Politics

(WASHINGTON) — High-stakes primaries in two Virginia congressional districts Tuesday night will test the enduring influence of former President Donald Trump on voters of both parties.

In Virginia’s 5th district, Rep. Bob Good, leader of the anti-Republican-establishment House Freedom Caucus, is running up against a challenger bolstered by the endorsements of Trump and former Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy. On Tuesday, voters will signal which brand of conservatism they prefer.

And with Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger vacating her 7th district seat to run for governor, former Army colonel Yevgeny “Eugene” Vindman, who rose to prominence during Trump’s first impeachment trial, has moved to the top of a crowded field of local electeds by highlighting his role in protecting democracy from the former president.

The Republican primary in Virginia’s 5th district
Good’s willingness to push against his party’s establishment has garnered him political power in Congress, but it also brought him a tough primary challenge, and has shown a schism within the more conservative wing of the party.

Good, who was first elected to the House in 2020, is facing state Sen. John McGuire, a primary opponent endorsed by former President Donald Trump and financially backed by Defending Main Street, the pro-incumbent PAC that claims responsibility for ousting former Republican Rep. Steve King.

Good has not been afraid to make enemies in his party, voting to oust former Speaker McCarthy and initially endorsing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ bid for president, though he flipped to Trump after DeSantis dropped out.

Good has also attempted to get back in Trump’s good graces, traveling up to New York to attend the former president’s hush-money trial — the same day McGuire also made the same trip.

“Bob Good is BAD FOR VIRGINIA, AND BAD FOR THE USA. He turned his back on our incredible movement, and was constantly attacking and fighting me until recently, when he gave a warm and ‘loving’ Endorsement – But really, it was too late,” Trump posted on Truth Social in May.

He added, “John McGuire has my Complete and Total Endorsement!” He posted the attack on Good again on Wednesday.

Good had also received a cease-and-desist from Trump’s campaign after using his name and image in campaign material.

“Trump’s endorsement represents a huge advantage for McGuire, and that’s why Good has tried to suggest that he is actually the favorite of the former president,” Stephen J. Farnsworth, professor of political science and international affairs at the University of Mary Washington, told ABC News by email. “While prominent Republicans have split in their preferences in this contest, none of them has anything like the influence with Republican primary voters that the former president has.”

The ire Good has drawn has landed him in a vulnerable position. McGuire has outraised Good and holds more cash on hand, according to an analysis of Federal Election Commission (FEC) records by OpenSecrets. The state senator has also benefited from slightly more outside spending, OpenSecrets found.

Good still has the support of groups such as the conservative organization, Club for Growth and Trump-aligned members such as Republican Rep. Byron Donalds.

He has also portrayed himself as a known quantity to his constituents.

“They can trust me; they know that I’m a consistent conservative. They know that I’m the same thing publicly as I am privately, and I think they like that I’ve been fighting for them,” Good told Roanoke, Virginia, TV station WDBJ earlier in June.

McGuire, meanwhile, has slammed Good for portraying himself as a Trump-aligned conservative.

“We found out that Bob is not who he says he is … All over the district, people are saying, ‘thank you for giving us a choice.’ And the people of the district are the ones that asked me to do this. And they basically said, ‘John, you’re the only one who can beat them,'” McGuire told Lynchburg, Virginia, ABC affiliate WSET.

The fight between Good and McGuire has split Republicans both at the national and at the hyperlocal level.

For instance, there are signs of a fissure in the House Freedom Caucus itself. Republican Rep. Warren Davidson, a self-identified member of the House Freedom Caucus, endorsed McGuire on Sunday, writing in a statement shared by McGuire’s campaign, “I’ve served in Congress since 2016, and we need reinforcements to help Make America Great Again … [McGuire] will work well with others to deliver conservative results.”

And at the local level, some Republican leaders from the district have pushed back against Trump’s endorsement. The Charlottesville Daily Progress and other local outlets reported that 5th District Republican Congressional Committee Chair Rich Buchanan and other local Republican leaders wrote an open letter to Trump asking him to reconsider his endorsement of McGuire.

“Congressman Bob Good has championed America First policies … Congressman Good’s opponent is relying on millions of dollars from outside Virginia to support his candidacy,” they wrote.

ABC News has reached out to Buchanan for comment.

The district includes a wide swath of the southern part of the state, including the cities of Charlottesville and Lynchburg, and Cook Political Report rates the seat as likely to safely stay in Republican hands.

