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Twitter announced its sale to Elon Musk on Monday, and there’s been at least a week’s worth of drama since. Large numbers of existing users left Twitter, while right-wing accounts gained followers as their supporters apparently joined the site. Tesla’s stock dropped by more than $100 billion—kind of a problem for Musk since he put up Tesla shares as collateral for his Twitter purchase.

The specifics of the deal became public on Tuesday, including a $1 billion termination fee if either party pulls out. If the deal doesn’t close by Oct. 24, both sides can walk away, or, if there’s a regulatory delay, they can extend for six months. But while “It’s actually a pretty plain vanilla merger agreement,” according to an expert quoted in The New York Times, the drama surrounding it is decidedly not vanilla.

RELATED STORY: Twitter announces sale to Elon Musk as his recent tweets show what a bad idea that is

Even without the drop in Tesla’s stock, there was some reason for concern about the financial details of the purchase:

It makes you wonder how Musk plans to make this work. Does he think he’s just getting a $44 billion toy, a piece of conspicuous consumption even more impressive than owning a really big yacht? Or does he have a plan to wring more money out of the platform than its current or past executives have been able to do?

However he plans to make it work on a financial level, Musk is throwing up red flags about how it will work for users and current Twitter employees. On Tuesday, Musk targeted two Twitter executives in his own tweets, in both cases piggybacking on attacks on the executives by right-wing media figures seeking Musk’s attention. As a result of Musk’s criticism of Vijaya Gadde, one of Twitter’s top lawyers in charge of trust and safety and legal and public policy, Gadde’s mentions filled with abuse, including overt racism. Musk also responded to a tweet by Pizzagate conspiracy theorist Mike Cernovich, saying “Sounds pretty bad” in response to Cernovich’s attack on a different Twitter executive.

It didn’t take Musk long to bolster concerns that he would run Twitter in service to the far right, in other words, and enable abuses.

But we already knew that. Popular Info’s Judd Legum has detailed how Musk’s commitment to free speech is situational and self-serving, including Musk’s attacks on journalists who’ve criticized Tesla, Musk’s threats to Tesla workers who’ve discussed unionizing, and Tesla’s ask to the Chinese government to censor criticism of its products. Musk’s idea of free speech is all about punching down and dogpiling, but stops abruptly when his own interests are involved.

About the China thing, too: Another billionaire with too much power weighed in with a concern about Musk’s purchase of Twitter:

No one really knows what the worst-case scenario for an Elon Musk-owned Twitter looks like. But the best-case scenario here may just be that he wreaks havoc with poorly thought-out tweets and ones outright encouraging abuse, then loses interest before the sale ever becomes final. Whatever happens, it’s guaranteed to be a continuing advertisement for taxing the rich a helluva lot more.

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The Jan. 6 committee is not done with Kevin McCarthy. 

The leader of Republicans in the House of Representatives and longtime ally to former President Donald Trump will soon find himself on the receiving end of another request to appear before the panel investigating the attack on the U.S. Capitol.

McCarthy was never formally subpoenaed by the committee, but investigators asked that he cooperate voluntarily this January. His refusal to come forward has simmered as options have been explored by the committee behind the scenes on how to go about navigating the legal thicket that is demanding another member of Congress testify under subpoena. 

“We’ve invited him to come earlier before the latest revelation that was reported on tapes. So in all probability, he will be issued another invitation to come just like some other members,” Jan. 6 committee Chairman Bennie Thompson told reporters Tuesday. 

That decision will be made “soon,” Thompson added.

RELATED STORY: The Jan. 6 committee wants you, Kevin McCarthy

Audio recordings of McCarthy obtained by The New York Times over this week have exposed the Republican as a leader on edge, fearful, and prepared to call on Trump to resign after Jan. 6 because he believed the president had some responsibility for the attack. McCarthy has denied making the comments.

But in a phone call four days after the insurrection, McCarthy is reportedly heard openly worrying to GOP leadership about the inflammatory remarks pouring out from fellow lawmakers like Reps. Mo Brooks of Alabama and Matt Gaetz of Florida—among others—who supported Trump’s push to overturn the election. 

Brooks took the stage at the Ellipse on Jan. 6 and called on the president’s supporters to “fight like hell” before they descended on the Capitol. Gaetz used the aftermath of the attack to lash out at fellow Republicans critical of Trump, including Liz Cheney, who is now the Jan. 6 committee vice chair. 

“The other thing I want to bring up and I’m making some phone calls to some members, I just got something sent now about … Matt Gaetz where he’s calling peoples names out … this is serious stuff people are doing that has to stop,” McCarthy said.

“I’m calling Gaetz, I’m explaining to him, I don’t know necessarily what to say but I’m going to have some other people call him too … This is serious shit, to cut this out,” McCarthy said.

When Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana pointed out to McCarthy that Gaetz’s remarks bordered on illegality, the House leader acknowledged again the severity of the situation. 

“Well, he’s putting people in jeopardy, he doesn’t need to be doing this. we saw what people would do in the Capitol and these people came prepared well with everything else,” McCarthy said.

Gaetz has retreated from McCarthy since the recordings were published. In a statement posted on Twitter, the congressman—who is currently under investigation by the Department of Justice—defended his comments and called McCarthy and Scalise “weak men.”

Gaetz said he was “protecting President Trump from impeachment” while the House GOP leader was defending Rep. Adam Kinzinger and “protecting Liz Cheney from criticism.”

Gaetz has not yet been asked to appear before the Jan. 6 committee thus far—at least not publicly. A spokesman for the committee did not immediately return a request for comment Wednesday. Gaetz also did not immediately return a request for comment to Daily Kos.

Besides McCarthy, the committee has previously issued requests for records and deposition to Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio and Scott Perry of Pennsylvania. Both Republicans have refused to appear voluntarily. 

Details about Jordan and Perry’s conduct in the runup to Jan. 6 have been made more transparent with the recent publication of text messages sent to Trump’s chief of staff at the time, Mark Meadows. 

