Mastriano, Doug

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      Josh Shapiro Defends Primary Ad Tying Doug Mastriano to Trump

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      Mr. Shapiro, the Democratic nominee for governor in Pennsylvania, said he was eager to start the general election campaign.Josh Shapiro, the newly nominated Democratic candidate for governor in Pennsylvania, defended on Sunday a television ad he ran that appeared to elevate the standing of the Republican rival he will face in November — a man Mr. Shapiro has called the country’s most extreme candidate for governor.The ad is part of a long-held strategy among campaign tacticians: elevate your most extreme rival, and peel away disaffected moderates from that rival’s party come November. Last week, Axios noted that the rise of far-right, Trump-aligned candidates could test this theory and that Democrats are “trying to engineer the rise of ultra-MAGA candidates they feel will be easier to defeat in a general election.”But in today’s highly polarized environment, in which party affiliation is deeply interwoven with people’s sense of identity, that strategy could backfire, as many Democrats were stunned to learn in 2016.During the Republican primary in Pennsylvania, Mr. Shapiro, the state’s attorney general, ran an ad that called State Senator Doug Mastriano “one of Donald Trump’s strongest supporters.” The ad went on to say that Mr. Mastriano “wants to end vote by mail. He led the fight to audit the 2020 election. If Mastriano wins, it’s a win for what Donald Trump stands for.”Mr. Mastriano was a central figure in Mr. Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election results and, if he wins in November, he could be in a position to overturn the results of the state’s election in 2024.On Sunday, the CNN host Dana Bash asked Mr. Shapiro if it was “irresponsible” to boost a candidate like Mr. Mastriano “because you think you can beat him.”It was not, Mr. Shapiro said. For weeks, Mr. Mastriano led the crowded Republican field, according to public and private polling, and Mr. Shapiro, who was uncontested for the Democratic nomination, said he was eager to have voters understand the choice they would soon face.“What we did was start the general election campaign and demonstrate the clear contrast, the stark differences between he and I,” Mr. Shapiro said. More

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      Republican Panic Grows After Mastriano Wins

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      The aftershocks of Tuesday’s big primaries are still rumbling across Pennsylvania, but one impact is already clear: Republican voters’ choice of Doug Mastriano in the governor’s race is giving the G.O.P. fits.Conversations with Republican strategists, donors and lobbyists in and outside of Pennsylvania in recent days reveal a party seething with anxiety, dissension and score-settling over Mastriano’s nomination.In the run-up to Tuesday night, Republicans openly used words and phrases like “suicide mission,” “disaster” and “voyage of the Titanic” to convey just what a catastrophe they believed his candidacy will be for their party.An adviser to several Republican governors, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said there was wide displeasure with the outcome, calling him unelectable. The Mastriano campaign did not respond to a request for comment.Some in Pennsylvania blame Jeff Yass, a billionaire options trader and the state’s most powerful donor, for sticking with Bill McSwain for governor despite Donald Trump’s blistering anti-endorsement; others point the finger at Lawrence Tabas, the state party chairman, for failing to clear the field; still others say that Trump should have stayed out of the race altogether instead of endorsing Mastriano. Tabas did not respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.An 11th-hour effort to stop Mastriano failed when both McSwain and Dave White, a self-funding candidate who spent at least $5 million of his own money, refused to drop out and support former Representative Lou Barletta, whose supporters insisted he was the more viable option.Many Republicans thought that idea was futile and far too late; several said a serious effort to prevent Mastriano from winning should have begun last summer, while others said that Yass and his allies could have dropped McSwain sooner.“Had they kept their powder dry, they could have seen the lay of the land, when Mastriano’s lead was 8-10, and backed Barletta,” said Sam Katz, a former Republican candidate for governor who now backs Josh Shapiro, the Democratic nominee.