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      Judge dismisses fake electors charges against Trump allies in Nevada

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      A Nevada state court judge dismissed a criminal indictment on Friday against six Republicans accused of submitting certificates to Congress falsely declaring Donald Trump the winner of the state’s 2020 presidential election, potentially killing the case with a ruling that state prosecutors chose the wrong venue to file the case.Nevada’s attorney general, Aaron Ford, stood in a Las Vegas courtroom a moment after the Clark county district court judge Mary Kay Holthus delivered her ruling, declaring that he would take the case directly to the state supreme court.“The judge got it wrong and we’ll be appealing immediately,” Ford told reporters afterwards. He declined any additional comment.Defense attorneys bluntly declared the case dead, saying that to bring the case now to another grand jury in another venue such as Nevada’s capital, Carson City, would violate a three-year statute of limitations on filing charges that expired in December.“They’re done,” said Margaret McLetchie, attorney for the Clark county Republican party chairman, Jesse Law, one of the defendants in the case.The judge called off the trial, which had been scheduled for next January, for defendants that included the state GOP chairman, Michael McDonald; national party committee member Jim DeGraffenreid; national and Douglas county committee member Shawn Meehan; and Eileen Rice, a party member from the Lake Tahoe area. Each was charged with offering a false instrument for filing and uttering a forged instrument, felonies that carry penalties of up to four or five years in prison.Defense attorneys contended that Ford improperly brought the case in Las Vegas instead of Carson City or Reno, northern Nevada cities closer to where the alleged crime occurred. They also accused prosecutors of failing to present to the grand jury evidence that would have exonerated their clients, and said their clients had no intent to commit a crime.All but Meehan have been named by the state party as Nevada delegates to the 2024 Republican national convention next month in Milwaukee.Meehan’s defense attorney, Sigal Chattah, said her client “chose not to” seek the position. Chattah ran as a Republican in 2022 for state attorney general and lost to Ford, a Democrat, by just under 8% of the vote.After the court hearing, Hindle’s attorney, Brian Hardy, declined to comment on calls that his client has faced from advocacy groups that say he should resign from his elected position as overseer of elections in northern Nevada’s Story county, a jurisdiction with a few more than 4,100 residents. Those calls included ones at a news conference on Friday outside the courthouse by leaders of three organizations.Nevada is one of seven presidential battleground states where slates of fake electors falsely certified that Trump had won in 2020, not Democrat Joe Biden.Others are Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.Criminal charges have been brought in Michigan, Georgia and Arizona.Trump lost Nevada in 2020 by more than 30,000 votes to Biden and the state’s Democratic electors certified the results in the presence of Nevada’s secretary of state, Barbara Cegavske, a Republican. Her defense of the results as reliable and accurate led the state GOP to censure her, but Cegavske later conducted an investigation that found no credible evidence of widespread voter fraud in the state. More

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      Sam Brown Wins Nevada G.O.P. Senate Primary and Will Face Jacky Rosen in November

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      Sam Brown, an Army veteran who was the heavy favorite in the Nevada Republican primary race for Senate even before former President Donald J. Trump’s last-minute endorsement, won the nomination on Tuesday, according to The Associated Press.He will face Senator Jacky Rosen, the state’s Democratic incumbent, in one of the most closely watched Senate contests of the year.With 57 percent of the vote counted, Mr. Brown had 57 percent, lapping the crowded primary field. His closest rival, Jeff Gunter, a former U.S. ambassador to Iceland, had about 17 percent. Jim Marchant, a former state assemblyman, was at roughly 7 percent, and Tony Grady, an Air Force veteran, had 5 percent.The victory was redemption of sorts for Mr. Brown, who ran for Senate in 2022 after moving to Reno, Nev., from Dallas in 2018, but lost in the Republican primary to Adam Laxalt, the state’s former attorney general. This time, he was the pick of the Republican establishment from the start, and the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which works to elect Republicans to the Senate, backed him early and worked to clear the field of competitors.They did not quite manage that. Roughly a dozen Republican challengers vied for the right to face Ms. Rosen, a low-profile Democrat running for re-election in a battleground state where recent elections have been decided by narrow margins.But most gained little traction, and as Mr. Brown crisscrossed the country raising money and rallying support from prominent Republicans, the other candidates failed to come close to his fund-raising totals. He also earned the endorsement of the state’s Republican governor, Joe Lombardo.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Nancy Mace beats Kevin McCarthy-backed challenger in South Carolina primary

