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NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! EXCLUSIVE: A group working to elect more Republican women to Congress is putting nearly $1 million behind an ad campaign in Iowa and Texas asking voters to support three GOP lawmakers in their state who are pushing for increased U.S. energy production in order to bring down gas prices.Winning For Women, a PAC that pushes for conservative values, is placing the ad buys in Iowa cities Davenport and Cedar Rapids, and in Harlingen, Texas. The lawmakers representing those districts respectively are GOP Reps. Mariannette Miller Meeks, Ashley Hinson and Mayra Flores.The ads, each titled "Pushing Back," are designed to push Americans to support their congresswomen as they work toward urging the Biden administration to restore domestic energy production through pressure campaigns and congressional action.According to the Labor Department, inflation reached a new four-decade high in June, as the price of everyday necessities remains painfully high. Gasoline, on average, costs 59.9% more than it did one year ago and 11.2% more than it did in May.IS THE UNITED STATES ENTERING A RECESSION? Rep. Mayra Flores is the first Republican Latina ever elected to Congress from Texas, and she is also the first female Mexican-born member of the House of Representatives. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)However, White House officials have been quick to dodge responsibility for the rise in prices, arguing at various times that COVID-19, the supply chain crisis and Russia's invasion of Ukraine were to blame. At the same time, administration officials have highlighted the nearly 50-cent decrease in gasoline prices over the past month. In addition, GDP shrank by 0.9% on an annualized basis in the three-month period from April through June, the Commerce Department said in its first reading of the data last week. The Biden administration has also rejected the traditional definition of a recession, two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth, downplaying the report by the Commerce Department.The female GOP lawmakers supported in the PAC's ads have all been vocal about increasing U.S. domestic energy production to bring down gas prices and spur the economy.Hinson introduced a bipartisan bill in March to bring down the cost of biofuels and has been one of the leading lawmakers on the issue; meanwhile, Miller-Meeks has argued in favor of allowing E15 to be available all year long, which she says will support American energy independence.Flores, who recently flipped a traditionally Democratic-held seat in Texas, has questioned the Biden administration's decision to send oil reserves overseas amid the ongoing energy crisis. Hinson introduced a bipartisan bill in March to bring down the cost of biofuels and has been one of the leading lawmakers on the issue. (Photo By Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images) "Liberals in Washington attacked American energy, and now gas prices are higher than ever. Pipelines denied. Permits canceled," says the Wining For Women ads."But Congresswoman Mayra Flores is fighting back. She's pushing to reopen American energy production. Mayra Flores's plan would lower the cost of gas and reduce the strain on family budgets," the ad script states. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP The female GOP lawmakers, including Rep. Miller-Meeks, being supported in the PAC's ads all have been vocal about increasing U.S. domestic energy production to bring down gas prices and spur the economy. (Photo By Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images) "Every time voters fill up their car, they are reminded that liberal legislators have approved policies driving up the price of gas to record highs," said Annie Dickerson, the chair and founder of Winning For Women. "Congresswomen Flores, Hinson, and Miller-Meeks are fighting back to reopen American energy production and help families across the country."Winning For Women has raised more than $11 million so far this cycle and is working to urge "support for sensible energy policies."Fox News' Haris Alic contributed to this report. Kelly Laco is a politics editor for Fox News Digital. Story tips can be sent to Kelly.Laco@Fox.com and on Twitter: @kelly_laco. | US Campaigns & Elections |
After months of flirting with the idea, former President Donald Trump announced his third bid for the White House - and in doing so, the 76-year-old an incredibly small group of former presidents who returned to the campaign trail even after losing a re-election. Needless to say, the move was unusual... however it is not entirely unprecedented. In the pantheon of 46 American presidents, four have attempted a political comeback after a failed re-election — however only one has succeeded: Grover Cleveland. Cleveland ascended to the presidency in 1884, as the first Democrat to win the seat since 1856, ending his party's long exile from the White House. He lost reelection in 1888 to Benjamin Harrison, but won again in 1892; thus becoming the 22nd and 24th president. If Trump succeeds where so many others have failed, he will be the 45th and 47th presidents, however he will have achieved a feat that is perhaps equal to securing the White House: becoming only the second former president to achieve re-election after a failed campaign. The notion has caused historians and pundits alike to comment on the similarities between the two outsize men: both native New Yorkers who started out as political outsiders and nearly had their ambitions derailed by what many believed to be a disqualifying sex scandals. After months of flirting with the idea, former President Donald Trump announced his third bid for the White House in an hour-long speech on Tuesday night from his Mar-a-Lago resort. Where so many have failed, Trump hopes to follow in the footsteps of Grover Cleveland, the only US president to serve two non-consecutive terms Grover Cleveland was the first president to successfully stage a political comeback after a loss, becoming the 22nd and 24th presidents. The notion has caused historians and pundits to comment on the similarities between the two former presidents: both native New Yorkers who started out as political outsiders and nearly had their ambitions derailed by what many believed were disqualifying sex scandalsTwo campaigns marred by sex scandals and a common interest in 'draining the swamp'A former mayor of Buffalo and Governor of New York, Grover Cleveland was the first Democrat to be elected after the Civil War. Though he was hardly an exciting candidate, he proved to be a solid (if sapless) chief executive. Cleveland rose through the ranks on a campaign that promised 'civil service reform' which emphasized a smaller and more efficient government that relies on self-sufficiency and individual responsibility. Cleveland rose through the ranks on a campaign that promised 'civil service reform' which emphasized a smaller and more efficient government that relies on self-sufficiency and individual responsibility. Similarly, Trump's 2016 signature campaign promise was to 'drain the swamp' For the most part, he succeeded in fulfilling his promise by reducing the number of federal employees in departments that he felt had become bloated with redundancy. To his own demise and popularity among constituents, he vigorously pursued a policy that barred special favors to any specific groups. When drought blighted cattle farmers in Texas, Cleveland vetoed a bill that would appropriate $10,000 to distribute seed grain among the stricken field hands. He wrote: 'Federal aid in such cases encourages the expectation of paternal care on the part of the Government and weakens the sturdiness of our national character.' He cracked down on railroads that failed to extend their lines according to government agreements, creating the Interstate Commerce Commission as an oversight committee to regulate the industry.Cleveland also appealed to middle-class voters of both parties as someone who would fight double-dealing in Washington DC and big-money interests. While his Republican opponent in the 1884 election, James G. Blaine (also known as 'Slippery Jim'), was largely thought of as a puppet of Wall Street and the powerful railroads. Similarly, Trump ran on his signature promise to 'drain the swamp' in a pledge to uproot political corruption and install a government that served ordinary Americans, not special interests. In 2016, Trump nicknamed his opponent, 'crooked Hillary [Clinton]' and accused her of benefitting from a rigged system that rewards the well-connected - as lobbyists move between the public and private sectors. In the three weeks before the 2016 election, Trump tweeted 'Drain the swamp' 79 times, but critics of his administration said he did very little to actually deliver on the promise. In a five-point list of proposals he unveiled to tighten rules for lobbying in Washington, only one was fully implemented. (Later during his 2020 reelection bid, Trump was accused of 'pay-to-play' politics when he hosted a $100,000-per-ticket event at his hotel for lobbyists, donors and corporate executives to take turns pitching him their pet issues).Both men took strong positions on immigration. Trump proposed expanding the wall at the Mexican, and bridled legal immigration to the US by imposing a travel ban from Muslim countries: Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen. Comparably, Cleveland renewed the Chinese Exclusion Act that declared Chinese immigrants ineligible for naturalization. Though he vetoed a bill that would have required US immigrants to pass a literacy test, Cleveland felt the cultural differences between America and China would be 'impossible to assimilate' and posed a danger 'to our peace and welfare.' Halfway through the 1884 race, Cleveland's campaign was plagued by a sex scandal when the press discovered that he fathered an illegitimate child out of wedlock. The mother was a widow named Maria Halpin who implied that their relationship was non-consensual in a sworn affidavit. Above was a popular political cartoon run by Cleveland's political opponents at the time. But when the Democrat won the election by a slim margin of 1,200 votes, the chant of 'Ma, ma, where’s my Pa?' was smugly answered with 'Gone to the White House, ha ha ha!' Trump's 2016 campaign was also blighted by various sex scandals. Most notably, his relationship wit to the disgraced financier and infamous pedophile, Jeffrey Epstein During the 2016 election, Trump was accused of sexual misconduct by 24 women including E. Jean Carroll (pictured) who alleged that he raped her in the dressing room of a department store in the 1990sBoth campaigns were beset by salacious sex scandals halfway through the race. Trump was accused of sexual misconduct by 24 women, one of them, named E. Jean Carroll alleged that he raped her in the dressing room of a department store. Also during that time, was the infamous hot mic moment in a former interview with Billy Bush where the president confessed: 'I'm automatically attracted to beautiful women — I just start kissing them, it's like a magnet. Just kiss. I don't even wait. And when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab 'em by the p***y.' For Cleveland, it was revealed that he had an affair with a young widow named Maria Halpin and fathered a child out of wedlock during his bachelor days.A popular political cartoon of the time poked fun at the situation, depicting Cleveland with a woman carrying a baby that said 'Ma, Ma, Where's my Pa.'The story broke to national outrage. One piece in the Chicago Tribune asked: 'It seems to me that a leading question ought to be: do the American people want a common libertine for their president?' Cleveland did his best to get ahead of the scandal. He claimed paternity but painted Halpin as a 'loose' woman who was free with her affections to many of his married friends - and that he was merely aiding her by putting their son in a foster family and having her spirited away to a mental asylum. In reality, Cleveland's involvement was much more nefarious. Halpin claimed that the politician relentlessly pursued her. In a sworn affidavit, she implied that his entry into her bedroom was not consensual and alleged that he 'was forceful and violent.'After the baby was born, Cleveland had Halpin committed to a mental institution under murky circumstances, only to be released two days later when doctors discovered she was of sound mind. Trump lost the popular vote in 2016 by 2.1 percent, but clinched his victory through the electoral college in key battleground states: North Carolina, Florida, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan. Similarly, Cleveland won the popular vote in 1892, but only by a narrow margin of .30 percent. Like today, his win was owed to the tight electoral map, which hinged on swing states.'For Trump, that’s an important lesson. If re-nominated, he could very well win,' said Joshua Zeitz, for Politico. How Trump and Cleveland both dodged war drafts and shared in their predilection for young womenOn a surface level, the two men share a lot of common traits. Like Trump who dodged the Vietnam War on account of a timely bone-spurs diagnoses - Cleveland also avoided military service during the Civil War by hiring a substitute to join the Union Army. (A legal practice at the time). He then managed to elude polarizing political battles at the time over Reconstruction, and glide his way into the Oval Office office during the 1884 election. During his 2016 campaign, a video resurfaced of Trump comparing his sex life in the 1970s, (and the fact that he avoided contracting any STDs), as his 'personal Vietnam.' 'I've been so lucky in terms of that whole world,' he told Howard Stern in 1997. 'It is a dangerous world out there. It's scary, like Vietnam. Sort of like the Vietnam-era.''It is my personal Vietnam. I feel like a great and very brave soldier.'Other commonalities between Cleveland and Trump, are that both share a predilection for young women. Thrice-married Donald Trump has made his weakness for young beautiful women well known. He once owned the Miss America pageant and referred to the fact that he was able to dodge STDs during his wild bachelor days as his own 'personal Vietnam.' Above he is pictured with his wife, former model Melania Trump, and his four eldest children Grover Cleveland is the only sitting president to be married during his presidential term when he wed 21-year-old Frances Folsom at age 49. Cleveland first met Folsom when she was just an infant, as he was a friend of her father's. Later when her father died in 1875, Grover became her unofficial guardian. She is the youngest First Lady in American history Donald's third wide, Melania Trump flirted with the idea of becoming First Lady again in a 2021 interview with Fox News where she was asked if she could see herself back in the White House and she replied: 'Never say never.' Likewise, on Grover Cleveland's final day in office, his wife turned to a member of the White House staff and said: 'I want you to take good care of all the furniture and ornaments in the house, for I want everything just as it is now when we come back again. We are coming back. Just four years from today'Cleveland was a bachelor when he entered the White House, and became the only sitting president to be married during his presidential term when he wed 21-year-old Frances Folsom at age 49. She was the youngest First Lady in American history and the couple had five children together.Some historians have pointed to Trump's propinquity for celebrated beauties having owned the Miss America pageant, and perhaps more scandalously, his friendship with the disgraced pedophile financier, Jeffrey Epstein. Trump has been married three times, first to Ivana Trump, mother of his three eldest children: Donald Jr., Eric, and Ivanka. Their marriage became tabloid fodder when Trump was caught having an affair with 26-year-old beauty queen, Marla Maples.One headline reported that Maples said 'she had the best sex of her life' with Trump and the couple was married in 1993, two months after the birth of their only daughter, Tiffany. The doomed relationship eventually ended in divorce in 1999, and paved the way for Trump's third marriage to Melania Trump, a Slovenian model that he met during his breakup with Maples. Melania officially became wife number three in 2005, and the couple share one son, Barron Trump, born in 2006. From the Tennis Pavilion to the Rose Garden, Mrs. Trump worked on a variety of restoration projects during her tenure as First Lady. By the same token, on Grover Cleveland's final day in office, his young bride turned to a member of the White House staff and said: 'I want you to take good care of all the furniture and ornaments in the house, for I want everything just as it is now when we come back again. We are coming back. Just four years from today.'Four years later, she was right. Only time will tell if Melania will reassert her position at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. In her first sit-down interview since leaving Washington in January 2021, she told Fox News: 'I think we achieved a lot in four years of the Trump administration.' When asked if she could see herself back in the White House, she responded: 'Never say never.' Trump's marriage to his first wife, Ivana Trump ended when he was caught having an affair with 26-year-old beauty queen, Marla Maples Trump's sensational affair to Marla Maples became tabloid fodder when she famously told the press that 'she had the best sex of her life' with Trump. The couple married in 1993, two months after the birth of their only daughter, Tiffany (pictured as a child). Their doomed relationship eventually ended in divorce in 1999, and paved the way for his third marriage to Slovenian model, Melania Trump Despite his close ties to Jeffrey Epstein and convicted sex trafficker, Ghislaine Maxwell, Trump managed to clinch the 2016 election against his Democrat opponent, Hillary Clinton A tale of two election losses: How Cleveland conceded defeat to his political adversary while Trump promoted false claims of election fraud Cleveland was indifferent about running again in 1888. When he won the Democratic primary, he told a friend: 'I sometimes think that perhaps more enthusiasm would have been created if somebody else had been nominated after a lively scrimmage at St. Louis.' His campaign was inevitably hurt by lack of funds and his perceived 'lethargy' throughout the run, which paved the way for his Republican opponent, Benjamin Harrison's victory. Harrison, a former Civil War general and senator from Indiana, was also the grandson of President William Henry Harrison. He lost the popular vote to Cleveland by a small margin (47.9 percent to 48.6 percent) - but won big in the electoral college (233 to 168) which sealed his path to the White House. Unlike Trump, Cleveland accepted his 1888 loss with grace aplomb, in spite of dubious suggestions by his supporters of electoral fraud in the state of Indiana. He wrote a letter to the President-elect indicating his desire 'to assure you of my readiness to do all in my power to make your accession to office easy and agreeable.' And went so far as attending Harrison's rainy inauguration ceremony while holding an umbrella as he delivered his inaugural address. By contrast, Trump lost the popular vote to Biden, 46.8 percent to 51.3 percent and also failed to harness enough votes in the electoral college. He has still yet to accept his 2020 defeat and continues to promote false allegations of election fraud - despite the Supreme Court having rejected a handful of election challenge cases. His public campaign to undermine the validity of the 2020 election culminated on the January 6 insurrection and attack of the U.S. Capitol. Staging a political comeback motivated by boredom In retirement, Cleveland and his wife moved to New York City, where the former president enjoyed card games with friends, attending vaudeville shows and going out to restaurants. He was known to be a gourmand, and weighed approximately 300 pounds.During this time, he also became a father for the first time and told an associate that he felt as though he 'had entered the real world' for the first time.But like many ex-politicians who give up the game to enjoy life as a private citizen, Cleveland quickly grew bored, and according to Politico, 'boredom' was his primary motivation for running a third time. The path to a 2024 victory for Donald Trump seems less clear that Cleveland's in 1892. The ex-commander in chief came under attack by establishment Republicans after the massive 'red wave' failed to materialize in this November's midterm elections. And thus, it remains to be seen what Trump's platform for the 2024 race will entail. If his announcement speech is any indication, combatting inflation seems to be at the top of his prioritiesThe 1890 midterm elections showed promise when his party of Democrats won sweeping victories at the ballot boxes. His Republican opponent, Benjamin Harrison had become deeply unpopular with voters and Cleveland saw a path to re-election. Cleveland overwhelmingly won the primary during the 1892 Democratic convention in Chicago, in part because he emphasized economic stability when the economy was plagued by inflation. According to the Wall Street Journal, the third-time presidential hopeful crawled his way back to the White House by defying his own voters. 'In 1891, as populists agitated to flood the country’s monetary system with silver—'to inflate away the debt burden on Western and Southern Democrats'—Cleveland issued an open letter warning of the policy’s potentially ruinous effects.'The path to a 2024 victory for Donald Trump seems less clear. The ex-commander in chief came under attack by establishment Republicans after the massive 'red wave' failed to materialize in this November's midterm elections.And thus, it remains to be seen what Trump's platform for the 2024 race will entail. But if last night's speech is any indication, combatting inflation seems to be at the top of his priorities.'We are a failing nation for millions of Americans,' he said in his announcement speech. 'The past two years under Joe Biden have been a time of pain, hardship, anxiety and despair. As we speak, inflation is the highest in over 50 years. Gas prices have reached the highest levels in history and expect them to go much higher.' | US Campaigns & Elections |
Unity is rare in politics, as we all know, but there is something partisans agree on: Keep Facebook's and other corporate companies' money out of elections. In a new survey provided exclusively to Secrets, independents, Democrats, and Republicans are against letting outside groups finance elections, including the Mark Zuckerberg-backed groups that helped election agencies in 2020. Sky-high majorities of voters said no to having “government offices that oversee elections be allowed to accept funding for their operations from private individuals and groups such as corporations and political organizations.” In the survey from the Foundation for Government Accountability’s Center for Excellence in Polling, 80% of Republicans, 85% of Democrats, and 83% of independents opposed outside funding like that in the so-called Zuckerbucks scandal. Majorities also backed extra ballot security. Overall: Increased election security was backed by 79%. Having security accompany ballot movement was supported by 73%. Election integrity and security were important to 73%. More than 6-in-10 voters would support “requiring ballot drop boxes to be securely monitored and recorded by video surveillance.” “As we approach a critical midterm election, millions of voters remain very concerned about election integrity and clearly support efforts to strengthen election security in their states,” said Nick Stehle, vice president of communications for the Center for Excellence in Polling. “Our survey results are clear — voters in all parties want secure polling locations, trustworthy absentee voting, impartial watchdogs, and absolutely no special interests getting involved in public elections offices in their states,” Stehle said. His group advocates election reforms in states, and he encouraged lawmakers to push for more ballot and Election Day security to build confidence in the outcomes. “We continue our work in dozens of states to advance legislation that restores Americans’ faith in our elections,” Stehle added. | US Campaigns & Elections |
Reps. Mary Miller of Illinois (left) and Lauren Boebert of Colorado (right) campaigned with former President Donald Trump on Saturday. Both women face competition in their respective primaries. Michael B. Thomas / Getty Images We already took a look at the nine Democratic primaries to watch in a preview yesterday, so now we’re back with the 21 GOP contests to watch tonight, plus a bonus special election. As with most Republican primaries this cycle, almost all the GOP contenders are favorably inclined toward former President Donald Trump, but they vary in just how much they support Trump or his false claims about fraud in the 2020 election. But importantly, Democrats are also meddling in many GOP primaries by spending money to boost the most extreme Republican candidates, aiming to make it easier for Democrats to win in November. Without further ado, let’s tour the high-profile races in Colorado, Illinois, Mississippi, New York, Oklahoma and Utah, along with a special election in Nebraska. We’ll go through the races based on when the polls close, starting with Illinois, which coincidentally also has the most high-profile GOP contests. In recent weeks, state Sen. Darren Bailey has emerged as the front-runner in the GOP gubernatorial primary in Illinois. Michael B. Thomas / Getty ImagesIllinois Races to watch: 6th, 11th, 13th, 14th, 15th and 17th congressional districts; governor Polls close: 8 p.m. Eastern The Land of Lincoln hosts seven notable GOP primaries today, and the party’s contest for governor has attracted easily the most interest and money. Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker, a billionaire who’s given his reelection campaign an eye-popping $125 million, is the likely general election favorite considering how blue Illinois is, but Pritzker is far from the only wealthy person involved. The Republican primary to take on Pritzker is also raft with money: Hedge fund founder Ken Griffin, for instance, has contributed $50 million of the $53 million raised by Aurora Mayor Richard Irvin, who would be Illinois’s first Black governor if elected. And GOP megadonor Richard Uihlein has donated $9 million of the roughly $11 million that state Sen. Darren Bailey has brought in. (Uihlein has also contributed $8 million to a pro-Bailey PAC.) Venture capitalist Jesse Sullivan has also garnered his own wealthy backers, as $11 million of the $12.6 million he’s raised comes from just three donors. Until a few weeks ago, Irvin seemed like the favorite, too. He’d raised the most money, and two surveys released in early May also gave him an edge over Bailey, and Irvin seemed to be making a compelling case to voters that he was a tough-on-crime leader who would clean up state politics. But Bailey and his allies have since turned the tables by portraying Irvin as a closet liberal, while Pritzker and the Democratic Governors Association have spent millions to damage Irvin and boost the more conservative Bailey. The final-ish map of new congressional districts | FiveThirtyEight Politics Podcast Polls now show Bailey ahead of Irvin. Democratic pollster Public Policy Polling has been surveying the race for the Chicago Sun-Times and WBEZ, and both its early and late June polls put Bailey at 32 percent and Irvin in the mid-to-high teens. Meanwhile, two surveys from Ogden & Fry and one poll from the Trafalgar Group, both GOP-aligned pollsters, also found Bailey north of 30 percent and Irvin trailing by double digits (one even had Sullivan ahead of Irvin for second). And on Saturday, Trump endorsed Bailey. In more bad news for Irvin: He pulled back on advertising in Republican-rich southern Illinois and was outspent by his opponents in the final days of the campaign. Moreover, Irvin’s main benefactor has abandoned the state: Griffin announced last week that he is moving his hedge fund from Chicago to Miami. After the gubernatorial clash, the state’s highest-profile GOP primary is the race between Republican Reps. Rodney Davis and Mary Miller in the new 15th District, one of the nation’s six incumbent-versus-incumbent primaries. Illinois Democrats drew an aggressive gerrymander that made Davis’s old district Democratic-leaning and placed half of Miller’s old 15th District in the same seat as the longer-tenured GOP Rep. Mike Bost, so both incumbents opted instead to run in this south-central Illinois district, even though Miller and Davis represent just 31 percent and 28 percent of its constituents, respectively. This race, though, features clear ideological differences that might give Miller the upper hand in a seat that is 42 points more Republican than the country as a whole, according to FiveThirtyEight’s partisan lean metric.1 Not only does Miller have a more conservative voting record, she has the Trumpier resume, having voted against certifying the 2020 presidential results and the creation of a bipartisan commission to investigate the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. She also has the endorsement of Trump, who even campaigned with her at a recent rally where she told the audience that the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade was a “historic victory for white life.” (A campaign aide has said she misspoke and meant to say “right to life,” but Miller is no stranger to controversy, having previously praised Hitler in a speech.) Conversely, Davis has one of the most moderate voting records of any House Republican. He also voted both to certify the 2020 outcome and create a bipartisan Jan. 6 commission. Consequently, Miller and her allies have tagged Davis as a “RINO” — a Republican in name only — while hitting him for backing the commission and reminding voters that Trump supports Miller. Still, Davis has more money than Miller, having raised $3.5 million to her $1.5 million as of June 8. Davis has also attacked Miller’s conservative bona fides by claiming that she “voted with the Squad” on a military spending bill, referring to progressive members of Congress who are mostly women of color. He’s also accused Miller of being soft on immigration and for having used a campaign driver who pleaded guilty in 2005 to luring a young boy for sex. The race’s final two polls suggest it could go either way, although both come from potentially biased sources. Miller’s campaign released a survey in mid-June from Cygnal that found her ahead 45 percent to 40 percent, while Davis led 38 percent to 35 percent in a recent Victory Geek survey conducted on behalf of The Illinoize, a political blog run by a former GOP strategist who once worked for Davis. The 15th District won’t feature a competitive general election, but five other districts that could see hard-fought November contests also have notable Republican primaries. We’ll start with the two seats that are located downstate or outside of the Chicago area. In the 17th District in northwestern Illinois, attorney Esther Joy King is heavily favored to win the GOP nomination over insurance broker Charlie Helmick in the race to succeed retiring Democratic Rep. Cheri Bustos. King, who lost to Bustos by about 4 points in 2020, has the backing of national Republicans and has substantially outraised the six candidates competing for the Democratic nomination. This D+4 district is one of the GOP’s best shots at flipping a Democratic-held seat in Illinois. Meanwhile, Democrats drew the 13th District in south-central Illinois to be a D+7 seat, leading Davis to abandon it. But the GOP could still hold this seat in a Republican-leaning midterm environment. Republicans look likely to pick either former federal prosecutor Jesse Reising or nonprofit president Regan Deering, as they’ve raised the most money and are on the National Republican Congressional Committee’s list of candidates to watch. Both contenders have deep ties to Decatur, as Reising’s family has been there for six generations while Deering’s grandfather led farm products giant Archer-Daniels-Midland while it was based there. Reising might have a slight edge, but it’s difficult to say with no polls available. With $131,000 in the bank, Reising had more money down the stretch than Deering’s $33,000. He’s also garnered support from many local officials in the district and Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, not to mention about $120,000 in outside spending support from Americans for Prosperity. For her part, Deering has the backing of two national organizations working to elect Republican women — Maggie’s List and VIEW PAC — as well as an endorsement from the anti-abortion rights group Illinois Right to Life. The winner will likely face former Biden administration official Nikki Budzinski in November. Three suburban-exurban seats located around Chicago could also be in play. Most of the attention in the 6th District is focused on the Democratic primary between incumbent Reps. Sean Casten and Marie Newman, but Republicans could make a play for this D+6 seat split between Cook and DuPage counties. The leading GOP contenders appear to be two mayors, Gary Grasso of Burr Ridge and Keith Pekau of Orland Park, although attorney Scott Kaspar is also in the mix. Grasso has led the way in fundraising with $621,000, compared with Pekau’s $375,000 and Kaspar’s $266,000, although Grasso gave his campaign $250,000 to achieve that advantage. Pekau has also received some outside support from the conservative Restoration PAC, which has spent $100,000 promoting him. Yet while Grasso and Pekau have both accepted the 2020 election result, Kaspar has raised doubts about the outcome, helping position himself as arguably the Trumpiest candidate in the race. Kaspar has also visited Trump’s club at Mar-a-Lago and has the support of former Trump attorney and New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani. We have no polling to go on here, so it’s hard to say how this primary will play out. On the western outskirts of Chicagoland, Republicans hope the national environment will help them capture the 14th District, a D+7 seat helmed by Democratic Rep. Lauren Underwood and her $2.4 million war chest. But it’s anyone’s guess as to who will come out on top among the four notable Republicans in the race: Kendall County Board Chair Scott Gryder, conservative radio host Mike Koolidge, businessman Jack Lombardi and Kendall County GOP Chair Jim Marter. No candidate had more than $35,000 in the bank heading into the final weeks of the campaign, and outside groups haven’t invested here. Gryder has attracted a large number of endorsements from current or former local and state elected officials, but Koolidge did just receive the endorsement of Republican Rep. Darin LaHood, and Marter has the backing of the aforementioned Rep. Mary Miller. Finally, the GOP field seems easier to handicap next door in the D+10 11th District, as former Trump administration official Catalina Lauf appears to be the favorite to take on Democratic Rep. Bill Foster in a “reach” seat for Republicans. Lauf has raised $1.4 million, far more than any of her five Republican opponents. Lauf narrowly lost a primary for Underwood’s seat back in 2020 and garnered an appearance at the 2020 Republican National Convention that promoted her as a conservative Hispanic woman. But Jerry Evans, a Christian missionary, has raised some money and actually entered the final stretch of the race with more in the bank than Lauf, so she might not have smooth sailing to the GOP nomination. Mississippi Rep. Michael Guest has unexpectedly found himself in a primary runoff and could lose his seat. Rogelio V. Solis / AP PhotoMississippi Races to watch: 3rd and 4th congressional districts Polls close: 8 p.m. Eastern Back on June 7, no one got a majority in two Republican primaries for U.S. House in Mississippi, requiring runoff elections three weeks later. One of these runoffs was expected; the other came as a total surprise. The expected one was in the 4th Congressional District, where Rep. Steven Palazzo is under investigation for allegedly spending nearly $200,000 in campaign funds on himself and his wife. Consequently, he got only 32 percent of the vote in the primary, only 7 percentage points ahead of the second-place finisher, Jackson County Sheriff Mike Ezell. Even worse for Palazzo, all five of the other Republicans in the primary who didn’t advance to the runoff quickly endorsed Ezell, so it seems likely that the anti-incumbent vote will coalesce around him. Meanwhile, the surprise runoff comes from the 3rd Congressional District, where former Navy pilot Michael Cassidy finished ahead of Rep. Michael Guest in the primary, 48 percent to 47 percent. There was little sign before the primary that the Republican base was unhappy with Guest, but the staunchly pro-Trump Cassidy had been slamming the incumbent for his vote to create the Jan. 6 commission, and it apparently resonated. Now that the cat’s out of the bag, though, the cavalry is coming to Guest’s rescue. The Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC affiliated with House GOP leadership, has spent more than $400,000 against Cassidy, attacking him for briefly supporting Medicare for All. Guest has also blasted Cassidy for being a recent transplant to Mississippi. And unlike in the 4th District, the third-place finisher from the Republican primary is actually supporting the incumbent in this runoff. So Guest looks like a better bet than Palazzo to survive, but it’s still possible that either or both of them will join the list of incumbent congressmen going down in defeat on Tuesday. One thing is for sure, though: Whoever wins the Republican runoffs will almost certainly win the general elections in these deeply red seats. Former state House speaker T.W. Shannon is running in Oklahoma’s crowded U.S. Senate special election. He’s likely to face Rep. Markwayne Mullin in an August runoff. Paul Weaver / Sipa USA via AP ImagesOklahoma Races to watch: U.S. Senate special election, 2nd Congressional District Polls close: 8 p.m. Eastern Oklahoma has two Republican primaries to monitor, both of which will probably go to a runoff on Aug. 23. First, the special election for Senate has attracted a baker’s dozen of candidates aiming to succeed Republican Sen. Jim Inhofe, who announced in February that he would resign at the end of the current Congress. And because Oklahoma is a deep-red state, the eventual GOP nominee will be a mortal lock to win in November. (The regular election for Oklahoma’s other Senate seat is also taking place, but Republican Sen. James Lankford appears on his way to easily winning renomination and the general election.) The front-runner in the special election is Rep. Markwayne Mullin, who has raised the most money ($3 million, $1 million via a candidate loan) and had $1.1 million in the bank heading into the final weeks of the campaign. Mullin also garnered just shy of 40 percent in two recent surveys, one from Amber Integrated and another from News 9/News On 6/SoonerPoll, that put him well ahead of the rest of the field but short of the majority required to avoid a runoff. Mullin has a solidly pro-Trump record, having voted against certifying the 2020 election result, in addition to introducing legislation to expunge Trump’s impeachments. His “fighter” profile may also be appealing to voters: As a former mixed martial artist, Mullin is a member of the Oklahoma chapter of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame, and he drew headlines last year when he attempted to enter Afghanistan to evacuate a group of Americans. In the race for second place is former state House speaker T.W. Shannon, the first Black person to hold that office. Shannon placed second in recent polls, and he has raised $961,000 while also benefiting from $1.7 million in outside spending by a super PAC supporting his bid. Four others are chasing Shannon for the other potential runoff slot, though: state Sen. Nathan Dahm, Inhofe’s chief of staff Luke Holland, former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt and physician Randy Grellner. Dahm has raised only $374,000, but Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul’s super PAC has splashed $1 million on his behalf. Holland, who has Inhofe’s endorsement, has brought in $1.2 million and has also received $572,000 in outside support. Pruitt hasn’t raised much money, but the former Oklahoma attorney general was part of Trump’s cabinet, where he was beset with ethics scandals while pursuing a deregulatory agenda. Finally, Grellner hasn’t polled much support, but he has donated $1 million to his campaign and has attacked Shannon for being too cozy with casino magnates and the other candidates for being “career politicians.” That said, the fragmented field might help Shannon stay ahead. Meanwhile, Mullin’s Senate bid has also opened up the 2nd District in eastern Oklahoma, one of the reddest seats in the country at R+55. This contest has attracted 14 Republican contenders, too, making a runoff likely. And notably, most of the major candidates have self-funded a great deal: About $1.9 million (60 percent) of the $3.1 million raised by the entire field has come from candidate loans to their own campaigns. 6 incumbents could lose primaries on June 28 | FiveThirtyEight Politics Podcast There seem to be nine candidates of significance, although we have no polling to differentiate them. The leading fundraiser is energy businessman Guy Barker, who is also secretary-treasurer of the Quapaw Nation (eastern Oklahoma has a sizable Native American population). But Barker has loaned himself nearly all of the $821,000 he’s raised. Pharmacy executive Chris Schiller doesn’t have as much money on hand, but he’s raised the most from contributors ($365,000); he also loaned himself $250,000. Three current state legislators are also in the race: state Rep. Avery Frix, state Sen. Marty Quinn and state Rep. Dustin Roberts. Frix has raised the third-most in the field with $417,000 (helped by $245,000 in self-funding) while Roberts and Quinn have raised roughly $160,000 and $200,000, respectively, with each throwing in around $25,000 from their own pockets. Both Frix and Schiller have especially played up their support for Trump in recent ads. Meanwhile, former state Sen. Josh Brecheen has mostly made his mark via $597,000 on ads sponsored by the School Freedom Fund, a super PAC affiliated with the conservative Club for Growth that supports giving taxpayer money for school choice. Former Oklahoma GOP chairman Rep. John Bennett is also running, and he’s been a lightning rod, once comparing COVID-19 vaccine mandates to the persecution of Jews in Nazi Germany. Additionally, Muskogee Police Chief Johnny Teehee and Cherokee Tribal Councilor Wes Nofire are two other contenders with connections to the Native American community. Considering the size of the field, it’s nigh impossible to handicap favorites, so this could be a wild one. Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters lost her job managing elections in her home county because she allegedly tampered with voting machines, but she still stands a good chance of winning the GOP primary for Colorado secretary of state. McKenzie Lange / The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel via APColorado Races to watch: U.S. Senate; 3rd, 5th, 7th and 8th congressional districts; governor; secretary of state Polls close: 9 p.m. Eastern Colorado is another busy state for Republicans, with three statewide and four congressional primaries to watch. Each state-level race appears to favor Democrats in the D+6 state, but the contests could become more — or less — competitive depending on whom Republicans nominate. This is perhaps most true in the Senate primary, where state Rep. Ron Hanks and businessman Joe O’Dea are battling for the GOP nomination to take on two-term Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet. Hanks, a fervent denier of the 2020 election, has attracted support from conservative elements in the GOP, but whether he has the resources to win statewide is an open question. Hanks qualified for the ballot via the activist-dominated pre-primary convention, but as of June 8, he had raised a piddling $125,000. O’Dea, meanwhile, chose to qualify for the ballot by petition rather than by the pre-primary convention route, and he’s raised $2.3 million, including $500,000 in self-funding. But Democrats have tried to boost Hanks in the belief that he would be a much weaker general election candidate than O’Dea, especially considering Bennet has about $7 million in his campaign account. For instance, the super PAC Democratic Colorado has spent $2 million opposing Hanks, funding anti-Hanks ads clearly meant to encourage Republican voters to support the “too conservative” Hanks. Meanwhile, the same super PAC has spent $2 million on ads portraying O’Dea as supportive of President Biden and Democrats. The only primary poll we’ve seen, though, is an O’Dea-sponsored survey conducted by Public Opinion Strategies that found O’Dea leading Hanks 38 percent to 14 percent. However, that survey was conducted before most of the recent spending. That said, one wrinkle that might help O’Dea is that Colorado allows registered independents to vote in party primaries, and with zero contested statewide Democratic primaries on the ballot this year, some moderate independents might vote in the Republican primary, which could boost O’Dea. Colorado’s Senate primary isn’t the only race where we’ve seen Democratic meddling. The GOP primary for governor, where University of Colorado Regent Heidi Ganahl faces businessman Greg Lopez for the right to challenge Democratic Gov. Jared Polis in November, has also caught Democrats’ attention. Ganahl, the only Republican statewide-elected official in Colorado, is a stronger fundraiser than Lopez — she’s raised about $1 million to Lopez’s $123,000 — and would likely be the GOP’s better general election choice. But Democrats would prefer to take on Lopez, another 2020 election denier. A Democratic super PAC funded in part by the DGA has spent $1.5 million on television and internet ads aimed at — stop me if you’ve heard this before — portraying Lopez as “too conservative” for Colorado. There’s no primary polling available, but Lopez could make things interesting, given the spending by Democrats and his Trumpy profile (Ganahl has accepted the 2020 election result). Still, Lopez doesn’t have an auspicious track record, having won only 13 percent in the 2018 Republican primary for governor. Ganahl also has taken steps to protect her right flank, calling for the rollback of state laws protecting abortion rights and appearing at the Western Conservative Summit, a conference featuring many far-right and conspiracy-theorist voices. Regardless of who wins, though, the eventual GOP nominee will face an uphill battle against Polis, who has a fairly strong approval rating in the state and great personal wealth to help fund his campaign. The other statewide race on our radar is the Republican primary for secretary of state, which involves Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters, former Jefferson County Clerk Pam Anderson and nonprofit leader Mike O’Donnell. (The eventual winner will face Democratic Secretary of State Jena Griswold in November.) This office oversees state elections, and it looks like Republicans might nominate Peters, a candidate who has not only promoted debunked conspiracy theories about the 2022 election, but whom state courts removed from managing the elections in her home county because of breaches in election security, which also resulted in 10 indictments against her. In other words, she cannot do the job at home that she now wants to do for all of Colorado. Yet Peters could very well win the GOP nomination. We don’t have any polling, but she advanced out of the pre-primary convention with 61 percent to O’Donnell’s 39 percent (Anderson qualified via petition). Peters has also outraised her opponents, bringing in $175,000 compared with $112,000 for Anderson and $55,000 for O’Donnell. It may also help that she has two opponents potentially splitting the anti-Peters vote. For her part, Anderson accepts the 2020 election result and has promised to bring greater professionalism to the office, while O’Donnell won’t say whether the 2020 result was legitimate and wants to undo some of Colorado’s recent expansion of voting access. Four U.S. House primaries are also on our watchlist, two of which are open-seat races in competitive seats. To start, the GOP has a good shot at picking up the new 8th District north of Denver, an R+3 seat, and Republican voters there will choose among state Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer, Thornton Mayor Jan Kulmann, Weld County Commissioner Lori Saine and retired Army Green Beret Tyler Allcorn. We lack polling, but the fundraising numbers portend a fairly wide-open race. Kulman has led with $470,000, followed by Allcorn’s $349,000 (about half self-funded), Kirkmeyer’s $338,000 and Saine’s $297,000 (a little over a quarter self-funded). Kirkmeyer may have the financial upper hand, however, thanks to $531,000 in outside spending support from Americans for Prosperity and a super PAC backing her candidacy. Once again, Democrats are also trying to boost the Republican they view as easiest to beat: Saine, who has dabbled in election conspiracies and has used messaging like “The Biden-Harris-Schumer-Pelosi gang’s Socialist-Communist Agenda” in election materials. Democratic outside groups House Majority PAC and 314 Action have spent $251,000 either ostensibly attacking Saine as “way too conservative” or even supporting her. Kirkmeyer has been ensnared in this, too, as 314 Action has run ads attacking her for not supporting Trump or his election lies — Kirkmeyer has accepted the 2020 election outcome — while a Kirkmeyer ally spent $80,000 attacking both Saine and Kulman as “liberals.” However it plays out, the eventual Republican nominee will meet Democratic state Rep. Yadira Caraveo in what should be a very competitive general election. Colorado’s other competitive seat is the D+6 7th District west of Denver, which is open following Democratic Rep. Ed Perlmutter’s retirement. GOP primary voters will pick from economist Tim Reichert, former oil and gas executive Erik Aadland and former state legislative candidate Laurel Imer. Reichert has the most money, having raised $1 million (half from his own pocket), and he’s used his background in economics and business to criticize high inflation. Aadland, meanwhile, has raised $492,000 (around a quarter self-funded) and has highlighted his experience as an Army veteran, support for border security and the Second Amendment. Finally, Imer has raised only $87,000 but has portrayed herself as the Trumpiest candidate in the field. Reichert is probably the favorite — national Republicans are keeping an eye on him — but we have no polling to suggest which candidate is most likely to face Democratic state Sen. Brittany Pettersen. Two incumbent Republicans also have notable primary challengers. First, Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert faces state Sen. Don Coram in the GOP primary for the 3rd District, an R+15 seat covering western and southern Colorado. Boebert has courted controversy since winning in 2020 and has drawn a ton of eyeballs doing it, raising $5 million for her campaign. Although Boebert has a simmering scandal involving mileage reimbursement from her campaign account, she’s a clear favorite over Coram, who has raised just $229,000. The election deniers dominating the primaries in Colorado | FiveThirtyEight But the state senator is trying an unorthodox primary approach — he’s promising to bring people together and reduce partisan animosity. An unusually large number of Democratic registered voters in the district have switched to independent, perhaps a sign that they intend to vote in the GOP primary against Boebert. However, as we’ve discussed in Rep. Liz Cheney’s reelection battle, that probably won’t make a difference unless Coram can win over a lot more Republicans than we expect. The most endangered GOP incumbent is eight-term Rep. Doug Lamborn, who represents the R+18 5th District around Colorado Springs. Lamborn’s main primary opponent is state Rep. Dave Williams, although businessman Andrew Heaton and Navy veteran Rebecca Keltie are also running. Despite sporting a strongly conservative record, Lamborn won barely more than 50 percent of the vote in his 2014 and 2018 primaries, and he faces an ethics investigation over his alleged use of official resources for personal matters. So there might be an opening for Williams, who has promised to be a conservative fighter in Congress. Although Williams has only raised about $196,000 (about half of which is self-funded), Lamborn has brought in $353,000, which is meager for an incumbent. The Lamborn-Williams race has turned ugly, too. Lamborn had planned to compete at the pre-primary convention in early April, but he then claimed there were “troubling irregularities” that suggested the El Paso County GOP was working to help Williams, so Lamborn instead qualified for the primary via petition. The local party chairwoman, a Williams ally, excoriated Lamborn for withdrawing from the convention and his accusations of malfeasance. Then in early June, Lamborn started running ads saying the Trump 2020 campaign in Colorado had fired Williams, which led Williams to demand TV stations stop airing the ad. Williams has since fired back with an ad attacking Lamborn for lying and promoting Williams as a pro-Trump candidate. With multiple challengers in the race, Lamborn may survive again, but there’s a path for Williams to topple the incumbent. Rudy Giuliani’s son, Andrew, has emerged as a contender in the New York Republican gubernatorial primary. Andrew Lichtenstein / Corbis via Getty ImagesNew York Races to watch: Governor Polls close: 9 p.m. Eastern Let’s be clear: Republicans are very unlikely to win the governorship of New York this year. The state has a FiveThirtyEight partisan lean of D+20, and both Inside Elections and the Cook Political Report rate the race as “Solid” Democratic. However, the GOP gubernatorial primary for still has a couple of interesting names that make it worth watching. On paper, Rep. Lee Zeldin should be the runaway favorite; he has raised more money from individual contributions than any other Republican (about $10 million), and he has the official backing of the state Republican Party. However, former Trump aide Andrew Giuliani — Rudy’s son — is a wild card. He has raised less than a million dollars, but a recent Siena College poll found that he had higher name recognition and a higher net favorability rating2 than Zeldin among Republicans. (Fifty percent of New York Republicans viewed Giuliani favorably, versus 28 percent who viewed him unfavorably; for Zeldin, that split was 36 percent versus 21 percent.) Giuliani is also the Trumpiest candidate in the field. He has said that he believes Trump was the true winner of the 2020 election, while Zeldin has been wishy-washy on the issue. By contrast, only one candidate has affirmed that Biden fairly won the election: businessman Harry Wilson. Wilson is also an interesting figure: a pro-choice “Rockefeller Republican,” the sort who used to succeed in New York politics. If he were to win the nomination, he’s the one candidate who might actually make the general election competitive — but despite spending almost $11 million of his own money on his campaign, he has had trouble appealing to an increasingly uncompromising Republican electorate. According to an Emerson College poll conducted June 9-10, Zeldin had 34 percent support in the primary, former Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino had 16 percent, Wilson had 15 percent, and Giuliani had 13 percent. However, the most recent poll — conducted June 15-20 by SurveyUSA for WHEC-TV and WNYT-TV — showed Zeldin and Giuliani in a dead heat, 25 percent to 23 percent. We will see on Tuesday night whether that poll is an outlier or picked up on a real trend. Sen. Mike Lee should win renomination on Tuesday, but he faces two notable challengers who could cut into his margin. Chris Samuels / The Salt Lake Tribune via APUtah Races to watch: U.S. Senate, 1st Congressional District Polls close: 10 p.m. Eastern Incumbent Mike Lee shouldn’t have much trouble getting renominated to the U.S. Senate, but with former Republican presidential candidate Evan McMullin running against him as an independent in the general election, it will be interesting to see how much support Lee’s primary opponents draw. The most recent poll of the race is from all the way back in May, but it showed Lee receiving only 49 percent of the vote, with his opponents getting a combined 25 percent and 26 percent undecided — hardly an indication that Republicans are united behind him. Lee’s opponents, former state Rep. Becky Edwards and businesswoman Ally Isom, largely share Lee’s | US Campaigns & Elections |
I regret to inform you that it’s election season again.With the midterms approaching in November, US politics junkies will soon find themselves sucked back into a familiar pattern: devouring news reports on the latest polls, comparing polling averages, and compulsively refreshing election forecast models until the trend lines burn into their brains.But can these news obsessives trust the numbers they’re seeing?There was a stretch when it seemed as though the new science of election forecasting—aggregating all the polls, applying statistical techniques, and adjusting with other types of economic and historical data—could accurately predict what would happen every four years. Nate Silver, founder of FiveThirtyEight and granddaddy of this modern discipline, famously nailed the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections.Courtesy of W. W. Norton & CompanyThen came 2016, when the polls failed to capture support for Donald Trump among working-class voters. After that debacle, the polling industry vowed not to get fooled again. So what happened in 2020? The polls failed to capture support for Donald Trump among working-class voters. What had been forecast as a comfortable victory for Joe Biden ended up a squeaker in the Electoral College, with Biden prevailing by superthin margins in crucial swing states where polls had exaggerated his advantage.G. Elliott Morris is a data journalist at The Economist, where he runs the magazine’s election forecasting operation—a skill he honed as an undergraduate. His model gave Biden a 97 percent chance of victory in 2020 and predicted he’d win 356 electoral votes. (He won only 306.) In a new book, Strength In Numbers, Morris acknowledges the failures of polling over the years but argues that polls remain crucial for democracy. This week, he spoke to WIRED about what went wrong in the last election, how hard it is to predict what will go wrong next time, and why the answer to bad polls is for everyone to just trust them a little bit less.WIRED: In 2016, famously, the polls were pretty badly off. In 2020, they were pretty badly off again, in almost the exact same way. What’s our best understanding of what went wrong?G. Elliott Morris: In any year, pollsters suffer from a fundamental problem: The types of people they talk to may not be representative of the entire population. They could talk to too many white voters, too many non-college-educated voters, too many poor or rich voters.Coming out of 2016, it seemed like the consensus was, “Oops, we didn’t include enough non-college white voters. So if we correct for that, we should be good.” That was the narrative heading into 2020, wasn’t it?In 2016, there were higher levels of polarization by education than there ever had been before, with bigger gaps between how non-college and college-educated people were voting. Some pollsters knew to take that into account—to make sure that their polls had the right percentage of non-college-educated voters—but not all pollsters did that. And so you ended up with these errors from polls where the sample was too educated. And because education has become correlated with vote choice, they ended up overstating Democratic support in 2016.Going into 2020, I think a naive reading of the polls would have suggested, “Okay, if you weight by education, then you’ll be fine.” And that's the position some people took. But we had a new type of error in 2020 called non-response error, where Republicans who were particularly likely to support Donald Trump were also the ones who were particularly unlikely to respond to surveys. So even if you had the right composition of demographics, of education, you were still going to undersample those Republicans.In other words, even if you’re weighting for non-college-educated voters, what you don’t realize is you’re not getting a representative sample of them.Right. Some pollsters in 2020 were even weighting to make sure their polls had the right sample of 2016 Trump supporters and 2016 Clinton supporters. But they ran into the same problem. It could be that the 2016 Trump supporters who respond are the ones who are less likely to support Trump now, and that makes your poll biased toward the Democrats.Heading into the midterms, how likely are we to get more accurate results than last time?Because polls in 2016, 2018, and 2020 were all biased toward Democrats, the assumption is that that’s going to happen this year. But there’s no inherent reason that patterns of non-response would stay the same between these two elections. There's a theory that because Donald Trump was telling his supporters that polls were fake news or whatever, then they were less likely to respond to surveys in those years. But there's really no way to know for sure why this pattern happened. Therefore, we don’t know if it’s going to persist into the future.So I can’t sit here and tell you that polls are going to be biased toward the Republicans this year. The only really good prediction is that we’re still in an environment where non-response by party plays a big role in how accurate a poll or a polling average is going to be. And so we should still be expecting a higher probability of big misses than we would have expected back when polling response rates were higher, and you had to do less work to your sample to make it representative.So we should just anticipate a higher probability of systemic polling misses, and the public and the media should be setting expectations accordingly.Yeah. In my book, I argue that the press and the public should have lower expectations for polls than they did in 2016 or 2020. This expectation that polls on average are going to provide an unbiased prediction of an election, or maybe have an error of at most 3 or 4 percent, is wrong. We are so sorted by party, beyond what our demographics suggest about who you’re going to vote for, that weighting by party or doing some other adjustment to make sure you have a politically representative poll is more important than ever—but it’s a very hard task.You can’t just look at people’s party affiliations, because a lot of people are Republican voters, but they’re registered Independent or they’re not registered with any party, and the same for Democratic voters.And you don’t even have party registration in every state. Wisconsin, for example, doesn't have party registration. And even where there is, the people who register as a Republican aren’t always Republican voters. That just might be what they originally registered as, but they’re now reliable Democrats and just never updated.How do we in the media contribute to misinterpretation of polling data?Let’s think of a hypothetical. Maybe a polling organization releases two polls: one a month ago showing Democrats ahead by five, and one today showing they’re only up two. Then a political pundit reports, “There's been a three-percentage-point move toward Republicans over the last month.” Nope. Any pollster will tell you, we actually don’t know whether that's real movement because it’s within the margin of error. If you must write this horse-race piece, explain that you don’t really know what's going on.Reporting on polls and forecasts can actually affect election outcomes. There’s a strong case that James Comey’s announcement just before the 2016 election, that the FBI was reopening the Hillary Clinton email investigation, was enough to tip the election in the final week. Comey later said that he had been sure Hillary would win, and so he didn’t think his actions would meddle with the results. More generally, maybe if Democratic voters hadn’t been as confident as they were, some people who didn’t bother to vote would have cast a ballot. What responsibility do pollsters and forecasters have, given that in predicting the outcome, you could actually affect the outcome?There’s been one notable study on the impact of election forecasting probabilities on voter turnout. It was an experiment where people were told the probability of their candidate winning, and then given the chance to donate money to that candidate. The researchers concluded that the higher the win probability, the less motivated people were to spend. The results suggested that if people were reading election forecasts that say 99 percent Hillary Clinton instead of, let’s say, 70 percent Hillary Clinton, then turnout would have decreased by, like, two percentage points. Now, that’s not nothing. That’s a couple million people. That’s certainly enough to change the election outcome. But it’s still only one study. We don’t know whether that holds true for actual voting behavior. And even that estimate comes with a margin of error.Plus, we know that during campaigns, the most common candidate behavior is to insist you’re winning even if you’re losing. That suggests there’s at least a folk wisdom that people are going to be more likely to vote for you if they believe that you’re the winner, which kind of cuts against what I was just suggesting.Yeah. I think there’s a tendency among critics of election forecasts to insist that it changes outcomes, that it’s dangerous. I’m not convinced of that. I do think it’s plausible, so I think it deserves more research. And I’ve worked with the people who are doing this research. I don’t want to shut it down. But I also think some of the critics are a bit too convinced of these effects.The other important thing I’ll say is, if the Comey quote is true, then actually he needed to listen to good election forecasts that showed the number was more like 70 percent. So that becomes an argument for further forecasts.Well, what is a “good” forecast? If we go back to 2016, as you say, Nate Silver’s forecast gave Trump a 30 percent chance of winning. Other models pegged Trump's chances at more like 1 percent or low single digits. The sense is that, because Trump won, Nate Silver was, therefore, “right.” But of course, we can’t really say that. If you say something has a 1-in-100 chance of happening, and it happens, that could mean you underrated it, or it could just mean the 1-in-100 chance hit.This is the problem with figuring out whether election forecasting models are tuned correctly to real-world events. Going back to 1940, we have only 20 presidential elections in our sample size. So there’s no real statistical justification for a precise probability here. 97 versus 96—it’s insanely hard with our limited test size to know whether these things are being calibrated correctly to 1 percent. This entire exercise is much more uncertain than the press, I think, leads the consumers of polls and forecasts to believe.In your book, you talk about Franklin Roosevelt’s pollster, who was an early genius of polling—but even his career, eventually, went up in flames later on, right?This guy, Emil Hurja, was Franklin Roosevelt’s pollster and election forecaster extraordinaire. He devised the first kind of aggregate of polls, the first tracking poll. A really fascinating character in the story of polling. He’s crazy accurate at first. In 1932 he predicts that Franklin Roosevelt is going to win by 7.5 million votes, even though other people are forecasting that Roosevelt’s going to lose. He wins by 7.1 million votes. So Hurja is better calibrated than the other pollsters at the time. But then he flops in 1940, and then later he’s basically as accurate as your average pollster.In investing, it’s hard to beat the market over a long period of time. Similarly, with polling, you have to rethink your methods and your assumptions constantly. Even though early on Emil Hurja is getting called “the Wizard of Washington” and “the Crystal Gazer of Crystal Falls, Michigan,” his record slips over time. Or maybe he just got lucky early on. It’s hard after the fact to know whether he was really this genius predictor.I bring this up because—well, I’m not trying to scare you, but it may be that your biggest screw-up is somewhere in the future, yet to come.That’s sort of the lesson here. What I want people to think about is, just because the polls were biased in one direction for the past couple of elections doesn’t mean they're going to be biased the same way for the same reasons in the next election. The smartest thing we can do is read every single poll with an eye toward how that data was generated. Are these questions worded properly? Is this poll reflective of Americans across their demographic and political trends? Is this outlet a reputable outlet? Is there something going on in the political environment that could be causing Democrats or Republicans to answer the phone or answer online surveys at higher or lower rates than the other party? You have to think through all these possible outcomes before you accept the data. And so that is an argument for treating polls with more uncertainty than the way we’ve treated them in the past. I think that’s a pretty self-evident conclusion from the past couple of elections. But more importantly, it’s truer to how pollsters arrive at their estimates. They are uncertain estimates at the end of the day; they’re not ground truth about public opinion. And that’s how I want people to think about it. | US Campaigns & Elections |
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Democrat Beto O'Rourke on Friday reported raising nearly $32 million in his bid for Texas governor during the first half of 2022, more than Republican Gov. Greg Abbott and a haul that puts their race on track to smash spending records in November's midterm elections.The new figures, released as campaign finance reports were due in Texas, put Abbott in the rare position of finding himself outraised. For nearly a decade, the two-term incumbent has pulled in more money than any governor in U.S. history, a stockpile that has overwhelmed rivals and kept challengers at bay.Abbott has raised more than $30 million since the beginning of the year — a significant total even by his big-money track record, and only slightly less than O'Rourke. Abbott also still holds an advantage with money to spend, reporting more than $46 million in cash on hand as of June 30.But the narrowing gap underlines O'Rourke's durability as a fundraising powerhouse and how money is pouring into high-profile governor's races even as inflation and President Joe Biden's sagging approval creates strong headwinds for Democrats with voters.In Georgia, another red state that Democrats are aggressively trying to flip, Democrat Stacey Abrams last week reported raising $22 million over the previous two months, far outpacing incumbent Republican Gov. Brian Kemp.“We are building a grassroots campaign to reach voters across Texas and WIN on the night of November 8," O'Rourke tweeted.O'Rourke said he raised more than $27 million during the most recent fundraising period between February and June. During that span, there was a mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde and Texas outlawed virtually all abortions after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.O'Rourke sharpened his attacks on Abbott after both events, calling for new firearm restrictions that the two-term governor does not support and reinstating abortion access. Abbott, meanwhile, has kept a heavy focus on expanding his massive security operation on the U.S.-Mexico border as the number of migrants entering the county remains high.During the same four-month period, Abbott's campaign said it raised nearly $25 million.O'Rourke remains an underdog in Texas, where no Democrat has won a statewide race in nearly 30 years. Former President Donald Trump carried Texas by 5.5 points in 2020, and some recent public polling has given Abbott a roughly similar lead.Texas has no limits on campaign contributions.O'Rourke said he received more than 511,000 contributions during the latest fundraising period. That's more than four times as many as Abbott, who reported 113,000 contributions and whose campaigns have long been supercharged by six- and seven-figure donations from wealthy Texas executives.The numbers reported by both campaigns, which were made ahead of campaign finance filings becoming publicly available, did not break down the largest donors."As we move into the heat of the summer campaign, we’re well positioned to fund all our campaign efforts,” Gardner Pate, chairman of Abbott's campaign, said in a statement. | US Campaigns & Elections |
U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock kicked off a busy day of campaigning on Saturday in the final weekend ahead of the runoff election with a rally featuring some of the nation’s largest labor unions.Those representing Unite Here, a union for hospitality industry workers, wore red and black. The Service Employees International Union workers were clad in purple. And the Amalgamated Transit Union members wore blue shirts that said in yellow and white: “We’re riding with Warnock.”While Warnock had three public events scheduled, his opponent, Republican Herschel Walker, announced none.Walker did attend tailgating outside the SEC Championship football game in Atlanta, but he did not speak or take questions from the media who followed him there. Instead, the University of Georgia football icon mingled with fans clad in the school’s signature red and black before the game against LSU at Mercedes-Benz Stadium.Some of the union members who came to the downtown rally for Warnock had traveled from out of state to knock on doors and make phone calls on his behalf ahead of election day. Liz Shuler, national president of the AFL-CIO, an umbrella organization for 58 unions comprised of 12.5 million members, said “they’re fed up, they’re fired up and they’re ready to go.”Warnock, a Democrat, had proven himself as a friend of unions and deserved another term in Washington, Shuler said.“His opponent would like to see us poor and divided, and we can’t let that stand,” she said. “We know Senator Warnock supports our freedoms; we know his opponent supports werewolves.”Douglasville resident James Riley brought his two young sons to the rally, attending with other members of the Black Male Initiative Fund. He said it was important that his sons see him involved in the political process.“I just wanted my boys to be a part of this so they can be out here with Mr. Warnock and, when they get older, I can show them the pictures from today and let them know that this is part of your civic duty,” he said. “Raise awareness, and when it’s your turn, you gotta vote.”Riley said there are Black man who are discouraged after supporting Stacey Abrams in 2018 and 2022 in the governor’s race only to see her lose both times to Brian Kemp, but he tells them every vote counts and not to give up.“You have to play to win,” he said. “You don’t play; you can’t win.”Warnock’s second Saturday event in the Augusta suburb Hephzibah will feature his U.S. Senate counterpart and fellow Democrat, Jon Ossoff.Ossoff will also speak at an evening rally in Atlanta specifically targeting the Asian American-Pacific Islander community and young voters. Several members of the U.S. House Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus were also scheduled to attend.But the event also features a list of celebrities that include K-pop star Eric Nam, actor and activist Daniel Dae Kim and talk show host Jeannie Mai Jenkins.Walker has announced a rally on Sunday in Loganville.Meanwhile, Warnock’s schedule Sunday includes two events in Athens, a stop in Gainesville and a virtual fundraiser with Stevie Wonder, whose song “Higher Ground” has become Warnock’s preferred walk-up music at rallies. Warnock is also expected to deliver the sermon at Ebenezer Baptist Church, where he is the pastor, as he does most Sundays.About the AuthorTia Mitchell is the AJC’s Washington correspondent. In this role, she writes about Georgia’s congressional delegation, campaigns, elections and the impact that decisions made in D.C. have on residents of the Peach State. Editors' Picks | US Campaigns & Elections |
In Texas, a special primary election is being held to serve the remaining months of former Democratic Rep. Filemon Vela's term.Key congressional races to follow in Tuesday's primary elections in Maine, Nevada, North Dakota, South Carolina and Texas:CROSSING TRUMP: SOUTH CAROLINA REPUBLICANS FACE CHALLENGERSGet Today in PoliticsA digest of the top political stories from the Globe, sent to your inbox Monday-Friday.Rep. Tom Rice, a five-term congressman, attracted a half-dozen GOP challengers after his vote to impeach Trump. All have cited the vote as a mark of disloyalty to both the former president and Rice's constituents in the 7th Congressional District, which heavily supported Trump in his two campaigns. Trump has endorsed state Rep. Russell Fry in the race.Rice, an otherwise consistent supporter of Trump's policies, has stood by his vote, acknowledging it may lead to his ouster but saying he followed his conscience.With a field of seven Republicans, it's likely no candidate will capture more than 50% of the vote and the primary will head to a June 28 runoff. Rice's district includes the tourist hotspot of Myrtle Beach and a number of inland, rural areas.Taking a somewhat different approach, Rep. Nancy Mace has sought to make amends for angering Trump, filming a video in New York this year outside Trump Tower to remind her constituents that she was one of the former president’s “earliest supporters.” She worked for his 2016 campaign and had his backing in her 2020 run.Besides criticizing Trump for the Jan. 6 insurrection, Mace went against the former president's wishes by voting to certify President Joe Biden’s win in the 2020 election and to hold Steve Bannon in contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena from the committee investigating the Capitol insurrection.Trump is supporting Mace's opponent, former state Rep. Katie Arrington, who won the GOP nomination for the seat in 2018 by defeating incumbent Mark Sanford. She went on to lose the seat to Joe Cunningham in the general election in Democrats' first flip of a South Carolina seat in decades.Mace, who narrowly defeated Cunningham in 2020, has spent one term representing the politically diverse 1st Congressional District, which includes Charleston and stretches south to other coastal areas including Hilton Head Island.PRIMARY CHALLENGE IN NEVADA’S SAFEST GOP HOUSE SEATRep. Mark Amodei is facing a primary challenge from a perennial candidate with a famous last name.Danny Tarkanian, son of legendary University of Nevada, Las Vegas basketball coach Jerry Tarkanian, is trying to knock off the six-term incumbent in the sprawling, rural northern district that no Democrat has won in its 40 years.Over the years, Tarkanian has launched two Senate campaigns and lost numerous congressional bids in two other districts. But he created enough of a stir in 2018 in a primary challenge to Sen. Dean Heller that Trump intervened to persuade him to drop out and run again for the House.Amodei won a special election for the seat in 2011 after Heller was appointed to fill an unexpired Senate term. A member of the House Appropriations Committee, Amodei has easily turned back previous primary challenges in the past.NEVADA DEMOCRAT FACES PRIMARY IN STATE'S BLUEST DISTRICTDemocratic Rep. Dina Titus, the dean of Nevada’s congressional delegation, is facing a progressive challenge from Amy Vilela in the state's most liberal district.Vilela, who lost a primary bid in a neighboring district to Rep. Steven Horsford in 2018, was the Nevada co-chair of Bernie Sanders’ 2020 presidential campaign. She has been endorsed by Sanders and Rep. Cori Bush of Missouri, a progressive activist who scored a primary upset in 2020 against a 20-year Democratic incumbent.Titus was a leading advocate for Biden during his 2020 presidential campaign. She has served six House terms and chairs a transportation subcommittee.With one of the most liberal voting records in Congress, Titus has steamrolled her way through primary opponents over the years. But she has complained about how Nevada redrew its congressional districts after the 2020 census, turning her safely Democratic district into one where the party’s registered voters have only a single-digit margin.FORMER MAINE CONGRESSMAN BIDS FOR HOUSE RETURNA former congressman wants his old seat back in Maine, but he must first hold off a challenge from a fellow Republican in the largely rural, politically mixed district.Bruce Poliquin represented Maine’s 2nd Congressional District from 2015 to 2019 until losing to Democratic Rep. Jared Golden. Golden’s victory over Poliquin was the first congressional election decided by ranked-choice voting in U.S. history.This year, Poliquin is hoping to win a rematch over Golden in one of the most closely watched races of the 2022 midterms. To get there, he must stave off a primary challenge from Liz Caruso, the first selectwoman of the tiny town of Caratunk.TEXAS SPECIAL PRIMARY ELECTION TO FINISH CONGRESSMAN'S TERMWhether Republicans can continue making gains with Hispanic voters — a top goal for the party in 2022 — is getting an early test in a South Texas special election.Four candidates are running to finish the term of former Rep. Filemon Vela, a five-term Democrat who left Congress earlier this year to take a job in the private sector. They include Republican Mayra Flores, who won the GOP nomination for the seat in March and hopes that a short-term victory Tuesday will give her momentum toward flipping the seat in November.Big gains by Trump along the border with Mexico in 2020 have put Democrats on the defensive after decades of one-party control in South Texas. Democratic Rep. Vicente Gonzalez switched from a neighboring district because of redistricting to run for Vela’s seat and is the party's nominee for November. But he isn’t running to finish Vela’s term, and party leaders have rallied in the special election behind Democrat Dan Sanchez.The first-place finisher would need more than 50% of the vote Tuesday to win outright. Otherwise, the top two finishers will go on to an August runoff.___Associated Press writers Scott Sonner in Reno, Nev., Paul Weber in Austin, Texas, and Patrick Whittle in Portland, Maine, contributed to this report.___Meg Kinnard can be reached at http://twitter.com/MegKinnardAP.___Follow AP for full coverage of the midterms at https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections and on Twitter at https://twitter.com/ap_politics. | US Campaigns & Elections |
Former President Trump last week said he has not endorsed House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) for Speaker of the House, saying he had endorsed him in just his reelection bid in California’s 20th Congressional District. Speaking to conservative talk show host Wayne Allyn Root, Trump specified that he hasn’t endorsed McCarthy for Speaker should Republicans win the majority in the November midterm elections. “No, I haven’t,” Trump said. He later clarified that he was backing McCarthy for his reelection bid, saying, “No, I endorsed him in his race. But I haven’t endorsed anybody for Speaker.” Last month, Trump issued an endorsement of McCarthy in his reelection race, calling him “strong and fearless” and added that he is an “outstanding representative for the people of California.” The comments from the former president come as McCarthy, who is seen as the leading candidate to hold the Speaker’s gavel in a Republican-held House, was embroiled in controversy earlier this year. The New York Times reported that the California Republican, during a call with GOP leadership on Jan. 10, 2021, said he would recommend to Trump that he resign from office. McCarthy had denied that he had made those comments and called the report “totally false and wrong.” However, an audio recording of the conversation was later published, and McCarthy can be heard in it telling his colleagues that he was inclined to tell Trump, “I think this will pass, and it would be my recommendation you should resign.” McCarthy has said that he spoke with Trump twice and that the two had a “good conversation” about the recordings. The former president also repeated his disproven claims to assert the 2020 election was stolen from him in the radio interview. He called the Jan. 6 committee hearings a “totally one sided kangaroo court” and a “witch hunt.” Trump, who has been teasing a possible 2024 presidential bid, didn’t confirm if he would run again, but he told Root he was confident he would beat President Biden if he did. | US Campaigns & Elections |
By Keith Burbank
Bay City News
OAKLAND (BCN)
Oakland residents will get to vote on greater eviction protections, term limits for City Council members and a likely fairer election process following action by the City Council.
