Caribbean Matters: US media ignores Puerto Rico’s June gubernatorial primary

While U.S. media continues to focus on all things Donald Trump and the upcoming presidential election, the politics of our Puerto Rican colony continue to take a backseat. 

There was some coverage of the presidential primaries that Puerto Ricans hold every four years, despite not being able to vote for president (which we covered here in early May). But it’s far more important to pay attention to the battle for governor of the island, as well as the primary for resident commissioner, who serves as the nonvoting delegate to the House of Representatives.

Politics on the island are changing, given the rise of new coalitions and new political parties. Massive 2019 protests against former Gov. Ricardo Rossello led to his resignation. Then Gov. Wanda Vázquez, who endorsed Trump, wound up being dumped from her own party’s ticket when Pedro Pierluisi won the primary against her in August 2020, signaling growing discontent with the political status quo. But the two main parties on the island are still dominant—and the primary for the governor’s race in the current ruling party pits incumbent Gov. Pierluisi against the current nonvoting delegate in Congress, Jenniffer González-Colón.  

RELATED STORY: Caribbean Matters: The winds of political change are blowing in Puerto Rico

Caribbean Matters is a weekly series from Daily Kos. If you are unfamiliar with the region, check out Caribbean Matters: Getting to know the countries of the Caribbean.

I’m not saying there is no coverage of this important race. Spanish-language media have produced a host of both print and television stories. But that doesn’t help readers who don’t read or speak Spanish, including many stateside Puerto Ricans. Politico did a story in November 2023 which set the stage, profiling the two candidates who are both members of the New Progressive Party or Partido Nuevo Progresista, known as PNP. As I often point out when discussing Puerto Rican politics, do not be fooled by the word “progressive” in the party’s moniker. It ain’t.   

Politico’s Gloria Gonzalez wrote an article titled, “The fierce fight to lead Puerto Rico.”

The candidates are campaigning for a job that’s complicated by Puerto Rico’s territory status and the fact that primary control of its finances is outside the purview of the governor. Instead, that power rests with an unelected oversight board after the territory’s historic, multibillion-dollar bankruptcy filing in 2016. And Puerto Ricans are angry and frustrated by the state of their battered infrastructure, particularly the territory’s notoriously unreliable and incredibly expensive power system.

Though they are both members of NPP in Puerto Rico, the two politicians have forged separate alliances in Congress: González-Colón is a Republican who supported former President Donald Trump — even earning his praise. Meanwhile, Pierluisi caucused with Democrats during his eight years as Puerto Rico’s resident commissioner.

The New Progressive Party or Partido Nuevo Progresista has been one of the major political parties in the territory, alongside the pro-commonwealth status Popular Democratic Party or Partido Popular Democrático. But the NPP has lost members amid the emergence of the Citizens’ Victory Movement or Movimento Victoria Ciudadana party, which supports a constitutional assembly to determine Puerto Rico’s status, and the Project Dignity or Proyecto Dignidad party, which does not advocate for any particular status.

WBUR’s “On Point” featured an in-depth English-language discussion on the upcoming primaries hosted by Meghna Chakrabarti. Her guests were Susanne Ramirez de Arellano, political reporter and former news director for Univision Puerto Rico, and Jorell Melendez Badillo, who is an assistant professor of Latin American and Caribbean history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and author of “Puerto Rico: A National History.”

Puerto Rico's big political shakeup Puerto Rico is in the middle of a major gubernatorial race — who wins  could have a big effect on the territory.https://t.co/jcKMpqllDu

— Denise Oliver-Velez 💛 (@Deoliver47) May 26, 2024

Runtime for the podcast is about 47 minutes, and I hope you will take the time to listen to it.

I introduced Juan Dalmau, the gubernatorial candidate for the Puerto Rican Independence Party or PIP here in March, and the Citizens Victory Movement or MVC candidate for resident commissioner, state Sen. Ana Irma Rivera Lassén, in a story about her battle against Black hair discrimination. The two parties have formed an alliance.

In the podcast, Melendez Badillo also cautions people to be aware of the rise of the new right-wing party on the island, Proyecto Dignidad, or Project Dignity. Its members are ultra-conservative Christian and virulently anti-abortion, and have introduced anti-trans legislation.

