Subject: POLITICO's Morning Score: Super PACs dodge donor disclosure requirements — Inside the CLF’s advertising barrage — CA-48’s Keirstead was target of hacking attack during primary
From: "Morning Score" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2018 08:03:09 -0600
List-Id: <1376319.xt.local>

By Zach Montellaro | 08/16/2018 10:00 AM EDT

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)
 
BIG MONEY WATCH - Super PACs are becoming bolder and bolder in their efforts to skirt donor reporting requirements. Campaign Pro's Maggie Severns: "Red and Gold [a super PAC that's spent nearly $1 million attacking GOP Rep. Martha McSally] sent a brief note to the FEC informing regulators that it would file monthly reports showing who financed the group. Its first disclosure 'will be due on September 20,' the super PAC wrote - more than three weeks after McSally's Arizona Republican primary is over.
 
"It wasn't the first super PAC to pull that trick: The scheme is part of a sharp escalation in super PACs avoiding reporting requirements and keeping voters in the dark about their funding until after key elections. Two other groups aired more than $3 million in attack ads in West Virginia's GOP Senate primary this year and used the same method to dodge the FEC until after the May 8 vote. Overall, at least two dozen super PACs that spent millions of dollars in recent elections used loopholes to get out of revealing their donors, according to information compiled by the Campaign Legal Center, a watchdog organization."
 
"It's a sign that political operatives see more risk in revealing the big-money meddlers in congressional elections than in pushing the boundaries of campaign finance law - and many of the groups pushing the boundaries are aligned with Democrats, the party most associated with complaints about undisclosed 'dark money' affecting elections."
 
TREND WATCH - The Congressional Leadership Fund, the outside group tied to House GOP leadership, has launched a barrage of ads over the past few days. Campaign Pro's Elena Schneider digs in: "National trends are driving the general direction of the 2018 midterms, fueled by strong feelings about health care, taxes, President Donald Trump and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. But with so many first-time candidates running on the Democratic side - without the baggage of legislative voting records or controversial positions adopted over a long public career - and the political environment tilting toward them, GOP efforts to keep them out of the House may hinge on specific personal critiques,
 vetting them publicly for the first time. ...
 
"And there's more to come: A review of research materials collected by House Republicans' campaign arm shows that the committee plans to litigate many more Democrats' professional history, including digging through client and case histories of a half-dozen attorneys running in top battleground districts."
 
Good Thursday morning. As always, you can email me at [email-masked] or DM me at @ZachMontellaro. 
 
Email the great Campaign Pro team at [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked] and [email-masked]. Follow them on Twitter: @PoliticoScott, @ec_schneider, @DanielStrauss4, @JamesArkin and @MaggieSeverns.
 
What is it really like for women hitting the campaign trail in 2018? Beginning on Wednesday, Aug. 15, Women Rule's three-part podcast series entitled "Women Rule: Tracking the candidates," will focus on the gritty realities of running for office. Tune in for the next three Wednesdays in August to hear from three women running for office, the challenges and opportunities they face and the lessons other women can take from their campaigns.
 
Days until the 2018 election: 82.
 
Upcoming election dates - Aug. 21: Alaska, Wyoming primaries. - Aug. 28: Arizona, Florida primaries and Oklahoma primary runoffs. - Sept. 4: Massachusetts primaries. - Sept. 6: Delaware primaries. - Sept. 11: New Hampshire primaries. - Sept. 12: Rhode Island primaries. - Sept. 13: New York (state-level) primaries.
 
WHAT'S IN AN ENDORSEMENT? - All three candidates in the Arizona GOP Senate primary race can credibly claim past praise from President Donald Trump. But the president has not formally endorsed, prolonging the battle for the nomination. POLITICO's James Arkin and Alex Isenstadt: "With the Aug. 28 primary less than two weeks away, establishment Republicans have grown increasingly anxious that they're squandering a critical window of time to define [Democratic candidate Rep. Kyrsten] Sinema, who faces a nominal primary opponent. She's spent millions of dollars running positive TV ads to boost her image and set the terms of the general election, while no Republican groups have countered.
 
"'[Sinema has] used the time well and quite frankly it's shocking to me that it's gone uncontested,' said Chuck Coughlin, a veteran Republican strategist based in Phoenix. 'She's done a good job of narrating her candidacy and they've given her a blank canvas to work on. I think it's a problem for whoever the Republican nominee is,' adding that he expects McSally to prevail in the primary."
 
