Leavitt, Karoline

Subterms

    Latest story

    125 Shares169 Views

    Far-Right Republicans Face Tough Races in Swing Districts, Testing McCarthy

    by

    The top House Republican spent freely to try to block extreme candidates who could imperil the party’s chances of winning the majority or challenge his path to the speakership. Some won anyway.WASHINGTON — As the midterm election season enters a critical final phase, some far-right Republicans are facing headwinds in congressional races that once appeared to be prime opportunities for the party to win seats, complicating the plans of Representative Kevin McCarthy, the minority leader who aspires to be speaker, and fueling Democratic hopes of cutting their losses in their fight to retain control of the House.Some of the candidates have risen despite the efforts of Mr. McCarthy, the California Republican who spent freely to defeat them in primaries and toiled to strike a balance between courting the mainstream and making peace with the ascendant extremists in his party’s ranks. Mr. McCarthy now faces possible losses in competitive districts — or the prospect of adding to the list of hard-right lawmakers in his conference who may be difficult to control if he becomes the House speaker next year.The situation underscores the growing influence of extremists styling themselves in the image of former President Donald J. Trump, and how the Republican Party’s core supporters continue to gravitate to such figures.“The story of the last seven years is Kevin McCarthy slowly realizing they’ve lost control of the party that is now dominated by Trump and the voters who love him and love candidates like him,” said Sarah Longwell, an anti-Trump Republican political strategist. “Trump controls the base, but the base is large enough to dictate the outcomes of primaries.”In New Hampshire, recent polling has shown the unpopularity of Karoline Leavitt, the 25-year-old ultra-MAGA challenger to Representative Chris Pappas, a Democrat. In a Saint Anselm College Survey Center poll conducted late last month, only 39 percent of voters had a favorable view of Ms. Leavitt, who has repeated Mr. Trump’s election lies, compared with 45 percent who regarded her negatively. Recent polls showed her trailing Mr. Pappas by 8 percentage points, although an AARP New Hampshire poll released last week showed the race to be neck-and-neck.A super PAC aligned with Mr. McCarthy spent $1.3 million to back Matt Mowers, a former Trump administration official, over Ms. Leavitt, and an additional $1 million during the primary attacking Mr. Pappas. Since winning the primary, Ms. Leavitt has not tacked to the middle, appearing on “War Room,” the podcast hosted by Stephen K. Bannon, two days after her victory.Karoline Leavitt initially said she would back Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio over Mr. McCarthy for House speaker, though she has since changed her position.Charles Krupa/Associated PressIn North Carolina, the McCarthy-affiliated group spent nearly $600,000 to try to stop the nomination of Sandy Smith, a self-described entrepreneur and farmer who has proudly admitted that she marched on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. But Ms. Smith won the primary, prompting political prognosticators to rate her district in North Carolina, which had previously trended only slightly toward Democrats, more decisively blue.In central New York, Mr. McCarthy poured $1 million into the campaign of Steve Wells, a former criminal prosecutor and businessman who was more of a known quantity, over Brandon Williams. Mr. Williams had called the overturning of Roe v. Wade — the Supreme Court decision that had established abortion rights in 1973 — a “monumental victory” and suggested that there were instances when a woman’s life should be sacrificed to deliver her unborn child.Mr. Williams is ahead in most general election polling, but the Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan newsletter that analyzes elections, still rates the race a tossup. Mr. McCarthy and the super PAC he is aligned with, the Congressional Leadership Fund, are now fully behind Mr. Williams.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.The Final Stretch: With less than one month until Election Day, Republicans remain favored to take over the House, but momentum in the pitched battle for the Senate has seesawed back and forth.A Surprising Battleground: New York has emerged from a haywire redistricting cycle as perhaps the most consequential congressional battleground in the country. For Democrats, the uncertainty is particularly jarring.Arizona’s Governor’s Race: Democrats are openly expressing their alarm that Katie Hobbs, the party’s nominee for governor in the state, is fumbling a chance to defeat Kari Lake in one of the most closely watched races.Herschel Walker: The Republican Senate nominee in Georgia reportedly paid for an ex-girlfriend’s abortion, but members of his party have learned to tolerate his behavior.When Republicans have bemoaned issues with “candidate quality,” they have mostly been talking about Senate races, where the influence of Mr. Trump helped contribute to a roster of candidates that has struggled in competitive races. In the House, Republicans have prided themselves on entering the general election with a diverse set of candidates that includes people of color, veterans and women, and on quietly thwarting the ascendance of some far-right candidates who leaders feared would alienate independent voters and cause problems if elected.Those efforts were led in large part by the Congressional Leadership Fund, which is competing in 53 races across the country.But the contests in which the minority leader and other top Republicans failed to block more incendiary candidates reflect the enduring influence of the far right and the challenge that Mr. McCarthy is likely to face should he succeed in winning back the majority. In a very narrow battlefield, even a handful of losses could make the difference between an operational majority and an utterly dysfunctional House.Some hard-right Republican candidates are facing headwinds in races that once appeared to be prime opportunities for their party to win House seats.Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times“The House majority will be won district by district, and running with the weakest and most extreme candidates in swing districts will cost the G.O.P.,” said Tommy Garcia, a spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee..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-ok2gjs{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs 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.Mr. Mowers, who lost his primary to Ms. Leavitt, defended Mr. McCarthy’s track record and said it would not hurt Republicans’ chances at taking the House.“No one can bat a thousand,” he said. “And while a few candidates from outside the mainstream have emerged that will have challenges winning a general election, the playing field is more than wide enough to recapture a majority.”In a few cases, the candidate whom Mr. McCarthy failed to defeat is thriving, and the outcome of the primary might not affect Republicans’ chances in the general election. Recent public polls have shown Mr. Williams, for instance, ahead of Francis Conole, the Democrat competing for an open seat in a competitive district in upstate New York.Mr. McCarthy’s super PAC often spends in places where its favored candidate is struggling, so it is not surprising that even with the outside boost of funds, some of those candidates still lost. Overall, the Congressional Leadership Fund sees its primary spending as a success story. The group helped several Republican incumbents fend off challenges from more extreme candidates in competitive districts, including Representatives Brian Fitzpatrick in Pennsylvania, David Valadao and Young Kim in California and Andrew Garbarino in New York.“By recruiting strong candidates and supporting them through their primaries, we were able to make our own luck,” said Dan Conston, the organization’s president. “Candidate quality matters, and proactively engaging put us in a dramatically better position not to just win the majority, but to elect stars that will be the future of the party.”But elsewhere across the country, right-wing candidates whom Mr. McCarthy tried to knock out have prevailed, bolstering Democrats’ chances of winning a seat.In Arizona, Kelly Cooper, who has refused to acknowledge the 2020 election results and called for the immediate release of people who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, defeated Tanya Wheeless, the granddaughter of a Mexican immigrant whom Mr. McCarthy’s PAC endorsed and helped fund.In the Third Congressional District in Washington, a group aligned with Mr. McCarthy, Take Back the House 2022, donated to Representative Jaime Herrera Beutler, who was one of 10 Republicans who voted to impeach Mr. Trump. But she was defeated in her primary by Joe Kent, who has said he would oppose Mr. McCarthy for the speakership if elected.Ms. Leavitt initially said she would back Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, a hard-right Republican, over Mr. McCarthy for speaker; she has since changed her position and said she would support Mr. McCarthy.“They’ve struggled to paint true Trump believers in a negative light, because that’s where the base is, particularly in the South,” said David Wasserman, an election expert with the Cook Political Report. “They have to find other ways to try and disqualify these candidates.”J. R. Majewski’s candidacy in Ohio has been buffeted by accusations that he lied about his military service.Gaelen Morse/ReutersThen there are the races that Mr. McCarthy stayed out of, where extreme candidates have prevailed and are now imperiling the party’s chances. In Ohio, J.R. Majewski, a Trump-backed Air Force veteran who was at the Capitol on Jan. 6 and has expressed sympathy for QAnon conspiracy theorists, emerged as the surprise winner from a primary in which the Congressional Leadership Fund did not back any candidate.Mr. McCarthy then embraced Mr. Majewski, campaigning with him in the state, where he declared, “We have a candidate that understands what Ohio needs.”Mr. Majewski’s candidacy has since been buffeted by accusations that he lied about his military service, undercutting his challenge to longtime Representative Marcy Kaptur. The National Republican Congressional Committee, the party’s campaign arm, canceled about $1 million in advertisements to help his campaign.In the general election, Mr. McCarthy has embraced the entire gamut of Republican candidates, striving to avoid appearing as though he is trying to purge the party of its Trumpist wing. He is now vocally backing Ms. Leavitt, and the National Republican Congressional Committee praised Ms. Smith after her victory.That mirrors Mr. McCarthy’s approach in Washington, where he has elevated some of the more extreme members of his conference, including Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia. The minority leader has made room for some of Mr. Trump’s favored elected officials even as he worked to defeat others he viewed as unelectable.“He’s living in a space where he has to conduct two parallel realities,” Ms. Longwell said. “He can say, ‘I’m knocking out some of these really crazy characters that are making us look bad,’ and he’s playing ball with some of Trump’s people.”Rachel Shorey More

