By
Today’s installment of campaign-related news items from across the country.
* Rep. Andy Kim scored a legal victory late last week when a federal judge ordered New Jersey to adopt a new ballot design. The Democratic U.S. Senate hopeful recently sued challenging the Garden State’s unique ballot design known as the “county line.”
* In the state of Washington, HuffPost reported that Republican congressional hopeful Joe Kent suggested that the CIA and Ukraine may be responsible for a recent terrorist attack that killed 143 people in Moscow, echoing an evidence-free theory pushed by Kremlin propagandists. Kent was one of the 2022 cycle’s most right-wing candidates, and he ended up narrowly losing to first-term Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Perez.
* At this point four years ago, Donald Trump’s political operation had 60 paid staffers in Arizona. Now, four years removed from a narrow defeat in the Grand Canyon State, the Republican’s operation has just six people on the payroll in the state.
* How much did Republican Sen. Mike Braun’s 2018 campaign run afoul of campaign finance rules in 2018? The Federal Election Commission is imposing $159,000 in penalties, which might not sound like much, but as The Indianapolis Star reported, this is “among the largest fines in the federal agency’s history.” Braun is currently a leading gubernatorial candidate in Indiana.
* Marine veteran Lucas Kunce’s Senate campaign faces an uphill fight in Missouri, but it was of interest to see the Democratic candidate launch a new ad targeting Republican Sen. Josh Hawley on the issue of in vitro fertilization.
* And conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recently tried to co-opt Cesar Chavez, prompting the late Latino civil rights legend’s family to express its dissatisfaction. (Julie Chavez Rodriguez, President Joe Biden’s campaign manager, is one of Chavez’s granddaughters.)