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      In Trump’s Shadow, Republicans Campaign Ahead of Ohio Primary

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      Donald Trump’s endorsement of the author and venture capitalist J.D. Vance has shaken up the Republican race for the first major Senate midterm election.COLUMBUS, Ohio — Josh Mandel’s wager was simple: No one would outflank him in mirroring Donald J. Trump, either on hard-right America First positions or the bellicose, come-at-me style of the former president.So, Mr. Mandel said of Black Lives Matter activists, “They are the racists, not us.” He stirred animosity toward migrants, including refugees from Afghanistan, and falsely claimed the 2020 election was stolen from Mr. Trump. The Jewish grandson of a Holocaust survivor whose website features a Christian cross, Mr. Mandel stumped mostly in evangelical churches, claiming “there’s no such thing” as separation of church and state.For a long time, it worked. Mr. Mandel was the presumed front-runner in the crowded Republican field for U.S. senator from Ohio.But two weeks ago, the one person he sought most to impress — the former president himself — spurned Mr. Mandel, a former state treasurer, and bestowed his coveted endorsement on J.D. Vance, the “Hillbilly Elegy” author, remaking the race overnight.Mr. Vance, who had been trailing in polls and running low on money, has seen a surge in donations and support since Mr. Trump’s embrace, as the first major Senate midterm primary election entered its final weekend before Tuesday’s voting.And around the state, Republicans including Mr. Mandel; Mr. Vance; Mike Gibbons, a self-funded businessman; and State Senator Matt Dolan fanned out in a preview of national G.O.P. politics to come — different moons circling Mr. Trump’s sun.On Saturday, Mr. Vance campaigned with two far-right members of Congress, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Matt Gaetz of Florida. Mr. Mandel hopscotched across the state’s big cities — Toledo, Columbus and Cincinnati — with a conservative ally of his own, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas.To longtime acquaintances and observers of Mr. Mandel, 44, who early in his career promoted civility and bipartisanship, his unrequited embrace of Trumpism and divisiveness suggested there was a price on political calculation.“I see the desperation there these last few months,” said Matt Cox, a former Republican operative who was an early adviser to Mr. Mandel before a falling-out. “I think his strategy was: All right, Trump won Ohio by eight points twice. All I have to do to become the nominee is to become the most like Trump.”The candidate most left on the sidelines since Mr. Trump’s nod at Mr. Vance, according to polls, has been Jane Timken. The only woman running, Ms. Timken was endorsed by Ohio’s retiring senator, Rob Portman, a center-right throwback to an earlier Ohio G.O.P. who voted with Senate Democrats for the bipartisan infrastructure bill.The Senate candidate and former Republican state chair, Jane Timken, has been endorsed by Senator Rob Portman, who is vacating his seat. Gaelen Morse/ReutersMs. Timken has solid Trump-era credentials — she chaired the state party while Mr. Trump was in office — but she does not mimic the former president’s aggrieved style, which has been a key to unlocking the most fervent Republican voters. She has set herself apart from rivals who she says seek every day to get themselves “canceled on Twitter” with their statements and antics.In a debate in March, Mr. Mandel nearly got into a physical confrontation with Mr. Gibbons.At a Baptist church in Columbus on Saturday, Mr. Mandel took aim at popular targets of the right, including transgender people, Republicans with “jelly knees” like Senator Mitt Romney of Utah and the “liberal media in the back of the room” (just minutes after greeting reporters amicably by name in a private room).Fitting the setting, the largely older crowd in the pews called out encouraging “amens!” or groaned audibly when Mr. Mandel named enemies.“The reason that we’re going to win on Tuesday is because we have this army of Christian warriors throughout the state,’’ he pledged.One pastor present, Dan Wolvin, said he “felt sorry” for Mr. Trump over the Vance endorsement, saying he was “listening to the wrong people.” Still, Mr. Wolvin predicted the Trump nod would gain Mr. Vance “about five points” on Election Day, while conceding, “it’s a lot for Josh to make up.”Spurned or not, Mr. Mandel was still flying the Trump flag.“I supported President Trump yesterday. I support him today, and I’ll continue to support him tomorrow,” he said. He predicted the former president would return to the White House, “and I look forward to working with him.”The candidates, to varying degrees, all concur. Here are snapshots from around Ohio in the last weekend of campaigning.J.D. Vance in Newark, OhioJ.D. Vance campaigned with two far-right members of Congress, Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Matt Gaetz of Florida. Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesJ.D. Vance, the author and venture capitalist, bounded onto the stage at the Trout Club in Newark, Ohio, with the confidence of the nominal front-runner, a status bestowed by Mr. Trump’s endorsement on April 15.The crowd of about 75 in the bar and restaurant of a well-manicured country club had been warmed up by Mr. Gaetz and Ms. Greene, who ticked through the talking points of the fringe right: “medical tyranny,” “open borders,” “gender pediatric clinics” turning boys into girls, men in women’s bathrooms and women’s sports, The Walt Disney Company “grooming” children into homosexuals and transgender people.Mr. Vance breezed through some of the same themes, but he appeared more intent on previewing the larger issues he planned to argue in the general election to come.He castigated both parties for free trade agreements that he said had sent Ohio manufacturing to Mexico and China, for the “bipartisan decision to allow American Wall Street firms to get rich off the growth of China and not off the growth of the American middle class.” He also accused financial firms of allowing “the Chinese into this country, buying up our farmland, buying up our single-family homes, making it impossible for young families to buy a home, to own a stake in their own country.”“That is the game they play, and I’m running for the U.S. Senate to go and play a different game, a game where we put our citizens and the people in this room first,” he said to cheers.The people in that room — just off a verdant golf course, far away from the illegal immigrant, drug-infested cities that Mr. Vance speaks of on the stump — were hardly the down-and-out white workers central to his memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy.” But an unspoken truth is, his audience is the true core of the pro-Trump vote in Ohio. The one income group that President Biden won in this state in 2020 was that of voters who earn less than $50,000. More affluent voters went for Mr. Trump.But economic themes in general — and the China threat in particular — resonated.“That’s in the DNA in Ohio,” said Representative Tim Ryan, the likely Democratic nominee for the coming Senate race.Mr. Vance was asked by a reporter why he invited Ms. Greene and Mr. Gaetz to barnstorm through Ohio with him on the closing weekend of the primary campaign.“There is nothing more disgusting in politics than the way that leadership asks you to stab your friends in the back,” he said before heading with them to West Chester, outside Cincinnati. He added for emphasis, “I’m not going to disavow them because some scumbag who doesn’t have the best interest of Ohio at heart wants me to.”Jonathan WeismanMike Gibbons in Dublin, OhioMike Gibbons pumped nearly $17 million of his own money into the race. Haiyun Jiang for The New York TimesMr. Gibbons likes to sport a navy blue suit coat and red tie reminiscent of Mr. Trump. He has a habit of reminding voters that he is a businessman, not a politician. And he speaks often of how, in 1989, he started his investment banking and financial advisory firm in a small Cleveland office with nothing but a desk and a phone.But imitation did not win Mr. Gibbons the endorsement of the former president he so sought to emulate, and he is closing out the final stretch of the primary much the way he started: with his own gumption and personal wealth.In an interview on his campaign bus Saturday, Mr. Gibbons emphasized his lifelong Ohio roots and business credentials as the best fit for Ohio voters.“I was shocked,” Mr. Gibbons said of Mr. Trump’s endorsement of Mr. Vance, referring to his opponent as someone who “flew in from the West Coast.” He added: “Ohioans should be insulted.”Outside, a couple of volunteers mingled in a grocery store parking lot near Columbus, picking up Gibbons swag and eating pizza, before fanning out to knock on doors.Mr. Gibbons grew up in Parma, a working-class suburb outside of Cleveland. He was a one-time professional football player, and at 37, he founded Brown Gibbons Lang & Company. He ran unsuccessfully for the Senate in 2018, and this time has pumped roughly $17 million into his campaign, making him the largest self-funder in the race.He drew some scrutiny in March for comments he made in 2013 on China and Asian people that used offensive stereotypes and was later criticized for the heated debate stage encounter with Mr. Mandel.Mr. Gibbons served as Mr. Trump’s Ohio fundraising co-chair in 2016. But in one crucial way, his supporters say, his path has sharply diverged from Mr. Trump’s: Mr. Gibbons did not receive a multimillion-dollar loan from his father to launch his business empire.