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      How a Democrat in Suburban Minneapolis Made His District Blue

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      Dean Phillips, a congressman in suburban Minneapolis, has made his seat safely Democratic thanks in part to his unconventional style and in part to the shifting political landscape.BLOOMINGTON, Minn. — It’s a little after 2 p.m., and beads of sweat are forming on the brow of Representative Dean Phillips of Minnesota. He’s wielding a two-foot crowbar to yank up rotten floorboards in the kitchen of a century-old home along Minnehaha Creek in Minneapolis, and working fast.“How can you not love this?” Phillips, now upstairs, exclaims as he prepares to saw a hole in the wall of the house’s newly redesigned master bedroom. Despite his staff’s efforts to warn him, he steps on a nail. It’s a short one, thankfully, that doesn’t pierce the sole of his sneaker, and he gets right back to it.Welcome to “On the Job With Dean” — unconventional politicking for an unconventional politician, a suburban Democratic lawmaker whose fortunes say a lot about American politics in 2022. On this particular autumn day, Phillips is moonlighting with a demolition crew for a local contractor, part of a series of odd jobs he takes on, he told me, to feel grounded.In an age when political outsiders are often held up as breaths of fresh air and career politicians are widely reviled, Phillips, a 53-year-old liquor and ice cream entrepreneur whose grandmother was “Dear Abby” and whose mother was a clothier for Prince, labors hard not to look like a traditional pol. Campaign rallies are not his thing. On any given day, you might find him mixing drinks at an ax-throwing bar inside the Mall of America, dipping “witches’ fingers” at a candy factory or driving a 20-ton snowplow through a serpentine training course.In 2018, he flipped this district, a mostly upper-middle-class area of single-family homes and shopping malls that hugs the western border of Minneapolis, to Democratic control for the first time since 1960. His Republican opponent, Erik Paulsen, had won the district by 14 percentage points just two years earlier.Phillips working in a house in Minneapolis during one of his “On the Job With Dean” outings, in which he takes on various types of odd jobs so that, he says, he feels grounded in his district.Blake Hounshell/The New York TimesPhillips ran a nostalgia-infused campaign calling for civility and “conversation,” while ruthlessly defining Paulsen as a no-show with a memorable, documentary-style ad featuring a man dressed in a Bigfoot suit.“I thought I was good at hiding,” Bigfoot muses. “Then Erik Paulsen comes along.”Phillips won by 12 points in 2018, then again by the same margin in 2020. Since then, Republicans have essentially given up on the seat — a silent tribute due in part to his astute political instincts, in part to widespread aversion to Donald Trump in Minnesota and in part to the deeper demographic shifts that presaged Phillips’s 2018 win.“It was a Mitt Romney district,” said Abou Amara, a Democratic strategist in Minneapolis. “Most of those Republicans aren’t coming back.”A tale of two suburbsRepublican operatives are focusing instead on winning back what is proving to be more fertile territory this year: the nearby Second Congressional District, held by Representative Angie Craig.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsBoth parties are making their final pitches ahead of the Nov. 8 election.A G.O.P. Advantage: Republicans appear to be gaining an edge in the final weeks of the contest for control of Congress. Nate Cohn, The Times’s chief political analyst, explains why the mood of the electorate has shifted.Ohio Senate Race: Tim Ryan, the Democrat who is challenging J.D. Vance, has turned the state into perhaps the country’s unlikeliest Senate battleground.Losing Faith in the System: As democracy erodes in Wisconsin, many of the state’s citizens feel powerless. But Republicans and Democrats see different culprits and different risks.Secretary of State Races: Facing G.O.P. candidates who spread lies about the 2020 election, Democrats are outspending them 57-to-1 on TV ads for their secretary of state candidates. It still may not be enough.Also a former business executive, Craig holds positions that are almost identical to Phillips’s. But she is much more conventional in style, which might help explain her plight.While Phillips seems almost driven to prove that “No Labels”-style centrism does not have to be boring and poll-tested, Craig appears determined to hunker down and play by the old rules. That caution has made her more vulnerable to the gale-force national winds bearing down on generic Democrats in swing districts across the country.But the deeper differences between their two districts are more important, which says a lot about how America’s two major political parties see their shifting fortunes in suburbia in these midterms — often, but wrongly, described as an undifferentiated campaign battleground.On the surface, the two districts look similar, with income levels that are roughly the same. But Craig’s, which stretches to the Wisconsin border, is larger and less dense. It includes more blue-collar and rural voters, and has long been the more culturally conservative of the two.The biggest gap may be in education levels: Nearly 52 percent of residents in Phillips’s district have at least a college degree, while only 42 percent of those in Craig’s do, a figure more comparable to other swing districts nationally. Phillips’s district is slightly more diverse, too: Nearly 13 percent of residents there were born abroad, versus just over 9 percent in Craig’s district.Those subtle distinctions are enough to give Republicans an opening. So while both seats have swung toward Democrats in the Trump era, Craig’s race has become one of the most hotly contested and most expensive campaigns in the country, with more than $10 million pouring in from outside Republican groups. By contrast, Phillips and his opponent have spent about $200,000 combined — essentially nothing.This year, in a freakish reprise of what happened in 2020, one of Craig’s opponents, the candidate of the Legal Marijuana Now party, died in early October. So not only must she contend with a Republican adversary, Tyler Kistner, who is well-funded and has decent name recognition after coming up just 2.2 percentage points short of Craig in 2020, but the deceased marijuana candidate also remains on the ballot and threatens to siphon votes from her left.Phillips’s “Government Repair Truck” offers “coffee and conversation” to would-be constituents.Blake Hounshell/The New York TimesCan Democrats rebrand?An heir to a local liquor company who co-founded the gelato business Talenti, then sold it to Unilever in 2014 for a tidy profit, Phillips approaches politics like a branding exercise. And in his mind, Democrats have a branding problem.From Talenti, he learned to appreciate the power of nostalgia for a simpler time in America, he told me — but not, he stressed, of the exclusionary Make America Great Again variety.In 2018, he began traveling around the district in a vintage 1960s delivery van called the “Government Repair Truck,” offering “coffee and conversation” to would-be constituents. It became a campaign signature, and “everyone’s invited” became his tagline and unofficial motto. (There was also, briefly, the barely seaworthy “Government Repair Pontoon Boat.” And soon, the “Government Repair Ice Shed” will be hauled onto the frozen surface of Lake Minnetonka for ice fishing.)When Phillips was growing up, his stepfather made him work in the warehouse of their alcohol business, and he learned the art of retail politics, he said, while going on sales calls to liquor stores.“My dad always said that selling starts with listening,” Phillips told me as we ate French fries and Juicy Lucy cheeseburgers, a Minneapolis delicacy that, judging from his slim frame, he rarely eats. On sales calls, he made sure to ask what varieties of liquor were hot and adjust his pitch accordingly.“On the Job With Dean” is just one of several branded “series,” as his team calls them, in Phillips’s political arsenal.There’s also “Surprise and Delight,” where Phillips drops off doughnuts and hoovers up scraps of intel from police and fire units, such as the latest local trends in recruitment of new officers and firefighters, car theft and ambulance calls; “Civics 101,” in which he delivers a guest lecture on democracy at high schools; and “Common Ground,” a two-hour event moderated by a licensed marriage counselor and featuring four liberals and four conservatives who are paired together, then told to come up with solutions to thorny public policy problems.Phillips seems to recognize, however, that merely changing the packaging of run-of-the-mill Democratic positions is not enough. He co-sponsored a bill this year to fund the police, and his House office in Washington made sure I knew about it. This summer, he became the first Democrat in Congress to call for President Biden not to run in 2024, a position he took, he told me, because it’s “what I believe.”Some in the Minnesota Democratic Party are urging Phillips to run for Senate, in the much-rumored event that one of the state’s two incumbent Democrats retires soon. As many as 10 candidates are likely to run, local Democrats said, given how rarely those seats open up.At our lunch, Phillips confessed his worry that running for Senate would pull him away from the kind of local engagement “I find joy in most.” It would also force him to raise millions of dollars, a task he abhors, and to travel constantly. Senator Amy Klobuchar, a close Phillips ally, once promised to visit all of Minnesota’s 87 counties every year, an exhausting vow that has become the new statewide campaign standard. But Phillips didn’t rule it out entirely.For the moment, he is running for a House leadership position — co-chair of the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee, a sleepy group whose influence is hard to identify, positive or otherwise. He is campaigning for the job in typical Phillips fashion, most recently by handing out custom-branded packets of wildflower seeds on the House floor that say “Let’s Grow!” on the packaging.Earlier, as we pulled up to the snowplow course, Phillips showed me a years-old photograph of him sitting at the desk of Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, for whom he interned in 1989. It took him years to screw up the courage to tell Leahy, who is now retiring, that he had sneaked into the senator’s office while he was out of town.“That’s the first time I sat in a place of power,” he recalled. “And I liked the feeling.”What to readDemocratic candidates are struggling to find a closing message on the economy that both acknowledges voters’ troubles while making the case that the party in power, not Republicans, holds the solutions, Jonathan Weisman and Neil Vigdor report.“Most political races are about authenticity on some level: who tries too hard, who doesn’t try hard enough, who can read the electorate without staring,” Matt Flegenheimer writes. Tim Ryan, he says, “has made Ohio perhaps the country’s unlikeliest Senate battleground by taking this premise to its logical extreme.”John Fetterman, the Democratic candidate for Senate in Pennsylvania, faces twin challenges in his debate on Tuesday night against Mehmet Oz: making the case for his policies while convincing voters he is healthy enough to serve, write Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Trip Gabriel.For the first time in 70 years, America’s largest majority Black city may not send a Black representative to Washington. Clyde McGrady reports from Detroit.Thank you for reading On Politics, and for being a subscriber to The New York Times. — BlakeRead past editions of the newsletter here.If you’re enjoying what you’re reading, please consider recommending it to others. They can sign up here. Browse all of our subscriber-only newsletters here.Have feedback? Ideas for coverage? We’d love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com. More

