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      Is the Democratic Midterm Surge Overrated? Why Republicans Can Still Win the House and Senate.

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      Ross Douthat, a Times Opinion columnist, hosted an online conversation with Kristen Soltis Anderson, a Republican pollster, and the conservative writer and radio host Erick Erickson, to discuss whether Republicans are blowing the fall campaign — or whether a red wave is still possible.Ross Douthat: Kristen, Erick, thanks so much for joining me. Let’s start with the big picture. From early 2022 through the middle of the summer, Republicans consistently led the generic ballot for Congress, by around two and a half points. Today, the same generic ballot is either tied or gives Democrats a slight edge. Kristen, what changed?Kristen Soltis Anderson: The biggest thing that I’ve seen shift is enthusiasm on the Democratic side. During the winter and spring, Republicans had an advantage when voters were asked how motivated they were to vote. Key parts of the Democratic coalition were just not as tuned in or interested in participating.That’s a relatively normal dynamic in a midterm year, but the last two or three months have seen Democrats close that enthusiasm gap.Erick Erickson: I underappreciated how much the Dobbs decision would play a role in that.But the RealClearPolitics polling averages go back about two decades. For midterm elections where Republicans have done well, at this time of year, the polling has narrowed. Tom Bevan of RealClearPolitics had a good piece on it last week. I actually told my radio listeners that we should expect a tying of the generic ballot in August, and here it is. I would wait to really assess the direction of the race until late September.Douthat: If we assume Dobbs has boosted Democratic enthusiasm, Kristen, how heavily should we weight that effect relative to, say, falling gas prices?Anderson: The Dobbs decision was the big turning point. It has been less about changing voters’ minds from Republican to Democratic and more about activating voters who might have been tuned out and less engaged. It has also given Democrats a message to run on that changes the topic from inflation and gas prices. I still see the economy as a huge driver of this midterm, which is why I still think at this point Republicans are in an OK position. But there’s a reason Democratic candidates have been running ads about abortion.Douthat: Erick, you just said you might have underestimated the Dobbs effect. Do you think G.O.P. politicians were actually prepared to have abortion back in democratic debate?Erickson: I have been more than a bit perplexed at the G.O.P.’s surprise over the Dobbs decision, considering it leaked weeks before it was official. They had time to prepare for it and find some common ground and never seemed to get on the same page. By not being prepared, they allowed more aggressive voices on the issue to spook voters. When you have loud voices in the G.O.P. start talking about making abortion a criminal offense after Dobbs, that tends to spook people.Still, I do continue to think the economy is going to be disproportionately at play in the election. As Kristen said, more Democrats will turn out than otherwise would have pre-Dobbs, but the G.O.P. should be OK if the party focuses on the economy and inflation.Douthat: Well, unless inflation continues to diminish, right? It seems like Republicans have pushed a lot of chips onto that issue. Do you both think the G.O.P. needs a highly inflationary economy or a potential recession to win Congress this fall?Anderson: I’m certainly not rooting for a bad economy. But there is typically a link between people’s perceptions of the economy and their willingness to stick with the party in power. It is worth noting that inflation and rising gas prices were an issue where even Democrats were expressing concerns before Dobbs. Republicans rightly saw it as an issue on which their party had two key things going for them: Independents thought it was a top issue, and voters trusted Republicans more on it.Erickson: We are not going to see deflation, so reduced inflation is still inflation.Anderson: It’s also worth noting that even though the chatter in Washington seems to be that inflation is fading fast as an issue for voters, I’m not necessarily buying that that’s the case.Erickson: Yeah, as a dad who does a lot of the grocery shopping and cooking, milk and meat are still expensive, even if not as expensive as they were a few months ago, and wage increases for Americans have not offset the costs of many consumer goods.Douthat: Have Republicans focused too much on the economy at the expense of other issues that might have worked for them — crime, immigration, even education?Anderson: Crime and immigration are areas where Republicans have an advantage with voters, but those issues just haven’t been as salient with them.Erickson: Republicans have a comprehensive story to tell about the deterioration of the quality of life in America.Douthat: Let’s talk about the candidates who are trying to tell that story. Erick, you’re in Georgia, where Herschel Walker is the G.O.P. nominee for Senate and not exactly impressing on the campaign trail. Popular Republican governors in swing states passed up Senate races, presumably because they didn’t want to deal with the demands of Trumpism, and now you’ve got G.O.P. candidates trailing in the polls everywhere from Arizona to Pennsylvania to Wisconsin.How bad is the candidate problem, and can a Walker or a Dr. Oz still win?Erickson: I’ll take the last part first. The G.O.P. has managed to nominate some clunkers of candidates. But yes, Republicans can still win. This is actually why I am a bit hesitant now to embrace the national narrative of this election.Walker is a flawed candidate, but the national narrative has the race worse than it actually is. Walker has actually been ahead in some recent polls. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee chair recently mentioned races he expected to do well in, and Georgia was not on the list. On the ground in Georgia, Walker has retooled his campaign, brought in new people, and the crowds are growing as his air war likely intensifies.Oz and Blake Masters are not great. But the political environment can get some of these flawed candidates elected. Remember, in 1980, a bunch of Republicans got elected as “accidental” senators; they were swept into office by Ronald Reagan’s landslide victory and because the national mood was so dour. Also, it is worth noting that in 2020, the G.O.P. exceeded expectations, and pollsters still do not have good answers for why they missed that. We could be experiencing part of that again.Douthat: Let me pitch that point to you, Kristen: Not only Republicans but a lot of liberals are very hesitant to trust polls showing big Democratic advantages in Senate races, especially in Midwestern states, given the record Erick mentions. How doubtful should we be about polling in this cycle?Anderson: I’m far from a poll truther or unskewer or what have you. But I am keenly aware of the ways in which public polling can miss the mark. And it is notable that in some of the last few election cycles, we’ve had public polls that told a very rosy story about Democratic Senate candidates that did not pan out and lost to incumbent Republicans. Lindsey Graham and Susan Collins, anyone? I’m also thinking of 2018, where states like Indiana and Missouri were considered tossup or close races in a blue-wave year and yet Republicans won.At the same time, those 2018 examples show that it is possible for candidates to outperform expectations even in the face of a wave that is supposed to be crashing the other direction.Douthat: Do you think the polling industry has substantially adjusted since 2020? Are the polls we’re seeing of, say, Pennsylvania or Wisconsin more trustworthy than past polling, in your view?Anderson: I’ll use a recent example to highlight my concerns. In Florida we just had a big primary election, and one of the major polls that got released before the primary showed in the governor’s race, the more progressive candidate, Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried, ahead of the more centrist Democrat and former Republican, Charlie Crist. The poll was very transparent in its methodology, but the underlying data had a large number of college-educated voters. Even if you do the appropriate things with data weighting, that underlying data is skewing quite progressive. Crist actually defeated Fried by a wide margin.I don’t say this to criticize those pollsters, as they were transparent about their data, but if Democrats are extra fired up to vote right now, there’s a chance they’re also extra fired up to take polls.Douthat: But we do have a few actual results, from the abortion referendum in Kansas to the recent special election in New York, where liberal causes and Democratic candidates have done well in real voting, not just in polls.How much do you read into those kinds of election results?Anderson: The Kansas result was a wake-up call for Republicans. It showed Democrats making real strides in speaking to voters in the center about abortion using language those voters might use and tapping into values those centrist voters might hold. But I’m reluctant to say that special election results are transferable to other races in other states on other issues.Erickson: I’m doubtful we can really extrapolate Kansas to the rest of the nation.Douthat: Erick, let’s talk about Donald Trump, because the other big change from the summer is that the former president is back in the headlines. Assuming, as seems likely, that the classified-documents scandal is somewhat frozen from here till Election Day, how long a shadow does Trump cast over the midterms?Erickson: Democrats have said for some time they wanted Trump to be an aspect of their 2022 argument. He, of course, wants to be part of it as well. Republicans have been terrible about taking the bait and talking about Trump. To the extent the G.O.P. is willing to ignore their reflexive “stand by your man” impulse and instead focus on the economy, education, crime, etc., they can move past his shadow quickly.I’m just not optimistic Republicans can do that, given their prior behavior on the matter.Douthat: And Kristen, as Erick says, from the Democratic side and especially the Biden White House, there seems to be a clear desire to make the midterms about Trumpism. That didn’t work particularly well for Terry McAuliffe in the Virginia governor’s race last year. Is it a better strategy now?Anderson: In a midterm, the party out of power always wants it to be a referendum, while the party in power wants it to be a choice.The problem with Trump becoming more in the news is that it helps Democrats try to make it a choice. It gives them a prominent foil. But simply saying, “Don’t vote for candidate X because of Trump” isn’t foolproof.Douthat: If a bunch of Trump-picked candidates lose their Senate or governor races, does it weaken him for 2024 at all?Erickson: I have resigned myself to Trump’s core supporters insisting the G.O.P. establishment undermined those candidates in order to stop Trump and the only way to chart a better course is to double down on Trump. They will blame Mitch McConnell and others before Trump gets blame.Anderson: It is notable that when my firm asked Republican voters if they thought Trump was helping or hurting Republican candidates in the midterms, 61 percent said he was helping, and only 27 percent said hurting. This was from a survey we did in August.Even among Republicans who don’t think of themselves as “Trump first,” putting him before their party, a majority view him as helping. Granted, some of this may be Republican respondents circling the wagons in response to the question. But I doubt a poor showing in the midterms will lead to blaming Trump.Erickson: