Lawler, Mike (1986- )

Subterms

    Latest story

    125 Shares189 Views

    How the G.O.P. Speaker Mess Has Divided N.Y. House Republicans

    by

    In the fight over Representative Jim Jordan’s bid for speaker, moderate Republicans are racing to outrun the chaos their party unleashed.If there is one thing Representative Mike Lawler of New York wants his constituents to know these days, it is that his political party is an absolute mess.“Stuck on stupid,” he branded a band of hard-right Republicans who pulled Congress to the brink of a government shutdown. He said their ouster of Speaker Kevin McCarthy “undermined the will of the American people.” As for the fight over a replacement that has ground the House to a halt for two weeks and counting?“This is the single stupidest thing I’ve ever seen politically, in terms of self-sabotage,” Mr. Lawler said in a telephone interview on Wednesday, just minutes after he joined 21 other Republicans and every Democrat to torpedo Representative Jim Jordan, a hard-right Ohioan, the latest candidate for speaker.His mounting frustration, voiced in interviews with reporters in the Capitol and on networks like CNN that are typically reviled on the right, is not merely an unusual display of bluntness. It is a risky gambit by one of the House’s most endangered Republicans to insulate himself from his own party as it careens, leaderless, toward another possible shutdown.Mr. Lawler’s outspokenness is perhaps the most glaring example of the balancing acts that anxious frontline Republicans are trying to pull off across the country — acrobatics that could determine the trajectory of the House this fall and beyond.The stakes are especially clear in New York, where Mr. Lawler and five fellow Republicans almost single-handedly helped deliver their party’s narrow House majority by flipping suburban districts from Long Island to the Hudson Valley.In almost every case, they won on hostile turf last year by assembling fragile coalitions comprising traditional conservatives and centrist Democrats attracted by the promise of a moderate counterbalance in Washington. Now, a push started by a small band of far-right agitators and a potential Jordan speakership threaten to shred those bonds and jeopardize Republicans’ standing with crucial swing voters ahead of 2024.Representatives Nick LaLota, left, and Anthony D’Esposito, who both represent Long Island districts won by President Biden, joined Mr. Lawler in voting against Mr. Jordan.Kenny Holston/The New York TimesNow, as they face intense pressure from their left and right flanks, a group of New York moderate Republicans that has mostly navigated key decisions as a bloc has increasingly begun to splinter, with four bucking their party and voting against Mr. Jordan.Representatives Anthony D’Esposito and Nick LaLota, who both represent Long Island districts won by President Biden, joined Mr. Lawler in voting against Mr. Jordan and have condemned those who took out Mr. McCarthy. So did Andrew Garbarino, another Long Islander who represents a district that Mr. Biden lost narrowly.All three voted for Lee Zeldin, their former colleague and onetime Republican candidate for governor in New York, even though Mr. Zeldin is no longer in office. They also issued near-identical statements outlining bipartisan priorities that they believed would falter under Mr. Jordan, the leader of the party’s rebellious right wing who has long been labeled a “legislative terrorist.”“I want a speaker who understands Long Island’s unique needs,” said Mr. D’Esposito, who represents a district where voters favored Mr. Biden by 14 points in 2020. He listed support for victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attack and lifting a cap on the amount of state and local taxes that can be deducted on taxpayers’ federal return.But Representative Marc Molinaro, a moderate who narrowly flipped a Biden district in the Hudson Valley on promises of bipartisanship, appeared to have reached a very different conclusion: that the damage of elongating the House’s paralysis would be worse than electing a right-wing speaker whose policies and style could scarcely be more different than his.