More than a month after the 2020 election, Perry texted Meadows frantically in search of guidance as the administration sought a path to overturn the election results. 

“Mark, just checking in as time continues to count down. 11 days to 1/6 and 25 days to inauguration. We gotta get going!” Perry wrote on Dec. 26. 

Perry wasn’t just looking for guidance, however—he was also offering some of his own.

It was Perry who spurred Meadows to meet with Jeffrey Clark, an assistant attorney general at the Department of Justice on board with Trump’s claims of rampant election fraud.

According to the testimony that former Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen provided to the Senate Judiciary Committee last year, Trump not only pushed the Department of Justice to discredit the election results, but it was Clark who led a charge to have him ousted so the scheme could be better controlled.

Clark pleaded the Fifth Amendment over 100 times when he finally sat with members of the committee in February following weeks of delays. 

The texts show Perrry also spewed conspiracy theories to Meadows about rigged voting machines and accused the CIA of a cover-up. 

As for Jordan, White House call logs show the Ohio Republican spoke with Trump for roughly 10 minutes on Jan. 6. A text message obtained by the committee and made public in December also appeared to show Jordan sharing legal arguments in support of an unconstitutional pressure campaign leveled at then-Vice President Mike Pence to stop the count.

Jordan said the text was a forward from former Pentagon Inspector General Joseph Schmitz, but it is not clear whether the text was in fact a forward or why it was sent at all, based on what the committee released.

Jordan has been notoriously inconsistent when fielding questions about his engagement with Trump on Jan. 6. 

Both he and Perry voted against the formation of the select committee investigating the attempted overthrow. Both now sit on a shadow committee purporting to analyze the events of Jan. 6.

RELATED STORY: White House Jan. 6 call log confirms what Jim Jordan couldn’t—or wouldn’t

When Thompson told reporters Tuesday that another invitation was due soon for McCarthy, the Mississippi Democrat also did not rule out issuing “invites” to other members of Congress. 

“We’ll make a decision on any others before the week is out,” Thompson told The Hill. 

When asked if he would skip the second invite for McCarthy and move straight to a subpoena, Thompson said it was “a consideration.” 

According to the Times, in the Jan. 10 GOP leadership call where McCarthy lamented the remarks from Gaetz and Brooks, Cheney was on the line too and raised concerns about Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado publicly tweeting about the movement of lawmakers as they were under siege. 

In other clips, McCarthy is heard asking about whether Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia was involved in any remarks at the Ellipse on Jan. 6. She did not speak at the rally that morning but had spent weeks advocating for Trump and promoting the lie that the election was stolen by Democrats.  

McCarthy is gunning to become speaker of the House should Republicans take the majority. It has been a long-awaited goal for the legislator and may explain the increasingly light touch he has employed with some of the most extreme members in the House and in particular those on the uber conservative House Freedom Caucus. 

When Rep. Paul Gosar was censured and removed from his committees for posting an animated video depicting the murder of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, McCarthy called it an “abuse of power” inflicted by “one-party rule.” 

A month after the insurrection, when Greene posted a sign outside of her Capitol Hill office targeting a fellow lawmaker who is the parent of a transgender child, McCarthy was quiet. 

A few months later in May 2021, when Greene was reportedly stalking Ocasio-Cortez through the halls of Congress and harassing her, McCarthy was quiet.

When Greene spewed conspiracy theories on social media about everything from “staged” school shootings to questioning whether a plane actually hit the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001 to antisemitic rhetoric, she was booted off her committee assignments. 

McCarthy said he was opposed to Greene’s remarks but said in the same breath that her ouster was a Democrat “power grab” and called it “dangerous.” 

When both Gosar and Greene attended a conference organized by white nationalists this February, McCarthy said he spoke to both lawmakers but wouldn’t divulge what, if any, the repercussions might be.  

According to CNN, during a House GOP conference meeting Wednesday morning, McCarthy said his remarks on the calls were merely him “floating scenarios about Trump’s future after Jan. 6.”

He reportedly received a standing ovation.

McCarthy did not respond to multiple requests for comment by Daily Kos.

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There’s a common thread in some of the biggest battles of the Republican culture war over the past year and change—beyond the bigotry and dishonesty that is their bedrock. The specific common thread is Christopher Rufo. From critical race theory (CRT) to grooming, math textbooks to Disney, Rufo is on Fox News so often he has his own in-home studio, issuing the talking points of the moment. And all of his talking points are aimed at promoting a vision of the United States based on the cultural politics of the 1950s combined with the rampant privatization and lower taxes on corporations and the wealthy of the 2020s. Rufo wants the racism and gender norms of the 1950s, minus the public schools and government revenue. 

Rufo hit big in 2021 with his promotion of a false version of critical race theory as a danger to white children everywhere. Like a Bond villain, he even explained what he was doing as he was doing it. “We have successfully frozen their brand—‘critical race theory’—into the public conversation and are steadily driving up negative perceptions. We will eventually turn it toxic, as we put all of the various cultural insanities under that brand category,” Rufo tweeted in March 2021. “The goal is to have the public read something crazy in the newspaper and immediately think ‘critical race theory.’ We have decodified the term and will recodify it to annex the entire range of cultural constructions that are unpopular with Americans.”

And yet, despite laying out his strategy right there in plain sight, he got many in the traditional media to bite, covering the critical race theory panic that Rufo created as if it were an organic grassroots phenomenon. Now he’s back, leading the charge against Disney and propelling “grooming” as an accusation to be used in a broader attempt to drive LGBTQ people out of public life. That work earned him a puff piece in The New York Times over the weekend, and a spot on the stage as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the “Stop WOKE Act.”

RELATED STORY: A look inside banned Florida math textbooks suggests Republicans simply lied about what’s in them

After weeks of bashing Disney for “grooming” and highlighting mug shots of past Disney employees who have been charged with child sexual abuse unconnected to their employment at Disney, Rufo told the Times, “It’s wrong, factually and morally, to accuse someone of being a groomer with no basis and evidence.” About that:

But as Moynihan, a political scientist at Georgetown University, wrote at his Substack, it goes deeper. In Rufo’s usage, “this language is largely not about sexual abuse of children. Rufo is much more likely to describe ‘grooming’ in the context of kids being exposed to ideas he dislikes rather than actual sexual abuse. In other words, sharing certain political beliefs — usually centered around recognizing the status of historically marginalized groups — are treated as interchangeable with child abuse, its perpetrators akin to child abusers.”

