Cunningham gets outside boost in North Carolina Presented by the United States Postal Service

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Quick Fix

— The pro-Democratic group VoteVets is trying to propel Cal Cunningham to the nomination in one of the cycle’s top Senate races, with an advertising barrage in the run-up to North Carolina’s Super Tuesday primary.


— Democratic presidential candidates spent the holiday weekend shuttling between events in Iowa and South Carolina, but now the senators in the race are headed back to Washington for President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial.

— The Supreme Court will decide if states can bind their representatives to the Electoral College to the winner of the popular vote in their state or not before the 2020 election.

Good Tuesday morning. Email me at [email protected] and follow me at @ZachMontellaro.

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Days until the Iowa caucuses: 13

Days until the New Hampshire primary: 21

Days until the Nevada caucuses: 32

Days until the South Carolina primary: 39

Days until the 2020 election: 287

TopLine

OUTSIDE IN — It’s been a decade since Cunningham — a former one-term state senator — has been on a statewide ballot in North Carolina, and his lack of name identification was on full display late last year, when a Fox News poll showed him at just 13 percent among Democratic primary voters, slightly behind a little-funded challenger, state Sen. Erica Smith.

Enter VoteVets. The outside group dedicated to electing Democratic veterans went on the air with positive, bio spots on Christmas Eve, Campaign Pro’s James Arkin writes. And the group is dropping big money: Including future reservations through the end of January, VoteVotes Action Fund will spend $3.3 million on ads in North Carolina to boost Cunningham, who has been endorsed by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. Neither Cunningham nor Smith is spending money on TV, leaving VoteVets’ messaging unanswered on the air.

From James’ story: “The ads are likely to have a significant impact in the primary race given the dearth of other messaging on the airwaves for any of the other Democratic candidates. It also comes before many presidential campaigns have spent heavily in the Super Tuesday state, giving the group more impact before the airwaves are crowded with presidential messages.”

Speaking of crowded airwaves, don’t miss POLITICO’s Maya King on the Mike Bloomberg effect, which could squeeze downballot hopefuls by raising the candidate rates for ads: “On average in markets around the country, prices for political TV ads have risen by 20 percent since Bloomberg began his campaign. Meanwhile, some local politicians have already found difficulty trying to reach their own constituencies.”

Presidential Big Board

DON’T QUIT YOUR DAY JOB — We have the proposed schedule for Trump’s impeachment trial — and, if implemented, it’s likely to take the senators in the race almost entirely off the stump for the final two weeks before the Iowa caucuses. From POLITICO’s Burgess Everett and Marianne LeVine: “The speedy timetable is sure to prompt complaints by Democrats, who see the possibility of 12-hour days and midnight arguments as an attempt to cover-up the trial. A House Democratic aide indicated that 12-hour days or arguments beginning at 1 p.m. would ensure that arguments stretch deep into the night, possibly until 2 or 3 a.m. when breaks are factored in."

Late-night sessions could disrupt the plans of Sens. Amy Klobuchar, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, who are all banking on a strong performance in Iowa to propel their campaigns. When the initial rumors suggested the trial could recess at roughly 6 p.m. each evening, there was talk of the senators chartering flights out to Iowa and returning to D.C. before proceedings resumed the next afternoon.

All the candidates spent the Martin Luther King Jr. Day weekend out on the trail. The Columbia State’s Emily Bohatch, Maayan Schecter and Joseph Bustos have a full diary from the NAACP’s annual King Day at the Dome at the state capitol. Meanwhile, the candidates at Des Moines’ Black and Brown Forum on Monday underscored the lack of diversity among the Democratic presidential field after the departure of a handful of minority candidates, The Des Moines Register’s Nick Coltrain and Kim Norvell wrote.

LET’S PLAY THE FEUD — The simmering tension between Sanders and Warren is threatening to boil over in the days before voting in Iowa and New Hampshire, POLITICO’s Alex Thompson, Trent Spiner and Stephanie Murray write from the trail: “Interviews with more than two dozen voters at events for Sanders and Warren last weekend made clear that the hard feelings between the two progressive icons have extended to their supporters. The situation has injected a volatile mix of gender politics and alleged sexism into the final weeks of the campaign, and added another layer of uncertainty to a primary where any number of outcomes remain possible.”

CAUCUS CHAOS — The three different vote counts coming out of Iowa in two weeks — initial raw vote count, realigned raw vote count and state delegate equivalents — mean the caucuses may not cull the field of candidates as they traditionally do, POLITICO’s Natasha Korecki reports. “There may be more tickets out of Iowa than ever before,” Jeff Berman, Tom Steyer’s delegate guru, told Natasha.

— Pete Buttigieg, who is now locked in a tight battle with Sanders, Warren and Joe Biden in Iowa, is trying to recapture the magic that catapulted him to the front of the pack in the state in the first place. His closing message in the state is one “of party unity,” POLITICO’s Elena Schneider reported from Emmetsburg. “He’s staying outside of the conversation dominating cable news, campaigning miles away from the impeachment proceedings that called his opponents in the Senate away to jury duty.”

