Republican Party

Subterms

    More stories

    • 88 Shares119 Views

      in Elections

      ‘Patriotic and Honest Republicans’ Telling the Truth

      by

      More from our inbox:But Your 2020 Election Was Not Fraudulent?The Supreme Court’s Ruling on Religion and SchoolsDon’t Erase Tolstoy’s NameBook Browsing, in a BookstoreThe Jan. 6 committee heard from a group of witnesses who were pressured by former President Donald J. Trump to overturn the election.Doug Mills/The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Trump Pressured States to Comply on Fake Electors” (front page, June 22):There is a silver lining that I did not expect in the Jan. 6 hearings. I am a lifelong Democrat. The Republicans in the news over the last several years have been frightening in their cruel and vicious remarks and extreme agendas on race relations, gay marriage and abortion and, most important, in their devotion to the ex-president.But the hearings have brought some very reasonable, patriotic and honest Republicans to the front. There are people who voted for Donald Trump and supported his platform, but when faced with his drive to overturn a fair election, they are coming through. They are telling the truth about the lies and corruption and putting their careers and maybe their lives on the line.It gives me hope that there is a way out of the nightmare of the last administration’s corruption and a way forward with sane debate and compromise.Joan BancroftDenverTo the Editor:Of all the crimes Donald Trump may have committed, or inspired his deluded faithful to commit, the malicious attack on two election workers, Wandrea Moss and her mother, Ruby Freeman, is the single most shameless act of deceit and cowardice of his entire pathetic career.Two humble women worked selflessly during a pandemic to uphold our democracy. Donald Trump misused the power of the presidency to maliciously destroy the good reputation of these women in his quest to undermine our democracy.If no other details or testimony from these hearings are remembered, future generations will ask how someone who had no sense of decency could actually be president of the United States.Asher FriedCroton-on-Hudson, N.Y.To the Editor:As the victims of threats and verbal assaults, Wandrea Moss, her mother and other members of the family should be as eligible to receive 24/7 security and peace of mind as Brett Kavanaugh and other Supreme Court justices and their families. We owe them their lives back.Lois BerkowitzOro Valley, Ariz.But Your 2020 Election Was Not Fraudulent?A resolution adopting the false claim that former President Donald J. Trump was the victim of a stolen election in 2020 was passed by Republican state-party delegates in Texas.Leah Millis/ReutersTo the Editor:Re “Texas G.O.P. Adopts Stolen Election Claims” (news article, June 20):Many Republicans who reject President Biden’s 2020 victory are occupying seats in statehouses or in Congress to which they themselves were elected in that very same “illegitimate” election. If that election was so fraudulent, how could these same Republican election deniers (so conveniently) accept their own 2020 elections?David E. CohenNorth Haledon, N.J.The Supreme Court’s Ruling on Religion and Schools Pete Marovich for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Justices Deliver Win to Schools Based in Faith” (front page, June 22):Whatever you may think of government offers to pay the tuition for the private education of children, the paying of that tuition to religious institutions is clearly a violation of the First Amendment’s prohibition against the government establishment of religion, despite the current Supreme Court’s majority holding to the contrary.There is no more clear government support of religious institutions than sending public money their way, exactly the kind of government action that the First Amendment prohibits. It is not the court’s duty to support religion, only to guarantee that government stays out of the business of religion and does not prohibit its free exercise.What we have instead is a court bent on strengthening religion in this country. Never mind that the Constitution provides otherwise.Bruce NeumanWater Mill, N.Y.To the Editor:Once a state provides funding for private schools, it cannot then refuse to fund religious schools. People who believe that this exclusion is justified based on the “separation of church and state” are getting it wrong.Andrea EconomosHartsdale, N.Y.Don’t Erase Tolstoy’s NameTo the Editor:Re “So Long, Tolstoy Station? Cities ‘Decolonize’ by Erasing Russian Names” (news article, June 8):Having visited Ukraine, including Kyiv, in more peaceful times, I can certainly understand that eliminating the names of prominent Russians from public places in an effort to “decolonize” this wonderful nation is very much in order. However, the name of the author Leo Tolstoy, a true person of peace and good will, should remain.Tolstoy was one of the greatest, most positive influences on both Gandhi and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Among many other actions, Gandhi named a farm he established, as a refuge for passive resisters and their indigent families, the Tolstoy Farm.James K. RileyPearl River, N.Y.Book Browsing, in a BookstoreApps have struggled to reproduce the kind of real-world serendipity that puts a book in a reader’s hand.Tom Jamieson for The New York TimesTo the Editor:The headline on your June 9 article about browsing in bookstores read, “Can Any App Capture This Experience?” The answer is obvious — of course not.Book browsing is a physical experience, involving visual, tactile and sometimes even olfactory sensations. In a physical bookshop, people are moved to pull a book off a shelf and take a closer look for many reasons, some obvious, some subtle and some downright mysterious.Every book browser has experienced those magical instances in which they have found books they weren’t looking for or even knew existed, but which to some degree affected their life.The possibility of making another such serendipitous discovery is why people love to browse in bookstores. It can’t be engineered or made subject to an algorithm.M.C. LangChevy Chase, Md. More

