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      Robert Burns, Right-Wing Republican, Wins House Primary in New Hampshire

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      Robert Burns, a right-wing candidate aligned with former President Donald J. Trump, won Tuesday’s Republican primary in New Hampshire’s Second Congressional District, according to The Associated Press.He defeated six other Republicans, including George Hansel, a more moderate candidate who may have had a better chance of defeating the Democratic incumbent, Representative Ann McLane Kuster, in November. As of midday Wednesday, when the race was called, Mr. Burns was leading by more than 1,500 votes.The district — which includes the state’s second- and third-largest cities, Nashua and Concord, as well as large rural areas of western and northern New Hampshire — is competitive but leans toward Democrats.Mr. Burns, a local businessman and former treasurer of Hillsborough County, N.H., campaigned on ending economic reliance on China and on an array of conservative red-meat issues, including opposition to gun control, to pandemic mitigation measures and to the purported teaching of critical race theory.He won the primary despite raising less than half as much money as Mr. Hansel, according to Federal Election Commission filings.Mr. Burns may have benefited from more than $90,000 in spending by a Democratic political action committee, the latest example of a risky Democratic strategy to help far-right Republicans win primaries in the hopes that they will be easier to beat in the general election.A 30-second advertisement from the group, Democrats Serve, featured a clip of Mr. Burns calling himself “the only pro-Trump, unapologetic conservative” in the race. It was framed as an attack: “If we send Bob Burns, the ‘unapologetic conservative,’ to Congress, New Hampshire is going to get burned,” it said.But an array of Democratic organizations — outside groups as well as the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the party’s House campaign arm — have run similar ads elsewhere to try to make opponents they view as weaker seem more attractive to conservative primary voters.Mr. Burns’s main opponent, Mr. Hansel, is the mayor of Keene and was endorsed by Chris Sununu, New Hampshire’s popular Republican governor. Mr. Hansel ran as the sort of moderate Republican who has traditionally done well in New England, allowing the party to retain a modicum of power even in very blue states. But this year’s primaries have shown that Republican voters’ appetite for such candidates has fallen.Mr. Hansel focused heavily on inflation and described himself as pro-choice — something that could have been an asset in the general election, given the backlash to the overturning of Roe v. Wade, but that was a liability in a Republican primary. Mr. Burns, by contrast, has said he would support federal legislation to ban abortion after cardiac activity is detectable in the embryo or fetus, which is before many women know they are pregnant.In addition to Mr. Burns and Mr. Hansel, the primary in the Second District included Lily Tang Williams — a libertarian-leaning Republican who made her personal experience as a Chinese immigrant a centerpiece of her campaign — and four lesser-known candidates. More

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      Moore Concedes to Bolduc in New Hampshire Senate Race, Realizing G.O.P. Fears

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      Don Bolduc, a retired Army general and 2020 election denier, appears to have captured the Republican nomination for Senate in New Hampshire after his chief rival conceded early Wednesday.The Associated Press has not yet called the race. As of 10 a.m. Eastern, Mr. Bolduc held a lead of about 1,300 votes over Chuck Morse, the president of the State Senate.Mr. Morse was endorsed by Gov. Chris Sununu and helped by $4.5 million from national Republicans, who were worried that a victory by Mr. Bolduc would forfeit what they saw as a winnable seat in the quest for Senate control this fall.Mr. Bolduc’s apparent victory will come as a relief to Democrats, who also assume he will be the weaker opponent against Senator Maggie Hassan, a first-term Democrat. She won in 2016 by about 1,000 votes in purple New Hampshire but has been saddled with low job approval numbers. Four states — New Hampshire, Arizona, Georgia and Nevada — have vulnerable Democratic senators the party is aggressively defending to keep its hold on the Senate. Delaware and Rhode Island also held primaries on Tuesday — the final date of major primary elections this year, just eight weeks before the general election. In Rhode Island, Democrats chose Seth Magaziner, the state treasurer, to run for an open House seat that is viewed as a tossup in November. Delaware’s biggest race was for state auditor.But it was New Hampshire that held the focus nationally. Besides Mr. Bolduc, Republicans in the state also chose a hard-right nominee for the House, Karoline Leavitt, a former staff member in Donald J. Trump’s White House press office, who echoed the former president’s