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    Why Ben Sasse and Veteran Republicans Soured on Senate Runs

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    WASHINGTON — The Senate isn’t what it used to be.For evidence, consider the case of Senator Ben Sasse, the Nebraska Republican with four years to go in his second term who is seeking the presidency of the University of Florida. His looming departure makes him the latest lawmaker to prematurely bail out of the institution once considered the pinnacle of American political life outside the presidency.Joining him on the way out the door this year are some of the most savvy and experienced legislators on the Republican side — Roy Blunt of Missouri, Rob Portman of Ohio, Richard M. Burr of North Carolina and Patrick J. Toomey of Pennsylvania — all pretty much in the prime of their careers by Senate age standards. Two more senior senators, Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, age 82, and Richard Shelby, Republican of Alabama, 88, are also retiring.On top of those losses, Senate Republicans could not entice several Republican governors to run for Senate this year, even though they would have been strong contenders for election next month, candidacies that would have boosted Republican chances of capturing a majority in the chamber that is now very much in play.Senators tick off a litany of frustrations: Their constituents are difficult, the travel is grueling, fund-raising is joyless and omnipresent, the threat of primaries is a pain and they are constantly pestered by the press. Republicans have the added burden of navigating treacherous waters where they risk blowback from the base if they don’t profess sufficient fealty to MAGA tenets and former President Donald J. Trump and draw scalding criticism from the opposing side if they don’t show sufficient disdain for Mr. Trump and his supporters.Most importantly, some say, the once-rewarding business of legislative bargaining and high-stakes lawmaking has lost its luster. The big deals are most often cut in the Capitol leadership suites these days, and presented as a fait accompli to the rank-and-file. Given the reluctance among many to take politically tough votes, members have few opportunities to push their own amendments, and their influence is often reduced to railing against the finished product on the Senate floor when few are listening.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.The Final Stretch: With less than one month until Election Day, Republicans remain favored to take over the House, but momentum in the pitched battle for the Senate has seesawed back and forth.A Surprising Battleground: New York has emerged from a haywire redistricting cycle as perhaps the most consequential congressional battleground in the country. For Democrats, the uncertainty is particularly jarring.Arizona’s Governor’s Race: Democrats are openly expressing their alarm that Katie Hobbs, the party’s nominee for governor in the state, is fumbling a chance to defeat Kari Lake in one of the most closely watched races.Herschel Walker: The Republican Senate nominee in Georgia reportedly paid for an ex-girlfriend’s abortion, but members of his party have learned to tolerate his behavior.“I think the Senate has essentially, for most purposes, stopped legislating,” said Mr. Blunt, 72, who opted against seeking a third term in the Senate after serving in the leadership in both the House and Senate. “The opportunity to be a committee chairman is not what it was 12, 15 or even 10 years ago. The opportunity to take a bill through the committee process and go to the Senate floor and see it debated and voted on is almost nonexistent.”Then there is just the plain nastiness of the current social media-fueled political climate.“The lack of respect for our institutions and the vicious nature of politics today is getting tiresome to people,” said Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, who mourned this year’s retirees. “They have gotten seniority, and they would be able to make a real difference. Their influence and effectiveness would only grow if they stayed in the Senate. Too many are concluding it is no longer worth it.”On one hand, the likely departure of Mr. Sasse, 50, to Gainesville, is something of a surprise, considering he was just re-elected to a second term in 2020 and showed some independence in a willingness to challenge Mr. Trump. Democrats saw him as someone to court when trying to craft bipartisan legislation, and some Republicans regarded him as a potential presidential prospect.But Mr. Sasse also made it clear from the very beginning of his service that he was skeptical of the value of an institution that was losing ground with the public and its own members. In his maiden speech in 2015, he attacked the partisanship employed by both sides.“Few believe bare-knuckled politics are a substitute for principled governing,” he said about his constituents back home. “And does anyone doubt that many on both the right and the left now salivate for more of these radical tactics? The people despise us all,” he said, posing this question: “Would anything be lost if the Senate didn’t exist?”Senator Roy Blunt opted against seeking a third term in the Senate after serving in the leadership in both the House and Senate.Al Drago for The New York TimesA group of Republican governors seemed to consider that question in recent months and answer “not much” when it came to their own political ambitions. Despite fervent pleas from Senator Mitch McConnell, the Kentucky Republican and minority leader, and many other Republicans, four governors considered top Senate candidates — Phil Scott of Vermont, Doug Ducey of Arizona, Larry Hogan of Maryland and Chris Sununu of New Hampshire — all passed on running this year, even though the midterm environment started out favoring Republicans.The decision by Governor Sununu was particularly upsetting to Republicans since he was rated as by far the strongest challenger to Senator Maggie Hassan, a Democrat, who had been considered vulnerable but is now in position to win a second term and help her party hang onto its majority.Governors have always chafed at running and serving in the Senate after their experience as state executives provided them more leeway and authority than working in a creaky gang of 100.But in the past, the Senate was still seen as a springboard to national prominence and a possible presidential run, and many governors chose to give it a try despite misgivings. Thirteen former governors currently sit in the Senate and another may join them if Pete Ricketts, the outgoing governor of Nebraska, ends up in Mr. Sasse’s seat under an appointment until the 2024 elections. Mr. McConnell, in an interview with CNN, made it clear that Mr. Ricketts is his preferred choice.The refusal of those governors does not mean no one wants in to serve in the chamber. Far from it. Across the nation, candidates are spending tens of millions of dollars clamoring for admission. But in place of those governors who refused to run, Republicans got lesser-known and more problematic candidates such as hard-right hopefuls Blake Masters in Arizona and Don Bolduc in New Hampshire, Republicans who are less likely to win and who are far less likely to be Senate deal-makers of the sort who are leaving.That prospect is vexing for those who remain.“Those are capable legislators who have done a lot of good in their time,” said Senator Chris Coons, Democrat of Delaware, lamenting the departing lawmakers. “Although we have different ideologies, priorities and political values, we have gotten to yes on dozens of bills between us.”The race for the exits is the best evidence yet that the political and policy allures of the Senate are rapidly diminishing. More

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      Pennsylvania Court Orders Undated Ballots to Be Counted, Siding With McCormick For Now

