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  • Who is Jack Smith, the special counsel named in the Trump investigations | CNN Politics

    Who is Jack Smith, the special counsel named in the Trump investigations | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Jack Smith, the special counsel announced by Attorney General Merrick Garland on Friday to oversee the criminal investigations into the retention of classified documents at former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort and parts of the January 6, 2021, insurrection, is a long-time prosecutor who has overseen a variety of high-profile cases during a career that spans decades.

    Smith’s experience ranges from prosecuting a sitting US senator to bringing cases against gang members who were ultimately convicted of murdering New York City police officers. In recent years, Smith has prosecuted war crimes at The Hague. His career in multiple parts of the Justice Department, as well as in international courts, has allowed him to keep a relatively low-profile in the oftentimes brassy legal industry.

    His experience and resume will allow him, at least at first, to fly underneath the type of political blowback that quickly met former special counsel Robert Mueller’s team. It also shows he is adept at managing complex criminal cases related to both public corruption and national security – and that he has practice making challenging decisions with political implications.

    Smith is widely expected to be tasked with making policy decisions around whether to charge a former president of the United States. Garland’s statements on Friday and the recent steps taken in the Mar-a-Lago and January 6 investigations have signaled that, at the very least, Donald Trump is under investigation and could potentially be charged with a crime.

    “He knows how to do high-profile cases. He’s independent. He will not be influenced by anybody,” said Greg Andres, a former member of Mueller’s team.

    Andres, who has known Smith since the late 1990s when they started at a US attorney’s office together and ultimately became co-chiefs of the office’s criminal division, said it’s the breadth of Smith’s experience that will enable him to withstand the public scrutiny and make tough judgment calls.

    “He will evaluate the evidence and understand what type of case should be charged or not. He has the type of experience to make those judgments,” said Andres.

    “He understands the courtroom. He understands how to try a case. He knows how to prove a case,” he added. “Particularly in these circumstances it will be critical to understand what types of evidence is required to prove the case in court.”

    In a statement following his announcement, Smith pledged to conduct the investigations “independently and in the best traditions of the Department of Justice.”

    “The pace of the investigations will not pause or flag under my watch. I will exercise independent judgment and will move the investigations forward expeditiously and thoroughly to whatever outcome the facts and the law dictate,” Smith said.

    One former colleague highlighted that Smith has prosecuted members of both parties.

    “He’s going to be really aggressive,” the person said, adding that “things are going to speed up.” Smith, they said, “operates very quickly” and has a unique ability to quickly determine the things that are important to a case and doesn’t waste time “hand-wringing over things that are real sideshows.”

    In court, Smith comes off as very down-to-earth and relatable, this person said, characterizing that as a good attribute to have as a prosecutor.

    Smith also will not care about the politics surrounding the case, they said, adding he has very thick skin and will “do what he’s going to do.”

    Smith began his career as an assistant district attorney with the New York County District Attorney’s Office in 1994. He worked in the Eastern District of New York in 1999 as an assistant US attorney, where he prosecuted cases including civil rights violations and police officers murdered by gangs, according to the Justice Department.

    As a prosecutor in Brooklyn, New York, one of Smith’s biggest and most high-profile cases was prosecuting gang member Ronell Wilson for the murder of two New York City police department detectives during an undercover gun operation in Staten Island.

    Wilson was convicted and sentenced to death, the first death penalty case in New York at the time in 50 years, though a judge later found he was ineligible for the death penalty.

    Moe Fodeman, who worked with Smith at EDNY, called him “one of the best trial lawyers I have ever seen.”

    “He is a phenomenal investigator; he leaves no stone unturned. He drills down to get to the true facts,” Fodeman said.

    Fodeman, who is still friends with Smith, said he is a “literally insane” cyclist and triathlete.

    Beginning in 2008, Smith worked for the International Criminal Court and oversaw war crimes investigations under the Office of the Prosecutor for two years.

    In 2010, he became chief of the Public Integrity Section of the Justice Department, where he oversaw litigation of public corruption cases. Lanny Breuer, the former assistant attorney general for the DOJ’s Criminal Division who recruited Smith, said his onetime employee was “a terrific prosecutor” with a “real sense of fairness.”

    “If you are going to have a special counsel, in my view, and you want someone who is going to be fearless, but fair, and not going to be intimidated and not overly bureaucratic, that’s Jack – he is all of these things,” Breuer told CNN.

    “Smith brings cases quickly. … He doesn’t sit on cases. He is a person of action,” Breuer added.

    After his stint at the Public Integrity Section, Smith was appointed first assistant US attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee in 2015.

    Though he is not widely known in Washington, DC, legal circles, Smith is described as a consummate public servant.

    About a decade ago, he hired waves of line prosecutors into the Public Integrity Section of the Justice Department, supervising dozens over his years in charge there.

    Brian Kidd, whom Smith hired at the unit, recalled how his boss walked him through every step of a complicated racketeering case against corrupt police officers.

    “He was not going to tolerate a politically motivated prosecution,” Kidd said. “And he has an incredible ability to motivate the people working with him and under him. He’s incredibly supportive of his team.”

    Smith handled some of the most high-profile political corruption cases in recent memory – to mixed outcomes.

    He was the head of the public integrity unit when then-Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell was indicted in 2014, and was in meetings with the defense team and involved in decision-making leading up to the charges, according to a person familiar with the case.

    McDonnell was initially convicted of receiving gifts for political favors, but then his conviction was overturned by the Supreme Court.

    Smith was also at the helm of the unit when the DOJ failed to convict at trial former Senator and vice presidential candidate John Edwards.

    A Republican source familiar with Smith’s oversight of the investigation into former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay commended Smith’s non-biased approach, saying that he ultimately made a “just” decision to conclude the investigation without alleging DeLay committed any crime.

    In recent years while working at The Hague, he has not lived in the United States. He’s no longer on the US Triathlon team but is still a competitive biker.

    Smith took over as acting US Attorney when David Rivera departed in early 2017 before leaving the Justice Department later that year and becoming vice president of litigation for the Hospital Corporation of America. In 2018, he became chief prosecutor for the special court in The Hague, where he investigated war crimes in Kosovo.

    “Throughout his career, Jack Smith has built a reputation as an impartial and determined prosecutor, who leads teams with energy and focus to follow the facts wherever they lead,” Garland said during the announcement on Friday. “Mr. Smith is the right choice to complete these matters in an even-handed and urgent manner.”

    In May 2014, the House Oversight Committee interviewed Smith behind closed doors as part of the Republican-led investigation into the alleged IRS targeting of conservative groups. Then-Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa launched the probe following a 2013 inspector general report that found delays in the processing of applications by certain conservative groups and requesting information from them that was later deemed unnecessary.

    Republicans sought testimony from Smith, who at the time was Public Integrity section chief, due to his involvement with arranging a 2010 meeting between Justice Department officials and then-IRS official Lois Lerner, the official at the center of the IRS scandal. The meeting had been convened to discuss the “evolving legal landscape” of campaign finance law following the Citizens United Supreme Court decision, according to a May 2014 letter written by Issa and Rep. Jim Jordan, the Ohio Republican who is expected to be House Judiciary chairman next year.

    “It is apparent that the Department’s leadership, including Public Integrity Section Chief Jack Smith, was closely involved in engaging with the IRS in wake of Citizens United and political pressure from prominent Democrats to address perceived problems with the decision,” Issa and Jordan wrote in the letter seeking Smith’s testimony.

    Smith testified that his office “had a dialogue” with the FBI about opening investigations related to politically active non-profits following the meeting with Lerner, but did not ultimately do so, according to a copy of his interview obtained by CNN.

    Smith explained that he had asked for the meeting with the IRS because he wanted to learn more about the legal landscape of political non-profits following the Citizens United decision because he was relatively new to the public integrity section. He said that Lerner explained it would be difficult if not impossible to bring a case on the abuse of tax-exempt status.

    Smith repeated at several points in the interview that the Justice Department did not pursue any investigations due to politics.

    “I want to be clear – it would be more about looking at the issue, looking at whether it made sense to open investigations,” he said. “If we did, you know, how would you go about doing this? Is there predication, a basis to open an investigation? Things like that. I can’t say as I sit here now specifically, you know, the back-and-forth of that discussion. I can just tell you that – because I know one of your concerns is that organizations were targeted. And I can tell you that we, Public Integrity, did not open any investigations as a result of those discussions and that we certainly, as you know, have not brought any cases as a result of that.”

    Smith also testified that he was not aware of anyone at the Justice Department placing pressure on the IRS – and that he was never pressured to investigate any political groups.

    “No. And maybe I can stop you guys. I know there’s a series of these questions. I’ve never been asked these things, and anybody who knows me would never even consider asking me to do such a thing,” Smith said.

    This story has been updated with additional details.

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  • Liz Cheney’s PAC airs ad urging Arizona voters to reject GOP candidates Kari Lake and Mark Finchem | CNN Politics

    Liz Cheney’s PAC airs ad urging Arizona voters to reject GOP candidates Kari Lake and Mark Finchem | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney is putting money behind her vow to do everything she can to prevent election deniers from winning in November, as her political action committee announced Friday that it is spending $500,000 on an ad urging Arizona voters to reject GOP gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake and Republican Secretary of State nominee Mark Finchem.

    Both Lake and Finchem won the GOP nominations after echoing former President Donald Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was stolen, and Lake refused to pledge that she would accept the 2022 election results during a recent interview with CNN’s Dana Bash.

    In several public appearances, Cheney has warned Arizona voters that they will play a critical role in “ensuring the future functioning of our constitutional republic” – noting that election deniers like Lake and Finchem could create havoc in the 2024 presidential election in a swing state that could determine the next occupant of the White House.

    The new ad features Cheney, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, at a recent appearance noting that she could not recall if she has ever voted for a Democrat, but telling her audience that she would this year if she lived in Arizona.

    “You have a candidate for governor, Kari Lake, you have a candidate for secretary of state, Mark Finchem, both of whom have said that they will only honor the results of an election if they agree with it,” Cheney says in a clip from her recent appearance at a McCain Institute event at Arizona State University’s campus in Tempe.

    “And if you care about the survival of our republic, we cannot give people power who will not honor elections.”

    Cheney’s new PAC, The Great Task, a multi-candidate PAC that she sponsored, said that the $500,000 media buy in Arizona will air the ad on broadcast, online and streaming platforms. CNN has reached out to the Lake and Finchem campaigns for comment.

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  • Meta fined $24.7M for campaign finance disclosure violations

    Meta fined $24.7M for campaign finance disclosure violations

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    SEATTLE (AP) — A Washington state judge on Wednesday fined Facebook parent company Meta nearly $25 million for repeatedly and intentionally violating campaign finance disclosure law, in what is believed to be the largest campaign finance penalty in U.S. history.

    The penalty issued by King County Superior Court Judge Douglass North was the maximum allowed for more than 800 violations of Washington’s Fair Campaign Practices Act, passed by voters in 1972 and later strengthened by the Legislature. Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson argued that the maximum was appropriate considering his office previously sued Facebook in 2018 for violating the same law.

    Meta, based in Menlo Park, California, did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

    Washington’s transparency law requires ad sellers such as Meta to keep and make public the names and addresses of those who buy political ads, the target of such ads, how the ads were paid for and the total number of views of each ad. Ad sellers must provide the information to anyone who asks for it. Television stations and newspapers have complied with the law for decades.

    But Meta has repeatedly objected to the requirements, arguing unsuccessfully in court that the law is unconstitutional because it “unduly burdens political speech” and is “virtually impossible to fully comply with.” While Facebook does keep an archive of political ads that run on the platform, the archive does not disclose all the information required under Washington’s law.

    “I have one word for Facebook’s conduct in this case — arrogance,” Ferguson said in a news release. “It intentionally disregarded Washington’s election transparency laws. But that wasn’t enough. Facebook argued in court that those laws should be declared unconstitutional. That’s breathtaking. Where’s the corporate responsibility?”

    In 2018, following Ferguson’s first lawsuit, Facebook agreed to pay $238,000 and committed to transparency in campaign finance and political advertising. It subsequently said it would stop selling political ads in the state rather than comply with the requirements.

    Nevertheless, the company continued selling political ads, and Ferguson sued again in 2020.

    “Meta was aware that its announced ‘ban’ would not, and did not, stop all such advertising from continuing to be displayed on its platform,” North wrote last month in finding that Meta violation’s were intentional.

    Each violation of the law is typically punishable by up to $10,000, but penalties can be tripled if a judge finds them to be intentional. North fined Meta $30,000 for each of its 822 violations — about $24.7 million. Ferguson described the fine as the largest campaign finance-related penalty ever issued in the U.S.

    Meta, one of the world’s richest companies, reported quarterly earnings Wednesday of $4.4 billion, or $1.64 per share, on revenue of nearly $28 billion, in the three month period that ended Sept. 30.

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  • 4 takeaways from the New York governor debate | CNN Politics

    4 takeaways from the New York governor debate | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    New York Gov. Kathy Hochul squared off with Republican Rep. Lee Zeldin on Tuesday in their first and only pre-election debate, offering a series of tense and testy exchanges over crime, abortion rights, the 2020 presidential election and campaign finance ethics.

    Their one-on-one came as recent polls show a tightening race, with the Democrat’s lead having dwindled to single digits in one survey. No Republican has won statewide office in New York since 2002.

    Zeldin, a conservative backed by former President Donald Trump, has campaigned furiously on his opposition to the state’s bail reform law and criticized Hochul’s handling of crime, which has ranked high up on the list of voters’ concerns in nearly every survey of the race.

    Both candidates sought to align themselves with New York City Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat who has pushed for new and substantial rollbacks to bail law, but they predictably diverged on Trump and his successor, President Joe Biden.

    Zeldin praised Trump’s policy agenda during the debate, but, in a nod to a state that voted overwhelmingly for his opponent, did not directly say whether the former President should run again in 2024.

