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      Democrats Want to Flip N.Y. House Seats. But There’s a Primary Problem.

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      To win back a key seat it lost in 2022, the party must first deal with a battle between Mondaire Jones and Liz Whitmer Gereghty, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s sister.Sipping iced coffee at a diner the other day, Liz Whitmer Gereghty looked every bit the dream recruit Democrats need to recapture this coveted suburban House seat north of New York City.She once owned a shop down the street, served on the school board and speaks passionately about abortion rights. She also happens to be the younger sister of one of her party’s brightest stars, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan.“My rights are at risk,” said Ms. Gereghty, 50. “Everything feels very urgent, and I have a congressman who is not representing me, so I raised my hand.”Problem is, she was not the only one. Mondaire Jones, a popular former congressman who represented much of the area until January, is also running and believes he is the best candidate to defeat Representative Mike Lawler, the Republican incumbent.It is a pattern repeating itself in swing seats across the country this summer, but nowhere more so than New York, where ambitious Democrats eager to challenge Republicans defending seats that President Biden won are creating primary pileups from Long Island to Syracuse.Contested primaries have long been a reality for both parties. But after Democrats’ underperformance in 2022 made New York a national embarrassment, party officials and strategists have been increasingly worried that Democrat-on-Democrat fights could drain millions of dollars and bruise a crop of eventual nominees, threatening their carefully laid plans to wrest back House control.“My view is we shot ourselves in the foot last cycle, and we seem intent on shooting ourselves in the head this cycle,” said Howard Wolfson, who helps steer tens of millions of dollars in political spending as Michael R. Bloomberg’s adviser.“I can’t for the life of me understand why we can’t figure this out and ensure that we have one strong candidate running in each of these districts,” he added.Paradoxically, the problem could grow only more stark if Democrats win a lawsuit seeking to redraw the state’s district lines. That could ease the party’s path to victory, but also prompt the courts to push the primary date from June to late August, extending the bitter primary season and truncating the general election campaign.There is time for leaders like Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the top House Democrat and a New Yorker, to intervene if they want to. While the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee rarely interferes in open primaries, there is a tradition of less direct maneuvering to boost preferred candidates and edge others out.So far, Mr. Jeffries appears to be doing the opposite — privately encouraging more potential candidates, with mixed success, according to four Democrats familiar with his outreach who asked to remain anonymous because they were not authorized to discuss it. He tried to nudge State Senator Michelle Hinchey into a Hudson Valley contest earlier this year and urged the former Nassau County executive, Laura Curran, to enter a large primary field for another seat as recently as July.Mr. Jeffries has also offered support to Tom Suozzi to enter the race for his old House seat on Long Island, where a crowded field of Democrats is circling Representative George Santos, a first-term Republican who faces federal fraud charges.The leader’s allies argue that the competition will strengthen their nominees, and brush off concerns that Democrats will be short on funds. A Democratic super PAC has already earmarked $45 million for New York races. And the D.C.C.C. is pitching donors — as recently as a party retreat in Torrey Pines, Calif., last weekend, according to an attendee — to give to special “nominee funds,” a kind of escrow account collecting money for primary winners.