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Ukraine update: The Kherson bulge, the Kramatorsk gap
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There was no doubt at all about Russia’s strategy when its troops rolled across the border on Feb 24: Take it all. Vladimir Putin meant to capture Kyiv, install a puppet government, declare victory, and then watch as the invincible Russian military drove tanks over dispirited Ukrainian holdouts while wearing their dress uniforms and singing the Soviet national anthem. According to Moscow, everything is going according to plan.
In the real world, Russia is now moving all its forces to the east and south of Ukraine and where a few days ago there were conflicts all over the nation, now there are just two zones that are the absolute focus of both militaries—and could decide the course of the war.
One of these areas is what might be described as “the Kherson bulge.” With the help of local officials who took a bribe, Russian forces managed to capture two intact bridges across the southern Dnieper River: one on the northern edge of Kherson, and another about 40 miles upstream at Nova Kakhovka.
These bridges allowed Russia to take control of the city of Kherson in the first week of the war. With a population just under 300,000, Kherson represents the only large urban center that Russia has been able to capture and hold since the invasion began. Once they had a grip on Kherson, Russian forces were able to achieve one of their key objectives — opening the flow of water to Crimea, without which conditions there were becoming extremely difficult for Russia to maintain.
Russian forces would like to achieve their second main objective in the area: capturing Odesa and cutting off Ukraine from the Black Sea. However, attempts to reach the city of Mykolaiv were strongly repulsed (in part by some of the same troops that had originally been in Kherson). Ukraine has been gradually pushing back down the same highway along which Russia advanced, recapturing towns and coming within about 20 miles of Kherson proper. In the past two days, Ukrainian forces have also been recapturing a series of towns and villages in the area of that blue arrow at the top of the map.
There were widespread rumors that Russia was going to retreat across the bridges and hold positions on the east side of the Dnieper, but in the past day Russian troops advanced again to capture the town of Snihurivka (that red dot directly east of Mykolaiv). That seems to indicate they have not given up their ambitions in this area.
A total victory for Ukraine would involve capturing one or more bridges and bagging a large number of Russian troops left trapped on the west side of the river. A more likely scenario is that Russia moves east and takes the bridges with them. But the move to take Snihurivka could signal a new advance on Mykolaiv.
In any case, what happens next here could decide whether Russia gets anywhere close to Odesa, because attempts to capture the city by amphibious landing look like a no-go.
The other area is that “gap” in Russia’s control of the Donbas region south of the town of Isyum. This area is the key to whether or nor Russia can complete its number one goal at this point: capturing all of the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts.
The east side of the yellow area on this map represents well-established defensive positions where Ukrainian forces are dug in to prevent a direct westward advance by Russia or its supporters. In order to bypass this position and potentially capture a large number of Ukrainian troops along with their equipment, Russia is pushing south from Izyum and north from the Donetsk.
The simple fact that we’re talking about Izyum as a town under Russian control shows that Russian forces have managed to advance in this area over the past week. Once again working with local officials who—due to either threat or bribery—went over to Putin, Russian forces managed to locate an area where they could successfully ford/bridge the small river running through Izyum, circled around the small local garrison from the southeast, and captured the hold-out town. Now those forces are continuing on to the south.
Russia could continue down the M03 highway toward Slovyansk. If Russia took Slovyansk, its troops would have the option of continuing south or of cutting east along another highway to cut off a portion of the Ukrainian troops along the Donbas defensive line. However, there are indications that’s not what Russia intends to do. Troops may swing west around the town of Kramatorsk, putting them closer to the oblast border and allowing the troops to give the recently discovered oil field in the area a warm hug.
Or …
This would be the equivalent of a Hail Mary pass on the part of Russia. Izyum is already at the end of a long and complex salient that is vulnerable to a possible Ukrainian attack from Kharkiv. But an attempt to go all the way out to Pavlohrad (near the left edge of the map of the Kramatorsk area), would put them way-the-hell out on a limb.
If Russia pulled it off, it would be an amazing feat, and could potentially cut off a sizable portion of the whole Ukrainian army. On the other hand … this looks impossible. They would have a salient that, by that point, would be hundreds of miles long, under assault from every direction, and subject to attack at dozens of locations.
Still, Russia has shelled multiple locations west of Kramatorsk on Thursday, including points along the highway leading to Pavlohrad. That could indicate that they are trying to soften up the route in advance of moving that way.
Meanwhile, Ukraine is well aware of Russia’s intentions in the Kramatorsk gap, and has also repositioned forces. On Wednesday several Russian tanks and a helicopter were destroyed by Ukrainian troops moving in southwest of Izyum, and some of those same vehicles that were involved in building the bridge that allowed Russia to cross the river now look like this:
(Bonus points: Can you name all the items Russian troops were trying to steal when these vehicles were destroyed?)
One other zone of major conflict which I failed to circle: Mariupol. While the battle there may seem to have been decided, that’s not how local Ukrainian forces are behaving. On Thursday, at least one Russian ML-TB armored vehicle was destroyed in the city, and Ukrainian forces are still putting up something that’s far greater than token resistance.
All of this is taking place as Russia has also taken away the city’s last hospital staff at gunpoint and continues to relocate thousands of the city’s residents to unknown locations in Russia.
One of those Russian missile strikes west of Slovyansk has blocked efforts to evacuate civilians from the area in anticipation of the coming battle.
'I am disgusted': Amir Locke's mom speaks after prosecutors refuse to charge cop who killed her son
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Prosecutors announced on Wednesday that they are “declining” to file criminal charges in the shooting death of Amir Locke, a Black man who was lying on a couch when police barged into a downtown Minneapolis apartment and killed Locke after he reached for a gun. Authorities were executing a no-knock search warrant just before 7 A.M. on Feb. 2, according to the offices of Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison and Hennepin County Attorney Michael Freeman. “Amir Locke was not a suspect in the underlying Saint Paul criminal investigation, nor was he named in the search warrants. Amir Locke is a victim,” prosecutors said in a news release. “This tragedy may not have occurred absent the no-knock warrant used in this case.”
Still, prosecutors said the law prevents them from filing charges against Mark Hanneman, the officer who shot Locke. “After a thorough review of all available evidence, however, there is insufficient admissible evidence to file criminal charges in this case,” prosecutors said in their release. “Specifically, the State would be unable to disprove beyond a reasonable doubt any of the elements of Minnesota’s use-of-deadly-force statute that authorizes the use of force by Officer Hanneman.”
RELATED STORY: Family wants answers after 22-year-old Black man, Amir Locke, shot and killed during no-knock raid
“Nor would the State be able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt a criminal charge against any other officer involved in the decision-making that led to the death of Amir Locke.”
While both offices of the Hennepin County Attorney and Minnesota Attorney General agreed in a joint report that existing policies need “rethinking,” they said as prosecutors, they are limited in their role “to considering only whether criminal charges are warranted against any of the police officers involved in Mr. Locke’s death.”
