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* Sun-Times

Illinois Republicans plan to send three delegates to their partys presidential nominating convention next week, but there will be no delegation brunches, news conferences or just about anything else beyond nominating Donald Trump, apparently.

No other media advised events organized by the ILGOP are taking place next week, state GOP spokesman Joe Hackler said in an email to reporters.

The state GOPs move is the complete opposite of their Democratic counterparts, who were told to stay home, but have streamed state caucus meetings and news conferences for the media and others to follow along. []

Republicans plan to have 336 delegates at the Charlotte Convention Center, six from each state and territory, according the convention website.

So, the state GOP is sending half its allotted delegates?

* So far, media coverage on Illinois Democrats during their convention week has focused mainly on Speaker Madigan

Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan has kept a low profile at the virtual Democratic National Convention underway this week, but he was more vocal Wednesday evening.

As Illinois Chairman of the Democratic Party Michael Madigan leads Illinois delegation to the convention, but is somewhat implicated in an alleged bribery scheme with Commonwealth Edison, he has avoided the spotlight recently. But Wednesday night at an online delegation discussion on racial and economic justice, Speaker Madigan gave more than a welcome.

He said Democrats this week have laid out the case for removing Donald Trump from office, including his assault on the rights of women and workers.

Among the worst of Donald Trumps actions is his deliberate efforts to fan the flames of hatred and racial and ethnic division for his own political purposes, Madigan said.

* And

Pinning down Democratic congressional nominee Marie Newmans position on state House Speaker Mike Madigan during the Democratic National Convention is not quite as difficult as tracking down the powerful party leader himself but its close.

Two years ago, Newman said the powerful speaker should immediately step down as state party chief because he failed in his handling of sexual harassment complaints in his political organization.

Anything less would put the Democrats political prospects at risk in November, the La Grange businesswoman said then, before she lost her 2018 primary bid against Madigan ally Dan Lipinski.

But after vanquishing Lipinski in a bitter rematch earlier this year and after Madigan was implicated in federal investigation Newman on Wednesday sidestepped a question on whether she would join the growing list of Democrats calling for Madigans immediate resignation over the ComEd criminal case, calling it a distraction ahead of a critical election.

* And

Meanwhile, the leader of the Democratic Party in Illinois, House Speaker Michael Madigan, is embroiled in controversy amid alleged ties to a ComEd bribery scheme.

Im not going to sit here right now and say that we should decide that someone is guilty for political reasons, Casten said. The allegations are extremely concerning. We should make sure we go through, find out what the truth is.

If the allegations are true, Casten said Madigan should resign. Kelly agrees.

If he is guilty I think that he should resign, and thats my bottom line, Kelly said. But right now, to be honest, the number one thing Im focused on is getting Joe Biden and Kamala Harris elected, flipping the Senate and helping the down ballot races.

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Your Illinois News Radar State Republicans won't hold any media advised events during their convention - The Capitol Fax Blog

As November draws nearer, a few current and former Republican officials have begun to break ranks with the rest of their party, saying in public and private conversations that they will not support President Trump in his re-election. Some have even said that they will be voting for his Democratic opponent, Joseph R. Biden Jr.

As Mr. Trumps political standing has slipped, fueled by his failures in handling the coronavirus pandemic and by the economic recession, some Republicans have found it easier to publicly renounce their backing.

Here is a running list of those who have said they will not support Mr. Trump in the fall, those who have gone a step further and said theyll vote for Mr. Biden, and those who have hinted they may not back the president.

Former President George W. Bush: Although he has not spoken about whom he will vote for in November, people familiar with Mr. Bushs thinking have said it wont be Mr. Trump. Mr. Bush did not endorse him in 2016.

Senator Mitt Romney of Utah: Mr. Romney has long been critical of Mr. Trump, and was the only Republican senator to vote to convict him during his impeachment trial. Mr. Romney is still mulling over whom he will vote for in November he opted for his wife, Ann, four years ago but he is said to be sure it wont be the president.

