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      Tim Scott Is Set to Join 2024 Race, Already Flush With Campaign Cash

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      The South Carolina senator will announce his campaign on Monday and then head to Iowa and New Hampshire.Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina will announce his candidacy for president on Monday and will enter the race with around $22 million cash on hand, making him one of the most serious competitors for the front-runner, Donald J. Trump, even as Mr. Scott has hovered around 2 percent in Republican primary polls.After announcing his campaign in his hometown, North Charleston, Mr. Scott will head to Iowa and New Hampshire, the first two states of the Republican nominating contest. Mr. Scott’s campaign has reserved around $6 million in advertisements across television and radio in those states, according to an adviser with direct knowledge of Mr. Scott’s plans. The Scott campaign also plans to spend millions of dollars on digital ads that will target Iowa and New Hampshire voters and will run through the first Republican primary debate, scheduled to be held in August.Mr. Scott, the most influential elected Black conservative in America, has a compelling life story around which he is expected to build his campaign. He portrays his rise from poverty to become the first Black senator from South Carolina and the only Black Republican in the Senate as an embodiment of the American dream.Mr. Scott rarely criticizes Mr. Trump directly, but his message could not be more different from the former president’s. While Mr. Trump talks ominously of “retribution” — his promise to gut the civil service and law enforcement agencies that he pejoratively calls the “deep state” — Mr. Scott prefers the sunny language of Ronald Reagan.“Americans are losing one of the most inspirational truths we have, which is hope — hope that things can and will get better, hope that education and hard work can equal prosperity, hope that we remain a city on a hill, a shining example of what can be when free people decide to join hands in self-governance,” Mr. Scott said in a speech last year at the Reagan Library on the future of the Republican Party.“America stands at a crossroads,” he said, “with the potential for a great resetting, a renewal, even a rebirth — where we get to choose how we will meet the potential of today and the promise of tomorrow.”There is little evidence, so far, that Mr. Scott’s message strikes a chord with the populist base of the modern G.O.P., which for the last several years has been led by a former TV star who likes to fight. For years, the Republican base has fed on apocalyptic talk that often casts Democrats as enemies bent on destroying America. In a party dominated by Mr. Trump’s message of “American carnage,” Mr. Scott’s talk of the importance of “unity,” “hope” and “redemption” can sound like a message from another time.Mr. Scott’s campaign will have to balance his inherently optimistic message against the brutal realities of Republican primary politics.“We will be authentic to Mr. Scott’s optimistic vision, but we’re also not in any way afraid to draw contrasts where we need to,” said the adviser with knowledge of Mr. Scott’s plans.Mr. Scott will have more than enough money to find out if there’s a bigger market for his ideas than the polls suggest. His support for pro-business policies has made him a favorite of the Republican donor class, and he has billionaires like the Oracle founder Larry Ellison — who was aligned with Mr. Trump while he was in the White House — who are willing to put millions of dollars behind his campaign. More

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      DeSantis Is Set to Enter 2024 Presidential Race Next Week

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      The Florida governor is expected to file paperwork declaring his candidacy on May 25, with a video likely to coincide with his official entrance.Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida is expected to officially enter the presidential race next week, allowing him to raise the vast amounts of cash he will need to challenge former President Donald J. Trump, according to two people familiar with his intentions.Mr. DeSantis is expected to file paperwork declaring his candidacy with the Federal Election Commission ahead of a major fund-raising meeting with donors in Miami on May 25 that is meant to act as a show of his financial force. He must formally enter the race before he can solicit donations for his presidential campaign.He is also likely to release a video to coincide with his official entrance into the race, and a blitz of events in the early nominating states will follow in the weeks ahead, according to one of the people. The Wall Street Journal first reported that Mr. DeSantis would file the paperwork next week.Mr. Trump is running roughly 30 percentage points ahead of Mr. DeSantis in national polling averages, but the Florida governor would be the most credible Republican challenger to join the field so far.He is likely to start with more money in an outside group than any Republican primary candidate in history. He has more than $80 million expected to be transferred from his state account to his super PAC, Never Back Down, which has also raised more than $30 million, in addition to having tens of millions more in donor commitments, according to people familiar with the fund-raising.Mr. DeSantis also has a long series of conservative policy accomplishments that he shepherded through Florida’s Republican-dominated Legislature after his landslide re-election last year. And he has gathered a large number of endorsements from state legislators in Iowa and New Hampshire, who can be influential in primary elections, as well as from those in his own state.Still, taking on Mr. Trump, whom Republicans rallied behind after he was indicted in New York, is a tall order. While the former president savages him daily, Mr. DeSantis needs to engage in a delicate dance.To win, he must appeal to the large numbers of Republican primary voters who like Mr. Trump but may be ready to move on from a candidate who lost in 2020 and continues to repeat false claims about that election. Doing so requires Mr. DeSantis to differentiate himself from Mr. Trump without criticizing him so aggressively that he risks offending those Trump-friendly voters.Mr. DeSantis did seem to walk that line successfully during a weekend trip to Iowa, part of a monthslong string of political events he has attended around the country in the run-up to his announcement.On Saturday, a grinning Mr. DeSantis showed up Mr. Trump by making an unexpected appearance in Des Moines, not far from where the former president had canceled a rally that night because of potential bad weather. “It’s a beautiful night,” the governor said in an apparent jab at the absence of storms.It is still unclear where or when Mr. DeSantis plans to hold a formal rally announcing his candidacy. More

