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      Who won and who lost in Tuesday’s primary elections.

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      Voters in seven states weighed in on key contests in Tuesday’s primaries. Here is a rundown of some of the most notable wins and losses:CaliforniaSan Francisco recalled its progressive district attorney, Chesa Boudin. Mr. Boudin had enacted sweeping overhauls since being elected two years ago and faced criticism that those changes led to increases in crime.Rick Caruso, the billionaire developer, and Representative Karen Bass will square off in a runoff contest to be the mayor of Los Angeles.Gov. Gavin Newsom, who last year easily beat back a Republican-led recall effort, will face State Senator Brian Dahle, a Republican.Attorney General Rob Bonta, a Democrat, will advance to the November runoff after his first place finish in the open primary for that office. A second candidate has not been determined yet.Representative Michelle Steel, a freshman Republican, will face Jay Chen, a Democrat and Navy reservist.Scott Baugh, a former leader of the California Assembly, fended off a crowded Republican field on Tuesday to earn the right to challenge Representative Katie Porter.Representative Mike Garcia, a Republican, will face Christy Smith, a former Democratic state legislator, for the third time.Kevin Kiley, a Republican state legislator backed by former President Donald J. Trump, will compete against the Democrat, Kermit Jones, who is a Navy veteran and physician, in the Third Congressional District.New JerseyRobert J. Menendez Jr., the son of Senator Bob Menendez, won his House Democratic primary in the Eighth Congressional District.Tom Kean Jr., a former lawmaker and the son of a two-term New Jersey governor, won the Republican nomination in the state’s Seventh Congressional District. He now faces Representative Tom Malinowski, the Democratic incumbent.IowaSenator Charles E. Grassley, 88, easily won his primary race and will run against Mike Franken, a retired Navy admiral who won the Democratic primary for Senate.State Senator Zach Nunn won the Republican nomination for Iowa’s Third Congressional District. Mr. Nunn will face Representative Cindy Axne, the Democratic incumbent.New MexicoMark Ronchetti, a former Albuquerque television meteorologist, was the Republican’s pick to challenge Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Democrat.Gabe Vasquez, a Las Cruces city councilor, won the Democratic nomination for New Mexico’s Second Congressional District. Mr. Vasquez will face Representative Yvette Herrell, the Republican incumbent.Raúl Torrez, the Bernalillo County district attorney, defeated Brian Colón, the state auditor, in the Democratic primary for attorney general.South DakotaVoters defeated an effort to increase the level of support needed to pass most voter-initiated referendums to 60 percent from a majority.Gov. Kristi Noem won her Republican primary, and so did Senator John Thune.MississippiRepresentative Steven Palazzo, a Republican facing an ethics investigation, was forced into a runoff election in his party’s primary, according to The Associated Press. It has not yet been announced who he will face later this month. More

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      Jan. 6 Hearings Give Democrats a Chance to Recast Midterm Message

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      With their majority at stake, Democrats plan to use the six high-profile hearings to refocus voters’ attention on Republicans’ role in the attack.WASHINGTON — Seventeen months after a mob of Donald J. Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol with false claims of a stolen election, House Democrats plan to use a landmark set of investigative hearings beginning this week to try to refocus voters’ attention on Jan. 6, aiming to tie Republicans directly to an unprecedented plot to undermine democracy itself.With their control of Congress hanging in the balance, Democrats plan to use made-for-television moments and a carefully choreographed rollout of revelations over the course of six hearings to remind the public of the magnitude of Mr. Trump’s effort to overturn the election, and to persuade voters that the coming midterm elections are a chance to hold Republicans accountable for it.It is an uphill battle at a time when polls show that voters’ attention is focused elsewhere, including on inflation, rising coronavirus cases and record-high gas prices. But Democrats argue the hearings will give them a platform for making a broader case about why they deserve to stay in power.“When these hearings are over, voters will know how irresponsibly complicit Republicans were in attempting to toss out their vote and just how far Republicans will go to gain power for themselves,” said Representative Sean Patrick Maloney, the Democratic campaign chair.The select committee investigating the attack, made up of seven Democrats and two Republicans, says it has approached its work in a sober, apolitical manner and will present its findings as such. But it is clear that the hearings, coming five months before midterm elections in which Democrats are bracing for big losses, carry high political stakes.The hope among Democrats is that the committee’s findings, collected from 1,000 witnesses and over 140,000 documents, will do most of the messaging work for them. Representative Jamie Raskin, Democrat of Maryland and a member of the committee, has promised the hearings will “blow the roof off the House.”They have retained an experienced television executive to ensure that happens and organized scores of watch parties across the country in hopes of generating interest. But they are facing an onslaught from Republicans who are bent on denying, downplaying and obfuscating the truth of what happened in their own messaging operation aimed at discrediting the inquiry.And Democrats are up against the reality that the raw emotions in the aftermath of the attack have faded, even among voters who care about the facts, as attention has turned to an ongoing war in Ukraine, gun violence at home and a deep pessimism about the state of the economy.Their task is to persuade voters that the Jan. 6 attack revealed bigger and more important issues at stake, including the Republican Party’s alignment with violent extremists and its decision to make adherence to the “big lie” that the 2020 election was stolen a test of membership.Representative Hakeem Jeffries, Democrat of New York, said on Twitter that the hearings would “fully expose the cult’s extreme effort to overthrow the U.S. government.”A significant portion of the first hearing on Thursday evening will focus on the Proud Boys, a far-right group whose members have been charged with seditious conspiracy in connection with the storming of the Capitol, according to two people familiar with the matter who spoke about it on the condition of anonymity.It is scheduled to include testimony from a documentary filmmaker, Nick Quested, who was embedded with the group during the storming of the building, and a Capitol Police officer, Caroline Edwards, who was injured in an assault said to be triggered by the Proud Boys.The goal is to provide the public with a more in-depth portrait of what unfolded on Jan. 6 than the images that played out on television that day, and to reveal the extent of what the panel called a “coordinated, multistep effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and prevent the transfer of power.”Norman L. Eisen, who was hired by the Judiciary Committee to serve as special counsel during the first Trump impeachment, said Democrats had learned from some of their successes and misfires during those hearings, but still faced challenges.