Politics

AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) — Democrats held on to a swing district in Maine, as two-term U.S. Rep. Jared Golden beat back a challenge from a former congressman via ranked choice voting for the second time in four years.

Golden won reelection via the ranked round, Maine’s secretary of state, Shenna Bellows, said Wednesday. He defeated Republican Bruce Poliquin, who held the seat from 2014 to 2018.

Golden had entered the ranked round trailing in 2018, but this election he began the instant runoff with a lead over Poliquin and independent candidate Tiffany Bond.

During the ranked round, votes for third-place finisher Bond were redistributed to the second choices of those who voted for her. Bond was also the third-place finisher in 2018.

State police were deployed around the district to retrieve ballots and memory devices before this year’s ranked tabulation. The retrieval schedule was not made public, but workers for the state were able to start the painstaking vote verification process on Monday. The ranked tabulation then took place Wednesday.

Golden had declared victory in the race last week, and treated the ranked round as a formality this time. He said before the count began that his appeal in rural Maine helped carry him to victory.

“There’s a number of towns we’ve consistently outperformed the party, outperformed the top of the ticket,” Golden said. “We’ve held onto those towns when some Democrats who used to represent them have lost.”

Golden is a Marine Corps veteran who has occasionally deviated from Democratic leadership on major issues, including President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan, which he has opposed. Poliquin is a former investment manager and served two years as Maine’s state treasurer.

During the race, Poliquin tried to portray Golden as too liberal for the district. He has voiced opposition to ranked choice voting in the past and filed a lawsuit, later withdrawn, against the method in 2018.

Democrats should make changes such as cutting back on wasteful spending and working to reduce fuel prices, Poliquin said in a Facebook post before the results were announced.

“Biden, Pelosi, Golden and the Democrats should put politics aside and use some common sense to do what’s right while they wield all the authority,” Poliquin wrote. “Maine seniors and families are hurting and winter is just around the corner.”

The politically mixed and geographically vast district is one of two in Maine and includes the state’s second- and third-largest cities, Lewiston and Bangor. It is mostly made up of rural areas in northern and western Maine and the state’s Down East coastline.

The district handed an electoral vote to former President Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020. Trump performed even better there in 2020 than in his first election, but Golden held on to the seat that year.

Bond, an attorney, said she felt it was significant that the voters who picked her first ultimately decided the election.

“I’m encouraged that the fate of Maine’s 2nd Congressional District is going to be decided by voters that put candidate quality over the millions wasted on this election,” Bond said. “I hope in future years it’s the majority of us that take away the power to buy our elections.”

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PHOENIX (AP) — Arizona voters who overwhelmingly cast their ballots by mail have rejected a measure that would have would have required them to add more information to the simple signature and date they now put on the back of the return envelope.

Proposition 309 also would have eliminated the ability of registered voters who do not have a state or federally-issued photo ID with them when they vote in-person to provide other proof of identity to cast a ballot.

New tallies from Maricopa County and several smaller counties released on Wednesday showed there was no chance for the measure to pass. It had been too close to call in the eight days since polls closed on Nov. 8 and was the last of 10 measures on the ballot to be called by The Associated Press.

The measure was falling about 20,000 votes short of passing, well above the margin for a recount under a new law that boosts the difference between ballot measures or candidates from 1/10 of a percent to 1%.

Democrats and voting rights groups said that the changes would lead to more mail-in ballots being rejected and people being turned away at the polls. They also pointed out that citizenship and other requirements for voting are already done during the voter registration process.

Republicans said they were needed to boost election security. The GOP-dominated Legislature put the measure on the ballot.

If it had passed, Proposition 309 would have required voters to write their birthdates and add state-issued voter identification numbers, driver license or identification card numbers or a partial social security number to affidavits rather than just signing and dating them. The back-of-envelope signature used by many counties also would be changed to require that they be placed into a second envelope.

In-person voting requirements also would change, eliminating the ability of voters who don’t have a state, tribal or federal government-issued photo ID on them to vote by presenting two alternate documents, such as a utility bill.

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Learn more about the issues and factors at play in the midterms at https://apnews.com/hub/explaining-the-elections. And follow the AP’s election coverage of the 2022 elections at https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections.

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MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Alabama will withdraw from a 32-state voter registration partnership, the incoming secretary of state announced on Wednesday, a decision that drew sharp criticism from his outgoing counterpart.

Republican Wes Allen, who will be sworn in as secretary of state in January, said he sent a letter announcing the state will end its participation in the Electronic Registration Information Center, a non-profit organization comprised of 32 states and the District of Columbia, that allows states to share voter registration data. The database was created as a tool to maintain accurate voter rolls and combat fraud by allowing states to know when someone moves, dies or registers elsewhere, but has sometimes become the target of conservative ire and conspiracy theories.

