A new Emerson College poll finds Joe Biden and Donald Trump locked in a tight battle nationally with Trump leading, 46% to 44%. The race is a dead heat, 50% to 50%, when undecided voters are asked which candidate they lean toward.
A new Marquette Law School Poll of registered voters finds Joe Biden and Donald Trump are tied with 50% each in a two-candidate matchup.
In a five-way contest Trump receives 40%, Biden 37%, Robert F. Kennedy 17% and Jill Stein and Cornel West 3% each. Among likely voters Trump receives 51% and Biden 49% in the two-candidate choice. In the five-candidate race Trump has 44%, Biden 41%, Kennedy 11%, and Stein and West 2% each, among likely voters.
MONTANA U.S. SENATOR. A lawsuit claims Montana U.S. Senate candidate Tim Sheehy (R) and his brother defrauded two former employees out of a share of their company that is worth millions, the Montana Independent reports.
The former employees’ complaint sharply contradicts the story that Sheehy has told about himself and his business career on the campaign trail.
Sheehy, the Navy SEAL running to unseat Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT), “has repeatedly told voters he was ‘discharged’ from the military for medical reasons, owing to wounds sustained in service,” the Daily Beast reports. “But the Republican’s own autobiography, published just last year, says otherwise; he wrote that he became disillusioned with military personnel policies and left of his own accord after being injured in a training accident.”
CALIFORNIA U.S. SENATOR. California U.S. Senate candidate Steve Garvey’s (R) property taxes are being paid by Sisters in Christ LLC, an organization that includes his sister-in-law as a manager, the Sacramento Bee reports. It’s not clear what Sisters in Christ’s activities include.
MARYLAND U.S. SENATOR. Politico: “Hogan’s first general election ad is set to air Wednesday, and it’s entirely about abortion. In it, the former governor goes direct-to-camera as he endorses codifying the abortion protections the nation had under Roe v. Wade.”
Said Hogan, in the ad: “With Roe overturned, many have asked what I’ll do in the United States Senate. I’ll support legislation that makes Roe the law of the land in every state, so every woman can make her own choice.”
MICHIGAN U.S. SENATOR. A Glengariff Group poll from late April for the Detroit Regional Chamber business group finds Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin leading against three potential Republican opponents, though many voters remain undecided. Slotkin is up 40-37 over former Rep. Mike Rogers, while she beats both former Rep. Justin Amash and self-funding businessman Sandy Pensler by identical 41-34 margins. Few polls have been released in Michigan this year, but these latest results are consistent with the surveys we’ve previously seen.
MINNESOTA U.S. SENATOR. Royce White, a former NBA player and far-right conspiracy theorist, won Saturday’s state Republican Party convention in an upset against banker Joe Fraser, securing the GOP’s endorsement and unlocking access to party resources. A spokesperson for Fraser said he hasn’t made up his mind about whether to continue running in the Aug. 13 primary.
White gained attention in 2020 as a Black Lives Matter supporter, but he’s since refashioned himself as a MAGA media figure. His previous electoral experience involved seeking the Republican nomination in the dark-blue 5th District last cycle, a primary he lost 48-37.
White and Fraser each raised very little money in the first quarter, and either would be a major underdog against Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who has won by at least a 20-point margin in all three of her campaigns for the Senate. A recent SurveyUSA poll for local media stations shows her trouncing Fraser 48-34 even while the same respondents favor Joe Biden just 44-42 over Donald Trump. White was not included in the survey.
“At five in the morning one week after Republican Royce White lost his 2022 Minnesota congressional primary, his campaign shelled out more than $1,200 in donor funds to a vendor 1,800 miles away not typically associated with political expenses—an all-nude strip club in Miami, Florida, called ‘Gold Rush Cabaret,’” the Daily Beast reports.
“That is just one among dozens of outlandish but previously unreported payments that The Daily Beast has identified from White’s 2022 Federal Election Commission filings. Several campaign finance experts characterized some of the expenses as potentially illegal spending.”
NEVADA U.S. SENATOR. A new internal poll finds Army veteran Sam Brown crushing former Ambassador to Iceland Jeff Gunter by 52-14 ahead of the June 11 Republican primary, with election conspiracy theorist Jim Marchant taking 7%.
