Subject: POLITICO's Morning Score: 2020ers line up behind Green New Deal — Brown and Biden eye the same lane — The House battleground, from the DCCC and NRCC
From: "Morning Score" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 08 Feb 2019 09:02:50 -0600
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02/08/2019 10:00 AM EDT
        
By ZACH MONTELLARO ([email-masked]; @ZachMontellaro)

        
Editor's Note: This edition of Morning Score is published weekdays at 10 a.m. POLITICO Pro Campaign subscribers hold exclusive early access to the newsletter each morning at 6 a.m. To learn more about POLITICO Pro's comprehensive policy intelligence coverage, policy tools and services, click here.
          QUICK FIX         
- Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) released their Green New Deal and 2020ers rushed to embrace it.

- Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) is on a collision course with former Vice President Joe Biden if they both run for president, because they're both trying to run in the same lane. 

- The DCCC released its list of vulnerable House Democrats, and the NRCC put out its target list: But the lists aren't identical. 

Good Friday morning. Former Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.), the longest-serving member of Congress, died Thursday. 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, @DanielStrauss4, @JamesArkin and @lbarronlopez.

Days until the 2019 election: 270

Days until the 2020 election: 634
          THE TOPLINES         
EASY BEING GREEN - The Green New Deal has landed on Capitol Hill, and 2020 Democratic hopefuls are lining up behind it. The proposal, released by Ocasio-Cortez and Markey, has quite the who's who of Democratic co-sponsors.

All four senators who have taken a formal step to running for president - Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) - have said they back the non-binding resolution, POLITICO's Zack Colman and Anthony Adragna reported. Potential candidates like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and Amy Klobuchar (per the AP's Elana Schor) have also backed it.

Largely missing from the list of original co-sponsors? House Democrats who will likely face a competitive re-election fight. Only one Democrat listed as an initial co-sponsor in a list published by the Ocasio-Cortez-aligned Justice Democrats is in the DCCC's newly announced program for vulnerable incumbents (see more on that below): Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell in FL-26.
          IN THE TRENCHES         
PRESIDENTIAL BIG BOARD - If Brown and Biden both run for president, they might find themselves in a faceoff. "Biden begins miles ahead of the Ohio senator in terms of name recognition and early support, a factor that is sure to weigh on Brown as he considers whether to run for president," POLITICO's Daniel Strauss and Holly Otterbein reported. "But Brown is clearly positioning himself to take that mantle should Biden opt against a 2020 run. And some allies are taking it a step further, arguing that Brown is better positioned that Biden to run in the lane that the former vice president has picked out."

- Harris unveiled a list of endorsements from 20 California state Democrats, POLITICO California's Carla Marinucci reported.

- Steve Phillips, a California-based donor and activist, wrote why he was supporting Booker in a Medium post. Phillips launched an outside group, Dream United, to back Booker. "We seek to build a community of people who have given the maximum allowable contribution to Cory's campaign," the Dream United donation page reads.

THE HOUSE BATTLEGROUND - The DCCC is out with its list of "Frontline" members, House Democrats who could face competitive re-election battles. Most of the 44 members are freshmen (here's the full list from Campaign Pro's Laura Barr&oacute;n-L&oacute;pez), but it also includes more senior members. On the other side of the coin, the NRCC released its target list, which has 55 Democratic incumbents on it (first reported by Roll Call's Bridget Bowman).

So who is on the NRCC's target list that is not in the Frontline program? Glad you asked! There are 12: Reps. Ann Kirkpatrick (AZ-02), Stephanie Murphy (FL-07), Charlie Crist (FL-13), Donna Shalala (FL-27), Dave Loebsack (IA-02), DCCC chair Cheri Bustos (IL-17), Dean Phillips (MN-03), Collin Peterson (MN-07), Sean Patrick Maloney (NY-18), Peter DeFazio (OR-04), Jennifer Wexton (VA-10) and Ron Kind (WI-03). Meanwhile, Rep. Jahana Hayes (CT-05) is on the Frontline list but not the NRCC target list.