Allen cited privacy concerns as the reason to withdraw. The Republican made a promise during his campaign to withdraw from ERIC.

“I have heard repeatedly as I travelled through the state for the last year and a half that people want us out of ERIC. They don’t want their personal information or the personal information of their children to be sent to this out-of-state group,” Allen said in a statement issued by his campaign. “I promised I would end our participation and that is what I am taking these steps to do.”

Secretary of State John Merrill, also a Republican, issued a statement from his office saying ERIC provides needed information to maintain voter rolls and has identified suspected incidents of voter fraud. He said he is questioning the decision to withdraw.

“Alabama uses ERIC to preserve a clean and accurate voter list. We have not experienced one negative issue because of our relationship with ERIC,” the statement read.

Merrill’s office said there has been “dishonest or misinformed” stories spread about the system, including that it is funded by liberal billionaire George Soros. He said states don’t have access to other states’ voter registration and motorist driver’s license records — or access to the Social Security Administration Death Master Index — but ERIC does, and that it is a crucial tool for maintaining voting rolls.

“So, if Wes Allen plans to remove Alabama from its relationship with ERIC, how does he intend to maintain election security without access to the necessary data, legal authority, or capability to conduct proper voter list maintenance?” Merrill’s office said.

The issue of participation in ERIC was raised in at least one other state. The Republican candidate for Arizona secretary of state said during the campaign that he would withdraw from ERIC if elected, but he lost. Louisiana withdrew earlier this year.

Another Republican campaigned on joining the partnership.

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, also a Republican, proudly noted in stump speeches that the state had joined ERIC. Raffensperger in 2019 said it would be a tremendous step forward for the integrity of Georgia’s voter rolls.

Allen said he will send a formal withdrawal letter after he is sworn in on Jan. 16.

According to the organization, the states that currently participate in ERIC are: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia and Wisconsin. The District of Columbia is also a member.

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Associated Press reporters Jonathan Cooper and Jeff Amy contributed to this report. Cooper reported Phoenix and Amy reported from Atlanta.

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AUGUSTA, Ga. (AP) — Republicans insist they’re working together to help Herschel Walker unseat Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock in a Georgia runoff that offers the GOP a chance to finish a disappointing midterm election season with a victory.

But to win a 50th Senate seat on Dec. 6 and limit Democrats’ continued majority, Republicans must overcome doubts about Walker’s appeal in a battleground state, navigate open squabbles among party powerbrokers in Washington and endure the specter of former President Donald Trump as he launches his third White House bid after losing Georgia in 2020.

It adds up to the same challenges that limited GOP victories nationally despite an underwater approval rating for President Joe Biden and widespread frustrations with the nation’s direction.

“Everybody realizes that regardless of any disagreements that do or don’t exist, everybody needs to focus on one thing: helping Herschel get across the finish line,” said Walker campaign manager Scott Paradise.

But they must do it without the Senate majority on the line, as it was in a pair of Georgia runoffs in January 2021. Democrats have already secured 50 seats with narrow incumbent victories in Nevada and Arizona combined with flipping a GOP-held Pennsylvania seat, and Vice President Kamala’s Harris tiebreaking vote assures them a majority.

So, Walker, who spent the fall trying to nationalize his race by mocking Warnock as a yes-man for Biden, must fashion a runoff coalition knowing that nothing voters do here will depose New York’s Chuck Schumer as Senate majority leader.

“There are still national implications,” Paradise said, arguing that Republicans around the country are “fired up” for a second chance after an underwhelming midterm performance. “We’re very comfortable framing this as the last fight of ’22.”

Like many losing GOP nominees this year, Walker has struggled among moderates and independents, with many questioning his qualifications, according to AP VoteCast surveys of voters. Walker trailed Warnock by about 35,000 votes out of almost 4 million. Perhaps more tellingly, the same electorate gave Republican Gov. Brian Kemp 200,000 more votes than Walker — enough for a comfortable reelection victory.

Walker, a former college and professional football star and a close friend of Trump’s, was urged by the former president to run. That cements Walker’s bond with core GOP supporters but presents a challenge in Republican-leaning metro areas that helped Biden top Trump here two years ago.

“Trump probably does more to juice Democratic turnout than have an effect on our guy,” said Josh Holmes, a prominent Republican fundraiser and strategist aligned with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who has icy relations with the former president. But Holmes added, “We don’t know what the impact will be.”

It’s clear Republicans hope Kemp’s popularity extends to Walker, even if it wasn’t enough in the first round. Kemp avoided Walker throughout the fall, pointedly not saying the Senate candidate’s name when asked about Walker’s difficulties, which include exaggerated claims about his business, philanthropic and academic record; accusations of violence against his first wife; and claims by two former girlfriends that Walker paid for their abortions despite his public opposition to abortion rights.

