Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock won a full six-year term by defeating Republican Herschel Walker in Tuesday’s runoff in Georgia, a victory that gives his party an outright 51-49 majority in the upper chamber.
While Democratic control of the Senate was assured once it became clear that Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto had secured a second term last month, the stakes were still high in Georgia.
Rep. Donald McEachin, a Democrat elected to represent Virginia’s 4th Congressional District in 2016, died Monday at the age of 61, just weeks after winning a fourth term. McEachin’s chief of staff said in her statement, “Valiantly, for years now, we have watched him fight and triumph over the secondary effects of his colorectal cancer from 2013. Tonight, he lost that battle.”
It will be up to Republican Gov.
Former Kentucky Gov. John Y. Brown, a Democrat who was elected to his only term in 1979, died Tuesday at the age of 88, and the Louisville Courier Journal’s Andrew Wolfson gives him one of the most memorable opening sentences we’ve ever seen in a political obituary: “John Y. Brown Jr.
Democrats enjoyed yet another welcome burst of news when NBC called the Arizona governor’s race for Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, who will be the first Democrat in 14 years to lead what’s become a crucial swing state. Hobbs leads her far-right opponent, former local TV anchor Kari Lake, 50.4-49.6 with 98% of the likely total vote reporting for the contest to succeed termed-out Gov. Doug Ducey.
Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse confirmed Thursday that he will resign to become president of the University of Florida, which has named the Republican as the sole finalist for the post. Multiple media outlets report that Sasse’s departure will occur before the end of the year, which would allow Republican Gov. Pete Ricketts, who will leave office in early 2023, to appoint a successor.
Alaska election officials carried out the instant-runoff process Wednesday for the Aug. 16 special election for the state’s only House seat, and former Democratic state Rep. Mary Peltola has scored a dramatic pickup for her party by defeating Republican Sarah Palin 51-49.
Peltola, who will replace the late GOP Rep. Don Young, will be the first Democrat to represent the Last Frontier in the lower chamber since Young won his own special election all the way back in 1973.
Democrat Pat Ryan scored a huge special election upset for his party by defeating Republican Marc Molinaro 51-49 in New York’s 19th District, a swing seat in the Hudson Valley that Molinaro appeared poised to flip until polls closed on Tuesday.
Pennsylvania Democrat Josh Shapiro made headlines earlier this month when he began airing ads to not-so-subtly boost one of his Republican rivals: state Sen. Doug Mastriano, a QAnon ally whom many Republicans fret would be a toxic nominee should he win Tuesday’s primary for governor. Shapiro, though, is by no means the only Democrat who’s trying to pick his opponent by meddling across the aisle, a tactic that has a long history in American politics.
West Virginia Rep. David McKinley became the first member of Congress to lose renomination in 2022 after his Trump-backed colleague, Alex Mooney, defeated him in Tuesday’s Republican primary for the 2nd District: With 58,000 votes counted, Mooney enjoys a 52-37 lead.
The Republican primary for Ohio’s open Senate seat—which weighed in at nearly $75 million—finally concluded on Tuesday with a win for Trump’s endorsed candidate, venture capitalist J.D. Vance. Vance, the Hillbilly Elegy author and one-time vociferous Trump critic, reinvented himself as a MAGA diehard and defeated former state Treasurer Josh Mandel 31-25 for the nod to succeed retiring Sen. Rob Portman. Vance will take on Democratic Rep.
Former Rep. Brad Ashford, whose 2014 win gave Democrats their only victory in a Nebraska House race since the 1994 GOP wave, died Tuesday at the age of 72 two months after he announced that he had brain cancer. Ashford previously served as a Democrat, Republican, and independent during his two stints in the state’s unicameral legislature, though he was never fully at home in either party during his long career in local and national politics.
Sen. Thom Tillis announced Wednesday that he was endorsing state Sen. Chuck Edwards’ campaign to defeat freshman Rep. Madison Cawthorn in the May 17 Republican primary for North Carolina’s 11th District, saying the next day that the incumbent “has fallen well short of the most basic standards Western North Carolina expects from their representatives.
Arizona Republican Allister Adel announced Monday that she was resigning as the top prosecutor of Maricopa County, a move that the Arizona Republic writes came after negative attention “over her sobriety and absences from the office, which prompted investigations by the State Bar of Arizona and the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors.
Maury County Mayor Andy Ogles has announced that he’s joining the August Republican primary for Tennessee’s open 5th Congressional District, which Republicans recently transformed from blue to red by cracking apart the city of Nashville. Ogles is a former state director for the Koch network’s Americans for Prosperity, and he launched a primary bid in 2017 against Sen. Bob Corker days before the incumbent decided to retire.
Republican Rep. Don Young, who was first elected in 1973 to Alaska’s sole House seat, died Friday at the age of 88 after losing consciousness while on a flight. Young’s 49-year tenure made him the longest-serving sitting member of either chamber of Congress, as well as the body’s oldest member. Young additionally holds the record for longest-serving Republican in congressional history.
