Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) has preemptively endorsed former President Trump for another White House bid ahead of his scheduled “special announcement” at Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday.
“I am proud to endorse Donald J. Trump for President in 2024. I fully support him running again,” Stefanik said in a statement to Breitbart News. “Under his presidency, America was strong at home and abroad, our economy was red hot, our border was secure, our neighborhoods were safe, our law enforcement was respected, and our enemies feared us.”
“We cannot afford another four years of Joe Biden’s failed policies that have led to the inflation crisis, border crisis, and crime crisis. It is time for Republicans to unite around the most popular Republican in America, who has a proven track record of conservative governance,” Stefanik said.
Stefanik is currently the chair of the House Republican Conference, the No. 3 position in the House GOP. She is running for reelection to that post, which would be the No. 4 position if Republicans win a majority in the chamber.
Trump endorsed Stefanik for another term as Conference Chair this week ahead of the midterm elections.
“I think she’s fantastic,” he told Fox News.
Her full-throated support of Trump comes as many in the Republican Party are growing more vocal about wanting Trump to step back from politics after the midterm elections fell well short of Republican expectations of a red wave.
Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), who is retiring from Congress, said on CNN that Trump’s inserting himself into primaries “changed the nature of the race and that created just too much of an obstacle.” Former Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said that Trump is “a drag on our ticket” and “gives us problems politically.”
Stefanik, though, asserted that “it’s very clear President Trump is the leader of the Republican party.”
“It is time for Republicans to unite around the most popular Republican in America, who has a proven track record of conservative governance. Poll after poll shows that President Trump would defeat any Republican challenger by massive margins, and would beat Joe Biden if the election were held today,” she said.
When Stefanik entered Congress in 2015 — then the youngest woman ever elected to the House — she had a notably moderate tone and voting record. Heritage Action, the advocacy arm of the influential conservative think tank, gave her just a 29 percent score on her first congressional session.
But as Trump rose to power, she embraced him. She was on Trump’s defense team during his first impeachment in 2019, drastically raising her profile and putting her in good graces with the then-president.
After Rep. Liz Cheney (N.Y.) was ousted from the GOP Conference chair position by House Republicans in 2021 for continuing to criticize Trump after the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, Stefanik easily replaced her, despite grumbles from some House Republicans over whether she was sufficiently conservative.
Now, Stefanik proudly calls herself “ultra-MAGA.”
Trump has already begun taking aim at his expected GOP primary rivals, calling out Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis ahead of their own expected bids.
“The Fake News asks him if he’s going to run if President Trump runs, and he says, ‘I’m only focused on the Governor’s race, I’m not looking into the future,’” Trump wrote.
“Well, in terms of loyalty and class, that’s really not the right answer.”
GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is projected to easily win reelection on Tuesday, fending off a challenge from Democrat Marcus Flowers, an Army veteran, to secure a second term in Georgia’s deep-red 14th Congressional District.
The Associated Press called the race at 8:55 p.m.
In just two years on Capitol Hill, Greene has solidified her place as one of Congress’s most prominent — and controversial — conservative voices, building a national right-wing following for her opposition to COVID-19 restrictions, her endorsement of Christian nationalism and her avid support for former President Trump, to include the promotion of his false claims that the 2020 election was “stolen.”
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who was projected to win a second term in the House, has become one of the loudest, most controversial conservative voices on Capitol Hill. (Greg Nash)
Greene’s provocations came with a political price: Just a month after she arrived in Washington, the House voted to strip her of her committee assignments in response to revelations that she had previously promoted a long series of conspiracy theories, including QAnon, as well as violence against Democrats, including the idea of assassinating Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).
All the attention has made Greene one of the most polarizing figures on Capitol Hill. And Tuesday’s race took on outsized national dimensions as donors from around the country showered money on both candidates, making it the single most expensive House race of the 2022 cycle, according to OpenSecrets.
Flowers benefited most from all the attention, hauling in more than $15 million — an enormous number that reflected the appetite among national Democrats to defeat the figure who, perhaps more than any other congressional Republican, has come to exemplify the GOP’s populist turn under Trump.
In the end, it didn’t matter. The conservative district, where 68 percent of voters chose Trump in 2020, sided with Greene.
Greene has had a contentious relationship with her own Republican leadership, including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.). (Greg Nash)
Back in Congress, Greene will be closely watched next year. While a darling of the right, she has also been an outspoken critic of her own Republican leadership, particularly House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.), who is in line for the Speakership if the House changes hands.
McCarthy has taken long steps this year to get into Greene’s good graces. But the tensions linger, and McCarthy will have to walk a delicate line if Greene and other far-right lawmakers press GOP leaders to advance a host of conservative demands, including the impeachment of President Biden and members of his Cabinet.
Former President Trump is seeking to put his imprint on the Pennsylvania Senate race with a rally in Latrobe on Saturday with Senate candidate Mehmet Oz, a risky move given Oz’s efforts to distance himself from Trump’s debunked election fraud claims.
Throughout the 2022 election cycle, Democrats have tried to make the battle for the Senate a referendum on Trump, even though he left office nearly two years ago and won’t be on the ballot.
