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      Republicans Confront Unexpected Online Money Slowdown

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      Online fund-raising has slowed across much of the Republican Party in recent months, an unusual pullback of small donors that has set off a mad rush among Republican political operatives to understand why — and reverse the sudden decline before it damages the party’s chances this fall.Small-dollar donations typically increase as an election nears. But just the opposite has happened in recent months across a wide range of Republican entities, including every major party committee and former President Donald J. Trump’s political operation.The total amount donated online fell by more than 12 percent across all federal Republican campaigns and committees in the second quarter compared with the first quarter, according to an analysis of federal records from WinRed, the main online Republican donation-processing portal.More alarming for Republicans: Democratic contributions surged at the same time. Total federal donations on ActBlue, the Democratic counterpart, jumped by more than 21 percent.The overall Democratic fund-raising edge online widened by $100 million from the last quarter of 2021 to the most recent three-month period, records show.Exacerbating the fund-raising problems for Republicans is that Mr. Trump continues to be the party’s dominant fund-raiser and yet virtually none of the tens of millions of dollars he has raised has gone toward defeating Democrats. Instead, the money has funded his political team and retribution agenda against Republicans who have crossed him.The current political climate favors Republicans as President Biden’s approval rating plumbs new lows. But nearly a dozen Republican strategists directly involved in fund-raising or overseeing campaigns have expressed concerns about how the fund-raising downturn might limit their party’s gains.Working in the party’s favor is that Wall Street billionaires and other industry titans have cut seven- and eight-figure checks to Republican super PACs, offsetting some of the party’s small-dollar struggles, which some attributed to inflation and others to deceptive tactics that are turning off supporters over time.“We’ve got to raise the money,” Senator Rick Scott of Florida, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said repeatedly on Fox News on Friday when pressed about the 2022 landscape. “We get the money, we win.”For the Senate Republican committee, online fund-raising plunged by $6.7 million in the most recent quarter, to $11 million, from $17.7 million. Top Republican Senate candidates, even those whose fund-raising ticked up, are falling well behind their Democratic rivals in the cash race.Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia raised $12.3 million online last quarter.Nicole Craine for The New York TimesThe money gap is so pronounced that Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia, an endangered Democratic incumbent, raised more online last quarter — $12.3 million — than the combined WinRed quarterly hauls of the Republican Senate nominees or presumptive nominees in seven key contests: Georgia, Wisconsin, Florida, Nevada, Ohio, North Carolina and Pennsylvania.Money alone does not win political races and, for years, Republicans have grown accustomed to trailing Democrats in online fund-raising. Democratic donors, for instance, poured more than $200 million into losing Senate races in Kentucky and South Carolina last cycle — and neither contest ended up even close.Key Themes From the 2022 Midterm Elections So FarCard 1 of 5The state of the midterms. More

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      American Bridge Sues the F.E.C. Over Trump’s 2024 Hinting

