Today’s installment of campaign-related news items from across the country.
* Last night, Texas Republican legislators advanced a newly gerrymandered U.S. House map, designed to reduce minority opportunity districts and counteract the state’s growing diversity.
* It seems hard to believe, but Illinois’ Democratic governor, J.B. Pritzker, has spent nearly $7 million in advertising in support of his re-election campaign, which is still 13 months away.
* Speaking of 2022 gubernatorial races, Florida state Sen. Annette Taddeo shook up the Democrats’ primary contest yesterday, throwing her hat into the ring. Taddeo will face off against Rep. Charlie Crist and Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried, both of whom have been running aggressive campaigns for months.
* Jay Jacobs, the chair of New York’s Democratic Party, was asked yesterday why the party hasn’t yet endorsed India Walton’s mayoral campaign in Buffalo, despite her victory in a Democratic primary. Jacobs responded, “Let’s take a scenario, very different, where David Duke, you remember him? The grand wizard of the KKK? He moves to New York, he becomes a Democrat, and he runs for mayor in the city of Rochester, which has a low primary turnout, and he wins the Democratic line. I have to endorse David Duke? I don’t think so.” The comparison was not well received. * Divisions within Massachusetts’ Republican Party appear to be intensifying, with Republican Gov. Charlie Baker calling on Jim Lyons, the state GOP chair, to resign. Lyons responded by suggesting the governor leave the party altogether. * And in North Carolina’s U.S. Senate race, Axios reports that some of former Gov. Pat McCrory’s high-dollar donors started backing his primary rival, Rep. Ted Budd, after Donald Trump endorsed the conservative congressman. The report added, “The former president’s endorsement can be literal currency in Republican primary fights.”
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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