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      David McCormick, who was trailing Dr. Mehmet Oz by fewer than 1,000 votes, had sued to have ballots without handwritten dates on their return envelopes counted.Update: David McCormick conceded the exceedingly close race for the Republican nomination for Senate in Pennsylvania on Friday to Dr. Mehmet Oz. Read the news story.A Pennsylvania court ordered election officials on Thursday to count undated mail-in ballots for now in a nationally watched Republican Senate primary, granting a temporary injunction to David McCormick as he trailed Dr. Mehmet Oz amid a statewide recount.Fewer than 1,000 votes separate Mr. McCormick, a former hedge fund executive, from Dr. Oz, the celebrity physician backed by former President Donald J. Trump, in a race that could ultimately determine control of the divided Senate.The Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania concluded that a May 23 lawsuit by Mr. McCormick had raised sufficient claims that a state law requiring voters to hand-write the date on return envelopes for mail-in ballots could lead to their disenfranchisement.Republicans have fought to enforce the rule, siding with Dr. Oz in the lawsuit.In the 42-page opinion, Renée Cohn Jubelirer, the court’s president judge, directed county election boards to report two sets of tallies to the acting secretary of the commonwealth, one that includes the undated ballots and one that does not. That way, when a final decision is made on whether to accept the ballots, the judge wrote, the vote count will be readily available.In the opinion, Judge Cohn Jubelirer said there was no question that the contested ballots had been returned by the May 17 deadline.“The court notes that no party has asserted, or even hinted, that the issue before the court involves allegations of fraud,” she wrote. “The parties have agreed that this election was free and fair.”A campaign spokeswoman for Mr. McCormick lauded the court order in a statement on Friday.“We are pleased the court agrees on ensuring valid Republican votes that were signed and returned on time, as shown by their time-stamp, are counted so the party can get behind a strong nominee in the fall,” the campaign spokeswoman, Jess Szymanski, said.Casey Contres, the campaign manager for Dr. Oz, declined to comment about the decision on Friday.Judge Cohn Jubelirer wrote that the court’s guidance should be uniform, noting that some counties had decided to accept the undated ballots and others had not.“Without court action, there exists the very real possibility that voters within this commonwealth will not be treated equally depending on the county in which they vote,” she wrote. “The court begins with the overarching principle that the Election Code should be liberally construed so as not to deprive electors of their right to elect a candidate of their choice.”The treatment of undated mail-in ballots is at the heart of another legal dispute in Pennsylvania. That one is before the U.S. Supreme Court, which on Tuesday paused the counting of those ballots in a judicial race in Lehigh County, Pa., a case that could reverberate in the G.O.P. Senate primary.Understand the Battle Over U.S. Voting RightsCard 1 of 6Why are voting rights an issue now? More

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      Congress Is Paralyzed on Guns. Here’s Why Chris Murphy Is Still Hopeful.

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      The Democrat from Connecticut, who has spent his decade in the Senate trying and failing to enact gun safety bills, says his party should make the issue the core of its 2022 midterm message.WASHINGTON — It did not take long after the racist gun massacre in Buffalo for a familiar sense of resignation to set in on Capitol Hill about the chance that Congress would be able to muster the will to act on meaningful legislation to combat gun violence in America.In emotional remarks at the scene of the mass shooting on Tuesday, President Biden made no direct call for Congress to take such action. Afterward, he told reporters that he intended to do so, but was frank about his belief that persuading lawmakers to move would be “very difficult.”Around the same time, top Democrats on Capitol Hill were publicly conceding that their paper-thin majority in the Senate meant there was little they would be able to do to prevent the next tragedy.“We’re kind of stuck where we are, for the time being,” said Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois and the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, playing down the chance that even a modest bill to strengthen background checks for gun purchases could overcome a Republican blockade.Senator Christopher S. Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, shares his colleagues’ skepticism that any legislation can move. But he is also concerned that Democrats may squander a chance to turn the issue of gun safety into a rallying cry for the midterm elections.For a decade, the issue of gun violence has defined Mr. Murphy’s career; the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., took place a month after he won his seat.Mr. Murphy spoke to The New York Times from a Senate cloakroom about the chances for legislative action on guns, what Mr. Biden should do and why he thinks Democrats will lose control of Congress if they don’t make combating gun violence the core of their 2022 appeal to voters.The interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.After the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, when 20 young children and six adults were killed, did Democrats and President Barack Obama miss the opportunity to pass meaningful gun safety legislation?There was this popular meme in 2013, which said that if the killing of 20 children didn’t result in any action, nothing will. That’s fundamentally the wrong way to look at how Washington works. There are few epiphanies here. It’s all about political power, and political muscle, and we’re in the process of building our own.The National Rifle Association and the gun lobby was ready for us, and for those parents, in 2013. The anti-gun-violence movement was essentially nonexistent, and the N.R.A. was at its peak power.From Opinion: The Buffalo ShootingCommentary from Times Opinion on the massacre at a grocery store in a predominantly Black neighborhood in Buffalo.The Times Editorial Board: The mass shooting in Buffalo was an extreme expression of a political worldview that has become increasingly central to the G.O.P.’s identity.Jamelle Bouie: G.O.P. politicians and conservative media personalities did not create the idea of the “great replacement,” but they have adopted it.Paul Krugman: There is a direct line from Republicans’ embrace of crank economics, to Jan. 6, to Buffalo.Sway: In the latest episode of her podcast, Kara Swisher hosts a discussion on the role of internet platforms like 4chan, Facebook and Twitch in the attack.We needed time to build up a movement that is stronger than the gun lobby.My worry is that a lot of my colleagues still believe in the mythology of 1994, when everyone thought Democrats lost Congress over the assault weapons ban. That’s not true — that’s not why Congress flipped. Ever since then, Democrats are under the illusion that it’s a losing issue for us.It’s one of the most important wedge issues, and if we don’t talk about it, then we’re going to lose.Many are urging Senator Chuck Schumer and Mr. Durbin to bring up a bill to expand background checks. Even if it couldn’t pass, it would force Republicans to defend their opposition to a policy that polls show has broad support. Should they?There are times when show votes help define the parties. I’m not confident this is one of those moments, given the fact that it’s already pretty clear which side Republicans fall on and which side Democrats fall on.My main recommendation is for Democrats to go out and run on this issue, proudly and strongly. My worry is we would have a vote on the Senate floor, but then Democrats would not be willing to go out and talk about that vote in campaigns.The only way we actually change the dynamic on this issue is to make Republicans show we believe this is a winning electoral issue. That’s what we did in 2018. My worry is, we don’t feel the same confidence in this issue as a winning electoral issue in 2022.I don’t know why we don’t learn a lesson from 2018, that when we run strongly on the issue of guns, universal background checks, banning assault weapons, we turn out voters that otherwise would stay home in the midterms. I’ve talked to Senator Schumer about bringing a vote to the Senate floor. I’m not interested in taking a vote on the Senate floor if we don’t talk about it.If legislation can’t pass, what executive actions are you pushing the administration to take?There is still a ton of harmful gray area around the question of who needs to be a licensed gun dealer. There are a lot of folks peddling guns online and at gun shows who are truly in the business of selling guns, and should be required to do background checks. President Obama put out helpful, but not binding, guidance. The administration could put some real meat on the existing statute and define what it means to be in the business of selling guns.Have you pitched that to them?I have. There has been significant interest from the White House in pursuing that line of policy. I don’t know that they have made a commitment or issued any directive to the Justice Department.Do you support eliminating the filibuster in order to pass gun reforms?One hundred percent. The reason we can’t get this done is the rules of the Senate, not because the American people haven’t made a choice.Guns were one of the most important issues for voters in 2018; it ranked second behind health care. When voters came to the polls in 2018 and elected a Democratic majority in the House, it was with the explicit purpose of getting gun legislation passed. The same voters came back and elected a Democratic president. It’s simply the rules of the Senate that stopped the will of the American people from becoming law.Is there anything happening in terms of discussions with Senators Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia, and Patrick J. Toomey, Republican of Pennsylvania, about trying to revive their bill to tighten background checks?There’s nothing new happening now. Manchin-Toomey doesn’t have 60 votes. I spent much of the last two years trying to find a piece of Manchin-Toomey that could get 60 votes. Ultimately, we couldn’t find a landing place. I’ll continue to try any creative avenue to find an expansion of background checks.Does a weakened National Rifle Association create any opening for Republicans to move off their opposition to gun safety measures?This N.R.A. stamp of approval still really matters to them. Inside a Republican Party that has become bereft of big ideas, they’ve only got one left, which is the destruction of government. Nothing signals that more than the endorsement of the organization that supports people arming themselves against the government. In this era of anti-government fervor, it’s more important than ever.Eventually, we have to figure out a way for Republicans to show how much they hate government other than the N.R.A. endorsement. Maybe I should be rooting for the Club for Growth to be a more effective voice within the Republican Party.Can guns really be a winning issue for Democrats in a year when Republicans are attacking your party over inflation, rising gas prices and not meeting the basic needs of American families?I think voters are emotionally moved by the slaughter of innocents. And I think they find it a little weird when Democrats who claim to care about this don’t actually talk about it.We live in an era where authenticity is the coin of the realm. You just have to show voters who you are. I don’t think there’s any more potent means by which to translate who you are, and what you care about, than this issue. I think when you leave this out when you list your priorities as a candidate, it causes voters to scratch their heads a bit.What grade would you give the Biden administration on this issue?The administration could have moved faster on executive actions and the appointment of a new A.T.F. director. I want them to keep going. There’s still more regulatory and executive action that this administration can take and more things the team can do to use the bully pulpit to make sure this is an election issue.Would you give the administration a grade?No.A number of gun violence prevention organizations have called on Mr. Biden to open a White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention. Do you think that would make a difference?I do. It’s become clear to me we need a specific, driving focus on gun violence. The president is clearly personally committed to this issue, but he’s stretched thin due to myriad international and domestic crises. He would be best served by a high-level senior official who wakes up every day and coordinates the issue.After another mass shooting like the one in Buffalo, do you find yourself becoming resigned to the idea that nothing can be done on gun violence?I’ve studied enough great social change movements to know they often take decades to succeed. It was a full 10 years from the shooting of James Brady to the passage of the Brady handgun bill. I think I am part of one of these great social change movements, and I’m confident that you have to put up with a lot of failures before you’re met with success.I also don’t think democracy can allow for 80 percent of the American people to not get their way, forever. Eventually we will be able to break through. We just have not been able to find that pathway yet.This is an exhausting issue to work on, but I have this very deep sense that I will see my time in public service as a failure if I don’t meet the expectations of those parents in Sandy Hook, and Hartford and Bridgeport. And fear is a powerful motivator. More

