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      What to Watch for in Tuesday’s Primary Elections

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      Voters in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Vermont and Connecticut head to the polls on Tuesday for primaries and for a special election in Minnesota that could further narrow the already tight Democratic majority in the House.Here is what to watch as the returns roll in:Another Trump-tinged brawl in Wisconsin.The expected Democratic primary fight for the right to challenge Senator Ron Johnson, a Republican, fizzled when one contender after another dropped out and endorsed the state’s lieutenant governor, Mandela Barnes, setting up a highly anticipated race for the fall.But Republicans are in fighting form over who will try to stop the re-election of Wisconsin’s Democratic governor, Tony Evers. Of four remaining candidates, Tim Michel, who has the endorsement of former President Donald J. Trump, and Rebecca Kleefisch, the choice of former Vice President Mike Pence, have the best shot.If you’re looking for ideological differences, it will be a strain. Ms. Kleefisch, who was lieutenant governor under Gov. Scott Walker, has said President Biden’s victory over Mr. Trump in Wisconsin was “rigged,” though repeated examinations of the nearly 21,000-vote margin have turned up nothing of the kind.Mr. Michels, an insurance executive for whom Mr. Trump held a rally on Friday, hasn’t ruled out supporting an effort in the Republican-dominated Legislature to overturn the 2020 election results altogether, though such a move would be symbolic at best. He has also promised to abolish the state’s elections commission, a bipartisan regulatory agency that administers elections — a move that Mr. Evers says is meant to give the gerrymandered Legislature the final say in election results.Both candidates have also taken a hard line against abortion, which, after the repeal of Roe v. Wade, became illegal in the state under a law enacted in 1849. State law now allows abortions only to save the life of the mother, and, during a televised town hall-style debate last week, each of the candidates said they would oppose any additional exceptions.Given the centrality of Wisconsin in recent presidential elections, and how Mr. Evers has portrayed himself as a Democratic bulwark against Republican efforts to alter the electoral system, much may rest on the outcome of the governor’s race.A Democratic fight for an open House seat.In Wisconsin’s only competitive House race, four Democrats are vying to take on Derrick Van Orden, a Republican, in the G.O.P.-leaning seat of Representative Ron Kind, a Democrat who is retiring. Mr. Kind has been a Republican target for years, and Mr. Van Orden came close to beating him in 2020.Then came Jan. 6, 2021, when Mr. Van Orden, an actor and retired member of the Navy SEALs, was in Washington to protest Mr. Biden’s victory. What exactly he was doing there is in dispute. Democrats say a Facebook photo proved he crossed into a restricted area as Trump supporters stormed the Capitol. Mr. Van Orden denied that and said he was merely in the nation’s capital “to stand for the integrity of our electoral system as a citizen.”State Senator Brad Pfaff faces three other Democrats vying to take on Derrick Van Orden, who has cleared the G.O.P. primary field in the race to succeed Representative Ron Kind, a Democrat.Lauren Justice for The New York TimesAll of his would-be Democratic opponents say Mr. Van Orden is singularly dangerous, but they are taking different tacks. Brad Pfaff, a Wisconsin state senator, is emphasizing his accumulated experience in politics and claiming the mantle of Mr. Kind’s style of centrism. His main rival, Deb McGrath, a former C.I.A. officer and Army captain, is taking a more liberal line and a more confrontational stance against Mr. Van Orden, a fellow veteran who she said “took the same oath that I did to protect and defend the Constitution,” but then went to Washington on Jan. 6.Whoever wins the primary can expect an uphill climb to keep the seat in Democratic hands.In Minnesota, a special election could narrow the Democratic edge in the House.The death from cancer of Representative Jim Hagedorn, a Republican, in February has given voters in his southern Minnesota district the chance to fill his seat just in time for the final big votes in an already narrowly divided House. In another year, the seat might have been more competitive. After all, it was represented by Tim Walz, now Minnesota’s Democratic governor, before Mr. Hagedorn was elected in 2018.But the district leans Republican, and Brad Finstad, a farmer who held an Agriculture Department post in the Trump administration, has the edge over his Democratic opponent, Jeff Ettinger. Mr. Ettinger, the former chief executive of Hormel Foods, is not making it easy on the Republicans: He has poured $900,000 of his own money into the race. Mr. Finstad, who won his May primary by just 427 votes, must unite the G.O.P. and turn out the vote in a state where the big-ticket race for governor does not have a competitive primary. More

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      In Wisconsin Primary, G.O.P. Voters Call for Decertifying 2020 Election

