MA-04: Why these candidates might be the ones to win the primary

It is getting very close to the primary, and there is no clear front runner. The race to replace Joe Kennedy III's vacant seat in the 4th congressional district has had many twists and turns throughout the year, ranging from high profile endorsements, criticism over past comments, accusations over "dark money", and more stories that could make your head spin. Yet, the one thing that this race has not been able to produce is a first place candidate. The eight Democrats, all hailing from the northern half of the district, have been making a final push this week to get their names and excitement out into the public. This has resulted in "street canvassing" across the district from Needham to Attleboro, investing in Super PACs for funding, and in one candidate's case, purchasing ads in newspapers. So with all that said, out of all the candidates in the Democratic primary, who has the best chance?

If you had to ask me, I believe the race for first place is currently between three candidates. Newton City Councilman Jake Auchincloss, Newton City Councilwoman Becky Grossman, and former Brookline Select Board member, Jesse Mermell. These three candidates have managed to gain the most traction throughout this race, each with their own strengths and with their own struggles. While it is unlikely that any of these candidates are winning this race in a landslide, I do believe that these "big three" candidates are in the most comfortable position to win, period.




https://www.basstalksmass.com/post/the-big-three-why-these-candidates-might-be-the-ones-to-win-the-ma04-primary

FL-18: Chairwoman Bustos Comment on Congressman Mast's "Jokes" About Rape

Tonight, the South Florida Sun Sentinel uncovered old Facebook posts that show Congressman Brian Mast and his Campaign Manager Rocco LeDonni “joking” about rape and having sex with 15-year-old girls.

In the now deleted comments, Mast commented on a picture: “im so proud of you…i hope you hook up with at least fifteen 15 year olds over there…its legel there right.”

Mast also responded to a comment by LeDonni about picking up women saying: “How about don’t turn this rape into a murder.”

Statement from DCCC Chairwoman Cheri Bustos:

“Congressman Mast’s flippant and cavalier attitude towards rape and sexual violence has no place in the halls of Congress. No excuse or apology can erase his words. Minority Leader McCarthy must condemn Congressman Mast’s behavior that actively encourages rape and sexual violence, and NRCC Chairman Emmer must remove Congressman Mast from the NRCC’s Patriot Program.”



https://dccc.org/dccc-chairwoman-bustos-comment-congressman-masts-jokes-rape/

AZ-SEN: Anti-Semitic Mary Ann Mendoza: Too extreme for RNC, but not for Martha McSally

CO-SEN: Gabby Giffords plans virtual rally with Hickenlooper to boost background checks

Gun-control advocate Gabby Giffords plans to hold a virtual rally with Democratic U.S. Senate candidate John Hickenlooper Wednesday to support universal background checks, her political organization said.

The online discussion will also feature Sandy Phillips, the mother of Aurora theater shooting victim Jessi Phillips, and Robin Lloyd, managing director of Giffords, the national organization co-founded by the former Arizona congresswoman, who was wounded in a 2011 shooting at a constituent outreach event.

Giffords endorsed Hickenlooper in March at an event in Aurora, and Giffords PAC has been hammering his Republican opponent, U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner, with a $1.25 million TV ad buy highlighting Gardner's links to President Donald Trump.

"The evening will highlight how even after historic levels of daily gun violence, including horrific mass shootings that have captured the attention of our nation, Republican Senate leadership has refused to hold any votes on background check legislation," Giffords PAC said in a release. "Meanwhile, Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell and Senator Cory Gardner have accepted millions of dollars from the NRA."

The teleconference takes place 5-6 p.m. Wednesday. Members of the public can register here to participate.


https://www.coloradopolitics.com/2020-election/gun-control-advocate-gabby-giffords-plans-virtual-rally-with-hickenlooper-to-boost-background-checks/article_b5222cb2-e702-11ea-b5c7-f3062274eec5.html

MA-SEN: Markey denounces 'hateful language' against Kennedy

U.S. Sen. Edward Markey is denouncing the “vile and hateful language” being directed toward his challenger online as U.S. Rep. Joseph Kennedy III’s campaign and a group of prominent Jewish leaders and business people accuse the incumbent of allowing online vitriol from his supporters to fester.

“Threats online, against any person, is completely and totally unacceptable and intolerable,” Markey said after a campaign event Tuesday outside Somerville City Hall. “This kind of harmful language should not be a part of any campaign.”

The condemnation comes after Kennedy’s campaign manager, Nick Clemons, fired off a letter to Markey’s campaign manager, John Walsh, on Monday demanding the senator’s team tell its supporters to “immediately end the attacks” on Kennedy and his backers that have included death threats.

But his dismissal was met with disappointment from a group of some four dozen prominent philanthropists, lawyers and former political operatives — many of whom are Kennedy supporters, though several have also donated to Markey’s campaign or have worked with the senator and Walsh in the past — who implored Markey and Walsh to do “the proper thing.”

“What is being leveled at Joe is morally wrong. It is dangerous,” reads the group’s letter to Walsh on Tuesday, a copy of which was provided to the Herald. “It is not morally acceptable for Ed to shrug his shoulders and say that he does not control those who are engaged in this conduct. And it is not right for John to characterize calls for Ed to denounce this conduct as ‘crocodile tears.’ ”

Markey remains adamant his campaign “is not responsible for those tweets” and said he’s been condemning the behavior since Kennedy brought it up in a debate two weeks ago.



https://www.bostonherald.com/2020/08/25/markey-denounces-hateful-language-in-battle-against-kennedy-as-group-pushes-him-to-do-the-proper-thing/

Harris County officials in talks with Hosuton Rockets to bring voting to Toyota Center

Texas' largest county sending mail-in ballot applications to millions of registered voters

Doubling down on increasing the use of voting by mail in November, Harris County will send every registered voter in Texas' most populous county an application for a mail-in ballot for the general election.

