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      Madison Cawthorn’s Loss Is Rare Win for Republican Establishment

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      HENDERSONVILLE, N.C. — In his campaign headquarters the morning after his electoral victory, Chuck Edwards showed no interest in dissecting one of the biggest political upsets so far in this year’s Republican primary season.Mr. Edwards, 61, a three-term state senator and business owner, thwarted Representative Madison Cawthorn’s turbulent re-election bid in North Carolina, beating him in Tuesday’s primary in a rare defeat of a Trump-backed Republican incumbent.“I’m excited for the opportunity to unify the Republican Party, put the primary behind us and focus our attention towards the real issues,” Mr. Edwards said on Wednesday, seated at a sleek mahogany conference table at his campaign office in downtown Hendersonville.What went unspoken was that many voters saw him as the establishment candidate who benefited from the boost of old-guard Republicans at home and in Washington. Mr. Cawthorn, 26, had alienated two powerful Republicans with a litany of political and personal errors and scandals: Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the House minority leader, and Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina.A political group supporting Mr. Tillis, who endorsed Mr. Edwards, poured money into an ad campaign that painted Mr. Cawthorn as a fame-seeking liar. Other top North Carolina Republicans, including the state’s House speaker and State Senate leaders, also came to Mr. Edwards’s side.State Senator Chuck Edwards spoke during a candidate debate in Asheville, N.C., last month.Angela Wilhelm/The Asheville Citizen-Times, via Associated PressIn most Republican primaries across the country, old-fashioned establishment candidates in the Romney and Bush mold have been on the run amid intraparty battles and challenges from a far-right wing energized by former President Donald J. Trump. But as Mr. Edwards’s low-key postelection demeanor suggested, the state’s establishment seemed unwilling to claim victory when the word establishment itself has become an insult in Republican politics.After the Pennsylvania and North Carolina PrimariesMay 17 was the biggest day so far in the 2022 midterm cycle. Here’s what we’ve learned.Trump’s Limits: The MAGA movement is dominating Republican primaries, but Donald J. Trump’s control over it may be slipping.‘Stop the Steal’ Endures: G.O.P. candidates who aggressively cast doubt on the 2020 election have fared best, while Democratic voters are pushing for change. Here are more takeaways.Trump Endorsements: Most of the candidates backed by the former president have prevailed. However, there are some noteworthy losses.Up Next: Closely watched races in Georgia and Alabama on May 24 will offer a clearer picture of Mr. Trump’s influence.Asked about those who saw him as the establishment figure in the race, Mr. Edwards said people had different definitions of the label.“It is true I have established conservative principles and a track record of getting things done,” he said. “I’ve established that I can cut taxes. I’ve established that I can balance budgets. I’ve established that I can pass bills to outlaw sanctuary cities.”Of course, Mr. Cawthorn’s defeat was not solely the work of the establishment. He appeared to struggle with two key demographics: unaffiliated voters, who make up more than 40 percent of his district, and those in Henderson County, which includes his hometown of Hendersonville and helped carry him to victory in the last Republican primary.A barrage of bad press and personal and political mistakes helped turn voters against Mr. Cawthorn. Many said in interviews that they still supported Mr. Trump, but that they viewed Mr. Cawthorn as irresponsible, immature and unbecoming of public office. Mr. McCarthy, for his part, told reporters in March that he had spoken to Mr. Cawthorn after the freshman congressman had implied members of his own party invited him to orgies and to use cocaine with them.Mr. Cawthorn had been accused of engaging in insider trading, was pulled over for speeding, charged with driving with a revoked license and had been stopped for trying to bring a gun through airport security a second time. Photos and videos of him partying and emulating sexual antics circulated. Most damaging were reports that he frequently missed votes and had abandoned constituency offices.Mr. Edwards jumped into the race after Mr. Cawthorn announced last year that he would run in a new district near Charlotte. Mr. Cawthorn ended up changing his mind and returning to his old district after the new district was redrawn and tilted Democratic.Mr. Edwards, who owns several McDonald’s franchises and has served in the state legislature since 2016, has built a staunch conservative brand to the right of what used to be considered the traditional establishment Republican. He has pushed measures to overhaul tax laws, enact a constitutional amendment for voter identification and require county sheriffs to work with immigration enforcement agencies.In his campaign office Wednesday, days after a racist mass shooting at a Buffalo supermarket, Mr. Edwards said he did not believe limiting gun ownership for law-abiding citizens would solve societal problems. And he declined to condemn the racist conspiracy theory that police say motivated the Buffalo gunman — and that has been echoed by members of his own party. That unfounded theory essentially holds that elites are using immigration and falling birthrates to replace white people and destroy white culture.Understand the 2022 Midterm ElectionsCard 1 of 6Why are these midterms so important? More

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      Midterm Stakes Grow Clearer: Election Deniers Will Be on Many Ballots

