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in ElectionsTrump Under Fire From Within GOP After Midterms
“Republicans have followed Donald Trump off the side of a cliff,” a longtime adviser said.Donald J. Trump faced unusual public attacks from across the Republican Party on Wednesday after a string of midterm losses by candidates he had handpicked and supported, a display of weakness as he prepared to announce a third presidential campaign as soon as next week.As the sheer number of missed Republican opportunities sank in, the rush to openly blame Mr. Trump was as immediate as it was surprising.Conservative allies criticized Mr. Trump on social media and cable news, questioning whether he should continue as the party’s leader and pointing to his toxic political brand as the common thread woven through three consecutive lackluster election cycles.Mr. Trump was seen as largely to blame for the Republicans’ underwhelming finish in Tuesday’s elections, as a number of the candidates he had endorsed in competitive races were defeated — including nominees for governor and Senate in Pennsylvania and for governor of Michigan, New York and Wisconsin.“Republicans have followed Donald Trump off the side of a cliff,” David Urban, a longtime Trump adviser with ties to Pennsylvania, said in an interview.Former Representative Peter King, a Republican from Long Island who has long supported Mr. Trump, said, “I strongly believe he should no longer be the face of the Republican Party,” adding that the party “can’t become a personality cult.”The chorus of criticism, which unfolded on Fox News and social media throughout the day, revealed Mr. Trump to be at his most vulnerable point politically since the aftermath of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.Still, Mr. Trump has built a deep well of loyalty with Republican voters, and party officials cautioned that it was too soon to tell whether he would suffer any lasting political damage beyond a flurry of bad headlines, or whether a rival will emerge to challenge him. Mr. Trump has built a career on outlasting political controversy, and Trump aides insisted that any suggestion of weakness was a media confection.“I am proud to endorse Donald Trump for president in 2024,” Representative Elise Stefanik, a New York Republican, said in a statement. “It is time for Republicans to unite around the most popular Republican in America who has a proven track record of conservative governance.”Senator-elect J.D. Vance, Republican from Ohio and an early choice of Mr. Trump, said he believed Mr. Trump would be the nominee if he runs. “Every year, the media writes Donald Trump’s political obituary. And every year, we’re quickly reminded that Trump remains the most popular figure in the Republican Party,” he said. And Representative Jim Banks of Indiana said he supported Mr. Trump, who “transformed our party.”Who Will Control Congress? Here’s When We’ll Know.Card 1 of 4Much remains uncertain. More
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in ElectionsWhat We Know Now About the Midterms: Election Deniers, Trump and More
As partisans and pundits digested the shock of the 2022 midterm elections on Wednesday, some new themes emerged. Finger-pointing among Republicans. Mixed results for election deniers. The return of choosy voters. And a more nuanced picture on the impact of abortion.Here are four fresh takeaways on the first full day of reckoning for both parties:Trump had a bad day.Many Republicans lit up cable news and conservative websites on Wednesday with withering criticism of the former president they once championed — and, in some cases, worked to elect or defended once in office.It was clear that many in the G.O.P. political class were angry about the outcome of an election they assumed would go much better for their side. It was far less clear whether their fury was shared by Republican voters — or the man in Mar-a-Lago, who congratulated himself from a “personal standpoint” as he grudgingly acknowledged a “somewhat disappointing” election in general.But Republican operatives, using words like “disaster” or “debacle” and making unflattering comparisons between former President Donald J. Trump and various circus acts, anvils, mental patients and even the Pied Piper of Hamelin, lashed the head of their party and openly wished for someone to seize his crown.Some Republican operatives even said they were reconsidering pursuing jobs with the third Trump presidential campaign, they reported — as others urged him to delay an announcement until after the runoff election for Senate in Georgia.Who Will Control Congress? Here’s When We’ll Know.Card 1 of 4Much remains uncertain. More
