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Texas 22nd Congressional District Primary Election Results 2022
Jonathan Weisman
Mar 1, 2022 More
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For Democratic Female Governors, the Roe Leak Alters the Midterm Calculus
Every female governor’s seat is up for election this year. All nine of them.The three Republicans are likely to sail to re-election. It’s a different story on the Democratic side, where most of the women rode in on the 2018 wave, flipping Republican seats.That year, Laura Kelly of Kansas campaigned on education, and Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan pledged to “fix the damn roads.” Janet Mills of Maine, Michelle Lujan Grisham of New Mexico and Kate Brown of Oregon benefited, in an especially favorable climate, from running in states that lean toward Democrats.In 2022, however, everything has changed for Democrats — and one big issue has become a five-alarm fire for the party.As the Supreme Court stands poised to overturn Roe v. Wade and throw regulations on abortion to the states, governors are set to be on the front lines of the political clashes that would follow.The end of Roe would also put Democratic female governors in a position both powerful and precarious: unique messengers on an urgent issue for the party, who hold more real ability to effect change than their counterparts in a gridlocked Congress — and who must balance a range of other priorities for voters in a challenging election year.Democrats and their allies believe that focusing on abortion will resonate from red states like Kansas to blue states like Oregon, even if candidates tailor their messaging to their states.“We’re moving into a completely new world,” Cecile Richards, the former president of Planned Parenthood and the daughter of former Gov. Ann Richards of Texas, told me recently.While polling has tended to show abortion relatively low on the list of voters’ priorities, supporters of abortion rights argue that this conventional wisdom should be tossed out the window. Those polling questions, they say, were asked when the idea of losing the constitutional right to abortion was only theoretical.“The fundamental issue that gets lost in reporting isn’t how voters feel about abortion personally,” Richards said. “The question is, who do they want in charge of making decisions about pregnancy?”More effective messengersOn both sides of the aisle, strategists often prefer women to carry out messaging on abortion.Kelly Dittmar, a professor at the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University, said that when she interviewed women in Congress, she found that both Republicans and Democrats saw themselves as the best messengers, leveraging their identities as women and mothers.Republicans in particular sometimes find that it is more effective to have women affirm that they oppose abortion.Women have delivered both parties big victories in recent years: Female Democratic candidates helped take back the House for their party in 2018, and Republican women recovered many of those losses in 2020.“In some ways, it’s because women are really good candidates that they’re in the most competitive races, particularly the incumbents,” Dittmar said of the 2022 governor contests. “They’re there because they won races that people didn’t think they could win, like Kansas and even Michigan.”From Opinion: A Challenge to Roe v. WadeCommentary by Times Opinion writers and columnists on the Supreme Court’s upcoming decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.Gail Collins: The push to restrict women’s reproductive rights is about punishing women who want to have sex for pleasure.Jamelle Bouie: The logic of the draft ruling is an argument that could sweep more than just abortion rights out of the circle of constitutional protection.Matthew Walther, Editor of a Catholic Literary Journal: Those who oppose abortion should not discount the possibility that its proscription will have some regrettable consequences. Even so, it will be worth it.Gretchen Whitmer, Governor of Michigan: If Roe falls, abortion will become a felony in Michigan. I have a moral obligation to stand up for the rights of the women of the state I represent.Male Republican candidates, especially those in battleground states, face greater risks when talking about abortion.Holly Richardson, a Republican former state representative in Utah who described herself as “pro-life” and supports access to contraception and sex education, said she had been “a little horrified” by what Republicans in other states have said about abortion.“We need to decrease the perceptive need for abortion, and we do that by supporting women,” she said.The nation’s Republican female governors — Kay Ivey of Alabama, Kristi Noem of South Dakota and Kim Reynolds of Iowa — oversee solidly red states, and have long campaigned against abortion. That might not shift much, even if Roe is overturned.“Where the messaging might change more is on the Democratic side,” Dittmar said. “Because they’re saying, ‘Now we have to hold the line.’”From Michigan to OklahomaAmong Democratic female governors, there’s virtually no debate about whether women should have access to an abortion.In a guest essay for The New York Times, Governor Whitmer highlighted a lawsuit she filed last month asking the Michigan Supreme Court to examine whether the state’s Constitution included the right to abortion access. She wrote that the suit could “offer a course of action” for other politicians to follow.Other Democrats, perhaps recognizing that the party has few legislative or judicial options nationally, have stuck to broader pledges to try to protect abortion rights.Stacey Abrams, the presumptive Democratic nominee for governor of Georgia, recently promised attendees at an Emily’s List gala that “we will fight every day from now to Election Day and beyond, because this is a fight for who we are.”In red states, Democratic