— Biden is the leader in a new poll conducted by the Democratic firm David Binder Research for Focus on Rural America, Natasha wrote. The poll shows Biden at 24 percent, followed by Warren at 18 percent, Buttigieg at 16 percent, Sanders at 14 percent and Klobuchar at 11 percent (Jan. 15-18; 500 likely caucus-goers; +/- 4.4 percentage points).

IN THE COURTS — The Supreme Court will hear a case on faithless electors, deciding before the 2020 election if Electoral College votes can be bound to the state’s popular vote. In 2016, there was 10 faithless electors. “[A] federal appeals court in Denver ruled that electors can vote as they please, rejecting arguments that they must choose the popular vote winner. In Washington, the state Supreme Court upheld a $1,000 fine against the three electors and rejected their claims,” the AP’s Mark Sherman wrote.

THE DEBATE STAGE — We have new thresholds for the Feb. 7 debate, and they, alone, won’t winnow the field. The DNC announced that candidates can qualify for the next debate by hitting roughly the same polling and donor marks set for the January debate (the only difference is the polling window and that Iowa polls are excluded), or winning at least one pledged delegate to the Democratic National Convention out of Iowa, I reported. All six candidates who participated in the January debate — Biden, Buttigieg, Klobuchar, Sanders, Steyer and Warren — have already qualified for the next debate (according to our tracking), and Andrew Yang is more than halfway there, having hit the donor mark and having 2-of-4 polls.

And a nugget you’ll probably find interesting: The Iowa Democratic Party is expected to calculate and report how many delegates to the Democratic National Convention each candidate has won the night of the caucuses, a DNC official told Score.

FIRST IN THE NATION — Sen. Michael Bennet has missed most of the recent debates and lags in national polls. “Yet a small number of New Hampshire’s voters and political elites have found themselves drawn to his message, demeanor and experience, hoping almost despite themselves that Bennet could be the ultimate dark horse primary candidate,” POLITICO’s Trent Spiner reported from Manchester. “Even his supporters admit there’s no clear path to winning the nomination. But they still see his resume as a former superintendent of schools in Denver, ten years of experience in the Senate and his age ... as reasons to hope he could emulate Gary Hart”.

CLOSING MESSAGE — Many of the remaining candidates will get CNN town halls in Iowa a week before the caucuses. CNN announced that Sanders, Buttigieg, Yang and Steyer will each have hour-long town halls on Jan. 28. Biden, Warren and Klobuchar get their shot on Jan. 29. The town halls will all be at Drake University in Des Moines, but alternate arrangements will be made for the senators if they’re stuck in Washington because of the impeachment trial.

— Sanders and his team have been ratcheting up the pressure on Biden, accusing the former vice president of wanting to cut social security (a plan of attack Sanders’ campaign telegraphed ahead of the last debate, but one that he didn’t actually launch). Biden was asked about it on the trail by a voter, and pushed back saying Sanders’ camp was behind a doctored video with that claim (our own Marc Caputo wrote from Iowa that’s a false claim), while pointing out his current plan would boost Social Security spending. Warren, too, starting jabbing at Biden for his past stances on changing social security, POLITICO’s Alex Thompson wrote from Des Moines.

THE REELECT — The “Never Trump” resistance to President Donald Trump is going out with a whimper, not a bang. “With the start of primary season just weeks away, Trump rivals Joe Walsh and Bill Weld are ceding an array of key battlegrounds,” POLITICO’s Alex Isenstadt wrote, noting that while some states have entirely scrapped their primaries, there’s others for which Trump’s two primary challengers didn’t bother to file.

THE CASH DASH — Big donors to both Biden and Buttigieg were in the Midwest over the weekend for donor retreats, POLITICO’s Maggie Severns and Elena Schneider reported. Buttigeig donors huddled in Chicago, and Biden’s donors met in Des Moines.

ENDORSEMENT CORNER — Rep. Terri Sewell (D-Ala.) endorsed Biden Friday, telling POLITICO’s Nolan McCaskill that she looks “forward to telling Southern voters that are really important to Super Tuesday why it is I believe that Joe is the best candidate to move the nation forward”.

— Freshman Rep. Harley Rouda (D-Calif.) endorsed Bloomberg on Friday. In 2018, Bloomberg’s super PAC, Independence USA, dropped over $4 million back Rouda’s bid in CA-48. California is also a Super Tuesday state.

— Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) endorsed Sanders for president. Jayapal is the co-chair of the Congressional Progessive Caucus, joining fellow co-chair Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) in backing Sanders.

— The editorial board of the Quad-City Times, a paper that serves eastern Iowa in and around Davenport, endorsed Klobuchar. “We believe she can actually cut through the obstacles and move forward; that her Midwestern grit is a reason for hope,” the editorial board wrote.

— The New York Times’ editorial board endorsed two candidates (ugh) in the Democratic primary: Warren and Klobuchar.

STAFFING UP — Steve Cortes joined America First Action, the pro-Trump super PAC, as senior adviser and spokesman.

Down the Ballot

THE CASH DASH — Two big numbers coming out of Texas.

TX-02: Freshman GOP Rep. Dan Crenshaw raised $1.6 million in the fourth quarter of last year, his campaign told the Houston Chronicle’s Jasper Scherer.