The council on Monday placed those proposals on the ballot for voters to consider in November as well as an $850 million infrastructure bond. Council members failed to place a proposal on the ballot titled the Emerald New Deal, which would have directed $160 million in city cannabis business tax revenue to provide restitution to Black and Hispanic residents negatively affected by the war on drugs.
Councilmembers Treva Reid, Noel Gallo and mayoral hopeful Loren Taylor voted in favor of the Emerald New Deal, but Carroll Fife and Sheng Thao voted against the idea, and Nikki Fortunato Bas and Dan Kalb abstained.
“This is a call to action,” Bas, the council president said. “I think this is the beginning of an effort,” she said.
But Bas said already the City Council has allocated $1.25 million in the budget passed last month to help people affected negatively by the war on drugs, which has been largely regarded as a failed effort.
Also, the council recently allocated $19 million to the Oakland Department of Violence Prevention and $3 million in grant money to community organizations. Bas said both allocations will help people suffering from the effects of the war on drugs. Bas said she believes the city needs to make good on policies it has already established.
Earlier in the day, the council, except for Vice Mayor Rebecca Kaplan, voted unanimously to allow residents to decide on greater just cause eviction protection for tenants. Kaplan was excused from the meeting.
During the public comment period, property owners were largely against the proposal, arguing that the protections would limit new construction. But tenants and their advocates argued in favor of the proposal, saying that housing is a human right.
Just cause protections require the property owner to have a “just cause” for evicting a tenant.
New construction, including accessory dwelling units, would be exempt from just cause protections for 10 years if voters approve the measure.
Council members decided in favor of letting voters determine whether term limits for council members now and in the future are a good idea. Fife opposed the proposal. Kaplan and Gallo did not vote and were excused.
“I don’t understand the impetus for moving this forward,” Fife said.
She said recent elections have shown that incumbents can be defeated. If the measure passes in November, council members will be limited to three four-year terms.
The proposal to float an $850 million infrastructure bond before voters in November received unanimous support from council members. Kaplan again was excused.
Of the total amount, $350 million will go toward affordable housing preservation projects, $290 million to transportation projects and $210 million will go toward preserving and improving city facilities.
Bas put forth an amendment to the initial proposal under council consideration Monday, adding $10 million more for fire stations. That reduced the amount for parks, recreation and senior centers by $10 million.
Gallo was not altogether pleased.
“My most immediate need besides housing is taking care of my children,” he said.
Gallo implied that the $10 million probably would be spent more effectively on parks and recreation centers where children can grow up.
The City Council also voted to place on the ballot a measure to allow residents to allocate public dollars toward election campaigns. Oakland would give residents monetary vouchers to allocate to candidates. The vouchers would come from an initial city fund of no less than $4 million. The ballot measure seeks to increase resident participation in elections.
In November, voters will also have the opportunity to decide on a measure devoted solely to providing affordable housing, on a progressive business tax and on changes to gender-specific language in the city charter, among other initiatives. | US Campaigns & Elections |
MADISON, Wis. — Wisconsin Democrats gathering for their annual state convention this weekend are focused on reelecting Gov. Tony Evers and defeating Republican Sen. Ron Johnson, but also know that history is against them in the midterm year as voters face high inflation, rising gas prices and growing concerns about a recession.The extent of how tight the election may be was made clear Wednesday with the latest Marquette University Law School poll. It showed Evers slightly ahead of his Republican challengers, while Johnson about even with each of the top Democrats running against him.But the poll also showed Republicans are more excited than Democrats about voting, a significant marker in a midterm election when turnout is lower than in a presidential year. The prospect for Johnson improved, and worsened for Evers, the lower the projected turnout in the poll.“Turnout matters in a game of inches in a state that has had so many close elections in recent years,” said Marquette pollster Charles Franklin.And in a bad sign for incumbents, a majority of poll respondents said they felt the state was headed in the wrong direction.Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers addresses a joint session of the Legislature in the Assembly chambers at the state Capitol in Madison, Wis. on Feb. 15, 2022. (Andy Manis/AP)Evers and Democrats know that the road ahead is a tough one — the last time a candidate for Wisconsin governor who was the same party as the president won was back in 1990 — but they believe they can overcome the headwinds.“Whatever else is happening nationally, in Wisconsin Democrats are united and energized,” said Wisconsin Democratic Party Chairman Ben Wikler. Still, the Marquette poll showed 67% of Republicans were very enthused about voting compared with 58% for Democrats.“There’s this real sense that the future of our state and that the whole country is on the line and that Democrats casting their ballots in 2022 could affect the rest of all of our lives,” Wikler said.The Marquette poll showed President Joe Biden’s approval rating at 40%, with 57% disapproving, his lowest marks in Wisconsin since taking office. Evers’ approval rating was better at 48% while 45% disapproved.Evers is fashioning his argument for reelection around serving as a roadblock to Republicans who control the Legislature, stopping their efforts to restrict access to abortion, overhaul how elections are run and loosen gun control laws. Republicans on Wednesday ignored a special session Evers called to repeal an 1849 law making abortions illegal that could go into effect if Roe v. Wade is overturned.Republicans argue Evers’ tenure has been a failure, saying he didn’t react quickly or forcefully enough to violent riots in Kenosha in the summer of 2021, he’s taking credit for a tax cut Republicans wrote and he’s not done enough to help the economy.The Republicans running to take on Evers will meet in less than two months in the Aug. 9 primary.The Marquette poll showed a tight GOP primary race. Tim Michels, a multimillionaire construction business co-owner who won the endorsement of Donald Trump, is in a dead heat with former Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch, who has been in the GOP race the longest. Michels was at 27% compared with 26% for Kleefisch, who had been leading the pack before Michels got into the race in April.Business consultant Kevin Nicholson was at 10% while state Rep. Timothy Ramthun trailed at 3%. Nearly a third of respondents, 32%, said they were undecided.In the Senate race, the poll showed Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes at 25% and Milwaukee Bucks executive Alex Lasry at 21%. State Treasurer Sarah Godlewski trailed at 9% while Outagamie County Executive Tom Nelson was at 7%. Similar to the Republican primary poll, roughly a third of respondents, 36%, said they were undecided.The poll of 803 registered voters was taken between June 14 and Monday and had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.3 percentage points. For questions about the Republican primary, the margin of error was 6.3 percentage points and for the Democratic primary it was 6.2 percentage points.Evers and the Senate candidates will all speak at the convention in La Crosse this weekend, as will U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, Attorney General Josh Kaul and other officeholders and candidates.The Democratic convention is being held in western Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District, which has an open seat this year due to the retirement of Democratic U.S. Rep. Ron Kind. Republicans are targeting that narrowly divided district as one they can flip.Three Democrats running in the primary for that seat are scheduled to speak at the convention. The winner will advance to face Trump-endorsed Derrick Van Orden, who lost to Kind in 2020 and whose attendance at the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol has been a focus of criticism by Democrats.Democrats, unlike Wisconsin Republicans, do not vote on endorsing candidates in contested primaries. | US Campaigns & Elections |
RENO, Nev. — Adam Laxalt’s GOP primary win launched Wednesday what is poised to become one of the most closely watched, costliest and perhaps among the nastiest Senate races in the country, with results that have implications for how the battleground presidential state swings in 2024. Republicans see the fight over Democrat Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto’s seat — already declared a “toss-up” by campaign prognosticators — as one of their best pickup opportunities in the country. The fate of the race could ultimately dictate Senate control. Millions of dollars have already poured into the race — from both parties — with Democrats and allied groups beginning their attacks on Laxalt during the primary election. Both campaigns were already up Wednesday morning with attack ads, with Cortez Masto hitting Laxalt on ties to big oil and Laxalt’s campaign blaming Cortez Masto’s leadership for rising crime and dismantling the border. That was on top of Cortez Masto’s campaign, attempting to get a head start in messaging for the general election, already having spent $4 million in TV ads since April. It will all be in service of what interviews with more than two dozen Nevada voters, activists, party leaders and elected officials suggested are the camp’s tallest tasks: winning over the state’s rapidly expanding Latino population while also courting voters in the swing county of Washoe and political independents who make up roughly one-third of active registered voters in the state.Within minutes of Laxalt’s race being called, both sides flipped into attack mode, each accusing the other of being beholden to special interests while being out of touch with regular Nevadans. “Senator Masto hasn’t spent her time in Washington serving the people of Nevada,” Laxalt said to roughly three dozen supporters Tuesday night as he declared victory in his primary race against retired Army Captain Sam Brown. “She’s worked very hard to serve the progressive left in Washington, D.C., spending six years as a rubber stamp for a radical ideology that attacks our values, our culture, and the very fabric of our nation.”Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto appears before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. on June 8, 2022.Francis Chung / E&E News/POLITICO via AP Images fileThe Donald Trump-endorsed Laxalt, who previously served as the state’s attorney general, ran a campaign that heavily focused on the former president’s support and highlighting his efforts to contest the 2020 election results. But Democrats didn’t go after Laxalt for supporting the so-called Big Lie — the false contention that President Joe Biden was not the rightful winner of the presidential election. Instead, Cortez Masto leaned into new messaging that highlighted Laxalt’s ties to big oil, calling him a “corrupt politician,” who only beat a little-known underdog Brown because of a last-minute infusion of cash and flashy visits from outside interests. Her campaign says it’s part of a strategy to link Laxalt to an issue at the top of the list for local voters and where Democrats are potentially the most vulnerable — high gas prices and who’s profiting off of them. J.B. Poersch, the president of Senate Majority PAC, the main Senate super PAC for Democrats, said Brown’s insurgent primary campaign against Laxalt “did a lot of work for Democrats in terms of defining who he is,” and said the work ahead for Democrats involves linking Laxalt to “special interests, especially tying Laxalt to oil interests.”While Democrats face a dire political climate, with rising gas prices — which are north of $6 a gallon here — growing inflation and a president with ever-tanking approval ratings, Cortez Masto still enters the race with distinct advantages. Without a viable opponent in her primary, the senator for months ramped up her engagement with Latino voters, spending on Spanish-speaking TV ads beginning in March, according to the ad tracking firm AdImpact. She also stockpiled cash, leaving her with $9 million to move into the general election, compared to Laxalt’s $2 million, according to the latest federal campaign finance data. Overall, Nevada Democrats far outspent Republicans to date on Spanish-speaking TV ads. Democrats spent $2.7 million in Nevada on Spanish-speaking TV ads from January 2021 to the Tuesday primary, according to AdImpact. Republicans by that same measure spent $176,000. Most of the spending by both parties or their supporting interests focused on the Senate race. The Somos PAC, a Latino advocacy group that is backing Cortez Masto, was a significant contributor with negative ads targeting Laxalt. Republican State Party Chair Michael McDonald said the Nevada party is partnering with the National Republican Senatorial Committee on operation “Vamos,” which deploys more personnel on the ground in battleground states to reach out to Latinos door-to-door. McDonald predicted an advantage for Republicans with the electorate because their concerns are not unlike other voters, which have chiefly revolved around the economy. Mike Noble, who conducted independent polls throughout the Nevada primary, said both parties must pay close attention to Latinos, who can hold major sway in the general election. “You’re seeing Latinos getting more and more engaged,” Noble said. “That can be an X factor in the general [election].” After voting at Reno High School in Washoe County, Brown issued a warning to Republicans about his party’s turnout on Tuesday. Conservatives and others may have stayed on the sidelines, he said, because of the belief that someone else would carry the party.“It’s shockingly low. You hear a lot about the idea of a red wave. You expected it to be higher,” Brown said. “I think that this could be a result of over-pumping the idea of a red wave.” Natasha KoreckiNatasha Korecki is a senior national political reporter for NBC News.Ben Kamisar contributed. | US Campaigns & Elections |
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is moving to the center ahead of the midterm elections, backing a gun safety measure and insisting he is willing to work with President Biden on middle-of-the-road proposals if Republicans win back the Senate majority in November. McConnell’s message is aimed squarely at suburban voters, whom he believes will make the difference in battleground states such as Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Such voters moved away from the GOP under former President Trump, but McConnell and Republicans feel they can make inroads in a year where the public is frustrated with high inflation and gas prices. The push for such voters explains why McConnell risked his A-plus rating with the National Rifle Association (NRA) to back a gun safety measure last week that was opposed by a majority of his conference. It also was reflected in some of the remarks he made Monday at a Rotary Club lunch in Florence, Ky., where he emphasized that if Biden is willing to come toward him, he is willing to make a deal. “We have pretty big differences,” McConnell acknowledged. “Whether Joe Biden has the dexterity, shall I say, to pull off a pivot or not, I don’t know, but he won’t have any choice. Because if he wants to be able to function the next few years with divided government, he’ll need to come to the middle.” Republicans feel increasingly confident they will control the Senate and House next year, given the president’s low approval rating, which has dipped below 40 percent in recent polls. But they are also wary of Democratic arguments that their party is too extreme to govern. Democrats have sought to make this message through both the hearings of the Jan. 6 committee in the House, which has focused on Trump’s efforts to overturn the election, and in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s Friday ruling overturning the Roe v. Wade decision on abortion. McConnell appears to be doing everything he can to make independent and swing voters as comfortable as possible with the GOP, despite the noise coming from Trump — who is often at odds with McConnell — and the huge social upheaval coming from a court that McConnell had a strong hand in putting together. On Monday, he shut down speculation that Republicans would push a law restricting abortion nationwide if they win control of Congress. Instead, he said state governments would decide future limits on abortion. “Neither side of this issue has come anywhere close to having 60 votes, so I think this is likely to all be litigated out, dealt with by the various states around the country,” he said. The GOP leader has pointed out several times in recent weeks that he has worked with Democrats to pass a $1 trillion infrastructure bill, postal reform and legislation to help the United States compete with China, in addition to a $40 billion Ukraine aid bill and the gun safety measure signed into law this weekend. “I’ve already indicated to you I’m not always opposed to doing bipartisan deals. I’ve done infrastructure, I voted for postal reform and I was one of a minority of my party who voted for this school safety, mental health bill, just last week,” he said Monday. In backing the gun safety bill, McConnell underscored the need for the GOP to win back suburban voters who left the party under Trump. “It’s no secret that we lost ground in suburban areas. We pretty much own rural and small-town America, and I think this is a sensible solution to the problem before us, which is school safety and mental health,” he told reporters before voting with 14 other Senate Republicans on Thursday for the gun safety bill. “I hope it will be viewed favorably by voters in the suburbs we need to regain in order to hopefully be in the majority next year,” he said. McConnell isn’t going too far in saying he’ll work with Biden, warning the GOP will block more Biden nominees if they take back the Senate. “If I’m the majority leader, we’ll be really picky on appointees,” he said. “There are 1,200 executive branch appointments that come to us. They’re not all as important as the Supreme Court, but many of them are quite important and [need] to be confirmed by the Senate.” McConnell also warned Monday that large spending packages will be dead on arrival in a GOP-controlled Senate. Biden spearheaded a $1.9 trillion relief measure in early 2021, and the GOP Senate also backed large spending measures in response to the COVID-19 pandemic under Trump in 2020. And he questioned the conventional wisdom that the president is a moderate politician. “I know Joe Biden really well. We served together for years. He was never a moderate. He called himself a moderate while he ran for president because he was running against [Sens.] Bernie Sanders [I-Vt.] and Elizabeth Warren [D-Mass.]. Almost everybody is moderate compared to them,” he said. Scott Jennings, a Kentucky-based GOP strategist who has advised McConnell’s past campaigns, said McConnell has “been pretty clear since the beginning he viewed the 2020 election verdict … as a message to the people to operate between the 40-yard lines.” “Biden somehow read 2020 as a mandate for a sweeping liberal lurch and look at him now. I think McConnell read it right and Biden wrong,” he said. The gun safety law McConnell highlighted will enhance background checks for gun buyers younger than 21, give money to states to administer red flag laws and provide billions of dollars for mental health treatment. It was a remarkable vote, considering the NRA’s opposition. McConnell told reporters last week that he was more concerned about making progress for the country than losing his A-plus rating from the NRA, a somewhat surprising remark from a senator whom Democrats have painted over the past decade as the biggest obstructionist in Washington. The GOP leader gave the bipartisan negotiations over the bill a boost when he tapped Sen. John Cornyn (Texas), a member of his leadership team, to lead the talks for Republicans. Senate colleagues viewed that move as a clear sign that McConnell wanted to pass a bill to respond to the mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas. Shortly before the bill passed the Senate, McConnell revealed that he played a bigger behind-the-scenes role than many people realized. He spoke several times to Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.), one of the lead Democratic negotiators, and also worked with Cornyn to get the NRA’s input. While the NRA ultimately released a statement opposing the bill, it did not go on a lobbying blitz to kill the legislation. | US Campaigns & Elections |
Illinois is one of eight states that heads to the polls on Tuesday. Alexandra Buxbaum / Sipa USA via AP Images By the end of the day on Tuesday, 29.5 states — why do you always have to make things difficult, New York? — will have held their 2022 primary elections. But we still have to get through Tuesday first! On June 28, voters in Colorado, Illinois, New York, Oklahoma and Utah head to the polls (or mail in their ballots) for primaries; Mississippi and South Carolina will also hold runoff elections; and Nebraska will even be holding a special election. There are dozens of races to watch, so we’ll be bringing them to you in two parts, starting with all the Democratic primaries of note on the ballot this week. And there’s truly something for everyone: an incumbent running against an incumbent. Several progressive-versus-moderate skirmishes. The cryptocurrency industry trying to pick sides. Multiple chances to elect new female, nonwhite or LGBT candidates to Congress. Let’s dive right in! There are a number of progressive vs. incumbent battles in Illinois on Tuesday, including in the 7th District, where 31-year-old activist Kina Collins (pictured on the left) is taking on 13-term Rep. Danny Davis. Erin Hooley / Chicago Tribune / Tribune News Service via Getty ImagesIllinois Races to watch: 1st, 3rd, 6th, 7th, 8th, 13th and 17th congressional districts Polls close: 8 p.m. Eastern At least one, and possibly as many as three, Democratic incumbent U.S. representatives from Illinois will go down in defeat on Tuesday. The one guaranteed loss will come in the 6th District, where two incumbents — Reps. Sean Casten and Marie Newman — are vying for the same seat. After redistricting radically redrew the Chicago suburbs, Newman (who currently represents the 3rd District) found her home placed in the new 4th District — but a plurality of her current constituents live in the new 6th, so that’s where she decided to run for reelection. (Members of Congress do not have to live in the district they represent.) Casten is in the opposite situation; he lives in the new 6th, but only a fraction of his current constituents have stayed there with him. In all, 41 percent of the new 6th District are Newman constituents, while only 23 percent are Casten constituents, which (ironically) gives her the appearance of home-field advantage. However, among people likely to vote in a Democratic primary, Newman’s advantage isn’t as large. Thirty-six percent of 6th District residents who voted for President Biden in 2020 are Newman constituents, while 28 percent are Casten constituents. And a lot of those Newman constituents might not even be big fans of hers. Newman got to Congress in 2020 by primarying former Rep. Dan Lipinski, a conservative Democrat. And according to local analyst William Xin, the parts of her old district that are in the new 6th actually voted for Lipinski in that primary. Both Newman and Casten have very liberal voting records, but in the primary Newman is again positioning herself as the more progressive option. For example, Casten has long prioritized climate change and has been endorsed by the League of Conservation Voters, but only Newman supports the Green New Deal. And while Casten has a perfect rating from abortion-rights groups, Newman has contrasted her personal experience of getting an abortion in the 1980s with Casten’s past vote for “anti-choice” Republican President George H.W. Bush. Meanwhile, Casten’s supporters have attacked Newman for a bribery scandal that emerged out of her 2020 campaign. According to the Office of Congressional Ethics, there is “substantial reason to believe” that Newman offered one of her opponents a job in her congressional office in exchange for dropping out of the campaign (which he did), a potential violation of federal law. Casten has the financial advantage, too: He’s raised $3.2 million for his campaign, while Newman has taken in just $1.5 million. Amid all the mudslinging, this is still an unpredictable primary, though. The most recent poll we have is from over a month ago; it gave Casten a 36 percent to 27 percent lead, but it was also sponsored by the Casten campaign. Given that internal polls are usually too good to be true for their sponsors, this race is best thought of as a toss-up. Two other Chicago-area districts feature the type of Democratic primary we are more accustomed to: a single incumbent vs. a progressive insurgent. There are no public polls in either race, but the tea leaves suggest that the more serious challenge is probably in the 7th District, where 31-year-old activist Kina Collins is taking on 13-term Rep. Danny Davis. Davis has previously courted controversy with comments praising anti-Semitic Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, but he defeated Collins handily in their first primary tangle in 2020, 60 percent to 14 percent. Unlike in 2020, though, Collins is going into election day with a financial advantage: Not only has she outraised Davis $613,417 to $459,186, but perhaps more importantly, she had outspent him almost 4-to-1 as of June 8 (however, Davis still had plenty of money in the bank at that time that he may have deployed since). The progressive group Justice Democrats has also spent $290,000 on Collins’s behalf. Over in the 8th District, businessman Junaid Ahmed has raised an even more impressive $1.1 million — but his opponent, Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, has reeled in a whopping $6.5 million (and he’s been spending it too). Another sign that Ahmed faces an uphill battle: Only one major progressive group, Our Revolution, has stuck its neck out for him, while at least three (Justice Democrats, Indivisible and the Sunrise Movement) have endorsed Collins in the 7th, suggesting they may sense a better opportunity there. The remaining Democratic primaries to watch in the Land of Lincoln are open seats — including two safely Democratic seats where the primary will effectively determine their next representative. First up is (appropriately) the 1st District, a majority-Black seat on the South Side of Chicago. The seat has a storied past: In 1928, it became the first district outside the South to elect a Black representative, and for almost two decades hence the 1st District’s representative was the only Black member of Congress. The district has had a Black representative ever since, and that streak will almost certainly continue with its new representative in 2023. The only question is who it will be. The open seat has attracted what feels like every ambitious politician on the South Side — 17 Democrats in all — and at least five of them have a legitimate chance of winning. Business owner and nonprofit leader Jonathan Swain is the top fundraiser, with $543,199; Chicago Alderman Pat Dowell is not far behind ($531,812) and entered the race with a ready-made campaign operation thanks to her prior campaign for secretary of state. Meanwhile, Chicago Cook Workforce Partnership CEO Karin Norington-Reaves snagged the endorsement of the district’s retiring incumbent, Rep. Bobby Rush, and has benefited from over $800,000 in super PAC spending, and longtime state Sen. Jacqueline Collins entered the race with the backing of several powerful Chicago and Springfield powerbrokers. But the campaign has arguably most revolved around businessman Jonathan Jackson, the son of civil rights leader Rev. Jesse Jackson and brother of former Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., who represented part of this district until his resignation due to scandal in 2012. Jackson has the benefit of not only his family name, but also the endorsements of major progressive figures like Sen. Bernie Sanders and Our Revolution. Two outside groups with ties to the cryptocurrency industry have also spent more than $1 million to help him get elected. While each of these things may have downsides as well as upsides (for example, Norington-Reaves has tried to tie Jackson to the unpopular “defund the police” movement, and the cryptocurrency money drew attention to his failure to disclose his personal finances), Jackson will need only a small but vocal plurality in order to win in such a crowded field. And he might get it: A May internal poll from the Collins campaign listed Jackson in first place, with 19 percent, albeit within the margin of error. The other safely Democratic open seat is also a majority-minority district — but in contrast to the 1st District, this one is brand new. The 3rd District was redrawn to be plurality-Hispanic, giving Chicago two predominantly Latino seats for the first time. As a result, for the first time, Illinois will almost certainly elect a second Hispanic representative, joining 4th District Rep. Chuy García. Though there are four Democrats in the running, this primary is really just another progressive-versus-moderate showdown between state Rep. Delia Ramirez and Chicago Alderman Gilbert Villegas. Ramirez enjoys the support of a laundry list of progressive powerbrokers — Sanders, García, Sen. Elizabeth Warren — while Villegas has stressed the need to “reach across the aisle…to get things done.” And the money is flying: Villegas has raised $949,927, while VoteVets (Villegas is a Marine Corps veteran) and Democratic Majority for Israel have combined to spend more than $1.1 million either for Villegas or against Ramirez. For her part, Ramirez has raised $616,213 and benefited from $1.6 million in outside spending from the likes of the Working Families Party and Congressional Progressive Caucus PAC. There hasn’t been a public poll since March, so either side could plausibly notch a win here. Finally, Illinois Democrats will also pick nominees to go up against Republicans in a pair of competitive open seats. The primary doesn’t look all that competitive in the 13th District, where virtually the entire Illinois Democratic establishment (Sen. Dick Durbin, Sen. Tammy Duckworth, Rep. Cheri Bustos) has lined up behind former Biden administration staffer Nikki Budzinski. Her sole competitor, financial advisor David Palmer, has raised a respectable amount of money ($208,300), but it’s still nowhere near Budzinski’s $1.7 million haul. A moderate pragmatist who earns bipartisan praise, Budzinski should be a strong candidate for Democrats in their quest to flip this downstate seat from Republican control. It was radically redrawn to favor Democrats (spurring incumbent Republican Rep. Rodney Davis to seek reelection elsewhere), but with a FiveThirtyEight partisan lean1 of D+7, it still has the potential to be competitive in a Republican-leaning midterm. Illinois’s most hotly contested House seat this fall will likely be the 17th District, a D+4 open seat in rapidly reddening northwestern Illinois. And some of the six candidates running in the Democratic primary, like Army veteran and Rockford Alderman Jonathan Logemann, have explicitly run on the argument that they are the most electable in the general election. Others, though — namely former state Rep. Litesa Wallace, who is endorsed by Our Revolution and Indivisible — haven’t been afraid to embrace progressive platform planks like the Green New Deal and single-payer health care. Former television meteorologist Eric Sorensen has also prioritized climate change in his campaign and has argued for the need for more “climate communicators” in Congress. Both Wallace, a Black woman, and Sorensen, who would be Illinois’s first openly gay congressman, would also add to the diversity of the House if elected. The most recent poll of the primary — an internal survey from Wallace’s campaign — showed Wallace and Sorensen at the head of a fractured field, with 22 percent and 19 percent respectively. However, there are a couple reasons to give the edge to Sorensen here. First, of course, internal polls are often biased in favor of their sponsor. But second, that poll is almost two months old at this point, and Sorensen has had the financial advantage. He has raised ($450,665) and spent ($311,032) more than any other Democrat, and 314 Action — a group dedicated to electing more scientists to Congress — has also spent $615,160 on Sorensen’s behalf. The New York governor’s race initially looked like it might be competitive, but polls suggest that Gov. Kathy Hochul should easily win the Democratic primary. Craig Ruttle / Pool /Getty ImagesNew York Races to watch: Governor, lieutenant governor Polls close: 9 p.m. Eastern New York was originally supposed to have a lot more primaries today, but its U.S. House primaries were rescheduled for Aug. 23 after a court struck down the state’s first pass at a congressional map, a strong partisan gerrymander drawn by Democratic legislators. (A new map was drawn by a neutral expert in late May, but one month wasn’t enough time to organize and pull off a smooth election.) But statewide primaries remained a go for the original primary date of June 28, and at the top of the ballot is the Democratic primary for governor. When former Gov. Andrew Cuomo resigned last August amid multiple allegations of sexual harassment, his lieutenant, Kathy Hochul, became the first female governor of New York — but multiple other ambitious New York politicians started eyeing the job, too. In October, Attorney General Letitia James announced she was running; in November, New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams and Rep. Tom Suozzi declared their own campaigns. But Hochul moved quickly to solidify her position. Her campaign claimed to have raised $10 million in her first three months in office, and she landed plum endorsements from EMILY’s List and the chair of the New York State Democratic Party. Trailing in the polls, James made the fateful decision in December to drop out of the race, relieving Hochul of her strongest rival but also potentially consolidating her opposition. On paper, Williams had a lot to gain from James’s withdrawal. Both are progressives (although Williams is more of an activist outsider while James has played nice with the party establishment), while Hochul and Suozzi are moderates. Without James in the race, Williams is also the only candidate left who hails from vote-rich New York City, which cast 58 percent of the vote in the 2018 Democratic primary for governor. (Upstate New York,2 where the Buffalo-born Hochul is expected to perform well, cast 33 percent, while Suozzi’s base of Long Island cast 10 percent.) Finally, Williams, who would be New York’s first elected Black governor, is also the primary’s only nonwhite candidate. However, it hasn’t come together for Williams, who has openly contemplated dropping out, too, amid his wife’s cancer diagnosis, a sparse campaign schedule and virtually empty campaign coffers. For his entire campaign, he has raised only $520,859 — a paltry sum in a state as expensive as New York. (By contrast, Hochul had raised $33.2 million as of June 13.) For his part, Suozzi had raised $9.8 million as of June 13, but he hasn’t attracted any high-profile endorsers that would help him distinguish himself from Hochul. The latest poll, conducted June 15-20 for WHEC-TV and WNYT-TV by SurveyUSA, gave Suozzi 18 percent and Williams 11 percent. But Hochul was still way ahead of them both, with 54 percent. Instead, the real drama in New York may be in the lieutenant governor primary. Although the three candidates are each aligned with one of the three gubernatorial candidates, New York voters choose their party’s governor and lieutenant governor nominees in separate primaries, and then they run as a ticket in the general election. This has the potential to create an awkward situation not only in the fall campaign, but for the next four years in Albany. Former Lt. Gov. Brian Benjamin, whom Hochul tapped to replace herself after becoming governor, started off as the presumed front-runner — but just two months ago, he was arrested on bribery charges and resigned from office. Consequently, Hochul appointed then-Rep. Antonio Delgado to be her new number two, but the legislature had to change the law in order to allow him to take Benjamin’s place on the ballot. As a result, Delgado has had to play catch-up to progressive activist Ana María Archila (who is aligned with Williams) and former Deputy Brooklyn Borough President Diana Reyna (who is aligned with Suozzi). While Delgado has the most money (including $2 million transferred from his congressional campaign account), it is not the same overwhelming advantage that Hochul has, and Archila has tried to broaden her appeal beyond just Williams supporters. She has held more campaign events and earned more endorsements than Delgado, including some (like Rep. Nydia Velázquez) who have endorsed Hochul. And Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has also thrown her weight behind Archila, which she hasn’t done for Williams. (For her part, Reyna has barely campaigned apart from Suozzi, so her fate seems tied to his.) Despite a glut of gubernatorial polls, there is no public polling of the lieutenant governor’s race, so Delgado could still very well win this based on the strength of Hochul’s coattails. But if not, Archila has pledged to be a more proactive and disagreeable deputy than Hochul would like, holding her feet to the fire from the left or even taking official actions that Hochul might disagree with. No matter who wins, though, he or she will stand out in a different way: Delgado, Archila and Reyna would all be the first Hispanic person elected to statewide office in New York. While that’s it in terms of Democratic primaries worth your attention (sorry, Colorado, Oklahoma and Utah), there’s even more action on the Republican side of the aisle. Meet us back here at this time tomorrow for our preview of more than 20 Republican primaries of consequence, and then again on Tuesday night as we live-blog the results. Footnotes Partisan lean is the average margin difference between how a state or district votes and how the country votes overall. This version of partisan lean, meant to be used for congressional and gubernatorial elections, is calculated as 50 percent the state or district’s lean relative to the nation in the most recent presidential election, 25 percent its relative lean in the second-most-recent presidential election and 25 percent a custom state-legislative lean.
For the purposes of this calculation, I am defining Upstate New York as anything north of the Bronx. Feel free to email me about how wrong this is. Nathaniel Rakich is a senior elections analyst at FiveThirtyEight. @baseballot | US Campaigns & Elections |
GOLD CANYON, Ariz. — Toward the end of a candidate forum put on by a central Arizona GOP club this week, Mark Finchem, a candidate for secretary of state whose views about the 2020 election generally have no basis in reality, told the audience that he had “breaking news” to share. Finchem then fed the crowd a remarkably brazen lie. He said that Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court had declared — at 10 p.m. EST on a federal holiday, no less — that mail-in ballots were unconstitutional. Finchem offered no further explanation of the major news he claimed had just happened. The crowd cheered and whooped in delight.“That’s big, ladies and gentleman,” Finchem said, nearly drowned out by applause. “That’s huge. Huge. Wow.”Was Finchem confused? Probably not. The closest approximation to what Finchem described happened in January, when three judges on a Commonwealth Court did, in fact, strike down Pennsylvania’s no-excuse mail voting law, which passed with bipartisan support in 2019. Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf appealed the decision. In March, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania said the law could stay in place during the appeals process to create less confusion ahead of the May 3 primary.In June, the U.S. Supreme Court actually cleared the way for Pennsylvania to count undated mail-in ballots after the GOP Senate primary between Mehmet Oz and Dave McCormick came down to just a handful of votes, a ruling that was largely seen as a win for proponents of mail voting.That was the latest development, however, making what Finchem said neither breaking news nor correct. It was just one small example of the lies perpetuated by Finchem and other election-deniers running in this year’s midterm elections. And the crowd ate it up, underscoring the degree to which the “big lie” and easily debunked misinformation goes virtually unchallenged in the grassroots GOP. Finchem, a state House member who has said he aspires to have “one of the most transparent campaigns out there,” didn’t respond to a request through his campaign to clarify what he meant by his “breaking news” about Pennsylvania.Arizona’s primary is Aug. 2, and in no other state do the tentacles of election conspiracy run as deep as the place that originated an infamous partisan election audit. Mark Finchem is running on a platform that puts front and center Donald Trump's "big lie" about a stolen election.Steve Helber/Associated PressFinchem is running to become the state’s top election official with former President Donald Trump’s backing, but his remarks to the group were light on specifics about exactly how he thinks the 2020 election was stolen. The partisan audit sanctioned by the state legislature’s GOP majority actually uncovered more Democratic votes for President Joe Biden. By every metric, Republicans have come up short in proving something sinister happened in the 2020 election beyond their own lies.“By noon [on Election Day], we knew that something was terribly wrong. We didn’t haven’t to wait for 15 minutes after the polls to close for Fox to call Arizona, we already knew something was terribly wrong. So within about five days, my constituents sent thousands of emails, hundreds of letters ... we lost track of the phone calls begging us to do something,” Finchem said. Finchem claimed that as secretary of state, his objective would be free and fair elections for all Arizonans, regardless of political party. “My job as secretary of state is to ensure that the moment I’m elected, I take off my political hat — not my cowboy hat,” Finchem said, a joke about the oversize western hat he often sports. “To make sure there’s never a thumb on the scale of fair elections. If a Democrat wins, a Democrat wins.” But Finchem, a member of the anti-government militia group Oath Keepers, has already shown he doesn’t employ reasonable judgment when it comes to election outcomes.“[Former U.S. Attorney General] Eric Holder is a criminal. [Georgia Gubernatorial candidate] Stacey Abrams is a criminal. [Former President] Barack Obama is a criminal,” Finchem asserted after encouraging the group to check out the widely discredited documentary “2,000 Mules” by right-wing commentator Dinesh D’Souza, which purports to show how Democratic ballot “mules” conspired to illegally collect and submit absentee ballots in swing states, including Arizona. Trump called D’Souza’s film “incredible” during a rally in Pennsylvania for Oz, and plenty of Republicans have followed his lead in praising the controversial film.“Every one of you needs to see ‘2,000 Mules.’ It’s going to make your blood boil,” Finchem said, echoing what I’ve heard at numerous other grassroots gatherings since the documentary was released.At the same forum in Gold Canyon, an upscale Phoenix suburb with breathtaking mountain views and funky cacti, Kari Lake, a former TV journalist and Trump’s pick for governor, said tackling election fraud is among her main priorities as governor.“We’re that pioneer spirit in Arizona, so we weren’t going to sit by as they stole our election,” Lake said. Who are “they” exactly? Lake and others seem to think it’s shadowy, Democrat-aligned forces that no one has been able to pin down in the nearly two years since the 2020 election.“It was the patriots of Arizona who stood up and said we want a forensic audit,” she said, failing to mention how it turned up nothing but more proof that Biden won.Republican Kari Lake is running for governor in tandem with secretary of state candidate Mark Finchem. Both are endorsed by Donald Trump.Mario Tama/Getty ImagesThe events that unfolded the next day in Washington provided a chilling counter to what I heard in Gold Canyon and elsewhere. During Tuesday’s Jan. 6 committee hearing, Russell “Rusty” Bowers, the Arizona House speaker who might not be in office much longer — Bowers is running for state Senate and must clear a GOP primary — described the pressure he was under to unlawfully declare Trump the 2020 winner.“There was no evidence being presented of any strength ... anything that would say to me, ‘You have a doubt. Deny your oath.’ I will not do that,” Bowers said in an emotional testimony. At a GOP club gathering in Tucson the next day, which was supposed to feature Republican Senate candidate Blake Masters, the Jan. 6 committee might as well have been convening in another universe.Masters, who told the group he had to cancel due to a conflicting meeting with Trump, was replaced by a guest speaker from the pro-gun group Arizona Citizens Defense League who carried a pistol on his hip and talked about red-flag laws. (For an idea of how Masters’ candidacy is playing among at least a segment of the GOP grassroots, the chair of the Gold Canyon group described Trump’s decision to endorse Masters over Jim Lamon, a businessman who signed a document certifying he was a false 2020 elector, as a well-intentioned mistake. “He can’t be expected to be perfect with all these endorsements,” the Gold Canyon chair Pam Burks said at Monday’s event while introducing Lamon, a towering Alabama native who speaks in a quick southern drawl and talked about border security and Chinese manufacturing.)The Tucson club met during lunchtime at a diner with an all-you-can-eat buffet. I asked a retiree from the friendly bunch if he had any opinion of Bowers, whose testimony tugged at heartstrings and epitomized the struggle that certain Republicans faced during Trump’s break with reality. Hard-right Republicans don’t like Bowers because he blocked GOP-sponsored election reform legislation.The guy frowned.“Meh,” he said. “He’s a tool.” | US Campaigns & Elections |
Politics July 29, 2022 / 1:38 PM / CBS News Wisconsin Treasurer Sarah Godlewski, former U.S. Senate candidate, undated photo Sarah Godlewski campaign, via Instagram Wisconsin Treasurer Sarah Godlewski dropped out of the state's Democratic U.S. Senate primary Friday, clearing the path for Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes to win the nomination on Aug. 9. Barnes is going to be the party's nominee to take on Republican Senator Ron Johnson, a top target for Democrats this year. Godlewski's departure is the third notable Democratic candidate to drop out and endorse Barnes in the last week. County executive Tom Nelson and Alex Lasry, an executive of the Milwaukee Bucks basketball team, dropped out earlier this week. All their names will still appear on the primary ballot. Lasry and Godlewski funneled millions of their own money into their candidacies. Godlewski put at least $4 million into her campaign while Lasry used over $15 million of his fortune, according to the latest campaign finance reports. Lasry is still active in the race on the air and began airing a T.V. ad Friday that backs Barnes and criticizes Johnson for comments made about outsourced jobs. "This campaign may be over, but our fight isn't. The only way to beat Ron Johnson, re-elect Tony Evers, and make sure Democrats win down the ticket is if we're in this together," Godlewski said in her announcement. In a statement about his latest primary opponent dropping out to back him, Barnes thanked Godlewski and said, "[W]e are in a stronger position than we have ever been to defeat Ron Johnson once and for all.""This week has demonstrated what it looks like when we come together for a goal that is greater than ourselves. We are building a coalition that crosses generations, crosses racial divides and political divides," he added. "That's how we beat Scott Walker in 2018 with the highest midterm turnout on record. By bringing everyone together from every corner of the state." Johnson tweeted that Godlewski's departure from the race shows "their lack of respect for voters and the democratic process," adding, "the power brokers of the Democrat party have now cleared the field for their most radical left candidate.""Socialist policies have produced this mess, & a radical left Senator from Wisconsin is not the solution," Johnson said. Aaron Navarro Aaron Navarro is an associate producer for the political unit at CBS News, focusing on House and gubernatorial campaigns as well as the census and redistricting. Twitter Thanks for reading CBS NEWS. Create your free account or log in for more features. Please enter email address to continue Please enter valid email address to continue | US Campaigns & Elections |
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! Virginia Lt. Gov. Winsome Sears said Republicans are gaining momentum in the historically blue state because an increasing number of Democrats are crossing over and supporting the GOP's common-sense policies. She told "Fox & Friends First" Tuesday that the November midterms will reflect that trend. RUNOFF, PRIMARY ELECTIONS IN ALABAMA, GEORGIA, VIRGINIA, ARKANSAS, AND DC: LIVE UPDATESWINSOME SEARS: Democrats have understood that their children weren't learning. And it's one thing to like a political party, but when it comes to your child, that's a whole different ballgame. And so we couldn't have won if Democrats had not crossed over and supported us because they had confidence in us that we would bring common sense back. And that's what you're going to see in November, because all of this that's around us. It's ridiculous.WATCH THE FULL INTERVIEW BELOW: This article was written by Fox News staff. | US Campaigns & Elections |
Edit StoryJun 13, 2022,09:29am EDT|Updated Jun 13, 2022, 10:42am EDTTopline
Former President Donald Trump’s campaign manager Bill Stepien is no longer testifying Monday before the House select committee investigating the January 6 attack at the Capitol, the committee said in a statement, saying he has a family emergency. Campaign manager Bill Stepien stands alongside former President Donald Trump as he speaks with ... [+] reporters aboard Air Force One as he flies from Manchester, New Hampshire to Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, August 28, 2020, following a campaign rally. (Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images) AFP via Getty Images Key Facts The January 6 committee said Stepien cannot attend the hearing due to a family emergency, and Stepien’s lawyer, Dan Marino, said Stepien’s wife is in labor. Marino will appear in Stepien’s place and make a statement on the record, and Marino told CNN video from Stepien’s prior deposition will be shown during the hearing. The hearing will begin 30 to 45 minutes after the scheduled start time of 10 a.m., according to the committee. Key Background
Stepien—who was reportedly skeptical of some Trump advisors’ post-election claims but present for discussions to reverse the election—was among five witnesses set to testify Monday. The four remaining witnesses are former U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia BJay Pak, a Trump appointee who was reportedly forced to resign because Trump believed Pak didn’t take his baseless claims of voter fraud in his district seriously enough; Ben Ginsberg, a conservative attorney for former President George W. Bush’s 2000 campaign who has blasted Trump’s false election claims; former Fox News political editor Chris Stirewalt and Al Schmidt, a Republican former Philadelphia city commissioner who worked on the county’s board of elections. Monday’s hearing will center around Trump’s post-election behavior, including how Trump ignored court rulings and advice from aides and government officials that his “frivolous” claims about a stolen election were false, and how his campaign spent millions of dollars to spread disinformation about the election results, according to Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), the committee’s vice-chair. Further Reading
Trump's Former Campaign Manager Will Publicly Testify To Jan. 6 Committee Monday (Forbes) Here's What's Coming Up In The Next Jan. 6 Committee Hearings—And When (Forbes) Jan. 6 Committee Hearing: Riot Defendants Say Trump 'Asked' Them To Storm Capitol (Forbes)
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NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! EXCLUSIVE: Two Washington GOP House candidates, both of whom are seeking to represent two different Congressional districts in the state, will face off in their primary elections next week against incumbent Republicans who voted to impeach former President Donald Trump last year, insisting that those impeachment votes will move voters to the polls.The two vulnerable Republicans – Third Congressional District Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler and Fourth Congressional District Rep. Dan Newhouse – are up against several challengers in each of their primary elections, with both seeking to fend off two different challengers who have received the backing of Trump.In recent interviews with Fox News Digital, Loren Culp, a former Washington police chief who is challenging Newhouse, and Joe Kent, a retired Army Special Forces chief warrant officer who is challenging Beutler, insisted that the votes to impeach Trump by the two GOP House members could have an impact on Tuesday's election.Both Beutler, who has served in Congress since 2011, and Newhouse, first elected to Congress in 2014, voted to impeach Trump after the Jan. 6 Capitol protests following the 2020 presidential election. In addition, the two Republicans who have faced backlash over the decision from voters in their districts also voted in favor of establishing an independent commission to investigate the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. Reps. Dan Newhouse, R-Wash., and Jaime Herrera Beutler, R-Wash., arrive for a House vote on creating a select committee to investigate the January 6th attack on the Capitol on Wednesday, June 30, 2021. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)"Having the endorsement of President Trump is huge," said Culp, who ran for governor of Washington in 2020. "All of my competitors ran around the country to Trump events and some of them even paid to get into fundraising events at Mar a Lago, trying to rub elbows with people in Trump's orbit and meet President Trump to get his endorsement.""I did exactly the opposite," he added. "I told my campaign, I said, ‘President Trump is not going to endorse someone without looking at everybody. He’s a smart man and he will make the right decision. He'll see what I've done, he'll see what we did in 2020…"Describing the moment he found out he had received Trump's endorsement in the race, Culp said, "I did not know he was going to call me.""My wife and I were sitting having a cup of coffee talking about our grandkids and my phone rang," Culp recalled. "I was very surprised. … and he said exactly what I knew he would have done. He said, 'I looked at all the candidates, checked the background. I've seen what they've done, I see what you did, and I'm backing to you 100%.'"Culp said he has gathered a lot from voters in the state and throughout the district over how they feel about Newhouse's vote to impeach Trump. Washington Fourth District candidate Loren Culp, during a rally supporting President Donald Trump on October 10, 2020 in Bellevue, Washington. (Karen Ducey/Getty Images)"They're not happy that Newhouse voted to impeach President Trump and then doubled down and voted for the January 6th commission, which is nothing but political theater for Nancy Pelosi to demonize Trump and conservatives," Culp said.Culp, who is also endorsed by former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi and Colorado Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert, took aim at Newhouse on a variety of fronts, including his willingness to support Democrats' "out-of-control spending" measures."My opponent, Dan Newhouse, has voted for all of the big spending bills that have come along," Culp said, vowing to vote in accordance with the constitution and for things that will economically benefit Americans.Echoing Culp, Kent said Trump's endorsement, which he considers to be the "most powerful endorsement in the country" and the "gold standard" of approval for America First candidates has "been huge" for his campaign."He's definitely the leader of the America First Movement," Kent said of Trump. "But the other reason why the Trump endorsement was so critical in our race is because of the jungle primary here in Washington State. In order to be effective against a 12-year incumbent, we had to really rally around one candidate."Taking aim at Beutler, Kent, a Gold Star husband whose wife was killed in 2019 while conducting special operations against ISIS in Syria, said "people are still furious" that she voted to impeach Trump. Joe Kent, a retired Army Special Forces chief warrant officer, aims to defeat incumbent GOP Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler in next week's primary election top represent Washington's Third Congressional District. (Joe Kent campaign)"Really what that vote did is it exposed her record, the totality of her record," Kent said. "I say this all the time… I challenge Republicans to show me the one issue where Jamie has stood up for Republican values or for the district. She's very much, I would just say, controlled opposition for the left. … The vote for impeachment really exposed all of her true colors.""Her impeachment vote finally put her in play," Kent said, claiming that Beutler has never been challenged in a similar fashion by another Republican.Regarding the overall response to their campaigns, both Culp and Kent said they have received overwhelming support from voters in the districts they hope to represent at the national level.Culp, who made headlines in 2018 during his tenure as Republic's police chief when he vowed to defend voters' Second Amendment right against newly implemented gun regulations, said voters are "very pissed off.""They're mad at Newhouse, they're mad at Biden, they don't like the way our country's headed," he said. "They're sick and tired of the prices of everything going up. You see what Biden's done with our energy policy and we're definitely not on the right track. Most of the people that I talk to understand what's going on.""Biden is totally puppet of our enemies, including China," Culp added. "If you just look at the evidence, he's trying to destroy America. That's that's what people are saying to me. That's what they're seeing, that's what I see." Washington GOP House candidates Joe Kent and Loren Culp. (Joe Kent campaign, Karen Ducey/Getty Images)Kent, who has also received endorsements from former acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller and Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, said he is "under a lot of fire" as election day approaches."We've have $3.7 million in dark money getting dropped on the race right now," Kent said. "But I think that is almost better than polling because they wouldn't be spending the money on me if they didn't view me as a threat."CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP"I'm feeling a lot of grassroots support here," he added. "Our town halls are bringing out quite a few people every single night. We knocked on over 120,000 doors. So, I mean, we feel a lot of really good momentum."The Washington primary elections will take place on August 2. Unlike several other states, Washington has a top-two primary election and all candidates in the race appear on the same ballot. The two individuals who receive the most votes in each election, regardless of party affiliation, will move on to the general election.Fox News did not receive responses from the campaigns of Beutler or Newhouse. Kyle Morris covers politics for Fox News. On Twitter: @RealKyleMorris. | US Campaigns & Elections |
Chicago Election Board Chair Marisel Hernandez recently included an unusual warm weather addendum to her regular pre-election pitch encouraging voters to cast ballots in the upcoming Illinois primary: Do so before you leave town.“If you’re planning on a summer vacation in the coming weeks, choose to vote by mail,” she said.Hernandez’s vacation plea shows how the shift of the primary election from its usual March perch to June 28 has created a new set of complications for election officials and candidates trying to get people to the polls.It is the latest Illinois has held a primary since at least the Great Depression — forced back over three months because 2020 U.S. Census Bureau numbers needed for redistricting were late — and arrives less than a week before the Fourth of July holiday.So even though Illinois voters are faced with pivotal primary races for governor, secretary of state and U.S. congressional seats, as well as scores of down-ballot races, it raises the question: Do voters even know Election Day is coming up, or are their minds already drifting to Wisconsin Dells?Early voting numbers so far show Chicago totals lagging behind the most recent midterm.In order to compare with early voting in previous midterms, for the 11 days when early voting was conducted only at a downtown polling place, 1,127 votes were cast this year, according to the city Board of Elections. In that same time in the 2018 midterms, 2,066 votes were cast.On the first day of citywide early voting this year, 2,337 votes were cast. On 2018′s first citywide day, 3,991 votes were cast.A person walks by a Chicago Board of Elections' Loop Super Site on June 13, 2022. The location is open for early voting. (Raquel Zaldvar / Chicago Tribune)Hernandez said she expects voter turnout to end up at or around the usual low number for a nonpresidential midterm primary elections.“I do think that even though people may be on summer vacation, that we’ve gotten the word out, that they’ve taken this into consideration,” she said.Election officials point out that with fewer people working downtown and more voters becoming familiar with the vote-by-mail process, many of those in-person voters in prior years could simply be tossing their completed ballots in the mailbox.In DuPage County, Clerk Jean Kaczmarek said her office has already received over 31,900 applications for mail-in ballots, compared with 5,453 such applications prior to the 2018 midterm primary.“With applications still coming in, the 2022 Primary Election will move into third place for mail ballot applications, behind the 2020 General with 212,903 and 2018 General with 42,338,” Kaczmarek said in an emailed response.That’s despite the fact there’s no Democratic primary fight for governor, like there was in 2018 when J.B. Pritzker fended off five challengers, including state Sen. Daniel Biss and Kenilworth developer Chris Kennedy.Instead, a nasty, expensive Republican gubernatorial face-off is drawing most of the attention. That race has evolved into a largely two-man campaign between state Sen. Darren Bailey of Xenia and Aurora Mayor Richard Irvin. Others running are business owner Gary Rabine of Bull Valley, venture capitalist Jesse Sullivan of Petersburg, former state Sen. Paul Schimpf of Waterloo and Hazel Crest attorney Max Solomon.Sign up for The Spin to get the top stories in politics delivered to your inbox weekday afternoons.Near Peoria, early voting and requests for vote-by-mail ballots in Tazewell County are running just a bit behind 2018, according to Clerk John Ackerman. While he expects the final numbers for those votes to be “right about the same number or higher” than the last midterm, that’s likely to mean overall lower voter turnout in the election, Ackerman said.“We would expect to see growth in those areas, and we likely won’t this election,” Ackerman said. “The whole election cycle is thrown off” because of the late June primary, he said.Kevin Campbell casts his vote at a Chicago Board of Elections' Loop Super Site on June 13, 2022. (Raquel Zaldvar / Chicago Tribune)There are variations in voter interest across the state, proving that old axiom that all politics is local.In Downstate Sangamon County, which includes the city of Springfield, county Clerk Don Gray said attention to several primary contests is driving increases.Requests for vote-by-mail ballots are up 60% compared with the 2018 midterms and are even 34% higher than for the 2020 presidential primary, Gray said.He pointed to high voter turnout for two hotly contested congressional primaries that touch parts of the county.There’s the newly drawn 13th Congressional District, which has no incumbent on the ballot but features four Republican hopefuls and two Democrats in the respective primaries. And the 15th Congressional District has a Republican primary faceoff between U.S. Rep. Rodney Davis of Taylorville and U.S. Rep. Mary Miller of Oakland. They’re running against each other because the congressional districts were redrawn following the census.“That race is obviously getting a lot of money and attention,” Gray said.Former President Donald Trump is traveling to Illinois on Saturday to campaign for Miller.Meanwhile, the hotly contested Democratic primary to succeed retiring Secretary of State Jesse White holds special significance around Springfield, where lots of employees of that office work, Gray said.“And then we’re just seeing people getting more used to vote by mail and early voting, and more confident in it with each election,” Gray said.jebyrne@chicagotribune.com | US Campaigns & Elections |
A company linked to the father of a Missouri Democratic congressional contender is funding a political action committee attacking his opponent, according to filings with the Federal Election Commission.
