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      Election in East Germany Will Test the Far Right’s Power

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      Voting on Sunday may hint at how strong the Alternative for Germany party is in the east, and what that means for national elections in September.BERLIN — Five years ago, the nationalist Alternative for Germany sent the country’s traditional parties scrambling when it finished ahead of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives in the regional vote in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt, an ominous portent of the far right’s growing allure.This Sunday, voters in Saxony-Anhalt will be back at the polls, and the result of this state election, coming just three months before a national one, will be scrutinized to see whether a nationally weakened AfD can hold on to voters in one of the regions where it has proved strongest.While much about the Saxony-Anhalt contest is unique to the region and heavily focused on local issues about schools and economic restructuring, a strong showing by the AfD — which rode a wave of anti-immigration sentiment in 2016 — could cause headaches for Armin Laschet, the leader of Ms. Merkel’s Christian Democrats. Mr. Laschet, who is hoping to replace her in the chancellery, has struggled to gain traction in the former East German states.A sign in Magdeburg pointing the way to an “election event” and a “vaccination center.” Ronny Hartmann/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images“A strong showing by the Christian Democrats would remove a hurdle for Mr. Laschet and could strengthen his position heading into the national race,” said Manfred Güllner, who heads the Forsa Institute political polling agency.At the same time, he conceded, “If the AfD were to perform as well as the Christian Democrats, it would have repercussions for the federal vote.”Amid an election campaign largely carried out online because of pandemic restrictions, Mr. Laschet visited the state’s mining region last weekend. He stressed the need for time and investment to shift successfully away from coal and pledged to provide support similar to what his home state, North Rhine-Westphalia, got when it quit coal.Armin Laschet leads the Christian Democratic Union and hopes to be the next German chancellor.Jens Schlueter/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe effort may have paid off: A survey released on Thursday showed his party at 30 percent support in Saxony-Anhalt, a comfortable margin of seven percentage points ahead of the AfD, which is known by its German initials and currently holds 88 seats in the German Parliament.If that margin holds, it could bolster Mr. Laschet’s standing as campaigning begins in earnest for the Sept. 26 election, despite a bruising contest for the chancellor candidacy against a rival from Bavaria.In 2016, Germany was adjusting to the arrival of more than one million migrants the previous year, and Saxony-Anhalt was struggling against looming unemployment. While pollsters had predicted that the AfD, which made itself the anti-immigration party after forming in 2013 to protest the euro, would easily earn seats in the statehouse, no one expected it to come in second, winning more than 24 percent support from the region’s two million voters.Since then, Alternative for Germany has swung even further to the right, capturing the attention of the country’s domestic intelligence service, which placed the party’s leadership under observation over concerns about its anti-Semitic, anti-Muslim expressions and links to extremists. The party’s branches in Brandenburg and Thuringia are also under scrutiny, while an attempt to observe the national party has been put on hold pending the outcome of a legal challenge.The AfD in Saxony-Anhalt “has become very strong, despite the various messy and dubious scandals,” said Alexander Hensel, a political scientist at the Institute for Democracy Studies at the University of Göttingen, who has studied the party’s rise in the region. “Instead of breaking apart, they have consolidated, becoming an increasingly radical opposition force.”Candidates at a debate ahead of the election in Saxony-Anhalt.  Ronny Hartmann/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe continued support for Alternative for Germany in places like Saxony-Anhalt has created a split among many mainstream conservatives over whether the Christian Democrats should be willing to enter a coalition with the far-right party if needed.Mr. Laschet has made his opinion clear in recent days. “We don’t want any sort of cooperation with the AfD at any level,” he said in an interview with the public broadcaster Deutschlandfunk.But with the jockeying for the future direction of the Christian Democratic Union underway after 16 years under Ms. Merkel’s largely centrist leadership, some members on the party’s right flank see her exit as a chance to shift harder to the right.In December, the conservative governor of Saxony-Anhalt, Reiner Haseloff, a Christian Democrat who is running for another term, fired his interior minister for seeming to float the possibility of a minority government, supported by the AfD.Mr. Haseloff has based his campaign on promising stability as the country begins to emerge from the pandemic, with a pledge to help improve the standard of living in rural areas, many of which lack enough teachers, medical professionals and police officers.Reiner Haseloff, the governor of Saxony-Anhalt, is a Christian Democrat up for re-election. On Wednesday he discussed reforestation in Oranienbaum-Wörlitz.Christian Mang/ReutersSaxony-Anhalt has the oldest population in all of Germany, a reflection of the number of young people who left the state in the painful years after the reunification of Germany’s former East and West in 1990.While the state has benefited from an attempt under the latest government to create jobs in less populated areas, including by setting up several federal agencies in Saxony-Anhalt, the region’s standard of living still lags those in similar regions in the former West Germany, Mr. Haseloff said.“There continue to be clear differences between east and west, and not only in the distribution of federal offices,” Mr. Haseloff said this week, ahead of an annual meeting focused on increasing regional equality.The Alternative for Germany has campaigned this time around on a rejection of the federal government’s policies to stop the spread of the coronavirus. “Freedom Instead of Corona Insanity” reads one of its posters, showing a blue-eyed woman with a tear rolling down to the rim of her protective mask.Among the other parties, the Social Democrats and the Left are both polling in the 10 to 12 percent rage, largely unchanged from where four years ago.Both the Free Democrats and the Greens are predicted to see their popularity roughly double from where they stood in 2016, which could make it easier for Mr. Haseloff to build a government if he is returned to office. Analysts said regional gains for them were unlikely to have wider repercussions for the national race.“Saxony-Anhalt is a very specific situation, they are coming from a unique history,” Mr. Hensel, the political scientist, said. “But regardless of whether the Greens earn 10 percent or the Free Democrats 8 percent of the vote, a quarter of voters support the AfD. That is worth paying attention to.” More

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      What You Need to Know About the California Recall, Explained

