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      Jeffries Fights New York District Maps: ‘Enough to Make Jim Crow Blush’

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      Hakeem Jeffries hopes to pressure New York’s court-appointed special master to change congressional maps that split historically Black communities.Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the second-highest-ranking Black lawmaker in Congress, has launched an aggressive effort to discredit a proposed congressional map that would divide historically Black neighborhoods in New York, likening its configurations to Jim Crow tactics.Mr. Jeffries is spending tens of thousands of dollars on digital advertising as part of a scorched-earth campaign to try to stop New York’s courts from making the new map final without changes later this week.As construed, the map would split Bedford-Stuyvesant in central Brooklyn into two districts and Co-Op City in the Bronx into three, for example, while placing Black incumbents in the same districts — changes that Mr. Jeffries argues violate the State Constitution.“We find ourselves in an all-hands-on-deck moment,” Mr. Jeffries, a Brooklyn Democrat, said in an interview on Thursday. In the most recent ad, he says the changes took “a sledgehammer to Black districts. It’s enough to make Jim Crow blush.”Mr. Jeffries may be laying the groundwork for an eventual legal challenge, but his more immediate aim was to pressure Jonathan R. Cervas, New York’s court-appointed special master, to change congressional and State Senate maps that he first proposed on Monday before he presents final plans to a state court judge for approval on Friday.The stakes could scarcely be higher. After New York’s highest court struck down Democrat-friendly maps drawn by the State Legislature as unconstitutional last month, the judges have vested near total power in Mr. Cervas, a postdoctoral fellow from Carnegie Mellon, to lay lines that will govern elections for a decade to come.Mr. Cervas’s initial proposal unwound a map gerrymandered by the Democratic-led State Legislature, creating new pickup opportunities for Republicans. But it also significantly altered the shapes of districts in New York City — carefully drawn a decade earlier by another court — that reflected a patchwork of racial, geographic and economic divides.What to Know About RedistrictingRedistricting, Explained: Here are some answers to your most pressing questions about the process that is reshaping American politics.Understand Gerrymandering: Can you gerrymander your party to power? Try to draw your own districts in this imaginary state.Killing Competition: The number of competitive districts is dropping, as both parties use redistricting to draw themselves into safe seats.Deepening Divides: As political mapmakers create lopsided new district lines, the already polarized parties are being pulled even farther apart.Mr. Jeffries was far from alone in lodging last-ditch appeals. The court was inundated with hundreds of comments suggesting revisions from Democrats and Republicans alike — from party lawyers pressing for more politically favorable lines to an analysis of the differences between Jewish families on the East and West Sides of Manhattan.A broad coalition of public interest and minority advocacy groups told Mr. Cervas this week that his changes would risk diluting the power of historically marginalized communities. They included Common Cause New York and the United Map Coalition, an influential group of Latino, Black and Asian American legal groups.The proposed map would divide Bedford-Stuyvesant, Crown Heights and Brownsville — culturally significant Black communities in Brooklyn — between the 8th and 9th Congressional Districts. Each neighborhood currently falls in one or the other.The northeast Bronx, another predominantly Black area that includes Co-Op City and falls within Representative Jamaal Bowman’s district, would be split among three different districts.The groups have raised similar concerns about Mr. Cervas’s proposal to separate Manhattan’s Chinatown and Sunset Park, home to large Asian American populations, into two districts for the first time in decades. Other Jewish groups have made related appeals for their community in Brooklyn.Most of the changes are likely to have little impact on the partisan makeup of the districts, which are safely Democratic. But Lurie Daniel Favors, the executive director of the Center for Law and Social Justice at Medgar Evers College, said that cutting through existing communities would further dilute the political power of historically marginalized groups.“Now, when Bedford-Stuyvesant wants to organize and petition at the congressional level, they have to split their efforts and go to two separate representatives,” she said.The maps would also push four of the state’s seven Black representatives into two districts, forcing them to compete with one another or run in a district where they do not live. Under the special master’s plan, Mr. Jeffries and Representative Yvette Clark would live in the same central Brooklyn district, and Mr. Bowman and Mondaire Jones would reside in the same Westchester County seat.How U.S. Redistricting WorksCard 1 of 8What is redistricting? More

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      Wesley Hunt’s Advice for the Republican Party: Update Your Look