“They need to have three things: the attention-grabbing power of new evidence, the spontaneous drama created by live witnesses and the oldest trick in the book: telling a good story,” Mr. Eisen said. “The risk is, there’s an enormous amount of anticipation and buildup.”Still, some Democratic operatives believe the political payoff could be substantial, both in energizing the party’s core supporters and in appealing to independent voters who may turn against Republicans based on what they see and hear.Anat Shenker-Osorio, the founder of ASO Communications, a progressive political consulting firm, has been conducting focus groups with voters. She said both Democratic “base surge voters” and “swing voters” were motivated by increased attention on the Capitol riot.“Jan. 6 is very much salient and highly negative to these likely midterm voters,” Ms. Shenker-Osorio told activists on a recent call promoting the hearings.Democrats have met with networks about carrying the hearing live in prime time. Activists have scheduled more than 90 watch events in various states, including a “flagship” event at the Robert A. Taft Memorial and Carillon in Washington, where a large screen will be set up and attendees will get free ice cream.“It’s everything from a family-gathering-in-the-living-room-type event to hosting it in a union hall to hosting it on a big field with a Jumbotron,” said Lisa Gilbert, executive vice president of the progressive group Public Citizen.In an attempt to keep the hearing from becoming too dry and disconnected from the visceral reality of the attack, the committee is tentatively planning to play video of the Capitol attack and considering airing clips of key testimony from high-profile witnesses, such as the former White House advisers Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner.As it tries to deliver the equivalent of the Watergate hearings for the streaming era, the committee has brought on the former president of ABC News, James Goldston, a move reported earlier by Axios, to help fit the hearings into six tight episodes, running between 90 minutes and 2.5 hours.The committee has brought on the former president of ABC News, James Goldston, to help create six tight episodes from the hearings.Bennett Raglin/Getty ImagesRepublican lawmakers have already begun pushing a counternarrative to dismiss the hearings as nothing more than political theater at a moment when Americans are more concerned with kitchen-table issues like the rising price of gas and a baby formula shortage.“Instead of focusing on $5 gas, 6,000 illegal immigrants a day, record fentanyl deaths, or the violent criminals terrorizing America democrats use taxpayer money on a TV producer for the prime time political infomercial from the Jan 6th circus,” Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, said on Twitter on Monday.Representative Elise Stefanik of New York, the No. 3 Republican who was Mr. Trump’s chief defender during the first impeachment hearing, will oversee the effort to discredit the committee’s findings, coordinating with Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the minority leader, and Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee. They plan to book Republican lawmakers on television to push a debunked claim that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is to blame for the attack.Representative Elise Stefanik, who emerged as Mr. Trump’s chief defender during the first impeachment hearing, has begun referring to the committee’s work as a “political sham witch hunt.”Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesMs. Stefanik has begun referring to the committee’s work as a “political sham witch hunt,” echoing the same language Mr. Trump used to try to undermine Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. A person familiar with Republican plans said they also had a “rapid response” operation to try to counter the committee’s revelations.The hearings are expected to flesh out various aspects of the investigation, including Mr. Trump’s promotion of a lie of a stolen election, despite being told his claims were false; his attempts to misuse the Justice Department to cling to power; the pressure campaign on Vice President Mike Pence to persuade him to throw out electoral votes for Joseph R. Biden Jr.; how the mob assembled and descended onto D.C. on Jan. 6; and how Mr. Trump did nothing to stop the violence for more than three hours while the assault was underway.The Jan. 6 committee is tentatively planning to play video of the Capitol attack and considering airing clips of key testimony from high-profile witnesses.Jason Andrew for The New York TimesThe committee has not yet nailed down the full slate of witnesses and is still discussing the possibility of public testimony with several high-profile Trump-era officials.The panel is waiting for Jeffrey A. Rosen, the former acting attorney general, and Richard P. Donoghue, the former acting deputy attorney general, to respond to formal requests to testify, according to two people briefed on the matter.Both Mr. Rosen and Mr. Donoghue have already told multiple congressional committees that Mr. Trump and his allies pressured the department to say falsely that it had found voter fraud and to use its power to undo the results.The committee is still in informal talks with Pat A. Cipollone, the former White House counsel, as well as Byung J. Pak, the former U.S. attorney in Atlanta who abruptly resigned on Jan. 4, 2021, after learning that Mr. Trump planned to fire him for not finding voter fraud, according to those people familiar with the discussions.Katie Benner More

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      Iowa: How to Vote, Where to Vote and What’s on the Ballot