inflammatory language and provocations. She beat Matt Mowers, who had the backing of House Republican leaders, and will face Representative Chris Pappas, a two-term Democrat.Mr. Bolduc’s and Ms. Leavitt’s apparent success adds New Hampshire to the list of battleground states where Republicans this year chose candidates firmly in the Trumpian mold to compete in general elections that Republicans have historically won by reaching out to independents and conservative Democrats. Other examples include Massachusetts, Maryland, Arizona and Pennsylvania (in its governor’s race). It is both a clear sign of Mr. Trump’s iron grip on his party’s base and a major gamble on whether candidates with extreme views — principally, embracing Mr. Trump’s lie that he won in 2020 — can prevail in purple states. November will test if voter malaise about the economy and Democratic leadership in Washington is strong enough to blot out candidates’ hard-right views. Mr. Bolduc led wire-to-wire in polling during his race. He amassed grass-roots support by traveling widely for two years and holding town hall-style events, where attendees fumed over President Biden and Democratic governance in Washington.His supporters were less animated by bread-and-butter issues such as inflation — which is soon expected to affect the cost of the home heating oil that is widely used in New Hampshire — than by immigration, the 2020 election and cultural issues. “I signed a letter with 120 other generals and admirals saying that Donald Trump won the election and, damn it, I stand by” it, Mr. Bolduc said at a debate last month. He has also said he was open to abolishing the F.B.I. after agents searched Mr. Trump’s residence in Florida seeking classified documents.Mr. Sununu, a moderate and popular Republican in the state, was outspoken in calling Mr. Bolduc a “conspiracy-theory extremist” whom most voters did not take seriously. Chuck Morse greeted supporters gathered in Salem, N.H., to watch the primary-night returns.Jodi Hilton for The New York TimesMr. Morse, 61, the president of the State Senate, acknowledged that Joseph R. Biden Jr. won in 2020 and said he would have certified the election if he had been in Congress on Jan. 6, 2021. In debates, Mr. Morse rarely turned his fire on Mr. Bolduc, instead attacking Ms. Hassan. He highlighted how he had led the Legislature to override a budget that Ms. Hassan had vetoed as governor because it included business tax cuts. Ms. Hassan’s campaign has positioned her as breaking with her party on issues of concern to New Hampshirites — pushing for a federal gasoline tax holiday, for example — and standing up to “Big Pharma” to lower prescription drug costs..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.Other candidates in the Republican primary included Kevin Smith, a former Londonderry town manager, and Bruce Fenton, a cryptocurrency entrepreneur whose libertarianism — he favored legalizing all drugs — enlivened debates but also drew boos. Mr. Bolduc’s poor fund-raising meant he wasn’t able to run a single ad on television. A super PAC with ties to national Republicans spent millions of dollars on ads opposing him and boosting Mr. Morse.A Democratic group also tried to shape the race: The Senate Majority PAC, which is aligned with Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, attacked Mr. Morse in ads as “sleazy” in an effort to drive voters toward Mr. Bolduc, gambling that he would be easier to defeat in November.For the general election, super PACs tied to Republican leaders in the Senate have reserved $29 million for ads in New Hampshire, which could boost Mr. Bolduc and tarnish Ms. Hassan. But it is unclear whether those commitments will hold with Mr. Bolduc on the ballot.Left on his own, Mr. Bolduc would enter the contest with Ms. Hassan at a severe disadvantage: He had just $84,000 in his campaign account as of late August, according to federal records. Ms. Hassan had $7.3 million. She has already spent millions on ads this year to boost her image, including one claiming that she is “ranked the most bipartisan senator,” but her approval has stalled in polls around 45 percent. Still, facing Mr. Bolduc would bump Ms. Hassan, 64, down Democrats’ list of the incumbents they most need to defend to keep control of the Senate and assure that President Biden is not hamstrung in the remainder of his term.With New Hampshire’s primary elections so late in the year, Mr. Bolduc has just eight weeks before the general election to move beyond appeals to the Republican base and reach out to independents and conservative Democrats, voters who traditionally add to the coalition that Republican candidates need to win statewide in New Hampshire.Mainstream Republicans in the state have been skeptical that Mr. Bolduc will be able to modulate his image after two years of appealing to the Trump-centric party base.One reason he led in polls from the outset is that he had a yearlong head start over his rivals. The race was effectively frozen as Mr. Sununu, a top recruiting target of national Republicans to face Ms. Hassan, weighed joining in. It was November by the time he decided to forgo a Senate bid and seek re-election as governor.One shoe that never dropped was an endorsement from former President Donald J. Trump. Mr. Morse and his supporters waged a campaign to win the former president’s approval, including a visit by Mr. Morse to Mr. Trump at his golf club in Bedminster, N.J., on Sept. 2.Although the conversations were cordial, according to aides to both men, no endorsement ensued. After their meeting, Mr. Trump invited Mr. Morse and his team to have dinner at his club, but Mr. Trump did not join them.On the eve of the election, Mr. Sununu — whom Mr. Bolduc once accused of being “a Chinese communist sympathizer” — suggested that if Mr. Bolduc became the nominee, he would endorse him. More