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      The G.O.P. Primary: ‘City on a Hill’ or ‘American Carnage’?

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      Michelle Cottle, Ross Douthat, Carlos Lozada and Listen to and follow ‘Matter of Opinion’Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Amazon MusicIt’s 77 weeks before Election Day and over half a dozen people have already thrown their hats into the G.O.P race. On our new podcast, “Matter of Opinion,” Michelle Cottle, Ross Douthat, Carlos Lozada and Lydia Polgreen take a tour of the 2024 Republican primary field to understand what it takes to survive in the present-day Republican ecosystem — and maybe even beat the Trump in the room.(A full transcript of the episode will be available midday on the Times website.)Photograph by Scott Olson/GettyThoughts? Email us at matterofopinion@nytimes.com or leave us a voice mail message at (212) 556-7440. We may use excerpts from your message in a future episode.By leaving us a message, you are agreeing to be governed by our reader submission terms and agreeing that we may use and allow others to use your name, voice and message.Follow our hosts on Twitter: Michelle Cottle (@mcottle), Ross Douthat (@DouthatNYT), Carlos Lozada (@CarlosNYT) and Lydia Polgreen (@lpolgreen).“Matter of Opinion” was produced this week by Phoebe Lett, Sophia Alvarez Boyd and Derek Arthur. It was edited by Stephanie Joyce and Annie-Rose Strasser. Mixing by Pat McCusker. Original music by Pat McCusker, Sonia Herrero, Isaac Jones and Carole Sabouraud. Fact-checking by Mary Marge Locker. Special thanks to Shannon Busta and Kristina Samulewski. More

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      Remember When Trump and DeSantis Loved Each Other? Neither Do They.

