Morning Digest: How clean energy advocates could take over a major Nebraska utility

Victories in Tuesday's primaries could hasten the retirement of an unpopular coal plant

Sara Kohen, one of three clean energy advocates running for the Omaha Public Power District in November (credit: Sara Kohen campaign site)

Leading Off

Omaha Public Power District

Renewable energy advocates have the chance to win a majority on the governing board of one of Nebraska’s largest utility companies after a pair of liberal candidates advanced out of Tuesday’s primaries to the November general election.

One winner was former state Sen. Carol Blood, who was the Democrats’ nominee for governor in 2022 and also ran for Congress in the conservative 1st District last cycle. The other was education professor Mark Gudgel, who waged an unsuccessful bid for Omaha mayor in 2021.

The two are vying for spots on the board of directors of the Omaha Public Power District, a publicly owned utility that serves more than 900,000 people across a 13-county region in eastern Nebraska, including the city of Omaha.

A third clean-energy candidate, attorney and school administrator Sarah Kohen, did not face a primary and will also be on the fall ballot. Kohen narrowly lost a bid for the Omaha City Council in 2021.

If this trio is successful, they would join with two like-minded incumbents, Craig Moody and Eric Williams, to form a majority on OPPD’s board. They also have a recent model to learn from: Last month, a similar slate took control of a major electrical utility in Arizona for the first time ever.

In Nebraska, OPPD candidates run in officially nonpartisan races, though in some cases, the partisan divides are explicit.

Blood is facing off against businessman Jim Smith, whom she led 47-39 in Tuesday’s vote, while Kohen will take on energy trader Christian Mapes. Both Smith and Mapes tout endorsements from a variety of Republican politicians on their campaign sites, including former Gov. Dave Heineman and Rep. Mike Flood, who defeated Blood in 2024.

Gudgel’s opponent, meanwhile, is union leader and electrician Jay Ignowski, who’s backed by a number of building trades unions and some local Democratic officials. Gudgel, by contrast, has been endorsed by environmental groups like the Sierra Club and Nebraska Conservation Voters.

The two are also running in the bluest district that’s on the ballot, the 2nd, which includes downtown Omaha. According to data from the Redistricting Data Hub uploaded to Dave’s Redistricting App, this open seat voted for Kamala Harris by a wide 65-34 margin.

Ignowski led Gudgel 37-28, but the two other candidates who didn’t make it out of the primary—only the top two vote-getters advance—both ran as progressives, so their supporters may be more inclined to switch to Gudgel in the general election.

Kohen, meanwhile, is seeking the open 1st District, which includes a slice of Omaha as well as its northwestern suburbs. It went for Harris by a much narrower 51-48 spread.

Blood, finally, is hoping to win the 3rd District, the toughest of the bunch. This constituency is based in Sarpy County, just south of Omaha, and includes suburbs like Bellevue. The 3rd backed Donald Trump 52-46, but it unexpectedly became an open seat on Tuesday night when incumbent Mary Spurgeon finished in fourth place.

While OPPD’s board has often defended the status quo, it made a major break with the past in 2014 when it voted to phase out the use of coal at the North Omaha Power Plant, which is located near the heart of the city’s historically Black neighborhoods, by 2023.

That move had long been urged by area residents, but the effort has been repeatedly put off. The most recent delay was announced last year, following a lawsuit by Republican Attorney General Mike Hilgers, who wanted to block the utility from taking any actions “that do not prioritize the cost and reliability of the electricity.” A week later, the OPPD voted to continue deferring the plant’s transition.

Soon after, the board released a report concluding that the North Omaha plant posed “no health risk,” but the findings were widely slammed as misleading.

“So the health assessment, I think, was a smack in the face,” state Sen. Terrell McKinney told the Flatwater Free Press. “It didn’t speak of the historical impacts. It didn’t speak of the disproportionate amount of asthma, respiratory issues that community has or health impacts, and also the community in which the coal plant is situated is a community that’s been historically minority.”