The Democratic primary in Virginia’s 7th district
In 2018, Eugene Vindman helped his twin brother Alexander — both staffers for the National Security Council under Trump — blow the whistle on a phone call in which Trump asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to investigate Hunter Biden’s business dealings there. The Vindmans’ efforts launched the first of Trump’s two impeachment trials and catapulted Alexander and, to a lesser extent, Eugene into the national spotlight.

Now, propelled by name recognition, a campaign war chest much larger than his competitors’, and military bona fides — many members of the armed forces call the district home — Eugene Vindman appears poised to secure the Democratic party’s nomination in the tightly-contested swing district. Per FEC filings, Vindman has raised more than $5 million — and amount that’s more than all of his challengers combined.

“I sacrificed my military career to expose Trump’s corruption,” Vindman said in a campaign ad. “Now I’m running for Congress to get things done.”

As Vindman’s four leading opponents have been quick to point out, though, they each have something he does not: experience governing. Two — Andrea Bailey and Margaret Franklin — currently serve as Prince William County supervisors, and, until recently, two others — Elizabeth Guzman and Briana Sewell — served as members of Virginia’s House of Delegates. Guzman narrowly lost a primary after redistricting; Sewell remains in office.

That’s not all that differentiates Vindman and the field. Vindman, who is white, is running alongside three Black women and a Hispanic woman in a diversifying suburban district where roughly 35% of the population is not white, according to 2020 Census data.

“He does not understand the community. He’s not very infused in the community. He’s not been participating in the community as an advocate,” Bailey told the Associated Press.

“Vindman has three advantages going into this primary: he is very well-liked among Democratic activists and donors, he has a military background … and he is running as part of a large field where the people who do not support him will splinter in a variety of directions,” Farnsworth told ABC News.

If he secures the nomination, Vindman will likely draw a stark contrast with the Republican nominee.

The Republican primary for Virginia’s 7th district, which will also take place Tuesday, features nearly as many candidates and two frontrunners: Derrick Anderson, a former Army Green Beret who has received support from GOP leadership and finished second in the 2022 primary; and Cameron Hamilton, a former Navy SEAL with the backing of the House Freedom Caucus.

ABC News’ Isabella Murray contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Indiana declined to prosecute a man who threatened to kill an Indiana congressman and his family, according to a letter obtained by ABC News.

Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN) was left threatening messages by Aaron Thompson, who was later sentenced to two years of probation by the local district attorney in Indiana, but the new letter raises questions about why the U.S. Attorney, which normally handles threats to members of Congress, did not prosecute the case.

“Three daughters. Hey, hey, hey, three bullets hey, hey, hey one wife yay. Oh yeah, yeah, we’ll give her two bullets..” Thompson said in one threatening voicemail, according to the letter.

FBI agents visited Thompson’s house, where, according to the letter by Banks and sent to Attorney General Merrick Garland in December, he “admitted he had threatened me and my family with violence because he disagreed with my political beliefs.”

“When Capitol Police referred the criminal case against Aaron Thompson to the U.S. Attorney for Northern District of Indiana, they declined to prosecute despite clear evidence that Thompson violated federal law,” Banks wrote.

Banks is running for the open Senate seat in Indiana.

Garland, according to Banks, has made it a priority to prosecute threats to members of Congress and Banks asked why the DOJ didn’t pursue prosecution in his situation when similar threats made against California Rep. Eric Swalwell were prosecuted.

Last week, Attorney General Garland penned an op-ed decrying political violence.

“Disagreements about politics are good for our democracy,” Garland wrote in an opinion piece in the Washington Post. “They are normal. But using conspiracy theories, falsehoods, violence and threats of violence to affect political outcomes is not normal.

A spokesperson for the Congressman says the Justice Department has not responded to Banks’ letter.

The Justice Department has not responded to ABC News request for comment.

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(DES MOINES, Iowa.) — A federal judge in Iowa paused a state law giving local law enforcement the ability to arrest migrants in the state illegally, saying it is not the state’s job, but rather the job of the federal government to enforce immigration laws.

Signed into law in April, SF2340 authorizes local law enforcement officials to arrest migrants who have previously been deported or removed from the country, or who have been denied entry in the past. It also gives judges the power to order a person to be sent back to the country from which the person entered the United States.

It is similar to a Texas law, which gives that state’s law enforcement similar powers.