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      SHEBOYGAN, Wis. — When she started her campaign for governor of Wisconsin, former Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch, a Republican, acknowledged that President Biden had been legitimately elected.She soon backtracked. Eventually, she said the 2020 election had been “rigged” against former President Donald J. Trump. She sued the state’s election commission.But she will still not entertain the false notion that the election can somehow be overturned, a fantasy that has taken hold among many of the state’s Republicans, egged on by one of her opponents, Tim Ramthun.And for that, she is taking grief from voters in the closing days before Tuesday’s primary.At a campaign stop here last week, one voter, Donette Erdmann, pressed Ms. Kleefisch on her endorsement from former Vice President Mike Pence, whom many of Mr. Trump’s most devoted supporters blame for not blocking the counting of electoral votes on Jan. 6, 2021. “I was wondering if you’re going to resort to a RINO agenda or an awesome agenda,” Ms. Erdmann said, using a right-wing pejorative for disloyal Republicans.Ms. Kleefisch’s startled answer — “don’t make your mind up based on what somebody else is doing,” she warned, defending her “awesome agenda” — was not enough.“I’m going to go with Tim Ramthun,” Ms. Erdmann said afterward.Ms. Kleefisch’s predicament illustrates how Mr. Trump’s supporters have turned fury over his 2020 election loss and the misguided belief that its results can be nullified into central campaign issues in the Republican primary for governor in Wisconsin, a battleground state won by razor-thin margins in the last two presidential elections. G.O.P. candidates have been left choosing whether to tell voters they are wrong or to engage in the fiction that something can be done to reverse Mr. Trump’s defeat.Dozens of Republican voters and activists interviewed across the state in the last week said they wanted to see lawmakers decertify the state’s election results and claw back its 10 electoral votes, something that cannot legally be done. Nearly all of them pointed to a July decision from the conservative-leaning Wisconsin Supreme Court, which ruled that drop boxes used to collect ballots during the pandemic were illegal under state law, as evidence that hundreds of thousands of 2020 votes should be thrown out.“Everybody that I’ve talked to voted for Trump,” said Cyndy Deeg, a food industry worker from Larsen, Wis. “He should be reinstated and resume the position, because he never surrendered it.”Cyndy Deeg at a campaign event for Tim Michels in Kaukauna, Wis. Mr. Michels says that if elected, he will consider legislation to decertify the 2020 election results. Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesThere is no mechanism in Wisconsin law or federal law for a state to retract electoral votes or undo presidential election results two years after the contest, a fact Ms. Kleefisch finds herself explaining to voters, reporters and audiences of televised debates.Her top Wisconsin ally, former Gov. Scott Walker, said Republicans wanted to move on from discussing Mr. Trump’s defeat two years ago.“Across the nation, a great many people who love what the president did are starting to grow tired of hearing about 2020 and want to get focused on winning 2022 and 2024,” Mr. Walker said in an interview.But even as Ms. Kleefisch campaigns on an agenda of restricting voting access and eliminating the bipartisan Wisconsin Elections Commission, two Republican rivals promise to do that and more.Tim Michels, a wealthy construction magnate who has been criticized for sending his children to school in New York and Connecticut, where he owns a $17 million home, has been endorsed by Mr. Trump and says that if elected, he will consider legislation to decertify the 2020 results. Mr. Ramthun is the state’s leading proponent of decertification, but polling shows him trailing Ms. Kleefisch and Mr. Michels, who are in a tight race.The winner of the primary will face Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat who has vetoed more than a dozen voting bills passed by the Republican-controlled Legislature in the last two years. Because of the G.O.P.’s large majorities in the gerrymandered Legislature, a Republican governor would be given a wide berth to change how the state casts and counts votes in the 2024 presidential election.Mr. Michels, who has blanketed Wisconsin’s airwaves with advertisements reminding voters that he is Mr. Trump’s choice, has learned that running as the candidate backed by the former president comes with certain obligations.Mr. Michels has walked back recent statements that angered Trump supporters in Wisconsin.Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesTwice in recent weeks, he has walked back statements that departed from Trump-wing doctrine.First, Mr. Michels said at a debate that decertifying Wisconsin’s 2020 presidential election results — which Mr. Trump himself has repeatedly urged the top Republican in the State Assembly to do — would not be a priority in his administration. He soon corrected himself, saying that he was “very, very fired up about this election integrity issue” and pledging to consider signing a decertification bill if legislators passed one.Then, during a town hall-style debate on Monday night, Mr. Michels was asked if he would support a presidential bid by Mr. Trump in 2024.“I’m focused on this election right now,” he said. “I have made no commitments to any candidates in 2024.”Trump supporters saw the remarks as a betrayal of the former president, and the next day, Mr. Michels corrected himself.“The day President Trump announces that he’s going to run for president in 2024, if he does, I will support him and I will endorse him,” he told supporters Tuesday in Kaukauna.Mr. Michels declined to explain the flip-flop. “I talked about it last night,” he said after the Kaukauna stop, as his aides and supporters physically pushed reporters away from the candidate.Complicating matters for both Ms. Kleefisch and Mr. Michels is Mr. Ramthun, a state assemblyman whose campaign for governor is scoring low in the polls but held in high regard by the state’s most devoted conspiracy theorists. It was Mr. Ramthun, in February, who pioneered the decertification push after Robin Vos, the Assembly speaker, prevented his proposal for a “cyber-forensic audit” of the 2020 election from coming to a vote.Tim Ramthun, a state assemblyman running for governor, is the state’s leading proponent of decertifying the 2020 results.Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesMr. Ramthun’s campaign is infused with Christian nationalism, presenting him as a messianic figure who will lead the state to correct what he presents as the injudicious 2020 election results.