the DON JONES INDEX…

 

 

GAINS POSTED in GREEN

LOSSES POSTED in RED

 

    8/6/22...      14,952.64

  7/30/22...      14,923.20

   6/27/13…     15,000.00

 

 

(THE DOW JONES INDEX:  8/13/22… 32,803.47; 7/30/22… 32,845.13; 6/27/13… 15,000.00)

 

 

LESSON for August 6, 2022 – “PRIMARY ODORS”

 

Djonald UnChained’s five step programme for becoming Master of the Universe is well on its way.

Step One: take possession of the Supreme Court of the United States.  Check!

Step Two: win back control of the Congress and the Senate... and not just for the Republicans, but for the MAGApublicans by (2.1) entering his most loyal flunkies in the primaries, (2.2) winning, and then (2.3) going on to demolish the Democrats (and any potential third party interlopers) in November – no doubt on the platform of The 2020 Election was Stolen!  Topic of this Lesson.  (2.1 Check!  2.2 Sort of check... 2.3 Pending).

(Hey, if the doctors and nomenculturalists can stall the plague at Omicron Five and just calling the new mutations “subvariants” and tacking English letters, as opposed to the Greek) upon them, then we can exploit the same policy for politics.)

Step Three: enter (3.1) and win (3.2) the 2024 Republican primaries, and then (3.3) send Old White Joe back to Delaware.  Pending.

Step Four: outfox Russia and China, getting them to destroy one another by kowtowing to the both (and poisoning the minds of Mad Vlad and Komrade Xi against one another), then and sweep up the remains.  (Or, alternately, nuke them both under false flags and sweep up the remains.)  Pending.

Step Five: as recommended by Sun Tzu (DJI June 4th), round up their best surviving soldiers, scientists and sadists, incorporate them into Space Force and then venture forth into where no man nor beast has ever gone before to conquer the galaxy.  Then all those other points of lights that the Webb Telescope has drawn out of hiding – conquer them too.  Pending.

 

Tuesday, Trump’s Step Two agenda progressed, in some places, regressed in others.  So Mister T’s Master Plan is going swimmingly, or drowningly, as the circumstances tumble.

Meanwhile (per Colbert), let’s take a closer look (per Myers) at necessary developments (per Kimmel).

 

Antecomitia

Six... well, five and a half in that the Ohio primaries were for state offices only... no, six again (counting the referendum on abortion in Kansas) state primaries took place on Tuesday.  These, according to Ballotpedia,  (with more data on links) were...

Arizona

Kansas

Michigan

Missouri

Ohio

Washington

Check on links to access Ballotpedia’s analysis of the six sick states.  (See those upcoming primaries remaining as Attachment One.)

Trumptickets: Thunder and Hiss

“Donald Trump's effort to play Republican kingmaker faced fresh tests on Tuesday as voters in five states cast ballots in high-profile races for U.S. Congress, governor and other offices ahead of November's midterm elections,” declared Reuters on Monday.

“In Arizona and Michigan, candidates who embraced the former president's false claims of voter fraud could win the Republican nominations for governor, even as some in their party worry they could be too extreme to defeat Democrats on Nov. 8. 

“Kansas voters were deciding whether to amend the state constitution to allow the Republican-controlled legislature to ban or limit abortion, the first such ballot initiative since the U.S. Supreme Court eliminated the nationwide right to abortion in June.

“Two Republican U.S. representatives who voted to impeach Trump after the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol by the then-president's supporters, Peter Meijer of Michigan and Jamie Herrera Beutler of Washington, also face Trump-endorsed primary challengers.”  (See Attachment Two)

Rolling into Tuesday, the once and future King had a mixed, but largely positive record in his war with the RINOs (and, especially, potential competitors like Mike Pence and Ron deSantis – whose primary race, August 23rd, was cancelled inasmuch as he had no Republic competition).

Over the past month, the ex-President’s record had markedly improved from the debacle when Georgia dealt former him another set of endorsement losses as hated RINO Governor Brian Kemp strolled to victory over the Trump-sanctioned former Senator David Perdue and even more hated SecState Brad Raffensperger... he who would not “find” Trump his eleven thousand some votes to overturn the people’s plebiscite... also prevailed.  His “side-switching act in Alabama” did bear fruit Katie Britt won the GOP Senate primary over supplicant turned suppository Rep. Mo Brooks.  (Politico, June 28th, See Attachment Three)

“This week, Trump filled his endorsement card with a number of safe incumbents, but he also got involved in another hard-fought member-on-member primary in Illinois.”  The former president awarded his endorsement to Rep. Mary Miller — who has made a number of controversial statements during her year and a half in Congress — against Rep. Rodney Davis, who did not vote to overturn 2020 election results and supported establishing a Jan. 6 investigative commission. Both are conservatives, but Miller’s more consistent alignment with Trump helped win her the nomination in the end.

In the deep-red Utah, however, Trump chose to back Reps. Burgess Owens and Chris Stewart, who voted to contest the 2020 election results, and snubbed Reps. John Curtis and Blake Moore, who voted to establish a bipartisan commission to investigate the Jan. 6 attacks. “But no matter — all Utah GOP House incumbents won nominations on Tuesday.”

Over the weekend, the races in Arizona and Kansas sucked up most of America’s attention... that is, among the half or so Don Joneses who even bothered to vote, let alone follow the proceedings.

The New York Times’ coverage of the Arizona races included, besides the marquee Trump/Pence main event and the campaign to unseat One Six Inquisition witness Rusty Bowers, two notable down-ballot pigfights that revisited the 2020 mantra of stolen elections and “extremist” conspiracy theories.

Sitting Attorney General and candidate in the Republican Senate primary, (the winner of which will challenge Senator Mark Kelly, a Democrat, in November) Mark Brnovich lost his affection for MAGAworld (and they for him) after he wrote in a letter to Senator Karen Fann that his office’s Election Integrity Unit had spent “hundreds of hours” investigating 282 allegations submitted by Ms. Fann, as well as more than 6,000 allegations from four other reports. Some of them “were so absurd,” he wrote, that “the names and birth dates didn’t even match the deceased, and others included dates of death after the election.”

The claims in Ms. Fann’s complaint, wrote the Times, “stemmed from a heavily criticized audit of the 2020 election that the company Cyber Ninjas conducted last year in Arizona’s largest county, Maricopa.” That audit found no evidence for former President Donald J. Trump’s claims that the election had been stolen from him; in fact, it counted slightly fewer votes for Mr. Trump and more for Joseph R. Biden Jr. than in the official tally. A subsequent report from election experts accused Cyber Ninjas of making up its numbers altogether. 

Nonetheless, Ms. Fann sent the accusations of dead voters to Mr. Brnovich’s office in a September 2021 complaint, wrote the Times (Attachment Four-A, August 2nd)

Brnovich trails front-running Blake Masters, a venture capitalist who has Mr. Trump’s endorsement and has promoted the former president’s false claims of election fraud.

And Mark Finchem, a state representative and candidate for secretary of state in Arizona, has garnered the endorsement of a Trump-backed America First coalition of more than a dozen 2020 election deniers who have sought once-obscure secretary of state posts across the country. While most of them have been considered extremist long shots, a recent poll gave Mr. Finchem an edge in Arizona’s four-way Republican race, though a significant majority of voters are undecided.

Mr. Finchem, who has identified himself as a member of the Oath Keepers militia in the past, may be the “perfectly subversive candidate. Like his America First compatriots, he seeks, quite simply, to upend voting,” declared the old gray Times (August 1st, Attachment Four B)

“He wants to ban early voting and sharply restrict mail-in ballots, even though the latter were widely popular in Arizona long before the pandemic. He is already suing to suspend the use of all electronic vote-counting machines in Arizona, in litigation bankrolled by the conspiracy theorist and pillow tycoon Mike Lindell. And he has co-sponsored a bill that would give the state’s Republican-led legislature authority to overturn election results.

“‘If he loses his own race,’ Mr. Finchem said at a June fund-raiser, ‘ain’t gonna be no concession speech coming from this guy.’”

 

For the MAGAverse, Djonald UnDefeated was not merely a “kingmaker”, as Reuters asserted... he was, is and will forever be: King Donald the First.  (With Junior playing the Prince Charles role and Erik... God only knows!)

 

To the right-wing Washington Times, King Trump “towers” over his opposition... be they Democrats, RINO Republicans or men from the moon.  (As in Sun Myung, cult leader and founder of the WashTimes,)

“Trump towers over Tuesday’s GOP primary races as he tests his political reach” was, in fact, the headline of their election morning preview – as reiterated the claim that former television news anchor Kari Lake in the Arizona’s governor’s race “would not have certified the state’s 2020 election results” after Mr. Biden narrowly won the state in 2020.

The exonerated, but expunged Ex-President was also reported to be looking to settle the score Tuesday with three of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach him on charges of inciting the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

“Rep. Peter Meijer of Michigan and Reps. Jaime Herrera Beutler and Dan Newhouse of Washington are fighting for their political lives against Trump-backed primary challengers in races that will test the former president’s political reach.

Mr. Meijer faces the added challenge of Democratic meddling in his race by running ads that seek to lift his primary opponent, John Gibbs,” contended the WashTimes.  (See Attachment Five)

“It is a very big test for Trump,” Republican Party strategist Steve Mitchell said of Mr. Meijer’s primary race in western Michigan. “One of Trump’s major missions was to make sure all 10 Republicans who voted to impeach him were not in the Congress next year.

“Therefore, it is very important for Trump to see Meijer defeated,” Mr. Mitchell told the Moonies.

 

The used-to-be-Democrat but, since the ascension of the bipartisanly hated billionaire Jeff Bezos (still steaming after falling to Number Two behind Elon Musk in the moneystakes) moderate WashPost shotgunned no less than thirty-six short Antecomitia eyebites covering all the contested state primaries (and a few more besides – see numerous short... sometimes sweet, sometimes sour... takedates and upaways as Attachments).

“As many as four members of Congress are in real danger of losing their jobs Tuesday, according to the nonpartisan election analysts at Cook Political Report,” one Post-ish poster posted.  “Voters will cast primary ballots in five states Tuesday — and in several of those races, progressives are on defense,” stated another.

 

The ostensibly nonpartisan, but leftish-leaning CNN network... on the other hand... as opposed to the Bezoso liberals at the Washington Post (another of whom also asserted that “(t)he GOP primary for Arizona governor on Tuesday has showcased the Republican Party’s national divides”) battled back with takeaways of their own as voters were voicing their choices, and, in the interests of “fair and balanced” reportage, blew the whistle upon (and noted opposition to) the 2022 strategy of pushing Democrats in open primary states to vote for the most exteme and, they hoped, unelectable MAGApublicans.

“Efforts by Democratic campaigns, committees and outside groups to tilt the playing field in their favor by supporting extremist Republican primary candidates are sparking backlash as other Democrats warn the tactic risks putting conspiracy theorists and election deniers in office.  

“The latest flashpoint in the debate came last week when the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee began running ads touting GOP candidate John Gibbs, who has the backing of former President Donald Trump, over Michigan Rep. Peter Meijer, one of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach the former President after Jan. 6, 2021,” CNN observed.  (See Attachment Six)

"I believe Democrats should focus on helping Democrats win," said Rebecca Katz, a longtime Democratic strategist who is now advising John Fetterman's Senate campaign in Pennsylvania. "In this year of all years, why make that gamble in a Republican primary? It just seems like their priorities are out of whack."

While meddling like this is far from exclusive to Democrats — Republicans have a long history of using different means to influence Democratic primaries — “the disconnect has drawn criticism from across the political spectrum,” further opined CNN. “Elected Democrats have been especially vocal, worrying that their party is playing a dangerous — and at times, disingenuous — game.”

"I am not thrilled, for sure," said Rep. Don Beyer, a Virginia Democrat. "This does undermine our message about keeping campaigns as ethical, honest and transparent as possible."

Rep. Dean Phillips, a Minnesota Democrat, was even more aggrieved: "I'm disgusted that hard-earned money intended to support Democrats is being used to boost Trump-endorsed candidates, particularly the far-right opponent of one of the most honorable Republicans in Congress,” speaking of Meijer.

And California Rep. Jimmy Gomez said the spending against Meijer and others "sends the wrong message" because the Democratic Party "shouldn't be associated with any of these election deniers."

"Right now, we're in a fight for our democracy," said Gomez. "What happens if they actually do win? Then we inadvertently helped elect you know, the people that will bring an end to the institutions we're trying to protect."

 

CNN set more of their little minions to work on a plethora of pre-elective updates (downdates?), but only twenty of them... as opposed to the WashPost’s thirty-six.

The even leftier New York Times also rolled out updates on all six states... “trumping” CNN, if not the Post, in quantity... undertaken by a varying cast of usual and unusual idiots while highlighting the meme: “Former President Donald J. Trump and his election conspiracy theories” would play a central role in the primaries.

 

As midnight tolled on the first of August, Trump and the RINOs girded their loins, sharpened their horns and greeted the new day with ear-splitting trumpets of rage.

The heaviest hitters, most pols, pundits and persons inquiring agreed, would be in Arizona and Kansas (not necessarily for its candidates, but for the “first-in-the-nation since the overthrow of Roe v. Wade” voter referendum on abortion.

Last minute intelligencers by the three most voluminous Updaters above (and a few others) in the five and a half states on Monday night and Tuesday (before – and sometimes slightly after – the polls closed) pronounced these prognostications...

 

ARIZONA

 

The “towering” Trump turned against Arizona’s governor, Doug Ducey, after Mr. Ducey certified Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s narrow victory in the state and refused to echo Djonald Unwanted’s lies about a stolen election.  (New York Times, thus the allegation of lies) “The race to succeed Mr. Ducey has been dominated by that issue.”

 

In Arizona, the battleground state that President Joe Biden won by the slimmest margin in the country -- just over 10,000 votes -- a slate of Trump-endorsed hopefuls have echoed the former president's election denialism. Two of these politicians, gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake and secretary of state candidate Mark Finchem, have already suggested that they would not concede a loss in their respective races, according to a Tuesday morning ABC News implication,

A “What You Need to Know” roundup by CNN (8/2/22. 5:31 PM, Attachment Seven) adjudicated Arizona home to “the biggest primaries of the night, as Republicans pick a Senate candidate to take on vulnerable incumbent Democrat Mark Kelly, and GOP contests for governor and secretary of state have become proxy battles between former President Trump and Arizona's governor over the future of the party.”

 

GOVERNOR

Lake, a former news anchor whose sycophantic reportage on the 2020 race got her invitations to Mar-a-Lago, from which place the “firebrand loyalist” to Trump learned to echo the nuances of the President-in-exile's false (say the Brits, who don’t care much for Donny) claims that his 2020 election defeat was the result of fraud and has said she would not have certified Biden's statewide victory in 2020. “At a recent campaign stop, Lake claimed without evidence that fraud has already occurred during early voting, suggesting she may not accept a defeat on Tuesday.”  (Reuters, See Attachment Eight)

Get ready for Trump’s cowboy corps of mobsters and outlaws to storm the State Capitol if that happens!

Tuesday afternoon’s New York Times survey of Trumpdorsements by Azi Paybarah  (8/2/22 4:06 PM) noted that “(m)ore traditional Republicans, including the term-limited Gov. Doug Ducey, have rallied around (the Pence-endorsed) Karrin Taylor Robson,” a former member of the Arizona Board of Regents who, in another article by Jonathan Weisman ninety minutes later, was said to be “running on conservative themes but not on election denial.”

“When you get out and vote for Karrin Taylor Robson, you can send a deafening message that will be heard all across America that the Republican Party is the party of the future,” Pence said in Peoria, Arizona – perhaps unaware that endeafened voter don’t hear much of anything.  Perhaps the former Veep should’ve considered sign language – as in the raised middle finger.

The WashPost called the contest “a dead heat between the two,” adding that if Lake loses to her wealthy, self-funded foe (who has “dominated Lake in spending”), she is expected “...to claim fraud or other improprieties.”

 

SENATOR

In the Republican race for Senate, Blake Masters has had momentum since yanking Mr. Trump’s endorsement away from his closest rival.

Masters, a venture capitalist supported by billionaire Peter Thiel and Fox News' Tucker Carlson, is running to square off against incumbent Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly, who is unopposed in his own primary.

A first-time candidate who grew up in Tucson, Masters (only 35) spent much of his career in Silicon Valley as the protege of Thiel, an early investor in Facebook and co-founder of PayPal. In an interview with The Washington Post this summer, Masters said Trump’s norm-shattering presidential bid rekindled his interest in politics. Masters and Thiel were both tapped for Trump’s presidential transition team.

With calls for a nationwide abortion ban and a campaign ad declaration that “Trump won” in 2020, Masters has adopted some of the farthest-right stances in a staunchly conservative field. He has been dogged by questions about his youthful writings in which he questioned U.S. entry into World Wars I and II, and approvingly quoted a Nazi war criminal.

