Andrew Egger: “If you’re a Democrat, it’s certainly not unreasonable to look at a guy like Platner and say: Okay, so he’s a cheater—now explain to me exactly why I should think that means Republicans should control the Senate?”

“I don’t have a convenient moral to the story here. It’s not like the answer is just for the parties to keep running the same old colorless senior-citizen career politicians. Voters don’t like them, and they shouldn’t. If Maine Gov. Janet Mills hadn’t been such an uninspiring establishment Senate candidate, Platner would never have found a populist wave to catch in the first place.”

“But I do worry that the path we’re on is one that makes it easier and easier for Democrats to follow Republicans into just abandoning character-related assessments of their candidates altogether. We’re currently in the midst of a long, painful education in how badly that can go on the GOP side of the aisle. Once you decide moral fiber in your leaders is a luxury your party can no longer afford, it’s amazing how quickly things can get out of hand.”

“After years in the political wilderness, Iowa Democrats are feeling a new sensation — hope,” Bloomberg reports. 

“Once seen as a bellwether, the Midwestern state of 3.2 million people has over the past decade served as a microcosm for national politics, lurching to the right as President Donald Trump solidified his grasp on White and rural voters. But Democrats see an opportunity to reverse those trends, buoyed by broad dissatisfaction with the economy and a group of well-liked, centrist candidates expected to prevail in Tuesday’s party primaries.”

“Trump’s aggressive tariff agenda has turbocharged voter frustrations with the state’s heavily agricultural economy, squeezing the fertilizer supply chain. The Iran war has driven up fuel prices. The president’s recent trip to China didn’t yield specific guarantees of new row crop purchases. Sweeping policy changes in education and healthcare alienated some Iowans, while longtime Republican incumbents are retiring.”

“Two Democrats running for an open Senate seat in Iowa are testing whether the way to win a state that President Donald Trump carried three times is a moderate message — or a fiery indictment of the Democratic establishment,” the Washington Post reports. 

“Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY) and his allies view state Rep. Josh Turek as the party’s best shot at flipping Iowa in November and helping Democrats recapture the Senate.”

“Meanwhile, state Sen. Zach Wahls, who is running against Turek in Tuesday’s primary, sees Schumer as part of the problem.”

“This is what small men like Donald Trump and JD Vance and Stephen Miller will never understand—that our national greatness flows not through our blood or our genes, but through our ideas. Americans are not a race, we’re a people united not by ethnicity, but by our shared convictions, and that is what makes us exceptional.”

— Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA), at a campaign speech.

Marc Novicoff: “t’s happening again. In a big American city, a young Indian American democratic socialist is trying to unseat an unpopular Black incumbent on a platform of housing affordability. This time, the arena is not New York City but Los Angeles. Nithya Raman, the insurgent, has fashioned herself as a Zohran Mamdani of the West. Karen Bass, the embattled incumbent, is fighting to stay in office and make sure that lightning doesn’t strike on opposite coasts.”

“But the similarities mostly end there. In New York, an inspiring young leftist competed against a boorish, but experienced, former governor to replace a corrupt mayor. In Los Angeles, the leftist insurgent isn’t inspiring, and the boorish challenger—the former reality-TV villain Spencer Pratt—is inexperienced. The incumbent isn’t corrupt, just feckless. Despite their overwhelming weaknesses, two of these candidates will advance from Tuesday’s nonpartisan primary, and one will win in the November general election. Los Angeles is unlikely to be better off.”