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      Bad Feelings About the Economy Sour Arizona Voters on Biden

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      The White House has hailed new investments and new jobs, yet many voters in a battleground state are chafing at inflation and housing costs.If President Biden hopes to replicate his narrow victory in Arizona, he will need disillusioned voters like Alex Jumah. An immigrant from Iraq, Mr. Jumah leans conservative, but he said he voted for Mr. Biden because he could not stomach former President Trump’s anti-Muslim views.That was 2020. Since then, Mr. Jumah, 41, said, his economic fortunes cratered after he contracted Covid, missed two months of work as a trucking dispatcher, was evicted from his home and was forced to move in with his mother. He said he could no longer afford an apartment in Tucson, where rents have risen sharply since the pandemic. He is now planning to vote for Mr. Trump.“At first I was really happy with Biden,” he said. “We got rid of Trump, rid of the racism. And then I regretted it. We need a strong president to keep this country first.”His anger helps explain why Mr. Biden appears to be struggling in Arizona and other closely divided 2024 battleground states, according to a recent poll by The New York Times and Siena College.Surveys and interviews with Arizona voters find that they are sour on the economy, despite solid job growth in the state. The Biden administration also fails to get credit for a parade of new companies coming to Arizona that will produce lithium-ion batteries, electric vehicles and computer chips — investments that the White House hails as emblems of its push for a next generation of American manufacturing.Breanne Laird, 32, a doctoral student at Arizona State University and a Republican, said she sat out the 2020 elections in part because she never thought Arizona would turn blue. But after two years without any pay increases and after losing $170,000 trying to fix and flip a house she bought in suburban Phoenix, she said she was determined to vote next year, for Mr. Trump.She bought the investment property near the peak of the market last year, and said she watched its value slip as mortgage rates rose toward 8 percent. She said she had to max out credit cards, and her credit score fell.Arizona’s housing market fell farther than most parts of the country after the 2008 financial crisis, and it took longer to recover. Few economists are predicting a similar crash now, but even so, Ms. Laird said she felt frustrated, and was itching to return Mr. Trump to power.“I’m even further behind,” she said. “I see the value in voting, and plan to vote as much as possible.”Voters waited in line to cast their ballots at dawn in Guadalupe, Ariz., in 2020.Adriana Zehbrauskas for The New York TimesA majority of Arizona voters in the recent New York Times/Siena survey rated the country’s economy as poor. Just 3 percent of voters said it was excellent.Arizona experienced some of the worst inflation in the country, largely because housing costs shot upward as people thronged to the state during the pandemic. Average monthly rents in Phoenix rose to $1,919 in September from $1,373 in early 2020, a 40 percent increase according to Zillow. Average rents across the country rose about 30 percent over the same period.Home prices and rents have fallen from their peaks this year, but even so, economists say that the state is increasingly unaffordable for middle-class families, whose migration to Arizona has powered decades of growth in the state.Arizona’s economy sprinted out of the pandemic, but economists said the speed of new hiring and consumer spending in the state has now eased. The state unemployment rate of 4 percent is about equal to the national average, and the quarterly Arizona Economic Outlook, published by the University of Arizona, predicts that the state will keep growing next year, though at a slower pace.Arizona has added 280,000 jobs since Mr. Biden took office, according to the federal Labor Department, compared with 150,000 during Mr. Trump’s term. Phoenix just hosted the Super Bowl, usually a high-profile boost to the local mood and economy.Barely a week goes by without Arizona’s first-term Democratic governor, Katie Hobbs, visiting a groundbreaking or job-training event to talk up the state’s economy or the infrastructure money arriving from Washington.Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs on stage during the 2023 Inauguration Ceremony at the Arizona State Capitol in Phoenix.Rebecca Noble for The New York TimesMr. Biden was even farther behind Mr. Trump in another poll being released this week by the Phoenix-based firm Noble Predictive Insights. That survey of about 1,000 Arizona voters said Mr. Trump had an eight-point lead, a significant swing toward Republicans from this past winter, when Mr. Biden had a two-point edge.Mike Noble, the polling firm’s chief executive, said that Mr. Trump had built his lead in Arizona by consolidating support from Republicans and — for the moment — winning back independents. Respondents cited immigration and inflation as their top concerns.“Economists say, ‘Look at these indicators’ — People don’t care about that,” Mr. Noble said. “They care about their day-to-day lives.”Bill Ruiz, the business representative of Local 1912 of the Southwest Mountain States Carpenters Union, said the Biden administration’s infrastructure bill and CHIPS Act were bringing billions of dollars into Arizona, and helping to power an increase in union jobs and wages. Carpenters in his union were working 7 percent more hours than they were a year ago, and the union’s membership has doubled to 3,400 over the past five years.“We’re making bigger gains and bigger paychecks,” he said. “It blows me away people don’t see that.”Political strategists say Mr. Biden could still win in Arizona next year, if Democrats can reassemble the just-big-enough coalition of moderate Republicans and suburban women, Latinos and younger voters who rejected Mr. Trump by 10,000 votes in 2020. It was the first time in more than two decades that a Democrat had carried Arizona and its 11 electoral votes.The same pattern was seen in last year’s midterm elections, when Arizona voters elected Democrats running on abortion rights and democracy for governor, attorney general and secretary of state, defeating a slate of Trump-endorsed hard-right Republicans.Abortion is still a powerful motivator and a winning issue for Democrats, but many Arizona voters now say their dominant concerns are immigration, inflation and what they feel is a faltering economy.Grant Cooper, 53, who retired from a career in medical sales, is the kind of disaffected Republican voter that Democrats hope to peel away next year. He supports abortion rights and limited government, and while he voted for Mr. Trump in 2020, he said he would not do so again.He said his personal finances and retirement investments were in decent shape, and he did not blame the president for the spike in gas prices in 2022. Still, he said he plans to vote for a third-party candidate next year, saying that both Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump were out-of-touch relics of a two-party system that was failing to address long-term challenges.“They squibble and squabble about the dumbest things, rather than looking at things that could improve our economy,” he said. “The Republicans are fighting the Democrats. The Democrats are fighting the Republicans. And what gets done? Nothing.”David Martinez, 43, is emblematic of the demographic shift that has made Arizona such a battleground. He and his family moved back to Phoenix after 15 years in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he still works remotely in the tech industry. He voted for Mr. Biden in 2020, and said he was worried about the threat Mr. Trump poses to free elections, democracy and America’s future in NATO.His working-class friends and extended family don’t share the same concerns. These days, the political conversations with them usually begin and end with the price of gas (now falling) and eggs (still high).“It falls on deaf ears,” Mr. Martinez said of his arguments about democracy. “They feel down about Biden and inflation and his age. They’re open to giving Trump a second term or skipping the election entirely.”Camille Baker More