McKinney is also involved in November’s elections for the utility. In endorsing Gudgel, he specifically cited the candidate’s commitment to “holding OPPD accountable for transitioning the North Omaha coal plant, and advancing clean energy alternatives.”

That issue will be front and center as Gudgel and his compatriots work for the chance to steer the utility in a new direction.

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The Downballot Podcast

The GOP races to dismantle Black districts

The news on the redistricting front remains grim for anyone who believes in democracy and minority voting rights. On this week’s episode of The Downballot podcast, co-hosts David Nir and David Beard survey the latest damage, which includes new Republican maps tearing apart majority-Black districts in Alabama, Louisiana, and Tennessee. Democrats’ efforts to fight back were also dealt a devastating blow in Virginia, where the state Supreme Court invalidated plans for a new map that a majority of voters supported.

But there are many people working hard to safeguard democracy, including our guest, Andrea Hailey, the CEO of Vote.org. Hailey explains how her organization, the largest nonpartisan group in the country dedicated to boosting voter participation, helps voters throughout the entire process, from registration through Election Day. She also tells us about Vote.org’s efforts to fight attempts to make voting harder in states like Arkansas and reveals her favorite states that make the process as smooth as possible.

Election Recaps

NE-02

Political strategist Denise Powell on Wednesday secured the Democratic nomination for Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District, an open seat in the Omaha area that’s one of her party’s most promising pickup opportunities in the chamber, after the Associated Press called the previous day’s primary for her.

Powell, who narrowly outpaced state Sen. John Cavanaugh in the five-person contest, will now take on Omaha City Councilman Brinker Harding, who had no opposition for the Republican nomination.

The two will face off this fall in the race to replace Rep. Don Bacon, a five-term Republican who announced his retirement last year, in a constituency Kamala Harris carried 52-47 in 2024.

But while Harris’s 5-point win and Donald Trump’s poor approval numbers give Democrats reason to be optimistic about Powell’s prospects, both parties are preparing for another expensive battle in a district that’s hosted plenty before.

Last month, the pro-Democratic House Majority PAC booked almost $3 million in fall TV time in the Omaha media market, while its conservative counterparts at the Congressional Leadership Fund have reserved $2.2 million.

National GOP groups, including a CLF affiliate, sought to boost their chances well ahead of the general election by successfully meddling in the Democratic primary. Conservatives ran ads ostensibly praising Cavanaugh for “working to enact Trump’s policy”—messaging designed to discourage Democrats from nominating him.

Not everyone on the right, though, agrees that Cavanaugh would have been the strongest possible Democratic nominee. In January, the conservative Washington Examiner circulated a list in which ​​anonymous GOP operatives identified Cavanaugh as one of several Democratic candidates who supposedly might cost their party winnable races by being too progressive.

Powell’s allies, however, believe she’ll put up a strong fight. Outside groups spent over $5 million to either promote Powell, the founder of an organization aimed at helping women candidates, or attack Cavanaugh.

She’ll now set her sights on flipping a seat that Republicans have held for all but two of the last 32 years.

The GOP’s dominance in the 2nd District began in 1994 when Jon Christensen narrowly unseated Democratic Rep. Peter Hoagland on a night that saw Newt Gingrich’s Republican Party take control of the House for the first time in 40 years. Christensen left in 1998 to wage an unsuccessful campaign for governor, but fellow Republican Lee Terry easily held the seat.

Terry would remain entrenched for a decade in a constituency that was heavily Republican up and down the ballot, but the 2008 election marked the start of a new era.

That transformation began in part because Nebraska gives an electoral vote to the winner of each of its congressional districts. Though he had no chance of winning the state as a whole, a favorable political environment and massive resources allowed Barack Obama to target the 2nd District.

Obama got his breakthrough and became the first Democrat to win an electoral vote from Nebraska since Lyndon Johnson in 1964. But Terry, who directly appealed to “Obama-Terry” voters he described as “people who want the right kind of change,” secured enough crossover support to win another term by a narrow 52-48 margin.