Republican Rep. Van Taylor shocked Texas politicos Wednesday by announcing that he was ending his re-election campaign because of an affair the married congressman had with a woman who had fled her ISIS terrorist husband years ago, a move that came hours after he was forced into a primary runoff against former Collin County Judge Keith Self. Taylor said he would be taking his name off the runoff ballot, which will automatically make Self the GOP nominee.
New York Rep. Kathleen Rice, a Long Island Democrat who spent years as an intra-party critic of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, declared Tuesday that she would not seek a fifth term representing the 4th Congressional District, which is entirely located in Nassau County. The decision was a surprise, as the congresswoman—who turned 57 the day she made her announcement—had given no obvious indication she was looking to leave the House.
Democratic Rep. Jim Cooper announced Tuesday that he would retire, a declaration that came one day after Tennessee’s Republican legislature passed a new gerrymander designed to turn his 5th Congressional District red. Cooper’s existing seat, which includes all of Nashville, backed Joe Biden 60-37; however, by splitting the city between the 5th, 6th, and 7th Districts, the GOP has created a new 5th that would have favored Donald Trump 54-43.
Rhode Island Rep. Jim Langevin, a Democrat whose 2000 win made him the first quadriplegic to ever serve in Congress, said Tuesday that he would retire from the 2nd District.
The current version of this seat, which includes part of Providence and western Rhode Island, backed Joe Biden by a 56-43 spread four years after it favored Hillary Clinton by a smaller 51-44 margin.
Democratic Rep. Jerry McNerney, who got to Congress in 2006 by unseating a longtime Republican incumbent, announced Tuesday that he would not seek another term in California’s redrawn 9th District, a new seat that shares the same number as his current constituency. Minutes later, fellow Democratic Rep.
New York Rep. John Katko, one of just nine House Republicans to represent a constituency that also voted for Joe Biden, announced Friday that he would not seek a fifth term in the Syracuse-based 24th Congressional District.
Republican Rep. Trey Hollingsworth announced Thursday that he would not seek a fourth term in Indiana’s safely red 9th District in a very unexpected move that bookends what has been a short but surprising congressional career. The revised version of this southeastern Indiana seat, which includes Bloomington, backed Donald Trump 63-35, and Republicans should have no trouble holding onto it.
Former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who died Dec. 28 at the age of 82, is lying in state at the Capitol today. As his former colleagues honor his singular career, we’re taking a look back at his long electoral history—a path that dealt Reid several setbacks on his way toward the pinnacle of American politics.
Reid famously grew up in the tiny southern Nevada town of Searchlight.
The U.S. Senate on Thursday night confirmed Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett as ambassador to Luxembourg, a move that ensures there will be a 2022 special election to succeed him at home.
Barrett, who is a former Democratic congressman and three-time gubernatorial candidate, has not yet announced when he’ll officially resign from the job he’s held since 2004, but he indicated it would be before Dec. 28.
Multiple media outlets reported Thursday that billionaire Ken Griffin, who is the wealthiest person in Illinois, is willing to spend at least $150 million to defeat Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker if Republicans nominate his preferred slate in the June primaries.
Democratic Rep. Alan Lowenthal, a longtime elected official in the Long Beach area, announced Thursday that he would not seek a sixth term in California’s 47th Congressional District. The current incarnation of Lowenthal’s constituency, which includes most of Long Beach as well as nearby communities in Los Angeles and Orange counties, is solidly blue turf at 62-35 Biden, though the state’s independent redistricting commission is still completing the new map.
Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert, the legendary bomb-thrower who carried the far right’s banner in Congress before the Tea Party wave and the Donald Trump era reshaped the Republican caucus, announced Monday night that he would challenge scandal-ridden Attorney General Ken Paxton in the March primary rather than seek a 10th term.
Gohmert joins Land Commissioner George P. Bush and former state Supreme Court Justice Eva Guzman in trying to deny renomination to the Trump-endorsed incumbent.
Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger announced Friday that he would not seek a seventh term in the House, a development that came hours after Illinois’ Democratic legislature passed a new congressional map that would have placed him in the same seat as fellow GOP Rep. Darrin LaHood. That would have likely been an impossible primary for Kinzinger, who was one of just 10 House Republicans to vote to impeach Donald Trump in January. (One of his compatriots, Ohio Rep.
Multiple media outlets reported Friday that Democratic Rep. Karen Bass has decided to run for mayor of Los Angeles next year, with Politico adding that one of its reporters overheard the California congresswoman telling someone over the phone, “I’m going to officially announce a run for mayor.
Ohio Rep. Anthony Gonzalez, who was one of the 10 Republicans who voted to impeach Donald Trump, announced Thursday evening that he would not seek reelection out of disgust for “the toxic dynamics inside our own party.