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    Why Ben Sasse and Veteran Republicans Soured on Senate Runs

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    WASHINGTON — The Senate isn’t what it used to be.For evidence, consider the case of Senator Ben Sasse, the Nebraska Republican with four years to go in his second term who is seeking the presidency of the University of Florida. His looming departure makes him the latest lawmaker to prematurely bail out of the institution once considered the pinnacle of American political life outside the presidency.Joining him on the way out the door this year are some of the most savvy and experienced legislators on the Republican side — Roy Blunt of Missouri, Rob Portman of Ohio, Richard M. Burr of North Carolina and Patrick J. Toomey of Pennsylvania — all pretty much in the prime of their careers by Senate age standards. Two more senior senators, Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, age 82, and Richard Shelby, Republican of Alabama, 88, are also retiring.On top of those losses, Senate Republicans could not entice several Republican governors to run for Senate this year, even though they would have been strong contenders for election next month, candidacies that would have boosted Republican chances of capturing a majority in the chamber that is now very much in play.Senators tick off a litany of frustrations: Their constituents are difficult, the travel is grueling, fund-raising is joyless and omnipresent, the threat of primaries is a pain and they are constantly pestered by the press. Republicans have the added burden of navigating treacherous waters where they risk blowback from the base if they don’t profess sufficient fealty to MAGA tenets and former President Donald J. Trump and draw scalding criticism from the opposing side if they don’t show sufficient disdain for Mr. Trump and his supporters.Most importantly, some say, the once-rewarding business of legislative bargaining and high-stakes lawmaking has lost its luster. The big deals are most often cut in the Capitol leadership suites these days, and presented as a fait accompli to the rank-and-file. Given the reluctance among many to take politically tough votes, members have few opportunities to push their own amendments, and their influence is often reduced to railing against the finished product on the Senate floor when few are listening.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.The Final Stretch: With less than one month until Election Day, Republicans remain favored to take over the House, but momentum in the pitched battle for the Senate has seesawed back and forth.A Surprising Battleground: New York has emerged from a haywire redistricting cycle as perhaps the most consequential congressional battleground in the country. For Democrats, the uncertainty is particularly jarring.Arizona’s Governor’s Race: Democrats are openly expressing their alarm that Katie Hobbs, the party’s nominee for governor in the state, is fumbling a chance to defeat Kari Lake in one of the most closely watched races.Herschel Walker: The Republican Senate nominee in Georgia reportedly paid for an ex-girlfriend’s abortion, but members of his party have learned to tolerate his behavior.“I think the Senate has essentially, for most purposes, stopped legislating,” said Mr. Blunt, 72, who opted against seeking a third term in the Senate after serving in the leadership in both the House and Senate. “The opportunity to be a committee chairman is not what it was 12, 15 or even 10 years ago. The opportunity to take a bill through the committee process and go to the Senate floor and see it debated and voted on is almost nonexistent.”Then there is just the plain nastiness of the current social media-fueled political climate.“The lack of respect for our institutions and the vicious nature of politics today is getting tiresome to people,” said Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, who mourned this year’s retirees. “They have gotten seniority, and they would be able to make a real difference. Their influence and effectiveness would only grow if they stayed in the Senate. Too many are concluding it is no longer worth it.”On one hand, the likely departure of Mr. Sasse, 50, to Gainesville, is something of a surprise, considering he was just re-elected to a second term in 2020 and showed some independence in a willingness to challenge Mr. Trump. Democrats saw him as someone to court when trying to craft bipartisan legislation, and some Republicans regarded him as a potential presidential prospect.But Mr. Sasse also made it clear from the very beginning of his service that he was skeptical of the value of an institution that was losing ground with the public and its own members. In his maiden speech in 2015, he attacked the partisanship employed by both sides.“Few believe bare-knuckled politics are a substitute for principled governing,” he said about his constituents back home. “And does anyone doubt that many on both the right and the left now salivate for more of these radical tactics? The people despise us all,” he said, posing this question: “Would anything be lost if the Senate didn’t exist?”Senator Roy Blunt opted against seeking a third term in the Senate after serving in the leadership in both the House and Senate.Al Drago for The New York TimesA group of Republican governors seemed to consider that question in recent months and answer “not much” when it came to their own political ambitions. Despite fervent pleas from Senator Mitch McConnell, the Kentucky Republican and minority leader, and many other Republicans, four governors considered top Senate candidates — Phil Scott of Vermont, Doug Ducey of Arizona, Larry Hogan of Maryland and Chris Sununu of New Hampshire — all passed on running this year, even though the midterm environment started out favoring Republicans.The decision by Governor Sununu was particularly upsetting to Republicans since he was rated as by far the strongest challenger to Senator Maggie Hassan, a Democrat, who had been considered vulnerable but is now in position to win a second term and help her party hang onto its majority.Governors have always chafed at running and serving in the Senate after their experience as state executives provided them more leeway and authority than working in a creaky gang of 100.But in the past, the Senate was still seen as a springboard to national prominence and a possible presidential run, and many governors chose to give it a try despite misgivings. Thirteen former governors currently sit in the Senate and another may join them if Pete Ricketts, the outgoing governor of Nebraska, ends up in Mr. Sasse’s seat under an appointment until the 2024 elections. Mr. McConnell, in an interview with CNN, made it clear that Mr. Ricketts is his preferred choice.The refusal of those governors does not mean no one wants in to serve in the chamber. Far from it. Across the nation, candidates are spending tens of millions of dollars clamoring for admission. But in place of those governors who refused to run, Republicans got lesser-known and more problematic candidates such as hard-right hopefuls Blake Masters in Arizona and Don Bolduc in New Hampshire, Republicans who are less likely to win and who are far less likely to be Senate deal-makers of the sort who are leaving.That prospect is vexing for those who remain.“Those are capable legislators who have done a lot of good in their time,” said Senator Chris Coons, Democrat of Delaware, lamenting the departing lawmakers. “Although we have different ideologies, priorities and political values, we have gotten to yes on dozens of bills between us.”The race for the exits is the best evidence yet that the political and policy allures of the Senate are rapidly diminishing. More

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      Vance Wins Republican Senate Primary in Ohio After Nod From Trump

