Monthly Archives: June 2022

She ran through the Jan. 6 committees damning weeks of testimony that has illustrated Trumps multi-pronged attempt to hold on to power and his bubbling rage. Cheney mentioned Trumps summoning of rioters to Washington, D.C., and Hutchinsons claim that Chief of Staff Mark Meadows said Trump felt that Mike deserves it as rioters called for the death of then-Vice President Mike Pence on Jan. 6. Cheney took aim at Republicans and elected officials who have made themselves willing hostages to this dangerous and irrational man.

Its undeniable. Its also painful for Republicans to accept. And I think we all have to recognize and understand what it means to say those words, and what it means that those things happened, Cheney said to the crowd at a site long associated with traditional Republican values as reflected in Reagans presidency.

But the reality that we face today as Republicans as we think about the choice in front of us we have to choose. Because Republicans cannot both be loyal to Donald Trump and loyal to the Constitution.

Cheney, who is at risk of losing her primary for her Wyoming House seat, said shes a conservative Republican, a politician who believes in limited government, low taxes, a strong national defense and that family is the center of Americans lives. She hit the Biden administration for its economic policies and record-high inflation plaguing American households.

But she said as a leader in her party, she said she cannot ignore the threat posed by Donald Trump, nor can other Republicans.

She then quoted Reagan: No party and no people and no nation can defend and perpetuate a constitutional republic if they accept a leader whos gone to war with the rule of law, with the democratic process, or with the peaceful transition of power, with the Constitution itself.

Cheney talked about seeing the world through the eyes of her children, and through the eyes of young Americans. She talked about the need to put people above politics, as well as a need for bipartisanship and decency in a time when Americans are so divided.

One of my Democratic colleagues said to me recently that he looked forward to the day when he and I could disagree again, Cheney said. And believe me, I share that sentiment.

She said her youngest son wrote her a note on Mothers Day, telling her that every time she left the house, he knew she was going to work for America. She said it brought her to tears. And in the months since Jan. 6, and her role on the committee, Cheney said shes been moved by young Americans approaching her especially the young women.

And I will tell you that it is especially the young women, young women who seem instinctively to understand the peril of this moment for our democracy, Cheney said.

While Hutchinsons superiors, men much older than her, have hidden behind executive privilege, anonymity and intimidation, Cheney said, Hutchinson exhibited bravery and patriotism that will show young girls what it really means to love this country. The crowd cheered.

Let me also say this to all the little girls and young women who are watching tonight, Cheney said. These days, for the most part, men are running the world, and it is really not going well.

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Liz Cheney: 'Republicans cannot be both loyal to Donald Trump and loyal to the Constitution' - POLITICO

Republicans are substantial favorites to take over the U.S. House of Representatives following this Novembers midterm elections, but the U.S. Senate is much more competitive, according to FiveThirtyEights 2022 midterm election forecast, which launched today. Democrats are also favored to hang on to the governorships in a trio of swing states in the Rust Belt Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan although they are significant underdogs to win high-profile gubernatorial races in Georgia and Texas against Republican incumbents.

The split diagnosis reflects the difference between macro- and micro-level conditions. The national environment is quite poor for Democrats. Of course, this is typical for the presidents party, which has lost seats in the House in all but two of the past 21 midterm elections. But Democrats are also saddled with an unpopular President Biden and a series of challenges for the country, including inflation levels that havent been seen in decades, the lingering effects of the still-ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and fraying trust in civic institutions caused, in part, by Republican efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

Democrats, as a predominantly urban party, also face a longstanding problem in the Senate, where every state has equal representation regardless of its population, resulting in a substantial built-in bias toward white, rural states. And although Democrats are very slightly better off following the redistricting process in the House than they were under the 2020 maps, there are still more Republican-leaning seats than Democratic-leaning ones.

True, the political environment is dynamic. The Supreme Courts decision last week to overturn Roe v. Wade is too recent to be fully reflected in polls, but there are reasons to think it will help Democrats. Roe, which granted the constitutional right to abortion, was a popular precedent, and Democratic voters are more likely than Republican ones to say the decision will encourage them to vote at the midterms.

Moreover, in striking down Roe and other popular laws like restrictions against the concealed carry of firearms, the Supreme Court has in some ways undermined one of the traditional reasons that the presidents party tends to lose seats at the midterms. Typically, voters like some degree of balance: They do not want one party to have unfettered control of all levers of government. But the Supreme Court, with its 6-3 conservative majority, is a reminder of how much power Republicans have even if they dont control the White House.

The insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 can also serve as a reminder to voters about what might happen if the Electoral College certification process takes place in 2024 amid Republican control of both chambers of Congress. Democrats have had trouble getting the public to treat threats to democracy as a high priority, but polls do show that the public is sympathetic to the Democrats case, especially after the recent congressional hearings on the events of Jan. 6.

So, this is not a typical, low-stakes midterm election. On the contrary, there are strong forces tugging at each side of the rope, some of which are potentially of existential importance.

But Democrats majorities in both chambers of Congress are narrow, the historical precedent toward the presidents party losing seats is strong, and polls so far such as the generic congressional ballot, which asks voters which party they would support in an election suggest that voters slightly prefer Republican control of Congress.

Or at least thats the story in the House, where there are dozens of competitive races and candidates are relatively anonymous. There, big-picture factors tend to prevail. An unusually weak Republican candidate in one district might be counteracted by a strong one in another, for example.

In the Senate and gubernatorial races, by contrast, individual factors can matter more. And the GOP has nominated or is poised to nominate candidates who might significantly underperform a generic Republican based on some combination of inexperience, personal scandals or having articulated unpopular conservative positions. This is not a new problem for Republicans: underqualified or fringy candidates have cost them seats in the Senate in other recent cycles.

So lets briefly run through the models forecast for House, Senate and gubernatorial races. Then Ill describe some changes to the model since 2020 which are modest this year but reflect how congressional races are changing in an increasingly polarized political environment.

Republicans have an 87 percent chance of taking over the House, according to the Deluxe version of our model. Thats far from certain, but Democrats are fighting the odds: Their 13 percent chances are equivalent to tossing a coin and having it come up tails three times in a row.

Thats not to say House control will be a matter of luck, exactly. A change in the political environment could have ripple effects. For instance, sometimes one party wins nearly all the toss-up races, as Republicans did in 2020. However, even if Democrats were to win all 13 races that our model currently designates as toss-ups (meaning that no party has more than a 60 percent chance of winning), plus hold on to all the seats in which theyre favored, they would still wind up with only 208 seats, 10 short of the number they need for a majority.

Instead, Democrats will also have to win some seats where Republican candidates are currently favored, and that requires the national political environment in November to be more favorable for Democrats than our model is currently expecting.

On the one hand, the task isnt that daunting for Democrats. Our model calculates that Democrats would be favored to keep the House if they win the House popular vote or lose it by less than 0.7 percentage points something that Democrats did in both 2018 and 2020.

Moreover, Democrats are down by only about 2 points in our current average of generic-ballot polls. Given the inherent error in polling, and how much time there is between now and November, it isnt hard to turn a 2-point deficit in the polls into a 1-point win.

However, in important ways, that 2-point deficit understates the degree of trouble that Democrats are in. One reason is because many of those polls are conducted among registered voters rather than likely voters, and the electorate that turns out in November is likely to be more Republican than the broader universe of all registered voters. Historically, the patterns in midterm elections are that: 1) Republicans turn out more than Democrats, and 2) voters for whichever party doesnt control the presidency are more enthusiastic and turn out more. In 2018, those factors canceled one another out. Democrats, not controlling the presidency, were the more enthusiastic party, helping to neutralize the Republicans historical turnout advantage. This year, though, they both work in the favor of Republicans.

Thus, the model adjusts those registered-voter polls based on its estimate of what likely-voter polls would show, and when it does that, the Republicans generic-ballot lead is really more like 4 points than 2 points. I should note that this adjustment is not rigid in the model. Although the model uses historical turnout patterns as its baseline assumption, it will override that based on polls. In other words, if polls come out showing Democrats holding their own among likely voters such as because of increased Democratic enthusiasm in the wake of Roe being overturned the model will adjust to reflect that. Put another way, a very strong turnout would give Democrats a fighting chance of keeping the House.

But also, the generic ballot isnt the only input that the model considers, and some of the other factors look worse for Democrats than the generic ballot does. Based on the historical tendency for the presidents party to lose seats in the midterms and Bidens poor approval rating, for instance, the situation is more likely to get worse for Democrats than better. The model also evaluates factors such as polling and fundraising data in individual races.

