WASHINGTON – It’s Alabama and Texas playoff Tuesday, where Democratic and Republican playoffs will decide the nominees for key Senate and House contests in November.
Today’s showdown is the second round of the Alabama Republican Senate, where former Senator and Attorney General Jeff Sessions hopes to regain his former seat, but faces a tough fight against former Auburn football coach Tommy Tuberville, backed by Trump. The two men advanced to the second round on Tuesday after neither candidate received more than 50 percent of the vote in the March primary.
The playoffs will also decide several high-profile contests within the party in Lone Star State.
Air Force veteran MJ Hegar and State Senator Royce West will face off to determine which of the two Democrats will face incumbent Senator John Cornyn, R-Texas. (You may remember Hegar, who is endorsed by DSCC and EMILY’s List, from his viral “Doors” announcement during his failed 2018 nomination for Congress.) A CBS / YouGov poll this weekend found both candidates chasing Cornyn on the head. live contest.
In the open seat for TX-13, former White House doctor and former VA Secretary-nominee Ronny Jackson is battling livestock industry lobbyist Josh Winegarner. President Donald Trump is endorsing Jackson, while retired Republican Rep. Mac Thornberry has endorsed Winegarner.
There’s also an intriguing Republican second round on TX-23 to replace retired Republican Rep. Will Hurd, where Raúl Reyes is running with Ted Cruz’s support against Tony Gonzales, who is backed by Kevin McCarthy, President Trump, Marco Rubio. , Steve Scalise, Will Hurd and Rick Perry. The winner faces Democrat Gina Ortiz Jones, who narrowly lost to Hurd in 2018 in a district that Hillary Clinton won in 2016.
The second round will also decide the field for two open seats in the Texas House that Democrats hope to change to blue in November.
In TX-22, Republicans are choosing between Republican donor (and prolific self-financier) Kathaleen Wall and Fort Bend County Sheriff Troy Nehls as the Republican candidate to replace retired Republican Rep. Pete Olson, who barely avoided defeat. two years ago. The winner will face Democratic Foreign Service official and 2018 candidate Sri Preston Kulkarni.
And on TX-24, Democrats will elect their nominee to the seat previously held by Republican Rep. Kenny Marchant. Retired Air Force colonel Kim Olson confronts school board member Candace Valenzuela, an Afro-Latina whose history of growing up in poverty has received viral attention. The winner will face former Irving Mayor Beth Van Duyne.
Downloading data: the numbers you need to know today
3,316,989: The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the United States, according to the latest data from NBC News and health officials. (That’s 60,839 more cases than yesterday morning.)
136,402: The number of deaths in the United States from the virus so far. (That’s 356 more than yesterday morning).
41.00 million: The number of coronavirus tests that have been administered in the United States so far, according to researchers from the COVID Monitoring Project.
About 30,000: The number of new cases registered yesterday in California, Texas, and Florida alone.
5.4 million: The number of Americans who lost their health insurance coverage this spring, according to a new study by Families USA.
51 percent: The proportion of non-white adults in the United States who say they are “very concerned” that they or a family member are exposed to the coronavirus, compared to only 29 percent of whites who say the same thing, according to a new survey. from NBC News | SurveyMonkey.
About 75,000: The number of employees of the Los Angeles Unified Public School District, which announced yesterday that it will not open for in-person classes in August.
17 years: How long has it been since the last federal execution. The Supreme Court last night opened the way for four more.
Conversation Policy with Benjy: Key Cases Hampering School Reopening Plans
President Trump’s efforts to tweet schools to reopen are hitting some major hurdles. It’s not that state and local officials aren’t trying, writes Benjy Sarlin, it’s that the pandemic is quickly outpacing even more ambitious reopening efforts.
So far, the White House has not provided a clear plan on how it intends to advise and support schools in the reopening. But even assuming that schools check all the boxes of an airtight security plan, some public health experts who have advocated for the full reopening caution that controlling the virus is likely a prerequisite.
We are now beginning to see the consequences of that failure to reduce infection rates. On Monday, Los Angeles and San Diego announced that the school year would begin only online. San Diego until recently had been pushing for a five-day week of physical assistance, but with cases in California and no signs of new federal aid, that’s off the table.