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in ElectionsIn Arizona’s Race for Governor, Hobbs Takes a Narrow Lead
PEORIA, Ariz. — In a cramped campaign office tucked in a strip mall, Katie Hobbs, the Democratic nominee for governor, was hours away from Election Day and trying to rally volunteers while also tempering expectations.“I think this state is still a red state,” Ms. Hobbs said, pointing to Republicans’ advantage over Democrats in voter registration numbers. “We are exactly where we thought we would be in terms of the closeness of this race. We knew it was going to come down to the wire.”Ms. Hobbs always cautioned the race would be tight. What some Republicans — and even some Democrats — in Arizona did not realize was just how tight.Ms. Hobbs, Arizona’s secretary of state, rose to national prominence when she helped certify the results of the 2020 presidential election, defending the integrity of the state’s electoral system against prolonged efforts by former President Donald J. Trump’s allies to overturn the count.But she struggled to compete against her Trump-endorsed Republican rival, the charismatic and pugilistic Kari Lake.Who Will Control Congress? Here’s When We’ll Know.Card 1 of 4Much remains uncertain. More
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in ElectionsIn New Book, Pence Reflects on Trump and Jan. 6
“You’re too honest,” President Donald J. Trump said as he pressured his vice president to intervene to block Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory.Former President Donald J. Trump told Mike Pence that he was “too honest” when he balked at the idea he could unilaterally sway the outcome of the 2020 election as Mr. Trump mounted an intense pressure campaign to bend Mr. Pence to his will, the former vice president writes in his upcoming memoir.In “So Help Me God,” to be published Tuesday, Mr. Pence offers not only his first extensive comments about his experiences with Mr. Trump after the election and during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack at the Capitol by a mob of Trump supporters, but also his first lengthy reflections on the 2016 campaign and the four years that followed.Mr. Pence describes in detail Mr. Trump’s efforts to pressure him into blocking congressional certification of Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory through the ceremonial role he would play on Jan. 6. Mr. Trump became preoccupied with the idea that Mr. Pence could do something, although Mr. Pence’s chief lawyer had concluded that there was no legal authority for him to act on Mr. Trump’s behalf.Mr. Pence describes escaping rioters at the Capitol on the day he presided over the certification of the 2020 election results.Erin Schaff/The New York TimesHe writes that questions about whether there had been election fraud were swirling around Mr. Trump’s advisers early on. “Jared Kushner called me that day for advice,” he writes about the Saturday after Election Day. “He asked if I thought that fraud had taken place in the election.” Mr. Pence writes that he replied that there was likely some fraud in the election but he doubted it was why they lost.Mr. Trump, Mr. Pence writes, tried various means of pressuring him, including mentioning that Mr. Pence was trending on Twitter in connection with speculation about what he would do. “If you want to be popular,” Mr. Trump said, suggesting that he should not take part in the certification at all, “don’t do it.”By the first days of 2021, when Representative Louis Gohmert, Republican of Texas, sued to try to force Mr. Pence to declare the winner of the election, Mr. Trump was upset that his vice president opposed the suit.“You’re too honest,” Mr. Trump said, according to Mr. Pence, who recounts Mr. Trump telling him that “hundreds of thousands are gonna hate your guts” and “people are gonna think you’re stupid.”Mr. Pence describes in the book how Mr. Trump worked with the conservative lawyer John Eastman to press him into doing something that the vice president was clear that he could not and would not do. He writes that on the morning of Jan. 6, Mr. Trump twisted the knife again in a phone call.“You’ll go down as a wimp,” the president told the vice president. “If you do that, I made a big mistake five years ago!”Donald Trump announcing Mike Pence as his running mate in July 2016. “Seeing those people tearing up the Capitol infuriated me,” Mr. Pence says he told the president after the Jan. 6 riot.Doug Mills/The New York TimesThe vice president also shares dramatic details about escaping the rioters who had entered the Capitol while he was presiding over the certification that day. He confirms that he refused to leave the building when his lead Secret Service agent, Tim Giebels, pushed for him to do so as protesters swarmed the building, some chanting “Hang Mike Pence.”