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By Kyle Cheney

With Sandhya Raman, Alex Guillen and Steven Shepard

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. (
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ONLY IN SCORE - Pataki talks up New York Republicans: Former New York Gov. George Pataki is building a presidential operation in New Hampshire, but he also has his eye on politics in his home state. In a phone interview, the would-be GOP White House contender - the last Republican to win a statewide election in New York - said he's hopeful the party can play again in the Empire State. Some highlights:

- The three-term governor, who left office in 2007, said New York - and national - Republicans should adopt the same principles: "We can't just look to polarize the electorate and say 'We're the conservatives. You're the liberals. Elect us,'" he said. Instead, he said, Republicans should spend time "explaining to non-traditional Republican voting groups why our conservative principles work for them."

- Pataki said Republicans need to keep in mind that many of the people their policies are aimed at aren't well-off donors. "When you take a tough approach to violent crime, it's not the person living on Fifth Avenue with a doorman who's worried about crime. It's the low-income immigrant taking the midnight train home." But can Republicans learn to compete statewide? Pataki cited his own experience as proof. A longtime ally of former Sen. Al D'Amato, Pataki noted that he won comfortably in his two reelection bids - and became the only governor also elected while carrying the state's Conservative Party line."It was explaining our Republican, conservative philosophy, that these principles are
aimed at helping everyone," he said.

- Pataki said he sees potential stars currently in county executive offices (the last GOP gubernatorial nominee, Rob Astorino, was the Westchester County executive), as well as in Congress, the state Assembly and in city government. But he declined to name specific names and didn't answer when asked about Rep. Chris Gibson, a third-term member of Congress who has signaled his interest in running statewide in 2018.

OUT THIS MORNING - SWING-STATE Q POLLS: Hillary Clinton has a favorability rating that tops 50 percent in Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania, according to new Quinnipiac University polls just out today. That gives her double-digit leads over all the GOP contenders - with the exception of some favorite-son candidates. Clinton runs neck-and-neck with former Gov. Jeb Bush in Florida and current Gov. John Kasich in Ohio. But she leads Bush and the others by wide margins in Ohio and Pennsylvania, and other favorite sons don't fare as well: Clinton holds a 10-point lead over Sen. Marco Rubio in Florida, and a 20-point edge over former Sen. Rick Santorum in Pennsylvania.
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- Also in Florida polling news:Floridians overwhelmingly think GOP Sen. Marco Rubio should stick with his current job rather than seek the White House in 2016, according to a Mason-Dixon poll released Monday. Just 15 percent of registered voters polled say Rubio should run for president, while 57 percent think he should seek a second term in the Senate. About a quarter of voters were unsure. Republicans are even more adamant that Rubio should stay in the Senate: More than two-thirds of them, 68 percent, want Rubio to seek reelection. Only 19 percent want him to run for president. Voters are more on board with former Gov. Jeb Bush running for the White House: 42 percent think he should,
while 43 percent think he shouldn't. Among Republicans, 59 percent think he should run for president, and 31 percent say he should not. The poll of 625 registered voters, conducted from Jan. 27- 29, carries a 3.9-percentage-point margin of error. The poll:
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BEGICH SILENT ON 2016 COMEBACK - Former Alaska Sen. Mark Begich, who lost his reelection bid in November, was mum when asked Saturday by the Alaska Dispatch News if he's considering a return to Congress - through a 2016 challenge to GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski or at-large Rep. Don Young. "I'm not going to speculate what I will do," the one-term Democrat said in an interview with the paper. "But I know there's a lot of people that would love to see me run. ... Those options are always on the table but at the time they're not what I'm focusing on." Begich, who said this weekend that he's starting a consulting firm and working for Anchorage-based airline Grant Aviation and the National Association
for Home Care and Hospice, narrowly lost to Republican Dan Sullivan last year. The Dispatch News story:
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As Scott Walker raids talent from the RNC, and Kentucky Republicans gird for a gubernatorial clash, here's POLITICO's Morning Score: daily news, notes and essential information for the 2015 and 2016 election cycles.