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

“The reservoir of sentiment on the sexuality issue is deeper and more explosive than the sentiment on the race issues,” Rufo told the Times. In translation: He thinks he can ride anti-LGBTQ bigotry even further than racism. 

Rufo’s overall message that institutions from Disney to the public schools are grooming children by exposing them to ideas he doesn’t like was a major factor in his participation in the banning of math textbooks in Florida because they supposedly contained CRT and other “prohibited topics or unsolicited strategies.” In Times coverage of that episode, Rufo explained his opposition to social-emotional learning, saying, “in practice, SEL serves as a delivery mechanism for radical pedagogies such as critical race theory and gender deconstructionism.”

”The intention of SEL,” according to Rufo, “is to soften children at an emotional level, reinterpret their normative behavior as an expression of ‘repression,’ ‘whiteness,’ or ‘internalized racism,’ and then rewire their behavior according to the dictates of left-wing ideology.”

Don’t teach our kids to be kind. It might make them less racist.

Rufo is part of a broader Republican movement to end public education, something he’s strategically laying the groundwork for with each new campaign he wages. CRT, grooming, social-emotional learning—all of these are buzzwords intended to weaken support for public education. Disney came into it because of the company’s opposition to the Florida Don’t Say Gay law banning the teaching of anything that might imply to children that LGBTQ people are acceptable members of their communities.

Rufo laid out his approach in an April speech at Hillsdale College, titled “Laying Siege to the Institutions.” In it, he called for a “narrative and symbolic war against companies like Disney” in which “You have to be very aggressive. You have to fight on terms that you define.” On schools, he was explicit: “To get to universal school choice, you really need to operate from a premise of universal public school distrust.”

(When American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten slightly mistranscribed some of this, Rufo threatened legal action, so apparently he’s kind of sensitive here.)

Rufo is far from the only prominent conservative openly trying to dismantle public education. There’s Betsy DeVos, of course, the Trump education secretary whose only experience related to education was years of funding efforts to privatize it. Then there’s this:

Make no mistake: Republicans are coming for public education, in many cases looking for the government to provide vouchers that can go to unregulated religious and private schools. What they definitely don’t want is empowered teachers who can speak up for their students—all of them, not just the straight white Christian ones—and teaching that encompasses the racial history of the U.S., exposure to a wide range of experience, and basic social skills alongside of 2+2=4.

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It’s annual shareholders meeting season for banks, many of which face questions over fossil fuel financing. Three big banks—Citigroup, Wells Fargo, and Bank of America—held their meetings on Tuesday and each bank had shareholders vote on climate finance resolutions proposed by groups like the Sierra Club and Harrington Investments. None of the measures passed, though the votes of 12.8% for Citi, 11% for Wells Fargo, and 11% for Bank of America show that shareholders have a vested interest in fighting climate change. Because each proposal crossed the 5% threshold of approval, all three can be refiled next year. “Today’s votes put the question of fossil fuel expansion firmly and irrevocably on the table for three of the world’s top four fossil banks,” Jason Opeña Disterhoft, senior climate and energy campaigner at Rainforest Action Network, said in a statement.

“A critical mass of investors affirmed that business-as-usual expansion of fossil fuels is incompatible with a 1.5 degrees C world and threatens their portfolios overall,” Disterhoft continued. “Ending fossil expansion is a matter of when, not if: Citi, Wells Fargo and Bank of America must recognize this direction of travel and make ending fossil expansion a precondition for financing for all clients.” Statements from other activists and advocates echoed that hopeful sentiment, yet publications like Politico chose to frame the vote as a question of “woke capitalism,” as if earnestly fighting climate change is some type of passing trend. Bloomberg seemed to at least get to the heart of the problem, quoting Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser cautioning against pulling support of fossil fuel companies. “It’s not feasible for the global economy or for human health or livelihoods to shut down the fossil-fuel economy overnight,” Fraser said. “The transition needs to be accelerated, but it also needs to be managed to minimize the shock to our economy and our communities.”

Advocates for substantial change in the banking industry are begging and pleading with banks to do the right thing, but it’s shareholders who have the ability to counteract the Frasers of the sector. And there are indeed some major players who want banks to adopt the right kinds of policies, such as these proposals, which would’ve forced the likes of Citi, Wells Fargo, and Bank of America to take “available actions to help ensure that its financing does not contribute to new fossil fuel supplies that would be inconsistent with the IEA’sNet Zero Emissions by 2050 Scenario.” A group of 32 philanthropists whose asset managers hold stakes in major banks signed a letter in support of the proposals, including John Hunting, Basso Capital Management founder Howard Fischer, and president of the Sagner Family Foundation, Deborah Sagner.

Given the way these initial votes shook out, those same philanthropists are bound to react to their wishes being ignored by the likes of BlackRock, Fidelity, and others. Banks that have yet to hold their annual shareholder meetings include Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, and Morgan Stanley. The companies face similar pressure to adopt policies that prioritize climate change as well as proposals benefitting marginalized customers like the ones proposed at Citi and Wells Fargo urging the companies to internationally recognize Indigenous communities’ right to Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC). FPIC policies could potentially prevent banks from sinking money into projects that actively harm Indigenous communities, like Enbridge’s Line 3 pipeline, which was financed by Citi, Wells Fargo, and Bank of America, along with numerous other financial institutions.

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The Kevin McCarthy tapes just keep coming, and the latest round have the far-far-right annoyed at not just McCarthy and Rep. Liz Cheney but other members of Republican leadership as well. All because in the days after the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, McCarthy and other Republican leaders were a little bit honest, in private, about what had happened and the role of some Republican House members in inciting an insurrection.

