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    Democrats Win Early Victory in Court Fight Over District Maps

    A judge’s stance was good news for Democrats, who drew the maps that Republicans say are gerrymandered, but the case will proceed.A New York State judge indicated on Thursday that he would allow this year’s midterm elections to proceed using the state’s newly drawn district lines that heavily favor Democrats — rebuffing Republican requests to delay the election process while he considers whether the maps are an unconstitutional gerrymander.In a preliminary hearing in Steuben County Supreme Court, Justice Patrick F. McAllister, a Republican, said that even if he ultimately ruled that the maps were unconstitutional, it was “highly unlikely” that replacements could be ratified in a timely manner ahead of primaries in June and Election Day in November. That, in turn, would risk leaving the state without proper representation in Congress.“I do not intend at this time to suspend the election process,” the judge said. “I believe the more prudent course would be to allow the current election process to proceed and then, if necessary, allow an election process next year if new maps need to be drawn.”Justice McAllister’s conclusion delivered a sharp setback to state Republicans, who sued last month to try to stop the new congressional and State Senate lines drafted by the Democrat-controlled State Legislature from taking effect this year. The Republicans believe their party is well positioned to retake control of the House of Representatives in November, but every seat could count.The fresh New York boundaries would make that harder, giving Democrats an advantage in 22 of the state’s 26 congressional districts, while potentially cutting the current number of Republican House members from New York in half and effectively eating into gains won by redistricting measures in other states. Analysts have suggested the new State Senate lines could be just as favorable to Democrats, helping the party maintain its supermajority in Albany.What to Know About RedistrictingRedistricting, Explained: Here are some answers to your most pressing questions about the process that is reshaping American politics.Understand Gerrymandering: Can you gerrymander your party to power? Try to draw your own districts in this imaginary state.Killing Competition: The number of competitive districts is dropping, as both parties use redistricting to draw themselves into safe seats.New York: Democrats’ aggressive reconfiguration of the state’s congressional map is one of the most consequential in the nation.Legal Battles: A North Carolina court’s ruling to reject a G.O.P.-drawn map and substitute its own version further cemented the rising importance of state courts in redistricting fights.Legal analysts who study redistricting said that Justice McAllister or an appeals court could still conceivably rethink his approach, but a court-ordered delay to this year’s elections was an increasingly unlikely scenario, now that candidates have begun collecting petitions to get on the June primary ballot.“If I were a candidate, I think the smart bet is that the maps we have today are the maps that are going to be used in November,” said Michael Li, senior counsel for the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice. “There doesn’t seem to be the will to change them for this cycle.”Still, Republicans left the hearing room in Bath, N.Y., on Thursday with some reasons for optimism.Justice McAllister rejected motions to dismiss the case and indicated that he was open to arguments that the maps had violated language added to the New York Constitution in 2014 that barred mapmakers from drawing lines to benefit one political party or candidate.The judge also ordered Democrats to hand over a raft of documents by March 12 that might shed light on how the Democratic drafters settled on the lines, and he told both sides to appear a few days later to argue over the merits of the Republicans’ challenge.“The important thing here is that the court rejected all of the efforts by the State Legislature and the attorney general to dismiss the case,” said John J. Faso, a former congressman from New York who is serving as a spokesman for the Republican challengers — a group of New York residents backed by deep-pocketed national Republican groups.How U.S. Redistricting WorksCard 1 of 8What is redistricting? More

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    Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey Confirms He Will Not Run for Senate

    Senator Mitch McConnell had been trying to recruit Gov. Doug Ducey of Arizona to run, but former President Donald J. Trump had warned him against it.Gov. Doug Ducey of Arizona reaffirmed his decision Thursday not to run for the Senate this year, dealing a blow to Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, while delighting former President Donald J. Trump, who for months had warned Mr. Ducey to stay out of the race.Mr. Ducey, who is term-limited as governor, was one of the most sought-after Republicans that Mr. McConnell had been trying to recruit. In a letter to donors, Mr. Ducey seemed to allude to Mr. Trump’s hectoring, saying: “These days, if you’re going to run for public office, you have to really want the job.”Angry that Mr. Ducey would not overturn Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s narrow 2020 victory in the state, Mr. Trump has rampaged for over a year, complaining about Mr. Ducey’s certification of the electoral results and threatening him about the Senate race.“Right now I have the job I want,” Mr. Ducey wrote, “and my intention is to close my years of service to Arizona with a very productive final legislative session and to help elect Republican governors across the country in my role as chairman of the Republican Governors Association.”Mr. Ducey’s decision was long expected. For months, he had told both reporters pressing him and Republicans courting him that he had little appetite to challenge Senator Mark Kelly, a first-term Democrat.A Guide to the 2022 Midterm ElectionsMidterms Begin: The Texas primaries officially opened the 2022 election season. See the full primary calendar.In the Senate: Democrats have a razor-thin margin that could be upended with a single loss. Here are the four incumbents most at risk.In the House: Republicans and Democrats are seeking to gain an edge through redistricting and gerrymandering.Governors’ Races: Georgia’s contest will be at the center of the political universe, but there are several important races across the country.Key Issues: Inflation, the pandemic, abortion and voting rights are expected to be among this election cycle’s defining topics.That did not stop Mr. McConnell, whose attempts to recruit two other Republican governors, Chris Sununu of New Hampshire and Larry Hogan of Maryland, into Senate races were also rebuffed.Taken together, the rejections illustrate the difficulty Senate Republicans are having in trying to lure mainstream conservative governors to serve in a party still shadowed by Mr. Trump and in a polarized capital that can offer less policymaking opportunity than statehouses. Moreover, many of the state executives are more interested in the presidency than the Senate.“By nature and by training I’m an executive,” wrote Mr. Ducey, who in an interview last month mused that senators seem only to “tweet all day, do a 5 p.m. news hit and go out for the rest of the night.”His candidacy, which would have tested Mr. Trump’s influence in a pivotal state, effectively hands Mr. Trump a victory without contest, the sort of win the former president’s intraparty antagonists are hoping to deny in a series of primaries this year.Given President Biden’s declining approval ratings and Arizona’s center-right tilt, Republicans might still be able to reclaim Mr. Kelly’s seat, which was previously held by Senator John McCain.It’s not clear which of the Republicans in the remaining field would be best-positioned to defeat Mr. Kelly, who began the year with $18 million in campaign cash. Attorney General Mark Brnovich has led a handful of lesser-known Republicans in some polls ahead of the August primary, but the race has been frozen as G.O.P. officials implored Mr. Ducey to run.A parade of prominent Republican leaders, including former President George W. Bush and Karl Rove as well as Mr. McConnell and his lieutenants, lobbied the Arizona governor, some sharing polling that indicated Mr. Trump’s declining influence in primaries.Gov. Doug Ducey with former President Donald J. Trump in 2020. Mr. Trump has complained about Mr. Ducey’s certification of Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s narrow victory in the state.Doug Mills/The New York TimesThe array of anti-Trump Republicans believed Mr. Ducey, a popular two-term governor and former chief of Cold Stone Creamery, would be their party’s strongest candidate and would also send a message about what they believe is Mr. Trump’s diminishing clout.“MAGA will never accept RINO Governor Doug Ducey of Arizona running for the U.S. Senate,” Mr. Trump said in a statement last month after a Times article detailed the wooing of the governor. “So save your time, money, and energy, Mitch!”In Mr. Ducey’s letter on Thursday, which was first reported by The Arizona Republic, he made no direct mention of Mr. Trump. But the governor did make a point to single out Mr. McConnell, who had been his most ardent pursuer.“The only downside about any of this is that it would be an honor to serve with Senator Mitch McConnell,” he wrote. “I consider him an historic figure and one of the Titans of the Senate, and I am supportive of everything he’s doing to elect Republican senators and wrest back control from Chuck Schumer.”Mr. Ducey, who became close to Mr. McConnell when the two collaborated on who would be appointed to fill Mr. McCain’s seat after his death in 2018, also indicated in the letter that he was considering “perhaps weighing in” with an endorsement in the Senate primary.For his part, Mr. Trump has not formally intervened in the primary — at least not in support of a candidate. More

