Today’s installment of campaign-related news items from across the country.<\/p>\n

* Graham Platner’s Senate candidacy isn’t officially over yet, but<\/strong> as the Maine Democrat hemorrhages support<\/a>his campaign has canceled<\/a> fundraising events and scheduled ad buys. What’s more, Platner’s team acknowledged Tuesday<\/a> that it had reached out to the Maine Democratic Party to discuss the process for possibly replacing him on the ballot.<\/p>\n

That process, should it proceed, will apparently not be smooth: State party Executive Director Devon Murphy-Anderson accused members of Platner’s team late Tuesday of “trying to put their thumb on the scale”<\/a> of the process to find his replacement, even though the scandal-plagued candidate has yet to withdraw.<\/p>\n

The Maine Democratic Party chief added that Platner would have “no role”<\/a> in the selection process.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, as the candidate faces new allegations<\/a> of sexual misconduct, Platner’s would-be Democratic successors are taking unsubtle steps<\/a> to make clear they’re interested in getting the nod for the general election race against incumbent Republican Sen. Susan Collins.<\/p>\n

As for what to expect if Platner exits, Axios reported<\/a> that Republicans “are preparing to welcome a potential Graham Platner replacement in Maine’s Senate race with $8 million in negative ads, aiming to introduce a new Democratic nominee to voters on their own terms before Democrats can.”<\/p>\n

* It’s too late for Maryland to redraw its district map ahead of the midterms, but<\/strong> the Democratic-led legislature is moving forward with plans<\/a> for a special legislative session next month to overhaul its congressional districts ahead of the 2028 election cycle.<\/p>\n

* In Colorado’s Republican gubernatorial primary<\/strong>Victor Marx, a controversial religious nonprofit leader, is ahead of state Sen. Barb Kirkmeyer by roughly 2,000 votes in the latest tallies, but it might be a while<\/a> before the race is officially called.<\/p>\n

* Republican Rep. Cory Mills of Florida<\/strong> has faced a great many scandals<\/a> of late, but last week, one of his primary rivals filed a formal legal complaint<\/a> alleging that Mills improperly notarized his candidate documents, making him ineligible for the ballot. (Mills did not respond to MS NOW’s request for comment about the allegations.)<\/p>\n

* As if Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton didn’t have enough troubles<\/strong>the Republican Senate candidate is now facing mockery after spending July Fourth in Europe<\/a> with a woman who is not his estranged wife.<\/p>\n

* And a year after congressional Republicans passed their domestic policy megabill<\/strong> to significant partisan fanfare, it’s Democrats who are eager<\/a> to tell voters about the regressive package ahead of November’s elections.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n
Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Today’s installment of campaign-related news items from across the country. * Graham Platner’s Senate candidacy isn’t officially over yet, but as the Maine Democrat hemorrhages supporthis campaign has canceled fundraising events and scheduled ad buys. What’s more, Platner’s team acknowledged Tuesday that it had reached out to the Maine Democratic Party to discuss the process […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25528,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trump"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25527","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25527"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25527\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}