Oz has distanced himself from Trump’s claims of widespread fraud in the 2020 presidential election and has tried to project a moderate image in his race against Lt. Gov. John Fetterman (D), a stark contrast with gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano (R), an election denier who will also share the state with Trump Saturday.
Some Republican strategists are questioning the wisdom of Oz appearing on stage with Trump and Mastriano, who is trailing by double digits in the gubernatorial race, so soon before Election Day.
One Senate Republican adviser said appearing with Trump and Mastriano is “probably not” a good idea given Trump’s penchant for controversy and his negative approval rating in the state, but lamented: “What are you going to do?”
“I don’t think you have much of a choice in the matter because we have an issue with Republican base voters,” the strategist said, noting that “Trump gave Oz a lot of credibility” by endorsing him in the primary and now Oz has to pay him back.
Retiring Sen. Pat Toomey (R), whose seat Oz is running for, refused in 2016 to say whether he would even vote for Trump until about an hour before the polls closed that year.
Toomey was also one of seven Senate Republicans who voted to convict Trump on the impeachment charge of inciting the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Democrats have also tried hard to tie Oz to Mastriano since last week’s debate when Oz, a celebrity doctor, said that he wanted women, doctors and local political leaders to “put the best ideas forward” on setting rules for abortion.
The Senate Majority PAC, a super PAC aligned with Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), immediately unveiled an ad declaring that Oz “thinks abortion decisions belong to politicians like Doug Mastriano,” flashing photos of Oz and Mastriano, a state senator, side by side.
Fetterman told Pittsburgh’s NPR station in an interview aired Wednesday that he “would never stand on … the stage with someone like Doug Mastriano” and emphasized his support for passing a federal law to codify Roe v. Wade, which the Supreme Court struck down in June.
A spokesperson for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) said the weekend rally with Trump and Mastriano encapsulates why Oz is a bad choice to represent Pennsylvania in the Senate.
“Mehmet Oz will be on stage with Doug Mastriano — the type of extreme ‘local political leader’ who has no business making health care decisions for Pennsylvania women,” said Patrick Burgwinkle of the DSCC.
A Washington-based Democratic strategist said “it’s risky” for Oz to get on stage with Trump and Mastriano, given Trump’s penchant for turning off suburban female voters.
“Trump is just a very polarizing figure and sends people to their corners and this is a state that President Biden won, so you’d be hard-pressed to argue that appearing with the candidate that lost your state two years ago … is an effective way to close out” the race, the strategist said. “You can’t have your rally in Pittsburgh and not have the Philadelphia suburbs aware of what’s going on.”
A USA Today-Suffolk University poll of 500 likely Pennsylvania voters conducted from Oct. 27 to Oct. 30 found that Trump has a 37 percent favorable rating and a 55 percent unfavorable rating in the state. Biden’s job approval rating stood at 38 percent and his disapproval rating stood at 51 percent in the poll.
The same poll found Fetterman leading Oz by just 2 points in the Senate race, down from a 6-point spread a few weeks ago.
Biden will attend a rally with Fetterman and former President Obama in Philadelphia Saturday. Obama will campaign for Fetterman earlier in the day in Pittsburgh.
Trump’s unscripted speaking style at campaign rallies poses another risk for Oz, who has tried to distance himself from the former president’s unfounded claims of widespread fraud in Pennsylvania in 2020.
Oz said last month that he would not have objected to the certification of Biden’s victory had he been a senator in January of 2021.
There’s a good chance, however, that Trump on Saturday will reprise his claim that the 2020 election results in Pennsylvania were marred by widespread fraud, an unsubstantiated claim that Toomey, the retiring Republican incumbent, dismissed as “very disturbing” and lacking evidence.
Trump on Tuesday raised fresh doubt about whether this year’s elections in Pennsylvania would be fair.
He posted an article from the site Just the News reporting that the Pennsylvania Department of State had sent out more than 240,000 mail-in ballots without verifying voter identities.
“Here we go again! Rigged election!” he wrote.
That has Republican strategists in Washington worried about a reprise of what happened in the Georgia Senate runoff elections in January of 2021, when Republican voter turnout dropped off after Trump claimed the mail-in balloting process was rife with fraud.
More than 750,000 Georgia voters who cast ballots in the 2020 presidential election did not vote in the Senate runoff races two months later, according to an analysis by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Democratic candidates Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock won both races.
A Senate Republican aide warned that Trump could depress GOP turnout in Pennsylvania by making new claims of brewing election fraud.
“There’s no doubt that he hurt there,” the aide said of Trump’s impact on the failed reelection bids of then-Sens. David Perdue (R-Ga.) and Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.) in 2021.
However, Brian Nutt, a Republican strategist based in Harrisburg, Pa., argued that Tuesday’s race will be a referendum on Biden’s record, not Trump’s claim of election fraud.
“I wouldn’t know what the Oz campaign is thinking or looking at in that regard,” he said of Saturday’s rally in Latrobe. “It’s pretty hard for the Democrats or anyone to make it a referendum on Donald Trump when we have inflation at a 40-year high, we have $4 and $5 gasoline."
“It’s very hard to make this a referendum about Donald Trump when the country is in a crisis financially,” he said.
Nutt said Oz may be motivated to hold a rally with Trump “to bring even more [Republican] voters home” to his campaign.
