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11/13/2018 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
SINEMA TAKES HOME THE W - Democratic Rep. Kyrsten Sinema was declared the winner over GOP Rep. Martha McSally in the Arizona Senate race on Monday night. McSally conceded minutes after the AP called it, making a post on Twitter wishing Sinema success. McSally's loss puts the GOP's net Senate gain at +1 with two Senate races outstanding: Florida and Mississippi (more on these below). Our James Arkin has more.

FLORIDA RECOUNT MARCHES ON - The president and other Republicans are still spinning baseless conspiracy theories of widespread fraud in states with races that still have yet to be called, while Democrats are demanding that GOP Senate candidate Gov. Rick Scott recuse himself from any role in the Florida recount. More from POLITICO Florida's Matt Dixon: "A Broward County judge is urging both sides to 'ramp down the rhetoric' swirling around the recount process that not only involves the Senate race between Scott and Nelson but also the Florida governor's race and agriculture commissioner race. Three local legislative races are also under ongoing machine recounts. ... The intensifying jabs
come as local election officials continue with a machine recount of 8 million ballots. The deadline for finishing that is Thursday, after which any race within .25 percent would head to a hand recount, a drawn-out process that would no doubt lead to a glaring international spotlight on Florida, potentially for weeks."

- Some important context on the impending recount results: Recounts are incredibly rare, and generally result in a swing of a couple hundred votes, at most. The Tampa Bay Times' Kirby Wilson: "According to an analysis by the nonpartisan group FairVote, which advocates for electoral reforms that make it easier to vote, out of 4,687 statewide general elections between 2000 and 2016, just 26 went to a recount. Of those 26, just three recounts wound up changing the initial result of the race: The 2004 Washington governor's race, the 2006 Vermont state auditor's race and the 2008 Minnesota U.S. Senate race. The average swing in those three elections after the recounts? About 311 votes. In none
of those cases was a widespread vote-counting error discovered that wound up swaying the election."

- No matter who will win the Florida races, Broward County Elections Supervisor Brenda Snipes is all but certain to lose her job. POLITICO Florida's Marc Caputo reports that fellow Democrats are abandoning her. Meanwhile, Bay County, a Republican county that was walloped by Hurricane Michael, allowed 147 voters to cast their ballots online even though that is not allowed under state election law, POLITICO Florida's Andrew Atterbury and Marc reported.

Good Tuesday morning. An American icon died Monday: Stan Lee, one of the visionaries behind Marvel comics. Excelsior! 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: 721

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IN THE TRENCHES
THE NEW MAP - An electoral map largely drawn by Republicans after the 2010 census was supposed to provide the GOP an enduring majority. But along came President Donald Trump. Campaign Pro's Scott Bland and Elena Schneider: "House Democrats steamrolled Republicans in an array of districts last week, from those drawn by independent commissions or courts, to seats crafted specifically by Republicans with the intention of keeping them in the GOP column. The overriding factor: a Republican president political mapmakers could not have foreseen at the beginning of the decade. Trump altered the two parties' coalitions in ways that specifically undermined old conventional wisdom about the House map,
bringing more rural voters into the GOP tent while driving away college-educated voters.

"The trade worked in some states. But it was a Republican disaster in the House, where well-off suburbs, once the backbone of many GOP districts, rebelled against Trump in 2016 and then threw out House members in 2018. ... Despite Democrats' massive House gains - the party's biggest since 1974, after Richard Nixon's resignation - redistricting clearly held them back in some places. Democrats netted at least 21 districts drawn by independent commissions or courts - getting a major boost from courts in Florida, Pennsylvania and Virginia that altered GOP-drawn maps in the last two years - along with 10 districts drawn by Republicans and the two in Illinois that were drawn by Democrats."

DOWN IN GEORGIA - The gubernatorial race between Republican Brian Kemp and Democrat Stacey Abrams won't be certified until at least Friday. The New York Times' Alan Blinder: "In a 56-page ruling, [Judge Amy Totenberg of the Federal District Court in Atlanta] forbade Georgia's secretary of state, Robyn A. Crittenden, from certifying the election outcome until at least Friday evening. She also ordered Ms. Crittenden's office to 'immediately establish and publicize on its website a secure and free-access hotline or website for provisional ballot voters to access to determine whether their provisional ballots were counted and if not, the reason why.'"

