We hope you had a restful holiday weekend. We are back with the top federal stories of the week, starting with a look at two congressional elections in North Carolina. Let's go! 

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NC-9 special election sees $8 million in satellite spending

• Dan Bishop (R), Dan McCready (D), Jeff Scott (L), and Allen Smith (G) are running in the special election for North Carolina's 9th District. The election was called after the state board of elections did not certify the results from the 2018 race following an investigation into allegations of absentee ballot fraud.
  
  
• On the campaign trail, Bishop has invoked his record in the state legislature, including helping pass a constitutional amendment requiring voter ID in 2018, lowering income taxes, and opposing sanctuary cities. 
  
  
• McCready has campaigned on his plan to lower prescription drug prices and says he'd seek bipartisan legislation on healthcare, education, and taxes in the House. 
  
  
• In 2018, Republican nominee Mark Harris led McCready—who was also the Democratic nominee in that race—by 905 votes based on the unofficial results. Three polls ahead of the special election have shown Bishop and McCready within the margin of error of each other. Donald Trump (R) won the district by 12 percentage points in the 2016 presidential election.
  
  
• The special election has featured endorsements from prominent national figures and more than $8 million in ad spending from satellite groups, including $3.1 million from the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) and $1.2 million from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC). Trump and Vice President Mike Pence have campaigned for Bishop in the state, and former Vice President Joe Biden endorsed McCready.

NC-3 holds special election to replace late Congressman

• State Rep. Greg Murphy (R), Allen Thomas (D), Tim Harris (L), and Greg Holt (Constitution Party) are running in the special election for North Carolina's 3rd District in the northeastern part of the state. The special election was called after former incumbent Rep. Walter Jones (R) died February 10. Jones was first elected to Congress in 1994.
   
• Murphy—who defeated Joan Perry in the July 9 Republican primary runoff—has campaigned on his support of President Trump and highlighted his work as a physician and state legislator. 
   
• Thomas has emphasized economic development, small-town revitalization, and improving access to healthcare in his campaign. 
   
• According to campaign finance reports through August 21, Murphy raised $902,000 and spent $803,000, and Thomas raised $565,000 and spent $476,000. 
   
• In the 2016 presidential election, Trump won the district with 61% of the vote.

Three U.S. House members announce they won’t run for re-election in 2020

• Republican Reps. Bill Flores (TX-17) and Jim Sensenbrenner (WI-5) and Democratic Rep. Susan Davis (CA-53) announced they would not be seeking re-election in 2020. So far, 18 total representatives—four Democrats and 14 Republicans—will not be running for re-election in 2020. Fifteen of those are retiring from public office, while two are seeking U.S. Senate seats and one other is running for governor.
  
  
• In 2018, a total of 52 representatives—18 Democrats and 34 Republicans—did not seek re-election to their U.S. House districts. Thirty-three representatives retired from public office, 10 sought a seat in the U.S. Senate, eight representatives ran for governor, and one representative ran for state attorney general.
  
  
• Elections for all 435 U.S. House seats will take place in 2020. Ballotpedia has identified 73 of the 435 House races (16.8%) as battleground elections. These races were chosen based on an examination of the 2018 winner's margin of victory, the results of the 2016 presidential election in the district, whether the incumbent was seeking re-election, and other factors. Of the 73 seats, 43 are held by Democrats and 30 are held by Republicans heading into the election. None of the seats announced to be open this week are on that list—the Cook Political Report, Sabato's Crystal Ball, and Inside Elections with Nathan Gonzales rate each of those seats as safe.

 Third Democratic debate features 10 candidates on a single night

• Ten candidates will meet on stage for the third Democratic presidential primary debate in Houston, Texas.
  
  
• The following candidates will participate: Joe Biden, Cory Booker, Pete Buttigieg, Julián Castro, Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, Beto O’Rourke, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Andrew Yang.
  
  
• ABC News and Univision are hosting the debate, which will take place at Texas Southern University. Linsey Davis, David Muir, Jorge Ramos, and George Stephanopoulos will moderate the event. 
  
  
• Candidates will have one minute and 15 seconds to answer questions and 45 seconds for rebuttals.
  
  
• Candidates must have received donations from at least 130,000 unique donors with a minimum of 400 unique donors per state in at least 20 states. The candidate must also receive 2% support or more in four national or early state polls—Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and/or Nevada. 
  
  

• The 10 Democratic candidates who did not qualify for this debate can still qualify for the next one using the same qualifying criteria. The Democratic National Committee announced this week that the fourth primary debate will take place in Ohio on October 15 and 16.
  
  
• The last round of debates was held on July 30 and 31 in Detroit. Since then, Mike Gravel, John Hickenlooper, Jay Inslee, Seth Moulton, and Kirsten Gillibrand have ended their campaigns for president.

Yang leads Democratic presidential campaigns in Ballotpedia pageviews for third consecutive week

• Andrew Yang's campaign page on Ballotpedia received 5,219 pageviews for the week of August 25-31, which represents 9.6% of the pageviews for all Democratic candidates during the week.
  Joe Biden had 8.1% of the pageviews for the week, followed by Elizabeth Warren with 7.7%. This is Yang's third consecutive week with the most pageviews among Democrats.
   
• Each week, we report the number of pageviews received by 2020 presidential campaigns on Ballotpedia. These numbers show which candidates are getting our readers' attention.
   
• Amy Klobuchar and Tulsi Gabbard had more Ballotpedia pageviews last week than the week before. Klobuchar's pageviews increased by 5.1%, while Gabbard's increased by 1.2%. 
   
• The leader in overall pageviews this year is Pete Buttigieg with 109,047. Buttigieg is followed by Yang with 105,936 and Kamala Harris with 98,083.
   
• On the GOP side, former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld had 11,641 pageviews to former Rep. Joe Walsh's 5,638 and President Trump's 1,868.

Is Congress in session?

• The Senate will be in session September 9-13 and the House will be in session September 9-12. Click here to see the full calendar for the first session of the 116th Congress.

Where was the president last week?

• On Monday, Trump had no public events scheduled.
• On Tuesday, Trump received his intelligence briefing and met with the secretary of defense.
• On Wednesday, Trump received an update on Hurricane Dorian and participated in the announcement of state opioid response grants.
• On Thursday, Trump met with the Chairman and CEO of General Motors.
• On Friday, Trump had no public events scheduled.

Federal judiciary update

• 112 federal judicial vacancies
• 39 pending nominations
• 12 future federal judicial vacancies

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