July 23 (UPI) — A Senate committee delayed a vote on the Trump administration’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director nominee, Erica Schwartz, because enough members were not present.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, was absent from the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions meeting on Thursday because of a family emergency, which led committee chair Bill Cassidy, R-La., to postpone the vote, Politico reported.
Cassidy also said Thursday that he decided to vote for Schwartz because of a “good faith action” the CDC reportedly made to its website earlier in the day.
The action included changing language on its website about the lack of an association between vaccines and autism, which had been ordered changed by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. last year.
Cassidy asked detailed questions during her nomination hearing about vaccines and how the agency, which has had a full-time director for just one month since President Donald Trump re-entered the White House, would restore confidence in its public health mission, The Hill reported.
“I’m confident that she knows what she’s doing and will stand against those who do not,” Cassidy said during the meeting.
“If confirmed, I look forward to working with Dr. Schwartz to protect children’s health and regain trust in the CDC,” he said.
“There’s more to do to repair the damage that has been done to the U.S. public health response, but this is a start,” the Louisiana Republican added.
Even with Cassidy deciding to vote for Schwartz, Republicans on the committee would have needed a Democrat or Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who caucuses with the Democrats, to vote in favor.
Sanders ended that possibility when he expressed respect for Schwartz’s career but said that he was concerned she would not be able to hold off some of the controversial changes Kennedy has either proposed or forced on the agency.
“I will be voting against Dr. Schwartz because we need people in this country who are going to stand up, protect the American people and I don’t think you can see that right now with Secretary Kennedy in his position,” Sanders said.
The HELP committee’s next executive session is scheduled for July 30, which is also the next time it will consider nominations, making it the next opportunity for Schwartz’s nomination to come up for a vote.
The committee also put off a vote on Sean Kaufman, who is nominated to lead the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response, because Republicans did not have enough votes to forward the nomination to the full Senate.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth speaks during a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on President Donald Trump’s June 24 supplemental funding request at the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday. Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI | License Photo
July 8 (UPI) — Graham Platner dropped out of the Maine Senate race on Wednesday evening, two days after allegations arose that he sexually assaulted a woman in 2021.
In a video, Platner said that “we believe that for the movement to continue, it can’t be me — and for that reason we are suspending campaign operations.”
“It’s not the false allegations, though, that have brought us to where we are,” he said. “It’s the fact that they’re being used by the political establishment to put structural pressure on us. We live in a political system that is not built for normal people. It is a system built structurally to make sure movements like ours cannot flourish.”
The decision allows Democrats to choose a new candidate for the race against Republican Susan Collins, the five-term incumbent. Platner had until Monday to drop out; Democrats now have two weeks to pick a contender for the race.
On Monday, a woman who once dated Platner said he forced her to have sex with him about five years ago, Politico reported. Jenny Racicot said Platner was intoxicated when he entered her home one night in 2021 andassaulted her while she told him repeatedly to stop. Others have also made claims about Platner and abuse.
Platner has steadily denied the allegations, calling them “categorically untrue.”
Earlier Wednesday, the Maine Democratic Party approved a plan to hold a nominating convention if Platner suspended his campaign.
Valli Geiger, a Maine state representative, told WMTW-TV of Portland, Maine, that Platner called her and encouraged her to try to take his place on the ballot.
“He said, ‘Valli, you are a fighter; you have been with this movement since the beginning,’ ” Geiger said. She said she was “heartbroken” by the accusations against Platner but agreed that he needed to suspend his campaign. She also said he was encouraging others to put their names forward.
CNN reported that candidates to replace Platner include three Democrats who ran for governor: Nirav Shah, former director of the Maine Center for Disease Control; Secretary of State Shenna Bellows; and former state Sen. Troy Jackson.
Since the allegations broke, a rising tide of Democrats called on Platner to suspend his campaign, including former supporters Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. Many groups rescinded endorsements of the candidate.