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      Senator Charles E. Grassley, at 88 years old, is standing for re-election, as is Representative Cindy Axne. Here’s what to know about voting in today’s primary elections in Iowa:How to voteThe deadline to request an absentee ballot was about two weeks ago (here’s the form). You can track the status of your absentee ballot on this site.Iowa permits people to register to vote on Election Day. Just go to your polling place with proof of ID and proof of residence. If you do not have the documents election officials require, “a registered voter from your precinct may attest for you,” according to the website for Iowa’s secretary of state. Look up whether you are already registered here.Where to voteYou can look up your polling location here. If you voted by mail, your ballot will be counted as long as it is received by officials before 8 p.m. local time on Election Day (which is also when polls close), or hand-delivered to your county auditor by that deadline.What’s on the ballotYou’ll be asked to pick candidates for U.S. Senate, as well as local offices. (Gov. Kim Reynolds, a Republican, and Diedre DeJear, the Democratic nominee for governor, are not facing primary challenges.) Enter your address on this website to see what else is on your ballot today. More

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      What to Watch in Today’s Primary Elections in California, New Jersey and More

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      Primary voters in seven states, including California and New Jersey, go to the polls on Tuesday to select their party’s candidates for statewide offices, like the governors of New Mexico and South Dakota; for mayor of Los Angeles, the nation’s second largest city, and for dozens of House seats.Crime is very much on the minds of Californians: San Franciscans are deciding whether to remove their district attorney, and Angelenos are weighing whether to elect as their next mayor a longtime Democratic insider or a billionaire former Republican who promises to crack down on crime and homelessness and clean up the city.Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, is not expected to have much opposition as he seeks an eighth term this November at age 89. Other races offer more drama.Here’s what to watch for in Tuesday’s contests in New Jersey, Mississippi, Iowa, South Dakota, New Mexico, Montana and California:A true battleground map comes into viewIn most of the country, congressional redistricting shored up incumbency for both parties. Tuesday will showcase much of the battleground that remains. Of the 53 House seats that the nonpartisan Cook Political Report sees in play, nine are in California, New Mexico and Iowa.And for once, Democrats will be watching districts where they can play offense: four Republican House seats in California, now held by Representatives David Valadao, Mike Garcia, Michelle Steel and Young Kim, and one in New Mexico, held by Yvette Herrell.If those races do not add a little suspense to the vote Tuesday, California’s unusual primary system could give political obsessives a very late night. Under the system, established under former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the top two vote-getters on primary night face off in November, regardless of party.Invariably, a few races end up with a Republican facing off with a Republican or a Democrat meeting a Democrat, leaving one party iced out. Some seats could be guaranteed to change hands based on Tuesday’s results.Democratic miscalculations and lost opportunitiesIn New Mexico, Democrats in full control of the state capital in Santa Fe took a chance, making a safe seat in the state’s picturesque north less safe by dipping the district’s boundaries south, in hopes of taking southern New Mexico’s Republican seat.But in a bad Democratic year, they may have overplayed their hand: Rather than hoping for a sweep of the state’s three House seats, Democrats now are worrying that Republicans could hold that seat and grab another.Redistricting in California was in the hands of a nonpartisan commission, which put Democrats into position to take some Republican seats and elect the first Hispanic representatives in the Central Valley.But Democrats could also lose some House seats, including the one held by Katie Porter, one of the party’s rising stars. Besides Ms. Porter, Representative Mike Levin on the Southern California coast is sweating his re-election, and a new seat in central California, the 13th District, should be Democratic in an ordinary year, but this is not that.Democrats had also hoped to make a play for the Iowa Senate seat held by Mr. Grassley. But Mr. Grassley opted to run for re-election, though he would be 95 by the end of his next term. And the Democrats’ favored candidate, Abby Finkenauer, 33, who served one term in the House, has struggled even to get on the ballot.Ethics lapses can be costly. Except when they aren’t.Representative Tom Malinowski, a New Jersey Democrat, had the makings of a foreign policy heavyweight in his party. He was the Washington director of Human Rights Watch before becoming a top human rights official in the Obama administration’s State Department.Mr. Malinowski turned his attention to electoral politics in 2018, beating a moderate Republican, Leonard Lance, in that year’s Democratic wave. In 2020, he edged out Thomas Kean Jr., the son and namesake of a popular former New Jersey governor, by 5,311 votes.Stock trades by Representative Tom Malinowski were the subject of an investigation by the House Ethics Committee.Pool photo by Graeme JenningsOn Tuesday, Mr. Kean is the odds-on favorite to win his party’s nomination to challenge Mr. Malinowski again, but this time, the Democrat is one of the most endangered incumbents in the House, thanks to three factors. Redistricting made his narrowly Democratic seat narrowly Republican.Despite Mr. Kean’s loss in 2020, the governor’s son is a strong opponent in a state where surnames matter (Robert J. Menendez, Senator Bob Menendez’s son, is the heavy favorite in the Democratic primary for another House seat). And Mr. Malinowski admitted he had failed to properly disclose thousands of dollars in stock trades, the subject of an investigation by the House Ethics Committee.On the other hand, another House candidate with a checkered ethics record, Ryan Zinke, is expected to win his G.O.P. primary and return to the House from Montana’s First District. Mr. Zinke left Washington in 2018 as Mr. Trump’s first Interior secretary under a cloud of conflict-of-interest investigations and questionable taxpayer expenditures.Trump’s swing and miss in South DakotaFormer President Donald J. Trump vowed to punish Senator John Thune, Republican of South Dakota, for not sufficiently promoting the lie that Mr. Trump had won re-election in 2020. “South Dakota doesn’t like weakness. He will be primaried in 2022, political career over!” the former president declared on Twitter in December 2020, before he was barred from the platform.Senator John Thune at the Capitol in May.Shuran Huang for The New York TimesBut South Dakota’s governor, Kristi Noem, opted to run for re-election instead of for the Senate, and no serious challenger heeded Mr. Trump’s call to take on Mr. Thune. Consequently, Republican voters in South Dakota are likely to easily nominate Mr. Thune — dismissed by Mr. Trump as a “Republican in name only” and “Mitch’s boy” — for re-election, lifting him up as the heir apparent to Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Senate Republican leader.They will also put Ms. Noem in position to run for president or, if Mr. Trump runs, to make a play for vice president.Understand the 2022 Midterm ElectionsCard 1 of 6Why are these midterms so important? More