Kemp typically would say only that he backed “the entire Republican ticket.” Since Election Day, though, Kemp has turned over his voter turnout operation to the Washington-based super PAC aligned with McConnell. And Kemp plans to campaign with Walker for the first time Saturday.

“Herschel requested all the help we could get from the governor. The governor said I’m there for you,” Paradise said.

Yet the deal between Kemp and the Senate Leadership Fund highlights GOP fissures, some tracing back to Trump, others to a running feud between McConnell and Florida Sen. Rick Scott, who leads the Senate GOP’s campaign arm.

Kemp built out his independent turnout operation after the 2020 presidential election, when Trump blasted Kemp for certifying Biden’s slate of presidential electors from Georgia and state Republican Party leaders sided mostly with Trump.

SLF, which usually spends most of its money on television advertising, said the runoff would be the first time the political action committee has engaged in a full-scale voter turnout effort.

But, as with Kemp’s reelection campaign, that comes at odds with the traditional coordinated party campaign run through the Republican National Committee, the state party and Scott’s National Republican Senatorial Committee. Separately, Scott challenged McConnell for Senate GOP leader; McConnell prevailed Wednesday.

Campaigning for Walker this week on the outskirts of Augusta, Scott sought to present a united GOP front. “What we ought to be doing now is focusing all of our time on Herschel,” he said.

But he noted that federal election law prevents coordination between the party committees and the SLF-Kemp operation. That means that there’s no legal way for each camp to keep tabs on the other’s activities, raising the prospect of duplicative efforts or conflicting messages to voters.

Meanwhile, Scott’s and McConnell’s advisers spilled their tiff into public view. Curt Anderson, a Scott ally, noted on Twitter that he’d seen Schumer’s Democratic super PAC airing ads on Warnock’s behalf during a “Monday Night Football” broadcast. “McConnell’s superpac running zero ads attacking Warnock. Have they given up?” he asked.

SLF President Steven Law retorted that the NRSC’s Georgia televisions buys have been subpar. “But don’t worry little buddy — we’re used to covering you,” he wrote. SLF has since announced its own $14.2 million advertising plan, on top of the $2 million-plus it had previously announced for its turnout operation.

Amid such intraparty complications, perhaps the best outcome for Walker is a relatively low-turnout runoff election that allows his core supporters to become a victorious majority. Indeed, having the Senate majority already settled could dampen Democrats’ enthusiasm, and Walker has drawn large, enthusiastic crowds in the opening days of the runoff campaign.

Yet Republicans, including the candidate himself, acknowledge at least tacitly that Walker may need supporters the nominee hasn’t won over yet.

For Walker, that means a retooled campaign speech that remains heavy on staunch conservative rhetoric but expands his attacks on Warnock to include an admonishment for not working closely enough with Kemp.

“What he been doing is rowing the boat this way as our governor is trying to row this way,” Walker said of Warnock in Augusta. “What I’m going to do is I’m going to row the boat with the governor.”

For Scott, it means bringing the complexities of Senate rules to the campaign trail, telling voters that a 50-50 Senate means evenly split committee rosters, while a 51-49 makeup means clear Democratic majorities. “It takes 51-plus to get things done,” he said.

And for rank-and-file Georgia Republicans like Debbie McCord, it means cajoling would-be Walker voters to look beyond individual candidates and see a national referendum.

“There are people who just think ‘so-and-so would have been a better candidate.’ I say there are a lot of good candidates, but this is who won the primary,” said McCord, chairwoman of the Columbia County Republican committee. “You need to get over it, put your big boy pants on and go vote.”

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Learn more about the issues and factors at play in the midterms at https://apnews.com/hub/explaining-the-elections. And follow the AP’s election coverage of the 2022 elections at https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections.

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PHOENIX (AP) — Two Republicans who control the board in a rural southeastern Arizona county on Wednesday told a judge they want to withdraw a lawsuit they had filed just two days prior that sought to force their own elections director to hand-count all the ballots cast in-person on Election Day.

The court filing and one of the GOP supervisors in Cochise County said they did not want to interfere with the likely recount in the race for Arizona attorney general. Democrat Kris Mayes was leading Republican Abraham Hamadeh by well under the recount margin as of late Wednesday afternoon.

The Legislature this year changed the state’s election recount law to greatly increase the threshold for mandatory recounts. It now requires a recount when the candidates are within .5% of each other. In the attorney general race, the trigger is about 12,500 votes.