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      CIBOLO, Texas — A Black conservative and a rising star in the Republican Party, Wesley Hunt is almost certain to be elected to Congress this fall in a majority-white district in and around Houston.The district is new, one of two added in Texas after the 2020 census, and was drawn in large part for Mr. Hunt, an example of Republican lawmakers crafting safe seats out of Texas’ diversifying suburbs rather than going after incumbent Democrats.That safety has enabled Mr. Hunt, a regular on Fox News supported by top Republicans like Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, to focus his attention on something bigger than his own election: his conviction that the Republican Party needs more conservatives who look like him if it is going to survive.“Diversity in the Republican Party is not the best,” Mr. Hunt, 40, said in an interview. “If you don’t have people like me, and women, step up and say, actually, it’s OK to be a person of color and to be a Republican, then we’re going to lose the next generation.”Mr. Hunt has been traveling far beyond his Texas district, raising money and giving support to conservative Black and Hispanic candidates, and talking frankly about the need for Republican officeholders to better reflect the nation’s changing demographics. He is part of a growing Republican effort to diversify its roster of candidates and undercut Democrats among voters they have long counted on.The district Mr. Hunt is running in is an example of Republican lawmakers crafting safe seats out of Texas’ diversifying suburbs rather than going after incumbent Democrats.Christian K. Lee for The New York TimesOn a recent evening, Mr. Hunt showed up more than two hours west of Houston at a political event for a young Hispanic woman, Cassy Garcia, in the town of Cibolo, a Republican area in the fast-changing farmlands outside San Antonio. Ms. Garcia is running in a longstanding Democratic district held by Representative Henry Cuellar that runs from around San Antonio down to the border with Mexico.“He was very interested in our race,” said Ms. Garcia, a former aide to Senator Ted Cruz. “It means everything that Wesley is invested.”Mr. Hunt introduced himself to the mostly white audience and went over his background — West Point graduate, Apache helicopter pilot, staunch conservative — speaking loudly to the small crowd under a corrugated metal roof as if projecting into a room far larger than the cinder block bar he found himself in.The stop at Ms. Garcia’s event in Cibolo was part of Mr. Hunt’s effort to support a diverse slate of upstart Republican candidates like John James in Michigan, Jeremy Hunt in Georgia and Jennifer-Ruth Green in Indiana. Each of those candidates, like Ms. Garcia, faces a considerably more difficult race this fall than Wesley Hunt does.After the Pennsylvania and North Carolina PrimariesMay 17 was the biggest day so far in the 2022 midterm cycle. Here’s what we’ve learned.Trump’s Limits: The MAGA movement is dominating Republican primaries, but Donald J. Trump’s control over it may be slipping.‘Stop the Steal’ Endures: G.O.P. candidates who aggressively cast doubt on the 2020 election have fared best, while Democratic voters are pushing for change. Here are more takeaways.Trump Endorsements: Most of the candidates backed by the former president have prevailed. However, there are some noteworthy losses.Up Next: Closely watched races in Georgia and Alabama on May 24 will offer a clearer picture of Mr. Trump’s influence.“He believes in helping to change the face of the G.O.P.,” Tim Edson, a political consultant on Ms. Green’s campaign, said of Mr. Hunt. “I also think he recognizes that by helping others, it can help him hit the ground running and be effective in Congress.”In remarks endorsing Cassy Garcia, a Republican candidate in another Texas district, Mr. Hunt praised her support of abortion restrictions, border fortifications and gun rights.Christian K. Lee for The New York TimesIf Mr. Hunt wins, as expected, he would be the third Black Republican in the House, joining Representatives Byron Donalds in Florida and Burgess Owens in Utah, who also represent majority white districts. Even as Republicans have made recent inroads, particularly with Hispanic voters in Florida and Texas, Democrats still outperform them in minority communities.Unusual among not-yet-elected candidates, Mr. Hunt has already created a political action committee to make donations to others, which he named Hellfire PAC in a nod to his focus on helping those who are military veterans. Mr. Hunt has also been able to cultivate a roster of donors, raising nearly $4 million so far for his own run.He is running in an area along Interstate-10 known as the energy corridor because of its high concentration of oil and gas businesses, executives and employees. To the extent that Mr. Hunt has firm policy goals, they revolve around questions of domestic energy production. In the interview, he said he hoped to be viewed as the “energy congressman.”This is Mr. Hunt’s second try for Congress, having narrowly lost a bid to unseat Representative Lizzie Fletcher, a Democrat representing parts of western Houston and Harris County.But rather than creating a more favorable rematch against Ms. Fletcher, a relatively moderate incumbent, during the redistricting process last year, Republican mapmakers redrew her district to make it safer, and created a new one — Texas’ 38th Congressional District — that would be a virtual lock for Republicans for the foreseeable future. The district would have overwhelmingly re-elected former President Donald J. Trump. (Mr. Hunt’s Democratic opponent will be chosen in Tuesday’s runoff election.)Mr. Hunt and Ms. Garcia after speaking with community members in Cibolo. He has talked frankly about the need for Republican officeholders to better reflect the nation’s changing demographics.Christian K. Lee for The New York Times“Instead of getting two seats that should be majority-minority districts, which should be majority Hispanic districts, they drew that seat to make it easier for Wes Hunt to be a member of Congress,” said Odus Evbagharu, the head of the Harris County Democratic Party.He added that the fact that Mr. Hunt is Black could be seen as an asset, particularly when it comes to attracting suburban white Republican voters.“It helps combat the notion that the Republican Party is racist: Hey, look, we have a white district, but we’re running a Black man in it,” said Mr. Evbagharu, who is Black.Mr. Hunt said nothing had been given to him, pointing to his dominant performance in the Republican primary in March — in which he bested a field of 10 candidates without a runoff.But he does not avoid the topic of race. Among the campaign advertisements from his first run is a spot highlighting his family’s history of enslavement.“What I never want to do is ignore the clearly checkered past that we’ve had in this country,” he said in the interview at a corner table at Avalon Diner, a preferred breakfast spot for Houston power brokers. “I want to talk about the hope that we have that a descendant of a slave is now going to be a congressman in a predominantly white, Republican district. In Texas. That’s pretty cool.”Mr. Hunt, who went to West Point, wears a bracelet to memorialize a deceased friend from the military.Christian K. Lee for The New York TimesMr. Hunt is used to standing out in white spaces, starting at the elite private school he attended in Houston, more than an hour’s drive from his childhood home in a predominantly white northern suburb.Understand the 2022 Midterm ElectionsCard 1 of 6Why are these midterms so important? More

