Adam Edelman

California Gov. Gavin Newsom has chosen Laphonza Butler, the president of EMILY’s List, to fill the seat of the late Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the governor’s office confirmed to NBC News. She will be the third Black woman to ever serve in the Senate, as well as the first openly LGBTQ person to represent California in the chamber. Politico first reported Newsom’s choice of Butler. Feinstein, the longest-serving woman in the Senate, died Thursday at age 90. “I am honored to accept Gov. N…

In August, Ohio voters overwhelmingly rejected Issue 1, a Republican-backed ballot measure that would have made it harder to protect abortion rights. In November, Issue 1 will be on the ballot again. But this time, voting for the ballot measure would enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution. Confused? Groups working to expand abortion rights in the state worry Ohio voters may be, too, and they are taking steps to ensure people know how to accurately and correctly cast their ballot on…

Republicans should not pursue impeachment of a liberal Wisconsin Supreme Court justice, concluded a conservative former justice whom Wisconsin Republicans tasked with looking into the matter. “To sum up my views, there should be no effort to impeach Justice [Janet] Protasiewicz on anything we know now,” David Prosser wrote in a letter dated Friday to state Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, a Republican. “Impeachment is so serious, severe, and rare that it should not be considered unless the subject h…

Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin has put a 15-week abortion ban at the center of his campaign to help the GOP take full control of state government — and he has persuaded a broad slate of Republican candidates in the November election to coalesce behind the proposal. However, a majority of those Republican candidates — many of them running in competitive districts in the two chambers of the Legislature — pushed as recently as this year for far stricter abortion bans than the one Youngkin has propose…

The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, the national Democratic Party arm in charge of funding candidates for state legislative races, is pouring another $200,000 into its effort to prevent Republicans from gaining full control of the Virginia General Assembly. The group’s latest investment, shared first with NBC News, brings its total spending on the closely watched Nov. 7 elections to $2.2 million. The new round of cash will pay for get out the vote efforts for Democratic candidates in…

Last fall, voters in deep red Kentucky delivered a win for Democrats when they rejected an amendment that would have written opposition to abortion into the state constitution. This year, state Democrats are again banking that voters will side with protecting abortion rights. They’re putting the issue front and center in the closely watched governor’s race on Nov. 7, hoping it will help boost Gov. Andy Beshear to another term. The race between Beshear, the popular Democratic incumbent, and his R…

Ohio Republican Senate candidate Bernie Moreno falsely claimed in a recent interview that Issue 1 — the ballot measure seeking to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution — would allow a rapist to “force” a woman to have an abortion. The remark by Moreno, a businessman, is the latest from groups and individuals opposed to Issue 1 to mischaracterize the proposal by tying it to parental rights. “As a dad of two girls, it’s about having that girl be able to be raped and having a rapist fo…

Abortion rights keep winning and winning at the ballot box — and on Tuesday, winning some more. Nearly 17 months after the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade, the hot streak enjoyed by candidates and ballot measures backing abortion rights continued in a collection of states in very different places across the political spectrum. In Ohio, the state constitutional amendment to enshrine abortion rights won by double digits, a year after Republicans swept the statewide offices that were up in th…

Ohio voters have added the right to access abortion care to the state’s constitution, NBC News projects — another major political victory for abortion-rights advocates in the nearly 17 months since the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade. The passage of the Issue 1 ballot measure inserts language in the state constitution guaranteeing every person in Ohio the right “to one’s own reproductive medical treatment, including but not limited to abortion,” and barring the state from “burdening, penal…

Vivek Ramaswamy slammed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in blistering remarks at Wednesday’s Republican presidential debate, making a Nazi reference and calling Zelenskyy a “comedian in cargo pants.” During an exchange about whether he would support sending additional support to Ukraine, Ramaswamy, an aggressive critic of U.S. aid in the war between Ukraine and Russia, said he was “absolutely unpersuaded” by Zelenskyy’s calls for more help, before he launched into a sharply worded broads…