YACHAD PAC, a new committee spending against Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo., in her upcoming primary challenge, is run by Republican operative Paul Zemitzsch, local news outlet KSDK reported Wednesday. The group has received contributions from former Democratic Rep. William Lacy Clay, whom Bush ousted in 2020; Clay’s sister; and his former director of communications. But the PAC’s recent FEC filings reveal that its primary funder is a company linked to the father of Bush’s opponent, state Sen. Steven Roberts Jr.
SCD Investments LLC, an investment group where Roberts’s father, Steven C. Roberts Sr., has held multiple titles, gave the PAC $16,000 in May. Roberts Sr. was previously listed in 2013 as the company’s member in Missouri public records and as its manager in a State of Florida filing. He was also the company’s registered agent until 2013. In the record of its donation to YACHAD PAC, the company lists an address shared by several Roberts family companies. Roberts Sr. did not respond to The Intercept’s request for comment.“Cori Bush has been a disaster, for not just the Jewish community, but all of Missouri,” Zemitzsch said in an interview (he clarified that he is not Jewish). “It hurts my soul when I flip on CNN and there’s some stupid-ass thing about what she said about defund the police, she’s against Boeing, and she’s antisemitic. There is no question. She’s antisemitic.”Like other progressive members of Congress, Bush has been accused of antisemitism by right-wing and pro-Israel groups over her willingness to criticize Israeli human rights abuses against Palestinians, as well as for her vote against increased funding for Israel’s Iron Dome in September. “Palestinians deserve freedom from militarized violence too,” Bush wrote in a tweet after the vote. “We shouldn’t be sending an additional $1B to an apartheid state’s military.”
In a statement to The Intercept, Bush campaign spokesperson Bill Neidhardt called Zemitzsch’s comment “a baseless smear from a Republican donor” to support an “accused rapist,” referring to accusations of rape and sexual assault made by two women against Roberts Jr. and previously reported on by The Intercept. Roberts Jr. has denied both accusations, settled lawsuits in both cases, and was ultimately not charged with rape by a special prosecutor.
Two weeks before YACHAD launched, the younger Roberts was a guest speaker at the annual national summit of the nonprofit Israeli American Council, the country’s largest Israeli American group. The recent spending comes as pro-Israel groups have poured millions of dollars into ad campaigns targeting progressive officials and candidates in safe blue seats this cycle, including a Democrat with full support of party leadership.
YACHAD PAC has so far sent at least one mailer attacking Bush and purchased thousands of dollars in radio ads set to run in the weeks leading up to the August 2 primary, according to records of the purchases shared with The Intercept.
Beyond the funding linked to the elder Roberts, YACHAD PAC is also getting a boost from the local Democratic establishment that Bush took out when she was elected in 2020. Her opponent that cycle, Lacy Clay, gave $2,000 to the group in May, and his sister, Michelle, gave $250 the same day. Lacy Clay’s former communications director, Steve Engelhardt, gave the PAC its first contribution of $500 when it launched in December and another $2,000 in May. The PAC lists a disbursement of $2,000 to Engelhardt on the same day, as well as a $1,000 contribution from Zemitzsch and a disbursement for the same amount.
While Paul Zemitzsch said in an April interview that he was the group’s treasurer, the PAC’s original filing documents instead list someone named Steve Zemitzsh, who Paul has said he does not know. Emails to the address listed on the PAC website, “[email protected],” were returned as undeliverable. Its most recent filing lists its treasurer as Scott Martinez, an attorney based in Colorado who is listed as its designated agent on its statement of organization. Martinez did not respond to a request for comment.
Zemitzsch, who runs a company with former Republican state lawmaker David J. Klarich, said that the PAC is raising money from Democrats and Republicans, but that some Republicans actually want Bush to win the primary so they can have someone to blame in the general election.
“The PAC which I represent is raising money regardless of political party. I don’t care Democrat, Republican, whatever,” Zemitzsch said. “But some of the Republican leadership like Cori Bush on the ballot after the primary, because they can then say, see what you get when you vote for a Democrat? Here’s what you get. So some of them aren’t going to participate in getting rid of her in the primary because they see her as a whipping person — you can’t say whipping boy anymore — whipping person, for the party to go on to their other races.”
Major pro-Israel groups spending against progressives this cycle have also raised money from Republicans while painting their opponents as fake Democrats. The new PAC affiliated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee endorsed GOP officials who voted to overturn the 2020 election results. Another pro-Israel group called To Protect Our Heritage PAC gave Roberts Jr.’s campaign $5,000 in May.
In 2017, SCD Investments gave $1,500 to Roberts Sr.’s unsuccessful campaign for St. Louis alderman, a position he previously held alongside his brother, Michael. Another company under the name SCD Investments III gave Roberts Sr.’s campaign an additional $11,500. Between 2019 and 2020, SCD Investments III gave $2,600 to Roberts Jr.’s successful bid for the Missouri State Senate; in 2020, he received another $2,000 from a third company, SCD Investments VI.
Roberts Jr. has worked for several of his family’s companies, and his LinkedIn currently lists him as vice president, strategic initiatives and general counsel at the Roberts Companies. His campaign treasurer and business partner at Roberts Law LLC, where he is managing partner, is James Hill, who is also the registered agent for a GOP-linked dark money group launched in September that has been sending mailers attacking Bush.
The group, Progressives for Missouri, has sent mailers claiming that Bush votes with Republicans and attacking her for having private security. “Cori Bush has spent $300,000 on her own private security,” reads one such mailer. “She wants to defund your police … but not her own!”
In April, The Intercept reported that Roberts Jr. agreed to settle for $100,000 in a lawsuit alleging that he groped a woman in 2015. Roberts Jr. has also been accused of rape by Cora Faith Walker, who served with him in the Missouri state House and died in March of a heart condition. “It’s a ‘he said-she said.’ One of them’s dead already,” Zemitzsch told KSDK. “He’s a 34-year-old good-looking young man. I don’t think he forced himself on anyone.”
Roberts Jr.’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
Isaac Scher contributed reporting. | US Campaigns & Elections |
DENVER (AP) — It was no shock that state Rep. Ron Hanks and Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters handily lost their recent Republican primaries in Colorado for U.S. Senate and secretary of state.Hanks was outspent 14-to-1 by his rival. Peters, who was vying to become Colorado’s top elections official, had been indicted on seven felony charges alleging she helped orchestrate a breach of her voting system’s hard drive.But this past week, both candidates formally requested recounts of their primary elections from June 28, suggesting widespread irregularities seen by no one other than their own campaigns and allies.“I have reasons to believe extensive malfeasance occurred in the June 2022 primary,” Peters wrote in her recount request, “and that the apparent outcome of this election does not reflect the will of Colorado voters not only for myself but also for many other America First statewide and local primary candidates.”America First is a coalition of conservative candidates and officeholders who, among other things, promote the falsehood that Democrat Joe Biden did not win the 2020 presidential election.This idea has seeped deeply into this year’s Republican primaries, which have revealed a new political strategy among numerous candidates: running on a platform that denies President Donald Trump’s defeat two years ago. As some of those candidates lose their own races, they are reaching new frontiers in election denial by insisting that those primaries, too, were rigged.“There’s a clear reason they’re doing it, and it’s a much broader, coordinated attack on the freedom to vote across the country,” said Joanna Lydgate of States United Action. Her group supports election officials who recognize the validity of the 2020 election. Noting that she coaches youth basketball, Lydgate added another reason: “Really, what this is is people who are sore losers, people who don’t want to accept defeat.”The primary losers have an obvious role model: Trump himself.After his first election loss during his 2016 run for the White House, in the Iowa caucuses, Trump baselessly claimed fraud and demanded an investigation. When he was elected president later that year, he claimed that fraud was the reason Democrat Hillary Clinton won more votes than he did. Trump set up a commission to try to prove that. That commission was disbanded when it failed to produce any evidence.After his 2020 defeat, Trump and his supporters lost 63 of 64 legal challenges to the election. Trump continued to blame fraud, without evidence, even after his own attorney general and election reviews in the states failed to turn up any widespread wrongdoing that would have any impact on the outcome. This year’s post-primary election denial may be a preview for November, when Republicans face Democrats in thousands of races across the country. The GOP is expected to do well — an expectation that could set the stage for more false claims of fraud when some of those candidates lose.Still, some Republicans aren’t waiting for Democratic voters to weigh in before making unsubstantiated fraud claims.Some recent candidates who have done that are relatively marginal ones. In Georgia, Trump’s two recruits to challenge the state’s governor and secretary of state — former Sen. David Perdue and Rep. Jody Hice — admitted defeat after they lost the May primaries. But Kandiss Taylor, a fringe candidate who won only 3% of the primary vote for governor, refused to concede, claiming there was widespread cheating.In South Carolina, Republican Harrison Musselwhite — who goes by Trucker Bob — lost his primary against Gov. Henry McMaster by 66 percentage points. Still, he complained of problems with the election to the state party, as did another losing GOP contender, Lauren Martel, who ran for for attorney general. The party rejected their claims.Others who have cried fraud are more prominent. Joey Gilbert, who came in second in the Nevada Republican primary for governor, posted a Facebook video days after the June tally showing him 26,000 votes short. “These elections, the way they’ve been run, it’s like Swiss cheese,” he said. “There’s too many holes.”Gilbert, who attended Trump’s rally near the White House on Jan. 6, 2021, before the riot at the U.S. Capitol, demanded a recount. The results appear unlikely to substantially change the final tally. He did not return messages seeking comment.In Arizona, former newscaster Kari Lake won Trump’s endorsement in her quest for the party’s nomination for governor, insisting that he won the presidency in 2020. This past week, she told supporters that her top opponent in the primary “might be trying to set the stage for another steal” in next month’s primary.That earned her a rebuke from Gov. Doug Ducey, a Republican who has endorsed Lake’s chief rival, Karin Taylor Robson.“The 2022 elections haven’t even been held yet, and already we’re seeing speculation doubting the results – especially if certain candidates lose,” Ducey tweeted. “It’s one of the most irresponsible things I can imagine.”Lake’s campaign did not return messages seeking comment.In Colorado, county clerk Peters immediately questioned the primary results once the tally showed her losing badly in the secretary of state’s race. Claiming fraud as she trailed former county clerk Pam Anderson, a regular debunker of Trump’s election lies, Peters said: “Looking at the results, it’s just so obvious it should be flipped.”She and Senate candidate Hanks repeated Trump’s election lies, a position that had won them strong support last spring at the 3,000-strong GOP state assembly, a convention attended by the party’s strongest activists. Both candidates, in letters to the secretary of state’s office this past week demanding a recount, cited that support in explaining why they could not have lost their primaries.Hanks referred a reporter to an email address for media for the two candidates, though no one responded to questions sent to that address.The activists who attend the GOP gathering are just a small fraction of the 600,000 who voted in the June primary. According to preliminary results, Peters lost by 88,000 votes and Hanks by 56,000 votes.Their recount letters gave reasons why the candidates believed those vote tallies were “being artificially controlled.”The Colorado Secretary of State’s office said a recount will cost $236,000 for each candidate. As of Friday night, the deadline set by the office to receive the money, neither candidate had paid, according to spokeswoman Annie Orloff.___Follow AP for full coverage of the midterms at https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-electionsand on Twitter, https://twitter.com/ap_politics___This story has been corrected to reflect that Jody Hice is a current U.S. representative from Georgia, not a former House member. | US Campaigns & Elections |
TAYLOR, Mich. — Tudor Dixon's campaign for governor was left for dead.As recently as May, the former conservative commentator and actor had been polling near the bottom of a crowded Republican primary field and struggling to raise money. But unlike her character in the low-budget 2011 horror movie "Buddy BeBop vs. the Living Dead," who was eaten alive by zombies, Dixon has experienced a resurrection seldom seen in major races.Dixon, 45, benefited from chaos-inducing stumbles by her rivals, two of whom were disqualified after collecting allegedly fraudulent petition signatures, and from big money from the DeVos family, veritable kingmakers in Michigan politics.And then, late Friday, former President Donald Trump issued Dixon a long-telegraphed endorsement ahead of Tuesday’s primary, acknowledging how far she has come while also taking some credit for her rise by recalling kind words he had for her at a Michigan rally months ago.“When I met Tudor Dixon, she was not well known, but I could tell she had something very special,” Trump said.Dixon’s fortunes took off after the DeVos family got on board in late May. The family, which includes past GOP nominee for governor Dick DeVos and his wife, Betsy, who led Trump’s Education Department, has helped bankroll a pro-Dixon super PAC. As the group’s $2 million ad blitz took hold, Dixon zoomed to modest but consistent leads in the polls.Andy Surabian, a national GOP strategist close to Trump’s political team, told NBC News the shake-up in the race and the DeVos family backing were game-changers for Dixon’s candidacy.“Tudor has very much been the grassroots candidate throughout this entire race,” said Surabian, who has followed the race but is not working with any of the candidates. “She wasn’t viewed as a top-tier candidate for most of the race, and the establishment mocked her campaign, but her raw natural talent won out and now she’s the front-runner.”The closing days of the primary have been no less a gauntlet, though. The GOP candidates who are trailing Dixon, as well as Democrats who are invested in protecting their incumbent, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, have engaged in all-out efforts to stop her from winning the nomination.Dixon, who took target practice in front of news cameras Saturday at a shooting range in Taylor, south of Detroit, said Trump called her with the endorsement news Friday evening as she was leaving a county fair.“I knew it would be a lot of work,” she said of her campaign while chatting with reporters. “Even at the very beginning, when I first started to meet with some people who had been in the Michigan political arena, they said, ‘You can never do this, it’s so hard.’ And I said, 'You know what? I am a really persistent person.’"But, she added: "We’ll see on Tuesday.”Michigan, an electoral battleground, could be key to a Trump comeback if he runs again in 2024. Whoever is governor that year will be in position to certify election results, and each of the GOP candidates for governor, including Dixon, have promoted unfounded conspiracies about the 2020 election in Michigan, echoing Trump’s voter fraud lies. Meanwhile, Whitmer, who made it deep into President Joe Biden’s search for a running mate in 2020, has long been a target of Trump’s ire.Recent polls have shown Kevin Rinke, a self-funding former car dealer whose name is familiar to Detroit-area voters, as Dixon’s closest competition. Garrett Soldano, a chiropractor who gained a grassroots following on the right by protesting Whitmer’s Covid policies, is also polling in double digits. So is Ryan Kelley, a real estate broker who has pleaded not guilty to federal charges that he was part of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters aiming to stop the certification of the 2020 election.Dixon’s opponents have tried to use the DeVos endorsement against her, framing the family as villainous insiders who have been insufficiently loyal to Trump. Betsy DeVos resigned from Trump’s Cabinet after the deadly Jan. 6 riot. More recently, she said she was among those who discussed invoking the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office. At debates, Soldano characterized Dixon as beholden to career politicians and the establishment. Rinke has put more than $1 million behind a TV ad that brands DeVos as a RINO, or "Republican in name only," while accusing Dixon of being propped up by “Never Trumpers.” And in a letter sent Thursday, nine Trump-endorsed Michigan candidates pleaded with the former president not to side with the “establishment DeVos family.” The missive was widely seen as an attempt to prevent Trump from endorsing Dixon.“There is a war going on for the soul of the GOP in Michigan with Trump-endorsed candidates on one side and the establishment DeVos family on the other,” they wrote in the letter, obtained by NBC News and first reported by The Detroit News. “We strongly urge President Trump not to work with Betsy DeVos in Michigan.”Trump endorsed Dixon the next day. DeVos, for her part, defended herself in a handwritten letter to Trump. “I hear that some have implied that my family and I are working against you in Michigan,” DeVos wrote in the letter, which was obtained by The New York Times. “That is fake news.”The last-minute infighting may not matter. The Michigan secretary of state reported this week that nearly 600,000 early ballots have already been returned — ahead of the pace in 2018, when both parties had competitive primaries for governor. “It’s definitely too late to have any impact,” one veteran of GOP campaigns in the state, who is not affiliated with any candidate and requested anonymity to speak candidly, said of the efforts to stop Dixon. “I think she’s got it in the bag.”Like her rivals, Dixon had an unconventional path to the primary. In addition to dabbling in acting (her credits include a web series about vampires), she also worked for her family’s steel company. Most recently, she worked with Real America’s Voice, the same network that carries former Trump adviser Steve Bannon’s program, a conspiracy-theory-fueled show popular on the right.“She’s been in line with all the other candidates, and this kind of painting or dressing Tudor Dixon as the establishment candidate has kind of glossed over the fact that she falls far outside the traditional mainstream of Republican candidates in and across the country,” Jeff Timmer, a former executive director of the Michigan GOP who has soured on the party, said. “She doubles down on the Big Lie stuff every chance she gets. She’s against abortion in extreme cases like rape and incest.”Dixon’s hardline stance against abortion is one of several positions she emphasizes in her campaign — and one Democrats have seized on to paint her as an extremist. (Dixon favors exceptions only when the mother’s life is at risk.) She favors phasing out the state’s personal income tax. And she talks frequently about “parents’ rights” in education — a concept embraced by GOP candidates nationwide amid battles over how to teach about racism in the U.S. and whether schools can foster discussion about sexual orientation. She is keyed in to the culture wars, and has attacked the use of gender-neutral language as part of a "war on women."Democrats have signaled that Dixon is the candidate they fear most in a general election. A group affiliated with the Democratic Governors Association swooped in this week with a seven-figure advertising blitz that characterizes Dixon’s state budget proposals as anti-police.Jason Roe, who served as executive director of the Michigan GOP until he was forced out for saying the 2020 election wasn’t stolen but that Trump “blew it,” described the Republican primary contest as a “clown show.” He added that the coalescing around Dixon might be less about beating Whitmer and more about having a nominee who won't depress turnout this fall and cost the GOP control of the Legislature.Other candidates have too much baggage to top the ticket, Roe said. Kelley has the Jan. 6 charges. Rinke was sued years ago by employees who accused him of making sexually suggestive and racist remarks. (He told The Associated Press this month that the allegations were false and that he settled to avoid costlier court battles.) “She’s definitely our best chance to win,” Roe said of Dixon.Rinke, who asserts Dixon’s private sector experience pales in comparison to his own, shrugged off Trump’s endorsement Saturday morning during a get-out-the-vote rally outside his campaign headquarters in Troy."Candidates win elections, not endorsements,” Rinke said. “Boy, it’s going to taste sweet when all those people are eating crow.”The few dozen supporters who had turned out for Rinke ate doughnuts and sipped coffee as he spoke. But there was one conspicuous absence. Matt DePerno, the Trump-endorsed Republican for Michigan attorney general, had been scheduled to join Rinke. Someone in the crowd wondered aloud why he wasn’t there.“You'd have to ask Matt DePerno,” Rinke replied.A few hours later the question was answered. DePerno walked into the gun range alongside Dixon. | US Campaigns & Elections |
Rep. Jamie Raskin, a member of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol, said Sunday that criminal charges against the people involved in trying to overturn the 2020 election -- including former President Donald Trump -- were not his "principal interest" compared to understanding how the violence unfolded to avoid it being repeated."Our democracy is on the line here. Our Constitution is at stake. Are we going to have violent assaults against our elections? Are we going to have politicians who, disappointed with the results, try to overthrow the election and just seize power? Is that what American democracy is going to look like in the 21st century?" the Maryland Democrat told "This Week" co-anchor Martha Raddatz."So, for me, I'm principally interested in telling the American people the truth so we can fortify our institution against coups and insurrections going forward," Raskin continued."But I know that there's a great public hunger for individual criminal accountability, and I've got confidence in the Department of Justice, in Attorney General Merrick Garland, to do the right thing in terms of making all the difficult decisions about particular cases," he said.Raskin's remarks come after the Jan. 6 committee held its latest public hearing, on Thursday, outlining evidence of then-President Trump's pressure campaign on the Department of Justice to overturn his loss in the 2020 election.The committee says its investigation showed the sprawling campaign involved, among other things, an attempt to replace the acting attorney general with a loyalist more willing to concede to Trump's demands as well as suggestions of seizing voting machines and talks of pardons for conservative lawmakers who cooperated in the scheme.On "This Week" on Sunday, Raskin expressed alarm at the effort but also praised local officials who ensured that the 2020 race was not overturned.Jamie Raskin appears on "This Week", June 26, 2022.ABC News"We saw a series of successive shakedowns of the election officials of secretaries of state like Brad Raffensperger, of state legislative officials. And we saw a lot of heroes, people who hung tough, like Shaye Moss, and were not willing to be deterred from doing their public duties," he told Raddatz, referencing officials in Georgia who faced pressure over the election. "We saw the same thing at the Department of Justice as Trump's own appointees, who were telling him they could not do what he was asking them to do."Raddatz pressed Raskin on what he saw as the "real impact" of the hearings in the public consciousness, citing a recent ABC News/Ipsos poll that 34% of Americans had been following the hearing somewhat or very closely -- "as much as some people are very riveted," Raddatz said."People are busy and so we know a lot of people, especially younger people, will learn about the hearings through snippets that go out on TV or online and people now are able to process information in different ways," Raskin said. "It's not like the Watergate hearings where everybody had to be watching at the same moment because of the relatively primitive state of technology then. People are going to be able to absorb this over time."Raskin also discussed the testimony of Arizona state House Speaker Rusty Bowers, a Republican who was also pressed to overturn Trump's loss in the state in 2020. Bowers told the committee it was contrary to his faith to do so but that he would still vote for Trump in 2024 if Trump were to be the GOP nominee against President Joe Biden."I was very moved by Rusty Bowers's testimony and his constitutional faith and patriotism," Raskin said. "When he said that, I thought to myself, well, if you want to get Donald Trump back in office, and that were actually to materialize, you got to be prepared to do the exact same thing next time because Trump has proven himself to be absolutely disrespectful of the rule of law and completely ungovernable by the Constitution." | US Campaigns & Elections |
Former U.S. President Donald Trump reacts during his speech during a rally at the Iowa States Fairgrounds in Des Moines, Iowa, U.S., October 9, 2021. REUTERS/Rachel Mummey/File PhotoRegister now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comWASHINGTON, July 15 (Reuters) - Former President Donald Trump's online fundraising has slowed in recent months, a financial disclosure on Friday showed, adding to doubts over the firmness of his grip on the Republican Party.Trump's political committees raised about $18 million between April and June, about $2 million less than in the prior three months, according to a report by WinRed, the Republican donation processing portal.WinRed's latest reports have shown Trump's money-raising falling in seven of the last nine months, with tiny gains in May and June.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comTrump's decline, seen both among small and large donors, contrasts with fundraising growth across the rest of the Republican Party, as campaigns heat up ahead of the Nov. 8 midterm elections, when Republicans hope to seize control of Congress.After bringing in more than $300,000 a day in online contributions in September, Trump's political committees have raised around $200,000 a day over the last four months.The former leader's diverging financial path from the rest of the party could be a sign of waning enthusiasm for him, said Republican strategist Mike DuHaime.While Trump regularly hints he will run for president in 2024, about a quarter of Republicans do not think he should, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted June 7-8."There is definitely Trump fatigue," said DuHaime, adding that Trump's failure to declare he will run for president in 2024 could be dulling the urgency of his fundraising appeals relative to Republican congressional candidates working to unseat Democrats this November. "Donors care about future elections, not past elections."Trump spokesman Taylor Budowich said Trump was "raising money at an unparalleled pace" and that "any suggestion otherwise is just a tired case of bias narrative peddling by the Fake News."No recent president has raised money after leaving office as aggressively as Trump.His main political organization, Save America, had more than $100 million in the bank on May 31, according to the committee's most recent disclosure to the Federal Election Commission.But his fundraising juggernaut, which took in about a fifth of all contributions made to Republicans through WinRed in June 2021, accounted for only about a tenth in June of this year.Trump, still the Republican Party's dominant powerbroker, continues to top national polls among his party's possible 2024 presidential candidates.But in recent weeks, other potential contenders have raised their profiles while Trump has been the focus of a congressional probe into the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol by the former leader's supporters.Last month, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who has a political war chest similar in size to Trump's, had more support than Trump among likely Republican voters for New Hampshire's 2024 presidential primary contest, according to a University of New Hampshire poll.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comReporting by Jason Lange in Washington and Alexandra Ulmer in San Francisco; Editing by William MallardOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. | US Campaigns & Elections |
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) is reportedly keeping the door open to a 2024 White House run, even if former President Donald Trump enters the fray. Speaking to roughly two dozen top advisers and donors Tuesday, Cotton detailed some of the groundwork he has laid for a presidential bid, emphasizing that no contender would scare him off from running while teasing that he will make a final decision whether to run after the midterm elections, Politico reported Tuesday. BERNIE SANDERS SIGNALS HE’D SUPPORT BIDEN IN 2024 Cotton said he has fostered goodwill with both the populist and establishment wings of the party and touted that he is flush with $8 million in cash from his Senate campaign that could easily be moved to a presidential bid, according to the report. The Harvard-educated senator has long positioned himself as a Trump-friendly politician, only publicly breaking with the former president on a few occasions, such as his opposition to the Trump-backed criminal justice reform legislation and support for certifying the 2020 election results. He has remained in contact with Trump since his departure from the White House, per the report. Since 2020, Cotton has made numerous trips to New Hampshire and Iowa, the first two states in the Republican presidential primary, and has worked to cultivate a robust donor base and network with local activists, according to the report. This includes six trips to Iowa and four to New Hampshire. His top political adviser, Brian Colas, gave a presentation Tuesday during the session with donors detailing research Cotton and his advisers conducted into previous Republican presidential bids, the report said. Colas reportedly stressed that those two battleground states were "determinative" in the success of candidates clinching to party nod. Cotton has long sought to brandish his conservative bona fides by championing issues such as combating "wokeness," backing law enforcement, advocating for a Reagan-esque approach to foreign policy, and adhering to fiscal conservatism. Looming over his presidential aspirations is Trump. Alongside Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Trump is widely seen as a top contender for the Republican nod, crushing the competition in poll after poll. The former president has hinted but not declared his presidential ambitions, and behind the scenes, he is mulling the prospects of announcing his campaign before the midterm election cycle to deter any stiff competition and bring some excitement back into his life, NBC News reported. CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER The Washington Examiner reached out to one of Cotton's representatives for comment. At least two Republican strategists, Danny Diaz and Steven Law, and five donors — Jim Brennan, Paul Horvath, Kevin Dretzka, Thomas Lehrman, and attorney Keith Noreika — attended Cotton's meeting on Tuesday, per Politico. Cotton is one of a handful of big-name Republicans eyeing a presidential run in 2024. Others include DeSantis, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Meanwhile, on the Democratic side, Biden has sought to quell Democratic unease about him pursuing another term, with White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre reiterating his plans to pursue reelection Monday. | US Campaigns & Elections |
Democratic senators are pushing back on whispers within their party that President Biden, 79, is too old to run for a second term. Senators say they will strongly support Biden if he opts to run for reelection, despite growing concerns over his low public approval rating and his ability to win a grueling presidential election when he will be 81 years old. Biden’s viability as a candidate in 2024 is becoming a hot topic of debate even though the next presidential election is more than two years away. The New York Times reported Sunday that many Democratic lawmakers and party officials increasingly view Biden as “an anchor that should be cut loose in 2024,” citing interviews with 50 Democratic officials. Former chief Obama political strategist David Axelrod told the Times that Biden’s age “would be a major issue.” But Democratic senators are trying to stamp out talk of replacing Biden, fearful that the last thing they need heading into the 2022 midterm elections is more intraparty dissension. “I think it’s too soon to start that speculation. He’s got to complete this year, second year of his presidency. Then of course the speculation will grow. I can’t say at this point what I would recommend,” Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said when asked about party officials who have privately raised misgivings about a second Biden term. Durbin acknowledged that Biden’s age will be a discussion in the run-up to 2024 but argued that the president is doing well, given the enormous challenges he faces on high inflation and the war in Ukraine. “Age is a factor for everybody, but I don’t see any evidence that he can’t perform and I think he’s doing so at the highest levels,” Durbin said. Some Democratic lawmakers are voicing frustration that donors and party officials are getting distracted by speculation about Biden’s political future instead of focusing on the very real threat that they may lose control of the Senate in November. One Democratic lawmaker who requested anonymity warned that Biden’s ability to get things done in Washington and add to his record of accomplishments before the 2024 election will be severely diminished if Republicans win back the Senate majority. “There’s a lot of worry,” the senator acknowledged. “My focus is really on the midterms, because we have to keep the Senate majority. If we don’t keep the Senate majority, the Biden presidency is gravely undermined and he may not be able to run again.” “Here’s what I think of all the speculation: Instead of all of the handwringing and head-holding aimed at 2024, I just wish that people would focus a little more on the midterms and put their money where their mouths are,” the senator added. Speculation over Biden’s future is complicated by widespread expectations among Democrats that former President Trump is going to make another run for the White House and has an excellent chance of winning the GOP nomination. Biden’s already shown he can beat Trump in a head-to-head match-up, and Democratic lawmakers are leery about talk of replacing him with another nominee who doesn’t have a proven track record of winning on the national level. Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), the chairwoman of the Senate Democratic Policy and Communications Committee, said she’ll support whatever decision Biden makes about running for reelection. “I’m a supporter of the president, whatever he wants to do,” she said. Stabenow said she hasn’t heard whispers from fellow Democrats who don’t want Biden to run for another term. “I’ve been so busy negotiating the mental health and gun package. I’m not hearing that,” she said. Biden’s political future has come under greater scrutiny amid polls showing his approval rating steadily sinking. A Reuters-Ipsos poll published Wednesday showed that Biden’s approval rating has fallen in three straight weeks, dipping to 39 percent. The two-day survey of 1,005 adults showed that 56 percent of Americans disapprove of Biden’s job performance. Most Democratic senators, despite such polls, publicly say they fully expect Biden to run for a second term, even though he would be 82 years old on Inauguration Day 2025. “I look forward to working hard for Joe Biden’s reelection in 2024,” said Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), one of Biden’s closest allies on Capitol Hill. Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) said “he’s going to be the nominee and he’s going to be strong.” Asked about reports that a growing number of Democrats think Biden should step aside for Vice President Harris or another rising progressive star to run for the presidency, Casey said, “I don’t agree with any of that.” He said Biden “will be ready to run and will have a lot to talk about when he runs.”“I think the biggest problem we’ve had is we don’t lift up and brag enough about what he has done and what we’ve done with our majorities,” Casey said, referring to passage of the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan to help the nation through the COVID-19 pandemic, a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill, a postal reform bill, and the confirmation of the first Black woman to serve on the Supreme Court. Casey also said that Democrats need to do more to highlight Republican opposition to popular proposals, pointing out that most Republicans voted against the bipartisan infrastructure package and not a single GOP lawmaker voted for the American Rescue Plan. The Hill reported in April that Biden plans to run for a second term, but that hasn’t quelled speculation that he’ll change his mind if he can’t improve his low approval rating. Harris, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) are some of the names floated as potential presidential candidates should Biden step away from office. Biden’s defenders on Capitol Hill argue his job approval rating is being weighed down by inflation and that it’s not his fault, putting the blame instead on oil companies and other companies who have raised prices to fatten profits. “I think it’s tough when factors beyond his control like inflation are happening. I understand people’s frustrations,” said Stabenow, who doesn’t think Biden is getting enough credit for what he did to keep the economy strong despite the pandemic. “He spent the first year making sure people’s lives were saved and children got back to school and people survived and small businesses survived,” she said. “The problem is with price gouging on gas prices and other prices that have gone up, that’s what people feel.” Democratic lawmakers predict that if Biden decides to retire from public service after four years in the White House, it will open the gates for a crowd of challengers to replace him. “I think this is Joe’s decision and I think if he runs, he’ll get plenty of support. And if he decides not to, look out, Nellie! There will be a lot of happy TV stations,” said Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), predicting political drama that would drive television ratings if Biden steps aside. Tester said as many as 20 Democrats could throw their hats in the ring if Biden forgoes a second term but said he doesn’t think that’s likely. “I already think Joe’s going to run again. I do,” he said. He argued that former President Clinton’s job approval rating dropped below 40 percent in 1993, prompting predictions he couldn’t win a second term. Clinton later soundly beat then-Sen. Bob Dole (R-Kan.) in the 1996 presidential election. Clinton, however, was 50 years old when he won a second term. Dole was 73. | US Campaigns & Elections |
COLUMBUS, Ohio -- The fraught politics of abortion have helped turn an August ballot question in Ohio that would make it harder to change the state constitution into a cauldron of misinformation and fear-mongering.
State Issue 1, the sole question on the ballot, calls for raising the threshold for passing future changes to the Ohio Constitution from a simple majority to 60%. Starting next year, it also would double the number of counties where signatures must be gathered, from 44 to all 88, and do away with the 10-day grace period for closing gaps in the total valid signatures submitted.
Republican state lawmakers and the GOP elections chief who urgently advanced the measure said it had nothing to do with thwarting an abortion rights questionworking toward the ballot this fall. However, early summer messaging on social media and in churches has consistently urged a yes vote on the August amendment “to protect life” — and that's just one example of the loaded messages confronting voters during the campaign.
Protect Women Ohio, the campaign against the fall abortion issue, is airing pro-Issue 1 ads suggesting that abortions rights proponents at work in the state “encourage minors to get sex change surgeries and want to trash parental consent.” The fall abortion amendment would protect access to various forms of reproductive health care but makes no mention of gender surgery, and the attorneys who wrote it say Ohio's parental consent law would not be affected.
Groups opposing Issue 1 also have played on voters' fears with their messaging against the 60% threshold. One spot by the Democratic political group Progress Action Fund shows a couple steamily groping in their bedroom, then interrupted by a white-haired Republican congressman who has come to take their birth control. It closes with a caption: “Keep Republicans Out of Your Bedroom. Vote No On Aug, 8.”
While the ad is based in fears that the U.S. Supreme Court could limit rights to at-home contraception and Issue 1 would make it harder to enshrine those in Ohio’s state constitution, “the direct, immediate issue is abortion,” said Susan Burgess, a political science professor at Ohio University.
The divergent abortion communications around Issue 1 reflects a big problem Republicans in Ohio must confront: holding an increasingly diverse voting bloc together, Burgess said.
“That is a complicated coalition that includes evangelicals; it includes people on the far right, it includes libertarians and includes, you know, old-time Reagan Republicans,” she said. “They need to be able to talk about abortion to hold a certain part of their coalition together, but it’s not a political winner at this time for them to stick to a hard-line abortion argument.”
Issue 1 supporters’ conversations in more targeted settings reflect that duality.
Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose, who supports the measure, has previously called Issue 1 a “win for good government” that protects Ohioans from out-of-state special interests.
But he had a different tone at a Seneca County dinner for Lincoln Day in May, when he said that the August measure “is 100% about keeping a radical, pro-abortion amendment out of our constitution.” In an Associated Press interview, LaRose said that comment — now featured in ads around the state — was clipped from a lengthy speech and taken out of context.
Aaron Baer, president of the Center for Christian Virtue, said on a radio show this month that his organization is only connecting Issue 1 to abortion with certain segments of Ohio voters.
“When we go up on TV, is the ad going to be on abortion? Probably not,” he told host Bob Frantz on “Always Right Radio.” But, Baer said, when talking to conservative audiences, “we’re hitting the life issue hard because it really exemplifies why you have to be fired up and go vote.”
That two-track approach is reflected in the pro-Issue 1 campaign's first statewide ad, which debuted Monday and steers clear of abortion. Instead, it highlights that amendments to the U.S. Constitution require a two-thirds vote while Ohio's requires a simple 50%-plus-one majority. Ohioans overwhelmingly voted to set the lower threshold in 1912, in a Progressive-era response to rampant political corruption.
Kimberly Inez McGuire, executive director of Unite for Reproductive & Gender Equity, an advocacy group, said she believes Issue 1 supporters are playing down abortion in their statewide messaging because they know public opinion isn’t on their side.
“We’re seeing more and more legislators and opponents of abortion who understand that their agenda is extremely unpopular with the American people,” she said. “We’re seeing special sessions, we’re seeing anti-abortion bills passed in the dead of night, and we’re seeing these denials from those who are pushing a measure that is designed to undercut democracy with the intention of hurting Ohio’s abortion measure.”
Mark Caleb Smith, a political science professor at southwest Ohio’s Cedarville University, said abortion is emotionally charged and easy to understand — and can therefore engage Ohioans to donate, volunteer and vote when they otherwise wouldn’t bother with an off-season election about something as esoteric as how to amend the state’s constitution.
Calling Issue 1 abortion-related also reflects the truth that its passage is pivotal to whether November’s abortion ballot issue passes in Ohio, Smith said. Amendments protecting access to abortion in other states have typically passed — but with less than 60% of the vote. AP VoteCast polling last year found 59% of Ohio voters say abortion should generally be legal.
Kayla Griffin, Ohio state director of All Voting Is Local and an opponent of Issue 1, said her side wants to keep the messaging on Issue 1 broader than just abortion.
“While abortion is on the ballot right now, minimum wage is on the ballot next,” she said. “We are bigger and our democracy is far bigger than a single issue, and we have to be able to navigate that when we go to the ballot box.”
Voting rights groups and Ohio's former chief justice also are at work on a constitutional amendment to change Ohio's broken redistricting system.
As both supporters and opponents of Issue 1 seek voter buy-in, some of their messaging has strayed into misinformation.
“Ohio Should Vote for Issue 1 to Help Stop Abortions Up to Birth,” read a headline last week on LifeNews.com.
But the November abortion initiative wouldn’t stop the state’s lawmakers from restricting abortions after the fetus is viable outside the womb, around 23 or 24 weeks.
Medical experts dispute the concept of abortions “up to birth,” saying that pregnancy terminations at that stage are very rare — only 0.7% of abortions in Ohio in 2021 occurred after 21 weeks — and typically involve medication that induces birth early, which is different from a surgical abortion. The procedure, which is also referred to as an induction abortion, typically happens only if the fetus has a low probability of survival.
An email from Right to Life of Greater Cincinnati went a step farther, claiming without evidence that sex traffickers and abortion providers were “evil twins” working together to “aid and abet” one another.
Democrat Teresa Fedor, a former state lawmaker who championed Ohio’s sex trafficking crackdown in the legislature, said she didn’t find a prominent connection between sex trafficking and forced abortion during her 20 years working on the issue.
“My perspective is the anti-reproductive health care advocates are so desperate to pass Issue 1, they will unfortunately use a false narrative to influence their supporters,” she said in an email.
___ Swenson reported from Seattle. The Associated Press receives support from several private foundations to enhance its explanatory coverage of elections and democracy. See more about AP’s democracy initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content. | US Campaigns & Elections |
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! FIRST ON FOX: Trump-endorsed candidate Adam Laxalt told Fox News Digital Thursday that his campaign raised $2.8 million during the second quarter as he campaigns in the Nevada Senate, four months before faces incumbent Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., in the November election."We finished the quarter with our best fundraising period to date, demonstrating both strength and momentum in our campaign to become the 51st Republican seat to take back the Senate," the Adam Laxalt for U.S. Senate campaign told Fox News Digital in an exclusive statement. "Cortez Masto and her allies have already spent $20 million in TV ads since this year, trying to both rehabilitate her terrible image among Nevada voters while also attacking our message of stopping inflation, securing our border, lowering gas prices, and keeping our communities safe," Laxalt's spokesperson said. FORMER NEVADA ATTORNEY GENERAL ADAM LAXALT DEFEATS WAR VETERAN SAM BROWN IN NEVADA REPUBLICAN SENATE PRIMARY Nevada Republican U.S. Senate candidate Adam Laxalt speaks (Bridget Bennett)"All of this money spent as we were winning a spirited primary hasn’t helped Masto at all, as she still sits in the low 40s among the general electorate. Truth is, she is the nation’s most vulnerable Senator and no amount of money is going to save her this November," the spokesperson added.Cortez Masto set a second quarter fundraising record for the U.S. Senate in Nevada, raising more than $7.5 million dollars for her campaign.The senator set a first quarter fundraising record of over $4.4 million, bringing her total amount of funds to around $10 million.TRUMP-BACKED ADAM LAXALT SAYS TUESDAY'S PRIMARY IN NEVADA ‘GREAT DRY RUN’ FOR NOVEMBER SENATE SHOWDOWN Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev at a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)Despite Cortez Masto outraising Laxalt, the two opponents had a close race in last months primary that has created uncertainty for the upcoming midterms.Laxalt won the GOP primary for the Republican nomination for Senate in June, defeating runner-up Sam Brown.After the polls closed in Nevada's primary last month, the results showed that Cortez Masto received only about 20,000 more votes than Laxalt, a tight race that will have voters watching closely until November.CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APPIronically, the last Republican to hold the seat was Laxalt's grandfather Paul Laxalt, who served first as Nevada's 22nd governor from 1967 to 1971, before being the State Senator from 1974-1987.Nevada is a toss-up state for the upcoming midterm elections, with the Senate seat being pivotal in deciding which party will take control of the Senate for the next two years Aubrie Spady is a college associate for Fox News Digital. | US Campaigns & Elections |
Democrats and Republicans alike are heading out to the ritzy Hamptons, New York's summer playground, to fill their campaign war chests in the final months of the 2022 midterm elections and, in some cases, to test presidential aspirations for 2024.With just under 100 days until the November elections, more than a dozen congressional and state lawmakers are heading to the Hamptons for fundraisers in August alone. Wall Street executives, media titans, top lawyers and other corporate leaders are hosting numerous pricey fundraising dinners at their beach town estates, according to interviews with GOP and Democratic fundraisers, donors and political consultants. Many of the people in this story declined to be named to discuss private gatherings featuring candidates and other financiers."They are all here," said a Democratic fundraiser hosting multiple upcoming events in the Hamptons.Donors from Suffolk County on Long Island, where the Hamptons are located, have contributed over $17 million to candidates during the 2022 election cycle, according to data from non-partisan campaign finance watchdog OpenSecrets. Suffolk County donors gave more than $45 million to campaigns during the 2020 election.Democrats who've scheduled fundraisers in the Hamptons include, author and Maryland Democratic gubernatorial nominee Wes Moore, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, Georgia gubernatorial nominee Stacey Abrams and California House Rep. Karen Bass according to invitations reviewed by CNBC and people familiar with the matter. Hochul is running for reelection against Rep. Lee Zeldin, R-N.Y., while Bass is campaigning to be the next mayor of Los Angeles.A Hochul campaign spokeswoman declined to comment. Representatives for Moore, Abrams and Bass did not return requests for comment.Republicans who recently scheduled or have allies trying to organize meetings in the Hamptons with top donors include Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California, former Vice President Mike Pence and Marc Molinaro, a county official in New York state, according to invitations and people familiar with the matter.Representatives for Sasse, DeSantis, Cotton, McCarthy and Molinaro did not return requests for comment.Sasse isn't up for reelection until 2026 so his fundraiser could fuel speculation that he's considering running for president in 2024. Mark Gerson and Rabbi Erica Gerson are hosting a fundraiser for Sasse at their Sag Harbor, N.Y., home on Friday, according to an invitation. Seats are going for between $1,000 to $10,800 per person, which will go to Sasse's leadership committee. Gerson, who is the co-founder of financial advisory firm Gerson Lehrman Group, did not return requests for comment.Molinaro is running for a New York House seat in November, and McCarthy is up for reelection this year. Republican kingmaker and metal mogul Andy Sabin is cohosting a fundraiser on Thursday at his seven-acre compound in Amagansett near East Hampton for Molinaro with McCarthy as a featured guest, according to the businessman.Tickets for the event go from $1,000 to $5,000 in support of Malinaro's campaign. He noted that Zeldin and Rep. Andrew Garbarino, R-N.Y., are also attending the event. Stephen Louro, the CEO of employee benefit and insurance company Professional Group Plans is hosting a fundraiser at his Nissequogue estate for Zeldin on Aug. 24. The dinner, which is backing his gubernatorial campaign, will feature a jet suit flight demonstration, a performance by vocalist Christopher Macchio and a fireworks show, according to an invitation. Louro's massive waterfront home includes a pool and direct access to the beach, according to Virtual Globetrotting, a website that tracks the homes of the rich and famous.Louro did not return requests for comment.Sabin said he was invited to a Hamptons fundraiser that took place at the end of July for DeSantis' gubernatorial campaign which was hosted by an investor named Doug Douglas, the Republican fundraiser explained. Another GOP fundraiser said DeSantis is expected to come back to the Hamptons by the end of the month.Sabin, who contributed just over $220,000 to Trump Victory, a joint fundraising committee for former President Donald Trump's campaign and the Republican National Committee during his two runs for president, said he won't back Trump in a GOP primary for president in 2024 — but he would support him in the general election if he gets the nomination in 2024. Sabin said he's met with multiple potential 2024 contenders, and, while he wouldn't say who he's met with, he noted he hasn't spoken to Trump since his 2020 defeat. He recently helped DeSantis raise over $1 million at a fundraiser at the Ocean Reef Club in Key Largo, Fla., Sabin said.Sabin said one of the reasons he soured on Trump is the former president's reluctance to move on from the 2020 presidential election. "I think a lot of people like myself wanted him to get past 2020," Sabin explained. "He could be such a huge help to the party if he could get over the fact that he lost," he added.Trump told New York Magazine in a recent interview that he has already decided to run for president again, and that he only needs to settle whether he launches a campaign before or after the 2022 midterm elections.DeSantis is fighting for reelection in Florida, but he too has been meeting with powerful out-of-state donors and has not publicly ruled out running for president either. Cotton also isn't up for reelection for another four years, but he's reportedly huddled with donors to discuss a 2024 run for president. Pence, who was Trump's vice president, has also been privately huddling with donors and not ruling out a 2024 White House run.As for the other hosts of these events in August, it's a who's who of affluent business leaders that could help raise millions of dollars for candidates. Moore is set to be hosted at the Water Mill, N.Y. home of Brian Eizenstat, a managing partner at hedge fund Dilation Capital, according to an invitation. The event is set to take place Aug. 21, with tickets starting at $500 and going to $6,000. Other cohosts listed include Jon Henes, the CEO of corporate advisory firm C-Street Advisory Group.Eizenstat did not return a request for comment.Wall Street veteran Richard Perry and his wife, Lisa are hosting a fundraiser at their Hamptons home for Abrams on Thursday, according to an email to donors. The invitation, which doesn't say who's hosting the event, asks for $1,000 to $10,000 per ticket. The gathering is in support of One Georgia, Abrams' leadership committee, according to the invitation.Perry's Hamptons beach-front estate in Sag Harbor has a pool and tennis court, according to Virtual Globetrotting. Perry once ran the now closed Perry Capital and is the nephew to the late Jimmy Cayne, the former CEO of Bear Stearns.Abrams this week will also be at the Hamptons home of Emily Giske, a senior partner at lobbying giant Bolton-St.Johns, one political consultant said. Gisk did not respond to a request for comment. Perry and his wife did not return repeated requests for comment.Businessman Dennis Mehiel is scheduled to cohost an evening reception for Hochul at his Water Mill mansion on Aug. 13, according to an invitation. Tickets for that gathering run up to $25,000, with other cohosts including public relations executive Mike Kempner and Bruce Mosler, a leader of the law firm Cushman and Wakefield.Charles Philips, the former CEO of software company Infor, is cohosting with veteran attorney Melissa Prober a $1,500-a-plate fundraiser at his East Hampton home for Bass. Phillips said he's also hosting a fundraiser for New York Mayor Eric Adams at the end of August."For moderate common sense Democrats, the donors seem supportive and interested," he added, when asked the type of reception he's receiving for the Bass event. | US Campaigns & Elections |
The South Carolina GOP primary will mostly be devoid of drama. Still, all eyes are on the 1st Congressional District, where Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) seeks the renomination against Donald Trump-endorsed Katie Arrington, in yet another test of the former president's influence within the party. Arrington won a shocking primary win over Mark Sanford in 2018, losing to Democrat Joe Cunningham in the general election, the first time a Republican lost that seat in nearly 40 years. Mace, the first woman to graduate from the Corps of Cadets program at The Citadel, ran for the seat in 2020 with Trump's endorsement and edged out Cunningham by approximately 6,000 votes. Polling for House primary races is sporadic, but a Trafalgar Group poll taken at the end of May shows Mace with a lead of 5 points. Arrington, for her part, is playing the role of a Trump acolyte to perfection. During the one debate she had with Mace, Arrington managed to make sure she told anyone watching how much she'd fight to keep critical race theory and the "transgender agenda" out of classrooms — something primarily reserved for state and local officials. She also accused Mace of acting like a "liberal" and a "RINO," or "Republican in name only." Mace has a conservative voting record. While organizational scores don't figure prominently in elections, Heritage Action does give Mace a 93% rating, while the average House rating for Republicans is 89%. So it's hard to take Arrington's accusation that Mace is a RINO, much less a liberal, seriously with those numbers. So why the change of heart from Trump? Easy. Mace violated the golden rule of Thou Shalt Not Criticize Donald Trump. Mace was vocal about the events of Jan. 6. She said, "Every accomplishment that Republicans have made over the last four years, including President Trump ... were wiped out in just a few short hours." Mace voted to certify the election results. She later voted against the formation of the Jan. 6 commission and voted to oust Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) from her leadership role in the GOP. That wasn't enough for Trump. The Washington Examiner caught up with Mace as she zips between Washington, D.C., for business and South Carolina for the campaign. Asked how she felt about the vote, Mace said she was "cautiously optimistic." She offered up a blunt assessment of Arrington: "She simply can't tell the truth." Mace made sure to highlight that she received the endorsement of Summerville Mayor Ricky Waring. The key to that endorsement? It's an apparent snub of Arrington, who lives in Summerville. Mace is looking to the future and the likely possibility Republicans will control at least the House and what the agenda will look like. Mace said, "Inflation and the supply chain will be the top two issues." She criticized President Joe Biden directly, saying he's not taking the steps he should to alleviate inflation, such as eliminating more tariffs and pushing for more changes to assist with the shortage of baby formula. "He's done nothing about the FDA, and why is customs seizing formula that comes in from overseas?" she asked. Mace maintained that while she is a conservative — she called herself a "staunch fiscal conservative" — she will not be one who will toe the party line, even if it means falling out of favor with Trump. While the ballot will have three names, one of the candidates, Lynz Piper-Loomis, has withdrawn from the race. So while Mace concedes Piper-Loomis will get some votes, it likely won't be enough to keep Mace from hitting the 50.1% threshold needed to avoid a runoff. Her "cautiously optimistic" target? "I think I'll get 55% to 56%, with the top line close to 58%." | US Campaigns & Elections |
Adam Laxalt speaks to a crowd at an election night event on June 14, 2022 in Reno, Nevada. (Trevor Bexon/Getty Images)A string of election-denying conspiracy theorists, some with close ties to QAnon, won their elections Tuesday night, pushing the Republican Party further into the arms of former President Donald Trump—and putting the 2024 elections at even greater risk of sabotage.Former Nevada state Rep. Jim Marchant, leader of a QAnon-tied political coalition, nabbed the GOP’s endorsement for secretary of state, while former Nevada Secretary of State Adam Laxalt, Trump’s 2020 state co-chair, won the nomination for one of the country’s most closely watched Senate races. And in South Carolina, a Trump-backed election denier defeated one of the 10 House Republicans who dared to vote to impeach Trump last year.Marchant announced at a QAnon conference last October that he formed the America First Secretary of State Coalition, a group of more than a dozen GOP candidates across the country who back the Big Lie about the 2020 election and want to make major changes to their states’ voting systems before the 2024 presidential election.Marchant declared at that conference that the group’s goal was to “control the election system” and “take back our country”—and said he was working closely with QAnon influencer “Juan O Savin” (real name: Wayne Willott) to expand the group’s efforts (he’s since been quieter about Willott’s role).In March, Marchant claimed that “We haven’t, in Nevada, elected anybody since 2006. They have been installed by the Deep State Cabal.”Marchant’s victory makes him the third QAnon-tied candidate involved in his coalition to win the Republican Party nomination to control their swing state’s election system. Kristina Karamo, another member of Marchant’s coalition, already secured the GOP nomination for Michigan secretary of state, while fellow Marchant ally and group member Doug Mastriano handily won the Pennsylvania gubernatorial primary last month (in Pennsylvania, the governor appoints the secretary of state). Close Marchant allies are also running for secretary of state in swing-state Arizona and Colorado.The only win for the GOP establishment in a secretary of state race so far came in Georgia, where Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger fended off a Trump-backed challenge from Rep. Jody Hice last month.But Marchant’s win wasn’t the only significant victory for an election-denying Trump ally on Tuesday night. Former Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt won the GOP primary to face Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto in what’s expected to be one of the most competitive races in the battle for Senate control, putting another close Trump ally on the ticket in a marquee race.Laxalt has played a key role in pushing lies about the 2020 election as well.As Trump’s 2020 Nevada campaign co-chair, Laxalt called the 2020 elections “rigged” and filed numerous failed lawsuits to try to prove it, including an injunction that tried to block Nevada’s largest county from counting mail ballots. He spoke at a “Stop the Steal” rally, claimed he had evidence of “dead voters that have been counted,” and said “illegals” had cast thousands of ballots, and unsuccessfully sued to get Joe Biden’s win overturned. Even after Nevada had certified its results, he filed a Dec. 31 lawsuit that alleged Nevada’s Republican secretary of state hadn’t kept non-citizens from voting.Laxalt has already cast aspersions on his upcoming election too, pledging back in September to “file lawsuits early” before the midterms to “try to tighten up the election.”Another QAnon-embracing conspiracy theorist is heading to Congress too—though she might not be there for long. Republican Mayra Flores won a special election in a heavily Hispanic open seat in South Texas on Tuesday night, meaning she’ll be in the House through November.Flores has repeatedly used the #Q and #QAnon hashtags in social media posts, and in one 2020 paid Facebook ad she used three different QAnon-linked hashtags, including #WWG1WGA (the QAnon slogan, “where we go one, we go all”). She has more recently attempted to distance herself from the conspiracy movement.Flores will have a tougher race this fall because of redistricting—the new district she’s running for would have gone to President Biden by a 16-point margin, up from the 4-point margin.As Laxalt and Marchant cruised to victory in Nevada and Flores flipped a Texas seat, Trump got his revenge over another anti-Trump congressman. South Carolina Rep. Tom Rice, one of the handful House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump, lost by a wide margin to a Trump-backed challenger in his Tuesday primary.Rice’s loss means that at least five of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump won’t be back next year—four others have already announced their retirements. Four others are also facing tough upcoming primaries. California Rep. David Valadao, who won his primary last week, is the only House Republican who’s so far managed to survive an election after voting to impeach Trump.“He’s purging. He’s purging. He’s trying to set the Republican Party up as a bunch of yes-men loyalists,” Rice told Politico last weekend. “Think about that. That’s scary.”The one exception to this purge pattern was Rice’s home-state colleague, Republican Rep. Nancy Mace, who managed to hang on in a close and hard-fought primary against a Trump-backed challenger. Mace didn’t vote for impeachment but was harshly critical of Trump after the Jan. 6 riots. But she succeeded where Rice failed partly because she flip-flopped hard on her previous Trump criticism, going so far as to head to Trump Tower in New York City to record a video praising the former president in February.Want the best of VICE News straight to your inbox? Sign up here.Get the latest from VICE News in your inbox. Sign up right here.By signing up, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy & to receive electronic communications from Vice Media Group, which may include marketing promotions, advertisements and sponsored content. | US Campaigns & Elections |
An American flag flies outside of the U.S. Capitol dome in Washington, U.S., January 15, 2020. REUTERS/Tom Brenner/File PhotoRegister now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comWASHINGTON, June 28 (Reuters) - Voters in Illinois and Colorado will pick candidates for the U.S. Congress and other offices in primaries on Tuesday, in another test of former President Donald Trump's influence in the Republican Party ahead of the Nov. 8 midterm elections.Maryland and Oklahoma also hold nomination contests. Following are four key races to watch:ILLINOIS' 15TH CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICTNewly drawn district boundaries pit two incumbent Republicans against each other in central Illinois. Trump-endorsed U.S. Representative Mary Miller is an ally of U.S. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a prominent far-right Republican. Miller faces U.S. Representative Rodney Davis, a more traditional conservative, who supported creating a congressional inquiry into the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump's supporters. Davis' campaign raised more than $2.7 million through March 31, compared with the $1.1 million raised by Miller. The winner is likely to carry the district in November.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comILLINOIS' 6TH CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICTIllinois' newly drawn districts also pit two Democratic U.S. representatives against each other in the state's 6th district. Representative Sean Casten raised more than twice as much money through March 31 than Representative Marie Newman, who faces an ethics investigation for allegedly promising a job to a potential political rival.U.S. SENATE SEAT IN COLORADOThe Republican nomination contest for the U.S. Senate race in Colorado includes state Representative Ron Hanks, who marched in the Jan. 6 protest at the U.S. Capitol. Hanks has blamed the violence that followed the march on leftists, citing a debunked conspiracy theory. Hanks' principal opponent is wealthy construction company owner Joe O'Dea, who has self-financed a large portion of his campaign. Hanks has struggled with fund-raising, and his campaign had less than $20,000 in the bank at the end of March. The winner might have a chance against incumbent Democratic Senator Michael Bennet, who is seen struggling to hold onto his seat.COLORADO SECRETARY OF STATEThe Republican primary for the state's top elections official includes Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters, who has advocated for Trump's baseless claim that the 2020 presidential election was stolen. Peters' main opponent is former Jefferson County Clerk Pam Anderson who has rejected Trump's claims. The winner will challenge incumbent Democrat Jena Griswold.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comReporting by Jason Lange; Editing by Ross Colvin and Alistair BellOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. | US Campaigns & Elections |
