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South Carolina U.S. Senate Primary Runoff Election Results 2022
Alyce McFadden
June 28, 2022 More
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Mail Ballots Are at Issue as States Consider New Rules and Legal Action
As the nation prepares for yet another pandemic election, the rules for voting by mail remain a flash point in many states, a conflict that is being waged in courtrooms and state houses over Republican-backed restrictions.Here’s what happened this week:In North Carolina, the State Board of Elections rejected a signature-matching requirement for absentee ballots that was proposed by the state Republican Party. The measure, denied by a party-line vote on Thursday, would have let counties compare signatures on applications and return envelopes for absentee ballots with those on voter registration cards.The board’s three Democrats said that the verification method would conflict with state law and would contribute to voters being treated differently, which they cautioned would be unconstitutional. The panel’s two G.O.P. members contended that checking signatures “simply builds trust in the system.”North Carolina is not the only battleground state where Republicans and Democrats are clashing over mail-in ballots.Pennsylvania’s top election official, Leigh M. Chapman, a Democrat who is the acting secretary of the commonwealth, sued three counties on Tuesday over their refusal to include undated mail-in ballots in their official tallies from the May 7 primaries.A state court had directed counties in June to report two sets of tallies to Ms. Chapman’s office, one that included ballots without dates handwritten on their return envelopes as required by law and one that did not.The three counties — Berks, Fayette and Lancaster, which are controlled by Republicans — have prevented the state from completing its final certification of the primary results, state elections officials said.The lack of dates on ballot envelopes was a point of contention in the Republican Senate primary that was narrowly won by Dr. Mehmet Oz over David McCormick. Disputes over such ballots have resulted in legal action in state and federal courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court.The conflict over mail-in voting is not limited to purple or red states.In deep-blue Massachusetts, the Supreme Judicial Court on Monday denied a lawsuit filed by the state Republican Party that had sought to block no-excuse mail-in voting from becoming permanent.The party had argued that voting by mail, made popular during the pandemic and codified as part of a law signed last month by Gov. Charlie Baker, a Republican, is unconstitutional.The court’s order in Massachusetts was not the only setback this week for Republicans.In Texas, a lawsuit challenging voting restrictions that were enacted in 2021 was for the most part allowed on Tuesday to move forward by a federal court judge in San Antonio.The secretary of state and state attorney general, offices held by Republicans, had sought to dismiss the legal action by several voting rights groups.The restrictions forbade balloting methods introduced in 2020 to make voting easier during the pandemic, including drive-through polling places and 24-hour voting. They also barred election officials from sending voters unsolicited absentee-ballot applications and from promoting the use of vote by mail.Voters must now provide their driver’s license number or the last four digits of their Social Security number on applications for mail-in ballots and on return envelopes. More
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‘Snooki’ Is Enlisted in John Fetterman’s Campaign Trolling Dr. Oz
On the list of potential political vulnerabilities, ties to New Jersey are rarely a campaign killer; for all the jokes, New Jersey has offered some of the greatest musical, culinary and cultural additions to the country.But the campaign of John Fetterman, the Democratic candidate for the open Senate seat in Pennsylvania, has been repeatedly nagging his Republican opponent, Mehmet Oz, for living in New Jersey before announcing his campaign in the Keystone State.In his latest such post on Twitter, Mr. Fetterman enlisted Nicole Polizzi, a cast member of the “Jersey Shore” franchise better known as Snooki, and a self-described “hot mess on a reality show,” to chide Dr. Oz for choosing to leave New Jersey “to look for a new job.”“Personally, I don’t know why anyone would want to leave Jersey,” Ms. Polizzi says in the video, which is framed to look like a spot from Cameo, a website that allows users to pay for personal video messages from celebrities (and, apparently, Snookis).The video, a tongue-in-cheek accusation of carpetbagging, was posted to Mr. Fetterman’s Twitter account, where he has been using memes and other internet “trolling” tactics to remind voters of Dr. Oz’s ties to the Garden State.Mr. Fetterman, who is recovering from a stroke in mid-May, recently copied pictures of Dr. Oz’s mansion in New Jersey from a 2020 spread in People magazine to match a recent campaign ad set that featured Dr. Oz appearing to speak from a room in the expansive home. And Mr. Fetterman’s campaign paid to fly a banner welcoming Dr. Oz back to New Jersey along southern Jersey Shore beaches, according to NJ.com.Dr. Oz has said he lives in Bryn Athyn, Pa., a suburb of Philadelphia about 12 miles from the New Jersey border.Asked for comment, a press officer for the Oz campaign directed reporters to a tweet from Mr. Oz’s account that did not respond to any residency questions, but rather a screenshot from a newscast from a 2013 incident where Mr. Fetterman had pulled a gun on Black jogger after saying he heard gunshots in the neighborhood. (Mr. Fetterman has defended his response to this episode.) More