“Had they spent $5 million in three weeks, they might have forced Trump to make a different choice and changed everything,” Katz added.Mastriano had amassed nearly 45 percent of the vote as of Wednesday afternoon.Matthew Brouillette, head of Commonwealth Partners, which bankrolled McSwain’s campaign, noted that his organization also backed Carrie DelRosso, who won the lieutenant governor’s race. He said the criticism was coming largely from “consultants and rent-seekers who don’t like us as we disrupt their gravy trains.”After the Pennsylvania and North Carolina PrimariesMay 17 was the biggest day so far in the 2022 midterm cycle. Here’s what we’ve learned.Trump’s Limits: The MAGA movement is dominating Republican primaries, but Donald J. Trump’s control over it may be slipping.‘Stop the Steal’ Endures: G.O.P. candidates who aggressively cast doubt on the 2020 election have fared best, while Democratic voters are pushing for change. Here are more takeaways.Trump Endorsements: Most of the candidates backed by the former president have prevailed. However, there are some noteworthy losses.Up Next: Closely watched races in Georgia and Alabama on May 24 will offer a clearer picture of Mr. Trump’s influence.Ties to Jan. 6 and QAnonMastriano’s vulnerabilities are legion, G.O.P. operatives lament.The state senator and retired U.S. Army colonel has taken a hard line on abortion, which he has said should be illegal under all circumstances. He organized buses to Washington for the Jan. 6, 2021, rally in Washington and can be seen on video crossing police lines at the Capitol as the rally became a riot. He has also been a leading advocate of the baseless claims that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump.Mastriano’s name has appeared in documents released by the committee investigating the Capitol riot, and he claims to have been in close personal contact with Trump about their shared drive to overturn President Biden’s victory. In February, the committee demanded “documents and information that are relevant to the select committee’s investigation” in a letter to Mastriano. He has refused to say whom he would appoint as secretary of state, a critical position overseeing election infrastructure and voting.Mastriano has appeared at events linked to QAnon, the amorphous conspiracy theory that alleges there is a secret cabal of elite pedophiles running the federal government and other major U.S. institutions. He also has made statements that veer into Islamophobia.He is likely to be an especially weak candidate in the crowded suburbs around Philadelphia, the state’s most important political battleground. On the other side of the state, the editorial page of The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has already all but officially endorsed Shapiro as “the only statewide candidate who did everything the Pennsylvania way.”Operatives in both parties expect Shapiro to blitz Mastriano with advertising portraying him as a dangerous extremist while Mastriano’s shoestring organization struggles to raise money.Even before Mastriano clinched the nomination, Shapiro’s campaign aired an ad highlighting his views on abortion and the 2020 election as well as his ties to Trump, who lost the state to Biden by 80,000 votes.Mastriano gave scant indication during Tuesday’s victory speech that he was ready to shift toward a more palatable general election message. Listing his early priorities as governor, he said, “mandates are gone,” “any jab for job requirements are gone,” critical race theory is “over,” “only biological females can play on biological female teams” and “you can only use the bathroom that your biological anatomy says.”The Mastriano matchup also plays to Shapiro’s carefully cultivated image as a fighter for democracy, though his campaign plans to focus primarily on bread-and-butter economic issues such as jobs, taxes and inflation.As attorney general, Shapiro was directly involved in the Pennsylvania government’s litigation after the 2020 election, and oversaw at least 40 cases of alleged voter fraud — winning every single one.Josh Shapiro campaigning in Meadville, Pa.Jeff Swensen for The New York TimesWait-and-see modeWill national Republicans help Mastriano or shun him? Right now, the major players in governor’s races appear to be waiting to see how the race develops before making that determination.Some Republicans believe the national “tailwinds” blowing in their favor might help Mastriano win despite all of his weaknesses, but for now, Democrats are thrilled to be facing him in November. They note that Shapiro performed better than Biden did in Pennsylvania during his re-election race as state attorney general, and expect Shapiro to be flooded with donations from in and outside the state.On Tuesday night, the Republican Governors Association issued a lukewarm statement acknowledging Mastriano’s victory, but suggesting he was on his own for now.“Republican voters in Pennsylvania have chosen Doug Mastriano as their nominee for governor,” Executive Director Dave Rexrode said. “The R.G.A. remains committed to engaging in competitive gubernatorial contests where our support can have an impact.”The statement left room for the possibility that the G.O.P. governors might help Mastriano should the Pennsylvania race be close in the fall.Understand the 2022 Midterm ElectionsCard 1 of 6Why are these midterms so important? More

