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      Republican who voted to impeach Trump projected to win primary

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      Republican who voted to impeach Trump projected to win primaryDan Newhouse, one of 10 members of Congress to vote for impeachment, set to beat Trump-backed Loren Culp in Washington state Dan Newhouse, one of the few Republican House members to vote in January in favor of the impeachment of Donald Trump, is poised to move forward to the general election in Washington state, according to a projection by the Associated Press.Viktor Orbán turns Texas conference into transatlantic far-right love-inRead moreNewhouse was one of 10 Republicans who voted in January to have Trump impeached, even ahead of explosive revelations about the former president’s support and endorsement of the January 6 riots just a year prior.This victory comes on the heels of another fellow Republican supporter of the impeachment, Peter Meijer, losing his votes in Michigan.Republican Loren Culp, who has been backed by Trump in the election, was a close second to Newhouse in Washington’s fourth congressional district, garnering the second highest number of Republican votes in four out of the eight counties. In some of the counties where Newhouse won, however, he received almost double the number of votes as Culp.Sign up to First Edition, our free daily newsletter – every weekday morning at 7am BSTCulp was up against six other Republican candidates, and will face Doug White, the district’s only Democratic candidate, in November for the general election.Despite his victory, the journey has rarely been smooth for Newhouse. Following his vote for impeachment in January, six Republican leaders in his district demanded his resignation.He defended his position, claiming he “made a decision to vote based on my oath to support and defend the constitution”.On 2 August, he had majority votes in three out of those six counties that had voted for his resignation.TopicsRepublicansUS politicsWashington stateDonald TrumpnewsReuse this content More

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      in Elections

      Dan Newhouse, Who Voted to Impeach Trump, Wins Washington Primary

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      Representative Dan Newhouse of Washington, one of 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach President Donald J. Trump for inciting the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, will advance to the November general election to seek a fifth term after finishing in the top two in a crowded primary, according to The Associated Press. He will face Doug White, a Democratic businessman, who narrowly trailed him as of Friday night.Under Washington election laws, the top two candidates in the primary, regardless of party, advance to the general election. The race in Washington’s Fourth Congressional District featured seven Republicans, including Mr. Newhouse, and one Democrat, Mr. White.Mr. Newhouse, 66, drew the ire of Mr. Trump and local Republicans after supporting his second impeachment.A hops and alfalfa farmer, Mr. Newhouse had been vice chairman of Mr. Trump’s 2020 re-election campaign in Washington State. But after the impeachment vote, six Republican county chairmen in his district called on him to resign.Mr. Newhouse — who, like his father, served as a state legislator — resisted those demands, saying he remained a conservative Republican and urging the party instead to focus on holding the Biden administration accountable.He was supported by the Defending Main Street super PAC, which ran an advertising campaign worth about a half-million dollars, according to AdImpact, an advertisement tracking firm.The super PAC’s most-watched TV spot attacked Mr. Newhouse’s Trump-endorsed challenger, Loren Culp, over an unpaid corporate tax bill and accused him of “padding his own pockets” with campaign donations.Mr. Culp, a former police chief of Republic, Wash., made disputing Mr. Trump’s defeat in 2020 one of his top campaign issues, and also pledged to dissolve the Education Department and fight vaccine mandates. He was the Republican nominee in the 2020 governor’s race, a contest he never conceded despite losing to Gov. Jay Inslee by more than 13 percentage points.Mr. Culp had raised just $310,700 as of July 13, according to campaign finance reports. That was a fraction of the $1.6 million collected by Mr. Newhouse and also trailed another Republican, Jerrod Sessler, who raised $508,900.Mr. Sessler, a Navy veteran and former NASCAR driver, invested more than $350,000 of his own money in the race. He has said he attended Mr. Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally on Jan. 6 and marched to the Capitol with thousands of other supporters, but didn’t enter the building.“I’m running because our rights, right now, for the people alive today in America, are being stolen,” Mr. Sessler told The Spokesman-Review. “Literally. I think the 2020 election was the biggest heist in world history.”Mr. White, who raised $390,700, has described himself as a moderate politician who was motivated to seek federal office after the Capitol riot. Running in the heavily Republican district, Mr. White didn’t mention his party affiliation in his lone TV spot, which he used instead to promote a platform that included reducing costs, reforming immigration and “making our communities safer.”Other Republican candidates were Corey Gibson, a marketing executive; Benancio Garcia III, a former state Agriculture Department loan specialist; Jacek Kobiesa, a mechanical engineer; and Brad Klippert, a state representative and deputy in the Benton County Sheriff’s Office. More

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      Peter Meijer, Republican who voted to impeach Trump, loses Michigan seat

