Subject: POLITICO's Morning Score: Georgia special election becomes a turnout battle — Strange opponents build campaigns ahead of SLF ads — Northam sends cease-and-desist to outside group backing him
From: "Morning Score" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 08 Jun 2017 08:03:57 -0600
List-Id: <1376319_6692417.xt.local>

By Daniel Strauss | 06/08/2017 10:00 AM EDT

With Kevin Robillard 

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)

IT'S ALL COMING DOWN TO ... - "Georgia special election becomes turnout battle," by Campaign Pro's Elena Schneider in Dunwoody, Ga.: "Democrats and Republicans alike are spending the final days of Georgia's special House election on a desperate block-by-block chase to turn out additional voters, believing they hold the key to a close race that has drawn outsized national attention. Publicly, Democrat Jon Ossoff and Republican Karen Handel are still hewing tightly to themes of cutting spending and being independent voices for Georgia, both in TV ads and during Tuesday's debate. But it's not clear that true, undecided swing voters even exist anymore in the Atlanta suburbs, after months of
 endless TV ads, mailbox-clogging fliers and heavy local news coverage...Already, over 12,000 people who didn't vote in round one have cast early ballots for the runoff between Ossoff and Handel, according to data from the Georgia secretary of state's office. Republicans have spent the two months since the April all-party primary chasing after thousands of known GOP primary voters in the past who didn't vote in the first round, when Ossoff came just over 3,600 votes short of winning the district without a runoff." Read more. 

ROLLING TIDE - "Strange opponents try to coalesce anti-establishment forces," by Campaign Pro's Daniel Strauss: "The top Republican primary opponents to Sen. Luther Strange aren't trying to outspend him - his campaign and allies could give as much as $10 million to reelect him. And they're not bothering to try flanking Strange, the former Alabama attorney general, on law and order. Rather, Rep. Mo Brooks and former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore - Strange's most dangerous primary rivals - are looking to build campaigns strong enough to attract help against Strange and his big backing from Senate Republicans, which is coming through next week in the form of outside-group TV
 ads ... On Tuesday, Moore named former state GOP chairman Bill Armistead, who has strong ties across the wings of the Republican Party in Alabama, as his campaign chairman. Brooks, meanwhile, nailed down talk-radio endorsements from Laura Ingraham and Mark Levin as he tries to expand his footprint beyond his district." Read more.  
 
- "Senate Leadership Fund starting pro-Strange ads next week," by Daniel Strauss: "Senate Leadership Fund and One Nation, the twin outside groups aligned with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, have moved forward TV ad reservations backing Sen. Luther Strange in Alabama's special Senate election. with SLF due to start airing ads next week." Read more. 

Days until the 2017 election: 151.

Days until the 2018 election: 515.

Thanks for joining us. You can email tips to the Campaign Pro team at [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked] and [email-masked].

You can also follow us on Twitter: @politicoscott, @ec_schneider, @politicokevin and @danielstrauss4. 

OL' VIRGINNY - Northam sends cease-and-desist to outside group: Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam's campaign sent a letter Wednesday night to the treasurer of a PAC, "Virginians For A Better Future," that has indicated it plans to attack former Rep. Tom Perriello. The race has avoided negative advertising so far. "I would like to continue this positive campaign in the fashion both I and Mr. Perriello have been conducting it: fair, open and from the candidate. This promotes needed transparency and accountability," Northam wrote in the letter, which was copied to the Perriello campaign and members of the media. "Any negative campaigning against my opponent will draw an immediate denouncement from my
 campaign. Therefore I am asking your committee to halt any and all spending that would constitute an attack on my opponent's record."

- Perriello loaned his campaign $150,000, according to the Virginia Public Access Project. 

- POLL POSITION - "Perriello internal poll claims tied Virginia Democratic primary," by Campaign Pro's Kevin Robillard: "An internal poll conducted for former Rep. Tom Perriello's campaign and obtained by POLITICO shows Perriello essentially tied with Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam in Virginia's Democratic gubernatorial primary. A HaystaqDNA survey, conducted from June 1-6, shows Perriello earning 37 percent of the vote to Northam's 36 percent, with 27 percent of voters still undecided. A polling memo says Perriello has rapidly closed the gap with Northam. In an early May poll, Northam led 38 percent to 24 percent, with 37 percent undecided." Full memo here.

- How all over the place has the polling been in the Democratic primary? Perriello's polling in early May had him down 14 percentage points, according to this memo. A second poll, from May 17 to 23, found him down eight percentage points. In between those two polls, the Washington Post-George Mason University poll found Perriello up two points. In other words: -\_(ツ)_/-

THE SOCIAL NETWORK - "Facebook rolls out features for elected officials," by POLITICO's Steven Overly: "Facebook debuted three new features today aimed at helping elected officials, political candidates and their staffs sort through the deluge of content on the social network to find the comments and news stories connected directly to their home districts. Facebook users can now use a feature called Constituent Badges to identify themselves as living in a representative's district by privately inputting their home address. ... Another feature called Constituent Insights allows politicians to track news stories and other content going viral among users in their district. ... Finally,
 politicians can now adjust their page settings so that messages or Facebook Live feeds are only broadcast to individuals living in their districts." Read more. 

REDISTRICTING WATCH - "Cooper says he'll call special session on redistricting," by the Raleigh News and Observer's Anne Blythe: "Gov. Roy Cooper, trying to put pressure on lawmakers to redraw state House and Senate election maps within the next two weeks, said he would call for a 14-day special session of the legislature. The session Cooper plans to call would run simultaneously with the ongoing regular session, which is due to end some time this summer. He said such a concurrent session is rare but not unprecedented. The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday affirmed a lower court ruling that found 28 legislative districts to be illegal racial gerrymanders that diluted the overall influence of
 black voters." Full story. 

WEST COAST OFFENSE - "Republican political operatives want to sell the dark arts of opposition research to tech companies," by Recode's Tony Romm: "A team of veteran Republican operatives is taking its talent for under-the-radar political muckraking to an unlikely place: The liberal-leaning, Democratic-donating, Donald Trump-hating tech epicenter of Silicon Valley. The newest startup setting up shop in the Bay Area is Definers Public Affairs, a Washington, D.C.-based outfit that seeks to apply the dark science of political opposition research to the business world. Their mission: To arm companies with ammunition to attack their corporate rivals, sway their government overseers and shape the
 public's opinion on controversial issues ... the firm's new Oakland-based operative - Tim Miller, who previously served as communications director to GOP presidential contender Jeb Bush - plans to do it with a decidedly Republican bent." Read more. 

ADMINISTRATION SPEED READ - "5 things to watch in Comey's testimony on Trump and Russia," by POLITICO's Kyle Cheney: "Fired FBI Director James Comey comes before Congress on Thursday with the power to plunge Donald Trump's presidency even deeper into crisis. Trump ousted Comey on May 9, amid an investigation into whether the president's associates aided a Russian effort to interfere in the 2016 presidential election. And on Wednesday, Comey described for the first time a series of uncomfortable interactions - in the months before his firing - in which Trump nudged Comey to publicly absolve him of any connection to the Russia probe. According to Comey's prepared testimony, the president also
 demanded loyalty and asked Trump to go easy on Michael Flynn, his former national security adviser, who is under FBI investigation." Read more.

CODA - QUOTE OF THE DAY: "Notwithstanding anyone's statements to the contrary, you did not initiate any physical contact with me, and I had no right to assault you. I am sorry for what I did and the unwanted notoriety this has created for you. I take full responsibility." - Rep.-elect Greg Gianforte (R-Mont.), in an apology letter to The Guardian's Ben Jacobs, via POLITICO.

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