That law is on hold while it works its way through the courts.

The lawsuit, filed by the ACLU of Iowa, asked the court to grant an emergency injunction and halt the law from continuing to go into effect, which the court did.

“As a matter of politics, the new legislation might be defensible,” Judge Stephen Locher wrote. “As a matter of constitutional law, it is not.”

Brenna Bird, the Republican attorney general of Iowa, said she is disappointed by the ruling.

“I am disappointed in today’s court decision that blocks Iowa from stopping illegal reentry and keeping our communities safe,” she said. “Since Biden refuses to secure our borders, he has left states with no choice but to do the job for him. We will be appealing the court’s decision to uphold Iowa’s immigration enforcement law.”

As a matter of law, courts have held that immigration enforcement is the job of the federal government, not the state government.

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(WASHINGTON) — A federal judge has temporarily blocked the Biden administration’s Title IX expansion from going into effect in Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia.

U.S. District Judge Danny C. Reeves criticized the Department of Education in a decision issued Monday, claiming it “fails to provide a reasoned explanation for departing from its longstanding interpretations regarding the meaning of sex and provided virtually no answers to many of the difficult questions that arose during the public comment phase.”

In April, the finalized federal rules officially added “gender identity” to the list of protections from sex-based discrimination for the first time. Title IX prohibits discrimination based on sex at any institution that receives federal funding.

“For more than 50 years, Title IX has promised an equal opportunity to learn and thrive in our nation’s schools free from sex discrimination,” U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona previously said in a statement on the rule change. “These final regulations build on the legacy of Title IX by clarifying that all our nation’s students can access schools that are safe, welcoming and respect their rights.

Schools could violate Title IX if a transgender person isn’t allowed to use the bathroom aligned with their gender identity or if they are not referred to by their chosen pronoun, according to senior administration officials.

This change directly conflicts with several state laws that ban transgender students from using facilities — like bathrooms or locker rooms — that align with their gender identity and restrict the use of chosen pronouns and names, either by requiring parental permission or by allowing teachers to not use the preferred pronouns and name.

Several states with such laws are behind the lawsuits attempting to hinder the rule change.

Reeves’s ruling comes just a few days after another federal judge temporarily blocked the rules from taking effect several other states.

State leaders applauded the judge’s decision.

“We fought hard to protect our constitutional separation of powers, which ensures that the people through their elected representatives are the only authority that can make new laws,” said Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti.

The Title IX change from the Biden administration had been welcomed by LGBTQ advocates, students and families who have been met with anti-LGBTQ legislation throughout the year.

The ACLU has recorded more than 500 laws targeting the LGBTQ community in 2023 many of which were centered on school activity.

Several legal organizations, including Lamba Legal, argue that Title IX has long guaranteed that transgender youth “have an equal right to go about their everyday lives at school in peace and with dignity,” said Lambda Legal Senior Counsel Peter Renn in a May statement on its case against Idaho bathroom restrictions

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(OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla.) — On Tuesday in Oklahoma, Republican Rep. Tom Cole, chair of the powerful House Appropriations Committee, will face one of his most significant and costly primary challenges since he went to Congress 22 years ago.

His leading opponent in the Republican contest for the 4th congressional district is deep-pocketed, out-of-state businessman Paul Bondar, who in March filed his bid to replace Cole the reliably red bastion.

Bondar, a political newcomer who recently moved into Oklahoma from Texas, has spent millions of his own dollars to wage a lively race against a 10-term incumbent — investing more than $4.3 million in advertisements, the advertisement tracking firm AdImpact reported on June 11.

In the process, Bondar has made the unexpected Oklahoma contest the third-most expensive House primary of the year. Cole has spent over $3.1 million ahead of the race, according to Federal Elections Commissions filings, though he has significantly more money on hand than the largely self-funded Bondar.

Cole has “never had this much money against him,” said Fount Holland, a longtime Oklahoma Republican political consultant who worked for Cole more than a decade ago. Holland noted that the challenge was unusual, especially because of Cole’s deep relationships in the district.

Former Republican Gov. Frank Keating, a fixture in Oklahoma politics going back two generations, said he was “puzzled” over Bondar’s run.

“There’s never been a bit of a suggestion that Tom Cole is not up to the job. Never been a bit of a suggestion that Tom Cole is not focused, hugely intelligent, hugely significant at what he does, and especially being chairman at the most powerful, certainly one of the two, perhaps or three, most powerful committees in the U.S. House,” Keating said in an interview with ABC News.

