Mike Collins

Across the country, a network of Republican political operatives, lawyers and their allies is trying to shape November’s election in ways that favor former President Donald Trump.

In battleground states, a network of Republican political operatives and lawyers is trying to shape the November's election in favor of former President Donald Trump

The second special session of the current General Assembly has concluded, passing two of the 13 bills introduced on Monday.

If lawmakers pass additional property tax cuts in the multiday session that starts Aug. 26, a conservative group has agreed to withdraw two ballot initiatives filed for the November election that would go much farther.

The Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, and Stephen Wolf, with additional contributions from the Daily Kos Elections team.IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT: This is the last Morning Digest that will be published at Daily Kos Elections, but we’re not going away! You’ll find Monday’s Digest—and every edition after that—at our new site, The Downballot. You can also subscribe by email just below to make sure you never miss a single update: Embedded ContentYou can read all about this change right here. Our operations are 100% reader-supported, so we hope you’ll subscribe today! Leading Off● UT-Gov: Utah's three-way race for governor took another unexpected turn on Thursday when Democratic state Rep. Brian King debuted a campaign video co-starring far-right state Rep. Phil Lyman, the election conspiracy theorist who is waging a write-in campaign months after losing the GOP primary to Gov. Spencer Cox. But Cox is exactly what is uniting the two legislators in a piece parodying the governor's "Disagree Better" campaign."Now, Phil and I disagree better about most issues," King tells the audience with a wink after the on-screen text identifies him as the "Democratic candidate for Utah governor" and Lyman as "Former (or current depending on who you ask) GOP candidate for Utah governor *litigation pending*)." The two, though, respond in unison that they are united in the belief that "Spencer Cox should not be our next governor." The state representatives go on to politely argue whether voters should write in Lyman's name or cast their ballot for King.Cox generated national attention with a commercial four years ago where he and his Democratic rival, Chris Peterson, agreed they were "both equally dedicated to the American values of democracy, liberty, and justice for all people," and would accept the results of the 2020 presidential race. Cox, who went on to easily win his general election in this dark red state, has continued to attract national attention by calling for more civility in politics, and he used his year as chair of the National Governors Association to launch his "Disagree Better" initiative.The governor's critics, though, have argued that Cox himself is the one who needs to be persuaded by these messages. Cox, who touts himself as "an ally to the LGBTQ community," signed a bill to ban gender-affirming care, which he denounced as "genital-mutilation surgery" at a February “Disagree Better” event.Skeptics have also highlighted how the governor signed off on a GOP-drawn congressional redistricting plan that even Cox acknowledged was a gerrymander. "You signed off on gerrymandered maps without an ounce of remorse," Democratic state Sen. Nate Blouin tweeted last year upon seeing another news story where Cox called for saving American democracy. "This is the problem with 'disagree better.' You shouldn’t get credit for saying nice things if you consistently do the wrong thing."Democrats took notice again last month when, days after saying he'd be casting a write-in vote for president, Cox responded to the attempted assassination attempt against Donald Trump by declaring his support for his party's leader. "I fear that America is on the precipice of unmitigated disaster," Cox wrote to Trump, whom he'd previously told to resign following the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol. "We need to turn down the temperature and find ways to come together again before it’s too late." The governor remains in Trump's corner even after it became clear once again that he had zero interest in lowering the temperature.Lyman also is no fan of the governor's project, though for very different reasons. "Our state is slowly slipping away towards becoming something most Utahns don’t recognize," wrote Lyman. "We don’t need to 'disagree better,' we need to Stand for Something!"Lyman himself demonstrated during that campaign that he stood for far-right talking points, which included his responding to the collapse of Maryland’s Francis Scott Key Bridge by retweeted a post claiming that a