Two longtime associates told The Post that Masters admitted privately as recently as 2021 that President Biden won the 2020 election, but thought he needed to call the election fraudulent to win Trump’s endorsement. Masters’s campaign denied those claims.

“Republican voters’ penchant for controversial candidates this primary season could have stark consequences in the battle for control of the U.S. Senate.

“Republicans need to unseat Democrats in states like Arizona, and on Tuesday they could nominate Blake Masters, a venture capitalist and election denier with a history of being accused of racist and antisemitic comments.”

(See WashPost attachments Nine A by Hannah Knowles and Amber Phillips Nine B)

 

The conservative, pro-Trump Washington Times reported that Masters, in his Senate shootout with dis-endorsed State Attorney General Mark Brnovich, “has had momentum since winning Mr. Trump’s endorsement in June.”

Mr. Brnovich was deemed the front-runner early on but has faced withering criticism from Mr. Trump over a refusal to further his claims of a stolen election,”  and also engaged in an electoral squabble with Senator Karen Fann, president of the Arizona Senate (NYT, Attachment 4–A) over which voters were dead, and which were not.

They also confirmed the ABC report that billionaire businessman Peter Thiel has spent millions of dollars on behalf of Mr. Masters.

“The winner of the race will face off against Sen. Mark Kelly, a former astronaut and the husband of former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords who, the Washtimes alleges, “is viewed as one of the most vulnerable Democrats.”

Also in the Republican primary race is Jim Lamon, a solar energy magnate who has launced a “barrage of attack ads” (NYT) at the “quirky” Masters.

 

SECRETARY of STATE

 

Mark Finchem, a state representative and expansive conspiracy theorist who marched on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 was “honored” with a New York Times profile by Danny Hakim on Monday (See Attachment Four – B) noting that the Big Man himself told him that “I want you to understand something. The Arizona secretary of state race is the most important race in the United States.”

If Finchem wins in November, reported the Times, he would have broad powers over the management of the state's elections as its chief election officer.

Secretaries of state in Arizona and elsewhere are entrusted with the procedures, rules, parameters and counting of votes and, like Georgia’s Brad Raffensperger, who rejected Trump’s command to “find” 11,000 votes in 2020, could be critical to Djonald Unrelenting’s 2024 R&R (restoration and revenge) campaign; a card-carrying member of both the Oath Keepers (who was photographed storming the Capitol, but not assaulting the police), the America First coalition of more than a dozen 2020 election deniers who have sought once-obscure secretary of state posts across the country and the My Pillow dude, Mike Lindell. While most of them have been considered extremist long shots, a recent poll gave Mr. Finchem an edge in Arizona’s four-way (one other election denier and potential spoiler Shawnna Bolick and two RINOS... State Senator Michelle Ugenti-Rita and Beau Lane, an advertising executive) Republican race, “though a significant majority of voters are undecided,” according to Hakim.

Mr. Finchem has also been reported alleging that Hezbollah is operating camps in Mexico in league with drug cartels and that the 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., “has Deep State PSYOP written all over it.” He has embraced QAnon theories, saying that “a whole lot of elected officials” are involved in a pedophile network and, wrote Hakim, “espouses a version of the so-called great replacement theory, saying that “Democrats are trying to import voters” and ‘want to flood the zone with people who have no right to be here.’”

His “ceaselessly conspiratorial bent” has had its fans — but has also opened him up to ridicule. As one trolling commenter on Mr. Finchem’s Facebook page, unearthed by Hakim, put it: “Mark Finchem KNOWS that each voting machine has a little illegal immigrant inside, and whenever you vote for our precious Eternal President Lord Donald Trump, that illegal immigrant changes your vote to a vote for HUGO CHAVEZ!”

Retiring Gov. Ducey, has endorsed Mr. Lane, as have many in the business community. Mr. Finchem sees in his competitor yet another conspiracy: “Beau Lane is a Democrat Plant,” he recently tweeted.

 

DOWNBALLOT DUST-UPs

 

In State Senate District 10, Republican Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers, who is term-limited to his current position, will attempt to snag the open seat and fend off David Farnsworth, who was endorsed by Trump one week after Bowers' testimony in front of the House Jan. 6 committee. (ABC 8/2/22, 10:54 AM).

Bowers told the network’s Jonathan Karl that he would “never support Trump again.”

Yvonne Wingett Sanchez of the NYT wrote that Arizona voters “want to know if Arizona House Speaker Bowers, who refused an effort by Trump and his allies to try to undo th 2020 election results, will lose his primary race to former state senator David Farnsworth, a Trump-backed candidate who grew up in the same community as Bowers.”

Political consultants — and even Bowers — acknowledge he may lose the race in this community, which is deeply red and is filled with thousands of highly engaged voters, many of whom support Trump. But Sanchez also found supporters.

“Greg Skidmore, 49, was dropping off his ballot at a church not too far from Bowers’s home. The Republican knows Bowers and voted for him; he knows less about Farnsworth.

“I know his standards and I know his character and I just think he’s a great guy all the way around,” Skidmore, an accountant, said of the state House speaker. “I think he was forthcoming and truthful in what he was told in the election with Trump and he was just telling his side of the story. … He asked for facts and they couldn’t give them to him.”

 “Will voters punish Bowers?” asks the Times’ Sanchez.  “Or will they reward him for refusing to something he deemed unconstitutional and immoral?”

In other Congressional contests, the embulliant Paul Gosar is also widely viewed as safe against Adam Morgan, “a telegenic and relatively moderate political rookie”,  (NYT, Tuesday afternoon)l.  Wendy Rogers and Kelly Townsend, both state senators and far-right conspiracy theorists, will square off after redistricting put them in the same district. Mr. Trump has endorsed Ms. Rogers.

 

Kansas

“Voters in Kansas will be the first since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade to decide for themselves whether to protect reproductive rights or turn the issue of abortion over to state legislators.”  (New York Times, Attachment Ten A and B)

Tuesday’s ballot will include an amendment to the state constitution that would remove an existing guarantee of reproductive rights and allow the Legislature to pass laws restricting abortion.

“The returns in Kansas will be closely watched,” was the NYT’s brave prognostication, “not only by abortion rights supporters and Democrats, for signs of the potency of the issue in the midterm elections, but also by Republican state lawmakers in Kansas and beyond, who felt empowered by the Supreme Court’s decision but are unsure how far they should go to bar abortion in their states.”

CNN reported that supporters of the amendment “have labeled the measure the “Value Them Both” amendment, and it’s been backed by national anti-abortion groups.” While the amendment’s passage wouldn’t outlaw abortion in the state, it would allow the state’s Republican-controlled legislature to do so.”  In other words, a “yes” vote would remove the right to abortion from the state constitution, while a “no” vote would maintain it.

And see Five Thirty Eight’s preview here.

 

Citing Man (and woman) in the streets interviews, all three Updaters solicited opinions from those who (mostly) shared their bias.

The (New York)Times surveyed Matt Erickson,who spent Election Day knocking on doors in the Kansas City suburbs, making a last-minute pitch to vote against a constitutional amendment that would allow Kansas lawmakers to ban or severely restrict abortion. “It would just be very, very heartening to me if my home state could kind of make this statement to the rest of the country that we’re standing up for the rights of women,” said Erickson, 35, a graduate student from Prairie Village, Kan.

Richard Shutt, 78, said he voted for an amendment that would explicitly allow Kansas lawmakers to impose limits on abortion, which he would like to see mostly forbidden. “I’m in favor of life,” Mr. Shutt, a Republican, said outside his polling place in Topeka. But if lawmakers were to institute an abortion ban, he said he believed they would “do the right thing” and make exceptions for cases of rape and incest, as well as when the mother's health is in danger.

Justice Ellis, 20, a sandwich shop employee, said Tuesday that she and her sister Jordan Angermuller, 24, a restaurant server, were “passionately” voting “no” on the Kansas ballot referendum at the Lawrence Heights Christian Church in Lawrence, Kan.

The sisters each said they believe strongly in a woman’s right to choose after watching the struggles of their own mom — who had Angermuller at 17 as a single mom and later became a nurse.

“It wasn’t like she said, ‘You ruined my life,’ but she always said, ‘I want better for you,’ ” Ellis said.

“She started us on birth control early,” Angermuller said. “Just because she had me when she was very young doesn’t mean we think somebody should not have the option. They always say, ‘Well, if you abort your baby, that baby could grow up to cure cancer.’ Well, the same thing is true of a young mom who instead of going to school had the baby.”

 

Addison Barczewski was out early to cast a ballot on Tuesday in an election she might otherwise have skipped.  “I don’t typically vote in the primaries,” Ms. Barczewski, 26, said after voting against the amendment at a community center in Lenexa, a Kansas City suburb, where there was a short line. “But when I found out this was on the ballot, it was important that I come out and vote.”

Aaron Hove, 70, the director of the Haskell Foundation, a nonprofit that supports Haskell Indian Nations University, and his wife, Gayleen Hove, 69, told the WashPost that thew were voting “no” on the constitutional amendment at the Lawrence Heights Christian Church in Lawrence, Kan.  Aaron said he thought that a lot of those who support abortion rights like him stopped their activism after Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973, seeing the Supreme Court’s landmark decision as settled law.

“A lot of people fell asleep after Roe was decided in 1973,” he said. “Those on other side of the issue have been incredibly energized and worked hard to make their point of view known. That’s why we are at where we are today.”

 

Numerous incidents of criminal activity... ranging from vandalism and assault to simple sign stealing... bolstered partisanship.  But interviews with more than 40 voters in populous Johnson County, Kan., this week show that after the fall of Roe, Republicans no longer have a monopoly on fury — especially in states where abortion rights are clearly on the ballot and particularly in the battleground suburbs.

“I feel pretty strongly about this,” said Chris Price, 46, a political independent who said he voted for Mitt Romney for president in 2012 before backing Democrats when Donald J. Trump was on the ballot. “The candidates that would support an abortion ban, I would not be supporting at all. Period.”

 But pro-lifer Melissa Moore disagreed, saying she was voting for the amendment because of her deeply held beliefs opposing abortion.

“I understand women saying, ‘I need to control my own body,’ but once you have another body in there, that’s their body,” Ms. Moore said. But asked how the intense national focus on abortion affected how she thought about voting, she replied, “I tend to always be energized.”

A few others at the early-voting site in Olathe indicated that they were voting against the amendment and were inclined to back Democrats this fall. But they spoke in hushed tones and declined to give full names, citing concerns about professional backlash, in an illustration of how fraught the environment has become.

 

From Washington Post    x18e

 

Misleading texts on Kansas abortion referendum tied to GOP-aligned firm

 

And the NY Times, following the money, X16g  attach

In the electoral races, the NY Times noted that Incumbent Democrats see danger ahead. x15g while 538 called Kansas’s two biggest races in the fall — for governor and the 3rd Congressional District — “snoozers.”  in the primary: Republicans are very likely to nominate Attorney General Derek Schmidt to take on Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly and former Kansas Republican Party Chair Amanda Adkins to take on Democratic Rep. Sharice Davids.

 

The power of incumbency is proved time and again, but with inflation at a 40-year-high, President Biden’s approval ratings well below 40 percent and congressional redistricting taking a toll, holding elective office is no guarantee of keeping it.

In Kansas, Laura Kelly, a Democratic governor in a deep-red state, has an approval rating of 56 percent, 23 percentage points higher than Mr. Biden’s, but her relative success may not save her tossup race against her expected Republican challenger, Attorney General Derek Schmidt.

In the Kansas City, Kan., suburbs, Representative Sharice Davids — a gay former mixed-martial arts fighter and one of the first two Native American women in the House — was hailed as a path-breaker after her 2018 victory. But redistricting redrew her seat from a slight Democratic lean to a slight Republican edge.

If Amanda Adkins, a businesswoman and former congressional aide, wins the Republican primary on Tuesday, November’s race will be a rematch of their 2020 contest, which Ms. Davids won easily. But this time, the circumstances will be more difficult for the incumbent.

 

Michigan

Abortion and the economy are on the minds of Michiganers where, noted Azi Paybarah of election day’s NYT, the vengeful President endorsed Tudor Dixon, in Michigan’s chaotic Republican primary for governor just days ahead of the primary.

Another anonymous Time-server, said that the conservative media personality’s opponent, Ryan Kelley, who was arrested last month by the F.B.I. for his actions at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 – was kicked to the curb by Trump despite calling the insurrection an “energizing event” and touting the charges against him in his gubernatorial campaign.

Not good enough for The Donald, even though Dixon’s views on the 2020 election are said to have wavered.

Also on hand in the race to unseat Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is self-funding businessman Kevin Rinke, who plowed $10M into the campaign, along with two others... election officials refusing to put five other candidates including former Detroit police chief James Craig, previously been considered a leading contender for the nomination on the ballot because of signature fraud.

Dixon is a former media personality and founder of Lumen News, (which... wrote Patrick Marley of the WashPost...  offers “pro-America, pro-Constitution” news programming for grade schoolers, according to her campaign).  She picked up Mr. Trump’s endorsement on Friday, but it was unclear whether his supporters in the state would rally behind her after warring for months with Ms. Dixon’s chief backer, Betsy (Dark Money) DeVos, and her relatives, the most influential Republican family in Michigan.

While pro-choice women are defending Whitmer, a cable guy who “has toggled back and forth between party affiliations” complained to the NYT’s Julie Bosman about the inflation... formerly able to afford able to afford the premium Boar’s Head groceries, he now feeds his family prepackaged meat that he calls “nitrate-filled processed yuck.”

“We’re still dealing with the adjustment after the pandemic,” said a retiree, still undecided as of Tuesday morning. “The shortages of stuff, supply chains being backed up. Everything feels out of whack,” which is why the latest polls show Whitmer losing... when matched up with Dixon, despite the support of pro-choice women looking south towards Kansas for a sign.

(Unless, of course, Republican primary voters as may have contracted vengefulness from Djonald UnForgiving may turn their spite upon his choice!)

While Trump and DeVos differ on some primary races, they agree on others; Trump endorsing Tudor Dixon for governor, just days after DeVos sent him a handwritten note urging him to do so.

 

Paybarah also wrote that Representative Peter Meijer, one of 10 Republicans who voted to impeach Mr. Trump, is facing a Trump-backed challenger, John Gibbs, in the Republican primary. The winner will face Hillary Scholten, who is running unopposed in the Democratic primary. Pundits and pollsters call the general election race “a tossup.”

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee aired an advertisement in the final days of the campaign lifting Mr. Gibbs, a potentially far weaker candidate in November than Mr. Meijer, by highlighting his conservative credentials for Republican primary voters, a move that infuriated some Democrats like Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), a Trump opponent who sits on the House committee investigating the events of Jan. 6, has also gotten involved in the Michigan primaries. His political action committee has spent more than $120,000 urging Democrats and independents to vote in the Republican primary, with one mailer saying they needed to “Stop Pro Insurrection Republicans” and “save our democracy.”

But other Democrats have taken the opposite approach in the primary against Meijer, spending $435,000 on ads that boost Gibbs, whom these Democrats believe they can more easily beat in November.

A constituent from Meijer’s Grand Rapids district who said he often voted for Democrats, cast his ballot on the Republican side in the state’s open primary in order to support Mr. Meijer, whose family grocery is a beloved local institution as did a Trump supporter whom Patrick Marley of the WashPost unearthed casting his ballot at a town hall across the street from a Meijer grocery store and down the highway from a sprawling sculpture garden that carries the family’s name.

“The older Meijers, you used to see them at the store,” said the voter, a computer consultant. “They’d walk up and shake your hand. That’s a good thing, and they’ve done a lot for the community.”

He also said both Trump and Biden are too old to run in 2024, and would prefer a Republican focused “more on fiscal matters and less on religious issues.”

On the other hand, Gibbs himself told reporters that: “Many Republicans will stay home or skip over his selection on the ballot because of the way (Meijer) betrayed Republican voters. So he’s completely unelectable,”  in the November election.   

And another Times cohort of Paybarah’s, Sam Easter, unearthed angry MAGAmen and women like the absentee Gibbs voter who  “lost faith in Mr. Meijer after the Michigan Republican voted in favor of impeaching former President Donald J. Trump while Patrick Marley of the WashPost interviewed another woman who voted two years ago for Meijer, “but soured on him soon afterward because he voted to impeach Donald Trump after the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol.”

“Meijer messed up, I think,” she said, “I was like, ‘What did he do?’ Dumb, dumb, dumb!”

She also told Marley that she did not buy Democrats’ argument that they could more easily beat Gibbs than Meijer.

“Why would you do that?” she said of the Democratic ad. “That’s just the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”

 “Mr. Meijer had gone to Washington and fallen in with a crowd of bureaucrats and Trump skeptics,” the man explained. So he cast his absentee ballot in favor of John Gibbs, whose primary challenge has the backing of Mr. Trump.