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      Madison Cawthorn’s Loss Is Rare Win for Republican Establishment

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      HENDERSONVILLE, N.C. — In his campaign headquarters the morning after his electoral victory, Chuck Edwards showed no interest in dissecting one of the biggest political upsets so far in this year’s Republican primary season.Mr. Edwards, 61, a three-term state senator and business owner, thwarted Representative Madison Cawthorn’s turbulent re-election bid in North Carolina, beating him in Tuesday’s primary in a rare defeat of a Trump-backed Republican incumbent.“I’m excited for the opportunity to unify the Republican Party, put the primary behind us and focus our attention towards the real issues,” Mr. Edwards said on Wednesday, seated at a sleek mahogany conference table at his campaign office in downtown Hendersonville.What went unspoken was that many voters saw him as the establishment candidate who benefited from the boost of old-guard Republicans at home and in Washington. Mr. Cawthorn, 26, had alienated two powerful Republicans with a litany of political and personal errors and scandals: Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the House minority leader, and Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina.A political group supporting Mr. Tillis, who endorsed Mr. Edwards, poured money into an ad campaign that painted Mr. Cawthorn as a fame-seeking liar. Other top North Carolina Republicans, including the state’s House speaker and State Senate leaders, also came to Mr. Edwards’s side.State Senator Chuck Edwards spoke during a candidate debate in Asheville, N.C., last month.Angela Wilhelm/The Asheville Citizen-Times, via Associated PressIn most Republican primaries across the country, old-fashioned establishment candidates in the Romney and Bush mold have been on the run amid intraparty battles and challenges from a far-right wing energized by former President Donald J. Trump. But as Mr. Edwards’s low-key postelection demeanor suggested, the state’s establishment seemed unwilling to claim victory when the word establishment itself has become an insult in Republican politics.After the Pennsylvania and North Carolina PrimariesMay 17 was the biggest day so far in the 2022 midterm cycle. Here’s what we’ve learned.Trump’s Limits: The MAGA movement is dominating Republican primaries, but Donald J. Trump’s control over it may be slipping.‘Stop the Steal’ Endures: G.O.P. candidates who aggressively cast doubt on the 2020 election have fared best, while Democratic voters are pushing for change. Here are more takeaways.Trump Endorsements: Most of the candidates backed by the former president have prevailed. However, there are some noteworthy losses.Up Next: Closely watched races in Georgia and Alabama on May 24 will offer a clearer picture of Mr. Trump’s influence.Asked about those who saw him as the establishment figure in the race, Mr. Edwards said people had different definitions of the label.“It is true I have established conservative principles and a track record of getting things done,” he said. “I’ve established that I can cut taxes. I’ve established that I can balance budgets. I’ve established that I can pass bills to outlaw sanctuary cities.”Of course, Mr. Cawthorn’s defeat was not solely the work of the establishment. He appeared to struggle with two key demographics: unaffiliated voters, who make up more than 40 percent of his district, and those in Henderson County, which includes his hometown of Hendersonville and helped carry him to victory in the last Republican primary.A barrage of bad press and personal and political mistakes helped turn voters against Mr. Cawthorn. Many said in interviews that they still supported Mr. Trump, but that they viewed Mr. Cawthorn as irresponsible, immature and unbecoming of public office. Mr. McCarthy, for his part, told reporters in March that he had spoken to Mr. Cawthorn after the freshman congressman had implied members of his own party invited him to orgies and to use cocaine with them.Mr. Cawthorn had been accused of engaging in insider trading, was pulled over for speeding, charged with driving with a revoked license and had been stopped for trying to bring a gun through airport security a second time. Photos and videos of him partying and emulating sexual antics circulated. Most damaging were reports that he frequently missed votes and had abandoned constituency offices.Mr. Edwards jumped into the race after Mr. Cawthorn announced last year that he would run in a new district near Charlotte. Mr. Cawthorn ended up changing his mind and returning to his old district after the new district was redrawn and tilted Democratic.Mr. Edwards, who owns several McDonald’s franchises and has served in the state legislature since 2016, has built a staunch conservative brand to the right of what used to be considered the traditional establishment Republican. He has pushed measures to overhaul tax laws, enact a constitutional amendment for voter identification and require county sheriffs to work with immigration enforcement agencies.In his campaign office Wednesday, days after a racist mass shooting at a Buffalo supermarket, Mr. Edwards said he did not believe limiting gun ownership for law-abiding citizens would solve societal problems. And he declined to condemn the racist conspiracy theory that police say motivated the Buffalo gunman — and that has been echoed by members of his own party. That unfounded theory essentially holds that elites are using immigration and falling birthrates to replace white people and destroy white culture.Understand the 2022 Midterm ElectionsCard 1 of 6Why are these midterms so important? More

