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An extensive review of the quarterly campaign finance filings finds that vulnerable House Democrats have compiled a massive war chest to help defend the majority.

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The top brass of Joe Bidens campaign is clashing over whether to hire Hawkfish, the digital firm backed by Mike Bloomberg, or staff up for an internal operation.

Democracy for America is backing a primary challenge to Rep. Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.), the fourth primary challenger the longstanding progressive group has endorsed this cycle.

Good Wednesday morning. A big thank you to Ally ([emailprotected]; @allymutnick), for crawling through hundreds of House FEC filings to bring you todays Topline. Email me at [emailprotected], or follow me on Twitter at @ZachMontellaro.

Email the rest of the Campaign Pro team at [emailprotected] and [emailprotected]. Follow them on Twitter: @POLITICO_Steve and @JamesArkin.

Days until the absentee ballot deadline for the Ohio primary: 6

Days until the 2020 election: 195

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MONEY MOVES One of the biggest takeaways from the first quarter filing deadline: Vulnerable House Democrats had collectively banked nearly $100 million. Thats a staggering sum that further hampers Republicans chances of reclaiming the majority. Our chart with the fundraising for every House candidate is for Pros only, but lets preview the quarter for everyone by looking at the cash race.

Nearly every one of the 42 members in the DCCCs Frontline program has twice as much cash on hand as their opponents, if not much more. In fact, their fundraising prowess has grown so formidable that five freshman Democrats Reps. Katie Porter (D-Calif.), Josh Harder (D-Calif.), Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.), Max Rose (D-N.Y.) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) (who is not a Frontliner) now crack the list of the top 20 House candidates with the most cash on hand, besting longtime incumbents, committee chairs and leaders from both parties who have been stockpiling donations for years.

The House battleground is shrinking as the disparity between these members and their GOP challengers grows. Rep. Ben McAdams (D-Utah) has at least 14 times more cash on hand than any of his challengers. For Reps. Antonio Delgado (D-N.Y.), Jared Golden (D-Maine) and Haley Stevens (D-Mich.), that advantage is at least tenfold. Every Frontline Democrat has banked at least $1 million. Only a dozen GOP challengers have at least $500,000. And on the committee level, the DCCC outraised the NRCC by $2.7 million in March and sports a cash on hand advantage of nearly $32 million.

Republicans may have to expend resources to help some vulnerable incumbents. Among GOP members who trail at least one Democratic challenger in cash on hand: Reps. Don Young (R-Alaska), David Schweikert (R-Ariz.), Steve King (R-Iowa), Jim Hagedorn (R-Minn.) and Chip Roy (R-Texas). On the Democratic side, Rep. TJ Cox (D-Calif.) narrowly trails his opponent, former Rep. David Valadao (R-Calif.).

WEB WARS Bidens team is clashing over its digital operation and whether to hand over the keys to Hawkfish, the Bloomberg-backed digital shop. One Democratic operative who has been in touch with Bidens team said that the fight inside the campaign has taken on a generational dimension, with older officials more receptive to Hawkfishs pitches than younger, digitally-native staffers, POLITICOs Alex Thompson reported. Advocates for Hawkfish argue that instead of spending weeks or potentially months building an in-house team, the campaign could plug-and-play the firm now. They say it is flush with Bloombergs cash and boasts an impressive roster of Silicon Valley talent.

More from Alex: Advocates of the in-house approach argue that it would make the campaign more nimble, save money, and generate more authentic content. They add that they believe Biden campaigns senior leadership is being lured by grandiose promises and warn that the campaign would be turning over its most critical tool to a firm with little political experience thats backed by a man who was not a Democrat for most of his life.

SURVEY SAYS Moving toward mail voting is popular. In a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, 58 percent of registered voters said theyd support changing election laws to allow everyone to vote by mail, with that number rising to 67 percent when asked if the changes were only limited to the November election this year (900 registered voters; April 13-15; +/- 3.27 percentage point MOE).

THE REELECT President Donald Trump is itching to get out of the White House. POLITICOs Gabby Orr reports that the president has privately urged aides over the past week to start adding official events back to his schedule, including photo ops and site visits that would allow him to ditch Washington for a few hours. A Trump campaign official told Gabby that the presidents campaign would remain digital for the time being and doesnt have any rallies or fundraisers scheduled for the rest of April or May. But the same official said the White House is in charge of the presidents schedule and could add events at any given moment.

ON, WISCONSIN? Wisconsins spring election was truly a mess. A damning report from Daphne Chen, Catharina Felke, Elizabeth Mulvey and Stephen Stirling of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, PBS Frontline and Columbia Journalism Investigations details what went wrong with absentee balloting in the state, where some voters reported not receiving requested ballots. The problem reveals a system leaking from all sides, buckling under the weight of a global pandemic and partisan bickering that kept the logistics of Election Day up in the air until less than a day before polls opened. (Read the whole report.)

BALLOT ACCESS New York election officials will meet to decide if the Democratic presidential primary in the state should be canceled altogether. The two Democratic commissioners, who were granted the authority in the states budget to strike candidates from the ballot if theyve stopped campaigning, will decide if Sen. Bernie Sanders stopping campaigning (but saying hed like to continue to stay on the ballot to collect delegates) is enough to remove him from the ballot, POLITICO New Yorks Bill Mahoney reported for Pros.