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      Who Won and Lost in New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Delaware

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      The primary season ended on Tuesday with elections in New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Delaware.In the night’s marquee matchup, the Republican Senate primary to determine who will challenge Senator Maggie Hassan in New Hampshire this fall, the race had not been called as of Wednesday morning but Don Bolduc, a right-wing, Trump-aligned candidate, appeared poised for victory after Chuck Morse, his more moderate rival, wrote on Twitter that he had conceded.Here is a rundown of some of the most important wins and losses. New HampshireDon Bolduc, a retired Army general who ran on a hard-right platform and embraced former President Donald J. Trump’s lies about the 2020 election, appeared set to win the Republican primary to challenge Senator Maggie Hassan, a Democrat who is seeking a second term in the Senate. As of Wednesday morning, the race had not been called, but his opponent, Chuck Morse, the president of the State Senate, had said he had called Mr. Bolduc and “wished all the best.”Karoline Leavitt, a former press aide in Donald J. Trump’s White House, defeated Matt Mowers, a former State Department adviser, in a Republican primary that pitted two Trump administration alumni against each other. Ms. Leavitt — who recently turned 25, the minimum age to serve in the House — will face Representative Chris Pappas, a Democrat, in the First Congressional District. She could be one of the first two members of Generation Z to serve in Congress, alongside Maxwell Alejandro Frost, who won a Democratic House primary in Florida last month.Gov. Chris Sununu, a Republican seeking a fourth two-year term, easily won his primary, in which he had only nominal competition. He will face Tom Sherman, a state senator who ran unopposed in the Democratic primary.Rhode IslandGov. Dan McKee won a tight Democratic primary as he seeks his first full term after rising from the lieutenant governorship to replace former Gov. Gina Raimondo, who left to serve in the Biden administration. He defeated Helena Buonanno Foulkes, a businesswoman; Nellie Gorbea, the Rhode Island secretary of state; and two others. Mr. McKee will face Ashley Kalus, a businesswoman who won the Republican primary, in November.Lt. Gov. Sabina Matos, who is seeking her first full term after being appointed by Mr. McKee, won the Democratic primary for lieutenant governor. Her Republican opponent will be Aaron Guckian, a former development officer at the Rhode Island Foundation.Gregg Amore, a state representative, won the Democratic nomination for secretary of state and will face Pat Cortellessa, a security company supervisor who volunteered for the Trump campaign in 2016.Seth Magaziner, the state’s general treasurer, is the Democratic nominee to replace Representative Jim Langevin, a Democrat who is retiring. He topped a six-candidate field and will face former Mayor Allan Fung of Cranston in November.DelawareLydia York, a lawyer and former corporate accountant, won the Democratic primary for auditor of accounts, the office responsible for supervising Delaware’s use of taxpayer money. She defeated the incumbent, Kathleen K. McGuiness, who had been convicted of misdemeanors in a misconduct case related to hiring her daughter. More

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      How Fierce Primaries, Abortion and Inflation Transformed the 2022 Map

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      A grueling primary season riven by Republican infighting and the interventions of former President Donald J. Trump finally ended on Tuesday with a slate of G.O.P. candidates that has raised Democratic hopes of preserving Senate control and a political atmosphere that has changed strikingly over the past six months.Republicans still have the environment they wanted when the primaries began in Texas in March: high inflation, economic uncertainty, an unpopular president and the perception that violent crime is on the rise. But since then, Democrats have found strong themes they can run on: the fate of legal abortion and, to a larger extent than they might have imagined, the future of democracy and the rule of law.As the last primary voters went to the polls in New Hampshire, Delaware and Rhode