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      Right After Primary Win, Bolduc Reverses Support for Election Lies

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      Like a driver making a screeching U-turn, Don Bolduc, the Republican Senate nominee in New Hampshire, pivoted on Thursday from his primary race to the general election, saying he had “come to the conclusion” that the 2020 presidential election “was not stolen,” after he had spent more than a year claiming it was.“I’ve done a lot of research on this, and I’ve spent the past couple weeks talking to Granite Staters all over the state from every party, and I have come to the conclusion — and I want to be definitive on this — the election was not stolen,” Mr. Bolduc said in an interview on Fox News.He continued to falsely claim there had been fraud in the election but acknowledged that the outcome was not in question.“Elections have consequences, and, unfortunately, President Biden is the legitimate president of this country,” he said.Mr. Bolduc won his primary on Tuesday over a more moderate candidate, Chuck Morse, the president of the New Hampshire Senate. Mr. Bolduc ran on an uncompromising right-wing platform, complete with declarations that former President Donald J. Trump had won the 2020 election.But now he faces a tough general election campaign against Senator Maggie Hassan, a Democrat. She is vulnerable in November — but, Republicans worry, less vulnerable against Mr. Bolduc than she would have been against Mr. Morse.Ms. Hassan’s campaign responded quickly to Mr. Bolduc’s reversal, sharing a series of videos and quotes of the many times Mr. Bolduc had promoted the lie that the 2020 election was stolen.“Don Bolduc is desperately trying to run from years of spreading the Big Lie, but he can’t hide from the video receipts,” her campaign said in a statement.Mr. Bolduc, a retired Army general, had claimed repeatedly for more than a year that the election was stolen.Among other instances, in May 2021, he signed an open letter in which retired generals and admirals advanced false claims that the election had been tainted. “The F.B.I. and Supreme Court must act swiftly when election irregularities are surfaced and not ignore them as was done in 2020,” it said.In a debate with his Republican primary opponents last month, he referred back to that letter and declared, to applause, that he would not budge from his position.“I signed a letter with 120 other generals and admirals saying that Trump won the election, and, damn it, I stand by my letter,” he said. “I’m not switching horses, baby. This is it.”Switching horses on Thursday, he said in the Fox News interview, “We, you know, live and learn, right?”While Mr. Bolduc’s reversal was particularly brazen, he is not the only Republican candidate who has tried to temper, or outright erase, hard-line positions as the general-election environment starts to look less favorable for the party.At least 10 candidates in competitive races, including the Senate nominees Blake Masters in Arizona, Adam Laxalt in Nevada and Ted Budd in North Carolina, have updated their websites to downplay endorsements from Mr. Trump or to soften anti-abortion language. More

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      Even When Trump Endorses No One, G.O.P. Voters Go Far to the Right

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      The former president stayed out of New Hampshire’s primaries, but Republicans nominated the candidates for Senate and the House most aligned with his political brand.Republican voters on Tuesday rendered their latest judgment on the tussle between Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell for control of the party: They’re with Trump.In this week’s primary elections in New Hampshire, G.O.P. voters picked three hard-right candidates who have floated baseless theories about problems with the 2020 results — a sign that the election-fraud fever inside the Republican Party has not yet abated, if it ever will.First, in the Senate race against Maggie Hassan, the Democratic incumbent, Granite State Republicans chose Don Bolduc over Chuck Morse, a state lawmaker who had the financial and political backing of the local establishment as well as that of Senator McConnell, the minority leader, and his well-heeled allies.Bolduc, a decorated retired Army general who has avidly promoted Trump’s conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential results, campaigned as a political outsider who was critical of both parties. He played up his military experience, including a stint fighting in Afghanistan as a “horse soldier” after the Sept. 11 attacks.Morse struggled to navigate the shifting waters of the Republican primary electorate, which, even in famously independent New Hampshire, has moved sharply rightward in recent years.At one point, Morse embraced the label “MAGA Republican” after President Biden’s speech castigating the Trump wing of the party as a threat to democracy. At the same time, Morse sought support from McConnell and Gov. Chris Sununu, a moderate who blasted Bolduc as a “conspiracy theory extremist.”Bolduc hit right back at Sununu, accusing him of sympathizing with the Chinese Communist Party and of being “in business with Saudi Arabian companies that give money to terrorists.”Bolduc also called Sununu, who loudly declared a lack of interest in challenging Hassan late last year, a “globalist world-government guy” — an insult popularized by Stephen Bannon, the recently indicted former Trump aide who frequently promotes aggressive anti-government language on his podcast, “War Room: Pandemic.”On the Saturday before Election Day, Sununu