If Democrats really do want Trump to go away, they should just ignore him. Before the F.B.I. going to Mar-a-Lago, Republicans were doing their slow walk away from Trump. I somewhat suspect Democrats really want to keep Trump’s position in the G.O.P. elevated because independent voters just do not seem to care for the guy, and that gives Democrats an edge while making a 2024 Republican primary messy.The bigger issue for Trump is major donor support. Those people will see a need to move on. Trump will be less able to rely on larger dollar donors to build out 2024 than he did in 2020, though he won’t need them as much, since he can raise a lot from small-dollar donors. If they, however, consolidated behind someone else, it could cause problems for Trump.Douthat: OK, time to ask for predictions. Out of the competitive Senate races where G.O.P. candidates are seen as struggling or the race is just close — let’s say Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Nevada, because I think J.D. Vance will win Ohio — which ones do you think are the most likely G.O.P. wins, and which the most likely Democratic victories?Erickson: The G.O.P. takes Georgia. The Democrats take Pennsylvania and hold Arizona. The G.O.P. takes Nevada. I continue to think Ron Johnson wins his re-election in Wisconsin, too. I agree on Vance and think the national narrative there is out of sync with Ohio voters, who’ve moved more Republican.Anderson: I have the same choices as Erick: Republicans taking Georgia and Democrats taking Pennsylvania. That’s not to say I think those are rock solid, and the Pennsylvania race is just strange in general.Douthat: And if the economy worsens and the possibility of a red wave returns, what could be the most unexpected G.O.P. pickup?Anderson: I keep hearing buzz around this Washington Senate race. Republicans are very happy with their candidate there, Tiffany Smiley, who is a former triage nurse. A female candidate with a health care background could be powerful in this cycle.Erickson: I would keep my eye on the Colorado Senate race and the Oregon gubernatorial race. Also, New Hampshire remains in play, though the G.O.P. needs to settle on a candidate.Douthat: Final predictions — give me House and Senate numbers for Republicans.Erickson: I’m going with 51 in the Senate and 235 in the House.Anderson: I’ll say 230 seats in the House and 51 in the Senate. But I would also like to note that we are two months away.Douthat: Your sensible humility is duly noted, Kristen. Thanks to you both for a terrific discussion.Ross Douthat is a Times columnist. Kristen Soltis Anderson, the author of “The Selfie Vote,” is a Republican pollster and a co-founder of the polling firm Echelon Insights. Erick Erickson, the host of the “Erick Erickson Show,” writes the newsletter Confessions of a Political Junkie.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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      ‘Tired of trickle-down economics’: Biden calls for expansion of unions in Labor Day speech

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      ‘Tired of trickle-down economics’: Biden calls for expansion of unions in Labor Day speechPresident again pledges to be ‘most pro-union president’ in history during speech in Milwaukee Joe Biden used a Labor Day speech in the battleground state of Wisconsin to endorse the expansion of unions, reiterating his election promises to be the “most pro-union president” in American history.The US president argued in Milwaukee that a skilled, unionised workforce would help the US regain its place as a world leader in infrastructure and manufacturing.Drawing on Franklin D Roosevelt’s explicit support for unions during the New Deal, Biden said: “I am encouraging unions … we need key worker protections to build an economy from the bottom up and middle out. I am sick and tired of trickle-down economics.”Biden’s comments come amid a major resurgence for the labor movement in the US, with more support for unions than at any time in the past 60 years, especially as low-paid workers across a range of industries try unionising.Biden warns US democracy imperiled by Trump and Maga extremistsRead moreEarlier on Monday, Biden came out in support of a proposed law in California, the Agricultural Labor Relations Voting Choice Act – currently on Governor Gavin Newsom’s desk – that would make it easier for farmhands to organise.“The least we owe them is an easier path to make a free and fair choice to organize a union,” Biden said.The Labor Day holiday in an election year typically marks the start of the final sprint before the November vote. With so much at stake in this year’s midterm elections, Biden and Republican leaders are revving up the rhetoric.There is also fevered speculation about whether Donald Trump will announce, before the election, a fresh run for the Republican nomination to recapture the White House in 2024, while he is embroiled in a host of criminal and civil investigations, from New York to Georgia.In Wisconsin, Biden again attempted to distinguish between the type of mainstream Republicans whom he has previously worked with and the “extreme right, Maga Republicans, Trumpies”, he said, who “pose a threat to democracy and economic security, and embrace political violence”.His use of the word “Trumpies” lit up social media. Biden in office has largely avoided referring to his predecessor by name in public or taking direct aim at his loyalist voter base.But last month he referred to the phenomenon of extremist Republicans hewing unshakably to Trump’s “Make America great again” nationalist agenda amid encouragement of “political violence” as “semi-fascism”, then last week said the US was in a battle for the soul of the nation.Biden refers to MAGA republicans as “The Trumpies” pic.twitter.com/I49hQZRzIe— Acyn (@Acyn) September 5, 2022