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      The South Carolina congresswoman Nancy Mace easily survived a primary challenge on Tuesday, against Kevin McCarthy-backed Catherine Templeton, while a much closer than expected special election in Ohio offered warning signs for Republicans ahead of November.In Ohio’s sixth district, candidate Michael Rulli prevailed in the special election to replace fellow Republican Bill Johnson, who resigned from Congress in January. Rulli’s victory will help expand his party’s razor-thin majority in the House, but his nine-point win over Democratic contender Michael Kripchak may unnerve Republicans, given that Donald Trump carried the district by 29 points in 2020.In South Carolina, McCarthy, the former House speaker, attempted to oust Mace by backing her rival, but the the two-term incumbent received a crucial endorsement from Trump. The grudge match was personal for McCarthy, as Mace was one of the eight Republicans who voted to oust the then speaker last year.The high stakes made the race a costly one, with outside groups dumping millions of dollars into the district. The South Carolina Patriots Pac spent nearly $4m backing Templeton’s primary bid, while the Win It Back Pac and Club for Growth Action collectively invested roughly $2.5m supporting Mace. Despite Templeton’s external support, Mace led by 29 points when the Associated Press called the first congressional district race about an hour and a half after polls closed in South Carolina.Mace was not the only South Carolina Republican facing a primary threat on Tuesday. Over in the fourth district, the Republican congressman William Timmons was running neck and neck with state representative Adam Morgan, who leads the South Carolina legislature’s freedom caucus. Like Mace, Timmons had the benefit of Trump’s endorsement, but the race was still too close to call three hours after polls closed.And at least one of South Carolina’s House Republican primaries will advance to a runoff later this month. In the reliably Republican third district, Trump-backed pastor Mark Burns and Air National Guard Lt Col Sheri Biggs will compete again on 25 June to determine who will have the opportunity to succeed Jeff Duncan, the retiring representative.Meanwhile, the fate of South Carolina’s abortion laws rests in part on the results of three Republican primaries in state senate races. State senators Katrina Shealy, Margie Bright Matthews, Mia McLeod, Sandy Senn and Penry Gustafson collectively blocked a near-total abortion ban in South Carolina earlier this year. The “Sister Senators” were feted as a profile in courage by the Kennedy Center, but the three Republicans among them – Shealy, Senn and Gustafson – face primary challengers from their right on abortion. If two of the three lose to challengers, abortion foes will have the votes to restrict abortion beyond the current six-week ban.In addition to South Carolina, three other states held primaries on Tuesday. In Maine’s second congressional district, the former Nascar driver turned state representative Austin Theriault resoundingly defeated fellow state representative Michael Soboleski in the Republican primary. Theriault will advance to the general election against Democratic congressman Jared Golden, who faces yet another difficult re-election campaign.Republicans are hopeful that Theriault has the résumé to defeat Golden, but the Democrat has proven politically resilient since he was first elected to Congress in 2018, when he narrowly defeated the Republican incumbent, Bruce Poliquin, thanks to Maine’s ranked-choice voting system. In 2022, Golden again defeated Poliquin by six points in the second round of voting, even though Trump had carried the second district by seven points two years earlier.The Cook Political Report rates Golden’s seat as a toss-up, so Theriault’s victory will kick off what is expected to be a heated and closely contested race in the general election. Just minutes after the AP made Theriault’s primary win official, the left-leaning Pac American Bridge 21st Century began attacking him over his views on abortion access.In Nevada, a dozen Republicans are vying for their party’s Senate nomination, but the primary appears to have become a two-person race between the retired army captain Sam Brown and former US ambassador to Iceland Jeff Gunter. Polling indicates Brown has a significant lead over Gunter, and Brown has received a last-minute boost from Trump, who made a much-awaited endorsement in the race on Sunday.The winner of the Republican primary will go on to face the Democratic incumbent, Jackie Rosen, in one of the most closely watched Senate races this year, as the Cook Political Report rates the seat as a toss-up.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionFurther down the ballot, the Democratic congresswoman Susie Lee faces a tough re-election campaign in Nevada’s third congressional district. Seven Republicans – including video game music composer Marty O’Donnell and former state treasurer Dan Schwartz – are running for the chance to face off against Lee, but Trump has stayed out of the primary so far. The former president’s only House primary endorsement in Nevada went to the former North Las Vegas mayor John Lee in the fourth district, but the winner of that race will face a much steeper climb to defeat the Democratic incumbent, Steven Horsford, in the general election.View image in fullscreenOver in North Dakota, five Republicans and two Democrats are running to replace the Republican congressman Kelly Armstrong representing the state’s at-large congressional district, but no Democrat has won the seat since 2008. Rather than seeking re-election, Armstrong has launched a gubernatorial bid, and he won his primary on Tuesday. Armstrong is widely favored to replace the outgoing governor, Doug Burgum, who has been named as a potential running mate for Trump.North Dakota voters also weighed in on a ballot measure regarding age limits for congressional candidates. If approved by a majority of North Dakota voters, the measure would prevent candidates from running for Congress if they would turn 81 during their term. Although the policy would only apply to congressional candidates, the age cutoff is noteworthy considering Joe Biden, who is four years older than Trump, turned 81 in November. More