Platner has also been involved in other controversies, including over a tattoo with Nazi connotations that he said he was unaware of.
July 5 (UPI) — Mallory McMorrow, a state lawmaker who made in early splash in the race for the Democratic nod in Michigan’s key U.S. senate race, suspended her campaign on Sunday in a surprise move.
McMorrow, who positioned herself between the national party leadership favorite Rep. Haley Stevens and progressive challenger Abdul El-Sayed, said in a social media post she is pulling out of the race “with a deep, deep sense of gratitude.”
“For our thousands of volunteers, for everyone who donated what you could — building a campaign with zero corporate PAC dollars,” she said, adding that while she is suspending her campaign, “I am not leaving the fight.”
McMorrow reiterated her call for “new leadership and a better Democratic Party,” whose top voices, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, have endorsed Stevens to take on the Republican nominee, former Rep. Mike Rogers, in November’s general election.
Her withdrawal leaves Stevens and El-Sayed as the remaining candidates for the Aug. 4 primary, which is now shaping up to be a major test of whether El-Sayed can extend progressives’ winning streak against more establishment figures in Democratic primaries.
“Whoever wins this primary on August 4th will have my full support,” she declared.
The Michigan race is seen as a key in the Democrats’ hopes of capitalizing on the unpopularity of President Donald Trump and flipping the Senate from Republican control in November. To do so, they must keep it in the “blue” column as it is being vacated by Democrat Gary Peters.
McMorrow was an early front-runner in the race and had raised more than $8.6 million by the end of March but has since fallen behind El-Sayed and Stevens in the polls, the Detroit Free Press reported.
El-Sayed, a former Detroit public health official who has the backing of progressive stalwarts Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, has seen a surge of support since May and last month won the endorsement of the United Auto Workers.
Four-term congresswoman Stevens, meanwhile, is picking up backing from some of McMorrow’s supporters, including Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, who on Sunday called Stevens “a seasoned fighter for Michigan who knows how to work in a difficult environment to get essential policies across the finish line.”
Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani speaks to supporters at the Brooklyn Paramount Theater in New York City during at an election night watch party after winning the New York City mayoral race on November 4, 2025, Photo by Derek French/UPI | License Photo
June 23 (UPI) — Mamdani-backed progressives scored big wins Tuesday night in New York state’s Democratic primary, as voters cast ballots across the Empire State, Maryland, Utah and South Carolina.
New York State
Of the four states holding primaries, New York state’s was being closely watched to gauge the influence of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who had endorsed three progressive candidates in competitive Democratic races — all of whom appeared poised late Tuesday to win their races.
Brad Lander, a former city comptroller, was running against Goldman in New York District 10 with the endorsements of other big-name progressives, including Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.
Lander said he was drawn to challenge Goldman because Goldman had called for increasing U.S. support for Israel. Their differing views on support for Israel have been a key issue in the race. Goldman and Lander are both Jewish.
Preliminary results showed Lander with an overwhelming 65.3% vote share, compared to Goldman’s 33.7%, with all 417 districts reporting.
Lander claimed victory Tuesday night.
After being introduced by Mamdani, Lander told supporters that he believes he and Goldman have more in common than they have differences. And to Goldman’s supporters, he said he knows that they want to “rescue our country back from Trumpism,” renew U.S. democracy and find a humane path for the country on the world stage.
“Solidarity is the force that we need to vanquish Trump’s fascism, to abolish ICE and to stand up to the billionaires who are rigging our economy against us,” he said.
“This campaign here was born out of solidarity.”
In New York District 7, Mamdani-endorsed Claire Valdez appeared poised to succeed outgoing Rep. Nydia Velazquez, who backed Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso.
With all 393 election districts reporting, preliminary election results showed Valdez had secured 55.5% of the vote to Reynoso’s 35.4%.
And in New York District 13, Mamdani endorsed Darializa Avila Chevalier, who late Tuesday appeared to be edging out incumbent Rep. Adriano Espaillat.