“Most of people I represent wouldn’t know the speaker of the House if they backed over them with a pickup truck,” he said before voting for Mr. Jordan.Representative Brandon Williams, a Republican from the Syracuse area who voted for Mr. Jordan, has evidently chosen not to give voice to the issue at all.As for Representative George Santos’s concerns, they appear to be far more personal. Under federal indictment on 23 counts and with virtually no path to re-election, he is facing a push by his fellow New York Republicans to expel him from Congress. Whoever emerges as the next speaker will be likely to determine how quickly such a vote takes place.“We need to rally behind one man, and that man has largely now been identified as Jim Jordan,” he said on Monday in a video posted to X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.Republican lawmakers caution that there is still time to put the House back in order, and moderates appeared to be coalescing late Wednesday around trying to empower a respected House veteran, Patrick T. McHenry, to serve as a temporary speaker until Congress can reach a deal to fund the government and address the war breaking out in Israel and Gaza.Some moderates want Representative Patrick McHenry to serve as temporary speaker.Anna Rose Layden for The New York TimesBut many fear damage is already being done. Democrats have deployed aggressive tactics to try to lock in the dysfunction with potential voters, as they eye the handful of seats they need to retake the House next year.The House Majority PAC, House Democrats’ primary super PAC, placed thousands of robocalls in Mr. Lawler’s district on Monday asking voters to pressure him not to support Mr. Jordan for speaker, given Mr. Jordan’s vote to overturn the 2020 election and “an extreme agenda to ban abortion nationwide.”Mr. Lawler did not vote for Mr. Jordan; Democrats hit him anyway. “Mike Lawler is an unserious legislator whose wasted vote today is blocking critical work getting done on behalf of Lower Hudson Valley families,” Ellie Dougherty, a spokeswoman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said in an email blast.She issued similar quotes about Mr. D’Esposito and Mr. LaLota, while writing in another that Mr. Molinaro’s vote proved that he “embraces the far-right wing of his party.”At the same time, though, Republicans pushing too hard against their own party run the risk of sharp backlash from a right flank enamored of Mr. Jordan and eager to jump-start the House’s presidential impeachment inquiry and to fund new weapons for Israel’s battle against Hamas. In Mr. Lawler’s case, they played a key role in helping him topple Sean Patrick Maloney, the chairman of the Democratic campaign committee at the time, in one of the nation’s biggest upsets.Jack Chatham, a conservative talk radio host based in Albany, said on air on Tuesday that Mr. Lawler was “tempting fate,” particularly given the large number of retired law enforcement officers in his district, by opposing Mr. Jordan.Mr. Lawler, 37, said he could not get behind Mr. Jordan’s brand of politics and believed House Republicans — including their speaker candidate — had yet to reach a consensus that would allow them to govern.“So far this year, you have a group of people who have sought to undermine the majority, vote against the rules, vote against the speaker, move to vacate the speaker,” Mr. Lawler said. “That has been a challenge, and it hasn’t really been addressed.”He insisted Democrats, who refused to rescue Mr. McCarthy, should also share some blame politically. “Obviously, the longer this drags on, the worse it is,” added Mr. Lawler, a former political operative.For now, though, there are signs voters are cutting him some slack. Al Samuels, the head of the nonpartisan chamber of commerce in Rockland County, said Mr. Lawler needs to “protect how he is viewed” amid a national “embarrassment.”“I’m an old guy,” he said. “I believe in centrism and I believe we’re at our best as a nation when we reject the extremes, either right or left.” More

