The year in review

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Quick Fix

— The election year is nearly upon us. But before we close the book on 2019, let’s take a look back at the moments that will define the year in politics.


— The looming impeachment trial is casting a long shadow over the 2020 battle for control of the Senate — even if senators and candidates end up sticking with their parties over whether to remove President Donald Trump.

— We’re shifting three races in our POLITICO Election Forecast to account for two House retirements and the first party switch in the chamber since 2009.

Good Monday morning. I’m Steve Shepard, filling in for Zach ([email protected]; @ZachMontellaro). I was going to make Zach work today, but I was visited last night by three spirits who convinced me to give him the day off. (Fun fact: The Ghost of Morning Score Past looks just like James Hohmann.)

This is the final Morning Score of 2019. We’ll be back on Thursday, Jan. 2. Happy holidays!

Email me and the rest of the Campaign Pro team at [email protected], [email protected] and [email protected]. Follow us on Twitter: @POLITICO_Steve, @JamesArkin @allymutnick.

Days until the Iowa caucuses: 42

Days until the New Hampshire primary: 50

Days until the 2020 election: 316

TopLine

Democratic presidential candidate South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg speaks to the media in the spin room after the Democratic presidential primary debate at Loyola Marymount University. | Mario Tama/Getty Images

It didn’t feel like an “off year,” did it? 2019 is drawing to a close, but there were a number of moments this year that we’ll still be thinking about in 2020 — and potentially beyond.

March 10: The Buttigieg town hall — Nationally, the race for the Democratic nomination at the end of 2019 has a three-candidate top tier: Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. But with six weeks until the Iowa caucuses, Pete Buttigieg, who began the year as a mostly unknown, small-city mayor, is a major player in the state with the most important role in the nominating process.

Amazingly, it’s been more than a month since the last reliable poll in Iowa. But Buttigieg was the leader in the most recent Des Moines Register/CNN/Mediacom poll, back in November. His rise, however, can be traced to a March night in Austin, Texas.

At a CNN “town hall” on that Sunday night, Buttigieg flashed his raw political talent, delivering a soon-to-be-viral moment when he questioned the role Vice President Mike Pence, another Hoosier, plays in the Trump administration. "How would he allow himself to become the cheerleader for the porn star presidency? Is it that he stopped believing in scripture when he started believing Donald Trump?" Buttigieg said that night.

Buttigieg’s performance put him on the radar for Democratic voters — and donors large and small. The money he raked in — outpacing every other Democratic candidate in the second quarter of this year — fueled an ad campaign that helped boost him to the top of the field in Iowa, at least as of last month.

Whether Buttigieg has staying power will be determined in 2020. But as the year ends with the big names still topping the national polls, Buttigieg’s sudden rise stands as the greatest disruption to the Democratic contest in the off year.

Sept. 10: The never-ending election ends — There were warning signs for both parties in Republican Dan Bishop’s narrow victory in North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District.

For Democrats, there were the continued losses in rural areas, where Republicans are increasingly dominant in the Trump era. Bishop defeated Democrat Dan McCready, and some Democrats fear they still have room to fall in places that turned against them sharply in 2016 (though McCready still outran Hillary Clinton’s margins throughout the district).

Meanwhile, Republicans continue to bleed support in cities and suburbs. Bishop won by 2 points in a district Trump carried by 12 in 2016, and states like North Carolina and Arizona could be squarely in play next year.

Nov. 5: Democrats win in Virginia — The biggest news story on Election Day was Kentucky’s governor’s race, and Democrats rightfully celebrated Andy Beshear’s narrow victory over GOP Gov. Matt Bevin. But Beshear’s win probably tells us more about Bevin’s unique unpopularity — see his controversial, last-minute pardon and clemency spree — than about broader political trends.

Instead, look at Virginia, where Democrats won back control of both the state House and Senate. Yes, Virginia has been changing for more than a decade. But Democratic gains also came after a party offensive to grab control of the redistricting process in more states ahead of the post-2020 round of redistricting.

Democrats spent big in the state and now have a “trifecta” — the governorship and both chambers of the state legislature. It’s a playbook they’re raising money for to bring to other states next year.

Dec. 18: The impeachment vote — The near-party-line vote on two articles of impeachment last week sets the stage for a trial next year that could dominate the political scene over the first month or two of 2020. The trial could keep the five senators running for president — Sanders, Warren, Cory Booker, Michael Bennet and Amy Klobuchar — off the campaign trial and block out the sun for the other candidates hoping to break through while the nation’s attention is focused on the Senate chamber.

For Trump, there’s the ignominy of becoming only the third president to be impeached. But there’s also the possible bump that could come after a likely acquittal.

