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      Why the Recall Vote Will Be on Sept. 14

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      Wednesday: Here’s what to know about the date of the special election that will allow voters to decide whether to recall Gov. Gavin Newsom.Supporters of removing California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, in Carlsbad last week.Mike Blake/ReutersGood morning.At first, political experts said that if it happened, a special election to recall Gov. Gavin Newsom from office would happen later in the year — probably November? There was a complex, lengthy process that would have to take place first, and the earlier estimates accounted for all of that.But now, here we are, with a date for the election that is much sooner than expected: Sept. 14. How? Why? What does it mean for Newsom and his opponents? Here’s what you need to know.Who set the election date for Sept. 14?The date was decided by Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, a Democrat who is closely allied with the governor. It was the soonest that county officials said they could pull together a special election.Previous estimates were later because the recall election process required an additional step, a cost review, before a date could be set. But last month, lawmakers passed a bill allowing the state to bypass that review and pick an earlier date.So, over objections that legislators were changing the rules of the game in order to protect the governor, that’s what they did.The special election is expected to cost taxpayers some $276 million, state officials said. That, of course, doesn’t include campaign expenditures. In total, David McCuan, a political science professor at Sonoma State University, told me he expected the spending to be somewhere around half a billion dollars.But McCuan said this was all part of what he described as “protest politics,” in which politicians are judged less by what they do and more by what sides of contentious issues they represent..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-9s9ecg{margin-bottom:15px;}.css-uf1ume{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:justify;-webkit-justify-content:space-between;-ms-flex-pack:justify;justify-content:space-between;}.css-wxi1cx{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:column;-ms-flex-direction:column;flex-direction:column;-webkit-align-self:flex-end;-ms-flex-item-align:end;align-self:flex-end;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}“It’s the weaponization of Trump’s playbook through direct democracy by both Republicans and Democrats,” he said.Is that date good or bad for Newsom?It’s clear that Newsom and his advisers believe the earlier date is good for him. It will allow the governor to take advantage of Californians’ optimism as they emerge from the pandemic, and will keep short the amount of time left for serious contenders to enter the race. (They have only about two more weeks to jump in. More than 50 candidates are already on the ballot, including a handful of well-funded Republicans.)And indeed, McCuan said, from a lawmaking standpoint, the Sept. 14 timing is advantageous for the governor.It’s near the end of the legislative session. This year, the state’s Democrats will have items on their wish lists from a huge budget surplus.“The Newsom team is going to want to parcel those out based upon who’s playing well in their sandbox,” he said. “He’ll have bills in front of him to sign or veto as he’s going into the recall.”Gov. Gavin Newsom spoke at an event where he outlined measures to help restaurants and bars reopen.Jim Wilson/The New York TimesIs that date good or bad for the governor’s opponents?Experts said it may not be bad for proponents of the recall — even if it’s good for Newsom.Joshua Spivak, a senior fellow at Wagner College’s Hugh L. Carey Institute for Government Reform, told me that the rush to get out the ballot could backfire.Right now, the voters who are most “engaged — and probably enraged,” are those who would like to boot the governor, as Spivak wrote in an opinion piece for The Los Angeles Daily News. Having a later election would give the Newsom campaign more time to raise money and convince the state’s Democratic base that it’s important to vote.A later election date also would give Newsom more time to respond to any unforeseen delays or complications with school reopenings in the fall; prolonged school closures were a major point of criticism for Newsom’s Republican opponents.Still, McCuan said, even if the recall effort fails — as it is expected to do — it will have been worth it for Republicans if they’re able to accomplish one thing: increase party registration in a state where Democrats have dominated and the G.O.P. has been divided over its future.Republicans can also use the recall as an opportunity to hone a message for California voters before the 2022 midterm elections.For more:Find all the answers to your questions about the recall here.Read more about the rule change lawmakers recently passed from The Sacramento Bee.Kevin Kiley, a state lawmaker who has been a chief opponent of the governor’s, pushing back repeatedly against pandemic restrictions, announced on Twitter that he would run against him in the recall.Here’s what else to know