Subject: POLITICO's Morning Score: Brat’s ‘double life’ — Democratic House challengers announce huge early fundraising numbers while ActBlue has best quarter ever — Trump tries to save Blackburn in Tennessee
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Date: Tue, 02 Oct 2018 08:02:38 -0600
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By Zach Montellaro | 10/02/2018 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)
 
TRYING TO HANG ON - Endangered House Republicans are singing two different tunes: one of moderation in public, and another of unbowing conservatism to donors. POLITICO's Rachael Bade takes a look through the eyes of GOP Rep. David Brat: "Take Dave Brat. At a private fundraiser in early September, the Virginia Republican joked to a room full of Republicans about how he mimics arch-conservative Freedom Caucus founder Jim Jordan on Fox News when discussing the FBI's Russia investigation. He then encouraged controversial former Trump adviser Sebastian Gorka to get involved in his campaign to gin up the base, according to a recording of the private event obtained by POLITICO.
 
"But in TV ads, Brat has touted his work on issues that transcend party lines. ... The two sides of Brat, a member of the House Freedom Caucus, highlight the dissonant strategies House Republicans are deploying in their struggle to keep the House. As national Republicans implore endangered members to localize their races and tout bipartisan victories, hard-liners are urging them to embrace the president to get Trump voters to the polls."
 
EARLY Q3 FUNDRAISING NUMBERS - So far, the few Democrats who have announced their third quarter fundraising totals are posting bonkers numbers. 
 
- CA-10: Josh Harder announced he raised $3.5 million.
 
- IL-13: Betsy Dirksen Londrigan announced she raised nearly $1.7 million.
 
- MI-02: Rob Davidson announced he raised more than $500,000.
 
- NJ-04: Josh Welle announced he raised about $750,000 in the quarter.
 
- NY-24: Dana Balter announced she raised more than $1.5 million.
 
- OH-01: Aftab Pureval announced he raised over $1.5 million.
 
- KY-06: Amy McGrath announced she raised $3.65 million and has $1.7 million cash on hand.
 
- National: The Progressive Turnout Project announced it raised $3.2 million in the third quarter.
 
And a major sign this won't slow down: ActBlue announced that Democratic candidates and causes raised more than $385 million through the platform in the third quarter alone, the best quarter ever. For a sense of scale, this bests the platform's entire 2014 haul. Sept. 30, when ActBlue brought in $16.8 million from 310,000 contributions, was the best single day in platform history.
 
Good Tuesday morning. I'm back - a big thank-you to James and Scott for filling in for me. I hope you all missed me. As always, email me at [email-masked] or DM me at @ZachMontellaro.
 
Email the great Campaign Pro team at [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked] and [email-masked]. Follow them on Twitter: @PoliticoScott @ec_schneider, @JamesArkin and @DanielStrauss4.
 
Days until the 2018 election: 35.
 
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP SAYS A RED WAVE IS COMING ON ELECTION DAY. Is he right or will the tide turn blue? Compete against the nation's top political minds in the POLITICO Playbook Election Challenge, by correctly picking the winning candidates in some of the most competitive House, Senate and gubernatorial races in the country! Win awesome prizes and eternal bragging rights. Sign up today! Visit politico.com/playbookelectionchallenge to play.
 
POLLS POLLS POLLS - A new poll shows a tight New Jersey Senate race. The Stockton University survey has Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez leading Republican Bob Hugin by just 2 points, 45 percent to 43 percent. The poll was in the field from Sept. 19-27 and interviewed 531 likely voters. Monmouth University polling director Patrick Murray took issue with the poll's methodology on Twitter, writing in part that "clear methodological problems raise concerns about the enterprise."
 
- A pair of CNN polls finds Democrats with a narrow lead in the Nevada and Missouri Senate races, via my colleague James Arkin: "In Missouri, Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill has 47 percent to Republican Attorney General Josh Hawley's 44 percent among likely voters, according to the new poll. In Nevada, Democratic Rep. Jacky Rosen has 47 percent support to Republican Sen. Dean Heller's 43 percent, according to the new poll there. In the gubernatorial race, Democrat Steve Sisolak has a small edge over Republican Adam Laxalt, 45 percent to 41 percent."
 