They wrote in the report:
“To file a criminal charge against any of the police officers, and specifically against Officer Hanneman, the State must possess sufficient admissible evidence to prove every element of the criminal offense and disprove at least one element of any available affirmative defense beyond a reasonable doubt. This is a high burden, and it is one which is not met here.”
Prosecutors also cited the expert report of retired Capt. John Ryan, who concluded that “the use of deadly force by Officer Hanneman was consistent with the Minneapolis Police Department when considered in conjunction with generally accepted practices and training in law enforcement.”
Activist Al Sharpton, civil rights attorney Ben Crump, and Amir Locke’s mother, Karen Wells, made a case during a press conference Wednesday at Sharpton’s National Action Network Convention that those generally accepted standards need to change. ”I’m not gonna give up,” Wells said. “Right now, the Minneapolis police officer that executed my baby boy on 2/2/22, be prepared for this family because every time you take a step we’re going to be right behind you. This is not over.”
She directed her message directly to Hanneman and said, “the spirit of my baby is going to haunt you for the rest of your life.”
“I am not disappointed. I am disgusted with the city of Minneapolis,” Wells said.
Although Minneapolis police promised they wouldn’t use no-knock search warrants some two years ago, they went on to seek some 90 of them between November 2020 and September 2021 alone, according to the journalism nonprofit MinnPost. Following the death of 26-year-old emergency medical technician Breonna Taylor, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey issued a policy in November 2020 requiring officers to identify themselves before executing no-knock warrants. Taylor was killed when police raided her home executing a no-knock warrant on Mar. 13, 2020, in Louisville, Kentucky. She was sleeping when officers smashed through her door.
“Outside of limited, exigent circumstances, like a hostage situation, MPD officers will be required to announce their presence and purpose prior to entry,” Frey’s office said in a 2020 statement the Star Tribune obtained. The city tightened the restriction in March, implementing a new policy prohibiting the application for and execution of all no-knock warrants.
Ellison called for Congress to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, an endeavor Republicans sabotaged in pandering to special interest groups working to protect the very people targeted with reform measures. The policing act is a comprehensive police reform bill to ban chokeholds and no-knock warrants and require body cameras, among other reform measures.
Crump said on Wednesday that the National Rifle Association should be joining their fight to get rid of no-knock warrants “because if it can happen to Amir, it can happen to Breonna Taylor, it can happen to your children, too.”
RELATED STORY: Shocking! Negotiations on police reform bill hampered by the very people who need to reform
Listen and subscribe to Daily Kos Elections’ The Downballot podcast with David Nir and David Beard
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott peddles horrific plan to kidnap immigrants, then backtracks
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Right-wing Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Wednesday declared that he would round up and forcibly bus asylum-seekers and other migrants to Washington, D.C., in retaliation for the Biden administration’s just decision to end use of Stephen Miller’s anti-asylum order by end of May.
“To help local officials whose communities are being overwhelmed by hordes of illegal immigrants who are being dropped off by the administration, Texas is providing charter buses to send these illegal immigrants who have been dropped off by the Biden Administration to Washington, D.C.,” Abbott offensively claimed in front of cameras.
But while Abbott puffed up his chest to make the kidnapping threat to the press and cameras, he was notably sedate in the state’s official release, which stated that the busing would actually be completely voluntary. Yes: Providing asylum-seeking families and individuals with Texas taxpayer-funded transportation to a region heavy with pro-immigrant advocacy groups to own the libs.
RELATED STORY: Border state advocates say they’re ready to welcome asylum-seekers following Title 42 announcement
The response to the initial reporting of Abbott’s plan was obviously abject horror. “This is literally kidnapping, right?” tweeted American Immigration Council senior policy counsel Aaron Reichlin-Melnick. “It’s not just me. You can’t just ‘send people’ places against their will. That’s a crime.” It would seem that way. “Any forcible busing of migrants across the country would be outrageous and blatantly unconstitutional,” ACLU of Texas staff attorney Kate Huddleston said in a statement reported by The Texas Tribune.
Did Abbott then backtrack on his threat because “someone mentioned to him that busing people across state lines against their will is felony kidnapping,” as posited by Texas Monthly senior editor Jack Herrera? Or was this the plan all along, because he has a reelection campaign to win and knew it would be breathlessly reported by mainstream outlets and right-wing propagandists?
Then, possibly in response to backlash from racists really angry that it’s all voluntary, Abbott on Fox News refused to say if it was all voluntary:
We know Abbott’s reelection has been heavy on the anti-immigrant stunts. While he’s touted the multibillion dollar Operation Lone Star scheme as a success story, he refuses to be transparent about the data that would back up that lie.
“In the fight against fentanyl, DPS has seized over 288 million lethal doses throughout the state,” Abbott’s office has claimed. But a recent joint investigation from Marshall Project, ProPublica, and The Texas Tribune found that Texas has been citing drug seizures from areas that included “counties that did not receive additional resources from the operation, and some of the newly credited actions included work already conducted by troopers stationed there before the governor’s initiative began.” The report said that his office has fought dozens of public records requests.
The stunt this week drew support from Ted Cruz, who endorsed Abbott for reelection to boos last summer. Cruz, who last year was caught infamously vacationing in beautiful Cancún while Texans froze, said he supported sending migrants to regions including California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. Maybe Ted is unaware, but all have immigrant-rich communities where families would assuredly be welcome. Once again, Texas taxpayer-funded rides to own the libs.
Greg Abbott is a fucking jackass but it doesn’t change the fact that his rhetoric is disgusting—and dangerous. “I see Greg Abbott wants to smuggle migrants,” America’s Voice campaign director Mario Carrillo initially tweeted in response to Abbott’s claim. “All jokes aside, just a truly despicable act by a nasty person who will stop at nothing to dehumanize migrants to score political points. He’s learned nothing from the attack in El Paso in 2019 and doesn’t care if it happens again.”
RELATED STORIES:
GOP states waste no time suing over Biden admin’s termination of anti-asylum Title 42 policy
Texas refuses to be transparent about Operation Lone Star. Probably because it’s all a scheme
Texas’ corrupt attorney general is using the courts to sabotage Biden’s immigration agenda
Tribal and state waterways once again threatened by Trump-era water regulation
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The Supreme Court’s “shadow docket” was in full effect on Wednesday when Justices chose to reinstate a Trump-era water rule that threatens waterways on state and tribal land. In a 5-4 ruling in which all three Trump-appointed Justices were part of the majority, the nation’s highest court chose to allow the 2020 Rule created by the Trump administration to take effect temporarily. The rule concerns Section 401 of the Clean Water Act and limits states’ and tribes’ abilities to review projects like pipelines, from shortening the review period to allowing federal oversight that could overturn a state and tribe’s findings. It is also on states and tribes to prove that projects will harm water quality. Polluters cheered the ruling, while environmental groups and even states themselves sued over what was effectively a gutting of the Clean Water Act.