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    Takeaways From Texas's 2022 Primary Elections

    Republicans’ turnout swamped Democrats’, while progressives claimed wins in the first elections of the 2022 midterms.For nearly a decade, the refrain from Texas Democrats has been that they are on the verge of making their state competitive, even though no Democrat has won a statewide race since 1994.Tuesday’s primary results illustrated that Democrats still have a long way to go.With more than three-quarters of the votes counted, nearly 800,000 more Republicans than Democrats voted for a candidate for governor — a gap far larger than the one in 2018, the last midterm primary election in Texas.To be sure, Republicans had a more competitive primary than Democrats. Gov. Greg Abbott’s contest against Republican challengers from his right may have been more of a draw than Beto O’Rourke’s glide path to the Democratic nomination. And Democrats will be quick to note that primary turnout is not always a predictor of big turnout in November.Still, Republicans demonstrated they are energized — even when divided between far-right and mainstream factions — and hardly ceding their hold on the state.Abbott’s right turn paid off.Before this year, Mr. Abbott had never faced a competitive Republican primary in his 25-year political career. But in a moment of conservative energy, with Republicans furious about the 2020 election and President Biden’s immigration policies, a field of Republicans bet that Mr. Abbott would be vulnerable to a challenger from his right.Turns out they were wrong.Armed with a $60 million war chest, Mr. Abbott easily dispatched seven Republicans, taking more than two-thirds of the vote. It was a win that was a year in the making. Mr. Abbott has spent much of last year placating the state’s conservative base by passing new restrictions on abortion, easing gun laws and enacting new limits on how Texas schools teach about the history of racism. Days before the primary, Mr. Abbott directed state health agencies to classify medical treatments commonly provided to transgender adolescents as “child abuse.”Mr. Abbott’s record was a striking demonstration of how a primary threat can help the right wing of the Republican Party drive the agenda, even in a state that has been trending toward Democrats.A Guide to the 2022 Midterm ElectionsPrimaries Begin: The Texas primaries officially opened the midterm election season. See the full primary calendar.In the Senate: Democrats have a razor-thin margin that could be upended with a single loss. Here are the four incumbents most at risk.In the House: Republicans and Democrats are seeking to gain an edge through redistricting and gerrymandering.Governors’ Races: Georgia’s contest will be at the center of the political universe, but there are several important races across the country.Key Issues: Inflation, the pandemic, abortion and voting rights are expected to be among this election cycle’s defining topics.In the general election, Mr. Abbott will again be a heavy favorite, this time against Mr. O’Rourke, the Democrat and former congressman who narrowly lost a 2018 race to Senator Ted Cruz and then flopped in the 2020 presidential primary.Mr. Abbott has been said to have presidential ambitions himself, if Mr. Trump does not run again in 2024. The next step on that journey for him will require a decisive victory in November. In a year when Republicans are expected to do well, he will need a show of strength in Texas to make a case he can appeal to voters nationwide.Beto O’Rourke in Fort Worth after winning his primary.LM Otero/Associated PressBeto O’Rourke put up a big number.Four years ago when he ran for the Senate, Mr. O’Rourke took just 61 percent of the 2018 Senate primary vote even though he was running against little-known, poorly funded candidates.Now, after Mr. O’Rourke has become the best-known figure in Texas Democratic politics, he easily dominated a field of four Democratic primary opponents.Mr. O’Rourke took more than 90 percent of the primary vote, carrying nearly all of the 254 counties in Texas after losing 76 of them four years ago.Mr. O’Rourke’s broad win was a reminder that he enters this race as a far different candidate than the plucky underdog who became a national star in 2018. Now running for governor, Mr. O’Rourke has name recognition and the state’s largest fund-raising network, but also baggage from his previous races. His call for government confiscation of some firearms will continue to appear in Republican attacks against him, and he also has to overcome significant G.O.P. advantages in the state.Trump picked (easy) winners.As the first primary contest of 2022, Texas previewed what will be a dominant theme of the primary season: Can Donald J. Trump play kingmaker?Mr. Trump’s record was mixed. The former president endorsed 33 Texas Republicans ahead of their primaries, but virtually all of them were widely expected to win before receiving the Trump seal of approval. As of early Wednesday morning, all of Mr. Trump’s picks for Congress were on pace to win their nominations.But other races raised doubts that Mr. Trump’s approval alone could secure a victory. Attorney General Ken Paxton, who was endorsed by Mr. Trump, and Dawn Buckingham, Mr. Trump’s choice for land commissioner, were both headed to runoffs in May, after failing to get more than 50 percent of the vote.“Big night in Texas!” Mr. Trump said late Tuesday. “All 33 candidates that were Trump endorsed have either won their primary election or are substantially leading in the case of a runoff.”There were also signs that it can be perilous for Republicans to cross Mr. Trump. Representative Van Taylor, a two-term incumbent from the Dallas exurbs who voted to confirm the 2020 election results and for a commission to investigate the Jan. 6 attack on the United States Capitol, was in danger of being forced into a runoff as votes were still being tallied early Wednesday. Mr. Taylor outspent his competitors nearly 10 to 1.That figure may put a scare into Republican incumbents facing more significant tests from Trump-backed challengers in the coming months. Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Republicans who voted for impeachment from Michigan, South Carolina and Washington State are all vulnerable and the subject of Mr. Trump’s obsession.Greg Casar in Austin after winning his primary.Ilana Panich-Linsman for The New York TimesThe Squad may get reinforcements.Progressives frustrated by Mr. Biden’s stalled social policy agenda were looking for a boost in Texas and got one — possibly three.Greg Casar, a former Austin city councilman, won easily Tuesday night and appears poised to come to Washington next year from his safely Democratic district. Another progressive contender, Jessica Cisneros, forced a runoff with Representative Henry Cuellar, a moderate who narrowly defeated her in the 2020 primary but is now under investigation by the F.B.I.Jasmine Crockett, a state lawmaker who was among the ringleaders of Texas Democrats’ flight to Washington to delay new Republican voting laws last summer, has a large lead but appears bound for a runoff in a Dallas-area district. Ms. Crockett was endorsed by Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson, who has represented the district for 35 years. Ms. Crockett leaned into the endorsement: Her campaign slogan was “passing the torch, fueling the fire.”Together, Mr. Casar, Ms. Cisneros and Ms. Crockett would bring new energy to the liberal wing of the House and to “the Squad” of progressive Democrats. Last month, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York came to Texas to campaign for Mr. Casar and Ms. Cisneros. More

