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While 2020 will forever be remembered as the year a pandemic was declared in the U.S., a new report published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that gun violence was the leading cause of death among children and teens in that same year.

According to a letter from researchers at the University of Michigan Institute for Firearm Injury Prevention (IFIP), this is the first time guns have been the leading cause of death in this age group. The “change was driven largely by firearm homicides, which saw a 33.4% increase,” the report reads.  Gun-related suicides were up 1.1% during the same period.

In addition to an increase in gun deaths, “drug overdoses and poisoning were up by 83.6% from 2019 to 2020” in youths, making it the “third leading cause of death in that age group.”

RELATED STORY: FBI sends flawed email in response to media inquiry about the status of Leonard Peltier’s clemency

Dr. Jason Goldstick, a researcher with IFIP  and co-author of the letter, told The Guardian, “We knew gun violence had increased, but I was surprised by the level of increase for just one year… I can’t remember ever seeing that before.”

Listen to Jennifer Fernandez Ancona from Way to Win explain how Democrats must message to win on Daily Kos’ The Brief podcast with Markos Moulitsas and Kerry Eleveld

For more than six decades, car accidents have been the leading cause of the death of children; now they’re second to gun-related deaths.

But as child safety has gotten better in cars, “firearm deaths haven’t made much progress. … We have had a decrease in moto vehicle deaths,” Patrick Carter, one of the authors of the research letter, told NPR. “We can do the same thing with firearms. We just haven’t been able to do that in the same amount of years yet. … It takes time to figure out what the underlying issues are with the problem and then finding the solutions.”

The Guardian reports that for Black teen boys over 15, gun violence has been the No. 1 cause of death for nearly the last ten years.

Samantha Walton, a 17-year-old from San Francisco, told The Guardian, “We have to see that violence every day. We can’t go outside and have fun without knowing that somebody just died out there. I just wonder, ‘Damn, who’s next?’”

The report acknowledges that it is “unclear” why there’s been an increase in gun deaths among kids.

A study published in February showed an increase in new gun ownership by adults in the U.S. from Jan. 2019 to Apr. 2021. Another, published in Jul. 2021, showed an increase in “new firearm ownership” within the first six months of the COVID-19 pandemic—resulting in a​​ “surge in firearm injuries in young children.”

“Kids don’t buy firearms, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not possible for kids to get access,” Goldstick told NBC News.

The researchers urge more funding for the “prevention of community violence.”

“The increasing firearm-related mortality reflects a longer-term trend and shows that we continue to fail to protect our youth from a preventable cause of death shows that we continue to fail to protect our youth from a preventable cause of death,” the authors wrote.

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The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles will by Monday afternoon issue a recommendation to Gov. Greg Abbott in the case of Melissa Lucio, the mother facing execution for the accidental death of her 2-year-old baby, Mariah. As Houston-based KHOU notes, time is running out for Lucio: She is set to be killed by the state on Wednesday.

Supporters held more than a dozen rallies over the weekend urging officials halt her execution. KHOU reports that one of Lucio’s children, 22-year-old Robert Alvarez, was among attendees at the Austin rally. He told the outlet he was heartened by the public support for his mother. 

RELATED STORY: Melissa Lucio, Texas mom facing execution for baby’s accidental death, asks court to spare her life

“I just think that’s so amazing,” he told KHOU. He was just 7 when his mom was convicted for Mariah’s 2007 death. “The fact that people are just there, to support my mom and help her with anything that she needs.” He told the outlet he has tried to not think of the worst. “I’ve been thinking the best possible.” He told the outlet he planned to spend Monday with her, when she’s set to hear the decision from the board.

Innocence Project and other advocates have escalated calls to the governor’s office as Lucio’s execution date has approached. San Antonio-based KSAT reports that when Abbott was asked about Lucio’s case last week, he said he was waiting for the board’s recommendation. “That’s a requirement for the governor to receive that before any action is taken,” he said. “When I receive that, I’ll consider it and take whatever action I think is appropriate.” But ultimately, the fact is he can intervene.

Lucio’s advocates in recent days have also made an urgent plea to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, presenting ”new scientific and expert evidence showing that Melissa’s conviction was based on an unreliable, coerced ‘confession’ and unscientific false evidence that misled the jury.” Lucio, a childhood sexual abuse and domestic abuse survivor, was berated by detectives for hours on the night Mariah died.

“The police officers used the Reid method, a controversial interrogation technique that manipulates a suspect’s emotions by abruptly switching tones—yelling at them to raise their anxiety, and then gently reassuring them that their discomfort can end if they simply take responsibility for the crime,” Mother Jones reported. The petition to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals noted this harsh technique has contributed “to nearly one-third of all known wrongful convictions underlying the nation’s DNA exonerations.”

Lucio has received support from a number of other women who were also wrongly convicted for their children’s deaths. “Melissa experienced a mother’s worst nightmare,” the “Moms for Melissa” video states. “Now, time is running out.”

At least 90 state House members and at least 20 state senators have also urged a halt to Lucio’s execution. KSAT reports that the Death Penalty Action Group plans a prayer vigil outside the state capitol on Monday, as advocates including Innocence Project urge the public to continue calls to Abbott’s office. “Melissa Lucio is still scheduled to be executed in two days,” the organization tweeted. “This is an all out sprint to save her life.”

Call Texas Gov. Greg Abbott today at (956) 446-2866 and urge him to spare Melissa Lucio’s life and prevent an irreversible injustice.

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A Connecticut state trooper was arrested on Tuesday after he fired seven times into the driver’s side window of a car reported stolen, shooting and killing a 19-year-old community college student during what his family says was a mental health crisis. Brian North turned himself into Bethany state police. He was placed on paid administrative leave and his police powers were suspended, Connecticut state police said in a statement emailed to Daily Kos. Inspector General Robert Devli Jr. announced on Wednesday that North was released on a $50,000 bond and he is facing a manslaughter charge in the death of Mubarak Soulemane more than two years ago in West Haven on Jan. 15, 2020.

