Kari Lake, the Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Kyrsten Sinema, is having a very difficult time figuring out just what it is she stands for, depending upon who she’s talking to. That’s leading her to swing wildly from the far-right fringes steeped in conspiracy theories to trying to put on a “moderate” face to consolidate support.
Abortion is the most obvious example
of Lake’s confusion, where she’s flip-flopped between absolute bans, allowing each individual state to decide, and having compassion for all women’s choices.
Now she’s landed right back on the far edge of the fringes
, telling an audience at an Idaho Republican gathering (yes, Idaho, and yes, she’s running in Arizona) that it’s “unfortunate” that the 1864 Arizona law banning abortion—which she called “out of line” a few weeks ago—isn’t being enforced.
“[U]nfortunately, the people running our state have said we’re not going to enforce it,” Lake told the right-wing Idaho Dispatch. “We don’t have that law, as much as many of us wish we did.”
That came after a group called Idaho Chooses Life criticized Lake for wavering on abortion, which seemingly led her to further mend fences on the fringes with some good old conspiracy theorizing.
“@HillaryClinton
is talking about Trump wanting to kill his opponents,” she tweeted
. “We call that projection. While on the subject of Hillary, I want everyone out there to know that the brakes on my car work just fine. I’m not suicidal.”
Lake became front-runner
in the Arizona Republican primary after she consolidated support with a charm offensive
and apology tour with the state’s Republican party leaders during her failed 2022 gubernatorial bid.
During that campaign, she accused her primary opponent, Karrin Taylor Robson of “trying to buy the election with her 95-year-old husband’s millions,” and blasted then-Gov. Doug Ducey as “do-nothing Ducey.” She also crowed that she “drove a stake through the heart of the McCain machine” and told McCain Republicans to “get the hell out” of the state.
There couldn’t be a stronger contrast for Lake than her Democratic opponent, Rep. Ruben Gallego, who has been an unwavering and unapologetic progressive from his first run for Congress a decade ago. That’s why Daily Kos endorsed him ten years ago
and has endorsed his Senate run
.
Since that first successful run, Gallego has been a stalwart in Congress where he’s been on an inspiring and very public mental health journey
, which he has made part of his campaign. Gallego served in Iraq in the Marine Corps, and he’s been forthright about his struggles with PTSD.
“I can disprove the idea that people that have PTSD are like these raging balls of fire that are ready to explode,” Gallego told The Washington Post. “Or the opposite, that we’re like these meek individuals that are crying every night or something like that.”
He is also crystal clear about why he’s running for the Senate, and what’s at stake in 2024
.
When I was running for office all those years before January 6th, rarely did people ever talk about the institution of democracy. I think this is a newfound passion. It’s a newfound passion for me. I still can’t believe how close I came to getting killed by an insurrection. It makes me more aggressive. If someone like Kari Lake is my opponent, I’m going to take her down. Not because I don’t think she’s a good person. I think she’s a real threat to democracy. I think she will do anything she can to overthrow elections for her own political game. I think there are a lot of people who would gladly join her, and I think that is a reason why we have to have people running, not just for policy goals but for pure protection of democracy.
We know who Gallego is and what he’ll do in the Senate, which is exactly what Arizona needs in this seat after what Sinema has put them through.
As protests related to the Israel-Hamas war erupt at college campuses nationwide
, it’s worth looking at the recently released Harvard Youth poll
to take the temperature of what’s important to young voters.
Among Democrats age 18-29, women’s reproductive rights topped the list, with young Democratic voters prioritizing it over other issues 68% of the time. Gun violence was a close second at 67%, and health care came in third at 63%.
That means many of the issues young Democrats prioritize are also issues that President Joe Biden and the Democratic Party are running on nationally. That is particularly true of abortion rights, which continue to permeate the national conversation.
In the Harvard survey, Biden outperformed Donald Trump among registered voters under 30 by 13 points, 50% to 37%. But among likely voters, Biden bested Trump by 19 points, 56% to 37%. That’s a handful of points shy of Biden’s margin in the 2020 election
, when he won 18- to 29-year-olds by 24 points, but not wildly off track.
Biden’s support is variable in terms of age, gender, and race:
His lead among the younger 18-24 cohort stands at 14 points, and among 25- to 29-year-olds it is 26 points.
Biden holds a massive 33-point lead among young women (nearly matching his +35
with the group in the 2020 youth poll), but leads young men by just 6 points (20 points lower than in the 2020 youth poll);
The president’s lead among young white voters is a mere 3 points, but he notches a 43-point advantage among young nonwhite voters.