Black woman on the state’s Port Commission was a "diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging (DEIB) auditor and consultant."The state representative went on to hold Cox to an unimpressive 54-46 margin, and he's spent the ensuing seven weeks refusing to accept that defeat. Lyman launched his write-in campaign on Monday, shortly before the Utah Supreme Court rejected his lawsuit insisting that because he decisively beat Cox at the state party convention before losing the primary, the governor and Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson should be removed from office and replaced by state Senate President Stuart Adams. The justices found that Lyman "offered no viable factual or legal basis for the remedy he requests."And even before he appeared in this video with King, Lyman acknowledged he'd prefer to see the Democrat lead Utah instead of Cox. Hard-line U.S. Sen. Mike Lee, though, quickly made it clear he did not see this as an acceptable outcome when he declared his support for the incumbent.Governors● DE-Gov: Newly released emails show that Lt. Gov. Bethany Hall-Long's government office staff had regularly communicated with key staffers running her campaign for governor, reports Randall Chase at the Associated Press. Under state law, Hall-Long's employees are permitted to conduct campaign activities only outside of their regular work hours and cannot do so using public resources, but the emails indicate that some of them helped facilitate campaign activities and used campaign funds for certain expenditures.Hall-Long's husband, Dana Long, previously served as her campaign treasurer, and the emails include instances where he seemingly coordinated with her office staff during regular work hours to schedule and pay for campaign activities, such as appearances at community events. Some correspondence involved Matthew Dougherty, the lieutenant governor's director of operations who recently stepped aside from that role to run her campaign after her previous campaign manager quit.Campaign finance issues have dogged Hall-Long's campaign since shortly after she joined the race last year. Late last month, state officials released a report concluding that her campaign had violated state law by failing to disclose nearly $300,000 in payments to Long over several years. The couple claimed the payments were reimbursements for personal loans, though the documented sum of those loans was $33,000 less than the total payment amounts, according to the state's investigator.The Sept. 10 Democratic primary is quickly approaching, but few polls have been released publicly, particularly in the weeks since the state published its report on Hall-Long's campaign finances. However, the few available polls in recent months have generally found Hall-Long running competitively with New Castle County Executive Matt Meyer, while National Wildlife Foundation leader Collin O'Mara is much further behind.Senate● NJ-Sen: Multiple media outlets report that Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy will appoint his former chief of staff, George Helmy, to fill the final months of the term of Sen. Bob Menendez, who is set to resign on Aug. 20. Rep. Andy Kim, who won the Democratic primary in June, is favored to defeat Republican businessman Curtis Bashaw in the fall general election for a full six-year term.Menendez, a member of the Democratic caucus who was convicted on corruption charges last month, still has not said if he'll continue his campaign to keep his seat as an independent. The deadline for Mendendez to withdraw is Friday.House● AZ-01, MI-10, WI-03: The DCCC announced Thursday that it was adding three more nominees to its Red to Blue program for top candidates: Amish Shah in Arizona's 1st District, Carl Marlinga in Michigan's 10th, and Rebecca Cooke in Wisconsin's 3rd. The trio are respectively challenging Republican incumbents David Schweikert, John James, and Derrick Van Orden.Marlinga, who struggled to attract major financial support during his two bids against James, could have the most to gain from being included in the program. Marlinga held James to an unexpectedly tight 49-48 victory two years ago despite being massively outspent by the Republican, and he didn't raise much money ahead of his win in last week's primary. Marlinga's allies, however, hope this will change and give him the resources to flip a Macomb County seat that Donald Trump carried by a narrow 50-49 margin in 2020.● NH-02: Hillary Clinton on Thursday endorsed former Biden administration official Maggie Goodlander in the Sept. 10 Democratic primary for New Hampshire's 2nd District. Goodlander's husband, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, was a longtime Clinton aide for both of her presidential bids and during her intervening time as secretary of state.