Subject: POLITICO's Morning Score: Gowdy puts retirement rumors to rest — New polls show Clinton, Trump way up in New York
From: "Morning Score" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2016 08:11:53 -0600

By Theodoric Meyer | 03/31/2016 10:10 AM EDT

With Elena Schneider 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)

STILL IN - "Gowdy files for reelection, putting retirement rumors to rest," by POLITICO's Rachael Bade: "House Benghazi Chairman Trey Gowdy is officially running for reelection, filing paperwork that puts to bed rumors that the South Carolina Republican would retire once the Benghazi probe wraps up - at least for now. On March 18, the conservative darling quietly filed paperwork to run for a fourth term representing his deep-red district in the northwest part of the Palmetto State. Gowdy, however, has long flirted with calling it quits on the Hill, often joking that he'd rather be home watching sappy Hallmark movies with his wife than trudging through partisan warfare on the Hill." 
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=0222e5edc92e05fa843dff234f938c0d2f02e53c4a68f0a73898bb7799319604

Days until the Wisconsin primary: 5.

Days until the 2016 election: 222. 

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GETTING CLOSER - Marquette Poll: Wisconsin Senate race tightens: The Senate race in Wisconsin has tightened in the past month, according to a new Marquette University Law School poll. Democrat Russ Feingold still leads GOP Sen. Ron Johnson, 47 percent to 42 percent, among registered voters. But the margin has shrunk considerably since February's Marquette poll, in which Feingold led Johnson by 12 points. In the latest poll, 6 percent said they "didn't know" which candidate they'd back, and 4 percent of voters said they would choose neither candidate. Among likely voters, the race gets even closer: "Among those who say they are 'certain to vote' in November," Feingold took 48 percent to
 Johnson's 45 percent, according to the poll's Twitter account. Feingold retains a popularity edge over Johnson, though that too has shrunk. Forty-one percent of registered voters view Feingold favorably and 35 percent view him unfavorably, while Johnson's numbers stood at 32 percent and 31 percent, respectively. The poll of 1,405 registered voters has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.3 percentage points. The university conducted the poll March 24-28. 

- Johnson's campaign and a super PAC supporting him both cheered the results. "The latest Marquette poll shows there is no doubt that the race between Sen. Johnson and Russ Feingold is going to come down to the wire," Jim McLaughlin, the pollster for the Let America Work super PAC, said in a statement. "This is going to be a close race all the way to November and everyone knows it," said Brian Reisinger, a Johnson campaign spokesman. The Johnson campaign had previously argued that the Marquette poll's methodology was flawed when earlier polls showed Johnson trailing Feingold by a wider margin.

STAYING FAR, FAR AWAY - In UT-04, neither candidate will commit to voting for the presidential nominee: "Two fundraising emails sent by [GOP] Rep. Mia Love's campaign on Tuesday and written with a dramatic flair claim that [Democrat] Doug Owens endorsed Hillary Clinton for president," The Salt Lake Tribune's Matt Canham reports. "He has not. Nor is he close to doing so. In fact, Owens wants nothing - at all - to do with the Democratic presidential primary." Owens, who's challenging Love in a conservative district, didn't even participate in Utah's Democratic caucuses last week, and he "won't commit to voting for the eventual Democratic nominee." Love, who backed Cruz in the caucuses, won't
 say whether she'll vote for Trump if he's the GOP nominee. "I'm not going to answer that question," she said when asked by The Tribune. http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=0222e5edc92e05faa4cebbb6180fac513dd46230e2597cf82e512debf99d66a4

PRESIDENTIAL SPEED READ - "Wisconsin GOP rallies for Cruz, pines for Paul Ryan," by POLITICO's Katie Glueck: "Wisconsin's Republican establishment is publicly lining up behind Ted Cruz. Privately, it's killing many of them to do it. A substantial slice of Wisconsin Republican party veterans and business leaders can't stand Cruz's combative style in the Senate, abhor his hard line on immigration, could do without his heavy religious rhetoric and have misgivings about his general election prospects. But they're willing to swallow all of that to back their best hope of beating Trump, though some can't help but pine for Paul Ryan - or someone like him - coming out of a contested convention." 
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=0222e5edc92e05fa15ce9dba20bf4048793724d787190e9e31c2996bcbfdf7f6 

- "Top Clinton funders urge tougher attacks on Trump," by POLITICO's Gabriel Debenedetti in Seattle: "Hillary Clinton's high-level bundlers and donors are increasingly urging the campaign to direct more attention to Donald Trump, and begin the process of tearing the bark off the billionaire they expect will be the Republican nominee. In weekly conference calls, periodic meetings and closed-door campaign fundraising events, a vocal group of Clinton's top funders are calling for a more immediate and aggressive approach to Trump, reflecting a sense of urgency born of the real estate developer's domination of news cycle after news cycle." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=0222e5edc92e05fae1b4099f853bde9cef311f932132790741db878f366b8a9d

- "Trump, Clinton dominate New York primaries in new poll," by POLITICO's Steven Shepard: "Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are leading their respective fields in New York's presidential primaries, according to a new poll out today. The Quinnipiac University poll shows Clinton with a 12-point lead over Bernie Sanders, the Brooklyn-born Vermont senator, 54 percent to 42 percent. In the Republican race, Trump is way ahead, with 56 percent of the vote, to just 20 percent for Ted Cruz and 19 percent for John Kasich. A victory on April 19 by a margin resembling that of the new survey - particularly if Trump wins a majority of the vote overall and in many of the state's 27 congressional districts
 - would lead to a massive delegate haul for the GOP front-runner. If the polls are correct and both home-state candidates notch wins, it could help them regain their footing later in April - even if they lose Tuesday in Wisconsin." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=0222e5edc92e05faf2406e73eb1c2bdcd1b7337522be9a5d1dd4852b10a7ebb1

- "No, Bernie Sanders was not kicked off the D.C. ballot," by The Washington Post's Aaron C. Davis: "Somewhere in the course of raising $140 million for his White House bid, [Bernie] Sanders chose to use a tiny fraction of his haul to skip the hassle of collecting 1,000 signatures to get on the D.C. ballot. The self-described Democratic socialist instead went the capitalist route. He took advantage of a rule allowing any candidate running for president to buy a spot on the District primary ballot with a $2,500 donation to the D.C. Democratic State Committee." While a local Democratic activist has challenged Sanders on the issue, the Sanders campaign says it's confident Bernie will be on the
 ballot. http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=0222e5edc92e05fa1a7f150a2585ea38d11fa90959f774de6ec48a94546857f9

- "Clinton moves to lock down New York," by POLITICO's Annie Karni in New York: Bernie Sanders has tapped into progressive enthusiasm in his home borough of Brooklyn, but "he's struggling to infiltrate the historic black neighborhood in Upper Manhattan that's the heart of Clinton Country. Sanders is even having difficulty nailing down a venue for a rally. 'I heard from a reverend in Harlem that Bernie was trying to rent his church - the reverend called me and told me that he's not going to rent it [to the Sanders campaign]," said Rep. Charles Rangel, a longtime Harlem congressman and Clinton supporter who helped draft the former first lady to run for Senate in 2000. "We all have a
 commitment to Hillary Clinton." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=0222e5edc92e05faf72a89c089061be3dba3cff7b9e7aae24b6b0b1e312cd2fc

CODA - QUOTE OF THE DAY: "If I were in my car and getting ready to reverse and saw Donald in the backup camera, I'm not confident which pedal I would use." - Ted Cruz, on "Jimmy Kimmel" last night. http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=0222e5edc92e05fa262f3cdc41b5716f159abfb0bb5b97532b12c69dcc0761d1

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