John Bolton, the former national security adviser: As he rolled out his recently published book, The Room Where It Happened, Mr. Bolton said in multiple interviews that he would not vote for Mr. Trump in November. He added that he would write in the name of a conservative Republican, but that he was not sure which one.

Jeff Flake, the former senator from Arizona: Mr. Flake said in an interview with The Washington Post: This wont be the first time Ive voted for a Democrat though not for president. He added: Last time I voted for a third-party candidate. But I will not vote for Donald Trump.

William H. McRaven, a retired four-star Navy admiral: Several Republican admirals and generals have publicly announced they will not support the president. In an interview with The New York Times, Admiral McRaven, who directed the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, said, This fall, its time for new leadership in this country Republican, Democrat or independent.

He added, President Trump has shown he doesnt have the qualities necessary to be a good commander in chief.

Cindy McCain, the widow of Senator John McCain: During the Democratic National Convention on Tuesday, Ms. McCain appeared in a video and recounted her husbands relationship with Mr. Biden. Although she did not endorse Mr. Biden in the video, Ms. McCain has expressed frustration with the direction of the Republican Party under Mr. Trump, whose attacks on Mr. McCain continued after the senators death.

John Kasich, the former governor of Ohio: After competing against Mr. Trump in the 2016 Republican primary, Mr. Kasich has never really thrown his support behind the president. But this week, he will be speaking at the Democratic National Convention and making the case for Mr. Biden.

Ive known Joe, Mr. Kasich said on CNN recently. Ive known him for 30 years. I know the kind of guy he is.

Colin Powell, the former secretary of state: Mr. Powell announced in June that he would vote for Mr. Biden. He said that Mr. Trump lies about things and that Republicans in Congress would not hold him accountable. Mr. Powell added that he was close to Mr. Biden politically and socially and had worked with him for more than 35 years. On Tuesday night, he gave a message of support to Mr. Biden at the Democratic convention.

Miles Taylor, a former chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security: Mr. Taylor endorsed Mr. Biden, saying that the president was actively doing damage to our security and that what he had witnessed Mr. Trump do as chief executive was terrifying. Mr. Taylor is the most senior former member of the administration to openly endorse Mr. Biden.

Christine Whitman, a former governor of New Jersey: Ms. Whitman was one of the few Republicans speaking at the Democratic National Convention. In October, Ms. Whitman told the television host Larry King that she would vote for Mr. Biden if he were the nominee, calling him the Democrats best chance at winning in 2020.

Meg Whitman, the chief executive of Quibi: A former senior official for both of Mitt Romneys presidential campaigns and a former Republican candidate for governor of California, Ms. Whitman (no relation to Christine Whitman) also spoke at the Democratic Convention. She supported Hillary Clinton in 2016.

Susan Molinari, a former congresswoman from New York: Ms. Molinari spoke at the convention, as well. A former lobbyist for Google, she was on the Trump administrations transition contributor list, but now appears to be supporting Mr. Biden.

Carly Fiorina, a 2016 presidential candidate: Ms. Fiorina has said she will support Mr. Biden because he is a person of humility and empathy and character.

Representative Francis Rooney of Florida: Mr. Rooney has said he was considering supporting Mr. Biden partly because Mr. Trump was driving us all crazy and because the presidents handling of the coronavirus led to a death toll that didnt have to happen. Mr. Rooneys hesitation about Mr. Biden was his worry that left-wing Democrats might pull the former vice president away from the moderate political mainstream. But he does think Mr. Biden can win.

A lot of people that voted for President Trump did so because they did not like Hillary Clinton, Mr. Rooney said. I dont see that happening with Joe Biden how can you not like Joe Biden?

Charlie Dent, a former congressman from Pennsylvania: Mr. Dent endorsed Mr. Biden on CNN, saying this isnt about right or left for me, its about right and wrong.

Have expressed reluctance or misgivings, but havent openly dropped their backing

Paul Ryan and John Boehner, the former speakers of the House: Both have expressed their dislike of the president, but have not said whom they will support in November.

