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      Trump Vowed Vengeance, but Georgia Voters Rejected His Meddling

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      Donald J. Trump barreled into Georgia vowing to marshal voters against his enemies and punish Republicans who crossed him in 2020. Instead, Georgia voters punished him for meddling in their state.Mr. Trump picked losers up and down the ballot, most strikingly missing the mark on a third governor’s race in three weeks. The dismal record, particularly for chief executives, illustrates the shortcomings of Mr. Trump’s revenge tour.Since leaving the White House, and the structure it provided, the former president has erratically deployed his political power, often making choices on a whim or with little clear path to execution. That approach has repeatedly left him empty-handed and raised new doubts about the viselike grip he has held on the Republican Party.In Georgia, Mr. Trump tried to wipe out a triumvirate of Republican statewide officeholders who refused to help overturn the 2020 presidential results: Gov. Brian Kemp, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and Attorney General Chris Carr. But the three men all coasted to victory — and handed Mr. Trump a stinging rebuke in a state that has become one of the nation’s most important presidential battlegrounds.Henry Barbour, a Republican National Committee member from Mississippi, said Mr. Trump’s endorsements this year had been “driven by who he dislikes and whoever’s running against them.”“Sometimes that may work out, but I think as we see in Georgia, it’s very unlikely to,” Mr. Barbour said.Mr. Trump’s poor showing in state capitals — his endorsed candidates for governor have now lost as many races as they’ve won this year — can be partly blamed on the degree of difficulty of his undertaking. Successful campaigns for governor often must be precisely tailored to address nuanced regional and local issues. House and Senate bids — where Mr. Trump’s endorsement record as yet is nearly unblemished — can more easily harness national political winds.Unseating incumbent governors in a primary, as Mr. Trump tried to do in Georgia and Idaho, is even more challenging. According to the Eagleton Center on the American Governor at Rutgers University, governors defeat primary challengers about 95 percent of the time. Two incumbent governors haven’t lost primaries in the same year since 1994.But Mr. Trump has shown the unlikely to be practically impossible when decisions about endorsements for high-profile public offices are based on falsehoods, vengeance and personal pride. His refusal to take a more cautious approach and protect his political capital ahead of a likely 2024 presidential campaign has resulted in unforced errors that could unspool for months.Gov. Brian Kemp in Atlanta on Tuesday night after winning the Republican primary.Nicole Craine for The New York TimesIn Georgia, for example, Republicans have worried about the unnecessary political damage Mr. Trump has inflicted on Mr. Kemp, who will face a rematch in November with Stacey Abrams, the Democratic nominee who lost their 2018 contest by 54,700 votes, or less than one-half of one percentage point. Political control of the governor’s office carries significant influence over election laws and regulations heading into the 2024 voting.“I don’t believe Kemp can do it,” Mr. Trump said during a tele-rally on Monday about the governor’s chances of defeating Ms. Abrams. “He’s got too many people in the Republican Party that will refuse to vote. They’re just not going to go out.”Mr. Trump’s loss in Georgia also meant a major victory for the Republican Governors Association, which has circled the wagons around incumbents and resisted the former president’s attacks on their members.The group spent $5 million on Mr. Kemp’s race and dispatched a cavalry of current and former governors to campaign for him, including two potential challengers to Mr. Trump in 2024: Chris Christie of New Jersey and former Vice President Mike Pence, who, like Mr. Kemp, refused to help Mr. Trump overturn the 2020 election.Whether the Georgia results will provide a toehold for a challenge to Mr. Trump’s supremacy in the party remained unclear, but signs that he has lost some political altitude have been unmistakable throughout the 2022 primary season.Mindful that potential 2024 presidential rivals are watching for openings against him, Mr. Trump has been toying for months with announcing his candidacy ahead of the midterm elections this year, according to people who have spoken with him.Earlier talk of similar moves went nowhere, including a “Draft Trump” movement floated by Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina shortly after Mr. Trump left office and an idea to announce an exploratory committee as recently as March.But Mr. Trump has spoken to aides recently about declaring his candidacy this summer as a way to box out other candidates. Other advisers said he viewed an announcement as a way to link himself to the success that Republicans expect in the midterm elections this November.Herschel Walker with former President Donald J. Trump at a March rally in Commerce, Ga.Audra Melton for The New York TimesMr. Trump had a smattering of success on Tuesday night, notably with his former White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who is almost certain to become the next governor of Arkansas after winning the Republican primary. And Herschel Walker, the former football star whom Mr. Trump urged to run for Senate, easily won his Georgia primary. Still, they were exceptions, and faced weak opposition.In a statement, Taylor Budowich, a spokesman for Mr. Trump, ignored the string of defeats Tuesday night, calling it “another huge night of victories for his endorsed candidates.”In an interview last week, Mr. Trump defended his endorsement record, saying he had backed candidates he believed in, not just those he expected to win. He pointed to J.D. Vance’s win in the Ohio Senate primary, Mr. Trump’s biggest victory of the primary season so far.There, Mr. Trump acted after polling late in the race suggested his endorsement could make the difference for Mr. Vance, who was behind in the polls at the time — and his announcement propelled Mr. Vance to a decisive victory.But that deliberate decision-making was a departure from the more scattershot approach seen in Mr. Trump’s endorsements for governor.In Nebraska, where Mr. Trump’s endorsed candidate, the agriculture executive Charles Herbster, was defeated on May 10, Mr. Trump has privately faulted the Fox News host Jeanine Pirro, complaining that she pushed him to back Mr. Herbster, and going so far as to suggest to some people that Ms. Pirro and Mr. Herbster had dated.Understand the 2022 Midterm ElectionsCard 1 of 6Why are these midterms so important? More

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      Raffensperger Wins Georgia’s G.O.P. Secretary of State Primary

