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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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      How Arizona Became an Abyss of Election Conspiracy Theories

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      Of the roughly three dozen states that have held primary elections this year, Arizona is where Donald Trump’s conspiratorial fantasies about the 2020 election seem to have gained the most purchase.This week, Arizona Republicans nominated candidates up and down the ballot who focused their campaigns on stoking baseless conspiracy theories about 2020, when Democrats won the state’s presidential election for only the second time since the 1940s.Joe Biden defeated Trump in Arizona by fewer than 11,000 votes — a whisker-thin margin that has spawned unending efforts to scrutinize and overturn the results, despite election officials’ repeated and emphatic insistence that very little fraud was committed.The most prominent winner in Tuesday’s Republican primary for governor was Kari Lake, a telegenic former news anchor who became a Trump acolyte. There’s also the G.O.P. pick for secretary of state, Mark Finchem, a cowboy-hat-wearing state lawmaker who marched at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.They are joined by Blake Masters, a hard-edged venture capitalist who is running to oust Senator Mark Kelly, the soft-spoken former astronaut who entered politics after his wife, former Representative Gabby Giffords, was seriously wounded by a gunman in 2011.There’s also Abraham Hamadeh, the Republican nominee for attorney general, along with several candidates for the State Legislature who are all but certain to win their races. It’s pretty much election deniers all the way down.Another notable primary result this week: Rusty Bowers, the former speaker of the Arizona House, who offered emotional congressional testimony in June about the pressure he faced to overturn the election, was easily defeated in his bid for a State Senate seat.To make sense of it all, I spoke with Jennifer Medina, a California-based politics reporter for The New York Times who covers Arizona and has deep expertise on many of the policy issues that drive elections in the state. Our conversation, lightly edited for length and clarity, is below.You’ve been reporting on Arizona for years. Why are many democracy watchers so alarmed about the primary election results there?It’s pretty simple: If these candidates win in November, they have promised to do things like ban the use of electronic voting machines and get rid of the state’s hugely popular and long-established vote-by-mail system.It’s also easy to imagine a similar scenario to the 2020 presidential election but with vastly different results. Both Lake and Finchem have repeatedly said they would not have certified Biden’s victory.Some might say this is all just partisan politics or posturing — that Finchem, Lake and Masters just said what they think they needed to say to win the primary. What does your reporting show? Is their election denial merely loose talk, or are there indications that they truly believe what they are saying?There’s no reason to think these candidates won’t at the very least try to put in place the kinds of plans they have promoted.Undoubtedly, they would face legal challenges from Democrats and from nonpartisan watchdog groups.But it’s worth remembering that despite losing battle after battle in the courts over the last two years, these Republicans are still pushing the same election-denial theories. And they’ve stoked those false beliefs among huge numbers of voters, who helped power their victories on Tuesday.A polling location in Tucson, Ariz., on Tuesday.Cassidy Araiza for The New York TimesWe saw evidence of that this week with the surge of Republicans going to the polls in person on Election Day instead of voting by mail, as they had for years, after repeatedly hearing baseless claims that mailed-in ballots are rife with fraud. This was especially true of Lake backers.There’s no way to know what these candidates truly believe in their hearts, but they have left no room for doubting their intentions.What’s your sense of whether these Republicans are capable of pivoting to the center for the general election? And what might happen if they did?We haven’t seen much, if any, evidence that these candidates have plans to pivot to the center, aside from minor tweaks to some of the language in Masters’s TV ads.They have spent months denouncing people in the party they see as RINOs (“Republicans in name only,” in case you’ve forgotten). In Arizona, that list has included Gov. Doug Ducey, who refused to overturn the 2020 presidential election results, as Trump demanded, and the now-deceased Senator John McCain, who angered many conservatives and Trump supporters by voting against repealing the Affordable Care Act.So even if these candidates do try to tack toward the center, expect their Democratic opponents to point to those statements and other past comments to portray them as extremists on the right.I do wonder how much the Republicans will continue to focus on the 2020 election in the final stretch of this year’s campaign. More moderate Republican officials and strategists I’ve spoken to in Arizona have repeatedly said they worry that doing so will weaken the party’s chances in the state, where independent voters make up roughly a third of the electorate.Do Katie Hobbs, the secretary of state who won the Democratic nomination for governor, and Senator Mark Kelly, the Democrat who is up for re-election in the fall, talk much about election denial or Jan. 6 when they’re out with voters?Hobbs rose to widespread prominence in the days after the 2020 election when she appeared on national television at all hours of the day and night assuring voters that all ballots would be counted fairly and accurately, no matter how long that took. So it’s not an exaggeration to say that her own fate is deeply tied to the rise of election denial.But even as her closest supporters have promoted Hobbs as a guardian of democracy — and she has benefited from that in her fund-raising — it is not a central piece of her day-to-day campaigning. Many Democratic strategists in the state say they believe she would be better off by focusing on issues like the economy, health care and abortion.And that line of thinking is even more true in the Kelly camp, where many believe the incumbent senator is best served by focusing on his image as an independent who is willing to buck other members of his party.In March, for instance, Kelly referred to the rise in asylum seekers crossing the border as a “crisis,” language Biden has resisted. Kelly has also supported some portion of a border wall, a position that most Democrats adamantly oppose.As a political issue, how does election denial play with voters versus, say, jobs or the price of gas and groceries?We don’t know the answer yet, but whether voters view candidates who deny the 2020 election as disqualifying is one of the most important and interesting questions this fall.I’ve spoken to dozens of people in Arizona in the last several months — Democrats, Republicans