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      Our topic for today is — who’s worse, Donald Trump or Ron DeSantis?Nonononofair! There is no way I’m ever going to vote for either one of them! Why should I care?Hey, knowledge of public affairs is always important.DeSantis made headlines this weekend when he showed up to campaign in Iowa while Trump canceled a rally because of bad weather.“Iowa is the Florida of the Midwest,” the governor of Florida claimed at one point in his burger-flipping, speech-giving trek. Now this was clearly intended as a compliment, but Iowans, do you actually want to be the Florida of the Midwest? The weather is certainly great in January, but there’s plenty of downside. Do your Midwestern neighbors ever mutter, “What our state needs is a heck of a lot more floods and sinkholes …”?DeSantis and his wife/political adviser, Casey, have three small children, who once starred in a gubernatorial election ad in which he demonstrated his devotion to President Donald Trump by showing one of his daughters how to build a toy wall and reading his son “The Art of the Deal.” (“Then Mr. Trump said, ‘You’re fired.’ I love that part.”)You may be seeing a lot more of little Madison, Mason and Mamie DeSantis in the months to come. But no one’s going to be reading from Trump’s collected works.Trump has five children counting Ivanka, who’s sorta cut herself off from the clan. And Tiffany, who everybody, including her father, seemed to have forgotten for a very long stretch. And Eric, whom we mainly hear about during riffs from the late-night comics. And Barron, the youngest at 17, who lives quietly with his mom.Donald Jr. is truly his dad’s kid. He’s off this summer to Australia for a speaking tour blasting “woke identity politics.” Ranting against “woke” is sort of a DeSantis thing, but give Junior a break. He’s spent his entire life trying to please a father who was absent for most of his childhood and who is said to have resisted having his firstborn named after him, in case the kid turned into a “loser.”Now Don Jr. has five children too! And he’s not shy about putting them in the news either. A while back he posted an Instagram photo of the kids publicizing a Trump-branded leash. (“You can get yours at the Trump Store too.”) Before that, Dad once tweeted that he planned to confiscate half of his then-3-year-old daughter’s Halloween candy “to teach her about socialism.”Hard to imagine the Trump and DeSantis families getting together for a cookout. But the gap between the two men grows much wider when you look at personal behavior. Only one of them just lost a $5 million verdict from a jury that found he sexually abused a woman in a department store dressing room.Trump has been trying to insinuate that DeSantis had some shady doings with high school girls in his far, far distant past. And running an ad reminding the world that his probable Republican opponent has a history of eating pudding with his fingers.But what about the issues? Sorta hard to pin down since Trump is given to, um, free-associating on this stuff. But he certainly has been running to DeSantis’s left, accusing the Florida governor of wanting to slash Social Security and Medicare benefits.When he was in Congress, DeSantis did vote for Republican proposals along that line. He’s on the no-changes-no-how bandwagon now. But let’s look at abortion — much easier to pin down. DeSantis, as governor, just signed a bill he supported that will bar abortions in Florida after six weeks. By which time many, many women — particularly the very young, very poor, very traumatized — have no idea they’re pregnant.DeSantis has at least been consistent. A devout Catholic, he’s had the same position for his entire political career. Trump, on the other hand, um, adapts.Trump made a huge impact by appointing three anti-choice judges to the Supreme Court. But now he’s noticed that voters are coming down very strong in favor of abortion rights, and he’s switched right around. He claims “many people within the pro-life movement” found the new Florida law “too harsh.”Our bottom line here, people, is that you have two top candidates for the Republican presidential nomination. DeSantis adheres to a strong, faith-based social conservatism. He’s pro-gun, opposed to diversity and inclusion programs in public colleges. And currently having a big fight with Disney, one of Florida’s top employers, over a comment from a Disney C.E.O. that criticized a DeSantis bill to prohibit classroom discussions of sexual orientation in the early grades.Hard to imagine a Gov. Donald Trump taking the same road.Unless it would somehow win him an election. Trump’s politics are deeply, deeply pragmatic. If an angel appeared promising him another term in the White House if he killed every puppy in America, those doggies would be toast.(That is an imperfect example since The Donald hates dogs anyway, but bear with me.)The bottom line: Would you rather see the Republicans nominate a candidate who had an exemplary family life and an agenda based on longstanding, extremely conservative beliefs? Or a guy with a sleazy personal history who’d probably go anywhere the votes were?Some days it pays to be a Democrat.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

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      DeSantis Signs Tall Stack of Right-Wing Bills as 2024 Entrance Nears

