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03/07/2019 10:00 AM EDT

By ZACH MONTELLARO (zmontellaro@politico.com; @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
- Georgia GOP Sen. David Perdue is hugging President Donald Trump close as he prepares for a competitive reelection battle.

- North Carolina state Attorney General Josh Stein, a Democrat, will not run for Senate. He was considered a top recruit by Democrats.

- Democrat Dan McCready won't challenge the North Carolina state board of elections' decision to allow new candidates to enter the NC-09 primary redo.

Good Thursday morning. Email me at zmontellaro@politico.com or DM me at @ZachMontellaro.

Email the great Campaign Pro team at sbland@politico.com, dstrauss@politico.com, jarkin@politico.com and lbarron-lopez@politico.com. Follow them on Twitter: @PoliticoScott, @DanielStrauss4, @JamesArkin and @lbarronlopez.

Days until the NC-09 primary election: 68

Days until the Kentucky and Mississippi general elections: 243

Days until the 2020 election: 607
THE TOPLINES
THE SENATE BATTLEGROUND - Some battleground Senate Republicans might want to create rhetorical distance from President Donald Trump and his low approval ratings. But not Perdue.

"Republicans have made a mistake in the past by running away from this president. I don't see any need to do that," Perdue told POLITICO's James Arkin and Burgess Everett. "I support this agenda. I don't support everything he says or how he says it, but this agenda is working."

"Perdue is pitching himself as the copilot of Trump's first term," James and Burgess wrote. "The CEO-turned-politician boasts about how his pull with the president has benefited Georgians on a variety of issues."

But that doesn't mean the race won't be competitive. "It's going to be a horse race. You're not going to be bored," Perdue's batterymate Sen. Johnny Isakson told POLITICO.

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IN THE TRENCHES
PRESIDENTIAL BIG BOARD - Former Vice President Joe Biden nabbed a top flight operative, a signal that he's leaning toward running for president. "His team has brought on Cristóbal Alex, the head of the influential Latino Victory Fund," POLITICO's Alex Thompson reported. "It's not clear what role Alex would fill in a Biden presidential campaign."

- Former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper's campaign announced he raised over $1 million in the 48 hours since his campaign launch.

RECRUITMENT MISS - Stein will not seek to challenge Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) and instead will run for reelection as attorney general, POLITICO's Elena Schneider reported. This is not the first time he's opted not to run for Senate: The DSCC tried to recruit him in 2015, but he ran for his current office instead. "Other Democrats named by local operatives as potential Tillis' challengers include state Sen. Jeff Jackson and former state Rep. Deborah Ross ... Trevor Fuller, a Mecklenburg County commissioner, has already launched his bid."

NC-09, FOREVER - Democrat Dan McCready doesn't plan to challenge a state law that requires a new primary election in NC-09. "I considered challenging this law in court - experts say it is probably unconstitutional - but that would just drag out the process even longer, leaving the people without a voice in Congress," McCready wrote in an op-ed for The Washington Post.

- Republican Matthew Ridenhour jumped into the race. He's a former Mecklenburg county commissioner and Marine veteran and is pitching a "Marine-vs.-Marine" race against McCready, via The Charlotte Observer's Jim Morrill and Ely Portillo. Stevie Rivenbark is also running, per The Fayetteville Observer's Paul Woolverton.

- Three people have been arrested this week in connection with the investigation into election fraud, via WRAL's Deborah Strange.

H.R. 1'S DEMISE - House debate on H.R. 1 (116) began Wednesday (I watched from the gallery above the chamber and spoilers: Democrats are fans, and Republicans are not), and roll call votes on some amendments will come today. But House Democrats' ethics and electoral reform bill will go no further after its likely passage in the House on Friday (which I've been telling you in Score for a while). At a press conference Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said it will not get a vote on the Senate floor. When asked why, McConnell said with a grin "because I get to decide what we vote on," per POLITICO's Marianne LeVine. "What is the problem we're trying to solve here?" McConnell
said at the press conference. "People are flooding to the polls."

THE DEBATE STAGE - The DNC decided that Fox News will not host any of the Democratic presidential primary debates. "Recent reporting in the New Yorker on the inappropriate relationship between President Trump, his administration and Fox News has led me to conclude that the network is not in a position to host a fair and neutral debate for our candidates," DNC chairman Tom Perez said in a statement, per The Washington Post's Paul Farhi.

- Two longshot presidential hopefuls could be well on their way to getting a spot on the Democratic debate stage. "Andrew Yang and Marianne Williamson, a pair of little-known 2020 contenders, both say they are on track to meet the grassroots donation threshold set by the DNC to get into the first debate in June," Elena reported. "Yang said the DNC's debate criteria had been 'very much a call to action to grow our donor base very quickly.'"

WHAT'S IN A WORD? - Democratic voters want "electability." But what exactly does that mean? BuzzFeed News' Molly Hensley-Clancy interviewed more than 50 Democratic voters to try to find out. "Far from tying electability to centrism or moderation, voters said they cared about rhetoric, personality, energy, and momentum when deciding if a candidate could win," she wrote. "Many others said they were looking primarily for someone who spoke specifically to the concerns of working-class people. Some wanted a fighter who could parry Trump's rhetoric. Just two said they were looking for a political moderate."

HOUSE RECRUITMENT WATCH - DCCC chair Cheri Bustos is eyeing two Democrats who lost in the midterms to run again in 2020. She told The Hill's Scott Wong and Mike Lillis that Gina Ortiz Jones will challenge Rep. Will Hurd in TX-23 again and that she's been recruiting M.J. Hegar about running against Rep. John Carter in TX-31 (Hegar has also talked with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer about running for Senate).

AN INVESTIGATION - House Oversight Chairman Elijah Cummings and Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Chairman Jamie Raskin sent letters to Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger saying the committee is investigating allegations of voter suppression in the state. The letter asks the pair to turn over documents on polling sites, communications about voter roll purges and more. Kemp said at a press conference that they are "playing politics up there" by asking for documents, per The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Tamar Hallerman.

CAMPAIGN CASH - Charges against former Rep. Aaron Schock (D-Ill.) on fraud, filing false election reports and tax return and more will be dropped if he pays back money to his campaign committee and the IRs, the Chicago Tribune's Jason Meisner reported. "Under the terms of the deal, Schock, 37, must pay back taxes to the IRS and $68,000 to his congressional campaign funds," Meisner wrote. "As part of the deal, Schock's campaign committee, Schock for Congress, pleaded guilty Wednesday to a misdemeanor count of failing to properly report expenses."

ASK A CONSULTANT - What are campaign consultants expecting for the next cycle? Campaigns & Elections/PSB Research ran a survey that polled 408 consultants. Eighty-seven percent said they think it is likely that "one or both major party presidential campaigns will be hacked during the 2020 general election." The poll found that 59 percent say that "sexual harassment is at least somewhat common in the industry." The survey also digs in on unethical campaign practices and 2020 predictions.

PAC ATTACK - Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.), a prolific fundraiser, is launching a new leadership PAC called Innovation PAC (the launch video). It takes the place of his previous PAC, McPAC.

LEFT OFF - Ohio is not among Priorities USA's top targets for the 2020 presidential race. "It's not in our initial spending plans," Josh Schwerin, spokesperson for Priorities USA, told Cleveland.com's Seth Richardson. "What we think that means is if Ohio is in play, we'll have already won the easier states and have 270 electoral votes."

CODA - QUOTE OF THE DAY: "I have felt like I'm sitting on a fence, and I'm getting really uncomfortable sitting on those pickets," Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), describing how he felt while debating running for president or reelection, via The New York Times.

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