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By Elena Schneider | 11/04/2016 10:00 AM EDT


With Theodoric Meyer, Maggie Severns and Kevin Robillard

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)

LATE BREAKER - "Johnson surges for fight to the finish in Wisconsin," by Campaign Pro's Kevin Robillard: "The Wisconsin Senate race is quickly turning into Democrat Russ Feingold's worst nightmares: GOP Sen. Ron Johnson is rapidly gaining on him, and big money - which Feingold spent his decades in the Senate fighting against - is pouring into the race late. Weekly spending on the Feingold-Johnson rematch has spiked by more than $10 million in the past two weeks as Johnson, who occasionally trailed by double-digits in public polling over the summer, has crept up on the Democrat he ousted in 2010. While Feingold has led in virtually every poll of the race, the latest iteration of the
Marquette University Law School polls had him and Johnson locked up, 46 percent to 45 percent. Democrats insist their private polling has Feingold looking safer, but a Johnson win - which looked like an impossibility even mere weeks ago, when the NRSC pulled TV money out of the state - is suddenly a very real potential outcome, one that would seriously complicate Democrats' effort to take back the Senate." Full story.

IN ANTI-TRUMP COUNTRY - "Comstock fights to hold seat in changing D.C. suburbs," by Campaign Pro's Maggie Severns in Sterling, Va.: "GOP Rep. Barbara Comstock's staff followed her recent town hall at a Muslim community center by handing out fliers saying more about Comstock's reelection bid then she ever could. 'CONGRESSWOMAN BARBARA COMSTOCK'S STATEMENT CALLING ON DONALD TRUMP TO STEP DOWN' is printed in giant black letters above Comstock's Oct. 7 statement disavowing Trump on one half of the page. ...Comstock spent her earlier political career battling Hillary Clinton as a Capitol Hill aide in the 1990s - but she has also spent 2016 fighting the effects of Trump, who could squander the
years of work Comstock has put into building relationships with large minority communities in the Northern Virginia suburbs. ... As a member of Congress, Comstock has been a workhorse, sprinting around her district attending to often uneventful, repetitive constituent work: She's a fixture at ceremonies and events held by the Muslim, Hindu and African American communities in the D.C. suburbs since her time as a state delegate, and she's a regular face in other parts of the district, too." Full story.

BIG MONEY - "Soros spends $2 million to defeat Arpaio," by Campaign Pro's Scott Bland: "The [George] Soros-funded PAC, Maricopa Strong, will file campaign finance documents Friday showing Soros' multi-million dollar investment against [Maricopa County Sheriff Joe] Arpaio, along with $500,000 from Texas energy billionaires Laura and John Arnold and $250,000 from Laurene Powell Jobs (the widow of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs). The group had previously reported a $300,000 donation from Soros, one of the Democratic Party's biggest donors. Soros has spent millions in 2015 and 2016 funding campaigns to defeat local prosecutors around the country and elect new ones who back criminal justice reform
measures. Soros-backed groups are currently spending big in three big-city district attorney races: Houston's Harris County, where Soros has contributed over $1 million, according to local campaign finance filings; Gilpin and Jefferson counties outside Denver, where Soros has given about $1.5 million to unseat an incumbent; and Phoenix's Maricopa County, where a Soros-funded PAC has also spent over $1 million against the Republican district attorney, Bill Montgomery. ... [S]everal polls this fall have shown [Democrat Paul] Penzone leading Arpaio in his second attempt to unseat the sheriff." Full story.

Days until the 2016 election: 4. Elena Schneider's birthday: 3.

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

You can also follow us on Twitter, where we tweet about campaigns and occasionally about a Barbara Mikulski classic: @politicoscott, @ec_schneider, @politicokevin, @theodoricmeyer and @maggieseverns.

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EARLY BIRDS - "Tracking early voting in three key Senate states," by Campaign Pro's Elena Schneider: "More than 34 million Americans have already cast their ballots three days before Election Day, and a handful of turnout trends are already emerging in the heated battles for control of the Senate and House. African-Americans are not showing up in the early vote the way they did in 2008 or 2012, but Latinos and other minority groups are out-performing in key battleground states. That leaves Democrats hoping Latinos, a group repeatedly denigrated by Donald Trump, will make up the hole left behind by President Barack Obama's absence. ... Meanwhile, Republicans in down-ballot races are
heartened that Democrats' turnout in several competitive states has been a few percentage points off the party's 2012 trajectory." Full story.

