Subject: POLITICO's Morning Score: CRUZ, SANDERS SCORE WISCONSIN WINS — Dems duke it out in Pennsylvania Senate debate — Bacon hits TV in NE-02
From: "Morning Score" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 06 Apr 2016 08:02:20 -0600

By Elena Schneider | 04/06/2016 10:00 AM EDT

With Kevin Robillard and Theodoric Meyer

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)

ALL THEY DID IS WIN - "Cruz wallops Trump, setting up delegate brawl," by POLITICO's Shane Goldmacher: "Ted Cruz scored a decisive victory in Wisconsin on Tuesday, defeating Donald Trump and seizing most of the state's 42 delegates in a win that boosted the odds of a historic contested convention this summer. ... Cruz's Wisconsin win was thorough. Exit polls showed him winning Republicans of every age, every level of education, and every level of income. His strongest base was 'very conservative' voters, which Cruz carried with nearly two-thirds of the vote. As significantly for the states to follow, Cruz turned in his strongest performance to date among non-evangelicals, at least among
 states that had exit polls, beating Trump in that group 43 percent to 35 percent." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=22a8ae898eea3367ab95a18fa22242572e0827db0d7394b2d3d6a3c9c890e5e4

- "Sanders blows by Clinton in Wisconsin," by POLITICO's Nick Gass: "Bernie Sanders scored a decisive victory in the Wisconsin Democratic primary Tuesday night, racking up his seventh victory in eight contests against Hillary Clinton as the race barrels toward a critical showdown in New York. Sanders' victory kicked off a critical two-week stretch for the Vermont senator, who is trying to show he can become a genuine threat to topple the front-runner in the home stretch of the presidential primary and not merely dog Clinton until the July convention in Philadelphia. Sanders relished the win at a rally in Laramie, Wyoming, ahead of the state's Saturday caucuses, telling supporters he was
 written off as a 'fringe candidacy' when he launched his campaign 11 months ago." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=22a8ae898eea336708c176efcde6347ebadd10069c5297d8618328710e782d96

HOLDING COURT - Wisconsin state Supreme Court Justice Rebecca Bradley won reelection Tuesday night, beating back a liberal challenge as the state voted in presidential primaries. Bradley, an appointee of GOP Gov. Scott Walker, led challenger JoAnne Kloppenburg 53 percent to 47 percent with 88 percent of precincts reporting. Bradley's win preserves conservatives' 5-2 advantage on the state Supreme Court. National progressive groups had taken an early interest in the race due in part to the court's role in overseeing redistricting in Wisconsin.

SPRINT TO THE PRIMARY - "Democrats trade shots in Pennsylvania Senate debate," by Campaign Pro's Kevin Robillard: http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=22a8ae898eea3367c240513dfd20dced26668fd2555b7e62862cdd516d151c65

- New robopoll - McGinty closes the gap, but still trails by 10 points: A new Harper Polling survey of the Pennsylvania primary contest has Sestak earning 41 percent of the vote to McGinty's 31 percent. Fetterman is a distant third with just nine percent. The silver lining? McGinty's actually closed the gap since the last Harper robopoll in March, which had her down 13 points. But it suggests Sestak is going to be very, very hard to knock down: Seventy percent of likely primary voters have a favorable opinion of him, with 36 percent describing their opinion as "very favorable." Only 15 percent have a negative opinion. McGinty is also well-liked, with 63 percent of likely voters having a
 favorable opinion and 17 percent having an unfavorable opinion. http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=22a8ae898eea33677881dd5dcd3bed12f9c367c343d5868417fabf3fb7976b8e

Days until the New York primary: 13. Days until the 2016 election: 215. 

Thanks for joining us. You can email tips to the whole Campaign Pro team at [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 earthquakes: @politicoscott, @ec_schneider, @politicokevin and @theodoricmeyer.

SLOW DEBATE NIGHT IN COLORADO - Eight candidates in Colorado's Republican Senate primary met in an hour-long debate Tuesday night, as several of them head into a do-or-die weekend stand. Donald Trump dominated the first ten minutes of conversation, where all eight candidates said they would support him if he were the eventual Republican nominee. Several candidates went after former state Rep. Jon Keyser, who's picked up significant establishment support, for his lack of experience and conservative credentials, including one testy exchange between Keyser and businessman Robert Blaha, who told Real Clear Politics that Keyser was a "nice young kid who isn't qualified to be in the Senate."

- Keyser responded that "while [Blaha was] writing his books on leadership, I was leading on the battles of Iraq and Afghanistan." But little attention was paid to Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet. There was little mention of the Iran nuclear deal or the potential relocation of Guantanamo Bay prisoners to a Colorado correctional facility, issues which are frequently panned on the campaign trail. Two candidates - Jack Graham, former athletic director at Colorado State University, and El Paso County Commissioner Peg Littleton - came out in favor of a woman's right to an abortion, but with limitations. Four candidates - Ryan Frazier, Blaha, Graham and Keyser - will likely get on the primary
 ballot through signature petitions filed Monday, but the rest must attempt to get at least 30 percent support at the state's assembly on Saturday.

FIRST IN SCORE - Ross campaign launches Burr attack microsite: North Carolina Democrat Deborah Ross will go after Republican Sen. Richard Burr in a new site called BadNewsBurr.com, which goes lives today. The site will initially highlight Burr's "Supreme Court partisan obstruction," with a web video, according to a statement from the Ross campaign, but the site will expand to "deliver Senator Burr's real record to North Carolinians." 