“It only takes one or two things sometimes to lose faith in somebody,” he said.

On Monday, the Times’ Blake Hounshell profiled Democratic candidate Adam Hollier, running for a House seat in Michigan’s newly redrawn 13th Congressional District, which includes Detroit and Hamtramck, seen “one of the most heavily gerrymandered in the country; a salamander-like swath of land that snaked from Pontiac in the northwest across northern Detroit to the upscale suburb of Grosse Pointe on Lake St. Clair, then southward down the river toward River Rouge and Dearborn.”  Its incumbent congresswoman, Brenda Lawrence, announced her retirement early this year when a nonpartisan commission remapped boundaries that were widely seen as “unfairly tilted toward Republicans.”

Hollier might well be the anti-Trump for insisting, as Hounshell described: “I’m not fun.”

He derides himself as the family loser; the son of a social worker and a firefighter... a short guy with a brother who’s 6 foot 5, an elder sister, now a federal investigator for the U.S. Postal Service, who went to the University of Michigan on a basketball and water polo scholarship and a younger sister whom he descries as “an incredible musician and singer.”

“I grew up in a household of talent. And I don’t really have much of it,” Hollier confesses.

But he did become a captain and paratrooper in the Army Reserves, ran track and played safety at Cornell University and, after a fellowship with AmeriCorps, earned a graduate degree in urban planning from the University of Michigan, a State Senate aide then who says the achievement he’s most proud of, he said, is scrambling to save jobs in his district after General Motors closed a plant in Hamtramck.

His primary opponent is Shri Thanedar, a self-financing state lawmaker and wealthy owner of a chemical testing laboratory in Ann Arbor who has spent at least $8 million of his own money on the race so far, according to campaign finance reports.  Hollier has raised only $1 million, but his campaign says “it has made 300,000 phone calls and knocked on 40,000 doors.”

The winner will face Martell Bivings, an unopposed Republican.

“If Hollier loses, Michigan is likely to have no Black members of Congress for the first time in seven decades.”  (See Attachment Eleven)

Two other races with national implications are not on Tuesday’s primary ballots in Michigan: secretary of state and attorney general but, wrote the Times’ Nick Corasaniti, could have deep implications.

Neither race appears on a ballot until the general election. The nominations for those offices are determined not by popular vote but by a convention of party insiders, often held in the spring or early summer. Those nominees are ratified by another convention, with both parties planning theirs for later this month.

Republicans chose two far-right candidates: Kristina Karamo for secretary of state and Matthew DePerno for attorney general. Ms. Karamo is a promoter of false election fraud claims who said she would not have certified the 2020 election had she been in office. Mr. DePerno has pledged to investigate political opponents, such as Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and the current attorney general, Dana Nessel, if he wins.

Democrats have incumbents running in both races: Ms. Nessel and Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, who told John Wagner of the WashPost on Monday that disinformation would be discouraged, and interference in Tuesday’s primary would not be tolerated – warning that election officials and law enforcement officers across the state stand ready to take action if necessary.

“We will not tolerate any attempts to disrupt our elections, any voter suppression or election interference attempts in Michigan,” Benson said, according to local reports.

“If there is a law that is violated that would call for an arrest, certainly arrests would be made,” she added. “We hope that everyone who is present in any polling place throughout the state of Michigan on Election Day … will simply follow the rules, follow the law.”

The races have attracted national attention, with Democrats and voting rights groups expressing concern that the Republican candidates have indicated a willingness to overturn or meddle with election results in a critical swing state.

The nominations of Ms. Karamo and Mr. DePerno also created a rift within the Republican Party. More traditional Republicans are irate over the possibility that choosing two far-right candidates may lower the party’s chances of winning those offices, as well as drag down the rest of its ticket.

If it’s any consolation to the RINOs, Democrats are also sniping at one another with progressive groups backing challenger Andy Levin, a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, and pro-Israel groups determined to punish him for what they see as a bias toward Palestinians by re-nominating incumbent Haley Stevens, who belongs to the more centrist New Democrat Coalition.

“You’re seeing super PACs funded by billionaires going into war against young progressives, often women of color,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who flew to Michigan on Friday to hold a last-minute rally for Levin, after the redistrictors dumped the two Democrats into the same district. “I think that’s outrageous. I think it’s counterproductive to long-term interests of the Democratic Party.”

Sanders criticized the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which started a super PAC earlier this year that has spent more than $4.2 million supporting Stevens and attacking Levin in the primary.  See more here.

Moreover, two progressive members of the “Squad” are facing challengers who lean toward the ideological center: Rep. Cori Bush (see Missouri, below) and Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), who is confronting a trio of primary challengers.

 

Missouri

A posse of ABC reporters descended upon once-disgraced former Gov. Eric Greitens, who “vies for a new political life in the GOP Senate primary amid a child custody dispute with his ex-wife (including claims of domestic abuse that he denies),” while opponent Eric Schmitt, the Missouri attorney general, “has picked up considerable steam.”

Aside from the past, present (and perhaps future) antics of Greitens... whom Reuters reported was fending off calls “from many within his party to withdraw out of concern that he might cost Republicans a safe seat in November”... the race, as opposed to the weighty confrontations in Kansas or Arizona, has been a nearly bottomless well of low comedy.

On Monday, the Abecaderians notified Don Joneses across America and the world, “Trump endorsed a vague "ERIC" -- and both Greitens and Schmitt have each claimed the endorsement as their own.”

Mr. Trump announced Monday that he would endorse “a Republican” in the 21-person race in Missouri for the seat of retiring Sen. Roy Blunt was the straightfaced declaration in the even-more-rightwing Washington Times.

The contenders include former Gov. Eric Greitens, who resigned in 2018 amid accusations of sexual misconduct; state Attorney General Eric Schmitt; Rep. Vicky Hartzler; Rep. Billy Long; and Mark McCloskey (the St. Louis lawyer best known for brandishing firearms at Black Lives Matter protesters marching through his neighborhood).

The state’s other senator, Josh Hawley, the WashTimes revealed, “has endorsed Ms. Hartzler,” who leads one of the Erics in the polls, but trails the other.

Was Djonald tipping his hat to his own Erik... whose political career has yet to get off the ground?

 “There is a BIG Election in the Great State of Missouri, and we must send a MAGA Champion and True Warrior to the U.S. Senate, someone who will fight for Border Security, Election Integrity, our Military and Great Veterans, together with having a powerful toughness on Crime and the Border,” Trump tweetly-dood. “I trust the Great People of Missouri, on this one, to make up their own minds, much as they did when they gave me landslide victories in the 2016 and 2020 Elections, and I am therefore proud to announce that ERIC has my Complete and Total Endorsement!”

Greitens, who is allied with Donald Trump Jr. and his fiancée, and state Attorney General Eric Schmitt were both quick to claim that they were the intended recipient of the endorsement.

"I trust the Great People of Missouri, on this one, to make up their own minds," the former President added in his statement.

“I’m honored to receive President Trump’s endorsement. From the beginning, I’ve been the true MAGA Champion fighting against the RINO establishment backing Schmitt,” the former governor of Missouri, tweeted back. “President Trump said it best when he characterized Schmitt’s campaign as ‘great dishonesty in politics.’”

 I’m grateful for President Trump’s endorsement. As the only America First candidate who has actually fought for election integrity, border security & against the Left’s indoctrination of our kids—I’ll take that fight to the Senate to SAVE AMERICA!” responded Schmitt, the state’s current attorney general.

The CNN swirlwind has swept up a 67 year old Joplin woman who declared, bluntly that "Eric Greitens scares the crap out of me," the 67-year-old Joplin resident said last week in this southwest corner of the state. "A machine gun going through killing RINOs. I mean, that's terrible," she said, recalling the campaign video that depicted the former Republican governor "hunting" so-called "Republicans in Name Only." 

CNN’s Simone Pathe strolled through Missouri - trolling and polling 45 voters, mostly Republicans... the majority saying they had “issues” with the candidate, ranging from "his baggage" to the fact that he was a "quitter" for resigning as governor.  

"It's a black eye for Missouri," a 42-year-old Schmitt supporter, said at a rally for the attorney general at Tropical Liqueurs South in Columbia on Wednesday, adding that Greitens has already made "the state look bad." 

"I would have (considered Greitens) if he hadn't had all of his baggage," another voter said at the Ozark Distillery and Brewery in Osage Beach after attending events for both Schmitt and Hartzler on Wednesday. "We don't need that distraction." 

Others, however, said they were sticking by Greitens, and even those who weren't expressed skepticism about the allegations. "He got a raw deal when he was governor," a 72-year-old loyalist said as he unloaded a case of Busch beer outside the Blue Springs Walmart. 

 

Monday evening’s edition of the conservative, but Never-Trumpish National Review further excoriated the confusion as to whether Ol ’45 “... meant candidate Eric Greitens or candidate Eric Schmitt, or whether he was endorsing both,” (See Attachment Twelve) and, an hour and a half later, NR called the dubious dual endorsement “a piece of Kodos-or-Kang performance art on Trump’s part,” which was “brilliantly hilarious but, as an act of serious statesmanship, cowardly and contemptible.”

“Trump knows perfectly well how this will play, and that it allows him to claim a win later while putting nothing at risk,” the Buckley Boys pontificated; “neither his skill at picking winners nor his standing with the transgressive voters who prefer Greitens precisely because he is a man of visibly bad character.”  They surmised that, inasmuch as Missouri’s Senate Republican primary has narrowed to a choice between Eric Schmitt and Eric Greitens, “... (t)he choice, for anyone who cares about conservative policy, Republican partisan interests, or conscience, decency, or character in public office is obvious: Eric Schmitt is far superior to Eric Greitens.”

If there’s a silver lining in the NatReview’s tin ticket, it’s in the polling. 

“A Trafalgar Group poll released Monday showed Schmitt leading at 27 percent, followed by Representative Vicky Hartzler at 24 percent and Greitens at 20 percent. A different survey from last Monday conducted by Remington Research, a firm associated with Schmitt’s consulting group, Axiom Strategies, projected Schmitt would carry 32 percent of the vote, compared with Hartzler’s 25 percent and Greitens’s 18 percent.”

You can also perusethe WashPost profiles of Greiner and Schmitt (but not Hartzler) as Attachments 13 A and B.

 

 

In another contest of curiosity discovered by CNN, Ray Reed, a 25-year-old Democrat on the ballot in Missouri’s 2nd Congressional District today, is one of the first members of Generation Z to run for Congress.  

If elected, Reed said he would bring his perspective as a young American to Congress, adding that one of the reasons he ran for federal office is because of gun violence in America. 

“I come from the school shooting generation. I had to practice school shooter drills before I even knew how to read,” said Reed, who traveled to Washington, DC, in June to lobby members of Congress in favor of gun violence prevention after the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas. 

“The theme of Gen Z is that we don’t wait around for folks to fix the problems. I think the campaign itself is very Gen Z because we’re just stepping up to run for Congress, and we’ve got a bunch of scrappy 20-year-olds that put this campaign together, and here we are at the finish line of the primary,” he said.

Elsewhere, moderate Missouri state Sen. Steve Roberts leads a push to unseat progressive incumbent Rep. Cori Bush in the 1st Congressional District -- a fight that may preview intraparty feuds to come. Roberts is backed by former Rep. Lacy Clay, who held the seat before Bush defeated him in 2020.

 

Washington

 

Washington will hold a Senate primary where Democrat Sen. Patty Murray is seeking another term and is expected to face Republican Tiffany Smiley, but the big races will be in 3rd and 4th Congressional Districts where Republicans who voted to impeach Trump face challengers backed by the former president. 

The state uses a "top two" primary system where candidates of all parties appear on the same ballot and the top two finishers advance to the general election. (CNN)

US Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler is one of the 10 Republicans in the House who voted for former President Donald Trump’s second impeachment. Beutler is one of the 10 Republicans in the House who voted for former President Donald Trump’s second impeachment, and Trump endorsed Joe Kent in his challenge against her. Kent, an Army veteran whose wife was killed by a suicide bomber in Syria, says the 2020 election was stolen and has made Herrera Beutler’s vote for impeachment a center point of his campaign. However, due to Washington’s top two primary system, where candidates of all parties appear on the same ballot, Herrera Beutler has made efforts to attract Democratic voters, releasing ads that tout her support for lowering the cost of insulin while not saying she is a Republican. There are several other candidates also on the ballot, including Republican Heidi St. John and Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, who could sneak through to the general if Republicans split their vote. (CNN, Tuesday afternoon)

With four candidates competing for two spots, the Five Thirty Eight pollsters stated that this race “has some unusual dynamics,” however.  Because Perez is the only Democrat, we’d usually expect her to get the lion’s share of Democratic votes, around 40 percent overall. Such a showing would likely be enough to finish first and leave one spot open for the three Republicans battling over much of the remaining vote. Yet Herrera Beutler, whose impeachment vote could attract some Democrats who know the seat will likely go red in November, has appealed to them with ads that make her sound like, well, a Democrat — highlighting her support for caps on insulin prices and attacking Kent for wanting to privatize social security.  (See Attachment Fourteen)

The WashPost, on the other hand, unearthed a “longtime Democratic voter who respected Herrera Beutler’s impeachment vote.”  But he didn’t buy Herrera Beutler’s attempt to recast herself as an independent lawmaker intent on delivering for constituents in southwest Washington’s 3rd Congressional District, a rural district that includes a portion of the Portland metro area, because Gluesenkamp Perez, favors abortion rights. Herrera Beutler opposes abortion.

“I don’t think anyone should be telling a lady what to do with their body,” the Democrat said, referring to the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade.

Kent calls himself a “pro-life Christian” on his website while pledging to “protect the rights of unborn children,” but many of his supporters prefer Kent and the next Congress to focus on “inflation, gas prices and open borders.”

 

Impeacher-er Rep. Dan Newhouse is facing seven challengers, including former NASCAR driver Jerrod Sessler, state Rep. Brad Klippert and Trump-endorsed candidate Loren Culp, a former police chief and vocal election denier, who was the GOP nominee for governor in 2020.  Culp joined the race shortly after Newhouse’s vote for impeachment and has used the vote as a common attack.

Newhouse, however, holds the financial advantage in his own race for the 4th Congressional District, having raised over $1.5 million for his campaign.

 

Tennessee

Tennessee isn’t one of the six states going to the polls on Tuesday, but it will host one interesting GOP contest on its primary day, Thursday, Aug. 4. Republicans in the Tennessee General Assembly redrew the state’s 5th Congressional District from a safely blue seat to a safely red one in redistricting, and a dozen Republicans initially filed to take advantage.

Former State Department official Morgan Ortagus, whom Trump endorsed over the objection of several local Republicans, stood out from the field early on. But, just like in the race for Michigan governor, disqualifications soon changed the trajectory of the race. In April, the state GOP kicked Ortagus and two other candidates off the ballot for not voting in three out of the last four GOP primaries in Tennessee (a requirement that Ortagus, who moved to Tennessee just last year, could not meet).

None of the nine candidates remaining on the ballot have the benefit of Trump’s endorsement, but three do have something else significant going in their favor. Retired Brigadier General Kurt Winstead has self-funded $1.1 million and raised almost $1 million more from other donors. Former state House Speaker Beth Harwell has a long history in local politics and the endorsement of multiple GOP women’s groups, such as VIEW PAC. And Maury County Mayor Andy Ogles has benefited from almost $2 million in outside spending from tea-party-aligned super PACs. 

  (Five Thirty Eight, Tuesday morning, See Attachment Fifteen,

 

 

Ohio

Only state legislative races are on the ballot; author and conspiracy theorist J. D. Vance having already won his primary election, moving on to November.

 

The Counting

Dusk descended – the sun fled like a cat-burglar hearing the baying of the neighborhood’s dogs.  And the results began trickling in – a trickle that would soon become a Kentucky flood.

And Team Trump?  Well...

Come back next for next week’s Lesson.  We’ll have a few more state results, too, and a preview of Djonald Enraged’s nemesis, Liz Cheney, up there in Wyoming... clawing and biting for her political life.

 

 

JULY 30th – August 5th, 2022

 

 

Saturday, July 30th, 2022

Dow:  32,845.13

 

 

It’s National Cheesecake Day.  The plague looks, lovingly and lasciviously, upon President Joe and he gets a Covid Rebound insurrfection.  Doctors scramble to assure Don Jones that America’s Chief Executive is not in danger of... you know... death?

   Bad weather rules the roost.  Moving west to east, counter sun-wise, we begin with the drought, heat and fires in the Pacific States with the heat oozing north into Oregon and Washington, then east into the Rockies.  Boise, ID hits a record 107°.  While California and Texas broil, monsoon rains deluge Arizona and New Mexico in unusual flooding – the usual flooding is in the Midwest and migrating eastwards into Kentucky where 25, 28, 30, 37 are known dead; dozens, hundreds swept away and missing.  “We’re going to be finding bodies for days,” admits Gov. Beshear.