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      Republican voters in this week’s primary races demonstrated a willingness to nominate candidates who parrot Donald J. Trump’s election lies and who appear intent on exerting extraordinary political control over voting systems. The results make clear that the November midterms may well affect the fate of free and fair elections in the country.In Pennsylvania, Republican voters united behind a nominee for governor, Doug Mastriano, who helped lead the brazen effort to overturn the state’s 2020 election and chartered buses to the rally before the Capitol riot, and who has since promoted a constitutionally impossible effort to decertify President Biden’s victory in his state.In North Carolina, voters chose a G.O.P. Senate nominee, Representative Ted Budd, who voted in Congress against certifying the 2020 results and who continues to refuse to say that Mr. Biden was legitimately elected.And in Idaho, which Mr. Trump won overwhelmingly in 2020, 57 percent of voters backed two Republican candidates for secretary of state who pushed election falsehoods, though they lost a three-way race to a rival who accepts Mr. Biden as president.The strong showings on Tuesday by election deniers, who have counterparts running competitively in primaries across the country over the coming months, were an early signal of the threat posed by the Trump-inspired movement.“It’s a big problem,” said former Representative Charlie Dent, a Pennsylvania Republican, who added that the G.O.P. needs “to show an alternative vision for the party. I don’t think we’re seeing enough of that right now.”While election issues have dominated several high-profile Republican primaries so far, G.O.P. candidates do not always place 2020 objections at the center of their pitches to voters. Instead, fomenting doubts about Mr. Biden’s victory is often the table stakes of Republican primaries that can tilt hard to the right. Candidates who avoid the subject risk losing credibility with the party’s base.When talking to voters, many Republican candidates have focused heavily on a broader list of promises to restore conservative governance. And in many general-election races, candidates from both major parties are likely to focus on inflation and the economy.Still, the election issue hangs over several races in presidential battleground states. Republicans trying to reclaim governor’s mansions and take over top offices overseeing elections have fallen over one another for the last year and a half to cater to voters who believe myriad false claims about the 2020 contest.The biggest single test will be next Tuesday in Georgia, where Mr. Trump has backed a slate of candidates running on election-denial platforms against the incumbent governor, secretary of state and attorney general.After the Pennsylvania and North Carolina PrimariesMay 17 was the biggest day so far in the 2022 midterm cycle. Here’s what we’ve learned.Trump’s Limits: The MAGA movement is dominating Republican primaries, but Donald J. Trump’s control over it may be slipping.‘Stop the Steal’ Endures: G.O.P. candidates who aggressively cast doubt on the 2020 election have fared best, while Democratic voters are pushing for change. Here are more takeaways.Trump Endorsements: Most of the candidates backed by the former president have prevailed. However, there are some noteworthy losses.Up Next: Closely watched races in Georgia and Alabama on May 24 will offer a clearer picture of Mr. Trump’s influence.Mr. Trump’s choice for governor, former Senator David Perdue, appears likely to fall short against Gov. Brian Kemp, whom Mr. Trump still blames for his 2020 loss in Georgia. All three races could wind up in runoffs if no candidate secures a majority of the primary vote.Representative Jody Hice of Georgia is running with Donald J. Trump’s backing for Georgia secretary of state. Mr. Trump was angry that Brad Raffensperger, the incumbent, did not help him overturn the state’s 2020 results.Audra Melton for The New York TimesMr. Perdue and Representative Jody Hice, who is challenging Brad Raffensperger, the secretary of state, have each falsely argued that rampant voter fraud marred the 2020 Georgia contests. Mr. Perdue began a debate with Mr. Kemp by declaring: “The election in 2020 was rigged and stolen.” Mr. Hice said he would not have certified Mr. Biden’s victory.In the state’s Senate race, the leading Republican candidate, the Trump-backed former football star Herschel Walker, said on Wednesday that he wasn’t sure if Mr. Biden had been lawfully elected in 2020.“I don’t know,” Mr. Walker told a New York Times reporter after a speech in Macon, Ga. “I do think there was problems. And I think everybody else thinks there was problems, and that’s the reason right now everybody’s so upset.”But no Republican nominee for a major swing-state office has done more to amplify bogus election claims than Mr. Mastriano in Pennsylvania.Mr. Mastriano has helped promote continuing — and constitutionally impossible — efforts to decertify Pennsylvania’s 2020 results. Julio Cortez/Associated PressA state senator and retired Army colonel, he spent $3,354 in campaign funds to charter buses to Washington on Jan. 6, 2021. A Senate Judiciary Committee report said that video footage had confirmed that Mr. Mastriano had “passed through breached barricades and police lines” near the Capitol, though he has denied that he breached the lines and there is no evidence that he entered the Capitol itself.This March, Mr. Mastriano held a campaign event in Gettysburg at which attendees signed a petition calling on Pennsylvania to decertify the state’s 2020 results, according to The York Daily Record.The decertification push has become the latest litmus test in 2020 election denialism. It has also rattled Republicans in Wisconsin, where one of the party’s four major candidates for governor has made undoing Mr. Biden’s 2020 victory in the state the central plank of his campaign.Mr. Trump has encouraged the decertification effort in Wisconsin and offered a late endorsement to Mr. Mastriano. The former president has conditioned his endorsement, the most valuable seal of approval in Republican politics, on amplifying false claims about the election.Once in office, Trump-backed candidates are