Supervisor Peggy Judd told The Associated Press that she agreed to withdraw the lawsuit against Elections Director Lisa Marra that she and Supervisor Tom Crosby filed on Monday because they did not want to disrupt the statewide recount. That will be triggered once the state accepts the election certifications from all 15 Arizona counties and the statewide vote-totals are accepted.

“We’ve had to step back from everything we were trying to do and say, OK, we’ve got to let this play out,” Judd said. “Because it’s the last thing we want to do to get in (Marra’s) way.”

Marra’s attorney, Christina Estes-Werther, said she expects a fast decision from the Pima County judge who is hearing the case.

The push to hand-count ballots in the Republican-heavy county that is home to the iconic Old West town of Tombstone gained impetus from false claims by former President Donald Trump and his allies of widespread fraud and voting machine conspiracy theories in the last presidential contest. There has been no evidence of widespread fraud or manipulation of voting machines in 2020 or during this year’s midterm elections.

Nevertheless, the conspiracy theories have spread widely and prompted heated public meetings in mostly rural counties throughout the West amid calls to ditch voting machines in favor of paper ballots and full hand-counts. The controversies nearly delayed certification of primary results earlier this year in one New Mexico county and have fed an ongoing legal battle over a full hand-count in a Nevada county.

Crosby and Judd wanted to hand-count all 12,000 Election Day ballots and the approximately 32,000 that were cast early. But in a ruling prompted by a lawsuit filed by a retiree group, a judge said that state law bars expanding the normal 1% hand-count audit of early ballots. He said any expansion of the 2% of Election Day ballots normally tallied to test vote-counting machine accuracy had to be random.

Judd and Crosby then proposed counting 99% of all Election Day ballots, then settled on those from 16 of the county’s 17 voting sites. The Republican elected county prosecutor told them they would be committing a felony if they tried to take the ballots from Marra, who refused to go along.

Judd said Wednesday that she wanted to end the battle with Marra and let her proceed with her job.

“We’re trying to make nice with her,” Judd said. “She’s really been afraid of us for a while.”

Judd said a machine recount of the attorney general race — and potentially others — will achieve most of what their full hand-count was designed to do.

“I think we’ve done all the damage or good — I’m not saying that was all damage, I think there was some good that came out of this,” Judd said. “But we’ve done all that we can.”

The Cochise County hand-count fight had threatened to delay the required statewide certification set for Dec. 5. A recount will come after that official canvass and could take until the end of the year.

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Follow AP’s coverage of the elections at: https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections

Check out https://apnews.com/hub/explaining-the-elections to learn more about the issues and factors at play in the 2022 midterm elections.

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PHOENIX (AP) — Republican Blake Masters called Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly Tuesday to concede in the Arizona Senate race, joining other vanquished Republicans around the country who cast doubt on the 2020 election but still acknowledged their own defeat.

Kari Lake, the Republican candidate for governor, however, had not conceded a day after The Associated Press called the race for Democrat Katie Hobbs.

“There were obviously a lot of problems with this election, but there is no path forward,” Masters wrote in a statement he posted to Twitter. He did not specify the problems, but has previously complained about long lines at polling places and a problem with ballot printers at about a third of the vote centers in Maricopa County, which includes metro Phoenix.

Masters said “Republicans are the underdogs now,” saying he attracted millions in opposition spending by antagonizing Democrats, the media, big tech firms and “woke corporations.” Republicans need to rethink the way they run campaigns, he said.

Democrats now control Arizona’s two U.S. Senate seats and the governor’s office for the first time since 1950. A Democrat was also elected secretary of state this year and the race for attorney general was extremely close.

Republicans who lost their races in other states have generally conceded defeat, including Doug Mastriano, a prominent election denier who lost the race for Pennsylvania governor. But in Arizona, Masters is an exception among the statewide candidates. Mark Finchem, who lost the secretary of state race to Democrat Adrian Fontes, has spent days spreading Q-Anon memes and conspiracy theories alleging the contest was stolen from him.

Lake has said little in public aside from a one sentence tweet Monday night: “Arizonans know BS when they see it.”

Her campaign team and the Arizona Republican Party have pushed people who voted by mail to verify that their ballot was accepted. Mail voters whose ballots get flagged for problems have until the end of Wednesday to resolve the issue. They’ve also been looking to collect testimonials from people who say they faced problems voting in person on election day, which could be used in a lawsuit.

“In this election, Arizonans chose solving our problems over conspiracy theories,” Hobbs told supporters in a victory speech Monday. “We chose sanity over chaos and we chose unity over division. We chose a better Arizona. And we chose democracy.”

But she said the work to safeguard democracy continues. Hobbs built a reputation as a staunch defender of Arizona’s election as former President Donald Trump and his supporters spread false claims of fraud in 2020 and state Senate Republicans oversaw an unprecedented partisan audit of the vote count.

