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The January 6 hearings are about the events of a single day, but they implicate a much broader phenomenon: the Republican Partys faltering commitment to democracy. The mob attack on Congress a year and a half ago was merely the most grotesque manifestation of Donald Trumps rejection of democracy, and Trump himself merely the most grotesque manifestation of his partys authoritarian impulses.

Parties that are committed to democracy must, at minimum, do two things: accept defeat and reject violence, wrote the political scientists Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way earlier this year. Trump has built a movement that does neither. And while he is justifiably known for his petty egocentrism, he has finally and genuinely infused this movement with beliefs that are greater than his self-interest and whose power will outlast him.

The hearings, hoping to gain the widest possible approval, have devoted respectful attention to the perspective of the Republican Partys mainstream. That perspective was expressed by Trumps former campaign manager Bill Stepien, who testified, There were two groups. We called them kind of my team and Rudys team, referring to Trumps onetime personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani. I didnt mind being characterized as being part of Team Normal. During his deposition, former attorney general William Barr, another member of Team Normal, colorfully heaped scorn on Trumps claims to have been the victim of systemic voter fraud.

Nobody should dismiss the importance of Team Normals refusal to follow Trumps conspiracy theories to the barricades, which might have averted a constitutional crisis. But the Republican mainstream has used the existence of Team Normal to dismiss Trumps effort to overturn the election as little more than a prank gone wrong. The Wall Street Journal protested that the committee makes it seem as if there was a chance of success. There wasnt. It was an impossible plan hatched by screwballs, and it would have gone down as such if the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers hadnt breached the Capitol. Sure, Trump might have gone off the deep end along with a handful of advisers, but Team Normal always had it under control.

One flaw in the Team Normal theory is that its not always easy to detect who is on the team. Giulianis colleagues remembered him from his days as Americas Mayor and might not have grasped how quickly he had radicalized. John Eastman, who spearheaded Trumps various legal strategies to steal the presidency, and Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and a fervent foot soldier in the attack on the 2020 results, operated within respectable Republican circles for years. A Justice Department lawyer named Jeffrey Clark had plotted with Trump to seize control of the DOJ and declare the election void, only to be narrowly thwarted by Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen and other officials who had assumed their colleague was an ordinary, non-fascist Republican lawyer. Rosen was stunned, reported the Washington Post. He had known Clark for years and once had worked with him at Kirkland & Ellis. Rosen told the Senate committee that he wondered whats going on with Jeff Clark. That this is inconsistent with how I perceived him in the past.

Another flaw is that Team Normal was willing to engage in a great deal of abnormality. Trump was planting the seeds to challenge the election outcome for months in advance, depicting mail ballots as a source of uncontrollable fraud. Barr echoed these lies, nonsensically claiming that people in foreign countries could easily mail in fake ballots. Trumps plan was to encourage his supporters to vote in person and use the fact that those ballots were counted first to claim victory. Jonathan Swan of Axios reported that Trump was telling confidants about this scheme before the election.

And while they now pronounce themselves shocked, shocked, to have discovered gambling in the establishment, the response by Team Normal to a sitting presidents attempt to steal an election was neither deep nor sustained. Barr resigned quietly, publishing a sycophantic letter depicting Trump as a victim, rather than a perpetrator, of partisan hardball and political conspiracies. Stepien said nothing and is now working for a primary challenger to Liz Cheney, who has been ostracized for criticizing Trumps coup attempt.

The deepest flaw in the Team Normal worldview, and the point at which its belief system turns from merely nave to dangerous, is its assumption that it is safe to give power back to Trumps party even if Trump is leading it. Barr made this plain when he admitted that while he strongly prefers a different nominee, he would support Trump again should he win the 2024 primary. It is the underlying premise of the non-Trump Republican Establishment.

This complacency fails to account for the partys rapid transformation since Trump left Washington on Air Force One to the sounds of the Village People. Trumps intraparty critics have portrayed his relentless focus on litigating the election as the self-defeating tactic of a loser. Trump is acting on an entirely personal and selfish priority, complains National Review editor-in-chief Rich Lowry. Theres no principle at stake in embracing the Jan. 6 mob or advancing 2020 conspiracy theories. In truth, it is actually an effective organizing tool built around the unifying idea that Democratic election victories are inherently illegitimate. He has inspired millions of followers and harnessed their energy to reshape the party into a vehicle to advance his vision.

Well over 100 Republican nominees for national or statewide office explicitly endorse Trumps fantasy that the election was plagued by large-scale fraud. A much greater number of Republicans simply refuse to say one way or another if Joe Biden won the election fairly. House Minority Whip Steve Scalise, asked recently about Barrs confession that Trump had no grounds to dispute the election results, first asserted that something fishy did occur (You saw some states not follow their state-passed legislation) before pivoting to his desire not to keep relitigating 2020.

The party is split between those Republicans who refuse to take a stance on Trumps coup and those who actively endorse it, with the latter faction rapidly gaining ground. The Republican nominee for Nevada secretary of state, a job that would oversee elections, has asserted, Your vote hasnt counted for decades. You havent elected anybody. The people that are in office have been selected. Pennsylvanias Republican candidate for governor not only supports Trumps election-fraud lie but was present at the storming of the Capitol on January 6.