      On Monday he said: “You can’t be pro-insurrection and pro-democracy,” referring to defenders of the January 6 attack on the US Capitol by extremist Trump supporters hoping to overturn Biden’s victory. Biden continued on the campaign trail from Milwaukee to Pittsburgh for his third visit to Pennsylvania in a week – underscoring the importance of the swing state, which the president, a Pennsylvania native, won back for the Democrats in 2020. Trump, who won Pennsylvania in 2016, rallied there on Saturday.After months of dire polling, the signs are more positive for Biden and the Democrats after a spate of legislative and policy wins, including getting a historic bill to tackle the climate crisis and healthcare costs over the line.Could unexpected Democratic gains foil a midterm Republican victory?Read moreThe US supreme court’s decision in June to overturn the right to abortion also seems to be galvanising the Democrat base, independent and swing voters, especially women, which could hurt Republicans at the polls.In Wisconsin, Biden listed some of his administration’s key victories for workers and ordinary Americans through last year’s American Rescue Act (Arpa) and most recently the Inflation Reduction act (IRA) – without any Republican support.TopicsJoe BidenUS politicsWisconsinMilwaukeeUS unionsDemocratsnewsReuse this content More

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      Ginni Thomas lobbied Wisconsin lawmakers to overturn 2020 election

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      Ginni Thomas lobbied Wisconsin lawmakers to overturn 2020 election The wife of supreme court justice Clarence Thomas urged a Wisconsin state senator and representative to do their ‘duty’ Ginni Thomas, the wife of the US supreme court justice Clarence Thomas, lobbied lawmakers in Wisconsin as well as Arizona in November 2020, seeking to overturn Joe Biden’s victories over Donald Trump in both swing states.Thomas emailed lawmakers in support of Trump’s lie that Biden won thanks to electoral fraud.Cheney and Kinzinger tee up possible January 6 subpoena for Ginni ThomasRead moreThe Washington Post reported Thomas’s efforts in Arizona earlier this summer. On Thursday it detailed her efforts in Wisconsin, citing emails obtained under public-records law.Thomas emailed a Wisconsin state senator and a state representative, both Republican, on 9 November, two days after the election was called for Biden.The messages used the same text as those sent to Arizona officials and were also sent using a form-emailing platform.The subject line read: “Please do your constitutional duty!”The text said: “Please stand strong in the face of media and political pressure. Please reflect on the awesome authority granted to you by our constitution. And then please take action to ensure that a clean slate of electors is chosen for our state.”Ginni Thomas did not comment to the Post. Nor did a supreme court spokesperson.Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a watchdog group, said: “Ginni Thomas tried to overthrow the government. Clarence Thomas gets to rule on that attempt to overthrow the government. See the problem?”After the deadly attack on the Capitol on 6 January 2021 by supporters Trump told to “fight like hell” to overturn his defeat, Clarence Thomas was the only justice to say Trump should not have to give White House records to the investigating House committee.Ginni Thomas is now known to have been in touch with Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, and John Eastman, a law professor who claimed the vice-president, Mike Pence, could stop certification on January 6, about attempts to overturn the election.The House January 6 committee asked Thomas to voluntarily sit for an interview and provide documentation. Her lawyer, the Post said, told the committee she was willing but he did not think she had to.In July, Liz Cheney, the committee vice-chair, told CNN: “The committee is engaged with counsel. We certainly hope that [Thomas] will agree to come in voluntarily but the committee is fully prepared to contemplate a subpoena if she does not.”No subpoena has been issued.Cheney is a stringent conservative but last month she lost her Republican primary in Wyoming, over her opposition to Trump.She has become popular with some on the left but others have grown frustrated, particularly over the lack of an attempt to compel Ginni Thomas to testify.On Thursday, Elie Mystal, justice correspondent for the Nation, tweeted: “Answer the question ‘Why wasn’t Ginni Thomas subpoenaed by the January 6 committee?’ before you ask me to roll with Liz Cheney.”One of the Wisconsin lawmakers who Thomas contacted, the state senator Kathy Bernier, spoke to the Washington Post.She said: “As we went through the process and the legal challenges were made and discounted by the judicial system, there was nothing proven as far as actual voter fraud.”Bernier also said she did not link Ginni Thomas’s actions to her husband’s position.“I was married for 20 years,” she said. “I took on some identity of my husband, but I had my own mind. Just because you’re married to someone doesn’t mean that you’re a clone.”TopicsUS newsUS Capitol attackDonald TrumpClarence ThomasUS politicsRepublicansArizonanewsReuse this content More

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      Senate G.O.P. Campaign Arm Slashes TV Ad Buys in Three States

