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      Jospeh Lombardo Wins Nevada’s G.O.P. Primary for Governor

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      Joseph Lombardo, the sheriff who oversees the Las Vegas area and was endorsed by former President Donald J. Trump, has won Nevada’s Republican primary for governor.The Associated Press declared Mr. Lombardo the winner early Wednesday over a field that included four other major candidates for the right to challenge Gov. Steve Sisolak, a Democrat, in the general election.The November election is expected to be one of the tightest governor’s races in the country. Nevada’s political environment is highly favorable to Republicans because of unified Democratic control of the state amid a series of tough economic indicators, with the costs of rent and gasoline increasing at among the fastest rates in the country.Mr. Lombardo, who as the sheriff of Clark County became known nationally for overseeing the response to the 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas that killed 60 people at a concert, had established himself as the race’s polling leader by the time Mr. Trump endorsed him in late April, giving the sheriff his boilerplate seal of approval on taxes, abortion, gun rights and election issues.Mr. Lombardo has since highlighted his endorsement from the former president across his television and digital advertising.Mr. Lombardo defeated former Senator Dean Heller, who waffled on his support for Mr. Trump before his failed 2018 re-election campaign; Joey Gilbert, a Reno lawyer and former professional boxer who was endorsed by the Nevada Republican Party; Mayor John Lee of North Las Vegas; Guy Nohra, a Lebanese-born venture capitalist; and Fred Simon, a physician.Such was Mr. Lombardo’s advantage after the Trump endorsement that during a televised debate last month, he declared the primary contest over and asked his Republican rivals to “come together” behind him to defeat Mr. Sisolak. More

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      5 Takeaways From Tuesday’s Key Primary Races

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      From Las Vegas to Lewiston, Maine, the contours of critical midterm contests came into focus on Tuesday as Americans voted in major federal and state races across five states.In Nevada, which will be home to marquee House, Senate and governor’s races this fall, Republicans elevated several candidates who have embraced former President Donald J. Trump’s lies about a stolen election — even as candidates he endorsed had a mixed night in South Carolina, where he had sought to exact vengeance on two House incumbents.In Maine, a familiar set of characters moved into highly competitive general election races for governor and for a House seat that may be one of the most hard-fought in the nation. But in Texas, Republicans flipped a Rio Grande Valley seat — albeit only through the end of the year — as the party works to make inroads with Hispanic voters.Here are a few takeaways from Tuesday’s primaries:Election deniers prevail in Nevada.Republican candidates who have embraced Mr. Trump’s lies about election fraud were nominated for several positions of significant power in one of the most competitive political battlegrounds in the nation.They include Jim Marchant, an organizer of a network of 2020 election deniers. Mr. Marchant, who prevailed in Nevada’s Republican primary for secretary of state, is also a failed congressional candidate who declared himself a “victim of election fraud” after being defeated in 2020, and has said his “No. 1 priority will be to overhaul the fraudulent election system in Nevada.”Mr. Marchant was among an alternate slate of pro-Trump electors who sought to overturn President Biden’s victory in Nevada in 2020, and he has said he would have refused to certify the election had he been secretary of state at the time.Adam Laxalt, Nevada’s former attorney general who won his party’s Senate nomination on Tuesday with Mr. Trump’s backing, was one of the leaders of the Trump campaign’s effort to overturn the results in Nevada.Adam Laxalt during a campaign stop in Moapa Valley, Nev., on Saturday.Joe Buglewicz for The New York TimesAnd in the Republican primary to challenge Representative Steven Horsford, a Democrat, the two top finishers with 40 percent of the vote counted, according to The Associated Press, were Annie Black, a state lawmaker who said she was outside the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and Sam Peters, who has suggested he would not have voted to certify the 2020 election results and questioned the legitimacy of Mr. Biden’s victory.Their victories come as a bipartisan House panel investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol has showcased testimony from Mr. Trump’s onetime top advisers discussing Mr. Trump’s claims.Understand the June 14 Primary ElectionsTakeaways: Republicans who embraced former President Donald J. Trump’s election lies did well in Nevada, while his allies had a mixed night in South Carolina. Here’s what else we learned.Winners and Losers: Here is a rundown of some of the most notable wins and losses.Election Deniers Prevail: Republicans who deny the 2020 election’s result are edging closer to wielding power over the next one.Nevada Races: Trump-inspired candidates captured key wins in the swing state, setting the stage for a number of tossup contests against embattled Democrats.Texas Special Election: Mayra Flores, a Republican, flipped a House seat in the Democratic stronghold of South Texas. Her win may only be temporary, however.