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      The 12 questions that help explain the historical, political and logistical forces behind the effort to recall Gov. Gavin Newsom of California.The coronavirus pandemic is rapidly receding in California, but for Gov. Gavin Newsom, at least one side effect has lingered: the Republican-led push to relieve him of his job.How a Democratic star in the bluest of blue states could have ended up confronting a recall remains one of the more remarkable mysteries of the moment. In a perfect storm of partisan rage and pandemic upheaval, the effort to oust Mr. Newsom has become only the second recall attempt against a California governor to qualify for the ballot.With only a few procedural steps remaining, a special election appears destined for autumn, or perhaps even sooner. Next week marks an obscure yet significant milestone: the Tuesday deadline for voters who signed the recall petition to change their minds and have their names removed.If you haven’t been paying attention to every detail — every in-the-clutch mega-donation, every Kodiak bear appearance — we totally understand. So here is the California Recall Encyclopedia of 2021.So what’s with California and recalls?California Republicans are pushing to recall Gov. Gavin Newsom.Justin Sullivan/Getty ImagesDirect democracy is a big part of Golden State political culture. Since 1911, when California approved recalls as part of a sweeping Progressive-era reform package, 179 recall attempts have been made against state officeholders. Launching a recall in California is easier than in almost any state, and every governor since 1960 has faced at least one.But the vast majority of those efforts against governors fizzle. California is enormous, with a population of nearly 40 million and at least five major media markets. The cost of campaigning statewide tends to thwart all but the most moneyed and determined critics.Besides Mr. Newsom’s, only one other recall of a California governor, Gray Davis, has ever reached an election. Mr. Davis lost in 2003 to Arnold Schwarzenegger, who went on to face his own blitz of attempted recalls.How do California recalls work?A recall petition must be signed by enough registered voters to equal 12 percent of the turnout in the last election for governor. The organizers do not need to give a reason for the recall, but they often do. The petition must include at least 1 percent of the last vote for the office in at least five counties. Proponents have 160 days to gather their signatures.The signatures must then be examined and verified by the California secretary of state. If the petitions meet the threshold — 1,495,709 valid signatures in this case — voters who signed have 30 business days to change their minds. Mr. Newsom’s critics have turned in more than 1.7 million signatures, and voters have until June 8 to reconsider.After that, the state finance department has up to 30 days to determine the cost of a special election and a joint legislative budget committee has up to 30 days to weigh in. Those calculations are underway, but the cost of a special election has been estimated at more than $100 million.The secretary of state must then officially certify the petition, and the lieutenant governor has to set an election that is 60 to 80 days from the date of certification. If the proposed date is so close to a regularly scheduled election that the two could be reasonably consolidated, the deadline can be extended to 180 days.Who can run in a recall?Candidates to replace the governor must be U.S. citizens registered to vote in California, and must pay a filing fee of about $4,000 or submit signatures from 7,000 supporters. They cannot be convicted of certain felonies, and they cannot be the governor up for recall. They have until 59 days before the election to file.The ballot asks voters two questions: Should the governor be recalled? And if so, who should be the new governor? If the majority of voters say no to the first question, the second is moot. But if more than 50 percent vote yes, the candidate with the most votes becomes the next governor. The 2003 winner, Mr. Schwarzenegger, had only 48.6 percent of the vote.Who is challenging Newsom?John Cox, a San Diego businessman, has been touring the state with a live Kodiak bear.Mike Blake/ReutersThirty-seven candidates have officially announced their intention to challenge Mr. Newsom in the recall. The most high-profile candidates are Republicans. No serious challenger has emerged from Mr. Newsom’s party.The Republicans include Kevin Faulconer, the former mayor of San Diego; Doug Ose, a former congressman from Sacramento; John Cox, a San Diego businessman who recently distinguished himself by touring the state with a live Kodiak bear; and Caitlyn Jenner, a reality television star and former Olympic athlete.Who started the recall?Three sets of critics tried five times to recall Mr. Newsom before the sixth recall petition caught on in 2020. The first two groups were led by unsuccessful Republican candidates for Congress in Southern California, and the first papers were filed three months after Mr. Newsom’s inauguration in 2019.All three groups were Trumpian conservatives who, at least initially, raised familiar arguments against the governor’s liberal stances on such issues as the death penalty, immigration, gun control and taxes.The lead proponent of the current recall campaign is Orrin Heatlie, a retired Yolo County sheriff’s sergeant who had handled the social media for one of the earlier failed recall bids. He and his group, the California Patriot Coalition, took issue in particular with the Newsom administration’s resistance to Trump administration crackdowns on undocumented immigrants.Why pick on Newsom?Mr. Newsom, 53, the former mayor of San Francisco, has long been a favorite target of Republicans.His liberal pedigree and deep Democratic connections push an array of G.O.P. buttons. His aunt, for instance, was married for a time to Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s brother-in-law. Mr. Newsom, a wine merchant, got his start in politics and business with support from the wealthy Getty family. In 2004, he and his first wife, the cable news legal commentator Kimberly Guilfoyle, appeared in a spread for Harper’s Bazaar shot at the Getty Villa and titled “The New Kennedys.”As mayor, Mr. Newsom made headlines for sanctioning same-sex marriage licenses before they were legal. As governor, he has remained a progressive standard-bearer. He championed ballot initiatives that legalized recreational marijuana and outlawed possession of the high-capacity magazines often used in mass shootings. One of his first acts as governor was to declare a moratorium on executions.Mr. Newsom is now married to Jennifer Siebel Newsom, a filmmaker, and is the father of four small children. Ms. Guilfoyle is Donald Trump Jr.’s girlfriend.Isn’t it hard to recall a Democrat in California?A man signed a petition at a booth run by conservative activists in Pasadena, Calif.David Mcnew/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesCalifornia is less liberal in the aggregate than its reputation. Some six million Californians voted for Donald J. Trump in the 2020 election. That’s roughly quadruple the number of signatures proponents needed to put a recall onto the ballot.And although Mr. Heatlie and his group describe themselves as mainstream, a significant portion of the energy behind the recall is coming from the fringes. Early rallies to promote it were heavily populated by Proud Boys and anti-vaccination activists. Backers of Mr. Heatlie’s campaign have made social media posts bashing immigrants and depicting the governor as Hitler.“Microchip all illegal immigrants. It works! Just ask Animal control,” Mr. Heatlie himself wrote in a 2019 Facebook post. He now says that the remark was “a conversation starter” that he did not intend to be taken literally.Did the pandemic play into the recall?Not at first.Californians initially approved of Mr. Newsom’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic. Mr. Newsom was the first governor in the nation to issue a stay-at-home mandate, a decision that seemed prescient as the virus ravaged the Northeast. But Mr. Newsom’s on-again, off-again health rules began testing Californians’ patience.Separately, Mr. Heatlie’s recall campaign had languished. It had to be filed twice because of technical errors. By last June, when the secretary of state gave the group permission to start circulating petitions, the governor’s emergency health orders had dispersed the usual signature-gathering crowds at supermarkets and malls.Citing the pandemic restrictions, the group asked Judge James Arguelles of the Sacramento Superior Court for an extension. Judge Arguelles granted it. The governor’s supporters say the recall would never have gotten off the ground had the judge not extended the signature-gathering deadline.Public school parents expressed widespread dissatisfaction with the sustained shutdown of public school classrooms during the pandemic. (Mr. Newsom’s children attend private schools.) But the governor’s approval ratings were relatively healthy even in the winter when Covid-19 was still pummeling California. They have risen markedly as the virus has waned.What happened at French Laundry?On the evening of Nov. 6, hours after the court approval was made final for the signature gathering extension, the governor went to a birthday party for a Sacramento lobbyist and friend at French Laundry, a pricey Napa Valley restaurant. After photos leaked of Mr. Newsom mingling, maskless, at the restaurant, he apologized, but Californians were outraged.And Republicans were ecstatic: Mr. Heatlie’s petitions, which had only 55,588 signatures on the day of the dinner, had nearly half a million a month after Nov. 6.Who is backing the recall now?Orrin Heatlie leads the California Patriot Coalition, which took issue in particular with the Newsom administration’s resistance to Trump administration crackdowns on undocumented immigrants.Max Whittaker for The New York TimesMr. Heatlie said the 1,719,943 voters who signed his group’s petition are a grass-roots cross-section of Republicans, independents and Democrats who no longer trust the governor. Their names are not public information, and petitions have not yet been formally certified.Newt Gingrich, the Republican former House speaker, has promoted the recall. Mike Huckabee, the Republican former governor of Arkansas, donated $100,000 through his political action committee.John E. Kruger, an Orange County entrepreneur and charter school backer who opposed Mr. Newsom’s pandemic health restrictions on churches, remains by far the largest donor. Mr. Kruger, who has donated to candidates of both parties, gave $500,000 to the recall shortly after the French Laundry affair.How has Newsom responded?For many months, he did not utter the R-word. But since March, when it became clear that it had traction, Mr. Newsom and his campaign team have launched an all-out war on the recall.They have actively discouraged Democrats — including Tom Steyer, a former presidential candidate, and Antonio Villaraigosa, a former mayor of Los Angeles who lost to Mr. Newsom in the 2018 primary — from launching rival campaigns.And Californians, meanwhile, have in some ways had it better than a studio audience on “Oprah.” Mr. Newsom has tweaked health rules to hasten the reopening of businesses and classrooms. He rebated large portions of an enormous state surplus in the form of stimulus checks to poor and middle class taxpayers for up to $1,100 per household. And in late May, he announced the nation’s largest vaccine lottery.Pollsters note that Mr. Newsom has less personal popularity to fall back on than his predecessors, including Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jerry Brown.But the latest poll, conducted in early May by the Public Policy Institute of California, found that nearly six in 10 likely voters would vote to keep Mr. Newsom, and 90 percent of likely voters believe the worst of the pandemic is behind the state.Which side raised the most money?Supporters of the recall have raised approximately $4.7 million so far, and opponents have raised about $13.2 million, according to the nonprofit news site CalMatters.Campaign finance rules have worked in Mr. Newsom’s favor. California law treats his defense against the recall as a ballot issue, but treats the candidacies of his challengers as regular elections. So the governor can raise unlimited sums to fend off the recall, while donors to his rivals must abide by a $32,400-per-election limit on contributions they can make to a single candidate. Mega-donations for and against the overall recall campaigns are not restricted by those single-candidate limits.In late May, Mr. Newsom’s campaign announced a jaw-dropping $3 million donation from the founder of Netflix, Reed Hastings, who supported Mr. Villaraigosa in the 2018 primary. Labor groups, tribal organizations and the California Association of Realtors have also pledged large sums. More