“I told my detail that I wasn’t leaving my post,” Mr. Pence writes. “Mr. Giebels pleaded for us to leave. The rioters had reached our floor. I pointed my finger at his chest and said: ‘You’re not hearing me, Tim. I’m not leaving! I’m not giving those people the sight of a 16-car motorcade speeding away from the Capitol.’”When they went to an underground loading dock, Mr. Giebels tried getting Mr. Pence into a car just as a place to wait, but he declined.Mr. Pence also confirms that Mr. Trump never reached out to him to check on his safety. But when Mr. Kushner and Ivanka Trump asked Mr. Pence to meet with Mr. Trump five days after the riot, he agreed.“He looked tired, and his voice seemed more faint than usual,” Mr. Pence writes of Mr. Trump at that point.“‘How are you?’ he began. ‘How are Karen and Charlotte?’”Mr. Pence writes that he “replied tersely that we were fine” and told him that his wife and daughter had been at the Capitol on Jan. 6. “He responded with a hint of regret,” Mr. Pence recounts. “‘I just learned that.’ He then asked, ‘Were you scared?’”Mr. Pence replied that he was angry: “You and I had our differences that day, Mr. President, and seeing those people tearing up the Capitol infuriated me.”Mr. Trump began to protest that “people were angry, but his voice trailed off,” Mr. Pence writes, adding that he told Mr. Trump that he needed to let it go. “Yeah,” Mr. Trump replied quietly.As they talked, Mr. Pence writes, Mr. Trump said “with genuine sadness in his voice”: “What if we hadn’t had the rally? What if they hadn’t gone to the Capitol?” He added, “It’s too terrible to end like this.”Mr. Pence offers up views about key moments in the administration, such as relocating the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, as well as the controversy over Mr. Trump’s remarks regarding the march of white supremacists in Charlottesville, Va.He defended Mr. Trump, insisting that he thought the criticisms had been unfair. “Donald Trump is not antisemitic,” Mr. Pence insists. “He’s not a racist or a bigot. I would not have been his vice president if he was.”He also writes admiringly about Mr. Kushner and John Kelly, the second White House chief of staff, who he said brought a sense of order to the West Wing. However, he had much harsher words for Mark Meadows, the final chief of staff to Mr. Trump, who has been a focus of some of the investigations into what led to the Capitol riot.“In the waning days of the administration, one of his successors, Mark Meadows, a congressman from North Carolina, would fling the doors to the Oval Office wide open, allowing people in who should not even have set foot on the White House grounds, let alone have access to Trump,” Mr. Pence writes. More
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in Elections‘It Could Have Been Worse’ Never Felt This Good
Doesn’t it feel as if we’ve been watching the Senate race in Georgia since the War of 1812?It’s true that midterm vote-counting in general could go on forever. But the Democrats’ 50-50 control of the Senate might very well come down to Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker.No offense, Georgians, but we’re kinda tired of spending our political lives waiting to see what you do next. Warnock, the Democratic incumbent, seems to have gotten the most votes, but Georgia requires the winner to have more than 50 percent, and this year there’s a Libertarian candidate whose 2 percent showing made that nearly impossible.On to the Dec. 6 runoff. Meanwhile, your Thanksgiving dinner conversation can feature Walker’s sex scandals. Which have sort of distracted us from the fact that he knows close to nothing about public affairs. Or pretty much anything non-footballian. ( “What the heck is a pronoun?”)Now inquiring minds will also want to discuss the situation in the House, where the distinctly less athletic Republican Kevin McCarthy might get his dream of becoming the speaker.Yeah, once we get the votes all counted, Republicans may well have control, and McCarthy could spend the next two years investigating Hunter Biden. But at best he’d have a tiny majority, giving every one of his rank-and-file members outrageous sway. McCarthy’s nights would be haunted less by powerful Democrats than crazy Republicans like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz.What do you think? If you’re not obsessed with Georgia, here’s another option for analyzing the midterm returns: We’ll call it W.W.M.T.N. That