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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

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      Gallego Is Counting on Native Voters to Compete in Arizona Senate Race

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      Ruben Gallego, a Democratic congressman vying for one of the most competitive Senate seats in the country, is pitching himself to Native American voters.State Highway 86 stretches west from Tucson, Ariz., past saguaros and desert peaks into Tohono O’odham Nation, the second largest reservation in the state. It is a road that tribal members say no Senate candidate in recent memory has ventured down.But on a sweltering afternoon, Representative Ruben Gallego, a progressive Democrat from Phoenix, spent several hours with Tohono O’odham leaders and community members, fielding questions in a series of small round table meetings, touring an affordable housing project and making the pitch for his 2024 Senate run.“The reason why we’re here is because a lot of times the only time you see a politician come down is the last week of the elections,” Mr. Gallego told a handful of attendees during an evening meet-and-greet in Sells, Ariz., the tribal capital, on Friday.The stop was part of Mr. Gallego’s push to visit all of the 22 federally recognized tribes in Arizona before Election Day next year. It is a feat, he says, that few, if any, contenders in a statewide race have ever attempted — and one he believes will help pave his path to victory in what is likely to be one of the most competitive Senate races in the country.Native Americans make up more than 5 percent of the Arizona population, and have emerged in recent years as powerful swing voters. In 2020, an analysis by The Associated Press found that parts of the state’s tribal land saw huge surges in turnout in the presidential election that year, which helped tilt the outcome in favor of Joseph R. Biden Jr. Though no official count of the electorate exists, the National Congress of American Indians, a tribal rights organization, estimates that the state has more than 315,000 Native Americans who are old enough to vote, one of the largest Native populations of voting age in the country.“The Native Americans in Arizona — we are the coveted vote because we make or break elections,” said April Hiosik Ignacio, who is a tribal citizen of Tohono O’odham (pronounced Toh-HO-noh AW-tham) and a vice chairwoman of the Arizona Democratic Party.Mr. Gallego’s ambitious plan for Native American outreach is part of his efforts to crisscross the state with pledges to restore faith in government, and a campaign strategy that he describes as “go everywhere and talk to everyone.” But Mr. Gallego, 43, a U.S. Marine combat veteran and former state lawmaker who represents a deep-blue district, will have a difficult needle to thread in Arizona, a battleground state. He is trying to hew closer to the center on some issues, like immigration, without alienating his base of progressives.Mr. Gallego at breakfast with Peter Yucupicio, chairman of the Pascua Yaqui Tribe. The large population of voting-age Native Americans in Arizona has made the constituency influential in recent elections.Adriana Zehbrauskas for The New York TimesIn Native American communities, as in the Latino neighborhoods where he has been aggressively pursuing voters, Mr. Gallego could also come up against feelings of apathy with electoral politics and disillusionment with the Democratic Party.Already, the stakes in the 2024 Senate race are tightening. Kyrsten Sinema, 47, the Democrat-turned-independent who holds the seat, has not said whether she will run for re-election. But a two-page pitch to donors obtained by NBC last month revealed that she could be preparing to launch an ambitious bid heavily relying on independents and focused on shaving away support from both Democrats and Republicans.The contest for her seat intensified when Kari Lake, 54, an ally of former President Donald J. Trump and onetime local news anchor who lost and refused to concede the Arizona governor’s race last year, filed paperwork to run this month. Ms. Lake has already sparred with Mr. Gallego over border politics, though her first major opponent would be Mark Lamb, 51, a right-wing sheriff and fellow Trump ally, in the Republican primary.Mr. Gallego, who announced his bid in January, has had a head start to pitch donors and hone a message centered on protecting democracy and helping working- and middle-class families. He is also leaning on his humble origins in Chicago and his experiences as a Marine and former construction worker to help bring new and disaffected slices of the electorate back into the Democratic fold, including rural white voters, Latinos and Native Americans.His first campaign swing included stops in Navajo Nation, the largest tribe in Arizona, and the Fort Apache reservation, home