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      Peter Meijer, Republican who voted to impeach Trump, loses Michigan seatTrump-backed challenger John Gibbs triumphs, while Democrats hopeful Kansas abortion vote will energize voters in November On one of the most consequential nights of the US primary season, amplifiers of Donald Trump’s stolen-election myth won in Arizona and Michigan – in the latter state defeating a Republican who voted for Trump’s impeachment – while voters in Kansas decisively rejected an attempt to remove abortion protections from the state constitution.‘We could feel it’: Kansans celebrate upset abortion rights victoryRead moreWith fewer than 100 days left before the November midterm elections, the results confirmed Trump’s grip on Republican voters and advanced his efforts to purge critics and elevate loyalist standard-bearers.The verdicts rendered on Tuesday night are likely to have major implications for both parties.Democrats face a difficult election cycle, hampered by Joe Biden’s low approval ratings and widespread dissatisfaction with leadership in Washington in the face of economic problems. Historically, the opposition party makes gains in the first midterms of any presidency, often by framing the election as a referendum on the president.With narrow majorities in Congress, Democrats cannot afford to lose any seats in the Senate and only a handful in the House. But party leaders were hopeful on Tuesday that the abortion rights verdict in Kansas might energize voters and boost Democrats in close contests to come.Another midterm strategy employed by Democrats – boosting far-right candidates in Republican primaries in the hope of facing weaker opponents in November – met with success, despite bipartisan warnings that the approach could backfire, with dangerous consequences for US democracy.In a congressional primary in Michigan, John Gibbs defeated Peter Meijer, the Republican incumbent who was one of 10 House Republicans to vote to impeach Trump over the Capitol attack, after Democrats ran ads highlighting Gibbs’s pro-Trump credentials.In a statement, Meijer said: “I’m proud to have remained true to my principles, even when doing so came at a significant political cost.”But he published angrier words on Monday, assailing Democrats who spent heavily in support of Gibbs.In an online essay, Meijer wrote: “The Democrats are justifying this political jiu-jitsu by making the argument that politics is a tough business. I don’t disagree.“But that toughness is bound by certain moral limits: those who participated in the attack on the Capitol, for example, clearly fall outside those limits. But over the course of the midterms, Democrats seem to have forgotten just where those limits lie.”Meijer was the second Republican who voted to impeach to lose a primary contest. Four have opted to retire rather than to seek re-election. Two others were on the ballot on Tuesday in Washington state. Jaime Herrera Beutler and Dan Newhouse were in close races against Trump-backed challengers which had yet to be called.So far, only one Republican who voted to impeach Trump, David Valadao of California, has survived, with a narrow victory in California.Michigan also saw a Trump-backed candidate win the Republican nomination for governor. Tudor Dixon, a conservative media personality, will face the Democratic governor, Gretchen Whitmer, in November.In an incumbent-on-incumbent Democratic primary for a newly redrawn Michigan House district, Haley Stevens, a moderate backed by the political arm of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, defeated Andy Levin, a progressive from a prominent political family. Elsewhere, progressive members of “the Squad”, Rashida Tlaib in Michigan and Cori Bush in Missouri, beat back moderate challengers.In Arizona, a battleground state that became the epicenter of election denialism in the wake of Biden’s 2020 victory, the Trump-endorsed Blake Masters won a crowded Republican primary to face Mark Kelly, the Democratic incumbent, in a contest that could determine control of the US Senate.In the race for Arizona secretary of state, a post that oversees elections, Republicans nominated Mark Finchem, a self-identified member of the far-right Oath Keepers militia who has amplified false claims about the 2020 election and was backed by Trump.The Republican primary for governor was too close to call but by Wednesday Kari Lake, a former TV anchor backed by Trump, was narrowly leading Karrin Taylor Robson, backed by the former vice-president Mike Pence.Trump’s quest for retribution against Republicans who crossed him gained a win when Rusty Bowers, Arizona’s Republican House speaker, who rose to prominence when he testified to the House committee investigating the January 6 insurrection, lost his bid for a state Senate seat to David Farnsworth, who had Trump’s support.In Missouri, where Trump urged voters to choose “Eric” without specifying which in a Senate primary contest with three Erics, Republican leaders were relieved it was Eric Schmitt, the attorney general, who emerged victorious.Eric Greitens, the scandal-plagued former governor who resigned in 2018 and was attempting a political comeback, finished third. Schmitt will now face Trudy Busch Valentine, a deep-pocketed beer heiress who Democrats nominated over the more populist Lucas Kunce.Justice department urged to investigate deletion of January 6 texts by PentagonRead moreThough Trump’s endorsement record is mixed, his string of victories on Tuesday night underscored conservatives’ enduring allegiance to the former president despite a stream of damaging revelations about his efforts to overturn the election and his conduct during the deadly assault on the Capitol.Perhaps the most closely watched vote on Tuesday wasn’t an election, but a referendum. In the first test of the potency of abortion as electoral issue in the post-Roe era, voters in Kansas resoundingly rejected an amendment that would have erased the right to abortion from the state constitution.The decisive vote in a state that voted overwhelmingly for Trump in 2020 is the first major electoral victory for supporters of reproductive rights since the the supreme court invalidated the constitutional right to an abortion in June.It also serves as a warning to Republicans who have sought to downplay the significance of the issue in an election year otherwise dominated by inflation and economic woes.TopicsRepublicansUS midterm elections 2022US politicsDemocratsMichiganArizonaWashington statenewsReuse this content More