Recently, the New York Times reported that members of the Proud Boys, a paramilitary sect that planned an operation to infiltrate the Capitol on January 6, are joining the Miami-Dade Republican Executive Committee. The groups chairman feebly protested, Yes, we have different points of view in our party. Thats how we are. And my job as Republican chairman is to protect everyones First Amendment right, however wrong they may be, as though political parties have no right to engage in viewpoint discrimination.

Asked if he approved of his home citys Republican organization welcoming Proud Boys, Senator Marco Rubio refused to say. (Well, when you ask me about the communists and socialists that are part of the local Democratic Party, then we can talk about whos a member of the Republican Party.) Rubio, a barometrically perfect measure of the center of Republican opinion, is giving his tacit endorsement of a modern version of the Brownshirts joining the party cadres.

A party that could be trusted not to launch another attack on democracy would be willing and eager to expunge its sins. The Republicans refusal to reckon with January 6 and exclude the insurrectionists is the strongest sign that they will try it again the next chance they have.

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January 6 Hearings: Republicans Will Do It Again - New York Magazine

The conservative intelligentsia is in the grip of a profound demographic pessimisma sense that a diversifying America necessarily spells doom for the right, and that the movements only hope is therefore to halt, or at least sharply reduce, immigrant inflows. Portents of demographic doom have long been a mainstay of conservative media, whether on the Fox News prime-time lineup or in highbrow journals of opinion, and embracing restrictionism has become a surefire way for ambitious Republicans to signal their edginess and resolve.

But a funny thing has happened on the road to conservative demographic doom. Since 2016, a rising number of first- and second-generation Americans have been gravitating to the political right, a trend that predates the current political travails of the Biden administration and that has grown particularly pronounced among voters of Latin American origin. Cosmopolitan liberals who have long imagined themselves the vanguard of a rising progressive majority are now confronting the possibility that they are an overrepresented rump, with political influence that stems more from their control over elite institutions than widespread popular support.

Given this emerging political realignment, immigration, and the incorporation of immigrants and their descendants into American civic life, is proving less an obstacle to conservative political ambitions than an opportunity to expand the conservative coalition. Rather than cower in fear at the progressive lefts supposed efforts to use immigrant inflows to remake the U.S. electorate, as some on the restrictionist right would have it, why dont conservatives embrace an immigration strategy that can move America in a more conservative direction?

The term restrictionism conflates two distinct ideas: that our country should take in fewer immigrants, and that Americans, and Americans alone, have the right to choose whom to admit to the United States. If the former is polarizing, the latter commands broad public support, which helps explain why Americans have traditionally drawn a sharp distinction between legal and illegal immigration, perceiving the latter as a violation of the rules the country has established for selecting newcomers. Further, there is good reason to believe that what matters to GOP voters is not absolute reduction but control. The big question, in other words, is not How many immigrants? but Who decides, and on what grounds?

From the May 2021 issue: America never wanted the tired, poor, huddle masses

The key is to focus on what I call selectionism, or the unambiguous defense of the American peoples right to choose whom to admit and whom to exclude, and to do so on the basis of promoting the national interest. By abandoning restrictionism for selectionism, ambitious Republicans could not only assuage the concerns of their base while promoting the interests of the countrythey could also, potentially, chart a path out of the current immigration deadlock that would appeal to a broad, multiracial majority of Americans.

The politics of this moment represent a striking reversal. As recently as a decade ago, many of the Republican Partys rising stars were calling for a major increase in immigrant admissions. Today, in contrast, virtually all Republicans have united around the cause of immigration restriction. And though this is true for a number of reasons, perhaps the most salient is the aforementioned conviction that immigrants and their descendants are destined to become foot soldiers of the progressive left.

Anxieties over ethnic change are a familiar feature of U.S. politics, and calls for immigration restriction grounded in a belief in fixed ethnic identities and political allegiances have a certain realpolitik logic. Cosmopolitan liberals really have described immigrants and their descendants as part of a coalition of the ascendant that can foster progressive political dominance, and at least some of their opponents have taken this demographic triumphalism seriously. The trouble with this brand of ethnocultural determinism, however, is that it reflects a political era that is drawing to a close.

Until very recently, one could take this notion that immigrant origins are a reliable predictor of support for Democratic candidates for granted. Drawing on data from the 2016 presidential election, for example, the political scientist George Hawley found that established Americansnative-born Americans with native-born parents and grandparentswere significantly less supportive of Democratic candidates than first- and second-generation Americans, even after controlling for a wide range of individual-level attributes. And though one could argue that the unique circumstances surrounding Donald Trumps polarizing presidential campaign played a role in this outcome, as Hawley readily acknowledges, it nevertheless helped make the case for conservative demographic pessimism.

Yet today, the conservative movement finds itself on the cusp of what could be a prolonged period of political success. If non-college-educated voters continue to move rightward, as many observers on the left and right confidently expect, Republicans will soon have an even larger advantage in contests for the U.S. Senate and Electoral College, which Democrats will find exceedingly difficult to overcome. This possibility has engendered dread among progressive intellectuals, who fear the prospect of a more powerful GOP, and it has given rise to popularist calls for a new Democratic politics that is more responsive to working-class interests and sensibilities. But to take full advantage of this opportunity, the right would do well to embrace selectionism.

