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      Hard-Liners Gain in Pennsylvania G.O.P. Races, Worrying Both Parties

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      Doug Mastriano and Kathy Barnette are amplifying Donald Trump’s stolen-election lie in two key races. Republicans fear they could lose in November. Democrats fear they could win.ERIE, Pa. — Republican voters in Pennsylvania, one of the nation’s most hotly contested political battlegrounds, appear to be rallying behind two hard-right candidates for governor and the Senate who are capturing grass-roots anger, railing against the party’s old guard and amplifying Donald Trump’s stolen-election myth.With less than a week until the state’s primary election on Tuesday, polls show that State Senator Doug Mastriano — one of the state’s central figures in the former president’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election — has emerged as the clear front-runner in the G.O.P. race for governor. The candidate for Senate, Kathy Barnette, an underfunded conservative commentator who has never held public office, has made a surprise late surge in the contest that had been dominated by two big-spending rivals, Dr. Mehmet Oz and David McCormick.Mr. Mastriano has made claims of election fraud a central plank of his bid to lead a state that could be decisive in the 2024 presidential race. Ms. Barnette has a history of incendiary remarks, including repeatedly calling former President Barack Obama an adherent of Islam, which she said should be banned, and derisively writing about “the homosexual agenda.” Both candidates have endorsed each other, forging an important alliance.Now, Republicans are concerned about losing both races in November if primary voters embrace such out-of-the-mainstream candidates.Several Republican rivals to Mr. Mastriano have been gathering on private conference calls in recent days in a last-minute attempt to stop him. All agree that he would be a drag on the party, though Mr. Mastriano has yet to sustain any serious coordinated attacks. Two rivals, State Senator Jake Corman and former Representative Lou Barletta, have set a joint event on Thursday, suggesting that the field might soon consolidate, at least slightly.Democrats harbor their own fear: that the bleak 2022 political environment could nonetheless sweep into power Republicans who, in a less hostile climate, might seem unelectable.Kathy Barnette, a Republican candidate for Pennsylvania’s open U.S. Senate seat, at a candidate forum in Newtown, Pa., on Wednesday.Kriston Jae Bethel for The New York Times“Like a lot of Democrats, I’m schizophrenic on this — rooting for the crazy person because it gives us the best chance to win. But at the same time it could give us a crazy senator or a crazy governor, or both,” said Mike Mikus, a Pennsylvania-based Democratic strategist.For years, Pennsylvania has been one of the nation’s quintessential swing states, in which the clearest path to power was through the middle ground between the Democratic and Republican parties. This year’s open seats are because Senator Pat Toomey, a Republican, is retiring and Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, is term-limited.“Pennsylvania is not real good about that extreme on either side,” said Rob Gleason, a former Pennsylvania Republican Party chairman, who was one of Mr. Trump’s chief supporters in the state in 2016 but now worries about Mr. Mastriano in 2022. “No matter what you say, it’s kind of a down-the-middle type of a state.”In Pennsylvania, the governor appoints the secretary of state, the position that oversees state elections, meaning whoever wins the governorship will be overseeing the administration of one of the most coveted swing states in the 2024 presidential race.State Attorney General Josh Shapiro, the presumptive Democratic nominee for Pennsylvania governor, met with environmental advocates in Philadelphia last month.Matt Rourke/Associated PressFor months, the Senate race has been seen chiefly as a heavyweight bout between Dr. Oz, the television personality, and Mr. McCormick, the former chief executive of the world’s largest hedge fund. They and their allies have combined to spend nearly $40 million on television ads. Ms. Barnette, who ran for the House in 2020 in a Philadelphia suburb and lost by nearly 20 percentage points, had rated somewhere between afterthought and asterisk in the race until recently. But a Fox News poll on Tuesday showed the race a virtual three-way tie.To date, Ms. Barnette’s growth has been almost entirely organic, fueled by her sharp debate performances, conservative media appearances and compelling life story, which she told in her book, “Nothing to Lose, Everything to Gain: Being Black and Conservative in America.”A “byproduct of a rape,” as she describes herself, when her mother was only 11, Ms. Barnette talks about growing up “on a pig farm” in Alabama without running water and how her success represents the kind of American dream story that is now at risk.In the final week, Ms. Barnette is receiving some crucial institutional backing: the endorsement of the anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony List on Tuesday and a $2 million television advertising blitz funded by the Club for Growth, which is broadcasting her up-from-the-bootstraps message statewide.The Club for Growth, one of the biggest spenders in Republican politics, has feuded recently with Mr. Trump after running ads attacking J.D. Vance, the Republican Senate candidate in Ohio, even after Mr. Trump endorsed him. Mr. Vance won that primary, and Mr. Trump has endorsed Dr. Oz in Pennsylvania.Kathy Barnette, second from left, and Mehmet Oz, third from left, with other Republican candidates for Senate last month at a forum in Camp Hill, Pa.Matt Rourke/Associated PressIn some ways, Ms. Barnette’s candidacy is a test of whether the movement that elected Mr. Trump has taken on a life of its own. “MAGA does not belong to President Trump,” Ms. Barnette said in one April debate.Both Dr. Oz and Mr. McCormick have wooed Mr. Trump’s supporters, though it has been an awkward fit. Dr. Oz was booed at a Trump rally, Mr. McCormick was rejected by Mr. Trump, and both have faced questions of carpetbagging in a state where they did not recently live full time.Ms. Barnette has offered herself as an authentic and unfiltered version of what the Republican base wants. “Listen, this time, you do not have to hold your nose and vote for the lesser of two evils,” she said at another debate.She has also made plain that there will be no pivot to the middle if she makes it to the fall campaign.“There’s been a longstanding tradition that we want to get as moderate of a Republican coming out of the primary — someone palatable — for the general,” she said in an interview on Wednesday night at a candidate forum in eastern Pennsylvania. “In doing this, how has that worked out for them? It hasn’t really worked out very well.”In the governor’s race, the presumptive Democratic nominee, Attorney General Josh Shapiro, began running television ads last week featuring a narrator touting Mr. Mastriano’s conservative credentials: “If Mastriano wins, it’s a win for what Donald Trump stands for.” Mr. Trump has not endorsed in that contest.On Tuesday, Mr. Mastriano campaigned in Erie, Pa., with Jenna Ellis, the former co-counsel for the Trump campaign’s effort to overturn the 2020 election.“Doug Mastriano, I like to say, is the Donald Trump of Pennsylvania,” Ms. Ellis said.Mr. Mastriano was a key figure in Mr. Trump’s effort to overturn the results in Pennsylvania, a state he lost by 81,000 votes. As a freshman state senator, he held a hearing in November 2020 featuring Ms. Ellis and the Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, visited the White House shortly afterward and remained in close contact with the Trump team. State Senator Doug Mastriano speaking to Trump supporters outside the Pennsylvania State Capitol in Harrisburg a few days after Joseph R. Biden Jr. won the presidential election in 2020.Julio Cortez/Associated PressHe posted an event on Facebook offering bus rides to Washington on Jan. 6, 2021, and his campaign reported spending at least $3,000 chartering buses. But he has claimed that he left before the protest turned violent. In Erie, Mr. Mastriano, whose campaign did not respond to requests for comment, defended the rally.“It’s like, God have mercy on your soul if you dare to go and exercise your First Amendment freedom to go to D.C. on Jan. 6?” Mr. Mastriano said. “You did nothing wrong.”Among those quietly vying to coalesce Republicans around an alternative to Mr. Mastriano is Andy Reilly, one of Pennsylvania’s three Republican National Committee members. Mr. Reilly, who has not endorsed in the race, said the Shapiro campaign’s ads had “raised concerns” and sparked discussions.“The fact that the Democrats are running pro-Mastriano ads tells us that they believe he would be the weakest candidate,” said Charlie Gerow, a longtime Pennsylvania Republican operative who is running for governor and polling in the low single digits.Interviewed while stumping at a bakery in Erie, Mr. Barletta, a former congressman who beat a Democratic incumbent in 2010, called himself the strongest Mastriano alternative.Lou Barletta, a candidate for governor, with his wife and granddaughter last month in Hazleton, Pa.John Haeger/Standard-Speaker, via Associated Press“It’s been myself and Doug Mastriano” at the top of every poll, Mr. Barletta said. “Now people have to make a decision, and a lot of those undecideds need to look at who do they think has a better chance to beat Josh Shapiro.”Bill McSwain, who served as the U.S. attorney for eastern Pennsylvania during the Trump administration, is also running and has spent as much on television as the rest of the field combined, according to AdImpact, a media tracking firm. But he is also the only candidate in the race to be attacked by Mr. Trump. “Do not vote for Bill McSwain, a coward, who let our Country down,” Mr. Trump said last month in a statement attacking Mr. McSwain for not sufficiently pressing Mr. Trump’s false claims of election fraud in Pennsylvania.Mr. Gleason, the former party chairman, is backing Mr. McSwain anyway, fearful that Mr. Mastriano would lose a general election. “He would be toxic,” he said.Representative Brendan Boyle, a Pennsylvania Democrat, said he was approached on the House floor this week by colleagues from other states excited that Republicans could pick two such far-right nominees. But he said that he still remembers 2010, when seemingly unelectable Tea Party Republicans won, and then 2016, when Mr. Trump carried Pennsylvania and the presidency.“I should be happy that Republicans seem to be on the way to blowing both of these races,” Mr. Boyle said. But, he added, “I am very nervous that, lo and behold, two Republican extremists would be elected governor and senator.”For her part, Ms. Barnette, appearing this week on the podcast of Stephen Bannon, the former Trump adviser, dismissed Republican concerns that she was “too MAGA” to win in November.“Do these people have a crystal ball?” she asked. “Are they Jesus incarnate? How do they know?”Tracey Tully More

