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By Daniel Strauss | 06/19/2017 10:00 AM EDT


With Scott Bland

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)

GEORGIA ON OUR MINDS - "Georgia special election hurtles toward nail-biting finish," by POLITICO's Steve Shepard: "As the most expensive House race in history rushes toward the finish line Tuesday, the latest public polls are unanimous: The Georgia special election between Democrat Jon Ossoff and Republican Karen Handel is too close to call ... The tight polling has both parties - which have each made eight-figure investments in the race - expecting a nail-biter Tuesday night. The current state of play: Of the six public polls conducted in June, Ossoff leads in five of them - and hits the 50-percent mark in each of the five - with the fifth showing a tie. But Ossoff's lead is far from safe.
Outside of an early June Atlanta Journal Constitution poll showing Ossoff ahead by 7 points, the Democrat's lead is within the margin of error in each of the polls showing him ahead." Read more.

- BY THE NUMBERS - "Early-vote turnout soars in Georgia special election," by Campaign Pro's Scott Bland: "Early voting in Georgia's special House election closed Friday evening with over 140,000 ballots cast, with overall turnout looking likely to rise ... The early voters in the second round include over 36,000 people who did not participate in April, according to data from the Georgia secretary of state's office. That includes past voters who stayed home as well as newly registered voters who added their names to the rolls in Georgia's 6th District after the primary ... Handel and the GOP have focused on approximately 35,000 voters who cast GOP ballots in Georgia's 2016 presidential
primary but did not vote on April 18. Democrats have fewer outstanding base votes to chase, with about 11,000 2016 presidential primary voters in the district who didn't cast ballots in April. Ossoff's campaign is also seeking support from thousands of newly registered voters and some independents who are not regular voters." Read more.

- "A pro-Trump group is using Obama's voice out of context in radio ad for Georgia's special election," by CNN's Andrew Kaczynski: "An outside group that supports President Donald Trump is running a radio ad in Atlanta ahead of Georgia's special election Tuesday that takes the voice of former President Barack Obama out of context to make the argument that Democrats take black voters for granted. Great America Alliance, a pro-Trump non-profit group that previously ran ads attacking former FBI director James Comey during his testimony, is running an ad that quotes Obama narrating his autobiographical book "Dreams From My Father." The ad, however, does not mention that in the selected passage,
Obama is actually quoting someone else who is speaking about the black community and Chicago politics before the early 1980s." Read more.

- "High-Stakes Referendum on Trump Takes Shape in a Georgia Special Election," by The New York Times' Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns: " Republicans, weighed down by Mr. Trump's growing unpopularity, must demonstrate they can separate themselves from the president enough to hold suburban districts that only now are becoming battlegrounds. And Democrats, facing a restive base hungry for victory after disappointing losses in Montana and Kansas, are under pressure to show they can notch something more than a moral victory in the sort of affluent seat they will need in order to take back the House majority. ... Among the Democrats likely to [soon] announce campaigns in conservative-leaning
districts, according to party strategists, are Matt Longjohn, a physician who is the Y.M.C.A.'s national health officer, against Representative Fred Upton of Michigan; Brendan Kelly, the St. Clair County, Ill., state's attorney, against Representative Mike Bost; and Nancy Soderberg, a former ambassador, against Representative Ron DeSantis of Florida. Elissa Slotkin, a former Defense Department official, is moving toward a campaign against Representative Mike Bishop of Michigan. ... [I]n California, Gil Cisneros, a Navy veteran who won $266 million in the lottery, has been meeting with strategists about a challenge to Representative Ed Royce, according to Democrats familiar with his
preparations." Full story.

- "The Dems' new midterm challenge: Replicate Ossoff's success," by McClatchy's Alex Roarty: "... Mimicking Ossoff's approach might not be so easy. Already, Democrats are eyeing a constellation of primaries in key battlegrounds next year, races that could force the eventual nominees to adopt positions and rhetoric that leave them more vulnerable in a general election. At least in districts like Georgia's 6th, the dynamic could complicate the party's path to victory in competitive races. 'There will be many primaries this cycle because Democrats are energized by opposition to Trump and sense opportunity in his bad poll numbers,' said Ian Russell, a former political director for the
Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. 'Candidates will have to carefully calibrate their messaging to make sure they are able to win the primary without alienating general-election voters.'" Full story.

ROVE, KOCH ... DEVOS? - "DeVos becomes Democratic digital lightning rod," by Campaign Pro's Maggie Severns: "First it was Karl Rove. Then it was the Koch brothers. Now, Betsy DeVos has taken over as Senate Democrats' top online bogeyman. The education secretary has faded from the national headlines since her contentious confirmation, but anti-DeVos statements, petitions and especially fundraising emails have become a staple of Democratic digital campaigns in 2017. ... 'For a lot of people Betsy DeVos has really come to be a symbol of everything that's wrong with Trump's approach to government,' said Stephanie Grasmick, a partner at the Democratic digital consulting firm Rising Tide
Interactive, which counts Donnelly among its clients. DeVos is a prime example of Rising Tide's new use of 'social listening tools,' adopted for this elections cycle, that monitor the social web for trends. The technology is used by corporations but has yet to be fully embraced by political campaigns." Read more.