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      American Bridge claims in a lawsuit that the F.E.C.’s inaction has given Donald J. Trump an unlawful advantage over any Democratic opponent in 2024.A Democratic super PAC filed a lawsuit against the Federal Election Commission on Wednesday, seeking to force officials to take action against Donald J. Trump for all but running for president in 2024 without having declared himself a candidate.The suit comes more than four months after the group, American Bridge, lodged a complaint with the F.E.C. against Mr. Trump. The complaint argues that he has been behaving like a 2024 presidential candidate while avoiding the oversight of the commission by not filing a statement of candidacy.For a year, Mr. Trump has held rallies across the country that are ostensibly for Republicans running in local, statewide and congressional races, but during which he talks about himself. He has also given several interviews in which he has sounded like a candidate. When Mr. Trump will make a formal announcement remains uncertain, but he has accelerated his campaign planning in hopes of blunting damaging revelations from investigations into his attempts to overturn his defeat in the 2020 election.The group alleges in the lawsuit, filed in Washington, that the agency’s inaction has allowed Mr. Trump to have an advantage as a candidate without a formal campaign committee.“The goal and effect of Mr. Trump’s efforts is to disguise his run for the presidency,” the suit reads, leaving the group and voters “in the dark about the contributions and expenditures he has received, which is information they are entitled to.”Donald Trump, Post-PresidencyThe former president remains a potent force in Republican politics.Grip on G.O.P.: Donald J. Trump is still a looming figure in his party. However, there are signs his control is loosening.Losing Support: Nearly half of G.O.P. primary voters prefer someone other than Mr. Trump for president in 2024, a Times/Siena College poll showed.Looking for Cover: Republicans are bracing for Mr. Trump to announce an unusually early 2024 bid, a move intended in part to shield him from the damaging revelations emerging from the Jan. 6 investigations.Endorsement Record: While Mr. Trump has helped propel some G.O.P. candidates to primary victories, he’s also had notable defeats. Here’s where his record stands so far in 2022.A Modern-Day Party Boss: Hoarding cash, doling out favors and seeking to crush rivals, Mr. Trump is behaving like the head of a 19th-century political machine.His continued fund-raising for his political groups in this manner “provides him with a competitive edge” over his Democratic opponent, whom American Bridge plans to support, the lawsuit says.The group called on the F.E.C. to take action against Mr. Trump within 30 days. The suit suggests that additional action should be taken against both Mr. Trump and the commission if the agency does nothing.The F.E.C. did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.Lawyers for American Bridge said in the suit that had the agency acted swiftly on their complaint in March, Mr. Trump would have been required to register a principal campaign committee and disclose his campaign activities in a series of reports. They also said that Mr. Trump’s PAC, Save America, is spending money to support candidate-related activities the former president has been engaging in for a year. The group argued that it was at a disadvantage in its efforts to engage in the kind of opposition research it normally conducts, because Mr. Trump is not being subjected to the type of disclosures the commission requires from candidates.The lawsuit compiled some of the remarks the former president made in recent months that hinted at another run for the White House.In January, when Mr. Trump was introduced at his golf course as the 45th president of the United States, he responded, according to the lawsuit, “the 45th and 47th.” It also notes that he told a conservative group in February that “we’re going to be doing it again a third time” and referred to his wife, Melania Trump, as “the future first lady.”In a July interview with New York magazine, Mr. Trump said that “in my own mind, I’ve already made that decision, so nothing factors in anymore.”A spokesman for Mr. Trump did not respond to a request for comment.It is unclear whether the suit will work through the courts fast enough to have any effect on either the commission or Mr. Trump. There have been a handful of suits seeking to force an increasingly slow F.E.C. to take action on various campaign finance matters. Many of those suits are still pending. More

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      Gov. Hochul Holds Steep Fund-Raising Edge Over G.O.P. Rival Lee Zeldin

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      According to the latest campaign filing numbers, there is little question that Representative Lee Zeldin faces an extreme uphill battle in his effort to unseat Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York.Ms. Hochul, a Democrat, has a better than seven to one fund-raising advantage over Mr. Zeldin, a conservative Republican congressman from Long Island, heading into their general election showdown.Ms. Hochul reported $11.7 million in the bank as of mid-July, compared with just $1.57 million for Mr. Zeldin, reports filed late Friday show.But perhaps the starkest example of the governor’s fund-raising advantage — and, perhaps, her confidence of victory in November — was the nearly $1 million that her campaign transferred to the state Democratic Party, more than half of it before she won her primary election in late June.The $950,000 transfer outpaced the little under $900,000 that Mr. Zeldin reported in the latest period (June 14-July 11), about 60 percent from donors who gave in chunks of $5,000.The largest single source of contributions listed on Mr. Zeldin’s financial disclosure report wasn’t from an individual donor, however — it was from unitemized donations, which have no names attached.Campaigns are not required to report the names of donors who give no more than $99. Many campaigns do so anyway; Ms. Hochul, for example, has listed no unitemized donations in reports going back to August of last year.Representative Lee Zeldin accepting the Republican nomination for governor in February. Johnny Milano for The New York TimesMr. Zeldin has taken the opposite tack. In the last year, the congressman has reported at least $897,636 from unitemized donors, representing 10 percent of the total haul for the Zeldin for New York campaign committee during that time, records show. Mr. Zeldin’s campaign did not immediately respond to questions from The New York Times.In the latest report, Mr. Zeldin reported receiving $72,546 from unitemized donors.Ms. Hochul raised over $2 million from mid-June through the beginning of last week, about $1.8 million (86 percent) of which came in chunks of $5,000 or greater. She shattered previous records for a single state reporting period in January, and she has far outpaced her rivals in both parties ever since.Ms. Hochul’s campaign is hoping to raise as much as $70 million for her race at a time when Democrats nationally are facing headwinds because of sky-high inflation and President Biden’s sagging approval ratings. She has already accumulated half that ambitious amount, with about $35 million raised since she was sworn in as governor on Aug. 24 last year, after Andrew M. Cuomo resigned amid allegations that he had sexually harassed multiple women. More

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      Carolyn Maloney Uses Personal Fortune in Primary Against Jerrold Nadler

