Subject: POLITICO's Morning Score: Decision coming for key Dem House recruit — Maine ballot measure could change voting system — Inside John Bel Edwards' victory
From: "Morning Score" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Nov 2015 09:02:00 -0600

By Theodoric Meyer | 11/30/2015 10:00 AM EDT

With Kevin Robillard 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)

DECISIONS, DECISIONS - Democrat says he's weighing a run in NY-19: Mike Hein, Democrats' top recruit for a swing seat in New York's Hudson Valley, told a local newspaper last week that he's considering a run and expects to decide sometime after Christmas. Democrats see the district, which President Barack Obama carried in 2012, as one of their best opportunities to flip a House district in 2016, but it's still waiting on Hein to make his decision. GOP Rep. Chris Gibson demolished Democrat Sean Eldridge last year, but Gibson isn't running for reelection next year as he eyes a campaign for governor in 2018. Hein, who was reelected this month as Ulster County executive, is the Democratic
 Congressional Campaign Committee's preferred candidate. A dozen Democratic county chairs sent Hein a letter last week urging him to run following his reelection. No Democrats have announced bids yet, and it's unclear who will run if Hein decides against it.

- That's not outside the realm of possibility: Frank Cardinale, the Ulster County Democratic chairman, told The Kingston Times that the chances Hein would mount a campaign were "50-50 at best." Again, this is one of Democrats' most tantalizing target districts on the 2016 map. http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=bd1346e5dc278a392ca9bda4f3910281005099c486c28d13e171e4aa20c70a94

- The race for the GOP nomination, meanwhile, is already well underway. Four Republicans are running, including two who pulled in big money in the third quarter. John Faso, the GOP's gubernatorial nominee in 2006, raised about $625,000, and Andrew Heaney, an entrepreneur, brought in about $646,000.

ROCKING THE VOTING SYSTEM - "Maine campaign could change how the state votes," by Campaign Pro's Theodoric Meyer: http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=bd1346e5dc278a39fa9865e0415bf74fddfd77ac76802e71f9ecbbf2e96f0833

Days until the 2016 election: 344.

Thanks for joining us. You can 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 occasionally about obedient nuns: @politicoscott, @ec_schneider, @politicokevin, @theodoricmeyer and @kyledcheney.

THE INSIDE STORY - How John Bel Edwards pulled off an upset win: Just three months before Louisiana's gubernatorial election, two top Democrats - former Sen. Mary Landrieu and state party Chairwoman Karen Carter Peterson - privately tried to convince John Bel Edwards to drop out of the race and run for attorney general instead. He didn't, and he went on to win an upset victory over Republican David Vitter. The Advocate's Tyler Bridges goes deep on how Edwards pulled it off, from his botched campaign announcement to a secret, last-minute robocall recorded by President Barack Obama that went out to African-American households at 5:30 p.m. on Election Day. 
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=bd1346e5dc278a39d7e0bf0968b539143dd12a4b67df09a3ee6785a694529109

FOCUS ON COLORADO - Koch groups invested heavily in the swing state: "The conservative political network connected to the billionaire Koch brothers spent millions in Colorado in 2014, according to new federal tax records," the Denver Post's John Frank reports. "The attention reflects the prominence of Colorado on the political map in 2014 - and offers a glimpse of what's to come when the spotlight returns in 2016." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=bd1346e5dc278a39b56479e3166b3648e203899f65e47de997c3108c0a009e2b

PRESIDENTIAL SPEED READ - "New Hampshire takes Clinton, Sanders on wild polling ride," by POLITICO's Annie Karni and Steven Shepard: "With just 71 days to go until the New Hampshire primary, public polls are offering little guidance on the state of the Democratic race in the first-in-the-nation primary. A slew of surveys in recent weeks suggests everything from a narrow Hillary Clinton advantage to a comfortable lead for Bernie Sanders." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=bd1346e5dc278a3964dd60825973242146b2ff75ee7d38d0bce5246d451aceab

