Elections

Donald Trump’s former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows testified to a federal grand jury about efforts by the former president to overturn the results of the 2020 election after receiving immunity from special counsel prosecutors, ABC News reported on Tuesday.The testimony that Meadows provided to prosecutors included evidence that he repeatedly told Trump in the immediate aftermath of the election that the allegations about fraud were unsubstantiated, ABC reported.Exactly when Meadows was granted immunity and when he testified before the grand jury in Washington remains unclear but he appeared at least three times, ABC reported. Trump was indicted in August for conspiring to defraud the United States among other charges stemming from the investigation.The cooperation of Meadows in the criminal case against Trump would be a victory for the special counsel, Jack Smith, because Meadows was among the closest advisers to Trump in the post-2020 election period and had direct knowledge of virtually every aspect of the charges.Meadows could be a major witness against Trump in the special counsel’s case given his proximity to the efforts to overturn the 2020 election, from the fake electors scheme to Trump’s pressure on the then vice-president Mike Pence to stop the congressional certification of the results.As Trump’s chief of staff, Meadows was also around Trump on January 6 as the then White House counsel Pat Cipollone implored Trump not to go to the Capitol for fear of being “charged with every crime imaginable”, as Meadows’ former aide Cassidy Hutchinson recounted to the January 6 committee.But it was unclear how valuable the information Meadows provided to prosecutors actually will be for trial purposes. In the classified documents investigation, the justice department gave immunity to the Trump adviser Kash Patel, whose information was nowhere in the indictment.The testimony from Meadows is also unlikely to materially affect Trump’s defense. Trump has consistently argued there were some advisers who said the election was stolen, and some who said it was not – and he agreed with the people alleging there was outcome-determinative election fraud.As part of the immunity deal with prosecutors, the evidence Meadows gave before the grand jury cannot be used against him for federal charges. Neither spokesperson for the special counsel nor a lawyer for Meadows could be immediately reached for comment.“Wrongful, unethical leaks throughout these Biden witch-hunts only underscore how detrimental these empty cases are to our democracy and system of justice and how vital it is for President Trump’s first amendment rights to not be infringed upon by un-constitutional gag orders,” a Trump spokesperson said.Meadows was not charged by prosecutors in federal district court in Washington when Trump was indicted, but he was charged weeks later alongside Trump by the Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, as part of a sprawling Rico indictment over the efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.Like Trump, Meadows pleaded not guilty in the Fulton county case. A federal judge last month denied Meadows’ motion to transfer the case from state to federal court. Meadows appealed that decision to the 11th circuit, and oral arguments are scheduled to take place in December. More

Jenna Ellis, the lawyer who pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate with the authorities in the Georgia prosecution, was closely involved in efforts to overturn the 2020 election.A few days before the 2020 election was slated to be certified by Congress, the lawyer Jenna Ellis sent President Donald J. Trump a memo suggesting a way he could stay in power by upending the normal course of American democracy.In the memo, Ms. Ellis, who had little experience in constitutional law, offered Mr. Trump advice he was also getting from far more seasoned lawyers outside government: to press his vice president, Mike Pence, who would be overseeing the certification ceremony at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, not to open any Electoral College votes from six key swing states that Mr. Trump had lost.While Mr. Pence ultimately rejected Mr. Trump’s entreaties, state prosecutors in Georgia later accused Ms. Ellis of helping to develop a strategy for “disrupting and delaying” the election certification and with working closely with pro-Trump lawyers like Rudolph W. Giuliani as part of a sprawling racketeering case.On Tuesday, Ms. Ellis pleaded guilty to some of those charges at a court proceeding in Georgia, in which she tearfully agreed to work with the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office as it continues to prosecute Mr. Trump, Mr. Giuliani and more than a dozen other people.During her plea