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      Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia Republican official who famously rebuffed former President Donald J. Trump’s requests to “find” enough votes to help him overturn the 2020 election, defeated a Republican primary challenge on Tuesday.Mr. Raffensperger, who serves as Georgia’s top elections official as secretary of state, won his G.O.P. primary against Representative Jody Hice, a Republican congressman who voted to overturn the 2020 election and who was backed by Mr. Trump. The Associated Press called the victory for Mr. Raffensperger, who was able to win back the trust of Republican voters in Georgia by promoting himself as a champion of “election integrity” and rebutting falsehoods made by Mr. Trump and his allies about the 2020 election. His victory amounted to a repudiation of Mr. Trump’s attempts to weaponize 2020 election falsehoods into political success in 2022. Mr. Raffensperger did not mention Mr. Trump by name in his victory remarks on Tuesday night, but he made a clear reference to him. “Not buckling under the pressure is what the people want,” Mr. Raffensperger said. Though Mr. Raffensperger was a hero to many Democrats for his refusal to overturn the 2020 election, he will still face stiff opposition in the general election in November. Democrats have placed a premium on secretary of state races across the country as a means of combating what they view as a wave of new restrictive voting laws. The contest in Georgia between Mr. Raffensperger and Mr. Hice elevated the once-sleepy down-ballot race into a hyperpartisan dogfight, helping to bring national attention to races for secretary of state across the country. After Mr. Hice earned Mr. Trump’s backing, a host of candidates who have publicly questioned or disputed the results of the 2020 election in several states announced their candidacy for secretary of state, worrying Democrats, election experts and some Republicans.After the 2020 presidential election, Mr. Raffensperger became perhaps the most famous secretary of state in the country, as a leaked audio call showed him resisting Mr. Trump’s pressure. And though he lamented the former president’s loss publicly, Mr. Raffensperger repeatedly asserted that Georgia’s elections had been free and fair. This immediately put him in the cross hairs of Mr. Trump, who has focused his political capital on ousting Republicans who either went against his whims after the 2020 election or voted for his impeachment after the riot at the Capitol. Mr. Trump quickly endorsed Mr. Hice, the first secretary of state candidate to earn his endorsement, in March of last year. “Jody has been a steadfast fighter for conservative Georgia values and is a staunch ally of the America First agenda,” Mr. Trump said. “Unlike the current Georgia secretary of state, Jody leads out front with integrity.”Representative Jody Hice at a campaign event in Macon, Ga., in February.Nicole Craine for The New York TimesAs he sought to fend off Mr. Hice’s challenge, Mr. Raffensperger shifted to the right. He was one of the most vocal proponents of the state’s new voting law, which added numerous new regulations and restrictions to casting ballots, even though the law also stripped Mr. Raffensperger of some of his powers as secretary of state. Understand the 2022 Midterm ElectionsCard 1 of 6Why are these midterms so important? More

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      Two Republicans Face Disqualification in Michigan Governor’s Race

