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11/09/2018 10:00 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.
THE TOPLINES
LET'S GET READY TO RECOUNT - We could be headed for two big recounts in Florida. The Senate race between Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson and outgoing GOP Gov. Rick Scott is heading for one. And the margin in the gubernatorial race between former GOP Rep. Ron DeSantis (who was declared the winner by the AP) and Democrat Andrew Gillum has tightened past the .5 percent threshold required for a recount, per POLITICO Florida's Marc Caputo. As they say, it's all coming down to critical Broward County. "All eyes are on that problematic South Florida county - Florida's second largest and one of its most Democratic - as it lags nearly every other in the state in reporting ballot tallies," POLITICO
Florida's Matt Dixon and Marc reported. "With so much riding on the nation's largest swing state - a U.S. Senate seat, a Florida Cabinet seat and perhaps a gubernatorial recount - Broward's supervisor of elections, Brenda Snipes, won't or can't say how many ballots there are left to count."

The Scott and Nelson teams have already started drafting teams of lawyers, Matt and Marc report. Democratic super lawyer Marc Elias is heading up Nelson's efforts.

- Scott has also called for an investigation in Broward County. Marc and Matt: "Scott took the unprecedented step Thursday of asking state law enforcement to investigate election officials playing a key role in a recount involving his U.S. Senate campaign. The impromptu announcement was organized by his campaign and held at the Florida Governor's Mansion, the governor's taxpayer-funded home.

"Scott's request to have the Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigate embattled Broward County Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes came moments after his Senate campaign joined the National Republican Senatorial Committee in filing two emergency lawsuits against Snipes and Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher, saying their offices are not complying with state public records laws. The announcement, blurring Scott's official roles as governor and U.S. Senate candidate, is the latest twist in a midterm election cycle that has once again put Florida in the national spotlight for election gaffes." The state Department of Law Enforcement confirmed they will
investigate election officials.

LET'S STAY READY TO KEEP COUNTING - Democratic Rep. Kyrsten Sinema jumped ahead by 9,610 votes in the Arizona Senate race Thursday night, as the state continues processing its early votes - with another half-million to go. Campaign Pro's James Arkin: "The lead amounts to just half a percentage point with over 1.8 million votes counted. [GOP Rep. Martha] McSally was up by 17,703 votes earlier in the day, before the counties processed another 130,000 votes."

"Most of the outstanding ballots are coming from Arizona's largest county, Maricopa County, which is home to Phoenix and includes Sinema's congressional district. Sinema held a slight edge of about 1 percentage point over McSally in the county as of Thursday afternoon, but the new votes counted Thursday expanded the Democrat's Maricopa edge to 2.5 points.... The state will continue to count early votes cast before the election daily until the race is resolved."

ANOTHER STILL UP IN THE AIR - Republican Brian Kemp is declaring victory in the Georgia gubernatorial race, but Democrat Stacey Abrams' camp insists there are still enough outstanding votes to force the race into a runoff, which would happen on Dec. 4 if neither candidate has above 50 percent. Kemp, who sits at a few tenths of a percentage point above 50 percent, resigned as Georgia's secretary of state on Thursday. "Advisers to Abrams also announced a lawsuit arguing that voters in Dougherty County weren't allowed the chance to vote because the county was too slow to send out absentee ballots," Campaign Pro's Daniel Strauss reported. "Kemp's office and the Abrams campaign estimate there
are about 25,000 ballots still to be counted, a combination of provisional and absentee votes."

Happy Friday. Enjoy the weekend, we all earned it. As always, email me at zmontellaro@politico.com or DM me at @ZachMontellaro.

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

Days until the 2020 election: 725

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IN THE TRENCHES
WEST COAST UPDATE - The post-election night ballot count tilted toward Democrats in key California House races on Thursday night. Campaign Pro chief Scott Bland: "Democrat Katie Porter cut down GOP Rep. Mimi Walters' margin by more than one-third as Orange County, California added its first batch of late-counted votes ... . Walters leads Porter 51 percent to 49 percent in California's 45th District, down from 51.6-48.4 earlier in the day, after another 9,207 votes were tallied. There are still about 400,000 ballots left to count in Orange County as a whole. Walters' district comprises just under one-quarter of the county, but it's unclear how many of the remaining votes are in which
districts.

"In the 48th District, Democrat Harley Rouda widened his lead over GOP Rep. Dana Rohrabacher to 51.2 percent to 48.8 percent. In the 39th District, Republican Young Kim gained 3 votes on Democrat Gil Cisneros as Orange County added nearly a thousand more ballots to the tally. Kim leads Cisneros 51.3 percent to 48.7 percent at the moment. About 62 percent of the district is in Orange County, while 28 percent is in Los Angeles County and another 10 percent is in San Bernardino County. The latter two will not start adding late-counted ballots to the tally until Friday."