hearing, Ms. Ellis told the judge that she had relied on lawyers “with many more years of experience” than she had, a potentially ominous sign for Mr. Giuliani in particular.A spokesman for Mr. Giuliani did not immediately respond to a request for comment. With her guilty plea, Ms. Ellis became the fourth defendant — and the third lawyer — in the case to reach a cooperation deal with Fani T. Willis, the Fulton County district attorney. What began with a trickle last week, when two other pro-Trump lawyers — Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro — pleaded guilty and agreed to turn state’s evidence, started to look a lot like a flood when Ms. Ellis appeared in court.While a person familiar with Ms. Ellis’s thinking described her as being extremely angry at Mr. Giuliani, her cooperation could be perilous for Mr. Trump as well. Ms. Ellis was on board with Mr. Trump’s team up until the end of his term in office — and he has since refused to help her with her legal bills. And unlike a number of people swirling around the former president, she had a direct relationship to Mr. Trump and was in contact with him at various points while he was in the White House.Indeed, if Ms. Ellis, Ms. Powell and Mr. Chesebro all end up taking the stand, they could paint a detailed collective portrait of Mr. Trump’s activities in the postelection period. Their accounts could include the thinking behind the frivolous lawsuits filed on his behalf challenging the results of the election and the role Mr. Trump played in a scheme to create false slates of electors claiming he had won states he did not.They could touch upon a brazen plot, rejected by Mr. Trump, to use the military to seize the country’s voting machines. And they could detail his efforts to strong-arm Mr. Pence into unilaterally throwing him the election on Jan. 6 — an effort that prosecutors say played a part in exciting the mob that stormed the Capitol.Steven H. Sadow, the lead lawyer representing Mr. Trump in the Georgia case, said the series of pleas shows “this so-called RICO case is nothing more than a bargaining chip” for the district attorney in charge of the prosecution, Fani T. Willis. He added that Ms. Ellis had pleaded guilty to a charge that was not part of the original indictment and that “doesn’t even mention President Trump.”A former prosecutor from a mostly rural county north of Denver, Ms. Ellis initially caught Mr. Trump’s eye by appearing on Fox News, where she beat the drum for some of his political positions — his immigration policy, among them. Mr. Trump formally brought her on as a campaign adviser in November 2019.The following year, she was among the people whom Mr. Trump often spoke with as Black Lives Matter protests erupted across the country, including in Washington. The local protests, some of which took place near the White House, enraged Mr. Trump and he looked for people to validate his desire to employ the force of the federal government to stop them.After Mr. Trump lost the election, Ms. Ellis quickly signed on with a self-described “elite strike force,” a group of lawyers that included Ms. Powell and Mr. Giuliani and began to push the false narrative that the presidential race had been rigged.In mid-November 2020, she appeared at a news conference in Washington where, as dark liquid dripped down Mr. Giuliani’s face, Ms. Powell laid out an outrageous conspiracy theory that a voting machine company called Dominion had used its election software to flip thousands of votes away from Mr. Trump to his opponent, Joseph R. Biden Jr.As Ms. Powell and other lawyers began to file a flurry of lawsuits challenging the election results, Ms. Ellis embarked on a kind of a traveling roadshow, accompanying Mr. Giuliani to key swing states for informal hearings with state lawmakers where they presented claims that Mr. Trump had been cheated out of victory.Over the span of about a week, in November and early December 2020, Ms. Ellis sat beside Mr. Giuliani at gatherings in Pennsylvania, Arizona, Michigan and Georgia. Their presence at these events, prosecutors say, was often coupled with direct appeals to state officials either to decertify the election results or to join in the so-called fake elector scheme.Even after Mr. Trump left office in 2021, he urged Ms. Ellis to keep alive the notion that he could be restored to the presidency.From Mar-a-Lago, his private club and residence in Florida, he encouraged various people — among them, conservative writers — to promote the idea that the efforts to overturn the results were not at an end and that there was still a possibility he could be returned to the White House.When Ms. Ellis posted on X that such a thing was impossible, Mr. Trump told her that her reputation would be damaged, a statement she took as pressure to reverse what she had said, according to a person with direct knowledge of the discussion.Mr. Trump, according to two people with direct knowledge of the discussion, conceded it was “almost impossible” but said that he wanted to keep the idea in circulation. It was an early sign of tension with the former president.Ms. Ellis has already said that she knowingly misrepresented the facts in several of her public claims that voting fraud had led to Mr. Trump’s defeat. Those admissions came as part of a disciplinary procedure conducted this spring by Colorado state bar officials. More