nonetheless said of Bolduc: “I’ll endorse whoever the nominee is and support him. Of course I will, no question.”Sununu won his primary handily. But he is widely seen as having presidential aspirations, and the outcomes of New Hampshire’s other contests this week will inevitably raise questions about that. Namely: Are Republican voters truly looking for someone in the moderate mold he projects?The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.A Fierce Primary Season Ends: Democrats are entering the final sprint to November with more optimism, especially in the Senate. But Republicans are confident they can gain a House majority.Midterm Data: Could the 2020 polling miss repeat itself? Will this election cycle really be different? Nate Cohn, The Times’s chief political analyst, looks at the data in his new newsletter.Republicans’ Abortion Struggles: Senator Lindsey Graham’s proposed nationwide 15-week abortion ban was intended to unite the G.O.P. before the November elections. But it has only exposed the party’s divisions.Democrats’ Dilemma: The party’s candidates have been trying to signal their independence from the White House, while not distancing themselves from President Biden’s base or agenda.In a key House primary, voters backed Karoline Leavitt, a 25-year-old former press assistant in the Trump White House, over Matt Mowers, who served as a political appointee in Trump’s State Department and later as a board member of the International Republican Institute, a pillar of the wheezing internationalist wing of the G.O.P. Leavitt has repeatedly pushed the fiction that Trump was robbed in 2020.And in New Hampshire’s other House district, another right-wing candidate, Robert Burns, won narrowly over George Hansel, the moderate mayor of Keene. Burns said during the campaign that he accepted Biden’s 2020 victory but believed that “a ton” of other elections were stolen that year.Notably, Trump did not endorse a candidate in any of New Hampshire’s Senate or House contests.Kathy Barnette gathered momentum late in Pennsylvania’s Republican primary for Senate but ultimately lost to Dr. Mehmet Oz.Kriston Jae Bethel for The New York TimesTuesday’s results recall a revealing moment in the Senate primary in Pennsylvania, when Kathy Barnette, an insurgent candidate seeking to claim Trump’s mantle, said at a debate: “MAGA does not belong to President Trump.”.css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.“Our values never, never shifted to President Trump’s values,” she said. “It was President Trump who shifted and aligned with our values.”Like Bolduc, Barnette had the backing of Bannon and other Trump-world celebrities with huge online followings. In her Senate race, Trump had endorsed Dr. Mehmet Oz, the television celebrity, over David McCormick, a former hedge-fund executive who came within just under a thousand of victory.But while Barnette’s shoestring campaign ultimately came up short, she was the one who briefly captured the imagination of the Republican grass roots — the same political forces that powered the primary victory of Doug Mastriano, the far-right G.O.P. nominee for governor in Pennsylvania.You can see that Trump-aligned coalition imposing its will on the political geography of New Hampshire. Morse racked up votes in more heavily populated southern parts of the state near Boston — he ran ahead of Bolduc by roughly 20 percentage points in Portsmouth, for instance — while losing or barely beating his rival in rural areas and towns further upstate.The New York TimesFor the coup de grâce, Bolduc even defeated Morse within the state senator’s own district, which includes the towns of Salem and Pelham.“Donald Trump still has a stranglehold on Republican primary voters, and Governor Sununu’s popularity is nontransferable,” said Joe Caiazzo, who ran presidential campaigns in New Hampshire for Senator Bernie Sanders.He added, “This is a sign that deniers will play an enormous role in the 2024 Republican presidential primary.”What to read tonightMike Lindell, the MyPillow executive and prominent promoter of 2020 election conspiracy theories, had his cellphone seized by federal agents at a Hardee’s restaurant in Minnesota — a clear sign that the Justice Department has intensified its interest in a state case against a Colorado county clerk accused of tampering with voting machines, Charles Homans, Ken Bensinger, Alexandra Berzon and Alan Feuer write.John Durham, the former U.S. attorney assigned by the Justice Department in 2019 to examine the origins of the investigation into the 2016 Trump campaign’s ties to Russia, appears to be winding down his three-year inquiry with little fanfare, Katie Benner, Adam Goldman and Charlie Savage report.For more than a decade, Catherine Engelbrecht, a Texas small-business owner turned election-fraud crusader, has sown doubts about ballots and voting. Her patience has paid off, and now she’s seizing the moment, Cecilia Kang writes in a deeply reported profile.Under the new climate and tax law, the federal government will lease hundreds of millions more acres for offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico in the next decade, even as it invests $370 billion to move the country away from fossil fuels, Lisa Friedman writes.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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      Two 25-Year-Olds Could Be Elected to Congress, a Historical Rarity