    Hochul, breaking from some tepid statements from fellow Democrats, was clear and concise on Biden’s future. Asked if she thought he should run again, she said, “Yes, I do.”

    Here are the four big takeaways from Tuesday night’s debate.

    Crime has emerged as the central talking point of the election and that held for large portions of the debate on Tuesday, with Zeldin criticizing Hochul for not taking more aggressive steps to combat its rise and promising to fire a controversial Democratic prosecutor in Manhattan.

    Hochul responded by talking up various initiatives but also frequently tried to turn the tables on the Republican, pointing to his opposition to gun control measures, including a bipartisan deal recently passed in Congress.

    “I’m running to take back our streets,” Zeldin said in the first volley of the debate.

    Hochul dismissed her opponent’s attacks as vague and cynical.

    “You can work on keeping people scared or on keeping people safe,” she said, adding, “There is no crime fighting plan if it doesn’t include guns.”

    Zeldin sought to pivot off the gun argument by noting that firearms didn’t play a role in many recent hate crimes or when innocent bystanders have, in recent months, been pushed on to subway tracks.

    “They tell me these stories,” Zeldin said of voters he’s met, “about having to hug a pole or grab a guardrail because they’re afraid of being pushed in front of an oncoming subway car.”

    “All you have is rhetoric,” Hochul shot back. “I have a record of getting things done.”

    The state’s bail reform law, passed in 2019 but rolled back twice since, was also a flashpoint. Even after the moderators rolled out statistics showing it’s difficult to discern whether the law, which makes it more difficult to hold suspects in pre-trial detention, led to a rise in crime, both candidates – Zeldin to a much greater degree – spoke about their desire for further changes.

    Hochul has, before and during the campaign, sought new tweaks. Zeldin wants the legislation off the books entirely – a desire in step with even some liberal New Yorkers – calling it “the will of the people.”

    In a state Biden won by nearly 2 million votes, with more than 60% of ballots cast, Zeldin’s vote in Congress against certifying the election has become a reliable cudgel for Democrats.

    On Tuesday night, Hochul wielded it early and often.

    When Zeldin talked about trying to remove Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who was elected to the job, Hochul connected it to the congressman’s actions after the 2020 presidential election.

    “In Lee Zeldin’s world,” she said, “you overturn elections you disagree with.”

    Zeldin said he had the “constitutional authority” and “constitutional duty” to try his best to unseat Bragg, who has been criticized for not more aggressively prosecuting low-level crime.

    Eventually, the moderators offered Zeldin an opportunity of sorts to disavow his past actions. Asked if he would, knowing what he does now, still vote against certifying the 2020 election, Zeldin demurred.

    “The issue still remains today,” the Republican said. “Election integrity should always matter.”

    Pressed then on whether he would accept defeat, should Hochul win in two weeks, Zeldin said he would – but his disdain for the question was obvious.

    “First off, losing is not an option,” Zeldin answered. “Secondly, playing along with your hypothetical question: Of course” he would accept the results, he said.

    The Republican also came under consistent attack over his anti-abortion policy views and celebration of the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade.

    Zeldin has argued the issue is moot: New York state has passed strict abortion rights protections and, even if he wanted to, he could not change them.

    Still, he did not directly answer a question from the moderators asking whether he would sign off on new restrictions if Republicans took hold of the state legislature – something Zeldin insisted was immaterial because “it’s not happening.”

    Hochul returned to the issue frequently, touting the state law and promising to protect it from conservative politicians like Zeldin.

    “What we have in New York state is simply a codification of Roe v. Wade,” Hochul said, when asked if she would put any restrictions on abortion. She then added, “You know why nothing changed the day after the Dobbs decision? It’s because I’m the governor of New York and he’s not.”

    Zeldin also sought to fend off questions about a recent remark, which he has since walked back, stating he wanted to appoint an anti-abortion rights state health commissioner.

    “My litmus test,” he insisted, “is that (the health commissioner) is going to do an exceptional job.”

    Again though, on the issue of whether he would support funding for Planned Parenthood, Zeldin swerved and suggested it would be a bargaining chip with Democratic leaders in Albany.

    “I’ve heard from New Yorkers who say that they don’t want their tax dollars, for example, for people who live 1,500 miles away from here,” Zeldin said.

    The Bills have one of the best records in pro football this year, but Zeldin hopes they might be a losing issue for Hochul, at least outside Buffalo.

    The state this year approved $600 million in funds to build the team, which is owned by a billionaire, a new stadium in Buffalo. The county is also chipping in an estimated $250 million.

    Hochul defended what critics call a corporate handout as a job-creating maneuver – an argument belied by other cities’ past experiences doing the same – and claimed the Bills were “looking elsewhere,” or considering moving to another city, and said she’d heard from people that they’d been in contact with officials in other states.

    “You think about the identity of the community – like Broadway is to New York City, the Buffalo Bills are to Western New York,” said Hochul, a Buffalo native.

    Zeldin became exasperated at the suggestion the Bills were seriously considering leaving the city – “They’re not,” he snapped – and said the eleventh hour deal to secure the money was “irresponsible on process and substance.”

    Throughout the debate, Zeldin also criticized what he described as Hochul’s “pay to play” governorship, accusing her of trading state contract cash for campaign donations.

    Hochul rejected the charge, which has been reported on inconclusively by a number of local media outlets.

    “There has never been a quid pro quo, a policy change, because of a contribution,” the governor said, before pivoting to an attack on Zeldin’s outside support, specifically the more than $8 million invested in pro-Zeldin super PACs by Ronald Lauder, heir to the cosmetics giant Estée Lauder.

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  • Mystery robocall thanks Democrats in competitive Georgia races for supporting abortion rights of ‘birthing persons’ | CNN Politics

    Mystery robocall thanks Democrats in competitive Georgia races for supporting abortion rights of ‘birthing persons’ | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    A political robocall made to tens of thousands of Georgians thanked a vulnerable congressional Democrat and the Democratic nominee for governor for protecting the rights of “birthing persons” to “have an abortion up until the date of birth” – targeting abortion rights tension in the competitive races.

    The calls, which used polarizing language popular with Democratic activists, are made to sound like they are in support of Democratic Rep. Sanford Bishop and gubernatorial nominee Stacey Abrams – but Democrats involved in the races allege that the call, uncovered by CNN’s KFile, is the work of Republicans.

    The call says it is done by a group called American Values – groups operating under that name or similar ones have said they are not behind the call.

    Bishop, who has served in Congress for 30 years, faces Republican Chris West in the race for Georgia’s 2nd Congressional District, one of the only competitive House races in the state.

    The Abrams campaign and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which supports Bishop’s race, said they did not pay for the robocall. Bishop’s campaign declined to comment on the record.

    The robocall is narrated by a woman who gives her name as Jill and her pronouns as she/her and continues to say people who identify as women are under attack in the state.

    “This is Jill, and my pronouns are she/her,” she says. “I’m sure you’ll agree with me that people that identify as women are under attack, not just in Georgia, but throughout our country. Georgia is lucky to have Stacey Abrams and Sanford Bishop fighting for our abortion rights.”

    The call goes on to say Bishop and Abrams support abortion until the moment of birth. Abrams has campaigned that she does not believe in any government restrictions on abortion, calling it a medical decision not beholden to “arbitrary” timelines. Bishop has voted in the past to ban late-term abortion procedures, indicating some support for restriction, and has said that abortion should be rare, legal and safe and available in cases of rape, incest or to protect the life or health of a woman.

    “While some elected officials are trying to limit abortion rights to six months or even five months after conception, we are so lucky to have Stacey Abrams and Sanford Bishop fighting to protect our right to have an abortion up until the date of birth,” the narrator of the call says. “Would you please take a moment to call Stacey Abrams or Sanford Bishop and thank them for standing up for women’s right to abort their babies up to the point of birth.”

    “Government needs to stay out of the reproductive rights of birthing persons,” says the narrator, Jill.

    The robocall ends by saying it was “paid for by American Values and not authorized with any candidate or candidate’s committee” – but several groups who operate under that name or similar names denied to CNN they were behind the call. And there is no political action committee registered by that name in Georgia.

    The call reached approximately 43,000 phones from Friday October 14 through Sunday October 16, according to data from the anti-robocall app Nomorobo.

    The message fails to identify who paid for the call in the introduction and give a call back number, which violates rules from the Federal Communications Commission for autodialed or prerecorded voice political campaign calls.

    The October robocall also invites listeners to press one and two to leave a message for Abrams and Bishop, respectively. If a user presses two, they are redirected to Bishop’s Albany district office. But when a user presses one, the call redirects to the private number of the chair for the local Democratic committee, Sandra Sallee. Sallee called the ploy a “dirty” trick in a phone interview and said she was subjected to harassing phone calls.

    CNN’s KFile reached out to nearly a dozen active federal PACs with “American Values” in their name. Several PACs told CNN they have never used robocalls for messaging and have no plans to; others did not respond to CNN’s comment request.

    “Robocalls are kind of a funny political tactic in so far as they have an almost perfect record of never working,” said Donald Green, a professor of political science at Columbia University.

    Green said the “fairly unanimous conclusion” is that they don’t seem to affect voter turnout or vote choice but are often used because they are very inexpensive. He suggested that the tactic could have been used to generate media attention to the race.

    “It’s pretty unusual to have something that is kind of, you know, wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing-type tactic,” said Green. “It’s not unheard of in American politics because nothing is unheard of, but it’s rare.”

    On Thursday, another mysterious robocall littered with falsehoods was made to Georgia voters with a similar modus operandi, but this time it solely targets Bishop.

    “Congressman Bishop is the only candidate with 100% rating with Planned Parenthood and will defend the right to an abortion up to nine months. Do not let Republican Chris West win,” a female narrator says.

    According to data from Nomorobo, this robocall reached 41,000 phones and there is some overlap between the recipients of this call and the one targeting Abrams and Bishop.

    The call failed to disclose who was behind it at the beginning and end of the call. When CNN tried to call the number, an automated message said that “this number is temporarily unavailable. Please try again later.”

    In a statement to CNN, Abrams’ campaign spokesperson Alex Floyd said, “This disgusting and false attack is a new low for the right wing — and comes as misrepresentations and outright lies that have become a feature of the Kemp campaign. Stacey Abrams has been clear about her support for limitations on abortion in line with Roe and Casey. Now it’s time for Brian Kemp to clearly condemn this false robocall and start answering Georgians’ questions about his extreme anti-choice record.”

    Abrams, who once opposed abortion rights, said last month that abortion is “a decision that should be made between a woman and her doctor. That viability is the metric. And that if a woman’s health or life is in danger, then viability extends until the time of birth, but women do not make this choice lightly.”

    Abrams added that no one believes there should not be a limit, but that “the limit should not be made by politicians who don’t believe in basic biology or, apparently, basic morality.”

    A spokesperson from the Kemp campaign, Tate Mitchell, said they were not responsible for the robocalls.

    The Bishop campaign declined to comment to CNN.

    The DCCC said through spokesperson Monica Robinson, “This misleading robocall – paid for by a shady outside interest group – is what desperation smells like. Resorting to lies to win an election is proof that Chris West can’t win honestly or on his own merits. If West has any integrity at all, he’ll denounce these robocalls and call on his special interest backers to stop lying to Georgians.”

    Bishop, a 15-term moderate Democrat, has in the past advocated and voted for some late-term abortion restrictions, and recently reiterated his support for abortion rights. “These personal health care choices should ultimately rest with a woman, her God and her doctor—not with politicians in 50 different state legislatures,” Bishop said in a statement after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

    West’s campaign did not respond to CNN’s requests for comment.

    This is not the first time a robocall spouting specious claims has occurred in Georgia’s 2nd Congressional District in this election cycle.

    In June, the local newspaper the Ledger-Enquirer reported that robocalls were being sent to households in the district that appeared to be affiliated with Republican candidate Jeremy Hunt’s campaign, but the underlying message was meant to drive support away from Hunt, a Black former Army captain.

    One June robocall noted it was time to “celebrate Black independence” and “modernize” the Republican party by supporting Hunt. “We can leave the old ways of the Republican Party in the past and build our party back better,” the narrator said, a nod to Biden’s “Build Back Better” slogan. “No more attacks on our capital, no more divisive language from a former President.”

    That robocall also did not identify who paid for it, and both Hunt and West accused the other’s campaign and the super PACs supporting them of sending the call.

    One PAC that supported Hunt in that primary is called “American Values First,” a name partially invoked in the October robocall targeting Bishop and Abrams.

    American Values First is one of the PACs CNN reached out for comment to ask if they are responsible for the October robocall. The treasurer and spokesperson for the PAC, Joel Riter, said that the PAC had nothing to do with the robocalls and has not spent any money in the race for the general election.

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  • ‘People are just hitting their heads against the wall’: Democrats fret another Johnson win | CNN Politics

    ‘People are just hitting their heads against the wall’: Democrats fret another Johnson win | CNN Politics

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    Rhinelander, Wisconsin
    CNN
     — 

    Tom Nelson can hardly believe it.

    In just a matter of two months, Democrats went from expecting to knock off the unpopular GOP incumbent, US Sen. Ron Johnson, to seeing their party’s nominee, Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, scrambling to catch up.

    Already, the finger pointing has begun.

    “The national party did him a grave disservice by not closing the gap, by not being a stopgap measure in August and September to hit Johnson hard on good, effective negative ads, at the same time building up Mandela,” Nelson, a local county executive from central Wisconsin and former Senate Democratic candidate, told CNN. “The national party has totally failed us, and so it’s gonna come down to Wisconsin Democrats.”

    Of possibly seeing Johnson, 67, win a third Senate race, Nelson said, “People are just hitting their heads against the wall. How do we let this happen?”

