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Presented by Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids: POLITICO's must-read briefing on what's driving the afternoon in Washington. | | | | |  | | By Eli Okun | | | |  Democrats are worried that Stacey Abrams is struggling to catch Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp. | Brynn Anderson, File/AP Photo | They sometimes get less attention than the battle for control of Congress, but campaigns for governor’s mansions will have a major impact on Americans’ lives — and elections — in the years to come. Here’s the latest on a suite of key races: — Georgia: Democrats are worried that STACEY ABRAMS is struggling to catch Gov. BRIAN KEMP, having lost some support among Black men and failed to peel off enough moderate Republicans, NYT’s Maya King and Reid Epstein report from Newnan. Abrams spent years as a Democratic hero who flipped the state in 2020, but “her struggles have some Georgia Democrats wondering if the Abrams model — seeking to expand the universe of voters to fit her politics — is truly better than trying to capture 50 percent of the voters who exist now.” Local leaders have told the campaign they’re worried. FiveThirtyEight’s Geoffrey Skelley examines why Abrams is in worse shape than Sen. RAPHAEL WARNOCK: The polling gap between their two races is unusual. “There are a number of potential explanations for this gap, but the biggest factor might be incumbency and, more importantly, that Georgia’s top two races feature incumbents from different parties.” — Michigan: Another new poll finds Democratic Gov. GRETCHEN WHITMER with a commanding lead over GOP challenger TUDOR DIXON: She’s up 48% to 35% in a Detroit News/WDIV survey. Thirty-four percent of voters cite abortion and women’s rights as their No. 1 issue in the election, 8 points ahead of inflation and the cost of living. Whitmer leads Dixon by 27 points among women. Pollster RICHARD CZUBA “said he’s now seeing signs of a ‘magenta wave’ of female voters and independent voters beginning to form for November because of the abortion debate,” writes the News’ Craig Mauger. “‘Until someone can stop that conversation or override that conversation, that wave is going to keep building,’ the pollster said.” — Texas: Gov. GREG ABBOTT leads BETO O’ROURKE by 7 points, 49% to 42%, in a new poll from the Hobby School of Public Affairs at the University of Houston and Texas Southern University, per Bloomberg. That’s a growing margin for the Republican, who led by 5 in July. — Pennsylvania: If Republican DOUG MASTRIANO wins the gubernatorial race, a leading contender to be his secretary of the commonwealth is TONI SHUPPE, a QAnon-tied activist whose conspiracy theories extend well beyond just election fraud, Vice’s Cameron Joseph reports . “[T]he administration of the 2024 presidential election in the nation’s largest swing state could be in the hands of two QAnon-linked, election-denying conspiracy theorists who are hell-bent on upending the current election system.” — Massachusetts: Sabato’s Crystal Ball moved the Massachusetts gubernatorial race from likely Democratic to safe Democratic in the wake of GEOFF DIEHL’s GOP primary victory. He’ll face Democratic A.G. MAURA HEALEY in the general. They also yanked the Alaska House race from safe Republican to toss-up, and shifted two districts in Michigan and Washington state from toss-up to leaning Democratic. “[W]e still see the Republicans as considerable favorites to flip the House,” Kyle Kondik and J. Miles Coleman write. “It’s just that in this peculiar election year, the political signals are mixed.” — Illinois: “‘Don’t Tell Me I’m Not Allowed to Attack Back’: JB Pritzker Will Gladly Be Democrats’ Flamethrower,” by Vanity Fair’s Eric Lutz: “The Illinois governor, wealthy hotel heir, and 2008 Hillary Clinton campaign adviser has become an unlikely hero on the left. He’s built a progressive record and is willing to throw barbs. ‘Let me analogize this to the early days of the end of the Weimar Republic,’ Pritzker tells Vanity Fair.” INSIDE THE POST — Amid new rumbling about driftless leadership and potential layoffs, WaPo Publisher FRED RYAN and other leaders addressed the Post newsroom staff this morning at One Franklin Square. An upbeat and boosterish presentation was punctuated by news of the impending departure of one of Ryan’s top deputies — SHAILESH PRAKASH , the Post’s longtime technology chief and architect of its newsroom software business, Arc XP. Ryan announced Praikash will be leaving the Post later this year for a senior position at Google. Ryan and others did not take live questions, but before the gathering broke, education writer VALERIE STRAUSS publicly confronted Ryan about the return-to-office policy, pointedly asking if reporters’ jobs were at risk if they did not come to the newsroom. Ryan said he “wasn’t going to get into a debate,” while Strauss continued pressing: “We’re journalists, Fred,” she said, before Ryan abruptly ended the exchange, confirming the three-day-a-week policy stands. Post spokespeople and Strauss did not immediately return requests for comment. Good Wednesday afternoon. New on the schedule: Monkeypox coordinator BOB FENTON and deputy coordinator DEMETRE DASKALAKIS will join the White House briefing today.
| | | | A message from Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids: FDA: End the delays. Protect kids. Eliminate flavored e-cigarettes.
