| | | | |  | | By Brakkton Booker | | | With help from Ella Creamer, Alice Miranda Ollstein, Rishika Dugyala and Teresa Wiltz
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Trump at a rally near Washington, Michigan in April. | Scott Olson/Getty Images | Hello, Recast family! A U.S. drone strike kills al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri, a Capitol rioter is sentenced to 7¼ years in prison, and Kansas voters decide whether to nix the state's constitutional right to an abortion. We're kicking things off with a look at today's primary in the Great Lake State. Arizona, Kansas, Missouri and Washington state have primary contests today. But none offer the range of dramatic storylines that the Michigan races do. One of those storylines includes former President Donald Trump, whose eleventh-hour endorsement of a surging GOP gubernatorial candidate could put him on the wrong side of Trump loyalists. (Local MAGA folks wanted the former president to stay out of endorsements for the primary. But former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos asked him to weigh in .) Another storyline involves a Black Republican who narrowly lost consecutive Senate bids and is now betting that running in a GOP-leaning House district will change his fortunes. Democrats have some key tests, too, including a pair of races where battles over Israel policy are shaping primary contests. MICHIGAN'S 12TH DISTRICT Thanks to redistricting, several incumbent representatives are switching districts, including Rep. Rashida Tlaib, a member of the Squad and the first Palestinian American woman elected to Congress. (She spent her first two terms serving the 13th District.) In an exclusive, The Recast reported in May that a pro-Israel group, Urban Empowerment Action PAC (UAE), vowed to spend up to $1 million in the primary to defeat her. The PAC, which counts television pundit Bakari Sellers as one of its fundraisers, released an ad last month blasting Tlaib for "attacking" President Joe Biden's agenda in her rebuttal to this year's State of the Union address. The PAC spent nearly $680,000 supporting their preferred Democratic candidate, Janice Winfrey, the Detroit city clerk, according to the OpenSecrets website . UAE says Winfrey is a better fit for this Detroit-area district and a stronger supporter for the Biden-Harris agenda. But Tlaib's campaign has outspent Winfrey by about $2 million .
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Janice Winfrey in September 2020. | Paul Sancya/AP Photo | Tlaib joined progressives Rep. Andy Levin and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders at a rally in Pontiac last week at which Sanders railed against big money. "There is something profoundly wrong in our political system when a handful of billionaires, through those super PACs that spend millions of dollars, try to defeat progressive candidates for Congress," Sanders told the crowd, according to Haaretz .
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Bernie Sanders with Andy Levin and Rashida Tlaib on July 29. | Bill Pugliano/Getty Images | Both Tlaib and Levin have been critical of Israel policy — and pro-Israel groups have been funneling cash into their opponents' coffers. Levin, who is Jewish, is running against a fellow incumbent in Michigan's 11th District. As my colleague Elena Schneider reported last month, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, known as AIPAC, has spent millions boosting Democratic Rep. Haley Stevens' campaign. Meanwhile, Levin's supporters include the more liberal pro-Israel group J Street. MICHIGAN'S 10TH DISTRICT The biggest name in this race is John James. (He's the aforementioned Black Republican we talked about up high.)
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James as a Republican U.S. Senate candidate speaking during a campaign rally on November 2, 2020 in Traverse City, Michigan. | Rey Del Rio/Getty Images | He's an Army veteran and businessman who, after securing the GOP Senate nomination in both 2018 and in 2020, failed to win the general election. But this time around, his prospects are looking rosier: In this conservative-leaning district, he may have his best chance yet to win a seat in Congress. James faces nominal competition in his primary for this district that includes most of Macomb County. But don't expect any upsets today. For starters, he's got name recognition thanks to his failed Senate bids — and he secured the coveted endorsement from former President Donald Trump in March . GOP GUBERNATORIAL PRIMARY Tuesday's GOP primary will put an end to one of the messiest gubernatorial primaries in recent memory . The winner of the primary will take on Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer this fall. It took a circuitous path to get to this point, but many of the state's conservative power brokers, including the DeVos family, have coalesced around media personality Tudor Dixon.