All in all, Biden isn’t performing quite up to his 2020 levels with 18- to 29-year-old voters. But he’s within striking distance among young likely voters, and the president’s campaign is laser focused on young Democrats’ top issue.
On Thursday morning, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments
concerning Donald Trump’s claim that a president has “complete immunity” from criminal prosecution for acts taking place during his term in office. If Trump is successful in his appeal, it could reduce the charges he is facing in three criminal trials, as well as profoundly alter the balance of power in the government.
In December, the idea that presidents hold absolute immunity from prosecution was firmly rejected
by U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is presiding over Trump’s Washington, D.C., trial for election interference.
Special prosecutor Jack Smith asked the Supreme Court to take up the issue of immunity immediately after Chutkin’s ruling because it was clear that Trump would appeal and that such an appeal could add months to the trial calendar. However, the Supreme Court refused
to hear the case at that time.
Trump did appeal Chutkan’s decision, but that appeal was rejected
by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals in February. The Supreme Court then agreed
to hear the case, a decision that surprised many court observers, delaying the D.C. trial by several months.
During arguments before the appeals court in January, Trump attorney John Sauer argued that immunity is complete that a president could order the assassination of a political rival
without facing charges unless first impeached by the House and convicted by the Senate. It’s not clear what scenarios the Supreme Court will contemplate on Thursday, but it would seem likely this argument will once again be discussed.
Now it’s up to the Supreme Court to make the final decision in this case. Oral arguments are set to begin at 10 AM ET, and an audio stream is being made available through C-SPAN.
The case, to be argued Thursday, stems from Trump’s attempts to have charges against him dismissed. Lower courts have found he cannot claim for actions that, prosecutors say, illegally sought to interfere with the election results.
The Republican ex-president has been charged in federal court in Washington with conspiring to overturn the 2020 election, one of four criminal cases
he is facing. A trial has begun in New York over hush money payments to a porn star
to cover up an alleged sexual encounter.
The Supreme Court is moving faster than usual in taking up the case, though not as quickly as special counsel Jack Smith
wanted, raising questions about whether there will be time to hold a trial before the November election, if the justices agree with lower courts that Trump can be prosecuted.
When the justices agreed on Feb. 28 to hear the case, they put the issue this way: “Whether and if so to what extent does a former President enjoy presidential immunity from criminal prosecution for conduct alleged to involve official acts during his tenure in office.”
That’s a question the Supreme Court has never had to answer. Never before has a former president faced criminal charges so the court hasn’t had occasion to take up the question of whether the president’s unique role means he should be shielded from prosecution, even after he has left office.
Both sides point to the absence of previous prosecutions to undergird their arguments. Trump’s lawyers told the court that presidents would lose their independence and be unable to function in office if they knew their actions in office could lead to criminal charges once their terms were over. Smith’s team wrote that the lack of previous criminal charges “underscores the unprecedented nature” of what Trump is accused of.
NIXON’S GHOST
Richard Nixon resigned the presidency in disgrace nearly 50 years ago rather than face impeachment by the House of Representatives and removal from office by the Senate in the Watergate scandal.
Both Trump’s lawyers and Smith’s team are invoking Nixon at the Supreme Court.
Trump’s team cites Nixon v. Fitzgerald, a 1982 case in which the Supreme Court held by a 5-4 vote that former presidents cannot be sued in civil cases for their actions while in office. The case grew out of the firing of a civilian Air Force analyst who testified before Congress about cost overruns in the production of the C-5A transport plane.
“In view of the special nature of the President’s constitutional office and functions, we think it appropriate to recognize absolute Presidential immunity from damages liability for acts within the ‘outer perimeter’ of his official responsibility,” Justice Lewis Powell wrote for the court.
But that decision recognized a difference between civil lawsuits and “the far weightier” enforcement of federal criminal laws, Smith’s team told the court. They also invoked the high court decision that forced Nixon to turn over incriminating White House tapes for use in the prosecutions of his top aides.
And prosecutors also pointed to President Gerald Ford’s pardon of Nixon, and Nixon’s acceptance of it, as resting “on the understanding that the former President faced potential criminal liability.”
TIMING IS EVERYTHING
The subtext of the immunity fight is about timing. Trump has sought to push back the trial until after the election, when, if he were to regain the presidency, he could order the Justice Department to drop the case. Prosecutors have been pressing for a quick decision from the Supreme Court so that the clock can restart on trial preparations. It could take three months once the court acts before a trial actually starts.