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      Man who stormed US Capitol in face paint files paperwork for congressional run

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      The man who donned face paint and a horned headdress to storm the US Capitol at the 6 January insurrection has filed paperwork for a potential congressional run in Arizona as a libertarian.Jacob Chansley, known as the “QAnon Shaman”, became one of the most recognizable symbols of the insurrection, as media showed him walking the halls of the Capitol and standing at the dais in the US Senate.He pleaded guilty to a felony charge of obstructing an official proceeding and was sentenced to 41 months in prison. He was released early in March.After his release, he resumed posting bizarre messages online. His profile on X, @AmericaShaman, says his nickname is “a straw man they created in an attempt to control the narrative & destroy my public image”. In response to someone asking for a campaign donation link, he said he wasn’t taking donations now and wasn’t sure if he would later because “BIG $$$ is a part of the problem in politics … I intend to run an ENTIRELY different kind of campaign …”As Chansley has a felony, he would not be able to vote for himself until he gets his voting rights restored in Arizona.Chansley filed a statement of interest in running for congressional district 8 with the Arizona secretary of state last week. Writing his name as Jacob Angeli-Chansley, his forms say he would run as a libertarian.The right-leaning eighth district seat will be open in 2024 as Debbie Lesko, the Republican representative, announced she would not seek re-election. Since her announcement, a flood of Republican contenders have entered the race.Republican primary candidates for the seat include the losing 2022 Senate candidate Blake Masters, the Arizona House speaker, Ben Toma, losing 2022 attorney general candidate Abe Hamadeh, and a state senator, Anthony Kern, who attended the 6 January event at the Capitol. A handful of others are also running. More

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      Biden faces calls not to seek re-election as shock poll rattles senior Democrats

