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Today’s installment of campaign-related news items from across the country.
* Following up on a story from earlier in the week, VoteVets, a progressive veterans organization, is now investing $200,000 in support of an ad slamming Senate hopeful Tim Sheehy. The Montana Republican is facing questions about conflicting accounts he’s told about a gunshot wound.
* In Wisconsin, Republican state Assembly Speaker Robin Vos hired former state Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman after the 2020 election to audit the state’s election results. Three years and more than $2 million in taxpayer dollars later, Gableman is now representing those trying to recall Vos.
* Republican Sen. Josh Hawley is heavily favored to win a second term in the fall, but his Democratic opponent in Missouri, Lucas Kunce, is raising enough funds to mount a credible challenge. Axios reported this week that Kunce raised over $2.25 million between January and March.
* Republican lawmakers in Colorado this week tried to impeach Secretary of State Jena Griswold after she concluded that Donald Trump was ineligible for the 2024 ballot on 14th Amendment grounds. The legislature’s Democratic majority, not surprisingly, rejected the GOP’s impeachment effort.
* Though Trump still occasionally mocks Gov. Ron DeSantis, NBC News reported that the Florida Republican told donors and supporters at a private retreat last weekend that he plans to help raise money for the former president’s 2024 campaign.
* In New Hampshire, Democratic Rep. Annie Kuster is retiring, but this week, she threw her support behind a possible successor: former Executive Councilor Colin Van Ostern, who managed one of the congresswoman’s earlier campaigns. Former New Hampshire Gov. John Lynch also endorsed Van Ostern.
* And Robert F. Kennedy’s independent presidential campaign this week fired Rita Palma, who apparently falsely identified herself as the New York state director for the conspiracy theorist, and who said the point of Kennedy’s candidacy was to help put Trump back in the White House.