WASHINGTON — One of the most reliable rules of American politics is that a president’s first-term midterm elections are bad for the president’s party. Since 1950, the president’s party has gained seats in the first midterm only once, in 2002, the first national election after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.That rule is likely to hold in this fall’s midterms with Republicans making gains, but some numbers are raising eyebrows among analysts this summer. Around the country, in notable races, Democratic candidates hold a sizable advantage in money raised through contributions thus far.Contributions are often viewed as a measure of support for the candidate. And Democrats are feeling especially good about U.S. Senate races in Georgia, Pennsylvania and Ohio.Those races are in the spotlight for a long list of reasons. Georgia and Pennsylvania both flipped Democratic in the 2020 presidential race. Ohio and Pennsylvania both have retiring Republicans leaving open seats. And Georgia has a Democratic senator, Raphael Warnock, who won in a special election in 2020 and will run again this year.Considering that the Senate is currently 50/50 in its partisan makeup, both parties are fighting hard for these seats, and yet, in each race, the Democrat holds a big lead in fundraising.In Georgia, Warnock leads his challenger, former University of Georgia football star Herschel Walker, by more than $9 million. In Pennsylvania, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman leads former TV doctor Mehmet Oz by about $7 million (and that is after Oz contributed $14 million to his own campaign). And in Ohio, Rep. Tim Ryan has raised about $18 million more than his opponent, author J.D. Vance.If those big discrepancies hold, they could lead to crucial homestretch advantages for the Democrats in what look to be close races. And the fund-raising trend continues beyond those individual races. Taken together, the major Democratic and Republican committees (the DNC and RNC as well as the congressional and senatorial committees) are almost even in terms of funds raised. That’s very different from 2020 and even 2018 when the GOP held big advantages at this time.So, good reason for the Democrats to be excited, right? Well, maybe, but there are other factors to consider when you think about 2022.For instance, there is a simple tally of how many people are running for Congress from each party. If one party is feeling better than the other, more candidates from that party tend to seek office and the GOP holds a big edge there.The Federal Election Commission reports during this election cycle (through March of this year) there were 1,277 Republican candidates trying to win seats in the U.S. House and Senate. That was 320 more candidates than the Democrats had at that time.Democrats might want to write some of that difference off to the current fractured state of the GOP, but more Republicans saw 2022 as a good year to try their luck at Congress, revealing something about the excitement in the two parties about the coming election.Another data point that suggests Republicans have reason to feel good about 2022: measures of voter enthusiasm. Polls have consistently shown Republican voters are more excited to vote in this year’s midterms than Democrats. A recent poll from Marquette University showed a more fired-up GOP.The survey of registered voters found that 88% of Republicans said they were very or somewhat enthusiastic about voting in 2022. In the same survey, Democrats clocked in at 76%. That’s a 12-point edge for Republicans and in close races it could give Republican candidates an advantage.In many ways, however, the 2022 midterms remain difficult to fully understand.The historical rules, a weak president and a bad economy suggest this should be a very good year for the GOP. But the ghosts of January 6 and Roe v. Wade also linger over this year and seem to be helping the Democrats somewhat. And the “generic ballot,” a measure of whether people plan to vote Republican or Democrat without getting into specifics about candidates, swings from poll to poll.One recent Economist/YouGov survey had the Democrats with a six-point advantage. A recent poll from Trafalgar Group, a Republican firm, gave the GOP an eight-point edge. And overall, the latest average from 538 gives the Republicans a very narrow .2-point edge on the generic ballot.In some ways, splits on all these indicators probably shouldn’t be a surprise. The calendar may say 2022, but both parties are still tied to 2020, a close election. Democrats are linked to President Joe Biden because he is in the White House and most Republicans still view former President Donald Trump as their leader.Normally, the party that loses in a presidential election leaves the losing candidate behind and moves on to new faces and voices, but that has not happened with the GOP. And for all the negative headlines regarding Biden’s approval rating, Trump isn’t viewed warmly by most voters either.Consider voters' personal feelings about the two men in the last NBC News Poll.Only 37% of those surveyed said they had positive feelings about Biden. That’s pretty bad. But for Trump, the figure was 36%. In short, neither party’s standard bearer is popular and that may be having a big impact on the 2022 vote.Midterms are supposed to be referenda, a measure of whether voters are happy with the people in power. But right now, Biden and Trump and 2020 all loom over the year’s midterms. It may be that some voters see this midterm not as a referendum but as a choice between two not very palatable alternatives.Add in a complicated issue environment and newly drawn congressional district lines and you have a recipe for a November that right now looks confusing and harder than usual to predict.Dante ChinniDante Chinni is a contributor to NBC News specializing in data analysis around campaigns, politics and culture. | US Campaigns & Elections |
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) is reportedly discussing the possibility of a 2024 presidential campaign with major Republican donors. The decision, reportedly, will ultimately depend on the 2022 midterm elections and not former President Donald Trump. Tom Cotton, the junior senator from Arkansas, possibly running against Donald Trump? It’s a surprise I welcome with open arms. This is a major development for the future of the Republican Party, and it is up to Republican voters and donors to push Cotton toward running. Dan McLaughlin lists a few positive attributes about Cotton in his analysis. “He’s smart, conservative, relatively sober-minded, and has a foot in several different camps across the party,” he writes. “He’s a veteran, a hawk with real foreign-policy credibility, and a law-and-order guy.” Yet the cons outweigh the pros for McLaughlin. He calls Cotton a “serious guy” that “comes off as fairly dry” when speaking. “He’s more Scott Walker than Trump in terms of personality,” McLaughlin writes. “He’d be a safe choice, but not an exciting one.” His verdict: “Cotton could easily get in the way of a better option.” “Cotton’s best path to the nomination would look like the John Kerry route: draw a weak field in a year when foreign policy is predominant, a lot of potential heavyweights pass on a run, and the party is hungry for a credible candidate,” he writes. “That probably does not describe the Republican field in 2024.” I’ll agree that Cotton needs to inflect his voice more when speaking to crowds, but his charisma (or lack thereof) has not stopped Republican donors, activists, and voters from quietly raising support for the senator. McLaughlin tries to speculate about the 2024 field but only hits the mark on one of the factors. There will be big hitters trying to run, but that’s where the accuracy ends. So, what is the case for Cotton? He is a bridge between the establishment clawing to regain control of the Republican Party and the populists that wish to tear down legacy conservative institutions in order to rebuild it. “When Cotton rose to speak, he argued that he had developed appeal to the populist and establishment wings of the party, which he contended would serve him well in a primary,” Alex Isenstadt wrote. Foreign policy will be an important part of the 2024 field if a candidate strikes the right chord. President Joe Biden is failing to tackle the challenge of China and Republicans from varying ideological tribes are concerned. However, the Trump-era base that Josh Hawley and other populist-right politicians are appealing to is tired of separating foreign policy from domestic policy. Offshoring jobs to China is the gripe of many Republicans, and they’re tired of hearing about solutions that involve trade deals and tax cuts. The base wants something coherent, and they want it now. Cotton does not ignore the concerns of ordinary people when discussing foreign policy. In fact, support for the common good is foundational to Cotton’s anti-China playbook. He introduced a bill to raise the minimum wage gradually to $10, indexing the future wage to inflation, and mandating E-Verify to ensure compliance with immigration laws. Alongside Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Cotton proposed legislation that would prevent Big Tech from “making killer acquisitions that harm competition and eliminate consumer choice.” The logic is simple: If the federal government is unwilling or unable to improve the lives of America's citizens directly, then China has already won. Law and order is another crucial issue for Cotton, and his stance is rightfully uncompromising. Cotton’s well-known “Send In The Troops” op-ed for the New York Times called for the Trump administration to utilize the Insurrection Act against rioters during the summer of 2020. Democrats decried Cotton’s essay, and the newspaper added a disclaimer at the beginning that says the piece “should not have been published.” Yet when the events of Jan. 6 occurred, Cotton issued a press release reiterating his stance against political violence. “The principle remains the same: no quarter for insurrectionists,” he declared. This stance was suddenly commended by the Left, but only Cotton emerged with his credibility intact. The party desperately needs a fresh face that can appeal to all wings of the GOP’s ideological tribes. Former President Donald Trump will be 78 in November 2024, making a Biden v. Trump rematch a battle between retirees in denial. Cotton is young and hits the ideological bullseye. Our communities cannot wait for Trump to stop making politics about himself. Cotton needs to run because when it comes to the survival of our republic and its place in the world, no effort should be dismissed as futile. James Sweet is a summer 2022 Washington Examiner fellow. | US Campaigns & Elections |
By Jason LangeWASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democrats on the ballot for November's most competitive congressional elections have a growing financial advantage over Republicans, with a few Republican campaigns showing signs they are struggling at fundraising, new financial disclosures show.Republicans are still favored to win control of at least one chamber of the U.S. Congress on Nov. 8, boosted by widespread dissatisfaction with President Joe Biden, a Democrat.But Democrats ended June with about $15 million more in the bank than their Republican opponents in 17 congressional races that are widely seen as toss-up elections on Nov. 8 and have finished party nominating contests, according to disclosures filed to the Federal Election Commission late on Friday.In most of these races, Republican candidates still appeared to be raising enough money to mount viable campaigns, said Kyle Kondik, a political analyst at the University of Virginia's Center for Politics.But money is not pouring into Republican campaign coffers for Ohio's 9th congressional district, where Republican activist J.R. Majewski ended June with only about $113,000 in the bank.Majewski, who is challenging Democratic U.S. Representative Marcy Kaptur, first gained attention by painting his lawn with a giant "TRUMP" sign and has recently been the subject of news coverage exploring his links to the QAnon conspiracy theory movement and his presence at the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on Congress. Kaptur, first elected in 1982, ended June with about $1.7 million in the bank.If she wins a 21st term in November she would become the longest-serving woman to ever hold a seat in Congress."If Republicans come up like a little bit short in some of these swing districts, the huge money advantage for Democratic incumbents will probably be part of it," said Kondik.Majewski's campaign did not respond to a request for comment.Other Republicans who trailed badly in fundraising during the last three months included Colorado state senator Barbara Kirkmeyer, whose campaign for Colorado's 8th district only raised about $150,000 during the period. The Democrat in the race, state representative Yadira Caraveo, brought in around $600,000.Democrats also outraised Republicans in U.S. Senate races in Pennsylvania, Nevada and Georgia, the chamber's tightest contests in November where party nomination contests have already played out.Republican candidates in those three races still raised nearly $15 million between April and June, a large sum even if Democrats raised more than twice as much.(Reporting by Jason Lange; Editing by Alistair Bell) | US Campaigns & Elections |
Tina Peters, the Mesa County, Colorado, clerk indicted on multiple felony counts stemming from an election security breach, poses in a jail booking photograph in Grand Junction, Colorado, U.S. March 9, 2022. Mesa County Sheriff's Office/Handout via REUTERS Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comJune 27 (Reuters) - Tina Peters, an election official in western Colorado, has been indicted for election tampering and barred by a judge from overseeing voting in her home county this year.But Peters, who has echoed former President Donald Trump's false claims that the 2020 presidential election was rigged, is far from cowed. She is seeking the Republican nomination for secretary of state in Tuesday's primary contest, a position that would put her in charge of the state's election apparatus.Peters is among dozens of Republican candidates in November's midterm elections who have rejected the legitimacy of the 2020 race and are seeking offices with huge sway over future elections, including in battleground states such as Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Nevada.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comThere are 23 election deniers running in 17 states for secretary of state, typically a state's top election official, according to a tracker maintained by States United Action, a nonprofit advocacy group.The races – once low-profile – have drawn intense attention and huge fundraising totals following the 2020 election, when Trump and his allies sought unsuccessfully to alter the results in several key states.The candidates' rhetoric has alarmed good government advocacy groups, who warn the 2024 presidential election could trigger a constitutional crisis if certain states refuse to certify the results."I think people should be very worried," said Jessica Marsden, counsel to Protect Democracy, a nonprofit group. "There's a very real chance that with their hands on the levers of power, some of these candidates could participate in a similar scheme to alter outcomes of future elections."Peters' campaign did not respond to requests for comment.Peters is part of a slate of Republican candidates for secretary of state, the America First Secretary of State Coalition, who share similar messaging about election fraud.The group was founded by Jim Marchant, a former Nevada lawmaker who won that state's Republican nomination for secretary of state last week. Marchant, who did not respond to a request for comment, has said he would not have certified Democratic President Joe Biden's victory in Nevada in 2020. read more The coalition has received financial backing from The America Project, an organization led in part by Mike Flynn, Trump's former national security adviser known for spreading election conspiracy theories.Flynn's group is also spending $100,000 on last-minute ads attacking Peters' main Republican rival, Pam Anderson, according to campaign finance records - nearly as much as Anderson has raised so far.INDICTMENTA Colorado grand jury indicted Peters in March for allegedly allowing an outsider to gain access to the elections office in Mesa County, where she serves as clerk, and copy the voting system's hard drive.Peters has denied wrongdoing and accused Colorado's Democratic secretary of state, Jena Griswold, of targeting her for political reasons.The indictment has turned Peters into a hero in some conservative circles. She is frequently a featured guest at forums promoting election falsehoods and has outraised her Republican opponents.The breached data that triggered Peters' criminal charges is cited by pro-Trump activists in presentations to local officials around the country as evidence for baseless conspiracy theories involving rigged voting machines."She's a clerk and a very patriotic clerk," said Mark Cook, a technology consultant who has worked for pillow magnate and conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell. Cook was speaking to a board of commissioners in Nevada's Lyon County on April 21 during a presentation that cast Peters' tampering with election equipment as a noble act.Griswold, who is running for reelection, also serves as chairwoman for the Democratic Association of Secretaries of States."It's extremely dangerous, it causes violence and it's being used to set the stage to steal American elections," she said in an interview, referring to the lies about 2020.Anderson, Peters' leading Republican opponent, told Reuters that Peters' false rhetoric was "at a minimum reckless.""Election officials and public officials who hold these offices must remain above the political fray and push back," said Anderson, a former county clerk.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comReporting by Joseph Ax; Additional reporting by Linda So, Jason Szep and Alexandra Ulmer; Editing by Ross Colvin and Daniel WallisOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. | US Campaigns & Elections |
Arizona voters head to the polls Tuesday to cast ballots in the state's primaries. Leading Republican candidates in some key contests have doubled down on far-right conspiracies denying the results of the 2020 election. Stephanie Sy reports on how these candidates are shaping the race. Judy Woodruff: Voters in Arizona head to the polls Tuesday to cast ballots in the state's primaries, and in some of the key contests, leading Republican candidates have doubled down on far right conspiracies denying the results of the 2020 election.Stephanie Sy has more on how these candidates are shaping the race. Stephanie Sy: Republicans in Arizona agree on a lot. Dawn, Republican Voter: I want to conserve traditional values, family values, First right amendment, Second right amendment, 10th Amendment, we the people. Kathy, Republican Voter: We need to move on to the issues that are also critical, like water and the border and the economy and maintaining the economy that Arizona has been very lucky to have. Stephanie Sy: Dawn and Kathy are voters in Maricopa County, one of the largest Republican counties in America. Both voted twice for Donald Trump.But a big issue divides them and many primary voters here, whether the 2020 election was rigged for Joe Biden.You believe it was stolen? Kathy: That isn't true. It's not substantiated, and there's no evidence for it. Bret Baier, FOX News Anchor: The FOX News Decision Desk is calling Arizona for Joe Biden. That is a big get. Stephanie Sy: On election night, FOX News was the first news organization to project that Biden had won Arizona, shocking Trump supporters, including Dawn.As a poll volunteer in Chandler, Arizona, she says, only an hour earlier, she'd seen a truck carrying paper ballots away. Dawn: FOX News is on, and they announce Trump lost Arizona? Arizona's been called? How could they call Arizona? They hadn't even gotten the votes from our location. Stephanie Sy: News organizations don't tally paper ballots to project election winners, but, to Dawn, the early call was enough to sow doubt, doubt that the former president and those who still support him have exploited ever since.How successful that misinformation campaign is will be put to the test in Arizona on Tuesday. Republican candidates for some of the highest offices in the state, governor, U.S. senator, and secretary of state, have not only repeatedly talked about election fraud; they have made it a Keystone of their campaigns. Question: You have called Joe Biden an illegitimate president. What does that mean?Kari Lake (R), Arizona Gubernatorial Candidate: He lost the election, and he shouldn't be in the White House. We had a corrupt election. I'd like to ask everyone on the stage if they would agree we had a corrupt, stolen election. Raise your hand. Stephanie Sy: Kari Lake is running for governor. Her campaign posters show her side by side with the former president. Kari Lake: And we have got And make sure we don't end up with a McCain-Ducey RINO. Stephanie Sy: At a recent rally in Tucson, Lake repeated the Trump playbook, accusing her opponent Karrin Taylor Robson, of getting ready to cheat in the primary. Kari Lake: I guess if you're counting people who are dead people, who might be.(LAUGHTER) Kari Lake: But she's not up at the polls. And it makes me think they might be trying to set the stage for another steal. Stephanie Sy: Kari Lake's campaign is nothing, if not Trump-inspired, a media personality with no political experience, a no-holds-barred style who speaks to today's Republican base.But the MAGA crowd alone can't give her victory in the general election if she gets past the primary. Biden won Arizona by appealing to the state's largest group of voters, independents, and many Republicans crossed over.Are you concerned that you have alienated those independents and some of those Republicans who voted for Biden in this state with all the talk about decertifying the election? Kari Lake: I'm not going to change who I am. My whole campaign has been based on my understanding of Arizona and the people of Arizona. And we want honest elections. We want honest elections for our Democrat friends, our independent friends, and our Republican friends. Stephanie Sy: While Lake has Trump's endorsement, Robson has the support of the Republican establishment, current Arizona Governor Doug Ducey and Trump's Vice President Mike Pence, making the race a head to head fight between the two factions of the GOP.Stephen Richer (R), Maricopa County, Arizona, Recorder: I would say I'm sort of a libertarian-minded conservative. Stephanie Sy: Stephen Richer is the Maricopa County recorder. A Republican, he beat the Democratic incumbent to become the county's highest election official in 2020. And he says not only was the election honest, but that his Republican colleagues who claim otherwise are challenging the underlying foundation of the United States.You're saying those voting machines were absolutely secure? Stephen Richer: That's a fact. Every single test has worked. They were used in multiple elections that nobody ever challenged prior to the November 2020 election. They went through federal certification. They went through state certification. They went through tests before the election. They went through a hand-count audit by the political parties themselves, and they always match 100 percent. Stephanie Sy: But that, spoken by a conservative who voted for Trump, is still not enough for some voters, nor were the January 6 hearings that featured some of Trump's closest allies, like former Attorney General Bill Barr. William Barr, Former U.S. Attorney General: The election was not stolen by fraud. And I haven't seen anything since the election that changes my mind on that. Stephanie Sy: You now have multiple people that were close to President Trump saying there just wasn't evidence to show widespread fraud that would have changed the outcome. And multiple people have come out and said that. They were trying to convince the president of this. Dawn: I personally believe that there are people that were close to Trump that were not close to Trump in philosophies. Stephanie Sy: Multiple investigations, court cases, and audits showed the election was clean, and that was before millions of dollars were spent on a Republican-commissioned hand count in Arizona that also found Biden was the winner.But all of the Stop the Steal talk continues, and it's fallen on real people. Former Yavapai County Recorder Leslie Hoffman is a Republican who has worked in an overwhelmingly Republican county as an elections officer for over a decade. Leslie Hoffman, Former Yavapai County, Arizona, Recorder: We see who you are. We see you. You better be nervous. You should lawyer up. You're as corrupt as the government you worked for. Stephanie Sy: That's what she finds almost every day when she checks her e-mail. Leslie Hoffman: I do have concern about certain people getting into office that will not believe in the work that we do. And, therefore, certifying the canvass might become a challenge. Stephanie Sy: That's scary. Leslie Hoffman: That's Very scary. What we're doing is so important. Stephanie Sy: Hoffman resigned a week ago, ahead of Tuesday's primary election.Blake Masters (R), Arizona Senatorial Candidate: President Trump-endorsed me because he likes to win. Stephanie Sy: In the Senate primary, candidate Blake Masters is running for the GOP nomination to challenge Democratic Senator Mark Kelly. He also got the blessing of former President Trump, after he questioned the results of the 2020 election.Why are you hitching your wagon to a one-term president who lost this state two years ago? Blake Masters: I wouldn't say I'm hitching my wagon. I would say I'm proud of President Trump for what he accomplished. I'm going to run from President Trump's successful term in the general election. Absolutely not.Do you know how many independents I meet who say: "Blake, we're sorry we voted for Biden. Please bring back the mean tweets because we want $2 gas. We want a border. We want to country that works"? Stephanie Sy: Kathy, a Republican Party organizer, wants many of those same things, but says she won't vote for any candidate who promotes election fraud claims. Kathy: We can't have that kind of dangerous rhetoric. And it cannot come from the top of the Arizona executives.This is why I'm going door to door. I know the people on the ballot. I know the people who really have the heart and soul of Arizona in their best interest here for our state. And that is why I will go every single day and knock doors until we can't.Hi. Kathy: Hi. I'm good.I'm Kathy. And I'm going door to door for candidates who are running for office. Stephanie Sy: Knocking on those doors, she's as undeterred by the extreme heat of the Arizona summer as she is by the extreme views dividing her political party.For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Stephanie Sy in Phoenix. | US Campaigns & Elections |
A Republican push to repeal a law that allows undocumented residents to apply for driver’s licenses could face a clearer path to the November ballot, after GOP leaders said a wealthy donor has committed to supporting the effort.If activists gather enough signatures, voters will decide whether to keep or nix the law, which goes into effect next year.Rick Green, an auto parts company executive, GOP activist, and onetime congressional candidate, “will certainly be helping to support us,” GOP activist and ballot campaign coordinator Wendy Wakeman told the Globe on Wednesday. “Rick loves this project,” she said.State Republican Party Chairman Jim Lyons, who spoke with Green about the effort, said it’s not “a secret that Rick Green is certainly a supporter of this.”Green, who in the 2018 cycle loaned himself $195,000 in campaign funds, did not respond to multiple requests for comment.The repeal petition, which got the legal green light from the attorney general this week, faces a high hurdle and a short runway to actually get on the ballot. The committee has to deliver 40,120 certified signatures to the secretary of state’s office by Sept. 7. Assuming they have enough certified signatures, the question would go before voters in November.The petition aims to undo the new law, which, come July 2023, will allow people without legal immigration status to obtain a driver’s license by providing two documents that prove their identity, such as a foreign passport and birth certificate or a passport and a marriage certificateThe current price for paid signature gathering, depending on the vendor, ranges from $4 to $8 a signature, Rob Gray, a longtime Republican operative who ran the successful 2020 automotive “right-to-repair” initiative, told the Globe. The whole process could take about three months and nearly half a million dollars, he estimated.In Massachusetts, donors can give unlimited contributions to repeal campaigns, meaning a wealthy donor like Green could significantly boost the effort beyond any contribution a candidate or party committee would make.“Money talks when you’re trying to get on the ballot because paid signature gatherers are always more efficient and successful than volunteers,” Gray said. “If it’s $100,000 or more, it might give you enough paid signatures to get it over the threshold in this very short amount of time allotted . . . Every little bit helps, but they may need a lot of help.”The committee backing the effort, Fair and Secure Massachusetts, started distributing signature sheets this week, and has scheduled events across the state through Thursday.During a Wednesday news conference, Wakeman, who is coordinating the campaign, handed Diehl a large plastic box of blank petitions tied with a red satin bow.Wendy Wakeman, left, presented GOP candidate for governor Geoff Diehl, right, with a box of unsigned petitions to repeal the law letting undocumented residents get driver's licenses. Jonathan Wiggs/Globe Staff“I brought along a present for you,” she joked. “I expect you to get every one of those signed for review.”Wakeman has also worked on several ballot initiatives, including two 2022 petitions that failed to clear the signature requirement and will not be on this year’s ballot.She said the repeal campaign will be different.The committee has a base of volunteers from the previous GOP-led campaigns, she said, and leaders are tapping into the slate of Republican candidates who are already doing outreach statewide. There are also other groups from around the country who have reached out to help, and her post office box has started to fill with “fistfuls of checks” since the initiative launched its website earlier this month, Wakeman said.“We are determined we are going to make the number of signatures,” she said. “We are pretty optimistic about our ability to do it . . . we do have some people who are very interested in making this happen.”Supporters Wednesday cited a recent Suffolk University/Boston Globe poll of Massachusetts residents that found a narrow plurality of respondents — about 47 percent — opposed the legislation. About 46 percent were in favor, and 7 percent undecided.Earlier this month, after the Massachusetts House voted to override Governor Charlie Baker’s veto of the Work and Family Mobility Act, Diehl reached out to Milford resident Maureen Maloney, a member of the GOP state committee, and asked her to lead a recall effort.In 2014, Diehl helped lead a successful ballot campaign that repealed part of a 2013 law that created increases in the state gas tax tied to the rate of inflation.Maloney, whose son was killed a decade ago by a drunk driver who was in the United States without legal status, is chairing the committee.Since then, a committee has formed to counter the effort, and is being led by veteran progressive organizer Harris Gruman, a top SEIU union official who has worked on ballot initiatives to raise the minimum wage, give employees paid sick time, and tax the state’s highest earners.Samantha J. Gross can be reached at samantha.gross@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @samanthajgross. | US Campaigns & Elections |
The battle for Senate control will hinge on campaigns in any one of six states, maybe seven, as Republicans aim to net the single seat they need to reclaim the majority in the midterm elections. Democrats are defending the barest of advantages. Their rule over the evenly divided, 50-50 Senate exists courtesy of the tiebreaking vote Vice President Kamala Harris wields in her constitutionally designated role as Senate president. That leaves Democrats little room for error in a 2022 election cycle shaping up as a Republican wave and correspondingly leaves the GOP multiple options to reach 51 among the six to seven states where the parties are duking it out. FOR COMPLETE MIDTERM COVERAGE, CLICK HERE Interviews with the Washington Examiner Monday revealed extraordinary consensus regarding the Senate battlegrounds, with Democratic and Republican strategists agreeing on the states with the most competitive campaigns. They are listed here in alphabetical order, to account for the evolving nature of each contest. What appears most competitive today, or winnable for either side of the aisle, could change at a moment’s notice, especially in the aftermath of the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade. Unlikely to change is the defensive crouch Democrats find themselves in. The map simply offers the GOP more offensive opportunities to reach the promised land than it does for Democrats to block them from getting there. FALL CAMPAIGN LANDSCAPE UPENDED BY SUPREME COURT ABORTION RULING REVERSING ROE Arizona. Sen. Mark Kelly (D) vs. Republican nominee to be chosen in an Aug. 2 primary Kelly has been busy raising truckloads of campaign cash for the fall while Republicans sort out who they want as their standard-bearer in a contentious nominating contest. Kelly had raised nearly $39 million to date for the 2022 cycle, and built a $23.3 million war chest, according to Federal Election Commission filings he submitted all the way back on March 31. With the help Kelly is on track to receive from outside groups such as the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and Senate Majority PAC, the super PAC aligned with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), he will have more than enough resources to defend himself. The key is whether he can outperform President Joe Biden’s abysmal Arizona job approval ratings and weather a rough political climate in which Democratic voters have seemed disinterested and Republican voters are clearly jazzed to put their party back in charge of Congress. Republican Blake Masters, a former venture capital executive, would appear to be the favorite in the Republican primary after being endorsed by former President Donald Trump. But it is far too early to rule out wealthy businessman Jim Lamon or state Attorney General Mark Brnovich. All three have the potential to cause Kelly fits — or ease his path to reelection. Time will tell for an incumbent senator who won his seat in November 2020 in a special election to finish out the term originally won by Sen. John McCain (R), who died in office in August 2018. Georgia. Sen. Raphael Warnock (D) vs. Republican nominee Herschel Walker Warnock is the other Senate Democrat who advanced to the Senate in 2020 (well, a Jan. 5, 2021, runoff) in a special election, defeating the appointed Republican incumbent, Kelly Loeffler. Warnock has since established himself as a likable, hard-working senator who (also like Arizona’s Kelly) has raised an exorbitant amount of campaign cash. With a war chest of $23 million as of May 4, Warnock could be harder to beat in (legitimate) battleground Georgia than many Republicans presume. He could also run into a Republican buzz saw. Biden’s numbers in the Peach State are atrocious. And Walker, a first-time candidate for office endorsed by Trump, is a Georgia folk hero with virtually 100% name identification and possibly just as much goodwill. Walker, a former professional football player, led the University of Georgia Bulldogs to a national championship in the early 1980s and has remained popular in the state ever since despite living the better part of the last two decades in Texas. Democrats see glimmers of hope here in Walker’s controversial personal life, not all of which has seen the light of day yet; Republicans look at Warnock’s liberal Senate voting record, and Biden’s job approval rating, and see a prime pickup. Nevada. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D) vs. Republican nominee Adam Laxalt Republicans are increasingly bullish, and Democrats bearish, on the trajectory of this race. The Silver State has been tantalizingly out of reach for Republicans since they scored a collection of major victories there in 2014, President Barack Obama’s second midterm election. But the atmosphere here for Democrats is so bad that Republicans are quietly talking about the possibility of a clean sweep in federal races this November. Although there is nothing particularly wrong with Cortez Masto, a capable liberal Democrat, Republicans would counter that there is plenty wrong with her Senate voting record. But this might be a contest determined strictly by the direction and strength of the political winds. Well, that and Laxalt. The Republican nominee sports a famous Nevada name; his grandfather, the Republican former Gov. Paul Laxalt, represented the state in the Senate from 1974 to 1987. The younger Laxalt was Nevada attorney general for a single term, from 2015-2019, retiring to run for governor and losing that campaign in the Democratic wave of 2018. But some Republicans, never mind Democrats, have pointed out that Laxalt never came close to winning 50% of the vote against serious competition, winning his race for attorney general in 2014 with 46% and losing his gubernatorial bid with a similar 45%. However, Laxalt won the Republican nomination for Senate this year with 56%. Meanwhile, he is among the few candidates on which Trump and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) agreed early on. Laxalt was endorsed by both last year. New Hampshire. Sen. Maggie Hassan vs. Republican nominee to be chosen in a Sept. 13 primary Democrats exhaled after Gov. Chris Sununu (R) opted against running for Senate this year. They concede Hassan is vulnerable. But Democrats continue to believe, even as their party’s prospects in the midterm elections grow more dire, that only a Republican of Sununu’s stature and popularity is a real threat to the incumbent. Sununu has argued otherwise, predicting state Senate President Chuck Morse or former state legislator Kevin Smith, the leading GOP primary candidates, would beat Hassan. Republican Don Bolduc, a retired Army general, also is running and has his fans. And Sununu is not the only Republican optimistic about ousting Hassan. Even with this state’s rather late primary — it’s scheduled for less than two months before Election Day — GOP insiders focused on the New Hampshire Senate race are convinced Hassan’s days are numbered. That opinion is reasonable considering how poorly she has performed in polling this cycle and the lengths she has gone to separate herself from the Biden White House on key issues such as immigration. But the Granite State has been tough sledding for Republicans in statewide races so far this century. The GOP last won a presidential contest in New Hampshire in 2004; and the party’s last victory in a Senate race was 2010. Pennsylvania. Lt. Gov. John Fetterman (D) vs. Republican nominee Mehmet Oz The open-seat race to replace the retiring Sen. Pat Toomey (R) is among the few targeted races where Republicans are on defense. And Democrats lately feel better about their chances in a battleground state that has otherwise been trending red. Polls show Fetterman leading Oz, despite the lieutenant governor’s extended absence from the campaign trail as he recovers from a stroke suffered just before the May 17 primary. And Fetterman’s anti-politician schtick — he can typically be seen wearing shorts and hoodies and looks more like a tow-truck driver than an elected official — would seem tailor-made for the current era. Indeed, Fetterman’s image sets up a favorable contrast with Oz, the famous television personality known as “Dr. Oz” (he’s a renowned heart surgeon), who moved to Pennsylvania from New Jersey less than a year ago to run for Senate. But Oz might be less vulnerable than he appears. The Republican nominee has the sort of dynamic, infectious personality expected of a successful television host, and he has tens of millions of dollars of his own money to throw into this race. Once Oz recovers from a brutal GOP primary that finished so close it triggered a mandatory statewide recount, his favorable numbers are likely to go up, positioning him to take advantage of the favorable political winds pushing his party toward major gains in the midterm elections. Wisconsin. Sen. Ron Johnson (R) vs. Democratic nominee to be chosen in an Aug. 9 primary Johnson has the distinction of being the only Republican incumbent truly threatened by the Democrats — at least as far as the Democrats are concerned. Johnson has appeared vulnerable before, in 2016, only to surprise the prognosticators (and the opposition, and other Republicans) and win reelection by nearly 5 percentage points. But with a quirky, sometimes cantankerous personality that leads the senator to utter controversial remarks periodically, ditto his alliance with Trump, Democrats are hopeful on pulling an upset. For instance, Johnson recently found himself in hot water when testimony before a House select committee to investigate the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot suggested he might have participated in a scheme to submit fake electors to Congress in a bid to overturn Biden’s Electoral College victory (Johnson vigorously denies the accusation). CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER But in a Republican year, in a battleground state that has been quite favorable to the GOP recently, Johnson is in the pole position. The senator’s support in the suburban counties surrounding Milwaukee, the so-called “WOW” counties of Waukesha, Ozaukee, and Washington, has always been solid — better than Trump’s. Simultaneously, Johnson has enjoyed the strong support of the “MAGA” voters who have predominated in Wisconsin’s exurban and rural communities. Democrats still have to pick their nominee, a contest largely between Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes and sports executive Alex Lasry. But both are likely to face an uphill climb against Johnson. So, what race is noticeably off this list? Democrats and Republicans alike wavered on whether to include North Carolina, where Rep. Ted Budd (R) is running against Cheri Beasley, the former chief justice of the state Supreme Court, for the right to replace retiring Sen. Richard Burr (R). Ever since Obama won North Carolina in 2008, it’s been perennially close but generally disappointing for Democrats in federal races. Worth monitoring; not worth betting on. | US Campaigns & Elections |
Topline
The Federal Reserve’s “heightened sensitivity” to rising inflation expectations could be triggered by a barrage of political ad campaigns that are expected to highlight surging consumer prices ahead of the midterm elections in November, analysts at Goldman Sachs warned on Friday, adding that the central bank may feel “compelled” to keep hiking rates aggressively. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. Manuel Balce Ceneta/ASSOCIATED PRESS Key Facts With the midterm elections looming in November, surging consumer prices will be a major issue for voters—especially as long-term inflation expectations have surged in recent months, according to the latest consumer sentiment survey released by the University of Michigan on Friday. Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve watches long-term inflation expectations closely, and used it in its decision earlier this month to raise interest rates by 75 basis points—the largest increase since 1994. The central bank’s “strong reaction” to the data demonstrates a “heightened sensitivity to any further upward drift in inflation expectations,” with the Fed likely to try and moderate any further increases, analysts at Goldman Sachs said in a recent note. What’s more, with high inflation top of mind for voters, it is likely to feature prominently in political advertisements ahead of the midterm elections—and inflation expectations “have historically been quite sensitive to political outcomes,” the analysts wrote. Political campaign ads highlighting surging consumer prices will likely to “help shape” inflation expectations and drive them higher for the rest of 2022, the firm predicts, noting that polling data suggests Republicans intend to portray inflation as a “major vulnerability” for Democrats. The “coming barrage of political advertisements” could result in Fed officials feeling “compelled to respond forcefully” to moderate rising long-term inflation expectations by raising rates more aggressively, Goldman analysts said. Crucial Quote:
“The upcoming political cycle will therefore likely keep inflation top of mind, and consumers might respond to these campaign messages by revising inflation expectations higher,” according to Goldman analysts. “As a result, we see the upcoming onslaught of inflation-focused political advertisements as adding to the risk that the Fed could continue to tighten aggressively even if economic activity decelerates sharply.”
What To Watch For:
With U.S gas spiking to nearly $5 per gallon in recent months, the rising prices have been a “main driver” behind the rise of inflation expectations, Goldman analysts said. The firm predicts more increases in food and gas prices ahead, particularly if oil prices surge higher, both of which could further dent consumer sentiment.
Tangent:
The stock market is having a dismal 2022 amid surging inflation and rising interest rates, with the benchmark S&P 500 falling more than 20% from its record highs into bear market territory. Looming midterm elections in November—with Republicans hoping to win back control of either the House of Representatives or the Senate—will add yet more uncertainty to the mix. Historically, the best outcome for markets has always been under a Democratic president kept in check by a split or fully Republican Congress, according to an analysis by Forbes earlier this year. The S&P 500 rose by an average of 13.6% when a Democratic president presided over a split Congress, while a Democratic president working with a unified Republican Congress saw a 13% average gain. Further Reading:
Powell Says Fed Will Continue Hiking Rates Until There Is ‘Compelling Evidence’ That Inflation Is Slowing (Forbes)
Stocks Fall After Powell Pledges More Big Rate Hikes To Combat Inflation (Forbes)
Dow Jumps 300 Points After Powell Says Fed Could Hike Rates By 75 Basis Points Again In July (Forbes)
Here’s How Markets Reacted Last Time The Fed Hiked Rates By 75 Basis Points (Forbes)
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After a spring and early summer dominated by a near-weekly slate of high-profile Republican primaries, July is quiet, all except for Maryland, where the sleepy GOP nominating contest for governor is beginning to heat up. It’s unfolding in what is, by now, a familiar fashion. Outgoing Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) and former President Donald Trump, who may yet face each other in the 2024 Republican presidential primary, are engaged in something of a proxy battle, backing competing candidates in the July 19 contest. Hogan has endorsed Kelly Schulz, a former member of his Cabinet viewed as the most electable general election contender in deep-blue Maryland (fact check: true); Trump is backing state legislator Dan Cox, a loyalist who appeals to grassroots conservatives but is likely to fall flat on his face in November, no matter the size of any Republican wave. Trump recently pushed back on suggestions that he's supporting another loser in a closely watched Republican primary. “Hearing RINO Larry Hogan has tried to come to the rescue of his fellow ‘Never Trumper,’ Kelly Schulz. They say Democrats want to face Dan Cox in the general election, when the opposite is true,” the 45th president claimed in a statement, referring to Hogan, a prominent Trump critic, as a “Republican in Name Only.” MICHIGAN DEMOCRATIC REP. ELISSA SLOTKIN HIGHLIGHTS GEORGE W. BUSH IN CAMPAIGN AD Where have we seen this movie before? Nebraska, where the candidate endorsed by outgoing Gov. Pete Ricketts (R) defeated Trump’s pick in a GOP primary, and in gubernatorial primaries in Georgia and Idaho, where the former president’s endorsed candidates failed to unseat incumbent Govs. Brian Kemp and Brad Little, respectively, who are running for reelection. But that’s not all. In a familiar refrain, the Democratic Governors Association has intervened in Maryland’s Republican gubernatorial primary and is backing Cox with a television advertising campaign backed by nearly $1 million. The DGA has clearly, and understandably, concluded that Cox is less likely than Schulz to threaten the eventual Democratic nominee in the fall. Recall, Hogan scored an upset in 2014, the last midterm election in which a GOP wave vaulted underdog Republicans to victory. Democrats, sometimes with the assistance of the DGA, sometimes not, have used this same strategy to push Trump-aligned candidates across the finish line in Republican gubernatorial primaries in Illinois and Pennsylvania. Crucially, Democrats spent big money promoting these “MAGA” acolytes, cash their campaigns would not have had access to otherwise, making the tactic more than just a headline-grabbing dirty trick, but a potential game changer, although they tried and failed to do the same in GOP gubernatorial primaries in Colorado and Nevada. As seen in the DGA ad for Cox, there’s nothing about the messaging that is nefarious or runs counter to what any liberal group might have to say about a Republican candidate for any office. Rather, it’s the timing that is the tell. The DGA is on television in Maryland as Republicans are making up their minds between Cox and Schulz, and the wording and visuals of the group’s spot mimic the case Cox would make for himself if he had the resources to fund a similar advertising campaign. “Dan Cox; Maryland’s handpicked candidate for Maryland governor. Cox worked with Trump, trying to prove the last election is a fraud. One hundred percent pro-life, he’s fighting to end abortion in Maryland. And, Cox will protect the Second Amendment at all costs, refusing to support any federal restrictions on guns — even pushing to put armed guards in every school,” the ad’s voiceover says. “Dan Cox: too close to Trump; too conservative for Maryland.” Meanwhile, Democrats continue to warn that Republicans like Cox would weaken American democracy at Trump’s behest should they be successful at the ballot box on Nov. 8. Schulz campaign spokesman Mike Demkiw emphasized that point in a statement critical of the DGA’s intervention in the Maryland GOP gubernatorial primary. “This is really simple: The DGA is spending over $1 million propping up fringe candidate Dan Cox because they are scared of Kelly Schulz. They know that Kelly is the only candidate who can win in November and to avoid that outcome they are supporting someone they normally call a ‘threat to democracy,’” he said. The DGA has previously dismissed this criticism as invalid, saying GOP officials are blaming Democrats for their own, internal failings. Now, to the field … Missouri Senate race. There’s less than one month to go until Missouri Republicans pick a standard-bearer to succeed retiring Sen. Roy Blunt (R), and disgraced former Gov. Eric Greitens retains a fighting chance to win the nomination. According to the RealClearPolitics average, Missouri’s GOP Senate primary is a dogfight. Greitens (24.3%), state Attorney General Eric Schmitt (22.3%), and Rep. Vicky Hartzler (18.5%) all have a shot at finishing on top. But for Republican insiders in Missouri, and Washington, who worry Greitens would put the seat in jeopardy in November, the fact that the former governor appears to be hanging around at the top in most polls has to be concerning. It explains why some of those Republicans launched Show Me Values, a political action committee spending money against Greitens. Trump has yet to endorse in this contest. As happened in Senate GOP primaries in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina, his seal of approval could tip the scales. The abortion wars. In early May, after a draft of the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade leaked, I reported for the Washington Examiner that such a ruling would not put an end to nearly a half-century of political division over the issue of abortion rights, but rather, that fight would enter a new phase. To wit, the high court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Center, which terminated federal protections for abortion rights, sparked a fundraising windfall for the Democratic Party. According to the Associated Press, ActBlue, a liberal online fundraising platform, processed $80 million in donations for Democratic candidates and causes in the week following the June 24 decision, including $20 million in the first 24 hours. However, much of that cash was funneled to candidates for federal office, versus candidates for state office, and only surpassed by $9 million the $71 million in contributions ActBlue processed for Democrats in the first 24 hours after the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, just prior to the 2020 election. CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER 2024 watch. Add another Republican to the list of White House hopefuls. Outgoing Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson is mulling a 2024 presidential bid, per an interview with CBS News. What’s motivating Hutchinson? Trump. The Arkansas Republican said the former president is unfit to lead the nation, prompting him to consider running in a bid to block Trump from a second term should he choose to mount a third White House campaign. “We have to go in a different direction for our country, for my party," Hutchinson said. “I want to be a voice for commonsense conservatism, and we'll see how that resonates.” That’s the key question: Will Hutchinson’s anti-Trump message attract a following among the kind of Republican who usually pulls the lever in presidential primaries? So far, the polling suggests the answer is no. But he is not the only Republican bound to test the theory. Hogan, among other Republican Trump critics, is expected to run. | US Campaigns & Elections |
While former President Donald Trump remains a commanding force within the GOP over a year after departing office, his provocative demeanor has led some in the GOP to argue he shouldn't get the party's nod for the 2024 presidential election. High-profile Republicans have been splintered over whether he should run, with a few outright spurning a second Trump stint, others actively courting it, and some sidestepping the question. WATCH: DESANTIS WELCOMES 'SUPPORT FROM AFRICAN AMERICANS' LIKE ELON MUSK Here is a look at what some of the leading Republicans have said about a second term of Trump in the White House. Bring it on Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) Once one of Trump's loudest critics, Graham eventually transformed into a key ally of the former president, often playing rounds of golf with him behind the scenes and lauding his policy achievements in public. Graham recently declared he would be “shocked” if Trump didn’t run again, and last year, he told a leadership conference for the Michigan Republican Party that he hoped Trump would seek the presidency in 2024. “I don’t think Trump is listening. He might be. I hope President Trump runs again,” he said. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) Gaetz is an avid backer of the former president, even teasing he could carry the "MAGA" mantle if Trump decides not to run. “I support Donald Trump for president. I’ve directly encouraged him to run, and he gives me every indication he will,” Gaetz told the New York Post. “If Trump doesn’t run, I’m sure I could defeat whatever remains of Joe Biden by 2024.” Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) Following Trump’s 2020 electoral defeat at the hands of President Joe Biden, Scott told Fox Business host Stuart Varney that Trump “had a good four years” and “ought to do it again,” Florida Politics reported. Scott’s remarks came before the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and the rise of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. But Trump appears to look upon Scott quite favorably, reportedly nudging him to become the No. 1 Republican in the Senate. Would support if he ran Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) During a bitter primary battle against Trump in 2016, Sen. Marco Rubio once warned Trump would do “damage to America,” but now, he would back a third Trump bid for the White House. “If Donald Trump is going to run for president in 2024, he’ll be the Republican nominee, and of course, I would support him in that,” Rubio told WPTV last year. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) Trump has not minced words about his disdain for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who denounced Trump’s actions preceding the Capitol riot as a “disgraceful dereliction of duty.” Nevertheless, the senator said he would "absolutely" support him if he clinched the nod. “I think the Biden administration is making it easy for us to get together,” McConnell said last February. Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) A speculated 2024 contender in his own right, Scott has voiced unease with Trump on certain topics, such as race, but told the Post and Courier of South Carolina that he would “of course” support Trump in 2024. TOM COTTON DOESN’T RULE OUT CHALLENGING TRUMP IN 2024: REPORT Discouraging a run Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) Rep. Adam Kinzinger has made no secret about his animosity toward Trump, expressing regret for voting for him and backing the second effort to impeach him for the events surrounding the Jan. 6 riot. In April, the congressman toyed with the idea of challenging Trump in a 2024 Republican primary. "I would love it. I really would," Kinzinger said about primarying Trump. "Even if he crushed me, like in a primary, to be able to stand up and call out the garbage is just a necessary thing, regardless of who it is." Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson While praising some of the policy achievements of the Trump presidency, Gov. Asa Hutchinson said last month he believes the party should choose someone other than Trump. "I've made it clear: I think we ought to have a different direction in the future," he said. Former Attorney General William Barr Barr went through the wringer with Trump and has since bashed the former president in his recent book and media interviews. He has warned the party against nominating Trump in 2024. “Trump is not that man,” Barr told the Washington Examiner earlier this month. “He does not have the capacity to win the kind of transformative election. He may have been, historically, a necessary figure, and I give him all credit for bringing to a screeching halt the progressive march that occurred under the Obama administration and threatened the country going forward with Hillary Clinton.” Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan As one of the most popular governors in the country, Hogan's own 2024 aspirations have been called into question. He has also emerged as a leading critic of Trump within the GOP, arguing the former president should not seek another term. "I think it would be bad for the [Republican] Party, bad for President Trump, and bad for the country," Hogan told Fox News's Brett Baier last December. Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) Rep. Liz Cheney has become one of the fiercest Republican voices against Trump for his actions after the 2020 election. As one of only two Republicans on the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot, she said Trump is "clearly unfit for future office [and] clearly can never be anywhere near the Oval Office ever again." "I would not," the Republican said last year when asked whether she'd back Trump. Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) When Trump first clinched the Republican nod in 2016, nearly all living Republican nominees for president declined to endorse him. Among them was Sen. Mitt Romney, who voted for his wife instead. His unabashed denunciation of Trump relegated him to pariah status within many circles, but Romney has remained unwavering in his stance on Trump. “I would not be voting for President Trump again,” he said last year. “I haven’t voted for him in the past. And I would probably be getting behind somebody who I thought more represented the tiny wing of the Republican Party that I represent.” Rep. Tom Rice (R-SC) The Palmetto State recently punished Rice for voting to impeach Trump for his actions related to Jan. 6. Rice has been clear about his disapproval of the former president’s conduct and believes he is bad news for the party. “I think he’s harmful to the Republican Party," Rice said to NBC. "I'm not saying I would vote for the other side, but the only way I would support him is if he apologized to the country for what he did following the election and leading up to Jan. 6." Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) Trump is not bringing home the bacon with at least one Nebraska congressman. “We have to also learn the lesson, 'Why did we lose in 2020?' It was the comportment and the temperament, and yes, a democracy respects elections. And our president should have respected the conclusion," he said last week. "I'll be looking for other candidates.” “He's not going to be my choice in the primary, that's for sure,” he added. CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER The former president, who has trampled primary competition in poll after poll and behind the scenes, is reportedly mulling an early entrance into the fray. While Trump has been enthusiastic in his criticism of his successor, Biden appears eager for a rematch, saying he'd run in 2024 — "especially" if his opponent were Trump. | US Campaigns & Elections |
Sen. Elizabeth Warren railed against the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, urging voters who feel the same way to channel their energy at the ballot box in November’s midterm elections.“I am spitting mad over this. We have six extremist justices on the United States Supreme Court who have decided that their moral and religious values should be imposed on the rest of America. This is not what America wants,” the visibly angry Massachusetts Democrat said in a Friday interview on CNN. Warren said that the public shouldn’t despair over the decision dismantling the half-century-old precedent that protected abortion rights, but rather stay engaged in the months ahead. “We are not without actions that we can take. We need to have hope, but we need to hang on to this anger because we can use that anger to fuel change,” she said.Warren, along with more than 20 other Democratic senators, has called on President Joe Biden to use his executive authority to defend access to abortion, including by increasing access to medication abortion, using federal property and resources to increase access to abortion, especially in states where such services are limited by state law or regulation, and exploring providing vouchers for travel to those seeking an abortion outside their state.On Friday, Warren reiterated that Biden is not powerless in the wake of the Supreme Court decision and that he should act as soon as possible. “The president needs to pick up every tool available to him and use it to protect access to abortion. Use it to protect the individual rights of those who are counting on our president to do that,” Warren said. | US Campaigns & Elections |
By Anthony ZurcherNorth America reporterImage source, EPAImage caption, A shift in the electoral winds before November's mid-terms could have dramatic implications for abortion rights across the USAs the dust settled on the Supreme Court's decision overruling the constitutional right to an abortion, politicians across the spectrum stepped forward to outline how the political stakes have changed - and what comes next.Former Vice-President Mike Pence, who has long been a leader in the evangelical Christian movement, said his side had to focus on passing abortion bans in state legislatures."We must not rest and must not relent until the sanctity of life is restored to the centre of American law in every state in the land," he said.President Joe Biden, in an address to the nation, said the only way Americans can protect abortion rights is to vote for Democrats in November's mid-term elections. "We must elect more senators and representatives who will codify a woman's right to choose in federal law once again, elect more state leaders to protect this right at the local level," he said.In case it wasn't immediately clear, the central front in the battle over abortion rights in the US has moved from the courtroom to the ballot box. And while there will still be plenty of legal fights as states pass new kinds of legislation protecting or limiting abortion rights, these fights lie downstream from what happens in state legislatures, governors' mansions and congress. Many of those political offices are very much in play this November.What voters thinkIt's been 50 years since the legality of abortion was determined by votes, so the electoral implications of returning this power to the states are difficult to predict.When abortion rights were protected by Supreme Court precedent, public opinion surveys generally indicated that it was conservatives who were more motivated to vote based on the issue - and the prospect that Republican officeholders would appoint and confirm judges who would ultimately reverse Roe. Democrats, with the status quo on their side, were less inclined to make abortion a top issue.Recent polls suggest that may change now that Roe is gone. According to a CBS News survey in May, 40% of Democrats said they would be more likely to vote if Roe v Wade were overturned, compared to only 17% of Republicans. Seventy-one percent of Democrats were more likely to vote for a political candidate who wants to keep Roe, while only 49% of Republicans said they felt that way about candidates who want to overturn it.Among independent voters, 45% would be more likely to support pro-choice candidates compared to 23% who favoured anti-abortion ones.Success in mid-term elections, when presidential candidates are not on the ballot, is largely determined by how effective the parties are in getting their supporters to go to the polls. That's why the out-of-power party, whose supporters are eager to regain power, tend to do well in them.Image source, ReutersImage caption, Former Vice-President Mike Pence is one of America's staunchest anti-abortion politiciansIf Democrats are able to use the abortion issue to energise their base, it could give their hopes of electoral success new life despite a president struggling with low popularity and a challenging economic climate.There is also, however, the potential that some on the left may be disillusioned by what they see as the lack of effort by their side to codify abortion rights before the Supreme Court decision came down."We elected a Democratic majority in the House and Senate," tweeted Democratic strategist Sawyer Hackett in a typical expression of such sentiment. "We won the popular vote in seven of the last eight elections. Hundreds of thousands have marched to protect Roe. How exactly are we supposed to vote harder?"The states to watchThe new, state-level political battles over abortion will likely play out on a map familiar to anyone who has followed recent presidential elections. Certain states that are reliably under Republican control - like Texas, much of the south and large swaths of the central and western US - are likely to impose, or have already enacted, some form of ban. Other states that are reliably Democratic, such as the Pacific Coast and the north-eastern US, have or will soon enact abortion protections.Then there are a handful of "swing" states, where the legality of abortion sits on a knife's edge, likely to be determined by which party wins the levers of power in November.Control of state legislatures are in play in states like Arizona, Michigan, Colorado, Nevada and Minnesota. Democrats this year are seeking to hold on to the governorships of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Kansas, while Republicans are defending Arizona, Texas and Florida.Governors will play a key role in the coming abortion battles because they can sign - or veto - abortion legislation that reaches their desk. In North Carolina, for instance, Republicans are seeking a legislative majority big enough to override the Democratic governor's promised veto of any measures limiting abortion rights in that state.In Kansas, abortion itself is on the ballot, as voters in November will weigh in on a proposal to repeal abortion protections written into the state's constitution.Image source, ReutersImage caption, Ohio is one of the swing states likely to be in play in the November mid-termsMeanwhile, control of Congress, which could pass legislation protecting or banning abortion nationally, is also up for grabs. Democrats have a slim majority in the House of Representatives and are tied 50-50 in the Senate, maintaining control only through Vice-President Kamala Harris' tie-breaking vote.Even the slightest shift in electoral winds in the months before November's votes could have dramatic implications for abortion rights across the US.A gulf between two AmericasIf the political implications in the near term are difficult to predict, longer trends are even more so. But some politicians and journalists are already discussing how this decision - and the state-by-state policy schisms differing abortion rules will create - may exacerbate the geographical divisions that are already becoming apparent in the US. The conservative red and liberal blue map of America could soon present itself in even sharper relief."I've talked to a lot of people that have decided to leave Texas and not come back for policy reasons - all ages, all backgrounds," Texas Monthly writer Christopher Hooks said on Twitter. "That's picked up in the last month. It's really demoralising."If the trend - spurred on by the abortion decision - is demoralising for Hooks, its being celebrated by others, such as Republican Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri, who views it as helping his party to have a lock on enough states to win the presidency through an Electoral College majority."I would predict that the effect is going to be that more and more red states are going to become more red, purple states are going to become red, and blue states are going to get a lot bluer," Hawley told reporters on Friday. "And I would look for Republicans as a result of this extend their strength in the Electoral College. And that's very good news."A nation sharply split over the morality and legality of abortion, where citizens are divided by geography, culture and political ideology, is a recipe for political acrimony, the kind of which the US hasn't seen since the days before the Civil War. | US Campaigns & Elections |
While former President Donald Trump remains a commanding force within the GOP over a year after departing office, his provocative demeanor has led some in the GOP to argue he shouldn't get the party's nod for the 2024 presidential election. High-profile Republicans have been splintered over whether he should run, with a few outright spurning a second Trump stint, others actively courting it, and some sidestepping the question. WATCH: DESANTIS WELCOMES 'SUPPORT FROM AFRICAN AMERICANS' LIKE ELON MUSK Here is a look at what some of the leading Republicans have said about a second term of Trump in the White House. Bring it on Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) Once one of Trump's loudest critics, Graham eventually transformed into a key ally of the former president, often playing rounds of golf with him behind the scenes and lauding his policy achievements in public. Graham recently declared he would be “shocked” if Trump didn’t run again, and last year, he told a leadership conference for the Michigan Republican Party that he hoped Trump would seek the presidency in 2024. “I don’t think Trump is listening. He might be. I hope President Trump runs again,” he said. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) The scandal-plagued Florida congressman is an avid backer of the former president, even teasing he could carry the "MAGA" mantle if Trump decides not to run. “I support Donald Trump for president. I’ve directly encouraged him to run, and he gives me every indication he will,” Gaetz told the New York Post. “If Trump doesn’t run, I’m sure I could defeat whatever remains of Joe Biden by 2024.” Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) Following Trump’s 2020 electoral defeat at the hands of President Joe Biden, Scott told Fox Business host Stuart Varney that Trump “had a good four years” and “ought to do it again,” Florida Politics reported. Scott’s remarks came before the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and the rise of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. But Trump appears to look upon Scott quite favorably, reportedly nudging him to become the No. 1 Republican in the Senate. Would support if he ran Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) During a bitter primary battle against Trump in 2016, Sen. Marco Rubio once warned Trump would do “damage to America,” but now, he would back a third Trump bid for the White House. “If Donald Trump is going to run for president in 2024, he’ll be the Republican nominee, and of course, I would support him in that,” Rubio told WPTV last year. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) Trump has not minced words about his disdain for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who denounced Trump’s actions preceding the Capitol riot as a “disgraceful dereliction of duty.” Nevertheless, the senator said he would "absolutely" support him if he clinched the nod. “I think the Biden administration is making it easy for us to get together,” McConnell said last February. Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) A speculated 2024 contender in his own right, Scott has voiced unease with Trump on certain topics, such as race, but told the Post and Courier of South Carolina that he would “of course” support Trump in 2024. TOM COTTON DOESN’T RULE OUT CHALLENGING TRUMP IN 2024: REPORT Discouraging a run Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) Rep. Adam Kinzinger has made no secret about his animosity toward Trump, expressing regret for voting for him and backing the second effort to impeach him for the events surrounding the Jan. 6 riot. In April, the congressman toyed with the idea of challenging Trump in a 2024 Republican primary. "I would love it. I really would," Kinzinger said about primarying Trump. "Even if he crushed me, like in a primary, to be able to stand up and call out the garbage is just a necessary thing, regardless of who it is." Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson While praising some of the policy achievements of the Trump presidency, Gov. Asa Hutchinson said last month he believes the party should choose someone other than Trump. "I've made it clear: I think we ought to have a different direction in the future," he said. Former Attorney General William Barr Barr went through the wringer with Trump and has since bashed the former president in his recent book and media interviews. He has warned the party against nominating Trump in 2024. “Trump is not that man,” Barr told the Washington Examiner earlier this month. “He does not have the capacity to win the kind of transformative election. He may have been, historically, a necessary figure, and I give him all credit for bringing to a screeching halt the progressive march that occurred under the Obama administration and threatened the country going forward with Hillary Clinton.” Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan As one of the most popular governors in the country, Hogan's own 2024 aspirations have been called into question. He has also emerged as a leading critic of Trump within the GOP, arguing the former president should not seek another term. "I think it would be bad for the [Republican] Party, bad for President Trump, and bad for the country," Hogan told Fox News's Brett Baier last December. Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) Rep. Liz Cheney has become one of the fiercest Republican voices against Trump for his actions after the 2020 election. As one of only two Republicans on the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot, she said Trump is "clearly unfit for future office [and] clearly can never be anywhere near the Oval Office ever again." "I would not," the Republican said last year when asked whether she'd back Trump. Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) When Trump first clinched the Republican nod in 2016, nearly all living Republican nominees for president declined to endorse him. Among them was Sen. Mitt Romney, who voted for his wife instead. His unabashed denunciation of Trump relegated him to pariah status within many circles, but Romney has remained unwavering in his stance on Trump. “I would not be voting for President Trump again,” he said last year. “I haven’t voted for him in the past. And I would probably be getting behind somebody who I thought more represented the tiny wing of the Republican Party that I represent.” Rep. Tom Rice (R-SC) The Palmetto State recently punished Rice for voting to impeach Trump for his actions related to Jan. 6. Rice has been clear about his disapproval of the former president’s conduct and believes he is bad news for the party. “I think he’s harmful to the Republican Party," Rice said to NBC. "I'm not saying I would vote for the other side, but the only way I would support him is if he apologized to the country for what he did following the election and leading up to Jan. 6." Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) Trump is not bringing home the bacon with at least one Nebraska congressman. “We have to also learn the lesson, 'Why did we lose in 2020?' It was the comportment and the temperament, and yes, a democracy respects elections. And our president should have respected the conclusion," he said last week. "I'll be looking for other candidates.” “He's not going to be my choice in the primary, that's for sure,” he added. CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER The former president, who has trampled primary competition in poll after poll and behind the scenes, is reportedly mulling an early entrance into the fray. While Trump has been enthusiastic in his criticism of his successor, Biden appears eager for a rematch, saying he'd run in 2024 — "especially" if his opponent were Trump. | US Campaigns & Elections |