NEW THIS MORNING - AFP hits Koster on Clinton donation: Americans for Prosperity's Missouri arm is spending $60,000 to air an ad in Missouri attacking Democratic gubernatorial candidate Chris Koster over the half a million dollars Hillary Clinton is spending in the state, the latest in a string of hits. "Hillary Clinton is spending half a million dollars to get Chris Koster elected," a narrator says in the ad. "Like Clinton, Koster has his own ethics problems, engaging in what the Wall Street Journal called 'one of the dirtier practices in modern politics.'" Watch the ad here.

POLLING DATA - INDEPENDENT HOUSE POLLS - NY-01 Siena poll finds Zeldin 57, Throne-Holst 36: "GOP Rep. Lee Zeldin of New York is leading his Democratic challenger by more than 20 points, according to a new Newsday/Siena College poll. Zeldin leads Democrat Anna Throne-Holst 57 percent to 36 percent among likely voters in his Long Island swing district. Significantly, Zeldin has the support of 22 percent of Democrats and 54 percent of independents." Full story.

- NY-22 Siena polls finds Tenney 38, Myers 34, Babinec 16: Republican Claudia Tenney has a slim lead over Democrat Kim Myers in the race for an open House seat in upstate New York, according to a new Time Warner Cable News/Siena College poll. Tenney leads Myers 38 percent to 34 percent among likely voters, with the independent candidate Martin Babinec far behind at 16 percent. All three candidates have net-negative favorability ratings, but Babinec's are the worst, after sustained attacks from both sides on the airwaves. In the presidential race, Donald Trump leads Hillary Clinton 46 percent to 32 percent. The poll was conducted Nov. 1-2 and surveyed 643 likely voters. Full results here.

- SENATE - Two new New Hampshire polls split narrowly but agree Senate race is tight: Suffolk and the Boston Globe have GOP Sen. Kelly Ayotte with a narrow 2-point lead; UMass Lowell and 7News have Democrat Maggie Hassan with an even slimmer 1-point edge. New Hampshire's Senate race is going to the wire. Both polls show the presidential race tied - at 44 percent according to to the UMass Lowell poll and at 42 percent according to Suffolk. Hassan takes 47 percent to Ayotte's 46 percent in the first; Ayotte takes 44 percent to Hassan's 42 percent in the second. See the Suffolk/Globe poll here. See the UMass Lowell/7News poll here.

- Quinnipiac polls show Rubio, Ross leads: "Democrat Deborah Ross' ... 49 percent to 45 percent lead over GOP Sen. Richard Burr is an improvement from an early October poll where there two candidates were essentially tied. ... In the state's gubernatorial contest, Democratic Attorney General Roy Cooper has 49 percent of the vote and incumbent Republican Pat McCrory has 47 percent. ...GOP Sen. Pat Toomey and Democrat Katie McGinty are neck-and-neck in Pennsylvania, with McGinty earning 48 percent of the vote to Toomey's 47 percent. ... In Florida, [Marco] Rubio continues to hold Democratic Rep. Patrick Murphy at bay without fully putting him away. The incumbent leads 50 percent to 45
percent. ... And in Ohio, Portman continues to have a healthy lead over Democratic former Gov. Ted Strickland, 56 percent to 38 percent." Full story.

SETTLING UP - "Bayh used taxpayer cash for Indianapolis hotel stays," by Burgess Everett and John Bresnahan: "Former Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh used taxpayer money to stay at hotels in Indianapolis for 14 nights in 2009 despite owning a condominium there, charging more than $2,000 in travel and lodging expenses to his official account, according to his internal schedule and Senate disbursement records. Following questions from POLITICO, Bayh's campaign conceded that reimbursements he received for five of those nights were not allowed by Senate rules and that he would personally repay $737. The Democrat's campaign disputed that the other nine hotel stays in his home state violated Senate rules.
The total charges for official expenses on the 14 days he stayed in Indianapolis hotels at taxpayer expense were $2,058." Full story.

SPENDING FIREWALL - GOP super PAC pouring $37 million into battle for Senate," by POLITICO's Burgess Everett: "A key Republican super PAC aimed at keeping the Senate in GOP hands is spending $37 million over the last two weeks of the election, including a last minute $12 million infusion in six battleground state, an official said today. Building on a $25 million investment announced last week, Senate Leadership Fund is pouring millions more into competitive states in an ad buy that began on Oct. 28. The new money includes: $3.2 million in Florida, $2.2 million in Wisconsin, $1.9 million in Missouri, $1.7 million in North Carolina, $1.4 million in Indiana and $1.3 million in Pennsylvania.
Those investments include TV ads, radio spots, digital advertisements and get out the vote operations." Full story.