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      Abortion access, Trump’s sway and US democracy hang in balance in primaries

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      Abortion access, Trump’s sway and US democracy hang in balance in primariesKansas, Michigan, Missouri and Washington state vote with Arizona’s ballot being the most closely watched On one of the most consequential nights of this year’s primary season, Donald Trump’s sway in a series of Republican races remained unclear but voters in red-state Kansas resoundingly rejected an amendment aimed at restricting abortion rights.Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan risks upsetting Beijing to no advantage Read moreTuesday night’s marquee races were in Arizona, where Republicans are on the verge of tapping prominent election deniers to be their nominees in contests for governor, secretary of state and US Senate.In the governor’s race, Trump-backed Kari Lake, a former news anchor who has built her campaign around misinformation about the 2020 election, was trailing Karrin Taylor Robson, a wealthy real-estate developer who is endorsed by Mike Pence and the current Arizona governor, Doug Ducey. The winner will take on Katie Hobbs, Arizona’s current secretary of state, who was projected to win the Democratic gubernatorial nomination.Down the ballot, Mark Finchem, a close ally of Trump who aggressively sought to overturn Arizona’s election results, was on the verge of clinching the GOP nomination to be secretary of state in a four-way primary. Trump has endorsed Finchem in the contest, which typically gets little attention, boosting him to the front of the field.If elected in November, Finchem would wield considerable power over elections in Arizona, including how ballots are counted and there is a loud alarm he could use that power to throw out an election result he doesn’t like, especially given his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 race.Underscoring how deeply embedded Trump’s election lies are among Republicans in Arizona, the New York Times reported on Tuesday that two politicians involved in the efforts to overturn Biden’s victory in the state worried the scheme could “appear treasonous”.On the Democratic side, Adrian Fontes, the former top election official in Maricopa county, home to Phoenix, is vying for his party’s nomination against Reginald Bolding, the minority leader in the Arizona house of representatives.And in the US Senate race, Blake Masters, who has embraced extreme anti-immigrant positions and is backed by Trump and the tech billionaire Peter Thiel, is the frontrunner to win the GOP nomination. He will face Senator Mark Kelly this fall, who ran unopposed.Meanwhile in Kansas, a state that Trump won by nearly 15 points, voters defeated an amendment that would have paved the way for abortion restrictions and delivered an energizing win for Democrats who face tough odds in the midterms.The resounding win came as a surprise in a deeply conservative state. Republican lawmakers scheduled the vote during the partisan primaries thinking that low Democratic turnout would bolster their anti-abortion cause, but secretary of state Scott Schwab suggested that the massive voter turnout on Tuesday may match the turnout of the 2008 presidential election.The vote is viewed as a litmus test for the future of abortion access across the US. There is also a tight race in western Michigan, where the freshman congressman Peter Meijer is trying to fend off a challenge from John Gibbs, a former Trump administration official. Meijer was one of 10 House Republicans to back Trump’s impeachment and Trump has backed Gibbs in an act of retribution. The Whoever wins the district will be in a competitive race in November. Democrats have faced criticism in recent weeks for trying to boost Gibbs, calculating that the more extreme candidate may be easier to beat in November.Michigan Republicans nominated conservative media commentator Tudor Dixon, who has falsely said Trump won the state in 2020 and earned a late endorsement from the former president. She will take on Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer in November. Dixon emerged as the party’s nominee after an extremely chaotic primary during which several candidates were disqualified and one was arrested for his involvement in the January 6 insurrection.On the Democratic side, redistricting set two Democratic House incumbents against each other in Michigan. Andy Levin, a former president of his synagogue, was ultimately defeated by Haley Stevens, after pro-Israel Super Pac funded ads attacking the former and amplifying the later. Levin has been critical of Israel’s human rights record.In Washington state, representatives Jaime Herrera Beutler and Dan Newhouse, both of whom voted to impeach Trump, are hoping to survive Trump-backed challengers.In Missouri, Eric Schmitt, the state attorney general, prevailed in a competitive primary for an open US Senate seat. Schmitt trounced the state’s scandal-plagued former governor, Eric Greitens, who was attempting a political comeback. Both vied for Trump’s endorsement – and earned it – when the former president declined to choose between them. Instead Trump issued a statement on Monday announcing that he had endorsed “Eric” but did not specify which one.TopicsUS politicsArizonaKansasWashington stateMissouriMichigannewsReuse this content More