Cole served as Oklahoma’s Secretary of State under Keating and worked as the governor’s chief legislative strategist and liaison to the state’s congressional delegation.

“There is no one more respected than Tom Cole. There really isn’t, and that’s why I was intrigued and puzzled by his opponent’s decision to run, not only in Oklahoma, but against a man like Tom Cole,” Keating added.

Bondar is challenging Cole from the far right, mounting a campaign focused on issues such as border security, energy independence and inflation, among other things. He has reserved his strongest criticism for Cole’s support of American foreign aid, especially money being sent to Ukraine as it battles Russia’s invasion from the east.

“For those of you who don’t know me, you soon will,” Bondar said during a speech at the right-wing Turning Point conference over the weekend in Detroit. “I am running for the United States Congress in congressional district four in Oklahoma, and you may ask me why. I am running to remove the global boot that silences the conservative voices across America and to bring back the voice of the conservative movement.”

Former President Donald Trump has endorsed Cole. Bondar told ABC News over the weekend that the former president should “change his mind” and back him instead.

Cole has traded barbs with his opponent largely over questions surrounding Bondar’s residency. Bondar’s current address is in Texas, and he said he has leased a home in Oklahoma. His business he started — Bondar Insurance Groups — is based in Illinois with a location in South Florida.

Bondar has said he grew up in Wisconsin and spent much of his adult life in Illinois. He owned the Bondar Insurance Group in Oak Brook, Illinois, and moved to Texas in 2020, he told KFOR News in Oklahoma City.

A report from The Oklahoman alleged that Bondar has tangential ties to a couple connected to Russian President Vladimir Putin. The report has led some party leaders in Washington to wonder whether Cole is being targeted because of his support for Ukraine.

Government records show that through business relationships in South Florida, Bondar’s wife may have a loose connection to a Russian pop star who has received awards from Putin — a tie that Bondar’s campaign rejects.

His wife Jennifer Bondar, as of 2023, is listed as the principal and manager of an LLC under a Florida address, according to the Florida Department of State Division of Corporations. The address, a condominium complex, is also where the Florida location of Bondar’s Insurance company is.

Jennifer Bondar’s LLC is in a unit owned by a company called Muza Marin Inc, according to the Broward County Appraiser in Florida. Those records list the registered agent — or the person that is designated by an LLC to accept official documents on behalf of the small business — for Muza Marin, Inc. as Lioudmila Issakovitch.

Issakovitch is married to pop star Valery Leontiev, who has a well-established and public relationship with Putin. Leontiev is a recipient of a number of Russian awards from Putin, including the Order of Friendship in 2014 and the Order of the Fatherland in 2022, which he received just days before Russia invaded Ukraine. The performer also sang a duet with Putin at a 2006 conference with the leaders of other former Soviet Union republics.

Bondar and his campaign have rejected any connections between the candidate and the Russian couple, and have denied even knowing them. They say the only connection is that their business partner Maxim Mandric, who had lived in the unit associated with the LLC, had moved to another unit.

“It’s important to note that the Bondars did not lease the unit and their business partner moved into another unit last year,” campaign spokeswoman Lisa Liebl told ABC News.

The candidate told ABC News in an interview on Saturday that his rise in popularity through the course of the race is “very similar to a Trump movement.” He also compared reports about his ties to Russians to the Trump-Russia investigation.

“That’s another reason why people think I’m President Trump — a fake, phony Russia-collusion story,” Bondar told ABC News.

“Because of — I don’t even know, I had a 1099 worker who rented an apartment through a real estate company that was being sublet. And the singer … of that property sang [for] Putin’s party so they put on there: ‘Texan has ties to Russia.’ That’s very funny, because I’m actually have a little bit of Ukrainian in me, and it shows the desperation and it shows that we’re successful. It shows that our campaign is really a well-run campaign,” he added.

Bondar’s spokeswoman told ABC News the campaign is consulting with lawyers and considering legal action against The Oklahoman because of its report on claims of the possible Russian connection.

Thomas Graham, a distinguished fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who was senior director for Russia on the National Security Council staff during the George W. Bush administration, noted that just because Leontiev has been seen publicly with Putin or has received awards from him, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the pop star and Putin are close.

“He’s like any other politician. These people have all sorts of contacts with people, which doesn’t always indicate closeness,” Thomas said.