likely to try to follow through on promises to alter election law — in some cases, by simply making voting more difficult, but in others, by going so far as to give Republican-controlled state legislatures the right to overturn election results.In Pennsylvania, Kathy Barnette, a Jan. 6 rally attendee who pushed many false stolen-election claims and campaigned on a slate with Mr. Mastriano, placed third in the state’s G.O.P. Senate primary with about 25 percent of the vote.And the two men locked in a photo finish for first place, Dr. Mehmet Oz and David McCormick, have also cast doubt on the 2020 election results, refusing to say Mr. Biden won fairly.Dr. Mehmet Oz is not as strident as Mr. Mastriano on election issues, but he has declined to say that Mr. Biden won fairly.Kriston Jae Bethel for The New York TimesDr. Oz, who was endorsed by Mr. Trump, has said in his stump speech that “we can’t leave 2020 behind,” without articulating precisely what he means.Understand the 2022 Midterm ElectionsCard 1 of 6Why are these midterms so important? More

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      Group Seeks Disbarment of Ted Cruz Over Efforts to Overturn 2020 Election

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      A group trying to hold lawyers accountable for their efforts to keep Donald Trump in power after his election loss filed a complaint against the Republican senator with the Texas bar association.A group formed in the hopes of disbarring lawyers who worked on cases in which former President Donald J. Trump tried to subvert the results of the 2020 election filed a complaint with the Texas bar association on Wednesday against Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, for his efforts to keep Mr. Trump in power.The complaint against Mr. Cruz, filed by a group called the 65 Project, focuses on baseless assertions by Mr. Cruz about widespread voting fraud in the weeks between Election Day in 2020 and Jan. 6, 2021, as well as his participation in lawsuits protesting the results in Pennsylvania.“Mr. Cruz played a leading role in the effort to overturn the 2020 elections. And while the same can be said about several other elected officials, Mr. Cruz’s involvement was manifestly different,” the complaint said, asserting that Mr. Cruz moved beyond simply working within the confines of Congress.“He chose to take on the role of lawyer and agreed to represent Mr. Trump and Pennsylvania Republicans in litigation before the U.S. Supreme Court,” the complaint said, citing his role in two cases, neither of which succeeded. “In doing so, Mr. Cruz moved beyond his position as a United States senator and sought to use more than his Twitter account and media appearances to support Mr. Trump’s anti-democratic mission.”Elsewhere, the complaint argued, Mr. Cruz continued to make statements that he knew to be false, about the election and about the state courts in Pennsylvania being partisan.“Mr. Cruz knew that the allegations he was echoing had already been reviewed and rejected by courts,” the complaint says. “And he knew that claims of voter fraud or the election being stolen were false.”A spokesman for Mr. Cruz dismissed the 65 Project as “a far-left dark money smear machine run by a who’s who of shameless Democrat hacks. They’re not a credible organization and their complaint won’t be worth the paper it’s printed on.”The 65 Project’s advisers include the Hillary Clinton ally David Brock and Paul Rosenzweig, a conservative and former Republican who worked on the Ken Starr special prosecution team investigating the Clintons. The 65 Project was formed to hold accountable lawyers involved in a series of lawsuits seeking to undermine President Biden’s victory in 2020.Its targets have included a range of lawyers who worked on the postelection lawsuits in 2020. Mr. Cruz is the first senator the group has targeted in its campaign, which is still in its early stages.The complaint cited the suspension of the law license of Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City and one of Mr. Trump’s lawyers, in New York as a precedent for what could happen to Mr. Cruz.In an interview, Mr. Rosenzweig said that the purpose of the complaint was to make clear that the need for “self-regulation for false statements is a real thing,” and that “if you transgress those rules, you will at minimum suffer the public consequence of being called out for your misconduct.”Mr. Rosenzweig said that the goal was not to punish people for representing clients, regardless of how many people may disagree with their views, but rather that it was “about whether a lawyer” could “suborn criminal conduct.” More

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      The Madison Cawthorn Show Is Over, and We All Deserve Refunds

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      In this era of partisanship, extremism and general insanity, there are few electoral outcomes that can unite voters across the political spectrum. For instance, is it a good thing that Pennsylvania Republicans just picked an election-denying conspiracist as their nominee for governor? What about the fact that Pennsylvania Democrats, in their Senate primary, went for the tattooed, goateed, progressive lieutenant governor who suffered a stroke last week over the button-down, centrist (some would say milquetoast) congressman who served in the Marine Corps and as an assistant U.S. attorney?So many perspectives. So many opinions.But on one point, most sensible people can agree: The voters in North Carolina’s 11th Congressional District have done the nation a great service by giving the boot to Representative Madison Cawthorn, the scandal-plagued 26-year-old freshman firebrand favored by Donald Trump. While the loss is surely disappointing for young Mr. Cawthorn, it is almost certainly the best outcome for him as well.It is hard not to take satisfaction in the downfall of a political creature as flamboyantly vile, reckless, incendiary and — how to put this gently? — dense as Mr. Cawthorn. Among his more notable transgressions: He