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Results for " election " 5,718 found 🔀 AI-powered Shuffle

4 takeaways from Tuesday's primary night in half a dozen states

While Trump continues to rack up victories on his vengeance tour, general-election opponents are waiting in swing districts and swing states. Can frontline GOP candidates navigate these choppy waters?

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May 20 • 5:00 AM EDT • Politics • npr.org
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2020 election misinformation continues to ripple through Wisconsin politics

Conspiracy theories about the 2020 election in Wisconsin have resurfaced due to U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany's history of election denial.

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May 20 • 4:00 AM EDT • Politics • wisconsinexaminer.com
Idaho Gov. Brad Little speaks at primary election party

Incumbent Brad Little speaks as early election results show him in the lead in the Republican primary for governor. Little is running for his third term as governor.

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May 20 • 1:46 AM EDT • Politics • idahostatesman.com
The questions for England to answer during World Cup preparation

Fitness, selection and form are some of the questions England must answer with six games to go before the T20 World Cup begins.

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May 20 • 1:33 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
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May 20, 2026: The political unknown shaking up the GOP primary for governor; climate-proofing Denver's urban trees; what's wrong with the 'tree of heaven'

Victor Marx has millions of followers online but is a new face in Colorado politics

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May 20 • 1:05 AM EDT • Politics • cpr.org
Republicans Collins, Dooley Advance to Primary Runoff in Hopes of Facing US Senator Ossoff in November

By David Morgan May 19 (Reuters) - A hardline Republican congressman ⁠and ⁠a former college football coach ⁠who has never held elective office advanced to a runoff on Tuesday in Georgia's U.S. Senate Republican primary election, extending a messy intra-party battle to determine ‌who will face ...

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May 19 • 11:50 PM EDT • Politics • usnews.com
GOP voters overwhelmingly pick Woods over Lindemuth in the 98th District

Lancaster County Clerk of Courts Nicky Woods will move on to the November general election in the 98th House District after winning Tuesday’s Republican primary.

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May 19 • 10:34 PM EDT • Politics • lancasteronline.com
Thomas Massie tussled with Trump

Massie won seven elections over 14 years in Kentucky's 4th District, but he couldn't overcome the ire of President Trump

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May 19 • 10:29 PM EDT • Politics • cincinnati.com
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Trump ousts Massie, and other takeaways from Tuesday’s primary elections

President Donald Trump’s retribution campaign steamrolled another Republican rival on Tuesday, with a Trump-backed challenger ousting one of the president’s leading intra-party antagonists, Rep. Thomas Massie, in a Kentucky primary.

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May 19 • 9:36 PM EDT • Politics • cnn.com
Gallrein supporters celebrate win over Massie in Kentucky's 4th District

Supporters of Ed Gallrein celebrate at his election night party after the Associated Press called the race for KY-04 in his favor. With the support of President Donald Trump, Gallrein unseats incumbent Rep. Thomas Massie.

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May 19 • 9:21 PM EDT • Politics • kentucky.com
Idaho Democrats choose small business owner in uphill race against incumbent GOP governor

Idaho Gov. Brad Little will face Democrat Terri Pickens in the general election as he vies for a third term in a solidly Republican state this November.

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May 19 • 7:20 PM EDT • Politics • foxnews.com
Philly DA Larry Krasner got kicked out of election day lunch after clashing with union leader Ryan Boyer

The argument stemmed from last year’s DA’s race, when Boyer, a political centrist who leads the powerful Philadelphia Building and Construction Trades Council, endorsed Krasner’s challenger.

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May 19 • 3:45 PM EDT • Politics • inquirer.com
What to watch in Georgia's blockbuster primary

Georgia is preparing for a blockbuster primary on Tuesday

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May 19 • 2:30 PM EDT • Politics • pbs.org
🙂 Positive (35%)
NAACP calls for boycott of Southern college sports programs over voting rights

The NAACP is calling on Black athletes and fans to boycott the athletic programs of public universities in states that are taking steps that the nation’s oldest civil rights group says are restricting Black voting rights.

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May 19 • 2:28 PM EDT • Sports • wtop.com
Trump endorses Paxton in Texas Republican primary, boosting effort to oust Sen. Cornyn

Although the four-term Cornyn has backed Trump’s agenda in Washington, Paxton pitched himself as a political warrior for the MAGA movement.

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May 19 • 1:12 PM EDT • Politics • pbs.org
🙂 Positive (35%)
Voters cast ballots in several high-profile primary elections

Voters head to the polls in primary elections in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Kentucky and Alabama. Follow for live news updates.

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May 19 • 11:57 AM EDT • Politics • cnn.com
Inside the trans athlete podium controversy sending political shockwaves in California ahead of elections

California's CIF forced co-podium placements with trans athlete AB Hernandez, igniting a firestorm in the national debate over girls' sports.

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May 19 • 11:04 AM EDT • Politics • foxnews.com
How a power megamerger could lower bills — and still rile affordability politics

Virginia could be a major bump in the road for NextEra's proposed $67 billion merger with Dominion Energy.

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May 19 • 10:30 AM EDT • Politics • politico.com
Report Warns Distrust in Elections Threatens Business Confidence and Economic Stability

/PRNewswire/ -- As the United States approaches its 250th anniversary, growing distrust in elections poses a threat to both democracy and the economy. A new...

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May 19 • 10:30 AM EDT • Business • prnewswire.com
4 Takeaways From Portugal's World Cup Roster Selection

Cristiano Ronaldo eyes World Cup history with Portugal. But the real story is what should his role be on this team.

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May 19 • 9:54 AM EDT • Sports • foxsports.com
Inside Alabama Politics

It's Election Day here in Alabama, which equal parts exciting and maddening to most politicos. In any case, we're finally going to get closer to some answers on what the next chapter of the state's elected leadership will be. But not for a good twelve hours!

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May 19 • 9:52 AM EDT • Politics • aldailynews.com
Live Results: Pennsylvania midterm congressional primaries

Democratic voters in Tuesday's Pennsylvania primary will pick their nominees to flip four seats seen as critical for the party to retake the U.S. House in November.

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May 19 • 9:00 AM EDT • Politics • pbs.org
Live Results: Idaho midterm congressional primaries

The contests will set the stage for the November general election, when Republicans will count on big wins in Idaho to help keep control of the U.S. Senate and House.

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May 19 • 9:00 AM EDT • Politics • pbs.org
Live Results: Georgia midterm congressional primaries

Voting concludes in the swing state of Georgia on Tuesday in competitive primaries for governor and a U.S. Senate seat that could decide control of the closely divided chamber.

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May 19 • 9:00 AM EDT • Politics • pbs.org
How a power megamerger could lower bills — and still rile affordability politics

Virginia could be a major bump in the road for NextEra's proposed $67 billion merger with Dominion Energy.

