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By Zach Montellaro | 08/27/2018 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)

BIG SHOES TO FILL - Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) died Saturday, just a day after he and his family announced he was discontinuing medical treatment for a brain tumor. McCain's political career stretches back to 1982, when he first won a seat in the House. He later won six terms in the Senate and launched two bids for president, falling short to Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama in 2000 and 2008, respectively. (The New York Times' Robert McFadden wrote a great obituary for one of the Senate's giants, stretching back through his military career.)

McCain's Senate seat will be filled via appointment by Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, but not for a bit; a senior aide to Ducey told the Arizona Republic's Yvonne Wingett Sanchez that the governor "will not be making any announcements about an appointment until after the Senator is laid to rest." Whomever Ducey appoints will serve until a special election in 2020, my Campaign Pro colleague James Arkin notes, after which there will be another regular election for the seat in 2022. On Friday, the Republic listed several potential people who could be appointed to the seat, including McCain's wife Cindy McCain, Ducey's chief of staff Kirk Adams, businesswoman Barbara Barrett and former Sen. Jon Kyl.

PRIMARY PREVIEW - Let's head down to Florida for the second part of our primary preview, before the state heads to the polls Tuesday. The governor's race tops the list of competitive primaries, which also features a number of important House contests.

The Republican gubernatorial primary features Rep. Ron DeSantis squaring off against state agriculture commissioner Adam Putnam. Putnam has been plotting his run for years, but like all well-laid political plans, President Donald Trump had a way of blowing them up. Trump endorsed DeSantis, giving him a huge boost that shaped the campaign. The pair have taken two very different paths to Tuesday's primary, best summed up by the AP's Brendan Farrington in July: "Putnam has been to more than 100 breakfasts, barbecues and parades, talking with Floridians about Florida issues. DeSantis has been on Fox News more than 100 times, usually talking about federal issues and defending the president" (the
strategy apparently paid off for DeSantis, because The New York Times' Jonathan Martin reported that Trump started asking about him after seeing him on television). Polls following the president's endorsement saw DeSantis running away with the race, but some public polling has shown the race growing tighter right before the primary.

The Democratic primary features five major candidates: Former Rep. Gwen Graham, billionaire Jeff Greene, former Miami Beach Mayor Philip Levine, Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum and businessman Chris King. Graham has consistently led in recent public polling with Levine coming in second, but the race remains fluid. Gillum has drawn major support from progressives, including a recent rally featuring Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and a $650,000 cash infusion led by Democratic megadonors Tom Steyer and George Soros. Greene's entrance into race dumped millions of his own money on negative ads that especially targeted Graham, but he seems to be fading in the final stretch, briefly going off the air
before reversing course and deciding to run more ads.

There's several competitive House primaries up for grabs on Tuesday as well. In FL-05, Democratic Rep. Al Lawson will try to hold off former Jacksonville Mayor Alvin Brown while Democratic Rep. Darren Soto is trying to hold off a challenge from former Rep. Alan Grayson in FL-09. In FL-06, DeSantis' old seat, Democrats Nancy Soderberg, Stephen Sevigny and John Upchurch are fighting for the nomination while Republicans Michael Waltz and John Ward fight on the other side of the ticket. Republicans Mike Miller and Scott Sturgill are battling for the right to face Democratic Rep. Stephanie Murphy in FL-07. And in FL-18, Democrats Lauren Baer and Pam Keith are both fighting to face GOP Rep. Brian
Mast.

And one of the most hotly fought-over primaries is FL-27, retiring GOP Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen's Miami-based district. Former HHS Secretary Donna Shalala and state Rep. David Richardson have been at the front of the pack, both raking in massive amounts of cash and ranking one and two in internal polls from both camps. Former journalist Maria Elvira Salazar and former Miami-Dade county commissioner Bruno Barreiro are fighting for the Republican nomination.

Meanwhile, the Senate primaries are going to be low-drama, but Democrats are already concerned about what comes next in the race between Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) and GOP Gov. Rick Scott. POLITICO's Burgess Everett and Marc Caputo: "When Sen. Claire McCaskill began to choke in a Democratic Caucus lunch in June, Sen. Bill Nelson stepped in to perform the Heimlich maneuver. The Florida senator was unable to dislodge the food. That's when West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin stepped in. He broke one of McCaskill's ribs, but he got the job done. ... Nelson's quick response at a fraught moment demonstrates his bona fides as a military veteran and longtime public servant. But his struggles on the
Florida campaign trail mirror his difficulties helping McCaskill. ...

"Privately, a number of Democratic senators have offered their unsolicited view that Nelson is in for a reckoning on Election Day, which would cost Democrats any hope of winning back the Senate. Nelson is a classic old-school senator who keeps his head down and does his work, which is effective in the Capitol but less so in a Trump-era campaign in the most expensive battleground state. He's being vastly outspent, and there's concern in Florida the national party might cut him loose if a loss looks certain in the expensive Sunshine State."

Good Monday morning. On a drive to a wedding in Virginia (a very big congrats to Zach Cohen and Rachel Karas, two great reporters and even better friends) yesterday, I saw more signs for Democrat Jennifer Wexton than Republican Rep. Barbara Comstock in Virginia's 10th District. What does that tell you about the race? Nothing! That's the shoe-leather reporting you subscribe to Score for. (Also this: Comstock released a television ad highlighting her vote for the tax cuts and calling Wexton "the state Senate's number 1 liberal.") 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, dstrauss@politico.com, jarkin@politico.com and mseverns@politico.com. Follow them on Twitter: @PoliticoScott, @ec_schneider, @DanielStrauss4, @JamesArkin and @MaggieSeverns.