   Russians are behaving like... well... Russians: hostage negotiators promote a jailed terrorist in the Griner game, over 50 POWs are massacred at Ukrainian concentration camp, U.S. “activists” are discovered to be Russian spies.

   Senate spits in the face of veterans, voting down burn pit cancer relief bill.  Jon Stewart outraged.

   One lucky duck in Illinois wins the 1.3B lottery.

 

 

 

Sunday, July 31, 2022

Dow: Closed

 

 

Politicking done, the paramounting principles pass on to Sunday talk shows.

   Joe Manchin, pivoting on health and climate funding, rationalizes that a 15% minimum is not a tax increase.  Former budget official Larry Summers asserts it is dis-inflationary, but Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La) disagrees and colleague Sen. John Kennedy (also R-La) says Americans got “rinky dood” on the chip production bill.  Political consultant Frank Luntz warns Americans to stop lying or democracy will be doomed.   “Sometimes pessimists are right.  I am a pessimist.”

   Back to isolation treks Preident Joe.  With Covid increasing again, states, localities and school districts are reimposing mask mandates.  The AMA warns that taking daytime naps (and not the news) causes hypertension and WILL KILL YOU!

   Speaking of death, there are two big ones... eleven ring NBA star Bill Russell and Star Trek’s Nichelle Nichols.  But there is also a space birth, sort of, the purported nativity of George Jetson is said to have been today.

 

 

 

Monday, August 1, 2022

Dow:  32,943.47

 

President Joe rises from his sickbed to deliver the news that has (most) Americans cheering... al-Qaeda leader Zawahiri has been killed by drone strikes in Kabul.

   There’s mixed messages on Putin’s war... Russia allows one (1) boatload of grain to leave via the Black Sea for starving Africa.  But the bad guys claim to be deploying “invulnerable” hypersonic missiles and U.N. Chief António Guterres sobs that the world is “one step away from nuclear annihilation.”

   And the bad weather continues.  The McKinney fire, in and around Yreka near the California – Oregon border balloons to 50,000 acres, with two dead and many narrowly escaping by driving throught the flames.  The heat in the Northwest spreads East; 10, 14 die of heatstroke while more rain produces more flooding in Kentucky... even more predicted over the next week.

   On Wall Street, the Dow heads up towards the promised land of 33,000 despite Triple-A warning that gas prices are going to go up again.

 

 

 

Tuesday, August 2, 2022

Dow:  32,396.17

 

 

 

 

 

Details emerging regarding the Zawahiri strike.  The CIA reveals that it had planned the attack for months, after tips came in that the Number One al Qaeda terrorist was living in a luxury apartment building in Kabul; he did not go out in public but was in the habit of stepping out onto his balcony to look at the world he despised.  No civilians died in the attack.  “Justice has been delivered,” said President Joe.

   But Guterres’s “one step from” is turning into “one step beyond” world annihilation as China responds to a proposed Taiwan trip by Speaker Pelosi by promising massive military retaliation, officially becoming Villain #2 which would disrupt the supply chain, to say the least.  Stocks crash. Villain #1, Mad Vlad, seethes as America delivers another $550M worth of arms and ammunition to Ukraine.

   Today is primary day.  The hot ticket races are the Trump-Pence proxy showdown in Arizona and a Kansas referendum on abortion.

 

 

 

Wednesday, August 3, 2022

Dow:  32,812.50

 

 

 

 

 

 

Scryers and soothsayers spin the primary election results according to their objectives.  Trump has had a good day (See above) but the Arizona governor’s primary is still too close to call.  The pro-choicers celebrate a big turnout that defeats the anti-abortion legislation in red state Kansas.

   Speaker Pelosi visits Taiwanese officials and praises its freedom, stating that the world faces a choice between democracy and autocracy.  (How about plain old imperial dictatorship?)  China fires dozens of missiles all around (but not on) what it calls its property and the slaves thereupon.

   Pivoting from nuclear war annihilation, the U.N. now calls Ukraine (and the world’s) largest nuke plant “out of control” as Russia uses it for arms storage and as a variation of human shield hostages.  America responds harshly – imposing sanctions on Lootin’ Putin’s girlfriend.

   A lessening of the chances of nuclear war, if not accidents, sends the Dow back up again as do reports of record profits for the oil companies.  But Warner Brothers writes off their $90M investment in “Batgirl” to take a tax write off, stating that the movie will never be screened on TV, in theaters, streamed or sold on discs, nada!  (DJI predicts the sole copy not destroyed will be snapped up by some billionaire for his private enjoyment.)

 

 

 

Thursday, August 4, 2022

 Dow:  32,726.81

 

 

 

 

 

There’s rare progress in Congress.  900,000 sick veterans finally gain passage of the burn pit cancer outlays after the cost is cut to 41B, but there’s still plenty of pork.  Jon Stewart is relieved.

   And President Joe cuts a deal with Krysten Sinema (D-Az) to support his healthcare and climate change funding after some of the provisions to tax the rich are removed.  Instead, we’ll just chalk it up to the deficit, come what may.

  There’s plenty of news on the legal front, beginning with WNBA star Britney Griner getting nine years instead of ten for bringing marijuana into Russia.  Explainers explain that it’s really a good thing, because now serious negotiations about prisoner swaps can begin.  (BG is not appreciative.)

   Moving on, Guy Wesley Reffitt, 49, a Three Percenter coyote from Wylie, Texas gets seven years for bringing a gun to the Capitol riots.  (His daughter asks for a life sentence!)  Parkland school shooting prosecution rests while Alex (Info Wars) Jones must pay $4M to slandered Sandy Hook parents despite admitting that that shooting was real.  Kevin Spacy sued for $30M by the producers of his cancelled “House of Cards”; Saudi LIVing golfers (including Phil Mickelson) sue the PGA over their cancellations... Tiger Woods rejects a reported $800M bribe to defect to the foreigners and C. J. Maxx is fined for reselling recalled kiddie killer sleepers.  The Inquisition may be on hold, but the DOJ subpoenas Pat Cipollone despite his squealing.  Four cops in Louisville are arrested in the murder of Breanna Taylor.

   And a man in Memphis is arrested for masturbating on a bus.

 

 

 

Friday, August 5, 2022

Dow:  32,803.47

 

 

 

Conflicting and confusing numbers on the economy swirl... one gang of e-con-mystics says that the rate of new jobs fell to 250,000; others insist that the actual gain was to 528,000.  (That’s a lot of spread!)  The unemployment rate falls to 3.5%.   AAA dissenters say gas prices will keep falling, mortgage rates too (but the Fed promises another big hike in the fall). 

  Another weekend is approaching... violently.  Three shot at Vegas casino, inept shooters miss at Mall of America, Planned Parenthood arson in Michigan and God gets into the mix when four are struck by lightning in front of the White House.  A 12 year girl chews through ropes binding her after mother and brother are killed by... all together now!... the “boyfriend”!

   And Lady Gaga is signed to appear in the next “Joker” movie which, she hopes, will have a better ending than “Batgirl”.

 

 

 

Ex-President Trump’s winning record in the primaries made the Right happy, the Kansas abortion salvation gratified the Left and all Americans... well almost, (a couple of lone wolves here and there have lost their inspiration)... celebrated the termination of Ayman al-Zawahiri, successor to Osama Bin Laden and recipient of the same American shock and awe.

   In economic news a doubling of new jobs over expectations may prevent a November Republican sweep (as may the victories of many extreme, conspiratorial and downright batshit nominees).

 

 

 

 

THE DON JONES INDEX

 

CHART of CATEGORIES w/VALUE ADDED to EQUAL BASELINE of 15,000

(REFLECTING… approximately… DOW JONES INDEX of June 27, 2013)

 

See a further explanation of categories here

 

ECONOMIC INDICES (60%)

CATEGORY

VALUE

BASE

RESULTS

SCORE

OUR SOURCES and COMMENTS

 

INCOME

(24%)

6/17/13 & 1/1/22

LAST

CHANGE

NEXT

7/30/22

8/6/22

SOURCE

 

Wages (hrly. per cap)

9%

1350 points

7/30/22

+0.44%

9/22

1,375.62

1,381.63

https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/wages   27.45 7.57

 

Median Inc. (yearly)

4%

600

7/30/22

+0.025%

8/13/22

603.14

603.29

http://www.usdebtclock.org/   35,952 961

 

Unempl. (BLS – in mi)

4%

600

7/30/22

+2.86%

9/22

633.36

651.46

http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000/  3.6% 3.5%

 

Official (DC – in mi)

2%

300

7/30/22

-0.27%

8/13/22

302.88

302.88

http://www.usdebtclock.org/      5,886 870

 

Unofficl. (DC – in mi)

2%

300

7/30/22

+4.82%

8/13/22

310.19

295.23

http://www.usdebtclock.org/    10,917  11,470

 

Workforce Particip.

   Number

   Percent

2%

300

7/30/22

 

-0.024%           +0.34%

8/13/22

 

 

300.69

 

 

299.67

In 158,713 153  Out  99,337 885 Total: 258,038

 

http://www.usdebtclock.org/ 61.29

 

WP %  (ycharts)*

1%

150

7/30/22

+0.16%

7/30/22

150.00

149.76

https://ycharts.com/indicators/labor_force_participation_rate  62.20 62.10

 

 

OUTGO

15%

 

 

 

Total Inflation

7%

1050

8/22

+1.3%

8/13/22

1010.64

1010.64

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm     +1.3 nc

 

Food

2%

300

8/22

+1.0%

8/13/22

289.34

289.34

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm     +1.0

 

Gasoline

2%

300

8/22

+11.2%

8/13/22

221.46

221.46

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm     +11.2

 

Medical Costs

2%

300

8/22

+0.7%

8/13/22

293.45

293.45

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm     +0.7

 

Shelter

2%

300

8/22

+0.6%

8/13/22

293.46

293.46

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm     +0.6

 

 

WEALTH

6%

 

 

 

Dow Jones Index

2%

300

7/30/22

+0.13%

8/13/22

273.63

273.28

https://www.wsj.com/market-data/quotes/index/   32,803.47

 

Home (Sales)

(Valuation)

1%

1%

150

150

7/30/22

-3.57%              +2.06%

8/13/22

163.99

318.93

163.99

318.93

https://www.nar.realtor/research-and-statistics

Sales (M):  5.12 Valuations (K):  416.0

 

Debt (Personal)

2%

300

7/30/22

+0.35%

8/13/22

292.26

291.23

http://www.usdebtclock.org/    70,388 638

 

 

NATIONAL

(10%)

 

 

 

Revenue (trilns.)

2%

300

7/30/22

+0.20%

8/13/22

322.92

323,58

debtclock.org/       4,407 416

 

Expenditures (tr.)

2%

300

7/30/22

+0.32%

8/13/22

327.27

328.31

debtclock.org/       6,012 5,993

 

National Debt tr.)

3%

450

7/30/22

+0.05%

8/13/22

444.06

443.84

http://www.usdebtclock.org/    30,615 630

 

Aggregate Debt (tr.)

3%

450

7/30/22

-0.16%

8/13/22

440.07

439.37

http://www.usdebtclock.org/    91,725 1,871

 

 

 

 

GLOBAL

(5%)

 

 

 

Foreign Debt (tr.)

2%

300

7/30/22

-1.03%

8/13/22

319.44

322.73

http://www.usdebtclock.org/   7,550 473

 

Exports (in billions)

1%

150

7/30/22

+1.60%

8/22

160.88

163.46

https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/index.html  255.9 260.0

 

Imports (bl.)

1%

150

7/30/22

+0.29%

8/22

153.54

153.99

https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/index.html  341.4 340.4

 

Trade Deficit (bl.)

1%

150

7/30/22

-7.41%

8/22

196.23

210.77

https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/index.html   85.5 79.6

 

 

 

ACTS of MAN

12%

 

 

 

 

World Affairs

3%

450

7/30/22

  -0.2 %

8/13/22

470.82

469.26

Angry Chinese fire missiles all around (but not on) Taiwan.  Saudi runaway golfers Phil Mickelson & Co. sue PGA while OPECsters promise “modest” production increases.  Putin starts jailing journalists for 15 years, exiles start up new exile news service.  Griner sentenced to only 9 years, not 10, Russia indicates willingness to discuss swap.

 

Terrorism

2%

300

7/30/22

-0.2%

8/13/22

290.81

290.23

State Dept. warns of Zawahri revenge terror as Taliban call his killing a hoax.  Israel bombs random targets in Gaza, which bombs random targets in Israel.  Ukes and Russians point their fingers at each other in shelling of nuclear plant.

 

Politics

3%

450

7/30/22

-0.1%

8/13/22

462.28

461.82

Manchin in pocket, President Joe turns his charm on Kyrsten Sinema for the climate and healthcare bill and, after coaxing, gets G.O.P. to help pass veterans’ burn pit relief legislation.  Speaker Nancy goes to Taiwan and China sanctions her... no Peking Duck for you!  (Then, NoKo tags along, imposing more grief... no more rotten kimchi for you, either!)  Former Puerto Rican Governor arrested for corruption.  Republicans pick Milwaukee for 2024 convention (Justice Kavanaugh celebrates).

 

Economics

3%

450

7/30/22

 +0.3%

8/13/22

436.65

437.96

Oil and gas companies enjoy record profits even as prices fall.  Senator Joe (Manchin) says the 15% minimum tax is not a tax increase, and the newly named Inflation Recovery Act (IRA) will take us to a “better place” while economist Larry Summers calls it dis-inflationary.  Now the only holdout is Sinema.  Equifax “bungles” credit scores, causing bankruptcy, loan denials and higher interest rates.  Sorry!  New jobs report is over half a mil – double expectations.  Strange little company AMTD gets suddenly bigger than GM and McD’s – investors decry “mania”.

 

Crime

1%

150

7/30/22

  -0.3%

8/13/22

289.94

289.07

Five stabbed in Wisconsin, four shot in Florida.  Mass shooters strike Vegas casino and Mall of America, Planned Parenthood arson in Michigan, ten die in Pa. house fire also called arsonistic. Another “boyfriend” binds, tortures and kills mom and son, daughter escapes by chewing through ropes.  Man in Memphis arrested for masturbating on city bus.

 

ACTS of GOD

(6%)

 

 

 

Environment/Weather

3%

450

7/30/22

    +0.1%

8/13/22

441.96

442.48

The week begins with more of the same – Western heat (107° in Boise and Pierre), drought and fire, Midwest floods, Northeast heat.  Weather Overgrounders marvel at only three tropical storms so far – African dust blamed.

 

Disasters

3%

450

7/30/22

+0.1%

8/13/22

443.16

443.60

Kentucky rains deluge Hazard and Neon... many heroic rescues, appeals for relief as climatologist make the surprising statement that fires and floods hurt the poor more than the rich.  Lightning strikes in front of White House – 4 hit, 3 die.  Three lost Jersey boys rescued by Shiloh the dog.  Chinese rocket falls to earth but plunges into Indian Ocean with no damage.  WB writes off disastrous Batgirl movie and $90M.

 

LIFESTYLE/JUSTICE INDEX

(15%)

 

 

 

Science, Tech, Educ.

4%

600

7/30/22

nc

8/13/22

617.91

617.91

Some localities reimposing back-to-school mask mandates, others force kids to endure terrifying active shooter drills.  George Jetson cartoon nativity (7/21/22).  June 29th also Earth’s shortest day ever (by .001 second); climate change slowing us down?

 

Equality (econ/social)

4%

600

7/30/22

+0.1%

8/13/22

591.01

591.60

First black four star General appointed.  Black woman falls out of police car and dies... and here comes Crump! 

 

Health

4%

600

7/30/22

-0.1%

8/13/22

489.45

488.96

A.M.A. says taking daytime naps WILL KILL YOU!!  Banana Boat sunscreen recalled for carcinogenic benzene.  Back to isolation goes Biden; Drs. Jha and Fauci insist Paxolvid rebound not lethal as Monkeypox elbows out plague for America’s #1 fear factor despite only 7000 cases (vs. over a million to date); vaxxing shortage criticized.

 

Freedom and Justice

3%

450

7/30/22

+0.3%

8/13/22

448.20

449.54

New Guns R 4 Everybody laws in Georgia prompt Atlanta to cancel music festival.  Recessed (sort of) Insuisitors subpoena Pat Cipollone.  L.A. bans the bums and arrests homeless encampers who are “near schools”.  Info Worlder Alex Jones socked with $49M punitives atop $4M Sandy Hook defamation damages and Parkland prosecution rests.  Kevin Spacey will pay $30M to the producers of “House of Cards” while Antitrust bloodhounds zero in on publishing, perfume.  Kansas voters nix abortion nixxing. 