Oz, who narrowly won the GOP primary over hedge fund CEO David McCormick, had trouble consolidating GOP voters behind his campaign over the summer.
But a new poll shows that more Republican voters have rallied to Oz over the last few weeks.
The Muhlenberg College-Morning Call poll of 460 likely voters conducted from Oct. 24 to Oct. 28 showed that 87 percent of Republican voters say they support Oz, up from the 81 percent of GOP voters who said they did in September.
Rep. David Valadao (Calif.) is fighting for his political life in an election that will determine whether one of the last remaining House Republicans who voted to impeach former President Trump sees another term.
Valadao is one of 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump following the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, and one of two who sought reelection and prevailed in their primary.
He’s now facing Democrat Rudy Salas, a state lawmaker who placed first in California’s open primary in June by close to 20 percentage points. The race is rated as a toss-up by the Cook Political Report.
Valadao, who was first elected to the House in 2012 before losing the seat in 2018 and winning it back in 2020, narrowly beat two GOP challengers in a primary this summer.
While he didn’t face a Trump-backed challenger, his impeachment vote complicated his primary.
“I think it definitely made his primary race require more effort maybe than normal,” said Lisa Bryant, chairwoman of the department of political science at California State University, Fresno.
In a highly controversial move that brought criticism from some Democratic lawmakers, Democratic groups ran ads during Valadao’s primary that sought to elevate Trump-aligned GOP candidate Chris Mathys.
The House Majority PAC, which is aligned with Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), released an ad saying that “David Valadao claims he’s Republican, yet David Valadao voted to impeach President Trump.” It called Mathys a “true conservative” and “100 percent pro-Trump.”
Democrats have utilized similar tactics in other GOP primaries, banking on the idea that propping up more hard-line conservatives in primaries will give them easier opponents to beat in general elections, despite complaints from some members.
“Many of us are facing death threats over our efforts to tell the truth about Jan. 6,” Rep. Stephanie Murphy (D-Fla.) told Politico in a summer interview. “To have people boosting candidates telling the very kinds of lies that caused Jan. 6 and continues to put our democracy in danger, is just mind-blowing.”
The House Majority PAC and other groups have been unapologetic about the strategy.
“David Valadao is an out-of-touch extremist who voted against a law to prevent gas price gouging and would eagerly help Kevin McCarthy implement a national abortion ban. That’s why House Majority PAC is doing whatever it takes to elect Rudy Salas and flip this seat blue in November,” House Majority PAC Communications Director C.J. Warnke told The Hill in a statement on Monday.
Asked about the Democratic effort, Salas campaign manager Abby Olmstead told The Hill in an email that “Rudy is focused on his own campaign and not on what outside groups are doing.”
It’s possible the Democratic effort could backfire in helping Valadao, which has sought to use his impeachment vote to his benefit.
“It means different things to different voters certainly,” Valadao campaign senior adviser Robert Jones told The Hill. “Most importantly, and I think above all else, regardless of how you view it on a partisan basis, it’s a demonstration of his independence.”
“David has not been afraid to stand up to his party through his time in Congress, and this is sort of the ultimate demonstration of that. And so I think most voters see it as that he’s going to do what he thinks is right, not what any party thinks is right. That’s what people in the district I think want,” Jones added.
Democrats complimentary of Valadao’s vote to impeach Trump say voters should consider the rest of his record.
“I think that just because he voted for Trump’s impeachment does not take away the fact that the policies and agenda that he’d subscribed to is much reflective of the Trump agenda. And every member of Congress — Democrat and Republican — should be [wanting] to hold the executive branch accountable. That’s part of their job,” said Antjuan Seawright, senior adviser for the House Democrats’ campaign arm.
Still, in a sign that being seen as independent of party could resonate with voters in the district, Salas is also touting a willingness to buck his party.
One ad touts how he was the only Democrat in the state Assembly to vote in 2017 against a transportation plan that would have raised gas taxes. He later lost a committee chairmanship following the vote.
Los Angeles-based Democratic strategist Mike Trujillo said the Central Valley’s leanings are toward candidates who are more toward the center.
“Democrats and Republicans in the Central Valley have a very moderate — they both have a very moderate DNA, right? Valadao voted for impeachment. Salas voted against his party against a gas tax. That’s consistent across the Central Valley because it’s a very centrist-oriented part of the state,” he added.
The race is also seen as competitive, given that the newly drawn 22nd Congressional District leans more favorably toward Democrats.
The California news outlet CalMatters notes that 43.4 percent of residents in the district are registered Democrats, compared to 26 percent who are registered as Republicans and 22.6 percent who have no party preference.
The data website FiveThirtyEight gives the district a partisan lean of plus 10 points Democrat, but Salas is anticipating a tight campaign.
“We know this is gonna be a tough race, and we’ve seen that play out. But we also have such a fantastic candidate,” Olmstead said.
Republicans who backed Trump’s impeachment are an endangered species in the House.
Eight pro-impeachment Republicans — including Rep. Liz Cheney (Wyo.), once the third-ranking House Republican — either lost their primaries to Trump-backed challengers or opted against running for reelection this cycle. Aside from Valadao, the only other pro-impeachment GOP lawmaker who may sit in the next Congress is Rep. Dan Newhouse (Wash.).
