Subject: POLITICO's Morning Score: Labor leaders bemoan off-message Democratic Party — Pollsters try to explain how they got it wrong — Updates on California House races
From: "Morning Score" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 11 Nov 2016 09:03:58 -0600
List-Id: <1376319_6042659.xt.local>

By Elena Schneider | 11/11/2016 10:00 AM EDT

With Maggie Severns, Theodoric Meyer 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)

BLUE-COLLAR SLIPS AWAY FROM DEMOCRATS - "Democrats' blue-collar ambassadors bemoan party loss," by Campaign Pro's Maggie Severns: "The Democrats least surprised by President-elect Donald Trump's victory were the ones who have, for years, been trying to keep the party's grip on rural America from slipping away. Labor leaders and rural Democrats across the Great Lakes states and the rest of the Midwest saw a problem they have grappled with for years in Tuesday's high support for Donald Trump. Many of them spent 2016 as liaisons between blue-collar voters and a Democratic Party that is drifting away from them. Now they're hoping the party changes - and fearing it will simply decline. 'The
 difficulties that caused Trump's message to strike a chord with working people have been developing for a generation or two,' said longtime Ohio labor leader Joseph Rugola. 'I have talked over the last days and hours with a number of labor leaders who are disappointed, or concerned by the outcome. I haven't talked to too many who were shocked.'" Full story.

- "I said Clinton was in trouble with the voters I represent. Democrats didn't listen," by Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) in the Washington Post: "I was the crazy one. I predicted that Hillary Clinton was in trouble in Michigan during the Democratic primary. I observed that Donald Trump could win the Republican nomination for president. And at Rotary clubs, local chambers of commerce, union halls and mosques, I noted that we could see a Trump presidency. 'That's Debbie, it's hyperbole, she is nuts.' It's now our reality, and as Americans we need to understand why." Full story.

POLLING POST-MORTEM - "Pollsters tackle what went wrong," by POLITICO's Steven Shepard: "They know they screwed up. Pollsters have a few ideas why. It's possible Donald Trump's upset victory this week was powered by a surge of late deciders. Or the mysterious group often referred as "shy Trump" voters somehow escaped their radar. Many in the polling industry are also second-guessing their turnout modeling, trying to discern whether there's a serious flaw that went unnoticed. No matter the root cause, an industry already reeling from a series of misses in the United States and overseas is engaging is a round of serious introspection. While the data streams required to evaluate whether they
 modeled the electorate incorrectly - or whether Trump voters disproportionately wouldn't respond to polls - won't be available for months, already the nation's leading professional organization of pollsters is admitting they 'clearly got it wrong this time' and pledging to study the causes of the errors." Full story. 

NATIONALIZED MESSAGING GOES BAD - "Did Down-Ballot Democrats Rely Too Heavily on Trump?" by Roll Call's Simone Pathe: "House Democrats never thought they were in for a great night on Tuesday, but their scant gains are inspiring new questions about how the party wins congressional elections after several cycles of disappointment. Front and center, of course, is Donald Trump. How they missed the signs of Trump's surprise victory will be a bigger question for the entire Democratic Party (and Republicans and the media alike) for months to come. But for Democrats at the House level, there are questions about whether they relied too much on Trump to attack Republicans. 'Whoever suggested that the
 major Democratic message should be tying candidates to Donald Trump should be drawn and quartered,' said one Democratic strategist who works on House races." Full story. 

- WHO TAKES THE HELM? - Dean stands for DNC chairmanship, Ellison to make announcement Monday: "Rep. Keith Ellison isn't saying yet whether he's running for chairman of the Democratic National Committee, but he did say he'll have an announcement on that on Monday. ... Ellison's comment came the same day that former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, a former DNC chairman, announced that he would run to be DNC chairman. Other Democrats are likely to enter the race given that interim DNC chairwoman Donna Brazile has said she doesn't want to stay in the role permanently. Publicly, Ellison has been silent on his interest in running the organization but behind the scenes the Minnesota congressman has
 been talking to party insiders including Sen. Bernie Sanders about running for the job. On Thursday, Sanders said he wanted to see Ellison as chairman and the liberal outside group MoveOn.org also said Ellison would be 'excellent.'" Full story.

- "Warren: Ellison would make a 'terrific' DNC chair," by POLITICO's Cristiano Lima: Full story.

Days until the 2017 election: 361.

Days until the 2018 election: 725. 

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 continue to tweet about politics and occasionally about what we overhear on the Metro: @politicoscott, @ec_schneider, @politicokevin, @theodoricmeyer and @maggieseverns.