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      Two top Republican candidates for governor in Michigan are in danger of being denied a spot on the primary ballot after the state’s election bureau invalidated thousands of signatures submitted by their campaigns, saying many of the names had been forged and were collected by fraudulent petition circulators.The Michigan Bureau of Elections recommended on Monday that James Craig, a former Detroit police chief, and Perry Johnson, a wealthy businessman, be excluded from the Aug. 2 primary, finding that neither candidate met the requirement of submitting signatures from at least 15,000 registered voters.Republicans in the state characterized the move as a politically motivated effort from a Democratic-led agency, while Mr. Craig pointed to his standing in the race.“They want me out,” Mr. Craig said, alluding to Republicans and Democrats. “I’ve been leading.”Three other lesser-known Republican candidates for governor also fell short of the threshold, the bureau determined, meaning that five of the party’s 10 candidates who filed to run for the state’s top office would be ineligible.In its review of the nominating petitions for both candidates, the elections bureau issued a stinging indictment of the methods used by their campaigns to collect signatures and the operatives working for the candidates.“The Bureau is unaware of another election cycle in which this many circulators submitted such a substantial volume of fraudulent petition sheets consisting of invalid signatures,” the bureau said, but clarified that it saw no evidence that the candidates had any knowledge of the fraud.Mr. Craig said in an interview on Tuesday that he would go to court to challenge any effort to deny him access to the ballot.“None of the candidates knew about the fraud,” Mr. Craig said. “Certainly, I didn’t. There needs to be an investigation and prosecution, if, in fact, there is probable cause that they did in fact commit fraud.”While the final say over the candidates’ eligibility rests with the Board of State Canvassers, a separate panel that will meet on Thursday, the recommended disqualification of Mr. Craig and Mr. Johnson threatened to create chaos for Republicans in their quest to challenge Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat.Perry Johnson was also widely viewed as one of the top candidates in the state’s Republican primary for governor.Daniel Shular/The Grand Rapids Press, via Associated PressBoth Mr. Craig and Mr. Johnson were widely viewed as front-runners for the party’s nomination in a key battleground state, where Republicans have clashed with Democrats over the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election and pandemic restrictions.More than half of the 21,305 signatures submitted by Mr. Craig’s campaign were rejected, leaving him with 10,192 valid signatures, the bureau said in its report, which noted that little effort was made to vary handwriting.“In some cases, rather than attempting varying signatures, the circulator would intentionally scrawl illegibly. In other instances, they circulated petition sheets among themselves, each filling out a line,” the bureau said of the petitions for Mr. Craig.Mr. Craig identified Vanguard Field Strategies, an Austin, Texas, firm, as helping to manage the canvassing effort, one that he said relied on several subcontractors that were previously unknown to him. He said that the onus was on the firm to have checks and balances to detect fraud, and he called it “shortsighted” and unrealistic to expect that a busy candidate would verify more than 20,000 signatures.Vanguard Field Strategies confirmed on Tuesday that 18 of the people identified in the elections bureau’s report as circulating the fraudulent petitions had been working for another firm that it had subcontracted to help it gather signatures. The company would not identify the subcontractor, which it characterized in a statement on Tuesday as a nationally respected Republican firm.“The allegations of fraudulent activity, and individuals infiltrating Chief Craig’s campaign in an effort to sabotage it, is very concerning,” Joe J. Williams, Vanguard’s president, said in a statement. “I hope the individuals charged with fraud (none of which worked for or were paid by Vanguard) are held responsible if the allegations are true.”According to Vanguard, Mr. Craig’s campaign retained its services about two months ago, having collected just 500 signatures at the time — the deadline to submit them was April 19.The elections bureau rejected 9,393 of the 23,193 signatures submitted by Mr. Johnson’s campaign, leaving him with 13,800 valid signatures. Some of the fraudulent signatures represented voters who had died or moved out of the state, the bureau said.John Yob, a campaign strategist for Mr. Johnson, did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Tuesday. In a series of tweets on Monday night, Mr. Yob said that the move to disqualify Republican candidates en masse was politically motivated and criticized the head of the state agency that the elections bureau is part of: Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat who is secretary of state.Mr. Yob said that the campaign would contest the bureau’s recommendation.“We strongly believe they are refusing to count thousands of signatures from legitimate voters who signed the petitions and look forward to winning this fight before the Board, and if necessary, in the courts,” he said.On Tuesday, Ron Weiser, the chairman of the Michigan Republican Party, slammed the move to exclude the Republicans from the primary ballot on Twitter.“This is far from over,” Mr. Weiser said. “Democrats claim to be the champions of democracy but are actively angling behind the scenes to disqualify their opponents in an unprecedented way because they want to take away choice from Michigan voters.”Tracy Wimmer, a spokeswoman for Ms. Benson, said in an email on Tuesday night that the election bureau was not swayed by politics.“The Bureau of Elections is staffed by election professionals of integrity who conducted their review of candidate submissions in a nonpartisan manner in accordance with state law,” Ms. Wimmer said.Election officials said that they had identified 36 people who had submitted fraudulent petition sheets consisting entirely of invalid signatures. On Monday, a total of 19 candidates learned that they had not met the signature requirement to get onto the ballot, including three Republicans and one Democrat seeking House seats, and 10 nonpartisan candidates seeking judicial posts.Democrats had separately challenged the petitions of Mr. Craig and Mr. Johnson, but the bureau did not take action because those candidates did not have enough signatures. Mark Brewer, a former chairman of the Michigan Democrats and a lawyer who challenged Mr. Craig’s petitions, defended the steps taken by the elections bureau on Twitter.“What kind of message does it send if any candidate with forged signatures is allowed on the ballot?” Mr. Brewer said on Tuesday. In a 17-page report detailing its findings on Monday, the elections bureau said that the head of one canvassing firm used by the candidates to gather signatures had pleaded guilty to two counts of election fraud in 2011 in Virginia. He was accused of instructing two individuals to sign as a witness on dozens of petition sheets filled with signatures they did not collect, the bureau said.The report did not identify the person, but cited links to news stories and court cases that pointed to Shawn Wilmoth, a political operative based in Michigan, and Mr. Wilmoth’s company, First Choice Contracting LLC.A person who answered the phone at the company on Tuesday said that Mr. Wilmoth was not available, and Mr. Wilmoth did not respond to messages seeking comment.When asked if Mr. Wilmoth or his firm had done work for his campaign, Mr. Craig said on Tuesday that he had learned only that day of a potential nexus.“I don’t want to make excuses,” Mr. Craig said. More

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      McCormick Sues to Count Undated Mail-In Ballots, Trailing Oz

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      In a lawsuit filed on Monday in Pennsylvania, the Republican Senate candidate David McCormick demanded that undated mail-in ballots should be counted in his primary race against the celebrity physician Dr. Mehmet Oz, whom he trailed by less than 1,000 votes.Mr. McCormick, a former hedge fund chief, asked the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania to allow election officials in the state’s 67 counties to accept mail-in ballots from voters who turned them in by the May 17 deadline but did not write the date on the outer return envelopes.That step is required by a state law, one that Republicans have fought to preserve.The legal action could be a prelude to a cascade of lawsuits and challenges in one of the nation’s most intensely watched primaries, one that could ultimately determine control of the divided Senate. The seat will be open after Senator Patrick J. Toomey, a Republican, steps down this year.The filing preceded a May 26 deadline for Pennsylvania’s secretary of state to determine whether a recount is triggered in the race, an automatic step when the top two candidates are within half a percentage point. About two-tenths of a percentage point separated Mr. McCormick on Monday from Dr. Oz, whom former President Donald J. Trump has been nudging to declare victory. The McCormick campaign was said to have invested heavily in its absentee-voting efforts.“These ballots were indisputably submitted on time — they were date-stamped upon receipt — and no fraud or irregularity has been alleged,” Ronald L. Hicks Jr., a lawyer for Mr. McCormick, wrote in the 35-page lawsuit.Mr. Hicks, a trial and appellate lawyer in Pittsburgh, was part of a phalanx of lawyers enlisted by Mr. Trump who unsuccessfully sought to challenge mail-in ballots after the 2020 presidential election. He later moved to withdraw from that case.In the McCormick campaign’s lawsuit, Mr. Hicks took the opposite view of mail-in ballots, saying that election boards in Allegheny County in Western Pennsylvania and Blair County in the central part of the state have balked at counting the undated ballots. Those counties, he said, were delaying taking action until after Tuesday when they are required to report unofficial results to the state.“The boards’ refusal to count the ballots at issue violates the protections of the right to vote under the federal Civil Rights Act and the Pennsylvania Constitution,” Mr. Hicks wrote.In the lawsuit, the McCormick campaign cited a recent ruling by a federal court panel that barred elections officials in Lehigh County, Pa., from rejecting absentee and mail-in ballots cast in the November 2021 municipal election because they were not dated.“Every Republican primary vote should be counted, including the votes of Pennsylvania’s active-duty military members who risk their lives to defend our constitutional right to vote,” Jess Szymanski, a spokeswoman for Mr. McCormick’s campaign, said in an email on Monday night.Understand the Battle Over U.S. Voting RightsCard 1 of 6Why are voting rights an issue now? More

