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      Trump-Backed Conspiracy Theorist Vies to Take Over Arizona Elections

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      PHOENIX — This spring, Mark Finchem traveled to Mar-a-Lago for the premiere of a documentary advancing the specious notion that the 2020 presidential election had been stolen from President Donald J. Trump by an army of leftists stuffing drop boxes with absentee ballots. As a state representative and candidate for secretary of state in Arizona, Mr. Finchem was a minnow among the assembled MAGA stars, the likes of Rudolph W. Giuliani and Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia.But he still got his face time.“President Trump took 20 minutes with me,” Mr. Finchem later recounted during a campaign stop. “And he said: ‘I want you to understand something. The Arizona secretary of state race is the most important race in the United States.’”Arizona, of course, occupies a special place on Mr. Trump’s map of election indignities — as the onetime Republican stronghold where President Biden’s narrow and crucial victory was first called by, of all networks, Fox News. Should Mr. Trump run again in 2024, a friendly secretary of state, as administrator of the state’s elections, could be in a position to help him avoid a repeat.Now, as Arizona prepares for its primaries on Tuesday, Mr. Finchem is the candidate of a Trump-backed America First coalition of more than a dozen 2020 election deniers who have sought once-obscure secretary of state posts across the country. While most of them have been considered extremist long shots, a recent poll gave Mr. Finchem an edge in Arizona’s four-way Republican race, though a significant majority of voters are undecided.Mr. Finchem’s campaign pronouncements are testament to the evolution of the “Stop the Steal” movement: It is as much about influencing future elections as it is about what happened in 2020.Mark Finchem, a proponent of the “Stop the Steal” narrative, appeared with former President Donald J. Trump at a rally this past month in Prescott Valley, Ariz.Ash Ponders for The New York TimesTo that end, Mr. Finchem, who has identified himself as a member of the Oath Keepers militia in the past, may be the perfectly subversive candidate. Like his America First compatriots, he seeks, quite simply, to upend voting.He wants to ban early voting and sharply restrict mail-in ballots, even though the latter were widely popular in Arizona long before the pandemic. He is already suing to suspend the use of all electronic vote-counting machines in Arizona, in litigation bankrolled by the conspiracy theorist and pillow tycoon Mike Lindell. And he has co-sponsored a bill that would give the state’s Republican-led legislature authority to overturn election results.If he loses his own race, Mr. Finchem told a June fund-raiser, “ain’t gonna be no concession speech coming from this guy.”Mr. Finchem did not respond to requests for comment for this article, and one of his lawyers declined to comment. But in a May email he assured Republican supporters that if he had been in office in 2020, “we would have won. Plain and simple.” In the days after the election, he was co-host of an unofficial hearing at a downtown Phoenix hotel where Mr. Giuliani, Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer, aired bogus stolen-elections claims. He was instrumental in trying to advance a slate of fake Trump electors in Arizona — part of a scheme to overturn the elections in a number of states that is being investigated by the Justice Department — and he is helping gather signatures to petition to decertify the state’s election results, even though that is not legally possible.Key Revelations From the Jan. 6 HearingsCard 1 of 9Making a case against Trump. More

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      Pushing an Immigration Conspiracy Theory, While Courting Latinos