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      Trump vows to ‘drill, baby, drill’ despite rally attendees wilting in extreme heat

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      Dozens of Donald Trump’s supporters have been requiring medical help at his rallies in the scorching US south-west but it seems lost on him that his plans to reverse climate policies and “drill, baby, drill” for fossil fuels will only worsen extreme weather, campaigners say.A total of 24 people at a Trump rally in Las Vegas on Sunday required medical attention due to the heat, according to the Clark county fire department, with six taken to hospital for treatment. The hospitalizations come after a further 11 people needed to be admitted to hospital for heat exhaustion as they waited for Trump to speak at a rally in Phoenix on Thursday.Trump himself noted the severe heat during his speech on Sunday, with the Las Vegas rally starting around noon when the temperature was about 90F (32C) and climbed to around 102F (38C). The rally was held in a park with little shade, although organizers provided water and cooling tents, and allowed attendees to hold shading umbrellas.“It’s 110, but it doesn’t feel it to me,” said Trump, who wore a suit jacket and signature red baseball cap. “I’m up here sweating like a dog. They don’t think about me. This is hard work.”Trump then said: “I don’t want anybody going on me. We need every voter. I don’t care about you. I just want your vote. I don’t care.” He later said he was joking about not caring about his own voters and complained the media would criticize him for this.Record-breaking heat enveloped much of the US south-west last week, with temperatures soaring beyond 110F (43C) in areas stretching from California to Arizona. Roughly half of Arizona and Nevada were under an excessive heat alert, even though the official start of summer is still a week away, with Las Vegas hitting 110F on Friday and Phoenix reaching 113F (45C).Scientists have found that heatwaves are moving more slowly and lasting longer due to the climate crisis, which is primarily caused by the burning of fossil fuels. Studies last year concluded that the searing heat experienced in Europe and the US would have been virtually impossible without the influence of human-caused global heating.Trump has vowed to accelerate oil and gas production, already at record levels, in the US, however, repeating the mantra “drill, baby, drill” at rallies. The former president and newly convicted felon aims to undo Joe Biden’s policies aimed at lowering carbon emissions, which he has called “insane”, and has directly sought $1bn in campaign donations from oil and gas executives in order to fulfill this agenda as president.“Donald Trump is openly telling people that he’s only out for himself,” said Alex Glass, a campaigner at Climate Power, a climate advocacy group. “He’s making promises to big oil executives who are fueling the climate crisis while people are passing out at his rallies from very real, very dangerous heatwaves that he says are caused by a hoax.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe dangers of worsening heatwaves did not give pause to Trump’s backers sweltering in Las Vegas, however. “This is a dry heat – this ain’t nothing for Las Vegas people,” said Michael McDonald, Nevada’s Republican party chair, who added that it “symbolizes for the rest of the United States we will walk through hell” to elect Trump.“You know what? It’s worth it,” Camille Lombardi, a 65-year-old retired nurse from Henderson, in suburban Las Vegas, who was seeing Trump in person for the first time, told AP. “Too bad it wasn’t indoors, but that’s OK.” More

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      Trump Endorses Sam Brown in Nevada’s Key Senate Race

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      Mr. Brown, a former Army captain, is the leading candidate in a crowded field of Republicans vying to take on Senator Jacky Rosen, a vulnerable Democratic incumbent in a presidential battleground.Former President Donald J. Trump on Sunday said he was endorsing Sam Brown, the Army veteran who is leading the crowded Republican primary field in Nevada’s U.S. Senate race.“Sam Brown is a fearless American patriot,” Mr. Trump wrote in a post on his social media site, Truth Social, adding that Mr. Brown would “fight tirelessly” to protect the border and improve the economy.The endorsement, though belated — the primary is on June 11 and early voting has already ended — solidifies Mr. Brown’s standing as the front-runner and heavy favorite to advance to November’s general election against Senator Jacky Rosen, the Democratic incumbent. He has raised more money than his primary rivals, received the endorsement of the state’s Republican governor, Joe Lombardo, and led by double-digits in every recent poll of the race, though most were commissioned by his own campaign.Mr. Trump’s opinion was the sole remaining question mark. Though he is campaigning as a strong supporter of the former president, Mr. Brown was late to formally back Mr. Trump’s bid for a second term, and his primary rivals sought to capitalize from the right. Jeff Gunter, a wealthy dermatologist and Mr. Trump’s ambassador to Iceland, staked out a position as a MAGA candidate, slamming Mr. Brown in television advertisements as he angled for a possible endorsement from Mr. Trump.Mr. Trump has shared images promoting Mr. Brown’s dominance in Nevada polls on Truth Social, and he praised both Mr. Brown and Jim Marchant, a former state assemblyman and prominent election denier who is also running for Senate, in an interview with a local television station in late May.In a post on X, Mr. Brown said he was “honored” to have Mr. Trump’s endorsement. “I look forward to working with you to bring a better future to every Nevadan and American when we both win in November,” Mr. Brown said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump to hold Las Vegas rally in burning heat with extra medics and water