In a nod to the competitiveness of the House seat and the dwindling number of pro-impeachment Republicans left, former Vice President Mike Pence, who rebuffed efforts to overturn the 2020 election, campaigned earlier this week for Valadao in Fresno, Calif.
Republican strategist Doug Heye, who previously served as communications director of the Republican National Committee, said the impeachment vote allows Valadao “to talk to independent voters in a way, and even some soft Democrats, in a way that most Republicans wouldn’t be able to.”
The Utah Senate race between conservative Republican Sen. Mike Lee and Independent Evan McMullin has emerged as a potential wild card in the battle for the Senate.
Recent polls show the race is close, with McMullin trailing Lee by only a few points in a state where Republican victories are usually all but guaranteed.
Lee, a conservative who supported then-President Trump’s effort to challenge the 2020 election results on Jan. 6, is a star among many members of Utah’s Republican base, but his unpopularity among moderates and Democrats has driven his approval rating down to the low 40s.
“This is within the margin of error,” said Richard Davis, an emeritus professor of political science at Brigham Young University, citing recent polls by Deseret News and the Hinckley Institute of Politics. “It could go either way. It’s basically neck and neck.”
If McMullin manages to pull off an upset, his pledge to not caucus with either Democrats or Republicans could throw the battle for control of the Senate into turmoil.
If Republicans wind up keeping retiring Sen. Pat Toomey’s (R) Pennsylvania seat in GOP hands and defeating the Democratic incumbent in Nevada or Georgia, McMullin could still keep the Senate under Democratic control by voting for Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) as majority leader.
Conversely, he could swing it to Republicans by affiliating with Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) or simply not affiliating with either party, which would give Republicans a 50-to-49 seat majority with one unaffiliated senator in the chamber.
“He’s in the catbird seat because as an Independent both sides are going to want to give him something” to get his vote for determining the Senate majority in an evenly split chamber, Davis said.
“I can’t imagine that he’s going to caucus with the Republicans, but he had to say that he wasn’t going to caucus with the Democrats to win over the very people he’s trying to win over right now,” Davis said of the moderate Republicans who aren’t thrilled about voting for Lee but wouldn’t consider voting for a Democrat, either.
“He could be in an extremely powerful situation if he gets to determine which way the Senate is organized, which party gets the majority,” he added. “I think what he’s going to do is negotiate on Utah’s behalf, get things for Utah out of this.”
The latest Deseret-Hinckley poll shows Lee leading McMullin by four points, 41 percent to 37 percent, with 12 percent of Utah voters undecided.
The poll found that 40 percent of respondents had a favorable view of Lee, while 47 percent had an unfavorable view.
Lee’s allies, however, argue that the Deseret poll put too much weight on registered instead of likely voters, skewing the results in favor of McMullin.
Lee’s allies think it’s more likely that the incumbent wins by a healthy margin of 10 or more points.
The poll, however, found the numbers stay largely the same among likely voters and the race tightens among those who say they will definitely vote, with Lee leading McMullin 42-40 percent.
“Mike Lee is leading this race. Every reliable poll shows Sen. Lee with a significant lead and our internal polling gives us even greater confidence in the strong support he has across the state,” said Matt Lusty, an adviser to the Lee campaign.
Utah Democrats helped McMullin significantly by declining to endorse one of their own members and instead backing McMullin at their state convention in April. The Deseret poll found 68 percent of Democrats backing McMullin, and he leads with unaffiliated voters as well.
Davis said if McMullin can win over more Republican moderates who see themselves more in the same camp as Utah’s centrist Republican Sen. Mitt Romney, who voted twice to convict Trump on impeachment charges, he could wind up winning.
McMullin ran as an Independent for president in 2016 and turned in his best performance in Utah, where he won 21 percent of the vote in the general election — trailing the Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton by only 6 points. Trump carried the state with 45 percent of the vote.
Boyd Matheson, a prominent Utah radio host who formerly served as Lee’s chief of staff, said McMullin would find himself under tremendous pressure to pick a side if he manages to defy the odds and win election to an evenly divided Senate.
The Senate’s two current Independents — Bernie Sanders (Vt.) and Angus King (Maine) — both caucus with Democrats. Neither, however, had to defeat a sitting senator to win their seats.
“He would be under immense pressure from both Democrats and Republicans and picking a side at this point matters because if you look at someone like a [Sen.] Joe Manchin [D-W.Va.], the reason Manchin has power because he’s in the room,” Matheson said.
He said if McMullin refuses to caucus with either party, he won’t have any way to sit on a committee without getting a special deal from one of the party leaders.
“That’s going to be the challenge for McMullin. If he wins, can he have any influence without any committee assignment without being in the Republican lunch or the Democratic caucus lunch?” he said.
The race was largely overlooked until Lee went on Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s show Tuesday to plead for Romney’s endorsement, a surprising move since Romney made clear early in the race that he would stay neutral.
“As soon as Mitt Romney is ready to, I will eagerly accept his endorsement,” Lee pleaded on Carlson’s show. “Evan McMullin is raising millions of dollars off Act Blue, the Democratic donor database based on this idea that he’s going to defeat me and help perpetuate the Democratic majority.”
