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      Why the Jan. 6 Hearings Matter

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      Even if the Jan. 6 attack will not become a unifying moment for the country.The opportunity for the Jan. 6 attack to serve as a unifying moment for the country has already been lost.The initial bipartisan condemnation of it has given way to a partisan argument in which many congressional Republicans play down the attack. The Republican Party’s official organization described the riot as “legitimate political discourse,” and Republican leaders like Representative Kevin McCarthy quickly softened their initial denunciation. About half of Republicans voters say it was a patriotic attempt to defend freedom.But the facts about Jan. 6 still matter. On that day, a mob violently attacked the Capitol — smashing windows, punching police officers, threatening members of Congress and Vice President Mike Pence — to try to prevent the certification of a presidential election. The rioters justified their attack with lies about voter fraud, and they received encouragement from top Republicans, including President Donald Trump and the wife of a Supreme Court justice.Last night, a House committee investigating the attack held its first public hearing, and today’s newsletter covers the highlights. These hearings are not going to transform the politics of Jan. 6, yet they do have the potential to affect public opinion on the margins. And the margins can matter.Caroline Edwards, a Capitol Police officer, and Nick Quested, a documentary filmmaker.Kenny Holston for The New York TimesThere are still many Republican voters disgusted by what happened on Jan. 6. Nearly half say that finding out what happened that day is important. Almost 20 percent consider the attack to have been an attempt to overthrow the government, according to a recent CBS News poll. About 40 percent believe, accurately, that voter fraud was not widespread in the 2020 election.“I actually think that there is an opportunity,” Sarah Longwell, an anti-Trump Republican strategist, said this week on our colleague Kara Swisher’s podcast. The hearings, Longwell added, can help prosecute the case for how extreme some Republican politicians have become.If Republican voters are divided over the attack and Democrats are almost uniformly horrified by it, the politicians making excuses for it remain in the minority. Candidates who base their campaigns on lies about voter fraud — as some are now doing in Arizona, Pennsylvania and elsewhere — will have a harder time winning elections. Future efforts to overturn an election will be less likely to succeed.For the same reason, any Republicans who have consistently denounced the attacks — like Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, the only two Republicans serving on the Jan. 6 committee — are especially important. They are demonstrating that it’s possible to hold very conservative views and nonetheless believe in honoring election results. Until very recently, that combination wasn’t even unusual: Ronald Reagan and many other Republicans won elections by earning more votes.The Jan. 6 hearings are part of a larger struggle over the future of American democracy. Americans will probably never come to a consensus on many polarizing political issues, like abortion, guns, immigration and religion. That’s part of living in a democracy.But if Americans cannot agree that the legitimate winner of an election should take office and if losing candidates refuse to participate in a peaceful transfer of power, the country has much bigger problems than any policy disagreement.Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the committee’s vice chairwoman.Doug Mills/The New York TimesThe hearing:The committee, led by Cheney and Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat, cast the Capitol attack as part of Trump’s “sprawling, multi-step conspiracy” to overturn the 2020 election. “Jan. 6 was the culmination of an attempted coup,” Thompson said.Lawmakers interspersed their presentation with videos of former Trump aides testifying that they had told the president that his claims of voter fraud were false. The committee also played never-before-aired footage of rioters attacking police officers.Caroline Edwards, a Capitol Police officer whom the mob knocked unconscious and pepper sprayed, testified in person about the attack: “It was carnage. It was chaos.”Cheney addressed members of her party who remain loyal to Trump: “There will come a day when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain.”What we learned:Trump believed the rioters were “doing what they should be doing,” Cheney said, and yelled at advisers who said that he should call them off. He said that rioters who chanted about hanging Pence “maybe” had “the right idea.”The committee played video of Bill Barr, the former attorney general, saying that he had called Trump’s fraud claims “bullshit” and “crazy stuff.” Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter, testified that she “accepted” what Barr said.Footage shot by a documentary filmmaker showed members of the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers, two far-right groups who stormed the Capitol, meeting on the evening before the attack.In video testimonies, several rioters said that they had stormed the Capitol in response to Trump’s summons. “He asked me for my vote and he asked me to come on Jan. 6,” one said.Cheney said that Pence, not Trump, ordered the National Guard to the Capitol during the attack, and that “multiple” House Republicans sought pardons over their efforts to overturn the election.Related:The hearing depicted Trump as “not just a rogue president but a would-be autocrat,” The Times’s Peter Baker writes.On Fox News, which did not broadcast the hearing live, Tucker Carlson called the attack “forgettably minor.”The F.B.I. arrested Ryan Kelley, a Republican candidate for Michigan governor, on charges stemming from Jan. 6.At least 21 Republican legislators joined the crowds in Washington on Jan. 6. Here’s where they are now.A bipartisan group of senators is nearing a deal to update the Electoral Count Act. One provision would clarify that the vice president cannot overturn election results.THE LATEST NEWSWar in Ukraine“Dead cities” in eastern Ukraine, ravaged by Russian attacks, have become the latest focal points in the war.Marking the 350th anniversary of Peter the Great’s birth, President Vladimir Putin compared himself and the invasion of Ukraine to Russia’s first emperor and his conquering exploits.Ukraine’s military and its government called for more arms from the West.The VirusIlana Diener holding Hudson, her 3-year-old son, at a trial for the Moderna vaccine last year.Emma H. Tobin/Associated PressThe White House has made millions of Covid vaccine doses available in anticipation that children under 5 will be able to get shots next week.Mysteries linger about how Covid spread to people, according to a new report from the W.H.O. on the origins of the coronavirus.PoliticsThe U.S. sped up its deportations of Haitian migrants last month, expelling nearly 4,000.Many state abortion bans that would go into effect if Roe v. Wade is overturned do not contain exceptions once widely supported by abortion opponents.Carl Paladino, a Republican House candidate from New York, apologized for calling Adolf Hitler “the kind of leader we need today” last year.The House voted to pass legislation allowing guns to be confiscated from people deemed by a federal court to be dangerous. It garnered only five Republican votes.Other Big StoriesDuring the shooting in Uvalde, Texas, more than a dozen students remained alive in barricaded classrooms while officers waited over an hour for protective gear.A white police officer in Grand Rapids, Mich., was charged with murder over the shooting of Patrick Lyoya, a Black man, in April.The Justice Department is investigating the Louisiana State Police over the fatal beating of a Black motorist.The truth is out there: NASA will fund a study into U.F.O.s.Iran has begun dismantling U.N. cameras intended to monitor its nuclear program.A Broadway theater will be renamed to honor Lena Horne, a renowned Black singer and activist.Oklahoma’s softball team won the Women’s College World Series for the second straight year.OpinionsShanghai’s Covid lockdown exposed the myth of China’s superiority, Connie Mei Pickart says.For conservative Christians, calling mass shooters “evil” has become an excuse to avoid passing new gun laws, Esau McCaulley argues.MORNING READSBrewing beer at the Neuzelle monastery in eastern Germany.Patrick Junker for The New York TimesBeer lovers: Germany is facing a shortage of bottles.A full office return: How about … never?Modern Love: Is it time to stop privileging romantic connections over all others?A Times classic: How to keep your muscles into old age.Advice from Wirecutter: Tips for organizing your garage.Lives Lived: Dmitry Kovtun was one of two men suspected of poisoning Alexander Litvinenko, a fellow former spy who had defected from Russia, with radioactive polonium in a London bar. Kovtun died at 56.ARTS AND IDEAS Apps have struggled to reproduce the kind of real-world serendipity that puts a book in a reader’s hand.Tom Jamieson for The New York TimesYour next great readIt seems impossible to replicate online the feeling of walking into a bookstore and discovering new books and authors. But some apps are trying.Several companies have tried to tackle the issue, with mixed results, Alexandra Alter and Elizabeth Harris write in The Times. This week, the app Tertulia came out. It uses a mix of artificial intelligence and human curation to distill online chatter about books and point readers to the ones that might interest them.But it’s not easy. “I don’t think anyone has found a tool or an algorithm or an A.I. platform that does the job for you,” Peter Hildick-Smith, president of the Codex Group, which analyzes the book industry, told The Times.PLAY, WATCH, EATWhat to CookJohnny Miller for The New York Times. Food Stylst: Laurie Ellen Pellicano.This strawberry cake is a lighter take on the French fraisier. (See how to make it.)What to Listen toThe latest episode of “Still Processing” explores how one highway divided a Philadelphia community.What to ReadThe filmmaker Werner Herzog is making a foray into fiction with “The Twilight World.”Late Night“Exactly what you thought, but worse than you could have imagined”: Hosts weighed in on the first Jan. 6 hearing.Take the News QuizHow well did you follow the headlines this week?Now Time to PlayThe pangrams from yesterday’s Spelling Bee were innovating and navigation. Here is today’s puzzle.Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: Scrumptious (five letters).And here’s today’s Wordle. After, use our bot to get better.Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. — DavidP.S. Kevin Quealy — a talented data journalist and friend of this newsletter — will be The Upshot’s next editor.Here’s today’s front page. “The Daily” is about Chesa Boudin’s recall in San Francisco. “Popcast” answers listener questions.Natasha Frost, Claire Moses, Tom Wright-Piersanti and Ashley Wu contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com.Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. More