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      The Florida governor is making a grab for national attention ahead of his expected presidential campaign rollout.Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, an all-but-declared presidential candidate, has stepped up his headline-hunting travel and events ahead of an official announcement, traversing the state and trying to hoover up national attention as he signs the sharply conservative legislation he believes can propel him to the Republican Party’s nomination.On Wednesday, Mr. DeSantis signed a slew of measures that hit all the culture-clash notes his base has rewarded him for, including bills banning gender-transition care for minors, preventing children from attending “adult live performances” like drag shows and restricting the use of preferred pronouns in schools.“We need to let our kids just be kids,” Mr. DeSantis said at a Christian school in Tampa. “What we’ve said in Florida is we are going to remain a refuge of sanity and a citadel of normalcy.”It was his third consecutive day of holding public bill-signing ceremonies across the state. The ceremonies, which he hosts in his official capacity as governor, allow Mr. DeSantis to promote his political message in settings that he carefully stage-manages as a veritable M.C., calling up additional speakers and then thanking them for their contributions. These events sometimes take on the feel of political rallies.Such a platform gives Mr. DeSantis an advantage over his potential rivals for the presidency — many of whom are either out of office or hold legislative roles — as he sprints toward declaring his candidacy, which is likely to happen by the end of the month.On Monday, his signing of a bill defunding diversity and equity programs at public colleges and universities drew a robust round of news coverage — as well as loud protesters. He and other Republicans who shared the stage mocked the demonstrators, many of them students at New College of Florida, a public liberal arts school in Sarasota that the governor has sought to transform into a conservative bastion.The signing of bills aimed at the L.G.B.T.Q. community on Wednesday was “an all-out attack on freedom,” Joe Saunders, the senior political director of Equality Florida, an advocacy organization, said in a virtual news conference. He noted that Mr. DeSantis had already signed a six-week abortion ban as well as bills that allowed physicians to decline to provide care based on moral or religious grounds.Mr. DeSantis sees freedom “as a campaign slogan in his bid for the White House,” Mr. Saunders said. “The nation should be on high alert, because, today, we are all Floridians.”Some centrist Republicans say the way Mr. DeSantis has pushed Florida to the right on social issues is a potential weakness in a general election. Representatives for Mr. DeSantis did not immediately respond to requests for comment.As he travels the state, the lines between Mr. DeSantis’s roles as governor and potential presidential candidate can sometimes seem blurred.On Tuesday, after he signed several bills near Fort Lauderdale aimed at curbing human trafficking, an issue that the right has tried to weaponize in national politics, Mr. DeSantis received a boost from Florida’s two top Republican legislative leaders, Kathleen Passidomo, the Senate president, and Paul Renner, the House speaker.After the signing concluded, Ms. Passidomo and Mr. Renner stepped up to a lectern — embossed with Florida’s state seal, rather than the “Stop Human Trafficking” sign that the governor had used moments earlier — to endorse Mr. DeSantis for president, an office he is not yet formally seeking.Katie Betta, a spokeswoman for Ms. Passidomo, said that the endorsement was a matter of convenience because the governor and legislative leaders had not been together since the lawmaking session ended on May 5. “It was a good opportunity to answer a question they have both been getting from the press since the day they were sworn in last November,” Ms. Betta wrote in an email, referring to Ms. Passidomo and Mr. Renner.On Wednesday, the main super PAC backing Mr. DeSantis unveiled endorsements from nearly 100 state lawmakers. Behind the scenes, the governor’s allies and political operatives have been jostling with former President Donald J. Trump’s team to secure those pledges. At the federal level, members of Florida’s congressional delegation have swung heavily for Mr. Trump.Mr. DeSantis has now held an official event on every weekday this month. He spends his weekends on political travel, including to the crucial early-voting state of Iowa last Saturday.Since winning re-election in a rout in November, Mr. DeSantis has regularly faced questions at state events about his national political ambitions. For months, he usually fended them off with quips about how he was not interested in petty infighting and how it was too soon to be talking about future campaigns with the annual lawmaking session pending.No more. On Tuesday, Mr. DeSantis jumped at the chance to call out Mr. Trump for dodging a question about abortion. The former president had criticized Florida’s six-week ban as too harsh while remaining noncommittal about what restrictions he might support.“I signed the bill. I was proud to do it,” Mr. DeSantis told reporters. “He won’t answer whether he would sign it or not.”This time, it was the swipe at Mr. Trump that made headlines. More

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      Daniel Cameron, Ally of Mitch McConnell, Wins GOP Primary for Kentucky Governor

