Today’s primaries are in California, Iowa, Mississippi, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, and South Dakota. Here’s a preview from Steve Benen.

Here’s an update on the Missouri Senate Primary from Hell: So far, the various Republican creatures posing as “candidates” have not been spending a lot of money on television ads, or else they aren’t running ads in the St. Louis media market. All of the political ads on television here are for elections in Illinois, which is holding primaries on June 28. The Missouri primary isn’t until August 2, so maybe the Missouri campaigns are holding back until the election is closer. The illinois ads are obnoxious enough, though.

In Illinois, BTW, there are a mess of Republicans running to be nominated for governor to run against incumbent Democrat J. B. Pritzker. All the Republicans are running against CRIME and also promise to do the usual things nobody needs doing, like keeping trans women out of sports and Critical Race Theory out of elementary schools. I’m kind of mildly interested in which one of these bozos actually attracts votes. And I sincerely hope J.B. Pritzker gets another term. I understand he has a primary challenger but haven’t seen any television ads from her.

I understand that former Missouri governor Eric Greitens is the front runner for the  nomination for retiring Roy Blunt’s Senate seat. State Attorney General Eric Schmitt is close behind, and U.S. Representative Vicky Hartzler is a close third (all three discussed here and here). It looks like any one of those three has a shot at the nomination right now, and they would all be disasters in the Senate. Polling in single digits are U.S. Rep. Billy Long, state senator Dave Schatz, and Mark McCloskey, who is scraping the bottom of the polls at around 2.5 percent. Billy Long is the fellow who resembles a talking potato and who believes abortion rights are the leading cause of mass shooting. There was talk that Long had received Donald Trump’s endorsement, but that announcement may have been premature. The alleged endorsement doesn’t seem to have moved any needles for him, at any rate.

There are a bunch of declared candidates in the race for the Democratic nomination, but the only ones considered viable at the moment are Lucas Kunce and Trudy Busch Valentine. Valentine is an Anheuser-Busch heiress, a daughter of August “Gussie” Busch Jr., who has worked as a registered nurse but has not run for elected office before. Lucas Kunce is an “antitrust advocate” and former U.S. Marine who also is new to politics but seems to have a knack for campaigning and has had a few guest spots on MSNBC.  Valentine has gotten a lot of endorsements from the state Democratic establishment, but she seems shy about public appearances. Either one would be an acceptable senator, especially in comparison to the freak show the Republicans are running, although neither is quite as liberal/progressive as I would like. I understand Kunce is the current frontrunner.

What’s interesting about state polls is that while Greitens is the front runner for the nomination, he is also the most vulnerable to being beaten by Kunce in head to head polling. But a lot can happen between now and August, never mind November, so I’m not making predictions.