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Police say there was no powder in an envelope that was opened at the Phoenix campaign headquarters of Kari Lake, the Republican candidate for governor of Arizona
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Tag: Gubernatorial elections
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Wisconsin’s Evers, in 2nd term bid, says democracy at stake
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MADISON, Wis. — Democratic Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers staked his bid Tuesday for a second term on his support for abortion rights and his status as the only check on the GOP in a state certain to be pivotal in the 2024 presidential race.
Evers faced Tim Michels, a Donald Trump-backed Republican who promised to deliver “massive” tax cuts and largely financed his campaign from his fortune as owner of the state’s largest construction firm.
Roughly half of Wisconsin voters say the nation’s economy is the most pressing issue facing the country, according to AP VoteCast, an expansive survey of more than 3,200 voters in the state.
Nearly all the state’s voters say inflation was a factor in how they cast their ballots, with roughly half naming it as the single most important factor. Among those who named inflation as a factor in how they voted, nearly half say the rising costs of groceries and food were most important.
Evers frequently touted the more than 120 vetoes he issued to block Republican legislation in his first term, including bills that would have broadened gun rights, made it harder to get an abortion and tougher to cast absentee ballots. Future elections loomed large in the race, with Evers arguing that democracy was on the ballot.
“I am the last line of defense for voting rights in Wisconsin,” Evers tweeted in the final weeks of the race. “If Republicans win, they’ll undoubtedly make it harder to vote and undermine our electoral system.”
Michels, who won a tough primary after getting Trump’s endorsement, initially refused to commit to accepting the results of the election before saying in late October he would “certainly” accept the outcome. Michels also has said “maybe” the 2020 election lost by Trump was stolen, even though President Joe Biden’s win has survived numerous lawsuits, reviews and recounts.
Michels also supports Republican proposals to disband the state’s bipartisan elections commission and to make it harder to vote.
He tried to make the race largely about the economy, education, crime and public safety, arguing that Evers allowed too many prison inmates to be paroled and failed to act decisively to quell violent protests following the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man, in Kenosha in 2020.
Michels also faulted Evers’ response to the COVID-19 pandemic, arguing that schools and businesses were shuttered too long and that Evers has failed to improve educational results. Michels supports making everyone eligible to attend private schools using taxpayer-funded vouchers, a program that Evers, the former state schools chief, opposes. Michels also wants to cut income taxes to a nearly flat rate of around 5%.
Michels, in their lone debate, said all Evers “wants to do is blame others and talk about more resources, more money.” He added: “I’m a leader that will take responsibility. I’m a man of integrity.”
After the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Evers tried to make the race a referendum on abortion. Michels supported the state’s 1849 abortion ban in the Republican primary, but after his win he changed positions and said he would sign a bill creating exceptions for rape and incest. Evers said he would not sign such a bill if it left the underlying ban in place.
Al Drifka, 65, a retired manufacturing executive voting in the northern Milwaukee suburb of Cedarburg, split his ticket in the state’s top two races — voting for GOP Sen. Ron Johnson in that race but going for Evers as governor.
“I think the state of Wisconsin is in a good position right now,” Drifka said. “And I didn’t hear a lot of substance from Michels on what he was actually going to do.”
Vasyl Ovod, 41, a construction worker who described himself as conservative, voted for Michels at the same polling place. Ovod said he emigrated from Ukraine 17 years ago and things have gotten harder.
“When we came, it was much different,” he said. “I could even make more money. Gas was low. Now I feel like everything is going wrong. You feel this, you know?”
Though Republicans were keen to knock off Evers, they were also vying Tuesday to win supermajorities in the Legislature — a threshold that would allow them to override vetoes and shape state policy almost entirely to their liking.
Evers won in 2018 by a little more than a percentage point, and history was not on his side for a second term. He was trying to become the first Wisconsin governor in 32 years who was the same party as the sitting president to win reelection in a midterm.
Trump’s endorsement of Michels in the primary propelled him to victory over the presumptive favorite up to that point, former Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch. But Michels downplayed that backing in the general election and never mentioned it in his one debate with Evers.
Michels, 59, co-owns Michels Corporation with his brothers and claimed that he is “not a politician.” He previously ran for U.S. Senate in 2004, losing to then-Sen. Russ Feingold.
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Learn more about the issues and factors at play in the midterms at https://apnews.com/hub/explaining-the-elections.
And follow the AP’s election coverage of the 2022 elections at https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections.
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O’Rourke hopes to upset Texas Gov. Abbott’s bid for 3rd term
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AUSTIN — Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott sought a record-tying third term Tuesday while Democrat Beto O’Rourke reached for an upset in America’s biggest red state in one of the most expensive midterm races in the U.S.
More than 5 million early votes had already been cast ahead of Election Day in Texas, where anger over the Uvalde school shooting that left 19 children and two teachers dead in May intensified an already heated contest in which both candidates’ campaigns combined spent more than $200 million.
Five months later, Texas state police still face pressure for failing to confront the gunman sooner at Robb Elementary School. O’Rourke said the shooting, one of the deadliest classroom attacks in U.S. history, crystalized the stakes of the election as Abbott waved off calls for tougher gun laws.
But Abbott, 64, has remained formidable in a state where Republicans have won every governor’s race since 1994.
He has rallied his base around a record number of illegal border crossings from Mexico to the U.S., aggressively courted Hispanic voters in South Texas, and seized on economic anxieties and recession fears that have created headwinds for Democrats nationally.