    More stories

    • 125 Shares119 Views

      in Elections

      How Trump Is Complicating McCarthy’s Attempts to Avoid a Shutdown

      by

      The former president has been publicly pushing a shutdown, but his views are shaped by his own handling of the 2018 shutdown.When a group of House Republicans thwarted Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s attempt at averting a government shutdown, he fumed that he was being stymied by lawmakers who wanted to “burn the whole place down.”But he spared any public ire for the most powerful member of his party who has been encouraging a shutdown: former President Donald J. Trump.“I’d shut down the government if they can’t make an appropriate deal, absolutely,” Mr. Trump said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”On his social media website, Truth Social, Mr. Trump went further, suggesting on Sunday that Republicans should dig in because President Biden, in Mr. Trump’s view, will take the blame.“The Republicans lost big on Debt Ceiling, got NOTHING, and now are worried that they will be blamed for the Budget Shutdown,” he wrote. “Wrong!!! Whoever is President will be blamed, in this case, Crooked (as Hell!) Joe Biden!”Mr. Trump’s view of how shutdowns work was shaped by his own experience as president, when the longest government shutdown in history took place from December 2018 to January 2019. He incurred the public blame for it, as he publicly embraced the idea of a shutdown while holding contentious talks about a budget agreement with two Democratic leaders, Senator Chuck Schumer of New York and the House speaker at the time, Nancy Pelosi of California.“I’ll be the one to shut it down,” Mr. Trump told the leaders in a contentious Oval Office meeting in December 2018 shortly before the shutdown. “I will take the mantle. And I will shut it down for border security.”There is no reason to believe that Mr. Biden would be granted outsize blame, if any at all, for a shutdown that a group of Republican holdouts in Congress are encouraging. Mr. McCarthy has privately noted what Mr. Trump said publicly at the time in 2018, according to a person with knowledge of Mr. McCarthy’s comments.In an earlier post on Truth Social, Mr. Trump suggested he believed the shutdown could “defund” the federal investigations he’s facing, although people have told him that such a belief was not likely to become reality, according to a person briefed on the conversation.Mr. Trump’s eagerness to push for chaos has only gone so far, however: The former president has not been calling lawmakers to try to push a shutdown.Yet Mr. McCarthy, whom Mr. Trump supported at the last minute when he ran for speaker, is facing an existential threat to his leadership, with his Republican critics looking to force him from his role amid the calamity of a likely shutdown.Aides to Mr. McCarthy and Mr. Trump declined to comment.People close to both men maintain that the looming government shutdown was not a strain on their relationship, nor was it a sign of a bigger rift. Nonetheless, a person close to Mr. Trump acknowledged that his support for a shutdown was providing encouragement to Mr. McCarthy’s adversaries.Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida, a leading supporter of a shutdown, said in an interview that one of Mr. Trump’s posts on social media endorsing a shutdown may have had an influence on some members of Congress.“I think there might have been a few people on the fence who were persuaded by that statement,” Mr. Gaetz said. “I view that as consequential.”Yet Mr. Trump is not being faulted, at least overtly, for his stance. In Congress, some Republicans dismissed the notion that Mr. Trump could do something to push Mr. Gaetz and his allies in the other direction, away from a shutdown.“I think it certainly helps with some of these folks when they hear from the former president, like during the speaker negotiations or the debt ceiling,” said Representative Mike Lawler of New York, a Republican member of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus. But he said it was Mr. Gaetz who was “creating a crisis.”A person close to Mr. Trump maintained that the former president did not view the situation in terms of helping Mr. McCarthy, nor did he view the speaker as being especially imperiled. Mr. Trump “doesn’t think Kevin needs rescuing,” the person said. In Mr. Trump’s view, the person said, a government shutdown isn’t a terrible thing so long as it’s not consequential.And there has been another issue at play: Mr. Trump’s bid for the White House.The person close to Mr. Trump insisted the former president had not been frustrated with Mr. McCarthy over his lack of an endorsement in the Republican presidential primary. Yet others who have spoken with Mr. Trump throughout the year said he had raised Mr. McCarthy’s lack of a formal endorsement several times.Mr. McCarthy has all but endorsed Mr. Trump in recent weeks — taking public shots at his chief rival, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, and talking up Mr. Trump — but he has delayed making it official.Earlier this year, Mr. McCarthy’s reasoning, according to three people with direct knowledge of his thinking, was that he was eventually going to endorse Mr. Trump but needed to hold off for fund-raising purposes. He has said that major donors who are essential to funding House Republican campaigns would cut off funds if he endorsed Mr. Trump and that he needed to raise as much money as possible from donors who do not like the former president before making the decision official, the people with knowledge of his thinking said.Another person in contact with Mr. McCarthy, while not disputing that he expressed those sentiments about fund-raising, said that he was one of the most prolific fund-raisers in the Republican Party, and that he expected to raise money regardless of Mr. Trump.Mr. Trump has also had an eye on expunging his impeachments. He asked Mr. McCarthy and his allies what they’re going to do to clear his impeachments — though it remains unclear whether they have any power to do so. Despite the lack of formal support, Mr. McCarthy has made sure to tend to the relationship with Mr. Trump since he said in a television interview earlier this year that he was uncertain the former president was the strongest nominee in the general election. That comment enraged Mr. Trump, who told his aides he wanted it fixed.More recently, Mr. McCarthy has struck a different note, saying: “President Trump is beating Biden right now in the polls. He’s stronger than he has ever been in this process.” More