Penny Mordaunt has “not been available” for her job as a trade minister because she has spent months preparing a leadership campaign, her boss has claimed.Anne-Marie Trevelyan, the international trade secretary, said that other ministers had to “pick up the pieces” in the department because Mordaunt had not been pulling her weight. It is the latest attack on the candidate who has surged to a surprise second place.None of Mordaunt’s fellow trade ministers has backed her leadership bid, while rival campaigns have pointed out her lack of cabinet support as a sign that those who work closely with her do not rate her ability to be prime minister.Mordaunt’s team argue that her campaign is a challenge to the Tory establishment and said | US Campaigns & Elections |
Politics Updated on: July 14, 2022 / 12:11 AM / CBS News Early voting in the Arizona primary is underway as the Republican candidates for Senate faced off in a tense debate Wednesday night. The debate, hosted by conservative TV network Newsmax, just days before former President Donald Trump is scheduled to campaign in the state, featured venture capitalist Blake Masters, businessman Jim Lamon and retired U.S. Air Force Maj. Gen. Michael McGuire. The GOP hopefuls are vying to take on incumbent Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly, who is considered one of the most vulnerable Democrats in the evenly divided Senate, as Republicans look to retake control in the midterm elections. With primary day less than three weeks away, recent polls suggest the race could come down to the wire. Ad spending from the top candidates and their supporters is turning the Arizona GOP Senate primary into one of the most expensive primary campaigns of this cycle. While the ads have increasingly turned negative, the final primary debate also featured plenty of attacks. Masters and Lamon exchanged sharp words throughout the hour-long debate, as the two look to gain an edge in the closing days. A recent poll from OH Predictive Insights showed Trump's endorsed candidate, Masters, leading Lamon by seven points. But more than a third of voters in the poll also said they remain undecided. Lamon said Arizona voters don't want a "young politician" in Washington, D.C., an apparent swipe at his 35-year-old opponent Masters. "Don't send more young politicians and lawyers, guys, send someone who's been through the real rigors of American society and work," Lamon said. He also called Masters, who is backed by big tech billionaire and PayPal co-founder Peter Theil, a "California globalist." Masters fired back at Lamon saying, "I've spent more years of my life in Arizona than Jim Lamon." "You can tell from his accent, he's from a different part of the country. We welcome people here, that's fine," Masters said. "But I am Arizonan, and this is a bulls— attack."Masters repeatedly mentioned his endorsement from Trump as he sought to fend off Lamon's attacks. "We need to implement these America first policies," Masters said. "President Trump trusts me to do that. He met with Jim Lamon, he thought he was a bozo. I am the America first candidate, that is why I am endorsed." While Masters and Lamon spent much of the debate attacking each other, one top-polling candidate was notably missing from the stage. State Attorney General Mark Brnovich was invited, and met the criteria for qualifying, but opted not to attend. A spokesperson for Brnovich told CBS News the attorney general was traveling to Washington, D.C. on official business to "fight for the people of Arizona and against the Biden Administration's open-border policies." This final Republican Senate primary debate, and Trump's looming visit to the state on Saturday, has put Arizona in the political spotlight. It is one the last major 2022 battleground states to hold a primary this cycle. Trump on Saturday will rally for Masters in Prescott Valley, one of the most conservative parts of the state. The former president has inserted himself in several high profile primary battles this year, including in Nevada, Pennsylvania and Georgia. The winner of the Aug. 2 primary will take on Sen. Kelly in November. Kelly announced on Wednesday that he's raised $13.6 million in the second quarter of 2022, and currently has $25 million cash on hand to defend his seat. In: Arizona Musadiq Bidar CBS News reporter covering the intersection between politics and tech. Twitter Thanks for reading CBS NEWS. Create your free account or log in for more features. Please enter email address to continue Please enter valid email address to continue | US Campaigns & Elections |
A staffer for Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) sought to have delivered a slate of "alternate" electors to then-Vice President Mike Pence that would swing the results of the 2020 election in favor of President Donald Trump, according to text messages revealed by the Jan. 6 committee. The aide, Sean Riley, texted Chris Hodgson, who was the director of legislative affairs for the vice president, at 12:37 p.m. on Jan. 6, according to a screenshot of the messages. This was the day a joint session of Congress met, with Pence presiding over the event, to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election. The message was sent roughly a half-hour before the Capitol had been breached by rioters and the session was put on pause for several hours. SIX KEY HOUSE JAN. 6 COMMITTEE MOMENTS ABOUT TRUMP PRESSURE ON ELECTIONS OFFICIALS “Johnson needs to hand something to VPOTUS please advise,” the first message reads. A follow-up message says the delivery would include an “alternate slate of electors for [Michigan] and [Wisconsin] because archivist didn’t receive them.” “Do not give that to him,” Hodgson responded. A committee exhibit is displayed during a Jan. 6 panel hearing. Jacquelyn Martin/AP The text messages were revealed during the Jan. 6 committee’s fourth summer public hearing Tuesday, which focused on evidence showing that Trump and his team orchestrated an alternate "fake electors" scheme in key battleground states to overturn the 2020 results. CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER A spokeswoman for Johnson responded to the hearing on Twitter, writing that “the senator had no involvement in the creation of an alternate slate of electors and had no foreknowledge that it was going to be delivered to our office.” “This was a staff-to-staff exchange,” she added. “His new chief of staff contacted the vice president’s office.” | US Campaigns & Elections |
Politics August 1, 2022 / 10:06 PM / CBS News Primary elections in five states Tuesday Primary elections will take place in five states on Tuesday 06:07 Former President Donald Trump on the eve of the Missouri primaries gave his much-coveted endorsement in the Republican primary for Missouri's open Senate seat, but there was some confusion about who had been selected."I trust the Great People of Missouri, on this one, to make up their own minds, much as they did when they gave me landslide victories in the 2016 and 2020 Elections, and I am therefore proud to announce that ERIC has my Complete and Total Endorsement!" Trump wrote in a statement Monday night.And with that, Trump apparently eliminated anyone in the field of 19 who is not named Eric. There are two leading candidates who share the first name: Attorney General Eric Schmitt and former Attorney General Eric Greitens, and one candidate trailing them. The semi-endorsement came as Schmitt has broken ahead in recent polls, including one by Emerson College released in late July where he led Rep. Vicky Hartzler by 12 points. Greitens was third in that poll. Former President Donald Trump speaks at a ‘Save America’ rally in support of Arizona GOP candidates on July 22, 2022 in Prescott Valley, Arizona. Arizona's primary election will take place August 2. Mario Tama / Getty Images Greitens, a controversial candidate who resigned in 2018 after a sex scandal and misuse of campaign funds, has been dropping in the polls since June after more than $11 million has been spent on the airwaves by outside groups to keep him from winning the primary and potentially putting this state at play in November's general election. Earlier this year, Greitens' ex-wife has also claimed he abused her and their son, allegations that the Greitens campaign has denied. Sheena Greitens repeated the allegations on Twitter on Monday. Shortly after Trump's statement, both Greitens and Schmitt claimed to have Trump's full support. "President Trump has looked at the candidates and all that's at stake in this race, and he has given me his COMPLETE AND TOTAL ENDORSEMENT!" read a campaign fundraising email from Schmitt."Honored to have the support of President Trump! We will MAGA! " Greitens tweeted. Greitens also has ties to Donald Trump Jr. and Kimberly Guilfoyle, and he tweeted a video of Guilfoyle backing him. Making matters more complicated, there is a third Eric in the race: Eric McElroy. In a statement, Hartzler said "Congrats to Eric McElroy. He's having a big night."Trump said in July that he explicitly would not endorse Hartzler. Aaron Navarro Aaron Navarro is an associate producer for the political unit at CBS News, focusing on House and gubernatorial campaigns as well as the census and redistricting. Twitter Thanks for reading CBS NEWS. Create your free account or log in for more features. Please enter email address to continue Please enter valid email address to continue | US Campaigns & Elections |
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! Democratic strategist James Carville pushed back on Saturday against CNN’s Jim Acosta over concerns about Democrat interference in Republican primaries.Acosta questioned the ongoing strategy of Democrat groups boosting "extremist Republicans" during the primaries to ensure their presence in the midterm elections."This has been something that’s been talked about quite a bit in Democratic circles as to whether or not this is good idea. We’ve seen efforts by Democratic campaigns and outside groups to tilt the playing field in their favor by propping up extremist Republican candidates in some of these very critical races around the country, the idea that it would make it easier for Democrats to win," Acosta said."But on the flip side," he warned. "If the vote doesn’t go their way, you could end up with conspiracy theorists, election deniers and so on in some pretty important places."CNN PANELIST SAYS LEGISLATIVE VICTORIES WON’T BE ENOUGH FOR DEMS IN THE MIDTERMS: ‘DOWNTOWNS ARE STILL EMPTY’ In January, Democratic strategist James Carville blasted Democrats for wasting money in "unwinnable" elections. (Getty Images)Although Acosta questioned whether the Democrats were "playing with fire," Carville expressed no concerns with the strategy."The idea of a political campaign is to win the election. It acts in its own interest," Carville said.He added, "I’ve done the same thing. I would do the same thing. I don’t see any ethical or moral problem with doing this. I think most of the opposition to this is from the pontifical class mostly located on the coast. I don’t see anything wrong with this. And you try to do everything you can to help your candidate or your party win an election. And that’s pretty simple and that’s what the DCCC is trying to do." Former President Donald Trump speaks at a rally on May 28, 2022, in Casper, Wyoming. (Chet Strange/Getty Images)Several mainstream media outlets, including MSNBC and USA Today, have called out Democrats for pushing this strategy, calling it a "dangerous political game." A Washington Post column in June blasted Democrat "dark money groups" for hypocritically calling "Trumpism" a threat to democracy while supporting the former president’s candidates.MSNBC, CNN, WASHINGTON POST CONTINUE TO SCOLD DEMS FOR BOOSTING TRUMP-BACKED CANDIDATES: ‘DANGEROUS GAME’ "Sometimes it backfires, sometimes it doesn’t work. Well, OK. You know, people do stupid things from time to time, but I wholeheartedly endorse this idea of being involved in primaries to help them nominate the stupidest, goofiest extreme person they can," Carville said.During the segment, Acosta aired a clip of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi similarly defending the strategy of supporting certain Republicans in primaries for Democrat advantages. Nancy Pelosi called the current Republican Party a "cult of personality." (Getty Images)CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP"I said that we need a strong Republican Party, not a cult of personality. That didn’t mean we shouldn’t have a strong Democratic Party as well. And the political decisions that are made out there are made in furtherance of our winning the election because we think the contrast between Democrats and Republicans as they are now is so drastic that we have to win," Pelosi said. Lindsay Kornick is an associate editor for Fox News Digital. Story tips can be sent to lindsay.kornick@fox.com and on Twitter: @lmkornick. | US Campaigns & Elections |
Reps. Mary Miller of Illinois (left) and Lauren Boebert of Colorado (right) campaigned with former President Donald Trump on Saturday. Both women face competition in their respective primaries. Michael B. Thomas / Getty Images We already took a look at the nine Democratic primaries to watch in a preview yesterday, so now we’re back with the 21 GOP contests to watch tonight, plus a bonus special election. As with most Republican primaries this cycle, almost all the GOP contenders are favorably inclined toward former President Donald Trump, but they vary in just how much they support Trump or his false claims about fraud in the 2020 election. But importantly, Democrats are also meddling in many GOP primaries by spending money to boost the most extreme Republican candidates, aiming to make it easier for Democrats to win in November. Without further ado, let’s tour the high-profile races in Colorado, Illinois, Mississippi, New York, Oklahoma and Utah, along with a special election in Nebraska. We’ll go through the races based on when the polls close, starting with Illinois, which coincidentally also has the most high-profile GOP contests. In recent weeks, state Sen. Darren Bailey has emerged as the front-runner in the GOP gubernatorial primary in Illinois. Michael B. Thomas / Getty ImagesIllinois Races to watch: 6th, 11th, 13th, 14th, 15th and 17th congressional districts; governor Polls close: 8 p.m. Eastern The Land of Lincoln hosts seven notable GOP primaries today, and the party’s contest for governor has attracted easily the most interest and money. Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker, a billionaire who’s given his reelection campaign an eye-popping $125 million, is the likely general election favorite considering how blue Illinois is, but Pritzker is far from the only wealthy person involved. The Republican primary to take on Pritzker is also raft with money: Hedge fund founder Ken Griffin, for instance, has contributed $50 million of the $53 million raised by Aurora Mayor Richard Irvin, who would be Illinois’s first Black governor if elected. And GOP megadonor Richard Uihlein has donated $9 million of the roughly $11 million that state Sen. Darren Bailey has brought in. (Uihlein has also contributed $8 million to a pro-Bailey PAC.) Venture capitalist Jesse Sullivan has also garnered his own wealthy backers, as $11 million of the $12.6 million he’s raised comes from just three donors. Until a few weeks ago, Irvin seemed like the favorite, too. He’d raised the most money, and two surveys released in early May also gave him an edge over Bailey, and Irvin seemed to be making a compelling case to voters that he was a tough-on-crime leader who would clean up state politics. But Bailey and his allies have since turned the tables by portraying Irvin as a closet liberal, while Pritzker and the Democratic Governors Association have spent millions to damage Irvin and boost the more conservative Bailey. Polls now show Bailey ahead of Irvin. Democratic pollster Public Policy Polling has been surveying the race for the Chicago Sun-Times and WBEZ, and both its early and late June polls put Bailey at 32 percent and Irvin in the mid-to-high teens. Meanwhile, two surveys from Ogden & Fry and one poll from the Trafalgar Group, both GOP-aligned pollsters, also found Bailey north of 30 percent and Irvin trailing by double digits (one even had Sullivan ahead of Irvin for second). And on Saturday, Trump endorsed Bailey. In more bad news for Irvin: He pulled back on advertising in Republican-rich southern Illinois and was outspent by his opponents in the final days of the campaign. Moreover, Irvin’s main benefactor has abandoned the state: Griffin announced last week that he is moving his hedge fund from Chicago to Miami. After the gubernatorial clash, the state’s highest-profile GOP primary is the race between Republican Reps. Rodney Davis and Mary Miller in the new 15th District, one of the nation’s six incumbent-versus-incumbent primaries. Illinois Democrats drew an aggressive gerrymander that made Davis’s old district Democratic-leaning and placed half of Miller’s old 15th District in the same seat as the longer-tenured GOP Rep. Mike Bost, so both incumbents opted instead to run in this south-central Illinois district, even though Miller and Davis represent just 31 percent and 28 percent of its constituents, respectively. This race, though, features clear ideological differences that might give Miller the upper hand in a seat that is 42 points more Republican than the country as a whole, according to FiveThirtyEight’s partisan lean metric.1 Not only does Miller have a more conservative voting record, she has the Trumpier resume, having voted against certifying the 2020 presidential results and the creation of a bipartisan commission to investigate the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. She also has the endorsement of Trump, who even campaigned with her at a recent rally where she told the audience that the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade was a “historic victory for white life.” (A campaign aide has said she misspoke and meant to say “right to life,” but Miller is no stranger to controversy, having previously praised Hitler in a speech.) Conversely, Davis has one of the most moderate voting records of any House Republican. He also voted both to certify the 2020 outcome and create a bipartisan Jan. 6 commission. Consequently, Miller and her allies have tagged Davis as a “RINO” — a Republican in name only — while hitting him for backing the commission and reminding voters that Trump supports Miller. Still, Davis has more money than Miller, having raised $3.5 million to her $1.5 million as of June 8. Davis has also attacked Miller’s conservative bona fides by claiming that she “voted with the Squad” on a military spending bill, referring to progressive members of Congress who are mostly women of color. He’s also accused Miller of being soft on immigration and for having used a campaign driver who pleaded guilty in 2005 to luring a young boy for sex. The race’s final two polls suggest it could go either way, although both come from potentially biased sources. Miller’s campaign released a survey in mid-June from Cygnal that found her ahead 45 percent to 40 percent, while Davis led 38 percent to 35 percent in a recent Victory Geek survey conducted on behalf of The Illinoize, a political blog run by a former GOP strategist who once worked for Davis. The 15th District won’t feature a competitive general election, but five other districts that could see hard-fought November contests also have notable Republican primaries. We’ll start with the two seats that are located downstate or outside of the Chicago area. In the 17th District in northwestern Illinois, attorney Esther Joy King is heavily favored to win the GOP nomination over insurance broker Charlie Helmick in the race to succeed retiring Democratic Rep. Cheri Bustos. King, who lost to Bustos by about 4 points in 2020, has the backing of national Republicans and has substantially outraised the six candidates competing for the Democratic nomination. This D+4 district is one of the GOP’s best shots at flipping a Democratic-held seat in Illinois. Meanwhile, Democrats drew the 13th District in south-central Illinois to be a D+7 seat, leading Davis to abandon it. But the GOP could still hold this seat in a Republican-leaning midterm environment. Republicans look likely to pick either former federal prosecutor Jesse Reising or nonprofit president Regan Deering, as they’ve raised the most money and are on the National Republican Congressional Committee’s list of candidates to watch. Both contenders have deep ties to Decatur, as Reising’s family has been there for six generations while Deering’s grandfather led farm products giant Archer-Daniels-Midland while it was based there. Reising might have a slight edge, but it’s difficult to say with no polls available. With $131,000 in the bank, Reising had more money down the stretch than Deering’s $33,000. He’s also garnered support from many local officials in the district and Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, not to mention about $120,000 in outside spending support from Americans for Prosperity. For her part, Deering has the backing of two national organizations working to elect Republican women — Maggie’s List and VIEW PAC — as well as an endorsement from the anti-abortion rights group Illinois Right to Life. The winner will likely face former Biden administration official Nikki Budzinski in November. Three suburban-exurban seats located around Chicago could also be in play. Most of the attention in the 6th District is focused on the Democratic primary between incumbent Reps. Sean Casten and Marie Newman, but Republicans could make a play for this D+6 seat split between Cook and DuPage counties. The leading GOP contenders appear to be two mayors, Gary Grasso of Burr Ridge and Keith Pekau of Orland Park, although attorney Scott Kaspar is also in the mix. Grasso has led the way in fundraising with $621,000, compared with Pekau’s $375,000 and Kaspar’s $266,000, although Grasso gave his campaign $250,000 to achieve that advantage. Pekau has also received some outside support from the conservative Restoration PAC, which has spent $100,000 promoting him. Yet while Grasso and Pekau have both accepted the 2020 election result, Kaspar has raised doubts about the outcome, helping position himself as arguably the Trumpiest candidate in the race. Kaspar has also visited Trump’s club at Mar-a-Lago and has the support of former Trump attorney and New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani. We have no polling to go on here, so it’s hard to say how this primary will play out. On the western outskirts of Chicagoland, Republicans hope the national environment will help them capture the 14th District, a D+7 seat helmed by Democratic Rep. Lauren Underwood and her $2.4 million war chest. But it’s anyone’s guess as to who will come out on top among the four notable Republicans in the race: Kendall County Board Chair Scott Gryder, conservative radio host Mike Koolidge, businessman Jack Lombardi and Kendall County GOP Chair Jim Marter. No candidate had more than $35,000 in the bank heading into the final weeks of the campaign, and outside groups haven’t invested here. Gryder has attracted a large number of endorsements from current or former local and state elected officials, but Koolidge did just receive the endorsement of Republican Rep. Darin LaHood, and Marter has the backing of the aforementioned Rep. Mary Miller. Finally, the GOP field seems easier to handicap next door in the D+10 11th District, as former Trump administration official Catalina Lauf appears to be the favorite to take on Democratic Rep. Bill Foster in a “reach” seat for Republicans. Lauf has raised $1.4 million, far more than any of her five Republican opponents. Lauf narrowly lost a primary for Underwood’s seat back in 2020 and garnered an appearance at the 2020 Republican National Convention that promoted her as a conservative Hispanic woman. But Jerry Evans, a Christian missionary, has raised some money and actually entered the final stretch of the race with more in the bank than Lauf, so she might not have smooth sailing to the GOP nomination. Mississippi Rep. Michael Guest has unexpectedly found himself in a primary runoff and could lose his seat. Rogelio V. Solis / AP PhotoMississippi Races to watch: 3rd and 4th congressional districts Polls close: 8 p.m. Eastern Back on June 7, no one got a majority in two Republican primaries for U.S. House in Mississippi, requiring runoff elections three weeks later. One of these runoffs was expected; the other came as a total surprise. The expected one was in the 4th Congressional District, where Rep. Steven Palazzo is under investigation for allegedly spending nearly $200,000 in campaign funds on himself and his wife. Consequently, he got only 32 percent of the vote in the primary, only 7 percentage points ahead of the second-place finisher, Jackson County Sheriff Mike Ezell. Even worse for Palazzo, all five of the other Republicans in the primary who didn’t advance to the runoff quickly endorsed Ezell, so it seems likely that the anti-incumbent vote will coalesce around him. Meanwhile, the surprise runoff comes from the 3rd Congressional District, where former Navy pilot Michael Cassidy finished ahead of Rep. Michael Guest in the primary, 48 percent to 47 percent. There was little sign before the primary that the Republican base was unhappy with Guest, but the staunchly pro-Trump Cassidy had been slamming the incumbent for his vote to create the Jan. 6 commission, and it apparently resonated. Now that the cat’s out of the bag, though, the cavalry is coming to Guest’s rescue. The Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC affiliated with House GOP leadership, has spent more than $400,000 against Cassidy, attacking him for briefly supporting Medicare for All. Guest has also blasted Cassidy for being a recent transplant to Mississippi. And unlike in the 4th District, the third-place finisher from the Republican primary is actually supporting the incumbent in this runoff. So Guest looks like a better bet than Palazzo to survive, but it’s still possible that either or both of them will join the list of incumbent congressmen going down in defeat on Tuesday. One thing is for sure, though: Whoever wins the Republican runoffs will almost certainly win the general elections in these deeply red seats. Former state House speaker T.W. Shannon is running in Oklahoma’s crowded U.S. Senate special election. He’s likely to face Rep. Markwayne Mullin in an August runoff. Paul Weaver / Sipa USA via AP ImagesOklahoma Races to watch: U.S. Senate special election, 2nd Congressional District Polls close: 8 p.m. Eastern Oklahoma has two Republican primaries to monitor, both of which will probably go to a runoff on Aug. 23. First, the special election for Senate has attracted a baker’s dozen of candidates aiming to succeed Republican Sen. Jim Inhofe, who announced in February that he would resign at the end of the current Congress. And because Oklahoma is a deep-red state, the eventual GOP nominee will be a mortal lock to win in November. (The regular election for Oklahoma’s other Senate seat is also taking place, but Republican Sen. James Lankford appears on his way to easily winning renomination and the general election.) The front-runner in the special election is Rep. Markwayne Mullin, who has raised the most money ($3 million, $1 million via a candidate loan) and had $1.1 million in the bank heading into the final weeks of the campaign. Mullin also garnered just shy of 40 percent in two recent surveys, one from Amber Integrated and another from News 9/News On 6/SoonerPoll, that put him well ahead of the rest of the field but short of the majority required to avoid a runoff. Mullin has a solidly pro-Trump record, having voted against certifying the 2020 election result, in addition to introducing legislation to expunge Trump’s impeachments. His “fighter” profile may also be appealing to voters: As a former mixed martial artist, Mullin is a member of the Oklahoma chapter of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame, and he drew headlines last year when he attempted to enter Afghanistan to evacuate a group of Americans. In the race for second place is former state House speaker T.W. Shannon, the first Black person to hold that office. Shannon placed second in recent polls, and he has raised $961,000 while also benefiting from $1.7 million in outside spending by a super PAC supporting his bid. Four others are chasing Shannon for the other potential runoff slot, though: state Sen. Nathan Dahm, Inhofe’s chief of staff Luke Holland, former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt and physician Randy Grellner. Dahm has raised only $374,000, but Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul’s super PAC has splashed $1 million on his behalf. Holland, who has Inhofe’s endorsement, has brought in $1.2 million and has also received $572,000 in outside support. Pruitt hasn’t raised much money, but the former Oklahoma attorney general was part of Trump’s cabinet, where he was beset with ethics scandals while pursuing a deregulatory agenda. Finally, Grellner hasn’t polled much support, but he has donated $1 million to his campaign and has attacked Shannon for being too cozy with casino magnates and the other candidates for being “career politicians.” That said, the fragmented field might help Shannon stay ahead. Meanwhile, Mullin’s Senate bid has also opened up the 2nd District in eastern Oklahoma, one of the reddest seats in the country at R+55. This contest has attracted 14 Republican contenders, too, making a runoff likely. And notably, most of the major candidates have self-funded a great deal: About $1.9 million (60 percent) of the $3.1 million raised by the entire field has come from candidate loans to their own campaigns. There seem to be nine candidates of significance, although we have no polling to differentiate them. The leading fundraiser is energy businessman Guy Barker, who is also secretary-treasurer of the Quapaw Nation (eastern Oklahoma has a sizable Native American population). But Barker has loaned himself nearly all of the $821,000 he’s raised. Pharmacy executive Chris Schiller doesn’t have as much money on hand, but he’s raised the most from contributors ($365,000); he also loaned himself $250,000. Three current state legislators are also in the race: state Rep. Avery Frix, state Sen. Marty Quinn and state Rep. Dustin Roberts. Frix has raised the third-most in the field with $417,000 (helped by $245,000 in self-funding) while Roberts and Quinn have raised roughly $160,000 and $200,000, respectively, with each throwing in around $25,000 from their own pockets. Both Frix and Schiller have especially played up their support for Trump in recent ads. Meanwhile, former state Sen. Josh Brecheen has mostly made his mark via $597,000 on ads sponsored by the School Freedom Fund, a super PAC affiliated with the conservative Club for Growth that supports giving taxpayer money for school choice. Former Oklahoma GOP chairman Rep. John Bennett is also running, and he’s been a lightning rod, once comparing COVID-19 vaccine mandates to the persecution of Jews in Nazi Germany. Additionally, Muskogee Police Chief Johnny Teehee and Cherokee Tribal Councilor Wes Nofire are two other contenders with connections to the Native American community. Considering the size of the field, it’s nigh impossible to handicap favorites, so this could be a wild one. Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters lost her job managing elections in her home county because she allegedly tampered with voting machines, but she still stands a good chance of winning the GOP primary for Colorado secretary of state. McKenzie Lange / The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel via APColorado Races to watch: U.S. Senate; 3rd, 5th, 7th and 8th congressional districts; governor; secretary of state Polls close: 9 p.m. Eastern Colorado is another busy state for Republicans, with three statewide and four congressional primaries to watch. Each state-level race appears to favor Democrats in the D+6 state, but the contests could become more — or less — competitive depending on whom Republicans nominate. This is perhaps most true in the Senate primary, where state Rep. Ron Hanks and businessman Joe O’Dea are battling for the GOP nomination to take on two-term Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet. Hanks, a fervent denier of the 2020 election, has attracted support from conservative elements in the GOP, but whether he has the resources to win statewide is an open question. Hanks qualified for the ballot via the activist-dominated pre-primary convention, but as of June 8, he had raised a piddling $125,000. O’Dea, meanwhile, chose to qualify for the ballot by petition rather than by the pre-primary convention route, and he’s raised $2.3 million, including $500,000 in self-funding. But Democrats have tried to boost Hanks in the belief that he would be a much weaker general election candidate than O’Dea, especially considering Bennet has about $7 million in his campaign account. For instance, the super PAC Democratic Colorado has spent $2 million opposing Hanks, funding anti-Hanks ads clearly meant to encourage Republican voters to support the “too conservative” Hanks. Meanwhile, the same super PAC has spent $2 million on ads portraying O’Dea as supportive of President Biden and Democrats. The only primary poll we’ve seen, though, is an O’Dea-sponsored survey conducted by Public Opinion Strategies that found O’Dea leading Hanks 38 percent to 14 percent. However, that survey was conducted before most of the recent spending. That said, one wrinkle that might help O’Dea is that Colorado allows registered independents to vote in party primaries, and with zero contested statewide Democratic primaries on the ballot this year, some moderate independents might vote in the Republican primary, which could boost O’Dea. Colorado’s Senate primary isn’t the only race where we’ve seen Democratic meddling. The GOP primary for governor, where University of Colorado Regent Heidi Ganahl faces businessman Greg Lopez for the right to challenge Democratic Gov. Jared Polis in November, has also caught Democrats’ attention. Ganahl, the only Republican statewide-elected official in Colorado, is a stronger fundraiser than Lopez — she’s raised about $1 million to Lopez’s $123,000 — and would likely be the GOP’s better general election choice. But Democrats would prefer to take on Lopez, another 2020 election denier. A Democratic super PAC funded in part by the DGA has spent $1.5 million on television and internet ads aimed at — stop me if you’ve heard this before — portraying Lopez as “too conservative” for Colorado. There’s no primary polling available, but Lopez could make things interesting, given the spending by Democrats and his Trumpy profile (Ganahl has accepted the 2020 election result). Still, Lopez doesn’t have an auspicious track record, having won only 13 percent in the 2018 Republican primary for governor. Ganahl also has taken steps to protect her right flank, calling for the rollback of state laws protecting abortion rights and appearing at the Western Conservative Summit, a conference featuring many far-right and conspiracy-theorist voices. Regardless of who wins, though, the eventual GOP nominee will face an uphill battle against Polis, who has a fairly strong approval rating in the state and great personal wealth to help fund his campaign. The other statewide race on our radar is the Republican primary for secretary of state, which involves Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters, former Jefferson County Clerk Pam Anderson and nonprofit leader Mike O’Donnell. (The eventual winner will face Democratic Secretary of State Jena Griswold in November.) This office oversees state elections, and it looks like Republicans might nominate Peters, a candidate who has not only promoted debunked conspiracy theories about the 2022 election, but whom state courts removed from managing the elections in her home county because of breaches in election security, which also resulted in 10 indictments against her. In other words, she cannot do the job at home that she now wants to do for all of Colorado. Yet Peters could very well win the GOP nomination. We don’t have any polling, but she advanced out of the pre-primary convention with 61 percent to O’Donnell’s 39 percent (Anderson qualified via petition). Peters has also outraised her opponents, bringing in $175,000 compared with $112,000 for Anderson and $55,000 for O’Donnell. It may also help that she has two opponents potentially splitting the anti-Peters vote. For her part, Anderson accepts the 2020 election result and has promised to bring greater professionalism to the office, while O’Donnell won’t say whether the 2020 result was legitimate and wants to undo some of Colorado’s recent expansion of voting access. Four U.S. House primaries are also on our watchlist, two of which are open-seat races in competitive seats. To start, the GOP has a good shot at picking up the new 8th District north of Denver, an R+3 seat, and Republican voters there will choose among state Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer, Thornton Mayor Jan Kulmann, Weld County Commissioner Lori Saine and retired Army Green Beret Tyler Allcorn. We lack polling, but the fundraising numbers portend a fairly wide-open race. Kulman has led with $470,000, followed by Allcorn’s $349,000 (about half self-funded), Kirkmeyer’s $338,000 and Saine’s $297,000 (a little over a quarter self-funded). Kirkmeyer may have the financial upper hand, however, thanks to $531,000 in outside spending support from Americans for Prosperity and a super PAC backing her candidacy. Once again, Democrats are also trying to boost the Republican they view as easiest to beat: Saine, who has dabbled in election conspiracies and has used messaging like “The Biden-Harris-Schumer-Pelosi gang’s Socialist-Communist Agenda” in election materials. Democratic outside groups House Majority PAC and 314 Action have spent $251,000 either ostensibly attacking Saine as “way too conservative” or even supporting her. Kirkmeyer has been ensnared in this, too, as 314 Action has run ads attacking her for not supporting Trump or his election lies — Kirkmeyer has accepted the 2020 election outcome — while a Kirkmeyer ally spent $80,000 attacking both Saine and Kulman as “liberals.” However it plays out, the eventual Republican nominee will meet Democratic state Rep. Yadira Caraveo in what should be a very competitive general election. Colorado’s other competitive seat is the D+6 7th District west of Denver, which is open following Democratic Rep. Ed Perlmutter’s retirement. GOP primary voters will pick from economist Tim Reichert, former oil and gas executive Erik Aadland and former state legislative candidate Laurel Imer. Reichert has the most money, having raised $1 million (half from his own pocket), and he’s used his background in economics and business to criticize high inflation. Aadland, meanwhile, has raised $492,000 (around a quarter self-funded) and has highlighted his experience as an Army veteran, support for border security and the Second Amendment. Finally, Imer has raised only $87,000 but has portrayed herself as the Trumpiest candidate in the field. Reichert is probably the favorite — national Republicans are keeping an eye on him — but we have no polling to suggest which candidate is most likely to face Democratic state Sen. Brittany Pettersen. Two incumbent Republicans also have notable primary challengers. First, Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert faces state Sen. Don Coram in the GOP primary for the 3rd District, an R+15 seat covering western and southern Colorado. Boebert has courted controversy since winning in 2020 and has drawn a ton of eyeballs doing it, raising $5 million for her campaign. Although Boebert has a simmering scandal involving mileage reimbursement from her campaign account, she’s a clear favorite over Coram, who has raised just $229,000. But the state senator is trying an unorthodox primary approach — he’s promising to bring people together and reduce partisan animosity. An unusually large number of Democratic registered voters in the district have switched to independent, perhaps a sign that they intend to vote in the GOP primary against Boebert. However, as we’ve discussed in Rep. Liz Cheney’s reelection battle, that probably won’t make a difference unless Coram can win over a lot more Republicans than we expect. The most endangered GOP incumbent is eight-term Rep. Doug Lamborn, who represents the R+18 5th District around Colorado Springs. Lamborn’s main primary opponent is state Rep. Dave Williams, although businessman Andrew Heaton and Navy veteran Rebecca Keltie are also running. Despite sporting a strongly conservative record, Lamborn won barely more than 50 percent of the vote in his 2014 and 2018 primaries, and he faces an ethics investigation over his alleged use of official resources for personal matters. So there might be an opening for Williams, who has promised to be a conservative fighter in Congress. Although Williams has only raised about $196,000 (about half of which is self-funded), Lamborn has brought in $353,000, which is meager for an incumbent. The Lamborn-Williams race has turned ugly, too. Lamborn had planned to compete at the pre-primary convention in early April, but he then claimed there were “troubling irregularities” that suggested the El Paso County GOP was working to help Williams, so Lamborn instead qualified for the primary via petition. The local party chairwoman, a Williams ally, excoriated Lamborn for withdrawing from the convention and his accusations of malfeasance. Then in early June, Lamborn started running ads saying the Trump 2020 campaign in Colorado had fired Williams, which led Williams to demand TV stations stop airing the ad. Williams has since fired back with an ad attacking Lamborn for lying and promoting Williams as a pro-Trump candidate. With multiple challengers in the race, Lamborn may survive again, but there’s a path for Williams to topple the incumbent. Rudy Giuliani’s son, Andrew, has emerged as a contender in the New York Republican gubernatorial primary. Andrew Lichtenstein / Corbis via Getty ImagesNew York Races to watch: Governor Polls close: 9 p.m. Eastern Let’s be clear: Republicans are very unlikely to win the governorship of New York this year. The state has a FiveThirtyEight partisan lean of D+20, and both Inside Elections and the Cook Political Report rate the race as “Solid” Democratic. However, the GOP gubernatorial primary for still has a couple of interesting names that make it worth watching. On paper, Rep. Lee Zeldin should be the runaway favorite; he has raised more money from individual contributions than any other Republican (about $10 million), and he has the official backing of the state Republican Party. However, former Trump aide Andrew Giuliani — Rudy’s son — is a wild card. He has raised less than a million dollars, but a recent Siena College poll found that he had higher name recognition and a higher net favorability rating2 than Zeldin among Republicans. (Fifty percent of New York Republicans viewed Giuliani favorably, versus 28 percent who viewed him unfavorably; for Zeldin, that split was 36 percent versus 21 percent.) Giuliani is also the Trumpiest candidate in the field. He has said that he believes Trump was the true winner of the 2020 election, while Zeldin has been wishy-washy on the issue. By contrast, only one candidate has affirmed that Biden fairly won the election: businessman Harry Wilson. Wilson is also an interesting figure: a pro-choice “Rockefeller Republican,” the sort who used to succeed in New York politics. If he were to win the nomination, he’s the one candidate who might actually make the general election competitive — but despite spending almost $11 million of his own money on his campaign, he has had trouble appealing to an increasingly uncompromising Republican electorate. According to an Emerson College poll conducted June 9-10, Zeldin had 34 percent support in the primary, former Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino had 16 percent, Wilson had 15 percent, and Giuliani had 13 percent. However, the most recent poll — conducted June 15-20 by SurveyUSA for WHEC-TV and WNYT-TV — showed Zeldin and Giuliani in a dead heat, 25 percent to 23 percent. We will see on Tuesday night whether that poll is an outlier or picked up on a real trend. Sen. Mike Lee should win renomination on Tuesday, but he faces two notable challengers who could cut into his margin. Chris Samuels / The Salt Lake Tribune via APUtah Races to watch: U.S. Senate, 1st Congressional District Polls close: 10 p.m. Eastern Incumbent Mike Lee shouldn’t have much trouble getting renominated to the U.S. Senate, but with former Republican presidential candidate Evan McMullin running against him as an independent in the general election, it will be interesting to see how much support Lee’s primary opponents draw. The most recent poll of the race is from all the way back in May, but it showed Lee receiving only 49 percent of the vote, with his opponents getting a combined 25 percent and 26 percent undecided — hardly an indication that Republicans are united behind him. Lee’s opponents, former state Rep. Becky Edwards and businesswoman Ally Isom, largely share Lee’s down-the-line conservative views. (One notable exception: Edwards was not in favor of overturning Roe v. Wade.) But they have still attacked him for being too much of a partisan pitbull; in particular, they’ve taken Lee to task for strate | US Campaigns & Elections |
In the wake of a historic union election victory at the Amazon JFK8 warehouse in Staten Island, New York, more Amazon workers in the US are trying to replicate that success with their own organizing campaigns in other states.The moves comes despite losses in Alabama and at a second warehouse in Staten Island, where workers rejected unionization pushes.In Garner, North Carolina, a suburb of Raleigh, workers are pushing to organize a union at the Amazon warehouse RDU1, a 700,000 sq ft facility with four floors.Through the grassroots organization Cause, Carolina Amazonians United for Solidarity and Empowerment, workers are demanding a $5 an hour pay increase; a return to digital time clocks rather than physical ones, where workers are forced to wait in long lines to punch in and out; longer breaks; a revision to Amazon’s time-off options; the formation of a worker committee to address grievances and appeals; and mental health resources for workers.Albert Elliot, who has worked at the Garner plant for about 18 months, said the organizing effort began in response to mistreatment of workers across the board, from discrimination, racism, unequal treatment from managers, unfair write-ups, and insufficient breaks for the work they do.“We are treated like robots, as if we have batteries on our backs,” said Elliott. “Management, they’re actually the robots. They have been trained to give this generic Amazon response of, ‘Well, we’re sorry that you feel that way,’ and so on and so forth. It’s just a generic response because they don’t know what to say and they don’t know what to do.”Elliott said organizing at Amazon is challenging because of the sheer size of the warehouse, and how disconnected workers are from one another He said the focus on productivity and short breaks provides little time to communicate with co-workers, and there’s a sense of fear among workers who are not aware of their rights in the workplace.“That’s part of our name and part of our slogan: to educate and to empower. We want to educate on each and every thing they have a right to, because the first thing you often hear people say is ‘I don’t want to lose my job’ or ‘I’m afraid I’ll get written up’,” said Elliott.“Because of the treatment going on, a lot of workers are quitting. They feel like they don’t have a voice and they don’t stand a chance against this Amazon giant.”He also noted that the high employee turnover makes it difficult to organize, but that they are trying to emphasize the message: ‘Don’t quit. Organize.’Azhani Crawford, 19, started working at Amazon last year, but was laid off because her unpaid time off went in the red for being late to work, because she relied on her mother for transportation, who also has a job. Her request for a schedule change to accommodate that was ignored. She had to wait 90 days before she could reapply and get rehired. She got involved with Cause after hearing another worker with the organization discuss an unfair write-up, and problems she has experienced in trying to get help from human resources.“Imagine how much more the process assistants and everybody above us get paid, and they don’t do anything but patrol us all day, like, ‘Hey, why are you sitting down?’ and ‘You were in the bathroom for too long,’” said Crawford.In Upper Marlboro, Maryland, two workers with Amazonians United, an independent organizing group of Amazon workers, alleged in an unfair labor practice charge filed with the NLRB that they were fired in retaliation for union activity, including gathering signature for two petitions and organizing a walkout in March.In Campbellsville, Kentucky, 22-year-old Matthew Littrell is trying to unionize his warehouse, SDF1, after getting inspired by the union effort in New York City. Littrell and other workers officially launched their union campaign as a new chapter of Amazon Labor Union, the independent union at JFK8 in New York.Littrell has worked as a picker since early last year, working night shifts at the warehouse that first opened in 1999 as one of Amazon’s first warehouses. He has been part of the site’s safety committee since November.“They don’t invest anything here as far as our safety goes, and as far as keeping the facility at a reasonable temperature. In some areas, it gets horribly hot, and you feel like you’re suffocating because there’s no ventilation,” said Littrell.Since he started organizing, Littrell has filed an unfair labor practice charge for pushback he has received from management, including what he alleges was a retaliatory write-up for productivity and for having the police called while he was leafleting outside the parking lot in early June.Amazon denied all allegations of retaliation in Maryland, Kentucky, and in New York at JFK8 and LDJ5, as Amazon’s objections to the JFK8 election and unfair labor practice charges alleged against Amazon at LDJ5 are still under review.In response to the union organizing a spokesperson said in an email, “Our employees have the choice of whether or not to join a union. They always have.“As a company, we don’t think unions are the best answer for our employees. Our focus remains on working directly with our team to continue making Amazon a great place to work.” | US Campaigns & Elections |
Former President Donald Trump is apparently eyeing an early 2024 announcement in an attempt to win back the White House — and it could come in the next few days. Behind the scenes, Trump is mulling an early entry into the 2024 fray to capitalize on lackluster polling for President Joe Biden and deter any stiff GOP primary competition, prompting concerns from Republicans that he could overshadow their midterm efforts, CNN reported. The announcement could come as soon as July. SEVEN IN 10 VOTERS DO NOT THINK BIDEN SHOULD RUN FOR REELECTION: POLL "Every day is different. We get told he's going to announce imminently, and by the afternoon, that has changed," one source told the outlet. Fueling Trump's reported ambitions are the House select Jan. 6 committee's public hearings that have focused on his behavior during his waning White House days and his efforts to challenge the 2020 election results. An early announcement could hemorrhage political bloodletting from the scathing hearings by giving him a stronger bully pulpit to rival them, he reportedly believes. His close advisers have been purportedly informing his allies that a campaign launch may come soon. "He's sounding a lot more committed lately," another source told the outlet. Earlier this week, controversial Infowars host Alex Jones, who has been known to peddle conspiracy theories but has connections in Trumpworld, claimed a source told him that Trump could announce Monday on the Fourth of July. Some in his orbit fear that he does not yet have the necessary campaign infrastructure to mount a third bid for the White House just yet. At one point, his advisers considered a July event in Michigan to launch the campaign, but the plans were canned, per CNN. Trump has consistently trampled his top hypothetical GOP primary competition in polling, with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis routinely surfacing as his top threat. If he were to make an early announcement, Trump wants to make sure the campaign launch is not a "dud." However, some Republicans have been fretting that an early Trump entry could suck the oxygen away from important midterm races as they face a tough battle to reclaim the Senate. Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel has encouraged him to wait until after the midterm elections, the New York Times reported. If Trump were to announce, he would no longer be able to tap into his $100 million political action committee war chest to assist in the presidential run due to campaign finance laws. This has apparently been one sticking point against an early run, per the outlet. Political candidates are prohibited from directing super PAC money on behalf of their campaigns while vying for office. RNC officials have stressed that the party will cut off its funding of his legal bills pertaining to a New York attorney general inquiry, but McDaniel has recently concluded he will make an early entry anyways, according to the outlet. CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER Some polling has shown that Trump's sway among Republican voters has decayed since he departed the White House. A number of Republicans, such as Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, have argued that Trump should not get the party nod in 2024 and are considering mounting a challenge should he run. John Bolton, a national security adviser under Trump, recently told CBS that he does not believe Trump will run in 2024. "I do not think he will run in 2024. I think he knows he lost in 2020. He'll never admit it because he's got such a good con game going against his supporters. He fears losing in 2024. He hates being known as a loser. He'll talk about it insistently. He may even announce he's running, but when it comes right down to it, he won't run," he told the outlet. Some polling now has Trump topping Biden. The former president has never acknowledged that his electoral loss to Biden in 2020 was legitimate. | US Campaigns & Elections |
(Courtesy of the Chen campaign) California has not elected a nonincumbent Republican to statewide office since 2006. Lanhee Chen, the GOP nominee for state controller, is betting he can make some history. “Our campaign is really about competence and about defending the taxpayers — it’s not about ideology,” Chen said Thursday in a telephone interview with the Washington Examiner. “I don’t think there’s a Right way, or a Left way, to be a good controller.” Chen might be right. The job, as designed, is largely apolitical. The controller is supposed to monitor California finances and spending, like a watchdog or inspector general, ferreting out waste, fraud, and malfeasance to ensure taxpayers get the most bang for their buck and are not stuck with expensive bills for government incompetence. For instance, that scandal involving the mishandling of $20 billion in state money designated for unemployment insurance? That’s an issue ripe for oversight by the controller. And as Chen indicated, Democrats and Republicans alike (and independents) support good government. But whenever candidates for office declare ideology irrelevant to their campaign, it’s usually because partisanship is working against them. And in deep-blue California, where President Joe Biden defeated then-President Donald Trump 63.5% to 34.3%, Chen has quite the uphill climb, as Republican insiders in the state conceded in interviews. “People are unhappy with the direction of the country, and while Newsom is cruising to reelection, there may be a desire to put some kind of check on total Democrat control,” said a veteran Republican operative in California, requesting anonymity so as not to undermine Chen’s bid. “That said, I wouldn't bet more than a buck.” Gov. Gavin Newsom, a potential 2024 presidential candidate, is considered a shoo-in for a second term despite being forced into a recall election last September, a Republican-backed effort that fell flat. 'FAMILY FRIENDLY' SUPER PAC TO SPEND $23 MILLION ON DEMOCRATIC SENATE CANDIDATES Rob Stutzman, a Republican consultant in California who served in former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s administration, also is suspect of Chen’s prospects. But Stutzman was a bit more charitable in his overall assessment of Chen’s bid versus Democrat Malia Cohen, a black woman who is a member of the California Board of Equalization, a panel that adjudicates tax disputes. “The statewide math in California is impossible for Republicans. Defying the numerical disadvantage would require an overwhelming financial advantage and a deeply flawed opponent,” Stutzman said. “Having said that, to the extent California voters actually do get exposed to Lanhee, I think they’ll find him a refreshing kind of GOP candidate that they haven’t seen the likes of in a long time.” Newsom and Democrats running for statewide office in California are largely expected to cruise to election and reelection this fall, despite the red electoral wave building across the country as Biden’s job approval ratings sink. Chen, however, has caught the attention of Republicans inside and outside the state as a candidate who might defy the odds. The 44-year-old son of Taiwanese immigrants grew up in the southeast Los Angeles County community of Rowland Heights and went on to earn four Harvard degrees. Chen was the policy director of Sen. Mitt Romney’s (R-UT) 2012 presidential campaign before moving back to California to teach at Stanford University. He has relationships across the party, including with the old network of Romney donors. Those connections are poised to net Chen the outside help he needs to pull an upset on Nov. 8. Republicans involved in national politics are forming a super PAC to bolster his campaign, with details likely to emerge in August. “A major independent effort is coming together for Lanhee Chen,” a GOP operative involved confirmed. “Does Lanhee have a chance to win with the national environment? Yes. But he’s also a great candidate.” Unclear as yet is whether this new super PAC will be set up as a California political organization, subject to state campaign finance laws, or a federal political action committee. Meanwhile, a California general purpose independent committee that functions like a federal super PAC already exists and is expected to support Chen’s campaign. The group, Californians Supporting Lanhee Chen for Controller 2022, currently shows minimal resources but could beef up its efforts after Labor Day. California election law is similar to the federal statute in that it forbids groups like this from coordinating with candidates’ campaigns. Californians Supporting Lanhee Chen for Controller 2022 did not respond to a request for comment. When candidates for state office in California file their next fundraising disclosure, Chen estimates he will report $2.2 million to $2.4 million in cash on hand. That’s chump change in a state that is geographically vast and has multiple expensive media markets. But Chen is aggressively raising money while husbanding resources for the post-Labor Day home stretch. And although he exudes optimism, Chen, through his comments on politically charged issues, has proven he understands the challenges he faces running as a Republican in California. After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade with Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Chen issued a statement affirming his support for abortion rights, which are enshrined in the California Constitution. A few days later, Chen revealed he did not vote for Trump in the 2016 or 2020 general elections, nor would he support him in 2024. “There are a lot of people who I believe would be better for the job than the former president,” he told Cal Matters in an interview. So, why is Chen optimistic? The Republican’s internal polling suggests his message has legs and that Cohen is vulnerable. Although it’s impossible to separate politics and partisanship from a political campaign, Chen believes the duties of the office of state controller are unique, offering him an opportunity to overcome the high hurdles Republicans face when running for statewide office in a state that is among the most Democratic in the nation. To prove his point, Chen emphasized the endorsement he received from the Los Angeles Times’s liberal editorial board and Andrew Yang, an independent who ran for president as a Democrat in 2020. CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER “The way we assemble a coalition of Republicans, Democrats, and independents is talking about what, as controller, I can do to bring accountability to state spending,” Chen said. “The idea that Californians want a typical politician to be controller is going to be proven incorrect.” The Cohen campaign did not respond to a written request for comment made through the Democrat’s website. But Andrew Acosta, a Democratic operative in California, predicted Chen’s bid would fail. “I'm sure he is well qualified,” Acosta granted. “His problem is simple: wrong team. I don't see a path unless he rolls $25 million, and even then, it would be hard.” | US Campaigns & Elections |
Dan Cox, a Maryland state legislator who is seeking the Republican nomination for governor, talks to reporters June 30 in Annapolis, Md. (Brian Witte / Associated Press)Dan Cox, a far-right state legislator endorsed by former President Trump, on Tuesday won the Republican primary for Maryland governor, defeating a moderate rival backed by outgoing Gov. Larry Hogan.Cox will face the winner of the Democratic primary in the November general election. The top Democratic candidates include former U.S. Labor Secretary and Democratic Party chair Tom Perez, author Wes Moore and state Comptroller Peter Franchot.Despite being a win for Trump, Cox’s victory over Kelly Schulz, a former Hogan Cabinet member, could be a blow to Republican chances to hold on to the seat in November. Hogan, who was prohibited from running for a third consecutive term, was a rare two-term Republican governor in a heavily Democratic state and endorsed Schulz as the successor to his bipartisan style of leadership.The Republican primary was viewed as a proxy battle between Trump and Hogan, who offered vastly different visions of the party’s future as they consider 2024 campaigns for the White House. Hogan, one of Trump’s most prominent GOP critics, urged the party to move on from the former president's divisive brand of politics, while Trump has spent much of his time since leaving office lifting candidates who embrace his election lies.Cox has said President Biden’s victory shouldn’t have been certified, called former Vice President Mike Pence a “traitor” and sought unsuccessfully to impeach Hogan for his pandemic policies.Democrats, too, saw Cox as an easier opponent in a general election, with the Democratic National Committee plowing more than $1 million behind an ad intended to boost him within the Republican primary.In another top race Tuesday, Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen beat back a primary challenge just months after suffering a minor stroke. He is favored to win a second term in November.Voters were also picking nominees for an open seat in the state's eight-member congressional delegation, and the daughter of the state's former attorney general was vying for her father's old job.Ten candidates in all are seeking the Democratic nomination for governor. Perez has support from labor unions, while Moore, the former chief executive of antipoverty group Robin Hood Foundation, has been endorsed by the state’s teachers union and the top legislative leaders, House Speaker Adrienne Jones and Senate President Bill Ferguson. Franchot, who comfortably won four races to be the state’s tax collector, brings significant name recognition to the primary.Associated Press writer Michael Kunzelman in Silver Spring, Md., contributed to this report. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. | US Campaigns & Elections |
The state of Georgia is putting former President Trump’s grip on the Republican Party to the test. Trump-backed candidates have faced a handful of setbacks in recent primary races, but nowhere has that been as evident as Georgia. Trump’s revenge-driven push to take down Gov. Brian Kemp (R) and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) fell short, and his preferred congressional candidates failed to win their runoff races this week. Overall, six of the president’s eight endorsed candidates in competitive races lost their primaries, with the two exceptions being Senate candidate Herschel Walker and Burt Jones, who is running for lieutenant governor. Experts say Trump remains popular in the state, and his backing of Walker in particular made a difference in that race, but that his primary setbacks show the limits of his endorsement power and of his singular focus on relitigating the 2020 election. “The big takeaway of all of this is that we should be skeptical of any proposition that suggests an endorsement from Donald Trump is the be all end all of winning a race,” said Andrea Gillespie, an associate professor of political science at Emory University in Atlanta. “Endorsements are important, but you need more than endorsements to be able to win an election.” Trump’s struggles in Georgia date back to the 2020 election, when he lost to President Biden by roughly 11,000 votes in a state that had not gone Democratic in a presidential race since 1992. Republicans then lost both Senate seats in the state’s January 2021 runoff elections after Trump used a campaign rally in the state to repeat false claims of fraud. Georgia is also home to the two officials Trump perhaps blames most for his inability to keep the White House: Raffensperger, who resisted relentless pressure from Trump to overturn the results of the 2020 election and has since become a key GOP voice against the former president’s claims of fraud, and Kemp, who certified the state’s election results despite Trump’s efforts. Both cruised to double-digit primary victories last month. Kemp defeated former Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.), whom Trump had persuaded to run, by more than 50 points. Raffensperger came out about 19 points ahead of Rep. Jody Hice (R-Ga.). The former president’s bid to unseat Kemp was flawed from the start, experts said. Kemp, who won a first term in 2018 with Trump’s backing, is a popular incumbent who delivered on key conservative promises by enacting a restrictive abortion law, giving parents more control over their children’s education, raising teacher salaries and approving new voting laws. Notably, some high-profile Republicans felt comfortable bucking Trump and throwing their support behind Kemp during the gubernatorial primary, including former Vice President Mike Pence, who is believed to be eyeing a 2024 presidential campaign of his own. Raffensperger focused on outreach to Republicans and played a role in passing the new voting laws, which critics have said will make it harder for minorities to vote in certain areas. As incumbents, both men also had the benefit of name recognition, campaign resources and the backing of other Republicans in the state. “Perdue and Hice were running exclusively on the stolen election and nothing else,” said Alan Abramowitz, a political scientist at Emory University. In two down-ballot races, Trump-backed candidates also came up short in statewide primaries for insurance commissioner and attorney general. In both cases, the former president had endorsed challengers to allies of Kemp. On Tuesday, Trump’s difficulties in Georgia continued. Vernon Jones, a former Democrat who fully embraced Trump two years ago, lost by 20,000 votes in a runoff in the 10th Congressional District, while Jake Evans lost by nearly 14,000 votes in the 6th Congressional District. In those cases, experts said Trump’s preferred candidates were up against better-known and better-funded candidates. In Jones’s case, he did not have ties to the district and was encouraged by Trump to run there instead of in the governor’s race. Taken together, experts and strategists said the underwhelming performances of Trump’s preferred candidates in Georgia underscore the risks of his often emotional endorsements and reflect how the former president’s stamp of approval is often not enough to carry a lesser-known candidate over the finish line. Charles Bullock, a political science professor at the University of Georgia, chalked it up to a combination of “bad candidates and not being willing to put money behind them.” But Bullock and others cautioned against assuming Trump’s poor track record in Georgia meant voters in the state were ready to move on from him entirely. Bullock recounted seeing scores of Trump-Pence yard signs still visible in the northwest corner of the state, and polls have shown a significant number of Georgia Republicans still believe the 2020 election was stolen. Seth Weathers, a Georgia Republican strategist, said he believes there is some fatigue with Trump among voters who likely didn’t support him in 2016 “but then got on board once he was in office.” “But I think if he were to be on the ballot today in Georgia he would win by a pretty large majority,” Weathers said. | US Campaigns & Elections |
