If the election were being held today, the race would be a dead heat between Joe Biden and Donald Trump with each receiving 46% support, according to a Quinnipiac national poll of registered voters.
When the matchup is expanded to include independent candidates, the race is still a dead heat, with Biden and Trump tied at 37%, followed by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. at 16%, Jill Stein at 3%, and Cornel West at 3%.
A new Pew Research poll finds Donald Trump barely edging Joe Biden in the presidential race, 49% to 48% among registered voters.
“A defining characteristic of the contest is that voters overall have little confidence in either candidate across a range of key traits, including fitness for office, personal ethics and respect for democratic values.”
“Reflecting their dissatisfaction with the Biden-Trump matchup, nearly half of registered voters (49%) say that, if they had the ability to decide the major party candidates for the 2024 election, they would replace both Biden and Trump on the ballot.”
A new NBC News poll finds “26% of registered voters say there is a chance they could vote for a different presidential candidate come November, while 66% of those surveyed say they have made up their minds.”
“Almost the same share of voters currently backing Biden (81%) or Trump (78%) also say they do not plan to change their vote. But many voters who support third-party candidates right now are open to picking a different contender.”
“A trio of recent polls shows that Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s independent candidacy may be hurting former President Trump more than President Biden,” Axios reports.
“President Biden says his polling numbers are moving in the right direction. They look even better when the latest results for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. are factored in.”
ARIZONA REFERENDUM and SUPREME COURT. Progressive activists in Arizona have launched a two-pronged effort to unseat a pair of conservative Supreme Court justices and preserve voters’ right to do so.
Progress Arizona is targeting Kathryn King and Clint Bolick, two appointees of former Republican Gov. Doug Ducey who voted earlier this month to ban nearly all abortions in the state by ruling that an 1864 law prohibits the procedure. Both justices face retention elections in November, where voters will be presented with a “yes/no” question asking whether each jurist should be permitted to serve another term.
If a majority vote “no,” then a vacancy would be declared, which Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs would then fill, subject to certain limitations. Such occurrences have historically been rare, though: Just six judges have failed to earn retention since the state adopted the practice in 1974, and none at the Supreme Court level.
But in 2022, voters denied new terms to three trial court judges in Maricopa County, and Justice Bill Montgomery survived retention with just 56% of the vote that same year, which the Arizona Republic’s Jimmy Jenkins says was the worst-ever performance by a member of the Supreme Court in state history.
But Republicans in the legislature are seeking to prevent any judge on the ballot this year from being removed by voters by retroactively nullifying the results of any retention elections this fall.
Last month, Arizona’s Republican-run state Senate voted along party lines to refer a constitutional amendment to the ballot that would all but eliminate retention elections for judgeships. Instead of requiring them at regular intervals (which for Supreme Court justices is six years), they would only take place if a judge fails to demonstrate “good behavior”—a high threshold that would only be triggered in limited circumstances, such as getting convicted of a felony or filing for bankruptcy.
In the absence of such an event, judges at all levels throughout the state would, in practice, be granted lifetime tenure until reaching the mandatory retirement age of 70. Should the state House, which is also controlled by the GOP, greenlight this amendment as well, it would go before voters in November.
But should it pass, it wouldn’t just end retention elections going forward. The proposal explicitly states that it “applies retroactively” and that the results of any retention elections that take place this year are null and void—that the returns “shall not be included in the official canvass or result in the issuance of any certificate of retention or rejection.”
Attempts like these to diminish voters’ power tend to be unpopular with those same voters, as Ohio Republicans learned to their chagrin last year when they tried to increase the threshold for passage of all future amendments to a 60% supermajority. Arizona voters did, however, support two measures in 2022 that restricted their ability to amend their constitution, though both were much narrower in nature than the proposal Ohioans rejected.
And neither of those earlier Arizona amendments related to the fight over abortion rights, which will be central this year to races up and down the ticket. It’s also possible that the GOP plan to hobble retention elections might not even make the ballot.