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      John Eastman Pressed Pennsylvania Legislator to Throw Out Biden Votes

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      The lawyer argued that mail ballots in Pennsylvania in the 2020 election could be culled in a way that would reverse President Donald J. Trump’s defeat in an electorally critical state.WASHINGTON — Even by the standards of other ideas promoted by the conservative lawyer John Eastman to keep President Donald J. Trump in the White House after his election loss in 2020, a newly revealed strategy he proposed to take votes from Joseph R. Biden Jr. in Pennsylvania stands out as especially brazen.Mr. Eastman pressed a Pennsylvania state lawmaker in December 2020 to carry out a plan to strip Mr. Biden of his win in that state by applying a mathematical equation to accepting the validity of mail ballots, which were most heavily used by Democrats during the pandemic, according to emails from Mr. Eastman released under a public records request by the University of Colorado Boulder, which employed him at the time.The emails were the latest evidence of just how far Mr. Trump and his allies were willing to go in the weeks after Election Day to keep him in power — complete with anti-democratic plans to install fake pro-Trump electors and reject the votes of Biden supporters. Mr. Eastman would go on to champion the idea that Vice President Mike Pence could unilaterally block congressional certification of Mr. Biden’s Electoral College victory, an idea Mr. Pence rejected even as Mr. Trump was promoting the protests that turned into the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol.On Dec. 4, 2020, using his university email account, Mr. Eastman wrote to State Representative Russell H. Diamond, Republican of Pennsylvania, with plans for the legislature to appoint pro-Trump electors.He suggested that a mathematical equation could be applied to the vote tallies to reject mail-in ballots for candidates at “a prorated amount.”Mr. Eastman said he was basing his recommendations on his belief that the Trump legal team had presented “ample evidence of sufficient anomalies and illegal votes to have turned the election from Trump to Biden” at public hearings around the country, including in Pennsylvania. But he admitted that he had not actually watched the hearings.“Having done that math, you’d be left with a significant Trump lead that would bolster the argument for the legislature adopting a slate of Trump electors — perfectly within your authority to do anyway, but now bolstered by the untainted popular vote,” Mr. Eastman wrote. “That would help provide some cover.”He also encouraged Mr. Diamond to have the legislature make a specific determination that “the slate of electors certified by the governor,” and chosen by the voters, was “null and void.”In one email, Mr. Diamond responded that Mr. Trump’s lawyers had not presented strong evidence of fraud at the Pennsylvania hearing.“Honestly, the Trump legal team was not exactly stellar at PA’s hearing, failed to provide the affidavits of their witnesses and made a glaring error by purporting that more ballots had been returned than mailed out,” he wrote.On Dec. 13, the day before all 50 states were set to cast their votes in the Electoral College, Mr. Eastman again urged Mr. Diamond to keep up with the plot to create an alternate slate of electors in Pennsylvania.“The electors absolutely need to meet,” Mr. Eastman wrote to the lawmaker. “Then, if the legislature gets some spine, AND (politically) proofs of fraud and/or illegal votes sufficient to have altered the results of the election is forthcoming, those electoral votes will be available to be certified by the legislature.”In one email, Mr. Diamond introduced Mr. Eastman to the Republican House majority leader in the state, crediting Mr. Eastman with “opening my eyes to our ability to exercise our plenary authority to decertify presidential electors (without ANY ‘evidence’ of retail ‘voter fraud’).”A lawyer for Mr. Eastman did not respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.In a brief interview on Tuesday, Mr. Diamond said he first learned about Mr. Eastman and his theories about the power of state lawmakers to shape elections when the lawyer testified in front of the Georgia legislature in early December 2020.Mr. Diamond added that when he started to correspond with Mr. Eastman about election results in Pennsylvania, he thought that Mr. Eastman was merely a law professor and did not realize that he was associated with the Trump campaign. Mr. Diamond said he never pursued the idea of disqualifying mail ballots containing votes for Mr. Biden, though Pennsylvania Republicans tried multiple avenues to fight the election results, including filing a lawsuit, appealing to members of Congress and conducting a forensic investigation.The university released more than 700 of Mr. Eastman’s emails and other documents to The New York Times in response to a public information request. The documents were released earlier to the Colorado Ethics Institute, and were reported earlier by The Denver Post and Politico.The Colorado Ethics Institute, a nonprofit that tries to hold public officials accountable to ethics and transparency rules, provided the emails on April 19 to the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack.Curtis Hubbard, a spokesman for the nonprofit, called for a “thorough audit” of Mr. Eastman’s tenure at the university to “determine the school’s connection — wittingly or unwittingly — to one of the darkest days in the history of this country.”A spokesman for the committee declined to comment.Justice Department officials have said they are investigating some of the schemes that Mr. Eastman supported to overturn the election — chief among them, a plan to use so-called alternate slates of electors in key swing states that were won by Mr. Biden. But Mr. Diamond said he had not been contacted by anyone from the Justice Department.The records show the university paid for Mr. Eastman’s trip the weekend after the election to an academic conference in Philadelphia, where he told The Times that his role in Mr. Trump’s efforts to remain in power