“I like that he is from Parma, Ohio — real down-to-earth kind of guy who worked hard for everything he has in life and earned his way,” said Michael Palcisko, 54, a schoolteacher and military veteran in Cleveland.Jazmine Ulloa and Kevin WilliamsMatt Dolan in North Royalton, Ohio Unlike the other leading Republican candidates in the race, State Senator Matt Dolan acknowledges President Biden is the nation’s legitimate leader.Dustin Franz for The New York TimesOn an overcast Saturday morning, Mr. Dolan knocked on doors in an affluent suburb just south of Cleveland. He was making a last-minute push to get voters to the polls, and on his target list were registered Republicans who had yet to cast a ballot. But on his route, he was just as likely to encounter Democrats and independents who were backing his candidacy — or simply cheering him on.“If it has to be a Republican, I hope it is you,” Rich Evans, 69, a retired educator, told him, as he stopped manicuring his lawn to shake hands.From the beginning, Mr. Dolan, who has served in the statehouse since 2017 and whose family owns the Cleveland Guardians baseball team, has been walking in his own lonely lane. He is the only Republican candidate who supports Mr. Trump but has attempted to put some distance between himself and Mr. Trump.Mr. Trump “did a lot of good things for Ohio,” Mr. Dolan said. But he said he wanted his own campaign to remain focused on Ohio. He wanted to get back to discussing policy, and he certainly did not want to re-litigate the last election.“I am not looking backwards,” he said.Like the other Republicans in the race, he said he wants to secure the border, cut the flow of fentanyl into the state and tackle inflation. But he also said he could do more than his competitors to bring workers to the state and put together a unique economic development agenda.He’s hardly a never Trumper. He said he voted for Mr. Trump in the last presidential election, opposed both impeachment cases against him and has said he would support the former president should he become the 2024 Republican nominee.But on Jan. 6, Mr. Dolan did not shy away from criticizing Mr. Trump for spreading lies about the results of the November 2020 election, writing on Twitter, “Real leaders lead not manipulate.” Unlike the other leading Republican candidates in the race, he also acknowledges President Biden is the nation’s legitimate leader.It was a stance that Pat Ryan, 64, said he respected. Standing at his front door, Ryan, who considers himself a Democrat, said he planned to vote in the Republican primary this year because of Mr. Dolan. “I looked at all the candidates, and he’s the most honest one,” he said.Jazmine Ulloa More

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      The Ohio Primary and the Return of the Republican Civil War

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      Why has the Ohio Republican Senate primary, which reaches its conclusion Tuesday, been so interesting (if not always edifying) to watch? In part, because it’s the first time the divides of the party’s 2016 primary campaign have risen fully to the surface again.Six years ago, under the pressure of Donald Trump’s insurgency, the G.O.P. split into three factions. First was the party establishment, trying to sustain a business-friendly and internationalist agenda and an institutionalist approach to governance. This was the faction of Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio, much the party’s Washington D.C. leadership — but fewer of its media organs and activists.Those groups mostly supported the more movement-driven, True Conservative faction — the faction of Ted Cruz, the Tea Party, the House Freedom Caucus, talk radio. This faction was more libertarian and combative, and richer in grassroots support — but not as rich as it thought.That’s because Trump himself forged a third faction, pulling together a mixture of populists and paleoconservatives, disaffected voters who didn’t share True Conservatism’s litmus tests and pugilists who just wanted someone to fight liberal cultural dominance, with no agenda beyond the fight itself.When Trump, astonishingly, won the presidency, you might have expected these factions to feud openly throughout his chaotic administration. But that’s not exactly what happened. Part of the establishment faction — mostly strategists and pundits — broke from the party entirely. The larger part, the Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan and Nikki Haley camp, essentially ran policy in the early Trump era — passing tax reform, running the national security bureaucracy, bemoaning Trump’s tweets while setting much of his agenda.The movement faction, Tea Partyers and TrueCons, was given personnel appointments, the chance to write irrelevant budget proposals, and eventually a degree of personal power, through figures like Mick Mulvaney and Mark Meadows. (Trump clearly just liked the Freedom Caucus guys, whatever their ideological differences.) The populists, meanwhile, won some victories on immigration policy and trade, while complaining about the “deep state” on almost every other front.But because both the TrueCons and the populists delighted in Trump’s pugilism — even unto his election-overturning efforts in 2020 — it could be hard to see where one faction ended and the next began. And this pattern often held in Trump-era Republican primary battles, in which candidates with TrueCon or establishment backgrounds recast themselves as Trumpists by endorsing his grievances and paranoias.But in the Ohio Senate primary, finally, you can see the divisions clearly once again. First you have a candidate, Matt Dolan, who is fully in the establishment lane, explicitly refusing to court Trumpian favor and trying to use the Russian invasion of Ukraine to peel Republicans away from the America First banner.You have a candidate in the TrueCon lane, the adaptable Josh Mandel, who tried to hug Trump personally but who draws his support from the old powers of movement conservatism — from the Club for Growth to talk radio’s Mark Levin to the political consultancy that runs Ted Cruz’s campaigns.And you have J.D. Vance, who is very clear about trying to be a populist in full — taking the Trump-in-2016 line on trade and immigration and foreign policy, allying himself with thinkers and funders who want a full break with the pre-Trump G.O.P.Given this division, it’s significant that Trump decided to endorse Vance, and that his most politically active scion, Donald Jr., is enthusiastic for the “Hillbilly Elegy” author. It’s also significant that Trump’s endorsement hasn’t prevented the Club for Growth from continuing to throw money against Vance, prompting blowback from Trump himself. For the first time since 2016, there’s a clear line not just between Trump and the establishment but between Trumpian populism and movement conservatism.That line will blur again once the primary is settled. But the battle for Ohio suggests things to look for in 2022 and beyond. First, expect a Trump revival to be more like his 2016 insurgent-populist campaign than his incumbent run in 2020. Second, expect populism writ large to gain some strength and substance but still remain bound to Trump’s obsessions (and appetite for constitutional crisis).Third, expect many of the movement and TrueCon figures who made their peace with Trump six years ago to be all-in for Ron DeSantis should he seem remotely viable. Fourth, expect the remains of the establishment to divide over whether to rally around a candidate of anti-Trump principle — from Liz Cheney to certain incarnations of Mike Pence — or to make their peace with a harder-edged figure like DeSantis.Finally, expect a potential second Trump presidency to resemble the scramble for his endorsement in Ohio: the establishment left out in the cold, no Reince Priebus running the White House or McConnell setting its agenda, but just constant policy battles between movement conservatives and populists, each claiming to embody the true and only Trumpism and hoping that the boss agrees.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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      Nebraska Candidate for Governor Accused of Second Groping Incident at 2019 Dinner

