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Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) will face off against Donald Trump’s endorsed candidate on Tuesday, a long-awaited showdown that comes more than a year after she voted to convict the former president over his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack.

The primary comes as Trump racks up wins across the country in his quest to rid Congress of Republicans who have crossed him. And polls have showed his pick in the race, Kelly Tshibaka, leading the primary pack.

Republican Tina Ramirez extended the invite to Ocasio-Cortez after the Squad member suggested it was a ‘mistake’ for moderate Dems to consider their far-left colleagues a ‘liability’

A Virginia Republican has invited U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., to campaign for the Democratic incumbent who the GOP candidate hopes to unseat next year.

Republican Tina Ramirez – who’s running against second-term Democratic U.S. Rep. Abigail Spanberger – extended the offer after Ocasio-Cortez recently insisted it was a “mistake” for moderate Democrats to consider their radical fellow party members a “liability.”

“For the past few years, Abigail Spanberger has been been living a double life,” Republican challenger Tina Ramirez wrote in a statement first provided to Fox News on Tuesday, referring to the second-term Democrat.

James Madison University on its official Instagram account shared a video featuring a student not only decrying the verdict in the Kyle Rittenhouse case but also accusing Rittenhouse of “murdering … two beautiful black lives.”

Which is quite a feat considering the pair he fatally shot in self defense amid rioting in Kenosha, Wisconsin, last year — Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber — were as white as Rittenhouse.

What are the details?

Tina Ramirez — founder of religious freedom nonprofit Hardwired Global and a Republican congressional candidate in Virginia, Fox News said — shared the video from James Madison’s Instagram page on Twitter.

The video as seen on Ramirez’s Twitter page begins with what appears to be an introduction of a student documentary about a “day in the life of Deaquan Nichols.” Nichols, a student, narrates the video.

The clip cuts to Nichols decrying last week’s Rittenhouse verdict — not guilty on all five counts against him.

“All the protesting, everything we went through in 2020, we really think would make a change, but clearly it doesn’t,” Nichols said. “We scream ‘Black Lives Matter,’ but it doesn’t matter enough for these people who are in power — the jury, the judge, anybody — to charge this man with murdering and taking away two beautiful black lives at the ripe ages of 26 and 36. It’s disgusting.”

Nichols doesn’t mention the names of Huber and Rosenbaum, but they were the only two people Rittenhouse fatally shot, and they were 26 and 36, respectively. Rittenhouse also shot and wounded Gaige Grosskreutz, who testified he pointed a gun at Rittenhouse’s head before Rittenhouse shot him in the right bicep. Grosskreutz also is white.

Ramirez wrote in her Twitter posts that she received the clip from a JMU alum and that the clip is “now deleted.” She added that JMU “is a publicly funded university that is now pushing political propaganda and misinformation from their social media accounts” and that the school’s “actions are unethical, as Kyle Rittenhouse was found innocent, and dangerous, as the post pushes false info that could lead to violence.”

Ramirez added to Fox News that it was “egregious” of JMU to allow the video which broadcasted “blatant misinformation” on the school’s Instagram platform.

What did James Madison U. have to say?

A JMU spokeswoman told Fox News that the video in question was part of its “student takeovers” on social media platforms that are “an opportunity for our audiences to learn about student activities and research.”

College spokeswoman Mary-Hope Vass added to the cable network that “one of yesterday’s takeovers went into the personal opinion and viewpoints of a student, which are not necessarily reflective of the university. The video expressing this opinion was removed from the university’s social media account.”

Anything else?

The Rittenhouse verdict led to other controversial pronouncements from James Madison University.

The school’s department of chemistry and biochemistry said in a pair of Saturday tweets that “it is hard to focus on science if you are worried you might be legally shot or run over at a protest. It is hard to focus on science if you are worried your loved ones might be killed getting Skittles, or selling cigarettes, or playing with a toy gun, or sitting in their apartment, or jogging, or wearing a hoodie,” referencing the deaths of Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and Martin once more.

“It’s hard to focus on science if you’re worried you might get deported or if your human rights depend on the outcome of an election. The fight for justice *is* a fight for science,” the department added.

“Yes, we are exhausted, but some people do not have the privilege of bowing out,” the department added in another tweet. “So, we must be relentless in our pursuit of a just and equitable society.”

The department also shared a video from Peacock channel host Amber Ruffin in which she claimed the Rittenhouse not guilty verdict shows that “the judicial system [is] blatantly and obviously stacked against people of color,” Fox News added.