has been cited (twice) in recent months for trying to board a plane with a gun. He has been busted twice for driving with a revoked license. He has been accused of sexual misconduct by multiple women and of having an inappropriate relationship with a male aide. He has brazenly lied about his background, including key details of the 2014 car crash that left him with limited use of his legs. He is facing accusations of insider trading.But wait! There’s more! Mr. Cawthorn has said nasty things about Volodymyr Zelensky, even as the Ukrainian president struggles to defend his nation from the butchery of Vladimir Putin. Cheering the not-guilty verdict in the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse, the teenager who killed two people during the unrest after the police shooting of a Black man in Kenosha, Wis., Mr. Cawthorn urged his social media followers to “be armed, be dangerous.” And he has been among the most aggressive, irresponsible peddlers of Mr. Trump’s election-fraud lies, at one point warning that if America’s election systems “continue to be rigged” and “stolen,” the result can only be “bloodshed.”Of course, in Mr. Trump’s Republican Party, many if not all of the above controversies might have been dismissed as youthful foolishness — boys being boys, if you will — or petty missteps overblown by the libs.But Mr. Cawthorn’s colleagues finally drew a line when he claimed that people he “looked up to” in Washington — presumably his Republican colleagues — had done cocaine and invited him to orgies. Today’s congressional Republicans might forgive a colleague’s tolerance or even encouragement of an armed and bloody assault on American democracy. But they will not stand for being associated with the term “key bump.”Neither were Republicans charmed when risqué images of Mr. Cawthorn (pre-Congress) recently made the rounds on social media: pics of him rocking ladies’ lingerie and a brief video of him naked and — there really is no way to put this tastefully — humping another man’s head. The emergence of these unflattering tidbits was, in fact, widely assumed to be part of a smear campaign orchestrated by Republicans weary of Mr. Cawthorn’s antics.Getting elected to Congress is quite an accomplishment for anyone, much less a 25-year-old who had his life derailed as a teenager. A recent Politico piece detailed the anguish Mr. Cawthorn expressed about his life to a friend in the summer of 2015. He texted that he missed the ability to do basic things, such as dressing himself and using the bathroom without help, and to experience ordinary pleasures, such as “being able to compete” and “being checked out by girls.” “I miss not peeing the bed because I have no control over my penis,” he wrote, and “not having to have pills keep me alive.” He missed his “pride as a man” and “not having to convince myself every day not to pull the trigger and end it all.”Many young people suffer horrific tragedies. And Mr. Cawthorn’s suffering in no way excuses his personal misbehavior or his toxic politics. But clearly the guy is struggling on some level and could benefit from stepping back from public life. The political circus is not the best place to achieve a healthy, balanced existence. To the contrary, modern politics tends to enable and exacerbate the worst tendencies in many people, immersing them in a world of partisan warfare and public pressure, increasingly cut off from a “normal” life.Today’s Republican politics, in particular, rewards acting out. The more performatively transgressive, divisive and obnoxious you are, the more authentically MAGA you are considered. Mr. Cawthorn threw himself into this bad-boy role with more gusto than most. He seems to have been particularly drawn to his party’s obsession with violence and toxic masculinity — clearly to ill effect.And so, even as we cheer the electoral humiliation of this exceptional jerk — the rare ultra-MAGA lawmaker too outrageous even for today’s G.O.P. to tolerate — here’s hoping his next gig is more conducive to helping him get his life together.America is better off without Mr. Cawthorn in Congress. So is he.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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      America’s Doug Mastriano Problem

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      If the Ohio Senate primary two weeks ago provided some clarity about the ideological divisions in the Republican Party, Tuesday’s primaries often seemed more like a showcase for the distinctive personalities that populate a Trumpified G.O.P.The Pennsylvania Senate race gave us an especially vivid mix: As of this writing, the Celebrity Doctor and the Hedge Fund Guy Pretending to Be a MAGA True Believer may be headed for a recount, after the Would-Be Media Personality With the Inspiring Back Story and the Unfortunate Twitter Feed faded back into the pack. In the governor’s race, Republican voters chose to nominate Doug Mastriano, a.k.a. the QAnon Dad. In North Carolina, they ended — for now — the political career of Representative Madison Cawthorn, the Obviously Suffering Grifter.On substance, as opposed to personality, though, the night’s stakes were relatively simple: Can Republicans prevent their party from becoming the party of constitutional crisis, with leaders tacitly committed to turning the next close presidential election into a legal-judicial-political train wreck?This is a distinctive version of a familiar political problem. Whenever a destabilizing populist rebellion is unleashed inside a democratic polity, there are generally two ways to bring back stability without some kind of crisis or rupture in the system.Sometimes the revolt can be quarantined within a minority coalition and defeated by a majority. This was the destiny, for instance, of William Jennings Bryan’s 1890s prairie-populist rebellion, which took over the Democratic Party but went down to multiple presidential defeats at the hands of the more establishmentarian Republicans. You can see a similar pattern, for now, in French politics, where the populism of Marine