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      Your Friday Briefing: A Crucial Moment in the Ukraine War

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      Plus the U.S. begins Jan. 6 hearings and Chinese pilots provoke U.S. allies.Good morning. We’re covering Ukraine’s fight for the Donbas and the start of Jan. 6 hearings in the U.S.A bridge, now destroyed by Russian forces, that once led into Sievierodonetsk.Ivor Prickett for The New York TimesDonbas’s fate is ‘being decided’President Volodymyr Zelensky described the battle for Sievierodonetsk as a crucial moment in what is increasingly a war of attrition in eastern Ukraine. “The fate of our Donbas is being decided there,” he said.Ukrainian forces are outgunned by the Russians. The city is burning as the sounds of gunfire echo from vicious street-by-street combat. If Sievierodonetsk and its sister city Lysychansk fall, Russia will control all of Luhansk, one of two provinces in the Donbas region.Ukraine’s defense minister said his country “desperately needs heavy weapons, and very fast.”Both sides are still struggling to control what Zelensky has called “dead cities” as Russian bombardment further destroys the metropolises in the east. Here are live updates.Deaths: Ukraine is keeping its casualty numbers secret. But on the front lines, fresh graves show how relentless the fighting has become.Rep. Dan Kildee, a committee member, spoke before the start of the hearing.Doug Mills/The New York TimesThe U.S. begins Jan. 6 hearingsThe House panel investigating the attack on the U.S. Capitol will open public hearings in Washington to begin setting out the findings from its nearly yearlong investigation.Lawmakers plan to start the session by presenting previously unreleased video testimony from people close to Donald Trump. They will also share footage revealing the role of the far-right group the Proud Boys in the riot on Jan. 6, 2021.The committee intends to paint a picture of Trump at the center of a coordinated effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election that led to the attack. We have live updates.“We’ll demonstrate the multipronged effort to overturn a presidential election, how one strategy to subvert the election led to another, culminating in a violent attack on our democracy,” said Representative Adam Schiff of California, a Democrat and a member of the committee.Details: The first hearing begins at 8 p.m. Eastern time (that’s 8 a.m. in Hong Kong). A total of six hearings are planned for this month.Resources: The Times has constructed an exhaustive timeline of the attack — the planning beforehand, the events at the Capitol and the preparation for the hearings.Trump: Lawyers plan to question the former president under oath as part of a separate investigation into his business practices led by the New York State attorney general’s office.A Chinese J-16 fighter jet.Taiwan Ministry of Defense, via Associated PressChinese pilots provoke U.S. alliesAustralia and Canada say Chinese military jets have harassed their planes in recent weeks, sometimes flying so close that the pilots could see each other.Beijing says the maneuvers are reasonable responses to foreign military patrols that threaten its security. But the two U.S. allies worry the pilots’ actions could lead to midair collisions.Any such mishap in the Asia Pacific could ignite an international incident at a time when tensions are rising between China and the West.Background: In 2001, a Chinese fighter jet collided with a U.S. Navy surveillance plane, leading to tense negotiations and an apology from the U.S. Beijing has honored the fallen pilot, Wang Wei, whose confrontational way of flying is held up as a model for new Chinese pilots to emulate, an expert said.Details: The Chinese pilots have repeatedly buzzed a Canadian plane monitoring North Korea in recent weeks, and one plane sprayed metallic chaff in the path of an Australian surveillance aircraft.THE LATEST NEWSAsiaSouth Korean rescue teams and firefighters on the scene yesterday.Lee Mu-Yeol/NEWSIS, via Associated PressAn explosion killed at least seven people at a law firm in Daegu, South Korea. The police suspect arson.Vietnam’s health minister and Hanoi’s mayor were arrested in connection with a corruption scandal involving coronavirus test kits.Thailand became the first Asian country to legalize growing and possessing marijuana, The Associated Press reported.World NewsThe U.S. House passed a package of gun control measures, but the bill stands no chance of becoming law because of Republican opposition in the Senate.President Biden opened the Summit of the Americas, which is focused on immigration and regional economic ties. Several prominent Latin American leaders are skipping the meeting. Here are live updates.As inflation continues to rise, the European Central Bank says that it will raise interest rates next month for the first time in 11 years.The Middle EastIran began dismantling the U.N. monitoring system of its nuclear program, just as the U.N. nuclear agency said it was only weeks away from producing enough enriched uranium to make a nuclear weapon.Israel’s prime minister, Naftali Bennett, made an impromptu visit to Abu Dhabi as his country and the U.A.E. presented a united front against Iran.What Else Is HappeningAn American tourist pushed an electric scooter down the Spanish Steps, causing 25,000 euros (about $27,000) in damage to the Roman landmark.Asteroid samples brought back to Earth by the Japanese space mission Hayabusa2 in December 2020 could shed new light on the chemistry of the solar system.The sale of single-use plastic products at U.S. national parks and on other public lands will be phased out over the next decade.A Morning ReadDom Phillips, center, interviewing Indigenous Brazilians in 2019.Joao Laet/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesDom Phillips, a British journalist, and Bruno Pereira, a Brazilian expert on Indigenous groups, disappeared in the Amazon after facing threats. They had gone to interview Indigenous people who patrol parts of the dense jungle plagued by illegal fishing, hunting and mining, a problem exacerbated by government budget cuts under President Jair Bolsonaro. They have not been seen since Sunday.Russia-Ukraine War: Key DevelopmentsCard 1 of 4The battle for Sievierodonetsk. More

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      Kean Will Face Malinowski, and Another Menendez Is on the Rise