todayVisitors walked by the salt flats of Badwater Basin inside Death Valley National Park last month.Patrick T. Fallon/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesA heat wave is expected across the West this week. Here’s how things look in the Bay Area, the Central Valley and Southern California.Here’s the latest on the Delta variant in the state from The Los Angeles Times.The collapse of an apartment building in Surfside, Fla., is raising concerns about the structural integrity of San Francisco’s Millennium Tower, CNN reports.CapRadio investigates why FEMA rejected 95 percent of aid applications during last year’s disastrous wildfire season.State lawmakers delayed until next year a vote on a bill that would create supervised drug sites for opioid users, The Associated Press reports.CalMatters explored the two recent decrees, one from the Biden administration, and the other from the Supreme Court, that affect the management of the state’s water supply.A second round of $600 stimulus checks is part of the current budget negotiations. The San Francisco Chronicle explains how to know if you’ll get one.After a huge explosion of illegal fireworks last week in south Los Angeles, more than 20 families were evacuated from the area and have yet to return home, The Los Angeles Times reports.The Guardian explores how Black Wall Streets in California have weathered the pandemic and are changing the cities around them.CalMatters looks at how the state is spending $61 million to create highway crossings to keep wildlife and drivers safe.Los Angeles’s Tyler, the Creator notched his second No. 1 on the Billboard album chart this week with “Call Me if You Get Lost.”Real estate: What $3.3 million gets you in California.And finally …Growing up in India, Vijaya Srivastava, now 72, never had access to swimming pools.Aubrey Trinnaman for The New York TimesFor the first 68 years of her life, Vijaya Srivastava stayed on dry land. She hadn’t grown up with access to swimming pools, and as an adult she spent time volunteering or walking around the Berkeley Hills to stay fit.But, as she explains in this new interview series, she decided to learn to swim.If you need a little motivation today, take to heart Srivastava’s advice: “Don’t give yourself an option to give up.”California Today goes live at 6:30 a.m. Pacific time weekdays. Tell us what you want to see: CAtoday@nytimes.com. Were you forwarded this email? Sign up for California Today here and read every edition online here.Jill Cowan grew up in Orange County, graduated from U.C. Berkeley and has reported all over the state, including the Bay Area, Bakersfield and Los Angeles — but she always wants to see more. Follow along here or on Twitter. More

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      Going to the Beach in California? Here’s How to Check if It’s Polluted

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      Friday: Heal the Bay’s annual beach report card is out. Here’s what to know. Also, the recall election now has a date.Pacific Beach in San Diego last July.Bing Guan/ReutersGood morning.This weekend, antsy Californians are projected to hit the road in record numbers for a newly unfettered Fourth of July holiday. And, as usual, many of us are headed for the coast.Last year around this time, our relationship with the beach was a little complicated. Amid an uptick in coronavirus cases, Gov. Gavin Newsom had implored us to avoid places, including many of the state’s most popular Independence Day destinations, where there were likely to be crowds. Beaches had been closed for that reason earlier in the year.But as the months marched on it became clear that California’s beaches were some of the state’s most important respites — from oppressive, dangerous heat inland, from the monotony of our homes. Many beaches were soon reopened, with restrictions in some places.This underscored the urgency of keeping the state’s waterways clean, said Shelley Luce, the president and chief executive of the environmental advocacy group Heal the Bay.“We’ve always been dependent on our beaches as open space, as a place to relax,” she recently told me. “In 2020, they were open and available, and people were seeking out that connection to nature.”Heal the Bay this week released its 31st annual Beach Report Card and its third River Report Card. The grades aim to help Californians better understand the water quality in the places where they may be swimming. The report assigns A through F letter grades based on bacterial pollution levels to some 500 beaches, almost all in California, and 28 freshwater recreation sites in Los Angeles County.The findings paint a mixed picture of our drought-wracked summer. While the vast majority of beaches had excellent water quality in summer 2020, it was most likely because there was no rain to wash pollution into the sea.“The first rain washes so much pollution in, and in what used to be our normal weather pattern, each one was less polluting than the last one,” Luce said. “Now there’s weeks or months before the next flush, so pollution builds up again.”In other words, we’re facing more extreme fluctuations in water quality, which could then tip into dangerous levels of pollution more often.