Subject: POLITICO's Morning Score: RUNOFF DAY IN TEXAS - Romney backs Stefanik in NY-21 - Poll: Graham above 50 in S.C. - Gallego leads Wilcox in AZ-07 - Santorum touts Clovis in Citizens United Iowa ad
From: "Morning Score" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 27 May 2014 08:04:22 -0600

By Emily Schultheis (
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[email-masked] ; Twitter: @emilyrs) and Jose DelReal (
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With help from Elizabeth Titus

The following newsletter is an abridged version of Campaign Pro&#39;s Morning Score. For an earlier morning read on exponentially more races - and for a more comprehensive aggregation of the day&#39;s most important campaign news - sign up for Campaign Pro today. (
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TEXAS RUNOFF PREVIEW - ANOTHER TEST FOR TEA PARTY: Today's handful of runoffs in Texas may go overlooked compared to the two big primary Tuesdays they're sandwiched between, but the Texas contests are another (albeit smaller) test of tea party strength in the country. The tea party's influence in Texas hasn't waned like it has in other states, in large part due to Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and the influence he's gained on the national stage. Just the fact that some of these runoffs are happening is a testament to the movement's power in the Lone Star State - unlike in North Carolina, for example, where the tea party couldn't keep Thom Tillis from avoiding a runoff entirely. As the Texas Tribune
 notes, however, many of these runoffs have been more defined by a strongly negative tone than by policy differences between the candidates (
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=b24274792f6612c8abb9214aca0dc676073c0686862c0eec05f4ec0f4ad65d04 
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=b24274792f6612c8abb9214aca0dc676073c0686862c0eec05f4ec0f4ad65d04 ).

ROMNEY BACKS STEFANIK IN NY-21: Campaign Pros knew it first: Mitt Romney is weighing in on races across the country this spring - and today he'll announce he's endorsing former Bush aide Elise Stefanik in New York's 21st District. Stefanik, also endorsed by former Romney running mate Paul Ryan, worked for the Romney campaign as Ryan's debate prep director. "After working with Elise, I know she will make the 21st District proud and she will deliver results," Romney will say in a statement. "Elise understands the needs of small businesses and how to grow the local economy. She is a person of integrity. Every campaign is different, but values don't change." The news comes the day that Stefanik
 will face off against businessman Matt Doheny in their first debate ahead of the June 24 primary. This is Romney's latest foray into a GOP primary: he also recently endorsed Oregon's Monica Wehby ahead of her May 20 primary (which she won), and is on his way to Iowa to campaign with GOP Senate candidate Joni Ernst ahead of her crowded June 3 primary.

FIRST IN SCORE - POLL FINDS GRAHAM AVOIDING S.C. RUNOFF: The question for South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham has never been whether he'll win his June 10 primary against a half-dozen relatively unknown challengers - it's whether he can get to the 50 percent necessary to avoid a runoff. A new poll suggests he can. The survey, conducted by TargetPoint for the right-leaning 501(c)(4) Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions and obtained by Score, put Graham at 56 percent, with his nearest opponent, Richard Cash, far behind at 7 percent. Of the other candidates, state Sen. Lee Bright took 6 percent, businesswoman Nancy Mace took 5 percent, pastor Det Bowers took 4 percent, and both Bill Connor
 and Benjamin Dunn were at 1 percent. (Fourteen percent of those surveyed said they were undecided.) In short, no challenger seems to be consolidating support to become the main Graham alternative - nor are the candidates collectively pulling enough support away from him to get him below 50 percent. Another data point suggests this will be a very low-turnout election: Just 19 percent of those surveyed correctly named the date of the June 10 primary, and 58 percent didn't even hazard a guess. Polling memo: 
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http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=b24274792f6612c89fb3a31a179a7f10681f01d1ee08d9bf7502b3a812ce37f1  and toplines: 
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As Rick Santorum cuts an ad for Sam Clovis, Texans head to the polls again and John Conyers gets a lucky ballot break, here&#39;s POLITICO&#39;s Morning Score: your daily guide to the 2014 midterms.

DAYS UNTIL THE ELECTION: 162.

Good Tuesday morning and welcome to the abridged version of POLITICO Campaign Pro's Morning Score, where your Score correspondent is wishing she were still relaxing on the beach in Bethany Beach, Delaware. Hope you enjoyed your weekend too - and Score will get you caught up on everything you missed! As always, send your tips, thoughts, and suggestions to 
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TODAY ON CAMPAIGN PRO - 

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Ralph Hall, in the fight of his life 

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Corbett-Wolf race takes shape in Pennsylvania 

FIVE QUESTIONS FOR THE WEEK AHEAD-

1) Does incumbent Rep. Ralph Hall survive his runoff challenge from fellow GOPer John Ratcliffe?

2) Can Will Hurd do what he couldn't in 2010 and defeat Quico Canseco for the GOP nomination in TX-23?

3) Will it be deja vu all over again for David Dewhurst in tonight's Texas lieutenant governor runoff?

4) Does the alleged conspiracy surrounding the illegal video of Thad Cochran&#39;s wife get any closer to primary challenger Chris McDaniel?

5) Does Joni Ernst get any closer to the magical 35-percent mark to avoid a convention?