Melendez Badillo recently wrote “Puerto Rico Is Voting for Its Future” for Time magazine:

The traditional parties have overlooked their differences to challenge the MVC-PIP alliance, taking legal action to seek to delegitimize and exclude the alliance’s candidates from the electoral process. They succeeded in decertifying some key MVC candidates like Senator Ana Irma Rivera Lassen, who is running for the position of Resident Commissioner in Washington, D.C.

Yet the MVC-PIP’s messages have enduring appeal. In recent years Puerto Ricans have faced a fiscal crisis that affected salaries and the price of goods, and stagnated the economy. There are electrical outages on an almost daily basis. Soaring poverty—particularly affecting children—makes life in Puerto Rico difficult, triggering the migration of Puerto Ricans to the United States and abroad.

[...]

One of MVC’s most important platform points involves the creation of a new constitutional assembly, which could redefine the future of Puerto Rico’s political status and bring an end to more than five centuries of colonialism. Such an assembly would provide Puerto Ricans with the opportunity to decide for themselves what the future of Puerto Rico looks like, freed from the constraints of the visions advanced by the traditional political parties.

If the MVC-PIP alliance increases its vote share in the 2024 elections, changes may be on the horizon. Perhaps they are already here; as these electoral processes take place, Puerto Ricans are not passively standing by. There are countless grassroots groups that are already enacting, imagining, and living the future they so desire in the present. They are also working towards the decolonization of the country. Many groups, such as La Colectiva Feminista en Construcción, Urbe a Pie, and La Sombrilla Cuir predate the protest movement and do not focus on electoral politics. They have instead concentrated on transforming the conditions and everyday lives of Puerto Ricans. It was grassroots organizing that amplified the 2019 protests and that have provided the energy for the creation of these new political parties.

Note: the disqualification of candidates mentioned above was reversed by the Puerto Rico Court of Appeals.

The Puerto Rico Court of Appeals on Tuesday reversed a Court of San Juan ruling that in March disqualified a number of candidates from the Citizen Victory Movement (MVC by its Spanish initials) and the Dignity Project (PD) political parties for failing to collect endorsements.

The Appeals Court noted that the plaintiffs who filed the suit to disqualify the MVC and the Dignity Project candidates did not have legal standing nor did they demonstrate to the court that they had a sufficient connection to and harm from the law or action challenged.

Mainland media is not the only problem. Polling on the island seems questionable, due to candidate erasure.

#PuertoRico's mainstream newspaper (owners long been affiliated w/ pro-statehood party @pnp_pr) publishes poll that leaves out @RLSenadora. An Afro-Boricua who is openly Lesbian & repping an insurgent movement, Senator Rivera Lassen's candidacy is historic. cc: @HigherHeightPAC https://t.co/U15gPtYf49

— Melissa Mark-Viverito (@MMViverito) March 6, 2024

Bonita Radio translation:

Senator Ana Irma Rivera Lassen demanded @ElNuevoDia to speak out about the "act of omission and invisibilization" by not including her as a pre-candidate for Resident Commissioner in the poll they published today.

"They have a great job and a great responsibility: to ensure that every person in Puerto Rico is fully informed about all their electoral options. Only through transparency and inclusion, truth and justice, can we aspire to a truly participatory democracy and the country we dream of and deserve."

For those of you interested in polling, there sadly isn’t much that is up to date. However, this data from March does indicate younger voters shifting toward the new alliance—which does not bode well for the two major parties. What that will mean in November is not clear, though from my perspective even if the alliance can’t pull off a win, they are moving Puerto Rico in a progressive direction.

This is one of the most important political charts you'll see this year. According to a new poll, *among voters ages 18-44*, pro-independence candidate @juandalmauPR and his alliance with @VictoriaPorPR have a MAJOR advantage in the 2024 Puerto Rico governor's race. pic.twitter.com/zj4ehoLtnf

— Boricuas Unidos en la Diáspora (@BUDPR) March 3, 2024

Professor Rafael Bernabe is an elected representative of the Movimiento Victoria Ciudadana in the Puerto Rican Senate who co-authored “Puerto Rico in the American Century: A History Since 1898” with César Ayala. Bernabe shared his perspective with Jacobin in a conversation with journalist, author, and professor Ed Morales.