“He’s become detached from reality if he really believes this stuff,” William P. Barr, the former attorney general, told the panel.Critical Nevada races come into focus.Nevada cemented its status as a focal point of the political universe on Tuesday, as several marquee general election contests took shape that will have significant implications for the balance of power in Washington.Senator Catherine Cortez Masto, a Democrat, will face off against Mr. Laxalt, who comes from a prominent political family. His positions on issues like election integrity may run afoul of some voters in a state that hasn’t supported a Republican for president since 2004.Supporters of Joe Lombardo at his election watch party in Las Vegas Tuesday night.Bridget Bennett for The New York TimesBut Ms. Cortez Masto may be the Senate’s most vulnerable Democratic incumbent. And there are signs that Nevada, which currently has among the highest gas prices in the nation, may be notably difficult terrain for Democrats this year, as they grapple with a brutally challenging political environment shaped by issues including soaring inflation and President Biden’s weak approval rating.Those dynamics will also influence the governor’s race, as Gov. Steve Sisolak prepares for a challenge from Joe Lombardo, the Clark County sheriff. And all three of the state’s incumbent Democratic House members are running in highly competitive seats.South Carolina shows the power, and some limits, of a Trump endorsement.After the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, two House members from South Carolina broke with most of their fellow Republicans to lash Mr. Trump as complicit in the assault. On Tuesday, only one of them prevailed over a Trump-backed primary challenger.Representative Nancy Mace, who’d said she held Mr. Trump “accountable for the events that transpired, for the attack on our Capitol,” defeated her challenger, Katie Arrington, a former state lawmaker. But Representative Tom Rice, who stunned many observers with his vote to impeach Mr. Trump, lost to State Representative Russell Fry as he campaigned in a more conservative district.Russell Fry with supporters in Myrtle Beach, S.C., Tuesday night after winning the Republican primary over Representative Tom Rice.Jason Lee/The Sun News, via Associated PressA Trump endorsement is not always dispositive, as other primary election results this year have demonstrated. But the former president’s continued sway over the Republican base is undeniable. And openly challenging him remains politically dangerous for Republican candidates, as several who voted to impeach him have experienced.Despite her initial sharp criticism of Mr. Trump, Ms. Mace — who did not vote to impeach — went on to make overtures to Trump loyalists, including by issuing an appeal from outside Trump Tower as part of her broader campaign pitch.Mr. Rice, by contrast, appeared to grow sharper in his condemnations of the former president in the final stretch of the race.“It’s not about my voting record. It’s not about my support of Trump. It’s not about my ideology. It’s not because this other guy’s any good,” Mr. Rice said. “There’s only one reason why he’s doing this. And it’s just for revenge.”Making that argument proved fruitless for Mr. Rice. On Tuesday, he became the first Republican who voted for impeachment to be defeated in a primary.Republicans win in the Rio Grande Valley and call it a bellwether.Republicans are seeking to make inroads with Hispanic voters this year after doing far better than expected in parts of South Texas in 2020 — and they immediately moved to cast a special election victory in the Rio Grande Valley on Tuesday as a bellwether for the region.Understand the 2022 Midterm ElectionsCard 1 of 6Why are these midterm races so important? More

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      Who Won and Who Lost in Tuesday’s Primary Elections

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      Voters in several states weighed in on key contests in Tuesday’s primaries. Here are some of the most notable wins and losses:South CarolinaRepresentative Tom Rice, one of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach former President Donald J. Trump after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, was defeated by his Trump-backed challenger, State Representative Russell Fry, in the Republican primary in the Seventh Congressional District.Representative Nancy Mace, a Republican, defeated her Trump-endorsed challenger, Katie Arrington, a former state legislator, to win the party’s nomination in the First Congressional District. The race tested whether Republican primary voters prized loyalty to Mr. Trump over concerns that Ms. Arrington wasn’t a strong general election candidate. NevadaIn the state’s G.O.P. Senate primary, Adam Laxalt won his party’s nomination and will face the incumbent Senator Catherine Cortez Masto, who is seen as vulnerable this fall. Mr. Laxalt, a former attorney general, was endorsed by Mr. Trump and had helped lead Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the presidential election results in Nevada in 2020. Joe Lombardo, the Las Vegas area sheriff who was endorsed by Mr. Trump, won the Republican nomination and will challenge Gov. Steve Sisolak, a Democrat, in what is expected to be one of the tightest governor’s races in the country.Jim Marchant, one of the organizers of the “America First” slate of secretary of state candidates who continue to harbor doubts about the 2020 election, won the Republican nomination to be the state’s top election official. He will compete against Cisco Aguilar, a Democratic lawyer who ran uncontested.April Becker, a lawyer and political newcomer, won the Republican nomination in the Third Congressional District and will face Representative Susie Lee, a Democrat.TexasMayra Flores won the special election in the 34th Congressional District, flipping a seat — at least for now — that had long been held by Democrats. She’ll have the seat at least until the end of the year. It was vacated by Representative Filemon Vela, a Democrat who resigned to take a job with a lobbying firm. Ms. Flores will be the first Republican from the district and the first Latina Republican from Texas in Congress.MaineBruce Poliquin, who used to represent the Second Congressional District, won the Republican nomination for his old seat. He will challenge Representative Jared Golden, one of the country’s most endangered House Democrats, who was uncontested in his primary. More