POLITICO'S TRANSITION TRACKER: With the election over, POLITICO has you covered with the latest breaking news in the transition of power in Washington. Stay on top of the latest in personnel hires, appointments and announcements specific to the new administration by signing up for our new mobile product available for iPhone users via Apple Wallet. Download the pass here.

2018 BEGINS - Villaraigosa joins California governor's race: "Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa will run for governor of California in 2018, his campaign announced Thursday. Villaraigosa, a Democrat, is running to replace Gov. Jerry Brown, who is term-limited. The field for the race is already crowded: Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom first announced in February 2015, and state treasurer John Chiang and former state education official Delaine Eastin have also announced. Former state Controller Steve Westly and billionaire hedge fund manager and environmental activist Tom Steyer are also considering bids." Full story. 
 
UNCALLED UPDATE - Up to 200,000 uncounted ballots in CA-49: The race between GOP Rep. Darrell Issa and Democrat Doug Applegate remains uncalled, with Issa leading Applegate 51.1 percent to 48.9 percent. A Democratic source tracking the ballot-counting estimates that at least 120,000 votes remain to be counted. Issa is currently 4,066 votes ahead of Applegate after more ballots were counted Thursday, up slightly from Issa's 3,979-vote margin earlier in the day. Congressional Democrats have typically gained in the late count in California in the past four years, like neighboring Democratic Rep. Scott Peters, who netted over 6,000 votes in the weeks after Election Day in both 2012 and 2014.
 It's possible that will not hold here or will not be enough for Applegate, especially if late movement in the race tilted ballots mailed later toward Issa, who has already issued a statement declaring victory. But recent history suggests it is far from assured.
 
 - Eggman refuses to concede in CA-10: The Associated Press called the race between GOP Rep. Jeff Denham and Democrat Michael Eggman on Wednesday, but Eggman has refused to concede until all the ballots are counted. "As expected, this race is incredibly close and it appears that there are at least 80,000 ballots, representing over one third of the vote, that have yet to be counted in the district," Josh Lord, Eggman's campaign manager, said in a statement. But Eggman trails by a significant margin: Denham is currently 7,422 votes ahead of Eggman, leading 52.4 percent to 47.6 percent.
 
TICKET-SPLITTING REPORT - We went over some key House districts yesterday and the extent to which GOP representatives in several battlegrounds (and Democratic incumbents in Minnesota) managed to outrun their presidential tickets. Surprisingly, ticket-splitting was not a major factor statewide in the battle for the Senate, despite months of pre-election polling showing gaps between the presidential and Senate candidates. Six Republican Senate battleground candidates ran within 1.1 percentage points of Trump in their states: Rep. Joe Heck (0.8 percentage points under Trump's vote share), Sen. Pat Toomey (0.1 points above Trump), Sen. Kelly Ayotte (0.5 points above Trump), Sen. Mark Kirk (0.8
 points above Trump), Darryl Glenn (1 point above Trump), and Sen. Richard Burr (1.1 points above Trump). Sens. Marco Rubio (+2.6), John McCain (+3.6) and Rob Portman (+6.2) stretched things further, but they - like Burr and Toomey - actually didn't have to do so to win, as it turned out.

 - However: It appears that Toomey and Trump, at least, arrived at their remarkable wins by different paths. More here.
 
CHANGES AT TARGETED VICTORY - "Major GOP tech player downsizes," by POLITICO's Darren Samuelsohn and Daniel Lippman: "The biggest player in Republican digital politics - shoved to the sidelines by Donald Trump's presidential campaign - is downsizing in the wake of the billionaire's surprise White House win. Targeted Victory, which rose out of the ashes of Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential campaign to employ more than 100 people and become the GOP's go-to technology consultant firm, will be splitting into two separate companies in January." Full story. 

UNFINISHED BUSINESS - NRSC vows (further) vengeance on Bayh: The 2016 elections might be over, but NRSC Executive Director Ward Baker told reporters at a pen and pad Thursday the party has plenty of work yet to do when it comes to harming Democrat Evan Bayh's reputation in Washington. "Let me be very clear: we are not done yet with Evan Bayh. Let me just say this: the oxygen's not even out of the room," Baker said. "... We had so much research on the failure that Evan Bayh is that we could only pitch it so much ... there's a lot more stories out here and I'm sure you're going to see a lot more." 