A New Alliance Could Change Puerto Rican Politics

Rafael Bernabe: When you look at what has happened in the past fifteen years in Puerto Rico, it’s not too hard to see the reason La Alianza came about. The economy of Puerto Rico went into a very deep depression in 2005. If you look at the numbers, the economy of Puerto Rico has been in a depression. We have had fifteen years of economic stagnation, no growth whatsoever. About two hundred thousand jobs have vanished; thousands of people have had to leave the island because they can’t find them. They can’t live here. And at the same time, you have all of these terrible corruption cases in the government. The result of that crisis (which people feel very deeply), the fact that the two major parties have not been able to offer any alternative to that crisis, and that they are increasingly corrupt machines has meant that the support for these two political parties is decreasing sharply.

These parties combined used to get around 97 percent of the votes between them. The PIP got 3 percent, and they got the rest. And now that’s down to like 64 percent: the PNP gets 33 percent; the PPD got 31 percent. These political parties have basically collapsed over the past ten years. In 2016, [ousted former governor] Ricky Rosselló won the governorship with 42 percent of the vote, which was already low enough, and then he was not even able to complete his term because the people got so fed up with his government that they mobilized and they overthrew him. It’s the closest thing we’ve had to a revolution in Puerto Rico. People were in the street mobilizing for twenty days nonstop and forced the governor to resign. In the election in 2017, the PIP jumped from 3 percent to 14 percent. And the MVC, which was participating for the first time, gets 14 percent, which is an indication that people are very much open to new alternatives. So the rise of the vote for the MVC and for the people is very much part of the same process, because many of the people who were on the streets trying to get rid of him were seeking new alternatives. Now that we are in an alliance, we have come together in one single force.

He discussed the politics of the alliance:

Ed Morales: You’ve said that the degree of leftism and progressivism between the two parties is very similar. That is to say one party is not necessarily more about socialism or workers’ rights than the other?

Rafael Bernabe: I would say neither party is a socialist party. They are both pro-labor, pro–women’s rights, and pro–LGBTQ rights. They both defend that public services should be essential, that services should be publicly owned, and the guarantee that includes electricity, water, education, and health. Both parties support the creation of public health system. These are by any account left-wing parties, progressive parties, whichever term you want to use.

In the MVC, there are people who are socialists, myself included, and everybody knows that we are socialists and it’s no secret, but there are many people who are not socialists. And we agree to struggle for certain immediate reforms and things that working people need to defend the environment, that we need to defend women’s rights and so on and so forth. As a socialist, when I have the opportunity and the occasion, I explain why I am against capitalism. I think in the end we have to abolish capitalism in order to solve our fundamental problems. But I always make it clear that I’m speaking for myself. The MVC as such is not a socialist movement. It includes people who are and people who aren’t socialists. If you look at the program of these two parties, they’re very similar.

We are getting a chance to watch coalition-building in real time. Now if only we could get more coverage. 

Join me in the comments section below for more on the upcoming primary, and for the weekly Caribbean News Roundup.

Campaign Action

Morning Digest: In primary delayed by chaos, Puerto Rico’s pro-statehood party dumps governor

The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, Stephen Wolf, Carolyn Fiddler, and Matt Booker, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Daniel Donner, James Lambert, David Beard, and Arjun Jaikumar.

Leading Off

PR-Gov: Puerto Rico's gubernatorial primaries finally came to an end on Sunday, and former Resident Commissioner Pedro Pierluisi ousted Gov. Wanda Vázquez 58-42 to win the nomination of the pro-statehood New Progressive Party. Vázquez did not endorse Pierluisi, declaring instead, "I say to Pedro Pierluisi, that it is the thousands and thousands of people who supported me, and gave me their vote ... it is those people whose endorsement he should be seeking." Pierluisi, for his part, said that statehood would be one of his top goals if elected.

Meanwhile, Isabela Mayor Carlos Delgado decisively won the contest to lead the pro-commonwealth Popular Democratic Party by defeating Puerto Rico Sen. Eduardo Bhatia 63-24. Pierluisi and Delgado will face off in the November general election for a four-year term along with Alexandra Lúgaro of the Citizens' Victory Movement, a party that NPR describes as "promoting anti-colonialism and a constitutional assembly to make a final decision on Puerto Rico's political relationship with the United States."

