Elections

Lt. Gov. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, the Democratic nominee in what will be one of the hardest-fought Senate contests in the nation, has a heart condition called cardiomyopathy and appeared to have left other heart issues untreated for years, his doctor disclosed in a statement on Friday.Mr. Fetterman, who suffered a stroke days before the Democratic primary last month, had a pacemaker and defibrillator implanted on the day of the primary, which his campaign at the time described as a standard procedure that would address “the underlying cause of his stroke, atrial fibrillation.” His campaign offered few other details about his condition in the days that followed, but doctors questioned the campaign’s characterization of the use of a defibrillator, noting that they are not typically used for atrial fibrillation, and are more often used for conditions like cardiomyopathy — a weakened heart muscle.“Yesterday I talked to John about how, while afib was the cause of his stroke, he also has a condition called cardiomyopathy,” Ramesh R. Chandra, his doctor, wrote in a note. “The prognosis I can give for John’s heart is this: If he takes his medications, eats healthy, and exercises, he’ll be fine. If he does what I’ve told him, and I do believe that he is taking his recovery and his health very seriously this time, he should be able to campaign and serve in the U.S. Senate without a problem.”Cardiomyopathy “is a disease of the heart muscle that makes it harder for the heart to pump blood to the rest of the body,” according to the Mayo Clinic. “Cardiomyopathy can lead to heart failure.”Dr. Chandra said the defibrillator and pacemaker appeared to be “working perfectly and he is doing well.”Dr. Chandra also wrote that when Mr. Fetterman was diagnosed with atrial fibrillation and a decreased heart pump in 2017, he was prescribed medicine, lifestyle changes and follow-up appointments, but he “did not go to any doctor for 5 years and did not continue taking his medications.”“Like so many others, and so many men in particular, I avoided going to the doctor, even though I knew I didn’t feel well,” Mr. Fetterman said in a statement. “As a result, I almost died. I want to encourage others to not make the same mistake.”Dr. Chandra is Mr. Fetterman’s cardiologist, but after the stroke he was initially treated by other doctors at Lancaster General Hospital. They have not been made available for questions.Former Vice President Dick Cheney had a defibrillator implanted in 2001. He finished two terms in the White House, including a hard-fought re-election campaign in 2004. “Doctors have told me I need to continue to rest, eat healthy, exercise, and focus on my recovery, and that’s exactly what I’m doing,” Mr. Fetterman said. “It will take some more time to get back on the campaign trail like I was in the lead-up to the primary. It’s frustrating — all the more so because this is my own fault — but bear with me, I need a little more time. I’m not quite back to 100 percent yet, but I’m getting closer every day.”When he does return to the campaign trail, it appears his Republican opponent will be Dr. Mehmet Oz, the celebrity television physician. With a statewide recount still underway on Friday in the Republican Senate primary and no official race call, David McCormick conceded the race to Dr. Oz.Ed Rendell, a Democratic former governor of the state and a former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said in an interview on Friday that he had no qualms about Mr. Fetterman’s fitness to serve. He downplayed how much Mr. Fetterman’s health would weigh on the minds of voters, saying that he did not think it would be an issue.“When I was governor, the Republicans used to say I was one cheese steak away from having a heart attack, and I never did,” said Mr. Rendell. Nancy Patton Mills, the chairwoman of the Pennsylvania Democrats, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee did not immediately comment on Friday.Mr. Fetterman has been off the campaign trail since his stroke and has occasionally released brief videos since then. In a sign that Mr. Fetterman was moving back toward some political engagement, Senator Bob Casey, Democrat of Pennsylvania, wrote on Twitter that he’d had a “virtual double date” with Mr. Fetterman and his wife, Gisele Barreto Fetterman, earlier Friday afternoon.“Looking forward to many more on the campaign trail this summer!” Mr. Casey wrote.Gina Kolata More