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      Midterm Stakes Grow Clearer: Election Deniers Will Be on Many Ballots

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      Republican voters in this week’s primary races demonstrated a willingness to nominate candidates who parrot Donald J. Trump’s election lies and who appear intent on exerting extraordinary political control over voting systems. The results make clear that the November midterms may well affect the fate of free and fair elections in the country.In Pennsylvania, Republican voters united behind a nominee for governor, Doug Mastriano, who helped lead the brazen effort to overturn the state’s 2020 election and chartered buses to the rally before the Capitol riot, and who has since promoted a constitutionally impossible effort to decertify President Biden’s victory in his state.In North Carolina, voters chose a G.O.P. Senate nominee, Representative Ted Budd, who voted in Congress against certifying the 2020 results and who continues to refuse to say that Mr. Biden was legitimately elected.And in Idaho, which Mr. Trump won overwhelmingly in 2020, 57 percent of voters backed two Republican candidates for secretary of state who pushed election falsehoods, though they lost a three-way race to a rival who accepts Mr. Biden as president.The strong showings on Tuesday by election deniers, who have counterparts running competitively in primaries across the country over the coming months, were an early signal of the threat posed by the Trump-inspired movement.“It’s a big problem,” said former Representative Charlie Dent, a Pennsylvania Republican, who added that the G.O.P. needs “to show an alternative vision for the party. I don’t think we’re seeing enough of that right now.”While election issues have dominated several high-profile Republican primaries so far, G.O.P. candidates do not always place 2020 objections at the center of their pitches to voters. Instead, fomenting doubts about Mr. Biden’s victory is often the table stakes of Republican primaries that can tilt hard to the right. Candidates who avoid the subject risk losing credibility with the party’s base.When talking to voters, many Republican candidates have focused heavily on a broader list of promises to restore conservative governance. And in many general-election races, candidates from both major parties are likely to focus on inflation and the economy.Still, the election issue hangs over several races in presidential battleground states. Republicans trying to reclaim governor’s mansions and take over top offices overseeing elections have fallen over one another for the last year and a half to cater to voters who believe myriad false claims about the 2020 contest.The biggest single test will be next Tuesday in Georgia, where Mr. Trump has backed a slate of candidates running on election-denial platforms against the incumbent governor, secretary of state and attorney general.After the Pennsylvania and North Carolina PrimariesMay 17 was the biggest day so far in the 2022 midterm cycle. Here’s what we’ve learned.Trump’s Limits: The MAGA movement is dominating Republican primaries, but Donald J. Trump’s control over it may be slipping.‘Stop the Steal’ Endures: G.O.P. candidates who aggressively cast doubt on the 2020 election have fared best, while Democratic voters are pushing for change. Here are more takeaways.Trump Endorsements: Most of the candidates backed by the former president have prevailed. However, there are some noteworthy losses.Up Next: Closely watched races in Georgia and Alabama on May 24 will offer a clearer picture of Mr. Trump’s influence.Mr. Trump’s choice for governor, former Senator David Perdue, appears likely to fall short against Gov. Brian Kemp, whom Mr. Trump still blames for his 2020 loss in Georgia. All three races could wind up in runoffs if no candidate secures a majority of the primary vote.Representative Jody Hice of Georgia is running with Donald J. Trump’s backing for Georgia secretary of state. Mr. Trump was angry that Brad Raffensperger, the incumbent, did not help him overturn the state’s 2020 results.Audra Melton for The New York TimesMr. Perdue and Representative Jody Hice, who is challenging Brad Raffensperger, the secretary of state, have each falsely argued that rampant voter fraud marred the 2020 Georgia contests. Mr. Perdue began a debate with Mr. Kemp by declaring: “The election in 2020 was rigged and stolen.” Mr. Hice said he would not have certified Mr. Biden’s victory.In the state’s Senate race, the leading Republican candidate, the Trump-backed former football star Herschel Walker, said on Wednesday that he wasn’t sure if Mr. Biden had been lawfully elected in 2020.“I don’t know,” Mr. Walker told a New York Times reporter after a speech in Macon, Ga. “I do think there was problems. And I think everybody else thinks there was problems, and that’s the reason right now everybody’s so upset.”But no Republican nominee for a major swing-state office has done more to amplify bogus election claims than Mr. Mastriano in Pennsylvania.Mr. Mastriano has helped promote continuing — and constitutionally impossible — efforts to decertify Pennsylvania’s 2020 results. Julio Cortez/Associated PressA state senator and retired Army colonel, he spent $3,354 in campaign funds to charter buses to Washington on Jan. 6, 2021. A Senate Judiciary Committee report said that video footage had confirmed that Mr. Mastriano had “passed through breached barricades and police lines” near the Capitol, though he has denied that he breached the lines and there is no evidence that he entered the Capitol itself.This March, Mr. Mastriano held a campaign event in Gettysburg at which attendees signed a petition calling on Pennsylvania to decertify the state’s 2020 results, according to The York Daily Record.The decertification push has become the latest litmus test in 2020 election denialism. It has also rattled Republicans in Wisconsin, where one of the party’s four major candidates for governor has made undoing Mr. Biden’s 2020 victory in the state the central plank of his campaign.Mr. Trump has encouraged the decertification effort in Wisconsin and offered a late endorsement to Mr. Mastriano. The former president has conditioned his endorsement, the most valuable seal of approval in Republican politics, on amplifying false claims about the election.Once in office, Trump-backed candidates are likely to try to follow through on promises to alter election law — in some cases, by simply making voting more difficult, but in others, by going so far as to give Republican-controlled state legislatures the right to overturn election results.In Pennsylvania, Kathy Barnette, a Jan. 6 rally attendee who pushed many false stolen-election claims and campaigned on a slate with Mr. Mastriano, placed third in the state’s G.O.P. Senate primary with about 25 percent of the vote.And the two men locked in a photo finish for first place, Dr. Mehmet Oz and David McCormick, have also cast doubt on the 2020 election results, refusing to say Mr. Biden won fairly.Dr. Mehmet Oz is not as strident as Mr. Mastriano on election issues, but he has declined to say that Mr. Biden won fairly.Kriston Jae Bethel for The New York TimesDr. Oz, who was endorsed by Mr. Trump, has said in his stump speech that “we can’t leave 2020 behind,” without articulating precisely what he means.Understand the 2022 Midterm ElectionsCard 1 of 6Why are these midterms so important? More

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      America’s Doug Mastriano Problem