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May 19 • 6:49 AM EDT • Politics • eenews.net
DC politics have arrived in West Virginia

West Virginia politics have taken on a distinctly DC-style edge, brought in by Gov. Patrick Morrisey. While this approach may offer short-term gains for the governor and his allies, the long-term effects of the 2026 Republican Primary could extend well beyond another election cycle with fewer people willing to put their name and reputation on

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May 19 • 12:19 AM EDT • Politics • wvmetronews.com
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Bennet: Gov’s election denier commutation ‘disqualifying’ for potential Senate pick
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May 18 • 9:51 PM EDT • Politics • cnn.com
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Justice Jackson slams Supreme Court’s handling of rush appeal in Louisiana redistricting case

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson offered a blistering critique Monday of the Supreme Court’s handling of a recent high-profile redistricting case, asserting that the court needed to be “really, really careful” in the churn of an election year to avoid appearing political and suggesting it had failed to do so in that case.

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May 18 • 9:48 PM EDT • Politics • cnn.com
Fact check: Colorado governor’s misleading rationale for freeing election denier Tina Peters

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis justified his decision to release election denier Tina Peters from prison with a series of false and misleading claims, inaccurately distancing her case from efforts to undermine the 2020 election.

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May 18 • 7:38 PM EDT • Politics • cnn.com
Political group sues Missouri officials over pressuring county clerks

People Not Politicians is seeking a court injunctive to stop state officials from pressuring county election authorities to use a gerrymandered congressional map.

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May 18 • 7:10 PM EDT • Politics • komu.com
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Nancy Pelosi puts thumb on the scale in race for her successor. Here's who she endorsed

Pelosi’s surprise endorsement comes just two weeks from Election Day, six months after the former speaker announced she would retire

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May 18 • 6:51 PM EDT • Politics • calmatters.org
Detroit Lions rookie contract details: CB Keith Abney II

A look at the contract details for Detroit Lions fifth-round selection Keith Abney II.

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May 18 • 4:15 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
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Steve Scalise endorses Julia Letlow for Senate after Bill Cassidy ousted from office

It’s a sign that Louisiana’s GOP establishment may be coalescing behind Letlow after her commanding win in Saturday’s election.

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May 18 • 3:00 PM EDT • Politics • nola.com
Jenks America Food Truck Festival returns with specialty foods and live entertainment

Foodies unite! The annual Jenks America Food Truck Festival is back this month with a wide selection of specialty foods.

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May 18 • 2:14 PM EDT • Entertainment • fox23.com
😐 Neutral (14%)
Georgia GOP scrambles to pick candidate to face Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff

Trump has not endorsed a candidate, which could lead to a runoff on June 16.

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May 18 • 2:11 PM EDT • Politics • pbs.org
🙂 Positive (35%)
What to know about the political chaos engulfing the UK's Labour Party and efforts to unseat Starmer

LONDON (AP) — British Prime Minister Keir Starmer tried to strengthen his grip on office Monday, saying he was getting on with the job after taking blame for the Labour Party’s disastrous election results that have put his leadership in jeopardy.

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May 18 • 12:23 PM EDT • Politics • wral.com
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5 runoff races to watch as early voting kicks off

Early voting for the primary runoff elections is here.

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May 18 • 11:30 AM EDT • Politics • spectrumlocalnews.com
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Redistricting debate shifts to South Carolina as Republicans target Rep. Clyburn's seat

The Southern redistricting efforts come after a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that weakened Voting Rights Act protections for minority districts.

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May 18 • 10:13 AM EDT • Politics • pbs.org
Georgia Republicans scramble to pick a candidate to take on Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff

Georgia Republican Rep. Mike Collins is positioning himself as a strong supporter of Donald Trump in his bid to challenge Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff | 97.3 The Sky

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May 18 • 10:10 AM EDT • Politics • audacy.com
Georgia Republicans scramble to pick a candidate to take on Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff

Georgia Republican Rep. Mike Collins is positioning himself as a strong supporter of Donald Trump in his bid to challenge Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff | WWJ Newsradio 950

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May 18 • 10:10 AM EDT • Politics • audacy.com
Georgia Republicans scramble to pick a candidate to take on Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff

Georgia Republican Rep. Mike Collins is positioning himself as a strong supporter of Donald Trump in his bid to challenge Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff | News-Talk 1380 WAOK

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May 18 • 10:10 AM EDT • Politics • audacy.com
The Odds: Rep. Massie’s reelection bid
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May 18 • 9:54 AM EDT • Politics • cnn.com
EPA announces new selections to Science Advisory Board

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has announced the selection of new members to its Science Advisory Board (SAB), which provides expert

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May 18 • 9:15 AM EDT • Science • waterfm.com
Maryland ballot blunder triggers GOP push for federal review of blue state's voter rolls

Republicans call for a federal review of Maryland's voter rolls after a ballot vendor error forced the state to resend thousands of primary ballots.

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May 18 • 9:02 AM EDT • Politics • foxnews.com
Buttigieg rallies for Montana election initiative, stays mum on political plans

During an hour-long speech in a packed Mother Lode Theatre, Pete Buttigieg made a rousing plea to ban corporate money from Montana politics while repeatedly sidestepping talk of a 2028 presidential run. The 2020 Democratic presidential candidate and former U.S. transportation secretary drew cheers from the audience of 1,200 in Butte as he suggested that special interests and corporate spending in campaigns had drowned out the concerns of average voters.

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May 18 • 9:00 AM EDT • Politics • montanafreepress.org
Op-ed: Peru’s Politics of Instability

As Peru approaches new presidential elections, a cycle of political upheaval has normalized instability, raising urgent questions about whether democracy can function when crisis becomes routine.

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May 18 • 8:47 AM EDT • Politics • irinsider.org
Supreme Court ruling throws Alabama politics into turmoil

A renewed redistricting fight deepened uncertainty over election maps, voting rights and Republican divisions, underscoring Alabama’s outsized role in national political battles.

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May 18 • 8:44 AM EDT • Politics • alreporter.com
Op-ed: Peru’s Politics of Instability

As Peru approaches new presidential elections, a cycle of political upheaval has normalized instability, raising urgent questions about whether democracy can function when crisis becomes routine.

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May 18 • 8:37 AM EDT • Politics • irinsider.org
AP Decision Notes: What to Expect in Oregon’s Primaries

WASHINGTON (AP) — Oregon’s Democratic Gov. Tina Kotek and the nearly two dozen challengers hoping to defeat her are among the candidates who will seek their parties’ nominations for state and federal offices in Tuesday’s primary. Voters will also decide a statewide ballot measure that would raise ...

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May 18 • 8:30 AM EDT • Politics • usnews.com
AP Decision Notes: What to expect in Kentucky’s primaries

One of President Donald Trump’s most vocal critics within the Republican Party faces a tough primary challenge in Kentucky’s state primary | 97.3 The Sky

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May 18 • 8:07 AM EDT • Politics • audacy.com
Don't mistake voter apathy for popular mandates

Alabama politics are dominated by hate, distraction and a lack of meaningful choices. It's hard to say the state as a whole is embracing that.

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May 18 • 5:59 AM EDT • Politics • alabamareflector.com
Hawaii Just Found a Way to Keep Corporations Out of Politics

A new law makes clear that corporations derive their powers from states, and they don’t necessarily include the right to spend on elections.