Le Pen keeps getting isolated and defeated by the widely disliked but grudgingly tolerated centrism of Emmanuel Macron.In the alternative path to stability, the party being reshaped by populism finds leaders who can absorb its energies, channel its grievances and claim its mantle — but also defeat or suppress its most extreme manifestations. This was arguably the path of New Deal liberalism in its relationship to Depression-era populism and radicalism: In the 1930s, Franklin Roosevelt was able to sustain support from voters who were also drawn to more demagogic characters, from Huey Long to Charles Coughlin. Two generations later, it was the path of Reaganite conservatism in its relationship to both George Wallace’s populism and the Goldwaterite New Right.The problem for America today is that neither stabilizing strategy is going particularly well. Part of the Never Trump movement has aspired to a Macron-style strategy, preaching establishment unity behind the Democratic Party. But the Democrats haven’t cooperated: They conspicuously failed to contain and defeat Trumpism in 2016, and there is no sign that the Biden-era variation on the party is equipped to hold on to the majority it won in 2020.Meanwhile, the Republican Party at the moment does have a provisional model for channeling but also restraining populism. Essentially it involves leaning into culture-war controversy and rhetorical pugilism to a degree that provokes constant liberal outrage and using that outrage to reassure populist voters that you’re on their side and they don’t need to throw you over for a conspiracy theorist or Jan. 6 marcher.This is the model, in different styles and contexts, of Glenn Youngkin and Ron DeSantis. In Tuesday’s primaries it worked for Idaho’s conservative incumbent governor, Brad Little, who easily defeated his own lieutenant governor’s much-further-right campaign. Next week the same approach seems likely to help Brian Kemp defeat David Perdue for the governor’s nomination in Georgia. And it offers the party’s only chance, most likely via a DeSantis candidacy, to defeat Donald Trump in 2024.Unfortunately this model works best when you have a trusted figure, a known quantity, delivering the “I’ll be your warrior, I’ll defeat the left” message. The Cawthorn race, in which the toxic congressman was unseated by a member of the North Carolina State Senate, shows that this figure doesn’t have to be an incumbent to succeed, especially if other statewide leaders provide unified support. But if you have neither unity nor a figure with statewide prominence or incumbency as your champion — no Kemp, no Little — then you can get results like Mastriano’s victory last night in Pennsylvania: a Republican nominee for governor who cannot be trusted to carry out his constitutional duties should the presidential election be close in 2024.So now the obligation returns to the Democrats. Mastriano certainly deserves to lose the general election, and probably he will. But throughout the whole Trumpian experience, the Democratic Party has consistently failed its own tests of responsibility: It has talked constantly about the threat to democracy while moving leftward to a degree that makes it difficult to impossible to hold the center, and it has repeatedly cheered on unfit Republican candidates on the theory that they will be easier to beat.This happened conspicuously with Trump himself, and more unforgivably it happened again with Mastriano: Pennsylvania Democrats sent out mailers boosting his candidacy and ran a big ad buy, more than twice Mastriano’s own TV spending, calling him “one of Donald Trump’s strongest supporters” — an “attack” line perfectly scripted to improve his primary support.Now they have him, as they had Trump in 2016. We’ll see if they can make the story end differently this time.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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      Primaries Show Limits, and Depths, of Trump’s Power Over G.O.P. Base

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      The tumultuous start to the Republican primary season, including a down-to-the-wire Senate race that divided conservatives in Pennsylvania on Tuesday, has shown how thoroughly Donald J. Trump has remade his party in his image — and the limits of his control over his creation.In each of the most contentious primary races this month — including two closely watched contests next week in Alabama and Georgia — nearly every candidate has run a campaign modeled on the former president’s. Their websites and advertisements are filled with his images. They promote his policies, and many repeat his false claims about election fraud in 2020.But Mr. Trump’s power over Republican voters has proved to be less commanding.Candidates endorsed by Mr. Trump lost governor’s races in Idaho and Nebraska, and a House race in North Carolina. In Senate contests in Ohio (where his pick won earlier this month) and Pennsylvania (which remained too close to call Wednesday morning), roughly 70 percent of Republicans voted against his endorsement. In contests next week, his chosen candidates for Georgia governor and Alabama senator are trailing in polls.Long known for being dialed into his voters, Mr. Trump increasingly appears to be chasing his supporters as much as marshaling them. Republican voters’ distrust of authority and appetite for hard-line politics — traits Mr. Trump once capitalized on — have worked against him. Some have come to see the president they elected to lead an insurgency as an establishment figure inside his own movement.Trumpism is ascendant in the Republican Party, with or without Mr. Trump, said Ken Spain, a Republican strategist and former National Republican Congressional Committee official.