Cameron, Daniel J (1985- )

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      Kentucky and Philadelphia Hold Crucial Elections: What to Watch

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      In Kentucky, Republicans are choosing a nominee to take on the popular Democratic governor. In Philadelphia, Democrats are knotted in a crowded primary to lead the influential liberal city.Though 2023 is an off year for American politics, largely dominated by the emerging Republican presidential primary race and a series of scandals and controversies, there are still critical elections this year, offering an early window into the mood of voters in both parties before 2024.In Kentucky, a divisive Republican primary for governor will come to a close on Tuesday. Two pillars of the state’s Republican apparatus have escalated attacks on each other as they seek to challenge Gov. Andy Beshear, a rare Democratic leader of a red state who also happens to be one of the most popular governors in the country. On Monday, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida waded into the race with an endorsement of one top contender, turning the contest into something of a last-minute 2024 proxy battle against Donald J. Trump, who long ago backed the other leading candidate.In Philadelphia, the nation’s sixth most populous city and a liberal stronghold in purple Pennsylvania, voters will pick the Democratic nominee for mayor, who is all but certain to become the city’s next leader and has the potential to become a high-profile player in next year’s presidential election. And two special elections in the state could determine control of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, where Democrats have a slim majority.Clockwise from upper left, some of the candidates in the Democratic primary for mayor in Philadelphia: Rebecca Rhynhart, Allan Domb, Cherelle Parker and Helen Gym.Rachel Wisniewski for the New York Times; Matt Rourke/Associated PressAnd in Delaware County, one of the suburban “collar counties” outside Philadelphia, a surprisingly close special election for an open State House seat in a once reliably Democratic district will determine who controls the Pennsylvania legislature.There is also a notable mayoral contest unfolding in Jacksonville, Fla., the most populous American city to have a Republican mayor. The candidates to succeed Mayor Lenny Curry are Donna Deegan, a Democrat who has the support of abortion rights groups, and Daniel Davis, a Republican who has emphasized his party’s messages on crime and policing.Political celebrity vs. cash vs. old schoolFirst test of a rising star: Daniel Cameron was already a trailblazer as the first Black man elected attorney general in Kentucky and the first Republican elected to the post in nearly 50 years. But his political celebrity skyrocketed after he delivered a prime-time speech at the 2020 Republican National Convention.Mr. Cameron is a close ally of Senator Mitch McConnell’s; some in the state call him Mr. McConnell’s protégé. The Republican nomination for governor appeared to be his to lose after he announced his candidacy a year ago.But what was once a double-digit lead over the rest of the field dwindled significantly during the spring as Kelly Craft, a former ambassador to the United Nations and part of a Republican megadonor family, poured millions of her own money into an aggressive ad campaign, attacking Mr. Cameron and heightening her own name identification. Though she has not completely closed the gap in polling, Republican operatives in the state have deemed it a race that is suddenly too close to call.On Monday, Mr. DeSantis added even more uncertainty to the race by endorsing Ms. Craft, recording a message on her behalf to be used in automated phone calls. The move pits Mr. DeSantis, who is expected to announce a 2024 campaign soon, directly against Mr. Trump, who backed Mr. Cameron in June 2022.Daniel Cameron, the Kentucky attorney general, and Kelly Craft, a member of an influential political family, are rivals in the race for the Republican nomination for Kentucky governor.Jon Cherry for The New York TimesLess a fracture than a freeze: The heated primary in Kentucky hasn’t fractured the party like similarly contentious primaries last year, mostly because the top candidates belong to the conservative wing of the party yet do not embrace its more fringe issues, like voting machine conspiracy theories.And of course, money plays a role. Though no Republican in the state is eager to dampen Mr. Cameron’s trajectory, they also don’t want to be on the wrong side of the Crafts, who are some of the most prolific donors in Republican politics.The friendly wild card: Attention in the race has largely focused on Mr. Cameron and Ms. Craft. But there is a third candidate with a viable path to victory: Ryan Quarles, the agricultural commissioner and a longtime fixture in Frankfort.Rather than splashy ads or television appearances, Mr. Quarles’s campaign has instead focused heavily on local endorsements, earning the backing of more than 230 mayors, magistrates and county officials. Those endorsements, coupled with significant support from the farming community, could give Mr. Quarles enough of a base to win an election in which support is splintered among all three.Trump as kingmaker? Or could it be DeSantis?What scandals? Even as he faces mounting legal challenges and an unfavorable verdict in the civil case in which he was successfully sued by E. Jean Carroll, Mr. Trump remains the most popular and influential figure in a Republican primary election, especially in a state like Kentucky, which he carried by more than 25 points in 2020.When asked during a debate about a jury’s finding Mr. Trump liable for sexually abusing and defaming Ms. Carroll, Mr. Cameron reiterated that he was “honored” to still have the support of the former president.No, he endorsed me. Both candidates can claim the affection of the former president. Ms. Craft served in his administration, has donated to his campaigns and was joined by Mr. Trump at the Kentucky Derby in 2022. She has run several ads comparing her style to Mr. Trump’s.But Mr. Trump endorsed Mr. Cameron (granted, that was before Ms. Craft had officially entered the race), a fact Mr. Cameron mentions several times in his stump speeches and ads.