Michigan GOP cancels election night watch party over threats
CNN’s David Chalian: In key battleground states, election deniers are seeking positions of election oversight
A significant trend that tonight’s primary elections are displaying is that in critical battleground states like Michigan and Arizona, election deniers are seeking positions of election oversight, CNN Political Director David Chalian said.
“It’s not just the commitment to the big lie that Donald Trump tells about the 2020 election. What I think is so important about tonight in Arizona and in Michigan, two critical battleground states, two states that will help determine who the next President, you have these election deniers seeking positions of oversight of elections,” Chalian told CNN’s Anderson Cooper.
Chalian noted that the primaries tonight highlight a potential “danger” if election deniers do gain election oversight seats because there is a possibility they could overturn a future election.
“So everything we look at with the Jan. 6 committee. You mentioned Rusty Bowers, there were people who stood up and said, ‘No,’ right? Like, ‘it’s going to be country over party for me.’ That happened in enough places with enough Republican officials to turn Donald Trump’s efforts away,” Chalian noted.
“Now, you have these people who are committed to not just expressing his lies and repeating them, but actually, potentially, committed to overturning elections that they would then have oversight over, if they didn’t like the results. That’s what I think the biggest danger is in the way in which the Republican primaries play out tonight,” he said.
Polls are closing across Missouri
From CNN’s Ethan Cohen, Melissa DePalo, Clara Grudberg and Nicholas Anastacio
It’s 8 p.m. ET and polls are closing across Missouri. Mail-in ballots must be received by close of polls. Polls are also closing in parts of Kansas and Michigan.
In Missouri, voters will decide who will advance to the general election in a race for retiring Sen. Roy Blunt’s seat. There is a crowded Republican field, which includes controversial former Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens who resigned from the governorship after allegations of sexual and financial misconduct. Some Missouri Republicans have openly opposed Greitens’ bid, amid concerns that he could make what should be a safe Republican seat more competitive.
Among those opponents is Missouri GOP Sen. Josh Hawley, who has called for him to drop out of the race and endorsed Rep. Vicky Hartzler. Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt is another frontrunner and has been backed by Utah GOP Sen. Mike Lee and billionaire Peter Thiel.
Missouri Republicans had been waiting for Trump to make an endorsement in the race, but when he finally did on Monday, he just came out for “Eric,” leading to both Greitens and Schmitt claiming Trump’s support.
Read more about today’s races here.
Election deniers, abortion rights and Trump’s influence are on the ballot Tuesday. Here’s what to watch for.
From CNN’s Gregory Krieg, Eric Bradner and Dan Merica
With fewer than 100 days until the general election, the final rounds of 2022 midterms primaries will come fast and furious over the next six weeks, beginning with a busy Tuesday featuring key contests around the country.
Former President Donald Trump’s influence is again looming over Republican Senate primaries, this time in Arizona and Missouri, while GOP House members in Washington state and Michigan face a conservative backlash over their votes to impeach Trump after the Jan. 6, 2021, US Capitol insurrection.
On the Democratic side, Michigan is home to a handful of competitive House primaries, including one that pits a pair of incumbents, Reps. Haley Stevens and Andy Levin, against one another in a campaign that has attracted heavy investments from competing pro-Israel groups.
Kansas, meanwhile, will host one of the first major post-Roe votes when the state conducts a referendum to determine whether its constitution protects the right to an abortion. If the measure succeeds, state lawmakers are expected to quickly move to enshrine a ban
Here are some things to watch on Tuesday:
Arizona governor primary pits Trump against Pence
The race to replace term-limited Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, a Republican, pits Ducey’s chosen candidate, Karrin Taylor Robson, against a Trump-endorsed former television journalist Kari Lake.
Lake has built her campaign around lies about election fraud. She referred to the refusal of her leading rival, Ducey-backed Robson, to indulge those lies as “disqualifying.”
Robson, meanwhile, is also backed by former Vice President Mike Pence, who visited Arizona to campaign with Robson and Ducey last month on the same day Trump held a rally at which Lake spoke.
Pence used his Arizona trip to urge the GOP to move past Trump’s lies about fraud in the 2020 election and look forward.
“When you get out and vote for Karrin Taylor Robson, you can send a deafening message that will be heard all across America that the Republican Party is the party of the future,” Pence said in Peoria, Arizona.