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      This Minnesota Race Will Show the Potency of Crime vs. Abortion

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      Keith Ellison, the state’s progressive attorney general, faces a Republican challenger who is looking to harness public unease since George Floyd’s murder.WAYZATA, Minn. — Here in light-blue Minnesota, where I’m traveling this week, there’s a race that offers a pure test of which issue is likely to be more politically decisive: abortion rights or crime.Keith Ellison, the incumbent attorney general and a Democrat, insists that his bid for re-election will hinge on abortion, which remains legal in Minnesota.But his Republican challenger, Jim Schultz, says the contest is about public safety and what he argues are “extreme” policies that Ellison endorsed after the 2020 murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis — the aftermath of which Minnesota is still wrestling with.Schultz, a lawyer and first-time candidate, said in an interview that watching Floyd’s death under the knee of Derek Chauvin, a police officer who was later convicted of murder, had made him “physically ill.” He added that Ellison’s prosecution of Chauvin was “appropriate” and that he supported banning the use of chokeholds and what he called “warrior-style police training.”But Schultz, a 36-year-old graduate of Harvard Law School who has worked most recently as the in-house counsel for an investment firm, was scathing in his assessment of Ellison, presenting himself as the common-sense opponent of what he characterized as a “crazy anti-police ideology.”He decided to run against Ellison, he said, because he thought it was “immoral to embrace policies that led to an increase in crime in at-risk communities.”Ellison fired right back, accusing Schultz of misrepresenting the job of attorney general, which has traditionally focused on protecting consumers. County prosecutors, he said in an interview, were the ones primarily responsible for crime under Minnesota law — but he noted that his office had prosecuted nearly 50 people of violent crimes and had always helped counties when asked.“He’s trying to demagogue crime, Willie Horton-style,” Ellison said, referring to a Black man who was used in a notorious attack ad in the 1988 presidential election that was widely seen as racist fearmongering. Schultz’s plans, he warned, would “demolish” the attorney general’s office and undermine its work on “corporate accountability.”“He’s never tried a case or stepped in a courtroom in his life,” Ellison added.An upset victory by Schultz would reverberate: He would be the first Republican to win statewide office since Tim Pawlenty was re-elected as governor in 2006.Ellison, 59, served six terms in Congress and rose to become a deputy chair of the Democratic National Committee. Before leaving Washington and winning his current office in 2018 — by only four percentage points — he was a rising star of the party’s progressive wing.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsBoth parties are making their final pitches ahead of the Nov. 8 election.Where the Election Stands: As Republicans appear to be gaining an edge with swing voters in the final weeks of the contest for control of Congress, here’s a look at the state of the races for the House and Senate.Biden’s Low Profile: President Biden’s decision not to attend big campaign rallies reflects a low approval rating that makes him unwelcome in some congressional districts and states.What Young Voters Think: Twelve Americans under 30, all living in swing states, told The Times about their political priorities, ranging from the highly personal to the universal.Debates Dwindle: Direct political engagement with voters is waning as candidates surround themselves with their supporters. Nowhere is the trend clearer than on the shrinking debate stage.As one of the most prominent Democratic attorneys general of the Trump era, he has sued oil companies for what he called a “a campaign of deception” on climate change and has gone after pharmaceutical companies for promoting opioids.But the politics of crime and criminal justice have shifted since Floyd’s killing, and not necessarily to Ellison’s advantage. In a recent poll of Minnesota voters, 20 percent listed crime as the most important issue facing the state, above even inflation.Maneuvering on abortion rightsDemocrats would prefer to talk about Schultz’s view on abortion. They point to his former position on the board of the Human Life Alliance, a conservative group that opposes abortion rights and falsely suggests that abortion can increase the risk of breast cancer, as evidence that his real agenda is “an attempt to chip away at abortion access until it can be banned outright,” as Ken Martin, the chair of the Minnesota Democratic Party, put it. Democratic operatives told me that in their door-knocking forays, abortion was the topic most on voters’ minds — even among independents and moderate voters.So Ellison has been talking up his plans to defend abortion rights and warning that Schultz would do the opposite.