Overall, the Deluxe forecast expects Democrats to eventually lose the popular vote for the House by closer to 6 points, about the margin that they lost it by in 2014. And it expects Republicans to wind up with 237 seats in an average outcome, a gain of 24 seats from the 213 they had at the start of the current Congress.

As I mentioned, this analysis is based on the Deluxe version of our model, which accounts for polling, fundamentals or factors such as fundraising and incumbency and expert race ratings such as those put out by the Cook Political Report. The Classic version of our model, which leaves out the expert ratings sacrificing the additional accuracy they add but sticking to purely quantitative factors tells a similar story, with Democrats also having a 12 percent chance of keeping the House. The Lite version of our model, meanwhile, which tries to forecast as much as it can based on polls alone, does paint a more optimistic picture for Democrats, giving them a 22 percent chance of keeping the House. But that version leaves out a lot of useful information, especially given that there isnt much polling in a number of competitive House races.

Democratic hopes of keeping the Senate are much more viable, however. Part of this, as I mentioned, is because they appear to have stronger candidates in a handful of key races. Pennsylvania, for instance which is an open seat after the retirement of Republican Sen. Pat Toomey is ordinarily the sort of seat that youd expect Republicans to win since Pennsylvania is a purple state in a Republican year. However, the Democratic candidate, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, is ahead of Republican Mehmet Oz, the doctor and TV personality, in every poll conducted so far. The model, though, is trained to be a bit skeptical given the fundamentals of the race, so it hedges against those polls and, at this point, has determined that Pennsylvania is best thought of as a toss-up. Still, that means Democrats have roughly a 50-50 chance of gaining a GOP-held Senate seat, offsetting potential losses elsewhere.

Indeed, our forecast sees the overall Senate landscape to be about as competitive as it gets. The Deluxe forecast literally has Senate control as a 50-50 tossup. The Classic and Lite forecasts show Democrats as very slight favorites to keep the Senate, meanwhile, with a 59 and a 62 percent chance, respectively.

Part of this is because Senate terms last for six years, and so most of these seats were last contested in 2016, a mediocre year for Democrats in which they lost the popular vote for the House and also lost Senate races in swing states such as Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Arizona. Of the 35 Senate seats up for grabs in November, 21 are currently held by Republicans. True, most of these are not competitive, but in addition to their chances to gain a GOP-held seat in Pennsylvania, Democrats also have credible chances in Wisconsin and North Carolina (and outside chances in Ohio and Florida, although those are a stretch given how GOP-leaning both states have become).

Republicans dont have any surefire pickups, meanwhile. Our model regards their best chances as being in Georgia, but that race is rated as a toss-up. And the races in Arizona and New Hampshire merely lean toward the Democratic incumbent, meaning they are still highly plausible GOP pickup opportunities.

Still, the picture isnt as bad as you might expect for Democrats. If the political environment really deteriorates for them, theyll be in trouble, lose most of the competitive races and even blue states like Colorado could come into play. But if things are merely pretty bad for Democrats instead of catastrophic, the outcome of the Senate will remain uncertain enough that stronger candidates could make the difference for them.

Its hard to talk about gubernatorial races on a systematic basis since theres no particular prize for winning a majority of governorships. But, for the record, our model does run these calculations, and the Deluxe version estimates that theres an 83 percent chance that Republicans end up with a majority of governorships following this Novembers elections, compared with a 7 percent chance for Democrats. (There is an 10 percent chance that neither party has a majority.) However, a lot of these governorships are in smaller, lower-population states, and the model thinks theres a 73 percent chance that the majority of the U.S. population will reside in states run by Democratic governors.

Overall, though, gubernatorial contests take the theme from the Senate a step further: Individual candidates can matter a lot. Indeed, partisanship matters less in gubernatorial races than in races for Congress, even if it matters more than it once did. Consider, for instance, that there are currently Democratic governors in Kansas and Louisiana and Republican ones in Massachusetts and Maryland, although several of those seats could flip parties this year.

However, incumbency is a powerful force in gubernatorial races. For instance, even though Michigan is a slightly red-leaning state, its incumbent Democratic governor, Gretchen Whitmer, is a clear favorite against a Republican field marred by fraudulent attempts to access the ballot and the arrest of a leading candidate for his participation in the Jan. 6 insurrection. Meanwhile, Wisconsins Tony Evers, also a Democratic incumbent, is a favorite against a Republican field where the most likely nominee is Rebecca Kleefisch, the former lieutenant governor. This is the sort of race where abortion could matter: Technically, Wisconsins 173-year-old abortion ban which outlaws all abortions, except in cases to save the life of the mother is now in effect following the Dobbs decision, although the Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul has said he wont enforce the ban. But Kleefisch has said she opposes abortion even in cases of rape and incest.