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      Daniel Cameron, the attorney general, will face Andy Beshear, a popular Democrat who is seeking re-election in a typically deep-red state.Daniel Cameron, Kentucky’s attorney general and a close ally of Senator Mitch McConnell, clinched the state’s Republican nomination for governor on Tuesday, according to The Associated Press, fending off a spirited and costly challenge by Kelly Craft, a wealthy former ambassador to the United Nations.Mr. Cameron’s double-digit victory sets up what is likely to be the most closely watched and fiercely contested statewide race remaining in 2023. Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat running for re-election, is one of the most popular governors in the country, and even Republicans believe he will be difficult to beat in November.The result on Tuesday also served as a setback for Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida as he nears an expected presidential campaign. On Monday, he had endorsed Ms. Craft, abruptly turning the race into a proxy battle between himself and former President Donald J. Trump, who backed Mr. Cameron in June 2022.In his victory speech on Tuesday night, Mr. Cameron said, “The Trump culture of winning is alive and well in Kentucky” — a pointed jab at Mr. DeSantis’s recent remarks criticizing the Republican Party’s “culture of losing.”With more than 90 percent of the vote counted, Ms. Craft, who belongs to one of the biggest Republican megadonor families in the country, trailed Mr. Cameron by roughly 30 percentage points. She was also behind a third candidate, Ryan Quarles, Kentucky’s agricultural commissioner.Republicans have long viewed Mr. Cameron as a potential political star who could join the next generation of the party’s leaders. Mr. Cameron has had a trailblazing career — he was the first Black man to be elected attorney general in Kentucky and the first Republican elected to the post in 50 years — and his campaign is likely to draw the support of operatives and donors beyond Kentucky.Mr. Cameron turned to the general election in his victory speech. “The new religion of the left casts doubt on the greatness of America,” he said. “They embrace a picture of this country and this commonwealth that is rooted in division, that is hostile to faith and that is committed to the erosion of our education system.”And he took aim at his November opponent: “Andy Beshear is resigned to live in a commonwealth where violent crime is high and the work-force participation rate is low. He’s content to preside over the abandonment of our inner cities and the desolation of our rural communities.”Part of Mr. Beshear’s strength stems from Republicans’ dominance of the state. The party holds supermajorities in the Legislature, making it difficult for the governor to wield much power without a veto. Yet that dynamic has allowed Mr. Beshear to avoid contentious showdowns with Republicans on hot-button issues and has let him focus on using state resources to help repair infrastructure and improve the economy.Mr. Beshear, who coasted in his primary on Tuesday, remained mostly quiet during the Republicans’ battle, running a scaled-down digital ad campaign centered on his record of expanding voting rights and presiding over economic expansion in the state.“I’m honored to be your Democratic nominee for governor, Kentucky,” Mr. Beshear wrote on Twitter on Tuesday night. “Together, we’re going to continue to build on the progress of the past 3 years — moving our commonwealth not left or right, but forward. Let’s do this.”And in his victory speech, Mr. Beshear sought to project an uplifting tone, and said the Republican candidates presented a stark contrast from himself. “They’re trying to pit us against each other,” he said, “calling anybody who disagrees with them names, telling you it’s OK to yell, even hate your fellow human being. We are so much stronger than that.”Though Mr. Cameron was elected as Kentucky’s attorney general in 2019, he fully arrived on the national scene with a prime-time address during the 2020 Republican National Convention.He immediately became a favorite of Mr. Trump, who endorsed his campaign nearly a year before the primary election. Mr. Cameron made Mr. Trump’s support central to his campaign to lead Kentucky, which the former president carried by more than 25 percentage points in 2020.Mr. Cameron’s tenure as attorney general has included numerous clashes with the federal government. They include his fighting vaccine requirements for federal contractors and trying to stop the Biden administration from allowing the lapse of Title 42, the Covid-era Trump immigration policy that ended on Thursday. He has also brought lawsuits against Mr. Beshear, including seeking new limits to abortion access.These legal tussles became a cornerstone of his stump speech.“When Governor Beshear decided to shut down churches, I went into federal court and, after nine days, got churches reopened in Kentucky,” Mr. Cameron said at a campaign stop in Shepherdsville last month, referring to early pandemic regulations.Mr. Cameron, a former aide to Mr. McConnell, was expected to cruise to the nomination on the back of his ties to the powerful Senate minority leader and to Mr. Trump. But the race tightened after Ms. Craft, who is married to a coal billionaire, Joe Craft, began pouring millions of her own money into the race, flooding the airwaves with ads. Mr. Cameron did not have the resources to keep pace.The bruising nature of the primary raised worries among some Kentucky Republicans about their prospects in the general election.For nearly two months, Ms. Craft was the only major candidate with ads from her or her allies on broadcast television. Combined, she and her allies spent more than $7 million on advertising, compared with just $2.6 million by Mr. Cameron and his supporters, according to AdImpact, an ad-tracking firm.Her campaign attacked Mr. Cameron for supporting the closure of a coal plant (the coal plant in question was in West Virginia) and rebuked him for not fighting the Justice Department’s investigation into the Louisville Police Department after police officers shot and killed Breonna Taylor during a botched raid on her apartment in 2020. She also sought to paint Mr. Cameron as a “follower” of Mr. McConnell, a rare public dig at a man who has guided Kentucky politics for nearly 40 years.Mr. Cameron received a late boost from an allied political action committee, Bluegrass Freedom Action, which received most of its funding from the Concord Fund, which is part of a network of influential conservative groups managed by the activist Leonard A. Leo. The group spent $2.1 million in the final six weeks of the primary, aiding Mr. Cameron and attacking Ms. Craft.Other ElectionsIn PennsylvaniaA special election in a district that could have flipped the State House to the Republicans instead stayed in Democratic hands, according to The Associated Press.Top Democrats, led by President Biden and Gov. Josh Shapiro, had urged voters to mobilize for Heather Boyd, the party’s candidate in the three-person race. They had framed the election as crucial to protecting reproductive rights in Pennsylvania, saying that Republicans would seek to use their legislative majority to bypass the governor’s veto power by placing an abortion ban amendment on the ballot for voters to decide.Ms. Boyd, a former legislative aide and onetime teacher, beat Katie Ford, a Republican who was a combat medic for the U.S. Army Reserve and also has an education background.Mr. Shapiro hailed the result in a post on Twitter. “Heather Boyd is a teacher, mom, and public servant — now, she’s Delaware County’s newest state rep.,” he wrote. “Together, we’ll work to get things done for Pennsylvanians and protect real freedom. And to Delco: Thank you for showing up to defend our rights and the Democratic House majority.”The special election, in the 163rd Legislative District in southeast Delaware County, was prompted by the March resignation of Mike Zabel, a Democrat who was accused of harassment.In another special State House election on Tuesday, Republicans maintained power in the 108th Legislative District in north-central Pennsylvania as Michael Stender, a Republican school board member and a firefighter, was victorious in a three-candidate race, according to The A.P.The safe G.O.P. seat opened up this year when Lynda Schlegel Culver, the longtime incumbent, resigned after winning a vacant seat in the State Senate.In FloridaDonna Deegan, a Democrat, won a runoff for the mayor’s office in Jacksonville, Fla., beating Daniel Davis, a Republican backed by Mr. DeSantis. Mr. Davis conceded the race on Tuesday evening.Ms. Deegan will be the first woman to lead her city as mayor. “We made history tonight,” she said in her victory speech. “It is a brand-new day for Jacksonville, Florida.”Neil Vigdor More

