We begin today’s roundup with a preview of key primary elections today from Roll Call’s Mary Ellen McIntire and Kate Ackley:
Tuesday’s primaries mark the biggest one-day electoral test so far for the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach President Donald Trump.
Three of them are on the ballot Tuesday: Reps. Jaime Herrera Beutler and Dan Newhouse of Washington state and Peter Meijer of Michigan. They will find out whether they will survive primary challenges from Trump-backed opponents, as outside groups have rushed millions to their races.
Charles Pierce at Esquire dives into the type of candidate Republicans have been choosing:
Where do they find these people? Seriously, is there some kind of Republican hiring hall out there somewhere, at which tables full of bad and/or deranged candidates sit, playing with their toes or with 48-card decks, until somebody calls their number and they run for something? With the U.S. Senate on the line, Georgia Republicans have lined up behind a former running back who is forever being horse-collared by the English language. The Pennsylvania Republicans are running a refugee from Oprah’s House O’Quacks who’s being trolled into a fine mist by his Democratic opponent. And the Ohio Republicans are running a hedge-fund bot last seen campaigning in Israel and telling women to stay in violent marriages.
And the further you go down the ballot, the further afield the derangement goes. Arizona’s Republican ballot is thick with election truthers. And in Missouri, there is a candidate for Congress who is that rarest of birds, the George Floyd truther.
Of course, when you spend 40 years telling people that government is the problem, it's not hard to turn politics into a carnival act whose only purpose is to be a spectacle of public amusement.
And in case you’re working how things are going for Trump’s candidate in Pennsylvania:
A Pittsburgh Post-Gazette analysis found that between April 28 and June 30, Fetterman raised $5.1 million from people giving less than $200. During the same period, Oz received just $153,000 in the same way.
All in all, it seems a long way from last November, when Oz entered the race amid a welter of publicity, billing himself as a “Conservative Republican to cure what’s wrong with Washington.” [...]
Reported vacations in Palm Beach and Ireland have raised the hackles of discontented Republicans who argue that Oz should have made more of the period during which Fetterman has been forced off the campaign trail.
Oz “has just been AWOL on the campaign. It has been a huge strategic mistake,” said one Pennsylvania GOP strategist, who asked for anonymity to speak candidly. “It’s been him completely dropping the ball.”
For years, critics have argued the Federal Election Commission has been effectively broken. Now MAGA-land is going to court to make sure it stays that way.
The FEC is charged with civil enforcement of campaign finance laws, but in recent years Republican commissioners have opted not to take action in a slew of cases—even after the agency’s own attorneys have found reason to believe laws were violated. The continual deadlock has led to accusations that the agency is broken and neglecting its duty.
Recently, however, Democratic commissioners found a way around the deadlock, opening a path through the courts if the Republicans fail to act. But it’s a long process, and now three committees with Trumpworld ties—the campaign for Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), the National Rifle Association, and a pro-Trump outside group called the 45Committee—are fighting back with their own lawsuits in hopes of thwarting the thwarters.
On a final note, here’s an update on the life-saving veteran medical care bill Senate Republicans blocked:
Senate Republicans are reversing course on a veterans health care bill, signaling they’ll now help it quickly move to President Joe Biden’s desk after weathering several days of intense criticism for delaying the legislation last week. [...]
Schumer is expected to force another vote on the veterans bill this week, vowing Monday that he would bring it up “in the coming days.”
“We’re going to give Senate Republicans another chance to do the right thing,” he said.