“We will fight extradition if they come from another state, and we’ll go to court to fight for people’s right to travel and to do what is legal to do in the state of Minnesota,” Ellison said at a recent campaign stop. Schultz, he argued, “will use the office to interfere and undermine people’s right to make their own choices about reproductive health.”Schultz denies having an aggressive anti-abortion agenda. Although he said he was “pro-life” and described himself as a “person of faith” — he is a practicing Catholic — he told me he “hadn’t gotten into this to drive abortion policy.” Abortion, he said, was a “peripheral issue” to the attorney general’s office he hopes to lead, and he pointed out that the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled the practice legal in 1995.Historically, the attorney general’s office in Minnesota has focused on protecting consumers, leaving most criminal cases to local or federal prosecutors.But none of that, Schultz insisted, is “written in stone.” The uptick in crime in Minneapolis, he said, was a “man-made disaster” that could be reversed with the right policies.Ellison countered that Schultz “doesn’t know what he’s talking about” and cited four statutes that would have to be changed to shift the focus of the attorney general’s office from consumer protection to crime.Schultz acknowledged his lack of courtroom experience but said he would hire aggressive criminal prosecutors if he won. He is promising to beef up the attorney general’s criminal division from its current staff of three lawyers to as many as three dozen and to use organized crime statutes to pursue “carjacking gangs.”He’s been endorsed by sheriffs and police unions from across the state, many of whom are critical of Ellison’s embrace of a proposed overhaul of the Minneapolis Police Department, which fell apart in acrimony. Had it passed, the city would have renamed the police the Department of Public Safety and reallocated some of its budget to other uses.Ellison, who lives in Minneapolis and whose son is a progressive member of the City Council, seems to recognize his political danger. But what he called Schultz’s “obsessive” focus on crime clearly frustrates him.“He doesn’t really care about crime,” Ellison said at one point.He also defended his support for the police overhaul in Minneapolis as necessary to create some space for meaningful change and challenged me to find an example of his having called to “defund the police” — “there isn’t one,” he said. And he noted that he had supported the governor’s budget, which included additional money for police departments.In George Floyd Square in Minneapolis, iron sculptures in the shape of fists mark the four entrances to the intersection, which shows lingering signs of the anger that followed Floyd’s murder.Stephen Maturen/Getty ImagesWhere it all beganDemocrats in Minnesota insist that the crime issue is overblown — and murders, robberies, sex offenses and gun violence are down since last year. But according to the City of Minneapolis’s official numbers, other crimes are up: assault, burglaries, vandalism, car thefts and carjacking.And it’s hard, traveling around the area where Floyd’s murder took place, to avoid the impression that Minneapolis is still reeling from the 2020 unrest. But there’s little agreement on who is to blame.Boarded-up storefronts dot Uptown, a retail area where shopkeepers told me that the combination of the pandemic and the 2020 riots, which reached the neighborhood’s main thoroughfare of Hennepin Avenue, had driven customers away.A couple of miles away, on a frigid Tuesday morning, I visited George Floyd Square, as the corner where he was killed is known. Iron sculptures in the shape of fists mark the four entrances to the intersection, which is covered in street art and shows lingering signs of the eruption of anger that followed Floyd’s murder.A burned-out and graffitied former Speedway gas station now hosts a lengthy list of community demands, including the end of qualified immunity for police officers, which Schultz opposes. In an independent coffee shop on the adjoining corner, the proprietor showed me a photograph he had taken with Ellison — the lone Democratic politician, he said, to visit in recent months.I was intercepted at the square by Marquise Bowie, a former felon and community activist who has become its self-appointed tour guide. Bowie runs a group called the George Floyd Global Memorial, and he invited me on a solemn “pilgrimage” of the site — stopping by murals depicting civil rights heroes of the past, the hallowed spot of asphalt where Floyd took his last breath and a nearby field of mock gravestones bearing the names of victims of police violence.Bowie, who said he didn’t support defunding the police, complained that law enforcement agencies had abandoned the community. Little had changed since Floyd’s death, he said. And he confessed to wondering, as he intercepted two women who were visiting from Chicago, why so many people wanted to see the site but offer little in return.“What good does taking a selfie at a place where a man died do?” he asked me. “This community is struggling with addiction, homelessness, poverty. They need help.”What to read tonightHerschel Walker, the embattled Republican nominee for Senate in Georgia, often says he has overcome mental illness in his past. But experts say that assertion is simplistic at best, Sheryl Gay Stolberg reports.As we wrote yesterday, swing voters appear to be tilting increasingly toward Republicans. On The Daily, our chief political analyst, Nate Cohn, breaks down why.Oil and gas industry lobbyists are already preparing for a Republican-controlled House, Eric Lipton writes from Washington.Thank you for reading On Politics, and for being a subscriber to The New York Times. — BlakeRead past editions of the newsletter here.If you’re enjoying what you’re reading, please consider recommending it to others. They can sign up here. Browse all of our subscriber-only newsletters here.Have feedback? Ideas for coverage? We’d love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com. More