“I’m what you’ve been looking for for decades,” he said at Monday’s debate.Mr. Vos has aggressively tried to restrict voting access in Wisconsin. Along with passing the bills Mr. Evers vetoed, last year he called for felony charges against five members of the state election commission for guidance they issued for voting during the pandemic that he said violated state election law. He also ordered a $1 million investigation into the 2020 election, led by a former State Supreme Court justice, that endorsed debunked conspiracy theories.But as with Ms. Kleefisch, Mr. Vos’s refusal to allow a decertification vote has exposed him to an attack — in his case, from a primary challenger, Adam Steen, who has no paid staff and barely enough money to print and mail his campaign literature.Mr. Steen, who was endorsed by Mr. Trump on Tuesday and was given a prime speaking slot at a Trump rally on Friday night in Waukesha, has built his campaign around decertifying the election and has also said he would seek to make contraception illegal.During a lunch of cheeseburgers and cheese curds, Mr. Steen said he would not have challenged Mr. Vos had Mr. Trump been re-elected.Adam Steen, right, has been backed by Donald J. Trump in his challenge to Robin Vos, the powerful Republican speaker of the State Assembly, who has resisted decertification calls.Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York Times“Without the knowledge that I have right now, I don’t think I would be running, because it wouldn’t have been exposed,” said Mr. Steen, who drives a Lincoln Town Car with a commemorative license plate from the 2017 presidential inauguration that says “TRUMP.” “I don’t think there was that catalyst to see those problems without him losing.”Mr. Vos declined to be interviewed. After Mr. Trump endorsed Mr. Steen, Mr. Vos issued a statement reiterating that decertification is impossible.The party’s grass-roots base is not convinced.In April, a poll from Marquette University Law School found that 39 percent of the state’s Republicans backed decertification. Since then, momentum for decertification has built, especially after the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s drop box decision. The chairwoman of the Assembly’s elections committee, along with dozens of the state’s county Republican Parties, have called for the election to be decertified.Dennis Gasper, the finance director of the Sheboygan County Republican Party, which last month passed a resolution calling for legislators to withdraw the state’s 10 Electoral College votes, said he believed elected officials and Ms. Kleefisch were resisting voters’ decertification calls to spare themselves grief in the news media.“You know, the press is very powerful, and if they would say what they thought, they would be held up as being a little bit crazy,” Mr. Gasper said.Ms. Kleefisch has faced pressure from Republican voters on election issues even though she is campaigning on an agenda of restricting voting access and eliminating the bipartisan Wisconsin Elections Commission. Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesMs. Kleefisch is left trying to navigate a party that, not long ago, considered her local royalty.A former Milwaukee television reporter, she was Gov. Scott Walker’s deputy when he led Wisconsin Republicans to revoke most public employees’ collective bargaining rights, a political earthquake in state politics that led to weeks of protests and eventually sapped Democrats’ power here for a generation.During two interviews last week, she dismissed the ideas that she had crossed Mr. Trump or that his endorsement of Mr. Michels would be decisive. She said she still supported the former president and praised his policies, though she would not commit to backing him in 2024.But she acknowledged that the issue most forcefully driving Wisconsin Republicans in the current post-Trump era is not grounded in reality.“I’m not saying that the passion is imaginary, I’m not saying that the mistrust is imaginary,” she said after her Sheboygan stop. “I’m saying the idea that you can disavow the Constitution and statutes and do things that are not articulated anywhere in law is a lost cause, and there’s no path that is articulated to do that.”Mr. Michels and Mr. Ramthun, she said, are playing with fire by telling voters they’ll deliver something impossible.“It’s irresponsible to pander,” she said. “You’ve got to tell the truth.” More

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      In Senate Battle, Democrats Defy Biden’s Low Standing (for Now)

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      “The billion-dollar question,” as one Republican pollster put it, is whether Democratic candidates in crucial Senate races can continue to outpace the president’s unpopularity.PHOENIX — In a Senate split 50-50, Democrats on the campaign trail and in Congress have zero margin for error as the party tries to navigate a hostile political environment defined chiefly by President Biden’s albatross-like approval ratings.But with the Senate battlefield map mostly set after primaries in Arizona and Missouri this past week, Democratic candidates are outperforming Mr. Biden — locked in tight races or ahead in almost every key contest.In Washington, Senate Democrats are racing to bolster their position, pressing for a vote as soon as Monday on a sweeping legislative package that represents their last, best sales pitch before the midterms to stay in power.The history of midterms and unpopular presidents, however, is working against them. With the fall election less than 100 days away, the defining question of the struggle for the Senate is how long Democrats in crucial races can continue to outpace Mr. Biden’s unpopularity — and by how much.“That’s the billion-dollar question,” said Robert Blizzard, a Republican pollster who has studied the pattern of how a president’s support has affected Senate races over the last decade. His findings: Precious few candidates can outrun the president by more than a half-dozen percentage points — a worrisome fact for Democrats when Mr. Biden’s approval has fallen below 40 percent nationally.