and independents — and few are single-issue voters. They are all worried about things like jobs and gas prices and inflation and abortion, but they are also very concerned about democracy and what many Republicans refer to as “election integrity.” But their understanding of what those terms mean is very different depending on their political outlook.Is there any aspect of these candidates’ appeal that people outside Arizona might be missing?Each of the winning Republican candidates we’ve discussed has also focused on cracking down on immigration and militarizing the border, which could prove popular in Arizona. It’s a border state with a long history of anti-immigration policies.Two demographic groups are widely credited with helping tilt the state toward Democrats in the last two elections: white women in the suburbs and young Latinos. As the state has trended more purple, the Republican Party is moving further to the right. Now, whether those voters show up in force for the party this year will help determine the future of many elections to come.What to read this weekend about democracyPro-Trump operatives are flooding local officials with public records requests to seek evidence for the former president’s false stolen-election claims and to gather information on voting machines and voters, Reuters reports.Black, Hispanic and young voters are the most afraid about facing violence at the polls, according to a new poll from the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism.The New Republic takes a critical look at independent state legislature theory, which is now headed to the Supreme Court.The Atlantic looks at the congressional effort to overhaul the Electoral Count Act and asks a simple question: How do you actually stop the steal?postcard FROM DALLASThe lobby of the Hilton Anatole hotel, which hosted the Conservative Political Action Conference began on Thursday.Emil Lippe for The New York TimesSeven hours at CPACIs there such a thing as a heat index in Texas? Outside the Hilton Anatole hotel in Dallas, it felt like 105 degrees on Thursday.But inside the cavernous hotel, the air conditioning was cranked up full blast as Mike Lindell, the election-denying pillow mogul who has branched out into coffee and slippers, was moving through the media row at a gathering at the Conservative Political Action Conference. A swarm of Republicans approached, angling for selfies and handshakes while they voiced their approval of his efforts and spending to overturn the 2020 presidential election.Beyond the conservative media booths, each resembling a Fox News set, I wandered through an emporium of “Trump won” and “Make America Pro-Life Again” merchandise. My N95 mask made me conspicuous, but each person I asked for an interview obliged.There was Jeffrey Lord, who was fired by CNN in 2017 for evoking — mockingly, he said at the time — a Nazi slogan in a convoluted Twitter exchange. He told me that he had just attended a private gathering with Viktor Orban, the Hungarian prime minister revered by many American conservatives. Orban is misunderstood, Lord told me, noting that Ronald Reagan was once accused of being a warmonger. I asked whether conservatives like Lord would put Orban in a similar category as Reagan.“In terms of freedom, and all of that, I do,” he said. “It’s a theme with President Trump.”In the media area inside the hotel’s main ballroom, right-wing news outlets had medallion status. A prime seat in the front row was reserved for One America News, the pro-Trump network. Two seats to my right, a woman with a media credential was eating pork rinds from a Ziploc bag.Seven hours later, I emerged from the hotel, doffing my N95, which left an imprint on my face. It was only 99 degrees.Thanks for reading. We’ll see you next week.— BlakeIs there anything you think we’re missing? Anything you want to see more of? We’d love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com. More

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      Republicans Begin Adjusting to a Fierce Abortion Backlash

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      Republican candidates, facing a stark reality check from Kansas voters, are softening their once-uncompromising stands against abortion as they move toward the general election, recognizing that strict bans are unpopular and that the issue may be a major driver in the fall campaigns.In swing states and even conservative corners of the country, several Republicans have shifted their talk on abortion bans, newly emphasizing support for exceptions. Some have noticeably stopped discussing details at all. Pitched battles in Republican-dominated state legislatures have broken out now that the Supreme Court has made what has long been a theoretical argument a reality.In Pennsylvania, Doug Mastriano, the Republicans’ ardently anti-abortion candidate for governor, has lately taken to saying “the people of Pennsylvania” will “decide what abortion looks like” in the state, not the governor. In Minnesota, Scott Jensen, a family physician who said in March that he would “try to ban abortion” as governor, said in a video released before the Kansas vote that he does support some exceptions: “If I’ve been unclear previously, I want to be clear now.”Republican consultants for Senate and House campaigns said Thursday that while they still believe inflation and the economy will drive voters to the G.O.P., candidates are going to have to talk about abortion to blunt Democratic attacks that the party’s position is extreme. They have started advising Republicans to endorse bans that allow exceptions for pregnancies from rape or incest or those that threaten the life of the mother. They have told candidates to emphasize care for women during and after their pregnancies.Representative Nancy Mace won an exemption for rape and incest in South Carolina’s abortion law.Logan R. Cyrus for The New York Times“If we are going to ban abortion, there are things we’ve got to do to make sure the need for abortion is reduced, and that women are not endangered,” said Representative Nancy Mace, Republican of South Carolina, who won an exemption for rape and incest in her state’s abortion law as a state representative. Now, she says Republicans need to press to expand access to gynecological and obstetrics care, contraception, including emergency contraception, and even protect the right of women to leave their states to get an abortion without fear of prosecution.Messaging alone cannot free the G.O.P. from the drumbeat of news after the Supreme Court’s decision, including the story of a 10-year-old rape victim who crossed state lines to receive an abortion, and headlines about women who confronted serious health problems under new, far-reaching restrictions or bans.On Thursday, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who has recently avoided talking about abortion, suspended a state attorney from Hillsborough County who refused to prosecute people who try to provide abortions prohibited by the state’s new 15-week ban, prompting angry recriminations from Democrats.The recalibration for some began before voters of deeply Republican Kansas voted overwhelming on Tuesday against removing abortion rights from the state’s constitution. Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, retracting the constitutional right to the procedure, many Republicans were slow to detail what would come next. As they rush to enact long-promised laws, Republican-led legislatures have learned how difficult banning abortion can be.“Not just the pro-choice movement but the pro-life movement was caught by surprise” by the Supreme Court, said Brandon Steele, a West Virginia delegate who pressed for an abortion ban without exceptions in a special session of the legislature that ended this week with the Republican supermajority stymied. “Without having the talking points, without being told what to do, legislators had to start saying what they were actually going to do. You could see the confusion in the room.”“We’re finding out who is really pro-life and who is pro-life only to get elected, not just in West Virginia but across the country,” Mr. Steele said.Activists on both sides of the abortion issue gathered last month in the Indiana Statehouse in Indianapolis during a special session of the state legislature to consider a near-total abortion ban.Kaiti Sullivan for The New York TimesIn Indiana, a special session of the state legislature to consider a near-total abortion ban has had brutal debates over whether to include exemptions and how far those exemptions should go.More Coverage of the Kansas Abortion VoteA Resounding Decision: Kansas voters overwhelmingly rejected an amendment that would have removed the right to abortion from the State Constitution, a major win for the abortion rights movement in a deep-red state.Midterm Reverberations: After the stunning result, the first post-Roe vote on abortion rights, emboldened Democrats vowed to elevate the issue in races across the country.A Huge Turnout: The victory for abortion rights in Kansas relied on a broad coalition of voters who crashed through party and geographic lines.What the Vote Suggests: A Times analysis of the results in Kansas shows that around 65 percent of voters nationwide would reject a similar ballot initiative, including in more than 40 of the 50 states.“For some it’s very black and white: if you’re pro-life with no exceptions or if you’re pro-choice with no restrictions,” said State Senator Kyle Walker, an Indiana Republican who said abortion should be legal during at least the first trimester of pregnancy. “When you are in the gray area, you are forced to reconcile in your own mind where your own limits are.”For months, Republicans have maintained that abortion rights would be a footnote in a midterm campaign driven by the worst inflation in 40 years, crime, immigration and a Democratic president whose approval ratings are mired around 40 percent.That is still the public line, even after the Kansas referendum, where voters faced a single issue, not the multiplicity of factors they will be considering in November.But the reality on the campaign trail is different. Sarah Longwell, a Republican pollster, said in her focus groups that swing voters do bring up inflation and the economy when asked what issues are on their minds. But when prompted to discuss abortion, real passion flares. That indicates that if Democrats can prosecute a campaign to keep the issue front and center, they will find an audience, she said.Ms. Mace agreed, saying that abortion is rising fast and that Republicans have to respond.In Minnesota, Dr. Jensen, the Republican candidate expected to take on Gov. Tim Walz, suggested it was interactions with voters after the fall of Roe that, he said, prompted him to clarify his position on abortion.“Once the Roe v. Wade decision was overturned, we told Minnesota, and basically told everybody that we would engage in a conversation,” he said. “During that conversation, I learned of the need for me to elaborate on my position.”Scott Jensen at the Minnesota State Republican Convention in Rochester in May.Glen Stubbe/Star Tribune, via Associated PressThat elaboration included embracing a family and maternity leave program, promoting a $2,500-per-child adoption tax credit, and improving access to birth control, including providing oral contraceptives over the counter with a price ceiling. And, like Adam Laxalt, the G.O.P. Senate nominee in Nevada, Dr. Jensen pointed to abortion protections already in place in Minnesota to cast the matter as settled rather than on the ballot this year.Mr. Walz said he would stay on offense, and not accept any softening of the Republican line.“I take them at their first word,” he said of Dr. Jensen and his running mate, Matt Birk, a former N.F.L. player and anti-abortion rights advocate. “If they get the opportunity they will criminalize this while we’re trying to protect it. So it’s become a central theme, obviously, I think that flip on their part was in response to that.”The Kansas vote implies that around 65 percent of voters nationwide would reject rolling back abortion rights, including a majority in more than 40 of the 50 states, according to a New York Times analysis.Republicans believe their party can grab the mantle of moderation from Democrats, in part by conveying empathy toward pregnant women and offering exemptions to abortion bans, and casting Democrats as the extremists when it comes to regulating abortion. If Democrats insist on making abortion the centerpiece of their campaigns, they argue, they risk looking out of touch with voters in an uncertain economy.Supporters of the abortion referendum in Kansas monitored results at a watch party in Overland Park on Tuesday night.Christopher (KS) Smith for The New York TimesBut Republicans who moderate their views must still contend with a core base of support that remains staunchly anti-abortion. Abortion opponents said Thursday that Republican candidates should not read too much into the Kansas vote, a single-issue referendum with language that was criticized by voters on both sides as confusing.“Regardless of what the consultant class is telling the candidates, they would be wise to recognize that the right-to-life community is an important constituency and an important demographic of voters,” warned Penny Nance, chief executive and president of Concerned Women for America, a conservative organization that opposes abortion rights.After the Kansas vote, Democrats stepped up efforts to squeeze their opponents between a conservative base eager for quick action to ban all abortions and a broader electorate that wants no such thing. Representative Elaine Luria, a moderate Democrat running in a Republican-leaning district in southeastern Virginia, released a new advertisement against her Republican opponent, Jen Kiggans, painting her as “too extreme” on abortion. Ms. Luria had initially said she would campaign on her work for the district and her support for the Navy, a big force in the region, but the landscape has shifted. Ms. Kiggans’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.Tudor Dixon speaking in Grand Rapids, Mich., after winning the Republican nomination for governor.Emily Elconin for The New York TimesA group aligned with the Democratic Governors Association is already advertising off abortion-related remarks made by Tudor Dixon of Michigan, who won the Republican nomination for governor this week.