    • 150 Shares149 Views

      in Elections

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

      by

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

    • 175 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      G.O.P. Leaders Stand by Santos as New York Republicans Call on Him to Resign

      by

      Republican congressional leaders badly need the newly elected representative’s vote, but local officials and lawmakers are eager to distance themselves from his scandal.WASHINGTON — New York Republicans are ready to rid themselves of Representative George Santos, the newly elected congressman from Long Island who has admitted to fabricating parts of his résumé and is under multiple local and federal investigations into his yearslong pattern of political deception.House Republican leaders, not so much.Amid mounting calls for his resignation from Republican members of Congress from New York and state party officials, Mr. Santos still has the backing of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and other House Republican leaders.In a news conference at the Capitol on Thursday, Mr. McCarthy made it clear that he had no intention of barring Mr. Santos from congressional committees or otherwise penalizing him for winning election under false pretenses.“The voters of his district have elected him,” Mr. McCarthy said. “He is seated. He is part of the Republican conference.”Mr. McCarthy downplayed the likelihood that allowing Mr. Santos to serve might put national security at risk, even though members of Congress routinely receive classified briefings from top military and other government officials.“I don’t see any way that he’s going to have top secret” information, Mr. McCarthy said Thursday at his first news conference since winning the speaker’s gavel, adding, “He’s got a long way to go to earn trust.”He added that Mr. Santos would face the House Ethics Committee, which considers allegations of misconduct by members.“If anything is found to be wrong, he will be held accountable exactly as anybody else in this body would be,” Mr. McCarthy said.The disconnect between the reaction from Nassau County Republicans and those in Washington reflects the differing political realities for both groups. In Congress, Republicans, who hold a paper-thin majority in the House, do not feel directly culpable for Mr. Santos’s misdeeds and have much more on the line if they lose his seat. Mr. McCarthy can’t spare a single vote in the House — least of all one who was a reliable supporter during the 15 rounds it took for him to secure the speakership.In the 2020 presidential election, President Biden won Mr. Santos’s district by 8.2 points. If he were to resign from Congress, prompting a special election for the seat, there is no guarantee that Republicans would be able to win it again.More on the George Santos ControversyBehind the Investigation: The Times journalists Michael Gold and Grace Ashford discuss how he was elected to Congress and how they discovered that he was a fraud.Going to Washington: Despite being under scrutiny for lies about his background, George Santos brings his saga to Capitol Hill, where he will face significant pressure from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.Facing Inquiries: Federal and local prosecutors are investigating whether Mr. Santos committed crimes involving his finances or made misleading statements, while authorities in Brazil said they would revive a 2008 fraud case against him.Embellished Résumés: While other politicians have also misled the public about their past, few have done so in as wide-ranging a manner as Mr. Santos.The New York Republicans who have repudiated Mr. Santos, by contrast, fear suffering by association with a man whose scandals threaten to tarnish what was a resurgent year for the party throughout the state. Five of the six representatives who have called on Mr. Santos to step down won seats in competitive districts where they are expected to face fierce challenges from Democrats in 2024.Other local Republicans have suggested that newly installed leaders in Washington are more concerned with their own short-term survival than the potential long-term consequences of backing Mr. Santos.“We have to think about our brand as a party,” said Bruce Blakeman, the Nassau County executive. “Are we a party that’s behind people of good character and integrity who are transparent? Or are we a party that, for cynical reasons, we are going to allow this to continue?”With Mr. McCarthy consumed by his own political future last week as he struggled for five days to secure the votes he needed to become speaker, the confounding issue of what was to be done with Mr. Santos was left up in the air.Speaker Kevin McCarthy can’t afford to lose a seat in the House, where his party holds a sliver of a majority.Haiyun Jiang/The New York TimesBut now that the speakership has been settled, Republicans are split on how to punish a member who is under active investigation by federal and local prosecutors into potential criminal activity during