Nearly a half-dozen bills to reform voting in New Jersey breezed through the state Assembly with bipartisan support and no debate last week — but they face an uncertain future in the state Senate.

Possibly the most significant of the package is legislation that would, among other things, allow mail-in ballots to be processed — but not counted — starting five days before an election in the state.

New Jersey voters got their marquee congressional race Tuesday as former state Senate Republican Leader Tom Kean Jr. and Democratic Rep. Tom Malinowski won their primaries Tuesday, according to projections by the Associated Press.

That sets up what promises to be the state’s hottest congressional battle in this November’s midterm general election: a rematch of 2020, when Malinowski narrowly won re-election over Kean, the son of former Gov. Tom Kean.

An OpenSecrets analysis found a “dark money” group, Opportunity for All Action Fund, has poured almost $600,000 into primaries in New Jersey, Nevada and Illinois from May 17 to June 6, including $76,000 on Facebook ads.

Tom Kean Jr., the son of a popular two-term New Jersey governor, beat six Republican opponents Tuesday to win the nomination to compete against Representative Tom Malinowski, an embattled Democrat accused of ethical lapses, in what is shaping up to be the state’s most competitive midterm contest.

Another son of a storied New Jersey political family, Robert Menendez Jr., easily won a Democratic House primary, making it likely that he and his father and namesake, the state’s senior senator, will serve together in the Capitol.

Rep. Tom Malinowski is already written off by much of the New Jersey political establishment.

The 56-year-old two-term Democrat was reelected in 2020 by just 1 percentage point over his Republican opponent, then-state Sen. Tom Kean Jr. That was before reports surfaced that Malinowski failed to disclose hundreds of thousands of dollars in stock trades, resulting in an ongoing House ethics investigation.

It’s not just that Democrats nationwide are facing historical headwinds — as the party that wins the White House traditionally loses roughly 25 House seats in the ensuing midterm elections — and a very rough political climate dominated by skyrocketing inflation and capsulized by President Biden’s negative approval ratings.

A pair of House candidates in New Jersey will bring serious name recognition when voters decide their political fates in November. 

Democratic House candidate Bob Menendez Jr., is virtually assured of winning his race. But in a nearby district, Republican Tom Kean Jr. is in for a tough fight as he tries to defeat an incumbent lawmaker.

In both cases, their famous fathers are political heavyweights that helped pave the way for the namesakes.

Concern about rising crime is overtaking key elections in California Tuesday, where liberal voters are putting pressure on Democrats around the state to address a growing sense of lawlessness spurred during the pandemic.

In key statewide races and local contests in the Democratic strongholds of San Francisco and Los Angeles, tough-on-crime messaging and calls to remove homeless encampments are taking hold, testing the staying power of the criminal justice reform movement that swept the nation in recent years.

A former member of Donald Trump's cabinet will attempt a return to the U.S. Congress in Montana and California Democrats concerned about crime may oust one of their own as voters head to the polls in midterm primary elections in seven states on Tuesday.

Voters in South Dakota, New Jersey, Iowa, Mississippi and New Mexico will also cast ballots in nominating contests that will set the competitive field for Nov. 8's elections, which will determine control of Congress for the next two years.

Voters in California, the nation’s most populous state, head to the polls on Tuesday to cast ballots in primary elections where the issue of crime is playing an outsized role in many of the key races.

"Murder up 54%. Nearly 1,500 shooting victims. A wave of property crime. There’s one candidate for mayor who can turn it around. Rick Caruso," says the narrator in a TV ad by Caruso, a pro-business billionaire developer who’s running a law-and-order type campaign for Los Angeles mayor.