“If you take Tudor Dixon at her word when it comes to outlawing abortion, she’s told us exactly who she is,” the spot, titled “No Exceptions,” intones, featuring clips of Ms. Dixon highlighting her opposition to a range of abortion-related exceptions. Ms. Dixon was unambiguous about her position earlier this summer, writing on Twitter, “My only exception is to protect the LIFE of the mother.”In a lengthy statement that highlighted her opposition to an expected ballot measure in Michigan intended to protect abortion rights, Ms. Dixon also insisted that her race would be defined by jobs, schools, crime and being “able to afford your gas and groceries.”For Republicans, one problem might be the extensive trail on the issue they left during the primary season.In May, Mr. Mastriano was unequivocal in Pennsylvania as he courted Republican primary voters: “That baby deserves a right to life whether it is conceived in incest or rape or there are concerns otherwise for the mom.”Last month, he said it was not up to him. “You decide on exceptions. You decide on how early. And that’s in the hands of the people,” he said on Philadelphia talk radio. “That’s a fact. That’s not a dodge.”Mitch Smith More

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      Kari Lake Will Face Katie Hobbs in Arizona Governor’s Race

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      Kari Lake, who in the span of two years transformed herself from a veteran local television news anchor into a tribune of the far-right political movement, won Arizona’s Republican primary for governor, according to The Associated Press.Ms. Lake prevailed over a field that included Karrin Taylor Robson — an ally of Gov. Doug Ducey, a Republican who defied former President Donald J. Trump by defending the results of Arizona’s 2020 election — and two other candidates.Ms. Lake will face Katie Hobbs, Arizona’s Democratic secretary of state, in the general election. Mr. Ducey is prohibited by term limits from seeking re-election.In a statement on Thursday night after her race was called, Ms. Lake took a jab at the election process and Ms. Hobbs as she claimed victory. “Though the results took longer than they should have, Arizonans who have been forgotten by the establishment just delivered a political earthquake,” she said.Nearly as soon as she left her Phoenix TV station in the spring of 2021, Ms. Lake began repeatedly proclaiming that Mr. Trump, who endorsed her that fall, had been cheated out of a second term in office. After spending 25 years in local television, she attacked the news media as corrupt.The contest was the latest primary for governor to become a proxy war between Mr. Trump and establishment Republican power brokers.As in Maryland and Illinois, where Trump-endorsed candidates toppled rivals backed by local G.O.P. officials, Ms. Lake’s victory signaled the declining power of party donors and television spending. Ms. Taylor Robson, a developer who served on the Arizona Board of Regents, largely paid for her campaign herself, spending millions more on TV advertising than Ms. Lake did.But in the end, Mr. Trump’s endorsement proved more valuable than anything Ms. Taylor Robson could buy. More

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      What to Watch in Thursday’s Primary Elections in Tennessee

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      Tennessee is the only state hosting a primary contest on Thursday.All polling places in the state close simultaneously: 8 p.m. in the Eastern time zone and 7 p.m. in the Central time zone. Look up polling locations and sample ballots here.Two of the notable races on the ballot:GovernorGov. Bill Lee, a Republican, is seeking re-election and more than half of all voters approve of the job he’s doing, according to recent polling. Democrats, however, are trying to make the case that he can be toppled in a general election. The Democratic primary features three candidates: Jason Martin, a Nashville physician; J.B. Smiley, a Memphis lawyer and city councilman; and Carnita Atwater, a Memphis community activist.Fifth Congressional DistrictRedistricting diluted Democrats’ power in this Nashville-area district, making it more favorable for Republicans and prompting Jim Cooper, the 16-term Democratic congressman representing it, to retire. The Republican primary is crowded with 10 candidates, including Kurt Winstead, a businessman who has raised hefty sums for his campaign, and the former Tennessee House Speaker Beth Harwell. State Senator Heidi Campbell is unopposed on the Democratic side.Looking ahead to NovemberWhile not competitive on Thursday, the fall matchup is already set in the newly drawn Seventh District, which includes blue downtown Nashville in addition to redder rural areas of Tennessee — keeping it favorable to Republicans. Representative Mark Green is running unopposed for the Republican nomination and hopes to secure a second term. Odessa Kelly, a community organizer, is the Democratic candidate and is running with the backing of the Justice Democrats, a progressive political action committee. More

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      How Democrats See Abortion Politics After Kansas Vote

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      A decisive vote to defend abortion rights in deeply conservative Kansas reverberated across the midterm campaign landscape on Wednesday, galvanizing Democrats and underscoring for Republicans the risks of overreaching on one of the most emotionally charged matters in American politics.In a state where Republicans far outnumber Democrats, Kansans delivered a clear message in the first major vote testing the potency of abortion politics since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade: Abortion opponents are going too far.The overwhelming defeat of a measure that would have removed abortion protections from the state constitution quickly emboldened Democrats to run more assertively on abortion rights and even to reclaim some of the language long deployed by conservatives against government overreach, using it to cast abortion bans as infringing on personal freedoms. (As of Wednesday, the margin was 58.8 percent to 41.2 percent.)“The court practically dared women in this country to go to the ballot box to restore the right to choose,” President Biden said by video Wednesday, as he signed an executive order aimed at helping Americans cross state lines for abortions. “They don’t have a clue about the power of American women.”In interviews, Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, urged Democrats to be “full-throated” in their support of abortion access, and Representative Sean Patrick Maloney, the chairman of the House Democratic campaign arm, said the Kansas vote offered a “preview of coming attractions” for Republicans. Representative Elissa Slotkin, a Michigan Democrat in a highly competitive district, issued a statement saying that abortion access “hits at the core of preserving personal freedom, and of ensuring that women, and not the government, can decide their own fate.”Republicans said the midterm campaigns would be defined by Mr. Biden’s disastrous approval ratings and economic concerns.Supporters of the measure that was on the ballot, which would have removed abortion protections from the Kansas constitution, embraced after the outcome was called on Tuesday.Christopher (KS) Smith for The New York TimesBoth Republicans and Democrats caution against conflating the results of an up-or-down ballot question with how Americans will vote in November, when they will be weighing a long list of issues, personalities and their views of Democratic control of Washington.