This led to a federal judge in 2021 rejecting the EPA’s request to keep the rule on the books. An appeal failed, but oil and gas groups and fossil fuel-loving states stayed persistent, filing a request to the Supreme Court to get the rule reinstated, which leads us to Wednesday’s order in the case of Louisiana v. American Rivers. Unsurprisingly, the states interested in keeping antiquated oil and gas ventures in existence included the usual suspects, like Louisiana, Texas, and West Virginia. The groups joining them in the lawsuit include the American Petroleum Institute and Interstate Natural Gas Association of America. It was Justice Elena Kagan who issued the dissenting opinion. She was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. and Justices Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor. The final paragraphs are damning.
“The applicants… have failed to meet that burden.They claim that the vacated rule gave them ‘protections’ against States that previously ‘abuse[d]’ their statutory authority to review infrastructure projects for compliance with water-quality standards. But the applicants have not identified a single project that a State has obstructed in the five months since the District Court’s decision. Still more, they have not cited a single project that the court’s ruling threatens, or is likely to threaten, in the time before the appellate process concludes. The request dissenting for a stay rests on simple assertions—on conjectures, unsupported by any present-day evidence, about what States will now feel free to do. And the application fails to show that proper implementation of the reinstated regulatory regime—which existed for 50 years before the vacated rule came into effect—is incapable of countering whatever state overreach may (but may not) occur. Even the applicants’ own actions belie the need for a stay… The applicants have given us no good reason to think that in the remaining time needed to decide the appeal, they will suffer irreparable harm. By nonetheless granting relief, the Court goes astray.”
The Sierra Club issued a statement urging the EPA to act quickly to right this wrong. The Biden administration promised that a new draft rule would be issued this spring, with a final rule issued next spring. But even a smidgen of time in which oil and gas companies can threaten states and tribes and worsen climate change conditions is a moment too long. EarthJustice, which filed a lawsuit against the Trump-era rule, similarly demanded action from the EPA and called out the Supreme Court. “The Court’s decision to reinstate the Trump administration rule shows disregard for the integrity of the Clean Water Act and undermines the rights of tribes and states to review and reject dirty fossil fuel projects that threaten their water,” Senior Attorney Moneen Nasmith said in a statement. “The EPA must ensure that its revised rule recognizes the authority of states and tribes to protect their vital water resources in its ongoing rule-making under Section 401.”
Senate poised to confirm Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court
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Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson will become U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman to sit on the nation’s highest court, Thursday afternoon. The Senate will vote to confirm her for the seat that Justice Stephen Breyer will vacate before the October term begins, after finishing out the spring term.
She will be the first Black woman on the Supreme Court, fulfilling President Joe Biden’s promise as a candidate back in 2020. She will be the first justice who has experience as a public defender. She is the first justice since Thurgood Marshall to have substantial criminal defense experience. She will be just the second justice in history to have served on all three levels of the federal judiciary—District, Circuit, and the Supreme Court. She has spent more time on the bench as a trial court judge than any nominee since 1923.
In fact, she has more experience on the bench than Justices Thomas, Roberts, Kagan, and Barrett combined had before their confirmations.
Thursday, Apr 7, 2022 · 3:17:31 PM +00:00
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Joan McCarter
It’s a good day. The Senate is about to have the cloture vote on her confirmation, which will be followed by “debate” and then the final vote this afternoon, possibly evening. Hopefully the worst of the worst of Republicans got it out of their systems already, and don’t bother to show up for debate. But we should be so lucky.
Thursday, Apr 7, 2022 · 3:40:26 PM +00:00
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Joan McCarter
Cloture vote begins and, wonderfully, Sen. Cory Booker is in the presiding chair. He’s always the best in the chair, and is so excited this morning he’s nearly vibrating.
Judge Jackson has the quintessential biography for an American success story in public service. She was born in Washington, D.C., in 1970 to two public school teachers. After her birth, the family moved to Miami, Florida, where her father went to law school. She would sit at the kitchen table with him, with her coloring books, while he studied. That, she says, is where her interest in the law was born.
At Miami Palmetto Senior High School, Judge Jackson was a star, but nonetheless, when she told her guidance counselor that she wanted to go to Harvard, she should not set her “sights so high.” She went to Harvard, where she graduated magna cum laude. She then graduated cum laude from Harvard Law School, where she also served as an editor of the Harvard Law Review.
Judge Jackson’s career has been absolutely impeccable. That, of course, did not stop Republicans from wallowing in the gutter with baseless and vile racist and sexist attacks on her record, a tactic blessed by Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
The spectacle was so extreme that a majority of Americans polled right after the hearings by Quinnipiac University were appalled by it.
Nonetheless, Judge Jackson will prevail. Justice, just this once, will prevail.
Washington Post provides a vivid picture of Trump, sitting at Mar-a-Lago and lying. But why?
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Donald Trump’s influence is fading in the Republican Party and everyone outside of his die-hard supporters realizes that nothing he says can be trusted or believed, but The Washington Post is trumpeting an exclusive interview with him, giving Trump space to lie some more. Apparently it’s really newsworthy to hear that Trump still blames everyone else for his supporters attacking the U.S Capitol and still insists he didn’t lose fair and square in 2020.
The Post does offer context for some of what Trump lied about and omitted from his accounts, and notes that he “meandered during the interview and stonewalled questions with long answers.” But nothing here is newsworthy. “Liar continues to lie. Man who never admits error continues to insist he was right about everything.”
RELATED STORY: Rep. Mo Brooks says Donald Trump demanded he take part in a coup well after Jan. 6
Trump’s nonsense included insisting that he was just waiting for Speaker Nancy Pelosi to put a stop to the attack on the Capitol by a mob of thousands of his supporters: “I thought it was a shame, and I kept asking why isn’t she doing something about it? Why isn’t Nancy Pelosi doing something about it? And the mayor of D.C. also. The mayor of D.C. and Nancy Pelosi are in charge,” he told the Post. “I hated seeing it. I hated seeing it. And I said, ‘It’s got to be taken care of,’ and I assumed they were taking care of it.”
While the Post notes that responsibility for the Capitol does not lie solely with the speaker of the House and that the Washington, D.C., mayor’s office repeatedly tried and failed to get through to Trump during the attack, it doesn’t mention the phone call that afternoon in which Trump responded to House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s plea for Trump to tell the mob to stop attacking by saying, “Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are.”
Trump also told the Post he really had wanted to march to the Capitol himself on January 6, but was prevented by the Secret Service. That would have been something else—a violent attack on Congress that the sitting president didn’t just incite through words but physically led to the scene. Of course, since Trump lies, it remains equally likely that he had no desire to do anything more strenuous than he had already done and preferred to go relax at the White House while watching what he’d unleashed from a comfortable seat in a heated room.
He bragged at some length about the size of the crowd at the rally on the Ellipse—the crowd from which the mob of attackers peeled off beginning while he was speaking. “The crowd was far bigger than I even thought. I believe it was the largest crowd I’ve ever spoken to. I don’t know what that means, but you see very few pictures. They don’t want to show pictures, the fake news doesn’t want to show pictures.”