Island, Tuesday provided the perfect split screen for the coming general election.The government’s official report on inflation made clear that Democrats are by no means out of the woods. Hours after its release, Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, introduced legislation to ban abortion nationwide after 15 weeks of pregnancy, effectively spreading the abortion question from red and purple states to blue states that may have felt insulated since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.Those issues and the re-emergence of Mr. Trump as a headline-grabbing political figure have raised the stakes ahead of an Election Day that will determine not only which party will lead Congress but also which one will control statehouses, governorships and top election posts from Pennsylvania to Arizona, from Wisconsin to Florida, ahead of the 2024 presidential contest.“As a forecaster, I prefer it when all the signs are one way or the other,” joked J. Miles Coleman, a congressional election analyst at the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics. That is not the case in 2022.Don Bolduc cheered with supporters during his campaign watch party. John Tully for The New York TimesThe final day of primaries put an exclamation point on the season. Republican voters in New Hampshire were deciding whether to nominate Don Bolduc, a retired general and Trump-style candidate who denies the legitimacy of the 2020 election, or a more mainstream Republican, Chuck Morse, the State Senate president, to take on Senator Maggie Hassan. Early Wednesday, the race had not been called, but Mr. Bolduc held a narrow lead and Mr. Morse wrote on Twitter that “we’ve come up short” and that he had called his opponent and “wished him the best.” Democrats had considered Mr. Bolduc by far the easier candidate for Ms. Hassan, once seen as one of the party’s most vulnerable incumbents.Two right-wing House candidates in the state also showed strength in their primaries. Karoline Leavitt, a 25-year-old former assistant in Mr. Trump’s White House press office, beat Matt Mowers, a onetime colleague in the former president’s administration. And Robert Burns, a Trump-aligned candidate, was locked in an undecided race early Wednesday against George Hansel, a more moderate rival seen as a more formidable challenger to the Democratic incumbent.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.A Fierce Primary Season Ends: Democrats are entering the final sprint to November with more optimism, especially in the Senate. But Republicans are confident they can gain a House majority.Midterm Data: Could the 2020 polling miss repeat itself? Will this election cycle really be different? Nate Cohn, The Times’s chief political analyst, looks at the data in his new newsletter.Republicans’ Abortion Struggles: Senator Lindsey Graham’s proposed nationwide 15-week abortion ban was intended to unite the G.O.P. before the November elections. But it has only exposed the party’s divisions.Democrats’ Dilemma: The party’s candidates have been trying to signal their independence from the White House, while not distancing themselves from President Biden’s base or agenda.In Senate races beyond New Hampshire, a series of stumbling Republican candidates — including Herschel Walker in Georgia, Blake Masters in Arizona, Dr. Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania and J.D. Vance in Ohio — made it through their primaries this year with the backing of Mr. Trump, keeping the race for the chamber competitive.Meantime, Democratic candidates like Cheri Beasley in North Carolina, Mandela Barnes in Wisconsin and Representative Val Demings in Florida have proved resilient enough to expand the Senate map and stretch a Republican campaign machine that is low on cash.Cheri Beasley, the Democratic nominee for Senate in North Carolina, is in an unexpectedly tight race against Representative Ted Budd, a Republican.Travis Dove for The New York Times“On the whole, Republicans have nominated far stronger candidates in swing seats for the House than in swing states for the Senate,” said David Wasserman, a congressional analyst at the nonpartisan Cook Political Report.But in House races, candidate quality tends to matter less. In election years past, House control has sloshed back and forth with larger political currents because House candidates are less familiar to voters than their Senate counterparts. The Democratic 31-seat wave — described by George W. Bush as a “thumping” — in 2006 was followed by what Barack Obama called a “shellacking” in 2010, a 63-seat gain. Eight years later, the Democrats were back with a 41-seat romp.Voters tend to pull the lever based on the party that House candidates represent, not on distinctive policies or personalities they embody.Both parties probably missed some opportunities with their House candidates, or at least made Election Day more competitive than it needed to be..