Chevalier, who was a field organizer for Mamdani, had secured 48.59% of the vote to Espaillat’s 45.2%, according to preliminary results.
Mamdani did not endorse a candidate in District 12 in a stacked field that consisted of state lawmakers Alex Bores and Micah Lasher, Lincoln Project co-founder George Conway, President John F. Kennedy‘s grandson Jack Schlossberg, attorney Laura Dunn and health researcher Nina Schwalbe.
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had endorsed Schlossberg and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg had endorsed Lasher.
Artificial intelligence has been a central topic in the District 12 race. The Leading the Future super PAC, funded by the heads of OpenAI and venture capital firms supporting the AI industry, funneled more than $10 million to a super PAC opposing Bores’ campaign. Bores has been supportive of establishing regulations on AI.
With all 410 precincts reporting, Lasher had secured nearly 39% of the vote, followed by Bores with 34.82% and Schlossberg with 10.7%.
South Carolina
The big race in South Carolina was the GOP gubernatorial runoff between notable candidates, South Carolina Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette and state Attorney General Alan Wilson.
Preliminary results indicate Wilson stormed his way to the nomination and likely the South Carolina governor’s mansion.
With all counties reporting, Wilson netted 68.5% of the vote to Evette’s 31.44%.
Wilson has claimed victory, and Evette has conceded defeat.
The runoff followed a dramatic turnaround by President Donald Trump, who had initially endorsed Evette, before rescinding his support.
Trump gave his “Complete and Total Endorsement” to Evette ahead of the state’s primary earlier this month. But after it was determined to be a runoff between Evette and Wilson, Trump, rather than continue his support for Evette, told voters that they “can’t go wrong” with either candidate.
Evette finished less than two percentage points ahead of Wilson in the Republican primary but neither candidate cracked 30% of the vote, let alone 50%. While Trump endorsed Evette, the other candidates who ran in the primary — Reps. Ralph Norman and Nancy Mace — have endorsed Wilson. Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., also gave Wilson his endorsement on Friday.
“I’ve proudly stood with President Trump from the very beginning, defended him when others would not, and fought alongside him against the radical left,” Wilson said in a news release after Trump posted his support on social media. “I am deeply honored to have his support because he understands I am focused on making South Carolina more affordable for families and profitable for businesses.”
Wilson will face Democratic state Rep. Jermaine Johnson in November.
Maryland
In Maryland, Adrian Boafo was poised to succeed Rep. Steny Hoyer in the Democratic primary for District 5.
From among the two dozen candidates in the running, Boafo, Hoyer’s former field director, had nearly 32% of the vote, according to preliminary results, far exceeding healthcare CEO Quincy Bareebe, who was sitting second with 18% and former police officer Harry Dunn in third with 13.4%.
Dunn was among those defending the U.S. Capitol from attacks by pro-Trump rioters on Jan. 6, 2021. He is also a co-plaintiff in a lawsuit seeking to stop the Trump administration from establishing an “anti-weaponization fund” to pay rioters for being “targeted” by the Department of Justice.
Boafo had received Hoyer’s endorsement.
Utah
Former Rep. Ben McAdams appeared poised Tuesday night to win the Democratic nomination for Utah’s new District 1, created under Utah’s new congressional map.
Largely made up of Salt Lake City, the district went to Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election.
Preliminary results show McAdams with 60.2% of the vote, state Sen. Nate Blouin with 24.04% and Utah Democratic convention winner Liban Mohamed with nearly 12%.
President Donald Trump presents a Medal of Honor to Tom Ripley on behalf of his father, John W. Ripley, during a Medal of Honor award ceremony in the East Room of the White House on Thursday. Photo by Aaron Schwartz/UPI | License Photo
Reporting from Washington — Most of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ supporters in California say they expect that come November, Hillary Clinton will be elected president — and, by and large, they’re OK with that.
