Midterm Elections (2022)
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Rhode Island First Congressional District Primary Election Results 2022
Trip Gabriel
9:34 PM ET More - in Elections
Seth Magaziner Wins a Democratic House Primary in Rhode Island
Seth Magaziner, the general treasurer of Rhode Island, won a crowded Democratic congressional primary in the state on Tuesday, according to The Associated Press, and is now headed into what could be one of the most competitive general elections on New England’s House map.Mr. Magaziner will face Allan Fung, the former mayor of Cranston, R.I., who would be the state’s first Asian American member of Congress. The seat, which represents Rhode Island’s Second District, opened up after Representative Jim Langevin, a Democrat who has held it since 2001, decided against running for re-election. Mr. Langevin endorsed Mr. Magaziner, who also received the Rhode Island Democratic Party’s endorsement.Mr. Magaziner initially ran for governor but switched to the congressional race after Mr. Langevin announced his retirement. Mr. Magaziner was first elected as general treasurer in 2014 and was re-elected in 2018. He is running on a message that includes support for abortion rights and clean energy and for lowering prescription drug costs, and he has emphasized opposition to the “Trump agenda.” The League of Conservation Voters’ affiliated super PAC advertised on his behalf. Mr. Magaziner defeated candidates including Sarah Morgenthau, who served in the Obama and Biden administrations. She is part of a prominent political family that includes her grandfather, Henry Morgenthau Jr., who was President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s secretary of the Treasury, among several other notable names. Like Mr. Magaziner, she spent significantly on the airwaves. She had emphasized the history-making potential of her candidacy, noting in advertising that the state has “never sent a Democratic woman to Congress.”Mr. Magaziner also defeated David Segal, a progressive activist and former state representative who was endorsed by Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont.Mr. Magaziner is the son of Ira Magaziner, a veteran of the Clinton orbit. He recently moved from a Providence home in the First District to a new spot in nearby Cranston, R.I., in the Second.The district, which includes much of the southern and western parts of the state, appears heavily Democratic, but a poll this summer — conducted before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade — showed Mr. Fung, who has positioned himself as a middle-of-the-road pragmatist, with a lead over all of his potential Democratic opponents.The political climate has changed drastically since that poll, and Mr. Magaziner has indicated that he intends to try to tie Mr. Fung to national Republicans, and to paint him as too conservative for the district.Mr. Fung twice lost governor’s races to Gina Raimondo, who is now the U.S. secretary of commerce. But Republicans hope the contest this year will remain competitive in an environment that has improved for Democrats, even as they still confront significant headwinds. More
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What to Watch in Tuesday’s (Final!) Primary Night
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
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Why Things May Really Be Different for This Midterm Election
This cycle, the arguments for Democratic strength cut against the conventional wisdom that the party in power struggles in midterms.Just about every election cycle, there’s an argument for why, this time, things might be different — different from expectations based on historical trends and key factors like the state of the economy or the president’s approval rating.The arguments are often pretty plausible. After all, every cycle is different. There’s almost always something unprecedented about a given election year — in just the last few cycles, the pandemic, the first female presidential major party nominee and the first Black president were all truly novel. There’s always a way to spin up a rationale for why old rules won’t apply.In the end, history usually prevails. That’s a good thing to keep in mind right now as Democrats show strength that seems entirely at odds with the long history of the struggles of the president’s party in midterm elections.But this cycle, there really is something different — or at the very least, there is something different about the reasons “this cycle might be different.”This cycle, the arguments for Democratic strength cut at the heart of the underlying theories for why the party in power struggles in midterms.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries winding down, both parties are starting to shift their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.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.Intraparty G.O.P. Fight: Ahead of New Hampshire’s primary, mainstream Republicans have been vying to stop a Trump-style 2020 election denier running for Senate.Abortion Ballot Measures: First came Kansas. Now, Michigan voters will decide whether abortion will remain legal in their state. Democrats are hoping referendums like these will drive voter turnout.Oz Sharpens Attacks: As the Pennsylvania Senate race tightens, Dr. Mehmet Oz is trying to reboot his campaign against his Democratic opponent, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, with a pair of pointed attack lines.And that gives me a little more pause about blowing them off.A choice, not a referendumIf there’s a saying that captures why midterms go so poorly for the president’s party, it’s the idea that “midterms are a referendum, not a choice.” If it’s a referendum, the Democrats are in trouble. After all, President Biden’s approval rating is in the low 40s.But this year, there’s a pretty good reason to think this won’t just be a referendum: Donald J. Trump.Consider this: “Donald Trump” still earns more Google search interest than “Joe Biden.” It’s nothing like prior midterms, when the attention was focused all but exclusively on the president. These midterms certainly are different. More
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Chuck Schumer to Push $15 Million Into Democrats’ Fight to Hold Senate
WASHINGTON — Senator Chuck Schumer, the majority leader, plans to transfer $15 million from his campaign account to the Democratic Senate campaign effort as well as to several of the party’s key candidates, according to a Democrat with knowledge of his plans.The infusion of cash comes as Mr. Schumer appears comfortable in his re-election bid in New York. Now he will redeploy his financial resources in the closing weeks of the midterm campaigns to help him hang on to his job as majority leader.“Keeping and growing the Democratic majority in the Senate is my top priority,” Mr. Schumer said in a statement.The Democrat with knowledge of the plans, who insisted on anonymity, said Mr. Schumer would send $5 million directly to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee for its campaign operations. He will also provide $1 million each to Democrats in several races seen as most critical to the party’s chances of holding on to its majority.The incumbents receiving the money will be Senators Raphael Warnock of Georgia, Mark Kelly of Arizona, Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada and Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire.Five other Democratic candidates trying to unseat Republican incumbents or win open seats — Mandela Barnes in Wisconsin, John Fetterman in Pennsylvania, Cheri Beasley in North Carolina, Representative Tim Ryan in Ohio and Representative Val Demings in Florida — will also receive $1 million apiece.Mr. Schumer will contribute $500,000 each to Senators Michael Bennet of Colorado and Patty Murray of Washington, who face Republican challengers.The Republican Senate campaign organization has faced money challenges, and individual G.O.P. candidates have been outraised by Democrats mounting strong efforts in what was initially viewed as a difficult political environment likely to cost them the majority.But legislative successes and the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade have put Democrats on the offensive in recent weeks, raising hopes in the party that it can retain Senate control.As of his last campaign finance report, at the end of June, Mr. Schumer had nearly $38 million in cash on hand for his re-election bid, providing him with a cushion to divert money from his own campaign.A political action committee tied to Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, has also invested heavily in Senate races, trying to make up for the financial shortcomings of some Republican campaigns. More
