Primaries and Caucuses

Subterms

    More stories

    • 100 Shares179 Views

      in Elections

      Alabama Third Congressional District Primary Election Results 2022

      by

      Source: Election results and race calls are from The Associated Press.The New York Times’s results team is a group of graphics editors, engineers and reporters who build and maintain software to publish election results in real-time as they are reported by results providers. To learn more about how election results work, read this article.The Times’s election results pages are produced by Michael Andre, Aliza Aufrichtig, Neil Berg, Matthew Bloch, Sean Catangui, Andrew Chavez, Nate Cohn, Alastair Coote, Annie Daniel, Asmaa Elkeurti, Tiffany Fehr, Andrew Fischer, Will Houp, Josh Katz, Aaron Krolik, Jasmine C. Lee, Rebecca Lieberman, Ilana Marcus, Jaymin Patel, Rachel Shorey, Charlie Smart, Umi Syam, Urvashi Uberoy, Isaac White and Christine Zhang. Reporting by Alana Celii, Michael C. Bender, Lalena Fisher, J. David Goodman, Maya King and Neil Vigdor; production by Amanda Cordero and Jessica White; editing by Wilson Andrews, Kenan Davis, Amy Hughes and Ben Koski. More

    • 100 Shares139 Views

      in Elections

      Kentucky Governor’s Race Splinters Republicans Ahead of Primary

      by

      Kentucky Republicans are fighting over a nominee to challenge the Democratic governor, with a longtime Mitch McConnell ally squaring off against a wealthy former Trump administration ambassador.As he spoke to about a dozen voters in a dimly lit Mexican restaurant on the outskirts of Louisville, Daniel Cameron, Kentucky’s popular attorney general, explained how he viewed the tightening battle for the Republican nomination for governor.“Some folks in this race have been running on ads, and I’ve been running on a record,” said Mr. Cameron, who has long been seen as a rising Republican political talent and is a close ally of Senator Mitch McConnell. He was taking a clear swipe at his top rival, Kelly Craft, a former ambassador to the United Nations in the Trump administration who is married to a coal billionaire and has pumped more than $4.2 million into TV advertising.About 50 miles south, in a packed room at Jeff’s Food Mart in Campbellsville, Ms. Craft was not shy about wielding her wealth as a political weapon.“This may be one of the most expensive gubernatorial races in this cycle, and I have the personal resources,” she said.The unsettled race and escalating hostilities are unwelcome developments for Kentucky Republicans as they search for the strongest nominee to bring down Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat whose party loyalties in a crimson state have not stopped him from becoming one of the nation’s most popular governors. Even Republicans concede that he will be difficult to beat in November, and the contest has quickly become the most closely watched statewide election remaining this year.Ryan Quarles, the agricultural commissioner, has campaigned aggressively in rural stretches of the state.Pool photo by Timothy D. EasleyThe Republican primary on May 16 is pitting two pillars of the state’s party apparatus, Mr. Cameron and Ms. Craft, against each other, with a third, well-liked Republican, Ryan Quarles, the agricultural commissioner, acting as an amiable wild card. Polling has been scant, though the few public surveys suggest that Mr. Cameron’s once-dominant lead is shrinking.This churning political mixture has largely frozen the party and its major supporters in place. No one wants to be on the wrong side of the Craft family, collectively one of the biggest Republican donors in the country. And few are eager to damage Mr. Cameron, with his ties to Mr. McConnell, his early endorsement from former President Donald J. Trump and what some in the party view as his potential to rise to powerful positions within the G.O.P.It is not total war: The divisions fall short of the infighting between far-right and establishment candidates that consumed Michigan and Pennsylvania Republicans last year. Instead, the Kentucky Republicans, broadly similar in ideology, are jockeying for conservative primacy on issues like the border, education and vaguely defined “wokeness,” maneuvering that resembles the early contours of the Republican primary for president.The closeness of the race and the negative tone of the ads have caught many by surprise in Kentucky.When Mr. Trump endorsed Mr. Cameron last June, the attorney general seemed poised to cruise to the nomination. He is the first Black attorney general in Kentucky history, and the first Republican to hold the post in about 70 years, with strong name identification and rising political celebrity that stem in part from his prime-time speech during the 2020 Republican National Convention.Ms. Craft did not enter the race until four months after Mr. Cameron’s announcement. On Wednesday, she explained to voters in Campbellsville that she had “waited to get in this race because I didn’t see anybody that could get the job done.”Soon after in December, Ms. Craft began an aggressive ad campaign, airing a mix of biographical spots to help increase her name recognition and numerous ads attacking Mr. Cameron. Commonwealth PAC, a super PAC supporting her candidacy that is partly funded by $1.5 million from her husband, Joe Craft, has aired exclusively negative ads against Mr. Cameron, according to AdImpact, a media tracking firm.Mr. Cameron greeting supporters at a Lincoln Day dinner in Guston, Ky., last week. The scarce public polling in the race suggests that his advantage has diminished. Jon Cherry for The New York TimesOne of the ads from Commonwealth PAC sought to tie Mr. Cameron to Alvin L. Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney leading the indictment of Mr. Trump, by quoting them both as supporting a bail overhaul. Beyond that, they share little in common — other than being Black law enforcement officials.In an interview last Tuesday, Mr. Cameron called the ad “laughable on its face.”He added, “I hope that Kelly Craft, once this primary’s over, will decide to spend some of that money helping me when I’m the nominee.”Ms. Craft defended her ads in an interview last Wednesday.“What I’m focused on is pointing out truths and giving Kentuckians facts,” she said. “So you may think it’s negative. I’m looking at it as telling the truth.”From December to late March, Ms. Craft, with help from her allies, was the only major candidate for governor with ads broadcast across Kentucky’s seven media markets.Mr. Quarles, who has spent slightly less than his two main competitors, has aggressively campaigned in rural stretches of the state, racking up more than 235 endorsements from local officials, including county judges, mayors and magistrates.His first ad, released on Wednesday as part of an initial six-figure purchase, highlights how he “grew up on my family farm in rural Kentucky.” Known in Frankfort for a decade, Mr. Quarles has capitalized on longstanding relationships for support.“A celebrity versus the resources versus old school,” said Scott Jennings, a Republican operative in the state, summing up the contest between the three top contenders.“Cameron is the front-runner, but there’s no doubt this race has gotten close and remains fluid,” added Mr. Jennings, who like many other Republicans has remained neutral.Indeed, many of the major forces in Kentucky Republican politics are staying on the sidelines. Mr. McConnell has not issued an endorsement and does not plan to do so, according to people close to him, and his vast network of operatives in the state has largely not picked sides. Senator Rand Paul is also not endorsing a candidate. And most of Kentucky’s congressional delegation — except Representative James Comer, who endorsed Ms. Craft — has stayed out of the race.For Republicans, part of the challenge of defeating Mr. Beshear has to do with the G.O.P. dominance of the state. Republicans hold supermajorities in the Legislature, making it difficult for the governor to wield much power without a veto. Yet that has kept Mr. Beshear from contentious showdowns with Republicans on hot-button issues, and has let him focus on using state resources to help repair infrastructure and improve the economy.Lacking the money of Ms. Craft, Mr. Cameron has tried to emphasize his endorsement from Mr. Trump. In an eight-minute interview, Mr. Cameron mentioned the endorsement four times.He is quick to point out that Ms. Craft, whose stump speech focuses heavily on her tenure in the Trump administration, does not have the former president’s backing.“Despite what some others might tell you,” Mr. Cameron told a crowd at a Lincoln Day dinner in Meade County, “President Donald J. Trump has endorsed this campaign for governor.”On the issues, Mr. Cameron and Ms. Craft have little daylight between them. Education is a central tenet, with both pledging to fire the current commissioner of education, and deriding what they call a “woke” agenda in schools. Both embrace nationalized issues like the Southern border despite living in a state nearly 1,000 miles from Mexico.Ms. Craft speaking last week at Jeff’s Food Mart in Campbellsville, Ky. She has often focused on education, and has expressed full-throated support for the coal industry.Jon Cherry for The New York TimesThey have also made combating the opioid epidemic, and fentanyl in particular, key planks. Mr. Cameron often notes that his office is working to bring in just under $900 million from settlements to address the drug scourge and empower law enforcement. Ms. Craft has told the emotional story of her daughter’s struggle with addiction and has called for harsher penalties for drug dealers.Ms. Craft also offers ardent support to the state’s coal industry, and her placards pledge to “beat back Joe Biden’s E.P.A.”In his remarks in Shepherdsville last Tuesday, Mr. Cameron highlighted his many battles with Mr. Beshear.“When Governor Beshear decided to shut down churches, I went into federal court and, after nine days, got churches reopened in Kentucky,” Mr. Cameron said, referring to early pandemic regulations.At her stop in Campbellsville, Ms. Craft held aloft a copy of “All Boys Aren’t Blue,” a memoir about growing up Black and queer, as an example of books she wanted banned in the classroom.“We’ve got to take the woke out of the schools,” she said.John Allen, 74, of Taylor County, who came to see Ms. Craft at Jeff’s Food Mart, spoke approvingly of such positions.“What she said in her speech today is exactly the way I feel,” he said. “I’m tired of all this woke agenda stuff. I’m just tired of it. And I think everybody else is, too, and I’m tired of somebody telling me what I can say and can’t say. They’ve got to understand what the First Amendment really is.”But some voters are still making up their minds.Rose Greene, 62, of Meade County, said she had initially leaned toward Mr. Cameron over Ms. Craft. She had friends who had gone to church with him, and she liked his economic positions.“But then I’ve been seeing her commercials,” she added. More