While both Democratic camps prepare for a final battle in the state’s June 7 primary, the latest USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times statewide poll found that just over half of Sanders’ supporters said they expected Clinton to be the next president. About a third of Sanders’ backers said they expected the Vermont senator to emerge the winner, and 12% said they thought Donald Trump would prevail.
Close to 8 in 10 Sanders supporters said in the survey that they would vote for Clinton in a race against Trump, although many said they would do so reluctantly.
Those findings show the reality underlying the still-heated rhetoric of the Democratic primaries: By contrast with the civil war that divides Republicans, Democrats in the country’s largest state have begun to coalesce behind their front-runner.
In the primary race, Clinton holds a modest lead over Sanders, 45% to 37%, among all Democrats and independent voters eligible to vote. Her lead is slightly larger, 47% to 36%, among those most likely to vote. Either way, that’s a significant problem for Sanders.
The poll was conducted before Sanders’ sweep of three Western states — Alaska, Hawaii and Washington — on Saturday, but those victories don’t change the electoral math much. Sanders would need not just a win in California, but something close to a landslide to overcome Clinton’s large lead in delegates before the party’s nominating convention in July.
Something else hasn’t changed: If there’s one blemish in the picture for Clinton, it’s the persistently high percentage of voters who have an unfavorable image of her, 45% in the new poll.
Clinton’s image in heavily Democratic California is more positive than it is in more Republican parts of the country; 52% of the state’s surveyed voters see her favorably. She fares far better than Trump, her most likely opponent in November, who is viewed negatively by almost three-fourths of California voters.
A Democratic voter at a Washington state caucus on Saturday. In the California primary race, Hillary Clinton holds a modest lead over Bernie Sanders, 45% to 37%, among all Democrats and independent voters eligible to vote.
(Elaine Thompson / Associated Press)
But her image with the public lags significantly behind other leading Democrats. That includes President Obama, whose popularity has risen, both statewide and nationally, in recent weeks. He is now seen favorably by 65% of the state’s voters, the highest level since early in his tenure. Gov. Jerry Brown is viewed favorably by 57%. Both men are viewed negatively by about one-third of voters.
The large share of voters who have a negative view of her does not put Clinton in danger of losing California in a general election: She would defeat any of the Republican candidates handily in the state, which has formed the cornerstone of Democratic victories nationally ever since her husband’s win in 1992. Against Trump, in particular, Clinton would win overwhelmingly, the poll indicated, carrying the state 59% to 28%.
But the negative impressions of so many Californians point toward the deeper problem she faces in the country and also to the likely tone of the fall campaign. A Clinton-Trump race, more than any other in recent decades, would feature two candidates who would start the campaign with large parts of the electorate deeply disenchanted with them. Given that, each side is likely to try to focus voters’ attention on the other’s flaws.
“Clinton’s challenge is not one of persuasion, it’s one of motivation,” said Dan Schnur, director of USC’s Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics. “She’s not going to get Sanders supporters to fall in love with her,” he added, but “the other way to motivate your base is to frighten them about the alternative. Against Donald Trump, that should be very doable.”
That’s certainly the case for Gretta Whalen, a 32-year-old freelance writer and communications consultant from Los Angeles, who leans toward Sanders. Clinton, she said, “has been around for so long, and we know so much about her, and not all of it is positive.” Sanders, by contrast, seems attractive, and his ideas feel new, even if “some of them are very pie in the sky and would be very difficult to get the rest of the country on board with.”
But, she added, as she paused from feeding her newborn son, the contest is different “now that we’re looking at a likely race against Donald Trump.” She and her friends, most of whom back Sanders, “are all so shocked that we’re in this place where Donald Trump is a serious contender for president,” she said. Compared with past elections, this campaign “feels a little more surreal.”
“I was much more excited about Bernie” earlier in the campaign season, she added. “We love him as a candidate. We also recognize that he’s not the most realistic winner.”
