DDHQ Morning News Spotlight: A Senator and Senate Hopeful Suffer Strokes Over the Weekend, Expected to Make Full Recoveries

Welcome to this morning’s Decision Desk HQ Morning News Spotlight on Elections Daily as part of the Decision Desk HQ News Network.

The midterm primary season continues tomorrow with Kentucky, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Idaho, and Oregon all holding their contests. Be sure to check out our preview looking at redistricting, important races to follow, and key counties to watch on primary night.

Make sure you subscribe to the channel and sign up for notifications so you’re the first to know when a new preview drops.

Morning Headlines

• Pennsylvania Lt. Governor, and frontrunner for the state’s Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate, John Fetterman is being treated at a Lancaster, PA hospital after he suffered a stroke over the weekend. His campaign said doctors have told him he suffered no cognitive damage and that he is expected to make a full recovery and be back on the campaign trail soon. The Pennsylvania primary election is tomorrow. Thousands of voters across the state have already cast early ballots.
• Maryland Democratic U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen suffered a minor stroke over the weekend. He was delivering a speech in Western Maryland when he began to experience it, but was able to finish the speech and return to D.C. before finally being admitted to the hospital for treatment. His office said he will suffer no long-term effects from the incident and is expected to make a full recovery and be discharged from the hospital in a few days.
• Former President Donald Trump decided to make a last-minute endorsement in the Pennsylvania Republican gubernatorial primary. He went with state Sen. Doug Mastriano saying, “There is no one in Pennsylvania who has done more, or fought harder, for election integrity”. Mastriano has been leading in the polls despite efforts from top Republicans who worry about electability in the general. Mastriano has embraced a number of conspiracy theories popular with Trump’s base and attended the January 6 attack on Congress that attempted to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
• The trial of Michael Sussmann will begin in a federal court in Washington, D.C. today. Sussman is a former Justice Department prosecutor and Democratic lawyer who is facing a charge of lying to the FBI. Sussmann presented the FBI with computer data suggesting that there had been communications between Donald Trump’s organization and a Russian bank just before the 2016 election. Sussmann claimed that he was not bringing this information to light on behalf of any specific client, but federal prosecutors now say that he was working on behalf of the Clinton Campaign.
• Voters in Lebanon went to the polls yesterday to cast their ballots in the county’s parliamentary election. It was the first nationwide election in the country since the onset of its 2019 economic crisis that has only sunk deeper and deeper. Turnout was lower than expected, partially due to a boycott called by a leader of the current parliament’s largest Sunni-backed party. Counting is still underway, but early indicators are showing losses for Hezbollah and its allies who currently hold a majority in the Lebanese Parliament.
• German voters dealt the ruling SPD party another blow in state elections held yesterday. The center-right CDU and the Greens both saw the biggest gains from the day. This is the second week in a row with losses in state elections by the country’s ruling party. Prime Minister Olof Schultz had been personally involved in these contests, traveling last week to the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein to campaign. He currently leads a coalition government that includes the FDP who also saw major losses in yesterday’s contest, leading to worries about cracks forming in the relatively new ruling coalition.
• Over at Elections Daily, Zach Solomon takes a look at this year’s elections in Nevada, which is looking more and more like a key battleground state.

Upcoming Elections