Subject: POLITICO's Morning Score: Grayson is running — Kirk outraises Duckworth — DGA will troll Matt Bevin
From: "Morning Score" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 09 Jul 2015 08:01:03 -0600

By Theodoric Meyer

With Elena Schneider and Kevin Robillard

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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A FLORIDA BATTLE ROYALE - "Democrats' primary nightmare comes true: Alan Grayson runs for Senate," by POLITICO Florida's Marc Caputo and Matt Dixon: After months of mulling it over, Florida Rep. Alan Grayson will announce that he's running for Senate. He'll face the less foul-mouthed, more moderate, Rep. Patrick Murphy in the Democratic primary. "The contrasts between the two are stark: Grayson is a progressive, hip-shooting firebrand beloved by hardcore liberals; Murphy is a cautious, scripted candidate favored by the Democratic establishment in Washington and Tallahassee. ... 'Murphy's people should be scared because the problem with Alan Grayson is he just doesn't give a damn,' said
 Screven Watson, a longtime Democratic consultant based in Tallahassee." 
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=b71def370035ef60d48805f78179718dc7554497e4cff4b9df65b749b6e726a7 
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- Murphy raised $1.4 million in the second quarter and has $2.5 million in cash on hand, his campaign announced on Wednesday. Murphy has a reputation as a strong fundraiser, banking $5.2 million and $4.8 million in his two runs for Congress. Reflecting the establishment support for his bid, Murphy received contributions from 18 Democratic senators this quarter, including Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin.

FIRST IN SCORE - DSCC executive director weighs in on Florida Senate race: In a memo set to go out on Thursday, Tom Lopach, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee's executive directors, outlines the reasons that "Republicans are about to endure one of the most damaging, costly, and overall nasty primaries in recent memory" in Florida's Senate race. He describes the four Republicans running or likely to run - Lt. Gov. Carlos Lopez-Cantera, businessman Todd Wilcox and Reps. Ron DeSantis and Jeff Miller - as "second-tier" recruits: "DeSantis and Miller's extremist voting records are unpalatable with a statewide audience. Lopez-Cantera has largely ignored his day job and will enter the
 race weighed down by a heavy load of ethical baggage. Wilcox is a newcomer to politics, a fact that he will undoubtedly remind voters of at every possible opportunity." Not mentioned in the memo: Alan Grayson.

CASH HUSTLE - Kirk edges out Duckworth in second-quarter fundraising: Illinois GOP Sen. Mark Kirk raised $1.35 million in the second quarter, a Kirk campaign official told Campaign Pro on Wednesday, barely edging out his likeliest Democratic rival, Rep. Tammy Duckworth. Duckworth raised $1.2 million, giving her $2.2 million cash-on-hand, her campaign said. The Kirk campaign official said the senator would end the quarter with $3.2 million on hand. Duckworth&#39;s total is nearly double that of Democratic primary rival Andrea Zopp, although Zopp didn&#39;t enter the race until about the midway point of the quarter. She raised a reported $655,000 by the end of June.

Days until the 2015 election: 117. Days until the 2016 election: 488.

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IF YOU'RE IN PHILLY - Campaign Pro's Kevin Robillard will be at the American Association of Political Consultants regional conference today in Philadelphia. Shoot him an email if you'll be there and want to chat: 
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CASH HUSTLE - Van Hollen outraises Edwards by almost 3-to-1 in second quarter: Maryland Rep. Chris Van Hollen raised nearly $1.5 million in the second quarter, outpacing his main rival for the Democratic Senate nomination, fellow Rep. Donna Edwards, by nearly $1 million. The campaign boasted it should have a cash-on-hand advantage of nearly 4-to-1 over Edwards, saying it would have more than $3.5 million on hand. Edwards didn&#39;t reveal her how much cash she had on hand last week when announcing she had raised $590,000 in the second quarter.

- EMILY's List, which has endorsed Edwards, is still behind her. "Donna Edwards is well-positioned to win in a competitive Democratic primary," Lucinda Guinn, the group's vice president of campaigns, wrote in a memo on Wednesday. "In just the first few months of her campaign, she has quickly established herself as a top contender for the Maryland Senate race." Guinn also noted that Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican, had been outraised and outspent in his campaign last year.

MORE SECOND-QUARTER NUMBERS - Peters brings in more than $500,000: California Rep. Scott Peters raised more than $500,000 in the second quarter, his campaign said, even as organized labor threatened to target him over his support of fast-track trade authority. He has $741,000 in cash on hand. The San Diego Democrat was singled out by unions, who threatened to spend a million dollars to derail his reelection efforts next year. Peters beat Republican challenger Carl DeMaio by a 3-point margin in 2014. Republican Jacquie Atkinson, an openly gay combat veteran, is running against him.

- Hurd raises $458,000 for TX-23 rematch: Texas GOP Rep. Will Hurd, who is preparing for a rematch against former Rep. Pete Gallego, raised $458,000 in the second fundraising quarter, his campaign said. He has $685,000 in cash on hand. The Republican freshman raised $529,000 in the first quarter of this year still had $73,000 in debt to his media consultant as of March 31. Hurd beat Gallego by two points last year in Texas' 23rd District, which stretches from the suburbs of San Antonio to El Paso.