    • 88 Shares179 Views

      in Elections

      Georgia’s Hot Mess Is Headed Your Way

      by

      Here’s a head scratcher for you: What happens when the leadership of a political party becomes so extreme, so out of touch with its voters, that it alienates many of its own activists and elected officials? And what happens when some of those officials set up a parallel infrastructure that lets them circumvent the party for campaign essentials such as fund-raising and voter turnout? At what point does this party become mostly a bastion of wingnuts, spiraling into chaos and irrelevance?No need to waste time guessing. Just cast your eyes upon Georgia, one of the nation’s electoral battlegrounds, where the state Republican Party has gone so far down the MAGA rabbit hole that many of its officeholders — including Gov. Brian Kemp, who romped to re-election last year despite being targeted for removal by Donald Trump — are steering clear of it as if it’s their gassy grandpa at Sunday supper.Republicans elsewhere should keep watch. Democrats too. What’s happening in Georgia is a cautionary tale for pluralism, an example of how the soul of a party can become warped and wrecked when its leadership veers toward narrow extremism. And while every state’s political dynamics are unique, a variation of the Peach State drama could be headed your way soon — if it hasn’t begun already.The backstory: Some Republican incumbents took offense last year when the Georgia G.O.P.’s Trump-smitten chairman, David Shafer, backed Trump-preferred challengers in the primaries. (Mr. Trump, you will recall, was desperate to unseat several Republicans after they declined to help him steal the 2020 election.) Those challengers went down hard, and Mr. Kemp in particular emerged as a superhero to non-Trumpist Republicans. Even so, scars remain. “That’s a burn that’s hard to get over,” says Brian Robinson, a Republican strategist who served as an adviser to former Gov. Nathan Deal.The clash also made clear that Republican candidates, or at least popular incumbents, don’t much need the party apparatus anymore. This is part of a broader trend: The clout of parties has long been on the slide because of changes in how campaigns are funded. That got turbocharged in Georgia in 2021, when its legislature, the General Assembly, passed a Kemp-backed bill allowing certain top officials (and their general-election challengers) to form leadership PACs, which can coordinate with candidates’ campaigns and accept megadonations free from pesky dollar limits.The PAC Mr. Kemp set up, the Georgians First Leadership Committee, raked in gobs of cash and built a formidable voter data and turnout machine. The governor plans to use it to aid fellow Republicans, establishing himself as a power center independent of the state party.As big-money conduits, leadership PACs can bring plenty of their own problems. But whatever their larger implications, in the current mess that is Georgia Republican politics, they also mean that elected leaders “don’t have to play nice in the sandbox with a group that is sometimes at odds with them,” says Mr. Robinson.The governor says he will skip the state party’s convention in June, as will the state’s attorney general, its insurance commissioner and its secretary of state. At a February luncheon for his Georgians First PAC, Mr. Kemp basically told big donors not to waste their money on the party, saying that the midterms showed “we can no longer rely on the traditional party infrastructure to win in the future,” the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.New party leadership is on the way. Mr. Shafer is not seeking another term. (Fun fact: He is under investigation for his role in the pro-Trump fake-elector scheme of 2020.) Party delegates will elect his successor at the upcoming state convention. But the problems run deeper. Republican critics say that the party culture has become steeped in the paranoid politics of MAGA and election denial. And in the current environment, “everyone must pledge their undying loyalty to Donald Trump above all else,” says Jay Morgan, who was an executive director of the state party in the 1980s and now runs a public affairs firm in Atlanta.Mr. Shafer defends his tenure, noting in particular that, since he took over in 2019, the party has gone from being mired in debt to having “over $1 million in the bank.”To be fair, the Georgia G.O.P. has a rich history of rocky relations with its governors. But the Trump era, which brought a wave of new grassroots activists and outsiders into party meetings, put the situation “on steroids,” says Martha Zoller, a Republican consultant and talk radio host.“Right now, it’s largely a place disconnected from reality,” adds Cole Muzio, a Kemp ally and the president of Frontline Policy Action, a conservative advocacy group.That seems unlikely to change any time soon, as some of the party’s more extreme elements gain influence. In recent months, leadership elections at the county and district levels have seen wins by candidates favored by the Georgia Republican Assembly, a coterie of ultraconservatives, plenty of whom are still harboring deep suspicions about the voting system.One of the more colorful winners was Kandiss Taylor, the new chairwoman of the First Congressional District. A keen peddler of conspiracy nuttiness, Ms. Taylor ran for governor last year, proclaiming herself “the ONLY candidate bold enough to stand up to the Luciferian Cabal.” After winning just slightly more than 3 percent of the primary vote, she declared that the election results could not be trusted and refused to concede — an antidemocratic move straight from the Trump playbook. As a chairwoman, she is promising “big things” for her district. So southeast Georgia has that to look forward to.Why should anyone care about the state of the Georgia G.O.P.? Well, what is happening in Georgia is unlikely to stay in Georgia — and has repercussions that go beyond the health and functionality of the Republican Party writ large. After election deniers failed to gain control of statewide offices across the nation in 2022, many of them refocused their efforts farther down the food chain. In February, The Associated Press detailed the push by some of these folks to become state party chairmen, who are typically chosen by die-hard activists. In Michigan, for instance, the state G.O.P. elevated the Trumpist conspiracy lover and failed secretary of state candidate Kristina Karamo to be its chairwoman.MAGA zealots don’t simply present ideological concerns, though their politics do tend toward the fringes. Too many embraced the stop-the-steal fiction that the electoral system has been compromised by nefarious Democrats and must be “saved” by any means necessary. Letting them oversee any aspect of the electoral process seems like a poor idea.If this development persists, Republicans more interested in the party’s future than in relitigating its past might want to look at how Kemp & Company have been trying to address their intraparty problems — and what more could and should be done to insulate not only the party’s less-extreme candidates, but also the democratic system, from these fringe forces. There are risks that come with ticking off election deniers and other Trumpian dead-enders. But the greater risk to the overall party, and the nation, would be declining to do so.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