“The so-called MAGA movement is a bottom-up movement,” Mr. Spain said, “not one to be dictated from the top down.”The primaries aren’t the first time conservative voters in Mr. Trump’s red-capped constituency have demonstrated their independence from the patriarch of the Make America Great Again movement.In August, at one of Mr. Trump’s largest post-presidential campaign rallies, the crowd booed after he urged them to get vaccinated against Covid-19. In January, some of the most influential voices in Mr. Trump’s orbit openly criticized his pick for a House seat in Middle Tennessee, Morgan Ortagus — who had served in the Trump administration for two years as State Department spokeswoman but was deemed insufficiently MAGA.These mini-rebellions have tended to flare up whenever Mr. Trump’s supporters view his directives or endorsements as not Trumpy enough.“There’s no obvious heir apparent when it comes to America First — it’s still him,” said Kellyanne Conway, Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign manager and White House counselor. “But people feel they can love him and intend to follow him into another presidential run — and not agree with all of his choices this year.”After the Pennsylvania and North Carolina PrimariesMay 17 was the biggest day so far in the 2022 midterm cycle. Here’s what we’ve learned.Trump’s Limits: The MAGA movement is dominating Republican primaries, but Donald J. Trump’s control over it may be slipping.‘Stop the Steal’ Endures: G.O.P. candidates who aggressively cast doubt on the 2020 election have fared best, while Democratic voters are pushing for change. Here are more takeaways.Trump Endorsements: Most of the candidates backed by the former president have prevailed. However, there are some noteworthy losses.Up Next: Closely watched races in Georgia and Alabama on May 24 will offer a clearer picture of Mr. Trump’s influence.Still, Republican candidates remain desperate to win Mr. Trump’s endorsement. In Georgia’s Senate race, Mr. Trump’s support for Herschel Walker kept serious rivals away. In some contested races, his endorsement has proved to be hugely influential, as it was in North Carolina’s Senate primary on Tuesday, where Representative Ted Budd cruised to victory against a former governor and a former congressman.But the emergence of an autonomous wing of the MAGA movement — one that is more uncompromising than Mr. Trump — has allowed even candidates without Mr. Trump’s endorsement to claim the mantle.“MAGA does not belong to President Trump,” Kathy Barnette said during a Pennsylvania Senate primary debate in April.The late surge from Ms. Barnette, who portrayed herself as a higher-octane version of Mr. Trump, eroded support for Dr. Mehmet Oz, the longtime television personality whom Mr. Trump endorsed, from conservatives who questioned his political credentials. As a result, Mr. Oz was running neck-and-neck with David McCormick, the hedge fund executive who had withstood a flurry of criticism from Mr. Trump. Still, Mr. Oz held about one-third of the vote.Republican Senate candidate Kathy Barnette at her election watch party Tuesday night in Elizabethtown, Pa. Ms. Barnette portrayed herself as a higher-octane version of Mr. Trump.Kriston Jae Bethel for The New York TimesOutside Ms. Barnette’s election night party on Tuesday, Diante Johnson, a Republican activist and the founder and president of the Black Conservative Federation, said she was proud of how the conservative author and commentator fought against the party powers that be.“The knife came to her and she didn’t back up,” Ms. Johnson said. “Every Trump establishment individual that came after her, she stood there and fought.”Ms. Barnette’s rise stunned Mr. Trump, who never considered the possibility of endorsing her candidacy, advisers said.But his base’s increasing autonomy should surprise no one.As president, Mr. Trump governed in a constant state of concern about tending to his supporters. Even though he was elected in part as a deal-making political outsider — he had spent much of his adult life toggling between political parties — he rarely made a significant decision without considering how his base would react.Those instincts prevented him from reaching a significant deal with Congress over immigration policy and fueled battles with Democratic leaders that led to repeated government shutdowns. His fear of appearing weak to his base voters drove his decision to not wear a mask in public for months into the pandemic.While Mr. Trump has indicated he is inclined to run for president for a third time in 2024, some advisers said the volatile and intensely fought primaries have risked alienating some of his supporters.Understand the 2022 Midterm ElectionsCard 1 of 6Why are these midterms so important? More

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      5 Primary Takeaways: Election Deniers Thrive Even as Trumpism Drifts

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      Pennsylvania’s Republican Senate contest, the biggest and most expensive race of a five-state primary night, is a photo finish between David McCormick, a former hedge fund executive, and Dr. Mehmet Oz, the celebrity surgeon. It appears headed to a statewide recount.The night delivered a split decision for former President Donald J. Trump, with his choice for Idaho governor falling well short, Dr. Oz in a virtual tie and his candidates for Senate in North Carolina and governor in Pennsylvania triumphant.On the Democratic side, voters pushed for change over consensus, nominating a left-leaning political brawler for Senate in Pennsylvania and nudging a leading moderate in the House closer to defeat in Oregon as votes were counted overnight.Here are a few key takeaways from Tuesday’s primaries, the biggest day so far of the 2022 midterm cycle:Republican voters mostly rewarded candidates who dispute the 2020 election results.The Republican candidates who did best on Tuesday were the ones who have most aggressively cast doubt on the 2020 election results and have campaigned on restricting voting further and overhauling how elections are run.Doug Mastriano, the far-right candidate who won the G.O.P. nomination for Pennsylvania governor in a landslide, attended the rally on Jan. 6, 2021, that led to the assault on the Capitol and has since called for decertifying the results of the 2020 election.Representative Ted