However, Republicans also have some strongly positioned incumbents. Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp is an 86 percent favorite to hold on against Democrat Stacey Abrams, and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is a 95 percent favorite against Democrat Beto ORourke. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a co-favorite with former President Donald Trump to be the 2024 Republican presidential nominee, is also a 94 percent favorite to win a second term.

Perhaps the most important gubernatorial race is in Pennsylvania, an open-seat race as the Democratic incumbent governor, Tom Wolf, is term-limited. There, the Republican nominee, Doug Mastriano, was present outside the Capitol during the Jan. 6 insurrection and worked to overturn Bidens win in Pennsylvania, potentially yielding a constitutional crisis if hes governor in Pennsylvania and the election outcome is close again there in 2024. But Mastriano is an underdog against Democrat Josh Shapiro, the Pennsylvania attorney general.

Overall, were happy with our congressional and gubernatorial forecasts, which last underwent a major revision before the 2018 elections. They performed very well in 2018 and fairly well in 2020 (despite a challenging year for the polls in 2020; it helped that our model also considers a number of other factors in addition to the polling). Therefore, the overall methodology is largely the same. However, after assessing the performance of the models, we did make a few changes around the margins:

Finally, a couple pieces of housekeeping. A number of states havent held their primaries yet, so in those cases, we guess at the most likely nominees based on polling, fundraising and other factors. These presumed nominees are designated with an asterisk in the interactive. If you see anything egregiously wrong such as a candidate listed as a presumptive nominee when theyve dropped out of the race please drop us a line.

Were also still thinking about how best to handle Alaska, which has a new system in place this year in which the top-four finishers in the primary advance to the general election regardless of political party, and then the general election outcome is determined by ranked-choice voting (or, as some call it, an instant runoff) if no candidate receives a majority. This is not entirely dissimilar to the way elections are conducted in Louisiana, in which all candidates from all parties appear on the ballot in a blanket nonpartisan primary in November, and then theres a runoff later between the top-two candidates if no candidate gets 50 percent of the vote. In fact, were currently taking a bit of a shortcut by using the Louisiana code for Alaska, essentially treating the instant runoff as though its an actual runoff where voters go to the polls again.

We may revisit this assumption later, but it does avoid one potential pitfall. In Alaskas House, Senate and gubernatorial races, its fairly likely that well end up with one Democratic candidate but two or three Republican candidates following the Aug. 16 primaries. If the Republican vote is divided two or three ways, it may well be that the Democrat initially receives the plurality of the vote. However, this lead is unlikely to survive the instant-runoff process assuming voters for one Republican rank the other Republicans ahead of any Democrat. The process we use for Louisiana assumes that votes mostly tend to stay within the same party in the event of a runoff, and this same assumption is in place in Alaska. Thus, we have Republicans as fairly heavy favorites in the Alaska races, although the new system introduces some uncertainty.

The forecast itself will update continuously whenever new polls or other information are added to our database. Well also publish a written update to the forecast once per week or so, usually on Fridays, to review new data and other changes in the landscape, before upping the frequency as the election draws closer. We hope youll regularly visit FiveThirtyEight as part of your midterms rotation.

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Why Republicans Are Favored To Win The House, But Not The Senate - FiveThirtyEight

Jerry Springer| Sarasota Herald-Tribune

It's frightening to realize how close our country came to losing our democracy because of former President Donald Trump and his insurrectionist minions.

But here' s what may be even more frightening: We no longer have two major political parties that are committed to ensuring that America stays a democracy.

These arenot the ravings of an incurable partisan, though I do admit that all things being equal, I do mark my ballot for Democrats. But, of course, all things arent equal these days. So my critique about the Republican Party,which was once fondly knownas the "Grand Old Party,"is an honest attempt at offering some objective observations.

And here's one very objective observation: While we still havetwo major political parties that are fiercely battling and contesting each other, only one of them is doing sowhile displaying a deep love for democracy in our country. And it's not the Republican Party.