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      Tom Kean Jr., the son of a popular two-term New Jersey governor, beat six Republican opponents Tuesday to win the nomination to compete against Representative Tom Malinowski, an embattled Democrat accused of ethical lapses, in what is shaping up to be the state’s most competitive midterm contest.Another son of a storied New Jersey political family, Robert Menendez Jr., easily won a Democratic House primary, making it likely that he and his father and namesake, the state’s senior senator, will serve together in the Capitol.Mr. Malinowski, 56, in a swipe at Mr. Kean’s three unsuccessful campaigns for Congress, said: “I want to do this job. He just wants to have this job.”Mr. Kean, 53, who narrowly lost to Mr. Malinowski in 2020, said his opponent had “squandered” the opportunity to serve New Jersey during two terms in Washington.Mr. Kean’s primary opponents had challenged him from the right as they competed for the support of conservative Republican voters aligned with former President Donald J. Trump. Outside a school near Mr. Kean’s home in Westfield, N.J., where he voted on Tuesday with his wife and daughters, a sign parroting one of Mr. Trump’s favorite labels read, “Warning RINO alert.”But just after midnight, he was more than 22 percentage points ahead of his closest opponent in a race that was seen at least in part as a measure of Mr. Trump’s grip on the Republican Party in a state better known for a moderate brand of Republican politics once epitomized by leaders like Mr. Kean’s father, Gov. Thomas H. Kean.The largely suburban Seventh Congressional District is filled with the type of affluent, well-educated voters who helped Democrats take control of the House in 2018.During the last midterm cycle, Democrats in New Jersey flipped four seats — many of which, including Mr. Malinowski’s, are again seen as potential battlegrounds.As he runs for re-election, Mr. Malinowski is facing allegations that he failed to report stock trades as required. He is also running in a district that gained more Republican-leaning towns when the borders were redrawn to reflect demographic changes in the 2020 census.But late Tuesday, Mr. Malinowski’s campaign got a potential boost from an unlikely camp: Republicans hoping to make a home for centrist voters with the creation of a new party, the Moderate Party. The new party, which will almost certainly face legal challenges, has filed nominating petitions on behalf of Mr. Malinowski.Mr. Menendez won in a largely urban district where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans five to one; winning the primary in the Eighth Congressional District, which includes parts of New Jersey’s two largest cities, is often tantamount to victory in the general election.A lawyer making his first run for office, Mr. Menendez had an array of political and union support early on — as well as crucial backing from his father, also a Democrat and the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Just after midnight, when The Associated Press called the race for Mr. Menendez, he was 70 percentage points ahead of his main challenger, David Ocampo Grajales.If he wins in November, Mr. Menendez, 36, will occupy a seat held for a decade by Representative Albio Sires, a Democrat who announced in December he would not run for re-election.Mr. Ocampo Grajales, the son of immigrants from Colombia, said last week that he had entered the race to give Democrats a viable alternative to a handpicked candidate.“It’s not so much who Menendez is himself, but what he represents: more of the same,” said Mr. Ocampo Grajales, 25.The New Jersey congressional candidate Tom Kean Jr., with his family, after voting at Wilson Elementary School in Westfield, N.J., on Tuesday.Bryan Anselm for The New York TimesA Republican primary in a central New Jersey swing district represented by Andy Kim, a Democrat running for his third term in Congress, was the state’s most colorful contest.Bob Healey Jr., a former singer in a punk band who helps run his family’s yacht-manufacturing company, beat two challengers, Nicholas J. Ferrera and Ian A. Smith, with the backing of the Republican Party.In March, Mr. Smith, the former owner of a gym that repeatedly flouted Covid-19 lockdown rules, was charged with driving under the influence, reviving talk of his past conviction for vehicular homicide. He served time in prison for killing a teenager in 2007 while under the influence of alcohol, and has pleaded not guilty to the new charges.“I may have sung in my past about killing someone,” Mr. Healey said during a debate in May. “Ian actually did kill someone.”By midnight, the winner of the Republican primary to face Representative Josh Gottheimer, a Democrat competing for re-election to a fourth term, had not yet been called.Frank Pallotta, a wealthy former investment banker who lost to Mr. Gottheimer two years ago, was 5 percentage points ahead of Nick De Gregorio, a Marine Corps veteran, with about 85 percent of the vote counted.Mr. Pallotta won the endorsement of former President Donald J. Trump in 2020, but not this time. He also had raised significantly less money than Mr. De Gregorio, who had emphasized his service in combat roles in Iraq and Afghanistan.“We did everything we possibly could, and we left no stones unturned,” Mr. De Gregorio said as he watched the returns come in from the Republican Party headquarters in Bergen County. “We went out there and we listened to what the voters had to say.”Mr. Menendez will be a heavy favorite in November against Marcos Arroyo, a housing inspector from West New York, N.J., who was the lone Republican candidate to enter the race.Mr. Menendez has said that, if elected, he would focus on expanding access to early childhood education and issues that affect the cost of living in New Jersey, where property owners pay some of the nation’s highest taxes.“One of the things we’ve focused on — just because we don’t know the climate that we’re going to be walking into, should we win — is trying to think about what Democratic proposals haven’t been passed yet that we can have bipartisan support for,” Mr. Menendez said in an interview on Saturday.Before being appointed to the Senate in 2006, Senator Menendez held the House seat that his son is now seeking. The borders of the district, formerly the 13th Congressional District, have since been redrawn slightly.The state debuted a new electronic voting system in November, but this was the first time that New Jersey voters were offered a chance to cast ballots in person, on machines, during a primary election.Still, with no statewide races on the ballot, turnout was low.“We were told that we were the fourth and fifth people in our district to be voting today,” Gov. Philip D. Murphy said on Tuesday morning, “and they’ve been open for a while.”Shlomo Schorr contributed reporting. More