If the court hands down its decision in late June, which would be the typical timeframe for a case argued so late in the court’s term, there might not be enough time to start the trial before the election.
WHO ARE THE LAWYERS?
Trump is represented by D. John Sauer, a former Rhodes Scholar and Supreme Court clerk to Justice Antonin Scalia. While serving as Missouri’s solicitor general, Sauer won the only Supreme Court case he has argued until now, a 5-4 decision in an execution case
. Sauer also filed legal briefs asking the Supreme Court to repudiate Biden’s victory
in 2020.
In addition to working for Scalia early in his legal career, Sauer also served as a law clerk to Michael Luttig when he was a Republican-appointed judge on the Richmond, Virginia-based federal appeals court. Luttig joined with other former government officials on a brief urging the Supreme Court to allow the prosecution to proceed. Luttig also advised Vice President Mike Pence not to succumb to pressure from Trump to reject some electoral votes, part of Trump’s last-ditch plan to remain in office.
The justices are quite familiar with Sauer’s opponent, Michael Dreeben. As a longtime Justice Department official, Dreeben argued more than 100 cases at the court, many of them related to criminal law. Dreeben was part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election and joined Smith’s team last year after a stint in private practice.
In Dreeben’s very first Supreme Court case 35 years ago, he faced off against Chief Justice John Roberts, then a lawyer in private practice.
FULL BENCH
Of the nine justices hearing the case, three were nominated by Trump — Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh. But it’s the presence of a justice confirmed decades before Trump’s presidency, Justice Clarence Thomas, that’s generated the most controversy.
Thomas’s wife, Ginni Thomas, urged the reversal of the 2020 election results and then attended the rally that preceded the Capitol riot. That has prompted calls for the justice to step aside
from several court cases involving Trump and Jan. 6.
But Thomas has ignored the calls, taking part in the unanimous court decision that found states cannot kick Trump off the ballot as well as last week’s arguments over whether prosecutors can use a particular obstruction charge against Capitol riot defendants. Trump faces the same charge in special counsel Jack Smith’s prosecution in Washington.
● AZ Ballot, AZ Supreme Court: Progressive activists in Arizona have launched a two-pronged effort
to unseat a pair of conservative Supreme Court justices and preserve voters’ right to do so.
Progress Arizona is targeting Kathryn King and Clint Bolick, two appointees of former Republican Gov. Doug Ducey who voted earlier this month to ban nearly all abortions in the state by ruling that an 1864 law prohibits the procedure. Both justices face retention elections
in November, where voters will be presented with a “yes/no” question asking whether each jurist should be permitted to serve another term.
If a majority vote “no,” then a vacancy would be declared, which Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs would then fill, subject to certain limitations. Such occurrences have historically been rare, though: Just six judges
have failed to earn retention since the state adopted the practice in 1974, and none at the Supreme Court level.
But in 2022, voters denied new terms
to three trial court judges in Maricopa County, and Justice Bill Montgomery survived retention with just 56% of the vote
that same year, which the Arizona Republic’s Jimmy Jenkins says was the worst-ever performance
by a member of the Supreme Court in state history.
But Republicans in the legislature are seeking to prevent any judge on the ballot this year from being removed by voters by retroactively nullifying the results of any retention elections this fall.
Last month, Arizona’s Republican-run state Senate voted along party lines to refer a constitutional amendment to the ballot that would all but eliminate retention elections
for judgeships. Instead of requiring them at regular intervals (which for Supreme Court justices is six years), they would only take place if a judge fails to demonstrate
“good behavior”—a high threshold that would only be triggered in limited circumstances, such as getting convicted of a felony or filing for bankruptcy.
In the absence of such an event, judges at all levels throughout the state would, in practice, be granted lifetime tenure until reaching the mandatory retirement age of 70. Should the state House, which is also controlled by the GOP, greenlight this amendment as well, it would go before voters in November.
But should it pass, it wouldn’t just end retention elections going forward. The proposal explicitly states
that it “applies retroactively” and that the results of any retention elections that take place this year are null and void—that the returns “shall not be included in the official canvass or result in the issuance of any certificate of retention or rejection.”
Attempts like these to diminish voters’ power tend to be unpopular with those same voters, as Ohio Republicans learned to their chagrin
last year when they tried to increase the threshold for passage of all future amendments to a 60% supermajority. Arizona voters did, however, support two measures
in 2022 that restricted their ability to amend their constitution, though both were much narrower in nature than the proposal Ohioans rejected.
