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      Trump campaign promised to ‘fan the flame’ of 2020 election lie, audio reveals – as it happened

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      A senior member of Trump’s re-election campaign said that campaigners were going to “fan the flame” and spread the false claim that Democrats were “trying to steal this election” in a leaked November 2020 audio clip, the Associated Press first reported.In the obtained audio recording, Andrew Iverson discussed the communications strategy for Trump’s reelection in Wisconsin, as Democrats outflanked Republicans in the region.At the time, Iverson led reelection efforts in Wisconsin, a key battleground state which Biden eventually won by over 20,000 votes in 2020.“Here’s the deal: comms is going to continue to fan the flame and get the word out about Democrats trying to steal this election. We’ll do whatever they need. Just be on standby if there’s any stunts we need to pull,” said Iverson.The audio was given to the Associated Press by a former Trump operative, who withheld their name fearing political and personal retaliation. The unnamed operative was motivated as Trump prepares for a third reelection campaign for the US presidency.Iverson, who is now the midwest regional director for the Republican National Committee (RNC), has deferred questions from the Associated Press to RNC spokesperson Keith Schipper.Schipper declined to comment, saying that he has not heard the audio.That’s it for the US politics live blog! Here is a summary of what happened today:
      Joe Biden and Kamala Harris traveled to Philadelphia today and announced $500m that will be used to upgrade water pipes in the region. “Water ought to be something that’s just guaranteed,” said Biden, noting that the US is the richest country in the world.
      The Indiana Republican Victoria Spartz said today she will not run for an open Senate seat in 2024 and will also retire from her seat in the US House.
      Biden boasted about the better-than-expected latest jobs figures. “Today, I am happy to report that the state of our union and the state of our economy is strong,” said Biden, referring to the over 500,000 jobs that were created in January.
      Secretary of State Antony Blinken will postpone a scheduled trip to China after yesterday’s discovery of what is believed to be a Chinese spy balloon over the US, sailing above the US and within peering distance of a nuclear weapons installation.
      A senior member of Donald Trump’s Wisconsin 2020 election campaign said their team should “fan the flame” of denial about Trump’s key loss in Wisconsin to Biden and and spread the false claim that Democrats were “trying to steal this election”, according to a leaked November 5, 2020 audio clip.
      Thank you for reading; have a great weekend!The Democratic National Convention will vote on a committee recommendation to alter the presidential primary calendar in 2024 during their upcoming Saturday meeting, reported the Hill.Biden previously ordered Democrats to change the primary calendar to better support non-white voters.Here’s more information on Biden’s request from the Guardian’s Adam Gabbatt: .css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Democrats are poised to shake up the way in which they nominate presidential candidates, after Joe Biden said the primary process should better represent the party’s non-white voters.
      Biden has reportedly told Democrats that Iowa, the state that has led off the Democratic voting calendar since 1976, should be moved down the calendar, with South Carolina instead going first.
      The move would see New Hampshire, which has technically held the nation’s first primary since 1920 (Iowa uses a slightly different system of caucuses, or in-person voting), shunted down the calendar.
      Both Iowa and New Hampshire are predominantly white states. Clamor has been growing inside and outside the Democratic party for a different state, with a population more representative of the US as a whole, to be given the first go.Read the full article here.Biden tells Democrats to revise primary calendar to boost Black voters’ voicesRead moreDuring his remarks, Biden noted the importance of ensuring that all Americans have access to clean water.“Water ought to be something that’s just guaranteed,” said Biden, noting that the US is the richest country in the world.Biden said that the problem of older pipes leading to lead exposure and poisoning is an issue across America.“It’s especially bad in older cities, in the midwest and the northeast,” said Biden.“No amount of lead in water is safe. None,” Biden added.Before beginning his remarks, Biden joked about having to support the Philadelphia Eagles before their Super Bowl appearance next Sunday as his wife, Jill Biden, is from the city.From Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Jonathan Tamari:Joe Biden in Philly:”Fly Eagles Fly. I happen to mean it, but even if I didn’t, I’d say it. Otherwise, I’d be sleeping alone” he says, referring to Jill Biden— Jonathan Tamari (@JonathanTamari) February 3, 2023
      Harris is currently speaking in Philadelphia in joint remarks with Joe Biden about infrastructure investment that will upgrade clean water systems.Harris is speaking about the importance of clean drinking water, as Harris and Biden announce $500m that Philadelphia will use to address lead pipes throughout the city.“No child in America should ever have to endure that kind of experience. No parent in America should ever have that experience,” said Harris, recalling a 2 year-old child who was hospitalized for lead poisoning after drinking water out of the tap.Just three days after disgraced New York representative George Santos withdrew from House committee assignments, House Republicans have encouraged Twitter users to follow him on social media.The House Republican tagged George Santos’ official account with the hashtag “FollowFriday”, encouraging users to follow the congressman’s account.From the House Republicans Twitter account:#FollowFriday @RepSantosNY03 from #NY03! pic.twitter.com/qWn3riPcYu— House Republicans (@HouseGOP) February 3, 2023
      The New York Republican congressman remains under investigation for several lies he listed on his résumé and current campaign finance filings.A former Manhattan prosecutor wrote in a new book that he almost pursued a racketeering charge against Donald Trump, reports the New York Times.Mark F Pomerantz resigned in protest from the Manhattan district attorney’s office last year after the office’s newly elected DA, Alvin Bragg, declined to pursue an indictment against Trump.In a forthcoming book entitled “People vs. Donald Trump”, Pomerantz says that the Manhattan district attorney’s office mapped out charges to bring against Trump under the state’s racketeering law.More from the Times:.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Mr. Pomerantz and his colleagues cast a wide net, examining a host of Trump enterprises — including Trump University, his for-profit real estate education venture, and his family charitable foundation.
      “He demanded absolute loyalty and would go after anyone who crossed him. He seemed always to stay one step ahead of the law,” Mr. Pomerantz, a prominent litigator who has prosecuted and defended organized crime cases, writes of Mr. Trump. “In my career as a lawyer, I had encountered only one other person who touched all of these bases: John Gotti, the head of the Gambino organized crime family.”