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      J.D. Vance, the author of “Hillbilly Elegy,” won a G.O.P. race that saw nearly $80 million in television advertising. The author and venture capitalist parlayed an endorsement from Donald J. Trump into victory, beating out a crowded field of conservative challengers.Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesCINCINNATI — J.D. Vance, the author whose memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy,” about life in Appalachia became a best seller, decisively won the Ohio Senate primary on Tuesday after a late endorsement by Donald J. Trump helped him surge past his rivals in a crowded primary field.Casting himself as a fighter against the nation’s elites, Mr. Vance ran as a Trump-style pugilist and outsider who railed against the threats of drugs, Democrats and illegal immigration, while thoroughly backpedaling from his past criticisms of the former president.The contest, which saw nearly $80 million in television advertising, was one of the most anticipated of the 2022 primary season for its potential to provide an early signal of the direction of the Republican Party.The result delivered a strong affirmation of Mr. Trump’s continued grip on his party’s base. But a fuller assessment of Mr. Trump’s sway will come through a series of primaries in the next four weeks — in West Virginia, North Carolina, Idaho, Pennsylvania and Georgia.Mr. Vance had been trailing in most polls behind Josh Mandel, a former Ohio state treasurer who had also aggressively pursued Mr. Trump’s backing, until the former president’s mid-April endorsement helped vault Mr. Vance ahead. A third candidate, State Senator Matt Dolan, ran as a more traditional Republican, sometimes mocking his rivals for their unrelenting focus on the former president instead of Ohio issues and voters.Cheers went up at Mr. Vance’s Cincinnati election party when The Associated Press called the race shortly after 9:30 p.m.“The people who are caught between the corrupt political class of the left and the right, they need a voice,” Mr. Vance said in his victory speech. “They need a representative. And that’s going to be me.”Mr. Vance is an unlikely champion of the Trumpian mantle, after calling the former president “reprehensible” in 2016 and even “cultural heroin.” But he had changed his tune entirely by 2022, and Mr. Trump called to congratulate him on his victory on Tuesday evening, according to a person briefed on the call.With more than 80 percent of the vote counted, Mr. Vance was leading across almost the entire state. But the results also captured some of the tensions and demographic trade-offs of a Republican Party pulled in different directions as Mr. Dolan was strongest in the voter-rich cities of Cleveland and Columbus.Trump-style Republicans did not prevail in the other top contest on Tuesday. Gov. Mike DeWine of Ohio, a more traditional Republican who has held offices in the state for more than 40 years, finished far ahead of his multiple primary rivals after a strong right-wing challenge never gained traction despite some conservative backlash to Mr. DeWine’s early and assertive response to the coronavirus pandemic.Gov. Mike DeWine and his wife, Fran DeWine, greet their daughter Anna Bolton and grandson Calvin after voting in Cedarville, Ohio, on Tuesday.Paul Vernon/Associated PressMr. DeWine had almost double the votes of his closest rival, Jim Renacci, a former House member. In the fall, he will be running against Nan Whaley, the former mayor of Dayton, who won the Democratic nomination on Tuesday, becoming the first woman in Ohio history to be nominated by a major party for governor.In the Senate race, Mr. Vance will now face Representative Tim Ryan, a 48-year-old Democrat from the Youngstown area who has positioned himself as a champion of blue-collar values and has not aligned with some of his party’s more progressive positions.If Mr. Vance prevails in the fall, the 37-year-old graduate of Yale Law School and investor would become the second-youngest member of the Senate, the chamber’s youngest Republican and a rare freshman who would arrive in Washington with a national profile.Mr. Vance’s metamorphosis from an outspoken “Never Trump” Republican in 2016 to a full-throated Make America Great Again warrior in 2022 echoes the ideological journey of much of the party in recent years. Republicans have moved closer and closer to the former president’s hard-line policy positions on issues like trade and immigration, and to his combative posture with Democrats and on cultural issues that divide the two parties. For some Republican voters, the primary was animated by fears that traditional family values and a white American culture were under attack by far-left Democrats, establishment Republicans and elites.Mr. Vance also won the endorsements of some of the Make America Great Again movement’s loudest firebrands, including Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Matt Gaetz of Florida, both of whom campaigned with him in the race’s final weekend, and Donald Trump Jr., who also traveled to the state. He also had a crucial financial benefactor: His former boss, Peter Thiel, the Silicon Valley investor who pledged $10 million to Mr. Vance even before he joined the contest and who added millions more in the final stretch to trumpet Mr. Trump’s endorsement.The Senate primary was unusual in the extent that it unfolded in two places at once. In Ohio, there was the typical fevered competition for votes, in town halls, debates and television ads. In Florida, there was the battle for Mr. Trump’s approval at Mar-a-Lago, the former president’s private club, with public shows of fealty, lobbying by surrogates and shuttle diplomacy. In one episode last year, multiple Ohio candidates vied for Mr. Trump’s support in front of one another at an impromptu meeting at Mar-a-Lago.In a verbal flub that seemed almost fitting to how the candidates ran, Mr. Trump accidentally conjoined the names of two rivals over the weekend. “We’ve endorsed J.P., right?” Mr. Trump said at a rally in Nebraska. “J.D. Mandel.”Mr. Trump’s endorsement set off a frenzy among Ohio Republicans who questioned Mr. Vance’s Republican credentials, with rivals circulating fliers online and at a Trump rally accusing him of being a Democrat in disguise and resurrecting his past comments against Mr. Trump.The Senate candidate Josh Mandel, center, with supporters, including Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, left, in Columbus, Ohio, last week.Joshua A. Bickel/The Columbus Dispatch, via Associated PressMr. Mandel had been the front-runner for much of the race, casting himself as the true pro-Trump candidate (“Pro-God. Pro-Guns. Pro-Trump” was the tagline in his TV ads). But that became an all-but-impossible argument to prosecute in the final weeks after Mr. Trump picked Mr. Vance.