2,512,972 voters participated in yesterday's Michigan primary.

TX-22, TX-24: As House Democrats expand the map, Texas is 'ground zero'

Buoyed by record-breaking fundraising and strong polling in battleground districts, Texas is now “ground zero” for House Democrats as they look to expand their House majority in November, according to Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Cheri Bustos.

Two open seats held by retiring Lone Star Republicans are on the frontlines for Democrats’ national offense. According to national strategists, Texas’s 22nd and 24th Districts are a microcosm of the trends that could eventually turn the state blue, and those changes are the reason Republicans like Sen. Ted Cruz have sounded the alarm that Democrats have a real chance of flipping the state this year.

In a memo last week, the DCCC detailed its early investments in Texas as key to efforts to further expand the map. The DCCC also launched a series of digital ads last week on YouTube in Texas’s 10th and 24th Districts, along with its first ads in Chinese and Hindi in the 22nd District. The committee also reserved $2.2 million in ad time for Dallas broadcast in the fall.

“Our frontline members are our priorities,” DCCC Executive Director Lucinda Guinn told National Journal last week, referring to its list of vulnerable incumbents. “But I think like all our early investing, it has paid dividends,

“I think we feel like we can with confidence look to aggressively play offensively in this environment,” Guinn added.



https://www.nationaljournal.com/s/708830?unlock=MCP6N1TP8F8X8LR8

OH-01: Internal poll gives Democratic challenger a small lead over Chabot

MI-03: Peter Meijer discriminated against drag performers with Down Syndrome

The ACLU of Michigan has filed a civil rights complaint against congressional candidate Peter Meijer for allegedly discriminating against drag performers with Down Syndrome.

Meijer would not allow the UK-based troupe Drag Syndrome to use his Tanglefoot Building in Grand Rapids during the ArtPrize Project 1 exhibitions, questioning whether the performers could provide consent, the ACLU said in a complaint filed Thursday with the Michigan Department of Civil Rights. The group was scheduled to perform there Saturday and has since found another space.

The ACLU contends that Meijer is relying on harmful stereotypes about disabled people.

Meijer told the Free Press that he was worried about "the risk of perception of exploitation," a view he said is shared by disability advocates. He plans to challenge the complaint.



https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2019/09/05/aclu-peter-meijer-discriminated-against-drag-performers-downs/2224561001/

NC-08: Human Rights Campaign Endorses Pat Timmons-Goodson for Congress

oday, the Human Rights Campaign announced the endorsement of former state Supreme Court Justice Pat Timmons-Goodson in her bid for Congress in North Carolina’s Eighth Congressional District.

In 2019, the U.S. House made history by passing the Equality Act -- crucial federal legislation that would finally guarantee explicit protections for LGBTQ people under our nation's existing civil rights laws -- for the first time. However, despite the support for the bill from over 70% of Americans, incumbent Rep. Richard Hudson voted “no” and Sen. Mitch McConnell has refused to bring the bill up for a vote. We must protect and expand the House’s pro-equality majority to ensure that when we break the Senate’s logjam, we have a House ready and able to move forward and make the Equality Act the law of the land.

“Justice Pat Timmons-Goodson will not just be an ally to our community but a true advocate,” said Alphonso David, HRC President. “In 29 states across the country, including North Carolina, LGBTQ people are at risk for discrimination in many areas of life. This patchwork of protections is completely untenable. Justice Pat Timmons-Goodson not only understands that, but has committed to making the change we need by passing the Equality Act. The Human Rights Campaign is proud to endorse Justice Timmons-Goodson and will work in the coming months to help mobilize the 1.5 million Equality Voters across the state of North Carolina to elect her and other pro-equality leaders up and down the ballot.”

“Throughout my tenure as a judge and member of the US Commission on Civil Rights, I worked to protect the rights of everyone living in our country,” said Justice Pat Timmons-Goodson. “At a time when so many rights are yet denied based on race, gender, sexual orientation, or zip code, I am proud to join the Human Rights Campaign in fighting for progress. I appreciate their endorsement of our campaign.”