candidates for governor are walking a finer line.In Kansas, Laura Kelly has reiterated her support for abortion rights, but she has so far focused more on education and taxes, issues that helped her win in 2018.Joy Hofmeister, a Democrat running for governor of Oklahoma who left the Republican Party last year, described herself as “pro-life,” but said she believed women should make choices about their reproductive health with their doctor.She avoided taking a position on Roe v. Wade specifically, saying that the Supreme Court would not “be calling to ask my opinion.”Hofmeister, who serves as the superintendent of public instruction in Oklahoma, criticized Gov. Kevin Stitt, a Republican, for signing into law some of the most restrictive legislation on abortion in the country, a measure prohibiting the procedure after about six weeks of pregnancy and requiring enforcement from civilians rather than government officials.“Governor Stitt is leading us down a path where miscarriage bounty hunters could swipe a woman’s private health information for a $10,000 reward, or abortion is criminalized with up to 10 years in prison for physicians,” Hofmeister said. “This is extremism.”Gov. Laura Kelly of Kansas is running for re-election in a state that Donald Trump won in 2020 by nearly 15 percentage points.Evert Nelson/The Topeka Capital-Journal, via Associated PressThe midterm mathKathy Hochul of New York is the only Democratic female governor all but guaranteed to remain in office next year. Gov. Kate Brown of Oregon will not run again because of term limits, and the rest are likely to face respectable challengers.The most vulnerable is undoubtedly Kelly of Kansas, who represents the most Republican-leaning state of the group.Based on the 2020 presidential results, Whitmer should be the next most vulnerable female governor, after President Biden won the state by less than three percentage points. But Republicans have struggled to find a candidate to take on Whitmer — and her $10 million war chest.In Maine, Mills faces a tougher fight against a Republican former governor, Paul LePage. And in New Mexico, Lujan Grisham should be safe unless there’s a huge Republican wave.In several other states, women in both parties are challenging male governors. The outcomes of all these races will determine whether, in the year that a landmark ruling on abortion rights is set to be overturned, the ranks of female governors may shrink — or even make it to the double digits.What to readFederal prosecutors are said to have begun a grand jury investigation into whether classified White House documents that ended up at Donald Trump’s Florida home were mishandled.The House committee investigating the Capitol riot issued subpoenas to five Republican members of Congress, including Representative Kevin McCarthy, the minority leader.In anticipation of Roe v. Wade being overturned, California is gearing up to become the nation’s abortion provider.FrameworkJosh Shapiro is running unopposed for the Democratic nomination for governor in Pennsylvania, and looking ahead to the general election.Jeff Swensen for The New York TimesShapiro campaign: Beware of DougJosh Shapiro, the Democratic attorney general of Pennsylvania, is employing a familiar but risky tactic in that state’s governor’s race: He’s paying for a TV ad that appears intended to help one of his opponents in the Republican primary.The opponent, a QAnon-linked retired military officer and state senator, Doug Mastriano, is leading the nine-person field by about 10 percentage points, according to the RealClearPolitics average of polls in the race. Mastriano’s rise has alarmed many Republicans in and outside the state.The State of Roe v. WadeCard 1 of 4What is Roe v. Wade? More
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Conor Lamb Had All The Makings of a Front-Runner in Pennsylvania. So Why Is He Struggling?
Representative Conor Lamb was supposed to be a Democratic rising star — a Marine veteran, former prosecutor and Pennsylvania moderate who had won in Trump territory and swing suburbs alike. Scores of Democratic officials endorsed him in his run for Senate, eager to pick up a Republican-held open seat and have him roll into Washington next year to bridge the partisan chasm.It hasn’t quite worked out that way.Mr. Lamb now heads into the state’s Democratic primary on Tuesday on a much less competitive footing than he or his supporters had hoped. He trails by double digits in polling behind John Fetterman, the shorts-wearing lieutenant governor whose outsider image has resonated with the Democratic base.Two distinct forces appear to have worked against Mr. Lamb: his campaign’s strategic missteps and his misfortune to be running at a time when Democrats, much like Republicans, are rejecting their party’s centrists.The seeming meltdown for Mr. Lamb — whose initial victories in Western Pennsylvania had been a model for President Biden’s 2020 race — reflects a frustration among Democrats nationally with politicians who promise bipartisan accord, including Mr. Biden, and who have yielded meager results in Washington. It comes as the left sees a rising Republican extremism on voting rights and abortion. Some Democrats appear more eager to elect fighters than candidates who might be tempted, like party moderates, to block their priorities.“I look at him as another Joe Manchin,” said Elen Snyder, a Democrat and member of Newtown Township’s board of supervisors in Bucks County, referring to Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, the Democrat who has stymied the White House on many issues. Her local Democratic committee interviewed Mr. Lamb but declined to endorse him.Mr. Lamb’s initial victories in Western Pennsylvania had been a model for President Biden’s 2020 race.Amr Alfiky for The New York TimesDemocratic strategists in Pennsylvania said the Lamb campaign’s missteps included running the race as if Mr. Lamb were the front-runner, failing to aggressively attack Mr. Fetterman and focusing almost exclusively on the message that Mr. Lamb was the most electable Democrat, when base voters appeared to want someone more partisan. And they said the campaign placed too much emphasis on winning endorsements from the Democratic establishment, when voters seemed to show that they did not really care.