“Despite what some others might tell you,” Mr. Cameron told a crowd at a Republican dinner in Meade County last month, “President Donald J. Trump has endorsed this campaign for governor.”Now, of course, Mr. DeSantis has endorsed Ms. Craft — and they will both hope that his late support will be fresher in voters’ minds as they head to the polls.Mr. Cameron, the Kentucky attorney general, greeted supporters during the Meade County dinner in Guston, Ky.Jon Cherry for The New York TimesMs. Craft, a former member of the Trump administration and a candidate for Kentucky governor, spoke during a campaign stop.Jon Cherry for The New York TimesEducation and ‘woke’ politics at the forefront2017 redux? Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican in light-blue Virginia, built his surprise victory in 2017 through a relentless focus on education. He portrayed Democrats as intent on introducing inappropriate material to young students and argued that a school’s curriculum was something parents, and not teachers, should decide.Both Mr. Cameron and Ms. Craft have made education reform the bedrock of their campaign speeches. Mr. Cameron said that it was the No. 1 issue he had heard about from voters, and he has pledged to fire the Democratic-appointed commissioner of the education department. Ms. Craft, during her stump speeches, holds up copies of books she would ban.“Woke” wars: Both candidates repeatedly blast “woke” ideology in their pitches. For months, visitors to Ms. Craft’s website were greeted with a video denouncing “woke” policies.This loosely defined conservative catchall — a term frequently used by Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida as well — has certainly taken root in the Republican base. It is often the biggest applause line for both Ms. Craft and Mr. Cameron.But beyond the primary, it remains to be seen how voters in a general election will respond to an explicitly anti-“woke” campaign, even in deeply red Kentucky.A battle over Philadelphia’s futureA test of left-wing strength: In the crowded Democratic mayoral contest, the former City Council member Helen Gym has emerged as the most prominent progressive candidate, bolstered by national left-wing leaders including Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York.Both of them rallied with her on Sunday, and Brandon Johnson, who won the Chicago mayor’s race last month, has endorsed her and raised funds for her.A win for Ms. Gym, a veteran community organizer who is especially focused on schools, would be celebrated by national progressive leaders as the latest in a stretch of left-leaning victories in major cities, though their success at the national level in recent years has been far more mixed.But whatever the outcome, many political observers in Pennsylvania caution against drawing sweeping conclusions about the mood of the city from a race that may have low turnout or could be decided by a narrow margin — or both. Sparse polling has suggested a tight and unpredictable contest.In a crucial Democratic primary contest for Philadelphia’s next mayor, Helen Gym, second from left, has earned the support of progressive leaders.Matt Rourke/Associated PressPublic safety debates dominate: Like many major American cities, Philadelphia has struggled with gun violence and other crime in the wake of the pandemic. The full picture of safety in the city is complex, but there is no question that it has been the defining issue in the mayor’s race.The Democrats running for mayor have differed on issues like police stops of citizens — and in particular, the use of stop-and-frisk — and whether to emphasize adding more police officers to the force.But across the ideological spectrum, they have stressed their commitment to making the city safer, and there is broad agreement on the need to both fill police vacancies and denounce police abuse.Control of the Pennsylvania legislatureConcerns for Democrats: Democrats have a single-vote majority in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, but there are two special elections on Tuesday that could flip control back to Republicans.One empty seat is in the 108th Legislative District in north-central Pennsylvania, where voters will most likely elect a Republican.The race for the 163rd Legislative District in southeast Delaware County should be a layup for Democrats. It was vacated by former State Representative Mike Zabel, who resigned in March after being accused of harassment. But Mr. Zabel won his district by roughly 30 points in November, and the seat is in a reliably Democratic area.Yet there are growing concerns that the seat may not be as safe as it has seemed, and Democrats across the state are mobilizing voters in the area to turn out to the polls. Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, recently made a 30-second video highlighting the race.Abortion rights: Democrats are framing the race as critical to protecting abortion rights in Pennsylvania, where abortion is still legal. If Republicans take control of the House, they could, along with the Republican-controlled Senate, put a potential abortion ban on the ballot as a constitutional amendment.But such bans largely failed in 2022, and were often a galvanizing force for Democratic candidates or causes — most notably in deep-red Kansas, where voters rejected an abortion ban months before the 2022 midterms.Reid J. Epstein More

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      Kentucky Governor’s Race Splinters Republicans Ahead of Primary