● NY-18: Republican nominee Alison Esposito's former career as a New York City police officer involved the city paying $120,000 to settle two misconduct lawsuits against her, reports City & State's Timmy Facciola. Additionally, Politico's Nick Reisman recently reported that Esposito had been reprimanded for failing to properly safeguard her off-duty handgun after a thief reportedly stole it, her police badge, and credit cards from her unlocked car in a separate incident from 2016.One of the misconduct lawsuits was filed in 2005 by three Black women who alleged that Esposito and other officers engaged in racial discrimination and used excessive force when arresting them in 2003 on shoplifting charges, which were later dismissed.The other involved a 2016 incident where a woman sued Esposito and a fellow officer, claiming they "did unlawfully stop, assault, frisk, handcuff, detain, arrest, and imprison" her infant daughter after entering her residence without a warrant or probable cause; that prosecution was dismissed later that year. The plaintiff alleged discrimination regarding her "ethnic background." (The complaint does not specify the plaintiff's ethnicity, but she and her daughter have Spanish surnames.)Esposito denied the allegations in both lawsuits, and she has made crime one of the central focuses of her campaign against Democratic Rep. Pat Ryan in a light-blue district in the lower Hudson Valley located north of New York City.● TX-18: Former Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner told the Texas Tribune's Renzo Downey on Wednesday that he would not run in the November special election for the remaining two months of the late Democratic Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee's term and would instead support her daughter, Erica Lee Carter.The leadership of the Harris County Democratic Party chose Turner on Tuesday to replace Jackson Lee's name on the ballot for a full two-year term in Texas' dark blue 18th District, but Turner, who will turn 70 next month, has made it clear he doesn't intend to be in Congress very long. Turner told the Houston Chronicle last week that he'd serve a maximum of two terms, saying he wants to function as "a bridge from where we are right now."● House: The crypto-aligned super PAC Fairshake recently announced that it would spend over $25 million in ads to help nine House members from each party, and AdImpact reports how much money the group has booked in each of these 18 seats. The totals range from $600,000 to aid Democratic Rep. Nikki Budzinski in Illinois' 13th District to $2 million to back Democratic Rep. Don Davis in North Carolina's 1st.Poll PileAZ-Sen: Peak Insights (R) for the NRSC: Kari Lake (R): 46, Ruben Gallego (D): 46 (44-42 Trump with third-party candidates)MI-Sen: Fabrizio Ward (R) and Impact Research (D) for the AARP: Elissa Slotkin (D): 47, Mike Rogers (R): 44 (48-48 presidential tie in two-way, 45-43 Trump with third-party candidates)PA-Sen: Franklin & Marshall College: Bob Casey (D-inc): 48, Dave McCormick (R): 36 (46-43 Harris with third-party candidates) (March: 46-39 Casey)The Cook Political Report also released several polls on Thursday, conducted by a Democratic firm, Benenson Strategy Group, and a Republican pollster, GS Strategy Group. Note that these polls were completed on Aug. 2.AZ-Sen: Ruben Gallego (D): 51, Kari Lake (R): 42 (48-46 Harris in two-way, 46-42 Harris with third-party candidates) (May: 46-41 Gallego)MI-Sen: Elissa Slotkin (D): 50, Mike Rogers (R): 42 (49-46 Harris in two-way, 46-44 Harris with third-party candidates)NV-Sen: Jacky Rosen (D-inc): 54, Sam Brown (R): 36 (48-45 Trump in two-way, 47-42 Trump with third-party candidates)PA-Sen: Bob Casey (D-inc): 53, Dave McCormick (R): 40 (49-48 Harris in two-way, 48-43 Harris with third-party candidates) (May: 49-41 Casey)WI-Sen: Tammy Baldwin (D-inc): 50, Eric Hovde (R): 43 (49-46 Harris in two-way, 48-43 Harris with third-party candidates) (May: 49-37 Baldwin)NC-Gov: Josh Stein (D): 48, Mark Robinson (R): 40 (48-47 Harris in two-way, 46-44 Harris with third-party candidates) (May: 37-37 gubernatorial tie)Ad RoundupMO-Sen: Lucas Kunce (D) - anti-Josh Hawley (R-inc)NM-Sen: Nella Domenici (R) and the NRSC - anti-Martin Heinrich (D-inc)NV-Sen: Jacky Rosen (D-inc) - anti-Sam Brown (R)TX-Sen: Ted Cruz (R-inc) (in Spanish)WI-Sen: Eric Hovde (R) - anti-Tammy Baldwin (D-inc)CA-40: Winning for Women - pro-Young Kim (R-inc)CA-45: Winning for Women - pro-Michelle Steel (R-inc)CA-47: Dave Min (D)IA-03: Lanon Baccam (D) - anti-Zach Nunn (R-inc)MI-08: Kristen McDonald Rivet (D) - anti-Paul Junge (R)OH-09: Marcy Kaptur (D-inc) - anti-Derek Merrin (R) (here and here)VA-02: Winning for Women - Jen Kiggans (R-inc) Embedded Content