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      The Depp-Heard Trial Isn’t Even the Weirdest Thing About America Right Now

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      Bret Stephens: Hi, Gail. It looks like I won’t be vacationing in Vladivostok anytime soon. Or Omsk, Tomsk, Yakutsk or Smolensk, for that matter.Gail: Bret, this is one of the most interesting openings we’ve ever had. Is this because you canceled a summer vacation reservation for the Trans-Siberian Railway? Or perchance the Russian reaction to your very powerful anti-Putin column?Bret: I woke up on Saturday to the news that my name was on a list of 963 Americans barred for life by the Russian foreign ministry from visiting Mother Russia. Which is about as upsetting as waking up to a call from your doctor who says, “It isn’t cancer” or a message from an ex that reads, “I was wrong about everything.”Gail: You know, when people visit our apartment, their favorite home decoration is almost always the letter Donald Trump wrote calling me a dog “with the face of a pig.” If only you could get Vladimir Putin to drop you a note saying, “Looking forward to seeing you — Never!” it’d be the ultimate example of high-end hate mail.Bret: I’m OK with the Russian sanction on me so long as it doesn’t involve poisoned underpants. Meanwhile, the war in Ukraine rages on, abortion rights are on the line at the Supreme Court, inflation is high and the markets are tanking, and yet the most divisive issue of our time seems to be … Amber Heard v. Johnny Depp.Are you taking a side?Gail Collins: Bret, I’m a big fan of Hollywood gossip as an antidote for dwelling too long on deeply depressing current events. But this one is pretty depressing itself and I kinda wish we could talk about some other celebrity story. Hey, did you know Dick Van Dyke has signed up for a fitness class at 96?Bret: I did. Good to know we are both attentive readers of The New York Post.Gail: I guess everyone who watches late-night talk shows now knows that Depp is suing his ex-wife for defamation over a 2018 op-ed she wrote in The Washington Post about domestic violence. Couldn’t be a more important topic, but the stories we’ve heard since — like the controversy over whether she defecated on their bed or if it was the dog — don’t really bring a desirable kind of attention to spousal abuse issues.Your thoughts?Bret: Heard is a lot more convincing as an actress than she is as a witness. I also think the reason the trial has captured this kind of attention — aside from the pure entertainment value of watching two deeply troubled celebrity exes go at each other as if they were re-enacting a scene from “Gladiator” — is that for many people it represents a kind of corrective to the excesses of the #MeToo movement.Gail: OK, we’re now at Disagreement Central. Men who are subject to those kinds of accusations obviously deserve to have their defenses listened to. And nobody should automatically be seen as guilty until the evidence is in.Bret: Yes and yes.Gail: But when it comes to issues of physical abuse, a woman deserves immediate attention, partly just out of concern for her safety. And because we’re trying to turn around a long human history in which violence against a sexual partner wasn’t seen as serious as violence against anybody else.Bret: Agree again, but while Heard has accused Depp of being violent, she also said on the stand that “It’s always been my own testimony that I hit Johnny.” I think the case serves as a reminder that the current politicized vision of relationships — in which men always hold all the power, including physical power; women are generally presumed to be the victimized party, as well as the honest one; and romantic relationships are supposed to abide by the dictates of a legal brief, not the alchemy of desire — just doesn’t conform to the way most people experience life.Gail: If our readers want to mull this matter further, I really recommend our colleague Michelle Goldberg’s Heard-Depp column from last week.Bret: Michelle eloquently expresses the exact opposite of my view.Gail: Speaking of eloquent, what about the primaries that just occurred? The big one in Pennsylvania for the Republican Senate nomination, featuring Dr. Oz versus Business Guy, is still unresolved. Which has got to be a plus for the Democratic nominee, John Fetterman. Any thoughts on that race?Bret: My guess is that Fetterman will have a tough time winning in November. He’s on the leftward side of a Democratic Party that is struggling to overcome the perception that it leaned too far left in Biden’s first year. Of course, Oz and David McCormick, his closest opponent, could still tear the Pennsylvania G.O.P. to pieces fighting for the 1,000 or so votes that separated them in last week’s primary. The older I get, the more I realize that winning in politics is mostly a game of being slightly less stupid than your opponent.Gail: Embarrassing to look all around the country and see previously sane Republicans who now feel compelled to deny Biden won the election.Bret: Those Republicans aren’t sane, but I take your point.Gail: Fetterman is overly colorful for my taste, constantly showing up in shorts for public events and bragging about his tattoos. But his policies are perfectly reasonable, and I think he has a real shot.Bret: The other primary race that fascinates me, Gail, is the one for governor in Georgia. Trump favorite David Perdue is making a run for incumbent Gov. Brian Kemp’s job, and it looks like Perdue will lose in a rout. That’s all the more notable because Kemp stood by Biden’s victory in the state’s 2020 presidential election. It may be a good indication that Trump’s power in the party is finally beginning to wane.Or is that just wishful thinking?Gail: Maybe the rule on Republican primaries is that party voters will back the Trump candidate if they know virtually nothing about the people who are running. If the endorsee is, say, Representative Madison Cawthorn, the newly rejected 26-year-old congressional juvenile delinquent, they’ve got plenty of information to make a choice on their own.Bret: On a related note, it will be interesting to see if Marjorie Taylor Greene wins her G.O.P. primary in Georgia. If she loses, maybe she can blame those Jewish space lasers again.Gail: One primary that’s going to tell us a lot about Trump’s ability to impose his will on an election where the voters are well informed should be in Wyoming. Will Liz Cheney get renominated? That’d certainly leave our former president gnawing on a Mar-a-Lago porch railing.Bret: Whatever happens to Liz Cheney — and things don’t look great for her right now — she’s earned her own chapter in some future sequel to John F. Kennedy’s “Profiles in Courage.” After the recent shooting in Buffalo, she tweeted that the “House G.O.P. leadership has enabled white nationalism, white supremacy, and antisemitism.” There’s a word for that kind of magnificent honesty, often associated with bowling, tennis or golf.Gail: Of course the Wyoming primary isn’t until August. Plenty of stuff to look forward to before then. As well as watching the actual government in operation. How do you think Biden’s doing these days?Bret: Well, he’s done a much better job standing up for Ukraine than I had expected he might, and I’ll give him and his national-security team full marks for that.On the other hand, homicide rates in major American cities were 44 percent higher in 2021 than they were in 2019, and there’s a palpable sense of lawlessness and urban decay in one downtown after another, including a random killing Sunday morning on the subway in New York. That isn’t Biden’s fault, but it adds to a perception of Democratic misgovernance.Gail: Conservative refusal to control gun sales is my nominee for the Misgovernment Medal.Bret: Inflation hasn’t been this high in 40 years and it can cost more than $100 to fill a tank of gas. We may have been spared a migration crisis this summer, but only because a Trump-appointed judge blocked the C.D.C.’s effort to end Title 42. We also seem to be teetering on the verge of a recession, which would be … bad. Despite all this, the White House seems to think that Biden is a plausible candidate for re-election in 2024, which at this point looks about as likely as that vacation I was supposed to take in Vladivostok.My question for you is, when do Democrats start panicking?Gail: Well, the first panic-possible moment is this fall, when we see how the midterm elections go. Can’t actually say I’m feeling optimistic right now, but I do believe there’s a huge difference between Democrats Can’t Govern — the big issue this fall — and Who Wants Trump Back?, which will be the big issue in two years.Totally confident right now that most Americans don’t want Trump back. In fact that’s possibly the only question in which Biden definitely comes out the winner.Bret: A decent strategy unless Ron DeSantis is the nominee.Gail: Not a fan of Biden acknowledging now that he won’t run again, as I’ve mentioned before, but I do admit one plus would be bringing the race for 2024 up front right away and giving the new talent a chance to show itself.Bret: Glad to have possibly won you over on that point. Last thing, Gail, our readers shouldn’t miss Dwight Garner’s obituary for Roger Angell, The New Yorker’s great baseball writer, who died last week at 101. Always good to see one magnificent writer do justice to another.Gail: Amen.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Meta Will Give Researchers More Information on Political Ad Targeting