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      Republicans Who Deny 2020 Election Outcome Press Closer to Power Over Future Elections

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      Midway through primary season, the party has nominated several candidates who deny the 2020 outcome for posts that will have significant sway over the 2024 presidential election.The potential for far-right Republicans to reshape the election systems of major battleground states is growing much closer to reality.As the halfway point nears of a midterm year that is vastly friendlier to Republicans, the party’s voters have nominated dozens of candidates for offices with power over the administration and certification of elections who have spread falsehoods about the 2020 presidential contest and sowed distrust in American democracy.The only way to restore trust, these candidates say, is by electing them.In Michigan, Pennsylvania and now Nevada, Republican voters have elevated candidates who owe their political rise to their amplification of doubts about Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory, and who are now vying in elections for governor, secretary of state and attorney general — offices that will hold significant sway over the administration of the 2024 presidential election in critical swing states.The rise of election deniers is far from over. Primary contests coming later this month in Colorado and in early August in Arizona and Wisconsin will provide more clarity on the depth of Republican voters’ desire to rally behind candidates devoted to the false idea that the 2020 election was stolen from former President Donald J. Trump.With Republicans widely predicted to make gains in November, it is possible that 2023 will bring newly installed far-right officials willing to wield their influence to affect election outcomes and a possible Supreme Court ruling that could give state legislatures unchecked power over federal elections. Even some Republican candidates and officials who for a time defended the 2020 results as legitimate have begun to question whether Mr. Biden’s victory was on the level.“We are in a dangerous place at the moment,” said Ben Berwick, the counsel for Protect Democracy, a nonpartisan group dedicated to resisting authoritarianism. “There is a substantial faction in this country that has come to the point where they have rejected the premise that when we have elections, the losers of the elections acknowledge the right of the winner to govern.”On Tuesday, Nevada Republicans chose as their nominee for secretary of state Jim Marchant, an organizer of a Trump-inspired coalition of far-right candidates united by their insistence that the 2020 election was rigged. Mr. Marchant, a former state legislator from Las Vegas, told voters during a February debate that “your vote hasn’t counted for decades.”Doug Mastriano, the Republican nominee for governor of Pennsylvania, was a leading figure in the effort to subvert the state’s 2020 results on behalf of former President Donald J. Trump.Michael M. Santiago/Getty ImagesOn the November ballot, Mr. Marchant joins Doug Mastriano, the Republican nominee for governor of Pennsylvania, who won his primary last month after promoting efforts to decertify the 2020 results, and Attorney General Ken Paxton of Texas, who in December 2020 sued to overturn Mr. Biden’s victory, as well as like-minded figures in other states including New Mexico.The number of election deniers who have won Republican nominations is quickly rising in congressional and state legislative races across the country. At least 72 members of Congress who voted to overturn the 2020 election have advanced to the general election, according to a New York Times analysis.Understand the June 14 Primary ElectionsTakeaways: Republicans who embraced former President Donald J. Trump’s election lies did well in Nevada, while his allies had a mixed night in South Carolina. Here’s what else we learned.Winners and Losers: Here is a rundown of some of the most notable wins and losses.Election Deniers Prevail: Republicans who deny the 2020 election’s result are edging closer to wielding power over the next one.Nevada Races: Trump-inspired candidates captured key wins in the swing state, setting the stage for a number of tossup contests against embattled Democrats.Texas Special Election: Mayra Flores, a Republican, flipped a House seat in the Democratic stronghold of South Texas. Her win may only be temporary, however.And in Georgia, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Texas — four competitive states that have already held primaries — 157 state legislators who took concrete steps to overturn or undermine the 2020 election will be on the ballot in November.These primary results come as the House select committee’s hearings into the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol have revealed how nearly every senior figure in the Trump orbit except the president himself believed Mr. Biden had won the election despite Mr. Trump’s claims.Still, the former president’s lies, adopted and advanced by his followers, continue to threaten to upset the country’s democratic order nearly 18 months later.For many election-denying candidates, victory is far from assured. Some of the most prominent ones, like Mr. Mastriano, face tough general-election campaigns, and their success may depend on factors like their personal fund-raising networks, the health of the economy and policy debates that have nothing to do with election administration.And voters have at times been hesitant to embrace candidates whose central plank is elections. Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia swept aside former Senator David Perdue’s 2020-centric challenge, and Brad Raffensperger, the state’s secretary of state, also handily beat a Trump-backed rival.Still, in primary after primary, election deniers have ascended, signaling that Mr. Trump’s falsehoods about the 2020 election have become deeply embedded in the Republican base.Voters waiting to enter a temporary polling location in Las Vegas on Tuesday.Bridget Bennett for The New York TimesHanging over several marquee 2022 races is the prospect of 2024, when a Democratic presidential nominee — Mr. Biden, if he runs again as promised — might have to confront the open question of whether victories in certain states would be certified.In several battleground states, Republicans who have said they would not have certified Mr. Biden’s 2020 victory are running for governor or secretary of state, positions that oversee elections and the appointment of Electoral College delegates.In particular, races for secretary of state — once little-noticed contests to choose the top election official in most states — have become extraordinarily high-profile and politicized.“I don’t know of a single proven competent election official that says, ‘Gosh, I can’t wait to be on the front page,’” said Pam Anderson, a Republican running for secretary of state in Colorado. “Because usually that’s a really bad thing.”Ms. Anderson is running in a Republican primary against Tina Peters, the Mesa County clerk, who is under indictment related to allegations that she tampered with elections equipment after the 2020 election. Ms. Peters has become something of a hero to the far-right base, walking the red carpet at a documentary screening at Mar-a-Lago and speaking at Republican events across the country.Tina Peters speaking at a rally hosted by Mr. Trump in Casper, Wyo., in May.Natalie Behring for The New York TimesKristina Karamo addressing the crowd at a Trump rally in Washington, Mich., in April.Brittany Greeson for The New York TimesPromoting 2020 falsehoods has also bolstered the prospects of candidates for secretary of state who have no experience managing elections, like Kristina Karamo, who is the likely Republican nominee in Michigan after winning the most delegates at the state party’s convention.Understand the 2022 Midterm ElectionsCard 1 of 6Why are these midterm races so important? More

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      What to Watch in Tuesday’s Primary Elections

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      The marquee races on Tuesday are taking place in South Carolina, where two Republican House members are facing Trump-backed challengers, and in Nevada, where Republicans are aiming to sweep a host of Democratic-held seats in the November general election.Voters in Maine and North Dakota will also go to the polls, and in Texas, Republicans hope to grab the Rio Grande Valley seat of Representative Filemon Vela, a Democrat who resigned in March.The primary season has had more extensive Election Days, but Tuesday has plenty of drama. Here is what to watch.In South Carolina, a showdown with TrumpRepresentatives Tom Rice and Nancy Mace crossed former President Donald J. Trump in the opening days of 2021 as the cleanup crews were still clearing debris from the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol. Mr. Rice was perhaps the biggest surprise vote in favor of impeachment — as a conservative in a very conservative district, he was risking his political career.Ms. Mace voted against impeachment, but in her first speech in Congress that January, she said the House needed to “hold the president accountable” for the Capitol attack.So Mr. Trump backed two primary challengers: State Representative Russell Fry against Mr. Rice, and the conservative Katie Arrington against Ms. Mace.Representative Tom Rice speaking with supporters in Conway, S.C., last week.Madeline Gray for The New York TimesIn Ms. Mace’s case, the Trump world is divided. Mr. Trump’s first United Nations ambassador, Nikki Haley, and one of his chiefs of staff, Mick Mulvaney, both South Carolinians, are backing the incumbent freshman.That is, in part, because Ms. Arrington has a poor track record: In 2018, after beating then-Representative Mark Sanford in the Republican primary after he castigated Mr. Trump, she then lost in November to a Democrat, Joe Cunningham. (Mr. Cunningham, who was defeated by Ms. Mace in 2020, is hoping for a comeback this year with a long-shot bid to defeat the incumbent governor, Henry McMaster.)Republicans worry that an Arrington victory on Tuesday could jeopardize the seat, which stretches from Charleston down the affluent South Carolina coast.Mr. Rice’s path to victory on Tuesday will be considerably harder, but he remains defiant about his impeachment vote. “Defending the Constitution is a bedrock of the Republican platform. Defend the Constitution, and that’s what I did. That was the conservative vote,” he said in a June 5 interview on ABC’s “This Week,” adding, “There’s no question in my mind.”Battleground NevadaCalifornia may have a larger number of seats in play, but no state is as thoroughly up for grabs as Nevada. Three out of four of the state’s House seats are rated tossups — all three of which are now held by Democrats. Other tossup races include the Senate seat held by Catherine Cortez Masto, a Democrat, and the governorship held by Steve Sisolak, also a Democrat. A Republican sweep would do real damage, not only to the Democrats’ narrow hold on Congress, but