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      Will Cuomo Run for a 4th Term? A $10,000-a-Plate Fund-Raiser Says Yes.

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      The event on June 29 will be the first fund-raiser for Mr. Cuomo since overlapping investigations engulfed his administration earlier this year.Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo will host a fund-raiser for the first time since overlapping scandals engulfed his administration and prompted calls for his resignation — the latest indication that he is gearing up to run for re-election.The fund-raiser, which will take place on June 29 at an undisclosed location in New York City, was advertised as a “summer reception” in a campaign email to supporters, who will need to fork over $10,000 per person, or $15,000 for two people, to attend.The mere act of holding a high-dollar, in-person fund-raiser after the end of the legislative session inflamed Mr. Cuomo’s critics, even as it underscored his everything-is-normal strategy in the face of several federal and state investigations into his personal conduct and the actions of his administration.The fund-raiser comes as Mr. Cuomo’s poll numbers have stabilized in recent months and he has dedicated most of his time to shoring up public support. Mr. Cuomo, a third-term Democrat, has a sizable $16.8 million cash on hand, according to campaign filings from January, and he appears intent on adding to it before the next filing in July.Still, few donors or lobbyists who were invited to the event were interested in discussing their plans publicly on Wednesday. Of eight invitees, only two said they planned to go. But none doubted that the governor, a prolific fund-raiser, would be able to attract enough takers for the event to raise its expected amount. (Similar events in the past — one asked couples to pay $25,000 — have aimed to raise $500,000, according to a person familiar with the governor’s fund-raising efforts.)“The pitch is, ‘I’m governor and I’m governing, head down, straightforward,’” said one person who received an invitation and requested anonymity to discuss it. The person did not plan to attend the fund-raiser.While Mr. Cuomo could use campaign contributions to mount a bid for a fourth term in 2022, he could also, in theory, use the money to pay for legal expenses related to the inquiries he is confronting, should he choose to hire his own lawyer, as some state officials have done.He has ignored the calls to resign that accompanied the investigations into sexual harassment claims from several women, his administration’s handling of nursing home deaths during the pandemic and his $5.1 million deal to write a memoir about the coronavirus outbreak.At a news conference on Wednesday, Mr. Cuomo said that he has not hired private counsel to represent him in the investigations, relying instead on outside lawyers paid for by the state, and that he had no plans “at this time” to use campaign funds for personal legal expenses.When Mayor Bill de Blasio faced state and federal inquiries into his campaign fund-raising activities during his first term, he used city funds to pay for the bulk of the legal fees. But he announced that he would personally pay a portion of the fees, about $300,000 that pertained to his “nongovernmental work.” (Mr. de Blasio has yet to settle that debt.)Last week, the state comptroller office approved a $2.5 million contract for Morvillo Abramowitz Grand Iason & Anello, a Manhattan law firm, to represent the administration in a federal investigation, overseen by the Eastern District of New York, into nursing home deaths and questions related to the publication of the governor’s book, “American Crisis.”The firm is also handling state and federal inquiries into the preferential access to coronavirus testing afforded to Mr. Cuomo’s family and other influential people, according to a partner there, Elkan Abramowitz.“The executive chamber has retained counsel, and that is a state expense,” Mr. Cuomo said on Wednesday. “It has been in every investigation, so that’s where we are now.”As the inquiries have multiplied, so has state spending on legal representation for Mr. Cuomo and his aides. In the case of Mr. Abramowitz’s firm alone, the state went from a $1.5 million in initial precontract paperwork in March to the approved $2.5 million just over two months later.And there are several other firms representing Mr. Cuomo, his aides and other state officials.A separate request for the state to contract with Mitra Hormozi, a lawyer with Walden Macht & Haran LLP, which is representing the executive chamber on an investigation overseen by the state attorney general into the sexual harassment claims, is under review, according to the state comptroller office.Another contract for Paul J. Fishman, a partner at Arnold & Porter, a firm which is also representing the governor’s office on the sexual harassment accusations, has not been submitted to the comptroller office.Mr. Cuomo is being represented individually by another attorney, Rita Glavin, who started her own firm this year.“We are in the process of finalizing these contracts subject to approval by the comptroller’s office,” Richard Azzopardi, a senior adviser to Mr. Cuomo, said in a statement. “We are abiding by all applicable rules and standards, and in matters like this it is not uncommon for legal representation to begin while the contracts are simultaneously being drafted for submission and approval. Doing it the other way could potentially leave the chamber and its employees without representation.”Mr. Cuomo could take on private counsel of his own apart from the lawyers being paid for by the state. Were he to do so, he could use campaign funds to pay for that representation.However the governor plans to spend the money, the June 29 fund-raiser would be the first test of his ability to gather contributions, something Mr. Cuomo has been effective at throughout his tenure.Even as most fund-raisers were canceled or went virtual during the pandemic, Mr. Cuomo raised more than $4 million during the latter half of 2020 and the first two weeks of 2021, during which the state confronted the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic and he promoted his pandemic memoir.His top-dollar contributors, who gave up to $69,700 each during that time period, included Larry Robbins, a hedge fund manager; Eric Schmidt, the billionaire former chief executive of Google; Frank McCourt, the businessman and former owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers; and Robert Hale, a co-owner of the Boston Celtics.Real estate developers Gary Barnett, Daniel Brodsky, Jeffrey Gural, Harrison LeFrak and Larry Silverstein each gave $20,000 or more, while the billionaire leaders of the Estée Lauder Companies, Leonard A. Lauder and William Lauder, collectively contributed $82,000. More