HACK ATTACK - Democrat Hans Keirstead, who finished third in CA-48's top-two primary behind GOP Rep. Dana Rohrabacher and Democrat Harley Rouda, was the target of cyberattacks over the past year that were investigated by the FBI. Rolling Stone's Andy Kroll: "The hacks on Keirstead began in August 2017 with a spear-phishing attempt ... sent to Keirstead's work email address. The phishing attempt was successful - Keirstead thought it was a legitimate Microsoft Office message and entered his password before quickly realizing the message was fake and having his company take measures to secure their email system. (Keirstead had used his work account for campaign purposes, emails show.) ... In
 December, the cyberattacks on Keirstead took a different form: a sophisticated and sustained effort to hack into the campaign's website and hosting service. ...
 
"[Kyle] Quinn-Quesada, Keirstead's campaign manager, informed the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the FBI about the August spear-phishing message. He also told the DCCC about the attacks on its website and server several months later. According to campaign emails, news of the various cyberattacks - beginning with the initial spear-phishing incident - quickly reached the DCCC's top IT executive and the organization's chief of staff, who reports directly to DCCC Chairman Rep. Ben Ray Luj&aacute;n of New Mexico. The DCCC relayed the information to the FBI, according to campaign officials."
 
BREAKING DOWN THE PRIMARIES - After Tuesday night's primary results in Wisconsin, Democrats are feeling bullish about the state. Some numbers passed along to Score by a Democratic operative: Democratic turnout in the gubernatorial primary was 18 percent higher than the GOP gubernatorial primary (although the GOP primary was not competitive). Meanwhile, 13,000 GOP gubernatorial voters did not vote in the competitive Senate primary, while turnout in the GOP Senate primary is down about 140,000 voters compared to the last competitive GOP Senate primary in the state in 2012.
 
BATTLEGROUND WATCH - The NRCC added WI-01's Bryan Steil to the second tier of its Young Guns program - the "contenders" phase.
 
POTUS' SEAL OF APPROVAL - President Donald Trump went on a Twitter endorsement spree Wednesday, backing a slate of Republican candidates who won a primary on Tuesday: Wisconsin Senate challenger Leah Vukmir, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, Minnesota gubernatorial candidate Jeff Johnson, WI-01's Steil, MN-08's Pete Stauber, Connecticut gubernatorial candidate Bob Stefanowski and Kansas gubernatorial candidate Kris Kobach.
 
- Plus, Trump will be the headliner for the Ohio Republican Party's state dinner on Aug. 24, The Columbus Dispatch's Randy Ludlow reported. He'll also attend a Senate fundraiser for GOP Rep. Jim Renacci while he's there.
 
HE'S BACK - Steve Bannon is trying to get back into the good graces of the president. POLITICO's Alex Isenstadt and Annie Karni: "Steve Bannon is attempting a political resurrection, launching a 25-person pro-Trump rapid-response and polling operation that is framing the midterms as an up-or-down vote on the president's impeachment. The former White House chief strategist has started Citizens for the American Republic, an outside political group that intends to advise surrogates, generate talking points, and flood the TV and radio airwaves ahead of a perilous midterm election. As part of the campaign, Bannon - a former Hollywood producer who's made several conservative films - will soon
 release a new documentary, 'Trump@War'".
 
BLAND IS BEAUTIFUL - Midwestern Democrats are going the opposite direction from the president by picking "conventional and boring" candidates. POLITICO's David Siders: "Democrats are arming themselves with general election candidates widely considered palatable to a broader electorate than the party's progressive base. In the run-up to the 2020 presidential election, their victories serve as a reminder of the weight that establishment credentials still carry in the Midwest. 'I think what you will learn through the course of the general [election] is whether or not there's going to be a real strategic push for someone who is more of ... a fit for those Midwestern voters, or if the [2020
 presidential] primary is just going to be completely dominated by a combination of identity politics and old ideological constructs,' Democratic strategist Tom Russell said."
 