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      What Trump Doesn’t Understand About Alaska

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      SITKA, Alaska — As the only Republican senator fighting for her seat less than two years after voting to convict Donald Trump, Lisa Murkowski could be one of the crowning casualties in his war to rid the party of dissenters. Mr. Trump has insisted that voters here in Alaska won’t forgive Ms. Murkowski for her recent transgressions, and that Kelly Tshibaka, the Republican challenger whom he endorsed, “stands for Alaska values.”What I imagine he meant was that Ms. Tshibaka has the courage to confront bullies, the willingness to put state before political party, and a general resilience that comes from years of living in “Alyeska,” the Aleut word for “the great land.” The only problem with his argument is that, over the past 20 years, it’s Ms. Murkowski who has demonstrated all three. And it might be just enough to save her political career.As the state with the highest percentage of voters refusing to declare a party affiliation (more than half of voters here identify as independent), Alaska has a rich tradition of rewarding candidates who stand up to powerful figures like Mr. Trump. In the early 20th century, James Wickersham, Alaska’s congressional delegate, battled to give the territory the right to govern itself, insisting on its difference from the “Outside.” As recently as the 1990s, Gov. Wally Hickel was saying that Alaska deserved to be called its own “unique country.” And Alaska’s longtime congressman, Don Young, was so willing to stand up to the powers that be that he once held a 10-inch knife to John Boehner’s neck. (The two later became friends, and Mr. Boehner served as Mr. Young’s best man.)The daughter of an Alaska governor, Ms. Murkowski understands this tradition better than most. She infuriated her Republican colleagues in 2017 with her vote against repealing the Affordable Care Act and rejected Mr. Trump’s nominees, voting against both Betsy DeVos as secretary of education and Brett Kavanaugh for Supreme Court justice. In that sense, she represents ideals all but lost in American political life: She may not wield a knife on the House floor, but her independent thinking and ability to consider each issue individually are relics of a time when party loyalty mattered less than your relationship with your constituents.That approach has hurt her standing in the Republican Party. After she voted to convict Mr. Trump, he declared that she represented “her state badly and her country even worse.” He even threatened to come to Alaska to campaign against her — now that would be a reality show I’d watch. While such saber-rattling would have been enough to send most moderate Republicans scurrying into their holes, Ms. Murkowski held fast.To understand her resilience and resolve, you need only to look at her wrist. There, you’ll find a bracelet engraved with her last name, along with the words “Fill it in. Write it in.” This was a gift from her husband, who modeled it on the silicone wristbands her campaign issued in 2010 after she lost her primary to a Republican challenger blessed by the national party. Ms. Murkowski won the general election as a write-in candidate thanks to a motley crew of centrists, Democrats and Alaska’s Native community. (Ms. Murkowski’s vote against the health care repeal was largely seen in the state as a “thank you” card to the villages that allowed her to pull this off.)Kelly Tshibaka, meanwhile, returned to the state of her birth just three years ago — about as long as we keep salmon in the freezer before putting it into our Dungeness traps. In an attempt to shake the carpetbagger label, her campaign released a video showing her at work on a set-net operation in Cook Inlet. The move backfired when the Alaska Department of Fish and Game fined her $270 for not having a crew license. (I was also fined by that agency, for working on a sea cucumber dive boat without a license. I did not issue a news release afterward blaming my political opponents for the fine.)If the tribes, sportfishermen, A.T.V.ers, commercial fishermen and conservationists in Alaska agree on one thing, it’s the responsibility of the state to control its fisheries and maintain a “sustainable yield” through strict regulations, a duty written into the Alaska Constitution. The footage of Ms. Tshibaka illegally handling a salmon showed someone desperate for authenticity — but also a candidate either ignorant of, or just willing to break, Alaska’s fish laws.Ms. Tshibaka has also been taken to task for her unsteady relationship to the truth. In 1975, her parents moved to the state for the pipeline boom and spent time in a tent at Russian Jack Springs Park for their honeymoon. A photo from this period has become Exhibit A of the “homeless to Harvard” story arc Ms. Tshibaka has promoted to describe her Alaska upbringing. As the veteran Alaska newspaper columnist Dermot Cole recently pointed out, her parents weren’t homeless. They were camping.After finishing high school, Ms. Tshibaka left to attend college in Texas, then Harvard Law, before spending 17 years in Washington. She wrote an article praising an organization that advocated gay conversion therapy (she later apologized to anyone she might have offended), described the “Twilight” books and movies as “evil,” and warned against the “addictive” qualities of witchcraft — positions not exactly in line with Alaska voters’ distaste for people telling them how to live their lives.Both she and Ms. Murkowski have presented themselves as lifelong Alaskans running against the political “establishment” in the rest of the country. But it’s Ms. Tshibaka who salutes the flag at Mar-a-Lago, telling high school students in Nome that Mr. Trump’s policies were “super great for our state.” In February, Mr. Trump hosted a fund-raiser for Ms. Tshibaka at his Florida club, though he then turned around and charged her $14,477 for use of the facilities. She moved back to Alaska only in 2019, when she was hired by the Republican governor, with the state paying $81,000 in moving expenses to bring her and her family north.Preening for a national audience at CPAC and on conservative talk shows, as Ms. Tshibaka has been doing, could hurt her chances in the August primary. The Democrat who went up against the Republican incumbent senator Dan Sullivan in 2020, Dr. Al Gross, discovered this to his grief. Hosting Zoom calls from his Airstream, courting donors across the country, he raised $19 million, the highest take of any Alaska Senate candidate ever. But come election time, the national exposure seemed to hinder more than help; Dr. Gross lost to Mr. Sullivan by 13 percentage points.Ms. Murkowski plays a different game.If history is any guide, soon she’ll arrive at the small airport here in Sitka dressed in fleece and denim, ready to wolf down wilted iceberg lettuce at the Chamber of Commerce luncheon, pumping hands with the “cut, kill, dig, drill” flannel-wearing good old boys at Orion Sporting Goods, dancing at Native celebrations.While I don’t always agree with her, when I watch her work a room, it’s difficult to take seriously Mr. Trump’s prediction that Alaska voters won’t forgive her. The more relevant question seems to be whether Ms. Murkowski will forgive him. “I will tell you, if the Republican Party has become nothing more than the party of Trump, I sincerely question whether this is the party for me,” she said shortly after the Capitol riot.The idea that Mr. Trump could fly up to Alaska and take her down, as he has so many others, could actually win Ms. Murkowski votes. One thing he might discover in the attempt: He doesn’t have the first idea of the values of this state he has visited only during refueling stops on Air Force One — the closeness to the land, to blood, to the sound ice shards make on a pane of glass at 40 below. All this might play as curiosity or nostalgia in the Lower 48. But it’s real up here.We don’t need more greatness in Alaska — just someone who understands what we already have, and is courageous enough to defend it against those who do not.Brendan Jones (@BrendanIJones), a writer and commercial fisherman, is the author, most recently, of the novel “Whispering Alaska.”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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      High California Gas Prices Rattle Democrats Ahead of Midterms

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      SANTA ANA, Calif. — Orange County, Calif., symbolized Republican struggles in America’s diverse and highly educated suburbs during Donald J. Trump’s presidency, as a backlash to Mr. Trump transformed center-right strongholds into increasingly Democratic territory.But at a Chevron station in Santa Ana near John Wayne Airport on Friday afternoon, the anger was aimed at President Biden and his party, as Californians grappled with gas prices registering that day at $6.59 a gallon.“I’m really unhappy,” Carmen Vega, 47, of Anaheim, said, adding that she voted for Mr. Biden but was now considering backing Republicans in the midterm elections. “The economy sucks right now, everything’s too expensive.”And as Simona Sabo, 38, of Irvine, waxed nostalgic for Mr. Trump while filling up her S.U.V. — “What I liked was that gas prices weren’t this high” — another woman poked her head around the pump and offered a silent thumbs up before driving away.Five months before the midterm elections, Democrats are straining to defend their narrow House majority in a brutal political environment shaped by high inflation, Mr. Biden’s low approval ratings and a strong sense among many Americans that the country is on the wrong track. But they have held out hope that a handful of California congressional contests will emerge as bright spots, thanks to the redistricting process that made some seats more hospitable to Democrats, and the importance of issues including abortion rights and gun control to many coastal voters.A station in Los Angeles last week with even higher prices.Zeng Hui/Xinhua via Getty ImagesYet in California, home to the highest average price for regular gasoline in the nation — $6.326 on Sunday, according to the motor club AAA, compared with the nation’s average of $4.848 — anger over the cost of living is threatening Democrats’ ambitions. (California gas prices are typically the highest in the nation, owing in part to state taxes and regulations on emissions that require a more expensive blend of gasoline, but recent numbers have been eye-popping.)On the cusp of Tuesday’s primary elections that will determine California’s general election matchups, there are signs that the cost of living is overshadowing virtually every other issue in some of the state’s battleground areas, according to elected officials, party strategists and polling.“They’re beyond furious — it’s called desperation,” said Representative Lou Correa, a Democrat from Santa Ana, whose district is considered safely Democratic but neighbors more competitive Orange County seats. “I don’t hear anything about the other national issues we’re focusing on in Washington. The thing I hear about is gasoline. What are you going to do to bring down the gas prices?”An ABC News/Ipsos poll released Sunday found that most Americans called the economy, inflation and rising gas prices the most important issues in determining their midterm votes. Just 28 percent of those surveyed approved of Mr. Biden’s handling of inflation, and 27 percent approved of his handling of gas prices.Understand the 2022 Midterm Elections So FarAfter key races in Georgia, Pennsylvania and other states, here’s what we’ve learned.Trump’s Invincibility in Doubt: With many of Donald J. Trump’s endorsed candidates failing to win, some Republicans see an opening for a post-Trump candidate in 2024.G.O.P. Governors Emboldened: Many Republican governors are in strong political shape. And some are openly opposing Mr. Trump.Voter Fraud Claims Fade: Republicans have been accepting their primary victories with little concern about the voter fraud they once falsely claimed caused Mr. Trump’s 2020 loss.The Politics of Guns: Republicans have been far more likely than Democrats to use messaging about guns to galvanize their base in the midterms. Here’s why.