08/03/2026 Regular Issue

As mentioned in the preceding FEC roundup, you've got a whole lot of content headed your way this week. Next up is the PAC Tracker, followed by previews of Kansas, Missouri, Michigan, Virginia, and Washington.

Chicago Mayor

Illinois State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias became the latest centrist to enter next year’s race for mayor of Chicago this weekend, announcing on a platform of bringing back the notoriously unreliable policing technology ShotSpotter and hiring a thousand new cops. Also running in substantially the same ideological lane are outgoing state Treasurer Susanna Mendoza, perennial candidate Willie Wilson, and U.S. Rep. Mike Quigley, with many other Chicago pols eagerly eyeing the mayor’s office as unpopular Mayor Brandon Johnson weighs reelection.

CT-Gov

State Rep. Josh Elliott’s heavy advertising is beginning to take a toll on Gov. Ned Lamont. Elliott, who is challenging Lamont from the left over a series of contentious and controversial vetoes and legislative gambits, now trails the governor 48%-27% in a new poll from Impact CT. When Impact CT polled the race in early June, Elliott trailed Lamont 58%-20%, meaning Elliott has made up 17 points in about a month and a half. Elliott was unable to afford the advertising until he unlocked a grant of over $3 million in public financing as a reward for strong in-state small-donor support, so he’s now in a mad dash to catch up to Lamont ahead of the August 11 primary—and under 50% is never a place where any incumbent should feel safe. Perhaps that’s why Lamont is now airing attack ads bashing Elliott as an absentee representative who slept through votes.

CT State House

The Connecticut Supreme Court has ruled that two state House primaries will go forward—but one on a different calendar, because the ballot challenges took too long to adjudicate. While Venice Sotomayor will get to face Hartford state Rep. Julio Concepcion as scheduled on August 11, attorney Tom Tyler will have to face Enfield state Rep. John Santanella at a later date after losing in the trial court, leading to his name being removed from the ballot, only to succeed on his appeal to Connecticut’s highest court. (Sotomayor won in the trial court, so she was never removed from the ballot.)

FL-20

As Black Democrats fume at Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz for her blatant carpetbagging into a Black-majority district after Republicans re-gerrymandered Florida, one of her Black challengers is gaining some traction. This week, leftist Elijah Manley notched endorsements from the progressive veterans’ group Common Defense as well as from Our Revolution, the outgrowth of Bernie Sanders’s 2016 campaign; polling has shown Manley with arguably the best shot at stopping Wasserman Schultz.

FL-24

State Sen. Shevrin Jones, a middle-of-the-road liberal, is one of two frontrunners for the seat of retiring Rep. Frederica Wilson, and the choice of national Democrats. Wilson and figures within the Miami establishment like Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava are backing Miami-Dade County Commissioner Oliver Gilbert III—who endorsed a Republican for reelection to the state House in 2024, so that’s a nonstarter. According to a poll from the Gilbert camp last week, Gilbert leads Jones 27-24; according to a poll from the Jones camp this week, it’s Jones who leads, 35-28. Both polls find Kendrick Meek Jr., the son of former U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek, just shy of 10%.

MI-Sen

No less than five polls have been released this week showing progressive Abdul El-Sayed, the former Detroit health director, leading Oakland County Rep. and DSCC favorite Haley Stevens by double digits. Rather than go through each poll in detail, which would be excessive, I’ll just give you all five toplines—the first number in each pair being El-Sayed’s vote share and the second number being Stevens’s: 53-34, 56-39, 52-38, 57-41, 48-37.

In other words, El-Sayed is unambiguously the frontrunner heading into tomorrow’s primary.

MI-07

As DC Democrats feud over how to stop progressive Will Lawrence from securing the Democratic nomination in must-win MI-07—or whether he even can be stopped—one of his opponents, former Navy SEAL Matt Maasdam, is making an unusual argument: if and when Lawrence wins, it won’t be his fault. The argument came in the form of an internal poll released by Maasdam showing Lawrence leading Maasdam 38%-27%, with former US Ambassador to Ukraine Bridget Brink back in third at 19%. Maasdam cites this as evidence that Brink is just playing spoiler, and I cite it as evidence that Lawrence is probably favored here.

MI-13

As Rep. Shri Thanedar fights to keep his Detroit House seat, he’s running into a problem in DC: “No one cares about Shri.” That was one unnamed House Democrat on the prospect of Thanedar losing renomination to democratic socialist state Rep. Donavan McKinney. “He was never really taken into the caucus,” the member elaborated to Politico. “He’s just an odd duck.”

Damn, man, talk about being the unpopular coworker.

In fact, more and more of his colleagues are comfortable publicly saying they’d prefer the alternative. Last week, one former CBC chair, Ohio Rep. Joyce Beatty, went to Detroit to stump for McKinney; this week, another former CBC chair, Nevada Rep. Steven Horsford, joined several CBC colleagues, including California Rep. Lateefah Simon, Massachusetts Rep. Ayanna Pressley, and Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar in endorsing McKinney’s attempt to unseat their colleague.

No one cares about Shri, indeed.

St. Paul Mayor

St. Paul Mayor Kaohly Her is less than a year into her first term, and things have already gone south—due entirely to Her’s own actions. Apparently, the mayor has a long history of deranged, sexually inappropriate, and downright weird behavior in the workplace, with complaints coming from police officers, civilian officials, political aides, and personal acquaintances alike. The above-linked thread collects accusations of behavior from comments about employees’ breasts to unwanted touching to bizarre defacement of photos in the office.

WI-Gov

Another candidate has dropped out of the Wisconsin Democratic gubernatorial primary. This time, it’s former Lt. Gov. and 2022 Senate nominee Mandela Barnes, who withdrew as rumors swirled of forthcoming allegations of sexual misconduct. In his withdrawal statement, Barnes said “it’s become very clear who our nominee is going to be,” clearly referencing democratic socialist state Rep. Francesca Hong, whose anti-data center happy warrior campaign has surged to an overwhelming lead in primary polling.