The move, announced Tuesday by the county clerk's office, puts Harris County — which has more than 2.4 million residents on its voter roll — ahead of most other counties when it comes to proactively working to bump up the number of voters who may request mail-in ballots. Election officials expect a record number of people to vote by mail this year, but not all of Harris County's registered voters will ultimately qualify.

Texas is one of just six states that hasn’t opened up mail-in voting to any voter concerned about getting COVID-19 at a polling place. The state's eligibility requirements remain strict — voters can only qualify for a ballot they can fill out at home if they are 65 or older, if they will be out of the county during the election period, if they cite a disability or illness, or if they’re confined in jail but still eligible to vote.

But in sending out ballot applications to every voter, Harris County is employing an initiative that several states have carried out for primary elections during the coronavirus pandemic.

Harris County Clerk Chris Hollins has said he was encouraged by the county's return rate ahead of the July primary runoff election when it sent applications to every registered voter who was 65 or older. Typically, voters must print out or request applications for ballots by mail from the county or the state and deliver or mail them to their local elections office. In between the March primary election and the July primary runoff, the county saw a more than 100% increase in vote-by-mail applications, Hollins said.

"If you're eligible to vote by mail, we want you to vote by mail. It's safest for you. It's safest for all your neighbors," Hollins said in a previous interview, arguing that every additional mail-in voter would make the election safer for those voting in person because they'd have to stand behind one less voter who could potentially infect them. "Voting by mail is the safest way to vote, and all those who are eligible to vote should strongly consider casting their vote in that manner — not only for themselves but as a service, a duty to other residents."


https://www.texastribune.org/2020/08/25/texas-vote-by-mail-harris/

Arizona's Virus Recovery Fails to Boost GOP's Election Prospects

(Bloomberg) -- In less than two months, Arizona went from global Covid-19 hot spot to a model of Sunbelt recovery. Republican Governor Doug Ducey led the turnaround by rejecting his initial embrace of President Donald Trump’s virus skepticism.

Ducey’s pivot has slowed the virus, at least for now, but it hasn’t spared his fellow Republicans from the backlash against the president’s handling of the pandemic, which has killed 4,771 state residents so far.

Arizona, the land of U.S. Senate conservative icons Barry Goldwater and John McCain, has voted for a Democratic presidential candidate exactly once in almost seven decades -- Bill Clinton in 1996. But Joe Biden leads Trump by several percentage points in most polls. And Democratic Senate nominee Mark Kelly holds a double-digit lead over sitting Republican Senator Martha McSally, whom Ducey appointed after McCain died.

McSally, who has closely aligned herself with Trump, is considered the most vulnerable incumbent Republican senator in the November election. The Arizona race is pivotal for any chances of Democrats overturning the GOP’s 53-47 majority in the chamber.



https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/arizona-e2-80-99s-virus-recovery-fails-to-boost-gop-e2-80-99s-election-prospects/ar-BB18jJEc

Republican convention speaker out of lineup after retweeting anti-Semitic rant

A speaker for the Republican National Convention retweeted an anti-Semitic screed on Tuesday morning, the same day she was slated to take the stage to praise President Donald Trump’s hard-line immigration policies.

A person familiar with the matter confirmed to POLITICO on Tuesday evening that the speaker, Mary Ann Mendoza, was no longer appearing at the RNC.

Mendoza, who was to talk about her police officer son who was killed in a car crash, shared the Twitter messages, writing, “Do yourself a favor and read this thread.” The thread includes nearly every anti-Semitic trope of the last century to portray a Jewish cabal set on taking over American government. It includes a link to “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” an infamous fabrication from Tsarist Russia that was popular in Nazi Germany. The Daily Beast first reported on Mendoza’s tweet.

An hour before the televised portion of the convention was to begin, the tweet disappeared from Mendoza’s Twitter account. She later wrote on Twitter that she retweeted the thread without reading "every post within the thread."



https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/25/rnc-speaker-retweets-anti-semitic-rant-401851

Trump's Scare Tactics Aren't Working on Women in the Suburbs

The suburbs, like this one, just up Interstate 77 from the official site of the start of this week’s Republican National Convention, make up the terrain on which the coming election almost certainly will be decided. The suburbs almost always are a political battlefield, or at least have been for the past generation or more. And if Trump can’t win or even loses a sufficient slice of his support in Cornelius, one of the whitest and most reliably Republican of the key suburbs in this critical swing state, he probably can’t win North Carolina, according to pollsters and strategists. And if he can’t win North Carolina, they say, he probably can’t win reelection. Hence the message he’s been delivering with increasing frequency and ferocity of late, appealing to the “Suburban Housewives of America,” charging that Joe Biden wants to “destroy your neighborhood and your American Dream,” and stressing that residents of American suburbia want “security” and not “low-income housing” forced “down their throats.”

“Why,” he asked in a tweet over the weekend, “would Suburban Women vote for Biden and the Democrats when Democrat run cities are now rampant with crime … which could easily spread to the suburbs?”

It was a prominent and recurring theme on the opening night of the mostly virtual RNC. “They want,” said Mark and Patricia McCloskey, the couple from St. Louis who pointed guns at Black Lives Matter protesters marching past their house earlier this summer, referring to Democrats and echoing language used repeatedly by Trump himself, “to abolish the suburbs.”

The response I got from actual suburban women here on Monday, though, was a mixture of eye-rolls, laughter and confusion. “It’s not something I’m afraid of,” said Connie Searle, 61, retired from a human resources job at a bank.



https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/08/25/trump-republican-convention-suburban-women-401449