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      Generation Z has been pushing for more political power since its first members came of age in 2015. This year, it has its first opportunity to enter the halls of Congress — and, as the dust clears from a long primary season, two candidates are poised to take advantage.Karoline Leavitt won the Republican primary in New Hampshire’s First Congressional District on Tuesday, less than a month after turning 25, the constitutional minimum age to serve in the House. She is an underdog in the general election, facing a Democratic incumbent, Representative Chris Pappas. But the district is roughly evenly divided between the parties and the race is competitive.Even if Ms. Leavitt loses in November, the next Congress is virtually guaranteed to include a member of Generation Z: Maxwell Alejandro Frost, also 25, who won the Democratic primary last month for an open House seat in Florida’s solidly blue 10th Congressional District.Either of them, if elected, would be the youngest sitting member of Congress. If both are elected, the distinction will go to Ms. Leavitt, who is about seven months younger.But neither would be the youngest person ever elected to Congress.That record, unlikely ever to be broken, belongs to William C.C. Claiborne, who was 22 when he was elected to the House from Tennessee in 1797, according to congressional records. (There is some dispute in other sources about his exact age, but no dispute that he was younger than 25.) The age requirement was no different then: The Constitution said House members had to be at least 25, and Mr. Claiborne wasn’t. But the House chose to seat Mr. Claiborne anyway.A handful of 24-year-olds were seated in the 1800s, too, according to congressional records, as were some people who turned 25 less than a month before being sworn in.In modern times, however, it is rare for a 25-year-old to be elected to the House.Representative Madison Cawthorn, Republican of North Carolina, managed it in 2020; if elected this year, Ms. Leavitt would be less than a month younger than Mr. Cawthorn was when he was elected. Before Mr. Cawthorn, the last 25-year-old to serve in the House was Thomas Downey, a New York Democrat elected in 1974.Generation Z leans strongly toward Democrats, but its members are not an ideological monolith, as evidenced by the political leanings of Ms. Leavitt and Mr. Frost.Mr. Frost is a progressive Democrat who supports Medicare for all, abortion rights and stricter gun laws. “I come from a generation that has gone through more mass-shooting drills than fire drills,” he told The New York Times in an interview after his primary victory, adding that he believed his generation had “a natural sense of seeing the world through the eyes of the most vulnerable.”Ms. Leavitt, whose campaign did not respond to an interview request, is a right-wing Republican who worked as a press aide for former President Donald J. Trump. She supports a “zero tolerance” policy against illegal immigration and opposes abortion and gun control. More

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      Robert Burns, Right-Wing Republican, Wins House Primary in New Hampshire

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      Robert Burns, a right-wing candidate aligned with former President Donald J. Trump, won Tuesday’s Republican primary in New Hampshire’s Second Congressional District, according to The Associated Press.He defeated six other Republicans, including George Hansel, a more moderate candidate who may have had a better chance of defeating the Democratic incumbent, Representative Ann McLane Kuster, in November. As of midday Wednesday, when the race was called, Mr. Burns was leading by more than 1,500 votes.The district — which includes the state’s second- and third-largest cities, Nashua and Concord, as well as large rural areas of western and northern New Hampshire — is competitive but leans toward Democrats.Mr. Burns, a local businessman and former treasurer of Hillsborough County, N.H., campaigned on ending economic reliance on China and on an array of conservative red-meat issues, including opposition to gun control, to pandemic mitigation measures and to the purported teaching of critical race theory.He won the primary despite raising less than half as much money as Mr. Hansel, according to Federal Election Commission filings.Mr. Burns may have benefited from more than $90,000 in spending by a Democratic political action committee, the latest example of a risky Democratic strategy to help far-right Republicans win primaries in the hopes that they will be easier to beat in the general election.A 30-second advertisement from the group, Democrats Serve, featured a clip of Mr. Burns calling himself “the only pro-Trump, unapologetic conservative” in the race. It was framed as an attack: “If we send Bob Burns, the ‘unapologetic conservative,’ to Congress, New Hampshire is going to get burned,” it said.But an array of Democratic organizations — outside groups as well as the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the party’s House campaign arm — have run similar ads elsewhere to try to make opponents they view as weaker seem more attractive to conservative primary voters.Mr. Burns’s main opponent, Mr. Hansel, is the mayor of Keene and was endorsed by Chris Sununu, New Hampshire’s popular Republican governor. Mr. Hansel ran as the sort of moderate Republican who has traditionally done well in New England, allowing the party to retain a modicum of power even in very blue states. But this year’s primaries have shown that Republican voters’ appetite for such candidates has fallen.Mr. Hansel focused heavily on inflation and described himself as pro-choice — something that could have been an asset in the general election, given the backlash to the overturning of Roe v. Wade, but that was a liability in a Republican primary. Mr. Burns, by contrast, has said he would support federal legislation to ban abortion after cardiac activity is detectable in the embryo or fetus, which is before many women know they are pregnant.In addition to Mr. Burns and Mr. Hansel, the primary in the Second District included Lily Tang Williams — a libertarian-leaning Republican who made her personal experience as a Chinese immigrant a centerpiece of her campaign — and four lesser-known candidates. More