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      Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, said that it planned to give outside researchers more detailed information on how political ads are targeted across its platform, providing insight into the ways that politicians, campaign operatives and political strategists buy and use ads ahead of the midterm elections.Starting on Monday, academics and researchers who are registered with an initiative called the Facebook Open Research and Transparency project will be allowed to see data on how each political or social ad was used to target people. The information includes which interest categories — such as “people who like dogs” or “people who enjoy the outdoors” — were chosen to aim an ad at someone.In addition, Meta said it planned to include summaries of targeting information for some of its ads in its publicly viewable Ad Library starting in July. The company created the Ad Library in 2019 so that journalists, academics and others could obtain information and help safeguard elections against the misuse of digital advertising.While Meta has given outsiders some access into how its political ads were used in the past, it has restricted the amount of information that could be seen, citing privacy reasons. Critics have claimed that the company’s system has been flawed and sometimes buggy, and have frequently asked for more data.That has led to conflicts. Meta previously clashed with a group of New York University academics who tried ingesting large amounts of self-reported data on Facebook users to learn more about the platform. The company cut off access to the group last year, citing violations of its platform rules.The new data that is being added to the Facebook Open Research Transparency project and the Ad Library is a way to share information on political ad targeting while trying to keep data on its users private, the company said.“By making advertiser targeting criteria available for analysis and reporting on ads run about social issues, elections and politics, we hope to help people better understand the practices used to reach potential voters on our technologies,” the company said in a statement.With the new data, for example, researchers browsing the Ad Library could see that over the course of a month, a Facebook page ran 2,000 political ads and that 40 percent of the ad budget was targeted to “people who live in Pennsylvania” or “people who are interested in politics.”Meta said it had been bound by privacy rules and regulations on what types of data it could share with outsiders. In an interview, Jeff King, a vice president in Meta’s business integrity unit, said the company had hired thousands of workers over the past few years to review those privacy issues.“Every single thing we release goes through a privacy review now,” he said. “We want to make sure we give people the right amount of data, but still remain privacy conscious while we do it.”The new data on political ads will cover the period from August 2020, three months before the last U.S. presidential election, to the present day. More

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      Donald Trump Is Desperate for Vindication in Georgia

