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    Steve Garvey, Former Dodgers All-Star, May Run for Senate in California

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    Mr. Garvey, 74, a Republican, said he would decide in the next few weeks whether to run for the seat of Senator Dianne Feinstein, who is retiring.Steve Garvey, a perennial baseball All-Star in the 1970s and 1980s for the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres, said on Friday that he was weighing a run for the United States Senate in California as a Republican.He would give the G.O.P. a celebrity name in the high-profile race to replace Senator Dianne Feinstein, 89, a Democrat, who is the chamber’s oldest member and is retiring at the end of her term. She has recently struggled with health problems that have prompted calls from some fellow Democrats for her to retire sooner.In heavily Democratic California, the race has drawn tepid interest from Republicans. Only lesser-known candidates have jumped in.California hasn’t elected a Republican to the Senate since 1988, and a host of prominent Democrats are waiting in the wings, including Representatives Adam Schiff, Katie Porter and Barbara Lee.Mr. Garvey, 74, one of the most prolific hitters in baseball before steroids tainted the sport’s record books, said in an interview that he expected to make a decision in the next few weeks. He noted the difficulty of building out a campaign operation.“You can imagine, it’s like getting an expansion franchise,” he said, using a sports analogy. “It’s a daunting task in California.”Mr. Garvey, whose deliberations were first reported by The Los Angeles Times, would be a long shot, but his entrance in the race could scramble the primary. Under the state’s system, the first- and second-place finishers advance to the general election, regardless of party affiliation.Democrats are so dominant in the state that they are widely expected to win both slots and compete against each other in the general. Having a Republican candidate with some name recognition could make that harder.Being in the public eye has sometimes brought Mr. Garvey unwanted attention. Although he cultivated a reputation for avoiding vices and philandering as a player, shortly after leaving the game he acknowledged he had fathered children by two different women, shortly before marrying a third.When asked on Friday how he felt about the glare of running for office, Mr. Garvey said that it would not discourage him.“I probably had a pretty good spring training over the last 50 years,” he said. More

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      Carper Says He Will Retire, Vacating Seat in Solidly Democratic Delaware

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      The fourth-term senator said he would do everything he could to ensure that Representative Lisa Blunt Rochester, the state’s lone congresswoman and his former intern, won the race to succeed him.Senator Thomas R. Carper, a veteran Democrat from Delaware, announced on Monday that he would not seek re-election next year, opening up a seat in a deep-blue state that he said he hoped would go to his handpicked successor.Mr. Carper, 76, is in his fourth term in the Senate and is the last surviving Vietnam veteran to serve there. He has held public office since the 1970s, first as Delaware’s treasurer, then for a decade as a congressman, then as governor and, since 2001, as a senator.“This just seems like a good time just to turn the page and move on,” Mr. Carper said at a news conference in Wilmington, Del. He added, “I’ve got miles to go, and I’m going to make every day count.”The senator said he intended to do all he could to help Representative Lisa Blunt Rochester, the Democrat who serves as the state’s only member of the House and was his former intern, win the race to succeed him.As the chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, Mr. Carper said he planned to spend his final months in Congress overseeing the clean energy provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act and key projects included in the bipartisan infrastructure legislation.“I’ll continue working 60-hour weeks,” he said.Mr. Carper said he also planned to help his friend President Biden succeed and win re-election, brushing aside questions about the president’s age.“Every meeting I’ve been a part of, he’s actually sharper than the rest of us,” Mr. Carper said.He said he had called Ms. Blunt Rochester on Monday morning and told her, “You’ve been patient waiting for me to get out of the way, and I’m going to get out of the way.”He added that he also told her: “I hope you run, and I hope you’ll let me support you in that mission.”And Mr. Carper said Ms. Blunt Rochester replied, “Yes, I’ll let you support me.”Ms. Blunt Rochester, who is also in her fourth term, has not yet announced a campaign but has publicly expressed interest in running. In a statement, she praised Mr. Carper as a lawmaker who was “more interested in attending a local Sunday service than doing the Sunday shows, more interested in hearing from his constituents in person than getting clicks online and more interested in the happenings of the day in Delaware than D.C.”Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the majority leader, spoke by phone with Ms. Blunt Rochester shortly after hearing of Mr. Carper’s decision and told her he “believes she could be a really good senator and he looks forward to sitting down with her soon,” according to Mr. Schumer’s spokesman.In a separate statement, Mr. Schumer praised Mr. Carper as a “conscientious, hardworking, honorable and effective senator who has done so much for his beloved Delaware and America, particularly in protecting our precious environment and strengthening our transportation systems.”Mr. Schumer credited Mr. Carper for spearheading important legislation such as postal reform and reducing the effects of methane in the atmosphere.Senator Chris Coons, also a Democrat from Delaware, said Mr. Carper relied on his background as a former governor during his time in the Senate.“Tom Carper has also mentored a generation of Delaware leaders,” Mr. Coons said. “From my first race for County Council president, he has encouraged and supported my career in service, acting as a source of advice and encouragement when I needed it most, and as a role model for balancing family and service.” More