“Leader Jeffries has no plan to endorse in any Democratic primary in New York,” said Christie Stephenson, his spokeswoman. “He is confident that whoever emerges in these competitive districts will be strongly positioned to defeat the extreme MAGA Republican crowd.”But the mix of ego and ideology buffeting the star-studded race between Mr. Jones and Ms. Gereghty shows the potential risks, particularly in such a high-profile race to reclaim a Hudson Valley seat lost last year by Sean Patrick Maloney, who was the chairman of the Democratic campaign committee at the time.Mr. Jones held the Hudson Valley seat, but opted in 2022 to run for an open seat in New York City, where he lost in a primary.Haiyun Jiang/The New York TimesMr. Jones, an openly gay Black Democrat, represented a more liberal configuration of the seat in Congress last term. But after a court imposed new district lines in 2022, Mr. Maloney opted to run for Mr. Jones’s seat instead of his traditional one. Rather than run against a party leader, Mr. Jones chose to move 25 miles to Brooklyn to run for an open seat there.He lost and has now moved back north.In a phone interview, Mr. Jones, 36, said he was confident that voters would understand his “impossible situation,” but regretted his decision not to challenge Mr. Maloney, who lost to Mr. Lawler in a seat Mr. Biden won by 10 points.Mr. Jones said the outcome showed that “you can’t just substitute any Democrat for Mondaire Jones in this district.” More than 100 local and national officials and groups — from the Westchester Democratic chairwoman to the congressional Black and progressive caucuses — have backed his comeback attempt, making him the clear front-runner against Ms. Gereghty.But some of the positions Mr. Jones trumpeted to win more liberal electorates in earlier campaigns could prove cumbersome.He is already tacking toward the center and would say little about Ms. Gereghty in the interview. Mr. Jones referred to his own calls to defund the police in 2020 as “emotional, facile comments”; his current campaign features video of Mr. Jones shaking hands with a local police chief while touting votes to increase police funding.Mr. Jones said he wanted to see New York grant judges new authority to set cash bail for defendants they deem dangerous. And he said he would support a state plan to tax cars traveling into central Manhattan only if there was a carveout for the suburban counties he represented.Over breakfast in Katonah, an affluent Westchester suburb, Ms. Gereghty pitched her modest record as an electoral strength in a general election. She cast herself as a member of the get-it-done wing of the Democratic Party, like her sister, and predicted Mr. Lawler would gleefully use Mr. Jones’s words against him, as he did to Mr. Maloney.“If you got tired of the Sean Maloney ads last year, we’ll at least have some more variety if he’s the candidate,” she said.Ms. Gereghty serves on a school board in her district, and was a former shop owner in the area.Joe Buglewicz for The New York TimesMs. Gereghty has no plans to drop out. But she has struggled to amass local support.Her most notable endorsement comes from Emily’s List, the national group dedicated to electing women who back abortion rights. Of the $408,000 she’s raised thus far, almost half came from residents of Michigan.Democrats have caught some breaks in neighboring districts.Republicans have yet to field a top-tier challenger to Representative Pat Ryan, the only Democrat defending a swing seat here. They are also headed toward their own fraught primary if Mr. Santos continues to run.Elsewhere, the candidates are crowding in.Three Democrats, including Sarah Hughes, a former gold medal figure skater, are vying to represent the party against Representative Anthony D’Esposito in a Long Island district Mr. Biden won by 14 points.Three more have already raised at least $300,000 to run in Mr. Santos’s neighboring district. That does not include Mr. Suozzi or Robert Zimmerman, the party’s 2022 nominee, who is eyeing another run.A similar dynamic is playing out in Syracuse, where four Democrats are competing over whether a moderate or progressive should take on Representative Brandon Williams, a Republican who narrowly won a seat that favored Mr. Biden by eight points in 2020.“Primaries can be bloodying, and they cost a lot of money,” said Ms. Curran, who has decided not to run for Mr. D’Esposito’s seat. “It clouds the message and the mission.”Republicans have watched it all with delight.Mr. Lawler spent the month of August meeting constituents and gathering large campaign checks. He said he ran into Mr. Jones along the way and got an earful — about how frustrated the Democrat was to be stuck in a primary.He won’t have a Democratic primary vote, but Mr. Lawler, who will have to defend his own conservative votes unpopular in the district, made clear he has a preference.“Look, I’d be happy to run against either,” he said. “But Mondaire Jones certainly has a very long and detailed record that shows him clearly out of step.” More