“He had rock star potential — their campaign flittered that away,” said Mike Mikus, a longtime Democratic operative in Pennsylvania and a Lamb supporter. “They ran a campaign that said, ‘Let’s stay above the fray. Everyone’s going to love it.’ But they were behind from the day he got in the race and ran the wrong campaign to close the gap.”Several strategists said the Lamb campaign, with its aversion to going negative and emphasis on endorsements from Democrats statewide, seemed modeled on elections from decades past. One operative invoked Michael Dukakis, the 1988 Democratic presidential nominee who projected reserve and lacked a killer instinct.Abby Nassif-Murphy, Mr. Lamb’s campaign manager, disputed such characterizations. She said Mr. Lamb entered the race as an underdog and grew support that was more substantial than “dubious polls” have suggested.Understand the Pennsylvania Primary ElectionThe crucial swing state will hold its primary on May 17, with key races for a U.S. Senate seat and the governorship.Hard-Liners Gain: Republican voters appear to be rallying behind far-right candidates in two pivotal races, worrying both parties about what that could mean in November.G.O.P. Senate Race: Kathy Barnette, a conservative commentator, is making a surprise late surge against big-spending rivals, Dr. Mehmet Oz and David McCormick.Democratic Senate Race: Representative Conor Lamb had all the makings of a front-runner. It hasn’t worked out that way.Abortion Battleground: Pennsylvania is one of a handful of states where abortion access hangs in the balance with midterm elections this year.Electability Concerns: Starting with Pennsylvania, the coming weeks will offer a window into the mood of Democratic voters who are deeply worried about a challenging midterm campaign environment.“In nine months, he’s built a broad, diverse coalition of union workers, African Americans, women, men, progressives, moderates, religious leaders, teachers, firefighters, nurses, construction workers — people from all parts of Pennsylvania and all parts of the Democratic Party,” Ms. Nassif-Murphy said in a statement.Long a battleground represented by center-right or center-left statewide officials, Pennsylvania could host a matchup in the fall between far less consensus-minded candidates, especially since the leading Republicans have all professed loyalty to Donald Trump. Kathy Barnette, who has surged in the final days, has actively promoted conspiracy theories about the 2020 election.Mr. Lamb, 37, a native of the Pittsburgh area, boasts of scores of endorsements, including from the mayors of Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, officials in the all-important Philadelphia suburbs and members of the state legislature. He has the backing of the Black Clergy of Philadelphia and Vicinity, and of labor unions. Multiple Philadelphia officials endorsed him, even though a third candidate in the race, Malcolm Kenyatta, is from the city.Conor Lamb at an event earlier this month in Philadelphia hosted by the National Organization for Women, which endorsed him.Matt Rourke/Associated PressMr. Fetterman has made his lack of endorsements into a kind of badge of honor: He has long disdained glad-handing other elected officials and is an unpopular figure even in the statehouse, where he officially presides over the State Senate.Still, his progressive politics — he was an early backer of Bernie Sanders — and iconoclastic style have made him well-liked by the party base and created an online fund-raising juggernaut. Mr. Fetterman’s approval with Democrats in the state was 67 percent in a recent Franklin & Marshall College Poll, compared with 46 percent for Mr. Lamb.“Fetterman astutely ran a campaign focused on Democratic voters more than Democratic elites,” said J.J. Balaban, a Democratic strategist in the state.Mr. Fetterman has stayed ahead in the fund-raising race by soliciting small online donations.Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesMelinda Wedde, a 37-year-old yoga teacher who is a volunteer door-knocker for the Lamb campaign in the Pittsburgh suburbs, said it was too early to count him out. “He’s out there talking to voters every single day,” Ms. Wedde said. “I think a lot of people are still waiting to make decisions.”One advantage for Mr. Lamb in winning the endorsements from Democratic officials is that when he visited a town or city far from home, local officials often pulled in a crowd to hear him.“People can say ‘establishment officials’ all they want, but these people are the trusted people in their communities, who people elected, and they have to have some sort of favorability amongst the masses,’’ said State Representative Ryan Bizzarro, a Lamb supporter who escorted him on a trip to Erie County on Tuesday.Still, Mr. Lamb’s electability argument, the core of his pitch to party leaders, seems to have left many rank-and-file voters unmoved. And his central-casting image may be working against him.Understand the 2022 Midterm ElectionsCard 1 of 6Why are these midterms so important? More
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Trump Criticizes Kathy Barnette as She Surges in Pennsylvania’s G.O.P. Senate Primary