FIRST 100 DAYS - "Trump makes nice with Hill GOP," by POLITICO's Rachael Bade and Burgess Everett: "The Donald Trump-Paul Ryan courtship has officially begun. The two men, at odds for almost the entire campaign, were all pleasantries and compliments Thursday after a meeting on Capitol Hill that would have been impossible to fathom 48 hours ago. It was the surest sign yet that they're ready to leave their acrimony behind and take full advantage of an all-Republican Washington as the Trump administration kicks off." Full story.

PRESIDENTIAL SPEED READ - "Clinton aides blame loss on everything but themselves," by POLITICO's Annie Karni: "Sexism. The media. James Comey. On a call with supporters Thursday afternoon, top advisers John Podesta and Jennifer Palmieri pinned blame for Hillary Clinton's loss on a host of uncontrollable headwinds that ultimately felled a well-run campaign that execute a sensible strategy, and a soldier of a candidate who appealed the broadest coalition of voters in the country. They shot down questions about whether they should have run a more populist campaign with a greater appeal to angry white voters, pointing to exit polls that showed Clinton beat Trump on the issue of the economy.
 They explained that internal polling from May showed that attacking Trump on the issue of temperament was a more effective message. They offered no apology for the unexpected loss." Full story.

- "Trump tries the presidency on for size," by POLITICO's Shane Goldmacher: "It seemed almost normal. Barack Obama called Donald Trump 'Mr. President-elect.' Donald Trump called Barack Obama 'Mr. President.' And the two politicians from the farthest-possible poles in America politics, meeting for the first time, discussed the logistics of the peaceable transfer of power between them, and with it control of the world's mightiest military. For a candidate and a campaign that disregarded custom and shattered political norms with relish from the start, Trump, on his second day as president-elect, stuck closely to the script of the standards expected of presidents-elect. ... Only days ago, Obama
 had said that Trump was "unfit" for the Oval Office, the same place where they chatted on Thursday in leather chairs with a bowl of fresh apples in front of them." Full story. 

- "Trump Wants to 'Drain the Swamp,' but Change Will Be Complex and Costly," by The New York Times' Michael D. Shear and Gardiner Harris: "Mr. Trump repeatedly told voters during the campaign that he would shut down the Environmental Protection Agency and repeal the Affordable Care Act. He said the Education Department is 'massive, and it can be largely eliminated.' He has made the federal work force of 2.8 million employees a target, declaring that 'you have tremendous waste, fraud, and abuse.' But the one-time real estate mogul has largely avoided specifics about cuts he might make, and much of his agenda imagines changes that would require huge increases in federal spending: tripling the
 number of border patrol agents; supplying the military with more warships and fighter jets; increasing spending on infrastructure; undertaking new efforts to confront cyberterrorism; and aggressively working to remake trade policies. Whatever change he envisions will likely be vastly more difficult to enact than his army of supporters believe." Full story. 

- "Trump team's revenge," by POLITICO's Kenneth P. Vogel and Ben Schreckinger: "Donald Trump has 70 days to build a government and figure out how to run it, but some of his allies are spending the early days of his transition plotting revenge against those they believe slighted Trump - and them. Since Trump's shocking upset victory in Tuesday's presidential election, several people who worked on his team have discussed ways to punish Republicans who were hostile to the New York billionaire's anti-establishment campaign, including blocking them from administration or transition posts, or lucrative consulting work, according to a handful of people involved in the conversations." Full story. 

CODA - QUOTE OF THE DAY: "I was not expecting Donald Trump to win," Sen. Pat Toomey told BuzzFeed.

To view online:
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=bc0f7dc2e86882e82824730baa48e32f25e970065b6deebf705120fa0d64ea3d
 To change your alert settings, please go to http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=bc0f7dc2e86882e8dfac49ad15172b8e9732bb02a3effc74db84b61c03a0cb23 or http://click.politicoemail.com/profile_center.aspx?qs=c1c81b2ef644fde1dd3c1f6178ef6a8ea3ee660992025bd4cb93db4fb23937ba024b3cde380af07d31a150e3b8c3884116a21c1c2db278ad
This email was sent to [email-masked] by: POLITICO, LLC 1000 Wilson Blvd. Arlington, VA, 22209, USA

To unsubscribe,http://www.politico.com/_unsubscribe?e=00000158-53e7-d695-a1db-7be72f550000&u=0000014e-f0fe-dd93-ad7f-f8fffbc40000&s=9fde6cd3af9965a7f1cd9379d751bff56db20f92ab67cb90a1bc157e7ac11e0e2eb3afe3682da09b4c4c9378c19438981271d1a6487285f9f65aee9b1f842c0c