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KS-02: This Kansas congressional race was one of nation's closest in 2018. Will it be again?

Kansas Republican Steve Watkins was narrowly elected to Congress in 2018 in one of the nation’s closest races. Now, he’s fighting for his political survival in the face of felony charges and better-funded challengers in both August and November.

Kansas’ 2nd Congressional District is again one of the most competitive on the 2020 map. Watkins has a dual primary challenge from Kansas Treasurer Jake LaTurner, the youngest statewide elected official in the nation, and Dennis Taylor, whose long career has included stints in local, state and federal government.

If he makes it through the August 4 primary, Watkins will be running against Topeka Mayor Michelle De La Isla, a well-funded Democrat with a remarkable life story about her journey from homeless teenager in Puerto Rico to mayor of Kansas’ capital city.

The district covers 25 counties that stretch from the state’s northeast corner to the Oklahoma border— a diverse set of communities which include Lawrence, Topeka, rural enclaves and one of the oldest operating military bases in the country in Leavenworth.

Watkins, 43, an Army veteran with graduate degrees from Harvard and MIT, admitted to The Star Tuesday that he voted in the wrong district, but he disputed that he should have been charged with a felony. He called it a mistake rather than intentional effort to influence the outcome of the city council race.

De La Isla, 44, moved from New York to Puerto Rico as a toddler. She became homeless at 17, spending the first several months staying with different friends until she finally ran out of places.

“It wasn’t until I had to stay in an abandoned house and I had to walk into a campus to take a shower that I realized something’s not right here,” she said.



https://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article244567977.html#storylink=cpy

IN-05: Democrats eye quickly changing district in ruby-red Indiana

ndiana is considered the “crossroads of America” — the state people don’t go to, but go through. But in one of the most conservative states outside the Deep South, House Democrats see an opportunity to expand their ranks in Indiana’s 5th Congressional District.

The race pits Republican state Sen. Victoria Spartz against former Democratic state Rep. Christina Hale in a battle for the suburban district. If fundraising numbers were votes, Democrats would already hold the advantage. From April to June, Hale raised about $535,000, nearly doubling Spartz’s $279,000.

Spartz’s background as an immigrant from then-socialist Ukraine is central to her campaign in an effort to brandish her support for the free market and entrepreneurship. She was appointed to her state Senate seat in 2017.

Hale takes a bipartisan approach in her election bid, focusing on kitchen table issues and her bipartisan record in Indiana’s legislature. Over 60 of her bills passed in the state House during her four-year tenure, even as Democrats only controlled a third of seats in the chamber.

In June, Spartz sailed to victory in the Republican primary, receiving 40 percent of the vote in a crowded 15-person field. Hale received 41 percent of the vote in her five-way race.

Rep. Susan Brooks (R-Ind.) has represented the district since 2013. She shocked many members of her conference with her retirement, citing her belief in term limits, though she vowed to help keep the district in Republican hands, Politico reported. She won the district, which covers the northside of Indianapolis and its suburbs, by 14 points in 2018. The seat has a Cook Partisan Voter Index of R+9, and the Cook Political Report rates the 2020 race as a “toss up.”



https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2020/07/democrats-eye-5th-indiana/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=twitt_in05-art-20-072820

IN-05: Buttigieg PAC Throws Weight Behind Slate Of Hoosiers

Former Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg’s Win the Era PAC will back a slate of Hoosier candidates, marking his political action committee’s first endorsements in Indiana.

Win the Era will support Democratic gubernatorial candidate Dr. Woody Myers and lieutenant gubernatorial candidate Linda Lawson, Attorney General nominee Jonathan Weinzapfel, and congressional candidates Pat Hackett and Christina Hale in the 2nd and 5th districts.

Buttigieg, who formed the PAC in April, will hold virtual campaign events and email his supporters on behalf of each of the four campaigns in the coming months.

“I’m proud to be supporting fellow Hoosiers who are effective leaders in their communities and have dedicated themselves to public service,” Buttigieg said in a statement. “When elected, each of these leaders will advocate for working families, advance the cause of justice, and make Indiana a more inclusive and prosperous state.”