began. At the time of the trip, Mr. Trump’s closest aides, including Corey Lewandowski, were at a nearby hotel putting together a legal brief to challenge the results in Pennsylvania. One of Mr. Trump’s aides reached out to Mr. Eastman to see whether he could go to the hotel to help Mr. Trump’s team.In the beginning of December, Mr. Trump called to see whether Mr. Eastman could help bring legal action directly before the Supreme Court. In the days that followed, Mr. Eastman filed two briefs with the court on Mr. Trump’s behalf, but those efforts quickly failed.The emails also paint a portrait of Mr. Eastman as a visiting professor in Colorado who was respected as a conservative thinker — winning praise from conservative students, including one who thanked him for “having the courage to stand up for your beliefs” and complained of being harassed by liberal professors “for being a white male” — until he fell into disrepute at the university as his efforts to overturn the election became known.After more than 200 professors and students signed a petition against him for questioning the results of the election on Twitter, he wrote: “Oh, brother. These people are indefatigable.”And he complained in emails that he was overworked, as he rushed to challenge the election on behalf of Mr. Trump and teach his classes over Zoom.For a while, he retained the support of his supervisors, including one who cheered him on when Mr. Eastman told him he was doing legal work for Mr. Trump.But after Mr. Eastman spoke at the pro-Trump rally on Jan. 6 that preceded the riot at the Capitol, baselessly claiming that Democrats had placed ballots in “a secret folder” inside voting machines in a bid to rig the results, he became a lightning rod for criticism.That same afternoon, a former colleague at the university wrote him to say that he had engaged in “seditious actions” during his speech. Within hours Mr. Eastman fired back, calling the accusation “defamatory.”As the days went on, Mr. Eastman defended himself against a blizzard of attacks from those who called him “a traitor” or worse.He often disavowed the violence that erupted at the Capitol and sometimes blamed it on the leftist activists known as antifa.Citing low enrollment, the university canceled Mr. Eastman’s spring courses and his contract expired with the college.In the months since, more information has emerged about Mr. Eastman’s central role in trying to overturn the election, including writing a memo laying out steps he argued Mr. Pence could take to keep Mr. Trump in power.In March, a federal judge ruled in a civil case that Mr. Eastman and Mr. Trump had most likely committed felonies as they pushed to overturn the election, including obstructing the work of Congress and conspiring to defraud the United States.The actions taken by Mr. Trump and Mr. Eastman, the judge found, amounted to “a coup in search of a legal theory.” More

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      Club for Growth Starts Ad Blitz for Kathy Barnette in Pennsylvania Senate Primary

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      After months of a bruising television ad war between Dr. Mehmet Oz and David McCormick and their allies, the relatively shoestring campaign of Kathy Barnette, a conservative commentator showing surprising strength in the polls, will receive a late boost in the Republican primary for Senate in Pennsylvania.The Club for Growth, the pro-business and anti-tax group, began booking television ads on Tuesday on behalf of Ms. Barnette worth $2 million, according to AdImpact, the ad-tracking firm. That sum is more than 10 times what Ms. Barnette’s campaign had spent in total on television to date, and the total pro-Barnette reservations could continue to grow.Super PACs backing Mr. McCormick, Dr. Oz and their campaigns have already spent or reserved $40 million in the primary.Despite that disparity, Ms. Barnette, author of the book “Nothing to Lose, Everything to Gain: Being Black and Conservative in America,” is running neck and neck with Dr. Oz and Mr. McCormick after strong debate performances turned heads.A Fox News Poll on Tuesday showed her at 19 percent, behind Mr. McCormick at 20 percent and Dr. Oz at 22 percent — within the margin of error.The new ad has Ms. Barnette narrating her impoverished upbringing on “a pig farm in Alabama” and saying how “this country allowed a little Black girl to claw her way from underneath a rock,” while warning of a disappearing American dream.The ad buy took the Barnette team by surprise.“Don’t know anything about it,” Bob Gillies, Ms. Barnette’s campaign manager, said of it on Tuesday.Ms. Barnette has the backing of State Senator Doug Mastriano, who has been the front-runner in the Republican primary for governor, and she has run an unabashedly hard-right campaign, attacking her better-funded rivals as “globalists” on the debate stage and questioning their commitment to gun rights and the anti-abortion movement.“I am the byproduct of a rape,” she said in one debate, challenging Dr. Oz about his past positions on abortion. “My mother was 11 years old when I was conceived. My father was 21. I was not just a lump of cells.”The Club for Growth has not formally endorsed Ms. Barnette, which makes the group’s late intervention all the more politically intriguing. The group did not respond to requests for comment.The group noisily sparred with former President Donald J. Trump in the Ohio Senate primary. The Club for Growth, which backed Josh Mandel, continued to attack J.D. Vance, the eventual winner, even after Mr. Vance won Mr. Trump’s endorsement.Its continued assault on Mr. Vance angered both Mr. Trump and his son, Donald Trump Jr., who attacked the Club for Growth on the campaign trail. And Mr. Vance made clear he was still bitter about all the attacks, calling out the Club by name in his victory speech even as he praised his rivals for their efforts.The Club for Growth and Mr. Trump are allied in another Senate race next Tuesday, in North Carolina, where both are backing Representative Ted Budd against former Gov. Pat McCrory. More

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      States Turn to Tax Cuts as Inflation Stays Hot