Terry, though, improbably found a way to lose in 2014, an otherwise strong election cycle for the GOP. The congressman, who had said during the previous year’s government shutdown that he would keep taking his salary because “I’ve got a nice house and a kid in college,” lost to Democrat Brad Ashford following a nasty and expensive campaign.

But while Ashford’s upset win made him the first Cornhusker State Democrat elected to the House since Hoagland won his final term in 1992, he wouldn’t be in office long. Bacon, a retired Air Force brigadier general, unseated Ashford in a tight race in 2016 as Trump was narrowly carrying the 2nd.

Democrats would never defeat Bacon, though it wasn’t for lack of trying. The incumbent cultivated a moderate image even as he almost always sided with his party on key votes, and it helped him win enough crossover support to hang on even as Omaha turned against Trump.

Bacon, notably, prevailed in 2020 as Joe Biden was carrying the 2nd, and he secured his fifth and final term in 2024 when Harris did the same. Democrats, though, were determined to target his seat even before they knew whether Bacon would be running again, and his retirement gives Powell an even wider opening to take this seat back for her party.

Redistricting Roundup

GA Redistricting

Republican Gov. Brian Kemp on Wednesday called a special session of the Georgia legislature to address redistricting, saying it would begin on June 17. However, Kemp’s proclamation specifically says that any changes would “take effect for the 2028 election cycle.”

On the congressional level, Republicans could likely dismantle two majority-Black districts, but the damage could go much deeper. Kemp said he also wants lawmakers to consider changes to the maps for both chambers of the legislature as well as “for any other state office elected by district.”

Despite a map that’s already tilted against them, Democrats have a shot at taking control of the state House this fall, but a victory could be undermined in advance if the GOP engages in further gerrymandering.

LA Redistricting

A committee in Louisiana’s Republican-dominated state Senate advanced a new congressional map early on Wednesday morning that would dismantle one of the state’s two majority-Black congressional districts.

The 4-3 vote, which was along party lines, came at 4:25 AM local time, according to NOLA.com. The proposal, which largely resembles the map the state used in the 2022 elections, features just a single predominantly Black district in the New Orleans area with a tendril connecting it to Baton Rouge.

It would also eviscerate the 6th District, which had been designed to allow Black voters to elect their preferred candidates thanks to litigation under the Voting Rights Act that ultimately led to the Supreme Court gutting the landmark law.

The revamped 6th would be majority white and would have voted for Donald Trump by a 65-33. By comparison, the version it would replace supported Kamala Harris 57-42 and elected Cleo Fields, a Black Democrat, in 2024.

MD Redistricting

Maryland Senate President Bill Ferguson, who has vocally stood in the way of redrawing his state’s congressional map since September, may now be open to the possibility, reports NOTUS.

According to unnamed sources who spoke with the publication, Ferguson “is talking to allies about a path forward on possible redistricting.” A spokesperson, David Schulein, did not dispute the report, saying that Ferguson “was open to a conversation about next steps.”

“He is as outraged as the governor about what is happening in the country and understands that the stakes are even higher,” Schulein added.

If they were to revisit the map, Democrats could target the district held by Rep. Andy Harris, the lone Republican in the state’s congressional delegation. It’s not clear whether they could redistrict in time for the midterms, though one supporter of the idea took note of the GOP’s pell-mell efforts to dismantle majority-Black districts throughout the South.

“I lived during segregation,” Democratic Rep. Glenn Ivey told NOTUS. “We should have done it before. It’s not too late to do it now. If you look at what [Republicans] are doing in Louisiana, some of these other states, canceling primaries, canceling of elections, it’s pretty dramatic.”

Maryland’s primaries are scheduled for June 23. Among the candidates on the ballot is Ferguson, who faces a challenge from tour boat operator Bobby LaPin, who has excoriated the incumbent for his inaction.