“The president’s approval rating acts as a weight on their party’s nominee,” Mr. Blizzard said. “Gravity is going to apply at some point.”So far, Senate Democrats have been buoyed by a cash edge, some strong candidates and the fact that Republicans have nominated a series of first-time candidates — Herschel Walker in Georgia, Dr. Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania, Blake Masters in Arizona — who have struggled to find their footing, have faced questions about their past and have generally been unable to keep the 2022 campaign focused on unhappiness with Democratic rule in Washington.Republican strategists involved in Senate races, granted anonymity to speak candidly, say that those three candidates — all of whom were endorsed by Donald J. Trump in the primaries — are falling short of expectations.President Biden and congressional Democrats are hoping that their climate and tax legislation can energize their party’s frustrated base.Oliver Contreras for The New York TimesDemocratic strategists hope the domestic package of climate and tax policies they are aiming to push through Congress, along with the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, could reinvigorate a demoralized party base that is particularly displeased with Mr. Biden. But Republicans insist that passage of major legislation, as happened with the 2010 Affordable Care Act, could galvanize their side as well and could further intertwine Democratic senators with Mr. Biden in the minds of voters.The race for control of the Senate is occurring chiefly in more than a half-dozen presidential swing states, making Mr. Biden’s approval ratings all the more relevant. Republicans need to pick up only a single seat to take control, and four incumbent Democrats face tough races. Three Republican retirements have created opportunities for Democrats, and one Republican senator is running for re-election in Wisconsin, a state that Mr. Biden won narrowly.On Tuesday, Republicans scored one success, averting disaster in Missouri when voters rejected the comeback Senate bid of Eric Greitens, the scandal-plagued former governor, in favor of Eric Schmitt, the state attorney general, who is now considered the heavy favorite.In the best-case scenario for Democrats, they maintain control or even net a couple of seats if the environment shifts; in the worst case, support for Mr. Biden collapses, and Democrats lose roughly half a dozen seats, including some in bluer states like Colorado and Washington.Understand the Aug. 2 Primary ElectionsWhile the Trump wing of the Republican Party flexed its muscle, voters in deep-red Kansas delivered a loud warning to the G.O.P. on abortion rights.Takeaways: Tuesday’s results suggest this year’s midterms are a trickier environment for uncompromising conservatives than Republicans once believed. Here’s what we learned.Kansas Abortion Vote: In the first election test since Roe v. Wade was overturned, Kansas voters resoundingly decided against removing the right to abortion from the State Constitution, a major victory for the abortion rights movement in a reliably conservative state.Trump’s Grip on G.O.P.: Primary victories in Arizona and Michigan for allies of former President Donald J. Trump reaffirmed his continued influence over the Republican Party.Winners and Losers: See a rundown of the most notable results.For now, Republicans see Mr. Biden as their not-so-secret weapon. Some ads are literally morphing Senate Democrats’ faces into his, part of a brutal planned blitz of ads to yoke incumbents to their pro-Biden voting records.“What we call the 97 percent club — that they voted for this 97 percent of the time,” said Steven Law, who leads the main Senate Republican super PAC, which has $141 million in television ads reserved this fall.In an ad produced by the National Republican Senatorial Committee, an image of Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado slowly turns into Mr. Biden.National Republican Senate CommitteeWith a strong job report on Friday, long-stalled legislation moving and gas prices on the decline — albeit from record highs — it is possible that Mr. Biden’s support could tick upward.In contrast to the House, where Republicans have gleefully been talking up a coming red wave, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, has sounded more like a trench warfare general, lowering expectations Wednesday on Fox News.“When the Senate race smoke clears, we’re likely to have a very, very close Senate still, with either us up slightly or the Democrats up slightly,” he said.In the four states with the most vulnerable Democratic incumbents — Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and New Hampshire — survey data from Morning Consult shows a breathtaking decline in Mr. Biden’s approval ratings since early 2021. His net approval ratings in those states have plunged by 27, 20, 27 and 24 percentage points. Yet all four Democratic senators maintain their own favorable ratings.“Voters are dealing with the Democratic candidates separately from President Biden,” said Geoff Garin, a Democratic pollster. “We see the incumbents’ ratings going up even in places where the president’s numbers are going down, which is a very unusual midterm dynamic.”The summer of ‘bed-wetting’Some Democrats in the most competitive races have also developed unique brands that could protect them.In Arizona, Senator Mark Kelly is a former astronaut and the husband of former Representative Gabby Giffords, who survived a shooting in 2011. In Georgia, Senator Raphael Warnock, who utilized an affable beagle in his last race, is well known as the pastor of Atlanta’s historic Ebenezer Baptist Church. In Pennsylvania, the Democratic nominee is John Fetterman, the 6-foot-8, tattooed lieutenant governor, who has leaned into his not-your-typical-politician look.“The Democrats do have some good candidates,” conceded Corry Bliss, a veteran Republican strategist. “But the key point is very simple: If Joe Biden has an approval rating in the 30s, what Raphael Warnock says or does is irrelevant. Because he’s going to lose. Period.”Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia is seen as a relatively strong candidate, and his Republican opponent, Herschel Walker, has struggled at times on the campaign trail.Nicole Buchanan for The New York TimesRepublicans, Mr. Bliss said, were suffering through a cyclical “summer of bed-wetting” before a fall landslide.But some Republicans worry that their party has picked some worse-than-generic nominees in important states.Mr. Walker, a former football star who avoided primary debates, has been dogged in Georgia by his past exaggerations and falsehoods about his background, as well as the emergence of children he fathered with whom he is not in regular contact. A team of national operatives has been dispatched to steady his campaign.Dr. Oz, the television personality, has struggled to consolidate Republican support after a bruising primary as Democrats hammer his recent New Jersey residency. Polls show Mr. Fetterman ahead, even though he has not held a public event since a stroke in mid-May.Dr. Mehmet Oz has ceded the digital terrain of his Pennsylvania campaign entirely to John Fetterman when it comes to paid ads.Scott McIntyre for The New York TimesMr. Fetterman’s campaign has shifted its efforts almost entirely online, where Dr. Oz’s campaign has ceded the digital terrain when it comes to paid ads. Since May 1, Dr. Oz has spent $0 on Facebook and about $22,000 on Google; Mr. Fetterman has spent roughly $1 million in that time, company records show.Still, the political environment has Republicans bullish on holding Senate seats in North Carolina and Florida. And in Wisconsin, where Senator Ron Johnson is up for re-election, the party sees Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, for whom Democrats just cleared their primary field, as overly liberal for the state.Some are even hopeful that Washington and Colorado could emerge as competitive. In the latter state, Democrats spent millions of dollars unsuccessfully trying to prevent Joe O’Dea, a moderate businessman, from becoming the Republican nominee.“I appreciate the advertising,” Mr. O’Dea said in an interview. “It got my name recognition up.”The 2022 dynamics in the desertNowhere are the Senate dynamics clearer than in Arizona, a state Mr. Biden flipped in 2020 but where polls show he is now unpopular.Even before Mr. Masters won the Republican nomination on Tuesday, he had set out to tie Mr. Kelly to Mr. Biden. In a speech to a pro-Trump gathering in downtown Phoenix on Monday, Mr. Masters slashed at Mr. Kelly’s moderate reputation and blamed him for approving spending that “caused this inflation.”“What Biden and Harris and Mark Kelly are doing to this country — it makes me sick,” Mr. Masters said.Mr. Kelly, though, has used his financial advantage — he had $24.8 million in the bank as of mid-July compared with $1.5 million for Mr. Masters — to run television ads for months positioning himself as a get-things-done centrist who whacks oil companies and his own party alike.And in Mr. Masters, Republicans have a 36-year-old nominee who faces questions about his past comments and positions, including calling a notorious domestic terrorist, the Unabomber, an underrated thinker; questioning the United States’ involvement in World War II; and expressing openness to privatizing Social Security in a retiree-filled state.A recent poll for the super PAC supporting Mr. Masters showed that a majority of voters strongly disapproved of Mr. Biden; Mr. Masters trailed by five percentage points.The survey suggested that Mr. Kelly’s chief vulnerability was his perceived proximity to Mr. Biden’s agenda, though the Masters campaign will most likely need outside groups to pay to make that case.Senator Mark Kelly has considerably more money than Mr. Masters.Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times“I’ve got to raise money,” Mr. Masters said in a brief interview this week. “But what I’ve really got to just do is tell the truth. Tell the truth about his far-left voting record.”Andy Surabian, a Republican strategist advising a super PAC supporting Mr. Masters, suggested that focusing on Democrats was going to be critical for all Republicans. “You’re going to see all the incumbent Democrat senators who vote with Biden nearly 100 percent of the time get ruthlessly tied to those votes,” he said.But Christina Freundlich, a Democratic consultant, said the “messier” slate of Republicans like Mr. Masters was making the 2022 campaign about both parties.Ms. Freundlich, who worked on Terry McAuliffe’s unsuccessful bid for Virginia governor last year against Glenn Youngkin, a vest-clad Republican businessman, said the newly elevated Senate G.O.P. candidates were no Glenn Youngkins: “They have a lot more fringe views.”Mr. Law, the Republican super PAC leader, said his group would re-evaluate the Senate landscape throughout August, looking for candidates with “enough money to connect directly with voters — and message discipline to focus on the issues that resonate.”“Not every candidate can do that,” he said pointedly.His group has booked $51.5 million in Arizona and Georgia television ads starting in September, though Mr. Law did not commit to those full reservations. “We have more time to assess both of those,” he said, raising questions about the Masters campaign by dint of omission. “In Georgia, in particular, I’m seeing very positive signs of developments in the Walker camp.”As in Georgia, national operatives are now reinforcing the Masters team, including a new general consultant as well as polling and media teams.Shane Goldmacher More

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      Dan Newhouse, Who Voted to Impeach Trump, Wins Washington Primary