Arizona GOP could pick full slate of election deniers
Beyond the governor’s office, the Arizona GOP could be poised to nominate a statewide ticket of Trump-backed election deniers on Tuesday.
The race for secretary of state — Arizona’s chief elections officer — also features an election denier endorsed by former President Trump in Mark Finchem, a state lawmaker who wrongly claims that Trump on the 2020 election and was in Washington Jan. 6.
Trump-backed Blake Masters, who is seeking to face Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly, hasn’t just claimed that Democrats “pulled out all the stops” to cheat in 2020, but has suggested the 2022 midterms won’t be fair. Masters faces other Republicans who have rejected the 2020 election outcome, including businessman Jim Lamon, who touts his efforts to fund the bogus review of Maricopa County’s 2020 results. Another Senate candidate, state Attorney General Mark Brnovich, sent a letter claiming to have uncovered election fraud, without detailing any fraud in how the election was managed.
Trump’s chosen candidate in the race for attorney general, Abraham Hamadeh, said he would “take the fraud in our 2020 election seriously and bring justice to those who’ve undermined our Republic.”
Meijer faces Dem-backed, far-right challenge
Rep. Peter Meijer, the freshman Republican from western Michigan who was one of his party’s 10 House members to vote for Trump’s second impeachment, is facing off against a Trump-endorsed challenger in John Gibbs.
Gibbs has fully embraced Trump’s election lies. He wrongly claimed in a debate with Meijer that the results that led to Biden’s win in 2020 were “simply mathematically impossible” and said that there were “anomalies in there, to put it very lightly.”
What’s unique about the GOP contest in the Grand Rapids-based 3rd District is that Democrats have attempted to boost Gibbs with ads casting him as a Trump-aligned conservative.
It’s a calculated gamble for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which has spent more than $300,000 on ads in the race: They believe Gibbs would be much easier to defeat in November, so they are attempting to elevate him Tuesday, and then turn and immediately cast him as a threat to democracy in the general election.
A pro-Meijer group launched a television ad over the weekend highlighting Democrats’ involvement in the Republican primary. “Fox News confirms it: Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to elect their hand-picked candidate for Congress in the Republican primary, John Gibbs,” the group’s ad warns. “West Michigan must say no to Nancy Pelosi’s handpicked candidate for Congress.”
Read what else to watch for here.
Hawley says Trump called him Monday to discuss Missouri Senate primary
From CNN’s Manu Raju
Sen. Josh Hawley, a Republican from Missouri, told CNN that former President Donald Trump called him Monday around mid-day to talk about his plans to endorse in the Missouri Senate primary.
The Missouri Republican wouldn’t say if he expressed concerns to Trump about the controversial former Gov. Eric Greitens. But the senator said he urged Trump to support Rep. Vicky Hartzler, though Trump has previously said he wouldn’t back her.
“He called me and we talked about the race as we have many times. I gave him my view. We talked through different people,” Hawley said. “I told him I thought he should endorse Vicky … That was my only recommendation.. He hadn’t made up his mind when I talked to him.”
Hawley added, “He was finding it to be a tough choice.”
Hawley, who has a long and contentious history with Greitens, said he thinks it’s “highly unlikely” that the former governor will win Tuesday’s primary.
Asked if he would back Greitens if he becomes the nominee, Hawley said, “I imagine I will support the Republican nominee but I really don’t think it will be” Greitens.
Ultimately, Trump punted and said he backed “Eric” — not specifying if it were Greitens or Eric Schmitt, the Missouri attorney general.
These are the election deniers on the ballot in key races Tuesday
From CNN’s Eric Bradner
Republican voters in several key swing states could select election deniers as their nominees for governorships and other top offices in primaries Tuesday.
The issue is at the heart of high-profile races in Arizona and Michigan — two of the most important presidential battlegrounds — weeks after Republican voters elsewhere selected promoters of former President Donald Trump’s lies about widespread fraud in the 2020 election as nominees for several posts that could position them to manage key states’ election machinery in 2024.
Arizona, in particular, has been the epicenter of Trump’s election denialism. Once a Republican stronghold, the state has become one of the nation’s most competitive, with Democrats winning the presidential race and both Senate seats there in recent years. That political shift was met with a sham, partisan review of the 2020 election results ordered last year by the GOP-led state Senate.