his two congressional campaigns, as well as fraud charges from Brazilian law enforcement officials.Representatives Anthony D’Esposito, Nick LaLota, Nick Langworthy and Brandon Williams, all newly elected from New York, have called for Mr. Santos’s resignation on Wednesday. Of those, only Mr. Langworthy, who serves as the state party chair, is in a safely Republican district. The Nassau County G.O.P. chairman, Joseph G. Cairo Jr., has also called for Mr. Santos to step down.On Thursday, two more Republican freshmen from New York, Representatives Mike Lawler and Marc Molinaro, said that they, too, believed Mr. Santos should resign.Mr. Lawler said in a statement that his fellow newcomer had “lost the confidence and support of his party, his constituents and his colleagues,” adding that Mr. Santos could not fulfill his duties as a member of Congress.At the news conference on Wednesday where a host of local Republican elected officials demanded Mr. Santos’s resignation, Mr. Cairo said he had not spoken with Mr. McCarthy.But, he added, he hoped that House Republican leaders “would support us.”Instead, they have taken a hands-off stance. Representative Elise Stefanik of New York, the No. 4 Republican who endorsed Mr. Santos during his campaign, notably sided with her fellow party leaders rather than her state’s congressional delegation, defending her new colleague.“It will play itself out,” Ms. Stefanik told CNN. “He’s a duly elected member of Congress. There have been members of Congress on the Democrat side who have faced investigations before.”Representative Steve Scalise, Republican of Louisiana and majority leader, brushed off questions about Mr. Santos, declaring it a matter that would be settled “internally.”Mr. Santos may be benefiting from the fact that his district is not further to the right. Some Republicans on Capitol Hill speculated privately that leaders might have made a different political calculation if Mr. Santos represented a district that former President Donald J. Trump had won by double digits in the presidential race.Mr. D’Esposito on Thursday tried to play down any tension within the fractured conference.“We are unified,” Mr. D’Esposito said. He and other local officials, he said, had felt that “we need to make our position known based on the fact that we have constituents that we represent there who are personally offended by the lies that George Santos has told or made.” But he said he had faith that Mr. McCarthy would make sure Mr. Santos was properly held “accountable.”Joseph G. Cairo Jr., the Nassau County G.O.P. chair, called for Mr. Santos’s resignation. The New York Republicans who have repudiated Mr. Santos fear being tarnished by his scandal.Johnny Milano for The New York TimesWhat may unify them is a political gene for self-protection.“They may be bailing on Santos faster because it’s a better topic for them than why the vetters didn’t vet him,” said Stu Loeser, a former press secretary to Mayor Michael Bloomberg, referring to party operatives’ failure to dig into any of Mr. Santos’s claims that turned out to be brazenly fabricated, choosing instead to blindly back his candidacy.At the news conference in New York, Mr. Cairo was quick to dub Mr. Santos an outsider, saying he was not representative of Long Island Republicans because he initially came from neighboring Queens. (His district does encompass part of Queens.)“I think George Santos is an exception to the rule,” Mr. Cairo said, adding that he hoped Nassau County voters would make judgments in future elections based on the issues and not “one individual who, unfortunately, was not truthful and ran on Long Island.”Mr. Santos, for now, is defying calls to resign and portraying himself as a partisan warrior. In an interview on the podcast “Bannon’s War Room” with Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida on Thursday, Mr. Santos said he was in Washington to “serve the people” and that he planned to continue doing so.“I was elected by 142,000 people,” Mr. Santos said. He said we would “find out in two years” if those voters didn’t want him.Mr. Santos also said confidently that he had outperformed the politicians calling for his resignation, saying “I beat them by double their margins in the victory.”Though he did outperform Mr. Lawler significantly, he fell far short of Mr. Langworthy’s 30-point win. Mr. LaLota won his race with a double-digit margin. Mr. Santos won his race by 7.6 points.Mr. Santos, who initially appeared out of his depth when he arrived in Washington last week, sitting alone in the House chamber and dodging the media as he got lost in the basement corridors of the Capitol complex, has quickly learned his way around Congress.By the end of the week, he was sitting on the House floor next to the center of the action, alongside Mr. Gaetz and at another point laughing with Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia.On Thursday, he portrayed himself as a fighter.“I just pray for all of you,” he said, “when they come for you, that you have the strength I have.”Michael Gold More