Consider that most Americans strongly prefer educated immigrants in high-status jobs over other immigrants, and this preference varies very little according to education, partisanship, labor-market position, and ethnocentrism, according to a study by the political scientists Jens Hainmueller and Daniel Hopkins. As a result, high-skill immigration has had a markedly different political impact than low-skill immigration.

In 2018, the economists Anna Maria Mayda and Giovanni Peri released an analysis of the impact of immigrant inflows on county-level election outcomes from 1990 to 2010. They found that an increase in the proportion of college-educated immigrants in a given countys population was associated with increased support for Democratic candidates, while an increase in the proportion of non-college-educated immigrants was associated with increased support for Republican candidates, a result that they hypothesized was tied to the perceived costs and benefits of immigrant inflows. That is, because higher-skilled newcomers were seen as generating positive spillovers for their communities, they boosted support for the more pro-immigration Democrats; a lower-skilled influx, in contrast, buoyed restrictionist Republicans.

From the October 2021 issue: Plan Z for immigration

In the years since 2010, however, the immigration landscape has changed. In the 2000s, it was not uncommon for Republicans to back the expansion of low-wage guest-worker programs to signal their pro-business bona fides, a stance that, as Mayda and Peris work suggests, engendered a conservative backlash in rural regions. Outside of agriculture, however, GOP-aligned employers and donors have lost interest in spending their political capital on making it easier to recruit low-skill immigrant labor. The rise of offshoring has meant that large domestic employers have less economic interest in lobbying for low-skill immigration today than in earlier eras, when low-skill, low-wage manufacturing represented a larger share of the U.S. economy. Weve seen this pattern in many of the worlds market democracies. More and more, support for low-skill immigration is rooted in humanitarianism, not hard-nosed economic self-interest. The result is that the Republican elite has largely jettisoned its politically costly commitment to low-skill immigration, thus allowing for a pivot to a more politically appealing selectionist stance.

At the same time, as the Democratic Partys activists and donors have moved leftward, Democratic policy makers have come to reject the default expectation that new immigrants should be economically self-reliant, an expectation closely tied to selectionism. During the welfare-reform era, conservative Republicans and moderate Democrats worked together to pass limits on immigrant eligibility for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, non-emergency Medicaid, Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, and a range of other programs, an approach dubbed immigration yes, welfare no. This proved politically effective for immigration advocates, as there is evidence that U.S. voters are more concerned about immigrants collecting public benefits than they are about the prospect of immigrant wage competition.

More recently, however, progressives in the media and the nonprofit sector have come to place a heavy rhetorical emphasis on the moral and humanitarian dimension of immigration policy, suggesting that denying entry, and public benefits, to almost any would-be migrant would be unacceptably cruel. Democrats in state legislatures and in Congress have worked to expand access to public-benefit programs to immigrants, including unauthorized noncitizens. On the left, immigration yes, welfare no is giving way to immigration yes, welfare yes, a stance that remains anathema to conservatives and moderates. The implication of this position is not only that U.S. citizens have no say in who is admitted to the country but also that American taxpayers must foot the bill for immigrants who cant support themselves. Given the unpopularity of this arrangement, restrictionism is becoming a more potent wedge issue for Republicans running against Democrats who find themselves constrained by elite progressive opinion.

But if restrictionism has greater appealat least to some votersthan the more self-flagellating forms of progressive humanitarianism, it is still not a position capable of building a durable national majority. Indeed, these two poles in the immigration debate feed off each other, locking the country in an unproductive, zero-sum dispute. Conservatives and some moderates, fearful that liberals wish to pursue a de facto open-borders policy, embrace restrictionist politicians as the least-bad option. Meanwhile, elite progressives, correctly judging that full-blown restrictionism alienates many voters, feel little pressure to moderate their rhetoric or take concerns over low-skilled and irregular migration seriously. The result is an immigration debate pitting the woke against the MAGA, with the broad majority of Americans of all colors left out. For Republicans, selectionism offers a way to break this impasseone that meets the concerns of their existing voters while broadening the partys appeal to the first- and second-generation voters already trending in its direction. The children and grandchildren of post-1965 immigrants would be especially drawn to a selectionist approach that welcomes productive newcomers while rejecting any compulsion to set immigration policy on the basis of the racialist fixations of cosmopolitan liberals.

Adam Serwer: The real border crisis

As for what a selectionist immigration agenda might entail, much depends on whether it should center on bloodless materialism or some robust vision for how newcomers might shape Americas cultural and political character. In light of the changing global economic and demographic landscape, and challenges and opportunities as varied as renewed great-power competition and the rise of intelligent machines, there is a strong case for focusing on attracting superstar talent. As Caleb Watney of the Institute for Progress has observed, the advantage to a country that attracts geniuses compounds over time, as clusters form around themtalent attracts more talentwhich helps all the individuals and firms in such clusters become more productive than they would be in isolation. Post-Brexit Britain has moved sharply in this direction. Having asserted the sovereign right to control immigrant inflows, the British government is adopting a points-based immigration system and launching a new high potential individual visa aimed at graduates of the worlds most prestigious research universities. And though populist critics warn that the governments selectionist approach is inviting an anti-immigration revolt, the survey evidence thus far suggests otherwise.

