DOLLARS - Fourteen Democratic House challengers raised more than $500,000 online in August, and six challengers raised more than $1 million in July and August combined, per my colleague Scott Bland. Check out Scott's story and click through to find a spreadsheet with all of Democrats August fundraising numbers.

FIRST IN SCORE - Congressional Leadership Fund released a new TV and digital ad in Maine's 2nd district linking Democrat Jared Golden to Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and attacking him for opposition to the Republicans' tax cuts.

CUT LOOSE - The NRCC canceled all of its TV ad reservations in PA-17, Republican Rep. Keith Rothfus' district, per Campaign Pro's Elena Schneider. The only public polling of the race has shown Democratic Rep. Conor Lamb well ahead in the redrawn district that pitted two incumbents against each other.

CRAMER ON KAVANAUGH - North Dakota Republican Rep. Kevin Cramer came under criticism for comments he made about Christine Blasey Ford, the woman who accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault. He called the case "more absurd" than Anita Hill's accusations against Justice Clarence Thomas "because these people were teenagers when this supposed alleged incident took place," according to CNN.

HAWKEYE BATTLEGROUND - Democrat Fred Hubbell leads Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds 43 percent to 41 percent in a new poll from the Des Moines Register. Hubbell's lead was within the margin of error. Reynolds' unfavorable numbers have risen slightly in recent months but she remains above water, while Hubbell has steadily increased his name ID and also has a positive favorability.

THE CASH DASH - Governors running in what should be safe reelection bids are still raking in piles of campaign cash. The Center for Public Integrity's Sanya Mansoor, Liz Essley Whyte and Joe Yerardi: "[T]hough these safe governors - in Alabama, Arkansas, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New York, Texas and Vermont - may cruise easily to victory, together they have already amassed at least $135 million in donations, according to a Center for Public Integrity analysis. Close to a third of it has come from groups such as trade associations, lobbying firms or corporations. Why give to someone who isn't in a desperate crunch to buy mailers and TV ads? Experts say the answer is likely an effort
to court power."

ARIZONA PRIMARY GAMES REVEALED - A mysterious super PAC that attacked Republican Rep. Martha McSally during last month's Senate primary was funded by a top Democratic group, my colleague Maggie Severns reported: "The new disclosure shows that Senate Majority PAC, the main super PAC aligned with Senate Democrats, seeded Red and Gold with $1.7 million as it started attacking McSally in early August. Red and Gold ran attack ads that said McSally supported an 'age tax' that led older people to pay significantly more for health insurance. ... The attacks did not do enough damage to keep McSally out of the general election: she won the primary with more than 50 percent of the vote."

Related: Senate Leadership Fund donated $3.2 million to Defend Arizona, a pro-McSally super PAC. SLF also donated $55,000 to Arizonans For Life, a group formed in June, most of which was used to attack Republican Kelli Ward, who was running in the primary against McSally. The group's website is a lengthy attack against Ward, and it ran digital ads criticizing her record on abortion issues. The group filed a termination report with the FEC on Thursday.

SOUTHPAW MI - Abdul El-Sayed, the runner-up in Michigan's Democratic gubernatorial primary, is launching a new super PAC, SouthPaw MI PAC, my colleague Daniel Strauss reports. "The former Detroit Health Department executive director, who said he plans to run for office again someday, is hoping SouthPaw MI PAC will focus supporters on candidates up and down the ticket in November. 'There's just so much momentum that we know is latent out there and we want to give it a focus and give it an opportunity to get behind really great candidates across the state,' El-Sayed said in an interview."

OBAMACARE SCRIPT FLIPPED - Democrats are running on Obamacare in races across the country, Bloomberg's Greg Sullivan reports. "Democrats used to run away from President Obama's signature health care law. This year, defending Obamacare from Republican attempts to overturn it is central to the party's efforts to take back Congress."

- Meanwhile, Republicans are walking away from previous criticisms of Obamacare from cycles past, according to The Daily Beast's Gideon Resnick: "Across the country, endangered Republican incumbents have dramatically softened their tone on the Affordable Care Act. Some have fully whitewashed their previous criticisms."

CODA - QUOTE OF THE DAY: "True to form." - O'Rourke, after Cruz answered the question of what he admired about his opponent by tying O'Rourke to Bernie Sanders and socialism.

** 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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