also to their chances in the 2024 presidential election if Nevada is close: It’s better to have the governor of a state on your side than on the other side.But first, Republican voters need to sort through a vast array of candidates vying for each position. Joe Lombardo, the sheriff of Las Vegas’s Clark County, is the favorite for the Republican nomination to challenge Mr. Sisolak. He has Mr. Trump’s endorsement and echoes Mr. Trump’s language in his pledge to “take our state back.”Eight candidates are vying to challenge Ms. Cortez Masto, but Adam Laxalt, the former Nevada attorney general who lost to Mr. Sisolak in 2018, is clearly favored.Adam Laxalt, a Republican Senate candidate, with supporters in Moapa Valley, Nev., last week.Joe Buglewicz for The New York TimesRepresentative Dina Titus, a Democrat, also has eight Republicans competing to challenge her, including a former House member, Cresent Hardy. But it’s Carolina Serrano, a Colombian American immigrant, who has the backing of Republican leaders and the Trump world alike, with endorsements from Representative Elise Stefanik of New York, the party’s No. 3 House leader, as well as Mr. Laxalt and Richard Grenell, a pugilistic former national security official in the Trump administration.Five Republicans hope to challenge Representative Susie Lee, a Democrat. Among them, April Becker, a real estate lawyer, has raised the most money by far and has the backing of the House Republican leader, Kevin McCarthy, as well as Ms. Stefanik, Ms. Haley and Mr. Laxalt.The potential G.O.P. challengers to Representative Steven Horsford, a Democrat, are most clearly divided between the Trump fringe and the party’s mainstream. Sam Peters, an insurance agent, is backed by the far-right Arizona congressmen Paul Gosar and Andy Biggs, who both have been tied to extremist groups, as well as the right-wing rocker Ted Nugent. Annie Black, an assemblywoman running in the primary against Mr. Peters, is more mainstream.A harbinger brewing in South TexasWhen Mr. Vela decided to resign from the House instead of serving out the rest of his term, he most likely did not know the stakes he was creating for the special election to fill his seat for the remaining months of this year.Republicans are trying to make a statement, pouring money into the traditionally Democratic Rio Grande Valley district to support Mayra Flores. She has raised 16 times the amount logged by her closest Democratic competitor, Dan Sanchez.A campaign sign for Mayra Flores in Brownsville during the Texas primary in March.Denise Cathey/The Brownsville Herald, via Associated PressA Flores victory would be proclaimed by Republicans as a sign of worse to come for Democrats in November.Understand the 2022 Midterm ElectionsCard 1 of 6Why are these midterms so important? More

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      Fealty to Trump Arises as Litmus Test in G.O.P. Debate for N.Y. Governor

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      If there was any question that the first debate among Republican contenders for governor of New York would be more combative than last week’s Democratic skirmish, it was put to rest quickly on Monday.In the opening moments, Representative Lee M. Zeldin attacked Harry Wilson, a corporate turnaround specialist, as a “Never Trumper” and Republican-in-name-only. Mr. Wilson soon returned fire, saying Mr. Zeldin’s campaign was “disintegrating” and suggesting that he had been approached about running alongside Mr. Zeldin and had turned him down.Mr. Zeldin, who was chosen as his party’s designee at a party convention this winter, scoffed, even as Mr. Wilson, who also worked in the Obama administration, tried to cut him off.“This guy doesn’t stop,” Mr. Zeldin said, adding, “You’re on the wrong debate stage, man,” suggesting that Mr. Wilson would be more at home with Democrats.The verbal scuffle continued, even as another candidate, Rob Astorino, looked on, and a fourth candidate, Andrew Giuliani, situated in a studio nearby, held a fixed smile.“You’re a child,” Mr. Wilson finally responded.The explosive exchange typified much of the back-and-forth as the candidates sought to prove and polish their conservative bona fides on topics ranging from gun control to abortion to their respect for former President Donald J. Trump.In doing so, they also sharply differentiated themselves from their Democratic counterparts, especially Gov. Kathy Hochul, who is considered a favorite as the June 28 primary for both parties nears.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.The Mapmaker: A postdoctoral fellow and former bartender redrew New York’s congressional map, reshaping several House districts and scrambling the future of the state’s political establishment.Maloney vs. Nadler: The new congressional lines have put the two stalwart Manhattan Democrats on a collision course in the Aug. 23 primary.Questionable 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.The debate also took place against the backdrop of the public hearings by the House committee investigating the Capitol assault on Jan. 6, 2021, and the WCBS-TV moderators — Marcia Kramer and Maurice DuBois — asked early on about the candidates’ feelings about the hearings and about another possible Trump run for president.Mr. Giuliani, the son of the former New York City mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, said he believed Mr. Trump was “a great president” who he hoped would run again.