DDHQ Morning News Spotlight: Trump Continues to Push His Midterm Primary Influence

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

Morning Headlines

• Former President Trump will be in Pennsylvania today with a host of his conservative allies, including Ohio U.S. Senate candidate J.D. Vance fresh off his Tuesday Republican primary victory, to rally support for Pennsylvania U.S. Senate candidate Mehmet Oz, better known as Dr. Oz. The Pennsylvania primary is less than two weeks away and Dr. Oz is locked in a tight race with David McCormick. Many in the state are wondering if Trump will choose to endorse in the competitive gubernatorial primary while in the state.
• The Labor Department announced this morning that the unemployment rate held steady at 3.6% in April. Employers added 428,000 jobs during the month according to the report from the department. The Biden administration has touted the employment numbers as a bright spot in the economy despite record-high inflation that has cost the President dearly in his approval numbers.
• Billionaire Ken Griffin has given Republican gubernatorial candidate Richard Irvin an additional $25 million in his campaign to unseat Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker. Griffin had previously given $20 million upon the announcement from the Aurora mayor that he would be running. Pritzker is currently the wealthiest elected politician in the nation. He has already put $125.5 million into his reelection campaign after spending $171 million of his own money to first win office in 2018.
• The Ohio Redistricting Commission has voted to resubmit state legislative maps that have already been ruled unconstitutional by the state Supreme Court. The Commission voted 4-3 with Republican state Auditor Keith Faber joining the two Democrats in voting against the maps. A panel of federal judges has already ruled that if no maps are in place by May 28, the third set of maps rejected by the state Supreme Court will be used for the 2022 election cycle.
• The White House has named Karine Jean-Pierre as the next White House Press Secretary. She will be the first Black and first openly gay person to hold the high-profile job. She came to the Biden team as a senior advisor during the campaign and served as Principal Deputy Press Secretary once they had won the White House. Current Press Secretary Jen Psaki announced in early April that she would be leaving the administration to take a job at MSNBC.
• Rudy Giuliani has said he will not be attending his scheduled interview with the January 6 select committee today. He had demanded that the interview be recorded on video but was denied that request. The committee has signaled that it may hold Giuliani in contempt, as they already have with four other allies of the former President who have failed to comply with subpoenas.
• Counting is underway in the Northern Ireland Assembly election. Irish unionist party Sein Finn is hoping to win its first-ever victory. Pro-British parties have dominated the province’s elections since its creation in 1921. Sein Finn was once the political arm of the IRA and would be the first Irish nationalist party to hold the most seats in the Stormont, Northern Ireland’s regional assembly. In the English local elections, the Conservatives took a hit in many of their London strongholds. Most observers saw this as a repudiation of Prime Minister Boris Johnson who has dealt with a number of recent scandals.

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