New recordings released by The New York Times have McCarthy saying, of comments by Rep. Matt Gaetz about Cheney: “He’s putting people in jeopardy. And he doesn’t need to be doing this. We saw what people would do in the Capitol, you know, and these people came prepared with rope, with everything else.” 

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

“It’s potentially illegal what he’s doing,” Rep. Steve Scalise, the second-ranking House Republican, said of Gaetz.

In response to their comments about him, Gaetz released a statement saying that McCarthy and Scalise “held views about President Trump and me that they shared on sniveling calls with Liz Cheney, not us. This is the behavior of weak men, not leaders.” 

Gaetz … has a point? McCarthy is sniveling and weak and not a leader—but his failure to lead comes in his failure to follow through on his comments in these recordings from January 2021. The collapse of any interest he had in penalizing people like Trump and Gaetz and Brooks for their actions. One interesting question is whether McCarthy did call Gaetz in January 2021 to tell him to “cut this shit out,” as he indicated in that recording he planned to do. But don’t look for McCarthy to rebut Gaetz by proving that he did call him to say that.

House Republican leaders also discussed Rep. Mo Brooks’ rally speech on Jan. 6, in which he said it was “the day American patriots start taking down names and kicking ass.”

”You think the president deserves to be impeached for his comments?” McCarthy responded to that line. “That’s almost something that goes further than what the president said.”

In response to hearing about deleted tweets by Rep. Barry Moore of Alabama—including one saying, “it was a Black police officer who shot the white female veteran”—McCarthy muttered, “Can’t they take their Twitter accounts away, too?”

These and other comments in the recordings have McCarthy and other Republican leaders under fire from more than just Gaetz. Tucker Carlson is big mad. McCarthy “sounds like an MSNBC contributor,” Carlson said, warning that “unless conservatives get their act together right away, Kevin McCarthy or one of his highly liberal allies like Elise Stefanik is very likely to be speaker of the House in January. That would mean we will have a Republican Congress led by a puppet of the Democratic Party.”

Stefanik, mind you, replaced Cheney in Republican leadership because she managed to meet the Trump loyalty test. Apparently that’s no longer good enough.

“Heck, yeah,” he was concerned about McCarthy wanting Republicans kicked off Twitter, Rep. Andy Biggs told CNN. Taking away Twitter accounts is “not something I’m for,” said Rep. Scott Perry, head of the House Freedom Caucus.

Markos and Kerry talk Ukraine and speak with Wisconsin Democratic Party chair Ben Wikler on how hitting back at Republicans helps win elections

The Republican Party is in disarray, but with the extremists and inciters of insurrection poised to come out on top, and McCarthy scrambling to appease them in any way he can, that’s not as much fun as it usually is. These recordings put into stark relief the utter collapse of any significant opposition by Republican leaders to a violent attempt to overturn an election. Less than 18 months after McCarthy was hoping for some of his members of be kicked off Twitter and claiming he was going to tell Gaetz to “cut this shit out” and urge Trump to resign, he has become entirely committed to sucking up to the far right to bolster his hopes of becoming speaker. Those hopes may have taken a hit, but that doesn’t mean anything good for the Republican Party’s support for democracy.

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On Monday, April 25, two discriminatory bills passed through legislative chambers in Tennessee. The first bill, House Bill 2633/Senate Bill 277, seeks to give permission to public school teachers (and other school employees) to ignore the correct pronouns of students. In essence, this is giving legal permission to teachers to misgender students who are routinely marginalized in general and already report higher rates of harassment and bullying in school.

The second bill is Senate Bill 2153, which aims to stop trans girls from participating in the sports teams that align with their gender identity at the college level, as reported by local outlet WREG. This bill also adds a cause for athletes to sue if a trans athlete wins a competition.

As is the case with all of these Republican pieces of legislation, conservatives say it’s about fairness in sports and protecting girls and women, but really it’s about signing discrimination into law. 

RELATED: Republicans in this state once again ensure it’s legal to fire LGBT teachers because of who they are

House Bill 2633 also protects school employees from any adverse employment actions and civil liabilities if they refuse to use a student’s correct pronouns. As Daily Kos has stressed in the past, pronouns are not optional. Pronouns are not suggestions. Getting someone’s pronouns right is as important, respectful, and frankly, reasonable, as getting someone’s name right. Yes, you might make a mistake. No, that doesn’t make you a monster. But the correct course of action is simply to apologize and make a dedicated effort to get it right next time. Again, it’s about dignity and respect.

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

Speaking on the house floor Monday, Democratic state Rep. Bob Freeman spoke against the bill while on the House floor on Monday, telling conservative colleagues that if “your religion teaches you to hate kids, I think you need to find a new religion,” according to local outlet FOX 17.

Unfortunately, the bill ultimately passed in the House with a vote of 67 to 25. The bill advanced in the Senate committee on Tuesday. 

Now, in terms of the sports issue, you might recall that Republican Gov. Bill Lee actually already signed a piece of anti-trans sports legislation into law. Back in 2021, Lee signed a measure requiring student-athletes to prove their gender identity matched their sex as assigned at birth by using their original birth certificate. (If that birth certificate was unavailable, parents are apparently supposed to bring other forms of proof of the student’s sex as assigned at birth.)

That law is set to go into effect as of July 1, 2022, though it is currently facing a lawsuit.

As of now, lawmakers in Tennessee are pushing legislation to bar trans athletes from participating in girls’ sports at the collegiate level. And that bill is headed to Lee’s desk, where, based on recent history, it’s highly likely it’ll be signed into law as well. Shameful.

If you’d like to learn more about trans rights and advocacy from several experts, please feel free to check out our recent panel. You can also watch the video below.

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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.

Subscribe to our podcast, The Downballot!