      A lawyer for Mr. Trump recently sent Mr. Pomerantz a letter threatening that, “If you publish such a book and continue making defamatory statements against my clients, my office will aggressively pursue all legal remedies.”Read the full article here (paywall).Our columnist Moustafa Bayoumi has filed on the Republican move to expel Ilhan Omar from the foreign affairs committee, ostensibly over her allegedly antisemitic remarks about Israel, and what it says about the GOP’s own problems with antisemitism…Who remembers how, in 2018 and just days before the deadliest attack on Jewish people in US history, a prominent US politician tweeted: “We cannot allow Soros, Steyer, and Bloomberg to BUY this election!”?The tweet was widely – and correctly – understood as dangerously antisemitic, particularly heinous in a period of rising anti-Jewish hatred. And whose tweet was this? If you thought the answer was Minnesota’s Democratic representative Ilhan Omar then, well, you’d be wrong. The author was none other than the House majority leader at the time, Republican Kevin McCarthy.And who can forget when Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has tweeted that “Joe Biden is Hitler”, speculated that the wildfires in California were caused by a beam from “space solar generators” linked to “Rothschild, Inc.”, a clear wink to bizarre antisemitic conspiracy theories. Incidentally, Greene, who has a long record of antisemitic and anti-Muslim statements, has been recently appointed, by the same Kevin McCarthy, now speaker of the House, to the homeland security committee.Then there’s former president Donald Trump, who dines with Holocaust deniers like Nick Fuentes and antisemites like Ye. In stereotypically anti-Jewish moves, Trump has repeatedly called the loyalty of Jewish Americans into question. Just this past October, he wrote that “US Jews have to get their act together and appreciate what they have in Israel – Before it is too late!”In case it’s not obvious, let me state it plainly. Today’s Republican party has a serious antisemitism problem. The easy acceptance and amplification of all sorts of anti-Jewish hate that party leaders engage in emboldens all the worst bigots, raving racists, and far-right extremists across the globe, all the while threatening Jewish people here and everywhere.So it is more than a little rich that House Republicans voted on Thursday to remove Omar from the foreign affairs committee, where she’s served since 2019, because, they say, of her antisemitic views.Read on:Republicans have a serious antisemitism problem. It isn’t Ilhan Omar | Moustafa BayoumiRead moreAfter less than seven minutes, Jean-Pierre’s gaggle has come to an end as the press secretary told reporters that passengers were being instructed to sit down due to turbulence.White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre is currently in a gaggle aboard Air Force 1, on route to Philadelphia where Harris and Biden will give remarks on the city’s upgraded water systems.Jean-Pierre answered several questions on the status of the Chinese spy balloon that was reported above the US.“The president was briefed on this on Tuesday,” adding that Biden has continued to receive updates on the spy balloon.The recommendation from US military officials was not to take “kinetic action” due to safety risks for people on the ground.Jean-Pierre did not answer questions on if the US will attempt to capture the balloon, but added that the Pentagon is “keeping a close eye on it” and will continue to monitor it.The Indiana Republican Victoria Spartz said today she will not run for an open Senate seat in 2024 and will also retire from her seat in the US House.The decision ends speculation which mounted when the 44-year-old refused to back Kevin McCarthy during last month’s 15-vote marathon for House speaker, voting “present” instead of backing any of the rightwing figures put up against McCarthy by a group of far-right rebels.She told reporters: “My concern is that … we didn’t come together yet. So, we have to go back … as a group of people, and figure it out.”Some observers, however, suggested that Spartz might be hedging her bets ahead of a Senate run.Seems not. In a statement on Friday, the Ukraine-born Spartz said: “It’s been my honor representing Hoosiers in the Indiana state senate and US Congress and I appreciate the strong support on the ground. 2024 will mark seven years of holding elected office and over a decade in Republican politics.“I won a lot of tough battles for the people and will work hard to win a few more in the next two years. However, being a working mom is tough and I need to spend more time with my two high-school girls back home, so I will not run for any office in 2024.”Jim Banks, a prominent hardliner in the US House, is the favourite to win the Republican primary to replace the retiring Mike Braun in the US Senate. Donald Trump has endorsed Banks.Texts sent by Alex Jones show the rightwing media figure repeatedly texted with members of the Proud Boys in 2020.Jones conversed with Gavin McInnes, the founder of Proud Boys, and Jason Biggs, who is on trial for seditious conspiracy in connection with the Capitol attack of 6 January 2021, an attempt to keep Donald Trump in office despite his election loss to Joe Biden.Some 22,000 of Jones’ texts, spanning August 2019 to 15 May 2020, were reviewed by the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Hatewatch reporting team.Jones also frequently texted with Roger Stone, the rightwing political fixer sentenced to 40 months in prison in 2020 over his attempts to sabotage a congressional investigation that posed a political threat to Trump. Jones was pardoned by Trump in December 2020.Hatewatch found that despite Jones using his Infowars broadcaststo rail against pornography as a plot to “end the family”, he repeatedly texted links to pornographic videos.The messages also offer a glimpse into Jones’ state of mind as he was being sued by multiple parents of victims of the Sandy Hook school shooting, after he repeatedly said the shooting was a hoax.In one message, Jones told his wife “I am in hell”. A message to his father described his situation as like “a black hole”.Hatewatch obtained the messages from Mark Bankston, an attorney who represented Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis, the parents of Jesse Lewis, who was killed in the Sandy Hook shooting in 2012. Heslin and Lewis sued Jones for defamation, and were awarded $49m.Bankston received the messages from Jones’ lawyers, after they mistakenly sent their legal opponent 22,000 of Jones’ texts.Hello again, live blog readers, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are heading to Philadelphia this afternoon to talk about the economy and we’ll have that news for you as it happens, so do stick around.It’s been a morning of mixed politics developments, here’s where things stand so far:
      Biden and Harris are due to speak in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, at 3.15pm ET, with remarks on the economy. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre will “gaggle” with accompanying reporters aboard Air Force One en route to the city, available on audio via the White House Live link, expected around 1.40pm ET.
      The US president tooted his horn over the better-than-expected latest jobs figures. “Today, I am happy to report that the state of our union and the state of our economy is strong,” said Biden, referring to the over 500,000 jobs that were created in January.
      Secretary of State Antony Blinken will postpone a scheduled trip to China after yesterday’s discovery of what is believed to be a Chinese spy balloon over the US, sailing above Montana within peering distance of a nuclear weapons installation.
      A senior member of Donald Trump’s Wisconsin 2020 election campaign said their team should “fan the flame” of denial about Trump’s key loss there to Biden and and spread the false claim that Democrats were “trying to steal this election” in a leaked November 5, 2020 audio clip. The guy on tape is still a senior RNC figure.
      Indiana representative Victoria Spartz announced in a statement today that she will not be seeking reelection or running for the US Senate.“I will not run for any office in 2024,” said Spartz, who is Republican, in a statement.Rep. Victoria Spartz announces that she’s not running for Senate in 2024 — or for reelection #IN05 pic.twitter.com/V1ZQlmE1A7— Erin Covey (@ercovey) February 3, 2023
      The announcement comes as rumors circulated around a potential Senate run from Spartz given an open seat.Spartz received wide attention for voting ‘present’ during House speaker elections, where House Speaker Kevin McCarthy required 15 votes to secure the position. More