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      Ahead of Midterms, Democrats Bet on Abortion Rights

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      EAGAN, Minn. — Before dozens of volunteers fanned out through the Twin Cities suburbs to knock on voters’ doors on a recent sunny Saturday afternoon, Representative Angie Craig, Democrat of Minnesota, gathered them in a campaign office in a strip mall here to make sure they remembered a specific message.“As you go to each door, what I want you to have in your mind is that if Tyler Kistner is your member of Congress, he is someone who has said he is 100 percent pro-life,” Ms. Craig said, referring to her Republican opponent. “Today, the people of this district have never had a more distinct choice. We are the party — and I am the member of Congress — who will be the wall to protect your reproductive rights, to protect your privacy, to protect your freedoms.”In competitive districts across the country like Ms. Craig’s, Democrats in difficult re-election races are leaning heavily into preserving abortion rights as a closing argument for their uphill bids to hang onto their seats in a year when their party’s majority is at risk.Armed with polling data that shows that the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the constitutional right to an abortion has moved independent voters in their direction, they have reoriented their campaigns around the issue in the crucial final weeks before the election.The strategy is built around the hope that in the handful of close races that will determine control of the House, the demise of federal abortion rights has energized independent voters and conservative-leaning women so intensely that it could allow otherwise vulnerable Democrats to eke out victories that previously seemed out of reach.Supporters of abortion rights protesting in Washington. Polling data shows that the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade has moved independent voters toward Democrats.Anna Rose Layden for The New York TimesNearly every advertisement that House Democrats’ super PAC is funding is about reproductive rights, including one that dramatizes the consequences of a national abortion ban, featuring police officers handcuffing doctors, nurses and patients who sought or performed “health care services that have been legal for nearly 50 years.” Roundtables hosted by vulnerable incumbents flanked by OB/GYNs and elaborate events rolling out Planned Parenthood endorsements abound.It is a rare opportunity for Democrats to go on the offensive during a campaign cycle that was initially expected to deal their party steep losses, and in which their majority is still at risk amid rising inflation, concerns about crime and President Biden’s sagging approval ratings. In recent weeks, however, internal polling has shown that the threat of losing abortion access has energized some abortion rights supporters who might not ordinarily vote in a midterm election and swayed independents toward Democratic candidates, potentially affording the party a chance to stanch its losses. More

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      Early Midterms Voting Begins in Michigan and Illinois

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      Michigan and some Illinois residents can start casting ballots on Thursday for the Nov. 8 midterm election as both states open early, in-person voting.Voting is also underway in some form in six other states: South Dakota, Wyoming, Minnesota, Virginia, New Jersey and Vermont.In Michigan, three Republicans endorsed by former President Donald J. Trump will take on three incumbent Democrats holding statewide offices. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is facing Tudor Dixon, a conservative media personality; Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson is facing Kristina Karamo; and Attorney General Dana Nessel is being challenged by Matt DePerno. Both Ms. Karamo and Mr. DePerno have been outspoken champions of Mr. Trump’s election lies.Michigan voters will also decide on a ballot initiative that would add legal protections for abortion to the state’s constitution.Thursday is also when Michigan and many Illinois counties will begin sending absentee and mail ballots to registered voters who have requested them.Michigan lawmakers on Wednesday passed a bill that will let local elections officials start processing mail and absentee ballots two days before Election Day. While they will not be able to start counting ballots until Nov. 8, the extra processing time is intended to help ease the burden on officials on Election Day, potentially speeding up the release of results. The change was part of a series of election laws approved just before early voting got underway, and after a deal was reached with the governor’s office, the Detroit Free Press reported.In Illinois, where county officials can choose when to open early voting locations, Chicago residents will have to wait: Cook County, which encompasses the city, will not open early voting until Oct. 7. Most other Illinois counties opened early voting at clerks’ offices on Thursday.South Dakota, Wyoming and Minnesota opened early, in-person voting on Sept. 23 and have mailed out ballots. In those states, residents can opt to vote by mail without providing an excuse or reason they can’t make it to the polls.On Sept. 24, Virginia and New Jersey both started accepting some ballots. In Virginia, that is when voters could start casting ballots in person at county registrar offices. In New Jersey, early, in-person voting will not start until Oct. 29, but early mail voting began on Sept. 24.Election officials in Vermont are sending ballots to the state’s approximately 440,000 active voters, where a Senate seat and the state’s lone House seat are open. All ballots should be mailed by Friday and received by Oct. 10. Voters who would prefer to vote in person may do so at their town offices during normal business hours. More

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      Progressive Ilhan Omar wins closer-than-expected House primary in Minnesota