MORE GOLDEN STATE BALLOTS - Democrats inched closer in two uncalled California races. In CA-45, Republican Rep. Mimi Walters saw her lead over Democrat Katie Porter shrink to just over a thousand votes. In CA-39, Democrat Gil Cisneros is down by about 2,000 votes to Republican Young Kim, after closing the gap by about 470 votes.

RANKED VOTING TIME - One of the more intriguing uncalled races is the House race in ME-02 between GOP Rep. Bruce Poliquin and Democrat Jared Golden, thanks to ranked voting. Since neither received 50 percent of the vote (Poliquin currently has a narrow lead at just over 46 percent), the race will proceed to an instant runoff, which eliminates low-performing candidates and allocates their supporters based on how they ranked candidates on the ballot. How this vote is handled could be a make-or-break moment for advocates of the new system, the AP's David Sharp reported: "Proponents say the system allows people to vote for third-party or independent candidates without concern for political
'spoilers' or vote-splitting. They say it also moderates campaigns because candidates don't want to alienate supporters of other candidates in the event they need second-place votes to reach a majority. Critics say the ballot and system can be confusing to voters. They also say bland campaigns don't allow candidates to differentiate themselves."

MORE PRESIDENTIAL CONTENDERS - The big board keeps on growing. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), fresh off his reelection victory, said he is "seriously" considering a bid for the White House. "My first mission is to encourage people to start talking about (American workers) more, reaching out to people in the industrial Midwest," he told the Columbus Dispatch's Jessica Wehrman. "We'll see later on about the presidential race. But we are thinking about it for the first time seriously." Connie Schultz, his wife, also tweeted the Dispatch article, writing "we're thinking about it."

- Democrat Richard Ojeda, who lost his congressional bid in WV-03 last week, is running for president. He formally announced his bid on Monday, and went up with his first campaign ad.

THE COMMITTEE CHAIR FIGHT - Florida's Scott didn't rule out running to chair the NRSC (presuming he prevails in his Senate election against Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson) in an interview with The Washington Post's James Hohmann. Hohmann wrote that Scott emphasized "he's interested in doing whatever will make him most effective as a legislator."

- Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton was named the new chair of the Republican Attorneys General Association, per Campaign Pro's Daniel Strauss.

THE NEW AGENDA - House Democrats are promising to make campaign finance reform and expanded voting rights their first bill of the new Congress (which have slim-to-none chances of passing in the Senate). "The bill would establish automatic voter registration and reinvigorate the Voting Rights Act, crippled by a Supreme Court decision in 2013. It would take away redistricting power from state legislatures and give it to independent commissions," NPR's Peter Overby reported. "Other provisions would overturn the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling, which declared political spending is First Amendment free speech; they would mandate more disclosure of outside money and establish a public
financing match for small contributions."

THE TEA LEAVES - Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), who survived a tough primary challenge in 2014, isn't ruling out running again in 2020, The Kansas City Star's Bryan Lowry and Lindsay Wise reported. But if he does opt out, the pair list some potential Republican contenders: Rep. Roger Marshall, ousted Rep. Kevin Yoder and outgoing Gov. Jeff Colyer, who lost his primary.

- In Kentucky, Rocky Adkins, a Democrat and the minority floor leader in the state House, and a running mate have filed paperwork to raise money for a gubernatorial campaign, the AP's Adam Beam reported. Incumbent Republican Gov. Matt Bevin previously said he'd seek a second term and Adkins is due to make a "special announcement" on Wednesday.

DOWN IN MISSISSIPPI - Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith continued to side-step questions about her recent remark about attending a "public hanging," repeatedly referring back to a statement that her comment carried no "negative connotation," via POLITICO's Rebecca Morin. Hyde-Smith, who is white, is in a runoff with Democrat Mike Espy, who is black.

THE CANDIDATE WHISPERER - Rep. Katherine Clark (D-Mass.) is featured in her hometown paper, The Boston Globe, for her role in recruiting candidates in the Democratic wave. The Globe's Victoria McGrane: "Clark's early recruitment work involved helping candidates understand the challenges of running in these tough districts. She met with potential candidates in windowless conference rooms, explaining that much of their time would be spent in similar rooms, calling everyone they have ever known for money. She helped people think through what it would be like for them and their families, both during the campaign and after."

CODA - HEADLINE OF THE DAY: "Amazon chooses New York City and Northern Virginia for additional headquarters," by The Wall Street Journal's Laura Stevens and Keiko Morris.

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