Today’s installment of campaign-related news items from across the country.
* In a closely watched Democratic congressional primary in New Jersey, former Rep. Tom Malinowski, the early favorite in the crowded Democratic primary, conceded on Tuesday to Analilia Mejia, a progressive who garnered endorsements from the likes of Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. Mejia will face Republican Joe Hathaway, the mayor of Randolph Township, in an April 16 special general election.
* Roughly three decades after telling voters in Maine that she wouldn’t seek more than two terms, incumbent Republican Sen. Susan Collins this week kicked off a bid for a sixth term.
* New York’s Democratic gubernatorial primary appears to have run its course: Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado has suspended his campaign against Gov. Kathy Hochul. “After much consideration, I’ve concluded that there simply is no viable path forward,” the former congressman said in a statement.
* Speaking of the Empire State, Hochul’s likely Republican challenger, Bruce Blakeman, continues to struggle: The Nassau County executive had to find a new running mate earlier this week after his first choice withdrew hours before their first planned joint appearance.
* J.P. Cooney, a veteran of the Justice Department’s public corruption division and a former top deputy to then-special counsel Jack Smith, is now a Democratic congressional candidate in Virginia. “Never has there been a Congress that has been such a weak and ineffective check on a president’s abuses of power,” Cooney told The New York Times about the motivation for his candidacy.
* Despite scuttlebutt that Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski was eyeing Alaska’s gubernatorial race, the incumbent senator announced this week that she’ll remain on Capitol Hill.
* And in Louisiana, where Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy is facing a tough re-election fight, things got a little worse for the incumbent this week: Tony Lyons, a prominent voice in Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Make America Healthy Again movement, announced that his group would spend $1 million to help boost Rep. Julia Letlow in her primary bid against Cassidy.
