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Republican Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona has come to the defense of a Democratic challenger who is hoping to unseat him in his bid for re-election.

Deedra Abboud, a Phoenix-based lawyer and Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate who is Muslim, started to receive disturbing messages online Tuesday after posting this message on her Facebook page:

"Almost 250 years ago a group of dreamers came together and sketched out a revolutionary vision. No longer would they be shackled to the whims of a distant government, nor bound to the religion of an idiosyncratic king. They set out to forge their own futures, determine their own destinies, and follow their own faith. In their infinite wisdom, the Founding Fathers decreed that this nation would separate church and state, and in doing so protect both institutions. Government would be free from religious overreach, and religion would be free from government interference."

Nice try but your first love is Satan (AKA Allah) and your second love is to a litter box your people come from, one person wrote. You are as American as Chinese checkers.

BAN ISLAM IN THE USAWE HATE YOUR FILTHY DEATH CULT, another said.

I bet youll be a BLAST with constituents, one user posted.

Flake, the 54-year-old Republican incumbent who has somewhat strained relations with the White House, came to her defense on Twitter.

Abboud has been subjected to hateful rhetoric and backlash ever since she launched her campaign in the spring, her spokeswoman told The Arizona Republic. We make sure to have police escorts at our events because, yes, we have received a lot of hate, Jaclyn Freedman said.

Abboud, a 45-year-old community activist, thanked Flake for his leadership.

Neither Abboud nor Flake's campaign has responded to ABC News request for comment.

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Republican Sen. Jeff Flake comes to the defense of Muslim Democrat hoping to unseat him - ABC News

Wednesday, July 19, 2017 4:25 a.m. EDT by Mary Ellen Murphy

KALAMAZOO, MI (WHTC-AM/FM) - The race for the Democratic nomination against Congressman Fred Upton now has another Democratic throwing his hat into the ring.

Former YMCA National Health Officer Dr. Matt Longjohn has announced he is going to challenge the 16-term incumbent from St. Joseph.

Longjohn is the fifth Democrat to run and is the only Democrat planning to enlist the services of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. According to his website, Longjohnstrongly believes that fighting disease is only part of a doctors job.

"To truly be successful, physicians need to help patients have a high quality of life, which means ensuring people have access to health care, a safe and healthy environment, a good education and the opportunity for jobs that pay a living wage. Matt will take this same comprehensive approach to Congress, where he will fight for affordable health care, clean air and water, strong early childhood programs, public schools, community colleges and good-paying job"

Upton told WHTC News that he is focused on his day job and his family. He has not said what at his plans are for 2018.

"These campaigns always come third and you never like to start a campaign prematurely. No we've not made a decision as to what we're gonna do in 2018, particularly if we run for the Senate or not. I continue to be flattered by people who have reached out suggesting that I would be a strong candidate. We're gonna do some due diligence and figure this out in the next couple weeks or so. We don't have any fixed time table, but campaigns do start early, like it or not."

Kid Rock released a statement last week that he is running for the U.S. Senate, but has yet filed the necessary paperwork.

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Democrat doctor challenges Fred Upton in 2018 - Midwest Communication

Yet Mr. Bullock already has the makings of a national stump speech. He boasts about his progressive accomplishments with a Republican-dominated legislature: He expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, cutting the rate of the states uninsured by over half, implemented stricter campaign finance laws and made Montana one of the few states to increase support for higher education.

While appealing to the Democratic heart, Mr. Bullock also has a message for the Democratic head. He talks of the partys need to broaden its appeal beyond the coasts Mr. Bullock won re-election as Donald J. Trump captured Montana by over 20 points while implying they cannot turn to a septuagenarian as their nominee.

Theres a lot of folks out there talking that are a lot older than middle-aged guys like me, said Mr. Bullock, 51, alluding to some of the partys best-known figures.

And if the contrast with the likes of Mr. Sanders, 75, were not obvious enough, the governor held up one of his accomplishments against one of Mr. Sanderss calling cards.

We can talk free college for all all we want, but theres a whole lot of people that can get a darn good job, like in Montana, out of an apprenticeship, Mr. Bullock said, citing programs he has supported as governor. Sixty-thousand-dollar average salary, and theyre making money while theyre getting there.

He also said he was uneasy about immediately implementing another of Mr. Sanderss signature promises, Medicare for all.