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    Who Won, Who Lost and What Was Too Close to Call in Texas Primaries

    The Texas primaries on Tuesday officially opened the 2022 midterm election season, and while several important races remained too close to call early Wednesday morning, the contours were becoming clearer. Here is what we know so far.Abbott and O’Rourke are the nominees for governor.Gov. Greg Abbott, the Republican incumbent, and Beto O’Rourke easily won their primaries on Tuesday and will face off in November, with Mr. Abbott seeking a third term as governor and Mr. O’Rourke trying to become the first Democrat to lead Texas in more than 25 years.Mr. Abbott had two ultraconservative challengers in the Republican primary: Allen West, the former chairman of the Texas Republican Party, and Don Huffines, a Dallas businessman. Neither ended up posing a serious threat.Mr. O’Rourke — who was Texas Democrats’ Senate candidate in 2018 but narrowly lost the general election to Senator Ted Cruz, and went on to run unsuccessfully for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020 — easily secured his party’s nomination.The two-term attorney general was forced into a runoff.Ken Paxton, who is seeking a third term as Texas attorney general, will face a runoff for the Republican nomination against George P. Bush, the commissioner of the Texas General Land Office.A Guide to the 2022 Midterm ElectionsPrimaries Begin: The Texas primaries officially opened the midterm election season. See the full primary calendar.In the Senate: Democrats have a razor-thin margin that could be upended with a single loss. Here are the four incumbents most at risk.In the House: Republicans and Democrats are seeking to gain an edge through redistricting and gerrymandering.Governors’ Races: Georgia’s contest will be at the center of the political universe, but there are several important races across the country.Key Issues: Inflation, the pandemic, abortion and voting rights are expected to be among this election cycle’s defining topics.Among the three Republican incumbents running for major statewide races on Tuesday’s ballot, Mr. Paxton is the only one whose primary fate is still in doubt.On the Democratic side, Rochelle Garza, a former A.C.L.U. lawyer, is also headed for a runoff against an opponent to be determined: either Joe Jaworski, a former mayor of Galveston, or Lee Merritt, a civil rights lawyer.A Democratic runoff is likely in the lieutenant governor’s race.Mike Collier and another Democrat will almost certainly head to a runoff, with no candidate appearing likely to receive a majority of the vote on Tuesday. The winner of the runoff will face Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who won the Republican primary by a large margin.Mr. Collier, who was the Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor in 2018 and lost to Mr. Patrick in the general election, led the pack with more than 40 percent of the vote, but that was nowhere near the majority needed to win outright. The second spot in the runoff could go to State Representative Michelle Beckley or to Carla Brailey, a former vice chairwoman of the Texas Democratic Party.A Republican military veteran has the lead in a deep-red House district.Morgan Luttrell, a former Navy SEAL who worked for the Energy Department under President Donald J. Trump, appeared to be on track to win the Republican primary in the 8th Congressional District, a Houston-area G.O.P. stronghold where an incumbent is retiring. As of 1 a.m., he had about 53 percent of the vote — more than double the share of the runner-up, Christian Collins, with the only question being whether Mr. Luttrell would stay above the 50 percent mark to avoid a runoff.Mr. Luttrell and Mr. Collins did not differ much on policy. But Mr. Collins and his supporters — including Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and the campaign arm of the right-wing House Freedom Caucus — sought to frame the race as a contest between the Trump base, to which he laid claim, and the Republican “establishment,” which he accused Mr. Luttrell of representing.In Texas’ last swing district, Republicans made a choice and Democrats were split.Monica de la Cruz, a Trump-endorsed candidate, won the Republican primary in the 15th Congressional District, which stretches some 250 miles from San Antonio to the Mexican border and is the only competitive House seat left in Texas after Republican gerrymandering.The Democratic primary was clearly headed for a runoff, with no candidate breaking even 30 percent, but it was not clear who would advance. Ruben Ramirez, a lawyer and Afghanistan veteran, had a fairly comfortable lead for the first spot as of 1 a.m., but several competitors were within striking distance of the second spot.Cuellar and Cisneros are headed to a runoff.The rematch between Representative Henry Cuellar, one of the most conservative Democrats in Congress, and Jessica Cisneros, a progressive challenger who almost unseated him in 2020, in South Texas’ 28th Congressional District isn’t over yet: The two will face again in a runoff.Ms. Cisneros — who has been endorsed by Senator Bernie Sanders, Senator Elizabeth Warren, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other progressive leaders — came within four percentage points of beating Mr. Cuellar in 2020. This year, Mr. Cuellar may have been hurt by an investigation that involved an F.B.I. raid of his house in January, the details of which have not been disclosed.Another progressive candidate, Tannya Benavides, was hovering just under 5 percent of the vote.A democratic socialist won a House primary in Austin.Greg Casar, a progressive Democrat, won decisively in the 35th Congressional District, beating State Representative Eddie Rodriguez. The Austin-based seat is solidly blue and is being vacated by Representative Lloyd Doggett, who chose to run in a neighboring district after lines were redrawn this year.Mr. Casar, a member of the Austin City Council, was backed by Justice Democrats and Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, and his victory speaks to the leftward shift of the Democratic base. He is affiliated with the Democratic Socialists of America, though the group’s Austin chapter withdrew its endorsement last month after he said he supported military aid to Israel. More

