Politics

BOSTON (AP) — Massachusetts Republicans are weighing which candidate has the best chance of keeping the governor’s office in GOP hands as they vote in Tuesday’s primary: a former state lawmaker endorsed by Donald Trump or a political newcomer who’s cast himself as the more moderate choice.

Geoff Diehl and Chris Doughty are vying for the chance to replace incumbent Republican Gov. Charlie Baker, who’s opted not to seek a third term.

Democrats have a simpler decision. Attorney General Maura Healey — she would become the first woman and first openly gay candidate elected governor if she wins — is facing no challengers after the only other Democrat on the ballot dropped out of the running.

Republican voters in the state will become just the latest to decide whether the party will further embrace Trumpism or is ready to move back toward the center. In recent primaries in other blue states like Maryland and Connecticut, GOP voters have nominated Trump loyalists, hurting the party’s chances of winning against a Democrat in the November general election.

Diehl, the favorite among state Republican Party delegates in Massachusetts, has ties to Trump stretching to 2016, when he served as co-chair for Trump’s presidential campaign in the state. Trump lost Massachusetts by almost 30 percentage points in his two presidential campaigns. Diehl has also opposed COVID-19 protocols and hailed the Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade.

Doughty, a businessman, said he supported some of Trump’s initiatives but wants to focus on challenges facing Massachusetts, which he said is increasingly unaffordable.

Diehl has come to embrace Trump’s false claims that he lost the 2020 election. Diehl said last year that he didn’t think it was a “stolen election” but later said the election was rigged, despite dozens of courts, local officials and Trump’s own attorney general saying the vote was legitimate. Doughty, meanwhile, has said he believes President Joe Biden was legitimately elected.

The challenge for both is that support of Trump may play well among the party’s conservative wing but could be a political albatross in a state where registered Republicans make up less than 10% of the electorate compared to about 31% for Democrats and about 57% for independents.

Diehl faced a similar struggle when he challenged Democratic U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren in 2018. He won a three-way Republican primary only to capture just over a third of the vote in the general election.

Doughty said he would work to lower taxes and has said that although he considers himself “pro-life,” he accepts the state Supreme Court decision recognizing a right to abortion in Massachusetts.

Doughty has reported raising nearly $2.3 million for his campaign, most of it coming out of his own pocket, compared with Diehl, who has raised about $582,000. Healey has the largest campaign bank account — about $3.4 million.

Massachusetts has a history of electing fiscally conservative, socially moderate Republican governors — including former Govs. William Weld and Mitt Romney — to provide a check on overwhelming Democratic legislative majorities. Baker, another Republican in that mold, has remained popular in the state.

The election also features several statewide contested Democratic primaries, including for attorney general and secretary of the commonwealth.

Two Democrats are jockeying for the top law enforcement office: former Boston City Councilor Andrea Campbell and workers’ rights attorney Shannon Liss-Riordan. A week before the election, a third candidate, former assistant attorney general Quentin Palfrey, announced he was suspending his campaign and endorsed Campbell; he will remain on the ballot.

Campbell would be the first Black woman to hold the office in Massachusetts if elected.

The winner will face Republican Jay McMahon, a trial attorney who previously ran against Healey and lost.

Incumbent Democratic Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin is vying for an eighth term in office. He’s fielding a challenge from fellow Democrat Tanisha Sullivan, president of the Boston branch of the NAACP. Sullivan would be the first Black person to serve in that post in the state.

The winner will face Republican Rayla Campbell in November. Campbell is also Black.

There are also contested races in the Democratic primary for auditor and for the Democratic and Republican races for lieutenant governor.

None of the state’s nine incumbent Democratic U.S. House members is facing primary challengers. There are two contested Republican primaries in the 8th and 9th congressional districts.

A new state law makes “no excuse” mail-in ballots and early voting permanent fixtures in Massachusetts elections. Many of the voting options included in the new law were implemented during the height of the coronavirus pandemic and proved popular.

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Follow AP for full coverage of the midterms at https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections and on Twitter, https://twitter.com/ap_politics.

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By Sarah N. Lynch

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A federal judge on Monday agreed to appoint a special master to review records seized by the FBI during its search of former President Donald Trump’s Florida estate, a move that is likely to delay the Justice Department’s criminal investigation.

In her ruling https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flsd.618763/gov.uscourts.flsd.618763.64.0.pdf, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon in West Palm Beach, Florida, granted Trump’s request for a special master, an independent third party who is sometimes assigned in sensitive cases to review materials that could be covered by attorney-client privilege.

Cannon said the person will be tasked with reviewing documents that are not just covered by attorney-client privilege, but any records possibly covered by executive privilege as well.

The decision to allow a special master to review documents that could be covered by executive privilege, a legal doctrine that can shield some White House records from disclosure, is uncharted legal territory.

Cannon also ordered the Justice Department to stop reviewing the records as part of its criminal investigation, a move that will likely at least temporarily hinder its ability to continue investigating.

However, Cannon said U.S. intelligence officials could continue conducting their review into whether the records could pose any damage to national security if exposed.

Trump is under investigation for removing government records, some of which were marked as highly classified, from the White House after he departed in January 2021, and storing them in his home at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach.

