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The G.O.P. Menace to Society
It feels like every week now we learn of a new way that Donald Trump posed a threat to American democracy when he was president. More
Elections, House of Representatives
Subterms
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Texas Special Election: Jake Ellzey Defeats Susan Wright
Mr. Ellzey, a state representative, was victorious in a runoff against Susan Wright, whose husband, Ron Wright, represented the Sixth Congressional District before he died of Covid-19.AUSTIN, Texas — The widow of a Texas congressman who died early this year of Covid-19 lost to a freshman state representative on Tuesday in a special runoff election between Republicans seeking to fill the vacant House seat.State Representative Jake Ellzey, who narrowly missed capturing the Republican nomination for the seat in 2018, defeated Susan Wright, whose husband, Ron Wright, died in February about two weeks after testing positive for the coronavirus. The Associated Press called the race after Mr. Ellzey had obtained 52.9 percent of the vote with 90 percent of precincts reporting.“Jake will be a strong and effective leader for the people of North Texas and he will fight tirelessly for their values in Washington,” Gov. Greg Abbott said in a statement.In May, Ms. Wright and Mr. Ellzey had each captured far below the 50 percent majority needed to avoid a runoff in a 23-way contest for the state’s Sixth Congressional District, which represents three counties just south of the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan region.In the end, the runoff election, which drew far fewer voters than the primary contest, was less about two ideologically similar candidates and more about how much sway former President Donald J. Trump would have in getting people to cast ballots for Ms. Wright, whom he endorsed before the primary.In a duel of former Republican leaders, Rick Perry, the state’s former governor and a cabinet member of Mr. Trump’s administration, threw his weight behind Mr. Ellzey, who like Mr. Perry is a former military pilot.The contest between Ms. Wright and Mr. Ellzey, who overtook a Democratic candidate by 347 votes to secure a slot in the runoff, disappointed Democrats, who had hoped to tap a reservoir of shifting demographics and Hispanic and African American growth in a district where Mr. Trump won by only three percentage points in November.Susan Wright greeted voters last week outside an early voting site in Arlington, Texas.Elias Valverde II/The Dallas Morning News, via Associated PressMr. Ellzey, 51, a Navy veteran, is in the middle of his first term in the Texas House of Representatives. Ms. Wright, 58, is a longtime Republican activist who pledged to continue her husband’s legacy on a host of conservative priorities, including abortion, guns and immigration.Both candidates supported the Republican-backed voter overhaul legislation in Texas, a measure that prompted Democrats to leave the state to block a vote just days into a special session. Now Mr. Ellzey will join the second-largest congressional delegation — 23 Republicans and 13 Democrats — in the U.S. House behind California.The so-called Trump Factor was the biggest subplot in Tuesday’s contest, with Ms. Wright and her supporters hoping the endorsement would propel her to victory. The former president retains an immense hold on Texas Republicans, and he carried the district by 12 points in 2016 before losing ground in the region to Joseph R. Biden Jr. last year.Ms. Wright, who entered the contest two weeks after her husband’s death, had prominently displayed the former president’s endorsement throughout her campaign and introduced Mr. Trump at a virtual election-eve rally on Monday night.The Club for Growth, a conservative fiscal organization that supported Mr. Trump in 2020, has also aligned with Ms. Wright, spending $1.2 million to fund ads and mailings attacking Mr. Ellzey’s legislative record and his conservative credentials, prompting fierce rebuttals.Although the two candidates share similar views on most of the base issues, the Club for Growth attacks injected a harsh tenor into the race, becoming an issue themselves. Mr. Perry, the former governor, described them as “junk” and “absolute trash” and demanded that Ms. Wright disavow the claims, which she refused to do.Joe Barton, who represented the district in Congress for more than three decades, said the tone of the Club for Growth ads was a factor in his decision to endorse Mr. Ellzey, though he was friends with the Wrights.Heading into Tuesday’s race, Mr. Ellzey had raised $1.7 million, far more than the $740,000 raised by Ms. Wright, according to news media reports. More
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Jerry Lewis, Master of the Congressional Earmark, Dies at 86
A powerful legislator, he became chairman of the House Appropriations Committee in 2005 but faced scrutiny from the Justice Department for his ties to a lobbyist.Jerry Lewis, a powerful House Republican whose largess to his district in California established him as a master of the earmark but led to an investigation of his actions by the Justice Department, died on July 15 at his home in Redlands, Calif. He was 86.His son Dan confirmed the death but said he did not know the cause.Mr. Lewis was elected in 1978 and served 17 terms in the House. A conservative who preferred working with Democrats to confrontational politics, he was a major fund-raiser for Republican candidates; his party’s third-ranking member, as conference chairman; and, briefly, chairman of the powerful House Appropriations Committee.“He represented a style of politics that no longer dominates the party,” John H. Pitney Jr., an aide of Mr. Lewis’s in the mid-1980s who is now a professor of politics at Claremont McKenna College in California, said by phone. “He was very much an ally of Bob Michel” — the former House minority leader from Maryland — “and never a favorite of the Gingrich faction, which took him down from the chairmanship of the House Republican Conference” in 1992. (Newt Gingrich, then the House minority whip and later the speaker, supported the successful candidacy of Dick Armey of Texas over Mr. Lewis.)Mr. Lewis was best known for sending enormous sums of money back to his district through the use of earmarks, provisions in congressional spending bills that direct funds to a specific recipient. He sent tens of millions of dollars to educational, medical and research institutions, military installations, a dam on the Santa Ana River, extensive tree clearing in the San Bernardino National Forest and other projects in his Southern California district.In 2005, when he became chairman of the Appropriations Committee — after six years as chairman of its defense subcommittee — he told The Press-Enterprise of Riverside about his ambition for his district.“My goal as chairman is not just to create a huge funnel to San Bernardino and Riverside counties,” he said. “But I have a feeling we will in California manage to get our share.”But in 2006, the Justice Department began an investigation into whether Mr. Lewis had improperly steered millions of dollars in earmarks to clients of a lobbyist, Bill Lowery, a former Republican congressman from California and an old friend. Some of the clients donated to Mr. Lewis’s re-election campaign.Subpoenas were issued seeking details about how communities and businesses in Mr. Lewis’s district chose to hire Mr. Lowery’s firm, how much they paid, and the nature of communications between the firm and Mr. Lewis.Four years later, the Justice Department dropped the investigation.Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a watchdog group that had been critical of Mr. Lewis’s ties to Mr. Lowery, condemned the Justice Department’s decision.