Today’s installment of campaign-related news items from across the country.

* Four months after former Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell resigned in disgrace, voters in his California district are poised to elect his successor. The top two candidates to emerge from the first round of voting are state Sen. Aisha Wahab and Melissa Hernandez, who sits on the Bay Area Rapid Transit board. Since both are Democrats, the House Democratic minority will grow from 212 to 213 members once the winner is sworn in.

* We’re also one day out from one of the last big primary days of the 2026 election cycle, with contests in Alaska, Florida, Pennsylvania and Wyoming. None of the contests has necessarily generated major national attention, but there are Senate primaries in Florida and Alaska and gubernatorial primaries in Alaska, Florida and Wyoming.

* Speaking of Alaska, there’s ample evidence to suggest that former Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola is running a highly competitive race against incumbent Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan, which made it all the more notable when former Vice President Kamala Harris’ political action committee sent out an appeal in support of the Democratic candidate’s campaign. Even more notable, Peltola quickly said she hadn’t approved the appeal and was not seeking the former vice president’s endorsement.

* We’re still a week away from South Carolina’s Senate special primary, in which Republicans will choose a new candidate to take the late Sen. Lindsey Graham’s spot on the 2026 ballot. Key GOP figures continue to rally behind appointed Sen. Darline Graham, including Rep. Russell Fry, who finished third in the recent Republican primary and who endorsed Graham on Friday, reportedly at the encouragement of President Donald Trump.

* Over the weekend, the Democratic National Committee officially approved its new presidential primary calendar, and South Carolina will go first with a contest on Jan. 22, 2028. In the Tuesdays that follow, there will be Democratic primaries in Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Michigan and Virginia. Although Republicans’ plans are still taking shape, GOP caucuses and primaries will follow a different schedule.

* In Indiana, Greg Ballard, a former two-term Republican mayor of Indianapolis, is running for secretary of state this year, which wouldn’t ordinarily be especially notable but for the fact that Ballard is also trying to establish a new political party he’s calling “the Lincoln Party.”

The post Monday’s Campaign Round-Up, 8.17.26: Voters in California set to pick Swalwell’s successor appeared first on MS NOW.

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