Republican lawmakers, frustrated by Hobbs’ record-setting number of vetoes, are trying to bypass her by putting a variety of measures before voters. (Hobbs can’t block the legislature from referring measures to the ballot.) But the Arizona Republic’s Mary Jo Pitzl reported last month that Republicans are concerned about “ballot fatigue” if the ballot grows too long.
“The risk is everything would fail,” House Speaker Ben Toma told Pitzl. Something just like that happened in California in 2005, when voters defeated a series of ballot measures that Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger had put his weight behind in an attempt to circumvent the Democratic-run legislature. In their zeal to sidestep Hobbs and kneecap voters, Arizona Republicans could face a similar fate.
FLORIDA U.S. SENATOR. President Joe Biden endorsed former Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell at his Tuesday rally in Tampa. Mucarsel-Powell was already the frontrunner in the Aug. 20 Democratic primary to take on Republican Sen. Rick Scott.
Mucarsel-Powell faces intra-party opposition from self-funding businessman Stanley Campbell, but she ended March with a wide $2.8 million to $772,000 cash on hand advantage. Alan Grayson is also running, but the former congressman-turned-perennial candidate had just $98,000 in the bank.
Scott, for his part, ended last month with $3.8 million on hand. Mucarsel-Powell actually outraised the incumbent $3.5 million to $2 million during the first quarter of 2024, but the incumbent’s deep pockets allow him to augment his war chest whenever he wants.
The same may not be true of Scott’s primary foe, attorney Keith Gross, despite his bluster. The challenger had all of $30,000 to spend at the close of last month, and while the self-described “very wealthy businessman” insisted to the Hill last year that he’s open to spending “$20, $30 million” of his own money, he only self-funded $1.9 million through March.
MICHIGAN SUPREME COURT. The leadership of the state Democratic Party this week endorsed both appointed Justice Kyra Harris Bolden and Kimberly Thomas, who leads the University of Michigan Law School’s Juvenile Justice Clinic. Bolden, whom Gov. Gretchen Whitmer picked to fill a vacancy, is running for the remaining four years of her term, while Thomas is campaigning for a full eight-year term to succeed retiring Republican Justice David Viviano.
Each party will pick their nominees at fall conventions rather than through primaries, and neither Democrat so far faces any serious intra-party opposition. Democrats hold a 4-3 majority, and Republicans need to win both races to regain the majority they lost in 2020.
WISCONSIN U.S. SENATOR. Wisconsin U.S. Senate candidate Eric Hovde (R) missed a line in the Pledge of Allegiance at a recent appearance, skipping “one nation, under God” and going right to “indivisible,” the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports.
New York Times: “Eric Hovde, the Republican banking executive challenging Senator Tammy Baldwin in Wisconsin, may be developing a problem with older voters. The bank he leads, Utah-based Sunwest, last month was named as a co-defendant in a California lawsuit that accuses a senior living facility partly owned by the bank of elder abuse, negligence and wrongful death.”
“Mr. Hovde’s campaign called the suit meritless and said it was farcical to hold the chairman and chief executive of a bank responsible for the actions of a business that it seized in a foreclosure in 2021. Whatever its merits, the suit might have been largely irrelevant to Mr. Hovde’s political campaign had he himself not boasted recently of having gained expertise in the nursing home industry as a lender to such residences.”
ALASKA REFERENDUM. Voters will decide whether to repeal Alaska’s first-in-the-nation on Nov. 5 rather than Aug. 20 because the legislature unsurprisingly remained in session past Monday. The state constitution requires election officials to place ballot initiatives on “the first statewide election held more than one hundred twenty days after adjournment of the legislative session following the filing,” and there are now fewer than 120 days before the August primary.
WASHINGTON GOVERNOR. Washington Republicans descended into chaos at their convention at the end of last week when their frontrunner for the state’s open governorship, former Rep. Dave Reichert, pulled out of the party’s endorsement process, blasting it as “dishonest” and “deceitful.”