Budd of North Carolina, who beat a former governor by over 30 percentage points in the state’s Republican primary for Senate, voted last year against certifying the 2020 election results — and, in the aftermath of that contest, texted Mark Meadows, then the White House chief of staff, to push the bogus claim that Dominion Voting Systems might have had a connection to the liberal billionaire George Soros.On Tuesday, Mr. Budd refused to say that President Biden was the legitimate 2020 victor.Representative Ted Budd easily won North Carolina’s Republican primary race for Senate.Allison Lee Isley/The Winston-Salem Journal, via Associated PressVoters in Pennsylvania’s Republican primary for Senate sent a more mixed message: Kathy Barnette, a far-right commentator who centered her campaign on Mr. Trump’s election falsehoods, trailed her narrowly divided rivals Mr. McCormick and Dr. Oz early Wednesday.But Ms. Barnette, with roughly 25 percent of the vote, performed far better than many political observers had expected just two weeks ago, when she began a last-minute surge on the back of strong debate performances.Mr. McCormick and Dr. Oz are hardly tethered close to reality on election matters. Both have refused to acknowledge Mr. Biden as the rightful winner in 2020, playing to their party’s base of Trump supporters.The success of the election deniers comes after a year and a half in which Mr. Trump has continued to fixate on his 2020 loss and, in some places, has called on Republican state legislators to try to decertify their states’ results — something that has no basis in law.The G.O.P. will feel bullish about the Pennsylvania Senate race. The governor’s contest is another story.Republicans avoided what many saw as a general-election catastrophe when Ms. Barnette, who had a long history of offensive comments and who federal records show had finished ninth in the fund-raising battle in Pennsylvania’s Senate race, slipped far behind Mr. McCormick and Dr. Oz.Both Mr. McCormick, a former hedge fund executive, and Dr. Oz, who was endorsed by Mr. Trump, have largely self-financed their campaigns and could continue to do so, though neither would have much trouble raising money in a general election.The eventual winner will face Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, a Democrat who has long been a favorite of progressives but has recently tacked to the center as his primary victory became assured.David McCormick waited with supporters in Pittsburgh as votes were counted. Jeff Swensen/Getty ImagesWith nearly all of the vote counted, the margin between Mr. McCormick and Dr. Oz was well under one-half of one percent, the threshold to trigger automatic recounts for statewide races in Pennsylvania. Before that can happen, thousands of mailed-in votes are still to be counted from counties across the state.Whoever emerges from the Republican Senate primary will be on a ticket with, and will probably be asked to defend positions taken by, Mr. Mastriano. He has run a hard-right campaign and enters the general election as an underdog to Josh Shapiro, the state’s Democratic attorney general.Trump’s endorsement is still worth a lot. But Republican voters often have minds of their own.In Ohio this month, J.D. Vance received 32 percent of the vote. In Nebraska last week, Charles W. Herbster got 30 percent. And on Tuesday alone:Dr. Mehmet Oz was hovering around 31 percent of the vote in Pennsylvania.Bo Hines took 32 percent in a House primary in North Carolina.Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin of Idaho lost her primary for governor with about a quarter of the vote.All of these candidates were endorsed by Mr. Trump in competitive primaries. And the outcome of these races has established the value of his endorsement in 2022: About one-third of Republican primary voters will back the Trump candidate.In some races, like Mr. Vance’s for Senate and Mr. Hines’s, that’s enough to win and for the former president to claim credit. Elsewhere, as in Mr. Herbster’s bid for governor, the Trump-backed candidate fell short.To be sure, Mr. Trump has won far more races than he has lost, and he saved face on Tuesday night with his late endorsement of Mr. Mastriano as polls showed the Pennsylvania candidate with a strong lead.Mr. Trump’s early endorsement of Mr. Budd in North Carolina’s Senate race choked off support and fund-raising for Mr. Budd’s establishment-minded rivals, including former Gov. Pat McCrory.But in Nebraska, Mr. Herbster and Mr. Trump couldn’t compete with a local political machine and millions of dollars from Gov. Pete Ricketts. In Pennsylvania, some local Republicans never warmed to Dr. Oz despite the Trump endorsement.None of this bodes well for Mr. Trump’s Georgia picks, who are facing cash disadvantages and, unlike in the primary contests so far this year, entrenched incumbents. The Georgia primaries are next week.Conor Lamb said electability matters most. Voters agreed — and chose John Fetterman.When he burst onto the national political scene in 2018 by winning a special election to a House district Mr. Trump had carried by 18 points, Conor Lamb presented himself as the Democrat who could win over Republican voters in tough races.Mr. Lamb made electability his central pitch to Pennsylvania voters in this year’s Senate race. Democratic voters didn’t disagree — they just decided overwhelmingly that his opponent, Mr. Fetterman, was the better general-election choice in the race.Representative Conor Lamb with supporters on Tuesday in Pittsburgh. He had far more endorsements than Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, but less voter enthusiasm.Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesMr. Fetterman, who left the campaign trail on Friday after suffering a stroke and had a pacemaker installed on Tuesday, outclassed Mr. Lamb in every aspect of the campaign.Understand the 2022 Midterm ElectionsCard 1 of 6Why are these midterms so important? More

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      Here’s where Trump’s endorsement record stands so far.