    • 88 Shares149 Views

      in Elections

      Why Conspiracy Theories Flourish in Trump’s America

      by

      Whether he is out of power or in office, Donald Trump deploys conspiracy theory as a political mobilizing tool designed to capture anger at the liberal establishment, to legitimize racial resentment and to unite voters who feel oppressed by what they see as a dominant socially progressive culture.The success of this strategy is demonstrated by the astonishing number of Republicans — a decisive majority, according to a recent Economist/YouGov survey — who say that they believe that the Democratic Party and its elected officials conspired to steal the 2020 election. This is a certifiable conspiracy theory, defined as a belief in “a secret arrangement by a group of powerful people to usurp political or economic power, violate established rights, hoard vital secrets, or unlawfully alter government institutions.”Not only do something like 71 percent of Republicans — roughly 52 million voters, according to a University of Massachusetts Amherst poll released on Jan. 6, 2022 — claim to believe that Donald Trump won the 2020 election despite indisputable evidence to the contrary, but the Republican Party has committed itself unequivocally and relentlessly to promoting this false claim.The delusion is evident in the Republican candidates who won primaries for governor, U.S. Senate, U.S. House and other statewide posts in elections conducted in 18 states during the first five months of this year.“District by district voters in places that cast ballots through the end of May have chosen at least 108 candidates for statewide office or for Congress — Republican candidates who have repeated Trump’s lies,” Amy Gardner and Isaac Arnsdorf reported last week in The Washington Post.Consider Texas. On the campaign trail this year, the Republican nominees for governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general and 24 of the state’s congressional districts endorsed Trump’s claim that “the 2020 Election was Rigged and Stolen.”On June 18, the 5,000 delegates to the Texas Republican Party convention adopted a platform declaring, “We reject the certified results of the 2020 presidential election, and we hold that acting President Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. was not legitimately elected by the people of the United States.”The stolen election conspiracy theory has, in effect, become the adhesive holding the dominant Trump wing of the party in lock-step. This particular conspiracy theory joins the network of sub-theories that unite Trump loyalists, who allege that an alliance of Democratic elites and urban political machines have secretly joined forces to deny the will of the people, corralling the votes of illegal immigrants and the dead, while votes cast by Trump supporters are tossed into the trash.In a 2017 essay, “How conspiracy theories helped power Trump’s disruptive politics,” Joseph Uscinski, of the University of Miami, Matthew D. Atkinson of Miami University and Darin DeWitt of California State University, Long Beach, recognized the central role of conspiracy theories in Trump’s rise to the presidency.In the 2016 primaries, “Trump, as a disruptive candidate, could not compete on the party establishment’s playing field,” they write. “Trump’s solution is what we call ‘conspiracy theory politics.’”Trump’s conspiratorial rhetoric, they continue,boiled down to a single unifying claim: Political elites have abandoned the interests of regular Americans in favor of foreign interests. For Trump, the political system was corrupt and the establishment could not be trusted. It followed, then, that only a disrupter could stop the corruption.A recent paper, “Authoritarian Leaders Share Conspiracy Theories to Attack Opponents, Galvanize Followers, Shift Blame, and Undermine Democratic Institutions” by Zhiying (Bella) Ren, Andrew Carton, Eugen Dimant and Maurice Schweitzer of the University of Pennsylvania, describes the methods political leaders use to gain power by capitalizing on conspiracy theories: “Leaders share conspiracy theories in service of four primary, self-serving goals: to attack opponents, galvanize followers, shift blame and responsibility, and undermine institutions that threaten their power.”Such leaders, the four authors write,often spread conspiracy theories to direct the attention, emotion, and energy of followers toward a common enemy who threatens their interests, thereby galvanizing followers. Toward this end, many conspiracy theories depict a nefarious perpetrator engaging in covert activities to harm the welfare of followers.They continue:Systems such as open elections and the free press can safeguard democracy by illuminating corrupt behavior and ensuring the peaceful transition of power. Leaders may use conspiracy theories to undermine the credibility, legitimacy, and authority of these institutions, however, if they threaten their power.Politicians who adopt conspiratorial strategies, Ren and colleagues write,find this to be an especially effective tactic if their own claim to power is illegitimate or controversial. Moreover, since the exposure to conspiracy theories reduces followers’ confidence in democratic institutions, leaders may even mobilize followers to engage in violent actions that further undermine these institutions (e.g., disputing an election defeat by initiating riots or mobilizing military forces).In a September 2021 paper, “Social Motives for Sharing Conspiracy Theories,” Ren, Dimant and Schweitzer argue that in promulgating conspiracy theories on social media, many people “knowingly share misinformation to advance social motives.”When deliberately disseminating misinformation, the authors write,people make calculated trade-offs between sharing accurate information and sharing information that generates more social engagement. Even though people know that factual news is more accurate than conspiracy theories, they expect sharing conspiracy theories to generate more social feedback (i.e. comments and “likes”) than sharing factual news.Ren, Dimant and Schweitzer add that “more positive social feedback for sharing conspiracy theories significantly increases people’s tendency to share these conspiracy theories that they do not believe in.”Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist at N.Y.U.’s Stern School of Business, noted that spreading a lie can serve as a shibboleth — something like a password used by one set of people to identify other people as members of a particular group — providing an effective means of signaling the strength of one’s commitment to fellow ideologues:Many who study religion have noted that it’s the very impossibility of a claim that makes it a good signal of one’s commitment to the faith. You don’t need faith to believe obvious things. Proclaiming that the election was stolen surely does play an identity-advertising role in today’s America.Joanne Miller, a political scientist at the University of Delaware, wrote by email that she and two colleagues, Christina Farhart and Kyle Saunders, are about to publish a research paper, “Losers’ Conspiracy: Elections and Conspiratorial Thinking.” They found that “Democrats scored higher in conspiratorial thinking than Republicans after the 2016 election, and Republicans scored higher in conspiratorial thinking after the 2020 election.”One factor contributing to the persistent Republican embrace of conspiracy thinking, Miller continued, is that Trump loyalists in 2020 — who had suddenly become political losers — abruptly understood themselves to be on “a downward trajectory.” Miller writes that “perceiving oneself to be ‘losing’ (culturally, politically, economically, etc.) is likely one of the reasons people are susceptible to belief in conspiracy theories.”Haidt added another dimension to Miller’s argument:I don’t think there’s anything about the conservative mind that makes it more prone to conspiracies. But in the world we live in, the elites who run our cultural, medical and epistemic institutions — and particularly journalism and the universities — are overwhelmingly on the left, so of course Democrats are going to be more trusting of elite pronouncements, while Republicans are more likely to begin from a position of distrust.Are there partisan differences in connection with conspiracy thinking?Uscinski argues that in his view there is little difference in the susceptibility of Democrats and Republicans to conspiracy thinking, but:The issue here isn’t about conspiracy theories so much. These ideas are always out there. The issue is about Donald Trump. The numbers are so high because Trump and his allies inside and outside of government endorsed these election fraud conspiracy theories. Trump, his many advisers and staff, Republican members of Congress, Republican governors and state legislators, conservative media outlets, and right-wing opinion leaders asserted repeatedly that the 2020 election would be and then had been stolen.This has a lot more to do, Uscinski contended, “with the power of political and media elites to affect their followers’ beliefs than anything else.”John Jost, a professor of psychology, politics and data science at N.Y.U., strongly disagrees with Uscinski, arguing that there are major differences between Democrats and Republicans on measures of conspiratorial thinking.Jost wrote by email:My colleagues and I found, in a nationally representative