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      Five Takeaways From Tuesday’s Elections

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      The biggest question heading into Tuesday’s primaries was whether Democrats would be successful in guiding Republican voters to choose weak nominees for the general election.In Illinois, Democrats’ biggest and most sustained investment succeeded, but in Colorado, Republicans chose candidates who didn’t have nominal primary support from across the aisle, setting up several general elections that are expected to be very competitive.Elsewhere, far-right candidates remade Republican politics down the ballot in Illinois, while incumbents who aren’t facing ethics inquiries coasted to victories. And a special election in Nebraska was far closer than anyone expected.Here are five takeaways from Tuesday’s contests across eight states.Democratic meddling in G.O.P. primaries produces results … sometimes.Democrats have determined that it’s much easier to win a general election if you can handpick your opponent — especially if that opponent happens to be a far-right Republican who can easily be painted as an extremist.So in Colorado and Illinois, they tried to help those sorts of candidates.Such meddling isn’t a new phenomenon — it rose to prominence in the 2012 Missouri Senate race — but Democrats have used the risky strategy this year to prop up a series of underfunded far-right candidates running against Republican establishment favorites who were seen as a greater threat to Democrats in November.On Tuesday, Democrats learned that it’s possible to elevate a flawed Republican if he already has a functioning campaign, but that they can’t make something out of nearly nothing.In Illinois, Gov. J.B. Pritzker, the billionaire Democrat, spent $35 million to stop Mayor Richard C. Irvin of Aurora, a moderate Republican, while promoting Darren Bailey, a far-right state senator who once vowed to kick Chicago out of the state.Mr. Pritzker at a deli in Chicago on Tuesday. He backed Mr. Bailey in the belief that he would be a weaker general-election candidate than Mayor Richard C. Irvin of Aurora, a moderate Republican.Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesMr. Bailey had been campaigning for more than a year and had his own billionaire patron, the conservative megadonor Richard Uihlein. Mr. Pritzker did such a good job stamping out Mr. Irvin that the mayor placed a distant third, more than 40 percentage points behind Mr. Bailey.“Tonight, J.B. Pritzker won the Republican primary for governor here in Illinois,” Mr. Irvin said in a concession speech. “He spent a historic amount of money to choose his own Republican opponent, and I wish Darren Bailey well.”Key Results in New York’s 2022 Primary ElectionsOn June 28, New York held several primaries for statewide office, including for governor and lieutenant governor. Some State Assembly districts also had primaries.Kathy Hochul: With her win in the Democratic, the governor of New York took a crucial step toward winning a full term, fending off a pair of spirited challengers.Antonio Delgado: Ms. Hochul’s second in command and running mate also scored a convincing victory over his nearest Democratic challenger, Ana María Archila.Lee Zeldin: The congressman from Long Island won the Republican primary for governor, advancing to what it’s expected to be a grueling general election.N.Y. State Assembly: Long-tenured incumbents were largely successful in fending off a slate of left-leaning insurgents in the Democratic primary.But the same tactics didn’t work in Colorado, where a shadowy Democratic group spent nearly $4 million attacking Joe O’Dea, a construction executive who supports some abortion rights, while trying to aid Ron Hanks, a far-right state representative who didn’t spend anything on television advertising.Mr. Hanks’s threadbare campaign raised just $124,000 — a pittance that in many places can barely pay for a competitive state legislative race. Democrats couldn’t help lift Mr. Hanks to victory if he couldn’t help himself.Mr. O’Dea now figures to give Colorado Democrats what they feared: a competitive general-election contest against Senator Michael Bennet, who has privately told people his race will be difficult.Colorado Republicans reject two election deniers.Not since Georgia’s elections over a month ago have Republican primary voters summarily rejected a slate of 2020 election deniers — but those contests were colored by former President Donald J. Trump’s failed quest for vengeance against Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.In two statewide races in Colorado, Republicans had a choice between a candidate who accepted the outcome of the 2020 election and one or more whose campaigns were animated by their rejection of the legitimacy of Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory.In both cases, voters chose the candidate tethered to reality.In the Senate race, Mr. O’Dea accepted the results of the election, while Mr. Hanks predicated his campaign on denying them. In a video announcing his campaign last year, Mr. Hanks shot a gun at what appeared to be a photocopier labeled as a Dominion voting machine.Joe O’Dea, a Republican who supports some abortion rights and accepts the outcome of the 2020 election, won his party’s nomination for Senate in Colorado.David Zalubowski/Associated PressAnd in the Republican primary for secretary of state, Tina Peters, the Mesa County clerk, who is under indictment in relation to a scheme to find evidence that the 2020 election was fraudulent, placed third in a contest in which she