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      Republican backer of Trump’s big lie wins New Hampshire Senate primary

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      Republican backer of Trump’s big lie wins New Hampshire Senate primaryHard-right Don Bolduc, who has vowed to decertify results in 2024, edges out Chuck Morse for right to run in November A far-right Republican who backs Donald Trump’s election fraud lie and has vowed to decertify results in 2024 will be the GOP candidate for US Senate in New Hampshire.Trump says Pence is out as potential running mate, book revealsRead moreDon Bolduc, a retired special forces general who has said he suffered from PTSD and a traumatic brain injury, edged out Chuck Morse, the state senate president, to face the incumbent Democrat, Maggie Hassan, in November.Most if not all forecasters called the race for Bolduc before Morse conceded.The primary was the last in a series that have seen Republicans select candidates aligned with Trump, causing some to fear damage to their chances of winning the Senate in November.Bolduc, 61, has echoed Trump’s lie about election fraud in his defeat by Joe Biden. He has also questioned whether the FBI should be abolished following its search of Trump’s Florida estate, which turned up a cache of classified documents.Though Bolduc has courted Trump, he has not won an endorsement. Trump did call Bolduc a “strong guy”.Last October, Bolduc spoke to the New Yorker. He said he thought his “values and principles as an American, and the constitution, which I served for 33-plus years in the military, was safe with President Trump”, and that Trump’s appeal stemmed from the (notoriously reading-averse) former president’s reading and understanding of the constitution.He also said “there was a tremendous amount of fraud” in 2020, adding: “I very much believe it and I think it exists, and I think it happens and it’s been happening for a long time in this country. When you try to steal the presidency, a lot of people are going to go, ‘OK, wait a minute. What the hell’s going on here?’”On 6 January 2021, nine senators were among 147 Republicans who voted to object to results in key states, even after the Capitol was stormed by a pro-Trump mob, a riot now linked to nine deaths, including suicides among law enforcement.Asked if he would “walk the walk” on certification in the Senate in 2024, Bolduc told the New Yorker: “Oh, absolutely … everybody I talk to believes that in me.”Bolduc also said January 6 represented “a complete failure of the political system”, blaming “the speaker of the House, the Senate majority leader, the minority leader” and the vice-president, Mike Pence, who refused to reject electoral votes.“They failed us,” Bolduc said, “and so, therefore, now they’re trying to politicize it, turn it into something that it’s not.”He said Trump supporters should not have used violence and destroyed property, but “believed that their rights were violated. They believed that they lost their voice.”Morse was endorsed by the popular Republican governor of New Hampshire, Chris Sununu, whose decision not to take on Hassan himself disappointed many Republicans.Sununu called Bolduc a “conspiracy theorist”. Bolduc called Sununu a “Chinese communist sympathiser”. But the governor promised to “endorse whoever the nominee is, and support him, of course I will, no question”.In a newsletter on Wednesday, J Miles Coleman of the University of Virginia Center for Politics said Sununu’s endorsement of Morse had almost been enough to defeat Bolduc. But he also pointed to Democratic efforts to boost the Trumpist Republican, mirroring controversial tactics in other states.Coleman wrote: “Some Republicans complained that the Democratic-aligned Senate Majority PAC intervened against Morse – given the margin, this may have been the decisive factor, although Morse also got some help from Republican outside groups.”One national Republican group spent at least $4.6m in support of Morse.The UVA center rates the New Hampshire Senate contest as “leans Democratic”.Republican governor blasts Trump as ‘crazy’ during Washington roastRead moreLinda Fowler, a political science professor at Dartmouth, told Reuters Morse would have stood a better chance of beating Hassan because he would have appealed to independents, the majority in New Hampshire.“If Bolduc gets the nomination, the independents will go to Hassan,” Fowler said, speaking before the result was known. “If he doesn’t get the nomination, the independents will have a serious choice.”Neil Levesque, director of the New Hampshire Institute of Politics, told the Associated Press Bolduc was the kind of candidate who would have struggled before Trump’s rise. Bolduc has never held elected office and had just $75,000 in cash on hand last week. But he was able to position himself as an ally of Trump.“If it mirrors the former president, it’s been effective,” Levesque said.TopicsUS politicsNew HampshireDonald TrumpnewsReuse this content More

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      Moore Concedes to Bolduc in New Hampshire Senate Race, Realizing G.O.P. Fears