sample of Americans, that there was a .27 correlation (which is quite sizable by the standards of social science) between conservative identification and scores on a scale of generalized conspiratorial mentality.In a separate study, Jost continued:We observed a smaller but clearly significant correlation of .11 between conservative identification and a clinical measure of paranoid ideation, which includes items such as “I often feel that strangers are looking at me critically.” Furthermore, we found that paranoid ideation was a significant mediator of the association between conservative identification and general conspiratorial mind-sets.Jost pointed to a January 2022 article — “Conspiracy mentality and political orientation across 26 countries,” by Roland Imhoff, a professor of psychology at Johannes Gutenberg University in Germany, and 39 co-authors — that examined the strength of the “conspiracy mentality” at the extremes of left and right based on a sample of 104,253 people in 26 countries, not including the United States.Among their findings:While there was a clear positive relation suggestive of greater conspiracy mentality at the political right in countries spanning the center — north of Europe such as Austria, Belgium (particularly Flanders), France, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland and Sweden, the conspiracy mentality was more pronounced on the left in countries spanning the center-south of Europe such as Hungary, Romania and Spain.But it’s not only that:Taken together, supporters of political parties that are judged as extreme on either end of the political spectrum in general terms have increased conspiracy mentality. Focusing on the position of parties on the dimension of democratic values and freedom, the link with conspiracy mentality is linear, with higher conspiracy mentality among supporters of authoritarian right-wing parties. Thus, supporters of extreme right-wing parties seem to have a consistently higher conspiracy mentality, whereas the same only counts for extreme left-wing parties of a more authoritarian makeup and with less focus on ecological and liberal values.In a March 2019 paper, “Understanding Conspiracy Theories,” Karen M. Douglas, a psychologist at the University of Kent, writing with Uscinski and six other scholars, conducted a wide-ranging study of conspiratorial thinking. They found that “conspiracy beliefs are correlated with alienation from the political system and anomie — a feeling of personal unrest and lack of understanding of the social world. Belief in conspiracy theories is also associated with a belief that the economy is getting worse.”In addition, Douglas and her colleagues contend that “a conviction that others conspire against one’s group is more likely to emerge when the group thinks of itself as undervalued, underprivileged, or under threat.”Studies in the United States of “the social characteristics of those prone to conspiracy theories,” the authors note, show that “higher levels of conspiracy thinking correlate with lower levels of education and lower levels of income.” Another study they cite found that “conspiracy believers were more likely to be male, unmarried, less educated, have lower income, be unemployed, be a member of an ethnic minority group, and have weaker social networks.”Importantly, the Douglas paper points to studies showing that “conspiracy belief has been linked to violent intentions.” One of those studies, by Uscinski, writing with Joseph M. Parent of Notre Dame,showed that those who were more generally inclined toward conspiracy theories were more likely to agree that “violence is sometimes an acceptable way to express disagreement with the government.” Those inclined toward conspiracy belief are also in favor of lax gun ownership laws, show a willingness to conspire themselves and show greater intentions to engage in everyday crime.Douglas, Daniel Jolley of the University of Nottingham, Tanya Schrader of Staffordshire University and Ana C. Leite of Durham University demonstrate a linkage between conspiracy thinking and everyday crime: “Such crimes can include running red lights, paying cash for items to avoid paying taxes, or failing to disclose faults in secondhand items for sale” — in their 2019 paper, “Belief in conspiracy theories and intentions to engage in everyday crime.”In a series of experiments, Jolley and his colleagues found that “belief in conspiracy theories was significantly positively correlated with everyday crime behaviors. Criminal behaviors were also negatively associated with Honesty-Humility, Agreeableness-Anger, Conscientiousness, Openness to Experience and Moral Identity.”The authors suggested that “engaging in everyday crime may be empowering for people who perceive that the world is full of conspiring powerful elites who ought to be challenged.”A related question facing the country going into the 2022 midterms and, more important, the 2024 presidential election is whether the contagion of conspiratorial thinking will increase the likelihood of violence before, during and after the election.In another paper, “The complex relationship between conspiracy belief and the politics of social change,” Christopher M. Federico, a political scientist at the University of Minnesota, makes a key point: “Conspiratorial ideation about secret plots among the powerful is associated with decreased intention to engage in normative political action (e.g., voting, legal demonstrations) and increased intention to engage in nonnormative political action (e.g., violence, spreading misinformation).”Since conspiratorial thinking, Federico continued, “is associated with extremist intentions and willingness to engage in aggressive, nonnormative political action, it may allow individuals whose politics otherwise incline them to support the status quo to violently resist established authority in the name of imposing their own ideal social order.”Along similar lines, Jan-Willem van Prooijen, a psychologist at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, argues in his forthcoming essay, “Psychological benefits of believing conspiracy theories,” that “conspiracy theories help perceivers mentally reconstrue unhealthy behaviors as healthy, and anti-government violence as legitimate (e.g., justifying violent protests as legitimate resistance against oppressors).”In October 2021, Rachel Kleinfeld, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, published “The Rise of Political Violence in the United States.”Kleinfeld argues:Ideas that were once confined to fringe groups now appear in the mainstream media. White-supremacist ideas, militia fashion, and conspiracy theories spread via gaming websites, YouTube channels, and blogs, while a slippery language of memes, slang, and jokes blurs the line between posturing and provoking violence, normalizing radical ideologies and activities.While violent incidents from the left are on the rise, Kleinfeld continued,political violence still comes overwhelmingly from the right, whether one looks at the Global Terrorism Database, F.B.I. statistics, or other government or independent counts. Yet people committing far-right violence — particularly planned violence rather than spontaneous hate crimes — are older and more established than typical terrorists and violent criminals. They often hold jobs, are married, and have children. Those who attend church or belong to community groups are more likely to hold violent, conspiratorial beliefs. These are not isolated “lone wolves”; they are part of a broad community that echoes their ideas.Perhaps the most telling aspect of Kleinfeld’s essay is a chart based on statistics collected in the Global Terrorism Database that shows a surge in far-right terrorist incidents in the United States, starting in 2015 — when Trump first entered the political arena — rising to great heights by 2019, outstripping terrorist incidents linked to the far left, to religious groups or to environmentalists.What will come of all this?Parent made a good point by email: “This is tricky: Trump has been a conspiracy theorist since forever and he was only briefly a successful politician.” As The Times put it in 2016, “Donald Trump Clung to ‘Birther’ Lie for Years.”Parent continued:What’s freakishly destabilizing about the present is that ideological glues have never been so designed to eviscerate democracy and promote violence. Previous leaders always had the option to go down that road, but chose not to. Now the inmates are running the asylum.Matthew Baum, a professor of public policy at Harvard, put it another way in his email:We had a sitting president declare that an election outcome was illegitimate. This is historically unprecedented. Trump’s assertion is extremely influential to voters who look to him as the leader of the Republican Party in general, and as the leader of the MAGA movement in particular. These factors have combined to allow this particular story to metastasize to a greater extent than most other political conspiracy stories in recent history.Can the country return to the status quo ante?“It is too soon to say,” Baum writes, “whether this delegitimization is permanent. There is certainly a risk that once the genie is out of the bottle — that is, election losers are no longer willing to accept losing as a legitimate outcome and ‘live to fight another day’ — it will be hard to put it back.”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