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      Rick Caruso and Karen Bass Head for Runoff in Los Angeles Mayor’s Race

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      LOS ANGELES — Rick Caruso, a billionaire real estate developer, and Representative Karen Bass are heading to a November runoff election to become mayor of Los Angeles, in a race that has focused on voters’ worries about public safety and homelessness in the nation’s second-largest city.Though neither candidate earned more than 50 percent of the vote, which would have allowed them to win outright on Tuesday, they both comfortably outperformed their opponents. The runoff was declared by The Associated Press.The liberal city’s surge of support for Mr. Caruso, a longtime Republican who changed his registration to Democratic days before declaring his candidacy, is likely to deepen the Democratic Party’s divisions on issues of crime, policing and racial justice. San Francisco voters also moved on Tuesday to recall Chesa Boudin, the city’s progressive district attorney.As Mr. Caruso gave a speech to supporters at the Grove, his flagship shopping center in Los Angeles, he portrayed himself as an optimist with grand plans to address the city’s twin problems of crime and homelessness.“We are not helpless in the face of our problems,” he said, flanked by his wife and their four children. “We will not allow this city to decline. We will no longer accept excuses. We have the power to change the direction of Los Angeles.”Ms. Bass was widely seen as the front-runner in the crowded primary before Mr. Caruso’s entrance in February, but his lavish spending and tough-on-crime message quickly propelled him, leading several other candidates to drop out of the race to replace Mayor Eric Garcetti, who is term limited.The developer of several popular luxury shopping centers, Mr. Caruso, 63, tightly tied his campaign to the spotless image he has cultivated in the faux town squares of those properties. His campaign spent nearly $41 million, including $39 million of his own money, much of it on television, digital and radio ads that seemed to blanket the airwaves in recent weeks, portraying him as a successful businessman who could “clean up” Los Angeles.Mr. Caruso may face a steeper uphill climb during the general election if high-profile Democrats rally behind Ms. Bass.“Together we can make our city a place where you can afford to live, where you want to live, because you feel safe, because the air you breathe is clean, because people are no longer dying on the streets,” Ms. Bass told supporters at the W Hollywood hotel on Tuesday night. “Not with empty promises from the past but with a bold path forward.”A victory for Mr. Caruso would be a significant shift in this overwhelmingly liberal city, where Senator Bernie Sanders easily won the Democratic presidential primary two years ago. The city’s longstanding battles over housing, homelessness and crime have reached a new level of urgency during the pandemic.Mr. Caruso has portrayed the city as one in deep decay, promising to hire 1,500 more police officers and build 30,000 shelter beds in 300 days. The message has resonated among voters who are deeply frustrated with homeless encampments throughout the city, visible on residential sidewalks, nestled in parks and sprawling under freeway overpasses.Casting himself as an outsider, Mr. Caruso has blamed career politicians, including Ms. Bass, for the city’s ills. After voting in the predominantly Latino neighborhood of Boyle Heights, Mr. Caruso criticized his rival for suggesting that it could take more than four years to solve homelessness in the city, an objection he repeated in his speech on Tuesday night.But experts and critics say many of Mr. Caruso’s promises may not be possible because of federal court mandates that allow people to camp in public spaces, as well as the city’s byzantine zoning rules. Compared with leaders of other large cities, the mayor of Los Angeles has relatively little power. Much of the sprawling region is controlled by the five members of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, who oversee a $38.5 billion budget.Ms. Bass, 68, who spent years organizing in South Los Angeles after the 1992 riots before being elected to the State Legislature and then Congress, has described her campaign as a kind of homecoming and pledged to address questions of equity in this profoundly stratified city.Representative Karen Bass is a former chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, and was on President Biden’s shortlist as a possible vice president.Alisha Jucevic for The New York TimesThe campaign between the two is also poised to become a test of whether voters this year favor an experienced politician who has spent nearly two decades in government or an outsider running on his business credentials.Latino voters are expected to play a pivotal role in the November election and will be courted aggressively by both candidates. Polling has also indicated a striking gender gap, with Black and Latino men appearing more likely to choose Mr. Caruso over Ms. Bass.Understand the 2022 Midterm ElectionsCard 1 of 6Why are these midterms so important? More