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      Blake Masters, a venture capitalist running for Senate in Arizona, is among the many Republicans who argue that the left’s obsession with racial identity politics is driving Latino voters away from the Democratic Party.But as he vies for the Republican nomination, Mr. Masters has pushed a different sort of racial politics that could repel Latinos in the state.For months, Mr. Masters has promoted a specious theory portraying illegal immigration across the southern border as part of an elaborate Democratic power grab. In speeches, social media videos and podcast interviews, he has asserted that Democrats are trying to encourage immigration so their party can dilute the political power of native-born voters.“What the left really wants to do is change the demographics of this country,” Mr. Masters said in a video posted to Twitter last fall. “They do. They want to do that so they can consolidate power and so they can never lose another election.” In May, he told an interviewer that Democrats were “trying to manufacture and import” a new electorate.What Mr. Masters calls an “obvious truth” is what experts in extremism describe as a sanitized version of the “great replacement,” a once-fringe, racist conspiracy theory that claims that Western elites, sometimes manipulated by Jews, want to replace white Americans with immigrants to weaken the influence of white culture. The idea has been linked to the massacre at a Buffalo supermarket in May, the El Paso Walmart shooting in 2019 and the killings at a Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018.Mr. Masters’s version — one that makes no references to Jews or white people, but instead sets up a conflict between immigrants and the native-born — has become pervasive in Republicans’ immigration rhetoric. It has risen to prominence alongside the debunked claims that immigrants living in the United States illegally are voting in elections in large numbers.“This is a view in which there are institutional bad actors maliciously causing change, which will then lead to political subordination of whites,” said Robert A. Pape, the director of the Chicago Project on Security and Threats at the University of Chicago. “That is the root of the fear, and that’s the root of what the fearmongers are provoking.”Mr. Masters, who declined to be interviewed, disputes that he has promoted the great replacement theory.“It is obvious to everyone that Democrats see illegal immigrants as future voters,” he said in a statement. “No ‘theory’ is needed to observe that.” He criticized “fake experts” who claimed otherwise.Mr. Masters is widely expected to win in the Arizona primary on Tuesday. The 35-year-old Stanford graduate and first-time candidate was propelled to the front of the pack by support from Peter Thiel, the tech mogul he once worked for, and by an endorsement of former President Donald J. Trump.Key Themes From the 2022 Midterm Elections So FarCard 1 of 6The state of the midterms. More

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      ‘Democracy runs through Arizona’: candidate for attorney general says fate of the nation is at stake