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      in Elections

      Trump campaign promised to ‘fan the flame’ of 2020 election lie, audio reveals – live

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      Secretary of State Antony Blinken will postpone a scheduled trip to China after yesterday’s discovery of a Chinese spy balloon over the US.Here’s more on the discovery of the spy balloon, from the Guardian’s Julian Borger:.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}The Pentagon has said it is tracking a Chinese spy balloon flying over the US but decided against shooting it down for safety reasons.
      Defence officials said the balloon had been watched since it entered US airspace at high altitude a couple of days ago. It has been monitored by several methods including crewed aircraft, and has most recently been tracked crossing Montana, where the US has silo-based nuclear missiles.
      As a precaution, flights from Billings Logan airport were suspended on Wednesday.
      The Chinese government has not confirmed if it owns the balloon, and state-backed media have used the incident to taunt the US.Pentagon says it is monitoring Chinese spy balloon spotted flying over USRead moreJoe Biden will be giving remarks shortly about new figures released on the January job market report.The US added 517,000 jobs in January, bringing the unemployment rate to a 53-year low of 3.4%.The latest news on the job market signified significant growth for the labor sector, even as the Federal reserve increases interest rates to address rising inflation costs.Experts had expected the unemployment rate to rise slightly last month, but the rate continued to decrease to levels seen pre-pandemic.223,000 jobs were added to the labor market in December, an overall gain but lower than the 539,000 new jobs added each month since the start of 2022.US adds 517,000 jobs in January in huge gain for labor marketRead moreIn the November 2020 clip taken two days after the 2020 election, Iverson praised Republicans’ efforts in Wisconsin while admitting that Democrats won the most votes in the state.From the Associated Press:.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}At the end of the day, this operation received more votes than any other Republican in Wisconsin history…Say what you want, our operation turned out Republican or DJT supporters. Democrats have got 20,000 more than us, out of Dane County and other shenanigans in Milwaukee, Green Bay and Dane. There’s a lot that people can learn from this campaign.Despite Iverson’s private comments that Republicans had lost Wisconsin in the 2020 US presidential election, Trump allies continued to spread the false claim that the election was stolen.A senior member of Trump’s reelection campaign said that campaigners were going to “fan the flame” and spread the false claim that Democrats were “trying to steal this election” in a leaked November 2020 audio clip, the Associated Press first reported.In the obtained audio recording, Andrew Iverson discussed the communications strategy for Trump’s reelection in Wisconsin, as Democrats outflanked Republicans in the region.At the time, Iverson led reelection efforts in Wisconsin, a key battleground state which Biden eventually won by over 20,000 votes in 2020.“Here’s the deal: comms is going to continue to fan the flame and get the word out about Democrats trying to steal this election. We’ll do whatever they need. Just be on standby if there’s any stunts we need to pull,” said Iverson.The audio was given to the Associated Press by a former Trump operative, who withheld their name fearing political and personal retaliation. The unnamed operative was motivated as Trump prepares for a third reelection campaign for the US presidency.Iverson, who is now the midwest regional director for the Republican National Committee (RNC), has deferred questions from the Associated Press to RNC spokesperson Keith Schipper.Schipper declined to comment, saying that he has not heard the audio.Good morning, US politics live blog readers.In a newly released audio recording from November 2020, a top member of Donald Trump’s re-election campaign noted that team members were going to “fan the flame” and spread word that Democrats were “trying to steal this election”, reported the Associated Press.The recording focuses on Andrew Iverson, who led the re-election campaign in Wisconsin and is now the midwest regional director for the Republican National Committee.In the audio clip, Iverson focused on the communication strategy for Trump’s reelection campaign in Wisconsin, as Democrats were outperforming Republicans in the vital battleground state.“Here’s the deal: comms is going to continue to fan the flame and get the word out about Democrats trying to steal this election. We’ll do whatever they need. Just be on standby if there’s any stunts we need to pull,” said Iverson.Here’s what else we can expect today:
      Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will travel to Philadelphia today to announced $500m that will be used to upgrade water pipes in the region. The two will also address the Democratic National Committee during its winter meeting.
      Jeff Zients is gearing up to begin his tenure as Biden’s new chief of staff, succeeding Ron Klain.
      Advocates and Black lawmakers have urged Biden to discuss police reform during his State of the Union address next week, as several high-profile police brutality incidents have occurred in recent months. More

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      Audio reveals Trump campaign bid to spread lie of stolen election