to the White Mountain Apache Tribe. He has since visited more than half a dozen tribes.In an interview in Sells, Mr. Gallego said his early outreach to Native American voters wasn’t “just smart politics, it is also personal.”Some of his closest friends, Jonithan McKenzie and John and Cheston Bailon, are Navajo. They served with Mr. Gallego in an infantry unit that saw heavy combat and suffered severe casualties during the Iraq war. They versed him in Navajo traditions that helped him reflect on war and opened his eyes to everyday life on the reservation, where water could be scarce, jobs were hard to come by and groceries and medical services were long drives away, Mr. Gallego said. John Bailon has since introduced him at campaign stops.In Congress, Mr. Gallego has served on a subcommittee on Native American issues, where he has focused on improving access to running water and internet on reservations and making it easier for Native American veterans to receive government benefits.With his visits to Native tribes in the state, Mr. Gallego is trying to distinguish himself in what is shaping up to be one of the most competitive Senate races in the country. Adriana Zehbrauskas for The New York TimesMr. Gallego, the son of a Colombian mother and Mexican father, would be the first Latino senator from Arizona, if elected. Like Ms. Sinema, he forged his political rise by embracing the progressive and immigrant rights movements that have helped transform a Republican stronghold into a battleground state. But he is following the traditional playbook that Democrats including Ms. Sinema have used to win statewide in Arizona in past election cycles: He is eschewing ideological labels, distancing himself from Democratic leadership and tacking to the middle on the border and immigration.Mike Noble, a state pollster who has conducted some of the few surveys on the race so far, said Mr. Gallego was in the best position in what is shaping up to be a three-way contest. Mr. Gallego is the strongest fund-raiser, he said, and has a positive image. “He just needs to hold his base and not let Sinema peel off too many Democrats,” Mr. Noble said.Still, Mr. Gallego remains less defined for voters than Ms. Sinema and Ms. Lake. And a race against Ms. Sinema could fray the coalitions of frustrated Republicans, Democrats and independents — including many Latino and Native American voters — that have helped power Democrats to the highest positions in the state for the first time in decades. The fracture could improve his chances — or open the way for a Republican like Ms. Lake to retake a seat that has helped Democrats retain their narrow majority in the Senate.Ms. Lake has already begun to paint him as another far-left liberal responsible for high rates of homelessness and what she describes as a border crisis. But if Mr. Gallego shifts too far away from his progressive credentials, he could risk dampening the energy among his base.At Tohono O’odham, which extends along 62 miles of the U.S. border with Mexico, the top worry on Friday was the recent Biden administration decision to build up to 20 miles of border barriers in South Texas, a project that was first authorized during the Trump administration.Mr. Gallego during a round table meeting with tribal leadership at Tohono O’odham Nation on Friday. Adriana Zehbrauskas for The New York TimesIn the room was Gabriella Cázares-Kelly, who handles voter registration as the Pima County Recorder and is one of less than a dozen Native Americans in Arizona to hold elected office. Ms. Cázares-Kelly, a progressive Democrat, said she was likely to support Mr. Gallego, whom she said she favored for his promises to secure Native American voting rights, for example. But she had been taken aback, she said, when he told her he supported the construction of parts of the border wall to separate the United States from Mexico.Mr. Gallego, a vocal critic of the move under Mr. Trump, said that a wall might make sense in certain areas but that it should never be built on sacred Native American grounds, and that it should not be the only solution.But for Ms. Cázares-Kelly, calls to “build the wall” remained a symbol of Mr. Trump’s most destructive immigration policies, a rallying cry she saw as rooted in xenophobia — and one that had galvanized her tribe to become politically organized. When Mr. Trump first signed his executive order for the wall, many members of her tribe offered to throw their bodies in the way of any construction.“Now having Joe Biden pushing for the expansion of the border wall is so disappointing and frustrating, and then to hear Ruben echoing those sentiments in solidarity with our president is just really disappointing,” she said. 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      Kari Lake, Trump ally and election denier, announces Senate bid in Arizona