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Democrats Face Deepening Peril as Republicans Seize on Inflation Fears
Economists warn that a blitz of midterm election campaign ads could push consumer prices even higher.WASHINGTON — Triple-digit gasoline bills. Bulging hamburger prices. A Fourth of July holiday that broke the bank.Prices are rising at the fastest rate in four decades, a painful development that has given Republicans a powerful talking point just months ahead of the midterm elections. With control of Congress very much in play, Republicans are investing heavily in a blitz of campaign advertisements that portray a dark sense of economic disarray as they seek to make inflation a political albatross for President Biden and Democrats.According to Kantar’s Campaign Media Analysis Group, candidates running in House, Senate and governor races around the country have spent nearly $22 million airing about 130,000 local and national television ads that mention inflation from early April through the beginning of July. Inflation was the 10th most common issue mentioned by Democrats and 11th most common for Republicans, according to the data, underscoring how critical the issue is to both parties this election cycle.The data released Wednesday showing that prices in June climbed 9.1 percent over the past year gave Republicans fresh ammunition against Mr. Biden and his party, ammunition that includes faulting Democrats for passing a $1.9 trillion stimulus package last year and efforts to push through additional spending in a sweeping climate and economic package known as “Build Back Better.”The intensifying focus on inflation is already weighing on Mr. Biden’s poll numbers. A New York Times/Siena College poll this week showed his approval at a meager 33 percent, with 20 percent of voters viewing jobs and the economy as the most important problem facing the country. Inflation and the cost of living followed closely behind. The poll also showed that the race for control of Congress is surprisingly tight.While gas prices have fallen from their $5 a gallon peak and there are signs that inflation might be slowing, consumers are unlikely to feel better off anytime soon. Gas prices are still much higher than they were a year ago, with the average national price for a gallon at $4.60 versus $3.15 in 2021, according to AAA.Voters view jobs and the economy as among the most important issues facing the country.Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times“It’s a very negative thing politically for the Democrats,” said Jason Furman, an economist at Harvard University and former Obama administration economic adviser. “My guess is that the negative views about inflation are so deeply baked in that nothing can change in the next few months to change them.”The White House, while acknowledging the pain that inflation is causing, has tried to deflect responsibility, saying that it is a global problem and attributing it to shortages of food and oil stemming from Russian President Vladimir V. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.On Wednesday, Mr. Biden called the latest Consumer Price Index “out-of-date” given the recent fall in gas prices and said the data “is a reminder that all major economies are battling this Covid-related challenge, made worse by Putin’s unconscionable aggression.”8 Signs That the Economy Is Losing SteamCard 1 of 9Worrying outlook. More
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A Surprisingly Tight Race
Despite Biden’s low approval ratings, Democrats are roughly tied with Republicans in the midterm polls. We explain why.My colleague Nate Cohn, The Times’s chief political analyst, has spent a lot of time thinking about the changing politics of economic class in the U.S. College graduates used to favor Republicans, while blue-collar voters favored Democrats. Increasingly, though, the opposite is true.The social liberalism of Democrats — on immigration, marijuana, L.G.B.T. rights, affirmative action, abortion and more — has simultaneously attracted progressive college graduates and repelled more culturally conservative working-class voters. If you’re trying to figure out why Latino voters have shifted right in the past few years, even during the Trump presidency, this dynamic offers an explanation.In this year’s midterm elections, the changing politics of class may get supercharged, Nate notes. Why? Look at the stories in the news. Many working-class voters are frustrated over inflation and other economic disruptions, making them unhappy with the Biden administration and Democrats. Many college graduates are angry about the recent decisions from a Supreme Court dominated by Republican appointees.These attitudes are evident in the first New York Times/Siena College poll of the midterm cycle: Among registered voters who never attended college, Republicans lead by almost 20 percentage points. Among college graduates, Democrats lead by almost 30 points. One startling