Days until the 2015 election: 274; Days until the 2016 election: 645

Thanks for joining us. We're eager for your news and feedback. Email us at
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kcheney@politico.com or find us on Twitter at @
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kyledcheney .

FIRST IN SCORE - Portman's show of force in Ohio: Ohio Sen. Rob Portman is out with an updated list of endorsements from state and local elected leaders and party officials The 500-strong list is twice as long as the version released last month, which included the overwhelming majority of GOP state lawmakers, all statewide officials and Congressional Republicans from Ohio. The new version includes a lengthy list of GOP county chairs,state Republican central committeemen and women, and local officials that range from county coroners to mayors. 'Conservatives are rallying around our campaign because we all know Democrats are targeting Ohio," Portman said in a statement.

CPAC ROSTER - National Review reports that former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush is planning to speak at CPAC, the conservative conference that's often a helpful gauge of candidates' standing with the party base.
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PERSONNEL UPDATE - Walker fills out leadership committee team: Kirsten Kukowski, deputy comms. director for the RNC, is joining Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's newly formed leadership committee, part of a slew of hires that also include pollsters from the Tarrance Group, CNN's Mark Preston reports.
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- Allison Moore, who handled comms for Sen. Mitch McConnell's reelection campaign last year, will step in and join the RNC under the recently promoted Sean Spicer, Roll Call reported.
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- Bush turns to FP1 Strategies for ad/message men: CNN also reports that Bush has tapped Jon Downs and Danny Diaz from the GOP firm to help his pack, RIght to RIse, handle messaging and ad strategy.
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- LCV aide jumps to financial reform nonprofit: Jeff Gohringer, the League of Conservation Voters' national press secretary, will leave the green campaign group on Feb. 10 to become communications director for Better Markets, a nonprofit focused on financial reform. Before joining LCV in 2012, Gohringer was with then-Sen. Tim Johnson for five years.

2016 GOP - "Young Republicans holding fundraiser for Bush in D.C.," by POLITICO's Anna Palmer: "More than 70 Republicans are co-hosting a Feb. 11 fundraiser for the former Florida governor's leadership political action committee, called Right to Rise. The young professionals event at the restaurant Mission Dupont will feature his son, Jeb Bush Jr. Tickets are $50 to attend, according to a copy of the invite. The list of politicos co-hosting the event are a who's who of young Republicans, including Olga Arguello of Ellos Global Consulting, restaurateur and owner of Mission Fritz Brogan, Ryan Bradel of Greenberg Traurig, former Jeb Bush staffer MacKay Jimeson of Pfizer, and Brian McCormack of
Edison Electric Institute. Others listed include: Wendy Grant, Clare Murchison and David Powers, Evan Bergwall, Clint Fuhrman, Carlos Gutierrez Jr., Peter Marroco and Carl Meachum."
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RACE TO NOVEMBER (2015) - The GOP primary for Kentucky governor is shaping up as a three-way contest between state agriculture commissioner James Comer, former Louisville Councilman Hal Heiner and tea party darling Matt Bevin. The three leading contenders for the Republican nomination were within the margin of error at the top of a poll released Monday by Harper Polling and conducted for the Kentucky PR firm RunSwitch. The poll has Comer at 25 percent, Heiner at 20 percent and Bevin at 18 percent. Nearly a third of voters are undecided, and 9 percent are backing lesser-known candidate Will T. Scott. The automated poll of 261 likely GOP primary voters, conducted from Jan. 28-31, carries a
margin of error of plus-or-minus 6.1 percentage points. The poll:
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CASH RACE - The Federal Election Commission has released its revised contribution limits for the 2016 election cycle, adjusting the caps slightly for inflation. Individuals will now be able to give $2,700 to each federal campaign committee for every election, which adds up to $5,400 for the primary and general election combined, according to a notice for tomorrow's Federal Register. And donations to national party committees will be capped at $33,400.
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CODA - QUOTE OF THE DAY: "Governor seems like an interesting position too." - Actress Ashley Judd, when asked by Larry King whether she'd considered running for any other elective office in Kentucky besides Senate.
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