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    As Biden Speaks, Ukraine Crisis Escalates and Midterm Elections Start

    As President Biden delivers his first formal State of the Union address, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine escalates and the midterms begin in earnest in Texas.An entrance to a voting site in Laredo, Texas, today.Jason Garza for The New York TimesThe first votes of 2022 Russian missiles are terrorizing Ukraine. President Biden hopes to rally the nation in his first formal State of the Union address. And the first votes of the 2022 midterm elections will be counted tonight.This is an extraordinary political moment, both at home and abroad.Those first votes of the midterms are being cast and counted today in Texas, in Republican and Democratic primaries, providing the first morsels of data on what voters are prioritizing amid multiple national and international crises.Our colleagues have been tracking the turnout, major themes and top races as part of our live Texas election coverage tonight. Keep up with the results as they come in.Here are some of the highlights:How will new voting laws affect turnout?Republican legislators throughout the country responded to former President Donald Trump’s baseless claims of election fraud by passing legislation restricting voting access. In Texas, voters have already seen higher rates of rejection for absentee ballot applications. Now, the ballots themselves have been rejected at a higher rate than usual. Nick Corasaniti reports.Most voters will need to vote in person, or have already done so, since Texas’ criteria for qualifying for mail-in voting are unusually narrow. Maggie Astor writes.Do Democrats need to keep to the political center?The highest-profile progressive challenger of the night, Jessica Cisneros, isn’t focusing her early messaging on progressive causes. Instead, she’s going after the new vulnerabilities of the incumbent Democrat, Henry Cuellar, who has become ensnared in an F.B.I. investigation, though its target isn’t totally clear. Jonathan Weisman reports from Laredo.Dozens of Hispanic voters and candidates in South Texas explained why the Republican Party has been making inroads in the region. Trump-style grievance politics has been resonating with Hispanic residents in the Rio Grande Valley. Jennifer Medina reports from Brownsville.Abortion specifically seems to be moving Hispanic voters in South Texas toward Republicans. Edgar Sandoval writes from Laredo.Beto O’Rourke, a Democrat, made headlines in 2019 in the crowded presidential primary when he declared, “Hell yes, we’re going to take your AR-15.” Now, he’s running for governor in a state where Republicans have the advantage. J. David Goodman reports from Tyler.One candidate for the State Board of Education is taking a unique approach to rising above partisan politics — he’s running in both major party’s primaries. Maggie Astor writes.Will appeasing Trump’s base in the primary cost Republicans in November?Representative Dan Crenshaw, a Republican, is more likely to face a threat from a far-right challenger in his redrawn district in the Houston suburbs.Annie Mulligan for The New York TimesRedistricting has created fewer competitive districts, and therefore more races where winning the primary is the most important contest. For Democrats and Republicans, that elevates the importance of campaigning to the most ideologically focused voters. Still, Representative Dan Crenshaw, a Republican, says he refuses to “toe the line,” and has been feuding with Trump allies like Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia. Shane Goldmacher reports from The Woodlands, Texas.Gov. Greg Abbott has been pushing Texas even farther to the right, and it helped him pick up Trump’s endorsement for re-election. Tonight’s results will reveal how those efforts have resonated with actual Republican voters. J. David Goodman reports from Austin.For the Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, his allegiance to Trump may or may not be enough to win the Republican primary outright. J. David Goodman reports from Midland.What to read tonightOur colleagues are tracking developments in Ukraine as part of our live coverage. Thousands of civilians are fleeing Kyiv as Moscow intensifies its military attack and appears “to target civilian areas with increasingly powerful weapons.”The New York Times is also providing live updates and analysis on Biden’s State of the Union address tonight. Peter Baker writes that no president has delivered a State of the Union address “with such a large-scale and consequential land war underway in Europe since 1945.”Michael D. Shear reports that Biden will use the State of the Union address to “claim credit for a robust economy and a unified global response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, even as he acknowledges the pain of inflation.”A report commissioned by the Republican speaker of the Wisconsin Assembly “endorsed a host of debunked claims of fraud and false assertions about lawmakers’ power to decertify” Biden’s victory, Reid J. Epstein reports.Thanks for reading. We’ll see you tomorrow.— Blake & LeahWere you forwarded this newsletter? Sign up here to get it delivered to your inbox.Is there anything you think we’re missing? Anything you want to see more of? We’d love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com. More

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    At NY Republican Convention, G.O.P. Tests Attacks on Democrats

