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    Schumer Announces Senate Will Vote Again on Border Bill

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    The bipartisan border enforcement compromise, blocked by Republicans in February, is all but certain to be thwarted again. Democrats aim to tag the G.O.P. as the culprit in its failure.Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the majority leader, plans to push forward this week with a second vote on a bipartisan border enforcement bill that Senate Republicans killed earlier this year at the urging of former President Donald J. Trump.The measure is almost certain to be blocked again, but Democrats hope to use the failed vote to sharpen an election-year contrast with the G.O.P. on a critical issue that polls show is a major potential liability for President Biden and their candidates.Democrats will aim to neutralize the issue by showing voters that they and Mr. Biden have tried to get migration at the U.S. border with Mexico under control, but have been thwarted repeatedly by Republicans following the lead of Mr. Trump.“The former president made clear he would rather preserve the issue for his campaign than solve the issue in a bipartisan fashion,” Mr. Schumer wrote in a letter to colleagues that heralded the bill’s provisions and outlined his plans. “On cue, many of our Republican colleagues abruptly reversed course on their prior support, announcing their newfound opposition to the bipartisan proposal.”After months of negotiation, Republicans and Democrats reached an improbable immigration compromise in February — one that G.O.P. lawmakers had insisted was a prerequisite for providing additional aid to Ukraine — that appeared to have a chance at passage. But Mr. Trump called it too weak and instructed his allies in Congress to vote it down. The measure failed when it fell short of the 60 votes needed to advance in the Senate, with all but four Republicans voting to block it. (In the 50-to-49 vote, three Democrats and one independent also voted “no,” denying the measure even a simple majority.)Mr. Biden, whose team helped hammer out the deal, urged support for it on Monday in a statement from Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, that said, “We strongly support this legislation and call on every senator to put partisan politics aside and vote to secure the border.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Kyrsten Sinema, Behind on Fund-Raising, Faces Senate Re-election Decision

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      Senator Kyrsten Sinema is behind schedule in making a decision about whether to seek re-election in Arizona. She’s also running out of time.Ms. Sinema, who left the Democratic Party just over a year ago to become an independent, is still considering whether to run for a second term, aides said. But new campaign finance reports show that she is lagging well behind the plan she and her team discussed last spring.In April, Ms. Sinema and her advisers laid out a schedule for her decision that set a deadline of Sept. 30 for an initial round of public opinion polling and research into challengers, who include Representative Ruben Gallego, a Democrat, and Kari Lake, a Republican television-anchor-turned-politician who narrowly lost the governor’s race in 2022. By the end of December, Ms. Sinema would have a campaign staff in place.But there is no sign that she carried out any significant polling, research or staff hires in the final six months of last year. She spent $6.9 million during the past year, new filings with the Federal Election Commission show, much of which went toward digital advertising, security and consulting.New concerns also emerged on the other side of her campaign’s ledger. Ms. Sinema collected just under $600,000 during the final three months of last year — the fourth quarter in a row in which she had raised less than in the previous three-month period.“There are no signs — literally or figuratively — that Kyrsten is going to run,” said Barrett Marson, a Republican strategist in Arizona.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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      With Manchin Out, Democrats’ Path to Holding the Senate Is Narrow

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      While the party will be on defense in every competitive race, Republicans face some messy primaries and a recent history of nominating extreme candidates who have lost key contests.Senator Joe Manchin III said he decided to forgo re-election because he’d accomplished all his goals. But for the Democrats he’s leaving behind in Washington, the work to hold the party’s already slim Senate majority is just beginning.While there are no guarantees in politics, West Virginia is now a virtual lock to flip Republican. The state has become so conservative that only Wyoming delivered a wider Republican margin in the 2020 presidential race. In the immediate aftermath of Mr. Manchin’s announcement, several well-placed Democratic operatives said they couldn’t name a single West Virginian who could take his place on the ballot and be even remotely competitive, particularly if Gov. Jim Justice wins the Republican nomination.