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      Donald Trump’s campaign is hiring extra medics, loading up on fans and water bottles and allowing supporters to carry umbrellas to an outdoor rally on Sunday in Las Vegas, where temperatures are expected to exceed 100F (38C).The former president is returning to Nevada, one of the top battleground states in the November election, for his second rally since he was found guilty in a hush-money scandal. The unprecedented conviction of a US president, current or former, has juiced Trump’s fundraising and galvanized his supporters, but it remains to be seen whether it will sway swing voters.Temperatures in the south-west have cooled since reaching historic highs late last week, but remain above normal for this time of year and are expected to top 100F by the time Trump is scheduled to begin speaking around noon. His rally is at a park with little shade next to the airport.Campaign organizers say they will have ample water bottles to hand out to attendees and that cooling tents will be placed throughout the venue. Misting fans will be given out.The campaign has paid for additional emergency medical services to be on site in the case of emergency. The US Secret Service will be making an exception to allow people to bring in personal water bottles and umbrellas.During a Trump rally in Arizona on Thursday, the Phoenix police department said 11 people were transported to hospitals, treated and released for heat exhaustion. Many of Trump’s supporters waited in line for hours and some were unable to get inside before the venue reached capacity. The temperature reached a record 113F (45C) that day.Trump’s Nevada rally, his third in the state this year, comes on the tail end of a western swing that included several high-dollar fundraisers where he was expected to rake in millions of dollars.Hillary Clinton won Nevada in 2016 as did Joe Biden in 2020, but Nevada was the only battleground state where Trump did better against Biden than Clinton. In the 2022 midterms, Nevada’s governor, Steve Sisolak, a Democrat, was the only incumbent governor who did not win re-election.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionTrump hopes his strength among working-class voters and growing interest from Latinos will push him to victory in the state. More

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      As Trump Rallies in the Southwest, Extreme Heat Threatens MAGA Faithful

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      Eleven people were treated for heat exhaustion at a recent Trump event in Phoenix. Temperatures for a rally in Las Vegas on Sunday are expected to approach 105 degrees.Political campaigns do their best to control as much as possible: their candidate, their messaging, their surrogates and their schedules. But what to do about the weather?This week, with former President Donald J. Trump holding campaign events in the Southwest, his team is grappling with an extreme heat wave that has threatened the health of some of his most ardent fans.On Thursday, Mr. Trump went to Phoenix for a campaign event at a megachurch, where hopeful attendees waited for hours to enter as the temperature climbed above 110 degrees. The heat was so scorching that some of those waiting collapsed, and 11 people were taken to hospitals to be treated for heat exhaustion.The Trump campaign is taking steps to avoid similar circumstances on Sunday, when Mr. Trump is scheduled to speak at an outdoor rally at noon at a park in Las Vegas. Forecasts expect the temperature to be around 105 degrees.Several supporters of Mr. Trump required treatment for heat-related illness during his event in Phoenix.Jacob Stoll/UGC, via ReutersMuch of the western United States has been contending with a heat wave all week. Both Phoenix and Las Vegas have been under an excessive heat warning for days, with afternoon temperatures hovering in the triple digits.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Candidates for Federal Office Can Raise Unlimited Funds for Ballot Measures

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      The Federal Election Commission quietly issued an advisory opinion last week allowing candidates to raise unlimited money for issue-advocacy groups working on ballot measures in elections in which those candidates are on the ballot.The opinion, issued in response to a request from a Nevada-based abortion rights group, could significantly alter the landscape in the fall in terms of the capacity that candidates aligned with these groups have to help them raise money.The decision applies to all federal candidates, but with a presidential election taking place in six months, the biggest attention will fall to that race. If Mr. Biden can solicit money for abortion-rights ballot measures, he can add to an already-existing fund-raising advantage that his team currently has over Mr. Trump.The decision, released publicly last week but little noticed, could affect turnout in battleground states like Nevada where razor-thin margins will determine the election. In Arizona, an abortion rights group said it had the number of signatures required to put a referendum on the ballot. Florida — a state that has voted reliably for Republicans in recent presidential races — has a similar measure on the ballot.The advisory opinion means that both Mr. Biden and former President Donald J. Trump can raise money for outside groups pushing ballot measures. In the wake of the repeal of Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision, abortion ballot measures are expected to be a key focus for Democrats this fall.“I think it’s quite significant,” said Adav Noti, of the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center, calling it an enormous change from prohibitions put in place by the landmark McCain-Feingold campaign finance bill in 2002.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More