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The primary was originally set for June, but Vázquez signed legislation postponing it to Aug. 9 because of the coronavirus pandemic. However, ballots arrived late, or did not arrive at all, at a majority of voting centers that day, and the commonwealth's major political parties postponed voting a week. On Thursday, the Puerto Rico Supreme Court ruled that voting would take place on Sunday in any precinct that was not open for the legally required eight hours last week.

The second round of voting mostly proceeded as planned, but not everyone who wanted to vote ended up being able to cast a ballot. Many people left closed polling places on Aug. 9 only to eventually learn that their precinct had opened later in the day for the prescribed eight hours, but that it was now too late for them to vote.

Pierluisi, who represented Puerto Rico in the U.S. House as a non-voting member from 2009 to 2017, briefly served as governor last year under some very unusual circumstances. Gov. Ricardo Rosselló, who had narrowly defeated Pierluisi in the 2016 primary, was badly damaged after a series of online chats between the governor and his allies leaked in which participants lobbed violent, misogynist, and homophobic insults at their enemies and joked about Puerto Ricans who died during Hurricane Maria. Mass protests soon broke out calling for Rosselló to quit, and the legislature began laying the groundwork to impeach him.

After two weeks of protests, Rosselló announced on July 24 that he would resign nine days hence, but it was unclear who would succeed him. Normally the commonwealth's secretary of state would take over, but Luis Rivera Marin had previously resigned from that very post because of his own role in the chat scandal. Vázquez, who was justice minister, was next in the line of succession, but she said on July 28―less than a week before Rosselló's Aug. 2 departure―that she hoped that Rosselló would pick a new secretary of state, and that this new person would be governor instead of her.

Rosselló tried to do just that, and he announced on July 31 that he was appointing his old rival Pierluisi. However, the commonwealth's constitution requires the secretary of state to be confirmed by both Puerto Rico's House and Senate, but Pierluisi was sworn into that job that very evening before any legislators had a chance to vote.

The House gave Pierluisi an affirmative vote on Aug. 2 about an hour before Rosselló's departure took effect, but the Senate postponed their own hearings until the following week. However, that didn't stop Pierluisi from being sworn in as governor right after Rosselló left office. Pierluisi cited a 2005 law that said that the secretary of state didn't need to have received legislative confirmation from both chambers if they need to take over as governor to make his case that he was indeed Puerto Rico's legitimate leader.

However, the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico ruled that this provision was unconstitutional days later in the decision that ousted Pierluisi from the governor's office and put Vázquez in charge. While Vázquez said she hadn't wanted to be governor, she soon quashed speculation that she would only stay long enough to appoint a new secretary of state who would then take over as the commonwealth's leader, and she announced in December that she'd seek a full term.

Pierluisi argued during his campaign that Vázquez wasn't fixing mistakes made by her administration during the coronavirus pandemic. Last month, the special independent prosecutor's office announced that it had launched a criminal investigation into allegations that Vázquez and her administration had mismanaged emergency supplies after Puerto Rico was struck by earthquakes in January.

Primary Preview

Primary Night: The One Where Ross Tries Not To Get Fired: Primaries are concluding on Tuesday in Alaska, Florida, and Wyoming for congressional and state offices, and as always, we've put together our preview of what to watch.

We'll be keeping a close eye on the GOP primary for Florida's 15th District, where freshman Republican Rep. Ross Spano, who is under federal investigation for allegedly violating campaign finance laws during his successful 2018 bid, faces a serious intra-party threat from Lakeland City Commissioner Scott Franklin. We'll also be watching the GOP primaries for the open 3rd and 19th Districts, as well as the contest to face Democratic Rep. Charlie Crist in the 13th District.

And the action isn't confined to the Lower 48. In Alaska, national Republicans are spending to deny renomination to members of the Democratic-led cross-partisan coalition that runs the state House. Check out our preview for more on these contests.

Our live coverage will begin at 7 PM ET Tuesday night at Daily Kos Elections when the polls close in most of Florida. You can also follow us on Twitter for blow-by-blow updates. And you'll want to bookmark our primary calendar, which includes the dates of the cycle's remaining down-ballot primaries, as well as our separate calendar tracking key contests further down the ballot taking place nationwide this year.

Senate

CO-Sen: Republican Sen. Cory Gardner, who has long had a dismal record on climate issues, is continuing to pitch himself as a supporter of the environment in his advertising campaign. Gardner's newest commercial features two conservationists praising him for securing "permanent funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund."