“This is a huge impact,” said Ward Baker, a former executive director for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the group that oversees Senate races. “Manchin not running will save Republicans a ton of money — and it takes a seat off the board early.”The path to holding power was always going to be rocky for the Democrats’ current 51-seat majority, with or without Mr. Manchin.Two incumbents are running for re-election in red states, Montana and Ohio. A third senator, Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, who was elected as a Democrat but has since switched her party affiliation to independent, has yet to declare her plans — leaving open the prospect of an unusually competitive three-way race. And the party must also defend four Senate seats in four of the most contested presidential battlegrounds: Wisconsin, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Michigan.But Republicans face some potentially divisive primaries and a recent history of nominating extreme candidates who have lost key contests.With West Virginia off the Senate chessboard next year, Democrats must win every race they are defending — and depend on President Biden to win the White House — in order to maintain a majority. In a 50-50 Senate, the vice president casts the tiebreaking vote. But that’s a risky bet considering a plurality of Americans haven’t approved of President Biden since August 2021, according to Gallup polls.The bad news for Senate Democrats is that they are on defense in each of the seven seats that both parties view as most competitive this year. The good news is that in five of those seven, the party has incumbents running for re-election, which has historically been a huge advantage.At least 83 percent of Senate incumbents have won re-election in 18 of the past 21 election cycles, according to OpenSecrets, a nonpartisan group that tracks money in politics. Last year, 100 percent of Senate incumbents were re-elected. “Given Democratic success in 2020 and 2022, it’d be malpractice to write Democrats off at this stage,” said Justin Goodman, a former top aide to Senator Chuck Schumer, the majority leader. “Candidates matter,” he said, as well as the ongoing contrast that Democrats have sought to strike against the “extreme MAGA agenda.”The Democratic incumbents in Montana and Ohio — the top two targets for Republicans with West Virginia off the map — are seeking re-election in states former President Donald J. Trump easily won twice. Both Senator Jon Tester of Montana and Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio have exceeded expectations before, but never with such an unpopular presidential candidate at the top of the ticket. And unlike most incumbents, whose victories tend to become easier over time, Mr. Tester has always had close races. Mr. Brown’s margins have narrowed.But close victories count just as much as easy ones, and Democrats maintain that the personal brands of both Mr. Brown and Mr. Tester matter more in their states than national political winds.Republicans, who are also facing headwinds because of the unpopularity of Mr. Trump and the party’s role in rolling back abortion rights, are attempting to follow suit. The National Republican Senatorial Committee is putting a heavy emphasis on candidate recruitment this cycle to find contenders who can appeal to both conservatives and moderates in the party.The strategy has already paid off in West Virginia.One of the first calls this year from Senator Steve Daines, a Montana Republican overseeing his party’s Senate races, was to Mr. Justice in West Virginia, believing that the popular governor’s presence in the race would help persuade Mr. Manchin to retire.The second part of Mr. Daines’s strategy in West Virginia was persistently lobbying to secure a Trump endorsement for Mr. Justice, with the aim of not just forcing out Mr. Manchin but also the hope that it would convince him to run for president as an independent. Mr. Trump endorsed Mr. Justice last month.Mr. Manchin, meanwhile, furthered speculation of a potential presidential bid by saying Thursday he planned to gauge “interest in creating a movement to mobilize the middle and bring Americans together.”In 2018, Democrats and Republicans combined spent about $53 million on the West Virginia Senate race. With no competitive race there in 2024, both parties will have tens of millions of dollars to spend on a second tier of battleground races. Last year, candidates, parties and outside groups spent more than $1.3 billion on 36 Senate races, including $737 million in just five states — Arizona, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin — that are also on the ballot again next year.“I think Wisconsin and Michigan are about to get a bunch of Republican money they weren’t going to get otherwise,” said Brad Todd, a Republican strategist who has worked on Senate races.The most interesting of the second-tier races may be in Arizona, where the state may have a competitive three-way race — a rarity in American politics. The wild-card is Ms. Sinema.If she runs for a second term, she will most likely face Representative Ruben Gallego, a well-liked progressive Democrat who has already spent $6.2 million on the race this year, and Kari Lake, the firebrand conservative Republican and one of her party’s best-known election deniers who is favored in her party’s primary.A competitive three-way general election would add a riveting dynamic to what could be the most expensive Senate race in the country next year. The state’s Senate contest last year, which pitted Senator Mark Kelly against Blake Masters, the Republican nominee, cost more than $225 million.There is no top-flight Republican challenging Senator Tammy Baldwin in Wisconsin, but the party has been pushing for Eric Hovde, a businessman who ran for Senate in 2012. In Pennsylvania, Republicans have cleared a path for David McCormick with the aim of avoiding a bruising primary and strengthening their bid against Senator Bob Casey, who is seeking a fourth six-year term.Republicans haven’t been as lucky in Michigan or Nevada.In Michigan — the only competitive Senate race without an incumbent — Democrats so far have mostly aligned behind Representative Elissa Slotkin, a former C.I.A. analyst who represents a divided district. Mr. Daines recruited former Representative Mike Rogers, who was chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. But James Craig, a former Detroit police chief, and former Representative Peter Meijer, who lost his seat after voting to impeach Mr. Trump, have also entered the Republican race.The Republican establishment pick in Nevada