Vox Sentences: The 2019 elections, explained

Zac Freeland/Vox

US voters to cast ballots in local and state elections Tuesday; Iran struggles on the global stage.

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Voters across America face state and local elections

Voters across the country have the opportunity to select their representatives Tuesday as several states hold elections. [Vox / Li Zhou]
Mississippi, Louisiana, and Kentucky are looking at tight gubernatorial races, as many view these races as a referendum on Trump’s own candidacy. [Washington Post / Tim Craig and Seung Min Kim]
Kentucky Republican Gov. Matt Bevin won in 2016 with a 30-point lead over his opponent, but political controversy and vicious campaign strategies are hurting his current campaign. [Vox / Tara Golshan]
Meanwhile, Mississippians must choose between Republican Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves and his Democratic challenger, state Attorney General Jim Hood. The race is incredibly tight, with constant swings in polling leads. [NPR / Debbie Elliott]
In Louisiana, incumbent Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards failed to win a 50 percent majority in the primary, leading to the runoff on Tuesday. Edwards is running against businessman-turned-Republican politician Eddie Rispone. [CBS / Aaron Navarro]
Several spots in the Virginia legislature are up for grabs, and Democrats are hoping to see a continuation of the wins and seat flipping in recent years. Both parties see voter turnout and gun policy as major factors in their races. [Vox / Ella Nilsen]
New York City wants to roll out a new way to elect local candidates: ranked-choice voting. A ballot initiative, viewed as a part of the electoral reform movement, would allow voters to rank their top five candidates, who must win at least 50 percent of the vote. [Vox / Lee Drutman]

Iran’s anniversary woes

Iran suffered a series of foreign policy losses across the globe this week. [Wall Street Journal / Sune Engel Rasmussen, Ghassan Adnan, and Nazih Osseiran]
The Trump administration stayed true to its “maximum pressure” campaign by imposing more sanctions on the Islamic Republic, this time targeting Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his inner circle. [Washington Post / Carol Morello]
Sunday night, Iraqi protesters threw Molotov cocktails at the Iranian consulate in Karbala, burning the building. Iraqi security forces shot live rounds into the crowd. [Al Jazeera]
Iran also announced the opening of new advanced centrifuges to enrich uranium, the latest violation of the 2015 Iranian nuclear agreement that the US pulled out of in May 2018. [CNN / Bianca Britton and Sara Mazloumsaki]
On the 40th anniversary of the Iranian hostage crisis, the animosity between the Trump administration and the Iranian regime harkens back to the anger of 1979. [The New Yorker / Robin Wright]

Miscellaneous

Trump’s border wall is under attack — by a hardware store purchase. [Salon / Matthew Rozsa]
China encourages a crackdown on Hong Kong protesters after a state-run media outlet is vandalized. [Al Jazeera]
Why many finance apps want to be on a first name basis with their users. [Vox / Meredith Haggerty]
After over 100 years, a boat stuck above Niagara Falls has come loose. [The Independent / Harry Cockburn]
How researchers may have discovered a hidden kind of miniscule black hole. [CNET / Jackson Ryan]

Verbatim

“Fifty percent of the patients I operate on throughout the year are nonsmokers. This kind of demographic change is shocking.” [Chest surgeon Arvind Kumar expressing concern about the rise in air pollution in India]