    • 100 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      Who Won and Who lost in Tuesday’s Elections

      by

      Voters in Alabama, Georgia, Virginia and Washington, D.C., weighed in on elections for the Senate, House and other offices on Tuesday. And officials in Texas announced the results of a recount in a closely watched Democratic primary for the House.Here is a rundown of some of the most notable wins and losses:AlabamaKatie Britt, a former lobbyist and chief of staff to Senator Richard Shelby, convincingly defeated Representative Mo Brooks in a runoff for the Republican nomination for Senate. Former President Donald J. Trump had initially endorsed Mr. Brooks, but he withdrew that support in March as the congressman’s poll numbers sagged. This month, in the race’s final days, Mr. Trump endorsed Ms. Britt.GeorgiaMike Collins, the owner of a trucking company, easily captured the Republican runoff in Georgia’s 10th Congressional District, brushing aside Vernon Jones, a former state lawmaker who had the backing of Mr. Trump.Rich McCormick, a physician and retired Marine, defeated Jake Evans, the former chair of Georgia’s ethics commission and the son of a Trump administration ambassador, in the Republican primary runoff for Georgia’s Sixth Congressional District. Mr. Evans had been endorsed by Mr. Trump.Bee Nguyen, a state representative, won the Democratic nomination for secretary of state. She will face the Republican incumbent, Brad Raffensperger, who resisted Mr. Trump’s demands to “find” additional votes that would help him overturn the 2020 presidential contest in the state.Jeremy Hunt, a well-funded retired Army captain backed by top Republican leaders, was defeated by Chris West, a lawyer and Air National Guard officer, in the Republican primary in the Second Congressional District. Mr. West will face Representative Sanford Bishop Jr., a moderate Democrat.VirginiaJen Kiggans, a state senator, picked up the Republican nomination in the Second Congressional District, handily beating Jarome Bell, who had called for the execution of people convicted of voter fraud. Ms. Kiggans will face Representative Elaine Luria, a Democrat, in what is expected to be a highly competitive House race in the fall.Yesli Vega, a sheriff’s deputy on the Prince William County Board of Supervisors, prevailed in the Republican primary in the state’s Seventh Congressional District. She will take on Representative Abigail Spanberger, an embattled Democrat.Washington, D.C.Mayor Muriel Bowser, who is seeking a third term, won her Democratic primary.TexasRepresentative Henry Cuellar, the nine-term congressman from South Texas, has defeated his progressive challenger, Jessica Cisneros, a lawyer, according to a recount of ballots from their May 24 runoff. In November, Mr. Cuellar will face Cassy Garcia, a former aide to Senator Ted Cruz who won the Republican nomination.Maya King and Jazmine Ulloa contributed reporting. More