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      Senior Democrats have sounded the alarm after an opinion poll showed Joe Biden trailing the Republican frontrunner Donald Trump in five out of six battleground states exactly a year before the presidential election.Trump leads in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania, with Biden ahead in Wisconsin, according to a survey published on Sunday by the New York Times and Siena College. Biden beat Trump in all six states in 2020 but the former president now leads by an average of 48% to 44% across these states in a hypothetical rematch.Additional findings released on Monday, however, showed that if Trump were to be convicted of criminal charges against him, some of his support in some swing states would erode by about 6%, which could be enough to tip the electoral college in Biden’s favour.Even so, the survey is in line with a series of recent polls that show the race too close for comfort for many Trump foes as voters express doubts about Biden’s age – the oldest US president in history turns 81 later this month – and handling of the economy, prompting renewed debate over whether he should step aside to make way for a younger nominee.“It’s very late to change horses; a lot will happen in the next year that no one can predict & Biden’s team says his resolve to run is firm,” David Axelrod, a former strategist for President Barack Obama, wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. “He’s defied CW [conventional wisdom] before but this will send tremors of doubt thru the party – not ‘bed-wetting,’ but legitimate concern.”Bill Kristol, director of the Defending Democracy Together advocacy organisation and a former Republican official, tweeted: “It’s time. President Biden has served our country well. I’m confident he’ll do so for the next year. But it’s time for an act of personal sacrifice and public spirit. It’s time to pass the torch to the next generation. It’s time for Biden to announce he won’t run in 2024.”Andrew Yang, who lost to Biden in the 2020 Democratic primary, added: “If Joe Biden were to step aside, he would go down in history as an accomplished statesman who beat Trump and achieved a great deal. If he decides to run again it may go down as one of the great overreaches of all time that delivers us to a disastrous Trump second term.”The New York Times and Siena poll suggests that Biden’s multiracial and multigenerational coalition, critical to his success in 2020, is decaying. Voters under age 30 favour the president by only a single percentage point, his lead among Hispanic voters is down to single digits and his advantage in urban areas is half of Trump’s edge in rural regions.Black voters – a core Biden demographic – are now registering 22% support in these states for Trump, a level that the New York Times reported was unseen in presidential politics for a Republican in modern times. The president’s staunch support for Israel in the current Middle East crisis has also prompted criticism from young and progressive voters.Survey respondents in swing states say they trust Trump over Biden on the economy by a 22-point margin. Some 71% say Biden is “too old”, including 54% of his own supporters. Just 39% felt the same about Trump, who is himself 77 years old.Electability was central to Biden’s argument for the nomination three years ago but the poll found a generic, unnamed Democrat doing much better with an eight-point lead over Trump. Congressman Dean Phillips of Minnesota has launched a long-shot campaign against Biden in the Democratic primary, contending that the president’s anaemic poll numbers are cause for a dramatic change of course.Next year’s election could be further complicated by independent runs from the environmental lawyer Robert Kennedy Jr and the leftwing academic Cornel West.Trump is dominating the Republican presidential primary and plans to skip Wednesday’s third debate in Miami, Florida, in favour of holding a campaign rally. He spent Monday taking the witness stand in a New York civil fraud trial. He is also facing 91 criminal indictments in four jurisdictions.The Biden campaign played down the concerns, drawing a comparison with Democratic incumbent Obama’s 2012 victory over Republican Mitt Romney. Biden’s spokesperson, Kevin Munoz, said in a statement: “Predictions more than a year out tend to look a little different a year later. Don’t take our word for it: Gallup predicted an eight-point loss for President Obama only for him to win handedly a year later.”Munoz added that Biden’s campaign “is hard at work reaching and mobilizing our diverse, winning coalition of voters one year out on the choice between our winning, popular agenda and Maga [Make America great again] Republicans’ unpopular extremism. We’ll win in 2024 by putting our heads down and doing the work, not by fretting about a poll.”The margin of sampling error for each state in the Sunday poll is between 4.4 and 4.8 percentage points, which is greater than Trump’s reported advantage in Pennsylvania.Charlie Sykes, host of the Bulwark podcast and a former conservative radio host, wrote on X: “Ultimately, 2024 is not about re-electing Joe Biden. It is about the urgent necessity of stopping the return of Donald J Trump to the presidency. The question is how.” More

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      Times/Siena College Polls: Methodology and How We Conducted Them