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      Katie Hobbs, Arizona Secretary of State, Announces Bid for Governor

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      Ms. Hobbs, a Democrat who gained prominence for defending the state’s election system, has condemned a Republican recount currently underway, calling it a threat to democracy.Katie Hobbs, the Democratic secretary of state in Arizona, who gained national attention for her stalwart defense of the state’s electoral system in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election, announced on Wednesday that she was running for governor, portraying herself as a pragmatic leader who does not back down in the face of criticism and threats.Ms. Hobbs has become a frequent fixture on cable news shows since the fall — first as Arizona’s vote count continued for several days after Election Day in November, and again this spring as Republicans conducted a widely criticized audit of ballots cast in Maricopa County. Ms. Hobbs has repeatedly condemned the partisan recount as a dangerous threat to democracy and has assigned observers to track problems with the process.“We did our job,” she said in a video announcing her bid. “They refused to do theirs. And there’s a lot more work to be done.”I’m running for Governor to deliver transparency, accountability, and results for Arizonans — just like I’ve done my whole career.Join me: https://t.co/LM2sCDVynA pic.twitter.com/5y3QtFvYAk— Katie Hobbs (@katiehobbs) June 2, 2021
      In some ways, the recount has elevated Ms. Hobbs, who some polls suggest is the most popular statewide elected official. She joined a lawsuit to try to stop the recount, which has no official standing and will not change the state’s vote. She issued a scathing six-page letter detailing problems with the audit and has recommended that Maricopa County replace its voting machines and vote tabulators because of the lack of physical security and transparency around the process. “We cannot be certain who accessed the voting equipment and what might have been done to them,” she wrote.A campaign video announcing her run opens by referring to the attacks and death threats that she has faced in the wake of the election — including armed protesters showing up at her home.“When you’re under attack, some would have you believe you have two choices: fight or give in. But there is a third option: get the job done,” Ms. Hobbs says in the video announcement. “I’m here to solve problems.”In the days after last November’s election, as Arizona’s votes were being counted amid intense scrutiny and criticism from the Trump White House and its allies, Ms. Hobbs regularly appeared on television to provide updates on the counting process and defend the integrity of the state’s voting processes.Republicans in the State Legislature have struck back at Ms. Hobbs for her opposition to the recount. After Ms. Hobbs sued them, Republicans passed a measure to strip her of her ability to defend election lawsuits, instead giving that power to the attorney general, also a Republican.The bill, which has not yet been approved by the full Legislature, appears to specifically target Ms. Hobbs; it would expire in January of 2023, when her current term ends. Ms. Hobbs called the measure “an attack on Arizona voters.”The Arizona G.O.P. has largely doubled down on the baseless accusation that the election was “stolen” from former President Donald J. Trump, with the state party going as far as censuring elected officials, including the Republican governor, Doug Ducey, for not being sufficiently loyal by declining to back the attempt to subvert the election.But the efforts have largely turned off independent voters in the state, who make up roughly a third of the electorate there.“The other side isn’t offering policies to make our lives better, they’re offering conspiracy theories that only make our lives worse,” Ms. Hobbs said in her video.Mr. Ducey is not eligible to run in the 2022 election because of term limits and the field to replace him is likely to be crowded. Several Republicans have also declared their candidacy in recent days, including Kimberly Yee, who is currently the state treasurer, and Kari Lake, a former anchor for the local Fox television station. More

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      Nikki Fried Running for Florida Governor