    Over the summer, Barnes’ top Democratic opponents dropped out, clearing the way for him to win the primary and fully shift to attacking Johnson. Yet Barnes’ slim lead collapsed in September, when Republicans spent nearly $6 million more than Democrats on the air slamming Barnes primarily on crime. In August, a Marquette Law School poll of likely voters showed Barnes leading Johnson 52-45. By early October, those numbers reversed.

    What’s happening in Wisconsin resembles Democratic struggles across the country. They’ve seen their leads evaporate in key House and Senate races as outside money floods in to hammer Democrats over crime and inflation, while they’ve tried to rail against Republicans over their opposition to abortion rights. In several key battleground states – Georgia, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio and Florida – GOP candidates and groups spent roughly $25 million more than their Democratic counterparts on air in September alone, according to data from AdImpact, which tracks ad spending.

    In states like Wisconsin, the outside money has forced Barnes to go on defense, and air several ads accusing Johnson of lying in the attack ads.

    Many of his supporters believe that is not enough.

    “Oh, I’m terrified,” said Mary Hildebrand, a voter here in this small northern Wisconsin town. “His campaign seems to be faltering,” she said of Barnes.

    In an interview, Barnes dismissed the polls showing him down in the race. Democrats are heartened that the same Marquette pollster tested a larger universe of voters – registered voters – and found the race there essentially a dead heat.

    “Polls go up, polls go down,” Barnes, 35, told CNN. “The reality is we’re showing up, talking to everybody.”

    “All they can do is try to distort my record and try to make people live in fear,” he added, rejecting the notion that he was caught flat-footed. “But that’s not what this is about. It’s about making sure that people know better is possible.”

    Democrats have already reserved $2 million more in ads than Republicans in the final three weeks of the campaign, according to AdImpact. And officials with Democratic outside groups – namely the Senate Majority PAC and Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee – reject the criticism that their ad campaigns have been ineffective.

    “Wisconsin is one of the top Senate battlegrounds because voters in the state are tired of Ron Johnson looking out for himself at their expense,” said Amanda Sherman Baity, a spokesperson for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which has ramped up its spending since the August 9 primary and has spent over $4.8 million in the race so far, including a $1 million ad buy coordinated with the Barnes campaign.

    Senate Majority PAC, the super PAC aligned with Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, and its affiliated group have been on the air since May, having dropped $22 million in the state, with $6.2 million planned in the final three weeks.

    “We have just under three weeks left to defeat Johnson and defend our Democratic Senate majority—that’s what we’re focusing on, and we strongly encourage our fellow Democrats to do the same,” said Senate Majority PAC spokesperson Veronica Yoo.

    On the air, Republicans have had a near singular focus, hammering Barnes for violent crime and for previously advocating for shifting police funding to other social services in the community. Outside groups like Wisconsin Truth PAC and the Senate Leadership Fund, the super PAC aligned with Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell, have said he supports “defunding” the police, a slogan he rejects.

    Of the GOP attacks, Marilyn Norden, a voter in northern Wisconsin, said: “They seem to be working. Yes, I’m very concerned.”

    After a speech at a packed diner here in Oneida County, Barnes defended himself, telling reporters that the issue is personal for him since he’s lost friends to gun violence. He said he wants “fully funded” schools and “good-paying jobs,” and to prevent “dangerous weapons” from getting in the hands of criminals. He said that Johnson “is only playing politics with our safety.”

    “Nobody is asking about interviews from six years ago, people are asking why Ron Johnson continues to leave them behind,” he told CNN when asked about recent reports he spoke out against police brutality on RT, a Kremlin-backed network, in 2015 and 2016.

    Barnes is attempting to be the first Black person to become a US senator from Wisconsin, and his supporters see a racial component to the attacks.

    “These ads have gone from crime ads to just blatant racism,” Nelson said. “This is something that Wisconsin has never seen before.”

    Barnes’ attacks have mostly focused on the accusations that Johnson enriched himself while in office, an accusation the GOP senator rejects, and over his support for banning abortion.

    Sen. Ron Johnson greets people during a campaign stop at the Moose Lodge Octoberfest celebration earlier this month in Muskego, Wisconsin.

    Asked why he hasn’t focused on other issues during his paid media campaign – namely Johnson’s downplaying of the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol, and sowing doubt over the Covid-19 vaccine – Barnes said there was plenty of controversy to choose from.

    “We actually have focused on January 6th to an extent, but the reality is there are many different fronts to address Ron Johnson’s failures,” Barnes told CNN. “And it’s important for us to highlight where Ron Johnson has failed people right at home and at the dinner table.”

    Johnson has remained behind closed doors this week. His campaign refused to disclose his campaign schedule this week or make him available for an interview. But he has appeared on Fox this week, including pleading for donations during an appearance on Sean Hannity’s show Tuesday night. The Barnes and Johnson campaigns have each spent over $23 million so far on the race, but the lieutenant governor outraised the senator last quarter, $19.5 million to $11.6 million.

    “I think so many people think this is won,” Johnson said to Hannity. “My fundraising is weaker. I rely on your audience.”

    There are signs that Democrats are broadening their attacks. The Senate Majority PAC and End Citizens United launched Wednesday a new ad featuring a retired Madison police officer calling out Johnson for describing the January 6 attack on the Capitol as largely a “peaceful protest.” On Tuesday, SMP aired another ad attacking Johnson on China, for working to sweeten a tax break for companies connected to his donors and himself, and for his anti-abortion rights position.

    At a speech here on Tuesday, Barnes attacked Johnson for not supporting federal legislation to codify same-sex marriage, for at one point facilitating an effort to contest the 2020 election and for later downplaying the January 6 riot.

    Johnson’s supporters in the ultimate swing state have twice sent him to the Senate, drawn to his brash attitude, businessman background and conservative values. The Wisconsin Republican has also benefited from running in election cycles when the political environment favored his party, first in the 2010 tea party wave, then in 2016 as Donald Trump stunned the world and narrowly took Wisconsin on his way to the White House, and now in 2022, when inflation and a deteriorating economy threatens Democrats’ control of Congress.

    Andy Loduha, Republican party chairman here in Oneida County, said Barnes doesn’t understand the economic issues that have come to the forefront of the race.

    “I think abortion is another example of how the Democrats don’t really have anything to run on,” said Loduha. “They’re running on emotional issues like abortion, but they don’t want to try to touch inflation, crime, drugs.”

    Wisconsin Democratic strategist Joe Zepecki is frustrated with the Democratic bedwetting, even though he said recognized the “tough national political environment.”

    “I just think there’s too many Democrats wringing their hands and thinking this thing is like gone or on its way to being gone,” Zepecki said. “Guys, run through the tape. You’re right there, despite the f***ing onslaught that Barnes had to weather … And he’s still right there.”

    Asked if she believed Barnes would win, Wisconsin Treasurer Sarah Godlewski, who ran against Barnes before dropping out, told CNN, “If there’s one thing we know about Wisconsin, it’s we live by close elections, and we never press our luck.”

    To get there, Barnes will be campaigning next week in Milwaukee with former President Barack Obama, in a bid to energize voters. But there are no plans yet to campaign with the current President, Joe Biden, whose unpopularity remains a liability here.

    Asked if Biden should run for reelection, Barnes told CNN: “We’ll cross that bridge when we get there. We still gotta get through November 8, 2022.”

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  • Democratic Senate nominees hold cash edge in fall home stretch but face GOP advertising onslaught | CNN Politics

    Democratic Senate nominees hold cash edge in fall home stretch but face GOP advertising onslaught | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Seven Democrats in the 10 most competitive Senate races started this month and the home stretch to Election Day with bigger cash stockpiles than their Republican rivals, newly filed campaign finance reports show.

    But even with that financial edge, Democrats face a withering advertising assault in the final weeks of the campaign from deep-pocketed outside groups.

    The stakes are enormous for both political parties: Control of the Senate – along with the ability to shape federal policy for the remainder of President Joe Biden’s first term – hinges on the results in just a handful of states.

    The Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC aligned with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, led GOP outside groups in fundraising, taking in $111 million during the three-month period ending September 30, the new filings show. That figure rivaled its haul during the first 18 months of this election cycle as some of the GOP’s biggest donors stepped up their giving.

    “SLF is steadily closing the gap in the fight to retake the Senate majority, and our donors are fired up about slamming the brakes on Joe Biden’s disastrous left-wing agenda,” group president Steve Law said in a statement.

    In all, the fund has spent more than $200 million on advertising this cycle, including ads that have already aired and reservations booked for the final weeks of the election, according to a CNN review of data compiled by AdImpact.

    The McConnell-aligned group “has really been a life raft for Republican Senate candidates across the board that have struggled to fundraise in any great amount,” said Jacob Rubashkin, an analyst with the nonpartisan political handicapper Inside Elections with Nathan L. Gonzales. “What we see in state after state after state is the advertising burden being borne by SLF and outside groups.”

    Here are more takeaways from the third-quarter fundraising reports filed with the Federal Election Commission:

    The reports, which were due Saturday night, show individual Democratic Senate contenders outraising their Republican rivals in a slew of competitive races – including marquee contests in Georgia, Arizona, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

    Democrats in all four of those states – Sens. Raphael Warnock of Georgia and Mark Kelly of Arizona; John Fetterman of Pennsylvania; and Mandela Barnes of Wisconsin – each collected more than $20 million during the quarter. That was a milestone no Republican Senate hopeful in a competitive race was able to match.

    Warnock, Kelly and Fetterman all ended September with more cash on hand than their GOP opponents. Four other states on CNN’s most recent list of the 10 Senate seats most likely to flip also saw the Democratic nominees finish with a bigger bank balance on September 30: Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, Michael Bennet of Colorado and Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, and North Carolina hopeful Cheri Beasley.

    Warnock, in pursuit of a full six-year term after winning a special election last year, brought in $26.4 million during the June-to-September fundraising period, to lead all Senate candidate fundraising. His haul is more than double the nearly $11.7 million raised by his Republican rival, Herschel Walker.

    Those figures, however, don’t reflect fundraising since a recent spate of developments in the Georgia contest – including a contentious debate Friday night in Savannah.

    National Republicans have rallied to Walker’s side in recent weeks, following news reports that the Republican paid for a woman’s abortion in 2009 and then asked her to terminate a second pregnancy two years later.

    Walker, who said in May that he supported a full ban on abortions, with no exceptions, has called the allegations “a lie.” CNN has not independently confirmed the woman’s allegations.

    In a statement, Walker’s aides said the campaign bought in more than $450,000 online in a single day recently – as prominent Republicans, including Florida Sen. Rick Scott, who helms the Senate GOP campaign arm – joined him on the stump in an effort to quell the controversy.

    Although Warnock has used his sizable war chest to hammer Walker on the airwaves, a CNN review of advertising buys from October 1 through Election Day tracked by AdImpact shows outside groups, led by the Senate Leadership Fund, dominating the advertising in the Peach State.

    SLF’s advertising tops the list at $25.2 million with Georgia Honor, a Democratic super PAC, in second place at just shy of $21.7 million.

    Top donors to the Senate Leadership Fund during the third quarter included some of the biggest financial backers in Republican politics. Leading the list at $10 million apiece were three billionaires: Miriam Adelson, a physician and widow of the late casino magnate Sheldon Adelson; Ken Griffin, founder of the Citadel hedge fund; and Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman. The Senate Leadership Fund’s haul also included $20 million from its nonprofit arm, One Nation, which does not disclose its donors’ identities.

    SLF entered October sitting atop $85.2 million in cash reserves.

    (The Senate Majority PAC, the leading super PAC working to elect Democrats to the chamber, is slated to file a report detailing its most recent fundraising later this week. The group reported more than $65.7 million remaining in the bank at the end of August.)

    Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly is seeking a full six-year term.

    Kelly, the Democratic incumbent in Arizona, raised $23 million in the June-to-September window, more than four times the contributions collected by his Republican challenger, Blake Masters, the new filings show.

    And Kelly, who is seeking a full six-year term, started October with more than $13 million remaining in the bank – far surpassing the $2.8 million available to Masters.

    National Republican leaders have exhorted billionaire investor Peter Thiel to put more money into the Arizona race to rescue Masters, his former employee. (An initial $15 million Thiel sent to a pro-Masters super PAC, Saving Arizona, helped the first-time candidate survive a competitive primary earlier this year.)

    Saturday’s filings show Saving Arizona raised a little more than $4.4 million during the third quarter with no additional investment during that period from Thiel.

    Among the biggest donors in the three-month period: Shipping and packaging magnate Richard Uihlein, who gave $3 million. And Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, the billionaire twin investors perhaps best known for their legal battle with Mark Zuckerberg over who invented Facebook, donated $500,000 apiece to the super PAC last month.

    Republican Tiffany Smiley is challenging Democratic Sen. Patty Murray in Washington state.

    A notable exception to Democrats’ fundraising dominance: Washington state, where first-time candidate Republican Tiffany Smiley raised $6 million to surpass the $3.6 million brought in by five-term Sen. Patty Murray during the three-month period.

    National Republican groups have not invested so far in trying to topple Murray, the No. 3 Senate Democrat, in this traditionally blue state. (Inside Elections rates the contest as Likely Democratic.)

    But Smiley’s late-breaking fundraising success has put a spotlight on the 39-year-old former triage nurse, who is waging her first political campaign.

    Murray entered October with the larger stockpile of available cash – roughly $3.8 million to Smiley’s nearly $2.5 million.

    Meanwhile, in Ohio – a former bellwether state that has swung to Republicans in recent cycles – Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan raised a substantial $17.2 million, with Republican J.D. Vance lagging far behind in their closer-than-expected contest.

    Ryan, who has plowed millions of his campaign dollars into advertising, started October with just $1.4 million remaining in the bank to Vance’s nearly $3.4 million. Ryan, a 10-term congressman, has implored national Democratic organizations to help, but they have prioritized other top-tier contests in states such as Pennsylvania, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina.