    • 63 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      Trump Weighs Skipping Primary Debates

      by

      He took swipes at President Biden, Ron DeSantis and the Reagan presidential library during an event in New Hampshire.Former President Donald J. Trump used a campaign rally on Thursday in New Hampshire to add to his arguments that it was not worth his time to debate his rivals for the Republican presidential nomination, casting himself as the party’s undeclared nominee.Standing in front of several hundred supporters in a New England state that was a springboard for his election in 2016, Mr. Trump said that he held a commanding polling advantage in the 2024 Republican primary, months before any voting would begin. He has been posting similar themes on his social media site, Truth Social.He said that giving his G.O.P. rivals, like Gov. Ron DeSantis, an opening on a debate stage made no sense.“Why would you do that?” he told the crowd at a DoubleTree hotel in Manchester. In 2019, then as president, he considered skipping any presidential debates for the 2020 race before ultimately debating the Democrats’ nominee, Joseph R. Biden Jr.And on Thursday he jumped straight to the general election, saying, “I do look forward to the debate with Joe.”Mr. Biden declared on Tuesday that he would seek a second term. His predecessor claimed at his rally, without evidence, that the video Mr. Biden released to announce his re-election campaign “took supposedly seven takes to get it right.” The video features a montage of scenes from Mr. Biden’s presidency and only a few short clips where he spoke to the camera.Citing a recent Emerson College poll, Mr. Trump noted that 62 percent of G.O.P. primary voters indicated that they would support him, compared with 16 percent for Mr. DeSantis, who has not yet declared his candidacy. No other Republican was in double digits.“He’s crashing and burning,” Mr. Trump said of Mr. DeSantis, suggesting that he had benefited in the past from his association with Mr. Trump but that he was now struggling to get a foothold on his own.Mr. Trump has never shied away from broadsides against other Republicans, something Ronald Reagan famously frowned upon in what became known as the 11th Commandment. And in New Hampshire, Reagan’s presidential library was a target for Mr. Trump, who questioned its selection as the venue for the second G.O.P. primary debate. He pointed out that Frederick J. Ryan Jr., the publisher and chief executive of The Washington Post, another frequent Trump target, was chairman of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation & Institute.Representatives for the institute did not immediately respond to requests for comment, and The Post declined to comment.Separately on Thursday in Manhattan, lawyers for Mr. Trump appeared in a federal courtroom to defend him in a case brought by E. Jean Carroll, a former magazine columnist, who has accused Mr. Trump of raping her nearly three decades ago.Mr. Trump, who has denied the accusation, avoided mentioning the trial during the rally. However, he bemoaned his various other legal entanglements and alluded to his indictment this month by a New York grand jury on charges that he had concealed hush-money payments to a former porn star.He faces further legal peril. A federal investigation, in the hands of a special counsel, is investigating Mr. Trump’s efforts to reverse his defeat at the polls in 2020 and also his role in the events that led to the storming of the Capitol by his supporters on Jan. 6, 2021. And a Georgia prosecutor is in the final stages of an investigation into Mr. Trump’s attempts to reverse the election results in that state.While Mr. Trump has opened up a polling lead, the Republican field is fluid and appears likely to expand. It includes Nikki Haley, a former South Carolina governor and a United Nations ambassador in the Trump administration; Asa Hutchinson, the former governor of Arkansas; and the entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy.Another Republican who is entertaining a run is New Hampshire’s governor, Chris Sununu, who recently said that Mr. Trump’s losing streak could continue in 2024. He has cited Mr. Trump’s defeat in 2020 and Republican midterm losses in 2018 and 2022.Mr. Trump bristled at G.O.P. skeptics, singling out Mr. Sununu, whose name elicited boos from the crowd.“Isn’t he a nasty guy?” Mr. Trump said, criticizing Mr. Sununu’s decision to run for re-election as governor instead of for Senate during last year’s midterm elections.Mr. Sununu’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. More