is, What Would Make Trump Nuts?So far on that front we have a pretty clean sweep. One of the biggest winners of the night was Ron DeSantis, the Republican governor of Florida, and possible presidential candidate in 2024. (Very, very possible, if you remember his blank stare at the camera when he was asked if he’d promise, if re-elected, to complete the next four-year term.)DeSantis certainly did win by a large margin, although you have to consider he was running against Charlie Crist, a former Republican and former independent who was Florida’s governor in between multitudinous, often-unsuccessful attempts to get elected to … something.Now, Donald Trump wants to change the subject by making what could be his running-for-president announcement next week.The timing is a sign of how miserable he is when he’s not the center of attention. As well as his all-purpose hatred for DeSantis, who he recently called DeSanctimonious. (Not actually the worst choice of an insult, given the fact that DeSantis released a campaign video in which God was mentioned more often than Florida.)Trump was pretty busy during campaign season, meeting and greeting folks at Mar-a-Lago and giving speeches, in which he occasionally managed to stop talking about himself long enough to mention the Republicans he was there to support.When it came to endorsements, our ex-president had a pretty clear idea of how important his blessing was: “I think if they win, I should get all the credit, and if they lose, I should not be blamed at all,” he said in an interview.He certainly hates hates hates to be connected with any of the week’s failures, like Mehmet Oz, who lost what was probably the biggest Senate race of the season to John Fetterman in Pennsylvania. “Trump is indeed furious,” tweeted our Maggie Haberman, “ … blaming everyone who advised him to back Oz, including his wife, describing it as ‘not her best decision,’ according to people close to him.”OK, folks. Think about people Melania Trump has decided to align herself with over the course of her life and tell me whether you think Dr. Oz was the worst selection.We’re not going to know the total, complete outcome of the elections for ages, but there’s already plenty to mull. For instance, Senator Chuck Grassley got re-elected in Iowa at the age of 89. He makes Joe Biden look like a spring chicken. Or at least an early-fall rooster. If the Republicans win the Senate, Grassley will be president pro tempore, third in line for the presidency. Biden will turn 80 this month, and second-in-line Nancy Pelosi is 82. I’m extremely happy to see age discrimination getting a whack, but gee whiz.What do you think is going to happen next on the political front? Well, you may finally be able to look through your texts and messages without stumbling over several dozen requests for campaign contributions. Although if you’re on Trump’s mailing list, things will just keep on coming.“Do you want President Trump to run in 2024?” demanded one of his many, many missives on Wednesday. Another began, unnecessarily, “If you want me to run in 2024,” then asked, “who should my Vice President be?”Hmm. How about Dr. Oz? He doesn’t seem to have anything else to do.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 ElectionsSee Which 2020 Election Deniers and Skeptics Won in the Midterm Elections
Senate House Governor Attorney General Secretary of State More than 210 Republicans who questioned the 2020 election have won seats in the U.S. House and Senate and in state races for governor, secretary of state and attorney general, according to results as of 7 a.m. on Wednesday. More than 30 of them have denied President […] More
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in ElectionsMidterm Election Results
The majorities in the House and the Senate remain uncalled. Here’s what we know. Democrats defied expectations in the midterm elections, potentially defending enough seats to maintain control of the Senate but likely not enough to keep Republicans from taking the House. The battle for power in Congress stood too close to call this morning.The Democrats’ biggest win of the night came in the Pennsylvania Senate race, where John Fetterman defeated Dr. Mehmet Oz to flip the seat, which is held by the retiring Republican Pat Toomey. Three other races critical to the outcome of Senate control — Arizona, Georgia and Nevada — were too close to call. Democrats, who are running incumbents in all three seats, probably need to win two to keep the Senate; Republicans have to pick off two to take over.We may not know who won the Senate for some time: Georgia’s contest appears headed to a runoff election, to be held in December. (See the latest Senate results.)In the House, Republicans are favored to win control, but they appear to be on track to do so by less than many political observers expected. The Times forecasts that Republicans will end up with 224 seats, just above the 218 needed to secure a majority. That result would be the weakest performance by the president’s opposing party in a midterm election since 2002. “This is not the night the Republicans wanted,” Nate Cohn, The Times’s chief political analyst, wrote. “The party is underperforming most everywhere.” (See the latest House results.)