    More stories

    • 125 Shares179 Views

      in Elections

      Two 25-Year-Olds Could Be Elected to Congress, a Historical Rarity

      by

      Generation Z has been pushing for more political power since its first members came of age in 2015. This year, it has its first opportunity to enter the halls of Congress — and, as the dust clears from a long primary season, two candidates are poised to take advantage.Karoline Leavitt won the Republican primary in New Hampshire’s First Congressional District on Tuesday, less than a month after turning 25, the constitutional minimum age to serve in the House. She is an underdog in the general election, facing a Democratic incumbent, Representative Chris Pappas. But the district is roughly evenly divided between the parties and the race is competitive.Even if Ms. Leavitt loses in November, the next Congress is virtually guaranteed to include a member of Generation Z: Maxwell Alejandro Frost, also 25, who won the Democratic primary last month for an open House seat in Florida’s solidly blue 10th Congressional District.Either of them, if elected, would be the youngest sitting member of Congress. If both are elected, the distinction will go to Ms. Leavitt, who is about seven months younger.But neither would be the youngest person ever elected to Congress.That record, unlikely ever to be broken, belongs to William C.C. Claiborne, who was 22 when he was elected to the House from Tennessee in 1797, according to congressional records. (There is some dispute in other sources about his exact age, but no dispute that he was younger than 25.) The age requirement was no different then: The Constitution said House members had to be at least 25, and Mr. Claiborne wasn’t. But the House chose to seat Mr. Claiborne anyway.A handful of 24-year-olds were seated in the 1800s, too, according to congressional records, as were some people who turned 25 less than a month before being sworn in.In modern times, however, it is rare for a 25-year-old to be elected to the House.Representative Madison Cawthorn, Republican of North Carolina, managed it in 2020; if elected this year, Ms. Leavitt would be less than a month younger than Mr. Cawthorn was when he was elected. Before Mr. Cawthorn, the last 25-year-old to serve in the House was Thomas Downey, a New York Democrat elected in 1974.Generation Z leans strongly toward Democrats, but its members are not an ideological monolith, as evidenced by the political leanings of Ms. Leavitt and Mr. Frost.Mr. Frost is a progressive Democrat who supports Medicare for all, abortion rights and stricter gun laws. “I come from a generation that has gone through more mass-shooting drills than fire drills,” he told The New York Times in an interview after his primary victory, adding that he believed his generation had “a natural sense of seeing the world through the eyes of the most vulnerable.”Ms. Leavitt, whose campaign did not respond to an interview request, is a right-wing Republican who worked as a press aide for former President Donald J. Trump. She supports a “zero tolerance” policy against illegal immigration and opposes abortion and gun control. More