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      Don Bolduc, a retired Army general and 2020 election denier, appears to have captured the Republican nomination for Senate in New Hampshire after his chief rival conceded early Wednesday.The Associated Press has not yet called the race. As of 10 a.m. Eastern, Mr. Bolduc held a lead of about 1,300 votes over Chuck Morse, the president of the State Senate.Mr. Morse was endorsed by Gov. Chris Sununu and helped by $4.5 million from national Republicans, who were worried that a victory by Mr. Bolduc would forfeit what they saw as a winnable seat in the quest for Senate control this fall.Mr. Bolduc’s apparent victory will come as a relief to Democrats, who also assume he will be the weaker opponent against Senator Maggie Hassan, a first-term Democrat. She won in 2016 by about 1,000 votes in purple New Hampshire but has been saddled with low job approval numbers. Four states — New Hampshire, Arizona, Georgia and Nevada — have vulnerable Democratic senators the party is aggressively defending to keep its hold on the Senate. Delaware and Rhode Island also held primaries on Tuesday — the final date of major primary elections this year, just eight weeks before the general election. In Rhode Island, Democrats chose Seth Magaziner, the state treasurer, to run for an open House seat that is viewed as a tossup in November. Delaware’s biggest race was for state auditor.But it was New Hampshire that held the focus nationally. Besides Mr. Bolduc, Republicans in the state also chose a hard-right nominee for the House, Karoline Leavitt, a former staff member in Donald J. Trump’s White House press office, who echoed the former president’s inflammatory language and provocations. She beat Matt Mowers, who had the backing of House Republican leaders, and will face Representative Chris Pappas, a two-term Democrat.Mr. Bolduc’s and Ms. Leavitt’s apparent success adds New Hampshire to the list of battleground states where Republicans this year chose candidates firmly in the Trumpian mold to compete in general elections that Republicans have historically won by reaching out to independents and conservative Democrats. Other examples include Massachusetts, Maryland, Arizona and Pennsylvania (in its governor’s race). It is both a clear sign of Mr. Trump’s iron grip on his party’s base and a major gamble on whether candidates with extreme views — principally, embracing Mr. Trump’s lie that he won in 2020 — can prevail in purple states. November will test if voter malaise about the economy and Democratic leadership in Washington is strong enough to blot out candidates’ hard-right views. Mr. Bolduc led wire-to-wire in polling during his race. He amassed grass-roots support by traveling widely for two years and holding town hall-style events, where attendees fumed over President Biden and Democratic governance in Washington.His supporters were less animated by bread-and-butter issues such as inflation — which is soon expected to affect the cost of the home heating oil that is widely used in New Hampshire — than by immigration, the 2020 election and cultural issues. “I signed a letter with 120 other generals and admirals saying that Donald Trump won the election and, damn it, I stand by” it, Mr. Bolduc said at a debate last month. He has also said he was open to abolishing the F.B.I. after agents searched Mr. Trump’s residence in Florida seeking classified documents.Mr. Sununu, a moderate and popular Republican in the state, was outspoken in calling Mr. Bolduc a “conspiracy-theory extremist” whom most voters did not take seriously. Chuck Morse greeted supporters gathered in Salem, N.H., to watch the primary-night returns.Jodi Hilton for The New York TimesMr. Morse, 61, the president of the State Senate, acknowledged that Joseph R. Biden Jr. won in 2020 and said he would have certified the election if he had been in Congress on Jan. 6, 2021. In debates, Mr. Morse rarely turned his fire on Mr. Bolduc, instead attacking Ms. Hassan. He highlighted how he had led the Legislature to override a budget that Ms. Hassan had vetoed as governor because it included business tax cuts. Ms. Hassan’s campaign has positioned her as breaking with her party on issues of concern to New Hampshirites — pushing for a federal gasoline tax holiday, for example — and standing up to “Big Pharma” to lower prescription drug costs..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.Other candidates in the Republican primary included Kevin Smith, a former Londonderry town manager, and Bruce Fenton, a cryptocurrency entrepreneur whose libertarianism — he favored legalizing all drugs — enlivened debates but also drew boos. Mr. Bolduc’s poor fund-raising meant he wasn’t able to run a single ad on television. A super PAC with ties to national Republicans spent millions of dollars on ads opposing him and boosting Mr. Morse.A Democratic group also tried to shape the race: The Senate Majority PAC, which is aligned with Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, attacked Mr. Morse in ads as “sleazy” in an effort to drive voters toward Mr. Bolduc, gambling that he would be easier to defeat in November.For the general election, super PACs tied to Republican leaders in the Senate have reserved $29 million for ads in New Hampshire, which could boost Mr. Bolduc and tarnish Ms. Hassan. But it is unclear whether those commitments will hold with Mr. Bolduc on the ballot.Left on his own, Mr. Bolduc would enter the contest with Ms. Hassan at a severe disadvantage: He had just $84,000 in his campaign account as of late August, according to federal records. Ms. Hassan had $7.3 million. She has already spent millions on ads this year to boost her image, including one claiming that she is “ranked the most bipartisan senator,” but