What Went Down At Biden’s State Of The Union And Texas’s Primary Election

A few more Big Lie-endorsing candidate race updates from your resident disinformation reporter. Morgan Luttrell, a former Navy SEAL running for the GOP nomination in the 8th District, has called for a forensic audit of the 2020 election and said that he wouldn’t have endorsed the results, is leading in his race with 53.7 percent of the vote, according to the New York Times. It’s worth noting, though, that his closest competitor — political operative Christian Collins, who currently has 22.4 percent of the vote and may see Luttrell in a run-off — said the exact same things.

A lot of us are turning our attention back to Texas, but since I mentioned the GOP and women earlier, it’s worth noting that the GOP response to Biden’s address tonight will be delivered by Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds. Elected in 2017, she is the first female governor to lead Iowa (19 states have still yet to have a woman governor!). As The 19th wrote, asking her to deliver the rebuttal is arguably an attempt by the GOP to appeal to women voters.

Meanwhile, the Democratic race for lieutenant governor looks like it might be headed to a runoff, too. Mike Collier, an accountant and auditor who challenged incumbent Dan Patrick in 2018, currently leads the pack with roughly 44 percent of the vote, according to the New York Times. Behind him, at 29 percent, is state Rep. Michelle Beckley, who gained national attention last year after she joined lawmakers who fled to Washington, D.C., to block a restrictive Republican elections bill. Carla Brailey, the former vice chair of the Texas Democratic Party, currently sits at 27 percent, per the Times, with just over half of precincts reporting.