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      DeSantis’s Candidate for Kentucky Governor Loses to Trump-Backed Rival

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      The 2024 hopeful made a dramatic, election-eve show of support in the Kentucky governor’s race, only for his chosen candidate to get clobbered. Another favored candidate in Jacksonville, Fla., lost, too.On Monday, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida went out on a limb. On Tuesday, it snapped.A day after he swooped into the Republican primary for Kentucky governor with a last-minute endorsement — a move that turned the race into an obvious proxy fight between himself and former President Donald J. Trump — Mr. DeSantis watched his chosen candidate lose in a landslide to the Trump-backed rival.To make matters worse for Mr. DeSantis, a Republican he had endorsed conceded to a Democratic opponent in the mayor’s race in Jacksonville, the largest city in his state.Mr. DeSantis’s preparations to enter the 2024 primary are intensifying. He has held a series of private dinners in Tallahassee with top donors, and on Tuesday he took a direct shot at Mr. Trump over his dodging whether he would sign a six-week abortion ban.But on Monday, Mr. DeSantis made a last-minute endorsement and robocall for Kelly Craft, a former United Nations ambassador under Mr. Trump and a member of a Republican megadonor family.The move confounded Kentucky Republicans and those working for her rivals: While Ms. Craft spent heavily on the race, polls had suggested she was headed for defeat to Daniel Cameron, the state’s attorney general, an ally of Senator Mitch McConnell who had garnered Mr. Trump’s endorsement in June 2022. Representatives for Mr. DeSantis declined to comment.“Kelly shares the same vision we do in Florida,” Mr. DeSantis said in a recording that was sent to Republican voters on the eve of the primary.It ended up being far from close. With nearly 90 percent of ballots counted, she was in a distant third, earning just 17 percent of the vote to Mr. Cameron’s 47 percent.“Let me just say,” Mr. Cameron said in his victory speech, “the Trump culture of winning is alive and well in Kentucky!”His choice of words was telling: As Mr. DeSantis nears the announcement of a presidential campaign, his stump speech has often called on the Republican Party to end its “culture of losing” during the Trump era. On Monday, the phrase was splashed across the front page of The Des Moines Register after the governor campaigned in Iowa over the weekend.The Trump team cheered Mr. Cameron’s line. In fact, one of Mr. Trump’s top advisers, Chris LaCivita, had presaged it less than an hour before Mr. Cameron spoke. When the race was called, Mr. LaCivita wrote on Twitter, “so much for the #alwaysbackdown culture of winning.”Never Back Down is the name of the main super PAC backing Mr. DeSantis. One of that super PAC’s top strategists is Jeff Roe, whose consulting firm also worked for Ms. Craft.The unsuccessful election-eve endorsement of Ms. Craft was similar to the last-minute backing that Mr. DeSantis gave to Harmeet Dhillon in the race to lead the Republican National Committee in January.Mr. DeSantis called for “new blood” the day before that vote. The incumbent, Ronna McDaniel, won easily the next day.Meanwhile, Mr. DeSantis’s night did not get better in Jacksonville, where Daniel Davis, the Republican endorsed by the governor, lost to Donna Deegan, a Democrat, for an open seat. Mr. DeSantis had provided little support to Mr. Davis beyond his endorsement, not visiting the city to campaign. Early results showed Ms. Deegan leading Mr. Davis with roughly 52 percent of the vote.Jacksonville has had Republican mayors for most of the last 30 years. More

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      Kentucky and Philadelphia Hold Crucial Elections: What to Watch