A bigger crowd even than the “million, million and a half people” at the 2017 inauguration? Big, if true.
It was a “tremendous crowd” which he really wanted to lead straight to the Capitol, but once it arrived there, someone else should have stopped it from battering down the doors and windows and assaulting the police officers defending the building and the Congress inside.
On the subject of the 2020 election, which the mob was attempting to overturn on January 6, Trump continues to insist that he was robbed by massive voter fraud. (Again, this is news?) In a masterpiece of admitting something in the midst of denying it, he said of Rep. Mo Brooks’ allegations that he has asked Brooks to help him overturn the election since the inauguration of President Joe Biden, “I didn’t ask [Brooks] to do it. He’s in no position to do it. I certainly didn’t ask him to do it. But I believe when you see massive election fraud, I can’t imagine that somebody who won the election based on fraud, that something doesn’t happen? How has it not happened? If you are a bank robber, or you’re a jewelry store robber, and you go into Tiffany’s and you steal their diamonds and get caught, you have to give the diamonds back.”
I didn’t ask him to do a perfectly reasonable, even just, thing that someone should definitely do. Uh huh.
Nothing about Donald Trump has changed over the past 15 months except his position in the world. And his current position means that the media should not be trotting down to Mar-a-Lago to seek out more lies from him. When he speaks at a rally or endorses a candidate? Sure, that’s news—as much as we might look forward to the day when basically nothing he does is worth our attention. But Trump, sitting at Mar-a-Lago drinking a Diet Coke? Let that guy tell his lies to the people wandering the grounds eager for the chance to suck up to him. Let him rant to the guests of weddings held at the property. It’s not worth making an effort to hear what he has to say.
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Ukraine update: 'Looking behind us now, into history back'
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Here’s a bit of lovely speechifying from one of my favorite film characters, “I’s looking behind us now into history back.” But “time counts, and it keeps counting” and there “ain’t nobody how knows where it’s gonna lead.”
While you’re skimming Google to find Savannah Nix, all of this is just an elaborate way of saying that this morning—43 days into Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine—I’m looking “into history back.” As in, checking out the predictions that media outlets and columnists made before the tanks started to roll. But before we get to the point where Vladimir Putin began to gather forces around Ukraine last fall, here’s a thumbnail sketch of where things have gone over the last couple of decades.
Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine learned quickly that Russia was far too busy dealing with its own internal issues and structural collapse to lend anything like assistance to former Soviet member states. That was underscored in 1995 when Kharkiv was left without drinking water for months after the literal collapse of Soviet-era infrastructure. Both desperate for assistance, and anxious to put some distance between Kyiv and Moscow, Ukraine looked to the West for assistance.
But almost as soon as Vladimir Putin rose to power, he saw that Ukraine was a threat. It wasn’t so much having NATO on the doorstep that bothered the Russian dictator, it was the idea of a functioning democracy with a growing economy that bothered him. After all, many Russians and Ukrainians have close personal and familial links. How was Putin going to keep everyone in Moscow happy with an economy slogging forward under the burden of an authoritarian kleptocracy, if they were always comparing their lives to cousin Sasha’s thriving democracy?
So Putin set out to end that. He launched a series of programs to bribe Ukrainian officials, promote their own oligarchs, and ensure that levels of corruption pegged the dial. When Ukraine still seemed to be looking West, Putin brought in an expert on destroying democracies around the world, Paul Manafort, and set him loose to create chaos, break agreements with the West, and ink deals that bound Kyiv and Moscow. That included destroying deals that were easing Ukraine toward both the EU and NATO.
By 2014, Ukrainians answered Putin with a resounding “no,” ousting pro-Russian officials in the Maidan Revolution, which is also known inside Ukraine as “the Revolution of Dignity.” Once again Ukraine turned to the West, and overthrew the Yanukovych government promoted by Manafort & Putin, Inc.
Then Putin replied by invading Crimea and bolstering pro-Russian separatists—many of which were so pro-Russian that they were actually Russian soldiers or members of the FSB—in the Donbas.
That Russia was able to so easily take Crimea and seize areas of eastern Ukraine wasn’t a signal that Russian soldiers were great and Ukrainian soldiers were terrible. It was a result of Russia acting while a political revolution and reformation in Ukraine was still underway. The capture of Crimea was as much about the internal disruption Putin has spent over a decade building, than it was “Little Green Men” dropping in to secure the borders.
Putin was convinced that this action would teach Ukraine a lesson, reverse the Maidan Revolution, and convince Kyiv to beg to be let back into the Russia club. Instead, the 2014 invasion generated a new unity within Ukraine and increased their determination to rebuild connections with the West. Putin responded to this by sending ever more military equipment to the Donbas (if your internal rebels are driving around in tanks provided by your neighbor, are they really your rebels?) and continuing its efforts to fund corruption in Kyiv — efforts that Republicans from Donald Trump to Rudy Giuliani were all to happy to boost. Russia also took a number of provocative steps like seizing the Kerch Strait that were likely designed to test whether the West was still snoozing when it came to mounting a response (Answer: Yes).
Still, the election of Volodomyr Zelenskyy was seen as a big repudiation of any remaining pro-Russia sentiment and a solid middle-finger to Moscow. Efforts to drag Ukraine out of Putin’s corruption and disruption shadow accelerated.
And that … is why is I’m no good at writing a brief thumbnail version of history. Anyway, Ukraine looked West. Putin spent twenty years trying to prevent Ukraine from evolving a functional democracy. Ukraine shrugged off the efforts. Putin invaded. Ukraine resisted. Putin fumed. Fuck you, Vlad.
There.
Since 2014, Russia has teased a second invasion many times when Putin believed that Ukraine’s progress needed to be checked. So when all those Russian forces began gathering around Ukraine in the fall of 2021, it’s understandable that a lot of people seem to have responded with an eye-roll and a “here we go again.” As Foreign Policy explained, Russia wasn’t actually going to invade. It just wanted a better bargaining position.
Except U.S. intelligence was getting serious signals that this time was different. Unable to cripple Ukraine sufficiently to keep them from evolving into a threat, Putin was going to do the other thing. Crush them.
How did all the experts and analysts respond? It’s not hard to find predictions that Russia would simply roll over Ukraine in The New York Times and other major outlets, or that the West would step back and do nothing. In fact, many of the media forecasts bear an uncanny resemblance to exactly what Moscow was saying. Because transcribing Putin was probably a lot easier than doing any actual analysis.
But there are some surprising nuanced prediction out there that don’t look half bad “in history back.” For example, Defense News didn’t think that Russia was going to go for a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, but there reasoning for this was pretty much—because Putin would be making a huge mistake.
“… it would be very risky diplomatically and expensive militarily for Moscow. Russia could lose. … The Western response to an all-out invasion could be fierce, including possibly providing airpower to Ukraine to defend Kyiv should Ukraine be losing the battle. It could result in escalation and a major war despite lack of an Article 5 commitment. Putin likely knows this. Therefore, he is probably—hopefully—deterred here.”