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      Is John Fetterman the Future of the Democratic Party?

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      John Fetterman’s resounding victory in the Democratic Pennsylvania Senate primary was not surprising, but it was uncharacteristic.Pennsylvania Democrats do not ordinarily veer too far from the center lane, and they are cautious about whom they send forward from their primary elections to take on Republicans in general elections. They’re not gamblers, and given the state’s perennially up-for-grabs status and its unforgiving electoral math, you could argue they shouldn’t be.But on Tuesday, Democrats made Mr. Fetterman, the state’s lieutenant governor, their nominee to compete for the seat being vacated by the retiring Republican Pat Toomey. (They did it despite Mr. Fetterman’s recent health scare; last week he suffered a stroke, but he said that he was on his way to “a full recovery.”)Conor Lamb, 37, a Pittsburgh-area congressman, would have been a more conventional choice. His House voting record tracks to the center, and he has been compared to the state’s three-term Democratic senator, Bob Casey, a moderate and the son of a former Pennsylvania governor.Mr. Fetterman, 52, offers something different, a new model for Pennsylvania. It is built on quirky personal and political appeal rather than the caution of a traditional Democrat in the Keystone State. With over 80 percent of the votes counted, Mr. Fetterman was more than doubling the total of Mr. Lamb, whose campaign, despite winning many more endorsements from party leaders, never gained momentum.For Democrats, the stakes are high: The outcome may well determine the balance of the evenly divided U.S. Senate, future votes to confirm Supreme Court nominees and much else in our bitterly divided nation.Nearly every story about Mr. Fetterman points out his 6-foot-8 frame, shaved head, tattoos and preferred attire — work clothes from Carhartt, a brand long favored by construction workers and miners and more recently by hip-hop artists. He sometimes attends public events in baggy gym shorts.It is all part of a style that has won him passionate followers among progressive Democrats. Mr. Fetterman has been a frequent presence on MSNBC and is a skilled social media practitioner, with over 400,000 Twitter followers. (His dogs, Levi and Artie, have their own Twitter account and more than 25,000 followers.) It can sometimes seem that he skirts the line between being a traditional candidate and an internet influencer.“Fetterman doesn’t have supporters so much as full-on fans,” The Philadelphia Inquirer noted during the campaign. “Fans who write songs about him, buy his merch and know his life story.”Mr. Fetterman has served as lieutenant governor since 2019 and, before that, for four terms was the mayor of Braddock, a town east of Pittsburgh with just over 1,700 residents. He vows to conduct a “67-county campaign” — the whole of Pennsylvania.Rebecca Katz, his senior political adviser, told me that she believes the campaign’s mantra of “every county, every vote” is being received with too much skepticism and said that people “haven’t seen what kind of map he can run on in Pennsylvania.”But he still must solve the math of an evenly divided state: A Democrat hoping to win in Pennsylvania has to thread an electoral needle.Mr. Fetterman will face either the celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz or the financier David McCormick.In the fall, Mr. Fetterman will need to pile up huge winning margins in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh and win by healthy margins in their suburbs and the state’s few other pockets of blue in order to withstand the lopsided totals that Republicans win nearly everywhere else.In less populous counties, as recently as 2008, Barack Obama took 40 percent of the vote or more, but as polarization has increased, Democrats have struggled to get even 25 percent.State Democrats hoped that Joe Biden, a Pennsylvania native and senator from neighboring Delaware — and a white septuagenarian running in a state that is whiter and older than the national average — could reverse that trend. But he did only marginally better than Hillary Clinton four years earlier, cutting the margins by a couple of percentage points but hardly reversing the trend of Democrats being routed in the smaller counties.That Mr. Biden could not do better outside the cities and close-in suburbs has made many Democrats pessimistic about what’s possible in those areas. Mr. Fetterman’s background, his attention to the state’s rural communities and his manner — the work clothes, a straightforward speaking style — could make some difference. In the winning Fetterman model, he narrows the massive margins that have been run up by Republicans.His positions do not differ that much from more traditional Democrats’, but some of his central concerns do set him apart. A signature issue has been the legalization of marijuana — “legal weed,” as he calls it. He has flown a flag displaying cannabis leaves from the official lieutenant governor’s office, alongside a rainbow-colored L.G.B.T.Q. banner.The advocacy of legal marijuana may be the rare issue that draws support from unpredictable corners and crosses all kinds of lines — including urban and rural.The lieutenant governor in Pennsylvania has few defined duties, but as chairman of the Board of Pardons, Mr. Fetterman modernized an outdated system and granted clemency in cases where it was long overdue.Mr. Fetterman’s one glaring departure from progressive causes, and a nod to Pennsylvania realpolitik, is that he does not support a ban on fracking, the environmentally questionable hydraulic extraction of natural gas. Tens of thousands of Pennsylvanians have benefited financially from it by selling drilling rights on their land, working in the industry or both.Mr. Fetterman’s most worrisome vulnerability is his appeal to his party’s most dependable voting bloc: Black voters in Philadelphia and the state’s other urban centers, the places where any Democrat running statewide must mine the largest trove of votes. Only about 10 percent of the state’s voters are Black, but they are an essential component of the margins that the party runs up in the cities.Mr. Fetterman’s challenge stems in large part from a 2013 incident in Braddock, when he used his shotgun to stop a Black jogger and detained him until police arrived. Mr. Fetterman, who was mayor at the time, told police he had heard gunshots in the area and suspected the jogger. Police searched the man down and released him after they found no weapon.The incident has come up during the campaign, and Mr. Fetterman’s responses have been awkward, at best.“He has said he did not actually point the gun, but what difference does that make?” said Mark Kelly Tyler, the pastor of Mother Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church, one of the nation’s oldest A.M.E. churches. “Even if he admitted that it was from his implicit bias and says that he has learned from it, that would actually be better. It would be accepted.”Mr. Tyler said that if Mr. Fetterman does not do a better job of explaining it, the incident will be “weaponized on Black talk radio and elsewhere” and used by his opponent in the fall to depress turnout.Mr. Fetterman won by huge margins all across Pennsylvania, with one notable exception: Philadelphia. There, it was a close race against a third Democratic primary candidate, Malcolm Kenyatta, a city resident and the first Black openly gay L.G.B.T.Q. member of the state legislature.With the primary complete, everything is reset. In a big state with six television markets, the candidates will likely combine to spend $200 million or more — much of it, undoubtedly, in an attempt to label each other as too extreme for middle-of-the-road Pennsylvania.Mr. Fetterman’s progressive politics and persona appeal to younger people. They lean to the left and are always potentially influential in any election. But they are also traditionally the least reliable voters, especially in nonpresidential years.In Pennsylvania and all other battleground states, it always comes down to the math. The state’s graying electorate does not always like new things or ideas.Mr. Fetterman is ultimately going to have to go where the votes are. And if he has a problem with Black voters, he will have to solve it.Michael Sokolove, a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine, is the author of “Drama High: The Incredible True Story of a Brilliant Teacher, a Struggling Town and the Magic of Theater,” which is set in his hometown, Levittown, Pa.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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      Hard-Liners Gain in Pennsylvania G.O.P. Races, Worrying Both Parties