“The president of the U.S. hands out awards to people and may not have a personal relationship with them. Putin operates in the same way. He has a small circle of confidants and perhaps a broader circle of people he listens to when it comes to foreign policy … Then there’s a much broader group that he may sing duets with or give awards to.”

The possible connection, though, has raised eyebrows given the recent battles over continued funding for Ukraine’s war effort against Russia.

Alexander Vindman, a retired National Security Council director of European Affairs, told ABC News that “whether or not Bondar knows it,” the Putin regime is capable of trying to leverage even loose connections to advance its own interests.

Vindman testified against then-President Trump when he was impeached in 2019 for abusing his power in connection with stalling a military aid package for Ukraine. Trump was acquitted by the U.S. Senate.

In addition to Bondar, Cole faces three other GOP primary challengers, Andrew Hayes, Nick Hankins and Rick Whitebear Harris. On Friday, in an unusual move, all three released a joint video announcing they would be backing Bondar over Cole, despite not having dropped out themselves.

The combination of all four GOP challengers could lead to a runoff election if no one candidate wins 50% of the total vote. In that case, the top two vote getters would advance to a second round of balloting in August.

ABC News’ Hannah Demissie contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — With just more than a week until the first presidential debate, President Joe Biden’s campaign is increasing attacks on former President Donald Trump’s felony conviction, announcing on Monday that it’s launching a $50 million ad buy targeting voters in battleground states highlighting the verdict in Trump’s hush-money trial.

The 30-second spot, which will air in battleground states throughout the rest of June, trades clips of a smiling Biden greeting voters with shots of Trump scowling in court.

“This election is between a convicted criminal who’s only out for himself and a president who’s fighting for your family,” a narrator says.

The Trump campaign’s spokesperson criticized the new ads and are using the opportunity to push the false claims that Trump’s legal troubles stem from political motivations.

“This new ad once again proves the sham trial was always meant to be election interference, but Americans see through it,” Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt posted on X in response to the ad.

Since the verdict, which made Trump the first former president convicted of felony crimes, the Biden campaign has steadily leaned in to using Trump’s conviction as a strategy to show he isn’t fit for office.

The Democratic National Committee launched billboards near a Trump event calling him a “convicted felon,” while Biden himself used that language at a Connecticut fundraiser.

“Trump approaches the first debate as a convicted felon who continues to prove that he will do anything and harm anyone if it means more power and vengeance for Donald Trump,” Michael Tyler, the Biden campaign’s communications director, said in a statement Monday.

Polling since the end of the trial has suggested the conviction harms Trump among voters still making up their minds about their presidential pick.

A Politico Magazine/Ipsos poll published on Monday found that Trump’s conviction makes 32% of registered independents less likely to support Trump compared to 12% who said it makes them more likely to support him. Forty percent said it had no impact.

ABC News’ Lalee Ibssa, Soorin Kim and Kelsey Walsh contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — With less than two weeks until the first presidential debate, CNN announced the rules agreed on by both President Joe Biden and Donald Trump’s campaigns.

They include microphone muting, a coin flip and more when the two candidates face off at the network’s Atlanta studio on June 27.

The debate, which is being moderated by CNN anchors Jake Tapper and Dana Bash, will run for approximately 90 minutes with two commercial breaks. There will be no live studio audience, one major change from debates past.

Biden and Trump will stand at podiums decided by a coin flip. Their microphones will be muted unless it is their turn to speak, the network said, which is likely to limit how much the candidates can interrupt one another.

CNN said they won’t be allowed to use any props or pre-written notes but will be given paper, a pen and water.

The CNN debate is the first of two debates agreed on by the campaigns. The second will be hosted by ABC News on Sept. 10.

They were scheduled on May 15, shortly after Biden publicly challenged Trump to participate in two debates. The Trump campaign accepted but pushed for additional debates in July and August, which have not materialized.

The Biden campaign set out some conditions for the debate, including that they be conducted by news organizations, not the bipartisan Commission on Presidential Debates, and should have no in-person audience to limit disruptions.

This month’s debate, the earliest ever in a presidential race, comes before the Republican and Democratic conventions later this summer — when both Trump and Biden will officially accept their party’s nominations.

On Monday, the Biden campaign rolled out a new ad as part of a $50 million media campaign in battleground states. The media buy includes an advertisement highlighting Trump’s historic conviction in his hush money trial.

