Today’s installment of campaign-related news items from across the country.
* After just five years on Capitol Hill, Republican Rep. Debbie Lesko of Arizona announced that she won’t seek re-election next year. “Spending, on average, three weeks out of every month away from my family, and traveling back and forth to Washington, D.C. almost every weekend is difficult. Right now, Washington, D.C. is broken; it is hard to get anything done,” Lesko said in a statement.
* In Florida, Navy veteran Phil Ehr has been running a Democratic U.S. Senate campaign, but he’s now shifting his focus and launching a U.S. House race against incumbent Republican Rep. Carlos Gimenez. It means former Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell is that much more likely to be the Democratic nominee against incumbent Republican Sen. Rick Scott.
* The latest SurveyUSA/Baldwin Wallace University poll found that abortion-rights proponents are likely to prevail on Issue 1 in Ohio: The survey found reproductive rights advocates leading their opponents, 58% to 34%.
* The Wall Street Journal reports that some prominent wealthy megadonors who’ve supported Republicans in the past would like to see someone other than Donald Trump win the GOP’s 2024 nomination, but they’re not opening their wallets: “With Trump commandingly leading GOP primary polls three months before voting begins, some of the party’s biggest donors are holding back on major investments in other candidates.”
* The latest national NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll found incumbent Democratic President Joe Biden with a three-point advantage over Trump in a hypothetical general-election match-up, 49% to 46%. Oddly enough, when Robert Kennedy Jr.’s independent candidacy is added to the mix, the same poll fond Biden’s lead growing to seven points, 44% to 37%, while the conspiracy theorist received 16% support.
* Republicans tend to see Sen. Jon Tester as one of next year’s most vulnerable Senate incumbents, but the latest Emerson College Polling survey found the Montana Democrat leading Republican Tim Sheehy, 39% to 35%. Much of the state’s electorate, however, remains undecided.