    SLF and, more recently, a super PAC aligned with former President Donald Trump, have hit the airwaves on Vance’s behalf in an effort to keep this open Senate seat in the Republican column.

    The current officeholder, GOP Sen. Rob Portman, is retiring.

    In the 19 House races that Inside Elections currently rates as Toss-ups, the Democratic nominees outraised their GOP opponents during the third quarter, the weekend filings show. And a dozen entered October with more cash in the bank than their Republican rivals.

    In one of the mostly closely watched contests, Alaska’s newly minted congresswoman, Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola, collected nearly $4 million during the quarter – including $2.3 million raised after she won an August special election to fill the remainder of the late GOP Rep. Don Young’s term.

    Peltola is on the ballot again in November as she seeks a full, two-year term for the state’s lone House seat, and she started October with more than $2.2 million in available cash. That far exceeds the cash balances of her Republican rivals, Nick Begich and former Gov. Sarah Palin.

    Begich reported more than $547,000 in available cash and Palin, the 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee, had nearly $195,000.

    The three, along with a Libertarian candidate, will face off next month in a general election that will be decided by the state’s new ranked-choice voting system.

    As in Senate contests, Republican outside groups have been major players in the battle to flip the House.

    The Congressional Leadership Fund, the main super PAC focused on GOP efforts to recapture the House majority, recently announced that the group and its nonprofit arm had raised a combined $73 million in the third quarter, bringing its cycle total to $220 million.

    It has spent nearly $160 million on advertising, including future reservations for the final weeks of the campaign.

    This story has been updated with additional third-quarter fundraising information.

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  • Voters to decide on California ban on flavored tobacco

    Voters to decide on California ban on flavored tobacco

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    SAN DIEGO — Two years ago, California banned flavored tobacco products such as menthol cigarettes and cotton candy vaping juice, arguing that they mostly attracted kids and were especially dangerous amid the coronavirus pandemic when youth deaths spiked from respiratory complications.

    But the law never took effect. Tobacco giants, including R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. and Philip Morris USA, spent $20 million on a campaign that gathered enough signatures to put the issue to the voters.

    Californians now will decide on the Nov. 8 statewide ballot whether to toss out the law or keep it.

    The issue has set off a fierce fight. The tobacco companies are pushing hard to keep from being shut out of a large portion of California’s vast market. Meanwhile, supporters of the ban, who include doctors, child welfare advocates and the state’s dominant Democratic Party, say the law is necessary to put a stop to the staggering rise in teen smoking.

    However, the California Republican Party wants to repeal the law, saying it would cause a giant loss in tax revenue. The independent Legislative Analyst’s Office estimates it could cost the state tens of millions of dollars to around $100 million annually.

    If voters approve, California would become the second state in the nation to enact such a ban after Massachusetts. A number of cities, including Los Angeles and San Diego, have already enacted their own bans.

    It’s already illegal for retailers to sell tobacco to anyone under 21. But advocates of the ban say flavored cigarettes and vaping cartridges are still too easy for teens to obtain. The ban wouldn’t make it a crime to possess such products, but retailers who sold them to kids could be fined up to $250.

    The ban, which passed the Legislature with bipartisan support, would also prohibit the sale of pods for vape pens, tank-based systems and chewing tobacco, with exceptions made for hookahs, some cigars and loose-leaf tobacco.

    The tobacco industry’s campaign has painted the ban as being especially bad for Black and Latino people, who use menthol at higher rates than others.

    “It’s unfair for communities of color. Bad law. Bad consequences,” said one online banner ad paid for by RAI Services, a subsidiary of Reynolds American, which is the parent company of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco.

    But the ads drew a backlash from some Black leaders who call the campaign offensive.

    “I am insulted that the tobacco industry would make an effort to make us believe that mentholated cigarettes are part of African American culture, and that this is a discriminatory piece of legislation against Black people,” then-Assemblywoman Shirley Weber said before the Legislature voted on the ban. Weber, a San Diego Democrat who chaired the California Legislative Black Caucus, is now California’s secretary of state.

    So far the campaign to allow the law to take effect has raised more than $6 million, nearly four times more than the effort to stop it, according to state campaign finance records.

    Some small neighborhood market owners favor repealing the law, calling it another blow to their businesses as they struggle to recover from a drop in sales during the pandemic.

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  • Biden to mark IBM investment with Democrats in tough races

    Biden to mark IBM investment with Democrats in tough races

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    WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden is ready to celebrate a new $20 billion investment by IBM in New York’s Hudson River Valley with two House Democrats running in competitive races in next month’s critical midterm elections.

    Biden is taking part in a Thursday afternoon announcement at the IBM facility in Poughkeepsie, New York. He is expected to hold out the company’s plans as part of what the White House says is a manufacturing “boom” spurred by this summer’s passage of a $ 280 billion legislative package intended to boost the U.S. semiconductor industry and scientific research.

    Democrats facing tough midterms races have largely avoided appearing with Biden in the leadup to November’s elections. But Biden, whose approval ratings remain underwater, will be joined by two House incumbents in competitive New York races who are bucking the trend: Reps. Sean Patrick Maloney and Pat Ryan.

    “When I heard @POTUS was looking to see the benefits of the CHIPS & Science Act first-hand, I told him that the Hudson Valley was the perfect place,” Maloney wrote on Twitter on Wednesday. “I’m thrilled to host him in Poughkeepsie this week to celebrate the major wins and good-paying jobs we are delivering here in NY.”

    The CHIPS and Science Act, which Biden signed into law in August, was a rare piece of legislation for which the president was able to win bipartisan support.

    IBM’s $20 billion investment over the next decade is intended to bolster research and development and manufacturing of semiconductors, mainframe technology, artificial intelligence and quantum computing in New York’s Hudson River Valley, according to the White House.

    The IBM investment comes on the heels of chipmaker Micron announcing earlier this week an investment of up to $100 billion over the next 20-plus years to build a plant in upstate New York that could create 9,000 factory jobs.

    Maloney, chairman of the powerful Democratic congressional campaign fundraising arm, is running against Republican state Assemblyman Mike Lawler in New York’s 17th District. Ryan is up against state Assemblyman Colin Schmitt in the 18th District.

    The boundaries of most New York districts, including Maloney’s and Ryan’s, have been affected by redistricting.

    Ryan in August won a close special election to serve out the term of Democrat Antonio Delgado, who vacated his 19th District seat after he was appointed lieutenant governor by Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul. Ryan is running to serve a full term in the 18th District, where he lives.

    Maloney, who had served New York’s 18th District since 2013, decided to run in the 17th District. His Hudson Valley home fell inside the new boundaries after redistricting.

    Hochul, who took office last year after Democrat Andrew Cuomo resigned amid sexual harassment allegations, is also scheduled to attend. She’s looking to win a full term in next month’s election against Republican Rep. Lee Zeldin.

    Later Thursday, Biden will head to central New Jersey for a fundraiser at the home of Gov. Phil Murphy in support of the Democratic National Committee. In the evening, he heads to Manhattan for a Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee fundraiser hosted by James Murdoch, the son of conservative News Corp. publisher Rupert Murdoch.

    Murdoch and his wife, Kathryn, a climate change activist, were major donors to Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign. In 2020, Murdoch resigned from the board of News Corp. amid differences over editorial content at his father’s company, which operates The Wall Street Journal and the New York Post. The elder Murdoch is also chairman of Fox Corp., which includes Fox News Channel.

    While Biden has been kept at arms length by many Democratic candidates, he’s been a prodigious fundraiser for his party this election cycle, raising more than $19.6 million for the Democratic National Committee.

    ———

    Associated Press writers Michelle L. Price in New York City and Michael Catalini in Trenton, New Jersey, contributed to this report.

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  • First on CNN: Barnes raises more than $20 million in third quarter of closely watched Wisconsin Senate race | CNN Politics

    First on CNN: Barnes raises more than $20 million in third quarter of closely watched Wisconsin Senate race | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Democratic Senate candidate Mandela Barnes raised more than $20 million in the third quarter of 2022, according to details from the Wisconsin lieutenant governor’s campaign, dwarfing what he raised throughout his entire bid for Senate.

    Barnes is aiming to unseat Sen. Ron Johnson, the Republican incumbent who is seeking a third term, in what has become one of the most closely watched Senate campaigns of the midterms. With an evenly divided Senate, every race this November could tilt the balance of power in the legislative body, but Barnes’ race against Johnson represents one of the best chances for Democrats to flip a Senate seat this cycle.

    The race has been tight for months. A Marquette University Law School Poll, released in mid-September, found 49% of likely voters in Wisconsin supported Johnson, compared to 48% who backed Barnes – a statistical dead heat. But the poll was an improvement for Johnson: The same poll had found Barnes at 52% in August with the incumbent at 45%.

    Barnes’ fundraising haul should help Democrats level the advertising playing field in the race after being outspent in September.

    According to AdImpact, Republicans spent nearly $22.5 million on ads in September, compared to $16.5 million for Democrats. The biggest spenders in the race over that time was Senate Leadership Fund, the Republican super PAC with close ties to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. The group spent nearly $8 million in September. Senate Majority PAC, the predominant Democratic super PAC focused on Senate races, spent just over $6 million.

    While Republicans spend money hammering him on crime, Barnes has attempted to focus his campaign on the major issue motivating Democratic voters in 2022 in the wake of June’s Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade: Abortion.

    “I’m proud of the grassroots coalition we’ve built across Wisconsin,” Barnes said in a statement to CNN. “Over this final stretch we’ll keep going everywhere and holding Ron Johnson accountable for his record of supporting a dangerous abortion ban with no exceptions for rape, incest, or the life of the woman. He’s out of touch with Wisconsin values and we’re going to send him packing.”

    The Democrat recently launched a statewide tour the campaign has dubbed “Ron Against Roe,” an effort it hopes will take advantage of opposition to the June Supreme Court ruling. Marquette’s polling found more than 60% of Wisconsin voters opposed that decision. Barnes also rolled out a new ad that attacks Johnson for supporting a 2011 bill that was introduced by Mississippi Sen. Roger Wicker that would have enshrined “the right to life” upon conception.

    “It’s Johnson’s views that are alarming. Johnson supported a ban on abortion, he cosponsored a bill that makes no exceptions for rape or incest or the life of the woman. And Johnson said if women don’t like it, they can move,” a narrator says in a new Barnes ad.

    Johnson has since tried to push back against the abortion attacks by saying he believes the issue should be left to Wisconsin voters, including by updating an 1849 law that bans nearly all abortions to include exceptions for rape, incest or if the life of the mother is at stake. But Johnson backed the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade and has numerous times put his name on a bill that would make it illegal to perform an abortion 20 weeks after conception.

    While Barnes focuses on abortion, Johnson’s campaign has been laser focused on attacking the Democrat over crime, including touting endorsements from law enforcement organizations and running ads tying Barnes to efforts to “defund the police.”

    “Mandela Barnes: Dangerously liberal on crime,” a narrator says in a recent ad before showing Johnson standing next to a police officer.

    Ben Voelkel, a spokesman for Johnson, responded to Barnes’ fundraising haul by saying, “All the out of state liberal money in the world can’t change the fact Mandela Barnes supports the Defund the Police and Abolish ICE movements, wants to cut the prison population in half and backs the same Biden economic policies that have led to 40-year high inflation and record gas prices.”

    Barnes has responded by refuting the defund accusations, including with an ad that shows a retired sergeant for the Racine Police Department testifying that Barnes “does not want to defund the police.”

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  • The 10 Senate seats most likely to flip in 2022 | CNN Politics

    The 10 Senate seats most likely to flip in 2022 | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The race for the Senate is in the eye of the beholder less than six weeks from Election Day, with ads about abortion, crime and inflation dominating the airwaves in key states as campaigns test the theory of the 2022 election.

    The cycle started out as a referendum on President Joe Biden – an easy target for Republicans, who need a net gain of just one seat to flip the evenly divided chamber. Then the US Supreme Court’s late June decision overturning Roe v. Wade gave Democrats the opportunity to paint a contrast as Republicans struggled to explain their support for an abortion ruling that the majority of the country opposes. Former President Donald Trump’s omnipresence in the headlines gave Democrats another foil.

    But the optimism some Democrats felt toward the end of the summer, on the heels of Biden’s legislative wins and the galvanizing high court decision, has been tempered slightly by the much anticipated tightening of some key races as political advertising ramps up on TV and voters tune in after Labor Day.

    Republicans, who have midterm history on their side as the party out of the White House, have hammered Biden and Democrats for supporting policies they argue exacerbate inflation. Biden’s approval rating stands at 41% with 54% disapproving in the latest CNN Poll of Polls, which tracks the average of recent surveys. And with some prices inching back up after a brief hiatus, the economy and inflation – which Americans across the country identify as their top concern in multiple polls – are likely to play a crucial role in deciding voters’ preferences.

    But there’s been a steady increase in ads about crime too as the GOP returns to a familiar criticism, depicting Democrats as weak on public safety. Cops have been ubiquitous in TV ads this cycle – candidates from both sides of the aisle have found law enforcement officers to testify on camera to their pro-police credentials. Democratic ads also feature women talking about the threat of a national abortion ban should the Senate fall into GOP hands, while Republicans have spent comparatively less trying to portray Democrats as the extremists on the topic.

    While the issue sets have fluctuated, the Senate map hasn’t changed. Republicans’ top pickup opportunities have always been Nevada, Georgia, Arizona and New Hampshire – all states that Biden carried in 2020. In two of those states, however, the GOP has significant problems, although the states themselves keep the races competitive. Arizona nominee Blake Masters is now without the support of the party’s major super PAC, which thinks its money can be better spent elsewhere, including in New Hampshire, where retired Army Brig. Gen. Don Bolduc is far from the nominee the national GOP had wanted. But this is the time of year when poor fundraising can really become evident since TV ad rates favor candidates and a super PAC gets much less bang for its buck.