“Trump approaches the first debate as a convicted felon who continues to prove that he will do anything and harm anyone if it means more power and vengeance for Donald Trump,” Biden-Harris 2024 Communications Director Michael Tyler said in a statement.

Trump’s team pushed back against the ad, again claiming his New York trial was a “sham.”

“The contrast between President Trump’s strength and success versus Crooked Joe Biden’s weakness, failures, and dishonesty will be made clear on the debate stage next week, ” said Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt.

ABC News’ Gabrielle Abdul-Hakim and Lalee Ibssa contributed to this report.

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(BALTIMORE) — Maryland Gov. Wes Moore is pardoning more than 175,000 convictions for marijuana, his office announced Monday.

“I am humbled to be with you in the historic Maryland State House — as we make history of our own, together,” he announced in a post on X. “This morning – with deep pride and soberness – I will pardon over 175,000 convictions related to the possession of cannabis and cannabis paraphernalia.”

In a speech Monday where he signed the executive order, Moore described it as “the most sweeping state-level pardon in any state in American history.”

Even so, Moore emphasized that the mass pardons won’t “turn back the clock on decades of harm that was caused by this war on drugs” — particularly for the Black community, which has disproportionately borne the brunt of incarcerations.

“Legalization does not erase the fact that nearly half of all drug arrests in Maryland during the early 2000s were for cannabis. It doesn’t erase the fact that Black Marylanders were three times more likely to be arrested for cannabis than white Marylanders before legalization,” he said. “It doesn’t erase the fact that having a conviction on your record means a harder time with everything, everything from housing to employment to education. It doesn’t erase the fact that people who were arrested for cannabis three or four or 40 years ago still have those convictions on their records to this day.”

“We cannot celebrate the benefits of legalization if we do not address the consequences. of criminalization,” he added.

Maryland made cannabis legal for recreational use for adults on July 1, 2023.

The news of the pardons comes just a month after the Biden administration said it was officially moving forward with a proposal to reclassify marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III.

The Justice Department submitted the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to the Office of the Federal Register last month, and if approved, the rescheduling would limit the punishment for those who are in possession of marijuana when it comes to a federal crime.

The proposal is subject to a 60-day public comment period. After that, the administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration can assign an administrative law judge to consider the evidence and make a final scheduling recommendation

ABC News reported in April that the Drug Enforcement Administration was planning to reschedule marijuana.

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(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden joined former President Barack Obama, Julia Roberts and George Clooney at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles Saturday evening with celebrity surrogates like Barbra Streisand that the campaign said raised a little more than $30 million.

Biden, who flew from his trip to Italy for the G7 summit to attend the glitzy fundraiser, joked that he went through “nine time zones” to be at the West Coast event. Biden left the G7 conference early to attend the fundraiser.

Jimmy Kimmel, who moderated a conversation between Biden and Obama, asked Biden what Americans could do about the Supreme Court stepping into “personal, intimate decision” — a reference to the Supreme Court overruling Roe vs. Wade in June 2022, and the recent ruling that a group of doctors lacked legal standing to challenge the Food and Drug Administration’s regulation of the abortion pill mifepristone.

“Elect me,” Biden replied to Kimmel. “The next president is likely to have two new Supreme Court nominees — two more. [Trump has] already appointed two that have been very negative in terms of the rights of individuals.”

Trump has touted his appointments to the Supreme Court and has taken credit for court’s landmark decision to overrule Roe v. Wade.

“We did that — it was an incredible thing, an incredible achievement. We did that. And now the states have it, and the states are putting out what they want. It’s the will of the people,” Trump said previously of the court’s vote to overrule Roe v. Wade.

Obama stressed to Kimmel that Republicans who may be unwilling to vote for Trump, but can’t imagine voting for Democrats should keep in mind that Biden stands for “core values” that Americans still have in common.

“Part of what has happened over the last several years is we’ve normalized behavior that used to be disqualified,” said Obama.

Twice the former president implored the audience not to boo or hiss at Trump but to go out and vote.

Tickets for the fundraiser ranged anywhere from $250 to $125,000, but grassroots donors could pay as little as $10 to virtually join the event.

Unlike their New York fundraiser in March, which raked in $26 million largely from grassroots donors, the first portion of the program was live-streamed, except for the portions with Roberts and Clooney, for those small-dollar contributors.