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      Representative Carolyn Maloney of New York holds a commanding financial advantage over her crosstown Democratic primary opponent, Representative Jerrold Nadler, thanks to a familiar benefactor: herself.She personally lent her campaign $900,000, according to new filings released late Friday. The loan, combined with another $600,000 or so in outside donations in the second quarter, gives Ms. Maloney $2 million in the bank before the Aug. 23 primary, a closely watched and highly abbreviated contest between two long-serving House committee leaders.“There was never a doubt that I would continue to fight for the people in my district,” Ms. Maloney, 76, who is one of the richest members of Congress, said of the race in New York’s 12th Congressional District. “Thus, I decided to use some of my retirement savings to invest in this campaign.”Bob Liff, a spokesman for Ms. Maloney, clarified that the funds had come from her House retirement account.Mr. Nadler, 75, reported $500,000 in contributions, but he did not lend his campaign any money, leaving him with $1.2 million in cash.“I’m the son of a chicken farmer — no fortune over here!” Mr. Nadler wrote on Twitter, gently knocking Ms. Maloney. Julian Gerson, a co-manager of Mr. Nadler’s campaign, added that Mr. Nadler would “have the resources we need to run a campaign that’ll talk to every voter.”A third candidate campaigning on a platform of generational change, Suraj Patel, ended the quarter with about half that amount of cash, filings show.Mr. Patel blasted both his opponents for accepting campaign contributions from corporate donors, a practice he avoids. “The 60 years of incumbency in this race are desperate to hold onto their seats,” he said.Ms. Maloney’s loan came in late May, after New York’s courts had invalidated congressional districts drawn by Democrats in Albany, and unexpectedly drew replacements that combined her longtime district rooted on the East Side of Manhattan with Mr. Nadler’s on the West Side.The same reshuffling created an outright melee among more than a dozen Democrats in the neighboring 10th District, which stretches from Lower Manhattan into Brooklyn.Friday’s filings showed that Representative Mondaire Jones had extended a commanding fund-raising lead with $2.8 million in cash on hand. Mr. Jones, who jumped from the suburban Westchester County district he currently represents to the new 10th District to avoid a messy party primary with a fellow incumbent, entered the race with a significant head start. But he will likely need every penny in order to introduce himself to unfamiliar voters and overcome accusations of carpetbagging.Other candidates were also assembling sizable campaign war chests.Daniel Goldman, a former federal prosecutor who worked on the first impeachment of former President Donald J. Trump, quickly raised $1.2 million and ended the quarter with more than $1 million in cash. Bill de Blasio, the former New York City mayor, raised over $500,000; Carlina Rivera, a Manhattan city councilwoman, collected just over $400,000 in contributions; and Yuh-Line Niou, an assemblywoman from Chinatown, reported $240,000 in donations.Mr. de Blasio’s haul included substantial contributions from New York City’s real estate industry and several of his former mayoral appointees, including $1,000 from Dean Fuleihan, Mr. de Blasio’s deputy mayor, and $500 from Steven Banks, the head of social services under Mr. de Blasio. More

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      Eric Adams Raises $850,000 for Re-election in 2025