“Add in candidates and a much more robust conversation about lots of other issues, this single issue isn’t going to drive the full national narrative that the Democrats are hoping for,” said David Kochel, a veteran of Republican politics in nearby Iowa. Still, Mr. Kochel acknowledged the risks of Republicans’ overstepping, as social conservatives push for abortion bans with few exceptions that polls generally show to be unpopular.“The base of the G.O.P. is definitely ahead of where the voters are in wanting to restrict abortion,” he said. “That’s the main lesson of Kansas.”Read More on Abortion Issues in AmericaKansas 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.Justice Dept. Lawsuit: The Biden administration sued Idaho over a strict state abortion law set to take effect. The suit is the first new litigation filed by the federal government to protect abortion access since the end of Roe.One Woman’s Abortion Odyssey: She was thrilled to learn that she was pregnant. But when a rare fetal defect threatened her life, she was thrust into post-Roe chaos.A National Pattern: A Times analysis shows that states with abortion bans have among the nation’s weakest social services for women and children.Polls have long shown most Americans support at least some abortion rights. But abortion opponents have been far more likely to let the issue determine their vote, leading to a passion gap between the two sides of the issue. Democrats hoped the Supreme Court decision this summer erasing the constitutional right to an abortion would change that, as Republican-led states rushed to enact new restrictions, and outright bans on the procedure took hold.The Kansas vote was the most concrete evidence yet that a broad swath of voters — including some Republicans who still support their party in November — were ready to push back. Kansans voted down the amendment in Johnson County — home to the populous, moderate suburbs outside Kansas City — rejecting the measure with about 70 percent of the vote, a sign of the power of this issue in suburban battlegrounds nationwide. But the amendment was also defeated in more conservative counties, as abortion rights support outpaced Mr. Biden’s showing in 2020 nearly everywhere.After months of struggling with their own disengaged if not demoralized base, Democratic strategists and officials hoped the results signaled a sort of awakening. They argued that abortion rights are a powerful part of the effort to cast Republicans as extremists and turn the 2022 elections into a choice between two parties, rather than a referendum just on Democrats.“The Republicans who are running for office are quite open about their support for banning abortion,” said Senator Warren. “It’s critical that Democrats make equally clear that this is a key difference, and Democrats will stand up for letting the pregnant person make the decision, not the government.”A Kansas-style referendum will be a rarity this election year, with only four other states expected to put abortion rights directly to voters in November with measures to amend their constitutions: California, Michigan, Vermont and Kentucky. However, the issue has already emerged as a defining debate in some key races, including in Michigan and Pennsylvania, where Democratic candidates for governor have cast themselves as bulwarks against far-reaching abortion restrictions or bans. On Tuesday, Michigan Republicans nominated Tudor Dixon, a former conservative commentator, for governor, who has opposed abortion in cases of rape and incest.Voting in the primary election in Topeka, Kan., on Tuesday.Katie Currid for The New York TimesAnd in Pennsylvania, Doug Mastriano, the far-right Republican nominee for governor, said, “I don’t give a way for exceptions” when asked whether he believes in exceptions for rape, incest or the life of the mother. Governor’s contests in states including Wisconsin and Georgia could also directly affect abortion rights.Other tests of the impact of abortion on races are coming sooner. North of New York City, a Democrat running in a special House election this month, Pat Ryan, has made abortion rights a centerpiece of his campaign, casting the race as another measure of the issue’s power this year.“We have to step up and make sure our core freedoms are protected and defended,” said Mr. Ryan, the Ulster County executive in New York, who had closely watched the Kansas results.Opponents of the Kansas referendum leaned into that “freedom” message, with advertising that cast the effort as nothing short of a government mandate — anathema to voters long mistrustful of too much intervention from Topeka and Washington — and sometimes without using the word “abortion” at all.Some of the messaging was aimed at moderate, often suburban voters who have toggled between the parties in recent elections. Strategists in both parties agreed that abortion rights could be salient with those voters, particularly women, in the fall. Democrats also pointed to evidence that the issue may also drive up turnout among their base voters.After the Supreme Court’s decision, Democrats registered to vote at a faster rate than Republicans in Kansas, according a memo from Tom Bonier, the chief executive of TargetSmart, a Democratic data firm. Mr. Bonier said his analysis found roughly 70 percent of Kansans who registered after the court’s decision were women.“It is malpractice to not continue to center this issue for the remainder of this election season — and beyond,” said Tracy Sefl, a Democratic strategist. “What Democrats should say is that for Americans your bedroom is on the ballot this November.”Inside the Democratic Party, there has been a fierce debate since Roe was overturned over how much to talk about abortion rights at a time of rising prices and a rocky economy — and that is likely to intensify. There is always the risk, some longtime strategists warn, of getting distracted from the issues that polls show are still driving most Americans.Senator Brian Schatz, Democrat of Hawaii, said he understood the hesitancy from party stalwarts.