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      Who won and who lost in Tuesday’s primary elections.

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      Voters in seven states weighed in on key contests in Tuesday’s primaries. Here is a rundown of some of the most notable wins and losses:CaliforniaSan Francisco recalled its progressive district attorney, Chesa Boudin. Mr. Boudin had enacted sweeping overhauls since being elected two years ago and faced criticism that those changes led to increases in crime.Rick Caruso, the billionaire developer, and Representative Karen Bass will square off in a runoff contest to be the mayor of Los Angeles.Gov. Gavin Newsom, who last year easily beat back a Republican-led recall effort, will face State Senator Brian Dahle, a Republican.Attorney General Rob Bonta, a Democrat, will advance to the November runoff after his first place finish in the open primary for that office. A second candidate has not been determined yet.Representative Michelle Steel, a freshman Republican, will face Jay Chen, a Democrat and Navy reservist.Scott Baugh, a former leader of the California Assembly, fended off a crowded Republican field on Tuesday to earn the right to challenge Representative Katie Porter.Representative Mike Garcia, a Republican, will face Christy Smith, a former Democratic state legislator, for the third time.Kevin Kiley, a Republican state legislator backed by former President Donald J. Trump, will compete against the Democrat, Kermit Jones, who is a Navy veteran and physician, in the Third Congressional District.New JerseyRobert J. Menendez Jr., the son of Senator Bob Menendez, won his House Democratic primary in the Eighth Congressional District.Tom Kean Jr., a former lawmaker and the son of a two-term New Jersey governor, won the Republican nomination in the state’s Seventh Congressional District. He now faces Representative Tom Malinowski, the Democratic incumbent.IowaSenator Charles E. Grassley, 88, easily won his primary race and will run against Mike Franken, a retired Navy admiral who won the Democratic primary for Senate.State Senator Zach Nunn won the Republican nomination for Iowa’s Third Congressional District. Mr. Nunn will face Representative Cindy Axne, the Democratic incumbent.New MexicoMark Ronchetti, a former Albuquerque television meteorologist, was the Republican’s pick to challenge Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Democrat.Gabe Vasquez, a Las Cruces city councilor, won the Democratic nomination for New Mexico’s Second Congressional District. Mr. Vasquez will face Representative Yvette Herrell, the Republican incumbent.Raúl Torrez, the Bernalillo County district attorney, defeated Brian Colón, the state auditor, in the Democratic primary for attorney general.South DakotaVoters defeated an effort to increase the level of support needed to pass most voter-initiated referendums to 60 percent from a majority.Gov. Kristi Noem won her Republican primary, and so did Senator John Thune.MississippiRepresentative Steven Palazzo, a Republican facing an ethics investigation, was forced into a runoff election in his party’s primary, according to The Associated Press. It has not yet been announced who he will face later this month. More

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      A Broken Redistricting Process Winds Down, With No Repairs in Sight