The Biden campaign told ABC News that every dollar from Saturday’s fundraising haul will be used to open offices, hire organizers and launch paid media campaigns.

The event comes on the heels of Biden’s G7 trip to Italy where a bilateral security pact was signed on Thursday between the United States and Ukraine. Biden also met with Pope Francis during his time abroad.

Kimmel joked about Biden’s visit with the pope, saying, “You did say that you are fighting to restore the soul of America and lately it seems like we might need an exorcism. Is that why you visited the pope?”

“Yeah,” Biden replied.

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(WASHINGTON) — The presidential election is taking up much of the political oxygen in 2024. But Democrats are urging voters not to forget the importance of state legislative races — and they’re spending big to make sure they don’t.

The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, the Democrats’ campaign arm for state legislative races, launched a $10 million spending blitz Monday to boost key state legislative candidates and campaigns across the country, according to plans shared first with ABC News. Dubbed the “Summer of the States” campaign, the investment marks the first time the DLCC is launching a push of this size at this point in an election cycle.

Along with the money, the campaign also includes a microsite that will feature key races to watch and spotlight candidates running in them.

“We’ve definitely seen more interest. We’re having better conversations with folks about how important it is to care about both things, about what is happening in Washington, D.C., and also what is happening in our state houses,” DLCC President Heather Williams told ABC News. “We also know that the value of a campaign dollar at this ballot level in these races goes so much further, and that investment means it just it just means more.”

She added, “We just cannot turn all of our attention to the White House and leave the states unattended.”

Democrats’ investments in state races, which jumped during the Trump administration and have continued to climb since, are a historical shift from the Obama administration and the years before, when the party’s state legislative campaign infrastructure atrophied, leaving Republicans dominating contests for state capitals from coast to coast.

Donald Trump’s win jolted Democrats into investing more into those contests, a trend that was amplified when the Supreme Court scrapped constitutional protections for abortions, leaving state legislatures with immense power over deciding access to the procedure — on top of other Democratic priorities like voting rights and states’ roles in certifying presidential election results.

In a sign of how important the races are now, other Democratic groups are also dumping millions into state legislative races. The States Project, a group affiliated with Democrats and liberal causes, announced last week that it is planning to spend $70 million in legislative races this year. The DLCC’s $10 million summer spending spree is part of its own $60 million budget for 2024, along with the aligned group Forward Majority’s $35 million plan.

Recent spending already showed tangible dividends, with chambers in battleground states like Michigan and Pennsylvania flipping in 2022 after Democrats outspent Republicans.

Williams said spending this year is particularly important given the risk that Republicans can flip the White House and Senate and hold onto the House, a scenario in which Democratic-controlled state legislatures could be a major buffer against a Republican federal trifecta.

“We are entering the true campaign season where voters are going to have to start making choices, and I think it’s critically important they understand that the Republican agenda, which includes rolling back so many of our rights, is going to show up in their state houses, and that caring about what is happening at the top of the ticket is not going to be enough,” she said.

The DLCC’s money will be focused on several states. Some places, like Michigan and Minnesota, have Democratic trifectas that the party is trying to protect. Others, like Arizona and New Hampshire, have a Democratic majority in at least one state legislative chamber within reach. And in others, like Kansas and North Carolina, Democrats are trying to cut into Republicans’ legislative margins enough to deny them a veto-proof supermajority and restore a Democratic governor’s veto power.

The group’s investment is less focused on specific tactics rather than funneling money to campaigns in what Williams called “winning plans.”

“Each state and each program that is going to receive these investments may apply it to different things … so it’ll be sort of across the board, everything from polling and data to paid communication to digital communication, etc.,” she said.

“Because we are a permanent presence in these programs, we are working side by side with the campaigns on the ground to develop really strong campaign plans that we believe in, that they believe in, from start to finish,” Williams added.

The Republican State Leadership Committee — the DLCC’s GOP equivalent — has not yet announced its fundraising goal for 2024. Its president, Dee Duncan, conceded that it and affiliated outside groups aren’t investing in state legislative races like their Democratic counterparts.

“While the constellation of Democrat outside groups will outspend us as usual this year, Republicans are more trusted to solve the most pressing issues facing families, such as the rising cost of living and the border crisis. Our advantage on policy coupled with our strategic early investments, including our historic mail-in voting program in Pennsylvania, have us confident that Republicans are in a strong position to stave off the massive onslaught of money pouring in from the Democrats,” Duncan said in a statement.

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