North is expected to appear in Milford Superior Court on May 3. The details of the high-speed chase that ended in Soulemane’s death were spelled out in a 133-page report released by the inspector general’s office. But if one thing is clear in this case, it is that Soulemane’s death is not only on the hands of North. This Black man’s death is further evidence of a systematic failure leaving those who suffer mental health crises vulnerable.

RELATED STORY: City tries defunding police, and people in mental health crises are actually treated like people

Let’s start with the events that immediately led up to Soulemane’s death.

The inspector general’s office reported a dispute at an AT&T store. Soulemane had reportedly accused a clerk at the store of disabling his phone after a worker told him that he would need a $548 deposit to purchase the iPhone 11 he inquired about. The clerk noticed that Soulemane was holding a knife, although he did not point it at her, according to the investigation report. He was then accused of attempting to steal an iPhone 11, but a store manager reportedly grabbed the phone and escorted Soulemane out of the store, which also called 911.

The inspector general’s office determined that Soulemane took a car from a Lyft driver scheduled to pick him up from the store. That driver, Daniel Green, drove a 2012 Hyundai Sonata, and investigators determined that when Green picked Soulemane up, he asked for the driver’s phone. When Green refused to turn it over, Soulemane allegedly slapped the man in the head. Green reportedly pulled into a gas station, saw police approaching, and tried to get their attention. Investigators wrote in their report that “Soulemane quickly moved into the driver’s seat,” and “Norwalk police pursued.”

Warning: The videos in this story contain body camera footage of the police shooting that may be triggering for viewers.

An officer could be heard on police audio trying to get authorization to chase the vehicle, but a state police representative initially told Norwalk police that a “no pursuit policy” regarding stolen vehicles prevented state police from authorizing a chase. The Norwalk officer said this wasn’t just a case of a stolen vehicle. Soulemane had “displayed a knife” and “was threatening” inside of an AT&T store before he “either got into a vehicle with a cohort or carjacked somebody and took their car,” the officer said in statements CBS-affiliated WFSB reported.

State police didn’t authorize the chase until a witness observed Soulemane driving 100 mph and called 911 to report that he was driving dangerously. During the chase that followed, Soulemane hit North’s vehicle and another vehicle before officers were able to block Soulemane’s car in, North’s body camera video showed.

Investigators determined that Soulemane did have a knife with him when troopers blocked in the Sonata but when North fired his weapon, neither he “nor any other person was in imminent danger of serious injury or death from a knife attack at the hands of Soulemane.”

Executive Director of the Connecticut State Police Union Andrew Matthews said during a news conference that he’s disappointed with the inspector general’s report.

“When a trooper or a police officer in Connecticut or anywhere in the country is forced to make a split-second decision that others can analyze and reanalyze and find subject matter experts that give different opinions and that one individual person appointed by the legislature can make a decision on whether a police officer should be prosecuted criminally for that, that’s concerning to us,” Matthews said, “but that’s the process and we’ll respect it.”

Mark Arons, Soulemane’s family attorney, said in a statement Atlanta Black Star obtained that the family is happy with the decision to arrest North. “It’s a long road ahead. But this is a good day,” the attorney said. He called Soulemane’s death “yet another horrendous act of violence against a young man of color that was totally unnecessary.” It was a sentiment Rev. Al Sharpton also expressed at Soulemane’s memorial, when the civil rights activist said something didn’t “smell right” about the information officials were presenting as facts.

“You don’t have a right to take away his life, and if you do, we have an obligation to stand up and question what happened,” Sharpton said in remarks the New Haven Register reported.

Omo Mohammed, Soulemane’s mother, said during a CBS New York interview that she would like to see North “held accountable” for killing her son, who was dealing with mental health issues.

Investigators wrote in their report:

As part of their investigation, Division of Criminal Justice (DCJ) Inspectors interviewed Omo Mohammed, mother of Mubarak Soulemane. She stated that Soulemane was diagnosed with schizophrenia at age fourteen. He took medicine morning and night for this condition. He regularly saw doctors at Yale. At some point, a nurse would come daily to their home to administer his medicine.

Mohammed could not recall the names of Soulemane’s doctors nor the names of the medications that he was supposed to take. She stated that if he did not take his medication, he would become combative and scream, but would not become physical. He would just yell and become argumentative. Omo Mohammed further stated that she never knew Soulemane to carry weapons and she could remember no instance where he had a weapon. On January 15, 2020, Omo Mohammed was out of the country. She believed, however, that Mubarak was not taking his medication because her other son, Saeed, called her and told her that they had gotten into an argument.

His sister, Mariyann, told the journalism nonprofit the Connecticut Mirror in 2020 that “it was a constant battle: Mubarak versus schizophrenia.”

“State police should have been notified,” she said, “‘This is a missing person with underlying mental health issues,’ so they can then know how to proceed.”

Soulemane’s death is illuminating an overarching issue of how resources should be used to respond to mental health crises. 

Connecticut Mirror Reporter Kelan Lyons said Soulemane’s family had spent a lot of time calling local police to respond when Soulemane left home in mental health crises. The New Haven Police Department would routinely pick him up and take him to a psychiatric emergency department, but Soulemane wasn’t in New Haven at the time of his death. His death isn’t simply indicative of what journalist John Dankosky called a “patchwork” of local police forces rendering neighboring authorities ignorant of the mental health histories long documented in other areas. It also goes beyond the thought process that police just need better training to deal with those who are experiencing mental health crises, Lyons said.