“The problem for the Democrats here will be that all of the contributing economic factors, particularly inflation, that’s hurting them nationally is on steroids in California,” said Rob Stutzman, a veteran California Republican strategist who is assisting some independent statewide candidates this year. “Seats that, when the maps got drawn, that they didn’t think would be competitive very well could be,” he added.The contours of those House races will come into clearer focus after Tuesday’s primaries, which have so far appeared to be low-turnout affairs. In California primaries, the top two vote-getters, regardless of party, then move on to the general election.The races against Representatives David Valadao and Mike Garcia, two Republicans, are expected to be highly competitive in general elections, given the Democratic tilt of both their new districts.Mr. Valadao, of the Central Valley, is one of 10 Republicans who voted to impeach Mr. Trump after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, and he also faces primary challenges.Mr. Garcia, of Santa Clarita, who won his last election by just 333 votes, voted against certifying the results of the 2020 election. Democrats are locked in a primary to challenge him.There are also primary contests for a newly redrawn open seat in California’s 13th Congressional District near Fresno, which leans Democratic, according to the Cook Political Report, though the race may well be highly competitive.Several Republican primary contests may determine how close a number of Southern California seats become. National Republicans see a chance to defeat Representative Mike Levin, a Democrat, but there is also a competitive primary to challenge him.There has also been something of a Republican rescue mission for Representative Young Kim. Her primary contest this year grew unexpectedly competitive, and her newly redrawn district would become far more tightly contested in November should she lose.Two other high-profile House races are unfolding in Orange County, a place once strongly associated with Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon, staunchly conservative former presidents, but now a prominent political battleground. Representative Michelle Steel, who like Ms. Kim is a Korean American Republican who flipped a seat in 2020, is running in a new, heavily Asian American district in what is expected to be a close race against Jay Chen, a small-business owner and lieutenant commander in the U.S. Navy Reserve. The newly drawn district somewhat favors Democrats.Representative Katie Porter speaking at an event against gun violence on Saturday in Seal Beach, Calif.Jenna Schoenefeld for The New York TimesAnd Representative Katie Porter, a Democrat with a national platform and a huge war chest, is running in a redrawn seat that is roughly evenly politically divided.She and many other Democrats argue that their party is trying to bring down gas prices — which have spiked for reasons including Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — while charging that Republicans embrace the issue as a political cudgel. And certainly, there is still time for gas prices and other costs to come down before the midterms, amid other positive economic indicators, and for the political environment to improve for Democrats in competitive races.“My minivan is almost out of gas today and I thought, you know what, I’m not in the mood to fill it up today. Right? It’s frustrating,” Ms. Porter said, arguing that Democrats grasp voters’ pain on this issue. “There is a solution to this, and it starts by being willing to stand up to corporate abuse.”Representative Michelle Steel with Irene Schweitzer, 99, of Anaheim, on Saturday at a campaign event in Buena Park, Calif.Jenna Schoenefeld for The New York TimesRepublicans argue that Democrats have pursued a range of inflationary measures, and some are pushing for practices like more drilling.Understand the 2022 Midterm ElectionsCard 1 of 6Why are these midterms so important? More

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      Republicans Elevate Diverse Recruits in Bid to Win House Majority

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      The G.O.P.’s plan to win back the House rests on candidates of color who leaders hope can help broaden the party’s appeal. TUCSON, Ariz. — When Juan Ciscomani first brought his family to his new congressional campaign office in the Catalina foothills, his father asked him: “Do you know where we are?”This was the same upscale neighborhood where a teenage Juan and his father, who immigrated from Mexico and took a job driving city buses, used to come early in the mornings to wash expensive cars to help make ends meet. Years later, the younger Mr. Ciscomani is one of House Republicans’ top recruits in the country, running to flip a key congressional seat just blocks from where they once worked to scrape by. “Two blocks away — it dawned on us,” Mr. Ciscomani recalled in an interview. “Then he said his favorite phrase: ‘Only in America.’”If Republicans win back the House majority in the November elections, it will be because of candidates like Mr. Ciscomani. In the nation’s most competitive congressional districts, Republicans have aggressively recruited people of color with powerful personal stories to tell, betting that compelling candidates, equipped with disciplined messages that focus on kitchen table issues like inflation and public safety, will deliver them control of the House.Republicans saw the potency of the strategy in 2020, when handicappers and pollsters predicted that Democrats would expand their majority. Instead, Democrats did not gain a single new seat while Republican candidates — women, minorities and veterans — won 15. Party operatives attributed the success to their decision to follow Democrats’ winning formula in 2018, recruiting a diverse group of candidates who helped propel them to gaining control of the House. Now, Republicans say it is a crucial component of their strategy to build a lasting majority. “We made a significant effort to not just say we would do recruitment differently but to actually get stronger recruits, and forcefully engaging on behalf of stronger recruits, more diverse recruits, recruits that reflect their electorates and the country,” said Dan Conston, the president of the Congressional Leadership Fund, House Republicans’ super PAC. Understand the 2022 Midterm Elections So FarAfter key races in Georgia, Pennsylvania and other states, here’s what we’ve learned.Trump’s Invincibility in Doubt: With many of Donald J. Trump’s endorsed candidates failing to win, some Republicans see an opening for a post-Trump candidate in 2024.G.O.P. Governors Emboldened: Many Republican governors are in strong political shape. And some are openly opposing Mr. Trump.Voter Fraud Claims Fade: Republicans have been accepting their primary victories with little concern about the voter fraud they once falsely claimed caused Mr. Trump’s 2020 loss.The Politics of Guns: Republicans have been far more likely than Democrats to use messaging