Today’s installment of campaign-related news items from across the country.
* In Tarrant County, Texas, the third-largest county in the state, local Republican officials did exactly what voting rights advocates feared they’d do: In a Tuesday afternoon vote, they approved a plan to eliminate dozens of polling locations, which was widely recognized as an unsubtle voter suppression effort.
MS NOW reported, “For more than three hours, hundreds of protesters gathered outside a courthouse to decry voter disenfranchisement ahead of the upcoming November elections in one of the most politically important swing counties in Texas. … In all, more than 85 speakers opposed the polling reductions. Only a handful spoke in favor of the plan.”
In the 2022 midterm elections, Tarrant County had 316 polling locations where Texans could cast ballots. In this year’s cycle, that total will shrink to 224 locations.
* In Massachusetts’ primaries, several longtime Democratic incumbents survived primaries — including Sen. Ed Markey and Reps. Stephen Lynch and Richard Neal — though the congressional primaries proved more competitive than Lynch and Neal would’ve preferred.
Meanwhile, in Massachusetts’ 6th Congressional District, there was no incumbent, and Dan Koh, a former White House aide who enjoyed Joe Biden’s endorsement, came out on top in a crowded field, finishing with roughly 41% of the vote.
Koh is likely to succeed Rep. Seth Moulton, who fell far short in his Senate primary and who quickly threw his support behind Markey after the race was called.
* In Alaska, state election officials have finalized the top four candidates for this year’s Senate electio, and the quartet features one Democrat and three Republicans, two of whom are named Dan Sullivan (including the incumbent GOP senator).
* In Maine’s closely watched U.S. Senate race, Reproductive Freedom for All is launching a new ad campaign targeting Republican Sen. Susan Collins over her role in confirming Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who was part of the majority that overturned Roe v. Wade.
A super PAC backing Collins, meanwhile, is launching an even larger ad campaign, targeting Democrat Troy Jackson for supporting state legislation that allows transgender women to be housed in women’s prisons.
* Because Texas is an extremely expensive state to run statewide campaign ads in, and Republicans weren’t planning to worry about the state’s U.S. Senate race this year, Senate Majority Leader John Thune is publicly encouraging Donald Trump and his political operation to start investing in support of the party’s scandal-plagued nominee, state Attorney General Ken Paxton.
* A few days after Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania expressed public confusion over “why Democrats are upset with me,” the senator appeared on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show and complained that the Democratic Party is “having like an orgy of socialism.”
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