“Having somebody show up in a police officer’s uniform who is armed can escalate a situation or it can re-traumatize somebody who has been traumatized because of gun violence in the past or has had a poor interaction with police officers in the past,” Lyons said. “It really questions whether there is a space for them to respond to these crises or whether or not we should be taking money from departments and investing it into community mental health resources.”

Lorenzo Boyd, a former sheriff’s deputy and director of the Center of Advanced Policing at the University of New Haven, told Lyons: “The police know how to do two things really well: detain and use force. So that’s the prism through which they view all the problems they deal with: can we arrest, or can we detain?”

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Twitter’s board is close to a deal allowing Elon Musk to buy the company and take it private, in alarming news for anyone who doesn’t want a major social media platform controlled by an egomaniacal billionaire ranting about free speech while his signature company is being sued for racial discrimination.

Musk’s initial offer/threat to buy Twitter drew skepticism, but talks turned serious after he made progress in lining up financing, though it’s not yet a done deal and could—especially given who we’re talking about here—fall apart, perhaps in spectacular fashion.

RELATED STORY: Elon Musk offers to buy Twitter, attaching something he insists is ‘not a threat’

According to The New York Times, “An agreement is not yet final and may still apart, but what had initially seemed to be a highly improbable deal appeared to be nearing an endgame. The situation involving Twitter and Mr. Musk remains fluid and fast-moving, the people with knowledge of the situation said.”

Musk has claimed he wants to turn Twitter into a “platform for free speech around the globe,” but basically every expert on social media and speech says he has no clue what he’s talking about. The major social media companies, including Twitter, have invested a lot of time and money into figuring out what works, and while no one’s saying they’ve perfected it, the likelihood that Elon Musk can manifest a better answer directly from his ego is low.

”What Musk seemingly fails to recognize is that to truly have free speech today, you need moderation,” Katie Harbath, a former Facebook executive, told The Washington Post. “Otherwise, just those who bully and harass will be left as they will drive others away.”

”A platform that allows people to spam misogynist and racist abuse is unsafe for pretty much anyone else and would lose advertisers, corporate partners and sponsors rapidly, leaving it a commercially unviable husk within months,” said the nonprofit Center for Countering Digital Hate’s Imran Ahmed.

Speaking of racist abuse, Musk’s signature company, Tesla, lost one racism discrimination lawsuit, with an initial judgment of $137 million recently reduced to $15 million. Other Black employees describe a horrifyingly, overtly racist environment at Tesla’s California plant, spurring a major discrimination lawsuit by the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing. That’s important context for Musk’s “free speech” talk. This is someone who presided over a company at which Black employees are assigned particularly difficult work in a section of the factory referred to as “the plantation,” a Black worker was fired after complaining that a supervisor called him and other Black workers “monkeys,” and use of the N-word was “the norm. It was Tesla’s tradition.”

Another interesting piece of context for Musk’s effort to buy Twitter is that in 2018, he had to step down as Tesla’s chair and paid $40 million in penalties ($20 million from himself and $20 million from Tesla) after—in a fascinating precursor to his current effort—he used tweets to claim he was taking Tesla private, causing “significant market disruption.”

Over the weekend, Musk continued to use his own high-profile Twitter account to show the kind of chaos he likes to bring to the platform, attacking Bill Gates with a crude, fat-shaming graphic, and suggesting that his hyperloop would work better than other forms of transportation because “Underground tunnels are immune to surface weather conditions (subways are a good example), so it wouldn’t matter to Hyperloop if a hurricane was raging on the surface. You wouldn’t even notice.” This howler drew a flood of responses with pictures of subway stations flooded after hurricanes or even just major rainstorms. The guy never lets not knowing what he’s talking about stop him from saying it through a huge megaphone. 

Twitter may announce a deal with Musk as soon as Monday, though it could fall apart even after a public announcement.

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Sen. Elizabeth Warren was quite clear on Sunday when she appeared on CNN’s State of the Union and addressed The New York Times report that House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy lied when he said he would urge former President Donald Trump to resign following the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Audio published by the Times revealed on Thursday that he did intend to.

“Kevin McCarthy is a liar and a traitor,” Warren said. “This is outrageous, and that is really the illness that pervades the Republican leadership right now.”

RELATED STORY: Awkward recording of Kevin McCarthy emerges hours after his denial. What else do reporters have?

She continued:

“That they say one thing to the American public and something else in private. They understand that it is wrong what happened, an attempt to overthrow our government. And that the Republicans instead want to continue to try to figure out how to make 2020 election different instead of spending their energy on how it is that we go forward in order to build an economy, in order to make this country work better for the people who sent us to Washington. Shame on Kevin McCarthy.”

In the audio in question, Rep. Liz Cheney asked McCarthy if there any reason he thinks Trump might resign.  

“I’ve had a few discussions. My gut tells me no,” McCarthy responded. “I am seriously thinking about having that conversation with him tonight. I haven’t talked to him in a couple days.”

He went on to say: “Again, the only discussion I would have with him is that I think this will pass, and it would be my recommendation you should resign.”

McCarthy told reporters in remarks covered by CBS News on Friday that he “just walked through different scenarios” and that he “never thought that he should resign.”

He tried to lay blame with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

”I think the phone call was overblown,” McCarthy said, “because as we worked through this and we learned days later that Nancy Pelosi has denied the National Guard there to be able to protect that Capitol. That made people much more upset.”

The Associated Press revealed in its investigation that the claim earlier tweeted by Indiana Rep. Jim Banks is false. Pelosi doesn’t decide when to use the National Guard. That decision is made by the Capitol Police Board, a body composed of sergeants at arms in the House and Senate and the architect of the Capitol, the AP reported.

