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By Theodoric Meyer | 05/09/2016 10:00 AM EDT


With Kevin Robillard and Austin Wright

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)

DRUG MONEY - "Marijuana legalization attracts major 2016 funding," by Campaign Pro's Maggie Severns: "A California campaign announced last week it collected the signatures needed to put marijuana legalization on the ballot this November, a major victory for supporters of legal weed. They can thank Sean Parker, the billionaire former Napster co-founder and Facebook president who gave $1 million to get the initiative started. As legal marijuana becomes increasingly possible in many states, it's attracting new backers looking for social change - and sometimes profit. That has opened vast new funding sources for pro-marijuana measures, but it has also divided the pro-pot movement in some
states, including in ways that could keep measures from passing." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=92f33f4e5f8855cfa8aebf373451c95adf8b19c5d9aa0db875b1eb2fa04bcc5e

FALLING OUT OF FAVOR - "GOP likely to revoke Nevada's early-state status," by POLITICO's Kyle Cheney: "Nevada is likely to lose its place as the first Western state to vote in the Republican presidential nomination contest, several GOP leaders tell POLITICO. For three successive elections, the state has been grouped in the vaunted class of early-voting states, joining Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina as the bellwethers that garner the most attention from presidential candidates and help winnow voters' choices. But for the third straight primary season, Nevada's caucuses have been wracked by embarrassing procedural errors, low turnout, confusion among attendees and questions about the
integrity of the process. Republican National Committee members say there's growing momentum behind an effort to strip Nevada of its early place in line - handing it instead to either Colorado or Arizona." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=92f33f4e5f8855cfb8f40e2b283f5f906ae17c8902e2ef9b8404997ffc32083d

'CEASE AIRING THIS ADVERTISEMENT' - Wisconsin TV stations pull Freedom Partners ad hitting Feingold: Three TV stations around the state have pulled an ad knocking former [Democratic] Sen. Russ Feingold over the over-prescription scandal at the Tomah VA Medical Center, according to lawyers for Feingold's campaign," The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's Daniel Bice reports." The ad by the Freedom Partners Action Fund, a group backing [GOP] Sen. Ron Johnson and funded by billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch, focuses on a 2009 memo about problems at the Tomah facility. ... Jonathan Berkon and David Lazarus of the Perkins Coie law firm, which represents Feingold's campaign, sent a
two-page letter on Wednesday to TV stations around the state challenging the accuracy of the ad. Their letter called the commercial 'false, misleading and deceptive.'"

- "Freedom Partners has said it is spending $2 million on the ad buy. ... Officials at Freedom Partners did not respond to an email about the TV spot. The group's phone number is not in service." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=92f33f4e5f8855cf6f8bc33b6c04d504a74ced81a4805eb0d347495d38cc0697

Days until the Nebraska and West Virginia primaries: 1. Days until the 2016 election: 183.

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 mseverns@politico.com.

You can also follow us on Twitter, where we tweet a lot about campaigns and occasionally about motel dwellers: @politicoscott, @ec_schneider, @politicokevin, @theodoricmeyer and @maggieseverns.

AIR SUPPORT - Chamber supports Comer on TV in Kentucky: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce started airing TV ads on Saturday supporting James Comer, one of three Republicans running an open House seat in Kentucky (and the only one who hasn't pledged to join the House Freedom Caucus if elected). The ad casts President Barack Obama's administration as the villain and never mentions Comer's primary opponents. Watch the ad: http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=92f33f4e5f8855cf176ec086425313565c95e02dea1f86b0e2f03181ff008402

FIRST IN SCORE - Democratic super PAC uses sad tuba sounds against Ayotte: Senate Majority PAC, the flagship Democratic super PAC focused on Senate races, is running ads on Facebook and Twitter hitting GOP Sen. Kelly Ayotte for her decision to "support" but not "endorse" Donald Trump. The ad plays a radio clip of Ayotte promising to support Trump if he wins the nomination, and then plays tuba music over the words: "Ayotte: Typical Washington Doublespeak." Here's the ad: http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=92f33f4e5f8855cfbb0e5aa19486c1152dc6d2673e942de9e52aaaf788936cd5

- An editorial cartoon in The Concord Monitor, meanwhile, mocked Ayotte for her position on Trump, depicting her in a Trump T-shirt with Trump balloons and a Trump foam finger, saying "But no way should this be seen as an endorsement." Here's the cartoon: http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=92f33f4e5f8855cf500b79f1cc11aa0df4c8b38511343d29e84f090519ce9bba