Progressive humanitarians and conservative restrictionists alike would no doubt denounce this frankly elitist approach to immigrant selection, but 78 percent of U.S. adults support encouraging high-skill immigration, including 63 percent of the minority of voters who favor reducing immigrant inflows overall. While evidence on the economic and fiscal impact of low-skill migrants on the native-born is contested, there is an overwhelming academic consensus on the economic benefits associated with high-skill inflows.

Nevertheless, I dont anticipate that a selectionism grounded in a narrowly utilitarian calculus will carry the day. If conservatives do eventually embrace a more creative and aggressive approach to immigrant admissions, as I believe they will, it wont be because of arguments about maximizing Americas growth potential, important though they may be. I suspect it will be in response to more-contingent developments. The ongoing incorporation of anti-socialist Venezuelans into the conservative coalition, for example, might lead Republicans to look favorably on other South Americans seeking to flee the rising influence of Marxist political movements in their homeland. In a similar vein, the political awakening among Asian Americans opposed to racial preferences and alarmed by rising urban violence might cast Chinese migrs fleeing their native countrys intensifying authoritarianism in a more favorable light. Rank-and-file conservatives might also see wisdom in welcoming Ukrainian refugees, or in raiding the most-skilled scientists, workers, and entrepreneurs from Russia and other geopolitical adversaries. And though the demands of progressive humanitarianism dont resonate with the right, at least some religious conservatives can be counted on to champion the interests of Christian minorities facing persecution in Africa and elsewhere, a brand of selectionism grounded in cultural affinity.

It would be foolish to expect Republican politicians to suddenly start disavowing their restrictionist commitments. But as more and more first- and second-generation voters turn right, the shrewdest conservative political entrepreneurs will come to recognize that immigration can represent a demographic boon more than demographic doom.

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How Republicans Can Win on Immigration - The Atlantic

The latest example of bipartisan collaboration actually being bad for the public comes courtesy of Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Josh Hawley. They are pushing new antitrust legislation to break up, regulate, or restructure businesses. They are specifically targeting Big Tech platforms, including Amazon.

This week, something of an intra-GOP debate has broken out as free-market, limited government Republicans like Sen. Rand Paul have spoken out against GOP support for this Democratic, big-government policy approach. "These [antitrust] proposals to ostensibly cut the tech giants down to size would, instead, perpetuate the dominant position of these companies and deprive consumers of the technological innovation that only free-market competition can provide," Paul said. "Rather than pursue even stronger antitrust laws, Congress should allow the free market to thrive where consumers, not the government, decide how big a company should be."

Free-market Republicans like Paul are right on this one. Big-government populists like Hawley are wrong.

A great example of why these swampy, big-government policies are so misguided is Klobuchar and Hawley's "American Innovation and Choice Online Act." This bill is ostensibly meant to crack down on big companies like Amazon that are said to be using their market power to promote themselves and squash competitors. It acts by "prohibiting dominant platforms from abusing their gatekeeper power by favoring their own products or services, disadvantaging rivals, or discriminating among businesses that use their platforms in a manner that would materially harm competition on the platform."

All the populist bravado aside, what this legislation would actually do is use the federal government to ruin amazing services people enjoy, such as Amazon Basics and Amazon Prime. Amazon Basics is the line of cheap everyday products phone chargers, for example that comes up at the top of search results on Amazon. That preferential positioning is because these products are made by Amazon and sold on its platform. Because this "vertical integration" cuts out a middle man, Amazon Basics prices are often much lower than their competitors a boon to people struggling amid inflation.

This system is going to be illegal if the antitrust Karens in Congress get their way.

So, too, would Amazon Prime, where Amazon offers a wide array of other services that aren't available to non-Prime members. Free giveaways or promotions, such as when a company launches a new platform or service and wants to give existing subscribers on their current platforms a discount, would similarly be prohibited. And good luck to companies like Netflix that both create and stream TV shows and want to promote their own content on their platform.

All this dysfunction incurred while achieving what, exactly?

Hawley and Klobuchar explicitly reject the old standard of "consumer welfare," only using antitrust when consumers are directly being harmed. Now, they want to replace it and start inserting the government into things just in the abstract name of more competition, even if consumers are thriving under the status quo.

We expect Democrats to push silly, big-government policies that mess up the market. They're always down to allow federal bureaucrats not exactly known for their flexibility and competence to hamstring innovation that would otherwise be a boon for consumers. But Republicans are supposed to know better. At least, in theory. How any conservative could want to empower federal bureaucrats further is beyond me. Remember, the feds have just in the last year investigated upset parents as a "domestic terrorism threat" and tried to start a "disinformation board" targeting right-wing speech. Why does Josh Hawley want to give people who hate conservatives more power over our lives?