her approval has stalled in polls around 45 percent. Still, facing Mr. Bolduc would bump Ms. Hassan, 64, down Democrats’ list of the incumbents they most need to defend to keep control of the Senate and assure that President Biden is not hamstrung in the remainder of his term.With New Hampshire’s primary elections so late in the year, Mr. Bolduc has just eight weeks before the general election to move beyond appeals to the Republican base and reach out to independents and conservative Democrats, voters who traditionally add to the coalition that Republican candidates need to win statewide in New Hampshire.Mainstream Republicans in the state have been skeptical that Mr. Bolduc will be able to modulate his image after two years of appealing to the Trump-centric party base.One reason he led in polls from the outset is that he had a yearlong head start over his rivals. The race was effectively frozen as Mr. Sununu, a top recruiting target of national Republicans to face Ms. Hassan, weighed joining in. It was November by the time he decided to forgo a Senate bid and seek re-election as governor.One shoe that never dropped was an endorsement from former President Donald J. Trump. Mr. Morse and his supporters waged a campaign to win the former president’s approval, including a visit by Mr. Morse to Mr. Trump at his golf club in Bedminster, N.J., on Sept. 2.Although the conversations were cordial, according to aides to both men, no endorsement ensued. After their meeting, Mr. Trump invited Mr. Morse and his team to have dinner at his club, but Mr. Trump did not join them.On the eve of the election, Mr. Sununu — whom Mr. Bolduc once accused of being “a Chinese communist sympathizer” — suggested that if Mr. Bolduc became the nominee, he would endorse him. More

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      Who Won and Lost in New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Delaware

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      The primary season ended on Tuesday with elections in New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Delaware.In the night’s marquee matchup, the Republican Senate primary to determine who will challenge Senator Maggie Hassan in New Hampshire this fall, the race had not been called as of Wednesday morning but Don Bolduc, a right-wing, Trump-aligned candidate, appeared poised for victory after Chuck Morse, his more moderate rival, wrote on Twitter that he had conceded.Here is a rundown of some of the most important wins and losses. New HampshireDon Bolduc, a retired Army general who ran on a hard-right platform and embraced former President Donald J. Trump’s lies about the 2020 election, appeared set to win the Republican primary to challenge Senator Maggie Hassan, a Democrat who is seeking a second term in the Senate. As of Wednesday morning, the race had not been called, but his opponent, Chuck Morse, the president of the State Senate, had said he had called Mr. Bolduc and “wished all the best.”Karoline Leavitt, a former press aide in Donald J. Trump’s White House, defeated Matt Mowers, a former State Department adviser, in a Republican primary that pitted two Trump administration alumni against each other. Ms. Leavitt — who recently turned 25, the minimum age to serve in the House — will face Representative Chris Pappas, a Democrat, in the First Congressional District. She could be one of the first two members of Generation Z to serve in Congress, alongside Maxwell Alejandro Frost, who won a Democratic House primary in Florida last month.Gov. Chris Sununu, a Republican seeking a fourth two-year term, easily won his primary, in which he had only nominal competition. He will face Tom Sherman, a state senator who ran unopposed in the Democratic primary.Rhode IslandGov. Dan McKee won a tight Democratic primary as he seeks his first full term after rising from the lieutenant governorship to replace former Gov. Gina Raimondo, who left to serve in the Biden administration. He defeated Helena Buonanno Foulkes, a businesswoman; Nellie Gorbea, the Rhode Island secretary of state; and two others. Mr. McKee will face Ashley Kalus, a businesswoman who won the Republican primary, in November.Lt. Gov. Sabina Matos, who is seeking her first full term after being appointed by Mr. McKee, won the Democratic primary for lieutenant governor. Her Republican opponent will be Aaron Guckian, a former development officer at the Rhode Island Foundation.Gregg Amore, a state representative, won the Democratic nomination for secretary of state and will face Pat Cortellessa, a security company supervisor who volunteered for the Trump campaign in 2016.Seth Magaziner, the state’s general treasurer, is the Democratic nominee to replace Representative Jim Langevin, a Democrat who is retiring. He topped a six-candidate field and will face former Mayor Allan Fung of Cranston in November.DelawareLydia York, a lawyer and former corporate accountant, won the Democratic primary for auditor of accounts, the office responsible for supervising Delaware’s use of taxpayer money. She defeated the incumbent, Kathleen K. McGuiness, who had been convicted of misdemeanors in a misconduct case related to hiring her daughter. More

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      How Fierce Primaries, Abortion and Inflation Transformed the 2022 Map