NEW THIS MORNING - Kirk previews Duckworth hearing in ad: GOP Sen. Mark Kirk of Illinois is out with a new ad "previewing" a May 12 hearing in the civil case involving Democratic Rep. Tammy Duckworth's tenure at the Illinois Department of Veterans' Affairs. The ad starts with news clips and ending with a shot of a gavel and the text: "May 12. Duckworth goes to court." Watch the ad: http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=92f33f4e5f8855cf2a5609d89d50ec9dd8e41187d36a65f77079aa76570eff39

GOING ROGUE - Palin backs Ryan's primary challenger in WI-01: Sarah Palin blasted House Speaker Paul Ryan in an interview on Sunday, vowing to campaign for his Wisconsin GOP primary opponent, Paul Nehlen. On CNN's "State of the Union," Palin said Ryan's announcement that he wasn't ready to support Donald Trump showed he was "disconnected" and said that he was "soon to be Cantor-ed," referring to former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, who was defeated in a stunning 2014 primary in Virginia. But Nehlen's own position on Trump is more complicated. Nehlen went after Ryan for saying on Thursday that he wasn't not ready to support Trump - but he told POLITICO that he won't support Trump
himself until Trump formally become the GOP nominee in July.

GOING NEGATIVE - Club for Growth to continue opposing Ellmers: The Club for Growth's super PAC will work against GOP Rep. Renee Ellmers, who faces fellow Republican Rep. George Holding in a member-versus-member primary on June 7. The Club for Growth typically endorses candidates before the super PAC runs ads against their opponents. But the Club hasn't endorsed Holding or a third Republican candidate, Greg Brannon. The super PAC is only working to take out Ellmers, who is facing Holding after their districts' boundaries changed due to court-ordered redistricting. (The Club had endorsed Ellmers' old opponent last year, too, under the previous congressional map.)

- The Club for Growth is endorsing a candidate, Ted Budd, North Carolina's open 13th District, where more than a dozen Republicans have filed to run for the open seat. Both seats are safely Republican.

PRESIDENTIAL SPEED READ - "Trump's empty administration," by POLITICO's Darren Samuelsohn and Ben White: "Top Republican political leaders aren't the only ones shunning their party's presidential nominee - a vast number of highly skilled managers and policy experts, veterans of recent GOP administrations who would normally be expected to fill key positions for a new White House, are also vowing to sit out a Donald Trump presidency." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=92f33f4e5f8855cf5d0ecadea7f99b4ace9c1e5dd3163d23b738e653755f9151

- Former Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal will vote for Donald Trump in November, he writes in The Wall Street Journal, even though he sympathizes with the "Never Trump" movement and finds the prospect of a Trump presidency "scary." "I think electing Donald Trump would be the second-worst thing we could do this November, better only than electing Hillary Clinton to serve as the third term for the Obama administration's radical policies," Jindal writes. http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=92f33f4e5f8855cf2a36501010032b7840467595837a7238fdfb6d5b795317df

- "'There's nobody left': Evangelicals feel abandoned by GOP after Trump's ascent," by The Washington Post's Katie Zezima: Evangelical Christians "find themselves dismayed and adrift now that Trump has wrested control of the Republican Party. ... A coalition of nearly 60 evangelical leaders published an open letter last week asking voters of faith to reject Trump and his 'vulgar racial and religious demagoguery,' warning that the nation faces a 'moral threat' from the candidate." Pastor Gary Fuller, who preaches at a Baptist church in Lincoln, Neb., says he'll vote for Ted Cruz in the state's primary on Tuesday, even though Cruz has dropped out. http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=92f33f4e5f8855cff7993e3d4386f3146e79a36f05c8fb49423a2e6c4fd0d3e9

- "Donald Trump's war on the foreign press," by POLITICO's Ben Schreckinger and Hadas Gold: Donald Trump's presidential campaign has captivated - and disconcerted - much of the world, but the journalists tasked with translating Trump for a global audience are facing an unexpected barrier: They can't get into his rallies. The nationalist tone of Trump's campaign is being echoed in its press credentialing practices, with foreign media giants regularly denied press access and even blocked from general admission. Meanwhile, local outlets, down to the high school level, find there is plenty of room. The freeze-out is a source of aggravation for foreign reporters, but not all of them are blocked.
And the decisions about who is in and who is out do not always match Trump's rhetoric." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=92f33f4e5f8855cf38c7963e2c629fd352e07b6a016707b0025c62abffbd2cef

CODA - QUOTE OF THE DAY: "Donors had a lot of thoughts about his cable TV look. Donors are obsessed with cable TV. The most feedback we got was with regards to cable TV: 'Why aren't you on enough? When you are on? Why is he not wearing a suit coat rather than a sweater? Can he get a new suit coat jacket?'" - Tim Miller, Jeb Bush's communications director, telling the Huffington Post about the demands of big donors. http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=92f33f4e5f8855cf30db7354c6362015182de12247c150e00b829aa0d5ca59f9

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