    The Republican State Convention is giving party leaders a chance to test messages about crime, inflation and Democratic leadership.GARDEN CITY, N.Y. — Four months after Republicans scored upset victories around the country and in local races across New York, the state’s party leaders gathered at a plush hotel in a Long Island village this week, painting a bleak picture of life under Democratic rule.Gas prices are spiking, and groceries are pricey. Concerns around crime are reordering politics in major cities at home, and Americans are shaken by images of war abroad. Debates around mask mandates and curriculum have turned school board meetings into political battlegrounds.“People are very, very unhappy,” said Bruce Blakeman, the Nassau County executive and one of a number of Republican candidates who unexpectedly defeated Democrats in races across Long Island last fall. “That usually bodes very poorly for the party in power.”Across the nation, Republicans are clearly preparing to test how deep into liberal territory they can push in the midterm campaigns, at an exceptionally challenging moment for President Biden and his party.If they can make real inroads in New York after years in the political wilderness, the thinking goes, that will offer a clear indication of a political wave underway.Republicans overtly and implicitly embraced that imagery at their state convention that began on Monday — a surfboard was even displayed outside the convention hall. Inside, party leaders endorsed candidates for major offices and road-tested messages about crime and rampant inflation while offering broader indictments of Democratic leadership.“You could have people getting buried that don’t think they have a race today,” Nicholas A. Langworthy, the chairman of the New York Republican State Committee, said in an interview. “This is a hurricane coming at our back. People are really pissed off.”A Guide to the Texas PrimaryThe 2022 midterm elections begin with the state’s primary on March 1.Governor’s Race: Gov. Greg Abbott’s rightward shift will face a test in November. His likely challenger, Beto O’Rourke, is haunted by his 2020 presidential bid.Attorney General’s Race: Whether Ken Paxton can survive the G.O.P. primary may be the biggest test yet of Donald Trump’s continued power over voters.A Changing Landscape: Issues like abortion and immigration are driving Hispanic voters in Democratic strongholds to switch parties and prompting liberal candidates to shift tactics.A Deepening Divide: Competitive districts are being systemically erased across the country. Texas is an especially extreme example.New Voting Law: Officials have rejected thousands of absentee ballots based on new requirements, an alarming jump ahead of the primary.Just where the high-water mark for Republicans reaches remains to be seen. A Republican has not won a statewide race in New York since George E. Pataki secured a third term as governor in 2002, a now-distant era of consensus politics.In the years since, Democrats have amassed a more than two-to-one advantage in party registration, fueled in part by antipathy toward former President Donald J. Trump, and have locked-in congressional and legislative districts that could fortify them this fall.Republicans have struggled to attract viable candidates in key races for Senate and attorney general. And many of their contenders face the difficult balancing act of first appealing to a primary electorate that embraces Mr. Trump, and then to a broader electorate that has firmly rejected the former president.“Republicans are spending time creating false narratives to blame Democrats for these problems, but I think people are going to vote for the party that is working to find and enact solutions,” said Jay S. Jacobs, the chairman of the New York State Democratic Committee. “It’s March. We’ve got till November. And today’s reality is not going to be tomorrow’s.”Republicans say they are riding a wave of voter discontent with Democratic incumbents.Johnny Milano for The New York TimesBut at the Republican State Convention and in interviews with party officials, candidates and strategists, Republicans made it plain that they see opportunities not only to compete in the governor’s race but also to outperform expectations in congressional and state legislative districts from Long Island to Rochester that usually favor Democrats.Their plan for races in Democratic-leaning areas goes like this: Keep the focus on matters of public safety, cost of living, education and in some cases coronavirus-related mandates. Make the midterms a referendum on Democratic leadership in Washington and Albany. Engage constituencies, including Asian American and Latino voters, that have been receptive to Republicans. And capitalize at every turn on a brutal political environment for the Democrats.A recent Washington Post-ABC poll found that Mr. Biden’s national approval rating was at 37 percent. Even in New York, Mr. Biden’s favorability rating was the same as his negative rating — 48 percent — his lowest levels since taking office and a striking result in one of the most heavily Democratic states in the country, according to a recent Siena College poll of registered voters in New York.The Republican convention unfolded against the backdrop of devastating images from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In a preview of how they may move to nationalize down-ballot races this year, several speakers made the war in Europe a central piece of their messaging and sought to paint national Democratic leadership as weak and feckless, though Mr. Trump has put Republicans in a bind by lavishing praise on President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.“We need a change in Washington,” Mr. Pataki said on Monday, ripping into the Biden administration’s stewardship of the crisis in Ukraine. “We need a Republican Congress to hold this president accountable, we need a Republican Senate to hold this leader accountable, and to get the United States headed in the right direction.”Some of Mr. Pataki’s allies had hoped he would head back toward Albany with another run for governor. Mr. Pataki, 76, did not firmly rule out such an idea on Monday, but he did tell reporters he expected one of four contenders to emerge as the nominee: Representative Lee Zeldin of Long Island; Harry Wilson, a businessman; Rob Astorino, the former Westchester County executive; or Andrew Giuliani, the son of the former New York City mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani.The race appears to be in flux, with the recent Siena poll showing Mr. Zeldin, who has been named the presumptive nominee by party leaders, and Mr. Astorino as largely unknown quantities. Mr. Giuliani, perhaps because of his famous last name, was more polarizing, with a favorable rating of 47 percent among Republicans but a matching unfavorable rating among voters overall.He significantly trails Mr. Zeldin and Mr. Astorino in fund-raising, according to the last campaign finance disclosure, but he cited his favorability ratings among Republicans as evidence of his ability to connect with voters.Mr. Giuliani said in an interview that his father, whose zealous efforts to overturn the 2020 election results have made him a pariah among many New Yorkers, would campaign for him in coming weeks.Mr. Zeldin is favored to receive his party’s endorsement on Tuesday. But Mr. Wilson’s late entry into the race last week and the effort to draft Mr. Pataki to attempt a comeback point to some discontent around Mr. Zeldin, who has a long legislative track record in Albany and Washington that includes voting to overturn the 2020 elections results.That could be a major liability in a general election against Gov. Kathy Hochul, the likely Democratic nominee and a relative moderate who some Republicans believe will be harder to beat than her predecessor, Andrew M. Cuomo, who resigned in disgrace, would have been.Ms. Hochul is “a refreshing change from all of the nonsense that people were subjected to,” said former Senator Alfonse M. D’Amato, a Republican who said he has not yet decided how he will vote. “That’s going to be much tougher for Republicans, notwithstanding that the congressman, Lee Zeldin, is a very fine person, he’s done a good job. I think the Trump business, though, is going to hurt him.”Asked about those dynamics, Mr. Zeldin argued that voters are animated by other issues and said he was focused on “reversing the attacks on wallets, safety, freedom and our kids’ education.”But there is no question that Mr. Trump will be a factor both in the coming months of the primary and in the general election.Mr. Wilson, who has pledged to spend roughly $10 million of his own money in the race, is viewed privately by some Democrats as a stronger general election contender, but it has often been difficult for candidates who did not support Mr. Trump to make it through Republican primaries. Mr. Wilson voted for him in 2016 but wrote in Nikki Haley, the former ambassador to the United Nations, in 2020, he said.Mr. Wilson, the party’s 2010 nominee for comptroller, is casting himself as an outsider with a record of turning around companies and a focus on matters of public safety, the economy and quality of life. He and Mr. Zeldin have both started spending on airtime.“We desperately need capable, rational leadership in Albany,” he said.Representative Tom Reed, a Republican in the state’s Southern Tier who is set to retire this year, said he was concerned that his party was headed for a messy primary that could undercut its chances in a race for governor that is already an “uphill battle.”“My hope is that it’s not bloody, that it’s not negative and we get through it as quickly as possible and unite,” said Mr. Reed, who was contemplating his own bid for governor before he was accused of inappropriately touching a lobbyist. “Because we all know winning the governor’s office in New York is a very, very difficult path to traverse for a Republican, even in a wave year.” More

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    Primary Day in Texas Will Offer Preview of Midterm Battles Ahead

