(WED 5/4/22)

Vance advances … Conventional Wisdom suggests Ohio went from politically purple to red when it legitimately gave over its electoral college votes to Donald Trump in 2016 and again in 2020. Venture capitalist and Hillbilly Elegy memoirist J.D. Vance’s win in Tuesday’s Ohio GOP primary for the U.S. Senate seat that centrist Republican Rob Portman is voluntarily vacating after this November’s midterms certainly seems to bear that out. 

Vance, with 32.2% of the primary vote, is the MAGA Republican who beat fellow MAGA Republicans Josh Mandel (23.9%) and Matt Dolan (23.3%) and a host of others, The New York Times reports, because he authored a bestseller and convinced ex-President Trump he had made a 180-degree turn on his circa 2016 anti-Trump position. No question that Trump’s relatively late endorsement of Vance helped propel the candidate from midfield to victory in the primary. It must be noted that the entire GOP field in Ohio’s primary identified as “pro-Trump.”

But it is Vance who will face Tim Ryan, who took 69.7% of the Democratic side of the primary Tuesday. Both candidates will benefit from a surge in campaign contributions already coming from pro-life and pro-choice advocates after a leak to Politico of the draft opinion that indicates the Supreme Court is about to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Meanwhile, back near the center: Senate candidate GOP “kingmaker” Trump has slammed Ohio’s Republican governor, Mike DeWine, for “strict” 2020 coronavirus policies according to the Associated Press, but on Tuesday, the incumbent beat three far-right candidates with 48.1% to win his party’s nomination. DeWine’s Democratic challenger is former Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley.

Meanwhile, at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library: Not all Republicans running against Donald J. Trump for the 2024 GOP nomination are Ron DeSantis. Maryland’s two-term Republican governor, Larry Hogan, is not running for a third term this year but is “mulling” a run for president himself, The Washington Post says in its coverage of Hogan’s speech at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California, Tuesday.

Republicans are “desperately in need of a course correction,” Hogan said. He described the January 6 Capitol insurrection as “initiated by the losing candidate’s inflammatory false rhetoric.” 

Worth noting: Democratic candidate Carol Glanville Tuesday defeated Republican Robert Regan in a special election for a Michigan state House seat that has heretofore been held only by Republicans, the Detroit Free Press reports. Glanville beat Regan -- who was quoted in March saying that women being raped should “lie back and enjoy it”–with 51% of the vote to his 40%. Another 7.9% were write-ins, the Freep reports. The special election for the Western Michigan seat serving suburban communities outside Grand Rapids was held after state Rep. Mark Huizenga (R), won a special state Senate election last year.

•••

Follow the leak: Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts will, ICYMI, investigate the leak to Politico of Justice Samuel Alito’s February draft of a majority opinion that would overturn Roe v. Wade, it was widely reported Tuesday, the results of which are unlikely to go public. Suspicions are that it was leaked by someone working from the liberal side of the court to inflame pro-choice forces ahead of the November midterms, or that it was leaked by someone working for the conservative side of the court to ensure none of the majority joining Alito in letting states ban abortion would change his or her mind ahead of the final decision–which still could happen before SCOTUS goes on recess in July.

Happy Star Wars Day.

--Edited by Todd Lassa and Nic Woods

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(TUE 5/3/22)

Roe v. Wade is done … Despite hand wringing over how and from whom the Supreme Court’s draft opinion that appears ready to overturn Roe v. Wade was leaked to Politico, the outcome has been inevitable since the end of the Trump administration. Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh, Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett equals a majority. It seems likely Alito’s authoring of the 91-page draft opinion ruling for Mississippi in Mississippi Department of Health v. Jackson Women’s Health is a strong indication that Chief Justice John Roberts will side with the liberal minority, Stephen Breyer, Elana Kagan, and Sonia Sotomayor against overturning the 49-year-old ruling. [https://www.politico.com/news/2022/05/02/supreme-court-abortion-draft-opinion-00029473]

New federal law?: A good number of states will still be open to legal abortions, of course, though The Washington Post reported Monday morning, well before the leaked draft opinion bombshell, that some Republicans on Capitol Hill are gearing up to propose a nationwide ban on abortion. Anti-abortion groups and allies in Congress have been “meeting behind the scenes to plan a national strategy that would kick in if the Supreme Court rolls back abortion rights this summer,” the newspaper reports. 

Timing?: Leak of the inevitable outcome gives Democratic leadership on Capitol Hill an extra month to try to abolish the Senate filibuster, though they still have to get Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) on board. 

More important for the Democratic National Committee is how effective it can be in using Mississippi Department of Health v. Jackson Women’s Health to flip the long-held expectation that the GOP will win a majority in the House of Representatives, and possibly the Senate this November. If you thought America’s culture wars could not possibly get any hotter, get ready for the next six months.

--Edited by Todd Lassa and Charles Dervarics