A Third Way memo cites a recent polling presentation from a centrist organization, No Labels, which shows a hypothetical ticket scrambling the presidential race.The Democratic group Third Way has released a new broadside against the No Labels effort to field a third-party presidential ticket in 2024, citing a recent polling presentation that shows a hypothetical ticket scrambling a race between President Biden and former President Donald J. Trump.In a memo published Tuesday, Third Way — a center-left group — outlined what it described as a “radical new plan” by No Labels, a centrist organization, to force a contingent election by running a third-party candidate, which could cause no candidate in the race to receive 270 electoral votes. In that scenario, No Labels could theoretically bargain its electoral votes to one of the major-party candidates, or the House of Representatives would decide the presidency.The Third Way memo comes as allies of President Biden have aggressively moved to squash third party bids while warning Democrats that encouraging outsider candidacies might throw the election to Mr. Trump in what appears likely to be a rematch between the two men. The No Labels plan has been public for months, with the group’s chief strategist, Ryan Clancy, discussing preparations for a contingent election and the idea of using electoral votes “as a bargaining chip” in an interview with CNN in May. Third Way has largely taken the lead in pushing back against the idea of a so-called unity ticket, in which No Labels would secure ballot access for a centrist candidate.The key slide in No Labels’ presentation shows data from eight swing states from the polling firm HarrisX. In a two-man race, it says, Mr. Trump would lead in Arizona, Florida, Georgia and Wisconsin; Mr. Biden would lead in Pennsylvania; and Michigan, Nevada and North Carolina would be tossups, with Biden leads within the margin of error. If Mr. Biden won the tossups — or even the tossups minus Nevada — he would win the election, assuming every other state voted as it did in 2020.A No Labels ticket led by a Democrat would throw seven of the states to Mr. Trump, ensuring his election, according to the group’s data. But a No Labels ticket led by a Republican would lead in Nevada; be competitive in Arizona, Michigan, North Carolina and Wisconsin; and make Florida and Georgia tossups between Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump.These numbers are something of a Rorschach test, and are open to interpretation. In its presentation, No Labels suggests that the data indicates a third-party ticket with a Republican at the top offers the best chance at besting both Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden, even though the five states where the group’s numbers show it being competitive are worth fewer than 60 electoral votes. No third-party candidate has ever come close to winning a modern American election.Third Way, whose memo was first reported by Politico, says that the slide reflects a plan that would ensure Mr. Trump’s victory and undermine democracy and voter confidence by deliberately employing faithless electors.No Labels could “cut a deal by promising their electors’ support to whichever major-party candidate they deem more worthy,” the memo says — or the election would be decided in the House, where each state delegation would have a single vote, meaning Wyoming would have the same weight as California. “This is a new path for their third-party effort, but the destination would be the same: the election of Donald Trump,” the memo says.Republicans control more state delegations now, but the delegations that would vote would be the ones elected in 2024.“The claim that No Labels has a secret plan to throw the 2024 election to the House of Representatives is a conspiracy theorist’s fever dream,” Mr. Clancy, the group’s chief strategist, said in a statement, arguing that it planned to “win the election outright in the Electoral College” and that the polling of the eight swing states — which together account for less than half the votes it would need — showed “the path for an independent ticket to win the White House is wider now than ever before.” More