“The Speaker believes security officials should make security decisions,” Drew Hammill, a spokesperson for Pelosi, told the Associated Press in an emailed statement. “The Speaker immediately signaled her support for the deployment of the National Guard when she was presented with that recommendation on the afternoon of January 6th. Public testimony confirms the fact that the Speaker was not made aware of any request for such a deployment prior to then.”

Another day, another McCarthy lie.

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The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, Stephen Wolf, Daniel Donner, and Carolyn Fiddler, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, James Lambert, David Beard, and Arjun Jaikumar.

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Leading Off

● MI-07: Republican state Sen. Tom Barrett, who is challenging Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin in Michigan’s new and competitive 7th Congressional District, recently sent out a fundraising appeal by text message falsely telling recipients that “your child’s gender reassignment surgery has been booked,” complete with a phony time for the appointment. Barrett, a far-right politician who has worn a “naturally immunized” wrist band and refused to say if he’s vaccinated, deployed this tactic after David Drucker of the conservative Washington Examiner reported that he’d badly missed his own team’s fundraising goals.

We know about Barrett’s underperformance because a Democratic operative provided Drucker with a vivid recording of one of his top aides. “We announced just before Thanksgiving, you know, really, you know, we chained him to a desk and had him on the phones,” said the staffer in February, “and he raised, you know, 310 grand. He’s raising more money now—our goal is a million by the end of March.” However, the senator hauled in only $456,000 during the first three months of 2022, which left him with $396,000 on hand. Slotkin, by contrast, took in $1.32 million during the first quarter and had a gigantic $5.5 million on hand.

One thing Barrett doesn’t need to worry about, though, is the Aug. 2 primary. Candidate filing closed Tuesday, and the only other Republican to turn in paperwork was insurance agency owner Jacob Hagg, who hasn’t reported raising any cash at all. This constituency in the Lansing area would have supported Joe Biden by a 50-49 margin, a small improvement for Slotkin from Trump’s 50-49 edge in the old 8th District. But even an underfunded extremist like Barrett has an opening in a district this close.

Now that filing has passed in the Wolverine State, we’ll be taking a look at Michigan’s other big competitive races, starting with our MI-Gov item below. It’s possible that some candidates who submitted signatures won’t appear on the ballot, though, because election authorities in Michigan have disqualified contenders in past years for not meeting the state’s requirements. In 2018, for instance, seven House hopefuls—including a few notable names—were thrown off the ballot after the secretary of state ruled that they’d failed to turn in the requisite number of acceptable petitions.

Redistricting

● FL Redistricting: Gov. Ron DeSantis signed his state’s new congressional map—which he himself proposed—on Friday, following party-line votes that advanced the map in both chambers of the Republican-run legislature. (We previously detailed the map’s impacts in this post.) The same day, several advocacy groups and Florida voters filed a lawsuit in state court alleging that the map violates the state constitution’s prohibitions on partisan gerrymandering and diluting minority representation.

● NY Redistricting: A five-judge panel on New York’s Appellate Division, the state’s intermediate appellate court, upheld a recent lower court ruling that the new congressional map drawn by Democrats violates the state constitution as an illegal partisan gerrymander and gave lawmakers until April 30 to craft a replacement. However, Democrats have already said they’ll appeal to the state’s highest court, the Court of Appeals, with oral arguments scheduled for Tuesday.

In its ruling, the Appellate Division also overturned the trial court’s finding that the legislature lacked the power to draw new maps for the state Senate and Assembly, allowing those maps to be used. It’s not yet clear whether Republicans plan to pursue their own appeal regarding this issue.

Senate

● AR-Sen: We have yet to see any polls indicating whether former NFL player Jake Bequette poses a serious threat to Sen. John Boozman in the May 24 Republican primary, but the incumbent did recently air an ad taking a swipe at his foe. Most of Boozman’s spot, which praises him as a “workhorse, not a show pony” is positive, though it employs a photo of Bequette as the narrator hits those last words.

Bequette’s allies at Arkansas Patriots Fund, meanwhile, have been going directly at Boozman with a commercial faulting him for having “voted to confirm six in 10 Biden cabinet picks” in the first 40 days of the administration. The ad goes on to accuse the senator of backing “amnesty for illegals, tax dollars for abortions, bailouts for Wall Street, even allowed the feds to confiscate your firearm records.” The super PAC received $1 million from conservative megadonor Dick Uihlein last year, which Politico’s Alex Isenstadt says makes up most of its budget.

● AZ-Sen: The NRSC is commencing what they call a “seven figure” ad buy that starts off with a spot attacking Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly over immigration. This appears to be the first ad of the cycle going directly after a candidate from any of the “big four” party groups (which in addition to the NRSC includes the Senate Leadership Fund super PAC on the GOP side and the DSCC and Senate Majority PAC for Democrats).

● CO-Sen: Wealthy construction company owner Joe O’Dea has announced he’s spending $250,000 over three weeks to air an ad that touts his business record and portrays him as a conservative outsider. O’Dea faces state Rep. Ron Hanks in the June Republican primary.

● NC-Sen: Former Gov. Pat McCrory has debuted a new commercial ahead of the May 17 GOP primary where he calls Rep. Ted Budd weak on Vladimir Putin before claiming that Budd is backed by billionaire philanthropist George Soros. Soros is a Hungarian-born Holocaust survivor whom the far-right both here and abroad has frequently used as a target of and a stand-in for age-old conspiracy theories about wealthy Jews using their power to exert a nefarious influence over the world.

However, McCrory’s accusation that Soros, who is well known for openly funding progressive causes, would secretly support Budd, who has compiled a hard-right voting record in his three terms in office, relies on very dubious facts. The Charlotte Observer reports that a Soros-affiliated investment firm once owned a 7.6% stake in a company led by Budd’s father that filed for bankruptcy in 2000, and there’s no indication the congressman even had any role in the company’s day-to-day operations, which is a very far cry from Soros actually supporting his contemporary political activities.

