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By Theodoric Meyer | 03/15/2016 10:00 AM EDT


With Kevin Robillard, Elena Schneider and Scott Bland

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)

WHAT'S NEXT - "Republicans prep for long, ugly nomination fight," by POLITICO's Alex Isenstadt: "Top Republicans are looking beyond Tuesday's make-or-break primaries and preparing for a nasty nomination fight that could push all the way to this summer's GOP convention in Cleveland. ... Particularly aggressive has been Cruz - Trump's closest competitor - who has launched an ambitious, cross-country effort to influence local Republican Party meetings where delegates to the national convention are being selected. The objective: Ensure that individual states send Cruz-friendly delegates to Cleveland - people who would support the Texas senator in the event no candidate succeeds in reaching the
1,237 magic number on the convention's first ballot.

- "This week, a number of the GOP's top benefactors who have funded an eleventh hour, multi-million dollar offensive to take down the front-runner ... are expected to gather in Florida for a discussion of, among other topics, the road ahead in the primary. Three sources involved ... said there would soon be a reassessment about whether to continue the barrage - a decision that would rest on the outcome of Tuesday's primaries. A Trump sweep would make it hard for his antagonists to proceed." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=c6faae0a5d3722c79971295b3429821712828fdeb37bdfc5094027a02332234b

WHAT WE'RE WATCHING DOWN-BALLOT - Three Senate races and six House races: Three of the five states heading to the polls today - Illinois, North Carolina and Ohio - are also holding congressional primaries (although North Carolina is only holding its Senate primary after delaying its House primaries due to last-minute redistricting). Here's what we'll be watching:

- Senate races: Illinois and Ohio are top targets for Democrats looking to retake the Senate this year, but the Democratic primaries in each race aren't expected to be competitive. In Illinois, Rep. Tammy Duckworth is expected to triumph over Andrea Zopp, a businesswoman and former prosecutor who scored early support from Bill Daley, a former White House chief of staff, but hasn't been able to compete with Duckworth's superior name recognition and fundraising. In Ohio, former Gov. Ted Strickland will likely defeat P.G. Sittenfeld, a young Cincinnati city councilman. And in North Carolina, former state Rep. Deborah Ross is expected to beat two lesser-known Democratic challengers for the
right to face GOP Sen. Richard Burr.

- A tight Democratic primary in IL-10: Democrats Brad Schneider and Nancy Rotering are locked in a close race heading into the primary in Illinois' 10th District, in Chicago's northern suburbs. The seat is a prime pickup opportunity for House Democrats. Schneider, who defeated GOP Rep. Bob Dold in 2012 only to lose a rematch with Dold in 2014, has the backing of most of the Democratic members of the state's congressional delegation. But Schneider also angered some Democrats by opposing the Iranian nuclear deal, which Rotering, the mayor of Highland Park, supports. Schneider shelled out more on ads and direct mail in the two months ahead of the primary, but Rotering entered the final 12 days
of the primary with more left to spend - she had $452,000 in cash on hand to Schneider's $296,000. Rotering had loaned her campaign $345,000, though, so she might not have wanted to spend every last dollar in the final days of the race.

- A trio of primary challenges: Democratic Rep. Bobby Rush, who represents a Chicago district and GOP Reps. John Shimkus of Illinois and Dave Joyce of Ohio are all facing primary challenges. Here's our story from Monday on their flawed challengers and their odds: http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=c6faae0a5d3722c786f956c00e8b777effae7a85b561b3d92ee778308026a5eb

- Open seats in IL-08 and OH-08: Democrat Raja Krishnamoorthi has raised far more money than his rivals running for the seat Democratic Rep. Tammy Duckworth is vacating to run for Senate, and he's expected to carry it. But it's much less clear who will prevail in Ohio's 8th District, which House Speaker John Boehner represented for more than two decades before resigning last fall. The race has become a proxy battle between outside groups representing the staunchly conservative and more moderate wings of the GOP, with the Club for Growth's super PAC pouring money into backing Warren Davidson and other outside groups opposing him. More than a dozen Republicans are running for the reliably red
seat. Here's our recent story on the race: http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=c6faae0a5d3722c7b718177c584051617ffe411842fea54f06bdfa954d22d276

Days until the Arizona and Utah primaries and the Idaho Democratic caucuses: 7.

Days until the 2016 election: 238.

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 kcheney@politico.com.

You can also follow us on Twitter, where we tweet a lot about campaigns and occasionally about this town: @politicoscott, @ec_schneider, @politicokevin, @theodoricmeyer and @kyledcheney.

AD'ING UP - Nevada Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto's Senate campaign is starting a major TV ad buy today: over $580,000 for the next three weeks, including over a half-million dollars on broadcast stations, according to a media-tracking source. Cortez Masto has faced occasional, small TV attacks from the NRSC, but it's still an unusually large buy for this time of year, three months out from Nevada's primary. Cortez Masto had just under $2 million banked at the end of last year, when the most recent campaign finance reporting period ended. Her campaign did not respond to questions about the buy.