A late surge from Kathy Barnette in Pennsylvania’s Republican Senate primary is officially on former President Trump’s radar.Mr. Trump criticized Ms. Barnette, a conservative author and political commentator, on Thursday and said she was unvetted and unelectable. “Kathy Barnette will never be able to win the general election against the radical left Democrats,” Mr. Trump said in a statement.Ms. Barnett’s momentum in the polls has jeopardized Mr. Trump’s second attempt to influence the primary race, which comes to a close on Tuesday. He endorsed Dr. Mehmet Oz, a longtime television host, after his first choice for the seat, Sean Parnell, suspended his campaign in November amid a court battle over the custody of his children.Ms. Barnette’s sudden rise comes as Dr. Oz has been locked in a contentious primary fight with David McCormick, a former hedge fund executive with deep ties to Mr. Trump’s political orbit. A Fox News Poll on Tuesday showed her at 19 percent, behind Mr. McCormick at 20 percent and Dr. Oz at 22 percent.Her climb has surprised many watching the Pennsylvania race — including Mr. Trump, who never seriously considered supporting her before he announced his endorsement of Dr. Oz less than five weeks ago, according to two people familiar with the decision who insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss private conversations.But Ms. Barnette’s candidacy is being taken seriously by the Club for Growth, which endorsed her on Wednesday and announced a $2 million TV ad buy to support her. Her opponents, meanwhile, are scrambling to dig up dirt, like a 2016 tweet in which she claimed then-President Barack Obama was a Muslim. (Mr. Trump repeatedly raised doubts about Mr. Obama’s faith and questioned whether he was a Muslim.)Another sign of the staying power of Ms. Barnette’s surge: Mr. Trump’s criticism of her record allowed for the possibility that she may win. That contrasts sharply with how he has repeatedly attacked Mr. McCormick.“She has many things in her past which have not been properly explained or vetted,” Mr. Trump said in his statement, “but if she is able to do so, she will have a wonderful future in the Republican Party — and I will be behind her all the way.” More
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Texas Second Congressional District Primary Election Results 2022
Jonathan Weisman
Mar 1, 2022 More - in Elections
Hard-Liners Gain in Pennsylvania G.O.P. Races, Worrying Both Parties
Doug Mastriano and Kathy Barnette are amplifying Donald Trump’s stolen-election lie in two key races. Republicans fear they could lose in November. Democrats fear they could win.ERIE, Pa. — Republican voters in Pennsylvania, one of the nation’s most hotly contested political battlegrounds, appear to be rallying behind two hard-right candidates for governor and the Senate who are capturing grass-roots anger, railing against the party’s old guard and amplifying Donald Trump’s stolen-election myth.With less than a week until the state’s primary election on Tuesday, polls show that State Senator Doug Mastriano — one of the state’s central figures in the former president’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election — has emerged as the clear front-runner in the G.O.P. race for governor. The candidate for Senate, Kathy Barnette, an underfunded conservative commentator who has never held public office, has made a surprise late surge in the contest that had been dominated by two big-spending rivals, Dr. Mehmet Oz and David McCormick.Mr. Mastriano has made claims of election fraud a central plank of his bid to lead a state that could be decisive in the 2024 presidential race. Ms. Barnette has a history of incendiary remarks, including repeatedly calling former President Barack Obama an adherent of Islam, which she said should be banned, and derisively writing about “the homosexual agenda.” Both candidates have endorsed each other, forging an important alliance.Now, Republicans are concerned about losing both races in November if primary voters embrace such out-of-the-mainstream candidates.Several Republican rivals to Mr. Mastriano have been gathering on private conference calls in recent days in a last-minute attempt to stop him. All agree that he would be a drag on the party, though Mr. Mastriano has yet to sustain any serious coordinated attacks. Two rivals, State Senator Jake Corman and former Representative Lou Barletta, have set a joint event on Thursday, suggesting that the field might soon consolidate, at least slightly.Democrats harbor their own fear: that the bleak 2022 political environment could nonetheless sweep into power Republicans who, in a less hostile climate, might seem unelectable.Kathy Barnette, a Republican candidate for Pennsylvania’s open U.S. Senate seat, at a candidate forum in Newtown, Pa., on Wednesday.Kriston Jae Bethel for The New York Times“Like a lot of Democrats, I’m schizophrenic on this — rooting for the crazy person because it gives us the best chance to win. But at the same time it could give us a crazy senator or a crazy governor, or both,” said Mike Mikus, a Pennsylvania-based Democratic strategist.For years, Pennsylvania has been one of the nation’s quintessential swing states, in which the clearest path to power was through the middle ground between the Democratic and Republican parties. This year’s open seats are because Senator Pat Toomey, a Republican, is retiring and Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, is term-limited.