“We have to pay a lot of attention to our wet weather runoff,” Luce said.And, she said, the drought was likely to result in frequent and severe wildfires, which can lead to ash that pollutes nearby water for months afterward.Still, it’s not all dire news. Luce said that during Heal the Bay’s three decades of putting out the report card, leaders have taken steps to mitigate pollution, like diverting storm drains away from beaches. In places like Los Angeles County, they’ve started longer-term projects aimed at restoring wetlands and green space so that storm water doesn’t flow straight from urban areas into the ocean.Heal the Bay also added grades for beaches in Tijuana this year, she said, in hopes of drawing attention to pollution there.So which beaches deserve extra attention? And where should you be careful about getting in the water?Surfing at Moonstone Beach.Alexandra Hootnick for The New York TimesHere are this year’s 10 Beach Bummers:1. Tijuana Slough National Wildlife Refuge at the Tijuana River mouth in San Diego County2. Erckenbrack Park in San Mateo County3. Capitola Beach, west of the jetty in Santa Cruz County4. Gull Park in San Mateo County5. Marina “Mother’s” Beach, between the lifeguard tower and boat dock in Los Angeles County6. Tijuana Slough National Wildlife Refuge, north of the Tijuana River in San Diego County7. Clam Beach County Park at Strawberry Creek in Humboldt County8. Marlin Park in San Mateo County9. Candlestick Point at Windsurfer Circle in San Francisco10. East Beach at Mission Creek in Santa Barbara CountyFor more:See the full beach and river report cards here.Read more about the 2019 report card.Here’s what else to know todayGov. Gavin Newsom of California walked through the remnants of the headquarters building in September as he inspected the fire damage to Big Basin Redwoods State Park.Pool photo by Lipo ChingThe state’s lieutenant governor announced on Thursday that she had set Sept. 14 as the date for the special election to determine whether Gov. Gavin Newsom should become the state’s second governor to be recalled from office.The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that California may not require charities soliciting contributions in the state to report the identities of their major donors.The governor rolled back a more ambitious wildfire prevention plan, along with more than half a billion dollars in fuel reduction promises, CapRadio and NPR report.The San Francisco Chronicle examined the major fires burning in the state.Almost five out of every six coronavirus cases went undetected in the first months of the pandemic, The Los Angeles Times reports.A California couple who mowed down 36 protected Joshua trees to clear their land for a new house have been fined $18,000.Seventeen people, including 10 law enforcement officers, were wounded on Wednesday when part of a cache of improvised explosives blew up in South Los Angeles during what was supposed to be a controlled detonation by a police bomb squad.California Democrats are losing patience with the State Building and Construction Trades Council of California, a powerful labor ally, Politico reports.Homicides in California jumped by 31 percent last year, making it the worst year for homicides since 2007, The Associated Press reports.People gathered in San Francisco’s Chinatown in March to commemorate victims of anti-Asian violence.Jim Wilson/The New York TimesA new report found that reports of hate crimes against Asian Americans rose by 107 percent in 2020, The Sacramento Bee reports.More than 200 prominent women from around the world wrote an open letter urging Facebook, Twitter, TikTok and Google to “prioritize the safety of women” on their platforms.President Biden wants to use pollution rules to rapidly lift electric car sales, but there are hurdles ahead.California’s gas taxes rose again yesterday, KCRA reports.The wealth management firm that was set to take over as the co-conservator of Britney Spears’s estate, alongside her father, has requested to resign from the arrangement, citing Spears’s public criticisms of the conservatorship.Facebook, Microsoft and Amazon are ramping up offerings for cloud gaming that let people enjoy high-quality games on any device.A grass-roots organization in Los Angeles’s Chinatown said some new arrivals to the neighborhood were virtue signaling on Instagram about social justice issues but not addressing inequalities at home, LA Eater reports.The Monterey Car Week auctions in California, among the most important of the year to collectors, will return on Aug. 12-14.And finally …A child rode along the parade route during the Santa Monica Fourth Of July Parade in 2019.Richard Vogel/Associated PressCalifornia Today will be off on Monday for the Fourth of July holiday. Have a great weekend, and stay safe.California Today goes live at 6:30 a.m. Pacific time weekdays. Tell us what you want to see: CAtoday@nytimes.com. Were you forwarded this email? Sign up for California Today here and read every edition online here.Jill Cowan grew up in Orange County, graduated from U.C. Berkeley and has reported all over the state, including the Bay Area, Bakersfield and Los Angeles — but she always wants to see more. Follow along here or on Twitter. More

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      Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Recall Election Set for Sept. 14.

