Subject: POLITICO's Morning Score: Anti-Heller ads released and pulled back as Senate GOP seethes at Trump — New polling shows GOP health plan in bad shape in Senate states — Inside the GOP’s surprise health care flop
From: "Morning Score" <[email-masked]>
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Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2017 08:03:37 -0600
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By Elena Schneider | 06/28/2017 10:00 AM EDT

With Kevin Robillard, Maggie Severns 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)
 
VOTE DELAY - "Republicans delay Obamacare repeal vote until after recess," by POLITICO's Jennifer Haberkorn and Burgess Everett: "Senate Republicans have delayed their plans to vote on repealing Obamacare this week, amid strong resistance from moderate and conservative Republicans to even beginning debate, GOP sources familiar with internal party discussions said. Republicans plan to re-write their health bill over the July 4th recess and get a new analysis from the Congressional Budget Office." Full story.
 
- MORE - "Inside the GOP's surprise health care flop," by POLITICO's Burgess Everett, Jennifer Haberkorn and Josh Dawsey: "...Senators left the meeting perplexed at what will come next, and people close to McConnell don't fully comprehend how his strategy will play out, according to interviews with senators, aides and Republican operatives." Full story.
 
BEST LAID PLANS... - "Senate GOP seethes at Trump impulsiveness," by POLITICO's Alex Isenstadt and Josh Dawsey: "Top GOP officials and senators say White House chaos and impulsiveness are crippling efforts to expand the Republican Senate majority in 2018, unraveling long-laid plans and needlessly jeopardizing incumbents. ... The most recent flash point involves Nevada Sen. Dean Heller, who was attacked by a White House-sanctioned outside group after announcing his opposition to the now stalled Obamacare repeal bill. Heller, the most endangered GOP incumbent up for reelection in 2018, was initially targeted with a surprise $1 million digital, TV, and radio assault ... By Tuesday evening,
 after several senators directly complained to the president today about the anti-Heller ads in a meeting at the White House, the group decided to stop airing the spots. Heller himself brought up the commercials during the meeting, a spokesman for the senator confirmed."
 
- "... McConnell has also been stewing about another race: the Alabama Senate primary ... For weeks, McConnell and top political aides had been asking the Republican National Committee to release coordinated funding to help newly-appointed Sen. Luther Strange, who is trying to fend off a large field of GOP primary opponents in a late summer special election. The NRSC and another McConnell-allied group, Senate Leadership Fund, are already aggressively boosting the Alabama senator. Yet after weeks of requests, no RNC expenditures have been granted, and Senate Republican strategists began to wonder whether if it had simply been lost in a bureaucratic logjam - or worse, whether the
 anti-establishment president was reluctant to have the national party wade into a contested primary. The lack of commitment caused so much consternation that McConnell and Strange brought the matter directly to the White House, asking for the administration to approve of the funding. Strange has talked directly to Trump about it, according to two sources briefed on the matter. McConnell personally lobbied Chief of Staff Reince Priebus ... As of Tuesday morning, however according to an RNC official, the national party still hadn't given final approval." Full story.
 
- PREVIOUSLY - "Pro-Trump group launches TV, radio ads against Heller over health bill," by POLITICO's Alex Isenstadt: See the ad here. Full story. 
 
POLLING DATA - "AMA polls of 7 states show GOP health bill unpopular," by Campaign Pro's Kevin Robillard: "New American Medical Association polls of seven states with Republican senators show that the party's health care packages are deeply unpopular. GOP firm Public Opinion Strategies conducted the surveys of registered voters in Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Nevada, Ohio, and Tennessee, while Voter Consumer Research conducted the West Virginia poll. In all of the states, no more than 26 percent of voters support the House health care bill, which is similar but not identical to the Senate GOP proposal rolled out last week. In Nevada, the home of vulnerable GOP Sen. Dean Heller, only 18
 percent of voters say the GOP legislation is a good idea, while 52 percent say it's a bad idea. For Obamacare, those numbers are 45 percent and 37 percent. Fifty-eight percent of Nevada voters view the state's Medicaid program favorably, while just 14 percent view it unfavorably. And of proposed changes to Obamacare, only one proposal - allowing the sale of health insurance across state lines - attracts more than 50 percent support." Full story.
 
- Save My Care releases rapid poll: The Democratic group wrote in a polling memo that "support for the repeal bill has hit rock bottom," finding that after the CBO report, 26 percent of voters supported the repeal. Read the full polling memo here. 
 
- "GOP prospects to challenge Sen. Tammy Baldwin mostly mum on Obamacare repeal," by The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's Jason Stein and Lillian Price: "Most of the potential GOP challengers to U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin aren't saying yet whether they support a U.S. Senate proposal to repeal Obamacare." Full story.
 
