Politics

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Growing discontent over homelessness and crime in Portland is driving interest in a pair of Oregon congressional primaries, one featuring a vulnerable incumbent endorsed by President Joe Biden and the other involving a candidate bankrolled by cryptocurrency.

Tuesday’s primaries for the 5th and 6th U.S. House districts are playing out in a state that’s become a right-wing target after sometimes-violent protests in Portland following George Floyd’s murder, surging gun crime and an ongoing homelessness crisis in the city.

The problems have given Republicans a megaphone and raised the stakes for Democrats as a crowded field of candidates vies to advance to November in a historically blue state, said John Horvick, political director at the nonpartisan public opinion firm DHM Research.

“Two of the districts touch on Portland, and Portland’s just become a rallying cry. It’s the biggest city, and it matters to the state’s economy, but it’s also a symbol for what is going wrong in the state right now,” Horvick said.

Another key race, for Oregon’s 4th Congressional District, is wide open for the first time in decades as Democratic U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio retires after 35 years. Changes to that district’s boundaries, however, are expected to favor Democrats even more strongly.

In Oregon voting is done entirely by mail, and nonaffiliated and third-party voters together make up the largest group of voters. So far, turnout has been anemic, but that could change because voters have until election day to postmark their ballots.

Amid that backdrop, a newly created 6th Congressional District that includes some Portland suburbs is creating national buzz for the amount of money in play and has attracted 16 candidates, including a Democratic newcomer backed by a cryptocurrency kingpin. The state gained a district in a once-in-a-decade reapportionment after the 2020 U.S. Census.

The nine Democrats competing in the primary have spent more than $18 million combined and drawn more than $13 million in outside money to date, making the race one of the most costly among Democratic primaries nationwide, according to OpenSecrets, a nonpartisan research group that tracks money in politics.

Top among those is Carrick Flynn, whose ads have inundated local TV but who remains unfamiliar to many voters. Cryptocurrency billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried’s political action committee has poured millions into Flynn’s campaign, and the powerful House Majority PAC, which focuses on electing Democrats to the U.S. House, has spent $1 million in ads on his behalf.

Flynn appears to be in a close race with state Rep. Andrea Salinas, a three-term state lawmaker who would become Oregon’s first Hispanic woman in Congress if elected. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts endorsed Salinas this week, saying she would be a “progressive champion” for working families in the district, which is 20% Hispanic.

Seven Republicans are running for the 6th district seat, including Ron Noble, a moderate who currently serves in the Oregon House.

Meanwhile, the D5th district has been significantly redrawn, leaving centrist incumbent Democratic Rep. Kurt Schrader to defend himself from progressive candidate Jamie McLeod-Skinner, who has the backing of the local Democratic parties in all four counties covered by the seat.

The district, which once stretched to the Pacific Coast, now reaches east across the state’s political fault lines to include Bend — an area where Schrader has less name recognition. Biden recently endorsed the seven-term congressman for reelection in the district, which now leans a little less blue.

Schrader, a veterinarian and former state lawmaker, has alienated progressive members of his party over the course of his last term.

He was one of two House Democrats to vote against a $1.9 trillion pandemic relief package, in part because he didn’t want the bill to include an increase in the minimum wage. He also voted in committee against a Biden-supported plan that would have allowed Medicare to negotiate outpatient medication prices with pharmaceutical companies and has apologized for likening the pending impeachment of then-President Donald Trump over the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection to a “lynching.”

“There’s been a lot of discontent with a lot of the votes the Congressman has made and there’s a perception that he’s not really true to the standards of the party,” said Judy Stiegler, a part-time instructor at Oregon State University-Cascades and a former state lawmaker.

But some primary voters who pay attention may be concerned that McLeod-Skinner, an attorney and former city planner, wouldn’t be as competitive in November, particularly given that issues like Portland’s crime and homelessness are on the minds of even more moderate Democrats. The nature of primary voters — older and more politically moderate — may also play in Schrader’s favor, she added.

Meanwhile, five Republicans are vying to advance to November’s general election in the 5th district.

Jimmy Crumpacker, a seventh-generation Oregonian who worked on Wall Street and now owns his own energy firm, and former Happy Valley Mayor Lori Chavez-DeRemer have emerged in the crowded field in the increasingly bitter campaign.