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      The Madison Cawthorn Show Is Over, and We All Deserve Refunds

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      In this era of partisanship, extremism and general insanity, there are few electoral outcomes that can unite voters across the political spectrum. For instance, is it a good thing that Pennsylvania Republicans just picked an election-denying conspiracist as their nominee for governor? What about the fact that Pennsylvania Democrats, in their Senate primary, went for the tattooed, goateed, progressive lieutenant governor who suffered a stroke last week over the button-down, centrist (some would say milquetoast) congressman who served in the Marine Corps and as an assistant U.S. attorney?So many perspectives. So many opinions.But on one point, most sensible people can agree: The voters in North Carolina’s 11th Congressional District have done the nation a great service by giving the boot to Representative Madison Cawthorn, the scandal-plagued 26-year-old freshman firebrand favored by Donald Trump. While the loss is surely disappointing for young Mr. Cawthorn, it is almost certainly the best outcome for him as well.It is hard not to take satisfaction in the downfall of a political creature as flamboyantly vile, reckless, incendiary and — how to put this gently? — dense as Mr. Cawthorn. Among his more notable transgressions: He has been cited (twice) in recent months for trying to board a plane with a gun. He has been busted twice for driving with a revoked license. He has been accused of sexual misconduct by multiple women and of having an inappropriate relationship with a male aide. He has brazenly lied about his background, including key details of the 2014 car crash that left him with limited use of his legs. He is facing accusations of insider trading.But wait! There’s more! Mr. Cawthorn has said nasty things about Volodymyr Zelensky, even as the Ukrainian president struggles to defend his nation from the butchery of Vladimir Putin. Cheering the not-guilty verdict in the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse, the teenager who killed two people during the unrest after the police shooting of a Black man in Kenosha, Wis., Mr. Cawthorn urged his social media followers to “be armed, be dangerous.” And he has been among the most aggressive, irresponsible peddlers of Mr. Trump’s election-fraud lies, at one point warning that if America’s election systems “continue to be rigged” and “stolen,” the result can only be “bloodshed.”Of course, in Mr. Trump’s Republican Party, many if not all of the above controversies might have been dismissed as youthful foolishness — boys being boys, if you will — or petty missteps overblown by the libs.But Mr. Cawthorn’s colleagues finally drew a line when he claimed that people he “looked up to” in Washington — presumably his Republican colleagues — had done cocaine and invited him to orgies. Today’s congressional Republicans might forgive a colleague’s tolerance or even encouragement of an armed and bloody assault on American democracy. But they will not stand for being associated with the term “key bump.”Neither were Republicans charmed when risqué images of Mr. Cawthorn (pre-Congress) recently made the rounds on social media: pics of him rocking ladies’ lingerie and a brief video of him naked and — there really is no way to put this tastefully — humping another man’s head. The emergence of these unflattering tidbits was, in fact, widely assumed to be part of a smear campaign orchestrated by Republicans weary of Mr. Cawthorn’s antics.Getting elected to Congress is quite an accomplishment for anyone, much less a 25-year-old who had his life derailed as a teenager. A recent Politico piece detailed the anguish Mr. Cawthorn expressed about his life to a friend in the summer of 2015. He texted that he missed the ability to do basic things, such as dressing himself and using the bathroom without help, and to experience ordinary pleasures, such as “being able to compete” and “being checked out by girls.” “I miss not peeing the bed because I have no control over my penis,” he wrote, and “not having to have pills keep me alive.” He missed his “pride as a man” and “not having to convince myself every day not to pull the trigger and end it all.”Many young people suffer horrific tragedies. And Mr. Cawthorn’s suffering in no way excuses his personal misbehavior or his toxic politics. But clearly the guy is struggling on some level and could benefit from stepping back from public life. The political circus is not the best place to achieve a healthy, balanced existence. To the contrary, modern politics tends to enable and exacerbate the worst tendencies in many people, immersing them in a world of partisan warfare and public pressure, increasingly cut off from a “normal” life.Today’s Republican politics, in particular, rewards acting out. The more performatively transgressive, divisive and obnoxious you are, the more authentically MAGA you are considered. Mr. Cawthorn threw himself into this bad-boy role with more gusto than most. He seems to have been particularly drawn to his party’s obsession with violence and toxic masculinity — clearly to ill effect.And so, even as we cheer the electoral humiliation of this exceptional jerk — the rare ultra-MAGA lawmaker too outrageous even for today’s G.O.P. to tolerate — here’s hoping his next gig is more conducive to helping him get his life together.America is better off without Mr. Cawthorn in Congress. So is he.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      5 Primary Takeaways: Election Deniers Thrive Even as Trumpism Drifts