Similar online-only reopens seem likely in places like Atlanta and Nashville, which also face outbreaks and threaten to affect other school districts, from Texas to Virginia. Meanwhile, more states and metro areas are weighing plans to start a hybrid of online and in-person classes, with Milwaukee joining places like New York City and Maryland.
Part of the problem, as the Dallas superintendent explained on MSNBC, is that parents and staff are unlikely to follow a reopening plan if they are afraid to leave their home amid a raging pandemic. It’s worth asking what the White House and Congress could do to reassure them, but whatever it is, publicly attacking the administration’s own health officials seems unlikely to be the answer.
Tweet of the day
Vision 2020: climate control
Presumed Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden will comment at 1:30 pm ET on climate change, clean energy and infrastructure today, according to NBC’s Marianna Sotomayor.
Biden’s focus on clean energy is the second part of his “Build Back Better” economic recovery plan that debuted last week by proposing changes to strengthen America’s supply chains and maintain jobs in the United States by reinvesting in manufacturing and technology, adds Sotomayor.
And the Washington Post anticipates the big policy announcement for Biden’s speech today: The Democrat “plans to outline a proposal Tuesday that would transform the nation’s energy industry with a new promise to remove carbon pollution from power plants by 2035. , according to a person informed about his proposal. “
Ben Kamisar Advertising Clock
Today’s watch looks at the overwhelming discrepancy in spending in the second primary round of the Texas Democratic Senate, which takes place today.
MJ Hegar and his allies have flooded the waves in recent months, leaving Royce West in the dust. Hegar’s campaign, Women vote! (The EMILY super PAC roster) and the DSCC have combined to spend $ 2.2 million on behalf of Hegar on television and radio, according to Advertising Analytics.
West’s campaign has spent a paltry $ 22,000 since the two advanced to the second round, for an advertising spending ratio between the two campaigns of about 102: 1.
That disparity in spending, in addition to Hegar’s big backers and significant fundraising lead, have given him a head start in the second round, as he runs a race reminiscent of the strategy that helped the Democrats win many Key positions in the Chamber in 2018, relying on medical care and your health. military experience.
But West, a long-time state senator, has bristled with Hegar’s support from outside groups like the DSCC, and has played his legislative career and work on issues like police reform amid national turmoil over police and racial injustice.
So you’re telling me there is a possibility of police reform
After the Senate Republican police reform bill failed, a procedural vote was approved in June, Republican Senator Tim Scott, the architect of the bill and one of three black senators, said he still he hopes that a legislative reform will be approved. House Democrats have already approved his version of the reform, and many Democrats have said that the Republican version did not have much water. Democrats have called on Republicans to adopt their qualified immunity standards and to ban no-touch orders on drug cases.
Here’s Scott’s round trip with our Hill team on Monday:
Q: “Are you working with the Chamber on your proposal for police reform?”
Scott: “I am still working with them.”
Q: “Have you really had conversations with him? I know you said to Karen Bass, I just suggested that she might be willing to go halfway. Is she really suggesting that you can come to terms with you on this matter?”
Scott: “Well I think what she suggested is that she is willing to continue the conversation, the question is what is halfway there? I think the bill itself is two thirds of the way. And the question is whether We can get together around three or four of those key issues. I think there’s a chance that we can. We’ll just see if she can get enough people on my side of the Senate instead of having a conversation with the people in the house, but I am encouraged that he is still working on it. I just had a few conversations with some members on the phone, before going to chair. Therefore, there is still a lot of activity around him, I hope that activity becomes a real signed legislation. “
The cap
Don’t miss yesterday’s pod when we previewed some of today’s high-risk primaries.
ICYMI: What else is happening in the world?
A federal judge has given the green light to Mary Trump’s book, which is scheduled for publication today.
NBC’s Sahil Kapur communicates with Republicans that they cannot live with Trump, but they also cannot live without him.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis may have the last word on whether the RNC can celebrate its large-scale festivities in Jacksonville next month, and that puts him in a bind.
Can Congress investigate the President’s move to commute Roger Stone’s sentence?
Pro-Trump super PAC America First Action is planning a new $ 23 million ad blitz.