John Kelly, a former chief of staff to the president: Mr. Kelly has not said whom he plans to vote for, but did say he wished we had some additional choices.

Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska: She has said that shes grappling with whether to support Mr. Trump in November. She told reporters on Capitol Hill in June: I am struggling with it. I have struggled with it for a long time.

She said: I think right now, as we are all struggling to find ways to express the words that need to be expressed appropriately, questions about who Im going to vote for or not going to vote for, I think, are distracting at the moment. I know people might think thats a dodge, but I think there are important conversations that we need to have as an American people among ourselves about where we are right now.

Mark Sanford, a former congressman and governor of South Carolina: Mr. Sanford briefly challenged the president in this cycles Republican primary, and said last year that he would support Mr. Trump if the president won the nomination (which was never in doubt).

That has since changed.

Hes treading on very thin ice, Mr. Sanford said in June, worrying that the president is threatening the stability of the country.

Dan Coats, a former senator from Indiana: Mr. Coats, who used to be Mr. Trumps director of intelligence, is worried about the administrations effects on the intelligence community. He hasnt said whom he will support. Kevin Kellems, a longtime adviser to Mr. Coats, said that ultimately he remains a loyal Republican, but he believes the American people will decide on Nov. 3.

Maggie Haberman contributed reporting.

Read more here:
All the Republicans Who Have Decided Not to Support Trump - The New York Times

Mr. Reid, the last Democratic majority leader, was blunter.

To think that, with what McConnell has done to change the Senate forever, he is going to step in there and things will be just hunky dory, it wont be, Mr. Reid said. If he wants to be a president who wants to be known for getting something done, he cant need 60 votes for everything. (It was Mr. Reid who terminated the filibuster on most judicial nominations).

A range of lawmakers, from Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont on the left to Senator Chris Coons of Delaware in the center, are reassessing their support of the legislative filibuster, egged on by Mr. Obama, who used Representative John Lewiss funeral to announce his support for scrapping the 60-vote majority.

Many of Mr. Bidens closest advisers and former colleagues say he is still loath to burn bridges with Republicans. Hes the same man, they say, who supported civil rights as a young senator but still worked with the Senates arch segregationists, something he boasted about as recently as last year.

This convention gives you a very good sense of his belief that you can find common ground with everybody, said Anita Dunn, one of his top strategists.

Recently, though, Mr. Biden has suggested the overlapping crises demand that the government respond the way it did during the Depression and World War II, and he told reporters that Senate Democrats would have to take a look at at eliminating or modifying the filibuster should Republicans prove obstreperous.

Yet in the same interview, he predicted Senate Republicans would be liberated by a Trump loss.

That was not his experience in 2009, when Republican leaders steered their members away from cooperating to ameliorate the last economic downturn or pass health care legislation. Instead, they believed they could more effectively tap into voter anger in the midterms if they united in opposition.

If they choose to repeat 2009, and McConnell slaps his hand away, then weve got choices to make, said Mr. Coons, who in 2017 co-wrote a bipartisan letter defending the filibuster. He added, If were six months into it and theyre blocking every piece of legislation, Im willing to re-examine my commitment to defending the filibuster.

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Democrats Have Doubts About Bidens Hopes of Working With Republicans - The New York Times

On election day, Roger Holland didnt expect to know the winner of his Republican primary race against Senate President Cathy Giessel.

Thousands of absentee ballots wont be counted until next week, and Holland said it would take something crazy, like a 20-point lead on Tuesday night, to feel like he was going to win.

With all precincts reporting in his race, Holland is routing Giessel in their Anchorage race by 40 points, part of a big wave against incumbent Republicans in Tuesdays statewide primary election.

We have a small crowd over here, and we were flabbergasted when the results went up on the screen, Holland said from an election-night gathering.

Four incumbent Republican senators and five incumbent House Republicans were trailing when the Alaska Division of Elections stopped counting about 2 a.m.

In addition to Hollands lead over Giessel, three other incumbent Republican senators John Coghill of Fairbanks, Natasha von Imhof of Anchorage and Gary Stevens of Kodiak narrowly trailed their primary challengers at the end of election night.