“Exactly what will a politician have to do for the Department of Justice to sit up and take notice?” Melanie Sloan, then the group’s executive director, said in an interview with The Associated Press.Looking back on the investigation in 2012, shortly before he retired from the House, Mr. Lewis told the Southern California public radio station KPCC, “It’ll always be there, and the reality is that we have attempted to be a positive impact in public service.”Charles Jeremy Lewis was born on Oct. 21, 1934, in Seattle and moved with his family to San Bernardino, Calif., as a child. His father, Edward, was a civil engineer who worked on the construction of New Deal projects. His mother, Ruth, was a homemaker.After studying veterinary science at the University of California, Berkeley, he transferred to the University of California, Los Angeles, where he received a bachelor’s degree in political science. After working in the insurance business, Mr. Lewis served on the San Bernardino Board of Education and then was elected to the California State Assembly. He served there for a decade. During his tenure, he pushed for voter approval to make a reporter shield law — to protect the confidentiality of sources — an amendment to the state constitution and wrote legislation that established an air pollution control agency in Southern California.Once elected to the House, he was named to the Appropriations Committee in his second term and became chairman of the subcommittee that funds the Department of Veterans Affairs, NASA and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Four years later he took over the defense subcommittee. His two years as Appropriations Committee chairman ended in 2007, after Democrats won the House majority.In addition to his son Dan, Mr. Lewis is survived by his wife, Arlene (Willis) Lewis; a daughter, Jenifer Engler; two other sons, Jerry Jr., and Jeff; a stepdaughter, Julie Willis Leon; two stepsons, Jimmy and Marty Willis; six grandchildren; three great-grandchildren; and two brothers, Ray and John. His marriage to Sally Lord ended in divorce.Having the same name as a famous comedian was something that trailed Mr. Lewis throughout his career. “He had a good sense of humor” about it, Dan Lewis said. He recalled his father campaigning at a parade in Apple Valley, Calif., where people were eager to see the funnyman, not the lawmaker. The crowd might have been disappointed, he said, but the congressman “wasn’t annoyed.” More
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America Has Too Many Elections
This essay is part of a series exploring bold ideas to revitalize and renew the American experiment. Read more about this project in a note from Ezekiel Kweku, Opinion’s politics editor.
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The ability of the American political system to deliver major policies on urgent issues is hampered by features of our institutions that we take for granted and rarely think about. Take the Constitution’s requirement that House members serve for only two-year terms.Just a few months into a new administration, as the country grapples with issues of economic recovery and renewal, Congress’s actions are being shaped not by the merits of policy alone but also by the looming midterm elections. It’s not just the fall 2022 election; many incumbents are also calculating how best to position themselves to fend off potential primary challenges.In nearly all other democracies, this is not normal.The two-year House term has profound consequences for how effectively American government can perform — and too many of them are negative. A longer, four-year term would facilitate Congress’s ability to once again effectively address major issues that Americans care most about.For several decades, party leaders in Congress have come largely to view the first year of a new administration as the narrow window in which to pass big initiatives. In a midterm election year, leaders resist making members in competitive districts take tough votes. In addition, much of “policymaking” discussion in Congress — particularly when control of the House is closely divided — is about parties’ jockeying to capture the House in the next midterms.The president’s party nearly always loses House seats in the midterm elections. Since 1934, this has happened in all but two midterms. Yet it cannot be the case that all administrations have governed so poorly they deserve immediate electoral punishment.So why does it happen so regularly? Presidential candidates can make vague appeals that allow voters to see whatever they prefer to see. But governing requires concrete choices, and those decisions inevitably alienate some voters. In addition, 21 months (Jan. 20 to early November of the next year) is too little time for voters to be able to judge the effects of new programs.One of the most difficult aspects of designing democratic institutions is how to give governments incentives to act for the long term rather than the short term. The two-year term for House members does exactly the opposite.In nearly all other democracies, parliaments are in power for four to five years. Political scientists view voting as primarily the voters’ retrospective judgment on how well a government has performed. Four to five years provides plausible time for that. But the comparison with U.S. House members is even starker than focusing on the two-year term alone. In most democracies, members of parliaments do not have to compete in primary elections; the parties decide which candidates to put up for office. But since the advent of the primary system in the early 20th century, members of Congress often have to face two elections every two years.Moreover, in most democracies, candidates do not have to fund-raise all the time to run; governments typically provide public financing to the political parties. The two-year term, combined with primary elections and the constant need to raise funds individually, generates exceptional turbulence and short-term focus in our politics.When the Constitution was being drafted, many framers and others strongly pressed the view, as mentioned in Federalist 53, “that where annual elections end, tyranny begins.” At the time, most states had annual elections. Elbridge Gerry insisted that “the people of New England will never give up the point of annual elections.” James Madison urged a three-year term, arguing that annual elections had produced too much “instability” in the states. In the initial vote, the Constitutional Convention approved a three-year term, but with four states objecting, the convention eventually compromised on two years. The Federalist Papers then had to devote a good deal of energy fending off the demand for annual elections.If you think American politics is not chaotic enough, imagine if the Constitution had adopted annual House elections.One argument for the two-year term is that it provides an important check against exceptionally bad or dangerous administrations. (Certainly those who felt that way about the Trump administration were glad to have the opportunity to give Democrats control of the House in 2018.) Other democracies have found a different way to provide a safeguard against this possibility, even as their governments normally have four to five years to govern before voters are asked to judge their performance at the polls. The mechanism is a vote of no confidence; if a majority of a parliament votes no confidence in the government, a new election takes place, or a new government is formed.As interim checks on government, midterm elections and possible votes of no confidence differ dramatically. Votes of no confidence, when successful, function as an exceptional check on governments. Midterm elections are a much cruder tool; in addition to the political turbulence they bring, they routinely punish virtually all administrations. This is not to advocate a vote of no confidence, which would have vast implications for American government, but to highlight that a two-year legislative term is far from the only means to provide an interim check on elected governments.It’s unrealistic under current political conditions, but through a constitutional amendment, a four-year term for members of the House, corresponding with presidential terms, could be established. Longer terms might well facilitate greater capacity to forge difficult, bipartisan bills in the House, with members not constantly facing primary electorates. With one-third of the Senate still up for election in midterms, voters would retain some means for expressing dissatisfaction with an administration. Giving the minority party in the House greater power to initiate hearings and other measures would be another way to provide more effective interim oversight of an administration.In discussions of the Constitution’s structural elements that we might well not adopt today, the two-year term for the House is rarely noticed. (Attention is usually focused on the Electoral College, the Senate or life tenure for federal judges.)Yet as other democracies demonstrate, there is nothing inherently democratic about a two-year term. We do not recognize how distorting it is that soon after a president is elected, our politics are upended by the political calculations and maneuvering required by always looming midterm elections and their primaries.Richard H. Pildes, a professor at New York University’s School of Law, is the author of the casebook “The Law of Democracy: Legal Structure of the Political Process” and the editor of “The Future of the Voting Rights Act.”