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      If the Ohio Senate primary two weeks ago provided some clarity about the ideological divisions in the Republican Party, Tuesday’s primaries often seemed more like a showcase for the distinctive personalities that populate a Trumpified G.O.P.The Pennsylvania Senate race gave us an especially vivid mix: As of this writing, the Celebrity Doctor and the Hedge Fund Guy Pretending to Be a MAGA True Believer may be headed for a recount, after the Would-Be Media Personality With the Inspiring Back Story and the Unfortunate Twitter Feed faded back into the pack. In the governor’s race, Republican voters chose to nominate Doug Mastriano, a.k.a. the QAnon Dad. In North Carolina, they ended — for now — the political career of Representative Madison Cawthorn, the Obviously Suffering Grifter.On substance, as opposed to personality, though, the night’s stakes were relatively simple: Can Republicans prevent their party from becoming the party of constitutional crisis, with leaders tacitly committed to turning the next close presidential election into a legal-judicial-political train wreck?This is a distinctive version of a familiar political problem. Whenever a destabilizing populist rebellion is unleashed inside a democratic polity, there are generally two ways to bring back stability without some kind of crisis or rupture in the system.Sometimes the revolt can be quarantined within a minority coalition and defeated by a majority. This was the destiny, for instance, of William Jennings Bryan’s 1890s prairie-populist rebellion, which took over the Democratic Party but went down to multiple presidential defeats at the hands of the more establishmentarian Republicans. You can see a similar pattern, for now, in French politics, where the populism of Marine Le Pen keeps getting isolated and defeated by the widely disliked but grudgingly tolerated centrism of Emmanuel Macron.In the alternative path to stability, the party being reshaped by populism finds leaders who can absorb its energies, channel its grievances and claim its mantle — but also defeat or suppress its most extreme manifestations. This was arguably the path of New Deal liberalism in its relationship to Depression-era populism and radicalism: In the 1930s, Franklin Roosevelt was able to sustain support from voters who were also drawn to more demagogic characters, from Huey Long to Charles Coughlin. Two generations later, it was the path of Reaganite conservatism in its relationship to both George Wallace’s populism and the Goldwaterite New Right.The problem for America today is that neither stabilizing strategy is going particularly well. Part of the Never Trump movement has aspired to a Macron-style strategy, preaching establishment unity behind the Democratic Party. But the Democrats haven’t cooperated: They conspicuously failed to contain and defeat Trumpism in 2016, and there is no sign that the Biden-era variation on the party is equipped to hold on to the majority it won in 2020.Meanwhile, the Republican Party at the moment does have a provisional model for channeling but also restraining populism. Essentially it involves leaning into culture-war controversy and rhetorical pugilism to a degree that provokes constant liberal outrage and using that outrage to reassure populist voters that you’re on their side and they don’t need to throw you over for a conspiracy theorist or Jan. 6 marcher.This is the model, in different styles and contexts, of Glenn Youngkin and Ron DeSantis. In Tuesday’s primaries it worked for Idaho’s conservative incumbent governor, Brad Little, who easily defeated his own lieutenant governor’s much-further-right campaign. Next week the same approach seems likely to help Brian Kemp defeat David Perdue for the governor’s nomination in Georgia. And it offers the party’s only chance, most likely via a DeSantis candidacy, to defeat Donald Trump in 2024.Unfortunately this model works best when you have a trusted figure, a known quantity, delivering the “I’ll be your warrior, I’ll defeat the left” message. The Cawthorn race, in which the toxic congressman was unseated by a member of the North Carolina State Senate, shows that this figure doesn’t have to be an incumbent to succeed, especially if other statewide leaders provide unified support. But if you have neither unity nor a figure with statewide prominence or incumbency as your champion — no Kemp, no Little — then you can get results like Mastriano’s victory last night in Pennsylvania: a Republican nominee for governor who cannot be trusted to carry out his constitutional duties should the presidential election be close in 2024.So now the obligation returns to the Democrats. Mastriano certainly deserves to lose the general election, and probably he will. But throughout the whole Trumpian experience, the Democratic Party has consistently failed its own tests of responsibility: It has talked constantly about the threat to democracy while moving leftward to a degree that makes it difficult to impossible to hold the center, and it has repeatedly cheered on unfit Republican candidates on the theory that they will be easier to beat.This happened conspicuously with Trump himself, and more unforgivably it happened again with Mastriano: Pennsylvania Democrats sent out mailers boosting his candidacy and ran a big ad buy, more than twice Mastriano’s own TV spending, calling him “one of Donald Trump’s strongest supporters” — an “attack” line perfectly scripted to improve his primary support.Now they have him, as they had Trump in 2016. We’ll see if they can make the story end differently this time.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTOpinion) and Instagram. More

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      Primaries Show Limits, and Depths, of Trump’s Power Over G.O.P. Base