MORE CALLS - A few more House seats have trickled in, pushing Democrats' net House gain to 31 seats so far. (And a note: In some races, someone has conceded but the AP and/or the networks haven't yet called the race. We've been leaving those out). 11 House seats remain uncalled; see them here.

GA-06: Democrat Lucy McBath beat GOP Rep. Karen Handel (Democratic flip).

NM-02: Democrat Xochitl Torres Small beat Republican Yvette Herrell (Democratic flip).

WA-03: GOP Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler beat Democrat Carolyn Long.

WA-08: Democrat Kim Schrier beat Republican Dino Rossi (Democratic flip).

See all our House results here and our Senate results here.

THE MOVEMENT - Progressives faced a bit of a "gut-punch" on Tuesday, when their stars in red or purple elections largely came up short, NBC News' Alex Seitz-Wald writes. So what's the path forward for the movement? "We should really take seriously the idea that the path forward is contesting for power in [primaries in] the deeper bluer seats," the progressive activist Sean McElwee told Seitz-Wald (also worth reading: McElwee's "path forward for progressives"). Seitz-Wald also notes that some moderate Democrats lost in their races, "providing just enough evidence for both sides to continue their low-boil civil war." Officials from the centrist Third Way and the Progressive Change Campaign
Committee took turns sniping at each other's wing of the party to Seitz-Wald, and the PCCC circulated a memo to House and Senate Democrats arguing that it was progressive values that really won the day.

THE COMMITTEE CHAIRS - Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.) is throwing his hat into the ring to lead the NRSC. "I acknowledge that we have a lot seats up, 22 seats, but the good news is that 20 of them are in states that Donald Trump won. The challenge is that two of them are in states that he didn't win," Young said in an interview with our own Burgess Everett. "But I think we have a couple of pick-up opportunities and most importantly we have good candidates." He also told Burgess he was "prepared" for a contested race, but no one else has stepped forward (yet). Burgess also reported that some Democrats are trying to push Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) to lead the DSCC.

- Democratic Rep. Denny Heck is launching a bid for DCCC chair. "2020 is not 2018 and we cannot fight the last war. To begin with, we need to rotate the dial on offense to defense," he wrote in a letter, as reported by National Journal's Ally Mutnick (I missed her reporting for Thursday's Score, mea culpa). "Next cycle, with our great and large crop of new members, we need to place more emphasis on their needs. It's just math. It is simply more cost-effective to protect an incumbent than to defeat one."

SENATE BACK IN SESSION(S)? - Ousted Attorney General Jeff Sessions is mulling a run for his old Alabama Senate seat, which is up in 2020, my colleague Alex Isenstadt reported, citing "two people familiar with his thinking." Sen. Doug Jones (D-Ala.) would be one of the most vulnerable incumbents next cycle and is ripe for a challenge. Alex also reported GOP Rep. Bradley Byrne as another possible contender.

PAC IN ACTION - Corporate PACs, a frequent foil for Democrats who led the charge to take back the House, are trying to rehabilitate their image. "The National Association of Business PACs - which lobbies for PACs - is finalizing a plan to convince lawmakers, candidates and the press that the real villain in politics is unchecked spending by super PACs and mystery donors, not the more-regulated fundraising committees attached to businesses and trade groups, POLITICO's Lorraine Woellert reported. "The group also will push lawmakers to raise the limits on how much corporate PACs can give to individual candidates from $5,000 to $10,000, caps that haven't changed since 1974."

And the money quote: "I'm going to say something controversial: We believe there isn't enough money in politics," Geoff Ziebart, executive director of NABPAC, told Lorraine. "There's so much money outside the control of candidates and parties, and Congress has been unwilling to address that."

FRIENDLY REMINDER - The FEC sent out a reminder that 30-day post-general election reports are due on Dec. 6. We'll be looking for final fundraising (and spending) totals in those reports, and the funders of popup outside groups like Texas Forever, which have yet to disclose donors.

PRESIDENTIAL WATCH - Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) is "definitely" running for president, a source tells my colleague Alex Thompson. Swalwell, who declined to comment to Alex for his story, is also headed to Iowa this weekend.

CODA - HEADLINE OF THE DAY, we're all very old edition: "Cassie Levesque, 19, among youngest elected to NH House," by Foster's Daily Democrat's Kyle Stucker.

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