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      The Republicans’ Senate campaign committee has slashed its television ad reservations in three critical battleground states for the fall, a likely sign of financial troubles headed into the peak of the 2022 midterm election season.The National Republican Senatorial Committee has cut more than $5 million in Pennsylvania, including its reservations in the Philadelphia media market, according to two media-tracking sources.Reservations in Wisconsin, in the Madison and Green Bay markets, have also been curtailed, by more than $2 million. And in Arizona, all reservations after Sept. 30 have been cut in Phoenix and Tucson, the state’s only two major media markets, amounting to roughly $2 million more.So far around $10 million had been canceled as of midday Monday, though more changes to the fall reservations were in progress. The states where ad reservations have been canceled are home to three of the nation’s most competitive Senate contests.In a statement, Chris Hartline, the communications director for the N.R.S.C., said, “Nothing has changed about our commitment to winning in all of our target states.”Mr. Hartline added that the committee had “been spending earlier than ever before to help our candidates get their message out and define the Democrats for their radical agenda. We’ve been creative in how we’re spending our money and will continue to make sure that every dollar spent by the N.R.S.C. is done in the most efficient and effective way possible.”After this article was published online, Mr. Hartline called it “false” on Twitter and said that “there is money being moved from the I.E. side” — independent expenditures that cannot be coordinated with campaigns — “back to the N.R.S.C. side of the wall.”He declined to say how much was being rebooked.In Wisconsin, some ads were being reserved in Milwaukee, for instance, though significantly less than what had been canceled in Madison and Green Bay, as of Monday afternoon.In Pennsylvania, the Senate Republican super PAC, the Senate Leadership Fund, recently announced it was adding $9.5 million to its fall reservation in the closely watched race between Mehmet Oz, the Republican, and Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, the Democrat. The super PAC moved up the beginning of its ad buy by three weeks, to Aug. 19, a decision that may have eased pressure on the party committee to keep its reservation.As online fund-raising has slowed for Republicans in recent months, affecting both candidates and party committees, the party is increasingly dependent on major super PACs in the battle for the Senate. Entering July, the Senate Republican super PAC had nearly $40 million more cash on hand than the Democratic Senate super PAC.The Senate party committee said it had already helped fund $17 million in “coordinated” and “hybrid” ads with Republican senators and Senate candidates in Ohio, Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Florida and Wisconsin, according to the committee, and had spent $36 million on television overall.The N.R.S.C. entered July with $28.5 million in the bank and has millions of dollars reserved in other battleground states.A person familiar with the committee’s planning said some of the money saved by canceling reservations now would eventually be used to rebook advertising time in coordination with the Senate campaigns, which would help stretch the group’s dollars further because candidates are entitled to lower ad prices. Some of the new reservations were already being made on Monday. More

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      In Wisconsin, Governor’s Race Stand Between G.O.P. and Near-Total Power

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      KAUKAUNA, Wis. — Nowhere in the country have Republican lawmakers been more aggressive in their attempts to seize a partisan edge than in Wisconsin. Having gerrymandered the Legislature past the point that it can be flipped, they are now pushing intensely to take greater control over the state’s voting infrastructure ahead of the 2024 presidential contest.Two pivotal elections in the coming months are likely to decide if that happens.The soaring stakes of the first, the November race for governor, became clear last week when Tim Michels, a construction magnate endorsed by former President Donald J. Trump, won the Republican primary.His victory raised the prospect that Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat who has vetoed a range of Republican voting bills, could soon be replaced by a Trump ally who has embraced calls to dismantle the state’s bipartisan election commission, invoked conspiratorial films about the 2020 election and even expressed openness to the false idea that Mr. Trump’s loss can still be decertified.The second election, an April contest to determine control of the narrowly divided Wisconsin Supreme Court, could be even more important.This year alone, the court’s 4-to-3 conservative majority has upheld the most aggressive partisan gerrymander of state legislative districts in the country, prohibited the use of most drop boxes for voters returning absentee ballots, and blocked Mr. Evers from making appointments to state agencies.The Wisconsin Supreme Court has prohibited the use of most drop boxes for voters returning absentee ballots, forcing them to vote by mail or in person.Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesAnd three of the four conservative justices on the court voted to hear Mr. Trump’s objections to the 2020 election, which could have led to overturning Wisconsin’s results. Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s 20,000-vote victory in the state stood only because Justice Brian Hagedorn, a conservative, sided with the court’s three liberals.Electing a liberal justice to replace the retiring conservative, Justice Patience D. Roggensack, would give Wisconsin Democrats an opportunity to enact a host of measures that currently have no shot at passing in the Republican-led Legislature. Bringing new lawsuits through the courts, they could potentially undo the gerrymandered legislative districts; reverse the drop box decision; and overturn the state’s 1849 law criminalizing abortion, which went back into effect in June when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade.Wisconsin’s next two elections are inexorably linked. Mr. Michels has said that he will seek to change the state’s voting laws on his first day as governor. If he is indeed elected and moves quickly, new voting procedures could be in place before a new justice is elected to a 10-year term in April — and the court combined with Mr. Michels would have wide leeway to set voting rules for the 2024 presidential election, when Wisconsin is widely expected to again be a central presidential battleground.