    The race for Senate control may come down to three states: Georgia, Nevada and Pennsylvania, all of which are rated as “Toss-up” races by Inside Elections with Nathan L. Gonzales. As Republicans look to flip the Senate, which Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has called a “50-50 proposition,” they’re trying to pick up the first two and hold on to the latter.

    Senate Democrats’ path to holding their majority lies with defending their incumbents. Picking off a GOP-held seat like Pennsylvania – still the most likely to flip in CNN’s ranking – would help mitigate any losses. Wisconsin, where GOP Sen. Ron Johnson is vying for a third term, looks like Democrats’ next best pickup opportunity, but that race drops in the rankings this month as Republican attacks take a toll on the Democratic nominee in the polls.

    These rankings are based on CNN’s reporting, fundraising and advertising data, and polling, as well as historical data about how states and candidates have performed. It will be updated one more time before Election Day.

    Incumbent: Republican Pat Toomey (retiring)

    Sarah Silbiger/Pool/Getty Images

    The most consistent thing about CNN’s rankings, dating back to 2021, has been Pennsylvania’s spot in first place. But the race to replace retiring GOP Sen. Pat Toomey has tightened since the primaries in May, when Republican Mehmet Oz emerged badly bruised from a nasty intraparty contest. In a CNN Poll of Polls average of recent surveys in the state, Democrat John Fetterman, the state lieutenant governor, had the support of 50% of likely voters to Oz’s 45%. (The Poll of Polls is an average of the four most recent nonpartisan surveys of likely voters that meet CNN’s standards.) Fetterman is still overperforming Biden, who narrowly carried Pennsylvania in 2020. Fetterman’s favorability ratings are also consistently higher than Oz’s.

    One potential trouble spot for the Democrat: More voters in a late September Franklin and Marshall College Poll viewed Oz has having policies that would improve voters’ economic circumstances, with the economy and inflation remaining the top concern for voters across a range of surveys. But nearly five months after the primary, the celebrity surgeon still seems to have residual issues with his base. A higher percentage of Democrats were backing Fetterman than Republicans were backing Oz in a recent Fox News survey, for example, with much of that attributable to lower support from GOP women than men. Fetterman supporters were also much more enthusiastic about their candidate than Oz supporters.

    Republicans have been hammering Fetterman on crime, specifically his tenure on the state Board of Pardons: An ad from the Senate Leadership Fund features a Bucks County sheriff saying, “Protect your family. Don’t vote Fetterman.” But the lieutenant governor is also using sheriffs on camera to defend his record. And with suburban voters being a crucial demographic, Democratic advertising is also leaning into abortion, like this Senate Majority PAC ad that features a female doctor as narrator and plays Oz’s comments from during the primary about abortion being “murder.” Oz’s campaign has said that he supports exceptions for “the life of the mother, rape and incest” and that “he’d want to make sure that the federal government is not involved in interfering with the state’s decisions on the topic.”

    Incumbent: Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto

    02 democrat immigration legislation 0717

    CNN

    Republicans have four main pickup opportunities – and right now, Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto’s seat looks like one of their best shots. Biden carried Nevada by a slightly larger margin than two of those other GOP-targeted states, but the Silver State’s large transient population adds a degree of uncertainty to this contest.

    Republicans have tried to tie the first-term senator to Washington spending and inflation, which may be particularly resonant in a place where average gas prices are now back up to over $5 a gallon. Democrats are zeroing in on abortion rights and raising the threat that a GOP-controlled Senate could pass a national abortion ban. Former state Attorney General Adam Laxalt – the rare GOP nominee to have united McConnell and Trump early on – called the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling a “joke” before the Supreme Court overturned the decision in June. Democrats have been all too happy to use that comment against him, but Laxalt has tried to get around those attacks by saying he does not support a national ban and pointing out that the right to an abortion is settled law in Nevada.

    Incumbent: Democrat Raphael Warnock

    Sen Raphael Warnock 10 senate seats

    Megan Varner/Getty Images

    The closer we get to Election Day, the more we need to talk about the Georgia Senate race going over the wire. If neither candidate receives a majority of the vote in November, the contest will go to a December runoff. There was no clear leader in a recent Marist poll that had Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock, who’s running for a full six-year term, and Republican challenger Herschel Walker both under 50% among those who say they definitely plan to vote.

    Warnock’s edge from earlier this cycle has narrowed, which bumps this seat up one spot on the rankings. The good news for Warnock is that he’s still overperforming Biden’s approval numbers in a state that the President flipped in 2020 by less than 12,000 votes. And so far, he seems to be keeping the Senate race closer than the gubernatorial contest, for which several polls have shown GOP Gov. Brian Kemp ahead. Warnock’s trying to project a bipartisan image that he thinks will help him hold on in what had until recently been a reliably red state. Standing waist-deep in peanuts in one recent ad, he touts his work with Alabama GOP Sen. Tommy Tuberville to “eliminate the regulations,” never mentioning his own party. But Republicans have continued to try to tie the senator to his party – specifically for voting for measures in Washington that they claim have exacerbated inflation.

    Democrats are hoping that enough Georgians won’t see voting for Walker as an option – even if they do back Kemp. Democrats have amped up their attacks on domestic violence allegations against the former football star and unflattering headlines about his business record. And all eyes will be on the mid-October debate to see how Walker, who has a history of making controversial and illogical comments, handles himself onstage against the more polished incumbent.

    Incumbent: Republican Ron Johnson

    Sen Ron Johnson 10 senate seats

    Leigh VogelPool/Getty Images

    Sen. Ron Johnson is the only Republican running for reelection in a state Biden won in 2020 – in fact, he broke his own term limits pledge to run a third time, saying he believed America was “in peril.” And although Johnson has had low approval numbers for much of the cycle, Democrats have underestimated him before. This contest moves down one spot on the ranking as Johnson’s race against Democratic Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes has tightened, putting the senator in a better position.

    Barnes skated through the August primary after his biggest opponents dropped out of the race, but as the nominee, he’s faced an onslaught of attacks, especially on crime, using against him his past words about ending cash bail and redirecting some funding from police budgets to social services. Barnes has attempted to answer those attacks in his ads, like this one featuring a retired police sergeant who says he knows “Mandela doesn’t want to defund the police.”

    A Marquette University Law School poll from early September showed no clear leader, with Johnson at 49% and Barnes at 48% among likely voters, which is a tightening from the 7-point edge Barnes enjoyed in the same poll’s August survey. Notably, independents were breaking slightly for Johnson after significantly favoring Barnes in the August survey. The effect of the GOP’s anti-Barnes advertising can likely be seen in the increasing percentage of registered voters in a late September Fox News survey who view the Democrat as “too extreme,” putting him on parity with Johnson on that question. Johnson supporters are also much more enthusiastic about their candidate.

    Incumbent: Democrat Mark Kelly

    Mark Kelly AZ 1103

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    Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly, who’s running for a full six-year term after winning a 2020 special election, is still one of the most vulnerable Senate incumbents in a state that has only recently grown competitive on the federal level. But Republican nominee Blake Masters is nowhere close to rivaling Kelly in fundraising, and major GOP outside firepower is now gone. After canceling its September TV reservations in Arizona to redirect money to Ohio, the Senate Leadership Fund has cut its October spending too.

    Other conservative groups are spending for Masters but still have work to do to hurt Kelly, a well-funded incumbent with a strong personal brand. Kelly led Masters 51% to 41% among registered voters in a September Marist poll, although that gap narrowed among those who said they definitely plan to vote. A Fox survey from a little later in the month similarly showed Kelly with a 5-point edge among those certain to vote, just within the margin of error.

    Masters has attempted to moderate his abortion position since winning his August primary, buoyed by a Trump endorsement, but Kelly has continued to attack him on the issue. And a recent court decision allowing the enforcement of a 1901 state ban on nearly all abortions has given Democrats extra fodder to paint Republicans as a threat to women’s reproductive rights.

    Incumbent: Republican Richard Burr (retiring)

    Sen Richard Burr 10 senate seats

    Demetrius Freeman/Pool/Getty Images

    North Carolina slides up one spot on the rankings, trading places with New Hampshire. The open-seat race to replace retiring GOP Sen. Richard Burr hasn’t generated as much national buzz as other states given that Democrats haven’t won a Senate seat in the state since 2008.

    But it has remained a tight contest with Democrat Cheri Beasley, who is bidding to become the state’s first Black senator, facing off against GOP Rep. Ted Budd, for whom Trump recently campaigned. Beasley lost reelection as state Supreme Court chief justice by only about 400 votes in 2020 when Trump narrowly carried the Tar Heel state. But Democrats hope that she’ll be able to boost turnout among rural Black voters who might not otherwise vote during a midterm election and that more moderate Republicans and independents will see Budd as too extreme. One of Beasley’s recent spots features a series of mostly White, gray-haired retired judges in suits endorsing her as “someone different” while attacking Budd as being a typical politician out for himself.

    Budd is leaning into current inflation woes, specifically going after Biden in some ads that feature half-empty shopping carts, without even mentioning Beasley. Senate Leadership Fund is doing the work of trying to tie the Democrat to Washington – one recent spot almost makes her look like the incumbent in the race, superimposing her photo over an image of the US Capitol and displaying her face next to Biden’s. Both SLF and Budd are also targeting Beasley over her support for Democrats’ recently enacted health care, tax and climate bill. “Liberal politician Cheri Beasley is coming for you – and your wallet,” the narrator from one SLF ad intones, before later adding, “Beasley’s gonna knock on your door with an army of new IRS agents.” (The new law increases funding for the IRS, including for audits. But Democrats and the Trump-appointed IRS commissioner have said the intention is to go after wealthy tax cheats, not the middle class.)

    Incumbent: Democrat Maggie Hassan

    Sen Maggie Hassan 10 senate seats

    Erin Scott/Getty Images

    A lot has been made of GOP candidate quality this cycle. But there are few states where the difference between the nominee Republicans have and the one they’d hoped to have has altered these rankings quite as much as New Hampshire.

    Retired Army Brig. Gen. Don Bolduc, who lost a 2020 GOP bid for the state’s other Senate seat, won last month’s Republican primary to take on first-term Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan. The problem for him, though, is that he doesn’t have much money to wage that fight. Bolduc had raised a total of $579,000 through August 24 compared with Hassan’s $31.4 million. Senate Leadership Fund is on air in New Hampshire to boost the GOP nominee – attacking Hassan for voting with Biden and her support of her party’s health care, tax and climate package. But because super PACs get much less favorable TV advertising rates than candidates, those millions won’t go anywhere near as far as Hassan’s dollars will.

    A year ago, Republicans were still optimistic that Gov. Chris Sununu would run for Senate, giving them a popular abortion rights-supporting nominee in a state that’s trended blue in recent federal elections. Bolduc told WMUR after his primary win that he’d vote against a national abortion ban. But ads from Hassan and Senate Majority PAC have seized on his suggestion in the same interview that the senator should “get over” the abortion issue. Republicans recognize that abortion is a salient factor in a state Biden carried by 7 points, but they also argue that the election – as Bolduc said to WMUR – will be about the economy and that Hassan is an unpopular and out-of-touch incumbent.

    Hassan led Bolduc 49% to 41% among likely voters in a Granite State Poll conducted by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center. The incumbent has consolidated Democratic support, but only 83% of Republicans said they were with Bolduc, the survey found. Still, some of those Republicans, like those who said they were undecided, could come home to the GOP nominee as the general election gets closer, which means Bolduc has room to grow. He’ll need more than just Republicans to break his way, however, which is one reason he quickly pivoted on the key issue of whether the 2020 election was stolen days after he won the primary.

    Incumbent: Republican Rob Portman (retiring)

    Sen Rob Portman 10 senate seats

    TING SHEN/AFP/POOL/Getty Images

    Ohio – a state that twice voted for Trump by 8 points – isn’t supposed to be on this list at No. 8, above Florida, which backed the former President by much narrower margins. But it’s at No. 8 for the second month in a row. Republican nominee J.D. Vance’s poor fundraising has forced Senate Leadership Fund to redirect millions from other races to Ohio to shore him up and attack Rep. Tim Ryan, the Democratic nominee who had the airwaves to himself all summer. The 10-term congressman has been working to distance himself from his party in most of his ads, frequently mentioning that he “voted with Trump on trade” and criticizing the “defund the police” movement. Vance is finally on the air, trying to poke some holes in Ryan’s image.

    But polling still shows a tight race with no clear leader. Ryan had an edge with independents in a recent Siena College/Spectrum News poll, which also showed that Vance – Trump’s pick for the nomination – has more work to do to consolidate GOP support after an ugly May primary. Assuming he makes up that support and late undecided voters break his way, Vance will likely hold the advantage in the end given the Buckeye State’s solidifying red lean.

    Incumbent: Republican Marco Rubio

    Sen Marco Rubio 10 senate seats

    DREW ANGERER/AFP/POOL/Getty Images

    Democrats face an uphill battle against GOP Sen. Marco Rubio in an increasingly red-trending state, which Trump carried by about 3 points in 2020 – nearly tripling his margin from four years earlier.

    Democratic Rep. Val Demings, who easily won the party’s nomination in August, is a strong candidate who has even outraised the GOP incumbent, but not by enough to seriously jeopardize his advantage. She’s leaning into her background as the former Orlando police chief – it features prominently in her advertising, in which she repeatedly rejects the idea of defunding the police. Still, Rubio has tried to tie her to the “radical left” in Washington to undercut her own law enforcement background.

    Incumbent: Democrat Michael Bennet

    Sen Michael Bennett 10 senate seats

    DEMETRIUS FREEMAN/AFP/POOL/Getty Images

    Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet is no stranger to tough races. In 2016, he only won reelection by 6 points against an underfunded GOP challenger whom the national party had abandoned. Given GOP fundraising challenges in some of their top races, the party hasn’t had the resources to seriously invest in the Centennial State this year.