 

 

MISCELLANEOUS and TRANSIENT INDEX

 

 

(7%)

 

 

 

Cultural incidents

3%

450

7/30/22

-0.1%

8/13/22

467.03

466.56

DC’s “League of Pets” cartoon tops Marvel’s Thor in weak week at B.O. while WB says “Nope” to Batgirl.  Will Smith apologizes to Chris Rock, who disses him back by calling him (killer) “Suge” while Spanish taxmen plot to lock up Shakira for eight years, American cancellers cancel Beyonce and Lizzo for spastic slurs and Brits boo Charles for accepting $1M from Bin Laden family, On the brighter side, fifty rescue dogs from Kentucky arrive in New York, Bennifer plan a big Second Wedding.   RIP Pat Carroll, voice of Ursula in Disney’s “Little Mermaid”, Dodgets’ announcer Vin Scully, NBA star Bill Russell, Nichelle (Star Trek) Nichols, Navajo WW2 code talker Samuel Sandoval, Rep. Jackie @ (R-In). 2807

 

Misc. incidents

4%

450

7/30/22

+0.3%

8/13/22

457.31

458.68

Honus Wagner ballcard sale Topps Ali’s “Rumble in the Jungle” belt by $7.25M to $6M.  Some even richer guy gets it.  Canada hiring candy tasters at $100K/yr, plus sweets.  Lucky Illinoisian wins $1.3B lottery jackpot.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Don Jones Index for the week of August 5th through August 12th, 2022 was UP 29.44 points

 

The Don Jones Index is sponsored by the Coalition for a New Consensus: retired Congressman and Independent Presidential candidate Jack “Catfish” Parnell, Chairman; Brian Doohan, Administrator.  The CNC denies, emphatically, allegations that the organization, as well as any of its officers (including former Congressman Parnell, environmentalist/America-Firster Austin Tillerman and cosmetics CEO Rayna Finch) and references to Parnell’s works, “Entropy and Renaissance” and “The Coming Kill-Off” are fictitious or, at best, mere pawns in the web-serial “Black Helicopters” – and promise swift, effective legal action against parties promulgating this and/or other such slanders.

Comments, complaints, donations (especially SUPERPAC donations) always welcome at feedme@generisis.com or: speak@donjonesindex.com.

 

 

 

ATTACHMENT ONE – from Ballotpedia

REMAINING 2022 PRIMARIES...

FROM ballotpedia x2

 


Arizona

Arizona statewide primary

Arizona statewide primary

August 2, 2022

Kansas

Kansas statewide primary election

Kansas statewide primary election

August 2, 2022

Michigan

Michigan statewide primary

Michigan statewide primary

August 2, 2022

Missouri

Missouri statewide primary

Missouri statewide primary

August 2, 2022

Ohio

Ohio statewide primary (state legislature)

Ohio statewide primary (state legislature)

August 2, 2022

Washington

Washington statewide primary

Washington statewide primary

August 2, 2022

Tennessee

Tennessee statewide primary

Tennessee statewide primary

August 4, 2022

Missouri

Missouri statewide primary

Missouri statewide primary

August 6, 2022

Virgin Islands

U.S. Virgin Islands primary election

U.S. Virgin Islands primary election

August 6, 2022

Connecticut

Connecticut statewide primary

Connecticut statewide primary

August 9, 2022

Minnesota

Minnesota statewide primary

Minnesota statewide primary

August 9, 2022

Vermont

Vermont statewide primary

Vermont statewide primary

August 9, 2022

Wisconsin

Wisconsin fall statewide primary

Wisconsin fall statewide primary

August 9, 2022

Hawaii

Hawaii statewide primary

Hawaii statewide primary

August 13, 2022

Alaska

Alaska statewide primary

Alaska statewide primary

August 16, 2022

Wyoming

Wyoming statewide primary

Wyoming statewide primary

August 16, 2022

Michigan

Michigan Democratic Party state nominating convention

Michigan Democratic Party state nominating convention

August 21, 2022

Florida

Florida statewide primary

Florida statewide primary

August 23, 2022

New York

New York statewide congressional and state Senate primary

New York statewide congressional and state Senate primary

August 23, 2022

Guam

Guam territory primary election

Guam territory primary election

August 27, 2022

Michigan

Michigan Republican Party state nominating convention

Michigan Republican Party state nominating convention

August 27, 2022

Massachusetts

Massachusetts statewide primary

Massachusetts statewide primary

September 6, 2022

Delaware

Delaware statewide primary

Delaware statewide primary

September 13, 2022

New Hampshire

New Hampshire statewide primary

New Hampshire statewide primary

September 13, 2022

Rhode Island

Rhode Island statewide primary

Rhode Island statewide primary

September 13, 2022

Louisiana

Louisiana statewide primary election

Louisiana statewide primary election

November 8, 2022

 

 

ATTACHMENT TWO – from Reuters

FROM reuters @x6

Trump-backed candidates on ballot as voters in five U.S. states go to polls

By Joseph Ax

·          

Aug 2 (Reuters) - Donald Trump's effort to play Republican kingmaker faced fresh tests on Tuesday as voters in five states cast ballots in high-profile races for U.S. Congress, governor and other offices ahead of November's midterm elections.

In Arizona and Michigan, candidates who embraced the former president's false claims of voter fraud could win the Republican nominations for governor, even as some in their party worry they could be too extreme to defeat Democrats on Nov. 8. read more

Kansas voters were deciding whether to amend the state constitution to allow the Republican-controlled legislature to ban or limit abortion, the first such ballot initiative since the U.S. Supreme Court eliminated the nationwide right to abortion in June.

Two Republican U.S. representatives who voted to impeach Trump after the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol by the then-president's supporters, Peter Meijer of Michigan and Jamie Herrera Beutler of Washington, also face Trump-endorsed primary challengers.

With an economy teetering on the brink of recession and inflation surging, just 38% of Americans approve of President Joe Biden's job performance, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll completed on Tuesday. That is up one percentage point from the previous week but remained near Biden's record low of 36% first hit in May. One in three voters said the biggest problem facing the United States today is the economy.

That is weighing on Democrats heading into the November general election, when Republicans are favored to win control of the House of Representatives and perhaps the Senate.

Control of either chamber would give Republicans the power to stymie Biden's legislative agenda while launching politically damaging hearings.

TRUMP ENDORSEMENTS

As he flirts publicly with the possibility of running for president again in 2024, Trump has endorsed more than 100 candidates. Most are safe bets - incumbent Republicans in conservative districts - but even in competitive races he has had a winning record.

Trump-backed nominees have won Republican primaries for U.S. Senate in Georgia, North Carolina, Ohio and Pennsylvania, though his picks lost nominating contests for Georgia governor and for the U.S. House in South Carolina.

"Trump remains really popular with Republican primary voters. I don't think you can underestimate how he has remade the party in his image," said Alex Conant, a Republican strategist. "Republicans who run against Trump tend to get trampled."

On Tuesday, Arizona voters were picking between Trump-backed gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake and Karrin Taylor Robson, who has the backing of Trump's former vice president, Mike Pence.

Lake, a former news anchor, echoes Trump's false claims that his 2020 election defeat was the result of fraud and has said she would not have certified Biden's statewide victory in 2020. At a recent campaign stop, Lake claimed without evidence that fraud has already occurred during early voting, suggesting she may not accept a defeat on Tuesday.

The race for secretary of state - the state's top election official - also includes a Trump-endorsed candidate, state Representative Mark Finchem. Finchem, who was present at Trump's Jan. 6, 2021, speech in Washington that preceded the U.S. Capitol attack, wrote on Twitter on Thursday, "Trump won," prompting a Democratic candidate, Adrian Fontes, to call him a "traitor."

Arizona Republicans were picking a challenger to take on Democratic U.S. Senator Mark Kelly, seen as one of the most vulnerable Democratic incumbents.

Blake Masters, a former tech executive who has backed Trump's false fraud claims, has Trump's endorsement and the backing of tech billionaire Peter Thiel. He is leading in polls against Jim Lamon, a former power company executive, and Attorney General Mark Brnovich, whom Trump blames for not reversing Biden's 2020 statewide victory.

In Missouri, former Governor Eric Greitens, who resigned in the midst of sexual assault and campaign finance fraud scandals, is seeking the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate despite calls from many within his party to withdraw out of concern that he might cost Republicans a safe seat in November.

Having promised to endorse in that race, Trump on Monday recommended voters choose either Greitens or one of his rivals, state Attorney General Eric Schmitt, with a statement that simply endorsed "Eric." read more

In Michigan, a chaotic Republican campaign for governor was drawing to a close, with several candidates vying for the right to take on Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer, who became a frequent target for conservatives after her aggressive approach to shutdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Trump last week endorsed former Republican commentator Tudor Dixon in the race. But at a rally this weekend in Troy, some Trump-supporting backers of one of Dixon's rivals, businessman Kevin Rinke, said they would not be swayed.

One attendee, Steve Moshelli, 57, said he voted for Trump twice but was sticking with Rinke.

"Honestly, I think his star is kind of fading," Moshelli, a businessman from Royal Oak, Michigan, said of Trump, adding that he thought the hearings by the House of Representatives committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot had chipped away at Trump's power. "It's his credibility. It's starting to fade."

 

ATTACHMENT THREE – from politico

Trump made 17 endorsements in recent primaries. Here are the winners.

The former president successfully intervened in a member-versus-member GOP primary in Illinois.

By MARISSA MARTINEZ 06/28/2022 11:34 PM EDT

·          

·         Last week, Georgia dealt former President Donald Trump another set of endorsement losses, while his side-switching act in Alabama came good after Katie Britt won the GOP Senate primary over Rep. Mo Brooks.

This week, Trump filled his endorsement card with a number of safe incumbents, but he also got involved in another hard-fought member-on-member primary in Illinois. The former president awarded an endorsement to Rep. Mary Miller — who has made a number of controversial statements during her year and a half in Congress — against Rep. Rodney Davis, who did not vote to overturn 2020 election results and supported establishing a Jan. 6 investigative commission. Both are conservatives, but Miller’s more consistent alignment with Trump helped win her the nomination in the end.

We’re tracking Donald Trump’s endorsement track record through the 2022 primaries. Get caught up here:


• May 3: Ohio and Indiana
• May 10: Nebraska and West Virginia
• May 17: Idaho, Kentucky, North Carolina and Pennsylvania
• May 24: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia and the Texas runoffs
• June 7: California, Iowa, Mississippi, Montana and South Dakota
• June 14: South Carolina, Nevada, North Dakota and Maine
• June 21 & 28: Alabama, Virginia, Colorado, Illinois, Oklahoma and Utah

State Sen. Darren Bailey’s gubernatorial win in Illinois also came after a late Trump endorsement, though Bailey had already climbed atop the polls before then. Bailey beat out moderate candidate Richard Irvin, who was bankrolled by local billionaire Ken Griffin.

In the deep-red Utah, Trump chose to back Reps. Burgess Owens and Chris Stewart, who voted to contest the 2020 election results, and snubbed Reps. John Curtis and Blake Moore, who voted to establish a bipartisan commission to investigate the Jan. 6 attacks. But no matter — all Utah GOP House incumbents won nominations on Tuesday. Besides Davis, four representatives who voted to create the bipartisan commission survived primary challengers, though Trump avoided getting involved in their races.

Colorado wins

CO03

Rep. Lauren Boebert

Won with 65 percent of the vote. She voted to overturn 2020 election results.

According to witness testimony, Boebert was among those who met with White House aides and Trump campaign officials around Thanksgiving in 2020 to discuss ways former Vice President Mike Pence could delay election certification processes on Jan. 6. She tweeted “Today is 1776” on Jan. 6, but denied playing a role in the day’s riots or planning sessions. In his endorsement, Trump said Boebert was a “fearless leader, a defender of the America First agenda and a fighter against the loser RINOs and radical Democrats.”

Illinois wins

GOVERNOR

Darren Bailey

The state senator aggressively sought Trump’s endorsement among a field of six candidates, including Irvin, whose funding from Griffin made the race one of the most expensive non-presidential primaries ever. Bailey was a nominating delegate for the former president in 2020, and specifically sought Trump’s endorsement. During the weekend rally where he endorsed Bailey, Trump called him an “outstanding warrior in the Illinois state Senate where he’s totally, totally respected by all of them,” while naming current Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker “one of the worst governors in America.”

IL12

Rep. Mike Bost

Unopposed.

IL15

Rep. Mary Miller

Won with 58 percent of the vote. She voted to overturn 2020 election results.

Miller ran against fellow GOP member Rep. Rodney Davis, who voted to create the Jan. 6 commission and drew ire from within the party. The representative has had her own share of controversies while in office: She repeated an Adolf Hitler quote to crowds on January 5, and more recently called the SCOTUS Roe v. Wade a “victory for white life” during a Trump rally and received several cheers, though later said she meant to say “right to life.” Trump said Miller was “a warrior for our movement” during a weekend rally.

IL18

Rep. Darin LaHood

Won with about two-thirds of the vote.

Oklahoma wins

GOVERNOR

Gov. Kevin Stitt

Won with 69 percent of the vote.

Stitt previously said Trump was one of his inspirations for running for office four years ago. The former president had also endorsed Stitt then, following his career from when he “was a very successful businessman in 2018… Now, he is a fighter for the incredible people of Oklahoma,” he said in his 2022 endorsement. Trump threw a fundraiser for the candidate in April.

OK01

Rep. Kevin Hern

Unopposed.

OK03

Rep. Frank Lucas

Won with 61 percent of the vote. He voted to overturn 2020 election results.

OK04

Rep. Tom Cole

Won with 70 percent of the vote.

Utah wins

SENATOR

Sen. Mike Lee

Won with 61 percent of the vote.

A former Trump skeptic, Lee heavily sought the former president’s endorsement, causing his leading challengers to campaign on the premise that the state had moved on from both of them. The senator has also used his faith to justify his support for the then-president, leading to disgruntlement among Latter-day Saint residents. Recent investigations by the Jan. 6 committee showed Lee discussed methods of legally denying the 2020 election results in texts with former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows.

UT02

Rep. Chris Stewart

Won with 72 percent of the vote. He voted to overturn 2020 election results.

UT04

Rep. Burgess Owens

Won with 61 percent of the vote. He voted to overturn 2020 election results.

Days before Jan. 6, Owens said he would challenge election results because there was “no question in my mind” Trump was the legitimate winner. He maintained the position until the end of January, saying he accepted President Joe Biden had been the winner from “the beginning.” Trump backed Owens over the weekend, who spoke at the 2020 Republican National Convention. “I campaigned with Burgess to flip this seat in 2020, and I am proud to support him again,” he said in a statement.

ICYMI: Alabama wins on June 21

SENATE

Katie Britt

 

Won with 63 percent of the vote.

ICYMI: Virginia wins on June 21

VA01

Rep. Rob Wittman

Unopposed. He voted to overturn 2020 election results.

VA05

Rep. Bob Good

Unopposed. He voted to overturn 2020 election results.

VA06

Rep. Ben Cline

Won with 82 percent of the vote. He voted to overturn 2020 election results.

VA09

Rep. Morgan Griffith

Unopposed. He voted to overturn 2020 election results.

 

ATTACHMENT FOUR (A) – from the New York Times

By Maggie Astor Aug. 1, 2022, 9:51 p.m.

Arizona’s attorney general debunks a Republican state senator’s election fraud claims.

Accusations that hundreds of ballots were cast in Arizona in 2020 in the name of dead voters are unfounded, the state’s Republican attorney general said on Monday in a sharply worded letter to the president of the Arizona Senate, who has advanced false claims of voter fraud.

The attorney general, Mark Brnovich, wrote in his letter to Senator Karen Fann that his office’s Election Integrity Unit had spent “hundreds of hours” investigating 282 allegations submitted by Ms. Fann, as well as more than 6,000 allegations from four other reports. Some of them “were so absurd,” he wrote, that “the names and birth dates didn’t even match the deceased, and others included dates of death after the election.”

The claims in Ms. Fann’s complaint stemmed from a heavily criticized audit of the 2020 election that the company Cyber Ninjas conducted last year in Arizona’s largest county, Maricopa. That audit found no evidence for former President Donald J. Trump’s claims that the election had been stolen from him; in fact, it counted slightly fewer votes for Mr. Trump and more for Joseph R. Biden Jr. than in the official tally. A subsequent report from election experts accused Cyber Ninjas of making up its numbers altogether.

Nonetheless, Ms. Fann sent the accusations of dead voters to Mr. Brnovich’s office in a September 2021 complaint.

“Our agents investigated all individuals that Cyber Ninjas reported as dead, and many were very surprised to learn they were allegedly deceased,” Mr. Brnovich wrote in his letter. His office concluded, he wrote, that “only one of the 282 individuals on the list was deceased at the time of the election.”