THE LATEST FROM VIRGINIA - Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam could very well stay in office. "Left for dead a week ago after his disastrous handling of his history with blackface, the Democratic Virginia governor is quietly plotting a survival strategy. He's conferring with sympathetic Republican lawmakers and has hired a crisis manager who's decamped to Richmond from Washington," POLITICO's Anita Kumar and Maggie Severns reported. A half-dozen people in the state told POLITICO that the governor has no plans to leave with three years left in his term.

- Northam reached out to both Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax and Attorney General Mark Herring on Thursday, The Washington Post's Greg Schneider, Dan Balz, Laura Vozzella and Paul Kane reported.

- The state's legislative black caucus put out an extensive statement that reiterated that Northam should resign, while saying the allegation against Fairfax "must be fully and thoroughly investigated". The statement also said the caucus awaits "further action on [Herring's] part to reassure the citizens of the Commonwealth of his fitness for leadership."

- Virginia Senate Majority Leader Tommy Norment (who is not in the line of succession for governor) was the editor of a 1968 Virginia Military Institute yearbook that "features a host of racist photos and slurs, including blackface," The Virginian-Pilot's Katherine Hafner, Elisha Sauers and Dave Ress reported. "As one of seven working on a 359-page yearbook, I cannot endorse or associate myself with every photo, entry, or word on each page," he said in a statement, noting he wasn't in the photos and didn't take them.

CASH DASH - Finance directors, rejoice: The contribution limits have been slightly bumped up for the 2020 cycle. The individual per-election, per-candidate limit has gone up to $2,800 (a $100 increase) and the calendar year limits to a national party committee went up to $35,500 (from $33,900). 

- The final tally for the 2018 midterms is in, and it was real expensive. The Center for Responsive Politics calculated the tally for the elections to be $5.7 billion (which includes candidate spending, party committees and outside groups).

- Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) has launched a joint fundraising committee with the NRSC and will soon be traveling to woo high-dollar donors, the Washington Examiner's David Drucker reported.

UNDER PRESSURE - Billionaire Tom Steyer and his Need to Impeach group is gearing up a major campaign to push Democrats to impeach President Donald Trump. "He will soon turn his attention to rank-and-file members seated on the committees that would be involved in impeachment proceedings, including freshmen," Laura Barr&oacute;n-L&oacute;pez and Stephanie Murray reported. "There's a gigantic cost to not listening to your constituents," Steyer said in an interview with POLITICO."

RETIREMENT WATCH - GOP Rep. Rob Woodall, who narrowly won reelection in GA-07 in the midterms, will not seek reelection next year. "There are going to be some keen competitors who are going to get in this race and they're going to campaign the dickens out of it," Woodall told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Tamar Hallerman. "This is going to stay a Republican seat. Democrat Carolyn Bourdeaux, who lost to Woodall by 433 votes in 2018, said she's running again, per Hallerman.

GROUND GAME - Priorities USA is launching a $30 million voting rights campaign that will register voters and push ballot measures to expand ballot access, the AP's Brian Slodysko reported.

UP NEXT - Former Colorado House Speaker Andrew Romanoff, a Democrat, jumped into the race to challenge GOP Sen. Cory Gardner on Thursday. "We're running out of time to rescue our planet, repair our democracy, and restore the American Dream. That's why I'm running for the U.S. Senate," Romanoff said in a statement.

- Associate DNC Chairman Jaime Harrison filed FEC paperwork to form a Senate exploratory committee in South Carolina to run against Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham. "We're gonna go into this thing eyes wide open, and if there is not a path we just have to call a spade a spade," Harrison told McClatchy's Emma Dumain. "But I believe there is a path."

NEW YORK STATE OF MIND - Gillibrand, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Ocasio-Cortez and other members of the New York congressional delegation wrote a letter arguing that New York's system of "fusion voting" should continue, POLITICO New York's Bill Mahoney reported. Fusion voting allows a candidate to run on multiple party lines, giving minor parties in the state power.

CODA - SIGN OF THE APOCALYPSE OF THE DAY: "A Florida politician allegedly made a habit of licking men's faces. She has now resigned," reads a headline from The Washington Post.
    
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