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      Pennsylvania’s Republican Senate contest, the biggest and most expensive race of a five-state primary night, is a photo finish between David McCormick, a former hedge fund executive, and Dr. Mehmet Oz, the celebrity surgeon. It appears headed to a statewide recount.The night delivered a split decision for former President Donald J. Trump, with his choice for Idaho governor falling well short, Dr. Oz in a virtual tie and his candidates for Senate in North Carolina and governor in Pennsylvania triumphant.On the Democratic side, voters pushed for change over consensus, nominating a left-leaning political brawler for Senate in Pennsylvania and nudging a leading moderate in the House closer to defeat in Oregon as votes were counted overnight.Here are a few key takeaways from Tuesday’s primaries, the biggest day so far of the 2022 midterm cycle:Republican voters mostly rewarded candidates who dispute the 2020 election results.The Republican candidates who did best on Tuesday were the ones who have most aggressively cast doubt on the 2020 election results and have campaigned on restricting voting further and overhauling how elections are run.Doug Mastriano, the far-right candidate who won the G.O.P. nomination for Pennsylvania governor in a landslide, attended the rally on Jan. 6, 2021, that led to the assault on the Capitol and has since called for decertifying the results of the 2020 election.Representative Ted Budd of North Carolina, who beat a former governor by over 30 percentage points in the state’s Republican primary for Senate, voted last year against certifying the 2020 election results — and, in the aftermath of that contest, texted Mark Meadows, then the White House chief of staff, to push the bogus claim that Dominion Voting Systems might have had a connection to the liberal billionaire George Soros.On Tuesday, Mr. Budd refused to say that President Biden was the legitimate 2020 victor.Representative Ted Budd easily won North Carolina’s Republican primary race for Senate.Allison Lee Isley/The Winston-Salem Journal, via Associated PressVoters in Pennsylvania’s Republican primary for Senate sent a more mixed message: Kathy Barnette, a far-right commentator who centered her campaign on Mr. Trump’s election falsehoods, trailed her narrowly divided rivals Mr. McCormick and Dr. Oz early Wednesday.But Ms. Barnette, with roughly 25 percent of the vote, performed far better than many political observers had expected just two weeks ago, when she began a last-minute surge on the back of strong debate performances.Mr. McCormick and Dr. Oz are hardly tethered close to reality on election matters. Both have refused to acknowledge Mr. Biden as the rightful winner in 2020, playing to their party’s base of Trump supporters.The success of the election deniers comes after a year and a half in which Mr. Trump has continued to fixate on his 2020 loss and, in some places, has called on Republican state legislators to try to decertify their states’ results — something that has no basis in law.The G.O.P. will feel bullish about the Pennsylvania Senate race. The governor’s contest is another story.Republicans avoided what many saw as a general-election catastrophe when Ms. Barnette, who had a long history of offensive comments and who federal records show had finished ninth in the fund-raising battle in Pennsylvania’s Senate race, slipped far behind Mr. McCormick and Dr. Oz.Both Mr. McCormick, a former hedge fund executive, and Dr. Oz, who was endorsed by Mr. Trump, have largely self-financed their campaigns and could continue to do so, though neither would have much trouble raising money in a general election.The eventual winner will face Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, a Democrat who has long been a favorite of progressives but has recently tacked to the center as his primary victory became assured.David McCormick waited with supporters in Pittsburgh as votes were counted. Jeff Swensen/Getty ImagesWith nearly all of the vote counted, the margin between Mr. McCormick and Dr. Oz was well under one-half of one percent, the threshold to trigger automatic recounts for statewide races in Pennsylvania. Before that can happen, thousands of mailed-in votes are still to be counted from counties across the state.Whoever emerges from the Republican Senate primary will be on a ticket with, and will probably be asked to defend positions taken by, Mr. Mastriano. He has run a hard-right campaign and enters the general election as an underdog to Josh Shapiro, the state’s Democratic attorney general.Trump’s endorsement is still worth a lot. But Republican voters often have minds of their own.In Ohio this month, J.D. Vance received 32 percent of the vote. In Nebraska last week, Charles W. Herbster got 30 percent. And on Tuesday alone:Dr. Mehmet Oz was hovering around 31 percent of the vote in Pennsylvania.Bo Hines took 32 percent in a House primary in North Carolina.Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin of Idaho lost her primary for governor with about a quarter of the vote.All of these candidates were endorsed by Mr. Trump in competitive primaries. And the outcome of these races has established the value of his endorsement in 2022: About one-third of Republican primary voters will back the Trump candidate.In some races, like Mr. Vance’s for Senate and Mr. Hines’s, that’s enough to win and for the former president to claim credit. Elsewhere, as in Mr. Herbster’s bid for governor, the Trump-backed candidate fell short.To be sure, Mr. Trump has won far more races than he has lost, and he saved face on Tuesday night with his late endorsement of Mr. Mastriano as polls showed the Pennsylvania candidate with a strong lead.Mr. Trump’s early endorsement of Mr. Budd in North Carolina’s Senate race choked off support and fund-raising for Mr. Budd’s establishment-minded rivals, including former Gov. Pat McCrory.But in Nebraska, Mr. Herbster and Mr. Trump couldn’t compete with a local political machine and millions of dollars from Gov. Pete Ricketts. In Pennsylvania, some local Republicans never warmed to Dr. Oz despite the Trump endorsement.None of this bodes well for Mr. Trump’s Georgia picks, who are facing cash disadvantages and, unlike in the primary contests so far this year, entrenched incumbents. The Georgia primaries are next week.Conor Lamb said electability matters most. Voters agreed — and chose John Fetterman.When he burst onto the national political scene in 2018 by winning a special election to a House district Mr. Trump had carried by 18 points, Conor Lamb presented himself as the Democrat who could win over Republican voters in tough races.Mr. Lamb made electability his central pitch to Pennsylvania voters in this year’s Senate race. Democratic voters didn’t disagree — they just decided overwhelmingly that his opponent, Mr. Fetterman, was the better general-election choice in the race.Representative Conor Lamb with supporters on Tuesday in Pittsburgh. He had far more endorsements than Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, but less voter enthusiasm.Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesMr. Fetterman, who left the campaign trail on Friday after suffering a stroke and had a pacemaker installed on Tuesday, outclassed Mr. Lamb in every aspect of the campaign.Understand the 2022 Midterm ElectionsCard 1 of 6Why are these midterms so important? More