Budd himself has launched a new ad that features footage of a rally where Trump effusively endorses Budd and McCrory goes unmentioned. While the two Republican front runners dominate the airwaves, the pro-Budd Club for Growth is notably training its focus on former GOP Rep. Mark Walker with an ad that criticizes him for frequently missing votes, including one involving Trump’s impeachment. The polls have shown Walker in a distant third place, but the Club likely views his hard-right support base as overlapping with potential Budd supporters.

● OH-Sen: Undeterred by Trump’s recent endorsement of venture capitalist J.D. Vance in the May 3 Republican primary, the Club for Growth is once again running an ad that uses Vance’s lengthy past history of anti-Trump statements against him. The ad campaign reportedly angered Trump so greatly that he had an aide text Club president David McIntosh, “Go f*^% yourself” (which presumably wasn’t censored). A spokesperson for the Club, which is supporting former state Treasurer Josh Mandel, tersely responded to the news about Trump’s message by saying, “We are increasing our ad buy.”

Meanwhile, former state GOP chair Jane Timken has been struggling to gain traction in the polls, and she has reportedly been off of broadcast TV in much of the state for weeks and is only continuing to run limited cable ads on Fox News.

Governors

● AL-Gov: Republican Gov. Kay Ivey has commissioned a poll from the Tarrance Group that shows her holding a dominant 57-14 lead over former Ambassador to Slovenia Lindy Blanchard ahead of the May 24 Republican primary, with businessman Tim James taking just 12%. There have only been a few polls here from reliable firms, but every one of them this year has found Ivey far ahead of her rivals and in good shape to surpass the simple-majority threshold needed to avoid a June runoff.

● GA-Gov: A group called Take Back Georgia with ties to pro-Trump state Sen. Brandon Beach has unveiled a $2 million ad buy for a spot that goes all-in on 2020 election denial to highlight Trump’s endorsement of former Sen. David Perdue ahead of the May 24 GOP primary against Gov. Brian Kemp. Perdue has only been running a modestly sized ad buy recently after struggling to keep up in fundraising with Kemp, whose allies at the RGA have also spent millions airing their first-ever ads backing an incumbent against a primary challenger.

It’s unclear whether Trump himself, whose super PAC recently reported it had over $120 million on hand, will increase its support for Perdue beyond the meager $500,000 it allocated a few weeks ago toward backing his endorsee. However, with the polls showing Kemp in striking distance of the outright majority needed to avoid a June runoff, time is quickly running short for Perdue.

● IL-Gov: Far-right billionaire Dick Uihlein has given another $2.5 million to the June primary campaign of Republican state Sen. Darren Bailey, bringing his total contributions to $3.5 million in addition to another $1 million that Uihlein gave to a third-party group opposing Aurora Mayor Richard Irvin. In yet another election that has turned into a battle of rival billionaires thanks to Illinois being one of just a few states without any limits on direct contributions to candidates, Uihlein’s involvement so far still trails far behind the $20 million that fellow billionaire Ken Griffin, a hedge fund manager who is Illinois’ wealthiest resident, has given to Irvin’s campaign.

● MI-Gov: A total of 10 Republicans are competing to take on Democratic incumbent Gretchen Whitmer, which would make this the largest gubernatorial primary field in state history. The few polls that have been released show former Detroit Police Chief James Craig as Team Red’s frontrunner, but he’s had to deal with several major campaign shakeups: Craig, most notably, parted ways with his first campaign manager in December, and his second left last month.  

The August primary also includes two wealthy businessmen, Kevin Rinke and Perry Johnson. Conservative radio host Tudor Dixon doesn’t have the same resources as her intra-party foes, but she sports endorsements from Reps. Bill Huizenga and Lisa McClain. Also in the running are chiropractor Garrett Soldano, Michigan State Police Captain Mike Brown, and five others.

● OR-Gov: The May 17 primary is rapidly approaching, and the Portland Monthly’s Julia Silverman has collected several TV spots from the candidates. On the Democratic side, former state House Speaker Tina Kotek talks about the progressive policies she helped pass, while state Treasurer Tobias Read’s narrator argues that “Oregon has lost its way. It’s time for a new approach.” Silverman notes that this messaging is “all in keeping with Read’s efforts to portray himself as a change agent, though he has been in state government about as long as Kotek.”

For the Republicans, former state House Minority Leader Christine Drazan declares that she’s “led the fight against [Democratic Gov.] Kate Brown’s radical agenda.” Sandy Mayor Stan Pulliam, meanwhile, goes all-in with courting right-wing outrage with spots where he calls for getting “critical race theory out of our schools” and “not allow[ing] transgender athletes to compete in girls’ sports.” Former state Rep. Bob Tiernan uses his messaging to attack Brown and Kotek, saying that their approach is “bull****.” (A different Republican, consultant Bridget Barton, also tried to stand out with some censored potty mouth.) Finally, 2016 nominee Bud Pierce alludes to the Big Lie with the mention of “broken elections.”

House

● AK-AL: The Alaska Republican Party has endorsed businessman Nick Begich III ahead of the top-four special election primary this June, where Begich has emerged as one of the leading Republicans in the crowded all-party contest alongside former Gov. Sarah Palin.

● MI-03: Rep. Peter Meijer, who was one of the 10 House Republicans to vote to impeach Trump, faces primary opposition from conservative commentator John Gibbs, who is Trump’s endorsed candidate. (We recently took a closer look at this primary.) Little-known attorney Gabi Manolache is also running, though “MAGA bride” Audra Johnson did not end up filing. The winner will take on 2020 nominee Hillary Scholten, who faces no intra-party opposition for her second bid, in a Grand Rapids-based seat that redistricting transformed from a 51-47 Trump seat to one Joe Biden would have carried 53-45.