    • 125 Shares189 Views

      in Elections

      Major G.O.P. Donor’s Commitment to DeSantis Is Murkier Than Thought

      by

      The hedge fund billionaire Kenneth Griffin, who seemed set to be a powerful financial backer of the Florida governor, is said to still be evaluating the Republican primary race.Nearly six months ago, Kenneth Griffin, the Republican megadonor and hedge fund executive, seemed poised to be a powerful financial backer of Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida in his anticipated run for president.Mr. Griffin had given $5 million to Mr. DeSantis’s re-election effort, and he told Politico that while Mr. DeSantis was not yet a White House candidate, “he has a tremendous record as governor of Florida, and our country would be well served by him as president.”These days, Mr. Griffin is keeping his cards closer to the vest, and his intentions are harder to discern. A person familiar with his thinking, noting that Mr. DeSantis had not yet made his run official, said Mr. Griffin was still evaluating the Republican primary race as it unfolded.The financier and Mr. DeSantis met in Florida in the last two weeks, according to two people with knowledge of the meeting, which came as Mr. Griffin has taken issue in private conversations with some of Mr. DeSantis’s policy moves and pronouncements. In particular, the two people said, Mr. Griffin was deeply troubled by Mr. DeSantis’s statements that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was a “territorial dispute” — a remark he later tried to clarify — and that the war was not a vital U.S. interest.Mr. Griffin, who has made clear that he wants to move on from former President Donald J. Trump, was also disconcerted by a six-week abortion ban in Florida that Mr. DeSantis recently signed, according to the people familiar with Mr. Griffin’s thinking, who insisted on anonymity to discuss private conversations. Last year, Mr. Griffin moved his hedge fund, Citadel, to Miami from Chicago, citing crime concerns.The meeting between the governor and Mr. Griffin was, for the most part, one on one, without staff members, one of the people briefed on it said, and it was one of their few direct interactions. Reading Mr. Griffin’s intentions after the meeting has been difficult for some people close to him.One person predicted the financier was still likely to donate to Mr. DeSantis once he made his candidacy official, which could happen as early as next month. But the person said Mr. Griffin might also give to other candidates who seemed able to defeat Mr. Trump.In a statement, Zia Ahmed, a spokesman for Mr. Griffin, ticked off Mr. DeSantis’s “many accomplishments” and mentioned job creation, “increasing the number of quality school options, and prioritizing the safety of our communities.”He went on, “Ken may not agree with all of the governor’s policies, but he appreciates all that the governor has done to make Florida one of the most attractive states to live and work in America.”Kenneth Griffin has made clear that he would like the Republican Party to move beyond former President Donald J. Trump.Mike Blake/ReutersBut Mr. Ahmed declined to address what Mr. Griffin thought about the presidential race. A spokesman for Mr. DeSantis declined to comment.What Mr. Griffin does is being closely watched, after word spread of his unhappiness about how Mr. DeSantis had comported himself early this year.Mr. DeSantis’s supporters say there is still a broad appetite — in the donor community and among prospective voters — for a viable Republican alternative to Mr. Trump.“The money has walked,” said Roy Bailey, a Dallas businessman and longtime Republican fund-raiser for Mr. Trump. “From my conversations with a lot of people from around the country, it has moved to DeSantis. It is a cold, hard fact.”Mr. Bailey disputed the idea that momentum had shifted away from Mr. DeSantis recently.In the first two weeks of May, Mr. DeSantis is set to host a series of small dinners with major donors and supporters from across the country at the governor’s mansion in Tallahassee, according to two people with knowledge of his plans.If Mr. DeSantis enters the presidential race as expected, he will be armed with a well-funded super PAC, Never Back Down, which said this month that it had raised $30 million in its first few weeks of fund-raising.Two-thirds of that money, $20 million, came from a single donor, the Nevada hotel magnate Robert Bigelow, Time magazine reported.In private conversations, Mr. DeSantis’s associates have indicated that they have $100 million in commitments to the super PAC, along with roughly $82 million in a Florida committee that will probably be transferred to Never Back Down.Still, some donors who had hoped Mr. DeSantis could stop Mr. Trump have cooled their enthusiasm.Thomas Peterffy, a prominent conservative donor, also cited Florida’s abortion law in explaining why he was withholding support from Mr. DeSantis for now. Mr. Peterffy had supported Mr. DeSantis in his state campaigns, and according to one person familiar with the event, hosted Mr. DeSantis at his house early in his first term as governor. But Mr. Peterffy told The Financial Times this month he was holding still, as were some friends.Some donors have also expressed concern about Mr. DeSantis’s pre-campaign strategy. When his allies made clear this year that he would not enter the race before the end of the legislative session in Florida, Mr. DeSantis effectively gave Mr. Trump three months to define him — and taunt him — before becoming a candidate. More

