Subject: POLITICO's Morning Score: House incumbents in Texas, Arkansas, Alabama nervously await Super Tuesday — Senate Republicans fiddle as Trump rises
From: "Morning Score" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 01 Mar 2016 09:03:00 -0600

By Theodoric Meyer | 03/01/2016 10:00 AM EDT

With Kevin Robillard, Scott Bland and Elena Schneider

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)

THE OTHER SIDE OF SUPER TUESDAY - "GOP House incumbents nervously await Super Tuesday," by Campaign Pro's Elena Schneider: "Congressional Republicans know a wave is coming Tuesday. They're just not sure where it will break. For the first time in 2016, record-smashing GOP presidential turnout will overlap with down-ballot primaries. In Alabama, Arkansas, and especially Texas - where operatives predicted more than 2 million voters could turn out - dozens of congressional incumbents will come face to face Tuesday with the forces driving Republicans' wild presidential campaign." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=4c4984fa77f9f005af10443e2ceb7cbd7a45ead9757f6218743847ae4bdcd91c

- Keep an eye on the Democratic side too: "We've heard it a lot out on the trail. People telling us, 'Is he really going to build a wall? How are we going to stop him?'" said Anthony Gutierrez, a consultant for Democrat Pete Gallego, who said he's closely watching El Paso and Maverick counties. "We're watching these key counties to see if there's an explosion of Latino turnout to say, 'We've got to stop this guy.'" 

INCUMBENT INDIFFERENCE - "Senate Republicans stand by as Trump marches to nomination," by POLITICO's Burgess Everett: "If Donald Trump becomes the GOP presidential nominee, Senate Republicans won't be remembered for their brave resistance. Though their precarious Senate majority is tied directly to the top of the ticket this fall, and most Republican senators believe Trump would drag down vulnerable incumbents, the Senate GOP has done little to stop Trump ahead of a potentially decisive Super Tuesday. Trump's refusal to repudiate the Ku Klux Klan in a Sunday interview - he disavowed David Duke in a Facebook post the day before, but declined to do so again live on TV - made lawmakers
 uncomfortable. But it did little to keep most Republican senators from swearing they will support the business mogul if he ends up being their nominee." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=4c4984fa77f9f005b6452cc7992c6ab46809b3c29aaa66840889e3a29597c43e

Days until the Louisiana primary, the Kansas caucuses, the Nebraska Democratic caucuses and the Kentucky and Maine Republican caucuses: 4. 

Days until the 2016 election: 253.

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INSERT SUNBURN JOKE HERE - "Clinton-Murphy backers cheer Grayson's 'lose-lose' Sanders endorsement in Florida," by POLITICO's Marc Caputo: "Florida Senate candidate Alan Grayson formally endorsed Democrat Bernie Sanders for president Monday, saying "I feel the Bern." Grayson-Sanders critics - who back Hillary Clinton and Grayson foe Patrick Murphy - say the congressman's endorsement exposes the fact that his coalition resembles the anemic support base of the Vermont senator in Florida. And if Grayson does as poorly as polls show Sanders will in Florida, Murphy could coast to his party's nomination for Senate. Murphy long ago endorsed Clinton. 'Grayson's endorsement of Sanders is a classic
 lose-lose proposition,' said Ben Pollara, a fundraiser for both Clinton and Murphy, who went on to referenced the House ethics investigation into Grayson's handling of his investments." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=18c29fe8b0c027b79d266d82bee45a88f16b09a68c264d3dc6d9f29037644e01

PRESIDENTIAL PICKS - One candidate votes Trump, the other Cruz in TN-04 GOP primary: The race for Tennessee's 4th District, where GOP Rep. Scott DesJarlais is facing Grant Starrett, a young lawyer, in the primary, is all about who can be more conservative. But the two candidates cast early ballots for different presidential candidates. DesJarlais told The Knoxville News Sentinel on Monday that he'd voted for Donald Trump, whom he had not endorsed beforehand. Starrett chose a different candidate: "Especially in the wake of the death of Justice Scalia, Grant felt like we needed someone to get the next Supreme Court nomination right: He voted for Ted Cruz," Tommy Schultz, Starrett's campaign
 manager, told Campaign Pro in an email. Tennessee's presidential primary is today, but the congressional primary isn't for another five months. http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=18c29fe8b0c027b783034856ddda843f634ac4bf8c5ecd827e1b6dddbd39776c

AIR WAR - EMILY's List super PAC to air more pro-Edwards ads: EMILY's List's super PAC is restarting its advertising campaign backing Maryland Rep. Donna Edwards for Senate today, with spots that will run in the expensive Washington, D.C. media market for the first time. The group's super PAC, Women Vote!, has purchased $430,000 worth of airtime in the D.C. and Baltimore media markets from March 1 to March 21, according to a media buying source. About $338,000 of the buy is going towards broadcast television, with another $92,000 planned for cable. The Women Vote! spots will be the first from either campaign in the D.C. media market.