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      WASHINGTON — In Kansas, the Democratic governor has been pushing to slash the state’s grocery sales tax. Last month, New Mexico lawmakers provided $1,000 tax rebates to households hobbled by high gas prices. Legislatures in Iowa, Indiana and Idaho have all cut state income taxes this year.A combination of flush state budget coffers and rapid inflation has lawmakers across the country looking for ways to ease the pain of rising prices, with nearly three dozen states enacting or considering some form of tax relief, according to the Tax Foundation, a right-leaning think tank.The efforts are blurring typical party lines when it comes to tax policy. In many cases, Democrats are joining Republicans in supporting permanently lower taxes or temporary cuts, including for high earners.But while the policies are aimed at helping Americans weather the fastest pace of inflation in 40 years, economists warn that, paradoxically, cutting taxes could exacerbate the very problem lawmakers are trying to address. By putting more money in people’s pockets, policymakers risk further stimulating already rampant consumer demand, pushing prices higher nationally.Jason Furman, an economist at Harvard University who was an economic adviser under the Obama administration, said that the United States economy was producing at full capacity right now and that any additional spending power would only drive up demand and prices. But when it comes to cutting taxes, he acknowledged, the incentives for states do not always appear to be aligned with what is best for the national economy.“I think all these tax cuts in states are adding to inflation,” Mr. Furman said. “The problem is, from any governor’s perspective, a lot of the inflation it is adding is nationwide and a lot of the benefits of the tax cuts are to the states.”States are awash in cash after a faster-than-expected economic rebound in 2021 and a $350 billion infusion of stimulus funds that Congress allocated to states and cities last year. While the Biden administration has restricted states from using relief money to directly subsidize tax cuts, many governments have been able to find budgetary workarounds to do just that without violating the rules.Last week, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida signed a $1.2 billion tax cut that was made possible by budget surpluses. The state’s coffers were bolstered by $8.8 billion in federal pandemic relief money. Mr. DeSantis, a Republican, hailed the tax cuts as the largest in the state’s history.“Florida’s economy has consistently outpaced the nation, but we are still fighting against inflationary policies imposed on us by the Biden administration,” he said.Adding to the urgency is the political calendar: Many governors and state legislators face elections in November, and voters have made clear they are concerned about rising prices for gas, food and rent.“It’s very difficult for policymakers to see the inflationary pressures that taxpayers are burdened by right now while sitting on significant cash reserves without some desire to return that,” said Jared Walczak, vice president of state projects with the Center for State Tax Policy at the Tax Foundation. “The challenge for policymakers is that simply cutting checks to taxpayers can feed the inflationary environment rather than offsetting it.”The tax cuts are coming in a variety of forms and sizes. According to the Tax Foundation, which has been tracking proposals this year, some would be phased in, some would be permanent and others would be temporary “holidays.”Next month, New York will suspend some of its state gas taxes through the end of the year, a move that Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, said would save families and businesses an estimated $585 million.In Pennsylvania, Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, has called for gradually lowering the state’s corporate tax rate to 5 percent from 10 percent — taking a decidedly different stance from many of his political peers in Congress, who have called for raising corporate taxes. Mr. Wolf said in April that the proposal was intended to make Pennsylvania more business friendly.States are acting on a fresh appetite for tax cuts as inflation is running at a 40-year high.OK McCausland for The New York TimesMr. Furman pointed to the budget surpluses as evidence that the $1.9 trillion pandemic relief package handed too much money to local governments. “The problem was there was just too much money for states and localities.”A new report from the Tax Policy Center, a left-leaning think tank, said total state revenues rose by about 17.6 percent last year. State rainy day funds — money that is set aside to cover unexpected costs — have reached “new record levels,” according to the National Association of State Budget Officers.Yet those rosy budget balances may not last if the economy slows, as expected. The Federal Reserve has begun raising interest rates in an attempt to cool economic growth, and there are growing concerns about the potential for another recession. Stocks fell for another session on Monday, with the S&P 500 down 3.2 percent, as investors fretted about a slowdown in global growth, high inflation and other economic woes.Cutting taxes too deeply now could put states on weaker financial footing.The Tax Policy Center said its state tax revenue forecasts for the rest of this year and next year were “alarmingly weak” as states enacted tax cuts and spending plans. Fitch, the credit rating agency, said recently that immediate and permanent tax cuts could be risky in light of evolving economic conditions.“Substantial tax policy changes can negatively affect revenues and lead to long-term structural budget challenges, especially when enacted all at once in an uncertain economic environment,” Fitch said.The state tax cuts are taking place as the Biden administration struggles to respond to rising prices. So far, the White House has resisted calls for a gas tax holiday, though Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said in April that President Biden was open to the idea. The administration has responded by primarily trying to ease supply chain logjams that have created shortages of goods and cracking down on price gouging, but taming inflation falls largely to the Fed.The White House declined to assess the merits of states’ cutting taxes but pointed to the administration’s measures to expand fuel supplies and proposals for strengthening supply chains and lowering health and child care costs as evidence that Mr. Biden was taking inflation seriously.“President Biden is taking aggressive action to lower costs for American families and address inflation,” Emilie Simons, a White House spokeswoman, said.The degree to which state tax relief fuels inflation depends in large part on how quickly the moves go into effect.Gov. Laura Kelly backed a bill last month that would phase out the 6.5 percent grocery sales tax in Kansas, lowering it next January and bringing it to zero by 2025. Republicans in the state pushed for the gradual reduction despite calls from Democrats to cut the tax to zero by July.Inflation F.A.Q.Card 1 of 6What is inflation? More

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      Dr Oz embraced Trump’s big lie – will Maga voters reward him in Senate race?