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      David Trone Enters Maryland Senate Race

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      Representative David Trone, who is in his third term, is expected to pour tens of millions of dollars of his personal fortune into what is likely to be a hotly contested primary.Representative David Trone, Democrat of Maryland, said he was set to launch a campaign for the Senate on Thursday, joining a race into which he is expected to pour tens of millions of dollars from his personal fortune in an effort to capitalize on a rare opportunity to seek an open seat in the deep-blue state.Just days after Senator Benjamin L. Cardin, who has held his seat since 2007, announced he would not seek re-election, Mr. Trone, 67, a third-term congressman from Potomac, said he had assembled a campaign team and cut an advertisement that emphasizes his roots growing up on a Pennsylvania farm and building a fortune after founding a lucrative alcohol retail business, Total Wine & More.In an interview, Mr. Trone, who is in his third term in Congress, said he expected to be an underdog in what is likely to be a hotly contested Democratic primary. The race could also draw Angela Alsobrooks, the Prince George’s County executive who is seen as a rising star in the state, and Representative Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee who has established a national following, having served as the lead impeachment manager prosecuting former President Donald J. Trump after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. Will Jawando, a member of the Montgomery County Council, has already announced he is running for the seat.“I’ll be the underdog in the race. I’m always an underdog. I’m a disrupter,” Mr. Trone said. “We take no money from PACs. I take no money from lobbyists, no money from corporations. And when you don’t take anybody else’s money, and you’re willing to put some of your own resources into the campaign, people realize you’re in it because you care.”Those close to Mr. Trone said he was willing to spend tens of millions of dollars on the race, as he has in previous campaigns for the House.In the House, Mr. Trone co-founded the Bipartisan Addiction and Mental Health Task Force, and he said he would focus on similar issues if elected to the Senate. He emphasized the need to address the opioid crisis, mental health issues and criminal justice reform.Mr. Trone said he believed Maryland Democrats would choose a progressive candidate over any centrists who might enter the race, and that he believed his platform would appeal to liberal voters.“We’re all on the same team,” Mr. Trone said of the other Democrats who are likely to run. “We despise the most narcissistic president, probably the worst president ever, Donald Trump.”Mr. Cardin said in an interview that he did not intend to endorse a successor.“We have a great group of Democrats in Maryland,” he said. “I know some are interested. I’m very confident that we will be able to to elect a Democrat to fill the seat.”Whoever wins the Democratic primary is likely to carry the seat. The state’s most popular Republican, former Governor Larry Hogan, has said he is not interested in running.Maryland’s filing deadline is Feb. 9, 2024. The primary election is May 14, 2024. More

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      Rep. Colin Allred of Texas Will Challenge Ted Cruz for Senate