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      MIAMI — Nikki Fried, Florida’s agriculture commissioner, declared her candidacy for governor on Tuesday, casting herself as the Democratic Party’s best option to defeat Ron DeSantis, the popular Republican incumbent, given her role as the only statewide elected Democrat.“After two decades of Republican governors, it’s time to try something new,” Ms. Fried said in a brief phone interview days before her announcement. “It’s time for a change.”Ms. Fried is the second major Democrat to enter the race. Representative Charlie Crist of St. Petersburg began his campaign last month and has been holding political events across the state. Mr. Crist is far better known: He served as Florida’s Republican governor from 2007 to 2011, lost a Senate run as an independent in 2012 and ran unsuccessfully against Gov. Rick Scott in 2014 as a Democrat.Ms. Fried, who was elected in 2018, acknowledged that Mr. Crist would start the race with better name recognition, but said she had “no doubt” that Democratic voters would be hungry for a fresh alternative.Before winning the 2018 election by just 6,753 votes, Ms. Fried, 43, worked as a Fort Lauderdale-based lawyer and medical marijuana lobbyist. She boasts that she holds both a medical marijuana card and a concealed-weapons permit.The governor’s contest in the nation’s third-largest state began early, as Democrats hope to stall the political career of Mr. DeSantis, who is widely seen as a possible presidential contender in 2024 if he wins re-election next year. He has recently traveled to speak at political events in Pennsylvania and Texas.Representative Val Demings of Orlando had also been seen as a likely Democratic challenger to Mr. DeSantis. But she is set to announce a campaign against Senator Marco Rubio instead, a move that has scrambled plans for other Democrats down the ballot. Representative Stephanie Murphy of Winter Park decided against a Senate run after Ms. Demings’s decision became public.State Senator Annette Taddeo of Miami, who was Mr. Crist’s running mate in 2014, is still weighing a candidacy for governor.“I will continue meeting with supporters across the state to assess the best path for me to do the most good for the people of Florida,” Ms. Taddeo said in a statement last week. More

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      Dissecting the California Recall

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      Tuesday: We explore the historical, technical, logistical and financial aspects of the attempt to recall Gov. Gavin Newsom.Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks during a press conference after the mass shooting in San Jose last week.Mike Kai Chen for The New York TimesGood morning.The coronavirus pandemic is rapidly receding in California, but for Gov. Gavin Newsom, at least one side effect has lingered: the Republican-led push to relieve him of his job.How a Democratic star in the bluest of blue states could have ended up confronting a recall remains one of the more remarkable mysteries of the moment. In a perfect storm of partisan rage and pandemic upheaval, the effort to oust Newsom has become only the second recall attempt against a California governor to qualify for the ballot.With only a few procedural steps remaining, a special election appears destined for autumn, or perhaps even sooner.If you haven’t been paying attention to every detail — every reconsideration deadline, every Kodiak bear appearance, every Kruger mega-donation — we totally understand. So here’s the June edition of the California Recall Encyclopedia of 2021.So what’s with California and recalls?Direct democracy is a big part of the Golden State’s political identity. Since 1911, when California approved recalls as part of a sweeping Progressive-era reform package, 179 recall attempts have been made against state officeholders. Launching a recall effort in California is easy compared to most states, and every governor since 1960 has faced at least one.But the vast majority of those efforts fizzle. California is enormous, with a population of nearly 40 million and at least five major media markets. The cost of campaigning statewide tends to thwart all but the most moneyed and determined critics.Besides Newsom’s, only one other recall of a California governor, Gray Davis, has ever reached an election. Davis lost in 2003 to Arnold Schwarzenegger, who went on to face his own blitz of attempted recalls.How do California recalls work?Twelve percent of voters registered in the last gubernatorial election must sign a recall petition. They don’t need to give a reason, but they often do. The petition must include at least 1 percent of the registered voters in at least five counties. Proponents have 160 days to gather their signatures.The signatures must then be examined and verified by the California secretary of state. If the petitions meet the threshold — 1,495,709 valid signatures in this case — voters who signed get 30 business days to change their minds. Newsom’s critics have turned in more than 1.7 million signatures, and voters have until June 8 to reconsider.After that, the state finance department has up to 30 days to determine the cost of a special election, a joint legislative budget committee has up to 30 days to weigh in, and the secretary of state officially certifies the petitions. Those calculations are underway, but the cost of a special election has been estimated at $100 million or more.The lieutenant governor then has to set an election between 60 and 80 days from the date of certification. If the proposed date is close enough to a regularly scheduled election, the deadline can be extended to 180 days.Who can run in a recall?Candidates to replace the governor must be U.S. citizens and registered to vote in California, and must pay a filing fee of about $4,000 or submit signatures from 7,000 supporters. They cannot be convicted of certain felonies, and they cannot be the governor up for recall. They have until 59 days before the election to file.The ballot asks voters two questions: Should the governor be recalled? And if so, who should be the new governor? If the majority of voters say no to the first question, the second is moot. But if more than 50 percent vote yes, the candidate with the most votes becomes the next governor. The 2003 winner, Schwarzenegger, only had 48.6 percent of the vote.A rally in support of the recall of then-Gov. Gray Davis at the State Capitol in Sacramento in July 2003.Paul SakumaWho is challenging Newsom?The most high-profile candidates are Republicans. No serious challenger has emerged from Newsom’s party.The Republicans include Kevin Faulconer, the former