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      Charles W. Herbster, who has been endorsed by Donald Trump for Nebraska governor, was accused of groping a second woman at a 2019 Republican fund-raising event. He denies both allegations.A second woman has publicly accused Charles W. Herbster, the Republican candidate for governor in Nebraska endorsed by former President Donald J. Trump, of groping her at a 2019 Republican fund-raising dinner.Elizabeth Todsen said Mr. Herbster grabbed her at the dinner in Omaha and said details of the incident reported earlier this month by the Nebraska Examiner were correct.“For years I have struggled with an experience I had with Charles W. Herbster,” she said in a statement issued by her lawyer. “At a political event in 2019, Herbster sexually groped me while greeting my table.”The allegations against Mr. Herbster, a millionaire agribusiness executive who is largely self-funding his campaign, have roiled the often polite world of Nebraska politics ahead of the state’s May 10 primary. The longtime Trump ally has adopted the former president’s playbook in responding to the allegations, forcefully denying them, suing his first public accuser, a state senator, and tying her to his political rivals.A spokeswoman for Mr. Herbster’s campaign, Emily Novotny, said Mr. Herbster “absolutely and unequivocally denies all allegations.” She said he “will be taking legal action” against Ms. Todsen. Mr. Herbster is a bitter political rival of Gov. Pete Ricketts, a term-limited Republican who like Mr. Herbster has long been a major donor to Nebraska Republicans. Mr. Ricketts is supporting Jim Pillen, a member of the University of Nebraska Board of Regents. Limited public polling of the race shows Mr. Herbster and Mr. Pillen locked in a virtual three-way tie with Brett Lindstrom, a state senator who has attracted support from moderate Republicans and from some Democrats who have changed their party affiliation to vote in the primary.The account from Ms. Todsen follows an accusation earlier this month from Julie Slama, a Nebraska state senator who said Mr. Herbster also grabbed her at the same event.Ms. Todsen, 26, is a former political aide to Nebraska state legislators who now works for a fund-raising company in Washington. She did not respond to messages on Saturday and her lawyer, Tara Tesmer Paulson of Lincoln, Neb., said she would make no additional comments.Mr. Herbster denied Ms. Slama’s account and has since aired television ads tying her to his political rivals in the governor’s race while comparing himself to Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh, who both faced charges of improper behavior during their confirmation hearings. Mr. Herbster’s TV ad claims Ms. Slama kept in contact with him after the incident and “even invited Herbster to her destination wedding.”Ms. Slama said on Twitter on Saturday that she was “grateful for Elizabeth’s bravery in coming forward.”Mr. Herbster and Mr. Trump are scheduled to appear together at a rally on Sunday in Greenwood, Neb. The event was originally planned for Friday night but Mr. Trump moved it, he said, because of storms forecast for the area.Kirsten Noyes More

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      Ahead of Senate Primary Election, Ohio Republicans Embrace the Bombast

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      The slugfest for the Republican nomination for Ohio’s open Senate seat has buried the brand of good-natured, country-club conservatism that was once a hallmark of the state.COLUMBUS, Ohio — Republicans running for the seat of Ohio’s retiring senator, Rob Portman, appear determined to bury the soft-spoken country-club bonhomie that was once a hallmark of the party in this state, and replace it with the pugilistic brand of conservatism owned by Donald J. Trump and now amplified by the new band of Buckeye bomb throwers.The race descended into a brutal slugfest as the leading candidates, the author-turned-venture capitalist J.D. Vance, the former state treasurer Josh Mandel and a self-funded businessman, Mike Gibbons, entered the final weekend before Tuesday’s primaries accusing one another of being insufficiently right-wing or disloyal to the man in Mar-a-Lago.Ohio used to be known for the quiet conservatism of the state’s celebrated former senator George Voinovich and its current governor, Mike DeWine; for the Merlot-swilling happy-warrior days of the former House speaker John A. Boehner; for the moderation of John Kasich, a two-term governor; and for the free-trade, free-market ideology of Mr. Portman himself.Instead, affections for such Ohio leaders are now being weaponized — in broadsides from the candidates and advertisements by their allies — as evidence that rivals are paying only lip service to Mr. Trump and his angry populism.“Josh Mandel: Another failed career politician squish,” a new ad from a super PAC supporting Mr. Vance blared on Ohio television sets on Friday, calling Mr. Mandel, who is mounting his third Senate run, a “two-time loser” and “a moderate for the moderates.”After so much vitriol, Ohio’s primary will begin to shed light on just how much power the former president can still wield from his exile. But in the final days of campaigning, the leading contenders left no doubt about his ideological hold on the party.At an evangelical church near Dayton on Friday, Mr. Mandel campaigned with Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, who sought to blunt the impact of Mr. Trump’s endorsement of Mr. Vance two weeks ago. “At the end of the day, it’s not going to come down to who endorsed whom,” Mr. Cruz said before he and Mr. Mandel brought an older crowd to its feet with stem-winding paeans to conservatism and criticism of Democrats.How Donald J. Trump Still LoomsGrip on G.O.P.: Mr. Trump remains the most powerful figure in the Republican Party. However, there are signs his control is loosening.A Modern-Day Party Boss: Hoarding cash, doling out favors and seeking to crush rivals, Mr. Trump is behaving like the head of a 19th-century political machine.Power Struggle: Led by Senator Mitch McConnell, a band of anti-Trump Republicans is maneuvering to thwart the ex-president.Post-Presidency Profits: Mr. Trump is melding business with politics, capitalizing for personal gain.Just the Beginning: For many Trump supporters who marched on Jan. 6, the day was not a disgraced insurrection but the start of a movement.Some in the crowd of more than 100 worried that the endorsement of Mr. Vance had significantly lowered Mr. Mandel’s odds of victory. “I think it went down quite a bit,” said Paul Markowski, a retired police officer in a Trump 2020 cap. He said he had not forgiven Mr. Vance for comments he made in 2016 denouncing Mr. Trump and saying that some of his support was driven by racism.“I could get over him not supporting Trump,” Mr. Markowski said. “But when he bad-mouthed us, the voters, that pissed me off.”Mr. Vance, for his part, pressed his attack on Mr. Mandel, who had vied for the former president’s endorsement with ads calling himself “pro-God, pro-gun, pro-Trump.” Mr. Vance’s spokeswoman, Taylor Van Kirk, called Mr. Mandel “a phony, fraud and sellout, who claims to be ‘anti-establishment’ in public, but throws President Trump and the entire MAGA movement under the bus to the establishment behind closed doors.”Josh Mandel, a former Ohio treasurer, insists he is the true standard-bearer for Mr. Trump’s “America First” movement.Dustin Franz/Getty ImagesIn turn, the one Republican who has said the party needs to move on from the former president, State Senator Matt Dolan, castigated Mr. Vance for bringing members of the party’s extremist wing, Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Matt Gaetz of Florida, into the state on Saturday — not because of their extreme positions, but because they are “outsiders” who are “telling Ohioans how they should vote.”In the rush to the right, Mr. Gibbons, who had styled himself a businessman in Mr. Trump’s mold and was once the front-runner in the Senate contest, pledged his fealty to a right-wing movement, called the Convention of States, to rewrite the Constitution to restrain federal power.All of the major candidates in the Republican Senate primary have insisted they are the true conservatives in the race, but only one, Mr. Vance, has the official imprimatur of the former president. That means the judgment that Republican voters render on Tuesday will go a long way to show whether even conservative candidates like Mr. Mandel and Mr. Gibbons can overcome a cold shoulder from Mar-a-Lago.