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      Mayor Eric Adams has traveled across the country to court donors, receiving contributions from casino and sports betting executives.When Mayor Eric Adams was confronted last month with troubling poll numbers, he gave an optimistic interpretation: He said he had earned a C grade from many New Yorkers.In terms of combating the city’s crime problem, the mayor was less certain, giving himself a grade of incomplete.But when it comes to fund-raising, Mr. Adams would more than likely give himself an A, for effort and for results.The mayor raised more than $850,000 for his 2025 re-election campaign barely six months after taking office, according to filings with the city’s Campaign Finance Board released on Friday night.The campaign haul is a result of Mr. Adams’s traveling across the country to raise money for a second term, even as he is confronting major issues at home, from crime to soaring rents. He has held fund-raisers in Chicago and Beverly Hills and has courted wealthy donors in the Hamptons during the honeymoon stage of his first term when his popularity is still relatively high.Here’s a look at some quick takeaways from the campaign filings:The mayor’s national reachNearly half of Mr. Adams’s campaign donations — more than $400,000 — came from outside New York City, from donors in places including Palm Beach, Fla., and Santa Barbara, Calif.His trips to other cities have helped establish a national profile for Mr. Adams, who has called himself the “future of the Democratic Party” and is rumored to be interested in running for president someday, like a handful of New York City mayors before him.In March, Mr. Adams, the city’s second Black mayor, held an event in Chicago at the home of Desirée Rogers, the former White House social secretary for President Barack Obama. Ms. Rogers donated $2,500 to Mr. Adams’s campaign.The mayor had 28 total donations from Chicago, from donors including Brett Hart, the president of United Airlines; La Shawn Ford, an Illinois lawmaker; and Toi Salter, a wealth manager. Mr. Adams’s West Coast donors included Breck Eisner, the director of the 2005 film “Sahara.”“This filing shows strong support for Mayor Adams and his plans for the city,” his campaign lawyer, Vito Pitta, a prominent lobbyist, said in a statement.Attention from real estate and casino executivesNew Yorkers did not exactly open their wallets for Mr. Adams: Only $83,000 of the donations is believed to qualify for the city’s generous matching-funds program, which is designed to reward candidates who receive small-dollar donations from local residents.But given that his re-election is still more than three years away, the slow pace of small local donations is understandable.Still, some donors — specifically, leaders from real estate, casino and sports betting businesses — seemed to have more immediate reason to give to the mayor’s campaign.They included Stephen Green, a founder of SL Green Realty, one of the city’s biggest landlords, and Darcy Stacom, the head of New York City capital markets for CRBE, a major commercial real estate firm.As New York City prepares to welcome three new casinos, executives from a Hard Rock hotel and casino in Florida donated to the mayor. Sean Caffery, a casino development executive at Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Hollywood, and Jeff Hook, another executive there, each gave $2,000. Two other Hard Rock executives, Jon Lucas and Edward Tracy, also donated.And with sports betting having recently been legalized in New York, Jason Robins, the chief executive of DraftKings, the sports betting company, and Stanton Dodge, the company’s chief legal officer, gave $2,000 to the campaign. Matt King, chief executive at Fanatics Betting and Gaming, was another donor.Fund-raisers at Osteria La Baia and Casa CiprianiMr. Adams’s campaign has spent about $100,000 so far, leaving him with $746,000 on hand.The campaign’s largest single payment was $30,000 to Suggs Solutions, a company run by his fund-raiser, Brianna Suggs. Ms. Suggs has also raised money for the Democratic Party in Brooklyn and worked for Mr. Adams when he was Brooklyn borough president.The campaign has been paying $7,500 a month to Pitta L.P., the law firm where Mr. Pitta, the campaign lawyer, is a managing partner, since February.Other payments went to fund-raisers at some of the mayor’s favorite restaurants, including $1,000 in March to Osteria La Baia, an Italian restaurant in Midtown Manhattan, and $1,600 in March to Casa Cipriani, a members’ club in Lower Manhattan.The campaign also paid for flights on JetBlue and United Airlines and for hotels, including $1,280 to the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills.The City Council is also getting an early startMr. Adams may have more than a passing interest in the future of the City Council, knowing that next year’s election, in which every Council seat will be on the ballot, could affect Mr. Adams’s agenda. A majority of the Council — 41 of its 51 members — sent Mr. Adams a letter this week calling on him to restore funding for schools that have faced vexing budget cuts.Adrienne Adams, the City Council speaker, led the Council in recent fund-raising, reporting about $127,000 in contributions from powerful donors that included the New York State Laborers and the Building and Construction Trades Council. Ms. Adams, a Democrat, also received $250 from John Catsimatidis, the Republican billionaire, and $1,600 from his wife, Margo.Other Council members have raised significant amounts, including Linda Lee, a member from eastern Queens, who raised $51,000; Sandra Ung, a member who represents Flushing, Queens, and raised $33,000; and Crystal Hudson and Justin Brannan, two members from Brooklyn who each raised $25,000.A PAC tied to the Partnership for New York City, an influential business group, donated to at least three Council members: Ms. Adams, Ms. Hudson and Mr. Brannan. More

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      Beto O’Rourke broke a Texas fund-raising record with a $27.6 million haul, his campaign said.