Buttigieg has said in the past that he hoped his presidential bid would lift down-ballot candidates in his home state. “Obviously, I care a lot about the party doing well,” he said in an interview with Indianapolis Monthly last October. “I think we’ve got a lot of great leaders, including some newer emerging leaders in the party and want to make sure I’m doing my part and using my visibility as a way to support my home state party.”



https://www.indianapolismonthly.com/news-and-opinion/buttigieg-pac-throws-weight-behind-slate-of-hoosiers#.XyK2_7smYzQ.twitter

KS-SEN: Republicans and White House at Odds Over Kansas Senate Race

WASHINGTON — As the Kansas Senate primary barrels to a close, tensions are rising between Senate Republicans and the White House over the potential nomination of Kris Kobach, who party officials fear would jeopardize the seat and further imperil their Senate majority.

Senator Mitch McConnell is worried that Mr. Kobach, the controversial former Kansas secretary of state who lost the 2018 governor’s race, may win the nomination in Tuesday’s primary, only to lose the seat in November — and he is frustrated that President Trump is not intervening in the race, according to multiple G.O.P. officials.

Mr. McConnell and other Senate Republican leaders have made urgent pleas to the president to block Mr. Kobach by endorsing one of his opponents, Representative Roger Marshall. But Mr. Trump has so far declined to do so, and his aides said they had no plans to change course. Compounding the frustration of Capitol Hill Republicans, White House aides have refused to tell Mr. Kobach, a longtime booster of Mr. Trump, to stop using the president’s imagery in his campaign materials.

With a number of incumbent Senate Republicans trailing in polls, and being out-raised by their Democratic rivals, they have little margin for error as they seek to protect their 53-47 majority. And because of Mr. Trump’s broad unpopularity, and a health crisis that has devastated the economy, even a deeply conservative state like Kansas, which has not sent a Democrat to the Senate since the 1930s, is no sure thing for Senate Republicans this year.
We have eight months of data that says the majority is gone if Kris Kobach is the nominee,” said Josh Holmes, a top lieutenant to Mr. McConnell. “It’s that simple.”

Mr. Trump’s reluctance to wade into the race illustrates his growing anxiety about his conservative base, the core of which is supporting Mr. Kobach in Kansas. The president has recently sought to shore up his standing on the right by taking a series of positions, particularly on race and protests, aimed at solidifying Republican voters who have drifted from him over his ineffective response to the coronavirus outbreak.



https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/30/us/politics/kansas-senate-kobach-trump.html

Alan Dershowitz has a real problem tonight

Earlier this evening the unsealing began of evidence from a civil suit involving Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, one of their victims, and Epstein’s lawyer Alan Dershowitz. The Dershowitz-related evidence is still being released, but it’s already taken a sharply ugly turn for him.

The transcripts from the civil suit allege that Alan Dershowitz sexually abused multiple underage girls, and that Dershowitz witnessed Epstein and other unnamed individuals abusing other girls. The transcripts also allege that after Dershowitz committed these hideous crimes, he wrote the non-prosecution agreement that ensured he, Epstein, and the other co-conspirators wouldn’t be prosecuted.

Dershowitz has long denied that he had any involvement in Epstein’s crime spree. Thus far he’s been quiet on Twitter tonight. Suffice it to say that if these allegations are true and can be proven, Dershowitz is facing a life sentence in prison when all is said and done.



https://www.palmerreport.com/analysis/alan-dershowitz-has-a-real-problem-tonight/31062/

TX-03: Lulu Seikaly and the changing political landscape of North Texas

A political sea change is taking place in Collin County. This year marks the first time in recent history a poll has shown the 3rd Congressional District, located north of Dallas, as competitive.

This district for so long was reliably red, but things are changing rapidly: Now, Democratic challenger Lulu Seikaly trails freshman Rep. Van Taylor by just six points.

The poll, conducted by Global Strategy Group, shows Taylor ahead of Seikaly 43 percent to 37 percent. The poll also shows Joe Biden leading Donald Trump by 2 points. If Texas were to flip blue this year, this district would certainly be a major factor.

Living in Plano with her husband, Seikaly has been on the campaign trail since October. Seikaly is the daughter of Lebanese-American immigrants who fled to America during the civil war of their native country. Her father is a pediatric specialist, and her mother is a registered nurse. Seikaly was raised in North Texas and earned a law degree from South Texas College of Law.