“The energy is on the side of abortion rights,” he said. “For decades that hasn’t been true so it’s difficult for some people who have been through lots of tough battles and lots of tough states to recognize that the ground has shifted under them. But it has.”He urged Democrats to ignore polling that showed abortion was not a top-tier issue, adding that “voters take their cues from leaders” and Democrats need to discuss abortion access more. “When your pollster or your strategist says, ‘Take an abortion question and pivot away from it’ you should probably resist,” he said.A Kaiser Family Foundation poll released this week showed that the issue of abortion access had become more salient for women 18 to 49 years old, with a 14-percentage-point jump since February for those who say it will be very important to their vote in midterm elections, up to 73 percent.That is roughly equal to the share of voters overall who said inflation would be very important this fall — and a sign of how animating abortion has become for many women.Still, Republicans said they would not let their focus veer from the issues they have been hammering for months.“This fall, voters will consider abortion alongside of inflation, education, crime, national security and a feeling that no one in Democrat-controlled Washington listens to them or cares about them,” said Kellyanne Conway, the Republican pollster and former senior Trump White House adviser.Michael McAdams, the communications director for the National Republican Congressional Committee, said that if Democrats focused the fall campaign on abortion they would be ignoring the economy and record-high prices: “the No. 1 issue in every competitive district.”One of the most endangered Democrats in the House, Representative Tom Malinowski of New Jersey, agreed that “the economy is the defining issue for people.”“But there is a relationship here, because voters want leaders to be focused on fighting inflation, not banning abortion,” he said. Mr. Malinowski, who said he was planning to advertise on abortion rights, said the results in Kansas had affirmed for him the significance of abortion and the public’s desire to keep government out of such personal decisions.“There is enormous energy among voters and potential voters this fall to make that point,” he said.Peter Baker More

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      Is It All About ‘Fealty to Trump’s Delusions’? Three Writers Talk About Where the G.O.P. Is Headed

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      Ross Douthat, a Times Opinion columnist, hosted an online conversation with Rachel Bovard, the policy director at the Conservative Partnership Institute, and Tim Miller, the author of “Why We Did It: A Travelogue From the Republican Road to Hell,” about the recent primaries in Arizona, Michigan and beyond, and the strength of Donald Trump’s hold on the Republican Party.Ross Douthat: Rachel, Tim, thanks so much for joining me. I’m going to start where we always tend to start in these discussions — with the former president of the United States and his influence over the Republican Party. Donald Trump has had some bad primary nights this year, most notably in May in Georgia.But overall Tuesday seems like it was a good one for him: In Michigan, his favored candidate narrowly beat Peter Meijer, one of the House Republican votes for impeachment. In the Arizona Republican primary for governor, Kari Lake is narrowly ahead, which would give Trump a big victory in his battle of endorsements against Mike Pence, who endorsed Lake’s main rival.Do you agree, or is Trump’s influence just the wrong lens through which to be assessing some of these races?Rachel Bovard: It was a good night for Trump’s endorsements, which remain critical and decisive, particularly when he’s picking candidates who can change the ideological direction of the party. No other major figure in the G.O.P. has shown they can do the same.Tim Miller: An early agreement! The Republicans put up a slate of “Big Lie” candidates at the top of the ticket in an important swing state last night, which seems pretty important.Bovard: I would dispute the notion that Arizona represented “a slate of ‘Big Lie’ candidates.”Miller: Well, Lake has long brought up fraud claims about the 2020 election. Rare potential evidence of the party bucking Trump could come from the Third Congressional District in Washington, benefited by a “jungle” primary — candidates for an office, regardless of party, run on the same ballot, and the top two candidates square off in the general election. If the Trump-endorsed candidate loses, it seems a good endorsement for that set up.Bovard: But the Blake Masters campaign in particular represented a depth of issues that appealed to Arizona voters and could represent a new generation of Republicans.Douthat: Let’s get into that question a little bit. One of the questions hanging over the phenomenon of Trumper populism is whether it represents any kind of substantial issue-based change in what the G.O.P. stands for, or whether it’s just all about fealty to Trump.The Masters campaign and the Lake campaign seem to represent different answers to that question — Masters leveraging Trump’s support to try to push the party in a more nationalist or populist direction on trade, foreign policy, family policy, other issues, and Lake just promising to stop the next (alleged) steal. Or do we think that it’s all the same phenomenon underneath?Bovard: A very significant part of Trump’s appeal, what he perhaps taught the G.O.P., was that he spoke for voters who stood outside of party orthodoxy on a number of issues. And that’s where Masters tried to distinguish himself. He had a provocative campaign message early in his campaign: American families should be able to survive on a single income. That presents all kinds of challenges to standard Republican economic policy, how we think about family policy and how the two fit together. He also seems to be fearless in the culture wars, something else that Republicans are anxious to see.So this constant distilling into the “Big Lie” overlooks something key: A sea change is slowly happening on the right as it relates to policy expectations.Miller: But you know who distilled the Masters campaign into the “Big Lie”? Blake Masters. One of his ads begins, “I think Trump won in 2020.” This is an insane view, and I assume none of us think Masters really believes it. So fealty to Trump’s delusions is the opening ante here. Had Masters run a campaign about his niche, Peter Thiel-influenced issue obsessions but said Trump lost and he was harming Republican voters by continuing to delude them about our democracy, he would’ve lost like Rusty Bowers did.I do think Masters has some differentiated policy ideas that are probably, not certainly, reflective of where the G.O.P. is headed, but that wasn’t the main thing here.Douthat: So Tim, speaking for the “it’s Trump fealty all the way down” camp, what separates the Arizona results from the very different recent results in Georgia, where Trump fealty was insufficient to defeat either Brian Kemp or even Brad Raffensperger?Miller: Two things: First, with Kemp, governing actually matters. With incumbents, primaries for governor can be somewhat different because of that. Kemp was Ron DeSantis-esque without the attention in his handling of Covid. (This does not extend all the way to full anti-Trump or Trump-skeptical governors like Larry Hogan of Maryland or Charlie Baker of Massachusetts — Kemp almost never said an ill word about Trump.)Second, the type of electorate matters. Republican voters actually bucked Trump in another state, my home state, Colorado. What do Georgia and Colorado have in common? Suburban