    • 113 Shares139 Views

      in Elections

      Leavitt Upsets Mowers, Winning New Hampshire House G.O.P. Primary

      by

      Karoline Leavitt, a 25-year-old hard-right Republican who served as an assistant in President Donald J. Trump’s White House press office, won her party’s nomination on Tuesday for New Hampshire’s First Congressional District, according to The Associated Press. The race had devolved into a nasty battle with Matt Mowers, a former Trump administration colleague, over who carried the mantle of Trumpism.“Unfortunately, tonight’s results did not go our way,” Mr. Mowers wrote in a concession statement on Twitter at 11:25 p.m.Ms. Leavitt’s upset victory means she will face off in November against Representative Chris Pappas, a two-term Democratic congressman representing the highly competitive district in the eastern and southern parts of the state. Mr. Pappas is one of the most vulnerable Democrats this cycle, with his re-election race considered a tossup. If she wins, Ms. Leavitt would be among the youngest people ever elected to Congress. The Constitution requires House members to be at least 25 years old to serve. Ms. Leavitt turned 25 last month.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.A Fierce Primary Season Ends: Democrats are entering the final sprint to November with more optimism, especially in the Senate. But Republicans are confident they can gain a House majority.Midterm Data: Could the 2020 polling miss repeat itself? Will this election cycle really be different? Nate Cohn, The Times’s chief political analyst, looks at the data in his new newsletter.Republicans’ Abortion Struggles: Senator Lindsey Graham’s proposed nationwide 15-week abortion ban was intended to unite the G.O.P. before the November elections. But it has only exposed the party’s divisions.Democrats’ Dilemma: The party’s candidates have been trying to signal their independence from the White House, while not distancing themselves from President Biden’s base or agenda.Ms. Leavitt defeated Mr. Mowers, 33, a veteran of Mr. Trump’s State Department and of his 2016 campaign, who entered the race a year ago as the presumed Republican front-runner and benefited from an infusion of cash from an outside PAC aligned with Representative Kevin McCarthy, the Republican from California and minority leader, who is campaigning to become speaker.The candidates have few discernible differences on policy, and the race ultimately turned less on any ideological divide than on style and tone. It divided the House Republican leadership, exposing lingering rifts inside the party over Mr. Trump’s influence.Ms. Leavitt, who adopted Mr. Trump’s brash style and taste for inflammatory statements, was backed by a host of hard-right Republicans in Congress, most notably Representative Elise Stefanik of New York, the No. 3 Republican, who has also styled herself in the former president’s image. In her campaign, Ms. Leavitt unequivocally repeated Mr. Trump’s lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.Ms. Leavitt leaned into the attacks and the money pouring into the district to defeat her, positioning herself as the America First candidate fighting “the swamp” and claiming that if “establishment Republicans” were spending so much to defeat her then “I must be doing something right.” Tucker Carlson, the Fox News host, also elevated her as the anti-establishment candidate in the race.The Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC aligned with Mr. McCarthy, spent more than $1.3 million supporting Mr. Mowers. Another super PAC that supports moderate Republicans, Defending Main Street, spent over $1.2 million to attack Ms. Leavitt.Ms. Leavitt’s come-from-behind victory was also a win for Ms. Stefanik, who harbors ambitions to rise in the party. Her outside group E-Pac, which supports conservative female candidates, spent the legal maximum, $10,000, supporting Ms. Leavitt’s campaign. Ms. Stefanik also served as an informal adviser to Ms. Leavitt, who previously worked as her communications director.If Republicans win back control of the House of Representatives and Ms. Leavitt wins her seat in November, she could be a wild card for Mr. McCarthy in the mold of Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and other hard-right lawmakers who have sometimes proved a thorn in the minority leader’s side.But Ms. Leavitt enters the general election bruised by the bitter primary. Mr. Mowers’s campaign operated a website branding her “fake MAGA Karoline.” It accused her of having “never held a real job outside the swamp,” attending private school in Massachusetts and being registered to vote from the “penthouse” apartment where she lived in Washington before moving back to New Hampshire to run for office. And Ms. Leavitt’s brash style may make for an easier target for Democrats in a general election.“I think she is more beatable because Democrats can portray her as an inexperienced ideologue,” said David Wasserman, an election expert with the Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan newsletter that analyzes elections. More

