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Democrats, who control the House and Senate and would like to keep it that way after this year’s elections, teed up votes today to arm their candidates with messaging points on the campaign trail. Senate Democrats held a doomed procedural vote on a bill that would unmask more donors to politically engaged organizations. Even though Republicans blocked it (49-49), as expected, it may give vulnerable Democrats an opportunity to decry dark money, even as their party relies on it to help fund its biggest outside groups.
House Democrats, meanwhile, brought up a long-beleaguered package of policing measures, including new funding for law enforcement training, aimed at rebutting Republicans’ “defund the police” attacks. Opposition from some of Democrats’ most progressive members delayed the vote. But the package’s existence, so close to the midterm elections, speaks to a major message among Republicans: crime. The main House GOP super PAC, Congressional Leadership Fund, is out with a slew of new ads this week, including several spots hitting Democratic challengers over crime such as this one attacking Christina Bohannan, who is running against Iowa GOP Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks.
