Today’s Kansas primary crucial to fight for Senate

TODAY’S KANSAS PRIMARY CRUCIAL TO FIGHT FOR SENATE

Politico: “Republicans are about to learn if they have a serious problem in Kansas — and another major threat to their teetering Senate majority. In [today’s] primary, GOP voters will decide between hard-line [immigration foe] Kris Kobach and Rep. Roger Marshall as their nominee for an open Senate seat. Democrats haven’t won a Senate race in Kansas in nearly a century. But both parties think Kobach as the nominee would put the race squarely on the map, stretching Republican resources thinner as they’re already spending to protect a half-dozen, vulnerable incumbents. Also on the ballot, House GOP operatives are paying close attention to embattled Rep. Steve Watkins (R-Kan.), who’s up against two primary challengers and a barrage of bad headlines over alleged ethical transgressions. If Watkins hangs on, Democrats are ready to pounce, despite the district’s pronounced pro-Trump tilt.”

Tlaib is famous, well-funded, but can’t count on Dem divisions in re-election – NYT:

“Representative Rashida Tlaib, a first-term Michigan Democrat who rocketed to national attention as a vocal critic of President Trump, is fighting for her political life, locked in a close primary race… Ms. Tlaib [today] faces a rematch against Brenda Jones, the Detroit City Council president who Ms. Tlaib narrowly defeated in 2018. … For over 50 years, the district, which includes a portion of Detroit and a handful of surrounding suburbs, was represented by John Conyers, a civil rights icon. Some supporters of Ms. Jones, who is Black, have said that she would be a better fit for the district than Ms. Tlaib, who is Palestinian by descent. Ian Conyers, a former state senator and great-nephew of John Conyers who ran against Ms. Jones in a special election in 2018 and endorsed her this year, argued that her community ties would help her forge better relationships in Washington.”

Missouri rematch between Dem dynasty and progressive insurgent – National Journal:

“Since her name last appeared on the ballot, Cori Bush became a movie star. The nurse and Ferguson activist were featured in last year’s Netflix documentary Knock Down the House, which profiles four Democratic women who tried to unseat incumbents in 2018. Her last scene in the film features her wiping away tears and shaking her head, having lost to Rep. William Lacy Clay. With Tuesday’s primary, she hopes for a sequel with a more upbeat ending. Bush is one of only two Justice Democrats-backed primary challengers who left this cycle. Three of the group’s endorsed candidates won their party’s nomination, one cleared a top-two primary, and another three lost. After Tuesday’s primary, the last undecided race will be Alex Morse’s challenge to Rep. Richard Neal in Massachusetts’ 1st District.”

TRUMP: CORONA ‘UNDER CONTROL,’ DEATH TOLL ‘IS WHAT IT IS’

USA Today: “President Donald Trump said his administration has done an ‘incredible’ job handling the coronavirus pandemic and that despite rising deaths the outbreak is ‘under control,’ in a wide-ranging and contentious interview that aired on HBO Monday night. Axios National Political Correspondent Jonathan Swan began the interview by asking Trump if his sometimes ‘wishful thinking’ and ‘salesmanship’ was suitable in a crisis that has killed more than 155,000 people in the U.S. … Trump responded to that criticism by saying he thinks the outbreak is ‘under control.’ Swan asked how he could say that as the average number of daily deaths had climbed back up to over 1,000. ‘They are dying, that’s true. And it is what it is,’ Trump said. ‘But that doesn’t mean we aren’t doing everything we can. It’s under control, as much as you can control it.’”

Pelosi says relief talks will stretch into next week – Roll Call:

“Negotiations on a COVID-19 relief bill inched forward Monday during a two-hour meeting between congressional Democrats and key Trump administration officials, though the sides remain far apart on several key issues. Speaker Nancy Pelosi told rank-and-file Democrats on a conference call that she sees talks bleeding into next week, when both chambers are scheduled to be out of session, according to two sources on the call who spoke on condition of anonymity. Pelosi earlier characterized the meeting as ‘productive,’ however, telling reporters it focused on education funding, as schools throughout the country struggle with dozens of issues related to remote learning or a hybrid schedule. ‘Opening our schools is a place where we spent a good deal of time,’ Pelosi said. Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer said negotiators went over the various funding levels for health care, education and economic programs in the dueling Democratic and GOP bills with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.”

Walter Russell Mead: ‘The pandemic is a dress rehearsal’ – WSJ:

“The pandemic, which is mild as the great plagues of history go, demonstrates that the complexity of this global civilization has become a source of new vulnerabilities. And with the legitimacy of many institutions resting on their ability to solve problems quickly and effectively, Covid-19 challenges political leaders and institutions in ways that they cannot easily manage. The world needs to get used to that feeling. The pandemic’s legacy will be crisis and chaos — and the trajectory of human civilization has shifted in ways that will test political leaders and economic policymakers more severely than anything since World War II. This is partly because the return of great-power competition introduces new risks and complications to the international system. More fundamentally, it is because the information revolution is beginning to disrupt the world as profoundly and traumatically as the Industrial Revolution disrupted the 19th-century world.”

VEEPSTAKES CANDIDATE BASS: ‘i’m NOT A COMMUNIST’

NBC News: “Rep. Karen Bass, the five-term California congresswoman, and potential Joe Biden running mate, urged Cuban American voters Monday to ‘not believe the lies’ of Republicans. ‘I’m not a socialist. I’m not a communist. I’ve belonged to one party my entire life and that’s the Democratic Party and I’m a Christian,’ Bass told NBC News. As Bass has emerged as a potential vice presidential pick, Republicans have seized on Bass’s history of visits to Cuba. It’s an overture to the significant segment of Cuban American and other Latino voters in the swing state of Florida who have backed Republican candidates over their hardline stances against the communist country. Recent polls show President Donald Trump is lagging there.”

Article Source: Foxnews