“If the whole issue in the campaign is who is most Trump-like, expect it to work against you when you don’t get the endorsement,” said Rex Elsass, an Ohio-based Republican strategist.At a restaurant in the Cleveland suburb of Beachwood on Tuesday, more than a dozen Mandel supporters and campaign volunteers struck an optimistic tone at the start of the night, expressing confidence. But it was not too long before Mr. Mandel took the podium to deliver the news. Mr. Mandel told the crowd that he called Mr. Vance “to congratulate him on a hard-fought victory” and would do what he could to help get him elected. “The stakes are too high for this country to not support the nominee,” Mr. Mandel said to a round of applause in the room.Beyond Mr. Vance, Mr. Dolan and Mr. Mandel, the crowded race included a single female candidate, Jane Timken, a former Ohio Republican Party chair, who was backed by the retiring incumbent, Senator Rob Portman, as well as Mike Gibbons, a businessman who poured millions of his own money into the race and at one point had vaulted to the top of the polls.Mr. Dolan had toiled for most of the contest far behind the polling leaders, avoiding direct attacks from his rivals. But he tapped into his own fortune to fund more than $11 million in television ads as he cut a path separate from the rest of the Trump-focused field by refusing to amplify the falsehood that the 2020 election was rigged. At one debate, Mr. Dolan was the lone candidate to raise his hand to say the former president should stop talking about the 2020 election.State Senator Matt Dolan greets supporters at a library opening in Bay Village, Ohio, last week.Dustin Franz for The New York TimesThe contest was nasty and lengthy, with nothing capturing the intensity more than a near-physical confrontation between Mr. Gibbons and Mr. Mandel at one March debate, where they bumped bellies as they lobbed verbal threats at one another.Mr. Vance scolded them both. “Sit down. Come on,” he said. “This is ridiculous.”Much of the race was shaped by huge sums spent on television — nearly $80 million, according to the ad-tracking firm AdImpact, with a lot of it coming from outside groups and out-of-state donors. The conservative Club for Growth spent more than $12 million on television ads aimed to boost Mr. Mandel or tear down his rivals. Mr. Thiel, the Silicon Valley investor, seeded a pro-Vance super PAC with $10 million in early 2021 — months before Mr. Vance even entered the race. Mr. Vance is one of two former Thiel employees — the other is Blake Masters in Arizona — running for Senate with Mr. Thiel’s hefty financial backing. Mr. Thiel had served as a key link between Mr. Vance and Mr. Trump, attending an introductory meeting between them in early 2021. The politics of Ohio have changed drastically in the Trump era. Once the quintessential presidential swing state, Ohio broke for Mr. Trump by 8 percentage points in both 2016 and 2020, ending a half-century streak of the state backing the national winner. Republicans have sharply run up their margins among working-class white voters and in more rural areas, offsetting the losses that the party has suffered in the state’s suburbs around cities like Columbus and Cleveland.Representative Tim Ryan, right, with Michael S. Regan of the Environmental Protection Agency in Youngstown, Ohio, where lead pipes will be replaced as part of new federal infrastructure spending.Dustin Franz for The New York TimesIn the Democratic primary, Mr. Ryan, who briefly ran for president in 2020, easily turned back a primary challenge from Morgan Harper, 38, a former adviser at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau who ran as a progressive, banking $5 million for the general election.Mr. Ryan has already run an anti-China ad that focuses on Ohio jobs and his opening ad of the general election has him tossing darts inside a bar and seeking to separate himself from the broader Democratic brand, lamenting those who have called for defunding the police.But Mr. Ryan faces an uphill race in a state that has trended Republican and in a year when his party is saddled with President Biden’s low approval ratings. Some Republicans see Mr. Ryan as formidable — Mr. Trump among them — but the general election is not seen by either party as among the half-dozen closest contests that will determine control of the Senate, now divided evenly 50-50.Shane Goldmacher reported from Cincinnati. Jazmine Ulloa reported from Beachwood, Ohio. More

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      Tim Ryan Struggles to Reach Ohio’s Exhausted Majority

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      Mr. Ryan, the Ohio Democrat running for Senate, has been listening to white working-class voters. Whether they are listening to him and the Democratic Party is the question.NILES, OHIO — Representative Tim Ryan won re-election in 2020. But in one sharply personal way, he lost, too.Mr. Ryan, 48, the Ohio Democrat and one-time presidential candidate, was born and raised in Niles, a manufacturing city of roughly 18,000 that sits halfway between Youngstown and Warren in southern Trumbull County.Mr. Ryan had once won Trumbull with as much as 74 percent of the vote. That number fell to just 48 percent in 2020, when he narrowly lost the county by roughly one percentage point. A place that was once a bastion of white blue-collar Democrats turned away from a white Democratic native son whose blue-collar grandfather had been a steelworker in Niles for four decades.Now, Mr. Ryan is trying to win back his party’s voters in Trumbull and throughout Ohio as he runs for Senate. His problem in Trumbull exemplifies the larger problem for Democrats in the Midwest: The lingering appeal of Trumpism and the erosion of support for the party among the white working-class voters who once formed a loyal part of its base in the industrial heart of the country.Many national Democratic pollsters and pundits have written off Mr. Ryan’s pursuit as a near-impossible task. They see Ohio as too red and too white to change course. But as his Republican opponents have been veering farther to the right and aggressively pursuing former President Donald J. Trump’s endorsement, Mr. Ryan is betting voters have had enough of the extremism in American politics. He is focused on bringing back voters who feel forgotten by Democrats and turned off by Republicans.“I feel like I am representing the Exhausted Majority,” Mr. Ryan said in an interview, using a phrase coined by researchers to describe the estimated two-thirds of voters who are less polarized and who feel overlooked. People, Mr. Ryan added, “just want to move on and actually focus on the things that are really important.”Like other Democrats in long-shot races, Mr. Ryan must stay firmly within a narrow lane as he vies to replace Senator Rob Portman, a Republican who is retiring. Mr. Ryan does not tout Medicare for All and other transformative policies that tend to energize progressives, and he does not want to talk about transgender women in sports and other divisive issues. Instead, he wants to campaign strictly on jobs, manufacturing and taking on China. His first television commercial — part of a $3.3 million ad buy — almost sounds like it came from a Republican, squarely centering on the nation’s fight to beat China on manufacturing.“It’s us versus them,” he says in a digital one-minute version of the ad, during which he mentions “China” eight times in 60 seconds. The ad has drawn criticism from some Asian advocacy groups and elected officials, who described it as racist and called on him to take it down.Shekar Narasimhan, the chairman of AAPI Victory Fund, a political action committee that mobilizes Asian American and Pacific Islander voters, urged Mr. Ryan to not use hate or fear to win votes. “That’s what the Trump Republicans do and why we fight them everywhere,” he said in a statement.Mr. Ryan condemned anti-Asian violence but said that he was speaking specifically about government policies of the Chinese Communist Party that have hurt Ohio workers and that he was not backing down.A Guide to the 2022 Midterm ElectionsMidterms Begin: The Texas primaries officially opened the 2022 election season. See the full primary calendar.In the Senate: Democrats have a razor-thin margin that could be upended with a single loss. Here are the four incumbents most at risk.In the House: Republicans and Democrats are seeking to gain an edge through redistricting and gerrymandering, though this year’s map is poised to be surprisingly fairGovernors’ Races: Georgia’s contest will be at the center of the political universe, but there are several important races across the country.Key Issues: Inflation, the pandemic, abortion and voting rights are expected to be among this election cycle’s defining topics.Seven months before the November election, it is too early to say whether the Ryan playbook is working. Interviews with voters, former elected officials and community leaders in Niles, Warren and other towns in the industrial region known as the Mahoning Valley showed just how hard the midterms will be for Democrats, and for Mr. Ryan. His jobs-and-the-economy message clashes with the prices working-class voters have been paying at the grocery store and at the gas pump.Many Republican voters in this part of the Mahoning Valley were quick to dismiss any Democrat as unviable, citing gas prices, inflation and the U.S.