    • 150 Shares119 Views

      in Elections

      Katie Britt Wins in Alabama as Trump Suffers More Losses in Georgia

      by

      Katie Britt, a former chief of staff to the retiring Senator Richard C. Shelby of Alabama, won the Republican nomination to replace her onetime boss on Tuesday, comfortably defeating a right-wing rival in a race that puts the 40-year-old on track to become the youngest woman in the United States Senate.The Alabama Senate primary was the marquee contest on Tuesday as a handful of states across the South held primaries or runoffs, and a House race in Texas last month that went to a recount gave a moderate Democratic incumbent a victory. The Senate race in Alabama took a number of twisting turns involving former President Donald J. Trump, who has made the 2022 primary season into a rolling referendum on his influence. Mr. Trump has carefully guarded his record in picking Republican primary winners, and his shifting allegiances in Alabama were among the best examples of his obsession with scoring wins — and avoiding losses — ahead of a 2024 presidential run that he continues to loudly tease.But in Georgia, where Mr. Trump last month suffered his most serious political setbacks of 2022, the former president continued to rack up losses, as two congressional candidates he supported lost their runoffs on Tuesday. Yet even in races where Mr. Trump’s handpicked candidates have faltered this year, those who defeated them in primaries have rarely broken with the former president. Many have run as Trump allies even without his formal support.In Alabama, Mr. Trump had initially offered his “complete and total endorsement” to Representative Mo Brooks, a congressional ally who spearheaded efforts to overturn the 2020 election and who spoke at the Jan. 6, 2021, rally near the White House that preceded the riot at the Capitol. Katie Britt speaks to supporters in Montgomery, Ala., on Tuesday.Charity Rachelle for The New York TimesBut when Mr. Brooks sank in the polls, Mr. Trump rescinded that endorsement leading up to the first round of voting in May. The former president claimed it was because Mr. Brooks had stopped fully embracing his falsehoods about the 2020 election. In the end, Mr. Trump backed Ms. Britt, who cuts a more traditional Republican profile as a former congressional staffer, lobbyist and past president of the Business Council of Alabama.Ms. Britt, who lobbied privately for the endorsement, finished far ahead in the May primary, with almost 45 percent, nearly enough to avoid a runoff. She was a heavy front-runner in polls when Mr. Trump endorsed her earlier this month.“Alabama has spoken,” Ms. Britt declared in a victory speech in Montgomery, Ala., on Tuesday evening. “We want new blood.”Ms. Britt added that she entered the race despite naysayers telling her: “You’re too young. Wait your turn.” Mr. Trump has scored a number of decisive wins in 2022 Senate primary races: Dr. Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania, J.D. Vance in Ohio, Herschel Walker in Georgia and Representative Ted Budd in North Carolina. He has fared more poorly in governor’s races, losing in Georgia, Idaho and Nebraska. In the Pennsylvania governor’s race, like in the Alabama Senate contest, Mr. Trump made a late endorsement of a front-runner to claim a political victory.More than $41 million was spent on television advertising in the Alabama race, with about twice as much spent on ads backing Ms. Britt as Mr. Brooks, according to AdImpact, a firm that tracks ad spending.Ms. Britt ran as a Christian conservative, with the cross on her necklace clearly visible in a number of her television ads, including one she filmed at the border as she pledged to “fight to finish President Trump’s wall.”Without Mr. Trump’s backing, Mr. Brooks campaigned against Senator Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, saying Mr. Trump was “conned” by the Kentucky Republican and accusing Mr. Trump of disloyalty. He held his election-night party at an indoor shooting range in Huntsville, Ala., on Tuesday and he was not in a charitable mood.“The voters have spoken, but not spoken wisely,” Mr. Brooks said, adding of the groups that spent money for Ms. Britt, “I’m not pleased about congratulating these special interests but they rule Montgomery. They rule Washington, D.C. They rule the policy debate.”In Georgia and Virginia, voters helped determine the Republican Party’s direction in a number of key congressional contests, setting up closely watched matchups for November. And in Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser defeated three primary opponents in her bid to become the first mayor in the nation’s capital since Marion Barry in the 1990s to win three consecutive terms.Muriel Bowser, left, the mayor of Washington, D.C., greeted Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, right, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi during a rally against gun violence in Washington.Shuran Huang for The New York TimesIn Texas, a fierce Democratic clash in the border region of Laredo was called on Tuesday nearly a month after the May 24 runoff, as Representative Henry Cuellar, a moderate, survived a second consecutive primary challenge from Jessica Cisneros, a lawyer who was once his intern. A recount by the Texas Democratic Party found Mr. Cuellar won by 289 votes.For Mr. Trump, Georgia has proved to be his most challenging state in 2022.Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican whom Mr. Trump had made a top target for defeat because he certified the 2020 election, won renomination in a landslide last month, easily dispatching a Trump-backed challenger. That same night, the former president saw his choices for secretary of state, insurance commissioner and attorney general in Georgia all defeated by Republican incumbents aligned with Mr. Kemp. Mr. Trump’s picks for lieutenant governor and U.S. Senate did win open races in May.But on Tuesday, two of Mr. Trump’s picks for House races lost in Georgia.In Georgia’s 10th District, Vernon Jones — a longtime Democrat who endorsed Mr. Trump in 2020, became a Republican and now calls himself a “Black Donald Trump” — lost to Mike Collins, the son of a former congressman, in a contest that became notably nasty. The Collins campaign handed out rape whistles with Mr. Jones’s name on them to draw attention to a specific 2005 allegation and a history of misconduct with women. Mr. Jones filed a police report against Mr. Collins, claiming a tweet was threatening.Mike Collins, left, and Vernon Jones spoke at a debate in Atlanta earlier this month.Brynn Anderson/Associated PressMr. Jones initially ran for governor but switched to the House race at the direction of Mr. Trump, who had endorsed him. Mr. Kemp had endorsed Mr. Collins, putting the Georgia governor again at odds with the former president.In the redrawn Sixth District, which is currently held by a Democrat but was redrawn into a Republican seat, Jake Evans, a lawyer, lost to Rich McCormick, a physician. Mr. Trump backed Mr. Evans, the son of a former ambassador appointed by Mr. Trump.Understand the 2022 Midterm ElectionsCard 1 of 6Why are these midterm races so important? More