Crumpacker, who said in a tweet that he was running to “stop the dumpster fire that is ruining this state,” has tried to pin Chavez-DeRemer as pro-abortion rights and too liberal.

Chavez-DeRemer, meanwhile, has gotten a nod from the third-ranking Republican in the House, Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York, who called her a “proven conservative results-getter” in a recent endorsement.

The race for Oregon’s only House district held by the GOP, in rural eastern Oregon, has gotten little attention and changes to the district’s boundaries are widely expected to make it even more safely Republican.

Likewise, two Democratic incumbents — Rep. Suzanne Bonamici in the 1st district and Rep. Earl Blumenauer in the 3rd district — are not expected to face serious primary challenges.

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By David Morgan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The top Democrat and Republican in the U.S. Senate joined forces in a rare moment of unity on Thursday in an attempt to pass $40 billion in aid for Ukraine, only to be stymied by a single Republican lawmaker: Senator Rand Paul.

Faced with the prospect of an extended delay for the package that passed the House of Representatives on Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and his Republican counterpart, Mitch McConnell, sought to move forward on the aid package only to be blocked by Paul, a longtime fiscal hawk who objects to the amount of spending proposed.

The stalemate delayed passage of the measure into next week.

The Senate has scheduled an initial procedural vote on the bill for late Monday afternoon. It was unclear whether that vote would then speed passage of the Ukraine aid. Alternatively, passage could come around the middle of next week if any senator wants to force a series of legislative steps before a final vote.

As the Ukraine aid bill became caught in the Senate’s procedural gears, Schumer pleaded for fast action: “The package is ready to go, the vast majority of senators on both sides of the aisle want it.”

“If Senator Paul persists in his reckless demands … all he will accomplish is to single-handedly delay desperately-needed Ukraine aid.”

But Paul was not moved.

The delay into next week could cause problems for Western nations trying to bolster Ukraine in its fight against Russia. The Biden administration has said that by May 19 it expects to run out available funds to draw on under an authority that allows the president to authorize the transfer of weapons without congressional approval in response to an emergency.

Paul is demanding that the legislation be altered to require an inspector general to oversee spending on Ukraine. Without his agreement, the Senate must follow a lengthy process stipulated by the chamber’s arcane rules.

In an usual display of legislative theater, Schumer was joined by his political rival, McConnell, who also addressed the urgency of the situation.

“Ukraine is not asking us to fight this war. They’re only asking for the resources they need to defend themselves against this deranged invasion. And they need this help right now,” said McConnell, who is Paul’s fellow senator from Kentucky.

The House passed the Ukraine spending bill by 368 to 57, with only Republicans voting against it.

President Joe Biden had asked Congress to approve an additional $33 billion in aid for Ukraine. But lawmakers decided to increase the military and humanitarian funding.

On Thursday, Schumer and McConnell offered Paul an amendment vote on his proposal that would have required support from 60 of the 100 senators to pass.

But Paul refused the offer and demanded the Senate adopt his amendment before voting on the aid package.

“This is the second spending bill for Ukraine in two months. And this bill is three times larger than the first,” Paul said before formally blocking the aid package. “Congress just wants to keep on spending, and spending.”

(Reporting by David Morgan, additional reporting by Richard Cowan, Moira Warburton and Eric Beech; Editing by Scott Malone and Grant McCool)

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Joe Biden on Thursday commemorated the COVID-19 deaths of 1 million people in the United States, marking what he called “a tragic milestone” and urging Americans to “remain vigilant” during the ongoing pandemic.

In a statement, Biden acknowledged the impact of the deaths on families left behind and urged the country not to “grow numb to such sorrow.”

The United States on Wednesday reached more than 1 million COVID-19 deaths, according to a Reuters tally, crossing a once-unthinkable milestone about two years after the first cases upended everyday life. The loss represents about one death for every 327 Americans, or more than the entire population of San Francisco or Seattle.

Most of those deaths, some 600,000, happened after Biden took office in January 2021 at the peak of a major wave of the disease.