“President Trump is a major factor in this state,” said Alex Triantafilou, the longtime chairman of the Hamilton County Republican Party, which includes Cincinnati. “He just is. He still motivates our base in a way that some people think is waning, but it’s not from my perspective.”Still, to call Tuesday’s Republican primary a referendum on the future of Trumpism — in Ohio and beyond — would go too far. The state’s low-key Republican governor, Mr. DeWine, does not appear to be threatened in his quest for re-election by a primary challenger, Jim Renacci, whose “Putting Ohio First” campaign adopted MAGA themes in its attack on Mr. DeWine’s pandemic-control efforts. Mr. Trump declined to endorse Mr. Renacci, seeing no prospect for victory.The former president’s attacks did chase the one Ohio Republican who voted to impeach him, Representative Anthony Gonzalez, into retirement, and he buoyed a former White House aide, Max Miller, who is running for an Ohio House seat, despite an accusation from one of Mr. Trump’s press secretaries, Stephanie Grisham, that he had physically abused her.But in other contests, such as a heated Republican primary in northwest Ohio, mainstream Republicans are expected to prevail against conservative showmen like J.R. Majewski, who painted his vast backyard into a 19,000-square-foot Trump election sign and posted a video of himself walking through a shuttered factory with an assault-style rifle.In the bellwether Senate race here, however, Mr. Trump’s influence is undeniable. The state was once a reliable birthing ground of center-right Republicans, such as Mr. Portman, Mr. Boehner and Mr. DeWine, who has been in Republican politics for 45 years, as a House member, senator, lieutenant governor, attorney general and governor.But the free-trade, free-market and pro-legal immigration sentiments that were once hallmarks of the party have been washed away by Trumpism.And the Ohio primary will kick off a four-week period that will reveal much about Mr. Trump’s sway with the party — and just how transferable his continued popularity is to others. After Ohio, his preferred picks in Nebraska, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia will all be tested in heated primaries.Mike Gibbons, who styled himself as a businessman in Mr. Trump’s mold, was an early front-runner in the Senate race.Dustin Franz for The New York TimesMr. Vance, buoyed by the endorsement bump and leading in a Fox News poll, is scarcely tacking to the center, confident in the support of the Republican base. On Saturday, he will barnstorm through Ohio with two figures from the right fringe of the party, Ms. Greene and Mr. Gaetz. On Sunday and Monday, he will be joined on the campaign trail by two other figures firmly in the former president’s camp, Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri and Charlie Kirk, the bombastic leader of the far-right Turning Point USA.But after trailing in the primary contest for months, Mr. Vance enters the final stretch as something of a front-runner, with the other candidates training their fire on him. Providing air cover for Mr. Mandel, the business-backed political action committee the Club for Growth is broadcasting an advertisement repeating attacks that Mr. Vance made in 2016 against Mr. Trump and his supporters, suggesting the former president made a mistake with his endorsement.A pro-Vance super PAC, heavily funded by Peter Thiel, the Trump-aligned financier that Mr. Vance works for, fired back Friday with an ad running in Columbus, Dayton and Cleveland that portrays Mr. Mandel as a “squish.” Mr. Mandel’s embrace by the Republican nominees for the presidency in 2008 and 2012, John McCain and Mitt Romney, are treated in the advertisement like a scarlet letter, and kind words from Mr. Kasich might as well have come from Nancy Pelosi.“Josh Mandel, he’s for them, not us,” the narrator intones, a clear message that Tuesday’s primary is geared toward the Republican extremes, not the sort of voters who once backed Mr. Kasich and Mr. Romney.Mr. Gibbons, still in the hunt for the nomination, will trot out yet another Trump ally, Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, on Monday to attest to his conservative bona fides. In a series of statements on Friday seemingly issued to appeal to the far right, Mr. Gibbons declared that a “dire need of real change” meant he would support a convention to rewrite the Constitution, and said that a new effort by the Department of Homeland Security to combat disinformation would be “a de facto ‘Ministry of Truth’” to crush dissent.Jonathan Weisman reported from Columbus, Ohio, and Trip Gabriel from Dayton. More

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      Madison Cawthorn is Under Pressure as Scandals Pile Up

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      Representative Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina, once a bright young star in the conservative firmament, finds himself besieged by accusations and insinuations.WASHINGTON — Besieged by multiplying scandals and salacious accusations, Representative Madison Cawthorn, Republican of North Carolina, is under mounting pressure from both parties to end his short career in Congress.In rapid succession, Mr. Cawthorn, who entered Congress as a rising star of the party’s far right, has been accused of falsely suggesting that his Republican colleagues routinely throw cocaine-fueled orgies, insider trading and an inappropriate relationship with a male aide. This week, he was detained at an airport, where police said he tried to bring a loaded handgun onto an airplane, the second time he has attempted that.That came just days after pictures surfaced of him wearing women’s lingerie as part of a cruise ship game, imagery that might not go over well in the conservative stretches of his Western North Carolina district. And last month he was charged with driving with a revoked license for the second time since 2017.The deluge of revelations and charges have left him on an island even within his own party. A political group supporting Senator Thom Tillis, Republican of North Carolina, has been pouring money into an ad campaign accusing Mr. Cawthorn of being a fame-seeking liar. The group is supporting the campaign of a more mainstream Republican, State Senator Chuck Edwards, who is running against Mr. Cawthorn. And the far-right, anti-establishment wing of the party now views the first-term congressman with similar skepticism, as someone who is falsely selling himself as a gatekeeper in his state to former President Donald J. Trump.After initially blaming Democrats for the onslaught, Mr. Cawthorn on Friday said it was Republicans who were targeting him because he threatens the status quo.“I want to change the GOP for the better, and I believe in America First,” he wrote on Twitter. “I can understand the establishment attacking those beliefs, but just digging stuff up from my early 20s to smear me is pathetic.”At 26 years old, Mr. Cawthorn is not far removed from his early 20s, and Republicans running to unseat him in the May 17 North Carolina primary said the drumbeat of revelations could put his seat at risk if he secures the nomination for a second term.Washington Republicans scoff at the notion that a solidly conservative district could be at risk during a year in which they are heavily favored, but early voting began this week as the avalanche of accusations against Mr. Cawthorn was gaining steam.“He could absolutely lose,” said Michele Woodhouse, one of seven Republicans challenging Mr. Cawthorn in the primary.His leading Democratic opponent, the Rev. Jasmine Beach-Ferrara, continues to raise money off her Republican opponent’s foibles. Ms. Beach-Ferrara called Mr. Cawthorn “a troubled young man.”“I hold him in my prayers, but I believe he is not fit to serve in office,” she said in an interview.Still, the dirt being dished is coming from Republicans — not in Washington but in North Carolina, said David B. Wheeler, president of American Muckrakers PAC, a group he said was put together to “hold Cawthorn accountable.”Mr. Wheeler’s group, run by Western North Carolina Democrats, filed an incendiary ethics complaint on Wednesday that included a video of Mr. Cawthorn with a senior aide, Stephen L. Smith. In the video, Mr. Cawthorn, in the driver’s seat of a car, appears to say, “I feel the passion and desire and would like to see a naked body beneath my hands.”The camera then pans back to Mr. Smith who says, “Me too” as he places his hand onto Mr. Cawthorn’s crotch.The ethics complaint said Mr. Cawthorn has provided loans to Mr. Smith in violation of House rules. It also suggested that Mr. Cawthorn, who, according to the complaint, lives with the aide, has violated rules put in place during the #MeToo movement that bar lawmakers from having sexual relationships with employees under their supervision.After the story broke in The Daily Mail, Mr. Cawthorn posted on Twitter, “Many of my colleagues would be nowhere near politics if they had grown up with a cell phone in their hands” — not exactly a denial but a suggestion that other members should not cast stones.Mr. Wheeler provided The Times with a screenshot of the anonymous text he received that included the video, and he said he believed the tipster to be a former Cawthorn campaign aide. Another former aide, Lisa Wiggins, went public in an audio recording released by Mr. Wheeler with her consent, saying, “We all want the ultimate goal of him never serving again.”Republicans in the state insist that accusations of lawlessness and neglect of his district are more damaging than details of his sex life. Democrats say they are most concerned with Mr. Cawthorn’s support for the protesters who attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. A legal effort led by North Carolina Democrats to label him as an “insurrectionist” and constitutionally disqualify him from the ballot failed last month.But the revelations about his conduct are making a splash. The photos of Mr. Cawthorn in women’s lingerie, first published in Politico, stemmed from a bawdy game aboard a cruise that he took before he was elected to the House, said Melissa Burns, a self-described conservative Republican from Tennessee who witnessed the game, part of an onboard show.For the finale, the audience was divided into teams, each of which selected a man to dress as a woman, “the sexier ‘she’ is, the