TODAY ON POLITICO -

GOP WEIGHS NEW 'CONTRACT WITH AMERICA,' via POLITICO's Manu Raju: "With many election handicappers pegging a Senate takeover as a better than 50-50 proposition, the quandary of how specific they should get during the campaign underscores the difficulties Senate Republicans face transitioning from opposition party to governing party. While Republicans are in broad agreement over their principles, such as repealing Obamacare and opposing higher taxes, a new GOP majority would have its own challenges unifying behind an ambitious agenda. The policy agenda would be modeled after the 'Contract with America,' the 10-bill document that Republicans campaigned on en route to a historic takeover of
 the House in 1994." 
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MEDIA STARS IN SEVEN KEY STATES, via POLITICO's Hadas Gold: North Carolina: The Raleigh News & Observer's John Frank ... Louisiana: LAPolitics.com's Jeremy Alford (and the late John Maginnis, who passed away unexpectedly this weekend) ... Kentucky: The Lexington Herald-Leader's Sam Youngman and the Courier-Journal's Joe Gerth ... Arkansas: Talk Business's Roby Brock ... Colorado: The Denver Post's Lynn Bartels ... Alaska: The Anchorage Daily News's Lisa Demer. 
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EXCLUSIVE - GALLEGO LEADS WILCOX IN AZ-07 INTERNAL: In the race to replace retiring Rep. Ed Pastor, new internal poll has former state Rep. Ruben Gallego edging out Maricopa County Supervisor Mary Rose Wilcox in the competitive Democratic primary by six percentage points, 38 percent to 32 percent. The poll shows that 29 percent of those surveyed are still undecided with three months to go until the August 26 primary election - and two months before early voting begins on July 31. The survey was conducted by Lake Research Partners and commissioned by the Gallego campaign. (The poll of 401 likely primary voters was conducted May 20 to May 22 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9
 percentage points.)

NEW THIS MORNING - SANTORUM PLUGS CLOVIS IN CITIZENS UNITED AD Radio host Sam Clovis has had a hard time gaining traction in the Iowa Senate race, but the Citizens United Political Victory Fund is coming to his aid today with a $50,000 cable TV buy. In the group's ad, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum - the 2012 Iowa caucuses winner - praises Clovis's conservatism. "When I was campaigning across Iowa I had the privilege of meeting a lot of great folks. One of them was Sam Clovis," Santorum says in the ad. "Sam is a full-spectrum conservative: He is pro-life, pro-family and understands how to get our economy back on track." The ad begins running today and goes through the June 3
 primary. Watch: 
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=b24274792f6612c8649ec5da274ead50b28adcb3e98ee5477f5a869ef03f138f 
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FIRST LOOK - SULLIVAN TOUTS NATURAL RESOURCES TENURE: Alaska Republican Dan Sullivan will release a new ad today, this one focusing on his work as the state's Natural Resources commissioner. "They said our Cook Inlet oil and gas fields were dead: Companies were leaving, energy production was declining," Sullivan says in the ad. "But instead of giving up, we stood strong and turned this basin into a source of new energy for Alaska. Creating jobs and opportunity, increasing investment in energy security for Alaskans." The ad is similar to the kinds of ads Democratic incumbent Sen. Mark Begich has been running lately - very Alaska-specific, results-focused ads in which the candidates talk
 about a specific way in which they've delivered for the state. Sullivan is favored to win in the Aug. 19 GOP primary, when he'll face Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell and former U.S. Senate candidate Joe Miller. Watch: 
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QUICK HITS ACROSS THE MAP-

-NH-Sen: Sen. Kelly Ayotte and former Govs. Craig Benson and Steve Merrill will endorse Republican Scott Brown today. 
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http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=b24274792f6612c8a839342783b22a859253a5da9c23d7ee126e5fc478776082 

-MS-Sen: The AP gets interviews with both Sen. Thad Cochran (
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http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=b24274792f6612c8a5127033bc99fb70800d161c999b9ccdf15e67049bbcb8ce ) and state Sen. Chris McDaniel (
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http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=b24274792f6612c8adc76d55749fd5052dc9cc2f891b9be633e9cdc65c1f3691 ) ahead of the increasingly nasty June 3 primary.

-IA-Sen: Businessman Mark Jacobs put another $1.5 million of his own money into the campaign between April 1 and May 16, according to FEC pre-primary reports, bringing his total self-funding to more than $3 million thus far. 
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-AK-Sen: Democratic Sen. Mark Begich&#39;s ear got frostbitten while shooting his snowmobile ad, The New York Times reports in a profile of admaker Mark Putnam. 
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-PA-Gov: The four Democratic candidates for governor, including nominee Tom Wolf, met for a "unity breakfast" in Philadelphia on Friday. 
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-RI-Gov: GOP gubernatorial candidate Allan Fung released his first TV ad, emphasizing his experience as mayor of Cranston. The ad is backed by $100,000. 
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CODA - QUOTE OF THE DAY: "He&#39;s the bald-headed one on TV all the time now." --California GOP donor Merv Hall on GOP gubernatorial candidate Neel Kashkari, in a LAT piece on GOP donors' worries about the race: 
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