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      Interview‘Democracy runs through Arizona’: candidate for attorney general says fate of the nation is at stakeNina Lakhani in Phoenix Kris Mayes, a former Republican, says protecting democracy, the heating planet and abortion rights are urgent prioritiesThe future of American democracy could be determined by a handful of attorneys general, who will also play a crucial role in shielding women and doctors from draconian abortion bans, according to the Democratic candidate for that office in Arizona.Kris Mayes, 51, who switched parties in 2019 due to the expansion of Trumpism in the Republican party, is urging voters to take the attorney general and other down-ballot races like secretary of state seriously in the November midterms, or else risk losing US democracy altogether.“We’ve never lived in a more dangerous time for our democracy. If we elect a couple of attorney generals who refuse to certify the 2024 elections, it essentially means our democracy is gone. It couldn’t be more stark, so these elections really matter for the whole country,” said Mayes, in an interview with the Guardian at her Phoenix home.In 2020, Trump pressured Republican officials to overturn Biden’s victory in swing states including Arizona, where multiple investigations and lawsuits have ruled out fraud. Last week, House speaker Rusty Bowers, who testified in front of the January 6 congressional committee about Trump’s efforts to force him and other local officials to overturn the results, was declared “unfit to serve” by the state Republican party.The sanction, which Mayes described as a “travesty”, reaffirmed her decision to leave the party.“I was a lifelong Republican but the party left me and many moderates like me. We need a healthy two party system in this country, so it makes me really sad to see the party I once served has fallen this far and gotten this sick,” said Mayes, who grew up in a Republican family on a tree farm in Prescott about 90 miles north of Phoenix.“I appreciate those Republicans who have stayed to fight for democracy and our party, but ultimately I couldn’t be a part of it.”Arizona is among 33 states and US territories electing an attorney general in November – who as the top lawyer and top law enforcement officer plays a crucial role in the election process, including certification and preventing voter suppression.The Department of Justice is suing Arizona over its latest voter restrictions, while Republicans recently tried (and failed) to ban mail voting for the midterms, even though the vast majority of Arizonans use vote-by-mail.Mayes, who filed an amicus brief opposing the ban, said: “We have incredibly well-run, safe elections yet the Republican party continues to perpetuate the big lie. There’s been a very clear trend to curtail voting rights and as attorney general I will use my bully pulpit and the courts to fight those efforts.”Mayes’ opponent will be decided in next week’s primary, with the six Republican candidates vying for the nomination each having made border security and election integrity central to their platforms.But it’s abortion that has brought increased scrutiny to the attorney general race since the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade and handed back power to the states.Shortly after, Mark Brnovich, the outgoing attorney general and senate candidate, tried to revive a statute from Arizona’s territorial days that bans abortion in almost all circumstances. The courts will decide whether this draconian 1864 law is revived or new legislation banning terminations after 15 weeks comes into force in September. The law, which was signed in May, has no exceptions for rape or incest. In addition, a 2021 so-called personhood law that would provide rights to foetuses faces a court challenge.As it stands, it’s a legal mess.Still, the Republican candidates have all indicated that they would enforce whichever restrictive law the courts decide takes precedence, whereas Mayes says she considers all three to be unconstitutional.“Unlike the federal constitution under which Roe sat, the right to privacy in the Arizona state constitution is broad and explicit, which protects a woman’s right to choose and reproductive freedom. As attorney general I should not and will not enforce laws I believe are unconstitutional and therefore will not prosecute any woman, doctor, midwife, pharmacist under these laws.“I think our founding fathers would be appalled by these laws,” added Kayes, who can use her supervisory authority over county attorneys to advise them that prosecutions would be unconstitutional.Arizona’s constitution is one of the most individually oriented in the country, but if Mayes wins, abortion will almost certainly end up in the state supreme court – which the outgoing governor Doug Ducey has packed with a conservative super majority.Ultimately, abortion rights advocates will probably attempt to give Arizonans the final say through a ballot initiative, though recent changes by the Republican controlled legislature has made this harder. Almost nine out of 10 Arizonans want abortion to remain legal at least in some circumstances.Mayes said: “Republican leaders are in a race to bottom to satisfy a base which doesn’t represent many moderate Republicans or independents who are repulsed by the criminalization of abortion.”Donald Trump has endorsed a bunch of big lie proponents in the state including attorney general hopeful Abe Hamadeh, 31, the son of Syrian immigrants and former Maricopa county prosecutor, who has indicated that he supports the pre-statehood abortion law, describes the humanitarian crisis at the border as an “invasion” and does not believe Biden won the 2020 election.The attorney general’s office has been held by a Republican for the past decade, but Mayes says she doesn’t fear any of the candidates. “They’re all the same – all six have said they would not have certified the 2022 election and to a person they seem almost giddy about prosecuting women and doctors after the fall of Roe. I know Arizonans are going to reject this brand of anti-democratic and anti-woman Republicanism.”Mayes says she will use the state’s $5bn surplus to target the huge explosion of fentanyl trafficking into the state, which mostly arrives from Mexico through legal points of entry, but is otherwise light on details about the southern border.Unlike most of the Republican candidates, Mayes does not have experience in the criminal justice system, but argues that her background in environmental law and consumer protection makes her uniquely qualified to tackle the state’s climate challenges.“We are in the midst of an epic drought, escalating heat and dwindling water supplies. This is an all hands on deck moment if we are to survive as a state. There’s a lot the attorney general could do and hasn’t … we can’t wait for the next generation to solve this,” said Mayes, who has worked as a senior sustainability scientist at Arizona State University (ASU) since 2010.Before entering academia, Mayes served for seven years as a Republican on the Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC), a quasi-executive regulatory agency for utilities including energy and water which also oversees securities regulation and pipeline safety. Before that, she was a political reporter in Arizona.“Having been a journalist made me a great corporation commissioner and will make me a great attorney general, because these jobs are all about asking tough questions of powerful entities and people, getting at the truth and following that wherever it leads you.”Mayes has been endorsed by a slew of local Democrats, the president of the Navajo nation, Planned Parenthood and the environmental group the Sierra Club. She’s very much a moderate Democrat and hopes that her track record as a moderate and pragmatic Republican – and her reasons for leaving the party – will persuade the state’s large number of independents and enough Republicans to vote for her.A third of the electorate is made up of independent or “other” voters that aren’t registered to a major political party. “I think that many Republicans identify with my journey – I’m reaching out to them actively.”As a single mother to a nine-year-old daughter and an openly gay woman in an increasingly hostile political environment for LGBTQ communities, Mayes says her decision to re-enter politics was not an easy one. “I don’t think it’s too much to say that American democracy runs through the state of Arizona in 2022, and whether or not we can preserve it may depend on what happens in down-ballot races like mine.”This reporting was supported by the International Women’s Media Foundation’s Reproductive Health, Rights, and Justice in the Americas InitiativeTopicsUS politicsArizonaUS voting rightsinterviewsReuse this content More