The FDA has missed deadline after deadline to protect our kids from nicotine-loaded flavored e-cigarettes, defying Congress and the courts and leaving these addictive products on the market.
All while tobacco companies continue to target and hook more kids.
FDA: End the delays. Protect kids today by eliminating flavored e-cigarettes. | | | CONGRESS WHIP COUNT — Sen. RON JOHNSON (R-Wis.) said he will not support the bill to codify same-sex and interracial marriage rights in its current form, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Lawrence Andrea revealed from a recording he obtained of Johnson’s comments last week. Johnson said the Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage was “probably” wrongly decided. And he said that his July statement that he had “no reason to oppose” the bill was just to get the press “off my backs.” Still, Johnson expressed some openness: “At the same time, I don’t want to see millions of lives disrupted either. To me, that was a wound that was healed. Let it go, OK. Move on, OK.” FUNDING FIGHT — Senate Republicans are signaling they may throw up roadblocks to the Biden administration’s request for $27 billion to fight Covid-19 and monkeypox, Marianne LeVine and Burgess Everett report. GOP senators said they’re skeptical of the money’s necessity and Democrats’ excess spending. The administration argues that the funding is critical for public health, but on the Hill, “Democrats are skeptical that Covid and monkeypox aid will make it into a final short-term funding package.” ON THE COVER — Wesley Lowery has a big profile of Rep. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ (D-N.Y.) in GQ. One striking moment: He asks if she or someone like her could be president. “I hold two contradictory things [in mind] at the same time. One is just the relentless belief that anything is possible,” she says, tearing up. “But at the same time, my experience here has given me a front-row seat to how deeply and unconsciously, as well as consciously, so many people in this country hate women. And they hate women of color. People ask me questions about the future. And realistically, I can’t even tell you if I’m going to be alive in September.” And yet, Lowery writes, her core belief is that “[t]he reality we wish for may be closer than we think.” ALL POLITICS PAST MASTERS — HuffPost’s Kevin Robillard digs up more emails that BLAKE MASTERS sent to his co-op at Stanford in 2006, when the now-GOP Senate nominee in Arizona said voting was meaningless or even immoral. Another striking line from Masters: “The story we’ve been told about 9/11 may indeed be correct, but blindly accepting it would be an error (as would accepting ‘conspiracy theories’ without reasonable possibilities/evidence presented).” His libertarianism and contrarianism come through repeatedly in the messages, but he also asks for “South Park” DVDs and touts the virtues of soccer over NASCAR. RANKED-CHOICE RAGE — In the wake of Democrats’ special-election upset in Alaska, Republicans are increasingly attacking the ranked-choice system itself. NRCC Chair TOM EMMER (R-Minn.) was the latest to do so today: “Ranked-choice voting, I think, is unconstitutional,” he told The Hill’s Emily Brooks. THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE — National File’s NOEL FRITSCH confirmed that his outlet got ASHLEY BIDEN’s diary from a Project Veritas employee in October 2020, The Intercept’s Ryan Grim reports. But “Fritsch said that [JAMES] O’KEEFE, as far as he knew, did not authorize the leak. ‘It’s kind of ironic, we had to sort of “Veritas” Veritas in order to get the thing broken and out into the news.’” THE WHITE HOUSE MARK YOUR CALENDARS — President JOE BIDEN will head to Boston on Monday to speak about his “Cancer Moonshot” initiative that aims to end cancer, the White House said. The historical parallels are prominent: He’s speaking at the JOHN F. KENNEDY Library and Museum on the 60th anniversary of Kennedy’s own “Moonshot” speech.