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      In Tuesday’s Primaries, Who Won, Who Lost and What Races Haven’t Been Called Yet

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      The marquee election on Tuesday evening, the Republican Senate primary in Pennsylvania, is going down to the wire, but consequential races were decided, setting up general election matchups for the fall.Here is a rundown of the winners and losers in some of the most important contests:The Mehmet Oz, Dave McCormick and Kathy Barnette race in Pennsylvania is too close to call, despite Trump’s endorsement.The high-spending Republican Senate race in Pennsylvania, between Dr. Mehmet Oz, the celebrity television physician, and Dave McCormick, the wealthy leader of a hedge fund, is nail-bitingly close. Neither candidate conceded, and an official recount is likely.Both Dr. Oz and Mr. McCormick are rich, resided in other states for years, and spent millions attacking one another. Though former President Donald J. Trump endorsed Dr. Oz, the race was extremely tight, with thousands of mail-in ballots to be counted starting Wednesday.Another candidate, the author and 2020 election denier Kathy Barnette, surged to an unexpectedly strong third-place showing, in part by casting herself as the more authentic MAGA candidate. Ms. Barnette, who publicly espoused homophobic and anti-Muslim views for years, also benefited by a late advertising blitz from the influential anti-tax group Club for Growth.Doug Mastriano, an election denier, won the Republican primary election for governor in Pennsylvania.Doug Mastriano, a retired colonel and state senator who has propagated myriad false claims about the 2020 election and attended the protest leading up to the Capitol riot, won the Republican nomination for Pennsylvania governor.He defeated a crowded field of challengers and was endorsed just a few days ago by Mr. Trump. He will face Josh Shapiro, the attorney general of Pennsylvania who emerged unopposed from the Democratic primary for governor.Mr. Shapiro’s victory lap on Tuesday was cut short. He announced earlier that day that he had tested positive for the coronavirus with mild symptoms and was isolating.With Mr. Mastriano’s victory, Republicans will now try to win a battleground state with a central figure in trying to overturn the state’s 2020 election results.John Fetterman got a pacemaker hours before winning the Democratic Senate primary in Pennsylvania.John Fetterman, the lieutenant governor, had a stroke on Friday and a pacemaker put in on Tuesday, which kept him off the campaign trail in the waning days of the race.In November, he will try to help Democrats pick up a key Senate seat that is being vacated by Republican Patrick J. Toomey, a fiscal conservative who occasionally broke with his party.Gisele Barreto Fetterman speaking at the watch party for her husband, John Fetterman, after he won the Democratic Senate primary.Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesMr. Fetterman dominated the race, wearing a uniform of sweatshirts and shorts while tapping into voters’ frustration with Washington. In the primary, he defeated Representative Conor Lamb, a moderate some thought could appeal to white, blue-collar workers the party has been losing for years, and Malcolm Kenyatta, a young state legislator and rising star in the party who got married just over two months ago.Ted Budd, anointed by Trump, won North Carolina’s Republican Senate primary in a runaway victory.Representative Ted Budd, who was endorsed by Mr. Trump and the influential anti-tax group Club for Growth, won the Republican nomination for Senate. Mr. Budd, who skipped all four debates in the race, defeated nine other candidates, including Pat McCrory, a former governor, and former Representative Mark Walker.Cheri Beasley, a former chief justice of North Carolina’s Supreme Court and the first Black woman to have served in that role, will face Mr. Budd after cruising to victory in the Democratic primary for Senate. The outcome never appeared to be in doubt, with Democrats clearing the field of serious challengers for Ms. Beasley, who would become North Carolina’s first Black senator if elected.Republicans are done with Madison CawthornCrumbling under the weight of repeated scandals and blunders, Representative Madison Cawthorn was ousted on Tuesday by Republican primary voters in western North Carolina, a stinging rejection of the Trump-endorsed candidate.Mr. Cawthorn, 26, lost to Chuck Edwards, a state senator, in a crowded primary in the 11th District that resembled a recall effort for many Republicans, who grew fed up with Mr. Cawthorn’s antics.Representative Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina shortly before conceding his race Tuesday night.Logan R. Cyrus for The New York TimesAt about 10:30 p.m., Mr. Cawthorn conceded the race to Mr. Edwards, who had gained the support of many prominent Republicans in North Carolina, including Senator Thom Tillis.Mr. Cawthorn, who entered Congress as a rising star in 2020, was besieged by scandal, from falsely suggesting that his Republican colleagues routinely throw cocaine-fueled orgies, to being detained at an airport after trying to take a loaded gun through security. Last month, after salacious images of him surfaced online showing him wearing women’s lingerie as part of a cruise ship game, he wrote on Twitter that “digging stuff up from my early 20s to smear me is pathetic.”A 26-year-old political novice won a House primary in North Carolina with Trump’s helpBo Hines, a 26-year-old political novice who enthralled Mr. Trump, drawing inevitable comparisons to another North Carolinian — Mr. Cawthorn — catapulted to a win in the Republican primary for a House seat outside Raleigh.Mr. Hines, a onetime football phenom who was an All-American at North Carolina State University before transferring to Yale, topped seven other candidates in the primary in the 13th District.His victory is perhaps the most audacious example of Mr. Trump’s influence over the Republican Party, with the former president endorsing Mr. Hines in March in the newly drawn tossup district. Mr. Hines was also backed by the Club for Growth, the influential anti-tax group.Mr. Hines will face Wiley Nickel, a two-term state senator and criminal defense lawyer who did advance work for President Barack Obama. He positioned himself as a progressive who can work with people on both sides of the aisle.Idaho’s Republican governor stamped out a Trump insurgent: the lieutenant governorGov. Brad Little of Idaho weathered a Republican primary challenge by Janice McGeachin, the lieutenant governor, who had been endorsed by Mr. Trump and made headlines for defying Mr. Little’s pandemic orders.Ms. McGeachin had sought to win over ultraconservatives in the deep-red state that Mr. Trump overwhelmingly carried in 2016 and 2020. She had played up how she had issued a mutinous but short-lived ban on coronavirus mask mandates when Mr. Little had briefly left the state.But Ms. McGeachin appeared to muster less than 30 percent of the vote in Idaho, which holds separate primaries for governor and lieutenant governor — the genesis of the strained pairing.An establishment Democrat thwarted a far-left rival running for the House in KentuckyIn an open-seat race in Kentucky’s only blue House district, Democrats favored an establishment candidate in Tuesday’s primary over a rival state lawmaker who ran on the far left and has been a vocal leader of the police accountability movement in Louisville.The party favorite, Morgan McGarvey, the Democratic leader in the State Senate, defeated Attica Scott, a state representative, in the Third District. The two had been vying to succeed to Representative John Yarmuth, who was first elected in 2006 and is retiring. The chairman of the House Budget Committee, Mr. Yarmuth is the lone Democrat from Kentucky in Congress. More

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      Madison Cawthorn Loses His Re-Election Bid in North Carolina

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      Chuck Edwards, a three-term state senator and business owner, has edged out Representative Madison Cawthorn in the Republican primary for a House seat representing North Carolina’s 11th District.Luke Ball, a representative for Mr. Cawthorn, said late Tuesday that the congressman had called Mr. Edwards to concede. Mr. Edwards’s narrow triumph was called by The Associated Press.The outcome served as a rebuke of Mr. Cawthorn, a right-wing firebrand and the youngest freshman in Congress, who was once seen as a rising star of the Republican Party.It is also a significant victory for the old guard Republicans in North Carolina and Washington who in recent months had been feuding with Mr. Cawthorn over his personal and political errors and foibles.Mr. Edwards, 61, has served in the state Legislature since 2016 and has built a staunch conservative brand by pushing measures to overhaul tax laws, enact a constitutional amendment for voter identification, and require county sheriffs to work with immigration enforcement agencies.He entered the race with a natural constituency of traditional Republican primary voters, as well as endorsements from Senator Thom Tillis and most of the members of the Legislature in his district. Like Mr. Cawthorn, he was born and raised in rural Hendersonville, a city of 14,000 south of Asheville.Mr. Edwards will now face Jasmine Beach-Ferrara, a Christian minister and organizer who is the Democratic nominee, for the House seat overseeing a largely rural and working-class Republican stronghold tucked against the Blue Ridge and Smoky Mountains.Mr. Edwards’s triumph capped months of political turbulence for Mr. Cawthorn, 26, who faced an avalanche of bad press and political attacks from establishment Republicans at home and in Washington over his numerous run-ins with the law, childish behavior and sexual innuendo, and what his opponents described as a lack of political leadership.The winner on Tuesday had needed to draw only 30 percent of the vote to avoid a runoff in a crowded field split among seven other challengers. But late Tuesday, Mr. Edwards and Mr. Cawthorn were both clearing the 30 percent threshold.Mr. Cawthorn had hoped to win by heavily promoting his endorsement from former President Donald J. Trump. But Mr. Cawthorn, who has been in a wheelchair since a car crash that almost took his life at 18, struggled to overcome a series of old and new personal and political errors. He previously faced accusations that he had lied about key parts of his background and that he had been sexually and verbally aggressive toward women.In recent months, he also has been accused of engaging in insider trading, charged with driving with a revoked license and stopped for trying to bring a gun through airport security — a second time. Photos and videos of him partying and emulating sexual antics circulated.In March, he said on a conservative YouTube channel that people he had admired in Washington had invited him to orgies and used cocaine. Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the House minority leader, told reporters he had spoken with Mr. Cawthorn and told him that he had lost trust in him.But perhaps most damaging was Mr. Cawthorn’s track record of missing important votes in Congress and his announcement last year that he would run in a new district near Charlotte, only to change his mind and return to his old district after the new district was redrawn and tilted Democratic.It also changed the dynamics in the race, providing the opening that Mr. Edwards and Michele Woodhouse, the elected Republican chair of Mr. Cawthorn’s district and once one of Mr. Cawthorn’s staunch supporters, needed to jump into the electoral contest.One of Mr. Edwards’s tag lines was “Always for the mountains,” a jab at Mr. Cawthorn for moving away. More