Leading Off

● GA-Gov, GA-Sen, GA-SoS: A new survey from the University of Georgia for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution is the latest poll to find Gov. Brian Kemp cruising to renomination in the May 24 GOP primary, with Kemp holding a 53-27 lead over Big Lie proponent David Perdue and earning the majority needed to avoid a June primary runoff against the former senator. This latest survey is one of Kemp’s best results so far from any pollster and marks a significant improvement for him from UGA’s last poll taken in late March and early April, which found Kemp ahead 48-37. Still, every other recent poll here has also found Kemp with a sizable lead.

Perdue has failed to gain traction in the polls despite Donald Trump’s endorsement, but that hasn’t stopped his zealotry for spreading Trump’s 2020 election conspiracy theories from shaping the race. Perdue and his allies have run ad after ad spreading the Big Lie that Trump was cheated in 2020 and chastising Kemp for failing to help Trump steal the contest, and Perdue’s opening statement in Sunday’s debate reiterated his bogus accusation of election theft. Kemp, meanwhile, has focused his campaign message on reminding voters that Perdue’s re-election defeat makes him a proven loser and touting the governor’s record on bread and butter conservative issues such as immigration, crime, and taxes.

In the Senate primary, UGA’s poll does have unambiguously good news for the Trump-backed candidate: Former NFL star Herschel Walker has a 66-7 edge over his closest rival, state Agriculture Commissioner Gary Black, which is little different than his 64-8 lead in their previous poll.

Looking further downballot in the GOP primary for secretary of state, another of Trump’s endorsees running a campaign focused on 2020 election denial has found more success than in the governor’s race, but UGA’s latest poll finds it is no sure thing. Their survey shows incumbent Brad Raffensperger holding a 28-26 lead over Rep. Jody Hice, who has Trump’s backing, which marks an improvement for the incumbent from Hice’s 30-23 advantage in UGA’s prior poll. However, Hice has done significantly better in one of the few other credible polls here from GOP firm Landmark Communications, which had Raffensperger trailing by a wide 35-18 earlier this month.

Trump’s election lies almost certainly aren’t going anywhere as a campaign topic regardless of the outcome of the primaries for secretary of state. One of the leading Democratic contenders, state Rep. Bee Nguyen, has focused her initial ad on her support for protecting voting rights against Trump’s attacks and previews what the general election message may look like.

Senate

● AL-Sen: Alabama Patriots PAC, which is backing Army veteran Mike Durant in the May 24 GOP primary, has reported spending more than $3 million on his behalf thus far.

● FL-Sen: Former Donald Trump operative Roger Stone, whom Trump pardoned in December 2020 after he was convicted on several felony charges of obstructing Congress’ investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, said he isn’t ruling out a primary bid against GOP Sen. Marco Rubio over the latter’s vote against overturning the 2020 election outcome. Stone, however, hardly looks like a serious candidate: even he conceded that he wasn’t the ideal challenger and implored someone else to run. Stone had also mulled running for governor as an independent to stymie Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis before acknowledging he was barred from doing so by state law preventing recent party switchers from running for office.

● OH-Sen: Democratic firm Blueprint Polling has released a poll finding that the May 3 GOP primary is still up in the air with 33% undecided and no candidate topping 20%. The pollster, who did not disclose who, if anyone, was their client, shows state Sen. Matt Dolan with a slim 18-17 lead over venture capitalist J.D. Vance, while businessman Mike Gibbons earns 13%, former state Treasurer Josh Mandel takes 12%, and former state party chair Jane Timken wins just 7%.

This is the first survey from any outfit this cycle showing Dolan in first, but with all three other polls disclosed this month from reputable firms each finding three different leaders and many voters still undecided, it’s another sign of just how uncertain the outcome of next week’s vote is.

Governors

● MI-Gov: Republican Rep. Jack Bergman, whose 1st District covers the Upper Peninsula and northernmost portion of the Lower Peninsula, has switched his endorsement in the August GOP primary from former Detroit Police Chief James Craig to self-funding businessman Perry Johnson. In doing so, Bergman complained that Craig ignored “campaigning in Northern Michigan and the U.P. in favor of a self proclaimed Detroit-centric approach.”

● NE-Gov: The Republican firm Data Targeting has conducted a survey of the May 10 GOP primary for Neilan Strategy Group, which says it’s not working on behalf of any candidate or allied group, that shows state Sen. Brett Lindstrom taking a narrow lead for the first time in a very expensive and ugly race where he’d largely been overshadowed.

The firm shows Lindstrom edging out Trump-backed agribusinessman Charles Herbster 28-26, with University of Nebraska Regent Jim Pillen, who is termed-out Gov. Pete Ricketts’ endorsed candidate, just behind with 24%; former state Sen. Theresa Thibodeau lags far behind in fourth with 6%. Back in mid-February, the firm showed Herbster edging out Pillen 27-26, with Lindstrom taking third with 21%.

This new poll is the first we’ve seen conducted since the Nebraska Examiner published an April 14 story where Republican state Sen. Julie Slama and seven other women accused Herbster of groping and other forms of sexual assault; Herbster denied the allegations and soon went up with a commercial claiming “the establishment” was lying about him just like they supposedly did with Trump. Unsurprisingly, Trump himself has stuck behind his man, and he’s scheduled to hold a rally with him on Friday.

While no other polls have found Lindstrom in first place, there were previously signs that his detractors were treating him as a serious threat even though he lacked the money and big-named endorsements that Pillen and Herbster have available. (Lindstrom’s most prominent supporter is arguably Omaha Mayor Jean Stothert.) A group called Restore the Good Life began running ads against the state senator weeks ago that portrayed him as wrong on taxes, while another outfit called Say No to RINOs launched its own spots in mid-April saying, “Liberal Brett Lindstrom is no conservative, he just plays one on TV.”

But perhaps most tellingly, Conservative Nebraska, a super PAC funded in part by Ricketts, recently began running its own spots using similar arguments against Lindstrom after it previously focused on attacking Herbster only. The termed-out governor himself joined in the pile-on, characterizing Lindstrom as “a liberal (who) does not have a conservative voting record in the Legislature.” The state senator, for his part, said last week that he wouldn’t be running negative ads against Pillen and Hebster.