He may be more overt about his ambitions, but Mr. Bullock was by no means the only Democratic governor here eyeing the White House.

Gov. Terry McAuliffe of Virginia, the chairman of the National Governors Association, exuberantly led a panel that drew Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada and the Tesla entrepreneur Elon Musk, with an eye toward raising his profile. The host governor, Gina Raimondo of Rhode Island, may also be open to a presidential run.

And while each is from a decidedly more Democratic state than Mr. Bullock, both are also unapologetic, business-friendly pragmatists with a focus on economic development that borders on obsessive.

Mr. McAuliffe will not retreat from his support for free trade pacts, slyly noting that he stands with the president (as in: Barack Obama) on the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

And Ms. Raimondo, noting that all Im doing is jobs, recalled with a touch of incredulity how she recently gave an economic speech and was told afterward by attendees that it was risky to have that pro-growth, pro-job message as a Democrat.

Recounting her efforts to promote apprenticeships in Rhode Islands shipyards, Ms. Raimondo echoed Mr. Bullock on free college for all. I dont care if they ever go and get a four-year degree or not, she said, warning her party not to be snobby about higher education.

The challenge for the would-be presidential contenders on the center left, however, can be found in how Mr. Trump found success.

Unlike Republican nominees before him, the president ran on a platform of racially tinged nationalism, vowing to tear up trade deals and protect entitlements while using language rarely heard from mainstream politicians about minority communities.

In attempting to explain Mr. Trumps victory, many Democrats have therefore chalked it up to his racial demagogy and rhetorical populism. They find the first of these tactics reprehensible, but many have an impulse to counter the president with their own, more robust brand of populism.

This reaction does not point toward budget-balancing governors preaching pragmatism.

Yet the whims of political fate can be fickle.

After the 2004 election, Democrats second consecutive presidential loss, some in the party believed that they could win in 2008 only by nominating a red-state centrist. They won with an African-American Chicagoan named Barack Hussein Obama.

And after their own back-to-back presidential defeats, Republicans said after 2012 that the path back to the White House could be found in nominating a candidate better able to connect with the younger and more diverse rising American electorate. Enter Mr. Trump.

So there may be hope yet for Mr. Bullock, a former state attorney general whose down-home boosterism about Montanas natural wonders belies a Columbia Law degree and stint as a Washington lawyer at Steptoe & Johnson. He has already started on the Democratic speaking circuit, appearing before a Center for American Progress forum in May. Next week, he will attend another donor-filled gathering on the Divided States of America at the Aspen Institute.

To the barricades it is not.

The values folks want is for government to run its own budgets and be as careful with their money as a family is with their own, Mr. Bullock said.

Get politics and Washington news updates via Facebook, Twitter and in the Morning Briefing newsletter.

A version of this article appears in print on July 18, 2017, on Page A12 of the New York edition with the headline: Democratic Governors Seek a Middle Path To the White House.

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As Party Drifts Left, Pragmatic Democratic Governors Have Eye on White House - New York Times

Former state Sen. Jim Boyle of Gorham has declared his candidacy for governor in 2018, adding to a growing list of Democratic contenders.

Boyle made an announcement Tuesday morning but registered with the Maine Ethics Commission quietly a day earlier, joining five other Democrats.

Maine was once a place where you could work hard and build a good life for your family. It didnt matter if you lived in Fort Kent, Portland or Millinocket, he said in a statement. But those opportunities no longer exist for too many people. I cant sit on my hands and watch Maine become a place where hard-working people get left behind.

Jim Boyle

Boyle served one term in the Maine Senate from 2012-14 before narrowly losing to Republican Amy Volk of Scarborough, who was reelected in 2016.

The 58-year-old owns an environmental consulting firm. He is the latest name to enter a rapidly growing field of candidates seeking to succeed Gov. Paul LePage, whose second term ends.

Adam Cote was the first Democrat to declare back in April but he has been joined recently by Janet Mills, Maines attorney general, and Mark Eves, former speaker of the House.

Betsy Sweet and Patrick Eisenhart also have declared their candidacies.

The Republican slate of primary candidates is still thin, with only Mary Mayhew, former Department of Health and Human Services commissioner under LePage, entering the race to date.

This story will be updated

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Gorham Democrat Jim Boyle enters Maine governor race - Press Herald

If there's one thing you can be sure of, it's that in a few months, you'll be overwhelmed by news stories with headlines like these:

"She's a liberal Democrat -- maybe a commie! -- can I bring her home to meet my parents?"