MS Redistricting

Republican Gov. Tate Reeves has canceled an upcoming special legislative session to redraw the map Mississippi uses to elect Supreme Court justices after a federal appeals court vacated a ruling that found the map had discriminated against Black voters under the Voting Rights Act.

However, Reeves said in a post on X that he wants lawmakers to revisit the state’s congressional, legislative, and Supreme Court maps “between now and 2027 elections.”

NJ Redistricting

New Jersey Senate President Nick Scutari now says he’s in favor of redrawing the state’s congressional map after previously resisting calls to do so.

The Democratic leader announced his change of heart to attendees before a candidate debate in the 7th Congressional District on Tuesday night, according to the New Jersey Globe.

“We can’t just let states like Texas [redraw maps] when New Jersey can be in that fight,” Scutari said at the event, which was held in his district. “We’re having active discussions, and I’m in favor of that.”

Last year, though, he offered a very different assessment in comments to Politico.

“I don’t see that happening. Not in New Jersey. It requires a constitutional amendment, and we’re not in a position to do that,” he said.

Redistricting in New Jersey is handled by a bipartisan commission that’s enshrined in the state Constitution. However, because Democrats have a three-fifths supermajority in both chambers of the legislature, they can put an amendment on the ballot as soon as this fall that would allow the state to revisit its congressional boundaries before the 2028 elections.

SC Redistricting

Despite indicating last week that he would not convene a special session of the legislature to redraw South Carolina’s congressional map, Republican Gov. Henry McMaster has reportedly reversed course and will call lawmakers back to work on Thursday.

The apparent turnabout was first divulged by Republican Rep. Nancy Mace, who is seeking to succeed the term-limited McMaster, in a post on X on Wednesday afternoon. The legislature’s regular session is set to end on Thursday at 5 PM ET, but Mace said that a special session will start immediately afterward. McMaster himself has yet to comment.

The development comes a day after five Republicans in the state Senate sided with Democrats to block a resolution that would have allowed legislators to extend their session or reconvene on their own without McMaster’s involvement. That resolution required a two-thirds supermajority, which it failed to achieve thanks to the GOP defections.

Earlier this month, the Post and Courier reported that McMaster “isn’t preparing to call a special Statehouse session,” but the news came from his office and didn’t feature any direct quotes from the governor or his staff.

Should Republicans proceed with a remap, they’d be able to dismantle the state’s lone majority-Black district, the 6th, which is held by longtime Democratic Rep. Jim Clyburn. One proposal to do just that has already circulated widely.

South Carolina’s primary is fast approaching on June 9, but other similarly situated Southern states have announced they’ll cancel or re-do their primaries so that they can implement new maps this year.

Senate

Senate Majority PAC

The Senate Majority PAC, the main pro-Democratic super PAC involved in Senate elections, has announced that it's booking nearly $11 million in TV time to help former Alaska Rep. Mary Peltola unseat Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan and $20 million to defend Michigan’s open seat..

These developments follow on the heels of recent reservations the PAC made in North Carolina ($31 million) and Ohio ($40 million). SMP previously said in February that it had reserved $33 million for Maine’s Senate race.

The Senate Leadership Fund, SMP’s Republican counterpart, said last month it was reserving ad time in the same five states, plus three others: Georgia, Iowa, and New Hampshire. Democrats are all but certain to deploy major resources in all of those states, though, and both parties may yet invest elsewhere, too.

Governors

KY-Gov

Republican Rep. James Comer told The Daily Independent last week, “I plan on running for governor in 2027,” though he stopped short of saying anything definitive.

“It’s not official yet,” said Comer, who is seeking a sixth term this fall representing western Kentucky in Congress. “[I]t will probably be official somewhere around December.”

Comer ran for governor in 2015 but lost the GOP primary by just 83 votes to Matt Bevin, who went on to win the general election. After Comer was elected to the House the next year, he considered challenging Bevin for renomination in 2019, but he ultimately announced he had “zero desire to run against a multi-millionaire incumbent Governor in a Primary regardless of how unpopular he was.”