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      C.F.T.C. Weighs Proposal to Allow U.S. Betting on Control of Congress

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      A New York exchange wants to allow high-dollar trading on the partisan divide on Capitol Hill, but lawmakers and watchdogs worry it could undermine public confidence in elections.Handicapping control of Congress is always a risky proposition, with multiple forces at work and much at stake in terms of policy and power. Now tens of millions of dollars could be riding on the outcome of House and Senate races as well.The Commodity Futures Trading Commission is weighing a proposal from a New York-based exchange that would allow derivatives trading on the question of which party will control Congress, potentially turning Election Day into a political version of the Super Bowl.Backers of the plan, which was proposed by the trading platform Kalshi, say it is simply another way for big firms to limit risk by hedging against possible adverse policy outcomes on issues such as taxes, energy and the environment that turn on which party holds sway in the House and Senate. They say it could also provide reliable data on the public view of elections that rivals or outperforms conventional polling.But the prospect of big firms laying up to $100 million on the line worries lawmakers and Wall Street watchdogs, who say it could lead to widespread gambling on politics in the United States and pose a threat to election confidence at a time when many Americans already harbor suspicions about electoral outcomes.“I just think this is hugely damaging to democracy, to have a monetary incentive,” said Senator Jeff Merkley, Democrat of Oregon and one of a bloc of senators in his party who oppose the plan.The effort by Kalshi, which already hosts trading on the outcome of real-world events such as when the Hollywood writers strike might end and whether there will be a government shutdown, is the latest in a push to allow more speculation on political contests, on which traditional betting is generally prohibited.The nonprofit firm PredictIt, which has allowed limited trading on political futures since 2014, won a reprieve last month from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit that enabled it to temporarily continue to operate after an attempt by the C.F.T.C. to shut it down. The case will now make its way through federal court.The operators of Kalshi, a relatively recent start-up with some big-name Wall Street backing, want to go beyond the limited approach of PredictIt to allow large-scale trading on which party controls each chamber of Congress. Individuals would be allowed to take a position of up to $250,000 and big firms up to $100 million.The buyers of such “event contracts” who forecast correctly would be paid out depending on a market-established price, with Kalshi taking a fee for operating the exchange. The regulatory agency opened a review of the trading proposal in June and is expected to decide by Sept. 21.Kalshi executives reject the claim that their plan represents a threat to elections and say that their platform would be heavily regulated and transparent. They point to existing heavy wagering on American elections in Britain and other countries without domestic scrutiny, and say the exchange would open up possibilities for smaller companies and individuals that don’t have easy access to those opportunities.“People and businesses already take positions on elections on unregulated, overseas, or illegal markets in the billions,” said Eliezer Mishory, chief regulatory officer and counsel at Kalshi. “The C.F.T.C.’s choice isn’t whether this economic activity will happen or not happen, it’s whether this activity will happen in a regulated market with full government oversight or continue to happen without any government oversight.”The proposal has drawn the support of high-volume traders, economists and researchers who see advantages to companies whose financial prospects can hinge on the decisions made by Congress, as well as the opportunity to gather predictive election data. Among them is Jason Furman, a former top economic official in the Obama administration and a Harvard economics professor who calls himself an “enthusiastic” backer of the proposal. He dismissed concerns of financial manipulation of U.S. elections, noting that big financial players already make huge campaign and market-based moves based on their assessments of where elections are heading.“There are hundreds of billions of dollars already at stake in elections,” Mr. Furman said. “I think this is a rounding error compared to the set of financial incentives in elections today.”But given the heavy influence of megadonors in political campaigns, opponents in the Senate argue that allowing such substantial investment in potential election outcomes could provide powerful motivation for those with resources and inside knowledge to try to script the result.“Establishing a large-scale, for-profit political event betting market in the United States by approving Kalshi’ s requested contracts would profoundly undermine the sanctity and democratic value of elections,” Mr. Merkley wrote in a letter to the commission. He was joined by fellow Democratic Senators Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, Dianne Feinstein of California and Elizabeth Warren and Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts. They added that “introducing financial incentives into the elections process fundamentally changes the motivations behind each vote, potentially replacing political convictions with financial calculations.”The proposal has also encountered stiff opposition from Better Markets, an independent Wall Street and consumer watchdog that characterizes Kalshi’s proposal as a “back door” effort to instigate across-the-board wagering on U.S. elections when state and federal regulators have historically banned such gambling.“If it were to be approved by the C.F.T.C. or the courts, you can bet there will be widespread gambling on everything from the presidency to the local dogcatcher,” said Dennis Kelleher, a former top Senate aide who heads Better Markets. “We are at a perilous point in politics where confidence and trust in elections is low and going lower. The last thing democracy can withstand now is additional activities that erode the confidence of Americans.”Kalshi initially tried to win approval for its plan before the 2022 midterm elections but withdrew its proposal when it appeared in danger of being blocked. It resubmitted a revised plan in early June. The C.F.T.C. then began a 90-day review period over the objection of one commissioner, who argued Kalshi should be allowed to proceed. Should the agency rule against the trading plan, a lawsuit challenging that outcome is anticipated.Under the proposal, members of Congress, candidates for federal and statewide office, top advisers and others with a direct role in campaigns would be prohibited from taking part. More

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      The Secret History of Gun Rights

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      Shannon Lin, Lynsea Garrison and Marion Lozano, Elisheba Ittoop and Listen and follow The DailyApple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Amazon MusicHow did the National Rifle Association, America’s most influential gun-rights group, amass its power?A New York Times investigation has revealed the secret history of how a fusty club of sportsmen became a lobbying juggernaut that would compel elected officials’ allegiance, derail legislation behind the scenes, and redefine the legal landscape.Mike McIntire, an investigative reporter for The Times, sets out the story of the N.R.A.’s transformation — and the unseen role that members of Congress played in designing the group’s strategies.On today’s episodeMike McIntire, an investigative reporter for The New York Times.National Rifle Association members take their seats for the Leadership Forum at the NRA Convention in the Indianapolis Convention Center.Kaiti Sullivan for The New York TimesBackground readingOver decades, a small group of legislators led by a prominent Democrat pushed the gun lobby to help transform the law, the courts and views on the Second Amendment.The potential Republican 2024 presidential candidates showed strong support for gun owners’ rights — a core issue for the party’s base, but one that can be a tougher sell in a general election.There are a lot of ways to listen to The Daily. Here’s how.We aim to make transcripts available the next workday after an episode’s publication. You can find them at the top of the page.Mike McIntire More

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      George Santos Used Most of His Campaign Cash to Pay Himself Back