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      Doug Mastriano and Kathy Barnette are amplifying Donald Trump’s stolen-election lie in two key races. Republicans fear they could lose in November. Democrats fear they could win.ERIE, Pa. — Republican voters in Pennsylvania, one of the nation’s most hotly contested political battlegrounds, appear to be rallying behind two hard-right candidates for governor and the Senate who are capturing grass-roots anger, railing against the party’s old guard and amplifying Donald Trump’s stolen-election myth.With less than a week until the state’s primary election on Tuesday, polls show that State Senator Doug Mastriano — one of the state’s central figures in the former president’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election — has emerged as the clear front-runner in the G.O.P. race for governor. The candidate for Senate, Kathy Barnette, an underfunded conservative commentator who has never held public office, has made a surprise late surge in the contest that had been dominated by two big-spending rivals, Dr. Mehmet Oz and David McCormick.Mr. Mastriano has made claims of election fraud a central plank of his bid to lead a state that could be decisive in the 2024 presidential race. Ms. Barnette has a history of incendiary remarks, including repeatedly calling former President Barack Obama an adherent of Islam, which she said should be banned, and derisively writing about “the homosexual agenda.” Both candidates have endorsed each other, forging an important alliance.Now, Republicans are concerned about losing both races in November if primary voters embrace such out-of-the-mainstream candidates.Several Republican rivals to Mr. Mastriano have been gathering on private conference calls in recent days in a last-minute attempt to stop him. All agree that he would be a drag on the party, though Mr. Mastriano has yet to sustain any serious coordinated attacks. Two rivals, State Senator Jake Corman and former Representative Lou Barletta, have set a joint event on Thursday, suggesting that the field might soon consolidate, at least slightly.Democrats harbor their own fear: that the bleak 2022 political environment could nonetheless sweep into power Republicans who, in a less hostile climate, might seem unelectable.Kathy Barnette, a Republican candidate for Pennsylvania’s open U.S. Senate seat, at a candidate forum in Newtown, Pa., on Wednesday.Kriston Jae Bethel for The New York Times“Like a lot of Democrats, I’m schizophrenic on this — rooting for the crazy person because it gives us the best chance to win. But at the same time it could give us a crazy senator or a crazy governor, or both,” said Mike Mikus, a Pennsylvania-based Democratic strategist.For years, Pennsylvania has been one of the nation’s quintessential swing states, in which the clearest path to power was through the middle ground between the Democratic and Republican parties. This year’s open seats are because Senator Pat Toomey, a Republican, is retiring and Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, is term-limited.“Pennsylvania is not real good about that extreme on either side,” said Rob Gleason, a former Pennsylvania Republican Party chairman, who was one of Mr. Trump’s chief supporters in the state in 2016 but now worries about Mr. Mastriano in 2022. “No matter what you say, it’s kind of a down-the-middle type of a state.”In Pennsylvania, the governor appoints the secretary of state, the position that oversees state elections, meaning whoever wins the governorship will be overseeing the administration of one of the most coveted swing states in the 2024 presidential race.State Attorney General Josh Shapiro, the presumptive Democratic nominee for Pennsylvania governor, met with environmental advocates in Philadelphia last month.Matt Rourke/Associated PressFor months, the Senate race has been seen chiefly as a heavyweight bout between Dr. Oz, the television personality, and Mr. McCormick, the former chief executive of the world’s largest hedge fund. They and their allies have combined to spend nearly $40 million on television ads. Ms. Barnette, who ran for the House in 2020 in a Philadelphia suburb and lost by nearly 20 percentage points, had rated somewhere between afterthought and asterisk in the race until recently. But a Fox News poll on Tuesday showed the race a virtual three-way tie.To date, Ms. Barnette’s growth has been almost entirely organic, fueled by her sharp debate performances, conservative media appearances and compelling life story, which she told in her book, “Nothing to Lose, Everything to Gain: Being Black and Conservative in America.”A “byproduct of a rape,” as she describes herself, when her mother was only 11, Ms. Barnette talks about growing up “on a pig farm” in Alabama without running water and how her success represents the kind of American dream story that is now at risk.In the final week, Ms. Barnette is receiving some crucial institutional backing: the endorsement of the anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony List on Tuesday and a $2 million television advertising blitz funded by the Club for Growth, which is broadcasting her up-from-the-bootstraps message statewide.The Club for Growth, one of the biggest spenders in Republican politics, has feuded recently with Mr. Trump after running ads attacking J.D. Vance, the Republican Senate candidate in Ohio, even after Mr. Trump endorsed him. Mr. Vance won that primary, and Mr. Trump has endorsed Dr. Oz in Pennsylvania.Kathy Barnette, second from left, and Mehmet Oz, third from left, with other Republican candidates for Senate last month at a forum in Camp Hill, Pa.Matt Rourke/Associated PressIn some ways, Ms. Barnette’s candidacy is a test of whether the movement that elected Mr. Trump has taken on a life of its own. “MAGA does not belong to President Trump,” Ms. Barnette said in one April debate.Both Dr. Oz and Mr. McCormick have wooed Mr. Trump’s supporters, though it has been an awkward fit. Dr. Oz was booed at a Trump rally, Mr. McCormick was rejected by Mr. Trump, and both have faced questions of carpetbagging in a state where they did not recently live full time.Ms. Barnette has offered herself as an authentic and unfiltered version of what the Republican base wants. “Listen, this time, you do not have to hold your nose and vote for the lesser of two evils,” she said at another debate.She has also made plain that there will be no pivot to the middle if she makes it to the fall campaign.“There’s been a longstanding tradition that we want to get as moderate of a Republican coming out of the primary — someone palatable — for the general,” she said in an interview on Wednesday night at a candidate forum in eastern Pennsylvania. “In doing this, how has that worked out for them? It hasn’t really worked out very well.”In the governor’s race, the presumptive Democratic nominee, Attorney General Josh Shapiro, began running television ads last week featuring a narrator touting Mr. Mastriano’s conservative credentials: “If Mastriano wins, it’s a win for what Donald Trump stands for.” Mr. Trump has not endorsed in that contest.On Tuesday, Mr. Mastriano campaigned in Erie, Pa., with Jenna Ellis, the former co-counsel for the Trump campaign’s effort to overturn the 2020 election.“Doug Mastriano, I like to say, is the Donald Trump of Pennsylvania,” Ms. Ellis said.Mr. Mastriano was a key figure in Mr. Trump’s effort to overturn the results in Pennsylvania, a state he lost by 81,000 votes. As a freshman state senator, he held a hearing in November 2020 featuring Ms. Ellis and the Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, visited the White House shortly afterward and remained in close contact with the Trump team. State Senator Doug Mastriano speaking to Trump supporters outside the Pennsylvania State Capitol in Harrisburg a few days after Joseph R. Biden Jr. won the presidential election in 2020.Julio Cortez/Associated PressHe posted an event on Facebook offering bus rides to Washington on Jan. 6, 2021, and his campaign reported spending at least $3,000 chartering buses. But he has claimed that he left before the protest turned violent. In Erie, Mr. Mastriano, whose campaign did not respond to requests for comment, defended the rally.“It’s like, God have mercy on your soul if you dare to go and exercise your First Amendment freedom to go to D.C. on Jan. 6?” Mr. Mastriano said. “You did nothing wrong.”Among those quietly vying to coalesce Republicans around an alternative to Mr. Mastriano is Andy Reilly, one of Pennsylvania’s three Republican National Committee members. Mr. Reilly, who has not endorsed in the race, said the Shapiro campaign’s ads had “raised concerns” and sparked discussions.“The fact that the Democrats are running pro-Mastriano ads tells us that they believe he would be the weakest candidate,” said Charlie Gerow, a longtime Pennsylvania Republican operative who is running for governor and polling in the low single digits.Interviewed while stumping at a bakery in Erie, Mr. Barletta, a former congressman who beat a Democratic incumbent in 2010, called himself the strongest Mastriano alternative.Lou Barletta, a candidate for governor, with his wife and granddaughter last month in Hazleton, Pa.John Haeger/Standard-Speaker, via Associated Press“It’s been myself and Doug Mastriano” at the top of every poll, Mr. Barletta said. “Now people have to make a decision, and a lot of those undecideds need to look at who do they think has a better chance to beat Josh Shapiro.”Bill McSwain, who served as the U.S. attorney for eastern Pennsylvania during the Trump administration, is also running and has spent as much on television as the rest of the field combined, according to AdImpact, a media tracking firm. But he is also the only candidate in the race to be attacked by Mr. Trump. “Do not vote for Bill McSwain, a coward, who let our Country down,” Mr. Trump said last month in a statement attacking Mr. McSwain for not sufficiently pressing Mr. Trump’s false claims of election fraud in Pennsylvania.Mr. Gleason, the former party chairman, is backing Mr. McSwain anyway, fearful that Mr. Mastriano would lose a general election. “He would be toxic,” he said.Representative Brendan Boyle, a Pennsylvania Democrat, said he was approached on the House floor this week by colleagues from other states excited that Republicans could pick two such far-right nominees. But he said that he still remembers 2010, when seemingly unelectable Tea Party Republicans won, and then 2016, when Mr. Trump carried Pennsylvania and the presidency.“I should be happy that Republicans seem to be on the way to blowing both of these races,” Mr. Boyle said. But, he added, “I am very nervous that, lo and behold, two Republican extremists would be elected governor and senator.”For her part, Ms. Barnette, appearing this week on the podcast of Stephen Bannon, the former Trump adviser, dismissed Republican concerns that she was “too MAGA” to win in November.“Do these people have a crystal ball?” she asked. “Are they Jesus incarnate? How do they know?”Tracey Tully More