Impeachment is also likely to have an impact down the ballot. Republicans crowed last week that vulnerable Democrats who voted to impeach Trump would be punished next November. And the trial could further yoke 2020 Senate races to the presidential contest in battleground states.

Presidential Big Board

THE DEBATE STAGE — Spurning calls to lower the thresholds to qualify for the only 2020 debate before the Iowa caucuses, the Democratic National Committee instead hiked them and is still requiring both polling and fundraising metrics, likely boxing out candidates who have already missed the cut — and potentially excluding some who only barely qualified for recent debates. Here are the criteria for the Jan. 14 debate at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, hosted by CNN and The Des Moines Register:

— The polling threshold: Beginning with polls released on Nov. 14 and running through Jan. 10, candidates need to receive at least 5 percent in four qualifying polls (or 7 percent in two early-state qualifying polls). That represents a 1-point increase from thresholds for last week’s debate.

— The fundraising threshold: Candidates need to have received donations from 225,000 unique individuals by Jan. 10 — only a slight increase from the 200,000 that were required for the December debate.

— Who’s in; who’s out: According to POLITICO’s calculations and reporting, five candidates have already cleared both marks: Biden, Buttigieg, Klobuchar, Sanders and Warren. Andrew Yang has met the fundraising threshold, but only has one of the four polls he will need. Tom Steyer is short of both the fundraising and polling thresholds, but has two of the four polls he needs. Booker, who didn’t make the December debate, has cleared the donorthreshold but still needs all four polls before Jan. 10 to get back on stage.

— Zach and I wrote about the new thresholds on Friday for POLITICO. And, as always, bookmark our spreadsheet, which we’ll be updating if there are any new qualifying polls released over the holidays.

THE ADVENTURES OF PETE — POLITICO’s Elena Schneider is out with a profile of Mike Schmuhl, Buttigieg’s campaign manager — and childhood friend. “Schmuhl — an even-keeled, attention-deflecting 36-year-old prone to telling staffers up and down the org chart that they have ‘the most critical’ job on the campaign — has taken a decidedly unconventional path into presidential campaign management. Schmuhl has never staffed a statewide or national political run, unlike most other presidential campaign managers. The biggest campaign he managed before taking charge of Buttigieg’s presidential bid is a House race. In fact, he’s never worked for a candidate outside of Indiana. When he briefly lived in Washington, D.C., he worked at the Washington Post, not on Capitol Hill.”

— Meanwhile, last week’s debate “revealed a new reality candidates face” with six weeks until the Iowa caucuses, POLITICO’s David Siders and Chris Cadelago wrote: All roads to the nomination run directly through Buttigieg. “Buttigieg’s transformation into a piñata did not come simply because he has risen in polls of Iowa and New Hampshire. His position is unique because the imperative to stamp him out is so wide-ranging. Joe Biden occupies the party’s moderate lane, and Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren appeal to progressives, but Buttigieg is threatening to all with his ideologically moderate platform but, demographically, a progressive profile: young, gay and — as he will remind you repeatedly — not of Washington.”

FOCUS ON IOWA — Democratic candidates spent the weekend decrying a racially motivated and disturbing hit-and-run case in Clive, Iowa, earlier this month. Nicole Poole Franklin, 42, says she ran over 14-year-old Natalia Miranda because Miranda “is Mexican.” That led to denouncements this weekend from Buttigieg, Warren and Booker as they campaigned in Iowa, The Des Moines Register’s Kim Norvell writes.

THE REELECT — Trump and the RNC are raising money hand over fist for Trump’s reelection campaign. But an investigation by POLITICO’s Maggie Severns finds “a growing mass of pro-Trump PACs, dark money groups and off-brand Facebook advertisers neither affiliated with nor endorsed by Trump’s campaign, which have pulled in over $46 million so far. … The unofficial pro-Trump boosters number in the hundreds and are causing alarm among the actual operatives charged with reelecting the president: They suck up money that Trump aides think should be going to the campaign or the [RNC], and they muddy the Trump campaign’s message and make it harder to accumulate new donors, Trump allies say.”

Down the Ballot

TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS — Next year’s impeachment trial is going to supercharge the battle for the Senate, Campaign Pro’s James Arkin writes for Pros: “The Senate's impeachment trial of President Donald Trump is still stuck in limbo, but the looming verdict represents the most consequential vote senators will take before next year's elections — and a weighty position for challengers seeking to join the chamber.”