    Texas is holding the first primary election of 2022 on Tuesday. Some of the dynamics at play include the intensity of Donald Trump’s continued hold on the Republican electorate.HOUSTON — The Texas primaries on Tuesday will provide the first pieces of the 2022 midterm puzzle.The strength of the two parties’ ideological factions. The intensity of Donald J. Trump’s continued hold on the Republican electorate. And, for bullish Republicans, the earliest signs of how advantageous the political climate has become.The full picture of the 2022 landscape will be revealed through a series of state-by-state primaries held over the next six months. But the country’s first primary elections in Texas represent almost a sneak peek of many of the coming dynamics nationwide in an increasingly challenging environment for President Biden and the Democrats. That includes the impact of strict new voting rules imposed by the Republican-controlled Texas Legislature and the political salience of abortion for both parties.A Texas state law last year effectively banned most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, and this year a ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court is expected in the Mississippi abortion case, which could affect procedures in multiple states. In South Texas, progressives are attempting to defeat one of the last anti-abortion Democrats remaining in Congress, Representative Henry Cuellar, and they received a political gift when the F.B.I. recently raided his home. Falling short under those circumstances would be a blow for the left after Mr. Cuellar narrowly won two years ago.At the top of the ticket, Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, is widely expected to vault past two spirited right-wing challengers. But he is also likely to come nowhere close to the 90 percent he marshaled in his last primary four years ago, a testament to an increasingly restive Republican base.Mr. Abbott has aggressively catered to that base over the last year and in the campaign’s closing days, telling state agencies to investigate treatment for transgender adolescents as “child abuse” and suggesting he might pardon more than a dozen Austin police officers who were indicted on charges of using excessive force during racial justice protests in 2020.“Governor Abbott is running very hard and taking the campaign very, very seriously,” said Ray Sullivan, a Republican strategist who served under two Texas governors, Rick Perry and George W. Bush. “There is an ongoing battle: the mainstream conservatives versus more right-wing, more conspiratorial and paranoid voices. Some of the primary elections will help determine where the energy is in the party.”After redistricting, Texas lawmakers erased nearly all the House seats that were competitive in the general election from the map in 2022, magnifying the importance of a handful of contested primaries in both parties. Republicans, in particular, are hoping to build on the dramatic gains the party made in South Texas and the Rio Grande Valley, particularly among working-class Latino voters in 2020, in the state’s lone open, tossup seat.Nationwide, Republicans are energized by the chance to take back both the House, which the Democrats control by a historically narrow margin, and the Senate, which is equally divided with only Vice President Kamala Harris’s tiebreaking vote giving control to the Democrats.Mr. Biden’s sagging approval ratings — not just in Texas but even in Democratic strongholds like California — and the lingering cloud of the coronavirus on life, the economy and schools have emboldened many Republican voters, candidates and strategists.But Republicans fear nominating candidates outside the mainstream. The party suffered a series of stinging defeats in two otherwise favorable cycles in the recent past, 2014 and 2010, with candidates who repelled broad swaths of the political middle that still decides elections.A Guide to the Texas PrimaryThe 2022 midterm elections begin with the state’s primary on March 1.Governor’s Race: Gov. Greg Abbott’s rightward shift will face a test in November. His likely challenger, Beto O’Rourke, is haunted by his 2020 presidential bid.Attorney General’s Race: Whether Ken Paxton can survive the G.O.P. primary may be the biggest test yet of Donald Trump’s continued power over voters.A Changing Landscape: Issues like abortion and immigration are driving Hispanic voters in Democratic strongholds to switch parties and prompting liberal candidates to shift tactics.A Deepening Divide: Competitive districts are being systemically erased across the country. Texas is an especially extreme example.New Voting Law: Officials have rejected thousands of absentee ballots based on new requirements, an alarming jump ahead of the primary.The concern among Texas Republicans chiefly centers on the attorney general, Ken Paxton, who has attracted the attention of federal investigators after some of his own top aides accused him of corruption.Despite the hostile national climate, Democrats have scored some notable recruiting successes, including two high-profile candidates who came up just short in 2018: Beto O’Rourke, who is running for governor of Texas, and Stacey Abrams, who is running again for governor of Georgia.Beto O’Rourke campaigning for Texas governor in Tyler in early February.Montinique Monroe for The New York TimesMr. O’Rourke, whose Democratic nomination is mostly a formality, has been crisscrossing the state and raising money at a fast clip: $3 million in the last month. But Mr. Abbott, a prolific fund-raiser, outpaced him and entered the final days before the primary with $50 million on hand, compared to $6.8 million for Mr. O’Rourke.Texas has a two-step primary system: Any candidate who finishes below 50 percent will face off against the No. 2 vote-getter in a May runoff.Mr. Abbott appears to be leaving nothing to chance, spending $15 million in the last month alone and seeking to leave little daylight for his conservative opponents as he has overseen a sharp push to the far right in state government.Still, Mr. Abbott, who has Mr. Trump’s support, was booed in January at a Trump rally north of Houston, only winning over the crowd by invoking the president’s name more than two dozen times in his six-minute speech.“I think Greg Abbott has been in long enough,” said Anita Brown, 62, who attended a recent rally for a right-wing House candidate in The Woodlands, a suburban enclave north of Houston. “I would just like to have someone new.”Texas is where Mr. Trump suffered one of his rare primary endorsement defeats last year, in a House race, and while he has issued a range of endorsements, from governor down to Tarrant County District Attorney, he has mostly backed incumbents and heavy favorites.Bigger tests of his influence loom later in the spring and summer, in the Senate contests in North Carolina and Alabama, and in the governor’s race in Georgia. In that Georgia race, Mr. Trump recruited David Perdue, a former senator and governor, to attempt to unseat Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican who refused to bend to Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.In Texas, Mr. Paxton, a regular guest on Fox News, commands the endorsement of Mr. Trump, but remains vulnerable because of his legal troubles: On top of his aides’ accusations of corruption, the Texas attorney general has been under indictment for securities fraud since 2015.His range of challengers represent the various Republican power centers vying to be the future of the party.There is George P. Bush, the son of Jeb Bush and a statewide office holder who has held himself out as the most electable conservative in the race, and Eva Guzman, a former state Supreme Court justice who has the backing of some traditional, business-aligned power players in Republican politics.Representative Louie Gohmert, a Trump ally whose speeches and remarks frequently land him on national television, is also running. He attended the Trump rally in Texas and got an unexpected shout-out, despite the former president’s endorsement of Mr. Paxton. Mr. Gohmert also posed with Mr. Trump during a photo line at the rally, but the Trump team refused to send Mr. Gohmert the picture, because they did not want him to use it in the primary, according to a person familiar with the exchange.Representative Louie Gohmert spoke at a forum in Midland with two other Republican candidates for attorney general, Eva Guzman, center, and George P. Bush, right.Tamir Kalifa for The New York TimesThe race has been multidimensional. Ms. Guzman has swiped at Mr. Bush, whose family dynasty has been weakened even among Texas Republicans. Mr. Bush has responded in kind. Mr. Paxton has traded attacks with Mr. Gohmert and, in recent days, started going after Ms. Guzman as well.“We haven’t seen a primary this consequential since the 1990s,” said Brandon Rottinghaus, a professor of political science at the University of Houston.The race is less about policy positions as it is about who holds power in the Republican Party now. “It will tell us a lot about Donald Trump’s juice in Texas,” Mr. Rottinghaus said.Mr. Paxton finished behind the rest of the Republican ticket in 2018, raising some fears that his renomination this year could provide a rare opening for Democrats in November. Republicans have won every statewide race in Texas since 1994.The national battle for power within the Republican Party is centered on the district of retiring Representative Kevin Brady, north of Houston, where a super PAC aligned with Representative Kevin McCarthy, the minority leader, has spent heavily to elect Morgan Luttrell, a Navy SEAL veteran. The activist wing of House Republicans has rallied behind Christian Collins, a former aide to Senator Ted Cruz.While the super PAC aligned with Mr. McCarthy is aiding Mr. Luttrell, the political arm of the House Freedom Caucus is boosting Mr. Collins.At a recent rally for Mr. Collins, Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina made clear that their support for Mr. Collins was about opposition to the existing political order in Washington.“This is primary season,” Ms. Greene said. “This is where we work out our differences. This is where iron sharpens iron.”On the Democratic side, two primaries pit the party’s ideological wings against each other.The race for one open seat features a socialist Austin city councilman, Greg Casar, taking on State Representative Eddie Rodriguez. The other race is in South Texas between Mr. Cuellar and a young progressive lawyer, Jessica Cisneros — a rematch in which abortion has been an issue for the district’s large number of Catholic voters.Both races have attracted attention from national progressive figures, including Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts — to the frustration of some Texas Democrats. They view the progressives’ efforts as potentially counterproductive for a party that has been losing ground among traditional Democratic voters in places like South Texas.“I get what people do on the fund-raising side,” said James Aldrete, a Democratic consultant. But unless Democrats do more to address the concerns of low-turnout voters, particularly in Hispanic communities, Mr. Aldrete added, “we’ll be in the same boat: no growth in the statehouse, no growth in the congressional delegation, no Democrat elected statewide.”When Ms. Ocasio-Cortez declared at a rally for Mr. Casar and Ms. Cisneros that “Texas turning blue is inevitable,” the clip was immediately picked up by Republicans, including Mr. Abbott, and wielded as an attack.“She was doing the work for Republicans,” said Matt Angle, a Democratic activist whose political action committee aims to unseat Republicans in Texas. He noted that Texas Democrats are more moderate in their approach to politics and more conservative in their views on issues like guns and abortion than national party leaders.“It’s a field trip for them,” Mr. Angle added. “For us, it’s the future of the state.” More