-Mexico border as Democratic problems that needed Republican solutions. Democrats tended to be split between those who supported Mr. Ryan and those wary he had become too much a part of the Democratic establishment. Even anti-Trump voters have been in an anti-establishment frame of mind.Outside the Hot Dog Shoppe in Warren, Royce VanDervort, 76, who worked for the Packard electric division at General Motors, said he understood why people grew tired of the Democratic political machine amid factory closures and job losses, but was surprised by just how strong and enduring the Trump appeal has been. He is a die-hard Democrat and said he supports Mr. Ryan. “Too old to change now,” he added.But Mr. VanDervort’s friend and neighbor, Dennis Garito, 57, was the kind of voter Mr. Ryan has been trying to win back. A retired fabrication worker and a Democrat for 35 years, Mr. Garito now describes himself as an independent. On the one hand, he said, he worries Mr. Ryan and other Democrats have lost touch with the people they represent. On the other, he has grown sick of far-right Republicans who argue, he said, like “kids fighting.”He plans to vote for Mr. Ryan in the Democratic primary in May. But if an anti-Trump Republican, State Senator Matt Dolan, wins the Republican primary and makes it on the ballot in November, Mr. Ryan will likely lose Mr. Garito’s vote. “If it comes down between Dolan and Ryan, I’m probably going to vote for Dolan,” Mr. Garito said. Mr. Ryan, he added, had become “too much of a career politician.”In the industrial region known as the Mahoning Valley, interviews with voters in Warren and other towns showed just how hard the midterm elections will be for Democrats.Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesRoyce VanDervort, 76, a retired General Motors worker in Warren, said he was supporting Mr. Ryan in the Senate race.Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesDennis Garito, 57, a retired fabrication worker who describes himself as an independent, said he worries that Mr. Ryan and other Democrats have lost touch with the people they represent.Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesAsked later about Mr. Garito’s comments, Mr. Ryan said Mr. Garito reflected those voters in the middle who are without a home politically. His role model has been Senator Sherrod Brown, the Ohio Democrat who has weathered Republican waves by focusing on rebuilding the middle class.“I am telling everyone right now — ‘Just hear us out, come listen to us,’” the congressman said.On a blustery, snowy day in early spring, Mr. Ryan sat in Giuseppe’s Italian Market, one of his favorite Italian delis in Niles, dressed down in jeans and a gray pullover with a United Steelworkers logo. In the Democratic primary, Mr. Ryan is the front-runner, but he will face Morgan Harper, a progressive lawyer, and Traci Johnson, a tech executive.Mr. Ryan has been on a rigorous tour of the state, aiming to visit with voters in all 88 counties. So far, he has hit 82. He met with union workers in town halls, diners and factories along the Ohio River. He hosted round tables with business owners and home health care aides in Cincinnati, Cleveland and other cities. He picketed with aerospace workers north of Dayton.“I want to see these folks,” Mr. Ryan said. “I want to be in their communities.”Mr. Ryan’s visit-every-county tactic echoes Beto O’Rourke’s driving tour of Texas in 2017 and 2018, when Mr. O’Rourke made campaign stops in all 254 counties in Texas during his unsuccessful bid to defeat Senator Ted Cruz.The Mahoning Valley where Mr. Ryan still lives stretches across northeastern Ohio and northwestern Pennsylvania, and was once a thriving zone of steel factories and manufacturing plants. But Mr. Ryan saw the region transform amid job losses, bad trade deals and disinvestment, he said.“Growing up, you think it is just happening here, but when you travel Ohio, you realize that it is the vast majority of Ohio,” he said.In Youngstown in the Mahoning Valley, the exodus of white blue-collar voters from the Democratic Party accelerated with the arrival of Donald Trump.Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesDemocrats’ struggles in Youngstown and other blue-collar Ohio cities extend beyond Donald Trump.Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesThe exodus of white blue-collar voters from the Democratic Party accelerated here with the arrival of Mr. Trump, who stirred populist anger as he pledged to bring back manufacturing jobs and companies, as well as to aid struggling workers who had been laid off or reassigned. Many of his promises never materialized, but that didn’t hurt the former president’s well of support among the workers who saw him as their champion. Ohio went to Mr. Trump in the past two presidential elections, and it appears to be trending in Republicans’ favor, as President Biden’s low approval ratings are expected to hurt Democrats.The diminishing support for Mr. Ryan in 2020 in Trumbull County was part of a larger wave of enthusiasm for Mr. Trump that knocked out other well-known Democrats in the Mahoning Valley, said Bill Padisak, who works in Niles and serves as president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O. Central Labor Council in Mahoning and Trumbull Counties. But he said it was too early to tell whether many of those people would remain Republicans.“A lot of the union members I talk to, I think they will swing back,” Mr. Padisak said.Democrats’ struggles go far beyond Mr. Trump. The outrage, racial resentment and white grievances harnessed by Republicans have proven too salient for some voters who see their identity and way of life under attack. Others blame the Biden administration and Democrats for the troubles with the economy and illegal immigration.On a visit to Warren for her 18-year-old daughter’s dance competition, Kristen Moll, 54, echoed a common refrain among Republicans. “Right now, regardless of if you’re running for Senate or governor or any public office, I would feel the Democratic Party in general is leading the country down the wrong path,” Ms. Moll said.David and Jennifer Raspanti, at a restaurant in Boardman Township with their family, said they did not care whether the next senator was a Republican or a Democrat as long as the candidate was not extreme.Maddie McGarvey for The New York Times“Some of that Trump support has waned, but I don’t know if it has waned enough,” said Charlene W. Allen, 76, a community activist and legislative aide to the Youngstown Warren Black Caucus.Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesAt her home, Charlene W. Allen, 76, a community activist and legislative aide to the Youngstown Warren Black Caucus, believed Mr. Ryan had a shot. But she said he could not win the seat without doing more to repel Republicans’ attempts to sow division, like proactively taking on issues of race and crime.“Some of that Trump support has waned, but I don’t know if it has waned enough,” she said.David and Jennifer Raspanti, who are the owners of a painting company in Trumbull County and who are Republicans, said they did not care whether the next senator was a Republican or a Democrat as long as the candidate was not extreme and could make clearheaded decisions.“We need to come back to the middle,” Ms. Raspanti, 44, said at a restaurant in Boardman Township, where the family was having breakfast with their two sons after church. “We need to listen to each other better.” More

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      Democrats Want a Stronger Edge in the Senate. Ohio Could Be Crucial.