Here’s a look at the election deniers on the ballot in key races Tuesday:
The GOP could be poised to nominate a statewide ticket of Trump-backed election deniers on Tuesday.
In the race to replace term-limited Republican Gov. Doug Ducey, Trump-endorsed former television journalist Kari Lake has built her campaign around lies about election fraud. She referred to the refusal of her leading rival, Ducey-backed Karrin Taylor Robson, to indulge those lies as “disqualifying.”
The race for secretary of state — Arizona’s chief elections officer — also features an election denier endorsed by Trump in Mark Finchem, a state lawmaker who was in Washington, DC, on January 6, 2021, and wrongly claims that Trump won the 2020 election.
Trump-backed Blake Masters, who is seeking to face Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly, hasn’t just claimed that Democrats “pulled out all the stops” to cheat in 2020, but has suggested the 2022 midterms won’t be fair. Masters faces other Republicans who have rejected the 2020 election outcome, including businessman Jim Lamon, who touts his efforts to fund the bogus review of Maricopa County’s 2020 results. Another candidate, state Attorney General Mark Brnovich, sent a letter claiming to have uncovered election fraud, without detailing any fraud in how the election was managed.
Trump’s chosen candidate in the race for attorney general, Abraham Hamadeh, said he would “take the fraud in our 2020 election seriously and bring justice to those who’ve undermined our Republic.”
Trump on Friday endorsed Tudor Dixon in the wide-open Republican primary to take on Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who is seeking her second term.
Dixon, a conservative commentator, has falsely claimed that Trump won the 2020 election. She is also backed by Michigan’s GOP establishment, including former US Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’ family, the state Chamber of Commerce and Michigan Right to Life.
That GOP gubernatorial primary features several other election deniers, as well. One candidate, Ryan Kelley, was in Washington on January 6, 2021, and has pleaded not guilty to four misdemeanor charges stemming from allegations of his participation in the riot at the US Capitol. Retired pastor Ralph Rebandt said he is “convinced that we would find the fraud” in the 2020 election with a “full forensic audit.” And chiropractor Garrett Soldano has touted a film that promotes an unproven conspiracy theory about the 2020 election.
In the Grand Rapids-based 3rd Congressional District, Rep. Peter Meijer — one of 10 House Republicans to vote for Trump’s impeachment following the insurrection at the Capitol — faces a Trump-backed challenger in John Gibbs.
Gibbs has fully embraced Trump’s election lies. He wrongly claimed in a debate with Meijer that the results that led to Biden’s win in 2020 were “simply mathematically impossible” and said that there were “anomalies in there, to put it very lightly.”
Democrats have attempted to boost Gibbs — whom they believe would be easier to beat in November’s general election — with ads casting him as a Trump-aligned conservative.
Michigan Republicans are also expected to pick Trump-backed election deniers in the races for secretary of state and attorney general. At a convention in April, the state GOP endorsed Kristina Karamo, an educator and right-wing commentator who claimed to have witnessed irregularities in 2020’s election, for secretary of state, and Matthew DePerno, who was a lawyer on a case challenging the 2020 results, for attorney general. But those races aren’t on Tuesday’s primary ballot; instead, Republicans will make their choices official at a party convention in August.
Read about the election deniers on the ballot in Missouri, Washington, and Kansas here.
Washington’s new congressional map maintains partisan split from last decade’s lines
From CNN’s Janie Boschma, Renée Rigdon, Byron Manley and Ethan Cohen
Washington’s new map maintains the partisan split of last decade’s lines, but the state’s map-drawing process was anything but smooth.
After the bipartisan commission missed its mid-November deadline to submit its map by just minutes, the process briefly fell to the state Supreme Court. However, the court later ruled that the commission had “substantially complied” with the law and the completed map was sent to the legislature — which made minor amendments to the plan.
Washington will continue to have 10 House seats. In nine, White residents represent the majority. In the 9th District, home to the densely populated Puget Sound region between Seattle and Tacoma, there isn’t one single racial or ethnic group in the majority.
See the state’s new map below:
CNN’s Melissa DePalo, Eleanor Stubbs and Christopher Hickey contributed to this report.
There are a number of key House races to watch Tuesday. Here’s what to know.