was the best-known candidate.Ms. Peters and the second-place finisher, Mike O’Donnell, who has also promoted 2020 falsehoods, combined to win a majority of the vote, but both placed well behind Pam Anderson, a longtime local election official.The Colorado races are hardly emblematic of Republican voters nationwide. In Illinois, Mr. Bailey and Representative Mary Miller, who both refused to accept the 2020 results, strolled to victory in their primaries. New York Republicans gave nearly two-thirds of their primary vote for governor to Representative Lee Zeldin and Andrew Giuliani, who have also cast doubt on the results.It’s Darren Bailey’s party in Illinois.Mr. Bailey, the newly minted Republican nominee for governor of Illinois, didn’t just trounce a field of better-funded candidates (with a lot of help from Mr. Pritzker). His coattails extended down the ballot to lift an array of like-minded conservatives.Throughout Central and Southern Illinois, signs read “Trump-Bailey-Miller,” highlighting the alliance between the former president, Mr. Bailey and Ms. Miller. The congresswoman, who apologized last year after making an approving reference to Hitler, won her primary against Representative Rodney Davis after the two were drawn into a district together.Down the ballot, Mr. Bailey’s personal lawyer and traveling campaign companion, Thomas DeVore, was leading the Republican primary for attorney general over Steve Kim, a former staff member for Gov. Jim Edgar.Supporters of Mr. Bailey at his election night party in Effingham, Ill. Jim Vondruska/Getty ImagesA few of Mr. Bailey’s picks in state legislative races defeated rivals backed by campaign cash from Kenneth Griffin, the Chicago billionaire and chief benefactor of the Illinois Republican Party.One of Mr. Bailey’s chosen candidates for the Illinois House, Bill Hauter, a pediatric anesthesiologist at a hospital in Peoria, campaigned on a platform opposing public health restrictions to stem the coronavirus pandemic.Early Wednesday, Dr. Hauter was up by double digits in his open-seat primary for a Central Illinois district against a candidate funded in part by millions of dollars Mr. Griffin spread across the state to support moderate, establishment-friendly candidates in down-ballot primaries.“I’m up against a lot of money,” Dr. Hauter said in an interview at a Bailey campaign stop last week in Lincoln, Ill. “But money is not the motivation. It’s not message, it’s not supporters, it’s not enthusiasm. It’s not all these things that you need.”It still requires special circumstances to oust an incumbent.In New York, Gov. Kathy Hochul fended off two challengers. Her late-in-the-game lieutenant governor, Antonio Delgado, also coasted.And in other states, several members of Congress who were thought to be endangered prevailed:Representative Michael Guest of Mississippi, a Republican who was dogged by his vote for a commission to investigate the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol;Representative Blake Moore of Utah, a Republican who allied himself with Senator Mitt Romney and Representative Liz Cheney, who are now apostates for much of their party;Representative Danny K. Davis of Illinois, a Democrat who narrowly held off a spirited campaign from a progressive challenger.Republican senators in Oklahoma and Utah also had little trouble winning renomination.But there are lines voters won’t let candidates cross. Representative Steven Palazzo, a Mississippi Republican, lost a runoff after the Office of Congressional Ethics concluded he had misused campaign money, including directing $80,000 toward a waterfront home he was trying to sell.Mr. Palazzo fell to Mike Ezell, a sheriff.Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York, center, after easily winning her Democratic primary on Tuesday.Desiree Rios/The New York TimesIn New York, Ms. Hochul was never believed to be in danger against her two challengers, one more liberal and one more conservative than she is.But Mr. Delgado’s victory was less assured. He faced a robust challenge from Ana María Archila, a former immigrant rights activist who made her name confronting Senator Jeff Flake in a Senate elevator during the Supreme Court confirmation hearings for Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh.Mr. Delgado, who joined Ms. Hochul’s administration in May after his predecessor resigned in scandal, still took about 60 percent of the vote in a three-way race.Surprisingly close, but no cigar, for Nebraska Democrats.Few outside the Cornhusker State paid much attention to the special election to fill the House seat vacated by former Representative Jeff Fortenberry, who resigned after he was convicted of lying to federal investigators. It was widely assumed that Mike Flood, a Republican state senator, would coast in Tuesday’s special election and again in November.But the combination of a low-turnout contest, an under-the-radar effort from local Democrats and anger over the Supreme Court’s decision last week ending the constitutional right to an abortion led the Democrat in the race, State Senator Patty Pansing Brooks, to come within a few points of Mr. Flood in a district Mr. Trump carried by double digits in 2020.“Nebraskans turned out to send a very loud and clear message that access to abortion services must be legal and protected,” said Jane Kleeb, the Nebraska Democratic Party chairwoman. “We can and will win in red states.”Mr. Flood and Ms. Pansing Brooks will face off again in November, and the incumbent will again be a heavy favorite. More

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      Illinois Governor’s Race Shows G.O.P.’s Lurch to Right (With Nudge From Left)