    But in his bid for a third full term, Bennet is up against a stronger challenger in businessman Joe O’Dea, who told CNN he disagreed with the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. His wife and daughter star in his ads as he tries to cut a more moderate profile and vows not to vote the party line in Washington.

    Bennet, however, is attacking O’Dea for voting for a failed 2020 state ballot measure to ban abortion after 22 weeks of pregnancy and arguing that whatever O’Dea says about supporting abortion rights, he’d give McConnell “the majority he needs” to pass a national abortion ban.

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  • Trump files $475 million defamation lawsuit against CNN

    Trump files $475 million defamation lawsuit against CNN

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    NEW YORK — Former President Donald Trump on Monday sued CNN, seeking $475 million in damages, saying the network had defamed him in an effort to short-circuit any future political campaign.

    The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, focuses primarily on the term “The Big Lie” about Trump’s false claims of widespread fraud that he says cost him the 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden.

    CNN said it had no comment on the lawsuit.

    Trump repeatedly attacked CNN as president, which resonated with his conservative followers. He has similarly filed lawsuits against big tech companies with little success. His case against Twitter for knocking him off its platform following the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol insurrection was thrown out by a California judge earlier this year.

    Numerous federal and local election officials in both parties, a long list of courts, top former campaign staffers and even Trump’s own attorney general have all said there is no evidence of the election fraud he alleges.

    Trump’s lawsuit claims “The Big Lie,” a phrase with Nazi connotations, has been used in reference to him more than 7,700 times on CNN since January 2021.

    “It is intended to aggravate, scare and trigger people,” he said.

    In a statement Monday, Trump suggested that similar lawsuits would be filed against other news organizations. And he said he may also bring “appropriate action” against the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol by his supporters. The lawsuit comes as he is weighing a potential bid for the presidency in 2024.

    New CNN chief Chris Licht privately urged his news personnel in a meeting more than three months ago to refrain from using the phrase because it is too close to Democratic efforts to brand the former president, according to several published reports.

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  • Tudor Dixon seeks a culture war in campaign against Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer | CNN Politics

    Tudor Dixon seeks a culture war in campaign against Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Tudor Dixon, the Republican taking on Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in November’s midterm election, is turning to tactics that have worked for other Republican winners in competitive governor’s races as she seeks to turn the race into a cultural battle over education, transgender athletes and more.

    But her clash with a well-funded Democratic incumbent governor – one taking place in a state where a referendum that would enshrine abortion rights in the state’s constitution has emerged as a dominant issue – is showcasing the limits of those efforts at cultural appeals to the moderate, suburban voters who could decide the race’s outcome.

    National Republicans have largely abandoned Dixon in the race’s closing weeks, leaving her outspent and floundering in one of the nation’s most important swing states.

    Dixon sought to change the race’s trajectory on Saturday when former President Donald Trump traveled to Michigan for a rally in Warren with Dixon and other GOP candidates, including Matthew DePerno, who is challenging Attorney General Dana Nessel, and Kristina Karamo, who is taking on Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson. Dixon, DePerno and Karamo have all parroted Trump’s lies about widespread fraud in the 2020 election.

    Trump called Whitmer “one of the most radical, most sinister governors in America,” criticizing her support for abortion rights and Michigan’s pandemic-related lockdowns.

    The former President, echoing Dixon’s focus on cultural issues and education, called Dixon “a national leader in the battle to protect our children by getting race and gender ideology out of the classroom.”

    Trump’s attack on Whitmer as “sinister” is the latest in a series of rhetorical escalations by the former President. On Friday, he said on his social media website Truth Social that the top Senate Republican, Mitch McConnell, had a “death wish” after Congress approved stopgap funding to avert a government shutdown.

    Dixon, meanwhile, spoke twice Saturday – once before Trump, and again when Trump invited her on stage. As she lambasted Whitmer, the crowd repeated a familiar Trump rally chant, this time directed at Whitmer rather than 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton: “Lock her up.”

    “We’re not going to let our kids be radicalized. We’re not going to let our kids be sexualized. We’re not going to let our law enforcement be demonized. We’re not going to tell our businesses they can’t expand,” Dixon said.

    Dixon, a conservative commentator and first-time candidate, emerged from a crowded primary after receiving the financial support of former Trump education secretary Betsy DeVos’ family. The Michigan GOP megadonors funded a super PAC bolstering Dixon’s campaign. And Trump waded into the race in the closing days of the primary with a Dixon endorsement that came after a handwritten letter from DeVos urged him to back Dixon, as reported by The New York Times.

    “The Dixon campaign is seeking to get its name ID up and MAGA base fully engaged to close the polling gap and that is what they hope to gain from a Trump rally in Macomb County,” said John Sellek, a Republican public relations adviser and head of Harbor Strategic Public Affairs in Lansing.

    However, she has struggled to raise money and gain traction since her August primary victory.

    Democrats on Saturday said Dixon’s comments at the Trump rally were an effort to distract from issues on which her positions are unpopular – particularly abortion rights.

    “Tonight, Michiganders saw a schoolyard bully on stage – not a leader,” Michigan Democratic Party chairwoman Lavora Barnes said in a statement. “Tudor Dixon hurled insults and rattled off a litany of grievances because she knows that her dangerous agenda to ban abortion and throw nurses in jail, dismantle public education, and slash funding for law enforcement is out-of-step.

    “Michigan families deserve a real leader who will work with anyone to get things done, and Tudor Dixon has shown time and again she will continue to divide and pit people against each other if it means she and Betsy DeVos gain political power,” Barnes said.

    Whitmer’s campaign and her supporters have dwarfed Dixon in television advertising spending – and Dixon’s campaign is currently off the air in Michigan, underscoring the reality that major Republican donors have shifted their focus to other races they view as more winnable.

    Since the primary on August 2, Democrats have spent about $17.6 million on ads in the governor’s race, while Republicans have spent just $1.1 million, according to data from the firm AdImpact. And over the next month through election day, Democrats have $23.4 million booked while GOP has just $4.3 million booked.

    Early voting is already underway in Michigan. And in the governor’s race, Whitmer is widely viewed as the favorite by nonpartisan analysts. The race is rated as one that “tilts Democratic” by Inside Elections with Nathan L. Gonzales. The Cook Political Report and University of Virginia Center for Politics director Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball rate it as “likely Democratic.”

    “The battle has been fought on the Democrats’ terms with millions and millions of dollars, and there’s been essentially no effort to fight back,” Michigan-based Republican strategist John Yob said on the Michigan Information & Research Service Inc.’s “MIRS Monday” podcast this week. “On the Republican side, we’ve never faced this before. And, you know, it doesn’t look very good in terms of a way out unless some serious money gets on TV pretty quickly.”

    The most dominant issue in the governor’s race has been abortion rights in the wake of the Supreme Court’s June decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. Michigan’s Republican-led legislature has refused to change a 1931 law that would prohibit abortion in nearly all instances. Whitmer and other pro-abortion rights groups sued to block that law. And a Democratic-backed referendum that would amend Michigan’s constitution to guarantee abortion rights is on November’s ballot in the state.

    Dixon, who opposes abortion except when necessary to protect the life of the mother, has struggled to redirect the race’s focus.

    “You can vote for Gretchen Whitmer’s position without having to vote for Gretchen Whitmer again,” she told reporters last week, explaining that voters could support the referendum but oppose the incumbent governor.

    In an effort to shift the contest’s focus, Dixon’s campaign has borrowed tactics from Republican governors who have won in battleground states in recent years.

    For months, she has focused on parental control of schools’ curriculum, as well as school choice. It’s a message built on that of Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, the Republican whose 2021 victory was an early harbinger of a potentially favorable political landscape for the GOP in this year’s midterm elections.

    “That’s why Gov. Youngkin’s message resonated,” Dixon said in an August interview on Fox News alongside Youngkin, who was campaigning in Michigan.

    “He said, ‘I’m listening to you. I want parents involved. And I’m going to bring you back into the schools,’” Dixon said. “That’s what people want to hear right now.”

    In her latest move to redefine the race, Dixon this week proposed two policies aimed at the LGBTQ community and schools.

    In Lansing on Tuesday, Dixon proposed a policy modeled after the controversial measure Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law earlier this year that critics have dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” law.

    “This act will require school districts to ensure that their schools do not provide classroom instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity in grades K through three, or in any manner that has not age- or developmentally appropriate,” Dixon told reporters, blasting what she called “radical sex and gender instruction.”

    Florida’s HB 1557, the Parental Rights in Education bill, passed earlier this year effectively bans teachers from discussing sexual orientation and gender identity in classrooms for young students. LGBTQ advocates say the measure has led to further stigmatization of gay, lesbian and transgender children, causing more bullying and suicides within an already marginalized community.

    Then, on Wednesday in Grand Rapids, she unveiled her proposal for a “Women’s Sports Fairness Act,” which would ban transgender girls from competing in sports with the gender they identify with.

    “As a mother of four girls, nothing infuriates me more than the prospect of my daughters losing their friends and their teammates, losing opportunities in sports or otherwise, because some radically progressive politicians decided one day that they should have to compete against biological men,” she said. “Gretchen Whitmer has embraced the trans-supremacist ideology, which dictates that individuals who are born as men can be allowed to compete against our daughters.”

    Whitmer’s campaign has largely ignored Dixon’s proposals, and did not respond to a request for comment on them. Instead, Whitmer has in recent days emphasized her economic message and her support for abortion rights.

    Whitmer is leaning into policies enacted by Democrats in Washington in recent months, including the Inflation Reduction Act, which was signed into law by President Joe Biden in August.

    Whitmer in September signed an executive directive capping insulin costs at $35 per month and out-of-pocket costs at $2,000 a year for Medicare recipients.

    And last week, Whitmer announced that student loan borrowers will not be taxed on the debt relief that Biden had ordered.

    What has dominated media coverage of the race in recent days, though, are a series of jokes Dixon has made about the 2020 kidnapping plot against Whitmer.

    A federal jury in August convicted two men of conspiring to kidnap Whitmer at her vacation home in 2020. They were also convicted of one count of conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction after prosecutors detailed their plans to blow up a bridge to prevent police from responding to the kidnapping of the governor. The men now face a maximum sentence of life in prison.

    “The sad thing is that Gretchen will tie your hands, put a gun to your head, and ask if you’re ready to talk,” Dixon said at an event last week in Troy alongside Kellyanne Conway, a former Trump White House aide. “For someone so worried about being kidnapped, Gretchen Whitmer sure is good at taking business hostage and holding it for ransom.”

    After her comment drew backlash, Dixon joked again about the kidnapping plot at a second event Friday, this time with Donald Trump Jr., the son of the former President.

    She told a crowd that, at a stop with President Joe Biden at the Detroit Auto Show last week, Whitmer looked like she’d “rather be kidnapped by the FBI.”

    “Yeah, the media is like, ‘Oh my gosh, she did it again,’” Dixon said, anticipating the reaction to her second reference of the day to the 2020 kidnapping plot.

    As she told the crowd that her earlier remarks about the plot to kidnap Whitmer had been characterized as a joke, Dixon said: “I’m like, ‘No, that wasn’t a joke.’ If you were afraid of that, you should know what it is to have your life ripped away from you.”

    Whitmer’s campaign and Democratic groups condemned Dixon’s remarks Friday.

    “Threats of violence and dangerous rhetoric undermine our democracy and discourage good people on both sides of the aisle at every level from entering public service,” Whitmer campaign spokesperson Maeve Coyle said in a statement.

    “Governor Whitmer has faced serious threats to her safety and her life, and she is grateful to the law enforcement and prosecutors for their tireless work,” Coyle said. “Threats of violence – whether to Governor Whitmer or to candidates and elected officials on the other side of the aisle – are no laughing matter, and the fact that Tudor Dixon thinks it’s a joke shows that she is absolutely unfit to serve in public office.”

    This story has been updated with additional developments.

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  • Former Trump aide Lewandowski makes deal with prosecutors to avoid misdemeanor charge | CNN Politics

    Former Trump aide Lewandowski makes deal with prosecutors to avoid misdemeanor charge | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Corey Lewandowski, one of Donald Trump’s former top campaign lieutenants, notched a deal with Las Vegas prosecutors over a misdemeanor battery charge stemming from his alleged sexual harassment of a major Republican donor’s wife in 2021.

    Lewandowski, 49, was publicly accused in September 2021 of making unwanted sexual advances toward Trashelle Odom, who is married to Idaho businessman John Odom, during a charity event in Las Vegas. At the time, Odom told Politico, which first reported both the allegations against Lewandowski and his deal with prosecutors, that Trump’s former senior campaign adviser “stalked” her during the event, made inappropriate physical contact, and spoke to her in sexually graphic terms.

    Soon after, Trump’s super PAC announced that it was cutting ties with Lewandowski and would instead install former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi at the helm of the fundraising committee he had previously ran.

    In a statement to CNN, Lewandowski’s attorneys said their client had reached a deal that “did not require any admissions” of wrongdoing.

    “A misdemeanor case was filed but we are pleased to say that the matter has been resolved,” attorneys David Chesnoff and Richard Schonfeld said. “The Court set conditions that Mr. Lewandowski will fulfill and the case will ultimately be dismissed.”

    Lewandowski has never publicly responded to Odom’s allegations and did not return a request for comment.

    Under the agreement, Lewandowski must complete an impulse-training course, serve 50 hours of community service, pay a $1,000 fine and “remain out of trouble,” said a person familiar with the matter. The case against him will be dismissed in one year if he completes these conditions, this person said.

    Despite being removed from Trump’s PAC last year, Lewandowski has remained inside the former President’s orbit. He periodically speaks with Trump himself and pops up at his Mar-a-Lago estate for events like the debut of right-wing filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza’s “2000 Mules” – a conspiracy-laden documentary about the 2020 election – earlier this spring. Lewandowski also found work on at least two Republican campaigns following Odom’s allegations, serving as an adviser to Ohio Senate hopeful Jane Timken, who lost her primary, and Massachusetts gubernatorial candidate Geoff Diehl.