HOUSE MICROCOSM - "Ryan stumps on Minnesota's miniature House battlefield," by Campaign Pro's Maggie Severns: "There was no more fitting place for House Speaker Paul Ryan to be than Minnesota six days before the 2016 election, where three House races have turned on their heads in ways that are good, bad and just plain strange for Republicans defending their House majority. Minnesota is the 2016 House landscape in miniature, where Trump has pulled new GOP districts onto the battleground map but Democrats are still fighting to close the deal with voters - and are also playing defense in ancestrally Democratic, blue-collar seats where Trump has energized the Republican Party." Full story.

MORE ADS - Strickland back on air in Toledo: Democrat Ted Strickland, who earlier this fall had to trim his ad buys in Ohio due to poor fundraising, is adding $50,000 in TV airtime in Toledo for the next five days. Strickland will air a previously released ad featuring Barack Obama.

- FIRST IN SCORE - Sen. Chuck Grassley's final ad: The Iowa Republican promotes his state's "significant growth in population" and high-tech jobs in his last pitch to voters. But concludes, "we're not done yet," with the tagline "to be continued..." Watch the ad here.

- Defending Main Street hits the air in PA-08: Defending Main Street is making a final push to elect Republican Brian Fitzpatrick in an open seat in the Philadelphia suburbs. The super PAC, which is aligned with moderate House Republicans, is airing two new TV ads The first goes after Democrat Steve Santarsiero for "attacking Brian's service to our nation" in the FBI. The second attacks Santarsiero for supporting Obamacare. The super PAC is spending $450,000 to run the ads on broadcast and cable as well as online. The money will also pay for a voter turnout push. Watch the first ad here. Watch the second ad here.

- Fitzpatrick's campaign is airing a new TV ad, too, which hails Fitzpatrick as an independent voice with experience "putting corrupt Democrats and Republicans" during his time in the FBI and mocks Fitzpatrick as "a puppet." Watch the ad here.

- Rep. Joe Heck attacks Catherine Cortez Masto on Clinton's private server: The Republican congressman is going after Cortez Masto for "refusing to answer" when asked if she would use a private server while in Washington. The ad also attacks Cortez Masto for "refusing to condemn [Clinton's] illegal activity" now that the "FBI has reopened its investigation into Hillary Clinton." Watch the ad here.

PRESIDENTIAL SPEED READ - "Trump enlists friends and family in last-ditch push," by POLITICO's Ben Schreckinger: "As Hillary Clinton's all-star surrogate operation continued working to energize black voters, Donald Trump called in his own cavalry on Thursday, dispatching his wife, Melania, for her first campaign trail solo while his highest-profile surrogates fanned out across the battleground map. As Trump's prospects have shown new signs of life in the past week, his surrogates are making an all-out push to get him across the finish line, though the effort is hampered by divisions in the Republican Party - whose luminaries like Paul Ryan, George W. Bush and Mitt Romney will not stump for
their nominee - and the organizational wherewithal to smoothly project a unified message across the map. Trump continued to lean heavily on his family, with Donald Jr. campaigning in Colorado and Nevada, Ivanka in Michigan and New Hampshire, Eric in Wisconsin, and Eric's wife, Lara, in Ohio." Full story.

- "Inside the Clintons' Moroccan money 'mess,'" by POLITICO's Kenneth P. Vogel: "Hillary Clinton's top advisers downplayed her involvement in arranging a lavish Clinton Foundation conference in Marrakech last year, but behind the scenes they acknowledged her pivotal role and worked to minimize fallout from it. After media inquiries about the role of Clinton and the King of Morocco in setting the stage for the conference, Clinton confidants, including her husband Bill Clinton, scrambled to craft a new foreign contribution policy that looked tougher but still let them accept the Moroccan cash, according to hacked emails released by WikiLeaks." Full story.

- "What's the matter with the polls?" by POLITICO's Steven Shepard: "In the final days of the presidential race, the public polling has settled into a mostly-consistent equilibrium: Hillary Clinton leads Donald Trump both nationally and in most key states, but by a narrower margin than last month, and not by enough to be assured of victory next week. It's been a bumpy road to that consensus, however, one marked by wildly careening results in recent days. Campaign professionals say the run-up to the election is exposing key flaws in the public polling conducted by news organizations and academic institutions. The most obvious flaw is that the polls are overstating sudden fluctuations to the
American people, say campaign pollsters whose own data is far more stable - even amid news events that rival the most creative political fiction." Full story.

CODA - QUOTE OF THE DAY: ""We don't endorse or engage in any illegal activity whatsoever," wrote The Right Stuff, a white nationalist outlet that "boasted of its plans to deploy hidden cameras at polling places and to suppress black turnout in Philadelphia," POLITICO reported.

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