Subject: POLITICO's Morning Score: Primary day in Virginia — How Ossoff departed from the progressive playbook in Georgia's special election — First super PAC ad in Alabama Senate race
From: "Morning Score" <[email-masked]>
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Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2017 08:05:18 -0600
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By Scott Bland | 06/13/2017 10:00 AM EDT

With Bianca Padr&oacute; Ocasio, Daniel Strauss and Kevin Robillard

PRIMARY NIGHT - "Virginia governor's primary: 5 things to watch," by POLITICO's Gabriel Debenedetti: "Every four years Virginia picks a new governor, and every four years the battleground state's results are read as a sign of what's to come in the following year's midterms. This year the focus is even more intense. GOP establishment favorite Ed Gillespie, a former Republican National Committee chairman, appears poised to resist a Trump-inspired challenger. But Democrats are torn between Lieutenant Gov. Ralph Northam, the longtime favorite, and former Rep. Tom Perriello, who unexpectedly jumped into the race in January after Donald Trump's win."

- "The state of the insurgencies: Perriello has tried hard to run as the outsider, leaning heavily on his endorsements from Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren to gain attention ... The cash gap: One reason many Virginia Democrats quietly expect Northam to win the tight race: he's outspending Perriello by a wide margin. ... How big is the electorate? A Northam victory would likely come from his base of support in Hampton Roads and Norfolk, while Perriello will likely need high turnout from the central part of the state, closer to the Charlottesville-area district he represented in Congress. ... For Perriello to pull out a victory, he'll need the electorate to expand beyond traditional
 primary voters." Full story. 

- Polls close in Virginia at 7 p.m. tonight.

NEXT WEEK - "Ossoff departs from progressive playbook in Georgia special election," by Campaign Pro's Elena Schneider: "The biggest beneficiary of the progressive 'resistance' opposes a push for single-payer health care or hiking income taxes and says he hasn't 'given an ounce of thought' to whether he will support House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi for speaker one day. Democrat Jon Ossoff has raised over $23 million this year from Democratic donors around the country looking to throw a wrench in President Donald Trump's first year by flipping Georgia's 6th District in a June 20 special election. But Ossoff has won their support - as well as near-unanimous backing from Democratic voters
 in the district, according to polling - without speaking like a liberal darling, instead adopting a centrist pitch in the traditionally Republican district. It has sparked accusations of hypocrisy from Republicans and some disappointment from ascendant progressives on Democrats' left wing. .... [I]t has turned Georgia into a prime example of how opposition to a president can paper over deeper ideological divides that split the Democratic Party. Full story. 

- MEANWHILE - Georgia special spending closes in on $50 million: That's according to the sum of campaign and outside-group spending currently in the FEC's database, as each additional dollar spent in Georgia sets a new record for a House campaign. The candidates - including Ossoff and Karen Handel's old primary foes - spent over $29 million combined through May 31, with $22.5 million of that coming from Ossoff, and the latest FEC reports include nearly $19 million of outside-group spending. Ossoff and Handel each had over $1 million in the bank at the end of last month, pretty much guaranteeing the total spend will cross $50 million by June 20. 

Days until the 2017 election: 147.

Days until the 2018 election: 511.

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. 

OFF MESSAGE PODCAST: "We, as a party, need to understand what happened," Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe says in the latest episode of Off Message. "My advice would be to Hillary, 'There's enough people that will do that and get that information out.'" McAuliffe sits down with Isaac Dovere in a wide-ranging chat that covers his disappointment with the 2016 election, Russia's efforts to interfere in American politics, efforts to reform the criminal justice system, and women's and LGBTQ rights. Listen and subscribe: iTunes | Panoply | Stitcher

FIRST IN SCORE - IMGE Insights poll shows Virginia toss-up: A new poll from the GOP firm IMGE shows former Rep. Tom Perriello and Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam tied in the state's Democratic gubernatorial primary. Perriello has 33 percent of the vote, Northam has 32 percent and 36 percent are undecided. The sub-group results match the narrative: Northam leads among those most likely to vote and those over 45 years old, while Perriello has large leads among both "low-interest" voters and ages 18 to 44. The two men are tied among black voters, and Northern Virginia is the media market up for grabs. On the GOP side of things, former RNC Chair Ed Gillespie has 36 percent of the vote, Prince William
 County Board of Supervisors Chair Corey Stewart has 22 percent and state Sen. Frank Wagner has 11 percent. The poll of 1,517 likely Virginia primary voters was conducted June 7-10 with a mix of live landline, live mobile and online interviews. Here's an analysis and topline results. 