Biden marked the sad occasion by ordering flags to be flown at half-staff. The administration on Thursday also hosted a global COVID Summit with other countries to spur international efforts to fight the pandemic.

Biden’s more muted response to the 1 million deaths contrasts with his commemoration of 500,000 deaths last year, roughly a month after he took over from former President Donald Trump, who many voters criticized for downplaying COVID’s impacts and bungling the government response.

In February 2021, 500 lit candles lined steps at the White House and a military band played “Amazing Grace” as Biden, his wife Jill, Vice President Kamala Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff, bowed their heads in respect for the dead.

Politically, Biden now owns the pandemic. He ran against Trump on a promise to take it more seriously, and he came into office with a plan to get Americans vaccinated and an attempt to show leadership on mask-wearing and mitigation efforts.

But he faced an unexpectedly strong opposition to vaccine and mask mandates, led by Republicans, that turned public safety measures endorsed by disease experts into a political and legal battle in the United States.

A conservative-dominated Supreme Court struck down his federal vaccine-or-test mandate for companies, and a Trump-appointed judge struck down his public transportation mask mandate.

READY TO MOVE ON

The administration’s focus on vaccines as the way out of the pandemic also left it scrambling when new virus variants emerged that were resistant to them, health experts said, while some critics also faulted Biden’s team for not doing enough early on to increase coronavirus testing nationwide.

Just 67% of Americans are fully vaccinated – one of the lowest rates among wealthy countries – and hundreds are still dying from the disease every day.

Now, even with cases once again rising, mask-wearing is less common, mandates are increasingly taboo, and some Democrats, including in the administration, seem ready simply to move on.

Polls seen by the White House have shown that some key voters view the party’s response to COVID, which Biden aides have long viewed as one of the president’s strengths, as too heavy-handed.

While many Americans are eager to maintain the use of masks and other safety measures, many are also fatigued by the two-year-old pandemic and more focused on fears about the direction of the economy, one White House official said, citing public and Democratic polls.

That has been reflected in Biden’s response.

In his recent public remarks, the president mentions COVID-19 more often as a cause of inflation than as a sickness that Americans should work to avoid. The administration has emphasized the fact that COVID deaths are relatively low compared with earlier in the health crisis.

Biden has urged Congress to fund billions more in COVID aid to continue fighting the virus as new variants of concern emerge.

“We must remain vigilant against this pandemic and do everything we can to save as many lives as possible, as we have with more testing, vaccines, and treatments than ever before,” Biden said on Thursday. “It’s critical that Congress sustain these resources in the coming months.”

U.S. lawmakers had reached a $10 billion deal but the additional tranche of funding has been delayed over various concerns.

Researchers are working on yet another booster shot as the virus continues to mutate, and health experts have said greater pandemic investment is needed now to thwart future outbreaks that could cause further havoc.

The precise toll of the pandemic may never be truly known. Some people who died while infected were never tested and are not represented in the data. Others, while having COVID-19, may have died for another reason such as a cancer, but were still counted.

(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt and Jeff Mason, additional reporting by by Alexandra Alper and Susan Heavey; Editing by Heather Timmons, Bernadette Baum and Bill Berkrot)

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ATLANTA (AP) — A Georgia judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed by former U.S. Sen. David Perdue that alleged fraudulent or counterfeit ballots were counted in the state’s most populous county during the 2020 general election.

Perdue filed the lawsuit, along with an individual voter, in December a few days after he announced that he would be challenging Gov. Brian Kemp in the Republican primary. Among other things, the suit sought access to examine absentee ballots, saying that would allow the petitioners to prove that there had been fraud in Fulton County.

Investigators with the secretary of state’s office found no evidence to support the fraud claims, but that hasn’t stopped former President Donald Trump, Perdue and others from continuing to spread them.

The suit was similar to another filed by a group of voters that was dismissed in October because a judge found the group hadn’t alleged a “particularized injury” and therefore didn’t have standing to sue. That ruling has been appealed.

Perdue and voter Elizabeth Grace Lennon argued that their state constitutional rights to equal protection and due process have been violated. Perdue claims his particularized injury was that he was a candidate for reelection in November but failed to achieve a majority, forcing him into a runoff with Democrat Jon Ossoff that Perdue lost. Lennon says she sought to cast an in-person early vote in October 2020 but was told someone had already submitted a mail ballot in her name.

