Today’s installment of campaign-related news items from across the country.
* A Republican state legislator in Texas introduced a measure this week to approve a “forensic audit” of the Lone Star State’s 2020 election results. Under the plan, the scrutiny would only apply to Texas’ largest counties — which happen to be the areas where Democratic votes were strongest.
* In Arizona, the latest poll from Data for Progress found that 66% of the state’s Democratic voters would support a primary challenge to Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) if she continues to oppose filibuster reforms. The Democratic senator’s approval rating statewide is 44% in the poll, lower than the support President Biden and Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) currently enjoy.
* To no one’s surprise, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) announced this week that he will seek a second term in the governor’s office. A handful of Republican rivals have announced statewide 2022 campaigns, but there’s no clear GOP frontrunner yet.
* Rep. Liz Cheney’s (R-Wyo.) Republican primary rivals will reportedly gather at one of Donald Trump’s golf clubs next week, seeking the former president’s blessing. As the Associated Press reported, the Wyoming congresswoman has at least seven GOP challengers, and it’s not yet clear how many of them will show up to kiss Trump’s ring in New Jersey.
* Speaking of the former president, Trump told Washington Post reporters, “I think it would be hard if George Washington came back from the dead and he chose Abraham Lincoln as his vice-president, I think it would have been very hard for them to beat me.” In related news, Trump last year became the first president since 1892 to lose the popular vote twice in successive elections. * Apparently eager to give his 2022 campaign a boost, Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush (R) last week sued the Biden administration, accusing it of illegally preventing the construction of a border wall. Bush is currently taking on incumbent state Attorney General Ken Paxton in a Republican primary. * And in Virginia’s gubernatorial race, Democratic hopeful Terry McAuliffe announced this week that President Joe Biden will headline a campaign event in Arlington on July 23. The president won the commonwealth last fall by nearly double digits.
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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