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      ELLIJAY, Ga. — In some ways, Brian Kemp looks the part of a popular incumbent governor currently kicking butt in a high-stakes, high-profile re-election race. Decked out in boots and jeans, his checked shirt crisp and his gray hair flawless (despite the cyclonic ceiling fans), he has a casual manner as he addresses the crowd standing around the market shop of BJ Reece Orchards, one of the many orchards tucked into the Appalachian foothills of North Georgia. Standing beside a counter laden with crispy fried pies, Mr. Kemp runs through a laundry list of accomplishments from his first term: signing a fetal-heartbeat law and a parents’ bill of rights, successfully crusading for a permitless-carry gun law, keeping schools and businesses open during most of the pandemic and so on.From a conservative viewpoint — the prevailing viewpoint in these parts — it is a catalog worth cheering. Yet the governor’s expression remains serious bordering on concerned, and he sounds defensive at times, especially when talking about the new “election integrity” measures the state put in place after the uproar over the 2020 elections. There were “a lot of decisions that were made by other people” that he “never got to weigh in on,” Mr. Kemp insists, obviously uneasy about the entire topic. “So it was proper that we had discussions and talked to people about those issues to make sure everybody has confidence in the elections.”The edge of anxiety and defensiveness makes sense, though. After all, the reason Mr. Kemp has been campaigning so hard this primary season — running a bus tour through some of the state’s most conservative corners — is that he has been targeted for removal in the primary by Donald Trump, who is hellbent on punishing him for refusing to help overturn the 2020 election results.Mr. Trump’s chosen vessel for revenge is former Senator David Perdue, who lost a runoff with Democrat Jon Ossoff in January 2021. Mr. Perdue has servilely fashioned his campaign around Mr. Trump’s election-fraud nonsense — and little else — basically acting as a proxy for the former president and his Big Lie. But Mr. Perdue threatens to become one of Mr. Trump’s biggest disappointments. Mr. Kemp has been dominating the polls and is expected to come out on top in Tuesday’s primary — very possibly hitting 50 percent and avoiding a runoff. (Mr. Perdue’s situation is considered so dire that even Mr. Trump has reportedly given up on him, according to NBC News.) This would be a humiliating defeat for the former president, who has worked to turn the race into the ultimate grudge match between himself and his nemesis Mr. Kemp.Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia joining Chris Christie onstage at a rally in Alpharetta.Damon Winter/The New York TimesDavid Perdue at a campaign event on Thursday.Damon Winter/The New York TimesThanks to Mr. Trump’s machinations, Georgia’s elections are once again freighted with outsized import, its primaries having become something of a referendum on the health of the Republican Party — and of American democracy. A Kemp win would be a blow not only to Mr. Trump but also to the election denialism with which he has infected the G.O.P. Just this week, “stop the steal” truthers, determined to prove that Joe Biden cheated his way into the White House, won key primaries in North Carolina and Pennsylvania. Another election denier with Mr. Trump’s endorsement, Representative Jody Hice, is running for Georgia secretary of state against the Republican incumbent Brad Raffensperger.A strong win by Mr. Kemp would be the most promising signal to date that many Republican voters, at least in Georgia, are ready to move on — not from Mr. Trump per se, but from his toxic fixation on 2020. It could also provide a hopeful model for other results-oriented Republican governors, evidence that they can thrive even without bowing to the former president’s anti-democratic obsessions. And if Mr. Trump plays things wrong, he could wind up damaging his own political fortunes as well.Georgia is a sore subject for Mr. Trump. Voters didn’t simply reject him as president; they followed up by handing control of the Senate to the Democrats. Outside the ultra-MAGA bubble, within the state and beyond, even many Republicans recognize that Mr. Trump’s election-fraud ravings most likely helped depress turnout here among his followers. The former president is desperate for vindication — and, of course, vengeance.It’s not simply that Mr. Trump persuaded Mr. Perdue to take on Mr. Kemp. Nor that he worked to clear the field of other challengers, disrupting several races in the process. Nor that he took the unprecedented step of cracking open the coffers of his Save America PAC, forking over $500,000 to an anti-Kemp PAC. On a more personal level, Mr. Perdue is this election cycle’s purest stand-in for Mr. Trump: a 2020 loser desperate to reframe his failure as a theft perpetrated by nefarious Democrats and enabled by weak RINOs. His political brand exemplifies that awkward MAGA posture of strength coupled with victimhood.A troubling percentage of Republicans tell pollsters they believe the stolen-election fiction. But it can be hard to know precisely what that means — or how much they really care. For many, “it’s more of a vibe than anything else,” said Sarah Longwell, an anti-Trump Republican strategist. It has become a cultural signifier, something Republicans grumble to their friends about but “don’t hold to that firmly,” she said. “There’s an element of voters kind of being like, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, the election was stolen, but do we have to keep talking about it?’”In Georgia, this ambivalence seems to be reflected in an April poll of Republican-primary voters, only 5 percent of whom cited election integrity as their top issue.Certainly, this sentiment is prevalent among Kemp supporters. Andy and Patricia Bargeron were among the attendees at a breakfast meet-n-greet that Mr. Kemp held in Chatsworth — part of Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene’s district — before heading to Ellijay. After 64 years of marriage, the Bargerons know the value of agreeing to disagree on certain issues. She believes that the 2020 election was stolen. He remains unconvinced and thinks Mr. Trump has “gone too far” in pressing the issue.No matter: Both are voting for Mr. Kemp because they feel he has done a crackerjack job. And even if he could have done more to deal with the 2020 monkey business, Ms. Bargeron reasons, “No one’s perfect.”Debra Helm — who quips that she is “one of those right-wing” evangelicals — claims to still be undecided in the race. Waiting around for the Chatsworth event to start, she says she has no idea if Mr. Kemp handled the 2020 election mess well. But after listening to his sales pitch, she is clearly impressed by his record. “To use lower-class language,” she says, “he’s pretty ballsy.”A small crowd gathered for Governor Kemp at a campaign stop in Thomaston.Damon Winter/The New York TimesPretty much everyone at Mr. Kemp’s events spoke approvingly of Mr. Trump’s presidency, and plenty had lingering doubts about the 2020 election. But they had other, more pressing items on their lists of concerns as well — many of which their governor has been busy addressing.Herein lies Mr. Kemp’s advantage over many of the candidates targeted by Mr. Trump. Governors, more than most public officials, have high-profile posts and clear records to run on. Voters expect concrete results from them. And, for better or worse, they are known quantities — a little like presidents. This can reduce the need for, and in some cases the impact of, outside endorsements, even from someone like Mr. Trump.Mr. Kemp might be in a tougher spot if Mr. Perdue were a fantastic retail politician or a charismatic speaker. But he’s not. In this matchup, the former senator has little to offer beyond his Trump ties and his Stop the Steal blather. Worse, the stench of his 2021 loss is still fresh. “Perdue didn’t beat Ossoff,” Mr. Bargeron reasons. “How is he going to beat Stacey Abrams?”In the Trump Republican Party, anything can happen come Election Day. But plenty of Republicans are poised, eager even, for Mr. Perdue to crash and burn so that they can point to the failure as proof that Mr. Trump’s Big Lie has run its course — or, better still, that Mr. Trump’s grip on the party is slipping. Some are actively working to help the cause, including former President George W. Bush, who was scheduled to attend a fund-raiser for Mr. Kemp this month.Supporting Mr. Kemp is also a way for some party players to put some breathing room between themselves and Mr. Trump without taking him on directly. Chris Christie, the former governor of New Jersey, and former Vice President Mike Pence are among the boldfaced names hitting the trail with the governor. Both men have evinced an interest of late in fashioning themselves as independent, principled conservatives — a brand they may anticipate will play well in a future presidential contest.The more it looks as though Georgia voters will reject Mr. Perdue, the more Republicans feel empowered to criticize his campaign. A recent CNN piece featured a parade of his former Senate colleagues expressing dismay over his election-fraud focus — again, a far safer route than directly criticizing Mr. Trump.If Mr. Kemp trounces Mr. Perdue, and by extension Mr. Trump, the key question then becomes how the former president responds — especially as people play up the Trump-is-losing-his-juice narrative. The sensible course would be for him to shrug off the taunting and walk away, letting the loss fade to just another entry in his long endorsement record.But if he bows to his ego and continues assailing Mr. Kemp deep into the general election, many Republicans could start having ugly flashbacks to 2021, posits Jay Williams, a Republican strategist in Georgia. If the party winds up faring less well in November than expected, part of the blame will most likely fall on the former president. And if Stacey Abrams wins, Mr. Williams adds, that could be traumatic enough to sour many Republicans on Mr. Trump’s Big Lie — and possibly the man himself.Georgia Republicans may still be enamored of Mr. Trump. But that doesn’t mean they want to carry his 2020 burden around with them forever — or even into November.“The people who are supporting Perdue are living in the past,” said Brian Wilson, a Kemp supporter at the breakfast event. “I want to live in the future.”The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      in Elections