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      The Republican-led, pandemic-fueled campaign to recall Gov. Gavin Newsom of California got an official election date on Thursday, as the state’s lieutenant governor announced that voters would head to the polls on the issue on Sept. 14.The date, just 75 days away and the soonest that county officials said they could manage to pull together a special election, was released shortly after the California secretary of state formally certified the recall petition. And it came after Mr. Newsom’s fellow Democrats in the State Legislature decided to expedite the process.California is overwhelmingly Democratic and Mr. Newsom is widely expected to prevail, particularly as the state has emerged from the coronavirus crisis. The conventional wisdom among his advisers and allies has been that he will benefit from a swift decision, while Californians are still basking in relief from the reopening of the state’s economy, and before the autumn wildfires begin in earnest.The timeline, set by a fellow Democrat, Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, also severely restricts the ability of prospective challengers to get onto the ballot, leaving only about two weeks for them to join the race to replace Mr. Newsom. More than 50 candidates are already on the ballot, with a handful of well-funded Republicans seriously campaigning.Expected to cost some $276 million, the special election will be the second time in state history that Californians have voted on whether to recall a sitting governor. The first resulted in the ouster of Gray Davis and the election of Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2003.Mr. Newsom and his supporters, who have derided the recall campaign as a last-ditch ploy for relevance by right-wing extremists, said on Thursday that they welcomed the decision of voters.“This Republican recall is a naked attempt by Trump Republicans to grab control in California — powered by the same Republicans who refused to accept the results of the presidential election,” said Juan Rodriguez, the leader of the governor’s campaign organization.Kevin Faulconer, the former mayor of San Diego and one of the Republican contenders, countered that “this movement is powered by Californians from every community — Democrats, Republicans and Independents.”Mr. Faulconer added, “Change is coming for California and retirement is coming for Gavin Newsom.”Recall attempts are not uncommon in California, with every governor since 1960 facing at least one. But getting a recall onto the ballot is rare.The campaign against Mr. Newsom languished for months before a series of pandemic-related missteps, judicial decisions and voter fury landed the governor — a liberal in a Democratic state who was elected in 2018 in a landslide — in a perfect political storm. More

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      Tom Perez, Former DNC Chair, Runs for Governor of Maryland

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      Tom Perez, the former Democratic National Committee chairman, on Wednesday began a campaign for governor of Maryland on a platform largely tied to his experience working in President Barack Obama’s administration.“I’m the son of immigrants from the Dominican Republic, I could have never dreamed the president of the United States would give me the chance to make a difference,” Mr. Perez said in a video announcing his candidacy. “But there’s a lot left to do, and that’s why I’m running for governor.”Mr. Perez, 59, served in the Justice Department and as labor secretary before Mr. Obama backed him to run the D.N.C. in 2017. He has teased a run for governor since his term as party chairman ended in January. The video is heavy on footage of the former president praising Mr. Perez, calling him “one of the best secretaries of labor in our history.”He joins a crowded field of candidates to replace Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican who is barred by term limits from seeking a third term in office, that includes eight Democrats and two Republicans.Though Mr. Perez has deep connections to national Democratic officials and donors, others in the race have far more recent experience in Maryland politics, including Peter Franchot, the state comptroller, and Rushern Baker, the former Prince George’s County executive, who placed second in Maryland’s 2018 Democratic primary for governor. Mr. Perez was elected to the Montgomery County Council in 2002 and served as Maryland’s labor secretary from 2007 to 2009.Mr. Perez, in the video announcing his campaign, stood before his home in suburban Washington and promoted his connections to the state. Yet at the end of the video he is shown wearing a Washington Nationals jersey — a rival of Maryland’s baseball team, the Baltimore Orioles. More