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      Murdoch told Kushner on election night that Arizona result was ‘not even close’

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      Murdoch told Kushner on election night that Arizona result was ‘not even close’Donald Trump’s son-in-law and adviser’s new book recounts turmoil caused by Fox News decision to call state for Biden in 2020 When Fox News called Arizona for Joe Biden on election night 2020, infuriating Donald Trump and fueling Republican election subversion attempts which continue to this day, Rupert Murdoch told Jared Kushner “the numbers are ironclad – it’s not even close”.Is Murdoch tiring of Trump? Mogul’s print titles dump the ex-presidentRead moreDetails of the Fox News owner’s conversation with Trump’s son-in-law and chief adviser about the call which most observers say confirmed Trump’s defeat are contained in Kushner’s memoir, Breaking History, which is due out next month.They also come as Murdoch-owned papers and even Fox News itself seem to turn against Trump in light of the January 6 hearings on the US Capitol attack and his attempt to overturn his election defeat.A first extract from the book, in which Kushner described being secretly treated for thyroid cancer, was reported by Maggie Haberman of the New York Times.On Wednesday another Times reporter, Kenneth Vogel, tweeted pictures of pages from Kushner’s book, each emblazoned with the word “confidential”.Kushner’s description of the shock of the Fox News Arizona call mirrors those in numerous reports and books on Trump’s 2020 defeat, his refusal to accept it and the attack on US democracy which followed.“The shocking projection brought our momentum to a screeching halt,” Kushner writes. “It instantly changed the mood among our campaign’s leaders, who were scrambling to understand the network’s methodology.”Kushner describes the Trump campaign’s focus on Arizona and writes that losing there “would drastically narrow our path to victory”.In Landslide, a book released last year, the author Michael Wolff reported that Murdoch gave his son Lachlan Murdoch approval for Fox News to call Arizona for Biden with “a signature grunt” and a barb for Trump: “Fuck him.”Fox News denied Wolff’s story.Kushner writes: “I dialed Rupert Murdoch and asked why Fox News had made the Arizona call before hundreds of thousands of votes were tallied. Rupert said he would look into the issue, and minutes later he called back.“‘Sorry Jared, there is nothing I can do,’” he said. “‘The Fox News data authority says the numbers are ironclad – he says it won’t be close.’”Biden won Arizona by about 10,000 votes, a margin which increased after a partisan audit encouraged by Trump allies and commissioned by state Republicans.Key members of the Fox News decision desk left after the election. Chris Stirewalt, the politics editor, was fired. He has appeared before the January 6 committee.“We knew [Arizona] would be a consequential call because it was one of five states that really mattered,” Stirewalt testified.Stirewalt also said that by the time of the Arizona call, Trump’s chances of beating Biden were “very small” and “getting smaller”. After Arizona, he said, those chances dwindled to “none”.In his book, Kushner shades close to his father-in-law’s lie about electoral fraud in Biden’s victory, writing: “2020 was full of anomalies.”The election was called for Biden on 7 November, when Pennsylvania fell into his column. He won the electoral college by 306-232, the same margin Trump called a landslide when it landed in his favour against Hillary Clinton in 2016. Biden won the popular vote by more than 7m.In his passage on the speech Trump gave in the early hours of 4 November, the day after election day, claiming “Frankly, we did win this election”, Kushner says he was called by Karl Rove, the strategist who helped George W Bush win “the closest presidential election in US history”, against Al Gore in 2000.Trump claimed to have been the victim of fraud. Rove, Kushner writes, said: “The president’s rhetoric is all wrong. He’s going to win. Statistically, there’s no way the Democrats can catch up with you now.”Kushner says he responded: “Call the president and tell him that.”Trump later turned on Rove, who he said called him at 10.30pm on election night “to congratulate me on ‘a great win’”. Fox News called Arizona just before midnight.On Wednesday, Vogel also tweeted pages in which Kushner describes his work on presidential pardons.Kushner says he did not oppose a pardon for Steve Bannon, the former Trump strategist who was accused of fraud but who was a prominent White House leaker, because of the work Bannon did on Trump’s winning campaign in 2016.He also writes that when Trump pardoned Alice Johnson, a Black grandmother sentenced on a minor drugs-related charge of the sort Kushner targeted in his work on sentencing reform, Trump said: “Let’s hope Alice doesn’t go out and kill anyone!”TopicsBooksJared KushnerRupert MurdochFox NewsUS elections 2020Donald TrumpPolitics booksnewsReuse this content More