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      The Times/Siena College battleground polls released on Sunday and Monday were conducted over the past week in six swing states that are likely to decide the election: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Five of the states were won by Donald J. Trump in 2016 and then flipped by Joseph R. Biden Jr. in 2020. Nevada, which has always been a close state, came down to less than one percentage point in the 2022 U.S. Senate election.These states also contain some of the coalitions that will be crucial next fall: younger, more diverse voters in states like Arizona, Georgia and Nevada; and white working-class voters in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin who helped swing the election to Trump in 2016, and were central to Mr. Biden’s 2020 victory. They also provide some geographic diversity.We interviewed 600 respondents in each state to ensure we had a large enough sample to speak to specific subgroups of voters within these states, including age, race and ethnicity, income, education level, and party affiliation. Taken together, these 3,600 respondents represent our largest sample size of swing state voters to date. This also includes more than 700 undecided voters, a group that will be even more consequential within these crucial states.This is not the first time we have focused on swing states this early in an election cycle. In 2019, the poll explored a similar set of states, reflecting the battleground at the time. The political moment was slightly different, with Democrats in the thick of a nominating contest that split the party between liberals like Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren and a moderate in Mr. Biden — and Mr. Trump was the incumbent president to beat.However, the goals of that poll were similar to this one. As Americans in key states across the political spectrum weigh their options, these polls shed light on the issues driving the election and voters’ appetites for the leading candidates. More

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      Trump Indictments Haven’t Sunk His Campaign, but a Conviction Might

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      For Donald J. Trump, a new set of New York Times/Siena College polls captures a stunning, seemingly contradictory picture.His 91 felony charges in four different jurisdictions have not significantly hurt him among voters in battleground states. Yet he remains weaker than at least one of his Republican rivals, and if he’s convicted and sentenced in any of his cases, some voters appear ready to turn on him — to the point where he could lose the 2024 election.Mr. Trump leads President Biden in five key battleground states — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania, according to the Times/Siena polls. He has eaten significantly into Mr. Biden’s advantages among younger, Black and Hispanic voters, many of whom retain positive views of the policies Mr. Trump enacted as president. And Mr. Trump appears to have room to grow, as more voters say they are open to supporting the former president than they are to backing Mr. Biden, with large shares of voters saying they trust Mr. Trump on the economy and national security. More

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      Blake Masters Announces Run for Congress, Skipping New Senate Bid

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      After losing his Senate race last year in Arizona, Mr. Masters, a Trump-backing Republican, is running in a primary against a onetime conservative ally.Blake Masters, a Republican who lost his U.S. Senate campaign in Arizona last year, announced on Thursday that he would run to represent the state’s Eighth Congressional District — ending speculation that he would pursue a second Senate run in 2024.“I’m running for Congress, to fight for Arizona’s 8th,” Mr. Masters wrote on X, the site formerly known as Twitter. “Biden has failed. We need Trump back. We need to stop inflation, Build the Wall, avoid WW3, and secure Arizona’s water future. We need to fight for our families.”Representative Debbie Lesko, a Republican, has represented the district, in the Phoenix suburbs, since 2018. Ms. Lesko announced this month that she would not seek re-election.Also this month, Kari Lake, a former news anchor who ran for governor in Arizona last year, declared that she would run for the seat held by Senator Kyrsten Sinema.The New York Times reported in September that former President Donald J. Trump had called Mr. Masters to tell him that he didn’t believe Mr. Masters could win a primary race against Ms. Lake, a staunch Trump ally. Last fall, Mr. Masters lost an expensive race trying to unseat Senator Mark Kelly after gaining Mr. Trump’s endorsement in the primary.In a video accompanying Mr. Masters’s announcement — which depicted him standing with Mr. Trump — Mr. Masters said he was particularly concerned about border security, the economy and water rights issues with California.Already running in the Eighth District is Abraham Hamadeh, who ran for Arizona attorney general last year on a ticket alongside Mr. Masters. Mr. Hamadeh entered the race shortly after Ms. Lesko announced she would not seek re-election and was endorsed by Ms. Lake on Thursday.“It is sad to see the establishment tricking @bgmasters into driving up all the way from Tucson and getting in the race,” Mr. Hamadeh wrote on X. (Property records indicate that Mr. Masters lives in Tucson, more than 100 miles from the Eighth District.)Mr. Hamadeh continued, “They want the America First movement divided. Voters will remember who stood tall against the entrenched political class and who ran into their arms.”Sheelagh McNeill More

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      Trump fake elector scheme: where do seven states’ investigations stand?