The Justice Department has said it is also investigating possible obstruction, after the FBI uncovered evidence that Trump’s team may have deliberately concealed classified documents when agents tried to recover them in June.

If the special master decides some of the material is covered by Trump’s executive privilege claims, it could hamper the government’s investigation.

Cannon, who was appointed by Trump in 2020 just months before he left office, rejected the government’s argument that the records belong to the government and that Trump is no longer president and therefore cannot claim executive privilege.

She gave Trump’s legal team and the Justice Department until Friday to jointly file a proposed list of special master candidates. Whomever the court ultimately taps will need to have the requisite security clearances and legal expertise.

It is unclear whether the Justice Department will appeal Cannon’s ruling, or on what basis it would do so.

“The United States is examining the opinion and will consider appropriate next steps in the ongoing litigation,” Justice Department spokesman Anthony Coley said.

Representatives for Trump did not respond to a request for comment.

However, in a post on his Truth Social platform following Cannon’s ruling, Trump wrote: “Remember, it takes courage and ‘guts’ to fight a totally corrupt Department of ‘Justice’ and the FBI.”

`A WHOLE LOT OF SPECIAL TREATMENT`

Some legal experts on Monday called the judge’s order deeply flawed.

“This is not something courts do,” said Jonathan Shaub, a former Justice Department attorney.

He said it was odd for Cannon to block the Justice Department from reviewing the records at this stage in the investigation, before an indictment has even been returned.

“It’s giving a whole lot of special treatment,” Shaub said.

Cannon in her ruling justified her actions by claiming that Trump faces the stigma of having had his home searched, and any future indictment based on the seizure of those records would cause “reputational harm.”

Trump, without evidence, has accused the Justice Department of launching a partisan witch-hunt against him. His lawyers argued that the appointment of an independent third-party to review the materials would be an important check on the government.

The Justice Department argued that it made no sense to appoint a special master because its filter team – a group of agents who are not part of the investigation – had completed its work.

The agents located and set aside about 520 pages that could be subject to attorney-client privilege, prosecutors said at a Sept. 1 hearing. The rest of the records have already been reviewed by the investigative team for the criminal probe.

In her ruling on Monday, Cannon said she has lingering concerns about how the Justice Department has conducted its privilege review, saying she was aware of at least two instances in which members of the investigative team were exposed to materials which were later designated as potentially privileged.

“Those instances alone, even if entirely inadvertent, yield questions about the adequacy of the filter review process,” she wrote.

Many former Justice Department attorneys, both Democrats and Republicans, have criticized Trump’s call for a special master.

“I don’t think a special master makes sense in connection with executive privilege material,” former Attorney General Bill Barr, a Trump appointee, told Reuters in an interview.

“If the documents are subject to executive privilege they involve official deliberations about executive actions, and by definition, those documents belong to the government.”

John Bolton, Trump’s former national security adviser who also previously served as assistant attorney general in charge of the Justice Department’s Civil Division, called the judge’s ruling “amateurish” and not well-reasoned.

“My recommendation to the Justice Department is appeal immediately the temporary injunction, but cooperate and expedite the actual implementation of the judge’s order,” Bolton said in an interview.

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; Editing by Matthew Lewis and Leslie Adler)

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US Senator in Israel: We’ve Heard ‘Chilling Information’ About Iran’s Nuclear Plans

Veteran Republican lawmaker Lindsey Graham tells reporters in Jerusalem that the purpose of the bipartisan delegation is to reaffirm that the two nations will remain close regardless of who is in power after key November elections for both

A bipartisan delegation of American lawmakers has heard “pretty chilling information” during their current trip to Israel about the Iranian regime’s plans should it become a nuclear power, veteran US Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said in Jerusalem on Monday, as he broke off from meetings with Israeli officials to talk to reporters.

Graham, a staunch opponent of the arrangement to curb Iran’s nuclear activity in return for a lifting of sanctions, has been against the deal since its first incarnation in 2015, when world powers led by former US President Barack Obama, a Democrat, reached an agreement that culminated in the signing of the officially titled Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

Sen. Graham was also a strong supporter of former President Donald Trump’s decision to pull the United States out of the agreement in 2018 and has criticized Trump’s successor, US President Joe Biden, for attempting to revive the deal since he took office in January 2021.

Israel has also been a consistent opponent of the nuclear agreement. The deal ostensibly keeps Iran a year away from reaching the threshold for a nuclear weapon, although officials in Jerusalem have expressed concern this so-called breakout period would be far shorter.

The senator on Monday highlighted the fact that most Israelis are opposed to the agreement – opposition that has remained constant despite the changing in government in Jerusalem.

“The Israeli people seem to be united around the idea that the world should be wary of Iran,” the senator said.

Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid has dispatched senior defense officials to Washington in recent days to press the issue, among them Defense Minister Benny Gantz, national security adviser Eyal Hulata, and Mossad chief David Barnea. The latter set off for the US capital on Monday.

Sen. Graham was joined at the press conference by Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) – another long-standing critic of the nuclear deal – and fellow Republicans Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, Rep. Ronny Jackson of Texas, and Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi.

The veteran lawmaker said that he and Menendez had formulated their own plan to curb Iranian atomic ambitions, which would allow Iran to have nuclear power but would insist that all uranium enrichment take place outside of the region.

The senator began the press conference with a firm statement that the United States and Israel will be allies regardless of which political party holds the reins of power in the respective countries.