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      Audio reveals Trump campaign bid to spread lie of stolen electionTeam in Wisconsin pledged to ‘fan the flames’ of baseless allegations of election fraud after Trump lost there A newly released audio recording offers a behind-the-scenes look at how former US president Donald Trump’s campaign team in a pivotal battleground state knew they had been outflanked by Democrats in the 2020 presidential election.But even as they acknowledged defeat, they decided to “fan the flames” of allegations of widespread fraud costing Trump victory there, which were ultimately debunked – repeatedly – by elections officials and the courts.Trump campaign promised to ‘fan the flame’ of 2020 election lie, audio reveals – liveRead moreThe audio from 5 November 2020, two days after the election, is surfacing as Trump again seeks the White House while continuing to lie about the legitimacy of the outcome and Democrat Joe Biden’s 2020 win.The Wisconsin political operatives in the strategy session even praised Democratic turnout efforts in the state’s largest counties and appeared to joke about their efforts to engage Black voters, according to the recording obtained Thursday by the Associated Press. The audio centers on Andrew Iverson, who was the head of Trump’s campaign in the state.“Here’s the deal: comms is going to continue to fan the flame and get the word out about Democrats trying to steal this election. We’ll do whatever they need. Just be on standby if there’s any stunts we need to pull,” Iverson said.Iverson is now the midwest regional director for the Republican National Committee. He deferred questions about the meeting to the RNC, whose spokesperson, Keith Schipper, declined comment because he had not heard the recording.The former campaign official and Republican operative who provided a copy of the recording to the AP was in the meeting and recorded it. The operative is not authorized to speak publicly about what was discussed but spoke out because Trump is seeking the White House again.In response to questions about the audio, Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said: “The 2024 campaign is focused on competing in every state and winning in a dominating fashion. That is why President Trump is leading by wide margins in poll after poll.”Wisconsin was a big part of Trump’s victory in 2016 and his campaign fought hard to keep the swing state in 2020 but Biden defeated Trump by nearly 21,000 votes in Wisconsin. The result has withstood independent and partisan audits and reviews, as well as lawsuits and recounts in the state’s two largest and Democratic-leaning counties.Yet, two days after the election, there was no discussion of Trump having won the state during the meeting of Republican campaign operatives.Instead, parts of the meeting focus on discussions about packing up campaign offices.Iverson is heard praising the GOP’s efforts while admitting the margin of Trump’s defeat in the state.“At the end of the day, this operation received more votes than any other Republican in Wisconsin history,” Iverson said. “Say what you want, our operation turned out Republican or DJT supporters. Democrats have got 20,000 more than us, out of Dane county and other shenanigans in Milwaukee, Green Bay and Dane. There’s a lot that people can learn from this campaign.”The meeting showcases another juxtaposition of what Republican officials knew about the election results and what Trump and his closest allies were saying publicly as they pushed the lie of a stolen election. Trump was told by his own attorney general there was no sign of widespread fraud, and many within his own administration told the former president there was no substance to various claims of fraud or manipulation – advice Trump repeatedly ignored.In the weeks after the election, Trump and his allies would file dozens of lawsuits, convene fake electors and pressure election officials in an attempt to overturn the will of the voters and keep Trump in office.At one point, the Wisconsin operatives laugh over needing “more Black voices for Trump”. Iverson also references their efforts to engage with Black voters.“We ever talk to Black people before? I don’t think so,” he said, eliciting laughter from others in the room.Another speaker on the recording with Iverson is identified by the source as GOP operative Clayton Henson. At the time, Henson was a regional director for the RNC in charge of Wisconsin and other midwestern states.Henson specifically references Democratic turnout and strong performance in Dane county, which includes Madison, the state capital.“Hats off to them for what they did in Dane county. You have to respect that,” Henson said. “There’s going to be another election in a couple years. So remember the lessons you learned and be ready to punch back.” Henson declined to comment.TopicsUS newsWisconsinUS elections 2020DemocratsRepublicansnewsReuse this content More