comparison is that Democrats lead by almost as much among white college graduates as among all voters of color.To give you a clearer sense for what these patterns mean for the likely outcome of the November midterms — and which party will control the House and the Senate for the next two years — I’m turning over the rest of today’s lead item to Nate.With President Biden’s approval rating sagging into the low 30s and nearly 80 percent of voters saying the country is headed in the wrong direction, the ingredients would seem to be in place for a Republican landslide in this year’s midterm elections.But the first Times/Siena survey of the cycle shows something else: a close, competitive race for Congress.Overall, voters prefer Democrats to control Congress over Republicans by one point among registered voters, 41 to 40 percent. Once we exclude those people who are unlikely to vote, Republicans lead by one point, 44 to 43 percent.It’s a pretty surprising result, given the circumstances. Analysts have all but written off the Democrats in the race for House control, not only because Biden’s ratings are so poor but also because there’s a long history of the president’s party getting pummeled in midterm elections. These factors help explain why FiveThirtyEight’s statistical forecast gives the Republicans an 88 percent chance of winning House control.But the Times/Siena poll is not alone in showing a competitive race at this stage. Since the court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, most polls have shown a tight race on the so-called “generic ballot,” which asks whether voters would prefer Democrats or Republicans to control Congress. The race has shifted about three points in the Democrats’ direction, compared with surveys by the same pollsters before the court’s ruling.At least for the moment, conservative policy victories — on abortion, climate policy, religious rights and gun laws — and a spate of mass shootings seem to have insulated Democrats. State polls have also looked good for Democrats. The party has led just about every poll of a hotly contested Senate race over the last few months, including polls of Republican-held states like Pennsylvania and Ohio.If all this good polling for the Democrats reminds you of a story you’ve heard before, there is a reason. The polls have overestimated Democratic support for much of the last decade, partly because polls have a harder time reaching working-class voters, who have been trending Republican. It’s hard not to wonder whether the good news for Democrats might simply be a harbinger of yet another high-profile misfire.It could also mean that the Democrats are at a high-water mark that will not last. Republicans will try to make the races a referendum on the president, and only 23 percent of undecided voters in the Times/Siena poll approve of Joe Biden’s performance. If inflation remains high this year, as many economists expect, undecided voters might have further reason to break against the Democrats.Americans are paying more for groceries.Alisha Jucevic for The New York TimesThe general election campaign might be especially helpful to the Republican Senate candidates coming out of bruising primary elections. It’s understandable why Republican voters who just voted against damaged or flawed candidates — like J.D. Vance in Ohio and Dr. Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania — may be reluctant to embrace these candidates immediately. Yet that could change when the race focuses on partisan issues and the stakes of congressional control, reminding these voters why they are Republicans.For the moment, the Democrats are benefiting from a favorable news environment. The recent Supreme Court rulings, the mass shootings and even the Jan. 6 hearings have focused national attention on a relatively favorable set of issues for Democrats. For them to stay competitive, they might need to keep those issues in the limelight until November.RelatedAnother poll detail: We asked respondents to tell us what they thought was the most important problem facing the country — in an open-ended question, without any suggested answers. About 35 percent named inflation or the economy. Less than 1 percent named the pandemic.Nate Cohn explains the poll on today’s episode of “The Daily.”THE LATEST NEWSJames Webb TelescopeThe edge of a star-forming region in the Carina Nebula, a vast cloud of dust and gases.NASA, ESA, CSA and STScIScientists revealed images of stars and galaxies that had been too far away or too dim to see.Here’s how the Webb telescope, the most powerful ever, looks into the universe’s origins.Experts spent weeks picking out which images to share. See their choices here.In Times Opinion, Shannon Stirone writes that the images remind us how small — and connected — we are.Jan 6.Donald Trump mobilized supporters, some prepared for violence, to travel to Washington to disrupt Congress’ election certification, new evidence at a Jan. 6 committee hearing showed.“We basically were just following what he said,” testified Stephen Ayres, an Ohio man who entered the Capitol that day.Trump planned for him and his supporters to go to the Capitol but he wanted it to seem spontaneous.During a profane, hourslong White House meeting weeks earlier, Trump advisers including Sidney Powell and Michael Flynn proposed that the military seize voting machines.Trump has tried to contact a committee witness, which suggests he was trying to influence testimony.BusinessHow many dollars one euro buys