From CNN’s Rachel Janfaza and Andrew Menezes
The 2022 midterm season returns in earnest Tuesday, with primary elections in five states: Arizona, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri and Washington.
In addition to high-profile Senate, gubernatorial and other statewide races, there are a number of key US House races to watch as Democrats fight to defend their razor-thin majority, with the political winds blowing largely in Republicans’ favor.
Former President Donald Trump has weighed in on several of these GOP House primaries, including three featuring incumbents who voted to impeach him last year and who all face Trump-backed challengers. Several other House incumbents on the ballot Tuesday are facing stiff primary challenges, and at least one of them will not be returning to Congress next year — the loser of a member-versus-member Democratic primary in Michigan.
Here are some of the key House primaries to watch:
Arizona
- In the new 2nd District, which Trump would have carried by 8 points in 2020, several Republicans are challenging Democratic Rep. Tom O’Halleran. They include Navy veteran Eli Crane, who has Trump’s endorsement; state Rep. Walt Blackman, an Army veteran and the first Black Republican elected to the Arizona legislature; and business consultant Mark DeLuzio.
- The new 6th District is a successor seat in southeast Arizona to the one being vacated by retiring Democratic Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick. The GOP front-runner is Juan Ciscomani, who worked at the Tucson Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and was a senior adviser to Gov. Doug Ducey. Leading Democratic hopefuls include former state Sen. Kirsten Engel and state Rep. Daniel Hernandez, who was an intern for Democratic Rep. Gabby Giffords in 2011 when he helped save her life after she was critically wounded in a shooting outside a Tucson grocery store.
- Republicans are also targeting Democratic Rep. Greg Stanton in the Phoenix-area 4th District, which Biden would have carried by 10 points. Top GOP contenders include Tanya Contreras Wheeless, a former Phoenix Suns executive who has the backing of House GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik’s leadership PAC, and Marine veteran Kelly Cooper.
Kansas
- Two-term Rep. Sharice Davids — who made history in 2018 as one of the first Native American women elected to Congress — is the lone Democrat in the Kansas delegation and saw her Kansas City-area 3rd District change from one Biden carried by 11 points in 2020 to one that would have backed him by 4 points. Davids likely faces a rematch with former Kansas GOP Chair Amanda Adkins, who is on the National Republican Congressional Committee’s Young Guns program for strong recruits.
Michigan
- Democratic prospects have improved in the Grand Rapids-area 3rd District. Rep. Peter Meijer, one of the 10 Republicans who voted to impeach Trump after the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the US Capitol, faces a fierce primary challenge from Trump-backed John Gibbs, a former Department of Housing and Urban Development official. The House Democratic campaign arm recently drew intraparty criticism for running ads touting Gibbs, whom it sees as a weaker general election opponent.
- The redrawn 11th District in suburban Detroit features a member vs. member Democratic primary between Reps. Haley Stevens and Andy Levin. The race has become one of the key battlegrounds in the party’s evolving rift over Israel and overlapping debates about Democrats’ broader ideological direction.
Missouri
- In the deep-blue St. Louis-anchored 1st District, Democratic Rep. Cori Bush, who unseated an incumbent in the primary last cycle, faces several intraparty challengers on Tuesday, including state Sen. Steve Roberts. Bush, who has gained national attention as a member of the progressive House “squad,” holds a strong fundraising edge in the race.
- With GOP Reps. Vicky Hartzler and Billy Long running for US Senate, the deep-red seats they’re vacating have drawn plenty of interest. Among the Republicans looking to succeed Hartzler in the 4th District, which includes parts of western and central Missouri, are Navy veteran and former Boone County Clerk Taylor Burks, former TV news anchor Mark Alford, state Sen. Rick Brattin and farmer and CPA Kalena Bruce, who has the endorsement of Gov. Mike Parson.
Washington
- Herrera Beutler is seeking a seventh term in the 3rd District, a southwest Washington seat that Trump would have carried by 4 points in 2020. Army veteran Joe Kent, a fellow Republican who has Trump’s backing, says the 2020 election was stolen and has made the incumbent’s vote for impeachment a center point of his campaign. Other candidates on the ballot include author Heidi St. John and state Rep. Vicki Kraft, both Republicans, and Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Perez. Washington state’s open primary system, which sees all candidates run on the same ballot, regardless of party, with the top two vote-getters advancing to November.