mayor of San Diego, and Doug Ose, a former congressman from Sacramento. Other Republicans include John Cox, a San Diego businessman who recently distinguished himself by touring the state with a live Kodiak bear, and Caitlyn Jenner, a reality television star and former Olympic athlete.Who started the effort to recall Newsom?Three sets of critics tried five times to recall Newsom before the sixth recall petition caught on in 2020. The first two groups were led by unsuccessful Republican candidates for Congress in Southern California, and the first papers were filed three months after Newsom’s inauguration in 2019.All three groups were Trumpian conservatives who, at least initially, raised familiar arguments against the governor’s liberal stances on such issues as the death penalty, immigration, gun control and taxes.The lead proponent of the current recall campaign was a retired Yolo County sheriff’s sergeant named Orrin Heatlie who had handled the social media for one of the earlier failed recall bids. He and his group, the California Patriot Coalition, took issue in particular with the Newsom administration’s resistance to Trump administration crackdowns on undocumented immigrants.On the evening of Nov. 6, Newsom went to a birthday party at French Laundry, a pricey Napa Valley restaurant. After photos leaked of the governor mingling, maskless, at the restaurant, Newsom apologized, but Californians were outraged and Republicans were ecstatic.Heatlie’s petitions, which had only 55,588 signatures on the day of the dinner, had nearly half a million a month after Nov. 6.A sign calling for the recall of Gov. Gavin Newsom is posted next to an agricultural field in the Central California town of Firebaugh.Justin Sullivan/Getty ImagesWho is backing the recall now?Heatlie says the 1,719,943 voters who signed his group’s petition are a grass-roots cross-section of Republicans, independents and Democrats who no longer trust Newsom. Their names are not public information, and petitions have not yet been formally certified.Newt Gingrich, the Republican former House speaker, has promoted the recall. Mike Huckabee, the Republican former governor of Arkansas, donated $100,000 through his political action committee.John E. Kruger, an Orange County entrepreneur and charter school backer who opposed Newsom’s pandemic health restrictions on churches, remains by far the largest donor. Kruger, who has donated to candidates of both parties and is registered with neither, gave $500,000 to the recall shortly after the French Laundry affair.Cristian Ruiz got his coronavirus vaccination shot at California State University, Northridge, after the state extended vaccines to walk-ins amid low demand last month.Allison Zaucha for The New York TimesWhat’s the latest?The latest poll, done in early May by the Public Policy Institute of California, found that nearly six in 10 likely voters would vote to keep Newsom, and 90 percent of likely voters believe the worst of the pandemic is behind the state.Supporters of the recall have raised approximately $4.6 million, and opponents have raised about $11.1 million, according to the nonprofit news site CalMatters. Thirty-seven candidates have officially announced their intention to challenge Newsom in the recall.After nearly 3.8 million cases and more than 63,000 deaths, coronavirus infections are as low now as they were at the start of the pandemic, and 56 percent of Californians have received at least one vaccination shot. The state is running a record budget surplus as the stock market has soared and fewer white-collar Californians lost their jobs than expected. Reopening is scheduled for June 15.Could this happen in other states?Most states don’t allow recalls at the state level. If voters want a new governor, the argument goes, they can wait for the next election and vote. Only four gubernatorial recalls in U.S. history have even made it onto the ballot, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures: in 1921 in North Dakota, in 1988 in Arizona, in 2003 in California and in 2012 in Wisconsin.Fourteen governors faced recall efforts last year, according to Joshua Spivak, a senior fellow at Wagner College’s Hugh L. Carey Institute for Government Reform. Twelve recall campaigns focused explicitly on how the pandemic was handled. But only California’s got off the ground.Here’s what else to know todayRelatives of the nine victims in the San Jose mass shooting were among those who gathered at a vigil at City Hall, including the family of Michael Joseph Rudometkin, 40. Mike Kai Chen for The New York TimesA clearer picture has emerged of a mass shooter’s anger. Samuel Cassidy, the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority maintenance worker who killed nine co-workers in San Jose last week before taking his own life, was a highly disgruntled employee who had angry outbursts on the radio system and had told his ex-wife he had wanted to beat up or kill his colleagues, The San Jose Mercury News reports.A ransomware attack on the Azusa police put crime-scene photos, payroll files for officers and other highly sensitive material online, The Los Angeles Times reports.A homeless man who was captured on video attacking an Asian-American police officer in San Francisco on Friday was being held on hate crime and other charges, The San Francisco Chronicle reports.Amid a push to continue working from home as the pandemic wanes, developers in the San Joaquin Valley and other areas are racing to build homes in places that buyers used to regard as outside the limits of an acceptable commute.The San Diego Union-Tribune tells the Memorial Day story of Rudy Martinez, a 22-year-old San Diegan and Navy sailor who was the first Mexican-American to die in World War II.A San Bernardino County sheriff’s deputy was shot and killed on Monday by a motorcyclist who had led the authorities on a chase in the Yucca Valley area. The deputy, Sergeant Dominic Vaca, 43, was a 17-year veteran of the department, ABC 7 reports.It is a time of journalistic soul-searching at The Press Democrat in Sonoma County, after a wine country mayor resigned amid allegations of sexually abusing women. Its top editor admitted the newspaper failed to pursue the story when a reporter first brought forward the accusations. The reporter, Alexandria Bordas, left the paper and took the story to The San Francisco Chronicle, The Los Angeles Times reports.Motorists on one Southern California freeway got an unexpected visitor on Monday. A single-engine Cessna plane made an emergency landing on the southbound lanes of the 101 freeway in the city of Westlake Village, NBC4 Los Angeles reports.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. More