more points you get,” Ms. Burns said in an email. Mr. Cawthorn volunteered.The description is consistent with a description that Mr. Cawthorn provided in a link on Twitter, when he dismissed the photos, saying, “I guess the left thinks goofy vacation photos during a game on a cruise (taken waaay before I ran for Congress) is going to somehow hurt me?”Ms. Burns also provided a link to a dating app for the cruise from someone identified as “Cawthorn,” using the same photo that was published in Politico, saying, “Im in search of sexy women or couples for some wild sexapades. You wont be disappointed.”Luke Ball, a spokesman for Mr. Cawthorn, did not deny Ms. Burns’ description of the lingerie game, but he said the dating app was a fake that used the wrong age, wrong hometown and wrong name of the ship.The hits are taking a toll. The far-right wing of the party once viewed Mr. Cawthorn, a telegenic congressman who uses a wheelchair after a car crash at the age of 18, as a young leader with potential. Now its members keep him at arm’s length and view him as a troubled individual who isn’t always aligned with the base on the issues.They describe Mr. Cawthorn as someone who is “Twitter famous,” but who does not work the district and lacks grass-roots support at home. Many of them have noted that even Donald Trump Jr., a popular figure on the right, has stayed quiet and made no attempt to come to his defense.“I don’t see MAGA voters being quite this forgiving,” said Jason Miller, an adviser to the elder Mr. Trump.Still, the former president himself endorsed Mr. Cawthorn last year and has continued to stand by him; Mr. Trump invited the congressman to appear at a rally with him this month in Selma, N.C.The Congressional Leadership Fund, the super PAC aligned with House Republicans, and the National Republican Congressional Committee, which don’t involve themselves in primaries in states where a G.O.P. candidate is positioned to win a general election, are staying out of the fracas.But Mr. Wheeler said his group will keep up the pressure. He said legal authorities have taken no action after Mr. Cawthorn’s two firearms charges, his brush with law enforcement over expired licenses or his failure to obtain hunting and fishing licenses, despite boasting that he does both.“The guy hasn’t been held accountable,” Mr. Wheeler said. More

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      Why Republican Insurgents Are Struggling to Topple G.O.P. Governors

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      Jim Renacci, an acolyte of Donald J. Trump who is trying to capitalize on outsider energy to oust the Republican governor of Ohio, has found himself outspent, way down in the polls and lamenting his lack of an endorsement from the former president.He has even given up on raising cash.“Why waste time trying to raise money when you’re running against an incumbent?” Mr. Renacci said in an interview. “I would rather spend time getting my message out. I just don’t have a finance team.”Mr. Renacci’s plight ahead of Ohio’s primary election on Tuesday illustrates the challenges in front of Republican candidates who are trying to seize on the party’s divisions to unseat G.O.P. governors. Some have been endorsed by Mr. Trump as part of his quest to dominate Republican primaries, while others, like Mr. Renacci, have not received the coveted nod but are hoping to take advantage of Trump supporters’ anti-establishment fervor.But in every case, these candidates have failed to gain traction.Trump-inspired and Trump-endorsed candidates for governor have put up spirited opposition in May primaries across five states, but they are facing strong headwinds. In addition to Ohio, where Gov. Mike DeWine holds a polling lead of nearly 20 percentage points over Mr. Renacci, Republican governors in Alabama, Georgia and Idaho are so far holding off Trump-wing candidates. In Nebraska, a candidate backed by Mr. Trump is locked in a three-way contest for an open seat with the governor’s choice and a relative moderate.In all of the races, governors from the traditional Republican establishment are showing their strength. Their resilience stems, in some cases, from voters’ desire for more moderation in their state executives than in their members of Congress. But it is also clear evidence of the enduring power of incumbency, even in a party at war with its establishment.Incumbent governors have a plethora of advantages that don’t apply to members of Congress. They often control the infrastructure of their state party, they can drive the local news media and they can campaign on specific policy achievements.And it is difficult to knock them off: Only three Republican governors have been denied renomination this century, in Kansas in 2018, Nevada in 2010 and Alaska in 2006. Scandals or political upheaval were major factors in each upset.“As an incumbent governor, you have to work really hard to lose your party’s nomination,” said Phil Cox, a former executive director of the Republican Governors Association who advises a number of governors. “Even if you’re an unpopular governor with the broader electorate, it should be relatively easy to build and maintain a strong base of support among your own party.”The Republican Governors Association is backing its incumbents, spending more than $3 million in Ohio to help Mr. DeWine, who angered the conservative base with his aggressive Covid mitigation policies, and more than $5 million in Georgia to help Gov. Brian Kemp, whom Mr. Trump blames for not helping him overturn the 2020 election.Polling shows Mr. DeWine with a lead of nearly 20 percentage points over Mr. Renacci in Ohio. Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesIn some states, Republican governors have moved to the right to fend off challengers.Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas did so successfully in March, and Gov. Kay Ivey of Alabama has followed his model ahead of her primary next month, falsely claiming in television ads that the 2020 election was stolen and warning that unchecked immigration will force Americans to speak Spanish. Ms. Ivey holds a big lead over her challengers on the right, but Alabama law requires a majority of the primary vote to avoid a runoff.A Guide to the 2022 Midterm ElectionsMidterms Begin: The 2022 election season is underway. See the full primary calendar and a detailed state-by-state breakdown.In the Senate: Democrats have a razor-thin margin that could be upended with a single loss. Here are the four incumbents most at risk.In the House: Republicans and Democrats are seeking to gain an edge through redistricting and gerrymandering, though this year’s map is poised to be surprisingly fairGovernors’ Races: Georgia’s contest will be at the center of the political universe, but there are several important races across the country.Key Issues: Inflation, the pandemic, abortion and voting rights are expected to be among this election cycle’s defining topics.For Mr. Trump, who regularly boasts of his approval rating among Republican voters and his endorsement record in primaries, the prospect of losing primaries — especially in Georgia, where he has for more than a year attacked Mr. Kemp — would be an embarrassing setback.Polls show Mr. Kemp comfortably ahead of Mr. Trump’s choice, former Senator David Perdue, who has bet his campaign on 2020 election grievances.In Idaho, Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin, who has been endorsed by Mr. Trump in her bid for governor, trails well behind Gov. Brad Little. And in Nebraska, Mr. Trump endorsed Charles W. Herbster, a wealthy agribusiness executive who was accused this month by a state senator of groping her at a political event.Advisers to Mr. Trump predict that he will simply dismiss any losses and instead highlight the races his candidates have won, as has generally been his practice. For instance, he withdrew his endorsement of Representative Mo Brooks in Alabama’s Senate race when it became clear Mr. Brooks’s campaign was sputtering.“Remember, you know, my record is unblemished,” Mr. Trump said in an interview with The New York Times on Thursday. “The real story should be on the endorsements — not the David Perdue one — and, by the way, no race is over.”Mr. Trump is far from undefeated in primaries. Last year in a special election in Texas, he backed Susan Wright, whose husband, Ron Wright, represented a Dallas-area district before dying of Covid, when she lost a Republican primary to Jake Ellzey. He was also on the losing end of a North Carolina primary in 2020 won by Representative Madison Cawthorn and an Alabama Senate primary in 2017 in which Roy S. Moore defeated Senator Luther Strange.In governor’s primaries, Trump-backed insurgents have struggled against incumbents for various reasons. The races in which he has appeared able to lift candidates tend to be primaries for open Senate seats, most notably J.D. Vance’s bid in Ohio.In Idaho, Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin trails well behind Gov. Brad Little in the Republican primary for governor, despite her Trump endorsement.Darin Oswald/Idaho Statesman, via Associated PressIn Idaho, Ms. McGeachin attracted attention from the Republican base last year when, while Mr. Little was traveling out of state, she issued executive orders banning mask mandates (which did not exist on a statewide level) and prohibiting companies from requiring vaccinations, and also tried to deploy the Idaho National Guard to the Mexican border. Mr. Little reversed those moves upon his return.