“Pennsylvania is not real good about that extreme on either side,” said Rob Gleason, a former Pennsylvania Republican Party chairman, who was one of Mr. Trump’s chief supporters in the state in 2016 but now worries about Mr. Mastriano in 2022. “No matter what you say, it’s kind of a down-the-middle type of a state.”In Pennsylvania, the governor appoints the secretary of state, the position that oversees state elections, meaning whoever wins the governorship will be overseeing the administration of one of the most coveted swing states in the 2024 presidential race.State Attorney General Josh Shapiro, the presumptive Democratic nominee for Pennsylvania governor, met with environmental advocates in Philadelphia last month.Matt Rourke/Associated PressFor months, the Senate race has been seen chiefly as a heavyweight bout between Dr. Oz, the television personality, and Mr. McCormick, the former chief executive of the world’s largest hedge fund. They and their allies have combined to spend nearly $40 million on television ads. Ms. Barnette, who ran for the House in 2020 in a Philadelphia suburb and lost by nearly 20 percentage points, had rated somewhere between afterthought and asterisk in the race until recently. But a Fox News poll on Tuesday showed the race a virtual three-way tie.To date, Ms. Barnette’s growth has been almost entirely organic, fueled by her sharp debate performances, conservative media appearances and compelling life story, which she told in her book, “Nothing to Lose, Everything to Gain: Being Black and Conservative in America.”A “byproduct of a rape,” as she describes herself, when her mother was only 11, Ms. Barnette talks about growing up “on a pig farm” in Alabama without running water and how her success represents the kind of American dream story that is now at risk.In the final week, Ms. Barnette is receiving some crucial institutional backing: the endorsement of the anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony List on Tuesday and a $2 million television advertising blitz funded by the Club for Growth, which is broadcasting her up-from-the-bootstraps message statewide.The Club for Growth, one of the biggest spenders in Republican politics, has feuded recently with Mr. Trump after running ads attacking J.D. Vance, the Republican Senate candidate in Ohio, even after Mr. Trump endorsed him. Mr. Vance won that primary, and Mr. Trump has endorsed Dr. Oz in Pennsylvania.Kathy Barnette, second from left, and Mehmet Oz, third from left, with other Republican candidates for Senate last month at a forum in Camp Hill, Pa.Matt Rourke/Associated PressIn some ways, Ms. Barnette’s candidacy is a test of whether the movement that elected Mr. Trump has taken on a life of its own. “MAGA does not belong to President Trump,” Ms. Barnette said in one April debate.Both Dr. Oz and Mr. McCormick have wooed Mr. Trump’s supporters, though it has been an awkward fit. Dr. Oz was booed at a Trump rally, Mr. McCormick was rejected by Mr. Trump, and both have faced questions of carpetbagging in a state where they did not recently live full time.Ms. Barnette has offered herself as an authentic and unfiltered version of what the Republican base wants. “Listen, this time, you do not have to hold your nose and vote for the lesser of two evils,” she said at another debate.She has also made plain that there will be no pivot to the middle if she makes it to the fall campaign.“There’s been a longstanding tradition that we want to get as moderate of a Republican coming out of the primary — someone palatable — for the general,” she said in an interview on Wednesday night at a candidate forum in eastern Pennsylvania. “In doing this, how has that worked out for them? It hasn’t really worked out very well.”In the governor’s race, the presumptive Democratic nominee, Attorney General Josh Shapiro, began running television ads last week featuring a narrator touting Mr. Mastriano’s conservative credentials: “If Mastriano wins, it’s a win for what Donald Trump stands for.” Mr. Trump has not endorsed in that contest.On Tuesday, Mr. Mastriano campaigned in Erie, Pa., with Jenna Ellis, the former co-counsel for the Trump campaign’s effort to overturn the 2020 election.“Doug Mastriano, I like to say, is the Donald Trump of Pennsylvania,” Ms. Ellis said.Mr. Mastriano was a key figure in Mr. Trump’s effort to overturn the results in Pennsylvania, a state he lost by 81,000 votes. As a freshman state senator, he held a hearing in November 2020 featuring Ms. Ellis and the Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, visited the White House shortly afterward and remained in close contact with the Trump team. State Senator Doug Mastriano speaking to Trump supporters outside the Pennsylvania State Capitol in Harrisburg a few days after Joseph R. Biden Jr. won the presidential election in 2020.Julio Cortez/Associated PressHe posted an event on Facebook offering bus rides to Washington on Jan. 6, 2021, and his campaign reported spending at least $3,000 chartering buses. But he has claimed that he left before the protest turned violent. In Erie, Mr. Mastriano, whose campaign did not respond to requests for comment, defended the rally.“It’s like, God have mercy on your soul if you dare to go and exercise your First Amendment freedom to go to D.C. on Jan. 6?” Mr. Mastriano said. “You did nothing wrong.”Among those quietly vying to coalesce Republicans around an alternative to Mr. Mastriano is Andy Reilly, one of Pennsylvania’s three Republican National Committee members. Mr. Reilly, who has not endorsed in the race, said the Shapiro campaign’s ads had “raised concerns” and sparked discussions.“The fact that the Democrats are running pro-Mastriano ads tells us that they believe he would be the weakest candidate,” said Charlie Gerow, a longtime Pennsylvania Republican operative who is running for governor and polling in the low single digits.Interviewed while stumping at a bakery in Erie, Mr. Barletta, a former congressman who beat a Democratic incumbent in 2010, called himself the strongest Mastriano alternative.Lou Barletta, a candidate for governor, with his wife and granddaughter last month in Hazleton, Pa.John Haeger/Standard-Speaker, via Associated Press“It’s been myself and Doug Mastriano” at the top of every poll, Mr. Barletta said. “Now people have to make a decision, and a lot of those undecideds need to look at who do they think has a better chance to beat Josh Shapiro.”Bill McSwain, who served as the U.S. attorney for eastern Pennsylvania during the Trump administration, is also running and has spent as much on television as the rest of the field combined, according to AdImpact, a media tracking firm. But he is also the only candidate in the race to be attacked by Mr. Trump. “Do not vote for Bill McSwain, a coward, who let our Country down,” Mr. Trump said last month in a statement attacking Mr. McSwain for not sufficiently pressing Mr. Trump’s false claims of election fraud in Pennsylvania.Mr. Gleason, the former party chairman, is backing Mr. McSwain anyway, fearful that Mr. Mastriano would lose a general election. “He would be toxic,” he said.Representative Brendan Boyle, a Pennsylvania Democrat, said he was approached on the House floor this week by colleagues from other states excited that Republicans could pick two such far-right nominees. But he said that he still remembers 2010, when seemingly unelectable Tea Party Republicans won, and then 2016, when Mr. Trump carried Pennsylvania and the presidency.