      Pence, Tiptoeing Away From Trump, Lays Groundwork for ’24 Run

      by

      The former vice president is part of a group of Republicans who have visited early nominating states as they weigh a challenge to their party’s most dominant force.AMES, Iowa — For months, former Vice President Mike Pence has been edging away from his alliance of convenience with former President Donald J. Trump.After four years of service bordering on subservience, the increasingly emboldened Mr. Pence is seeking to reintroduce himself to Republican voters ahead of a potential presidential bid by setting himself apart from what many in the G.O.P. see as the worst impulses of Mr. Trump. He’s among a small group in his party considering a run in 2024 no matter what Mr. Trump decides.Mr. Pence first used high-profile speeches to criticize the former president’s push to overturn the 2020 election results, stating flatly that Mr. Trump was “wrong” in his assertion that Mr. Pence could have blocked the Electoral College ratification on Jan. 6, 2021. Mr. Pence then unsubtly visited the Charlottesville, Va., memorial to Heather Heyer, who was killed in the 2017 white supremacist riot there that Mr. Trump sought to rationalize by faulting “both sides.”Now, on Monday outside Atlanta, Mr. Pence is taking his boldest and most unambiguous step toward confronting his former political patron. On the eve of Georgia’s primary, the former vice president will stump with Gov. Brian Kemp, perhaps the top target of Mr. Trump’s 2022 vengeance campaign against Republicans who didn’t bow to his election lies.Mr. Pence grew close with Mr. Kemp during the pandemic and 2020 campaign, and now he is lining up against Mr. Trump’s handpicked candidate, former Senator David Perdue. But more than that, Mr. Pence is seeking to claim a share of credit in what’s expected to be the starkest repudiation yet of Mr. Trump’s attempt to consolidate power, with Mr. Kemp widely expected to prevail.It is an emphatic break between the onetime running mates, who have not spoken for nearly a year but have also not publicly waged a proxy war until now. Mr. Pence, his aides say, knows full well what going down to Georgia represents and the symbolism alone will stand without him targeting Mr. Trump or even Mr. Perdue in his remarks.In a statement ahead of Mr. Pence’s visit to Georgia, Mr. Trump belittled his vice president through a spokesman. “Mike Pence was set to lose a governor’s race in 2016 before he was plucked up and his political career was salvaged,” said Taylor Budowich, the spokesman. “Now, desperate to chase his lost relevance, Pence is parachuting into races, hoping someone is paying attention. The reality is, President Trump is already 82-3 with his endorsements, and there’s nothing stopping him from saving America in 2022 and beyond.”Georgia may represent only the beginning of a new rivalry.In Texas on Jan. 6, 2021, a Trump supporter cut Pence’s name from a campaign sign.Ilana Panich-Linsman for The New York TimesMr. Pence on Monday will stump with Gov. Brian Kemp, perhaps the top target of Donald Trump’s 2022 vengeance campaign.Rachel Mummey for The New York TimesIn an interview before a speech last month in Iowa, Mr. Pence pointedly declined to rule out running even if Mr. Trump also enters the 2024 primary. “We’ll go where we’re called,” Mr. Pence said, explaining that he and his wife would act on prayer. “That’s the way Karen and I have always approached these things.”How Donald J. Trump Still LoomsGrip on G.O.P.: Mr. Trump remains the most powerful figure in the Republican Party. However, there are signs his control is loosening.A Modern-Day Party Boss: Hoarding cash, doling out favors and seeking to crush rivals, Mr. Trump is behaving like the head of a 19th-century political machine.Power Struggle: Led by Senator Mitch McConnell, a band of anti-Trump Republicans is maneuvering to thwart the ex-president.Post-Presidency Profits: Mr. Trump is melding business with politics, capitalizing for personal gain.Just the Beginning: For many Trump supporters who marched on Jan. 6, the day was not a disgraced insurrection but the start of a movement.Recalling the gratitude he gets from resisting Mr. Trump’s demands that he block Congress from affirming President Biden’s victory, he said: “I have been very moved traveling around the country how much people have made a point to express appreciation, it has been very humbling to me.”Yet in the same interview, he recalled spending “five years in the foxhole” with Mr. Trump, noting that he was “incredibly proud of the record,” before giving a dinner speech trumpeting the “Trump-Pence” administration multiple times.His approach amounts to the first soundings of a sort of Trump-without-the-chaos strategy, a bet that Republican primary voters crave the policy record of the last administration but without the impulsiveness, norm-breaking and naked demagogy.There may yet be a constituency for such an appeal, as this year’s G.O.P. primaries demonstrate how Trumpism is flourishing no matter whom its architect blesses.However, it’s far from clear that the sober-minded Mr. Pence is the best vessel for that message at a time many G.O.P. voters thrill more to closed-fist Trumpian pugnacity than paeans to the power of prayer.As of now, Mr. Trump is the clear favorite. Yet all his hints about becoming the first former president in over a century to try to reclaim the office haven’t stopped a host of other potential aspirants.Mr. Pence and the president he served for four years on the campaign trail in Michigan in 2020.Doug Mills/The New York TimesWhether it’s Mr. Pence or former Trump cabinet members or a range of other elected officials, ambitious Republicans are already visiting early nominating states like Iowa and New Hampshire, courting influential lawmakers and cultivating relationships with donors.Even if Mr. Trump runs, many Republicans believe there will still be a hotly contested race.