Subject: POLITICO's Morning Score: Liz Cheney wins GOP nod in WY-AL — Don't expect Trump in every attack ad this fall — Portman defying Trump's August slump — Jolly getting no help from NRCC
From: "Morning Score" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 08:01:54 -0600

By Theodoric Meyer | 08/17/2016 10:00 AM EDT

With Maggie Severns, 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)

PRIMARY RESULTS - Liz Cheney wins Wyoming House GOP primary: Liz Cheney won the GOP primary for Wyoming's at-large House seat on Tuesday, clearing the biggest hurdle to Congress for the national security hawk and daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney. Cheney had 40 percent of the vote to state Sen. Leland Christensen's 23 percent when The Associated Press called the race with 73 percent of precincts reporting. State House Speaker Pro Tempore Tim Stubson took 18 percent and five other Republicans split the remainder of the vote.

- Cheney made a brief run for Senate in 2013, starting a long-shot primary challenge to GOP Sen. Mike Enzi for his seat. But Cheney dropped her bid after clashing with the Wyoming GOP establishment and feuding publicly with her family over gay marriage. This election, which kicked off after Republican Rep. Cynthia Lummis announced her retirement, the former Virginia resident spent more time campaigning in the state and raised far more money than any of her opponents. Full results: http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=3c52ddb9f92a011f4786f25f7ee68c13c11c3a127da97866df847d84df011932

- Murkowski wins primary in Alaska: GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski easily won her primary in Alaska, six years after an upset loss to a tea party challenger. (She hung onto her seat by waging a hard-fought write-in campaign.) With 29 percent of the precincts reporting, Murkowski led three challengers with 70 percent of the vote.

DOWN THE BALLOT - "Democrats lean toward non-Trump themes for early attack ads," by Campaign Pro's Kevin Robillard: "It's been the ad of Republican nightmares for months: 30 seconds of video running day and night on local TV in the fall, cutting together clips of candidates offering support for Donald Trump along with Trump's greatest hits, from mocking the disabled to insulting women. It may never actually happen in some battleground Senate states, say Democratic strategists preparing for the start of the fall TV ad blitz, while others say Trump-focused ads may come later, but not right at the start of heavy end-of-summer advertising."

- "Some Democrats increasingly believe more personal hits against Republican Senate and House candidates may actually be more effective than tying them to the GOP presidential nominee, while others say that voters won't accept a connection between Trump and their local candidates, despite Trump's unfavorable ratings hovering around two-thirds of Americans in recent polls. Others believe they still need to drive Trump's numbers even lower so attacks at the very end of the election will be maximally devastating. ... 'Their individual candidates have a lot to account for, said Martha McKenna, a media consultant who ran the DSCC's independent expenditure operation in 2012. 'Trump is the
 umbrella under which all politics is viewed right now. So why put him on air?'" http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=3c52ddb9f92a011f39a756d01b1ac0571144686b1af62a520aa0de96a08910bb

- "Portman avoids Trump slump - so far," by Campaign Pro's Maggie Severns: "While the GOP coalition at the top of the ticket appears to shrink daily as Republicans defect from Donald Trump, [Sen. Rob] Portman has rolled out a steady string of local labor endorsements highlighting his appeal. While Trump's sinking poll numbers appear to be causing problems for a growing number of congressional Republicans, Portman led Democrat Ted Strickland by larger margins than in the past, between 4 and 9 percentage points, in three recent public surveys. And while Republican outside groups talk about moving money down-ballot to help prevent a wave, the GOP nonprofit One Nation actually pulled a $2.8
 million Senate ad buy out of Ohio last week and spent money in other states instead." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=3c52ddb9f92a011f7adf97ab046fde51c849ece7aa9d1a8f657475c6c65f84b3

Days until the 2016 election: 83.

Days until the Arizona and Florida congressional primaries: 13.

Thank 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 get a response from Curt Schilling: @politicoscott, @ec_schneider, @politicokevin, @theodoricmeyer, @maggieseverns.

SCORE CORRECTION - Democratic Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick's Senate campaign says it raised $1.02 million in the pre-primary period, not $1.2 million, as we reported in Tuesday's Score. We regret the error.

BLACK SHEEP - "How the GOP abandoned one of its own," by POLITICO's Heather Caygle in Clearwater, Fla.: "Republicans say they're fighting for every seat in the House. Every seat except Florida Rep. David Jolly's, that is. The first-term GOP incumbent is running a lone-wolf re-election campaign, fighting for his political life as Democrats aim to unseat him with a big name in Florida politics, former Gov. Charlie Crist. But Republican leaders have left him for dead, after a falling out over money in politics, even though party strategists say they're doing everything they can to protect the GOP's House majority. 'When we win this, we will have done it our own way, with nobody owning us,'
 Jolly said in an interview, looking relaxed as he sat in the back booth of a local crab shack in his district on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=3c52ddb9f92a011ffeeafebcabca179d3a9990dc2561a9d270369400cb2922b0

FIRST IN SCORE - Super PAC backing McCain debuts new ad attacking his rival: Arizona Grassroots Action PAC, a super PAC supporting GOP Sen. John McCain, is out with a new TV ad today going after his primary rival, former state Sen. Kelli Ward. "Kelli Ward, a bold conservative? Think again," the ad's narrator says. "Kelli Ward sided with liberals in opposing a bill funding our military. She sponsored legislation that would have made Arizona vulnerable to a terrorist attack. In today's world, Kelli Ward's weak judgment is dangerous." The ad is airing statewide on TV and online ahead of the Aug. 30 primary. Watch the ad: http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=3c52ddb9f92a011f1c9725cfdc9568c2bea1abfb81cb5dfad3ba0a64e2b164bc

- The ad is a response to a spot from KelliPAC, a super PAC backing Ward, that alleges McCain "betrayed us on amnesty," "joined with liberal to bail out Wall Street" and "supported Hillary's disastrous war in Libya." (Watch the KelliPAC ad: http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=3c52ddb9f92a011f26316c14d5dde1f5e3564602e9b9b694954e3baa3300b6e8 McCain is still the strong favorite to win his primary, although Rep. Jim Bridenstine of Oklahoma, a Freedom Caucus member, because the third House Republican to endorsed Ward on Tuesday.