    • 100 Shares149 Views

      in Elections

      What to Watch in Tuesday’s (Final!) Primary Night

      by

      Outside money has poured into New Hampshire heading into Tuesday’s primary as Republicans eye three opportunities to pick up Democratic-held seats, above all that of Senator Maggie Hassan, one of her party’s most vulnerable incumbents.But the leading G.O.P. candidate for Senate, Don Bolduc, is an election denier with a history of outlandish statements. His closest rival, Chuck Morse, the State Senate president, is playing on fears that nominating Mr. Bolduc could mean squandering a major opening.Ms. Hassan, a Democrat, narrowly won the seat in 2016. In a 50-50 U.S. Senate, every competitive race has the potential to tip the balance of power.New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Delaware are all holding primaries on Tuesday. It’s not a big night, but it’s the last round of voting before the November midterm elections.Here are the races to watch.Don Bolduc, a retired Army general, center, during a campaign appearance at the American Legion in Laconia, N.H., on Saturday.John Tully for The New York TimesA competitive Senate primaryPresident Biden carried New Hampshire by seven percentage points in 2020, and successful statewide Republican politicians have tended to hew to the center, appealing to independents and conservative Democrats. But Mr. Bolduc, a retired Army general, has not only embraced Mr. Trump’s lie that he won the 2020 presidential election, he has also called Gov. Chris Sununu a “Chinese Communist sympathizer” and questioned whether the United States still needs the F.B.I. (Mr. Sununu has called Mr. Bolduc a conspiracy theorist.) Money from super PACs with ties to both Republican and Democratic Senate leadership has flowed in to try to tip the scales, with the Senate Majority PAC, a Democratic group, spending millions to attack Mr. Morse, the establishment-backed candidate — a gambit that could aid Mr. Bolduc. Mr. Morse, who has the backing of Mr. Sununu and establishment Republicans but is trailing Mr. Bolduc by double digits in polls, met with Mr. Trump at the former president’s New Jersey golf club on Sept. 2, but no endorsement has materialized.Then again, Mr. Trump hasn’t endorsed Mr. Bolduc, either.A scramble for House seats Republicans in New Hampshire are wrangling over the chance to square off against U.S. Representatives Chris Pappas and Ann McLane Kuster, two Democrats whom Republicans see as vulnerable. Matt Mowers, who worked in the State Department during the Trump administration, and Karoline Leavitt, who worked in the White House communications office, are the leading candidates in a 10-person field in Mr. Pappas’s First District, which zigzags across much of eastern and southern New Hampshire..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-ok2gjs{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs 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.Mr. Mowers, who lost to Mr. Pappas in 2020, earned the endorsements of the House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, and the minority whip, Steve Scalise. Representative Elise Stefanik of New York, the third-ranking House Republican, is supporting Ms. Leavitt, who once worked for her. Ms. Leavitt and other Republican contenders have portrayed Mr. Mowers as an establishment tool and criticized him for voting in 2016 in both the New Jersey and New Hampshire primaries. (He voted in New Jersey before moving to New Hampshire to work on Chris Christie’s presidential campaign.) Mr. Mowers has defended himself by channeling Mr. Trump, saying he was being attacked because he had planned to “shake up the status quo.”In New Hampshire’s Second District, encompassing the rest of the state, seven Republicans are competing to face Ms. Kuster, a longtime adoption lawyer who is seeking her sixth term.George Hansel, the two-term Republican mayor of the liberal town of Keene, has the endorsement of Mr. Sununu. Other contenders include Bob Burns, the former Hillsborough county treasurer, and Lily Tang Williams, who ran for the Senate in Colorado as a Libertarian in 2016. In Rhode Island, six contenders are vying in the Democratic primary for the seat held by Representative Jim Langevin, who is retiring after 11 terms. Seth Magaziner, the state’s general treasurer, held a sizable lead in early polling. On the Republican side, Allan Fung, the former mayor of Cranston, is running uncontested.Odds and endsThat’s about it for what constitutes the excitement in Tuesday’s voting.In the New Hampshire governor’s race, Mr. Sununu, who declined to run for the Senate, is considered virtually untouchable in his drive for a fourth term. He faces negligible opposition in his primary and is heavily favored in November against Tom Sherman, a state senator who is uncontested in the Democratic primary for governor.In Rhode Island, Gov. Daniel McKee, the state’s former lieutenant governor, is seeking his first full term after replacing former Gov. Gina Raimondo, who left to serve in the Biden administration as commerce secretary. He faces four challengers in the Democratic primary, including Nellie Gorbea, the Rhode Island secretary of state.Republican hopes of recapturing the governor’s office rest on Ashley Kalus, a first-time candidate who moved to Rhode Island in 2021, and Jonathan Riccitelli, the owner of a hotel and building maintenance company, whose criminal record — much of it under another name — was reported by The Boston Globe. A college freshman, Zachary Hurwitz, also collected enough signatures to run as an independent.In Delaware, which has neither a Senate nor a governor’s race this year, the biggest contest is for state auditor, after the incumbent Democrat, Kathleen K. McGuiness, was convicted of official misconduct, conflict of interest and structuring a contract to avoid a procurement policy, all misdemeanors. In response, the state Democratic Party threw its support behind a challenger, Lydia York, a lawyer and accountant. More