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      Representative Dan Newhouse of Washington, one of 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach President Donald J. Trump for inciting the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, will advance to the November general election to seek a fifth term after finishing in the top two in a crowded primary, according to The Associated Press. He will face Doug White, a Democratic businessman, who narrowly trailed him as of Friday night.Under Washington election laws, the top two candidates in the primary, regardless of party, advance to the general election. The race in Washington’s Fourth Congressional District featured seven Republicans, including Mr. Newhouse, and one Democrat, Mr. White.Mr. Newhouse, 66, drew the ire of Mr. Trump and local Republicans after supporting his second impeachment.A hops and alfalfa farmer, Mr. Newhouse had been vice chairman of Mr. Trump’s 2020 re-election campaign in Washington State. But after the impeachment vote, six Republican county chairmen in his district called on him to resign.Mr. Newhouse — who, like his father, served as a state legislator — resisted those demands, saying he remained a conservative Republican and urging the party instead to focus on holding the Biden administration accountable.He was supported by the Defending Main Street super PAC, which ran an advertising campaign worth about a half-million dollars, according to AdImpact, an advertisement tracking firm.The super PAC’s most-watched TV spot attacked Mr. Newhouse’s Trump-endorsed challenger, Loren Culp, over an unpaid corporate tax bill and accused him of “padding his own pockets” with campaign donations.Mr. Culp, a former police chief of Republic, Wash., made disputing Mr. Trump’s defeat in 2020 one of his top campaign issues, and also pledged to dissolve the Education Department and fight vaccine mandates. He was the Republican nominee in the 2020 governor’s race, a contest he never conceded despite losing to Gov. Jay Inslee by more than 13 percentage points.Mr. Culp had raised just $310,700 as of July 13, according to campaign finance reports. That was a fraction of the $1.6 million collected by Mr. Newhouse and also trailed another Republican, Jerrod Sessler, who raised $508,900.Mr. Sessler, a Navy veteran and former NASCAR driver, invested more than $350,000 of his own money in the race. He has said he attended Mr. Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally on Jan. 6 and marched to the Capitol with thousands of other supporters, but didn’t enter the building.“I’m running because our rights, right now, for the people alive today in America, are being stolen,” Mr. Sessler told The Spokesman-Review. “Literally. I think the 2020 election was the biggest heist in world history.”Mr. White, who raised $390,700, has described himself as a moderate politician who was motivated to seek federal office after the Capitol riot. Running in the heavily Republican district, Mr. White didn’t mention his party affiliation in his lone TV spot, which he used instead to promote a platform that included reducing costs, reforming immigration and “making our communities safer.”Other Republican candidates were Corey Gibson, a marketing executive; Benancio Garcia III, a former state Agriculture Department loan specialist; Jacek Kobiesa, a mechanical engineer; and Brad Klippert, a state representative and deputy in the Benton County Sheriff’s Office. More

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      Dick Cheney Excoriates Trump in an Ad for His Daughter Liz Cheney

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      A new advertisement for Representative Liz Cheney’s re-election campaign features a leader of a bygone era in the Republican Party excoriating the leader of the current one.“In our nation’s 246-year history, there has never been an individual that was a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump,” Ms. Cheney’s father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, said in the ad, released less than two weeks before Wyoming’s primary elections on Aug. 16.He praised Ms. Cheney, who has become a pariah among Republicans for her criticism of Mr. Trump and her work as vice chairwoman of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, for “honoring her oath to the Constitution when so many in our party are too scared to do so.”The one-minute ad landed with a bang Thursday on social media, where a single copy racked up seven million views. But in Wyoming, where Mr. Trump won 69.9 percent of the vote in 2020 — more than in any other state — it is highly unlikely to sway any significant number of voters in Ms. Cheney’s favor.For decades before Mr. Trump transformed the party, Mr. Cheney was one of the most influential Republicans in the nation: He was the White House chief of staff under President Gerald Ford, secretary of defense under President George H.W. Bush and vice president under President George W. Bush, a position in which he wielded uncommon power and was an architect of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. But the Republican Party of 2022 bears little resemblance to the party he held power in.At least six of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Mr. Trump will be leaving Congress in January: Four of them are retiring and two were defeated in primaries, with another two still awaiting primary results several days after voting ended in Washington State. It would take an astonishing political turnaround for Ms. Cheney to avoid joining them. In a Casper Star-Tribune poll last month, she trailed her opponent, Harriet Hageman, by 22 percentage points.In light of those numbers, the ad, like many of Ms. Cheney’s public statements as a leader of the Jan. 6 committee, seemed more of an appeal to history than one to the electorate.Mr. Trump “tried to steal the last election using lies and violence to keep himself in power after the voters had rejected him,” Mr. Cheney said in the ad. “He’s a coward. A real man wouldn’t lie to his supporters. He lost his election and he lost big. I know it, he knows it, and, deep down, I think most Republicans know it.”Of his daughter, he continued, “There is nothing more important she will ever do than lead the effort to make sure Donald Trump is never again near the Oval Office — and she will succeed.” More

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      Carlina Rivera and Yuh-Line Niou Rise In Race for NY’s 10th District