He wasn’t. Defense News actually expected Putin to go for something more modest and achievable, like just grabbing a land bridge from Donbas to Crimea through Mariupol, but they get points for the clear signal that a full scale of invasion was simply beyond the limits of what the Russian military could achieve.
There’s also this piece, from The Wall Street Journal, that calls a Ukraine invasion “a trap” for Putin.
“If Russian aggression toward Ukraine does expand militarily, however, it could spell the end of the authoritarian experiment that Vladimir Putin has fostered for the past two decades. In any scenario, it will also result in a much-diminished Russia.”
That’s a remarkably good call, in an article that also recognizes Putin’s capture of Crimea was done “from a position of weakness” and ties Putin’s threats to Ukraine toward how his own popularity had crashed following the mishandling of the COVID-19 crisis.
There’s also this analysis from Reuters, that predicts a Russian invasion of Ukraine would be “no walkover.” For the same reasons as the Defense News analysis, this leads to the conclusion that it would be “highly unlikely that Putin would contemplate an outright conquest of Ukraine.”
Honestly, while the biggest media outlets were running a lot of news stories that took Russia marching into Kyiv in their parade best as a given, there were no end of sources with analysis that showed exactly why that was unlikely. But there were far more predictions that treated Russia’s ability to invade and conquer Ukraine as a given, but simply didn’t think Putin would do it, because the cost would be so high, and any attempt to take the whole of the country would turn into a long term slog.
“The invasion would not lead to the kind of swift victory Russia won in Georgia in 2008, or could have won over Ukraine in 2014. This would give the West time to react in whatever manner it chose – which, in turn, would make the outcome of the war less predictable and controllable for Russia. However, one can only guess whether Putin believes there is a credible chance of a substantive Western reaction.”
And that’s the point where most of these predictions failed—not in pointing out that Ukraine’s military had vastly improved over 2014, or that Russia’s ability to wage full scale conquest was questionable at best. They failed on the Putin question.
They failed to predict that despite the high probability of failure, despite the enormous cost in men and materiel, and in spite of a staggering long term cost of isolation and sanctions, Putin would push that button. The biggest errors people made weren’t in overestimating the power of the Russian military, it was in underestimating the size of Putin’s ego.
School board president received death threat against family prior to local election. Guess who won?
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With so much going on both here in the United States and abroad, it’s easy to let local elections slip from our minds. But they’re as important as ever, as evidenced in a recent election in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Prior to the election, Eau Claire Area School District (ECASD) Board President Tim Nordin told Wisconsin Public Radio (WPR) he received a death threat over the district’s inclusive policies.
According to Nordin, the March 2022 email contained direct threats against Nordin and his family. The anonymous sender threatened to “shoot up” the next school board meeting because it promotes a “horrific, radical transgender agenda.” The sender called themselves “Kill All Marxist Teachers.” Nordin was ultimately reelected, and in fact won the most votes, according to local outlet WEAU. One issue that several people campaigned on, however, included the conservative rallying cry of parental rights. Let’s see how that shook out below.
RELATED: We can’t wait to see how Gov. DeSantis will spin these emails …
First, for a fuller picture of Nordin’s situation. In terms of the email to Nordin, he told WPR he notified Eau Claire police, and they began an investigation. He said he feels confident the threat results from people misconstruing a staff development training that included a slide stressing that parents are not “entitled” to know their children’s identities and that the school’s priority is ultimately to support the student. Conservative media picked it up and ran wild with it, and Nordin feels that’s how he ended up getting such a disturbing threat.
“For some students, in some situations, we have to understand the context of that and know that if they’re not safe and they trust an adult at the school, that might be the only adult that they have to trust in their lives,” Nordin told the outlet, adding that it’s essential to keep kids safe.
Three of the folks who ran but didn’t receive enough votes—Corey Cronrath, Melissa Winter, and Nicole Everson—had joined together to issue a statement saying the guideline had a “blatant disregard” for parental rights. Oh boy.
Cronrath, for example, suggested that the school’s guideline to respect students’ identities and keep them safe was a violation of parental rights.
“The school board doesn’t think parents have the right to know their children’s identity,” Cronrath said according to BluGold Media, adding that the board believes equity is “handing out resources to students based on sexual orientation and skin color.” Cronrath went on to say that this wouldn’t be equity, but rather “resource allocation.”
Per a campaign video posted to YouTube, Cronrath thanks the public school system for his opportunities to eventually join the military and have both his undergraduate degree and medical school paid for. He tells viewers he and his wife eventually moved to Eau Claire after hearing good things about the school district, but chose to pull several of his children because of downtrends in performance.
After talking about how his training as a physician equals being a good school board member (which, hm, okay) he slipped in a reference to the current board’s “perception” of not being “transparent” and “working behind the scenes.” He promised to be “available” and “present” to “stakeholders” like parents.
According to the outlet, Winter suggested the guideline was a “slippery slope” and assumes that parents do not have the best interest of their child at heart. To which I would say: That’s sometimes true! Sometimes homophobic and transphobic parents, for instance, don’t have their child’s best interest at heart, because they’re acting based on fear, hatred, or misinformation. See: Conversion therapy.
In the bigger picture of the election, incumbent Marquell Johnson was also re-elected to the school board. Stephanie Farrar was elected to the ECASD Board of Education. According to local outlet WQOW, in terms of the city council, Larry Mboga, Joshua Miller, and Charlie Johnson are three new faces elected to serve. Kate Beaton and Roderick Jones were re-elected.
Depending on where you live, it’s easy to feel that local elections in Wisconsin aren’t going to impact your life. But all elections, big and small, really do make a difference, especially for the young people who don’t yet have the right to vote in those areas. This point is especially relevant now when we see how many school boards are pushing anti-trans rhetoric and how many are trying to pull books by and about LGBTQ+ folks and people of color.
GOP introduces bill forbidding Biden from potentially declaring climate change the threat that it is
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A handful of Republicans have introduced a bill that would prevent President Biden from taking substantive steps to address the climate crisis. Dubbed the “Real Emergencies Act,” the bill claims it attempts to “clarify the inability of the president to declare national emergencies under the National Emergencies Act, major disasters or emergencies under the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act, and public health emergencies under the Public Health Service Act on the premise of climate change, and for other purpose.” What it really does is offer a cheat sheet on lawmakers absolutely loaded with campaign contributions from the very industry that threatens us most. Sen. Shelley Capito of West Virginia, who along with 10 other senators introduced the bill on Wednesday, has netted nearly $1 million from oil and gas and coal mining industry donations since taking office.