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      Senate Begins Budget Political Theater With $3.5 Trillion at Stake

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      Once again, the Senate will begin a marathon “vote-a-rama,” dealing with dozens of nonbinding amendments before the one vote that counts, passage of a $3.5 trillion budget blueprint.WASHINGTON — Some senators have tried to ban the process. Others simply say it’s the worst part of their jobs.Even Senator Robert C. Byrd, a West Virginia Democrat who created and fortified some of the chamber’s most complex rules before his death, warned the so-called vote-a-rama process could “send some old men to their deaths.”Still on Tuesday, as the Senate turned to a $3.5 trillion budget blueprint that begins the Democrats’ push to expand the social safety net, the tradition of considering hours upon hours of nonbinding budget amendments will once again get underway — with senators forcing politically sensitive votes on their rivals as campaign operatives compile a record for possible attack ads.Only one vote really matters: If all 50 Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents give final approval to the blueprint, Senate committees can begin work this fall on the most significant expansion of the safety net since the 1960s, knowing that legislation cannot be filibustered under the Senate’s complicated budget rules.But before that final vote, which looked set to come either late Tuesday or early Wednesday, senators were having to deal with a blizzard of advisory amendments, and like every vote-a-rama that preceded it, it was painful.“It’s a little bit like an extended visit to a dentist,” said Ross K. Baker, a professor of political science at Rutgers University. “The whole process is an exercise in ‘gotchas.’”The Budget Act limits Senate debate to 50 hours on a budget resolution, but over time the Senate has developed its vote-a-rama custom, which allows for an accelerated voting procedure on amendments even after the 50 hours have expired. In recent years, the practice has allowed just minutes of debate for each amendment followed by a short vote.In practice, any senator can prolong the process by offering new amendments for votes until he or she runs out of steam. The result is a procedural food fight with a silly name that does little other than keep Capitol denizens up past their bedtimes and cause twinges of political pain. (Vote-a-RAHM-a? Vote-a-RAM-a? Depends on the senator.)The amendments can range from the serious to the absurd. During a debate over health care in 2010, Senator Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma, forced a vote banning coverage of erectile dysfunction drugs for convicted sex offenders as a way to try to embarrass Democrats who supported the legislation. That prompted Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana, to condemn the amendment as a “mockery of this Senate.”But the power of the political “gotcha” is diminishing with overuse. This is the third vote-a-rama this year alone. During the last episode in March — the longest open vote in modern Senate history — the Senate entertained 37 votes on amendments. During February’s vote-a-rama, there were 41.Should Democrats successfully pass the blueprint and draft a multi-trillion-dollar package, a fourth vote-a-rama is expected in the fall.“The budget resolution is usually the platform for political theater, and both sides having votes that are designed to make a statement because none of it is binding,” said Senator Patrick J. Toomey, Republican of Pennsylvania, who plans to retire next year.Both parties have historically lamented the vote-a-rama process, but neither wants to give it up. Typically, the party in the minority — in this case, the Republicans — revels in the uncomfortable votes it can force upon the majority party that typically controls the chamber, its floor time and what gets voted on.Republicans hammered Democrats on Tuesday over the size of the spending package, the planned tax increases to pay for it and liberal proposals to rein in climate change, which they deride as part of the “Green New Deal.”Senator Bernie Sanders, who is in charge of the Senate Budget Committee, said his plan was simply “to defeat all of the poison pill amendments.”T.J. Kirkpatrick for The New York TimesSenators filed hundreds of amendments, including a list from Senator Josh Hawley, Republican of Missouri, setting up votes to, among other things, add to the budget 100,000 police officers and promote a “patriotic education in K-12 schools” that teaches “students to love America.”Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, the top Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, had previously vowed “to ferociously attack” the Democrats’ plans. Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader, said on Tuesday that Senate staff members had processed hundreds of amendments and pledged that “every single senator will be going on the record over and over and over.”Democrats largely appeared sanguine before the whole exercise. Senator Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent in charge of the Senate Budget Committee, said his plan was simply “to defeat all of the poison pill amendments.”“That’s the whole point,” said Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts. “They want to try to make us take what they think will be votes that they can use in television ads. This isn’t about legislating. This is just about jockeying for political advantage.”“We’ll have to endure a certain amount of that,” she added, “but we’ll get the budget resolution passed.”Even Republicans acknowledged that, at least with the budget blueprint, it would ultimately be a fruitless endeavor to derail a proposal that Democrats said they had the votes for.“We just continue to have conversations with colleagues on the other side of the aisle, encourage them not to support it, but I just think we’re going to get rolled,” said Senator Joni Ernst, Republican of Iowa. “They’ll wipe the slate clean at the end of the process.”Occasionally, though, a binding vote can take place. Republicans, for instance, could try to insist the Judiciary Committee be cut out of the budget reconciliation process, thus blocking the inclusion of a pathway to citizenship for millions of undocumented immigrants. (But the committee’s inclusion also meant a wider array of amendments could be considered under Senate rules, given the committee’s expansive jurisdiction.)The votes also occasionally produce a moment of truth for politicians. After many Democrats hemmed and hawed over stating their views on a $15 minimum wage this year, a forced vote on an amendment during the vote-a-rama in March revealed seven of the chamber’s more centrist Democrats opposed the increase.Despite the political risks, Mr. Baker said the votes during a vote-a-rama did not typically end up substantially hurting political candidates. Constituents tend to judge their senators on major policy issues, not votes that fly by, often after midnight.“Those kinds of votes can prove to be problematic but in a torrent of amendments, I think it becomes part of the noise,” he said. “That doesn’t mean they’re not going to be scared about it.” More