In an order dated Wednesday dismissing the lawsuit, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney wrote that it “is not really about Perdue’s loss or Lennon’s personal voting experience.” Its core claims, he notes, are that several batches of absentee ballots were scanned multiple times and thousands of unlawful counterfeit absentee ballots were counted and certified in Fulton County.

Those are claims that were repeatedly pushed in the aftermath of the 2020 election by people who allege that widespread fraud caused the presidential election to be stolen from Trump. Perdue, who is trailing Kemp in polls as the May 24 Republican primary grows near, has made claims of a “stolen and rigged” election a central pillar of his campaign and frequently talks about the lawsuit while campaigning.

The lawsuit asks the judge to declare that county officials violated the petitioners’ equal protection and due process rights, but such a declaration requires that they demonstrate that if the court doesn’t act, their interests will be harmed in the future, McBurney wrote. Instead, they asked him to make a declaration about something that had already happened in the past, and the court can’t do that, he wrote.

The lawsuit also asks the judge to issue a series of orders that would empower the petitioners’ experts to “intrude upon the sealed ballot materials of tens of thousands of Fulton County voters, hunt for speculative voter fraud or error, and then determine for themselves what the ‘actual’ vote count should have been in the Election,” McBurney wrote.

“This quixotic journey will not take place,” he added.

Perdue harshly criticized the ruling saying it was “another example of how the establishment continues to cover up what happened in 2020, and we will vigorously appeal the decision.”

The lawsuit “excoriates” county officials for “having ‘negligently, willfully, wantonly, outwardly, maliciously or corruptly and unapologetically acted with malfeasance’ thereby causing electors in Fulton County to experience ‘disenfranchisement, dilution, debasement, and corruption of their vote in the General Election,’” but it doesn’t seek a remedy for the alleged violations of the petitioners’ rights, McBurney wrote.

The lawsuit seeks a declaration that the court is unable to provide and without such a declaration, the petitioners’ requests “are left supported only by sour grapes which make a wine this Court will not serve,” McBurney wrote.

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Associated Press writer Jeff Amy contributed to this report.

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(Reuters) – The Trump Organization said on Wednesday that it completed the $375 million sale of the lease on the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C. to an investment firm that plans to rebrand the property as the Waldorf Astoria.

The business owned by the family of former President Donald Trump bought the rights in 2013 to the hotel, housed inside in the historic Old Post Office Building blocks away from the White House, and renovated it. The building itself is still owned by the federal government.

In March, the U.S. General Services Administration, which acts as the federal government’s landlord, approved the sale of the rights by the Trump Organization to Miami-based CGI Merchant Group.

Trump is projected to gain $100 million from the transaction.

The Trump International Hotel served as a gathering point for Trump’s supporters and some foreign government officials during his time in the White House.

During his presidency, the hotel became the focus of conflict of interest allegations against Trump and his family. Critics were concerned that outside entities tried to curry favor with Trump by booking stays and spending money at the hotel.

In 2016 he was elected president and later handed over day-to-day operations of the Trump Organization to two of his sons, though he did not formally divest himself from the business during his term, which ended in early 2021.

The Trump Organization and Trump’s 2017 U.S. presidential inaugural committee recently agreed to pay $750,000 to settle a lawsuit brought by the District of Columbia’s attorney general claiming the family-owned hotel received excessive payments from the committee.

(Reporting by Tyler Clifford; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

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SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — The insurgent candidate backed by former President Donald Trump appears to be stalling in a crowded field of Republicans challenging the GOP incumbent for a U.S. House seat in conservative central Washington state.

Rep. Dan Newhouse, a four-term congressman, has drawn primary challengers thanks in part to being among the few in his party who voted to impeach President Donald Trump. Perhaps the best known outside candidate in Washington’s 4th Congressional District’s intraparty feud is Loren Culp, who’s running against his own Republican Party as much as he is against Newhouse.

Culp, a former small town police chief who lost the 2020 governor’s race to Democrat Jay Inslee but refused to concede, won Trump’s endorsement in February, but has lagged other candidates in reported fundraising figures.

