DENVER (AP) – Taking control of Congress isn’t the only priority for Democrats pushing back against President Donald Trump. They’re also focused on state attorney general positions.
A key reason is because Democrats who hold the office are suing the Trump administration frequently over its policies. They have done it 47 times since Trump took office last year.
By comparison, Republican state attorneys general sued President Barack Obama 62 times during the eight years he was in office.
FILE – In this April 15, 2018, file photo, Dana Nessel, candidate for state attorney general, speaks to 14th District Delegates at the 2018 State Endorsement Convention of the Michigan Democratic Party at Cobo Center, in Detroit. Nessel told The Associated Press that voters want an attorney general to protect the state from federal policies that could hurt them. She said Michigan’s large Arab population is vulnerable to President Donald Trump’s restrictions on travel from certain Muslim-majority countries and his administration’s plan to add a question to the 2020 U.S. Census on citizenship status. (Todd McInturf/Detroit News via AP, File)
Attorney general positions are on the ballot this year in 30 states.
Money is flowing into the races as Democrats try to pick up seats in swing states such as Colorado, Michigan, Nevada and Ohio, where incumbents are not running for re-election.
Republicans are focused mostly on keeping the jobs they have.
In this May 23, 2018, photo, one of two Democrats seeking the party’s nomination to run for attorney general in Colorado, Phil Weiser speaks during a campaign stop at a senior living community in Highlands Ranch, Colo. First-time candidate Weiser, a law school dean, explains in a TV commercial that he’s running for attorney general because of President Donald Trump. The ad shows the former Obama administration official as preoccupied with ways to hold the president’s policies in check, even making notes about it while hiking with his family in the Rocky Mountains. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)
In this May 24, 2018, photo, one of two Democrats seeking the party’s nomination to run for attorney general in Colorado, Joe Salazar, right, greets a supporter during a fundraising event in Denver. Inside an urban winery in a former warehouse surrounded by auto repair shops, state Rep. Joe Salazar, who also seeking the office, took a jab at Phil Weiser, a another Democrat candidate seeking the party’s nomination to run for attorney general in Colorado. Salazar, a civil rights lawyer endorsed by Sen. Bernie Sanders, said it’s a given that either Democrat would take on the president. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)
FILE – In this Aug. 7, 2015, file photograph, George Brauchler, center, district attorney for Colorado’s 18th Judicial District and prosecutor of Aurora, Colo., theatre shooter James Holmes, talks after the jury sentenced Holmes to life in prison without parole in Centennial, Colo. The top priority for Democrats pushing back against President Donald Trump is gaining control of at least one branch of Congress this year, but they’re also focused on a pivotal seat lower on the ballot – state attorney general. “They’re looking for an excuse to bring Donald Trump into this race,” Brauchler, a Republican district attorney, said in an interview. “They’re going to try to convert this AG’s office into a political ambulance-chaser.” (AP Photo/David Zalubowski, File)
FILE – In this May 1, 2018, file photo, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, center, speaks during a news conference in Sacramento, Calif. Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones has said he, too, would be eager to challenge President Donald Trump policies but says Becerra has been so focused on Trump that he is not doing enough on other issues, such as the opioid epidemic, gun violence and going after corporate polluters. Becerra says Jones is being deceptive, pointing to his office’s prosecutions for illegal gun possession, sex trafficking, embezzlement and other offenses. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli, File)
FILE – This March 21, 2018 file photo shows California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones, a Democratic candidate for Attorney General, at a candidate forum in Sacramento, Calif. Jones has said he, too, would be eager to challenge President Donald Trump policies but says Attorney General Xavier Becerra, a Democrat, has been so focused on Trump that he is not doing enough on other issues, such as the opioid epidemic, gun violence and going after corporate polluters. Becerra says Jones is being deceptive, pointing to his office’s prosecutions for illegal gun possession, sex trafficking, embezzlement and other offenses. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli, File)
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