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      Dr Oz embraced Trump’s big lie – will Maga voters reward him in Senate race? Trump holds rally to endorse celebrity doctor ahead of Republican Senate primary in Pennsylvania, which will have big consequences for the November election Say what you like about Donald Trump’s supporters, you cannot fault them for commitment. When the former president arrived for his latest rally in a deeply rural corner of western Pennsylvania, many had already been standing in solid rain for 10 hours.The field in which they were to greet their revered leader was a mud bath. By the time Trump finally arrived, 20 minutes late, the scene had taken on the qualities of the apocalypse – like the closing sequences of the Fyre festival.On this occasion, the seemingly boundless patience of Trump’s devoted followers was being put to the test for an additional reason. He had come to the Westmoreland Fairgrounds outside Greensburg to sprinkle Trump stardust on his preferred choice for the US Senate seat vacated by retiring Republican senator Pat Toomey.Whether Pennsylvanian conservatives go along with the endorsement when the primary is held on 17 May will have big consequences, not merely on Trump’s record of advancing his chosen people – and with it his grip on the Republican party. It will also have ramifications for the November election which, in tune with recent contests in the state, is almost certain to be nail-bitingly close and could be critical in determining whether the Republicans retake the Senate.The trouble is, many Trump supporters don’t know what to make of Mehmet Oz, the celebrity TV surgeon better known as Dr Oz.“We love Trump, but we’ll be booing Oz,” said Pam, 46, a local educator who asked to give only her first name. She admitted one of the reasons she had turned up in the first place was to see how hostile her fellow Trump supporters would be towards the candidate.In the end, after all that sodden waiting, Pam was disappointed. Occasional booing could be heard earlier in the evening whenever Oz was mentioned, but when the man himself took to the stage, whether by design or accident, the music was cranked up so loud that it was impossible to tell jeering from cheering.By now the pattern is well established. Prominent individuals are so desperate for Trump’s blessing that they suspend cognitive functioning and act as his slavish mouthpiece.The phenomenon was vividly illustrated after the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol last year. Republican leaders including Kevin McCarthy were at first critical of Trump’s role but then began faithfully repeating his big lie that the election had been stolen from him.More recently, JD Vance, the venture capitalist author of Hillbilly Elegy, ditched his earlier criticisms of Trump in order to win the former president’s endorsement in the race for a US Senate seat in Ohio. The humiliating gambit paid off last week, with Vance sealing the Republican primary having received a bounce from Trump’s backing.Of all the many examples of this form, there has rarely been as dramatic a shedding of fact-based reasoning in exchange for Trump’s universe of alternative facts than that displayed by Oz. He has descended from the scientific heights of a renowned cardiothoracic surgeon, down through his promotion of quack remedies on his daytime TV show, and into a full-Maga embrace of the Trump big lie.Oz, 61, has an impeccable medical background. Born in Cleveland, Ohio, he is the son of Turkish immigrants and followed his father into cardiothoracic surgery, with Ivy League training at Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania.At his peak, he was an innovator in minimally invasive heart surgery. At Columbia University, where he treated patients until 2018, he authored numerous peer-reviewed papers bearing impenetrable sentences like this one: “In the multivariate Cox proportional hazards regression analysis, CPB time, previous cardiac surgery, sternal wound infection, postoperative renal failure, and postoperative stroke were all associated with increased risk of mortality following MICS.”His weakness – or strength? – was the allure of fame and fortune. In 1996 he performed a heart transplant on the brother of the New York Yankees manager in the middle of a World Series which the Yankees won.Such extraordinary serendipity turned him into a media darling. Oprah Winfrey came calling, dubbing him “America’s doctor”, and the end result was The Dr Oz Show which ran until this January.His show included public-service broadcasting, bringing attention to type 2 diabetes and encouraging his viewers to eat more healthily. But over time he slid into controversial territory.By 2014 he was being called a “snake oil peddler” and hauled before a US Senate committee for touting “miracle” diet products on The Dr Oz Show. “I don’t get why you need to say this stuff because you know it’s not true,” Claire McCaskill, then senator from Missouri, berated him.During the pandemic, he championed several of the same discredited pseudoscience treatments such as hydroxychloroquine pushed by Trump.To complete the decline, the cardiothoracic surgeon has now incorporated into his Pennsylvania Senate campaign the falsehood that the 2020 presidential election that Trump lost was riddled with fraud. “I have discussed it with President Trump and we cannot move on,” he said at a recent televised debate for the Republican primary. “We have to be serious about what happened in 2020.”There is no evidence that fraud on a significant scale occurred in the 2020 election, in Pennsylvania or anywhere else.The problem with being a daytime TV host is that you leave a very long paper trail. Oz’s rivals for the Republican nomination have been bombarding Pennsylvania voters with attack ads portraying him as a “Hollywood liberal” and a Rino – Republican In Name Only.Among the inconvenient truths that the adverts regurgitate is the time that Oz invited Michelle Obama onto his show, his reflections on systemic racism and how it leads to disparities in health outcomes, and his discussions on how to reduce deaths and injuries from guns.The attack ads have featured a 2019 interview in which he questioned Republican states that were introducing bills to ban abortion at six weeks known as heartbeat bills. “But the heart’s not beating,” Oz is shown accurately saying.And then there was the segment on his show that he called “Transgender kids: too young to decide?” where he invited children experiencing gender dysphoria and their parents to talk about their journey.The downpour of negative political adverts carrying politically awkward clips from the Oz show has clearly had an impact on the race. Latest polls show the Republican primary race as too close to call, with the TV personality in a slim lead on 18% to the 16% of his main rival, the super-wealthy former hedge fund CEO David McCormick.By contrast, the Democratic field of candidates appears to be already settled with a clear frontrunner: Pennsylvania’s lieutenant governor, John Fetterman. He is a champion of labour unions, legalised marijuana and combating inequalities in income, health and housing.Certainly, doubts about Oz remained prevalent among the Trump devotees braving the Westmoreland rain on Friday night.“I’m leary,” said Ken Rockhill, 52. “I want to trust Trump’s candidate, but I’m leary. He’s going to have to prove himself.”Rockhill, an artist from Pittsburgh, said his doubts about Oz stemmed from the candidate’s time as a TV personality. Which was odd, given that Trump himself carries the same lineage.“Oz was caught up with that whole Hollywood thing with his show,” Rockhill said. “He was big with the Obamas, hobnobbing with all the stars – that never ends well.”Sharon Nagle, 60, a bartender from a small coalmining town, said she was troubled by Oz’s dual US-Turkish citizenship. That issue has also been seized upon by Oz’s Republican rivals who have called his Turkish ties a national security risk, forcing him to promise to renounce his Turkish citizenship should he win the Senate seat.Nagle also objects to Oz’s Muslim identity. “I love Trump, but he’s got this wrong. I will never vote for a Muslim – they plan to take over America from within and pass sharia-style laws. That’s what I think, and I’m not a bigot.”Pam, the Trump supporter who had come to see whether Oz would be booed off stage, said that as a Christian her antipathy to him stemmed from a 2010 episode of The Dr Oz Show that featured an eight-year-old girl who had transitioned from her male gender at birth. “To use your platform to say a boy aged eight can change gender – that’s evil,” she said.Did she think Trump had made a mistake in endorsing him? Yes, Pam said, showing a surprising willingness to question the former president’s judgment despite being a fervent Maga supporter.“The man is not God,” Pam said, referring to Trump. “He puts his pants on, one leg at a time.”Out of curiosity, the Guardian asked Pam whether she ever watched The Dr Oz Show.Her eyes lit up and she beamed. “Oh yes,” she said. “We love the Dr Oz show!”Political strategists at the rally worked extra hard to try and overcome the chilly response to the Oz endorsement. Vance was rolled out on stage, with the clear hope that the victory he pulled out of the hat last week might somehow rub off on Oz.The crowd was assailed through the evening with 30-second videos attempting to debunk the portrayal of the candidate given in the attack ads. Here was Oz surrounded by children insisting life begins at conception. Here was Oz dressed in lumberjack shirt brandishing a double-barreled shotgun – how could this man be against the second amendment?When Oz finally addressed the crowd he reassured them that he was one of them – a genuine Maga man. “The president endorsed me as an America First candidate … President Trump endorsed me because I am smart, I am tough and I will never let you down.”Then Trump himself bigged up his chosen candidate. “We endorse a lot of people a little out of the box,” he said, paying the subtlest lip service to his followers’ misgivings.He reminded the crowd how Oz had invited him onto his show in 2016, giving the then presidential hopeful a great bill of health though telling him to lose a few pounds. “Dr Oz has had an enormously successful career on TV and now he’s running to save our country from the radical lunatics,” Trump said.Being Trump, his most passionate argument for voting for Oz was also the most quizzical. “His show is great. He’s on that screen, he’s in the bedrooms of all those women telling them good and bad.”It’s not quite clear what Trump meant by that. Will it be the Trump magic needed to put Oz over the finish line? We’ll know in eight days’ time. TopicsPennsylvaniaDonald TrumpUS SenateRepublicansUS politicsfeaturesReuse this content More