Republican lawmakers going down this path desperately need a course correction.

Brad Polumbo (@Brad_Polumbo) is a co-founder of Based-Politics.com, a co-host of the BasedPolitics podcast, and a Washington Examiner contributor.

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Why are some Republicans teaming up with Democrats against Amazon? - Washington Examiner

Even as national Democrats set off alarms over the threats posed by far-right Republican candidates, their campaign partners are pursuing an enormously risky strategy: promoting some of those same far-right candidates in G.O.P. primaries in hopes that extremists will be easier for Democrats to beat in November.

These efforts starkest in the Central Valley of California, where a Democratic campaign ad lashed Representative David Valadao, a Republican, for voting to impeach Donald J. Trump have prompted angry finger-pointing and a debate within the party over the perils and wisdom of the strategy, especially in the middle of the Jan. 6 Committees hearings on the Capitol attack.

The concern is obvious: In a year when soaring gasoline prices and disorienting inflation have crushed President Bidens approval ratings, Republican candidates whom Democrats may deem unelectable could well win on the basis of their party affiliation alone.

I realize that this type of political gamesmanship has existed forever, but our country is in a very different place now than we were in previous cycles, said Representative Kathleen Rice, Democrat of New York. For these Democratic groups to throw money at raising up a person who they know wants to tear down this democracy is outrageous.

Republican targets asked how they were supposed to buck their leadership and take difficult votes if their erstwhile allies in the Democratic Party are lying in wait.

I voted the way I voted because I thought it was important, Mr. Valadao said of his impeachment vote. But to put us in a spot where were voting for these things and then try to use it as ammo against us in the campaigns, and put people that they potentially see as a threat to democracy in a position where they can become members of Congress, it tells me that theyre not serious about governing.

The Democratic effort extends well beyond Mr. Valadaos race. Pennsylvanias Democratic Party singled out State Senator Doug Mastriano during his successful quest for the Republican nomination for governor, despite his propagation of false claims about the 2020 election and his attendance at the Jan. 6 protest behind the White House that immediately preceded the Capitol riot.

In Southern California, a Democratic candidate for the House, Asif Mahmood, flooded Orange County airwaves with advertisements that framed his run as a contest between him and an anti-abortion conservative, Greg Raths, aiding Mr. Raths by never mentioning the leading Republican in the race, Representative Young Kim, the incumbent and a much more moderate candidate. Instead, it highlighted Mr. Raths support for overturning Roe v. Wade and banning abortion and his affinity for pro-Trump Republicans stances as likely to appeal to Republican primary voters as to rile up Democrats in a general election. (The effort did not succeed: Ms. Kim held off Mr. Raths and advanced to the November election against Mr. Mahmood.)

And in Colorado, a shadowy new group called Democratic Colorado is spending nearly $1.5 million ahead of the states June 28 primary to broadcast the conservative views of State Representative Ron Hanks, who hopes to challenge Senator Michael Bennet, an incumbent Democrat. Mr. Hankss views would be widely shared by Republican primary voters. Left unmentioned for now were Mr. Hankss bragging about marching to the Capitol on Jan. 6, his false claim that those who attacked the Capitol were left-wing antifa and his baseless insistence that the 2020 election was stolen by President Biden.

Alvina Vasquez, a spokeswoman for Democratic Colorado, would not say who was funding the group and insisted there was nothing untoward about the ads.

Its important to highlight who is running on the Republican side, she said, adding, The general election is around the corner.

But Ms. Vasquez said early this week that the group had only one target: Mr. Hanks, not the more moderate Republican in the primary, the businessman Joe ODea. On Thursday afternoon, after the initial version of this story was published, the group did unveil a new advertisement aimed at Mr. ODea, but not at his conservative credentials. Instead, the ad attacked him for contributing to Colorados two Democratic senators and supporting Mr. Bidens spending plans, a signal to conservatives to oppose his candidacy.

The Bennet campaign declined to comment.

Democrats involved acknowledge the game they are playing, but insist that they have one job to preserve their partys slender majority in the House and that they are targeting only those races where extremist candidates cannot prevail in November.

House Majority PAC was founded on the mission of doing whatever it takes to secure a Democratic House Majority and in 2022, thats what we will continue to do, said Abby Curran Horrell, executive director of the committee, which is affiliated with Democratic leadership.

The Pennsylvania attorney general, Josh Shapiro, the Democratic nominee for governor, defended his campaigns advertisement declaring a win for Mr. Mastriano in the Republican governors primary as a win for what Donald Trump stands for.

What we did was start the general election campaign and demonstrate the clear contrast, the stark differences between he and I, Mr. Shapiro said on CNN.

But it is not clear that Democrats will be able to maintain control over what they may unleash, especially in a year when their partys president is suffering through record low approval ratings and inflation has hit rates not seen in 40 years. A Suffolk University poll released on Wednesday found Mr. Shapiro running only 4 percentage points ahead of Mr. Mastriano in the states crucial governors race.

No matter how self-assured Democratic insiders sound about their chances against extremist Republicans, the inherent danger of the playing-with-fire approach revives stomach-churning memories for some Democrats.