Democratic candidates have shied away from talking about the Capitol siege. That could change if voters flock to a former federal prosecutor running for a House seat in California.On Tuesday, we’ll get an unusually clear test of the political power of Jan. 6 at the ballot box.In California’s newly drawn 41st Congressional District, a pro-business Republican who voted to overturn the 2020 presidential election faces a primary for a House seat against a Democratic former federal prosecutor who worked cases against several alleged Capitol rioters.No race provides a starker contrast between voters’ usual kitchen-table concerns and what the leading challenger cast in an interview as a battle for “the future of democracy.”A G.O.P. House veteran and a young DemocratThe Republican incumbent, Representative Ken Calvert, embodies a changing G.O.P.He has represented the area for three decades, though the district’s boundaries, which now stretch from suburban areas east of Los Angeles to Palm Springs, have changed over the years. He was first elected to the House in 1992 as a traditional, Chamber of Commerce-style conservative, but has moved rightward along with his party.He voted on Jan. 6, 2021, against certifying President Biden’s victory, but later published an op-ed article denouncing the mob at the Capitol. Donald Trump has endorsed him, though Calvert’s website makes no mention of that fact. He prefers to talk about the price of gas in a state where the average gallon now costs $6.25.Calvert has faced accusations of ethical lapses during his time in office, though he has always denied wrongdoing. After the police discovered him in a parked car with a woman in 1993, he acknowledged having sex with a prostitute, saying he had been “lonely” after a recent divorce.In California’s unusual primary system, voters in the district will decide which two candidates advance to the general election, regardless of party.The leading Democratic challenger is Will Rollins, a 37-year-old former assistant U.S. attorney in California who has made Jan. 6 the central theme of his campaign. In his ads, such as this introductory video, he talks about the danger to democracy posed by domestic extremism and misinformation — ideas most other candidates in his party rarely emphasize.Rollins saw a “huge rise in domestic terrorism cases” during his five years as a Justice Department prosecutor focused on national security and counterterrorism, he said in an interview, culminating in his work assisting colleagues in Washington reel in alleged participants in the Capitol riot.One of the cases he helped with was that of Gina Bisignano, a Louis Vuitton-clad salon owner from Beverly Hills who gained notoriety for shouting “They will not take away our Trumpy Bear” through a bullhorn on Jan. 6. Bisignano initially pleaded guilty to six federal charges, but later sought to withdraw her plea.“It was the experience of working on those cases and seeing ordinary American citizens, radicalized enough to invade the U.S. Capitol for the first time since the War of 1812, that got me thinking more seriously about how broken our information system is,” Rollins said.Among other ideas, he proposes to revive and modernize the Fairness Doctrine, a Cold War-era law that required broadcasters to report evenhandedly on political topics.“That doctrine wasn’t perfect,” Rollins said. “But it did enable us to defeat fascism and win the Cold War because we didn’t waste time debating nonsense, like whether the polio vaccine had microchips in it, or whether the moon landing was faked, or whether it was actually Nixon who beat Kennedy in 1960.”Rollins said he was first inspired to pursue a career in public service by the Sept. 11 attacks, which took place when he was a junior in high school. He considered joining the military, but was discouraged by laws that still discriminated against gay service members.“I wanted to enlist, but I had a government that told me that there was something defective about who I was,” Rollins said. He chose the law instead, clerking for Jacqueline Nguyen, a federal appeals court judge, before becoming a prosecutor.A centrist insurgency, of sortsUnseating an incumbent is an expensive proposition, but Rollins is showing an ability to raise the kind of money that could carry him into a general election.He has raised a little more than $1 million since the start of his campaign, lagging behind the nearly $1.9 million Calvert has raised this cycle. As of mid-May, Calvert had most of that cash — $1.2 million — still on hand, while Rollins had just shy of $445,428 left heading into Tuesday’s primary.Rollins’s largest donors are three PACs focused on L.G.B.T.Q. issues, including the political wing of the Congressional L.G.B.T.Q.+ Equality Caucus, which donated $5,000 and endorsed his campaign. More than $145,200 of his war chest came from people who gave less than $200.Take Back the House 2022, a joint fund-raising committee led by Republican leaders, has given $95,575 to Calvert. Corporate PACs, including those affiliated with Northrop Grumman, Booz Allen Hamilton and Raytheon, are also among Calvert’s biggest financial supporters.Through a campaign spokesman, Calvert declined an interview, but emailed a statement.“Riverside County families are confronting a number of challenges in their daily lives,” he said. “Between record-breaking gas prices, high food costs, and baby formula shortages, most of these challenges were created under President Biden’s failed leadership.”