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Dixon appears at a debate in Grand Rapids, Mich., Wednesday, July 6. | Michael Buck/WOOD TV8 via AP | Dixon's frontrunner status was cemented by Trump's endorsement just days before the primary. Trump took credit for her ascent, claiming her campaign took off "like a rocket ship" after he showered praise on her during an April rally. There are five other candidates running in this race, with the stiffest competition for the GOP nomination thought to be businessman Kevin Rinke.
| | | | A message from Bank of America: Health care access, a tool for economic mobility: Increasing access to quality health care lowers unemployment rates and raises incomes. See how Bank of America is investing $25 million to improve health outcomes in 11 key cities. | | | There have been several plot twists. James Craig, the Black former Detroit police chief and one-time leading GOP candidate in the contest, was denied a spot on the state's ballot. This came after authorities ruled more than 11,000 of his nominating signatures were invalid, leaving him well short of the number needed to qualify. Four other candidates were booted from the ballot for similar issues. Another candidate, Ryan Kelley — who remains in the race — was arrested by the FBI for his alleged participation in the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. (His case is still pending.) We'll be watching to see how all these races shake out. All the best,
The Recast Team
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| Power dynamics are changing. With The Recast, you'll get a twice-weekly breakdown of how race and identity are the DNA of American politics and policy. Was this forwarded to you by a friend? Subscribe to the newsletter here .
| | | KANSAS' STREET FIGHT The next phase of battle over abortion rights moves to Kansas, where voters today will vote on a referendum with reverberations for the rest of the country. "It's a street fight," reports POLITICO health care reporter Alice Miranda Ollstein, who sent this dispatch: Hours before polls close in Kansas for the country's first popular vote on abortion since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the mood is tense. The "Value Them Both" measure on the ballot today would amend the state's Constitution to say there are no abortion protections — overriding a state Supreme Court ruling in 2019 that found that the Constitution's language around bodily autonomy applied to the procedure.
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Alice Miranda Ollstein | While passage of the amendment wouldn't automatically ban abortion in the state, it would give the Legislature a green light to do so. And because the GOP supermajority in the statehouse already tried to pass a ban with no exemptions for rape or incest last year, they're widely expected to make another run at it in 2023. I attended a vigil last night in the Kansas City suburb of Lenexa where hundreds of abortion opponents gathered along a busy intersection to light candles and wave "Vote Yes" signs. As they huddled together, some murmuring prayers, some singing with their hands raised above their heads, passing drivers alternately honked in support or screamed obscenities.
| | | | A message from Bank of America:   | | | "We don't want to see abortion on demand until the point of live births," Deidre Naff, a board member of the Kansas City chapter of the anti-abortion group Black Americans for Life, told me. (Kansas bans abortions past 22 weeks of pregnancy.) "I'm here to see babies given a chance." On Saturday, after a full day of door-to-door canvassing in near-triple-digit heat, abortion rights activists in the more progressive college town of Lawrence gathered for a country-western themed rally. Donovan Dillon, a University of Kansas sophomore who planned the event as part of the "Vote Neigh" campaign aimed at young voters, told me that working on progressive causes in a red state "can be really depressing," so he wanted to set a goofy, joyful tone to get people engaged.
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Alice Miranda Ollstein | "Everyone always says: Young people don't vote," he said. "But my question to them is: What are you doing to get young people to vote?"
| | | THE POLITICS OF BEYONCÉ Beyoncé's homage to all things house dropped just days before the Supremes officially killed off Roe — and the timing couldn't have been more fortuitous, writes The Recast's Teresa Wiltz : The Bey-verse quickly adopted "Break My Soul" as the political anthem of 2022, the soundtrack to many a march. "Perfect protest song" tweeted one. "Beyoncé is a mf prophet for profit," tweeted another.
|  | "Break My Soul" hit differently in this, the summer of our discontent, tapping into a collective, existential rage while somehow serving up hope, whatever your political persuasion. (Particularly for Black and brown folks.) First, there was that groove, rolling over the eardrums, propulsive and hypnotic. Second, there was Big Freedia, playing the hype woman, urgently urging us all to "release your wiggle," "release your anger," "release the stress." And then there was Beyoncé, sweeping in with that defiant chorus: "You won't break my soul …" Even Michelle Obama had to weigh in: "Queen @Beyonce , you've done it again! "Break My Soul" is the song we all need right now…"
|  | So given all that, is "Renaissance," Beyoncé's first solo studio album in six years, political? Yes. No. And yes … It's complicated. A 2018 Morning Consult poll found that Beyoncé was the most politically divisive celebrity in the country. (And one of her songs, "Heated," is already drawing ire for its use of an "ableist" slur; she's promised to re-record the lyrics.) But Bey is a master of self-manipulation, granting few interviews, revealing only what she wants us to see, leaving the listener to project all kinds of interpretations onto her art. On the one hand, in "Energy," she's rapping about "voting out 45" — a reference to Donald Trump — and entering "the country with derringers/ 'Cause them Karens just turned into terrorists ," which Genius, the lyrics annotator, posits is a possible reference to the Jan. 6 insurrection. And, on the other hand, some songs, like "Heated" and "Thique," are a full-on embrace of hedonism — and the joys of possessing a bountiful booty. In Bey's world, trafficking in complexities is a grown-ass woman's prerogative. She's not afraid to be the thinking man's — or woman's — thot.