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      Republican voters in Illinois nominated a conservative hard-liner for governor on Tuesday, lifting State Senator Darren Bailey out from a bruising and costly primary that saw spending from three dueling billionaires — including the current Democratic governor, who spent tens of millions of dollars to meddle in the Republican contest.Mr. Bailey defeated Mayor Richard C. Irvin of Aurora, the moderate Black mayor of the state’s second-biggest city, in a race that captured the ongoing power struggle inside the Republican Party. On one side were the old-guard fiscal conservatives who bankrolled Mr. Irvin. On the other side was an ascendant G.O.P. wing that wants to take a more combative approach to politics inspired by former President Donald J. Trump.Kenneth Griffin, a Chicago-based Republican and hedge-fund founder, plunged $50 million into Mr. Irvin’s campaign in an effort to find a moderate Republican who could compete against Democrats in a blue state. But his preferred candidate came under attack not just from Mr. Bailey and other Republicans, but also from the Democratic Governors Association and Gov. J.B. Pritzker, a fellow billionaire and a Democrat. And Mr. Bailey had his own billionaire: Richard Uihlein, a top financier on the right.Gov. J.B. Pritzker of Illinois at a deli in Chicago on Tuesday.Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesThe Illinois race is the most expensive example yet of a high-risk 2022 Democratic strategy of injecting money into Republican primaries to help more extreme G.O.P. candidates in the hopes that Democrats will face weaker general-election opponents.Democrats welcomed Mr. Bailey to the general election by tagging the opponent they had helped engineer as a “MAGA extremist.”“Bailey is far too conservative for Illinois,” said Noam Lee, the executive director of the Democratic Governors Association.Mr. Bailey called Chicago a “hellhole” during one primary debate, was once removed from a legislative session for refusing to wear a mask and has said he opposes abortion even in cases of rape and incest. Mr. Trump endorsed him over the weekend.Democrats also spent money to shape three Republican primaries in Colorado on Tuesday for Senate, governor and the House — and lost in all three.Worried that an eroding national political climate could endanger Senator Michael Bennet, Democrats spent heavily to intervene in the Republican primary. They helped lift up State Representative Ron Hanks, a far-right Republican who marched at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. A Guide to New York’s 2022 Primary ElectionsAs prominent Democratic officials seek to defend their records, Republicans see opportunities to make inroads in general election races.Governor’s Race: Gov. Kathy Hochul is trying to fend off energetic challenges from two fellow Democrats, while the four-way G.O.P. contest has been playing in part like a referendum on Donald J. Trump.Where the Candidates Stand: Ahead of the primaries for governor on June 28, our political reporters questioned the seven candidates on crime, taxes, abortion and more.Maloney vs. Nadler: New congressional lines have put the two stalwart Manhattan Democrats — including New York City’s last remaining Jewish congressman — on a collision course in the Aug. 23 primary.15 Democrats, 1 Seat: A newly redrawn House district in New York City may be one of the largest and most freewheeling primaries in the nation.Offensive Remarks: Carl P. Paladino, a Republican running for a House seat in Western New York, recently drew backlash for praising Adolf Hitler in an interview dating back to 2021.But the effort failed as a more moderate businessman, Joe O’Dea, won on Tuesday. His campaign celebrated by handing out faux newspapers to supporters at his victory party with the banner headline “O’DEA DEFEATS SCHUMER.”In his victory speech in Denver, Mr. O’Dea pledged to be “like a Republican Joe Manchin” and lampooned the failed intervention by Democrats as “everything that the American people hate about politics.”“It is pure cynicism and deceit,” he said.Illinois and Colorado were two of seven states holding primaries or runoffs on Tuesday, the first races since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last week and thrust abortion back to the center of the American political debate.Governor Kathy Hochul speaks to supporters after winning the Democratic nomination Tuesday night.Desiree Rios/The New York TimesIn New York, Gov. Kathy Hochul won the Democratic nomination for her first full term after succeeding Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, who resigned under pressure over sexual misconduct. In Oklahoma, voters were sorting through a host of Republicans for a rare open Senate seat. And in Mississippi, one House Republican was defeated in a runoff and another survived a right-wing challenger. There were also contests in Utah and South Carolina, including for Senate.Democrats had also attempted to meddle in the Republican primary for governor of Colorado, where an outside group spent money linking Greg Lopez, a former mayor of Parker, to Mr. Trump in a backhanded attempt to elevate him over Heidi Ganahl, a University of Colorado regent.But Ms. Ganahl prevailed and will face Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat who became the first openly gay man elected to a governorship in 2018 and is seeking re-election.Democrats had also spent in Colorado’s open Eighth District to aid another far-right candidate. The seat is expected to be competitive in the fall.In another closely watched Colorado race, Tina Peters, a Mesa County clerk who has been charged with seven felonies related to allegations that she tampered with voting machines to try to prove the 2020 presidential election was rigged, lost her bid for the Republican nomination to oversee elections as secretary of state.Ms. Peters has pleaded not guilty, and the indictment made her something of a hero to the election-denial movement spurred by Mr. Trump. But that was not enough for her to defeat Pam Anderson, a former Jefferson County clerk.On Tuesday, one voter, Sienna Wells, a 31-year-old software developer and registered independent who lives in Mesa County, cast her ballot in the Republican primary to oppose Ms. Peters, calling her “delusional.”