And neither of those earlier Arizona amendments related to the fight over abortion rights, which will be central this year to races up and down the ticket. It’s also possible that the GOP plan to hobble retention elections might not even make the ballot.
Republican lawmakers, frustrated by Hobbs’ record-setting number of vetoes
, are trying to bypass her
by putting a variety of measures before voters. (Hobbs can’t block the legislature from referring measures to the ballot.) But the Arizona Republic’s Mary Jo Pitzl reported last month that Republicans are concerned about “ballot fatigue” if the ballot grows too long.
“The risk is everything would fail,” House Speaker Ben Toma told Pitzl. Something just like that happened in California in 2005, when voters defeated a series of ballot
measures that Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger had put his weight behind in an attempt to circumvent the Democratic-run legislature. In their zeal to sidestep Hobbs and kneecap voters, Arizona Republicans could face a similar fate.
The Downballot
●Here’s one way to avoid dealing with election results you don’t like: just wipe them from the record books. It’s not Orwell—it’s Arizona, and we’re talking all about it on this week’s episode of “The Downballot.”
This fall, voters have the chance to deny new terms to two conservative Supreme Court justices, but a Republican amendment would retroactively declare those elections null and void—and all but eliminate the system Arizona has used to evaluate judges for 50 years. We’re going to guess voters won’t like this one bit … if it even makes it to the ballot in the first place.
Co-hosts David Nir and David Beard also recap this week’s primaries in Pennsylvania, where voters just chose nominees in the high-profile contest for attorney general and in several key House races across the state. But there’s also some big news that has scrambled next year’s elections in Virginia, with a prominent candidate dropping his bid for governor to instead seek the number two slot.
● FL-Sen: President Joe Biden endorsed former Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell
at his Tuesday rally in Tampa. Mucarsel-Powell was already the frontrunner in the Aug. 20 Democratic primary to take on Republican Sen. Rick Scott.
Mucarsel-Powell faces intra-party opposition from self-funding businessman Stanley Campbell, but she ended March with a wide $2.8 million to $772,000
cash on hand advantage. Alan Grayson is also running, but the former congressman-turned-perennial candidate had just $98,000 in the bank.
Scott, for his part, ended last month with $3.8 million on hand. Mucarsel-Powell actually outraised the incumbent $3.5 million to $2 million during the first quarter of 2024, but the incumbent’s deep pockets allow him to augment his war chest whenever he wants.
The same may not be true of Scott’s primary foe, attorney Keith Gross, despite his bluster. The challenger had all of $30,000 to spend at the close of last month, and while the self-described
“very wealthy businessman” insisted to the Hill last year that he’s open to spending
“$20, $30 million” of his own money, he only self-funded $1.9 million
through March.
House
● Michigan: Candidate filing closed Tuesday for Michigan’s Aug. 6 primary, and the state has a list of contenders here
. However, collecting enough petitions to get on the ballot can be a difficult process, so it’s possible that some of the candidates won’t appear before voters this summer.
Five Republican candidates for governor, including ostensible frontrunner James Craig, learned this the hard way in 2022 after election authorities disqualified them
after they fell victim to a huge fraudulent signature scandal and failed to turn in enough valid petitions. Even before this dramatic episode, though, there were examples of candidates
failing to submit the requisite number of signatures.
Given all of this, it’s anything but a surprise that no big names launched last-second campaigns. However, as we’ll discuss, the close of filing did bring a pair of busy House races into focus.
● MI-08: One declared candidate who did not submit his name is Democrat Dan Moilanen, the executive director of the Michigan Association of Conservation Districts. Moilanen announced in December that he’d run
to replace retiring Democratic Rep. Dan Kildee in the competitive 8th District, but he ended March with just $2,000 in the bank
before ending his campaign on April 9
.
Four Democrats did file to succeed Kildee in this central Michigan constituency: businessman Matt Collier, state Sen. Kristen McDonald Rivet, Flint Mayor Sheldon Neeley, and state Board of Education President Pamela Pugh. McDonald Rivet finished last month with a $671,000 to $290,000
cash on hand advantage over Collier, who served as mayor of Flint three decades ago, while Pugh and Neeley respectively had just $55,000 and $24,000 to spend.
The GOP primary also consists of four candidates. The roster features retired Dow Chemical Company executive Mary Draves, 2022 nominee Paul Junge, state Board of Education member Nikki Snyder, and Some Dude Anthony Hudson, who ran for president earlier this cycle
.
