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By Zach Montellaro | 08/20/2018 10:00 AM EDT


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)

PROGRAMMING NOTE: Morning Score will not publish from Aug. 27-Sept. 3. Our next Morning Score newsletter will publish on Sept. 4.

THE EXPANDED MAP - Democrats are mounting a serious challenge to GOP Rep. Steve Chabot in Ohio's 1st District, hoping to unseat the 11-term incumbent. Campaign Pro's Elena Schneider from Cincinnati: Some GOP "incumbents faced tough primaries in the past, but many of them, like Chabot, are dusting off their campaigns for the first time in a decade in a treacherous political environment. 'It just took a little while to get him, you know, built back up and run a race because he hasn't been targeted since 2010, and he won pretty comfortably then,' said National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Steve Stivers (R-Ohio). 'But Steve never lost touch with his constituents and that's why
he's in good shape.' ...

"[Aftab] Pureval, the 35-year-old clerk of courts in Cincinnati's Hamilton County, is pitching himself as an independent voice to voters in Chabot's district. 'As a Democrat, I reduced the size of government and saved the taxpayers nearly $1 million,' Pureval said in an interview with POLITICO, echoing his first round of TV ads. He is running like a lot of red-district Democrats across the country. Pureval, who got his start in politics as student body president of Ohio State University, has rejected some proposals popular among liberals - like Medicare-for-all or abolishing the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency - and found some room for agreement on trade with President
Donald Trump, with an eye toward the 51 percent of the district that voted for him in 2016."

CLF COMES OUT SWINGING - The barrage of ads released by the Congressional Leadership Fund this past week will be backed up by millions in August alone. CNN's Manu Raju: "The Congressional Leadership Fund will drop nearly $10 million this month to attack Democrats in 14 races from New York to California, an attempt to get a jump-start in the fall ad wars, force Democrats to spend money early and define the candidates in a negative light with voters, officials with the group tell CNN. ... Most outside organizations have typically waited until after Labor Day to drop hard-hitting ads, betting that voters are vacationing and not fully engaged in the competitive midterm battlegrounds until
Election Day draws closer. In the 2016 election cycle, the Congressional Leadership Fund waited until Sept. 13 to begin its air war."

- The CLF has also seen a windfall from wealthy donors thanks to the GOP's tax plan. The New York Times' Jim Tankersley and Michael Tackett: "The fund's executive director, Corry Bliss, who runs both that group and the American Action Network, said that some of his donors did not favor all the provisions of the tax law, but that all of them hailed its passage as the rich fruits of total Republican control of Washington. Had the tax bill failed, Mr. Bliss said, 'I think they would have been very disappointed and very deflated.' But Mr. Bliss said that donors were more concerned with seeing results from unified Republican control - especially after the failure to repeal the Affordable Care
Act - than specifically with the passage of the tax bill."

Good Monday morning. Tom Hofeller, the Republican strategist who pioneered modern redistricting techniques, died last week. As always, you can email me at zmontellaro@politico.com or DM me at @ZachMontellaro.

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

Days until the 2018 election: 78.

Upcoming election dates - Aug. 21: Alaska, Wyoming primaries. - Aug. 28: Arizona, Florida primaries and Oklahoma primary runoffs. - Sept. 4: Massachusetts primaries. - Sept. 6: Delaware primaries. - Sept. 11: New Hampshire primaries. - Sept. 12: Rhode Island primaries. - Sept. 13: New York (state-level) primaries.

ANOTHER CALIFORNIA HACK - The FBI is investigating a hack into another California Democrat's campaign. Reuters' Joel Schectman and Christopher Bing: "The hackers successfully infiltrated the election campaign computer of David Min, a Democratic candidate for the House of Representatives who was later defeated in the June primary for California's 45th Congressional district. ... It is unclear who was behind the attack against Min's campaign, why it was carried out, and what the hackers did with any information they obtained. But details of the hack, described to Reuters by people with direct knowledge of the case, highlight the concerns of national security experts who fear that campaigns
are woefully unprotected as the November mid-term elections approach."

SANDOVAL SITS IT OUT - Outgoing Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval, a Republican, won't endorse in the race to replace him. The AP reported that Sandoval confirmed his decision to not weigh in on the race in a statement. This came on the heels of an interview with The New York Times in which he talked about his feud with the Republican nominee Adam Laxalt, where he said that he "won't support a candidate that is going to undo anything that I put forward."

UPDATE ON NELSON'S HACKING CLAIM - Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) claimed earlier this month that Russians had penetrated the Florida election system, kicking off a firestorm. Nelson was cagey with reporters who asked him for more information, while state officials and the DHS said they had received no such information. But now, NBC News' Ken Dilanian reported that there is information to back up Nelson's claim: "[T]hree people familiar with the intelligence tell NBC News that there is a classified basis for Nelson's assertion, which he made at a public event after being given information from the leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee. The extent and seriousness of the threat remains
unclear, shrouded for reasons of national security. ...