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      A grueling primary season riven by Republican infighting and the interventions of former President Donald J. Trump finally ended on Tuesday with a slate of G.O.P. candidates that has raised Democratic hopes of preserving Senate control and a political atmosphere that has changed strikingly over the past six months.Republicans still have the environment they wanted when the primaries began in Texas in March: high inflation, economic uncertainty, an unpopular president and the perception that violent crime is on the rise. But since then, Democrats have found strong themes they can run on: the fate of legal abortion and, to a larger extent than they might have imagined, the future of democracy and the rule of law.As the last primary voters went to the polls in New Hampshire, Delaware and Rhode Island, Tuesday provided the perfect split screen for the coming general election.The government’s official report on inflation made clear that Democrats are by no means out of the woods. Hours after its release, Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, introduced legislation to ban abortion nationwide after 15 weeks of pregnancy, effectively spreading the abortion question from red and purple states to blue states that may have felt insulated since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.Those issues and the re-emergence of Mr. Trump as a headline-grabbing political figure have raised the stakes ahead of an Election Day that will determine not only which party will lead Congress but also which one will control statehouses, governorships and top election posts from Pennsylvania to Arizona, from Wisconsin to Florida, ahead of the 2024 presidential contest.“As a forecaster, I prefer it when all the signs are one way or the other,” joked J. Miles Coleman, a congressional election analyst at the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics. That is not the case in 2022.Don Bolduc cheered with supporters during his campaign watch party. John Tully for The New York TimesThe final day of primaries put an exclamation point on the season. Republican voters in New Hampshire were deciding whether to nominate Don Bolduc, a retired general and Trump-style candidate who denies the legitimacy of the 2020 election, or a more mainstream Republican, Chuck Morse, the State Senate president, to take on Senator Maggie Hassan. Early Wednesday, the race had not been called, but Mr. Bolduc held a narrow lead and Mr. Morse wrote on Twitter that “we’ve come up short” and that he had called his opponent and “wished him the best.” Democrats had considered Mr. Bolduc by far the easier candidate for Ms. Hassan, once seen as one of the party’s most vulnerable incumbents.Two right-wing House candidates in the state also showed strength in their primaries. Karoline Leavitt, a 25-year-old former assistant in Mr. Trump’s White House press office, beat Matt Mowers, a onetime colleague in the former president’s administration. And Robert Burns, a Trump-aligned candidate, was locked in an undecided race early Wednesday against George Hansel, a more moderate rival seen as a more formidable challenger to the Democratic incumbent.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.A Fierce Primary Season Ends: Democrats are entering the final sprint to November with more optimism, especially in the Senate. But Republicans are confident they can gain a House majority.Midterm Data: Could the 2020 polling miss repeat itself? Will this election cycle really be different? Nate Cohn, The Times’s chief political analyst, looks at the data in his new newsletter.Republicans’ Abortion Struggles: Senator Lindsey Graham’s proposed nationwide 15-week abortion ban was intended to unite the G.O.P. before the November elections. But it has only exposed the party’s divisions.Democrats’ Dilemma: The party’s candidates have been trying to signal their independence from the White House, while not distancing themselves from President Biden’s base or agenda.In Senate races beyond New Hampshire, a series of stumbling Republican candidates — including Herschel Walker in Georgia, Blake Masters in Arizona, Dr. Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania and J.D. Vance in Ohio — made it through their primaries this year with the backing of Mr. Trump, keeping the race for the chamber competitive.Meantime, Democratic candidates like Cheri Beasley in North Carolina, Mandela Barnes in Wisconsin and Representative Val Demings in Florida have proved resilient enough to expand the Senate map and stretch a Republican campaign machine that is low on cash.Cheri Beasley, the Democratic nominee for Senate in North Carolina, is in an unexpectedly tight race against Representative Ted Budd, a Republican.Travis Dove for The New York Times“On the whole, Republicans have nominated far stronger candidates in swing seats for the House than in swing states for the Senate,” said David Wasserman, a congressional analyst at the nonpartisan Cook Political Report.But in House races, candidate quality tends to matter less. In election years past, House control has sloshed back and forth with larger political currents because House candidates are less familiar to voters than their Senate counterparts. The Democratic 31-seat wave — described by George W. Bush as a “thumping” — in 2006 was followed by what Barack Obama called a “shellacking” in 2010, a 63-seat gain. Eight years later, the Democrats were back with a 41-seat romp.Voters tend to pull the lever based on the party that House candidates represent, not on distinctive policies or personalities they embody.Both parties probably missed some opportunities with their House candidates, or at least made Election Day more competitive than it needed to be..