Trump’s influence among GOP voters is being tested in midterm elections across the country this year as he looks to flex his power and punish his enemies ahead of a possible 2024 presidential campaign. Trump has vowed to take down the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach him over the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol, and four have already announced they won’t be seeking re-election. So far, Trump has found mixed success in his endorsement record, but it’s still early in the primary season.

In addition to Culp, four other GOP candidates are running against Newhouse in the Aug. 2 primary. Because of Washington’s top-two system, two Republicans could end up on the fall ballot. The top two primary vote-getters advance, regardless of party.

Todd Schaefer, a political scientist at Central Washington University, said he has been surprised by how little money Culp has raised, given his high-profile run for governor two years ago.

“On paper he should have good name recognition,” Schaefer said. “You would think he’d get a lot of grassroots support.”

Culp was invited to visit with Trump at Mar-a-Lago in late February. Trump’s endorsement of Culp read in part: “Loren Culp is running against RINO Congressman Dan Newhouse … Loren will always defend your personal liberty, our under-siege Second Amendment, election integrity and law enforcement.”

The other GOP challengers in the race are Jerrod Sessler, a Navy veteran and former NASCAR driver who has raised the most money; Corey Gibson; state Rep. Bradley Klippert, R-Kennewick; and Benanacio Garcia III.

As of the March 31 filing deadline, Culp had raised just $191,000 and had just $23,000 in cash on hand. Sessler had raised $444,000 and had $146,000 in the bank. Democrat Doug White had raised $230,000 and also had $146,000 in the bank. Gibson, Klippert and Garcia had raised little money.

Culp’s campaign has declined to return telephone calls from reporters but has made statements on Facebook. He lashed out recently at Republican Party officials who do not share his conservative views.

“The party can come and go … the Constitution is first and foremost,” Culp said. “God, family, country. That’s what’s important.”

Culp served as a police officer and then police chief of the small town of Republic for a decade. His job was eliminated because of budget cuts shortly after the 2020 election. He has since moved to Moses Lake.

Schaefer isn’t surprised so many Republicans decided to challenge Newhouse.

“The vote to impeach Trump put a target on him,” Schaefer said, noting that Newhouse otherwise seems a good fit for the district. The 4th runs from the Canadian border to the Columbia River through the agricultural heartland of the state east of the Cascade Range. The district is home to apple and cherry orchards, vineyards and wineries and a bounty of other farm crops and its biggest population centers are the Tri-Cities and Yakima.

Newhouse, who won 66% of the vote in 2020, so far has run a low-key campaign campaign, although he has veered to the right in an effort to fend off the challengers.

Newhouse, first elected in 2014, has raised $1.2 million and had $928,000 in the bank as of March 31.

“Dan is going to win because voters see that he’s a real conservative who works hard and gets results for the people he serves,” Newhouse campaign manager Derek Flint wrote in an email to The Associated Press.

The Washington State Republican Party will not endorse a candidate prior to the primary, chair Caleb Heimlich said.

The party last year decided it was “disappointed” with Newhouse and U.S. Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler of Washington’s 3rd District for voting to impeach Trump. The party said it would treat the incumbents and any GOP challengers as equals this year.

“We want to make sure we hold the seat,” Heimlich said. “It’s up to the voters of the 4th Congressional District who they want to represent them.”

Heimlich predicted that two Republicans will likely emerge from the primary to the general election in what is considered the state’s most conservative district.

But Schaefer said with so many Republicans in the primary, it is possible that White, the lone Democrat in the race, could finish in the top two and advance to the November general election.

“But whoever gets the Republican nomination will have the advantage,” in the general election, Schaefer said.

The endorsement of Culp continued Trump’s pattern of seeking to oust politicians who have refused to echo his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen. Trump has also endorsed Joe Kent, a challenger to Herrera Beutler.

Like Trump, Culp has lobbed false claims of widespread voter fraud.

He refused to concede the 2020 gubernatorial race after losing to Inslee by 545,000 votes. Culp also filed a lawsuit over the results but quickly withdrew it after his attorney was threatened with sanctions for making meritless claims in a court of law.