After all, they also thought Mr. Trumps nomination in 2016 was a surefire ticket to a Hillary Clinton presidency.

Claire McCaskill, the former Democratic senator from Missouri, arguably created the modern genre of meddling in the other partys nominating process, by running an ad in 2012 lifting the far-right congressman Todd Akin in the Republican Senate primary.

But Ms. McCaskill said the intervening years had raised the stakes too high in all but a few races.

No one believed including Donald Trump that he would be elected president, Ms. McCaskill said. Campaigns need to be very sober about their decision-making. They need to be confident that they can prevail if the most extreme candidate is elevated to the nomination.

Representative Peter Meijer, Republican of Michigan, was especially incensed that the Democrats House Majority PAC had spent nearly $40,000 in the Bakersfield and Fresno, Calif., media markets airing an advertisement castigating Mr. Valadao for his impeachment vote, while promoting his opponent as a true conservative.

Why are these midterm races so important? This years races could tip the balance of power in Congress to Republicans, hobbling President Bidens agenda for the second half of his term. They will also test former President Donald J. Trumps role as a G.O.P. kingmaker. Heres what to know:

What are the midterm elections? Midterms take place two years after a presidential election, at the midpoint of a presidential term hence the name. This year, a lot of seats are up for grabs, including all 435 House seats, 35 of the 100 Senate seats and 36 of 50 governorships.

What do the midterms mean for Biden? With slim majorities in Congress, Democrats have struggled to pass Mr. Bidens agenda. Republican control of the House or Senate would make the presidents legislative goals a near-impossibility.

What are the races to watch? Only a handful of seats will determine if Democrats maintain control of the House over Republicans, and a single state could shift power in the 50-50 Senate. Here are 10 races to watch in the Houseand Senate, as well as several key governors contests.

When are the key races taking place? The primary gauntletis already underway. Closely watched racesin Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia wereheld in May, with more taking place through the summer. Primaries run until September before the general election on Nov. 8.

Go deeper. What is redistrictingand how does it affect the midterm elections? How does polling work? How do you register to vote? Weve got more answers to your pressing midterm questions here.

It is impossible to say what impact the ad had, but with the votes in Californias 22nd Congressional District still being counted, Mr. Valadao is clinging to a 1,400-vote lead over Mr. Mathys for the final spot in the runoff in November.

Pro-Trump Republican Chris Mathys: military veteran, local businessman, the Democratic ad blared. Or politician David Valadao, who voted to impeach Trump. Republicans its time to decide.

The ad was broadcast during the run-up to the Jan. 6 hearings, which have lionized the Republicans who stood up to Mr. Trump. But by using those votes against those Republicans for political gain, said Mr. Meijer another of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Mr. Trump for inciting the Capitol riot Democratic campaigns had trivialized the issue, even as the hearings were elevating it as a mortal threat to the American experiment.

And that, Mr. Meijer said, made it easier for Republicans to dismiss the hearings as political theater.

Mr. Meijer, whose own primary against a Trump-backed opponent looms on Aug. 2, condemned the Democratic dissonance as deep moralizing in the midst of par-for-the-course hypocrisy. Already, he said, the loudest voices promoting his primary opponent, John Gibbs, a former Trump administration official who once accused Hillary Clintons campaign chief of performing satanic rituals, are those of Democrats, not Republicans.

For Democrats, the clear precedent is Ms. McCaskills almost legendary advertisement backhandedly promoting Mr. Akin to be her opponent in her 2012 re-election run. Two other Republicans in the primary that year would have been far more formidable opponents in a state trending Republican, with Barack Obama on the ballot for re-election. Mr. Akin, by comparison, was underfunded, undisciplined and, she said, a little weird.

The words in the ad might have been threatening to general election voters, but Ms. McCaskills list of particulars against Mr. Akin read in a friendly, singsong narration were music to the ears of Republican primary voters: a crusader against bigger government, with a pro-family agenda that would outlaw many forms of contraception. And Akin alone says President Obama is a complete menace to our civilization.

Todd Akin, Missouris true conservative, the ad said, using a pregnant pause, before finishing, is just too conservative.

Mr. Akin went on to win the Republican primary with a plurality of the vote, then lose to Ms. McCaskill by nearly 16 percentage points.

Ms. McCaskill said that in some districts, such as Mr. Valadaos, where voters lean strongly Democratic, the tactic remains sound. But, she added, the stakes are far higher in 2022 than they were a decade ago.

I made up my mind internally that I was OK with the idea that I could be responsible for him becoming a United States senator, she said of Mr. Akin, adding that she could not have made the same calculation for some of the current crop of Republicans.

Beyond individual candidates, the Republican leadership has changed, Ms. McCaskill added. Her bet that Mr. Akins undisciplined propensity to mouth off paid off in spades when Mr. Akin famously said victims of sexual assault do not get pregnant because if its a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.

Beyond the damage done by those words, Mr. Akins own party turned him into a pariah, shunning him and ensuring his defeat. Republican leaders cannot be counted on to cut off any candidates this campaign season, she said.

Ms. Rice made the same point, adding that every dollar spent meddling in a Republican primary is a dollar not spent directly to aid endangered Democratic incumbents.