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    Some Texas Hispanics Drawn to Republicans Share Immigration Grievances

    Former President Donald J. Trump’s brand of populism has been widely viewed as an appeal to white voters. But similar grievances have resonated in the Rio Grande Valley in a profound way.BROWNSVILLE, Texas — Mayra Flores, the daughter of Mexican immigrants, has done much of her campaigning in South Texas in Spanish. She has heard one phrase repeatedly from voters as she and other candidates try to become the first Republicans to represent the Rio Grande Valley in Congress.¿Y nosotros?And what about us?“I hear every day that they’re tired — they feel that there is so much attention and help being given to the immigrants,” Ms. Flores said. “The attention’s on all these illegal immigrants, and not on them.”Grievance politics, it turns out, translates.Donald J. Trump’s brand of populism has been widely viewed as an appeal to white voters: Republicans around the country continue to exploit the fear that the left is attacking religious values and wants to replace traditional white American culture with nonwhite multiculturalism. But similar grievances have resonated in the Rio Grande Valley in a profound way, driving the Republican Party’s successes in a Democratic stronghold where Hispanics make up more than 90 percent of the population.The difference is in the type of culture believed to be under assault. Democrats are destroying a Latino culture built around God, family and patriotism, dozens of Hispanic voters and candidates in South Texas said in interviews. The Trump-era anti-immigrant rhetoric of being tough on the border and building the wall has not repelled these voters from the Republican Party or struck them as anti-Hispanic bigotry. Instead, it has drawn them in.“Our parents came in a certain way — they came in and worked, they became citizens and didn’t ask for anything,” said Ramiro Gonzalez Jr., a 48-year-old rancher from Raymondville, on the northern edge of the Rio Grande Valley. “We were raised hard-core Democrats, but today Democrats want to give everything away.”Ramiro Gonzalez Jr., a rancher in Raymondville, is among Latino conservatives who are reshaping South Texas politics.Jason Garza for The New York TimesFor years, the Republican primary in the Rio Grande Valley was an afterthought, a sleepy election overshadowed by a Democratic primary that grabbed all the attention and candidates. But this year, in the run-up to the Texas primary election on Tuesday, there has been a flurry of Republican rallies, door-knocking and events, including at the Hispanic community center that the Republican National Committee opened in McAllen four months ago.The Republican gains run far deeper than Mr. Trump and, in some ways, predate him, interviews with Hispanic voters and candidates showed. Republican candidates are building on a decades-long history of economic, religious and cultural sentiment that has veered toward conservatives. George W. Bush performed even better in his 2004 re-election campaign in the region than Mr. Trump did in 2020. Many of those who voted for Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama for president and then flipped for Mr. Trump had previously backed Mr. Bush.For the moment, Republicans in the Rio Grande Valley remain a minority. Last year, a Republican was elected mayor of McAllen, the Valley’s second-most populous city, and a Democratic state lawmaker in Rio Grande City switched to the Republican Party, both of whom earned praise from the Republican governor of Texas, Greg Abbott. But Democrats still dominate the vast majority of local elected offices in the Valley.A sign outside the Republican National Committee’s Hispanic community center in McAllen.Jason Garza for The New York Times“It’s still relatively insignificant, when you look at Democrat versus Republican overall,” said Representative Vicente Gonzalez, a South Texas Democrat who narrowly won his 2020 re-election. He is now running in a redrawn neighboring district and is likely to face Ms. Flores as his Republican opponent in November. Though he said he was confident voters would “come home” to Democrats this fall, Mr. Gonzalez criticized the party for not doing more to focus on the region.A Guide to the Texas PrimaryThe 2022 midterm elections begin with the state’s primary on March 1.Governor’s Race: Gov. Greg Abbott’s rightward shift will face a test in November. His likely challenger, Beto O’Rourke, is haunted by his 2020 presidential bid.Attorney General’s Race: Whether Ken Paxton can survive the G.O.P. primary may be the biggest test yet of Donald Trump’s continued power over voters.A Changing Landscape: Issues like abortion and immigration are driving Hispanic voters in Democratic strongholds to switch parties and prompting liberal candidates to shift tactics.A Deepening Divide: Competitive districts are being systemically erased across the country. Texas is an especially extreme example.New Voting Law: Officials have rejected thousands of absentee ballots based on new requirements, an alarming jump ahead of the primary.“So far I see no action,” Mr. Gonzalez said. “I’ve had to rely on myself, not on the national party coming down here to save us, so in that respect, it’s sad.”For decades, conventional wisdom held that the more Hispanic voters showed up to the polls, the more precarious the political future would be for Republicans. But the inverse has lately been reshaping South Texas politics: As tens of thousands of new voters have gone to the polls, Republicans have gained more than Democrats. In Hidalgo County, which includes McAllen, Mr. Trump received nearly twice as many votes in 2020 as he did four years earlier.Mr. Trump’s performance in these border counties was one of the big surprises of 2020, rattling Democrats who had assumed that Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric would alienate Latinos. In this year’s midterm elections, South Texas is the setting for the only competitive House race in the state, and both parties now consider Hispanic voters across the country a potentially decisive swing vote.At a dinner for Ms. Flores’ campaign at Don Chucho Tacos y Tequilas in the border city of Brownsville, her supporters began with a prayer and the pledge of allegiance to the Texas flag. They wore wide-brimmed cowboy hats and red MAGA caps. They applauded when the mariachis took the stage — and when Ms. Flores introduced her husband, an off-duty Border Patrol agent.