Subject: POLITICO's Morning Score, presented by Sinclair Broadcast Group: Democrats attack Toomey's bank ties — Indiana Senate poll shows 1-point race — House Democratic groups ready TV in two new California seats — Q&A with Harry Reid
From: "Morning Score" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 07 Oct 2016 08:02:39 -0600
List-Id: <1376319_5915453.xt.local>

By Theodoric Meyer | 10/07/2016 10:00 AM EDT

With Kevin Robillard, Maggie Severns 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)

WITH OR WITHOUT CRUZ - "Ayotte fundraises with Cruz after ad implicitly criticizes him," by Campaign Pro's Kevin Robillard: New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte released an ad Wednesday morning in which she implicitly bragged about standing up to Texas Sen. Ted Cruz over the 2013 government shutdown. Thursday night, Cruz [helped] Ayotte raise money to keep that ad on TV." Full story.

- A Boston Globe/Suffolk University poll Thursday showed Ayotte leading Democratic Gov. Maggie Hassan, 47 percent to 41 percent, as the two trade advantages in public polls this week. Republican Chris Sununu led 40 percent to 36 percent over Democrat Colin Van Ostern in the governor's race. More here.

BANK SHOT - "Bank Toomey founded to become Pennsylvania flashpoint," by Campaign Pro's Kevin Robillard: "Wall Street ties have ... played an especially big role in Pennsylvania's key Senate race, where Democrats have portrayed GOP Sen. Pat Toomey as too close an ally of banks and Wall Street - and where Toomey's ties to the industry also include a major financial stake in a small bank he cofounded. While sitting on the Senate Banking Committee, Toomey owned between $500,001 and $1 million in stock in Team Capital Bank, from 2010 to 2014. His ownership of the bank, while little discussed so far, looks set to become a focal point of Democratic attacks in the final weeks of his reelection run.
 The bank also used a controversial foreclosure method called a 'confession of judgment' to foreclose on at least 21 homes in the state that were used as collateral by small business owners, even as Toomey fought against consumer protections for mortgages in the Senate, repeatedly opposing the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau."

- "Nothing Toomey did was illegal or violates Senate ethics rules, and his campaign notes he was far from the only senator to have interests in industries they regulated. At least one other Banking Committee member - Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota - also owns stock in banks, while multiple members of the Senate Agriculture Committee own farms or ranches. Opposing stiffer bank regulations is also the de facto Republican position. But mere ties to Wall Street test badly with voters in 2016 - as Hillary Clinton found when her paid speeches to the financial industry became a campaign issue." Full story. 

CAN'T GET MUCH CLOSER - Bayh 42, Young 41 in new Howey Politics/WTHR poll: "The latest poll of Indiana's blockbuster Senate campaign shows a 1-point race, with former Democratic Sen. Evan Bayh essentially tied with Republican Rep. Todd Young. The new WTHR/Howey Politics Indiana poll has Bayh at 42 percent and Young at 41 percent. The previous iteration of the survey, which was conducted by the GOP firm Public Opinion Strategies, showed Bayh at 44 percent and Young at 40 percent in September. ... Multiple internal Democratic polls from earlier this fall showed Bayh with a large lead, but Monmouth University and Howey polls conducted since then all showed Bayh with smaller leads. Public
 Opinion Strategies polled 600 likely voters for Howey Politics Indiana and WTHR from Oct. 3-5." (Public Opinion Strategies is also Young's pollster.) The margin of error is plus or minus 4 percentage points. Story here.

- Gregg 41, Holcomb 39 in Indiana governor's race: The poll also has Democrat John Gregg running close with Republican Lt. Gov. Eric Holcomb in the governor's race, with Libertarian candidate Rex Bell drawing 5 percent.

Days until the 2016 election: 32.

Days until the second presidential debate: 2.

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 constantly about campaigns. That's it. We're barely a month out! @politicoscott, @ec_schneider, @politicokevin, @theodoricmeyer and @maggieseverns.

THE SCORE INTERVIEW - "Q&A: Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid," by Campaign Pro's Elena Schneider: "Sen. Harry Reid is headed for the exits, but before he's out the door, he shared parting shots at the Koch brothers, Donald Trump, Joe Heck - and the state of American polling," which happens to show Heck winning right now.