“If they’re going to cherry-pick things that they know will depress a Democratic vote, it will absolutely impact every Democrat, including Joe Biden,” Mr. Evers said in an interview on Thursday. Referring to Mr. Michels, he added, “His election certainly would focus on depressing the vote of Democrats, no question about it.”Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, has vetoed a range of Republican voting bills, including measures to give the Legislature greater control over elections.Youngrae Kim for The New York TimesDuring the primary campaign, Mr. Michels promised to replace the Wisconsin Elections Commission with an agency that would effectively be under the control of Republicans. And while he never explicitly endorsed decertifying Wisconsin’s 2020 presidential election, Mr. Michels did not rule it out, either, saying enough to appease Mr. Trump — who has repeatedly demanded such a move.At campaign stops and during primary debates, Mr. Michels invoked films about the 2020 election that propagate conspiracy theories falsely suggesting that Mr. Trump was the real winner. He claimed without evidence that there had been fraud in the state and pledged to prosecute the perpetrators.“I’ve seen the movies ‘2000 Mules’ and ‘Rigged.’ And I’ll tell you, I know that there was a lot of voter fraud,” Mr. Michels said at a recent rally in Kaukauna, a small industrial city in the state’s politically swingy Fox Valley. “When I am sworn in as governor, I will look at all the evidence that is out there in January and I will do the right thing. Everything is on the table. And if people broke the law, broke election laws, I will prosecute them.” More

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      Why Wisconsin Is the Most Fascinating State in American Politics

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      What happens there in November will offer a preview of the political brawls to come.Wisconsin has long been a crucible of American politics. It remains so now.It’s where two once-powerful senators, Joseph McCarthy and Robert La Follette, defined two of the major themes we still see playing out today — what the historian Richard Hofstadter called the “paranoid style,” in McCarthy’s case, and progressivism in La Follette’s.It’s a place that has also proved time and again that elections have consequences. McCarthy won his Senate seat in the 1946 midterms amid a backlash against President Harry Truman, who was struggling to control the soaring price of meat as the country adjusted to a peacetime economy. He ousted Robert La Follette Jr., who had essentially inherited his father’s Senate seat.Four years later, McCarthy used his new platform to begin his infamous anti-communist crusade — persecuting supposed communists inside the federal government, Hollywood and the liberal intelligentsia across the country. His rise came to an end after a lawyer for one of his targets, Joseph Welch, rounded on him with one of the most famous lines ever delivered during a congressional hearing: “Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?”The state’s modern political geography, which is rooted in this history, as well as deep-seated patterns of ethnic migration and economic development, is as fascinating as it is complex.A voter casting her ballot this week in Madison, Wisconsin’s capital and a liberal island among the state’s rural conservative areas.Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesLa Follette’s old base in Madison, the capital and a teeming college town, dominates the middle south of the state like a kind of Midwestern Berkeley. But unlike in periwinkle-blue coastal California, Madison and Milwaukee — the state’s largest city, which is about 90 minutes to the east along the shores of Lake Michigan — are surrounded by a vast ocean of scarlet.Much of the state remains rural and conservative — McCarthy and Trump country.And as in much of the United States, even smaller Wisconsin cities like Green Bay (the home of the Packers), Eau Claire (a fiercely contested political battleground), Janesville (the home of Paul Ryan, the former House speaker), Kenosha (the hometown of Reince Priebus, the sometime ally and former aide to Donald Trump) and Oshkosh (the home and political base of Senator Ron Johnson) have gone blue in recent decades.The so-called W.O.W. counties around Milwaukee — Waukesha, Ozaukee and Washington — are the historical strongholds of suburban G.O.P. power, and political pundits and forecasters watch election trends there closely to tease out any potential national implications. Other portions of the northwestern area of the state are essentially suburbs of Minneapolis, and tend to toggle between the parties from election to election.The Republican Party’s origins can be traced to Ripon, Wis., where disaffected members of the Whig Party met in 1854 as they planned a new party with an anti-slavery platform. The party’s early leaders were also disgusted by what they called the “tyranny” of Andrew Jackson, a populist Democrat who built a political machine that ran roughshod over the traditional ways politics was done in America.On Tuesday, the state held its primaries, and the results were classic Wisconsin: Republicans chose Tim Michels, a Trump-aligned “Stop-the-Steal” guy, as their nominee to face Gov. Tony Evers, the Democratic incumbent, over Rebecca Kleefisch, the establishment favorite. Robin Vos, the Assembly speaker who has tilted to the right on election issues but who refused to help Trump overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, barely held on to his seat.To understand what’s happening, I badgered Reid Epstein, my colleague on the politics team. Reid has forgotten more Wisconsin political lore than most of us have ever absorbed, and here, he gives