Five incumbent House Republicans also trailed, with all of their precincts reporting results:

Tom McKay has 1,202 votes, exactly double the tally of Anchorage Rep. Chuck Kopp.

James Kaufman has 1,625 votes to 600 for Anchorage Rep. Jennifer Johnston.

With 407 votes, David Nelson has almost four times the 106 votes of Anchorage Rep. Gabrielle LeDoux.

In Eagle River, Ken McCarty has 510 votes. Incumbent Rep. Sharon Jackson has 351.

Kevin McCabe has 1,377 votes while Rep. Mark Neuman, the longest-serving active member of the House, has 801 in their Big Lake district.

In Wasilla, where Republican Rep. Colleen Sullivan-Leonard is not running for re-election, Christopher Kurka has more than 71% of the vote against former legislator Lynn Gattis.

Dakota Rivas, 10, reaches out to take the temperature of Steve Wegg as his wife Karen Wegg watches after they arrived to vote during the primary election on Tuesday, August 18, 2020. Everyone entering the polling place at the Mt. View Boys & Girls Club had their temperatures taken as a precaution during the COVID-19 pandemic. (Bill Roth / ADN)

Election worker Tom Walker stands near a voting tablet intended for use by voters with a disability to allow them to vote unassisted during the primary election on Tuesday, August 18, 2020. (Bill Roth / ADN)

More than $160,000 was spent on the Republican race between Wasilla incumbent Rep. David Eastman and challenger Jesse Sumner, who has the support of several incumbent Republicans. Eastman leads that election with 1,020 votes to Sumners 987, with one of 11 precincts yet to report results.

Before results were reported, Sumner said he could trail Eastman on election night but believes he has the edge among absentee voters. In House District 10, as many as 1,165 absentee votes could be cast, based on absentee ballot requests published by the Alaska Division of Elections.

Before election day, state figures showed proportionally more independent and Democratic voters requesting absentee ballots than Republicans.

Kopp, Giessel and Johnston received particular support in that regard, but it remains to be seen whether absentee trends are significantly different from election day. Even then, it may not be enough to change the result.

As many as 4,351 absentee ballots may be cast in the Giessel-Holland race, and Giessel would have to win almost three-quarters of them to reverse the election-day result.

The Alaska Division of Elections plans to count a first batch of absentee ballots on Aug. 25. A second batch will be counted Aug. 28, and the division is scheduled to certify the results Aug. 30.

Once confirmed, the primary winners will advance to the Nov. 3 general election.

[Because of a high volume of comments requiring moderation, we are temporarily disabling comments on many of our articles so editors can focus on the coronavirus crisis and other coverage. We invite you to write a letter to the editor or reach out directly if youd like to communicate with us about a particular article. Thanks.]

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Alaska Republican incumbents fall behind on primary election day, but thousands of absentee ballots remain uncounted - Anchorage Daily News

In the high-profile, expensive Senate race between Rep. Joe Kennedy and incumbent Ed Markey, Kennedy has made one argument particularly central to his bid: that Markey has not leveraged his Senate seat as effectively as he could to further the goals of the Democratic Party. The two men broadly align on liberal policy priorities, but Kennedy has repeatedly emphasized that theres more to being a senator than just casting votes and filing bills, and that he would make better use of a Senate seat than Markey has or will.

To underscore his point, Kennedy regularly refers to the way hes leveraged his seat in the House of Representatives, where he has served since 2013, namely the many fundraising trips he made during the 2018 midterm cycle, when he raised nearly $5 million for other Democratic candidates and helped his party flip the House. During that cycle, Kennedy served as a mid-Atlantic and New England regional vice chair for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and stumped for candidates in at least 15 states and D.C., including battleground races in Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Arizona.

While Kennedy acknowledgesthat he has not used his platform to bring national attention to policy issues like Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or Ayanna Pressley have, he speaks proudly of leveraging his seat in a way that is most natural to me.