Lake has cast doubt on the 2020 election and refused before the election to commit to accepting the results if she lost.

Outgoing Republican Gov. Doug Ducey called to congratulate Hobbs from Orlando, Florida, where the Republican Governors Association is meeting, spokesman C.J. Karamargin said. Ducey is co-chairman of the group tasked with raising money and recruiting candidates to help the GOP win races for governor. The RGA spent more than $10 million on television ads attacking Hobbs.

When she takes office in January, Hobbs will be Arizona’s first Democratic governor since Janet Napolitano resigned to join Barack Obama’s administration in 2009. She will likely work with a Republican-controlled Legislature, and she pledged Monday to keep her door open to members of both parties.

“But for those of you who prefer to obstruct, spread disinformation and continue to pursue an extreme agenda out of touch with this state, take note of the results of this election,” Hobbs said.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Republicans were meeting behind closed doors Wednesday as Republican leader Mitch McConnell faced a striking challenge to his leadership, a renegade bid by the GOP party’s campaign chief Sen. Rick Scott of Florida to oust him after the midterm elections.

Retreating to the Old Senate Chamber at the Capitol, a historical site mostly visited by tourists but occasionally used by senators for their most serious of private discussions, Republicans are engaging after a very public spillover of infighting following a disappointing performance in last week’s elections that kept Senate control with Democrats.

A confident McConnell appeared certain he will easily swat back the challenge from Scott, who is largely blamed by his colleagues for the GOP failures. No more than 10 Republican senators, among some of the most conservative figures and those aligned with former President Donald Trump, are expected to join in the revolt.

“I think the outcome is pretty clear,” McConnell told reporters Tuesday. “I want to repeat again: I have the votes; I will be elected. The only issue is whether we do it sooner or later.”

The unrest in the Senate is similar to the uproar among Republicans in the House in the aftermath of the midterm elections that left the party split over Trump’s hold on the party. House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy won the nomination from colleagues to run for House speaker, with Republicans on the cusp of seizing the House majority, but he faces stiff opposition from a core group of right-flank Republicans unconvinced of his leadership.

On Wednesday, the senators planned to first consider a motion by a Scott ally, Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, to delay the leadership votes until after the Dec. 6 runoff election in Georgia between Republican Herschel Walker and incumbent Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock that will determine the final makeup of the Senate. Walker ius eligible to vote in the leadership election but wasn’t expected to be present.

There are 49 GOP senators expected to vote on Wednesday, including newly elected senators who are in town this week but not yet sworn into office and Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who is eligible even though her race against Republican Kelly Tshibaka hasn’t been called yet.

The announcement by Scott, who was urged to challenge McConnell by Trump, escalated a long-simmering feud between Scott, who led the Senate Republican’s campaign arm this year, and McConnell over the party’s approach to try to reclaim the Senate majority.

“If you simply want to stick with the status quo, don’t vote for me,” Scott said in a letter to Senate Republicans offering himself as a protest vote against McConnell.

Restive conservatives in the chamber have lashed out at McConnell’s handling of the election, as well as his iron grip over the Senate Republican caucus.

A delay could give leverage to Trump-aligned conservatives who are hoping their clout will grow after the outcome of races in Georgia and Alaska

Yet it appears unlikely that their numbers could grow enough to put McConnell’s job in jeopardy, given his deep support within the conference. And Trump’s opposition is hardly new, as he has been pushing for the party to dump McConnell ever since the Senate leader gave a scathing speech blaming the former president for the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

Still, it represents an unusual direct challenge to McConnell’s authority. If he wins the GOP leadership post, he would become the longest-serving Senate leader in history when the new Congress convenes in the new year.

Scott and McConnell traded what colleagues said were “candid” and “lively” barbs during a lengthy private GOP senators lunch Tuesday that dragged for several hours. They sparred over the midterms, the quality of the GOP candidates who ran and their differences over fundraising.

During the luncheon, some 20 senators made their individual cases for the two men. Some members directly challenged Scott in McConnell’s defense, including Maine Sen. Susan Collins, who questioned the Florida senator’s management of the campaign arm, according to a person familiar with the meeting and granted anonymity to discuss it.

Among the many reasons Scott listed for mounting a challenge is that Republicans had compromised too much with Democrats in the last Congress — producing bills that President Joe Biden has counted as successes and that Democrats ran on in the 2022 election.

The feud between Scott and McConnell has been percolating for months and reached a boil as election results trickled in showing there would be no Republican Senate wave, as Scott predicted, according to senior Republican strategists who were not authorized to discuss internal issues by name and insisted on anonymity.