- Cortez Masto goes up with Spanish-language ad: Cortez Masto also released her first Spanish-language TV ad on Monday, spotlighting her Mexican heritage. Cortez Masto would be the first Latina senator if elected in November. Watch the ad: http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=809784024900162eb4c4db3b24c26972f3a8a600b8ff7ccd6be41b340b3c6a78

- Naughton airs first TV ad in PA-08: Democrat Shaughnessy Naughton, who's running for retiring GOP Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick's seat in the Philadelphia suburbs, went up on the air with her first TV ad on Monday. The 30-second spot highlights her background as a chemist. Watch the ad: http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=c6faae0a5d3722c75f1dd565d9b04ee3ff79e3a92f7a03bd9a208b65425a4c10

NEW THIS A.M. - DSCC to launch 'sustained' digital campaign linking GOP to Trump: The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is out with the first ad in what it says will be a "sustained" campaign linking Republican Senate candidates to Donald Trump. The ad features clips of Trump's more noxious and crude statements interspersed with footage of Republican incumbents and candidates pledging to support the party's nominee and praising Trump, beginning with footage of Ariz Sen. John McCain saying Trump has "in a very intelligent way, Trump has touched a chord amongst Americans," followed by footage of Trump swearing swearing three separate times and mocking a disabled New York Times
reporter. "Republicans running for U.S. Senate, running with Trump," the ad concludes. The roughly 90-second ad will run on Facebook and Twitter, but the DSCC is promising eventual radio and television advertisements and has launched a new website, www.PartyOfTrump.com, which labels a slew of Republican candidates as "ReTRUMPlicans." Watch the ad: http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=c6faae0a5d3722c75cef93e431e2023b0b4e5f65d35e5b5cac4f1403d642c42e

TEST PILOTS - AP releases results from 2015 online exit poll experiments: "AP hired GfK Custom Research to conduct an experiment with online surveys during last fall's general elections in Kentucky and Mississippi," the Associated Press' Paul Colford wrote, using a $250,000 Knight Foundation grant to explore the future of exit polling. The results from the 2015 experiments, whose goals included figuring out an "optimal combination" of probability-based and non-probability samples to use in future online polls, have been published here. The study shows how different methods got closer to or further from the actual results in Kentucky, where now-Gov. Matt Bevin won a surprisingly large
victory. Read more from AP here. http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=c6faae0a5d3722c7f1a1777b1edb1b66d8716c6219e885698d5835113dee4962

CASH HUSTLE - Duckworth tops Kirk in cash on hand in Illinois: Democratic Rep. Tammy Duckworth now has more cash on hand than GOP Sen. Mark Kirk after Kirk spent over $800,000 in the pre-primary reporting period, according to FEC records. Duckworth also spent big in the first two months of the year, but she has just under $3.6 million on hand to Kirk's $3.4 million. Duckworth brought in $661,000 from the beginning of the year to Feb. 24, while spending $722,000. Kirk brought in $458,000 and spent $816,000.

- GETTING THE NOD - Environmental groups back Duckworth over Kirk: A trio of major environmental groups backed Rep. Tammy Duckworth in the Illinois Senate race yesterday, a blow to GOP Sen. Mark Kirk, who has one of the better records on their issues in the GOP conference. The League of Conservation Voters Action Fund, the Natural Resources Defense Council Action Fund, and the Sierra Club all backed Duckworth. Kirk had a 40 percent score on LCV's voting scorecard in 2015, the third-highest of any Republican senator (behind Susan Collins of Maine and Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire). But Duckworth's 2015 rating in the House was 89 percent.

Event: Women Rule - Power and Purpose: Tune in live as panelists discuss women in executive office and lessons learned about educating girls in places where they risk their lives by going to school. Featuring: Fmr First Lady Laura Bush, Onaba Payab of The American University of Afghanistan, fmr HHS Sec. & Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, TIME Magazine Correspondent Jay Newton Small, and Afghan Institute of Learning founder Dr. Sakena Yacoobi. TODAY, 11:30 am. Livestream: www.POLITICO.com/live

PRESIDENTIAL SPEED READ - "Rubio would need a 'miracle' to win Florida," by POLITICO's Marc Caputo in Miami: "Buried by an avalanche of awful Florida poll numbers, Marco Rubio's campaign for president has hit the last stage of grief: Acceptance. "Marco's at peace; he knows he put it all out there and whatever happens happens," said a longtime Rubio backer and fundraiser. "His faith is real. He knows he has been blessed. But don't get me wrong: We're still praying." More than one Rubio supporter has described the likelihood of a win as a "miracle." Barring divine intervention, the cold hard math of the polls will come to bear. The surveys vary wildly, showing Donald Trump with anywhere from
a 5- to a 23-percentage-point lead. But they all share one common trait: A Rubio loss. And they've been that way since August."

- "Making a Rubio win even more unlikely is that so many Republicans have already cast early and absentee ballots, a record 1.14 million. That's probably half of the electorate who will vote in the entire primary. So in order for Rubio to have a shot at winning, he'd need to win Election Day by the same margin that he has likely lost the early vote by. Based on the averages of the recent Florida polls, Rubio's deficit could be as big as 16.5 percentage points. If that's accurate, it's a nearly insurmountable lead by Trump: 190,000 ballots heading into Election Day." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=c6faae0a5d3722c7755d1b31cb89cd6bccf67a70a4c81266dfc3514a4c0eded9

- "The party goes to bat for Kasich in Ohio," by Bloomberg News' Margaret Newkirk and Mark Niquette: John Kasich is only Republican candidate left in the race who has the support of his home state party, and it gives him a host of advantages there. "His surrogates are descending on official functions for the GOP faithful in a party-coordinated effort, 'reaching literally thousands of surefire Republican primary voters,' says Matt Borges, the state GOP chairman. The events included 14 Lincoln Day dinners held around the state in early March, the signature local Republican party event of the primary season. 'We had a Kasich surrogate at every single one of them,' says Borges. No other
campaign showed.'" http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=c6faae0a5d3722c78b335e06e1509aae94a666495a03caf15ee4f68f2a20308a

CODA - QUOTE OF THE DAY: "One difference between this and a Donald Trump rally is, I'm not asking anyone to punch you in the face." - Ted Cruz, who told a protester at a rally in Illinois on Monday that he appreciated free speech after the man yelled, "Go back to Canada!" http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=809784024900162ee0f8a0d93d291e199814247cb03207057e638c899ad3128a

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