Yet his eagerness to claim credit for flipping seats two years ago contrasts with how Kennedy used to talk about such partisan efforts.

Following a rough 2014 midterm cycle, during which Democrats already a minority in the House lost 13 seats in that chamber, party officials began discussing how one of the partys young, rising stars might be key to reversing Democrats fortunes in 2016. Party operatives turned their sights to Kennedy and Rep. Joaquin Castro of Texas as top candidates to potentially take over the DCCC and guide the party forward. One of the primary goals of the DCCC and its counterpart in the upper chamber, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, is to flip seats held by Republicans. Kennedy, then 34 years old, was just finishing up his first term in Congress and was seen as a particularly appealing contender given his knack for fundraising, driven by his lineage and last name. The DCCC chair at the time was New York Rep. Steve Israel, who had already declared that he would not continue on for the 2016 cycle. California Rep. Nancy Pelosi, who was expected to be reelected as House minority leader, would get to select the next DCCC chair.

But after Politico reported that party leaders were looking at Kennedy, the Massachusettsrepresentativequickly made clear to House Democratic leadership that he had no interest in a role that would mean dedicating his energy to unseating Republicans.Its an important job, Kennedy told Boston Globe columnist Joan Vennochi. But its not something that interests me. If I do the job right, I would be finding ways to beat those guys. Since joining Congress, Kennedy had been making a point to cast himself as more open to working with Republicans than many of his Democratic colleagues. He was a member of a small 6:30 a.m. exercise group led by Republican Rep. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma, and a study from the Lugar Center and Georgetown Universitys McCourt School of Public Policy ranked him as the most bipartisan House member in all of New England.

In 2013, amid the federal government shutdown, Kennedy earned headlines for defending his tea party colleagues at a time when many, including President Barack Obama, were describing them as much more akin to extortionists. Theyre people too, Kennedy said, when asked his opinion of the tea party. Everyone here got elected. Everyone here got someone to vote for them. Everyone is genuinely trying to do the right thing for the country. At the time, nationwide public opinion of tea party Republicans had declined precipitously.

Kennedy then proceeded to dismiss the medias depiction of congressional divisions and said he understood that tea party Republicans are just seeking to represent their constituents who have a different worldview than those who live in Massachusetts. We talk about the Red Sox, their kids, and whether theyll have a chance to see them on the weekend, Kennedy told the Boston Globe. Regular old things co-workers would talk about.

When asked about his lack of interest in 2014 to lead the DCCC and if his thinking on partnering with Republicans has evolved, campaign spokesperson Brian Phillips Jr. said in an emailed statement, Congressman Kennedys legislation has always been guided by building relationships with his constituents and learning the needs of his district. In those efforts, he has developed diverse coalitions to deliver on those priorities, including tackling racial inequities in our education and health care systems, building a national manufacturing network, and enacting environmental justice policies. Beyond his efforts in Washington, he has served in a leadership role in the DCCC, campaigned in dozens of Congressional districts, raised millions for Democratic candidates and traveled the country to fight for progressive causes.

The high-profile race between Kennedy and Markey has grown increasingly competitive in the final days ahead of the September 1 primary. A new poll released on Monday of likely Democratic primary voters found Markey leading Kennedy by2 points 44 percent to 42 percent with 15 percent still undecided. Another poll, conducted by University of Massachusetts Amherst/WCVB and released last week found Markey with a more substantial 15-point lead over Kennedy. Two polls released in early May had shown Kennedy up by 2 points and 16 points, respectively. On Tuesday night, the candidates will face off in their final debate.

Politico reported earlier this week that Markey had raised $1.55 million in the preprimary period, which runs from July 1 to August 12, in addition to the more than $10 million he had raised by the end of June. The incumbent has $3.5 million on hand to spend in the last two weeks. Kennedy had raised nearly $1 million during that same period, on top of his nearly $8 million raised by the end of June. All told, more than $20 million has been raised for this contest.

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As a Rising Star, Joe Kennedy Didnt Want to Help Democrats Beat Republicans - The Intercept