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      Midterms’ Biggest Abortion Battleground: Pennsylvania

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      The leading Republicans running for governor in the state want to outlaw abortion. The presumptive Democratic nominee promises to veto any ban.HANOVER TOWNSHIP, Pa. — Jan Downey, who calls herself “a Catholic Republican,” is so unhappy about the Supreme Court’s likely reversal of abortion rights that she is leaning toward voting for a Democrat for Pennsylvania governor this year.“Absolutely,” she said. “On that issue alone.”Linda Ward, also a Republican, said the state’s current law allowing abortion up to 24 weeks was “reasonable.”But Ms. Ward said she would vote for a Republican for governor, even though all the leading candidates vowed to sign legislation sharply restricting abortion. She is disgusted with inflation, mask mandates and “woke philosophy,” she said.“After what’s happened this past year, I will never vote for a Democrat,” said Ms. Ward, a retired church employee. “Never!”Linda Ward, 65, in Allentown, Pa., on Wednesday.Rachel Wisniewski for The New York TimesPennsylvania, one of a handful of states where abortion access hangs in the balance with midterm elections this year, is a test case of the political power of the issue in a post-Roe world, offering a look at whether it will motivate party bases or can be a wedge for suburban independents.After a draft of a Supreme Court opinion that would end the constitutional guarantee of abortion rights was leaked last week, Republicans downplayed the issue, shifting attention instead to the leak itself and away from its substance. They also argued that voters’ attentions were fleeting, that abortion was hardly a silver bullet for Democratic apathy and that more pressing issues — inflation and President Biden’s unpopularity — had already cast the midterm die.To Democrats, this time really is different.“These are terrifying times,” said Nancy Patton Mills, chair of the Pennsylvania Democratic Party. “There were so many people that thought that this could never happen.” If Roe v. Wade is overturned, the power to regulate abortion would return to the states. As many as 28 states are likely to ban or tightly restrict abortion, according to a New York Times analysis.In four states with politically divided governments and elections for governor this year — Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Kansas — the issue is expected to be a fulcrum of campaigns. In Michigan and Wisconsin, which have anti-abortion laws on the books predating Roe, Democratic governors and attorneys general have vowed to block their implementation. Kansas voters face a referendum in August on codifying that the state constitution does not protect abortion.A voter dropped off his ballot during early voting in Allentown, Pa., in 2020.Angela Weiss/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesPennsylvania, which has a conservative Republican-led legislature and a term-limited Democratic governor, is the only one of the four states with an open seat for governor. “The legislature is going to put a bill on the desk of the next governor to ban abortion,’’ said Josh Shapiro, a Democrat running unopposed for the party’s nomination for governor. “Every one of my opponents would sign it into law, and I would veto it.”From Opinion: A Challenge to Roe v. WadeCommentary by Times Opinion writers and columnists on the Supreme Court’s upcoming decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.Alison Block: Offering compassionate care is a core aspect of reproductive health. It might mean overcoming one’s own hesitation to provide procedures like second-trimester abortions.Patrick T. Brown: If Roe is overturned, those who worked toward that outcome will rightly celebrate. But a broader pro-family agenda should be their next goal.Jamelle Bouie: The leak proves that the Supreme Court is a political body, where horse-trading and influence campaigns are as much a part of the process as legal reasoning.Bret Stephens: Roe v. Wade was an ill-judged decision when it was handed down. But overturning it would do more to replicate its damage than to reverse it.Jay Kaspian Kang: There is no clear path toward a legislative solution to protect abortion rights. That’s precisely why people need to take to the streets.Mr. Shapiro, the state’s attorney general, has been primarily known for defeating multiple cases brought by supporters of Donald J. Trump claiming fraud after he lost Pennsylvania by 80,000 votes in 2020. When Mr. Shaprio began his campaign last year, he focused on voting rights, but he said in an interview last week that he expected the general election to become a referendum on abortion.His campaign said it had its best day of fund-raising after the Supreme Court draft leaked last week. He rejected the notion that voters, whose attention spans can be short, will absorb a major Supreme Court reversal and move on by the fall. “I’m going to be talking about rights — from voting rights to reproductive rights — until the polls close at 8 p.m. on Election Day,’’ Mr. Shapiro said. “People are very concerned about this. I expect that level of concern, of fear, of worry, of anger is going to continue.”All four of the top Republicans heading into the primary on May 17 have said they favor strict abortion bans. Lou Barletta, a former congressman and one of two frontrunners in the race, has said he would sign “any bill that comes to my desk that would protect the life of the unborn.”Another top candidate, Doug Mastriano, said in a recent debate that he was opposed to any exceptions — for rape, incest or the health of the mother — in an abortion ban. Mr. Mastriano, a state senator, has introduced a bill in Harrisburg to ban abortions after a “fetal heartbeat” is detected, at about six weeks of pregnancy. Another Republican bill would require death certificates and a burial or cremation after miscarriages or abortions.Democrats are worried, in Pennsylvania and around the country, that their 2020 coalition lacks motivation this year after expelling Mr. Trump from the White House. The listlessness extends to Black, Latino and younger voters, as well as suburban swing voters. It was suburbanites, especially outside Philadelphia, who gave Mr. Biden his winning edge in the state.Democratic operatives hope abortion will keep those independent voters — who have since swung against the president in polls — from defecting to Republicans.“With Trump no longer aggravating suburban voters every week, Republicans were hoping to regain traction in the Philadelphia suburbs in 2022,” said J.J. Balaban, a Democratic strategist in the state. “The fall of Roe will make that less likely to happen.”Shavonnia Corbin-Johnson, political director of the State Democratic Party, said that the end of abortion access would “add to compounding racial disparities and maternal health” for minority communities, and that the party was planning to organize aggressively around the issue.Soleil Hartwell, 19, who works in a big-box store near Bethlehem, is typical of voters who drop off in midterm elections after voting in presidential years. But Ms. Hartwell said she would vote this year to protect abortion rights. “I don’t have any kids, and I don’t plan on having any yet, but if I was in a situation that required me to, I should be able to” choose the fate of a pregnancy, she said.Soleil Hartwell, 19, in Allentown, Pa., on Wednesday.Rachel Wisniewski for The New York TimesRepublicans are deeply skeptical that abortion can reanimate the Democratic base. “Their people are depressed,” said Rob Gleason, a former chair of the Pennsylvania Republican Party. “Nothing’s going to be able to save them this year.”Speaking from Philadelphia after a road trip from his home in western Pennsylvania, Mr. Gleason said: “I stopped on the turnpike and paid $5.40 a gallon for gas. That reminds me every time I fill up, I want a change.”Pennsylvania’s large Roman Catholic population — about one in five adults — has afforded electoral space for a tradition of anti-abortion Democratic officials, including Senator Bob Casey Jr., and his father, Bob Casey Sr., who served as governor. A law that the senior Casey pushed through the legislature in the 1980s included some abortion restrictions, which was challenged in the 1992 Supreme Court case Planned Parenthood v. Casey. The court upheld most of the state’s restrictions, while affirming Roe v. Wade’s grant of a right to abortion. The leaked draft of the court’s opinion last week, written by Justice Samuel Alito, would overturn the Casey ruling along with Roe.The State of Roe v. WadeCard 1 of 4What is Roe v. Wade? More