As of 8:42 a.m. Eastern time WednesdaySource: FactSetBy The New York TimesOne U.S. dollar is worth almost as much as a euro for the first time in nearly 20 years.Twitter sued Elon Musk to force him to go through with buying the company.Other Big StoriesSri Lanka’s president fled to the Maldives, days after protesters stormed his residence.On his trip to the Middle East, Biden will try to speed up oil flow to the U.S., among other things.A sixth Covid wave is hitting New York City. Many people are shrugging it off.Republicans are pressing Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, to curb abortions. He has stayed quiet about his plans.The South Carolina lawyer Alex Murdaugh will probably be charged with murdering his wife and son, one of his lawyers said.OpinionsLaughing can be a valuable coping mechanism, even for abortion, Alison Leiby writes.To navigate growing up poor, Joshua Hunt learned to lie.One redrawn Texas congressional district shows how partisan gerrymandering drives our politics toward the extremes, Jesse Wegman explains.MORNING READSResearch says most of us underestimate the power of the casual check-in.Moritz WeinertChecking in: Text your friends.Dial 988: What to know about a new mental health crisis hotline.Ask Well: Is chocolate good for you?A Times classic: Why one man kayaked alone across the Atlantic at 70.Lives Lived: In 1975, the singer and actor Adam Wade became the first Black host of a network television game show. He died at 87.SPORTS NEWS FROM THE ATHLETICHow M.L.B. could eliminate the infield shift: Jayson Stark reports that some change is now “inevitable” and it’s only a matter of when. Minor-league teams are already acting.Another N.B.A. star could be traded: Donovan Mitchell of the Utah Jazz is the name to watch. The New York Knicks would have interest. They aren’t alone.Jimmy Garoppolo’s next stop: The San Francisco 49ers quarterback could be the next one dealt after Baker Mayfield was traded last week.The Boston Red Sox get their ace back: Chris Sale returned last night, striking out five batters while not allowing a run in five innings. A healthy and effective Sale makes the Red Sox far more formidable.ARTS AND IDEAS Brian Cox of “Succession.”Macall Polay/HBO, via Associated PressThe Emmy nominations“Succession” dominated the Emmy nominations, which were announced yesterday, earning 25. In the best drama category, it will square off against the South Korean thriller “Squid Game,” which secured 14 nominations, the most ever for a foreign-language show. Other highlights:Repeat nominees: Last year’s best actor and actress in a comedy, Jason Sudeikis (for “Ted Lasso”) and Jean Smart (for “Hacks”), received nominations. Sudeikis will be up against Steve Martin, for his role in “Only Murders in the Building.” The last time Martin won an Emmy was 1969.Breakout star: Quinta Brunson, from the rookie hit “Abbott Elementary,” got her first nominations.Hulu: The streaming service could score its biggest Emmys haul with nominations for the limited series “Dopesick,” “The Dropout” and “Pam & Tommy.”Snubs: Neither Sterling K. Brown nor Mandy Moore were recognized for the final season of “This Is Us.”Full list: Here are all the nominees.PLAY, WATCH, EATWhat to CookRyan Liebe for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Barrett Washburne.Savory Thai noodles and seared brussels sprouts make for a delicious vegan dinner.What to Read“Carnality,” by Lina Wolff, starts as a conventional novel. That doesn’t last.What to WatchThe director of “Persuasion” argues that the movie is faithful to Jane Austen.Now Time to PlayThe pangram from yesterday’s Spelling Bee was alchemy. Here is today’s puzzle.Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: Wild guesses (five letters).And here’s today’s Wordle. After, use our bot to get better.Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. — DavidP.S. Two Times correspondents are swapping roles: Norimitsu Onishi will cover Canada, and Catherine Porter will replace him in Paris.Here’s today’s front page.“The Daily” is about The Times’s new political poll.Claire Moses, Ian Prasad Philbrick and Ashley Wu contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com.Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. More
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Poll Shows Tight Race for Control of Congress as Class Divide Widens
With President Biden’s approval rating mired in the 30s and with nearly 80 percent of voters saying the country is heading in the wrong direction, all the ingredients seem to be in place for a Republican sweep in the November midterm elections.But Democrats and Republicans begin the campaign in a surprisingly close race for control of Congress, according to the first New York Times/Siena College survey of the cycle. More
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When Republicans Backed Herschel Walker, They Embraced a Double Standard