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      Conor Lamb Enters 2022 Pennsylvania Senate Race

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      Democrats sense their best chance to expand their slim hold on the Senate. Republican contenders are outdoing one another courting the “Super-MAGA-Trumpy” right wing.PITTSBURGH — Representative Conor Lamb thinks he knows what it takes for Democrats to win statewide in Pennsylvania.He looks to President Biden, whose narrow victory in the state — called four days after Election Day — put him over the top and in the White House.“People will use the word moderate,’’ Mr. Lamb said at his home in Pittsburgh’s South Hills on Thursday. “We’re a swing state. I don’t think we’re too far ideologically one way or the other.’’On Friday, at a union hall on Pittsburgh’s Hot Metal Street, Mr. Lamb announced his long-expected entry into Pennsylvania’s 2022 Senate race, vowing to “fight for every single vote across our state on every single square inch of ground,” and presenting himself as just middle-of-the-road enough to get elected statewide. The question is whether he is liberal enough to win the Democratic primary.A Marine veteran and former prosecutor, Mr. Lamb, 37, is likely the last major candidate to enter what are expected to be competitive, knockdown primary battles in both parties for the seat now held by Senator Pat Toomey, a Republican who is retiring.It is the only open seat now in Republican hands in a state that Mr. Biden carried, and Democrats see it as their best opportunity to expand their hairbreadth control of the Senate, where the 50-50 partisan split leaves Vice President Kamala Harris to cast deciding votes. A single additional seat would mean a simple Democratic majority in the Senate, and at least a sliver of insulation for the White House from the whims of individual senators who now hold enormous sway, like the moderates Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona.Mr. Lamb rose to prominence in 2018 when he won a special House election in a district that Mr. Trump had carried by double digits. He won twice more in a redrawn but still politically mixed district, staking out independent positions that included voting against Representative Nancy Pelosi for House Speaker. But while he bills himself as the strongest potential Democratic nominee precisely because of what he calls his Bidenesque, centrist approach, aspects of his record, including on guns and marijuana, are out of step with many primary voters.“Progressives are the most active in the party, and that makes it tough for Lamb,’’ said Brendan McPhillips, who ran Mr. Biden’s 2020 Pennsylvania campaign and is not working for a Senate candidate.Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, center, hopes to appeal to some working-class white voters who drifted over to support Mr. Trump.Jacqueline Dormer/Republican-Herald, via Associated PressThe early favorite of progressives and presumed front-runner for the Democratic nomination is Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, something of a folk hero to the national left, with some 400,000 Twitter followers who relish his posts in favor of “legal weed” and his frequent swipes at Mr. Manchin and Ms. Sinema for not “voting like Democrats.” As the 14-year mayor of Braddock, a poor community outside Pittsburgh, Mr. Fetterman tattooed the dates of local homicides on his arm. As lieutenant governor, he has fought to pardon longtime nonviolent inmates.Known for a casual working wardrobe of untucked tradesmen’s shirts and jeans, or even shorts, and for his imposing presence — he is 6-foot-8 with a shaved head — Mr. Fetterman, 51, hopes to appeal to some working-class white voters who drifted over to support Mr. Trump. He has lapped the field in fund-raising, pulling in $6.5 million this year.Still, Mr. Fetterman’s challenge is the flip side of Mr. Lamb’s: He could win the May primary but be seen as too liberal for Pennsylvania’s general-election voters. “He’s the candidate I think many Republicans would love to face,’’ said Jessica Taylor, an analyst for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report.A potential liability in the primary also looms for Mr. Fetterman in a 2013 incident, when he was mayor of Braddock. After hearing what he took to be gunshots, Mr. Fetterman stopped a Black jogger and held him at gunpoint until police arrived. The man turned out to be unarmed and was released. Mr. Fetterman addressed the episode in February, explaining he had made “split-second decisions” when he believed a nearby school might be in danger.Still, with police and vigilante violence against Black men a highly charged issue for Democratic voters, some party officials and strategists expressed fears that, if nominated, Mr. Fetterman could depress Black turnout. An outside group that supports the election of Black candidates has already run a radio ad in Philadelphia attacking Mr. Fetterman over the incident.“It’s most certainly an issue,” said Christopher Borick, a political scientist and pollster at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pa. “It hasn’t gone away and it keeps resurfacing. It raises red flags.”In a statement, Mr. Fetterman’s campaign noted that he had been “overwhelmingly re-elected” four months after the incident in Braddock, “a town that is 80 percent Black,” because voters there “know John, and they know this had nothing to do with race.” It added that he had gone on to “run and win statewide, and he is the only candidate running for this Senate seat who has done so.”Malcolm Kenyatta would be the first Black and first openly gay nominee if he wins the primary.Jose F. Moreno/The Philadelphia Inquirer, via Associated PressIf Democratic voters balk at Mr. Fetterman and Mr. Lamb, a path could open for alternative candidates, including Val Arkoosh, a county official in the electorally key Philadelphia suburbs and the only woman in the race, and Malcolm Kenyatta, a telegenic young state lawmaker from North Philadelphia.Mr. Kenyatta, who would be the state’s first Black and first openly gay Senate nominee if he won, has traveled extensively seeking local endorsements but lags behind his rivals in fund-raising.Ms. Arkoosh, a physician and the chair of the Board of Commissioners in Montgomery County, the state’s third largest county, has the endorsement of Emily’s List, which backs Democratic women who support abortion rights. Together, Mr. Fetterman, Mr. Lamb and Ms. Arkoosh significantly out-raised their Republican counterparts in the quarter ending in June.While Democrats see a model in Mr. Biden’s 81,000-vote victory in the state last year, which swept up suburban swing voters appalled by Mr. Trump, Republicans are currently playing almost exclusively to the Make America Great Again base, retelling the fable of a stolen 2020 election.There is a proven path to statewide victories for Republicans in Pennsylvania, one taken by two G.O.P. candidates last year who were elected treasurer and auditor general. They did so by running ahead of Mr. Trump in the suburbs of Philadelphia, Harrisburg and Pittsburgh, where many college-educated voters had traditionally supported Republicans but were repelled by the bullying, divisive former president.Val Arkoosh, a county official in the Philadelphia suburbs, is the only woman in the Democratic primary.Gene J. Puskar/Associated PressMr. Toomey, the retiring Republican senator, warned recently, “Candidates will have to run on ideas and principles, not on allegiance to a man.’’But few of the Republicans vying to succeed him seem to have listened.Sean Parnell, a former Army Ranger who lost a House race last year to Mr. Lamb, sued to throw out all 2.6 million Pennsylvania mail-in votes, a case the U.S. Supreme Court rejected, and has said he supports an Arizona-style audit of Pennsylvania’s 2020 ballots. Donald Trump Jr. has endorsed his Senate bid. And Jeff Bartos, a real estate developer and major party donor from the Philadelphia area who was expected to appeal to suburban voters, has similarly courted the Trump base, calling for a “full forensic audit” of Pennsylvania’s election, though multiple courts threw out suits claiming fraud or official misconduct.Neither Mr. Parnell nor Mr. Bartos raised as much money in the recent quarter as a dark-horse candidate, Kathy Barnette, a former financial executive who lost a congressional race in Philadelphia’s Main Line last year. Ms. Barnette has pushed claims of voter fraud on the far-right cable outlets Newsmax and OAN. A longtime Republican consultant in the state, Christopher Nicholas, said there were three lanes available to G.O.P. candidates: “Super-MAGA-Trumpy, Trump-adjacent, and not-so-much-Trump.”Lately, he said, almost everyone has elbowed into the “Super-MAGA-Trumpy” lane.“As a Republican, you have to watch how far to the right you go to win the primary, that it doesn’t do irreparable harm to them in the general election,’’ Mr. Nicholas said.Mr. Lamb faces a similar challenge as a moderate in the Democratic primary.He is sure to be hit hard over some past positions, including his opposition to an assault weapons ban in 2019 and his vote the previous year to extend permanently the Trump administration’s individual tax cuts.More recently, Mr. Lamb has stayed more in step with his party: In April, he endorsed Mr. Biden’s call to ban future assault weapons sales; in May, he endorsed ending the filibuster.Mr. Lamb said in an interview that the assault on the Capitol had been a turning point for him, particularly in how Republican leaders had come around to embrace Mr. Trump’s false charge that the 2020 vote had been rigged.He alluded to that again in his announcement speech on Friday: “If they will take such a big lie and place it at the center of the party,” he said of G.O.P. leaders, “you cannot expect them to tell the truth about anything else.” More