Ramirez fired back against the tweets, telling the cable network that “to see that the school’s chemistry department would then double down with more politicized rhetoric is beyond the pale. In their posts they say ‘it’s hard to focus on chemistry,’ but that is literally their job and what parents are paying thousands of dollars in tuition fees expect them to do. This is why I’ve been so adamant that we need to make school about education again. We should be teaching students how to think critically, not what to think politically.”

At a busy pub in Midlothian, Virginia, a group of voters are gathered at long wooden tables, ordering burgers and pimento cheese fries and talking about the Democrats’ legislative agenda.

“I think universal pre-K is a good idea,” said Lindsay Sherrard, a local physician.

“The [child] tax credit is fantastic,” added Yael Levin, who works on education issues. “I love the tax credit because that gives the choice back to people.”

Both policies are staples of the Democrats’ Build Back Better bill, which passed the House Friday morning.

But this isn’t a Democratic event. It’s a meet and greet for supporters of Tina Ramirez, one of at least seven Republicans vying to challenge incumbent Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger, who was first elected in 2018 by a narrow margin.

The pub is located in Chesterfield County, which makes up the largest percentage of Spanberger’s district, Virginia’s 7th. It swung from former President Donald Trump in 2016 to President Biden four years later and most recently to Republican Glenn Youngkin for governor.

Republicans have made gains in recent off-year elections and they want to maintain that momentum. The National Republican Congressional Committee is targeting at least 70 incumbent Democrats, eyeing key opportunities to flip suburban districts like Spanberger’s, which used to be GOP strongholds.

Democrats are hoping legislative victories that bring home federal dollars will boost their chances at the polls next year and allow them to retain control of the House.

But the voters gathered for burgers and politics in Midlothian are clear: sure, they may support some of these Democratic policies, but not enough to cast their vote for a Democrat in the 2022 midterm elections.

The economy and cultural issues front and center

Ramirez tells NPR that’s because voters here by and large don’t like the idea of Washington having a blank check for government spending.

“I think there’s a real feeling, in this state in particular, that you have this idea that government knows best or that government’s the answer to everything,” she said. “People are just fed up.”

Ramirez added it’s the issues people “feel every day” — like inflation — that ultimately drive their political decisions.

“People are so frustrated,” she said. “They feel it and this is a result of just bad economic policy.”

It’s an issue that resonates with voters like Levin. She considers herself an independent and has voted for both Republicans and Democrats in the past. She is solidly in Ramirez’s camp and said she’s concerned about inflation and the supply chain.

“My momma van is dying and we need to get a new car, and there’s no inventory,” she said. “I can barely afford gas. I can barely afford groceries for two teen athletic boys.”

She likes the child tax credit, but not if it’s wrapped up in a $2 trillion spending package.

“Tax credits are always a good thing,” she said. “But if you lump it in with spending that’s out of control, that’s going to put my great-great-grandchildren in debt, then I’m going to be against it.”

Another issue that nearly every voter at Ramirez’s campaign event brought up was critical race theory — a graduate-level academic approach that looks at institutions through the lens of race and racism. They believe CRT has made its way into K-12 public schools.

“Kids — when they go to school, they want to learn,” said Carmen Williams, a Ramirez supporter who immigrated to the U.S. from Peru. “A white person shouldn’t say, ‘Oh I am white, I am bad.'”

While CRT scholars would take issue with Williams’ characterization, Republican messaging has turned the graduate-level theory into a culture war issue and it’s led to spinoff discussions in school board and PTA meetings about whether to ban various books from curricula and how the existence and history of racism should be taught in schools.

Monica Hutchinson, a community organizer and lifelong Democrat, said the angry debate over how teachers talk about race in schools is frustrating, particularly as a Black mother.

“When I hear suburban white moms say, ‘Well, I think my child is too young to learn about racism,’ I’m like, ‘Hello — the counter to that is simple: my child has to experience racism, right?'” she said. “We don’t get the luxury of saying, ‘Oh, my child’s too young.'”

‘It is easier for suburban white women to flip’

Sherrard, a white mother of two who typically votes Republican, said she thinks pushback against Democratic rhetoric helped fuel Youngkin’s recent win.

“I think Virginia voters just really came against so many woke policies, if you want to call it that — just the constant focus on race and the constant focus on transgender issues,” she listed. “We want to just go back to the basics: basic economic recovery, basic education, a military that can defend us.”