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      Most of the candidates former President Donald J. Trump endorsed in contested Republican primaries have won in this early phase of the 2022 midterms. Many of those he backed were running unopposed or faced little-known, poorly funded opponents. There have been some noteworthy losses, however.Here is a look at Mr. Trump’s endorsement record in some of the most closely watched races.Doug Mastriano, who was endorsed by Mr. Trump just a few days ahead of the May 17 primary, won the Republican nomination for Pennsylvania governor.Michael M. Santiago/Getty ImagesA victory in Pennsylvania, and one key race was too close to callDoug Mastriano, a state senator and retired Army colonel who has propagated myriad false claims about the 2020 election and attended the protest leading up to the Capitol riot, won the Republican nomination for Pennsylvania governor. Mr. Trump endorsed him just a few days ahead of the May 17 primary. In the state’s critical Republican Senate primary, it is not yet known how Mr. Trump’s endorsement of Dr. Mehmet Oz will play out. The race between Dr. Oz and Dave McCormick was extremely tight and an official recount is likely. Kathy Barnette, who had a late surge in the race, was in a strong third place.Representative Ted Budd won the Republican nomination for Senate in North Carolina.Allison Lee Isley/The Winston-Salem Journal, via Associated PressTwo wins and a loss in North Carolina Representative Ted Budd, who was endorsed by Mr. Trump and the influential anti-tax group Club for Growth, won the Republican nomination for Senate, and Bo Hines, a 26-year-old political novice who enthralled Mr. Trump, was catapulted to victory in his Republican primary for a House seat outside Raleigh. But Representative Madison Cawthorn crumbled under the weight of repeated scandals and blunders. He was ousted in his May 17 primary, a stinging rejection of a Trump-endorsed candidate. Voters chose Chuck Edwards, a state senator, in the crowded primary.J.D. Vance won his competitive Republican primary for an Ohio Senate seat with the help of Mr. Trump’s endorsement.Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesVictories in OhioThe Senate candidate J.D. Vance won his hard-fought primary over a field of well-funded candidates, nearly all of whom pitched themselves as Trump-like Republicans. Mr. Vance, an author and venture capitalist, had transformed himself from a self-described “never Trump guy” in 2016 to an “America First” candidate in 2022. His long-shot campaign financially benefited from heavy spending by his former boss Peter Thiel, a billionaire founder of PayPal.Max Miller, a former Trump aide who denied assault allegations from an ex-girlfriend and was later endorsed by Mr. Trump, won his House primary after two other Republican incumbents there opted not to run. Representative Anthony Gonzalez, who had voted to impeach Mr. Trump, retired after just two terms. Representative Bob Gibbs, a Trump supporter, dropped out after his district was redrawn late in the campaign, pitting him against Mr. Miller.Mr. Trump also endorsed Madison Gesiotto Gilbert, a lawyer and former beauty queen who had been a surrogate for his presidential campaign. She won a seven-way primary for an open congressional seat being vacated by Representative Tim Ryan, a Democrat running for Senate.Representative Alex Mooney of West Virginia, right, with Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the House minority leader. Mr. Mooney prevailed in his primary over Representative David McKinley.Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesA win in West VirginiaIn an incumbent-on-incumbent House primary, Representative Alex Mooney prevailed over Representative David McKinley in a newly drawn congressional district that largely overlaps with the one Mr. McKinley represented for more than a decade.Understand the 2022 Midterm ElectionsCard 1 of 6Why are these midterms so important? More