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      The tumultuous start to the Republican primary season, including a down-to-the-wire Senate race that divided conservatives in Pennsylvania on Tuesday, has shown how thoroughly Donald J. Trump has remade his party in his image — and the limits of his control over his creation.In each of the most contentious primary races this month — including two closely watched contests next week in Alabama and Georgia — nearly every candidate has run a campaign modeled on the former president’s. Their websites and advertisements are filled with his images. They promote his policies, and many repeat his false claims about election fraud in 2020.But Mr. Trump’s power over Republican voters has proved to be less commanding.Candidates endorsed by Mr. Trump lost governor’s races in Idaho and Nebraska, and a House race in North Carolina. In Senate contests in Ohio (where his pick won earlier this month) and Pennsylvania (which remained too close to call Wednesday morning), roughly 70 percent of Republicans voted against his endorsement. In contests next week, his chosen candidates for Georgia governor and Alabama senator are trailing in polls.Long known for being dialed into his voters, Mr. Trump increasingly appears to be chasing his supporters as much as marshaling them. Republican voters’ distrust of authority and appetite for hard-line politics — traits Mr. Trump once capitalized on — have worked against him. Some have come to see the president they elected to lead an insurgency as an establishment figure inside his own movement.Trumpism is ascendant in the Republican Party, with or without Mr. Trump, said Ken Spain, a Republican strategist and former National Republican Congressional Committee official.“The so-called MAGA movement is a bottom-up movement,” Mr. Spain said, “not one to be dictated from the top down.”The primaries aren’t the first time conservative voters in Mr. Trump’s red-capped constituency have demonstrated their independence from the patriarch of the Make America Great Again movement.In August, at one of Mr. Trump’s largest post-presidential campaign rallies, the crowd booed after he urged them to get vaccinated against Covid-19. In January, some of the most influential voices in Mr. Trump’s orbit openly criticized his pick for a House seat in Middle Tennessee, Morgan Ortagus — who had served in the Trump administration for two years as State Department spokeswoman but was deemed insufficiently MAGA.These mini-rebellions have tended to flare up whenever Mr. Trump’s supporters view his directives or endorsements as not Trumpy enough.“There’s no obvious heir apparent when it comes to America First — it’s still him,” said Kellyanne Conway, Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign manager and White House counselor. “But people feel they can love him and intend to follow him into another presidential run — and not agree with all of his choices this year.”After the Pennsylvania and North Carolina PrimariesMay 17 was the biggest day so far in the 2022 midterm cycle. Here’s what we’ve learned.Trump’s Limits: The MAGA movement is dominating Republican primaries, but Donald J. Trump’s control over it may be slipping.‘Stop the Steal’ Endures: G.O.P. candidates who aggressively cast doubt on the 2020 election have fared best, while Democratic voters are pushing for change. Here are more takeaways.Trump Endorsements: Most of the candidates backed by the former president have prevailed. However, there are some noteworthy losses.Up Next: Closely watched races in Georgia and Alabama on May 24 will offer a clearer picture of Mr. Trump’s influence.Still, Republican candidates remain desperate to win Mr. Trump’s endorsement. In Georgia’s Senate race, Mr. Trump’s support for Herschel Walker kept serious rivals away. In some contested races, his endorsement has proved to be hugely influential, as it was in North Carolina’s Senate primary on Tuesday, where Representative Ted Budd cruised to victory against a former governor and a former congressman.But the emergence of an autonomous wing of the MAGA movement — one that is more uncompromising than Mr. Trump — has allowed even candidates without Mr. Trump’s endorsement to claim the mantle.“MAGA does not belong to President Trump,” Kathy Barnette said during a Pennsylvania Senate primary debate in April.The late surge from Ms. Barnette, who portrayed herself as a higher-octane version of Mr. Trump, eroded support for Dr. Mehmet Oz, the longtime television personality whom Mr. Trump endorsed, from conservatives who questioned his political credentials. As a result, Mr. Oz was running neck-and-neck with David McCormick, the hedge fund executive who had withstood a flurry of criticism from Mr. Trump. Still, Mr. Oz held about one-third of the vote.Republican Senate candidate Kathy Barnette at her election watch party Tuesday night in Elizabethtown, Pa. Ms. Barnette portrayed herself as a higher-octane version of Mr. Trump.Kriston Jae Bethel for The New York TimesOutside Ms. Barnette’s election night party on Tuesday, Diante Johnson, a Republican activist and the founder and president of the Black Conservative Federation, said she was proud of how the conservative author and commentator fought against the party powers that be.“The knife came to her and she didn’t back up,” Ms. Johnson said. “Every Trump establishment individual that came after her, she stood there and fought.”Ms. Barnette’s rise stunned Mr. Trump, who never considered the possibility of endorsing her candidacy, advisers said.But his base’s increasing autonomy should surprise no one.As president, Mr. Trump governed in a constant state of concern about tending to his supporters. Even though he was elected in part as a deal-making political outsider — he had spent much of his adult life toggling between political parties — he rarely made a significant decision without considering how his base would react.Those instincts prevented him from reaching a significant deal with Congress over immigration policy and fueled battles with Democratic leaders that led to repeated government shutdowns. His fear of appearing weak to his base voters drove his decision to not wear a mask in public for months into the pandemic.While Mr. Trump has indicated he is inclined to run for president for a third time in 2024, some advisers said the volatile and intensely fought primaries have risked alienating some of his supporters.Understand the 2022 Midterm ElectionsCard 1 of 6Why are these midterms so important? More

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      5 Primary Takeaways: Election Deniers Thrive Even as Trumpism Drifts