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.For Republicans, flawed House primary winners include Sandy Smith, who is running in a competitive, open seat in northeastern North Carolina and has been accused of domestic violence; J.R. Majewski, a bombastic conspiracy theorist challenging Representative Marcy Kaptur in a Northwest Ohio district newly drawn to favor Republicans; and John Gibbs, a former Trump administration aide who once baselessly accused Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta, of taking part in a “satanic ritual,” then went on to defeat a moderate incumbent, Representative Peter Meijer. Mr. Gibbs must now try to capture a Democratic-leaning district around Grand Rapids, Mich.John Gibbs, a Republican House candidate in Michigan, claimed that the 2020 election results had anomalies that were “simply mathematically impossible.”Brittany Greeson for The New York TimesRepresentative Abigail Spanberger of Virginia was once considered one of the most endangered Democrats, but missteps by her Republican opponent, Yesli Vega, have put her on more solid ground.Chris Taylor, a spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the party’s House campaign arm, laid it on thick as the primary season drew to a close, mocking what he called House Republicans’ “motley crew of MAGA extremists” and “long roster of anti-choice and scandal-prone candidates,” while praising his party’s “all-star class of candidates.”But Democrats are on the defensive in a handful of districts. Republicans are already attacking Jamie McLeod-Skinner, a liberal Democrat who won a primary in Oregon against the more moderate Representative Kurt Schrader and now confronts blowback from years of sometimes unruly protests in nearby Portland. Redistricting turned Representative Steve Chabot, a veteran Republican, vulnerable in Cincinnati, but his challenger, Greg Landsman, a city councilman, has faced attacks over his legislation to redirect $200,000 from the city’s Police Department to an independent board responsible for fielding complaints against police officers.Representative Mike Garcia of California should be one of the most vulnerable Republicans up for re-election, but Democratic voters in northern Los Angeles County opted to nominate Christy Smith, who has already lost to Mr. Garcia twice.Jamie McLeod-Skinner defeated a centrist Democrat in the primary for a House seat in Oregon, but now faces attacks from the right over unruly protests in the city.Thomas Patterson for The New York TimesMichigan’s 10th Congressional District, which was redrawn to lean Republican, has such a weak Democratic candidate that the party has all but ceded it. And in a newly drawn South Texas district, designed to be evenly split between the parties, Democrats nominated a liberal political newcomer and flea market owner, Michelle Vallejo, and the seat now leans Republican.Republicans can also brag of the most racially diverse slate of House candidates they have ever fielded, including 29 Hispanic contenders, 26 Black candidates, six Asian Americans or Pacific Islanders, and three Native Americans. Mr. Wasserman calculated that 61 percent of Republican candidates in swing districts were women, people of color and military veterans. Many of those veterans hail from special forces and have remarkable biographies.“House Republicans have an all-star cast of candidates running to protect the American dream and deliver the type of common-sense policies Democrats have failed to achieve,” said Michael McAdams, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, the campaign arm for House Republicans.Come November, those individual stories may matter little.With only a five-vote swing standing in the way of a Republican majority, the G.O.P. is still favored to take control of the House, but how big a majority the party enjoys will most likely be determined more by the larger political issues — inflation, economics, abortion and democracy — than by the candidates themselves.The Senate may be different, and past could be prologue. In 2010, as the effects of the financial crash lingered and the Tea Party movement energized conservatives, Republicans stormed into the majority in the House, then held it in 2012. But Republicans could not take the Senate until 2014, in part because of poor candidates chosen in the primaries: Christine O’Donnell of Delaware and Sharron Angle of Nevada in 2010, and Richard E. Mourdock of Indiana and Todd Akin of Missouri in 2012.Pressed by Mr. Trump, Republicans may well have outdone themselves in 2022. Mr. Walker, a former football star with no political experience, has struggled in his challenge to Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia, once seen as perhaps the most vulnerable Democrat up for re-election. With the political wind at his face, another freshman Democrat, Mark Kelly of Arizona, has benefited greatly from Mr. Masters’s inexperience and a past replete with oddball views. Mr. Trump liked the celebrity of Dr. Oz but overlooked the potency of attacks over his wealth and his lack of connection to Pennsylvania.Blake Masters, the Republican nominee for Senate in Arizona, supports militarizing the border — but in 2006, he wrote that “‘unrestricted’ immigration is the only choice” for a libertarian-minded voter.Bridget Bennett for The New York TimesAnd though Mr. Vance’s memoir “Hillbilly Elegy” focused on his childhood in working-class Ohio, the candidate, a Trump favorite, has so far failed to open a clear lead in a state that Mr. Trump won in 2020 by eight percentage points.Mr. Coleman, the election analyst, noted that in 2010, everything would have had to go the Republicans’ way if they were to dig themselves out of a nine-seat hole in the Senate. In November, they need a single seat to take control.“This time, it could be more frustrating because they’re right there,” Mr. Coleman said. “They’re at the end zone.” More