MyRepublican friends and, yes I do have some always modify their declarations of being Republicans by saying, Yes, Trumps a whacko. And, yes,there are some extremists, racists and Proud Boys in our party. But ourparty's basic principles conservatism, limited government and low taxes for corporations and the wealthy are still worth believing in and supporting."

But is that really what todays Republican Party stands for?

Consider this. A near-majority of Republicans still believe President Joe Biden didn't win the 2020 election. And they still believe that Biden's victory by slightly more than7 million votes should be overturned simply because the loser wants to keep insistinghe was the real winner,even though he has provided absolutely no evidence to back up his endless complainingabout fraudulent voting

Is this how we show our love for our country? Or for America's democracy?

And, no, we're not talking about just about afringe segment of Republicans, In fact, the Texas Republican Party recently approveda platform suggestingthat if there any federal laws that Texas happens to dislike, they should just "be ignored, opposed, refused and nullified. It also declares hatTexas "retains the right to secede from the United States," and urgesthestate Legislature to give Texansa chance to vote on a secession referendum.

Of course, this was tried back in the 19th century and it didn'twork out so well. But apparently the Republicans in Texas think it's worth another try in the 21st century.

Once again, this is not merely a fringe group: thisis the official TexasRepublican Party, which is one ofthe largest state parties in America. And, by the way, in addition to secession the party is also in favor of:

As uncomfortable as it is to admit, todays Republican Party does not stand up for American democracy and it does not unequivocally support that principle, either. It isnow clearly in favor of making America an undemocratic theocracy, and those who long for the Republican Party that once existed had better stop their daydreaming. It islong gone, and it isnot coming back.

Jerry Springer is a longtime nationally syndicated television talk show host who resides in Sarasota. Springerhas a law degree from Northwestern University and served one term asthe mayor of Cincinnati, Ohio.He is the host of "The Jerry Springer Podcast."

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Jerry Springer: The Republican Party used to be reasonable. Not anymore - Sarasota Herald-Tribune

But even Republicans who didnt take that vote are running into stronger primary opposition than in the last midterm, the analysis shows. The average incumbent House Republican pulled 88 percent support in party primaries four years ago. Thats dropped this year to 75 percent for GOP members who didnt vote for the Jan. 6 commission and cratered to 62 percent for the incumbents who did back it.

Altogether, the numbers paint a portrait of an angry base sending a message to its ambassadors in Washington: Dont step out of line, or else.

Simply being an incumbent puts you in those crosshairs, said Rep. John Curtis (R-Utah).

POLITICOs analysis averaged results of all of the completed vote counts in House GOP primaries so far this year.

The current House Select Committee on Jan. 6, which has grabbed the spotlight with televised hearings this month, is not the commission that 35 House Republicans supported. That proposed investigative body died in the Senate, but that nuance is often lost on voters and ignored by opponents eager to exploit an angry GOP electorate looking to punish any whiff of disloyalty to Trump.

The irony is the commission that I voted for would have avoided this current commission, said Rep. Blake Moore (R-Utah), who won his primary but, with votes still being tallied, has less than 60 percent support from GOP voters. My challenger looks at this as an opportunity, thinking he can disingenuously persuade people otherwise. Its just not accurate.

Rep. Blake Moore (R-Utah) talks to supporters during a Utah Republican election night party on Tuesday, June 28, 2022, in South Jordan, Utah.|George Frey/AP Photo

Five of the 35 Republican members who voted for that investigation had primaries on Tuesday night. One, Rep. Michael Guest (R-Miss.), prevailed after being forced into a runoff in which his opponent continued to weaponize the commission vote. Another, Rep. Rodney Davis (R-Ill.), lost to Rep. Mary Miller (R-Ill.) in a redistricting-created clash where Miller leaned heavily on Daviss Jan. 6 vote.

The stats for the commission voters are stark. Heading into Tuesdays primaries, more than half (eight out of 15) of the members who voted for the Jan. 6 commission got less than 60 percent of the vote in a GOP primary dangerous territory for an incumbent. For comparison: Of the 102 House Republicans who had GOP primaries earlier this year, only 15 of them fell under that threshold.

So far only three members who backed the commission have lost, all under additional difficult circumstances. One of them also voted to impeach Trump, and two others faced fellow incumbents in redistricting-fueled primaries.

But the specter of costly, months-long primaries and too-close-for-comfort winning margins, which dozens more House Republicans are facing this year, could ultimately deter others from bucking party orthodoxy or taking a tough vote of conscience in the future.