“I’ve asked him, I’m asking him right here again tonight right now,” Lee said. “Please get on board. Help me win reelection.”
Senate aides say Lee’s pleas for help from Romney were especially surprising given that they have clashed repeatedly this Congress, starting with Lee’s strong support for Trump’s effort to challenge the 2020 election results through the courts.
Romney, by contrast, was the only Senate Republican to vote to convict Trump after both of his impeachment trials.
The two Utah senators have also clashed over major policy differences. Lee voted against the three major bipartisan initiatives that Romney supported during President Biden’s term: a $1 trillion infrastructure bill; legislation addressing gun violence after the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas; and a $280 billion bill to support the domestic semiconductor industry.
But Lee and Romney have also worked together on bills to help constituents in Utah, such as the bill they introduced in April to address housing supply and affordability by allowing parcels of federal land to be purchased at a reduced price.
And they pool their staff to work jointly on constituents’ special cases.
Even so, Romney and Lee are hardly considered friends.
Davis, the emeritus political scientist, said Romney is “unlikely” to change his mind and endorse Lee “because I don’t think these two get along well.”
“He can’t endorse McMullin because that would probably be a step too far to do that but by not endorsing [Lee] he’s certainly sending a message,” he added of Romney.
Adding to the surreal moment on Carlson’s show, Trump waded into the race by releasing a statement praising Lee as an “outstanding senator” and criticizing Romney harshly for not endorsing his home-state colleague — bringing fresh attention to the possibility that Lee, who won reelection in a landslide six years ago, might be in trouble.
Trump declared that Romney’s decision to stay neutral in the race “has abused” Lee “in an unprecedented way.”
Lusty, Lee’s campaign adviser, said: “Sen. Lee sees it as important for all members of the party to stand together and he welcomes the public endorsement of all of his Senate GOP colleagues, including Sen. Romney.”
But Romney’s defenders are quick to note that Lee refused to endorse late Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch (R) when he ran for reelection in 2012 and Lee’s chief of staff at the time, Spencer Stokes, predicted that Hatch would lose because he had already spent far too much time in Washington.
Fundraising data collected by the Federal Election Commission as of Oct. 14 showed that Lee had raised $7.9 million for his reelection while McMullin had raised $3.2 million.
Outside interest groups are also pouring money into the race.
The conservative Club for Growth, a group long allied with Lee, has already spent $2.2 million on the Utah Senate race and has vowed to pour more money into the race, according to The Salt Lake Tribune.
On the other side, the Put Utah First PAC has spent more than $2.5 million to help McMullin.
Former President Trump slammed Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) on Wednesday, accusing him of "abusing" his Utah colleague Sen. Mike Lee (R) following news that Romney has refrained from issuing an endorsement in Lee's reelection campaign.
"Mike Lee is an outstanding Senator who has been abused, in an unprecedented way, by a fellow Republican Senator from his own State, something which rarely has happened in political History," Trump said in a statement issued through his Save America PAC.
"Such an event would only be understandable if Mike did not perform his duties as a United States Senator, but he has, and he has performed them well," the former president continued.
Lee, who is in a tight race with Independent challenger Evan McMullin, appealed to Romney on Tuesday evening during a conversation with Fox News host Tucker Carlson, asking his colleague to help him win.
“Well, I’ve asked him. I’m asking him right here, again, tonight, right now. Mitt, if you’d like to protect the Republican majority, give us any chance of seizing the Republican majority, once again, getting it away from the Democrats, who are facilitating this massive spending spree in a massive inflationary binge, please get on board,” Lee said.
In his appeal, Lee mentioned that the contest between himself and McMullin, a former CIA officer, was getting tighter. According to nonpartisan handicapper Cook Political Report, the race is rated "likely Republican." However, recent polling shows that McMullin is closing the gap.
For his part, Romney said he's refrained from making an endorsement because he is friends with both Lee and McMullin, who left the Republican party in 2016 after Trump won the party's presidential nomination, and ran against him as an Independent.
“I’ve worked with Mike a lot and appreciate the work we do together. But both are good friends, and I’m going to stay out,” Romney said in a statement to The Hill.
Romney also caught Trump's ire after he voted to convict the former president of one count during his first impeachment trial and has been a critic of the Trump administration in the past. Trump has called Romney a "super RINO," or "Republican in name only."
On Wednesday, Trump said that McMullin did not represent the values of Utah, "but neither, as you will see in two years, does Mitt Romney, who refuses to endorse his fellow Republican Senator, Mike Lee."
"Mike Lee is outstanding and has my Complete and Total Endorsement. Mitt Romney and Evan McMuffin can count on the fact that they will never have my Endorsement!," he concluded.
Former President Trump criticized Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Monday for supporting funds for GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s (Alaska) reelection bid against a fellow Republican rather than directing that money to Arizona Senate candidate Blake Masters’s (R) race against a Democrat.
“The Old Broken Crow, Mitchell McConnell, is authorizing $9 Million Dollars to be spent in order to beat a great Republican, Kelly, instead of $9 Million Dollars that could be used for Blake Masters, and other Republicans, that with this money would beat their Democrat opponent,” wrote Trump in a statement, referring to Kelly Tshibaka, who will face off against Murkowski in November.