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.For Republicans, flawed House primary winners include Sandy Smith, who is running in a competitive, open seat in northeastern North Carolina and has been accused of domestic violence; J.R. Majewski, a bombastic conspiracy theorist challenging Representative Marcy Kaptur in a Northwest Ohio district newly drawn to favor Republicans; and John Gibbs, a former Trump administration aide who once baselessly accused Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta, of taking part in a “satanic ritual,” then went on to defeat a moderate incumbent, Representative Peter Meijer. Mr. Gibbs must now try to capture a Democratic-leaning district around Grand Rapids, Mich.John Gibbs, a Republican House candidate in Michigan, claimed that the 2020 election results had anomalies that were “simply mathematically impossible.”Brittany Greeson for The New York TimesRepresentative Abigail Spanberger of Virginia was once considered one of the most endangered Democrats, but missteps by her Republican opponent, Yesli Vega, have put her on more solid ground.Chris Taylor, a spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the party’s House campaign arm, laid it on thick as the primary season drew to a close, mocking what he called House Republicans’ “motley crew of MAGA extremists” and “long roster of anti-choice and scandal-prone candidates,” while praising his party’s “all-star class of candidates.”But Democrats are on the defensive in a handful of districts. Republicans are already attacking Jamie McLeod-Skinner, a liberal Democrat who won a primary in Oregon against the more moderate Representative Kurt Schrader and now confronts blowback from years of sometimes unruly protests in nearby Portland. Redistricting turned Representative Steve Chabot, a veteran Republican, vulnerable in Cincinnati, but his challenger, Greg Landsman, a city councilman, has faced attacks over his legislation to redirect $200,000 from the city’s Police Department to an independent board responsible for fielding complaints against police officers.Representative Mike Garcia of California should be one of the most vulnerable Republicans up for re-election, but Democratic voters in northern Los Angeles County opted to nominate Christy Smith, who has already lost to Mr. Garcia twice.Jamie McLeod-Skinner defeated a centrist Democrat in the primary for a House seat in Oregon, but now faces attacks from the right over unruly protests in the city.Thomas Patterson for The New York TimesMichigan’s 10th Congressional District, which was redrawn to lean Republican, has such a weak Democratic candidate that the party has all but ceded it. And in a newly drawn South Texas district, designed to be evenly split between the parties, Democrats nominated a liberal political newcomer and flea market owner, Michelle Vallejo, and the seat now leans Republican.Republicans can also brag of the most racially diverse slate of House candidates they have ever fielded, including 29 Hispanic contenders, 26 Black candidates, six Asian Americans or Pacific Islanders, and three Native Americans. Mr. Wasserman calculated that 61 percent of Republican candidates in swing districts were women, people of color and military veterans. Many of those veterans hail from special forces and have remarkable biographies.“House Republicans have an all-star cast of candidates running to protect the American dream and deliver the type of common-sense policies Democrats have failed to achieve,” said Michael McAdams, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, the campaign arm for House Republicans.Come November, those individual stories may matter little.With only a five-vote swing standing in the way of a Republican majority, the G.O.P. is still favored to take control of the House, but how big a majority the party enjoys will most likely be determined more by the larger political issues — inflation, economics, abortion and democracy — than by the candidates themselves.The Senate may be different, and past could be prologue. In 2010, as the effects of the financial crash lingered and the Tea Party movement energized conservatives, Republicans stormed into the majority in the House, then held it in 2012. But Republicans could not take the Senate until 2014, in part because of poor candidates chosen in the primaries: Christine O’Donnell of Delaware and Sharron Angle of Nevada in 2010, and Richard E. Mourdock of Indiana and Todd Akin of Missouri in 2012.Pressed by Mr. Trump, Republicans may well have outdone themselves in 2022. Mr. Walker, a former football star with no political experience, has struggled in his challenge to Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia, once seen as perhaps the most vulnerable Democrat up for re-election. With the political wind at his face, another freshman Democrat, Mark Kelly of Arizona, has benefited greatly from Mr. Masters’s inexperience and a past replete with oddball views. Mr. Trump liked the celebrity of Dr. Oz but overlooked the potency of attacks over his wealth and his lack of connection to Pennsylvania.Blake Masters, the Republican nominee for Senate in Arizona, supports militarizing the border — but in 2006, he wrote that “‘unrestricted’ immigration is the only choice” for a libertarian-minded voter.Bridget Bennett for The New York TimesAnd though Mr. Vance’s memoir “Hillbilly Elegy” focused on his childhood in working-class Ohio, the candidate, a Trump favorite, has so far failed to open a clear lead in a state that Mr. Trump won in 2020 by eight percentage points.Mr. Coleman, the election analyst, noted that in 2010, everything would have had to go the Republicans’ way if they were to dig themselves out of a nine-seat hole in the Senate. In November, they need a single seat to take control.“This time, it could be more frustrating because they’re right there,” Mr. Coleman said. “They’re at the end zone.” More