GA-Sen-A, IA-Sen, MT-Sen: The Democratic group Duty and Honor is out with ads against three Republican incumbents:  Georgia's David Perdue, Iowa's Joni Ernst, and Montana's Steve Daines.

While Perdue has been running spots claiming he wants to cover pre-existing conditions, Duty and Honor takes him to task for trying to take those protections away. The Iowa commercial, meanwhile, goes after Ernst for "calling for Iowa schools to reopen, trying to score political points instead of prioritizing our kids' health and safety."

Finally, the Montana ad argues that Daines voted to give drug companies huge tax breaks when they're causing the opioid crisis and "raised their prices so high that nearly two-in-five Montanans can't afford their prescriptions."

GA-Sen-B: Sen. Kelly Loeffler uses her newest commercial to accuse Rep. Doug Collins, a fellow Republican, of working with Democrats to undermine her. The narrator begins, "The Trump Justice Department says Kelly Loeffler did nothing wrong," a reference to how the DOJ dropped its investigation into her sale of millions in stock just before the markets tanked due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The ad then goes on to say that Collins "voted with Stacey Abrams in the legislature and Nancy Pelosi in Congress," though it doesn't actually mention anything that Collins saw eye-to-eye with either Democrat on. The spot later features a clip of Donald Trump praising Loeffler for being "so supportive of me and the agenda." Trump hasn't taken sides in the November all-party primary, and he's also talked up Collins.

IA-Sen: The conservative group One Nation's newest commercial declares, "As an assault survivor and military veteran herself, Sen. Joni Ernst is standing up to sexual assault in the military." It goes on to show a clip of Ernst saying, "Abuse is not something you can simply forget."

NC-Sen, NC-Gov: East Carolina University has released a new survey of its home state:

  • NC-Sen: Cal Cunningham (D): 44, Thom Tillis (R-inc): 40 (June: 41-41 tie)
  • NC-Gov: Roy Cooper (D-inc): 52, Dan Forest (R): 38 (June: 49-38 Cooper)

The sample finds a 47-47 tie in the presidential race, which is a very small shift from Joe Biden's 45-44 edge in June.

TX-Sen: YouGov has released a new survey for the Texas Hispanic Policy Foundation and Rice University that finds Republican Sen. John Cornyn leading Democrat MJ Hegar 44-37, while Donald Trump holds a 48-41 edge in Texas. YouGov's July survey for CBS, which was taken just before Hegar won the Democratic primary runoff, had Cornyn up by a similar 44-36 margin, though Trump was ahead only 45-44.

WY-Sen: Last week, Donald Trump backed former Rep. Cynthia Lummis in Tuesday's GOP primary for this open seat. The former congresswoman has a few intra-party opponents in the contest to succeed retiring Sen. Mike Enzi in this extremely red state, but none of them appear to be very strong.

Lummis' most notable foe is Converse County Commissioner Robert Short, a self-described "centrist Republican." Lummis outspent Short, who has self-funded almost his entire campaign, $725,000 to $255,000 from July 1 to July 29, which is the time the FEC defines as the pre-primary period.

Gubernatorial

MO-Gov: The Republican firm Remington Research's newest poll for the Missouri Scout newsletter finds Republican incumbent Mike Parson leading Democrat Nichole Galloway 50-43, which is a small shift from Parson's 50-41 edge in June. The release did not include presidential numbers.

VT-Gov: Attorney John Klar announced Friday that he was endorsing Republican Gov. Phil Scott, who defeated him 73-22 in last week's primary, and would not run as a conservative independent in the general election.

House

MA-01: Holyoke Mayor Alex Morse has released a new survey from Beacon Research that finds Rep. Richie Neal, his opponent in the Sept. 1 Democratic primary, ahead by just a 46-41 margin. The poll was conducted over the weekend, after Morse accepted an apology from the Massachusetts College Democrats for the harm that followed the release of the organization's letter accusing Morse of inappropriate conduct toward students.

Meanwhile, the Justice Democrats, which said late last week that it was resuming its support for Morse, is spending another $150,000 on TV ads attacking Neal. Their newest spot says that "last year, Neal took more money from corporations than any other member of Congress—almost $2 million" while at the same time he "hasn't held a town hall in years."