The conservative House Freedom Caucus is pushing to add proof-of-citizenship requirements to vote, risking a government shutdown right before the 2024 elections.

The Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, and Stephen Wolf, with additional contributions from the Daily Kos Elections team.Subscribe to The Downballot, our weekly podcast Embedded ContentLeading Off● NE-Sen-A: Independent candidate Dan Osborn's hopes of pulling off an upset in Nebraska against Republican Sen. Deb Fischer, who has no Democratic opponent, got a major boost in late July after a third-party contender dropped out and endorsed him to avoid playing spoiler. That minor party, known as Legal Marijuana NOW, could still name a replacement, but it has already missed a self-imposed deadline to do so.Polling sponsored by Osborn has shown him in a close battle against Fischer, but notably, his surveys did not include Kerry Eddy, the former Legal Marijuana NOW candidate.An April poll from the Democratic firm Public Policy Polling placed Fischer ahead by a small 37-33 margin in a two-way race. A subsequent poll jointly conducted last month by the GOP firm Red Wave Strategy Group and the Democratic pollster Impact Research, meanwhile, had the two candidates deadlocked at 42 apiece.By contrast, a Torchlight Strategies survey for Fischer’s campaign taken at the same time as Osborn's most recent poll named all three candidates. It reached a very different conclusion, giving Fisher a wide 50-24 lead, with Eddy taking a sizable 9%.Eddy now won't garner a single vote, but her departure was no surprise. In fact, it appears to have been the plan all along."I am running to support an independent candidate—Dan Osborn," Eddy explained on her website when she launched her campaign earlier this year. "I'll make sure that we all unite around whoever the strongest candidate is to defeat Deb Fischer in November."Her bid prompted backlash from the Legal Marijuana NOW Party, as the Lincoln Journal Star's Andrew Wegley reported, but she nevertheless defeated Kenneth Peterson 71-29 in a tiny primary that saw just over a thousand voters participate. (Eddy, an artist and Air National Guard veteran, had derided Peterson as a "weed bro"; Peterson described himself to Wegley as "probably the poorest senatorial candidate probably in the country.")Eddy, however, had some help in overcoming the hostility of the party she was nominally seeking to represent: A super PAC called Nebraska Railroaders For Public Safety spent about $35,000 on mailers and digital ads boosting her campaign. The PAC, whose biggest funder is Democratic megadonor Reid Hoffman, has also supported Osborn, who has said he's unsure which party he'd caucus with in the Senate should he win.The Legal Marijuana NOW Party reacted angrily to Eddy's withdrawal, posting on Facebook late last month that Osborn had tried to "rig" their primary and claiming that it would "have a replacement candidate withing the week."But the party, which has until Sept. 3 to make such a move, has yet to act. It apparently held an online convention on Aug. 4 but failed to advance an alternative, and the Nebraska secretary of state's office tells Daily Kos Elections that the party has not filed any paperwork naming a new nominee.Even without a third-party rival on the ballot, Osborn faces difficult odds in his quest to unseat Fischer given Nebraska's strong conservative tilt. But independents in other red states and districts have had success in recent years in closing the gap against Republicans if not defeating them outright when Democrats have chosen not to field a candidate of their own—success that Osborn is hoping to replicate.And one powerful Democratic group is a believer. The Sixteen Thirty Fund, which is one of the best-funded Democratic organizations in the country, is financing a super PAC called Retire Career Politicians. (It's also contributed to the Nebraska Railroaders PAC.)According to AdImpact, Retire Career Politicians is spending at least $215,000 on an opening TV ad campaign that praises Osborn as an alternative to politicians who "couldn't be doing less" as "working families struggle to make ends meet." That statement is accompanied by a photo of President Joe Biden and Donald Trump to bolster the case that Osborn sits outside the two-party system.The narrator continues by praising the candidate's service in the Army and Navy and calling him a "lifelong Nebraskan and a leader of his labor union." The spot then plays audio of Osborn declaring, "Only 2% of all of Congress come from the working class. There's nobody like me in the United States