The drama was compounded after angry delegates overruled an attempt by GOP leaders on Friday to disqualify far-right Marine Corps veteran Semi Bird from receiving the endorsement. As a result, Bird secured the party’s blessing the following day with the support of more than 70% of attendees—a victory that came about less than a year after voters in Benton County recalled him from his spot on a local school board.
Republicans also opted for the more extreme candidate in another statewide race, the battle for lands commissioner, which is likewise open because Democratic incumbent Hillary Franz is running for Congress. In that contest, 86% of delegates gave their backing to retired scientist Sue Kuehl Pederson, who lost to Franz 57-43 in 2020, rather than former Rep. Jamie Herrera Beutler.
Unsurprisingly, convention-goers likewise sought to stick it to Rep. Dan Newhouse in the 4th Congressional District, endorsing Donald Trump-backed businessman Jerrod Sessler. Like Herrera Beutler, Newhouse was one of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump after Jan. 6, but unlike her, he managed to win another term last cycle.
The pro-Trump extremist who thwarted Herrera Beutler’s reelection dreams in 2022, Army veteran Joe Kent, also won the support of delegates as he heads toward a rematch with Democratic Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez in the 3rd District. The only other notable Republican in the race, Camas City Councilmember Leslie Lewallen, skipped the event after charging that “the rules were sidestepped” to ensure an endorsement for Kent.
Finally, in the open 5th District, attendees went with Ferry County Commissioner Brian Dansel, a former Trump official who is one of many Republicans hoping to succeed retiring Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers. The state holds its top-two primary on Aug. 6.
TEXAS 23RD DISTRICT. Gov. Greg Abbott endorsed Rep. Tony Gonzales on Wednesday for the May 28 Republican primary runoff after remaining neutral during the first round, a move that the congressman is hoping will strengthen him with his many conservative intra-party critics.
But while Gonzales could use the support of hardliners at home in his contest against gun maker Brandon Herrera, he’s shown no interest in winning over far-right politicians from elsewhere. The congressman told CNN on Sunday, that the Freedom Caucus chair, Virginia Rep. Bob Good, “endorsed my opponent, a known neo-Nazi.” Gonzales also had some choice words for “real scumbags” like another Herrera backer, Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz.
Herrera, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reported earlier this month, has a history of posting videos on his YouTube channel with jokes about the Holocaust and Nazis through at least 2022. Most notably, one from that year shows Herrera calling a submachine gun used by the Nazis “the original ghetto blaster.” The video, with Rod writes “appears to take a sarcastic tone” continues with a montage set to “Erika,” a marching song utilized both by Nazis and the modern far-right.
Herrera went on to tell his audience he was “not really a big fan of fascism” and that “the best way to not repeat history is to learn about history, and the way that I know to get you guys to learn about history is to make really fucked up jokes about it.”
While Herrera, as Rod also reported, was an enthusiastic member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans back in his home state of North Carolina, he wasn’t happy with Gonzales for labeling him a “neo-Nazi.” The candidate responded to the congressman’s CNN appearance by tweeting, “This is the death spiral ladies and gentlemen. He has to cry to his liberal friends about me, because Republicans won’t listen anymore.”
Gonzales, though, has far more money than Herrera to get voters to listen back in his sprawling West Texas constituency. The incumbent finished March with a wide $1.5 million to $302,000 cash on hand advantage.
NEW JERSEY 10TH DISTRICT. Democratic Rep. Donald Payne died Wednesday at the age of 65 after suffering a heart attack on April 6.
Payne spent over a decade representing New Jersey’s dark blue 10th Congressional District in the Newark area, a constituency that was previously represented by his late father and namesake. He dealt with several health challenges during his tenure, and his office said that, following his heart attack, “he faced medical complications due to diabetes and high blood pressure that led to subsequent cardiorespiratory arrest.”
The New Jersey Globe’s David Wildstein writes that Payne will remain on the June 4 primary ballot, and, since he faces no opposition, he’s all but certain to win. Wildstein says that Secretary of State Tahesha Way would declare the nomination vacant after the results are certified by June 17, and that local county committee members would pick the new nominee at a convention. The latest this could happen is Aug. 29.
