The Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, and Stephen Wolf, with additional contributions from the Daily Kos Elections team. Subscribe to The Downballot, our weekly podcast Embedded Content Leading Off ● WI-01: Peter Barca, a Democrat with a long history in Wisconsin politics, announced Thursday that he would challenge Republican Rep. Bryan Steil for the state's 1st District, a constituency that's descended from the one Barca briefly represented three decades ago. While Republicans have held it ever since, Barca's entry could put into play a seat that the GOP has rarely had to ..read more

A cartoon by Pedro Molina. Campaign Action ..read more

Abbreviated Pundit Roundup is a long-running series published every morning that collects essential political discussion and analysis around the internet. The Washington Post: The U.S. just changed how it manages a tenth of its land The Interior Department rule puts conservation and clean energy development on par with drilling, mining and resource extraction on federal lands for the first time The final rule released Thursday represents a seismic shift in the management of roughly 245 million acres of public property — about one-tenth of the nation’s land mass. It ..read more

Trump's new grift: Charging GOP candidates to use his name As if selling sneakers and Bibles wasn’t grift enough. Jimmy Kimmel's late-night digs are driving Trump bonkers Kimmel’s trolling of “yabba dabba doofus” is just what we need. Cartoon: The running mate Sometimes you’re just stuck with someone. New poll shows when Republicans talk about abortion, they're losing Despite what Republicans hope, abortion is not a subject that can be swept under the rug. Trump wants to gut diversity programs. Guess whose company has one? It’s all “do as I say, not as I do” with this guy. Watch yet another Ho ..read more

Florida Democrat Bob Graham, who served as governor from 1979 to 1987 and as a U.S. senator from 1987 until his 2005 retirement, died Tuesday at the age of 87. Graham, who won all five of his statewide elections by at least 9 points, was one of the most popular Democrats in the Sunshine State in recent memory, but he only achieved that status after pulling off a major upset in 1978. Graham was the son of former state Sen. Ernest Graham, who lost a competitive primary in 1944 for governor at a time when Florida was ruled by conservative Democrats, as well as the half-brother of Washington Post ..read more

Sargassum seaweed is back, and massive amounts of it continue to create major problems across the Caribbean, impacting people’s health, the environment, and the tourism industry. The situation is not new, yet in spite of efforts by governments and international agencies, the effects are worsening. “Caribbean Matters” first covered the sargassum story in August 2022, and it is time to revisit. This month, multiple news agencies have tackled this issue. Caribbean Matters is a weekly series from Daily Kos. If you are unfamiliar with the region, check out Caribbean Matters ..read more

Donald Trump attacked late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel in an early morning all-over-the-map social media post Wednesday. That night, Kimmel told his audience that he learned about Trump’s latest attack on him from all the text messages waiting for him when he woke up. “Usually, like, I'll have maybe four,” he said. “I had 100 because it appears that I once again ruffled the feathers of our Kentucky Fried former president who is—apparently, with all that's going on—still smarting from my joke about him at the Oscars." After reading Trump’s Truth Social screed out loud, Kimmel joked, "My f ..read more

The extended family of third-party presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. made an explicit effort Thursday to blunt his appeal among Democratic voters by endorsing President Joe Biden en masse. Robert's sister Kerry Kennedy, daughter of former Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and niece of former President John F. Kennedy, called Biden “my hero” at an endorsement event in Philadelphia featuring at least 15 members of the Kennedy clan. “We want to make crystal clear our feelings that the best way forward for America is to reelect Joe Biden and Kamala Harris for four more years,” she said ..read more

A new abortion rights advocacy organization, Montanans Securing Reproductive Rights, officially launched its ballot initiative, which aims to enshrine abortion rights in Montana’s state constitution. If the petition drive succeeds, it will make abortion central to the 2024 campaign and likely give vulnerable Democratic Sen. Jon Tester, a staunch abortion rights supporter, a boost. “Abortion is a topic that’s become politicized and stigmatized, but in reality, we all love someone or are someone who’s had an abortion,” Martha Fuller, CEO and president of Planned Parenthood Advocates of Montana ..read more

After House Republicans repeatedly thwarted a bid to repeal the ban, two Senate Republicans backed a push in that chamber to move the repeal forward. By Gloria Rebecca Gomez, Arizona Mirror A bid to repeal Arizona’s near-total abortion ban that was written when Abraham Lincoln was president will move forward in the state Senate, while Republicans in the House of Representatives for the second week in a row blocked efforts to repeal the law.  On Wednesday, two Senate Republicans supported a Democrat-led move to introduce a bill to strike down the state’s near-total ban on abortions from 18 ..read more