“She says she wants free and fair elections and stuff like that, but if she gets in, she’ll be the one performing fraud,” Ms. Wells said. “It’s awful.”Tina Peters, the Mesa County clerk who is running for Colorado secretary of state, spoke at an event in Grand Junction in June.Daniel Brenner for The New York TimesIn Illinois, an aggressive remapping by Democrats in the once-a-decade redistricting process created a half-dozen competitive House primaries, including two that pitted incumbents of the same party against each other. The races were the latest battlefields for the two parties’ ideological factions.In the Chicago suburbs, Representative Sean Casten defeated Representative Marie Newman after both Democrats were drawn into the same district. Ms. Newman had defeated a moderate Democratic incumbent to win her seat just two years ago. But she has since come under investigation for promising a job to an opponent to get him to exit her race.The victory for Mr. Casten came two weeks after he suffered a personal tragedy: the death of his 17-year-old daughter.In a sprawling and contorted new district that wraps around Springfield, Ill., two Republican incumbents, Representatives Rodney Davis and Mary Miller, were at odds. The contest has involved more than $11.5 million in outside spending. Mr. Davis is an ally of Republican leaders and has benefited from PAC spending linked to Mr. Griffin, the Republican billionaire, and the crypto industry. Ms. Miller was supported by spending from the Club for Growth, a conservative anti-tax group.Representative Mary Miller greeted supporters at a rally hosted by former President Donald J. Trump in Mendon, Ill.Rachel Mummey for The New York TimesMs. Miller won. Her success was a victory for Mr. Trump, who endorsed her months ago in a contest that was seen as the greatest test of his personal influence on Tuesday. Ms. Miller made headlines at a rally with Mr. Trump last weekend, when she hailed the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe as a “victory for white life.” An aide said she had misread a prepared line about the “right to life.”In Chicago, Representative Danny K. Davis, a veteran 80-year-old Black Democrat, confronted a robust primary challenge from Kina Collins, a 31-year-old gun safety activist, in one of the nation’s most solidly Democratic seats.. Representative Michael Guest at a campaign event in Magee, Miss., in June.Rogelio V. Solis/Associated PressIn Mississippi, Representative Michael Guest held off a primary challenge in the Third District from Michael Cassidy, a Navy veteran.Mr. Guest had drawn attacks as one of the three dozen Republicans who voted to authorize an independent commission to investigate the Jan. 6 attack, even though such a commission was never formed. Instead, a Democrat-led House committee is now investigating.But after Mr. Cassidy narrowly outpaced Mr. Guest in the first round of voting, a super PAC aligned with Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the Republican minority leader, spent more than $500,000 attacking Mr. Cassidy in the final two weeks before the runoff.In Mississippi’s Fourth District, Representative Steven Palazzo was defeated by Sheriff Mike Ezell of Jackson County on Tuesday. Mr. Palazzo, seeking a seventh term, had earned only 31 percent of the vote in the first round and was seen as vulnerable after a congressional ethics investigation accused him in 2021 of misspending campaign funds and other transgressions.In Oklahoma, the early resignation of Senator James M. Inhofe, a Republican who will retire in January, created a rare open seat in the solidly Republican state and drew an expansive primary field.Representative Markwayne Mullin advanced to the runoff and the second spot was still too close to call late Tuesday. T.W. Shannon, the former speaker of the Oklahoma House, Luke Holland, who served as Mr. Inhofe’s chief of staff, and State Senator Nathan Dahm were competing for the second runoff spot. Scott Pruitt, the former administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, was on track for a weak fifth-place finish.In Utah, Senator Mike Lee, the Republican incumbent, defeated two primary challengers. In a state that is a conservative stronghold, Democrats decided not to put forward a nominee and instead endorsed Evan McMullin, an independent who made a long-shot bid for president in 2016 by appealing to anti-Trump Republicans.Ryan Biller More

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      MAGA Voters Send a $50 Million G.O.P. Plan Off the Rails in Illinois

