Maine voters head to polls on Tuesday for closely watched primary election

New Poll: Americans United Against Iran Threat, Nuclear Dangers

Trump rushes to emergency rally to save Lindsey Graham in heated primary

With his grip on the South Carolina Republican primary suddenly less certain than anyone anticipated, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) is calling in the biggest favor he has — President Donald Trump.Graham announced Monday that Trump has agreed to join a last-minute tele-rally Monday evening ahead of Tuesday's GOP primary, urging supporters to dial in at 5:30 p.m. "I'm proud to be endorsed by President Trump, and I'd be honored to have you join us for a Tele-Rally TONIGHT at 5:30 PM," Graham wrote on X.The move underscores an uncomfortable reality for the four-term incumbent: heading into Tuesday's vote, Graham cannot be certain he will clear the 50% threshold South Carolina requires to avoid a June 23 runoff.The most recent polling tells a mixed story. A late-May Citadel Poll of likely Republican primary voters had Graham at just 46% — four points short of the runoff barrier — with challenger Mark Lynch at 36%. A Trafalgar Group survey conducted around the same time showed a more comfortable 52%-28% edge, and a poll released Saturday by The Public Sentiment Institute put Graham at 51% to Lynch's 26%.The wild card is Graham's hawkish support for the U.S.-Israel war against Iran. Lynch has made it the centerpiece of his challenge, arguing Graham is focused on prolonging a conflict South Carolinians are growing tired of. "People are tired of him getting [the United States] into endless, needless wars," Lynch told the Christian Science Monitor in a piece published Monday.The TPSI poll found that among voters who believe Israel has too much influence in American politics — roughly 36% of the Republican electorate — Lynch actually led Graham, 37% to 33%.Graham has shown no sign of backing down. "If you're scared of losing your job, you cannot be a very good senator," he told the Post and Courier, according to the Christian Science Monitor.Trump formally endorsed Graham on June 4, urging South Carolina Republicans to vote for him, and Graham has leaned hard into that alliance. But with Lynch self-funding his campaign to the tune of $5 million and anti-establishment energy running high, Trump's voice on a phone line may be the deciding factor between a clean win and two more weeks of political headaches for the Palmetto State's senior senator.

The good and bad news in the Los Angeles mayor primary

It will take about a month for Los Angeles to finally count all of its votes, but we already have some good news and bad news in the city’s race for mayor. It starts with the bad news: Mayor Karen Bass has advanced to the top two runoff. Bass has been an undeniable failure, particularly […]

Trump calls LA mayor race a ‘rigged election’ after Spencer Pratt falls behind as final votes are counted

President Donald Trump expressed concern on Monday that the Los Angeles mayoral race was manipulated in favor of Democrats, after the leading Republican candidate saw his lead fall away, appearing to dash hopes of flipping the seat red.  In Los Angeles, the top two vote-getters in the primary advance to the general election, regardless of […]

In Maine, Supporters of Graham Platner Continue to Back His Senate Campaign, With ‘Trepidation’

Many are sticking by the presumptive Democratic Senate nominee Graham Platner. But some have soured, and others are anxious about how recent revelations could affect a close race.

Mixed Feelings About Platner? Fine. But He Needs to Win. Case Closed.