Days until the 2017 election: 132.
 
Days until the 2018 election: 496.
 
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. 
 
MASS GENERAL - "WBUR Poll: Warren And Baker In Strong Positions For Re-Election": 55 percent of Massachusetts voters view Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren favorably and 34 percent view her unfavorably, according to the poll, while 64 percent view GOP Gov. Charlie Baker favorably and just 15 percent view him unfavorably. Their challengers are essentially unknown, with at least 61 percent of voters saying they had never heard of them. Warren cleared 60 percent in two matchups with Republicans Geoff Diehl and Shiva Ayyadurai, while Baker got 53 and 55 percent against Democrats Setti Warren and Bob Massie. (The poll also tested him against Attorney General Maura Healey, with a 48-36 result in
 favor of the Republican incumbent.) Full story. See the poll here.
 
LIFE OF THE PARTY - Holcomb and state GOP launch joint fundraising committee ahead of Senate race against Donnelly: Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb launched a joint fundraising committee with the state Republican party last night - and defeating sitting Democratic Sen. Joe Donnelly will be its first and foremost task heading into 2018, state party chairman Kyle Hupfer tells Morning Score. The committee, which recently filed a statement of organization with the FEC, will distribute 70 percent of the money raised to Holcomb's reelection efforts and 30 percent to the state party. It's the first committee of its kind that Hupfer could recall and other state party chairs have expressed interest,
 Hupfer said, adding that "this could really be a model that many of them are envious of." 
 
2018 WATCH - "Nicole Schneider won't run for Senate against Tammy Baldwin," by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's Jason Stein: "Schneider is the daughter-in-law of the late Donald Schneider, who built Schneider National Inc., and was a notable potential candidate because she has the potential to self-fund a campaign. A Republican source familiar with Schneider's decision said she had decided that a run for Senate would have left her with no time for her children. ... Schneider had faced some questions about her credentials as a conservative but was watched closely because of her family's wealth." Full story.
 
- IN NY-22... - Democratic state Assemblyman Anthony Brindisi "plans to announce Wednesday that he will challenge U.S. Rep. Claudia Tenney in the 2018 election, according to two Democratic sources familiar with his decision," the Syracuse Post-Standard's Mark Weiner reports. Full story.
 
- IN MONTANA... - Judge Russ Fagg, a Republican district judge from Billings, launched an exploratory committee to challenge Democratic Sen. Jon Tester, The Helena Independent Record reported.
 
- IN FL-27... - Democratic state Sen. Jose Javier Rodriguez is announcing his campaign for retiring GOP Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen's increasingly blue-tinted seat on Wednesday.
 
MORE HEALTH CARE ADS - Association for Community Affiliated Plans airing spots attacking Medicaid cuts: "The Association for Community Action Plans, which represents safety net health care plans, is out with new television ads attacking the Medicaid cuts included in the Senate GOP health care proposal. The seven-figure digital and television ad buy is airing in West Virginia, Ohio, Colorado, Arizona and Nevada - home to Sens. Shelley Moore Capito, Rob Portman and Cory Gardner, plus vulnerable 2018 incumbents Jeff Flake and Dean Heller. The 30-second spot is targeted toward Republicans, and links Medicaid to job creation, aiming to show Trump supporters the program isn't welfare." Watch the
 ad here. Full story.
 
- PCCC releases a new TV ad in West Virginia: The PCCC is out with a spot to pressure Sen. Shelley Moore Capito into not supporting the Republican health care bill, calling any cuts to Medicaid "immoral." The ad features a mother, Priscilla, who says in the ad that she won't be able to afford her daughter's cerebral palsy medication under the new legislation, adding that her "daughter could die from seizures." Watch the ad here. 
 
FEC FILINGS - Gianforte raised $3.2M, spent $4.5M in Montana special: "Montana Republican Greg Gianforte, who recently won a special election to become the state's at-large member of Congress, raised a total of $3.19 million and spent $4.48 million during this year's special election, according to a new FEC filing. ...Over $490,000 of his haul in that time - which was when Gianforte assaulted a reporter covering his campaign - came from small donors, a sharp increase from the approximately $180,000 that came in from small donors (under $200) from April 2 through May 5, which was the previous filing period." Full story.
 
TRANSITIONS - GOP firm Go BIG Media announced adding two staffers: Video editor Jared Solomon, formerly of the RNC, and graphic designer Nicole Fryling. 
 
CODA - QUOTE OF THE DAY: "I may not be able to sue a member of Congress but I sure as hell can sue the f--- out of Podesta," Roger Stone, longtime Trump associate, wrote to POLITICO in an email about his closed hearing before the House Intelligence Committee. 
 
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