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      Donations Surge for Republicans Who Challenged Election Results

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      The lawmakers, who encouraged their followers to protest in Washington on Jan. 6, have capitalized on the riot to draw huge campaign donations.WASHINGTON — Republicans who were the most vocal in urging their followers to come to Washington on Jan. 6 to try to reverse President Donald J. Trump’s loss, pushing to overturn the election and stoking the grievances that prompted the deadly Capitol riot, have profited handsomely in its aftermath, according to new campaign data.Senators Josh Hawley of Missouri and Ted Cruz of Texas, who led the challenges to President Biden’s victory in their chamber, each brought in more than $3 million in campaign donations in the three months that followed the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia who called the rampage a “1776 moment” and was later stripped of committee assignments for espousing bigoted conspiracy theories and endorsing political violence, raised $3.2 million — more than the individual campaign of Representative Kevin McCarthy, the minority leader, and nearly every other member of House leadership.A New York Times analysis of the latest Federal Election Commission disclosures illustrates how the leaders of the effort to overturn Mr. Biden’s electoral victory have capitalized on the outrage of their supporters to collect huge sums of campaign cash. Far from being punished for encouraging the protest that turned lethal, they have thrived in a system that often rewards the loudest and most extreme voices, using the fury around the riot to build their political brands. The analysis examined the individual campaign accounts of lawmakers, not joint fund-raising committees or leadership political action committees.“The outrage machine is powerful at inducing political contributions,” said Carlos Curbelo, a former Republican congressman from Florida.Shortly after the storming of the Capitol, some prominent corporations and political action committees vowed to cut off support for the Republicans who had fanned the flames of anger and conspiracy that resulted in violence. But any financial blowback from corporate America appears to have been dwarfed by a flood of cash from other quarters.Representative Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina, a freshman who urged his supporters to “lightly threaten” Republican lawmakers to goad them into challenging the election results, pulled in more than $1 million. Representative Lauren Boebert of Colorado — who like Ms. Greene compared Jan. 6 to the American Revolution — took in nearly $750,000.The sums reflect an emerging incentive structure in Washington, where the biggest provocateurs can parlay their notoriety into small-donor successes that can help them amass an even higher profile. It also illustrates the appetites of a Republican base of voters who have bought into Mr. Trump’s false claims of widespread election fraud and are eager to reward those who worked to undermine the outcome of a free and fair election.Most of the dozens of corporations that pledged to cut off any Republican who supported overturning the election kept that promise, withholding political action committee donations during the most recent quarter. But for the loudest voices on Capitol Hill, that did not matter, as an energized base of pro-Trump donors rallied to their side and more than made up the shortfall.“We’re really seeing the emergence of small donors in the Republican Party,” said Alex Conant, a Republican strategist. “In the past, Democrats have been the ones who have benefited most from small-dollar donations. We’re seeing the Republicans rapidly catching up.”Lawmakers have long benefited richly from divisive news coverage, especially around prominent events that play to the emotions of an enraged or fearful voter base. But the new filings illustrate a growing chasm between those who raise money through a bombastic profile — often bolstered by significant fund-raising expenditures — and those who have focused their attentions on serious policy work.As provocative freshmen like Ms. Greene, Ms. Boebert and Mr. Cawthorn took in high-dollar figures, other more conventional members of their class in competitive districts — even those praised for their fund-raising prowess — were substantially behind.For instance, Ashley Hinson of Iowa and Young Kim of California, both of whom opposed the electoral challenges and have worked on bipartisan bills, each took in less than $600,000.Ms. Greene, Ms. Boebert and Mr. Cawthorn raised more money than the top Republicans on the most powerful committees in Congress, such as appropriations, budget, education and labor, foreign affairs and homeland security.In many cases, Republican lawmakers who fanned the flames of the Jan. 6 violence have since benefited by casting themselves as victims of a political backlash engineered by the Washington establishment, and appealed to their supporters.“Pennsylvania wasn’t following their own state’s election law, but the establishment didn’t want to hear it. But that’s not who I work for,” Mr. Hawley wrote in January in a fund-raising message. “I objected because I wanted to make sure your voice was heard. Now, Biden and his woke mob are coming after me. I need your help.”Ms. Greene fund-raised off a successful effort to exile her from committees, led by furious Democrats incensed at her past talk in support of executing Speaker Nancy Pelosi and encouraging her followers to “Stop the Steal” on Jan. 6. Setting goals of raising $150,000 each day in the days before and after the unusual vote, she surpassed them every time.“The D.C. swamp and the fake news media are attacking me because I am not one of them,” one such solicitation read. “I am one of you. And they hate me for it.”But the polarizing nature of Mr. Trump also helped some Republicans who took him to task for his behavior surrounding the events of Jan. 6.Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the No. 3 House Republican who voted to impeach Mr. Trump, took in $1.5 million, and Representative Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, who has started an organization to lead the Republican Party away from fealty to Mr. Trump, raised more than $1.1 million.“It’s obvious that there’s a strong market for Trumpism in the Republican base,” Mr. Curbelo said. “There is also a strong market for truth-telling and supporting the Constitution.”Mr. Conant questioned how much of the fund-raising surge for some candidates was directly tied to the Capitol assault, which he said the conservative news media had generally “moved on” from covering.Instead, he said that Republican voters were “very nervous” about the direction of the country under Democratic control and were eager to support Republicans they viewed as fighting a liberal agenda.“It pays to be high-profile,” Mr. Conant said. “It’s more evidence that there’s not a lot of grass-roots support for milquetoast middle of the road. It doesn’t mean you have to be pro-Trump. It just means you need to take strong positions, and then connect with those supporters.”But if the Republican civil war has paid campaign dividends for fighters on both sides, individual Democrats involved in prosecuting Mr. Trump for the riot in his impeachment trial have not reaped a similar windfall.With her $3.2 million raised this quarter, Ms. Greene brought in more money than the combined total raised by all nine impeachment managers — even though they won widespread applause in liberal circles for their case against the former president. Three of the managers have raised less than $100,000 each over the past three months, according to the data.Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene brought in more than the combined total raised by nine impeachment managers, three of whom raised less than $100,000 over the past three months.Anna Moneymaker for The New York TimesAs money pours into campaigns, the Jan. 6 assault has also resulted in much spending around security precautions.The Federal Election Commission expanded guidance allowing lawmakers to use campaign contributions to install residential security systems at their homes, and top Capitol Hill security told lawmakers to consider upgrading their home security systems to include panic buttons and key fobs.Campaign filings show nearly a dozen lawmakers have made payments of $20,000 or more to security companies in the past three months, including Senator Patrick J. Toomey, Republican of Pennsylvania, who voted to convict Mr. Trump; Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York, who gave a harrowing account of the riot; and Representative Eric Swalwell, Democrat of California and one of the impeachment managers against Mr. Trump.Mr. Cruz and Mr. Hawley were also among the biggest spenders on security.Lauren Hirsch More