In TV ads, debates and mailers, challengers seized on the Jan. 6 commission vote to cast the incumbents as insufficiently conservative. Some were even inspired to launch bids because of the vote.

The perils of the vote were apparent from the start of the primary season. Rep. Van Taylor (R-Texas), one of the 35 Republicans to back the commission, drew several opponents for his March 1 primary and was ultimately forced into a runoff. (He announced plans to retire shortly after the primary, after admitting to an extramarital affair with the widow of a former member of ISIS.)

Every time I talked, [I] brought it up, said Keith Self, who won a runoff slot with Taylor and is now the GOP nominee.

It was the central point, Self said. There were other votes. There were other things. But that was a big one. I mean Ill admit that was a big one. It was a big meaningful one here in the district.

In Idaho, GOP Rep. Mike Simpson had to beat back a rematch from an attorney who previously ran against him in 2014 and launched a second bid zeroing in the commission vote. Simpson won with 55 percent, after spending nearly $1 million in the run-up to the primary.

Rep. French Hill (R-Ark.) also faced another matchup with the same candidate he faced during his first run in 2014. He prevailed, but with less than 60 percent of the primary vote, a notable dip for the incumbent.

Some of the lower-than-usual victory margins could be ascribed to redistricting. Nearly all members inherited some new voters amid changes to the lines of their districts. But Democrats are also dealing with redistricting, and their average incumbents performance in party primaries hasnt shifted compared to the last midterm, holding steady at 90 percent.

Plus, many Republicans had only minor tweaks to their constituencies and at least one didnt see any change.

In South Dakotas at-large district, GOP Rep. Dusty Johnson got just under 60 percent after a serious primary challenge from state Rep. Taffy Howard, who took aim at the incumbent for backing the commission and for voting to certify the election results.

A pro-Howard super PAC went beyond Jan. 6 in its attacks on Johnson, running a spot warning that Johnson denies that the communists stole the election from President Trump.

I do think you see a lot more primaries, Johnson said. I think that there are so many disagreements within the Republican Party that people feel like they need to litigate those in primaries.

Dusty Johnson speaks during a news conference.|Jacquelyn Martin/AP Photo

But Johnson said he didnt regret any of his votes, either for the commission or to certify the election results.

Im a big believer in the Constitution thats generally an important characteristic of a Republican, Johnson said. A clear and plain reading of the Constitution is: Members of Congress will be witnesses to a ceremonial event, not super-judges.

Its not just Republicans who backed the Jan. 6 investigation that have had primary trouble.

Reps. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), Mark Amodei (R-Nev.), Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.) and William Timmons (R-S.C.) all got under 55 percent of the vote. None backed the commission, though Mace faced a Trump-endorsed challenger anyway.

They are very polarized, very angry, said Rep. Tom Cole, a former GOP campaign chief, of the electorate. So thats a high-risk time for an incumbent.

Every time I talked, [I] brought it up

Keith Self, who defeated Rep. Van Taylor (R-Texas) in a runoff.

Theres always a frustration when youre the minority, Cole said, adding that reality is often ignored. You can fight awfully hard, but youre still going to lose given the vote total.

In interviews, many of the GOP members said they were forced to repeatedly explain that the Select Committee on the Jan. 6 attacks is not the version of the investigation they supported. The proposal they backed would have been an independent commission modeled after the one that investigated the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, with equal say for GOP members and not just Trump foes Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger.

But when that proposal died in the Senate, Speaker Nancy Pelosi unilaterally created a new committee. And after some partisan bickering, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy yanked all five of his picks from serving on the panel and refused to participate

That kind of distinction is often lost on voters.

When they hear what I voted for, theyre fine with it, said Curtis, who sailed through his Utah primary on Tuesday despite his support for the commission. But the assumption is that I voted for the one that were actually seeing right now, so it takes some explaining.

In Smiths New Jersey seat, the distortion was even greater. He said he was fielding constant questions from voters on why he voted to impeach Trump which he didnt. And he accused his opponent of spreading that falsehood.

Frankly, there were more lies in this race than I ever had in 23 races. I first ran in 78, Smith said in an interview after his primary.

His defeated GOP challenger, Mike Crispi, said he never accused Smith of that but added that voters were so angry at his Jan. 6 commission vote that they look at it as a third impeachment.