Bevin instead lost reelection in 2019 to Democrat Andy Beshear, who won reelection in 2023. Beshear is now prohibited from seeking a third term, and Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman, his running mate for both of his campaigns, is the only major candidate who has announced a bid to succeed him.

OK-Gov

An affiliate of the hardline Club for Growth is spending more than $4 million on ads attacking Attorney General Gentner Drummond ahead of next month’s Republican primary for Oklahoma’s open governorship, Bloomberg reports.

In a new spot from the School Freedom Fund, a narrator tells the audience that Drummond suffers from “TDS: Trump derangement syndrome,” then continues, “Drummond hates President Trump so much, he gave $1,000 to Joe Biden in 2020.”

Drummond faced attacks over that donation four years ago during his ultimately successful primary challenge to Attorney General John O’Connor, an ally of Gov. Kevin Stitt. Drummond responded at the time by saying his wife had made the contribution from a joint account when she was “mad,” but that she’d “immediately asked for a refund and got the money back.”

The Club, though, cares far more about what Drummond’s done since he was elected. The attorney general was on the winning side in a 2024 lawsuit when the state Supreme Court prohibited a state agency from providing funding to a Catholic charter school.

David McIntosh, who leads the Club for Growth, tells Bloomberg, “Gentner Drummond is an outspoken opponent of school freedom, and we’ll spend whatever it takes to keep him out of the Governor’s office.”

McIntosh’s group, though, isn’t the only one that’s trying to stop Drummond from replacing Stitt, who is termed out. The Oklahoma Conservative Coalition, which supports former House Speaker Charles McCall, is airing ads attacking Drummond and two other GOP primary candidates, former state cabinet official Chip Keating and former state Sen. Mike Mazzei. ​

Most polls conducted through January showed both Drummond and McCall, who has made transphobia a centerpiece of his campaign, ahead of Keating, Mazzei, and five other Republicans. No one, however, has released any surveys in the last three months to provide a fresh look at the state of the GOP primary.

Candidates need to win a majority of the vote on June 16 to avoid a primary runoff on Aug. 25, a difficult task in a field this large.

State House Minority Leader Cyndi Munson, by contrast, is the favorite to defeat her two opponents in the Democratic primary. Munson, though, will be the underdog in the fall campaign to lead one of the most conservative states in the country.

House

CO-08

EMILYs List has launched what it says is a “seven-figure program” to help former state Rep. Shannon Bird win the June 30 Democratic primary for the right to take on Republican Rep. Gabe Evans in Colorado’s 8th District.

The group’s opening ad says that Bird “took on the insurance industry to pass the law protecting Medicaid” while charging that her chief intraparty rival, state Rep. Manny Rutinel, “voted to cut Medicaid—and voted himself a raise.”

Bird’s campaign recently debuted a similar commercial attacking Rutinel, who joined other lawmakers last month in reducing payments to Medicaid providers to address a budget shortfall created by the state’s unique spending cap. Neither EMILYs List’s nor Bird’s ads mention Marine veteran Evan Munsing, the third Democrat competing in the primary.

Rutinel, for his part, has benefited from close to $250,000 in independent expenditures from the Latino Victory Project, while outside groups have yet to invest in Munsing.

MI-07

Climate activist William Lawrence, who co-founded the Sunrise Movement, received an endorsement from Rep. Rashida Tlaib on Wednesday for his campaign against Republican Rep. Tom Barrett in Michigan’s 7th District around Lansing.

Tlaib, a prominent progressive who represents the Detroit area, backed Lawrence over two other notable Democrats: Bridget Brink, who served as ambassador to Ukraine, and retired Navy SEAL Matt Maasdam. The three are facing off in the August Democratic primary for this swing seat.

TN-09

State Rep. Todd Warner announced Tuesday that he’d seek the Republican nomination for Tennessee’s 9th District, a constituency that GOP lawmakers just radically gerrymandered.