Mr. Biden won Arizona by a little over 10,000 votes.

In a statement on Monday evening, Ms. Fann thanked Mr. Brnovich for his “tireless work” in “answering some tough questions from voters and lawmakers who had grave concerns over how the 2020 general election was conducted in Arizona.”

“They asked us to do the hard work of fact finding, and we are delivering the facts,” she said, calling the investigation “critical to restoring the diminished confidence our constituents expressed following the last election” and praising “the increased voter integrity measures put in place after the audit revealed weaknesses in our election processes,” though the audit did not reveal weaknesses in Arizona’s election processes.

Spencer Scharff, an election lawyer in Arizona and a former voter protection director for the Arizona Democratic Party, said that while there was value to a public statement from a Republican official that the allegations were unfounded, it would not undo the damage done by the original lies, and by the willingness of so many elected Republicans to entertain and promote them.

“The thing that I think is most unfortunate is that it comes long after these allegations were made, and they weren’t clearly refuted by individuals who had the ability to refute them immediately,” Mr. Scharff said, noting that, by contrast, officials in Maricopa County debunked many of Cyber Ninjas’ claims months ago.

Mr. Brnovich sent the letter one day before Arizonans go to the polls for another election — one in which he himself is running. He is a candidate in the Republican Senate primary, the winner of which will challenge Senator Mark Kelly, a Democrat, in November. The front-runner in public polling is Blake Masters, a venture capitalist who has Mr. Trump’s endorsement and has promoted the former president’s false claims of election fraud.

Mr. Brnovich has sought to walk a fine line on Mr. Trump’s lies — refusing to call for overturning the 2020 election results, but rarely explicitly rejecting the claims. He publicly defended Arizona’s vote count shortly after the election, and Mr. Trump blasted him in June and endorsed Mr. Masters instead. But he has also suggested that 2020 revealed “serious vulnerabilities” in the electoral system, and said cryptically on the former Trump aide Stephen K. Bannon’s podcast in April, “I think we all know what happened in 2020.”

 

         And (B)...

By Danny Hakim  Aug. 1, 2022, 3:00 a.m.

Mark Finchem, a Trump-backed conspiracy theorist, is vying to take over Arizona elections.

PHOENIX — This spring, Mark Finchem traveled to Mar-a-Lago for the premiere of a documentary advancing the specious notion that the 2020 presidential election had been stolen from President Donald J. Trump by an army of leftists stuffing drop boxes with absentee ballots. As a state representative and candidate for secretary of state in Arizona, Mr. Finchem was a minnow among the assembled MAGA stars, the likes of Rudolph W. Giuliani and Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia.

But he still got his face time.

“President Trump took 20 minutes with me,” Mr. Finchem later recounted during a campaign stop. “And he said: ‘I want you to understand something. The Arizona secretary of state race is the most important race in the United States.’”

Arizona, of course, occupies a special place on Mr. Trump’s map of election indignities — as the onetime Republican stronghold where President Biden’s narrow and crucial victory was first called by, of all networks, Fox News. Should Mr. Trump run again in 2024, a friendly secretary of state, as administrator of the state’s elections, could be in a position to help him avoid a repeat.

Now, as Arizona prepares for its primaries on Tuesday, Mr. Finchem is the candidate of a Trump-backed America First coalition of more than a dozen 2020 election deniers who have sought once-obscure secretary of state posts across the country. While most of them have been considered extremist long shots, a recent poll gave Mr. Finchem an edge in Arizona’s four-way Republican race, though a significant majority of voters are undecided.

Mr. Finchem’s campaign pronouncements are testament to the evolution of the “Stop the Steal” movement: It is as much about influencing future elections as it is about what happened in 2020.

To that end, Mr. Finchem, who has identified himself as a member of the Oath Keepers militia in the past, may be the perfectly subversive candidate. Like his America First compatriots, he seeks, quite simply, to upend voting.

He wants to ban early voting and sharply restrict mail-in ballots, even though the latter were widely popular in Arizona long before the pandemic. He is already suing to suspend the use of all electronic vote-counting machines in Arizona, in litigation bankrolled by the conspiracy theorist and pillow tycoon Mike Lindell. And he has co-sponsored a bill that would give the state’s Republican-led legislature authority to overturn election results.

If he loses his own race, Mr. Finchem told a June fund-raiser, “ain’t gonna be no concession speech coming from this guy.”

Mr. Finchem did not respond to requests for comment for this article, and one of his lawyers declined to comment. But in a May email he assured Republican supporters that if he had been in office in 2020, “we would have won. Plain and simple.” In the days after the election, he was co-host of an unofficial hearing at a downtown Phoenix hotel where Mr. Giuliani, Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer, aired bogus stolen-elections claims. He was instrumental in trying to advance a slate of fake Trump electors in Arizona — part of a scheme to overturn the elections in a number of states that is being investigated by the Justice Department — and he is helping gather signatures to petition to decertify the state’s election results, even though that is not legally possible.

Mr. Finchem also marched to the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. He has said he did not come closer than 500 yards, but photos have surfaced showing him near the Capitol steps. He is not among the Oath Keepers who have been criminally charged, though he has been subpoenaed by the House committee investigating the attack.

Mr. Trump called him “the kind of fighter we need” in his endorsement and invited him to speak at his recent rally in Arizona. In the meantime, the other three Republican candidates for secretary of state, who in Arizona also serves as lieutenant governor, have staked out a range of positions on the 2020 election.

State Representative Shawnna Bolick says she would not have certified President Biden’s 2020 victory, even though it was legally required: “That would’ve been fine,” she said during a debate. “I would have been breaking the law.” The other two candidates — State Senator Michelle Ugenti-Rita and Beau Lane, an advertising executive — say they would have followed the law and certified the election.

“I don’t think he’s helping build faith in elections, I think he’s sowing doubt in elections, and that’s not what the secretary of state needs to do,” Mr. Lane said of Mr. Finchem in an interview.

“I do not accept that the election was rigged,” Mr. Lane said, adding that while there were “instances of fraud” that should be prosecuted, he had not seen “evidence of widespread organized fraud that would have changed the outcome.”

A Michigan transplant, Mr. Finchem, 65, has spent more than seven years as a lawmaker from a district outside Tucson, which during a recent visit was a boiling 115-degree valley set amid mountains and cactuses. He has embraced a sun-baked sheriff aesthetic, favoring large cowboy hats that belie his Detroit birthplace, and was the Arizona coordinator for the Coalition of Western States, a group that once supported the armed occupation of federal land in Oregon.

He speaks in sober and serious tones and presents himself as a common-sense family man. When asked about his family life by one interviewer, he said his “kids are all grown and gone” and added that nowadays, “I’m thinking about my grandkids” in battles he takes on.

But his family life has been rocky. He has been married four times and estranged for more than two decades from two adult children, and he does not know their children, family members said. (He also has two stepchildren.)

He talks frequently about his experience as a police officer and firefighter in Kalamazoo, Mich. But personnel records obtained from that city’s Department of Public Safety, which he left in 1999, include this note in his file: “Retired, poor rating, would not rehire.” A department spokesman declined to comment.

Mr. Finchem has raised more than $1.2 million, a considerable amount for a campaign for secretary of state. (Mr. Lane has raised about $1.1 million, while the other two candidates trail significantly behind.) Much of the money has come from out of state — seven of the eight donors who were listed as having donated the $5,300 maximum in his last two campaign filings were from elsewhere. Major donors include Brian T. Kennedy, a past president of the right-wing Claremont Institute, and Michael Marsicano, a former mayor of Hazleton, Pa., who recently lost a Republican congressional primary.

For all that, he has few visible signs of a staff or campaign office. About three-quarters of his expenditures, more than $750,000, have flowed to a Florida political consulting firm run by Spence Rogers, the nephew of Wendy Rogers, an Arizona lawmaker with ties to white nationalists, campaign filings show. A further $53,000, or nearly 5 percent of his total expenditures, have gone to payments to Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort. (Many other Trump-backed candidates have done likewise, including Kari Lake, Mr. Trump’s favored candidate for Arizona governor, whose campaign has spent more than $100,000 at Mar-a-Lago.)

Mr. Finchem’s handling of donor money has attracted scrutiny. Last year, he sought contributions to a political action committee to help pay for an election hearing. But he directed supporters to send money “to his personal Venmo and PayPal accounts,” rather than to the PAC itself, according to a complaint from a nonprofit group, Campaign for Accountability. State law bars the commingling of political and personal funds. The current secretary of state, Katie Hobbs, a Democrat running for governor, referred the case to Attorney General Mark Brnovich, a Republican, who did not pursue it further; his office said insufficient cause had been established.

Mr. Finchem limits his media appearances largely to right-wing talk shows; he is a frequent guest on the podcast of the former Trump adviser Stephen K. Bannon. His embrace of conspiracy theories is expansive. He argues that Marxists conspired to manipulate the 2020 election, that people voted with “software that flips votes,” that Mr. Biden is “a fraudulent president.” The Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol “was a setup,” he said. “The whole thing was a setup.”

Mr. Finchem has also said that Hezbollah is operating camps in Mexico in league with drug cartels and that the 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., “has Deep State PSYOP written all over it.” He has embraced QAnon theories, saying that “a whole lot of elected officials” are involved in a pedophile network. He espouses a version of the so-called great replacement theory, saying that “Democrats are trying to import voters” and “want to flood the zone with people who have no right to be here.”

His ceaselessly conspiratorial bent has its fans — but has also opened him up to ridicule. As one trolling commenter on Mr. Finchem’s Facebook page put it: “Mark Finchem KNOWS that each voting machine has a little illegal immigrant inside, and whenever you vote for our precious Eternal President Lord Donald Trump, that illegal immigrant changes your vote to a vote for HUGO CHAVEZ!”

Reginald Bolding, the minority leader of the statehouse and one of two Democratic primary candidates for secretary of state, said that a Finchem victory would “signal that our elections would not be safe and secure and “would be manipulated by party affiliation and outcomes that he wants.”

“I don’t know if Mark Finchem actually believes the things that he says, but they’re not based in reality,” he added.

Gov. Doug Ducey, a Republican, has endorsed Mr. Lane, as have many in the business community. Mr. Finchem sees in his competitor yet another conspiracy: “Beau Lane is a Democrat Plant,” he recently tweeted. Mr. Lane, for his part, called Mr. Finchem’s plan to stop using vote-counting machines fanciful.

“It’s something that’s logistically impossible in Arizona,” he said. “Maybe you could pull that off in Wyoming or South Dakota or Delaware. But Arizona is one of the top 15 most populous states. And it just makes no sense.”

 

ATTACHMENT FIVE – from the Washington Times

TRUMP TOWERS OVER TUESDAY’S GOP PRIMARY RACES AS HE TESTS HIS POLITICAL REACH

 

 

By Seth McLaughlin - The Washington Times - Updated: 9:54 a.m. on Tuesday, August 2, 2022

 

Former President Donald Trump is looking to settle the score Tuesday with three of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach him on charges of inciting the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Rep. Peter Meijer of Michigan and Reps. Jaime Herrera Beutler and Dan Newhouse of Washington are fighting for their political lives against Trump-backed primary challengers in races that will test the former president’s political reach.

Mr. Meijer faces the added challenge of Democratic meddling in his race by running ads that seek to lift his primary opponent, John Gibbs.

“It is a very big test for Trump,” Republican Party strategist Steve Mitchell said of Mr. Meijer’s primary race in western Michigan. “One of Trump’s major missions was to make sure all 10 Republicans who voted to impeach him were not in the Congress next year.

“Therefore, it is very important for Trump to see Meijer defeated,” Mr. Mitchell said.

So far, half of the pro-impeachment House Republicans will not be returning to Washington next year.

Four of them called it quits rather than face voters again, and Rep. Tom Rice lost to a Trump-backed primary challenger in South Carolina’s 7th Congressional District.

Voters on Tuesday will have their say in House, Senate and gubernatorial nomination races in Arizona, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri and Washington.

In Kansas, voters also will consider a referendum adding an amendment to the state constitution that would allow state lawmakers to legislate abortion access.

It’s the first referendum vote on abortion policy by a state since the Supreme Court rolled back abortion protections that existed since the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.

The primary battles will set the table for the general election. Democrats are defending their fragile hold on the House and the 50-50 Senate, where Vice President Kamala Harris has the tiebreaking vote.

Republicans hope President Biden’s poor approval ratings and the negative impact of inflation will generate a red wave.

Democrats, meanwhile, are scrambling to find seats they can flip.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the campaign arm of House Democrats, has been running what amounts to pro-Gibbs ads during the last week of the primary campaign in Michigan. They see Mr. Gibbs as a weaker general election candidate than Mr. Meijer.

“With Gibbs as the nominee, Democrats would have a better chance to flip the district,” said an analysis by J. Miles Coleman of the University of Virginia Center for Politics.

In Washington, Ms. Herrera Beutler has four challengers in the 3rd Congressional District, including from Joe Kent, a former Green Beret who has won Mr. Trump’s support.

Mr. Newhouse faces seven challengers in the 4th Congressional District. His most formidable opponent could be Loren Culp, a Trump-endorsed former police chief.

Republicans are playing up their odds of defeating Sen. Patty Murray, the third highest ranking Democrat in the Senate.

They hope Tiffany Smiley, a nurse and veterans advocate, can give Ms. Murray headaches in the fall.

Under Washington’s primary system, the top two vote-getters advance to the general election regardless of party affiliation.

In Michigan, voters will pick a general election opponent for Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat whom President Biden vetted as a potential running mate.

The Republican gubernatorial race got off to a rocky start after state election officials removed three candidates from the ballot because their campaigns had submitted forged signatures.

Former television host Tudor Dixon scored Mr. Trump’s endorsement and is viewed as the Republican front-runner.

Mr. Trump announced Monday that he would endorse a Republican in the 21-person race in Missouri for the seat of retiring Sen. Roy Blunt.

The contenders include former Gov. Eric Greitens, who resigned in 2018 amid accusations of sexual misconduct; state Attorney General Eric Schmitt; Rep. Vicky Hartzler; Rep. Billy Long; and Mark McCloskey, the St. Louis lawyer best known for brandishing firearms at Black Lives Matter protesters marching through his neighborhood.

The state’s other senator, Josh Hawley, has endorsed Ms. Hartzler.

In Arizona, Mr. Trump is backing the Senate campaign of technology investor Blake Masters. His top rivals are Jim Lamon, founder of a solar energy firm, and state Attorney General Mark Brnovich.

Mr. Trump is supporting former television news anchor Kari Lake in the governor’s race. Ms. Lake said she would not have certified the state’s 2020 election results after Mr. Biden narrowly won Arizona.

Former Vice President Mike Pence and outgoing Gov. Doug Ducey, co-chair of the Republican Governors Association, have lined up behind another candidate: Karrin Taylor Robson, a former developer and lobbyist.

Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs is expected to win the Democratic gubernatorial nomination.

In the Republican race for Senate, Mr. Masters has had momentum since winning Mr. Trump’s endorsement in June.

Mr. Brnovich was deemed the front-runner early on but has faced withering criticism from Mr. Trump over a refusal to further his claims of a stolen election.

Billionaire businessman Peter Thiel has spent millions of dollars on behalf of Mr. Masters.

The winner of the race will face off against Sen. Mark Kelly, a former astronaut and the husband of former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.

Mr. Kelly won the seat in a 2020 special election and is viewed as one of the most vulnerable Democrats. He ran unopposed in the Democratic primary.

 

ATTACHMENT SIX – FROM

SOME DEMOCRATIC GROUPS ARE PROPPING UP FAR RIGHT CANDIDATES — AND THE TACTIC IS GETTING PARTY BACKLASH

Efforts by Democratic campaigns, committees and outside groups to tilt the playing field in their favor by supporting extremist Republican primary candidates are sparking backlash as other Democrats warn the tactic risks putting conspiracy theorists and election deniers in office.  

The latest flashpoint in the debate came last week when the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee began running ads touting GOP candidate John Gibbs, who has the backing of former President Donald Trump, over Michigan Rep. Peter Meijer, one of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach the former President after Jan. 6, 2021.

"I believe Democrats should focus on helping Democrats win," said Rebecca Katz, a longtime Democratic strategist who is now advising John Fetterman's Senate campaign in Pennsylvania. "In this year of all years, why make that gamble in a Republican primary? It just seems like their priorities are out of whack."

While meddling like this is far from exclusive to Democrats — Republicans have a long history of using different means to influence Democratic primaries — the disconnect has drawn criticism from across the political spectrum. Elected Democrats have been especially vocal, worrying that their party is playing a dangerous — and at times, disingenuous — game.