“She is brave and not afraid to stand up for the issues that matter most to the people of Idaho,” Mr. Trump said when he endorsed Ms. McGeachin in November.There is virtually no public polling of the race, but C.L. Otter, a former Idaho governor known as Butch, said private polling showed Mr. Little, whom Mr. Otter has endorsed, holding a two-to-one lead over Ms. McGeachin.Ms. McGeachin has raised just $646,000, according to campaign finance data from the Idaho secretary of state’s office. Mr. Little has raised nearly three times as much — $1.94 million. Her aides did not immediately respond to an interview request.“I kind of shy away from people who spend more time looking for the headlines than they do doing the right thing,” Mr. Otter said, cautioning, “A sincere renegade always has an opportunity in a Republican primary.”In Nebraska, Mr. Herbster, who served as an agriculture adviser to Mr. Trump’s campaigns, has denied the groping allegations and has filed a lawsuit against the state senator. She subsequently countersued him. Mr. Trump is expected to hold a rally on Sunday night in Nebraska with Mr. Herbster, who this week began airing television ads comparing himself to Justices Clarence Thomas and Brett M. Kavanaugh.In Nebraska, Mr. Trump endorsed Charles W. Herbster, a wealthy agribusiness executive, but he is locked in a tight race against two other Republicans.Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty ImagesMr. Herbster, like Mr. Renacci, is self-funding his campaign but has struggled to translate Mr. Trump’s endorsement into a polling advantage over Jim Pillen, a University of Nebraska regent who is backed by Gov. Pete Ricketts, and Brett Lindstrom, a state senator who has consolidated support from the moderate wing of the party and even some Democrats — nearly 2,000 of whom have changed their party affiliation in advance of the May 10 primary. Mr. Herbster’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.Sam Fischer, a longtime Republican operative in the state who once worked for Mr. Herbster, said that the western part of the state was “way Trumpier, but right now in Lincoln and Omaha, Herbster is behind.”And in Ohio, Mr. Renacci, a businessman who has owned car dealerships and nursing homes, has been outspent nearly three to one by Mr. DeWine on television ads, according to AdImpact, a media tracking firm. A third candidate, Joe Blystone, who owns a farming business, has spent nothing on television but is running nearly even with Mr. Renacci in public polling, well behind Mr. DeWine, who declined to be interviewed.Mr. Renacci, a former small-town mayor who entered Congress in the 2010 Tea Party wave, has never been a voracious fund-raiser. He cycled through a series of campaign managers and finance aides in 2018, when Mr. Trump persuaded him to drop a run for governor and instead challenge Senator Sherrod Brown, a Democrat.In that race, Mr. Renacci often used an app called Slydial, which bypasses direct phone calls by sending messages straight to people’s voice mail boxes, to send dozens of solicitations at once to prospective donors, according to two people who worked for his campaign who insisted on anonymity for fear of career repercussions. It was an unusual tactic to reach potential contributors who often prefer a personal touch before opening their wallets.Mr. Renacci lost to Mr. Brown by 6.8 percentage points after the Democrat more than doubled his rival’s campaign spending.At a rally for Mr. Trump last weekend in Ohio, Mr. Blystone’s supporters often quoted from the candidate’s campaign ads, praising his commitment to God, guns and family.“He’s not a politician, he is a farmer, and as small as our town is, he has been at the bars just visiting people,” said Tiffany Dingus, 39, an attendee.Mr. Renacci said his major problem in the race was the presence of Mr. Blystone, whom he said Mr. Trump had cited in a conversation last month as his reason for not endorsing Mr. Renacci.“This race would be over for Mike DeWine if there were only two people in the race,” Mr. Renacci said. “The president did say, he didn’t know the guy’s name, but he just said, ‘There’s a third guy in there that’s taking votes away from you.’”Nick Corasaniti More

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      How DeSantis Transformed Florida’s Political Identity

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      The state has become an unlikely laboratory for right-wing policy, pushed by a governor with presidential ambitions.MIAMI — Florida feels like a state running a fever, its very identity changing at a frenetic pace.Once the biggest traditional presidential battleground, it has suddenly turned into a laboratory of possibility for the political right.Discussions of sexual orientation and gender identity prohibited in early elementary school. Math textbooks rejected en masse for what the state called “indoctrination.” Schools and employers limited in what they can teach about racism and other aspects of history. Tenured professors in public universities subjected to new reviews. Abortions banned after 15 weeks. The creation of a law enforcement office to investigate election crimes. A congressional map redrawn to give Republicans an even bigger advantage.And, perhaps most stunning of all, Disney, long an untouchable corporate giant, stripped of the ability to govern itself for the first time in more than half a century, in retaliation for the company’s opposition to the crackdown on L.G.B.T.Q. conversations with young schoolchildren.“It does have this feeling of, ‘Oh, what the hell just happened?’” said Kristen Arnett, a novelist and Orlando native who now lives in Miami. “It’s overwhelming.”Florida has transformed over the past two years as Gov. Ron DeSantis has increased and flexed his power to remarkable effect, embracing policies that once seemed unthinkable. That has made the Republican governor a favorite of the party’s Fox News-viewing base and turned him into a possible presidential contender.Mr. DeSantis displayed the signed Parental Rights in Education law, known by opponents as “Don’t Say Gay,” while flanked by elementary school students.Douglas R. Clifford/Tampa Bay Times, via Associated PressMr. DeSantis has demurred on the question of whether he will seek the White House in 2024 even if former President Donald J. Trump runs again. Mr. Trump has retired — for now — to his Palm Beach estate of Mar-a-Lago and looms as his party’s king or kingmaker. Yet it is Mr. DeSantis who has kept Florida in the national spotlight — relentlessly.Bob Buckhorn, the former Democratic mayor of Tampa, blamed a combination of factors for Florida’s sudden turn: Mr. DeSantis’s ambition, national culture wars and Mr. Trump, for having “given voice to all of the ugliness and the demons that inhabit Americans.”“It’s just an unholy alliance of circumstances that have come together that allow this type of politics to occur,” Mr. Buckhorn said.Not long ago, such a shift would have seemed out of the question in a state notorious for its tight election margins and nail-biting recounts. Mr. DeSantis won the governorship by about 32,000 votes in 2018, hardly a mandate. His aloof personality did not exactly sparkle.Read More on Florida’s Fight With DisneyWhat to Know: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Disney, the state’s largest private employer, are clashing over a new education law.‘Don’t Say Gay’ Bill: In a move seen as retaliation for the company’s criticism of the legislation, Florida lawmakers revoked Disney World’s special tax status.Facing the Real World: Disney spent decades avoiding controversy. But it has increasingly been drawn into the partisan political fray.A G.O.P. Shift: The battle in Florida showed how combative Republicans have grown toward corporations that take a stand on political issues.But beginning in 2020, a politically attuned Mr. DeSantis seized on discontent with coronavirus pandemic policies, betting that economic prosperity and individual liberties would matter more to voters in the long run than protecting public health. More than 73,000 Floridians have died of Covid-19, yet public opinion polls have shown that Mr. DeSantis and many of his policies remain quite popular.Parents, especially, who cheered the governor’s opposition to Covid-19 restrictions in schools, have remained active on issues of curriculum and culture.