Midterm Elections (2022)

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      Trump Under Fire From Within GOP After Midterms

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      “Republicans have followed Donald Trump off the side of a cliff,” a longtime adviser said.Donald J. Trump faced unusual public attacks from across the Republican Party on Wednesday after a string of midterm losses by candidates he had handpicked and supported, a display of weakness as he prepared to announce a third presidential campaign as soon as next week.As the sheer number of missed Republican opportunities sank in, the rush to openly blame Mr. Trump was as immediate as it was surprising.Conservative allies criticized Mr. Trump on social media and cable news, questioning whether he should continue as the party’s leader and pointing to his toxic political brand as the common thread woven through three consecutive lackluster election cycles.Mr. Trump was seen as largely to blame for the Republicans’ underwhelming finish in Tuesday’s elections, as a number of the candidates he had endorsed in competitive races were defeated — including nominees for governor and Senate in Pennsylvania and for governor of Michigan, New York and Wisconsin.“Republicans have followed Donald Trump off the side of a cliff,” David Urban, a longtime Trump adviser with ties to Pennsylvania, said in an interview.Former Representative Peter King, a Republican from Long Island who has long supported Mr. Trump, said, “I strongly believe he should no longer be the face of the Republican Party,” adding that the party “can’t become a personality cult.”The chorus of criticism, which unfolded on Fox News and social media throughout the day, revealed Mr. Trump to be at his most vulnerable point politically since the aftermath of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.Still, Mr. Trump has built a deep well of loyalty with Republican voters, and party officials cautioned that it was too soon to tell whether he would suffer any lasting political damage beyond a flurry of bad headlines, or whether a rival will emerge to challenge him. Mr. Trump has built a career on outlasting political controversy, and Trump aides insisted that any suggestion of weakness was a media confection.“I am proud to endorse Donald Trump for president in 2024,” Representative Elise Stefanik, a New York Republican, said in a statement. “It is time for Republicans to unite around the most popular Republican in America who has a proven track record of conservative governance.”Senator-elect J.D. Vance, Republican from Ohio and an early choice of Mr. Trump, said he believed Mr. Trump would be the nominee if he runs. “Every year, the media writes Donald Trump’s political obituary. And every year, we’re quickly reminded that Trump remains the most popular figure in the Republican Party,” he said. And Representative Jim Banks of Indiana said he supported Mr. Trump, who “transformed our party.”Who Will Control Congress? Here’s When We’ll Know.Card 1 of 4Much remains uncertain. More

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      What We Know Now About the Midterms: Election Deniers, Trump and More

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      As partisans and pundits digested the shock of the 2022 midterm elections on Wednesday, some new themes emerged. Finger-pointing among Republicans. Mixed results for election deniers. The return of choosy voters. And a more nuanced picture on the impact of abortion.Here are four fresh takeaways on the first full day of reckoning for both parties:Trump had a bad day.Many Republicans lit up cable news and conservative websites on Wednesday with withering criticism of the former president they once championed — and, in some cases, worked to elect or defended once in office.It was clear that many in the G.O.P. political class were angry about the outcome of an election they assumed would go much better for their side. It was far less clear whether their fury was shared by Republican voters — or the man in Mar-a-Lago, who congratulated himself from a “personal standpoint” as he grudgingly acknowledged a “somewhat disappointing” election in general.But Republican operatives, using words like “disaster” or “debacle” and making unflattering comparisons between former President Donald J. Trump and various circus acts, anvils, mental patients and even the Pied Piper of Hamelin, lashed the head of their party and openly wished for someone to seize his crown.Some Republican operatives even said they were reconsidering pursuing jobs with the third Trump presidential campaign, they reported — as others urged him to delay an announcement until after the runoff election for Senate in Georgia.Who Will Control Congress? Here’s When We’ll Know.Card 1 of 4Much remains uncertain. More

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      In Arizona’s Race for Governor, Hobbs Takes a Narrow Lead

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      PEORIA, Ariz. — In a cramped campaign office tucked in a strip mall, Katie Hobbs, the Democratic nominee for governor, was hours away from Election Day and trying to rally volunteers while also tempering expectations.“I think this state is still a red state,” Ms. Hobbs said, pointing to Republicans’ advantage over Democrats in voter registration numbers. “We are exactly where we thought we would be in terms of the closeness of this race. We knew it was going to come down to the wire.”Ms. Hobbs always cautioned the race would be tight. What some Republicans — and even some Democrats — in Arizona did not realize was just how tight.Ms. Hobbs, Arizona’s secretary of state, rose to national prominence when she helped certify the results of the 2020 presidential election, defending the integrity of the state’s electoral system against prolonged efforts by former President Donald J. Trump’s allies to overturn the count.But she struggled to compete against her Trump-endorsed Republican rival, the charismatic and pugilistic Kari Lake.Who Will Control Congress? Here’s When We’ll Know.Card 1 of 4Much remains uncertain. More