- "What do you think about that [Nevada Senate] race right now? Where does it stand? You've been dismissing the polls? I think American polling is such a joke. I felt this way for a long, long time - I've always disliked polling. ... But here's what's going to happen in Nevada. I've always been a pessimist, that's just my nature, which is good for me because I'm not disappointed as much as a lot of people who are very optimistic about everything. But in spite of my base pessimism, I'm convinced that this election is turning. What Trump has done in the last couple of weeks, you can't overcome that. You can't do it." Read the full interview here. 

AIR SUPPORT - DEMOCRATIC GROUPS TO SPEND IN TWO NEW HOUSE DISTRICTS - DCCC reserves millions on TV in Issa's district: "The DCCC is reserving ... TV airtime in an effort to oust GOP Rep. Darrell Issa in California, the clearest signal yet that the race has become a top priority battleground for House Democrats. ... Several Democratic polls ... have shown a close race, and a new DCCC poll released Thursday morning showed Applegate with a narrow [46-42] lead. But another poll conducted last month for Issa's campaign found Issa with a 14-point advantage." Full story.

** A message from Sinclair Broadcast Group: Sinclair Broadcast Group, the largest and most diversified television broadcasting company in the country today, delivers not only TV, the primary medium for reaching potential voters, but also targetable digital (mobile, video, email, social media and native) ad solutions. Contact Alan Brittan @ 703-236-9673. Sinclair, busy - Making Political Ads Work! **

- House Majority PAC to hit the air in CA-21: "House Majority PAC is [this week] coming to the aid of Democrat Emilio Huerta, who's challenging GOP Rep. David Valadao in California, expanding House Democrats' efforts into a district that has not seen major independent expenditure investment yet. ... Valadao's campaign is on the air with TV ads, but Huerta's is not." Full story.

CASH DASH - Toomey campaign raises $5 million in third quarter: GOP Sen. Pat Toomey raised $5 million for his campaign in the third quarter and another $1.1 million for two joint fundraising committees backing his bid, his campaign said Thursday.The campaign didn't release a cash on hand number, but he led Democrat Katie McGinty in cash on hand at the end of the second quarter, $7.7 million to $2.4 million. McGinty announced earlier this week she raised $5.1 million for her campaign and another $1.2 million for joint committees backing her.

- Fundraising numbers are flying in key House races, too. In IA-03: Democrat Jim Mowrer raised $630,000 in the third quarter. In MN-02: Democrat Angie Craig raised $917,690 during the third quarter, giving her more than $900,000 on hand. In NY-01: Democrat Anna Throne-Holst raised $1.2 million in the third quarter, according to her campaign, one of the best totals of any challenger this cycle.

ICYMI - Campaign Pro's Thursday ad roundup here. More new ads to start your Friday here.

IF YOU NEED ME, POLL ME - Sununu, Van Ostern tied in New Hampshire Democratic poll: The Save the Children Action Network, which is backing Democrat Colin Van Ostern in the New Hampshire's gubernatorial contest, commissioned a poll that finds the race between Van Ostern and Republican Chris Sununu tied at 44 percent, with Libertarian candidate Max Abramson drawing 6 percent. Forced to chose between Van Ostern and Sununu, Van Ostern took 47 percent to Sununu's 46 percent. (Van Ostern has not led in an independent poll.) Sununu is much better known, at 90 percent to Van Ostern's 62 percent. Greenberg Quinlan Rosner conducted the poll of 500 likely voters. The poll also found Democrat Hillary
 Clinton leading Donald Trump 46 percent to 38 percent in the presidential contest. Read more here. 

- GOP poll: Duckworth 41, Kirk 37: Democrat Tammy Duckworth leads GOP Sen. Mark Kirk 41 percent to 37 percent, according to a new poll released by the Kirk campaign. In the presidential election, Hillary Clinton leads Donald Trump 50-33, according to the Kirk campaign poll. GS Strategy Group surveyed 600 likely voters Oct. 4-5. The margin of error is plus or minus 4 percentage points. The pol release follows an independent survey from the Paul Simon Institute that showed Duckworth up double-digits. Read the polling memo here.