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      As Donald Trump faces criminal charges in multiple cases across the country, several states are still investigating a scheme created by Trump allies and boosted by Trump himself to cast fake electoral votes for the Republican candidate for the 2020 election.As part of the US electoral college system, states cast a set number of votes for the candidate who wins the popular vote in their state, the winner of which then takes the presidency. Seven states that the former president lost saw slates of fake GOP electors falsely claim Trump had won their electoral votes. These fake electors included high-profile Republicans, such as sitting officeholders and state party leaders.Two prosecutors, in Michigan and Georgia, have already filed charges against fake electors. Others have confirmed investigations but provided few details. One state prosecutor said local laws did not address this kind of crime, which is unprecedented.Kenneth Chesebro, a Trump campaign legal adviser and the supposed mastermind of the fake electors scheme, pleaded guilty in Georgia over his role in subverting the election. Chesebro allegedly created the plan in a secret memo based on Wisconsin’s electoral vote.At the federal level, the special counsel Jack Smith and his team brought charges against Trump and his allies over their attempts to overturn the 2020 election results, which include the fake elector scheme. Several states have confirmed they are cooperating with Smith’s investigation, and news reports have indicated Smith offered limited immunity to some fake electors for their testimony.Since the scheme had no precedent, some states and experts have struggled to figure out which laws may have been broken, and whether the charges should be state or federal. In some states, the fake electors also face civil lawsuits. Here’s where they stand.ArizonaThe former Arizona attorney general Mark Brnovich, a Republican, never publicly confirmed any investigation into the state’s fake electors, which included high-profile far-right figures such as the state senator Jake Hoffman and the former Arizona GOP chair Kelli Ward. The state actually saw two separate sets of fake electors.His successor, the Democrat Kris Mayes, told the Guardian earlier this year that her office is investigating the fake electors, but has not provided any details of the investigation so far. On a recent Arizona Republic podcast episode, Mayes said she could not say much about the contours of the investigation, but that her office was taking it “very seriously” and that it was a “very important investigation”.While the cases in Michigan and Georgia are much further along, she noted that their prosecutors have been in place much longer than she has. Mayes took office in January 2023.GeorgiaThree fake electors in Georgia were charged as part of a broader case against Trump and his allies over election subversion attempts.The Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, brought charges against the former Georgia Republican party chairman David Shafer, the state senator Shawn Still and the activist Cathy Latham, three of the 16 fake electors from that state. They face various charges, including forgery, impersonating a public officer and attempting to file false documents.Several of the others who signed on as false electors for Trump struck immunity deals or plea agreements with prosecutors.The three fake electors charged have pleaded not guilty. Their attorneys argued in September that they were not fake electors, but instead “contingent” electors who could be used should the courts overturn Biden’s win, the Associated Press reported. The three are trying to get their case moved from state court in Georgia to a federal court, arguing they were acting as federal officers who were keeping an avenue open for Trump depending on what happened in the courts.Sidney Powell, who was charged in the broader case, pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate with the prosecution. The unexpected move netted Powell six years of probation and some fines and marks a major shift in the Georgia case for Trump and his allies. Chesebro, on the day jury selection for his trial was set to begin, pleaded guilty to a felony charge of conspiracy to commit filing false documents and probably will serve five years’ probation.MichiganThe Democratic attorney general Dana Nessel charged 16 Michiganders who participated as fake electors with eight felonies each, including multiple forgery charges, for their roles in the scheme. Those charged include party activists, candidates for office and state and local party officials.Attempts by two defendants to get the charges dismissed because of Nessel’s comments about how the electors were “brainwashed” were unsuccessful. The 16 people charged pleaded not guilty, and probable cause hearings are set for this month.This week, one of Michigan’s fake electors saw his charges dropped as part of a deal with the state’s attorney general. James Renner, a Republican who falsely signed that Trump had won, agreed to “full cooperation, truthful testimony and production of any and all relevant documents” in exchange for the dropped charges, filings from the attorney general’s office, obtained by NBC News, show. This includes information about how he was asked to become part of the fake slate and the circumstances of meetings among those involved in the scheme.NevadaNevada’s top prosecutor has said his office would not bring charges against the six people who signed on as fake electors there in 2020. The state’s Democratic attorney general, Aaron Ford, said current state laws did not address this kind of situation, “to the dismay of some, and I’m sure, to the delight of others”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe Democratic state senator Skip Daly attempted to solve that problem, and the state legislature passed a bill that would have made it a felony for people to serve as false electors, punishable by up to 10 years in prison. Ford had endorsed the bill.But the Republican governor, Joe Lombardo, vetoed the bill, saying the penalties were too harsh, though he said he believed those who undermine elections should face “strict punishments”.New MexicoThe former New Mexico attorney general Hector Balderas started an investigation into the five Republicans who signed as false electors there, then referred the matter to federal prosecutors, according to Source New Mexico.The office of the current attorney general, Raúl Torrez, confirmed there was an active state investigation into the fake electors to see if they violated state law, but details about the case have been scant. Torrez’s office said it would work with Jack Smith to get any evidence related to a state inquiry, according to KOAT Action News.Like Pennsylvania, the fake electors in New Mexico included a caveat in their documents that could help them, should charges be filed. They wrote that they signed the documents “on the understanding that it might be later determined that we are the duly elected and qualified electors”.PennsylvaniaThe 20 fake electors in Pennsylvania are unlikely to face any criminal charges because of how they worded the documents they signed. The documents say the false electoral votes would only be considered valid if the courts deemed the slate to be the “duly elected and qualified electors” for Pennsylvania.Governor Josh Shapiro, then the state’s Democratic attorney general, said the hedged language would spare the false electors from a criminal investigation by his office. His successor as attorney general, Michelle Henry, told Votebeat that the office’s position remained that charges were not warranted.“Though their rhetoric and policy were intentionally misleading and purposefully damaging to our democracy, based on our initial review, our office does not believe this meets the legal standards for forgery,” Shapiro said in 2022.WisconsinThe Democratic attorney general, Josh Kaul, has not said whether his office is investigating the state’s 10 fake electors for potential state law violations, though a civil lawsuit against the alternate slate is moving forward. Kaul has said he supports the federal investigation and that he expects to see “further developments” in that case.Governor Tony Evers, a Democrat, said in August he wanted to see the Wisconsin fake electors “held accountable” via prosecution.“What those ten fake electors did was wrong,” Evers wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. “People have to be held accountable for that, and I hope to hell somebody does.”Federal prosecutors, in the Trump indictment, said the fake electors scheme started in Wisconsin with the attorney Kenneth Chesebro, who suggested electors meet there to sign on to a slate in case Trump’s team won in the courts. More