“I consider him a good friend,” said Mr. Giuliani, who worked for four years in the Trump White House, adding that he wanted to bring the same “kind of change” to New York that Mr. Trump had brought to America.Mr. Zeldin, once considered a moderate, has been a staunch supporter of Mr. Trump, voting in the House to overturn the results of the 2020 election. That effort was led — interestingly enough — by the older Mr. Giuliani. But Mr. Zeldin was slightly more circumspect in his feelings about Mr. Trump’s political prospects, saying, “If President Trump wants to run, he should run,” and adding that he believed the former president would be the next Republican nominee.Mr. Zeldin, a four-term congressman from Long Island, tried to reel off other issues he felt deserved federal attention, including illegal immigration, foreign policy and the supply chain. “That’s where Congress should be spending their time right now,” he said.Mr. Astorino, the former Westchester County executive who was the party’s unsuccessful nominee for governor in 2014, went the furthest in acknowledging the Capitol riots, calling Jan. 6 “a horrible day in our nation’s history,” and saying that Mr. Trump “bears some responsibility” for the mob attack. But he called the hearings “political theater.”Mr. Astorino generally avoided the verbal sparring going on between Mr. Zeldin and Mr. Wilson in the CBS studio, trying to convey a calmer presence.“This state is a mess,” he said, adding, “I ran in ’14 and everything has just gotten worse.”Social issues percolated throughout the evening, with the possible Supreme Court decision on the fate of Roe v. Wade expected this month. Perhaps cognizant of New York’s strong liberal bent — Democrats outnumber Republicans more than two-to-one in enrollment — none of the four on Monday called directly for Roe to be overturned, though several said there should be restrictions on who can perform abortions and when women can seek them.State Democrats pointed out on Monday night that Mr. Zeldin has previously voiced support for ending Roe and said in April that he would like to appoint “a health commissioner who respects life as opposed to what we’re used to.” On Monday, the candidate also outlined other proposals to limit access, including requiring parental consent, and said that New York’s strong protections for abortion are “going too far.”Mr. Wilson, the only candidate in the race who supports abortion rights, said he was “not running on a social agenda,” adding he would not try to change state law, while Mr. Astorino said that abortion remained a “really difficult choice” for women.“I think we have to get back to a position of we’re here to help,” he said, mentioning prenatal care, and adding that many abortions are sought in “low-income” areas by women who “feel that there was no other option.”Mr. Giuliani said that he was “not afraid” to say he was anti-abortion, before co-opting the women’s rights motto — “My body, my choice” — to discuss his opposition to vaccination mandates. Indeed, Mr. Giuliani was forced to participate remotely because he has refused to get the coronavirus vaccine, something he has used as a talking point on the campaign trail to rail against government mandates concerning the disease.In recent weeks, Mr. Giuliani has insisted that he is the candidate to beat — citing a single online poll — even as he has campaigned with his father, who had been prominently featured, often in unflattering ways, during the House hearings.Still, with early voting beginning on Saturday, Mr. Zeldin has been considered the front-runner because of his party’s backing, his name recognition as a congressman and his robust fund-raising.The debate comes amid rising hopes for Republicans, who have not won a statewide race for 20 years and lost their last foothold of power in Albany — control of the State Senate — in the 2018 elections. Ms. Hochul has suffered from tepid poll numbers, particularly on issues like crime, on which Republicans have successfully attacked Democrats, including in last year’s elections.In the wake of a massacre last month at a supermarket in Buffalo and another looming Supreme Court decision that could strike down a state law that places strict limits on the carrying of handguns, candidates were asked about possible new policies to address gun violence.All four candidates voiced support for the Second Amendment, with Mr. Wilson, for one, suggesting that addressing mental health problems and policing violent extremism would do more than new restrictions on guns.Mr. Astorino said that the debate should not be over gun control but “criminal control,” making reference to new bail laws passed by Democrats in Albany in 2019. “Right now, it’s the criminals who get away with everything,” he said, contending that “law-abiding New Yorkers” are “being targeted all the time.”Mr. Giuliani agreed with Mr. Astorino that stronger policing could be part of the answer, adding that he’d like to return to some of the “broken windows” policing plans that his father embraced during his mayoralty. “We need to end this war on cops and allow proactive policing again,” he said.Mr. Giuliani groused somewhat about being forced to be remote — accusing CBS and other media outlets of “acting more like Pravda than anything else” — but he also noted the tension between Mr. Zeldin and Mr. Wilson.“Sounds like I’m missing some fireworks over there,” Mr. Giuliani said. 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      Young Kim of California Survives Her House Primary