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      L.A. Drops Criminal Charges Against Election Software Executive

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      Before the arrest of its founder and chief executive, Eugene Yu, Konnech repeatedly denied keeping data outside the United States, including in statements to The New York Times.Emily Elconin for The New York TimesLos Angeles County dropped criminal charges against the top executive of an elections technology company on Wednesday, bringing to an abrupt end an unusual case that became the focus of Americans who distrust the country’s electoral system.The district attorney’s office said in a statement that it had dropped the case against the executive, Eugene Yu, because of concerns about the “pace of the investigation” and the “potential bias in the presentation” of evidence in the case. The office said the county had assembled a new team to “determine whether any criminal activity occurred.”The prosecutors did not respond to questions about the decision.“Mr. Yu is an innocent man,” Gary Lincenberg, Mr. Yu’s lawyer, said in a statement, adding that “conspiracy theorists” were using the arrest to “further their political agenda.”Last month, Los Angeles prosecutors accused Mr. Yu, the chief executive of Konnech, a small election software company in Michigan, of storing data about poll workers on servers in China, a breach of the company’s contract with the county. The charges related only to poll worker data and had no impact on votes or election results.Mr. Yu, 64, has repeatedly denied sending data to China. The New York Times published an article about the claims and his denials as a part of its coverage of misinformation and elections. Los Angeles prosecutors arrested Mr. Yu the day after the article was published.The abrupt dismissal left several unanswered questions about the case and Mr. Yu’s suspected activities. The district attorney’s office did not clarify whether the company had, in fact, stored data in China. It was also not clear whether additional criminal or civil charges could be filed against Mr. Yu or Konnech from Los Angeles County or dozens of other counties that use Konnech’s election management software.Konnech has about 20 employees in the United States and about 20 customers. It plays no role in the tabulation or counting of votes in American elections. But some election deniers have suggested that Konnech gave the Chinese government a back door to manipulate America’s election process.True the Vote, an organization that claims to be devoted to uncovering election fraud, said at a conference this summer that its team had found and downloaded Konnech’s poll worker data from servers in China. It provided no evidence that it had downloaded the data, but said it had delivered a hard drive to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.Konnech sued True the Vote, along with Catherine Engelbrecht, its founder, and Gregg Phillips, an election denier and longtime associate of the group, accusing them of defamation and hacking. The pair were briefly jailed last week after refusing to release the name of a person involved in the suspected hack of Konnech’s data.In an earlier court filing, Mr. Phillips said he had spoken with the grand jury in Los Angeles County that eventually indicted Mr. Yu. More

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      Why I’m Cheering Tuesday’s Results