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      In Kentucky, Republicans are choosing a nominee to take on the popular Democratic governor. In Philadelphia, Democrats are knotted in a crowded primary to lead the influential liberal city.Though 2023 is an off year for American politics, largely dominated by the emerging Republican presidential primary race and a series of scandals and controversies, there are still critical elections this year, offering an early window into the mood of voters in both parties before 2024.In Kentucky, a divisive Republican primary for governor will come to a close on Tuesday. Two pillars of the state’s Republican apparatus have escalated attacks on each other as they seek to challenge Gov. Andy Beshear, a rare Democratic leader of a red state who also happens to be one of the most popular governors in the country. On Monday, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida waded into the race with an endorsement of one top contender, turning the contest into something of a last-minute 2024 proxy battle against Donald J. Trump, who long ago backed the other leading candidate.In Philadelphia, the nation’s sixth most populous city and a liberal stronghold in purple Pennsylvania, voters will pick the Democratic nominee for mayor, who is all but certain to become the city’s next leader and has the potential to become a high-profile player in next year’s presidential election. And two special elections in the state could determine control of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, where Democrats have a slim majority.Clockwise from upper left, some of the candidates in the Democratic primary for mayor in Philadelphia: Rebecca Rhynhart, Allan Domb, Cherelle Parker and Helen Gym.Rachel Wisniewski for the New York Times; Matt Rourke/Associated PressAnd in Delaware County, one of the suburban “collar counties” outside Philadelphia, a surprisingly close special election for an open State House seat in a once reliably Democratic district will determine who controls the Pennsylvania legislature.There is also a notable mayoral contest unfolding in Jacksonville, Fla., the most populous American city to have a Republican mayor. The candidates to succeed Mayor Lenny Curry are Donna Deegan, a Democrat who has the support of abortion rights groups, and Daniel Davis, a Republican who has emphasized his party’s messages on crime and policing.Political celebrity vs. cash vs. old schoolFirst test of a rising star: Daniel Cameron was already a trailblazer as the first Black man elected attorney general in Kentucky and the first Republican elected to the post in nearly 50 years. But his political celebrity skyrocketed after he delivered a prime-time speech at the 2020 Republican National Convention.Mr. Cameron is a close ally of Senator Mitch McConnell’s; some in the state call him Mr. McConnell’s protégé. The Republican nomination for governor appeared to be his to lose after he announced his candidacy a year ago.But what was once a double-digit lead over the rest of the field dwindled significantly during the spring as Kelly Craft, a former ambassador to the United Nations and part of a Republican megadonor family, poured millions of her own money into an aggressive ad campaign, attacking Mr. Cameron and heightening her own name identification. Though she has not completely closed the gap in polling, Republican operatives in the state have deemed it a race that is suddenly too close to call.On Monday, Mr. DeSantis added even more uncertainty to the race by endorsing Ms. Craft, recording a message on her behalf to be used in automated phone calls. The move pits Mr. DeSantis, who is expected to announce a 2024 campaign soon, directly against Mr. Trump, who backed Mr. Cameron in June 2022.Daniel Cameron, the Kentucky attorney general, and Kelly Craft, a member of an influential political family, are rivals in the race for the Republican nomination for Kentucky governor.Jon Cherry for The New York TimesLess a fracture than a freeze: The heated primary in Kentucky hasn’t fractured the party like similarly contentious primaries last year, mostly because the top candidates belong to the conservative wing of the party yet do not embrace its more fringe issues, like voting machine conspiracy theories.And of course, money plays a role. Though no Republican in the state is eager to dampen Mr. Cameron’s trajectory, they also don’t want to be on the wrong side of the Crafts, who are some of the most prolific donors in Republican politics.The friendly wild card: Attention in the race has largely focused on Mr. Cameron and Ms. Craft. But there is a third candidate with a viable path to victory: Ryan Quarles, the agricultural commissioner and a longtime fixture in Frankfort.Rather than splashy ads or television appearances, Mr. Quarles’s campaign has instead focused heavily on local endorsements, earning the backing of more than 230 mayors, magistrates and county officials. Those endorsements, coupled with significant support from the farming community, could give Mr. Quarles enough of a base to win an election in which support is splintered among all three.Trump as kingmaker? Or could it be DeSantis?What scandals? Even as he faces mounting legal challenges and an unfavorable verdict in the civil case in which he was successfully sued by E. Jean Carroll, Mr. Trump remains the most popular and influential figure in a Republican primary election, especially in a state like Kentucky, which he carried by more than 25 points in 2020.When asked during a debate about a jury’s finding Mr. Trump liable for sexually abusing and defaming Ms. Carroll, Mr. Cameron reiterated that he was “honored” to still have the support of the former president.No, he endorsed me. Both candidates can claim the affection of the former president. Ms. Craft served in his administration, has donated to his campaigns and was joined by Mr. Trump at the Kentucky Derby in 2022. She has run several ads comparing her style to Mr. Trump’s.But Mr. Trump endorsed Mr. Cameron (granted, that was before Ms. Craft had officially entered the race), a fact Mr. Cameron mentions several times in his stump speeches and ads.