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      Pennsylvania’s Republican Senate contest, the biggest and most expensive race of a five-state primary night, is a photo finish between David McCormick, a former hedge fund executive, and Dr. Mehmet Oz, the celebrity surgeon. It appears headed to a statewide recount.The night delivered a split decision for former President Donald J. Trump, with his choice for Idaho governor falling well short, Dr. Oz in a virtual tie and his candidates for Senate in North Carolina and governor in Pennsylvania triumphant.On the Democratic side, voters pushed for change over consensus, nominating a left-leaning political brawler for Senate in Pennsylvania and nudging a leading moderate in the House closer to defeat in Oregon as votes were counted overnight.Here are a few key takeaways from Tuesday’s primaries, the biggest day so far of the 2022 midterm cycle:Republican voters mostly rewarded candidates who dispute the 2020 election results.The Republican candidates who did best on Tuesday were the ones who have most aggressively cast doubt on the 2020 election results and have campaigned on restricting voting further and overhauling how elections are run.Doug Mastriano, the far-right candidate who won the G.O.P. nomination for Pennsylvania governor in a landslide, attended the rally on Jan. 6, 2021, that led to the assault on the Capitol and has since called for decertifying the results of the 2020 election.Representative Ted Budd of North Carolina, who beat a former governor by over 30 percentage points in the state’s Republican primary for Senate, voted last year against certifying the 2020 election results — and, in the aftermath of that contest, texted Mark Meadows, then the White House chief of staff, to push the bogus claim that Dominion Voting Systems might have had a connection to the liberal billionaire George Soros.On Tuesday, Mr. Budd refused to say that President Biden was the legitimate 2020 victor.Representative Ted Budd easily won North Carolina’s Republican primary race for Senate.Allison Lee Isley/The Winston-Salem Journal, via Associated PressVoters in Pennsylvania’s Republican primary for Senate sent a more mixed message: Kathy Barnette, a far-right commentator who centered her campaign on Mr. Trump’s election falsehoods, trailed her narrowly divided rivals Mr. McCormick and Dr. Oz early Wednesday.But Ms. Barnette, with roughly 25 percent of the vote, performed far better than many political observers had expected just two weeks ago, when she began a last-minute surge on the back of strong debate performances.Mr. McCormick and Dr. Oz are hardly tethered close to reality on election matters. Both have refused to acknowledge Mr. Biden as the rightful winner in 2020, playing to their party’s base of Trump supporters.The success of the election deniers comes after a year and a half in which Mr. Trump has continued to fixate on his 2020 loss and, in some places, has called on Republican state legislators to try to decertify their states’ results — something that has no basis in law.The G.O.P. will feel bullish about the Pennsylvania Senate race. The governor’s contest is another story.Republicans avoided what many saw as a general-election catastrophe when Ms. Barnette, who had a long history of offensive comments and who federal records show had finished ninth in the fund-raising battle in Pennsylvania’s Senate race, slipped far behind Mr. McCormick and Dr. Oz.Both Mr. McCormick, a former hedge fund executive, and Dr. Oz, who was endorsed by Mr. Trump, have largely self-financed their campaigns and could continue to do so, though neither would have much trouble raising money in a general election.The eventual winner will face Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, a Democrat who has long been a favorite of progressives but has recently tacked to the center as his primary victory became assured.David McCormick waited with supporters in Pittsburgh as votes were counted. Jeff Swensen/Getty ImagesWith nearly all of the vote counted, the margin between Mr. McCormick and Dr. Oz was well under one-half of one percent, the threshold to trigger automatic recounts for statewide races in Pennsylvania. Before that can happen, thousands of mailed-in votes are still to be counted from counties across the state.Whoever emerges from the Republican Senate primary will be on a ticket with, and will probably be asked to defend positions taken by, Mr. Mastriano. He has run a hard-right campaign and enters the general election as an underdog to Josh Shapiro, the state’s Democratic attorney general.Trump’s endorsement is still worth a lot. But Republican voters often have minds of their own.In Ohio this month, J.D. Vance received 32 percent of the vote. In Nebraska last week, Charles W. Herbster got 30 percent. And on Tuesday alone:Dr. Mehmet Oz was hovering around 31 percent of the vote in Pennsylvania.Bo Hines took 32 percent in a House primary in North Carolina.Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin of Idaho lost her primary for governor with about a quarter of the vote.All of these candidates were endorsed by Mr. Trump in competitive primaries. And the outcome of these races has established the value of his endorsement in 2022: About one-third of Republican primary voters will back the Trump candidate.In some races, like Mr. Vance’s for Senate and Mr. Hines’s, that’s enough to win and for the former president to claim credit. Elsewhere, as in Mr. Herbster’s bid for governor, the Trump-backed candidate fell short.To be sure, Mr. Trump has won far more races than he has lost, and he saved face on Tuesday night with his late endorsement of Mr. Mastriano as polls showed the Pennsylvania candidate with a strong lead.Mr. Trump’s early endorsement of Mr. Budd in North Carolina’s Senate race choked off support and fund-raising for Mr. Budd’s establishment-minded rivals, including former Gov. Pat McCrory.But in Nebraska, Mr. Herbster and Mr. Trump couldn’t compete with a local political machine and millions of dollars from Gov. Pete Ricketts. In Pennsylvania, some local Republicans never warmed to Dr. Oz despite the Trump endorsement.None of this bodes well for Mr. Trump’s Georgia picks, who are facing cash disadvantages and, unlike in the primary contests so far this year, entrenched incumbents. The Georgia primaries are next week.Conor Lamb said electability matters most. Voters agreed — and chose John Fetterman.When he burst onto the national political scene in 2018 by winning a special election to a House district Mr. Trump had carried by 18 points, Conor Lamb presented himself as the Democrat who could win over Republican voters in tough races.Mr. Lamb made electability his central pitch to Pennsylvania voters in this year’s Senate race. Democratic voters didn’t disagree — they just decided overwhelmingly that his opponent, Mr. Fetterman, was the better general-election choice in the race.Representative Conor Lamb with supporters on Tuesday in Pittsburgh. He had far more endorsements than Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, but less voter enthusiasm.Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesMr. Fetterman, who left the campaign trail on Friday after suffering a stroke and had a pacemaker installed on Tuesday, outclassed Mr. Lamb in every aspect of the campaign.Understand the 2022 Midterm ElectionsCard 1 of 6Why are these midterms so important? More

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      Here’s where Trump’s endorsement record stands so far.