Campaign advisers say they all told Trump not to declare victory on election nightJason Miller, Bill Stepien and Ivanka Trump all testified that they did not believe the then-president could declare victory on election night. Stepien said the former president expressed to staff that disagreed with him on this that they were simply too weak to do what was necessary. Miller testified that Rudy Giuliani, who he said was intoxicated, was pushing for Trump to declare victory as votes were still being reported in key battleground states.At about 2:20 a.m. on Nov. 4, Trump held a news conference at the White House to falsely declare himself the winner of the election.Jason Miller says Giuliani 'definitely intoxicated' at election night partyJason Miller, a former top campaign aide to Trump, testified to the Jan. 6 Committee that Rudy Giuliani, a Trump confidant, was "definitely intoxicated" at the White House's election night party and advised Trump to just declare victory, against the advice of other advisers.Giuliani was “definitely intoxicated, but I did not know his level of intoxication when he talked” with Trump, Miller said."There were suggestions by I believe it was Mayor Giuliani to go and declare victory and say that we’d won outright," Miller added. Miller said he and campaign manager Bill Stepien said it was too soon to be able to do so. Miller said they shouldn't do that until there was a "better sense of the numbers."Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner tell committee in video testimony they were at the White House on election nightThe committee showed additional video clips from the separate interviews they did with Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner. Trump said she was at the White House on election night and moved between the residence and a room that was off the residence where some family members were. Kushner told the committee, "I think the president was upstairs in the residence. He was upstairs, we were kind of on the first floor, so not the upstairs mostly with Ivanka and her brothers and a couple other people who would come in and out."Trump false mail claims started as pandemic ragedJane C. Timm16m ago / 3:11 PM UTCRep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., said the former president started laying the groundwork for undermining the election result as early as April 2020, playing clips in which the president cast doubt on mail voting."As early as April 2020, Mr. Trump claimed that the only way he could lose an election would be as a result of fraud," Lofgren said.While the president's broader, false voter fraud claims date years earlier, he zeroed in on mail voting specifically in the spring of 2020, when the coronavirus was moving quickly through the U.S. and making congregating at the polls dangerous. Many states delayed primary elections or expanded mail voting options significantly to keep voters and poll workers safe.“You know the things with bundling and all of the things that are happening with votes by mail where thousands of votes are gathered. And I’m not going to say which party does it, but thousands of votes are gathered and they come in and they’re dumped in a location, and then, all of a sudden, you lose elections if you think you’re going to win,” Trump falsely said of mail voting at an April 8 briefing, according to White House transcripts.Still, the clip of Trump saying the “only” way he could lose the election was due to fraud is dated August 2020.Trump laid groundwork for false claims about election fraud as early as April 2020, Lofgren saysRep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., a member of the committee, said in her opening statement that Trump laid the groundwork for spreading his false claims about the election months in advance."The former President laid the groundwork for these false claims well in advance of the election," she said. "As early as April 2020, Mr. Trump claimed that the only way he could lose an election would be as a result of fraud."The committee then aired a series of video clips of Trump saying that if he lost then the election would be fraudulent."The only way we’re going to lose this election is if the election is rigged. Remember that. That’s the only way we’re going to lose this election," he said in one clip.During the first presidential debate later that year, he said, "This is going to be a fraud like you’ve never seen."Cheney says Pence's staff called for a briefing with campaign experts before Jan. 6Cheney said in her opening statement that then-Vice President Mike Pence called a briefing with Trump campaign experts about claims of election fraud.On Jan. 2, 2021, Matthew Morgan, a general counsel for the campaign and its chief lawyer, summarized what the campaign concluded weeks earlier, Cheney said. He said that none of the arguments about fraud would actually change the election's outcome. "What was generally discussed on that topic was whether the fraud, maladministration, abuse or irregularities, if aggregated and read most favorably to the campaign, would that be outcome determinative," Morgan said in a video clip from his committee interview. "And I think everyone’s assessment in the room, at least amongst the staff, Marc Short, myself and Greg Jacob, was that it was not sufficient to be outcome determinative."Cheney also added that the public should pay attention to what Trump and his legal team repeatedly said about Dominion voting machines "far-flung conspiracies with a deceased Venezuelan Communist allegedly pulling the strings," she said. Cheney said Barr called it "complete nonsense." Trump weighs in ahead of hearing startFormer President Donald Trump continued his attack on the House Jan. 6 committee in the hours before its second hearing, casting himself as a victim of an unfair inquiry.Posting a message on his social media site, Truth Social, Trump wrote: "This one-sided Witch Hunt is a disgrace to America. Should never have been allowed to happen!"The upcoming hearing will lay out how Trump insisted he had won the November 2020 election against the advice of some of his advisers and even as votes were still being counted. Trump listened to 'apparently inebriated Giuliani' over his campaign experts, Cheney saysCommittee vice chair Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., said in her opening statement that the committee would air eyewitness testimony Monday that shows Trump rejected advice from his campaign experts on election night in 2020.Instead, Cheney said, Trump "followed the course recommended by an apparently inebriated Rudy Giuliani, to just claim he won, and insist that the vote counting stop — to falsely claim everything was fraudulent."At about 2:20 a.m. on Nov. 4, with votes in key states like Pennsylvania still being counted and the presidential race in Wisconsin and Georgia too close to call, Trump held a news conference at the White House to falsely declare himself the winner of the election."He falsely told the American people that the election was not legitimate, in his words 'millions' of Americans believed him," Cheney said Monday.Cheney also said that the committee would show "much more" from the recorded testimony with former Attorney General William Barr, who was heard in video testimony aired Thursday saying he told Trump the election fraud claims were "bullshit."Trump lost the election, knew he lost, and 'lied to his supporters and the country,' Thompson saysChairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said in his opening statement Monday that Trump "lied to his supporters and the country" about the outcome of the 2020 presidential election."This morning we’ll tell the story of how Donald Trump lost an election — and knew he lost an election — and as a result of his loss, decided to wage an attack on our democracy," Thompson said.It was "an attack on the American people," he continued, whereby Trump "lit the fuse that led to the horrific violence of January 6th when a mob of his supporters stormed the Capitol, sent by Donald Trump, to stop the transfer of power."'Gallery Group' trapped in House chamber on Jan. 6 uses texting chain to provide support for one another Members of the so-called Gallery Group, including Reps. Mikie Sherrill, D-N.J., and Robin Kelly, D-Ill., are in attendance for the second Jan. 6 hearing.The informal group of House Democrats bonded after they were trapped in the gallery above the House floor as a mob of rioters tried to breach the chamber. Sherrill told NBC News that the group has communicated since the attack through a texting chain that is used to provide support for one another. “It’s just support, just to be there for each other. It was such a difficult event and certainly not just to experience it that day but then to hear of all the Capitol Police that have been harmed," Sherrill said before the hearing."We have some members who experience different things throughout life, and I think that day brought back some of those issues.”Sherrill brought her daughter to Monday's hearing. Her daughter was with Sherrill in Washington on Jan. 6, the congresswoman said, but anticipating potential violence from pro-Trump protesters, she sent her away to her sister's house nearby that day.Other House Democrats in attendance on Monday include Reps. Mary Gay Scanlon of Pennsylvania, and G.K. Butterfield and Kathy Manning of North Carolina.Former Fox News editor testifying Monday says Trump's behavior 'unworthy of Nixon'Former Fox News editor Chris Stirewalt, expected to testify publicly Monday, outlined his reasons for appearing before the committee in a column for The Dispatch.Stirewalt, who was laid off at Fox News in January 2021, described former President Donald Trump's "effort to steal a second term," adding that it was behavior "unworthy of Nixon." "Forget Lincoln and Washington. This was behavior unworthy of Nixon, who refused to contest some clearly dubious results after the 1960 presidential election and, when president himself, resigned the office rather than subject the country to a protracted impeachment fight," Stirewalt wrote.Stirewalt said he had no interest in facing "the same anger" he did after Fox News projected that Joe Biden had won Arizona at around 11:20 p.m. ET on Nov. 3, but that he felt compelled to appear anyway. Trump and others on the right expressed outrage over the Fox News call, since it undercut his effort to claim victory on Election Day even as votes in key states were still being counted. Biden won Arizona by more than 10,000 votes, with NBC News calling the state for Biden on Nov. 12."I spend a lot of time talking about the need for stronger institutions and how Congress must reclaim its status as the first among equal branches," he wrote. "How could I then resist when Congress made a request of me that falls well within its powers?""As a journalist, I feel very uncomfortable even playing this small role in these events," he continued. "The first rule for my vocation is to tell the truth as best as you can, and the second is to stay the hell out of the story. I will fail in the latter today, but aim for the former."GOP Rep. Bacon: What Trump did on Jan. 6 was ‘wrong’Jane C. Timm2h ago / 1:53 PM UTCRep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., spoke out against President Donald Trump’s actions on Jan. 6 on NBC News' "Meet the Press," criticizing him for not condemning the riot and calling it "negligence."Pressed by host Chuck Todd on whether he thinks what the president did was criminal, Bacon said it was wrong.“You know, whether it’s criminal or not—I’m not a lawyer or judge—I thought it was wrong. And as a citizen, I think, you know, the American people have to judge this themselves,” he said, adding that he believes the American people “know it was wrong not to intervene.”Stepien's wife in labor, committee will use deposition videoGarrett Haake2h ago / 1:46 PM UTCBill Stepien’s wife went into labor Monday morning, which is the family emergency that will keep him from testifying in person, according to a source familiar with the day's events. Two sources familiar with the committee’s plans say they intend to show video of his recorded deposition in lieu of his live testimony. He was subpoenaed in November, but we don’t know precisely when he sat for his interview with the committee. Bill Stepien will no longer testify MondayAbout an hour before the hearing was scheduled to begin, the committee announced that Bill Stepien was unable to testify Monday morning due to a family emergency."His counsel will appear and make a statement on the record," the committee said. Stepien served as Trump's campaign manager in 2020 after having previously been the White House political director. The hearing will begin about 30 to 45 minutes after the previously announced 10 a.m. ET start time, the panel added.Hearing has been delayed by 30-45 minutesThe second Jan. 6 hearing has been delayed by 30 to 45 minutes, the committee announced. It was originally scheduled for 10 a.m. ET. The plan for future hearings Beginning Monday, the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol will hold six more public hearings this month featuring evidence that Trump directed the mob to march on the Capitol and live testimony from White House staff, ranking member Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., said.Cheney and Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., outlined Thursday night how they plan to structure the committee’s other hearings that they plan to pack into June.While Monday's hearing focuses on Trump's election lies that inspired the storming of the Capitol, the third hearing will offer evidence about Trump’s unsuccessful plan to oust acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen and replace him with another DOJ official who was more supportive of Trump’s fraud claims, Jeffrey Clark, according to Cheney.Read more here.‘A lot more testimony where that came from,’ Schiff saysJane C. Timm3h ago / 12:46 PM UTCRep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said that upcoming Jan. 6 hearings will dig deeper on some of the testimony Americans heard during the House committee’s first public hearing last week.“I think you’ve heard just a few examples of what those witnesses have said behind closed doors. There’s a lot more testimony where that came from,” he said on ABC News' "This Week" Sunday. "Most important is that we're weaving together how each line of effort to overturn the election, led to another, led to another, and then ultimately culminated in that violence attack on January 6," the committee member added.Trump 'knew this was a lie, but continued to act,' says committee memberNBC News3h ago / 12:17 PM UTCRep. Elaine Luria, D-Va., previewed Monday's public hearing by the Jan. 6 committee, telling NBC News' "Meet the Press" that Trump was repeatedly told there was no evidence of a stolen election.Expect more on lawmaker pardons this week, Kinzinger saysJane C. Timm4h ago / 11:48 AM UTCRep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., said more evidence about lawmakers seeking pardons will be revealed in public hearings this week.Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., said Thursday that “multiple” Republican lawmakers including Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., sought presidential pardons in the weeks after the riot. Perry denied the allegation in a tweet, call it an “absolute, shameless, and soulless lie.”Pressed on how many pardons were sought and for what reason during an interview on CBS News' "Face the Nation" on Sunday, Kinzinger said “more of that is going to be released this week.”“But why would you ask for a pardon — let’s just say in general — if somebody asked for a pardon it would be because they have real concern maybe they’ve done something illegal. I’ll leave it at that but I’ll say that more information will be coming,” he said.Asked about Perry’s denial, Kinzinger said, “We’re not going to make accusations or say things without proof or evidence backing it.”Committee members: Enough evidence gathered to support Trump indictmentChristina Zhao4h ago / 11:19 AM UTCTwo members of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot said Sunday that they've gathered enough evidence for the Justice Department to explore an indictment against Trump."I would like to see the Justice Department investigate any credible allegation of criminal activity on the part of Donald Trump or anyone else," Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said on ABC News’ “This Week.” "They need to be investigated if there’s credible evidence, which I think there is."Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., said the committee has laid out in various legal pleadings "the criminal statutes that we think have been violated," adding that it also has evidence that Trump knew Joe Biden won the 2020 election."I think we can prove to any reasonable, open-minded person that Donald Trump absolutely knew because he was surrounded by lawyers," Raskin said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” "He continues to spread it to this very day. He continues to foist that propaganda on his followers."Key takeaways from the first Jan. 6 hearing: It’s all about TrumpOne person more than any other set in motion the deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, the committee investigating the riot argued at its first public hearing Thursday. And that person is Donald Trump.He sparked the riot at the Capitol and nearly shredded American democracy in pursuit of power, the House Jan. 6 committee contended in what served as the opening argument in a weekslong effort to make a case to the public. Read more here.How to watch the 2nd Jan. 6 committee hearingMonday’s hearing, which begins at 10 a.m. ET, will be streamed live on NBC News NOW, NBCNews.com and MSNBC.com. NBCNews.com will also feature a live blog with news and analysis.MSNBC will have special coverage starting at 6 a.m. ET, in addition to a live blog. Read the full story here on who's testifying, what to expect, and more.Here's who is testifying on MondayJane C. Timm5h ago / 10:09 AM UTCThe House committee investigating the Jan. 6th riot will interview five witnesses on Monday as it continues public hearings into the deadly incident.Former Trump campaign manager William Stepien and Chris Stirewalt, a former Fox News political editor, will testify in the first panel. The second panel will include former Philadelphia City Commissioner Al Schmidt, former United States Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia BJay Pak, and Benjamin Ginsberg, a GOP elections attorney.Ginsberg was a top conservative election attorney for years and played a central role in the Florida recount in 2000, but he slammed Trump’s election fraud claims as baseless in the run-up to the 2020 election. Ginsberg will be testifying about election recounts, a source familiar with the committee’s plans told NBC News.The hearing will begin at 10 a.m.Highlights from Thursday's prime-time hearingNBC News5h ago / 10:06 AM UTCThe House committee investigating the deadly Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol began its first in a series of long-awaited public hearings Thursday by revealing new footage of the riot and testimony to make the case that the deadly attack was the direct result of then-President Donald Trump’s attempts to cling to power.Some key moments include: the committee aired sober, never-seen-before testimony from ally after ally, including Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump, admitting they knew Trump’s stolen election claims were unfounded.Read more highlights here.What to expect in Monday's hearingThe House Jan. 6 committee will hear from a trusted member of Donald Trump’s inner circle on Monday as members describe how he pushed falsehoods about the 2020 election.In a conference call with reporters Sunday, a committee aide said the focus of the two-hour hearing will be “the decision by the former president to ignore the will of the voters, declare victory on an election that he had lost, spread claims of fraud and then decide to ignore the rulings of the courts when the judgment of the courts didn’t go his way.”The star witness figures to be Bill Stepien, who served as Trump’s 2020 campaign manager and White House political director in the first half of the Trump administration. On election night, Trump received conflicting pieces of advice from aides about whether he should declare victory even though votes were still coming in. “There was sound advice that he didn’t have the numbers to win,” the committee aide said. “There was advice that he should declare victory anyway and he decided to declare victory anyway.”The public hearing, the second held by the committee, will start at 10 a.m. ET. | US Campaigns & Elections |
Donald Trump’s endorsement may have helped a number of Republican candidates get through their midterm primaries this year — but some may now be wary of the former president's continued involvement. Trump has reveled in what he describes as a highly successful endorsement track record. On Wednesday, he boasted of another Senate primary win in Alabama with the victory of his candidate, Katie Britt. His endorsement of Britt came after a stunning reversal, however. Deeming his original pick, Rep. Mo Brooks, insufficiently committed to his quest to relitigate the 2020 election, Trump withdrew his endorsement of Brooks in March and later threw his backing behind Brooks's opponent. DISCONTENT WITH TRUMP? SOME IN GOP MULL BENEFITS OF A FRESH FACE Britt’s win Tuesday with Trump’s backing illustrates a danger for the candidates now distancing themselves from Trump for the general election: that crossing Trump can come at a cost. “Anybody who won with Trump’s endorsement has to be very cautious about the way in which they move away from him, lest he become their foe,” Charles Lipson, political science professor emeritus at the University of Chicago, told the Washington Examiner. “The key positive figure here is Glenn Youngkin in Virginia, who managed to keep Trump’s supporters in line with him without hanging the albatross of Trump around his neck to alienate centrist independents,” Lipson added. Youngkin’s victory in the 2021 gubernatorial race in Virginia, a state President Joe Biden carried just one year earlier, offered what many strategists at the time characterized as a road map for Republicans running in the post-Trump era. And it’s one some GOP candidates appear eager to repeat in the midterm elections. Dr. Mehmet Oz, the Republican Senate nominee in Pennsylvania, has quietly scrubbed images of Trump from his campaign website and Facebook pages in the weeks since winning the state’s primary by a razor-thin margin, Axios reported. Oz had fought for and then heavily promoted Trump’s endorsement in that primary, which helped deliver him his win over opponent David McCormick. Herschel Walker, the former football star who won the Republican nomination for Senate in Georgia, does not feature Trump on his campaign website or Twitter page. His messaging has focused on his small-town roots and his opposition to the Biden agenda, not the former president who backed him last fall, earlier than many other primary picks. Although Walker appeared alongside Trump at a rally during the primary race, he has since adopted the Youngkin strategy of largely avoiding both criticism and praise of the former president as he runs in a state Biden carried in 2020. Shortly before winning his primary, Walker even denied ever hearing of Trump’s election denial, sidestepping an issue that Democrats have sought to use as a cudgel in midterm races so far. "I think reporters said that. I don't know whether President Trump said that. He's never said that to me," Walker told a local news station when asked in May about Trump’s claims that the 2020 election was stolen. Other Republican candidates have retained symbols of their support for Trump after riding his endorsement to a primary win. J.D. Vance, who won the Ohio Senate primary on May 3, still highlights his endorsement from Trump on his campaign website and prominently on his social media. Unlike Georgia or Pennsylvania, however, Ohio is a state that supported Trump decisively in the 2020 election. Trump won Ohio by 8 percentage points in 2020, retaining 2016 levels of support in that state even though a sufficient number of others slipped away from him to cost him the presidency. Ignoring Trump is how some Republicans who crossed him in the aftermath of the 2020 election hope to survive primaries in which the former president has backed their opponents. Rep. Nancy Mace (SC) managed to fend off a Trump-backed primary opponent this month by embracing many of Trump’s ideas and withholding criticism of him. A fellow Republican incumbent from the same state, Rep. Tom Rice, did not adhere to the same strategy — he continued to criticize Trump’s actions long after the dust had settled from the Jan. 6 Capitol riot — and lost his primary to a Trump-backed opponent on the same night as Mace’s victory. CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER “Candidates win primaries by appealing to activist base voters,” Lipson said. “But they don’t win general elections that way, which means that Republicans tend to run more conservatively — or, sometimes, in the Trump case, more as populists in primaries and then move toward the center in the general elections.” A notable exception, Lipson noted, came in Georgia, where Republican candidates won primaries for both governor and secretary of state without Trump’s backing, suggesting that even some GOP base voters are ready to move away from Trump. | US Campaigns & Elections |
U.S. President Donald Trump addresses thousands of anti-abortion activists at the 47th annual March for Life in Washington, U.S., January 24, 2020. REUTERS/Leah Millis/File PhotoRegister now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comWASHINGTON, June 24 (Reuters) - Seventeen months after leaving office, former President Donald Trump delivered on a campaign promise when the conservative U.S. Supreme Court majority he cemented overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized abortion nationwide.The ruling issued on Friday represented a victory long in the making for a well-organized and generously funded conservative movement to push America's courts rightward, aided by legal activists and deft political maneuvering by top Senate Republican Mitch McConnell.Trump during his four years as president appointed three justices - Neil Gorsuch in 2017, Brett Kavanaugh in 2018 and Amy Coney Barrett in 2020 - giving a court that was ideologically deadlocked with four liberals and four conservatives when he took office a solid 6-3 conservative majority by the time he left.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comAll three were in the majority in the decision to overturn Roe.The month before being elected in November 2016, the Republican businessman-turned-politician Trump promised during a debate with his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton to appoint justices who would overturn the Roe decision."Well, if we put another two or perhaps three justices on, that ... will happen automatically in my opinion because I am putting pro-life justices on the court," Trump said at the time.Trump's pitch appealed to conservative Christian voters, who became a key constituency during his presidency.Trump in 2020 also became the first U.S. president to attend the March for Life in Washington staged annually by abortion opponents around the anniversary of the Roe decision."Unborn children have never had a stronger defender in the White House," Trump told rally participants as he specifically touted his Supreme Court appointments.Trump has not announced whether he will run again for president in 2024.Critics have sought to paint the Roe decision as poorly reasoned liberal judicial activism. Driven by vocal support from an anti-abortion movement spearheaded by conservative Christians, they pursued the goal of appointing judges hostile to abortion rights."The overturning of this case after the five decades of morass that Roe created is a major victory for constitutionalism and the rule of law," said Carrie Severino, president of the Judicial Crisis Network, a conservative legal group that has helped promote Republican judicial appointments."Roe v. Wade was one of the greatest acts of judicial arrogance in Supreme Court history - and one of the catalysts for the birth and growth of the conservative legal movement," Severino added.'BREAK-GLASS MOMENT'For liberal legal advocates, the ruling represented a "break-glass moment," said Brian Fallon, executive director of legal advocacy group Demand Justice."Now the question is, will our side regroup and productively channel the public's outrage to confront a court that has been captured?" Fallon asked.The Supreme Court for decades had a majority of Republican appointees but until now lacked the five votes needed to overturn Roe. The last time it had been so close was in 1992 in a case called Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey.Conservative activists were disappointed by the 5-4 ruling that reaffirmed the central holding of Roe recognizing a woman's right to obtain an abortion under the U.S. Constitution. Three Republican appointees - Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, Anthony Kennedy and David Souter - worked behind the scenes on a compromise that carried the day.It was later revealed that Kennedy initially had supported overturning Roe but changed his mind. Trump appointed Kavanaugh to replace Kennedy, who retired in 2018.Trump and McConnell - who have an icy relationship - were critical in engineering the demise of Roe. McConnell, as Senate majority leader, in 2016 blocked Democratic President Barack Obama from appointing a justice to the court in the last year of his term after conservative Justice Antonin Scalia died. Obama's nominee would have given the court a 5-4 liberal majority.McConnell's action meant Trump was able to replace Scalia with fellow conservative Gorsuch. McConnell shepherded Kavanaugh to Senate confirmation in 2018 after a contentious confirmation process in which the nominee denied sexual misconduct. McConnell then moved rapidly with Senate confirmation of Barrett a week before the 2020 election in which Trump was defeated.Barrett, a devout Roman Catholic and former legal scholar, previously had signaled support for overturning Roe.RELIABLE CONSERVATIVESSince the Casey ruling, Republican presidents have chosen a stream of reliably conservative nominees nurtured and promoted by connections to the influential Federalist Society. A key figure in that effort has been Leonard Leo, who has had a lengthy career at the conservative legal group and has advised Republican presidents in picking judicial nominees.Leo helped compile a list of potential Supreme Court nominees that Trump touted as a candidate before the 2016 election in a bid to attract conservative voters. Leo did not respond to messages seeking comment for this story.Conservative advocacy groups including the Judicial Confirmation Network have helped promote and defend conservative judicial nominees. Anti-abortion organizations also have staunchly backed Republican judicial nominees."This victory represents proof of concept for the pro-life movement's involvement in campaigns and elections and will spur more pro-life political activism in the years ahead," said Mallory Carroll, a spokeswoman for one of those groups, Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comReporting by Lawrence Hurley; Additional reporting by Andrew Chung; Editing by Scott Malone and Will DunhamOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.Lawrence HurleyThomson ReutersWashington-based reporter covering legal affairs with a focus on the U.S. Supreme Court, a Pulitzer Prize winner for team project on how the defense of qualified immunity protects police officers accused of excessive force. | US Campaigns & Elections |
Arizona’s Republican attorney general recently lashed out at hecklers who repeatedly interrupted him for not prosecuting 2020 election fraud cases more aggressively, telling them the “truth hurts.”“I know people are upset. But you know what? We’re conservatives. The Constitution matters,” Mark Brnovich, who is running for U.S. Senate, said at a GOP primary debate in Phoenix on Thursday.As he defended his office’s work to protect against election fraud, people continued to shout at him, leading him to tell the audience: “Please respect me and let me finish my answer.”“If the truth hurts, then just shut the hell up, all right?” he added, according to AZ Central and footage from the event posted on social media.At the AZ US Senate debate, AG Mark Brnovich gets heckled and harassed by the audience for not prosecuting “election fraud.” He finally says, “If the truth hurts, then just shut the hell up, alright! Let me just talk!” pic.twitter.com/UYASdgqnT9— Ron Filipkowski 🇺🇦 (@RonFilipkowski) June 26, 2022 Donald Trump endorsed one of Brnovich’s opponents, venture capitalist Blake Masters, earlier this month. The former president told supporters: “Blake knows that the ‘Crime of the Century’ took place. He will expose it and also, never let it happen again,” referring to the Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump.Trump also accused Brnovich of not supporting “clean and fair elections, or law and order” and called him a disappointment because he wouldn’t do more to fight the results.Brnovich has continued to be deferential to Trump despite multiple attacks. Responding to Trump’s recent criticism, the Brnovich campaign said he intended to win the primary.“We look forward to working with President Trump to defeat [incumbent Democratic Sen.] Mark Kelly this fall,” the campaign said. It also added that Brnovich still had “multiple ongoing investigations regarding the integrity of the 2020 election.”Shortly after the 2020 election, Brnovich said there was no evidence of an election conspiracy and “there are no facts that would lead anyone to believe that the election results will change.”Yet, as he courted Trump’s endorsement for the Senate race, he conducted a review of the election. It ultimately found no proof of fraud that would have changed the results. Multiple investigations in Arizona, including a widely-criticized Republican review in the state’s largest county, also found no evidence of major electoral fraud. | US Campaigns & Elections |
The Chicago Board of Election Commissioners want to make sure Chicagoans’ votes are cast in time for the primary Tuesday.Tyler LaRiviere/Sun-Times file photo With only a few days left before the primary election Tuesday, city election officials say early voting has been lagging and are urging Chicagoans to make sure their votes are counted. Max Bever, a spokesman for the Chicago Board of Elections, said city residents had cast only 25,215 early-vote ballots as of Thursday. That’s down from 51,125 around the same point in 2018 and 36,113 in 2014, the last two years there were primary elections in governor’s races.There are nearly 1.5 million registered voters in the city of Chicago, according to the Board of Election Commissioners.During a Thursday news conference, the board chair Marisel Hernandez said more than 124,000 vote-by-mail ballot applications had been sent out, and 36,078 of them had already been returned. Past primary elections were held earlier in the year, around March, but last year state lawmakers agreed to push the date back to June 28. Hernandez said that could account for the low early turnout. “Voters have other issues on their mind,” Hernandez said. “Kids are out of school for the summer or they’re planning vacations. That’s why we’ve been trying to get the word out as to why early voting is so convenient.” She expects to see a surge of early voters coming out in the next few days to make sure their ballots are cast, something she says is typical of midterm elections.Voters are urged to carry mail-in ballots to the secure dropbox at the early voting supersite at 191 N. Clark St., or to any of the 50 early-voting sites located in wards around the city. Ballots can also be dropped off at the Election Board offices at 69 W. Washington St. Early voting will remain open Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. And ballots can also be cast on Election Day from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m.“A voter can choose to vote at any early voting site that’s convenient to them, no matter where they live within the city of Chicago,” Hernandez said. “Choose what’s easiest for you, and you can vote on the spot.”For more information, go to chicagoelections.gov. | US Campaigns & Elections |
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! South Carolina Rep. Nancy Mace said Democrats are pushing for police funding due to a "branding problem" ahead of the 2022 midterm elections. On "Fox & Friends First" Friday, Mace noted that Democrats are trying to readjust strategy and appeal to voters after Speaker Pelosi slow-walked safety legislation for judges and justices.RNC RELEASES 7-MINUTE VIDEO OF DEMS ECHOING ‘DEFUND POLICE’ RHETORIC AS PARTY TRIES TO BACK AWAY FROM MOVEMENTNANCY MACE: It is clear that the Democrats have a branding problem. You just had Nancy Pelosi slow-walk the security bill that would keep our justices safe when they had protesters showing up on their front lawn, when someone was armed and dangerous and when the president, Joe Biden, wouldn't condemn these protests outside their homes, which, by the way, is against the law. But, yeah, you're definitely seeing I guess, a branding problem with Democrats going into the midterm elections. Absolutely. 100%.WATCH THE FULL INTERVIEW BELOW: This article was written by Fox News staff. | US Campaigns & Elections |
Update: Updated at 9:25 a.m. Wednesday with more info on South Texas contests.WASHINGTON — Having broken Democrats’ century-long grip in the Rio Grande Valley, Mayra Flores received a hero’s welcome Tuesday evening as she became Texas’ newest member of Congress.Fellow Republicans packed their side of the House to greet the McAllen respiratory therapist whose breakthrough victory they see as a portent.A red wave is coming in November, they say, and Flores proved that Hispanic voters are up for grabs.Having cracked the Democrats’ South Texas stronghold, Republicans hope to send two more Latinas to Congress from border districts in the fall. That’s a transformative scenario with implications for the politics of immigration and border security debates, and on statewide elections, after Donald Trump showed surprising strength in the region.“The people who live and work in South Texas have had enough. We want to be heard and we are tired of being treated like second class citizens,” Flores declared moments after Speaker Nancy Pelosi had sworn her in. “I have risen from working in the cotton fields to representing the community I love in the United States Congress, and I will give them a voice.”Most other Texas Republicans in the House flanked her on the House floor as she spoke.Few Democrats were on hand. Texas Democrats were alarmed at Flores’ win and furious that the national party did so little to defend the seat after Brownsville’s Filemon Vela resigned to take a job at a law firm, even as GOP groups pumped more than $3 million into the contest.But Flores, who campaigned as a Trump-loving, gun-loving border security hawk, will have to hit the ground running to avoid becoming a seven-month asterisk.“We haven’t stopped,” she said between family photos.Born in a tiny village in Tamaulipas state, Flores is the first woman in Congress born in Mexico, though three Democrats now in office were born in Mexico, all men.Her family moved north – legally, she emphasizes—when she was six.Her husband John is a Border Patrol agent. She described herself to voters and to her new House colleagues as a “proud Border Patrol wife” and mother of four.Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy saved Flores a front-row seat after the swearing-in. A parade of GOP well-wishers swarmed, including Texans and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia.McCarthy gestured to the Speaker’s rostrum and joked that Flores will soon be running the place.President Joe Biden carried the district she won last week by a 4-point margin – easy pickings compared to the 16-point edge Democrats enjoy in the district she’ll compete for in November.That’s the new, post-redistricting playing field.And instead of an open seat, she’ll be facing an incumbent, Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, a McAllen Democrat who jumped from a neighboring district for his reelection bid to take advantage of that 16-point edge. He has blasted the party for neglecting Vela’s old seat.“I hope the DCCC learns their lesson with this before it happens across the country,” he told Politico, complaining that “they have just forgotten about the brown people on the border.”Republicans hope to see two Flores joined in Congress by two other South Texas Latinas.Cassy Garcia, former deputy state director for Sen. Ted Cruz, is trying to topple Rep. Henry Cuellar of Laredo, who eked out a 300-vote win in his primary runoff.In the Valley, Monica de la Cruz, a small business owner from Edinburgh, is vying for the seat left open when Gonzalez changed districts. She’ll face Michelle Vallejo, a business owner in Mission who won her Democratic runoff by just 35 votes, backed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren and a progressive lineup like the one that supported Cuellar’s primary rival, Jessica Cisneros.Cook Political Report rates the Cuellar-Garcia race as a tossup, and sees a GOP edge in the de la Cruz-Vallejo contest.In the Flores-Gonzalez race another nonpartisan handicapper, Inside Elections, changed its rating from “Solid Democratic” to “battlefield” after Flores won.“We finally feel we have a voice,” she said Tuesday evening off the House floor, predicting that her victory will embolden Hispanic conservatives and prompt voters to reassess traditional partisan loyalties.And she professed optimism that she can beat Gonzalez regardless of the turf.“Lines don’t change the values,” she said. “Our district remains to be all about faith, family and hard work. It hasn’t changed.”Pelosi spent about 10 minutes in a ceremonial side room with Flores reenacting the swearing in, cameras clicking as they posed with Flores’ husband and their kids: 16-year-old John Michael and his brother Jaden, 12, and their sisters Maite and Milani, who are 8 and 6.“Thank you for your courage to run for office,” Pelosi said. “It’s a great honor to welcome Congresswoman Flores to the Capitol.”It’s safe to say their political values are out of sync, though.“I’m the first Mexican born Congresswoman in the history of this great nation and I STAND WITH TRUMP,” Flores wrote in a fund-raising email on Tuesday. “The left HATES me for that. They hate that I break their narrative that Trump and the GOP is the party of white nationalism. That we have NO diversity.”Rep. Lloyd Doggett, an Austin Democrat and a senior member of the 36-member Texas delegation, introduced Flores for her swearing-in.“With Latino Texans bearing a very disproportionate burden from the pandemic, she has been on the frontlines combating COVID,” he said, drawing cheers as he noted her political calling card: “Mayra will be the first Mexican-born woman to serve in this House, and the first Hispanic Republican woman to serve in our Texas delegation.”“She ran a very vigorous campaign,” Doggett said, needling Republicans a bit by noting that in a healthy democracy, “recognition of the results of fair elections you lose” is just as important as claiming victory when you win. | US Campaigns & Elections |
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! Rep. Mary Miller says former President Donald Trump's endorsement is "huge" as she faces off on Tuesday in an Illinois congressional primary against fellow House Republican Rep. Rodney Davis.Miller is a first-term representative in Illinois' 15th Congressional District, which has been dramatically redrawn in the once-in-a-decade redistricting process. Davis, who for a decade has represented the neighboring 13th District, is running against Miller for the new, heavily red seat in the central part of the state, which contains large swaths of his current district. CLICK HERE FOR THE LATEST FOX NEWS REPORTING ON THE SUPREME COURT'S OVERTURNING OF ROE V. WADEWith just a couple of days left until the primary, Miller will receive Trump’s help on Saturday, as the former president will hold a rally at the Adams County Fairgrounds in Mendon, Illinois. GOP Rep. Mary Miller of Illinois with former President Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida in April 2022 (Mary Miller campaign)Miller told Fox News that "I'm an America first supporter. I've been with him from the very beginning" and noted that "it’s an America first district. I’ve got a lot of grassroots support, and the Trump rally’s just building momentum."While he does not have the former president’s backing, Davis is also spotlighting his Trump credentials."I got a great record of working with the Trump administration. Remember, I'm the only member of Congress in this race that actually served during the Trump administration," he told Fox News.SPLIT DECISION FOR TRUMP IN HIGH PROFILE GOP PRIMARIESDavis showcased that his "record includes helping to craft the Trump tax cut bill, helping to craft private sector employer-based student loan payment programs. These are the Republican ideas that I was able to help craft and help work through the process, and with a few of them, eventually have them signed into law by President Trump during his administration.""I'm never going to run away from my record with the President," Davis emphasized. GOP Rep. Rodney Davis speaks at the 2021 Illinois State Fair, on Aug. 19, 2021, in Springfield, Illinois. (Rodney Davis campaign)Pointing to Trump’s endorsement of Miller, Davis argued "I think he got some bad advice from some people who had an agenda, but in the end, I'm proud of my record of working with him."However, Miller charges that her rival has "stabbed President Trump in the back multiple times and the people in the 15th district don't appreciate it. Voting for the January 6 Commission has outraged people."Davis was one of 35 House Republicans who last year voted for a bipartisan and independent commission to investigate the Jan 6, 2021 deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol by right wing extremists and other Trump supporters who aimed to disrupt the congressional certification of President Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory. The bill to create the commission was downed in the Senate and House Democrats eventually set up a Democratic dominated select committee to investigate the storming of the Capitol.CHECK OUT THE LATEST FOX NEWS 2022 POWER RANKINGS Miller also attacked Davis for "supporting red flag gun confiscation" and argued that Republican voters in the district "don't want anybody representing them that will vote to diminish their Second Amendment rights."Earlier this month, Miller went up with a TV ad that spotlights Davis’ 2019 support for red flag laws in the aftermath of mass shootings in Dayton, Ohio, and El Paso, Texas."RINO Rodney Davis claims to be a conservative. But he votes like a liberal," the narrator in the spot charged.A recent national poll from Fox News, conducted in the wake of last month’s shooting at an elementary school in Texas where 19 young students and 2 teachers were killed, indicated 81% support – including 72% from Republicans - for passing "red flag" laws that allow police to temporarily take guns away from people shown to be a danger to themselves and others. WHAT AMERICANS SAY IN THE LATEST FOX NEWS POLL ON GUN LAWS The Senate passed a bipartisan bill Thursday night that included federal grants to encourage states to set up red flag laws. The House passed the bill on Friday, sending it to President Biden's desk.Davis was not among the 14 House Republicans who voted in favor of the bill.While the National Rifle Association Political Victory Fund gives Miller an A rating, Davis has an A- rating.Davis discounts the attacks from Miller, saying "it's one of those games and gimmicks that a lot of people try to play in campaigns.""Democrats have called me too conservative, too Republican to pro-life, too pro-Second Amendment. So it's just not believable when Mary Miller, who's been here less than one term, decides to compare her limited record to my record of success in standing up for conservative values and principles. But also governing," Davis emphasized.Davis also took aim at Miller, spotlighting her controversies and pointing out that she does not live in the redrawn district while he does.CLICK HERE FOR THE LATEST PRIMARY RESULTS FROM FOX NEWS"She's kind of developed the by basement strategy of hiding from the media, not answering questions that may be uncomfortable," he charged. "For example, she still never addressed the fact that she had a convicted pedophile who spent time in jail for trying to lure a young boy for sex. She had his person as her personal driver in her car, and then also allowed him to drive her car with legislative plates to events, like a parade of Jacksonville, where there were kids. This is something she has yet to address." GOP Rep. Mary Miller of Illinois campaigns at Countryside Campers in Pana, Illinois on June 13, 2022 (Mary Miller campaign)Miller did not address the controversy and instead argued that "Rodney has nothing to run on but a smear campaign."While he does not have Trump’s backing, Davis recently landed the support of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Illinois Farm Bureau’s political action committee – which carries weight in a district where agriculture is a major industry. He’s also backed by GOP Reps. Darin LaHood and Mike Bost of Illinois."I've got a lot of endorsements, and I'm very proud of all of those endorsements," Davis noted.Looking to Tuesday’s primary, Davis said "I'm somebody who actually takes conservative Republican ideas and turns them into laws and turns them into action. And I've got a great record of doing that. And that's why I think that people have a new 15th district and me being the only person in this race that lives in that district. That’s why I think they're going to reelect me on Tuesday."CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APPMiller is also optimistic, saying that the primary will come down to "two things - it's Trump and its guns."The winner of the GOP primary will be considered the heavy favorite in November’s general election in the redrawn district – where 68% of voters supported Trump in the 2020 election. Paul Steinhauser is a politics reporter based in New Hampshire. | US Campaigns & Elections |
Rarely has a rising politician thrilled party regulars the way Ron DeSantis is thrilling Republicans right now."If you were scripting a perfect Republican presidential candidate, the list of preferred requirements would read something like DeSantis' resume," broadcaster Piers Morgan swooned in the New York Post last month.Like other conservative commentators, Morgan touted DeSantis’s relative youth (he’s 43); his honors degrees from Yale (undergraduate) and Harvard (law); his time as a Navy lawyer, which took him to Guantánamo and Iraq and won him a Bronze Star; and most of all his reign as governor of Florida, where he has muscled his way into the middle of every contemporary culture war from COVID-19 to "critical race theory" — and banked over $100 million for his PAC and his 2024 reelection bid, a staggering sum for a state-level race."I think [DeSantis would] destroy beleaguered Joe Biden — or any other Democrat, for that matter — to win the presidency," Morgan predicted.Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former President Donald Trump. (Photo illustration: Yahoo News; photos: Marco Bello/Reuters, Harrison McClary/Reuters)There's only one roadblock. He has to destroy Donald Trump first.The reason MAGA pundits are even mentioning Ron and Don in the same sentence is simple. Amid growing legal troubles and a deluge of damaging revelations by the House select committee investigating his supporters' insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, Trump’s viselike grip on the Republican electorate may be slipping. According to a recent Yahoo News/YouGov poll, more than 4 in 10 Republicans say either that Trump shouldn't run for president again (27%) or that they’re not sure (17%). Among all voters, a majority (52%) now think "Trump committed a crime by trying to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election," and even more (54%) think the U.S. Department of Justice should prosecute him — numbers that could make some Republicans wary about his ability to win a general election.Meanwhile, DeSantis seems to be growing stronger. When asked to choose between the two potential 2024 candidates, fewer than half of registered voters who identify as Republicans or Republican-leaning independents say they would pick the former president (45%), according to the Yahoo News/YouGov poll. Nearly as many say they would prefer DeSantis (36%). GOP primary polls in key states such as New Hampshire, Michigan and Florida already put DeSantis in the lead (or close to it), and he has swept straw polls of GOP insiders in Wisconsin and Colorado in recent weeks. In September, he will headline the Republican National Committee’s fall retreat.A supporter of Florida GOP gubernatorial nominee Ron DeSantis at a 2018 campaign rally in South Daytona Beach, Fla. (Paul Hennessy/NurPhoto via Getty Images)It's a remarkable showing for a state-level politician who just four years ago was an obscure congressman in an uphill battle to become Florida’s governor. On Capitol Hill, DeSantis was mostly known as a founding member of the far-right Freedom Caucus and a frequent Fox News guest; he barely defeated his Democratic opponent in 2018. But since then he has become a "conservative folk hero" by loudly railing against what he considers the excesses of the left — closing schools and restricting businesses because of COVID-19; teaching students about structural racism and gender identity; wearing masks — and then trolling liberals with laws that steer his state the opposite way. As a result, DeSantis has been called "Trump with a brain"; his brand of politics, "competent Trumpism." And he keeps rising in the polls."I think DeSantis is the favorite right now," Jon Schweppe, policy director of the American Principles Project, a populist conservative think tank, told Yahoo News. "Whether or not — but even if — Trump runs, I think DeSantis can win."The question, though, is how. Is there a message that can actually pry Republican voters away from Trump after years of blind devotion? And can DeSantis credibly deliver it? Or is he doomed to follow in the footsteps of nearly every other Republican who has defied the former president?DeSantis is hardly the first to consider toppling Trump.Before the "Apprentice" star’s dominance was fully established in 2016, more than a dozen GOP hopefuls tried to stop him from securing their party’s nomination. Nothing they did — from ignoring him (Jeb Bush) to excoriating him (John Kasich) to buttering him up (Ted Cruz) to mocking the size of his hands (Marco Rubio) — worked. Trump won 45% of the vote in a crowded field and nearly three times as many delegates as anyone else.Now a comeback bid in 2024 looks to be less a matter of if than when."In my own mind, I’ve already made that decision," Trump told New York magazine last week. "My big decision will be whether I go before or after [the 2022 midterm elections]."Despite Trump’s somewhat depleted state, he would still enter any 2024 GOP primary contest as the prohibitive favorite. So far every national poll that pits him against the rest of the potential field — as opposed to just one challenger at a time — shows the former president with a large plurality of the vote; many put him over 50%. Trump’s small-donor base is huge; his psychological hold on the average Republican primary voter is unshakable; his sway over party officials is undimmed; and even without access to Twitter, his ability to command media attention remains unrivaled.For many younger Republicans who plainly want to be president someday — ambitious strivers such as Sens. Tom Cotton of Arkansas or Josh Hawley of Missouri — a third Trump effort would likely prevent them from launching a first attempt of their own. Ex-Trump officials who have been flirting with a White House run — former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo — would struggle to circumvent their old boss. Former Vice President Mike Pence, at least, seems determined to make a go of it. But actual Republican voters are less enthusiastic about that prospect, with just 18% saying they would back Pence over Trump in the latest Yahoo News/YouGov survey.Former Vice President Mike Pence speaks to a crowd of supporters in Chicago in June. (Jim Vondruska/Getty Images)As Trump put it to New York magazine, "I think a lot of people would not even run if I did … because, if you look at the polls, they don’t even register. Most of these people. And I think that you would actually have a backlash against them if they ran."Yet DeSantis appears undaunted. He has pointedly refused to seek Trump’s endorsement for his Florida reelection bid — or to rule out a run against Trump in 2024. He has criticized COVID policies under the former president. And he has raised more money than Trump so far this year — including huge sums from six- and seven-figure Trump donors. (Trump himself has raised $140 million.)"DeSantis doesn't strike me as someone who would be afraid to challenge Trump," said Republican strategist Mike DuHaime. "I don’t know if DeSantis will run, but I don’t think he’s afraid to.""I think DeSantis believes this is his best time to run and Trump is at his weakest," said veteran pollster Michael Cohen, managing director at Purple Strategies. "No one else is even close — and that is without DeSantis engaging him yet."If Trump and DeSantis do decide to go toe-to-toe, they could dominate fundraising and media coverage, making it harder for other candidates to break through.And a smaller field could put the Florida governor in a better position to consolidate the non-Trump vote than his counterparts in 2016."The only way [Trump] gets beaten for the nomination is if maybe somebody is able to run a one-on-one campaign against him — probably DeSantis," lawyer George Conway, one of Trump’s most outspoken conservative critics, recently predicted.Attorney George Conway, a conservative critic of Donald Trump, in 2019. (Georgetown Law School handout via Reuters)So far, Trump and DeSantis have refrained from crossing each other in public. For his part, Trump seems to believe that taking credit for DeSantis’s career — he backed the Floridian’s 2018 gubernatorial bid early — might somehow dissuade the governor from challenging his supremacy. "Well, I get along with him," Trump said last month when asked if he’d be willing to offer DeSantis the VP spot in 2024. "I was very responsible for his success, because I endorsed him and he went up like a rocket ship."Behind closed doors, however, Trump has "privately questioned DeSantis' loyalty while also raising questions about whether DeSantis is personable enough to win over voters," according to Politico. (Neither the Trump camp nor the DeSantis camp responded to requests for comment.)Meanwhile, those around DeSantis reportedly see the Jan. 6 hearings as a "shit show" that is "exhausting" the GOP donor class — and might even end up sidelining Trump before 2024."That’s where [DeSantis’s] head is at," a Republican consultant familiar with the governor's thinking recently told Politico. "He thinks the goal here is to get Main Justice to go after him. That’s what Ron thinks this is all about."Both men, in other words, may be hoping to avoid a head-to-head contest. But neither should bet on the other backing down. Assuming they do face off in 2024, then can DeSantis really dethrone The Donald?Republican strategists say it's possible — but only if DeSantis can convince enough base voters that Trump has finally become the very thing he has spent his entire life desperately trying not to be: a loser.Sarah Longwell, an anti-Trump GOP strategist, tweeted this week about a sudden shift that she’s been seeing in her focus groups."Just had another focus group of Trump voters where ZERO wanted Trump to run again in 2024," Longwell wrote. "Really a striking departure from dozens and dozens of focus groups pre-Jan. 6 hearings when at least half of any Trump-voting group wanted him to run again. His support is noticeably softer."Sarah Longwell, an anti-Trump GOP strategist, in 2017. (Rick Bowmer/AP)The reason, according to Longwell, isn't the hearings per se, which Trump voters still see as a "witch hunt." Rather, it’s the way the hearings remind them of "how much baggage Trump has."Republicans "want someone who can win in 2024 and [they] are increasingly unsure he can," Longwell concluded.DeSantis’s goal would be to crystallize that concern — then offer himself up as a winning alternative. He could point to President Biden's paltry approval rating: just 38% right now, lower than any other modern president at this point in his first term (including Trump and Jimmy Carter). He could note that, despite Biden's paltry numbers, the damaged Democrat is still leading his predecessor in most nonpartisan national polls. And without directly contradicting the "stolen election" lie that has sadly become table stakes for GOP candidates in the Age of Trump, he could remind his fellow Republicans that Trump has never actually won the national popular vote.Trump is still the GOP alpha, Schweppe said, so attacking him directly will almost certainly "backfire." But if Republican voters are "presented with an alternative they think is even stronger — who happens to maybe be more electorally viable in a head-to-head matchup with a Democrat, with Biden or whoever — I think they're going to jump at it."If DeSantis can destabilize Trump, Republican strategists say, it wouldn't be hard for him to pivot to a positive case for his own candidacy. "It’s a message that's very forward-looking, but also not anti-Trump," Schweppe said. "Let's go defeat woke-ism. Let's run it out of our institutions. Let's take this country back and actually make America great again."President Joe Biden delivers his Inauguration speech after being sworn in as the 46th president of the United States in 2021. (Patrick Semansky/AFP via Getty Images)DeSantis, he added, is "an excellent messenger for that" because of "everything he's done" in Florida — a MAGA-heavy resume that includes reopening schools early, railing against COVID mitigations, yelling at a student for wearing a mask, battling Disney over its support of LGBT rights and engaging in strategic spats with the press.“"The Florida governor has figured out that Republicans love a culture-war brawl, but that overdoing it can alienate a general-election electorate. His solution has been to provoke narrowly targeted fights over issues that matter a lot to highly engaged conservatives and liberals — but that will not mean much to anybody else come 2024," the Atlantic’s David Frum argued last year.Think Trump 2.0, but with less counterproductive tweeting and more hard-nosed governing. "I'm taking what Trump did in 2016, where he broke through and really put the GOP in a great spot," Schweppe said, channeling DeSantis's message. "And I want to build on that. And here's how I'm going to do it. Look at my record in Florida. Look how I think on every issue you care about and was able to actually get legislation passed, to start doing things. That's what I'm going to do if I'm elected president."Some insiders contacted by Yahoo News for this story don’t think DeSantis — or anyone else — can beat Trump in 2024. And given Trump’s seemingly insurmountable bond with real-life Republican primary voters — who don’t always agree with conservative pundits and professional GOP strategists, many of whom have been rooting for Trump’s demise for years — the odds are probably on their side.“No battle — why would DeSantis go against Trump? Makes no sense. He can be a wildly successful two-term governor of the third-largest state and run for president in his 40s,” Kellyanne Conway, a prominent Trump adviser and his 2016 campaign manager, told Yahoo News. “This is not complicated.”Kellyanne Conway, a White House senior adviser to former U.S. President Donald Trump, speaks in Washington, DC., in 2022. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)"Ron thinks he can run; I think Trump would absolutely destroy him," added a longtime Republican campaign director who requested anonymity to speak candidly about private conversations with aides from the Trump and DeSantis campaigns. "I think Ron's doing a great job in Florida. Ron’s weird with people. He’s a better governor than candidate for president."In Trumpworld, the most common refrain about DeSantis is that he doesn’t have the "charisma" for a presidential campaign."On DeSantis, I think he would say he's Trump without the abrasiveness," one Trump adviser told Yahoo News. "If he were to use that line of attack, which is what I think he would try to do, I think it would end badly because he's so much more of a jerk than the president ever was."An extensive New Yorker profile published in June portrayed DeSantis as a pathologically remote figure who is far more comfortable poring over scientific papers than performing the rituals of retail politics: working rope lines, making eye contact, connecting with other human beings. "People who work closely with him describe a man so aloof that he sometimes finds it difficult to carry on a conversation," the magazine reported."You will be in the car with Ron DeSantis, and he’ll say nothing to you for an hour," a Republican donor once told Politico. "He would prefer it that way."Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis holds a press conference in Miami in 2022. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)Yet so far, DeSantis's charm deficit hasn't halted his rise — perhaps because he has figured out that combativeness plays even better on Fox News, where at times he has appeared at the astonishing rate of nearly once a day and where producers "see him as the future of the party," according to internal emails obtained by the Tampa Bay Times.As for waiting his turn? Strategists say that history tends to favor those who strike while the proverbial iron is hot."Timing is so important in politics,"” said DuHaime. "Many thought [Barack] Obama went too soon, only having been in the Senate for a year. But he was the right candidate for the right moment and won."Schweppe concurred. "[Former New Jersey Gov.] Chris Christie was probably the favorite to win the 2012 GOP primary," he said. "But he made a practical decision; he thought Obama was likely to win a second term. Then he didn't have the same gravitas in 2016. So your moment could be really fleeting."And even if DeSantis doesn't end up defeating Trump, Cohen argued, he "should [still] run now" if he wants to be next in line."Trump is unlikely to win in 2024, despite Biden’s low ratings," the pollster says. In that case, "DeSantis could conceivably run again in 2028."His message next time around?"I told you so." | US Campaigns & Elections |
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., told party members Friday that the future of the Democratic agenda to preserve abortion rights and restrict guns — the subjects of two landmark Supreme Court rulings this week — will depend on the midterm elections."Over the last two days, the Supreme Court has inflicted devastation on our nation: flooding our public spaces with more deadly weapons and erasing women’s fundamental right to make their own reproductive health decisions," Pelosi wrote in a letter to Democratic House members. The Supreme Court's decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization Friday overturned Roe v. Wade and its nearly 50 years of precedent protecting abortions as a constitutional right. On Thursday, SCOTUS ruled that New York City's ban on concealed carry permits was unconstitutional.SUPREME COURT OVERTURNS ROE V. WADE IN LANDMARK OPINION U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., reacts to the overturning of Roe v. Wade during her weekly news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington June 24, 2022. (REUTERS/Mary F. Calvert)According to Pelosi, President Biden and other Democratic leaders, those two decisions cast a dark cloud over America and represent an erosion of human rights."The only way we can secure a woman’s right to choose in the balance it existed, is for Congress to restore the protections of Roe v. Wade as federal law," Biden said. Noting that Congress doesn’t have enough votes to do that, he called on Americans to vote for lawmakers in the midterms who would codify a right to have an abortion into federal law. "This fall, Roe is on the ballot. Personal freedoms are on the ballot. The right to privacy, liberty, equality are all on the ballot," Biden said. President Biden speaks about inflation and the economy in the South Court Auditorium on the White House campus May 10, 2022. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)DEMOCRATS TO MAKE ABORTION RULING CENTRAL TO 2022 MIDTERMS, REPUBLICANS INSIST VOTERS MORE FOCUSED ON ECONOMYThe Dobbs decision is just "Republicans’ opening act in their despicable crusade to punish and control women," Pelosi wrote in her Dear Colleagues letter, noting that former Vice President Mike Pence had called for "sanctity of life [to be] restored to the center of American law in every state in the land."In his own opinion on the Dobbs decision, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that the Supreme Court should also consider other precedents that paved the way for decisions recognizing citizens' rights to privacy in using contraception (Griswold v. Connecticut) and gay marriage (Obergefell v. Hodges)."We must ‘Remember in November’ that the rights of women, and indeed all Americans, are on the ballot," Pelosi said, promising to "continue to beat the drum – not only of what the challenges are, but what we as Democrats are doing about it."CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APPDemocrats face strong headwinds in the four and a half months before the November midterms, where they hope to keep slim majorities in the House and Senate. With Biden's dismal approval ratings, sky-high inflation and the cost of everything from gas to food increasing, Republicans are widely expected to do better in congressional races. And poll after poll has shown that the economy and inflation are the top issues among likely voters.A Fox News poll released in May found that a slim majority of registered voters favor banning abortions after 15 weeks, while an earlier poll revealed that six in 10 registered voters favored the court upholding Roe v. Wade. Thomas Phippen is an Editor at Fox News. | US Campaigns & Elections |
Politics July 12, 2022 / 11:04 AM / CBS News Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan believes that if former President Donald Trump were to announce a 2024 presidential bid before the midterm elections, it "would be a terrible mistake" for the GOP and could "upset the applecart" for the party's aspirations in the midterm elections this November. Hogan, a potential 2024 Republican presidential candidate, has been traveling across the presidential primary state of New Hampshire this week to promote his group's plan to combat inflation and hear from local business owners and trade workers. In a phone interview on the road, Hogan argued that recent primaries where Trump's endorsed candidate has lost, such as the gubernatorial primaries in Georgia, Idaho, Ohio and Alabama, are proving his long-held theory that the former president's influence over the party has waned. Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan visits Manchester, New Hampshire. Gov. Larry Hogan, Facebook page Those election results are building momentum for some Republicans, including Hogan, to consider a 2024 run for the White House. "More and more people are encouraging me to consider it," Hogan said, adding that he isn't going to make a final decision on a presidential run until January 2023." "There's a diminishing number of folks that are wanting the former President Trump to run. There's a growing number of people that are looking for our kind of successful, bigger-tent politics."Hogan said that part of the reason for his trip to talk about the economy in New Hampshire is that congressional Republicans haven't been focused enough on providing solutions to inflation. His five-point plan proposes cutting government spending and adjusting tax rates for Social Security benefits and child tax credits and includes more energy-based policies, like a suspension of the federal gas tax and restarting work on the Keystone XL pipeline. "Most politicians in Washington, both parties, just spend more time trying to win arguments on Twitter, rather than actually talking about or working on finding bipartisan solutions," Hogan said.Hogan is testing his economic ideas on the road, with more than 20 events on Tuesday and Wednesday in New Hampshire. He's not alone in the field, though. There are a number of potential 2024 candidates who have been making trips to early presidential primary states this summer. Former United Nations Ambassador and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley was in the first-in-the-nation presidential caucus state of Iowa earlier this month for an event with Republican Rep. Randy Feenstra. Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton was also in Iowa last week. Last Friday, Trump held a rally promoting his favored candidates in the primary state of Nevada. He's holding another rally this Saturday in Arizona, another battleground state. And Hogan's neighbor to the south, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, was the keynote speaker at the Nebraska GOP State convention this past Saturday in Lincoln, Neb., about 60 miles west of the Iowa border. Youngkin said on "Face the Nation" on Sunday that he's "humbled" to be considered as a candidate, but that is "not a decision that we have even begun to undertake." When asked about the possibility that the Virginia governor might run in 2024, Hogan pointed to his own success as a Republican governor in a blue state. Hogan won re-election with 55.4% of the vote in 2018, running nearly 23% ahead of Trump in 2020. "He's a terrific guy, has got business experience. But he's only been governor for five months. So, I'm not sure what he's going to be thinking about. He'd have to start campaigning next year and I don't know how the people of Virginia would feel about that," Hogan said about Youngkin.But the growing question for the Republican party has been not if Trump will run, but when. Earlier this month, Trump had told allies and aides he could announce a 2024 presidential run as early as this summer. A New York Times/Siena College poll released Tuesday showed Trump leading the potential field of 2024 Republican candidates with 49%, followed by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis at 25%. Hogan was not mentioned in the poll, and only 1% said they'd vote for "someone else."DeSantis recently held a conference in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., with several Republican governors and gubernatorial candidates that connected them with his donors and conservative media figures, according to a source close to one of the attendees.Although Hogan doesn't think Trump will ultimately run again, an early announcement would turn off "huge swaths of voters" that the Republican Party needs to win elections this November. "It sure could upset the applecart," Hogan said. "[During his term], we had the worst four years for electoral politics since the 1930s. We lost the White House, the Senate, the House– we can't repeat that again. I mean, he already lost to Joe Biden. That's hard to do."Not surprisingly, Hogan concurred with a recent poll by the New York Times that shows a majority of voters don't want Biden to run for re-election."Donald Trump was the least popular president in American history until Joe Biden, and Joe Biden is breaking the records. There's a solid 60% of people in America who don't want either one of them to be nominees or the next president," Hogan said. The visit adds to Hogan's recent campaign activities helping like-minded Republicans in 2022. Earlier in the trip, Hogan fundraised for Connecticut Republican Senate candidate Themis Klarides. He also did recent fundraisers for Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski and Washington Rep. Jamie Herrera-Beutler, who both have primaries in August. He said he's campaigning for candidates "who I believe are the kinds of people that will take the country in the direction that I want it to go and that are not drinking the Kool-Aid and can get beat in the general election." Maryland's Republican gubernatorial primaries next Tuesday will serve as an electoral proxy war between Hogan and Trump. Hogan has backed former Maryland Commerce Secretary Kelly Schulz, while Trump has backed Delegate Dan Cox, who has embraced his claims of a stolen election in 2020. When asked about the primary, Hogan called out the Democratic Governors Association for "colluding with Trump to elect a crazy whack job who has no ability to win an election whatsoever." The DGA appears to agree with Hogan's assessment of the weakness of the candidates Trump has endorsed. It has spent $1.2 million on ads, according to data from AdImpact, to boost Cox in the primary, highlighting Cox's more conservative stances and Trump's endorsement. The committee has pointed to polls with Cox leading Schulz and said they are "starting the general election early and wasting no time to hold him accountable."In a statement Tuesday morning, Trump reiterated his support for Cox ahead of next Tuesday and called Hogan "one of the worst in the country."He called Hogan's move during the pandemic to acquire COVID-19 tests from South Korea "cheating" and said he "governed more like a Democrat than a Republican… and locked everything up with really bad results. Dan Cox is a terrific guy with a beautiful family. He has my Complete and Total Endorsement!"Fin Gomez contributed reporting. Aaron Navarro Aaron Navarro is an associate producer for the political unit at CBS News, focusing on House and gubernatorial campaigns as well as the census and redistricting. Twitter | US Campaigns & Elections |