| | | | STEP INSIDE THE WEST WING: What's really happening in West Wing offices? Find out who's up, who's down, and who really has the president’s ear in our West Wing Playbook newsletter, the insider's guide to the Biden White House and Cabinet. For buzzy nuggets and details that you won't find anywhere else, subscribe today. | | | | | POLICY CORNER IRA IMPACT — Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act has spurred announcements of several major clean energy projects in the weeks since it became law, NYT’s Jack Ewing and Ivan Penn report. Some of the timing was coincidental, but “the legislation gives companies more confidence that they can earn a return on their bets.” Still, plenty of hurdles remain for the country’s clean energy transition, from raw materials to thorny approval processes. AMERICA AND THE WORLD DESERT DEVELOPMENT — The U.S. military is working on plans to create a military testing facility in Saudi Arabia, perhaps to be called the Red Sands Integrated Experimentation Center, NBC’s Courtney Kube scooped . Among the technologies the site could work on are methods to counter unmanned drones and “integrated air and missile defense capabilities.” The plans aren’t final yet, but CENTCOM found support from regional allies for the idea last month. It could spark criticism from human rights advocates, though, over deepening ties with the repressive Saudi regime. BY THE NUMBERS — For the fourth consecutive month, the U.S. trade gap shrank in July, per new Commerce Department data out today. The deficit narrowed 12.6% to $70.65 billion, thanks to falling U.S. imports and growing exports, per WSJ’s Harriet Torry. “Although the U.S. trade deficit has narrowed in recent months, it remains wide by historical comparison.” IMMIGRATION FILES — WaPo’s Antonio Olivo travels from Del Rio, Texas, to D.C. for an eye-opening look at the tens of thousands of migrants being bused from the border to the Northeast. Though Texas Gov. GREG ABBOTT and Arizona Gov. DOUG DUCEY have intended the buses as a political statement, some advocates and immigrants welcome the free ride — and there’s “no sign of anyone at the Val Verde center being forced or tricked into going to D.C. or New York — despite claims from [D.C. Mayor MURIEL] BOWSER and New York Mayor ERIC ADAMS.” Still, the arrivals are straining aid systems in D.C., where as many as 15% of the migrants are choosing to remain rather than continue on to other destinations. THE PANDEMIC MASK MANDATES — The federal government’s Head Start programs still require masks for teachers and children as young as 2, one of the last remaining mask mandates despite updated CDC guidelines that don’t recommend the practice in areas without high local transmission, NYT’s Dana Goldstein reports . Now, the requirements are “complicating both enrollment and hiring” in the states where they remain in effect, on top of existing struggles with falling numbers of kids and teacher shortages. MEDIAWATCH WHISKEY TANGO FOXTROT — “Police search county official’s home in connection with reporter’s killing,” by the Las Vegas Review-Journal’s Briana Erickson, Sabrina Schnur and Glenn Puit: “Around 7 a.m., reporters observed uniformed officers and police vehicles outside the home of Clark County Public Administrator ROBERT TELLES, who had been the focus of stories by [JEFF] GERMAN. … German spent months reporting on the turmoil surrounding Robert Telles’ oversight of the office. The 45-year-old Democrat lost his re-election bid in June’s primary after German’s findings were published.”
| | | | SUBSCRIBE TO POWER SWITCH: The energy landscape is profoundly transforming. Power Switch is a daily newsletter that unlocks the most important stories driving the energy sector and the political forces shaping critical decisions about your energy future, from production to storage, distribution to consumption. Don’t miss out on Power Switch, your guide to the politics of energy transformation in America and around the world. SUBSCRIBE TODAY. | | | | | PLAYBOOKERS MEDIA MOVE — Kirk McDonald is joining CNN’s “Inside Politics Sunday” as executive producer. He most recently was senior broadcast producer for “The Situation Room.” WHITE HOUSE MOVES — Ellen Qualls has left the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, where she was chief comms officer, to return to comms consulting. Amy Alexander is replacing her. She most recently was senior strategic communicator in the VA Office of Information and Technology’s IT strategic comms division. Lisa Zagaroli has also come on as speechwriter. She most recently worked for the FAA for 13 years. TRANSITIONS — Marta Dehmlow Hernandez is now senior director of comms at the Aerospace Industries Association. She most recently was comms director for the Senate Armed Services GOP. … Kathy O’Neill is now a partner with Cooley LLP’s D.C. office. She previously was senior director of investigations and litigation with DOJ’s Antitrust Division. … Meredith Hoing is now media relations manager at Corning. She most recently was director for earned media at Edelman Global Advisory, and is a John Kennedy and Alex Mooney alum. … … Andrew Becht is now scheduling director for Rep. Charlie Crist’s (D-Fla.) gubernatorial campaign. He previously was director of operations for Crist’s congressional office. … Sen. Chris Coons’ (D-Del.) office has added Joel Kabot as speechwriter and César Vargas-Torrico as press assistant. Kabot previously was an editor at the University of Maryland, Baltimore and is an alum of The Hill. Vargas-Torrico most recently was a staff assistant and legislative correspondent for Rep. Norma Torres (D-Calif.). … Shayla Ragimov is now director of carbon management at Boundary Stone Partners. She previously was manager of research at the Climate Leadership Council. STAFFING UP — Kevin Butterfield has been appointed director of the John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress. He most recently was executive director of the Fred W. Smith National Library for the Study of George Washington at Mount Vernon. ENGAGED — Madeline Bryant, director of operations for Rep. Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.), and Andrew Kelley, legislative assistant for Sen. John Boozman (R-Ark.), got engaged Friday in Rogers, Ark. They celebrated with a surprise party surrounded by family and friends. The couple met when they were both University of Arkansas students interning for Boozman in D.C. WELCOME TO THE WORLD — Lauren Blair Bianchi, SVP for public affairs at the Consumer Bankers Association and Phillip Bianchi , public policy adviser at Squire Patton Boggs, this morning welcomed Elizabeth Jane (Betsy) Bianchi, who came in at 6 lbs, 7.3 oz. Pic
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