“I have consistently spoken out against political or any other kind of violence,” he added.Although national Republicans say they aren’t worried about Calvert, the new 41st District has become more Democratic. It now includes Palm Springs, a left-leaning city that Rollins has made his base. And for the first time, it contains more registered Democrats than Republicans. The area voted for Trump by just one percentage point in 2020.Official Democratic Party groups, daunted by President Biden’s low approval ratings and by a national map that is forcing them to defend dozens of seats, have yet to show interest in the race.But Rollins has drawn about $65,000 in support from Welcome PAC, a relatively new Democratic-aligned outfit that applies insurgent tactics to support center-left candidates in swing districts.Liam Kerr, a founder of the group, said that Rollins was the committee’s first major investment because Calvert had rarely faced a serious challenge, and because the district ought to be winnable for the right Democratic candidate.“People are consuming a lot of polarization porn and underestimating how many swing voters there are out there,” Kerr said.Coming attraction: Hearings on Jan. 6Privately, many Democratic campaign strategists are skeptical that voters will reward their party for focusing on the Capitol siege.They describe it as a “base issue,” or rank the topic somewhere below higher priorities for voters, such as inflation or abortion rights. What preoccupies the Beltway, they say, doesn’t always resonate out in the districts where congressional majorities are won and lost.Which is not to say that Democrats aren’t talking about Jan. 6 at all. The Center for American Progress Action Fund has commissioned a monthslong research project to learn how best to go after the MAGA brand and portray pro-Trump Republicans as insurrectionists and extremists, and has disseminated its findings to Democratic strategists and groups.And next week, the House committee that has been investigating the Capitol riot will hold its first public hearing on its findings, scheduled for 8 p.m. Eastern on Thursday — prime-time viewing. Although the panel is bipartisan, Democrats plan to use the hearings to highlight Republicans’ links to the Capitol rioters, culminating in a final report to be delivered a few weeks before Election Day in November.Rollins doesn’t necessarily have the primary sewn up. Shrina Kurani, a charismatic engineer who is running as a problem-solver who can address California’s never-ending water crises, has her share of admirers among Democrats.But if Rollins performs well on Tuesday and starts to gain momentum, expect to hear more about Jan. 6.Alan Feuer More

In the wake of deadly mass shootings in Buffalo and Uvalde, Texas, Representative Chris Jacobs of New York, a congressman serving his first full term in the House, stunned fellow Republicans by embracing a federal assault weapons ban and limits on high-capacity magazines.Speaking from his suburban Buffalo district a week ago, about 10 miles from the grocery store where 10 Black residents were slaughtered, Mr. Jacobs framed his risky break from bedrock Republican orthodoxy as bigger than politics: “I can’t in good conscience sit back and say I didn’t try to do something,” he said.It took only seven days for political forces to catch up with him.On Friday, facing intense backlash from party leaders, a potential primary from the state party chairman and a forceful dressing down from Donald Trump Jr., Mr. Jacobs announced that he would abandon his re-election campaign.“We have a problem in our country in terms of both our major parties. If you stray from a party position, you are annihilated,” Mr. Jacobs said. “For the Republicans, it became pretty apparent to me over the last week that that issue is gun control. Any gun control.” Citing the thousands of gun permits he had issued as Erie County clerk, Mr. Jacobs emphasized that he was a supporter of the Second Amendment, and said he wanted to avoid the brutal intraparty fight that would have been inevitable had he stayed in the race. But he warned Republicans that their “absolute position” on guns would hurt the party in the long run and urged more senior lawmakers to step forward.“Look, if you’re not going to take a stand on something like this, I don’t know what you’re going to take a stand on,” Mr. Jacobs added, citing the pain of families in Buffalo, Uvalde and elsewhere.The episode, which played out as President Biden pleaded with lawmakers in Washington to pass a raft of new laws to address gun violence, may be a portent for proponents of gun control, who had welcomed Mr. Jacobs’s evolution on the issue as a sign that the nation’s latest mass tragedies might break a decades-old logjam in Washington.It also serves as a crisp encapsulation of just how little deviation on gun policy Republican Party officials and activists are willing to tolerate from their lawmakers, despite broad support for gun safety measures by