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      Dr. Oz, Rallying With Trump in Pennsylvania, Meets a Damp Reception

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      The Republican Senate candidates J.D. Vance and Dr. Mehmet Oz rallied on Friday night in Pennsylvania with former President Donald J. Trump, seeking to replicate the endorsement boost that lifted Mr. Vance to a primary victory in Ohio — but enthusiasm for the celebrity doctor was middling at a wet and muddy rally.Three days after helping Mr. Vance capture the G.O.P. nomination in another Northern industrial state, Mr. Trump descended on western Pennsylvania to campaign in a rainstorm for a slate of MAGA candidates led by Dr. Oz, one of the front-runners in a race that could determine control of the Senate.Even with Mr. Trump’s endorsement, the reception for Dr. Oz was mixed, and boos had erupted earlier in the rally when the doctor’s name was mentioned. The Senate candidate sought to burnish his Trump bona fides ahead of the May 17 primary, and the former president vouched for him.“His show is great,” Mr. Trump said in his hourlong speech at the rally in Greensburg, southeast of Pittsburgh. “He’s on that screen. He’s in the bedrooms of all those women telling them good and bad.”Mr. Trump’s visit to Pennsylvania, a state where his re-election ambitions crumbled in 2020, came days after a leaked draft ruling from the Supreme Court signaled that it could strike down the landmark Roe v. Wade case.How Donald J. Trump Still LoomsGrip on G.O.P.: Mr. Trump remains the most powerful figure in the Republican Party. However, there are signs his control is loosening.A Modern-Day Party Boss: Hoarding cash, doling out favors and seeking to crush rivals, Mr. Trump is behaving like the head of a 19th-century political machine.Power Struggle: Led by Senator Mitch McConnell, a band of anti-Trump Republicans is maneuvering to thwart the ex-president.Post-Presidency Profits: Mr. Trump is melding business with politics, capitalizing for personal gain.Just the Beginning: For many Trump supporters who marched on Jan. 6, the day was not a disgraced insurrection but the start of a movement.But Mr. Trump never referred to abortion, exemplifying how many Republican leaders have been quiet on the issue for fear of repercussions in the midterm elections. Dr. Oz mentioned the issue briefly, saying: “Life starts at conception. I’m a heart surgeon. I value it.”In his speech, Mr. Trump aired a fresh round of grievances about the 2020 election and taunts for his political enemies, directing several at Dr. Oz’s chief rival in the Senate race, the former hedge fund executive David McCormick. “He’s not MAGA,” Mr. Trump said, referring to Mr. McCormick as a liberal Wall Street Republican.The former president’s other targets included the actor Alec Baldwin; Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader; and President Biden. Mr. Trump played a video of Mr. Biden’s verbal miscues on several large screens.Dr. Oz, 61, presented himself as an early accepter of medical therapies promoted by Mr. Trump for the treatment of Covid-19, several of which were discredited by medical authorities as lacking efficacy and fraught with potential risk.“When President Trump would talk about these treatments, the press hated it,” Dr. Oz said. “And because they hated him so much, they were rooting against America in order to hurt him.”Mr. Trump said that Dr. Oz, like Mr. Vance in Ohio, had been the victim of an onslaught of expensive television attack ads by his opponents.J.D. Vance, who won his Republican Senate primary race this week in Ohio, also spoke at the rally in Pennsylvania.Kristian Thacker for The New York TimesMr. Vance, 37, a Trump convert who catapulted to a lead in the polls in Ohio — and to the G.O.P. nomination — after the former president endorsed him last month, accused those whom he characterized as establishment Republicans of being feeble in their opposition to the Democrats’ agenda.“There is a war for the soul of the Republican Party,” said Mr. Vance, whose reception at the rally appeared to be more energetic than that for Dr. Oz.Along with Mr. Vance, Mr. Trump praised J.R. Majewski, the surprise winner of a Republican House primary election on Tuesday in northern Ohio.Mr. Majewski has drawn attention for traveling to Washington on Jan. 6, 2021, though he told a right-wing radio host in January that he did not participate in the violence. He has also expressed sympathy for believers of the QAnon conspiracy theory movement and floated doubts that the Capitol riot was driven by Trump supporters.The skepticism of the Trump faithful toward Dr. Oz was palpable at the Pennsylvania rally. When Guy Reschenthaler, the Republican congressman who represents Greensburg, announced his own endorsement of Dr. Oz, a large segment of the crowd booed. When an ad for Dr. Oz that attacked Mr. McCormick was played earlier in the event, there were more boos.Out of 20 rally attendees asked for their opinions on Dr. Oz, two said they supported him. The rest were nearly evenly divided between disliking him and saying they knew little about his candidacy.“I don’t know that I can trust him,” said Robin McDougal, an occupational therapist from Moon Township, Pa. “I like that Trump is endorsing him because I trust Trump — but I’ll tell you the truth, it took me eight years to come to like Trump,” said Ms. McDougal, who said she voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016.But Ms. McDougal allowed that she had perhaps been swayed by the negative ads that have blanketed the state throughout the primary. “I hear the stuff in the attack ads — is none of it true? Is some of it true?”Teri Flati, Ms. McDougal’s sister, was a bigger fan. She said she supported Dr. Oz “because of his position on Covid, and because he’s pro-life.” It did not bother her that he had only recently adopted a firm anti-abortion stance. More