"I just married a conservative, and my friends dropped me."

"I just married a liberal -- her friends let me pick up the check, but they still hate me."

"I'm libertarian, so will I ever find someone?'

Whatever would we do without those stories on political biology in Sunday lifestyle sections?

How can we live without advice columns calming the turgid panic surrounding the American political mating rituals?

You've seen them. They're all about hand-wringing over dangerous liaisons between men and women who find themselves ideologically opposed.

Often, they involve guilt, a liberal woman dating a paleo conservative and not knowing how to tell her friends the terrible news. They'll drop me from the book club!

And sometimes, they're not tales of forbidden political love, but obnoxious humble brags about how she married a conservative out of pity and was surprised to find that he treated her with respect and knew how to use a knife and fork.

Don't worry, she'll dump him and run off with a Bernie Bro before 2020.

Whether you like it or not, in coming months such themes will be pushed on you, relentlessly -- the way stories about bitcoins and Esperanto were pushed on you -- despite your loudest inner screams.

Your eyes will skim some. Talk show hosts will use them as program fodder. Can you date a Republican? Can you marry a Democrat without a prenup?

Soon we'll understand that our species is not long for this earth. Because what's natural is natural. And letting politics divert you from staring into her eyes and holding her hand is unnatural.

But politics doesn't care about what comes naturally. Politics has a mission.

Politicos may fight about tax cuts or Russian spies in our closets, but with the midterm elections coming in 2018, the sociopolitical herding will be on the increase. And shame is the goad of ruthless political herdsmen.

So there will be more studies and stories and polls asking, "Can I date a Republican and not get a disease?" or explaining, "How to hide your Democratic lover from your family," and so on.

And because the media leans left -- don't even try to argue otherwise, that's like being a wild-eyed science denier -- most political mating stories will reflect a certain antipathy toward "those people," meaning Republicans.

So gather around, let me put on my favorite cardigan, fill my pipe and pour myself a mug of mulled wine, and I'll tell you of ye olden days.

Back then, "mixed marriage" had nothing to do with politics. It meant Episcopalians dating Methodists.

And later, "mixed marriage" involved Italians marrying Irish, Greeks marrying Jews, blacks marrying whites, and the most difficult mixed marriage of all, Sox fans marrying Cubs fans.

Now the divide is politics, because politics is our new secular American church. There's much evidence of this already. Read or listen to the hysteria in the media. It has the ring of a crusade.

Each sect or denomination has its own particular catechism, dogma, priests (politicians) and stern bishops (pundits) who shepherd the faithful away from the temptations of those odd libertarians.

Over on the NPR news site -- yeah, I visit to find out what liberals are really thinking -- I found a story about political dating sites, one for Republicans, another for liberal Democrats.

"There's more activity now than ever," said the liberal dating site boss. "I knew liberals would only find comfort in each other's arms." The conservative dating site guy sounded the same.

Don't ask me for statistics. The internet is full of surveys. Some say that almost half of America wouldn't date someone with opposing political views. Others say that young Democrats don't want young Republicans in the same college dorm. Or at least I heard that on a talk show, so it must be kind of true.

If these surveys are in fact true -- and right now I don't care if they are -- anyone who lets politics interfere with romance is probably too idiotic to raise children and should probably be chemically altered for the greater good.

Some of the more ridiculous dating advice I've seen includes talking about your politics on your second or third date, "to get it out of the way."

You're going to talk tax policy on a date? Loser.

Happily, not everyone feels this way. Right now I bet there's some generic young Republican college student reading The Nation, just so he gets the buzzwords right so he might date that girl in Madison with the big brown eyes.

And there must be a liberal young woman going back to school in Yellow Springs, Ohio, in the fall, thinking about gender studies, yes, but also about that boy who shocked her with his National Review.

Politics is so small compared to love, but you wouldn't know it sometimes with all the stridency aimed at guilting people apart.

Betty and I have been married for more than 30 years. She was a modern dancer marching in no-nuke parades. I admired Ronald Reagan. We're still together. We still hold hands.

It's a good thing there was no social media then. She might have been shamed out of our second date.

John Kass is a columnist for the Chicago Tribune. His Twitter handle is @john_kass.

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Can you date a Democrat without shame or bring home a Republican without fear? - Quad City Times