    • 113 Shares179 Views

      in Elections

      Newsmax Debate Lends N.Y. Governor’s Race a Far-Right Glow

      by

      The four Republican candidates for governor of New York faced off in their third and final debate before the June 28 primary.The four Republican candidates for governor of New York made their closing pitch to voters on Tuesday night, voicing devotion to President Trump and his policies, disdain for gun control and abortion, and worries about crime and immigration. The debate, at Kodak Center in Rochester, N.Y., was hosted by Newsmax, a network known for amplifying the Republican Party’s rightward tilt, and represented the third and final clash between the quartet of conservatives vying to unseat Gov. Kathy Hochul, the incumbent Democrat who is expected to win her own primary on June 28.And as was fitting for its host, the candidates spent much of the debate playing to the party’s base, as well as taking shots at the Democratic incumbent.“Kathy Hochul is going to get fired,” said Representative Lee M. Zeldin, a four-term congressman from Long Island, who was chosen as his party’s designee at a party convention earlier this year. “I’m looking forward to removing her from this office.”Mr. Zeldin, the putative front-runner in a race with little definitive polling, was joined by Rob Astorino, the former Westchester County executive making his second run for governor; Andrew Giuliani, the son of the former New York City mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani; and Harry Wilson, a corporate turnaround specialist.In the first two Republican debates, hosted by networks in New York City, Mr. Giuliani was required to participate from a separate location, because he was unvaccinated, something he says comports with his general disdain for government mandates, a sentiment echoed by the other candidates, despite the lifting of many pertaining to Covid.But on Tuesday, he was welcomed into the fray, smiling in front of a live audience, which openly cheered and jeered the candidates.A Guide to New York’s 2022 Primary ElectionsAs prominent Democratic officials seek to defend their records, Republicans see opportunities to make inroads in general election races.Governor’s Race: Gov. Kathy Hochul, the incumbent, will face off against Jumaane Williams and Tom Suozzi in a Democratic primary on June 28.Adams’s Endorsement: The New York City mayor gave Ms. Hochul a valuable, if belated, endorsement that could help her shore up support among Black and Latino voters.15 Democrats, 1 Seat: A Trump prosecutor. An ex-congressman. Bill de Blasio. A newly redrawn House district in New York City may be one of the largest and most freewheeling primaries in the nation.Maloney vs. Nadler: The new congressional lines have put the two stalwart Manhattan Democrats on a collision course in the Aug. 23 primary.Offensive Remarks: Carl P. Paladino, a Republican running for a House seat in Western New York, recently drew backlash for praising Adolf Hitler in an interview dating back to 2021.“It’s nice to be with you in person,” he said.Mr. Giuliani, 36, has tried to position himself as the race’s most right-wing candidate, saying, for instance, on Tuesday that he would “bring morality back to this state” in reference to abortion. He has also professed belief in conspiracy theories that Mr. Trump had won the 2020 election, the outcome of which he called “one of the greatest crimes in American history.”Mr. Giuliani, who is making his first run for public office, worked for four years in the Trump administration and has actively sought the former president’s backing, saying that he uses Mr. Trump and his father as a model for what kind of governor he would be.Mr. Zeldin, once considered a moderate, has also been a staunch supporter of Mr. Trump, though on Monday night he stopped short of saying the election was stolen. On Tuesday, Mr. Zeldin seemed more zealous about Mr. Trump’s legacy, saying he believed that the former president’s border wall should be completed.The debate is the latest sponsored by Newsmax, which has found a niche in conservative circles in the wake of the 2020 election, often by broadcasting baseless theories about the race. The company has since been sued by several companies which make election technologies.The candidates answered questions from the debate moderator, Eric Bolling, a Newsmax host.NewsmaxIn early May, the network was the host of a Republican debate for a U.S. Senate seat in Pennsylvania, moderated by Greta Van Susteren, which included spirited discussion of the drug trade across the nation’s southern border, the perils of “wokeness,” and whether China should pay “reparations for Covid.” (The primary’s winner, the celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz, said yes, as did several others.)The moderator on Tuesday was Eric Bolling, a former Fox News host who has conducted a number of interviews with Mr. Trump, including one on Monday in which the former president said that “so many” of the rioters who ransacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, were “well-behaved.”In addition to hot-button social issues, Mr. Bolling also asked policy questions about inflation, Medicaid fraud and economic concerns, with Mr. Wilson promising property tax and income tax cuts, something embraced by the other candidates as well.Republicans haven’t won a statewide race in New York in two decades, but are hopeful in a year in which Democrats are facing serious political headwinds, with Ms. Hochul polling poorly on issues like crime and the economy, and waging a low-key campaign thus far.Despite the recent racist massacre at a Buffalo supermarket, about 70 miles to the west of the debate site, none of the candidates supported any new gun control, with Mr. Zeldin saying the state’s gun laws — some of the strongest in the nation — “go too far as is.”Mr. Astorino, who lost in 2014 to the incumbent, Andrew M. Cuomo, has stressed his experience as an executive in Westchester County, describing a state “in chaos” and arguing during the debate that a “leftist agenda” was “coddling criminals.”Mr. Wilson suggested something similar, saying, “the problem is criminals, the mentally ill, and the purveyors of hate,” rather than law-abiding New Yorkers.Likewise, Mr. Wilson has said that New York has been mismanaged, but has conspicuously stayed clear of most social issues; a top official in President Obama’s automotive task force, who says he did not vote for Mr. Trump, Mr. Wilson has sought to find a middle lane in the race, voicing support for abortion rights, for instance.A lawyer and active military reservist, Mr. Zeldin periodically tried to convey a sense of statesmanship in earlier debates, reeling off a series of policy proposals, including allowing fracking in the state and rolling back changes in bail laws that conservatives have successfully used against Democrats in previous elections.At the same time, however, Mr. Wilson and Mr. Zeldin have had a series of fiery exchanges. Monday night in Manhattan, each man called the other a “fraud.”The animus was evident again on Tuesday, with other candidates joining in on attacks, including Mr. Giuliani, who called Mr. Zeldin “a child” and a “flip-flopper” on his support for Mr. Trump.Mr. Zeldin fired back at Mr. Giuliani, too, saying that his claim to fame was famously mugging for the camera during his father’s first inauguration in 1994, and then being mocked on “Saturday Night Live.” He belittled Mr. Giuliani’s time with the Trump administration, describing his duties as “Chick-fil-A runner at the White House.”The debate descended into a fit of cross-talk and bickering after Mr. Bolling asked whether the candidates would commit to endorsing the primary winner, something Mr. Giuliani, Mr. Astorino and Mr. Wilson agreed to.Mr. Zeldin, though, was more circumspect, saying merely that he’d “be supporting the primary winner next Tuesday,” while implying it would be him.Despite the clashes, there were some lighter moments. Mr. Giuliani has been regularly joined by his father on the campaign trail, including on Tuesday in Rochester. He was asked whether he was merely running on his family name, an accusation that also dogged Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat whose father was also governor, and who resigned last August.“People would say, ‘Well, with a famous last name its easy to run in politics,’” Mr. Giuliani said. “I would tell you with a name like Andrew, it’s very difficult to be the leading candidate for governor.” More