Israel will hold parliamentary elections in November, while Americans will vote for members of the Houses of Representatives and the Senate, potentially giving control of both to the Republican Party.

“The purpose of the trip, from my point of view, was to stress continuity” of ties between the two nations, Graham told reporters at a press conference brought to an end by the lawmakers’ departure for a meeting with Prime Minister Lapid.

Highlighting that both Israel and the US hold decisive elections in November, the senator said that the Israeli government, regardless of who leads it, could be confident in US support.

“There’s a lot of division at home and there’s a lot of contention here in Israel,” the senator said, “but the point of this trip is to collect information about the Iran program [and] to reassure the Israeli government – left, right, middle – that the US-Israel relationship is foundational to both countries; that no matter what happens, in November in America … the assistance that Israel enjoys from the American government will continue.”

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NEW YORK (AP) — The possibility of a great red wave still looms.

But as the 2022 midterm elections enter their final two-month sprint, leading Republicans concede that their party’s advantage may be slipping even as Democrats confront their president’s weak standing, deep voter pessimism and the weight of history this fall.

The political landscape, while still in flux, follows a string of President Joe Biden’s legislative victories on climate, health care and gun violence, just as Donald Trump’s hand-picked candidates in electoral battlegrounds like Arizona, Georgia, Ohio and Pennsylvania struggle to broaden their appeal. But nothing has undermined the GOP’s momentum more than the Supreme Court’s stunning decision in June to end abortion protections, which triggered a swift backlash even in the reddest of red states.

“This midterm looks and feels significantly different than it did six months ago,” said veteran Republican pollster Neil Newhouse. The abortion ruling “has energized some segments, especially the Democratic constituency, and it has thrown a wrench, at least to some extent, into the hopes of winning a ton of seats.”

History suggests Republicans should dominate the November elections.

In the modern era, the party that holds the White House has lost congressional seats in virtually every first-term president’s first midterm election. Ronald Reagan lost 26 House seats, Bill Clinton lost 52, Barack Obama 63 and Trump 40. Only George W. Bush’s Republican Party enjoyed a modest eight-seat gain in his first midterm, coming after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Nine weeks before Election Day, leading operatives in both parties expect Republicans to pick up roughly 10 to 20 House seats, which would give the GOP a narrow majority in the chamber in November and break up Democrats’ control of the federal government. But many Republicans are losing confidence in the high-stakes fight for the Senate majority and key governorships across the nation.

In Pennsylvania, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Josh Shapiro argues that his focus on public safety, education, the economy and freedom is driving his momentum but concedes that his opponent is also a major factor.

“Folks trust me to get it done,” Shapiro, the state attorney general, told The Associated Press. “And in fairness, in part, it’s because I’m running against the guy who’s by far the most extreme and dangerous candidate in the nation.”

In one of the nation’s most important swing states, Republicans nominated Doug Mastriano as their nominee for governor, even after learning about his leading role in Trump’s push to overturn the 2020 election.

The state senator and retired military officer helped organize the state’s effort to submit fake presidential electors beholden to Trump and was seen outside the Capitol as pro-Trump demonstrators attacked police on Jan. 6, 2021. He has also alienated moderate voters and even some Republicans with divisive positions on several issues, including abortion, which he opposes in all circumstances.

Mastriano’s campaign didn’t respond to an interview request for this story.

Shapiro will launch his first TV ad of the fall campaign on Tuesday, casting Mastriano’s fierce opposition to abortion rights and gay marriage as a threat to Pennsylvania’s economy. The ad is the first spot in a $16.9 million television advertising investment the campaign reserved for the nine weeks leading up to Election Day.

Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel acknowledged that the GOP must sharpen its message on abortion given the Democrats’ apparent momentum.

“We can’t allow them to control the narrative,” McDaniel said in an interview.

She emphasized Republican leaders’ record of supporting exceptions for abortion in cases of rape, incest and the life of the mother, sidestepping questions about candidates like Mastriano, Georgia Senate nominee Herschel Walker and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who oppose such exceptions.

“I’m not going to speak about every candidate and where they’re at,” McDaniel said. “But the past four Republican presidents since Roe believe in the exception, and that is where I think a lot of the American people are, according to polling. But they also believe in limitations, and Democrats have shown no inclination to have any limitation.”

On the Republican Party’s broader midterm outlook, McDaniel said top races were always likely to tighten, despite the conventional wisdom that a massive red wave was building.

“Many of these states are battleground states,” she said. “It’s going to be tight.”

On paper, Republicans continue to enjoy tremendous advantages.

Beyond the weight of history, Democrats are saddled with Biden’s low favorability ratings as roughly 7 in 10 voters believe the country is headed in the wrong direction. Democratic strategists acknowledge serious political headwinds as inflation and pessimism surge, but they note gas prices have ticked down, pandemic worries have waned and Biden has won major legislative victories on several key issues.

“Republicans haven’t taken advantage of the bad political environment. And they punted on having any agenda or getting anything done,” said Biden pollster John Anzalone, who was far less confident about the midterm outlook at the beginning of the summer.

“Historically, this should be a 30- or 40-seat win by Republicans,” he added. “The entire Republican Party has been one big mistake for the past four or five months.”