us some perspective on why the state has become such a bitterly contested ground zero for American democracy.Our conversation, lightly edited for length and clarity:You started your journalism career in Milwaukee, if I’m not mistaken. Give us a sense of what’s changed about Wisconsin politics in the years you’ve been covering the state.In Waukesha, actually. Back in 2002, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel still had bureaus covering the Milwaukee suburbs, and that’s where I had my first job, covering a handful of municipalities and school districts in Waukesha County.A lot of the same characters I wrote about as a cub reporter are still around. The then-village president of Menomonee Falls is now leading the effort to decertify Wisconsin’s 2020 election results, which of course can’t be done. The seeds of the polarization and zero-sum politics you see now in Wisconsin were just beginning to sprout 20 years ago.Republican voters chose to keep Robin Vos, yet nominated Tim Michels. Help us understand the mixed signals we’re getting here.Well, it helped that Michels had more than $10 million of his own cash to invest in his race, and Adam Steen, the Trump-backed challenger to Vos, didn’t have enough money for even one paid staff member.Vos, whose first legislative race I was there for in 2004, nearly lost to a guy with no money and no name recognition in a district where the Vos family has lived for generations. He won, but it was very close. More

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      In Wisconsin, Robin Vos Fires the 2020 Election Investigator He Hired

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      Wisconsin Republicans’ 14-month investigation into the 2020 election results, which cost taxpayers $1.1 million and turned up no evidence of significant fraud, ended on Friday when the top G.O.P. lawmaker who first announced the inquiry fired the man he had entrusted to lead it.Under pressure from former President Donald J. Trump and his allies, Robin Vos, the Republican speaker of the State Assembly, had moved in June 2021 to hire Michael J. Gableman, a conservative former Wisconsin Supreme Court justice, to scrutinize the state’s 2020 results.But after weeks of open tension between Mr. Vos and Mr. Gableman — partly over the speaker’s refusal to entertain decertifying Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory in the state, and partly over Mr. Gableman’s endorsement of a primary challenger to Mr. Vos — the speaker said he was shutting down the investigation. The firing was first reported by The Associated Press.Mr. Gableman has become a key driver of conspiracy theories about the 2020 election in Wisconsin and a ringleader of far-right Republicans’ effort to overturn the state’s presidential results, which cannot legally be done.Mr. Vos told WISN-TV in Milwaukee that he had fired Mr. Gableman by letter and that the two had not spoken in recent weeks.“I really don’t think there’s any need to have a discussion,” Mr. Vos said. “He did a good job last year, kind of got off the rails this year.”Wisconsin Democrats, who have castigated Mr. Gableman and his investigation from its beginning, celebrated his firing and blasted Mr. Vos for hiring Mr. Gableman in the first place.“Finally,” said Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat.Until now, Mr. Vos had remained publicly supportive of the state-funded investigation, even as Mr. Gableman amplified increasingly outlandish theories about the 2020 election. In March, the former justice presented state legislators with a report that said they should consider decertifying the election — a proposal that has no basis in state or federal law but that has nonetheless been adopted by Mr. Trump and his most ardent supporters in Wisconsin.As Mr. Vos resisted the decertification push, Mr. Gableman continued to promote false election claims. Last week, he endorsed Mr. Vos’s Trump-backed primary opponent, a far-right political neophyte named Adam Steen who came within a few hundred votes of toppling Mr. Vos.At an election-night party after his narrow victory on Tuesday, Mr. Vos said that Mr. Gableman was “an embarrassment to the state.”In the following days, Mr. Vos defended his decision to start the Gableman investigation but signaled that he would soon end it.“There were problems with the 2020 election that we need to fix — all of those things are real,” he said Wednesday on a conservative talk radio show in Milwaukee. “But somehow, Justice Gableman, as the investigation began to come to an end, decided it was more important to play to Donald Trump and to play to the very extreme of our party who thought we could unconstitutionally overturn the election than it was to be responsive to his client, which was the Legislature.”Mr. Vos said in that interview that he had given Mr. Gableman “some very clear direction: ‘You can’t be involved in politics, you can’t go to rallies. We want you to be an independent voice.’ And he broke that.”Yet when Mr. Vos announced the hire in June 2021, he did so at the Wisconsin Republican Party’s annual convention. And he did not publicly discipline Mr. Gableman when the former justice attended a political event with Mike Lindell, the MyPillow chief executive who has funded many attempts to overturn the election, or when he appeared at campaign events with local Republican Party chapters.Mr. Vos and his spokeswoman did not respond to messages on Friday. Mr. Gableman’s spokesman, Zak Niemierowicz, said he had resigned from the investigation last month. Mr. Gableman did not respond to messages.Francesca Hong, a state assemblywoman from Madison, was one of four Democratic legislators who demanded a state audit of Mr. Gableman’s work on Wednesday. On Friday, she said Mr. Vos was equally responsible.“Michael Gableman, fully enabled & encouraged by Robin Vos, has been nothing but a conspiracy theorist and fraudster,” she wrote on Twitter, “sowing division in our state by undermining the integrity of our elections at a price tag of more than 1 million Wisconsin taxpayer dollars.”Ben Wikler, the chairman of the Wisconsin Democratic Party, said in a statement, “Like Dr. Frankenstein, Robin Vos created a political monstrosity that wound up turning on its creator.” More