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      Class Divisions Harden Into Battle Lines in Arizona’s Republican Primary

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      PRESCOTT VALLEY, Ariz. — As Shardé Walter’s family cut back on everything from camping trips to Eggo waffles to balance their inflation-strained budget this summer, she became more and more fed up with the Republicans who have governed Arizona for more than a decade.“You’ve got those hoity-toity Republicans, and then you’ve got ones like me — just trying to live,” Ms. Walter, 36, said as she waited for former President Donald J. Trump to arrive at a rally on Friday for his slate of candidates in Arizona’s bitterly fought Republican primaries.“We’re busting our asses off,” she continued, “but we’re broke for no reason.”The Aug. 2 Republican primary in Arizona has been cast as a party-defining contest between traditional Republicans and Trump loyalists, with the power to reshape a political battleground at the heart of fights over voting rights and fair elections. Several leading Republican candidates in Arizona for governor, secretary of state, attorney general and U.S. Senate have made lies about the “stolen” 2020 election a centerpiece of their campaigns.But the choice between traditional conservatives and Trump-backed firebrands is also tapping into working-class conservatives’ frustrations with a state economic and political system firmly controlled by Republicans, highlighting the gap between voters who have profited from Arizona’s rising home values and tax cuts tilted toward the wealthy, and those who feel left out and are eager to punish the Republican establishment at the ballot box.“It’s like ‘The Great Gatsby’ — old versus new,” said Mike Noble, the chief of research with the polling firm OH Predictive Insights, which is based in Phoenix. “It’s a very telling moment for the G.O.P. Are they going the way of MAGA, or the McCain-Goldwater conservative way that gave them dominance over the state?”Supporters watched Mr. Trump speak on an outdoor screen at the Findlay Toyota Center in Prescott Valley, Ariz.Adriana Zehbrauskas for The New York TimesSeveral leading Republican candidates in Arizona for governor, secretary of state, attorney general and U.S. Senate have made lies about the “stolen” 2020 election a centerpiece of their campaigns.Adriana Zehbrauskas for The New York TimesNational surveys of Republicans show that voters’ views of Mr. Trump and the 2020 election are fracturing along lines of education.A New York Times/Siena College poll released this month found that 64 percent of Republican primary voters without a college degree believed that Mr. Trump was the legitimate winner of the 2020 election. Forty-four percent of Republican voters with a bachelor’s degree or more said Mr. Trump was the winner.Mr. Trump was still a clear favorite for Republican voters with a high school degree or less, with 62 percent saying they would vote for him in the 2024 Republican presidential primary if the election were held today. Less than 30 percent of Republican primary voters with college degrees said they would vote for Mr. Trump.In Arizona’s race for governor, the Republican establishment has coalesced around Karrin Taylor Robson, a wealthy real estate developer pitching herself as a competent leader who has been reliably conservative ever since her days as a staff member in the Reagan White House.The Trump wing of the party is locked in behind Kari Lake, a Trump-endorsed former news anchor who has stoked an anti-establishment rebellion fueled by falsehoods about the 2020 election and provocations like vowing to bomb smuggling tunnels on the southern border.Ms. Robson has cut into Ms. Lake’s early lead in the polls, but recent surveys suggest that Ms. Lake is still ahead.Key Themes From the 2022 Midterm Elections So FarCard 1 of 6The state of the midterms. More