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      in Elections

      2023’s Biggest, Most Unusual Race Centers on Abortion and Democracy

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      The election for a swing seat on Wisconsin’s Supreme Court has huge policy stakes for the battleground state. Cash is pouring in, and some of the candidates have shed any pretense of judicial neutrality.In 10 weeks, Wisconsin will hold an election that carries bigger policy stakes than any other contest in America in 2023.The April race, for a seat on the state’s evenly divided Supreme Court, will determine the fate of abortion rights, gerrymandered legislative maps and the governor’s appointment powers — and perhaps even the state’s 2024 presidential election if the outcome is again contested.The court’s importance stems from Wisconsin’s deadlocked state government. Since 2019, Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, has faced off against a Republican-controlled Legislature with near-supermajority control thanks to one of the country’s most aggressive partisan gerrymanders, itself approved last year by the Wisconsin justices.Wisconsin’s Supreme Court has been left to arbitrate a host of thorny issues in the state, and has nearly always sided with Republicans. But now, with a conservative justice retiring, liberals hope to reverse many of those decisions by taking control of the open seat and its 10-year term.“If you change control of the Supreme Court from relatively conservative to fairly liberal, that will be a big, big change and that would last for quite a while,” said David T. Prosser Jr., a conservative former justice who retired from the court in 2016.The contest will almost certainly shatter spending records for a judicial election in any state, and could even double the current most expensive race. Wisconsinites are set to be inundated by a barrage of advertising, turning a typically sleepy spring election into the latest marker in the state’s nonstop political season. The seat is nonpartisan in name only, with officials from both parties lining up behind chosen candidates.Indeed, the clash for the court is striking because of how nakedly political it is.While past state judicial candidates and United States Supreme Court nominees have largely avoided weighing in on specific issues — instead pitching opaque judicial philosophies and counting on voters or senators to read between the lines — some of the Wisconsin contenders are making all but explicit arguments for how they would rule on topics that are likely to come before the court.Judge Janet Protasiewicz has argued that abortion should be “a woman’s right to choose.”Caleb Alvarado for The New York TimesJanet Protasiewicz, a liberal county judge from a Milwaukee suburb, is leading the charge on both fund-raising and the new approach to judicial campaigning, shedding the pretense that she does not hold firm positions on the hottest-button issues. She turned heads this month at a candidate forum when she declared the state’s gerrymandered legislative maps “rigged.”In an interview last week, Judge Protasiewicz argued that abortion should be “a woman’s right to choose”; said that Gov. Scott Walker’s 2011 law effectively ending collective bargaining rights for most public employees was unconstitutional; and predicted that, if she won, the court would take up a case seeking to invalidate the Republican-drawn state legislative and congressional maps put in place last year.Politics Across the United StatesFrom the halls of government to the campaign trail, here’s a look at the political landscape in America.2023 Races: Governors’ contests in Kentucky, Louisiana and Mississippi and mayoral elections in Chicago and Philadelphia are among the races to watch this year.Voting Laws: The tug of war over voting rights is playing out with fresh urgency at the state level, as Republicans and Democrats seek to pass new laws before the next presidential election.A Key Senate Contest: Representative Ruben Gallego, a progressive Democrat, said that he would run for the Senate in 2024 in a potential face-off with Senator Kyrsten Sinema.Democrats’ New Power: After winning trifectas in four state governments in the midterms, Democrats have a level of control in statehouses not seen since 2009.“Obviously, if we have a four-to-three majority, it is highly likely that we would be revisiting the maps,” she said.The other liberal candidate, Judge Everett Mitchell of Dane County, which includes Madison, the state capital, said in an interview that “the map lines are not fair.”Both candidates have also expressed full-throated support for the right to an abortion, which became illegal last summer under a law that was enacted in 1849 but that is being challenged by the state’s Democratic attorney general in a case likely to come before the court this year.Their declarations signify how the race is transmogrifying into a statewide election like any other in Wisconsin, a perpetual political battleground. Like November’s contests for governor, state attorney general and the Senate, the court election is set to be dominated by a focus on abortion rights (for Democrats) and crime (for Republicans).“We’re still on the November hangover where the top two issues were crime and abortion,” said Mark Graul, a Republican political operative in the state who is a volunteer for Jennifer R. Dorow, a conservative Waukesha County judge in the Supreme Court race. Judge Dorow presided over the trial last fall of a man convicted of killing six people by driving through a 2021 Christmas parade.Jennifer R. Dorow, a conservative Waukesha County judge, presided over the trial last fall of a man convicted of killing six people by driving through a 2021 Christmas parade.Caleb Alvarado for The New York TimesJudge Dorow and another conservative, Dan Kelly, a former Wisconsin Supreme Court justice who lost a 2020 election to retain his seat, will compete against the two liberals in an officially nonpartisan Feb. 21 primary to replace Justice Patience D. Roggensack, who is retiring.The top two will advance to an April 4 general election, with the winner joining a court that is otherwise split between three conservative and three liberal justices.In narrowly divided Wisconsin, a one-seat edge is all the majority needs to change the state’s politics.In recent years, in addition to approving the Republican-drawn maps, the court has ruled that most drop boxes for absentee ballots are illegal; struck down Mr. Evers’s pandemic mitigation efforts; stripped regulatory powers from the state schools superintendent, a Democrat; allowed political appointees of Mr. Evers’s Republican predecessor to remain in office long past the expiration of their terms; and required some public schools to pay for busing for parochial schools.Many of those cases, which Democrats hope to roll back, were brought to the court by the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, a think tank and legal organization that has served as the leading edge of the state’s conservative movement. The group’s founder, Rick M. Esenberg, said the court’s role ought to be upholding laws precisely as legislators have written them — not proposing major changes to them.“Having control of the judiciary shouldn’t mean that you can make new policy,” Mr. Esenberg said. “Some judicial candidates have spoken as if that’s exactly what’s at stake. And for them, it may well be.”The conservative candidates, Justice Kelly and Judge Dorow, have been less forthright about how they would rule, but both have left ample clues for voters. Justice Kelly last year participated in an “election integrity” tour sponsored by the Republican Party of Wisconsin. Judge Dorow, who was so well known in the Milwaukee suburbs that people dressed as her last Halloween, said in a 2016 legal questionnaire that the worst U.S. Supreme Court decision was Lawrence v. Texas, the 2003 decision that struck down anti-sodomy laws.From left, Judge Dorow, Dan Kelly, Everett Mitchell and Judge Protasiewicz at a forum in Madison this month.John Hart/Wisconsin State Journal, via Associated PressBoth have ties to former President Donald J. Trump. In 2020, Mr. Trump endorsed Justice Kelly and praised him at a Milwaukee rally. Judge Dorow’s husband, Brian Dorow, was a security official for Trump campaign events in Wisconsin. Neither Justice Kelly nor Judge Dorow agreed to be interviewed.The race has already broken state fund-raising records for a judicial race. Judge Protasiewicz — whose campaign on Tuesday released a cheeky video teaching Wisconsinites how to say her name: pro-tuh-SAY-witz — raised $924,000 last year, more than any Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate ever in the year before an election. Judge Dorow and Justice Kelly each raised about one-third as much, while Judge Mitchell collected $115,000.Far more money will flow in from outside groups and the state’s political parties, which have no limits on what they may receive and spend. Both parties are expected to direct tens of millions of dollars to their favored general election candidates.Justice Kelly has the support of the billionaire Uihlein family, whose political action committee pledged last year to spend millions of dollars on his behalf. So far, the Uihleins’ contributions have amounted to just $40,000 — a pair of maximum individual contributions to his campaign. Last year the Uihlein-backed super PAC spent $28 million in Wisconsin’s Senate race; Richard and Liz Uihlein contributed an additional $2.8 million to the state Republican Party.Dan Curry, a spokesman for Fair Courts America, the Uihleins’ political action committee, declined to answer questions about the family’s spending plans in the Supreme Court race.The enormous stakes in the race so far have not been matched by commensurate public interest. Marquette University Law School, which conducts Wisconsin’s most respected political polls, has no plans to survey voters about the Supreme Court election, said Charles Franklin, the poll’s director.Ben Wikler, the chairman of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, said there was no question that spending on the race would eclipse the most expensive U.S. judicial race on record, a $15 million campaign in 2004 for the Illinois Supreme Court, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.Mr. Wikler, who has spent recent weeks stumping for cash from major Democratic donors, said he hoped to make the race a national cause célèbre for liberals along the lines of Jon Ossoff’s 2017 House campaign in Georgia or the referendum on abortion rights in Kansas last year.Last year, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled that most drop boxes for ballots were illegal, a decision that could be revisited with a new justice.Lauren Justice for The New York TimesHe cited the court’s 4-to-3 ruling in December 2020 that rejected the Trump campaign’s effort to invalidate 200,000 votes cast in Milwaukee County and Dane County — an argument that has resonated with top Democrats in Washington worried that a more conservative court could reach an opposite conclusion in the future.“Wisconsin is extremely important for the presidency,” Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, said in an interview. “The Supreme Court is the firewall to an extreme Legislature that wants to curtail voting rights. And so this election is very important, not just for Wisconsin, but for the country.”Eric H. Holder Jr., the former attorney general who leads the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, plans to campaign in the state after the primary.For Wisconsin Democrats, the election is an opportunity to imagine a world in which they can exert some control over policy rather than simply trying to block Republican proposals, after a dozen years of playing defense.In an interview last month, Mr. Evers called the race “a huge deal.” His election lawyer, Jeffrey A. Mandell, said that if a liberal candidate won, Mr. Mandell would ask the State Supreme Court to take direct action to invalidate the state’s legislative maps on Aug. 2, the day after the new justice is seated.Kelda Roys, a Democratic state senator, said the campaign would focus almost entirely on abortion rights — because the next justice will be in position to overturn the state’s ban and because, she argued, the midterms showed that it was a winning issue.“It’s going to be abortion morning, noon and night,” Ms. Roys said, “even more than November was.”Kitty Bennett More

