In today’s edition … The Montana Senate race just got a lot more complicated for Democrats … There are a slate of compelling races to watch today … but first …
The big news
An Iranian assassination threat against President Donald Trump prompted an operation last month in which the president flew secretly from Turkey on an alternate military aircraft while the White House said he was aboard Air Force One, our colleagues Dan Lamothe, John Hudson, Andrew Ba Tran and Joyce Sohyun Lee broke last night.
It’s extraordinary reporting and deserves your time. It also speaks to the complexities of protecting the president abroad and the impact the war with Iran is having on all aspects of Trump’s second term.
You can read the full report here.
Here are the races you should watch today
Primary season is coming to a close, and today is the most crowded day left on the calendar.
Here are the races you should be paying attention to — and why they matter:
Wisconsin’s topsy-turvy gubernatorial contest
I’m not sure there has been a stranger race this cycle than the Democratic gubernatorial primary in Wisconsin. The race has had it all: a campaign finance scandal involving a sitting statewide official, a candidate who drops out, gets back in, picks up a key endorsement and thereby forces another candidate out, and an unexpectedly strong campaign from a controversial progressive candidate.
So, yeah, it’s been a lot.
But today the race comes to a close, and it is becoming increasingly likely that Francesca Hong, a member of the Wisconsin State Assembly and a democratic socialist, will be the Democratic nominee.
More establishment Democrats, like Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, have gotten behind Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, who was running, dropped out and got back in. But polls show Hong with a sizable lead, possibly because of the unconventional way Crowley has run his campaign.
The winner of this primary will be running in one of the most high-profile gubernatorial contests in the country. Rep. Tom Tiffany is expected to be the Republican nominee.
The race to replace Lindsey Graham
A whopping 10 Republicans are running to replace the late senator Lindsey Graham in South Carolina. Trump pushed for Graham’s sister, Darline Graham, to be his short-term replacement and endorsed her in today’s primary.
But whether Republicans in the state go along with the president is an open question.
If no candidate receives a majority vote, the top two will advance to a runoff on Aug. 25. It’s all but certain this race will go to that runoff.
The question is whether Graham makes the runoff, and if she does, whom she will face in a few weeks. Those running against her include Reps. Russell Fry and Ralph Norman and former governor Mark Sanford.
The Driftless race in southwest Wisconsin
Full disclosure: Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District, made up almost entirely of the “Driftless Region,” may be my favorite in the nation. Politically, it’s compelling — voters there backed Barack Obama twice before supporting Trump three times. And it’s just lovely, with endearing towns and scenery.
It will also be home to an intriguing Democratic primary in a House race that could be one of the most closely watched in November.
Rebecca Cooke, whose backers include Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, the more centrist Blue Dog PAC and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, is widely seen as the front-runner in the race. But there has been a growing conversation about Emily Berge, the former Eau Claire City Council president, who has hit Cooke from the left.
It feels unlikely that Berge could upset Cooke, in part because Cooke has raised a staggering $8.6 million to Berge’s $728,000. But it’s worth watching whether Cooke can hold on because the winner of the primary will face Rep. Derrick Van Orden, one of the most vulnerable Republicans in the House.
Calls for generational change in Connecticut
Connecticut Democrat John B. Larson has been in the House of Representatives for 14 terms. He would like at least two more years, but the race to replace him has become the latest test of the left’s desire for generational change.
Larson faces three challengers today — former Hartford mayor Luke Bronin, Hartford school board member Ruth Fortune and state Rep. Jillian Gilchrest — but Bronin is seen as the candidate with the best chance to upset Larson, who turned 78 last month.
Larson is staking his reelection campaign on his seniority, arguing that it would be foolish for voters to throw away the power that comes with age in the nation’s seniority-driven political system. “If you’re coming to Congress for the first time, you start at the bottom and work your way up,” Larson said this month. “But if you have the opportunity to send someone who’s going to be a chairman, that means your voice in your district is amplified.”
Bronin has argued that while he respects Larson’s time in office, it is time for him to “pass the torch,” echoing the calls many Democrats made to President Joe Biden before he bowed out of his 2024 reelection campaign.
This primary is the latest in a string of generational-change contests, and it won’t be the last.
A Democratic clash in Minnesota
The race to replace Democratic Sen. Tina Smith has pitted the different factions of the Democratic Party against one another, with Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan representing the more progressive wing of the party and Rep. Angie Craig coming more from the center.
My colleague Matthew Choi has covered this race extensively, and wrote a prescient piece about how the Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity in the state has animated the contest and is driving the two campaigns ahead of today’s primary.
Left-wing Democrats certainly feel momentum after Abdul El-Sayed’s win in Michigan last week, and could get another boost from Minnesota if Flanagan wins.
Reliable polling has been somewhat hard to come by in the race, but Flanagan is seen as the narrow favorite headed into Election Day.