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      Progressive Ilhan Omar wins closer-than-expected House primary in MinnesotaDemocrats select progressive Becca Balint for Vermont House seat while Trump-backed candidate nominated for Wisconsin governor Minnesota congresswoman Ilhan Omar, a member of the select progressive group in the House of Representative dubbed the Squad, eked out a closer-than-expected Democratic primary victory on Tuesday night against a centrist challenger who questioned the incumbent’s support for the “defund the police” movement.Pro-Israel groups denounced after pouring funds into primary raceRead moreThe evening went far smoother for another progressive, Becca Balint, who won the Democratic House primary in Vermont – positioning her to become the first woman representing the state in Congress.But Tim Michels, backed by Donald Trump, was projected to win the Republican nomination for governor of Wisconsin, a day after the FBI searched the former US president’s home in Florida reportedly seeking classified documents.Michels defeated rival and former lieutenant governor Rebecca Kleefisch, who had been endorsed by Trump’s former vice-president, Mike Pence.Kleefisch served with right-wing former governor Scott Walker and she conceded to Michels on Tuesday night.Michels has falsely asserted that Trump, rather than Democratic US president, Joe Biden, won the vital swing state in the 2020 presidential election, echoing the former president’s claims.Michels has also vowed to enforce a 19th-century abortion ban that went into effect in Wisconsin after the US supreme court in June eliminated the nationwide right to the procedure with its overturning of the landmark Roe v Wade ruling.He will face the incumbent Wisconsin governor and Democrat, Tony Evers, in November’s election.With a Republican-majority legislature, Michels could push through new abortion restrictions if elected. Evers and his administration have filed litigation challenging the 1849 law while promising not to prosecute doctors who violate it.Other Trump-backed candidates also prevailed.In Connecticut, Leora Levy surprised observers by winning the Republican primary race for the US Senate after being supported by Trump, upending moderate Themis Klarides who had a lot of party support in the state, the Hartford Courant reported.Levy faces the high-profile incumbent Democratic senator Richard Blumenthal.In her Minneapolis district, Omar, who is one of the left’s leading voices in Congress, has defended calls to redirect public safety funding more into community-based programs.She squared off with former city council member Don Samuels, whose north Minneapolis base suffers from more violent crime than other parts of the city.Samuels argued that Omar is divisive and helped defeat a ballot question last year that sought to replace the city police department with a new public safety unit.He and others also successfully sued the city to force it to meet minimum police staffing levels called for in Minneapolis’s charter.But Omar narrowly prevailed on the night, seeking her third term in the House. She crushed a similar primary challenge two years ago from a well-funded but lesser-known opponent.“She’s had a lot of adversity already and pushback. I don’t think her work is done,” said Kathy Ward, a 62-year-old property caretaker for an apartment building in Minneapolis who voted for Omar. “We’ve got to give her a chance.”Two other members of the Squad – Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Cori Bush of Missouri – won their Democratic primaries last week.Meanwhile, Republicans see a pickup opportunity in Wisconsin’s third congressional district, the seat being vacated by the retiring Democratic incumbent Ron Kind.The district covers a swath of counties along Wisconsin’s western border with Minnesota and includes La Crosse and Eau Claire.Republican Derrick Van Orden was unopposed in his primary on Tuesday and has Trump’s endorsement.Van Orden narrowly lost to Kind in the 2020 general election. He attended Trump’s rally near the White House on 6 January 2021, where the then president urged his supporters to “fight like hell” to overturn his election defeat by Joe Biden, but has said he never set foot on the grounds of the Capitol during the insurrection that followed.State senator Brad Pfaff topped three other Democrats to secure the party’s nomination and will face Van Orden in the fall. Pfaff, a one-time state agriculture secretary, had previously worked for Kind and received his endorsement.Vermont is the last state in the country yet to add a female member to its congressional delegation. Balint, who immediately becomes the favorite in November’s general election, would also be the first openly gay member of Congress from Vermont.She was endorsed by some of the nation’s leading leftwing figures, including the Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren and Representative Pramila Jayapal, chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.“Vermont has chosen a bold, progressive vision for the future, and I will be proud to represent us in Congress,” Balint said in a statement.Balint is vying to fill the state’s lone House seat, which is being vacated by Peter Welch who is running for Senate and easily secured the Democratic nomination on Tuesday.Welch is trying to succeed retiring senator Patrick Leahy, the US Senate’s longest-serving member.TopicsUS midterm elections 2022Ilhan OmarUS politicsDemocratsRepublicansMinnesotaVermontnewsReuse this content More

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      Brad Finstad Wins a Special Election to Fill the Seat of Rep. Jim Hagedorn

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      Brad Finstad, a Republican former state lawmaker in Minnesota, won a special election for a U.S. House seat, according to The Associated Press. He will complete the final four months remaining in the term of Representative Jim Hagedorn, a Republican, who died from cancer in February.Mr. Finstad, 46, defeated Jeff Ettinger, a Democrat and the retired chief executive of Hormel Foods, a Minnesota company known for introducing Spam in the 1930s. The district, Minnesota’s First, stretches across the state’s southern border from South Dakota to Wisconsin.Mr. Finstad did not perform as well in the district as President Donald J. Trump did in 2020, when Mr. Trump won the area by more than 10 percentage points over Joseph R. Biden Jr. Mr. Finstad beat Mr. Ettinger by only roughly four percentage points, a relatively strong showing for Mr. Ettinger, who ran as a moderate and emphasized his support for abortion rights.The two candidates had tangled over the economy and farming issues in the largely rural district. But in the weeks since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Mr. Ettinger turned up the volume on his messaging on abortion. He positioned himself as a business-friendly Democrat and appeared to perform well in some rural pockets as well as in the counties that encompass Rochester and Mankato, education and health care hubs that have drawn residents from upper-income, college-educated and racially diverse backgrounds.Mr. Finstad’s campaign did not think abortion would move the needle at the polls. “It hasn’t really come up with very many voters,” said David Fitzsimmons, a general consultant for the campaign. “Voters seem to be talking about the economy, inflation, gas prices.”Both he and Mr. Ettinger were on the ballot twice, as both men ran successfully in the regular primary for the seat’s full term. They are now headed to a fall rematch, according to The Associated Press.Mr. Trump appointed Mr. Finstad to serve as the Agriculture Department’s rural development director for Minnesota in 2017. He also worked as an area director for the Minnesota Farm Bureau and as an agricultural policy aide for former Representative Mark Kennedy, a Minnesota Republican. Mr. Finstad served in the Minnesota House of Representatives from 2003 to 2009.Carly Olson More