The poll, obtained by the Nevada Independent, was conducted by the Tarrance Group for Brown and his supporters at the NRSC. Gunter has self-funded millions and has been advertising heavily in recent weeks, but it doesn’t seem to have had a material impact. Last month, a survey from Tarrance for the same clients found Brown dominating 58-6 over Marchant while Gunter took 3%.
Democratic Rep. Jacky Rosen on Wednesday debuted her first negative ad against Army veteran Sam Brown, a commercial that comes almost three weeks ahead of a GOP primary where he is the frontrunner. Rosen’s narrator declares that Brown “said abortion should be banned without any exceptions for rape or incest,” a position he previously called “non-negotiable.”
Brown has tried to back away from the stringent anti-abortion positions he voiced during his failed 2014 bid for a seat in the Texas state House and 2022 primary campaign for Nevada’s other U.S. Senate seat. Brown told NBC in February that he opposed a national abortion ban in a story where his wife also disclosed that she’d had an abortion before meeting him.
Rosen’s team, however, made it clear they weren’t going to accept Brown’s new stance. They highlighted how he submitted a questionnaire last cycle saying he believed abortion should only be allowed if a mother’s life was at risk. Brown’s team said in response that the questionnaire was filled out by a staffer who did not have permission to speak for the candidate.
Brown has yet to win the GOP primary, but he looked like the probable nominee even before he released an internal poll this week that showed him easily fending off his nearest foe, former diplomat Jeff Gunter, 52-14. Rosen seems to agree that it’s better to begin attacking Brown three weeks early than to wait for him to defeat Gunter and another longshot opponent, 2022 secretary of state nominee Jim Marchant.
WISCONSIN U.S. SENATOR. Ben Samuels at Haaretz reports that wealthy businessman Eric Hovde, who is the likely Republican nominee for Senate in Wisconsin, has used language often associated with antisemitic tropes during public appearances in recent years.
These include referring to a man who tried to swindle his great-grandfather as a “shyster,” a term he also applied to central bankers. Hovde additionally touted a conspiracy theory about the “Great Reset” conference at Davos in 2021 as the prelude to “socialism” and “one central world government.”
While Samuels notes that neither of these terms is antisemitic by itself, they’re regularly used in contexts that play into centuries-old conspiracy theories about Jews controlling global finance and governance. (The Anti-Defamation League explains in greater detail how the “Great Reset” theory has antisemitic underpinnings.) Hovde’s campaign claimed after publication that the “allegations are baseless and pure innuendo.”
Hovde detailed how his trip to the Amazon rainforest cured his multiple sclerosis, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports. Hovde said he contracted two parasites which cured his symptoms.
NEW HAMPSHIRE GOVERNOR. The conservative site NH Journal has released a survey from Praecones Analytica that shows former Sen. Kelly Ayotte beating former state Senate President Chuck Morse 50-28 in the September primary to succeed their fellow Republican, retiring Gov. Chris Sununu. Praecones has conducted several polls of New Hampshire for this outlet since 2019, but we haven’t seen much from them for downballot races.
This is the first survey that anyone has publicized of the GOP primary since January when a YouGov poll for UMass Lowell gave Ayotte a similar 54-22 edge.
WASHINGTON GOVERNOR. The Northwest Progressive Institute has released new numbers from the Democratic firm Public Policy Polling that show Democratic Attorney General Bob Ferguson leading former GOP Rep. Dave Reichert 48-42 in a likely November general election matchup.
Ferguson enjoyed a similar 46-42 edge in PPP’s February poll. The only data we’ve seen during the intervening time was a March survey from the Republican pollster Echelon Insights for a group called Concerned Taxpayers of Washington State that placed Reichert leading by a 39-30 margin.
PPP also continues to find the two frontrunners far ahead in the Aug. 6 top-two primary despite some potentially favorable developments for each of their main intra-party foes. Ferguson and Reichert respectively take 35% and 28% as former Richland school board member Semi Bird, who won the state GOP endorsement last month, secures 11%. Just 4% goes to Democratic state Sen. Mark Mullet even though a well-funded super PAC began airing ads for him a few weeks ago.
VIRGINIA ATTORNEY GENERAL. Former Gov. Terry McAuliffe this week became the latest prominent Democrat to endorse former Del. Jay Jones for attorney general even though Jones himself hasn’t announced his plans for next year’s elections. The post is held by Republican Jason Miyares, who is a potential candidate for governor in 2025.