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.hed More - in Elections
How The Cleveland House Race Between Turner and Brown Captures Democrats' Generational Divide
Nina Turner’s move from Bernie Sanders’s campaign co-chairwoman to House candidate has highlighted a Democratic divide between impatient young activists and cautious older voters.WARRENSVILLE HEIGHTS, Ohio — Nina Turner had just belted out a short address to God’s Tabernacle of Faith Church in the cadences and tremulous volumes of a preacher when the Rev. Timothy Eppinger called on the whole congregation to lay hands on the woman seeking the House seat of greater Cleveland.“She’s gone through hell and high water,” the pastor said to nods and assents. “This is her season to live, and not to die.”On Aug. 3, the voters of Ohio’s 11th District will render that judgment and with it, some indication of the direction the Democratic Party is heading: toward the defiant and progressive approach Ms. Turner embodies or the reserved mold of its leaders in Washington, shaped more by the establishment than the ferment stirring its grass roots.Democrats say there is little broader significance to this individual House primary contest, one that pits two Black women against each other in a safe Democratic district that had been represented by Marcia Fudge before she was confirmed as President Biden’s secretary of housing and urban development.Yet in the final weeks of the campaign, the party establishment is throwing copious amounts of time and money into an effort to stop Ms. Turner, a fiery former Cleveland councilwoman and Ohio state senator known beyond this district as the face and spirit of Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaigns, a co-chairwoman in 2020 and a ubiquitous surrogate for the socialist senator.That suggests leaders understand that the outcome of the race will be read as a signal about the party’s future. It has already rekindled old rivalries. The Congressional Black Caucus’s political action committee has endorsed Ms. Turner’s main rival, Shontel Brown, the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party chairwoman. So have Hillary Clinton and the highest-ranking Black member of the House, James E. Clyburn of South Carolina, who will be campaigning here this weekend for Ms. Brown. They argue that Ms. Brown is the better candidate, with a unifying message after four divisive years of Donald J. Trump.Ms. Brown sees herself as liberal, but she would move step by step, for instance embracing Mr. Biden’s call for adding a “public option” to the Affordable Care Act before jumping straight to the single-payer Medicare-for-all health care system Ms. Turner wants.“I’m not one to shy away from a challenge or conflict; I just don’t seek it out,” said Ms. Brown, who sees the differences as more style than substance. “And that’s the major difference: I’m not looking for headlines. I’m looking to make headway.”In turn, liberal activists around the country have rushed to Ms. Turner’s defense, with money, volunteers and reinforcements. Her campaign has raised $4.5 million for a primary, $1.3 million in the last month. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York will be knocking on doors for her the same weekend Mr. Clyburn will be in town. Mr. Sanders will join the fray in person the last weekend before Election Day.“She would be a real asset for the House,” Mr. Sanders said. “She is a very, very strong progressive, and I hope very much she is going to win.”Supporters of Shontel Brown say she presents a more unifying message after four years of the Trump administration.Mike Cardew/Akron Beakon Journal, via USA Today NetworkThe race has captured less an ideological divide than a generational split, pitting older voters turned off by the liberal insurgency’s disparagement of Democratic leaders and brash demands for rapid change against younger voters’ sense of urgency and anger about the trajectory of the country and world being left to them.At every turn here, Ms. Turner hits on the struggles of her city, the poorest large municipality in the country, but also America’s mountain of student debt, its inequity in health care and a climate crisis that has left the West parched and burning, the ice caps melting and Europe digging out from a deluge.Cleveland’s mayor, Frank Jackson, has endorsed Ms. Turner, as has The Plain Dealer. But Ms. Brown has the most reliable voters, many of them older, more affluent and white.For Ms. Turner to win, she needs people like Dewayne Williams, 31 and formerly incarcerated, who came out in the rain on Saturday to the Gas on God Community Giveaway, for $10 worth of free gas in one of Cleveland’s most dangerous neighborhoods.“I’m just young, don’t know much about politics, but I know she’s a good woman,” Mr. Williams said, growing emotional after Ms. Turner leaned into his car to give him a hug. Given his experience in the prison system, he said, “the changes she’s trying to do — to even care a little bit about that situation — I definitely appreciate.”“Oh man,” Mr. Williams added, “you’ve got to have a loud voice. You’ve got to be loud so people can hear.”The outcome of the special election could reverberate through the party. Progressive primary challengers have already declared — and are raising impressive sums, far more than previous challengers — to take on Representatives Carolyn B. Maloney in New York, Danny K. Davis in Chicago, John Yarmuth in Louisville and Jim Cooper in Nashville. They are hoping to build on the successes of Representatives Ocasio-Cortez and Jamaal Bowman in New York, Ayanna S. Pressley in Boston, Marie Newman in Chicago and Cori Bush in St. Louis — all of whom have knocked off Democratic incumbents since 2018.All of them face opposition from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the Congressional Black Caucus and a new political action committee, Team Blue, started by Representatives Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the Democratic Caucus chairman; Josh Gottheimer, a moderate from New Jersey; and Terri A. Sewell, a Black Caucus member from Alabama.“It speaks volumes to where they want us to be going as a party,” said Kina Collins, who is challenging Mr. Davis. “The message is, ‘You’re not welcome, and if you try to come in, we’re going to pony up the resources to silence you.’”Ms. Turner spoke with voters at a Gas on God Community Giveaway in Cleveland on Saturday.Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesMs. Turner said she wanted the race to be about her issues: single-payer Medicare for all, a $15-an-hour minimum wage, canceling student loan debt and other centerpieces of the Sanders movement she helped create. She said she had been warned from the beginning of her candidacy that Washington Democrats would unite around an “anyone but Nina” candidate.But on Sunday, even she seemed surprised by the bitter turn the contest had taken. The Congressional Black Caucus PAC’s intervention particularly rankled. With the rise of liberal groups like Justice Democrats dedicated to unseating entrenched Democrats in safe seats, the caucus has emerged as something of an incumbent protection service.It backed Representative William Lacy Clay Jr. of Missouri, a caucus member, in his unsuccessful bid to stave off a Black challenger, Ms. Bush, last year, and Representative Joyce Beatty of Ohio, now the chairwoman of the caucus, in her successful bid to beat a Justice Democrat.But the PAC also backed Representative Eliot Engel of New York, who is white, last year against his progressive challenger, Mr. Bowman, who is Black.And now, inexplicably to Ms. Turner and her allies, the powerful Black establishment is intervening in an open-seat race between two Black candidates.“I don’t begrudge anybody wanting to get involved in the race,” Ms. Turner said, “but the entire Congressional Black Caucus PAC? That’s sending another message: Progressives need not apply.”Mr. Clyburn’s high-profile intervention is especially striking. In endorsing Ms. Brown, Mr. Clyburn said he was choosing the candidate he liked best, not opposing Ms. Turner. But he did speak out against the “sloganeering” of the party’s left wing.Representative James E. Clyburn of South Carolina, the highest-ranking Black Democrat in the House, has endorsed Ms. Brown.Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesIn Cleveland, not everyone appreciated the distinction.“They want somebody they can control, and they want somebody to fall in line,” said State Representative Juanita Brent, who backs Ms. Turner. She said she had a message for Mr. Clyburn: “Congressman, with all due respect, stay out of our district.”Ms. Brown, younger than Ms. Turner, with an easygoing demeanor that does not match the Turner campaign’s description of her negative campaigning, pushed back hard against the characterization of her as a Washington puppet.Her campaign is staffed by help from SKDK, a powerhouse Democratic political firm stocked with old hands from the Clinton and Obama days. Her endorsements include moderate House Democrats like Mr. Gottheimer, many of whom are motivated by Ms. Turner’s favorable statements on Palestinian rights.But Ms. Brown insists she is no pawn for establishment Democrats.“You should ask the people who have tried to control me,” she said. “You will find that I am an independent thinker. I am one that likes to gather all of the facts and make an informed decision.”At Alfred Grant’s motorcycle shop in Bedford, Ohio, where Ms. Brown was dropping by a show of motorcycle muscle on Saturday night, older Black voters backed her campaign’s assessment of Ms. Turner: You either love her or you really don’t.“It seems to me that Nina tends to work for herself more than working together,” Roberta Reed said. “I mean, I need people who are going to work together to make it all whole.”“She’s going to help the Biden-Harris agenda; that means a lot,” Denise Grant, Mr. Grant’s wife, said of Ms. Brown, hitting on her biggest talking point. “We don’t need anybody fighting with Biden there.”Her husband jumped in, expressing weariness of the kind of confrontational politics that Ms. Turner embraced. “We did four years of foolishness,” he said. “Now it’s calmed down. That’s how politics should be. I don’t have to look at you every day.”Ms. Turner does not back down from that critique. Voters can take it or leave it.“My ancestors would have never been set free but for somebody bumping up against the status quo and saying, ‘You will not enslave us anymore,’” she said.Parishioners prayed over Ms. Turner at God’s Tabernacle of Faith Church on Sunday.Maddie McGarvey for The New York Times“Martin Luther King, Minister Malcolm X, Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm, Fannie Lou Hamer — I’m just giving examples of people who I’m sure folks who believe in the status quo wish had been nicer,” she said.At God’s Tabernacle of Faith, Pastor Eppinger teed up Ms. Turner with a rousing sermon inspired by the Hebrew prophet Ezekiel.“How long will you walk through dead schools, dead communities, dead governments?” he thundered. “Can these dry bones live?”Ms. Turner, in a bright yellow dress, removed her matching, bright yellow mask, and answered, “All Sister Turner is saying is, we need somebody to speak life into the dry bones of City Hall, the dry bones in Congress, and if God blesses me to go to that next place, I am going to continue to stand for the poor, the working poor and the barely middle class. Can these dry bones live?”To that, the 50 or so parishioners gave an amen. More
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2022 Midterm Elections: Democrats See Early Edge in Senate Map
Early fund-raising has given Democrats cause for optimism in key states as Republicans split over how closely to align with Donald Trump’s preferences. Six months into the Biden administration, Senate Democrats are expressing a cautious optimism that the party can keep control of the chamber in the 2022 midterm elections, enjoying large fund-raising hauls in marquee races as they plot to exploit Republican retirements in key battlegrounds and a divisive series of unsettled G.O.P. primaries.Swing-state Democratic incumbents, like Senators Raphael Warnock of Georgia and Mark Kelly of Arizona, restocked their war chests with multimillion-dollar sums ($7.2 million and $6 million, respectively), according to new financial filings this week. That gives them an early financial head start in two key states where Republicans’ disagreements over former President Donald J. Trump’s refusal to accept his loss in 2020 are threatening to distract and fracture the party.But Democratic officials are all too aware of the foreboding political history they confront: that in a president’s first midterms, the party occupying the White House typically loses seats — often in bunches. For now, Democrats hold power by only the narrowest of margins in a 50-50 split Senate, with Vice President Kamala Harris serving as the tiebreaker to push through President Biden’s expansive agenda on the economy, the pandemic and infrastructure.The midterms are still more than 15 months away, but the ability to enact new policy throughout Mr. Biden’s first term hinges heavily on his party’s ability to hold the Senate and House.Four Senate Democratic incumbents are up for re-election in swing states next year — making them prime targets for Republican gains. But in none of those four states — New Hampshire, Nevada, Arizona and Georgia — has a dominant Republican candidate emerged to consolidate support from the party’s divergent wings. Out of office and banished from social media, Mr. Trump continues to insist on putting his imprint on the party with rallies and regular missives imposing an agenda of rewarding loyalists and exacting retribution against perceived enemies. That does not align with Senate Republican strategists who are focused singularly on retaking the majority and honing messages against the Democrats who now fully control Washington.“The only way we win these races is with top-notch candidates,” said Alex Conant, a Republican strategist who used to work on Senate races. “Are Republicans able to recruit top-notch candidates in the Trump era?”Of the seven contests that political handicappers consider most competitive in 2022, all but one are in states that Mr. Biden carried last year.“We’re running in Biden country,” said Matt Canter, a Democratic pollster involved in Senate races. “That doesn’t make any of these races easy. But we’re running in Biden country.”The campaign filings this week provided an early financial snapshot of the state of play in the Senate battlefield, where the total costs could easily top $1 billion. Other than the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, the top fund-raiser among all senators in the last three months was Tim Scott, Republican of South Carolina. Mr. Scott collected $9.6 million in the months after his State of the Union response, an eye-opening sum that has stoked questions about his 2024 ambitions.Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina collected $9.6 million in the months after his State of the Union response.Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesBut critical races remain unsettled for Republicans. The party is still trying to find compelling Senate candidates in several states, with Chris Sununu, the governor of New Hampshire, considered the highest priority for recruitment, to challenge Senator Maggie Hassan, a Democrat who raised $3.25 million in the last three months. A bevy of Republican senators have lobbied Mr. Sununu to enter the race, and Senator Rick Scott of Florida, who leads the National Republican Senatorial Committee, went so far as to ask activists at a conservative conference last week to “call Chris Sununu” and urge him to run.“If he does, we will win,” Mr. Scott said.Mr. Scott has similarly pursued the former attorney general of Nevada, Adam Laxalt, saying last month that he expected Mr. Laxalt to run against Senator Catherine Cortez-Masto, the Democratic incumbent.The unexpected retirements of Republican senators in Pennsylvania and North Carolina have opened seats and opportunities for Democrats in those swing states, but the path to victory is complicated. In both, Democrats must navigate competitive primaries that pit candidates who represent disparate elements of the party’s racial and ideological coalition: Black and white; moderate and progressive; urban, suburban and more rural.In Pennsylvania, the Democratic lieutenant governor, John Fetterman, has emerged as one of the strongest fund-raising newcomers, taking in $2.5 million in the quarter. Val Arkoosh, a county commissioner in a Philadelphia suburb, raised $1 million, and Malcolm Kenyatta, a state legislator seeking to become the nation’s first openly gay Black senator, raised $500,000. Representative Conor Lamb, a moderate from outside Pittsburgh, is also considering a run.In Wisconsin, a third Republican incumbent, Senator Ron Johnson, has wavered for months over whether he will seek a third term. Mr. Johnson raised only $1.2 million in the last quarter, just enough to carry on but not quite enough to dispel questions about his intentions.Whether or not Mr. Johnson runs, Wisconsin is among the top Democratic targets in 2022 because Mr. Biden carried it narrowly in 2020. Perhaps nothing has better predicted the outcome of Senate races in recent cycles than a state’s presidential preferences.Lt. Gov. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, a Democrat, has emerged as one of the strongest fund-raisers among newcomers as he pursues the state’s open Senate seat.Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesIn Florida, national Democrats have all but anointed Representative Val Demings, a Black former police chief in Orlando who was vetted by the Biden team for vice president, in a state that has repeatedly proved just out of reach.Ms. Demings raised $4.6 million in her first three weeks, topping Senator Marco Rubio, the Republican incumbent, who raised $4 million over three months. (Ms. Demings spent more than $2.2 million on digital ads raising that sum, records show.)Two other G.O.P. retirements in redder states, Ohio and Missouri, have further destabilized the Republican map, providing at least a modicum of opportunity for Democrats in Trump territory. Republicans face heated primaries in both states.In Ohio, the Republican candidates include the former party chair, Jane Timken; the former state treasurer, Josh Mandel, who has run for Senate before; the best-selling author J.D. Vance; and two business executives, Bernie Moreno and Mike Gibbons.The leading Democrat is Representative Tim Ryan, a moderate who ran briefly for president in 2020, and who entered July with $2.5 million in the bank.In Missouri, the early efforts to woo Mr. Trump have been plentiful, and that includes spending at his Florida resort.Two potential candidates have trekked to Mar-a-Lago for fund-raisers or to meet with the former president, including Representatives Billy Long and Jason Smith. Mr. Long reported spending $28,633.20 at the club, filings show; Mr. Smith, who also attended a colleague’s fund-raiser on Thursday at Mr. Trump’s Bedminster property in New Jersey, according to a person familiar with the matter, paid $4,198.59 to Mar-a-Lago.“I’m expecting someone to start flying over Bedminster with a banner at some point,” said one Republican strategist involved in Senate races, who requested anonymity because, he said half-jokingly, it could end up being one of his candidates buying the banner.Representative Val Demings of Florida is running for the Democratic nomination to challenge Senator Marco Rubio, a Republican.Doug Mills/The New York TimesThe biggest name in Missouri is Eric Greitens, the former governor who resigned after accusations of abuse by a woman with whom he had an extramarital affair. He raised less than $450,000. Among his fund-raisers is Kimberly Guilfoyle, the girlfriend of Donald Trump Jr., and his campaign also made payments to Mar-a-Lago.Three other Republicans in the race out-raised Mr. Greitens: Representative Vicky Hartzler, Attorney General Eric Schmitt and Mark McCloskey, the man best known for waving his gun outside his St. Louis home as protesters marched last year. Some national Republican strategists are worried that if Mr. Greitens survives a crowded primary, he could prove toxic even in a heavily Republican state.Mr. Scott has pledged to remain neutral in party primaries, but Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, has long preferred promoting candidates he believes can win in November.“The only thing I care about is electability,” Mr. McConnell told Politico this year. With Mr. Scott on the sidelines, a McConnell-aligned super PAC, the Senate Leadership Fund, is expected to do most of the intervening.Mr. Trump, who is often at cross-purposes with Mr. McConnell, has appeared especially engaged in the Arizona and Georgia races, largely because of his own narrow losses there. He has publicly urged the former football player Herschel Walker to run in Georgia — Mr. Walker has not committed to a campaign — and attacked the Republican governor of Arizona, Doug Ducey, even after Mr. Ducey has said he is not running for Senate. Some Republican operatives continue to hope to tug Mr. Ducey into the race.Mr. Trump delivered one early Senate endorsement in North Carolina, to Representative Ted Budd, who raised $953,000, which is less than the $1.25 million that former Gov. Pat McCrory pulled in. Some Republicans see Mr. McCrory as the stronger potential nominee because of his track record of winning statewide. In Alaska, Kelly Tshibaka is running as a pro-Trump primary challenger to Senator Lisa Murkowski, who voted to convict Mr. Trump after his second impeachment. Ms. Murkowski, who has not formally said if she is running again, raised more than double Ms. Tshibaka in the most recent quarter, $1.15 million to $544,000.In Alabama, Mr. Trump gave another early endorsement to Representative Mo Brooks and recently attacked one of his rivals, Katie Britt, who is the former chief of staff of the retiring incumbent, Senator Richard Shelby. Ms. Britt entered the race in June, but she out-raised Mr. Brooks, $2.2 million to $824,000. A third candidate, Lynda Blanchard, is a former Trump-appointed ambassador who has lent her campaign $5 million.Mr. Brooks won over Mr. Trump for being among the earliest and most vocal objectors to Mr. Biden’s victory. The photo splashed across Mr. Brooks’s Senate website is him speaking at the Jan. 6 rally that preceded the riot at the Capitol. In his recent filing, one of Mr. Brooks’s larger expenses was a $25,799 tab at Mar-a-Lago.“The map tilts slightly toward the Democrats just based on the seats that are up,” said Brian Walsh, a Republican strategist who has worked on Senate races. “But the political environment is the big unknown, and the landscape can shift quickly.”Rachel Shorey More
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The Big Question of the 2022 Midterms: How Will the Suburbs Swing?