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      What’s On the Ballot and How to Vote in Minnesota’s Primary

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      Minnesota voters in the First Congressional District will see some names on the ballot twice on Tuesday. It is not a mistake.There is a special general election to decide who will serve the final four months remaining in the term of Representative Jim Hagedorn, who died in February, as well as a regular primary for the same seat.Not registered to vote? That is OK. The state’s same-day voter registration law means you can still head to the polls on Tuesday.Here is what else to know:How to voteIn-person voting ends at 8 p.m. Central time. Not sure if you are registered to vote? Check here, and use this state site for more information about same-day registration.In most places in Minnesota, voters can cast their ballots in person or by mail with an absentee ballot, if one was requested in advance.Some towns and cities with fewer than 400 registered voters have chosen to hold elections only by mail and delivered ballots to all registered voters before Election Day. Find out if that includes your town here.Mail-in ballots must be received by elections officials on or before Election Day. If you have not already mailed yours, deliver it by hand to the election office that sent it to you no later than 3 p.m. Tuesday. Voters may not return mail-in ballots to polling places. Check the status of your mail ballot here.Where to voteFind your nearest polling place at the secretary of state’s website.What is on the ballotIn addition to the special election and regular primary for Mr. Hagedorn’s seat, Representative Ilhan Omar, a well-known member of the progressive clique known as the squad, is seeking her third term in office and is once again facing a primary challenge from a moderate candidate. This time it is Don Samuels, who is running on a pro-law enforcement platform.There are other statewide contests and some local races, too. See a sample ballot here.Michael C. Bender More

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      With Swag and Swagger, State Democrats Vie for Front of Presidential Primary Line