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      Most of the candidates former President Donald J. Trump endorsed in contested Republican primaries have won in this early phase of the 2022 midterms. Many of those he backed were running unopposed or faced little-known, poorly funded opponents. There have been some noteworthy losses, however.Here is a look at Mr. Trump’s endorsement record in some of the most closely watched races.Doug Mastriano, who was endorsed by Mr. Trump just a few days ahead of the May 17 primary, won the Republican nomination for Pennsylvania governor.Michael M. Santiago/Getty ImagesA victory in Pennsylvania, and one key race was too close to callDoug Mastriano, a state senator and retired Army colonel who has propagated myriad false claims about the 2020 election and attended the protest leading up to the Capitol riot, won the Republican nomination for Pennsylvania governor. Mr. Trump endorsed him just a few days ahead of the May 17 primary. In the state’s critical Republican Senate primary, it is not yet known how Mr. Trump’s endorsement of Dr. Mehmet Oz will play out. The race between Dr. Oz and Dave McCormick was extremely tight and an official recount is likely. Kathy Barnette, who had a late surge in the race, was in a strong third place.Representative Ted Budd won the Republican nomination for Senate in North Carolina.Allison Lee Isley/The Winston-Salem Journal, via Associated PressTwo wins and a loss in North Carolina Representative Ted Budd, who was endorsed by Mr. Trump and the influential anti-tax group Club for Growth, won the Republican nomination for Senate, and Bo Hines, a 26-year-old political novice who enthralled Mr. Trump, was catapulted to victory in his Republican primary for a House seat outside Raleigh. But Representative Madison Cawthorn crumbled under the weight of repeated scandals and blunders. He was ousted in his May 17 primary, a stinging rejection of a Trump-endorsed candidate. Voters chose Chuck Edwards, a state senator, in the crowded primary.J.D. Vance won his competitive Republican primary for an Ohio Senate seat with the help of Mr. Trump’s endorsement.Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesVictories in OhioThe Senate candidate J.D. Vance won his hard-fought primary over a field of well-funded candidates, nearly all of whom pitched themselves as Trump-like Republicans. Mr. Vance, an author and venture capitalist, had transformed himself from a self-described “never Trump guy” in 2016 to an “America First” candidate in 2022. His long-shot campaign financially benefited from heavy spending by his former boss Peter Thiel, a billionaire founder of PayPal.Max Miller, a former Trump aide who denied assault allegations from an ex-girlfriend and was later endorsed by Mr. Trump, won his House primary after two other Republican incumbents there opted not to run. Representative Anthony Gonzalez, who had voted to impeach Mr. Trump, retired after just two terms. Representative Bob Gibbs, a Trump supporter, dropped out after his district was redrawn late in the campaign, pitting him against Mr. Miller.Mr. Trump also endorsed Madison Gesiotto Gilbert, a lawyer and former beauty queen who had been a surrogate for his presidential campaign. She won a seven-way primary for an open congressional seat being vacated by Representative Tim Ryan, a Democrat running for Senate.Representative Alex Mooney of West Virginia, right, with Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the House minority leader. Mr. Mooney prevailed in his primary over Representative David McKinley.Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesA win in West VirginiaIn an incumbent-on-incumbent House primary, Representative Alex Mooney prevailed over Representative David McKinley in a newly drawn congressional district that largely overlaps with the one Mr. McKinley represented for more than a decade.Understand the 2022 Midterm ElectionsCard 1 of 6Why are these midterms so important? More

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      In Tuesday’s Primaries, Who Won, Who Lost and What Races Haven’t Been Called Yet