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell has blamed GOP “candidate quality” for why his party was more likely to win the House than the Senate.

Florida Sen. Rick Scott, who leads the Senate GOP campaign arm, sees it differently.

“He and I clearly have a disagreement on this. I think we’ve got great candidates,” Scott told the AP, citing opportunities to challenge Democrats in blue states like Colorado and Washington state. “I think we’re doing fine.”

Scott did acknowledge some uncertainty involving Trump’s role in the coming weeks.

The former president helped his loyalists, most of whom embraced his conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, win primary elections across the country throughout the spring and summer. But it’s unclear how Trump will help them, if at all, as the election moves into the fall.

“He’s got a choice about what he wants to do. He clearly has some candidates that he wanted to get through the primaries and they did,” Scott said. “He’ll make his own decision on what he wants to do.”

At the same time, a disproportionate number of women are registering to vote. And if recent voting patterns hold, that’s good news for Democrats.

In at least seven states, women made up a higher share of newly registered voters following the overturning of Roe v. Wade, according to an AP analysis of voter data from L2, a nonpartisan data provider.

In the five weeks after the court eliminated the constitutional right to abortion, women made up 64% of new Kansas registrations. Then, on Aug. 2, Kansas voters overwhelmingly rejected a ballot measure that would have let state lawmakers impose new restrictions on abortions.

Trump-backed Republicans who oppose abortion rights are fighting for momentum in several swing states.

A leading Republican Senate super PAC recently canceled television ad reservations in Arizona, where Blake Masters is running, while committing $28 million to help Trump loyalist JD Vance in Ohio, a state Trump carried by 8 points in the last election. In Pennsylvania, there are concerns that Mastriano is dragging down the rest of the Republican ticket, while Trump-endorsed GOP Senate nominee Mehmet Oz is struggling with residency questions. And in Georgia, Walker is facing difficult questions about his past and his opposition to abortion in all cases.

Rep. Tom Emmer, the Minnesota Republican who leads the House GOP campaign arm, warned his party against taking anything for granted.

He noted that most of the seats Republicans are targeting this fall are set in districts Biden carried, a contrast from past elections where Republicans found success in GOP-leaning districts.

“Don’t be measuring the drapes,” Emmer told the AP in a message to Republican colleagues. “This isn’t the typical midterm that we’re talking about.”

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Associated Press writers Aaron Kessler, Hannah Fingerhut and Zeke Miller in Washington and Bill Barrow in Atlanta contributed to this report.

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Follow AP for full coverage of the midterms at https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections and on Twitter, https://twitter.com/ap_politics

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WILKES-BARRE, Pa. (AP) — Donald Trump in 2016 was in Pennsylvania over the weekend stumping for his party’s nominee for Senate, Dr. Mehmet Oz and Doug Mastriano, the GOP’s nominee for governor of Pennsylvania, It was Mr. Trump’s first rally since the FBI’s raid of his Mar-a-Lago club, and he spent part of the evening railing against it.

He called it “one of the most shocking abuses of power by any administration in American history” and “a travesty of justice.”

“They’re trying to silence me and more importantly they’re trying to silence you. But we will not be silenced, right?” Trump said.

VIDEO HERE:

https://rumble.com/v1i8anz-live-president-donald-j.-trump-in-wilkes-barre-pa.html

Trump’s endorsed picks won many Republican primaries this summer. In addition to Oz, among the others are author JD Vance in Ohio, venture capitalist Blake Masters in Arizona and former football star Herschel Walker in Georgia.

“Republicans have now nominated a number of candidates who’ve never run for office before for very high-profile Senate races,” said veteran Republican pollster Whit Ayres. While he isn’t writing his party’s chances off just yet, he said, “It’s a much more difficult endeavor than a candidate who had won several difficult political races before.”

The stakes are particularly high for Trump as he lays the groundwork for an expected 2024 presidential run amid a series of escalating legal challenges.

Trump repeatedly attacked Biden — saying at one point “above all this election is a referendum on the corruption and extremism” of Biden and Democrats — and gave a brief spotlight to Oz and Mastriano.

Mastriano, he noted, had fought with him from the beginning to try to help Trump fight for voter integrity, saying Mastriano fought “like very few people fought.”

Oz, Trump said, “is going to work and fight for Pennsylvania,” while he attacked Fetterman and the Democratic nominee for governor, Josh Shapiro, as extreme on issues like crime and abortion. In particular, the former president went after Fetterman’s irreverent dressing habits — shorts and hoodies — saying that “I don’t like those dirty sweat suits, they’re disgusting.”

“Fetterman may dress like a teenager getting high in his parents’ basement, but he’s a raging lunatic hell-bent on springing hardened criminals out of jail in the middle of the worst crime wave in Pennsylvania history,” Trump said.

Republicans have targeted Fetterman for backing proposals to release more geriatric or rehabilitated inmates from prisons and provide flexibility in certain mandatory-sentencing laws.

While Republicans were once seen as having a good chance of gaining control of both chambers of Congress in November, benefitting from soaring inflation, high gas prices and Biden’s slumping approval ratings, Republicans have found themselves on defense since the Supreme Court overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade decision protecting abortion.

In Pennsylvania, Republicans are hoping Oz’s shortcomings as a candidate will be overshadowed by concerns about Fetterman, who suffered a stroke just days before the primary and has been sidelined for much of the summer.