Democrats and Republicans are already jockeying for a crucial voting bloc that soured on Donald Trump, tilted to Joe Biden and now holds the key to the second half of the president’s term.PAPILLION, Neb. — Pursuing a bipartisan infrastructure deal and trumpeting a revived economy and progress against the pandemic, President Biden is trying to persuade the nation that Democrats are the party that gets things done. His message is aimed at holding on to a set of voters in next year’s midterms who could determine the fate of his agenda: suburbanites who abandoned former President Donald Trump in droves.More than any other group, those independent-minded voters put Mr. Biden in the White House. Whether they remain in the Democratic coalition is the most urgent question facing the party as it tries to keep its razor-thin advantage in the House and the Senate next year. Mr. Biden made his pitch again on Friday when he signed an executive order intended to protect consumers from the anti-competitive practices of large businesses. But Republicans are also going to war for suburban votes. The party is painting the six-month-old Biden administration as a failure, one that has lost control of the Southwestern border, is presiding over soaring crime rates and rising prices and is on the wrong side of a culture clash over how schools teach the history of racism in America.Whoever wins this messaging battle will have the power to determine the outcome of the rest of Mr. Biden’s term, setting the stage for either two more years of Democrats driving their policies forward or a new period of gridlock in a divided Washington.Both parties are targeting voters like Jay Jackson, a retired career Air Force officer who is now a reservist in the Omaha suburbs. Mr. Jackson had lawn signs last year for Republicans running for Congress, but also for Mr. Biden. He thought that Mr. Trump had failed to empathize with military duty and regularly lied to Americans, and did not deserve re-election.“I’m a classic RINO,” Mr. Jackson said with a laugh, accepting the right’s favorite insult for voters like him: Republicans in Name Only. In a guest column in The Omaha World-Herald, Mr. Jackson, a 39-year-old lawyer, explained his view: “We Republicans need to turn away from Trump and back to our values and the principles of patriotism and conservatism.”Mr. Biden won 54 percent of voters from the country’s suburbs last year, a significant improvement over Hillary Clinton in 2016, and enough to overcome Mr. Trump’s expansion of his own margins in rural and urban areas, according to new data from the Pew Research Center. Suburbanites made up 55 percent of the Biden coalition, compared with 48 percent of Clinton voters.Jay Jackson encouraged fellow Republican voters to “turn away from Trump.”Walker Pickering for The New York TimesLia Post voted routinely for Republicans but supported Mr. Biden last year.Walker Pickering for The New York TimesThe authoritative Pew study, which echoed other recent surveys, also showed that Mr. Biden failed to increase his share of the Democratic base from 2016, including among young people and voters of color. It found, however, that his support surged among independents, veterans and married men — voters like Mr. Jackson.But even as Mr. Jackson crossed party lines for Mr. Biden, he supported Representative Don Bacon, a Republican who won re-election in Nebraska’s Second District, which Mr. Biden himself carried. Mr. Jackson said that he was pleased so far with the Biden administration — especially its “putting the accelerator to the floor on Covid” — but that he would very likely vote again for Mr. Bacon.It shows that in 2022, Democrats will need to count on more than the revolt of suburbia against Mr. Trump’s norm-smashing presidency to motivate their voters.The limits of the anti-Trump vote were already glimpsed last year, when half of the 14 House seats that Democrats lost, to their shock, were in suburban or exurban districts. The party also failed to defeat vulnerable Republicans in districts Mr. Biden won, such as Nebraska’s Second.For 2022, Democrats’ congressional finance committee has identified 24 “frontline” incumbents in swing districts, some two-thirds of them in suburban areas.Representative Sean Patrick Maloney of New York, the chair of the Democrats’ election arm, aims to fuse Republican candidates with Mr. Trump’s divisiveness and with the party’s obstruction of gun restrictions, expanding health care access and fighting climate change.“The post-Trump Republican brand is bad politics in the suburbs,” he said in an interview. “They have embraced dangerous conspiracy theories, flat-out white supremacists and a level of harshness and ugliness that is not appealing to suburban voters.”Representative Tom Emmer of Minnesota, who leads the G.O.P. campaign arm, said Republicans would attack Democrats over a set of “incredibly toxic” issues for the suburbs. He listed them as crime, tax increases, border security and the latest flash point of the culture wars, critical race theory — the idea that racism is woven into American institutions, which Republicans have seized on in suburban school districts.Sarpy County is the fastest-growing county in Nebraska, with young newcomers drawn to jobs in tech or in Omaha’s insurance industry, and to the exploding housing market.Walker Pickering for The New York Times“It’s going to be a big issue in 2022,” Mr. Emmer said.He added that while Democrats “seem to be focused on a personality in the past” — Mr. Trump — “we’re focused on issues.”House Democrats also face structural and historical obstacles to retaining their slender nine-seat majority. In the modern era, a president’s party has lost an average of 26 House seats in midterm elections. Redistricting will place nearly all members of the chamber in redrawn seats, with Republicans wielding more power to gerrymander than Democrats.National polling shows Mr. Biden’s job approval consistently above 50 percent. But some recent surveys of swing House districts suggest that the president is less popular on specific issues. A survey in May of 37 competitive House districts by a Democratic group, Future Majority, found that more voters disliked than liked Mr. Biden’s handling of the economy, climate policy and foreign affairs. He was especially unpopular over the U.S.-Mexico border and relations with China.But Val Arkoosh, a Democratic official in the Philadelphia suburbs who is running for the Senate in 2022, said that issues that rally Democrats, like voting rights and health care, would still be on the ballot, even if Mr. Trump — who drove furious opponents to the polls last year — is not. “Yes, the former occupant of the White House is gone, but we continue to see a significant amount of obstruction in Washington around issues people here care deeply about,” she said.While suburbs across the country vary demographically and politically, the independent voters of suburban Omaha present a snapshot of the terrain where both parties will be fighting their hardest.Nebraska is one of just two states to award a share of its electoral votes by congressional district. Mr. Biden’s success in carrying the Second District, which includes Omaha and much of its suburbs, went beyond the single electoral vote he picked up. He flipped the district by 8.75 percentage points after Mr. Trump had won it in 2016 — a larger swing than in any individual battleground state.The suburban part of the district is mostly in western Sarpy County south of Omaha. It is the fastest-growing county in Nebraska, with young newcomers drawn to jobs in tech or in Omaha’s insurance industry, and to the exploding housing market.Corbin Delgado, the secretary of his party’s state Latinx Caucus, said his top issue was immigration reform.Walker Pickering for The New York TimesJen Day won a State Senate race as a Democrat, though many of her voters supported a Republican candidate for Congress.Walker Pickering for The New York TimesFields of corn race up hillsides and yield suddenly to home developments with names like the Mansions at Granite Falls. A vast Amazon distribution center that will employ 1,000 workers is under construction. A sign at another building site promises the “Future Home of Lamb of God Lutheran Church.”Older towns in the county command hilltops, their water towers visible from afar like medieval castles.Last year, Sarpy County, like most places, had higher turnout by both parties and independents compared with 2016. But the surge especially among independents probably accounts for Mr. Biden’s winning 13,000 more votes in the county than Mrs. Clinton did. (Mr. Trump’s votes increased by only about 7,000.)