"The sources say Nelson was not supposed to speak publicly about the matter, and he erred by suggesting that the information was new. Still, Nelson and Florida's other senator, Republican Marco Rubio, were asked to warn local officials about the ongoing threat to election systems by Russian state-sponsored hackers, two sources told NBC News."

- State officials are now scrambling for more information in light of NBC's story, McClatchy's Alex Daugherty and Greg Gordon report.

ALLEGATIONS IN PA-07 - Republican Marty Nothstein, the nominee in Pennsylvania's 7th District, is facing a sexual misconduct investigation. The Morning Call's Nicole Radzievich, Steve Esack and Tom Shortell: "Marty Nothstein was placed on unpaid leave from his decade-long post as executive director of the Lehigh Valley velodrome in February after its board was notified he was the subject of a sexual misconduct investigation. ... The unspecified misconduct claim was lodged with a U.S. Olympic-related organization and dates to an alleged incident from about 2000, the year Nothstein won an Olympic gold medal, according to a velodrome board email reviewed by reporters. ...

"In an interview Thursday at his campaign office, Nothstein called the accusations '100 percent false' and a 'political hit job' that began less than two weeks after he announced his bid for Congress last fall. He was placed on leave as he was campaigning for the Republican primary. He insisted law enforcement from the Lehigh Valley found the allegation baseless. ... The newspaper could not determine what the complaint alleges, whether the investigation is open or if Nothstein has been cleared of wrongdoing."

- Nothstein issued a lengthy statement Friday denying the allegations, saying "an anonymous tipster planted a clearly false allegation in hopes of triggering an investigation" and blasted The Morning Call's reporting. "I want to say to the voters of this district: these are false accusations, planted just days after I began my candidacy. The presumed 'victims' themselves deny such a thing happened. It's time to end this sort of politics," the statement said.

MIDTERM MESSAGING - Some Republican are worried the president's trade war could cost them seats in states like Iowa. The New York Times' Natalie Kitroeff and Ben Casselman: "Republican strategists worry that the simmering unease over [looming layoffs and financial uncertainty] may be enough to keep party faithful at home on Election Day in November. 'We need some wins,' [GOP Rep. Rod] Blum said in an interview. 'We need something to rally around, something good. If we could do a deal with Mexico, that would be great.' ... Economists are certain that if the tariffs remain in place, they will lead to layoffs, farm foreclosures and bankruptcies - but not right away. Iowa may feel only a subtle
effect by November, economists said, although any damage will almost certainly be felt in full by the time the state's first-in-the-nation presidential caucuses roll around in early 2020."

FIRST IN SCORE - POLLS POLLS POLLS - An internal poll from Democrat Hiral Tipirneni's campaign, conducted by Lake Research Partners, has her down 9 points to Rep. Debbie Lesko in Arizona's 8th District. Lesko beat Tipirneni by about 5 points in a special election in the district in April. In the preprimary fundraising period from July 1 to August 8, Tipirneni outraised Lesko. Tipirneni raised $248,000 and spent $101,000 with $446,000 cash on hand while Lesko raised $124,000, spent $36,000 and has $245,000 cash on hand. Neither is facing a serious primary challenge.

THE SUNSHINE STATE - Billionaire Jeff Greene's bid to win the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in Florida is dragging up his past legal fights. POLITICO Florida's Marc Caputo: "The list of people involved in lawsuits or liens against Greene over the years runs the gamut - from Hollywood director Ron Howard to the Coca-Cola Co. to a former campaign consultant to a slew of local contractors in his home county of Palm Beach. There, court records show, Greene has had at least $1.2 million in lawsuits and liens filed by 14 different contractors and companies against him since his unsuccessful 2010 Senate campaign, after which he sued the Tampa Bay Times for its tough coverage of his business
dealings and another story about wild parties on his yacht."

2020 WATCH - The RNC took the unusual step of attacking a Republican, chasitizing outgoing Ohio Gov. John Kasich. BuzzFeed News' Henry Gomez: "Bob Paduchik, the co-chair of the Republican National Committee, blistered Kasich - a Republican who might primary Trump in 2020 - in an op-ed that landed Friday at cleveland.com ... 'This is simply an initial shot being fired in the potential 2020 primary,' Henry Barbour, an RNC committee member from Mississippi, told BuzzFeed News. 'I don't think anyone should be surprised an RNC leader supports the sitting Republican president.'"

CODA - QUOTE OF THE DAY: "What are the worst-case outcomes? And when I look at it that way and then I put it in context of eternity, none of them are that bad," GOP Rep. Kevin Cramer on the possibility of losing the North Dakota Senate election to National Journal.

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