is Sam Brown, a retired Army captain who lost a Senate primary last year. But he’s facing a primary against Jim Marchant, a Trump loyalist and election denier who lost a race for secretary of state last year. The winner would take on Senator Jacky Rosen, a Democrat who is seeking her second term.With West Virginia scotched, the Democratic Senate map is undeniably constricting. But the party will look to go on the offensive in Florida and Texas. Both states have been reliable Republican strongholds in recent years, but Democrats realistically have no better options to flip a Republican seat this year.In Florida, Senator Rick Scott, the state’s former governor, is seeking a second term. He’s never won an election by more than 1.2 percentage points, and he’s also never run in a presidential election year — when Democrats typically fare better in Florida.But the state lurched to the right last year when Republicans won five statewide races on the ballot by an average of 18.9 percentage points. The leading Democratic challenger in the Florida Senate race this year is former Representative Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, who was unseated from her Miami-based seat after one term.In Texas, Senator Ted Cruz has been a constant target for Democrats — and survived each time. This year, his top challenger appears to be Representative Colin Allred, a Dallas-area Democrat who defeated an incumbent Republican in 2018.“Cruz’s vulnerability means there’s an opportunity there, and Cruz can be beat no matter the presidential result,” said J.B. Poersch, president of the Senate Majority PAC, which has spent more than $140 million in the past four years supporting Democratic Senate candidates.The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has been testing campaign messages in both states, and the party has dedicated communications and research staff in each location.But to win in Florida and Texas, Democrats will need stars to align in a way they did not in West Virginia.“Quite possibly the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” Mr. Baker, the former N.R.S.C. director, said of Democratic hopes to take Florida or Texas. “They just lost a Senate seat. No way to spin that.” More

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      Gallego Is Counting on Native Voters to Compete in Arizona Senate Race

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      Ruben Gallego, a Democratic congressman vying for one of the most competitive Senate seats in the country, is pitching himself to Native American voters.State Highway 86 stretches west from Tucson, Ariz., past saguaros and desert peaks into Tohono O’odham Nation, the second largest reservation in the state. It is a road that tribal members say no Senate candidate in recent memory has ventured down.But on a sweltering afternoon, Representative Ruben Gallego, a progressive Democrat from Phoenix, spent several hours with Tohono O’odham leaders and community members, fielding questions in a series of small round table meetings, touring an affordable housing project and making the pitch for his 2024 Senate run.“The reason why we’re here is because a lot of times the only time you see a politician come down is the last week of the elections,” Mr. Gallego told a handful of attendees during an evening meet-and-greet in Sells, Ariz., the tribal capital, on Friday.The stop was part of Mr. Gallego’s push to visit all of the 22 federally recognized tribes in Arizona before Election Day next year. It is a feat, he says, that few, if any, contenders in a statewide race have ever attempted — and one he believes will help pave his path to victory in what is likely to be one of the most competitive Senate races in the country.Native Americans make up more than 5 percent of the Arizona population, and have emerged in recent years as powerful swing voters. In 2020, an analysis by The Associated Press found that parts of the state’s tribal land saw huge surges in turnout in the presidential election that year, which helped tilt the outcome in favor of Joseph R. Biden Jr. Though no official count of the electorate exists, the National Congress of American Indians, a tribal rights organization, estimates that the state has more than 315,000 Native Americans who are old enough to vote, one of the largest Native populations of voting age in the country.“The Native Americans in Arizona — we are the coveted vote because we make or break elections,” said April Hiosik Ignacio, who is a tribal citizen of Tohono O’odham (pronounced Toh-HO-noh AW-tham) and a vice chairwoman of the Arizona Democratic Party.Mr. Gallego’s ambitious plan for Native American outreach is part of his efforts to crisscross the state with pledges to restore faith in government, and a campaign strategy that he describes as “go everywhere and talk to everyone.” But Mr. Gallego, 43, a U.S. Marine combat veteran and former state lawmaker who represents a deep-blue district, will have a difficult needle to thread in Arizona, a battleground state. He is trying to hew closer to the center on some issues, like immigration, without alienating his base of progressives.Mr. Gallego at breakfast with Peter Yucupicio, chairman of the Pascua Yaqui Tribe. The large population of voting-age Native Americans in Arizona has made the constituency influential in recent elections.Adriana Zehbrauskas for The New York TimesIn Native American communities, as in the Latino neighborhoods where he has been aggressively pursuing voters, Mr. Gallego could also come up against feelings of apathy with electoral politics and disillusionment with the Democratic Party.Already, the stakes in the 2024 Senate race are tightening. Kyrsten Sinema, 47, the Democrat-turned-independent who holds the seat, has not said whether she will run for re-election. But a two-page pitch to donors obtained by NBC last month revealed that she could be preparing to launch an ambitious bid heavily