Junge, who is self-funding most of his effort, ended March with a $1.1 million to $91,000 cash on hand advantage over Synder, while Draves launched her campaign
during the opening days of the new quarter. Junge lost the 2022 general election to Kildee by a wide 53-43
two years after Joe Biden took the 8th just 50-48
, and his detractors are hoping Draves can put up a serious fight in the primary.
● MI-13: While hedge fund manager John Conyers III told Politico in September that he was planning to announce “soon”
that he’d challenge freshman Rep. Shri Thanedar in the Democratic primary, the son and namesake of the late longtime congressman never went forward with his bid.
Four candidates, though, are hoping to deny renomination to Thanedar in the 13th District, a safely Democratic seat that includes much of Detroit and its southwestern suburbs. The most prominent challenger is Adam Hollier
, a former state senator and state cabinet official who lost last cycle’s crowded primary to Thanedar 28-24
. Hollier finished March with $570,000 in the bank, but Thanedar’s personal wealth left him with a huge $5.1 million war chest.
Detroit City Councilwoman Mary Waters, who holds a citywide seat
, is also running, and while she had a mere $5,000 to spend, her campaign could still pose a problem for Hollier.
Thanedar’s victory over Hollier, who is Black, set him up to become the first Indian American
to represent Michigan in Congress while also leaving Detroit without an African American member of Congress for the first time since the early 1950s
. Waters is also Black, and she could cost Hollier support from voters who might otherwise back him over Thanedar.
The field also includes two unheralded candidates, former Southfield Clerk Sherikia Hawkins and perennial candidate Mohammad Alam
. All of Southfield is located in Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib’s neighboring 12th District, though it’s unlikely Hawkins has much of a base at home: She resigned in 2022 after submitting a no contest plea on election felony charges
.
● ND-AL: Protect Freedom PAC, a group aligned with Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, is spending close to $320,000
on a media buy in support of former state Rep. Rick Becker ahead of the June 11 Republican primary for North Dakota’s lone House seat. We do not yet have a copy of the ad to boost Becker, who has pledged to join the far-right Freedom Caucus
.
This is the first outside spending the FEC has tracked for the race to replace GOP Rep. Kelly Armstrong, who is running for governor. Becker, though, ended March with a large financial advantage over his intra-party rivals thanks in large part to self-funding.
Public Service Commissioner Julie Fedorchak, who has Gov. Doug Burgum’s endorsement, outraised Becker $449,000 to $278,000
with donors, but the former plastic surgeon threw down another $550,000 of his own money. Becker ended March with a $797,000 to $412,000 cash on hand edge.
A third Republican, former State Department official Alex Balazs, was the source of every single cent
in his $106,000 quarterly haul, and he finished last month with a comparable $96,000 in the bank. Former Miss America Cara Mund, who ran against Armstrong as a pro-choice independent in 2022, launched her Republican primary
to replace him after the new quarter began.
Payne spent over a decade representing New Jersey’s dark blue 10th Congressional District in the Newark area, a constituency that was previously represented by his late father and namesake. He dealt with several health challenges during his tenure, and his office said that, following his heart attack, “he faced medical complications due to diabetes and high blood pressure that led to subsequent cardiorespiratory arrest.”
The New Jersey Globe’s David Wildstein writes that Payne will remain on the June 4 primary ballot
, and, since he faces no opposition, he’s all but certain to win. Wildstein says that Secretary of State Tahesha Way would declare the nomination vacant after the results are certified by June 17, and that local county committee members would pick the new nominee at a convention. The latest this could happen is Aug. 29.
Wildstein also writes that it’s up to Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy if a special election will take place, and that a primary would be used to pick the nominee. Katie Sobko of NorthJersey.com also writes that the primary would take place 70 to 76 days after Murphy
issued his writ, with a general election 64 to 70 days after that. This would mean that the seat wouldn’t be filled until September at the earliest
.
Alternatively, the Washington Post’s Mariana Alfaro writes that the governor could consolidate a special general election
with the regular Nov. 6 contest, with a primary taking place some time prior. However, state law
does not say when, or even if
, a primary would have to take place under that scenario. Joe Biden carried the 10th District 81-19 in 2020
.
Payne entered the House more than two decades after his father, Donald Payne Sr., became the state’s Black member of Congress following his 1988 victory
. The younger Payne became a local party leader
in Newark in 1992. He got his chance to seek higher office in 2005 after party leaders backed him for a spot on Essex County’s commission, a move that came at the expense of an incumbent
. Payne had no trouble in the general election for the same post that his father used to launch his own career
in 1972.