Sen. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, who slammed “radical environmentalists” and “leftists” for giving a shit about the future, received just over $100,000 in campaign donations from the mining industry since taking office and more than $750,000 from oil and gas. North Dakota Sen. Kevin Cramer, who flat-out rejects the premise of climate change and recently called on the SEC to abandon its proposed climate risk and emissions rule, received more than $1 million in donations from the oil and gas sector and around $135,000 from mining since taking office. Wyoming Sen. Cynthia Lummis? She’s cleared more than half a million dollars in campaign donations from fossil fuel groups and companies since taking office. Arkansas Sen. John Boozman, who was one of 22 Republicans to sign a letter urging Donald Trump to abandon the Paris Agreement, has made around a quarter of a million dollars from campaign contributions from fossil fuel companies since taking office. And you’ll never guess who else signed that letter: three other lawmakers who also don’t want climate change to be declared an emergency.
Those senators—Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi, Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming, and Sen. John Cornyn of Texas—have cumulatively made more than $3.6 million from the fossil fuel sector since taking office. That leaves just Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, Sen. John Hoeven of North Dakota, Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, and Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma. Their combined total of fossil fuel industry campaign contributions since taking office? Nearly $2.8 million. A companion bill was introduced in the House by Rep. David McKinley of West Virginia, along with 10 co-sponsors who curiously were not named in McKinley’s press release. McKinley is raking in more than his fair share from fossil fuel companies, with oil and gas and mining campaign contributions reaching nearly $1 million.
A quick search for the legislation revealed those 10 lawmakers’ names: Rep. August Pfluger of Texas, Rep. Jake Ellzey of Texas, Rep. Brian Mast of Florida, Rep. Alexander Mooney of West Virginia, Rep. Adrian Smith of Nebraska, Rep. Tom McClintock of California, Rep. Yvette Herrell of New Mexico, Rep. Jefferson Van Drew of New Jersey, Rep. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, and Rep. Buddy Carter of Georgia. It’s a bit of a shame that Carter makes the list, as he made some good points during Wednesday’s House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing on high gas prices about oil companies profiting from his constituents’ pain at the pump, but Carter also willfully misunderstands climate change and has an abysmal lifetime score of 4% from the League of Conservation Voters. Regardless of how much these lawmakers stand to make and their absurd charge that environmentalists are extremists, climate change is legitimately a crisis—and one that President Biden should take seriously enough to call it what it is. Call on the president to declare climate change an emergency under the National Emergencies Act.
Morning Digest: Trump's 'bro' now frontrunner following Ohio Republican's unexpected retirement
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The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, 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
● OH-07: Republican Rep. Bob Gibbs said Wednesday that he was ending his re-election bid for Ohio’s 7th Congressional District, a surprising announcement that came well after candidate filing closed and days following the start of early voting for the state’s May 3 primary. The six-term congressman’s abrupt retirement leaves former Trump aide Max Miller as the frontrunner to claim a seat in the Canton area and Akron suburbs that Trump would have carried 54-45. Gibbs’ name will remain on the ballot, but the secretary of state’s office says that any votes cast for him will not be counted.
Gibbs used his statement to express his anger at the state Supreme Court, which is not scheduled to rule on the fate of the new GOP-drawn congressional map until well after the primary. “It is irresponsible to effectively confirm the congressional map for this election cycle seven days before voting begins,” said the incumbent, “especially in the Seventh Congressional District, where almost 90 percent of the electorate is new and nearly two-thirds is an area primarily from another district, foreign to any expectations or connection to the current Seventh District.” To put it another way, a mere 9% of the residents of the new 7th are already Gibbs’ constituents, so he would have been campaigning in largely unfamiliar turf.
Miller, by contrast, began the cycle by running against Rep. Anthony Gonzalez in a primary for the old 16th District, which makes up 65% of the new 7th. Miller, who was one of Trump’s favorite aides (an unnamed source told Politico that the two “had … kind of a unique ‘bro’ relationship”) received his old boss’ backing last year against Gonzalez, who voted for impeachment and later decided to retire.
Miller ended up taking on Gibbs, who was far more loyal to the MAGA movement, after redistricting led them to seek the same seat, and Trump’s spokesperson said last month that the endorsement carried over to Miller’s new campaign. Miller last year also filed a defamation lawsuit against his ex-girlfriend, former White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham, after she accused him of physically attacking her in 2020.
Gibbs himself got his start in elected office in 2002 when he won a seat in the Ohio state House, and he won a promotion six years later to the state Senate. Gibbs in 2009 set his sights on challenging Democratic Rep. Zack Space in the now-defunct 18th Congressional District, a historically red area in the eastern part of the state that had favored John McCain 52-45, but he had to get past seven fellow Republicans in the following year’s primary first.
Gibbs (who happened to share a name with the Obama White House’s first press secretary), had the support of the party establishment, including House Minority Leader John Boehner, and he benefited after tea party activists failed to back a single alternative. The state senator ultimately beat 2008 nominee Fred Dailey, who had lost to Space 60-40, in a 20.9-20.7 squeaker, though it took another month to confirm Gibbs’ 156-vote victory.
The general election turned out to be a far easier contest for Gibbs in what was rapidly turning into a GOP wave year. Space went on the offensive early by portraying his opponent as a tax hiker and a supporter of free trade agreements, but Gibbs ended up unseating him in a 54-40 landslide. Redistricting two years later left the freshman congressman with a new district, now numbered the 7th, that was largely unfamiliar to him, but unlike in 2022, he faced no serious intra-party opposition in this red constituency. Democrats in 2018 hoped that well-funded Navy veteran Ken Harbaugh could give Gibbs a serious fight, but the incumbent decisively turned him back 59-41.
The Downballot
● On this week’s episode of The Downballot, we’re joined by Ali Lapp, the founder of the House Majority PAC—the largest super PAC devoted to helping Democrats win House races nationwide. Lapp discusses HMP’s role in the broader Democratic ecosystem, how the organization decides which districts to target, and promising research showing the positive impacts of a new ad touting Democrats’ record on the economy.
Co-hosts David Nir and David Beard also recap elections this week in California and Wisconsin; explain why Republicans are finally turning on Madison Cawthorn (it’s not really about cocaine and orgies); pick apart a huge blunder that led to the first attack ad in Pennsylvania’s Democratic primary for Senate getting yanked off the air the very day it debuted; and provide updates on international elections in Hungary and France. You can listen to The Downballot on all major podcast platforms, and you’ll find a transcript right here by noon Eastern Time.
1Q Fundraising
- FL-Sen: Val Demings (D): $10 million raised, $13.1 million cash-on-hand
- IA-Sen: Michael Franken (D): $1.4 million raised, $1 million cash-on-hand
- NH-Sen: Maggie Hassan (D-inc): $4.3 million raised, $7.5 million cash-on-hand
- CA-26: Matt Jacobs (R): $320,000 raised
- FL-15: Jackie Toledo (R): $353,000 raised (in three weeks)
- IL-03: Gilbert Villegas (D): $390,000 raised
- IL-06: Sean Casten (D-inc): $784,000 raised, $2 million cash-on-hand
- IL-13: Nikki Budzinski (D): $500,000 raised, $1 million cash-on-hand
- NE-01: Patty Pansing Brooks (D): $270,000 raised
- NY-18: Colin Schmitt (R): $350,000 raised
- OH-01: Greg Landsman (D): $532,000 raised, $415,000 cash-on-hand
- RI-02: Jessica de la Cruz (R): $65,000 raised (in “two weeks of active 1Q fundraising”), additional $20,000 self-funded
Senate
● AL-Sen: The first half of Army veteran Mike Durant’s ad details his near-death experience during the 1993 “Black Hawk Down” incident in Somalia, with the narrator declaring, “Mike Durant was saved by his brothers. His life spared by the grace of God.” The spot then abruptly changes tone as the voice says the GOP primary candidate “believes the unborn deserve the same.”