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      Kentucky Republicans are fighting over a nominee to challenge the Democratic governor, with a longtime Mitch McConnell ally squaring off against a wealthy former Trump administration ambassador.As he spoke to about a dozen voters in a dimly lit Mexican restaurant on the outskirts of Louisville, Daniel Cameron, Kentucky’s popular attorney general, explained how he viewed the tightening battle for the Republican nomination for governor.“Some folks in this race have been running on ads, and I’ve been running on a record,” said Mr. Cameron, who has long been seen as a rising Republican political talent and is a close ally of Senator Mitch McConnell. He was taking a clear swipe at his top rival, Kelly Craft, a former ambassador to the United Nations in the Trump administration who is married to a coal billionaire and has pumped more than $4.2 million into TV advertising.About 50 miles south, in a packed room at Jeff’s Food Mart in Campbellsville, Ms. Craft was not shy about wielding her wealth as a political weapon.“This may be one of the most expensive gubernatorial races in this cycle, and I have the personal resources,” she said.The unsettled race and escalating hostilities are unwelcome developments for Kentucky Republicans as they search for the strongest nominee to bring down Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat whose party loyalties in a crimson state have not stopped him from becoming one of the nation’s most popular governors. Even Republicans concede that he will be difficult to beat in November, and the contest has quickly become the most closely watched statewide election remaining this year.Ryan Quarles, the agricultural commissioner, has campaigned aggressively in rural stretches of the state.Pool photo by Timothy D. EasleyThe Republican primary on May 16 is pitting two pillars of the state’s party apparatus, Mr. Cameron and Ms. Craft, against each other, with a third, well-liked Republican, Ryan Quarles, the agricultural commissioner, acting as an amiable wild card. Polling has been scant, though the few public surveys suggest that Mr. Cameron’s once-dominant lead is shrinking.This churning political mixture has largely frozen the party and its major supporters in place. No one wants to be on the wrong side of the Craft family, collectively one of the biggest Republican donors in the country. And few are eager to damage Mr. Cameron, with his ties to Mr. McConnell, his early endorsement from former President Donald J. Trump and what some in the party view as his potential to rise to powerful positions within the G.O.P.It is not total war: The divisions fall short of the infighting between far-right and establishment candidates that consumed Michigan and Pennsylvania Republicans last year. Instead, the Kentucky Republicans, broadly similar in ideology, are jockeying for conservative primacy on issues like the border, education and vaguely defined “wokeness,” maneuvering that resembles the early contours of the Republican primary for president.The closeness of the race and the negative tone of the ads have caught many by surprise in Kentucky.When Mr. Trump endorsed Mr. Cameron last June, the attorney general seemed poised to cruise to the nomination. He is the first Black attorney general in Kentucky history, and the first Republican to hold the post in about 70 years, with strong name identification and rising political celebrity that stem in part from his prime-time speech during the 2020 Republican National Convention.Ms. Craft did not enter the race until four months after Mr. Cameron’s announcement. On Wednesday, she explained to voters in Campbellsville that she had “waited to get in this race because I didn’t see anybody that could get the job done.”Soon after in December, Ms. Craft began an aggressive ad campaign, airing a mix of biographical spots to help increase her name recognition and numerous ads attacking Mr. Cameron. Commonwealth PAC, a super PAC supporting her candidacy that is partly funded by $1.5 million from her husband, Joe Craft, has aired exclusively negative ads against Mr. Cameron, according to AdImpact, a media tracking firm.Mr. Cameron greeting supporters at a Lincoln Day dinner in Guston, Ky., last week. The scarce public polling in the race suggests that his advantage has diminished. Jon Cherry for The New York TimesOne of the ads from Commonwealth PAC sought to tie Mr. Cameron to Alvin L. Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney leading the indictment of Mr. Trump, by quoting them both as supporting a bail overhaul. Beyond that, they share little in common — other than being Black law enforcement officials.In an interview last Tuesday, Mr. Cameron called the ad “laughable on its face.”He added, “I hope that Kelly Craft, once this primary’s over, will decide to spend some of that money helping me when I’m the nominee.”Ms. Craft defended her ads in an interview last Wednesday.“What I’m focused on is pointing out truths and giving Kentuckians facts,” she said. “So you may think it’s negative. I’m looking at it as telling the truth.”From December to late March, Ms. Craft, with help from her allies, was the only major candidate for governor with ads broadcast across Kentucky’s seven media markets.Mr. Quarles, who has spent slightly less than his two main competitors, has aggressively campaigned in rural stretches of the state, racking up more than 235 endorsements from local officials, including county judges, mayors and magistrates.His first ad, released on Wednesday as part of an initial six-figure purchase, highlights how he “grew up on my family farm in rural Kentucky.” Known in Frankfort for a decade, Mr. Quarles has capitalized on longstanding relationships for support.“A celebrity versus the resources versus old school,” said Scott Jennings, a Republican operative in the state, summing up the contest between the three top contenders.