“I should be happy that Republicans seem to be on the way to blowing both of these races,” Mr. Boyle said. But, he added, “I am very nervous that, lo and behold, two Republican extremists would be elected governor and senator.”For her part, Ms. Barnette, appearing this week on the podcast of Stephen Bannon, the former Trump adviser, dismissed Republican concerns that she was “too MAGA” to win in November.“Do these people have a crystal ball?” she asked. “Are they Jesus incarnate? How do they know?”Tracey Tully More
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4 Takeaways From Tuesday’s Primaries in Nebraska and West Virginia
A federal candidate backed by former President Donald J. Trump won a contested primary for the second consecutive week on Tuesday, as Representative Alex Mooney resoundingly defeated Representative David McKinley in West Virginia in the first incumbent-vs.-incumbent primary race of 2022.But Mr. Trump’s endorsement scorecard took a hit in Nebraska, where his preferred candidate for governor, Charles W. Herbster, lost in a three-way race to Jim Pillen, a University of Nebraska regent who had the backing of the departing Gov. Pete Ricketts.Here are four takeaways from primary night in Nebraska and West Virginia:Trump successfully notched a win in West Virginia.On paper, West Virginia’s new Second Congressional District should have given an advantage to Mr. McKinley, 75, who had previously represented a larger area of its territory as he sought a seventh term. But Mr. Mooney, 50, who once led the Republican Party in neighboring Maryland, nonetheless romped across nearly the entire district, with the exception of the state’s northern panhandle, on Tuesday.Mr. Trump’s endorsement is widely seen as powering the Mooney campaign in one of the states where the former president has been most popular.Representative Alex Mooney of West Virginia at a rally last week in Greensburg, Pa., hosted by former President Donald J. Trump.Gene J. Puskar/Associated PressThroughout the race, Mr. Mooney slashed at Mr. McKinley as a “RINO” — “Republican in name only” — and took aim at some of his aisle-crossing votes, including for the bipartisan infrastructure bill that passed Congress last year and the bipartisan legislation to create the commission examining the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.Mr. Trump sided with Mr. Mooney early on, and invited him to appear alongside him at a rally in Pennsylvania last week. There, Mr. Trump joked that Mr. Mooney should defeat Mr. McKinley “easily.” He largely did, with landslide-level margins topping 70 percent in some of the eastern counties that border Maryland.The race comes a week after Mr. Trump helped J.D. Vance win an expensive Ohio Senate primary, and it again showed his influence when endorsing House and Senate candidates.Biden’s approach to governance suffered a defeatPresident Biden was not on the ballot in the West Virginia House race. But his belief that voters will reward members of Congress who put partisanship aside to get things done took another blow.Mr. McKinley seemingly fit very much in the long West Virginia tradition of bring-home-the-bacon lawmakers (See: Robert C. Byrd).Mr. McKinley had campaigned alongside Gov. Jim Justice, a Democrat-turned-Republican, and turned to Senator Joe Manchin III, a Democrat, in the closing stretch as a pitchman.But Republican primary voters were in no mood for compromise.“Liberal David McKinley sided with Biden’s trillion-dollar spending spree,” said one Mooney ad that began with the narrator saying he had a “breaking MAGA alert.”On Tuesday afternoon, Mr. Biden delivered a speech acknowledging that he had miscalculated in his belief that Trump-style Republicanism would fade with Mr. Trump’s departure. “I never expected — let me say — let me say this carefully: I never expected the Ultra-MAGA Republicans, who seem to control the Republican Party now, to have been able to control the Republican Party,” Mr. Biden said.On Tuesday evening, voters in West Virginia reaffirmed where the power in the party lies.Trump’s pick stumbles in a governor’s raceMr. Herbster had tried to make the Nebraska governor’s primary a referendum on Mr. Trump. He called it “a proxy war between the entire Republican establishment” and the former president. He cited Mr. Trump at every opportunity. He appeared with him at a rally.But the race became about Mr. Herbster himself, after he faced accusations of groping and unwanted contact from multiple women in the final weeks of the race.Voters instead went with Mr. Pillen, a former University of Nebraska football player, who had also run as a conservative choice with the backing of the departing governor. A third candidate, Brett Lindstrom, a state senator from outside Omaha, had campaigned for support from the more moderate faction of the party.Charles W. Herbster on Tuesday night in Lincoln, Neb., after losing the Republican primary for governor.Terry Ratzlaff for The New York TimesMr. Herbster becomes the first Trump-endorsed candidate to lose in a 2022 primary — but most likely not the last.Understand the 2022 Midterm ElectionsCard 1 of 6Why are these midterms so important? More
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Top Democrats Want Tom Suozzi Out of Governor’s Race. He’s Still Running.