- Another tidbit: Among Democratic primary voters in Virginia, Trump's approval stands at 6 percent, with 91 percent disapproval, including 80 percent who strongly disapprove. On the GOP side, his approval is 81 percent, with 15 percent disapproval. The strongly approve number on the GOP side, though: 53 percent. 

OUTSIDE GROUPS ON THE AIR - "First SLF ad frames Strange as 'Alabama's conservative,'" by Campaign Pro's Daniel Strauss: "Senate Leadership Fund's first TV ad in the Alabama Senate special election presents GOP Sen. Luther Strange as a conservative with a strong record on religious liberty, gun rights and fighting illegal immigration. 'When Barack Obama launched an assault on our religious freedoms, Big Luther Strange said "no way,"' the ad's narrator says. 'He stood up to Obama's illegal amnesty plan too. And fought for our Second Amendment rights, earning Big Luther an A+ rating and an endorsement from the NRA.'" Full story.

- "Majority Forward ad touts Manchin's work for miners," by Campaign Pro's Kevin Robillard: "Majority Forward, a nonprofit group controlled by allies of Senate Democratic leaders, is out with a new ad praising Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin for his work defending the coal industry in West Virginia The group is spending $500,000 on television and digital ads over the next three weeks. ... '[O]ur senator, Joe Manchin, has always been there for us,'" a narrator says in the ad. Full story.

MORE GEORGIA - NEW THIS A.M. - CLF releases final ad attacking Ossoff: Congressional Leadership Fund has released its final ad attacking Democrat Jon Ossoff in the Georgia 6th special election, criticizing him for refusing to debate Republican Karen Handel on CNN. "Ossoff ducked the CNN debate because he doesn't want to answer the tough questions," a female narrator says. "Ossoff doesn't want to talk about his national security exaggerations or how he doesn't live in our district, or why he'd rubber-stamp Nancy Pelosi's liberal agenda." Watch the ad here. 

- Democratic analytics firm TargetSmart shared an early vote analysis with Campaign Pro that found that the breakdown of voters is "fairly similar" to those who voted in the all-party primary, per Bryan Whitaker, chief innovation officer at TargetSmart. But, tracking with earlier estimates, nearly a quarter of the voters who have voted in the runoff did not participate in the primary. Of the new participants, 87 percent voted in November and 6 percent are newly registered. They are also more diverse, with Asian-Americans "showing the largest increase in share," Whitaker said via email. 

- DCCC releases GA-06 memo: The DCCC is out with a memo that lays out how and why they "invested substantial resources to flip this ruby red seat," but does not reveal any new developments a week out from Election Day. The DCCC emphasized the "$6 million to fundamentally transform a traditionally Republican electorate, turn out low-propensity voters, channel the unprecedented grassroots energy and communicate with swing voters." The memo also highlighted its outreach to African-American voters, putting in nearly $1 million in primary and runoff turnout. Read the full memo here. 

HOUSE WATCH - Another Democrat launches in GOP Rep. Kevin Yoder's KS-03: Democrat Andrea Ramsey, a former children's health nonprofit executive with Turner House who has never run for office before, will jump into the race for Yoder's seat Tuesday. 2016 nominee Jay Sidie and businessman and veteran Jonathan McConnell are already in; Sidie lost by more than 10 points in 2016, but Hillary Clinton carried the district by over a point over Trump - to whom Ramsey linked Yoder in a statement announcing her campaign.

- NO SLAMMER FOR SLAMMER - "Gianforte sentenced to 40 hours of community service for assaulting reporter," by POLITICO's Rachael Bade: "Congressman-elect Greg Gianforte was sentenced on Monday to 40 hours of community service and 20 hours of anger management as well as a $385 fine after he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor assault charge connected to an altercation with a reporter last month." Full story.

2020 WATCH - "McAuliffe looks past the Clintons, toward 2020," by POLITICO's Edward-Isaac Dovere: "McAuliffe has his own PAC, and his own plans: throwing himself behind the winner of Tuesday's Democratic [gubernatorial] primary for the job he can't run for again (which would be an important way of protecting a record he'd want to run on), spending all of next year campaigning for Democratic gubernatorial candidates around the country (which just might give him important beachheads ahead of 2020), urging his party away from the purity test purge that's all the rage these days." Full story. 

CODA - QUOTE OF THE DAY: "Well, hell, we're an institution that runs by numbers. You have to have votes, and there's just not enough of us here." - Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), to the Rutgers Center regarding women in Congress, in POLITICO's new Women Rule package.

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