Republicans acknowledge that Oz struggles to come off as authentic and was slow to punch back as Fetterman spent the summer trolling him on social media and portraying him as an ultrawealthy, out-of-touch carpetbagger from New Jersey.

While Fetterman leads Oz in polls and fundraising, Republicans say they expect the money gap to narrow and are pleased to see Oz within striking distance after getting hammered by $20 million in negative advertising during the primaries.

Oz has won over some once-skeptical voters, like Glen Rubendall, who didn’t vote for the TV doctor in his seven-way primary — a victory so narrow it went to a statewide recount — but said he’s come around and has a “pro-Oz view now.”

Traci Martin, a registered independent, also plans to vote for Oz because she opposes abortion, despite ads that aired during the primary featuring past Oz statements that seemed supportive of abortion rights.

“I hope he is pro-life,” Martin said, “but the sad part is we live in an age when we see politicians say one thing and do another.”

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BOSTON (AP) — Republicans hoping to hold on to the Massachusetts governor’s office are choosing between a Donald Trump-backed candidate and a more moderate businessman in Tuesday’s primary election.

Massachusetts is just the latest blue state to feature a top-of-the-ticket contest between a conservative candidate endorsed by Trump and a more centrist opponent. In recent primaries in Maryland and Connecticut, GOP voters have opted for the Trump loyalists, potentially worsening their chances of winning a general election.

The winner of Tuesday’s Massachusetts primary will take on Democratic Attorney General Maura Healey in November. If elected, she would be the state’s first openly gay governor and the first woman elected governor of Massachusetts. Republican Jane Swift served as acting governor after Gov. Paul Cellucci stepped down in 2001 to become U.S. ambassador to Canada.

The governor’s office is open this year because popular GOP Gov. Charlie Baker opted against running for a third term.

What to watch:

Former state Rep. Geoff Diehl, who has Trump’s endorsement, is going up against businessman Chris Doughty, a political newcomer, in the Republican primary for governor.

Diehl, who launched a failed campaign for U.S. Senate against Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren in 2018, is popular among Republican activists. He won the party’s endorsement with 71% of delegates at the state party convention in May, but he could face a tougher climb in a general election in a state in which Trump won only 32% of votes in 2020.

Diehl has opposed COVID-19 mandates, falsely claimed the 2020 presidential race was rigged, fought against the extension of mail-in voting and said he supports the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade.

Trump — a critic of Baker, who publicly refused to vote for Trump in 2016 and 2020 — endorsed Diehl last October, saying in a statement that he is “strong on Crime, Election Integrity, our now under siege Southern Border, loves our Military, and has a big focus on taking care of our Vets.”

Doughty described himself as moderate when he entered the race but has since embraced the label of conservative as he tries to appeal to Republican primary voters. Doughty has said his experience running a manufacturing company gives him the know-how to be a successful chief executive.

He has said he wants to make Massachusetts more affordable for residents and businesses. He has described himself as “pro-life,” but acknowledges the state’s highest court has recognized a right to abortion and said he doesn’t have an interest in changing that.

Baker hasn’t endorsed either candidate.

Healey, who’s won two statewide races for attorney general, is running virtually unopposed, with her sole rival dropping out of the race in June, though she remains on the ballot. Healey is hoping to break a political “curse” in Massachusetts, referring to a string of unsuccessful campaigns by attorneys general for governor.

Despite being considered a Democratic stronghold, Massachusetts has a history of electing Republican governors as a check on a Legislature in which Democrats hold overwhelming majorities. Those Republican governors, including Mitt Romney, have typically been fiscally conservative but more socially moderate.

Baker said in December that he opted not to seek reelection so he could focus on helping the state emerge from the pandemic. He credited his administration’s focus on issues over personality as a big reason for his success with voters, which he said stands “apart from a lot of the bipartisan noise that’s created in politics generally these days.”

The election also features several statewide contested Democratic primaries, including for attorney general and secretary of the commonwealth.

Two Democrats are jockeying for the top law enforcement office: former Boston city councilor Andrea Campbell and workers’ rights attorney Shannon Liss-Riordan. A week before the election, a former assistant attorney general, Quentin Palfrey, announced he was suspending his campaign and endorsed Campbell.

The winner will face Republican Jay McMahon, a trial attorney who previously ran against Healey and lost, in November.

If elected, Campbell would be the first Black woman to hold the office in Massachusetts. She’s won the endorsement of several high-profile elected officials, including Healey, Sen. Edward Markey and half the state’s congressional delegation.

Liss-Riordan has the backing of Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu and former acting Boston Mayor Kim Janey.

In the race for secretary of the commonwealth, Democratic incumbent William Galvin is hoping to win an eighth term in office. He’s fielding a primary challenge from fellow Democrat Tanisha Sullivan, a lawyer and president of the Boston branch of the NAACP. Sullivan would be the first Black person to serve in the post in the state.

There are also contested races in the Democratic primary for auditor and for the Democratic and Republican races for lieutenant governor.

None of the state’s nine incumbent Democratic U.S. House members is facing primary challengers. There are two contested Republican primaries, in the 8th and 9th congressional districts.

The Massachusetts primary lands on the day after Labor Day, raising concerns about a potentially low turnout, although early voting began on Aug. 27.