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May 18 • 5:15 AM EDT • Politics • prospect.org
'Calculated' Salah has 'sensed an opportunity and taken it'

Not for the first time this season, Mohamed Salah seems to have taken a thinly veiled dig at the manager. You can't apportion blame when we don't know the full story and why Salah feels the way he does. It will now be interesting to see in that final game of the season at Anfield, his farewell to the supporters and the City, how Slot reacts in terms of team selection and how the fans react to a legend going out in unsavoury fashion.

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May 18 • 4:31 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
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Colorado GOP plays with fire as primary approaches

Over the next several weeks, the Colorado Republican Party will make consequential decisions that will determine just how relevant it will be in 2026 and beyond. The 600-member Colorado Republican State Central Committee will meet on May 30 to elect a new state chair following the resignation of Brita Horn. The Colorado Republican Primary Election […]

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May 18 • 3:00 AM EDT • Politics • coloradopolitics.com
Mystery grows around absent congressman facing tough reelection

Tom Kean Jr.’s months-long absence from Capitol Hill is the talk of the town in Washington. Where is the man? No one is saying

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May 18 • 12:07 AM EDT • Politics • njspotlightnews.org
6 Portable Entertainment Gadgets To Buy From Costco (And 5 To Skip)

Costco can be a great place to find deals on all sorts of technological goodies, but though its selection is wide, not everything is worth shelling out for.

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May 17 • 4:30 PM EDT • Technology • slashgear.com
6 Portable Entertainment Gadgets To Buy From Costco (And 5 To Skip)

Costco can be a great place to find deals on all sorts of technological goodies, but though its selection is wide, not everything is worth shelling out for.

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May 17 • 4:30 PM EDT • Entertainment • slashgear.com
How a Jared Polis Came to Release Election Denier Tina Peters from Prison

Gov. Jared Polis’s decision to commute the sentence of Tina Peters came after months of tense discussions, including one with President Trump.

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May 17 • 4:18 PM EDT • Politics • nytimes.com
Pro-Israel groups are spending big to sink Thomas Massie in the most expensive House primary in history

“AIPAC’s views on Thomas Massie are no secret,” the group's spokesman said. “We use different tactics in different districts. Our goal is to win.”

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May 17 • 10:00 AM EDT • Politics • politico.com
Trump calls out Rep Thomas Massie: 'Kentucky, get this LOSER out of politics' Tuesday

Trump uses Sen. Bill Cassidy's Louisiana ouster as a warning shot against Rep. Thomas Massie ahead of Kentucky's Tuesday Republican primary election.

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May 17 • 7:33 AM EDT • Politics • foxnews.com
Trump sent a message by targeting Bill Cassidy. In defeat, Cassidy delivered one back

Louisiana Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy wanted his reelection campaign to be about the “present and the future.” President Donald Trump had other plans. Cassidy became the first GOP senator to lose renomination in close to a decade, a remarkable downfall that shows again how Trump dominates the party. He signaled in his concession speech, without mentioning Trump, that he could spend the final months of his term being more of a thorn in Trump’s side – or at least more openly critical.

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May 17 • 12:34 AM EDT • Politics • cnn.com
Trump-backed Letlow advances to Louisiana Senate runoff as Cassidy faces political reckoning

BATON ROUGE, La. — U.S. Rep. Julia Letlow advanced to a runoff in Louisiana’s Republican Senate primary Saturday, capitalizing on the power...

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May 16 • 11:10 PM EDT • Politics • post-gazette.com
Labour leadership jostling puts Brexit back under political spotlight

The UK's relationship with the EU is shaping up as a key issue for a possible Labour leadership contest and the coming by-election in the Makerfield.

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May 16 • 10:14 PM EDT • Politics • bbc.com
In New Orleans area, voters took to the polls: “This time it is more important”

Across the New Orleans area on Saturday, a steady stream of residents filed in and out of their polling stations as they would in any other election.

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May 16 • 9:00 PM EDT • Politics • nola.com
😐 Neutral (0%)
Louisiana election live updates: Sen. Bill Cassidy faces primary against Trump-backed Rep. Julia Letlow and more

Follow live updates and breaking news coverage of the Louisiana primary election as Sen. Bill Cassidy faces Trump-backed Rep. Julia Letlow.

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May 16 • 8:30 PM EDT • Politics • nbcnews.com
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Now What? With Carbon Pricing Eroded and Pipeline Politics Advancing, Here Are the Pathways for Climate Success