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      When It Comes to Big City Elections, Republicans Are in the Wilderness

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      The party’s growing irrelevance in urban and suburban areas comes at a considerable cost, sidelining conservatives in centers of innovation and economic might.When Jerry Sanders finished his second term as mayor of San Diego in 2012, he was the most prominent Republican city executive in the country. A former police chief close to the business community, Mr. Sanders appeared to be a political role model for other would-be Republican mayors, a moderate who worked with the Obama administration on urban policy and endorsed gay marriage at a pivotal moment. More

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      How Trump’s Political Legacy Is on the Ballot in the Virginia Governor’s Race

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      Terry McAuliffe, the Democrat, will try to tie his opponent, Glenn Youngkin, to former President Donald Trump, while Mr. Youngkin will try to sidestep Mr. Trump but not reject him.CHESAPEAKE, Va. — There is a far-reaching and oh-so-familiar shadow stretching across Virginia’s political landscape that could have profound implications for the election of a new governor, a contest that figures to be the only major competitive race in the country this fall.Former President Donald J. Trump won’t be on the ballot in Virginia, but his political legacy will be.Glenn Youngkin, an affable former private equity executive, is testing whether a Republican can sidestep Mr. Trump without fully rejecting him and still prevail in a state where the former president lost re-election by 10 points but where he remains deeply popular with conservative activists.And in what could be an equally revealing strategy, former Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat seeking to reclaim his old job, is going to determine whether linking Republicans to Mr. Trump — a tactic that helped turn Virginia’s suburbs a deeper blue during the last four years — is as potent when he’s no longer in the Oval Office, or even on Twitter.Both questions reflect a larger issue: how strong a tug the country’s polarized and increasingly nationalized politics can have on an off-year state race of the type that is usually consumed by debates over taxes, transportation, education and the economy.It’s a real-life political science experiment that is all the richer because it’s taking place in a state that was once solidly conservative, and where for many years it was the Democrats who had to distance themselves from their national party.But Virginia, which supported only Republicans for president from 1964 until 2008, is a state transformed thanks to its expansive metropolitan growth. George W. Bush was the last G.O.P. presidential nominee to carry the state, and Democrats control every statewide office and both state legislative chambers.If Republicans are to win back the governorship and reclaim a foothold in this increasingly Democratic state, this would seem to be the year.Mr. Youngkin is leading a unified party, can saturate the airwaves using millions of dollars from his own fortune and has never run for office, let alone cast a vote as a lawmaker, denying opposition researchers the grist for attack ads. That’s to say nothing of Virginia’s decades-long history of electing governors from the opposite party of whoever won the White House the previous year.That’s a challenge that Mr. McAuliffe takes seriously.After he clinched an easy victory in the Democratic primary Tuesday night, Mr. McAuliffe — who is seeking to replace Gov. Ralph Northam, a Democrat who is constitutionally barred from seeking another term — sought to rouse his party by warning them that Mr. Youngkin’s ability to self-finance is a threat that must be taken seriously. “There are 75 million reasons why Glenn Youngkin could win,” Mr. McAuliffe told supporters, alluding to how much the Republican could spend on the campaign.If Mr. Youngkin is able to spend enough money to define himself to voters before Democrats do it, and if President Biden’s popularity wanes by November — as it did with former President Barack Obama in 2009, the last time Republicans won the governorship here — Mr. Youngkin will be positioned to at least make the race close.In contrast to the last two Virginia governor’s races, the G.O.P.’s conservative and more establishment-aligned factions are united behind Mr. Youngkin.“This is totally winnable for Republicans,” said Jerry Kilgore, a former state attorney general and a Republican who once ran for governor himself. “But if he loses, there will be a lot of depressed people, because there’s a lot of optimism right now.”To prevail, Mr. Youngkin will have demonstrate some Simone Biles-like footwork when it comes to answering for his party’s brand and, in particular Mr. Trump, the former and potentially future standard-bearer.