A new state law makes “no excuse” mail-in ballots and early voting permanent fixtures in Massachusetts elections. Many of the voting options included in the new law were implemented during the height of the coronavirus pandemic and proved popular.

The law also increases ballot access for voters with disabilities, service members overseas and incarcerated individuals.

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Follow AP for full coverage of the midterms at https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections and on Twitter, https://twitter.com/ap_politics.

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By Ted Hesson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. election officials see potential violence and disruptions as the biggest threats to midterm elections in November, with misinformation fueling those concerns, Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson said on Sunday.

Benson, a Democrat, said election officials from both parties are working with law enforcement officials to protect the Nov. 8 elections and make clear there will be consequences for those who try to interfere.

“We are, in many ways, even more prepared this year than ever before,” she said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

Michigan, a swing state, has become the focus of several high-profile criminal cases linked to elections in recent years.

In the run-up to the 2020 presidential election, alleged militia members were arrested for plotting to kidnap Democratic Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. Two of the 13 suspects were convicted in August.

Earlier this year, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, also a Democrat, launched a statewide investigation into alleged illegal breaches of vote tabulators.

The investigation followed breaches of local election systems by Republican officials and activists trying to prove former President Donald Trump’s unsupported claims of widespread fraud in the 2020 election.

Authorities in Michigan are currently investigating how a piece of state voting machinery recently surfaced for sale on eBay, Benson said on Sunday, adding that it may have been accidentally discarded.

(Reporting by Ted Hesson in Washington; Editing by Deepa Babington)

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ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis wants a federal judge to throw out a free speech lawsuit filed by a Democratic prosecutor he suspended from office over statements about not pursuing criminal charges in abortion, transgender rights and certain low-level cases.

The Republican governor told U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle of Tallahassee in a filing late Friday that Andrew Warren — removed last month as elected state attorney in Hillsborough County, which includes Tampa — cannot claim First Amendment protection for his comments on how he would handle these hot-button political issues.

“Mr. Warren had no First Amendment right, as a public official, to declare that he would not perform his duties under Florida law,” state Solicitor General Henry C. Whitaker wrote in the 39-page filing for DeSantis.

Warren, first elected in 2016 and re-elected in 2020, claimed in his lawsuit filed Aug. 17 that the governor is overturning the will of the people who put him in office and that his suspension is based solely on his statements and not on any actual prosecutorial decisions.

Warren said the governor’s dismissal motion misses the mark. His lawsuit ultimately seeks his reinstatement as state attorney.

“This is a poor defense of an indefensible abuse of power. The fact that taxpayers continue to foot the bill for this makes it even more shameful,” Warren said in an email statement.

Hinkle has scheduled a Sept. 19 hearing in Tallahassee to hear arguments in the Warren lawsuit. The GOP-dominated state Senate, which has authority to affirm or rescind the prosecutor’s suspension, is holding off its proceedings until the court challenge is settled.

The case comes as DeSantis seeks re-election in November against Democrat Charlie Crist, who has made abortion rights a cornerstone of his campaign. DeSantis is also widely considered a candidate for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.

When Warren was removed from office Aug. 4, DeSantis accused the prosecutor of incompetence and neglect of duty. The governor cited joint statements Warren signed with prosecutors across the country pledging not to prosecute people who seek, provide or support abortions or to criminalize gender-affirming health care or transgender people.

The governor also contended that Warren was improperly seeking to “pick and choose” which laws to enforce, such as a policy against going after some low-level crimes such those found when police stop a pedestrian or bicyclist — known locally as charges stemming from “biking while Black.”

In the dismissal motion, DeSantis argues that Warren has no justification to bring a free speech claim because he was not simply stating opinions but taking official prosecutorial positions — which Warren rejects — and that federal court is not the place to settle it.

“At bottom, this case does not warrant federal court intervention in a quintessentially state matter: the governor’s constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, and the state’s constitutional process for removing wayward officials who refuse to faithfully execute those laws,” the governor’s motion says.

DeSantis appointed former Hillsborough County Judge Susan Lopez to replace Warren as state attorney. She was previously appointed to the bench by DeSantis in 2021.

Warren has received support for his lawsuit through “friend of court” briefs filed by a number of legal scholars and by members of the state Constitution Revision Commission.

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JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Hundreds of thousands of people signed petitions this year backing proposed ballot initiatives to expand voting access, ensure abortion rights and legalize recreational marijuana in Arizona, Arkansas and Michigan.

Yet voters might not get a say because Republican officials or judges have blocked the proposals from the November elections, citing flawed wording, procedural shortcomings or insufficient petition signatures.

At the same time, Republican lawmakers in Arkansas and Arizona have placed constitutional amendments on the ballot proposing to make it harder to approve citizen initiatives in the future.

The Republican pushback against the initiative process is part of a several-year trend that gained steam as Democratic-aligned groups have increasingly used petitions to force public votes on issues that Republican-led legislatures have opposed. In reliably Republican Missouri, for example, voters have approved initiatives to expand Medicaid, raise the minimum wage and legalize medical marijuana. An initiative seeking to allow recreational pot is facing a court challenge from an anti-drug activist aiming to knock it off the November ballot.

Some Democrats contend Republicans are subverting the will of the people by making the ballot initiative process more difficult.