At the end of a whirlwind week of news on carbon pricing and electricity strategy, capping a madcap year of pretty much non-stop, dramatic change, the word across much of Canada’s climate and energy transition community is that climate policy in this country has been shredded. Eviscerated. Hit with a sledgehammer by policy rollbacks that have pushed the country’s 2050 net zero target “well out of reach”. That means it’s never been more important to look for the rays of hope and glimmers of possibility. To glimpse the seeds of the next set of strategies to get Canada’s climate pollution under control and the country into the accelerating global dash away from fossil fuels. And then, once we’ve spotted those possibilities, get on with the hard, day-to-day slog of trying to make them a reality. Nothing takes away from the frustration and the deep disappointment so many climate and energy hawks are expressing, the sense of betrayal by the author of Value(s) and the former UN special envoy for climate action and finance. But we knew two things as the week drew to a close. We’re looking at the world as it most definitely is. And we don’t get to give up finding the pathways to confront climate change and deliver faster, deeper carbon cuts that leave no one else behind. So really, the first question we all have to ask ourselves is: What’s next? Subscribe All the Oxygen in the Room The outpouring of anger and grief over the carbon pricing deal between Prime Minister Mark Carney and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has been absolutely understandable. So much of the climate community poured years, more than a decade, into dragging the current federal pricing regime across the finish line, then defending it from a deluge of three-syllable rhymes after the Trudeau government proved utterly incapable of delivering its own message. The policy foisted on us by neo-classical economists took up all the oxygen in the room, burned through years of climate response time that we won’t get back, while cornering climate hawks into the position that the best response to the crisis of our lifetimes is a new tax…in an era of historic anti-tax sentiment. I mean, really—what could possibly have gone wrong? Against that history, let’s appreciate columnist Max Fawcett’s point that even a modest carbon pricing agreement with a government as off-the-wall libertarian/conspiracist as Danielle Smith’s—those adjectives are mine, not Max’s—is a win worth savouring (as long as Smith keeps her promises for a change). But part of living in the world as it is (no, I’m not letting that go) is to be clear-headed about what we can and can’t control. And one thing we get to decide, after seeing this week’s carbon price festivities take up all the oxygen yet again, is whether we want to keep letting that happen. Particularly when success down that road depends on a factor that no one with a climate agenda can control or influence—a provincial carbon pricing mechanism that has been manipulated and eroded beyond its lowest possible denominator. Thankfully, that’s not the way it has to go. Not when we have so many other powerful, practical tools at our disposal, including the ones still available to us through this abominable Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between Canada and Alberta. Tools In Our Toolbox When I started roughing out this list, I didn’t expect it to grow to nearly a dozen bullet points. It’s probably still incomplete. Some of the greatest hits in today’s climate solutions toolbox include: • No Carbon Capture, No Pipeline: On Friday, Prime Minister Mark Carney explicitly stated that there’s been no change to the MOU provision that there will be no West Coast pipeline without an industry commitment to build its massive, $16.5-billion carbon capture and storage (CCUS) hub in Northern Alberta, and vice versa. The two megaprojects were joined at the hip when the MOU was signed Nov. 27, and the implementation agreement this week affirmed that they still are. A parade of independent analysts have spent years pointing to the economic and technical flaws in CCUS, while the industry kept postponing its investment decision until it could arm-twist the government for more “clarity” (by which it meant even more lavish taxpayer subsidies) on the project. Now the industry itself is running away from the CCUS hub and insisting the pipeline should proceed without it, but Carney doesn’t seem to be budging from a central tenet of the MOU to which Smith has signed on. • No Subsidies, No Investors: Climate analysts and advocates have quite rightly been hammering away at Carney and his team, insisting that any new capacity the industry wants to build must proceed without new subsidies. The government has responded with a growing collection of funding and financing mechanisms for the very wide menu of industrial development and nation-building projects they say they want to take on, and that menu always includes fossil fuel infrastructure. But it’s hard to see how even the combined fiscal clout of the federal and supportive provincial governments will deliver the financial backing private investors would need when the business case for new fossil fuel development is evaporating before their eyes. Particularly when… • No Market, No Demand, No Investors: As our friend Markham Hislop at Energi Media (our apparently sleepless friend, given the massive volume of great material he’s been churning out) points out this morning, the biggest vulnerability in any pipeline deal is the assumption that Asian buyers will want the oil or liquefied natural ga that our fossil industry is so keen to send them. Hislop writes in part: Ottawa and Alberta are effectively betting that countries like China and India will continue increasing oil imports for decades as their economies grow and energy consumption rises. That assumption underpins the entire economic rationale for expanding oil sands production and building billions of dollars in new export infrastructure. But Asian energy systems are changing rapidly… China, India, South Korea, and other major hydrocarbon importers are now investing hundreds of billions of dollars into electricity systems built around wind, solar, batteries, nuclear, hydro, and expanded transmission infrastructure. Domestic “energy sovereignty” is increasingly replacing the old energy-security model based on stable oil and gas imports. Those investments are expected to sharply slow oil demand growth and eventually reverse it, even as overall energy consumption continues rising. There are also refining constraints. Many Asian refineries and petrochemical complexes are already optimized to process discounted heavy crude from the Middle East and Latin America. That raises serious questions about how much additional Canadian bitumen Asian markets can absorb at profitable prices. Small wonder that there’s still no private sector investor for the project, despite Smith’s government desperately beating the bushes to put together a deal. For now, Alberta is acting as proponent and covering early start-up costs for a pitch to the federal Major Projects Office, which could actually turn into the next tough hurdle for Smith and her pipeline to jump. • Canada Day Looms: How ironic that Canada’s birthday this year could become a major chokepoint for the provincial premier who’s been working so diligently to tear the country apart! The July 1 target date for Alberta’s pipeline proposal is baked into the MOU, was reaffirmed by the implementation plan, but it hadn’t dawned on me that it cuts both ways. As one very smart colleague wrote in an email yesterday, “they’ve thrown the ball into Alberta’s court to get the project proposal on the table really quickly and to have to do a whole pile of work to put together a massive, complicated project that would typically take years to assemble, and they’ve given them weeks to do it.” That makes July 1 a looming deadline that Smith won’t be able to run away from politically, especially with the separatists in her party and her caucus breathing down her neck. (See previous ref to off-the-wall.) But if Alberta comes in with a sloppy, incomplete submission, even after Carney bent over backwards to simplify the application process and the rules that govern it, it may be harder for the province or the industry to blame Ottawa and insist on the faster process they claim their investors are demanding. (Oh, wait—which investors would those be??) • We’ll See You In Court (Then We’ll See You Again): If Carney did cave, that would be just one more reason for Indigenous and other affected communities to take the government and the process to court—Just as Alberta First Nations did, successfully, in response to Smith’s half-baked separation referendum. Veterans of the Harper era have been warning that a shoddy process around fossil fuel infrastructure or other major projects will be a recipe for the very delays that process seeks to avoid. And now more than ever, with renewable energy and energy storage eating fossil fuels’ lunch in import markets around the world, a delayed pipeline or LNG terminal may be as good as a cancelled one. • Charged Up, Ready to Go: With its goal of doubling Canada’s electricity supply to meet a doubling of demand by 2050, the national electricity strategy that Carney unveiled Thursday has a lot to like. With its explicit language about speeding the shift from fuels to more efficient and affordable electricity, global investment and deployment patterns that already favour that shift, an emerging bidirectional power grid, the role of front-line options like rooftop solar and heat pumps, the emergence of electric vehicles as behind-the-meter energy storage, and the domestic jobs and manufacturing to make it all happen, the document doubles down on the essential cornerstone of a faster shift off fossil fuels. The strategy envisions a more prominent role for gas and nuclear power. But some of those provisions were already in the Clean Electricity Regulations that climate hawks