Americans.Mr. Jacobs’s decision to go against his party on gun control drew an immediate and vitriolic response: Local gun rights groups posted his cellphone number on the internet, and local and state party leaders began pulling their support, one by one.Understand the 2022 Midterm Elections So FarAfter key races in Georgia, Pennsylvania and other states, here’s what we’ve learned.Trump’s Invincibility in Doubt: With many of Donald J. Trump’s endorsed candidates failing to win, some Republicans see an opening for a post-Trump candidate in 2024.G.O.P. Governors Emboldened: Many Republican governors are in strong political shape. And some are openly opposing Mr. Trump.Voter Fraud Claims Fade: Republicans have been accepting their primary victories with little concern about the voter fraud they once falsely claimed caused Mr. Trump’s 2020 loss.The Politics of Guns: Republicans have been far more likely than Democrats to use messaging about guns to galvanize their base in the midterms. Here’s why.Just last week, Mr. Jacobs, who is the scion of one of Buffalo’s richest families and was endorsed by the National Rifle Association in 2020, had been an easy favorite to win re-election, even after a court-appointed mapmaker redrew his Western New York district to include some of the state’s reddest rural counties, areas he does not currently represent.Now, his choice to not seek re-election has set off a scramble among Republicans in Western New York to fill his seat, including Carl Paladino, the Buffalo developer and the party’s nominee for governor in 2010, who said Friday that he would run. Mr. Paladino, who has had to apologize for making insensitive and racist remarks, immediately gained the endorsement of Representative Elise Stefanik, the powerful Republican congresswoman from New York’s North Country. After a mass shooting at a Tops supermarket in Buffalo, Mr. Jacobs backed a federal assault weapons ban and limits on high-capacity magazines.Kenny Holston for The New York TimesParty leaders and allies who spoke to Mr. Jacobs in recent days said he clearly understood the political ramifications of his decision to support powerful gun control measures — but he nonetheless refused to back away from it.Mr. Jacobs, 55, announced his support for a federal ban on assault weapons last week without having first consulted many of his political advisers, according to a person familiar with his decision who was not authorized to discuss it.After making his remarks, he conducted a poll that suggested he might have still had a path to re-election, though not an easy one.“His heart is in a good place, but he’s wrong in his thinking as far as we are concerned,” Ralph C. Lorigo, the longtime chairman of the Erie County Conservative Party, said before Friday’s announcement. “This quick jump that all of the sudden it’s the gun that kills people as opposed to the person is certainly not 100 percent true.”Mr. Lorigo said he had vouched for Mr. Jacobs earlier this year when other conservatives doubted him. But this past Monday, he demanded the congressman come to his office and made clear he would encourage a primary challenge.“He understood that this was potentially political suicide,” Mr. Lorigo said.Even before he made his decision not to run again, several Republicans were already lining up to face off against Mr. Jacobs, angered at both his comments and the way in which he had surprised fellow members of his party, including some who had already endorsed him.In addition to Mr. Paladino, other potential Republican challengers included Mike Sigler, a Tompkins County legislator; Marc Cenedella, a conservative businessman; and State Senator George Borrello.“We deserved the courtesy of a heads up,” said Mr. Borrello, a second-term Republican from Irving, N.Y., south of Buffalo.Mr. Borrello added that Mr. Jacobs’s actions were particularly galling considering the congressman had “actively and aggressively” sought out the support of pro-gun groups like the N.R.A. and the 1791 Society.“And those people rightfully feel betrayed,” he said.The most formidable threat to Mr. Jacobs, though, may have come from Nicholas A. Langworthy, a longtime Erie County Republican leader who currently serves as the chairman of the state’s Republican Party.Mr. Langworthy, who has yet to formally announce whether he will seek the seat, had been a supporter of Mr. Jacobs, helping him secure former President Donald J. Trump’s endorsement, but he began circulating petitions to get on the ballot himself in recent days and told associates that he would consider challenging Mr. Jacobs.Mr. Langworthy declined to comment on Friday.Gun control advocates and Democrats denounced the reaction to the congressman’s remarks, saying it showed the intolerance of Republicans’ hard-line approach to gun rights.Understand the 2022 Midterm ElectionsCard 1 of 6Why are these midterms so important? More