sprawl around a major city that dominates the state and a young, college-educated population.Douthat: Does that sound right to you, Rachel? And is there anything we aren’t seeing about a candidate like Lake that makes her more than just a stalking horse for Trump’s own obsessions?Bovard: Tim is right in the sense that there is always nuance when it comes to state elections. That’s why I also don’t see the Washington State primary race as a definitive rejection of Trump, as Tim alluded to earlier. Lake is, as a candidate, bombastic on the election issue.Miller: “Bombastic” is quite the euphemism for completely insane. Deliberate lies. The same ones that led to the storming of the Capitol.Bovard: Well, I don’t see that as determining how she governs. She’s got an entire state to manage, if she wins, and there are major issues she’ll have to manage that Trump also spoke to: the border, primarily.By the way, I regularly meet with Democrats who still tell me the 2018 election was stolen, and Stacey Abrams is the rightful governor of Georgia, so I’m not as pearl clutchy about it, no.Miller: “Pearl clutchy” is quite a way to describe a lie that has infected tens of millions of people, resulted in multiple deaths and the imprisonment of some of Trump’s most loyal supporters. I thought the populists were supposed to care about these people, but I guess worrying about their lives being ruined is just a little “pearl clutching.”Bovard: I know we don’t want to relitigate the entirety of Jan. 6, so I’ll just say I do worry about people’s lives being ruined. And the Jan. 6 Select Committee has further entrenched the divide that exists over this.Douthat: I’m going to enforce a pivot here, while using my moderator’s power to stipulate that I think Trump’s stolen-election narrative has been more destructive than the left’s Abrams-won-Georgia narrative or the “Diebold stole Ohio” narrative in 2004.If Lake wins her primary, can she win the general-election race? Can Doug Mastriano win in Pennsylvania? To what extent are we watching a replay of certain Republican campaigns in 2010 — long before Trump, it’s worth noting — where the party threw away winnable seats by nominating perceived extremists?Bovard: A key for G.O.P. candidates going forward is to embrace both elements of the cultural and economic argument. For a long time in the party these were seen as mutually exclusive, and post-Trump, I don’t think they are anymore. Glenn Youngkin won in Virginia in part by embracing working-class economic issues — leaning into repeal of the grocery tax, for example — and then pushing hard against critical race theory. He didn’t surge on economics alone.Douthat: Right, but Youngkin also did not have to run a primary campaign so deeply entangled with Trump. There’s clearly a sweet spot for the G.O.P. to run as economic moderates or populists and anti-woke fighters right now, but can a figure like Lake manage that in a general election? We don’t even know yet if Masters or J.D. Vance, who both explicitly want to claim that space, can grab it after their efforts to earn Trump’s favor.Tim, can these candidates win?Miller: Of course they can win. Midterm elections have historically washed in candidates far more unlikely than nominees like Masters (and Lake, if she is the nominee) or Mastriano from tossup swing states. Lake in particular, with her history in local news, would probably have some appeal to voters who have a personal affinity for her outside the MAGA base. Mastriano might be a slightly tougher sell, given his brand, vibe and Oath Keeper energy.Bovard: It’s long been conventional wisdom that you tack to the right in primaries and then move more to the center in the general, so if Lake wins, she will have to find a message that appeals to as many voters as possible. She would have to present a broad spectrum of policy priorities. The G.O.P. as a voting bloc has changed. Its voters are actively iterating on all of this, so previous assumptions about what appeals to voters don’t hold up as well. I tend to think there’s a lane for Trump-endorsed candidates who lean into the Trump-style economics and key culture fights.Miller: I just want to say here that I do get pissed about the notion that it’s us, the Never Trumpers, who are obsessed with litigating Jan. 6. Pennsylvania is a critical state that now has a nominee for governor who won because of his fealty to this lie, could win the general election and could put his finger on the scale in 2024. The same may be true in another key state, Arizona. This is a red-level threat for our democracy.A lot of Republicans in Washington, D.C., want to sort of brush it away just like they brushed away the threat before Jan. 6, because it’s inconvenient.Douthat: Let me frame that D.C. Republican objection a different way: If this is a red-level threat for our democracy, why aren’t Democrats acting like it? Why did Democratic Party money enter so many of these races on behalf of the more extreme, stop-the-steal Republican? For example, given the closeness of the race, that sort of tactic quite possibly helped defeat Meijer in Michigan.Miller: Give me a break. The ads from the left trying to tilt the races were stupid and frankly unpatriotic. I have spoken out about this before. But it’s not the Democrats who are electing these insane people. Were the Democrats responsible for Mark Finchem? Mehmet Oz? Herschel Walker? Mastriano won by over 20 points. This is what Republican voters want.Also, advertising is a two-way street. If all these self-righteous Republicans were so angry about the ads designed to promote John Gibbs, they could’ve run pro-Meijer ads! Where was Kevin McCarthy defending his member? He was in Florida shining Mr. Trump’s shoes.Douthat: Rachel, I watched that Masters ad that Tim mentioned and listened to his rhetoric around the 2020 election, and it seemed like he was trying to finesse things, make an argument that the 2020 election somehow wasn’t fair in the way it was administered and covered by the press without going the Sidney Powell route to pure conspiracism.But let’s take Masters’s spirit of generalized mistrust and reverse its direction: If you were an Arizona Democrat, why would you trust a Governor Lake or a Secretary of State Mark Finchem to fairly administer the 2024 election?Bovard: Honestly, the thing that concerns me most is that there is zero trust at all on elections at this moment. If I’m a Democrat, I don’t trust the Republicans, and vice versa. Part of that lack of trust is that we aren’t even allowed to question elections anymore — as Masters did, to your point, without going full conspiracy.We regain trust by actually allowing questions and full transparency. This is one of the things that worries me about our political system. Without any kind of institutional trust, or trust of one another, there’s a breakdown.Miller: This is preposterous. Arizona had several reviews of their election. The people lying about the election are the problem.Douthat: Last questions: What do you think are the implications of the big pro-life defeat in the Kansas abortion referendum, for either abortion policy or the November elections?Bovard: It shows two headwinds that