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HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — A Republican candidate for Pennsylvania governor said Thursday that he was ending his campaign and endorsing rival Lou Barletta, a move that comes as GOP leaders warn that leading candidate Doug Mastriano is too far right to win in a general election.

Jake Corman, Pennsylvania’s ranking state senator, announced his endorsement of Barletta at a news conference just days before the state’s Tuesday primary and amid hand-wringing by establishment Republicans that a Mastriano victory would doom their chances of flipping the governor’s mansion in November in the battleground state.

Corman’s name will remain on ballots statewide, and mail-in voting has been underway for weeks. It’s unclear what, if any, effect Corman’s decision to end his campaign will have on the race, since polls have showed him gaining little traction.

Mastriano has shown strength in recent polls, while being a prominent peddler of conspiracy theories, including former President Donald Trump’s false claims that widespread fraud marred the 2020 election and resulted in his loss in Pennsylvania. Mastriano also floated a plan to overturn the election results, helping draw a subpoena from the congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

For weeks, party officials behind the scenes have urged candidates in what was originally a 10-deep field to step aside and coalesce around one candidate to help defeat Mastriano. One dropped out early enough in the race to remove his name from ballots, but eight candidates still remain.

Both Corman and Barletta declined to say why they think Mastriano cannot beat the presumptive Democratic nominee, state Attorney General Josh Shapiro.

Barletta acknowledged Thursday that there is very little in policy difference between him and Mastriano. Rather, he pointed to his experience winning elections as mayor in small-city Hazleton and in winning four terms in Congress.

Mastriano earlier this week said the Republican establishment “is in a panic mode” at the prospect that he will be the party’s nominee. Meanwhile, two other Republicans who remain in the race, Bill McSwain and Dave White, derided the Corman-Barletta alliance as one career politician endorsing another career politician.

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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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Follow Marc Levy on Twitter at https://twitter.com/timelywriter

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LITTLETON, Colo. (AP) — A handful of curious voters mingled on a suburban Denver brewpub’s patio one recent evening as Pam Anderson told them she could restore professionalism to the office of Colorado secretary of state.

Anderson rattled off her resume — former county clerk, head of the state clerks’ association and ardent defender of Colorado’s mail voting system — making clear that she fit the profile of the sort of technocrat whom Republicans used to back for the top election post in Colorado.

“I’m the only person in this election, including the primary, who has a real record in election integrity,” Anderson said.

Anderson was taking a swipe at her better-known primary rival, Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters, who has become the prime example of the GOP’s new approach to running elections.

A grand jury earlier this year indicted Peters for her role in breaking into her own county’s election system during a hunt for evidence of conspiracy theories fanned by former President Donald Trump. A judge already barred Peters from running last year’s local elections due to the controversy and this week blocked Peters from administering this year’s, too. Still, she’s become a heroine to those who disbelieve the actual results of the 2020 elections.

“I’ve taken their best shot. They made me sleep on the concrete jail floor for 30 hours because I protected your election data,” Peters told a crowd of 3,000 GOP activists and officials at the state party’s convention last month. “They know who to be afraid of.” Sixty percent of attendees voted to place her atop the ballot for secretary of state in their June 28 primary.

For nearly a century, U.S. elections have relied on a sort of partisan truce. They are run by thousands of local officials, often elected in partisan races, and usually overseen by secretaries of state who run statewide along with candidates for hotly contested offices like attorney general and governor. But, typically, election administration itself has been done in a nonpartisan manner, and those who run for positions overseeing it are more technocrats than crusaders.

That is changing after Trump’s 2020 loss. The former president is recruiting a class of partisan secretary of state candidates who parrot his lies about losing the election due to fraud and argue he should have remained president. The contest between Peters — she joined Trump at his Florida headquarters of Mar-a-Lago last week — and Anderson is perhaps the starkest battle in the GOP between those traditions.

The two candidates will face each other at a debate Thursday night in suburban Denver, along with the third Republican in the race, businessman Mike O’Donnell, another election denier.

There’s no question that the election deniers are winning the fight within the Republican Party. In Michigan last month, Kristina Karamo, a community college professor endorsed by Trump, won the GOP nomination to run for secretary of state after fanning suspicion of the 2020 election results. Candidates with similar stances are running in GOP primaries in every swing state, including for secretary of state in Arizona, Georgia and Nevada.