The winner is likely to face Michele Tafoya, the former sports-broadcaster-turned-politician, who is expected to win the state’s Republican primary.
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Our picks
- Trump refuses to back down as Supreme Court blocks major policies, from Julian Mark.
- In rural Texas, data center opposition is scrambling conservative tradition, from Molly Hennessy-Fiske.
- Trump-Netanyahu rift widens as election pressures pull them in opposite directions, from Cat Zakrzewski, Lior Soroka and Karen DeYoung.
- At least 111 dead as 7.4-magnitude earthquake strikes Colombia, from Nicole Bravo, Samantha Schmidt, Helena Carpio and Joshua Yang.
- Trump demands major changes to childhood vaccine recommendations, from Dan Diamond, Lena H. Sun and Rachel Roubein.
- Trump nominates loyalist to office that would oversee Reflecting Pool review, from Meryl Kornfield.
What we’re watching
Alani Bankhead will be Democrats’ Senate nominee in Montana, a move that national Democrats argue will ensure Republican Kurt Alme will be the overwhelming favorite to keep the seat in Republican control come next year.
We have written about this race, but here is a refresher: Republicans, led by Sen. Steve Daines (R), engineered a situation where Daines ended his reelection campaign minutes before Montana’s filing deadline and immediately endorsed Alme, the state’s U.S. attorney, who had filed moments earlier. The timing left Democrats no chance to recruit a stronger candidate in response, and Bankhead, a little-known Air Force veteran, later won the Democratic nomination. Democrats have been calling for Bankhead to get out of the race and clear the field for independent candidate Seth Bodnar, a former University of Montana president who has raised more than Bankhead and Alme combined.
Bankhead, however, said on Monday that she will not be heeding those calls. “I am in this race to win it, and I am staying through November 3,” she said at a news conference. This has long been her position, but I texted her after the conference to ask about those Democrats calling on her to end her campaign.
“It’s a democracy. They can think and do whatever they want. I am grateful they showed us who they really are,” she wrote.
Abigail Tracy, Bodnar’s spokesperson, responded to the Democrat by saying that she has “every right to stay in this race” but that Montana voters “should ask themselves why Republican-aligned dark money groups are boosting her campaign, raising money for her and rooting for her to stay in.”
“This campaign isn’t slowing down,” Tracy said.
So what does this mean for Democrats?
The Montana Democratic Party will line up behind Bankhead, as officials told us in July.
But the broader Democratic ecosystem is likely to see this race as wholly off the map with both Bankhead and Bodnar on the ballot.
“If she doesn’t get out, it’s done,” a top Democratic operative working on Senate races said of Bankhead ahead of the deadline. The operative spoke on the condition of anonymity to be candid about Democrats’ concerns about their party’s nominee.
A spokesperson for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee declined to comment.
In your local paper
Pennsylvania Capital-Star: Data center proposals are everywhere in Pennsylvania, and so is an organized, fervent opposition, often via Facebook.
Georgia Recorder: Nearly two years after Hurricane Helene rocked Georgia, some farmers say they have yet to receive promised insurance payments. Officials cite a data loss issue.
Utah News Dispatch: The Great Salt Lake hit historic low levels in 2022, and dust from the lake bed began blowing into the surrounding area. Was it bad for their health? Was it cancer-causing? The state initially couldn’t answer, but it has now set up a program to analyze the dust, a reality in a drought-stricken West.
From you
I have trip envy.
My summer travel has been great, and I feel very lucky that I have been able to have time with my wife, our two kids and my broader family. We spent a few weeks in Los Angeles and attended some World Cup matches, and then spent a week in Maine where we hiked, water-skied and just relaxed.
But you all clearly know how to travel.
“We took a (really) long weekend, flew to San Francisco, rented a Mustang convertible and drove the coastal highway from Carmel to Cambria and back — before the road falls into the ocean (again),” wrote Douglas W. Corkhill.
Paul Laurenza wrote that he went on a “ten-day photo tour of southern Namibia,” and while the trip included waking up at 3 or 4 a.m., it was “one of the most memorable summer adventures of my life.”
“We drove east to cross the border into Canada at Port Huron on our way to Niagara on the Lake, home of the Shaw Festival and dozens on dozens of amazing wineries,” wrote Roberta Jacobs Meadway. “We saw a wonderful farce at the Shaw, took long walks along the Niagara River Trail, had some spectacular meals at The Nest at Stone Eagle and at Peller.”
And Malaika Hilliard did one of my dream vacations.
“My husband and I took a fabulous, 2-week road trip through Scandinavia last month. We spent a few days in Copenhagen, and from there drove to Stockholm, Oslo, and Bergen,” wrote Hilliard. “We lucked up on gorgeous weather for almost the entire time, and the landscapes through Norway were breathtaking. I’d never been north of Belgium. Can’t wait to go back!”
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