James surveys the most vulnerable incumbents and their most prominent challengers and finds few deviating from the party line. Even Sen. Doug Jones (D-Ala.), the most vulnerable incumbent from either party, is dismissing any suggestion a vote to convict and remove Trump could cost him his bid for a full term next year, telling ABC’s “This Week,” that “if I did everything based on a pure political argument all you’d need is a computer to mash a button. … That’s just not what this country is about. It’s not what the founders intended to do.”

Getty Images

ELECTION FORECAST — Three ratings changes to POLITICO’s election forecast before we close the books on 2019:

— NJ-02: From “Toss Up” to “Lean Republican”: Rep. Jeff Van Drew’s decision last week to become a Republican could be a boon to his reelection odds — if he can successfully navigate a primary in his new party.

— NC-11: From “Solid Republican” to “Likely Republican”

— WA-10: From “Solid Democratic” to “Likely Democratic”: We don’t expect either of these seats to be hypercompetitive. But the retirements of Reps. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) and Denny Heck (D-Wash.), respectively, at least make their seats worth keeping an eye on.

THE CASH DASH — Last Friday marked the monthly FEC filing deadline, and we got our latest updates for the major national party committees, for Nov. 1-30:

— The DNC raised $8.1 million, spent $8.4 million and has $8.4 million in cash on hand (DNC filing). It also has $6.5 million in debt.

— The RNC raised $20.6 million, spent $18.8 million and has $63.2 million in cash on hand (RNC filing).

— The DSCC raised $5.8 million, spent $5.8 million and has $17.3 million in cash on hand (DSCC filing). It also has $7.9 million in debt.

— The NRSC raised $6.2 million, spent $3.2 million and has $18 million in cash on hand (NRSC filing).

— The DCCC raised $9 million, spent $5.1 million and has $47.6 million in cash on hand (DCCC filing).

— The NRCC raised $6.7 million, spent $5.6 million and has $29.4 million in cash on hand (NRCC filing).

— FIRST IN SCORE — BOLD PAC, the fundraising arm of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, transferred $1 million to its independent expenditure arm to help boost Latino candidates through 2020 primary battles, Campaign Pro’s Ally Mutnick writes in. “By making early investments in critical primaries in California and Texas, we have an opportunity to bring people to Congress who reflect their communities and will serve them well,” Rep. Tony Cárdenas (D-Calif.), the PAC’s chairman, said in a statement.

THE SENATE MAP — Democrat Cal Cunningham might be getting some backup ahead of the March primary in North Carolina. James sends over this note: VoteVets Action Fund has booked nearly $400,000 for a broadcast TV buy, according to data from Advertising Analytics. VoteVets endorsed Cunningham, an Army veteran who is running in the primary to face GOP Sen. Thom Tillis and is also backed by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

Meanwhile, after his most prominent remaining primary challenger dropped out, Tillis is scaling back his planned advertising campaign in the new year, taking down reservations ahead of the March 3 primary. Andrew Romero, a Tillis campaign spokesman, called the incumbent “the only notable candidate” left in the GOP primary and said the campaign was “turning our attention to November.”

— Majority Forward, the dark money nonprofit affiliated with Senate Democratic leadership, is launching a new ad boosting Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.). It is a positive spot focusing on health care and is backed by a “significant six-figure buy” on TV and digital, James wrote for Pros.

THE HOUSE MAP — A rough story for Democrat Maya Rockeymoore Cummings, who is running in the special election to succeed her late husband, former Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), in MD-07: The Washington Post’s Steve Thompson has a deep dive on what a headline in Sunday’s paper called “debts and sloppy accounting” at Rockeymore Cummings’ charity that was “so closely intertwined with her for-profit consulting firm that they shared the same employees, the same office space and the same director — her.”

WHERE ARE THEY NOW? — Former Rep. Heath Shuler (D-N.C.) says he was approached to run for the redrawn House seat from which Meadows is retiring. The former NFL quarterback passed on a return bid, but he told the Asheville Citizen Times’ David Thompson he could run for office as early as 2024, when his youngest daughter will be done with high school. “I want to wait until she's in college," Shuler said, "even though right now is probably the best time to run with this current political atmosphere."

CODA — QUOTE OF THE DAY: “It seemed like it was so completely out of character of the past years I spent talking to Steve.” — Actress and executive assistant Jen Ryan, who according to the Kansas City Star’s Bryan Lowry, “traded intimate photographs and regularly talked via Skype and email” with now-Rep. Steve Watkins (R-Kan.). Ryan said she told Lowry she was “gobsmacked” when Watkins ran for Congress as a Republican and shared a Facebook message in which Watkins described himself as “very moderate.”

Follow us on Twitter Steven Shepard @politico_steve



Zach Montellaro @zachmontellaro



James Arkin @jamesarkin



Ally Mutnick @allymutnick