Wildstein also writes that it’s up to Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy if a special election will take place, and that a primary would be used to pick the nominee. Katie Sobko of NorthJersey.com also writes that the primary would take place 70 to 76 days after Murphy issued his writ, with a general election 64 to 70 days after that. This would mean that the seat wouldn’t be filled until September at the earliest.
Alternatively, the Washington Post’s Mariana Alfaro writes that the governor could consolidate a special general election with the regular Nov. 6 contest, with a primary taking place some time prior. However, state law does not say when, or even if, a primary would have to take place under that scenario. Joe Biden carried the 10th District 81-19 in 2020.
Payne entered the House more than two decades after his father, Donald Payne Sr., became the state’s Black member of Congress following his 1988 victory. The younger Payne became a local party leader in Newark in 1992. He got his chance to seek higher office in 2005 after party leaders backed him for a spot on Essex County’s commission, a move that came at the expense of an incumbent. Payne had no trouble in the general election for the same post that his father used to launch his own career in 1972.
Payne claimed a seat on Newark’s city council the following year even though he initially faced a rival slate of candidates backed by Mayor-elect Cory Booker before he allied himself with Booker for the runoff. The two men would spend the next several years variously on the same side and at odds.
And while Gov. Jon Corzine would sign a 2007 bill prohibiting people from holding multiple offices at once, Payne was able to continue to simultaneously serve in both county and city government because the law allowed any affected incumbents to keep both posts as long as voters continued to reelect them to each.
Payne was serving as president of the city council when his father died of colon cancer, and he decided to run to succeed him. The primaries for both the special election and full term in the next Congress took place on the same day, and Payne’s most prominent foe in each was fellow City Councilman Ronald Rice, a Booker ally who had planned to challenge the congressman.
But the well-funded Payne, who had the backing of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and the influential Essex County party, had little trouble in either contest. He defeated Rice 60-19 in the nomination contest for a seat in the next term, and by a wider 71-25 spread in a special election that featured a smaller pool of candidates.
Payne likewise had no trouble winning the simultaneous general elections in November, though the meeting to replace him on the city council was another story: In an incident that attracted national attention, police used pepper spray on a labor leader who was furious at Booker’s attempt to install one of his allies.
Payne, like his father, quickly became entrenched in his new seat, and he never fell below 80% in any of his primaries. There was brief talk that Payne could be in for a tougher than usual fight in the summer of 2019 while pastor Stephen Green was the subject of an extensive profile in Buzzfeed detailing his new campaign against the incumbent. Green, though, never actually ended up filing to run, and Payne had no trouble claiming renomination.
Payne’s 2022 intra-party foe, progressive activist Imani Oakley, did make the ballot, and she raised more than $460,000 for her effort. Payne, however, held her off 83-11 ahead of what would be his final general election.
NORTH DAKOTA AT LARGE DISTRICT. Protect Freedom PAC, a group aligned with Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, is spending close to $320,000 on a media buy in support of former state Rep. Rick Becker ahead of the June 11 Republican primary for North Dakota’s lone House seat. We do not yet have a copy of the ad to boost Becker, who has pledged to join the far-right Freedom Caucus.
This is the first outside spending the FEC has tracked for the race to replace GOP Rep. Kelly Armstrong, who is running for governor. Becker, though, ended March with a large financial advantage over his intra-party rivals thanks in large part to self-funding.
Public Service Commissioner Julie Fedorchak, who has Gov. Doug Burgum’s endorsement, outraised Becker $449,000 to $278,000 with donors, but the former plastic surgeon threw down another $550,000 of his own money. Becker ended March with a $797,000 to $412,000 cash on hand edge.
A third Republican, former State Department official Alex Balazs, was the source of every single cent in his $106,000 quarterly haul, and he finished last month with a comparable $96,000 in the bank. Former Miss America Cara Mund, who ran against Armstrong as a pro-choice independent in 2022, launched her Republican primary to replace him after the new quarter began.
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