Louisiana Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin submitted a revised emergency election plan that rolls back voters access to absentee ballots amid the coronavirus pandemic, following Republican pushback over an initial plan that would have extended mail-in ballots to more people, The Advocates Sam Karlin reported. The revised plan struck several excuses voters could provide to request an absentee ballot.

A group of liberal organizations in Florida are suing the state to make absentee voting easier. Their asks include making election officials accept ballots postmarked by Election Day as opposed to received by and more. POLITICO Floridas Gary Fineout has details for Pros.

PRIMARY PROBLEMS Democracy for America announced that it is backing Democrat Jamaal Bowman, who challenging Engel in the blue NY-16. Jamaal Bowman wont just be a significant progressive improvement over the corporate Democrat hes looking to replace, hell be a passionate change agent in the U.S. House and we couldnt be more honored to be standing with him, Yvette Simpson, the CEO of Democracy for America, said in a statement. Bowman is the fourth primary challenger DFA backed this cycle.

ON THE AIRWAVES Advancing Arizona, a Democratic dark money group, is spending $700,000 to air a Spanish-language ad attacking Sen. Martha McSally (R-Ariz.) over health care. Campaign Pros James Arkin has more for Pros.

Democrat Jon Ossoff is up with his first ad in his campaign to challenge Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.). The ad, which doesnt mention Perdue, calls medical workers heroes and highlights his wife, Alisha Kramer, who is a doctor. It's never been clearer we need to stand up to the health insurance companies that have bought off Congress, Ossoff said in the ad. The campaign said the at is a roughly $50,000 buy in the Atlanta market, but it is expected to expand soon.

FIRST IN SCORE ENDORSEMENT CORNER Everytown for Gun Safety Action Fund, the Bloomberg-backed gun control group, and its grassroots affiliate Moms Demand Action, is rolling out the first round of its Moms Demand Action Gun Sense Candidate program, which is a seal-of-approval for candidates the group says supports strong gun control measures. More than 700 candidates up and down the ballot get the mark, including Democratic Senate challengers like Mark Kelly, John Hickenlooper, Sara Gideon, Cal Cunningham and more (heres the full list of candidates). The group is also holding a virtual rally on Thursday, which will feature Hickenlooper, freshman Reps. Lucy McBath (D-Ga.) and Sharice Davids (D-Kan.) and officials from the group.

Former Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) threw his support behind Kathy Landing in the Republican primary to challenge freshman Democratic Rep. Joe Cunningham in SC-01, per The Post and Couriers Caitlin Byrd. DeMints endorsement cuts against the wishes of most of the party leadership, which has lined up behind Nancy Mace in the primary in the battleground district. (DeMint bucking party leadership? Why I never!)

BEAR MARKET Freshman Rep. Donna Shalala (D-Fla.) failed to disclose the stocks she sold throughout 2019, which is in violation of the STOCK Act, the Miami Heralds Alex Daugherty reported. (Shalala had previously told the Herald she sold stocks in 2019 to avoid a conflict of interest.) Her office chalked it up to a mistake: As a new member with a broker and attorney who were not familiar with the congressional disclosure rules, there was a misunderstanding, a spokesperson told the Herald. Shalala flipped FL-27 in the midterms, but the seat voted for Hillary Clinton by a wide margin in 2016 (and Shalala is not in the DCCCs battleground program).

PAC ATTACK Leadership PACs have long been criticized as slush funds for lawmakers, and a review from Roll Calls Chris Marquette will likely add on to that. Roll Call found that seven House members combined to spent nearly $800,000 over the past 11 years on elaborate expenditures, including trips to ski resorts, fishing trips and more.

IN THE BUSINESS The state of Michigan is axing plans to use a sister company of NGP-VAN, which runs the wildly popular data management software for Democratic campaigns, for its coronavirus contract tracing program, The Detroit News Beth LeBlanc reported. The state ditched plans to use Every Action VAN, which handles nonprofit, corporate and government markets, after an outcry from Republicans in the state.

JUST SPECIAL Democrat Tricia Zunker, who is running in the special election in WI-07 on May 12, is out with a new TV ad. The ad from Zunker criticizes Republican nominee Tom Tiffany on health care and pre-existing conditions. It appears to be a small buy; Advertising Analytics tracked about $37,000 in airtime booked by the Zunker campaign last week, starting on Tuesday and running through April 27. Tiffany is the favorite in the race in a red district thats gotten redder in the Trump era.

MEA CULPA In Tuesdays Score, I misstated the cash on hand for One Nation, the Senate Republican nonprofit. The group has just under $42 million in the bank. (I initially published what the group said it had on hand at the end of Q1 in 2018, sorry!)

CODA QUOTE OF THE DAY: If youre having trouble keeping up, you can pause, because the placement of the tuna is very important. Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) in an Instagram video detailing how he makes a tuna melt.

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House Democrats dominate the cash on hand battle - Politico