relying on independents and focused on shaving away support from both Democrats and Republicans.The contest for her seat intensified when Kari Lake, 54, an ally of former President Donald J. Trump and onetime local news anchor who lost and refused to concede the Arizona governor’s race last year, filed paperwork to run this month. Ms. Lake has already sparred with Mr. Gallego over border politics, though her first major opponent would be Mark Lamb, 51, a right-wing sheriff and fellow Trump ally, in the Republican primary.Mr. Gallego, who announced his bid in January, has had a head start to pitch donors and hone a message centered on protecting democracy and helping working- and middle-class families. He is also leaning on his humble origins in Chicago and his experiences as a Marine and former construction worker to help bring new and disaffected slices of the electorate back into the Democratic fold, including rural white voters, Latinos and Native Americans.His first campaign swing included stops in Navajo Nation, the largest tribe in Arizona, and the Fort Apache reservation, home to the White Mountain Apache Tribe. He has since visited more than half a dozen tribes.In an interview in Sells, Mr. Gallego said his early outreach to Native American voters wasn’t “just smart politics, it is also personal.”Some of his closest friends, Jonithan McKenzie and John and Cheston Bailon, are Navajo. They served with Mr. Gallego in an infantry unit that saw heavy combat and suffered severe casualties during the Iraq war. They versed him in Navajo traditions that helped him reflect on war and opened his eyes to everyday life on the reservation, where water could be scarce, jobs were hard to come by and groceries and medical services were long drives away, Mr. Gallego said. John Bailon has since introduced him at campaign stops.In Congress, Mr. Gallego has served on a subcommittee on Native American issues, where he has focused on improving access to running water and internet on reservations and making it easier for Native American veterans to receive government benefits.With his visits to Native tribes in the state, Mr. Gallego is trying to distinguish himself in what is shaping up to be one of the most competitive Senate races in the country. Adriana Zehbrauskas for The New York TimesMr. Gallego, the son of a Colombian mother and Mexican father, would be the first Latino senator from Arizona, if elected. Like Ms. Sinema, he forged his political rise by embracing the progressive and immigrant rights movements that have helped transform a Republican stronghold into a battleground state. But he is following the traditional playbook that Democrats including Ms. Sinema have used to win statewide in Arizona in past election cycles: He is eschewing ideological labels, distancing himself from Democratic leadership and tacking to the middle on the border and immigration.Mike Noble, a state pollster who has conducted some of the few surveys on the race so far, said Mr. Gallego was in the best position in what is shaping up to be a three-way contest. Mr. Gallego is the strongest fund-raiser, he said, and has a positive image. “He just needs to hold his base and not let Sinema peel off too many Democrats,” Mr. Noble said.Still, Mr. Gallego remains less defined for voters than Ms. Sinema and Ms. Lake. And a race against Ms. Sinema could fray the coalitions of frustrated Republicans, Democrats and independents — including many Latino and Native American voters — that have helped power Democrats to the highest positions in the state for the first time in decades. The fracture could improve his chances — or open the way for a Republican like Ms. Lake to retake a seat that has helped Democrats retain their narrow majority in the Senate.Ms. Lake has already begun to paint him as another far-left liberal responsible for high rates of homelessness and what she describes as a border crisis. But if Mr. Gallego shifts too far away from his progressive credentials, he could risk dampening the energy among his base.At Tohono O’odham, which extends along 62 miles of the U.S. border with Mexico, the top worry on Friday was the recent Biden administration decision to build up to 20 miles of border barriers in South Texas, a project that was first authorized during the Trump administration.Mr. Gallego during a round table meeting with tribal leadership at Tohono O’odham Nation on Friday. Adriana Zehbrauskas for The New York TimesIn the room was Gabriella Cázares-Kelly, who handles voter registration as the Pima County Recorder and is one of less than a dozen Native Americans in Arizona to hold elected office. Ms. Cázares-Kelly, a progressive Democrat, said she was likely to support Mr. Gallego, whom she said she favored for his promises to secure Native American voting rights, for example. But she had been taken aback, she said, when he told her he supported the construction of parts of the border wall to separate the United States from Mexico.Mr. Gallego, a vocal critic of the move under Mr. Trump, said that a wall might make sense in certain areas but that it should never be built on sacred Native American grounds, and that it should not be the only solution.But for Ms. Cázares-Kelly, calls to “build the wall” remained a symbol of Mr. Trump’s most destructive immigration policies, a rallying cry she saw as rooted in xenophobia — and one that had galvanized her tribe to become politically organized. When Mr. Trump first signed his executive order for the wall, many members of her tribe offered to throw their bodies in the way of any construction.“Now having Joe Biden pushing for the expansion of the border wall is so disappointing and frustrating, and then to hear Ruben echoing those sentiments in solidarity with our president is just really disappointing,” she said. 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      Would a 3-Way Arizona Senate Race Help Kari Lake? Her Party Isn’t So Sure.