“What is happening now is just a web of technicalities to thwart the process in states where voters are using the people’s tool to make an immediate positive change in their lives,” said Chris Melody Fields Figueredo, executive director of the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center, which has worked with progressive groups sponsoring the blocked initiatives.

“That is not the way our democracy should work,” she added

Republicans who have thrown up hurdles to initiative petitions contend they are protecting the integrity of the lawmaking process against well-funded interest groups trying to bend state policies in their favor.

“I think the Legislature is a much purer way to get things done and it represents the people much better, rather than having this jungle where you just throw it on the ballot,” said South Dakota state Rep. Tim Goodwin, who has perennially targeted the initiative process with restrictions.

About half the states allow citizen initiatives, in which petition signers can bypass a legislature to place proposed laws or constitutional changes directly before voters. But executive or judicial officials often still have some role in the process, typically by certifying that the ballot wording is clear and accurate and that petition circulators gathered enough valid signatures of registered voters.

In Michigan this past week, two Republican members of the bipartisan Board of State Canvassers blocked initiatives to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution and expand opportunities for voting. Each measure had significantly more than the required 425,000 signatures. But GOP board members said the voting measure had unclear wording and the abortion measure was flawed because of spacing problems that scrunched some words together.

Supporters have appealed both decisions to the Michigan Supreme Court, which consists of a majority of Democratic-appointed judges.

The Arkansas Supreme Court, whose justices run in nonpartisan elections, is weighing an appeal of an August decision blocking an initiative that would legalize recreational marijuana for adults.

The State Board of Election Commissioners, which has just one Democrat among its many Republicans, determined that the ballot title was misleading because it failed to mention it would repeal potency limits in an existing medical marijuana provision. Because the deadline has passed to certify initiative titles, the Supreme Court has allowed the measure on the general election ballot while it decides whether the votes will be counted.

A lawsuit by initiative supporters contends a 2019 law passed by the Republican-led Legislature violates the Arkansas Constitution by allowing the board to reject ballot titles.

“The (initiative) process in Arkansas has gotten consistently harder each cycle, as the Legislature adds more and more requirements,” said Steve Lancaster, a lawyer for Responsible Growth Arkansas, which is sponsoring the marijuana amendment.

It would get even harder if voters support a legislatively referred amendment on the November ballot that would require a 60% vote to approve citizen-initiated ballot measures or future constitutional amendments.

In Arizona, the primarily Republican-appointed Supreme Court recently blocked a proposed constitutional amendment that would have extended early voting and limited lobbyist gifts to lawmakers. The measure also would have specifically prohibited the Legislature from overturning the results of presidential elections, which some Republicans had explored after then- President Donald Trump’s loss in 2020.

After a lower court initially ruled the measure could appear on the November ballot, Arizona’s high court instructed the judge to reconsider. Then it upheld a subsequent ruling throwing out enough petition signatures to prevent the initiative from qualifying for the ballot.

Still on the ballot are several other amendments referred by Arizona’s Republican-led Legislature. Those measures would limit initiatives to a single subject, require a 60% supermajority to approve tax proposals and expand the Legislature’s authority to change voter-approved initiatives.

Those proposals come after Arizona Republicans have spent the past decade enacting laws making it more difficult to get citizen initiatives on the ballot. State laws now require petition sheets to be precisely printed and ban the use of a copy machine to create new ones. Other laws require paid circulators to include their registration number on each petition sheet, get it notarized and check a box saying they were paid.

“The effect is to make it much harder, much more expensive to get the signatures to put one of these propositions on the ballot,” said Terry Goddard, a Democrat who served as the state’s attorney general from 2003 through 2011.

After years of trying, Goddard finally succeeded this year in getting an initiative on the ballot that would require nonprofit groups that spend large amounts on elections to reveal their donors.

Earlier this summer, South Dakota voters defeated a measure that would have made it harder to pass initiatives on taxes and spending. The proposal from the Republican-led Legislature would have required a 60% vote to raise taxes or spend over a certain amount of money. Voters rejected the measure by 67%.

“This just seems like a way to suppress voters. honestly,” Joshua Matzner, a Democrat, said after voting against it.

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Associated Press writers Bob Christie in Phoenix and Stephen Groves in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, contributed to this report.

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Follow AP for full coverage of the midterms at https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections and on Twitter, https://twitter.com/ap_politics

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TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly wasted little time after a decisive victory in Kansas for abortion rights before sending out a national fundraising email warning that access to the procedure would be “on the chopping block” if her party did not win in the November elections.

But her message to voters at large as she heads into the fall campaign is dramatically different, even as Democrats in other states stress abortion access as an issue.

A few days after her abortion-related fundraising email, Kelly’s team suggested she would be focusing her reelection campaign on the state’s now-healthy finances, robust funding for public schools and high-profile promises by businesses to create jobs.

Democrats are split over whether it’s the best strategy in a tough race against Republican Derek Schmidt, the three-term state attorney general. Kelly still has to win over some independents and moderate Republicans in her solidly red state, and although abortion access can attract centrist voters and drive turnout, it’s the economy — and the pinch at the grocery store from inflation — that remains a big concern for them.