People are connecting a Jan. 6 vote to impeachment, I cant help that they do that, Crispi said. I cant help that they look at his record that is so left and then correlate it with being anti-Trump.

Crispi hasnt ruled out another challenge and he believes hes already had an impact on Smith, after receiving grateful calls and texts last week when the incumbent declined to support Congress new bipartisan gun safety package.

He definitely is voting more carefully, Crispi said. That gun control bill shows that were in his head because in any other circumstance, he would have voted yes on that.

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Republicans who backed Trump Jan. 6 probe face fierce backlash at the polls - POLITICO

WASHINGTON, June 30 (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday agreed to hear a Republican-backed appeal that could give state legislatures far more power over federal elections by limiting the ability of state courts to review their actions, taking up a North Carolina case that could have broad implications for the 2024 elections and beyond.

The justices took up the appeal by Republican state lawmakers of a February decision by North Carolina's top court to throw out a map delineating the state's 14 U.S. House of Representatives districts approved last year by the Republican-controlled state legislature.

The North Carolina Supreme Court determined that the boundaries for the districts were drawn by the legislature in a manner that boosted the electoral chances of Republicans at the expense of Democrats. It rejected Republican arguments seeking to shield legislature-drawn maps from legal attack in state courts.

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North Carolina House Speaker Timothy Moore, a Republican, hailed the high court's decision to hear the appeal.

"This case is not only critical to election integrity in North Carolina, but has implications for the security of elections nationwide," Moore said.

Voting rights advocates disagreed.

"In a radical power grab, self-serving politicians want to defy our state's highest court and impose illegal voting districts upon the people of North Carolina," said Bob Phillips, executive director of Common Cause, a voting rights group that is among the plaintiffs challenging the legislature's map.

In March, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a Republican request to put on hold the lower court rulings that adopted the court-drawn map, a decision seen as boosting Democratic hopes of retaining their slim House majority in the November midterm elections. Conservative Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch dissented from that decision.

The Republican lawmakers said the state court impermissibly imposed its own policy determination for how much partisanship can go into crafting congressional lines. They acknowledged that the case would have an impact beyond redistricting, extending to "the whole waterfront of voting issues, from absentee voting deadlines to witness requirements, voter ID to curbside voting."

The U.S. Supreme Court will hear the case in its next term, which begins in October, with a decision due by June 2023. The ruling is not expected to come before this November's elections but could apply to 2024 elections including the presidential race.

Two groups of plaintiffs, including Democratic voters and an environmental group, sued after North Carolina's legislature passed its version of the congressional map last November. The plaintiffs argued that the map violated the North Carolina state constitution's provisions concerning free elections and freedom of assembly, among others.

The North Carolina Supreme Court struck down the map on Feb. 4, concluding that the way the districts were crafted was intentionally biased against Democrats, diluting their "fundamental right to equal voting power."

A lower state court on Feb. 23 rejected a redrawn map submitted by the legislature and instead adopted a new map drawn by a bipartisan group of experts. According to some redistricting analysts, the new map includes seven Republican districts likely to be won by Republicans, six likely to be won by Democrats and one competitive seat.

The dispute is one of numerous legal battles in the United States over the composition of electoral districts, which are redrawn each decade to reflect population changes measured in a national census, last taken in 2020. In most states, such redistricting is done by the party in power, which can lead to map manipulation for partisan gain.

The Supreme Court in 2019 barred federal judges from curbing the practice, called partisan gerrymandering. Critics have said that such gerrymandering warps democracy.

The North Carolina Republicans' defense of the legislature's map relies on a contentious legal theory called the "independent state legislature doctrine" that is gaining traction in conservative legal circles and, if accepted, would vastly increase politicians' control over how elections are conducted.

Under that doctrine, the U.S. Constitution gives legislatures, not state courts or other entities, authority over election rules including the drawing of electoral districts.

The doctrine is based in part on language in the Constitution stating that the "times, places and manner" of federal elections "shall be prescribed in each state by the legislature thereof." In their appeal to the Supreme Court, the Republican lawmakers decried the "state supreme court's usurpation of that authority."

The state's Department of Justice said in a legal filing that, contrary to the Republican lawmakers' assertions, North Carolina state law specifically authorizes state courts to review redistricting efforts.

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Reporting by Andrew Chung; Editing by Will Dunham

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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U.S. Supreme Court to hear Republican bid to curb judicial oversight of elections - Reuters.com