the pro-life movement is up against. First is money. Reporting shows that pro-abortion advocates spent millions against the amendment, and Democrats in many key races across the country are outpacing Republicans in fund-raising. Second, it reflects the confusion that exists around this issue post-Roe. The question presented to Kansas voters was a microcosm of the general question in Roe: Should abortion be removed from the state Constitution and be put in the hands of democratically elected officials? Yet it was sometimes presented as a binary choice between a ban or no ban. (This early headline from Politico is an example: “Kansas voters block effort to ban abortion in state constitutional amendment vote.”)But I don’t think it moves the needle on the midterms.Miller: I view it slightly differently. I think most voters are in a big middle that Republicans could even use to their advantage if they didn’t run to the extremes. Voters do not want blanket abortion bans or anything that can be construed as such. Something that moved the status quo significantly to the pro-life right but still maintained exceptions and abortion up to a certain, reasonable point in pregnancy would be politically palatable.So this will only be an effective issue for Democrats in turnout and in places where Republicans let them make it an issue by going too far to the extreme.Douthat: Finally, a different short-answer question for you both. Rachel, say Masters and Vance are both in the Senate in 2023 as spokesmen for this new culturally conservative economic populism you favor. What’s the first bill they co-sponsor?Bovard: I’d say a large tax on university endowments.Douthat: Tim, adding the evidence of last night to the narrative, can Ron DeSantis (or anyone else, but let’s be honest, there isn’t anyone else) beat Trump in a Republican primary in 2024?Miller: Sad to end with a wishy-washy pundit answer but … maybe! Trump seems to have a plurality right now within the party on 2024, and many Republicans have an affinity for him. So if it were Mike Pence, Chris Christie or Liz Cheney, they would have no chance.Could DeSantis thread a needle and present himself as a more electable Trump? Some of the focus groups The Bulwark does makes it seem like that’s possible. But will he withstand the bright lights and be able to pull it off? Will Trump be indicted? A lot of known unknowns. I’d put DeSantis as an underdog, but it’s not impossible that he could pull it off.Douthat: There is absolutely no shame in the wishy-washy pundit game. Thanks so much to you both for joining me.Ross Douthat is a Times Opinion columnist. Rachel Bovard is the policy director at the Conservative Partnership Institute and a tech columnist at The Federalist. Tim Miller, a writer at The Bulwark, is the author of “Why We Did It: A Travelogue From the Republican Road to Hell.”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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      Tudor Dixon Will Challenge Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in Michigan

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      Tudor Dixon, a conservative media personality with the political backing of Michigan’s powerful DeVos family, won the state’s Republican primary for governor on Tuesday, according to The Associated Press.She will advance to the general election against Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a first-term Democrat who was on the short list to be Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s running mate in the summer of 2020.In its final weeks, the primary became a race to win the backing of former President Donald J. Trump, who ultimately did endorse Ms. Dixon. But she didn’t wait for his formal support to air a TV ad of Mr. Trump praising her at a campaign rally and release internal polling showing that half the primary electorate thought Mr. Trump had already endorsed her.Ms. Dixon emerged victorious from a five-person field that lost its two best-funded candidates in May after they were disqualified by a state canvassing board for turning in forged petition signatures.A former commentator for the conservative media channel “Real America’s Voice,” Ms. Dixon, 45, was previously an actress and an executive at her family’s steel company. She has said she was roused to run for office out of her anger over Ms. Whitmer’s policies, especially pandemic shutdown orders that were among the nation’s strictest in the early months of Covid-19.Republican gubernatorial candidate Tudor Dixon gives her acceptance speech after securing the nomination during the evening of Primary Election Day in Grand Rapids, Michigan, U.S., August 2, 2022. Emily Elconin for The New York TimesA mother of four school-age children, Ms. Dixon favors per-pupil education funding to follow students to any school they choose, including private schools. The policy aligns with the longtime priorities of the DeVos family, including Betsy DeVos, Mr. Trump’s former education secretary.At a debate in May, Ms. Dixon raised her hand when asked if she believed Mr. Trump had won Michigan in 2020, a race he in fact lost to President Biden by 154,000 votes. But on Sunday, after securing Mr. Trump’s endorsement, Ms. Dixon backed away from that position, saying instead she was concerned about “how the election was handled.” A lengthy review by Republicans in the State Senate in 2021 debunked the claims of Trump supporters that there was widespread fraud.Ms. Dixon and the rest of the Republican field were relative unknowns in Michigan, with polling showing that two in five Republicans didn’t know or had no opinion of any of the candidates just two weeks before the election.Her top rival, the self-funding former auto dealership owner Kevin Rinke, attacked Ms. Dixon as a tool of the DeVos family when Ms. DeVos said in June that she had sought to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Mr. Trump from office after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. Ms. DeVos endorsed Ms. Dixon’s campaign, and her family helped fund it, and a handwritten “Dear Mr. President” letter from Ms. DeVos to Mr. Trump last week appeared to have prompted his endorsement of Ms. Dixon.Garrett Soldano, a chiropractor who gained political attention by organizing rallies against Ms. Whitmer’s pandemic mitigation efforts in 2020, urged Mr. Trump not to endorse Ms. Dixon. He said in a video message to Mr. Trump that after Jan. 6, the DeVos family “basically abandoned you, sir.”And Ryan Kelley, a real estate broker, was arrested in June and charged with four misdemeanors for his actions at the Capitol on Jan. 6. Mr. Kelley pleaded not guilty and said he had joined rioters outside but had not entered the building. He predicted at the time that the publicity surrounding his arrest would help his campaign, though he did not raise enough money to air television ads.Of the four leading candidates, three — Ms. Dixon, Mr. Kelley and Mr. Soldano — falsely said during the May debate that Mr. Trump had carried Michigan in 2020. Mr. Rinke said that there had been fraud, but that he could not be certain it was enough to flip the state to Mr. Trump.Trip Gabriel contributed reporting. More