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      Former Navajo Nation Leader Is Running for Congress in Arizona

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      Jonathan Nez, a Democrat, is seeking to become the first Native American to represent the state in the House.Jonathan Nez, a former president of the Navajo Nation, will run as a Democrat for a congressional seat in Arizona — a bid that could make him the first Native American from the state to be elected to the House.The seat, in Arizona’s Second District, is now held by Eli Crane, a freshman lawmaker who was among the small group of Republicans who voted to oust House Speaker Kevin McCarthy earlier this month. Mr. Nez announced his candidacy in a video posted Monday on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.“I grew up in a rural, low-income home without electricity or running water,” Mr. Nez said in the video. “I understand the struggles that Second District families are facing right now, from the rising costs of food, gas and child care to increasingly devastating wildfires and health care deserts.”The sprawling district, which is larger than several states, includes 14 of the 22 federally recognized tribes in Arizona. But it leans more Republican after redistricting last year.Mr. Nez, 48, who lives in Flagstaff, Ariz., led the Navajo Nation, one of the largest federally recognized tribes in the country, from 2019 to 2023, a period marked by an enrollment surge during the pandemic. But last fall, he lost his bid for re-election as president of the tribe, a group that tilts Democratic.Mr. Crane, 43, a former Navy SEAL and a contender on “Shark Tank,” won a crowded Republican primary last year in the district, aided by an endorsement from former President Donald J. Trump.His arrival on Capitol Hill was hardly low key. At the beginning of the year, he was one of the notable holdouts among a group of right-wing Republicans who opposed Mr. McCarthy’s election as speaker, voting against him 14 times until Mr. McCarthy garnered enough votes on the 15th ballot. He voted “present” on the final ballot.That intraparty fight played out again this month, when Mr. Crane cast his vote to oust Mr. McCarthy.At least two other candidates have filed to run in the race: Lindsay Bowe, a Democrat, and David Bies, a Libertarian. More