“Cameron is the front-runner, but there’s no doubt this race has gotten close and remains fluid,” added Mr. Jennings, who like many other Republicans has remained neutral.Indeed, many of the major forces in Kentucky Republican politics are staying on the sidelines. Mr. McConnell has not issued an endorsement and does not plan to do so, according to people close to him, and his vast network of operatives in the state has largely not picked sides. Senator Rand Paul is also not endorsing a candidate. And most of Kentucky’s congressional delegation — except Representative James Comer, who endorsed Ms. Craft — has stayed out of the race.For Republicans, part of the challenge of defeating Mr. Beshear has to do with the G.O.P. dominance of the state. Republicans hold supermajorities in the Legislature, making it difficult for the governor to wield much power without a veto. Yet that has kept Mr. Beshear from contentious showdowns with Republicans on hot-button issues, and has let him focus on using state resources to help repair infrastructure and improve the economy.Lacking the money of Ms. Craft, Mr. Cameron has tried to emphasize his endorsement from Mr. Trump. In an eight-minute interview, Mr. Cameron mentioned the endorsement four times.He is quick to point out that Ms. Craft, whose stump speech focuses heavily on her tenure in the Trump administration, does not have the former president’s backing.“Despite what some others might tell you,” Mr. Cameron told a crowd at a Lincoln Day dinner in Meade County, “President Donald J. Trump has endorsed this campaign for governor.”On the issues, Mr. Cameron and Ms. Craft have little daylight between them. Education is a central tenet, with both pledging to fire the current commissioner of education, and deriding what they call a “woke” agenda in schools. Both embrace nationalized issues like the Southern border despite living in a state nearly 1,000 miles from Mexico.Ms. Craft speaking last week at Jeff’s Food Mart in Campbellsville, Ky. She has often focused on education, and has expressed full-throated support for the coal industry.Jon Cherry for The New York TimesThey have also made combating the opioid epidemic, and fentanyl in particular, key planks. Mr. Cameron often notes that his office is working to bring in just under $900 million from settlements to address the drug scourge and empower law enforcement. Ms. Craft has told the emotional story of her daughter’s struggle with addiction and has called for harsher penalties for drug dealers.Ms. Craft also offers ardent support to the state’s coal industry, and her placards pledge to “beat back Joe Biden’s E.P.A.”In his remarks in Shepherdsville last Tuesday, Mr. Cameron highlighted his many battles with Mr. Beshear.“When Governor Beshear decided to shut down churches, I went into federal court and, after nine days, got churches reopened in Kentucky,” Mr. Cameron said, referring to early pandemic regulations.At her stop in Campbellsville, Ms. Craft held aloft a copy of “All Boys Aren’t Blue,” a memoir about growing up Black and queer, as an example of books she wanted banned in the classroom.“We’ve got to take the woke out of the schools,” she said.John Allen, 74, of Taylor County, who came to see Ms. Craft at Jeff’s Food Mart, spoke approvingly of such positions.“What she said in her speech today is exactly the way I feel,” he said. “I’m tired of all this woke agenda stuff. I’m just tired of it. And I think everybody else is, too, and I’m tired of somebody telling me what I can say and can’t say. They’ve got to understand what the First Amendment really is.”But some voters are still making up their minds.Rose Greene, 62, of Meade County, said she had initially leaned toward Mr. Cameron over Ms. Craft. She had friends who had gone to church with him, and she liked his economic positions.“But then I’ve been seeing her commercials,” she added. More

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      The Key Elections Taking Place in 2023

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      Among the races to watch are governors’ contests in Kentucky, Louisiana and Mississippi and mayoral elections in Chicago and Philadelphia.It might be tempting to focus on the 2024 presidential election now that the midterms are in the rearview mirror, but don’t sleep on 2023: key races for governor, mayor and other offices will be decided.Their outcomes will be closely watched for signs of whether Democrats or Republicans have momentum going into next year’s presidential election and congressional races — and for what they signal about the influence of former President Donald J. Trump.Virginia and New Jersey have noteworthy state house elections, and in Wisconsin, a state Supreme Court race will determine the balance of power in a body whose conservative majority routinely sides with Republicans. Here’s what to watch:Kentucky governorOf the three governors’ races this year, only Kentucky features an incumbent Democrat seeking re-election in a state that Mr. Trump won in 2020. The race also appears packed with the most intrigue.Gov. Andy Beshear won by less than 6,000 votes in 2019, ousting Matt Bevin, the Trump-backed Republican incumbent in the cherry-red state that is home to Senator Mitch McConnell, the Senate G.O.P. leader.A growing field of Republicans has ambitions of settling the score in 2023, including Daniel Cameron, who in 2019 became the first Black person to be elected as Kentucky’s attorney general, an office previously held by Mr. Beshear. Mr. Cameron, who is seen as a possible successor to Mr. McConnell, drew attention in 2020 when he announced that a grand jury did not indict two Louisville officers who shot Breonna Taylor. Last June, Mr. Trump endorsed Mr. Cameron for governor, but there will be competition for the G.O.P. nomination.Attorney General Daniel Cameron, signing the papers for his candidacy last week, is among Republicans seeking to challenge Gov. Andy Beshear this year.Timothy D. Easley/Associated PressKelly Craft, a former ambassador to the United Nations under Mr. Trump, is also running. So are Mike Harmon, the state auditor of public accounts, and Ryan Quarles, the state’s agricultural commissioner, and several other Republicans. The primary will be on May 16.Louisiana governorGov. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat who narrowly won a second term in 2019, is not eligible to run again because of term limits. The open-seat race has tantalized some prominent Republicans, including Jeff Landry, the state’s attorney general, who has declared his candidacy.Two other Republicans weighing entering the race are John Schroder, the state treasurer who has told supporters he will run, and Representative Garret Graves.Shawn Wilson, the state’s transportation secretary under Mr. Edwards, is one of the few Democrats who have indicated interest in running in deep-red Louisiana.Electing a New Speaker of the HouseRepresentative Kevin McCarthy won the speakership after a revolt within the Republican Party set off a long stretch of unsuccessful votes.Inside the Speaker Fight: Mr. McCarthy’s speaker bid turned into a rolling disaster. “The Daily” has the inside story of how it went so wrong and what he was forced to give up.A Tenuous Grip: By making concessions to far-right representatives, Mr. McCarthy has effectively given them carte blanche to disrupt the workings of the House — and to hold him hostage to their demands.Looming Consequences: Congressional gridlock brought on by far-right Republicans now seems more likely to lead to government shutdowns or, worse, a default on debt obligations.Roots of the Chaos: How did Mr. McCarthy’s bid become a four-day debacle? The story begins with the zero-sum politics of Newt Gingrich.Mississippi governorGov. Tate Reeves, a Republican, is running for a second term. But the advantage of incumbency and a substantial campaign fund may not be enough to stop a primary challenge, especially with his job approval numbers among the lowest of the nation’s governors.Philip Gunn, Mississippi’s House speaker, has been coy about possible plans to enter the race after announcing in November that he would not seek re-election to the Legislature. Among the other Republicans whose names have been bandied about is Michael Watson, the secretary of state. But Mr. Reeves is the only Republican to have filed so far; the deadline is Feb. 1.A Democrat hasn’t been elected governor of Mississippi in two decades, since a contest was decided by the Legislature because the winning candidate did not receive a majority of votes. Not surprisingly, few Democrats have stepped forward to run. One name to watch is Brandon Presley, a public service commissioner. Mr. Presley is a relative of Elvis Presley, who was from Tupelo, Miss., according to Mississippi Today, a nonprofit news website.U.S. House (Virginia’s Fourth District)The death in late November of Representative A. Donald McEachin, a Democrat from Virginia, prompted Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, to schedule a special election for Feb. 21.In December, Democrats resoundingly nominated Jennifer McClellan, a state senator, to represent the party in the contest for Virginia’s Fourth District, which includes Richmond and leans heavily Democratic. She could become the first Black woman elected to Congress in Virginia, where she would complete the two-year term that Mr. McEachin won by 30 percentage points just weeks before his death.Republicans tapped Leon Benjamin, a Navy veteran and pastor who lost to Mr. McEachin in November and in 2020.Chicago mayorMayor Lori Lightfoot of Chicago, a Democrat who in 2019 became the first Black woman and first openly gay person to lead the nation’s third-most populous city, faces a gantlet of challengers in her quest for re-election.That test will arrive somewhat early in the year, with the mayoral election set for Feb. 28. If no candidate finishes with a majority of the votes, a runoff will be held on April 4.Mayor Lori Lightfoot of Chicago faces several challengers in her re-election bid.Jim Vondruska/ReutersThe crowded field includes Representative Jesús G. García, a Democrat who is known as Chuy and who was overwhelmingly re-elected to a third term in his Cook County district in November and previously ran unsuccessfully for mayor. In the current race, Ms. Lightfoot has attacked Mr. García over receiving money for his House campaign from Sam Bankman-Fried, the criminally charged founder of the collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX.Ms. Lightfoot’s other opponents include Kam Buckner, a state legislator; Brandon Johnson, a Cook County commissioner; Sophia King and Roderick T. Sawyer, who both serve on the City Council; Paul Vallas, a former chief executive of Chicago public schools; and Ja’Mal Green, a prominent activist in the city.Philadelphia mayorAn open-seat race for mayor in Pennsylvania’s foremost Democratic bastion has attracted an expansive field of candidates. The office is held by Jim Kenney, a Democrat who is not eligible to run again because of term limits.Five members of the City Council have resigned to enter the race, which city rules require. They are Allan Domb, Derek Green, Helen Gym, Cherelle Parker and Maria Quiñones Sánchez.The field also includes Rebecca Rhynhart, the city’s controller, who has likewise resigned in order to run; Amen Brown, a state legislator; Jeff Brown, a supermarket chain founder; and James DeLeon; a retired judge.Wisconsin Supreme CourtConservatives are clinging to a one-seat majority on Wisconsin’s Supreme Court, but a retirement within the court’s conservative ranks could shift the balance of power this year. The court’s justices have increasingly been called on to settle landmark lawsuits involving elections, gerrymandering, abortion and other contentious issues.Two conservative and two liberal candidates have entered what is technically a nonpartisan election to succeed Judge Patience D. Roggensack on the seven-member court.Daniel