We should be backing our own front-liners, she said, not gambling on seditionists.

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Democrats Risky Bet: Aid G.O.P. Extremists in Spring, Hoping to Beat Them in Fall - The New York Times

Welcome to The Heart of the Primaries, Republican Edition

June 16, 2022

In this issue: Takeaways from the June 14 primaries and Michigan gubernatorial candidates respond to Kelleys arrest

Maine, Nevada, North Dakota, and South Carolina held primaries on June 14. Alaska also held its top-four special House primary on June 11. Heres what went down in this weeks marquee races.

South Carolinas 7th: Russell Fry defeated incumbent Rep. Tom Rice and five other candidates. As of Wednesday morning, Fry had 51% of the vote to Rices 25%.

Rice is the fifth incumbent House member to lose a re-election bid this year and the third Republican. Rep. David McKinley (R-W.Va.) and Rep. Carolyn Bourdeaux (D-Ga.) lost primaries against fellow incumbents.

South Carolinas 1st: Incumbent Nancy Mace defeated Katie Arrington. Mace led Arrington 53%-45% as of Wednesday morning.

Arrington, a former state representative, won the districts Republican primary in 2018, defeating incumbent Rep. Mark Sanford (R) before losing the general election to Joe Cunningham (D). Mace defeated Cunningham in 2020.

Mace said she was best equipped to win in November and that the district wants an independent voice. Arrington said Mace was not conservative enough and that she wasnt sufficiently supportive of Trump.

Three election forecasters rate the November election Solid or Safe Republican.

U.S. Senate in Nevada: Former state Attorney General Adam Laxalt defeated Sam Brown and six other candidates. As of Wednesday morning, Laxalt led Brown 56%-34%.

Laxalt had endorsements from Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas). The Nevada Republican Party endorsed Brown, who received 80% of delegates support compared to Laxalts 50% (a candidate needed more than 50% for the endorsement). Laxalt faces incumbent Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D) in this Toss-up general election.

Alaskas U.S. House special: Saturdays special primary election for Alaskas At-Large Congressional District remains uncalled. The four candidates with the most votes will advance to the Aug. 16 special general election, which will use ranked-choice voting. As of election night, Sarah Palin (R) had 29.8% of the vote, Nicholas Begich III (R) had 19.3%, Al Gross (I) had 12.5%, Mary Peltola (D) had 7.5%, and Tara Sweeney (R) had 5.3%. The 43 other candidates each had less than 5%. The final ballot count is scheduled for June 21. The primary was conducted mainly through mail-in ballots, which had to be postmarked by June 11. Click here for the most up-to-date results.

The figures below were current as of Wednesday morning. Click here for more information on defeated incumbents.

At least 11 state legislators10 Republicans and one Democratlost in primaries on June 14. Including those results, 104 state legislative incumbents have lost primaries this year. This number will likely increase: 61 primaries featuring incumbents remain uncalled.

Across the 21 states that have held state legislative primaries so far this year, 5.1% of incumbents running for re-election have lost, continuing an elevated rate of incumbent primary defeats compared to recent election cycles.

Of the 21 states that have held primaries so far, five had Democratic trifectas, 13 had Republican trifectas, and three had divided governments with Democrats controlling the governorship and Republicans controlling both legislative chambers. Across these 21 states, there are 2,650 seats up for election, 43% of the nationwide total.

Politico Playbook wrote that the Republican primary candidates with whom Trump is angry who have won primaries had embraced Trump in their campaigns, while Rice did not:

Republicans can survive crossing Trump, but rarely can they survive being anti-Trump

Trump went one for two in key South Carolina primaries last night.

What explains the difference? On last weeks Playbook Deep Dive podcast, we talked to South Dakota Rep. DUSTY JOHNSON about the lessons he learned winning a Republican primary after voting against Trump. (In his case, the vote was about creating an independent January 6 commission.)

There are going to be times those votes cause you political discomfort, Johnson said. Dont run away from them, but dont run away from the electorate either.

So far this year, the Trump-targeted Republicans who have survived his wrath have run campaigns that embrace Trump even as he spurns them. Whether its Idaho Gov. BRAD LITTLE, Johnson in South Dakota or Mace in South Carolina, these victors were all careful not to run against Trump.

In South Carolina, Rep. Rice actually told voters what he thought. Trump, he said in a recent interview with Ally Mutnick, was spiteful and petty and vengeful and a narcissist who craves attention. Rice lost. He ran away from the South Carolina GOP electorate.

National Reviews Alexandra DeSanctis wrote about other differences between South Carolinas 1st and 7th District primaries that may have influenced outcomes for Mace and Rice:

What are we to make of the discrepancy? One way of looking at it is the degree of separation from the former president: Both Rice and Mace had angered him enough to get him to back a primary challenger, but only Rice had voted to impeach him over the events of January 6. Mace condemned the president in a speech and voted to certify the election results, but she didnt join the ten GOP representatives who voted for impeachment.