THE OTHER SPECIAL - Congressional Leadership Fund spends late on SC-05 GOTV: The GOP super PAC is spending $50,000 on robocalls to about 70,000 low- and mid-propensity Republicans in the special election to replace Mick Mulvaney. The calls backing Republican Ralph Norman began Saturday and continue today.

Days until the 2017 election: 141.

Days until the 2018 election: 505.

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

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

MAY FUNDRAISING - "RNC announces raising $10.8M in May," by Campaign Pro's Elena Schneider: "The Republican National Committee raised $10.8 million in May, upping its 2017 fundraising total to $61.9 million, the committee said on Friday. ... In May, the RNC spent $10.5 million, finishing with $41.8 million in cash on hand and no debt. The Democratic National Committee hasn't released its totals for May. In April, the DNC brought in $4.7 million and spent $6.4 million. The committee finished April with $8.8 million in the bank. Last week, the DNC announced its new finance director, Emily Mellencamp Smith, a veteran Democratic fundraiser who recently worked with New Hampshire Sen. Maggie
Hassan in 2016." Full story.

- The DCCC raised over $9.3 million in May to the NRCC's $6.5 million, Roll Call and the Washington Examiner reported. That leaves the NRCC with $31.2 million on hand, a record at this point in an election cycle, the Examiner wrote, while the DCCC's monthly total in May was also a record. The Roll Call story did not include cash on hand figures for the DCCC. The NRCC's cash on hand is about equal to its last report, meaning the committee was spending everything it raised last month in the lead-up to Montana and Georgia's special elections.

REMATCH TO IGNITION - Ashford announces comeback bid in NE-02: Former Democratic Rep. Brad Ashford announced Sunday morning that he will run for his old seat in 2018, after defeat at the hands of GOP Rep. Don Bacon in a 1-point race last year. "My work is not done," Ashford said in a statement. "I see people being hurt by their government and I watch as a partisan divide has torn at our nation when what is needed, more than ever, is leadership without vitriol." Ashford's wife, Ann Ferlic Ashford, had also been considering a campaign. Another Democrat has already jumped in, though: nonprofit executive Kara Eastman, who previously told the Omaha World-Herald she would keep running whether or
not Ashford jumped in.

JUST IN CASE - "POLITICO Pro Q&A: Alabama Democratic Senate candidate Doug Jones," by Campaign Pro's Daniel Strauss: "Alabama may be one of the reddest of red states, but at least one Democrat holds out hope that a chaotic Republican primary in the special election for Jeff Sessions' old Senate seat will open up an opportunity.It's a distinct long-shot, though there's nothing wrong with being prepared. That's what former U.S. attorney Doug Jones is trying to do. He also worked as staff counsel for the late Sen. Howell Heflin and plans to use his experience and connections to Alabama Democrats to wage an aggressive Senate campaign. He is working with veteran Democratic consultant Joe Trippi,
pollster Paul Maslin, and digital firm Mothership Strategies on his bid..."Look, we have a primary to win first and we are focusing on the primary. I'm not taking that for granted at all. So I think we generally will have a good idea where people have voted in Democratic primaries and so we're going to spend a lot of time doing that." Read more.

SAFE TRAVELS - "[Ohio] State Treasurer's travels in 2016 infused with politics," by the Associated Press' Julie Carr Smyth: "Ohio State Treasurer Josh Mandel submitted a financial disclosure statement that reveals that every work trip he took last year was at least in some part related to politics, including his campaign bid for U.S. Senate. The filing reviewed by The Associated Press includes 23 pages of itemized travel for 2016 totaling more than $75,000, all covered by Mandel's various federal campaign committees. Federal election law allows state officials running for federal office to use federal committee funds for travel only if it has a political component. ... His Senate campaign
spokesman Ethan Zorfas said Mandel's official and political travels were merged to protect taxpayers from paying for anything political. 'In an effort to be beyond reproach and always do right by the taxpayers, any travel that includes any political activity we pay for with political funds in order to prevent charging the taxpayers of Ohio for anything that's political,' Zorfas said. 'We're always going to come down on the side of protecting taxpayer dollars.'" Read more.

CODA - QUOTE OF THE DAY: "I know some of you out there, some Republicans may even be turned off by our president." - Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, before "making the case" for Trump and for Karen Handel at a GA-06 rally on Saturday, via The New York Times.

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