“We have a lot of younger families moving in,” said Charlene Ligon, an Air Force retiree who leads the county Democrats. “They may be conservative, but they’re more centrist, with younger attitudes.”Jen Day, a small-business owner in her 30s, won a State Senate race as a Democrat in November, the first time in memory the party had captured a seat in western Sarpy County.Ms. Day said many of her supporters had also voted for Mr. Bacon, the Republican congressman. “From discussions I’ve had with people in the district, I don’t think they’re pledging allegiance to either party at this point,” she said.Jeff Slobotski, a suburban father of five who changed his registration from Republican to independent, said the Bacon seat was “absolutely winnable” for Democrats in 2022. A Trump supporter in 2016, Mr. Slobotski voted for Mr. Biden last year.Mr. Slobotski, 43, is an executive for a company that brings tech start-ups and arts groups to an emerging neighborhood in the city. He spoke over lunch last week at a downtown Omaha restaurant, the Kitchen Table. The restaurant windows displayed posters for Black Lives Matter and for a young state senator, Tony Vargas, who has been mentioned as a possible Democratic nominee to take on Mr. Bacon.Fields of corn race up hillsides and yield suddenly to home developments.Walker Pickering for The New York TimesAlthough Mr. Slobotski voted for Mr. Bacon, he said he would support Mr. Vargas if he ran for the seat. “He’s just a young visionary, somebody with leadership ability, more of a pragmatist,” he said of Mr. Vargas, a former Omaha school board member. The Democrats’ 2020 nominee, Kara Eastman, was considered by many to be too progressive for the District.Later that day, at a restaurant in Papillion, a group of three other 2020 ticket-splitting voters sipped iced coffees as they assessed Washington under unified Democratic control.All three had voted for Mr. Biden, but none supported the drive by many congressional Democrats to blow up the filibuster to pass Mr. Biden’s most ambitious agenda items.These voters preferred a scaled-back infrastructure package that, even if it left major spending on education and climate on the table, could pass with bipartisan support and represent a show of unity. “It’s one of those things that kind of builds relationships to get things going,” said Michael Stark, 30, an independent.The filibuster is “there for a purpose and I am terrified of what would happen if it went away,” said Corbin Delgado, 26, a Democrat who works for a nonprofit group and is the secretary of his party’s state Latinx Caucus. He said his top issue was immigration reform, including a pathway to citizenship for the undocumented. He voted for Mr. Bacon last year, he said, because the Republican had modified his opposition to some immigration changes after meeting with activists. “I’m a big believer that when a politician actually listens and changes, that should be rewarded,” he said.But he would leap at the chance to vote in 2022 for Mr. Vargas, who represents a district with a large Hispanic population.Lia Post, 54, grew up in a conservative religious family and voted routinely for Republicans. An activist for legalizing medical marijuana, she supported Mr. Biden last year. She said that more than anything else, she was relieved by the absence of perpetual chaos in Washington.“I don’t feel so stressed out all the time,” she said. “I just feel now I have a president that I can just breathe,” she added, and not worry, “‘Oh, God, what’s the next thing?’” More
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In Michigan, Pro-Impeachment Republicans Face Voters’ Wrath
Representative Peter Meijer, a Republican who voted to impeach Donald J. Trump, seeks “decency and humility” in Western Michigan, but has found anger, fear and misinformation.GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Representative Peter Meijer cites Gerald R. Ford as his inspiration these days, not because the former president held his House seat for 24 years or because his name is all over this city — from its airport to its freeway to its arena — but because in Mr. Ford, the freshman congressman sees virtues lost to his political party.Ford took control after a president resigned rather than be impeached for abusing his power in an attempt to manipulate the outcome of an election.“It was a period of turmoil,” said Mr. Meijer, who was one of 10 Republicans who voted to impeach former President Donald J. Trump for inciting the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. Ford’s greatest asset, he added, was “offering — this word is becoming too loaded of late — a sense of morals, moral leadership, a sense of value and centering decency and humility.”“Sometimes when you’re surrounded by cacophony, it helps to have someone sitting there who isn’t adding another screaming voice onto the pile,” Mr. Meijer added.Six months after the Capitol attack and 53 miles southeast of Grand Rapids, on John Parish’s farm in the hamlet of Vermontville, Mr. Meijer’s problems sat on folding chairs on the Fourth of July. They ate hot dogs, listened to bellicose speakers and espoused their own beliefs that reflected how, even at age 33, Mr. Meijer may represent the Republican Party’s past more than its future.The stars of the “Festival of Truth” on Sunday were adding their screaming voices onto the pile, and the 100 or so West Michiganders in the audience were enthusiastically soaking it up. Many of them inhabited an alternative reality in which Mr. Trump was re-elected, their votes were stolen, the deadly Jan. 6 mob was peaceful, coronavirus vaccines were dangerous and conservatives were oppressed.“God is forgiving, and — I don’t know — we’re forgiving people,” Geri Nichols, 79, of nearby Hastings, said as she spoke of her disappointment in Mr. Meijer. “But he did wrong. He didn’t support our president like he should have.”Under an unseasonably warm sun, her boyfriend, Gary Munson, 80, shook his head, agreeing: “He doesn’t appear to be what he says he is.”Representative Peter Meijer, a freshman member of Congress, was one of 10 House Republicans to vote for former President Donald J. Trump’s impeachment.Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesFor all its political eccentricities, Michigan is not unique. Dozens of congressional candidates planning challenges next year are promoting the false claims of election fraud pressed by Mr. Trump. But Western Michigan does have one distinction: It is home to 20 percent of the House Republicans who voted to impeach Mr. Trump — that is, two of 10.The other one, Representative Fred Upton, 68, took office in an adjacent district west and south of here the year before Mr. Meijer was born, 1987. But the two find themselves in similar political straits. Both will face multiple primary challengers next year who accuse them of disloyalty — or worse, treason — for holding Mr. Trump responsible for the riot that raged as they met to formalize the election results for the victor, President Biden.Both men followed their impeachment votes with votes to create a bipartisan commission to examine the Capitol riot, two of 35 House Republicans to do so. Both face a backlash from Republican voters who are enraged by what they allege are an effort by the F.B.I. to hunt down peaceful protesters, a news media silencing conservative voices, a governor who has taken away their livelihoods with overzealous pandemic restrictions and a Democratic secretary of state who has stolen their votes.Many of their grievances have less to do with Mr. Trump himself than the false claims that he promoted, which have taken root with voters who now look past him.