“I think the governor is more popular than Disney — I think the governor is more popular than the former president,” said Anthony Pedicini, a Republican strategist in Tampa. “If you’re running for office as a Republican in Florida and you aren’t toeing the DeSantis mantra, you will not win.”The question now for Mr. DeSantis — and virtually everyone else in Florida — is whether the rightward lurch will stop, either by court intervention, corporate backlash or, come November, electoral rebuke. But given Florida’s trends in recent years, the more likely outcome could be a sustained campaign toward a new, more rigid conservative orthodoxy, one that voters could very well ratify this fall.The state’s swift and unexpected rightward tilt has happened as Florida has swelled with new residents. Between July 2020 and July 2021, about 260,000 more people arrived than left, a net migration higher than any other state. The trend began before the pandemic but appeared to accelerate as remote workers sought warm weather, low taxes and few public health restrictions.Culturally, Floridians have been less conservative than their leaders. They have voted by large margins to legalize medical marijuana, prohibit gerrymandering and restore felons’ voting rights. (Last year, Republican lawmakers passed limits on the use of such citizen-led ballot initiatives.) So the recent rash of legislation has been met with trepidation in the state’s big cities, which are almost all run by Democrats.“I’m not exactly sure what DeSantis is trying to prove,” Brian Hill, an energy consultant, said on a sun-swept morning this week in downtown Orlando’s Lake Eola Park, near the Walt Disney Amphitheater, which is painted in rainbow colors in celebration of the L.G.B.T.Q. community.In 2016, a gunman killed 49 people and injured 53 others at Pulse, a gay nightclub in town. The amphitheater, Mr. Hill said, is “a symbol of how far we’ve come.” He contrasted it with the law restricting sexual orientation and gender identity discussions through third grade, a measure that supporters said promoted parental rights but critics called “Don’t Say Gay.”“The bill is taking schools back to the ’80s, to be honest,” said Mr. Hill, 52, who has lived in Orlando for two years. “It’s not realistic with today’s society.”Mr. DeSantis has demurred on the question of whether he will seek the White House in 2024 even if former President Donald J. Trump runs again.Doug Mills/The New York TimesGoing after Disney seemed doubly strange to some Orlando residents, considering how Mr. DeSantis fought to keep businesses open during the pandemic, a boon to tourism and theme parks. “The magic is back!” his Twitter account proclaimed in August 2020 after a Disney vice president took part in one of his events.Even some residents who generally like the governor worry that his battle with Disney has gone too far. One DeSantis supporter interviewed outside a sports club in the Orlando suburbs declined to give his name but said revoking Disney’s special tax status was “cancel culture-esque.” (Disney told investors this week that its tax district cannot be dissolved unless the state assumes its existing bond debt, the Orlando NBC News affiliate WESH reported.)May von Scherrer, 35, came to Florida from Puerto Rico in 2017 and said she had found it “thrilling” to support the Black Lives Matter movement in marches during the summer of 2020. That time now feels very distant.“I’ve never felt more like those sci-fi dystopian futures,” she said. “That’s what’s happening now. We’re living in them.”But few political observers expect distaste with Mr. DeSantis and his policies to translate into robust opposition come Election Day. Florida Democrats lack the organization, funding and leadership required to mount a vast and expensive campaign. They have also lost their edge in voter registrations; Republicans now hold a narrow advantage.“People who love DeSantis are super jazzed,” said Nate Monroe, metro columnist for The Florida Times-Union in Jacksonville and a frequent DeSantis critic. “People who don’t — and there are a considerable number of people who don’t in the state — are just kind of like, ‘Eh, it’s hopeless, why even bother at this point.’”Mr. DeSantis holds near daily public events in which he bashes President Biden while supporters lavish him with unmitigated praise. He exerts such dominance over Florida Republicans that a candidate for agriculture commissioner dropped out after the governor endorsed his opponent on Twitter. And he has raised more than $100 million, an extraordinary sum, from donors all over the country.Last Friday, Mr. DeSantis signed into law the restrictions on how racism and other aspects of history can be taught in schools and workplaces, known as the “Stop WOKE Act,” in an elaborate ceremony in which supporters described him as brave and bold.Among those present were parents who opposed school closures, quarantines and mask mandates during the pandemic — and then remained engaged on other education matters. Mr. DeSantis has repeatedly featured those voices to cast his policies as common sense.Christine Chaparro said she would be pulling her children out of the Broward County public schools after her son brought home language arts workbooks that cited the co-author of an antiracism book and mentioned Black Lives Matter and Stacey Abrams’s voter suppression claims in the 2018 Georgia governor’s race.“I disagree that what is in my kids’ benchmark assessment workbooks is accurate history or a lens that belongs in an elementary school classroom,” she said.A day earlier, Democrats had briefly shut down a special legislative session to protest the passage of the new congressional map. Mr. DeSantis had demanded the redrawing of two districts held by Black Democrats, and Republicans had acquiesced. Democrats staged a sit-in on the House floor.State Representatives Travaris McCurdy and Angie Nixon protest a redistricting proposal pushed by the governor and approved last week. Phil Sears/Associated Press“You can only hold people down for so long before they will do anything that it takes to make their voices heard,” State Representative Fentrice Driskell, Democrat of Tampa, said. “The governor has interfered in this process, and it’s wrong.”Meantime, parts of Florida remain unaffordable, especially for its many low-wage workers. Property insurance rates rose 25 percent on average in 2021, compared with 4 percent nationally, according to the Insurance Information Institute. Another special session has been called for May to address the crisis.Despite all the charged rhetoric and national headlines, Ms. Arnett, the novelist, said her daily life was not much different from before.“If you put on the TV or you look at the news at what’s going on, it seems like Florida is a conservative hellhole,” she said. “When you’re living in Florida and interacting with people and moving through your day-to-day life, it doesn’t feel that way at all.”The challenge, she added, is understanding what the changes in the state mean and what to do about them.“Every day, every other day, something is happening, so you don’t have time to address and solve a problem,” she said. “It’s like warp speed on all of this stuff.”Eric Adelson More

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      Republican Primaries in May Will Test Trump’s Continued Pull

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      If you doubt the power of Donald Trump’s endorsement, look no further than the Ohio Senate race.Since April 15, when Trump backed J.D. Vance in the Republican primary, the venture capitalist and author of “Hillbilly Elegy” has zoomed to the top of the public polls. Vance jumped from 11 percent of likely voters in March to 23 percent now, according to Fox News.The real test of Trump’s party boss mojo, however, is fast approaching: actual elections, beginning with Ohio’s on Tuesday. Trump has endorsed candidates in at least 40 Republican primaries that are taking place in May, my colleague Alyce McFadden has tabulated. Most of these contests involve an incumbent who faces no serious challenger. But in statewide races from Pennsylvania to Georgia and Idaho to North Carolina, Trump’s imprimatur could prove decisive.Republicans are watching these races closely for signs that Trump’s hold over the party is waning. Privately, many G.O.P. operatives view the former president as a liability. And while he has shown a unique ability to energize the party’s base and turn out new voters, those operatives are still dreading the likelihood that he runs again in 2024, anchoring candidates up and down the ballot to an erratic, divisive figure who was rejected by swing voters in 2020.Everyone knows Trump still has juice. But nobody is sure just how much juice.“The risk for Trump is that if the candidates he has endorsed end up losing, his influence over Republican primary voters looks substantially diminished,” said Whit Ayres, a longtime Republican pollster.Already, there are signs of what one G.O.P. strategist called a “re-centering” of Republican politics — with Trump as the party’s strongest voice, but no longer its sole power broker.In Alabama, he withdrew his endorsement of Representative Mo Brooks, an ardent Trump loyalist who has floundered as a Senate candidate. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, Trump’s top 2016 foe, has endorsed his own slate of candidates, as have conservative groups like the Club for Growth. And Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, is drawing rapturous receptions within the party as he gears up for a likely presidential run in 2024.The stakes for American democracy are high. In Georgia, Trump is trying to unseat Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, two Republicans whose refusal to help overturn the 2020 election results have made them the former president’s top targets. In both cases, Trump is backing challengers who have embraced his false narrative of a stolen election.Trump’s endorsement is no magic wand. In a recent poll by Quinnipiac University, 45 percent of Republicans said they would be more likely to vote for a candidate endorsed by Trump, whereas 44 percent said it would make no difference.