    • 150 Shares199 Views

      in Elections

      How Katie Britt Used Political Savvy to Trounce Mo Brooks in Alabama

      by

      At a gathering of Alabama Republicans last year, Katie Britt and her husband strategically positioned themselves at the end of a receiving line to shake hands with former President Donald J. Trump.Ms. Britt, a lawyer and former chief of staff for Senator Richard Shelby, had recently announced her campaign to fill the seat being vacated by her former boss, who is retiring. Mr. Trump had already endorsed her opponent, Representative Mo Brooks — but the couple hoped to sow some doubt in Mr. Trump’s mind, according to four people familiar with the encounter.As the couple greeted Mr. Trump, Ms. Britt’s husband, Wesley Britt — a burly retired N.F.L. lineman — mentioned to the former president that he had once played for the New England Patriots. “The only time you’ve met me, I think I was wrapped in a towel in the Patriots locker room,” Mr. Britt was said to have told Mr. Trump, who found it hilarious and replied that Robert K. Kraft, the team’s billionaire owner, “likes me very much.”From then on, Ms. Britt positioned herself as a formidable competitor with savvy political skills who persistently tried to convince Mr. Trump that she deserved his endorsement instead.In March, Mr. Trump gave Ms. Britt half of what she wanted, withdrawing his endorsement of Mr. Brooks — at that point far behind in the polls — because, he said, the far-right congressman had gone “woke.” Then, this month, with Ms. Britt clearly on track to prevail, the former president backed her, seemingly in an attempt to pad his endorsement record.Ten months after her brief exchange with Mr. Trump last August, Ms. Britt claimed victory in the Republican primary runoff for Alabama’s open Senate seat on Tuesday, capping a hard-fought campaign for her party’s nomination against Mr. Brooks. In a state with a deep-seated conservative bent, she is all but assured of winning in the general election in November.Ms. Britt is also one step closer to making history as the first woman in Alabama to be elected to the Senate. Her Democratic opponent is a pastor, Will Boyd, who has made unsuccessful runs for Senate, House and lieutenant governor.Shortly after the polls closed Tuesday, Mr. Shelby, who has known Ms. Britt since the days when she was an intern in his office, said he was overjoyed for her.“She is an outstanding person — she has got the brains, the drive and the compassion,” he said.Ms. Britt, 40, is seen as part of a younger generation of pro-Trump Republicans, and her husband’s banter with Mr. Trump was viewed by those familiar with the encounter as an astute move that proved essential to her nomination.Ms. Britt entered the primary with little name recognition and long odds against Mr. Brooks, who boasted more than a decade of experience in the House and gained Mr. Trump’s backing after he riled up the crowd at the former president’s rally before the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.But Mr. Trump rescinded his support for Mr. Brooks in March as Mr. Brooks struggled to gain traction under an avalanche of attack ads and criticism of his decision to urge an audience at a Trump rally to leave the 2020 election behind. “Katie Britt, on the other hand, is a fearless America First Warrior,” Mr. Trump said in a statement this month as he endorsed Ms. Britt.That move did not completely wipe out Mr. Brooks, who still managed to clinch a second-place finish in Alabama’s May 24 primary, garnering 29 percent of the vote. Ms. Britt pulled in 45 percent, short of the majority that would have avoided a runoff between the two top vote-getters.Ms. Britt fashioned herself as an “Alabama First” candidate, playing off Mr. Trump’s “America First” presidential campaign slogan, and centered her run on her Christian faith, hard-line border enforcement policies and ties to the business community.As an aide for Mr. Shelby, one of the Senate’s most senior members, she worked on some of his signature issues, including a sweeping Republican package of tax cuts in 2017, confirmation of conservative judges and a push for a border wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.She most recently served as the head of the Business Council of Alabama, a powerful lobbying group, and led a “Keep Alabama Open” campaign in November 2020 against coronavirus pandemic restrictions that required nonessential businesses to close or limit services. She also opened the council’s resources, typically reserved to paying members, to all small businesses amid the health crisis.On policy, Ms. Britt and Mr. Brooks had ideological differences: He represented a more aggressive brand of arch conservatism as a founding member of the Freedom Caucus while Ms. Britt, like Mr. Shelby, was seen as more focused on economic development. But in oratorical style, she echoed the hard-right talking points that have become commonplace messaging in the Republican Party.“When I look at what’s happening in Washington, I don’t recognize our country,” Ms. Britt said in a video introducing herself to voters. “The leftists are attacking our religious freedoms and advancing a socialist agenda. In Joe Biden’s America, people can collect more money staying at home than they can earn on the job.”The campaigns and supporters of Ms. Britt, Mr. Brooks and a third top competitor in the race, Mike Durant, a former Army pilot, spent millions of dollars on negative ads.Mr. Brooks and his supporters tried to paint Ms. Britt as a lobbyist and a RINO — a favored insult used by Trump supporters for politicians they believe are Republicans in name only.She shot back with attacks portraying Mr. Brooks as a career politician. It also helped that Mr. Brooks had a poor showing at Mr. Trump’s Alabama rally last August, just after Ms. Britt began her quiet campaign to sway the former president to her cause. What started as an enthusiastic response for Mr. Brooks that night turned to boos when he urged those in the audience to put the 2020 presidential election behind them and focus on 2022 and 2024.Mr. Trump called him back onstage for a second appearance, calling him “a fearless warrior for your sacred right to vote.”Later, when the former president took back his endorsement of Mr. Brooks, he said the congressman had made a “horrible mistake” with his comments at that fateful rally. More