    • 113 Shares199 Views

      in Elections

      Gun Shoot Will Conclude Karoline Leavitt’s House Primary Race

      by

      A heated New Hampshire primary in the state’s First Congressional District is going out with a literal bang.Karoline Leavitt, 25, who served an assistant in President Donald J. Trump’s press office and turned the primary into a bitter battle over which candidate carried the mantle of Trumpism, is closing her campaign Monday night with a gun shoot at the Londonderry Fish & Game Club in Litchfield, N.H.Special guests include two Republican members of Congress, Lauren Boebert of Colorado and Byron Donalds of Florida, Freedom Caucus members who represent the hard right wing of the party that Ms. Leavitt has aligned herself with. Ms. Boebert is pairing the campaign event with a signing of her memoir, “My American Life.”The event was set to be a splashy coda for a candidate who gained traction with conservative voters by reaching for the most extreme and provocative statements and molding herself in the image of Mr. Trump.The candidate who appears to be ahead, Matt Mowers, 33, is also a former Trump administration official billing himself as an “America First” conservative. He was set to spend the final night of his campaign visiting bars and restaurants in Manchester, a campaign aide said. The two former Trump aides are vying for the chance to run against the incumbent, Representative Chris Pappas, a Democrat.The tight race between Ms. Leavitt and Mr. Mowers divided MAGA Republicans and the party’s leaders in the House. The minority leader, Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, and former Trump campaign aides like Corey Lewandowski and David Bossie endorsed Mr. Mowers. Representative Elise Stefanik of New York, who is the No. 3 House Republican, and Senator Ted Cruz of Texas were among those who endorsed Ms. Leavitt.Mr. Mowers, who won the Republican nomination for the same House seat in 2020 but lost to Mr. Pappas, entered the race a year ago as the presumed front-runner. But Ms. Leavitt mounted a strident and surprisingly fierce challenge by billing herself as the anti-establishment candidate and savaging her opponent as a creature of the political “swamp.”A recent poll by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center showed Mr. Mowers leading Ms. Leavitt by a thin margin: 26 percent to 24 percent, barely more than the 2.2 point margin of error, though 26 percent of likely voters said they remained undecided.“Karoline Leavitt has been the straw that stirred the drink,” said Dante J. Scala, a political science professor at the University of New Hampshire.In campaign mailers, Mr. Mowers touted his 2020 endorsement from the former president, who did not endorse either of his former aides in this year’s race.The Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC aligned with Mr. McCarthy, has spent more than $1.3 million supporting Mr. Mowers. Another super PAC that supports moderate Republicans, Defending Main Street, has spent over $1.2 million and is running an ad that describes Ms. Leavitt as a “woke Gen-Z’er” and plays a Snapchat video she once posted where she used crude language to refer to her viewers.The race will be decided Tuesday night. More