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      Representative Young Kim of California, a Republican who is one of the first Korean American women in Congress, advanced to the general election in November after a hard-fought primary that became one of the most expensive races in the state.Ms. Kim was one of the top vote-getters in the June 7 House primary, according to The Associated Press. California’s primaries are open — all candidates, regardless of party, run on the same ballot and the top two vote-getters advance to the November general election.Ms. Kim will now face Asif Mahmood, a Democrat and a physician who is focusing on abortion access, in November in California’s 40th Congressional District, which encompasses parts of Orange and San Bernardino Counties.Ms. Kim currently represents another district, the 39th, where she captured her seat as a moderate Republican in 2020. The district was redrawn and now includes far more Republicans. Ms. Kim and other Republicans have been vying to reclaim Orange County, a decades-long Republican stronghold that shifted to the left during the Trump administration.In the final weeks of the campaign, Ms. Kim focused on her Republican opponent, Greg Raths, a councilman in Mission Viejo who is also a retired combat fighter pilot. Ms. Kim was backed by the Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC aligned with the Republican leadership, which had called her race a “must win” for November. The super PAC and Ms. Kim’s campaign spent about $1.2 million on Republican television ads attacking Mr. Raths.One ad from Ms. Kim’s campaign accused Mr. Raths of raising taxes and saying he is “just like Biden and the liberals.” Mr. Raths, for his part, frequently reminded Republican voters that Ms. Kim had voted to censure former President Donald J. Trump and remove Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia, from congressional committees.Mr. Mahmood, the Democrat, released an ad portraying Mr. Raths as too conservative on abortion, a move that some thought could raise the Republican’s profile and, in the state’s open-primary system, edge Ms. Kim out of the general election. More

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      Jan. 6 Hearings Focus on Fox News Call That Made Trump’s Loss Clear

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      At Fox News, there was little drama over the decision to project Joseph R. Biden the winner of Arizona. But the relationship between Trump and the network was never the same.Shortly before 11:20 p.m. on Nov. 3, 2020, Bill Sammon, the managing editor for Fox News in Washington, picked up the phone in the room where he and others had been reviewing election returns. On the other end of the line was the control room.Mr. Sammon informed the producers and executives listening in that the network was calling Arizona for Joseph R. Biden Jr., effectively declaring an end to one of the most contentious presidential elections in modern times. He clicked a box on his computer screen, and Arizona turned blue on the map that viewers saw at home.Inside Fox News, the moment unfolded with little drama despite its enormous implications. To the people in the room with Mr. Sammon, the result was clear. On the outside, it immediately provoked a fury with President Trump and his supporters, who maligned Fox News, the country’s most watched cable news channel and his longtime stalwart defender, as dishonest and disloyal.The relationship between the former president and the network would never be the same.The events of that night were the focus of a congressional hearing on Monday that peeled back the curtain on the decision-making process at Fox News. The hearing, part of the House investigation into the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, featured testimony from a former senior editor at Fox News who explained how there was never any doubt that his team was making the correct call on Arizona — even though most other news outlets would not call the state for days.“We already knew Trump’s chances were very small, and getting smaller based on what we had seen,” Chris Stirewalt, who was the politics editor for Fox News until he was fired two months after the election, told the House committee. Mr. Stirewalt described the cautious, analytical approach they took to determining that Mr. Trump could not come from behind and overtake Mr. Biden in Arizona.At Mr. Sammon’s insistence, he said, they took a vote of the people who worked on Fox News’ so-called decision desk. And only after the group agreed unanimously did Mr. Sammon issue it.“We looked around the room. Everybody says, ‘yea.’ And on we go,” Mr. Stirewalt testified before the committee, adding that they had already moved on to looking at calling other states by the time they heard of the backlash their decision created.Read More on the Jan. 6 House Committee HearingsMaking a Case Against Trump: The committee appears to be laying out a road map for prosecutors to indict former President Donald J. Trump. But the path to any trial is uncertain.The Meaning of the Hearings: While the public sessions aren’t going to unite the country, they could significantly affect public opinion.An Unsettling Narrative: During the first hearing, the panel presented a gripping story with a sprawling cast of characters, but only three main players: Mr. Trump, the Proud Boys and a Capitol Police officer.Trump’s Depiction: Mr. Trump was portrayed as a would-be autocrat willing to shred the Constitution to hang onto power. Liz Cheney: The vice chairwoman of the House committee has been unrepentant in continuing to blame Mr. Trump for stoking the attack on Jan. 6, 2021.Mr. Stirewalt’s testimony was part of the second televised hearing by the committee, which is aiming to refocus the country’s attention on the horrors of that day and to make a compelling case that Mr. Trump continued to lie about voter fraud and “stolen” votes despite being told by the family and aides closest to him that he had lost.On Monday, the hearing centered on people who said they did not believe that any hard evidence or data supported the former president’s contention that he must have won because the early vote returns showed him ahead on Election Day.At issue was what political observers have called the “Red Mirage.” On Election Day, Mr. Trump was widely expected to appear far ahead as polls closed across the country, because the first votes counted are primarily those from people who voted