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      I am overjoyed by the results of the midterm election so far, not just because there was no overwhelming Republican wave, but also because America rejected, generally speaking, the path to its own demise.It rejected punditry.The election underscored how meaningless and misleading so much of the prognosticating on competitive races has become. So much of it is just chatter, people guessing, people spinning data into hard facts.Too many pundits want to be the smart one who sees something in the numbers that others miss. They want to be diviners, but end up being deliverers of misinformation. And their misdirection is infectious. Group-think sets in as pundits begin to absorb and repeat what they’ve heard from other pundits. For the public, the preponderance of sources and repetition of the same tired points lends credence to assumptions that are baseless.We were led to believe that momentum had shifted decidedly toward Republicans in the last few weeks. It hadn’t. There was no Red Wave. There were no massive gains for Republicans. We are still waiting to see if they will take control of the House, and the Senate may stay in Democratic hands.We were led to believe that Hispanics were defecting from Democrats in shocking numbers. The truth appears to have been more nuanced. According to exit polls, which we always have to take with a grain of salt, the slippage may have been about 5 percent in some parts of the country, but some candidates (like Beto O’Rourke in Texas) held on to Hispanics at the same rate President Biden did in 2020, or even increased that level of support (like Catherine Cortez Masto in Nevada).We were led to believe that Black men were also drifting away from the Democrats. That’s not entirely true. Look at Georgia, where the great fear was that Black men wouldn’t vote for Stacey Abrams: A slightly higher percentage voted for her in this election in that state than voted for Biden in 2020, according to exit polls.We were told that Biden and the Democrats had made a huge mistake by focusing so much attention on abortion and a fragile democracy at the expense of crime and the economy. That, too, was wrong. Abortion was a tremendously animating issue in this election, and voters rebuffed many prominent election deniers in the night’s biggest, most competitive races.In fact, you could say that voters rebuffed Trumpism itself — and the lie that the 2020 election was stolen. It may be too optimistic to say the fever broke, but Tuesday night, we saw enough people in enough states shake it off, allowing us to imagine a day when Trump no longer dominates the Republican Party.That day may come soon. Ron DeSantis rode his horrendous “anti-woke” campaign to a solid victory in Florida, and, sensing Trump’s weakness, will most likely be emboldened in his efforts to challenge him in 2024. To be clear, DeSantis is no improvement from Trump. In many ways, he could be worse. But I also doubt that he can scale the theatrical intolerance he is practicing in Florida up into a national campaign capable of beating the Democrats.DeSantis is still fighting a battle against the 2020 summer of protests. That will feel incredibly stale and out of touch by 2024. His fame is rooted in bullying schoolteachers, students and librarians. And although I never underestimate the cynicism of many voters, Trump has a sinister charisma that De‌‌Santis lacks. The camera hates DeSantis. I don’t believe he can exert the galvanizing effect that Trump could. And finally, as a person who strongly believes that Black people have a real chance to consolidate political power in Southern states and dramatically alter the political landscape, it was incredibly encouraging to see so many Black candidates come so close to victory (like Cheri Beasley in North Carolina) or even win (like Wes Moore in Maryland).The Black people in these states are feeling their power, and they are applying pressure at the polls. Do I believe Beasley — and other Black Democrats like Stacey Abrams — should have won this time? Yes. But am I also encouraged by what their narrow losses portend for the future? Absolutely.Black people keep moving from cities in the North and West back to the South. Eventually, in spite of voter suppression efforts, the hurdle will be cleared. There will be more candidates like Wes Moore, the first Black governor of his state in the South, and that is where the truly transformative change will begin.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 and Twitter (@NYTopinion), and Instagram. More

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      Democrats Hold Onto Contested State Legislative Chambers

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      Democrats made gains in state legislatures, including at least one Midwestern battleground state, while thwarting Republican efforts to flip chambers in the Mountain West and elsewhere. As results of statehouse races were still being counted in several states late Wednesday, experts said that Republicans’ efforts to expand their control of state legislative chambers appeared to have fallen short.In Michigan, Democrats had flipped at least one chamber of the State Legislature, the State Senate, while votes were still being counted in races for control of the state’s House of Representatives, as well as Minnesota’s State Senate.“Last night was a surprisingly good showing for Democrats in statehouses, especially since their gains combat the notion that the president’s party always loses ground during midterms,” said Wendy Underhill, director of elections and redistricting at the National Conference of State Legislatures.In Colorado, a state heavily targeted by Republicans, Democrats maintained their legislative majorities. And in North Carolina and Wisconsin, states with Democratic governors and Republican-held legislatures, Democrats fended off efforts by Republicans to win supermajorities, which would have given them veto override powers. Democrats also won full control of state government leadership in Massachusetts and Maryland — states where Democrats newly won control of the governor’s office while holding onto majorities in both chambers of their statehouses.Republicans went into the midterms with a grip on a majority of chambers in statehouses around the country. Single-party control of state legislatures has become common, and before voting on Tuesday, Republicans dominated both legislative chambers in 30 states, while Democrats held both chambers in 17.Counts were still continuing on Wednesday in various states, including Arizona and Nevada, where control of state legislatures was in play. But in states big and small where results were clear, Republicans easily maintained control of legislatures, including in Texas, Ohio, Georgia, Florida, Missouri, North Dakota, Tennessee and Wyoming.“Republicans continue to absolutely dominate the 50-state landscape, as they have since 2010,” Ms. Underhill said.In a sign of how polarization has characterized thousands of races, including many in rural areas where Republicans were running uncontested, only a few hundred seats at the state legislative level were expected to shift across party lines out of the more than 6,200 up for election, according to the N.C.S.L., a bipartisan organization representing state legislatures.Nevertheless, the results indicate a turn from 2020 when Democrats spent heavily to diminish Republicans’ control of state legislatures only to fail at flipping a single chamber, even as Democrats won the presidency and control of Congress that year.The shifts in state legislative seats come as control of these legislatures may prove more significant than ever. State legislatures already hold sway over a wide range of issues from taxation to what teachers are allowed to discuss in public schools. After the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe this year, state lawmakers gained even more power, deciding in many cases whether to restrict or expand abortion rights for their residents.Their authority could now shift significantly as the Supreme Court, which has leaned to the right, hears a case next month related to the role of state legislatures and their role in setting election rules. More