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      Republican leaders think a moderate nominee for governor could beat Gov. J.B. Pritzker. But the party’s base seems to prefer a far-right state senator — and he is getting help from Mr. Pritzker.LINCOLN, Ill. — Darren Bailey, the front-runner in the Republican primary for governor of Illinois, was finishing his stump speech last week at a senior center in this Central Illinois town when a voice called out: “Can we pray for you?”Mr. Bailey readily agreed. The speaker, a youth mentor from Lincoln named Kathy Schmidt, placed her right hand on his left shoulder while he closed his eyes and held out his hands, palms open.“More than anything,” she prayed, “I ask for that, in this election, you raise up the righteous and strike down the wicked.”The wicked, in this case, are the Chicago-based moderates aiming to maintain control over the Illinois Republican Party. And the righteous is Mr. Bailey, a far-right state senator who is unlike any nominee the party has put forward for governor in living memory.A 56-year-old farmer whose Southern Illinois home is closer to Nashville than to Chicago, he wears his hair in a crew cut, speaks with a thick drawl and does not sand down his conservative credentials, as so many past leading G.O.P. candidates have done to try to appeal to suburbanites in this overwhelmingly Democratic state. On Saturday, former President Donald J. Trump endorsed Mr. Bailey at a rally near Quincy, Ill.Mr. Bailey has sought to respond to grievances long felt across rural Central and Southern Illinois toward Chicago, which he once proposed removing from the state.Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesMr. Bailey rose to prominence in Illinois politics by introducing legislation to kick Chicago out of the state. When the coronavirus pandemic began, he was removed from a state legislative session for refusing to wear a mask, and he sued Gov. J.B. Pritzker, a Democrat, over statewide virus mitigation efforts. Painted on the door of his campaign bus is the Bible verse Ephesians 6:10-19, which calls for followers to wear God’s armor in a battle against “evil rulers.”He is the favored candidate of the state’s anti-abortion groups, and on Friday he celebrated the Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade as a “historic and welcomed moment.” He has said he opposes the practice, including in cases of rape and incest.Mr. Bailey has upended carefully laid $50 million plans by Illinois Republican leaders to nominate Mayor Richard C. Irvin of Aurora, a moderate suburbanite with an inspiring personal story who they believed could win back the governor’s mansion in Springfield in what is widely forecast to be a winning year for Republicans.Mr. Bailey has been aided by an unprecedented intervention from Mr. Pritzker and the Pritzker-funded Democratic Governors Association, which have spent nearly $35 million combined attacking Mr. Irvin while trying to lift Mr. Bailey. No candidate for any office is believed to have ever spent more to meddle in another party’s primary.The Illinois governor’s race is now on track to become the most expensive campaign for a nonpresidential office in American history.Public and private polling ahead of Tuesday’s primary shows Mr. Bailey with a lead of 15 percentage points over Mr. Irvin and four other candidates. His strength signals the broader shift in Republican politics across the country, away from urban power brokers and toward a rural base that demands fealty to a far-right agenda aligned with Mr. Trump.For Mr. Bailey, the proposal to excise Chicago, which he called “a hellhole” during a televised debate last month, encapsulates the grievances long felt across rural Central and Southern Illinois — places culturally far afield and long resentful of the politically dominant big city.An audience in Green Valley, Ill., listened to Mr. Bailey speak. Polling shows him leading the Republican primary by double digits.Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York Times“The rest of the 90 percent of the land mass is not real happy about how 10 percent of the land mass is directing things,” Mr. Bailey said in an interview aboard his campaign bus outside a bar in Green Valley, a village of 700 people south of Peoria. “A large amount of people outside of that 10 percent don’t have a voice, and that’s a problem.”That pitch has resonated with the conservative voters flocking to Mr. Bailey, who seemed to compare Mr. Irvin to Satan during a Facebook Live monologue in February.“Everything that we pay and do supports Chicago,” said Pam Page, a security analyst at State Farm Insurance from McLean, Ill., who came to see Mr. Bailey in Lincoln. “Downstate just never seems to get any of the perks or any of the kickbacks.”The onslaught of Democratic television advertising attacking Mr. Irvin and trying to elevate Mr. Bailey has frustrated the Aurora mayor, whose campaign was conceived of and funded by the same team of Republicans who helped elect social moderates like Mark Kirk to the Senate in 2010 and Bruce Rauner as governor in 2014. Their recipe: In strong Republican years, find moderate candidates who can win over voters in Chicago’s suburbs — and spend a ton of money.Richard C. Irvin speaking to employees at a manufacturing plant in Wauconda, a suburb north of Chicago. Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesMr. Irvin, 52, fit their bill. Born to a teenage single mother in Aurora, he is an Army veteran of the first Gulf War who served as a local prosecutor before becoming the first Black mayor of the city, the second most populous in Illinois.Kenneth Griffin, the Chicago billionaire hedge fund founder who is the chief benefactor for Illinois Republicans, gave $50 million to Mr. Irvin for the primary alone and pledged to spend more for him in the general election. Mr. Griffin, the state’s richest man, will not support any other Republican in the race against Mr. Pritzker, according to his spokesman, Zia Ahmed. Mr. Griffin announced last week that his hedge fund and trading firm would relocate to Miami.While Mr. Irvin, a longtime Republican who has nevertheless voted in a series of recent Democratic primaries in Illinois, expected an expensive dogfight in the general election, he is frustrated by the primary season intervention from Mr. Pritzker, a billionaire who is America’s richest elected official.