Seikaly, who is 34, advanced to the runoff for the third congressional district in March. In the runoff election, she won slightly more than 60 percent of the vote. Now, she’s making her case against Taylor, a somewhat inconspicuous Republican who also served as a state representative and state senator.




https://texassignal.com/lulu-seikaly-and-the-changing-political-landscape/

TX-22: Democrats make anti-Nehls ads in Chinese, Hindi

t’s not news that national Democrats are already producing negative ads about Fort Bend County Sheriff Troy Nehls. But the fact that the ads are in different languages is a change.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has made three ads attacking Nehls as the race for the U.S. House District 22 seat ramps up. All three ads are the same, attacking Nehls for his time at the Richmond Police Department, his comments on human trafficking and his dealings with the coronavirus.

But the other two ads are in Chinese and in Hindi, as Democrats try to target different ethnic groups in the district.

The ads plan to give a boost to Sri Preston Kulkarni, who mobilized Asian Americans in his 2018 to come only five percentage points short of beating Rep. Pete Olson. Olson is retiring after his term in office.

Nehls is coming off a dominating win over Kathaleen Wall in the Republican primary runoff last week, winning the election with 70% of the vote.



https://www.fbherald.com/news/democrats-make-anti-nehls-ads-in-chinese-hindi/article_0ff51640-ccb1-5570-b4e0-dcd9c85bedb5.html

TX-22: 'Aunties Are Fueling My Campaign'

An infectiousness laces Sri Preston Kulkarni’s speech. A laugh in the voice and an enthusiasm which, when translated to the written word, would demand most sentences end with an exclamation mark. Message in hand, he is prone to nudging the conversation there in a keen but affable manner – hallmarks of a good diplomat. He is also a listener, a positive trait if a politician is to be viewed as sincere.

Sri, short for Srinivas, is taking his second shot at Texas’ 22nd congressional seat which he lost narrowly in 2018 to Republican incumbent Pete Olsen. On March 3, the Indian American candidate won the primary, securing a convincing victory. Micro targeting immigrant and neglected communities, the polyglot reached the voters in 13 languages, identified the social media specific to each – Indians on Whatsapp, Chinese on WeChat – generating an enviable turnout and creating mimickers across the U.S. this election season.

The gerrymandered district which includes a swathe of the Greater Houston metropolitan area, most of the cities of Sugar Land and Missouri City, has in the past sent to Washington the likes of Ron Paul and Tom DeLay. Trying to buck that trend, Kulkarni is now positioned as the frontrunner against Trump supporter and Fort Bend County Sheriff Troy Nehls. Excerpts from candidate Kulkarni’s conversation with India-West:



https://www.indiawest.com/news/global_indian/aunties-are-fueling-my-campaign-texas-congressional-candidate-sri-preston-kulkarni/article_ee9c1250-d0aa-11ea-b416-ab9c17e97110.html

TX-21: Chip Roy Says the COVID Pandemic Is a Hoax Meant to Hurt the GOP

Inflammatory U.S. Rep. Chip Roy, R-San Antonio, suggested during a talk-show appearance this week that the COVID-19 pandemic is a hoax perpetrated by Democrats and the media.

During a chat with right-wing radio host Steve Deace, Roy accused shadowy forces of ginning up fear of the coronavirus to damage the GOP in the fall election.

"It is all about November and all about reclaiming power in November," said Roy, a former staffer for Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas. "And I think on November 4, there'll be a magic awakening on how we suddenly beat the virus."

Roy added that he's asking the White House and his colleagues to hold hearings to "shine a light on the absolute fraud being perpetrated on the American people of fear."

Since being narrowly elected in 2018 to represent a district that includes SA, Austin and the Hill Country, Roy has drawn headlines for over-the-top comments, including likening stay-at-home orders to slow the spread of COVID-19 to the policies in Nazi Germany.

In March, he voted against the bipartisan pandemic relief package, calling it “welfare” that would do “more harm than good” and mocking it in a tweet.



https://www.sacurrent.com/the-daily/archives/2020/07/30/san-antonio-congressman-chip-roy-says-the-covid-pandemic-is-a-hoax-meant-to-hurt-the-gop