about guns to galvanize their base in the midterms. Here’s why.It is a striking strategy for a party whose ranks are overwhelmingly white and male, and include some lawmakers who have lionized the rioters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 and embraced nativist, anti-immigrant language. The House Democrats’ campaign arm has spotlighted the influence of the hard right among Republicans, and has criticized Republican leaders for failing to confront extremists within their own conference. Republicans know that to meet predictions that they will win back the House this year, they must appeal not only to their core political base of right-wing and conservative voters, but also to college-educated people and independents in the suburbs who are likely to be alienated by such statements and stances. And party leaders are eager to continue to fix their diversity problem, with women composing only about 16 percent of the conference and people of color composing nine percent.In Texas, three Latina women are running in the Rio Grande Valley, including Mayra Flores, who immigrated to the United States from Mexico at six years old, worked on the frontline of the pandemic as a respiratory therapist, and is married to a Border Patrol officer. Ms. Flores could come to Congress as early as this month if she wins the special election to replace former Representative Filemon Vela, a Democrat who retired before the end of his term.Black Republicans with records of military service are running for several other key seats, in districts that Mr. Biden won by only a few points. There is John James in Michigan and Wesley Hunt in Texas, who both graduated from West Point and flew Apache helicopters in Iraq; and in Georgia, Jeremy Hunt, the son of two ministers who also graduated from West Point and who served as an active-duty Army intelligence officer in Ukraine. Wesley Hunt, a Republican candidate and Iraq war veteran, speaking to community members in Cibolo, Texas.Christian K. Lee for The New York TimesIn Indiana, Jennifer-Ruth Green, an Air Force veteran who deployed to Baghdad and served as a mission commander for counterintelligence activities, is looking to unseat Democrat Frank Mrvan in his northern district. Should all four prevail, they would triple the number of Black Republicans serving in the House.Here in Arizona, Mr. Ciscomani, a senior adviser to Gov. Doug Ducey, is vying to win the Tucson-based district held by Representative Ann Kirkpatrick, a Democrat who is retiring at the end of the year. In a district evenly populated by Democratic, Republican, and independent voters, Mr. Ciscomani is running with a laserlike focus on inflation, border security, and an explicit appeal for unity. “We have to be very disciplined in saying there are more things we agree on than disagree on,” he said. “And if we stay focused on that — I think that’s what the voters want to see right now. They’re tired of the infighting and bickering. They want government to go do their job. To go actually protect our border, to handle this inflation, stop the overspending, and get things under control.”That type of message would put Mr. Ciscomani in the minority among his Republican colleagues should he be elected in November, and it stands in sharp contrast to the language used by other Republicans in the Arizona delegation. Representative Paul Gosar, who represents much of rural western Arizona, has allied himself with the white nationalist Nick Fuentes and was censured last year for posting an animated video that depicted him killing a Democratic congresswoman. Representative Andy Biggs, whose district is in the eastern portion of the state, has described the influx of migrants at the southwestern border as an “invasion,” and, like Mr. Gosar, participated in the “Stop the Steal” campaign backing former President Donald J. Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election.Understand the 2022 Midterm ElectionsCard 1 of 6Why are these midterms so important? More

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      For Beto O’Rourke, Talk of Gun Control Has Become Both a Political Risk and Reward

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      DALLAS — When Beto O’Rourke interrupted a news conference in Uvalde to criticize Gov. Greg Abbott, Jason Smith bristled.Mr. Smith, a Fort Worth lawyer and Democrat, worried that Mr. O’Rourke’s approach was too confrontational in that moment, a day after an 18-year-old gunman stormed into Robb Elementary School. But in the days that followed, as details emerged that the police waited in a school hallway for more than an hour as children called 911 for help and Mr. Abbott acknowledged being “misled” about the response to the massacre, Mr. Smith changed his mind.“I was really glad he did it,” he said of Mr. O’Rourke.Mr. O’Rourke, 49, clearly took a political gamble when he disrupted the governor in an emotional outburst that Republicans and some Democrats believed crossed a line in the aftermath of a mass shooting that left 19 students and two teachers dead. He was speaking not only as an outraged parent and Texan, but also as Mr. Abbott’s Democratic opponent in the race for governor.But interviews with Democratic lawmakers, strategists and voters in recent days showed that his return to speaking out about gun control and gun violence has helped him make a powerful connection with many over the tragedy in Uvalde, bringing a new energy to his long-shot campaign to unseat Mr. Abbott and a new urgency to efforts to overhaul the state’s lax gun laws.The very issue that had haunted his campaign for governor for months — his remarks during his 2020 presidential campaign calling for more aggressive gun restrictions — has suddenly helped revive it. Those past comments — “Hell yes, we’re going to take your AR-15, your AK-47,” he said on a debate stage in 2019 — had seemed politically foolish as he campaigned in gun-friendly Texas, and he had sought to moderate them. Now, to many Texans saddened and angered by a deadly attack on schoolchildren by a gunman with an AR-15-style rifle, Mr. O’Rourke’s stance on guns has taken on a fresh resonance.Mr. O’Rourke confronted Gov. Greg Abbott in Uvalde following the shooting at Robb Elementary School.Veronica Cardenas/Reuters“They say that cost him the election,” said Mary Taylor, 66, a retired human resources manager and former substitute teacher who attended a town hall event on guns that Mr. O’Rourke held in Dallas on Wednesday. “But he had the right idea last time, and now he has more people that are getting on the bandwagon.”In an address at the White House on Thursday, President Biden called on Congress to pass gun control measures. Many were similar to the ones Mr. O’Rourke has been pressing for in Texas — including stronger background checks, a ban on assault weapons and laws to require gun owners to keep their firearms safely stored and allow authorities to take guns away from people who may hurt themselves or others.For some Democratic state leaders, the massacre and Mr. Abbott’s response compounded their frustration with the governor after his hard-right push on abortion and his rhetoric against immigrants, as well as his handling of the state’s troubled electric grid. Mr. O’Rourke has embodied that breaking point.