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      Two months ago, the megawatt contest for a rare open House seat in New York City seemed destined to be shaped by one of a handful of nationally known candidates.There was the former New York City mayor, an ex-congresswoman, a former federal prosecutor who helped impeach Donald J. Trump, and even a sitting congressman from the exurbs.But with the Aug. 23 primary less than three weeks away, the contours of the race have been redefined. Two women with local bona fides but little national stature have surged toward the front of the pack, upending early conventional wisdom and scrambling the race.In recent public and internal polling for the Democratic primary, Carlina Rivera, a councilwoman from Manhattan, and Yuh-Line Niou, a Manhattan assemblywoman, are running neck-and-neck with the two well-resourced men considered heavyweights: Representative Mondaire Jones, a recent transplant to the district, and Daniel Goldman, the impeachment investigator, who has never held elective office.Ms. Rivera and Ms. Niou have one particularly compelling advantage: they already represent parts of the congressional district, and have proven bases of support among voters and Democratic groups in the area — a likely boon in a late-summer contest where voter turnout and interest are expected to be low.Ms. Niou, speaking at a recent candidates forum in Brooklyn, is backed by the Working Families Party.Hilary Swift for The New York TimesIndeed, in a brief canvas on Thursday of would-be voters in Ms. Rivera’s district on the Lower East Side, the vast majority said they were not following the race. Campaign signs were almost nonexistent — save a couple for Mr. Goldman.But Wilfredo Lopez, a 73-year-old resident walking by Hamilton Fish Park, was an exception. He said he was voting for Ms. Rivera because “she’s from the neighborhood and she’s for the neighborhood.”On the surface, Ms. Rivera and Ms. Niou have similarities; both are 30-something women of color with far-left roots.When she was first running for Council, Ms. Rivera, a 38-year-old Lower East Side native of Puerto Rican descent, was a dues-paying member of the Democratic Socialists of America; her campaign said that she attended only one meeting.New York’s 2022 ElectionsAs prominent Democratic officials seek to defend their records, Republicans see opportunities to make inroads in general election races.N.Y. Governor’s Race: This year, for the first time in over 75 years, the state ballot appears destined to offer only two choices: Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, and Representative Lee Zeldin, a Republican. Here is why.10th Congressional District: Representative Mondaire Jones, a first-term Democratic congressman who faces a highly competitive race in the redrawn district, has won the endorsement of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.11th Congressional District: Recent Supreme Court rulings on abortion and guns are complicating the re-election bid of Representative Nicole Malliotakis, New York City’s lone Republican House member.State Senate: New district maps are causing some incumbents to run in neighboring districts, forcing them to campaign in unfamiliar territory and contemplate new living arrangements.She has since tacked toward the center, resisting the anti-development predilections of the left and defining herself as a pragmatic progressive, as someone who gets things done.Ms. Rivera has nonetheless won the support of the progressive Brooklyn political establishment — the borough president, Antonio Reynoso; Nydia Velazquez, the congresswoman whose current district overlaps with the newly redistricted one; and several unions — even as she has also more aggressively courted the real estate sector.Ms. Rivera has been endorsed by Representative Nydia Velazquez, whose current district overlaps with the new contours of the 10th District in Brooklyn.Kirsten Luce for The New York TimesMs. Niou, 39, has never been a D.S.A, member, but has retained her far left posture, winning the support of left-leaning organizations like the Working Families Party and the Jewish Vote, the political arm of Jews For Racial and Economic Justice. Since she was elected to the New York State Assembly in 2016, Ms. Niou has focused on combating racial discrimination and sexual harassment. In the past six years, she has been the prime sponsor of 15 bills that became law, according to her campaign, including one establishing a toll-free hotline for complaints of workplace sexual harassment.During the tail end of Andrew Cuomo’s tenure as governor, Ms. Niou could sometimes be found sparring with him and his staff. After The New York Times reported on a $25,000-a-couple fund-raiser hosted by the governor during the legislative session, Ms. Niou and two colleagues held a news conference to express their outrage. Mr. Cuomo’s spokesman responded by calling her and her colleagues “[expletive] idiots.”During this race, Ms. Niou has assiduously courted the left-most flank of the Democratic Party, even expressing support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement — a decision that may cost her votes in a district with a substantial Jewish population.John Mollenkopf, a political science professor at the CUNY Graduate Center who analyzes voter data, estimates that at least 16 percent of the primary voters in the 10th Congressional District will have Jewish surnames. He said those voters might take issue with Ms. Niou’s B.D.S. stance, “partly because there are other quite acceptable candidates to center-left Jewish voters in the race.”Ms. Niou’s and Ms. Rivera’s national policy stances are similar: They both champion federal abortion rights; the Green New Deal plan advanced by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez; and more liberal immigration and refugee policies.But at the local level, pronounced distinctions have emerged.Ms. Rivera staunchly backs the ongoing effort to tear down and then rebuild East River Park at a higher elevation, to make the neighborhoods it abuts less vulnerable to storms like Hurricane Sandy. Protesters booed Ms. Rivera