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      9 Governor’s Races to Watch in 2022

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      This November, voters in three dozen states will elect, or re-elect, their chief executive. Even before the candidate matchups are set, the contours of the debate in many of these races are clear. The races for governor are likely to be noisy, with fights over schools, managing the economy, residual Covid debates and race and gender politics.In some of the most competitive races, the outcome has implications far beyond the governor’s mansion. With many Republican voters embracing debunked theories about former President Donald J. Trump’s loss in the 2020 election and pushing for new voting restrictions, governors in battleground states are at the front line in a fight over American democracy, determining how easy it is to vote and even whether election results will be accepted, no matter which party wins.Here are some of the races we’re watching.Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan during a news conference on crime reduction.Nick Hagen for The New York TimesMichiganGov. Gretchen Whitmer is facing voters in this swing state after angering many on the right by imposing strict Covid-19 safety measures and vetoing legislation she says perpetuates falsehoods about the 2020 presidential election results. With Democrats facing a particularly tough climate this year, a crowded field of Republican candidates has gathered to challenge her. James Craig, the former police chief of Detroit, appears to be the early front-runner among a group of 10 Republicans.Gov. Tony Evers of Wisconsin, who is up for re-election in November, vetoed a package of Republican election measures.Andy Manis/Associated PressWisconsinLike Ms. Whitmer in Michigan, Gov. Tony Evers was elected in the Democratic wave of 2018. And also like Ms. Whitmer, he has spent much of his term doing battle with a Republican-led Legislature. Mr. Evers blocked new restrictions on abortion and voting, at times branding himself as a firewall against a conservative agenda.Wisconsin Republicans, already divided over their party’s embrace of election falsehoods, are facing a contentious primary to challenge Mr. Evers. Among the contenders is a former lieutenant governor, Rebecca Kleefisch; Kevin Nicholson, a management consultant and former Marine; Tim Michels, a former candidate for U.S. Senate; and Tim Ranthum, a state lawmaker running on a fringe attempt to “decertify” the 2020 presidential election.Gov. Tom Wolf of Pennsylvania cannot seek a third term.Noah Riffe/Centre Daily Times, via Associated PressPennsylvaniaGov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, is prohibited from seeking a third term because of term limits, and Democrats hope Josh Shapiro, the state attorney general and likely nominee, can hold the seat for them. Mr. Shapiro will face the winner of the nine-person Republican primary, which includes Bill McSwain, a former U.S. attorney whom Trump harshly criticized for not investigating his claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election. State Senators Doug Mastriano and Jake Corman, as well as David White, a former Delaware County Council member, are also running.David Perdue has the Trump endorsement in the Georgia governor’s race.Audra Melton for The New York TimesGeorgiaFormer President Donald J. Trump is trying to use the Georgia governor’s race — and other state contests — to seek revenge for his 2020 loss in the state. He endorsed former Senator David Perdue in an uphill battle against Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican incumbent who resisted Mr. Trump’s pressure to overturn the election results.That divisive primary could hobble the winning Republican as he heads into a general election fight against Stacey Abrams, the likely Democratic nominee, whose narrow loss to Mr. Kemp in 2018 helped propel her to national prominence.Katie Hobbs, Arizona’s secretary of state, began her race for governor with a fund-raising edge.Cassidy Araiza for The New York TimesArizonaTerm limits are creating an open race for governor in a state that has been seized by unfounded claims of election fraud since Mr. Trump’s loss in 2020. Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, started with a sizable fund-raising lead over her two primary opponents, Aaron Lieberman, a former state legislator, and former Mayor Marco López of Nogales, who worked for Customs and Border Protection in the Obama administration.Kari Lake, a former news anchor at a Fox television station in Phoenix, Ariz., who was endorsed by Mr. Trump, has had an edge in the crowded Republican field. Other Republicans include Karrin Taylor Robson, a former member of the Arizona Board of Regents, and Paola Tulliani Zen, a business owner.Gov. Laura Kelly is expected to face a close race this fall.John Hanna/Associated PressKansasGov. Laura Kelly, a Democrat, was elected in this reliably red state with less than 50 percent of the vote in 2018. She is headed to another competitive race in November. The likely Republican nominee is Derek Schmidt, the state’s attorney general.Though she angered Republicans by vetoing legislation barring transgender athletes from women’s sports and raising the eligibility requirements for food stamps, Ms. Kelly’s first television ad features Mr. Trump and a bipartisan theme. Mr. Schmidt has been endorsed by Mr. Trump.Gov. J.B. Pritzker at the groundbreaking for the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago.Mustafa Hussain for The New York TimesIllinoisGovernor J.B. Pritzker, a Democrat and billionaire, is up for re-election in this blue state with a history of electing Republican governors. Two billionaires looking to oust him are vying in a competitive, and most likely expensive, Republican primary.That race includes State Senator Darren Bailey, who has the backing of the billionaire Richard Uihlein, and Mayor Richard Irvin of Aurora, who has the financial support of Ken Griffin, the state’s richest resident and a longtime Pritzker rival. The race also includes Jesse Sullivan, a well-funded businessman and first-time candidate.Gov. Greg Abbott has overseen a hard right turn in the Texas government.Joel Martinez/The Monitor, via Associated PressTexasGov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, is running for a third term with a fund-raising advantage over his leading Democratic rival and having overseen a hard right turn in state government. Mr. Abbott has bused migrants from the southwest border to the nation’s capital, blocked mask and vaccine mandates, and pushed for criminal investigations of parents who seek transition care for transgender youths.His rival, Beto O’Rourke, is a former three-term congressman from El Paso, who nearly ousted Senator Ted Cruz, a Republican, in 2018, and ran for president in 2020. His comment that year — “Hell yes, we’re going to take your AR-15” — may have weakened, if not doomed, his chances with voters in gun-friendly Texas.Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference in February in Orlando.Scott McIntyre for The New York TimesFloridaGov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, is widely believed to harbor presidential ambitions that are putting him on a crash course with the state’s other ambitious politician, Mr. Trump, whose endorsement helped Mr. DeSantis narrowly win the governor’s office just four years ago.Florida has transformed as Mr. DeSantis has increased and flexed his power to remarkable effect, opposing Covid-19 mandates, outlawing abortions after 15 weeks and restricting school curriculums that led to fights with Disney and the banning of math books. Mr. DeSantis has a fund-raising advantage over his likely Democratic opponent, Representative Charlie Crist, a Democrat and former Republican governor of the state, who is in a crowded primary that includes Nikki Fried, the commissioner of agriculture and consumer services.— More