Subject: POLITICO's Morning Score, presented by Carr Workplaces: Increasing concern about Paul’s Senate seat — Peters raises $420,000 in CA-52
From: "Morning Score" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 09 Oct 2015 08:03:53 -0600

By Theodoric Meyer | 10/09/2015 10:02 AM EDT

With Kevin Robillard, Elena Schneider, Isaac Arnsdorf and Marc Caputo

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)

CONCERN IN KENTUCKY - "Republicans fret about Paul's Senate seat," by Campaign Pro's Kevin Robillard in Frankfort, Ky.: "Rand Paul is under increasing pressure from Republicans here and in Washington to pull the plug on his stagnant presidential campaign and instead recommit his resources to keeping his Senate seat in GOP hands. D.C. Republicans think Paul's poll numbers have flat-lined - and operatives worried about retaining control of the Senate are ready for him to start spending a lot more time in Kentucky and a lot less time in Iowa and New Hampshire. 'This presidential dream needs to come to an end,' said a national Republican strategist, granted anonymity to discuss Paul's situation
 candidly. 'Senate Republicans can't afford to have a competitive race in Kentucky.'" http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=e6fe843e3cffce9faa2854877cab170ebde3a90ea4737531c36ce8679efd3bad

HOUSE IN TURMOIL - "The House GOP's historic implosion," by POLITICO's Jake Sherman, Anna Palmer and John Bresnahan: Who might run for speaker now that Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) is out of the running? "The general consensus inside the House Republican Conference is that there is just one man standing who can garner the 218 votes needed to be speaker: Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan. He has resisted calls to run in the past, but the top two Republicans - [current Speaker John] Boehner and McCarthy - have asked him to reconsider. He has canceled his fundraising appearances for the next 48 hours, and is considering a bid.Republicans are floating the names of other lawmakers, including Reps. Lynn
 Westmoreland of Georgia, Mike Conaway and Bill Flores of Texas, John Kline of Minnesota and Tom Cole of Oklahoma." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=07285584bb922385bc15210d092c554e36f854df34a5df3eabae84c3ea3f5d9f

- Boehner has said he'll stay on as speaker until the House elects a new one, but hasn't addressed whether he'll push back his scheduled resignation from Congress on Oct. 30. (He could theoretically remain speaker after he resigns, since there's no requirement that the speaker be a member of the House.) Kevin Smith, a Boehner spokesman, told Campaign Pro that no decision had been reached yet on whether Boehner might postpone his resignation. Ohio Gov. John Kasich has not set a date for the special election to fill Boehner's seat, in Ohio's 8th District, and Josh Eck, a spokesman for Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted, said it was likely Kasich would wait for the House to elect a new speaker
 before he did so. "I suspect he'll see how this all plays out before he sets an election date," Eck said.

Days until the 2015 election: 25. Days until the 2016 election: 396.

Thanks for joining us. Email tips to the whole Campaign Pro team at [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked] and [email-masked].

You can also follow us on Twitter, where we tweet a lot about campaigns and more than occasionally about the Mets: @politico_steve, @kyledcheney, @ec_schneider, @politicokevin and @theodoricmeyer.

FIRST IN SCORE - Peters raises $420,000 in third quarter in CA-52: Rep. Scott Peters (D-Calif.) raised about $420,000 in the third quarter, giving him more than $1 million in cash on hand, his campaign told Campaign Pro. It's a sizeable haul for a candidate who isn't facing a well-financed opponent. Jacquie Atkinson, the openly gay combat veteran who's challenging Peters for his San Diego swing seat, hasn't announced her third quarter numbers yet, but she only pulled in about $40,000 in the second quarter.

POLLING UPDATE - Poll: Majority wouldn't reelect Guinta: Five months after a campaign finance scandal nearly toppled GOP Rep. Frank Guinta, most people in Guinta's New Hampshire district still say that won't vote for him if he runs for reelection next year, according to a new poll released Thursday. The WMUR-TV poll, conducted by the University of New Hampshire, found only 4 percent of respondents said they will definitely vote for Gunita if he's on the ballot next year. An additional 16 percent would consider voting for him, while 56 percent said they would definitely vote for Guinta's opponent. Those numbers are essentially unchanged from when pollsters asked the same question in July.

- Guinta has insisted that he'll run for reelection despite calls by GOP Sen. Kelly Ayotte and other top New Hampshire Republicans this spring for him to step down following his admission of campaign finance violations during his 2010 campaign. Half said Guinta should resign his seat, up slightly from 44 percent in July. Only 22 percent of respondents said Guinta should continue to serve out his term, while 28 percent said they didn't know. The poll's margin of error is plus or minus 5.6 percentage points.