MA-04: Former Alliance for Business Leadership head Jesse Mermell is airing her first TV spot ahead of the Sept. 1 Democratic primary. Mermell, who appears to be recording the ad using her smartphone, says that voters struggling to pick between the many candidates could opt for "the one who protected abortion and birth control coverage at Planned Parenthood."

To underscore just how crowded the race is, the audience sees several other copies of Mermell gradually appear in the shot to talk about her support for Medicare for all and the Green New Deal and her endorsements from "[Rep.] Ayanna Pressley, [state Attorney General] Maura Healey, Planned Parenthood, Mass Teachers, Mass Nurses, SEIU." Mermell, who by this time has three other images of herself behind her, concludes, "We approve this message because you got some good options, but one clear choice."

Meanwhile, businessman Chris Zannetos is trying to distinguish himself from his rivals by running to the center. In his new commercial, the narrator touts Zannetos as the one candidate opposed to "eliminat[ing] private health insurance." Zannetos goes on to say he backs Joe Biden's plan and says, "Let's expand Obamacare and lower the cost of prescription drugs."

MO-02: House Majority PAC has released a survey from the Democratic firm Public Policy Polling that shows Democrat Jill Schupp leading Republican Rep. Ann Wagner 48-45. The sample also finds Joe Biden ahead 48-46 in a suburban St. Louis seat that supported Donald Trump 53-42 but has been moving to the left in recent years. This is the first survey we've seen here since February, when the GOP firm Remington Research's poll for the Missouri Scout newsletter had Wagner up 50-40.

NH-01: On Monday, former state GOP vice chair Matt Mayberry earned an endorsement in the Sept. 8 Republican primary from former Sen. John Sununu, who represented a previous version of this seat before he was elected to his one term in the Senate in 2002.

Mayberry faces a challenging battle against former White House aide Matt Mowers, who has Donald Trump's backing, for the right to take on freshman Democratic Rep. Chris Pappas in this swing seat. Mowers ended June with a wide $440,000 to $73,000 cash-on-hand lead over his intra-party rival, while Pappas had a far-larger $1.5 million campaign account.

NJ-07: In his opening commercial, freshman Democratic Rep. Tom Malinowski decries, "Some people just want to divide us, even over wearing a mask. It's exhausting." Malinowski goes on to call for "getting things done" instead, and continues, "I passed a bill to fix America's stockpile of critical medical equipment."

Other Races

Broward County, FL State's Attorney: Eight Democrats are competing in Tuesday's primary to succeed Mike Satz, who is retiring after 44 years as Broward County's top prosecutor, and most of the outside money has favored one candidate.

George Soros, the billionaire progressive donor who has poured millions into backing criminal justice reformers in many recent key races around the country in recent years, has been funding a group called the Florida Justice & Public Safety PAC that has raised $750,000 to support defense attorney Joe Kimok. Kimok, who had planned to challenge Satz before the incumbent decided not to seek re-election, is the one candidate who has pledged not to seek the death penalty if elected.

Rafael Olmeda of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reports that a group known as Victims Have Rights has raised a considerably smaller $110,000 to help veteran prosecutor Sarahnell Murphy, who has Satz's endorsement. The PAC has run mailers against Kimok and another contender, Coconut Creek City Commissioner Joshua Rydell.

Orange/Osceola Counties, FL State's Attorney: State Attorney Aramis Ayala is retiring as state's attorney for the Ninth Circuit, which covers both Orlando's Orange County and neighboring Osceola County, and four fellow Democrats are competing in Tuesday's party primary to succeed her. No Republicans are running in the November election, and the winner will be the heavy favorite to defeat independent Jose Torroella.

The Appeal's Samantha Schuyler writes that the one candidate who has pledged to keep Ayala's criminal justice reforms in place is former defense attorney Monique Worrell, and she's getting some major late support from like-minded allies.

The Orlando Sentinel reports that Our Vote Our Voice, a group funded in part by a group founded by billionaire philanthropist George Soros, launched a $1.5 million ad campaign in the last two weeks in the contest to help Worrell. Some of the group's commercials have gone towards promoting Worrell while others have gone after attorney Belvin Perry, who served as the judge during the high-profile Casey Anthony murder trial that took place here in 2011.

The other two Democratic candidates are Deb Barra, who serves as chief assistant state attorney, and former prosecutor Ryan Williams. Ayala initially backed Barra, but the incumbent later threw her support to Worrell after she launched her own campaign.