* Incumbent | Results as of 6 a.m. E.T. | Source: The Associated PressFor President Biden, a Republican-controlled House dooms his chances of passing the rest of his agenda in the next two years. Keeping the Senate would let Democrats continue approving Biden’s nominations for his administration and the courts.Here’s where we stand:Three high-profile Republican governors — Ron DeSantis of Florida, Greg Abbott of Texas and Brian Kemp of Georgia — won re-election. In Pennsylvania, Josh Shapiro, the Democratic candidate for governor, easily beat Doug Mastriano, an election denier. Democratic incumbents won in Wisconsin and Michigan.Voters in Vermont, California and Michigan approved constitutional amendments protecting abortion and reproductive rights. An anti-abortion ballot initiative in Kentucky was too close to call. More than 210 Republicans who questioned the 2020 election won seats in Congress and in state races. Whether and how Republicans who lose will accept defeat is a major unknown.Many of Donald Trump’s most prominent endorsements came up short. He delivered brief remarks at a Mar-a-Lago party last night, and made no mention of DeSantis, a potential 2024 rival.America leaves these midterms much as it entered, The Times’s Lisa Lerer writes: a divided country that remains anchored in a narrow range of the political spectrum.It could take days to get all the results. Here’s a potential timeline.SenateMany of the biggest contests are too close to call. Here’s where the rest of the major races stand:Georgia: Raphael Warnock, the Democratic incumbent, leads Herschel Walker, the Trump-backed former football star, but the race appeared headed to a Dec. 6 runoff. Nevada: The race between Catherine Cortez Masto, a one-term Democratic incumbent, and Adam Laxalt, the state’s election-denying former attorney general, remained too close to call. Many ballots are left to count.Arizona: Mark Kelly, the Democratic incumbent, led Blake Masters, a Trump-endorsed venture capitalist, according to The Times’s election needle. The race was leaning toward Kelly.Wisconsin: Ron Johnson, the Republican incumbent, narrowly led Mandela Barnes, the state’s Democratic lieutenant governor.Republicans held on to seats in Ohio, where J.D. Vance, a critic-turned-defender of Trump, beat Tim Ryan, a Democratic member of Congress., and in North Carolina, where Ted Budd, a Republican member of Congress, defeated Cheri Beasley, the state’s Democratic former chief justice.Maggie Hassan, a two-term Democratic incumbent in New Hampshire, easily beat Don Bolduc, a Republican retired Army general who had questioned the 2020 election results.HouseHeaded into the election, Democrats held a narrow majority in the House: 220 to 212. Republicans needed to win 19 competitive seats to take control. So far, they have won five. Democrats would need to win 46 to keep control and have claimed 19.Republicans flipped seats in New Jersey and Virginia. In New York’s Hudson Valley, Mike Lawler was leading Sean Patrick Maloney, the head of the Democrats’ House campaign arm.Marjorie Taylor Greene, once a political pariah, glided to victory in her predominantly Republican district.Democrats flipped Republican-held House seats in Ohio and Michigan and held on to vulnerable seats in Virginia, New Hampshire and elsewhere.Marcy Kaptur, a Democrat, won re-election in an Ohio district redrawn to favor Republicans. She is set to become the longest-serving woman in congressional history.Mary Peltola, a Democrat and the first Alaska Native elected to Congress, was ahead of Republicans Sarah Palin and Nick Begich in Alaska’s sole House election.Vermont elected Becca Balint, a progressive Democrat, to its lone House seat, becoming the last U.S. state to send a woman to Congress.Maxwell Frost, a 25-year-old Democrat, will become the first Gen Z member of Congress after winning a Florida House seat.GovernorsGov. Ron DeSantis won re-election in Florida.Scott McIntyre for The New York TimesHeaded into Election Day, Republicans controlled 28 governors’ mansions, while Democrats