● MI-04: Republican Rep. Bill Huizenga, who represents the existing 2nd District, has no primary opposition following fellow Rep. Fred Upton’s retirement announcement earlier this month. This seat in southwestern Michigan would have favored Trump 51-47, and the one Democrat to file, Joseph Alfonso, has not reported raising any money.

● MI-08: Democratic Rep. Dan Kildee is defending a seat in the Flint and Saginaw areas that would have favored Joe Biden only 50-48, a small but potentially important shift from Biden’s 51-47 showing in Kildee’s existing 5th District. The Republican frontrunner is former Trump administration official Paul Junge, who lost to Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin 51-47 in the old 8th District in 2020. (The old and new 8th Districts do not overlap.) Former Grosse Pointe Shores Councilman Matthew Seely and businesswoman Candice Miller (not to be confused with the former congresswoman with the same name) are also in, but neither opened fundraising committees until recently.

● MI-10: Five Democrats are competing to take on John James, who was Team Red’s Senate nominee in 2018 and 2020, in an open seat in Detroit’s northeastern suburbs that would have gone for Trump 50-49. James, who only has a little-known primary foe, had $1.25 million stockpiled at the end of March, which was considerably more than the Democrats had combined.

Warren Council member Angela Rogensues finished the quarter with $160,000 on hand, while attorney Huwaida Arraf and former Macomb County Judge Carl Marlinga were similarly situated with $145,000 and $135,000 to spend, respectively. Sterling Heights City Council member Henry Yanez, though, was far back with only $22,000 in the bank, while former Macomb County Health Department head Rhonda Powell had less than $5,000.

● MI-11: The Democratic primary is a duel between Reps. Haley Stevens and Andy Levin for a constituency in the Detroit northern suburbs that Biden would have won 59-39. Stevens’ existing 11th District makes up 45% of the new seat, while Levin represents only 25%. (Several Democrats grumbled to Politico recently that Levin should have instead run for the new 10th, where he already serves most of the residents.)

Stevens has the support of retiring Rep. Brenda Lawrence, who represents the balance of this district, and EMILY’s List, while the SEIU is in Levin’s corner. The two have largely voted the same way in Congress, though while Levin has emphasized his support for Medicare for all and the Green New Deal, Stevens has portrayed herself as more pragmatic. Stevens ended March with a $2.79 million to $1.47 million cash-on-hand edge over her fellow incumbent.

● MI-12: Rep. Rashida Tlaib, who is one of the most prominent progressives in the House, faces three Democratic primary opponents in this safely blue Detroit-based seat. Tlaib, whose existing 13th District makes up 53% of the new 12th, ended March with a $1.62 million to $221,000 cash-on-hand lead over her nearest foe, Detroit City Clerk Janice Winfrey; Winfrey, for her part, has faulted Tlaib for casting a vote from the left against the Biden administration’s infrastructure bill. Also in the race are former state Rep. Shanelle Jackson and Lathrup Village Mayor Kelly Garrett, neither of whom reported raising any money during the last quarter.

● MI-13: A total of 11 Democrats have filed to run to succeed retiring Rep. Brenda Lawrence, who is Michigan’s only Black member of Congress, in this safely blue seat, which includes part of Detroit and its southern suburbs. Lawrence, who supports Michigan Civil Rights Commissioner Portia Roberson, has argued that it’s vital to keep a “qualified, committed” African American representing the state, something that several other Black candidates have also emphasized.

However, the candidate who ended March with the most money by far is self-funding state Rep. Shri Thanedar, who is originally from India. (Thanedar, who lived in Ann Arbor when he unsuccessfully ran for governor, moved to Detroit ahead of his victorious bid for a state House seat in the city two years later.) Thanedar had over $5 million on hand, which was more than ten times as much as the $453,000 that his nearest foe, state Sen. Adam Hollier, had available.

Other candidates to watch include hedge fund manager John Conyers III, who is the son and namesake of the late longtime congressman; Detroit School Board member Sherry Gay-Dagnogo; Teach for America official Michael Griffie; former Detroit General Counsel Sharon McPhail; and Detroit city official Adrian Tonon, who is one of the few other non-Black contenders in the primary.

● MN-01: In what appears to be the first TV ad from anyone ahead of the special May 24 Republican primary, former Freeborn County party chair Matt Benda plays up his farming background and pledges to “protect our children from indoctrination in the classroom [and] ensure election integrity.”

● NC-11: Axios reports that Results for North Carolina, a super PAC close to Sen. Thom Tillis, is spending $310,000 on an ad campaign against Rep. Madison Cawthorn, which makes this the first major outside spending of the May 17 Republican primary. The commercial focuses on reports that the incumbent “lied about being accepted to the Naval Academy” and declares he’s “been caught lying about conservatives.” The narrator, who brands the congressman “an attention-seeking embarrassment,” does not mention Tillis’ endorsed candidate, state Sen. Chuck Edwards.

● TN-05: Tennessee has finalized its list of candidates for the Aug. 4 primary ballot now that each party has had the chance to eject contenders who did not meet their “bona fide” standards, an option the GOP utilized in the 5th District in order to bounce three notable candidates. The 5th will also likely be home to the only seriously contested House race, and we’ll be taking a look at the field now that we know who’s on the ballot.

There are nine Republicans remaining in the race to succeed retiring Democratic Rep. Jim Cooper in the 5th, which GOP mapmakers transmuted from a 60-37 Biden district to a 54-43 Trump constituency by cracking the city of Nashville. The only three who appear to be serious contenders are former state House Speaker Beth Harwell, who took a disappointing fourth place in the 2018 primary for governor; Maury County Mayor Andy Ogles; and retired Brig. Gen. Kurt Winstead, who has the largest war chest by far, though it’s possible another candidate will catch fire. On the Democratic side, state Sen. Heidi Campbell has the field to herself.

