“Mitt Romney isn’t the only Massachusetts resident to recently clinch his party’s nomination for president,” the Boston Globe writes. “Jill Stein – a Lexington resident who actually has experience debating Romney before a televised audience – on Tuesday in California secured the delegates needed to win the Green Party nomination. One of her chief rivals for the nomination was comedian Roseanne Barr.”
FLORIDA: “Gov. Rick Scott's elections chief on Wednesday defiantly refused a federal demand to stop purging noncitizens from Florida's voter rolls, intensifying an election-year confrontation with President Barack Obama's administration as each side accuses the other of breaking federal law,” the Miami Herald/Tampa Bay Times write.
“Veteran League of Women Voters volunteer Mary Berglund had been registering voters since 1986, until the civic group a year ago abruptly halted its 72-year practice in the face of a new Florida law restricting voter registration campaigns,” the Tampa Bay Times writes. “But Berglund and her civic-minded colleagues gathered in front of a Pinellas elections office Wednesday to announce they are getting back in the game. After a federal judge last week temporarily blocked parts of that new elections law as violations of the First Amendment, the League of Women Voters and other groups are resuming their nonpartisan registration efforts.”
Scott also cut off funding for Innocence Commission, the Huffington Post reports. The state Supreme Court formed the commission in 2009 after 23 death row inmates, 12 others convicted of “serious crimes” and other rape and murder convictions since 1973 with the advent of DNA. “Scott vetoed the $200,000 the legislature had budgeted for the commission to continue.”
Connie Mack refused a debate with George Lemieux. "It’s clear the race for the U.S. Senate in Florida is now between Connie Mack, the Republican, and Bill Nelson, the Democrat," Mack campaign manager Jeff Cohen wrote in a letter to Jeanne Grinstead, deputy managing editor of the Tampa Bay Times. The primary is Aug. 14.
MONTANA: There will be Senate debates June 16 and 24.
VIRGINIA: The president leads 47%-42% in Virginia in the latest Quinnipiac poll. That’s slightly narrower than the 50-42% margin in the poll in March. But there’s still this vulnerability for the president. “On who would do a better job on the economy, 46 percent say Romney and 44 percent say Obama,” the Richmond Times-Dispatch writes.
There continues to be a gender gap, with Obama winning women 51-35%, and Romney winning men 49-44%. For context, Obama won Virginia women 53-46% - AND men 51-47% in 2008.