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      WASHINGTON — The brutal once-a-decade process of drawing new boundaries for the nation’s 435 congressional districts is limping toward a close with the nation’s two political parties roughly at parity. But the lessons drawn from how they got there offer little cheer for those worried about the direction of the weary American experiment.The two parties each claimed redistricting went its way. But some frustrated Democrats in states like Texas, Florida and Ohio sounded unconvinced as Republicans, who have controlled the House in 10 of the last 15 elections despite losing the popular vote in seven of them, seemed to fare better than Democrats at tilting political maps decisively in their direction in key states they controlled.At the least, political analysts said, Republicans proved more relentless at shielding such maps from court challenges, through artful legal maneuvers and blunt-force political moves that in some cases challenged the authority of the judicial system.And, to many involved in efforts to replace gerrymanders with competitive districts, the vanishing number of truly contested House races indicated that whoever won, the voters lost. A redistricting cycle that began with efforts to demand fair maps instead saw the two parties in an arms race for a competitive advantage.“Once the fuel has been added to the fire, it’s very hard to back away from it,” said Kathay Feng, the national redistricting director for the advocacy group Common Cause. “Now it’s not just the operatives in the back room, which is where it started. It’s not just technology. It’s not just legislators being shameless about drawing lines. It’s governors and state officials and sometimes even courts leaning in to affirm these egregious gerrymanders.”Democrats pulled nearly even — in terms of the partisan lean of districts, if not the party’s prospects for success in the November midterms — largely by undoing some Republican gerrymanders through court battles and ballot initiatives, and by drawing their own partisan maps. But the strategy at times succeeded too well, as courts struck down Democratic maps in some states, and ballot measures kept party leaders from drawing new ones in others.New York is a particularly glaring example. In April, the seven Democratic justices on New York’s highest court blew up an aggressive gerrymander of the state’s 26 congressional districts that had been expected to net Democrats three new House seats. The court’s replacement map, drawn by an independent expert, pits Democratic incumbents against each other and creates new swing districts that could cost Democrats seats.Weeks later in Florida, where voters approved a ban on partisan maps in 2010, the State Supreme Court, comprising seven Republican justices, declined to stop the implementation of a gerrymander of the state’s 28 congressional districts. The ruling preserves the new map ordered by Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, that could net his party four new House seats. The ruling cited procedural issues in allowing the map to take effect, but many experts said there was never much doubt about the result.In New York, Democrats ignored a voter-approved constitutional mandate that districts “not be drawn to discourage competition” or favor political parties. And in Republicans’ view, Democrats sabotaged a bipartisan commission that voters set up to draw fair maps.“The Democrats seriously overreached,” said John J. Faso, a Republican and former New York state assemblyman and U.S. representative. The bipartisan commission, he added, “is what people voted for.”What to Know About RedistrictingRedistricting, Explained: Here are some answers to your most pressing questions about the process that is reshaping American politics.Understand Gerrymandering: Can you gerrymander your party to power? Try to draw your own districts in this imaginary state.Killing Competition: The number of competitive districts is dropping, as both parties use redistricting to draw themselves into safe seats.Deepening Divides: As political mapmakers create lopsided new district lines, the already polarized parties are being pulled even farther apart.But in Ohio, Republicans who gerrymandered congressional and state legislative districts this spring also ignored a voter-approved constitutional ban on partisan maps. They not only successfully defied repeated orders by the State Supreme Court to obey it, but suggested that the court’s chief justice, a Republican, be impeached for rejecting the maps drawn by the state’s Republican-dominated redistricting commission.State Representative Doug Richey of Missouri, a Republican, showed fellow lawmakers a proposed congressional redistricting map in May.David A. Lieb, Associated PressOf the approximately 35 states where politicians ultimately control congressional redistricting — the remainder either rely on independent commissions or have only one House seat — the first maps of House seats approved in some 14 states fit many statistical measures of gerrymandering used by political scientists.One of the most extreme congressional gerrymanders added as many as three new Democratic House seats in staunchly blue Illinois. Texas Republicans drew a new map that turned one new House seat and eight formerly competitive ones into G.O.P. bastions.Republicans carved up Kansas City, Kan.; Salt Lake City; Nashville; Tampa, Fla.; Little Rock, Ark.; Oklahoma City and more to weaken Democrats. Democrats moved boundaries in New Mexico and Oregon to dilute Republican votes.Most gerrymanders were drawn by Republicans, in part because Republicans control more state governments than Democrats do. But Democrats also began this redistricting cycle with a built-in handicap: The 2020 census markedly undercounted Democratic-leaning constituencies, like Blacks and Hispanics.Because those missed residents were concentrated in predominantly blue cities, any additional new urban districts probably would have elected Democrats to both congressional and state legislative seats, said Kimball W. Brace, a demographer who has helped Democratic leaders draw political maps for decades.Undoing those gerrymanders has proved a hit-or-miss proposition.Lawsuits in state courts dismantled Republican partisan maps in North Carolina and Democratic ones in New York and Maryland. But elsewhere, Republicans seized on the Supreme Court’s embrace of a once-obscure legal doctrine to keep even blatant gerrymanders from being blocked. The doctrine, named the Purcell principle after a 2006 federal lawsuit, says courts should not change election laws or rules too close to an election — how close is unclear — for fear of confusing voters.Alabama’s congressional map, drawn by Republicans, will be used in the November election, even though a panel of federal judges ruled it a racial gerrymander. The reason, the Supreme Court said in February, is that the decision came too close to primary elections.The delay game played out most glaringly during the extended process in Ohio, where ballot initiatives approved by voters in 2015 established a bipartisan redistricting commission that Republicans have dominated. Federal judges ordered the gerrymandered G.O.P. maps of Ohio House and Senate districts to be used for this year’s elections, even though the state’s high court had rejected them.When a State Supreme Court deadline for the commission to submit maps of legislative districts for legal review came due last week, Republicans simply ignored it.How U.S. Redistricting WorksCard 1 of 8What is redistricting? More

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      In Races to Run Elections, Candidates Are Backed by Key 2020 Deniers