NOT SO NORTH DAKOTA NICE? - GOP Rep. Kevin Cramer attacked Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp on a local radio show earlier this week over tariffs, accusing her of being "an enemy of our own country" for taking a group of North Dakota farmers to visit the Mexican Embassy in June to discuss trade. "Tariffs aren't my highest priority in life," Cramer said in the radio interview. "I prefer a more measured approach, but this is the approach the president chose and as long as that's the strategy of our country, I think we should do the best to be supportive of it. Not undermine it and not become an enemy of our own country, for crying out loud, by running to the Mexican Embassy or talking to your
 favorite European politician or member of Parliament about how we can undo the president's strategy, but rather supporting it or showing a unified front, which gives him the strength he needs to get the best deal he can possibly get."
 
LOVE/HATE RELATIONSHIP? - House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi remains unpopular. But does that actually matter in the midterms? CNN's Harry Enten: "Just 34% of registered voters [in CNN's new poll] say that Pelosi will be an extremely or very important factor in their vote this fall. That ranks dead last of the 10 factors asked about by CNN. ... Democrats actually seem to be more influenced by Pelosi in their vote choice than Republicans are. A near majority of Democrats (46%) say she will be an extremely or very important factor in their votes compared to 34% of Republicans."
 
- One of Pelosi's arguments for remaining in Democratic leadership is that she's an absolute fundraising force. CNN's Manu Raju: "Through June, Pelosi had raised an eye-popping $83 million for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee for the 2018 election cycle, more than double the next closest Democrat, according to an internal list for the group charged with electing more Democrats to the US House of Representatives. A source briefed on the matter said that through July she had raised nearly $91 million for the party committee, which is spending big in hotly contested races including where Democratic candidates are running away from Pelosi."
 
ON THE AIRWAVES - In a sign of the times, GOP Rep. Dave Joyce, who represents Ohio's 14th District, is running an ad that says he "stood up to President Trump" over a Great Lakes restoration program. Trump carried the district by double digits in 2016.
 
MIDTERM MESSAGING - Democratic House candidates have no cohesive national message, instead allowing candidates to fit a message to their district. The New York Times' Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Nicholas Fandos: "It is a risky strategy, essentially putting off answering one of the most immediate questions facing the Democratic Party after its losses in 2016: What does it stand for? The approach could also raise questions among voters about how Democrats would govern. Democrats say they have answered that question with a recently adopted slogan, 'For the People,' a skeletal, three-point platform and a longer version, called 'A Better Deal.' But with anti-Washington sentiment simmering; a deep
 divide between the party's moderates and its left flank; and the brand of the party's longtime leader, Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, toxic in large sections of the country, they have concluded that a unified campaign framework emanating from Capitol Hill would do more harm than good."
 
COMING TO A 2020 AD NEAR YOU - New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, one of the Democrats on the laundry list of 2020 candidates, at an event Wednesday: "We are not going to make America great, America. It was never that great. We have not reached greatness." He went on to say the country will reach greatness when "every American is fully engaged" and when "discrimination and stereotyping" against women is gone. His office tried to clean up the comments in a statement, saying "the Governor believes America is great. ... America has not yet reached its maximum potential."
 
CODA - QUOTE OF THE DAY: "When you're in New York and you're on the telephone and you drive a Rolls-Royce out to New Jersey, you get stopped," former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, relaying a story of Trump getting pulled over as an example of a "real guy" experience the president has had because he likes driving, via The Washington Post.
 
To view online:
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=340893b1c3b168a4a9a0bb5430b475af070bb97b10da105af1d92f1162d7a5a218940ed4b65c72d339541d89a7ecf26e
 To change your alert settings, please go to http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=340893b1c3b168a47b1f32c0ac62cefb747b8f71cc51c7e131f596355292e4bace745d6d93e45cf0a2675e0e842d8961 or http://click.politicoemail.com/profile_center.aspx?qs=c1c81b2ef644fde1dd3c1f6178ef6a8ea3ee660992025bd46a875bb78470d35276babb5828928a1cdb8486aa63a5c0aecba3b84109530ffdc3637877f41d7ab2
This email was sent to [email-masked] by: POLITICO, LLC 1000 Wilson Blvd. Arlington, VA, 22209, USA

To unsubscribe,https://www.politico.com/_unsubscribe?e=00000165-430a-d533-adfd-4b1f52c40000&u=0000014e-f0fe-dd93-ad7f-f8fffbc40000&s=84c188c50982031cbb0d14f3748d4527fa2cd694046667385208776ee1cdba0bd51997f8f0ee39bca3104aa5119037841a58bd741fd5529bb3524b9da6991ec4