As I wrote in this newsletter in March, the phrase “the soft bigotry of low expectations,” coined by George W. Bush when he was a presidential candidate, pithily captures a wisdom that’s difficult to discount, regardless of one’s political stripe. But its emergence as a critique of the educational establishment has meant that it’s generally thought of as a charge from the right.There are times, though, when the right might consider attending to the proverbial log in its own eye, few more obvious and disturbing than the elevation of the ex-football star Herschel Walker, a Black man, as the Republican Party’s candidate in this year’s Georgia Senate race.To start, Walker is fact-challenged: His campaign removed a false claim from its website that he graduated from college. He has falsely claimed to have worked in law enforcement. The lucrative chicken processing business he has reportedly claimed to own is apparently neither especially lucrative nor owned by him. In a local TV interview this year, he said, implausibly, “I’ve never heard President Trump ever say” that the 2020 election was stolen.As Maya King reported this week for The Times, “After repeatedly criticizing absent fathers in Black households,” Walker “publicly acknowledged having fathered two sons and a daughter with whom he is not regularly in contact.”It is hardly uncommon, however, for people running for office to have messy pasts. And in theory, someone could be an effective senator while, like Walker, questioning the theory of evolution: “At one time, science said man came from apes, did it not?” he asked in March. “If that is true, why are there still apes? Think about it.” Or even while, as he did two years ago, offering the take that there existed a “dry mist” that “will kill any Covid on your body” that “they don’t want to talk about.”The problem with Walker is how glaringly unfit he is for public office apart from all that.Asked whether he would have voted for President Biden’s bipartisan infrastructure bill, Walker objected that it was “totally unfair” to expect him to answer the question because he hadn’t yet seen “all the facts,” apparently unaware that one would expect him to have formed an opinion via, well, following the news. Asked, on the day of the Uvalde massacre, about his position on new gun laws, Walker seemed unclear that candidates are expected to at least fake a basic familiarity with the issues, responding, “What I like to do is see it and everything and stuff.”Days later on Fox News, he went into a bit more detail in a verbal bouillabaisse that almost rose to the level of performance art, saying:You know, Cain killed Abel. You know, and that’s a problem that we have. And I said, what we need to do is look into how we can stop those things. You know, you talked about doing a disinformation, what about getting a department that can look at young men that’s looking at women, that’s looking at their social media? What about doing that, looking into things like that, and we can stop that that way?This isn’t a mere matter of verbal dexterity. He’s not just a political neophyte getting his sea legs as a public speaker — in recent months, we’ve watched Eric Adams, the New York City mayor, going through that. Walker isn’t just gaffe-prone, as Biden has been throughout his career. He isn’t someone underqualified and swivel-tongued, like the former governor and current congressional candidate Sarah Palin, who still gives the impression of someone who could have learned on the job. Walker doesn’t appear to have the slightest clue about, or interest in, matters of state, and gives precious little indication that this would change.Here’s where I’m supposed to write something like, “Walker makes Donald Trump look like Benjamin Disraeli by comparison.” But it’s more that Trump, who has endorsed Walker, is pretty much as clueless. Trump’s speeches are riveting — at least to his devotees — and certainly more practiced, but given how recently we’ve seen what happens when someone who would lose an argument with a cloud is placed in a position of grave responsibility, it’s rather grievous to see Republicans now do this with Walker.So why are they doing it?You could say that the issue here is less racism than strategy. The incumbent Democratic senator, Raphael Warnock, is Black, and Georgia Republicans presumably hope that a useful number of Black voters who might otherwise default to supporting him will be swayed by another Black candidate with a famous name, regardless of his lack of credentials. Banking on public naïveté isn’t necessarily a racist act, but the optics here are repulsive: It’s hard to imagine Republicans backing a white candidate so profoundly and shamelessly unsuited for the role. It presents a double standard that manifests as a brutal lack of respect for all voters, Black voters in particular.Serious figures have served in Congress’s upper house, from Henry Clay to Lyndon B. Johnson, Margaret Chase Smith to Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama to Tim Scott. And now, potentially, Herschel see-it-and-everything-and-stuff Walker? This amounts to the same kind of insult that comes from the left when elite schools lower admissions criteria in order to attract more Black students — a kind of pragmatism forged in condescension. Some call that bigotry. I would quibble about the definition, but only that, and not loudly. Walker as a candidate for the United States Senate is water from the same well.Have feedback? Send me a note at McWhorter-newsletter@nytimes.com.John McWhorter (@JohnHMcWhorter) is an associate professor of linguistics at Columbia University. He hosts the podcast “Lexicon Valley” and is the author, most recently, of “Woke Racism: How a New Religion Has Betrayed Black America.” More