In the New York Democratic primary, Representative Tom Suozzi is fighting Gov. Kathy Hochul for moderate voters, with a focus on fighting crime and cutting taxes.Representative Thomas R. Suozzi is not the kind of person to be swayed by the advice of fellow Democrats. But as he runs for governor of New York this year, he sure has gotten his share.There was Representative Hakeem Jeffries, a favorite to be the next Democratic House speaker, who counseled him not to give up his House seat on Long Island.Eliot Spitzer, the former governor who trounced him in a 2006 primary, warned he had no clear lane to victory. Even Hillary Clinton weighed in, urging Mr. Suozzi to forgo a messy primary and help Democrats fight to keep the House majority.It doesn’t take a political science degree to understand the argument. Gov. Kathy Hochul is enjoying a double-digit lead, a mountain of campaign cash rivaling the Adirondacks and the full muscle of a Democratic establishment eager to see New York’s first female governor win a full term.None of it has deterred Mr. Suozzi, 59. As potential opponents like Letitia James and Bill de Blasio dropped out of the race, the three-term congressman and outspoken centrist from Nassau County has flouted the advice of allies, tossing aside a coveted House seat to embark on a frenetic attempt to spoil Ms. Hochul’s potential coronation.The race undoubtedly remains Ms. Hochul’s to lose. But with less than two months until Primary Day, there are signs that weeks of public appeals may finally be finding an audience among New Yorkers who believe they have fresh reasons to doubt the governor or more progressive alternatives.Ms. Hochul’s administration is still fighting off a cloud of scandal, after her handpicked second-in-command, Brian A. Benjamin, resigned in the face of public corruption charges last month. And recent public polling suggests that she is vulnerable to attacks on issues that Mr. Suozzi has put at the center of his campaign, like rising crime and her decision to spend $600 million in taxpayer money on a new stadium for the Buffalo Bills.“New Yorkers are not just going to forget about this poor judgment she’s exercised,” Mr. Suozzi said the other day, as Ms. Hochul cajoled lawmakers into changing state law to get Mr. Benjamin off the ballot.“We shouldn’t let them forget,” he added.Gov. Kathy Hochul, who took office in August, is running for her first full term this year.Angela Weiss/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesSeeking to draw contrasts with his opponents — Ms. Hochul and Jumaane Williams, the New York City public advocate — Mr. Suozzi describes himself as a “common-sense Democrat” and a “proven executive.” His political ads portray him as a centrist in a time of extremes, someone better qualified to lead one of the nation’s largest states than Ms. Hochul, a former county clerk, congresswoman and lieutenant governor, who took office last August when Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo resigned in scandal.Prominent Democrats fear that Mr. Suozzi’s hard-charging candidacy could endanger both the swing district he represents and Ms. Hochul’s chances against a Republican this fall.“Tom is making it difficult for Kathy and the other Democrats down ballot,” said Representative Kathleen Rice, a fellow Nassau County Democrat who has known him for decades.“He really does have a big heart and believes in traditional Democratic values of taking care of the poor and a big social safety net,” Ms. Rice added. “I just think that if he had been able to check his ego earlier in his career, he could have already run for president.”Political analysts are skeptical he can close the gap.Insurgents have successfully defeated Democratic incumbents in New York by running to their left, as Mr. Williams is trying to do this year. But there are few cases of a Democratic challenger winning a primary by running to the right, particularly against someone like Ms. Hochul, who shares Mr. Suozzi’s general political orientation as a Catholic, suburban moderate.“He’s basically vying for the same voter that she is,” said Ester Fuchs, a political science professor at Columbia University. “People have to have a reason to say, ‘She’s doing a terrible job, she shouldn’t continue.’ I don’t see that happening.”In 2001, Mr. Suozzi, a former mayor of Glen Cove, became the first Democrat to be elected Nassau County executive in more than 30 years.Suzanne DeChillo/The New York TimesThe position is a familiar one for Mr. Suozzi, who followed his Italian immigrant father into law and politics at a young age, became mayor of his affluent hometown, Glen Cove on the Long Island Sound, at 31 and proceeded to take a series of political moonshots.It got Mr. Suozzi elected as the first Democratic county executive in a generation in Nassau, where he won plaudits for turning around the county’s troubled finances. Yet a long-shot campaign to upset Mr. Spitzer in the Democratic race for governor in 2006 ended badly, and a few years later, Mr. Suozzi unexpectedly lost re-election in Nassau with $2 million unspent.In an interview, he insisted this year is not a repeat of 2006.