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      The marquee election on Tuesday evening, the Republican Senate primary in Pennsylvania, is going down to the wire, but consequential races were decided, setting up general election matchups for the fall.Here is a rundown of the winners and losers in some of the most important contests:The Mehmet Oz, Dave McCormick and Kathy Barnette race in Pennsylvania is too close to call, despite Trump’s endorsement.The high-spending Republican Senate race in Pennsylvania, between Dr. Mehmet Oz, the celebrity television physician, and Dave McCormick, the wealthy leader of a hedge fund, is nail-bitingly close. Neither candidate conceded, and an official recount is likely.Both Dr. Oz and Mr. McCormick are rich, resided in other states for years, and spent millions attacking one another. Though former President Donald J. Trump endorsed Dr. Oz, the race was extremely tight, with thousands of mail-in ballots to be counted starting Wednesday.Another candidate, the author and 2020 election denier Kathy Barnette, surged to an unexpectedly strong third-place showing, in part by casting herself as the more authentic MAGA candidate. Ms. Barnette, who publicly espoused homophobic and anti-Muslim views for years, also benefited by a late advertising blitz from the influential anti-tax group Club for Growth.Doug Mastriano, an election denier, won the Republican primary election for governor in Pennsylvania.Doug Mastriano, a retired colonel and state senator who has propagated myriad false claims about the 2020 election and attended the protest leading up to the Capitol riot, won the Republican nomination for Pennsylvania governor.He defeated a crowded field of challengers and was endorsed just a few days ago by Mr. Trump. He will face Josh Shapiro, the attorney general of Pennsylvania who emerged unopposed from the Democratic primary for governor.Mr. Shapiro’s victory lap on Tuesday was cut short. He announced earlier that day that he had tested positive for the coronavirus with mild symptoms and was isolating.With Mr. Mastriano’s victory, Republicans will now try to win a battleground state with a central figure in trying to overturn the state’s 2020 election results.John Fetterman got a pacemaker hours before winning the Democratic Senate primary in Pennsylvania.John Fetterman, the lieutenant governor, had a stroke on Friday and a pacemaker put in on Tuesday, which kept him off the campaign trail in the waning days of the race.In November, he will try to help Democrats pick up a key Senate seat that is being vacated by Republican Patrick J. Toomey, a fiscal conservative who occasionally broke with his party.Gisele Barreto Fetterman speaking at the watch party for her husband, John Fetterman, after he won the Democratic Senate primary.Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesMr. Fetterman dominated the race, wearing a uniform of sweatshirts and shorts while tapping into voters’ frustration with Washington. In the primary, he defeated Representative Conor Lamb, a moderate some thought could appeal to white, blue-collar workers the party has been losing for years, and Malcolm Kenyatta, a young state legislator and rising star in the party who got married just over two months ago.Ted Budd, anointed by Trump, won North Carolina’s Republican Senate primary in a runaway victory.Representative Ted Budd, who was endorsed by Mr. Trump and the influential anti-tax group Club for Growth, won the Republican nomination for Senate. Mr. Budd, who skipped all four debates in the race, defeated nine other candidates, including Pat McCrory, a former governor, and former Representative Mark Walker.Cheri Beasley, a former chief justice of North Carolina’s Supreme Court and the first Black woman to have served in that role, will face Mr. Budd after cruising to victory in the Democratic primary for Senate. The outcome never appeared to be in doubt, with Democrats clearing the field of serious challengers for Ms. Beasley, who would become North Carolina’s first Black senator if elected.Republicans are done with Madison CawthornCrumbling under the weight of repeated scandals and blunders, Representative Madison Cawthorn was ousted on Tuesday by Republican primary voters in western North Carolina, a stinging rejection of the Trump-endorsed candidate.Mr. Cawthorn, 26, lost to Chuck Edwards, a state senator, in a crowded primary in the 11th District that resembled a recall effort for many Republicans, who grew fed up with Mr. Cawthorn’s antics.Representative Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina shortly before conceding his race Tuesday night.Logan R. Cyrus for The New York TimesAt about 10:30 p.m., Mr. Cawthorn conceded the race to Mr. Edwards, who had gained the support of many prominent Republicans in North Carolina, including Senator Thom Tillis.Mr. Cawthorn, who entered Congress as a rising star in 2020, was besieged by scandal, from falsely suggesting that his Republican colleagues routinely throw cocaine-fueled orgies, to being detained at an airport after trying to take a loaded gun through security. Last month, after salacious images of him surfaced online showing him wearing women’s lingerie as part of a cruise ship game, he wrote on Twitter that “digging stuff up from my early 20s to smear me is pathetic.”A 26-year-old political novice won a House primary in North Carolina with Trump’s helpBo Hines, a 26-year-old political novice who enthralled Mr. Trump, drawing inevitable comparisons to another North Carolinian — Mr. Cawthorn — catapulted to a win in the Republican primary for a House seat outside Raleigh.Mr. Hines, a onetime football phenom who was an All-American at North Carolina State University before transferring to Yale, topped seven other candidates in the primary in the 13th District.His victory is perhaps the most audacious example of Mr. Trump’s influence over the Republican Party, with the former president endorsing Mr. Hines in March in the newly drawn tossup district. Mr. Hines was also backed by the Club for Growth, the influential anti-tax group.Mr. Hines will face Wiley Nickel, a two-term state senator and criminal defense lawyer who did advance work for President Barack Obama. He positioned himself as a progressive who can work with people on both sides of the aisle.Idaho’s Republican governor stamped out a Trump insurgent: the lieutenant governorGov. Brad Little of Idaho weathered a Republican primary challenge by Janice McGeachin, the lieutenant governor, who had been endorsed by Mr. Trump and made headlines for defying Mr. Little’s pandemic orders.Ms. McGeachin had sought to win over ultraconservatives in the deep-red state that Mr. Trump overwhelmingly carried in 2016 and 2020. She had played up how she had issued a mutinous but short-lived ban on coronavirus mask mandates when Mr. Little had briefly left the state.But Ms. McGeachin appeared to muster less than 30 percent of the vote in Idaho, which holds separate primaries for governor and lieutenant governor — the genesis of the strained pairing.An establishment Democrat thwarted a far-left rival running for the House in KentuckyIn an open-seat race in Kentucky’s only blue House district, Democrats favored an establishment candidate in Tuesday’s primary over a rival state lawmaker who ran on the far left and has been a vocal leader of the police accountability movement in Louisville.The party favorite, Morgan McGarvey, the Democratic leader in the State Senate, defeated Attica Scott, a state representative, in the Third District. The two had been vying to succeed to Representative John Yarmuth, who was first elected in 2006 and is retiring. The chairman of the House Budget Committee, Mr. Yarmuth is the lone Democrat from Kentucky in Congress. More