“This has never happened in the history of our nation that a Democrat would spend this much money stopping one individual from becoming the nominee of the Republican Party,” Mr. Irvin said in an interview after touring a manufacturing plant in Wauconda, a well-to-do suburb north of Chicago. “There are six Republican primary opponents — six of them. But when you turn on the television, all you see is me.”Mr. Griffin said that “J.B. Pritzker is terrified of facing Richard Irvin in the general election.”He added, “He and his cronies at the D.G.A. have shamelessly spent tens of millions of dollars meddling in the Republican primary in an effort to fool Republican voters.”Mr. Pritzker said that ads emphasizing Mr. Bailey’s conservative credentials had the same message he plans to use in the general election. He said he was not afraid of running against Mr. Irvin or of the millions Mr. Griffin would spend on his campaign.“It’s a mess over there,” Mr. Pritzker said in an interview on Friday. “They’re all anti-choice. Literally, you can go down the list of things that I think really matter to people across the state. And, you know, they’re all terrible. So I’ll take any one of them and I’ll beat them.”Gov. J.B. Pritzker, the country’s richest elected official, has poured money into the primary, attacking Mr. Irvin while trying to help Mr. Bailey. Pat Nabong/Chicago Sun-Times, via Associated PressThe primary race alone has drawn $100 million in TV advertising. Mr. Pritzker has spent more money on TV ads than anyone else running for any office in the country this year. Mr. Irvin ranks second, according to AdImpact, a media tracking firm.Far behind them is Mr. Bailey, whose primary financial benefactor is Richard Uihlein, the billionaire megadonor of far-right Republican candidates, who has donated $9 million of the $11.6 million Mr. Bailey has raised and sent another $8 million to a political action committee that has attacked Mr. Irvin as insufficiently conservative.Presidential politics for both parties loom over the primary.Mr. Irvin won’t say whom he voted for in the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections and, in the interview, declined to say if he would support Mr. Trump if he ran for president in 2024. He called President Biden “the legitimate president” and said former Vice President Mike Pence had performed his constitutional duty on Jan. 6, 2021.Mr. Bailey would not say if the 2020 election had been decided fairly or if Mr. Pence did the right thing.Mr. Pritzker’s motivation to help Mr. Bailey in the primary may be informed not only by his desire for re-election but also by what many see as potential aspirations to seek the White House himself. Last weekend he addressed a gathering of Democrats in New Hampshire — a stop only those with national ambitions make in the middle of their own re-election campaigns.Mr. Bailey, 56, is a farmer with roots in Southern Illinois. Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesAs the primary draws near, establishment Republicans across the state are fretting about the prospect of Mr. Bailey dragging down the entire G.O.P. ticket in November.Representative Darin LaHood predicted an “overwhelming” Bailey primary victory in his Central Illinois district, but warned that he would be toxic for general-election voters.“Bailey is not going to play in the suburbs,” said Mr. LaHood, who has not endorsed a primary candidate. “He’s got a Southern drawl, a Southern accent. I mean, he should be running in Missouri, not in suburban Chicago.”Former Gov. Jim Edgar, the only Illinois governor from outside the Chicago area since World War II, said Mr. Bailey’s rise showed that party leaders “don’t have the grasp or the control of their constituents like they did back in the ’80s and the ’90s.”Mr. Bailey’s supporters say the real fight is for the soul of the Republican Party. To them, winning the primary and seizing control of the state party is just as important, if not more so, than triumphing in the general election.Thomas DeVore, left, a candidate for Illinois attorney general who has “Freedom” and “Liberty” tattooed on his arms, with Mr. Bailey in Lincoln.Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesRunning for attorney general on a slate with Mr. Bailey is Thomas DeVore, his lawyer in the pandemic lawsuits against Mr. Pritzker. On the campaign trail, he wears untucked golf shirts that reveal his forearm tattoos — “Freedom” on his right arm, “Liberty” on his left.“Whether or not Darren and I win the general election, if we can at least get control within our own party, I think long term we have an opportunity to be successful,” Mr. DeVore said at their stop in Green Valley.And David Smith, the executive director of the Illinois Family Institute, an anti-abortion organization whose political arm endorsed Mr. Bailey, said the G.O.P. race was about excising the party’s moderate elements.“This primary,” he said, “has got to purge the Republican Party of those who are self-serving snollygosters.”Catie Edmondson More

