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11/16/2018 10:06 AM EDT

By ZACH MONTELLARO (zmontellaro@politico.com; @ZachMontellaro)


Editor's Note: This edition of Free 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.

PROGRAMMING NOTE: Morning Score will not publish on Monday, Nov. 19 through Friday, Nov. 23. Our next Morning Score newsletter will publish on Monday, Nov. 26.
THE TOPLINES
SO WHAT'S LEFT? - We're tracking eight races that have yet to be called: Four House races, two Senate races and two gubernatorial races. Here's where the vote count stands for all of them (and check further down for more coverage).

- CA-39: Democrat Gil Cisneros has surpassed Republican Young Kim. He now leads by 941 votes.

- GA-07: GOP Rep. Rob Woodall leads Democrat Carolyn Bourdeaux by roughly 400 votes. A federal judge denied a motion from the Bourdeaux camp on Thursday to count more previously rejected absentee ballots in Gwinnett County, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Tamar Hallerman and Tyler Estep reported.

- TX-23: GOP Rep. WIll Hurd leads Democrat Gina Ortiz Jones by over 1,000 votes. The Texas Tribune's Patrick Svitek notes that the deadline to report final numbers to the state is Tuesday.

- UT-04: Democrat Ben McAdams leads GOP Rep. Mia Love by 1,002 votes, per The Salt Lake Tribune's Benjamin Wood. An expected update today from Utah County could "bolster" Love.

- Florida Senate: Outgoing GOP Gov. Rick Scott leads Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson by about 12,600 votes. This is within the threshold to trigger a manual recount.

- Mississippi Senate: The special election runoff between GOP Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith and Democrat Mike Espy is set for Nov. 27.

- Florida governor: Former GOP Rep. Ron DeSantis leads Democrat Andrew Gillum by roughly 34,000 votes. This is higher than the threshold required for a hand recount, but POLITICO Florida's Marc Caputo reported Gillum "could still contest the election by filing a lawsuit within 10 days of the election being officially certified, which is supposed to happen Nov. 30."

- Georgia governor: Republican Brian Kemp still leads Democrat Stacey Abrams by about 55,000 votes. Abrams is trying to make up a difference of about 17,000 votes to force a runoff (which would be Dec. 4), per The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Greg Bluestein and Mark Niesse. The earliest the state could certify the results would be 5 p.m. tonight.

TWO MORE CALLS - Democrat Jared Golden defeated GOP Rep. Bruce Poliquin, after the state secretary of state did an "instant runoff" - the first House seat ever decided by ranked-choice. But Poliquin is not giving up, Campaign Pro's Elena Schneider reported: "Poliquin confirmed in an emailed statement that he planned to continue his suit against the state over the voting system, which Poliquin and fellow plaintiffs are calling unconstitutional. On Thursday morning, a federal judge denied Poliquin's request for an immediate injunction to stop the tabulation. 'It is now officially clear I won the constitutional 'one-person, one-vote' first choice election on Election Day that has been used in
Maine for more than one hundred years,' Poliquin said in a statement."

- Democrat Katie Porter beat GOP Rep. Mimi Walters in CA-45, another Democratic flip.

Happy Friday! And a happy Thanksgiving! Score will be off for the entirety of next week. Eat a lot of turkey, watch some football and try to not argue about politics at the table. As always, email me at zmontellaro@politico.com or DM me at @ZachMontellaro.

Email the great Campaign Pro team at sbland@politico.com, jarkin@politico.com, eschneider@politico.com and dstrauss@politico.com. Follow them on Twitter: @PoliticoScott, @JamesArkin, @ec_schneider and @DanielStrauss4.

Days until the 2020 election: 718
IN THE TRENCHES
MORE ON THE FLORIDA RECOUNT - The state's recount was marred by problems, most notably in Palm Beach, which didn't make the deadline. Marc and Matt Dixon: "Those failures have made Palm Beach County - ground zero for Florida's 2000 presidential elections debacle - to once again be the crown jewel in a fresh round of the state's nationally watched election gaffes, making the Sunshine State a 'laughingstock,' a federal judge said Thursday. This time, it's Elections Supervisor Susan Bucher in the crosshairs. But the ultimate problems - out-of-date machines and tabulation equipment - were purchased by her predecessors."

- And some Florida Democrats planned to share an altered election form that had an incorrect (and late) date for when voters had to correct signature issues on their absentee ballots. The Naples Daily News' Ana Ceballos: " [A]n email obtained by the USA TODAY NETWORK-Florida shows that Florida Democrats were organizing a broader statewide effort beyond [four counties in which the form appeared] to give voters the altered forms to fix improper absentee ballots after the Nov. 5 deadline. Democratic party leaders provided staffers with copies of a form, known as a 'cure affidavit,' that had been modified to include an inaccurate Nov. 8 deadline.