In the 2018 midterms, HRC mobilized our grassroots army of 3.2 million members, supporters, and volunteers to work on behalf of pro-equality candidates and engage pro-equality voters primarily in six key states: Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. This unprecedented grassroots mobilization worked to recruit and train volunteers, register and mobilize voters and grow the organization's political organizing efforts in order to pull the emergency brake on the hateful anti-LGBTQ agenda of the Trump-Pence administration and elect a Congress that would hold them accountable.



https://www.hrc.org/blog/human-rights-campaign-endorses-pat-timmons-goodson-for-congress

Tweet of the Day

The Congressional Black Caucus has had a blockbuster primary season this year:

Iowa restores voting rights to some felons ahead of November election

Felons in Iowa who have completed their sentences regained the right to vote and hold public office Wednesday under an executive order from Gov. Kim Reynolds (R), whose decision ended Iowa’s status as the last state in the country to disenfranchise felons for life.

At a signing ceremony at the Iowa Capitol, Reynolds said her order requires Iowans convicted of felonies to complete any prison time, probation or special sentence before their right to participate in elections is restored. The order excludes people convicted of felony homicide, who must apply individually to regain their right to vote, she said.

“This is a cause that so many Iowans have worked on for years,” said Reynolds, who was flanked as she spoke by legislators and activists wearing masks.

“It boils down to our fundamental belief in redemption and second chances. Quite simply, when someone serves their sentence and pays the price our justice system has set for their crimes, they should have their right to vote restored, plain and simple.”

The order was a victory for criminal justice advocates in Iowa who fought to undo the previous system for restoring voting rights to felons, which required the felons to petition the governor individually. Pressure on Reynolds had intensified as the killing of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis triggered protests in cities across the country, including Des Moines.




https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/iowa-restores-voting-rights-to-some-felons-ahead-of-november-election/2020/08/05/d08be464-d737-11ea-930e-d88518c57dcc_story.html

Almost 4 in 10 election-judge jobs in Maryland are vacant. Officials are begging Hogan to change his

More than 1,000 additional Maryland poll workers have dropped out over the past week, leaving the state with little more than 60 percent of the election judges it needs and boosting pressure on Gov. Larry Hogan to abandon plans to open every voting precinct.

After dire warnings from local elections administrators on Wednesday, the Maryland State Board of Elections scheduled a Friday vote to ask Hogan (R) to change course and open as few as 90 large voting centers statewide — instead of 1,848 neighborhood precincts.
Dismayed by long lines and delays in the June 2 primary, Hogan had pledged the usual number of in-person voting options for the Nov. 3 election, despite the novel coronavirus pandemic.

“The success or failure of this election is in your hands,” David Garreis, president of the Maryland Association of Election Officials, told the state board Wednesday as he delivered the sobering statistics about election-judge dropouts.

Local election administrators are planning for a “high probability the public health crisis will worsen in September and October, and election judges will begin to quit en masse,” Garreis said. “Once the majority of the election judges quit, there is not going to be a backup.”



https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/md-politics/hogan-maryland-voting-plans/2020/08/05/1c25ced4-d68f-11ea-930e-d88518c57dcc_story.html

IA-SEN: Sabato's Crystal Ball shifts Iowa Senate race to 'toss-up

Sabato’s Crystal Ball moved the closely watched Senate race in Iowa into the "toss-up" column on Wednesday, the latest sign that Sen. Joni Ernst’s (R-Iowa) seat is in play for Democrats.

The nonpartisan election handicapper based at the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics previously rated the race between Ernst and Democrat Theresa Greenfield as “leans Republican.”

Kyle Kondik, the managing editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball, said in the group's analysis that — like other vulnerable GOP Senate incumbents, including Sens. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) and Martha McSally (R-Ariz.) — there are signs that Ernst is underperforming President Trump in polling of her state.

“Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA), like McSally and Tillis, appears to be doing a little worse than Trump in her state,” Kondik wrote. “She has a little more wiggle room than the other two — note that Trump still carries Iowa even in this hypothetical scenario where Biden is winning nationally by 10 — but both parties are acting (and spending) like Iowa is a Toss-up.”




https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/510681-sabatos-crystal-ball-shifts-iowa-senate-race-to-toss-up-georgia-toward-gop