● PA-Gov: State Attorney General Josh Shapiro, who is unopposed in the May 17 Democratic primary, has laid out $950,000 of the $16 million his campaign recently had on hand to air his first two ads. The first commercial is a minute-long spot that devotes its first half to Shapiro’s biography, referencing his Pennsylvania roots, family values, and the importance of his Jewish faith, while the second part highlights his record of keeping taxes low when serving in local office and how he has “taken on powerful institutions” as attorney general.

The second spot expands on the latter theme, featuring a nurse praising Shapiro’s work going after predatory student loan companies like the one that she says tried to rip her off.

● WI-Gov: Wealthy businessman Tim Michels, who announced a sizable ad buy when he joined the GOP primary over the weekend, will spend $980,000 on his initial ads, though no copy of a spot is available yet.

House

● FL-04: Navy veteran Erick Aguilar this week became the first notable Republican to announce a bid for the new 4th District, a Jacksonville area constituency that would be open should incumbent John Rutherford run for the 5th as fellow Republicans expect. The new 4th would have supported Trump 53-46.

Aguilar himself had been waging a second primary bid against Rutherford, who beat him in an 80-20 landslide two years before, before redistricting changed things. But while Aguilar’s doomed first campaign brought in all of $16,000, his second try is a far better-funded affair: Aguilar raised $320,000 during the first quarter of 2022, and he ended March with a hefty $812,000 on hand thanks in part to earlier self-funding.

● FL-23: Republican state Rep. Chip LaMarca has announced that he won’t run to succeed retiring Democratic Rep. Ted Deutch in the new 23rd District, which contains most of Deutch’s existing 22nd District.

● IL-03: SEIU Local 1, which represents maintenance workers, has backed Chicago Alderman Gilbert Villegas in the June Democratic primary.

● IL-17: SEIU Illinois, which represents more than 170,000 public sector employees and workers in private service sectors statewide, has endorsed former state Rep. Litesa Wallace in the June Democratic primary, which has no clear frontrunner yet. Wallace faces a field that includes former TV meteorologist Eric Sorensen, Rockford Alderman Jonathan Logemann, and Rockford Alderwoman Linda McNeely.

● OH-11: Democratic Majority for Israel is airing its first negative spot of the year against former state Sen. Nina Turner ahead of her Democratic primary rematch next week against Rep. Shontel Brown. The narrator faults Turner for not supporting Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump in 2016 before declaring that the challenger “said voting for Biden was like eating ****.” (The screen flashes the words “EATING S**T.”) The super PAC, which recently began running positive commercials for Brown, has spent close to $600,000 so far.    

● OR-06: In an effort to unravel why billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried’s super PAC, Protect Our Future, has spent more than $7 million so far boosting first-time candidate Carrick Flynn’s quest for the Democratic nomination in Oregon’s brand-new 6th Congressional District, OPB’s Dirk VanderHart dives deep into the possible ties between the two men.

Most notably, Flynn’s wife, Kathryn Mecrow-Flynn, worked at an organization called the Center for Effective Altruism in 2017—the same time that Bankman-Fried served as the group’s director of development. Flynn has maintained he “has never met or talked to Sam Bankman-Fried”—by law, super PACs are forbidden from coordinating with campaigns they’re seeking to boost—and in response to VanderHart’s reporting, he said of his wife, “If she’s met him she hasn’t said anything. I think she would have said something.”

VanderHart also points out that Bankman-Fried’s younger brother, Gabe Bankman-Fried, runs yet another super PAC called Guarding Against Pandemics that has likewise endorsed Flynn; it so happens that the president of Protect Our Future, Michael Sadowsky, also works for Guarding Against Pandemics. Gabe Bankman-Fried offered effusive praise for Flynn in remarks to VanderHart, though he insisted he “could not comment” on the interest shown in Flynn by his older sibling, who has not said anything about the candidate publicly.

● TX-28: Attorney Jessica Cisneros is focusing on abortion rights in her first spot for the May 24 Democratic primary runoff against conservative Rep. Henry Cuellar, a topic the Texas Tribune says she didn’t run many spots on during the first round. The narrator declares that Cuellar sided with Texas Republicans when they “passed the most extreme abortion ban in the country,” characterizing the incumbent as “the lone Democrat against a woman’s right to make her own decisions, even opposing life-saving care.”

Cuellar’s new ad, meanwhile, features people praising him for having “kept our businesses open during the pandemic and reduced taxes” and funding law enforcement and border security, language that’s usually more at home in GOP ads. The commercial then pivots to the left by commending him as a champion of healthcare and affordable college. One elderly woman goes on to make the case that he’s vital for the district, saying, “Henry helps us with prescriptions and Social Security benefits. If we lose him in Congress, we lose everything.”

Cuellar goes into the final weeks of the runoff with a cash-on-hand lead over Cisneros, but she’s managed to close much of what had been a massive gap. Cuellar ended March with a $1.4 million to $1 million edge, while he enjoyed a $2.3 million to $494,000 advantage three months before.

● TX-30: The cryptocurrency-aligned group Web3 Forward has reported a $250,000 ad buy ahead of the May 24 Democratic primary runoff to support state Rep. Jasmine Crockett, who came just shy of winning the nomination outright last month with a 48-17 lead over party operative Jane Hamilton. Web3 Forward may have more where that came from if the initial primary, where they and another crypto-oriented group had already spent over $2 million aiding Crockett, was any indication.

Attorneys General

● KS-AG: Former Secretary of State Kris Kobach has released a survey from WPA Intelligence arguing that he’s well-positioned to win the August Republican primary for attorney general and revive his career following his disastrous bids for governor and Senate. The firm shows Kobach taking 52% in the race to succeed Derek Schmidt, who is leaving to run for governor, with state Sen. Kellie Warren and former federal prosecutor Tony Mattivi far behind with 12% and 7%, respectively. The Democrats are fielding attorney Chris Mann, a former prosecutor who currently faces no serious intra-party opposition.