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      Mr. Santos brought in $179,000 in the most recent quarter and spent much of it repaying loans he made to his campaign, new filings show.Representative George Santos, the New York Republican facing federal criminal charges, raised about $179,000 for his re-election campaign from April through June — a modest sum that he used in large part to pay back money he had lent to his past congressional bids.Much of the money, which came from an unorthodox network of about 180 donors scattered across the country, arrived after Mr. Santos’s indictment, according to filings with the Federal Election Commission on Friday.Some said they gave as a gag, but others sought to reward Mr. Santos’s stalwart stance against the Chinese Communist Party or his conservative views. The vast majority of donors reported living outside Mr. Santos’s Queens and Long Island district.Mr. Santos used $85,000 of the money on May 30 to repay himself. He had previously reported giving his own campaign more than $700,000 in personal loans.The fund-raising figures, the first since Mr. Santos officially began his re-election bid, were strikingly weak for a candidate in a competitive swing district. They underscored the steep political path before him as both Democrats and leaders of his own party try to remove him next year.One of the Democratic candidates for his seat, Zak Malamed, announced that he had taken in $417,000 in just the first six weeks of his campaign, nearly three times Mr. Santos’s total. Kellen Curry, a Republican primary challenger, reported raising more than $200,000.Mr. Santos’s totals were also dwarfed by those raised by other frontline Republicans in New York, who are gearing up for some of the most closely contested races in the country next year.Lies, Charges and Questions Remaining in the George Santos ScandalGeorge Santos has told so many stories they can be hard to keep straight. We cataloged them, including major questions about his personal finances and his campaign fund-raising and spending.Filings showed that Representative Mike Lawler, a Republican who narrowly flipped a Hudson Valley seat by defeating Sean Patrick Maloney, the powerful head of House Democrats’ campaign arm, raised just over $900,000 during the three-month period, much of it from PACs.The figure made him one of the most successful freshman fund-raisers in the country, and left his campaign with $1.5 million in cash.Other first-term Republicans in New York and New Jersey swing districts — including Representatives Marcus Molinaro, Anthony D’Esposito, Brandon Williams and Tom Kean Jr. — had not yet reported their totals by Friday afternoon.The campaign of Representative Pat Ryan, a Hudson Valley Democrat whom Republicans hope to unseat, said it had raised more than $625,000, down from more than $1 million raised in the previous quarter.The recent contributions to Mr. Santos — $162,031.52 to his campaign and $16,600 to an affiliated committee, Devolder Santos Victory Committee — are almost certain to be scrutinized by federal prosecutors and the House Ethics Committee.(The Santos campaign reported earlier Friday having raised somewhat less money from fewer donors, but the campaign updated its filing on Friday evening, citing incomplete information provided by previous treasurers.)Mr. Santos’s donors included a part-time cashier from Georgia, students from Pennsylvania and California, a masseuse from Texas and a member of a stage crew from New York, who all gave at least $3,300 each.The Times reached out to more than 40 donors listed on Mr. Santos’s filing, few of whom had made large political donations in the past. Many had Chinese or other Asian surnames and donated around two dates, in late May and late June.Mr. Santos has repeatedly linked his fund-raising appeals to his opposition to the Chinese Communist Party, as well as his support for Guo Wengui, the exiled Chinese billionaire and Steve Bannon ally with a global legion of followers.Mr. Santos has directly solicited support on Gettr, a conservative social media site financed by Mr. Guo and used by many of his followers. Mr. Guo, who also goes by the names Miles Guo and Miles Kwok, is facing legal jeopardy of his own, after federal prosecutors say he bilked his supporters out of more than $1 billion.At least two donors said Mr. Santos’s opposition to the Chinese Communist Party had moved them to contribute the legal maximum, and a relative of a third donor indicated that the person was a follower of Mr. Guo.“I see him want to take down C.C.P.,” said Xuehong Zhang of Plano, Texas, who identified herself as a Chinese immigrant and said she had learned about Mr. Santos on Gettr, though she did not mention Mr. Guo. “I just want to take down C.C.P.”Others said they found Mr. Santos’s conservative voting record appealing, and were stirred to support him by what they viewed as hypocritical attacks.“You’ve got the dirtiest of the dirty calling him dirty. That’s hypocrisy,” said Ronald Bucina of Prospect, Tenn., who gave $50. “They’ve stolen more money than George Santos was ever going to dream of stealing.”Charles Scheferston, a retired New York City detective who lives in Rockville Centre, N.Y., and also gave $50, said the congressman was “probably guilty” and had lied “like crazy,” but that he liked his policy stances. “You cannot lie about a voting record,” he said.Not everyone contributed in earnest.Michael Sommer, a 29-year-old teacher in Atlanta, said he spent $32.95 on a Santos for Congress T-shirt “for a joke.”Brad Mason of Pittsburgh, donated $1. “I thought it would be really funny to request the refund,” he said. “And it was amazing for me.”Stockpiling cash could prove unusually important for Republican incumbents this year if New York is forced to redraw its congressional districts. An appeals court on Thursday ordered a redraw that could make a handful of seats virtually unwinnable for Republican incumbents. The case will be appealed.Mr. Santos announced his re-election campaign in April, even as local Republican officials and party committees said they would not support him. The next month, he was indicted on 13 felony counts, including wire fraud, money laundering and theft of public funds.He has pleaded not guilty, but the case further diminished his support from House Republican leadership. Speaker Kevin McCarthy of California told Fox News last month that the party planned to “keep that seat with another Republican.”Mr. Santos’s fund-raising totals were an improvement over what he took in during the first quarter of the year, when his campaign raised just $5,300.His expenses were fairly limited outside of his loan repayment. Though he paid legal and consulting fees, he did not report paying any staff or renting an office. More