A victory by Abbott would strengthen his position as a potential presidential contender in 2024, secure his place as the second-longest serving governor in the state’s history and extend decades of GOP dominance.
O’Rourke on Tuesday was set to embark on one last campaign blitz through Dallas, San Antonio and Houston before heading home to wait for election returns in his hometown of El Paso. Abbott was spending election night Tuesday in the southern border city of McAllen, underscoring the GOP’s rising confidence in a region that has long been a stronghold for Democrats.
O’Rourke’s hard-charging challenge has rekindled Democrats’ hopes while appealing to voters soured by the Uvalde shooting, a strict new abortion ban and the deadly collapse of the state’s power grid in winter 2021. The former El Paso congressman has cast himself as a fresh start for Texas and a check on a GOP-controlled Legislature, while vowing to legalize marijuana and expand Medicaid.
But four years after O’Rourke, 50, nearly won a U.S. Senate seat in Texas, raising his profile in the Democratic Party, he has confronted more skeptical voters. Abbott has painted him as a liberal crusader, and O’Rourke has been forced to answer for positions he took while running for the White House, particularly his support of mandatory gun buybacks.
A day after the shooting in Uvalde, O’Rourke interrupted an Abbott news conference, telling him, “This is on you,” in reference to the governor’s opposition of tougher gun measures. To Republicans, the moment was a tasteless political stunt, but O’Rourke’s supporters saw it as an authentic reflection of their anger.
During early voting in suburban Dallas, Deborah Thompson said she voted for all Democrats, including O’Rourke, out of concern that Republicans threaten voting and abortion rights.
“I think that an 18-year-old girl that’s been raped should be able to get an abortion,” the 56-year-old Richardson resident said. “I’m not going back. I’m not going back to the ’50s … and I’m so angry at all of this.”
Janie Helms, a retiree, said worries about inflation led her to vote for Abbott.
“I see him as a conservative who will watch our money,” she said.
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Associated Press writer Jake Bleiberg contributed from Plano, Texas.
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Follow AP’s coverage of the elections at: https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections
Check out https://apnews.com/hub/explaining-the-elections to learn more about the issues and factors at play in the 2022 midterm elections.
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Police: Campaign signs found booby-trapped with razor blades
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NEWTOWN, Pa. — Political signs in southeastern Pennsylvania have been found booby-trapped with razor blades, which resulted in sliced fingers for one resident, police said.
Upper Makefield Township police said Sunday that a campaign sign for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Josh Shapiro was placed without permission on someone’s property, and while trying to remove it the resident found that razor blades had been “placed around the perimeter of the sign.”
“Obviously, this was designed to inflict punishment on anyone who attempted to remove the sign,” police said in a social media post.
Police said they inspected all campaign signs and found razor blades placed around the perimeter of signs for two other Democratic candidates, John Fetterman and Ashley Ehasz. Fetterman is running for U.S. Senate and Ehasz for U.S. House.
Police said their investigation continues and warned residents to exercise caution in removing signs placed on their property without permission, and to call them if “any implements” have been installed on the signs.
“Over the past election cycles, we have dealt with theft of signs, vandalism of signs, neighbor disputes, etc., but this is the first time we have dealt with this situation,” police in the Bucks County community said, calling it “totally unacceptable and a disgusting act.”
“No matter your political affiliation, no matter your candidate preference, resorting to this type of depravity is unacceptable and criminal. We can do better and must,” police said.
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NY Rep. Lee Zeldin says 2 people shot in front of his home
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NEW YORK — New York congressman and Republican candidate for governor Lee Zeldin says his family is safe after two strangers were shot outside his Long Island home on Sunday.
Zeldin said in a statement that he does not know the identities of the two people who were shot but that they were found under his porch and in the bushes in front of his home in Shirley, New York. The congressman and his wife were not at home at the time of the shooting but their teenage daughters were in the home and heard gunshots and screaming, he said in the statement released by his office.
Zeldin said his 16-year-old daughters locked themselves in a bathroom and called 911. The family is shaken but OK, he said. Zeldin and his wife were returning from a parade in the Bronx when the shooting occurred.
He said police officers were at his home investigating Sunday evening and were looking over the home’s security cameras. The two people who were shot were taken to local hospitals, he said.
Zeldin planned to hold a news conference outside his home Sunday night to address the shooting.
The Suffolk County Police Department issued a brief statement saying it was investigating the shooting, which appeared to have no connection to Zeldin’s family. Police had no information to release about who fired the shots or who first found the two people shot, a spokeswoman said.
Zeldin, who is running against Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul, has made rising crime rates and violent crime a focus of his campaign. He has called for the state’s bail laws to be toughened, among other measures.
“Like so many New Yorkers, crime has literally made its way to our front door,” Zeldin said Sunday.
He said later in a post on Twitter that his daughters were at the kitchen table when the shooting occurred and that one of the bullets was found 30 feet away from them.
It’s the second scare he’s had in several months. In July, he was assaulted while campaigning in upstate New York when a man approached him onstage and thrust a sharp object near his head and neck. He was uninjured and the man was arrested.
Hochul said in a statement posted on Twitter that she had been briefed on the shooting.
“As we await more details, I’m relieved to hear the Zeldin family is safe and grateful for law enforcement’s quick response,” the governor said.
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