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      Pennsylvania Governor’s Race Takes on Huge Stakes for Abortion Rights

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      Now that the Supreme Court has struck down Roe v. Wade, the most important election this year in America when it comes to abortion will be the contest for governor of Pennsylvania.Josh Shapiro, the state’s Democratic attorney general, is facing off against Doug Mastriano, a Republican state senator who has vowed to make abortion illegal. If Mr. Mastriano wins, the Republican-controlled Pennsylvania legislature is all but certain to move to undo the state’s existing law allowing abortion.“Roe v. Wade is rightly relegated to the ash heap of history,” Mr. Mastriano said on Friday. “As the abortion debate returns to the states, Pennsylvania must be prepared to lead the nation in being a voice for the voiceless.”Mr. Shapiro denounced the ruling. “The stakes in this governor’s race could not be more clear,” he said. “The contrast between me and my dangerous opponent could not be greater.”Josh Shapiro, the Pennsylvania attorney general and Democratic nominee for governor, has pledged to protect abortion rights.Jeff Swensen for The New York TimesNowhere else is a governor’s race so pivotal. In Wisconsin, where the Republican-led Legislature has battled with Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat who is seeking re-election, a pre-Roe law forbidding abortion automatically went back into effect after Friday’s decision. Mr. Evers has pledged to fight for abortion rights, but he faces a wall of opposition from Republican state legislators.This week, Mr. Evers ordered Wisconsin’s lawmakers to the State Capitol in Madison for a special session meant to reverse an 1849 law outlawing abortion. Republicans ended the session on Wednesday without taking action.In Michigan, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, has backed a series of creative legal arguments to block the state’s 1931 law outlawing abortion from taking effect. In May, a state judge ruled that the law would not immediately go into effect after an eventual Supreme Court ruling on Roe.Ms. Whitmer has also supported an effort to place a referendum on the November ballot to enshrine abortion rights in Michigan’s Constitution.Three other states will have questions about abortion decided directly by voters in November.Kansas and Kentucky have referendums asking voters to affirm that their state constitutions do not guarantee a right to abortion. In Vermont, the ballot will contain a question that would enshrine a person’s right to control their own reproductive choices in the state’s Constitution.Gov. Laura Kelly of Kansas, a Democrat who supports abortion rights, faces a difficult re-election bid. Her likely Republican opponent, Derek Schmidt, the state’s attorney general, opposes abortion rights.After Friday’s ruling, Republican governors praised the decision and sought to press the party’s advantage. In Virginia, Gov. Glenn Youngkin said Friday that he would seek a ban on abortion after 15 weeks — though such a move is unlikely to be successful given that Democrats control the State Senate.“Virginians want fewer abortions, not more abortions,” Mr. Youngkin said. “We can build a bipartisan consensus on protecting the life of unborn children.”Virginia’s next round of state legislature elections won’t take place until 2023; Mr. Youngkin, who took office in January, is prohibited from seeking a second consecutive term.Gov. Phil Bryant of Mississippi, a Republican whose state capital was the origin of Friday’s Supreme Court case, said state lawmakers would exercise a “moral duty to protect life at all stages.”“The pro-life movement also understands that our fight is just beginning,” Mr. Bryant said. “In the coming days, our efforts to assert the full dignity of every human life will become more important.”Some Republicans minimized the significance of the ruling even as they cheered it. Mr. Mastriano, speaking in Binghamton, N.Y., where he appeared alongside and endorsed Andrew Giuliani in New York’s Republican primary for governor, called the political furor a distraction.“Sadly, the other side wants to distract us about, you know, Jan. 6,” said Mr. Mastriano, who chartered buses for his supporters to attend the rally that led to the Capitol attack. “Or they want to distract us about Covid. Or distract us about, you know, Roe v. Wade.”Gov. J.B. Pritzker of Illinois called on the state’s Democratic-led General Assembly to convene a special session to protect abortion rights.Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesDemocratic governors cast the Supreme Court’s decision as a catastrophic move — and the first step toward a broader rollback of women’s rights.Gov. J.B. Pritzker of Illinois said he had pressed President Biden during his recent visit to Chicago to be more forceful in defending abortion rights. He said Illinois, which is surrounded by states where abortion is illegal or is likely to be outlawed soon, had “a special obligation” to make abortion accessible not just to its citizens but also to visitors.“We’re an island in the Midwest, in the country, all around us are anti-choice legislatures and state laws and governors,” Mr. Pritzker said in an interview on Friday. “The only thing that will allow us to reverse the terrible direction things are going is electing pro-choice Democratic governors, pro-choice Democratic legislators.”Democratic candidates for governor in states with Republican-controlled legislatures like Georgia, Arizona and Texas said they would fight for abortion rights if elected — though in practice there is little they could do toward that goal given Republican opposition.“I will work with the legislature to reverse the draconian law that will now rule our state,” said Stacey Abrams, the Democrat running for governor of Georgia.Neil Vigdor More