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      Kari Lake, the Republican candidate who lost the race for Arizona governor but never conceded her loss, announced a run for US Senate in the western state Tuesday.A former TV news anchor, Lake made her move into politics by making repeated false claims about elections. She aligned closely with former president Donald Trump and has been floated as a potential running mate for Trump, who once praised Lake for her ability to constantly bring up election fraud.Lake has taken her election denials to court, so far unsuccessfully, in her attempt to claim she’s the rightful governor of Arizona. Her legal team has been hit with court sanctions in two different cases.Lake announced her run in Scottsdale on Tuesday, a week after filing paperwork for a Senate bid.“I am not going to retreat. I’m gonna stand on top of this hill with every single one of you, and I know you’re by my side as I formally announce my candidacy for the United States Senate,” Lake told a crowd of supporters, according to CNN.Lake’s Senate run comes after Republicans lost major races in the swing state in 2022. The Democratic senator Mark Kelly defeated Republican businessman Blake Masters. Lake lost the governor’s race by about 17,000 votes, and Republicans lost the secretary of state and attorney general races as well. Lake failed to win over independent voters, who make up about one-third of Arizona’s electorate, and alienated mainstream Republicans.The state’s Senate race will be one of the country’s most competitive – and most expensive. Its dynamics could be especially difficult, if sitting Senator Kyrsten Sinema, once a Democrat and now an independent, decides to run for re-election.Republican Mark Lamb, the sheriff in Pinal county, Arizona, has already entered the Senate race. On the Democratic side, Representative Ruben Gallego is in. Sinema hasn’t announced a re-election bid yet, but her team has privately been working on a campaign strategy to chart an independent bid without party support.Lake’s campaign trail antics – a perpetual camera following her for confrontations with politicians or reporters – have already started for her Senate run. She approached Gallego at the Phoenix airport last week, pinging him with questions and criticisms about the US-Mexico border. She told the congressman that the Senate race would be a “knock-down, drag-out”. More

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      Would a 3-Way Arizona Senate Race Help Kari Lake? Her Party Isn’t So Sure.

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      Kyrsten Sinema, the independent incumbent, has not announced whether she will run for re-election. But as both parties in Arizona prepare for that outcome, Republicans are worried.Republicans are growing anxious that their chances of capturing a Senate seat in Arizona would be diminished in a potential three-way race that included Kyrsten Sinema, the independent incumbent.While Ms. Sinema hasn’t announced whether she will run for re-election, the race already includes Representative Ruben Gallego, a Democrat, and Kari Lake, a Republican scheduled to host her first campaign rally on Tuesday.Many political strategists had figured that a re-election bid from Ms. Sinema, who dropped her Democratic affiliation last year, would split votes in her former party and increase the odds that Ms. Lake, the controversial front-runner for the Republican nomination, would be sworn in to the Senate. Arizona, along with West Virginia, Montana and Ohio, has been seen as among the best opportunities for Republicans to pick up Senate seats next year and win back a majority.But private and public polling has suggested that Ms. Sinema is viewed much more favorably by Republican voters than by Democrats. Those surveys indicated that Mr. Gallego would benefit in a three-way race.“Some of the early conventional wisdom about this race assumed there would be more Democratic defections,” said Austin Stumpf, a Democratic consultant in Arizona. “But party unity among Democrats is hard to overstate. It’s a real phenomenon right now.”Republicans expressed their concerns as Ms. Lake, a TV-anchor-turned-conservative-firebrand, made an otherwise amicable visit to Washington last week. While she met with a half-dozen Republican senators, many of whom offered campaign assistance or asked to have their photos taken with her, conversations among aides revealed worries about current polling. One Lake adviser described being surprised by the level of “freaking out” by Washington Republicans.In response, Ms. Lake’s campaign has produced a nine-page internal memo aimed at reassuring the party that she stands to benefit the most from a three-way race. She was also expected to take aim at Ms. Sinema with some of her most withering attacks during her opening campaign event on Tuesday, according to people familiar with the planning, in an attempt to address the concerns that an independent bid by the