“She needs to pull people from all kinds of areas,” said Joan Wagnon, a former Topeka mayor, state lawmaker and Kansas Democratic Party chair. While Kelly can use abortion as an issue to her advantage, Wagnon said, “I don’t think it’s the centerpiece of her campaign.”

Voters on Aug. 2 overwhelmingly rejected a proposed amendment to the Kansas Constitution that would have removed protections for abortion rights. It was the first state referendum on abortion after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June.

Kelly’s approach heading into the general election contrasts with how Democratic Govs. Tony Evers in Wisconsin and Gretchen Whitmer in Michigan have made support for abortion rights central to their reelection campaigns. In Ohio, Democratic nominee Nan Whaley is stressing the issue in her race against anti-abortion Republican Gov. Mike DeWine.

Some Democrats think Kelly is missing an opportunity if she doesn’t follow suit.

“The only way you inspire young voters, which is who Laura Kelly needs, is to make them feel like you understand the issues that they care about right now,” said Christopher Reeves, a suburban Kansas City activist, consultant and former Democratic National Committee member. “And the issue that they care about, especially young women voters, is abortion.”

In winning her first term in 2018 by about 5 percentage points, Kelly wooed independent and moderate Republican voters by pitching herself as a commonsense, bipartisan leader.

But she also was running in a good year for Democrats — they regained a U.S. House majority — and against conservative Kris Kobach, who advocated for tough immigration policies as a major supporter of then-President Donald Trump.

Kelly’s stance on abortion rights brought Stephan Simmons, a 25-year-old higher education recruiter, firmly into her camp for November. Once a conservative Republican turned unaffiliated voter, he became a Democrat shortly before the Aug. 2 election.

He made sure he returned to Kansas City from a business trip in time to drive to his hometown of Wichita to vote in person. Along the way, he picked up a friend, Hunter Picard, so that Picard could vote in Rose Hill, southeast of Wichita. Picard, a 25-year-old chemist working in Lawrence, is unaffiliated.

Both said they thought of their sisters before voting against the proposed amendment. But Picard said he hasn’t decided how he will vote in the governor’s race in November.

Mandi Hunter, a 46-year-old real estate attorney from the Kansas City suburb of Leawood, is a self-described GOP moderate who voted against the proposed constitutional amendment. She, too, said she is undecided about her vote in November, though she noted that there will be more than just abortion on the ballot.

“They can’t ignore the other issues,” Hunter said.

Some Republicans believe voters will remain far more focused on the economy than abortion. Kelly is campaigning as if she agrees, staging a “Prosperity on the Plains” tour to promote her administration’s business development efforts.

Kelly campaign spokesperson, Madison Andrus, pivoted to economic and education issues when asked for more details about the governor’s position on abortion. The campaign would not say whether Kelly wants more abortion access than what is allowed now, with the state banning most abortions at the 22nd week of pregnancy and imposing other requirements such as a 24-hour waiting period.

Kelly’s staff didn’t make the governor available to discuss her campaign but provided a statement on her behalf to The Associated Press.

“The August 2 vote shows that Kansans want their government focused on things like the economy and schools — and not intervening in private medical decisions. Now that voters have spoken clearly, Governor Kelly will remain focused on bringing both parties together to get results — a balanced budget, cutting taxes, fully funding schools, and attracting new businesses to the state,” said campaign spokesperson Lauren Fitzgerald.

Schmidt, who backed the proposed constitutional change, said in a postelection statement that he has never “advocated for a ban” on abortion. He said he supports allowing abortions to save a woman’s life, in cases of rape and incest and when a fetus has a condition “that makes it impossible to survive outside the womb.”

On Thursday, Schmidt said the outcome of the referendum has to be “respected” and that if elected governor, he would focus on enforcing abortion laws already on the books.

Some political operatives and pollsters argue for reading the Kansas vote narrowly, as opposition to a ban or a near-total ban rather than unconditional support for abortion in any circumstance.

An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll in July found that while a majority of people in the United States wanted Congress to pass a law guaranteeing access to abortion nationwide, only one-third said a state generally should allow abortions at 24 weeks. A little more than half would allow abortions at 15 weeks.

Charles Franklin, director of Marquette University’s Law School Poll, said Democrats should be running against severe abortion restrictions. “The challenge is,” he said, “how do you do that without seeming to be for unlimited abortion rights?”

Pat McPherron, a GOP pollster from Oklahoma City who works for U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., said he expects abortion to fade as an issue.

“It’s one that voters think has been asked and answered,” he said. “Voters move on.”

Abortion rights supporters acknowledged that they’re still trying to figure out how to keep their voters energized until November.

“Frankly, it’s our job to make sure they don’t move on,” said Susan Osborne, one of the leaders of Women for Kansas, a nonpartisan advocacy group that opposed the proposed amendment. “This was the beginning of the journey for us.”

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Associated Press writers Sara Burnett in Chicago and Hannah Fingerhut in Washington contributed to this report.

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Follow John Hanna on Twitter: https://twitter.com/apjdhanna

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Follow AP for full coverage of the midterms at https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections and on Twitter, https://twitter.com/ap_politics

Follow AP’s coverage of abortion at https://apnews.com/hub/abortion

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This story has been corrected to reflect that Schmidt, at a campaign event Thursday, did not specifically address whether he would advocate for tougher abortion restrictions if elected governor.

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