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyDemocrats Want a Stronger Edge in the Senate. Ohio Could Be Crucial.The retirement of a moderate Republican senator and conservative infighting have raised Democratic ambitions in the state, a longtime political bellwether that is increasingly tilting red.Ohio served as a political bellwether and swing-state proving ground for years, but has recently been dominated by Republicans.Credit…Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesMarch 6, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ETCOLUMBUS, Ohio — For Democrats of late, winning in Ohio has been a bit like Lucy and the football.First, Hillary Clinton made a late push there in 2016, returning to the state on the weekend before the election with no less a local celebrity than LeBron James, even though she had stayed away for much of the fall. Then, in the 2018 governor’s race, Democrats were optimistic about Richard Cordray, the wonky former head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. And in November, it was President Biden who made an 11th-hour stop in Ohio, even though his campaign was also skeptical about its chances there.Each candidate lost, and for the two presidential hopefuls, it was not even close.But Ohio Democrats are getting their hopes up again, aiming to capitalize on Senator Rob Portman’s surprise announcement last month that he was retiring and on Republican infighting after more than a decade of G.O.P. dominance at the state level.“I think people will look for something different,” Senator Sherrod Brown, the only remaining Democrat in statewide office, said of his party’s chances to pick up the Portman seat in 2022. “There’s a whole lot of people whose lives have gotten worse in the last five to 10 years.”If Democrats are to increase their Senate seats significantly beyond the 50 they now hold, with the party relying on Vice President Kamala Harris as a tiebreaker in the event of a 50-50 deadlock, states like Ohio are essential. They owe their narrow advantage to the fast-growing South and West, having picked up Republican-held seats in three states — Georgia, Arizona and Colorado — that Mr. Biden also carried in November.Yet the president’s recent challenges with some of his appointments and coronavirus relief legislation make the limitations of such fragile Senate control vividly clear: To claim something larger than what’s effectively a Joe Manchin majority, in which appointments and the shape of legislation can be determined by a single red-state senator, Democrats will have to go on the offensive next year in a part of the country that has proved far more fickle for them: the industrial Midwest.Mr. Biden’s hopes for working with a more expansive majority will hinge on whether his party can capture a cluster of Republican-held seats across the Big Ten region: in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin and Iowa. Former President Barack Obama won all of those states both times he ran, but they have become more forbidding for Democrats, or at least more competitive, as working-class white voters have become more reliable Republicans since the rise of former President Donald J. Trump.“If we’re going to have a real majority for Biden, we’ve got to figure out how we can get up to 52 to 53 seats, and that means Pennsylvania, Ohio and Wisconsin,” said Doug Thornell, a Democratic strategist. (Iowa, which has been as difficult for Democrats as Ohio in recent years, may be competitive as a Senate battleground, but only if its longtime Senator Charles E. Grassley, 87, retires.)Senator Rob Portman of Ohio announced he would not seek re-election in 2022, creating an open seat during the midterm elections.Credit…Anna Moneymaker for The New York TimesBeyond the question of the Senate majority, how these states behave in 2022 could carry profound implications. If they revert to a more Democratic orientation in the aftermath of the Trump era, it would suggest that the rightward shift of working-class white voters in recent years was driven by affection for one outsize figure. If Republicans win across the region, though, it may portend a more enduring realignment and raise sobering questions for Democrats about the Senate and presidential maps.And few states, in the Midwest or beyond, have the symbolic resonance of Ohio, which for decades served as a political bellwether and swing-state proving ground. Now, however, even the most optimistic Ohio Democrats acknowledge that they reside in a Republican-leaning state and must take lessons on how to compete from their ideological counterparts in other precincts of red-state America.“We should look at how Democrats won in Montana and Kansas,” said Mayor Nan Whaley of Dayton, who is planning a run for governor next year. “That’s a new place for us to look because we’ve always been a battleground, but national messages don’t fit right into Ohio.”One of the most consequential questions for Ohio Democrats is out of their hands: What direction will Republicans take in the Biden era? “Where they land is going to be a big deal,” Ms. Whaley said.Had Mr. Portman run for re-election, this would have been a far less weighty question in Ohio. He and Gov. Mike DeWine, another establishment-aligned and well-known incumbent, would have campaigned on their own political brands, never confronting Mr. Trump but also never embracing him, either.Now, though, the open Senate seat is thrusting the loyalty-obsessed former president to the forefront of his party’s nascent primary, as the announced candidates compete to see who can hug Mr. Trump tightest.Josh Mandel, a former state treasurer who twice ran against Mr. Brown before withdrawing from the 2018 race and disappearing from public view, has resurfaced as an ardent MAGA man. In interviews and tweets since entering the race to succeed Mr. Portman, he has claimed that Mr. Trump’s second impeachment prompted him to run — never mind his previous two bids — and vowed to advance Mr. Trump’s “America First Agenda.”Perhaps more striking, though, is the maneuvering by Jane Timken, a wealthy executive who was elevated to the chair of the Ohio Republican Party in 2017 in part because Mr. Trump took the extraordinary step as president-elect to make calls to party activists on her behalf.Mr. Portman, hinting where his eventual preferences may lie, has praised Ms. Timken, saying that “over the last couple of years, she has somehow managed through her communications and her organizing to keep all wings of the party moving in the same direction.”Jane Timken, right, a wealthy executive who was elevated to the chair of the Ohio Republican Party in 2017, is expected to begin a campaign for the Senate seat.Credit…Aaron Doster/Associated PressYet Ms. Timken’s conduct since the start of this year illustrates the high-wire act Mr. Trump may force Republicans to execute in next year’s election.The weekend after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, Ms. Timken, then still the state party chair, sent an email to Republicans urging them to “remember that whether it comes to our country or our party, our shared progress and prosperity is never about one person, one candidate or one government official.”A few weeks later, addressing a question about the decision by Representative Anthony Gonzalez of Ohio to vote to impeach Mr. Trump, Ms. Timken said she was not sure she would have made the same choice but added that he had “a rational reason” for his vote. She called him “an effective legislator.”Ms. Timken changed her tune, however, just hours before quitting her state party post last month as she prepared to enter the Senate race.“Anthony Gonzalez made the wrong decision on impeachment and I disagree with his vote,” she said. “This sham impeachment is illegal and unconstitutional.”And then, just this week, Ms. Timken, under pressure to show her fealty to Mr. Trump, issued a statement demanding that Mr. Gonzalez resign from his seat. Her campaign, seeing private polling that showed an overwhelming majority of Ohio Republicans wanted to oust Mr. Gonzalez, realized it needed to put the issue to bed, according to one adviser.Tim Ryan, a Democrat who represents a district in northeastern Ohio in Congress, is considering a run for Senate in the stateCredit…Eric Thayer for The New York TimesA number of Ohio Republicans were struck by the speed of her shift, including one who may also enter the Senate race: Representative Steve Stivers, the former chair of the House G.O.P. campaign arm.“Wait till you quit before you attack somebody,” Mr. Stivers said of Ms. Timken’s broadside on Mr. Gonzalez.While he has yet to announce his intentions, Mr. Stivers, who has said he would prefer Mr. Trump to enjoy a quiet retirement à la George W. Bush, believes the competition to cozy up to the former president could leave an opening in the primary.“My lane is looking pretty empty,” he said. “I should be able to go about 180 miles per hour in it.”Though it’s uncertain how strong Mr. Trump’s political standing will be next year, particularly if he were to be indicted in one of the criminal investigations he faces, many veterans of Ohio politics believe the only path to the Republican Senate nomination is through the former president.