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By Kevin Robillard | 04/02/2018 10:00 AM EDT


With Scott Bland and Elena Schneider

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)

FEC REPORT SNEAK PEEK - First-quarter FEC reports aren't due until April 15, but we already have some major Democratic campaign finance numbers for you, after mining ActBlue's disclosures from January and February for donations to candidates for House and Senate. First up: Andrew Janz, the long-shot Democrat challenging GOP Rep. Devin Nunes in California's 22nd District, raised nearly $732,000 online in January and February, a whopping sum for a House challenger (especially one for a Democrat in a deep-red district) as Nunes faced backlash over his controversial FBI memo.

- Other highlights: Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand ($1.3 million online in those two months), Claire McCaskill ($941,000), Elizabeth Warren ($926,000), Tammy Baldwin ($835,000) and Rep. Jacky Rosen ($731,000) raised big money online in the first two months of the year for their races. In the House, Democrat Randy Bryce brought in $935,000 via ActBlue in January and February, leading House candidates running in November 2018, but a handful of other important numbers are scattered throughout the House landscape, too. One example: Pete D'Alessandro, who was Bernie Sanders' Iowa caucus director in Iowa in 2016, doubled his total 2017 fundraising in just two days at the end of February after Sanders
sent an email backing him.

- Keep these numbers and others from our data-dive in mind as candidates announce Q1 fundraising figures in the next few weeks. We already know some big ones. See more here.

ANOTHER ONE? - "Sources: Esty has no plans to leave," by the Connecticut Post's Ken Dixon: "Fifth District Congresswoman Elizabeth Esty wants to stay in office and believes that whatever mistakes she made in letting her former chief of staff harass and abuse employees in Washington do not warrant her resignation, sources have told Hearst Connecticut Media. The third-term Democrat has been reaching out to friends and colleagues, gauging their feelings and looking for guidance in dealing with the scandal, which threatens her tenure at a time of rising national sensitivity to workplace abuse. ... If Esty were to resign with more than 125 days before the next election, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy,
would have 10 days to issue writs of election in the 5th Congressional District, ordering a special election 60 days later 'other than a Saturday or Sunday' to fill the vacancy. But there are also provisions for primary elections in the law." Full story.

' "Top Democrat In Connecticut Senate Calls On Elizabeth Esty To Resign," by the Hartford Courant's Russell Blair and Neil Vigdor: "The top Democrat in the state Senate is joining a groundswell within the party calling for U.S. Rep. Elizabeth Esty to resign over her handling of repeated acts of domestic violence by a since-fired chief of staff against a former aide. 'If the facts of this matter involving former staff of the congresswoman's office are as they are alleged to be in recent news articles, then Congresswoman Esty should do the right thing and resign,' Senate President Pro Tem Martin Looney of New Haven said in a written statement Saturday. Looney followed statements earlier
Saturday by Democratic women in the state legislature who said Esty had to go. State Sen. Mae Flexer - an architect of the 'Time's Up Act,' introduced by Democrats in the state Senate as an overhaul of Connecticut's sexual harassment laws - was the first officeholder in Esty's own party to say the congresswoman should resign." Full story.

THE KIDS ARE ALL LEFT - "After Gun Control Marches, 'It'll Go Away' vs. 'We Are Not Cynical Yet,'" by The New York Times' Matt Flegenheimer and Jess Bidgood: "In this stretch of Northern Virginia, students are trying to organize a town hall with Representative Barbara Comstock, one of the most vulnerable Republicans in Congress, recognizing that her support from the National Rifle Association could be a drag in a district that preferred Hillary Clinton in 2016. New voter registration pushes, steered by teenagers, are well underway. Students are consulting with established (and adult-run) groups like Everytown for Gun Safety, founded and financed by Michael R. Bloomberg, and the Brady
Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence - with plans to discuss how to host their own candidate events before November or start clubs at their schools. Even less politically active students in Virginia's 10th Congressional District have learned Ms. Comstock's name. ...