"I am not thrilled, for sure," said Rep. Don Beyer, a Virginia Democrat. "This does undermine our message about keeping campaigns as ethical, honest and transparent as possible."

Rep. Dean Phillips, a Minnesota Democrat, was even more aggrieved: "I'm disgusted that hard-earned money intended to support Democrats is being used to boost Trump-endorsed candidates, particularly the far-right opponent of one of the most honorable Republicans in Congress, @RepMeijer."

And California Rep. Jimmy Gomez said the spending against Meijer and others "sends the wrong message" because the Democratic Party "shouldn't be associated with any of these election deniers."

"Right now, we're in a fight for our democracy," said Gomez. "What happens if they actually do win? Then we inadvertently helped elect you know, the people that will bring an end to the institutions we're trying to protect."

Democrats involved in those efforts defended their actions, arguing that even if the attempt is risky, it is worth it to protect Democratic majorities in 2022.

JB Poersch, president of Senate Majority PAC, said that while their effort in Colorado did not lead to Hanks being the nominee, "we worked to weaken both their campaigns" and forced O'Dea to "burn through cash," "embrace Trump" and saddled him with baggage ahead of the general election.

David Turner, strategist for the Democratic Governors Association, said the group is simply "educating the public on the MAGA extremism, and cowardice, of today's Republican party," something he argued was "essential to ensuring all citizens have the facts."

Read more.

 

ATTACHMENT SEVEN – From CNN

ARIZONA, MICHIGAN, MISSOURI, WASHINGTON AND KANSAS PRIMARIES

By Elise Hammond, Maureen Chowdhury, Melissa Macaya and Adrienne Vogt, CNN

Updated 5:31 p.m. ET, August 2, 2022

 

What you need to know

·         The primary season continues Tuesday as voters in five states — ArizonaMichiganMissouriWashington and Kansas — head to the polls.

·         Arizona is home to the biggest primaries of the night, as Republicans pick a Senate candidate to take on vulnerable incumbent Democrat Mark Kelly, and GOP contests for governor and secretary of state have become proxy battles between former President Trump and Arizona's governor over the future of the party.

·         Election deniers are on the ballot in high-profile Arizona and Michigan races, and three Republicans who voted to impeach Trump are facing primary challengers.

·         There’s also a heated GOP Senate primary in Missouri and in Kansas, the issue of abortion will come before voters for the first time since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. 

 

READ MORE

8 things to watch in Tuesday's primaries

By Gregory Krieg, Eric Bradner and Dan Merica, CNN

How to follow Tuesday's primary elections

By Rachel Janfaza, Ethan Cohen and Melissa Holzberg DePalo, CNN

These are the election deniers on the ballot in Tuesday's primaries

By Eric Bradner, CNN

Trump's endorsement tease in the Missouri GOP Senate primary set off scramble among Republican allies

By Kristen Holmes and Gabby Orr, CNN

They voted to impeach Trump. Voters in Washington state will decide whether that matters

By Dan Merica, CNN

High-stakes Senate primary tests Missouri Republicans' tolerance for an Eric Greitens return

By Simone Pathe, CNN

With 100 days to the midterms, Democrats try to defy the odds as Republicans boast of coming wave

By Gregory Krieg, Dan Merica and Michael Warren, CNN

'What happens if they actually do win?': Democrats grapple with efforts to prop up far right candidates

By Dan Merica, CNN

Analysis: How Republicans could still blow the 2022 midterm elections

Analysis by Harry Enten, CNN

READ MORE

 

8 things to watch in Tuesday's primaries

By Gregory Krieg, Eric Bradner and Dan Merica, CNN

How to follow Tuesday's primary elections

By Rachel Janfaza, Ethan Cohen and Melissa Holzberg DePalo, CNN

These are the election deniers on the ballot in Tuesday's primaries

By Eric Bradner, CNN

Trump's endorsement tease in the Missouri GOP Senate primary set off scramble among Republican allies

By Kristen Holmes and Gabby Orr, CNN

They voted to impeach Trump. Voters in Washington state will decide whether that matters

By Dan Merica, CNN

High-stakes Senate primary tests Missouri Republicans' tolerance for an Eric Greitens return

By Simone Pathe, CNN

With 100 days to the midterms, Democrats try to defy the odds as Republicans boast of coming wave

By Gregory Krieg, Dan Merica and Michael Warren, CNN

'What happens if they actually do win?': Democrats grapple with efforts to prop up far right candidates

By Dan Merica, CNN

Analysis: How Republicans could still blow the 2022 midterm elections

Analysis by Harry Enten, CNN

 

 

ATTACHMENT EIGHT – From Reuters

Trump-backed candidates on ballot as voters in five U.S. states go to polls

By Joseph Ax

 

Aug 2 (Reuters) - Donald Trump's effort to play Republican kingmaker faced fresh tests on Tuesday as voters in five states cast ballots in high-profile races for U.S. Congress, governor and other offices ahead of November's midterm elections.

In Arizona and Michigan, candidates who embraced the former president's false claims of voter fraud could win the Republican nominations for governor, even as some in their party worry they could be too extreme to defeat Democrats on Nov. 8. read more

Kansas voters were deciding whether to amend the state constitution to allow the Republican-controlled legislature to ban or limit abortion, the first such ballot initiative since the U.S. Supreme Court eliminated the nationwide right to abortion in June.

Two Republican U.S. representatives who voted to impeach Trump after the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol by the then-president's supporters, Peter Meijer of Michigan and Jamie Herrera Beutler of Washington, also face Trump-endorsed primary challengers.

With an economy teetering on the brink of recession and inflation surging, just 38% of Americans approve of President Joe Biden's job performance, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll completed on Tuesday. That is up one percentage point from the previous week but remained near Biden's record low of 36% first hit in May. One in three voters said the biggest problem facing the United States today is the economy.

That is weighing on Democrats heading into the November general election, when Republicans are favored to win control of the House of Representatives and perhaps the Senate.

Control of either chamber would give Republicans the power to stymie Biden's legislative agenda while launching politically damaging hearings.

TRUMP ENDORSEMENTS

As he flirts publicly with the possibility of running for president again in 2024, Trump has endorsed more than 100 candidates. Most are safe bets - incumbent Republicans in conservative districts - but even in competitive races he has had a winning record.

Trump-backed nominees have won Republican primaries for U.S. Senate in Georgia, North Carolina, Ohio and Pennsylvania, though his picks lost nominating contests for Georgia governor and for the U.S. House in South Carolina.

"Trump remains really popular with Republican primary voters. I don't think you can underestimate how he has remade the party in his image," said Alex Conant, a Republican strategist. "Republicans who run against Trump tend to get trampled."

On Tuesday, Arizona voters were picking between Trump-backed gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake and Karrin Taylor Robson, who has the backing of Trump's former vice president, Mike Pence.

Lake, a former news anchor, echoes Trump's false claims that his 2020 election defeat was the result of fraud and has said she would not have certified Biden's statewide victory in 2020. At a recent campaign stop, Lake claimed without evidence that fraud has already occurred during early voting, suggesting she may not accept a defeat on Tuesday.

The race for secretary of state - the state's top election official - also includes a Trump-endorsed candidate, state Representative Mark Finchem. Finchem, who was present at Trump's Jan. 6, 2021, speech in Washington that preceded the U.S. Capitol attack, wrote on Twitter on Thursday, "Trump won," prompting a Democratic candidate, Adrian Fontes, to call him a "traitor."

Arizona Republicans were picking a challenger to take on Democratic U.S. Senator Mark Kelly, seen as one of the most vulnerable Democratic incumbents.

Blake Masters, a former tech executive who has backed Trump's false fraud claims, has Trump's endorsement and the backing of tech billionaire Peter Thiel. He is leading in polls against Jim Lamon, a former power company executive, and Attorney General Mark Brnovich, whom Trump blames for not reversing Biden's 2020 statewide victory.

In Missouri, former Governor Eric Greitens, who resigned in the midst of sexual assault and campaign finance fraud scandals, is seeking the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate despite calls from many within his party to withdraw out of concern that he might cost Republicans a safe seat in November.

Having promised to endorse in that race, Trump on Monday recommended voters choose either Greitens or one of his rivals, state Attorney General Eric Schmitt, with a statement that simply endorsed "Eric." read more

In Michigan, a chaotic Republican campaign for governor was drawing to a close, with several candidates vying for the right to take on Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer, who became a frequent target for conservatives after her aggressive approach to shutdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Trump last week endorsed former Republican commentator Tudor Dixon in the race. But at a rally this weekend in Troy, some Trump-supporting backers of one of Dixon's rivals, businessman Kevin Rinke, said they would not be swayed.

One attendee, Steve Moshelli, 57, said he voted for Trump twice but was sticking with Rinke.

"Honestly, I think his star is kind of fading," Moshelli, a businessman from Royal Oak, Michigan, said of Trump, adding that he thought the hearings by the House of Representatives committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot had chipped away at Trump's power. "It's his credibility. It's starting to fade."

 

ATTACHMENT NINE A –from the Washington Post

 

On our radar: Who is Blake Masters?

By Hannah Knowles

 

 

Blake Masters, 35, gained momentum in the race for Arizona’s Senate seat with the endorsement of former president Donald Trump and the financial backing of Peter Thiel, the conservative tech billionaire.

A first-time candidate who grew up in Tucson, Masters spent much of his career in Silicon Valley as the protege of Thiel, an early investor in Facebook and co-founder of PayPal. In an interview with The Washington Post this summer, Masters said Trump’s norm-shattering presidential bid rekindled his interest in politics. Masters and Thiel were both tapped for Trump’s presidential transition team.

With calls for a nationwide abortion ban and a campaign ad declaration that “Trump won” in 2020, Masters has adopted some of the farthest-right stances in a staunchly conservative field. He has been dogged by questions about his youthful writings in which he questioned U.S. entry into World Wars I and II, and approvingly quoted a Nazi war criminal.

Thiel has now put $30 million behind Masters and J.D. Vance, the GOP’s Senate nominee in Ohio. Masters and Vance are some of the highest-profile figures in a “New Right” preaching economic populism, nationalism and conservative social values. Both have promised to take on Big Tech despite their ties to its elite world.

Two longtime associates told The Post that Masters admitted privately as recently as 2021 that President Biden won the 2020 election, but thought he needed to call the election fraudulent to win Trump’s endorsement. Masters’s campaign denied those claims.

 

ATTACHMENT NINE B – from the Washington Post

What we’re watching: Will the GOP pick candidates who could wreck their Senate prospects?

 

By Amber Phillips

 

Republican voters’ penchant for controversial candidates this primary season could have stark consequences in the battle for control of the U.S. Senate.

Republicans need to unseat Democrats in states like Arizona, and on Tuesday they could nominate Blake Masters, a venture capitalist and election denier with a history of being accused of racist and antisemitic comments.

Less likely — but still a possibility — is that Republicans jeopardize their chances to keep a Senate seat in deep-red Missouri, by nominating a disgraced former governor, Eric Greitens, who was pushed out of the job after being accused of sexual misconductand is now facing allegations of child abuse.

Add that to the problems the GOP already faces with Senate candidates in Georgia (with Herschel Walker facing allegations of domestic abuse and making repeated stumbles in speaking engagements) and Pennsylvania (with Trump-backed TV celebrity Mehmet Oz), and Republicans worry they could jeopardize their chances in what is otherwise shaping up to be a good year for them to take back control of both chambers of Congress.

 

ATTACHMENT TEN (A) – From the New York Times

Abortion on the ballot.

Voters in Kansas will be the first since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade to decide for themselves whether to protect reproductive rights or turn the issue of abortion over to state legislators.

Tuesday’s ballot will include an amendment to the state constitution that would remove an existing guarantee of reproductive rights and allow the Legislature to pass laws restricting abortion.

The returns in Kansas will be closely watched, not only by abortion rights supporters and Democrats, for signs of the potency of the issue in the midterm elections, but also by Republican state lawmakers in Kansas and beyond, who felt empowered by the Supreme Court’s decision but are unsure how far they should go to bar abortion in their states.

AND (B)

Incumbent Democrats see danger ahead

The power of incumbency is proved time and again, but with inflation at a 40-year-high, President Biden’s approval ratings well below 40 percent and congressional redistricting taking a toll, holding elective office is no guarantee of keeping it.

In Kansas, Laura Kelly, a Democratic governor in a deep-red state, has an approval rating of 56 percent, 23 percentage points higher than Mr. Biden’s, but her relative success may not save her tossup race against her expected Republican challenger, Attorney General Derek Schmidt.

In the Kansas City, Kan., suburbs, Representative Sharice Davids — a gay former mixed-martial arts fighter and one of the first two Native American women in the House — was hailed as a path-breaker after her 2018 victory. But redistricting redrew her seat from a slight Democratic lean to a slight Republican edge.

If Amanda Adkins, a businesswoman and former congressional aide, wins the Republican primary on Tuesday, November’s race will be a rematch of their 2020 contest, which Ms. Davids won easily. But this time, the circumstances will be more difficult for the incumbent.

If the political environment deteriorates further for Democrats, another incumbent in a Tuesday primary, Senator Patty Murray of Washington, could pop up on both parties’ radar screens.

 

 

ATTACHMENT ELEVEN – From the New York Times 

 

Aug. 1, 2022, 7:00 p.m. ETAug. 1, 2022

Aug. 1, 2022

Blake Hounshell

 

His campaign pitch? ‘No one wants to have a beer with me.’

By his own admission, Adam Hollier is not the kind of guy you want to have a beer with.

“You remember when George W. Bush was running and they were like, ‘He’s the kind of guy you want to have a beer with?’” he told me, by way of explaining his personality. “No one wants to have a beer with me.”

Why not, I asked?

“I’m not fun,” he said. “I’m the friend who you call to move a heavy couch. I’m the friend you call when you’re stuck on the side of the road. Right? Like, I’m the friend you call when you need a designated driver.”

He repeated it again, in case I didn’t get it the first time: “I am not fun.”

Hollier, 36, a Democratic candidate for a House seat in Michigan’s newly redrawn 13th Congressional District, which includes Detroit and Hamtramck, is a whirlwind of perpetual motion. A captain and paratrooper in the Army Reserves, he ran track and played safety at Cornell University despite being just 5-foot-9. After a fellowship with AmeriCorps, he earned a graduate degree in urban planning from the University of Michigan.

Hollier’s brother, who is 11 years older, is 6-foot-5. His eldest sister is a federal investigator for the U.S. Postal Service who went to the University of Michigan on a basketball and water polo scholarship.

“I grew up in a household of talent. And I don’t really have much of it,” Hollier said with self-effacing modesty. “My little sister is an incredible musician and singer and, you know, has done all of those things. I can barely clap on beat.”

Hollier is running — when I spoke with him, he was quite literally doing so to drop his daughters off at day care — to replace Representative Brenda Lawrence, a four-term congresswoman who announced her retirement early this year.

Her district, before a nonpartisan commission remapped boundaries that were widely seen as unfairly tilted toward Republicans, was one of the most heavily gerrymandered in the country, a salamander-like swath of land that snaked from Pontiac in the northwest across northern Detroit to the upscale suburb of Grosse Pointe on Lake St. Clair, then southward down the river toward River Rouge and Dearborn.

Defying the odds, Hollier has racked up endorsement after endorsement by doing what he’s always done — outworking everybody else.

Early on, Lawrence endorsed Portia Roberson, a lawyer and nonprofit leader from Detroit, but she has failed to gain traction. In March, the Legacy Committee for Unified Leadership, a local coalition of Black leaders run by Warren Evans, the Wayne County executive, endorsed Hollier instead.

In late June, so did Mike Duggan, the city’s mayor. State Senator Mallory McMorrow, a fellow parent and a newfound political celebritybacked him in May. A video announcing her endorsement shows Hollier wearing a neon vest and pushing a double jogging stroller.

Hollier’s main opponent in the Democratic primary, Shri Thanedar, is a self-financing state lawmaker who previously ran for governor in 2018 and came in third place in the party’s primary behind Gretchen Whitmer and Abdul El-Sayed. His autobiography, “The Blue Suitcase: Tragedy and Triumph in an Immigrant’s Life,” originally written in Marathi, tells the story of his rise from lower-class origins in India to his success as an entrepreneur in the United States.

A wealthy former engineer, Thanedar now owns Avomeen Analytical Services, a chemical testing laboratory in Ann Arbor. He has spent at least $8 million of his own money on the race so far, according to campaign finance reports.

Pro-Israel groups, worried about his position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, have backed Hollier, as have veterans’ groups and two super PACs backed by cryptocurrency donors. The outside spending has allowed Hollier to compensate for Thanedar’s TV ad spending, which dwarfs his own.

A firefighter’s son who couldn’t become a firefighter

The son of a social worker and a firefighter, Hollier recalls his father sitting him down when he was 8 years old and telling him he must never follow in his footsteps.