“Jane would be honored to have the president’s endorsement,” said Corry Bliss, who ran Mr. Portman’s 2016 campaign and is advising Ms. Timken. He made sure to note that she had been Mr. Trump’s “handpicked chair.”To a number of Ohio Republicans, the importance of their eventual nominee pales in comparison to what they believe is the fundamental political math of a state that absorbs the Rust Belt and Appalachia. “Our suburban losses are dwarfed by their losses among working-class whites,” said Nick Everhart, a Columbus-based G.O.P. strategist.Ohio Democrats don’t deny that they are underdogs — or that to win, they may need the Republican Party to remain fractured.They point to the scandal-plagued Statehouse, where the House speaker is under federal indictment on corruption charges, as well as tensions between Trumpian legislators and the mild-mannered Mr. DeWine. Then there’s Mr. Trump and the widening gap between how he’s viewed by Republican activists and the broader electorate.“I don’t know if I’d call it a prerequisite for us to win, but their chaos is our opportunity,” said Liz Walters, the newly elected Ohio Democratic state chair.But Ohio Democrats may have their own drama.Emilia Strong Sykes, the state House minority leader, said progressive groups had encouraged her to run for the Senate seat.Credit…Paul Vernon/Associated PressWhile Representative Tim Ryan, a veteran Youngstown-area lawmaker, has been clear about his intent to run for Mr. Portman’s seat, he may face a primary that would highlight some of the tensions in the Democratic coalition.Lamenting how Mr. Trump had tapped into the “angst, anger and frustration” of onetime Ohio Democrats, longtime Representative Marcy Kaptur said that Mr. Ryan, who like her represents one of the lowest-income, predominantly white districts in the country, would “be able to reach people” the party has lost.A handful of other Democrats are considering entering the Senate race. They include Amy Acton, the former director of the state health department; Emilia Strong Sykes, the state House minority leader; and Kevin Boyce, a local official in Columbus who previously served in the state House. Ms. Sykes said the party’s turnout efforts in Ohio’s cities had been “awful” and called for a new approach.“Recreating Sherrod Brown — that doesn’t work because Sherrod Brown is Sherrod Brown,” she said, a barely veiled reference to Mr. Ryan’s attempt to pitch himself as a white populist. “We’re going to have to find a candidate who’s exciting and can appeal to women and people of color.”Ms. Sykes, who is Black, said she had been encouraged to run for the Senate by a handful of progressive advocacy groups and was assessing the landscape.She spoke for a number of Ohio Democrats when she said that Mr. Portman’s surprise retirement had prompted an otherwise depressed party to again place hope over history.“Had he not done that, it would’ve been a lost cause,” she said of the senator’s exit. “But now there’s new energy and we have to at least try.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      How Nan Whaley, Dayton’s Mayor, Sees Ohio Politics and Portman’s Senate Seat

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyHow Nan Whaley, Dayton’s Mayor, Sees Ohio Politics and Portman’s Senate SeatIn an interview, Ms. Whaley, a Democrat, discusses what her party needs to do to start winning more statewide races in Ohio, including the 2022 races for Senate and governor that she is mulling.Nan Whaley, the mayor of Dayton, Ohio, during a 2019 rally for Pete Buttigieg in South Bend, Ind. Ms. Whaley is considering a 2022 campaign for governor or for the Senate seat currently held by Rob Portman.Credit…Darron Cummings/Associated PressJan. 26, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ETSenator Rob Portman’s announcement on Monday that he would not seek a third term in 2022 sent a shock wave through Ohio politics and dealt a setback to national Republicans who were counting on Mr. Portman, 65, to easily keep his seat in G.O.P. hands next year. By the afternoon, a throng of ambitious Republicans were circling the race, including the far-right Representative Jim Jordan, as well as a few prominent Democrats.One of those Democrats was Mayor Nan Whaley of Dayton. A 45-year-old progressive who campaigned for Pete Buttigieg in the 2020 presidential primaries, Ms. Whaley has long been seen as a likely candidate for governor or Senate. In 2019, she led her city through the aftermath of a mass shooting in which nine people were killed.Democrats in Ohio have seen the political tide turn hard against them over the past decade, and they have lost three races for governor, two out of four Senate campaigns and nearly every other statewide election, leaving Senator Sherrod Brown, 68, as a lonely Democrat holding high office there. Though Barack Obama won Ohio twice, Donald J. Trump carried it by eight percentage points in both 2016 and 2020.In an interview with The Times on Monday evening, Ms. Whaley confirmed her interest in being a candidate in 2022 and said President Biden must move swiftly to deliver economic relief to the people in her state. The interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.What’s it going to take for Democrats to get back in the game statewide?We have all recognized, from the close governor’s race in ’18 and the tough presidential races, that we have to have an Ohio-specific message. So, regardless if it’s a federal race or a local race, there is a message like the message Sherrod Brown delivers that resonates very well in this state. It’s not necessarily being a moderate. It’s a message of being very real and talking about the issue that affects Ohioans the most, first — and that is the fact that for three decades, they have been working harder and harder and getting further behind.The true civil war in the Republican Party gives Democrats in this state a great opportunity.In a backward-looking way: Do you think Obama’s success in Ohio gave people an unrealistic sense of how purple it is, or do you think Trump’s strength there has given people an unrealistic sense of how red it is?I think it’s both, honestly. I think what people forget about Ohio is, it’s an economic populist state, and its economic populism is why Sherrod does so well here. When Trump was like, “$2,000 stimulus checks for everyone,” I was like, “Absolutely, I agree with Trump, that’s right.”What people want in Ohio — it’s not complicated. They want to work and they want to get paid decent for that work. It’s not rocket science. And over three decades, both parties have not been paying attention to that.I think ’22 gives us a real opportunity to localize some of these issues in Ohio.When you say “localize” — how much is that an admission that, look, the national brand and the national cultural orientation of the Democratic Party is just a big problem in Ohio?I am frustrated sometimes with the national messaging, and it’s not just the Democratic Party. Just, a lot of times, the elitism that comes off from the coasts. That’s a challenge.The Michigan Democratic message? That’s a good message for Ohio.How does that elitism translate in the political message of the party?It’s what we choose to talk about first.You know, I was on a call this week with John Kerry and Gina McCarthy about the work on climate change, which we all agree on. But the key, for us, if you look at what Bill Peduto has moved forward with mayors from Ohio and the Ohio River Valley, the Marshall Plan for Middle America — we have to bring these jobs to the middle of the country.It can’t just be, “This is great for the climate.” It’s also, “It’s a great job creator.” And that’s what we should lead with in these states.Are there things that national Democrats talk about that you feel like, it’s not even a question of emphasis or angle, but it needs to not be on the agenda — period?No, I don’t. I don’t think there’s anything like that. But I think what we lead with a lot of times comes off in a way that doesn’t resonate.One of the challenges in our party is, we have a lot of smart people in the party and everyone wants to be the smartest person in the room. And shouldn’t we be focused on what makes people’s lives better, even if it’s a regular person’s idea?Do you think Biden could have won the state?Yes, I do.What would it have taken?Not to be in Covid. We did no voter reg in the state. They [Republicans] did.And then we didn’t do any voter contact on the ground, and they did. I’m glad we saved lives, don’t get me wrong. But that affected our turnout in urban communities, it affected their turnout in rural communities. We did nothing.What do you think people in Ohio need to see from Biden in the next year, or even in the next three months, in order to ——They need the rescue package. They need to see that something is different, and it’s moving quickly. They need to see that they don’t have to worry every month on whether or not they’re going to get bailed out at the last minute on unemployment and eviction, even though it’s no fault of theirs that the pandemic happened to them, and that they happen to work on frontline jobs that people can’t go to now because the pandemic is raging. And that we’ve got their back.Do you think they care about legislation like that being bipartisan, or do you think they just want it fast?No. No. They want it fast. Nobody cares what happens in D.C. and who voted what. They just want it done, and we should provide that.Where is your head, about your options for 2022?We’re going to make the decision in the coming weeks. I’ve gotten a lot of encouragement today, with probably every Ohio Democrat giving me their opinion on what I should do, which has been really nice.Are both the governor’s race and the Senate race on the table?Yeah.Do you expect to be on the ballot, one way or the other?I hope so.If Jim Jordan decides to run [for Senate], it is highly likely he will win that primary. We recognize that the soul of our state is at stake, and that’s a motivation to all of us.What would your message be to a Democrat from outside Ohio — let’s say someone on the coast — who looks at the results from the last election and the results from Georgia this month, and says, “Why are we even bothering in these states where we’re getting our [rear ends] kicked when there are states that are moving our way?”I would say, there are four states that put Biden over, and they were won collectively by a little more than 100,000 votes. So, you ignore this, as a party, at your own peril. We won, decisively, the popular vote, but democracy is really at stake if we don’t pay attention to places like Ohio.You look at the Senate, you look at our long-term play, and we’ve still got a lot of work to do.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      As Trump Seeks to Remain a Political Force, New Targets Emerge