“I was running against Eliot Spitzer, the sheriff of Wall Street,” Mr. Suozzi said. “Now, I’m running against Kathy Hochul, who I don’t think has any kind of record of accomplishment that anybody could point to.”Mr. Suozzi, right, was handily defeated by Eliot Spitzer, left, in the 2006 Democratic primary for governor.James Estrin/The New York TimesMs. Hochul’s allies vigorously dispute that characterization. But while the governor has significantly consolidated party and union support behind her, she does lack the kind of voter enthusiasm that Mr. Spitzer enjoyed at the height of his popularity.Much of Mr. Suozzi’s campaign is a continuation of centrist positions he staked out in Washington, where he joined the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus and crusaded, unsuccessfully, to repeal a state and local tax deduction cap implemented by President Donald J. Trump that hurt well-off suburbanites. He also took liberal stances, starting a labor caucus and racking up an F rating from the National Rifle Association and top scores from Planned Parenthood.On a recent campaign stretch that took him from suburban diners to a Black church in Queens, the congressman at times sounded like his Republican counterparts, promising to wage an all-out assault on crime (“This is a crime crisis!”), to cut income and property taxes (“People are leaving our state — it’s not the weather”) and to fight the “socialist” Democrats who are “killing our party” by attacking police. He also reminded voters that Eric Adams, the mayor of New York City, had offered him a deputy mayor post.“People say, ‘That’s not a Democratic issue,’” Mr. Suozzi said. “Yes it is. Democrats are worried about crime and taxes. Democrats are afraid to take the subway.”As Mr. Suozzi met with potential voters, he focused his message on fighting crime and cutting taxes.Andrew Seng for The New York TimesThe message resonated with suburban voters who showed up in Westchester and Rockland Counties to hear Mr. Suozzi over free plates of eggs. A warm retail campaigner, he greeted potential voters — as well as some patrons just trying to enjoy a private meal — in fragments of no fewer than five languages: English, Spanish, Italian, Mandarin and Greek.“Nothing against Kathy Hochul, but right now I think it’s important to have someone in the role that has the credentials and the history of being able to boost the economy,” said Maria Abdullah, a businesswoman in Westchester who attended one of the gatherings.The question is whether Mr. Suozzi can attract the broader spectrum of voters needed to defeat Ms. Hochul, particularly when she may outspend him four to one. Mr. Suozzi is clearly targeting Mr. Adams’s coalition of working-class Black and Latinos around New York City, betting that the party faithful are tired of progressive voices.He chose Diana Reyna, a former city councilwoman who was the first Dominican woman elected in New York State, as his running mate; Fernando Ferrer, the former Bronx borough president, is campaign chairman.At times, though, Mr. Suozzi seems to be going out of his way to alienate another powerful block of primary voters. Progressives have expressed outrage at anti-crime policies they believe are retrograde and took offense at a radio appearance in which he seemingly approved of a Florida law opponents have branded “Don’t Say Gay.” (He later said he had been “inartful” and opposed the law.)Lisa Tyson, the director of the Long Island Progressive Coalition, said it’s not the time for bipartisanship. “There’s no middle ground between Republicans and Democrats anymore,” she said. “This is about fighting for justice and fighting for food.”Other prominent party figures have winced at the tone Mr. Suozzi has used to attack the state’s first female leader, whom he often refers to as an unqualified “interim governor.”“What he seems to be saying is, ‘I should be governor because I can do it better,’” said Jay Jacobs, the state Democratic Party chairman. “The underlying implication is that he is a male and she is a female. That’s not where this party should be going.”Mr. Suozzi said Mr. Jacobs, who chaired his 2006 campaign, was “absolutely wrong.” He also defended his approach to Ms. Hochul: “Kathy Hochul has not been elected governor of New York State, and she is serving from now until the end of Andrew Cuomo’s term,” he said. “The definition of that is interim.”A spokesman for the governor declined to comment.Mr. Suozzi does inspire fierce loyalty among his supporters, who say he can be a creative and, at times, groundbreaking leader.“Tom is a doer. Tom is an administrator. Tom knows what the city needs right now: safety and economic opportunity for all groups of people,” said Anthony Scaramucci, who said Mr. Suozzi’s father gave him a job as a young paralegal years before he briefly served as Mr. Trump’s White House communications director.Mr. Scaramucci and his wife each contributed $22,600 to the campaign.Mr. Suozzi readily acknowledges that the safe political road would keep him on a path to re-election for a House seat.“I could stay in Congress the rest of my life if I wanted to and keep on getting re-elected, I believe,” he said. “But I’m giving it up because I feel so strongly that people are suffering in my state and something dramatic has to be done — and because I feel that my party has lost its way.” More