“Every candidate has to lose or win their race themselves,” cautioned Ryan James Girdusky, an adviser to a super PAC supporting Vance.With that caveat in mind, here’s a look at the key primaries to watch:J.D. Vance appears to be on the rise in Ohio after Trump endorsed him.Brian Kaiser for The New York TimesOhio Senate, May 3Vance was looking wobbly before Trump’s endorsement. His fund-raising and campaign organization were anemic; his past comments, such as his comparison of Trump to “cultural heroin,” were hurting him.How Donald J. Trump Still LoomsGrip on G.O.P.: Mr. Trump remains the most powerful figure in the Republican Party. However, there are signs his control is loosening.A Modern-Day Party Boss: Hoarding cash, doling out favors and seeking to crush rivals, Mr. Trump is behaving like the head of a 19th-century political machine.Power Struggle: Led by Senator Mitch McConnell, a band of anti-Trump Republicans is maneuvering to thwart the ex-president.Post-Presidency Profits: Mr. Trump is melding business with politics, capitalizing for personal gain.Just the Beginning: For many Trump supporters who marched on Jan. 6, the day was not a disgraced insurrection but the start of a movement.Now, G.O.P. strategists largely expect that Vance will win the primary. Support for Mike Gibbons, a businessman who spent more than $13 million of his own money on ads, is crumbling. Most of his voters appear to be migrating toward Vance rather than Josh Mandel, the other leading candidate in the race, said Jeff Sadosky, a former political adviser to Senator Rob Portman, who is retiring.But Mandel, a well-known quantity in Ohio conservative politics, appears to be holding his ground.“If Vance wins, it’ll be because of the Trump endorsement,” said Michael Hartley, a Republican consultant in Columbus who is not backing any of the candidates.Mehmet Oz is locked in a tight primary race for Senate in Pennsylvania.Hannah Beier/ReutersPennsylvania Senate and governor, May 17In some ways, Pennsylvania offers the purest test of Trump’s appeal.Trump recently endorsed Mehmet Oz, the celebrity doctor, in the Republican Senate primary. But unlike in other states, the public polls haven’t moved much. Democratic strategists still see David McCormick, a wealthy former hedge fund executive and the other leading Republican candidate, as a potent threat.“No one here thinks it’s locked up,” said Christopher Nicholas, a Republican consultant in Harrisburg, though the Oz campaign’s internal polling has shown a shift in the doctor’s favor.Trump has yet to endorse a candidate for governor here, but his shadow looms large. He issued an anti-endorsement to Bill McSwain, a former U.S. attorney who served in the Trump administration, calling him “a coward, who let our country down” by not stopping “massive” election fraud in 2020.Two other candidates are ardent backers of his stolen election claims: former Representative Lou Barletta, whose campaign is managed by former Trump advisers; and Doug Mastriano, a state lawmaker and retired colonel who helped organize transportation to the “Stop the Steal” rally on Jan. 6.With Trump cheering him on, Senator David Perdue is trying to oust Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia.Audra Melton for The New York TimesGeorgia, May 24The biggest test of Trump’s influence will come in Georgia, where control of the machinery of democracy itself is on the ballot.It was Georgia where Trump pressured the state’s top elections official to “find 11,780 votes” to overturn the presidential election results, a phone call that is under investigation. Trump is hoping to oust Raffensperger, the secretary of state, who was on the receiving end of that phone call. The former president has backed Representative Jody Hice, who supports Trump’s debunked election fraud claims. Court documents released by the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot place Hice at a meeting at the White House to discuss objections to certifying the election.In the governor’s race, Trump dragooned former Senator David Perdue into trying to unseat Kemp, the incumbent.Perdue, who lost to Jon Ossoff, a Democrat, in 2021, has dutifully made 2020 the theme of his campaign. But polls show Kemp comfortably ahead, suggesting that dwelling on the past is not a path to victory despite the power of Trump’s endorsement.Lightning roundA few other primaries we’re watching:May 10: In West Virginia’s Second Congressional District, redistricting has pitted two Republican incumbents against each other. Trump endorsed Representative Alex Mooney, who voted against the bipartisan infrastructure law, while Gov. Jim Justice is backing Representative David B. McKinley, who voted for it.May 17: In North Carolina, Trump’s preferred Senate candidate, Representative Ted Budd, is surging in the polls against former Gov. Pat McCrory and Representative Mark Walker. May 17: Gov. Brad Little of Idaho faces a primary challenge from a field that includes his own lieutenant governor, Janice McGeachin, who has Trump’s endorsement. The two have feuded bitterly, to the point where McGeachin issued her own executive orders while Little was traveling out of state. McGeachin also has a history of associating with extremists. In February, she gave a virtual speech at an event sponsored by white nationalists, leading to calls for her resignation.Alyce McFadden contributed reporting.What to readReporting from Columbus, Ohio, Jazmine Ulloa notes a new fixation in G.O.P. messaging: the baseless claim that unauthorized immigrants are voting.Jonathan Weisman, from Toledo, Ohio, reports that Democrats are in jeopardy because they can no longer rely on firm support from unions.Patricia Mazzei explores how, under Gov. Ron DeSantis, Florida has become a laboratory for right-wing policies.Emily Cochrane spoke with Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska about whether her centrist credentials will appeal to Republican voters in November.how they runMadison Gesiotto Gilbert, a Republican House candidate in Ohio, was endorsed by Trump.Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesThis Ohio House race has everythingIt’s a shining example of Democrats’ challenges in 2022, the confusion caused by whiplash over new congressional maps and, yes, the power of a Trump endorsement: This is the race for Ohio’s 13th Congressional District.The district — whose lines are changing and whose current representative, Tim Ryan, is running for Senate — is one of just a few in Ohio expected to be competitive in the fall.President Biden would have carried this newly drawn district by just three percentage points, making it a must-win for Democrats as they face challenges in maintaining their House majority.“If 2022 is as bad for Democrats as most everybody else, myself included, expects it to be, Republicans will flip this district,” said Ryan Stubenrauch, a Republican strategist in Ohio who grew up in the area.An added wrinkle is that the boundaries of the district aren’t technically final: Ohio’s redistricting process has been tied up in the courts, and the State Supreme Court could still rule against the current maps. But most experts believe that the lines will remain in place through the general election.For Democrats, the primary election on Tuesday should be straightforward. Emilia Sykes, a state representative and former minority leader, will be the only Democrat on the ballot. The Sykes name is well known in the Akron area, where her father, Vernon Sykes, remains in the state legislature. His wife, Barbara, also once served in the state House.On the Republican side, Trump endorsed Madison Gesiotto Gilbert, a conservative commentator who worked on Trump’s campaigns in 2016 and 2020. She faces Shay Hawkins, a Republican who narrowly lost a state House race in 2020. He’s the only candidate who has aired a campaign TV ad, but he trails Gilbert in fund-raising. A third Republican to watch, Gregory Wheeler, has an endorsement from The Plain Dealer.No candidates have had much time to make a mark. They learned their district lines — tentatively — just a few weeks before early voting started. And with the primaries split, with state legislative voting postponed to later this year, turnout is a big question.Some of the usual efforts to inform voters about important dates, like when to register and the deadline for early voting, didn’t happen this year with details in flux, said Jen Miller, executive director of the League of Women Voters of Ohio, which is in litigation over the maps in front of the Supreme Court.“The delay and the fact that we have to have a second primary for the State House maps is really confusing for voters,” Miller said.— Blake & LeahIs there anything you think we’re missing? Anything you want to see more of? We’d love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com. More