Kelly, a conservative former justice on the state Supreme Court who lost his seat in the 2020 election, is seeking a comeback. Running against him in the conservative lane is Jennifer Dorow, a circuit court judge in Waukesha County who drew widespread attention when she presided over the trial of Darrell E. Brooks, the man convicted in the killing of six people he struck with his car during a Christmas parade in Waukesha, Wis., in 2021.Janet Protasiewicz and Everett Mitchell, judges from Milwaukee County and Dane County, which includes Madison, the capital, are seeking to give liberals a majority on the court.The two candidates who receive the most votes in the nonpartisan primary on Feb. 21 — regardless of their leanings — will face each other in the general election on April 4.Legislature (Virginia and New Jersey)Virginia is emerging as a potential tempest in 2023, with its divided legislature up for re-election and elected officials squarely focused on the issue of abortion — not to mention a Republican governor who is flirting with a run for president.Gov. Glenn Youngkin wants to ban most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, emboldened by the Supreme Court’s repeal last summer of Roe v. Wade, the 50-year-old constitutional right to an abortion.His proposal is expected to resonate with Republican lawmakers, who narrowly control the House of Delegates. But it is likely to run into fierce opposition in the Senate, where Democrats are clinging to a slender majority. All seats in both chambers are up for election.Another Mid-Atlantic state to watch is New Jersey, where Republicans made inroads in 2021 despite being in the minority and are seeking to build on those gains. More

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      Gov. Andy Beshear’s Race in Kentucky Will Test Democrats’ Survival Strategies

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      Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky is popular. Is that enough to win in a state where Democrats have struggled?The first concrete sign that this year’s race for governor of Kentucky would be a hot one came in August, when Beth Drennan’s latest grand champion, a 17-pound uncooked country ham, sold at a charity auction for the cool price of $5 million.For the second year running, the co-buyers of the ham, along with a local bank, were a Kentucky power couple: Joe Craft, a wealthy coal-industry executive, and his wife, Kelly, a former ambassador to Canada and the United Nations under President Donald Trump.“I thought it would go for about half that,” said Drennan, whose company has produced 14 prizewinning hams since she and her husband bought it in 1999.Kelly Craft has since announced her run for governor, joining a crowded field of Republicans seeking to knock off Gov. Andy Beshear, that rarest of creatures: a red-state Democrat.None of those other Republicans are able to throw around seven figures for a charity ham. But Craft has never run for office, and money alone won’t be enough to win the primary, which is scheduled for May and will pit her against more established Kentucky politicians like Daniel Cameron, the well-known attorney general.The race should tell us some important things about American politics in 2023. How much will Republicans will be drawn into the whirlwind around Trump, whose involvement in primaries in 2022 left him damaged in the eyes of many Republicans? And can a talented Democratic politician again defy his state’s conservative bent?Canny political maneuveringBeshear, whose father, Steve, ran the state from 2007 to 2015, has become one of the country’s most popular governors, after winning office in 2019 over a widely detested incumbent by just over 5,000 votes.The reasons aren’t complicated: He focuses relentlessly on local issues — like the flooding that devastated the eastern part of the state last year — talks often about his faith and tries to keep national politics at bay. He brands his regular news conferences as a “Team Kentucky Update.”Beshear’s ideology is hard to pin down, though Republicans see him as a doctrinaire Democrat in disguise. He has supported some tax cuts while opposing others. He raised pay for state troopers but restored voting rights to felons, albeit with a lengthy list of exceptions. He issued an executive order last year to allow medical cannabis, angering Republicans, who said he had overstepped his authority.Beshear has also vetoed legislation requiring school districts to set aside money for charter schools, though Republicans overrode it. And last year, when Republicans sent Beshear a bill barring transgender girls from participating in school sports under their gender identity, he said it was most likely unconstitutional. Explaining his veto, he wrote that public officials had an obligation to show “compassion, kindness and empathy, even if not understanding” to transgender children.Beshear got a boost in 2021 when Ford announced plans to invest $5.8 billion to build two plants to manufacture batteries for electric vehicles, creating 5,000 jobs — conveniently located in a Republican-leaning county south of Louisville. And when Ford announced an additional $700 million plan for truck manufacturing in the state, Beshear capitalized by declaring Sept. 27 “KenTRUCKy Day.”President Biden’s unpopularity in Kentucky — he lost the state by 26 percentage points in 2020 — will complicate Beshear’s re-election hopes. When The Associated Press interviewed Beshear in December, he made it clear that he wasn’t interested in having Biden campaign for him.“This campaign isn’t going to be about national figures,” Beshear said. “It’s going to be about the people of Kentucky.”But he avoided getting drawn into an extended discussion of whether he thought Biden was doing a good job, telling his interviewer, “There are things that I think have been done well, and there are things that I wish would have been done better.”Potential weaknessesBeshear’s approach is very much in line with how national Democrats think about how to win in red states — with Gov. Laura Kelly’s re-election last year in Kansas being a recent example.