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      Mr. Allred, a Democrat and former N.F.L. linebacker, said he would try to unseat Mr. Cruz, who held off Beto O’Rourke in 2018.HOUSTON — Representative Colin Allred, a Dallas-area Democrat who defeated an incumbent Republican to gain his seat in 2018, announced on Wednesday that he would challenge Senator Ted Cruz of Texas next year.In a three-minute video, Mr. Allred, 40, a former civil rights lawyer who played as a linebacker in the N.F.L., presented himself as a bipartisan politician whose working-class upbringing would enable him to overcome the long odds: No Democrat has won statewide office in Texas since the 1990s.“We don’t have to be embarrassed by our senator,” he said, after describing Mr. Cruz as someone who “cheered on the mob” during the Capitol riot and who left Texas to go to the resort city of Cancun, Mexico, during the 2021 winter storm and power grid failure that killed hundreds of Texans. “We can get a new one.”Mr. Allred came into office riding a wave of Democratic enthusiasm that nearly unseated Mr. Cruz during his last re-election fight, a 2018 victory over Beto O’Rourke, then a little-known representative from El Paso. Mr. O’Rourke lost by about 2.5 percentage points, a thin margin in the Republican-dominated state.The same year, Mr. Allred defeated Representative Pete Sessions, a Republican, in a Dallas-area district that has since been redrawn to become more favorable for Democrats.Almost from the start, Mr. Allred has shown an ability to attract interest from donors, outraising Mr. Sessions and continuing to demonstrate the kind of strong fund-raising ability that would be necessary in a statewide race in Texas.Mr. Cruz is highly unpopular among Texas Democrats, but he has so far survived all attempts to oust him.Enthusiasm is also low among many Texas Democrats, who watched Mr. O’Rourke lose badly to Gov. Greg Abbott last year despite his well-funded campaign.And Mr. Allred, whose decision to enter the race began emerging in news reports before Wednesday’s announcement, has seen expectations for his campaign set low: The magazine Texas Monthly suggested that he was a “replacement-level candidate.” In other words, as good as any other Democrat but not a star.Nick Maddux, a spokesman for Mr. Cruz’s campaign, described Mr. Allred as a “far-left radical” in a statement on Wednesday. “His voting record is completely out-of-touch with Texas,” he said. “For over a decade, Sen. Cruz has been leading the fight for jobs, freedom, and security in Texas.”Mr. Allred’s announcement video acknowledged that he was a long shot, presenting himself as an underdog who “never knew” his father, and pulled himself up into elite football, law school and Congress. He said he would focus on Texas issues, not divisive cultural ones, discussing rural hospital closures and prescription drug prices in his video.As for Mr. Cruz, he said: “All hat, no cattle.” More

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      Jim Marchant, a Nevada Election Denier, Announces Senate Run

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      Mr. Marchant, who lost his bid for Nevada’s secretary of state last year, will now attempt to unseat Senator Jacky Rosen, the Democratic incumbent.Jim Marchant, a vocal election denier and Trump ally who lost his bid for Nevada’s secretary of state in last year’s midterm elections, declared his candidacy on Tuesday for the Senate in a swing state contest that could decide control of the chamber in 2024.Mr. Marchant, a Republican, is seeking to challenge Senator Jacky Rosen, a moderate Democrat who is in her first term. No other high-profile Republicans have entered the contest so far.During last year’s midterm elections, Mr. Marchant helped organize a national “America First” slate of secretary of state candidates, a group of right-wing election deniers whose campaigns centered on re-litigating baseless voter fraud claims. All but one of the candidates were rejected by voters.The once-obscure election oversight post has taken on heightened significance since the 2020 election. In Mr. Marchant’s race, he did not appear to concede.Mr. Marchant, 66, a former one-term assemblyman, was also part of Nevada’s alternate slate of pro-Trump electors who sought to overturn Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory in the state in 2020. He refused to accept the results that same year in his race for Congress, unsuccessfully challenging them in court.“There’s nothing more precious than our freedom and personal liberty,” Mr. Marchant said on Tuesday, speaking at a Las Vegas church known for having tested Nevada’s pandemic stay-at-home orders in court in 2020. “And I’m running for United States Senate to protect Nevadans from the overbearing government, from Silicon Valley, from big media, from labor unions, from the radical gender change advocates, where Jacky Rosen has failed you.”In a statement on Twitter on Tuesday, Ms. Rosen cast Mr. Marchant as an extremist.“Nevadans deserve a Senator who will fight for them, not a MAGA election denier who opposes abortion rights even in cases of rape and incest,” she wrote. “While far-right politicians like Jim Marchant spread baseless conspiracy theories, I’ve always focused on solving problems for Nevadans.”Mr. Marchant was joined on Tuesday by the political strategist Dick Morris, who Mr. Marchant said would be working as a general consultant on his campaign. Mr. Morris, who preceded him onstage, also repeated false claims about election fraud. More

