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10/03/2016 08:01 AM EDT


By Heather Caygle (hcaygle@politico.com or @heatherscope)

With assistance from Seung Min Kim and Rachael Bade

SPEAKER RYAN SHOWS THE SENATE SOME LOVE- House Speaker Paul Ryan has an ambitious fundraising schedule this month in the final sprint before the election. But he's not just raising cash for House Republicans. Rachael and Seung Min with more: "The one-time vice-presidential nominee will use his star power to help raise money and stump for some of his closest friends in the Senate facing competitive reelection races this fall."

Road map: "In the five-week stretch before Election Day, Ryan is headed to Pennsylvania to help his former roommate, Pat Toomey; to Missouri to raise money for Roy Blunt; and back to his home state of Wisconsin for a string of appearances with Ron Johnson."

So what's the strategy? "His efforts underscore Ryan's view that a Congress under full GOP control is crucial to passing conservative legislation and promoting his agenda, sources close to him say. It also suggests he feels confident enough about his party's House prospects that he's willing to juggle the much bigger challenge of maintaining the party's tenuous hold on the Senate."

And: "Ryan gives vulnerable Senate Republicans a well-known national figure to stump alongside in a year when most of them have kept their distance from Donald Trump, even as they endorse the GOP nominee."

Reporter's notebook-- This didn't make it in the story but it's another Ryan tidbit Huddle readers might be interested in: Ryan was the featured guest at a Thursday fundraiser that brought in more than $400,000 for vulnerable GOP Rep. Barbara Comstock.

SENATE DEMS' NEW SCOTUS PUSH - The Supreme Court is launching its new term today still short-handed following the death of Justice Antonin Scalia nearly eight months ago, and Senate Democrats aren't letting you forget it. They're releasing a new report pointing out that 2016 is the first election year since 1864 in which the Supreme Court hasn't had the full complement of justices seated. The report highlights key cases involving voting rights, immigration and the environment that the Court could take up this term - and could remain unresolved, due to a 4-4 tie.

"You have to go all the way back to the Civil War to find a Supreme Court that wasn't fully staffed on Election Day," Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) says in a coming statement. "This failure of the Republican Senate means continued confusion in the courts, and delayed justice for Americans across the country." Read the report.

REID SEIZES ON TRUMP'S TAXES- Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid is lobbing fresh jabs at Donald Trump after news from the New York Times that the GOP nominee may have (legally) avoided paying taxes over the last two decades. In a statement that starts out with a classic Reid opener ("As I was saying"), he calls Trump "a billion-dollar loser" and "a spoiled, rich brat" who is "over-leveraged and deeply indebted to someone, but until he releases his taxes we won't know who."

WELCOME TO MONDAY, October 3. You're reading POLITICO's Huddle, the play-by-play guide to all things Capitol Hill. Thanks for tuning in. If you look closely, you'll probably see your Huddle host doing a happy dance because Alabama won this week and the Patriots lost. All is right in the world.

TODAY IN CONGRESS- The House is out. The Senate meets in a pro forma session at 10:30 a.m.

AROUND THE HILL- Folks catching up on college football highlights. I mean, did you see the end of that Georgia-Tennessee game?

KAINE OUTRAISES PENCE- Presidential running mates are often called the attack dogs of the campaign trail-throwing punches at the other side that might not look "presidential" coming from the candidates themselves. But they're also fundraisers. Ahead of Tuesday's VP debate between Indiana Gov. Mike Pence and Sen. Tim Kaine, Matthew Nussbaum and Burgess tell us where things stand:

"Campaign officials credit Pence with helping bring in about $10 million for the Trump Victory Fund ...That doesn't include huge checks written by some of the Pence-courted donors to super PACs ...or the $6 million that Trump and Pence raised together on Thursday night at a joint fundraising dinner in New York, aides said."

"The bad news for the GOP ticket: Kaine has brought in at least $27 million and likely much more, according to a POLITICO analysis, suggesting that while Pence is helping, he's doing little to make up for the Democratic ticket's overall edge."

VP Debate = Book Club: "'You're essentially following Ali-Frazier a few days later with a nationally televised book club,' said Tucker Martin, a Republican strategist in Richmond, Va., about an hour from the campus of Longwood University, where the vice-presidential debate will take place." More from the New York Times' Trip Gabriel.

ROLLING IN THE DOUGH- Deborah Ross brought in an impressive $4.3 million in third-quarter fundraising, her campaign told BuzzFeed's Tarini Parti, boosting Democrats' hopes of unseating GOP Sen. Richard Burr in November and retaking the Senate. "Burr's campaign and GOP-aligned groups have responded to Ross' rise with attack ads on her past comments on the sex offender registry as they portray her as too liberal for the state. ...In sharing her fundraising numbers, Ross' campaign stressed that the attacks on the issue haven't hurt their fundraising."

How's Burr doing? "Burr has yet to release his fundraising numbers for the quarter, but Ross outraised him in the first half of the year, which is rare for a challenger with low name ID in the state. But Burr is also getting a major boost from a GOP super PAC, Senate Leadership Fund, which has reserved $8.1 million in ads on his behalf," Tarini reports.

SOMEBODY CALL NELLY, IT'S GETTING HOT IN HERRE- Sen. Kelly Ayotte and Democratic challenger Maggie Hassan face off tonight in the pair's first televised debate starting at 7 p.m. The two will square off in a total of six debates before the election, including their first meeting last Friday. "The first one was held Friday morning and was only available by livestream from local news outlets. It was a more intimate setting with fewer chances to offer rebuttals and more personal questions including their favorite local places to hike," reports Lisa Hagen for the Hill. The current RealClearPolitics average has Ayotte up 1.6 percentage points.

CONGRESS' REVOLVING DOOR- "Of the 1,009 members of Congress who have left Capitol Hill since 1990, 114 of them - just over 11 percent - lobbied for or otherwise represented a foreign government, foreign-owned company or think tank, according to a POLITICO review," reports Joseph Schatz and Benjamin Oreskes.

"The top 10 former lawmakers-turned-foreign-agents, according to POLITICO's review, include a wide range of retired members, including congressional leaders and presidential contenders like Dick Gephardt, rank-and-file members like Albert Wynn and back-bench bomb-throwers like former Florida Rep. Connie Mack IV."

REMEMBERING JIM LYONS- Senate Finance leaders and many more folks around the Capitol are mourning Jim Lyons, the committee's long-time tax counsel and a friendly fixture on the Hill who died last week after suffering cardiac arrest during a charity basketball game in September. Roll Call's Niels Lesniewski with more: "'Smart as a whip, Jim was a tough but fair negotiator during some of Congress's most consequential economic debates and a dogged defender of pure, sound tax policy. His quick wit brought ease during times of gridlock,' Finance Chairman Orrin G. Hatch of Utah said in a statement."

ISAKSON'S NATO FLUB- Georgia Sen. Johnny Isakson, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told a local radio station the U.S. should've used NATO to attack Russia after it annexed Crimea from Ukraine. Only problem? Ukraine isn't a member of NATO. BuzzFeed's Hayes Brown has more.

FRIDAY'S TRIVIA WINNER- Julie Philip was the first to correctly guess that this life-size Elvis cutout sits outside of Rep. Dina Titus' office.

TODAY'S TRIVIA- Julie with today's question: Name the only university that boasts among its graduates a U.S. President, a Speaker of the House, a Super Bowl-winning quarterback, and two Super Bowl-winning coaches. The first person to correctly answer gets a mention in tomorrow's Huddle. Get at me: hcaygle@politico.com

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