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      Progressive Ilhan Omar wins closer-than-expected House primary in Minnesota

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      Progressive Ilhan Omar wins closer-than-expected House primary in MinnesotaDemocrats select progressive Becca Balint for Vermont House seat while Trump-backed candidate nominated for Wisconsin governor Minnesota congresswoman Ilhan Omar, a member of the select progressive group in the House of Representative dubbed the Squad, eked out a closer-than-expected Democratic primary victory on Tuesday night against a centrist challenger who questioned the incumbent’s support for the “defund the police” movement.Pro-Israel groups denounced after pouring funds into primary raceRead moreThe evening went far smoother for another progressive, Becca Balint, who won the Democratic House primary in Vermont – positioning her to become the first woman representing the state in Congress.But Tim Michels, backed by Donald Trump, was projected to win the Republican nomination for governor of Wisconsin, a day after the FBI searched the former US president’s home in Florida reportedly seeking classified documents.Michels defeated rival and former lieutenant governor Rebecca Kleefisch, who had been endorsed by Trump’s former vice-president, Mike Pence.Kleefisch served with right-wing former governor Scott Walker and she conceded to Michels on Tuesday night.Michels has falsely asserted that Trump, rather than Democratic US president, Joe Biden, won the vital swing state in the 2020 presidential election, echoing the former president’s claims.Michels has also vowed to enforce a 19th-century abortion ban that went into effect in Wisconsin after the US supreme court in June eliminated the nationwide right to the procedure with its overturning of the landmark Roe v Wade ruling.He will face the incumbent Wisconsin governor and Democrat, Tony Evers, in November’s election.With a Republican-majority legislature, Michels could push through new abortion restrictions if elected. Evers and his administration have filed litigation challenging the 1849 law while promising not to prosecute doctors who violate it.Other Trump-backed candidates also prevailed.In Connecticut, Leora Levy surprised observers by winning the Republican primary race for the US Senate after being supported by Trump, upending moderate Themis Klarides who had a lot of party support in the state, the Hartford Courant reported.Levy faces the high-profile incumbent Democratic senator Richard Blumenthal.In her Minneapolis district, Omar, who is one of the left’s leading voices in Congress, has defended calls to redirect public safety funding more into community-based programs.She squared off with former city council member Don Samuels, whose north Minneapolis base suffers from more violent crime than other parts of the city.Samuels argued that Omar is divisive and helped defeat a ballot question last year that sought to replace the city police department with a new public safety unit.He and others also successfully sued the city to force it to meet minimum police staffing levels called for in Minneapolis’s charter.But Omar narrowly prevailed on the night, seeking her third term in the House. She crushed a similar primary challenge two years ago from a well-funded but lesser-known opponent.“She’s had a lot of adversity already and pushback. I don’t think her work is done,” said Kathy Ward, a 62-year-old property caretaker for an apartment building in Minneapolis who voted for Omar. “We’ve got to give her a chance.”Two other members of the Squad – Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Cori Bush of Missouri – won their Democratic primaries last week.Meanwhile, Republicans see a pickup opportunity in Wisconsin’s third congressional district, the seat being vacated by the retiring Democratic incumbent Ron Kind.The district covers a swath of counties along Wisconsin’s western border with Minnesota and includes La Crosse and Eau Claire.Republican Derrick Van Orden was unopposed in his primary on Tuesday and has Trump’s endorsement.Van Orden narrowly lost to Kind in the 2020 general election. He attended Trump’s rally near the White House on 6 January 2021, where the then president urged his supporters to “fight like hell” to overturn his election defeat by Joe Biden, but has said he never set foot on the grounds of the Capitol during the insurrection that followed.State senator Brad Pfaff topped three other Democrats to secure the party’s nomination and will face Van Orden in the fall. Pfaff, a one-time state agriculture secretary, had previously worked for Kind and received his endorsement.Vermont is the last state in the country yet to add a female member to its congressional delegation. Balint, who immediately becomes the favorite in November’s general election, would also be the first openly gay member of Congress from Vermont.She was endorsed by some of the nation’s leading leftwing figures, including the Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren and Representative Pramila Jayapal, chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.“Vermont has chosen a bold, progressive vision for the future, and I will be proud to represent us in Congress,” Balint said in a statement.Balint is vying to fill the state’s lone House seat, which is being vacated by Peter Welch who is running for Senate and easily secured the Democratic nomination on Tuesday.Welch is trying to succeed retiring senator Patrick Leahy, the US Senate’s longest-serving member.TopicsUS midterm elections 2022Ilhan OmarUS politicsDemocratsRepublicansMinnesotaVermontnewsReuse this content More