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      Senator Ben Cardin Won’t Seek Re-election in Maryland

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      His retirement is likely to draw a number of Democrats and Republicans to compete for the seat.Senator Ben Cardin of Maryland, a long-serving Democrat, announced his retirement on Monday, clearing the way for highly competitive primaries to replace him in 2024, especially among Democrats in a deep-blue state.Maryland’s liberal-leaning voters have not sent a Republican to the U.S. Senate since 1980, and the eight-member congressional delegation includes just one member of the G.O.P.“I have run my last election and will not be on the ballot in 2024, but there is still much work to be done,” Mr. Cardin, 79, said in a statement. “During the next two years, I will continue to travel around the state, listening to Marylanders and responding to their needs.”High-profile Maryland Democrats who could be in the mix to replace Mr. Cardin include Representatives Jamie Raskin and David Trone, and Angela Alsobrooks, the executive of Prince George’s County.On the Republican side, there is already speculation about whether Larry Hogan, a popular former governor who in March said he would not run for president, will make a bid.In an interview, Mr. Cardin declined to endorse a successor, but he said he was confident Democrats would hold the seat. His election to the Senate in 2006 made him the third straight representative from Maryland’s Third Congressional District to join the chamber. The House seat is now held by John Sarbanes, a son of Paul Sarbanes, the senator who preceded Mr. Cardin.Mr. Cardin was named last month by Senator Chuck Schumer, the majority leader, to serve on the Judiciary Committee as a temporary replacement for Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, who is on leave recovering from shingles, but Republicans have blocked the move. Without her vote, Democrats have been unable to advance stalled judicial nominations.In a video announcing his retirement that he recorded with his wife, Myrna Cardin, Mr. Cardin touched on highlights of a career that includes enacting the Magnitsky sanctions, international penalties aimed at violators of human rights, and environmental protections for Chesapeake Bay.Much of his motivation through his 58 years in elected office, Mr. Cardin said in the video, “comes back to tzedakah, part of our tradition as Jews to help those that are less fortunate.”Mr. Cardin, who was speaker of the Maryland House of Delegates before being elected to Congress, said in the interview on Monday that he hopes to focus his final two years in the Senate on helping small businesses. More

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      Daines Endorsement Reflects Uneasy Senate G.O.P. Alliance With Trump