NEW HAMPSHIRE CONTROVERSY - "Hassan apologizes for keeping Schubart on 2012 list of campign supporters," by NH1's Paul Steinhauser: "Gov. Maggie Hassan Tuesday apologized for keeping a Phillips Exeter Academy history teacher, who had admitted to sexual misconduct, on her list of supporters during her first run for [governor] in 2012. ... After admitting to sexual misconduct, Schubart was required by Hassan's husband, Tom Hassan, who was principal of Phillips Exeter Academy at the time, to retire and remove himself from campus housing. But the instructor was able to keep his emeritus status with the prestigious boarding academy." Hassan: "I did sense that something was wrong when Mr.
 Schubart abruptly left campus and I should have worked more actively to review my public supporter and steering committee lists and remove him from it and I apologize for that." "Hassan's comments to NH1 News go further than late last week, when the governor defended keeping Schubart on the list, saying she didn't have enough details about the case to turn away small contribution. ... Asked how her husband handled the controversy in 2011, Hassan said on Tuesday that 'I think it is also clear that in balancing privacy and transparency, the school didn't get it quite right. And both the school and my husband have apologized for that and I think it would be very appropriate for a review of
 what they did to take place.'" http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=22a8ae898eea336765501511144bc02b4ae6a5145b10e6965947d19357ef11ee

RGA LINKS DEM CANDIDATES TO CLINTON, SANDERS, OBAMA - The Republican Governors Association is up with a new website linking Democratic gubernatorial candidates across the map to Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. The site tracks who the candidates have endorsed in the race and labels them as "supports Obama's third term under Hillary" or "supports Obama's third term under Bernie."While these Democrat candidates are misleading voters in their states and making false promises, their outspoken support for Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders shows that their top priority is electing Barack Obama for a third term," the RGA's Jon Thompson said. http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=22a8ae898eea33676cb799cf59b5472d79d4d9dd1cf4c0905eee714a9a7c162d

AIR WAR - "Senate Leadership Fund has released its first-ever TV ad, a positive spot backing GOP Rep. Todd Young in the contested Republican primary in Indiana's Senate race. The Senate-focused GOP super PAC, which is run by longtime American Crossroads President Steven Law, a former Mitch McConnell aide, is backing Young after its sister nonprofit group, One Nation, released an ad touting Young's opposition to the Iran nuclear deal in March." Watch the ad: http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=22a8ae898eea336757e38fe5cf31b7b42a882f7d8622a5f5a2e977fd080f3a26

- In Nebraska ... Republican Don Bacon hits airwaves in NE-02 ahead of GOP primary: http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=22a8ae898eea33674b1177f8333f7298918c10fae100e561924e8def1ff57c0d

PRESIDENTIAL SPEED READ - "Top RNC officials meet to discuss contested convention details," by Anna Palmer and Jake Sherman: "Top officials at the Republican National Committee explained the intricacies of a contested convention Tuesday afternoon to roughly two dozen veteran GOP operatives. The meeting at the RNC's Capitol Hill headquarters included a discussion about bound delegates and how the party will organize the timing of multiple rounds of balloting, according to operatives who attended. RNC officials made the case that there is plenty of time built in during the convention to strategize between ballots, according to one attendee." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=22a8ae898eea3367e0bb4635f14d022277e0fdddf62e62c1d7abc64ddcba890a 

- "Trump campaign in disarray," by POLITICO's Kenneth P. Vogel, Ben Schreckinger and Eli Stokols: " ... Since March, the campaign has been laying off field staff en masse around the country and has dismantled much of what existed of its organizations in general-election battlegrounds, including Florida and Ohio. ... As the final stretch of this hard-fought GOP primary bogs down into a delegate fight among party insiders and operatives that likely won't be decided until the July convention in Cleveland, Trump's singular star power appears to be no longer enough - and his campaign's months-long lack of attention to other fundamentals is emerging as a hindrance to his ability to clinch the
 nomination outright. ... At the moment, though, Trump's team appears to be something of a patchwork group without much experience - partly because so many staffers are being fired." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=22a8ae898eea3367a61107b40606c0ca61c75339ec6fab5483f9526c93ed9391 

- "Michigan GOP: Leave Trump's delegates alone," by POLITICO's Kyle Cheney: "Donald Trump has been battered in the hunt for loyal delegates to the Republican National Convention, suffering loss after demoralizing loss to Ted Cruz. But Michigan Republican leaders are closing ranks around the struggling front-runner with a stern message: hands off Trump's delegates. Though Cruz has outmaneuvered Trump in state after state, local Michigan GOP officials say a delegate fight that fails to reflect the results of the state's March 8 primary - when Trump handily defeated Cruz and John Kasich - would rip the party apart. And they're working aggressively to prevent it." 
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=22a8ae898eea3367f978239065d61856303f79abe6ce6743882ca0e38f056a0a 

- "Sanders details process for breaking up banks following criticism over New York Daily News interview," by The Washington Post's John Wagner: "The paper's editorial board published a transcript Monday of its full interview with the senator from Vermont, setting off a wave of criticism from the campaign of Hillary Clinton and its allies, as well as political commentators. Sanders, who has long decried the influence of Wall Street institutions, was pressed during the interview Friday for specifics on how he would force the breakup of the country's largest banks. During the interview, he acknowledged being uncertain about some of the particulars of current law and what would need to change.
 ...The statement outlines a process that Sanders largely detailed during a January speech in New York just blocks from Wall Street." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=22a8ae898eea336736971bea80ca7926487e04d4a3353b4cd47b71aca7e2903a 

CODA - QUOTE OF THE DAY: "Either before Cleveland, or at the convention in Cleveland!" - Ted Cruz, girding supporters for the road ahead in his victory speech Tuesday night.

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