- INTERNAL AFFAIRS - End Citizens United and a pair of GOP House incumbents released dueling polls on Monday, with the Republicans seeking to reshape emerging narratives in two major battleground races. In CA-45, ECU's poll from GBA Strategies showed Democrat Katie Porter at 48 percent and GOP Rep. Mimi Walters at 47 percent, a week after The New York Times showed Porter with a 5-point edge. Walters pushed back with a carefully worded release claiming a 37-36 edge "among those who have definitely made a decision," citing a Public Opinion Strategies internal poll. Meanwhile, in CO-06, ECU's poll from Normington Petts had Democrat Jason Crow leading GOP Rep. Mike Coffman 49 percent to 38
 percent. (The NYT also polled this district recently, also finding Crow up by an 11-point margin.) Coffman's camp released an internal poll from the Tarrance Group to the Denver Post, claiming a 1-point race with Crow at 46 percent and Coffman at 45 percent.
 
HEADING OFF AN UPSET? - President Donald Trump went to Tennessee Monday night to rally for GOP Rep. Marsha Blackburn, who has been trailing Democrat Phil Bredesen in recent public polling in the state's Senate race. But the rally is only one piece of a strategy that sees Tennessee Republicans leaning on the president to win what is usually a safe red seat. POLITICO's Natasha Korecki and Christopher Cadelago: "Yet Blackburn and state Republicans are leaning so hard on Trump that the pivotal Senate race might come down to a single question: how much is too much Trump? 'I think it's a vulnerable race in a very Republican state,' said longtime Tennessee Republican strategist Tom Ingram. 'I
 think Trump is still popular here. But this is a statewide race, not a district race. The dynamics change a lot between a polarized district and a broader-based state.' ...
 
"For months, the president himself has monitored Blackburn's polling in the race, according to three White House aides and allies. Trump has personally called her to check in and offer his encouragement, tweeted supportive messages on her behalf and hosted a Nashville rally in the spring. The president, the sources said, was behind deploying Vice President Mike Pence to Knoxville last month, where he headlined a $1,000-a-person Blackburn fundraiser."
 
CLINTON ON THE TRAIL - The president's 2016 rival, Hillary Clinton, also hit the trail, stumping for Illinois Democratic gubernatorial nominee J.B. Pritzker. Chicago Tribune's Rick Pearson and Mike Riopell's dispatch is here.
 
- And speaking of Pritzker: He's poured an additional $20 million of his own money into his campaign, Natasha reported. That brings his self-funding total above $145 million.
 
MORE OBAMA ENDORSEMENTS - Former President Barack Obama announced his second round of midterm endorsements, backing 260 gubernatorial, Senate, House and state candidates. Some notable endorsements (you can see the whole list here): Democratic Rep. Kyrsten Sinema in the Arizona Senate race, Andrew Gillum in the Florida gubernatorial race, NY-14's Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Tony Evers in the Wisconsin gubernatorial race.
 
CAMPAIGN FINANCE WATCH - The Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust, a conservative watchdog group, is filing an FEC complaint accusing Ohio 1's Pureval of "illegally and deliberately using money from his county campaign account to fund his congressional campaign." The complaint comes on the heels of a Cincinnati Enquirer report last week that unearthed a poll paid for by Pureval's county clerk campaign that asked about the congressional race.
 
FIRST IN SCORE - ON THE AIRWAVES - House Majority PAC, the super PAC tied to House Democratic leadership, and Be A Hero PAC are jointly going up with a new ad in New Jersey's 3rd District. The ad is narrated by Ady Barkan, an activist who has ALS. GOP Rep. "Tom MacArthur betrayed my family and yours," Barkan said in the ad, talking about the GOP tax and health care plans. "Let's send him home."
 
- FIRST IN SCORE - The Congressional Leadership Fund, the House GOP super PAC, released an ad in Nebraska's 2nd District hitting Democrat Kara Eastman for being liberal. "From Hollywood to Wall Street to D.C., the liberal elite look down on Nebraska," the ad says. "To them, we're fly-over country and Kara Eastman is their candidate for Congress."
 
- FIRST IN SCORE - Patriot Majority USA, a Democratic leaning nonprofit, is going up with a new ad in North Carolina's 9th District criticizing Republican Mark Harris over the GOP tax plan. "Mark Harris supported a plan that could force a $500 billion cut to Medicare and Social Security," the ad says. "[He's] way out of step with families around here."
 
- FIRST IN SCORE - HMP is also going up with two ads on health care in Virginia. The first ad targets GOP Rep. Scott Taylor in Virginia's 2nd District. "Taylor would even allow insurance companies to impose what the AARP calls an age tax," the ad says. The second ad hits Brat in Virginia's 7th District, featuring people criticizing him. "What were you thinking?" the ad asks about his vote for the GOP health care plan. "I'm thinking about a representative who will make my health care more affordable. And that's not you."
 