- Full results: http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=07285584bb922385336264fceb74e485e1417506ba52f10be737da302ef813a1

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AIR WAR - Republican Governors Association going up in Louisiana: The Republican Governors Association is making a seven-figure expenditure in political advertisements attacking state Rep. John Bel Edwards, the only major Democrat running in Louisiana's gubernatorial race," The Times-Picayune's Julie O'Donoghue reports. "The television spots are expected to run across the state for two weeks before the Oct. 24 primary." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=07285584bb922385ffa744df01c09e5903e6533f48010ad597da54309c593a8a

- Democrats took it as a sign that Edwards is doing something right. "This is a clear sign that Republicans are worried about John Bel Edwards and the race in Louisiana," Jared Leopold, a spokesman for the Democratic Governors Association, told Campaign Pro in a statement. "Just last week, the RGA was saying they wouldn't have to spend in Louisiana until after the primary. Clearly, they must have been spooked by the momentum on the ground in Louisiana."

GETTING IN - State senator to challenge Webster as he seeks House speakership: Democratic state Sen. Geraldine Thompson will officially announce that she's challenging GOP Rep. Daniel Webster on Monday, entering what could be a crowded Democratic field to topple Webster as he continues his moonshot run for House speaker. Thompson's decision to run for Webster's seat - which is almost certain to become much more Democratic due to redistricting - has been in the works for months. http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=07285584bb92238578d2c30cc28b9f3427d6623a7a0bb57e37bbda7ec7c3cfe4

MERGERS AND ACQUISITIONS - Mark Penn's private equity group to buy SKDKnickerbocker: SKDKnickerbocker, the Washington PR firm with deep ties to Democrats, is being bought by Mark Penn's investment firm. Penn, a former pollster and political strategist, worked on Bill Clinton's 1996 campaign with Bill Knapp, a managing director at SKDK. Penn left Microsoft earlier this year to start a Stagwell Group, a private-equity firm focused on digital marketing with backing from Steve Ballmer, the former Microsoft CEO. SKDK, which also has offices in New York, Albany and Los Angeles, has worked on political and corporate campaigns from Washington State's ballot initiative on gun background checks to
 the U.S. Airways merger. Anita Dunn, another managing director, was White House communications director and senior adviser to President Obama's presidential campaigns. http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=07285584bb922385a589a650f8d8fe261f2c419b322e0d1b2bed071f4d46f9c1

PRESIDENTIAL SPEED READ - "Clinton donors place side bets on Biden," by POLITICO's Annie Karni in Denver: A Denver-based philanthropist who in May was appointed to the board of the pro-Hillary Clinton PAC Correct the Record has stepped down from the position and donated to the campaign to draft vice president Joe Biden into the race, POLITICO has learned. LGBT rights activist Scott Miller and his husband, mega-donor Tim Gill, each gave $25,000 to Ready for Hillary last year and have supported her candidacy and the coordinating rapid response PAC. But the couple, who over the years have given millions to progressive candidates and causes, are close to Biden and his potential entry into the
 race has changed the calculus for them." They've given $50,000 to Draft Biden now. http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=07285584bb922385d18e9bc3013bcea6dbab17e39061f26eb5a71e9e465b7f5e

- "Ted Cruz raises $1.2 million in third quarter," by POLITICO's Alex Isenstadt: "Ted Cruz raised $12.2 million during the third quarter, aides to his presidential campaign confirmed Thursday, a significant haul that underscores his strength even as other 2016 contenders lead in the polls. The senator's tally for the period surpasses the $6 million raised by rival Marco Rubio and the $2.5 million collected by Rand Paul. But it falls short of the $20 million reportedly collected by Ben Carson, who is surging among the evangelical voters Cruz has been courting." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=07285584bb922385ef5f5c306703cd5c07f684fbb1e54d07e1553ba5a4fce029

- "Cirque du Trump," by POLITICO's Ben Schreckinger in Las Vegas: "Donald Trump had been scheduled to answer questions before the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in Washington on Thursday. Instead he retreated here, to his comfort zone - Cirque du Soleil's Myst&egrave;re Theatre at Treasure Island Hotel and Casino on the strip - and put on a show. ... Though Trump's candidacy has thrived on conflict, he pulled out of the Hispanic Chamber event last Friday, a day after POLITICO reported on the tough line of questioning the group's leaders had planned for him there." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=07285584bb922385293fdabc56dd8074cf7f1648ae367e824ced26e578710248

- "Did the Trump campaign make a 'mysterious' site attacking Rubio (and violate FEC rules)?" by BuzzFeed News' Andrew Kaczynski: Late Wednesday afternoon, Dan Scavino, an aide to Donald Trump, tweeted about a new website, www.rubioamnestyplan.com , that mocks Marco Rubio. It's pretty vicious. "Rubio's only accomplishment in Congress has been to betray the American people," the site blares. Scavino was the first person to mention the website, which was registered this week on Twitter. The campaign did not respond to inquiries from BuzzFeed News about whether they'd created the site. But if they did, it would be a violation of Federal Election Commission rules, which require candidates and
 committees to post disclaimers on public website that they create. http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=07285584bb92238531184a61a2dd93527ed59b5048100b4d5c3578c81937f4b4

CODA - QUOTE OF THE DAY: "Minnesota loves Franken. Let me tell you something, I made Minnesota great again." - Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.), doing his best impersonation of Donald Trump at a Minnesota business dinner on Thursday night. (Source: @politicoalex) http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=07285584bb922385fbbeed3db6da0c6e2ce5e864f0ab98b0134f1478fd5c67c2

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