are now fighting so hard to defend, inserted as a compromise in a futile attempt to mollify the industry and its political representatives in Alberta and Saskatchewan. But once again, gas will be a tougher sell when it’s more expensive and now so much more unpredictable than the clean alternatives. The new nuclear technologies are still speculative and deeply vulnerable to cost overruns. Increasingly, utilities, developers, and investors know it. Carney declared Thursday that “it doesn’t do us good to be sitting in court all the time with provinces. It doesn’t do us good to be talking past each other. What does do us good is to come together with specific projects.” There are no guarantees, but so much of the language and narrative-building in the electricity strategy suggests the lion’s share of those projects will be renewable. • The Party Has Already Started: The electricity strategy only rarely digs down to specific projects, but provinces representing three-quarters of Canada’s population are already embracing a faster transition. Hydro-Québec is working on a 10-year, $185-billion renewable energy and grid buildout by 2035. Ontario recently brought 10 provinces and territories together in a National Energy Corridor Agreement to boost interprovincial and -territorial transmission infrastructure. And the MOU implementation agreement commits Alberta to facilitate investment in renewable energy projects, a big step back from its continuing, punitive restrictions on renewables development. The electricity strategy envisions much of the financing and infrastructure that will be needed to pull those advances together into an integrated whole. • Delivering on Affordability: The MOU implementation plan has little or nothing to say about affordability (are you surprised?), but the electricity strategy does, with a top-line pledge to reduce home energy costs for seven out of 10 Canadian households by 2050, a total saving of $15 billion across the board. It’s just a start, but it puts affordability on the government’s narrative map. If they’re serious and deliberate about patching together a least-cost energy strategy, it’ll have little if any room for oil, gas, or nuclear—not with powerful evidence, for example, that electricity prices are higher when those prices are set by gas. • Smith Proves that Canada Works: By signing a deal that makes it harder to claim the federal government is blocking a new pipeline, Smith has helped prove Carney’s constant anti-separatist refrain that “Canada works”—incurring the rage, no doubt, of her own political base. Canada also needs to work for anyone who depends on a clean environment, healthy and thriving ecosystems, and safe, stable climate. But with Smith and her separatist constituents setting up as a fifth column for annexation by Donald Trump’s United States, let’s set aside any notion that 51st state status for Canada is a recipe for anything other than climate disaster (and so much else). Resisting and withstanding Trump (just 170 more sleeps until mid-term elections, which is a damn sight better than the 730 we started with) doesn’t mean a free pass for a pipeline, but we can still appreciate it that keeping Canada whole and sovereign is still Carney’s Job One. • The Words Not Spoken: Apart from a commitment to export a million barrels of “low-emission” Alberta bitumen per day (memo to Smith and Carney: You realize that that’s less than the industry is already exporting??), the MOU implementation plan says nothing about the international trade and economic sovereignty deals that Carney has been travelling the world to negotiate. It didn’t have to. Carney doesn’t need permission from Danielle Smith, her American enablers, or her separatist allies to continue building the alliances that will ratchet down our economic dependency on our unstable, unreliable neighbour to the south. But every connection he builds with countries outside North America helps align our economy and our future with a faster shift off fossil fuels. Little if any of this was on our bingo cards a year or two ago. But it’s the pathway that has opened up to us. And if it gives Canada any climate or energy gains at all in an era still dominated by Trump and his increasingly ridiculous tariffs, his loutish trade negotiations and his continuing annexation threats, we have to take the wins. Not least because they’ll be the point of departure for what we can achieve in 2027, 2029, and beyond, as Trump’s grip and this era begin to loosen and then fade. What is Carney Doing? If this line of thought is right—and it’s a possibility, not a prediction—it means that Carney’s actions and decisions are largely about buying time. Time for Trump’s power to wane. Time for Alberta’s separatist/conspiracist virus to spread, mutate, die out, or at least die back, with help from a vaccine of federal steadiness and calm (appropriate enough, for a movement populated largely by vaccine deniers) that no conspiracy theory can dismiss. And time for the government’s trade and investment agenda to deliver results—even knowing that some of those results will bring impacts that front-line communities will not and should not accept. In the immediate moment, none of this changes the way the wider climate community has to respond, from campaigners to investors to front-line practitioners. All of our voices are still essential. But those voices will be stronger and more confident if we have a clearer sense of the brutal game we’ve been pulled into, and a plausible path (or two it three) for playing it to the win we need. This conversation also underscores our biggest task for the remaining years of what was supposed to be the “decisive” decade for climate response: if we can shift the energy narrative in Canada, make it a mainstream view that the country’s preoccupation with oil and gas has us falling farther behind a changing world, we’ll see far better results in the 2030s and beyond. For many veteran climate advocates, taking on that part of the fight will begin with recognizing that most of our friends and family, neighbours and colleagues already understand that climate change is real and right in front of us: they’re looking away and staying silent because they don’t have what climate communicator Katharine Hayhoe calls “efficacy”. As Hayhoe recently pointed out in a feature interview with The Energy Mix, it amounts to science denial to keep hammering away at the dire news about global warming without also helping audiences understand what they can do about it, with multiple studies telling us why that won’t work. Far better to open those conversations with the dominant crises like energy security, food security, emergency preparedness and business continuity, affordability, and financial security that have knocked climate change far lower on the list of public priorities, and will likely keep it there. We Knew This Would Happen Climate hawks have always known this day would come. For decades, we warned that everyone had to pay attention to climate change right now, because it would be much tougher to respond once the crisis itself started affecting our daily lives. We were right, and here we are. But now, thanks to decades of hard work, communities and countries have an alternative to doubling down on fossil fuels. “In 10 years everyone will have ‘always known’ that solar and batteries were going to win,” Morgan Solar Executive Chair Mike Andrade writes on LinkedIn. With the disruption in the Strait of Hormuz roiling energy priorities around the world, Canada and the United States are among the shrinking number of countries that are still very keen on fossil fuel development. Understanding that gap is a first, essential step in spotting the opportunities ahead, and averting the deep economic as well as environmental and social risk we face if we don’t seize them. Thanks for reading The Energy Mix Weekender! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support our work. Subscribe Mitchell Beer traces his background in renewable energy and energy efficiency back to 1977, in climate change to 1997. Now he and the rest of the Energy Mix team scan 1,200 news headlines a week to pull together The Energy Mix and The Energy Mix Weekender. Chart of the Week BYD Eyes 20 Dealership Locations After Canada Greenlights Chinese EV Imports ‘Sledgehammer’ Carbon Price Deal Boosts Emissions by 230Mt, Aims for Fall 2027 Pipeline Approval ‘Worse Than Harper’: Regulatory Rollback Would Stop Canada from Assessing Project Impacts, Critics Warn Electricity Strategy Aims for Doubling by 2050, Allows ‘Flexibility’ for Gas Power Plants Opposition Mounts as O’Leary’s Data Centre Approved in Drought-Stricken Utah Diluted Carbon Price Misses ‘Reality of the World We’re In’, Could Impede Diversified Trade: Climate Institute $200B in Clean Energy Investment Will Need On-Time Delivery, Reliable Policies, Trade Association Says ‘Sovereign Pipeline’: CEO Pitches to Keep Trans Mountain in Government Hands What a Supercharged El Niño Could Mean for Canada Canada’s future is electric, and here’s how a power grid superhighway would get us there (Toronto Star) The Perilous Waters of Hecate Strait (Globe and Mail) Saudi Aramco profits jump despite conflict in Middle East (The Guardian) Farmers confront rising cost of fertilizer and fuel as spring seeding under way (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) Clarkson forecasts 24% decline in offshore oil, gas capital expenditures (Oil & Gas Journal) Pipe Dreams: How Oil and Gas Fail to Deliver Economic Development in Africa (Oil Change International) Developing countries must hold the pen to script the fossil fuel transition (Climate Home News) Iran war threatens the dream of a post-oil economy in the Gulf (Washington Post) U.S. Oil, Gas Work Force Hits Lowest Level Since 2022 (Rigzone) Why Polestar Is Doubling Down on Net Zero as Rivals Pull Back on EVs (Bloomberg) Why this Michigan utility plans to sell its hydro dams for $13 (E&E News/Politico) Levees can no longer save New Orleans (Vox)

