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By Scott Bland | 07/11/2017 08:42 AM EDT


With Zach Montellaro, Maggie Severns and Kevin Robillard

OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS - "Morrisey Senate run kicks off GOP primary for Manchin seat," by Campaign Pro's Kevin Robillard: "West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey's Senate campaign launch has set up a potentially brutal GOP primary between two men eager to take on vulnerable Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin. ... Morrisey plans to wage an ideological war against Jenkins, boasting of his lawsuits against the former President Barack Obama's administration and slamming Jenkins' voting record as a former Democratic state legislator. Jenkins' camp believes it can win a fight over character and likability by painting the attorney general as a corrupt insider and carpetbagger. But the presence of
both men in the race, when Republicans are struggling to recruit serious challengers in states like Missouri and Pennsylvania, shows how the GOP believes Manchin is more vulnerable than ever. In 2012, Republicans struggled to find a challenger to the former governor, eventually settling on businessman John Raese, who had made three unsuccessful prior bids for Senate." Full story.

OUTS AND INS - Democratic Rep. Ed Perlmutter plans to drop out of the Colorado governor's race, a source confirmed to POLITICO. Perlmutter's exit three months after entering the race follows the announcement by wealthy fellow Rep. Jared Polis that he's joining the contest. The Denver Post first reported Perlmutter's decision.

- Perlmutter will retire and won't jump back into CO-07, Colorado Politics' Peter Marcus reports: "Perlmutter has scheduled a news conference for 10:30 a.m. in Golden on Tuesday, where he is expected to formally announce that he is stepping out of the governor's race." Full story.

- Pearce running for New Mexico governor, leaving NM-02 open: "Republican Rep. Steve Pearce is running for governor of New Mexico, he told the Albuquerque Journal in an interview published [Monday] morning. The move leaves Pearce's 2nd Congressional District open in 2018. He is the first GOP candidate to enter the governor's race, though Albuquerque Mayor Richard Berry and Lt. Gov. John Sanchez have also been named as possible GOP candidates. Republican Gov. Susana Martinez is term-limited. Several Democrats are already in the race, including Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham and Jeff Apodaca, a businessman and son of former Gov. Jerry Apodaca." Full story.

- "Maine Attorney General Janet Mills says she'll run for governor in 2018," by the Portland Press Herald's Scott Thistle: "Mills announced Monday she would seek the Democratic Party's nomination for governor in 2018. Mills, who has had frequent clashes with Maine's Republican Gov. Paul LePage, is the highest profile Democrat to enter the race. ... Mills has been a frequent target of LePage's crticicism and earlier this year he sued her in Kennebec County Superior Court claiming she was abusing her power as attorney general by refusing to represent the governor in federal lawsuits." Full story.

Q2 FUNDRAISING - FIRST IN SCORE - Congressional Leadership Fund breaks fundraising record, via Campaign Pro's Maggie Severns: "The House leadership-aligned Congressional Leadership Fund raised $13 million in the first half of this year - a record for the group - and finished June with $3.5 million cash on hand, the super PAC said today in an announcement shared first with POLITICO. CLF, which has said it plans to spend $100 million this cycle, raised far more during the first half of 2017 than during this time in other recent cycles and is pushing money into opening new field offices across the country with the goal of shielding endangered House Republicans during the midterms. The group
raised $640,249 between January and the end of June in 2015, and $599,943 during that time in 2013." Full story.

- FIRST IN SCORE - CA-25: 2016 Democratic nominee Bryan Caforio raised $223,000 in the second quarter after jumping into the race against GOP Rep. Steve Knight with six weeks to go in the quarter.

- Missouri: Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill raised $3.1 million in the second quarter and finished with more than $5.1 million on hand after spending about $1 million.

- Ohio: Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown raised $2.6 million in the second quarter and finished with $6.7 million on hand after spending about $800,000 to $900,000.

- Montana: Democratic Sen. Jon Tester raised $2 million in the second quarter and finished with $4.7 million on hand after spending about $500,000.

- North Dakota: Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp raised $1.3 million in the second quarter and finished with $3 million on hand after spending about $300,000.

- NY-19: Democratic attorney Antonio Delgado announced raising $350,000 in the second quarter in the crowded primary to take on GOP Rep. John Faso next year.

- South Carolina governor primary: Gov. Henry McMaster raised $800,000 in the second quarter, the Charleston Post and Courier reported, just more than GOP challenger Catherine Templeton's $750,000.