    • 138 Shares129 Views

      in Elections

      Trump Endorsed by Senator Daines of Montana, a Key Republican Fund-Raiser

      by

      Steve Daines of Montana, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, cited the former president’s accomplishments on issues like immigration.Former President Donald J. Trump has secured one of his most important Capitol Hill endorsements for a 2024 presidential bid: Senator Steve Daines of Montana, the chairman of the Senate Republicans’ campaign arm.While top Republicans in the Senate have been lukewarm about the prospects of another election cycle dominated by Mr. Trump, the endorsement gives him a foothold with a key party fund-raiser.“I’m proud to endorse Donald J. Trump for president of the United States,” Mr. Daines said during a Monday night appearance on “Triggered,” the podcast of Donald Trump Jr., the former president’s eldest son and an occasional hunting buddy for Mr. Daines.He added that the “best four years” he’d had in the Senate was when Mr. Trump was president. And Mr. Daines ticked off a list of accomplishments that he said Mr. Trump had recorded, on issues like immigration.“That’s absolutely awesome,” Mr. Trump Jr. replied.Mr. Trump has notched a string of congressional endorsements, but Mr. Daines, the chairman of the Senate campaign arm, the National Republican Senatorial Committee, has outsize influence. Mr. Daines is in constant contact with the wealthiest donors in Republican politics, who have been reluctant to support Mr. Trump, even as he asserts himself as the clear front-runner less than a year out from the primaries. If Mr. Daines vouches for the former president as he works the donor circuit, it may bolster what has been until now fairly lackluster fund-raising from the Trump campaign.Mr. Trump and Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, are not on speaking terms, and his supporter in the Senate with the most seniority was Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.Yet for Mr. Daines, the decision was a relatively safe move. With a closer relationship, Mr. Trump could support the Senate candidates backed by Mr. Daines’s committee — or at least avoid attacking the committee’s preferred candidates. Mr. Daines’s relationship with Mr. Trump Jr. is also seen as an important conduit between the Senate and the Trump operation.Mr. Daines and Mr. Trump Jr. began the interview bantering about their past hunting trips but Mr. Daines eventually spoke of how Republicans have a “once a decade” opportunity to pick up seats with a favorable map in 2024. If Republicans failed, he warned, they could remain in the minority “for the rest of the decade.” Before he endorsed Mr. Trump, during the interview, Mr. Daines talked about the power that strength at the top of the ticket could mean in the Senate races.Mr. Trump’s chief rival for the nomination, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, has faced some difficulty connecting with potential supporters as he works toward making his candidacy official. Both hopefuls have pushed for endorsements in Congress. While Mr. Trump has collected dozens, Mr. DeSantis, a former congressman, has secured just a handful. The people endorsing Mr. Trump have been quick to praise his personal touch.In the 2022 cycle, the National Republican Senatorial Committee, under the chairmanship of Senator Rick Scott, took a largely hands-off approach to the primaries. Mr. McConnell lamented the “candidate quality” of those who had emerged from primaries, and several Republicans aligned with Mr. Trump went on to lose key battlegrounds in November, including Don Bolduc in New Hampshire and Blake Masters in Arizona, both of whom party strategists had predicted would be weak nominees.Mr. Daines has taken a different approach. He has endorsed Representative Jim Banks for an open Senate seat in Indiana and has courted other candidates, including David McCormick, the former hedge fund executive who lost a Senate primary in Pennsylvania last year, to run again.Still, Senate Republicans are facing a gantlet of potential 2024 primaries, and the party leadership is worried that weak potential candidates could yet again hinder Republicans in November, including in Mr. Daines’s home state, Montana.In West Virginia, for instance, national Republicans have wooed Gov. Jim Justice, a billionaire former governor, to run against Senator Joe Manchin III, a Democrat who faces a tough re-election fight in a state that Mr. Trump won overwhelmingly in 2020. Mr. Justice is expected to enter the race on Thursday, but Representative Alex X. Mooney, who won a fierce Republican primary in 2022 with Mr. Trump’s endorsement, has already entered the contest.Other states that may feature thorny Republican primaries include Arizona, where the former television newscaster Kari Lake, who lost her 2022 bid for governor, may run for Senate in 2024, and Pennsylvania, where Doug Mastriano, who badly lost a 2022 governor’s race, is looking at a Senate run.“The primary is ours to walk away with,” Mr. Mastriano said in an interview on Monday with the conservative radio host John Fredericks. “We have the base. We are the base.”Mr. Mastriano is the type of nominee Mr. Daines is seeking to avoid. “His last race demonstrated he can’t win a general,” Mr. Daines said last month. More