“I don’t think he’s coming this year,” Mr. Youngkin said in response to a question of whether he wanted Mr. Trump to campaign with him.Standing outside a country-music-themed bar in the Tidewater region in the state’s southeast, where he grew up before amassing his fortune at the Carlyle Group in Washington, Mr. Youngkin was plainly more interested in contrasting his lack of political experience with Mr. McAuliffe’s decades as a party insider.And after recently winning a hard-fought Republican nomination contest, Mr. Youngkin also appeared mindful of Mr. Trump’s grip on the party and did not want to slight a party leader who is famously sensitive to slights.“I don’t think his schedule is — I think he has his schedule and is set to go to other places,” Mr. Youngkin tried again.But, he was asked a second time, did he want to stand with Mr. Trump in Virginia?“I think if he were to come, fine; if he doesn’t come, fine,” Mr. Youngkin said, settling on an answer. (In a separate interview, the exuberant Mr. McAuliffe said of Mr. Trump and Virginia: “I’d pay for the gas for him to come.”)Terry McAuliffe, the Democratic nominee for governor, is determined to link his rival to Mr. Trump, a president the state’s voters rejected.Alyssa Schukar for The New York TimesMr. Youngkin was more direct when asked if he still thought Mr. Trump was the leader of the G.O.P. “I don’t think there’s such a thing as a leader of our party,” he said.That answer triggered an unprompted clarification from an aide, who requested anonymity to say that what the candidate had meant was “that the Republican Party does not solely rely on one individual or leader” and that “Glenn really is the leader of the Republican Party in Virginia, as the party truly has come together around him.”If he’s not willing to fully break with Mr. Trump — in fact, he gladly accepted the former president’s endorsement the day after claiming the nomination — Mr. Youngkin clearly wants to project a sunnier style of politics to the suburban voters who will decide Virginia’s election.“I believe that Virginians are like Americans, are ready to come out of this pandemic and are ready to look ahead and think about hope and optimism and opportunity and not spend time basically tearing each other down,” he said.Mr. McAuliffe, though, is determined to remind this state’s voters of the president they twice rejected. In his victory speech Tuesday, he cited Mr. Youngkin’s warmer words for Mr. Trump during the Republican nomination process. And in his final barnstorming tour of Virginia before the primary concluded, he ignored his intraparty rivals and lashed Mr. Youngkin to the former president.Asked in an interview why he was still focused on Mr. Trump, Mr. McAuliffe said: “He may be out of office, but he’s the most powerful person in the Republican Party,” pointing to the Senate G.O.P.’s filibustering of a bipartisan commission to investigate the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.“Are you kidding me?” he said, adding: “This man is as big with the Republican Party as he’s ever been. He has dominance over this party.”Whether that’s enough to deter Virginians from electing a Republican governor is another question, though.“As many people that died with Covid, including my mother — yes; yes, it’s still powerful,” Gaylene Kanoyton, a state Democratic Party official, said when asked whether invoking Mr. Trump was a successful strategy. “Our families and friends would have still been here if we had a different president.”Other Democrats, though, are skeptical that waving the bloody flag of Trumpism will prove sufficient with voters who are eager to move on from his presidency.“Talking about Trump in 2021 is really stale and won’t be enough to win swing voters,” said Ben Tribbett, a Virginia-based Democratic strategist, noting that even when Mr. Trump was president, Democrats had still used much of their advertising budget to highlight policy issues.The question of how much Mr. Trump can be weaponized may be determined by whether he shows up in Virginia.If he doesn’t, Mr. McAuliffe’s advertising campaign and stump speech attack lines may offer the best evidence. Already, the former governor is pairing his references to Mr. Trump with efforts to portray Mr. Youngkin as culturally out of step with a state that just eliminated the death penalty, imposed stricter gun laws and legalized marijuana.“He’s proud of being a lifelong member of the N.R.A. — brags about it; I brag that I’m the first Democratic nominee to get an F rating,” Mr. McAuliffe said.Ultimately, the governor’s race in Virginia may turn on whether a lavishly funded candidate can win without making any concessions to the political nature of his state. That’s what Republican governors like Gov. Larry Hogan of Maryland and Charlie Baker of Massachusetts have done to win in blue states and what Gov. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat, did to win in deep-red Louisiana.Asked where he differs from his party, Mr. Youngkin did not offer up any specific issue but said his emphasis was on jobs, schools and public safety.Yet he called his politics “conservative,” declined to say whether he supported same-sex marriage and answered a question about background checks for gun purchases by criticizing more aggressive restrictions.“Virginians don’t want a government to ban guns; they don’t want a government to ban ammunition; they actually don’t want a government to come seize people’s guns,” he said before adding that “having background checks for criminals to make sure that criminals do not get guns is something people want.”Asked about the race and identity issues galvanizing his party’s base, Mr. Youngkin denounced “identity politics” but then made sure to introduce a reporter to the Republican nominees for lieutenant governor — Winsome Sears, a Black woman — and for attorney general: Jason Miyares, the son of a Cuban immigrant.“This is the ticket; this is the ticket,” Mr. Youngkin said. “This is the Republican Party in Virginia.”For Democrats, particularly those who remember the contortions of their own candidates in an earlier day, Mr. Youngkin’s reluctance to accommodate the leftward drift of the state is something no amount of money can overcome.“Republicans in Virginia have to show they’re a different kind of Republican, and so far that’s not the Youngkin approach,” said Jesse Ferguson, a Virginia-reared Democratic strategist. “But their base won’t let their candidates create distance from the party or Trump.” More

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      Ciattarelli Defeats Trump Loyalists in G.O.P. Primary to Take on Murphy

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      Jack Ciattarelli won New Jersey’s Republican primary and will face Philip D. Murphy, the Democratic incumbent, in November.Jack Ciattarelli, a businessman and former lawmaker, beat back challenges from candidates loyal to former President Donald J. Trump to win Tuesday’s Republican primary in New Jersey, setting the stage for one of only two governor’s races in the nation in November.Mr. Ciattarelli, a moderate former assemblyman making his second bid for governor, will now face Gov. Philip D. Murphy, who ran unopposed for the Democratic nomination and is hoping to ride high approval ratings for his handling of the pandemic to a second term.Democrats control all branches of government in New Jersey and outnumber Republicans by nearly 1.1 million voters.Still, Mr. Murphy’s run is dogged by nearly a half-century of history: The last Democrat to be re-elected governor in New Jersey was Brendan T. Byrne, in 1977.Mr. Murphy’s favorable ratings have slipped by about seven percentage points since the start of the second wave of the pandemic in October 2020, according to a new Rutgers-Eagleton Poll, but are still at a robust 47 percent.“He’s in a solid position that any politician would envy,” said Ashley Koning, director of the Eagleton Center for Public Interest Polling.Mr. Murphy’s handling of the pandemic earned high marks from 31 percent of residents, according to the poll. But only 7 percent said he deserved an “A” grade on tax policies, a perennial, bread-and-butter voter issue in New Jersey, where residents pay some of the highest taxes in the country.Mr. Ciattarelli’s showing among his Republican base is considered likely to dictate the tenor and policy focus of the campaign. The election will come nearly a year into the first term of President Biden, a Democrat, making it an early bellwether of the electorate’s mood as the midterm congressional elections approach. Virginia is the only other state with a race for governor.“What happens really influences the direction of the Republican Party going forward,” Dr. Koning said, adding that the election will indicate whether, in New Jersey, Republicans will “continue to follow the moderation that the party has been known for” or “become more nationalized toward Trumpism.”Less than two hours after polls closed, Mr. Ciattarelli was declared the winner by The Associated Press. He had captured 49.6 percent of the vote in the four-man race for the Republican nomination by late Tuesday. His win comes four years after a second-place primary finish behind Kim Guadagno, the then-lieutenant governor.“Tonight New Jerseyans showed they are ready for a change, and we are just getting started,” Mr. Ciattarelli, 59, said in a statement. “The fact is, after four years of Murphy’s failed leadership, our state is struggling.”