“Despite what some others might tell you,” Mr. Cameron told a crowd at a Republican dinner in Meade County last month, “President Donald J. Trump has endorsed this campaign for governor.”Now, of course, Mr. DeSantis has endorsed Ms. Craft — and they will both hope that his late support will be fresher in voters’ minds as they head to the polls.Mr. Cameron, the Kentucky attorney general, greeted supporters during the Meade County dinner in Guston, Ky.Jon Cherry for The New York TimesMs. Craft, a former member of the Trump administration and a candidate for Kentucky governor, spoke during a campaign stop.Jon Cherry for The New York TimesEducation and ‘woke’ politics at the forefront2017 redux? Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican in light-blue Virginia, built his surprise victory in 2017 through a relentless focus on education. He portrayed Democrats as intent on introducing inappropriate material to young students and argued that a school’s curriculum was something parents, and not teachers, should decide.Both Mr. Cameron and Ms. Craft have made education reform the bedrock of their campaign speeches. Mr. Cameron said that it was the No. 1 issue he had heard about from voters, and he has pledged to fire the Democratic-appointed commissioner of the education department. Ms. Craft, during her stump speeches, holds up copies of books she would ban.“Woke” wars: Both candidates repeatedly blast “woke” ideology in their pitches. For months, visitors to Ms. Craft’s website were greeted with a video denouncing “woke” policies.This loosely defined conservative catchall — a term frequently used by Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida as well — has certainly taken root in the Republican base. It is often the biggest applause line for both Ms. Craft and Mr. Cameron.But beyond the primary, it remains to be seen how voters in a general election will respond to an explicitly anti-“woke” campaign, even in deeply red Kentucky.A battle over Philadelphia’s futureA test of left-wing strength: In the crowded Democratic mayoral contest, the former City Council member Helen Gym has emerged as the most prominent progressive candidate, bolstered by national left-wing leaders including Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York.Both of them rallied with her on Sunday, and Brandon Johnson, who won the Chicago mayor’s race last month, has endorsed her and raised funds for her.A win for Ms. Gym, a veteran community organizer who is especially focused on schools, would be celebrated by national progressive leaders as the latest in a stretch of left-leaning victories in major cities, though their success at the national level in recent years has been far more mixed.But whatever the outcome, many political observers in Pennsylvania caution against drawing sweeping conclusions about the mood of the city from a race that may have low turnout or could be decided by a narrow margin — or both. Sparse polling has suggested a tight and unpredictable contest.In a crucial Democratic primary contest for Philadelphia’s next mayor, Helen Gym, second from left, has earned the support of progressive leaders.Matt Rourke/Associated PressPublic safety debates dominate: Like many major American cities, Philadelphia has struggled with gun violence and other crime in the wake of the pandemic. The full picture of safety in the city is complex, but there is no question that it has been the defining issue in the mayor’s race.The Democrats running for mayor have differed on issues like police stops of citizens — and in particular, the use of stop-and-frisk — and whether to emphasize adding more police officers to the force.But across the ideological spectrum, they have stressed their commitment to making the city safer, and there is broad agreement on the need to both fill police vacancies and denounce police abuse.Control of the Pennsylvania legislatureConcerns for Democrats: Democrats have a single-vote majority in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, but there are two special elections on Tuesday that could flip control back to Republicans.One empty seat is in the 108th Legislative District in north-central Pennsylvania, where voters will most likely elect a Republican.The race for the 163rd Legislative District in southeast Delaware County should be a layup for Democrats. It was vacated by former State Representative Mike Zabel, who resigned in March after being accused of harassment. But Mr. Zabel won his district by roughly 30 points in November, and the seat is in a reliably Democratic area.Yet there are growing concerns that the seat may not be as safe as it has seemed, and Democrats across the state are mobilizing voters in the area to turn out to the polls. Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, recently made a 30-second video highlighting the race.Abortion rights: Democrats are framing the race as critical to protecting abortion rights in Pennsylvania, where abortion is still legal. If Republicans take control of the House, they could, along with the Republican-controlled Senate, put a potential abortion ban on the ballot as a constitutional amendment.But such bans largely failed in 2022, and were often a galvanizing force for Democratic candidates or causes — most notably in deep-red Kansas, where voters rejected an abortion ban months before the 2022 midterms.Reid J. Epstein More