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      Trump and Pence duel in Arizona in fight for Republican future

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      Trump and Pence duel in Arizona in fight for Republican future Former president and his one-time wingman appear at rival events – and it’s all to play for as the US midterms approachEddie Palazuelos drove 200 miles and lined up for five hours under the baking sun to to see Donald Trump at a campaign event for candidates he is backing in the forthcoming Arizona Republican primaries.It’s the fifth Trump rally the 27-year-old has attended since the former president lost the White House in 2020 – because Palazuelos vehemently believes the election was stolen. Any judge or lawmaker who concludes otherwise is “willfully ignorant”, he said, referring to the dozens of lawsuits and recounts nationwide which ruled out fraud.‘It’s a kangaroo court’: in key state, Trump backers dismiss January 6 hearingsRead more“Fixing our election system is fundamental. That’s why Kari Lake is my No 1 for governor, because she won’t stop talking about the election,” said Palazuelos, an IT worker from Tucson, as Abba’s hit The Winner Takes it All blasted through the speakers. “Of course Trump’s endorsement means something.”How much it means is the big question.In Arizona’s gubernatorial race, candidate Kari Lake’s consistent and combative false claims about election fraud were rewarded with an endorsement from Trump back in January, which helped the former local Fox news anchor and Barack Obama supporter surge ahead in the race for the Republican nomination.But Trump’s visit on Friday also took place as his former wingman Mike Pence spoke at two campaign events for Karrin Taylor Robson, Lake’s main rival in the key battleground state, who has stopped short of calling the election corrupt.Trump and Pence squared off in Arizona the day after the congressional committee investigating the attempted coup on January 6 said that the then president’s refusal to call off the violent mob for over three hours amounted to a dereliction of duty. The duel signals a proxy war for the future of the Republican party, and follows revelations that Trump approved – or was at least nonchalant about – the mob chanting “hang Mike Pence”.The duelling appearances underlines the importance of Arizona on the national stage, with the 2 August primaries likely to serve as a litmus test for Trump’s endorsement prowess ahead of the midterms, where the Republicans hope to win key state races and regain control of the Senate and House.“Trump continues to have a tight hold over the Republican party in the state, but we’ll see whether the January 6 hearings have made enough of them decide that they want something less bombastic,” said Julie Erfle, a Phoenix-based communications consultant and political commentator.The Trump-Lake event on Friday evening took place about 90 miles north of Phoenix in the Prescott valley, one of the reddest parts of the state, with deep seated undercurrents of racism, including the presence of white supremacy groups such as the Proud Boys, the Three Percenters and the Oath Keepers.Friday was the hottest day of the year so far, and several people passed out and needed medical attention. Once inside, the mood was festive as exhausted supporters refueled on popcorn, cheesy nachos and small bottles of water that cost $4.50.It was very much the Trump show, with appearances by several far-right conspiracy theorists, including the MyPillow boss Mike Lindell, former sheriff Joseph Arpaio, Trump’s attorney general candidate Abe Hamadeh, and Mark Finchem, a member of the militia group the Oath Keepers running for secretary of state. All of Trump’s endorsements have repeated the false claims about the stolen 2020 election.Trump came on stage to rapturous applause, and repeated his usual baseless complaints about rampant election fraud by the so-called radical left. But the crowd seemed to hang on to every word.“I’ll be voting for all of Trump’s endorsements, and for him in 2024. Pence? He’s a Rino and a traitor, not to be trusted,” said Kelly Ciccone, 58, referencing the shorthand for Republican In Name Only.Earlier in the day, Pence appeared at Taylor’s relatively small but spirited campaign event in Peoria, a Phoenix suburb, alongside the outgoing Republican governor Doug Ducey. Taylor, a pro-gun, anti-choice, anti-immigration developer, is catching up fast in the polls after spending least $13.5m of her own wealth on the race.It’s not the first time Pence has pitted himself against his former boss. In May, he backed Georgia governor Brian Kemp, who like Ducey has been repeatedly attacked by Trump for his refusal to overturn the 2020 results in his state. On that occasion, Kemp crushed Trump’s candidate David Perdue by more than 50 points.It’s unclear whether Pence, who has been campaigning for candidates nationwide, plans to launch a 2024 presidential bid but as polls stand now, only Ron DeSantis, the hardline Florida governor, looks capable of challenging Trump.The dozen Republican voters interviewed by the Guardian were more or less evenly split between Trump, Pence and DeSantis as their pick for 2024.“I probably wouldn’t vote for Trump again because of his alleged involvement in January 6. The country needs a lot of fixing. I don’t think going back is the answer,” said Kevin Coles, 30, a cybersecurity expert at the Taylor event.It’s all to play for in Arizona. Coles is among around 20% of voters who are still undecided in the gubernatorial race, but the momentum is with Taylor, and her backer Ducey, who is also co-chair of the Republican Governors Association, has seen his approval ratings rise to 60%.Pence did not criticise Trump – in fact, he boasted about their joint achievements in the White House. But backing Taylor against Lake will likely be seen as a combative move.Next week, the former allies will take the fight to Washington with speeches about the post-2024 Republican agenda at rival conservative think tanks on Tuesday. It will be Trump’s first public appearance in the capitol since he left the White House on Biden’s inauguration day on 20 January 2021.“Nationally, this signals what we’re going to see in the Republican presidential primary for 2024 – a contest between the Trump and Pence factions of the party,” said Erfle.“The two sides are not all that different on misogyny, racism and far-right nationalism. It’s more about choosing a cult of personality that revolves around Trump or continuing democracy in some form.”TopicsArizonaMike PenceDonald TrumpUS politicsRepublicansJanuary 6 hearingsnewsReuse this content More