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      Beto O’Rourke set a new Texas fund-raising record for state office with a $27.6 million haul over four months in the governor’s race, his campaign announced on Friday, saying that it had outpaced Gov. Greg Abbott, the Republican incumbent, in the tightening contest.But the campaign of Mr. Abbott, who still holds a cash-on-hand advantage over Mr. O’Rourke, reported that he had raised nearly $25 million during the same period ending in June.Mr. O’Rourke’s campaign received over a half-million donations at the same time that he was staunchly critical of gun control laws in Texas after a mass shooting in May at an elementary school in Uvalde, and after the state imposed restrictions on abortions last month.Both issues have boosted the national profile of Mr. O’Rourke, a Democrat and former congressman who ran unsuccessfully for the Senate in 2018 and later for president.Mr. O’Rourke received widespread attention in May when he interrupted a news conference held by Mr. Abbott in Uvalde after an 18-year-old gunman armed with an AR-15-style rifle killed 19 children and two teachers at an elementary school. Mr. O’Rourke, who supports banning assault weapons, accused Mr. Abbott of “doing nothing” to prevent gun violence before Mr. Abbott’s allies told Mr. O’Rourke to “shut up” and said that he was an “embarrassment.”Two recent polls — one conducted by the University of Houston and one by the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas in Austin — had Mr. O’Rourke within five and within six percentage points of Mr. Abbott.“We’re receiving support from people in every part of Texas,” Mr. O’Rourke said in a statement and pointed to “keeping our kids safe” and “protecting a woman’s freedom to make her own decisions about her own body, health care and future” as significant concerns.Gardner Pate, who is Mr. Abbott’s campaign chairman, said in a statement that Mr. Abbott’s re-election effort was well positioned, with nearly $46 million in cash on hand as of the end of June and having raised nearly $68 million since last June.“Our campaign has also pre-purchased more than $20 million in advertising for the fall, and begun funding an extensive block-walking program to get voters to the polls this November,” Mr. Pate said.Mr. O’Rourke’s campaign did not disclose how much cash on hand it had through June, but a February filing showed that he had nearly $6.8 million.Official campaign finance reports for Mr. O’Rourke and Mr. Abbott, due on Friday to the Texas Ethics Commission, have not yet been posted. It was not immediately clear who held the previous Texas fund-raising record for state office. More

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      MAGA Voters Send a $50 Million G.O.P. Plan Off the Rails in Illinois