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      Kyrsten Sinema, the independent incumbent, has not announced whether she will run for re-election. But as both parties in Arizona prepare for that outcome, Republicans are worried.Republicans are growing anxious that their chances of capturing a Senate seat in Arizona would be diminished in a potential three-way race that included Kyrsten Sinema, the independent incumbent.While Ms. Sinema hasn’t announced whether she will run for re-election, the race already includes Representative Ruben Gallego, a Democrat, and Kari Lake, a Republican scheduled to host her first campaign rally on Tuesday.Many political strategists had figured that a re-election bid from Ms. Sinema, who dropped her Democratic affiliation last year, would split votes in her former party and increase the odds that Ms. Lake, the controversial front-runner for the Republican nomination, would be sworn in to the Senate. Arizona, along with West Virginia, Montana and Ohio, has been seen as among the best opportunities for Republicans to pick up Senate seats next year and win back a majority.But private and public polling has suggested that Ms. Sinema is viewed much more favorably by Republican voters than by Democrats. Those surveys indicated that Mr. Gallego would benefit in a three-way race.“Some of the early conventional wisdom about this race assumed there would be more Democratic defections,” said Austin Stumpf, a Democratic consultant in Arizona. “But party unity among Democrats is hard to overstate. It’s a real phenomenon right now.”Republicans expressed their concerns as Ms. Lake, a TV-anchor-turned-conservative-firebrand, made an otherwise amicable visit to Washington last week. While she met with a half-dozen Republican senators, many of whom offered campaign assistance or asked to have their photos taken with her, conversations among aides revealed worries about current polling. One Lake adviser described being surprised by the level of “freaking out” by Washington Republicans.In response, Ms. Lake’s campaign has produced a nine-page internal memo aimed at reassuring the party that she stands to benefit the most from a three-way race. She was also expected to take aim at Ms. Sinema with some of her most withering attacks during her opening campaign event on Tuesday, according to people familiar with the planning, in an attempt to address the concerns that an independent bid by the senator could siphon off a significant share of Republican votes.The previously unreported memo relies largely on recent turnout trends in Arizona to point to built-in advantages for Republicans.While Republicans account for roughly 35 percent of registered voters in the state, they typically make up about 40 percent of turnout, according to the memo. Arizona’s unusually large bloc of independent voters accounts for 34 percent of the voter rolls, but makes up a smaller share of turnout, typically between 26 percent and 29 percent, according to the memo.That means that Ms. Lake — who struggled to unite Republicans during her unsuccessful bid for governor last year as she attacked fellow Republicans, falsely insisted that former President Donald J. Trump had won the 2020 election and later refused to accept her own defeat — should have “significantly more elasticity in shedding Republican voters” than Democrats, according to the memo. (First, Ms. Lake will have to win the Republican primary race; her early rivals include Mark Lamb, a right-wing sheriff and fellow Trump ally.)Kari Lake, who lost the Arizona governor’s race last year and has continued to dispute the results, is running for Senate. Mario Tama/Getty ImagesThe memo also calculates that if Mr. Trump captures another Republican presidential nomination — and wins roughly the same number of votes in Arizona next year as he did in 2020 — then Ms. Sinema’s best path to victory would require more than 600,000 Arizonans to split their ballots between him and the incumbent senator. That total would be about 35 percent of Mr. Trump’s votes.“This is incredibly unlikely in the Trump era of American politics,” the memo says, noting that split-ticket voting is “near all-time lows.”One of the private polls that showed Mr. Gallego leading the race, in part because Ms. Lake appeared to be losing Republican votes to Ms. Sinema, was from Chuck Coughlin, a longtime Arizona operative, according to people briefed on the survey. Mr. Coughlin declined to comment on specific findings in his poll, but said that while Ms. Sinema would be a significant underdog if she sought re-election, it would also be foolish to count her out.“Kyrsten is a monstrously strong campaigner, a very effective fund-raiser and has shown a lot of personal strength to do what she’s done in politics, and I don’t want to underestimate that,” Mr. Coughlin said. “All of that is going to be necessary and a lot more for her to be successful.”The ambiguity about Ms. Sinema’s plans for re-election has confounded political professionals across three time zones separating Arizona and Washington.Some of those who anticipate she will retire point to fund-raising numbers showing that Mr. Gallego has consistently out-raised her this year. Ms. Sinema is sitting on a considerable war chest of nearly $11 million, but the Arizona Senate race last year drew more than $230 million in spending from the two major-party candidates and multiple outside groups.Some of those convinced she will seek a second term pointed to a fund-raiser she hosted this year at the Phoenix Open. The annual golf outing attracts a mix of rowdy partygoers and avid golfers, far from the typical Sinema crowd. “That’s like nails on the chalkboard for Sinema,” said Barrett Marson, a Republican operative in Arizona.Others were encouraged about her prospects after an internal fund-raising prospectus surfaced last month that signaled she and her team were actively charting a path to a second term, telling donors she could win a competitive three-way race as an independent, which is practically unheard-of in modern American politics.