The feuding started not long after Scott took over the party committee in late 2020, which many in the party viewed as an effort to build his national political profile and donor network ahead of a potential presidential bid in 2024. Some were irked by promotional materials from the committee that were heavy on Scott’s own biography, while focusing less on the candidates who are up for election.

Then came Scott’s release of an 11-point plan early this year, which called for a modest tax increase for many of the lowest-paid Americans, while opening the door for cutting Social Security and Medicare, which McConnell swiftly repudiated even as he declined to offer an agenda of his own.

The feud was driven in part by the fraying trust in Scott’s leadership, as well as poor finances of the committee, which was $20 million in debt, according to a senior Republican consultant.

Follow the AP’s coverage of the 2022 midterm elections at https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections. And check out https://apnews.com/hub/explaining-the-elections to learn more about the issues and factors at play in the midterms.

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BALTIMORE (AP) — Archbishop Timothy Broglio of the Military Services, who oversees Catholic ministries to the U.S. armed forces, was elected Tuesday as the new president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Broglio, 70, was elected to a three-year term from a field of 10 candidates. He will succeed Archbishop José H. Gomez of Los Angeles, who assumed the post in 2019.

The archbishop of Baltimore, William Lori, was elected as the conference’s new vice president.

Usually the election of a new USCCB leaders is a formality, with the bishops elevating the conference’s vice president to the post. But this year’s election was wide open because the incumbent VP — Detroit Archbishop Allen Vigneron — will turn 75 soon, making him ineligible to serve.

The 10 candidates ranged from the relatively moderate Archbishop Paul Etienne of Seattle to San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone, a staunch conservative. Cordileone made headlines this year by barring House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a San Franciscan, from receiving Communion in the archdiocese because of her support for abortion rights.

The candidates were nominated by their fellow bishops, who bypassed several of their colleagues who have been elevated to cardinal by Pope Francis.

While Broglio was not considered as hardline a conservative as a few other candidates, his election was not welcomed by some left-of-center Catholics who empathize with Pope Francis in his occasional conflicts with the U.S. bishops.

“I’m disappointed Catholic bishops chose a new president who has a history of being a culture warrior,” said John Gehring, Catholic program director at a Washington-based clergy network called Faith in Public Life. “Even as Pope Francis offers a better path forward for the church, too many American bishops double down on old strategies that have failed to engage and energize the faithful.”

The bishops’ annual fall meeting will conclude its public sessions on Wednesday. It is the bishops’ first gathering since the U.S. Supreme Court in June overturned the Roe v. Wade decision which had found a constitutional right to abortion and returned the question of legal abortion to the states.

Lori, chairman of the bishops Committee on Pro-life Activities, acknowledged that many Catholics favor legalized access to abortion.

“The demise of Roe is a great victory, but it will be a Pyrrhic victory if we fail to win in the minds and hearts, first and foremost of our fellow Catholics,” said Lori, who was elected vice president of the bishops’ conference.

“We cannot credibly speak in a polarized society as long as our own house is divided,” he said. “At the same time, we cannot wait until perfect unanimity has been attained before we bear witness to the ambient culture about human life and dignity.”

AP VoteCast, an expansive survey of voters in the 2022 midterm elections, found that Catholic voters in Michigan split about evenly on a referendum enshrining abortion rights into the state constitution, while 60% of Catholic voters in Kentucky voted against an anti-abortion constitutional amendment.

Broglio — a staunch opponent of abortion — has extensive experience outside U.S. borders, having studied in Rome and serving in the Vatican’s diplomatic corps.

Broglio worked as chief of cabinet for the late Cardinal Angelo Sodano, who was Vatican secretary of state, from 1990 to 2001. Sodano has been widely criticized for stalling investigations into prominent clerics found to be sexual abusers, such as the Rev. Marcial Maciel, leader of the Legion of Christ, a religious order.

“Hindsight is always 20/20,” Broglio said at a news conference after his election. “Many things that we’ve learned now perhaps certainly weren’t known then.”

He said that during his tenure, Maciel “had everyone fairly well buffaloed” because he was recruiting so many new priests.

Broglio said he had left the secretary of state’s office “by the time the great accusations came out” against Maciel.

While allegations against Maciel did grow in the 2000s, they initially came to light in a major report in 1997 by the Hartford Courant, which reported accusations by eight men against him.

The experience is a “good reminder that we have to be attentive and be proactive,” Broglio said.

Broglio also stood by an earlier statement in which he linked the church’s sexual abuse crisis to homosexuality. He had previously stated that many cases of abuse involved homosexuality rather than pedophilia because many of the victims of abusive priests were 12 and over.

A 2011 study by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, commissioned by the bishops, said homosexuality was not a cause of abuse by priest.