    • 150 Shares119 Views

      in Elections

      Republicans Target a Top House Democrat as Winds Shift to the Right

      by

      BRIARCLIFF MANOR, N.Y. — Representative Sean Patrick Maloney of New York was campaigning at a senior center recently, trying to give a largely Democratic audience reason for hope. But Pat Campbell, 84, had little patience for optimism.“We’re really worried about the Democratic Party,” Ms. Campbell, a Maloney supporter, interjected as the congressman mentioned the party’s legislative accomplishments.As he alluded to enthusiasm for defending abortion rights earlier this year, she insisted, “That’s not happening now!”And after the Saturday event, Ms. Campbell, a Democrat, fretted in an interview, “I’m afraid there are not enough of us.”As Democrats nationwide grow increasingly anxious about their midterm prospects, Mr. Maloney, the leader of the party’s House campaign arm, is racing to protect the current majority, helping vulnerable Democrats as they try to hang on in tough races across the country.But now he is himself one of those Democrats. The congressman is suddenly at real risk of losing his race for a seat in an area of the Hudson Valley that President Biden won by 10 percentage points. His predicament in New York reflects Democrats’ broader struggles in the face of Americans’ frustrations about the cost of living, Mr. Biden’s weak approval ratings and, sometimes, concerns about public safety.Republicans are throwing late money into their effort to defeat the powerful party leader, and the Democratic campaign committee Mr. Maloney leads is now spending cash to save him, a move that may rankle some Democrats as the party confronts difficult spending decisions across the map.“Sean Patrick Maloney is the highest-ranking Democrat in a competitive race,” said Assemblyman Mike Lawler, Mr. Maloney’s Republican opponent in the 17th District. A Republican victory, he said, would send a national message that “one-party rule does not work.”Party leaders are often enticing targets for their opposition, and they are typically difficult to defeat. Still, Republicans insist that their interest in the seat is not simply a symbolic attempt to make Democrats sweat, but rather a reflection of the worsening political climate facing Mr. Maloney and his party, especially in New York.The Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC aligned with the House Republican leadership, is plunging $6 million into the race, including a $4 million investment announced last week, with ads highlighting a 2018 video in which Mr. Maloney calls ending cash bail a “top priority.” The Republican group’s polling early this month showed Mr. Lawler with a narrow lead within the margin of error, 47 percent to 45 percent, with 8 percent undecided.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsElection Day is Tuesday, Nov. 8.Bracing for a Red Wave: Republicans were already favored to flip the House. Now they are looking to run up the score by vying for seats in deep-blue states.Pennsylvania Senate Race: Lt. Gov. John Fetterman and Mehmet Oz clashed in one of the most closely watched debates of the midterm campaign. Here are five takeaways.Polling Analysis: If these poll results keep up, everything from a Democratic hold in the Senate and a narrow House majority to a total G.O.P. rout becomes imaginable, writes Nate Cohn, The Times’s chief political analyst.Strategy Change: In the final stretch before the elections, some Democrats are pushing for a new message that acknowledges the economic uncertainty troubling the electorate.The House Republican campaign committee is also spending on the race. And Democrats acknowledge it is highly competitive.“I’m concerned about how motivated the Democrats are to vote,” said David Carlucci, a Democratic former state senator who represented the region.He said the politics of crime and bail reform — complex issues that have dominated the midterm landscape in New York — were a challenge for the Democratic brand. “It really moves the needle here,” he said.The race for the newly configured district took shape after a messy redistricting process that split Mr. Maloney’s current seat in two. Instead of running for a version of his current seat, Mr. Maloney decided to run in a slightly more Democratic-leaning district now represented by Mondaire Jones. (Mr. Jones then ran in a New York City primary and lost. Some Democrats sharply criticized Mr. Maloney’s handling of the process.)The district Mr. Maloney is now running for includes his home, but he must also introduce himself across significant new territory, even as he travels to raise money for fellow Democrats. Republicans have delighted in highlighting images from a fund-raising trip he took to Europe early this month.“Sean is new,” said Darren Rigger, a Democratic State Committee member from Westchester County. “People are getting to know him.”Mr. Maloney said in an interview that he had no regrets about where he chose to run. While redistricting was “disruptive,” he said, “it’s an honor to represent the community where I live.” He emphasized work he had done for the region.Mike Lawler defeated a seven-term Democrat for an assembly seat in 2020.Lauren Lancaster for The New York TimesMr. Maloney’s team notes that he has broad support from key players in the area, including labor, and that he has had a cash advantage over Mr. Lawler. He also had a vigorous campaign presence this summer while navigating a primary challenge from State Senator Alessandra Biaggi, a prominent liberal Democrat..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.