“Kyrsten promised Arizonans she’d be an independent voice who wouldn’t answer to party bosses and would deliver real, lasting solutions to the challenges Arizonans face,” said Hannah Hurley, an aide to Ms. Sinema. “Instead of engaging in name-calling and stupid political insults, Kyrsten has worked with anyone to make Arizonans’ lives better and then get government out of the way — and that’s exactly what she’s done and will continue to do as Arizona’s senior senator.”Ms. Sinema’s path relies on an unusual coalition of voters, according to the document, which was first reported by NBC News: winning between 10 percent and 20 percent of Democrats, 25 percent to 35 percent of Republicans and 60 percent to 70 percent of independent voters in the state.The most difficult benchmark may be the projection among independents. Even Senator John McCain — who was famously popular among independent voters — won just 50 percent of that group in his sixth and final victory in the state in 2016, according to exit polls.Independents also figure to be a top target for Mr. Gallego, an engaging politician with an inspiring personal story who is running to be the state’s first Latino senator. His campaign projects that Latinos account for about 30 percent of unaffiliated voters in Arizona, and he was ahead of both Ms. Sinema and Ms. Lake in the one public poll that has tested all three candidates this year.Some public and private polling has shown that Representative Ruben Gallego, who is seeking the Democratic nomination, would benefit in a three-way race.Adriana Zehbrauskas for The New York Times“Ruben is in a good spot and he knows it,” said Mike Noble, an Arizona pollster. He noted that early polls showed that people who had heard of Mr. Gallego generally liked him, while Arizonans tended to have negative views of both Ms. Lake and Ms. Sinema.Still, Mr. Gallego is running his first statewide campaign since first being elected to the state’s most liberal House district in 2014.He has collected a handful of endorsements from local officials and public encouragement from Yolanda Bejarano, the chairwoman of the Arizona Democratic Party, but the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and the Senate Majority PAC — which combined to spend nearly $40 million in the Arizona Senate race last year — have both remained silent on the prospect of a three-way race.Stan Barnes, a Republican consultant and former Arizona state legislator, said a potential three-way race offered a unique opportunity for voters because the top candidates would rely on compelling personalities as they pursued their own silos of voters.“It is about the most exciting thing I have seen in terms of politics in Arizona in the three decades I have seen,” Mr. Barnes said. 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      Flying on the Same Plane, Lake and Gallego Clash Over Border Politics

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      Arizona’s high-profile Senate race has not yet begun in earnest, but on Thursday, the Republican Kari Lake and Representative Ruben Gallego, a Democrat, were already trading barbs — in midair.Ms. Lake, the former news anchor who refused to concede her loss in the state’s governor’s race last year, and Mr. Gallego, a progressive congressman from the state’s capital, ended up on the same flight from Washington, D.C., to Phoenix, where they began wrangling over the border wall.The clash happened just days after Ms. Lake filed to run for the seat, which is now held by Kyrsten Sinema. Ms. Sinema, who left the party in December to become an independent, has not said whether she is running for re-election.Ms. Lake took a shot at Mr. Gallego on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, asking if he still believed that the border wall was “racist” and accusing him of “facilitating an invasion.”“Hey @KariLake we’re on the same plane! Just come back from first class to coach and we can chat,” responded Mr. Gallego, who was sitting just behind the divider for business class. “Happy to walk you through all my legislative work to deliver key resources to AZ’s border communities.”On the plane, Mr. Gallego posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, tagging Ms. Lake.Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesOnce the plane had landed and Mr. Gallego was stepping off it, Ms. Lake ambushed him with questions, wearing a lapel mic while a phone camera recorded, according to people familiar with the exchange. Mr. Gallego announced his bid for the seat in January. In the Republican primary, Ms. Lake will face Mark Lamb, a right-wing sheriff and an ally of former President Donald J. Trump.Ms. Lake, a hard-right Republican, was in Washington this week meeting with several G.O.P. members of the Senate. She is scheduled to hold her first rally as a candidate next week. More

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      Republican Mark Lamb Files to Run for Kyrsten Sinema’s Senate Seat

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      Mark Lamb, a sheriff and an ally of former President Donald J. Trump, will run for the seat held by Kyrsten Sinema, a Democrat-turned-independent.Mark Lamb, a right-wing sheriff and an ally of former President Donald J. Trump known for his policing of elections and his defiance of a pandemic lockdown, announced Tuesday that he would run for Senate in Arizona next year, a contest that could determine control of the closely divided chamber.Mr. Lamb, 50, became the first high-profile Republican to compete for the seat, one currently held by Senator Kyrsten Sinema, who left the Democratic Party in December to become an independent. Ms. Sinema has not said whether she will run, but if she does, there is already one Democratic challenger: Representative Ruben Gallego, a progressive Democrat from Phoenix.In his announcement video, Mr. Lamb said he would “stand up to the woke left” and “secure our border and support our law enforcement.” He also called out his support for gun rights and his anti-abortion stance in the ad.Mr. Lamb, as the top law enforcement officer in Arizona’s third-most populous county, Pinal, made headlines when he refused to enforce the state’s stay-at-home order in 2020 and then when he expressed sympathy for the rioters who attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. He has also sown doubt over the results of the 2020 election and drawn scrutiny for his embrace of private militias and hard-line positions on immigration.The field appears likely to grow, as Republicans see an opening to retake the seat in the potential matchup between Mr. Gallego and Ms. Sinema, which could split the Democratic and independent voters who have powered victories for the left in the state.Kari Lake, a Republican who refused to accept her defeat in the governor’s race last year, has also signaled that she could jump into the race.Ms. Sinema has infuriated Democrats with her departure and opposition to key planks of their agenda in the Senate. Her split with the party came shortly after it gained an outright majority in the Senate during the midterm elections last fall.Arizona was one of the key battlegrounds in those elections, and in 2020, Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory there over Mr. Trump helped him to secure the presidency. More

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      To Boldly Go Where No President Has Gone Before

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      Bret Stephens: Hi, Gail. I have a clear memory of Democrats defending Bill Clinton tooth and nail for lying under oath in the Paula Jones case, about his affair with Monica Lewinsky. At the time, they said it was “just about sex” and that Clinton lied to protect his family and marriage.Morally speaking, is that better than, worse than or equal to the allegation that Donald Trump falsified business records to cover his alleged affair with Stormy Daniels (and possibly another paramour, too)?Gail Collins: Bret, sex scandal aficionado that I am, I’m sorta tempted to go back and revisit Clinton’s argument that he didn’t lie about Monica Lewinsky because it doesn’t count as having sex if … well, no. Guess not.Bret: To say nothing of Clinton parsing the meaning of the word “is.”Gail: Still, I’d say the Stormy Daniels episode — an ongoing, well-financed cover-up during a presidential campaign — was worse.Bret: Hmm. Trump wasn’t president at the time of the alleged affair the way Clinton was. And Daniels wasn’t a starry-eyed 22-year-old intern whose life got destroyed in the process. And lying under oath is usually a felony, unlike falsifying business records, which is usually treated as a misdemeanor.Gail: If you want to argue that Trump’s not the worst sex-scandal offender, I’m fine with it. Won’t even mention Grover Cleveland …Bret: “Ma, ma, where’s my pa?” Always liked Grover.Gail: Of all the investigations into Trump’s egregious misconduct, this strikes me as almost minor compared with, say, trying to change presidential election results, urging a crowd of supporters to march on the Capitol or illegally taking, retaining and hiding secret government documents or …OK, taking a rest.Bret: Totally agree. My fear is that the indictment will focus the media spotlight on Trump, motivate his base, paralyze his Republican opponents and ultimately help him win the G.O.P. nomination. In the first poll after the indictment, Trump’s lead over his Republican rivals jumped. Maybe that will make it easier for Democrats to hold the White House next year, but it also potentially means we could get Benito Milhous Caligula back in office.The only thing that will hurt Trump is if he’s ignored in the press and beaten at the polls. Instead, we’re contributing to the problem just by speaking about it.Gail: OK, now I’m changing subjects. It hurts my heart to talk about this, but we have to consider the terrible school shooting in Nashville — it doesn’t seem to have moved the needle one centimeter on issues like banning assault weapons or 30-round magazines. Pro-gun lawmakers, in light of the Covenant School shooting, are once again arguing that schools would be safer if the teachers could have their own pistols.Bret: I’m not opposed to an armed cop or a well-trained security guard on school campuses, who might be able to respond much faster to an emergency than the police could. Teachers? Seems like a really, really bad idea.With respect to everything else, I’m sometimes inclined to simply give up. Gun control isn’t realistic in a country with more guns than people. Even if stringent gun control were somehow enacted, it would function roughly the same way stringent drug laws work: People who wanted to obtain guns illegally could easily get them. I think we ought to repeal the Second Amendment, or at least reinterpret it to mean that anyone who wants a gun must belong to a “well-regulated militia.” But in our lifetimes that’s a political pipe dream.So we’re left in the face of tragedies like Nashville’s feeling heartbroken, furious, speechless and helpless.Gail: Your impulse to give up the fight is probably sensible, but I just can’t go there. Gotta keep pushing; we can’t cave in to folks who think it’s un-American to require loaded weapons be stored where kids can’t get at them.Bret: Another side of me wants to agree with you. Let’s ban high-capacity magazines, raise the age threshold for gun purchases and heavily fine people if they fail to properly store weapons. I just wonder if it will make much of a difference.Gail: Well, it sure as hell wouldn’t hurt.Bret: Very true.Gail: Let’s move on before I get deeply depressed. We’re slowly creeping toward an election year — close enough that people who want to run for office for real have to start mobilizing. Anybody you really love/hate out there now?Bret: Next year is going to be a tough one for Senate