Trump has endorsed both Masters and Tshibaka and called Murkowski, one of only seven GOP senators who voted to convict him in his second impeachment, “horrendously bad” and “barely” a Republican in his statement.
Murkowski is one of the more moderate Republicans in the Senate, specifically in her support of abortion rights.
A report by the Anchorage Daily News published on Thursday found that the Senate Leadership Fund, a Republican PAC with ties to McConnell, funded television, radio and internet ads in Alaska slamming Tshibaka in support of Murkowski.
McConnell has endorsed the incumbent in the race, rejecting the further-right Tshibaka, who is more in line with Trump.
Trump has ramped up his criticism of McConnell in recent months, including drawing vehement pushback for saying in a recent statement that the Kentucky Republican has a "death wish," which critics said amounted to a tacit call for violence.
President Biden's approval rating has hit a year-high in the third poll this week, driven largely by an increase in support from female voters.
An Emerson College poll released Friday found 45 percent of voters said they approve of Biden's performance, a 3-point increase since last month, while 49 percent disapprove, a two-point decrease.
“Biden’s increase in approval appears to be driven by women voters. Since July, women voters’ approval of the President has jumped 10 points, from 39% to 49%,” Executive Director of Emerson College Polling Spencer Kimball said.
His approval rating in the Emerson poll has been increasing steadily since April, when it sat at 41 percent, but remains underwater in a difficult political climate.
Still, Biden has seen a series of positive polls this week. A Politico-Morning Consult survey, published on Wednesday, found that 46 percent of all respondents approve of the job Biden is doing as president, the highest level since December in that poll. And his approval hit 45 percent in an NBC News poll, the highest since October.
Responses to the generic congressional ballot remained largely unchanged since last month, with 45 percent of voters saying they would vote for a Democratic candidate and 45 percent saying they'd vote for a Republican.
“Women voters support the Democratic congressional candidate over the Republican candidate by 10 points, while men break for the Republican candidate by 12,” Kimball said.
A large swath of respondents (39 percent) ranked the economy as the most important factor in their vote, followed by threats to democracy (15 percent) and abortion access (10 percent).
There is also tight competition on whether voters would support Biden or former President Trump if they became the presidential nominees in 2024, with 45 percent opting for Biden and 44 percent for Trump. That difference of 1 percentage point is within the poll’s margin of error.
Six percent of those polled said they would vote for neither Biden nor Trump in the hypothetical contest, while 5 percent said that they are undecided.
Correction: This story has been updated to reflect that the PAC Protect Our Future has only spent money in Democratic primaries.
Progressives are facing down a seeming disconnect over what’s politically achievable in Washington and what wins elections back home.
On one hand, they’ve won major policy battles from the White House to Capitol Hill this month, moving Democrats beyond what many thought was possible to accomplish under President Biden.
On the other, they’ve struggled to translate those victories to the campaign trail and are coming out of the primary season suffering damaging losses and bruised confidence.
In November, those two realities will be put to the test.
“Progressives continue to win the battle of ideas, we just don’t always win elections,” said Max Berger, a Democratic strategist with the social justice organization More Perfect Union and a veteran of Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s (D-Mass) presidential campaign.
After more than a year of setbacks, liberals have had a good few weeks in Washington.
They were pleasantly surprised by the multibillion-dollar investment they secured toward climate measures from the Senate and White House and were equally happy when certain tax reform and health care provisions were included in the Inflation Reduction Act. They saw the scope of the package as proof they can get much of what they want with enough pressure.
Liberals put student loan relief high on the president’s radar early in his administration and their push persisted even as he tackled massive crises, from inflation and gas prices to Russia’s war in Ukraine.
They argued that Biden could cancel borrowers’ debt through executive action, bypassing the ideological disputes of Democrats in the Senate that have stalled his agenda at other critical junctures.
And after Biden announced a plan this week to cancel $10,000 in debt for those making less than $125,000 and double that for Pell Grant recipients, some felt even more optimistic about the power of the progressive movement.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), the head of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said her flank had been “doggedly pursuing this,” for months, dating back to a conversation with Biden in March. She has maintained a line to the White House on the issue.
Those accomplishments have the left wing swatting back at what they see as uncredible critiques that their goals aren’t realistic.
Moderates have made the case that independents in particular find progressive policies unappealing. They fought to trim the price tag on earlier versions of Biden’s climate and spending package as well as on certain health care and education priorities. Some centrist lawmakers lobbied against student loan forgiveness up until the final decision, arguing that it would further increase inflation.
But on Thursday, liberals got more good news. A Gallup poll taken in the wake of the series of progressive wins showed the president’s approval rating jumping to the highest spot in a year — 44 percent — in part due to an increase in support from independents.
Still, for all progressives' celebrations on the policy front, they saw plenty of disappointment at the ballot box.
One state with hit the left particularly hard: New York. Home to “Squad” members Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D) and Jamaal Bowman (D), the state is usually seen as a bastion of support for progressive lawmakers.
But Democratic Trump impeachment counsel Dan Goldman, who was seen as more moderate, is projected to win the primary in the state’s 10th Congressional District, besting a field of progressive candidates including Rep. Mondaire Jones (D-N.Y.), who ran in the 10th District instead of the 17th. And Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chair Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-N.Y.) dispatched a progressive challenger by 30 points.