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      Fearing ‘Extinction-Level Event,’ N.Y. Democrats Turn Against Each Other

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      Newly drawn congressional maps have led some House members to quickly lay claim to certain districts, even if it means challenging fellow incumbents.Two weeks ago, Representative Sean Patrick Maloney warned fellow Democrats in a private meeting that a ruling by New York’s highest court to invalidate a Democratic-leaning congressional map could prompt “an extinction-level event” for the party, according to people familiar with the remarks.Democratic incumbents, he feared, could either be shoehorned into more difficult districts or forced into primaries against one another.So on Monday, when the courts finally unveiled a proposed new slate of districts unwinding Democrats’ gerrymander, Mr. Maloney, the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, knew precisely what to do.Just 25 minutes after the maps’ release, Mr. Maloney announced on Twitter that he would leave behind the bulk of his traditional Hudson Valley seat and run instead for a newly drawn 17th Congressional District rooted in Westchester County. Mr. Maloney lives within the new lines, which happen to offer a safer path for a Democrat than the district he currently represents.What might have seemed like an easy political decision for Mr. Maloney, however, has quickly turned into a political firestorm, replete with racial overtones, off-the-record recriminations and rare breaches of congressional decorum between staff of neighboring colleagues.Some Democrats saw the maneuver as an attempt to box out Representative Mondaire Jones, a first-term congressman who represents the vast majority of the district’s population, and force him to enter a primary against Jamaal Bowman, a fellow Black progressive, in the neighboring 16th District. Mr. Jones made no secret of his own feelings, though he has yet to say which Democrat he will challenge.“Sean Patrick Maloney did not even give me a heads-up before he went on Twitter to make that announcement,” Mr. Jones tersely told Politico on Monday. “And I think that tells you everything you need to know about Sean Patrick Maloney.”What to Know About RedistrictingRedistricting, Explained: Here are some answers to your most pressing questions about the process that is reshaping American politics.Understand Gerrymandering: Can you gerrymander your party to power? Try to draw your own districts in this imaginary state.Killing Competition: The number of competitive districts is dropping, as both parties use redistricting to draw themselves into safe seats.Deepening Divides: As political mapmakers create lopsided new district lines, the already polarized parties are being pulled even farther apart.In a rare break from Congress’s genteel protocols, Mr. Jones’s chief of staff even shared a screenshot of an exchange with Mr. Maloney’s top aide, and accused the chairman of prioritizing his personal interests “rather than working to unravel this gerrymander” by the courts.The once-a-decade congressional redistricting process is almost always an exercise in raw political power, particularly in a state like New York, which this year must shed a seat overall to account for population losses.But if New York’s redistricting cycle began this year with an attempt by Democrats to marginalize Republicans, it now appears destined to end in intense infighting among Democrats as the Aug. 23 primary approaches — thanks to a ruling last month by the state’s highest court declaring the Democrat-led Legislature’s maps unconstitutional.“Can I just go on vacation through August and wake up in September?” said Maria Slippen, the chairwoman of the Cortlandt Democratic Committee in Westchester County, lamenting a potential Democrat on Democrat fight in her district between Mr. Maloney and Mr. Jones. “When we are put in a situation where we have to fight with each other, the Republicans win,” she added.Representative Mondaire Jones said Mr. Maloney failed to give him a heads-up on his election plan.T.J. Kirkpatrick for The New York TimesThe replacement map, drawn for the court by Jonathan R. Cervas, erased outright gains that Democrats had counted on based on the Legislature’s map and made other Democratic swing seats more competitive. It also forced at least five pairs of incumbents together in the same districts from Brooklyn to Buffalo, leaving candidates to decide whether to retire, move or go head-to-head with another sitting House member.A few miles down the Hudson from Mr. Maloney, two powerful Democratic committee chairs who have served alongside each other for 30 years — Jerrold Nadler and Carolyn Maloney — were also gearing up for a potentially explosive primary fight that would pit the east and west sides of Manhattan against one another in the new 12th Congressional District.Representatives Hakeem Jeffries and Yvette Clarke, two Black Democrats drawn into a single district in Central Brooklyn, expressed fury at Mr. Cervas, but indicated they were likely to still run for separate seats.The maps, which could still be tweaked before a judge makes them final on Friday, may simply leave other candidates without a natural seat to run in and create unexpected openings for candidates who had previously decided not to run in 2022.Alessandra Biaggi, a rising Democratic star in the State Senate, had hoped to run in a new seat — stretching from her home in Westchester County to Nassau County on Long Island — created under the State Legislature’s plan. But Mr. Cervas’s map removed Westchester from the district entirely.Rana Abdelhamid, a community organizer backed by Justice Democrats, had spent more than a year campaigning against Ms. Maloney in New York City, only to see her Queens neighborhood removed from the district.Suraj Patel, another Carolyn Maloney challenger, has yet to declare his intentions but lives close to the line separating the new 12th District from the 10th, the remnants of Mr. Nadler’s old seat. He could decide to run in the 10th, where State Senator Brad Hoylman, former Mayor Bill de Blasio and Carlina Rivera, a member of the City Council, are also seriously considering runs.How U.S. Redistricting WorksCard 1 of 8What is redistricting? More