senator could siphon off a significant share of Republican votes.The previously unreported memo relies largely on recent turnout trends in Arizona to point to built-in advantages for Republicans.While Republicans account for roughly 35 percent of registered voters in the state, they typically make up about 40 percent of turnout, according to the memo. Arizona’s unusually large bloc of independent voters accounts for 34 percent of the voter rolls, but makes up a smaller share of turnout, typically between 26 percent and 29 percent, according to the memo.That means that Ms. Lake — who struggled to unite Republicans during her unsuccessful bid for governor last year as she attacked fellow Republicans, falsely insisted that former President Donald J. Trump had won the 2020 election and later refused to accept her own defeat — should have “significantly more elasticity in shedding Republican voters” than Democrats, according to the memo. (First, Ms. Lake will have to win the Republican primary race; her early rivals include Mark Lamb, a right-wing sheriff and fellow Trump ally.)Kari Lake, who lost the Arizona governor’s race last year and has continued to dispute the results, is running for Senate. Mario Tama/Getty ImagesThe memo also calculates that if Mr. Trump captures another Republican presidential nomination — and wins roughly the same number of votes in Arizona next year as he did in 2020 — then Ms. Sinema’s best path to victory would require more than 600,000 Arizonans to split their ballots between him and the incumbent senator. That total would be about 35 percent of Mr. Trump’s votes.“This is incredibly unlikely in the Trump era of American politics,” the memo says, noting that split-ticket voting is “near all-time lows.”One of the private polls that showed Mr. Gallego leading the race, in part because Ms. Lake appeared to be losing Republican votes to Ms. Sinema, was from Chuck Coughlin, a longtime Arizona operative, according to people briefed on the survey. Mr. Coughlin declined to comment on specific findings in his poll, but said that while Ms. Sinema would be a significant underdog if she sought re-election, it would also be foolish to count her out.“Kyrsten is a monstrously strong campaigner, a very effective fund-raiser and has shown a lot of personal strength to do what she’s done in politics, and I don’t want to underestimate that,” Mr. Coughlin said. “All of that is going to be necessary and a lot more for her to be successful.”The ambiguity about Ms. Sinema’s plans for re-election has confounded political professionals across three time zones separating Arizona and Washington.Some of those who anticipate she will retire point to fund-raising numbers showing that Mr. Gallego has consistently out-raised her this year. Ms. Sinema is sitting on a considerable war chest of nearly $11 million, but the Arizona Senate race last year drew more than $230 million in spending from the two major-party candidates and multiple outside groups.Some of those convinced she will seek a second term pointed to a fund-raiser she hosted this year at the Phoenix Open. The annual golf outing attracts a mix of rowdy partygoers and avid golfers, far from the typical Sinema crowd. “That’s like nails on the chalkboard for Sinema,” said Barrett Marson, a Republican operative in Arizona.Others were encouraged about her prospects after an internal fund-raising prospectus surfaced last month that signaled she and her team were actively charting a path to a second term, telling donors she could win a competitive three-way race as an independent, which is practically unheard-of in modern American politics.“Kyrsten promised Arizonans she’d be an independent voice who wouldn’t answer to party bosses and would deliver real, lasting solutions to the challenges Arizonans face,” said Hannah Hurley, an aide to Ms. Sinema. “Instead of engaging in name-calling and stupid political insults, Kyrsten has worked with anyone to make Arizonans’ lives better and then get government out of the way — and that’s exactly what she’s done and will continue to do as Arizona’s senior senator.”Ms. Sinema’s path relies on an unusual coalition of voters, according to the document, which was first reported by NBC News: winning between 10 percent and 20 percent of Democrats, 25 percent to 35 percent of Republicans and 60 percent to 70 percent of independent voters in the state.The most difficult benchmark may be the projection among independents. Even Senator John McCain — who was famously popular among independent voters — won just 50 percent of that group in his sixth and final victory in the state in 2016, according to exit polls.Independents also figure to be a top target for Mr. Gallego, an engaging politician with an inspiring personal story who is running to be the state’s first Latino senator. His campaign projects that Latinos account for about 30 percent of unaffiliated voters in Arizona, and