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      Republican leaders think a moderate nominee for governor could beat Gov. J.B. Pritzker. But the party’s base seems to prefer a far-right state senator — and he is getting help from Mr. Pritzker.LINCOLN, Ill. — Darren Bailey, the front-runner in the Republican primary for governor of Illinois, was finishing his stump speech last week at a senior center in this Central Illinois town when a voice called out: “Can we pray for you?”Mr. Bailey readily agreed. The speaker, a youth mentor from Lincoln named Kathy Schmidt, placed her right hand on his left shoulder while he closed his eyes and held out his hands, palms open.“More than anything,” she prayed, “I ask for that, in this election, you raise up the righteous and strike down the wicked.”The wicked, in this case, are the Chicago-based moderates aiming to maintain control over the Illinois Republican Party. And the righteous is Mr. Bailey, a far-right state senator who is unlike any nominee the party has put forward for governor in living memory.A 56-year-old farmer whose Southern Illinois home is closer to Nashville than to Chicago, he wears his hair in a crew cut, speaks with a thick drawl and does not sand down his conservative credentials, as so many past leading G.O.P. candidates have done to try to appeal to suburbanites in this overwhelmingly Democratic state. On Saturday, former President Donald J. Trump endorsed Mr. Bailey at a rally near Quincy, Ill.Mr. Bailey has sought to respond to grievances long felt across rural Central and Southern Illinois toward Chicago, which he once proposed removing from the state.Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesMr. Bailey rose to prominence in Illinois politics by introducing legislation to kick Chicago out of the state. When the coronavirus pandemic began, he was removed from a state legislative session for refusing to wear a mask, and he sued Gov. J.B. Pritzker, a Democrat, over statewide virus mitigation efforts. Painted on the door of his campaign bus is the Bible verse Ephesians 6:10-19, which calls for followers to wear God’s armor in a battle against “evil rulers.”He is the favored candidate of the state’s anti-abortion groups, and on Friday he celebrated the Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade as a “historic and welcomed moment.” He has said he opposes the practice, including in cases of rape and incest.Mr. Bailey has upended carefully laid $50 million plans by Illinois Republican leaders to nominate Mayor Richard C. Irvin of Aurora, a moderate suburbanite with an inspiring personal story who they believed could win back the governor’s mansion in Springfield in what is widely forecast to be a winning year for Republicans.Mr. Bailey has been aided by an unprecedented intervention from Mr. Pritzker and the Pritzker-funded Democratic Governors Association, which have spent nearly $35 million combined attacking Mr. Irvin while trying to lift Mr. Bailey. No candidate for any office is believed to have ever spent more to meddle in another party’s primary.The Illinois governor’s race is now on track to become the most expensive campaign for a nonpresidential office in American history.Public and private polling ahead of Tuesday’s primary shows Mr. Bailey with a lead of 15 percentage points over Mr. Irvin and four other candidates. His strength signals the broader shift in Republican politics across the country, away from urban power brokers and toward a rural base that demands fealty to a far-right agenda aligned with Mr. Trump.For Mr. Bailey, the proposal to excise Chicago, which he called “a hellhole” during a televised debate last month, encapsulates the grievances long felt across rural Central and Southern Illinois — places culturally far afield and long resentful of the politically dominant big city.An audience in Green Valley, Ill., listened to Mr. Bailey speak. Polling shows him leading the Republican primary by double digits.Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York Times“The rest of the 90 percent of the land mass is not real happy about how 10 percent of the land mass is directing things,” Mr. Bailey said in an interview aboard his campaign bus outside a bar in Green Valley, a village of 700 people south of Peoria. “A large amount of people outside of that 10 percent don’t have a voice, and that’s a problem.”That pitch has resonated with the conservative voters flocking to Mr. Bailey, who seemed to compare Mr. Irvin to Satan during a Facebook Live monologue in February.“Everything that we pay and do supports Chicago,” said Pam Page, a security analyst at State Farm Insurance from McLean, Ill., who came to see Mr. Bailey in Lincoln. “Downstate just never seems to get any of the perks or any of the kickbacks.”The onslaught of Democratic television advertising attacking Mr. Irvin and trying to elevate Mr. Bailey has frustrated the Aurora mayor, whose campaign was conceived of and funded by the same team of Republicans who helped elect social moderates like Mark Kirk to the Senate in 2010 and Bruce Rauner as governor in 2014. Their recipe: In strong Republican years, find moderate candidates who can win over voters in Chicago’s suburbs — and spend a ton of money.Richard C. Irvin speaking to employees at a manufacturing plant in Wauconda, a suburb north of Chicago. Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesMr. Irvin, 52, fit their bill. Born to a teenage single mother in Aurora, he is an Army veteran of the first Gulf War who served as a local prosecutor before becoming the first Black mayor of the city, the second most populous in Illinois.Kenneth Griffin, the Chicago billionaire hedge fund founder who is the chief benefactor for Illinois Republicans, gave $50 million to Mr. Irvin for the primary alone and pledged to spend more for him in the general election. Mr. Griffin, the state’s richest man, will not support any other Republican in the race against Mr. Pritzker, according to his spokesman, Zia Ahmed. Mr. Griffin announced last week that his hedge fund and trading firm would relocate to Miami.While Mr. Irvin, a longtime Republican who has nevertheless voted in a series of recent Democratic primaries in Illinois, expected an expensive dogfight in the general election, he is frustrated by the primary season intervention from Mr. Pritzker, a billionaire who is America’s richest elected official.“This has never happened in the history of our nation that a Democrat would spend this much money stopping one individual from becoming the nominee of the Republican Party,” Mr. Irvin said in an interview after touring a manufacturing plant in Wauconda, a well-to-do suburb north of Chicago. “There are six Republican primary opponents — six of them. But when you turn on the television, all you see is me.”Mr. Griffin said that “J.B. Pritzker is terrified of facing Richard Irvin in the general election.”He added, “He and his cronies at the D.G.A. have shamelessly spent tens of millions of dollars meddling in the Republican primary in an effort to fool Republican voters.”Mr. Pritzker said that ads emphasizing Mr. Bailey’s conservative credentials had the same message he plans to use in the general election. He said he was not afraid of running against Mr. Irvin or of the millions Mr. Griffin would spend on his campaign.“It’s a mess over there,” Mr. Pritzker said in an interview on Friday. “They’re all anti-choice. Literally, you can go down the list of things that I think really matter to people across the state. And, you know, they’re all terrible. So I’ll take any one of them and I’ll beat them.”Gov. J.B. Pritzker, the country’s richest elected official, has poured money into the primary, attacking Mr. Irvin while trying to help Mr. Bailey. Pat Nabong/Chicago Sun-Times, via Associated PressThe primary race alone has drawn $100 million in TV advertising. Mr. Pritzker has spent more money on TV ads than anyone else running for any office in the country this year. Mr. Irvin ranks second, according to AdImpact, a media tracking firm.Far behind them is Mr. Bailey, whose primary financial benefactor is Richard Uihlein, the billionaire megadonor of far-right Republican candidates, who has donated $9 million of the $11.6 million Mr. Bailey has raised and sent another $8 million to a political action committee that has attacked Mr. Irvin as insufficiently conservative.Presidential politics for both parties loom over the primary.Mr. Irvin won’t say whom he voted for in the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections and, in the interview, declined to say if he would support Mr. Trump if he ran for president in 2024. He called President Biden “the legitimate president” and said former Vice President Mike Pence had performed his constitutional duty on Jan. 6, 2021.Mr. Bailey would not say if the 2020 election had been decided fairly or if Mr. Pence did the right thing.Mr. Pritzker’s motivation to help Mr. Bailey in the primary may be informed not only by his desire for re-election but also by what many see as potential aspirations to seek the White House himself. Last weekend he addressed a gathering of Democrats in New Hampshire — a stop only those with national ambitions make in the middle of their own re-election campaigns.Mr. Bailey, 56, is a farmer with roots in Southern Illinois. Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesAs the primary draws near, establishment Republicans across the state are fretting about the prospect of Mr. Bailey dragging down the entire G.O.P. ticket in November.Representative Darin LaHood predicted an “overwhelming” Bailey primary victory in his Central Illinois district, but warned that he would be toxic for general-election voters.“Bailey is not going to play in the suburbs,” said Mr. LaHood, who has not endorsed a primary candidate. “He’s got a Southern drawl, a Southern accent. I mean, he should be running in Missouri, not in suburban Chicago.”Former Gov. Jim Edgar, the only Illinois governor from outside the Chicago area since World War II, said Mr. Bailey’s rise showed that party leaders “don’t have the grasp or the control of their constituents like they did back in the ’80s and the ’90s.”Mr. Bailey’s supporters say the real fight is for the soul of the Republican Party. To them, winning the primary and seizing control of the state party is just as important, if not more so, than triumphing in the general election.Thomas DeVore, left, a candidate for Illinois attorney general who has “Freedom” and “Liberty” tattooed on his arms, with Mr. Bailey in Lincoln.Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesRunning for attorney general on a slate with Mr. Bailey is Thomas DeVore, his lawyer in the pandemic lawsuits against Mr. Pritzker. On the campaign trail, he wears untucked golf shirts that reveal his forearm tattoos — “Freedom” on his right arm, “Liberty” on his left.“Whether or not Darren and I win the general election, if we can at least get control within our own party, I think long term we have an opportunity to be successful,” Mr. DeVore said at their stop in Green Valley.And David Smith, the executive director of the Illinois Family Institute, an anti-abortion organization whose political arm endorsed Mr. Bailey, said the G.O.P. race was about excising the party’s moderate elements.“This primary,” he said, “has got to purge the Republican Party of those who are self-serving snollygosters.”Catie Edmondson More