controlled 22. Democrats flipped the governorships of Maryland and Massachusetts. Some notable races:Florida: DeSantis won historically Democratic parts of the state, giving his party an unusually strong performance. The results may boost his prospects as a potential 2024 presidential candidate.Arizona: The race between Kari Lake, a former TV news anchor who falsely claims Trump won the 2020 election, and Katie Hobbs, the Democratic secretary of state, remained uncalled.New York: Kathy Hochul won a full term, beating Lee Zeldin, a Republican member of Congress, in one of the state’s closest races in decades.Maine: Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat, won a second term, defeating Paul LePage, the Republican former governor.Michigan: The incumbent Democrat, Gretchen Whitmer, defeated the Trump-endorsed Tudor Dixon.Arkansas: Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Trump’s former press secretary, will be the state’s first female governor.Texas: Gov. Greg Abbott won a third term, beating Beto O’Rourke, a Democrat.Massachusetts: Maura Healey, a Democrat, became the nation’s first openly lesbian governor, flipping control of the governorship from Republicans.Maryland elected Wes Moore, a Democratic former nonprofit executive, as its first Black governor.Races in Nevada and Oregon remained uncalled.Ballot measuresMaryland and Missouri voted to legalize recreational marijuana. Similar efforts failed in Arkansas and North Dakota.Washington, D.C., overwhelmingly voted for a higher minimum wage for tipped workers.Ballot initiatives restricting forced prison labor passed in Alabama, Tennessee and Vermont and failed in Louisiana. Results in Oregon were too early to call.Commentary“Big winners tonight: Biden, who lost far fewer congressional seats than historical averages; reproductive rights, which proves a major issue among voters; democracy, with huge voter turnout and many high-profile election deniers losing big.” — Mark Updegrove, historian“There wasn’t a red wave. That is a searing indictment of the Republican Party. That is a searing indictment of the message that we have been sending to the voters.” — Marc Thiessen, Washington Post columnist and Fox News commentator“If you’re worried about the health of our democracy, it seems pretty good that we’ve had big turnout — implying that both sides think their votes actually matter.” — Farhad Manjoo, Times Opinion columnist“Voters weren’t necessarily looking to move the country left or right. They were anxious about the ways our country feels like it is unraveling. They went looking for a safe harbor in a storm.” — Kristen Soltis Anderson, Republican pollster“Dems have a Florida problem, but Republicans have a Trump problem. That seems harder to solve.” — Jen Psaki, former Biden press secretaryTHE LATEST NEWSEuropean leaders announced funding for poorer nations damaged by climate change.Climate change already has a growing impact on almost every aspect of U.S. society, a federal report found.Meta, Facebook’s parent company, said it was cutting more than 11,000 employees, about 13 percent of its work force.Brittney Griner, the W.N.B.A. star, is being transferred to a Russian penal colony.A $2 billion lottery ticket was sold in Los Angeles County.MORNING READSLeading artist: Revisiting Winston Churchill’s paintings.Stolen Rolex: A high-drama divorce in Italian soccer royalty.Full-body workout: You can do it in 20 minutes.Lives Lived: Evelyn de Rothschild, heir to a European banking dynasty, might have become a playboy. Instead, he joined the family business and helped reshape the British economy. He died at 91.PLAY, WATCH, EATDavid Malosh for The New York TimesWhat to CookMelted Cheddar and fermented kimchi make instant ramen even more satisfying.What to ReadYuval Noah Harari rewrote the story of human history for kids.Late NightStephen Colbert called Republican victories “a pink trickle.”Now Time to PlayThe pangram from yesterday’s Spelling Bee was hourlong. Here is today’s puzzle.Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: Okay! (Four letters).And here’s today’s Wordle. After, use our bot to get better.Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. — GermanP.S. The DealBook team has grown: Ravi Mattu is now managing editor and Bernhard Warner is a senior editor.Here’s today’s front page.“The Daily” is about the midterms. On “Still Processing,” disco is back.Matthew Cullen, Lauren Hard, Lauren Jackson, Claire Moses, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Tom Wright-Piersanti and Ashley Wu contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com.Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. More