he was ahead of both Ms. Sinema and Ms. Lake in the one public poll that has tested all three candidates this year.Some public and private polling has shown that Representative Ruben Gallego, who is seeking the Democratic nomination, would benefit in a three-way race.Adriana Zehbrauskas for The New York Times“Ruben is in a good spot and he knows it,” said Mike Noble, an Arizona pollster. He noted that early polls showed that people who had heard of Mr. Gallego generally liked him, while Arizonans tended to have negative views of both Ms. Lake and Ms. Sinema.Still, Mr. Gallego is running his first statewide campaign since first being elected to the state’s most liberal House district in 2014.He has collected a handful of endorsements from local officials and public encouragement from Yolanda Bejarano, the chairwoman of the Arizona Democratic Party, but the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and the Senate Majority PAC — which combined to spend nearly $40 million in the Arizona Senate race last year — have both remained silent on the prospect of a three-way race.Stan Barnes, a Republican consultant and former Arizona state legislator, said a potential three-way race offered a unique opportunity for voters because the top candidates would rely on compelling personalities as they pursued their own silos of voters.“It is about the most exciting thing I have seen in terms of politics in Arizona in the three decades I have seen,” Mr. Barnes said. 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      Flying on the Same Plane, Lake and Gallego Clash Over Border Politics

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      Arizona’s high-profile Senate race has not yet begun in earnest, but on Thursday, the Republican Kari Lake and Representative Ruben Gallego, a Democrat, were already trading barbs — in midair.Ms. Lake, the former news anchor who refused to concede her loss in the state’s governor’s race last year, and Mr. Gallego, a progressive congressman from the state’s capital, ended up on the same flight from Washington, D.C., to Phoenix, where they began wrangling over the border wall.The clash happened just days after Ms. Lake filed to run for the seat, which is now held by Kyrsten Sinema. Ms. Sinema, who left the party in December to become an independent, has not said whether she is running for re-election.Ms. Lake took a shot at Mr. Gallego on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, asking if he still believed that the border wall was “racist” and accusing him of “facilitating an invasion.”“Hey @KariLake we’re on the same plane! Just come back from first class to coach and we can chat,” responded Mr. Gallego, who was sitting just behind the divider for business class. “Happy to walk you through all my legislative work to deliver key resources to AZ’s border communities.”On the plane, Mr. Gallego posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, tagging Ms. Lake.Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesOnce the plane had landed and Mr. Gallego was stepping off it, Ms. Lake ambushed him with questions, wearing a lapel mic while a phone camera recorded, according to people familiar with the exchange. Mr. Gallego announced his bid for the seat in January. In the Republican primary, Ms. Lake will face Mark Lamb, a right-wing sheriff and an ally of former President Donald J. Trump.Ms. Lake, a hard-right Republican, was in Washington this week meeting with several G.O.P. members of the Senate. She is scheduled to hold her first rally as a candidate next week. More

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      Turnover of Election Officials in Swing States Adds Strain for 2024, Report Says

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      A tide of resignations and retirements by election officials in battleground states, who have increasingly faced threats, harassment and interference, could further strain the election system in 2024, a national voting rights group warned in a report released on Thursday.The group, the Voting Rights Lab, said that the departures of election officials in Arizona, Pennsylvania and other swing states had the potential to undermine the independence of those positions.The 28-page report reveals the scope of challenges to the election system and underscores the hostile climate facing election officials across the nation. Resignations have swept through election offices in Texas and Virginia, while Republicans in Wisconsin have voted to remove the state’s nonpartisan head of elections, sowing further distrust about voting integrity.In Pennsylvania, more than 50 top election officials at the county level have departed since the 2020 election, according to the report, which said that the loss of their expertise was particularly concerning.In Arizona, the top election officials in 13 of 15 counties left their posts during the same period, the report said. Some of the defections have taken place in counties where former President Donald J. Trump’s allies have sought to require the hand-counting of ballots and have spread misinformation about electronic voting equipment.