    • 88 Shares129 Views

      in Elections

      How Democrats Learned to Embrace Biden 2024

      by

      The president, who is expected to formally announce his re-election campaign this week, has won the full support of his party despite questions about his age and middling approval ratings.As President Biden nears the formal announcement of his 2024 re-election bid, one of the most important developments of the campaign is something that hasn’t happened at all: No serious primary challenger ever emerged.Mr. Biden has all but cleared the field despite concerns about his age — at 80, he is already the oldest American president in history — and the persistent misgivings about the president held by a large number of the party’s voters. Democrats yearn for a fresh face in 2024, according to repeated polls, they just don’t know who that would be.After Democrats won more races than expected in the 2022 midterm elections, any energy to challenge Mr. Biden quickly dissipated. The left has stayed in line even as Mr. Biden has lately made more explicit appeals toward the center. And would-be rivals have stayed on the sidelines.The early entry of Donald J. Trump into the race immediately clarified that the stakes in 2024 would be just as high for Democrats as they were in 2020. The former president has proved to be the greatest unifying force in Democratic politics in the last decade, and the same factors that caused the party to rally behind Mr. Biden then are still present today. Add to that the advantages of holding the White House and any challenge seemed more destined to bruise Mr. Biden than to best him.Plans are now in place for Mr. Biden to formally begin a 2024 campaign as early as Tuesday with a low-key video timed with the anniversary of his campaign kickoff four years ago. It is a rollout that many Democrats are greeting more with a sense of stoicism than enthusiasm.“We need stability,” said Representative Jamaal Bowman of New York, a progressive who won his seat in 2020 by ousting an older, more moderate incumbent in a primary. “Biden provides that.”“We need stability,” Representative Jamaal Bowman said.Kenny Holston/The New York TimesSkating to a second nomination was not always guaranteed. Mr. Biden, as the incumbent president, was obviously the prohibitive favorite. But people close to the White House have been surprised at the speed with which the full spectrum of the party has gone from hand-wringing about Mr. Biden to almost unanimous acclamation, at least in public.Maria Cardona, a Democratic National Committee member and party strategist, has been confounded by the doubts around Mr. Biden as the Democrats’ best bet, especially against a 76-year-old Mr. Trump, who remains the Republican front-runner.“Regardless of the reservations, regardless of the worry that he is getting up there in age — and he is, and that is going to be a question that he and the campaign are going to have to contend with — when his counterpart is almost as old as he is but is so opposite of what this country deserves, then it’s a no-brainer,” she said.For now, the only announced challengers to Mr. Biden are Marianne Williamson, whose last run amounted to an asterisk in the 2020 campaign, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is leveraging his family name to promote his anti-vaccine views.“Democrats complain that he might be too old,” Ms. Cardona added. “But then, when they’re asked, ‘Well, who?’ There is no one else.”Prominent and ambitious governors, including Gavin Newsom of California and J.B. Pritzker of Illinois, made clear they would not contest Mr. Biden’s nomination, as did the runners-up from 2020. And many party insiders have soured on the political potential of the next-in-line option, Vice President Kamala Harris.Representative Raúl Grijalva, a former co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said the left was laser-focused on “the fight against the isms: fascism, racism, sexism.” That has overshadowed Mr. Biden’s age, said the 75-year-old Mr. Grijalva: “I think why it hasn’t been a bigger issue is we don’t believe in ageism either.”“If we are eliminating people because of how old they are,” he said, “I don’t think that would be fair and equitable.”“If we are eliminating people because of how old they are,” said Representative Raúl Grijalva, “I don’t think that would be fair and equitable.” Rebecca Noble for The New York TimesMr. Biden’s poll numbers among Democrats remain middling. An NBC News poll this month said 70 percent of all Americans — including 51 percent of Democrats — felt that Mr. Biden should not run for a second term. If Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida wins the Republican nomination, the general election contest could be more difficult for Mr. Biden. Mr. DeSantis, 44, has been polling better than Mr. Trump in a hypothetical November matchup.Privately, some major Biden donors and fund-raisers continue to fret about his durability both in a campaign and a second term. Those who raised or donated $1 million or more in 2020 were invited to a private gathering this Friday with the president.One wealthy donor had considered circulating a letter this year to urge Mr. Biden not to run before the person was dissuaded by associates because it would have been for naught and have served to embarrass Mr. Biden, according to a person familiar with the episode who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe private conversations. Some contributors have described being in a state of suspended and suppressed angst: fully yet nervously behind Mr. Biden.Democrats generally and the White House in particular know well the modern history of presidential re-election campaigns and that nearly all the recent incumbents to lose faced serious primary challenges: George H.W. Bush in 1992, Jimmy Carter in 1980, Gerald Ford in 1976 and, before he withdrew and Democrats ultimately lost, Lyndon B. Johnson in 1968.Combine that pattern with the specter of a second Trump presidency and Democrats have snapped almost uniformly into a loyalist formation, especially after the party averted a red wave and the kind of losses last fall that many had predicted.“People recognized he was the one candidate who could defeat Donald Trump and protect American democracy,” Representative David Cicilline, a Rhode Island Democrat who was previously in the Democratic leadership, said of Mr. Biden’s nomination in 2020. “It’s still the case.”“People recognized he was the one candidate who could defeat Donald Trump and protect American democracy,” Representative David Cicilline said of Mr. Biden.Haiyun Jiang/The New York TimesMr. Biden further smoothed his pathway by pushing through the most substantive change in the Democratic primary calendar in decades. He pushed to shift the first-in-the-nation status on the nominating calendar from Iowa, an overwhelmingly white state with a progressive streak (where Mr. Biden finished in fourth place), to South Carolina, where Black voters resurrected his campaign in 2020.During his first two years, Mr. Biden built up considerable good will among progressives, embracing many of the left’s priorities, including canceling student loan debt, and keeping a far more open line of communication with the party’s left-most flank than the previous two Democratic administrations. He has signed landmark bills that have been progressive priorities, including climate provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act and a temporary child-tax credit.Some Biden advisers credit the unity task forces created after the 2020 primary as the key starting point. Liberal activists say Ron Klain, the former White House chief of staff, had an unusual open-door policy.“Bernie wasn’t calling up Rahm Emanuel in the early Obama years to talk policy,” said Ari Rabin-Havt, a former deputy chief of staff to Senator Bernie Sanders and a Democratic strategist. Of Mr. Biden, he said that most progressives on Capitol Hill would grade him with “an exceeds expectations check mark.”Now Mr. Biden is relying on the left’s residual appreciation as he tacks toward the center. He has talked about the need for deficit reduction in 2023, signed a Republican measure to overturn a progressive local Washington crime law and approved a new oil drilling project in Alaska.“I continue to be frustrated when I see him moving to the center because I don’t see a real need to do that,” said Mr. Bowman, the New York Democrat. “It’s almost like a pandering to a Republican talking point.”“Biden has been on a legislative tear, tackling Democratic priorities that had been unachieved for decades,” Representative Eric Swalwell said.Kenny Holston/The New York TimesIn 2020, Representative Eric Swalwell of California briefly ran for president in the Democratic primary and then urged Mr. Biden to “pass the torch” to the next generation. Four years later, Mr. Swalwell is all aboard for a second Biden term, saying the president’s ability to pass significant legislation has bound the party together.“I feared after the 2020 election that it would be impossible for Biden to govern with the thinnest of majorities in the House and Senate,” he said. “Instead, Biden has been on a legislative tear, tackling Democratic priorities that had been unachieved for decades.”Many Democrats see Mr. Biden as the party’s best chance to limit losses among white voters without college degrees — the nation’s biggest bloc of voters — a group that Mr. Trump has pulled away from the Democrats.“Blue-collar workers used to always be our folks,” Mr. Biden lamented to donors at a private residence on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in January, highlighting his focus on winning back those voters. “A lot of people think we left them behind,” Mr. Biden told the donors. “And it has to do more with attitude and — than it does with policy.”The relative Democratic success in the midterms — picking up a Senate seat and only ceding the House to Republicans by five seats — served as a reminder that despite his own weak polling numbers, Mr. Biden has not hurt his party so far.“Nothing,” Mr. Swalwell said, “unites like success.” More