Mayors

● Los Angeles, CA Mayor: City Attorney Mike Feuer is spending about $1 million on an opening TV and digital buy for the June nonpartisan primary, which his strategist acknowledges to the Los Angeles Times is “pretty close” to all they have available. The spot features the candidate, who took just 2% in a recent UC Berkeley poll, walking a dachshund (who at one point rides a skateboard while leashed) through the city as a song proclaims him the “underdog.” Feuer tells the audience, “Even with the most experience, being outspent 30 to 1 could make the odds of becoming mayor … well, long. But L.A.’s a city of underdogs.”

Billionaire developer Rick Caruso, who had the airwaves to himself until now, has run numerous ads focused on crime without mentioning any of his rivals, but one of his most prominent allies will soon be going after his main competitor. The Los Angeles Police Protective League, which is the city’s well-funded police union, has so far given $500,000 to a new super PAC opposed to Democratic Rep. Karen Bass.

Prosecutors

● Maricopa County, AZ Attorney: Anni Foster, who is Gov. Doug Ducey’s general counsel, has dropped out of the August special Republican primary and endorsed Rachel Mitchell, who was appointed interim county attorney last week. The nomination contest still includes Gina Godbehere, who recently announced that she was stepping down as prosecutor for the City of Goodyear in order to concentrate on her campaign.

Ad Roundup

Dollar amounts reflect the reported size of ad buys and may be larger.

• CO-Sen: Joe O’Dea (R)
• GA-Sen: Gary Black (R) – anti-Herschel Walker (R), backed by $37,000
• GA-Sen: Latham Sadler (R) – anti-Walker (R)
• OH-Sen: Josh Mandel (R) – anti-J.D. Vance (R)
• AL-Gov: Kay Ivey (R-inc)
• IL-Gov: Darren Bailey (R)
• CO-08: Jan Kulmann (R), backed by $50,000

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The best antidote for hot takes is hard data, and the latest Daily Kos/Civiqs poll is here with your cure. This survey of 1,248 registered voters was conducted online from April 23-26 and reveals that 67% of Democrats in the 18-34 age cohort believe that President Joe Biden has failed to deliver on a lot of the promises he made during his campaign. Democrats aged 18-34 also thought Biden was going to do more to help people like them (62%). In contrast, only 9% of older Democrats aged 65+ feel that Biden has not delivered on his campaign promises.

The poll also reinforced that Americans’ views on transgender rights and related issues are sharply divided along party lines. A whopping 83% of Democrats understand that trans people face discrimination; a mere 5% of Republicans think they do. When it comes to anti-transgender laws being passed at the state level, the divide is similarly stark: 82% of Democrats believe that measures preventing transgender youth from receiving gender-affirming medical care are hurting these kids, versus a scant 14% of Republicans.

Other noteworthy findings in this month’s poll include:

• Mandating mask-wearing on public transportation is an extremely partisan issue: 84% of Democrats support it (60% strongly, 24% somewhat), while just 7% of Republicans do (3% strongly, 4% somewhat).
• Anti-LGBTQ book censorship is similarly partisan: 83% of Democrats believe that their local classrooms and libraries should contain books with characters who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender; 11% of Republicans believe this.

Additional issues surveyed include Biden’s handling of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, cryptocurrency, and viewership of Fox News, Newsmax, One America News Network, and MSNBC.

This poll’s results highlight younger Democrats’ acute disappointment in the as-yet-unfulfilled promises made by Biden on the campaign trail.

This month’s survey also provides strong evidence that frequent Fox News viewers are deeply disconnected from mainstream Americans. Despite the fact that just 41% of Americans believe that trans people want ‘special treatment,’ fully 76% of frequent Fox viewers believe this lie.

Civiqs is an award-winning survey research firm that conducts scientific public opinion polls on the internet through its nationally representative online survey panel. Founded in 2013, Civiqs specializes in political and public policy polling. Results from Civiqs’ daily tracking polls can be found online at civiqs.com.

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This week on The Brief, hosts Markos Moulitsas and Kerry Eleveld discussed updates on the situation in Ukraine before pivoting to talk about the political landscape for Democrats in Wisconsin, a crucial swing state that will also be a big battleground later this year. To speak on these issues, they brought on guest Ben Wikler, chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin. As Wikler recently wrote of recent elections in Wisconsin, “In a 50/50 state, during a tough year for Democrats, we won more than we lost. Out of 276 races where WisDems actively engaged, investing in organizing, digital, and/or mail to voters, we won 147 of the races.”

Read on to learn more about what Democrats across the country can learn from this successful party committee!

For the first segment of the show, Moulitsas and Eleveld recapped the dynamic ground situation in Ukraine as Russia shifts its military strategy to press and close in on cities. As the conflict drags on and Ukraine receives more assistance to strengthen its military, Ukraine is only going to get stronger—Moulitsas noted—in stark contrast to Russia, whose military equipment is sorely lacking in quality: “These are like 40, 50 year old tanks. They’re not maintained, they’re in terrible shape … they’ll be able to cobble together a certain number, but their equipment is becoming older and less capable, while Ukraine’s equipment is actually NATO stock. It’s getting better and higher tech.”

The hosts then welcomed Wikler onto the show to offer his insights into Democratic messaging that works in Wisconsin and important takeaways from recent elections to keep in mind as we head towards November.

Wisconsin, a Rust Belt state that always seems to be close, will likely play a key role in how the midterm elections in November unfold. Wisconsin had the biggest slate of local elections the the country of this year on April 5, with no statewide candidates on the ballot—just school board candidates, county executives, county board, city council, “the folks who actually kind of do the work of making local government work.” Traditionally, these are nonpartisan elections. This time, however, the Republican Party [in Wisconsin] decided to go all in. As Wikler explained,

They predicted and expected and wanted to have a Red Wave across the state. Right wing top radio hosts started having slates of local candidates on their shows and publishing lists of local candidates to support on their websites … local Republican parties bought full page, front page ads listing candidates they endorsed and listing boilerplate Republican talking points about CRT and trans kids and open border laws—all their hot-button attempts to divide and distract and demonize and turn people against each other. They not only had the Republican Party transferring money into local county parties and into local candidates’ accounts—they also had the kind of dark money operations that you normally see in federal contests … and the biggest funders on the right poured their money into [attack ads].