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May 16 • 6:41 PM EDT • Politics • energymixweekender.substack.com
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Louisiana’s new closed party primary causes confusion at the polls on election day

“There’s confusion throughout the state,” said one elections official.

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May 16 • 6:30 PM EDT • Politics • nola.com
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Colorado governor commutes election denier Tina Peters' sentence after Trump pressure

Colorado's Democratic Gov. Jared Polis is commuting the sentence of Tina Peters, an election conspiracy theorist and former county clerk, following pressure from President Trump.

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May 16 • 5:37 PM EDT • Politics • latimes.com
How unusual redistricting will shape politics in 2026 and beyond | ChicagoLIVE

An unprecedented amount of mid-decade reshaping of congressional districting will likely have a big influence on the 2026 midterm elections and beyond. A Northwestern University professor joined us to break it all down.

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May 16 • 11:32 AM EDT • Politics • fox32chicago.com
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Louisiana Senate Primary Election 2026 Live Results

See live results from the 2026 Louisiana Senate primary election as votes are counted for Republicans and Democrats.

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May 16 • 9:58 AM EDT • Politics • nbcnews.com
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Latvia’s President Nominates Kulbergs to Form New Government

Latvia’s President Edgars Rinkevics nominated Andris Kulbergs of the United List party to form a new government after Prime Minister Evika Silina resigned on Thursday ahead of parliamentary elections in October.

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May 16 • 9:39 AM EDT • Politics • bloomberg.com
4 Takeaways From France's World Cup Roster Selection

Even with some notable omissions and Kylian Mbappé's drama at Real Madrid, this France squad is simply the team to beat.

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May 16 • 9:38 AM EDT • Sports • foxsports.com
Andalucíans to vote in election seen as gauge of Spain’s wider political change

Conservatives expected to keep majority as socialists face drubbing and ballot tests trajectory of far-right Vox party

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May 16 • 7:01 AM EDT • Politics • theguardian.com
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Tina Peters deserves due process, not political clemency

Anthony Coley: Commuting the election denier's prison sentence sends a message to others that it's okay to cross the line.

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May 16 • 6:00 AM EDT • Politics • ms.now
Graham Platner’s Plan to Dethrone Susan Collins

The presumptive Democratic Senate nominee from Maine enters the general election fray.

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May 16 • 5:15 AM EDT • Politics • nytimes.com
This Republican voted to convict Trump. Now he's up for reelection. Can he survive?

Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy was one of seven Republican senators who voted to impeach President Trump. Now he's running for reelection in a race that will test Trump's hold on the GOP.

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May 16 • 5:00 AM EDT • Politics • npr.org
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Sen. Bill Cassidy faces Louisiana Republican primary for the first time since his Trump impeachment vote

The Louisiana Republican is running for re-election against Trump-backed Rep. Julia Letlow and state Treasurer John Fleming.

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May 16 • 5:00 AM EDT • Politics • nbcnews.com
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Former Congressman Kinzinger says Gov. Polis ‘should feel shame’ for granting clemency to election denier
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May 15 • 11:51 PM EDT • Politics • cnn.com
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Andalusia election offers clues to Spain’s political trajectory

Contest in the most populous Spanish region will help determine whether the conservative People’s Party will take a moderate or hard-line approach in the 2027 general election.

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May 15 • 10:00 PM EDT • Politics • politico.eu
New Hawaiian law limits corporate spending on politics, other states work to follow suit

Hawaii’s Democratic Governor on Thursday signed into law a bill to stop corporations and "dark money" groups from spending unlimited amounts of money on politics.

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May 15 • 9:06 PM EDT • Politics • ktvu.com
Supreme Court turns away Virginia Democrats seeking to reinstate new voting map

The new election map blocked the Virginia Supreme Court would have favored Democrats in 10 of its 11 congressional districts.

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May 15 • 7:35 PM EDT • Politics • latimes.com
Supreme Court deals blow to Virginia Democrats in fight over state court ruling

The Supreme Court on Friday rejected Virginia Democrats’ emergency appeal seeking to revive a voter-approved congressional redistricting overhaul, leaving intact a Virginia Supreme Court ruling that struck down the effort as unconstitutional ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.

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May 15 • 6:55 PM EDT • Politics • foxnews.com
Live Results: Louisiana midterm state and congressional primaries

Louisiana voters will participate in a revamped and stripped-down state primary Saturday and decide the political fate of an embattled Republican U.S. senator targeted for defeat by President Donald Trump.

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May 15 • 6:45 PM EDT • Politics • pbs.org
US Supreme Court tosses longshot appeal from Virginians to use new congressional map that would benefit Democrats

The Supreme Court on Friday tossed out an emergency request from Virginia officials to reinstate a congressional map that would have benefited Democrats in this year’s midterm election, a widely expected decision that represented the court’s latest foray into a nationwide redistricting war.

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May 15 • 6:37 PM EDT • Politics • cnn.com
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Democrats’ redistricting push in Virginia dies at Supreme Court

The U.S. Supreme Court rejected Virginia Democrats' longshot bid to revive a new congressional map. It leaves the national party at a redistricting disadvantage.

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May 15 • 6:36 PM EDT • Politics • usatoday.com
Colorado Gov. Polis commutes ex-election clerk Tina Peters' sentence after Trump pressure

Trump has championed the case of Peters, a 70-year-old former county clerk who was sentenced to nine years behind bars after being convicted in a scheme to make a copy of her county’s election computer system. She gets released June 1.

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May 15 • 6:19 PM EDT • Politics • pbs.org
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Oregon voter turnout reaches 16.5% with 5 days left for voters to cast ballots in May election

Voters who have yet to cast their ballot are encouraged to drop their ballot in an official drop box.

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May 15 • 3:26 PM EDT • Politics • oregonlive.com
A political dynasty heiress and a former trade minister advance to Peru’s presidential runoff

LIMA, Peru (AP) — Peruvian voters will choose their next president between a political dynasty heiress and a former trade minister who has promised to reform Peru’s mining sector, after advancing on Friday to Peru’s June presidential runoff election.

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May 15 • 11:53 AM EDT • Politics • wral.com
Conspiracist Erection Expert Leads U.S. Hantavirus Response

Admiral and urologist Brian Christine platformed far-right conspiracies about COVID and the 2020 election on his podcast, per a new report.

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May 15 • 11:30 AM EDT • Politics • nymag.com
Democratic Rep. Steve Cohen drops reelection bid after redistricting in Tennessee
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May 15 • 11:29 AM EDT • Politics • cbsnews.com
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Brad Raffensperger can’t outrun 2020 election. Neither can Georgia politics.

It's been six years since Donald Trump lost Georgia. But that election is still driving campaigns in both major political parties.

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May 15 • 5:30 AM EDT • Politics • ajc.com
How a vote for Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill’ put Republican David Valadao in danger of losing his seat

Medicaid cuts have become a crucial issue in a Central California battleground race.

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May 15 • 5:00 AM EDT • Politics • cnn.com
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Chartbook 449: Voldemort on Threadneedle street. The Bank of England and the "haunted house" of English politics.