Three lawyers indicted with Donald Trump for trying to overturn the 2020 election results will now cooperate with prosecutors in the racketeering case.Jenna Ellis, a pro-Trump lawyer who amplified former President Donald J. Trump’s baseless claims of election fraud as part of what she called a legal “elite strike force team,” pleaded guilty on Tuesday as part of a deal with prosecutors in Georgia.During a public hearing Tuesday morning in Atlanta, Ms. Ellis pleaded guilty to a charge of aiding and abetting false statements and writings. She is the fourth defendant to plead guilty in the Georgia case, which charged Mr. Trump and 18 others with conspiring to overturn the 2020 presidential election in Mr. Trump’s favor.Ms. Ellis agreed to be sentenced to five years of probation, pay $5,000 in restitution and perform 100 hours of community service. She has already written an apology letter to the citizens of Georgia, and she agreed to cooperate fully with prosecutors as the case progresses.Prosecutors struck plea deals last week with Kenneth Chesebro, an architect of the effort to deploy fake Trump electors in swing states, and Sidney Powell, one of the most outspoken members of Mr. Trump’s legal team in the aftermath of the 2020 election.Late last month, Scott Hall, a bail bondsman charged along with Ms. Powell with taking part in a breach of voting equipment and data at a rural Georgia county’s elections office, pleaded guilty in the case.Fani T. Willis, the district attorney in Fulton County, Ga., obtained an indictment of the 19 defendants in August on racketeering and other charges, alleging that they took part in a criminal enterprise that conspired to interfere with the 2020 presidential election in Georgia. More

When Liz Cheney warned fellow Republicans five days before January 6 of a “dark day” to come if they “indulged in the fantasy” that they could overturn Donald Trump’s defeat by Joe Biden, the then House GOP leader, Kevin McCarthy, swiftly slapped her down.“After Liz spoke,” the former Wyoming representative’s fellow anti-Trumper Adam Kinzinger writes in a new book, “McCarthy immediately told everyone who was listening, ‘I just want to be clear: Liz doesn’t speak for the conference. She speaks for herself.’”Five days after Cheney delivered her warning on a Republican conference call, Trump supporters attacked Congress in an attempt to block certification of Biden’s win.McCarthy’s statement, Kinzinger writes, was “unnecessary and disrespectful, and it infuriated me”.Kinzinger details McCarthy’s “notably juvenile” intervention – and even what he says were two physical blows delivered to him by McCarthy – in Renegade: Defending Democracy and Liberty in Our Divided Country, which will be published in the US this month. The Guardian obtained a copy.Nine deaths have been linked to the January 6 riot, more than a thousand arrests made and hundreds convicted, some with seditious conspiracy. Trump was impeached a second time for inciting the attack, and acquitted a second time when Senate Republicans stayed loyal. When the dust cleared from the January 6 attack, McCarthy was among 147 House and Senate Republicans who still voted to object to results in key states.Like Cheney, Kinzinger, from Illinois, sat on the House January 6 committee, then left office. Unlike Cheney, who was beaten by a Trump ally, Kinzinger chose to retire.Cheney has maintained a high profile, warning of the threat Trump poses as he leads polling regarding the Republican nomination next year, 91 criminal charges (17 concerning election subversion) and assorted civil threats notwithstanding, and refusing to rule out a presidential run of her own.Kinzinger has founded Country First, an organisation meant to combat Republican extremism, and become a political commentator. In his book, he says he responded to McCarthy on the 1 January 2021 conference call by issuing his own warning about the potential for violence on 6 January and “calling on McCarthy to say he wouldn’t join the group opposing the electoral college states.“He replied by coming on the line to say, ‘OK, Adam. Operator, who’s up next?’”Such a “rude and dismissive tone”, Kinzinger says, “was typical of [McCarthy’s] style, which was notably juvenile”.McCarthy briefly blamed Trump for January 6, swiftly reversed course, stayed close to the former president and became speaker of the House, only to lose the role after less than a year, in the face of a Trumpist rebellion.Kinzinger accuses McCarthy, from California, of behaving less like a party leader than “an attention-seeking high school senior who readily picked on anyone who didn’t fall in line”. And while characterising McCarthy’s dismissal of Cheney’s warning about January 6 as “a little dig”, Kinzinger also details two physical digs he says he took from McCarthy himself.