“I just beat the ‘defund’ candidate,” he said as he highlighted his support for police departments, pushing back on Republican efforts to paint him as anti-law enforcement. In advertising, his campaign overtly embraces a “tough-on-crime” message.Mr. Maloney casts himself as a “mainstream guy” who emphasizes support for abortion rights. He has also denounced Mr. Lawler over a Congressional Leadership Fund mailer about crime that has been criticized as perpetuating racist stereotypes, while labeling his opponent a far-right extremist (“MAGA Mike”).“If you put $7 million behind a ham-and-cheese sandwich,” Mr. Maloney said, “that sandwich would be competitive in this district.”Mr. Lawler, who rejects the extremist label, faces steep challenges, especially over abortion rights. But he has credible political chops: He defeated a seven-term Democrat for an Assembly seat in 2020.The infusion of Republican cash in the race — and the Democratic spending help in response — leaves Mr. Maloney in an uncomfortable position.“If he wins and survives, they’ll say, ‘Hey, you spent money on you and you let all these other people lose,’” said former Representative Steve Stivers, who was chairman of the Republican House campaign arm in 2018. “If he loses, it means they didn’t spend enough money and they lost an extra seat that they might not have otherwise.”Mr. Maloney was elected chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee with a pitch that he had experience winning challenging districts, and he has insisted that he can both manage his race and be a strong party steward.On Saturday, he sounded notes of bravado as he discussed Republican spending. “Do I like it?” he said. “No, I do not. But they are going to look foolish for having done it.”But he also said that the spending from the Republican super PAC “changes the equation,” adding, “We’re going to do what it takes to hold the seat.” He said he had recused himself from the D.C.C.C.’s decision to buy $605,000 worth of ads for his race — a cost the committee is sharing with the Maloney campaign — though he acknowledged that the group’s staff members work for him.Chris Taylor, a D.C.C.C. spokesman, said in a statement, “We are going to make investments that ensure Democrats hold our House majority.” Outside groups are beginning to engage as well.The district Mr. Maloney is now running in includes his home, but he must also introduce himself across significant territory that he has never represented, even as he travels to raise money for fellow Democrats.Lauren Lancaster for The New York TimesParty strategists worry that passions over abortion rights have faded since Roe v. Wade was overturned, but interviews in liberal enclaves along the Hudson River showed that the issue still galvanizes Democrats and some independents.“Choice is a big issue,” said Cynthia Kalman of Ossining, N.Y., an independent who said she was leaning toward Democrats.But the district also includes more conservative constituencies.Mr. Lawler and Mr. Maloney are directly competing for Hasidic Jewish voters who often vote, to varying degrees, as a bloc. Mr. Lawler represents portions of those communities in his Assembly district.Mr. Maloney confirmed that he had invited the mayors of the Hasidic villages of New Square and Kaser, N.Y., to an event with Mr. Biden when he visited Poughkeepsie. He has also sought to link Mr. Lawler, who has worked as a political consultant, to an antisemitic video from the Rockland County Republican Party.Mr. Lawler, a former lobbyist who has faced scrutiny over his business, has disavowed the video and said that he asked at the time that it be removed.In an interview on Saturday, after he finished addressing — through a translator — a group of mostly immigrant Latina women at a community center, Mr. Lawler said he was focused on pocketbook and public safety issues that are urgent for many voters.“I’ve always been my own person,” Mr. Lawler said. “People are frustrated. And it really — when I go out talking to voters — it really has nothing to do with party. It has everything to do with policy.”Mr. Lawler, who was a 2016 Republican convention delegate for Donald J. Trump and voted for him in 2020, declined to say whether he wanted Mr. Trump to be the party’s 2024 nominee. Asked whether he believed Mr. Biden was elected legitimately, he replied, “Yes.”In a state that strongly supports abortion rights, Mr. Maloney and his Democratic allies are working to disqualify Mr. Lawler over that issue in the eyes of voters. Mr. Lawler, who opposes abortion with some exceptions, has cast it as a state issue, saying he would not support a federal ban. Abortion rights are protected in New York but have been banned or significantly restricted in many other states.“Across this district, the primary focus for voters is inflation and crime,” Mr. Lawler said, adding bluntly, “For those voters that abortion is their top issue, they’re never voting for me.”There are signs that violent crime is down in the Hudson Valley. But across New York, debates over the state’s bail laws have been a point of contention. Republicans are betting that the subject of public safety remains potent, especially in districts, like this one, where there is a significant law enforcement community.“I was unhappy with how the Democratic Party has been handling decisions with the inflation,” Steven Sanchez, 30, said as he worked at his family’s Colombian coffee shop in Ossining. Mr. Sanchez said he is typically a Democrat but is considering voting for Republicans.“New York has become very dangerous,” he added. “Hopefully on the Republican Party, it will change.”Mr. Rigger, the Democratic state official, said he was confident in the battle-tested Mr. Maloney. But he expressed concerns about what a tight New York race meant for the rest of the country.“When the Republicans are investing in Sean Patrick Maloney’s district, pouring money in against him, I think, ‘Ugh — they must be doing really well elsewhere,’” he said.Shane Goldmacher More