| June 14, 2022 12:02 AM | Updated Jun 14, 2022, 12:42 AM Here's one question White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre says reporters shouldn't be asking. CNN's Don Lemon pressed her Monday night on whether President Joe Biden has the stamina, physically and mentally, to run for reelection and lead beyond 2024 following a report over the weekend about Democrats being worried about his leadership, age, and ability to beat former President Donald Trump in a rematch. "Don! You’re asking me this question! Oh my gosh, he’s the president of the United States. I can’t even keep up with him," Jean-Pierre exclaimed before listing off some recent travel. BEN CARSON: 'CRIMINAL' HOW BIDEN 'WAS STASHED AWAY IN THE BASEMENT' IN 2020 "We just got back from New Mexico, we just got back from California," she said. "That is not a question that we should be even asking. Just look at the work that he does. Look how he’s delivering for the American public." A New York Times report published Saturday examined "whispers" among Democrats who are increasingly anxious about Biden's leadership ahead of the 2022 midterm elections, in which Republicans are widely expected to win back control of at least one chamber of Congress, and amid his low approval numbers. Biden's critics often raise questions about his physical energy and mental acuity, spurred by frequent gaffes that aides often then swoop in to clean up. Former Obama adviser David Axelrod argued in the report that the age factor had been a distraction from Biden's accomplishments. “The presidency is a monstrously taxing job, and the stark reality is the president would be closer to 90 than 80 at the end of a second term, and that would be a major issue,” Axelrod said. CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER Jean-Pierre criticized the article as being filled with "hearsay." "It’s salacious. That’s not what we care about," she added. "We care about: How are we going to deliver for the American people? How are we going to make their lives better? That is what the president talks about. That is his focus, and that’s what we’re going to continue to focus on." Biden, who is 79, is the oldest man ever to be president and was older when he took the oath of office than was Ronald Reagan, the second-oldest sitting president ever, when he retired at 77. Biden would be 82 for a second inauguration. Biden said in December that he would run for reelection if he is in good health. "To be clear, as the President has said repeatedly, he plans to run in 2024," Jean-Pierre tweeted Monday. | US Campaigns & Elections |
CBS News projects Katie Britt wins the Republican primary for U.S. Senate in Alabama, prevailing over Rep. Mo Brooks in their runoff race Tuesday.Virginia and the District of Columbia held primaries Tuesday, and Georgia also held runoff elections, but perhaps the most closely watched race Tuesday was the Alabama GOP Senate runoff for retiring Sen. Richard Shelby's seat, which pitted Brooks against Britt, Shelby's former chief of staff. Combined photo of Alabama GOP Senate runoff candidates, Katie Britt (L) and Rep. Mo Brooks (R). Britt: Butch Dill (AP) / Brooks (Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call/via Getty Images) The two candidates shared the unusual distinction having both had — at one point — the sought-after endorsement of former President Donald Trump. Brooks, who was a longtime Trump ally, won his first endorsement, but Trump withdrew it just before the primary election on May 24, when polls showed Brooks sliding in the polls. Brooks continued to embrace Trump's 2020 election denialism, and he also suggested at a Trump rally last August that Republicans should look ahead in 2022, rather than re-litigating the 2020 election results. "There are some people who are despondent about the voter fraud and election theft in 2020," Brooks said. "Folks, put that behind you, put that behind you." When Trump withdrew his support from the Alabama congressman, he cited those comments and wondered whether Brooks was going "woke." Earlier this month, Trump switched his endorsement to Britt, and Brooks scoffed at Trump, saying that he had "no loyalty to anyone or anything but himself." Despite his loss of Trump's backing, Brooks rose in the polls from third place and made the cutoff for the runoff with Britt. VirginiaRepublican incumbent Ben Cline won his primary in the state's 6th District.Democratic incumbent Don Beyer won his primary in Virginia's 8th District. Republican congressional candidate Jen Kiggans Screenshot, via Kiggans campaign website Jen Kiggans won the Republican primary in Virginia's 2nd Congressional District, so she'll face incumbent Rep. Elaine Luria, a Democrat, in the general election. Luria's district remains slightly conservative after the latest redistricting cycle. She's currently serving on the Jan. 6 House select committee investigating the assault on the U.S. Capitol, a role which may attract negative sentiment from conservatives in her district, but she recently told the New York Times, "If I don't get re-elected because of this, that's OK." US Democratic Representative Elaine Luria listens during the third hearing of the US House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack on the US Capitol, on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, on June 16, 2022. MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images Luria has more than $3.7 million cash on hand. In a statement after Kiggans' win, she called her "a political opportunist" and "an election denier." As a state senator, Kiggans voted for an amendment that would create a $70 million "forensic audit" of the 2020 election. She also helped pass a bill that would require a state department to report deceased Virginians to the state's election's department in order to update voting rolls. "The people of Virginia's Second Congressional District trust Elaine Luria and know that she will continue to deliver and do what's right regardless of the political implications," Luria added.The House GOP-backed Congressional Leadership Fund endorsed Kiggans in the primary and has booked $2.3 million in ads for the district this fall. Six Republicans are vying to challenge vulnerable Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger in Virginia's 7th Congressional District. The district encompasses part of the Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, and is a relatively new area to represent for Spanberger. On Monday, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz endorsed and stumped for Prince William County Board of Supervisors member Yesli Vega, a former Alexandria, Va., police officer, who was also endorsed by Ginni Thomas, the conservative activist and wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Also running are former Green Beret Derrick Anderson, who received the backing of another potential 2024 presidential aspirant, Sen. Tom Cotton, of Arkansas. State Sen. Bryce Reeves has been endorsed by Utah Sen. Mike Lee and Florida Senator Marco Rubio. Congresswoman Elise Stefanik of New York has endorsed Stafford County Board of Supervisors Member Crystal Vanuch. If Vega wins Tuesday, and then in November, she would be the first Latina congresswoman in Virginia's congressional delegation.GeorgiaSeveral House Republican runoff races are taking place in Georgia, Tuesday, so far, two Trump-backed Republicans have lost their primary runoffs here. In the 10th, businessman Mike Collins beat former State Rep. Vernon Jones, who was backed by former President Trump. The two candidates had been attacking each other on a personal level since the primary. Collins' campaign set up a website and handed voters rape whistles with Jones' name — to highlight that Jones was accused of sexual assault 17 years ago. Collins also called Jones, who is Black, a "radically anti-White racist.'' Collins had the backing of Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, whose reelection Trump tried unsuccessfully to thwart.Rich McCormick, backed by Club for Growth beat Trump-backed Jake Evans in the GOP runoff in Georgia's 6th; Evans had also placed second in the primary race.Bee Nguyen won the Democratic runoff for Georgia's secretary of state. She faces incumbent Republican Brad Raffensperger in November's general election. Nguyen was backed by Democratic gubernatorial nominee Stacey Abrams, and if elected in November, would be the first Asian-American Democratic woman elected to serve statewide in Georgia. | US Campaigns & Elections |
Republicans believe their luck in Nevada is poised to turn, viewing Tuesday’s primaries as the first step toward a fall sweep in their campaigns for Senate and the state’s four House seats. Not since 2014 have Republicans experienced material success in Nevada, with Democrats getting the better of the GOP up and down the ballot in the three consecutive elections. That futility could end this November, GOP insiders insist, explaining a favorable political environment is on track to sink Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) and topple Nevada’s three incumbent House Democrats. But to fulfill their ambitions, Nevada Republicans must field quality general election candidates. That is no sure thing, although party strategists are claiming confidence in GOP primary voters to deliver. “The main thing to look for, in a year in which, at least at this early date, looks good for Republicans: Will they nominate unelectable candidates in key races?” said Jon Ralston, a veteran Nevada journalist and the founder of the Nevada Independent, a nonpartisan chronicler of state politics. Nevada is a perennial battleground. But Republicans have taken their lumps there in the 21st century, last winning the state’s Electoral College votes in 2004. The last GOP Senate win was in 2012, when appointed Sen. Dean Heller earned a full six-year term. Rep. Mark Amodei has kept northern Nevada’s Republican-friendly 2nd Congressional District in GOP hands, as did Heller before him for about 4.5 years. Yet Republicans have been boxed out of southern Nevada’s three House seats since a Democratic sweep in 2016. SIX NOTABLE MOMENTS FROM THE HOUSE JAN. 6 COMMITTEE'S PRIME-TIME HEARING Republicans believe this year is different, beginning with the Senate race. In the GOP primary, former state Attorney General Adam Laxalt is favored to defeat military combat veteran Sam Brown. Laxalt was endorsed by former President Donald Trump and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) — and the Club for Growth, a GOP-aligned group stressing fiscal conservatism. Brown is running as the anti-establishment grassroots candidate. His team argues that victory is possible despite recent polling that suggests Laxalt is likely to win in a walk. "As more and more Nevada Republicans are getting to know Sam Brown and his story, his favorability and support continue to rise. We're seeing it in our numbers,” a Republican operative advising Brown’s campaign said, claiming the insurgent internal tracking polls show a toss-up race. "The grassroots energy and excitement is behind Sam Brown in the final days, and the Washington insider class is in for a surprise." The Laxalt campaign is dismissing Brown’s bravado, saying it is not based on the reality of what is actually happening. One veteran Republican operative in Nevada working on another statewide race lauded Brown for running a spirited campaign on track to perform better than initial predictions. But this operative agreed with the Laxalt campaign’s assessment of how the Senate primary would ultimately conclude. “We are very strong heading into this primary and plan to carry that momentum into the general election, where we are confident that we will defeat the most vulnerable incumbent in the U.S. Senate,” Laxalt campaign spokesman John Burke said. As a red wave develops that could sweep Democrats from power in Washington, D.C., and in states across the country, Republicans in Nevada are effectively predicting the incumbent Democrats representing Southern Nevada’s three Democratic-leaning House seats will get washed away with the tide. In part, Democrats only have themselves to blame, Republicans say. And they were not referring to President Joe Biden’s low job approval ratings. The new House seat boundaries approved by Democrats in Carson City, Nevada, in decennial redistricting continue to favor the Democratic Party. But Nevada Republicans say that the newly configured 1st, 3rd, and 4th Districts are more competitive than they otherwise might have been because Democrats diluted the partisan strength of some of them to try and make all of them more hospitable to their party. That, combined with Biden’s political struggles, is making Democratic Reps. Steven Horsford, Susie Lee, and Dina Titus vulnerable. “Democrats overreached drawing the maps,” the veteran Nevada GOP operative said. The only possible obstacle that has Republicans concerned is whether primary voters on Tuesday will nominate quality candidates in these three districts. The GOP appears most concerned about their primary in the 4th District. “Sam Peters would be a difficult person to get across the finish line,” a Republican strategist involved in House races said. Peters is a businessman and Air Force veteran who has been endorsed by conservative talk radio host Wayne Allen Root, musician Ted Nugent, Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ), and Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ). CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER In the Republican gubernatorial primary, the GOP appears to be coalescing around Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo. Trump endorsed Lombardo, and the party’s traditional establishment, always concerned about electability, also prefers him. Heller, who attempted to revive his political career by seeking the Republican nomination for governor this year after losing reelection to the Senate in 2018, is expected to fall short. The confidence Nevada Republicans have in Lombardo does not extend to their field of candidates in the GOP primaries for state attorney general and secretary of state. Even in the event of a red wave this November, Republicans believe Democrats might hold on to those offices. | US Campaigns & Elections |
get the free app Updated on: June 15, 2022 / 1:08 AM / CBS News Rep. Nancy Mace faces tough primary Rep. Nancy Mace faces tough GOP primary in South Carolina 11:10 Four states held primary elections Tuesday, and in one of the most closely watched races in South Carolina, CBS News projects Russell Fry wins the 7th-District Republican primary, defeating incumbent Rep. Tom Rice, who voted to impeach former President Donald Trump. Tuesday's primaries are setting up some of the most expensive general election matchups in the fall.Rice vehemently defended his impeachment vote, telling Politico recently that "I think that was one of the worst things, if not the worst, that a president has ever done in terms of attacking the Constitution and separation of powers." Trump backed Fry in the race, and there were five other Republicans in the primary. Tom Rice (left) and Russell Fry AP Photo/Alex Brandon, AP Photo/Meg Kinnard The former president issued a celebratory statement on Tuesday night, calling Fry's win the "biggest News of the evening so far is that Russell Fry beat Impeach Master Tom Rice with a Vote of more than 51%, therefore WINNING OUTRIGHT with no need for a run-off." Fry on Tuesday night called it a "huge night for Republicans" and thanked Trump for his endorsement. CBS News projects that Rep. Nancy Mace has won the Republican primary in South Carolina's 1st District. Mace, a freshman Republican who flipped South Carolina's 1st District from blue to red,defeated Trump-backed former state Rep. Katie Arrington, the 2018 GOP nominee for this district who lost to Democrat Joe Cunningham.Mace voted to certify the 2020 election results and to hold Trump ally Steven Bannon in contempt of Congress for failing to comply with a subpoena from the Jan. 6 select committee. She was also outspoken against Trump's conduct in the immediate aftermath of the Jan. 6 attack.Trump had issued a statement Saturday saying that Mace is "despised by almost everyone" and said she "fights Republicans all the time and is not at all nice about it." But on Tuesday night, Trump issued a statement on Truth Social saying "Katie Arrington was a long shot but ran a great race and way over performed. Congrats to Nancy Mace, who should easily be able to defeat her Democrat opponent!" Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images, Sean Rayford/Getty Images Republican incumbent Sen. Tim Scott didn't face any serious primary challengers on Tuesday and he's expected to easily win deep-red South Carolina in November. But he's raised nearly $40 million so far, more than any other Republican.Democrats Catherine Fleming Bruce, Angela Geter and state Rep. Krystle Matthews are competing to take on Scott.In the governor's race, Trump-backed incumbent Republican Gov. Henry McMaster defeated his primary challenger, Harrison Musselwhite.On the Democratic side, Cunningham, who lost his House seat to Mace in 2018, won the primary, defeating state Sen. Mia McLeod and several others. Also in the spotlight is Nevada, the state that officially gave President Joe Biden enough electoral votes to win the presidency in 2020. Mr. Biden won the state by less than three points in 2020, and the state's economy has been hit hard by inflation and the COVID-19 pandemic. Republicans are hoping to flip the Senate seat and the governor's mansion in the fall — and a number of Republicans are running to succeed the term-limited secretary of state, who refused to throw out the election results in favor of Trump.Trump-backed Adam Laxalt won the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate in Nevada. Laxalt succeeded current Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto as the state's attorney general. Ben Smith (left) and Adam Laxalt are running for the Republican nomination for Senate in Nevada. David Calvert/Getty Images, David Becker/Getty Images Laxalt, who lost the governor's race in 2018, had endorsements from a number of high-profile Republicans, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and Donald Trump Jr., who came to Nevada to campaign with Laxalt. Cortez Masto won the Democratic primary. She has has already raised big sums ahead of November — nearly $20 million in the last year — and went into primary day with more than $9 million cash on hand. Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak, won the Democratica primary for governor. Sisolak, elected in 2018, was the first Democrat to win the governor's mansion in more than 20 years. Fifteen Republicans are on the Republican primary ballot for governor. Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo, former boxer Joey Gilbert, former U.S. Sen. Dean Heller, North Las Vegas Mayor John Lee and entrepreneur Guy Nohra are so far leading the field. Republican Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske has faced blowback from Trump's supporters since the 2020 election, including being censured by the state party. There is a crowded Republican primary field to be the party's nominee in November, including some candidates who have spread false claims or raised questions about the 2020 election. There has been no credible evidence of widespread fraud that could have changed Nevada's results. In Nevada's 1st Congressional District, Democratic incumbent Rep. Dina Titus is facing a challenger on the left, progressive Amy Vilela, who is backed by Sen. Bernie Sanders. In the 2nd District, national Republican groups have gotten involved to support Congressman Mark Amodei in his primary. Amodei is being challenged by Danny Tarkanian, a Douglas County commissioner who has had unsuccessful runs for Congress in the past decade.In the special election to fill the remainder of Democratic Rep. Filemon Vela's term in Texas' 34th District, Republicans got a short-term win with Republican Mayra Flores winning enough votes, 50% of the total turnout, to win the race outright to hold the seat until January. Vela resigned in March to work for a lobbying firm.Republicans are hoping the win Tuesday will give them an edge to flip the district in November, where Flores will face off against Democratic Rep. Vicente Gonzalez. Although the district lines will lean more Democratic in November than the version used in the special election, the win comes as Republicans continue to invest in their outreach with Hispanic voters in this region and across the country on issues such as the economy and immigration.Flores and Republican groups spent close to $1 million dollars on ads for the special election, while national Democratic groups only devoted a fraction of their resources to the race. Updated 11:20 PM South Carolina 1st U.S. House District Republican primary: CBS News projects Nancy Mace wins CBS News projects Nancy Mace wins Republican primary Updated 11:10 PM South Carolina 7th U.S. House District Republican primary: CBS News projects Russell Fry wins CBS News projects Russell Fry wins the Republican primary. 6:04 PM / June 14, 2022 South Carolina U.S. Senate Democratic primary Catherine Fleming Bruce, Angela Geter and Krystle Matthews are on the ballot. Updated 7:52 PM / June 14, 2022 South Carolina Governor Republican primary results: Henry McMaster wins Republican nomination for South Carolina Governor Gov. Henry McMaster wins Republican nomination for South Carolina Governor Updated 10:22 PM South Carolina Governor Democratic primary: Joe Cunningham wins Joe Cunningham wins the Democratic primary for South Carolina governor. Updated 4m ago Nevada U.S. Senate Republican primary: Adam Laxalt wins Adam Laxalt wins Republican nomination for U.S. Senate in Nevada. Updated 14m ago Nevada U.S. Senate Democratic primary: Catherine Cortez Masto wins Catherine Cortez Masto wins Democratic primary for U.S. Senate in Nevada. 6:03 PM / June 14, 2022 Nevada Governor Republican primary Joe Lombardo, Dean Heller, Joey Gilbert, John J. Lee, Guy Nohra, Seven Achilles Evans, Gary Evertsen, Eddie Hamilton, Tom Heck, Stan Lusak, Edward O'Brien, Fred Simon, William Walls, Amber Whitley, Barak Zilberberg. Updated 14m ago Nevada Governor Democratic primary: Steve Sisolak wins Steve Sisolak wins Democratic primary for governor in Nevada. 6:02 PM / June 14, 2022 Nevada Secretary of State Republican primary Kristopher Dahir, Jesse Haw, Jim Marchant, Richard F. Scotti, John Cardiff Gerhardt, Socorro Keenan and Gerard Ramalho are on the ballot. Updated 11:46 PM Texas 34th U.S. House District Republican special election: Republican Mayra Flores wins Republican Mayra Flores wins the special election in Texas' 34th District to fill the remainder of Rep. Filemon Vela's term. | US Campaigns & Elections |
ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — Dan Cox, a far-right state legislator endorsed by former President Donald Trump, won the Republican primary for Maryland governor on Tuesday, defeating a moderate rival backed by outgoing Gov. Larry Hogan.Cox will face the winner of the Democratic primary in the November general election. The top Democratic candidates include former U.S. Labor Secretary and Democratic Party chair Tom Perez, bestselling author Wes Moore and state Comptroller Peter Franchot.Despite being a win for Trump, Cox’s victory over former Hogan Cabinet member Kelly Schulz could be a blow to Republican chances to hold on to the seat in November. Hogan, who was prohibited from running for a third consecutive term, was a rare two-term Republican governor in a heavily Democratic state, and he had endorsed Schulz as the successor to his bipartisan style of leadership.The Republican primary was viewed as a proxy battle between Trump and Hogan, who offered vastly different visions of the party’s future as they consider 2024 campaigns for the White House. Hogan, one of Trump’s most prominent GOP critics, urged the party to move on from his divisive brand of politics, while Trump spent much of his post-presidency lifting candidates who embrace his election lies.Cox has said President Joe Biden’s victory shouldn’t have been certified, called former Vice President Mike Pence a “traitor” and sought unsuccessfully to impeach Hogan for his pandemic policies.Democrats, too, saw Cox as an easier opponent in a general election, with the Democratic National Committee plowing more than $1 million behind an ad intended to boost Cox in the Republican primary. THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — Republican and Democratic candidates for Maryland governor were locked in highly competitive races in their parties’ primaries Tuesday, with the focus starting to turn to mail ballots that won’t be counted until later in the week.Republican Dan Cox, a far-right state legislator endorsed by former President Donald Trump, and Democrat Wes Moore, a bestselling author backed by Oprah Winfrey, took early leads, with many votes left to tally.Two-term Republican Gov. Larry Hogan, who is term-limited, had endorsed Cox’s Republican rival Kelly Schulz, a former labor and commerce secretary in his Cabinet. Establishment Republicans viewed Schulz, a moderate like Hogan, as their best opportunity to keep a hold on the governor’s mansion in a state where Democrats outnumber Republicans by a 2-to-1 margin.The Republican primary was viewed as a proxy battle between Trump and Hogan, who are offering vastly different visions for the party’s future as they consider 2024 campaigns for the White House. Hogan, one of Trump’s most prominent GOP critics, has urged the party to move on from his divisive brand of politics, while Trump has has spent much of his post-presidency lifting candidates who embrace his election lies.One of those candidates is Cox, who organized busloads of protesters to Washington for the “Stop the Steal” rally that preceded the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Cox has also said President Joe Biden’s victory shouldn’t have been certified, called former Vice President Mike Pence a “traitor” and sought unsuccessfully to impeach Hogan for his pandemic policies.On the Democratic side, the leading candidates include Moore; Tom Perez, a former U.S. labor secretary and former Democratic Party chair, and longtime state Comptroller Peter Franchot.It could take days, or even longer, to determine the winners in the most closely contested races. That’s because Maryland law prohibits counties from opening mail ballots until the Thursday after election day.In another top race Tuesday, Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen beat back a primary challenge just months after suffering a minor stroke. He is favored in November to win a second term.Voters were also picking nominees for an open seat in the state’s eight-member congressional delegation. And the daughter of the state’s former attorney general was vying for her father’s old job.Ten candidates in all are seeking the Democratic nomination for governor. Perez has support from labor unions, while Moore, the former CEO of the Robin Hood Foundation, an anti-poverty organization, has been endorsed by the state’s teachers union and the two top Maryland legislative leaders, House Speaker Adrienne Jones and Senate President Bill Ferguson.Franchot, who comfortably won four races to be the state’s tax collector, brings significant name recognition to the primary.Voter Laura Kretchman, a 41-year-old high school teacher, said Moore’s endorsement by the Maryland State Education Association helped her choose him. She said she’s impressed by Moore’s accomplishments after rising above childhood challenges and being raised by a single mom.“I teach children at a school that also come from difficult upbringings, so I’d like to see maybe what he can bring to helping those students that are struggling and challenged,” said Kretchman, an Annapolis resident.Other voters said they preferred a long resume of government service. Curtis Fatig, a 67-year-old voter in Annapolis, settled on Perez, who also worked on the Montgomery County Council, as Maryland’s secretary of labor and as the assistant attorney general for civil rights in Obama’s administration.“He’s not a newcomer,” said Fatig.At an elementary school in Silver Spring, many Democrats cast a ballot for governor with an eye toward November’s general election.Retired high school teacher Tom Hilton, 75, said he viewed the Democratic primary field as “kind of a toss-up” but ultimately picked Franchot.“Mainly for the financial parts,” Hilton said. “I think he’ll be a little bit more attuned to having a more secure financial future for Maryland.”On the Republican side, Hogan has stood firmly behind Schulz, whom he sees as the strongest candidate to face a Democrat in November. Democrats seem to agree, with the Democratic National Committee plowing more than $1 million behind an ad intended to boost Cox in the Republican primary. It’s a tactic they’ve used elsewhere in an effort to face an easier opponent in the general election.Trump has branded Schulz and Hogan as RINOs, or Republicans In Name Only, a term of derision reserved for party members who don’t fall in line behind him.“Get rid of Shutdown RINO Larry Hogan who is trying to get another RINO into office, Kelly Schulz,” Trump said in a statement Monday.Trump’s endorsement of Cox helped him earn 22-year-old Cameron Martin’s vote.“The main reason was because he was endorsed by Trump,” Martin said, adding that he feels like Cox shares his Republican values and that “he will best represent me.”Brandon D’costa, 18, said he voted for Schulz because he likes her plan to cut taxes and increase the number of police officers. He called her a “down-to-earth person” and said he believed she “can truly change the path of Maryland.” Maryland’s only open congressional seat is in the 4th Congressional District, a heavily Democratic Black-majority district. Incumbent U.S. Rep. Anthony Brown is leaving to run for attorney general. Former Rep. Donna Edwards, who previously held the seat, trailed former county prosecutor Glenn Ivey in early results in Tuesday’s Democratic primary.The Democratic primary for attorney general has turned into a battle between former Gov. Martin O’Malley’s wife, Katie Curran O’Malley, who is a former Baltimore judge and the daughter of former Attorney General J. Joseph Curran Jr., and Brown, O’Malley’s lieutenant governor who lost the 2014 governor’s race to Hogan. Brown had an early lead in the race. The two are vying to replace Democratic Attorney General Brian Frosh, who is retiring. Maryland hasn’t had a Republican attorney general in nearly 70 years.In other races, candidates are on the ballot for all 188 seats in the Maryland General Assembly, which is controlled by Democrats.The Maryland primary was delayed by three weeks because of lawsuits challenging the state’s congressional and state legislative maps.___Follow AP for full coverage of the midterms at https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections and on Twitter, https://twitter.com/ap_politics.___ Associated Press writer Michael Kunzelman in Silver Spring contributed to this report. | US Campaigns & Elections |
| June 19, 2022 05:35 PM | Updated Jun 20, 2022, 08:42 PM Former President Donald Trump made it clear that he has not endorsed anyone, including Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), for speaker of the House. Toward the end of a recent interview, Trump interjected to correct conservative talk show host Wayne Allyn Root after he said Trump endorsed McCarthy for speaker. "No, I haven't," Trump said. "No, no, no. I haven't," he added through some cross-talk. "No, I endorsed him in his race. But I haven't endorsed anybody for speaker." MCCARTHY PREDICTS 'MORE THAN ENOUGH' MIDTERM ELECTION WINS FOR GOP HOUSE MAJORITY Indeed, Trump endorsed McCarthy in his reelection bid in California's 20th Congressional District just two weeks ago. He made no mention of the House speaker role but did call McCarthy a "strong and fearless Leader of the House Republican Conference." Some high-profile figures on the Right, including Fox News host Tucker Carlson, have been heavily critical of McCarthy of late, particularly after fresh revelations of the leader's comments shortly after the Capitol riot. In speaking with Root, Trump also criticized McCarthy for making the "foolish decision" to pull the minority leader's picks for the House committee investigating the Capitol riot. CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER Root insisted to Trump that the former president himself would be best suited for the speaker role, an idea Trump previously dismissed. According to Root, if Republicans "win big" in the 2022 midterm elections, the former president is the right person to "save" the middle class and capitalism between now and 2024, as well as lead the impeachment of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. Every speaker thus far has been an elected House member, though they are not required to be. Trump's response this time left room for speculation. Trump said he has some "great relationships" in the House. "I'll talk to you about that at a later date," he added. When asked if he would run for president, Trump stuck to his common refrain that people will be "happy" with what happens. | US Campaigns & Elections |
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! One of President Joe Biden’s favorite sayings from the campaign trail is, "don’t compare me to the Almighty, compare me to the alternative." And it seems, less than100 days out from the 2022 midterm elections, voters are doing just that: comparing each candidate on their own individual merits. The oft-repeated mantra that "candidates matter" is proving true as Republicans are consistently underperforming their Democratic counterparts in the polls and nominating extreme candidates far outside the mainstream. In an evenly divided U.S. Senate, every candidate and battleground state matters. Here's a look at three critical factors working against Republican hopes for returning to power in the upper chamber this fall. Money Talks Second quarter fundraising numbers released just last month paint a very different picture between rival camps, with Democrats posting "blockbuster" hauls while GOP candidates have mostly flopped. Arizona, Georgia and New Hampshire are must-win states for Team Red’s chances of flipping the senate, but the incumbent Democrats wiped the floor with their Republican challengers. Arizona provided the starkest financial divide as incumbent Sen. Mark Kelly raised $13.6 million during the quarter compared with just $827,000 for Blake Masters, the Republican nominee. BLAKE MASTERS WINS ARIZONA'S REPUBLICAN SENATE PRIMARY IN KEY BATTLEGROUND STATE SHOWDOWNIn New Hampshire, incumbent Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan raised just over $5 million in Q2 compared to just $538,000 for challenger Chuck Morse, the state Senate president. In the Peach State, Trump-backed Herschel Walker, who easily bested his GOP rivals in May posted a respectable $6.2 million, but Sen. Raphael Warnock raised nearly three times as much, bringing in $17.2 million during the same period. Herschel Walker speaks at Save America event in Perry, Georgia. (Photo courtesy of Herschel Walker campaign. )With a handful of GOP retirements in states like Pennsylvania, Ohio and North Carolina, Democrats are on the offense in a midterm year that could actually buck historic trends and headwinds. In the Keystone State, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman raised $11 million, nearly three times the $3.8 million raised by Republican Dr. Mehmet Oz, despite the latter’s backing by former President Donald Trump and Oz’s primary victory in June. Populist Democratic Congressman Tim Ryan, also trounced his opponent J.D. Vance in Ohio last quarter, raking in $9.1 million to just over $2.3 for the author-turned senate hopeful. Fractured Base Long dead are the days when Ronald Reagan’s eleventh commandment, "Thou shall not speak ill of another Republican" prevailed. In 2022, the Republican primary elections were cruel, filled with political and personal attacks and a bitter divide among candidates. Brutal primary campaigns in Ohio and Pennsylvania, pitting Trump-backed candidates against more establishment supported challengers, have left the victors struggling to pick up the pieces ahead of November. In Pennsylvania, recent polling has Oz down double digits against his Democratic rival Fetterman, due in large part to inability to unite Republicans across the Commonwealth, including locking in voters who backed rivals David McCormick and Kathy Barnette during the primary. In neighboring Ohio, Vance narrowly secured a primary win in May, thanks in large part to his backing from former Trump. That endorsement caused a schism from within the primary electorate, pitting Vance against former Ohio State Treasurer Josh Mandel, who enjoyed the support of the Club for Growth, among others. In the end, more than $66 million was spent by GOP senate candidates vying for the open seat with the vast majority of that spending going toward negative advertising specifically driving down Vance’s approval ratings. In Arizona and Missouri, GOP primary voters went to the polls last night to choose their senate candidates. In Arizona, venture capitalist Blake Masters won the GOP nod with just 39% of the vote in a hard-fought, contentious primary. In Missouri, current Attorney General Eric Schmitt fared better in the primary netting just over 45% of the vote in an even more heated race against former Governor Eric Greitens and two sitting Republican congressmen. In both races, a majority of Republicans supported different candidates and have followed in the wake of others highlighted above with some of the most negative campaigning we have seen in GOP contests, which in the end only benefits Democrats in November. CLICK HERE TO GET THE OPINION NEWSLETTERRoe Matters Prognosticators in both parties believed that the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs to overturn decades of precedent on abortion rights might have impacts just on the margins of a handful of key races. Yet, voters in deep-red Kansas last night overwhelmingly voted to keep that state’s constitutional right to abortion, including from large numbers of Republican voters. This shows that Dobbs is a much bigger issue for voters than was presumed. That vote, in a state Trump won easily in 2020, demonstrates that voters in both parties soundly reject the anti-choice rhetoric coming from Republicans. This landmine will be tough for Republicans to navigate not only in close races, but in races where the GOP thinks they have a greater margin of likely victory. Voters, especially women, are angry and they are turning out in large numbers to have their voices heard. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APPOne hundred days is a lifetime in politics, and Republicans could certainly rebound should their base begin to consolidate around their candidates, if Democratic fundraising starts to dwindle, or if key indicators on the economy do not improve. But as former House Speaker Tip O’Neill famously quipped, "all politics are local," and the senate majority will not be decided in Washington nor what decisions happen in Washington, but will rather be by voters who look at their candidates as binary choices. And, with a fractured slate of less than stellar Republican candidates, I like my party’s chances in November. CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM KEVIN WALLING Kevin Walling is a Democratic campaign strategist, former Biden 2020 campaign surrogate, vice president at HGCreative. Follow him on Twitter @KevinPWalling. | US Campaigns & Elections |
Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) predicted on Sunday that the 2024 elections will be a “mess” when asked how worried he was about the next time the U.S. votes for president given how divided the country is over who is to blame for the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot. ABC’s “This Week” moderator George Stephanopoulos said all signs pointed to controversy similar to that seen in the aftermath of the 2020 election, especially with some of former President Trump’s allies in charge of certifying election results on the state level this time, before asking, “How worried are you about 2024?” “Very worried,” Kinzinger replied to Stephanopoulos. “One of the things we’re focusing on are those [state]-level elections as well, the people that will determine whether they certify an election, you know, what kind of equipment is being used.” “We focused so much on what goes on in D.C. and Congress and the Senate. But when you have these election judges that are going to people that don’t believe basically in democracy, authoritarians, 2024 is going to be a mess,” he added. Kinzinger, who is not running for reelection, said one problem within his party is a lack of leadership. “And wake up, America. Wake up, Republicans, because this is not going to be good for you if you think it is,” Kinzinger added. Kinzinger’s remarks come during public hearings being held by the House select committee investigating the Capitol insurrection, during which Trump supporters stormed the building in an effort to stop Congress from certifying the results of the 2020 election. The Capitol attack resulted in the deaths of five people. Kinzinger, one of two Republicans who serves on the committee, said he, his wife and his 5-month child recently received a death threat, though he added he did not worry about being harmed. “There are people that — there’s violence in the future, I’m going to tell you. And until we get a grip on telling people the truth, we can’t expect any differently,” he said. | US Campaigns & Elections |
Washington, D.C. is set to hold its primary on Tuesday, with the results signaling which direction the capital will go in amid growing concerns over crime and housing costs. In a city that is overwhelmingly Democratic and where a Republican has never been elected mayor, the Democratic primaries largely determine who will be elected to various offices in November. The last Republican to serve on the D.C. Council left their seat in 2009. Early in-person voting runs from June 10 to 19, and all mail-in ballots must be postmarked by Tuesday and received by the Board of Elections by June 28 to be counted. Here are five races to watch in D.C.’s primary on Tuesday. Mayor Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) is running for a third term in office but is facing three challengers, At-Large D.C. Council member Robert White, Ward 8 Council member Trayon White and Ward 5 Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner James Butler. Polls have shown Robert White to be the most significant challenger, running to Bowser’s left. Reducing rising violent crime and increasing the number of affordable housing units have been some of the top issues of the race. Bowser’s notable endorsements include the abortion rights group EMILY’s List, the Metro Washington Labor Council AFL-CIO and The Washington Post’s editorial board. Robert White has been endorsed by D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine and organizations like the Sierra Club, the Washington Teachers’ Union and the D.C. Working Families Party. A poll commissioned by Robert White’s campaign earlier this month showed Bowser leading White by just four points, 41 percent to 37 percent. Trayon White received 6 percent, and 15 percent were undecided. The poll showed about half of respondents rated Bowser’s job performance as “excellent” or “good” and half marked her performance as “just fair” or “poor.” The winner will face Stacia Hall, the only Republican candidate, in the general election. Attorney General Incumbent Karl Racine (D), who has served as attorney general since 2015, announced in October that he would not seek reelection. Ward 5 Council member Kenyan McDuffie was considered a potential frontrunner for the Democratic nomination after declaring his run soon after Racine’s announcement, but he suspended his campaign last month after the D.C. Board of Elections ruled he was ineligible to run. Attorney Bruce Spiva, another candidate, successfully argued that McDuffie did not meet the minimum qualifications for the position because he had not actively worked as an attorney in the past decade while serving on the Council. Spiva is facing fellow attorneys Brian Schwalb and Ryan Jones. Racine has endorsed Schwalb, who also received endorsements from former D.C. Attorney General Irvin Nathan (D) and three major unions representing plumbers, carpenters and ironworkers, respectively. Spiva has been endorsed by former U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli (D), former D.C. shadow House representative John Capozzi (D) and the Sierra Club. Jones has been endorsed by former At-Large Council member Vincent Orange (D). At-Large Council member Anita Bonds is running for a third full term after having served as an at-large member of the Council since 2012. Bonds served as chair of the D.C. Democratic Party for more than a decade and has served in multiple mayoral administrations. She has received endorsements from Council chairman Phil Mendelson (D), Ward 7 Council member and former Mayor Vincent Gray (D) and former Mayor Anthony Williams (D). She has also been endorsed by a couple labor unions and the District of Columbia Association of Realtors. Bonds is facing three challengers. Nate Fleming, who was endorsed by The Post’s editorial board, ran against Bonds in 2014 when she was seeking her first full term after being appointed to finish Council chairman Phil Mendelson’s term. He was elected as D.C.’s shadow representative to the House in 2013 and most recently served as the Council’s legislative and committee director. Lisa Gore is an ANC commissioner for Chevy Chase, Md., and worked in federal law enforcement until her retirement in 2020. She has been endorsed by the D.C. chapter of the National Organization of Women. Dexter Williams, who used to work for Robert White, was endorsed by the D.C. Latino Caucus and the Washington Teachers’ Union. Ward 1 Council member Brianne Nadeau is running for a third term representing Ward 1. She has received endorsements from multiple organizations and several of her colleagues on the Council, including Robert White, Ward 4 Council member Janeese Lewis George (D) and Ward 6 Council member Charles Allen (D). Nadeau is facing off against two challengers, former MPD officer Salah Czapary and ANC Commissioner Sabel Harris. Czapary received an endorsement from the Post’s editorial board. Ward 5 Council member More than a half dozen candidates are running to fill the vacancy left by McDuffie when he ran for attorney general. A couple weeks after McDuffie suspended his attorney general campaign, he endorsed Faith Gibson Hubbard, a D.C. government worker, to succeed him representing Ward 5. She was also endorsed by At-Large Council member Christina Henderson (I) and former At-Large Council member David Grosso (I). Vincent Orange is seeking to return to the Council after holding an at-large seat from 2011 to 2016 and the Ward 5 seat from 1999 to 2007. He was endorsed by John Ray (D), a former at-large council member. Zachary Parker, the president of the D.C. State Board of Education, is also seeking the Democratic nomination, receiving endorsements from Racine, Ward 4 Council member Janeese Lewis George (D) and multiple labor unions. Other candidates include Ward 5 Democratic chairman and ANC Commissioner Gordon Fletcher, former ANC Kathy Henderson, retired deputy U.S. Marshal Art Lloyd and Gary Johnson, the founder of a non-profit organization focused on academic and socio-emotional youth development programs in the D.C. area. | US Campaigns & Elections |
Jonathan Jackson, son of civil rights icon the Rev. Jesse Jackson, emerged at the top of a pack of contenders Tuesday night to nab the nomination to succeed U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush.Jackson’s win over 16 other Democrats in the historic 1st Congressional District sets him up as the overwhelming favorite to continue nearly a century of Black representation in the seat that stretches from the South Loop deep into the south suburbs.With 81% of precincts reporting, Jackson had 27.5% of the vote to 18.7% for Chicago Ald. Pat Dowell of the South Side, in unofficial totals.In another closely watched primary fight in a heavily Democratic congressional seat, progressive state Rep. Delia Ramirez won handily over moderate Northwest Side Ald. Gilbert Villegas in the new Latino-leaning 3rd District that meanders from Chicago deep into DuPage County.With 96% of precincts reporting, Ramirez had about 66% of the vote to 24% for Villegas, who said he called Ramirez to concede in the race.Both Jackson and Ramirez were endorsed during their campaigns by progressive firebrand Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. Ramirez also has long enjoyed the backing of progressive Southwest Side U.S. Rep. Jesus “Chuy” Garcia.Ramirez, 39, also had the Chicago Teachers Union backing.Also Tuesday, veteran Democratic U.S. Rep. Danny Davis was trying to hold off young progressive challenger Kina Collins in the 7th District, which winds from the west suburbs through the West Side to the South Side.With 87% of precincts reporting, Davis had 51.4% of the vote to 46.3% for Collins.If Jackson holds on to win Tuesday and wins in November, he will follow his brother, Jesse Jackson Jr., to the House of Representatives.Jesse Jackson Jr., represented the nearby 2nd Congressional District from 1995 to 2012 but resigned while he was under federal investigation for misusing campaign funds. He later pleaded guilty to wire and mail fraud and was released from prison in March 2015.Jonathan Jackson enjoyed great name recognition in the district, which helped him in the crowded field.On the campaign trail, Jackson argued he was best positioned to get things done for the district, pointing to his past work nationally and with members of Congress locally on voter registration drives and other programs through his father’s Rainbow/PUSH Coalition.In his speech declaring victory, Jackson promised to take the concerns of South Siders to Washington.“I want you to know the South Side matters,” he said. “The South Side of Chicago is going with me. When I win, you win.”Contests in the three heavily blue, Chicago-based districts — the 1st, 3rd and 7th — will go a long way toward shaping the state’s Democratic caucus in Washington for the next two years and likely much longer.The 1st District features a changing of the guard as several well-known Democrats fronted a field of 17 primary candidates vying to succeed retiring Rush in the seat that has historic political significance to African Americans.[ [Live results] 2022 primary election in Illinois ]The 3rd District that rambles from the Northwest Side through DuPage County will elect a new member of the U.S. House as well.All three seats were designed by Illinois Democrats to distinctly favor their party, meaning whoever wins the Tuesday primary will be heavily favored to beat the Republican candidate in the November general election.The crowded 1st District Democratic field meant contenders were fighting for a relatively small piece of the election pie.Jonathan Swain speaks during a candidate forum for 1st Congressional District at Freedom Temple Church in Chicago on May 10, 2022. A total of 17 Democrats are on the ballot trying to succeed U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush for the historic seat. (Armando L. Sanchez / Chicago Tribune)With the politically unassailable Rush stepping aside after three decades, a who’s who of South Side Democrats battled for the seat.Dowell, the 3rd Ward alderman who pivoted from a run for secretary of state when Rush announced he wasn’t running, appeared to be the second highest vote-getter Tuesday in unofficial totals.Other candidates included state Sen. Jacqueline Collins; business owner Jonathan Swain; activist Jahmal Cole, founder and CEO of My Block, My Hood, My City; Karin Norington-Reaves, head of federal workforce training for Chicago and suburban Cook County; and Nykea Pippion McGriff, a real estate agent and former president of the Chicago Association of Realtors.As the Democratic nominee, Jackson will be well-positioned to continue a run of nearly a century of Black representatives from the 1st District beginning with Oscar DePriest, who in 1928 became the first Black person elected to Congress in the 20th century and the first ever in the North.Just under half the district’s residents are Black, according to the Illinois Democratic Party.Many of the candidates share similar views on issues like gun control, abortion rights, health care and the economy, so the challenge has been to separate themselves from the pack.In the Republican primary, Eric Carlson appeared to be topping the three other candidates, Jeffery Regnier, Philanise White and Geno Young.Carlson, 54, of Lemont, was convicted in 1995 of sexual assault and spent about six years in prison, records show. He will be considered a long shot in the November general election in the heavily Democratic district.In the Northwest Side 3rd District, the field was smaller and the differences between candidates were a bit better defined.Villegas, who represents the 36th Ward on the Chicago City Council, is the moderate who touted his political pragmatism and ability to work with officials of differing views to get things done.Ramirez pointed to her record in Springfield as evidence she can deliver, but she positioned herself as a more progressive candidate who worked on issues such as championing an elected Chicago school board.Delia Ramirez, candidate for the Illinois' 3rd Congressional District, is joined by progressive Latinx politicians during a stop at Prieto Math and Science Academy in the Belmont Cragin neighborhood, June 28, 2022. (E. Jason Wambsgans / Chicago Tribune)The politics run the gamut in the new district, which Illinois Democrats drew to be a heavily Democratic, “lean Latino” congressional seat as the state recalibrates its district boundaries to acknowledge Latinos’ continued population gains in the state.Sign up for The Spin to get the top stories in politics delivered to your inbox weekday afternoons.About 47% of the 3rd District’s nearly 754,000 residents are Hispanic, according to the Illinois Democratic Party.On the eastern end are progressive Chicago neighborhoods such as Avondale and Logan Square. The boundaries then wind past traditionally more conservative Chicago neighborhoods like Dunning and into the suburbs.Also in the 3rd is a big chunk of DuPage County, historically a Republican stronghold that has become more diverse and decidedly bluer in recent elections.Along with Villegas and Ramirez, Democratic candidates on the ballot include college professor Iymen Chehade and registered nurse and Chicago cannabis entrepreneur Juan Aguirre.Ramirez will take on Republican Justin Burau in the November general election.U.S. Rep. Danny Davis appears at the Juneteenth flag raising ceremony at Richard J. Daley Center Plaza on June 13, 2022. (E. Jason Wambsgans / Chicago Tribune)The 7th District featured an old-fashioned head-to-head contest between two West Siders — one a liberal Congressional vet and the other a young progressive challenger — to represent a district that stretches from the west suburbs of Westchester, Bellwood and Oak Park through the city’s West Side and east to Lake Michigan, encompassing Streeterville and downtown, before bending south to take in parts of the South Loop, Bridgeport and Englewood.Davis, 80, says his decades in Washington make him the obvious choice, arguing recently, “If anybody tells you that a rookie is as good as a great veteran, they must be out of their mind!”Collins counters “it’s time for a change.”Collins was endorsed by several progressive groups, including Justice Democrats, a leading left-wing political action committee that backed U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York in 2018.Voter Karen Shimmin, left, talks to Kina Collins, center, who is running to represent Illinois' 7th Congressional District, and Chicago Ald. Daniel La Spata, 1st, outside a polling place at Talcott Elementary School in Chicago on June 28, 2022. (Terrence Antonio James / Chicago Tribune)Davis, meanwhile, works closely with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s leadership team.And on Sunday, President Joe Biden announced he was endorsing Davis in the race. In a news release, Biden pointed to Davis’ work to bring infrastructure investments to the area, “to keep folks safe during the pandemic” and to protect civil rights.Collins also challenged Davis in 2020, garnering about 14% of the vote in the Democratic primary among four candidates.The Collins campaign gathered at Bottom Lounge, a West Loop bar and concert venue where she displayed a poster signed by the Strokes for a campaign gig they played in her honor. Collins spent parts of the day campaigning with left-wing allies such as aldermen Byron Sigcho-Lopez and Daniel La Spata, a move aimed at underscoring her progressive bona fides. Her campaign also displayed a banner highlighting one of her central themes of change: “You deserve better than business as usual.”In a fiery speech, Collins said she wasn’t conceding defeat but would wait for all votes to be counted. Collins also criticized Democratic Party leadership for supporting Davis, who she has criticized as being out for himself, and highlighted problems facing the district, from food deserts to gun violence.“If you have the power to call the Speaker of the House for an endorsement, and the mayor, and the governor, and the lieutenant governor and the president of the United States, fix what’s happening in our district!” Collins said. “Don’t call in (political favors) to get re-elected. Call in political favors that (improve) the lives of people in our district.”Repeating a familiar campaign refrain, Collins said: “Congressman Danny Davis has been my representative since I was 5 years old. Enough is enough.”Joining them on the 7th District Democratic ballot this year was Denarvis Mendenhall, who ran a very low-key campaign.No Republicans ran in the 7th District primary. | US Campaigns & Elections |
LIVE UPDATESA key witness, Trump's 2020 campaign manager, is now unable to testify.Last Updated: June 13, 2022, 12:07 PM ETThe House select committee holds another public hearing Monday -- this time focused on the "big lie" pushed by former President Donald Trump and his allies -- that the committee says fueled those who attacked the Capitol.The main witness scheduled was Trump 2020 campaign manager Bill Stepien, but the committee said Monday morning he would not appear due to a family emergency.The committee played a video of Trump's former Attorney General Bill Barr recalling his December meeting with Trump after he told the Associated Press that there was no evidence of election fraud."The president was as mad as I've ever seen him, and he was trying to control himself," Barr recalled. Trump said, ""You didn't have to say this, you must've said this because you hate Trump.'"I thought, boy, if he really believes this stuff, he has lost contact with — he's become detached from reality," Barr said, adding, "There was never any indication in interest in what the actual facts were.""I felt that before the election, it was possible to talk sense to the president. And while you sometimes had to engage in, you know, a big wrestling match with him, that it was possible to keep things on track. But I was -- felt that after the election he didn't seem to be listening," Barr recalled. "And I didn’t think it was—you know, that I was inclined not to stay around if he wasn’t listening to advice from me or the Cabinet secretaries."Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D- Calif., teed up several clips of then-Attorney General Bill Barr describing his meeting with Trump in late November about election fraud, noting how "even after [Barr] told him his claims of election fraud were false, President Trump continued to promote these false claims.""I said," Barr recalled, "the department doesn’t take sides in elections, and the department is not an extension of your legal team. And our role is to investigate fraud, and we’ll look at something if it’s specific, credible, and could’ve affected the outcome of the election. And we’re doing that, and it’s just not -- they’re just not meritorious. They’re not panning out."After that meeting, Barr said Meadows told him Trump 'was becoming more realistic,' and Kushner said 'we're working on this."Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D- Calif., said Trump became "frustrated" when briefed on his slim chances to win the election and began to shake up his campaign's legal team.Trump's former campaign manager Bill Stepien said Trump's unhappiness "paved the way" for Rudy Giuliani to become more influential in the post-election strategy to spread false claims of widespread fraud."There were two groups," Stepien said. "We called them my team and Rudy's team. I didn't mind being categorized as 'Team Normal' as reporters started to do at that point in time."Trump's White House lawyer Eric Herschmann told the committee he thought the arguments being made by Giuliani, Sidney Powell and others were "nuts."Chris Stirewalt, a former Fox News political editor who was fired after defending his decision to call Arizona for Joe Biden, explained the 'red mirage' phenomenon to the committee: how a GOP lead on same-day voting was expected to shrink as Democrat-leaning absentee and mail-in votes were counted."Basically, in every election, Republicans win Election Day, and Democrats win the early vote," he explained. "So, every election, certainly in a national election, you expect to see the Republican with a lead, but it is not really a lead."Stepien, in videotaped testimony, recalled briefing the president on the "red mirage" phenomenon, adding, "I always told the president of the truth.""I told him it was going to be a process," he said. "We will have to wait and see how this turns out. Just like I did in 2016, I did the same thing in 2020."Stepien also recalled a meeting with Trump and attended by House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy in the summer of 2020, where they tried to persuade Trump to encourage supporters to vote by mail, but, "The president's mind was made up," Stepien said.-ABC News' Benjamin Siegel | US Campaigns & Elections |
Politics June 24, 2022 / 6:40 PM / CBS News As national Democrats in Washington, D.C. heard from state after state on why they should be among the first to vet the party's presidential nominee, one essential question was repeated: Exactly how diverse is your state? Members of the Democratic National Committee's Rules and Bylaws (RBC) committee were evaluating the states, and it's this panel that will end up deciding in early August whether to make a couple of changes to the order states vote in the nomination process or add a fifth state."The last time the lineup was shuffled was in 2006. Fourteen states applied to be in the early window, and two early states (Nevada and South Carolina) were added. Since then, Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina have been the first four states to hold Democratic primaries. The DNC decided to open up its early state review process after Iowa and New Hampshire were criticized for not being as diverse as some Democrats think the first states in the process should be."The two small states should not have such a disparate impact on who is going to be president, Rep. Debbie Dingell of Michigan told CBS News. "They're great states, I have many friends from them, but they don't reflect the diversity of this country." Sixteen states and Puerto Rico made their pitches to the committee this week. The committee will meet in July to make a decision on the lineup in August, before bringing it to a full DNC vote in September.Many states had their top surrogates make their pitch: Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison and Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan represented their state; U.S. Sens. Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan presented for New Hampshire; New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy led his state's pitch and Michigan was represented by the lineup of Dingell, Sen. Debbie Stabenow, Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist II and a video narrated by Detroit Pistons basketball legend Isaiah Thomas. And on the same days as their respective chambers were considering votes on gun legislation, U.S. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin came for Illinois' presentation on Thursday and House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn made his pitch for South Carolina on Friday.Both Iowa and New Hampshire defended their current slots in the schedule and argued that while there are limited pockets of demographic diversity in their state, other factors such as diversity in education and rural vs. urban working class areas should be taken into account. "We cannot, as Democrats, build the party if we are not looking at diversity in its broadest sense, making sure that we are addressing that rural working class American, and we cannot win as a party if we don't tap into even further our diverse communities across the country," said Iowa Democratic party Chair Ross Wilburn after his state's presentation. Nevada announced it's looking to leapfrog over Iowa and New Hampshire and be the first state in the primary process. Its representatives cited Nevada's ranking as the third-most demographically diverse state in the nation as a strong reason to take the top slot. "We cannot allow our party to focus solely on tradition, at the expense of real representation," said Clark County Commissioner William McCurdy II.Two midwestern states, Minnesota and Michigan, highlighted their higher level of demographic diversity in their pitches to potentially join or replace Iowa in the lineup. Members considered their pitches strong, but questioned whether they'd be able to get the Republican approval that would be needed to change their primary date.While Michigan would have to to get the approval of the GOP-majority legislature, Minnesota just needs a green light from the state Republican Party. "I wouldn't pretend to understand what the current Republican Party looks like, but there is a historical precedent that we have worked really closely together on. Especially voter turnout," Democratic Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota told CBS News. "Traditionally they have worked together. So, I think that'll hold true."Dingell was optimistic but vague with the committee about exactly how talks with the Republican majority in Michigan's legislature have gone, but pointed to support from two former Michigan Republican party chairs. "We've been having very good, strong conversations," she told the committee. Texas and Georgia also highlighted their growing diversity, and predicted that early Democratic investment in their states would pay dividends for the party in the general election. RBC members were receptive to evaluating different kinds of diversity beyond racial differences, which could help states like Iowa and New Hampshire. On Friday, New York member Leah Daughtry said that "every part of the electorate, including White people, need to see themselves in the early-state process as having a voice that is important and should be considered."Iowa, in particular, has been under additional scrutiny after the 2020 Democratic caucuses resulted in technical issues with reporting and sharing results. In response, Democrats in the state have looked to overhaul their caucus process to have attendees fill and mail in their presidential preference cards before attending the caucus in person. Some RBC members were confused about Iowa's proposed process and its relation to how delegates would be assigned. They also questioned whether it would be too close to a primary method, causing conflict with New Hampshire, whose state law requires it to be the first primary state in the nation. "The DNC clearly has a preference toward primaries. We can't be a primary because we're constrained by Iowa law. So, we are trying to shift our state or party run process to make it as primary-like as possible without violating Iowa law, and we intend to be first," said the RBC's only Iowan member, Scott Brennan.But access to the ballot box in general was also forefront on the mind for committee members, with many acknowledging the shift for Republican election officials to restrict access or question the legitimacy of the 2020 election results could impact a state's nomination process. Ten of the 16 states that presented have elections for secretary of state this November. Jim Roosevelt, chair of the RBC, often asked states who their top election official is and if that individual is an election denier. Several Republican candidates for secretary of state, such as Jim Marchant of Nevada, have parroted former President Donald Trump's baseless claims of widespread voter fraud and have cast doubt on the legitimacy of the 2020 election results. "In making our decision on what should be the early states, we need to have a well-run process. And a statewide election official, who has been an election denier in this past cycle, couldn't be counted on for that," Roosevelt told CBS News. "You can't count on them to follow the law for the primary process."The effects of any change may not be fully evident in 2024, when the president is expected to run for reelection. In that case, a few states could cancel their primaries if not enough challengers qualify for the ballot. "Everyone is paying more attention, I think partly because even though we have an incumbent president, some people think we may have an active primary season and partly because a lot of people think there is a chance to displace Iowa as number one." Roosevelt said.Fritz Farrow contributed to this report. In: Democratic Party Aaron Navarro Aaron Navarro is an associate producer for the political unit at CBS News, focusing on House and gubernatorial campaigns as well as the census and redistricting. Twitter | US Campaigns & Elections |