AIR LIFT - "Trump campaign to air first TV ads starting Friday," by Shane Goldmacher: "More than 100 days after he became the presumptive Republican nominee and with fewer than 90 days until the election, Donald Trump is planning to launch his first barrage of television ads in the battleground states starting this Friday. Trump will begin by airing ads in five key states: Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida, North Carolina and Virginia, Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks confirmed. The buys were first reported by the Wall Street Journal and CNN. Trump's ads come after months of relatively unanswered ads from Hillary Clinton and her super PAC, which have spent a combined more than $100 million flooding
 the airwaves, mostly with ads attacking Trump as unfit for the presidency in nine swing states. During the Olympics, for instance, a Clinton campaign ad highlighting that Trump-branded apparel was made in China and Bangladesh has run in heavy circulation." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=3c52ddb9f92a011f2b4a94f3f862f26462368a52d8aab5387ac25b665787ceba

- OLYMPIC METTLE - Clinton has spent over $13 million on advertising during the Olympics alone, per AP. That includes a national NBC buy, with ads running in noncompetitive areas like New York, as well as supplements in the battleground states. A number of other down-ballot campaigns have capitalized on Olympic viewership, too, to capture voter eyeballs as the summer winds down.

- Beware the copyright: One campaign may have gone a little too far trying to draft off the Olympics, though: Texas GOP Rep. Will Hurd started airing an ad last week saying that "rooting on America's athletes is a great reminder that we're all on the same team" and featuring the famous five-ring logo - a trademark the IOC guards jealously, as London shopkeepers found in 2012. Hurd's campaign has since tweaked the ad to remove the Olympic logo. "Out of an abundance of caution, we made sure we were not using copyrighted circle," Hurd consultant Josh Robinson said. "It's a message that, with the current the back and forth rhetoric of politics, we should remember that at the end of the day we
 are all on the same team. Go team USA." 

NEW THIS MORNING - Club for Growth debuts second ad backing Biggs in AZ-05: The Club for Growth's super PAC is going up with a second TV ad supporting Andy Biggs, who's running for retiring GOP Rep. Matt Salmon's seat in Arizona. The ad calls Biggs "a conservative through and through" and touts Salmon's endorsement of him. "Biggs is no slick carpetbagger," the ad's narrator says - a shot at Christine Jones, the wealthy former GoDaddy executive who lives outside the district. "His local roots are right here in the East Valley." The ad buy brings the Club's spending to more than $500,000 in the race race, which is likely to be one of the final two House primaries the group plays in this year,
 along with a Florida open seat. Both primaries are Aug. 30. Watch the ad: http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=3c52ddb9f92a011f20f5781bbd7a6c206db938b24cf431eff87f9ed6cae624a5

ON THE ROAD AGAIN - "Kevin McCarthy crisscrossing the country to save House GOP seats," by POLITICO Rachael Bade: "While many lawmakers are unwinding on vacation this August, or using downtime to visit family, Kevin McCarthy is on a mission: keeping the House firmly under Republican control. The House Majority Leader is hitting the road this recess to help protect the chamber's historically large majority, flying around the country to raise money for and stump with his colleagues." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=3c52ddb9f92a011f007bba46816a9f17d362edb4a4ef4fcdc8f69873ae9ea7cd

PRESIDENTIAL SPEED READ - "Trump accuses Clinton of 'bigotry' toward African-Americans," by POLITICO's Shane Goldmacher: Donald Trump made a new and explicit plea for the support of black voters on Tuesday, saying the Democratic Party had 'failed and betrayed' them and accusing Hillary Clinton of 'bigotry' in the pursuit of minority voters. 'We reject the bigotry of Hillary Clinton which panders to and talks down to communities of color and sees them only as votes - that's all they care about - not as individual human beings worthy of a better future,' Trump said at a rally in Wisconsin." He also used a Teleprompter at a rally for the first time. 
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=3c52ddb9f92a011f8798c02f155360da05dc721667430d0bd0298f9d2ef03402

- "Trump's shrinking electoral map," by POLITICO's Steve Shepard: "Donald Trump's path to the presidency is closing off, state by state. More than a half-dozen traditional, must-win battleground states are falling off the map as Hillary Clinton surges ahead of Trump in the polls. ... Florida? Clinton leads by 9 points in a new Monmouth University poll out Tuesday. New Hampshire? The most recent live-telephone poll there had Clinton up by 15 points. North Carolina, which has voted for the Republican in eight of the last nine presidential elections? Clinton led by 9 in a poll there last week." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=3c52ddb9f92a011f9fec6454c953917e95fa55696d081071ab4e417e5f8cbc0a

CODA - QUOTE OF THE DAY: "Joe Garcia and I have known each other for many years - 15, 20 years. Like in all relationships, I've had all sorts of exchanges with him - none of them violent. With Joe I have the best relationship in the world."- Miguel Cossio, the manager of a Spanish-language TV station in Miami, who denied reports that former Democratic Rep. Joe Garcia yelled at him after a debate on Monday. http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=3c52ddb9f92a011f19f04da966f101daac1cfd5164e9a51ef39134897f8b00bc

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