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      Foster Friess, Big Donor to Republicans, Dies at 81

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      A conservative Christian and wealthy businessman, he gave millions to Rick Santorum and Donald Trump in their presidential bids.Foster Friess, a Wyoming businessman who founded an investment firm, made a fortune and gave a lot of it away to Republican presidential candidates and charities, sometimes with flair, died on Thursday in Scottsdale, Ariz. He was 81.His organization, Foster’s Outriders, which confirmed the death, said he had been receiving care at the Mayo Clinic there for myelodysplastic syndrome, a disorder of the blood cells and bone marrow.Gov. Mark Gordon of Wyoming, who defeated Mr. Friess in the Republican gubernatorial primary in 2018, writing on Twitter, called Mr. Friess “a strong and steady voice for Republican and Christian values.”Mr. Friess’s run for governor was his only try at major elected office. In the political arena he was primarily known for his donations, particularly to the presidential bids of Rick Santorum, the former United States senator from Pennsylvania, in the 2012 and 2016 campaigns. After Mr. Santorum left the 2016 race, Mr. Friess became one of the first Republican megadonors to embrace Donald J. Trump.But to many, the most important support that Mr. Friess, an evangelical Christian, and his wife, Lynnette, provided was to charities. Foster’s Outriders and the Lynn and Foster Friess Family Foundation have provided scholarships, financed work for homeless people, supported water projects in Africa and much more. His organization said Mr. Friess had donated $500 million in his lifetime.His 70th birthday party in 2010 in Jackson Hole, Wyo., where he lived much of the year, was the stuff of legend. The website wyofile.com described it.“In the invitations to the party, Friess, a born-again Christian, had asked the guests to identify their favorite charity that reflected the values of his favorite quote from Galatians: ‘Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ,’” it wrote in 2011. “He vowed to give $70,000 to the most worthy nominee.”When the time came to announce the winner, the servers at the Four Seasons Resort, where the party was being held, distributed envelopes to the guests.“Friess asked the lucky winner to stand up and shout, and for the other guests to remain seated,” the account continued. “Then he sat back and waited for the mayhem.”As people opened the envelopes, someone at every table stood and shouted, “I won!” He had funded every request, at a cost of $7.7 million.Mr. Friess thanking supporters in 2018 after conceding the Republican nomination to Gov. Mark Gordon of Wyoming. He had been endorsed by Donald Trump Jr. Alan Rogers/The Casper Star-Tribune, via Associated PressFoster Stephen Friess was born on April 2, 1940, in Rice Lake, Wis. His father, Albert, was a cattle rancher, and his mother, Ethel (Foster) Friess, was a homemaker.“I came from nothing,” he told The New York Times in 2018 during his campaign for governor when asked if he himself might be considered one of the “elites” he was railing against. “My mom dropped out of school in eighth grade to pick cotton and save the family farm. My dad had a high school education.”He graduated from the University of Wisconsin in Madison with a degree in business administration and served in the Army as an intelligence officer for a guided-missile brigade at Fort Bliss in Texas.After working in finance for several years, he founded the investment management firm Friess Associates in 1974 and was soon regarded as a first-rate stock picker. His flagship asset, the Brandywine Fund, swelled to more than $15 billion. He sold a controlling interest in Friess Associates to the Affiliated Managers Group in 2001.On the political side, Mr. Friess did more than support candidates. In 2010, he was a founding investor in The Daily Caller, Tucker Carlson and Neil Patel’s conservative news and opinion website.In 2012 Mr. Friess supported Mr. Santorum not so much because he agreed with all his policies — “I try to talk him out of them,” he told the broadcaster Lou Dobbs in February 2012 — but because he thought the Republican Party needed a new face.“These old veteran war horses, they have a hard time making it,” he said on “Lou Dobbs Tonight.” “Dole couldn’t make it, McCain couldn’t make it. On the Democratic side, Gore couldn’t make it and Kerry couldn’t make it. So the Democrats bring these fresh faces, they bring Carter from out of nowhere, they bring Clinton from out of nowhere, they bring Obama from beyond nowhere.”Later that month Mr. Friess made headlines when, on MSNBC, Andrea Mitchell asked him whether Mr. Santorum’s statements on “the dangers of contraception” would hurt his campaign.“Back in my days,” Mr. Friess said, “they used Bayer aspirin for contraception. The gals put it between their knees, and it wasn’t that costly.”Mr. Santorum’s primary campaign started strong but foundered, and Mr. Obama was elected to a second term, defeating Mitt Romney.In the next presidential campaign, Mr. Friess also supported Mr. Santorum initially. In mid-2015, with the Republican field choked with candidates and the nastiness level increasing, he called on the candidates not to “drift off the civility reservation.”In May 2016, with Mr. Santorum out of the race and Mr. Trump having secured the Republican nomination, Mr. Friess threw his support to the Trump cause, though acknowledging that Mr. Trump had advanced by showing the very incivility he had decried — something he expected would change to a more presidential tenor.“Donald’s strategy seems to work,” Mr. Friess told CNN that month, “but I’m convinced he’s going to shift.”Mr. Friess supported Mr. Trump throughout his administration, and when he ran for governor, the Trump family tried to return the favor — the president’s son Donald Jr. endorsed him in an opinion article in The Star Tribune of Casper, Wyo. President Trump himself was quieter, although he did offer a Twitter post late in the campaign endorsing Mr. Friess. Mr. Gordon’s victory was cited by some of as evidence of Mr. Trump’s vulnerability, though others saw it more as a local matter.Three weeks ago, when Darin Smith, a lawyer and businessman who has contended that Mr. Trump “probably” won the 2020 election, announced that he would challenge Representative Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming, who has been critical of Mr. Trump, in the 2022 primaries, he said that Mr. Friess would be his campaign chairman.Mr. Friess’s wife of 58 years, Lynnette Estes Friess, survives him, as do their four children, Traci, Stephen, Carrie, and Michael; a brother, Herman; and 15 grandchildren. More

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      Why Arkansas Is a Test Case for a Post-Trump Republican Party