TX-23: Democrat Gina Oritz Jones, who is running in the open seat after a narrow loss to now-retiring GOP Rep. Will Hurd in 2018, announced she raised $826,000 in the quarter and has more than $2 million in the bank.

ON THE AIRWAVES — Sen. Kelly Loeffler’s (R-Ga.) first ad has arrived, in which she ties herself closely to Trump. The campaign said she’d spend $4 million to air the ad, with $2.6 million booked in the first four weeks. Campaign Pro’s James Arkin has more for Pros.

— Jessica Cisneros, the Democrat who is primarying Rep. Henry Cuellar in TX-28, is up with her first television ad. It is a positive bio spot in which she promises to stand up to Trump, and does not mention Cuellar by name. It only makes a vague reference to the fact that she’s a primary challenger, ending with the tagline “South Texas needs a new voice” (the ad is also running in Spanish).

— The American Action Network, the nonprofit tied to House GOP leadership, launched new television and digital ads, part of its ongoing, $2.5 million impeachment ad campaign. All 29 Democrats that carried a Trump district and voted for impeachment will see at least digital ads, and 11 will have television ads.

— One Nation, the nonprofit tied to Senate Republican leadership, reserved $1.1 million worth of airtime in Maine (presumably to back GOP Sen. Susan Collins) between television and radio, per Advertising Analytics The television buy started Jan. 10 and runs through April 18, and the radio buy is Jan. 10-April 29.

THE HOUSE MAP — Tax attorney Rosemary Becchi plans to end her run against Democratic Rep. Tom Malinowski in NJ-07 to run instead against Democratic Rep. Mikie Sherrill in NJ-11, the New Jersey Globe’s David Wildstein reported. Becchi would have had to get past GOP state Senate Minority Leader Tom Kean Jr. to take on Malinowski.

— Former Democratic Rep. Kweisi Mfume's, who is running in the special election for his old seat in MD-07 to replace the late Elijah Cummings, tenure as NAACP president and CEO ended in 2004 “after several negative performance reviews and a vote by the executive committee not to grant him a new contract,” The Baltimore Sun’s Kevin Rector reported.

— Republican Earl Granville, who is running to challenge Democratic Rep. Matt Cartwright in PA-08, picked up the endorsement of House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy.

FIRST IN SCORE — PRIMARY PROBLEMS — BOLD PAC, the political arm of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, will kick an additional $1.5 million into its independent expenditure program to play in primaries, bringing its expected investment in primary battles to $2.5 million.

— Labor attorney Shannon Liss-Riordan ended her bid to primary Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), leaving Rep. Joe Kennedy as Markey’s sole, serious competition. In her statement, she declined to endorse either man, saying “they are both inspiring people, and I will be a proud constituent of either.” POLITICO Massachusetts Playbook’s Stephanie Murray has more.

— Retiring GOP Rep. Pete Olson endorsed Pierce Bush (yes, of that Bush family) to succeed him in TX-22. The Houston Chronicle’s Jasper Scherer has more.

— The Republican Main Street Partnership endorsed Randy Feenstra, GOP Rep. Steve King’s primary challenger in IA-04. The group also endorsed three more candidates: Chele Farley (NY-18), Amanda Makki (FL-13) and Sue Rezin (IL-14).

THE ROLLS — South Carolina officials agreed to change a rule that required voters to submit their full Social Security numbers to register after a lawsuit from the state Democratic Party, DSCC and DCCC, per The State’s Emily Bohatch. Residents will now only have to submit the last four digits.

DON’T DO THAT — Kelley Rogers, who ran a handful of so-called “scam PACs,” was sentenced to three years in prison after he pleaded guilty last year to wire fraud, POLITICO’s Maggie Severns reported.

THE GOVERNATORS — Retiring Rep. Rob Bishop (R-Utah) has another run in him, joining real estate executive Thomas Wright’s gubernatorial campaign as his running mate, The Salt Lake Tribune’s Benjamin Wood reported. Bishop only recently passed on a gubernatorial run himself.

— Prominent supporters of former Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens, who resigned after he admitted to an affair (but denied that he threatened revealing a photograph of the woman) are banging the drum for his return, per the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s Kurt Erickson and Jack Suntrup. A local councilman in a group of supporters said he thought it was “unlikely’ Greitens would run in 2020, however.

— Former New Jersey Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli, a Republican, is expected to launch his 2021 bid for governor today, New Jersey’s Matt Friedman wrote for Pros.

FIRST IN SCORE — STAFFING UP — The Republican Governors Association has hired Clinton Soffer as the group’s deputy political director. He was previously now-Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves’ campaign manager in 2019. He was a senior adviser to Patrick Morrisey’s 2018 West Virginia Senate bid and was Sen. Cory Gardner’s (R-Colo.) political director in 2014.

— Matt Harringer, the national press secretary at the DLCC, is moving to MVAR Media as vice president of campaigns.

CODA — QUOTE OF THE DAY: “I don’t use a Netflix account, and if I have one I’m unaware of it.” — Biden, when asked at The Brown & Black forum in Iowa who pays for his Netflix account.

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