NEVADA REFERENDUM. Nevadans for Reproductive Freedom announced it had submitted more than 200,000 voter signatures for a ballot initiative that would enshrine abortion rights in Nevada’s constitution. Amendment supporters need 102,362 of those signatures to be valid, including an amount in each congressional district equal to 10% of the votes cast for governor in the last election, a target supporters say they’ve also surpassed.
If the measure qualifies for the ballot and wins voter approval this fall, voters would have to pass it again in 2026 before it could take effect.
GEORGIA STATES ATTORNEY AND JUDGE ELECTIONS. “Two of the most prominent figures in the Georgia criminal case against former president Donald Trump easily won their respective elections Tuesday in their first appearance on the ballot since the inception of the high-profile election interference case,” the Washington Post reports. “Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis defeated challenger Christian Wise Smith in Georgia’s Democratic primary as she seeks another four-year term as the Atlanta-area’s top prosecutor, according to an Associated Press projection.”
“Meanwhile, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee, who is presiding over the election case, was elected to his first full term since being appointed to the court last year, defeating challenger Robert Patillo.”
FLORIDA REFERENDUM and U.S. SENATOR. A poll of Florida conducted by YouGov for CBS shows 60% of voters in favor of the abortion rights amendment that will be on the ballot in November, which is exactly the percentage required to amend the state’s constitution. Another 20% are opposed to Amendment 4, while the remaining 19% are undecided. Amendment 3, which would legalize marijuana, is ahead 56-30.
The poll meanwhile gives GOP Sen. Rick Scott a 45-37 lead over the Democratic frontrunner, former Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell. Respondents favor Donald Trump 54-45 in a two-way race and 49-36 when third-party candidates are included.
ARIZONA REFERENDUM and U.S. SENATOR. A new YouGov poll of Arizona for CBS gives both abortion rights supporters and Democratic Senate candidate Ruben Gallego some welcome news even as it shows Donald Trump leading Joe Biden in the state.
The survey finds a strong 65-21 majority saying they’d vote for “an amendment on the ballot to establish the constitutional right to an abortion in Arizona.” Abortion rights groups announced last month that they’d collected more than enough signatures to place such an amendment before voters, making it likely the measure will appear on the November ballot. It takes a simple majority to amend the state’s governing document.
YouGov meanwhile finds Gallego defeating his likely GOP foe, election conspiracy theorist Kari Lake, by a wide 49-36 margin even though these same respondents back Trump 52-47 in a two-way race and 44-40 when other options are included.
The result is considerably better for Gallego than the 46-43 edge that Siena College gave him in its recent poll for the New York Times. National Republicans, though, have not been acting like this race is anywhere near that close. AdImpact tweeted on Monday that, while Democratic groups have booked $40 million in fall TV time, Republicans have yet to reserve anything.
COLORADO REFERENDUM. Election officials in Colorado announced Friday that an abortion rights amendment will appear on the November general election ballot. The proposal, known as Initiative 89, would both safeguard Colorado’s existing protections for abortion access and overturn a 1984 amendment that bans public funding for the procedure. The measure needs to win at least 55% of the vote to go into effect.
SOUTH DAKOTA REFERENDUM. South Dakota election officials announced that supporters of a ballot initiative to adopt a top-two primary system have submitted sufficient signatures for their constitutional amendment to appear before voters in November. However, Republicans passed a law earlier this year that allows 30 days for opponents to challenge signatures and for signers to withdraw theirs.
If the amendment survives any challenges and wins voter approval, it would end party primaries and create a two-round system where all candidates run on a single “primary” ballot for governor, Congress, state legislature, and county-level posts. The top two finishers, regardless of party, would then advance to the November general election. A similar system is currently used in California and Washington.
South Dakota is a dark red state where Democrats last won a statewide election in 2008, so GOP primaries—which are closed to non-Republicans—are often the only contests that matter. Republicans strongly oppose the amendment while Democrats, who currently let independents vote in their primaries, have not formally taken a position.
Voters rejected a separate top-two proposal by 55-45 in 2016. However, that proposal differed in a key way by removing party labels from the ballot entirely, while this latest one would let candidates pick their party label.
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