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      Daniel McKee, Rhode Island Governor, Wins Nomination to Run for Seat

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      Daniel McKee, the governor of Rhode Island, has secured the Democratic nomination to run for his first full term in office, according to The Associated Press. Mr. McKee, 71, overcame four challengers in a hard-fought primary with a focus on his leadership through the Covid-19 pandemic and the economic recovery.Mr. McKee had served as the state’s lieutenant governor since 2015 and was first sworn in as governor in March 2021, when former Gov. Gina Raimondo resigned to join President Biden’s cabinet as commerce secretary.In the primary, he had been neck and neck with Secretary of State Nellie Gorbea, 55, with whom he was elected to statewide office in 2014 and who drew from the same well of support. But it was Helena Foulkes, 58, a former CVS executive, who came in second place after a late-breaking surge in momentum that followed a strong debate performance and an endorsement from Speaker Nancy Pelosi.His other opponents included Matt Brown, a former Rhode Island secretary of state, and Dr. Luis Daniel Muñoz, a community activist.Mr. McKee will face Ashley Kalus, a Republican businesswoman and first-time candidate. A college freshman, Zachary Hurwitz, also collected enough signatures to run as an independent.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.A Fierce Primary Season Ends: Democrats are entering the final sprint to November with more optimism, especially in the Senate. But Republicans are confident they can gain a House majority.Midterm Data: Could the 2020 polling miss repeat itself? Will this election cycle really be different? Nate Cohn, The Times’s chief political analyst, looks at the data in his new newsletter.Republicans’ Abortion Struggles: Senator Lindsey Graham’s proposed nationwide 15-week abortion ban was intended to unite the G.O.P. before the November elections. But it has only exposed the party’s divisions.Democrats’ Dilemma: The party’s candidates have been trying to signal their independence from the White House, while not distancing themselves from President Biden’s base or agenda.Ms. Gorbea, born and raised in Puerto Rico, had sought to become the first Latina elected governor in New England, touting her 30 years of experience as a community activist and nonprofit leader focused on addressing the state’s housing crisis. She rocked the Rhode Island political world when she won her campaign for secretary of state in 2014 with little funding or name recognition, and many expected her to do the same in the governor’s race.But she stumbled after her campaign aired an attack ad about Mr. McKee that cited an article from a conservative commentator. Her office also was heavily criticized after new touch-screen voting machines listed the wrong candidates on the Spanish-language ballot, which led to the discarding of more than 50 ballots.The missteps gave a small opening to Ms. Foulkes, who proved to be a prolific fund-raiser and whose mother was close friends with Ms. Pelosi. “I just want to say one word to you,” Ms. Pelosi told a crowd of more than 200 people gathered Sunday in Providence. “Helena.”A former mayor of the town of Cumberland, Mr. McKee is not seen as a natural politician and has tended to stay behind the scenes in his political career. His campaign was clouded by state and federal investigations into a multimillion-dollar education consulting contract that his administration awarded to the ILO Group, a consulting firm to which he has ties and that was created two days after he took office.But Mr. McKee had three factors working in his favor, said Adam Myers, an associate professor of political science at Providence College: a strong base of voters in the Blackstone River Valley, the northeast pocket of the state that he is from; an ability to consolidate the support of organized labor groups; and his appeals to Latino voters.Mr. McKee had appointed Sabina Matos to replace him, making her the first Afro-Latina lieutenant governor and the first Dominican American in the country to hold statewide office. He also had a star endorser — his 94-year-old mother. She became a campaign sensation when she appeared in an ad playing cards with her son in oversized sunglasses.In the ad, Mr. McKee champions his efforts to steer the state through the pandemic, his elimination of the car tax and his signing of gun safety laws. She responds: “Not bad for a governor that lives with his mother.” More

