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02/05/2019 10:00 AM EDT

By ZACH MONTELLARO (zmontellaro@politico.com; @ZachMontellaro)


Editor's Note: This edition of Morning Score is published weekdays at 10 a.m. POLITICO Pro Campaign subscribers hold exclusive early access to the newsletter each morning at 6 a.m. To learn more about POLITICO Pro's comprehensive policy intelligence coverage, policy tools and services, click here.
QUICK FIX
- Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) is preparing for a tough reelection bid after his batterymate Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) nearly lost reelection in the midterms.

- Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax denied an allegation of sexual assault. Gov. Ralph Northam, a fellow Democrat, continued to resist calls to resign over the racist photo that appeared on his medical school yearbook page.

- The new North Carolina state board of elections meets this month to investigate voter fraud allegations in NC-09.

Good Tuesday morning. The State of the Union ... is tonight. Here's a primer. Email me at zmontellaro@politico.com or DM me at @ZachMontellaro.

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

Days until the 2019 election: 273

Days until the 2020 election: 637
THE TOPLINES
DEEP IN THE HEART - Everything's bigger in Texas, including Cornyn's reelection efforts (and yes, I'm out of Texas cliches). After Cruz narrowly escaped a loss to former Rep. Beto O'Rourke in 2018, Cornyn is determined to not get caught off guard.

"Cornyn has already stockpiled more campaign cash than any other senator: $5.8 million. He's filling high-level campaign jobs," Campaign Pro's James Arkin reported. "And crucially, Cornyn secured early endorsements from Cruz and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, two of the most prominent conservatives in the state, in a show of force to prevent a primary challenge."

"We've gotten complacent," Cornyn told James. "The tectonic plates shifted in Texas in 2018 and I think everybody realized we need to do something different and to address those concerns or else we're in trouble." Expect Cornyn to largely embrace President Donald Trump. "I'm not going to go out of my way to create any distance between me and the president because I think generally speaking his policies have been sound," Cornyn said, while saying he could disagree on trade and national security.
IN THE TRENCHES
PRESIDENTIAL BIG BOARD - Some Democrats are warning that O'Rourke's near-miss in Texas is a very different experience than running for the Oval Office. "He's kind of a house of cards," Jess Morales Rocketto, a former Hillary Clinton staffer, told McClatchy's Katie Glueck. "When you're running against Ted Cruz for Senate, it's really easy to come out the victor in public opinion." Other operatives also warned that he'd need a more traditional campaign infrastructure compared to his 2018 run.

- If you're looking to cross a name off, go with California Rep. Adam Schiff. He said on a New Hampshire trip that he's not running, per National Journal's Hanna Trudo.

IN VIRGINIA - The embattled Northam still hasn't resigned, and now Fairfax is strongly pushing back against an allegation of sexual assault. On Monday morning, Fairfax released a statement denying the allegation after a pro-Trump conservative website, Big League Politics, published a post accusing Fairfax of sexual assault at the 2004 Democratic convention. In the statement, Fairfax claimed The Washington Post "carefully investigated the claim for several months" previously and did not publish a story, and said he "will take appropriate legal action against those attempting to spread this defamatory and false allegation."

However, The Washington Post disputed parts of Fairfax's statement. "The Washington Post could not find anyone who could corroborate either [Fairfax or the woman's version of what happened]," The Washington Post's Theresa Vargas wrote. "The Post did not find 'significant red flags and inconsistencies within the allegations,' as the Fairfax statement incorrectly said. ...

"The Washington Post, in phone calls to people who knew Fairfax from college, law school and through political circles, found no similar complaints of sexual misconduct against him. Without that, or the ability to corroborate the woman's account - in part because she had not told anyone what happened - The Washington Post did not run a story."

Fairfax's team followed up with a second statement, saying that The Post, "by acknowledging that it had no corroboration, just smeared an elected official," per BuzzFeed News' Darren Sands. "No amount of investigation will change the reality that he had not engaged in any such untoward actions."

NC-09, CONTINUED - The new North Carolina State Board of Elections scheduled an evidentiary hearing to investigate allegations of election fraud in NC-09. The hearing is scheduled for Feb. 18 in in Raleigh, N.C. - and a release from the board said the hearing is "expected to conclude within two days." The election between Republican Mark Harris and Democrat Dan McCready remains uncertified.

- Former Rep. Robert Pittenger, whom Harris defeated in a 2018 primary, wrote an op-ed in The Charlotte Observer criticizing the conservative House Freedom Caucus. "The most dangerous place in Washington is between Rep. Mark Meadows and a media camera," he wrote. Pittenger only made a passing reference to the midterms, writing that "critical security votes allowed Mark Harris to call me a liberal."

2021 WATCH - The National Republican Redistricting Trust has tapped Mary Ellis Finnerty to serve as its finance director. The group, a coordinating hub for GOP redistricting efforts specializing in data and legal matters, is gearing up for redistricting after the 2020 elections and court battles before then. Finnerty was previously the director of events and Senate liaison for the NRSC for four years, after working up the ladder to deputy finance director at the NRCC before that.

TRUMP'S PARTY - Trump's campaign is making a concerted effort to prevent a primary fight. "It has used endorsements, lobbying and rule changes to increase the likelihood that only loyal Trump activists make it to the Republican nominating convention in August 2020," the AP's Zeke Miller and Steve Peoples reported. "Bill Stepien, a senior adviser to the Trump campaign, calls it all a 'process of ensuring that the national convention is a television commercial for the president for an audience of 300 million and not an internal fight.'"

WEB WARS - Another week, another Facebook roundup. Trump is again spending the most out of any candidate, followed by Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), fresh off his presidential launch (more for Pros). An interesting campaign spotted in the database: Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), who is running fundraising ads that tell supporters to donate because members of Congress are "plotting a primary challenge because they don't like that we're shaking things up in DC." HuffPost's Daniel Marans reported Friday that Ocasio-Cortez has raised $100,000 on the primary defense messaging, and some ads are still active.

UP NEXT - Ann Ashford, an attorney and wife of former Rep. Brad Ashford (D-Neb.), said she'd run in the Democratic primary in NE-02, per the Omaha World-Herald's Roseann Moring. Kara Eastman, who beat Brad Ashford in the 2018 Democratic primary before losing to GOP Rep. Don Bacon in the general election, has already said she will run again.

- Democrat Nate McMurray is still acting like he's running for Congress, after narrowly losing to indicted GOP Rep. Chris Collins in NY-27. "In a recent interview, McMurray made clear why he's doing this. He said Collins ... could quit at any time, prompting a special election for the seat," The Buffalo News' Jerry Zremski reported. "Or Collins could survive his February 2020 criminal trial and run for a fifth term that November. And in either case, McMurray wants to be ready."

- Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) seems to have beaten back any hint of a serious primary challenge next year. "The only rumblings I've heard is the sound of any potential challengers mentioned six months ago running for the hills," Walter Whetsell, a South Carolina Republican consultant, told The Post and Courier's Jamie Lovegrove (the story also touched on how Democrats think Graham is vulnerable in the general election).

BACKYARD GRILLING - Billionaire Tom Steyer's Need to Impeach is pushing House Ways and Means Chairman Richard Neal (D-Mass.) to obtain the president's tax returns. NTP "is spending $109,000 on a two-week ad buy in the relatively small media market of Springfield, Mass., to pressure Neal into action, and plans to hire paid staff and launch a door-to-door canvassing effort in the congressman's district," POLITICO's Stephanie Murray reported.

CODA - QUOTE OF THE DAY: "I think I've already lost the billionaire vote." - Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) on her tax plan to POLITICO.

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