Payne claimed a seat on Newark’s city council the following year even though he initially faced a rival slate of candidates backed by Mayor-elect Cory Booker
before he allied himself with Booker
for the runoff. The two men would spend the next several years variously on the same side and at odds.
And while Gov. Jon Corzine would sign a 2007 bill prohibiting people from holding multiple offices at once, Payne was able to continue to simultaneously serve
in both county and city government because the law allowed any affected incumbents to keep both posts as long as voters continued to reelect them to each.
Payne was serving as president of the city council when his father died of colon cancer
, and he decided to run to succeed him. The primaries for both the special election and full term in the next Congress took place on the same day, and Payne’s most prominent foe in each was fellow City Councilman Ronald Rice, a Booker ally who had planned to challenge the congressman
.
But the well-funded Payne, who had the backing
of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and the influential Essex County party, had little trouble in either contest. He defeated Rice 60-19
in the nomination contest for a seat in the next term, and by a wider 71-25 spread
in a special election that featured a smaller pool of candidates.
Payne likewise had no trouble winning the simultaneous general elections in November, though the meeting to replace him on the city council was another story: In an incident that attracted national attention
, police used pepper spray on a labor leader
who was furious at Booker’s attempt to install one of his allies.
Payne, like his father, quickly became entrenched in his new seat, and he never fell below 80%
in any of his primaries. There was brief talk that Payne could be in for a tougher than usual fight in the summer of 2019 while pastor Stephen Green was the subject of an extensive profile
in Buzzfeed detailing his new campaign against the incumbent. Green, though, never actually ended up filing
to run, and Payne had no trouble claiming renomination.
Payne’s 2022 intra-party foe, progressive activist Imani Oakley, did make the ballot, and she raised more than $460,000
for her effort. Payne, however, held her off 83-11
ahead of what would be his final general election.
● TX-23: Gov. Greg Abbott endorsed Rep. Tony Gonzales
on Wednesday for the May 28 Republican primary runoff after remaining neutral during the first round, a move that the congressman is hoping will strengthen him with his many conservative intra-party critics.
But while Gonzales could use the support of hardliners at home in his contest against gun maker Brandon Herrera, he’s shown no interest in winning over far-right politicians from elsewhere. The congressman told CNN on Sunday
, that the Freedom Caucus chair, Virginia Rep. Bob Good, “endorsed my opponent, a known neo-Nazi.” Gonzales also had some choice words for “real scumbags” like another Herrera backer, Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz.
Herrera, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reported earlier this month, has a history of posting videos
on his YouTube channel with jokes about the Holocaust and Nazis through at least 2022. Most notably, one from that year shows Herrera calling a submachine gun used by the Nazis “the original ghetto blaster.” The video, with Rod writes “appears to take a sarcastic tone” continues with a montage set to “Erika,” a marching song utilized both by Nazis and the modern far-right.
Herrera went on to tell his audience he was “not really a big fan of fascism” and that “the best way to not repeat history is to learn about history, and the way that I know to get you guys to learn about history is to make really fucked up jokes about it.”
While Herrera, as Rod also reported, was an enthusiastic member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans back in his home state of North Carolina, he wasn’t happy with Gonzales for labeling him a “neo-Nazi.” The candidate responded to the congressman’s CNN appearance by tweeting
, “This is the death spiral ladies and gentlemen. He has to cry to his liberal friends about me, because Republicans won’t listen anymore.”
Gonzales, though, has far more money than Herrera to get voters to listen back in his sprawling West Texas constituency. The incumbent finished March with a wide $1.5 million to $302,000
cash on hand advantage.
Judges
● MI Supreme Court: The leadership of the state Democratic Party this week endorsed both
appointed Justice Kyra Harris Bolden and Kimberly Thomas, who leads the University of Michigan Law School’s Juvenile Justice Clinic. Bolden, whom Gov. Gretchen Whitmer picked to fill a vacancy, is running for the remaining four years
of her term, while Thomas is campaigning for a full eight-year term to succeed retiring Republican Justice David Viviano.
Each party will pick their nominees at fall conventions rather than through primaries, and neither Democrat so far faces any serious intra-party opposition. Democrats hold a 4-3 majority, and Republicans need to win both races to regain the majority they lost in 2020
.
Poll Pile
CO-08: OnMessage Inc.
(R) for the NRCC: Gabe Evans (R): 43, Yadira Caraveo (D-inc): 38