New details flesh out how the pressure campaign by Donald J. Trump and his allies to block certification of the 2020 election left the vice president’s staff fearing for his safety.The day before a mob of President Donald J. Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, Vice President Mike Pence’s chief of staff called Mr. Pence’s lead Secret Service agent to his West Wing office.The chief of staff, Marc Short, had a message for the agent, Tim Giebels: The president was going to turn publicly against the vice president, and there could be a security risk to Mr. Pence because of it.The stark warning — the only time Mr. Short flagged a security concern during his tenure as Mr. Pence’s top aide — was uncovered recently during research by this reporter for an upcoming book, “Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America,” to be published in October.Mr. Short did not know what form such a security risk might take, according to people familiar with the events. But after days of intensifying pressure from Mr. Trump on Mr. Pence to take the extraordinary step of intervening in the certification of the Electoral College count to forestall Mr. Trump’s defeat, Mr. Short seemed to have good reason for concern. The vice president’s refusal to go along was exploding into an open and bitter breach between the two men at a time when the president was stoking the fury of his supporters who were streaming into Washington.Mr. Short’s previously unreported warning reflected the remarkable tension in the West Wing as Mr. Trump and a band of allies, with the clock running out, searched desperately for a means of overturning the election. Mr. Trump grew agitated as his options closed, and it became clear that he was failing in his last-ditch effort to muscle his previously compliant vice president into unilaterally rejecting the voting outcomes in key states.The warning also shows the concern at the highest levels of the government about the danger that Mr. Trump’s anticipated actions and words might lead to violence on Jan. 6.It is unclear what, if anything, Mr. Giebels did with the message. But as Mr. Trump attacked his second in command — and democratic norms — in an effort to cling to power, it would prove prophetic.A day after Mr. Short’s warning, more than 2,000 people — some chanting “Hang Mike Pence” — stormed the Capitol as the vice president was overseeing the certification of Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory. Outside, angry Trump supporters had erected a mock gallows. After Mr. Pence was hustled to safety, Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, is reported to have told colleagues that Mr. Trump said that perhaps Mr. Pence should have been hanged.Mr. Short was asked about the conversation with Mr. Giebels during an interview with the House committee investigating the Capitol riot, a person familiar with his appearance said.New details from the weeks leading up to Jan. 6 help to flesh out how Mr. Trump and his allies sought to intimidate Mr. Pence into accepting their baseless theory that the vice president had the authority to block congressional certification of the Electoral College results — and how Mr. Pence’s refusal to do so would lead him to peril.A spokeswoman for the Secret Service did not respond to an email seeking comment. A spokesman for Mr. Pence declined to comment.Mr. Pence said about five months after the Capitol attack, “There is almost no idea more un-American than the notion that any one person could choose the American president.”Marc Short, Mr. Pence’s former chief of staff, alerted the Secret Service to a potential violent threat to the vice president.Doug Mills/The New York TimesA few weeks after Election Day on Nov. 3, 2020, aides to Mr. Pence learned that some in Mr. Trump’s loose network of advisers were discussing the possibility of Jan. 6, 2021 — set under statute as the day of the Electoral College certification — as a potentially critical date in Mr. Trump’s efforts to stay in power. Soon, Mr. Pence asked his general counsel, Greg Jacob, to write a memo explaining what his powers were during the certification.The memo did not take a clear position, but Mr. Pence’s advisers continued to research the issue, ultimately concluding that the vice president had no authority to dictate the outcome.But Mr. Pence and his team were faced with regular pressure from a cast of Trump supporters arguing that he did have such power.At the end of December, Mr. Pence traveled to Vail, Colo., for a family vacation. While he was there, his aides received a request for him to meet with Sidney Powell, a lawyer who promoted some of the more far-fetched conspiracy theories about flaws in voting machines, and whom Mr. Trump wanted to bring into the White House, ostensibly to investigate his false claims of widespread voter fraud.The request to meet with Ms. Powell was relayed through Kelli Ward, the chair of the Arizona Republican Party, according to a person familiar with the exchange. Ms. Ward had joined a suit filed by Representative Louie Gohmert, Republican