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyAs Trump Seeks to Remain a Political Force, New Targets EmergeAs Donald Trump surveys the political landscape, there is a sudden Senate opening in Ohio, an ally’s bid for Arkansas governor, and some scores to settle elsewhere.Former President Donald J. Trump has an enduring base of Republican support across the country.Credit…Pete Marovich for The New York TimesMaggie Haberman and Jan. 25, 2021Updated 10:00 p.m. ETFormer President Donald J. Trump, determined to remain a force in G.O.P. politics, is gaining new opportunities with a crucial Senate seat unexpectedly coming open in Ohio, an ally announcing for governor of Arkansas and rising pressure on Republicans in Congress who did not stand with him during this month’s impeachment vote.The surprise announcement on Monday by Senator Rob Portman of Ohio that he would not seek a third term sparked a political land rush, with top strategists in the state receiving a flood of phone calls from potential candidates testing their viability. One consultant said he had received calls from five would-be candidates by midday.That opening, along with another statewide contest next year in which Gov. Mike DeWine is expected to face at least one Trump-aligned primary challenger, is likely to make Ohio a central battleground for control of the Republican Party, and an inviting one for Mr. Trump, who held on to Ohio in the election while losing three other Northern battleground states.Mr. Portman’s announcement came hours after Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Mr. Trump’s former White House press secretary, began her campaign for Arkansas governor. The Republican primary there already includes the state’s lieutenant governor and attorney general, but private polling indicates that Ms. Sanders is beginning well ahead, and Mr. Trump endorsed her candidacy on Monday night. Mr. Trump has only been out of the presidential office five days and has little in the way of political infrastructure. He has told aides he would like to take a break for several months. But the former president has remained the party’s strongest fund-raiser, with tens of millions in PAC money at his disposal, and he retains an enduring base of Republican support across the country. Perhaps most important, he harbors a deep-seated desire to punish those he believes have crossed him and reward those who remain loyal.So far he has focused primarily on Georgia, where he believes the Republican governor and secretary of state betrayed him by certifying his loss there. Both are up for re-election in 2022. And he took something of a test run over the weekend by getting involved in the leadership fight in Arizona’s Republican Party, after Kelli Ward, the firebrand chairwoman, asked for his help in gaining re-election, according to a person familiar with the discussions.Already there is a movement at the state and local levels to challenge incumbent members of Congress seen as breaking with the former president, starting with the 10 Republicans who voted to impeach him this month.The overwhelming consensus among Ohio Republicans is that a Trump-aligned candidate would be best positioned to win a competitive Senate primary, and no potential candidate has a better claim to Mr. Trump’s voters in the state than Representative Jim Jordan, who was Mr. Trump’s chief defender during his first impeachment trial and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom during the former president’s final days in office.“Jim is well positioned if in fact he’s ready to take that leap; I’m not sure there’s anybody that would beat him,” said Ken Blackwell, a former Ohio secretary of state and longtime Portman ally who last month served as an Electoral College voter for Mr. Trump. Referring to Mr. Trump’s legion of supporters, Mr. Blackwell added: “In Ohio, it’s going to be who has the track record to show that their agenda respects the newly realigned party base.”Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio was Mr. Trump’s chief defender during his first impeachment trial and could seek the Republican nomination for an open Senate seat in 2022.Credit…Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York TimesMr. Trump is now ensconced at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, where aides are building something that can serve as an office. He’s been golfing several times, and was spotted by people at his club in Florida playing with the brother of the former tennis star Anna Kournikova on Sunday.His advisers have had discussions about whether to get him back on some form of social media platform, although they insist that he does not need to be on Twitter or Facebook to raise money, and that his email solicitations continue to work well. On Monday he formally opened the Office of the Former President, to manage his “correspondence, public statements, appearances, and official activities.”As President Biden’s inauguration approached, Mr. Trump began telling some allies that he was considering forming a third party if Republicans moved to convict him in the Senate trial. But by Saturday, after his own advisers said it was a mistake, Mr. Trump started sending out word that he was moving on from his threat.“He understands that the best thing for his movement and conservatism is to move forward together, that third parties will lead to dominance by Democrats,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina Republican who is a close ally of Mr. Trump.Advisers to the president say he has just over $70 million in his PAC, Save America, with few restrictions on what he can do with it. For now, most of his staff is on a government payroll afforded to former presidents for a period of time after they leave office.Officials are working to mend Mr. Trump’s relationship with Representative Kevin McCarthy, Republican of California and the House minority leader, whom Mr. Trump called a vulgarity for his House floor speech denouncing the former president’s rally address before the riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6. A senior Republican said that aides to the two men were trying to arrange a meeting or a call in the coming days.Mr. Trump would like to seek retribution against House members who voted against him, and he has been particularly angry with Representatives Anthony Gonzalez of Ohio and Fred Upton of Michigan, advisers said. He will also at some point focus on the governor’s race in Arizona, where Doug Ducey cannot seek re-election; Gov. Greg Abbott’s re-election bid in Texas; and the Senate race in North Carolina, as places where he can show strength, the advisers said. (One adviser disputed that Mr. Trump would have an interest in the Texas race.)In Ohio, Mr. Gonzalez faces a potential primary challenge from Christina Hagan, a former state legislator whom he defeated in a 2018 primary. Ms. Hagan lost in the general election last year to Representative Tim Ryan, a Democrat, in a neighboring district. She said in an interview Monday that she would decide which, if any, race to enter in 2022 after Ohio redraws its congressional districts; the state is likely to lose one seat and Republicans control all levers of redistricting.