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      Sarah Huckabee Sanders seems likely to bring the Trump brand to Arkansas politics in a big way. But the state is a testing ground for different possible futures for the party.LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — For decades, Arkansas punched above its weight in politics and business.In the 1990s, it was home to the president and the world’s wealthiest family. In the 2000s, three onetime Arkansans ran for president. A decade later, the state claimed its sixth company on the Fortune 500 list.But Arkansas may be entering its most consequential period yet, as a test case for the future of the Republican Party.Having undergone a lightning-quick transformation in the last decade from Democratic dominance to Republican rule, how closely the state clings to former President Donald J. Trump and his style of politics will offer insights about the party he still dominates.Arkansas represents the full spectrum of today’s G.O.P.There are Trump devotees fully behind his false claims of a stolen election and his brand of grievance-oriented politics. That faction is now led by the former White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the daughter of Mike Huckabee, the state’s onetime governor. More ideological, and less Trump-centric, conservatives include Senator Tom Cotton.And then there are pre-Trump Republicans, like Gov. Asa Hutchinson, hoping against hope the moment will pass and they can return the party to its Reaganite roots. Finally, some Republicans are so appalled by Trumpism, they have left or are considering leaving the party.Perhaps most significant, each of these factions are bunched together in a state powered by a handful of corporations that are increasingly uneasy with the culture-war politics that define Trump Republicanism. In a meeting of Walmart’s Arkansas-based executives last month, a number of officials cited state measures limiting transgender rights to express concern about how such bills could hamper their ability to recruit a diverse work force, according to a business leader familiar with the discussion.Gov. Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas at the state Capitol in Little Rock.Liz Sanders for The New York Times“They’ve got to recruit people to this state, and this makes it harder for them,” said Mr. Hutchinson, alluding to transgender measures that he opposed in this year’s legislative session. “And there’s many in the base of the party that just don’t care,” he said. “They would rather fight the cultural war and pay the price in terms of growth.”In the next year and a half, Ms. Sanders will road-test Trumpism in state politics as she runs for governor in a state the former president carried by 27 points last year. She will initially face a longtime friend and former aide to her father, the state’s Attorney General Leslie Rutledge, who unsuccessfully pleaded with Mr. Trump not to endorse Ms. Sanders.Then, if Ms. Sanders prevails, she may prompt a long-shot challenge in the general election from a Republican-turned-independent who left the party in disgust with Mr. Trump, and just happens to be Mr. Hutchinson’s nephew.At the same time, Mr. Cotton and Mr. Hutchinson will be circling one another, perhaps in Iowa as often as in Arkansas, as they both eye 2024 presidential bids with very different bets about the future of the party.“There will be a lot of complicated relationships,” State Senator Jonathan Dismang, an influential lawmaker, said with maximum delicacy.For many veterans of Arkansas politics, the intra-Republican competition is a full-circle moment, reflecting the state’s rapid shift from an overwhelmingly Democratic state to an overwhelmingly Republican one. This period is also eerily familiar to an earlier era when it was Democrats like then-Governor Bill Clinton and former Senators Dale Bumpers and David Pryor who were vying for supremacy. What’s different about today is how much politics in a small, mostly rural state at the intersection of the Deep South, Midwest and Southwest is shaped by a figure who has almost certainly never let the phrase “Woo Pig Sooie” slip from his lips.“Arkansas Republicanism is defined by President Trump right now,” said Trent Garner, a south Arkansas state lawmaker who defeated one of the remaining rural white Democrats when Mr. Trump was first elected.If there was any doubt about that after Mr. Trump’s romp in the state last year, it was erased in February when Lt. Gov. Tim Griffin abruptly pulled out of the 2022 governor’s race. A longtime political operative and former House member, Mr. Griffin had been collecting chits for what many here assumed was an inevitable run for the state’s top job after returning home from Congress in 2014 to serve as lieutenant governor.Former President Donald J. Trump with the former White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders in June 2019.Doug Mills/The New York TimesThen Ms. Sanders, who has never served in elective office, made clear she would run for governor, and Mr. Trump quickly endorsed his former spokeswoman.The combination of her connection to Mr. Trump, her father’s legacy and her own celebrity from being a Fox News regular made her seemingly unbeatable, according to a private survey Mr. Griffin took, Republicans familiar with the findings said.Now running for attorney general, Mr. Griffin, an Army Reserve colonel, sought to put the best face on his climb-down. “If bio and résumé was key to politics, then George H.W. Bush would’ve been re-elected, Bob Dole would’ve won and John McCain would’ve won,” he said.Mr. Hutchinson put a finer point on how Ms. Sanders had derailed Mr. Griffin. “It shows you the power of media and personality,” he said.Ms. Sanders does still have competition for governor, particularly from Ms. Rutledge, a conservative who, in the friends-and-neighbors world of Arkansas politics, served as Mr. Huckabee’s general counsel as governor and in the same capacity when he ran for president in 2008.“She’s never made decisions,” Ms. Rutledge said of Ms. Sanders. “It’s a big difference answering questions behind a podium versus making decisions behind a desk.”She insisted primary voters would ultimately value her experience, and dismissed State Capitol speculation that she would eventually follow Mr. Griffin to the exits, perhaps to run for lieutenant governor or the state Supreme Court.Asked about Ms. Rutledge’s criticism, Ms. Sanders ignored her rival and trumpeted her own record-setting early fund-raising. “I take nothing for granted,” she said via text message.Ms. Sanders will initially face a longtime friend and former aide to her father, the state’s Attorney General Leslie Rutledge, in the Republican primary for governor.Liz Sanders for The New York TimesShould Ms. Sanders emerge as the Republican standard-bearer, she may face a third-party opponent from well outside the pro-Trump orbit. State Senator Jim Hendren, who left the G.O.P. after the Jan. 6 riot, and Davy Carter, a former state House speaker, are both considering bids.In separate interviews, they said they would not compete with one another in the same race. “I’m convinced that even in Arkansas, Trump and Trumpism is a slow-sinking ship,” said Mr. Carter, who as speaker helped push through Medicaid expansion. He said that a successful challenge to Trumpism would not happen unless liberals, moderates and anti-Trump Republicans “organize in one lane.”Asked who he’d ultimately back in the governor’s race, Mr. Hutchinson said, “I expect to support the Republican nominee.”But he acknowledged talking extensively with his nephew, Mr. Hendren, saying they share “the same frustrations” about the party, except that Mr. Hutchinson is determined to fight from within the tent. Offering some barely veiled advice for Ms. Sanders, he said: “Leadership is about bringing people along and not giving in to a lie.”The governor, and most observers, are deeply skeptical that an independent could win statewide. Indeed, more than a year and a half before Ms. Sanders would even take office, many insiders have moved on to discussing what sort of governor she would be.Would she repurpose Mr. Trump’s media-bashing and grievance-oriented politics to stay in the national headlines, and perhaps propel a presidential run of her own, or would she mirror her father’s more pragmatic approach to the office? While he is now known for his own Fox News and social media profile, Mr. Huckabee governed in the political center, even incurring the wrath of the far right, whom he labeled “Shiite conservatives.”“I think she’s going to be very eager to prove that she’s a competent executive who cares about the state,” said John Burris, a state legislator-turned-lobbyist.While shunning the state media and declining an interview for this story, Ms. Sanders has quietly reached out to state Republican lawmakers to discuss state policy and convey her desire to work with them, according to Mr. Garner.Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas at a Trump campaign rally in Tulsa, Okla., last year. Christopher Lee for The New York TimesFew in the state will be watching as closely as the business titans at companies like Walmart, Tyson Foods and J.B. Hunt, the transportation and logistics giant, which are headquartered in the Northwest corner of the state. Once the only Republican region of Arkansas — even Bill Clinton couldn’t win a House seat there in the aftermath of Watergate — it is now the state’s economic engine.The area is booming, will gain about a half-dozen new state legislative seats in redistricting, and is becoming more diverse. As the local business alliance, the Northwest Arkansas Council, notes, from 1990 and 2019, the nonwhite population of the region grew from less than 5 percent to over 28 percent.To lure more transplants, the business giants have showered the region with money, helping develop local attractions like the Crystal Bridges art museum, which was founded by Alice Walton, daughter of the Walmart founder Sam Walton.But this transformation is coming into conflict with the state’s shift right.At the height of the transgender legislation debate this spring, Tom Walton, a grandson of Sam Walton, issued a statement decrying “policy targeting L.G.B.T.Q. people in Arkansas” and spoke directly to what he saw as the threat presented. “This trend is harmful and sends the wrong message to those willing to invest in or visit our state.”Mr. Hendren, who represents a swath of the region in the State Senate, said the business community would have to do far more to slow Arkansas’s sprint right.“Continuing to do the same thing is going to lead to the same results,” he said, dismissing the companies’ strategy of sending the maximum allowable donations to candidates “and thinking that’s going buy you any loyalty.”As for the Arkansans eying 2024, neither is willing to expound on their ambitions before the midterm elections. But both are attempting to carve out space for their potential bids.Mr. Cotton is quick to jump on issues he knows will animate core Republicans — from introducing legislation to address anti-Semitic hate crimes, to lambasting what he calls “woke corporations” — while Mr. Hutchinson has become a frequent presence on the national television circuit.“I don’t want to sit back idly and let the division grow greater and let our party just become more angry,” Mr. Hutchinson said. More