"That movement, though, will hinge on reversing years of below-average voter turnout among young Americans - translating sound and fury into the long, slow work of lasting change. In the 2014 midterm elections, less than 20 percent of voters between the ages of 18 and 29 turned out to cast ballots, compared to more than 40 percent of voters between 45 and 59, according to an analysis of survey data by the United States Elections Project, which is run by Michael P. McDonald, an associate professor of political science at the University of Florida. Recent polling suggests the gap could close, at least somewhat, this fall. A Quinnipiac University survey released in late February found that 54
percent of 18- to 34-year-olds said they were more motivated than usual to vote, outpacing every other age group." Full story.

Days until the 2018 election: 218

Upcoming election dates - Indiana, Ohio, North Carolina and West Virginia primaries: May 8.

Thanks for joining us! You can email tips to the Campaign Pro team at sbland@politico.com, eschneider@politico.com, krobillard@politico.com, dstrauss@politico.com and mseverns@politico.com.

You can also follow us on Twitter: @politicoscott, @ec_schneider, @politicokevin, @danielstrauss4 and @maggieseverns.

ON THE AIR - Senate Majority PAC goes up for Manchin: Senate Majority PAC, the super PAC controlled by allies of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, is up with a 30-second ad featuring a narrator talking about Manchin's record over images of life in West Virginia. "If you ask Joe Manchin if he votes red or blue, he'd probably look at you funny and say 'neither.' Just pure West Virginia," the narrator says. The ad comes as all three of Manchin's potential GOP challengers - coal baron Don Blankenship, Rep. Evan Jenkins and Attorney General Patrick Morrisey - have ads supporting them on the air. Both Blankenship and Restoration PAC, an outside group supporting Morrisey, have aired ads
attacking Manchin. Watch the ad here.

PRIMARY CONCERNS - "Adam Putnam's momentum stalls in bid for governor and he sees trouble - on Fox News," by the Tampa Bay Times' Steve Bousquet: "Putnam, the state agriculture commissioner, once appeared to have a clear path to the GOP nomination. A prolific fund-raiser, the self-described grass roots conservative has spent $7 million so far and has another $17 million in the bank - far more than any other candidate. But polls show that after nearly a year of campaigning, Putnam is in a neck-and-neck race with U.S. Rep. Ron DeSantis of Palm Coast, who entered the race in late January and whose campaign appears to consist mostly of a tweeted shout-out from President Trump and frequent Fox
News appearances that provide a pipeline to Republican voters' living rooms." Full story.

GIVE ME THAT POLL-TIME RELIGION - Thanedar, Schuette, Pensler lead Michigan primaries: A new Marketing Research Group poll of the Michigan governor and Senate races found Attorney General Bill Schuette leading the GOP gubernatorial primary with 29 percent of the vote to Lt. Gov. Brian Calley's 13 percent. A majority of voters are still undecided or don't know who they plan to support. Shri Thanedar, who has spent millions on television ads, leads the Democratic field with 21 percent of the vote to former state legislator Gretchen Whitmer's 18 percent and former Detroit public health official Abdul El-Sayed's 10 percent. Forty-eight percent of voters remain undecided. In the GOP primary to
challenge Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow, Sandy Pensler has 16 percent of the vote, Bob Carr has 11 percent and John James has 8 percent. The MRG poll sampled 600 likely voters from March 13 to March 17, including 195 GOP primary voters and 233 Democratic primary voters.

WEB WARS - Hawley campaign hits McCaskill over Gorsuch vote: Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley's campaign for Senate is out with a new digital ad attacking Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill for her vote against Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch last year. Watch the ad here.

ENDORSEMENT WATCH - FIRST IN SCORE - 314 Action endorses Hiral Tipirneni in AZ-08: 314 Action, which backs scientists running for office, is endorsing Democrat Hiral Tipirneni in the special election in Arizona's 8th District. Tripimeni is an emergency room doctor. "The Trump Administration's unbridled attack on facts has raised the stakes for members of Congress who want to defend science," 314 President Shaughnessy Naughton said. "314 Action is proud to endorse Hiral because she has what it takes to do just that."

CODA - QUOTE OF THE DAY: "The logic of this partnership was unavoidable, We have thousands of individuals desperately interested in finding work. And the White House is desperately interested in filling thousands of positions." - The District of Columbia's Department of Employment Services, announcing a partnership with the White House. (It was an April Fool's Day joke.)

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