“We will make New Jersey more affordable by lowering property taxes,” he added. “We will create jobs. We will bring Main Street small businesses back to life. We will reduce the size and cost of government.”The Republican primary was seen as a test of the potency of Mr. Trump’s combative brand of politics among New Jersey’s party faithful, and the public discourse often touched on themes from the former president’s divisive term: the politics of mask wearing and the legitimacy of Mr. Biden’s win.“We all know Trump won,” Hirsh Singh, an aerospace engineer and self-described Trump Republican who was running his fourth recent campaign for office, said as he faced off against Mr. Ciattarelli in the only public debate of the primary. Only Mr. Singh and Mr. Ciattarelli qualified for public financing, making them eligible for the debate.But it was Philip Rizzo, a pastor and real estate developer who also aligned himself with Mr. Trump, who was in second place late Tuesday with nearly 26 percent of the Republican vote, four percentage points ahead of Mr. Singh.Brian Levine, a former mayor of Franklin, N.J., finished fourth.Turnout was low, with fewer than 1 in 5 registered Republicans voting.Political analysts said the results could pressure Mr. Ciattarelli to strike national themes popular with Trump supporters instead of the good government and fiscal responsibility motifs that are more likely to resonate with mainstream Republicans and the state’s 2.4 million independent voters.Mr. Ciattarelli in 2015 called Mr. Trump a “charlatan.” In last month’s debate, when asked if he supported the former president, he said, “I supported Donald Trump’s policies.”“If he’s got to look over his shoulder every time something happens to make sure the Trump wing of the party is still with him, that’s going to be a serious constraint for him,” said Micah Rasmussen, director of the Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics at Rider University.But Benjamin Dworkin, director of the Rowan Institute for Public Policy and Citizenship at Rowan University, said Republicans were likely to quickly coalesce around their candidate.“There’ll be some day-after stories about whether he received a high enough percentage of the vote,” Dr. Dworkin said. “But that’s not going to matter by Day 3.”Jack Ciattarelli, a former state assemblyman, beat three opponents to win the Republican primary for governor. Bryan Anselm for The New York TimesAll 120 legislative seats were also on Tuesday’s ballot.One of the most fiercely contested Democratic primaries was in Bergen County, for a seat held by Senator Loretta Weinberg, a liberal icon who announced in January that she was retiring. Her exit set up a match between two former allies in the Assembly, Valerie Vainieri Huttle and Gordon Johnson. Without a primary opponent, Mr. Murphy has had a healthy head start in the campaign.By last week, he had spent $7.25 million, outpacing spending by all the Republican candidates combined, according to New Jersey’s Election Law Enforcement Commission.He has used the advantage to promote a range of first-term policy wins, including equal pay for women, a $15 minimum hourly wage, a new tax on income over $1 million and legalized marijuana.“The choice in November is clear,” Mr. Murphy said in a statement soon after the polls closed Tuesday. “It’s a choice between standing for higher wages or going back to an economy that only worked for the wealthy and well connected.”In November, the state borrowed $3.67 billion to plug an expected gap in revenue, enabling Mr. Murphy to propose an election-year budget that calls for no new taxes and few cuts, and sets aside extra funds for the state’s strapped pension program.But the governor, a wealthy former Goldman Sachs investment banker, also pushed through a $14 billion package of corporate tax breaks in less than a week, a move that irked his progressive base.Mr. Murphy’s political maneuvers were seen as helping him broker at least a temporary peace with the Senate’s Democratic president, Stephen M. Sweeney, and a onetime archrival, George Norcross III, an insurance executive and South Jersey power broker. Mr. Norcross benefited greatly from tax incentives passed under Mr. Murphy’s Republican predecessor, Chris Christie, leading to frequent criticism by Mr. Murphy — and a contentious investigation — during the first two years of his term.“Everybody recognized they’re on the same ballot this year,” Dr. Dworkin said. “There’s a détente for now.”Mr. Murphy may yet find himself haunted by another voting quirk in New Jersey: It has been more than three decades since voters elected a governor who hailed from the same party that won the White House in the year after a presidential contest.But the Democrats’ enrollment edge in New Jersey has expanded rapidly, and many voters not affiliated with either of the two dominant parties are considered social moderates.“New Jersey’s electorate is blue and getting bluer,” Dr. Dworkin said. More