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      Vulnerable Republicans Take a Political Risk With Abortion Vote

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      In uniting his party behind a defense bill loaded with social policy restrictions, Speaker Kevin McCarthy has raised questions over whether his short-term victory could imperil his majority.Representative Jen Kiggans, a minivan-driving mom and Navy veteran, narrowly won election last year in her suburban Virginia swing district after a fiercely competitive race that focused on her opposition to abortion rights.The issue remains a top priority for voters in her district, and appearing too extreme on it could make her vulnerable again when she faces re-election in 2024. But Ms. Kiggans was one of dozens of Republicans from competitive districts who voted this week to support adding a bevy of deeply partisan restrictions to the annual defense policy bill, including one that would reverse a Pentagon policy aimed at preserving access to abortion services for military personnel, no matter where they are stationed.Democrats said the G.O.P. provision was a steppingstone to instituting more abortion bans across the nation, while Republicans argued it merely preserved a longstanding bar against allowing federal funds to be used to pay for abortions.The vote put lawmakers like Ms. Kiggans, a top target of Democrats whose seat is up for grabs in next year’s congressional elections, in a politically perilous position. And it raised the question of whether, in scoring the short-term victory of keeping his party united behind the annual defense bill — which passed on a near-party-line vote on Friday — Speaker Kevin McCarthy may have embraced a strategy that could ultimately cost his party the House majority.Ms. Kiggans and other similarly situated Republicans said they had no problem backing the abortion restriction or the bill itself, which emerged from the House loaded with other conservative policy dictates, including one barring the military health care program from providing transgender health services and another limiting diversity training for military personnel.“Taxpayers should not be paying for elective surgery,” Ms. Kiggans, who ran as a moderate focused on kitchen-table economic issues, said in an interview on Friday, explaining her vote. “This wasn’t a bill about abortion; it was about taxpayers paying for travel for military members for elective procedures.”Still, Democrats’ House campaign arm wasted no time in attacking Ms. Kiggans and other vulnerable Republicans who had backed the bill, and even some G.O.P. lawmakers conceded that embracing it was a bad look for a party trying to broaden its appeal.“The reason we’re in the majority today is because of swing districts and the reason we’re going to lose the majority is because of swing districts,” said Representative Nancy Mace, Republican of South Carolina. “That’s just lost up here. We’re 10 days out from the August recess, and what have we done for women, post-Roe? Zero.”Ms. Mace, who represents a politically split district, railed against the abortion amendment but ultimately voted for it because she said it was technically consistent with Defense Department policy. But she said she regretted being forced to take the vote at all.“I’m not happy about it,” she said. “I wish we didn’t have to do this right now.”The Republican proposal would overturn a Defense Department policy put in place after the Supreme Court struck down the constitutional right to abortion last year, setting off a rush by some states to enact curbs and bans on the procedure. The policy reimburses travel costs for personnel who must travel out of state to obtain an abortion or related services. The policy does not provide any money for abortions.Democrats pointed to the vote as a prime example of Republicans taking votes that could ultimately cost them their House majority. Strategists in both parties have suggested that the Supreme Court’s abortion decision, and Democrats’ subsequent efforts to spotlight Republican opposition to abortion rights, weakened the G.O.P. during last year’s election, costing them support from independent and suburban voters.“For the swing districts they represent, they should be doing the opposite — but they’re not,” said Courtney Rice, communications director for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. “Their decision to put party politics over pocketbook issues is going to cost them the House in 2024.”Many vulnerable House Republicans said they consoled themselves with the knowledge that the amendments that focused on stoking battles on social issues were likely to be stripped out of the bill by the Democrat-controlled Senate and would not be in a final version of the defense policy bill.“It wouldn’t be the way I would run the place, but at the end of the day as long as we pass N.D.A.A. like we’ve done and keep the really nasty poison pills out, I think it solves the problem,” said Representative Tony Gonzales, Republican of Texas, referring to the defense bill by the initials of its full name. Mr. Gonzales, who voted for the abortion amendment and others barring transgender health services and limiting diversity training for military personnel, voted against amendments that sought to cut funding for Ukraine.Sarah Chamberlain, the president of the Republican Main Street Partnership, an outside organization allied with the congressional Republican Main Street Caucus, described the vote as a “calculated risk” for many members who gambled that it would not hurt them politically.“They made the decision that it was more important to them to get this bill out of the House than to fall on their sword on this one,” she said. “They would have preferred these amendments didn’t exist, but I think they can defend their vote because they’re supporting the men and women of the military.”Representative Nancy Mace, Republican of South Carolina, railed against the abortion amendment but ultimately voted for it.Haiyun Jiang/The New York TimesStill, it’s not the first time vulnerable Republicans have caved to the hard right wing of their party, even when it means taking votes that could prove to be political liabilities down the line. Mr. McCarthy, who has worked overtime to appease the right flank whose support he needs to remain in power — most of whom represent safe G.O.P. districts — has done comparatively little to protect more mainstream Republicans whose seats are at risk from having to take tough votes.In April, they voted for Mr. McCarthy’s bill to lift the debt ceiling for one year in exchange for spending cuts and policy changes, even though it gutted programs that helped veterans and older people.Last month, they voted in support of a resolution that would repeal a Biden administration rule that tightened federal regulations on stabilizing braces for firearms that have been used in several mass shootings. House leaders brought the bill to the floor in order to help end a weeklong blockade by far-right Republicans.Still, the level of G.O.P. support for the abortion amendment — only two Republicans, Representatives John Duarte of California and Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, voted against it — came as a shock to Democrats.“There are those across the aisle who realize that this is bad,” said Representative Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey, a former Navy helicopter pilot who is one of two Democratic women in the House who have served in the military. Ms. Sherrill said she had heard from some Republican colleagues who told her privately, “‘This is a really bad idea, this is a mistake.’ Well then, why did everyone but two people vote for this really bad amendment?”Representative Chrissie Houlahan, Democrat of Pennsylvania and a former Air Force officer, said she was “surprised by the paucity of people who voted against the amendment. I was expecting 15 Republicans to do the right thing.”Some more mainstream Republicans sought to justify their votes by arguing that they were not voting against abortion or transgender health care — just against government funding for it.“If you look at the polling, most Americans don’t think the federal government should be paying for abortions,” Representative Stephanie Bice, Republican of Oklahoma and vice chair of the Main Street Caucus, said.Representative Don Bacon, Republican of Nebraska, said he backed the provision barring military coverage for gender transition surgeries and hormone therapy because he believed, “If you want to do it, do it on your own dime.”“I don’t think it should be the taxpayers’ responsibility,” Mr. Bacon added. More