Asked why, his father replied, “You don’t have that little bit of healthy fear that brings you home at night.”

The comment stunned the young Hollier, who still considers his father, who ran the Detroit Fire Department’s hazardous material response team and retired as a captain after serving on the force for nearly 30 years, his own personal superhero.

“And that’s a weird experience,” Hollier said. “Because, you know, at Career Day, nothing trumps firefighter except astronaut. Every kid’s dad is their hero, but my dad is, you know, objectively” — objectively, he said again, emphasizing the word — “in that space.”

When he was 10 years old, in 1995, he persuaded his father to take him to the Million Man March in Washington, a gathering on the National Mall that was aimed at highlighting the challenges of growing up Black and male in America. They went to the top of the Washington Monument, where young Adam insisted on taking a photograph to get a more accurate sense of the crowd size.

His parents were not political “at all,” he said — he notes that when Martin Luther King Jr. visited Detroit just ahead of his famous “I Have a Dream” speech, his father went to a baseball game instead.

Years later, Hollier admitted sheepishly, he did rebel against his father — by becoming a volunteer firefighter in college.

Hollier says he’s most proud of scrambling to save jobs in his district after General Motors closed a plant in Hamtramck just after he took office in the State Senate.Credit...Emily Elconin for The New York Times

Early interest in politics

Hollier was very much a political animal from a young age, he acknowledged.

“I know it’s in vogue for people to say they never thought they would run for office, but I always knew I was, right?” he said. “Like, I was always involved in the thing.”

That same day in Washington, for instance, he met Dennis Archer, the mayor of Detroit at the time, who told him he should “think about doing what I do” someday — a heady experience for a 10-year-old. He took the advice to heart, winning his first race for student council president in high school.

Hollier’s first official job in politics was in 2004, working as an aide to Buzz Thomas, a now-retired state senator he considers his political mentor. Hollier lost a race for the State House in 2014 to the incumbent then, Rose Mary Robinson. In 2018, he was elected to the State Senate, where he worked on an auto insurance overhaul and lead pipe removal.

But the achievement he’s most proud of, he said, is scrambling to save jobs in his district after General Motors closed a plant in Hamtramck just after he took office. In a panic, he called Archer, who gave him a list of 10 things to do immediately.

One of the top items on Archer’s list was tracking down former Senator Carl Levin, a longtime friend of labor unions who had recently retired, and whom he’d never met.

Don’t accept that G.M. would close the plant, Levin told him when they spoke.

“They’re not going to produce the vehicles that they produce there right now,” Hollier recounted Levin saying. “But you’re fighting for the next product line.”

Hollier took that advice to heart, and worked with a coalition of others to steer G.M. toward a different solution. The site is now known as Factory Zero, the company’s first plant dedicated entirely to electric vehicles.

Motivations and milestones

If Hollier loses, Michigan is likely to have no Black members of Congress for the first time in seven decades.

When I ask him what that means to him, he jumps into an impassioned speech about how important it is for Black Americans, and for young Black men in particular, to have positive role models. It’s one I suspect he has been giving some version of for his entire life in politics.

Growing up in north Detroit, Hollier often ran into his own representative, John Conyers, the longest serving African-American member of Congress. Conyers, who died in 2019 at age 90, was known for walking every nook and cranny of his district.

But when Hollier knocked on his first door the first time he ran for office, the woman who opened it asked him, “Are you going to disappoint me like Kwame?” — a reference to Kwame Kilpatrick, the disgraced former mayor of Detroit.

That experience sobered him about running for office as a Black man in Detroit, a highly segregated city where Black men are disproportionally likely to end up jobless or in prison. But it also motivated him to prove the woman wrong.

On his 25th birthday, Hollier recalled going to pick up some food from a store near his parents’ house. Told about the milestone, the man behind the counter replied: “Congratulations. Not everybody makes it.”

With just one day left before the primary, Hollier has spent 760 hours asking for donations over the phone, raising more than $1 million. His campaign says it has made 300,000 phone calls and knocked on 40,000 doors — double, he tells me with pride, what Representative Rashida Tlaib was able to do in the district next door.

But when I asked him if he would be at peace if he lost, he confessed, “That’s a tough one.”

He paused for a moment, then said, “I feel strongly that I’ve done everything I could have done.”

 

ATTACHMENT TWELVE – From the National Review

Trump Endorses ‘Eric’ without Specifying Greitens or Schmitt in Missouri GOP Senate Primary

By CAROLINE DOWNEY   August 1, 2022 8:19 PM

Bottom of Form

Former president Trump issued a puzzling endorsement on Monday of “ERIC,” the first name shared by two front-runners competing in Tuesday’s Missouri GOP Senate primary race, leaving confusion as to whether he meant candidate Eric Greitens or candidate Eric Schmitt, or whether he was endorsing both.

“There is a BIG Election in the Great State of Missouri, and we must send a MAGA Champion and True Warrior to the U.S. Senate, someone who will fight for Border Security, Election Integrity, our Military and Great Veterans, together with having a powerful toughness on Crime and the Border,” Trump wrote in a statement. “I trust the Great People of Missouri, on this one, to make up their own minds, much as they did when they gave me landslide victories in the 2016 and 2020 Elections, and I am therefore proud to announce that ERIC has my Complete and Total Endorsement!”

No clarification has yet been issued by Trump’s team. Both rivals accepted the endorsement, each claiming to have earned the former president’s favor as the real “America First” choice.

“I’m honored to receive President Trump’s endorsement. From the beginning, I’ve been the true MAGA Champion fighting against the RINO establishment backing Schmitt,” Greitens, the former governor of Missouri, tweeted. “President Trump said it best when he characterized Schmitt’s campaign as ‘great dishonesty in politics.’”

“I’m grateful for President Trump’s endorsement. As the only America First candidate who has actually fought for election integrity, border security & against the Left’s indoctrination of our kids—I’ll take that fight to the Senate to SAVE AMERICA!” Schmitt, the state’s current attorney general, wrote.

Trump’s message is sure to further complicate an already turbulent contest, which takes place on Tuesday. Based on recent polling, however, Schmitt seems like the favorite to win, with Greitens trailing by a significant margin. A Trafalgar Group poll released Monday showed Schmitt leading at 27 percent, followed by Representative Vicky Hartzler at 24 percent and Greitens at 20 percent. A different survey from last Monday conducted by Remington Research, a firm associated with Schmitt’s consulting group, Axiom Strategies, projected Schmitt would carry 32 percent of the vote, compared with Hartzler’s 25 percent and Greitens’s 18 percent.

Before Greitens ran for governor of Missouri as a Republican in 2016 and won, he was a professed Democrat, who even considered a run for Congress as such in early 2009, although he later abandoned the idea. He took a break from politics after scandals involving sexual misconduct and campaign-finance violations forced him to resign from office before reentering the arena and rebranding himself a “RINO hunter,” NR’s Brittany Bernstein reported.

 

ATTACHMENT THIRTEEN (A) – from the Washington Post

 On our radar in Missouri: Who is Eric Greitens? 

 

By Eugene Scott

 

Former Missouri governor Eric Greitens hopes voters appreciated his time in the state capital enough to send him to the nation’s capital. The Republican is pursuing a political comeback, competing to represent the Show Me State in the U.S. Senate.

Greitens, 48, is promising voters that he represents the conservative — and often far-right — values that drew so many Missourians to former president Donald Trump. Trump coyly endorsed “Eric” on Monday, and both Greitens and Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt claimed the endorsement.

Greitens, a Rhodes scholar and former Navy SEAL, is seeking a return to politics after a scandal-plagued career.

He has been accused by his ex-wife of domestic violence, including physical violence toward their children. He has denied the allegations.

Greitens resigned as governor in 2018 after an affair with a former hairdresser that included allegations of abuse and blackmail. He launched his campaign for Senate last year after Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) announced he would retire at the end of his term.

In June, Greitens was widely criticized after he released a campaign ad that shows him pretending to hunt down members of his own party.

“Today we’re goin’ RINO hunting,” he announces in the video, using the abbreviation for the derisive phrase “Republicans in Name Only.”

In the ad, Greitens stands outside a home with a team of others dressed in tactical gear and whispers: “The RINO feeds on corruption and is marked by the stripes of cowardice.”

AND (B)

On our radar in Missouri: Who is Eric Schmitt?

 

By Eugene Scott

 

 

 

Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, who is seeking the GOP nomination for U.S. Senate, is a fierce foe of the 2010 Affordable Care Act that has provided insurance coverage to tens of millions of Americans.

He has joined forces with other state attorneys general in an effort to strike down the law, arguing that the individual mandate is unconstitutional. Last year, the conservative-majority Supreme Court tossed the lawsuit.

Schmitt, a 47-year-old lawyer, has also grabbed headlines for filing a number of lawsuits to exhibit his conservative bona fides: He sued the City of St. Louis for making $1 million available for women to travel outside of the state to undergo an abortion procedure; he sued local school districts over mask mandates; and he sued China over the coronavirus.

He has worked hard to appeal to Trump supporters and perhaps harder to appeal to the former president. He held a fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago in March with Donald Trump that brought in $1.6 million.

The Missouri native has held several elected positions, including state treasurer and state senator. He is one of several leading contenders in a 21-person field competing for the GOP nomination.

Trump expressed his support for “Eric” on Monday — unclear whether it was Schmitt or his main foe, former Missouri governor Eric Greitens. Both men claimed the endorsement.

“I trust the Great People of Missouri, on this one, to make up their own minds, much as they did when they gave me landslide victories in the 2016 and 2020 Elections, and I am therefore proud to announce that ERIC has my Complete and Total Endorsement,” the president said in a statement.

 

 

ATTACHMENT FOURTEENFrom 538

Washington

Races to watch: U.S. Senate; 3rd, 4th and 8th congressional districts

Polls close: 11 p.m. Eastern

Tuesday’s nightcap is Washington, which uses a top-two primary in which all candidates run on the same ballot, regardless of party, and the two top vote-getters advance to the general election. This system arguably rewards moderation more than traditional party primaries, and that could help save the careers of two Republicans who voted to impeach Trump: Reps. Jaime Herrera Beutler and Dan Newhouse. After all, pro-impeachment House Republicans are still just 1 for 2 this cycle, with Rep. David Valadao of California, the other top-two primary state, being the one success story — although he nearly failed to advance. (South Carolina Rep. Tom Rice lost his primary.)

Herrera Beutler may be more at risk in the 3rd District, a R+11 seat in southwest Washington. That’s because she has to fend off two strongly pro-Trump Republicans, former Army Green Beret Joe Kent and evangelical Christian author Heidi St. John, as well as one notable Democrat, auto shop owner Marie Gluesenkamp Perez. Both Kent and St. John got into the race because of Herrera Beutler’s impeachment vote, and they could also attract Republican votes with their support for Trump’s false claims about the 2020 election. Kent earned Trump’s endorsement and looks like the likeliest threat to Herrera Beutler, having raised $2.3 million to her $3.5 million (St. John has raised $1 million, Perez $241,000).

But with four candidates competing for two spots, this race has some unusual dynamics. Because Perez is the only Democrat, we’d usually expect her to get the lion’s share of Democratic votes, around 40 percent overall. Such a showing would likely be enough to finish first and leave one spot open for the three Republicans battling over much of the remaining vote. Yet Herrera Beutler, whose impeachment vote could attract some Democrats who know the seat will likely go red in November, has appealed to them with ads that make her sound like, well, a Democrat — highlighting her support for caps on insulin prices and attacking Kent for wanting to privatize social security.

 

Meanwhile, outside groups have mostly spent to help Herrera Beutler and hinder Kent. The one poll we have explains why: Back in May, the Trafalgar Group found Kent ahead of Herrera Beutler, 28 percent to 22 percent, with a Democrat who later dropped out to back Perez running third with 12 percent and St. John in fourth with 9 percent. With that in mind, Winning for Women Action Fund has spent $1.7 million going after Kent and $618,000 boosting the incumbent. The second-biggest outside spender is more mysterious but may be looking to help Herrera Beutler by splitting the GOP base: Conservatives for a Stronger America has spent $932,000 supporting St. John and $521,000 opposing Kent, prompting Kemp to claim the group wanted to help St. John, the “spoiler candidate.” Despite all this financial help, however, Herrera Beutler could still come up short against Kent, who has ties to white nationalists.

In central Washington’s 4th District, Newhouse may have better odds than Herrera Beutler because the R+25 district is red enough to potentially send two Republicans to the general election, having done so in 2014 and 2016 under the district’s old but similarly drawn lines. Newhouse does have to contend with Loren Culp, the GOP’s failed 2020 gubernatorial candidate who has Trump’s endorsement, but Culp and other notable Republicans — former NASCAR driver Jerrod Sessler, marketing professional Corey Gibson and state Sen. Brad Klippert — have all struggled to fundraise. Newhouse has garnered $1.6 million, compared with Sessler’s mostly self-funded $508,000 and Culp’s $311,000. Given their weaker campaigns, Newhouse could also advance along with the lone Democrat in the race, businessman Doug White, who could benefit from a unified Democratic front while the heavily Republican vote is divided among multiple GOP contenders.

The incumbent has also benefited from a little over $1.5 million in outside spending, mostly by Defending Main Street, a moderate GOP super PAC that has spent $504,000 supporting Newhouse for protecting American farms and $660,000 attacking Culp as a “tax dodger.” Unfortunately, we don’t have any recent polling of this race, so it’s hard to say — like Herrera Beutler, Newhouse may not be out of the woods.

We’re also monitoring the 8th District, a politically neutral district that stretches from the Seattle suburbs into central Washington. Democratic Rep. Kim Schrier is defending this seat, and the top-two primary will decide her November opponent as well as provide clues about what to expect in the fall. She’ll meet either former Army Ranger Jesse Jensen (whom Schrier beat in 2020 by about 4 points); businessman Matt Larkin, who lost as the GOP’s candidate in the 2020 attorney general’s race; or King County Councilmember Reagan Dunn, whose mother represented this area from 1993 to 2005.

All three candidates have posted similar fundraising numbers, with Jensen bringing in $1.1 million, Larkin $970,000 (more than half from his own pocket) and Dunn $833,000. But Jensen has also benefited from $336,000 in outside support from Lead the Way, a super PAC backing his candidacy. The group has attacked Dunn, running ads claiming he voted to cut law enforcement funding and sent out mailers portraying Dunn as an abusive alcoholic (Dunn has discussed his drinking struggles, including a 2014 DUI charge). Given the national environment, however, whichever Republican advances with Schrier should have a decent shot at flipping the swing seat.

Lastly, we are watching the race for Senate, in which Democratic Sen. Patty Murray is seeking her sixth term. But despite Washington’s D+12 partisan lean, this election could get interesting. After all, during the 2010 “red wave,” Murray won by roughly 5 points, her closest margin since she first won in 1992. Republicans have coalesced around Tiffany Smiley, a former nurse who became a veterans advocate after her husband was blinded while serving in the Iraq War. She’s shown signs of competitiveness, too, having raised $7.1 million. But Murray has still brought in twice as much money and has run ads using audio of Smiley saying she’s “100 percent pro-life,” which could be damaging in a state as blue as Washington. 

Two independent surveys conducted in early July found Murray ahead by just under 20 points, so Smiley clearly has her work cut out for her. But watch how the two-party vote breaks down tonight: Back in 2010, Republican candidates actually won a slightly larger share than the Democrats did, a harbinger for Murray’s narrow margin in the general election.

 

 

ATTACHMENT FIFTEEN – From 538

Tennessee

Races to watch: 5th Congressional District

Polls close: Thursday at 8 p.m. Eastern

Finally, Tennessee isn’t one of the six states going to the polls on Tuesday, but it will host one interesting GOP contest on its primary day, Thursday, Aug. 4. Republicans in the Tennessee General Assembly redrew the state’s 5th Congressional District from a safely blue seat to a safely red one in redistricting, and a dozen Republicans initially filed to take advantage.

Former State Department official Morgan Ortagus, whom Trump endorsed over the objection of several local Republicans, stood out from the field early on. But, just like in the race for Michigan governor, disqualifications soon changed the trajectory of the race. In April, the state GOP kicked Ortagus and two other candidates off the ballot for not voting in three out of the last four GOP primaries in Tennessee (a requirement that Ortagus, who moved to Tennessee just last year, could not meet).

That’s left us with an uncertain primary, even with just a few days remaining. None of the nine candidates remaining on the ballot have the benefit of Trump’s endorsement, but three do have something else significant going in their favor. Retired Brigadier General Kurt Winstead has self-funded $1.1 million and raised almost $1 million more from other donors. Former state House Speaker Beth Harwell has a long history in local politics and the endorsement of multiple GOP women’s groups, such as VIEW PAC. And Maury County Mayor Andy Ogles has benefited from almost $2 million in outside spending from tea-party-aligned super PACs.