Tim Walz uses first speech to condemn ‘creepy and weird’ Trump and Vance – live

On September 23, 1995, Walz, a 31-year-old, newlywed, high school teacher and football coach, was pulled over doing 96 miles per hour in a 55mph zone. The officer who stopped Walz smelled a “strong odor of alcoholic beverage”, according to the police report.

After failing a field sobriety test and preliminary breath test, Walz was taken to a local jail in Dawes County, Nebraska.

A former Kansas attorney general and failed candidate for governor has found at least initial success in his political comeback attempt, winning Tuesday’s Republican primary for an open US House seat.

Former Kansas attorney general Derek Schmidt prevailed in the primary in the 2nd District of eastern Kansas over Jeff Kahrs, a former top regional federal health official, and Shawn Tiffany, a rancher. Even though Kahrs worked in former president Donald Trump’s administration, Mr Schmidt won Trump’s endorsement.

In the Democratic primary, former US representative Nancy Boyda, who held the 2nd District seat in 2007 and 2008, defeated Matt Kleinmann, a public health advocate who was a member of the 2008 national champion University of Kansas men’s basketball team.

Ms Boyda won the nomination even though she riled up some party activists by positioning herself toward the political center for what she saw as a more viable general election campaign in the Republican-leaning district. She lost her 2008 race for reelection.

Ms Boyda was the last Democrat to represent eastern Kansas in Congress, and the district became redder after the GOP-controlled Legislature redrew it two years ago.

Mr Schmidt, who is also a former state senator, raised the most money of any candidate, more than $616,000, including more than $119,000 since mid-July alone, according to campaign finance reports.“America needs more effective, conservative voices in public service,” Mr Schmidt said in a statement.

“I will continue to prioritize securing our border, stopping inflation, and rolling back big government’s overregulation and over-taxation of our daily lives.”

Harris announced on Tuesday that she had chosen Walz – the man who coined the now-infamous “weird” moniker for their Republican rivals – to join her on the Democratic ticket to take on Trump and JD Vance in the November election.

The announcement soon provoked an unhinged reaction from the former president whose campaign fired off a fundraising email warning that “Tim Walz would be the worst VP in history!”

Joe Sommerlad has the story.

Missouri voters have nominated Lt Governor Mike Kehoe to be the Republican candidate for governor, making the governor’s race his to lose.

Speaking to a crowd of supporters in Jefferson City, Mr Kehoe described himself as an “underdog” and said people doubted his campaign from the start.“We proved, once again, the American dream is still alive,” Mr Kehoe said.

Mr Kehoe edged out Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft and state Sen. Bill Eigel to win the GOP nomination, a huge advantage in a strongly conservative state currently without any Democratic statewide officials.

Mr Kehoe will face off in November against state House Minority Leader Crystal Quade, who won the Democratic nomination.Republican governor Mike Parson is barred from seeking reelection by term limits.

Washington state’s longtime attorney general and a former sheriff known for his work hunting down the Green River Killer advanced on Tuesday to November’s general election in the battle to become the next governor in a Democratic stronghold that hasn’t had an open race for the state’s top job in more than a decade.

In high profile congressional races, meanwhile, Democratic US representative Marie Gluesenkamp Perez advanced in the 3rd District and will face Donald Trump-endorsed Joe Kent, whom she defeated two years ago. And in the 8th District, Democratic US representative Kim Schrier will go head-to-head against Republican Carmen Goers, a commercial banker.

A congressional race in the 4th District between US representative Dan Newhouse, one of the last remaining House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump, and two conservative rivals endorsed by the GOP presidential nominee was too early to call.

Under the state’s primary system, the top two vote-getters in each of the contests advance to the November election, regardless of party. Because Washington is a vote-by-mail state, with ballots due to be postmarked by Election Day, it often takes days to learn final results in close races.

A Republican activist who signed a document falsely claiming Donald Trump had won Arizona in 2020 became the first person to be convicted in the state’s fake elector case.