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      The origin story behind a slate of Republican candidates for secretary of state features a QAnon figure and several promoters of 2020 conspiracies.Key figures in the effort to subvert the 2020 presidential election have thrown their weight behind a slate of Republican candidates for secretary of state across the country, injecting specious theories about voting machines, foreign hacking and voter fraud into campaigns that will determine who controls elections in several battleground states.The America First slate comprises more than a dozen candidates who falsely claim the 2020 election was stolen from Donald J. Trump. It grew out of meetings held by a conspiracy-mongering QAnon leader and a Nevada politician, and has quietly gained support from influential people in the election denier movement — including Mike Lindell, the MyPillow founder, and Patrick Byrne, the former Overstock.com executive who has financed public forums that promote the candidates and theories about election vulnerabilities.Members of the slate have won party endorsements or are competitive candidates for the Republican nomination in several states, including three — Michigan, Arizona and Nevada — where a relatively small number of ballots have decided presidential victories. And in Pennsylvania, where the governor appoints the secretary of state, State Senator Doug Mastriano, who is aligned with the group, easily won his primary for governor last month.Mr. Finchem has sued to try to ban the use of voting machines in Arizona in the November elections.Nic Antaya for The New York TimesThe candidates cast their races as a fight for the future of democracy, the best chance to reform a broken voting system — and to win elections.“It doesn’t really matter who’s running for assembly or governor or anything else. It matters who is counting the vote for that election,” said Rachel Hamm, a long-shot contender in California’s primary on Tuesday, at a forum hosted by the group earlier this year.But even in losing races, the slate has left its mark. As they appeal for votes on the stump and on social media, the candidates are seeding falsehoods and fictions into the political discourse. Their status as candidates amplifies the claims.The information being tossed out under the guise of election reform, particularly the machine manipulation of votes, threatens to corrode Americans’ trust in democracy, said John Merrill, the Republican secretary of state in Alabama. “What you do is you encourage people not to have confidence in the elections process and people lose faith.”In private weekly calls that stretch on for hours on Friday mornings, the candidates discuss policies and campaign strategy, at times joined by fringe figures who have pushed ploys to keep Mr. Trump in power. In 11 states, the group has sponsored public forums where prominent activists unspool intricate conspiracies about vulnerabilities in voting machines.Secretary of state races were once sleepy affairs, dominated by politicians who sought to demonstrate their bureaucratic competence, rather than fierce partisan loyalty. But Mr. Trump’s attempt to overturn the results — including his failed attempt to pressure Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s secretary of state, to “find” votes to reverse his loss — has thrust the office’s power into the spotlight.Understand the 2022 Midterm Elections So FarAfter key races in Georgia, Pennsylvania and other states, here’s what we’ve learned.Trump’s Invincibility in Doubt: With many of Donald J. Trump’s endorsed candidates failing to win, some Republicans see an opening for a post-Trump candidate in 2024.G.O.P. Governors Emboldened: Many Republican governors are in strong political shape. And some are openly opposing Mr. Trump.Voter Fraud Claims Fade: Republicans have been accepting their primary victories with little concern about the voter fraud they once falsely claimed caused Mr. Trump’s 2020 loss.The Politics of Guns: Republicans have been far more likely than Democrats to use messaging about guns to galvanize their base in the midterms. Here’s why.Since its founding last year, the America First slate has ballooned from a handful of candidates to a high of around 15. Many have little chance of succeeding. On Tuesday, Ms. Hamm will compete to place among the top two candidates in California, and Audrey Trujillo, who is running unopposed in New Mexico, will cinch her G.O.P. nomination. Neither candidate is favored to beat Democratic opponents in their solidly blue states.But America First candidates could be competitive in at least four battleground states: Nevada, Arizona, Pennsylvania and Michigan. Two of them have already scored primary victories in these states: In Michigan, Kristina Karamo, a novice Republican activist who gained prominence challenging the 2020 results there, won her party’s endorsement at an April convention, all but securing her nomination in August. The Republican primary winner for Pennsylvania governor, Mr. Mastriano, was involved in an effort to keep the state’s electoral votes from President Biden in 2020. He has said he wants to cancel all voter registrations and force voters to re-register.Jim Marchant, a Republican candidate for secretary of state in Nevada, is a founding member of the America First slate. John Locher/Associated PressA leading candidate in Nevada’s primary next week is Jim Marchant, one of the organizers of the America First slate. The former state assemblyman and another candidate won the endorsement of the central committee of the state Republican Party, giving them a boost before voters go to the polls on June 14. The group’s candidate in Arizona, Mark Finchem, is a leading contender and the top fund-raiser in the primary race.Mr. Marchant has said he was urged to start the coalition by unnamed people close to Mr. Trump. The project picked up steam in the spring of last year, after Mr. Marchant attended a meeting of activists hosted by a man known in QAnon circles by the alias Juan O’Savin, according to an account from one of the people involved in the group.Major figures in the election denier movement were drawn in. In May 2021, when Mr. Marchant organized an all-day meeting in a suite at the Trump International Hotel Las Vegas, Mr. Lindell appeared remotely briefly. Soon after, the group gathered again at a distillery in Austin, Texas, according to two people who attended the meeting.The host of that session was Phil Waldron, a retired Army colonel and a leading proponent of a machine-hacking theory involving Communists, shell companies and George Soros, the Democratic financier. Mr. Waldron is perhaps best known for circulating a PowerPoint presentation that recommended Mr. Trump declare a national emergency to delay the certification of the 2020 results. The document made its way to the inbox of the White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, and is now part of the congressional investigation into the deadly riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6.Phil Waldron’s PowerPoint presentation urging Mr. Trump to declare a national emergency to delay the certification of the results is now a part of the congressional investigation into the Capitol riot.ReutersThe group posted a platform that calls for moving to paper ballots, eliminating mail voting and “aggressive voter roll cleanup.”In recent months, the core group has been recruiting new candidates. Around 25 people, including some of the candidates and people seeking to influence them, join the weekly conference calls, according to some of the candidates who were recruited. The group discusses campaigns and policy ideas, including how to transition to hand-counting all ballots — a notion election experts say is impractical and can lead to errors and cause chaos.“It’s startling to have statewide candidates, multiple candidates for a really important statewide office, running on a deeply incoherent policy plank,” said Mark Lindeman, an expert on elections with Verified Voting, an election security nonprofit.Mr. Byrne, who spent millions on the discredited “audit” of votes in Arizona, has taken particular interest in sponsoring public forums. He has pledged to spend up to $15,000 on each event, and has contributed around $83,000 to a political action committee controlled by Mr. Marchant.Understand the 2022 Midterm ElectionsCard 1 of 6Why are these midterms so important? More

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      Fetterman’s Heart Issues Add Wild Card to Key Pennsylvania Senate Race

