President Joe Biden (D) ends 2024 campaign; endorses VP Harris
On July 21, President Joe Biden (D) withdrew from the 2024 presidential election. Later that afternoon, Biden endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris (D) for the nomination. A few hours later, Harris formally declared her candidacy.
You can view Biden’s full statement, along with statements from other noteworthy elected officials from both parties on our page here.
In a special edition of On The Ballot, our podcast, host Frank Festa and staff writer Ellen Morrissey discussed what happens next with the formal particulars of how the Democratic Party will arrive at a nomination of a candidate. To listen to that podcast, click here.
Signatures submitted for measure that would raise Oklahoma’s minimum wage
The campaign Raise The Wage Oklahoma submitted roughly 180,000 signatures on July 15 to the secretary of state for State Question 832. If approved, the ballot initiative would gradually increase the state’s minimum wage from $7.25 to $15 as follows:
- $9 per hour in 2025,
- $10.50 per hour in 2026,
- $12 per hour in 2027,
- $13.50 per hour in 2028, and
- $15 per hour in 2029.
- Starting in 2030, the minimum wage would be adjusted annually based on changes in inflation, as measured by the Consumer Price Index.
Oklahoma is one of 20 states that use the federal minimum wage rate of $7.25, which was established in 2009. The other 30 states set minimum wages higher than the federal wage.
Eleven vulnerable trifectas this November
This year’s report on trifecta vulnerability found that 11 state government trifectas could break up, and nine new ones could form in the November elections. Of the 11 vulnerable trifectas, seven are Democratic and four are Republican. Our report looks at what is required for each individual component of a state government trifecta to change party control. For more on our methodology, click here.
A closer look at Alaska’s two contested top-four state legislative primaries in 2024
In 2020, Alaska voters approved a ballot measure establishing a top-four primary and ranked-choice voting. Under the system, the top four vote-getters in the primary advance to the general election regardless of partisan affiliation.
The number of contested state legislative primaries–where more than one candidate is running for the nomination–fell in 2022 and 2024 after it implemented the new system. Read the full story in the July 24 edition of the Daily Brew.