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      With House Majority in Play, a New Class Takes Shape

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      The Republican ranks grew more extreme and slightly more diverse, while Democrats added several young liberals to their caucus.WASHINGTON — Whoever holds the House majority in January, the new lawmakers will include a fresh crop of Republican election deniers, including a veteran who attended the “Stop the Steal” rally at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021; a handful of G.O.P. members of color; and a diverse group of young Democratic progressives.As vote counting continued across the country on Wednesday, with Republicans grasping to take control and Democrats outperforming expectations in key races, the contours of a new class of lawmakers began to emerge.It featured a sizable contingent of Republicans who have questioned or denied the legitimacy of the 2020 election, many of them hailing from safely red districts, adding to an already influential extreme right in the House. At least 140 of the House Republicans who won election this week are election deniers, at least 15 of them new additions.A handful of Black and Latina Republicans also won, adding a touch more diversity to a mostly white, male conference — though far less than leaders had hoped as many candidates they had recruited for their potential to appeal to a broader set of voters in competitive districts fell short.For Democrats, the election ushered in younger, more diverse members to fill the seats of departing incumbents. Many of those candidates had held state offices or previously sought seats in Congress and are expected to back many of the priorities of the Democratic left wing.Here are some of the new faces:Kristen Zeis for The New York TimesThe RepublicansJen A. Kiggans, a Navy veteran and state senatorAs a woman with military experience, Ms. Kiggans was regarded by Republicans as a prime recruit to put up against a centrist Democrat in a conservative-leaning area. She defeated Representative Elaine Luria on the Eastern Shore of Virginia, propelled in part by state redistricting that tilted the district more decisively to the right.She focused her campaign narrowly on inflation and public safety, and was bolstered by top Republicans, including Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the minority leader who is running to become speaker should his party retake the House, and Gov. Glenn Youngkin. That suggested that she would be more likely to serve as an acolyte to Republican leaders than a thorn in their sides.But though she ran as a mainstream candidate, Ms. Kiggans declined throughout her campaign to say whether she believed Mr. Biden was legitimately elected.Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesDerrick Van Orden, a veteran at the Capitol on Jan. 6.A retired Navy SEAL who rallied at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, Mr. Van Orden flipped a key seat for Republicans in western Wisconsin, in a largely rural district currently held by Representative Ron Kind, a 13-term centrist Democrat who did not seek re-election.Who Will Control Congress? Here’s When We’ll Know.Card 1 of 4Much remains uncertain. More

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      After Governor’s Win, DeSantis Grabs National Spotlight

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      The Florida governor’s victory was a result of his commanding campaign, relentless voter registration and turnout efforts, and Democrats’ utter collapse in the state.MIAMI — Gov. Ron DeSantis steadfastly focused his re-election campaign on President Biden rather than on his Democratic opponent in Florida. But Mr. DeSantis’s runaway victory on Tuesday, while crushing to Democrats, felt more like a win over a different rival: former President Donald J. Trump.While candidates endorsed or handpicked by Mr. Trump stumbled nationally, Mr. DeSantis routed former Representative Charlie Crist by 19 percentage points, an astonishing result that Republicans in the state were still marveling over on Wednesday.“We had probably the best night you could have ever asked for,” said State Senator Joe Gruters of Sarasota, the chairman of the Republican Party of Florida.The party’s smashing success in Florida — among its brightest spots in a national midterm election with decidedly mixed outcomes — was a result of its relentless voter registration and turnout efforts there, Mr. DeSantis’s commanding campaign and Democrats’ utter collapse in a state in which they failed to effectively compete at all, leaving it to turn solidly red.Neither Mr. DeSantis nor any other Republicans who won statewide races made mention of how vastly they outperformed many of Mr. Trump’s preferred candidates elsewhere in the country. But their winning margins spoke for themselves. When Mr. Trump took Florida in 2020, his 3.3 percentage points over Mr. Biden seemed ample in a state that had swung back and forth between Republicans and Democrats for two decades.Mr. DeSantis’s runaway victory on Tuesday, while crushing to Democrats, felt more like a win over a different rival: Mr. Trump.Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesOn Tuesday, every Republican running for statewide office won by at least 16 points, leaving little doubt that Florida is Republican country — and that Mr. DeSantis’s political career has become supercharged.Who Will Control Congress? Here’s When We’ll Know.Card 1 of 4Much remains uncertain. More