An Associated Press-NORC poll last year found that two-thirds of Republicans doubt Biden was legitimately elected president. Trump continues to fan the myth that massive voter fraud swung the election. He and his supporters have lost more than 60 court cases trying to demonstrate such fraud. His own Justice Department, along with numerous other investigations and audits, found no significant fraud.

Though Trump’s election denial has caught on among the party’s rank and file, many GOP strategists fear it could backfire on them in November. In Colorado, some Republicans dread the idea of Peters on the general election ballot.

“The Democrats are going to love it and do everything they can to make every Republican candidate look like they came from the same DNA as Tina Peters,” said Scott McInnis, a former GOP congressman who is now on the Mesa County Commission.

McGinnis and other Republican Mesa County commissioners have long clashed with Peters. The local district attorney, a Republican, is overseeing her prosecution. McGinnis predicts that Anderson will win the primary.

“I don’t think Republican voters are going to vote for someone who has nine felony charges,” McGinnis said of Peters.

Still, the enthusiasm for Peters in some parts of the GOP is considerable. She raised $158,000 in the eight weeks since she announced her campaign, compared to $50,000 by Anderson, who reported only having $5,000 left on hand at the end of April. At the state GOP convention, one of a bevy of aspirants for governor won enough votes from the crowd to secure a spot on the primary ballot simply by promising to pardon Peters if elected.

“I agree with what she did. I don’t think she did anything illegal,” said Pam Utterback, 67, an ordained minister who banged on a drum appreciatively as Peters spoke at a pre-convention rally in Denver.

Peters flew to the rally with MyPillow founder Mike Lindell, at whose election conspiracy seminar she spoke last year after the data breach in Mesa County election machines. That data soon appeared on election conspiracy websites and Lindell insists it proves massive, internationally run fraud that put President Joe Biden in office. He told reporters he’s paid $800,000 to Peters’ legal defense fund.

Peters’ legal jeopardy extends beyond the charges of identity theft, attempting to influence a public official and criminal impersonation filed by the grand jury. She was also arrested after kicking at a police officer trying to serve a search warrant for her iPad, to see if Peters had illegally recorded a court hearing of a deputy accused of burglary and cybercrimes.

Peters’ supporters are convinced she’s a martyr for the cause. Even if they can’t explain precisely what it is Peters claims to have uncovered, they’re convinced something went wrong in 2020.

“I think the reason everyone is attacking her is she’s for election integrity,” said Adrianna Cuva, 45, a volunteer for a Peters-affiliated candidate who has met Peters. “I think the election was rigged. That’s why we’re seeing all these problems in our economy.”

It’s a stark contrast with the sentiment at the brewpub in the Denver suburb of Littleton, where the small group of Anderson supporters stressed the importance of competent, nonpartisan election administration.

“That’s what you want, someone who’s played it straight,” said Paul Schauer, a former Republican state legislator.

Anderson grew up in Southern California. Her father was a highway patrolman, part of a long line of law enforcement in a family that’s instilled in Anderson a reverence for law enforcement. She was elected clerk of the suburban city of Wheat Ridge in 2003 and then of the suburban swing county around it the following year.

She’s been witheringly critical of Trump’s election lies since they began in 2020 and sits on the board of a nonprofit that distributed $350 million in donations from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife to help fund the 2020 elections, an act that fueled conservative suspicions.

“We need to restore sanity,” Anderson said in an interview.

But she also got into the race because of frustration with the Democratic secretary of state, Jena Griswold, who she contends has politicized the office for Democrats.

And Anderson has been frustrated at how Griswold and other Democrats attack Republicans as a party for election misinformation. She cites some Republicans who have stood up for truth and nonpartisanship in election administration. One is Stephen Richer, the clerk in Arizona’s Maricopa County, who pushed back strongly against a conspiratorial, Trump-supported pseudo-audit of the election.

“There are Republicans across the country fighting the good fight on elections,” Anderson said.

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By Richard Cowan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Legislation to make abortion legal throughout the United States was defeated in the U.S. Senate on Wednesday, amid solid Republican opposition.