● GA-Sen: Banking executive Latham Saddler is using his opening spot to contrast his service in the military with GOP primary frontrunner Herschel Walker’s time as a football star. Saddler begins by acknowledging, “Herschel Walker was my childhood sports hero,” before continuing, “I also wore a uniform: I ran on the battlefield as a Navy SEAL.” He concludes that he’s in the race “so that you can choose between a war fighter and a celebrity.”
● NC-Sen: The Republican firm Cygnal, which did not identify a client, has a new general election survey that finds GOP Rep. Ted Budd leading Democrat Cheri Beasley 45-43 as former Gov. Pat McCrory ties her 41-41.
● NH-Sen: The NH Journal’s Michael Graham writes that many GOP insiders believe that two-time New York Senate nominee Wendy Long will join the Republican primary to challenge Democratic incumbent Maggie Hassan, though there’s no word from her. Long earned just over one-quarter of the vote back in the Empire State against Kirsten Gillibrand and Chuck Schumer in 2012 and 2016, respectively, and she’s since moved to New Hampshire. Those showings didn’t impress many people except perhaps off-and-on Trump advisor Corey Lewandowski, who has claimed with “100%” certainty that an unnamed woman will join the primary to take on Hassan.
Graham adds that Vikram Mansharamani, who is an author and lecturer at Harvard, “has been making media appearances and is reportedly speaking with potential campaign strategists and advisors,” though he also hasn’t said anything about his 2022 plans. The filing deadline isn’t until June 10.
● OH-Sen: Venture capitalist J.D. Vance’s allies at Protect Ohio Values PAC have released a new poll from Fabrizio Lee & Associates that shows an 18-18-18 deadlock between Vance, state Treasurer Josh Mandel, and businessman Mike Gibbons in the May 3 GOP primary, with former state party chair Jane Timken at 9%. The firm warned back in January that Vance’s numbers were in a “precipitous decline,” but they’re now crediting the PAC’s ad campaign with propelling him forward.
Timken, for her part, has dropped a Moore Information survey that finds Gibbons leading Mandel 20-16, with her just behind at 15%; state Sen. Matt Dolan takes 13%, while Vance brings up the rear with 10%.
● PA-Sen: TV personality Mehmet Oz has publicized a survey from Basswood Research that shows him edging out former hedge fund manager David McCormick 25-22 in the May 17 GOP primary, with former Ambassador to Denmark Carla Sands at 13%. Oz released the poll on Trump’s disastrous Truth Social platform, which may make him its most prolific user by default.
Governors
● MI-Gov: Wealthy businessman Perry Johnson’s new spot for the August GOP primary blames Democratic incumbent Gretchen Whitmer, Joe Biden, and the state’s former governor, Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm, for high gas prices. The narrator goes after Whitmer for wanting to close Enbridge Line 5, which The Washington Post explains is “a 69-year old petroleum pipeline that runs under the Great Lakes” that is in danger of spillage.
● PA-Gov: The very first negative TV ad of next month’s packed GOP primary comes from former U.S. Attorney Bill McSwain, who manages to fit in attacks on wealthy businessman Dave White, state Sen. Doug Mastriano, and former Rep. Lou Barletta into just 30 seconds. The spot does not mention state Senate President Pro Tempore Jake Corman or any of McSwain’s other four opponents.
The narrator begins by declaring that White, who is a former member of the Delaware County Council, “is a career politician who voted to raise property taxes.” She then goes after Mastriano for supporting what she calls “the unconstitutional mail-in voting law,” which passed in 2019 before Trump and his allies started to wage war on vote-by-mail: The Philadelphia Inquirer explains that a state judge ruled the legislation unconstitutional earlier this year, but that the state Supreme Court has stayed the decision.
Finally, the narrator argues Barletta “supported higher gas taxes and approved Obama’s budgets.” The rest of the commercial touts McSwain as a “Trump-appointed prosecutor” who has “never run for office and will permanently cut the gas tax.”
House
● CA-22 (special): Former Assembly Minority Leader Connie Conway took first place in Tuesday’s special all-party primary to succeed her fellow Republican, former Rep. Devin Nunes, but she may need to wait a while to learn the identity of her opponent in the June 7 general election. (Whether Nunes will still have his gig running Trump’s disastrous social media platform by June is a separate question.) With 64,000 votes counted Conway leads with 35%, while Democrat Lourin Hubbard, who is an official at the California Department of Water Resources, is in second with 20%; just behind with 15% each are GOP businessman Matt Stoll and another Democrat, Marine veteran Eric Garcia.
It is not clear how many votes are left to tabulate, but the Los Angeles Times says that any mail-in ballots postmarked by Tuesday have until April 12 to arrive. Neither Conway nor Hubbard are running for a full term in Congress anywhere, while Stoll and Garcia are challenging Democratic Rep. Jim Costa in the new 21st District.
● CO-07: State Sen. Brittany Pettersen, who already had the backing of retiring Rep. Ed Perlmutter and the rest of the state’s Democratic delegation, will have the June Democratic primary to herself following her decisive win against minor opposition at Tuesday’s party convention.
Colorado, as we’ve written before, allows candidates to advance to the primary either by turning in the requisite number of signatures or by taking at least 30% of the vote at their party convention, and no other Democratic contenders successfully pursued either route. Republicans, who are the underdogs in a seat that Biden would have carried 56-42, have not yet held their party gathering yet.
● CO-08: State Rep. Yadira Caraveo became the sole Democratic contender for this new swing seat on Tuesday, while at least four Republicans will be competing in the June party primary. Caraveo took 71% of the delegate votes at her party’s convention (also known as the party assembly), while Adams County Commissioner Chaz Tedesco fell just short of the 30% he needed to appear on the primary ballot. Tedesco, like Caraveo, had originally planned to both collect signatures and take part in the assembly, but because he failed to turn in enough petitions ahead of last month’s deadline, his showing Tuesday marked the end of his campaign.
On the other side, Weld County Commissioner Lori Saine was the only major candidate to compete at Team Red’s assembly on Saturday, and her easy victory earned her the top spot on the June ballot. Republican conventions often favor extreme contenders, and Saine offered just that with a video where she declared she “ran to expose, stop, and destroy the anti-family, anti-America, anti-God agenda” the Democrats presented; she also used her message to decry “weak, whiney moderates” in the GOP.
