Subject: POLITICO's Morning Score: New election called in NC-09 after hearing on fraud — Sanders and Warren battle for the same ideological lane — Hogan takes shot at RNC as he mulls running against Trump
From: "Morning Score" <[email-masked]>
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Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2019 09:02:21 -0600
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02/22/2019 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         
- The North Carolina state board of elections called for a new election in NC-09, after four days of testimony detailing fraud allegations against a contractor who worked for Republican Mark Harris in 2018.

- Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) are trying to occupy the same lane - and by early metrics, Sanders is ahead.

- Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan accused the RNC of putting up substantial barriers to try to prevent a primary challenge to President Donald Trump, as he considers a bid of his own.

Happy Friday! I learned yesterday that Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) is the older brother of James Bennet, the editorial page editor of The New York Times (who will recuse himself from any 2020 work if the elder Bennet runs for president). 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: 256

Days until the 2020 election: 620
          THE TOPLINES         
NC-09, FOREVER - The North Carolina state board of elections unanimously voted to hold a new election in NC-09, after hearing four days of testimony that detailed alleged election fraud by Leslie McCrae Dowless, an independent contractor who worked for Harris.

"The board's vote came an hour after Harris called for a new election and then declined to finish his own testimony, citing health reasons," Campaign Pro's Laura Barr&oacute;n-L&oacute;pez reported. Harris said at the hearing that neither he nor his campaign's leadership had been aware of Dowless' actions.

The board of elections will set dates for a new election at a later meeting. There will be a new primary as well: The state's Republican-controlled legislature overrode Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper's veto of a bill that included a provision mandating another primary when a new election is called (the bill initially passed with strong bipartisan support, and Cooper's cited reason for vetoing was not the new primaries). State officials said a May primary and October general election were possible, the Charlotte Observer reported.

Harris' opponent, Democrat Dan McCready, is diving right into the new election. He sent out a fundraising email to supporters about a half-hour after the decision. Libertarian candidate Jeff Scott also said he's in again, per WSOC's Joe Bruno. Harris' camp did not return a call from Score, but his wife Beth said "we will have to think about it" when asked if he'd run again, per CNN's Dianne Gallagher.

If Harris doesn't run (or even if he does), which other Republicans could jump in? Bruno has some names to watch. Two notable Republicans on his list previously ruled out a run - former Rep. Robert Pittenger (whom Harris beat in a 2018 primary) and former Gov. Pat McCrory - but that was before the hearing.
          IN THE TRENCHES         
PRESIDENTIAL BIG BOARD - The battle between Sanders and Warren for the progressive lane is underway. "Sanders starts out indisputably ahead," POLITICO's Holly Otterbein and Natasha Korecki reported. "Sanders' camp is treating Warren accordingly. He and his aides are avoiding any whiff of public criticism of Warren. ... Warren's team downplays the metrics surrounding their campaign launches, instead taking the long view. ... For the time being, they seem intent on avoiding one another."

- New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker is out with a home-state show of force. On Thursday, Booker released a list that includes endorsements from the state's entire congressional delegation (minus Rep. Chris Smith, the lone Republican), the governor, leaders of both state legislative bodies and others, POLITICO New Jersey's Matt Friedman reported.

- Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) will serve as a national co-chair for Sanders' campaign. Khanna is the first member of Congress to endorse a candidate outside of their home state (here's my endorsement tracker).

- Allies of Washington Gov. Jay Inslee created a super PAC to support him if he runs for president, Campaign Pro's Daniel Strauss reported. Corey Platt said the group will be active in 2020 and will push candidates on climate change, even if Inslee doesn't run.

- Former Rep. John Delaney announced his platform, which includes a national service requirement, a plan to deal with AI and the labor market, and more, per The Washington Post's Jeff Stein.

- Former Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid praised Sanders and three of his former staffers now on Sanders' team, but said he wouldn't endorse anybody until after the Nevada caucuses, per The Nevada Independent's Megan Messerly.

PRIMARY PROBLEMS? - Hogan sharply criticized the RNC for insulating the president from a primary challenge. "Typically they try to be fair arbiters of a process and I've never seen anything like it and I've been involved in the Republican Party for most of my life. It's unprecedented. And in my opinion it's not the way we should be going about our politics," Hogan told POLITICO's Alex Isenstadt. "And the question is, what are they afraid of?"

Hogan implied that the RNC, which declined to comment to Alex, could be worried about a drop in Trump's numbers: "Perhaps the way things look today are not the way they think things look a few months from now or next week or six months from now."

THE GROUND GAME - How did former Rep. Beto O'Rourke come so close to knocking off Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) in 2018, and could it be replicated for 2020? "It was how he chose to run that campaign last year that sets him apart from his potential Democratic rivals," Sasha Issenberg wrote in POLITICO Magazine. "O'Rourke cast aside the hard-won heirlooms of Barack Obama's campaigns: a vogue for data science, the grooming of a professional organizing class and a dedication to the humanism of one-on-one tutelage. 

"Instead, his campaign followed principles that more closely resemble what Silicon Valley types call 'hyperscale' - a system flexible enough to expand at exponential speed, paired with an understanding that getting big quickly can excuse and justify all kinds of other shortcomings. In political terms, it amounted to a massive bet on a strategy of mobilizing infrequent voters instead of trying to win over dependable ones."

CASH DASH - Call it the "Netflix model" or the "Sanders model": The new frontier in gobbling up small-donor dollars is getting supporters to sign on as a recurring donor every month. Sanders' campaign announced it has secured $600,000 in recurring monthly donations in its first 24 hours - and he's not alone. ActBlue told CNN's Fredreka Schouten that about 20 percent of the money Democratic candidates and groups raised in 2018 through the platform came from recurring donations.

- Spending by groups that don't disclose their donors crossed a milestone in the midterms. Dark money groups have spent $1 billion on elections since 2006, according to an analysis from the Center for Responsive Politics' Anna Massoglia. Groups that only partially disclose donors have spent another billion.

MEGA-MERGER - The Democratic redistricting effort is getting a turbocharge. The National Democratic Redistricting Committee, which is run by former Attorney General Eric Holder, is merging with Organizing for Action - home of former President Barack Obama's old supporter list, The Hill's Reid Wilson reported. 

I'M OUT - Put a fork in the speculation that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo could return to Kansas to run for Senate. "I love Kansas. I'm going to be the secretary of state as long as President Trump gives me the opportunity to serve as America's senior diplomat," he told NBC News' Craig Melvin. "Its ruled out. I'm here, I'm loving it." 

ACTUAL ENFORCEMENT - Federal prosecutors charged H. Russell Taub, a Rhode Island Republican who ran for Congress in 2016, with using political donations for personal use. The charges allege that Taub "solicited more than $1.6 million through KAIRC and an affiliated Ohio PAC, but that the majority of the contributions never made their way toward helping GOP candidates," the Providence Journal's Patrick Anderson reported.

STILL IN - Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) says he has "nothing to apologize for" and will run for reelection, per the Des Moines Register's Tony Leys.

CODA - HEADLINE OF THE DAY: "Time is kind of an artificial construct anyways." - New Mexico state Sen. Bill Payne on dueling bills to adopt either daylight saving time or standard time year-round in the state. 
    
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