Warner donned a “Trump 2024” flag as a cape during last week’s legislative session as he and his colleagues prepared to pass a new map to transform the 9th from a safely blue, majority-Black constituency into one that’s now deeply conservative and predominantly white.

One of those colleagues is state Sen. Brent Taylor, who entered the race last Thursday with endorsements from both the state’s U.S. senators.

TX-35

Democratic Rep. Greg Casar has endorsed Bexar County Sheriff’s Deputy Johnny Garcia’s campaign to hold Texas’ new 35th District, a seat that shares the same number—though only a fraction of the residents—as the constituency he currently represents. (Casar is running in the redrawn 37th District.)

Casar, who chairs the House Progressive Caucus, noted that he’s backing the same candidate as the centrist Blue Dog Coalition ahead of the May 26 primary runoff in an interview with the San Antonio Express-News. The congressman said this sort of cross-ideological cooperation was vital “in part because Republicans are now involved in this race.”

The candidate Republicans are boosting is Maureen Galindo, a sex therapist who has a long and ongoing history of attacks on Jews and Latinos. Casar told the paper that, while he was already inclined to back Garcia, he made up his mind because of Galindo’s “very inappropriate remarks.”

VA-11

Retired Space Force Col. Bree Fram ended her primary campaign against Democratic Rep. James Walkinshaw on Wednesday, a decision she made the week after the Virginia Supreme Court invalidated the April vote to allow the state to adopt a new congressional map.

Fram’s departure leaves Walkinshaw, who won last year’s special election to replace the late Rep. Gerry Connolly, without any serious intraparty opposition in the safely Democratic 11th District.

Mayors & County Leaders

Los Angeles, CA Mayor

Allies of Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass are elevating Republican Spencer Pratt ahead of the June 2 nonpartisan primary in a likely attempt to ensure an easier matchup in November.

A new commercial from the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor ostensibly attacks Pratt, a former reality TV star, as someone who “opposes using taxpayer money to build brand new houses for our unhoused neighbors” and thinks that the city “needs thousands more police officers rather than more social workers.”

That messaging, though, is likely to appeal to the conservative voters Pratt needs to advance to the general election.

The influential labor group, which has reported spending over $200,000 on this buy, didn’t answer when the Los Angeles Times asked if it was taking action because it believes that Pratt would struggle to defeat Bass, a longtime Democratic politician, in this reliably blue city.

But City Councilmember Nithya Raman, Bass’ most prominent intraparty rival, has argued that the mayor and her backers are doing whatever they can to make sure that Bass gets to face Pratt instead of her.

“I think she was definitely doing that in the debate,” Raman told reporters on Tuesday. “To me boosting Pratt’s chances to get into a mayoral runoff feels very scary.”

A new poll, though, shows that Bass may be on track for the faceoff she almost certainly prefers.

Emerson College, surveying on behalf of Inside California Politics, shows Bass leading with 30% of the vote next month as Pratt edges out Raman 22-19 for the second general election spot; the remaining candidates each taking single-digit support.

That poll, though, still found Bass, who has faced intense scrutiny over her response to last year’s devastating wildfires and the subsequent rebuilding effort, nowhere close to taking the majority she’d need to win without a runoff.

Election Law

Georgia

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp signed a bill on Tuesday changing the election system in five heavily Democratic counties in the Atlanta area—and only those five counties.

House Bill 369, which the state’s Republican-dominated legislature passed in March, would require that the district attorneys in Clayton, Cobb, DeKalb, Fulton, and Gwinnett counties no longer be elected using the partisan primary system the state uses in most of its elections.

Candidates will instead run in officially nonpartisan contests starting in 2028, a switch that could make it easier for Republicans to win. The elections will also now take place during the statewide primary in the spring rather than during the fall general election, when turnout is considerably higher.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, whose jurisdiction includes most of the city of Atlanta, denounced the bill in March as an attempt to drive her and her counterparts, all of whom are Black women, out of office.

“The targeting of five African-American women Democrats who were chosen by the voters of their counties to serve as District Attorneys is racist, sexist and clearly unconstitutional,” she said in a statement.

