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02/04/2019 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 Campaigns 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
- Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam said he won't resign after a photo of men in blackface and a KKK costume was discovered on his yearbook page.

- Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) became the latest Democrat to launch a presidential bid, with a better angels message calling for Americans to come together.

- 2020 hopefuls are wooing House freshmen from early states, trying to capture some of the magic that swept Democrats back into power in the midterms.

Good Monday morning. As far as I'm concerned, it's baseball season now. Send your Super Bowl rants to 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: 274

Days until the 2020 election: 638
THE TOPLINES
IN VIRGINIA - Northam said he won't step down after a picture of two men, one in blackface and the other in a Ku Klux Klan costume, was discovered on his medical school yearbook page, even as the chorus calling for his resignation grows louder. Northam initially apologized for the photo on Friday, saying he was in it. But on Saturday, he said he believed he wasn't actually in the picture - though he did say he once wore blackface while impersonating Michael Jackson. (The most surreal moment of the press conference: A reporter asked if he could still moonwalk, and Northam appeared to entertain the idea for a second.) He said he took responsibility for the photo and apologized again, while
also apologizing for having the nickname "coonman" in college. "The person I was is not the man I am today," Northam said at a press conference, per POLITICO's Marc Caputo. "I ask for the opportunity to ask for your forgiveness."

But just about every Democrat in Virginia and nationally has called for Northam to go, as did Republicans. Both of Virginia's Democratic senators, and the dean of the congressional delegation? Check. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the highest-ranking elected Democrat in the country? Check. The state Democratic party? Another check. A slew of potential 2020 candidates? Check again. Northam also held a meeting Sunday with senior staffers, The Washington Post's Gregory Schneider, Laura Vozzella and Jenna Portnoy reported.

If Northam eventually does resign (or is otherwise removed from office), waiting in the wings is Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax. Fairfax didn't explicitly call for Northam to resign, instead walking right up to it in his statement. Fairfax would become the second black governor in the state's history if Northam steps aside. And a reminder: Every seat in the Virginia state legislature is up in the 2019 general this fall.
IN THE TRENCHES
PRESIDENTIAL BIG BOARD - For the Democrats who haven't gotten in yet, the strategy is to wait and hope the early entrants stumble. "The lateness of a campaign announcement is a matter of degree, and most serious Democratic candidates are expected to announce their candidacies well before presidential debates begin this summer," POLITICO's David Siders wrote. "Yet in the interim, candidates who are holding off do not appear to be missing out. Most donors and party activists have yet to commit to any one Democratic contender."

- One Democrat no longer waiting is Booker, who formally got into the race on Friday, kicking it all off with a video. But even before his launch, Booker has quietly worked to build goodwill among early state activists and power players, POLITICO's Natasha Korecki reported.

Booker's message is a call to America's better angels revolving around unity and love, his longtime themes. (Booker gave my college's commencement address that struck a similar tune on "love."). "I'm gonna run a race about not who I'm against or what I'm against but who I'm for and what I'm for," Booker said in Newark at a press conference on Friday, POLITICO's Nolan McCaskill reported. "I'm not looking even simplistically to beat Republicans. No, I'm looking to unite Americans in this race." But could Booker's love for all come back to bite him? POLITICO New Jersey's Matt Friedman and Ryan Hutchins wrote on his relationship with the beleaguered Sen. Bob Menendez and unpopular former Gov.
Chris Christie.

- Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is expected to formally launch her campaign in Massachusetts before embarking on a six-state tour this week, Natasha reported. The Cherokee Nation also said that Warren apologized for promoting the DNA test, via POLITICO's Caitlin Oprysko.

Former Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid all but endorsed Warren. "I think the world of her. My Nevada politics keep me from publicly endorsing her, which I will not do. But anything I can do to help Elizabeth Warren short of the endorsement, I will do," he told The Boston Globe's Jess Bidgood.

- Montana Gov. Steve Bullock apologized for not telling the New York City mayor's office that one of his former aides was fired for sexual harassment before that aide was hired by the city. "Four years ago I fell short in my role preventing sexual harassment," he wrote on Medium. "I'm sorry, and I'm committed to doing better."

NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK - Democratic presidential hopefuls are hitting up the phones of the new freshmen Democrats in swing states. "Democratic presidential candidates' pursuit of these early-state representatives has already gotten unusually intense, according to national and local operatives, as a sprawling field of presidential contenders look for the local cred or leg up in Iowa that could provide a critical boost to their campaign," POLITICO's Elena Schneider wrote.

IN THE VALLEY - Liberal activists are leaning on big tech companies to not help the president's 2020 campaign. "Companies are facing rising pressure from liberal activists to withhold any technical or financial aid for the president and the GOP," Pro Tech's Nancy Scola reported. "Facebook has already shown signs it will treat 2020 differently by curtailing its practice of embedding staff with campaigns to provide on-site product support."

THE CASH DASH - Campaign Pro has the roundup of all incumbent House and Senate candidates' year-end fundraising totals. Senate numbers are here, and House numbers are here. One detail from NC-09: Republican Mark Harris' campaign was just about dormant during the year-end period, while Democrat Dan McCready raised over $500,000.

THE VOTER ROLLS - Texas Republicans' attempts to kick up fears of widespread voter fraud by releasing a list of potential non-citizens who may have voted have crumbled. "The citizenship review effort would buckle, revealing itself as a ham-handed exercise that threatened to jeopardize the votes of thousands of legitimate voters across the state," The Texas Tribune's Alexa Ura reported.

- Congressional Democrats are going to Texas in response to launch a probe on voter suppression. "Ohio Democrat Marcia Fudge, who chairs a Congressional panel on elections, will host representatives from the NAACP and the Texas Civil Rights Project" today, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram's Andrea Drusch and William Douglas reported. "Fudge's committee has hearings planned in North Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Ohio and North Dakota aimed at gathering evidence to support repairing and reauthorizing the 1965 Voting Rights Act."

UP NEXT - Jeff Jackson, a state senator from North Carolina, met with the DSCC in D.C. on Friday to discuss the race against Republican Sen. Thom Tillis. He told the committee he would keep an open mind about a run, but that he had a 14-week-old baby at home, which weighs heavily on his decision, he wrote in an email to Campaign Pro's James Arkin. "I do think there's an opportunity to show North Carolina that it deserves better leadership in the U.S. Senate," he wrote.

- Trump said Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is "absolutely not leaving" to run for the Senate in Kansas, in an interview with CBS's Margaret Brennan.

#METOO - Samantha Register, the campaign staffer who accused now-former Rep. Ruben Kihuen (D-Nev.) of sexual harassment, left politics, in part due to the response to her reporting harassment, HuffPost's Molly Redden reported.

CODA - QUOTE OF THE DAY: "I'd go so far as to say he wouldn't suck." - Former Montana Republican state Rep. Rob Cook on a Bullock run for the White House to POLITICO.

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