Days until the 2017 election: 119.

Days until the 2018 election: 483.

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.

HEALTH POLITICS - "Progressives push Medicare for all in House primaries," by Campaign Pro's Elena Schneider: "Ask Democratic congressional candidates whether they support Medicare for all, and you won't get the same answer twice. While Republicans on Capitol Hill are grappling with how to repeal and replace Obamacare, House Democrats - energized by the Trump presidency and flooding into increasingly crowded primaries around the country - are also working out the kinks on how to talk about health care. They know how to attack 'Trumpcare.' But they've got a lot of different ideas about single-payer health care, or 'Medicare for all' - a proposal that Bernie Sanders-style progressives see as
potential rocket fuel in the primaries developing in district after district - though some Democrats are wary about going too far on health care while Republicans are on defense on the issue." Full story.

ROLL TIDE - Brooks pledges to filibuster for Trump's border wall in new ad: Rep. Mo Brooks is out with a new digital ad where he pledges to "fight every spending bill that doesn't fund that wall. And if I have to filibuster. And if I have to filibuster on the Senate floor, I'll even read the King James Bible until the wall is funded." The ad is the latest salvo in a war between Brooks and incumbent Sen. Luther Strange over their respective fealty to Trump. Watch the ad here.

- The pushback: Senate Leadership Fund, the McConnell-allied super PAC which is backing Strange, immediately circulated news clips where Brooks questions Trump's immigration stance, including comparing it negatively to Obama's. "He says he wants to build this great big wall with a great big door and deport all these illegal aliens, costing taxpayers billions of dollars in deportation costs, and then he wants to let them all back in legally," Brooks told a local newspaper in 2016. 'The only difference between Obama's border policy and Trump's amnesty policy is Trump wants to to spend billions on a fruitless exercise. If he wants to deport them, that's good, but to let them come back in
legally and take jobs from Americans, that's bad."

- "Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is accelerating his campaign to defeat Rep. Mo Brooks in a special Senate election in Alabama," the Washington Examiner's David M. Drucker reports. "... This week, SLF is expected to ratchet up the pressure on Brooks with ads attacking the congressman for opposing President Trump during the 2016 GOP presidential primary. Brooks supported Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas in that race. 'Being anti-Trump in Alabama will hurt Mo Brooks,' SLF spokesman Chris Pack told the Washington Examiner in an interview. ... The McConnell super PAC and One Nation have budgeted $10 million to boost Strange in the special election." Full story.

POLL WATCH - New Jersey Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez has a 41 percent job approval rating, with 35 percent disapproving in a Monmouth University poll. Menendez, whose trial on federal corruption charges is scheduled to begin in early September, saw a similar approval rating of 44-35 in a June Quinnipiac poll.

GHOSTS OF REDISTRICTING PAST - "Redistricting panel with diminished role lives on with $1.5 million budget," by the Albany Times-Union's Chris Bragg: "Every decade, New York state redraws its legislative and congressional districts in a process that critics have derided as skewed toward incumbents and majority parties. The last redistricting ended in 2012, and the years between then and the 2020 federal census - which will provide fresh demographic data before a new round - would arguably include a lot of downtime for the task force that was once assigned to do the work. Yet records show the Legislative Task Force on Demographic Research and Appointment maintains a large and expensive
staff, even though its power to draw district lines was taken away by a constitutional amendment passed three years ago." Full story.

- AND PRESENT - "Trial over Texas political maps starts in San Antonio," by the Texas Tribune's Alexa Ura: "Focusing first on the state's House map, minority rights groups suing the state began the trial by slogging through 10 hours of dense expert testimony, election analyses and state lawmakers' methods of redrawing political boundaries in an effort to convince a panel of three federal judges that the state's existing map is illegal and must be redrawn. ... The state is expected to make its case and present its own witnesses later in the week. In legal filings, state attorneys have argued that the court-drawn maps the Legislature adopted in 2013 adequately addressed their foes' claims.
... The trial is expected to conclude on Friday or Saturday. The court will also hear arguments over the state's congressional map." Full story.

CODA - QUOTE OF THE DAY: "Look, the latest polling that we have shows that there are about 6 percent of the people in Maryland that strongly disapprove of the job we're doing. Seems like every one of them wants to run for governor!" - Maryland GOP Gov. Larry Hogan, poking fun at the emerging Democratic primary field, via Bethesda Magazine's Andrew Metcalf.

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