    • 75 Shares179 Views

      in Elections

      DeSantis Is Letting Trump Humiliate Him

      by

      Watching the nascent Republican primary race, I have a sickening sense of déjà vu. As much as I abhor Donald Trump’s opponents, I’m desperate for one of them to prevail. Trump might be easier for Joe Biden to beat, but anyone who gets the Republican nomination has a chance of being elected, and the possibility of another Trump term is intolerable. So it’s harrowing to see Trump abetted, again, by the cowardice of his opponents.Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor who was supposed to stop Donald Trump, is deflating before even entering the race, with his poll numbers softening and donors fretting. Trump, meanwhile, seems more buoyed than hindered by his ever-proliferating scandals, and is racking up endorsements at DeSantis’s expense. There are several explanations for why this is happening, including the backlash to Trump’s indictment, DeSantis’s near total lack of charisma, and concern among Republican elites about the sweeping abortion ban he just signed. But there’s another dynamic at work here, and I think it’s the big one: Like Trump’s 2016 rivals, DeSantis is making the mistake of believing that the primary race is about issues, while Trump instinctively understands that it’s about dominance.Dueling super PAC attack ads about Social Security and Medicare illustrate DeSantis’s problem. The ad from the Trump camp is inspired by reporting about DeSantis eating pudding with his fingers on an airplane. Over a nauseating video of a man messily consuming chocolate pudding with his hands, the spot says, “DeSantis has his dirty fingers all over senior entitlements.” But the policy argument is just an excuse for the disgusting visuals; the point is not to disagree with DeSantis, but to humiliate him.The ad from DeSantis’s allies misses this point entirely. It attempts to fact-check the claims in the pro-Trump spot with video of DeSantis promising to protect Social Security, then tries to turn the tables by airing a clip of Trump saying that “at some point” he’ll “take a look” at entitlements. “Trump should fight Democrats, not lie about Governor DeSantis,” the ad continues — whining about Trump’s aggression rather than countering it.This approach didn’t work in 2016 and it’s not working now. Witness the parade of Florida Republicans turning their back on DeSantis and bending the knee to Trump with their endorsements.Republican attempts to outflank Trump from the right, a strategy tried by Ted Cruz in 2016, are also falling flat again. Before Mike Pence’s speech to the National Rifle Association last week, Politico reported that the former vice president was aiming “to get to the right of Donald Trump on guns, bringing debates the two once had behind closed doors in the White House into the public eye.” Pence ended up getting booed by the crowd and then mocked by his former boss.The upcoming Republican primary race, like the last one, is going to be fought on a limbic level, not an ideological one. It will be about who is weak and who is strong. That’s why, if Republicans want a non-Trump candidate in 2024, they’re going to have to find someone willing to tear him down. I understand that this is made difficult by the fact that Republican primary voters often seem excited by Trump’s most repulsive qualities, including his authoritarianism, rapacious greed, incitements to violence, friendly relations with white supremacists and antisemites, and the corruption that’s already led to multiple felony charges. It’s also hard to tar Trump as a loser when so much of the right-wing base believes the fantasy that in 2020 he actually won.Nevertheless, it’s worth thinking about how Trump would take on a candidate like Trump. I don’t think he’d do it with passive-aggressive sniping, like when DeSantis, while attacking the New York district attorney Alvin Bragg for indicting Trump, worked in a dig about the ex-president paying “hush money to a porn star.” Trump, faced with an opponent who had Trump’s own flaws, would just blast away at them all until he found something that stuck.Trump’s approach to DeSantis’s war on Disney is instructive. Until approximately five minutes ago, DeSantis’s willingness to do battle with ostensibly “woke” corporations — even a giant of Florida tourism like Disney — was part of his appeal. But Trump didn’t try to show that he’d be even harder on Disney than DeSantis has been. Instead, he trolled DeSantis by taking Disney’s side, taunting the governor for getting “destroyed” by Disney and speculating that the company would stop investing in Florida. There is, so far, little sign that this is hurting Trump, even though the right has spent months demonizing Disney, a company Tucker Carlson compared to a “sex offender.” Consistent displays of dominance matter more to Republicans than consistent displays of principle.This doesn’t mean that Republican candidates should try to copy Trump’s insult comic act; they’ll almost certainly fail if they do. But they need to be, to use a Trumpish word, tough. As House speaker, Nancy Pelosi managed to repeatedly emasculate Trump not because she imitated him, but because she treated him like a petulant child. Most of Trump’s would-be Republican rivals, on the other hand, are treating him like an unstable father, fantasizing about supplanting him even as they cower in fear of his wrath.An exception is the former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, who understands that you can’t beat Trump without fighting him. “I don’t believe that Republican voters penalize people who criticize Trump,” he told Politico, adding, “If you think you’re a better person to be president than Donald Trump, then you better make that case.” Whether Christie can make it is hard to say, given that he’s already abased himself before Trump more than once. But he’s right that no one’s going to defeat Trump until they stop acting scared of him.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