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      A Colossal Off-Year Election in Wisconsin

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      Lauren Justice for The New York TimesConservatives have controlled the court since 2008. Though the court upheld Wisconsin’s 2020 election results, last year it ruled drop boxes illegal, allowed a purge of the voter rolls to take place and installed redistricting maps drawn by Republican legislators despite the objections of Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat. More

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      Wisconsin Republican who bragged about low turnout faces calls to resign

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      Wisconsin Republican who bragged about low turnout faces calls to resignRobert Spindell, who sits on state election commission, told party members to be ‘proud’ of low voting figures in Democratic areas A top Republican election official in Wisconsin is facing calls to resign from his role after boasting about lower turnout last year in Black and Hispanic areas of Milwaukee.Republican says party ‘will never lose another election’ in Wisconsin if he winsRead moreRobert Spindell is one of three GOP appointees on the Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC), the six-member bipartisan body that oversees elections in the state. He is also the chair of the Republican party in the fourth congressional district, which includes Milwaukee. After last year’s election, he sent an email to fellow Republicans touting the party’s “well thought out multi-faceted plan” that resulted in a drop in voter turnout in the city, which is home to a majority of Wisconsin’s Black population.“We can be especially proud of the City of Milwaukee (80.2% Dem Vote) casting 37,000 less votes than cast in the 2018 election with the major reduction happening in the overwhelming Black and Hispanic areas,” he wrote in an email, according to Urban Milwaukee, which first published portions of the message.The GOP efforts included “Biting Black Radio Negative Commercials”, aimed at Democrats and opening Republican offices in Black and Hispanic neighborhoods, according to the email. “Promoting the Republican ‘Cares’ Message; pointing out the many flaws of the Democrat Candidates; coupled with a Lack of Interest, persuaded many voters not to vote,” he wrote.In a different email, provided to the Associated Press, Spindell also attributed the turnout drop to strong Republican candidates and the difficulty Democrats had in connecting with Black voters.“The Democratic candidates were unable to obtain – even though they really tried hard – the votes they needed, expected and demanded from the Black Community,” he wrote. “There is still a great deal of much more concentrated work we need to do in the Black and Hispanic Communities by continuing to show how the Democratic Elected Officials and Candidates are not watching out for the livelihoods of the people who live in these areas and the Republicans can.”Wisconsin is one of the most politically competitive states in America, and the high-stakes battle over voting access that has roiled the state for years. Over the last decade, Republicans enacted new voter ID requirements and distorted the boundaries of electoral districts to cement their power. The state has a Democratic governor, but Republican control over the state legislature is virtually guaranteed because of gerrymandering.Mark Thomsen, a Democrat who serves on the elections commission with Spindell tweeted on Thursday that he should resign. “My fellow commissioner Bob Spindell has shown he cannot be fair and should resign from the WEC.”Thank you for pointing out the obvious @badachie My fellow commissioner Bob Spindell has shown he cannot be fair and should resign from the WEC.@BobSpindell— Mark Thomsen (@MarkThomsenWI) January 11, 2023
      Devin Remiker, the executive director of the Wisconsin Democratic party, also called in Spindell to resign and said the comments were “repugnant” and called on him to resign.Spindell did not respond to an emailed request for comment. He has said he will not resign. “The last thing I want to do is suppress votes,” he told the AP.Spindell’s comments amount to “saying the quiet part out loud”, Black Leaders Organizing Communities (Bloc), a Milwaukee group that works on voter engagement said in a statement. “It is incredibly racist to brag about lowering Black and Brown turnout, it is also unacceptable to have these comments and views held by an election official,” the group said in a statement. It urged Devin LeMahieu, the Republican leader in the Wisconsin senate, to rescind Spindell’s appointment to the body.Spindell is also under fire for his role serving as one of 10 fake GOP electors in Wisconsin after the 2020 election. The justice department is investigating that scheme across the country. He is also a named defendant in a civil lawsuit seeking damages for that effort.TopicsWisconsinRepublicansUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      The Key Elections Taking Place in 2023