in person that day — the method favored by Republicans. But that, warned political experts, would probably be a “mirage.” Mr. Trump’s lead would shrink, they said, or perhaps evaporate entirely, as states tallied the mail-in ballots, which were favored by Democrats and take longer to count.For several weeks before the election, a group of advisers, including Stephen K. Bannon and Rudolph W. Giuliani, had encouraged Mr. Trump to declare victory on the night of the election, arguing that he could easily dismiss mail-in ballots as riddled with fraud regardless of whether he had any evidence for the claim.Fox’s Arizona call blew a hole in that strategy. A projected loss in traditionally red Arizona — which a Democratic presidential candidate had won only once since Harry Truman — coming from a presumably loyal outlet, augured a bad night.But Fox News had good reason to feel confident about a call no other news outlet was prepared to make at that point in the evening, with roughly one-fourth of the vote still uncounted in Arizona, Mr. Stirewalt said. Its decision desk used data that other networks did not have.After the 2016 election, Rupert Murdoch, who oversees Fox News as part of his larger conservative media empire, urged Fox to pull out of the consortium of news organizations that used polls to project results. Those polls had wrongly predicted a Hillary Clinton victory.That paved the way for Fox News and The Associated Press to go their own way in 2020, according to an account of the decision desk’s process that Mr. Stirewalt gave for the book “Insurgency: How Republicans Lost Their Party and Got Everything They Ever Wanted.” In the weeks leading up to the election, they surveyed 100,000 voters across the country who had cast ballots early, giving them a sense of how misleading the “mirage” might be. On the night of the election, the Fox News decision desk compared those surveys with another layer of data: actual precinct-level vote tallies that the A.P. was tracking.On Monday, Mr. Stirewalt testified that the joint A.P.-Fox News project worked remarkably well. “Let me tell you, our poll in Arizona was beautiful,” he said. “And it was doing just what we wanted it to do.”Some of Mr. Trump’s former aides testified that the Fox call shocked them but also undermined their confidence in his chances of victory. Jason Miller, a senior aide on the Trump campaign, said in video testimony played by the committee that he and others were “disappointed with Fox” for making the call but at the same time “concerned that maybe our data or our numbers weren’t accurate.”Mr. Miller had shared none of that concern on election night, when he tweeted that Fox was a “complete outlier” whose call should be ignored by other media. At Mr. Trump’s insistence, he and other aides immediately reached out to Fox executives, producers and on-air talent to demand an explanation. Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law, went straight to the top, calling Mr. Murdoch. The scene played out in part on the air as Fox talent commented about the complaints raining down on them from the Trump campaign.“Arnon, we’re getting a lot of incoming here, and we need you to answer some questions,” the network’s chief political anchor, Bret Baier, said at one point, referring to Arnon Mishkin, the person on the decision desk who was responsible for analyzing the data and recommending when Fox issue its calls.On Monday, Mr. Stirewalt did not describe either Mr. Murdoch or Lachlan Murdoch, the Fox Corporation executive chairman, as being part of the decision desk’s process. And network executives have said the Murdochs were not involved.Though Fox News coverage is typically favorable to conservative, pro-Trump points of view, that deference has never been adopted by the decision desk, which is a separate part of the news-gathering operation overseen by Mr. Mishkin, a polling expert who is also a registered Democrat. In the days after the election, Mr. Mishkin was unwavering in his defense of the call as Fox anchors pressed him. Once, as the host Martha MacCallum peppered Mr. Mishkin with a series of “what if” scenarios that could bolster Mr. Trump’s chances of eking out a victory, Mr. Mishkin responded sarcastically, “What if frogs had wings?” (Mr. Mishkin remains a paid consultant for the network, not an employee, and will run the decision desk for the midterm elections in November.)The decision desk was created under the former Fox News chairman and founder Roger Ailes, who relished making controversy and drawing ratings more than he cared about toeing the line for the Republican Party. Its quick calls angered Republicans on more than one occasion, including in 2012, when it was the first to project that President Barack Obama would win Ohio and a second term, and in 2018 when it declared that Republicans would lose the House of Representatives even as votes were still being cast on the West Coast.Though Fox News and the Murdochs stood by the Arizona projection, they paid a price for it.As Mr. Trump’s rally goers took up a new chant, “Fox News sucks,” the former president urged his supporters on Twitter to switch to Fox’s smaller, right-wing competitors instead, Newsmax and One America News Network.With anchors who steadfastly refused to acknowledge Mr. Trump’s loss, Newsmax saw a ratings bump as Fox, the No. 1 cable news network for two decades, showed some rare — if short lived — slippage.Soon, various Fox opinion hosts were giving oxygen to false assertions that the election was stolen, several of which were methodically debunked at Monday’s hearings, including by one former Trump aide, who called them “nuts.”Mr. Stirewalt, who was among the Fox News journalists who defended the Arizona call, was notified of his firing on Jan. 19, 2021. 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