|  | "Renaissance," the first in a three-act project, is dedicated to her "Uncle Jonny," her gay "godmother" who died of complications from AIDS. He was the first, she wrote, to expose her to the music and culture featured in her seventh solo studio album. About that music and culture: The entire album is a paean to dance music, from disco to house to bounce, soaked in queer culture with exuberant nods to ballroom life. ("The category is … Bad Bitch.") The entire album was created during the pandemic, and, as she writes in her online liner notes, "Creating this album allowed me to dream and find escape during a scary time for the world." Indeed, the entire album is an ode to joy. And, in these politically bifurcated times, embracing joy may be the most revolutionary act yet.
| | | R.I.P. We're mourning two American icons who advanced race relations through their activism, poise and excellence. Bill Russell, the hoops legend was arguably the greatest basketball player of his generation, perhaps of all time. He was 88. Best known for her iconic role as Lt. Uhura in the original "Star Trek" series, Nichelle Nichols broke barriers as one of the few Black actresses cast in a role that was neither racialized or subservient to her white co-stars. She was 89. On the floor, Russell's athleticism and grit were unmatched. But Russell wielded considerable influence off the court, too.
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Russell playing in an Olympic basketball game in Melbourne on Nov. 23, 1956. | AP Photo | He led a boycott by Black players in 1961 when they were refused service in a Kentucky hotel . In 1963, he attended the March on Washington and in 1967 supported Muhammad Ali in his refusal to fight in the Vietnam War . Former President Barack Obama, who gave Russell the Presidential Medal of Freedom, tweeted : "As tall as Bill Russell stood, his legacy rises far higher — both as a player and as a person." Nichols was equally revolutionary, making American television history for sharing the first scripted interracial kiss with William Shatner.
|  | At one point, she wanted to leave "Star Trek" for Broadway, but Martin Luther King, Jr., encouraged her to stay. And in so doing, she inspired a generation of astronauts of color, including Mae Jamison, the first Black woman to enter space .
| | | ICYMI @ POLITICO
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Illustration by Max-o-matic. Photo by Shutterstock, Jason Leung/Unsplash | A special shout out to our Rishika Dugyala along with our POLITICO colleagues Beatrice Jin and Peter Canellos for their well-deserved honor at the Asian American Journalists Association conference. Their Excellence in Political Journalism award is for their reporting on Asian American voting trends and how collective trauma and the Trump administration fueled this disparate bloc to vote more cohesively.
|  | Well done!!
| | | THE RECAST RECOMMENDS "Reservation Dogs" is back for round two . This New Yorker mini-documentary, "Paint & Pitchfork," explores the lives and work of artists Kehinde Wiley and Amy Sherald. BlackPink teams up with the video game PUBG Mobile in "Ready for Love."
|  | Puerto Rican novelist Gabino Iglesias explores the Texas underworld in "The Devil Takes You Home." If you're in D.C., make sure you catch the new musical " American Prophet: Frederick Douglass in His Own Words " at the Arena Stage this month.
| | | | A message from Bank of America: Increasing access to quality health care lowers unemployment rates and raises incomes.
As part of Bank of America's ongoing work to advance racial equality and economic opportunity, a new signature initiative partners with leading public health organizations to improve health outcomes in communities of color. This new health collaboration will provide health education, preventive services, and community outreach.
See where Bank of America's $25 million initiative is launching. | | | Daddy Yankee is on his last world tour, but for now, he's passing time in "Pasatiempo" with Myke Towers.
|  | TikTok of the day: Productivity hack
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