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      Hochul Has Raised $34 Million So Far. Her Goal May Be Double That.

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      Gov. Kathy Hochul’s fund-raising pace could make her run for a full term the most expensive campaign ever for governor of New York.It was the night after the first debate among the major Democrats running to be New York’s governor, and the favored incumbent, Gov. Kathy Hochul, was in a fund-raising mood.As Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline” played on the sound system at Hush HK, a gay bar in the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan, Ms. Hochul worked the crowd of well-connected guests who had paid $500 to $25,000 apiece to attend the June 8 event.As voters prepare for the Democratic primary on Tuesday, Ms. Hochul appears to be a prohibitive favorite over her rivals, Representative Thomas R. Suozzi of Long Island and Jumaane D. Williams, New York City’s public advocate.That has not stopped her from raising campaign cash at a furious pace: Ms. Hochul, who had already collected roughly $34 million in political donations as of Thursday, has set a target of raising a total of $50 million to $70 million by Election Day, according to three Democrats familiar with her plans.“The stakes of this election could not be higher and Governor Hochul is proud of the widespread support for her campaign,” Jen Goodman, a spokeswoman for Ms. Hochul’s campaign, said in a statement. “The governor will continue to build momentum from now until November, connecting with voters across the state and working tirelessly to deliver results for all New Yorkers.”Ms. Hochul and her team have exhaustively pursued contributions from all corners of the donor class: real estate and health care, cryptocurrency and gambling.And she shows no signs of letting up: On Monday, the day before the primary, Ms. Hochul plans a rooftop fund-raiser on Manhattan’s Far West Side. Admission costs a minimum of $100. Hosts are asked to give or raise $25,000.Should Ms. Hochul achieve her desired fund-raising goal, she may be in the running for most expensive campaign for governor in New York history — rivaling only the billionaire Tom Golisano’s failed bid to unseat Gov. George E. Pataki in 2002, an effort with an estimated cost of $54 million to $74 million. She will also put herself in league with similarly expensive campaigns for governor in Virginia and California.Ms. Hochul’s fund-raising effort is somewhat rooted in Albany tradition, with governors often gathering money from donors with business before the state even while the State Legislature is in session.“This is essentially an open seat, so I can understand the logic for why she wants to raise as much as she does to ward off significant competition,” said Blair Horner, the executive director of the New York Public Interest Research Group, a government watchdog. “On the other hand, where does the money come from?”A Guide to New York’s 2022 Primary ElectionsAs prominent Democratic officials seek to defend their records, Republicans see opportunities to make inroads in general election races.Governor’s Race: Kathy Hochul, the incumbent, is expected to handily win against Jumaane Williams and Tom Suozzi in the Democratic primary on June 28. But some allies worry her low-key approach comes at a cost.Lieutenant Governor’s Race: Ms. Hochul’s handpicked candidate is facing a sharp challenge from the Democratic Party’s left wing.Maloney vs. Nadler: New congressional lines have put the two stalwart Manhattan Democrats — including New York City’s last remaining Jewish congressman — on a collision course in the Aug. 23 primary.15 Democrats, 1 Seat: A newly redrawn House district in New York City may be one of the largest and most freewheeling primaries in the nation.Offensive Remarks: Carl P. Paladino, a Republican running for a House seat in Western New York, recently drew backlash for praising Adolf Hitler in an interview dating back to 2021.Ms. Hochul became the state’s first female governor last August after Andrew M. Cuomo resigned amid allegations of sexual harassment that the state’s attorney general deemed credible.Many of her donations have come from the gambling industry, which is eagerly awaiting the issuance of up to three new licenses for casinos in and around New York City.In recent months. Ms. Hochul has raised more than $200,000 from donors with direct interests in gambling. More than $100,000 of that sum came from contributors associated with Hard Rock, a company that wants to open a casino in New York City, records show.Donors tied to Hard Rock gave Ms. Hochul $80,000 from June 18 to June 23, building on the nearly $40,000 they have given her since she became governor. Jim Allen, Hard Rock International’s chairman, was the largest single donor associated with the company. He gave Ms. Hochul $25,000 on June 20 after contributing almost $13,000 to her campaign in January, the reports show.In addition, Edward Tracy, the chief executive of Hard Rock Japan LLC and a former chief executive at the Trump Organization, gave Ms. Hochul $25,000 on Thursday.A Hard Rock representative declined to comment on the contributions and referred questions to Ms. Hochul’s campaign.Ms. Hochul smashed previous fund-raising records when she announced a $21.6 million haul at the beginning of the year, by far the largest amount any New York candidate had reported for a single filing period.She has continued pulling in money at a dizzying clip, in some cases raising hundreds of thousands of dollars in a single day. She reported taking in $340,000 on Tuesday and another $200,000 on Wednesday, campaign finance records show. That is more than Mr. Suozzi raised in the previous three-week reporting period, which ended in mid-June.Ms. Hochul’s campaign team believes she needs a large campaign war chest to help ensure victory in an election cycle that is widely expected to favor Republicans. While she has been largely absent from the campaign trail, she has been a far more frenetic presence on the fund-raising circuit.On Wednesday, the chief executive of CLEAR — whose biometric technology is used to screen passengers at New York airports — hosted a fund-raiser for Ms. Hochul at Zero Bond, a nightclub often frequented by Mayor Eric Adams. Tickets cost $5,000 to $25,000, according to one invitee.In the most recent filings, which trickle in daily and include contributions since June 14, Ms. Hochul had already exceeded $1 million by Friday, with an average donation of about $10,000 and two new donors giving her the maximum $69,700. Since taking office, at least 10 percent of her cash has come from donors giving the maximum.Real estate interests, still smarting from their loss of a lucrative tax break that lapsed this year, continue to pour money into Ms. Hochul’s campaign. Two members of the Cayre real estate family, which controls the Midtown Equities firm, donated the maximum this week, bringing the family’s total to more than $400,000 since November.The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Several real estate titans have found a way to keep on giving even after hitting their limit with Ms. Hochul’s campaign: contribute to her running mate, Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado, instead. In the last few days alone, Mr. Delgado has picked up several five-figure checks from real estate industry contributors who had already maxed out to Ms. Hochul, pushing his total from all donors since June 16 to almost $600,000.Mr. Delgado succeeded Brian Benjamin, who resigned after prosecutors indicted him on federal bribery and fraud charges. The night before the indictment was announced, Ms. Hochul was at a fund-raiser in Midtown Manhattan that featured a performance of Otis Redding’s “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay” by a former governor, David Paterson.“The lyrics for ‘Dock of the Bay’ are quite existential,” Mr. Paterson said in an interview this week before reciting them to a reporter. More