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      Leavitt Upsets Mowers, Winning New Hampshire House G.O.P. Primary

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      Karoline Leavitt, a 25-year-old hard-right Republican who served as an assistant in President Donald J. Trump’s White House press office, won her party’s nomination on Tuesday for New Hampshire’s First Congressional District, according to The Associated Press. The race had devolved into a nasty battle with Matt Mowers, a former Trump administration colleague, over who carried the mantle of Trumpism.“Unfortunately, tonight’s results did not go our way,” Mr. Mowers wrote in a concession statement on Twitter at 11:25 p.m.Ms. Leavitt’s upset victory means she will face off in November against Representative Chris Pappas, a two-term Democratic congressman representing the highly competitive district in the eastern and southern parts of the state. Mr. Pappas is one of the most vulnerable Democrats this cycle, with his re-election race considered a tossup. If she wins, Ms. Leavitt would be among the youngest people ever elected to Congress. The Constitution requires House members to be at least 25 years old to serve. Ms. Leavitt turned 25 last month.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.A Fierce Primary Season Ends: Democrats are entering the final sprint to November with more optimism, especially in the Senate. But Republicans are confident they can gain a House majority.Midterm Data: Could the 2020 polling miss repeat itself? Will this election cycle really be different? Nate Cohn, The Times’s chief political analyst, looks at the data in his new newsletter.Republicans’ Abortion Struggles: Senator Lindsey Graham’s proposed nationwide 15-week abortion ban was intended to unite the G.O.P. before the November elections. But it has only exposed the party’s divisions.Democrats’ Dilemma: The party’s candidates have been trying to signal their independence from the White House, while not distancing themselves from President Biden’s base or agenda.Ms. Leavitt defeated Mr. Mowers, 33, a veteran of Mr. Trump’s State Department and of his 2016 campaign, who entered the race a year ago as the presumed Republican front-runner and benefited from an infusion of cash from an outside PAC aligned with Representative Kevin McCarthy, the Republican from California and minority leader, who is campaigning to become speaker.The candidates have few discernible differences on policy, and the race ultimately turned less on any ideological divide than on style and tone. It divided the House Republican leadership, exposing lingering rifts inside the party over Mr. Trump’s influence.Ms. Leavitt, who adopted Mr. Trump’s brash style and taste for inflammatory statements, was backed by a host of hard-right Republicans in Congress, most notably Representative Elise Stefanik of New York, the No. 3 Republican, who has also styled herself in the former president’s image. In her campaign, Ms. Leavitt unequivocally repeated Mr. Trump’s lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.Ms. Leavitt leaned into the attacks and the money pouring into the district to defeat her, positioning herself as the America First candidate fighting “the swamp” and claiming that if “establishment Republicans” were spending so much to defeat her then “I must be doing something right.” Tucker Carlson, the Fox News host, also elevated her as the anti-establishment candidate in the race.The Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC aligned with Mr. McCarthy, spent more than $1.3 million supporting Mr. Mowers. Another super PAC that supports moderate Republicans, Defending Main Street, spent over $1.2 million to attack Ms. Leavitt.Ms. Leavitt’s come-from-behind victory was also a win for Ms. Stefanik, who harbors ambitions to rise in the party. Her outside group E-Pac, which supports conservative female candidates, spent the legal maximum, $10,000, supporting Ms. Leavitt’s campaign. Ms. Stefanik also served as an informal adviser to Ms. Leavitt, who previously worked as her communications director.If Republicans win back control of the House of Representatives and Ms. Leavitt wins her seat in November, she could be a wild card for Mr. McCarthy in the mold of Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and other hard-right lawmakers who have sometimes proved a thorn in the minority leader’s side.But Ms. Leavitt enters the general election bruised by the bitter primary. Mr. Mowers’s campaign operated a website branding her “fake MAGA Karoline.” It accused her of having “never held a real job outside the swamp,” attending private school in Massachusetts and being registered to vote from the “penthouse” apartment where she lived in Washington before moving back to New Hampshire to run for office. And Ms. Leavitt’s brash style may make for an easier target for Democrats in a general election.“I think she is more beatable because Democrats can portray her as an inexperienced ideologue,” said David Wasserman, an election expert with the Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan newsletter that analyzes elections. More