    • 113 Shares159 Views

      in Elections

      Texas Republicans Approve Far-Right Platform Declaring Biden’s Election Illegitimate

      by

      The platform, which was voted on at the Republican state party convention in Houston, was the latest sign of Texas conservatives moving further to the right.The Republican Party in Texas made a series of far-right declarations as part of its official party platform over the weekend, claiming that President Biden was not legitimately elected, issuing a “rebuke” to Senator John Cornyn for his work on bipartisan gun legislation and referring to homosexuality as “an abnormal lifestyle choice.”The platform was voted on in Houston at the state party’s convention, which concluded on Saturday.The resolutions about Mr. Biden and Mr. Cornyn were approved by a voice vote of the delegates, according to James Wesolek, the communications director for the Republican Party of Texas. The statements about homosexuality — as well as additional stances on abortion that called for students to “learn about the Humanity of the Preborn Child” — were among more than 270 planks that were approved by a platform committee and voted on by the larger group of convention delegates using paper ballots. The results of those votes were still pending on Sunday, but Mr. Wesolek said it was rare for a plank to be voted down by the full convention after being approved by the committee.The resolutions adopting the false claims that former President Donald J. Trump was the victim of a stolen election in 2020 as well as the other declarations were the latest examples of Texas Republicans moving further to the right in recent months. Republicans control both chambers of the legislature, the governor’s mansion and every statewide office, and have used their dominance to push tough anti-abortion legislation, create supply-chain problems by temporarily adding additional state inspections at the border and renominate the Trump-backed state attorney general over a member of the Bush family in a primary runoff in May.Mr. Wesolek disputed the notion that the declarations were tied to the state party’s rightward tilt. “That was the will of the body,” Mr. Wesolek said on Sunday. “We pride ourselves on being a grass-roots party.”State party conventions in Texas have at times been venues for publicly airing internal rifts. In 2012, Gov. Rick Perry was loudly booed at the state Republican convention when he said he was backing the powerful lieutenant governor over Ted Cruz in a contested primary for Senate. On Friday, Mr. Cornyn — a key negotiator in the gun talks with Democrats — was booed by convention goers during a speech in which he tried to assure Republicans that the new legislation would not infringe on the rights of gun owners.The state party’s resolution embracing the baseless 2020 stolen-election claims stated that “substantial election fraud in key metropolitan areas significantly affected the results in five key states in favor of” Mr. Biden. The state party, the resolution continued, rejected “the certified results of the 2020 Presidential election, and we hold that acting President Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. was not legitimately elected by the people of the United States.”The resolution encouraged Republicans to “show up to vote” in November, and to “bring your friends and family, volunteer for your local Republicans and overwhelm any possible fraud.”Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on gun violence in Washington last week.Anna Rose Layden for The New York TimesState Representative Steve Toth, a Republican who represents part of Montgomery County, a Houston suburb, said he left the convention before voting on the resolutions, but he expressed support for them. He said he hoped the Biden resolution would “encourage Republicans and Democrats to come together and to call for a forensic audit” of the 2020 election.Jason Vaughn, 38, a Republican delegate from Houston, claimed credit for adding the “show up to vote” language in the Biden resolution. “My fear is that if we keep telling people the election was stolen, they’re going to not go and vote,” Mr. Vaughn said.Mary Lowe, a delegate from the Fort Worth suburbs who was focused on education issues at the convention, said she was surprised the 2020 election results were a focus of attention by her Republican colleagues. But, she added, “I don’t know too many people that felt that Biden won.”Ms. Lowe, the chairwoman of the Tarrant County chapter of a group known as Moms for Liberty, said she was among those delegates openly critical of Mr. Cornyn. But she added that she was embarrassed by the booing and did not participate in it.“I don’t believe that booing is polite,” Ms. Lowe said. “I feel elected officials should be treated with proper decorum.”Jamie Haynes, 47, a Republican delegate who lives in the Texas Panhandle with her husband and who says that, together, they own “a lot of guns,” said the boos directed at Mr. Cornyn showed there was a “resounding strong opinion that Republicans do not want their gun rights shaved — not just taken away — but even just shaved in any form.”The resolution rebuking Mr. Cornyn that passed at the convention opposed red flag laws, which allow guns to be seized from people deemed to be dangerous. Those laws, according to the resolution, “violate one’s right to due process and are a pre-crime punishment of people not adjudicated guilty.”The homosexuality plank passed the platform committee by a vote of 17 to 14, according to Mr. Vaughn, an openly gay member of the committee who voted against it.“It does nothing to move us forward as a party and gain voters,” he said in a video of the committee meeting. In an interview, Mr. Vaughn said the shift at the convention was the result of a small number of people who “make the process miserable because they want to do all this extreme, far-right stuff.”Mr. Toth disagreed, saying that on abortion, gay rights and the 2020 election, the Republican Party has been consistent in sticking to its conservative principles. “Defense of marriage? Abortion? Second Amendment? Where have we moved to the right?” he asked. “The Republicans have always been strong defenders of constitutional family values.”One Texas congressman and Democrat, Representative Colin Allred, called the Republican Party’s actions regressive.“The Texas Republican Party is trying to take us back to a time when women couldn’t make decisions about their own bodies and when Americans lived in fear that they would be punished for being themselves,” Mr. Allred said in a statement. More