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      Arizona Republican censured by party over testimony on resisting Trump

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      Arizona Republican censured by party over testimony on resisting TrumpRusty Bowers, the Arizona house speaker, testified to the House January 6 committee in June Rusty Bowers, the Arizona house speaker who testified to the January 6 committee about how he resisted Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn his defeat by Joe Biden in the sun belt state, has been formally censured by his own Republican party.Kelli Ward, chair of the Arizona Republican party, said on Tuesday its “executive committee formally censured Rusty Bowers tonight – he is no longer a Republican in good standing and we call on Republicans to replace him at the ballot box in the August primary”.Secret Service turned over just one text message to January 6 panel, sources sayRead moreWard released a copy of the formal censure, which included “killing all meaningful election integrity bills” among Bowers’ alleged misdeeds and called on Arizona voters to “expel him permanently from office”.Bowers testified to the House January 6 committee on 21 June. Discussing Trump’s claim that Bowers told him the Arizona election was “rigged”, Bowers said: “Anyone, anywhere, anytime I said the election was rigged, that would not be true.”Bowers also recalled a conversation with Rudy Giuliani in which Trump’s personal lawyer, a key player in the attempt to prove mass electoral fraud, allegedly said: “We’ve got lots of theories but we just don’t have the evidence.”Bowers also spoke about how his Christian faith motivated his defiance of Trump, and described threats made to his safety by Trump supporters while his daughter lay mortally ill.Like Liz Cheney, one of two Republicans on the January 6 committee and its vice-chair, Bowers was given a Profile in Courage award for his resistance to Trump.After the hearing at which he appeared, though, it emerged that Bowers had previously told the Associated Press: “If [Trump] is the nominee [in 2024], if he was up against [Joe] Biden, I’d vote for him again. Simply because what he did the first time, before Covid, was so good for the country. In my view it was great.”This month, Bowers told the Deseret News he might have changed his mind.“I don’t want the choice of having to look at [Trump] again,” he said. “And if it comes, I’ll be hard pressed. I don’t know what I’ll do.“But I’m not inclined to support him. Because he doesn’t represent my party. He doesn’t represent the morals and the platform of my party …“That guy is just – he’s his own party. It’s a party of intimidation and I don’t like it. So I’m not going to be boxed by, ‘Who am I gonna vote for?’ Because that’s between me and God. But I’m not happy with him.“And I’m not happy with the thought that a robust primary can’t produce somebody better than Trump, for crying out loud.”He also told Business Insider: “Much of what [Trump] has done has been tyrannical, especially of late. I think that there are elements of tyranny that anybody can practice on any given day, and I feel like I’ve seen a lot of it.”TopicsArizonaRepublicansUS politicsJanuary 6 hearingsnewsReuse this content More