Earlier in the year, former state Sen. Nina Turner, a co-chair of Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I-Vt.) presidential campaign, lost for a second time to Rep. Shontel Brown (D-Ohio), who had the support of the party establishment. And in a closely watched primary in Texas, Jessica Cisneros, a young activist and attorney lost by a hair to the establishment’s choice, conservative Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar. Cuellar’s supporters — and congressional leadership who weighed into the race — argued a progressive could not win his district.
Strategists attributed many of the losses to the amount of money backing more moderate candidates.
“Fragmentation plays a big part, as divided lefty fields opened up paths for ... Goldman,” said Max Burns, a Democratic strategist who worked on the New York race. “But you just can't talk about progressives' primary hardships without addressing the tens of millions of dollars in corporate dark money parachuted into major races.”
The worry over so-called dark money has been weighing heavily on progressives this cycle. The left has been drastically outspent by special interest groups that poured money into several important races to defeat them.
Protect Our Future, the political action committee affiliated with tech megadonor Sam Bankman-Fried, has spent money in Democratic primaries, and a PAC called Mainstream Democrats has worked to protect moderate incumbents, including Cuellar.
Progressives also say the American Israel Public Affairs Committee has been spending more aggressively and out-in-the-open this cycle.
And Goldman, a Levi Strauss & Co. heir, angered his progressive challengers by pouring millions of his own money into his campaign.
Bill Neidhardt, a Democratic operative with Left Flank Strategies and former campaign spokesperson for Sanders, agreed with the damning influence he sees outside spending factoring into party primaries this cycle.
“Much of it comes down to big money in politics, with conservative Democrats using corporate PACs, or even self-funding in the case of millionaires like Dan Goldman,” said Neidhardt.
“But I would also challenge the notion that progressives are coming up short. The Congressional Progressive Caucus is going to be stronger than ever next Congress with new members who beat out moderates like Becca Balint, Greg Casar, Delia Ramirez and Summer Lee,” he added.
One notable sleeper came from Maxwell Alejandro Frost, a 25-year-old Sanders-backed gun control activist who won the primary for Florida’s 10th Congressional District on Tuesday. The district’s blue tilt means he will likely become one of the youngest members of Congress next year.
And on the Senate side, voters in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin opted to nominate two progressives — Lt. Gov. John Fetterman and Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes — to help Democrats with their quest to keep their majority.
“The candidates have gotten a lot better honestly,” said Berger, noting that left wing groups like Justice Democrats and the Working Families Party have fine-tuned their operations to recruit and train contenders to mount credible challenges. “There’s more people who have experience who have decided to take the lead.”
Some progressives also see the potential in future contests. Even if Democrats lose the House and their collective legislative power diminishes, there are signs of interest for a more liberal candidate than Biden or other possible contenders in 2024.
According to a new USA TODAY-Ipsos poll released on Friday, Sanders leads in favorability among almost two dozen candidates in a hypothetical match-up.
“Progressives are more popular than they appear,” said Burns. “And even with a torrent of money, corporate-backed candidates are still barely squeaking by.”
Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) is facing down a new political future after losing her House primary on Tuesday to Trump-endorsed lawyer Harriet Hageman.
Speculation about what the three-term congresswoman who hails from a Republican political dynasty will do once her time in Congress comes to a close has steadily grown louder, and on Wednesday morning the Wyoming Republican said she is “thinking about” mounting a bid for the White House.
Cheney had delivered a defiant speech Tuesday night, slamming former President Trump, the movement he created and the candidates who repeat his claims about the 2020 election. It was at once a concession speech and a promise of a future in public life.
“So I ask you tonight to join me. As we leave here, let us resolve that we will stand together — Republicans, Democrats and Independents — against those who will destroy our republic,” Cheney said.
But even as she gave little indication of what she will do next, she vowed Tuesday to “do whatever it takes to ensure Donald Trump is never again anywhere near the Oval Office.”
“This primary election is over, but now the real work begins,” she said.
Here are five questions about Liz Cheney’s political future:
Does she launch a 2024 presidential campaign?
On Wednesday, less than 12 hours after major networks finalized Cheney’s defeat, Cheney said she is “thinking about” running for president and will make a decision in the coming months.
Cheney, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, had previously dodged questions about a potential 2024 run, preferring to bring the conversation back to her main goal: keeping Trump out of the White House.
But a presidential run would be her “next logical” step, said Republican strategist Scott Jennings.
“There are things you could do, but what better platform would there be than to be running a campaign?” Jennings told The Hill in an interview.
“You can bet that if Cheney launches a campaign for president, she's gonna, you know, the amount of coverage she will get, and the amount of media attention she will get, will far outstrip her standing in the polls,” Jennings added. “And so, it strikes me that if you're wanting to talk to Republican audiences about what you think is an important point of view, what better way to do that and to do it in the presidential cycle?”
Logistically speaking, a Cheney White House bid is possible.
The congresswoman skyrocketed to even greater national prominence through her work as vice chair of the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. She has name recognition, deep ties in the Republican Party and a sizable war chest, with $7.4 million remaining in her campaign account as of three weeks ago, according to NBC News.