“We’ve been voting California values, Austin values, but not South Texas values,” Ms. Flores told the crowd. She added, speaking the Spanglish so prevalent in the region, “Spread the chisme. Somos Americanos.” Spread the word. We are Americans.“This,” she continued, “is our country.”“I want to bring God back into politics,” said Luis Cabrera, the pastor of City Church in Harlingen, Texas.Jason Garza for The New York Times‘We feel under attack’Pastor Luis Cabrera, 44, remembers the fear in his parents’ eyes when they fled Nicaragua in 1979, in the midst of the Sandinista revolution.His father, a lawyer for the ousted president, received death threats and after obtaining visas from the American embassy there, the family left nearly all they had behind, flying with $10,000 in cash on a flight to Washington, D.C. Eventually, Mr. Cabrera’s father found work as an immigration paralegal in Houston, and then took the family to the Rio Grande Valley.Now, Mr. Cabrera runs City Church, a small congregation in a former warehouse in the border city of Harlingen. He estimates that his church is 96 percent Hispanic, and 100 percent Republican.“The people coming now seem to be less willing to work and are more dangerous compared to how it used to be,” Mr. Cabrera said. “I’m not saying all of them, but trust me, there’s a lot of people who are crossing this border and they don’t care about this country. They want to just commit crime. They want to just come make money the wrong way. They don’t want the American dream.”The Rio Grande Valley lies at the southeast corner of the U.S.-Mexico border, an amalgam of dozens of small cities and towns across four counties, a mix of recently developed strip malls and centuries-old ranch land. The Stars and Stripes and other flags fly from the back of large pickup trucks and flagpoles installed on front yards. The vast majority of the Valley’s nearly 1.4 million residents speak Spanish and have ties to Mexico. Pockets of deep poverty remain, and residents have long viewed Border Patrol and other law enforcement jobs as a reliable path to the middle class. For all the talk by Republicans of border chaos and of dangerous migrants, crime in McAllen is at a historic low.Mr. Cabrera sells T-shirts at the entrance of his church.Jason Garza for The New York TimesThe gulf between the undocumented Central American migrants crossing the border and the Latino residents of the Valley is deep and wide.Many residents are Mexican Americans who have lived in the region for four or five generations, or proudly proclaim their parents and grandparents came to the United States legally. They know both Border Patrol agents and undocumented Mexican immigrants who have lived and worked in border cities for years. Those who are Republicans say they do not see their views on immigration as hypocritical or anti-Hispanic. Instead, they see themselves as a bulwark for law and order. A few thousand Border Patrol agents live and work in the region, many of them Hispanic, adding to a pro-law enforcement ethos that shows up in churches, schools and local politics.“We’re in a war — a war of ideas,” said Jessica Martinez, 33, a Brownsville stay-at-home mother who said she had never voted until she cast a ballot for Mr. Trump in 2020, after she grew frustrated with the relentless outrage against him from liberals. “That’s how we as Christians see it. We feel under attack.”In Harlingen, Mr. Cabrera turned the entrance of the church into a retail space. He displays and sells T-shirts reading Make America Godly Again and Make America Repent. For years, he said, he avoided speaking about politics from the pulpit. But in the last year he has hosted several Republican leaders at the church, including Mr. Abbott.“I want to bring God back into politics,” Mr. Cabrera said. “And so that’s what I’m doing.”‘I worry about our values’Joe Cadriel, a 57-year-old veteran of the gulf war’s Desert Storm and a retired social worker, has rarely placed campaign advertisements on his front lawn. But he made an exception for Ms. Flores, the Brownsville Republican running for Congress.Mr. Cadriel and his wife, Diana, a retired educator, both voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016, and then cast their ballots for Mr. Trump four years later, convinced that he would best protect the southern border, a mere 10 miles from their Weslaco home.The couple grew up in the Rio Grande Valley as children of conservative Democrats, and they harbored a proud independent streak. Mr. Cadriel has been infuriated by illegal immigration for as long as he can remember — he said he once left a job because he felt too angry seeing food stamps and other benefits going to children of unauthorized immigrants.“I’m OK with people coming in saying I’m going to do something productive,” Mr. Cadriel said. “But that wasn’t what was happening. You’d have these people claiming they needed food stamps for their children, but their children were babies, so who do you think was benefiting from it? They were just trying to take advantage.”Joe and Diana Cadriel of Weslaco, Texas, voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Donald Trump in 2020.Jason Garza for The New York TimesThe Cadriels equate walking away from the Democratic Party with getting an education, not from college courses or books, but from conservative media and scripture. A retired educator and churchgoing Catholic, Ms. Cadriel, 57, slowly began to feel that her family’s traditional values were under attack. She stopped watching Good Morning America and The View in favor of Fox News.“I worry about where we’re headed, about what will and won’t be allowed,” she said. “I worry about our values.”Republican candidates like Ms. Flores hope to capitalize on the Cadriels and other former Democrats.Ms. Flores’ parents worked as migrant farmworkers, moving each year to pick cotton in West Texas. Though her parents were Democrats, Ms. Flores said she was raised with “conservative values” and was drawn to Republicans because of her anti-abortion views. Soon after graduating from South Texas College in 2019, she became involved with the Hidalgo County Republican Party, volunteering as the Hispanic outreach chair while she worked as a respiratory therapist.Ms. Flores’ campaign signs do not mention policy or party, but instead highlight three words: “Dios, familia, patria.” God, family, country. More