    Still, the former Trump aide has spent the past year operating under the radar. He has not tweeted since last September and does not currently appear to be working on any major 2022 midterm races.

    Lewandowski also faced simple battery charges in Palm Beach County related to an encounter with then-Breitbart reporter Michelle Fields during Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, though the charges were eventually dropped.

    “Well, obviously I’m very pleased,” Lewandowski told CNN when the charges were dropped in 2016.

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  • $35 political contribution to Democrats raises fresh scrutiny of Judge Merchan | CNN Politics

    $35 political contribution to Democrats raises fresh scrutiny of Judge Merchan | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Judge Juan Merchan, the judge overseeing Donald Trump’s criminal case in New York, donated $35 in political contributions to Democrats in 2020, including a $15 contribution to the campaign of Trump’s opponent, President Joe Biden.

    The political donations are undoubtedly small, but they nevertheless raise questions about Merchan’s impartiality as he has come under attack by the former president as a “Trump-hating judge.”

    “While the amounts here are minimal, it’s surprising that a sitting judge would make political donations of any size to a partisan candidate or cause,” said Elie Honig, a senior CNN legal analyst and former federal prosecutor.

    According to federal election records, Merchan made the three donations in July 2020 through ActBlue, an online fundraising platform for Democratic candidates and causes.

    Merchan contributed $15 earmarked for the Biden campaign, and made two $10 contributions, one earmarked to the Progressive Turnout Project, a voter outreach organization, and another to Stop Republicans, a subsidiary of the Progressive Turnout Project.

    Stephen Gillers, a legal ethics professor at New York University, said that New York, like most US jurisdictions, has adopted language from the American Bar Association Model Code of Judicial Conduct, which prohibits judges from “soliciting funds for, paying an assessment to, or making a contribution to a political organization or candidate.”

    “The contribution to Biden and possibly the one to ‘Stop Republicans’ would be forbidden unless there is some other explanation that would allow them,” Gillers said.

    But Gillers said that the donation “would be viewed as trivial, especially given the small sums.” He said if a complaint was made, the state’s Commission on Judicial Conduct would remind the judge of the rules.

    Asked if this could be grounds for a legal challenge or recusal, Gillers said, “Absolutely not. This does not come anywhere near the kind of proof required for recusal.”

    Trump has been attacking Merchan and his family, including his daughter, whose political consulting firm did work for the Biden campaign and now-Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign. Trump has also complained about Merchan for presiding over the case against the Trump Organization, which was convicted on tax fraud charges late last year.

    CNN’s John Miller reports that the New York Police Department is tracking numerous threats against Merchan but has not seen specific, credible threats.

    An attorney for Trump on Thursday condemned those making threats against Merchan. Joe Tacopina, one of the lawyers representing Trump in the case, told CNN the threats were “appalling and we condemn anyone participating in such behavior.”

    Trump lawyer Susan Necheles declined to comment on the donations. But the former president’s political allies are pointing to the contributions to argue the judge should remove himself from the case.

    “He donated to Joe Biden’s campaign. He should get off this case. And this judge has a history, with President Trump, in prior cases,” Mike Davis, a former Republican chief counsel on the Senate Judiciary Committee and founder of a conservative judicial advocacy group, told CNN’s Pamela Brown. “He finds out that this judge actually donated to Biden’s campaign. So, that at least raises the appearance of impartiality – the appearance that this judge could not be impartial against President Trump.”

    Karen Friedman Agnifilo, a CNN legal analyst and former prosecutor in the Manhattan district attorney’s office, said that the political donations amount to an “unforced error” for Merchan.

    “Judge Merchan has a reputation of being a fair down the middle judge, however, donating to a defendant’s political rival can cause the appearance of a conflict, even where there is none, and creates an unforced error in this case involving Trump,” she said.

    A search of federal election databases does not turn up any additional political contributions for Merchan. New York state campaign finance records show that he gave a $99 contribution in 2002 to Rolando Acosta, who has served as a New York state appeals court judge since 2017.

    A source familiar with the court system said that the court administration doesn’t monitor judges’ personal affairs. The decision to recuse from the case would be up to Merchan himself.

    If he doesn’t, however, Trump’s lawyers could appeal the matter to a New York state appeals court.

    A spokesperson for the courts said, “We decline to comment on pending cases.”

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  • Biden raised $72 million in his first quarter of fundraising since announcing reelection bid | CNN Politics

    Biden raised $72 million in his first quarter of fundraising since announcing reelection bid | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    President Joe Biden raised $72 million for his reelection effort and for the Democratic Party in his first quarter of fundraising since launching his reelection bid in April, his campaign announced Friday.

    The showing could help quell some concerns about the president’s ability to fundraise as he seeks a second term. His campaign boasted an average contribution of $39 from nearly 400,000 donors and said 97% of all donations were less than $200.

    Biden’s campaign, which has yet to open a headquarters and maintains a skeletal staff several months in, also boasted a sizable war chest, with $77 million in cash on hand at June 30, the end of the quarter.

    While the president’s fundraising haul is stronger than any other 2024 presidential contender, it falls short of the record-breaking $86 million raised in 2011 by President Barack Obama for his reelection campaign and the Democratic National Committee in his first quarter of fundraising after launching his second-term bid.

    Obama’s campaign also boasted 158,000 more individual donors in that quarter than Biden’s reported total. Donor contribution limits were lower in the 2012 cycle than they are now: Individual donors could give a maximum of $2,500 to Obama’s campaign when he ran for a second term. This cycle, the individual limit is $3,300. The disparity in maximum contributions between the two cycles is even higher when totaling the maximum allowed contribution to joint fundraising committees.

    Obama launched his campaign three weeks earlier in the second quarter of 2011 than Biden did this year, and as a result, Biden campaign officials noted that they raised more per day than Obama’s campaign did in that quarter.

    Responding to questions about the fewer number of individual donors for Biden compared with Obama’s first quarter of reelection fundraising, Biden campaign officials pointed to a “very different” political climate that has made grassroots fundraising more challenging across the board this year, with political fatigue setting in on both the right and the left.

    Still, the campaign officials said there were signs of enthusiasm, adding that 30% of campaign donors this past quarter had not previously donated to Biden’s 2020 campaign.

    A fundraising sweepstakes to meet the president was especially successful, raising nearly $2 million, campaign officials said. And campaign merchandise that embraced the “Dark Brandon” meme drove over half of the campaign store’s revenue, according to the officials.

    Biden campaign officials declined to disclose the breakdown between funds raised for the campaign versus those raised for the DNC and state parties that are participants in Biden’s joint fundraising operation, noting that Biden’s campaign is heavily integrated with those entities as part of its strategies. That breakdown will become available when the campaign files its report with the Federal Election Commission by Saturday’s deadline.

    In another point of comparison, in 2019, President Donald Trump and the Republican National Committee raised a combined $105 million in the second quarter, though Trump’s reelection operation had been well underway for more than two years at that point.

    “Let’s not forget the months of hype about then-President Trump’s “Death Star” his team spent all of 2019 building, which completely fell apart by summer 2020 while the Biden campaign’s rebel alliance surpassed them and then continued to break fundraising records until Election Day,” Biden campaign spokesman Kevin Munoz said in response to the comparison. “That’s not exactly the playbook we’re looking to replicate.”

    Trump’s 2024 campaign reported last week that the former president’s joint fundraising committee had raised more than $35 million in the second quarter of the year. Trump launched his comeback bid for the White House in November. The campaign of his chief rival for the GOP nomination – Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis – reported that it had raised $20 million through June 30 over the six weeks since he announced his candidacy in late May.

    Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez touted the latest fundraising totals as evidence of “incredible enthusiasm” for the president’s agenda and campaign.

    “We’ve seen incredible enthusiasm for President Biden and Vice President Harris’ agenda – including their commitment to restoring democracy, fighting for more freedoms and growing the economy by growing the middle class. While Republicans are burning through resources in a divisive primary focused on who can take the most extreme MAGA positions, we are significantly outraising every single one of them – because our team’s strength is our grassroots supporters,” Chavez Rodriguez said in a statement.

    This story has been updated with additional information.

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  • 2024 GOP candidates race to meet donor and polling thresholds to make August debate stage | CNN Politics

    2024 GOP candidates race to meet donor and polling thresholds to make August debate stage | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Donald Trump hasn’t yet committed to the first Republican presidential primary debate in August – but some of the former president’s most vocal critics within the party’s 2024 field are still working to qualify for the stage.

    The race to meet the 40,000 unique donors threshold set by the Republican National Committee as a minimum to qualify for the first debate – in addition to polling requirements and a commitment to support the eventual GOP nominee – is unfolding ahead of a showdown that could be the best chance for lower-polling candidates to break out from the pack seeking to stop Trump from winning a third straight presidential nomination.

    The threshold, which also requires at least 200 unique contributors from 20 or more states and territories, is a test of candidates’ ability to appeal to grassroots donors across a broad swath of the United States.

    Several candidates and their aides say they have already met that donor threshold, including Trump, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, former United Nations ambassador and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy.

    Lesser-known candidates are trying zany, rule-bending approaches to up their donation totals. North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum is swapping $20 gift cards for $1 campaign contributions. Miami Mayor Francis Suarez’s super PAC is offering entries to a free college tuition sweepstakes in exchange for contributions to his campaign.

    But the biggest question ahead of the August 23 showdown on Fox News is whether some of Trump’s foremost critics – including former Vice President Mike Pence, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson and former Texas Rep. Will Hurd – will qualify for the stage.

    Though they have raised substantial sums before, and Burgum has vast personal wealth to spend on the race, some candidates lack the small-dollar conservative base of donors that candidates like Trump and DeSantis have cultivated. And late entrances by Pence and Burgum further complicate their paths to the debate, which is being held in Milwaukee.

    Pence, in a Tuesday interview with CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on “The Source,” indicated that he has not yet met the donor threshold.

    “You bet we’ll be on that debate stage. We’re working every day to get to that threshold,” Pence said. “I’m sure we’re going to be there.”

    However, the paltry second-quarter fundraising haul of $1.2 million that Pence’s campaign announced Friday underscored just how far the former vice president has to go to catch his top rivals.

    Pence – who often jokes on the campaign trail that he has already debated Trump many times in private – said he is hopeful his former ticket mate decides to take the stage.

    “I intend to be on that debate stage in late August, and I look forward to squaring off,” Pence said.

    Hutchinson said Friday on “CNN This Morning” that he has not yet reached 40,000 donors but believes he will eventually hit that mark.

    “It’s just a question of how quickly we can get there, but we want to be on that debate stage,” he said.

    The former Arkansas governor has been among the most vocal critics of the RNC’s debate qualification rules, pushing back for weeks against the minimum donor threshold.

    Hutchinson said Friday that some of the inventive gambits by his fellow candidates to attract the requisite donors “illustrate how silly this whole concept is. They’re telling campaigns you’ve got to reach these limits to make sure you get 40,000 donors. You can do that by your rhetoric and getting people fired up, you can do that by gimmicks, and so we’re going to have to do what we need to do to get there.”

    Hurd does not appear yet to have met the minimum donor threshold. “Will fully intends on meeting the donor and polling thresholds,” a campaign aide said Wednesday.

    North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum speaks to guests during a campaign stop at the Westside Conservative Breakfast Club meeting on June 9, 2023, in Ankeny, Iowa.

    Burgum, a wealthy former software executive, is offering $20 so-called “Biden economic relief cards” in the form of Visa or Mastercard gift cards to 50,000 donors who give at least $1. One solicitation Tuesday described it as a “better deal than anything you are seeing during Amazon Prime Day.”

    Burgum’s campaign on Friday announced an $11.7 million fundraising haul in the second quarter, but $10.2 miliion of that candidate’s own money.

    Perry Johnson, the little-known Michigan businessman, was at one point selling “I stand with Tucker” T-shirts backing the fired Fox News opinion host for $1.

    A super PAC backing Suarez on Thursday launched what it called “Francis Free College Tuition” – soliciting $1 contributions that would go to the candidate’s campaign to enter a sweepstakes that would offer the winner a year of paid college tuition up to $15,000.

    Suarez, unlike many other GOP candidates still racing to meet the donor threshold to qualify for the debate, has backed the RNC’s rules.

    “I do think there should a minimum criteria because time is valuable,” Suarez said Wednesday on “CNN This Morning.” “I think the Republican Party has tried to set a relatively low bar, and they’ve tried to create a diverse candidate pool so that people have options.”

    Ramaswamy’s campaign has said he already met the donor threshold – but his campaign recently launched a program to pay grassroots fundraisers 10% of the money they raise.

    Whether Christie would meet the donor threshold was a major question but one he seemed to settle on Wednesday night.

    “I am glad to be able to tell people tonight, Anderson, that last night we went past 40,000 unique donors in just 35 days,” Christie told CNN’s Anderson Cooper on “AC360.”

    Scott’s campaign on Wednesday also announced it had surpassed the 40,000 donor threshold, along with a $6.1 million second quarter fundraising haul. Scott, a prolific fundraiser as a Senate candidate, was widely considered a virtual lock to reach that minimum donor threshold.

    Another key benchmark to qualify for the debate stage is polling. Candidates must reach at least 1% in three national polls, or at least two national polls and two polls from separate early-voting states – Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina or Nevada.

    The RNC set criteria to determine which polls meet its standards to qualify toward the debate. The first poll to meet those RNC standards, a national survey by Morning Consult, found that Trump, DeSantis, Scott, Haley, Ramaswamy, Pence, Christie and Hutchinson had all reached the 1% minimum to count toward making the debate stage.