“It’s certainly an aspect of the sexual crisis that can’t be denied,” Broglio said Tuesday. “That’s certainly not to point a finger at anyone but I think it would be naïve to suggest that there’s no relationship between the two.”

Broglio declined to speculate on why he was elected or whether the vote signaled a different agenda from the pontiff’s.

“I’m certainly in communion with Pope Francis,” he said. “I’m not aware that this necessarily indicates some dissonance with Pope Francis.”

Last year, Broglio attracted national attention when he asserted that servicemembers should be able to get religious exemptions sparing them from the Pentagon’s mandate that all troops receive COVID-19 vaccinations.

“Notwithstanding the moral permissibility of these vaccines, the Church treasures her teaching on the sanctity of conscience,” said Broglio. “Accordingly, no one should be forced to receive a COVID-19 vaccine if it would violate the sanctity of his or her conscience.”

Broglio grew up in the Cleveland area, attending Catholic schools there before attending Boston College and then earning a doctorate in canon law from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome.

He was ordained to the priesthood, for the diocese of Cleveland, in May 1977 at a chapel in Rome.

In addition to serving as an associate parish pastor and as a college lecturer, Broglio engaged extensively in the Vatican’s diplomatic service. He served as secretary of the apostolic nunciatures in Ivory Coast and Paraguay, and later was apostolic nuncio to the Dominican Republic.

Broglio was ordained as an archbishop by St. John Paul II in March 2001. In 2007, he was named the fourth archbishop of the Military Services USA.

As a member of the USCCB, Broglio currently serves as secretary of the conference. In the past he has served as chairman of the Committee on International Justice and Peace and chairman of the Canonical Affairs and Church Governance Committee.

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Crary reported from New York.

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Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Florida Sen. Rick Scott said Tuesday that he will mount a long-shot bid to unseat Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, opening the latest front in an intraparty battle between allies of McConnell and former President Donald Trump over the direction of the GOP following a disappointing showing in last week’s midterm elections.

The announcement by Scott, who was urged to challenge McConnell by Trump, came hours before the former president was expected to launch a comeback bid for the White House. It escalated a long-simmering feud between Scott, who led the Senate Republican’s campaign arm this year, and McConnell over the party’s approach to reclaiming a Senate majority.

“If you simply want to stick with the status quo, don’t vote for me,” Scott said in a letter to Senate Republicans offering himself as a protest vote against McConnell in leadership elections on Wednesday.

Restive conservatives in the chamber have lashed out at McConnell’s handling of the election, as well as his iron grip over the Senate Republican caucus. The leadership vote was scheduled for Wednesday morning, though it could be postponed if Texas Sen. Ted Cruz succeeds with his effort to delay it until after a Georgia runoff election in December.

A delay could give leverage to Trump-aligned conservatives who are hoping their clout will grow after the outcome of races in Georgia, where former NFL star Herschel Walker is challenging Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock, and Alaska, where moderate Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski faces a conservative challenger.

Yet it appears unlikely that their numbers could grow enough to put McConnell’s job in jeopardy, given his deep support within the conference. And Trump’s opposition is hardly new, as has been pushing for the party to dump McConnell ever since the Senate leader gave a scathing speech blaming the former president for the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

Still, it represents an unusual direct challenge to the authority of McConnell, who is set to become the longest-serving Senate leader in history if he wins another leadership term.

“We may or may not be voting tomorrow, but I think the outcome is pretty clear,” McConnell told reporters Tuesday. “I want to repeat again: I have the votes; I will be elected. The only issue is whether we do it sooner or later.”

Scott was one in a small group of senators who wrote a letter to the Republican caucus over the weekend asking for a delay in this week’s leadership elections “to have serious discussions within our conference as to why and what we can do to improve our chances in 2024.”

Republican senators debated the path forward during their regular party lunch on Tuesday. Inside the room, roughly 20 senators spoke. Scott and McConnell traded what colleagues said were “candid” and “lively” barbs, sparring over the midterms, the quality of the GOP candidates who ran and their differences over fundraising. Senators made their individual cases for the two men.

Some members directly challenged Scott in McConnell’s defense, including Maine Sen. Susan Collins, who questioned the Florida senator’s management of the NRSC, according to a person familiar with the meeting.

Scott “disagrees with the approach that Mitch has taken in this election, and for the last couple of years he made that clear,” said Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, who has called for a delay and to oust McConnell. “Senator McConnell criticized Senator Scott’s management of the NRSC. I imagine we’ll hear more of that tomorrow.”

Among the many reasons Scott listed for mounting a challenge is that Republicans had compromised too much with Democrats in the last Congress — producing bills that President Joe Biden has counted as successes and that Democrats ran on in the 2022 election.