Days until the 2018 election: 71.

Upcoming election dates - Aug. 28: Arizona, Florida primaries and Oklahoma primary runoffs. - Sept. 4: Massachusetts primaries. - Sept. 6: Delaware primaries. - Sept. 11: New Hampshire primaries. - Sept. 12: Rhode Island primaries. - Sept. 13: New York (state-level) primaries.

BALDERSON OFFICIALLY WINS - Republican Troy Balderson officially beat Democrat Danny O'Connor in the special election in Ohio's 12th District. The AP called the race after absentee and provisional ballots were all counted. O'Connor said in a statement that he called Balderson to congratulate him.

SOME IRREGULARITIES - Petitions collected by staffers of GOP Rep. Scott Taylor to get independent Shaun Brown on the ballot contained dead people and a few dozen fraudulent signatures. The Virginian-Pilot's Jane Harper and Victoria Bourne: "A team of reporters from The Virginian-Pilot conducted a two-week investigation of Brown's petition signatures, trying to contact each voter listed on the dozens of pages submitted by five people paid by Taylor's campaign. The Pilot reached 115 of the 584 people listed - or a family member - by phone. ... Of those reached, 51 people - including several local Republican politicians - acknowledged signing the petition. Six others weren't sure whether they
did. But 59 - more than half of those reached - declared the signatures to be fraudulent."

- The Department of Justice charged 19 foreign nationals with voting in the 2016 elections, POLITICO's Rebecca Morin reported.

YEAR OF THE WOMAN - With the historic number of women running for office, women candidates are facing a wave of harassment. The New York Times' Maggie Astor: "No independent organization appears to formally track incidents of harassment, and the Democratic and Republican National Committees did not respond to emails asking whether they did. But several groups that work with candidates said they routinely provided personal safety training. ... Harassment is not new for women in politics, or anywhere else - and men face it too, especially if they are African-American or Jewish. But for women, the harassment is ubiquitous and frequently sexualized, and it has come to the fore this election
cycle."

DNC SUMMER MEETING UPDATE - Democrats stripped superdelegates of much of their power in the presidential nominating system. POLITICO's David Siders and Natasha Korecki from the DNC summer meeting in Chicago: "The measure's overwhelming approval - met by cheers in a hotel ballroom here - concluded a tense summer meeting of the Democratic National Committee, which had labored over the issue since 2016. Superdelegates that year largely sided with Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders, enraging Sanders' supporters. Under the new rule, superdelegates - the members of Congress, DNC members and other top officials who made up about 15 percent of delegates that year - will not be allowed to vote on
the first ballot at a contested national convention. The change could dramatically re-shape the calculus of future presidential campaigns, rendering candidates' connections to superdelegates less significant."

- Democrats are down to a handful of finalists for their 2020 convention. David with more: "As the Democratic National Committee gathers in Chicago for its annual summer meeting, the three cities competing to host the 2020 Democratic National Convention are putting on the hard sell. None had as robust a presence as Houston, which appears to have nudged ahead in the early running, mostly because of the city's large number of hotel rooms, according to several DNC members and officials close to the selection process. But Milwaukee has made a compelling political case for the Midwest, and no site holds a lock on the convention. Thus the booze-soaked, city-selection sideshow unfolding here."
Miami Beach is the third city in the running.

NOTHSTEIN SAID HE IS CLEARED - Marty Nothstein, the Republican candidate in Pennsylvania's 7th District, said he has been cleared in a sexual misconduct investigation. The Morning Call's Laura Olson, Nicole Radzievich and Tom Shortell: "Nothstein said Friday he has been cleared of wrongdoing by an Olympic-related organization that was investigating allegations of sexual misconduct, an announcement he made while reiterating his frustration that the investigation led to his being placed on unpaid leave from his job and later became public. Standing next to two attorneys, Nothstein referenced an email he received Thursday from the U.S. Center for SafeSport saying that, based on its inquiry
into the allegations, it's closing the matter unless additional information surfaces. 'The last week has been very difficult for me, the campaign, the staff, my family. We've been fighting every day for our lives,' Nothstein told reporters at a news conference called by his campaign. 'And the email yesterday was finally some good news.'"

2020 ALREADY? - Democratic officials are in preliminary talks with TV networks to hold 2020 presidential primary debates as early as 2019. The AP's Bill Barrow: "The party and the networks together will decide the debate schedule, locations and formats. A crucial issue is how many people will be allowed on debate stages and who will be chosen. Party officials say they're acutely aware that the answers could amount to the first winnowing of a large field months before the early voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada lead off the nominating calendar in 2020. The Democratic official who confirmed the early network discussions said the party is not yet talking to any
potential candidates, taking pains not to be seen as manipulating the process."

CODA - QUOTE OF THE DAY: "He served his country. And not always right. Made a lot of mistakes. Made a lot of errors, but served his country. And I hope we could add honorably," McCain to CNN in 2017 on how he wanted to be remembered.

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