- The new 30-second spot praises Edwards for standing up to big banks and supporting financial regulation. "For too long, Wall Street banks had their way," the narrator says over footage of bankers testifying before Congress and a shot of Edwards looking directly in the camera. Watch the ad: http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=18c29fe8b0c027b790737b70809e691d4aabb3b9f57352140509b997a4d0031c

FIRST IN SCORE - NRSC: GOP Senate is the 'last line of defense' in Supreme Court fight: The National Republican Senatorial Committee is out with a new web video that emphasizes the Senate (not a potential Republican president) as "the last line of defense" against a liberal-leaning Supreme Court. Specifically, the video says the upper chamber is the "last line of defense against a half-century or more of liberal activist judges" and notes Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton publicly mused about nominating President Barack Obama to the court. The video also notes the court could see "three more vacancies over the next four years." 
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=18c29fe8b0c027b7a29b6770b8100534a40e524500a43ba54b711020a189465c

- This message will look familiar to some from 2012 House battlegrounds, where Republican incumbents cast themselves as needed checks on Obama's authority to try and induce ticket-splitting.

FIRST IN SCORE - GOP Senate nonprofit launches new pro-Portman digital ads: The new video from One Nation, a nonprofit affiliated with the American Crossroads super PAC, touts jobs legislation co-sponsored by Portman and will run on Facebook for two weeks at a cost of $66,000. "Senator Portman's Jobs for America plan is a commonsense way to grow Ohio's economy," One Nation president Steven Law said in a statement. "Senator Portman is focusing on the right priorities for Ohio workers. ... Keeping good-paying jobs here." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=18c29fe8b0c027b7e5151375fa307b0ad4697d761e50e9f077a8646491ecde6e 

GETTING THE NOD - EMILY'S List endorses Minter in Vermont: EMILY's List is endorsing former state Transportation Secretary Sue Minter for Vermont governor, saying she "has the leadership experience and progressive values to move Vermont forward" and noting her work to clean up the state in the wake of Tropical Storm Irene. The endorsement could help Minter escape from what might be a crowded Democratic primary - and it highlights the paucity of women running for governor this cycle. Oregon Gov. Kate Brown is running for reelection, and Stefany Shaheen may still enter New Hampshire's governor's race. But across the nearly dozen contested governor's races in 2016, those are the only three
 female candidates. 

PRESIDENTIAL SPEED READ - "Trump closes in on Super Tuesday romp," by POLITICO Alex Isenstadt: Donald "Trump's march to the nomination has set off a wave of anxiety across the Republican Party establishment as top officials weigh whether to endorse him - or denounce him as anathema to the party's values. Reflecting that angst, on Monday morning, New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, the heads of the Republican Governors Association, convened fellow governors for an unusual conference call to discuss how the primary was unfolding - and Trump was a central topic of conversation. At one point during Monday's call, which lasted around 30 minutes, Kentucky Gov. Matt
 Bevin asked New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie to discuss last week's bombshell decision to back Trump." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=18c29fe8b0c027b78ae5abf751b4a28007554f93a0644d6a3295e9957a65fcd3

- Trump won his fifth congressional endorsement on Monday, from GOP Rep. Tom Marino of Pennsylvania, POLITICO's Daniel Lippman reports. http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=18c29fe8b0c027b7ea87958332707ac2d38a25903232612800ab775778aebc2f

- "Inside the Clintons' plan to defeat Donald Trump," by The New York Times' Amy Chozick and Patrick Healy: "In the days after Donald J. Trump vanquished his Republican rivals in South Carolina and Nevada, prominent Democrats supporting Hillary Clinton arranged a series of meetings and conference calls to tackle a question many never thought they would ask: How do we defeat Mr. Trump in a general election?" Clinton's "strategy is beginning to take shape, with groups that support Mrs. Clinton preparing to script and test ads that would portray Mr. Trump as a misogynist and an enemy to the working class whose brash temper would put the nation and the world in grave danger. The plan is for
 those themes to be amplified later by two prominent surrogates: To fight Mr. Trump's ability to sway the news cycle, Mr. Clinton would not hold back on the stump, and President Obama has told allies he would gleefully portray Mr. Trump as incapable of handling the duties of the Oval Office." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=18c29fe8b0c027b7db921c8ecddb7dff5a208df7ed6c096427ea207d0350535c

-"Warren's ghost hovers over Massachusetts primary," by Annie Karni and Gabriel Debenedetti: "Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are battling it out in Massachusetts ahead of the March 1 primary here - and the state's most important endorsement, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, is still sitting on the sidelines of the debate ... In part, that's because the progressive standard-bearer - and the only member of the state's congressional delegation who has not endorsed Clinton - is expected to play the role of peacemaker in the Democratic party at some point in the months leading up to the convention, sources familiar with Warren's thinking said." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=18c29fe8b0c027b73abaee41d7658ad4eed29c6904b5cf6501e780a2f95a5aa8

- "Kasich campaigns in search of voters who aren't ready to settle," by The Washington Post's David Weigel in Castleton, Vt.: "At two pre-Super Tuesday stops, in Vermont and in Springfield, Mass., [John] Kasich dismissed questions about his viability by arguing that he was the only Republican clearly defeating Donald Trump in a home state" - a line that might expire if Ted Cruz beats Donald Trump in Cruz's home state of Texas tonight. "I'm the most likely to win my state, between me and Rubio," Kasich told The Post. "He's behind 20 points in his own state. I've said if I don't win Ohio, it'd be time to pack it in. But I'm going to win Ohio, and it's going to be a new day when I win Ohio." 
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=18c29fe8b0c027b7bd6a03045f5eb0d73593803f34678a38d13f551da60841ff

CODA - QUOTE OF THE DAY: "These elections are just ... it's just depressing." - GOP Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, who declined to say tell The Associated Press whether he would vote for Donald Trump is Trump is the Republican nominee. http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=18c29fe8b0c027b7aa2c1be55a338daaa4046a5403d6983f263c50f684a314ef

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