“They are leaving primarily due to citing harassment and security concerns that are stemming from disproven conspiracy theories in the state,” said Liz Avore, a senior adviser for the Voting Rights Lab.The Justice Department has charged at least 14 people with trying to intimidate election officials since it created a task force in 2021 to focus on such threats, according to the agency. It has secured nine convictions, including two on Aug. 31 in Georgia and Arizona, both battleground states.“A functioning democracy requires that the public servants who administer our elections are able to do their jobs without fearing for their lives,” Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said in a statement at the time.Along with the departures, the Voting Rights Lab report examined a series of issues that it said could create obstacles for the 2024 election, including the approval of new rules in Georgia and North Carolina since 2020 that are likely to increase the number of voter eligibility challenges and stiffen identification requirements.In another area of concern for the group, it drew attention to the expiration of emergency rules for absentee voting in New Hampshire that were enacted during the pandemic.At the same time, some other battleground states have expanded voting access. Michigan will offer at least nine days of early voting in 2024, accept more forms of identification and allow voters to opt in to a permanent mail voting list, while Nevada made permanent the distribution of mail ballots to all voters, the report said. More

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      Kari Lake Files to Run for Kyrsten Sinema’s Senate Seat in Arizona

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      Kari Lake, the Republican former news anchor who refused to acknowledge her loss in the Arizona governor’s race last year, filed paperwork on Tuesday to run for Senate, setting up what is expected to be one of the most competitive Senate races in the country as Republicans try to win back the chamber.The incumbent, Senator Kyrsten Sinema, who left the Democratic Party last year to become an independent, has not confirmed whether she will run for re-election, but a prominent Democrat, Representative Ruben Gallego, is already challenging her. Mark Lamb, a right-wing sheriff and an ally of former President Donald J. Trump, is also running.On Tuesday, Ms. Lake was in Washington, where she met with several Republican members of the Senate, including John Cornyn of Texas and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, according to people familiar with the discussions who insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss private conversations.She also met with Senator Steve Daines of Montana, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. Mr. Daines is considering an endorsement for Ms. Lake, which may convince moderate donors to give the conservative firebrand a second look.A person close to Ms. Lake confirmed that she had filed paperwork to open her Senate campaign. She is scheduled to hold her first rally as a candidate next week.Ms. Lake lost the governor’s race to Katie Hobbs by about 17,000 votes, a little over half a percentage point. She was one of many Republicans, including several in Arizona, who lost close contests last year after running on Mr. Trump’s lie that the 2020 election had been stolen. While most of those Republicans conceded their own losses, Ms. Lake followed Mr. Trump’s lead and continued to insist that she had won even after her legal challenges were rejected.Her campaign circulated testimonials from supporters who claimed to have been disenfranchised by technical problems with voting machines, but a New York Times review found that most of them had been able to vote. She filed a lawsuit in December alleging deliberate misconduct by election officials — though she did not provide evidence of that, or of any unintentional disenfranchisement. A judge rejected her claims later that month.In February, when she said she was considering running for Senate, she was still claiming to be the rightful governor and raising money for lawsuits. The Arizona Supreme Court refused to hear her case in March, and in May, a lower-court judge threw out a challenge she had filed over the verification of signatures for mail-in ballots.During her campaign, she followed Mr. Trump in both style and substance, using the news media as a foil after working for years as a local television anchor in Phoenix. She repeatedly promoted Mr. Trump’s election lies, won his endorsement and in the Republican primary, defeated Karrin Taylor Robson, a rival supported by the state’s G.O.P. establishment. More