- FIRST IN SCORE - Democrat Gretchen Whitmer, who is running for governor in Michigan, released an ad focused on health care, where she talks about her mother's battle with brain cancer. "I had a newborn baby at the time, a new job, and was spending hours fighting the insurance company to cover my mom's chemo," she said in the ad. "[Republican] Bill Schuette thinks insurance companies should be allowed to deny coverage to people with pre-existing conditions. I don't."
 
RACE-BAITING - A recent ad from embattled GOP Rep. Duncan Hunter went well into the race-baiting territory and "earned" four Pinocchios from The Washington Post Fact Checker's Salvador Rizzo. Rizzo wrote that the ad used "naked anti-Muslim bias in an effort to scare Californians into voting for an indicted Republican incumbent. The Democrat on the receiving end of these attacks isn't even Muslim. All the claims in the ad are false, misleading or devoid of evidence."
 
- A spokesman for Ammar Campa-Najjar, the Democrat challenging Hunter, forcefully pushed back against the ad. "You know who is responsible for our actions is ourselves, and Duncan Hunter is the one under indictment and who has been stripped of his committee assignments," campaign spokesman Nick Singer told my POLITICO colleague Jeremy White. "This is a man who is unhinged and is willing to play on our darkest corners, on the racism that has plagued this country for many years."
 
TAKING IT BACK - A woman who accused California Democrat Gil Cisneros, the party's nominee in the 39th District, of sexual misconduct is recanting her accusations, chalking it up to a misunderstanding. The Cisneros campaign released a statement from him and Melissa Fazli saying that the whole situation was a misunderstanding and that the two discussed the incident in a meeting arranged by a local activist. "I misunderstood the conversations that I had with Gil Cisneros at the Democratic convention and after. I don't believe that Gil sexually harassed me," Fazli said in a statement released by the campaign. "The Congressional Leadership Fund lied," she continued, referring to ads the GOP
 super PAC ran (she called the commercials accurate two weeks ago). 
 
In a statement, CLF spokesperson Courtney Alexander questioned the disavowal: "Is this another example of a rich and powerful man using his power to intimidate a victim of sexual harassment? It's disappointing that only because Gil Cisneros is losing an election he decided to take sexual harassment allegations against him seriously." The group did not answer questions on whether it will continue to run the ads.
 
MEA CULPA - Democratic Rep. Beto O'Rourke is apologizing for a theater review he wrote in college. POLITICO's Alex Isenstadt: O'Rourke "panned the performance as 'one of the most glaring examples of the sickening excesses and moral degradations of our culture.' He went on to bemoan the bevy of 'perma-smile actresses whose only qualifications seem to be their phenomenally large breasts and tight buttocks.' ... In a statement sent to POLITICO shortly after this story was published, O'Rourke offered an apology. 'I am ashamed of what I wrote and I apologize. There is no excuse for making disrespectful and demeaning comments about women,' he said."
 
FIRST IN SCORE - COMING TO A MAILBOX NEAR YOU - The AFL-CIO is kicking off its general election direct mail program, sending more than 1.3 million mailers across 15 states this week. The target list: AZ-Gov, AZ-Sen, CO-Gov, FL-Gov, FL-Sen, GA-Gov (sample mailer), IA-Gov, IN-Sen (sample), ME-Gov, MI-Gov, MN-Gov (sample), MN-Sen, MO-Sen, MT-Sen, ND-Sen, NV-Gov, NV-Sen, OH-Gov (sample), WI-Gov, WI-Sen.
 
2020 WATCH - As a Supreme Court nominee is facing accusations of sexual assault, former Vice President Joe Biden's role in the Anita Hill hearings more than 20 years ago is facing increasing scrutiny. He's largely remained out of the current fight, but has privately talked about his past, The New York Times' Alexander Burns and Jonathan Martin reported: "Mr. Biden has privately expressed frustration about the ire directed at him for his Judiciary Committee tenure, according to multiple people who have spoken with him directly but requested anonymity to discuss private conversations. He has been incensed about Republicans taking some of his past remarks out of context ... . Publicly, Mr.
 Biden has expressed regret about the way the Hill hearings unfolded; privately, he has also described it as unfair that Ms. Hill continues to hold him responsible for her rough treatment in the Senate."
 
- Mark your calendars: The RNC has set a date for its 2020 convention. It will be held Aug. 24-27, 2020, in Charlotte, N.C. (Alex broke that news). That's more than a month after the Democrats' convention, which will be July 13-16.
 
CODA - QUOTE OF THE DAY: "Goddammit Andrew. We don't want to do endorsements. But we're going to have to," Democratic megadonor Tom Steyer recalling to POLITICO what he told Florida gubernatorial nominee Andrew Gillum during the primaries, because he was so excited.
 
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