Democrats. They’re defending 23 of the 34 seats that are up for grabs, including in ever-redder states like Montana and West Virginia.I’d love to see a serious Democratic challenger to Ted Cruz in Texas, and by serious I mean virtually anyone other than Beto O’Rourke. And I’d love to see Kari Lake run for a Senate seat in Arizona so that she can lose again.You?Gail: Funny, I was thinking the same thing about Ted Cruz the other night. Wonderful the way that man can bring us together.Bret: He even brings me closer to Trump. “Lyin’ Ted” was priceless.Gail: Another Senate Republican I hope gets a very serious challenger is Rick Scott of Florida, who made that first big proposal to consider slashing Social Security and Medicare.Bret: Good luck with that. Florida may now be redder than Texas.Gail: You’re right about the Democrats having to focus on defense. The endangered incumbent I’m rooting hardest for is Sherrod Brown of Ohio, who’s managed to be a powerful voice for both liberal causes and my reddish home state’s practical interests.Bret: I once got a note from Brown gently reproaching me for using the term Rust Belt about Ohio. The note was so charming, personable and fair that I remember thinking: “This man can’t have a future in American politics.”Gail: And as someone who’s complained bitterly about Joe Manchin over the years, I have to admit that keeping West Virginia in the Democratic column does require very creative and sometimes deeply irritating political performances.Bret: Aha. I knew you’d come around.I don’t know if you’ve followed this, but Manchin is now complaining bitterly that the Biden administration is trying to rewrite the terms of the Inflation Reduction Act, which, with Manchin’s vote, gave the president his biggest legislative win last year. The details are complicated, but the gist is that the administration is hanging him out to dry. Oh, and he’s also skeptical of Trump’s indictment. Don’t be totally surprised if Manchin becomes a Republican in order to save his political skin.Gail: Hmm, my valuation of said skin would certainly drop . …Bret: Which raises the question: How should partisan Democrats, or partisan Republicans, feel about the least ideologically reliable member of their own parties?Gail: Depends. Did they run as freethinkers who shouldn’t be relied on by their party for a vote? Manchin got elected in the first place by promising to be a Democrat who’d “get the federal government off our backs.” But often this explosion of independence comes as a postelection surprise.Bret: Good point. There should be truth in advertising.Gail: Do they — like Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona — forget their nonpartisanship when it comes to dipping into donations from partisan fund-raisers?And probably most important — is there a better option? If Sinema had to run for re-election this year, which she doesn’t, I would be a super-enthusiastic supporter if the other choice was Lake, that dreadful former talk show host.Any thoughts on your end?Bret: In my younger, more Republican days, I used to dislike ideological mavericks — they made things too complicated. Now that I’m older, I increasingly admire politicians who make things complicated. I know there’s a fair amount of opportunism and posturing in some of their position taking. But they also model a certain independence of thought and spirit that I find healthy in our Age of Lemmings.Gail: Hoping it’s maybe just the Decade of the Lemmings.Bret: If I had to draw up a list of the Senate heroes of my lifetime, they’d be Daniel Patrick Moynihan, John McCain, Howard Baker, Bob Kerrey and Joe Lieberman. And lately I’d have to add Mitt Romney. All were willing to break with their parties when it counted. How about you?Gail: Well, you may remember that a while back I was contemplating writing a book called “How Joe Lieberman Ruined Everything.”Bret: I recall you weren’t his biggest fan.Gail: Yeah, still blaming him for failing to give Al Gore the proper support in that 2000 recount. But I’ve come around on Mitt Romney. He’s become a strong, independent voice. Of course it’s easier to be brave when you’re a senator from a state that would keep re-electing you if you took a six-year vacation in the Swiss Alps. Nevertheless, I’ve apologized for all that obsessing about his putting the dog on the car roof.Bret: I came around on him too. I was very hard on him in 2012. Either he got better or I got wiser.Gail: I was a big admirer of John McCain. Will never forget following him on his travels when he first ran for president in 2000. He spent months and months driving around New Hampshire talking about campaign finance reform. From one tiny gathering to another. Of all the ambitious pols I’ve known he was the least focused on his own fortunes.Bret: I traveled with McCain on his international junkets. He was hilarious, gregarious, generous, gossipy — a study in being unstudied. If he had won the presidency, the Republican Party wouldn’t have gone insane, American democracy wouldn’t be at risk and Sarah Palin would be just another lame ex-veep.Gail: So, gotta end this with the obvious question, Bret. Republican presidential race! You’re a fan of Nikki Haley, but her campaign doesn’t seem to be going much of anywhere, is it? I know you’ve come to detest Ron DeSantis. Other options?Bret: Biden, cryonics or some small island in the South Atlantic, like St. Helena. Not necessarily in that order.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      in Elections

      The Key Senate Races to Watch in 2024

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      Emily Elconin for The New York TimesIn Michigan, which has an open seat, Representative Elissa Slotkin, a Democrat who comfortably won re-election in November, is also taking steps toward a possible Senate run in 2024. Her moves include forming a national campaign team and meeting with leaders across the state, a person close to the congresswoman confirmed last week. More