“I went from being one of the boys he treated with big smiles and pats on the back to outcast as soon as I started speaking the truth about the president who would be king,” Kinzinger writes.McCarthy “responded by trying to intimidate me physically. Once, I was standing in the aisle that runs from the floor to the back of the [House] chamber. As he passed, with his security man and some of his boys, he veered towards me, hit me with his shoulder and then kept going.“If we had been in high school, I would have dropped my books, papers would have been scattered and I would have had to endure the snickers of passersby. I was startled but took it as the kind of thing Kevin did when he liked you.“Another time, I was standing at the rail that curves around the back of the last row of seats in the chamber. As he shoulder-checked me again, I thought to myself, ‘What a child.’”Kinzinger is not above robust language of his own. Describing Trump’s Senate trial over the Capitol attack, the former congressman bemoans the decision of the Republican leader in that chamber, Mitch McConnell, to vote to acquit because Trump had left office – then deliver a speech excoriating Trump nonetheless.“It took a lot of cheek, nerve, chutzpah, gall and, dare I say it, balls for McConnell to talk this way,” Kinzinger writes, “since he personally blocked the consideration of the case until Trump departed.” More

341 días en el limbo migratorioDespués del Darién, la espera. Elecciones en Argentina, Venezuela y más para estar al día.Más de dos millones de venezolanos participaron el domingo en las votaciones. El proceso, que no contó con el apoyo del gobierno, tenía como objetivo elegir a un candidato unitario para competir contra el presidente Nicolás Maduro en las presidenciales de 2024.En todo el territorio nacional, y en el exterior (donde viven siete millones de venezolanos), miles de personas hicieron fila para emitir el sufragio.Votación en una mesa improvisada en una cancha deportiva en Catia, otrora bastión del partido oficialista de VenezuelaAdriana Loureiro Fernandez para The New York TimesNuestras colegas Isayen Herrera y Genevieve Glatsky reportaron así desde Caracas y Bogotá sobre las elecciones:Votantes de toda Venezuela desafiaron fuertes lluvias, amenazas y obstáculos logísticos para ejercer el voto, y acudieron en cantidades tan grandes que algunos centros de votación tuvieron que permanecer abiertos después de la hora en que estaban programados para cerrar. La jornada fue percibida como extraordinaria por muchas personas, luego de años de ser testigos de la erosión de su democracia en medio de la escasez, el hambre, y de ver a sus seres queridos fallecer de enfermedades prevenibles.María Corina Machado, exlegisladora de centroderecha, se perfilaba como la virtual ganadora de las votaciones. No se sabe con certeza si podrá seguir adelante como candidata oficial en la contienda, pues el gobierno de Maduro la ha inhabilitado para postularse durante 15 años.Machado dio unas palabras después de conocer los resultados preliminares de la votación.Adriana Loureiro Fernandez para The New York TimesEl proceso se llevó a cabo en un momento en que las penurias de muchos venezolanos forman parte del panorama regional. A pie, en balsas, aviones y autobuses los migrantes de Venezuela atraviesan América Latina rumbo a Estados Unidos en busca de mejores condiciones de vida. Algunos van quedándose en el camino, cambiando el rostro —y el acento— de las comunidades en las que se establecen.Otros logran cruzar la frontera y son trasladados en autobús por el gobernador republicano de Texas, Greg Abbott. Así llegan a grandes ciudades como Nueva York, poniendo en jaque a las autoridades locales.La situación ha cobrado tintes políticos de cara a las elecciones presidenciales de 2024 en Estados Unidos, mientras la Casa Blanca intenta frenar el flujo migratorio. Parte de la estrategia de Joe Biden ha consistido en pedir a las personas con intenciones de migrar que detengan su camino y, desde donde estén, soliciten ingreso legal al país. También contempla centros de procesamiento fuera de EE. UU.Entre quienes escucharon el pedido de Biden están Dayry Alexandra Cuauro y su hija Sarah, de seis años. Julie Turkewitz, jefa de la corresponsalía en los Andes, las conoció hace un año y reportó sobre su difícil travesía en la selva del Darién. (Tal vez recuerdes la imagen de Sarah que captó el fotógrafo Federico Rios en aquel entonces; la niña se perdió durante unos días y un grupo de viajeros la cuidó y ayudó a completar el recorrido hasta Panamá, donde se reunió con su mamá).