Unlike Caraveo, though, Saine’s convention win doesn’t ensure her the nomination. That’s because state Sen. Barb Kirkmeyer, Thornton Mayor Jan Kulmann, and retired Army Green Beret Tyler Allcorn previously turned in the requisite 1,500 signatures they needed to make the ballot, so they did not need to take part in the assembly. A fifth Republican, business owner Jewels Gray, is still waiting to hear from election officials if she submitted enough petitions to make the ballot after she failed to win 30% of the vote at the convention. Biden would have carried this new seat, which includes Denver’s northern suburbs, 51-46.
● FL-22: Commercial airline pilot Curtis Calabrese announced this week that he would join the August Democratic primary to succeed retiring Rep. Ted Deutch. Calabrese, who is a first-time candidate, will take on Broward County Commissioner Jared Moskowitz, who had the field to himself up until now. Calabrese, who would be the state’s first openly gay member of Congress, served as a Navy combat aviator before working for the FAA, including as a labor official. Florida Politics writes it was in that capacity that he made several media appearances, including on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!,” to explain how the 2018-2019 government shutdown was impacting him and his colleagues.
● GA-07: Democratic Rep. Lucy McBath has earned the support of the American Federation of Government Employees for next month’s primary against fellow incumbent Carolyn Bourdeaux.
● IL-15: Politico reports that the anti-tax Club for Growth is spending $400,000 on an ad campaign touting Mary Miller ahead of her June Republican primary showdown against fellow Rep. Rodney Davis. The commercial reminds viewers that Miller is Trump’s choice and pledges she’ll “never compromise on election integrity.”
● NJ-02: Monday was the filing deadline for New Jersey’s June 7 primary, and the state has a list of contenders for the U.S. House available here.
Republican Rep. Jeff Van Drew won a competitive re-election campaign in 2020 the year after he defected from the Democratic Party, and the state’s new congressional map extended Trump’s margin of victory in this South Jersey shore seat from 51-48 to 52-47. Civil rights attorney Tim Alexander has the backing of the local Democratic establishment and faces no serious intra-party opposition, but he struggled to raise money during 2021.
● NJ-03: Redistricting transformed Democratic Rep. Andy Kim’s South Jersey seat from a constituency Trump narrowly carried to one that Biden would have won 56-42, though it’s possible this district could still be in play in a tough year for Team Blue. The most serious Republican contender appears to be wealthy yacht manufacturer Robert Healey, who is also a former punk rock singer.
● NJ-05: Rep. Josh Gottheimer, who is one of the most prominent moderate Democrats in the House, got some welcome news when filing closed and he learned he had no primary opposition in this North Jersey constituency. Five Republicans, though, are competing here even though the new map extended Biden’s margin from 52-47 to 56-43.
The most prominent challenger appears to be Marine veteran Nick De Gregorio, who has the influential GOP party endorsement in populous Bergen County. (We explain the importance of county party endorsements in New Jersey here.) Also in the mix are 2020 nominee Frank Pallotta, who lost to Gottheimer 53-46, and businessman Fred Schneiderman, who recently began airing his opening TV ad.
● NJ-06: Longtime Democratic Rep. Frank Pallone faces his first notable Republican opposition in some time in the form of Monmouth County Commissioner Sue Kiley, but she’s still very much the underdog in a seat that would have backed Biden 59-40. (Redistricting even made this seat, which includes northern Middlesex County and the northern Jersey Shore, slightly bluer.) A few other Republicans are also in including former RNC staffer Tom Toomey and Rik Mehta, who was Team Red’s doomed 2020 Senate nominee.
● NJ-07: Democratic Rep. Tom Malinowski is defending a North Jersey seat where redistricting shrunk Biden’s margin of victory from 54-44 to 51-47, and he’s likely to face a familiar opponent in the fall. Former state Senate Minority Leader Tom Kean Jr. is running again after losing to Malinowski just 51-49 in 2020, and he has the influential party endorsement in all six of the district’s counties. Kean’s most notable intra-party foe is Assemblyman Erik Peterson, but there are five other candidates, including Fredon Mayor John Flora and 2021 gubernatorial candidate Phil Rizzo, who could split whatever anti-Kean vote there is.
● NJ-08: Democratic leaders responded to Rep. Albio Sires’ retirement announcement in December by immediately consolidating behind Port Authority Commissioner Robert Menendez Jr., who is the son and namesake of New Jersey’s senior U.S. senator. Four other Democrats are running in this safely blue seat in the Jersey City area, but there’s no indication that any of them are capable of giving Menendez a serious fight.
● NJ-11: The state’s new congressional map augmented Biden’s margin in this North Jersey seat from 53-46 all the way up to 58-41, but five Republicans are still hoping that Democratic Rep. Mikie Sherrill is vulnerable. The frontrunner looks like Morris County Commissioner Tayfun Selen, who sports important GOP county party endorsements; also in the race are Army veteran Toby Anderson and former prosecutor Paul DeGroot.
● OR-06: Gov. Kate Brown announced Wednesday that she was endorsing state Rep. Andrea Salinas in the crowded May 17 Democratic primary for this new seat.
● TX-34 (special): Former Cameron County Commissioner Dan Sanchez announced Wednesday that he was entering the June special all-party primary with endorsements from former Democratic Rep. Filemon Vela and 15th District Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, who is Team Blue’s nominee for a full term in the new version of the 34th.
Attorneys General
● MD-AG: Former Judge Katie Curran O’Malley has picked up the support of former Sen. Barbara Mikulski, who served from 1987 until 2017, for the July Democratic primary for this open seat. Rep. Anthony Brown, meanwhile, has received endorsements from 32BJ SEIU, which represents property service workers, and 1199SEIU, which is for health care employees: Maryland Matters writes that these groups represent a total of 30,000 Marylanders.
Legislatures
● Special Elections: We have a recap of Tuesday’s all-party primary in Georgia followed by a preview of a rare Thursday contest in New York:
GA HD-45: A runoff will take place May 3 between Republican Mitch Kaye and Democrat Dustin McCormick for the final months of former GOP state Rep. Matt Dollar’s term. Kaye led McCormick 42-40, while the balance went to two other Republicans. Kaye is not running for a full term, while McCormick faces no intra-party opposition in the regular May primary to take on Republican state Rep. Sharon Cooper in the new version of HD-45.
NY AD-20: We have a special election in Nassau County to succeed Republican Melissa Miller, who resigned in February after she was appointed to the Hempstead Town Board, in a seat Trump carried 52-47 in 2020. The GOP is fielding Cedarhurst Deputy Mayor Eric Ari Brown while the Democratic nominee is David Lobl, a former advisor to Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
Mayors
● Milwaukee, WI Mayor: Acting Mayor Cavalier Johnson decisively won Tuesday’s special election to succeed his fellow Democrat, Tom Barrett, by beating conservative Bob Donovan 72-28. Johnson, who made history as the first Black person elected to lead Milwaukee, will be up for a full four-year term in 2024. He could also be in office for quite a long time to come, as Johnson is now only the fifth person elected to this post since 1945.