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      After Iowa’s disastrous 2020 caucuses, Democratic officials are weighing drastic changes to the 2024 calendar. States, angling for early attention, are waxing poetic. Behold, the New Jersey Turnpike!WASHINGTON — High-ranking Democrats distributed gift bags and glossy pamphlets, waxing poetic about New Hampshire’s Manchester Airport and the New Jersey Turnpike.Midwestern manners barely masked a deepening rivalry between Michigan and Minnesota.And state leaders deployed spirited surrogate operations and slickly produced advertisements as they barreled into a high-stakes process that will determine the most consequential phase of the Democratic presidential nominating calendar.After Iowa’s disastrous 2020 Democratic caucuses, in which the nation’s longtime leadoff caucus state struggled for days to deliver results, members of the Democratic National Committee are weighing drastic changes to how the party picks its presidential candidates. The most significant step in that process so far unfolded this week, as senators, governors and Democratic chairs from across the country traipsed through a Washington conference room to pitch members of a key party committee on their visions for the 2024 primary calendar.Democratic state parties have formed alliances, enlisted Republicans — and in Michigan’s case, turned to the retired basketball star Isiah Thomas — as they argued for major changes to the traditional process or strained to defend their early-state status.Signs denoting a polling location in Columbia, S.C., before the 2020 primary.Hilary Swift for The New York Times“Tradition is not a good enough reason to preserve the status quo,” said the narrators of Nevada’s video, as state officials bid to hold the first nominating contest. “Our country is changing. Our party is changing. The way we choose our nominee — that has to change, too.”Four states have kicked off the Democratic presidential nominating contest in recent years: early-state stalwarts Iowa and New Hampshire, followed by Nevada and South Carolina. But Iowa has faced sharp criticism over both the 2020 debacle and its lack of diversity, and in private conversations this week, Democrats grappled with whether Iowa belonged among the first four states at all.Mindful of the criticism, Iowa officials on Thursday proposed overhauling their caucus system, typically an in-person event that goes through multiple rounds of elimination. Instead, officials said, the presidential preference portion of the contest could be conducted primarily by mail or drop-offs of preference cards, with Iowans selecting just one candidate to support.“In order to continue growing our party, we need to make changes,” acknowledged Ross Wilburn, the Iowa Democratic Party chairman.But the plan drew skeptical questions from some committee members who suggested it might amount to a caucus in name only, and really more of a primary. That would butt it up against New Hampshire, which has passed legislation aimed at stopping other states from pre-empting its first-in-the-nation primary.New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada are generally expected to remain as early states, though the process is fluid and the order is up for debate, with Nevada directly challenging New Hampshire’s position on the calendar, a move the Granite State is unlikely to take lightly.In swag bags from New Hampshire’s delegation, which included maple syrup and a mug from the state’s popular Red Arrow Diner, there was also a brochure noting the history of New Hampshire’s primary, dating to 1916. And in a sign of how seriously New Hampshire takes being the first primary, both of the state’s U.S. senators, Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan, were on hand to make the case.“You cannot win a race in New Hampshire without speaking directly to voters, and listening and absorbing their concerns,” Ms. Hassan said, arguing for the benefits of having Democratic presidential contenders submit to the scrutiny of the small state’s famously discerning voters.The committee could weigh many permutations for the order of the states. It is also possible that the D.N.C.’s Rules and Bylaws Committee will recommend adding a fifth early-state slot as large, diverse states including Georgia bid for consideration.The committee is slated to make its recommendations in August, with final approval at the D.N.C.’s meeting in September.Earlier this year, the committee adopted a framework that emphasized racial, ethnic, geographic and economic diversity and labor representation; raised questions about feasibility; and stressed the importance of general election competitiveness. Some committee members this week also alluded to concerns about holding early contests in states where Republican election deniers hold, or may win, high state offices.Sixteen states and Puerto Rico made the cut to present this week, from New Jersey and Illinois to Washington State and Connecticut.The search process comes just over two years after President Biden came in fourth in Iowa and fifth in New Hampshire but won the nomination on the strength of later-voting and more diverse states. The White House’s potential preferences in the process would be significant.“They know where we’re at,” said Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, asked on Wednesday if she had spoken with Mr. Biden or the White House about Michigan’s bid. “I haven’t had a direct conversation, but our teams converse regularly.”She also said she had made “a number of phone calls to voice my support and urge the committee to strongly consider us.”Behind-the-scenes lobbying efforts of committee members and other stakeholders are expected to intensify in the coming weeks.The most pitched battle concerns representation from the Midwest, especially if Iowa loses its early-state slot. Michigan, Minnesota and Illinois are vying to emerge as the new Midwestern early-state standard-bearer. Michigan and Minnesota are thought to be favored over Illinois for reasons of both cost and general election competitiveness, though Illinois also made a forceful presentation, led by officials including Senator Dick Durbin.“The Minnesota Lutheran in us — if you do a good deed and talk about it, it doesn’t count — but we’re getting over that and talking about it,” said Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, whose Democratic colleagues kicked off their presentation with a song by Prince and distributed Senator Amy Klobuchar’s recipe for hot dish.Ken Martin, the chairman of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, grappled head-on with concerns around diversity and relevance in a general election.“We’re going to disabuse you of two things: One, that we’re just a bunch of Scandinavians with no diversity, and two, that we’re not a competitive state,” he said, as his team distributed thick pamphlets highlighting the state’s racial and geographic diversity, including its rural population.Michigan’s presenters included Senator Debbie Stabenow and Representative Debbie Dingell, who signed handwritten notes to committee members. One read, “Michigan is the best place to pick a president!” Their gift bags featured local delicacies like dried cherries, and beer koozies commemorating the inauguration of Ms. Whitmer and Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist II, a party spokesman said.“We have the clearest and best case that Michigan is an actual battleground, the most diverse battleground in the country,” Mr. Gilchrist said in an interview, calling it “a down payment on an apparatus for the general election.”Likewise, Ms. Dingell and Ms. Stabenow emphasized opportunities for retail politicking and the chance for candidates to familiarize themselves early with the concerns of one of the country’s biggest contested states.Both Minnesota and Michigan require varying degrees of cooperation from Republicans in order to move their primaries up. Minnesota officials were quick to note that they must simply convince the state Republican Party. Michigan requires the approval of the Republican-controlled state Legislature. Presenters from both states were questioned about the feasibility of getting the other side on board.Minnesota released a list of Republicans who support moving up the state’s contest, including former Gov. Tim Pawlenty and former Senator Norm Coleman. Members of Michigan’s delegation noted the backing they had from former Republican chairs and organizations like the Michigan Chamber of Commerce.The Detroit News reported later Thursday that the Republican majority leader of the State Senate, Mike Shirkey, had indicated support for moving up Michigan’s primary, a significant development.(Officials from the two states were also asked about their plans for dealing with wintry weather. They emphasized their hardiness.)By contrast, Emanuel Chris Welch, the speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives, pointedly said that “in Illinois, there is no chance that Republican obstruction will distract, delay or deter us” from moving up the state’s primary.Some of Mr. Biden’s closest allies were also present on Thursday as his home state, Delaware, made the case for hosting an early primary.In an interview, Senator Chris Coons insisted that he had not discussed the prospect with Mr. Biden and that he was not speaking on the president’s behalf. But, he said: “Our state leadership is doing what I think is in Delaware’s best interest. And I can’t imagine that he wouldn’t be happy with the outcome.” More