Late-night TV host Jimmy Kimmel trolled Los Angeles mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt on Tuesday, renting him a U-Haul after his primary loss. Kimmel’s monologue comes after Pratt said he would leave the city if incumbent Mayor Karen Bass or city councilwoman Nithya Raman were elected for mayor, and that he would be done “trying to […]
President Trump ripped into Maine Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner on Wednesday, calling him a “low-level thug.” “He’s worse than any human being that’s ever run for office probably,” the president said. Platner, a progressive oyster farmer, easily won the Democratic primary on Tuesday to become the party’s candidate to face incumbent Republican Susan Collins.…
Progressive Democrat Graham Platner won the party’s Senate primary in Maine after a bruising campaign which became as much about accusations of his past misbehavior as it was voters’ top concerns. Tyler Kendall has more (Source: Bloomberg)
Retired Lt. Col. David Flippo overcame carpetbagging accusations in Nevada’s lone Republican House district.
David Flippo won his party’s nomination for a safely Republican open seat, defeating a candidate backed by the G.O.P. governor.
Graham Platner, a Marine veteran, oyster farmer and progressive activist, has won the Democratic nomination for the US Senate in Maine. Platner won 72% of the vote, defeating the state governor, Janet Mills, who suspended her campaign in April but remained on the ballot. Platner received scrutiny during the campaign for old incendiary Reddit posts, a tattoo resembling a Nazi symbol, sexually explicit messages sent to other women early in his marriage and accusations from a former girlfriend, denied by Platner, that he was physically intimidating. Platner will face the senator Susan Collins, a Republican running for a sixth six-year term, in November. The race is seen as a must-win for Democrats to take control of the Senate, where Republicans hold a 53-47 majority.Graham Platner shrugs off scandals to win Maine Democratic Senate primaryDemocrats rally round Platner in Maine as Trump reaffirms grip on GOP after primaries Continue reading...
The embattled oyster farmer enjoyed an explosive turnout in Maine's Democratic primary, eclipsing that of the party's Senate contest in 2020 — a presidential year.
Graham Platner easily secured Maine's Democratic nomination for a key U.S. Senate seat. In South Carolina, Republican Rep. Nancy Mace's career derailed.
Maine Democrats handed progressive firebrand Graham Platner an easy win in Tuesday's Senate primary, looking past his personal scandals in hopes he can oust five-term GOP Sen. Susan Collins in November.Why it matters: Tuesday's results set up what's sure to be a nasty, expensive battle for a seat that will go a long way toward determining control of the Senate. They also illustrated the huge contrasts now animating the political parties:GOP voters are almost always in lockstep with the leader of their party, President Trump, whose pick for South Carolina governor advanced to a runoff.As for Democrats, the combination of being desperate for victory and having no one with enough clout to stop an embattled outsider helped set the stage for Platner's big win over Gov. Janet Mills, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer's pick in the race.Zoom in: Platner's victory was also the latest one for Democratic progressives in their ongoing civil war with the party's moderates.Standing behind a sign that defiantly read, "They Don't Know Maine," Platner delivered an acceptance speech that mixed talk of his past regrets and slammed elites who'd opposed him."The national pundits, the political establishment, they keep looking for that one story, that one headline, that one moment in my life that they can define the campaign by," Platner said. "But in trying so hard to understand me, they failed to understand that this is not about me at all. This is a movement about us."Late Tuesday, Schumer and Senate Democrats' top super PAC put out statements making clear they support Platner.Key takeaways from Tuesday:Platner's latest round of scandals haven't hurt him — yet. His campaign has been a roller coaster ride of revelations, from the Nazi-linked tattoo he covered up to the recent reports that he'd sent sexually suggestive texts to women who weren't his wife. The reports gripped D.C. and made lots of ad fodder for Republicans, but didn't appear to damage Platner in Tuesday's primary. Early returns showed him with about 72% of the vote— close to his poll numbers before the latest headlines.Here come the attacks: In a preview of the smash-mouth assaults headed for Platner, Republican National Committee chair Joe Gruters called the Democratic nominee a "racist, sexist, Nazi-loving domestic abuser." Platner, a Marine combat veteran, kick-started his campaign against Collins by casting her as a corrupt warmonger who "handed out billions of dollars to defense companies" while "I got blown up."The parties' role-reversal: On one side, there's a scandal-plagued man running as a populist that the political establishment tried and failed to stop. On the other, a moderate woman who's been in D.C. for decades. It's not the 2016 election between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton — it's the match-up between Platner and Collins that looks like the Senate version, with the parties switched. Dems warm to controversy: Blame it on Trump lowering the bar for candidates' personal conduct, Democrats losing trust in their leaders to know what it takes to win, or something darker. Platner's primary victory signals that Democratic voters have become more willing to accept skeletons in a candidate's closet. Trump picks a winner, while Rep. Nancy Mace hits a dead end: In the latest affirmation of Trump's power over the GOP, his pick in South Carolina's gubernatorial primary, Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette, advanced to a runoff with state Attorney General Alan Wilson. Mace, a former Trump loyalist who fell out of favor with him after pushing for the release of the Epstein files, was running fifth in the primary.