Another possible explanation is Maces opponent. Arrington has played the role of a right-wing, Trump-supported challenger before, when she unseated former Republican representative Mark Sanford over his criticism of the former president. But Arrington went on to lose to the Democrat candidate in the general election, and perhaps voters were wary of a similar problem this November, though the climate this election year is, of course, quite different. The New York Times adds this bit of insight:

Ms. Mace raised more money than Ms. Arrington by a 2-to-1 margin and outspent her by more than $300,000 on the airwaves, according to the political spending tracker AdImpact. She courted the districts most influential political and business leaders and, in the races final days, campaigned alongside a number of high-profile figures on the right, including a former Trump White House chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, and former Gov. Nikki Haley.

Politico reported that Richard Irvins campaign pulled a majority of its advertising from outside the Chicago metropolitan area. In addition to its focus on Chicago, the campaign is running ads statewide on Fox News. Spokeswoman Eleni Demertzis said that the campaign was reassessing its ad strategy and was not pulling ads due to a lack of money.

A recent Chicago Sun-Times and WBEZ poll showed state Sen. Darren Bailey with a 32%-17% lead over Irvin. Jesse Sullivan was in third with 11%. Twenty-seven percent were undecided. The poll had a margin of error of +/- 3.8 percentage points.

The poll showed Bailey leading in both the southern part of the state, where hes from, and in the Chicago suburbs. Irvin is the mayor of Aurora, the states second-largest city and a suburb of Chicago. In Chicago itself, Irvin and Bailey were roughly tied for second (16% and 13%, respectively) behind Sullivan.

Chicago Sun-Times Tina Sfondeles wrote that a Bailey victory would represent a brutal repudiation by Illinois Republican voters of Irvin, his array of mainstream party endorsements and, most pointedly, his $50 million benefactor, Chicago hedge fund tycoon Ken Griffin.

In response to the poll, Irvin said, J.B. Pritzker is spending tens of millions of dollars meddling in the Republican primary to prop up a Republican that he knows he can beat. A vote for Darren Bailey is a vote for J.B. Pritzker. Period.

Irvins campaign has spent $26 million on ads so far this cycle. The Democratic Governors Association has run around $20 million in ads both supporting Bailey and attacking Irvin. People Who Play By The Rules PAC, which radio host Dan Proft created and GOP donor Richard Uihlein financially supports, has also spent $3 million on ads attacking Irvin.

Former President Trump endorsed Katie Britt in the Senate primary runoff in Alabama. Trump had endorsed Rep. Mo Brooks in the GOP primary then rescinded that endorsement in March, citing comments Brooks made in 2021 about moving past the 2020 election.

Trump said in July 2021 that Britt was unqualified and criticized her connection to retiring incumbent Sen. Richard Shelby (R), whom Trump called a RINO. Britt once served as Shelbys chief of staff. Trump said in his recent endorsement, The opposition says Katie is close to Mitch McConnell, but actually, she is not and called her a fearless America First Warrior.

In a now-deleted tweet from June 5, Brooks asked Trump to re-endorse him. After Trump endorsed Britt, Brooks said, Lets just admit it: Trump endorses the wrong people sometimes.

Brooks has served in the U.S. House since 2011. Britt is CEO of the Alabama Business Council.

The runoff is June 21. In the May 24 primary, Britt received 45% to Brooks 29%.

On June 9, federal agents arrested Ryan Kelley, one of five candidates seeking the GOP gubernatorial nomination in Michigan, on charges related to the U.S. Capitol breach during the electoral vote count on Jan. 6, 2021. Kelley was released on a personal recognizance bond, or a promise to appear in court when required, the same day.

The New York Times Azi Paybarah said Kelley is the first person running for election in a major state or federal race to be charged in connection with the attack.

The governments complaint charged Kelley with four misdemeanors: Knowingly Entering or Remaining in any Restricted Building or Grounds Without Lawful Authority, Disorderly and Disruptive Conduct in a Restricted Building or Grounds, Knowingly [Engaging] in any Act of Physical Violence Against Person or Property in any Restricted Building or Grounds, and Willfully [injuring] or [committing] any Depredation Against any Property of the United States.

On June 13, Kelley told Fox News Tucker Carlson, There was no crime committed, Tucker, no. [I] never entered the Capitol building. I think a lot of Americans see right through this They understand what the Democrats are up to, and its not a big deal to them.

The other primary candidates commented on the arrest:

A few other updates since we last wrote about the disqualification of five candidates over fraudulent signatures on nominating petitions: On June 3, the Michigan Supreme Court denied appeals in lawsuits from James Craig, Perry Johnson, and Michael Markey. Craig said he will run a write-in campaign for the Republican primary. Johnson filed a federal lawsuit seeking to get his name back on the ballot. U.S. District Judge Mark Goldsmith denied his request.

The primary is on Aug. 2.

Virginia holds primaries on June 21. Utah and Illinois hold primaries on June 28. Weve crunched some numbers to see how competitive the primaries will be compared to recent election cycles.

Virginia

Virginia held state legislative elections in 2021. The following shows competitiveness data for this years U.S. House primaries.

Utah

Illinois

Notes on how these figures were calculated:

Excerpt from:
Heart of the Primaries 2022, Republicans-Issue 27 Ballotpedia News - Ballotpedia News