“He is frustrated just like me, just like everyone else,” said State Senator Roland Gutierrez, a Democrat who represents Uvalde and who made his own interruption at another Abbott news conference, urging the governor to call for a special session of the Texas Legislature to pass gun-control legislation.Mr. O’Rourke’s campaign for governor is an uphill battle that some say remains all but impossible in Texas, where Republicans have a solid grip on state power.No Democrat has won a statewide race in Texas since November 1994 and no Democrat has occupied the governor’s mansion since January 1995, the last day of Gov. Ann W. Richards’s tenure. Despite years of Democratic promises of a blue wave, Texas keeps passing and enforcing some of the most conservative policies in the country. Democratic organizers continue to grapple with low voter turnout as Republicans have made gains in South Texas border cities. And in the governor’s race, Mr. Abbott has a significant financial advantage — he had nearly $50 million in cash on hand compared to Mr. O’Rourke’s roughly $6.8 million as of Feb. 19, according to the latest Texas Ethics Commission filings.“Their prospects are bleak,” said Cal Jillson, a political analyst and professor at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. “In a good year, they can win some down-ballot offices and even some Texas state legislative seats, but they have not been able to break through statewide, and 2022 is not shaping up to be a good year.”For the longtime Democratic strategists and activists who have been working to turn the state blue, recent electoral contests have left them at once optimistic and worried. Mr. O’Rourke’s Senate bid in 2018 re-energized the party and helped sway down-ballot races in favor of Democrats as he came within three percentage points of unseating Senator Ted Cruz.But Texas Republicans were aided by higher turnout in smaller counties in the 2020 election, and those largely rural areas have been shifting even more to the right. In a Republican primary runoff for attorney general two weeks ago, Ken Paxton, the Trump-backed incumbent, trounced George P. Bush, the state’s land commissioner and the last member of the Bush family still in public office.Mr. O’Rourke, the former El Paso congressman, has cast the race between himself and Mr. Abbott as a choice between old leadership beholden to the gun lobby and his vision for a state where “weapons of war” are removed from civilian life. At the Dallas forum on Wednesday, he said he had rushed the stage to confront the governor in Uvalde because he wished someone had done the same after a mass shooting at a Walmart in his hometown of El Paso in 2019.“I am more worried that one of those AR-15s is going to be used against my kid or your kid,” he told reporters after the Dallas forum. “The problem we have is that people are more worried about the politics or polling than doing the right thing.”But Luke Macias, a Republican political consultant who has worked with some of the state’s most conservative lawmakers, said Mr. O’Rourke seems to be returning to the stances that he took as a presidential candidate, ones that damaged his credibility with independent Texas voters.“Once you lose their trust, it is hard to gain them back,” Mr. Macias said.Still, Democrats and some independents said they hoped this was the moment that would transcend politics. For many, the emotions from the attack are still raw as funerals have begun in Uvalde, and the trauma has made it difficult for many to even discuss its political ramifications. In conversations, the voices of Democratic leaders and voters often cracked with emotion, and some of them shed tears.Mr. Smith, the Fort Worth lawyer, spoke as he picked up his 12-year-old twins and 8-year-old son on the last day of school. His children had not been able to bring their backpacks on the last day before the summer break because officials had been concerned someone would bring a gun.“I think people are really heartbroken about what has happened,” Mr. Smith said. “I don’t think this is just another news story. Parents are scared.”Since 2017 alone, Texas has been the site of five mass shootings that have taken the lives of 87 victims, including attacks at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs in 2017 and Santa Fe High School southeast of Houston in 2018. Yet even as the governor has held town halls and at times has expressed an openness to tightening gun laws, Texas continues to have some of the least restrictive rules in the country. In 2021, Mr. Abbott signed a law allowing anyone over 21 to carry a handgun without a permit or training.After the killings in Uvalde, he and other Republican leaders in Texas have focused on the need to increase school security and access to mental health care, though the Uvalde gunman had no known history of mental issues. On Wednesday, Mr. Abbott tweeted a letter to state leaders calling for a special committee to address mass violence in schools. Among the list of topics was “firearm safety.”Mark Miner, a spokesman for Mr. Abbott’s campaign, said the governor was focused on the response to the tragedy and was declining to speak on political issues at this time.Mr. O’Rourke’s supporters listened to a discussion on gun violence in Dallas. Emil Lippe for The New York TimesAt Mr. O’Rourke’s town hall in Dallas, where supporters welcomed him with cheers and a standing ovation, he held firm on his support for stronger gun control measures yet also pledged to work with Republicans. He challenged his supporters to knock on doors and have uncomfortable conversations with voters on gun measures in the hopes of finding common ground.Mr. O’Rourke described how he had promised the mother of Alithia Ramirez, a 10-year-old girl who was killed at Robb Elementary, that he would work to prevent another mother from going through the same trauma. Yet even in Alithia’s own home, the divide was evident: One of her relatives told Mr. O’Rourke that he did not want to give up his AR-15 because he hoped to serve in the military.“If you are going to trust me to give my life for this country, you should trust me to own an AR-15,” Mr. O’Rourke said the young man told him. But, Mr. O’Rourke added, “there was more that we agreed upon than we disagreed on.” More