“Getting things done for people, having a real tangible record of success, is really good politics,” Marshall Cohen, the longtime political director of the Democratic Governors Association, said in a recent podcast interview. “You’ve got to show up, you’ve got to talk about issues that people care about, and you have to create a brand for yourself that’s not just D and R.”Beshear “has not made a ton of mistakes,” Tyler Glick, a Republican public affairs consultant in Kentucky, told me. But he predicted that the governor’s handling of the pandemic would be a problem, and in particular his decision to have state troopers monitor church attendance in April 2020 when several churches moved to ignore the state’s stay-at-home order.The struggle to overhaul the state’s computer system for processing unemployment insurance could also hurt Beshear, said Tres Watson, a former spokesman for the Republican Party of Kentucky.Beshear is set to join Biden and Senator Mitch McConnell in Kentucky this week as the two Washington leaders promote last year’s infrastructure bill, which included $1.64 billion for a long-stalled upgrade of a dilapidated bridge spanning the Ohio River between Kentucky and Cincinnati.McConnell has called securing the federal money for the Brent Spence Bridge Corridor Project “one of the bill’s crowning accomplishments.” Beshear, who had vowed to fund the improvement without tolls, hailed it as an example of “what’s possible when we prioritize people over politics.”And for Biden, the Kentucky visit is the latest of his trips to promote the infrastructure bill — and, just as importantly, to position the president as a pragmatist who is willing to work with Republicans on popular, meat-and-potatoes issues. As it happens, the northern tip of Kentucky is a swing area; Beshear won two out of three counties there in 2019.Daniel Cameron, left, Kentucky’s attorney general, with Senator Mitch McConnell at a rally in Lexington in 2019. Cameron is one of the leading candidates in this year’s Republican primary for governor.Doug Mills/The New York TimesA crowded G.O.P. fieldThe Republican primary has been fairly tame — but that is likely to change.“You throw six, seven people in a pot and start stirring it around, crazy things can happen,” said Scott Jennings, a longtime Kentucky political hand who is neutral in the race.Craft will be competing against Cameron, a protégé of McConnell who has already secured Trump’s endorsement; Agricultural Commissioner Ryan Quarles, who has a large network of supporters across the state; and at least eight others so far.Craft was endorsed immediately by Representative James Comer of Kentucky, the incoming chairman of the House Oversight Committee. Beshear’s campaign blasted her as “an out-of-touch billionaire” who would “likely spend millions and millions of dollars to try to convince Kentuckians she cares about them.” Craft and her husband have given generously to Republican candidates and committees over the years.Just before the holidays, Kentucky circles were buzzing about the decision by Savannah Maddox, a far-right state lawmaker, to drop out of the race. Some thought it signaled that former Gov. Matt Bevin, whom Beshear defeated in 2019 and occupies a similar “liberty” lane in Kentucky Republican politics, might jump in. The deadline for entering the race is Friday, and speculation about Bevin’s intentions is rampant.Cameron burst onto the national scene in 2020, drawing gushing reviews from Republicans when he delivered a sharp attack on Democrats and Biden — linking them to what he cast as the excesses of the social justice protests that swept the country after the police killing of a Black man, George Floyd, in Minneapolis.“The politics of identity, cancellation, and mob rule are not acceptable to me,” Cameron, who is Black, said at the time. “Republicans trust you to think for yourselves and to pursue your American dream however you see fit.”Some thought Cameron might wait until McConnell’s retirement to run for Senate, but he instead jumped into the governor’s race. He has used his platform as attorney general to draw a sharp contrast with Beshear on abortion rights and the pandemic.But Trump’s endorsement of Cameron did not scare off Craft, who is already raising more money than anyone else in the field. According to the first report filed to the Kentucky Registry of Election Finance, she raised just over $750,000 during the three months that ended on Sept. 30, while Cameron had brought in a little over $400,000 — putting him behind Quarles, who raised nearly $560,000. (Beshear raised more than $1 million.)Craft is the only Republican who has done any advertising so far. Her first television spot, titled “Where I’m From,” introduces her as an authentic child of rural Kentucky whose life path has taken her from a small-town upbringing “to the University of Kentucky, to the boardroom and all the way to the United Nations.”It shows footage of Craft with Trump, who chose her for two ambassadorships, but doesn’t linger on their connection — nor does she mention his name. “People said I was just some small-town girl,” she says, “but my dad showed me that it’s where I’m from that got me to where I am today.” (Craft hosted a fund-raising event for Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida at her home in 2021, raising the interesting prospect that he might wade into the Republican primary in Kentucky.)Kentucky has been a red state for years, but only recently did voter registration trends catch up with reality. Republicans now make up 45.5 percent of the electorate, versus 44.6 percent for Democrats, according to the secretary of state.More ominously for Beshear, Republicans flipped five state legislative seats in 2022, including a blowout defeat of State Representative Angie Hatton, a rural Democrat who was one of the party’s leaders. But ousting a well-funded, popular governor is another matter. Beshear’s seasoned team figures he needs to win at least 20 percent of the Republican vote to survive; Democratic polling has found that Beshear has a 40 percent approval rating among Republicans.