Imagine the scene: In some Harry Potter version of 21st-century London, a group of deathless UK Treasury officials gathered from across the last century huddle over warm pints and glasses of Chardonnay. Around the table there are officials from the 1920s, the 1930s, the 1970s, 2022 and today. Inevitably, in May 2026, the subject of conversation is the disintegration of the current Labour government. Despite its huge majority in parliament, it has been reduced to tatters by catastrophic local election result. These exposed the fact that rather than having a government with a clear popular majority, the UK is like most other modern societies divided into 5 segments each of which commands between 26 and 16 percent of the vote. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the leadership at Nos 10 and 11 Downing Street - where the Prime Minister and the Chancellor (Treasury Secretary) work - seem paralyzed. They are caught between mounting discontent over unfairness and the cost of living, and tough fiscal strictures that push them into making unpopular spending decisions. In the London pub, the Treasury officials from across the ages, can barely hide their satisfaction at the latest display of democratic politics caught in the vice-grip of financial logic. “Remember the mur d’argent and the banker’s ramp?” “Just like yesterday!” There are smirks around the table. Then the representative of 2026 pipes up: “One thing you have to say about the current lot (referring to the latest hapless Labour government), you don’t have to teach them about the bond market!” There is a murmur of ascent from the Treasury Mandarins. The trauma of the fiscal crisis of September-October 2022 sits deep. Back then, in the final stages of Tory decay, a ‘mini budget’ that challenged fiscal orthodoxy led to a brief but fierce panic in one of the oldest government bond markets in the world (aka gilt market). Now all you have to do is to mention the “bond market” to hush debate. [ Paul Mason@paulmasonnews In the name of public service, and as ex-economics editor of BBC Newsnight, I offer to do a zoom call, tonight, with any Labour MP who wants to understand why bond markets do not "fall into line" with governments. 1/ 3:57 PM · May 12, 2026 · 466K Views 224 Replies · 674 Reposts · 3.93K Likes ](https://x.com/paulmasonnews/status/2054229532404519082?s=20) “And the funny thing is”, the young man in the huddle continues, “they don’t even want to talk about … ”. There is a sudden hush. Significant looks are exchanged around the table. About? One of the senior figures puts down his glass with a decisive “clink”. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named has entered their thoughts. Meanwhile, a few miles away in a grubby pub in Bloomsbury, two conspirators from the camp of Critical Macrofinance huddle over cans of low-alcohol IPA. They look at each other and blurt out loud: “The Bank!” “Everyone in the bloody Labour party is talking about the bond market. But why aren’t they even mentioning … the Bank of England!?” “Why is no one talking about Voldemort?” In Paul Mason’s blogpost, after much chest-thumping about basic fiscal logic, the basic point about the Bank of England is buried in the fine print at #3 in his list of suggestions as to what a radical Labour government might actually be able to do! [ Conflict & Democracy Down with the bond market! Down with gravity! It may seem unfair to focus on Labour MP Paula Barker for her off-the-cuff assertion that the bond market would have to “fall in line” with Andy Burnham, should he replace Keir Starmer as prime minister. But Burnham himself told the New Statesman that Labour had to “get beyond this thing of being in hock to the bond markets… Read more 2 days ago · 100 likes · 3 comments · Paul Mason ](https://htsf.substack.com/p/down-with-the-bond-market-down-with?utm_source=substack&utm_campaign=post_embed&utm_medium=web) Back in Bloomsbury they shake their heads and ask: “Didn’t we learn anything from the Eurozone crisis?” Meanwhile, as if summoned to the conversation by some higher force, the “pink pages” announce: “The days of ultra-cheap government borrowing have come to an end” and Martin “Whizzard” Wolf publishes the graph of the season Look at the UK in 2026, perilously positioned on the upper edge of the pack. No wonder no one in London needs any lessons about the “bond market”. But, look again. Imagine how they feel in Rome. What is London’s nightmare in 2026? The nightmare is that you end up like Italy in the early 2010s during the Eurozone crisis. Once comfortably situated in the middle of the pack, watching with horror as your ten-year yields explode to 7 percent and “spreads” become a national nightmare. One of the largest economies in Europe, a founding member of the euro, stigmatized. But the message of the Italian experience is ambiguous. After all, the stigma didn’t last. In 2026, Italy borrows at rates lower not only than the UK but the US. The US, which, as everyone knows, enjoys the “exorbitant privilege” of being the issuer of reserve, safe asets. What kind of magic is this? How did Italy, in the space of fifteen years, go from being good, to bad and back again? Which brings us back to our dissident friends in their Bloombury boozer and their memories of the Eurozone crisis. Italy never was Britain - with its ongoing fiscal deficits. Without interest payments, on primary balance, from 2000 to 2020 Italy ran a tight fiscal ship. Even in 2008 it barely went into deficit and when it was being put on the rack in the early 20210s its primary surplus matched that of austere Germany. So, what happened? How did it end up stigmatized? Of course Italian politics didn’t help. Berlusconi was at the helm and he had legal issues. But amongst friends in the Bloomsbury pub, Berlusconi is a sideshow, the name we whisper to each other is “Trichet”. From 2004 to 2011 the ECB was headed by Jean-Claude Trichet, ex of the French Treasury, more German than the Germans. After 2009 as the news of the Greek fiscal disaster broke, the European bond markets wento into panic mode and Trichet began a brutal game of cat and mouse. Between 2009 and 2011, Trichet intervened in the bond market to help, only when he thought he had compliance with austerity. When he thought they were uncooperative, he withdrew. In the summer of 2011, he even made direct suggestions to his Italian counterparts in Rome, as to how Italy should be governed. It was this cat and mouse game that drove the bond markets crazy and exposed Italy to a violent squeeze. When Mario Draghi took over the ECB at the end of 2011 and declared “whatever it takes”, the pressure on Italy, gradually eased. It is that starring role that has made Draghi into the towering figure in European politics that he remains today. So now you see why voices in London hush when it comes to the Bank of England. “The bond market” isn’t an irresistible objective force like the weather or an avalanche. It can appear like that. But that depends on the way it is being handled, or not handled by the central bank. Which is why the silence about the Bank of England in London right now is so significant. If you think this all sounds a bit fishy, coming from a left-liberal Keynesian like myself, well, let me introduce you to Robin Brooks, who, to put it mildly, plays on a different quidditch team to me. Here, from the position of a fiscal hawk is Robin’s celebratory account of the Bank of England’s role since 2022; In October 2022, at the height of the bond market blow-up in the UK, something incredible happened. Governor Andrew Bailey told British pension funds the Bank of England would end its support program for the country’s fragile gilt market, drawing a line under how much help the central bank was willing to give to exposed pension funds and - implicitly - the government. By the end of that week, Kwasi Kwarteng - the finance minister - had resigned. Prime Minister Liz Truss would soon follow. This episode is so incredible because it contrasts with what happened in the Euro zone earlier that year. Bond markets in Spain and Italy were under pressure amid high inflation and rising interest rates. In the middle of this, Mario Draghi - Italy’s Prime Minister - resigned, compounding pressure on bond markets of high-debt countries on the Euro periphery. Unlike the Bank of England, the ECB caved. It bought Italian and Spanish government bonds in an effort to cap yields and introduced a new tool that signaled to markets it might do such caps more frequently going forward. Faced with pressure on bond markets, the ECB capitulated to political pressure from high-debt countries like Italy and Spain. The Bank of England stood its ground and toppled the Truss government. This kind of thing has long-lasting consequences. It means markets price a higher probability of yield caps in the Euro zone, which keeps Italian and Spanish yields artificially low, while markets feel free to push up UK yields without fear of central bank intervention. As I flagged in yesterday’s post, this means you really can’t compare UK yields to those of other high-debt countries. The UK looks worse, but only because its central bank isn’t interfering with markets. There’s more to this than just that 2022 episode. The Bank of England has also been much more aggressive in its quantitative tightening (QT) than other central banks. If one motivation for quantitative easing (QE) is to lower bond yields - especially longer-dated ones - then it stands to reason QT pushes yields up. The left chart above shows a four-quarter moving average of UK government debt issuance (black line) in percent of GDP and which sectors absorb this issuance, including the Bank of England (blue bars). The right chart above compares the Bank of England’s accumulation or run-off of government bonds (blue line) with that of other central banks, where this blue line is the same as the blue bars in the left chart. The Bank of England was quicker and more aggressive than other central banks in downsizing its bond holdings, so UK yields will have risen more than elsewhere also for this reason, not just because of Governor Andrew Bailey’s remarks in October 2022. Back in October 2025, after a conversation in New York with friends in British politics, my sense of dysphoria was such that I raised the issue of the Bank of England openly in the FT Since 2008, the UK has slid into a deep economic and political predicament. Growth has stagnated to a degree far worse even than in the 1970s. The Tory leadership’s wager on the Brexit referendum spectacularly backfired, leaving the UK isolated from Europe and at the mercy of its special relationship with the US, many of whose political class regard the UK as a basket case. After years of austerity, the Labour party lurched to the left and then back to the centre. The Tory party has been eclipsed by the populist nationalism of Reform. Any British government should be worrying first and foremost about how to restart growth. Instead, Keir Starmer is beset by shades of the gilt market panic triggered by the Liz Truss government in 2022. The debt level is higher than in recent years, but there is no cause for panic. UK debt is at far from critical levels and of long duration. Whether you want to “take back control” or launch progressive economic policy, a democracy dogged by fear of bond market vigilantes is unhealthy. In a country that is a monetary sovereign, this climate points to one thing: a disconnect between the government and the central bank. Since 1997, the independence of the Bank of England has become a sacred cow. But independence is what you make of it. And in the wake of the gilt market crisis of September 2022, relations between the Bank of England and the UK government need a reset. In normal times, there is no doubt that an inflation-targeting independent central bank can serve a country well. But since 2008, the UK and other advanced economies have not had the luxury of such simple problems. To their credit, central bankers around the world have not stood on orthodoxy. After 2008, the US Federal Reserve rescued the global banking system and, through quantitative easing, it stabilised the Treasury market in the face of huge deficits. In Europe, things were trickier. Both the Bank of England under Mervyn King and Jean-Claude Trichet’s European Central Bank played cat and mouse with national governments. This was a high stakes wager that between 2010 and 2012 escalated bond market tension and triggered a disastrous turn to austerity. Shaken by the impact of those shocks, their successors, Mark Carney and Mario Draghi adopted a more protective stance (assuming you were not the government of Greece). Recall that Draghi’s legendary slogan, “Whatever it takes”, was uttered to face down the City of London’s bond vigilantes. In 2015, Draghi launched QE — financial repression by another name. In 2016, Carney used the authority of the Bank of England to stabilise markets following the vote for Brexit, an exemplary demonstration of how central banks can underpin democratic choice, even when those choices are wrong headed. All these were independent central bankers steeped in the best practice of the 1990s, who recognised that historic crises demanded radical action. It was the price surge of 2021-2023 that poisoned the atmosphere. Though the shock came mainly from the supply side, central banks ended up in the dock. Nowhere more so than in the UK. The Bank of England reacted with aggressive normalisation. Faced with a cost of living crisis, the governor called for workers to accept real wage cuts. In early 2022, as gas prices were at record levels and Russia’s army was poised to invade Ukraine, the Bank adopted a stringent programme of quantitative tightening, elevating interest rates. When the Truss government got itself in trouble, the Bank took almost a week to come to the rescue. Rather than enacting a charade of normality, it is time to recognise that in 2025 the UK faces a period of historic transition. To meet this challenge, what is needed is a new concordat with the Bank. This should not ignore inflationary pressures or the long-run trajectory of debt, but should affirm the priority of reviving investment-led growth. One could follow Donald Trump in demanding interest rate cuts. The Bank could shadow the ECB in its commitment to capping Eurozone yields. But the top priority should be to lay the ghost of September 2022. The Bank’s slowing of QT last month was a concession. An immediate and complete end would send the right signal. Such a concordat will not by itself restore sanity to politics, solve the housing problem or rebuild the NHS. But it would help to lift the fear of bond market crisis, which is paralysing the effort by democratic politicians to answer the fundamental questions facing the nation. Now, that call for a new concordat between government and Bank of Englands seems more urgent than ever. The problem is that in October 2025, Starmer still had some authority. Today the government is in tatters. And when you are the “under the harrow” - to echo a phrase of Montagu Norman’s from the 1920s - it is the worst possible time to consider institutional change. To make general arguments at a time of crisis can only seem like special pleading rather than a general argument for long-term change. The same, unfortunately, is also true for the other basic institutional reform that Britain urgently needs i.e. the abolition of the out-dated first past the post electoral system and its replacement by a moderated form of proportional representation. And thirdly - whilst we are saying the quiet parts out loud - Britain needs to reopen the question of EU membership. What the local election results of 2026 show is that this remains a key issue. And what they also show is that there is a clear majority that would favor a return. Until these basic features of Britain’s political economy are addressed the country will carry on its politics as though in a haunted house, governed by governments that lack actual majorities, conjuring up false constraints whilst ignoring the real ones. This one is for DG and MI. I love writing the newsletter. If you enjoy it too and fancy buying me a coffee once a month, you know what to do. Click below! Subscribe