Democrats had sought to head off an impending Supreme Court opinion that is expected to overturn the nearly 50-year-old Roe v. Wade decision that established the national right to abortion. Wednesday’s effort was a protest gesture that never stood much chance of success.

With 49 votes in support and 51 against, the “Women’s Health Protection Act” was 11 short of the 60 votes needed to be fully debated in the 100-member Senate.

All 50 Republicans voted to block the bill. They were joined by one Democrat, Senator Joe Manchin.

Before the vote, more than two dozen House Democrats, mainly women, marched from the House of Representatives to the Senate chanting “My body, my decision.” They then entered the Senate chamber and sat quietly along a back wall while senators debated abortion rights.

Last September, the House voted 218-211 to pass an abortion rights bill nearly identical to the Senate bill.

Although the Senate defeat was widely expected, Democrats hope the vote will help propel more of their candidates to victory in the Nov. 8 midterm elections, as public opinion polls show deep support among voters for abortion rights.

That, in turn, could bolster future attempts to legalize abortion through legislation.

America’s decades-old battle over abortion rights exploded anew last week when the Supreme Court confirmed the authenticity of a draft opinion that signaled it will soon overturn Roe v. Wade.

Such a decision would leave it up to individual states to determine their abortion policies.

The high-court ruling is expected by the end of its current term, which usually concludes in late June.

At least 26 states are certain or likely to ban abortion if the top court strikes down Roe, according to the Guttmacher Institute, which advocates for sexual and reproductive health rights.

Following the vote, Vice President Kamala Harris told reporters in the Capitol: “Sadly, the Senate failed to stand in defense of a woman’s right to make decisions about her own body… what we are seeing around this country are extremist Republican leaders seeking to criminalize and punish women for making decisions about their own body.”

Republican Senator John Cornyn called the legislation “a radical abortion-on-demand bill” that goes further than Roe v. Wade and “essentially makes abortion available on demand from the time of conception to the time of delivery.”

Closed-door talks were held on a possible compromise abortion-rights bill, although it was unclear whether Democratic and Republican negotiators would be able to come to agreement, much less lure the 60 votes needed for any such measure.

Opinion polls have shown the right to abortion to be broadly popular. A Reuters/Ipsos poll last week found 63% of respondents, including 78% of Democrats and 49% of Republicans, would be more likely to back candidates in November’s elections who support abortion rights.

(Reporting by Richard Cowan, David Morgan and Chris Gallagher; Editing by Scott Malone, Lisa Shumaker and Rosalba O’Brien)

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The Republican-leaning states of Nebraska and West Virginia held primary elections on May 10 for the U.S. House of Representatives and other offices.

Following are notable races that could help shape the Nov. 8 midterm elections when Republicans hope to win control of the U.S. Congress.

NEBRASKA GOVERNORSHIP

Trump’s endorsement power took a knock in the Republican gubernatorial primary in Nebraska, where Trump-backed Charles Herbster lost to University of Nebraska Regent Jim Pillen, according to a projection by Edison Research.

Herbster, a farming executive, was recently accused by several women, including a Republican state senator, of groping them. He denied the allegations but trailed Pillen across the largely rural state.

Pillen, who was endorsed by the departing Republican governor and the Farm Bureau, will face Democratic state senator Carol Blood in a contest seen as an easy win for Republicans.

WEST VIRGINIA’S 2ND CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT

Former President Donald Trump’s pick, U.S. Representative Alex Mooney, prevailed in a contest against fellow incumbent Republican Congressman David McKinley, according to a projection by Edison Research. The two were pitted against one another because their state, West Virginia, lost a U.S. House seat due to its shrinking population.

Mooney will likely win in November as the district is solidly Republican.

NEBRASKA 2ND CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT

Centered around Omaha, the state’s largest city, the 2nd district is seen as a potentially competitive race in November and has been held by Republican Don Bacon since 2017.

Bacon, who Trump had urged voters to oust from office, fended off a primary challenger and will face Democratic state Senator Tony Vargas in November, according to a projection by Edison Research.

(Reporting by Jason Lange; Editing by Scott Malone, Alistair Bell and Rosalba O’Brien)

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