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      DoJ sues Arizona over voting law that requires proof of citizenship

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      DoJ sues Arizona over voting law that requires proof of citizenshipMeasure signed by Republican governor in March a ‘textbook violation’ of law designed to protect voters, department says The Department of Justice is challenging a new Arizona law that requires voters to provide proof of citizenship for presidential elections, among other new restrictions, saying the measure was a “textbook violation” of a federal law meant to protect voters.The challenged Arizona measure, HB 2492, was signed into law by the Republican governor, Doug Ducey, in March, requires anyone who wants to vote in a presidential election, or vote by mail in any election, to provide proof of citizenship.Next up: voting rights, as US supreme court set to tear up more protectionsRead moreThe law was among several pushed by the Arizona legislature following the 2020 election in a state where Donald Trump and his allies have spread baseless claims of fraud. Voting by mail is widely used in Arizona, a key battleground state, and Republicans in the state have made numerous attempts to make it harder to cast a ballot that way.In 2013, the supreme court ruled 7-2 in a case called Arizona v Inter Tribal Council of Arizona that the state could not require anyone who used the federal government’s voter registration application to provide proof of citizenship when they registered.As a result of that decision, there are tens of thousands of voters in Arizona who are only allowed to vote in federal elections, not state contests, because they have not provided proof of citizenship. As of March, there were roughly 31,500 federal-only voters in the state.Arizona lawmakers said that the decision only applied to congressional elections, not presidential ones, even though a lawyer for the legislature advised them the measure was probably illegal. A 1993 law, the National Voter Registration Act, requires all states to accept a federal form for voter registration – the form does not require proof of citizenship, but asks voters to attest under penalty of perjury that they are citizens.“House Bill 2492’s onerous documentary proof of citizenship requirement for certain federal elections constitutes a textbook violation of the National Voter Registration Act,” Kristen Clarke, who leads the justice department’s civil rights division said on Tuesday. “Arizona is a repeat offender when it comes to attempts to make it harder to register to vote. HB 2492 is in direct with the 2013 US supreme court decision.”Some see the law as a blatant effort to get the US supreme court to reconsider its 2013 decision. The court has become significantly more conservative since then; three of the justices who were in the majority in that case – Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg – have been replaced with more conservative justices. Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented in 2013, saying they believed Arizona could require proof of citizenship for those who use the federal form.The court’s new conservative majority has shown a blunt hostility to voting access, siding with state lawmakers and upholding nearly every voting restriction that has come before it in recent years.Arizona’s attorney general, Mark Brnovich, vowed on Friday that he would continue to defend the law. “Please be assured I will defend this law to the US supreme court if necessary and defeat the federal government’s efforts to interfere with our state’s election safeguards,” Brnovich, a Republican running for US Senate, wrote in a letter to Clarke.The justice department is also challenging other provisions of the Arizona law. The measure also required Arizona to add a section to its own state registration form asking voters to provide their place of birth. It also instructs election officials not to accept a voter registration form if the voter forgets to check the box indicating they are a US citizen. Those requirements violate the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which makes it illegal to reject someone’s voter registration if they fail to provide information that is immaterial to their eligibility to vote, Clarke said.“Checking this box is not material to establishing the voting qualifications of applicants who have already proven that they are US citizens,” she said. “That information is not material to establishing whether a voter is a US citizen because of naturalization an expatriation patterns among other reasons.”TopicsUS newsThe fight to voteArizonaUS voting rightsUS politicsnewsReuse this content More