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      Democrats to Use $20 Million Equal Rights Push to Aid 2024 N.Y. House Bids

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      Numerous left-leaning groups are behind a statewide effort to focus attention on a 2024 equal-rights referendum, hoping to increase voter turnout.New York Democrats’ substandard performance in the midterm elections last year helped their party lose control of the House of Representatives, threatened its national agenda, and angered national Democrats.In an effort to avoid repeating the same mistake, New York Democrats on Thursday will announce support for a statewide effort to pass a women’s rights amendment that they hope will also supercharge turnout in 2024, when President Biden and House members will be up for re-election.Their strategy: Get Democrats to the polls by focusing attention on a 2024 statewide referendum, the New York Equal Rights Amendment, that will explicitly bar New York from using its power and resources to penalize those who have abortions.The campaign, backed by Gov. Kathy Hochul and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, among others, plans to raise at least $20 million to spend on television ads, direct mail and organizing in support of the initiative. The effort is designed to complement the House Democrats’ main super PAC’s $45 million bid to win six New York swing districts next year, including four that just flipped Republican. The campaign is launching a year after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, eliminating the constitutional right to abortion and ushering in near-total abortion bans in 14 states. It is in step with a national Democratic strategy highlighting the abortion record of the Republican Party — a game plan that Gov. Hochul embraced last year with mixed results, beating her Republican opponent, Lee Zeldin, by only six points..In an interview on Monday, Ms. Hochul argued that the threat to women’s reproductive rights represents “a highly mobilizing force” that is a proven electoral strategy in New York, her own history notwithstanding. She pointed to the victory last year of Representative Pat Ryan, a Hudson Valley Democrat, over Marc Molinaro, a Republican who favored giving states the discretion to govern the legality of abortion.The New York Equal Rights Amendment campaign is being supported by numerous left-leaning groups, including Planned Parenthood, the New York Immigration Coalition, the New York Civil Liberties Union, NAACP New York and Make the Road New York.Ms. Hochul added that the campaign chose to bring the amendment to a statewide vote in 2024, rather than this year as the state is legally entitled, to create space for its message to penetrate. The timing, during a presidential election year, should maximize the campaign’s efforts“Having a ballot initiative in our state is going to drive voter turnout overall, which will definitely help Democrats,” said Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York. “The biggest reason we lost House seats was because of voter turnout.”Mr. Jeffries, the House minority leader, took a slightly different tack. “This has nothing to do with voter turnout and everything to do with ensuring that a woman’s freedom to make her own reproductive health care decisions is protected in New York State,” he said.The New York Equal Rights Amendment is backed by the state’s Democratic leaders, including the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, right, and the House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries.Doug Mills/The New York TimesIn 2019, New York passed the Reproductive Health Act, which protected abortion rights in New York State. Andrew M. Cuomo, the governor at the time, regarded the law as necessary in case a more conservative Supreme Court might overturn Roe v. Wade.That act and others render the ballot amendment “largely gratuitous and symbolic,” said Dennis Poust, the executive director of the New York State Catholic Conference.“The reality is, abortion is already widely available and accessible in New York,” Mr. Poust said. He urged New York to put “at least as much effort into helping to empower women who might seek to keep their baby if only they had the necessary resources and support.”But Ms. Hochul argues that the Reproductive Health Act is no longer enough.“Laws can be repealed,” she said. “There’s a much higher threshold to change the Constitution.”Voter sentiments about abortion have begun to shift nationally, in step with a drumbeat of stories about pregnant women being denied medical care and facing near-death experiences. Polls have found that pro-choice Democratic voters are more motivated to vote on the issue, and Republicans less so. Democratic leaders have taken notice.“Let’s be honest,” said Letitia James, the state attorney general. “As I travel, reproductive rights is an issue which comes up over and over again.”Electoral strategy aside, the campaign’s supporters also back the initiative on the merits. Other states have passed their own versions of an equal rights amendment, but many generally ban sex discrimination alone, the organizers said. New York’s ballot initiative would go further.Not only would it prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex, but also on the basis of “pregnancy, pregnancy outcomes, reproductive health care and autonomy.” It would ban government discrimination based on age, ethnicity, national origin, disability, sexual orientation and gender identity.Sasha Neha Ahuja, the former national director for strategic partnerships at Planned Parenthood Federation of America, who is spearheading the new campaign, said the amendment would mean that “for the first time, discrimination of folks on the basis of their reproductive health decisions will be categorized as explicitly sex discrimination.” More