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      Among the races to watch are governors’ contests in Kentucky, Louisiana and Mississippi and mayoral elections in Chicago and Philadelphia.It might be tempting to focus on the 2024 presidential election now that the midterms are in the rearview mirror, but don’t sleep on 2023: key races for governor, mayor and other offices will be decided.Their outcomes will be closely watched for signs of whether Democrats or Republicans have momentum going into next year’s presidential election and congressional races — and for what they signal about the influence of former President Donald J. Trump.Virginia and New Jersey have noteworthy state house elections, and in Wisconsin, a state Supreme Court race will determine the balance of power in a body whose conservative majority routinely sides with Republicans. Here’s what to watch:Kentucky governorOf the three governors’ races this year, only Kentucky features an incumbent Democrat seeking re-election in a state that Mr. Trump won in 2020. The race also appears packed with the most intrigue.Gov. Andy Beshear won by less than 6,000 votes in 2019, ousting Matt Bevin, the Trump-backed Republican incumbent in the cherry-red state that is home to Senator Mitch McConnell, the Senate G.O.P. leader.A growing field of Republicans has ambitions of settling the score in 2023, including Daniel Cameron, who in 2019 became the first Black person to be elected as Kentucky’s attorney general, an office previously held by Mr. Beshear. Mr. Cameron, who is seen as a possible successor to Mr. McConnell, drew attention in 2020 when he announced that a grand jury did not indict two Louisville officers who shot Breonna Taylor. Last June, Mr. Trump endorsed Mr. Cameron for governor, but there will be competition for the G.O.P. nomination.Attorney General Daniel Cameron, signing the papers for his candidacy last week, is among Republicans seeking to challenge Gov. Andy Beshear this year.Timothy D. Easley/Associated PressKelly Craft, a former ambassador to the United Nations under Mr. Trump, is also running. So are Mike Harmon, the state auditor of public accounts, and Ryan Quarles, the state’s agricultural commissioner, and several other Republicans. The primary will be on May 16.Louisiana governorGov. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat who narrowly won a second term in 2019, is not eligible to run again because of term limits. The open-seat race has tantalized some prominent Republicans, including Jeff Landry, the state’s attorney general, who has declared his candidacy.Two other Republicans weighing entering the race are John Schroder, the state treasurer who has told supporters he will run, and Representative Garret Graves.Shawn Wilson, the state’s transportation secretary under Mr. Edwards, is one of the few Democrats who have indicated interest in running in deep-red Louisiana.Electing a New Speaker of the HouseRepresentative Kevin McCarthy won the speakership after a revolt within the Republican Party set off a long stretch of unsuccessful votes.Inside the Speaker Fight: Mr. McCarthy’s speaker bid turned into a rolling disaster. “The Daily” has the inside story of how it went so wrong and what he was forced to give up.A Tenuous Grip: By making concessions to far-right representatives, Mr. McCarthy has effectively given them carte blanche to disrupt the workings of the House — and to hold him hostage to their demands.Looming Consequences: Congressional gridlock brought on by far-right Republicans now seems more likely to lead to government shutdowns or, worse, a default on debt obligations.Roots of the Chaos: How did Mr. McCarthy’s bid become a four-day debacle? The story begins with the zero-sum politics of Newt Gingrich.Mississippi governorGov. Tate Reeves, a Republican, is running for a second term. But the advantage of incumbency and a substantial campaign fund may not be enough to stop a primary challenge, especially with his job approval numbers among the lowest of the nation’s governors.Philip Gunn, Mississippi’s House speaker, has been coy about possible plans to enter the race after announcing in November that he would not seek re-election to the Legislature. Among the other Republicans whose names have been bandied about is Michael Watson, the secretary of state. But Mr. Reeves is the only Republican to have filed so far; the deadline is Feb. 1.A Democrat hasn’t been elected governor of Mississippi in two decades, since a contest was decided by the Legislature because the winning candidate did not receive a majority of votes. Not surprisingly, few Democrats have stepped forward to run. One name to watch is Brandon Presley, a public service commissioner. Mr. Presley is a relative of Elvis Presley, who was from Tupelo, Miss., according to Mississippi Today, a nonprofit news website.U.S. House (Virginia’s Fourth District)The death in late November of Representative A. Donald McEachin, a Democrat from Virginia, prompted Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, to schedule a special election for Feb. 21.In December, Democrats resoundingly nominated Jennifer McClellan, a state senator, to represent the party in the contest for Virginia’s Fourth District, which includes Richmond and leans heavily Democratic. She could become the first Black woman elected to Congress in Virginia, where she would complete the two-year term that Mr. McEachin won by 30 percentage points just weeks before his death.Republicans tapped Leon Benjamin, a Navy veteran and pastor who lost to Mr. McEachin in November and in 2020.Chicago mayorMayor Lori Lightfoot of Chicago, a Democrat who in 2019 became the first Black woman and first openly gay person to lead the nation’s third-most populous city, faces a gantlet of challengers in her quest for re-election.That test will arrive somewhat early in the year, with the mayoral election set for Feb. 28. If no candidate finishes with a majority of the votes, a runoff will be held on April 4.Mayor Lori Lightfoot of Chicago faces several challengers in her re-election bid.Jim Vondruska/ReutersThe crowded field includes Representative Jesús G. García, a Democrat who is known as Chuy and who was overwhelmingly re-elected to a third term in his Cook County district in November and previously ran unsuccessfully for mayor. In the current race, Ms. Lightfoot has attacked Mr. García over receiving money for his House campaign from Sam Bankman-Fried, the criminally charged founder of the collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX.Ms. Lightfoot’s other opponents include Kam Buckner, a state legislator; Brandon Johnson, a Cook County commissioner; Sophia King and Roderick T. Sawyer, who both serve on the City Council; Paul Vallas, a former chief executive of Chicago public schools; and Ja’Mal Green, a prominent activist in the city.Philadelphia mayorAn open-seat race for mayor in Pennsylvania’s foremost Democratic bastion has attracted an expansive field of candidates. The office is held by Jim Kenney, a Democrat who is not eligible to run again because of term limits.Five members of the City Council have resigned to enter the race, which city rules require. They are Allan Domb, Derek Green, Helen Gym, Cherelle Parker and Maria Quiñones Sánchez.The field also includes Rebecca Rhynhart, the city’s controller, who has likewise resigned in order to run; Amen Brown, a state legislator; Jeff Brown, a supermarket chain founder; and James DeLeon; a retired judge.Wisconsin Supreme CourtConservatives are clinging to a one-seat majority on Wisconsin’s Supreme Court, but a retirement within the court’s conservative ranks could shift the balance of power this year. The court’s justices have increasingly been called on to settle landmark lawsuits involving elections, gerrymandering, abortion and other contentious issues.Two conservative and two liberal candidates have entered what is technically a nonpartisan election to succeed Judge Patience D. Roggensack on the seven-member court.Daniel Kelly, a conservative former justice on the state Supreme Court who lost his seat in the 2020 election, is seeking a comeback. Running against him in the conservative lane is Jennifer Dorow, a circuit court judge in Waukesha County who drew widespread attention when she presided over the trial of Darrell E. Brooks, the man convicted in the killing of six people he struck with his car during a Christmas parade in Waukesha, Wis., in 2021.Janet Protasiewicz and Everett Mitchell, judges from Milwaukee County and Dane County, which includes Madison, the capital, are seeking to give liberals a majority on the court.The two candidates who receive the most votes in the nonpartisan primary on Feb. 21 — regardless of their leanings — will face each other in the general election on April 4.Legislature (Virginia and New Jersey)Virginia is emerging as a potential tempest in 2023, with its divided legislature up for re-election and elected officials squarely focused on the issue of abortion — not to mention a Republican governor who is flirting with a run for president.Gov. Glenn Youngkin wants to ban most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, emboldened by the Supreme Court’s repeal last summer of Roe v. Wade, the 50-year-old constitutional right to an abortion.His proposal is expected to resonate with Republican lawmakers, who narrowly control the House of Delegates. But it is likely to run into fierce opposition in the Senate, where Democrats are clinging to a slender majority. All seats in both chambers are up for election.Another Mid-Atlantic state to watch is New Jersey, where Republicans made inroads in 2021 despite being in the minority and are seeking to build on those gains. More