- MT-AL Democratic poll: Zinke 45, Juneau 42: "A Democratic internal poll shows GOP Rep. Ryan Zinke with a narrow lead in a tight Montana race, a different picture than the one shown by a GOP internal poll just released by Zinke's camp (and a tighter margin than another Democratic poll last month). Zinke has a slim lead, 45 percent to 42 percent, over Democrat Denise Juneau in the poll of Montana's at-large district conducted by Harstad Strategic Research." More here.

-FL-07 GOP poll: Mica 52, Murphy 34: A poll conducted for the NRCC and GOP Rep. John Mica's campaign shows him with a double-digit lead over Democrat Stephanie Murphy in a Florida swing district. But the poll comes with a major caveat: It was conducted three weeks ago, just as Murphy was hitting the air and before House Majority PAC went up with ads backing her and attacking Mica. Mica went up with his first ad this week. Democrats insist the race is much closer, and a DCCC poll conducted last month found Mica with only a 3-point lead. The GOP poll was conducted by Cherry Communications Sept. 13-15 and surveyed 406 likely voters. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9 percentage
 points. Here's the full polling memo.

PRESIDENTIAL SPEED READ - "Lobbyist advised Trump campaign while promoting Russian pipeline," by POLITICO's Ben Schreckinger and Julia Ioffe: "A Republican lobbyist was earning hundreds of thousands of dollars to promote one of Vladimir Putin's top geopolitical priorities at the same time he was helping to shape Donald Trump's first major foreign policy speech. In the first two quarters of 2016, the firm of former Reagan administration official Richard Burt received $365,000 for work he and a colleague did to lobby for a proposed natural-gas pipeline owned by a firm controlled by the Russian government, according to congressional lobbying disclosures reviewed by POLITICO." Full story. 

- "Clinton preps final-stage blitz against Trump," by POLITICO's Gabriel Debenedetti in White Plains, N.Y.: "Hillary Clinton is walking into the final stretch of this 2016 presidential contest with as much cash at her direct disposal as any White House contender in history. And her operatives expect her to use it to blanket the battleground states with both organizers and a heavy dose of anti-Donald Trump ads. In-state Democratic operatives are planning for a significant tranche of the money - coming from the $150 million Clinton's campaign and associated accounts had in the bank to start October - to be added to the previously announced $80 million television investment her team previewed
 at the start of this final phase, on top of other paid media and a heavily-funded get-out-the-vote push." Full story. 

- "White House coordinated on Clinton email Issues, new documents show," by The Wall Street Journal's Byron Tau: "Newly disclosed emails show top Obama administration officials were in close contact with Hillary Clinton's nascent presidential campaign in early 2015 about the potential fallout from revelations that the former secretary of state used a private email server. Their discussion included a request from the White House communications director to her counterpart at the State Department to see if it was possible to arrange for Secretary of State John Kerry to avoid questions during media appearances about Mrs. Clinton's email arrangement. In another instance, a top State Department
 official assured an attorney for Mrs. Clinton that, contrary to media reports, a department official hadn't told Congress that Mrs. Clinton erred in using a private email account." Full story.

CODA - QUOTE OF THE DAY: "Ok Andrew, Here you go. 2 friends, minor disagreement, and it's now all good. Congrats on your new gig. Sean" - Sean Hannity, in response to CNN's Andrew Kaczynski, who tweeted that he would "love to know the back story" behind nearly identical tweets from Fox News' Megyn Kelly and Hannity on Thursday night. "We're Irish. It's complicated. #friends," Kelly tweeted.

** A message from Sinclair Broadcast Group: You're in the final days battle up to election day. As you execute your final push, remember voters will be deluged on overdrive with political messaging - everywhere. In a more fractured media environment, where reach is the real game, it would be wise to consider stepping up your TV advertising, in partnership with Digital ad solutions, to help ensure victory. Sinclair Broadcast Group, the largest and most diversified television broadcasting company in the country today, can help you break through the clutter. Utilizing both TV, the primary medium for reaching potential voters and targetable digital (mobile, video, email, social media and
 native) ad solutions, Sinclair Makes Political Ads Work! The bottom line is -- winning elections. At the Sinclair Broadcast Group, we have the ad tools necessary to help you to persuade, enlighten and activate voters. Contact Alan Brittan, Sinclair's Director of Political Ads for more details @ 703-236-9673 **

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