Ad Roundup

It’s that time of the election cycle again when campaign ads have grown too numerous for us to detail every one, so we’re bringing back a feature from past cycles where we’ll round up any remaining ads that we don’t have space to cover in greater depth. Today’s list only has a few entries, but the roundup will be sure to grow longer as the year progresses:

• AL-Sen: Mike Durant (R)
• PA-Gov: Bill McSwain (R) – anti-Doug Mastriano (R)
• WI-Gov: Rebecca Kleefisch (R) – anti-Tony Evers (D-inc)

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Chris O’Brien/Twitter:

The @nytimes has a dangerous obsession with Le Pen. A quick review of headlines from the past month:
Marine Le Pen Is as Dangerous as Ever 

Macron May Keep the Presidency, but Le Pen Has Already Won

Le Pen Closer Than Ever to the French Presidency (and to Putin)

A Reinvented Marine Le Pen Threatens to Upend French Elections

Macron to Face Le Pen for President as French Gravitate Toward Extremes

French Election Opens Up as Marine Le Pen Surges

In Le Pen Territory, as France Votes, Anger at a Distant President

A Problem for Macron in France’s Election: ‘The Hatred He Arouses’

Even if the tone toward her is negative, she has absolutely dominated the way the Times covers and thinks about this election. In much the same way Trump used to drive media narratives. Lessons not learned, I guess.

This was a solid win for Macron, a bit larger than expected. And nothing beats losing like winning does. So, expect all the coverage to be about the loser.

Stanley Pignal/Twitter:

France votes today.
A lot of the focus has been on Le Pen. We’ve had weeks of “What if she wins?” or “Even if she loses, she’s changing France!”
But the candidate who matters is the one who wins.
That’s going to be Macron. And his re-election matters more than his 2017 win.

…

So everyone can find something they dislike about Macron (I have a pretty long list, who doesn’t?).
But the most usual feeling among the most voters is that he’s done a good job. Yes, some strongly disagree. Someone always does. But look at who’s going to win. 

The key point is that Macron is the candidate who matters, not Le Pen. Elections matter because they tell us who voters think ought to run the country. Not who protests loudest, not who nearly won, not who you think ought to have won. 

Shades of U.S. political coverage.

Michael Kofman/Twitter:

I’ve been traveling and not writing much these past two weeks. Some brief thoughts about the second phase of the war, Russia’s offensive to retake the Donbas, and implications. Thread. (map from Nathan below)…

Russian forces have taken heavy losses in manpower and equipment, with far fewer combat effective formations available. Not clear what we are calling ‘BTGs’ at this point and their level of manning. Russian reinforcements are far from sufficient to replace earlier losses…

I think it is fair to say that the decisive period of the war was the first three weeks (maybe even first 4 days). Whatever happens in this next phase, the Russian military is likely to exhaust its offensive potential in the near term. 

Does this presage a stalemate? Not necessarily. UKR has its own offensive options. Russia may next try to consolidate control over territory held and pressure UKR via blockade. Its too early to predict what the next phase might look like & it depends on what UKR chooses to do.

Kamil Galeev/Twitter with a Mariupol history lesson:

Mariupol was founded by the Crimean Christians deported by Russia in 1770s. Deportation of Christians from Crimea received surprisingly little international coverage. So let’s discuss it. Until XVIII century Muslim Tatar Crimean Khanate was a vassal state of the Ottoman Empire…

Being so archaic, Crimean Khanate was very diverse. Ruling class was Tatar (=Kipchak Turkic). But there also lived Greeks, Armenians, Jews, etc. According to Jacob Ziegler, it was the last place where the Gothic language, dead elsewhere, was still spoken in the late Middle Ages.

Brett Kelman/Twitter:

Tennesseans who won’t get the COVID-19 vaccine describe “no one” as more trusted source of info than their own doctors, hospitals, pharmacists, public health experts and politicians of either party, per a new vaccine hesitancy survey the state didn’t publicize. A quick thread. 

The Tennessee Department of Health published a vaccine hesitancy survey last April and announced a second round would follow. The second round was done just before the Omicron wave but the state decided not to push it out like the first. They gave me the results when I asked. 

The findings are bad. High levels of misinformed and politicized hesitancy were expected, but vaccine resistance appears more entrenched than I feared. Of those responders who are currently unwilling to be vaccinated, 64% said they “will NOT” reconsider. 

We already knew unwillingness is most common among rural, conservative whites, which makes up the bulk of Tennessee and the survey group. Of those rural, conservative whites in the survey, less than 1% were vaxxed & boosted. In a smaller quantitative study, none were vaxxed. Zero

Charlie Sykes/Bulwark:

The Humiliation of Kevin McCarthy

Lordy, there were tapes

So what happens now? Politico’s Playbook is asking: “Is Kevin McCarthy toast?”

For years now, through controversy after controversy, House Minority Leader KEVIN MCCARTHY has bent over backward to stay in former President DONALD TRUMP’s good graces, all to serve one major purpose: He wants to be speaker someday.

That hope may have just blown up on the launchpad.

But, if he is toast, it’s not because he has just been caught in a lie, because that’s not really a disqualification in today’s GOP. If his dreams of becoming speaker have been torched, it’s only because he’s seen as disloyal by Trump. And because he’s a cynical moron.

Roger Sollenberger/Daily Beast:

Trump’s Most Loyal Lawmakers Are Actually Losing Money

The members of Congress trying to mirror Donald Trump’s politics the most are spending an awful lot.

Last year, it was a fundraising feast for the MAGA Goon Squad. But in 2022, without the donor stimulus of an attempted insurrection, things are going in the wrong direction.