Loraine Pellegrino, a past president of the group Ahwatukee Republican Women, has pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of filing a false document, Arizona Attorney General’s Office spokesperson Richie Taylor said Tuesday, declining to comment further.

Records documenting her guilty plea haven’t yet been posted by the court. Still, court records show Pellegrino was sentenced to unsupervised probation. Before the plea, she faced nine felony charges.

Seventeen other people had been charged in the case, including 10 other Republicans who had signed a certificate saying they were “duly elected and qualified” electors and claimed Trump had carried Arizona in the 2020 election.

President Joe Biden won Arizona by 10,457 votes. Joshua Kolsrud, an attorney representing Pellegrino, said in a statement that his client has accepted responsibility for her actions. “Loraine Pellegrino’s decision to accept a plea to a lesser charge reflects her desire to move forward and put this matter behind her,” Kolsrud said.

The governorship of Minnesota may have launched Tim Waltz onto the national stage – and now into a battle for the White House – but it was the former teacher’s wife who brought him to the Land of 10,000 Lakes in the first place.

Gwen Walz, nee Whipple, was born and raised in Minnesota before making a fateful foray after college into teaching across the border in Nebraska; there, she met another young educator and member of the Army National Guard. Tim Walz had grown up in West Point, a small Cornhusker enclave nearly 300 miles south of his future wife’s hometown, and already counted several years of military service under his belt when he decided to ask Gwen out.

Thanks to encouragement from her sister, she agreed; their first date at the only movie theater in town – followed by a stop at Hardee’s, naturally – soon blossomed into a romance, then a 1994 marriage. Exactly 30 years later, the two teachers and their two children now proudly hold the title of First Family of Minnesota — while throwing their hats in the ring for Second Family of America.

Family – both the one who raised him and the one he’s built with Gwen – has deeply molded Walz’s professional path and political positions.

Sheila Flynn has the full story.

St Louis County prosecuting attorney Wesley Bell has defeated US representative Cori Bush in a Democratic primary in St Louis, marking the second time this year that one of the party’s incumbents has been ousted in an expensive contest that reflected deep divisions over the war in Gaza.

Ms Bush, a member of the progressive congressional group known as the “Squad,” was seeking a third term in Missouri’s 1st Congressional District, which includes St Louis city and part of St Louis County. Mr Bell is heavily favored to carry this overwhelmingly Democratic district in November, when his party is aiming to retake control of the US House.

Ms Bush, in a fiery concession speech, said she still has work to do, even if she’ll no longer be in Congress.

“At the end of the day, whether I’m a congresswoman or not, I’m still taking care of my people,” Ms Bush said.

My colleague Richard Hall reports:

Former US representative Mike Rogers has secured the Republican nomination for a US Senate seat in Michigan and will face Democratic representative Elissa Slotkin in the November election.

Ms Slotkin and Mr Rogers, long considered the front-runners for their respective party nominations, will now shift focus to the general election. Ms Slotkin enters with a massive fundraising advantage and emerges nearly unscathed from a sparse primary, while Mr Rogers has the backing of national Republican groups and former President Donald Trump.

Ms Slotkin defeated actor Hill Harper in the Democratic primary, while Republicans chose Mr Rogers over former US representative Justin Amash and physician Sherry O’Donnell. Both candidates will now compete for a seat left open by longtime Democratic senator Debbie Stabenow’s retirement.

The retiring incumbent joined Ms Slotkin onstage at an event in Detroit shortly after the race was called to endorse her. Ms Slotkin praised Stabenow for her years of service before delivering a speech positioning herself as the “normal” and “rational” candidate.

North of Detroit, in Oakland County, Mr Rogers thanked supporters at a watch party for “not giving up on politics.” Like Ms Slotkin, Mr Rogers represented a mid-Michigan swing district in Congress, and he similarly positioned himself as the commonsense candidate in his speech. No Republican has won a US Senate race in Michigan since 1994.

With Democrats holding a razor-thin majority in the Senate and Republicans in the House, competitive races like those in Michigan are drawing lots of attention.