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      Senate Republicans, even those who have broken with the former president, say their campaign chief’s decision to back him could boost their push for the majority.WASHINGTON — When Senator Steve Daines, the leader of the Senate Republican campaign arm, quietly informed Senator Mitch McConnell, the minority leader, that he intended to endorse former President Donald J. Trump, Mr. McConnell was fine with the idea.Mr. McConnell, the Kentucky Republican, is not on speaking terms with the former president, having abruptly turned against him after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. Mr. Trump has publicly savaged the senator and repeatedly demeaned his wife with racist statements.But the minority leader, according to a person familiar with his thinking, believed that somebody in the Senate G.O.P. leadership ranks should have a working relationship with the party’s leading presidential contender — and it might as well be the man charged with winning back the Senate majority.Mr. Daines’s endorsement of Mr. Trump this week — and Mr. McConnell’s private blessing of it — highlighted how top Senate Republicans have quietly decided to join forces with their party’s leading presidential candidate, putting aside the toxic relationship that some of them have with him to focus on what they hope will be a mutually advantageous political union.Mr. Daines of Montana, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, is the first and so far only member of the Senate G.O.P. leadership team to endorse Mr. Trump. Mr. McConnell, who enabled Mr. Trump and his agenda during much of his presidency before the Capitol riot, has not spoken to the former president since December 2020. His No. 2, Senator John Thune of South Dakota, also has been mercilessly attacked by Mr. Trump.Mr. Thune portrayed Mr. Daines’s embrace of the former president as the cost of doing business — what’s necessary to win.“He’s got a tough job to do,” Mr. Thune told reporters at the Capitol. “He’s got a lot of races around the country that we need to win. And I think he wants as many allies as possible.”Asked about the fact that Mr. Daines has endorsed someone who has attacked both him and Mr. McConnell, the senator was temporarily at a loss for words.“Well,” Mr. Thune said with a pause, “what can I tell you?”Many Senate Republicans, in contrast to their counterparts in the House, view Mr. Trump as a political anchor who cost them the majority in 2020 with baseless claims of voter fraud in Georgia that damaged their runoff chances. Many believe Mr. Trump cost them again in 2022 by endorsing Senate contenders who struggled in the general election. Mr. McConnell has attributed his party’s inability to win the Senate to “candidate quality” problems spurred by Mr. Trump’s primary endorsements.Steven Cheung, a spokesman for Mr. Trump, said that there was “tremendous support nationally and statewide” for the former president, when asked about Senate Republican leaders’ reluctant acceptance of Mr. Daines’s endorsement.“By contrast, DeSantis has embarrassingly tiny support,” Mr. Cheung said.Some Republicans are determined to steer clear of Mr. Trump. Senator Mitt Romney of Utah, a vocal critic of Mr. Trump’s who voted to convict the former president in both of his impeachment trials, insisted that Mr. Daines’s backing for Mr. Trump should not be regarded as an embrace of the former president by the Senate G.O.P.“Montana is a big Trump-supporting state,” Mr. Romney said on Wednesday. “I don’t think he did that as the leader of the Republican team. Mitch McConnell is our leader, and I doubt he’ll endorse anybody.”A spokesman for Mr. Daines declined to comment on Mr. Romney’s characterization of the endorsement.Some wondered whether Mr. Daines was deliberately defying Mr. McConnell like the last chairman of the party campaign arm, Senator Rick Scott of Florida, did during last year’s midterm elections.“I was surprised,” Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa, another member of the party leadership, said this week when asked what she thought of the Daines endorsement. “But all of the senators have the opportunity to endorse who they want to endorse.”In fact, Mr. Daines and Mr. McConnell are on the same page.Mr. Trump’s endorsement highlighted how Senate Republicans shows an uneasy alliance among estranged political players.Dave Sanders for The New York TimesMr. Daines gave Mr. McConnell a heads up that he would be endorsing Mr. Trump ahead of a Monday night appearance on the podcast of Donald Trump Jr., the former president’s eldest son, according to the person familiar with his thinking.Mr. McConnell views Montana, West Virginia and Ohio — which Mr. Trump won by big margins — as among the most important Senate battlegrounds in 2024, and it will fall to Mr. Daines to keep the former president on friendly terms with the party’s favored candidates, especially in the states where he remains wildly popular.While the rest of Mr. McConnell’s team keeps their distance from the former president, Mr. Daines speaks frequently with Mr. Trump, including as recently as Wednesday night, said a person with direct knowledge of the call who was not authorized to discuss it publicly.So even after Mr. Trump has denigrated Mr. McConnell’s wife, Elaine Chao, the Senate minority leader has engaged in a familiar game with the former president, with whom he worked closely to cut taxes and stack the federal judiciary with ardent conservatives.Mr. McConnell has said as little as possible about the former president since cutting off all contact with him. He has ignored Mr. Trump’s attacks against him and his wife, and he has refused to follow the approach of former Representative Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming, who has said she plans to do whatever she can to stop Mr. Trump from becoming president again.Instead, Mr. McConnell has said he is focused on winning back the Senate, and in service of that goal he is already making accommodations for the former president. He has said he will support Mr. Trump if he wins the 2024 Republican nomination.Like many of his colleagues, Senator John Cornyn of Texas, a former chairman of the Republican campaign arm himself, is staying out of Mr. Trump’s way. He said he did not plan to endorse in the primary, but “will support the nominee” in the general election.Mr. Daines, he said, was “entitled to some latitude given the complexity of the political environment that we’re entering into.”Republicans’ goal, Mr. Cornyn added, was to win back the majority.“And I don’t really care what the tactics are,” he said. More