“As we saw this happening, our side decided we were going to fight back,” Wikler added.

Much of the fight in Wisconsin has centered around public education and what children are being taught in schools. And that’s where Wisconsin Democrats decided to push back and take their fight to the Republicans. As Wikler elaborated, they ran local, digital ads that utilized the race-class narrative framework: start with a shared value, then explain what Republicans are doing and why they’re doing it, and then go to a call to come together and fight back against them:

The message was: ‘We all want schools where every child, no matter what they look like or where they live, can thrive. But Republicans are demonizing teachers, and parents, and students; banning books; and trying to divide us in order to advance their agenda of defunding public education. We need to come back, reject these divisive tactics, and elect people who actually believe in public schools so that our kids can have a chance at a better future.’

We ran those [ads] targeting Democratic voters in school board races all over the state, and the overwhelming share of [our] candidates in those races won those races, because we were providing a frame for what the Republicans were doing, and then making that into an attack that actually unites our side completely, which is well-funded, good public schools. And this is the deepest kind of division in Wisconsin politics going back to Scott Walker a decade ago—attacking teachers and massively defunding public education. It’s the Republicans’ glass jaw, and it is something where we still have a major advantage. And we cannot do the Virginia thing of effectively ceding education to Republicans. So we just punched back on this stuff.

Eleveld noted that as education is one of Democrats’ core issues, it can be a really important one to take a stand on to draw a contrast between Democratic values and Republicans’ poorly disguised attempts at defunding education:

[One of the reasons] Democrats have owned this issue for so long is because Democrats are known for wanting to fund education. And that was something, I think, that the Republicans in this culture war that they’re trying to push about, ‘Oh, you know, Democrats are trying to make you feel bad about being white; Democrats are trying to indoctrinate your kids,’ or whatever, it gets away from the fact that they don’t want to invest in education. I think that’s one thing that gets lost in that debate if you don’t see it.

Wikler agreed: “100%. And we have to point it out. We have to say, ‘Why are they demonizing public schools? Because they want to defund public education and close these schools down.’” Wikler also pointed out how unrealistic it is to give every kid a voucher to [go] to private school, especially given the fact that in rural areas, there are hardly any private schools to attend in the first place. The biggest Republican donors are also in lock-step supporting these attacks on public schools.

Democrats can strike back by taking Republican attacks and turning them into a counterattack on funding public schools, which is a deeply popular thing, Wikler recommended:

On the same day that there was this huge Republican effort to win these elections, we passed the overwhelming share of school funding referenda across the state of Wisconsin … And building on that core identification, even if people are panicked about the state of education in general, they overwhelmingly support and like the schools that their kids go to in their local community. It’s sort of like the way people feel about members of Congress. Our side is pro-school, and theirs is not. So it’s an area where we have a giant opportunity to punch back.

Wikler also thinks that the Republican strategy is a failing one, as every time they use the most divisive and incendiary and demonizing tactics to try to split people, and once they get power, they try to grab money out of public services that everyone relies on and transfer it to rich people. “That is the one thing that they do, every single time. Explaining that that’s their agenda and how we’re going to fight back against it is critical to how we’re going to win,” he concluded.

Moulitsas chimed in recalled what guest Jenifer Fernandez Ancona was saying last week about messaging and how Wikler’s words seemed aligned with what she had said:

It strikes me how the parallel to what she was really urging Democrats to do, and what you just said you yourself did, which was: First, you talk about what Democrats stand for, what our values are for, Two is, you point to the villain, right? The Republican Party and their values, how they’re trying to undermine everything that is good and wonderful. And then you have a hero, which is, ‘Together, we can come [together], we can vote these people out, we can save education.’

Given this and how the strategy Wikler described helped get the base out, what can we expect in the coming months? Moulitsas framed his question around how this messaging framework might resonate on a larger scale to meaningfully affect turnout: “This is the big fear about November. Can we get our base out? Looking at the results of this weirdly timed election, almost probably designed to minimize public participation, what does that tell you about November? Does it give you hope, do you think the success will carry over? Or is November going to be a whole different electorate, and you’ve got to just start from scratch and figure that out separately?”

Wikler cited several optimistic outcomes that he has seen that should give Democrats hope for November:

The total number of voters is very small. But here’s the really striking thing. In our spring election, the last time we had a spring election with no statewide candidate on the ballot … was 2014. And that year, there were only [505,000] Wisconsinites who voted. This time it was more than 940,000. It was an 86% uptick from the last time … The giant leap [happened in] the places where both sides joined the fight—the numbers shot up. And that’s what we’re going to see in the fall. I think the turnout will be incredibly high … [but] you have to explain the race, what the other side is doing. You have to ground it in a shared value, and you have to have a hero to empower voters to feel like they have the power to be able to make a difference … Wisconsin was the tipping point state in both of the last presidential elections. So you have to stop [anti-education] bills from going through, and [reelecting incumbent Tony Evers] as governor is the key to making that happen.

“We can do all that if we turn out all the Democratic voters we need to … there was record turnout in 2018 and 2020. It’s not about getting someone who’s a nonvoter who’s never voted to vote—although we want to do that too,” Wikler insisted. “But it’s critically to make sure folks that got engaged during the Trump era stay engaged in the fight. And we have to make clear in no uncertain terms to these voters that everything they voted for and fought for is absolutely on the line again in 2022.”

Moulitsas asked Wikler to share how viewers can help Wisconsin Democrats this fall. Wikler replied that interested parties could donate, volunteer, or work with the Wisconsin Democrats in this crucial cycle in the bellwether state. Wisconsin Democrats’ priorities remain consistent, and Wikler explained that the organization is going to spend the whole year calling individuals who voted absentee, as well as mobilizing and building teams across the state of Wisconsin who can talk to voters. 

The full episode can be viewed below:

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