“I believe it’s time for the Senate Republican Conference to be far more bold and resolute than we have been in the past,” Scott said in the letter, sent to colleagues as the GOP meeting was still going on. “We must start saying what we are for, not just what we are against.”

But as the leader of the National Republican Senatorial Committee following a disappointing election, Scott is also an imperfect vessel to achieve the aims of frustrated Republicans and Trump.

“If you’re going to make this about assessing blame for losing an election, I don’t know how the NRSC chairman gets off the hook,” said North Dakota Sen. Kevin Cramer. “I think that would be the obvious problem he would have.”

The feud between Scott and McConnell has been percolating for months and reached a boil as election results trickled in showing there would be no Republican Senate wave, as Scott predicted, according to senior Republican strategists. They and others interviewed about the feud were not authorized to discuss internal issues by name and insisted on anonymity.

Operatives for the two men have traded barbs for more than a year over the handling of Senate Republican political strategy — or, in the view of some, the lack thereof.

The feuding started not long after Scott took over the party committee in late 2020, which many in the party viewed as an effort to build his national political profile and donor network ahead of a potential presidential bid in 2024. Some were irked by promotional materials from the committee that were heavy on Scott’s own biography, while focusing less on the candidates who are up for election.

Then came Scott’s release of an 11-point plan early this year, which called for a modest tax increase for many of the lowest-paid Americans, while opening the door for cutting Social Security and Medicare, which McConnell swiftly repudiated even as he declined to offer an agenda of his own.

Staffers from Scott’s Senate committee moved into triage mode almost immediately, reaching out to Republican campaigns across the country to gauge their frustration while offering messaging help, according to senior Republican strategists with direct knowledge of the situation who viewed it as an “unforced error.”

“A strategic disagreement” is how Scott has characterized their divergent views.

In August, McConnell undercut Scott during a Senate GOP lunch. Shortly after Scott had made a request for committee donations from Republican senators, McConnell addressed the room and told the Senators to instead prioritize giving to Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC controlled by longtime McConnell allies, according to two people familiar with the discussion.

Last week, McConnell’s super PAC cut Scott out of their efforts to boost turnout in the Georgia runoff, with the super PAC teaming up with Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp’s political operation instead.

The decision was driven in part by the fraying trust in Scott’s leadership, as well as poor finances of the committee, which was $20 million in debt, according to a senior Republican consultant.

For some Senate Republicans, however, the feud is irrelevant to their decision to support Scott.

“We got to have a plan for the American public and if we don’t we can expect much more of the same,” said Indiana Sen. Mike Braun, who is supporting Scott’s challenge of McConnell.

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BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — With Louisiana’s highly anticipated gubernatorial race less than a year away, both of the state’s U.S. senators say they have considered running for governor and plan on announcing their decisions soon, possibly in the coming days.

During a routine press call Tuesday, Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy told reporters that he considered the gubernatorial race, hasmade a decision and will “make that announcement later this week,” The Advocate reports. Cassidy’s comment comes a day after Louisiana’s other senator and fellow Republican, John Kennedy, made a similar statement.

“Over the last year, Louisianians have asked me time and time again to come home to serve as governor during these difficult times,” Kennedy said in a statement Monday. “(My wife) and I love the people of Louisiana. We’ve always listened to them, so I am giving serious consideration to entering the governor’s race. I’ll be announcing my decision soon.”

Cassidy was first elected to congress in 2015 and easily won reelection in 2020. Last week, Kennedy clinched a second six-year Senate term while fending off 12 challengers and avoiding a runoff.

Both Cassidy and Kennedy have millions in campaign funds on hand — Cassidy with $2.9 million and Kennedy with $13.6 million, according to the Federal Elections Commission — as a result of money raised while running for federal office. The money can be used by political action committees supporting their candidacies for a state office.

The 2023 gubernatorial race is expected attract several strong GOP candidates because term limits prevent current Gov. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat, from seeking a third straight term. And though the state legislature is dominated by Republicans, Louisiana is the only Deep South state with a Democrat for governor — opening a huge opportunity for Republicans hoping to capture the state’s top government post.

Although the election is less than a year away, so far only Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry has officially announced his bid. A conservative Republican and staunch supporter of former President Donald Trump, Landry has already received an early endorsement from the Louisiana Republican Party — an announcement last week that sparked outrage from potential candidates who have yet to officially throw their hats into the ring.

A list of other Republicans interested in the governor’s seat is slowly growing.

Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser confirmed to reporters in August that he plans to join the race and hit the campaign trail in 2023. Louisiana Treasurer John Schroder told supporters in January he also plans on running. U.S. Rep. Garret Graves and state Sen. Sharon Hewitt have also indicated that they are considering the contest for the state’s highest position.

But so far, it remains unclear who will emerge as a Democratic candidate.

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