“I don’t think it ends the primary,” said Gov. Chris Sununu of New Hampshire, who is mulling a presidential campaign. “My sense is you’re still going to have a very robust primary here just because everyone has to earn it.”So far, Republican contenders are voting with their feet.Among those who have beaten a path to the early nominating states: Mr. Pence; former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo; the former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley; and Senators Tom Cotton of Arkansas, Tim Scott of South Carolina and Rick Scott of Florida.Should Mr. Trump run, he would most likely sideline some Republicans who would either find him difficult to beat or just as soon wait it out. A smaller group of contenders, however, may find the less crowded field more appealing.Those ranks include former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, who was one of Mr. Trump’s earliest and most prominent supporters in 2016, but who has broken with him since the 2020 election.“Given the problems the country is facing at home and abroad, if you only feel up for it if somebody else doesn’t run, well, then you better not run,” Mr. Christie said. “Everybody who is considering running for president in ’24 should have a moral obligation to make that decision regardless of who else runs.”As for his own plans, he said: “Sure, I’m thinking about it.”Mr. Trump’s populist and pugilist imprint on the party has been cemented, whether he runs or not. That’s why Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida is being so closely watched by conservative voters, donors and activists.Seizing on every chance to confront the left and the news media, and to draw coverage on right-wing media for both, Mr. DeSantis has risen to second place behind Mr. Trump in a series of way-too-early polls of Republican voters.Former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, who split with Mr. Trump over the 2020 vote, campaigning for Governor Kemp in Georgia.Elijah Nouvelage/Getty ImagesConservative voters, donors and activists are watching for a possible run by Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida.Scott McIntyre for The New York TimesBut he’s steadfastly refused to visit Iowa and New Hampshire as a would-be White House candidate, leaving Florida mostly just to stockpile more money for his re-election. That’s not to say he’s not keeping his eye on national politics — he reached out to Gov. Kim Reynolds of Iowa to wish her well before her response to President Biden’s State of the Union address this year.Mr. DeSantis, though, is hardly beloved among his fellow Republican governors, a group that’s unlikely to rally around him in the same fashion they did George W. Bush, then the Texas governor, in 2000.“I know there’s a lot of talk on Fox News and stuff like that on the national level or in Florida but there’s really not talk about him here in New Hampshire,” Mr. Sununu said of Mr. DeSantis.What there is there, said the longtime Republican strategist Jim Merrill, is a quiet but persistent appetite among many in the rank-and-file to turn the page on Mr. Trump, at least as the party’s nominee.“There is a desire to move on here and it’s not just among the John Kasich and Bill Weld crowd,” said Mr. Merrill, alluding to two former Republican governors who ran as anti-Trump moderates in the state’s primary.Yet if Mr. Trump faces a divided Republican field as he did in the first wave of caucuses and primaries in 2016, he could again claim the nomination with a plurality rather than a majority in many states because of his seemingly unshakable hold on a third of his party’s electorate.At a county G.O.P. dinner in Ames — a college community that’s more upscale, and decidedly less Trump oriented, than much of Iowa — it was not difficult to find Republicans eager to find a fresh nominee, even if they edged into saying as much with Midwest Nice euphemisms.“He’s calm and predictable so that’s a good thing,” Eric Weber said of Mr. Pence.Mr. Trump was “too divisive even though what he did is great,” Mr. Weber said as his wife, Carol, suggested another Trump bid “may divide people.”Yet they weren’t ready to sign up with Mr. Pence, as both noted their affection for Mr. Cotton and Mr. DeSantis.Mr. Pence’s speech was received well if not overwhelmingly so. It had all the bearings of a Republican in Iowa leaning toward a presidential bid — knowing references to local politicians, Midwest totems like John Deere and attacks on the Democrats in power in Washington.Yet it also had the distinct air of a pre-Trump brand of Republicanism, with only the slightest criticism of the news media (and that was even gloved with “all due respect”), references to becoming a grandfather and G-rated jokes that could have just as easily been delivered by Mitt Romney (it involved Washington, D.C., and “hot air.”)Mr. Pence’s Iowa speech featured references to local politicians and attacks on the Democrats in power in Washington.Rachel Mummey for The New York TimesFew at the gathering liked Mr. Pence as much as Kevin and Linda Lauver.Their phones blaring with tornado warnings, the Lauvers took shelter in the Ames Country Club basement ahead of the April G.O.P. dinner. And they bumped into the evening’s keynote speaker.“We want somebody from the Midwest,” Ms. Lauver told Mr. Pence, nudging him to run for president in 2024. “I like Mike,” Mr. Lauver chimed in.Mr. Pence earnestly patted his heart and offered his thanks.As Mr. Lauver headed back upstairs after the tornado false alarm, he wanted to be clear that he liked Mr. Trump.“He did what he said what he was going to do,” said Mr. Lauver, before adding in Iowa deadpan: “When he said the least it was the best.”Now, he continued, “We need him to say, ‘OK, I’ll step aside.’” Then Mr. Lauver paused.“I don’t know if he’ll do that.” More