- Zeldin challenger raises more than $500,000: Democrat Dave Calone brought in $505,000 in the second quarter, his campaign said on Wednesday, giving him more than $470,000 in cash on hand for his bid to unseat freshman New York GOP Rep. Lee Zeldin. Calone, a businessman and former federal prosecutor, is facing Anna Throne-Holst, the Southampton town supervisor, in the primary in New York's 1st District, which takes in the eastern half of Long Island. Neither Zeldin nor Throne-Holst has released second-quarter numbers yet, but Calone's haul eclipses the $457,000 Zeldin raised in the first quarter.

FOR WHOM THE BELL TROLLS - DGA TO LAUNCH #BevinKentuckyPics: After the Republican Governors Association&#39;s first ads in the Kentucky&#39;s governor race inadvertently featured photos of coal miners from Mexico instead of Kentucky, the Democratic Governors Association will spend Thursday on social media presenting what they're calling #BevinKentuckyPics: 'photos of what Connecticut's own Matt Bevin and his allies seem to think is the Bluegrass State.' The highlights include a photo of Jose Cuervo tequila as Bevin&#39;s preferred bourbon and a picture of Cozumel as Kentucky's Lake Cumberland.

-- The RGA launched its first ad in the race on Wednesday morning: One day after Democratic nominee Jack Conway hit the airwaves with positive spots, the Republican Governors Association attacked Conway in a new ad. Watch: 
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=b71def370035ef608dd57801af1274b03731f228f04745b581959553e5997f6d 
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=b71def370035ef608dd57801af1274b03731f228f04745b581959553e5997f6d 

PRESIDENTIAL SPEED READ - "Jeb's summer surge," by POLITICO's Eli Stokols: "Just two months after a flubbed question about the Iraq War seemed to imperil his presidential candidacy and a campaign shakeup hinted at disarray behind the scenes, Jeb Bush is back on top of the Republican field. Bush has jumped from 10.8 percent on June 15, the day he announced, to 16.3 percent Wednesday in the Real Clear Politics polling average, almost 6 points ahead of his nearest rival, Scott Walker. In New Hampshire, he's taken a similar lead. While the recent spike is unmistakable, the real question is whether it shows Bush is truly breaking away from the Republican pack. The very big pack." 
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=b71def370035ef608695ae6e29439f4eacffd427960a8bc038fcf7c01e7ff534 
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=b71def370035ef608695ae6e29439f4eacffd427960a8bc038fcf7c01e7ff534 

- "GOP leaders fear damage to party's image as Donald Trump doubles down," by The Washington Post's Karen Tumulty, Philip Rucker and Robert Costa: "The head of the Republican National Committee, responding to demands from increasingly worried party leaders, spent nearly an hour Wednesday on the phone with Donald Trump, urging the presidential candidate to tone down his inflammatory comments about immigration that have infuriated a key election constituency." The call from Chairman Reince Priebus "came after days of talks with Republican donors and officials about how best to manage Trump's outsize presence on the airwaves. Many financiers who are influential at the RNC have been fuming
 about Trump's ascent and told Priebus that he must ensure that the RNC's efforts over the past year to win more of the Hispanic vote is not harmed." 
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=b71def370035ef602029e08f676b0099202ec55a5f89c5c55ad1f88f8ad6a002 
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=b71def370035ef602029e08f676b0099202ec55a5f89c5c55ad1f88f8ad6a002 

- Political reporters and editors, meanwhile, are struggling with how to cover the "notoriously self-aggrandizing business mogul and reality television star who, despite reporters' contention that he can't win his party's nomination, is drawing an enormous audience by offering the media sensational quotes and highly clickable fodder," POLITICO's Dylan Byers reports. 
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=b71def370035ef6050683edf99b42f3ddcae7e70d9975c8419aba8f98870723a 
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=b71def370035ef6050683edf99b42f3ddcae7e70d9975c8419aba8f98870723a 

- "Why Scott Walker keeps dropping Marco Rubio's name as VP," by The Washington Post's Sean Sullivan and Jenna Johnson: "Scott Walker has yet to launch his presidential campaign, but the Wisconsin governor is already talking both privately and publicly about a running mate: Marco Rubio. This comes as news to Rubio, the freshman Florida senator who is running his own campaign to be president. The constant prodding from Walker has become an irritant between the two GOP rivals, neither of whom knows the other all that well." 
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=b71def370035ef60bf692bd3f04e2bd99c8015bf22990703e06752913903c3fc 
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-- Super PACs backing four long-shot GOP candidates are going up on the airwaves in Iowa and New Hampshire this week, Campaign Pro's Steve Shepard reports: 
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=b71def370035ef60424e18e771174c1e6653b5de0d31d58d492a1e89ea229fc3 
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=b71def370035ef60424e18e771174c1e6653b5de0d31d58d492a1e89ea229fc3 

CODA - QUOTE OF THE DAY: "It's very clear - very, very clear. Even I can understand it, and I'm French." - Maine GOP Gov. Paul LePage said on Wednesday that the state's constitution gives him additional time to veto 19 bills that he'd intended to send back to the legislature. Democratic lawmakers and the clerk of the Maine House disagree, saying LePage missed the 10-day window to veto the bills. "Get a life," LePage told reporters who asked him questions on Wednesday. 
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=b71def370035ef603cb20ae926193f30ed0241339211772dd28560275862c0f7 
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=b71def370035ef603cb20ae926193f30ed0241339211772dd28560275862c0f7 

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