And while Cheney, true to pattern, kept much of her speech Tuesday focused on Trump and Trumpism, she didn’t rule anything out for 2024.
Does she run to win the White House — or keep Trump out of it?
Insiders agree winning the 2024 GOP presidential nomination would be an uphill battle for Cheney.
Most hypothetical polls show Trump in the lead and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), a proponent of Trump’s policies, in second. And while votes are still being counted, Cheney appears to be trailing by 30 points or more.
But even with little chance of winning, Cheney may run to influence the outcome of the primary.
“How do you define success?” Jennings said. “For her it may be less about winning the nomination and more about keeping Trump from getting the nomination. So I think it just depends on how you define success.”
Her presence would also give a voice to anti-Trump Republicans who have been largely shut out of a presidential conversation dominated by Trump and people who espouse his policies and rhetoric.
“When it comes to people that are not part of the whole MAGA movement, who are not happy with the direction that the Republican Party has gone, who are more traditional conservative Republicans, like myself, from the past, I think that Liz Cheney is a more appealing option,” said Olivia Troye, a former aide to Vice President Mike Pence.
“I think it’s important to have someone like her be willing to continue to push back and tell the truth about what’s happening here,” she said.
Cheney on Tuesday referenced former President Lincoln, who fought to keep the U.S. unified.
“The great and original champion of our party, Abraham Lincoln, was defeated in elections for the Senate and the House before he won the most important election of all. Lincoln ultimately prevailed, he saved our Union, and he defined our obligation as Americans for all of history,” she said.
What does she do with her time left in office?
The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol is already racing against the clock, trying to tie up its investigation within the next few months in anticipation of Republicans winning control of the chamber in November.
But before then, the panel is vowing to hold more public hearings and present additional information to bolster its argument that Trump was at the center of a scheme to keep himself in power — presentations that Cheney will likely play a large role in.
“We’re not winding down right now,” Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) told reporters in the Capitol last month. “It’s been amazing to see, kind of, the flurry of people coming forward, so it’s not the time to wind it down.”
Cheney has played a central role in the committee’s previous hearings, delivering opening and closing statements and questioning witnesses appearing live before the panel.
And she has not shied away from criticizing Trump or her GOP colleagues during those presentations — a practice she will likely continue, if not ramp up, in the remaining months of her term.
Republican strategist Doug Heye told The Hill that whatever path Cheney takes after her primary defeat, she will make sure she remains a vocal presence in American politics, beginning with her work on the committee.
“What's clear is that her voice isn't going to go anywhere,” Heye said. “And that will start with, you know, the next hearings on Jan. 6, and then we'll continue in whatever form she decides to take them in.
What kind of support does she have for future moves?
Cheney may have lost her primary but she still has a vast nationwide network of supporters and donors who could be of help for any future political moves she might make.
The congresswoman broke her own record in the first quarter of the year, bringing in close to $3 million, and followed that up with a whopping $2.9 million in the second quarter.
In addition to grassroots donations, Cheney raked in money from notable Republican and Democratic donors across the country including former President George W. Bush, his former adviser Karl Rove, film producer Jeffrey Katzenberg, and billionaire hedge fund manager Seth Klarman.
However, in a Republican presidential primary, Cheney would need to appeal to a Republican primary base. And she may not be the only anti-Trump Republican in the field. Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) has repeatedly been floated as a potential 2024 GOP hopeful and has yet to rule out a run.
“I think it will be important for them to navigate how they will reach more moderate voters,” Troye said.
“These are longtime, respected Republican figures,” she continued. “And their voices can reach an audience in a way that many can’t.”
What could she do besides run for president?
While a 2024 presidential bid is the most talked-about possibility for Cheney, there are other avenues the congresswoman can pursue as she looks to continue her crusade against Trump.
One would be joining the cable news circuit as a commentator or analyst, which would give the congresswoman a sizable platform to take on the former president and denounce his false claim that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.
That route is a popular one for former lawmakers. Ex-Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), who was unseated by then-Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley (R) in 2018, joined NBC News and MSNBC months after the race as a political analyst, and former Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) was hired by Fox News as a contributor one day after he resigned from the House in 2017.
Cheney could also join a think tank or form her own PAC, as Kinzinger, who is not running for reelection this November, has done.
Kinzinger — another top Trump critic and Cheney’s fellow Republican on the Jan. 6 panel — launched a PAC, titled “Country First,” as a movement to challenge the GOP’s embrace of Trump.
Another option for Cheney is writing a book, a popular move for top figures leaving Washington. After bowing out of running for a third term in 2020, former Rep. Will Hurd (R-Texas), who criticized Trump on a number of occasions, penned a book titled “American Reboot: An Idealist’s Guide to Getting Big Things Done.”
While it remains unknown what Cheney will choose for her next act, Jennings says the congresswoman likely has a plan driving her recent — and future — political moves.
“I know the Cheneys and I know how smart they are and I know how they operate, and I would be surprised if this wasn’t part of a larger plan, but a plan that fits within a mission,” Jennings said. “I think she believes she’s on a mission here to keep Donald Trump out of the White House. So if that’s your mission, then they’re the kind of people who would build a plan to try to achieve that mission.”