The first three months of the year took more than $275,000 combined out of the pockets of Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), Lauren Boebert (R-CO), Madison Cawthorn (R-NC), and Matt Gaetz (R-FL)—the foursome of America First, Donald Trump-loving, exhibitionist election objectors. All told, it was their worst showing to date.

It wasn’t always like this.

James McAuley/New Yorker:

The French Far Right Comes on Little Cat Feet

After years of seeing Marine Le Pen as a dangerous extreme, many voters now see her as a politician like any other.

On my trip to Saint-Cloud, I wanted to understand where she came from. In 2015, in an attempt to distance herself from her father’s Holocaust denial after he repeated his remark, yet again, that the Nazi gas chambers had been a mere “detail in the history of World War Two,” she announced that she was banishing him from the Front National—now renamed the Rassemblement National, or National Rally. For years, their relationship was one of performative estrangement, although an organization that Jean-Marie controlled loaned his daughter’s 2017 campaign six million euros. This year, she has given up the performance. If elected, she told France’s BFM TV, her father would be at her side when she entered the Élysée Palace. “I am my father’s daughter,” she said. “I think that yes, he would want to be there, clearly.”

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Former Rep. Brad Ashford, whose 2014 win gave Democrats their only victory in a Nebraska House race since the 1994 GOP wave, died Tuesday at the age of 72 two months after he announced that he had brain cancer. Ashford previously served as a Democrat, Republican, and independent during his two stints in the state’s unicameral legislature, though he was never fully at home in either party during his long career in local and national politics.

Ashford, whose parents ran a prominent clothing store in downtown Omaha, got his start in politics in the 1970s as an intern for Republican Sen. Roman Hruska, and he made the first of what would be many party switches in 1982 to back Democrat Bob Kerrey’s successful bid for governor. Ashford, who had accepted an appointment by Kerrey to serve on the state’s Court of Industrial Relations, first considered running for the Omaha-based 2nd Congressional District in 1986 against Republican Rep. Hal Daub, but he instead won a seat in the legislature that year.

Ashford initially still identified as a Democrat when he reached the officially nonpartisan state Senate, but news broke during his first months in office that he was considering rejoining the Republicans. He initially turned the GOP down only to finally make the jump in 1989, but he announced the very next day that he’d still serve on the finance committee for Kerrey’s ultimately victorious bid for the Senate. Ashford, who was a supporter of gun safety measures during his time in office, later gave up his place in the legislature to run for Congress only to badly lose the GOP primary 53-25 to Jon Christensen, who went on to narrowly unseat Democratic incumbent Peter Hoagland that fall.

Listen and subscribe to Daily Kos Elections’ The Downballot podcast with David Nir and David Beard

Ashford, though, was far from done with politics. Daub, who was mayor of Omaha by this point, appointed him in 1996 to the Omaha Housing Authority, a body Ashford would later chair. Ashford also initially supported Republican Chuck Hagel’s campaign for the Senate that same year, but he announced that he would no longer back him after Hagel adopted more conservative positions on abortion and gun safety issues. “I thought Chuck Hagel would bring the party to the center and away from the right-wing in those issues,” explained the former state senator, adding, “It’s very disappointing.”

Ashford, who remained active in local issues during his time out of office, returned to the legislature in 2007, and he retained his image as a moderate Republican. In late 2011, though, he announced that he was giving up his party affiliation altogether to become an independent, saying, “My political heroes always have been those people who work from the middle in a collaborative manner. Good ideas come from both sides.” The state senator sought a promotion in 2013 when he challenged Omaha’s Democratic mayor, Jim Suttle, but he took a distant fourth in the nonpartisan primary with 13%. (Republican Jean Stothert went on to unseat Suttle.)

However, Ashford had one more party switch ahead of him months later. Democrats were looking to target Rep. Lee Terry, who had only won 51-49 in 2012 even as Mitt Romney was carrying the 2nd District 53-46, and they successfully recruited Ashford after Omaha City Council President Pete Festersen dropped out. The newly-reminted Democrat had a very tough task ahead of him, especially as the political climate worsened for Team Blue, but Terry, who had declared during the 2013 government shutdown that he would keep taking his salary because “I’ve got a nice house and a kid in college,” proved to be an especially weak incumbent.

This contest attracted over $1 million from outside groups on each side, and Republicans sought to protect their endangered incumbent by portraying Ashford as weak on crime. The GOP ran ad after ad charging that Ashford supported a law that would allow a Black inmate named Nikko Jenkins to get out of jail early for murder, messaging that Democrats compared with George H.W. Bush’s still-infamous Willie Horton ads. Jenkins, though, gave Terry the most unwanted endorsement imaginable, though, when he used a hearing to proclaim, “Hey you guys, vote for Lee Terry! Best Republican ever!” Ashford, who campaigned as a centrist, ultimately unseated Terry 49-46, giving Democrats a rare pickup on an overall awful night.

The new congressman immediately was one of the GOP’s top 2016 targets, but this time, he had a much tougher foe than Terry. Team Red nominated former Air Force Brig. General Don Bacon, who unseated Ashford 49-48 as Donald Trump was carrying the seat 48-46. Ashford sought a rematch in 2018, but while he once again had the support of national Democrats, nonprofit head Kara Eastman put up an unexpectedly tough fight in the primary. Eastman, who ran to Ashford’s left, ran ads saying that she was tired of hearing that Democrats don’t stand for anything, and she upset him 52-48 before narrowly losing to Bacon.

Eastman ran again in 2020, and she easily won the nomination against the former congressman’s wife, Ann Ferlic Ashford. However, while Democrats hoped that Eastman could finish the job in the fall, Brad Ashford once again defied his party by endorsing Bacon and even starring in one of his commercials. Ashford’s seal of approval likely gave Bacon a boost, as he fended off Eastman 51-46 even as Joe Biden was winning the district 52-46.