Senate."Nebraska's other Senate seat is also on the ballot this year in a special election for the remaining two years of former Republican Sen. Ben Sasse's term. Sasse resigned at the end of the last Congress to become president of the University of Florida, a post he announced he was relinquishing last month because of his wife's health struggles. Republican Sen. Pete Ricketts, whom Gov. Jim Pillen appointed to replace Sasse, does have a Democratic opponent, but his contest against Preston Love has attracted little attention.election recaps● HI State House: Former state Board of Education member Kim Coco Iwamoto denied renomination to state House Speaker Scott Saiki, who has spent close to eight years as one of Hawaii's most powerful politicians, 53-47 in Saturday's Democratic primary. Iwamoto, who is unopposed in the general election, is now set to become the first openly transgender member of the chamber. Iwamoto's victory over Saiki, who narrowly fended her off in both 2020 and 2022, came after she argued that the speaker failed to address the rising cost of living in a Honolulu district where condo insurance costs have spiked. The impact of her victory, though, is already being felt well outside the boundaries of the 25th District."[I]t will be somewhat of a shock to the system at the Legislature if the speaker doesn’t prevail," Democratic Gov. Josh Green, who supported Saiki, told Hawaii News Now on election night. This jolt is fine with Iwamoto, who said that evening of her opponent, "I wasn’t just, you know, campaigning against him. I was campaigning against the entire Democratic establishment in some ways."Governors● DE-Gov: A new poll by Concord Public Opinion Partners on behalf of Education Reform Now Advocacy shows New Castle County Executive Matt Meyer with a 30-23 edge over Lt. Gov. Bethany Hall-Long in the Sept. 10 Democratic primary, while National Wildlife Federation leader Collin O'Mara takes 8%.Education Reform Now Advocacy is a nonprofit affiliated with Democrats for Education Reform, a PAC that supports charter schools. It is unclear whether the latter group has a rooting interest in this contest.This is the first poll this year to show Meyer leading, but it's also the first that was conducted after state officials released a damaging report late last month concluding that Hall-Long's campaign had violated campaign finance laws. A mid-July survey from Public Policy Polling for Hall-Long's supporters at the Democratic Lieutenant Governors Association found her leading Meyer 31-19. Meanwhile, an early-July poll from Slingshot Strategies for Citizens for a New Delaware Way, which opposes Hall-Long, found the race tied, at 27-27.Mayors & County Leaders● Sacramento, CA Mayor: Retiring Mayor Darrell Steinberg declared Tuesday that he was backing Assemblyman Kevin McCarty in the November nonpartisan election to replace him as leader of California's dark blue capital city.The Sacramento Bee's Theresa Clift writes that Steinberg, who confirmed his "support" only after the paper learned he'd made a donation to McCarty back in March. Steinberg did not say he was endorsing the legislator, but as we've written before, this is a distinction without a difference.McCarty—a Democrat whose social media profile declares, "* NOT Kevin McCartHy, Seriously!"—faces physician Flojaune Cofer, who is the endorsed candidate of the local chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America. Cofer, who would be the first Black woman elected to lead Sacramento, led McCarty 29-22 in the March nonpartisan primary. Neither of the two candidates who finished just behind him, former state Sen. Richard Pan and City Councilman Steve Hansen, appear to have backed either McCarty or Cofer.Poll PileNC-Gov: Cygnal (R) for the Carolina Journal and the John Locke Foundation: Josh Stein (D): 43, Mark Robinson (R): 38, Mike Ross (L): 3, Wayne Turner (G): 1 (47-44 Trump with third-party candidates) (May: 39-39 gubernatorial tie)NC-AG: Cygnal (R): Dan Bishop (R): 42, Jeff Jackson (D): 38NC Supreme Court: Cygnal (R): Jefferson Griffin (R): 40, Allison Riggs (D-inc): 37San Francisco, CA Mayor: Sextant Strategies & Research (D) for the San Francisco Chronicle: London Breed (inc): 28, Mark Farrell: 20, Daniel Lurie: 17, Aaron Peskin: 12, Ahsha Safai: 5 (All candidates are Democrats.)Ad RoundupMT-Sen: Tim Sheehy (R) - anti-Jon Tester (D-inc)NM-Sen: Nella Domenici (R) and the NRSCWI-Sen: Restoration of America - anti-Tammy Baldwin (D-inc)IA-03: Lanon Baccam (D)OH-09: Derek Merrin (R) and the NRCC - anti-Marcy Kaptur (D-inc)San Francisco, CA Mayor: Daniel LurieCampaign Action