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      If There Was a Republican Civil War, It Appears to Be Over

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyOpinionSupported byContinue reading the main storyIf There Was a Republican Civil War, It Appears to Be OverThe party belongs to Trump for as long as he wants it.Opinion ColumnistFeb. 17, 2021A Trump supporter wearing a paper mask of the former president’s face at a rally in Pennsylvania in 2018.Credit…Damon Winter/The New York TimesThat there is a backlash against the seven Republican senators who voted to convict Donald Trump of inciting a mob against Congress is not that shocking. What is shocking is how fast it happened.Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, for example, was immediately censured by the Louisiana Republican Party. “We condemn, in the strongest possible terms, the vote today by Senator Cassidy to convict former President Trump,” the party announced on Twitter. Another vote to convict, Richard Burr of North Carolina, was similarly rebuked by his state party, which censured him on Monday. Senators Ben Sasse of Nebraska and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania are also in hot water with their respective state parties, which see a vote against Trump as tantamount to treason. “We did not send him there to vote his conscience. We did not send him there to do the right thing or whatever he said he’s doing,” one Pennsylvania Republican Party official explained. “We sent him there to represent us.”That this backlash was completely expected, even banal, should tell you everything you need to know about the so-called civil war in the Republican Party. It doesn’t exist. Outside of a rump faction of (occasional) dissidents, there is no truly meaningful anti-Trump opposition within the party. The civil war, such as it was, ended four-and-a-half years ago when Trump accepted the Republican nomination for president.If there’s a conflict, it’s less a war and more a small skirmish with an outmatched and outnumbered opponent. Seventy-five percent of Republicans want Trump to continue to “play a prominent role in the Republican Party,” according to a new poll from Quinnipiac University, and 87 percent say he should be allowed to “hold elected office in the future.” A recent survey from Morning Consult likewise shows Trump far ahead of his rivals in a hypothetical 2024 matchup, with 54 percent support versus 12 percent for the runner-up, Mike Pence.The Republican Party belongs to Trump for as long as he wants it. Its most prominent politicians will follow his lead and attempt to build on his example. His children and in-laws will have a place as heirs to his legacy. If Trump decides to seek the White House for a second term, the nomination is almost certainly his to lose.What does it mean, in practice, for Trump to retain this strong a hold over the Republican Party? Since “Trumpism” isn’t a policy platform as much as it is a singular devotion to the man himself, a Trumpified Republican Party is one in which candidates do everything they can to shape themselves in his image. Just look at the candidates who would like to be president, if Trump doesn’t run. Most of them were, at some point before he became president, critics, with harsh words for Trump’s policies, personality and proclivities. These days, however, they’re his biggest fans.Ted Cruz has adopted a version of Trump’s Twitter presence, using the platform to stoke anti-liberal resentment and attack perceived cultural enemies. The Texas senator, who by virtue of his legislative seat and second-place finish in the last Republican primary, is one of the most high-profile politicians in the country. But he has more to say about personnel changes at Disney than the problems facing his constituents.Nikki Haley hasn’t tried to emulate Trump, but she knows not to keep too much distance between them. In December, when Trump was still working to overturn the election through the courts, the former U.N. ambassador and South Carolina governor defended him to Politico’s Tim Alberta. “He believes he’s following that oath,” Haley said of the then-president. “This would be different if he was being deceptive.” Just a few weeks later, after the attack on the Capitol, when it looked for a moment like Republicans might break with Trump, she told a crowd at the Republican National Committee’s winter meeting that “His actions since Election Day will be judged harshly by history.” But when it was clear that Trump was still in command of the party, she switched gears. “Give the man a break!” she said in an interview on Fox News in late January arguing against impeachment.Even state and legislative candidates are borrowing from Trump and aligning themselves with his political movement. Here where I live, in Virginia, Amanda Chase and Kirk Cox, Republican candidates for governor, are running on guns and “cancel culture,” with Chase still treating Trump as if he were the rightful president. Josh Mandel, running for Senate in Ohio, reintroduced himself to voters as a pro-MAGA Republican. “I’m going to Washington to advance a Trump America First Agenda and to stand up for economic freedom and individual liberty,” he told Fox News.The impeachment trial was the Republican Party’s last chance to rid itself of Trump. Had 10 more Republicans joined their colleagues in the Senate, the former president would have been on the way to being barred from future office. Presidential hopefuls like Cruz (or Josh Hawley or Marco Rubio) would have cleared out at least one obstacle to their ambition. But, in a repeat of the 2016 primary, no one wants to take the risk of losing his supporters and thus any chance at the nomination or the White House.Just as it was five years ago, the hope is to come ahead somehow without confronting Trump, to win his voters without challenging his status among Republicans. Maybe, if Trump leaves politics to monetize his post-presidency, this will work. So far, that is not looking likely; Trump still speaks as if he is the party and the party is him. In a statement attacking Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, Trump bragged that he was responsible for what Republican success there was last year. “In 2020, I received the most votes of any sitting president in history, almost 75,000,000. Every incumbent House Republican won for the first time in decades, and we flipped 15 seats, almost costing Nancy Pelosi her job.”With Trump’s grip on the party and its image what it is, the outcome we’re most likely to see is the one we already experienced: a Republican Party with Trump at its head, committed to nothing but his insatiable ego.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.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More