Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland (MD-7) died October 17. His passing brings to 3 the number of vacancies in the U.S. House. The other two openings were held by Republicans. Chris Collins (NY-27) resigned earlier this month, while Sean Duffy (WI-7) resigned in September.
Democrats control the chamber 234-197, with one independent.
Tuesday's debate, in Westerville, Ohio, will feature 12 candidates. It will be broadcast from 8:00 PM to 11:00 PM ET on several CNN networks as well as online at nytimes.com and cnn.com. No opening statements. Candidates will have 75 seconds to answer questions and 45 seconds for rebuttals.
Here's the stage, from left to right:
Louisiana will have a gubernatorial runoff election on November 16, after Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards failed to win a majority of the vote in Saturday's all-party primary. Edwards will meet Republican businessman Eddie Rispone, who edged Rep. Ralph Abraham.
Although the 50 U.S. governorships are currently pretty evenly split (27 R, 23 D), Edwards is one of the only Democrats holding the office in the South. That position is a bit more precarious heading into the November runoff, as the two primary GOP challengers combined for about 51% of the vote. Sabato's Crystal Ball has moved the race from Leans Democratic to Toss Up.
Looking for the November 16 runoff? Go here for an overview and live results.
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The content below relates to the October 12 primary. Use the link above the == for the November 16 runoff.
The nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates has announced the schedule for the 2020 general election. There will be three presidential debates and one vice-presidential debate. Each will begin at 9:00 PM ET and run for 90 minutes, with no commercial interruptions.
This is the same number of debates that were held in advance of the 2016 presidential election. However, each 2020 debate is more than a week closer to Election Day than the corresponding one in 2016. This is partially due to a later calendar date, as well as the fact that the 2020 election is five days earlier (November 3 vs. November 8) than in 2016. For example, the final debate in 2016, on October 19, was 20 days before the November 8 election. In 2020, the final debate will be October 22, just 12 days in advance of the November 3 election.
Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii is considering a boycott of next Tuesday's Democratic debate. In a video posted to her Facebook page, she says that the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the media are trying to rig the 2020 nominating process. She says it is a repeat of 2016, when these same parties favored Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders.
After not qualifying for the September debate, Gabbard was the 12th and final Democrat to meet the criteria for October. She is polling at just under 1% nationally. While this threat will gain her some publicity, it is hard to see how an actual boycott will help her candidacy.
Long-time Democratic Rep. Nita Lowey (NY-17) announced Thursday that she will not seek reelection in 2020. Lowey, 82, is in her 16th term and is the first woman to chair the powerful House Appropriations Committee.
Her affluent 17th congressional district covers is just north of New York City, covering all of Rockland and parts of Westchester County. Hillary Clinton won here* by about 20 points over Donald Trump in 2016. While not as overwhelmingly blue as most NYC-area districts, the seat is considered safely Democratic in 2020.
Lowey is the 23rd current House member to announce they will retire or seek another office in 2020. Two of the six Democrats on the list (Lowey and Jose Serrano) are from New York. The retirement map^ has been updated.
MSNBC and the Washington Post will co-host the fifth Democratic debate. It will take place on November 20, somewhere in Georgia.
This means candidates will have until the end of the day on November 13 to qualify. Eight candidates have so far met the tougher requirements for this debate, including Andrew Yang, who made the cut by virtue of a Quinnipiac poll released earlier Tuesday.
The Democratic National Committee announced that 12 candidates have qualified for the next debate, scheduled for October 15 in Ohio. All 12 will take part in a single night, making it the most crowded presidential debate stage in history. The debate will be moderated by CNN and The New York Times.
Since the September debate, Tulsi Gabbard and Tom Steyer have met the minimum requirements of 2% in four qualifying polls and 130,000 unique donors.
Republican Rep. Chris Collins has resigned from Congress. He was indicted last summer on insider trading and is expected to plead guilty to those charges this week.