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      Sarah McBride Aims to Be First Openly Transgender House Member With 2024 Campaign

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      Sarah McBride is no stranger to firsts: In 2012, she became the first openly transgender person to work at the White House, during the Obama administration.State Senator Sarah McBride announced on Monday that she would run for Delaware’s at-large U.S. House seat — a bid that, if successful, would make her the first openly transgender member of the U.S. Congress.The seat is currently held by Representative Lisa Blunt Rochester, a Democrat who said on Wednesday that she would pursue the Senate seat being vacated by Senator Thomas R. Carper, who is retiring. Both elections will take place next year.Ms. McBride, 32, is no stranger to firsts: In 2012, she became the first openly transgender person to work at the White House, as an intern in President Barack Obama’s administration. She won her Wilmington-based State Senate seat in 2020 with more than 70 percent of the general election vote, becoming the first openly transgender legislator in that position nationwide, and ran unopposed for a second term last year.Her candidacy comes during an onslaught of Republican-led policies that target L.G.B.T.Q. people.This year, 17 states have passed bills directed at gender-affirming care for transgender youth, a sharp uptick from the three states that had previously approved restrictions. And there are discussions to ban L.G.B.T.Q.-related information for K-12 students in states like Florida, where laws prevent public schools from teaching about sexual orientation and gender identity.Ms. McBride, also a former national press secretary for the Human Rights Campaign, the country’s largest L.G.B.T.Q. advocacy organization, is likely to face a primary challenge in her solidly blue district. But she holds ample political capital in the state — helped by her relationship with President Biden, who wrote the foreword for the memoir she wrote in 2018. She also worked on the attorney general campaigns for Beau Biden, his son who died in 2015.Ms. McBride recently spoke with The New York Times about her candidacy. Excerpts from this conversation have been edited for clarity and length.What issues do you hope to prioritize in your campaign?There were so many pieces of the Build Back Better Act that were unfortunately left on the cutting room floor, and it is going to be critical for Congress to pick up those policies, like paid family and medical leave, affordable early childhood education and elder care. Those types of policies will be at the heart of my campaign, as will policies that I fought for in the Delaware General Assembly, like gun safety and reproductive rights. One of the issues where we have to continue to make progress is climate change. We can’t build a fairer, more just world if we also don’t protect our planet.A wave of bills in recent years have affected transgender people, like limiting transitioning procedures for children and restricting which bathrooms transgender people can use. What are your concerns going forward?The policies that you mentioned are wrong and unconstitutional, and they are an attempt by MAGA Republicans to distract from the fact that they have absolutely no agenda for families and for workers in our country. They are solutions in search of a problem. They are cruel, and we know that policies that target young people, that target parents, that target families, that target vulnerable people in our society, they never wear well in history. I truly believe that democracy only works when it includes all of us.What should members of your party do to respond to these laws?I’m incredibly proud that the Democratic Party has been unwavering in its support of L.G.B.T.Q. rights. We have seen Democrats from Montana, to Nebraska, to Virginia, to Delaware, who have made clear that attacks on vulnerable members of our communities, including L.G.B.T.Q. young people, will not stand, and we will do everything we can to stop them.People across this country are eager for politicians to appeal to our better angels and to focus on issues that actually matter to them. I don’t believe that targeting kids and parents for discrimination is a priority for voters in Delaware or across the country.Going into 2024, President Biden is struggling to maintain public approval. In your view, what should he and other Democrats be thinking about?Democrats have a strong record to run on, and there’s obviously unfinished work before us. This president has focused on working families, on recognizing that we all have a responsibility to one another. I think if this president continues to contrast his priorities with the invented problems and the culture wars of the right, that this president will win.There’s a sort of scrutiny that historically has come with being the first of anything. Are you concerned about backlash?There will certainly be attacks, but I’m no stranger to those. What I’ve demonstrated over the last few years is that I’m able to move past those attacks and focus on what matters to the people I represent. Congress is certainly different than the Delaware State Senate, but I am confident that when I get there, by focusing on issues that impact people of every party, of every ideology, and in every part of our state, that I’ll be able to find common ground with people whom I disagree with vehemently. More