“A lot of people elected what they thought was conservative leadership and now are witnessing somebody cutting against their values,” Ms. Hagan said, alluding to Mr. Gonzalez’s vote to impeach. Mr. Gonzalez’s office did not respond to emails seeking comment.Mr. Trump’s deepest hostility is reserved for Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia, advisers said, and they expect he will expend the most energy trying to damage Mr. Kemp’s re-election bid. The governor’s original sin was in choosing Kelly Loeffler over Mr. Trump’s favored candidate, Doug Collins, to fill a vacant Senate seat in 2019, but it evolved into something more consuming as Mr. Trump repeated his debunked claims of widespread fraud in the state and held Mr. Kemp responsible for not doing enough to challenge the election results.Mr. Collins, a hard-line Trump backer, hasn’t decided whether to challenge Mr. Kemp or seek the Republican nomination against Senator Raphael Warnock, the Democrat who defeated Ms. Loeffler in a special election and will face voters again in 2022, or if he will choose not to run for anything, a Collins aide said Monday.Mr. Trump is likely to support a primary challenge to Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, in Georgia.Credit…Dustin Chambers for The New York TimesNext on Mr. Trump’s personal hit list is Representative Liz Cheney, the Republican from Wyoming, people close to him said. Ms. Cheney was the only member of the House G.O.P. leadership to vote to impeach. It’s unclear whether Mr. Trump will target her seat, or simply her leadership post in the House, but advisers said they anticipated that he would take opportunities to damage her.Sarah Longwell, the executive director of the Republican Accountability Project, an anti-Trump group, said she and her colleagues planned to raise and spend $50 million to defend the 10 pro-impeachment House Republicans in primary contests and attack those who voted to object to the Electoral College results after the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol. She said the group would aim to defeat Mr. Jordan in an Ohio Senate primary if he runs against an establishment-minded Republican.Mr. Jordan’s spokesman did not respond to messages on Monday.The 2022 map will be the first real test of Mr. Trump’s durability in the party. While Ms. Sanders is running for governor in Arkansas, rumors that his daughter Ivanka would run for Senate in Florida are unlikely to develop further. And though his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, was said to be considering a Senate run in North Carolina, people close to the family say it is less clear what she will do now that Mr. Trump lost.Mr. Trump’s advisers are more focused on the looming impeachment trial. He is working closely with Mr. Graham, who has argued to his colleagues that Mr. Trump’s Senate trial sets a bad precedent.Mr. Graham helped him retain a South Carolina-based lawyer, Butch Bowers, who is also working to fill out a legal team with colleagues from the state, Mr. Graham and others said. Mr. Bowers is expected to work with a Trump adviser, Jason Miller, on some kind of response operation.Unlike his first impeachment trial, when the Republican National Committee engaged in a constant defense of the president, including paying for his lawyers, this time it is expected to focus only on rapid response, including calling the Senate trial unconstitutional and a procedural overreach, two people familiar with the committee’s plans said.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Senator Rob Portman of Ohio Will Not Seek Re-Election in 2022

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyPortman to Retire in Ohio, Expanding 2022 Battle for SenateThe respected Republican legislator cited gridlock and partisanship in deciding to give up his seat. His exit underscores how far the party has strayed from its former identity.Senator Rob Portman of Ohio, a top trade and budget official in the administration of George W. Bush, was once regarded as a conservative stalwart. Credit…Anna Moneymaker for The New York TimesCarl Hulse and Jan. 25, 2021, 6:02 p.m. ETWASHINGTON — Senator Rob Portman of Ohio, a Republican with deep ties to the former party establishment, announced on Monday that he would not seek re-election in 2022, underscoring the rightward shift of his party and opening a major battleground in what will be a bruising national fight for Senate control.One of the most seasoned legislators in the Senate, Mr. Portman, 65, voiced frustration with the deep polarization and partisanship in Washington as one of the factors in his decision to step aside after a successful career in the House, executive branch and Senate.“It has gotten harder and harder to break through the partisan gridlock and mark progress on substantive policy, and that has contributed to my decision,” Mr. Portman said in a statement that was widely viewed as a surprise so soon after the last election.Mr. Portman, a top trade and budget official in the administration of George W. Bush, was once regarded as a conservative stalwart. But as his party shifted to the right in recent years, he had come to be seen as one of the few right-of-center Republican senators interested in striking bipartisan deals, an increasingly perilous enterprise at a time when the party’s core supporters have shown a penchant for punishing moderation.Mr. Portman was one of the lawmakers responsible for pushing through the new North American trade deal in 2019. He was also part of a bipartisan coalition that crafted a pandemic relief measure late last year and applied pressure to the House and Senate leadership to embrace and pass it after months of delay.With the Senate increasingly a gridlocked battlefield, Mr. Portman is the latest Republican to assess the political landscape and opt for an exit, putting seats in play in competitive states. Senators Richard M. Burr of North Carolina and Patrick J. Toomey of Pennsylvania have announced they will not be running again. Former President Donald J. Trump won Ohio soundly, but he only narrowly prevailed in North Carolina and was defeated in Pennsylvania.Mr. Portman is highly regarded by members of both parties.“Rob and I haven’t always agreed with one another,” Senator Sherrod Brown, Mr. Portman’s Democratic counterpart in Ohio, wrote on Twitter. “But we’ve always been able to put our differences aside to do what’s best for Ohio.”Mr. Portman sought to maneuver carefully around Mr. Trump while he was in office, carefully criticizing the former president’s actions and statements he disagreed with while praising Mr. Trump’s policies. He voted against removing Mr. Trump from office in the Senate impeachment trial last year, and is considered unlikely to convict the former president in the forthcoming one, even though he will not face voters again.The senator’s decision to retire rather than seek a third term illustrated how difficult it has become for more mainstream Republicans to navigate the current political environment, with hard-right allies of Mr. Trump insisting that Republican members of Congress side with them or face primary contests.Mr. Portman called it a “tough time to be in public service.”“We live in an increasingly polarized country where members of both parties are being pushed further to the right and further to the left,” he said, “and that means too few people who are actively looking to find common ground.”With the Senate split 50-50 and Democrats in the majority by virtue of Vice President Kamala Harris breaking any ties, Republicans would need a net gain of one seat to take back the majority they lost this month after six years in control.Given the Republican tilt of Ohio, which supported Mr. Trump in the presidential election, Republicans would hold the advantage in the race, particularly in a midterm election where the party out of presidential power typically fares well. But the open seat could make it easier for Democrats to compete, particularly if Republicans choose a hard-right candidate with the potential to alienate independents and suburban voters.One of those hard-right prospects, Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, was among the first names mentioned on Monday as a possible replacement for Mr. Portman. Perhaps Mr. Trump’s staunchest ally in the House, Mr. Jordan was the former president’s principal defender on the House floor when Mr. Trump was impeached for a second time this month.Mr. Jordan’s frequent Fox News appearances have also earned him national fame with conservatives; he had over $5 million left over when his 2020 campaign ended.Yet his profile has also made Mr. Jordan a political lightning rod, and a number of Ohio Democrats believe he would be the easiest Republican to defeat. If he did enter the race, he would likely have company in the primary. Representative Steve Stivers, a Columbus-area lawmaker and the former chairman of the House campaign committee, indicated to associates on Monday that he was considering a bid. Other potential Republicans included Lt. Gov. Jon Husted; Jane Timken, the chairwoman of the state party; and Representatives Bill Johnson and Michael R. Turner.The roster of potential Democratic candidates is smaller in what has become a Republican-dominated state. The two most formidable candidates could be Mayor Nan Whaley of Dayton and Representative Tim Ryan. Ms. Whaley has been expected to run for governor, but when asked on Monday if she would enter the Senate contest, she said she was “thinking about it.”Mr. Ryan, who represents a heavily industrial slice of northeastern Ohio, has repeatedly mulled statewide campaigns, only to run for re-election. He did, however, mount a long-shot presidential campaign in 2019 and has made little secret of his angst in the House, having once tried to dethrone Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Mr. Ryan may have another good reason to finally run statewide: After he won by a smaller-than-expected margin last year, Ohio Republicans could carve up his seat in redistricting to make it hard for him to win.Whoever emerges for the Democrats will confront a state that has shifted sharply to the right after decades as the country’s quintessential political battleground. Mr. Brown is the last statewide Democratic officeholder, having won re-election against lackluster opposition in 2018.Mr. Portman said he made his plans public on Monday to give others time to prepare for a costly statewide race. His advisers said that besides his unhappiness with the partisanship of Washington, he was wary of making an eight-year commitment that would keep him in the Senate into his 70s.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More