I’m guessing you have a pretty good idea of what Graham Platner was getting up to last week—fending off yet another round of allegations about his character. But what about Susan Collins, Maine’s incumbent GOP senator and the person almost sure to be Platner’s opponent this November? You probably didn’t hear a word about her. The only significant news story of the week in which she figured (aside from being mentioned in all the Platner stories) is that she cast her 10,000th consecutive vote in the Senate—a milestone, to be sure, but something of a double-edged one as it serves to remind voters that she’s been in the Senate since Christ left Chicago.This is just how Collins wants things. As long as the subject is Platner’s boozing and his ex-girlfriends, Collins may skate to reelection. So, the key thing Platner has to do, assuming he wins tomorrow’s primary and stays in the race, is to maneuver things such that come October, the topic is Collins’s record, not his past.We’ll get to that record in a bit, but first, let’s deal with the Platner question. Two big stories came out last week. The first was about his sexting with several women in the early days of his current marriage. He married Amy Gertner in 2023. Early in the campaign, Gertner told an aide who was a friend about the messages, and the friend—now presumably an ex-friend—told a lot of people and shared some screen grabs with The New York Times. Gertner denounced the friend, Genevieve McDonald, and defended her husband and marriage. On that one, I think your average person would say Well, if his wife doesn’t care, why should I?The second story was potentially more damaging and concerned Platner allegedly twisting the arm of a former girlfriend and slamming a door shut on her; also, that he “regularly grabbed her by the shoulders,” according to The New York Times, which broke the story last Thursday. It’s disturbing, no doubt. It’s worth noting that this woman is, or was at the time, apparently a very committed conservative Republican—the cofounder of “Ladies for Kavanaugh,” which she formed to confront what she termed the “baseless, 11th-hour accusations orchestrated to stop [the justice’s] confirmation.” (One question the Times left on the table but crossed my mind and maybe yours was how Platner could have said “you are literally everything to me” to someone who, according to Newsweek, worked at the Heritage Foundation at the time.)Two other exes told the Times of similar treatment from Platner. On the other hand, “several” other exes (dude got around!) described him as “a fun and caring partner,” and some remain friends with him to this day. Platner denies all the physical stuff, so someone is lying.Personally, I don’t know what to make of the guy. I suspect he’s not telling the truth about his Nazi tattoo and I’d bet you that he knew what it meant, but I also don’t think that makes him a Nazi. He has obviously lived a life that we would at the very least call picaresque. Balzac would have had fun with him. There’s also the question of, as it is often said in politics, what else is out there. Any good campaign—and Susan Collins does run good campaigns—knows to sit on the really bad stuff until after Labor Day, although campaigns can’t always control when things are disclosed, and anyway, all the revelations about Platner seem to be coming from establishment Democrats who are unnerved by his lefty swagger.There’s a lot we don’t know, and a chance we’ll find out all about it. I do, however, know these two things. One, Platner is almost certain to be the Democratic nominee. Two, short of revelations involving murder, rape, or a taste for child pornography, Platner needs to be backed by Democrats to the hilt. That may seem like a really low bar, and maybe it is. But I’m less interested in his personal life than I am in Collins’s public one, because that’s what really matters here.So let us now return to the question of Collins’s week. The Senate cast a bunch of votes last week. And Collins did what she always does when she’s up for reelection—she voted with the Democrats on the ones people pay attention to, and as a Republican on the others. There were a number of votes related to Donald Trump’s $1.8 billion slush fund. On most of those, like this one for example, she was one of maybe two or three Republicans (Thom Tillis and Bill Cassidy, who are both retiring) voting with the Democrats. On other less highly visible matters, though, she went with her party and with Trump. Last Wednesday, the Senate rejected a resolution that would have overturned Trump’s rollback of Biden-era emissions standards for coal- and oil-fired power. She went party-line on that one. The day before, she voted to confirm a federal judge for Kansas who, at his confirmation hearing, refused to say that Trump lost the 2020 election. Ah, judges: This brings us to where Platner needs to direct attention in this campaign.

Nithya Raman surges past Spencer Pratt in stunning election twist

Favorable ballot drops found Los Angeles’ own Mamdani edging past Spencer Pratt in the mayoral primary as he’s drawing attention to suspicious vote totals. While states comparable […]

MAGA melts down as Dem overtakes Spencer Pratt in LA mayoral primary: 'This is egregious'​

Fans of President Donald Trump's Make America Great Again movement melted down on Sunday after reality TV personality Spencer Pratt fell out of his second-place spot in Los Angeles's mayoral primary race. Pratt, who ran as a Republican, had held a strong lead against Los Angeles City Councilmember Nithya Raman, a Democrat, in the primary race until Sunday. The Los Angeles Times reported that mail-in ballots were the key reason why Raman was able to make such a large comeback, and the trend seems likely to continue as the state allows mail-in ballots to be counted for several days following an election. MAGA fans weren't happy to see their favorite candidate lose his lead and shared their reactions on social media. "Spencer Pratt was robbed. This is egregious," MAGA influencer Laura Loomer posted on X. "A woman with absolutely zero following, no groundswell of support, and no name ID absolutely killed it in mail-in voting in Los Angeles. It's just the way this state counts ballots, guys!!" Andrew Kolvet, a spokesperson for Turning Point USA, posted on X. "Free PSA: If you don't want us to assume cheating, maybe make it a little less obvious.""Stolen election in broad daylight," Dana Loesch, a MAGA radio host, posted on X. "Total. F------. Fraud," Mike Davis, a lawyer for the Article III project, posted on X. "I feel genuinely terrible for all my Southern California friends who worked so hard. It was always going to go this way because that’s how communism works. Once you vote it in, you can’t vote it out," MAGA pundit Jesse Kelly posted on X.