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      Will Hurd Announces 2024 Presidential Election Bid

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      Mr. Hurd, a moderate who represented a large swing district for three terms, called Donald J. Trump a “lawless, selfish, failed politician.”Will Hurd, a former Texas congressman who was part of a diminishing bloc of Republican moderates in the House and was the only Black member of his caucus when he left office in 2021, announced his candidacy for president on Thursday with a video message that attacked the G.O.P. front-runner, Donald J. Trump. “If we nominate a lawless, selfish, failed politician like Donald Trump, who lost the House, the Senate and the White House, we all know Joe Biden will win again,” he said, referring to Republican losses in the 2018 and 2022 midterm elections, in addition to Mr. Trump’s own defeat in 2020.Mr. Hurd, 45, represented the 23rd District for three terms before deciding not to run for re-election in 2020, when a host of G.O.P. moderates in Congress chose to retire instead of appearing on a ticket led by President Trump.His district was larger than some states, extending from El Paso to San Antonio along the southwestern border.Mr. Hurd, who also made an appearance on “CBS Mornings,” emphasized in his video that Republicans needed to nominate a forward-looking candidate who could unite the party and country.”I’ll give us the common-sense leadership America so desperately needs,” he said. A formidable gantlet awaits Mr. Hurd, a long-shot candidate in a crowded G.O.P. presidential field. To qualify for the party’s first debate in August, candidates are required to muster support of at least 1 percent in multiple national polls recognized by the Republican National Committee. There are also fund-raising thresholds, including a minimum of 40,000 unique donors to individual campaigns.Before entering politics, Mr. Hurd was an undercover officer for the C.I.A. and his tenure of nearly a decade with the agency included work in Afghanistan.In Congress, he developed a reputation for working across the aisle and drew attention in 2017 when he car-pooled from Texas to Washington with Beto O’Rourke, a Democrat and House colleague.While Mr. Hurd largely toed the Republican line, he was also known for bucking Mr. Trump. During his final term in the House, Mr. Hurd voted more than one-third of the time against Mr. Trump’s positions. Mr. Hurd was a particularly strident critic of the president’s push to build a wall along the entire southern border, a cause célèbre for Mr. Trump that he ran on in 2016. In a 2019 interview with Rolling Stone, Mr. Hurd called Mr. Trump’s border wall initiative a “third-century solution to a 21st-century problem.”It was not the first time that Mr. Hurd had spoken so bluntly in opposition to a piece of Mr. Trump’s agenda.When Mr. Trump signed an executive order in January 2017 blocking citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States, one of the first acts of his presidency, Mr. Hurd condemned it, saying the policy “endangers the lives of thousands of American men and women in our military, diplomatic corps and intelligence services.”And when Mr. Trump attacked four freshman Democratic congresswomen of color in 2019, Mr. Hurd denounced the president and criticized the direction of the Republican Party.“The party is not growing in some of the largest parts of our country,” he said in a June 2019 speech to the Log Cabin Republicans, a conservative L.G.B.T.Q. group. “Why is that? I’ll tell you.”“Don’t be a racist,” Mr. Hurd continued, according to The Washington Blade. “Don’t be a misogynist, right? Don’t be a homophobe. These are real basic things that we all should learn when we were in kindergarten.”But while Mr. Hurd broke with Mr. Trump on some notable occasions, he also dismayed Mr. Trump’s critics when he voted in lock step with House Republicans against impeaching Mr. Trump the first time in December 2019. Mr. Trump was impeached in a party-line vote by the House for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, but acquitted by the Senate. More