“People think people who support Trump are like ‘Trump is our God,’” said Audra Johnson, one of Mr. Meijer’s Republican challengers, explaining why she refuses to get inoculated against the coronavirus with a vaccine the Trump administration helped create. “No, he’s not.”Audra Johnson, a pro-Trump activist, is one of many challengers to Mr. Meijer in the Republican primary next year.Emily Elconin for The New York Times“People are terrified,” Ms. Johnson added over grilled cheese and tomato soup at Crow’s Nest Restaurant in Kalamazoo. She added, “We’re heading toward a civil war, if we’re not already in a cold civil war.”In June, a Republican-led State Senate inquiry into Michigan’s 2020 vote count affirmed Mr. Biden’s Michigan victory by more than 154,000 votes, nearly 3 percentage points, and found “no evidence” of “either significant acts of fraud” or “an organized, wide-scale effort to commit fraudulent activity.”“The committee strongly recommends citizens use a critical eye and ear toward those who have pushed demonstrably false theories for their own personal gain,” it concluded.The Meijer name graces grocery stores that are a regional staple — founded in 1934 by the congressman’s great-grandfather, Hendrik Meijer, a Dutch immigrant — and a popular botanical garden and sculpture park, established by his grandfather, Frederik, that is one of Grand Rapids’ biggest attractions. His father, Hank, and his uncle, Doug, took over the Meijer chain in 1990 as Forbes-listed billionaires.Peter Meijer’s pedigree is matched by his résumé: a year at West Point, a degree from Columbia University, eight years in the Army Reserve, including a deployment to Iraq as an intelligence adviser, and an M.B.A. from New York University.But these days in some circles, “Meijer” is less synonymous with groceries, gardens and prestige than with the impeachment of Mr. Trump.“Last time, the problem was we were running against Peter Meijer,” said Tom Norton, who lost to Mr. Meijer in the 2020 primary and is challenging him again in 2022. “The advantage this time is we’re running against Peter Meijer. It’s a complete flip.”In his Capitol Hill office, Mr. Meijer said that in one-on-one discussions with some of his constituents, he could make headway explaining his votes and how dangerous the lies of a stolen presidential election had become for the future of American democracy.“The challenge is if you believe that Nov. 3 was a landslide victory for Donald Trump that was stolen, and Jan. 6 was the day to stop that steal,” he said. “I can’t come to an understanding with somebody when we’re dealing with completely separate sets of facts and realities.”At a recent event, he said, a woman informed Mr. Meijer that he would shortly be arrested for treason and hauled before a military tribunal, presumably to be shot.“People are willing to kill and die over these alternative realities,” he said.Representative Fred Upton, another Republican impeachment voter, has been in office since 1987.Anna Moneymaker/The New York TimesYet at least one of his primary challengers is amplifying that alternative reality. Ms. Johnson, a pro-Trump activist, splashed onto the scene in 2019 as the “MAGA bride,” when she appeared at her wedding reception over the July 4 weekend in a Make America Great Again dress.She helped organize armed protests of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s pandemic restrictions at the State Capitol in Lansing and traveled with a convoy of buses to Washington for Mr. Trump’s Jan. 6 protest against election certification.While she said she did not enter the Capitol that day, she said she knew people who knew people who did — peacefully, she insists.“Honestly, they’re terrified that the F.B.I. is going to come knock on their door,” Ms. Johnson said.Mr. Norton, who jousted with Mr. Meijer at the Northview Fourth of July parade in a middle-class Grand Rapids neighborhood, said afterward that he was sure there was election fraud in 2020 and was pushing for an Arizona-style “forensic audit” that would go even deeper than the audit already conducted.One of Mr. Upton’s challengers, state Representative Steve Carra, has introduced legislation to force such an audit in Michigan, even though he conceded that he had only skimmed the June report, which not only concluded that there was no fraud but called for those making such false claims to be referred for prosecution.“To say that there’s no evidence of widespread fraud I think is wrong,” said Mr. Carra, who was elected to his first term in November, at age 32.He sees a golden opportunity to finally unseat Mr. Upton, who has been in Congress since before Mr. Carra was born. Redistricting could bring a new cache of voters from neighboring Battle Creek who have not spent decades pulling the lever for the incumbent. Mr. Upton’s challengers are bringing his moderate voting record to primary voters’ attention.But above all, there is Mr. Upton’s impeachment vote.“When Fred Upton voted to impeach President Trump, that was the straw that broke the camel’s back for me,” Mr. Carra said, sitting on a park bench in Three Rivers, Mich.Jon Rocha, another of Mr. Upton’s challengers, spoke in measured tones to a reporter about his rival’s vote to impeach. Mr. Upton had been acting out of emotion, said the former Marine, who is Mexican American and a political newcomer, and had failed to consider Mr. Trump’s due process or take the time to investigate.But onstage in front of the crowd at the Festival of Truth, Mr. Rocha’s tone darkened.“This country is under attack,” he thundered. “Our children are being indoctrinated to hate the color of their skin, to hate this country and to believe this country is systemically racist and meant to oppress anybody with a different skin pigment. I can attest to you, as an American Mexican, that is not the case.”Jon Rocha, who spoke at the festival in Vermontville, is challenging Mr. Upton in the Republican primary.Emily Elconin for The New York TimesOppression is a theme: Ms. Johnson said she understood — though, she hastened to add, did not condone — violence by beleaguered conservatives. Mr. Norton suggested that transgender women were driven by mental illness to lop off body parts, and yet it was only those who objected who were ridiculed. Larry Eberly, the organizer of the Festival of Truth, warned the crowd that “we’re being manipulated” into accepting coronavirus vaccines, bellowing to cheers, “I will die first before they shove that needle into my arm.”In the end, none of this may matter to the composition of Congress. The anti-incumbent vote may be badly split, allowing Representatives Meijer and Upton to survive their primaries and sail to re-election.Mr. Meijer’s district had been held for a decade by Justin Amash, a libertarian-leaning iconoclast who was fiercely critical of Mr. Trump and was the first House Republican to call for his impeachment. Amid the backlash, Mr. Amash left the Republican Party in 2019 to try to run as a libertarian. Then, when Mr. Amash found no quarter, he retired.But Mr. Meijer will have his name, the support of the Republican apparatus and a formidable money advantage.The question vexing him is not so much his own future, but his party’s. That is where he looks wistfully to Ford.“Was he necessarily the leader on moving the Republican Party in a direction? I can’t speak to what his internal conversations were,” Mr. Meijer said. “But in terms of giving confidence to the country that Republican leadership could be ethical and honest and sincere, I think he hit it out of the park.” More