“Andy Beshear is going to be difficult to be beat,” Jennings said. “I don’t think any Republican should be under any illusion that this should be an easy victory.”What to readRepresentative Kevin McCarthy, the Republican leader, fell short in the first three votes in his bid to become speaker. The House will return at noon Wednesday. Follow live updates.As Nancy Pelosi’s time as speaker comes to a close, Carl Hulse takes stock of a leader whose “presence will be felt for years in the climate, health care, public works and social legislation she ushered through to signatures by two Democratic presidents.”Jennifer Medina reports from Florida, where influential Hispanic evangelical pastors are carefully eyeing the 2024 rivalry between Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis.Thank you for reading On Politics, and for being a subscriber to The New York Times. — BlakeRead past editions of the newsletter here.If you’re enjoying what you’re reading, please consider recommending it to others. They can sign up here. Browse all of our subscriber-only newsletters here.Have feedback? Ideas for coverage? We’d love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com. More

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      Supreme Court Focuses on Procedure in Kentucky Abortion Case

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      After the state’s political landscape shifted in 2019, the Democratic governor and the Republican attorney general disagreed on defending the law.WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court heard arguments in an abortion case on Tuesday, but the issue for the justices was a procedural one: Could Kentucky’s attorney general, a Republican, defend a state abortion law when the governor, a Democrat, refused to pursue further appeals after a federal appeals court struck down the law?As the argument progressed through a thicket of technical issues, a majority of the justices seemed inclined to say yes.“Kentucky maybe ought to be there in some form, and the attorney general is the one that wants to intervene,” Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said.More important abortion cases are on the horizon. In December, the court will hear arguments on whether to overrule Roe v. Wade in a case concerning a Mississippi law banning most abortions after 15 weeks. And the justices have been asked to take another look at a Texas law that prohibits most abortions after six weeks, which the court allowed to go into effect last month by a 5-to-4 vote.Tuesday’s case, Cameron v. EMW Women’s Surgical Center, No. 20-601, concerned a Kentucky law that challengers said effectively banned the most common method of abortion in the second trimester of pregnancy, dilation and evacuation. The justices barely discussed the law during Tuesday’s argument.Rather, they focused on the tangled history of the case and the complicated jurisdictional and procedural questions that arose from it.The case started in 2018, when the state’s only abortion clinic and two doctors sued various state officials to challenge the law. The state’s attorney general at the time, Andy Beshear, a Democrat, said his office was not responsible for enforcing the law and entered into a stipulation dismissing the case against him, agreeing to abide by the final judgment and reserving the right to appeal.The state’s health secretary, who had been appointed by a Republican governor, defended the law in court. A federal trial court struck the law down, saying it was at odds with Supreme Court precedent. The health secretary appealed, but the attorney general did not.While the case was moving forward, Kentucky’s political landscape shifted. Mr. Beshear, who had been attorney general, was elected governor. Daniel Cameron, a Republican, was elected attorney general.Mr. Beshear appointed a new health secretary, Eric Friedlander, who continued to defend the law on appeal. But after a divided three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, in Cincinnati, affirmed the trial judge’s ruling, Mr. Friedlander declined to seek review from the full appeals court or the Supreme Court.Mr. Cameron, the new attorney general, sought to intervene in the appeals court, saying he was entitled to defend the law. The appeals court denied his request, ruling that it had come too late.On Tuesday, the justices probed the significance of the stipulation and the standards for when appeals courts should allow parties to intervene in the late stages of a case.Justice Clarence Thomas, who has taken to asking the first questions during arguments, said “there isn’t much law” on the appropriate standards.Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the Sixth Circuit was entitled to take account of the fact that the attorney general had failed to file an appeal after losing in the trial court, notwithstanding the later election of a new attorney general.“Why would we call it an abuse of discretion for a court of appeals, after it’s rendered its judgment, to say we don’t really care what has happened in the political arena?” she asked.Matthew F. Kuhn, a lawyer for Mr. Cameron, said his client was acting in a different capacity when he sought to intervene. He was now, Mr. Kuhn said, representing the interests of the state.About 45 minutes into the argument, Justice Stephen G. Breyer described what he said was really going on the case. “First the Republicans are in, then the Democrats are in,” he said, “and they have different views on an abortion statute.”What to Know About the Supreme Court TermCard 1 of 5A blockbuster term begins. More