Developers say they're adding needed low-income housing in the neighborhood. Residents argue the city can't pack more people into one of the most densely populated sections of Longview.

Donald Trump and Kamala Harris just held dueling rallies four days apart in the same Georgia location

Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Jerry Moran, R-Kan., are seen in the Capitol on July 8.

On Saturday morning on MSNBC, former prosecutor Katie Phang and ex-RNC chair Michael Steele both suggested there was more than a hint of collusion that led to U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida Judge Aileen Cannon to issue her ruling dismissing the obstruction of justice charges filed against Donald Trump on the same day the Republican National Convention convened.Phang, appearing on Steele's "The Weekend," said the timing was very suspicious coming from a judge most famous for dragging her feet on the DOJ case filed against the man who placed her on the bench with a lifetime appointment.Noting that Cannon's opinion that special counsel Jack Smith was unconstitutionally appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland was the basis for the dismissal of the case related to stolen government documents hoarded at Mar-a-Lago, ex-prosecutor Phang said everything about Cannon's performance deserves scrutiny.RELATED: 'Judicial malpractice': Judge Cannon accused of boosting 'wacky or unfounded arguments'Add to that, the timing of the dismissal."Why not dispose of that issue in February? We hear the oral argument including friends of the court which never happens," she began. "This is at the end of June, the beginning of July and then she sits on a 93-page opinion for that long?""But the reality is once [Supreme Court Justice] Clarence Thomas gave her the green light to file her dismissal, that is when she did it," she added. "And for her to drop that on the first day of the RNC stinks. Something is rotten in Denmark, and I'm going to say it is Aileen Cannon."Host Steele agreed, interjecting, "I am with you on that one because the timing and the process, the level of, you know, coordination is the only word that comes to mind."Watch below or at the link. MSNBC 07 20 2024 09 42 47www.youtube.com

A day-by-day and hour-by-hour look at the events surrounding the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump at a campaign rally in Butler, Pa., on July 13.

“Hypocrisy and gaslighting”: For years, Trump and his allies targeted election officials, resulting in threats. So, to them, calls for civility often ring hollow.