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Today’s installment of campaign-related news items from across the country.
* On the heels of Rep. Tony Gonzales being censured by the Texas Republican Party, the congressman also learned that he’ll face a GOP primary rival next year: Julie Clark, the chair of the Medina County Republican Party, announced her candidacy yesterday, dismissing the incumbent as a “RINO” (“Republican in name only”).
* With Louisiana’s gubernatorial race eight months away, Democrats now have a first high-profile candidate: Shawn Wilson, the former secretary of Louisiana’s Transportation and Development Department, kicked off his statewide campaign yesterday.
* When Democratic Rep.-elect Jennifer McClellan of Virginia is sworn in tonight as Congress’ newest member, it will mean that the U.S. House will have zero vacancies for the first time in nearly three and a half years.
* The Associated Press reported that over the past 11 months, a massive number of fake, automated Twitter accounts — “perhaps hundreds of thousands of them” — have been created to praise Donald Trump and deride his intra-party rivals. It’s unclear who or what is responsible for the accounts.
* As Rep. Matt Rosendale eyes a possible U.S. Senate campaign in Montana next year, The Billings Gazette reported that the Republican congressman conceded this week that “he unwittingly posed for a photo with high profile members of the neo-Nazi movement last week walking between congressional hearings.”
* In Minnesota, Democratic Gov. Tim Walz on Friday signed into law a measure that restores voting rights to former felons who’ve served their sentences. Minnesota Public Radio called the measure, which Republicans have long opposed, “the largest voting rights expansion the state has seen in decades.”
* Speaking of the Land of 10,000 Lakes, the Federal Election Commission has fined the Republican Party of Minnesota for misdeeds in the 2018 and 2020 election cycles.