"One Palm Beach Democratic activist said in an interview the idea was to have voters fix and submit as many absentee ballots as possible with the altered forms in hopes of later including them in vote totals if a judge ruled such ballots were allowed. ... Jake Sanders, a Democratic campaign consultant based in Treasure Coast who saw the email, told the USA TODAY NETWORK-Florida that he warned party staffers about the legality of the email, but was ignored."

THE COMMITTEE CHAIRS - Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto was named DSCC chair. The news, first reported by our own Burgess Everett, leaves just one chair open: the DCCC, which will be decided when Democrats hold their House leadership elections.

THE REDISTRICTING BATTLE - Maryland's Attorney General Brian Frosh, a Democrat, is appealing to the Supreme Court a ruling that threw out the state's congressional map. The Washington Post's Ann Marimow and Erin Cox: "Frosh is asking the high court to quickly review the unanimous decision last week that found that Democratic mapmakers violated the First Amendment rights of Republican voters. ... Frosh's decision to appeal, rather than abide by the call to create a new map, puts him at odds with Republican Gov. Larry Hogan. Hogan won reelection last week and has pushed three times for a constitutional amendment that would have an independent commission redraw boundaries."

- The National Democratic Redistricting Committee is announcing its top targets. Campaign Pro's Daniel Strauss: "The NDRC, which is helmed by former Attorney General Eric Holder, will focus on two governors races in 2019, Kentucky and Louisiana, as well as a state Supreme Court race in Wisconsin and Democratic efforts to flip the House of Delegates in Virginia, which would give the party a 'trifecta' - unified control of the governorship and both houses of the state legislature - in 2020 and 2021."

ON THE AIRWAVES - I bet you thought you were done with campaign ads, at least for a little bit. Not so, thanks to the Mississippi runoff: A handful of groups have gone up with ads, including the Espy campaign (where he said he "rose above party"), the NRSC (hitting Espy over his lobbying career) and Senate Majority PAC (targeting Hyde-Smith over health care lobbying). Hyde-Smith started running ads as early as the day after the election, and her most recent one (released Tuesday) ticked over various conservative principles she supports.

- FIRST IN SCORE - Senate Leadership Fund is going up with an ad, tying Espy to the Clintons. The ad calls him "another shady Clinton crony" and says "he's for the liberals, not Mississippi." POLITICO's Alex Isenstadt reports the ad has a buy of just over $1 million on TV and radio, with a $130,000 digital component.

- And speaking of lobbying: Espy brought in $750,000 from lobbying for a African despot "currently on trial for crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court," Fox News' Lukas Mikelionis reported. "Espy was paid $750,000 in 2011 by then Ivory Coast president Laurent Gbagbo's government. ... He said [in 2011 to The Hill] he dropped his three-month contract with the country just a little more than a month on the job and collected just $400,000. ... Yet according to a FARA Supplemental Statement filed with the Department of Justice in 2011, not only did Espy collect the full $750,000 figure, he also dropped the contract just 15 days before it was supposed to end ...

"'Secretary Espy worked on agricultural issues for international clients,' Danny Blaton, the Espy campaign communications director, told Fox News. 'Over the course of that work, he realized one of those clients didn't pass the smell test, so he terminated the contract, and then reported what he knew to the U.S. government.'"

THE DARK MONEY CURTAIN - America First Policies, a pro-Trump dark money group, raised $22 million, according to a recent IRS filing. POLITICO's Maggie Severns: "The filing Thursday showed America First Policies raised money from 33 donors in 2017, who each donated between $5,000 and $5 million. Two anonymous donors who gave contributions of $4.5 million and $5 million each gave close to half of America First Policies' funding. The group does not have to disclose the names of its contributors, who could be individuals, corporations or unions." (990s for a bunch of political nonprofits were due recently, email me if you've seen one.)

THE DEM COALITION - Democracy Alliance, a group of high-powered liberal donors, has already begun its 2020 planning. HuffPost's Amanda Terkel and Kevin Robillard: "Gara LaMarche, the group's president, told HuffPost the donors would look intensely at the 2020 map but not focus on which candidates would be best to combat President Donald Trump. Just a single potential 2020 presidential candidate [former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe] is speaking at the event."

- Chad Griffin, the president of the LGBTQ activist group the Human Rights Campaign, is stepping down. He's expected to stay on until his replacement is found, the AP's Julie Pace reported.

THE PRESIDENTIAL FIELD - Outgoing Ohio Republican Gov. John Kasich told the Concord Monitor's Paul Steinhauser that he had no timetable for when he'd decide on if he'd make a presidential run. The will he, won't he continues...

- A new name for the big board! Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) said he is "open to all possibilities" for 2020, to our own Elana Schor. He noted that he's not actively considering a run.

CODA - ELECTION RESULT OF THE DAY: Democrat Susan Wild will get a bit of a head start on seniority over a lot of the freshman class. Wild narrowly beat Republican Marty Nothstein to finish the rest of former GOP Rep. Charlie Dent's term in the old PA-15 district, The Morning Call reported. Wild also handily beat Nothstein in the new PA-07 for a full term in the next Congress.

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