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! "Real Time" host Bill Maher conceded that former President Donald Trump could win back the White House in 2024 if he wasn't so fixated on the 2020 election. During a panel discussion on Friday night, Maher ridiculed Trump, who took aim at the HBO star during a recent speech, after Maher insisted that Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis would be "way better" than the 45th president if one of them were to be in the Oval Office."And I just thought, you know, if Trump could just let go of the election, which he can't, he can win this so easy because he can win just on Drag Queen Story Hour," Maher said. BILL MAHER INSISTS DESANTIS WOULD BE ‘WAY BETTER’ THAN TRUMP: ‘HE’S NOT CERTIFIABLY INSANE' "Real Time" host Bill Maher argued that former President Trump could easily defeat President Biden in 2024 if it weren't for Trump's obsession over 2020. (HBO)Maher later cited a recent New Hampshire poll showing DeSantis holding a two-point edge over Trump in a GOP primary matchup, taunting the former president, "That's right, Donny. He beat you.""Again, if he could just let go of the election, but at this point, you know, he's just like a hotel room that smells at some point you just want a new room, you know what I mean?" Maher said. "And DeSantis, I mean, he's just more is more vibrant, if you like people who don't lose elections and, you know."DESANTIS ROASTS THE MEDIA, WONDERS IF THERE'LL BE A ‘MEA CULPA’ FOR GLORIFYING ANDREW GILLUM IN 2018"And he's also not plagued by scandal the way that Trump is," podcast host Katie Herzog told Maher. "He's a much stronger candidate. The Jan. 6 hearings have been very compelling to watch, but a little part of me thinks this might actually be bad for the Democrats, because if Trump is too weak to win the Republican nomination, it's going to be DeSantis, and DeSantis could beat Biden.""Anybody could beat Biden," Maher said. "Trump might be the one guy who can lose to Biden. With DeSantis, you're right because he's a winner. He runs the third-largest state. Trump is a hotel greeter who lost. His insurrection failed." Ron DeSantis with Donald Trump. (Getty Images)Substack writer Andrew Sullivan argued that DeSantis is "more likely" to defeat Trump in a GOP primary than "any of the Democrats" potentially eying the top of the ticket in 2024. "Who do they have? Kamala? She'd lose in a landslide," Sullivan exclaimed. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APPHerzog added, "DeSantis has been able to govern in a way that Trump never has because he isn't as plagued by scandal as Trump, which to me is more terrifying than the buffoon in the White House." "And he's not nuts," Maher interjected. "He's way too conservative, but not nuts." Joseph A. Wulfsohn is a media reporter for Fox News Digital. Story tips can be sent to joseph.wulfsohn@fox.com and on Twitter: @JosephWulfsohn. | US Campaigns & Elections |
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! GOSHEN, N.Y. – GOSHEN, N.Y. – Rep. Lee Zeldin say he’s "taking nothing for granted," but on the eve of the New York State primary the front-runner for the GOP gubernatorial nomination touted that he’s the Republican who can oust Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul in November. Looking to Tuesday’s primary, Zeldin predicted that "We’re going to win. We’re going to win big. And the best way to win in November is to crush this primary. We’re well on the way to be able to get that done as long as all of our supporters show up on primary day."PENCE ENDORSES ZELDIN IN NY GOP GUBERNATORIAL PRIMARY; TRUMP STAYS NEUTRAL Zeldin made his prediction in an interview with Fox News in this Orange County town about 90 minutes north of New York City, which was the last stop on his final five day swing across the Empire State ahead of the primary. Rep. Lee Zeldin of New York, a GOP gubernatorial candidate, campaigns in Goshen, N.Y. on the eve of the state's primary (Fox News )Zeldin, a four-term lawmaker who represents New York’s 1st Congressional District, which covers the eastern half of Long Island, is the GOP gubernatorial nomination front-runner when it comes to endorsements, public opinion polling and fundraising.CHECK OUT THE LATEST FOX NEWS 2022 MIDTERMS POWER RANKINGS The primary field also includes Rob Astorino, the former Westchester County executive and 2014 GOP gubernatorial nominee; Andrew Giuliani, who served in former President Donald Trump’s administration and is the son of former New York City mayor and former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani; and Harry Wilson, a businessman, investor and restructuring expert who’s poured millions of his own money into his gubernatorial bid. Andrew Giuliani, right, a Republican candidate for Governor of New York, is joined by his father, former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, during a news conference, June 7, 2022, in New York City (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer, File) (AP )Zeldin, who launched his campaign in April of last year and has crisscrossed the state numerous times over the past 16 months, spotlighted that he’s built "just a tremendous amount of grassroots support during this campaign."WATCH: LEE ZELDIN REVEALS WHO HE'D FIRE ON DAY ONE AS GOVERNOR"I am the candidate in this race who will beat Gov. Hochul in November," he stressed. "We’re all in. We’re taking nothing for granted. It has been important to get to all 62 counties of the state over and over again to earn everyone’s support." New York Gov. Kathy Hochul debates in the race for governor at the studios of WNBC4-TV June 16, 2022, in New York City. Early voting starts June 18 ahead of the June 28 primary. ((Photo by Craig Ruttle-Pool/Getty Images))The winner of the GOP primary will likely face off against Hochul. She is the clear polling and fundraising front-runner for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in a race that also includes Rep. Tom Suozzi and New York City public advocate Jumaane Williams.CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APPHochul, who at the time was the state’s lieutenant governor, was sworn in last August as New York’s first female governor after three-term Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo resigned in disgrace amid multiple scandals.Then-Gov. George Pataki’s 2002 reelection 20 years ago was the last time a Republican won a gubernatorial election in the blue state of New York. Paul Steinhauser is a politics reporter based in New Hampshire. | US Campaigns & Elections |
Binyamin Netanyahu hopes to engineer his return to power by launching a “scorched-earth” campaign, courting far-right voters and accusing rivals of being beholden to Islamists.The former prime minister, 72, warned rivals when he was unceremoniously removed from power a year ago that he would return. This week, after the 120-seat Knesset voted unanimously to dissolve before new elections, Netanyahu was on manoeuvres.The collapse of the coalition of eight ideologically diverse parties that replaced him — led by Naftali Bennett, 50, who began his career as Netanyahu’s chief of staff — was largely Netanyahu’s doing.Naftali Bennett began his career as Netanyahu’s chief of staffAMIR COHEN/APHe orchestrated pressure that peeled away the right-wing defectors from the coalition, rendering it unable to govern.Next week a date for the general election will be set, | US Campaigns & Elections |
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! With less than a week to go until primary day in New York State, Republican Rep. Lee Zeldin landed an endorsement from one of the biggest names in the GOP as he runs for his party’s gubernatorial nomination.Zeldin, a four-term lawmaker who represents New York’s 1st Congressional District, which covers the eastern half of Long Island, was formally endorsed by former Vice President Mike Pence. Former Vice President Mike Pence, during a trip to New Hampshire, greets customers at Simply Delicious Bakery in Bedford, N.H., on Dec. 8, 2021 (Fox News )Pence, who has long supported Zeldin as he aims to be the first Republican elected governor in heavily blue New York State in two decades and who headlined a fundraiser for Zeldin earlier this year, reiterated his endorsement as he spoke at an event Wednesday night in New York City hosted by the state’s Conservative Party.FIRST ON FOX: MET FAN ZELDIN LANDS THE BACKING OF A TOP YANKEES EXECUTIVE"Proud to endorse @leezeldin for Governor of New York at the @cpnys today! He’s a Lt Col in the Army Reserve, proud supporter of our police officers, advocate for parents’ rights in education & a fiscal Conservative who will fight for lower taxes, less regulation & more freedom!" the former vice president said in an accompanying tweet.Both the New York State Conservative Party and the state GOP have officially endorsed Zeldin. He also enjoys the backing of Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, a leading lawmaker in the House GOP conference, and Republican Rep. Nicole Malliotakis of New York, who represents the New York City borough of Staten Island. Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has helped raise money for Zeldin. WATCH: LEE ZELDIN REVEALS WHO HE'D FIRE ON DAY ONE AS GOVERNORZeldin is the clear front-runner when it comes to endorsements, public opinion polling and fundraising in a primary race that also includes Rob Astorino, the former Westchester County executive and 2014 GOP gubernatorial nominee; Andrew Giuliani, who served in former President Donald Trump’s administration and is the son of former New York City mayor and former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani; and Harry Wilson, a businessman, investor and restructuring expert who’s pouring millions of his own money into his gubernatorial bid. Republican Rep. Lee Zeldin, the front-runner for the GO gubernatorial nomination in New York, campaigns in Nassau County, N.Y. on Feb. 27, 2022, a couple of days ahead of the state GOP convention. (Lee Zeldin campaign)With just five days to go until Tuesday’s primary in New York, Trump has remained neutral, despite efforts by Zeldin — who was a Trump ally in the House during the former president’s administration — as well as Giuliani and Astorino to land the former president’s blessing.CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APPThe winner of the GOP primary will likely face off against Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul. She is the clear polling and fundraising front-runner for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in a race that also includes Rep. Tom Suozzi and New York City public advocate Jumaane Williams.Hochul, who at the time was the state’s lieutenant governor, was sworn in last August as New York’s first female governor, after three-term Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo resigned in disgrace amid multiple scandals. Paul Steinhauser is a politics reporter based in New Hampshire. | US Campaigns & Elections |
Politics July 20, 2022 / 7:00 AM / CBS News Political fundraising and spending trends across the U.S. A look at political fundraising and spending trends across the U.S. 08:11 About $513 million was raised through ActBlue, the Democratic Party's online fundraising platform for small dollar donors, between April 1 and June 30, according to numbers first shared with CBS News. The platform brought in $20.6 million on the day the Supreme Court released its ruling in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization case, which overturned Roe v. Wade and returned the question of whether abortion would remain legal back to states.Overall, in the six days immediately following the June 24 decision, Democratic candidates, committees and progressive organizations brought in $89 million through ActBlue. "The overturning of Roe v. Wade and the push in Republican-led states to restrict or eliminate abortion access and attack civil rights have rapidly mobilized small-dollar donors," said Erin Hill, the outgoing Executive Director of ActBlue. Hill is expected to depart from the organization at the end of the year. "Donors are rallying around these issues – from preserving LGBTQIA2S+ rights to voting rights and more – they're getting engaged at the local level and focusing on competitive races ahead of November," she added. Abortion-rights activists protest outside the Supreme Court in Washington, Monday, July 4, 2022. The Supreme Court has ended constitutional protections for abortion that had been in place nearly 50 years, a decision by its conservative majority to overturn the court's landmark abortion cases. Jose Luis Magana / AP While the party faces headwinds this midterm cycle due to voter frustrations with the economy and inflation, as well as President Biden's low approval rating, ActBlue's numbers signal there has been strong energy surrounding two animating issues for their base: abortion rights and gun control. The platform says that eight out of the 10 largest days for first-time donors occurred in the days after the Supreme Court's Dobbs draft opinion leaked, the Uvalde, Texas, shooting and after the Dobbs decision. The huge sum is more than double the amount raised in the second quarter of the 2018 midterm cycle. The number of individual donors also doubled from that cycle: 2.79 million in 2022 versus 1.4 million in 2018. The average contribution this quarter was $43.31.Cycle to date, more than $2.1 billion has been raised for Democratic candidates and organizations through ActBlue. By comparison, nearly $2.3 billion has been raised at this point in the 2020 cycle, a presidential election year. By comparison, WinRed, ActBlue's main Republican online fundraising counterpart, processed $155.8 million in the second quarter of 2022. While ActBlue was first launched in 2004, WinRed was founded in 2019 but already has processed donations for more than 5,000 campaigns in its first three years, compared to ActBlue's more than 16,000 in the second quarter of 2022 alone. ActBlue's numbers match up with a pattern of high fundraising numbers fby Democratic candidates and incumbents with tough races in November. Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia raised $17.2 million in the second quarter, Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona raised $13.6 million, Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman of Pennsylvania raised $11 million and Rep. Val Demings of Florida raised $12.2 million for her run for senate. But the platform says there's also been a spike in non-federal and local donations. About 55% of the first time donors gave to a non-federal campaign, committee or organization. Donors gave twice as much money for attorney general candidates this quarter compared to 2018, and three times as much for gubernatorial races. And the Democratic campaign arm focused on state legislative races also broke its second quarter cash haul record this year, with its best 48 hours of fundraising this cycle taking place after the Roe decision. Sarah Ewall-Wice contributed to this report. Aaron Navarro Aaron Navarro is an associate producer for the political unit at CBS News, focusing on House and gubernatorial campaigns as well as the census and redistricting. Twitter Thanks for reading CBS NEWS. Create your free account or log in for more features. Please enter email address to continue Please enter valid email address to continue | US Campaigns & Elections |
get the free app Updated on: June 14, 2022 / 11:11 PM / CBS News Rep. Nancy Mace faces tough primary Rep. Nancy Mace faces tough GOP primary in South Carolina 11:10 Voters cast their ballots Tuesday in primary elections in four states, setting up some of the most closely-watched and expensive general election matchups in the fall. Polls are now closed in all four states: South Carolina, Nevada, North Dakota and Maine.IIn South Carolina, CBS News projects Russell Fry wins the Republican primary in the 7th District, defeating incumbent Rep. Tom Rice, who voted to impeach former President Donald Trump. Rice has vehemently defended his impeachment vote, telling Politico recently that "I think that was one of the worst things, if not the worst, that a president has ever done in terms of attacking the Constitution and separation of powers." Trump backed Fry in the race, and they face five other Republicans in the primary. The large number of candidates could keep both Rice and Fry under 50% of the vote, which would lead to a runoff on June 28. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images, Sean Rayford/Getty Images Rep. Nancy Mace, a freshman Republican who flipped South Carolina's 1st District from blue to red, is facing off against former State Rep. Katie Arrington, who was the 2018 GOP nominee for this district who lost to Democrat Joe Cunningham.Mace voted to certify the 2020 election results and to hold Trump ally Steven Bannon in contempt of Congress for failing to comply with a subpoena from the Jan. 6 select committee. She was also outspoken against Trump's conduct in the immediate aftermath of the Jan. 6 attack.In a statement on Saturday, Trump continued his attacks on her. "Nancy fights Republicans all the time and is not at all nice about it. Frankly, she is despised by almost everyone, and who needs that in Congress, or in the Republican Party?" he said.Republican incumbent Sen. Tim Scott isn't facing any serious primary challengers on Tuesday and he's expected to easily win deep-red South Carolina in November. But he's raised nearly $40 million so far, more than any other Republican.Democrats Catherine Fleming Bruce, Angela Geter and state Rep. Krystle Matthews are competing to take on Scott.In the governor's race, Trump-backed incumbent Republican Gov. Henry McMaster defeated his primary challenger, Harrison Musselwhite.On the Democratic side, Cunningham, who lost his House seat to Mace in 2018, won the primary, defeating state Sen. Mia McLeod and several others. Also in the spotlight will be Nevada, the state that officially gave President Joe Biden enough electoral votes to win the presidency in 2020. Mr. Biden won the state by less than three points in 2020, and the state's economy has been hit hard by inflation and the COVID-19 pandemic. Republicans are hoping to flip the Senate seat and the governor's mansion in the fall — and a number of Republicans are running to succeed the term-limited Secretary of State, who refused to throw out the election results in favor of Trump.Trump-backed Republican Adam Laxalt, who succeeded current Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto as the state's attorney general, long held a comfortable lead in the Senate race, but retired Army captain Sam Brown has narrowed the once 40-point gap. Ben Smith (left) and Adam Laxalt are running for the Republican nomination for Senate in Nevada. David Calvert/Getty Images, David Becker/Getty Images Laxalt, who lost the governor's race in 2018, also has endorsements from a number of high-profile Republicans, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and Donald Trump Jr., who came to Nevada to campaign with Laxalt. Cortez Masto doesn't have a serious challenger on Tuesday, but she has already raised big sums ahead of November — nearly $20 million in the last year — and goes into primary day with more than $9 million cash on hand.Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak, elected in 2018, was the first Democrat to win the governor's mansion in more than 20 years. He faces a primary challenger on Tuesday, Clark County Commissioner Tom Collins.Fifteen Republicans are on the Republican primary ballot for governor. Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo, former boxer Joey Gilbert, former U.S. Sen. Dean Heller, North Las Vegas Mayor John Lee and entrepreneur Guy Nohra are so far leading the field. Republican Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske has faced blowback from Trump's supporters since the 2020 election, including being censured by the state party. There is a crowded Republican primary field to be the party's nominee in November, including some candidates who have spread false claims or raised questions about the 2020 election. There has been no credible evidence of widespread fraud that could have changed Nevada's results. In Nevada's 1st Congressional District, Democratic incumbent Rep. Dina Titus is facing a challenger on the left, progressive Amy Vilela, who is backed by Sen. Bernie Sanders. In the 2nd District, national Republican groups have gotten involved to support Congressman Mark Amodei in his primary. Amodei is being challenged by Danny Tarkanian, a Douglas County commissioner who has had unsuccessful runs for Congress in the past decade.And in one bonus race, South Texas will be holding a special election to fill the House seat vacated by Democrat Filemon Vela, in the 34th District, for the remainder of the term. A win could give House Republicans a symbolic win ahead of this November. Two Republicans and two Democrats are running in the nonpartisan primary, which would go into a runoff if no candidate clears 50%. 6:05 PM / June 14, 2022 South Carolina 1st U.S. House District Republican primary Rep. Nancy Mace and Kate Arrington are on the ballot. Updated 2m ago South Carolina 7th U.S. House District Republican primary: CBS News projects Russell Fry wins CBS News projects Russell Fry wins the Republican primary. 6:05 PM / June 14, 2022 South Carolina U.S. Senate Republican primary Sen. Tim Scott and Larry Adams Jr. are on the ballot. 6:04 PM / June 14, 2022 South Carolina U.S. Senate Democratic primary Catherine Fleming Bruce, Angela Geter and Krystle Matthews are on the ballot. Updated 7:52 PM / June 14, 2022 South Carolina Governor Republican primary results: Henry McMaster wins Republican nomination for South Carolina Governor Gov. Henry McMaster wins Republican nomination for South Carolina Governor Updated 50m ago South Carolina Governor Democratic primary: Joe Cunningham wins Joe Cunningham wins the Democratic primary for South Carolina governor. 6:04 PM / June 14, 2022 Nevada U.S. Senate Republican primary Adam Laxalt, Sam Brown, William Conrad, William Hockstedler, Sharelle Mendenhall, Tyler Perkins, Carlo Poliak and Paul Rodriguez are on the ballot. 6:03 PM / June 14, 2022 Nevada U.S. Senate Democratic primary Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, Stephanie Kasheta, Corey Reid and Allen Reinhart are on the ballot. 6:03 PM / June 14, 2022 Nevada Governor Republican primary Joe Lombardo, Dean Heller, Joey Gilbert, John J. Lee, Guy Nohra, Seven Achilles Evans, Gary Evertsen, Eddie Hamilton, Tom Heck, Stan Lusak, Edward O'Brien, Fred Simon, William Walls, Amber Whitley, Barak Zilberberg. 6:03 PM / June 14, 2022 Nevada Governor Democratic primary Gov. Steve Sisolak and Tom Collins 6:02 PM / June 14, 2022 Nevada Secretary of State Republican primary Kristopher Dahir, Jesse Haw, Jim Marchant, Richard F. Scotti, John Cardiff Gerhardt, Socorro Keenan and Gerard Ramalho are on the ballot. 6:02 PM / June 14, 2022 Texas 34th U.S. House District Republican special election Republicans Mayra Flores and Juana Cantu-Cabrera and Democrats Rene Coronado and Dan Sanchez are on the ballot. | US Campaigns & Elections |
More Democrats than Republicans questioned in a new survey say they are more likely to vote in the midterm elections after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade on Friday. The NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll, published on Monday, found that 78 percent of Democrats said they are more likely to vote in this year’s midterms in response to the ruling, which opened the door to state bans on abortion. When asked the same question, 54 percent of Republican respondents said they are more likely to vote in November, while 53 percent of independents agreed. Eighty-eight percent of Democrats, meanwhile, said they strongly oppose the Supreme Court’s ruling on abortion, as did 53 percent of independents. By comparison, 77 percent of Republican respondents said they support the ruling, while 10 percent opposed it. Additionally, 59 percent of female respondents said in the poll that they disapprove of the court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, and 54 percent of male respondents agreed with the same sentiment. The Supreme Court in a ruling on Friday overturned Roe v. Wade, the landmark decision that established the right to abortion, in a 6-3 vote. Dozens of states are expected to tighten abortion access as a result of the ruling. Fifty-one percent of those surveyed in the new poll also said they will vote for a candidate who would support a federal law to restore the right to an abortion, while 36 percent of respondents said they would vote against a candidate who supports abortion rights. The new NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll was conducted June 24-25 with a total of 941 respondents. The survey had a margin of error of 4.9 percentage points. Tags Abortion in the United States abortion rights nonprofit organization NPR NPR NPR Poll PBS-NPR-Marist poll Roe v. Wade Roe v. Wade supreme court abortion ruling Supreme Court of the United States | US Campaigns & Elections |
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — Sarah Palin leads in early results from Saturday’s special primary for the state’s only U.S. House seat, as voters whittled down the list of 48 candidates running for the position that was held for 49 years by Rep. Don Young.
Congressional candidate Santa Claus stands in front of the North Pole post office, Sunday, April 24, 2022. (Iris Samuels/Anchorage Daily News via AP)
The early results showed Palin, the former Alaska governor endorsed by former President Donald Trump, with 29.8% of the votes counted so far. Republican Nick Begich had 19.3%; independent Al Gross had 12.5%; Democrat Mary Peltola with 7.5%; and Republican Tara Sweeney had 5.3%.
A candidate whose name is Santa Claus, a self-described “independent, progressive, democratic socialist,” had 4.5%.
The initial results released by the state Division of Elections included 108,729 votes. It was not immediately clear how many ballots were outstanding. The division reported late Saturday that it had received about 139,000 ballots so far. Ballots had to be postmarked by Saturday. The top four vote-getters, regardless of party affiliation, will advance to an August special election in which ranked choice voting will be used. The winner of the special election will serve the remainder of Young’s term, which ends in January. Young died on March 18 at age 88, and the seat has been vacant since then.
Saturday marked the first ballot count; state elections officials plan additional counts on Wednesday and Friday, and a final count on June 21. They have targeted June 25 to certify the race.
This election was unlike any the state has seen, crammed with candidates and conducted primarily by mail. This was the first election, too, under a system approved by voters in 2020 that ends party primaries and uses ranked choice voting in general elections.
Palin, 58, the 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee, released a statement expressing gratitude “to all of my wonderful supporters who voted to make Alaska great again!”
The sheer number of candidates left some voters overwhelmed, and many of the candidates themselves faced challenges in setting up a campaign on the fly and trying to leave an impression on voters in a short period of time. The candidate filing deadline was April 1. Relatively few candidates were running for the seat before Young’s death. Begich was among the early entrants; he launched his campaign last fall and worked to win support among conservatives. The businessman, who hails from a family of prominent Democrats, was endorsed by the Alaska Republican party.
Palin’s run marks her first bid for elected office since resigning as governor partway through her term in 2009. She was endorsed in this campaign by some national political figures, including Trump, who participated in a “telerally” for her and said Palin would “fight harder than anybody I can think of,” particularly on energy issues.
Palin sought to assure voters that she is serious about her bid and committed to Alaska.
During the campaign, opponents poked at that. Gross, an orthopedic surgeon who made an unsuccessful run for U.S. Senate in 2020, said Palin “quit on Alaska.” Begich and Sweeney made points of saying they are not quitters.
Gross, in an email to supporters during the campaign, said Palin and Begich are candidates who will be hard to beat but said he is “ready and able to take on this fight.” | US Campaigns & Elections |
State Rep. Bee Nguyen is the Democratic nominee for secretary of state in Georgia after winning a runoff primary, NBC News projects.Nguyen, the first Vietnamese American to serve in the Georgia General Assembly, will face GOP incumbent Brad Raffensperger, who won a tough primary election last month after being targeted by former President Donald Trump for refusing to help the then-president subvert the results of the 2020 election.Since her election to the state House in 2017, Nguyen, 40, has been a vocal voting rights advocate, especially for racial minorities and immigrants. She has been a vocal defender of the 2020 election and a critic of Republican-led votingShould Nguyen win the general election on Nov. 8, she would be the first Asian American elected to a statewide political office in Georgia.Nguyen, endorsed by Democratic gubernatorial nominee Stacey Abrams, Democratic Rep. Hank Johnson and Atlanta Mayor Andre Dinkens, beat out former state Rep. Dee Dawkins-Haigler after they emerged as the top-two in a crowded primary field. Both candidates focused their bids on defending future elections in the critical swing state that President Joe Biden flipped blue for the first time in decades. Nguyen’s victory comes amid the rapid growth of Georgia’s Asian American and Pacific Islander communities. Between the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections, the number of AAPI voters in Georgia increased by 84 percent.Nguyen previously told NBC Asian America that she decided to run for secretary of state during the Dec. 2020 hearings in the Georgia House on Republicans’ claims of voter fraud in the presidential election. “I felt like it’s my responsibility and duty to step up,” she said. Nguyen received national attention when she debunked claims about illegal voting made by Matt Braynard, a former Trump campaign aide who testified at the hearing.Before entering politics in 2017, Nguyen, the daughter of Vietnamese refugees, founded Athena’s Warehouse in 2009, a Georgia-based nonprofit that provides used prom dresses to high schoolers from low-income families.She was elected to the state House in 2017 to fill the seat once held by Abrams, who ran for governor. Abrams narrowly lost her 2018 race but is running again this year against GOP incumbent Brian Kemp. “I understand the nuances in the needs that AAPI people have in our state, and not addressing those needs hurts the economy and public health outcomes,” Nguyen previously said. “I think it’s important to continue to ensure that we build upon the diverse coalition in Georgia and that AAPI representation is a part of that.”As Georgia voters cast ballots in a number of runoff races Tuesday, Raffensperger was in Washington, D.C., testifying before the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol about the pressure Trump and his close allies personally applied to state officials to get them to change the results of the presidential election in key states like Georgia. | US Campaigns & Elections |
The only thing standing in the Republicans' way in the 2022 midterm elections is their own candidates. Nowhere does that promise to be a bigger problem than in Pennsylvania. Two polls this month have found that the Republican candidates for governor and Senate are trailing their Democratic opponents despite the favorable political environment. In the governor’s race, state Sen. Doug Mastriano is trailing state Attorney General Josh Shapiro by 3 points in an AARP poll and 4 points in a USA Today/Suffolk University poll. Television doctor Mehmet Oz is trailing Lt. Gov. John Fetterman in their Senate clash by 6 points in the AARP poll and by 9 points in the USA Today/Suffolk University poll. Republican voters gave Democrats exactly what they wanted in the race for governor. Mastriano was the opponent Shapiro wanted. He even ran advertisements boosting the Republican’s name recognition during the primary. Mastriano wanted to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in Pennsylvania and supported former President Donald Trump’s conspiracy theory that the election was stolen. It’s not hard to see why Shapiro thought this would be a favorable matchup. Oz had little business becoming the GOP nominee for Senate. He was a daytime talk show host with questionable conservative credentials, a questionable history of medical advice, and questionable ties to Turkey. Yet GOP primary voters pushed him over the finish line, with encouragement from Trump. Now, he is trailing Fetterman, who hasn’t been seen in public for over a month after having a stroke. Roughly 63% of Pennsylvanians view Oz unfavorably. It is still possible that both will win their races. President Joe Biden isn’t getting any more popular. But the fact that both Mastriano and Oz are trailing at this point bodes ill for their chances. Democrats have both races right where they would want them at this juncture, and the time and money needed to keep both candidates afloat would be better spent elsewhere. Mastriano gives Democrats the best chance of maintaining control of the state, and Oz is jeopardizing the GOP’s chances at retaking the Senate majority. They can both be added to the list of GOP liabilities in winnable races. If they both end up losing, Pennsylvania Republicans will have no one to blame but themselves. | US Campaigns & Elections |
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! LOUDOUN COUNTY, Va. – Virginia residents told Fox News their top priorities when considering candidates for Tuesday's primary election are their stances on the economy, education and gun safety. "My top voting priorities—it's definitely our economy," a Loudoun County mother, Kristine, said. "We need help getting that back on track." Prashant, of Ashburn, Virginia, said his top issue when voting is the "economy, economy, economy — all these three.""Inflation. Everything's more expensive," a Virginia man, Daniel, said, "My money isn't going as far as it used to, and we want to see some things done better."HOUSE CANDIDATE TOUTS RECORD, SAYS SPANBERGER IS 'WORST KIND OF POLITICIAN' AHEAD OF VIRGINIA GOP PRIMARY Voters cast their ballots during the Virginia Governor Race, at Langley High School in McLean, Virginia, U.S., November 2, 2021. (REUTERS/Tom Brenner)While primary elections are being held for two Virginia tickets, the GOP already tapped candidates for several others. The Loudoun County Republican Party, for example, last month selected Hung Cao, a retired Navy captain and Vietnam War refugee, to face off against Democrat incumbent Rep. Jennifer Wexton.Cao has campaigned on cutting taxes, securing America's borders, removing political agendas from classrooms and backing law enforcement, according to his website. Wexton has advocated for criminal justice reform, enhancing disability rights, battling the opioid crisis and gun violence prevention, according to her own site.Lisa, a Loudoun County voter, said her priorities are "First amendment rights, freedom of speech, Second Amendment rights and just seeing Americans' liberties restored again."VIETNAMESE REFUGEE RUNNING FOR CONGRESS, SAYS VIRGINIA SCHOOLS BEING 'DESTROYED' BY WOKE POLICIESNorthern Virginia residents also said education and curtailing gun violence are top priorities. The 10th District, which includes Loudoun County and a portion of Fairfax County, where the school board has faced contentious debate for its policies since the pandemic began. The board last week approved a rule making it possible for students as young as fourth grade to be suspended for "malicious misgendering" or "deadnaming" their peers. "Deadnaming" is a term used to describe the act of referring to someone by a name they used prior to transitioning genders. Heather Fruzzetti makes a public statement as people protest different issues including the board’s handling of a sexual assault that happened in a school bathroom in May, vaccine mandates and critical race theory during a Loudoun County School Board meeting in Ashburn, Virginia, U.S., October 26, 2021. Picture taken October 26, 2021. (REUTERS/Leah Millis)"Woke cultures is a poison to us, and we need to kind of nip it in the bud," Daniel said. The Loudoun County school system is not focused on parent-teacher- and student cohesion, according to Kristine. Nathan, a Virginia voter, said education was his top voting priority."The safety of our kids, safety of our family," are a concern, Prashant, of Ashburn, said. Tysons Corner Center in Virginia. (Google Maps)"I'm feared to go to a mall after that Tyson Mall shooting," Prashant continued. Over the weekend, a man opened fire at Tysons Corner Center in Virginia. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APPRosa, a Loudoun County mother, told Fox News that gun control in this election is "top of mind." She said she wants a candidate that backs "regulations to make sure that the right people are buying guns."Polling hours in Virginia run from 6:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. Elizabeth Heckman contributed to this report. Lisa Bennatan is an associate producer/writer for Fox News Digital Originals. Follow her on Twitter @LisaBennatan and Instagram @Lisa_Bennatan | US Campaigns & Elections |
Politics June 27, 2022 / 10:56 PM / CBS News The Republican primary between Reps. Rodney Davis and Mary Miller in Illinois' 15th District is emblematic of the choice GOP primary voters face: Trump-type hardliners who deny the validity of the 2020 election versus conservatives who voted to certify President Joe Biden's victory and supported a bipartisan investigation into the assault on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. The race could also have lingering impacts on who oversees federal elections and the U.S. Capitol Police, a position that holds more weight after the Capitol riot. FILE: Committee ranking member Rep. Rodney Davis (R-IL)) speaks during a hearing before the House Administration Committee January 9, 2020 on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images Miller has been seen as the slight front-runner in the race. Former President Donald Trump backed Miller and held a rally in central Illinois for her days before Tuesday's primary. At that rally, Miller said the Supreme Court's overruling of Roe v. Wade is a "historic victory for White life." Her campaign has said she misread prepared remarks and meant to say "right to life." MENDON, IL - JUNE 25: U.S. Representative Mary Miller (R-IL) gives remarks after receiving an endorsement during a Save America Rally with former US President Donald Trump at the Adams County Fairgrounds on June 25, 2022 in Mendon, Illinois. Michael B. Thomas / Getty Images Over $4.6 million has been spent by outside groups looking to oust Davis, in part due to unhappiness with his vote for a bipartisan commission to investigate the Jan. 6 attacks. That commission would have differed from the select committee currently holding hearings and investigating the attempted insurrection, but the ads are still aimed at tying Davis to Democrats because of that vote. One ad from Miller's campaign, calls Davis a "RINO" (Republican-in-name-only) and shows him with Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, one of the two Republicans serving on the Jan. 6 select committee. Davis has held office since 2013 and has survived elections in a competitive district by positioning himself closer to the center. But after Illinois' Democratic Legislature gerrymandered its congressional lines to try and eliminate as many Republican seats as possible, the version of the district Davis once represented was expanded to include more of rural Illinois and is now heavily Republican. Davis is currently the top Republican on the Committee on House Administration, which has jurisdiction over federal election law, including the monitoring of congressional elections, and U.S. Capitol security. "Devastating attacks on September 11, 2001, June 14, 2017 (the congressional baseball shooting), and January 6, 2021, just to name a few, further highlight the need for thorough oversight of Capitol Security," reads the committee website. The committee has weighed in on congressional elections, too, reviewing a Democratic challenge to a Republican win in Iowa's 2nd District in 2020, where Mariannette Miller-Meeks won by six votes. The challenge was eventually withdrawn by the Democratic candidate. Under Democratic control, the committee has also been holding hearings this year on ballot access laws in Texas and New Mexico, as well as on redistricting. Davis has previously said that if Republicans take control of the House and he takes the chairmanship, he will probe the Jan. 6 select committee's investigation. "As the future Chairman of House Administration, I will also be focused on investigating the security failures leading up to January 6, finding out if Speaker Pelosi had a role in those failures, and holding her sham Select Committee circus accountable," Davis said in a statement after Trump's rally in Mendon, Ill., was announced. Should Davis lose his primary, Rep. Barry Loudermilk of Georgia could take over as ranking member, or if Republicans flip the House as most political pundits and operatives expect, he will take over as chair. Video released by the House select committee investigating Jan. 6 showed Loudermilk leading a group of people on a tour of the Capitol complex on Jan. 5, 2021, the day before the attacks. Several of the tourists recorded and took photos of the Capitol layout, and attended rallies on Jan. 6. One of the attendees was heard on a video threatening House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats. The committee had not yet confirmed if any of those on the tour entered the Capitol itself on Jan. 6."As Capitol Police confirmed, nothing about this visit with constituents was suspicious," Loudermilk said in a statement after the video was released. "This false narrative that the Committee and Democrats continue to push, that Republicans, including myself, led reconnaissance tours is verifiably false.In another incumbent-versus-incumbent primary earlier this year, Republican Rep. Alex Mooney, of W.Va., accused his opponent Rep. David McKinley with "betraying" West Virginia, by voting in favor of an independent commission to investigate the US Capitol attack. In his campaign ads against McKinley, Mooney characterized the commission as a "Nancy Pelosi anti-Trump witch hunt." The ads do not specify or clarify the distinction between the proposed independent commission and the separate House Select Jan. 6 committee, which Republicans have largely boycotted. Mooney secured an endorsement and joint campaign appearance from Trump, and cruised to victory in the May primary against McKinley by nearly 20 points Aaron Navarro Aaron Navarro is an associate producer for the political unit at CBS News, focusing on House and gubernatorial campaigns as well as the census and redistricting. Twitter Thanks for reading CBS NEWS. Create your free account or log in for more features. Please enter email address to continue Please enter valid email address to continue | US Campaigns & Elections |
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! Fox News contributor Ben Domenech said on "The Faulkner Focus" Friday that attacks by the left will only get worse, especially if Democrats lose control of Congress in the midterm elections. LEE ZELDIN, NEW YORK GOP GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE, ATTACKED AT CAMPAIGN STOPBEN DOMENECH: It absolutely is a situation where the top is being either silent on this or we're condoning it or in their response to it, just sort of saying, well, this is just the way things are now. … It's so important for people in there to understand that this is likely to get worse. As you see a Democratic coalition, a left coalition, that is headed for a very difficult midterm, likely to see them swept out of office in so many different areas. I think you're only going to see more desperation. You're going to see more threats of violence or acts along these lines. And we need to be prepared for it. And campaigns should be prepared for it.WATCH THE FULL INTERVIEW BELOW: This article was written by Fox News staff. | US Campaigns & Elections |
PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Paul LePage, the Republican whose two terms as Maine’s governor were dominated by his offensive rhetoric and combative leadership, is seeking a political comeback.
With no opposition, LePage coasted to the Republican nomination for governor on Tuesday, setting up a fierce general election campaign against Democratic incumbent Gov. Janet Mills. The race is among just a handful of competitive governor’s contests in this year’s midterm elections.
FOLLOW LIVE: 2022 Maine Primary Election Results
The matchup revives a rivalry between LePage and Mills that dates to the days when he was governor and she was attorney general. LePage sued Mills for refusing to defend his administration during several political disagreements that reached a boiling point over then-President Donald Trump’s travel ban targeting several Muslim-majority countries. LePage had to pay to use outside counsel.
But this time, they are facing off in a dramatically different political climate.
LePage moved to Florida after leaving office in 2019 but returned a year later and decided to mount a third campaign. He has the full backing of the Republican Party, which has allowed him to focus his energy and financial resources on the general election. Mills, for her part, is seeking reelection in a difficult year for Democrats, weighed down by President Joe Biden’s low approval ratings and widespread frustration with the party’s management of inflation and gas prices.
The campaign is emerging as a barometer of whether voters this year will be motivated by economic anxiety or political civility.
LePage used to be fond of calling himself “Trump before Donald Trump became popular,” and he retains a solid following among conservatives. A former city councilor and mayor in Waterville, he was narrowly elected governor in 2010 in a five-way race.
He won plaudits during his tenure for advancing conservative policies, including lowering the tax burden and shrinking Maine’s welfare rolls by tightening eligibility requirements and capping the length of some benefits.
But his policy agenda was often overshadowed by his penchant to offend. During a time of rising animosity toward the media, he joked that he wanted to bomb a newspaper. He told the Portland chapter of the NAACP to “kiss my butt” and dismissed the dangers of an industrial chemical by saying the “worst case is some women may have little beards.” He was considered one of the nation’s most vulnerable governors when he ran for reelection in 2014.
David Capuano, a Brunswick resident who’s not enrolled in either party, said he’s in the camp of voters who believe LePage should go away.
“This guy is a mini-Donald Trump,” Capuano said. “The man is a bully and a loudmouth. I don’t like bullies.”
Ray Richardson, a Republican and radio talk show host at WLOB in Portland, said people remember that LePage did some good things during his eight years. He said LePage is “laser-focused” on addressing new problems.
“He’s a known quantity. We were enduring good times under him,” Richardson said. “He left Maine in a good place.”
For her part, when Mills came into office in 2019, her first action was to expand Medicaid through the Affordable Care Act — something LePage had refused to do. She borrowed a Republican idea to return the bulk of a $1.2 billion budget surplus to taxpayers in the form of $850 inflationary relief checks. In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, she issued an executive order requiring residents to wear masks, and she later implemented a vaccine mandate for health care workers, angering conservatives who felt their civil rights were being trampled.
LePage criticized what he described as Mills’ heavy-handed response to the pandemic, and he has repeatedly sought to link her to Biden.
“Never have we witnessed so many destructive public policies all at one time,” LePage told fellow Republicans.
At her party convention, Mills touted her fiscal stewardship and said of LePage, “We won’t go back.”
“We recorded historic budget surpluses because of good management,” Mills said. “We rejected tax increases on Maine people and instead delivered tax relief, including an income tax cut for retirees.”
The campaign carries historic significance. Mills is the state’s first female governor, and a LePage win would make him Maine’s longest-serving governor.
The Maine Constitution prohibits a governor from seeking a third consecutive term, but a two-term candidate can run again after skipping a cycle. The last candidate to attempt that, Democrat Joe Brennan, failed to win a third term in elections in 1990 and 1994.
So far, Mills is outraising LePage more than 2-to-1, collecting $3.2 million compared to the nearly $1.5 million raised for LePage, according to campaign financial disclosures.
This year, unlike his last two campaigns, LePage won’t have the help of a big-spending spoiler to siphon votes from the Democratic candidate. LePage didn’t win a majority of the vote in his successful 2010 and 2014 campaigns when he ran against candidates who included independent Eliot Cutler, who won nearly 36 percent of the vote in 2010 and over 8 percent in 2014.
The only independent running in this year’s election is Sam Hunkler, a physician and political newcomer who has a self-imposed spending cap of $5,000. | US Campaigns & Elections |
The campaign manager for Dan Sanchez, the Democrat who lost the special election for Texas’s 34th Congressional District, ripped Democratic leadership for the outcome in the heavily Latino district. Sanchez lost to Republican Mayra Flores, who was born in Mexico and came to the U.S. at 6 years old. The district is 85 percent Hispanic and voted for Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton in 2016 by 21.5 percent and for President Biden by 4.2 percent in 2020. “The DCCC, DNC, and other associated national committees have failed at their single purpose of existence: winning elections,” Collin Steele, Sanchez’s campaign manager, said in a statement, referring to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and Democratic National Committee. “The loss in TX34 was a complete and total abdication of duty.” “We gave up a reliably Democratic Congressional seat for no reason at all; we deserve to know why,” Steele added. Democrats decided not to match Republicans’ spending in the race for the seat while expecting to easily win it back in November, when Flores will face Rep. Vicente Gonzalez (D), who is moving from the neighboring 15th District to run in the 34th but opted not to leave his current seat to compete in the special election. If she loses, Flores will be in Congress for just about six months. “I hope the DCCC learns their lesson with this before it happens across the country,” Gonzalez said, Politico reported. “They have just forgotten about the brown people on the border,” Gonzalez added. “And that’s basically what it is. I’m not going to try to sugarcoat it anymore. They are taking Latinos in South Texas for granted.” Flores’s win is a hopeful sight for Republicans, who are favored to recapture the House in the upcoming midterm elections. The win is especially meaningful for Republicans, as the party has been working to garner more Hispanic voters. In Sanchez’s concession speech to Flores, he also pointed to Democratic leadership’s failures for his loss in the district that has been overwhelmingly Democrat. “Too many factors were against us, including little to no support from the national Democratic Party and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee,” he said. The DCCC tried to deflect blame from leadership, focusing on the future November election. “We want to thank Dan Sanchez for stepping up and answering the call to public service. MAGA Republican Mayra Flores shouldn’t get too comfortable — she’ll barely have enough time to set up her desk before South Texans send her packing again. It’s all eyes on November now as we gear up to send Vicente Gonzalez back to Congress this fall,” said DCCC Chair Sean Patrick Maloney. | US Campaigns & Elections |
Pennsylvania’s Republican gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano announced on Monday that Jenna Ellis, a lawyer who challenged the 2020 elections results for former President Trump, would join his campaign as a senior legal adviser. “Jenna Ellis was the first to endorse us and was a champion for our campaign during the Primary Election,” Mastriano, a former state senator who who won the GOP primary just weeks ago, said in a statement. “The talent, experience, and legal expertise Jenna brings will be an important factor in helping us defeat Josh Shapiro and the extreme Democrat agenda in November,” he added. Shapiro, Pennsylvania’s attorney general, is the Democratic nominee for governor. In Monday’s announcement, Ellis also called the race “the most important in the country,” adding that “Mastriano will reinstate personal and economic freedom in Pennsylvania, and he’ll restore integrity to our elections.” Ellis is among Trump’s former attorneys who were subpoenaed by the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack, after she publicly promoted assertions that the 2020 election was stolen. She reportedly “prepared and circulated two memos purporting to analyze the constitutional authority for the Vice President to reject or delay counting electoral votes from states that had submitted alternate slates of electors,” the committee said when they issued her subpoena. Ellis was also part of an “elite strike force team” created by Trump’s campaign in November 2020 in an effort to combat Biden’s victory. Well after the election, Ellis declared in July 2021 that she was leaving the Republican Party, alleging that it was not conservative enough. “I am changing my voter registration, and I am no longer a Republican until the party decides that it wants to be conservative again. Even if I stand alone for the truth, I will stand for the truth,” Ellis said at the time. Now, Ellis will work with Mastriano’s team as he seeks to fill outgoing Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf’s (D) open seat. Last month, Mastriano received an endorsement from Trump ahead of the state’s primary election. “There is no one in Pennsylvania who has done more, or fought harder, for Election Integrity than State Senator Doug Mastriano,” Trump said in a statement issued through his Save America PAC. Mastriano later said in a statement that he was “honored” to received the former president’s endorsement. | US Campaigns & Elections |
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! Embattled Republican Rep. Liz Cheney, in her closing message to Wyoming voters ahead of the state’s Tuesday primary, once again spotlighted her mission to make sure that former President Donald Trump never returns to the White House."America cannot remain free if we abandon the truth. The lie that 2020 presidential election was stolen is insidious. It preys on those who love their country. It is a door Donald Trump opened to manipulate Americans to abandon their principles, to sacrifice their freedom, to justify violence, to ignore the rulings of our courts and the rule of law," the three-term conservative congresswoman emphasized at the top of a video her campaign released on Thursday.Cheney was the most senior of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach the then-president on a charge of inciting the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, storming of the U.S. Capitol. The attack was waged by right-wing extremists and other Trump supporters who aimed to disrupt congressional certification of President Biden’s Electoral College victory in the 2020 election.Public opinion polls indicate Cheney will likely get trounced on Tuesday in the Republican primary for Wyoming’s statewide congressional district. She badly trails Harriet Hageman, a lawyer and politician who has been endorsed and heavily supported by Trump as the former president aims to oust Cheney from her House seat in a state where he won a whopping 70% of the vote in 2020.TRUMP BLASTED BY DICK CHENEY AS FORMER VICE PRESIDENT STARS IN DAUGHTER'S CAMPAIGN COMMERCIAL Republican congressional candidate Harriet Hageman, the Donald Trump-backed challenger to GOP Rep. Liz Cheney, campaigns at the Goshen County Fair parade, in Torrington, Wyoming, on Aug. 4, 2022. (Hageman congressional campaig)But Cheney — in comments made in recent weeks — seems to be at peace that the likely outcome on Tuesday is a price she has to pay in order to achieve success in her bigger fight against Trump."I am working hard to earn every single vote," Cheney said in an interview on "Fox News Sunday" late last month. But she emphasized, "Given the choice between maintaining my seat in the House of Representatives on the one hand or ensuring the survival of our constitutional republic and ensuring the American people know the truth about Donald Trump, I will choose the Constitution and the truth every day of the week and twice on Sunday."FIRST ON FOX: CHENEY TARGETED BY GROUP BACKING HAGEMANCheney’s father former Vice President Dick Cheney, starring in his daughter’s closing primary campaign ad last week, said that he and his wife, former second lady Lynne Cheney, "are so proud of Liz for standing up for the truth, doing what is right, honoring her oath to the Constitution when so many in our own party are too scared to do so. Liz is fearless. She never backs down from a fight."And the former vice president stressed that "there is nothing more important she will ever do than lead the effort to make sure Donald Trump is never again near the Oval Office. And she will succeed."The younger Cheney, in her closing video, took aim at her primary challenger's strong support for Trump’s repeated unproven claims that his 2020 ballot box loss to Biden was due to "massive voter fraud" and a "rigged" and "stolen" election.WHAT LIZ CHENEY SAID RECENTLY ON ‘FOX NEWS SUNDAY’"Like many candidates across this country, my opponents in Wyoming have said that the 2020 election was rigged and stolen. No one who understands our nation's laws, no one with an honest, honorable, genuine commitment to our Constitution would say that. It is a cancer that threatens our great Republic," Cheney argued.And the congresswoman, a co-chair and one of only two Republicans on the Democratic dominated Jan. 6 Select Committee investigating Trump’s role in the riot at the Capitol, emphasized that "nothing in our public life is more important than the preservation of the miracle given to us by God and our Founding Fathers. Nothing."Trump remains the most popular, influential and powerful politician in the GOP as he continues to play a kingmaker’s role in this year’s Republican primaries and repeatedly teases what’s fast becoming an increasingly likely 2024 White House run.TRUMP ATTACKS FUEL CHENEY'S FEROCIOUS FUNDRAISINGBut there’s a feeling among Cheney’s team of supporters that her crusade against Trump this year as she runs for re-election will improve her national name ID and bolster any potential 2024 Republican presidential nomination campaign by the congresswoman.Cheney said on Fox News Sunday last month that her focus "is on absolutely doing what is right and that is what’s guided me ever since last election," when asked whether she’ll launch a White House bid. "I’m doing to continue to be guided by making sure I do my duty and making sure the American people understand the truth." Rep. Liz Cheney listens to testimony on July 27, 2021, during the House select committee hearing on the attack on the Capitol. (Jim Bourg/Pool via AP, File)Longtime Republican strategist Colin Reed told Fox News he suspects Cheney is "someone who believes that she’s on the right side of history, doing the right thing, and she concluded long ago that the price of her current seat in Congress is a price worth paying… that seems to be the message throughout her current campaign and perhaps her future one."CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP"There’s going to be a lane in the 2024 primary that emerges as someone who runs articulating the message to Republican voters that it’s time for a new direction, it’s time to move away from the past, it’s time to find a new leader to rally around," said Reed, a veteran of GOP presidential and Senate campaigns.But pointing to the rallying by many in the GOP behind Trump this week following the FBI raid at the former president’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida, Reed emphasized that "as we sit here in August of 2022, that challenge — which was already going to be an uphill climb — has gotten a whole lot steeper." Paul Steinhauser is a politics reporter based in New Hampshire. | US Campaigns & Elections |
WASHINGTON (AP) — In the first week after the Supreme Court stripped away a woman’s constitutional right to have an abortion, Democrats and aligned groups raised more than $80 million, a tangible early sign that the ruling may energize voters.But party officials say donors are giving much of that money to national campaigns and causes instead of races for state office, where abortion policy will now be shaped as a result of the court’s decision. That’s where Republicans wield disproportionate power after more than a decade of plunging money and resources into critical but often-overlooked contests.The fundraising disparity offers an example of how a lack of long-term planning can lead to both a structural disadvantage and an exasperated Democratic base. Short of the votes to pass legislation through a gridlocked and narrowly divided Congress, the right to abortion now appears to be the latest issue ceded largely to the states. That’s after failed Democratic efforts to expand voting rights, limit gerrymandering and significantly stiffen gun laws. “We can no longer afford Democrats’ systemic neglect of down-ballot races — not when Republicans are eager to intrude on our health care decisions, bedrooms, and marriages,” said Gabrielle Chew, a spokesperson for the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, which helps finance state legislative races. “This should be a wake-up call.”The massive $80 million fundraising haul was recorded by ActBlue, the Democrats’ online fundraising platform, which has a ticker that shows in real time the money passing through the organization. ActBlue took in over $20 million in the first 24 hours after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the 1973 ruling that determined abortion was a constitutional right. By Tuesday, the group had processed more than $51 million in donations, and by Friday, the total had reached $80 million. In fact, all major Democratic campaign committees reported a surge in contributions after the ruling, including those working on state-level as well as federal races. Planned Parenthood, too.. But few have been willing to release hard numbers.WinRed, the online fundraising portal for the Republican Party, did not respond to an inquiry about the party’s fundraising since the court’s decision. The fundraising disparity is nothing new between Democratic groups working for state candidates and those focusing on national issues after a defining moment. For example, ActBlue took in more than $71 million in just 24 hours after the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, little of which went to groups working on state-level campaigns. Consider the case of Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison, who in 2020 shattered fundraising records in his long-shot bid to oust Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and head to Congress in Washington. Harrison ended up losing the race by more than 10 points. He raised more than $57 million in the closing months of his campaign, including one 24-hour period in which he raised over $1 million.But for statehouses? The Democratic Governors Association announced it had raised $200,000 after the court’s decision last week. The organization said Thursday that it was on pace to raise $1 million before the start of the long Fourth of July weekend, which is less the other committees focused on national races. The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, which raises money for state races across the country, declined to say how much it has taken in since the court decision. But its past fundraising figures demonstrate how underresourced the group is.The DLCC raised $650,000 in the 48 hours after a leaked copy of the court’s decision surfaced in May. Earlier this year, it celebrated when announcing it had raised nearly $6 million in the final three months of last year. Its GOP counterpart, the Republican State Leadership Committee, raised more than twice that during the same period last year. “When Democrats (spend) 1-to-1 with Republicans in legislative races, we win them,” said Greg Goddard, a Florida Democrat who raises money for national and state campaigns. “But when it’s 3-to-1, or 4-to-1, we get clobbered.” Amanda Litman, co-founder of the group Run For Something, which recruits candidates to run for school board races, city councils and legislatures, said Democrats have a woeful track record when it comes to investing in down-ballot races that also build a bench of future talent. “The worst laws are going to come from the reddest states, and they are not going to stay in those red state borders. So what are you going to do to mitigate the harm?” Litman said after the abortion ruling. “I want to see Joe Biden doing fundraisers for the DLCC and the DGA.”The Democratic fundraising eco-system typically rewards social media stars, those who appear on popular liberal shows, like Rachel Maddow, or candidates who go viral online. That’s exceedingly difficult for candidates in races that don’t draw much attention away from home, like most legislative contests.Meanwhile, big dollar donors have historically donated to national candidates, or groups focused on the presidency or Congress. Still, some Democrats bristle at the suggestion that down-ballot races don’t get enough attention.Sam Newton, a spokesperson for the governors association, said it has its own success story to tell. Democratic candidates in key states saw major donation surges after the court decision, he said. The group has also closed a 2-to-1 fundraising gap with Republicans that existed less than a decade ago, reaching parity last year. Planned Parenthood is part of a joint effort with the abortion rights group NARAL Pro-Choice America and EMILY’s List, which supports women running for office, that plans to spend $150 million up and down the ballot in the 2022 midterms, said Jenny Lawson, executive director of Planned Parenthood Votes.Governors’ races will be a major focus, she said, citing Michigan and Wisconsin, in particular, where decades-old laws banning abortion are still on the books. (Michigan’s law dates to 1931; Wisconsin’s to 1849.) Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, both Democrats, are facing tough reelection battles. “Those governors have stood in front of these Republican legislatures who want nothing more than to ban abortion and they have said ‘no,’” said Lawson. “These governors are on the front line, and we need to protect them.”But others are skeptical that the effort will trickle down outside of high-profile races. Litman said some party donors are warming up to the idea of giving to down-ballot contests. But there remains a culture in the party, particularly among megadonors, of chasing the “bright, shiny object,” she said. Republicans, meanwhile, treat political giving as a “business investment — you get your judges and tax cuts” and “you spend money patiently knowing it will pay off,” she said. “We have to balance our short-term immediate electoral goals with a long-term mission to win back these seats,” Litman said.___Follow AP for full coverage of the midterms at https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections and on Twitter, https://twitter.com/ap_politics | US Campaigns & Elections |
Primary voters in four states and Washington, D.C., headed to the polls Tuesday night, determining several contested races in key states that might sway control of Congress in November. Voters cast their ballots in Virginia, Georgia, Alabama, Arkansas, and Washington, D.C., with some results still too close to call as the night dragged into the early morning. The night’s runoff elections in Georgia once again put the power of former President Donald Trump’s endorsement to the test after two of his endorsees flopped — adding to his list of failed endorsements in the state. FULL COVERAGE OF THE 2022 MIDTERM ELECTIONS Here are the biggest results from last night’s primaries: Rep. Mo Brooks to be ousted after losing GOP primary Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL) was dealt a brutal blow, losing the GOP nomination to represent the Peach State's 5th Congressional District to Trump-endorsed Katie Britt, who cruised to victory in the Alabama runoff election on Tuesday night. Brooks was previously endorsed by the former president, who later rescinded his blessing after the incumbent’s poll numbers began to dwindle. Trump claimed he backed away from Brooks because the congressman urged Republican voters to stop focusing on the 2020 election, but it’s likely the former president wanted to avoid having an endorsed candidate lose in a state where he is heavily favored. Trump later shifted his support to Britt, whom he criticized as an unqualified lackey early on in the midterm election cycle. Britt is expected to win the November election given Alabama’s strong preference for electing Republicans. Election skeptic wins GOP nomination to become Alabama’s top elections official Alabama state Rep. Wes Allen won the Republican nomination in a runoff election for secretary of state on Tuesday, prompting concerns among some Democrats because Allen has publicly questioned the legitimacy of the 2020 election. Allen overcame State Auditor Jim Zeigler in the race, arguing he had more experience directly overseeing elections at the county level — pointing to his experience introducing legislation that sought to ban some voting practices, such as curbside voting. Because Alabama is a heavily red state, Allen is expected to win the general election, which would make him the state’s top elections official. He will face Democratic nominee Pamela J. Laffitte in November. Henry Cuellar wins runoff after recount confirms 289-vote lead Rep. Henry Cuellar won the Democratic nomination in his South Texas district, beating back a primary challenge from immigration lawyer Jessica Cisneros in a race that became a referendum of sorts on whether an anti-abortion lawmaker still has a place in the Democratic Party. The Associated Press called the race Tuesday night, almost a month after the polls closed. Cuellar had already declared victory in the days following the election, but Cisneros held out hope that a recount would determine her victory. However, the recount results showed Cuellar with a 289-vote lead, dealing a blow to the liberal wing of the Democratic Party that rallied behind Cisneros, including members of the "Squad." The final numbers were 22,901 votes to 22,612. Chris West wins Georgia GOP runoff as Republicans seek to flip the seat red Chris West won the Republican runoff election for a southwest Georgia House seat the GOP believes it can wrestle away from 30-year Democratic incumbent Rep. Sanford Bishop Jr. in November. The race to represent the newly drawn 2nd Congressional District in Georgia is considered the only competitive election in the state and offers an opportunity for Republicans to flip the House in November. While West didn't score big-name political endorsements like his challenger, Jeremy Hunt, he managed to nab the backing of several state lawmakers and some of his former primary rivals — pitching himself as the “homegrown candidate.” DC Mayor Muriel Bowser wins primary, likely securing bid for third term Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser won the Democratic primary on Tuesday, securing her reelection bid as she vies for a third term in November. CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER Bowser’s win marks a historic victory in the district, setting the stage for her to become the second Washington mayor to hold office for three consecutive terms since the district gained autonomous rule in 1975. Winning the Democratic nomination was paramount for Bowser’s reelection campaign because the deep-blue district typically elects Democrats in the general election — likely securing her victory in November. Bowser will face Republican candidate Stacia Hall, who won the GOP nomination after facing no primary challenger, in the Nov. 8 election. For the most up-to-date midterm election updates, click here to read more from the Washington Examiner. | US Campaigns & Elections |
Voters are showing an eagerness to junk old slates of presidential candidates and entertain a new cast of hopefuls, opening the door to fresh faces eyeing the 2024 race, including Govs. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) and Glenn Youngkin (R-VA) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY). Missing in new polling is a desire for past nominees, such as 2016 Democratic pick Hillary Clinton or 2012 GOP candidate Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT). The latest Rasmussen Reports survey, out today, shows that even those who almost won their party’s nomination are getting the cold shoulder, including Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT). Rasmussen asked if Clinton, Romney, Cruz, or Sanders should run again. The results: Clinton: 69% "No," 20% "Yes." Some 53% of Democrats and 59% of liberals said "No." Romney: 66% "No," 19% "Yes." Some 71% of Republicans said "No." Sanders: 67% "No," 21% "Yes," with 59% of Democrats rejecting another run. Cruz: 63% "No," 20% "Yes," with 48% of Republicans rejecting another run. The new survey comes on the heels of others showing that many voters would also like for President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump to exit the national stage. Rasmussen, for example, said that just 29% want Biden to run for reelection and 37% want another chance to vote for Trump. The surveys, while just an early indication of the wishes of 2024 voters, are a signal that voters are ready for a new cast of candidates. On the Republican side, several potential candidates are readying campaigns, especially if Trump decides not to run. Many of his allies do expect him to run. That list includes Florida’s DeSantis, Virginia’s Youngkin, several other GOP governors, and some ex-Trump aides, such as former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, and former Vice President Mike Pence. On the Democratic side, there appears to be some support for Ocasio-Cortez and several popular Democratic governors. | US Campaigns & Elections |