Just under 1 in 4 voters in the state have a negative image of both of the likely contestants. That group would hold its nose and side with Clinton over Trump, 38% to 23%, with a significant share of them saying they would not vote at all, the poll found.
Sercan Ersoy, a 33-year-old substitute teacher in Oakland, has much more negative feelings about Clinton than does Whalen. A former member of the Green Party who changed his registration in order to vote for Sanders in the primary, Ersoy feels Clinton is “too much of a war hawk” in addition to having too many ties to Wall Street. “I don’t want to vote for her,” he said.
But “if you ask me in late October,” he added, “and there’s a real possibility of a President Trump, I might say, ‘OK. I’ll vote for Hillary.’”
This USC/L.A. Times poll was conducted March 16-23 by telephone, both cellphone and landline, among 1,503 registered voters in California, including 832 Democrats and non-party voters eligible to take part in the June primary. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.8 percentage points for the full sample and 3.7 percentage points for the Democratic primary sample. It was conducted by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research, a Democratic polling firm, and the Republican company American Viewpoint.
The poll found the race between Clinton and Sanders dividing along lines that have become familiar during nearly two months of primaries: Sanders overwhelmingly wins voters younger than 30; Clinton does better with older voters. She leads among women by 11 percentage points, among men by 5 points.
Clinton leads narrowly among white voters but has a much larger edge among blacks and Latinos. In a surprise, given her family’s long-standing popularity with Asian voters, Clinton appears to be trailing Sanders with that group, although his edge, 43% to 35%, is within the poll’s margin of error for such a subgroup.
Clinton’s lead among minority voters is “much more muted” than her edge in previous contests in Texas and across the South, said pollster Anna Greenberg. That’s largely a result of a generational divide, with Sanders leading among younger Latinos, much as he does among young white voters. The other minority groups are too small to allow a detailed breakdown by age.
The other significant division in the primary is by party. California’s Democratic primary is open to registered Democrats as well as voters who decline to state a party. Clinton leads Sanders by 14 percentage points among registered Democrats; Sanders leads by 9 percentage points among the nonpartisan voters — again a pattern seen repeatedly in other states.
Among Sanders voters, 80% polled said they would vote for Clinton in November, although the share saying they would do so “reluctantly,” 45%, outnumbers those who would do so “enthusiastically,” 35%.
About 1 in 8 Democratic primary voters surveyed said they would refuse to vote for Clinton if she is the nominee. That’s half the level of rejection that Trump faces among Republican primary voters.
Among the Democratic primary voters most resistant to backing her in the fall are white men 65 and older, according to the poll. By contrast, only 4% of people who identified themselves as students said they would refuse to vote for Clinton — another indication that Sanders’ core supporters are unlikely to reject her candidacy.
By 72% to 21%, Democratic primary voters said in the survey that they are excited about the prospect of voting for the first female president.
Sanders has centered his campaign around the belief that the U.S. economy is unfairly rigged by Wall Street and big corporations. Not surprisingly, a large majority of his voters share that view.
The poll asked people if they thought that in today’s economy “everyone has a fair chance to get ahead in the long run if they work hard” or if “it’s mainly just a few people at the top who have a chance to get ahead.” By more than 2 to 1, Sanders’ voters said that only those at the top could get ahead.
Clinton’s supporters were more evenly divided, with 52% saying that everyone had a fair chance and 42% saying that only those at the top could get ahead. That reflected, in part, the feelings of Latinos, who are more likely than other Americans to say that hard work still pays off in the long run.
Those who backed Clinton were also more likely than Sanders’ backers to say that “when it comes to good jobs for American workers, our best years are ahead of us.” More than 6 in 10 of Clinton’s voters agreed with that statement, compared with just under half of Sanders’.
Neither group of Democratic voters was as pessimistic as Trump’s supporters, however. A majority of them said that when it comes to good jobs, “America’s best years are behind us.”