    Others still have zero qualifying polls toward the minimum qualifications for the first debate.

    Larry Elder, the conservative talk radio host and failed California gubernatorial nominee who is seeking the GOP’s 2024 presidential nomination, complained in an opinion piece published Wednesday by The Hill that the RNC “has rigged the rules of the game by instituting a set of criteria that is so onerous and poorly designed that only establishment-backed and billionaire candidates are guaranteed to be on stage.”

    “That’s not what our party is about: We are the party of free speech, debate and the exchange of ideas. With 16 months until the general election, Republicans should have as many voices as the stage will accommodate. Anything short of that is elitism,” Elder said.

    The third requirement to make the August debate is a pledge to support the eventual Republican nominee in the 2024 general election.

    Some candidates, including Christie, have grumbled about the pledge but indicated they will agree to it because failing to do so would leave them no real path to the sort of attention needed to win the GOP nomination.

    Trump has privately discussed skipping either one or both of the first two Republican presidential primary debates, CNN reported in May. Since then he has not publicly said he would participate in the debate.

    DeSantis on Wednesday criticized Trump in an interview with Iowa conservative radio host Howie Carr over his refusal to commit to the debate.

    “Nobody is entitled to this nomination. You have got to earn the nomination,” DeSantis said, adding that debates are “important parts of the process.”

    “I will be in Milwaukee for the first debate, and I’ll be at all the debates because the American people deserve to hear from us directly about our vision for the country, and about how we’re going to be able to defeat Joe Biden,” he said.

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  • Trump campaign says it saw surge in donations after indictment | CNN Politics

    Trump campaign says it saw surge in donations after indictment | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Former President Donald Trump raised a combined $18.8 million in the first quarter of 2023 through his joint fundraising committee and his campaign – and saw a spike in donations after being indicted by a Manhattan grand jury on March 30 – according to new figures provided by his campaign.

    The campaign told CNN it also raised $15.4 million in the two weeks after charges were filed against the former president, showing how much his supporters have rallied around Trump after learning of the indictment.

    The Trump campaign said the fundraising figures suggest his legal woes have benefited him both politically and financially – at least in the short term – and energized his base as he continues to campaign for his third shot at the presidency.

    Politico first reported Trump’s first quarter fundraising numbers.

    Trump’s campaign previously said on March 31 that it had raised $4 million in the 24 hours since his indictment was first announced. The former president has pleaded not guilty to 34 felony criminal charges of falsifying business records.

    During the first quarter, from January 1 to March 31, Trump received a total of 541,971 donations, according to the figures provided by his campaign. The average donation was roughly $34.

    Comparatively, Trump received 312,564 donations in the two weeks after charges were filed against the former president, beginning on March 30, with the average donation totaling roughly $49.

    Prior to the indictment, the former president was bringing in roughly $168,000 per day between January 1 to March 30. It’s unclear whether the boost the Trump campaign says it received since his indictment will continue into the second quarter.

    The former president has been raising money for his 2024 presidential bid through both his campaign and his political action committee, Save America PAC. Filings Saturday night with the Federal Election Commission show that $14.4 million of the first-quarter haul went to Trump’s main campaign account.

    The figure lags behind the $30 million he raised during the first quarter of the 2020 election cycle, when he still occupied the Oval Office.

    In all, the Trump campaign spent $3.5 million in the first quarter and had $13.9 million in cash on hand as of March 31.

    More than $727,000 of his campaign dollars during the three-month period funded payroll, filings show. A little more than $488,000 went to TAG Air Inc. – the Trump-owned company that operates his airplanes.

    Other Republicans who have announced their 2024 candidacies include Nikki Haley, a former United Nations ambassador and ex-South Carolina governor, whose campaign has said she collected $11 million in the six weeks since she launched her bid on February 15. But the filings show she raised less than that, and her campaign appears to have double-counted money routed among various committees. In all, Haley raised $8.3 million across three committees connected to her campaign.

    Another South Carolinian, Republican Sen. Tim Scott – who announced a presidential exploratory committee on Wednesday, after the end of the first quarter – reported Saturday that he had nearly $22 million remaining in his Senate campaign account as of March 31. That’s money Scott could transfer directly into a presidential campaign account.

    Biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, who declared his bid for the GOP nomination in February, loaned his campaign $10.25 million and raised about $1.2 million from contributors through March 31. He had nearly $9.4 million in cash on hand at the end of the quarter, his FEC filing shows.

    Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is expected to launch a 2024 GOP presidential bid, has built a sizable war chest through his state-level fundraising committee. Friends of Ron DeSantis has more than $85 million remaining in its coffers, recent state records show.

    He faces restrictions on the use of that money for a presidential bid, but it could potentially be transferred to another committee backing his candidacy.

    Already, a pro-DeSantis super PAC, Never Back Down, which launched in March, has announced that it had raised $30 million as of early April. The group debuted its first national TV ad Sunday, taking direct aim at the former president.

    “Donald Trump is being attacked by a Democrat prosecutor in New York, so why is he spending millions attacking the Republican governor of Florida?” the ad said. “What happened to Donald Trump?” The one-time buy on Fox will be followed by a seven-figure national ad buy beginning Monday, according to a source familiar with the super PAC’s plans.

    Details on Trump’s fundraising after the first quarter ended on March 31 won’t be disclosed to regulators for several months.

    On Friday, the former president filed his personal financial disclosure report with the FEC – offering the public a first look at his post-presidential finances. The 101-page report provided some new insights into Trump’s finances since he left office, including his social media business venture, and last year’s sale of digital trading cards known as NFTs, or non-fungible tokens.

    This story has been updated with additional information.

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  • Early alarm bells for DeSantis as Pence falls behind: Takeaways from new campaign finance reports | CNN Politics

    Early alarm bells for DeSantis as Pence falls behind: Takeaways from new campaign finance reports | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The first full financial look at the 2024 presidential race came into focus over the weekend as candidates filed campaign finance reports with federal regulators. They highlight potential trouble spots for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and expose a wide chasm between the early fundraising leaders in the Republican primary and the rest of the GOP field.

    Here are takeways from the second-quarter fundraising reports for the three months ending June 30.

    The Florida governor raised $20 million – a strong total – but his campaign is burning through cash at a rapid rate, spending nearly $8 million since he entered the contest in late May, according to its filing Saturday with the Federal Election Commission.

    Travel and payroll expenses each topped $1 million, and more than $800,000 went to digital fundraising consulting, according to the campaign’s report. As of the end of June, DeSantis employed 90 people, compared to nearly 40 people employed by the campaign of former President Donald Trump, the current GOP primary front-runner.

    On Saturday, a DeSantis campaign aide confirmed that the team had recently trimmed some staff.

    “Defeating Joe Biden and the $72 million behind him will require a nimble and candidate driven campaign, and we are building a movement to go the distance,” campaign spokesperson Andrew Romeo said in a statement.

    The latest filing underscores another warning sign for DeSantis: A small share – less than 15% – of his contributions from individuals came in amounts of $200 or less. Robust small-dollar donations can offer a sign of grassroots momentum behind a campaign, and supporters who contribute small amounts can be tapped repeatedly for donations before hitting the maximum $3,300 an individual can legally donate in primary elections.

    DeSantis entered the second half of the year with $12.2 million remaining in the bank, but only about $9 million of that is available for spending in the GOP primary. DeSantis collected some $3 million in general election money from maxed-out donors that can only be spent if he secures his party’s nomination.

    This weekend’s reports also underscore a stark divide between those who raised substantial sums – such as Trump and DeSantis – and the other well-known political figures competing for the GOP nod.

    Former Vice President Mike Pence languished at the bottom half of the pack, bringing in a less than $1.2 million, the filings show. He entered the 2024 race in the first week of June, with a little more than three weeks remaining in the fundraising quarter but had spent months preparing a bid. His paltry numbers raise questions about whether he can gain traction among the party faithful.

    Nearly 30% of contributions from individuals to Pence came from people who donated $200 or less. Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie outraised the former vice president – bringing in more than $1.65 million during the first 25 days of his candidacy – and took in more a third of his individual contributions in these smaller amounts.

    Notably, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, who is largely self-financing his campaign, took in more money from contributors – nearly $1.6 million – than Pence did. (Burgum, a former software executive, is working hard to lure donors, offering $20 gift cards for donations of at least $1 as tries to meet the contributor threshold to qualify for the first GOP debate next month.)

    Trump, who leads the GOP field in polling, raised $17.7 million during the quarter – most of which was transferred from a joint fundraising committee that also sends donations to a leadership PAC, Save America.

    Save America has paid the former president’s legal expenses in the past; Trump now has been indicted twice this year – first by a Manhattan grand jury in connection with an alleged hush-money scheme and then by a federal grand jury, related to allegations that he mishandled classified documents after leaving the White House. He has denied any wrongdoing.

    Trump’s campaign previously announced raising a total of $35 million in the second quarter through his joint fundraising operation. But the full picture on how that money was divided and spent won’t become apparent until later this month when additional reports are filed.

    Trump reported $22.5 million in cash on hand as of June 30, topping the GOP field. In second place, with $21.1 million, was South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott – who transferred big sums from his Senate campaign account to his presidential operation.

    Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley entered July with more than $6.8 million the bank, putting her in the middle of the GOP pack.

    Biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, meanwhile, continues to plow his personal fortune into the contest, loaning his campaign another $5 million in the second quarter, the reports show. He started July with more than $9 million in cash reserves – money he can easily replenish if he continues to spend heavily to introduce himself to the GOP electorate.

    President Joe Biden has announced raising $72 million with the Democratic National Committee, which reports its fundraising later in the week. But that total haul is nearly as much money as what all the major GOP contenders combined reported collecting in their main campaign accounts during the second quarter.

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  • We are already in the food fight portion of the GOP primary | CNN Politics

    We are already in the food fight portion of the GOP primary | CNN Politics

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    A version of this story appeared in CNN’s What Matters newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here.



    CNN
     — 

    The 2024 Republican presidential primary is not fully underway as yet and already we are in the food fight phase.

    A super PAC supporting former President Donald Trump tried to smear Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis with pudding, seizing on a report, which the governor denies, about his eating habits to make a point about Social Security and Medicare.

    The ad itself is gross. And it drew a super PAC supporting DeSantis off the sidelines to air an ad of its own wondering why Trump was going after the Florida governor.

    For the record, neither DeSantis nor Trump currently say they will touch safety net benefits, but both have a past of suggesting they could.

    I talked to CNN chief national affairs correspondent Jeff Zeleny by email about the Trump/DeSantis dynamic, the role of deep-pocketed super PACs and what else is going on in this nascent primary campaign.

    WOLF: We are nine months away from the first primaries and not all of the top candidates have even declared their candidacies. But there’s some super PAC mudslinging. What’s happening and what do we need to take from all of this?

    ZELENY: A new season of attack ads has begun, with allies of Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis firing some of the first direct shots of the young presidential campaign. Now is the time to define your opponent – whether you’re an announced candidate (Trump) or expected to be one soon (DeSantis) – and begin pointing out potential vulnerabilities. Not surprisingly, the opening volley was about Social Security and Medicare and highlighting old comments about promising to reform the entitlement programs.

    WOLF: Super PACs can’t technically coordinate with campaigns. DeSantis doesn’t technically have a campaign. How is that working exactly?

    ZELENY: The Florida governor isn’t planning on jumping into the presidential race until May or June – after the legislative session is over – so until then, a group of deep-pocketed allies are coming to his defense. The super PAC, which is called Never Back Down, is effectively a campaign in waiting, complete with pollsters and political strategists of all varieties. Federal election law prohibits coordinating with the campaign, but when there isn’t an official campaign, that formality becomes far easier.

    WOLF: Do other Republican candidates have deep pocketed super PACs? Who are the other players to watch?

    ZELENY: Not nearly as deep, no, but most major Republican candidates have at least some type of super PAC assistance. Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley has some support – and is seeking more – as are other potential candidates. One likely presidential contender, Sen. Tim Scott, has one financial advantage that makes him stand apart from his rivals: He has more than $20 million left over in his campaign account from last year’s Senate race, which he can use on his presidential race. That’s a head start most of his rivals can only dream of.

    WOLF: Trump and DeSantis have been shadowboxing around each other for some time. Can we assume this is a prelude to a much more bruising fight in the making? What does this say about GOP unity heading into the primaries?

    Zeleny: GOP unity? That will come later – or that’s the hope of top Republican officials – but the bruising season of define-your-opponent is underway. The Trump-DeSantis feud has long been simmering, but their springtime exchanges are almost certainly quaint, compared to what’s likely to come.

    WOLF: What do we know about where these super PAC ads are running? Are they focused on specific types of voters or is this simply an effort to get attention from us in the media?

    ZELENY: For now, most of the ads are running on cable television and sports. The Make America Great Again group, which supports Trump, has been running ads for weeks now seeking to define DeSantis in a negative light. You have likely seen some of these, which begin with the ominous: “Think you know Ron DeSantis? Think again.”

    WOLF: Are there any changes in how you think super PACs will operate this year and how they’ll be involved in the campaign?

    ZELENY: With every passing election cycle, super PACs play a more prominent role. It’s easier to raise money – without the federal limits imposed upon candidates. If the early months of the year are any indication, the 2024 campaign will push the limits even more, with outside groups far more important than political parties or, in some cases, even the candidates themselves.

    WOLF: Are there any early conclusions we can draw about how Trump’s indictment by the Manhattan DA on criminal charges has affected his campaign? Has it impacted his popularity among Republican voters? Affected his fundraising?

    ZELENY: Early conclusions are often risky ones, but the Trump campaign insists the indictment has been a fundraising boost. It certainly has rallied many Republicans around him – or at least unified them in opposition to the indictment – but it may be far too soon to say whether this will continue to be the case. He faces potential criminal action in Georgia, for his role in trying to overturn the election results, as well as at least two federal investigations.

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