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      Part of John Fetterman’s appeal as the Democratic Senate nominee has stemmed from his brash sense of vitality. It’s not clear if his recent stroke and absence from the trail will affect that.Just three weeks ago, a varied cross-section of Pennsylvania Democrats put its hopes on the broad shoulders of John Fetterman, confident that the commonwealth’s burly lieutenant governor could vanquish anything or anyone that a fractured Republican Party could throw at him.But as the general election season begins, the 6-foot-8 Mr. Fetterman suddenly seems a good deal more vulnerable, equipped now with a pacemaker and a doctor’s note attesting that he can campaign and serve as Pennsylvania’s next senator, though the candidate himself admitted he “almost died.”And what seemed like a protracted, divisive fight in the G.O.P. over the party’s nominee to take on Mr. Fetterman ended suddenly on Friday when Dr. Mehmet Oz accepted the concession of David McCormick, his narrowly beaten opponent. A three-way slugfest between a celebrity, Dr. Oz, an out-of-state hedge fund manager, Mr. McCormick, and a far-right Fox News pundit, Kathy Barnette, slipped quickly away into memory.What was left for the fight over the Senate seat deemed most within reach for a Democratic takeover was a heart patient, Mr. Fetterman, battling a heart surgeon, Dr. Oz, and a distinct sense of unease, at least for now, among some Democrats.“It’s going to be a brutal campaign,” said G. Terry Madonna, a longtime pollster and political writer in Pennsylvania. “If I had to put it in a couple of words, it’s ‘no holds barred.’”Mr. Fetterman’s health struggles could be particularly resonant because so much of his appeal has stemmed from his image of vitality. Though he hails from his party’s left flank, he has garnered the affections of more moderate, working-class voters with his bald head, goateed face, Carhartt sweatshirts, baggy basketball shorts and tireless campaigning in every nook of the state.Sarah Longwell, a Republican strategist who has conducted focus groups with Pennsylvania voters, quoted Democrats saying, “You know, he’s the physical embodiment of Pennsylvania.”Now that common-man appeal must include the contrition of an ailing patient who ignored his doctor’s advice for years and an overt appeal to the sympathies of the voters.“Like so many others, and so many men in particular, I avoided going to the doctor, even though I knew I didn’t feel well,” Mr. Fetterman said in a statement on Friday that broke weeks of silence since he had left the campaign trail. “As a result, I almost died. I want to encourage others to not make the same mistake.”The statement read like a confession. He suffered a stroke last month, just days before Pennsylvania’s primary, and seemed to let his campaign systematically downplay his condition. All that ended on Friday when he admitted that he suffered from a heart condition called cardiomyopathy and had left other heart issues untreated for years.His physician, Ramesh R. Chandra, released a scolding note saying that when Mr. Fetterman was diagnosed with atrial fibrillation and a decreased heart pump in 2017, he was prescribed medicine, lifestyle changes and follow-up appointments, but that he “did not go to any doctor for five years and did not continue taking his medications.”Dr. Mehmet Oz spoke during his election night watch party in Newtown, Pa., last month.Bryan Anselm for The New York TimesThe drama might enhance Mr. Fetterman’s appeal by further humanizing him, but that is not assured. Shawn W. Rosenberg, a professor of political and psychological science at the University of California, Irvine, who has been studying politics and political style since the late 1980s, said Mr. Fetterman’s imagery before the health scare had broken new ground. Where once clean-scrubbed youth sold well, Pennsylvanians have lapped up their lieutenant governor’s Everyman look.“Do we want a political leader who is a version of the guy next door or someone who stands above us in some respects?” Professor Rosenberg asked. “Most of the literature suggests we want the latter, and Fetterman is an interesting challenge to that.”He added: “That works to his advantage in Pennsylvania. Part of the Republican play since Trump is anti-elitism. Against Oz, he’s clearly not the elitist.”But his health struggles also might clash with his superman image as it bolsters his opponent, a heart surgeon who has spent his extensive television career touting medical interventions, many legitimate, some questionable.In a fight between a Paul Bunyan-like common man and a celebrity doctor, the doctor might emerge as the responsible candidate. And Dr. Oz will know how to sell it, said Samantha Majic, a political scientist at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, who studies style and celebrity in politics.“Celebrity in the modern sense is somebody who is known, highly produced, managed and in the media, but they are also commercialized, they are using their celebrity to sell,” Professor Majic said. She added: “As campaigns become more expensive, you’ve got to have celebrity capital to parlay into financial capital. You have to stand out.”Among Democrats and many independents in Pennsylvania, Mr. Fetterman is popular. A poll from Franklin & Marshall College just before the primary — and before his stroke — found that 67 percent of Democratic voters viewed him favorably, well above the 46 percent who felt warmly toward his primary opponent, Representative Conor Lamb.Berwood A. Yost, the director of the Center for Opinion Research at Franklin & Marshall, said that given the Democratic nominee’s 52 years of age, his health problems “may make Fetterman even more relatable.”You get to your 50s as a working-class person, and you’ve got some scars to show for it, right?” he said. “It’s a further contrast between the two candidates. I mean, the contrast couldn’t be any more stark.”And a comeback from a health setback is not uncommon. Senator Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent whose progressive politics are similar to Mr. Fetterman’s, suffered a heart attack in late 2019, with the presidential primary season looming, and hardly skipped a beat.But Mr. Fetterman will remain off the campaign trail for some time.“Doctors have told me I need to continue to rest, eat healthy, exercise and focus on my recovery, and that’s exactly what I’m doing,” he said in his statement. He added: “It’s frustrating — all the more so because this is my own fault — but bear with me, I need a little more time. I’m not quite back to 100 percent yet, but I’m getting closer every day.”Rebecca Katz, a strategist for Mr. Fetterman, strongly denied that the campaign had been keeping his condition hidden. Campaign officials announced he needed a pacemaker as soon as they learned it, and the campaign released Friday’s statement as soon as the doctor gave his permission, she said. Democratic officials had grown so worried that there was chatter about recruiting a new nominee, gossip that she pushed back on hard.“All we have is the truth, and that’s what we chose to share,” she said.If Mr. Fetterman is limping into the general election, so is Dr. Oz. Ms. Longwell said the Democrat’s overwhelming popularity with his base was the mirror opposite of the reaction to Dr. Oz, who elicits strong suspicion from some conservative Pennsylvania voters, despite the endorsement of former President Donald J. Trump. And the Fetterman campaign has already started attacking the Republican as a New Jersey interloper who is coming to Pennsylvania via Hollywood.Given the overall political environment, Mr. Yost said the race is a true tossup, but he too wondered how Dr. Oz’s lack of connection with his new state will work in the commonwealth.“There’s a sense of place here among long-term residents,” he said, “and Oz really isn’t from here. I wonder how that plays out.”In a video statement, Dr. Oz vowed to start afresh after a difficult primary fight.“I’m going to reach to every corner of this commonwealth,” he said. “I know we’ve got to heal. We’ve got to pull people together again. I want to make sure that happens again.” More