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      in Elections

      Let’s Have a New Gun Law for Independence Day

      by

      The Fourth of July is coming, and if all goes well — crossing many fingers — before Congress leaves town to celebrate, the House and Senate will have passed the first substantial gun safety legislation in nearly 30 years.Yeah, the last big reform was in 1994. People were watching the pilot episode of “Friends” on TV, Jeff Bezos was founding Amazon and American kids were hearing about a great new invention called PlayStation.Chris Murphy was in college, just turning 21. “I bought my first beer legally,” he said in a phone interview on Wednesday. Moving onward and upward, Murphy is now a member of the Senate from Connecticut and the lead Democratic negotiator on gun safety legislation.And there’s actually a real bill! Or at least a bipartisan agreement for what ought to be in a bill. Our job for today is to decide how we feel about it. Three choices:A. Awful! They don’t even have a ban on the sale of assault weapons to 18-year-olds.B. Not great! They keep putting all this power in the hands of the states when we all know how crazy some of the states are.C. Hey, they’re actually doing something — stop the negativity! Otherwise, you’ll be the kind of perfectionist nobody wants to be standing next to while grilling holiday hamburgers.Yeah, I think we ought to go with C.“No bill I’ve ever been involved in has been perfect,” said John Feinblatt, the president of Everytown For Gun Safety, who’s certainly been involved in his share. “But look at the big picture. You’ve got bipartisan support for a gun safety bill.”Well, 10 Republican senators publicly signed on, which is exactly the number you need to get past the inevitable filibuster motion. That’s 20 percent of the party’s members.But once again, we need to think positive. Murphy told me that in 2012, when a young gunman with an assault rifle killed 20 small children and six staff members in his district’s Sandy Hook elementary school, only “one single Republican was willing to sit down and talk” about possible legislation — Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania.Ten is better than one. The plan they’ve come up with would make it easier to disarm domestic abusers, provide a lot of new money for community mental health programs and school security, and expand the background checks on gun buyers under 21.“We couldn’t have gotten an agreement on any single one of those items a month ago,” Murphy said.Even Mitch McConnell seems to be coming around. The Senate Republican leader has always been pretty proud of his record on weapons legislation, which it’s fair to summarize as anti-gun safety. But now he’s given his blessing to some sort of reform. Perhaps he’s seen the error of his ways. Perhaps he’s seen the public polls.If something’s going to get done before the Senate goes off on its holiday recess, things have to happen pretty fast in a chamber not known for its speediness. “It took them five weeks to write an infrastructure bill. We have four days,” said Murphy.It’d be nice to see a lawmaker throw himself into a righteous cause and come out a winner, wouldn’t it, people? There’s even been a little talk about Murphy as a possible presidential contender, should Joe Biden decide not to run for re-election. “Nononononono,” the senator responded instantly when asked about the idea.What do you think? All I know is that once we get past this year’s elections, everybody is going to start speculating about 2024, and we really need to collect some post-Biden options. You do not want to be at a holiday party next winter with no names to throw into the debate.But about the gun bill. The first — and let’s face it, easiest — priority is to complain that Washington isn’t rising to the occasion. “It’s not enough,” said Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, after he rather grudgingly acknowledged the new Senate agreement represented some success.You can understand why Illinois is particularly touchy on this issue. At the N.R.A. convention in Houston last month, speakers tried to skip over the mass shooting of Texas schoolchildren days earlier by talking about how many people get gunned down every year in Chicago. Mainly with weapons imported from other states, of course, although that part didn’t really come up.The horror of those murdered children persuaded a lot of politicians to dodge that N.R.A. gathering entirely. Although not Donald Trump, a politician who actually had no idea he had any strong feelings about guns until he noticed how much cheering they got at Republican gatherings. In Houston, Trump helpfully suggested responding to the Uvalde school shooting tragedy by arming teachers.Right now our priority has to be rooting for the gun bill negotiators in Congress to get the job done before everybody goes home. “We’ve got to work through some pretty sticky wickets,” said Murphy.The wickets are, in fact, multitudinous, but at least things are moving along. “Victories beget victories,” insisted Murphy.There’s a lot of territory to cover before we get to anyplace sane on the gun front. To anyplace near where surveys tell us the American people would like to go. But it’d be nice if, on July 4, we could celebrate with more fireworks and less gunfire.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