Ángel García ayudando a Sarah sobre árboles caídos en el Darién, el año pasado.Federico Rios para The New York TimesTranscurrieron 341 días desde que Cuauro decidió abandonar los peligros de la migración irregular e inclinarse por la vía legal. Desde entonces, muchos de sus compañeros de viaje han llegado a Estados Unidos. Desde entonces, madre e hija han conseguido un equipo de personas dispuestas a recibirlas y han empezado a practicar inglés juntas. Desde entonces, cada vez que revisa la página web del sistema de migración solo recibe un mensaje automático: “Caso recibido”.Como Cuauro, dice el reportaje de Julie, hay más de un millón de personas, atrapadas en las contradicciones de esta política migratoria, “en una suerte de purgatorio migratorio, intentando resistir la inestabilidad, la violencia y la penuria que les agobia tanto que escapan”. Te invito a leer la historia completa, que se acaba de publicar.Si alguien te reenvió este correo, puedes hacer clic aquí para recibirlo tres veces por semana.Apuntes de la guerra¿Es posible tender puentes entre israelíes y palestinos? Hay personas que así lo creen y a menudo se les tilda de ingenuas o traidoras. Ellas ven una oportunidad en la crisis actual.Esto se sabe sobre la explosión ocurrida la semana pasada en un hospital en Gaza.Los editores de The New York Times tienen una nota importante sobre nuestra cobertura periodística de lo sucedido en el hospital en Gaza. Te invitamos a leerla. Y, si quieres conocer más de su postura, escucha aquí la entrevista de Lulu Garcia-Navarro con Joe Kahn, editor jefe del periódico [en inglés].Con la camiseta bien puestaPocos días después del anuncio de Lionel Messi de que ficharía por el Inter Miami, tiendas y proveedores habían pedido a Adidas casi medio millón de camisetas.Eric Hartline/USA Today Sports, vía Reuters ConSucedió de manera abrupta: en solo tres meses, una camiseta rosada se volvió casi omnipresente. Es el jersey del Inter Miami, el club de fútbol de la MLS en donde Lionel Messi juega desde este verano.La camiseta ha causado furor y los fans se apresuraron a adquirirla y portarla, ya sea original o de imitación. ¿Tienes una? ¿Fue difícil conseguirla? Mándanos un correo contándonos cómo fue el proceso.— More

Clare Toeniskoetter and Marion Lozano and Listen and follow The DailyApple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon MusicOver the past few days, two of the lawyers who tried to help former President Donald J. Trump stay in power after losing the 2020 election pleaded guilty in a Georgia racketeering case and have agreed to cooperate with prosecutors against him.Richard Faussett, who writes about politics in the American South for The Times, explains why two of Mr. Trump’s former allies have now turned against him.On today’s episodeRichard Fausset, a correspondent for The New York Times covering the American South.The two lawyers pleading guilty in the Georgia case are Sidney Powell, left, and Kenneth Chesebro.Photos: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters; Pool photo by Alyssa PointerBackground readingSidney Powell, a member of the Trump legal team in 2020, pleaded guilty and will cooperate with prosecutors seeking to convict the former president in an election interference case in Georgia.Kenneth Chesebro, a Trump-aligned lawyer, also pleaded guilty in Georgia.There are a lot of ways to listen to The Daily. Here’s how.We aim to make transcripts available the next workday after an episode’s publication. You can find them at the top of the page.Richard Fausset More

Three Ohio Republicans are competing in the Senate primary. Mr. Gingrich plans to back Bernie Moreno, a businessman who is a relative political newcomer. The Senate race in Ohio is one of the best chances for Republicans to capture a seat from Democrats next year. But first, the Republican Party has to survive a three-way primary without damaging its increasingly strong brand in the state.Early polls suggest a tight race, but Bernie Moreno, a businessman making his second bid for the Senate, has started to compile the kind of political prizes that belie his status as a relative newcomer to electoral politics.Since opening his campaign in April, Mr. Moreno has raised nearly $3.5 million. That figure includes $2.3 million that he brought in during his first three months as a candidate, when he outraised every other nonincumbent Republican Senate candidate in the country.Mr. Moreno, known for his chain of car dealerships in the state, has pocketed endorsements from some high-profile Republicans, including former Speaker Newt Gingrich, who will announce his support on Tuesday, according to Moreno campaign officials.