for that stance at a recent environmental forum, but on Monday she won the backing of the forum’s host — the New York League of Conservation Voters.Ms. Niou took issue with the plan to make the area more resilient.Ms. Niou and Representative Mondaire Jones, embracing after the candidates forum, are among the more left-leaning contenders in the primary contest.Hilary Swift for The New York Times“The city and the way that the city operated raise a lot of questions for me,” Ms. Niou said.In the City Council, Ms. Rivera has acted as the first primary sponsor on 25 pieces of legislation that have become law, including a bill requiring restaurants give bathroom access to delivery workers.Ms. Rivera also supported a bid to build low-income senior housing in a wealthy neighborhood’s community garden, a project codeveloped by Habitat for Humanity. Ms. Niou sued to stop the development, alienating the former local councilwoman, Margaret Chin, who has endorsed Ms. Rivera instead.“I’m so disappointed in her,” Ms. Chin said of Ms. Niou.“Normally I would support an Asian woman, we need more representation, but in this case,” Ms. Chin said, trailing off.Ms. Rivera has also backed a bid to allow more density, including affordable housing, in the Manhattan neighborhoods of SoHo and NoHo, an initiative Ms. Niou says she had doubts about.This year’s unusually messy redistricting process fundamentally reshaped the 10th District. Where the district once stretched from the Upper West Side of Manhattan to Bensonhurst Brooklyn, the new map makes it more compact, encompassing only Lower Manhattan and the northwest precincts of Brooklyn.Jerry Nadler, the congressman now representing the district, opted to run in the 12th District against a longtime colleague, Representative Carolyn Maloney, after his Upper West Side home base was moved there. The result was a rare open seat in the heart of New York City, and a political gold rush that drew a dozen or so candidates, including Mr. Jones, the congressman who currently represents Rockland County and parts of Westchester.Mr. Jones and Mr. Goldman are by far the race’s best-resourced candidates. At the end of June, Mr. Jones had $2.8 million to spend. Mr. Goldman had $1 million, though he also has a vast reservoir of personal wealth to draw from and told NY1 he intends to use it. He has up to $253 million in personal wealth, according to Bloomberg News.“I am extremely grateful for the opportunities I’ve had, and that is why I’ve committed my life to public service,” Mr. Goldman said in a statement. “I’m running for Congress to continue that service, to build a better future for all of our children, and to give everyone the opportunity to succeed.”His financial disclosures with the House, which cover an 18-month period ending June 30, indicate that he has a line of credit from Goldman Sachs worth up to $50 million, and hundreds of investments, including in weapons manufacturer Sturm, Ruger & Company; in oil companies, including Chevron and Exxon Mobil; and even in Fox Corporation.A spokesman for Mr. Goldman said he will put his assets into a blind trust upon entering Congress, as he has done in the past, and that he has such a wide breadth of investments because his portfolio is structured to mirror the S&P 500. “How the hell can this guy claim to believe our democracy faces a five-alarm fire, and to care about public safety, when he’s got investments in Fox News and deadly gun manufacturers?” Mr. Jones said in a statement. (On Friday, after the article had published online, Mr. Goldman’s spokesman said that the former prosecutor no longer holds any stock in Sturm, Ruger and Company.)Even so, Mr. Goldman’s paid role as a legal analyst on MSNBC, and his time as an impeachment prosecutor have won him supporters, including Joan Manzioni, a 67-year-old restaurateur who on Thursday said she was considering voting for Mr. Goldman or Ms. Holtzman.Mr. Goldman and Mr. Jones are the only two candidates with television ads, according to Ad Impact, an advertising analytics firm. As of Thursday, Mr. Goldman had spent $2.2 million on television, while Mr. Jones had spent $684,000.The third presumed heavyweight, former Mayor Bill de Blasio, dropped out of the race in July, citing his inability to sway voters. Elizabeth Holtzman, the former congresswoman, is doing better than expected in some of the polls, but is far behind in fund-raising and is combating doubts about her age, 80.Ms. Rivera trails two Democratic rivals in fund-raising, but has $150,000 more than Ms. Niou.Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesAs of late June, Ms. Niou had $202,000 on hand; Ms. Rivera had $354,000. In an effort to compete financially with Mr. Jones and Mr. Goldman, Ms. Rivera has raised money from major developers, including the CEO of Two Trees, which is based in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Dumbo. In recent weeks, she has reached out to at least two other executives in the real estate industry for donations, according to recipients of her outreach.And, in apparent expectation of super PAC support, she has also put a so-called “red box” on her website, which candidates use to communicate indirectly with super PACs. More

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      Tennessee Eighth Congressional District Primary Election Results 2022

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      Source: Election results and race calls from The Associated Press. The Times estimates the number of remaining votes based on historic turnout data and reporting from The Associated Press. These are only estimates and they may not be informed by official reports from election officials.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, Véronique Brossier, 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, Vivian Li, Rebecca Lieberman, Ilana Marcus, Jaymin Patel, Rachel Shorey, Charlie Smart, Umi Syam, Urvashi Uberoy, Isaac White and Christine Zhang. Reporting by Maya King; production by Amanda Cordero and Jessica White; editing by Wilson Andrews, Kenan Davis, Amy Hughes and Ben Koski. More