Willis and Sherry Boston, her counterpart in neighboring DeKalb County, responded to Kemp’s decision to sign HB 369 this week by promising to sue to overturn it. Gwinnett County District Attorney Patsy Austin-Gatson, likewise, pledged to combat it with “every tool available to us.”

While the prosecutors didn’t preview the arguments they might make in court, the state’s district attorney association has said that the legislature doesn’t have the power to make this switch without a constitutional amendment. The organization explained that because district attorneys are judicial, rather than county-level, officials, the state constitution forbids lawmakers from passing a bill to change how they’re elected.

But district attorneys aren’t the only officials impacted by the law.

HB 369 would also make elections for the county commissions nonpartisan in at least four of these jurisdictions. The East Cobb News, though, says that it will not apply to races for the DeKalb County Commission.

Democrats have long been the majority party in Clayton, DeKalb, and Fulton, while, until recently, Republicans were for decades the dominant faction in Cobb and Gwinnett. Indeed, Cobb was once so heavily Republican that in 1994, a local state representative ominously joked to the New York Times, “If Bill Clinton came into the district, he probably would not see the light of day again.”

But politics in the two counties, which were destination points for conservative voters in the era of white flight, changed dramatically as they became more diverse in recent years, and as Donald Trump’s rise drove suburban voters away from the GOP. Democrats now control key downballot offices in Cobb and Gwinnett—a state of affairs Republicans are hoping to roll back with this bill.

“[T]here’s a certain side that’s losing elections in these counties, so they want to hide behind a nonpartisan badge in order to win them,” Democratic state Rep. Gabriel Sanchez told his colleagues in March.

Republican state Sen. John Albers, by contrast, insisted that the legislation was intended to improve public safety. The Associated Press, though, noted at the time that elections for another key law enforcement post—sheriff—are specifically exempted by HB 369.

But while most Republicans backed the plan, some dissenters took issue with it for singling out five of the state’s 159 counties. State Rep. Jordan Ridley, who represents part of Cobb, told reporters, “If it’s good policy, then it should be statewide.”

Local Democrats say that the bill is so narrowly focused because Republicans want to target people of color in local office.

“We have Black leaders. I mean, that’s the quiet part that we don’t want to speak,” Cobb County Solicitor General Makia Metzger said at a press conference shortly before Kemp signed the bill. “[HB 369] suppresses votes. This is no different than what we’ve seen before. It is political redlining.”

Poll Pile

• CA-Gov (top-two primary): Emerson College for Inside California Politics:

  • Xavier Becerra (D): 19, Steve Hilton (R): 17, Tom Steyer (D): 17, Chad Bianco (R): 11, Katie Porter (D): 10, Matt Mahan (D): 8, Antonio Villaraigosa (D): 4, other candidates 1% or less.

  • April: Hilton (R): 17, Bianco (R): 14, Steyer (D): 14, Becerra (D): 10, Porter (D): 10, Mahan (D): 5, Villaraigosa (D): 3.

• ME-Gov (D): Schoen Cooperman Research for 314 Action (pro-Nirav Shah):

  • Nirav Shah: 28, Angus King III: 21, Shenna Bellows: 16, Hannah Pingree: 15, Troy Jackson: 13.

  • After simulated ranked choice: Shah: 58, Bellows: 42.

• KY-06 (R): 1892 Polling for Ralph Alvarado:

  • Ralph Alvarado: 38, Ryan Dotson: 15, Greg Plucinski: 8, other candidates 3% or less.

  • Unreleased April poll: Alvarado: 32, Dotson: 11, Plucinski: 6.

• MT-01: Upswing Research & Strategy for 314 Action:

  • Aaron Flint (R): 47, Matt Rains (D): 43.

  • Flint (R): 48, Sam Forstag (D): 43.

  • The memo did not mention any of the other Democratic or Republican candidates. 314 has not made an endorsement, but the release touts Rains as “the best candidate to win.”