of Texas, that asked a court to say that Mr. Pence could decide whether to accept or reject slates of electors from states during the Electoral College certification.The suit was asserting precisely what Mr. Pence’s aides argued he did not have the power to do. Some Pence advisers were suspicious that Ms. Powell wanted to serve the vice president with legal papers related to the case.Mr. Short objected to Ms. Ward’s support of the suit. She relayed to him that they would not pursue it if Mr. Trump was uneasy with it. (The proposed meeting with Ms. Powell never happened.) Ms. Powell and a spokesman for Ms. Ward did not respond to emails seeking comment.There were other points of friction that left the Pence team on high alert about the pressure campaign. Mr. Meadows told Mr. Short that the president was withholding approval of a pot of transition funding for Mr. Pence to establish a post-White House office.Amid the rising tension, Mr. Short reached out between Christmas and New Year’s Day to Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, asking how he could defuse what was becoming an untenable clash between the Pence and Trump camps. Mr. Kushner deflected the outreach, saying he was wrapped up in negotiations in the Middle East.At one point, John McEntee, the head of presidential personnel, wrote a handwritten note that circulated in the West Wing that seemed to acknowledge that Mr. Pence did not think he could influence the outcome of the election.Yet with Mr. Trump failing in his other efforts to reverse the results, Mr. Pence continued to receive unsolicited memos arguing that he had the power to block certification — including one from Mr. McEntee that looked far back into American history to find precedent: “JEFFERSON USED HIS POSITION AS VP TO WIN.”Mr. Trump also persisted, soon trying more direct means of pressuring Mr. Pence. On Jan. 4, 2021, he summoned the vice president to meet with John Eastman, the lawyer who had been especially influential in pressing the case that the vice president could intervene. During the meeting, Mr. Eastman appeared to acknowledge that Mr. Pence did not have the power to arbitrarily settle the election. Still, he maintained that the vice president could send the results back to states to re-evaluate the results over a 10-day recess.Mr. Trump tried several different pressure tactics to persuade Mr. Pence not to certify the election results.Veasey Conway for The New York TimesBy early January, Mr. Pence made clear to Mr. Trump that he did not believe he had the power to do what the president wanted, but he also indicated that he would keep studying the issue.Mr. Trump tweeted on the morning of Jan. 5 that Mr. Pence could reject electors. He had tried to persuade some of his informal advisers outside the White House to go to the Naval Observatory, the vice president’s official residence, to seek an audience to pressure Mr. Pence. That day, Mr. Trump spoke with Mr. Pence again, pressing him to do what the vice president said he could not.It was that day that Mr. Short called Mr. Giebels to his office.The next day, Jan. 6, Mr. Trump and Mr. Eastman addressed a crowd of thousands of Trump supporters at a rally at the Ellipse near the White House, before the start of the Electoral College certification at 1 p.m. Mr. Trump and Mr. Eastman both applied public pressure on Mr. Pence to do what they wanted.“You’ll never take back our country with weakness,” Mr. Trump told his supporters. At another point, he said: “Mike Pence, I hope you’re going to stand up for the good of our Constitution and for the good of our country. And if you’re not, I’m going to be very disappointed in you. I will tell you right now. I’m not hearing good stories.”Mr. Trump, who repeatedly told aides he wanted to march to the Capitol as the certification was beginning, told the crowd that he would do so. But the Secret Service told him they could not protect him, and he returned to the White House.At about 1 p.m., Mr. Pence released a memo making clear that he disagreed with the president about his power to intervene in the certification. The memo was not shared with the White House counsel in advance; the trust between the offices was shattered by then.Soon, Mr. Trump’s supporters swarmed the Capitol, breaking in through doors and windows and disrupting the count.Mr. Giebels rushed Mr. Pence from the Senate chamber and took him to an underground loading dock. The vice president refused to get in a waiting car, despite Mr. Giebels’s repeated urging, believing it would let the rioters and others score a victory against a core democratic process, his aides have said.Mr. Pence stayed there for hours, until it was safe to return to the Senate chamber, where he insisted on finishing the certification process.His post-White House transition funding was approved soon after Jan. 6. More

Nick Corasaniti
May 24, 2022 More

Nick Corasaniti
May 24, 2022 More

Nick Corasaniti
May 24, 2022 More

Nick Corasaniti
May 24, 2022 More