Barra, Perry, and Williams are all arguing that Ayala's decision never to seek the death penalty has harmed the office; Williams even resigned in 2017 over this policy. This trio has pointed to Ayala's struggles against the GOP-led state government to make their case. After Ayala announced that her office would not seek the death penalty, then-Gov. Rick Scott transferred 23 first-degree murder cases to a considerably more conservative state's attorney in another jurisdiction. The Florida Supreme Court sided with Scott after Ayala sued over this, and Gov. Ron DeSantis has continued to remove first-degree murder cases from her jurisdiction.

Worrell herself has said of the Republican governors' actions, "It put me on notice that the rules of the game have changed significantly … And those opposed [to criminal justice reform] will use any means necessary." However, Schuyler writes that even Worrell "is running on a platform that is significantly less assertive than Ayala's and has backed away from Ayala's death penalty position."

Election Changes

 Indiana: Republicans on the Indiana Election Commission have blocked a proposal by Democrats that would have allowed all voters to request an absentee ballot for the November general election without needing an excuse. The measure failed after the bipartisan panel deadlocked, with both Republican members voting against the plan and both Democrats voting for it. The Commission had unanimously waived the excuse requirement for the state's June primary.

Voting rights advocates filed a federal lawsuit challenging the requirement in late April, and briefing on their request concluded at the end of last month, so a ruling may be imminent.

 Kentucky: Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear and Republican Secretary of State Michael Adams have reached an agreement that will permit Kentucky voters to cite concerns about the coronavirus to request an absentee ballot for the November general election.

Beshear had wanted to waive the excuse requirement altogether, as the state had done for its June primary. However, a law passed earlier this year by Kentucky's Republican-run legislature required the governor to obtain approval for such a change from Adams, who had resisted a wider expansion of mail voting. The difference may nonetheless be minimal, as many other states have relaxed their own excuse requirements by allowing concerns about COVID to qualify and seen a surge in mail ballots.

 Louisiana: Republican Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin has proposed a plan to Louisiana's Republican-run legislature that would keep in place the state's requirement that voters present an excuse to request an absentee ballot and would expand eligibility only to those who have tested positive for COVID-19. Earlier this year, lawmakers approved a plan put forth by Ardoin that offered a limited expansion of absentee voting for the state's July primary for those at heightened risk from the coronavirus after Republicans rejected a broader proposal.

Legislators are slated to take up Ardoin's latest plan this week, and Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards says he is reviewing it. Before it was released, Edwards said he hoped it "would look substantially similar to the one" put in place for the primaries. However, that earlier plan did not require the governor's approval, nor does the new one. Voting rights advocates, including the NAACP, filed a suit challenging Louisiana's excuse requirement in federal court earlier this month.

 New York: Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo says he will sign a measure passed by New York's Democratic-run legislature to allow all voters to cite concerns about the coronavirus in order to request an absentee ballot. Cuomo had signed an executive order earlier this year making the same allowance ahead of the state's June primary.

Last month, lawmakers passed several other bills to improve voting access, which the governor must sign or veto soon. Another measure that would allow county election officials to deploy ballot drop boxes has yet to come up for a vote, but Cuomo says he supports the idea.

grab bag

 Deaths: Former Illinois Gov. James Thompson, a moderate Republican whose tenure from 1977 to 1991 was the longest in state history, died Friday at the age of 84. We take a look at his lengthy and eventful career in our obituary, which features appearances by Spiro Agnew, Lyndon LaRouche, the founder of Weight Watchers, and Lenny Bruce.

Thompson successfully won four terms as governor, but his last two campaigns were quite eventful. In 1982, Thompson defeated former Democratic Sen. Adlai Stevenson III by just over 5,000 votes in a contest that wasn’t resolved until days before he was inaugurated for a third term.

Thompson and Stevenson faced off again four years later in a rematch that became infamous for reasons that had nothing to do with either man. While Stevenson easily earned the nomination, a candidate affiliated with the fringe political activist Lyndon LaRouche won the primary to become his running mate. Stevenson opted to run as an independent rather than “run on a ticket with candidates who espouse the hate-filled folly of Lyndon LaRouche.” You can find out more about this campaign, as well as the rest of Thompson’s career, in our obituary.

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