“As a conservative, a political outsider and a successful business leader, Bernie knows what it will take to disrupt the establishment in Washington, D.C.,” Mr. Gingrich said in a statement. In addition to Mr. Gingrich, Mr. Moreno has won support from Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida and Charlie Kirk, the combative young conservative activist who is the founder of Turning Point USA, a right-wing student group.The Republican Senate campaigns of his two rivals — Matt Dolan, a state senator, and Frank LaRose, the Ohio secretary of state — discounted the significance of Mr. Gingrich’s endorsement. Mr. Moreno’s out-of-state endorsements, they said, were aimed at giving the veneer of support from inside the state and masking his previous support for unpopular positions among Republican primary voters.“He’s an ideological shape-shifter who will say or do anything to get elected,” Chris Maloney, a spokesman for Mr. Dolan, said. “Maybe that helped him sell cars, but it destroys trust with voters and it would make him a lousy Republican nominee.”The three Ohio Republicans have increasingly taken aim at one another as the primary approaches. The state’s election, on March 19, means that early voting, which begins Feb. 21, opens in less than four months.“Despite running once and spending a great deal of his own money, Bernie hasn’t registered with Ohio voters and I don’t see that changing — he’s a car salesman and that comes across,” said Rick Gorka, a spokesman for the LaRose campaign.Last week, a Moreno campaign memo mocked Mr. LaRose’s fund-raising and attacked his Senate bid as immersed in “political ineptitude and negative press.”The memo criticized Mr. LaRose for his role in a ballot initiative in August that failed to make it more difficult to amend the State Constitution. The defeat of the measure, known as Issue 1, was widely seen as a victory for abortion-rights supporters who are backing a constitutional amendment in November that would guarantee abortion rights in the state.A poll this month from Emerson College showed all three Republican candidates within one or two percentage points of the incumbent, Senator Sherrod Brown, a Democrat seeking his fourth six-year term. That’s within the poll’s margin of error of 4.5 points. The poll did not test the primary race, but it did show all three candidates in a strong position with pro-Trump voters in Ohio, said Spencer Kimball, the executive director for polling at Emerson College.“It seems like it’s a fairly wide-open race between the three candidates,” Mr. Kimball said.Reeves Oyster, a spokeswoman for the Ohio Democratic Party, said all three Republicans would be flawed candidates in a general election against Mr. Brown. Mr. LaRose and Mr. Moreno have both signaled support for a national ban on abortion, which other Republican candidates have distanced themselves from as the party struggles to defend the position. “No matter who emerges from this primary, it is clear they won’t fight for Ohioans or the issues most important to their daily lives,” Ms. Oyster said.In his first campaign last year, Mr. Moreno had an early fund-raising lead but struggled to maintain that momentum. He ultimately lent his campaign nearly $4 million while raising another $2.8 million. He ended his campaign about two months before former President Donald J. Trump endorsed Mr. Vance, the eventual winner, in the final days of the race.Born in Colombia, Mr. Moreno immigrated to the United States with his parents as a child. He has been an active donor in Republican politics, but didn’t run for office until last year — a turn that has forced him to rethink his positions on some high-profile issues.While he previously supported a pathway to citizenship for many undocumented immigrants, he said at a candidate forum this month that all recent undocumented immigrants should be deported. He was also initially resistant to Mr. Trump’s rise, referring to him as a “lunatic invading the party” in 2016. But he has since called Mr. Trump “one of the greatest presidents I’ve ever seen.” Last year, he hired Kellyanne Conway, Mr. Trump’s campaign manager in 2016, to advise his campaign. And this year, his campaign team includes Andy Surabian, another Trump adviser.Mr. Moreno’s daughter, Emily, was a Republican Party official in 2020 and recently married Representative Max Miller, a former Trump aide who won his first Ohio election last year.Mr. Moreno has put $3 million of his own money into his campaign and has about $5 million on hand, according to the most recent campaign finance reports.Mr. Dolan, who also ran for Senate in 2022 and finished third, has given his campaign $7 million this year and has about $6.7 million on hand. His latest bid has been endorsed by more than 130 current and former Ohio officeholders.Mr. LaRose, a former state senator, entered the race in July and raised $1 million in his first 10 weeks as a candidate. A poll this month commissioned by the LaRose campaign showed Mr. LaRose leading a three-way primary with 32.2 percent, compared with 22.5 percent for Mr. Dolan and 10.4 percent for Mr. Moreno, according to an internal memo. More