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      ‘I was throwing up with anxiety’: how Democrats fought back in America’s most gerrymandered state

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      Interview‘I was throwing up with anxiety’: how Democrats fought back in America’s most gerrymandered stateChris SteinBen Wikler, Wisconsin’s Democratic party chair, on midterm success that means ‘democracy is going to survive in our state’ Ben Wikler spent so much time poring over polls ahead of the midterm elections that it eventually became too much to bear.“I was throwing up with anxiety,” Wikler, the chair of Wisconsin’s Democratic party, confessed to the Guardian.Republican says party ‘will never lose another election’ in Wisconsin if he winsRead moreIt wasn’t merely out of concern, common to Democrats nationwide in the run-up to the early November vote, that voters were set to give their candidates the traditional drubbing of the party in power, powered by Joe Biden’s unpopularity or the wobbly state of the economy.Rather, Wikler feared that in Wisconsin his party was on the brink of something worse: permanent minority status in a state that is crucial to any presidential candidate’s path to the White House.Had Democrat Tony Evers lost re-election as governor, or had the GOP achieved supermajority control of both houses of Wisconsin’s legislature, Republicans could have exercised total control over the swing state’s levers of power – and ensured that its electoral college votes never again helped Biden or any other Democrat win the White House.“It’s a state where Republicans have tried to engineer things to make it voter-proof,” Wikler told the Guardian in an interview conducted this month. “All of that meant that, this election cycle, the stakes were explosively high.”Wisconsin has the most gerrymandered legislative map in the country, designed to ensure the GOP has as easy a path as possible to capture majorities in the legislature, according to a University of Wisconsin-Madison study.Meanwhile, the Cost of Voting Index ranks Wisconsin as the fourth most difficult state in the country for people to exercise their right to cast a ballot, thanks to its strict voter identification requirements and laws that make it practically impossible to conduct voter registration drives.But Wisconsin’s Republicans are looking to tighten access to polling places further, and passed a host of measures to do so, all of which fell to Evers’s veto pen. With a supermajority in the legislature, they would have been able to override his vetoes. In a speech to supporters, Tim Michels, the Republican candidate for governor, made it plain that if he was elected, the GOP “will never lose another election” in the state.“When the state has election after election that comes down to tiny margins, even a relatively small shift in the rules can have an enormous impact on statewide races and presidential races,” Wikler said.“In that context, if Republicans got unified control of the state government or got supermajorities in the state legislature, it is very easy to imagine a scenario where they essentially rig things to shut out President Biden’s re-election.”Yet, it didn’t happen. As the predicted midterms “red wave” collapsed, Evers won re-election, while Wisconsin Democrats narrowly managed to keep Republicans from a supermajority in both houses of the legislature.“Because of all that, democracy is going to survive in our state,” Wikler said.Democrats’ success at standing their ground in Wisconsin was one of many pleasant surprises the party experienced in the midterms.Biden’s allies performed historically well nationwide, but in Wisconsin, Wikler cast their success as something of a turning point: not only will the state remain competitive in the 2024 presidential election, Democrats can now go on the offensive.“It’s not just that we stopped a total disaster scenario, it’s also that we’ve opened the door to the possibility of dramatic change for the better. And that is almost more than we could have hoped for,” Wikler said.But the party has a complicated path back to being competitive statewide, and much of the reason why can be traced to another midterm election held 12 years ago.In 2010, Republicans won control of the governor’s mansion, the state senate and the assembly. They have held the legislature ever since, enacting district maps that have been credited with controversially allowing them to maintain control of the statehouse even if they lose the popular vote, as well as laws that tightened voter ID requirements and curbed the power of public sector unions, a major Democratic voting bloc. The low point for the party came in the 2016 presidential election, when Donald Trump won Wisconsin, the first Republican to do so since 1984.A year after Wikler took over as the state’s Democratic chair, Biden won Wisconsin in the 2020 election. However, the party’s rebound hasn’t been without setbacks: in the most recent midterms, the Democratic lieutenant governor, Mandela Barnes, failed in his bid to unseat the Republican senator Ron Johnson.Nonetheless, Wikler now sees an opportunity for the party to undo the state’s gerrymandered maps, and take back control of the legislature, starting with an election for the state supreme court in April. A Republican-backed judge is stepping down from the non-partisan bench, and if a left-leaning justice can replace her, Wikler says the stage could be set for a successful challenge to the state’s legislative maps and a return by Democrats to the majority in the state assembly and senate.“That’s the north star of the party,” Wikler said. “It’s to have a Democratic governor … a non-Republican majority on the state supreme court, Democratic majorities in the state assembly and state senate, and pass the agenda that Wisconsinites have been yearning for for the last decade into law in one legislative session.”TopicsWisconsinUS politicsDemocratsinterviewsReuse this content More