- "Chasing endorsements, Chris Christie showers New Hampshire with calls and texts," by The New York Times' Michael Barbaro in Manchester, N.H.: Chris Christie has been aggressively calling and texting state and local officeholders across New Hampshire asking for their endorsements - and it seems to be paying off. His "slavish devotion to New Hampshire, and his painstaking cultivation of its political leadership, paid by far their biggest dividend on Saturday when the influential New Hampshire Union Leader newspaper offered him an unexpectedly early and forceful endorsement." Donna Sytek, a former state House speaker, is set to endorse Christie on Tuesday. 
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=bd1346e5dc278a398cbc5b7003eebaeeb0e5db6e45fd41a25d0b1cbbd4ef482b

- "Hillary Clinton's pothole politics," by POLITICO's Annie Karni in Boston: "Standing in front of a cheering crowd of 800 construction trade union members and supporters inside Boston's historic Faneuil Hall with Mayor Marty Walsh by her side, Hillary Clinton turned Sunday to a subject that she hasn't devoted much time to on the campaign trail: pothole politics. At an event billed as 'Hard Hats for Hillary,' Clinton unveiled a $275 billion infrastructure proposal to fix highways, trains, airports, aging sewer systems and the country's frayed electrical grid." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=bd1346e5dc278a39f408d45461f919a8ef3cdc245545ba87e0062906deaecee8

- Priorities USA Action has put out a new web video mocking the GOP candidates. http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=bd1346e5dc278a395927cc195c26b59db7f517e63598e128be150a19cd20db9c

- "Whisper campaigns and 'zipper problems': How Jeb Bush's allies tried - and failed - to stop Marco Rubio," by BuzzFeed News' McKay Coppins: Jeb Bush's campaign-in-waiting mounted a concerted effort to keep Marco Rubio from running for president earlier this year, code-named "Homeland Security." It included a whisper campaign conducted by Bush allies that Rubio wouldn't stand up to presidential vetting, Coppins reports in this piece, adapted from his new book. http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=bd1346e5dc278a39b238834197066ae9cfd3dab92335c8c61be7815de170bf9a

- "The 2016 ballot wars begin," by POLITICO's Shane Goldmacher: "Voting doesn't begin for another two months but some presidential candidates have already failed their first big ballot test - actually getting on the ballot in all 50 states. The business of getting a candidate's name on the ballot is a costly and complex endeavor, a major drain of money and manpower that threatens to weed out the most underfunded campaigns and strain the others in what remains a historically unwieldy Republican field. Some states require thousands of signatures to qualify; others charge tens of thousands of dollars. Nationally, the price tag for ballot access can soar well past $1 million - more money than
 some campaigns have left in the bank." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=bd1346e5dc278a395734a6cea62058f9b02f6f217d2ff76d2df468ac11e2bcc0

CODA - QUOTE OF THE DAY: "You run the 'Field of Dreams' campaign: Build it and hope they come. December is about nuts and bolts as others drop bombs left and right. It's a game of survivor." - Matt Beynon, a Rick Santorum adviser apparently unafraid to mix metaphors. http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=bd1346e5dc278a39140b6ff7aecf6ecfd59d0a1f9acd95a79c6a396fb7adb0f9

To view online:
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=4c71b4b88cba53268eea226dcda337dc377b047304b08bb9276a4034800e2537
 To change your alert settings, please go to http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=4c71b4b88cba532613ee71e040e3f7189a97ba05ba67500e1b68ad2cefe7012a or http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=4c71b4b88cba53267672598fa359533f045f6d0e54944f4ca2baa86bdc6ba7a0This email was sent to [email-masked] by: POLITICO, LLC 1000 Wilson Blvd. Arlington, VA, 22209, USA

To unsubscribe,http://www.politico.com/_unsubscribe?e=00000151-58e8-d973-a3dd-fbee8fbd0000&u=0000014e-f0fe-dd93-ad7f-f8fffbc40000&s=f7ce9477ee95ff268c1902de43f07e334153c58601571a32aff87f47e756119c0ba6868084e3f24590b333519b495dfe31b0db033745faf268683ea1af1e2acd