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May 15 • 3:04 AM EDT • Politics • adamtooze.substack.com
Winners and losers of the CBS California gubernatorial debate

Candidates pile on the Democratic front-runner, Xavier Becerra, including a white-paper wielding Katie Porter. But nothing happened that's likely to shake up the race as it careens toward the finish. Some inspiration would help.

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May 14 • 11:00 PM EDT • Politics • latimes.com
New Hawaii law targets corporate influence in politics after Citizens United ruling

Hawaii's Democratic governor has signed a bill to curb corporate and "dark money" influence in politics. This move comes after the 2010 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election...

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May 14 • 10:36 PM EDT • Politics • sfgate.com
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100%
Louisiana senate passes new U.S. House map that would eliminate majority-Black district

The new U.S. House districts, which still need House approval, would be used for primary elections poised to be postponed from Saturday until November. This as South Carolina's governor pushed for congressional redistricting and could call lawmakers into a special session.

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May 14 • 5:01 PM EDT • Politics • pbs.org
Hawaii vs. Citizens United

State lawmakers want to change the terms of personhood for corporations.

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May 14 • 11:00 AM EDT • Politics • theatlantic.com
WATCH LIVE: Navy Acting Secretary Hung Cao testifies on budget as Trump discusses Iran with Xi
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May 14 • 10:07 AM EDT • Politics • pbs.org
🙂 Positive (35%)
Partisan politics and campaign cash underscore Salem city elections

Four of the eight Salem city council positions are up for grabs, but the most high-profile contest is the race for mayor.

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May 14 • 9:12 AM EDT • Politics • opb.org
GOP candidates for governor align on energy, housing — and against Bobby Charles

All seven Republican gubernatorial candidates shared a stage for the first time in a televised debate ahead of the June 9 primary election.

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May 14 • 7:30 AM EDT • Politics • spectrumlocalnews.com