Read about more key House races here.
An hour-by-hour guide to tonight’s primaries
Analysis from CNN’s Adam Wollner
After a slowdown in July, the midterm primary season revs back up tonight, less than 100 days out from the November general election. Voters in five states — Missouri, Kansas, Michigan, Arizona and Washington — cast ballots for key Senate, House and gubernatorial contests.
Here is a guide to the races to watch as the results roll in throughout the night.
8 p.m. ET: Polls close in Missouri. The marquee race here is the Republican primary for Senate, where former President Donald Trump endorsed not just one, but two candidates: state Attorney General Eric Schmitt and former Gov. Eric Greitens. Many Republicans are fearful that nominating the scandal-plagued Greitens could put the reliably red seat in play this fall. Reps. Vicky Hartzler and Billy Long are also among the candidates seeking to replace retiring Sen. Roy Blunt.
9 p.m. ET: Final polls close in Kansas and Michigan. A ballot measure is set to take center stage in Kansas. All voters will be able to cast a ballot on whether to amend the state’s constitution to remove protections for abortion rights, marking the first popular vote on the issue since the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
In Michigan’s chaotic GOP gubernatorial primary, five candidates were blocked from appearing on the ballot due to invalid signatures. One of the candidates in that race, Ryan Kelley, was arrested on misdemeanor charges — and later pleaded not guilty — for his alleged role in the Jan. 6 riot at the US Capitol. Trump may have helped tip the scales late last week by endorsing conservative political commentator Tudor Dixon in her bid to take on Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
There are also a couple House races of note in Michigan. Rep. Peter Meijer, one of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump last year, faces a primary challenge from the Trump-backed John Gibbs. House Democrats’ campaign arm has stirred controversy by intervening in the primary to boost Gibbs, who has promoted false election conspiracies, in hopes of making the 3rd District more winnable for the party in November.
And in Michigan’s 11th District, two Democratic incumbents — Reps. Andy Levin and Haley Stevens — are facing off against each other following redistricting.
10 p.m. ET: Final polls close in Arizona. Trump’s fingerprints are all over Arizona’s primaries, as he’s endorsed Republicans who have been high-profile supporters of his unfounded election fraud claims. These include Kari Lake for governor, Blake Masters in the Senate race and and Mark Finchem for secretary of state.
In the gubernatorial race, former Vice President Mike Pence and term-limited Gov. Doug Ducey broke with Trump, throwing their support behind Karrin Taylor Robson. The winner of the GOP primary will likely face Arizona Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs in the general election. In the Senate race, state Attorney General Mark Brnovich and businessman Jim Lamon are also running to take on Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly, one of the GOP’s top targets for defeat this fall. Results from Arizona’s elections are likely to start coming in around 11 p.m. ET.
11 p.m. ET: Polls close in Washington. Two more House Republicans who supported Trump’s impeachment are on the ballot here. In Washington’s 3rd District, Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler faces the Trump-endorsed Joe Kent, while in the 4th District, the Trump-backed Loren Culp is challenging Rep. Dan Newhouse. In both cases, the incumbents have outraised their opponents. Under Washington’s primary system, the top two finishers, regardless of party, will advance to the general election.
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How Missouri’s new congressional map likely maintains Republicans’ congressional advantage
From CNN’s Janie Boschma, Renée Rigdon, Byron Manley and Ethan Cohen
Missouri GOP Gov. Mike Parson signed the state’s new congressional map into law after the Republican-controlled legislature narrowly met the deadline to approve new lines.
The new map likely maintains Republicans’ 6-2 congressional advantage, with Democrats expected to control the state’s 1st and 5th Congressional Districts, which are home to St. Louis and Kansas City, respectively.
While the new map is similar to Missouri’s previous one, it strengthens the 2nd District for Republicans. The district, represented by Republican Rep. Ann Wagner, is based in the St. Louis suburbs and will now also include more exurban areas.
Missouri will continue to have eight House seats. In seven of those districts, White residents represent the majority. In Missouri’s 1st District, home to St. Louis, no demographic group represents a majority.
See the new map below:
CNN’s Melissa DePalo, Eleanor Stubbs and Christopher Hickey contributed to this report.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/primary-election-results-arizona-michigan-missouri-2022/index.html
