Tag: primary elections
GOP Cancelling Presidential Primaries In At Least Four States

GOP Cancelling Presidential Primaries In At Least Four States

Trump allies in Nevada, South Carolina, Arizona, and Kansas are plotting to deny Republican voters the opportunity to reject Trump in a primary contest, Politico reported Friday. Republican officials in all four states are planning on scrapping their primary elections next year, granting Trump their support rather than allowing voters to choose.

Former Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL), who is challenging Trump for the Republican nomination, told Politico that the moves “show that Trump is afraid of a serious primary challenge because he knows his support is very soft.”

Walsh also vowed to “loudly call out this undemocratic bull on a regular basis.”

Another Republican, former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld, is also challenging Trump for the nomination and was upset about states canceling their nominating contests. “We don’t elect presidents by acclamation in America,” Weld told Politico. “Donald Trump is doing his best to make the Republican Party his own personal club. Republicans deserve better.”

Rumbles about protecting Trump from any and all challengers first began in December 2018, when South Carolina officials broached the idea of canceling their Republican primary to protect Trump.

Fears that a Republican challenger could embarrass Trump continued into January when an RNC delegate from the Virgin Islands sent a frantic email to colleagues worried about “calculated political treachery” of some Republicans intent on “destroying our party and denying President Trump re-election.”

In February, Maryland’s Republican Gov. Larry Hogan blasted fellow Republicans for “unprecedented” efforts to block any and all challengers to Trump.

“It’s very undemocratic,” Hogan said at the time. “I’ve never seen anything like it, and I’ve been involved in the Republican Party for most of my life. It’s unprecedented.”

Hogan briefly toyed with the idea of challenging Trump, but later abandoned the notion.

Republican officials claim their decisions are based on cost savings, rather than helping Trump save face.

“It would be malpractice on my part to waste money on a caucus to come to the inevitable conclusion that President Trump will be getting all our delegates in Charlotte,” Michael McDonald, Nevada GOP Chairman, told Politico. While Trump won the Nevada caucus in 2016, more than half of Republicans in the state wanted a different candidate.

If McDonald and other Republican officials have their way, Republican voters in Nevada, South Carolina, Arizona, and Kansas will not have an opportunity next year to show their support — or disdain — for Trump.

Published with permission of The American Independent.

 

Photo Credit: Mayberry Health and Home

Paul Ryan Wins Primary Election For Congressional Seat

Paul Ryan Wins Primary Election For Congressional Seat

MILWAUKEE (Reuters) – U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan handily won a primary election for his congressional seat on Tuesday, a contest overshadowed by presidential candidate Donald Trump‘s brief refusal last week to endorse his fellow Republican.

Ryan, who ran unsuccessfully for vice president in 2012, had roughly 84 percent of the vote compared with challenger Paul Nehlen’s 16 percent, with 87 percent of voting areas reporting results, the Journal Sentinel reported at 11 p.m. local time.

“I am humbled and honored that Wisconsinites in the 1st Congressional District support my efforts to keep fighting on their behalf,” Ryan said in a statement.

In the general election for the 1st Congressional District seat in southeast Wisconsin on Nov. 8, he will likely face Iraq war veteran Ryan Solen, who won the Democrat primary on Tuesday.

Nehlen thanked his supporters in a brief Twitter post after the polls closed.

“Truly an amazing journey,” he said.

The race became the center of attention a week ago when Trump refused to endorse Ryan during an interview with the Washington Post.

In a sign of the tension between the politicians, Trump told the newspaper he was “not quite there yet” – echoing a phrase Ryan had used about Trump.

On Friday, Trump endorsed Ryan and Senators John McCain of Arizona and Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire during a campaign stop in Green Bay, a show of support that could be a step to mend his frayed relations with fellow Republicans.

Trump, a former reality TV star, has troubled many in the Republican establishment with his off-the-cuff, often insulting, style and controversial policies. These include a proposed ban on Muslims visiting the United States and his plan to build a wall along the Mexican border to keep out undocumented immigrants.

Ryan, Ayotte and McCain had criticized Trump‘s feud with the family of Army Captain Humayun Khan, who was killed in Iraq in 2004 and was posthumously awarded the Bronze Star Medal for bravery. Trump had a running dispute with Khan’s parents after they criticized him at last month’s Democratic National Convention.

(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee; Additional reporting by Eric M. Johnson in Seattle; Editing by Paul Tait and Richard Pullin)

Photo: U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) arrives at a news conference about the House Democrats’ sit-in over gun-control laws, on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., June 23, 2016. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas 

Wisconsin Recall Efforts Underway

Primary elections to recall state senators–the largest campaign in history, driven mostly by Labor and Democratic activists angry at Governor Scott Walker’s destruction of collective-bargaining–are just the first step in wrestling control of the state government back from the right. They start today:

In the balloting on Tuesday, residents in some parts of the state were voting in primary elections that are part of the broadest recall effort in state history. The outcome, to be determined in votes next week and then again next month, will decide whether Republicans, who last fall took control of the governor’s seat and of both chambers of the Legislature, maintain their hold on the State Senate.

The experts who ordinarily offer predictions about how high or low turnout might be had little to go on Tuesday; never before have nine state senators been the subjects of recall efforts all at once, much less in the dead of summer.

Leaders of both parties voiced confidence about the outcomes, but the divide in the Senate is 19 Republicans to 14 Democrats. The flipping of three Republican seats would upend their domination in Madison. The flurry of political commercials now playing — included some financed by national groups — makes clear the size of the stakes.

Watch to see how much this is just Labor’s last gasp–a desperate attempt to reverse the tide of declining unionization in a bastion of progressivism–or, alternatively, the beginning of a resurgence.

Florida Republicans Appeal To Constitution, Ignoring Amendments

The first public hearing on Florida redistricting will be Monday, but the Redistricting Committee is not scheduled to begin drawing new district maps until January of next year. This has some in the state worried that they will finish redistricting in time for the 2012 primary elections.

Under the current schedule, they said, final approval of the district lines could be pushed beyond the dates for candidates to qualify for the election, June 4-8, or even near the Aug. 14 state primary. Candidates wouldn’t know which districts they could run in, and voters wouldn’t know which candidates they could vote on.

Fair Districts Now, a group that proposed state constitutional amendments (later approved during a 2010 referendum) aimed at limiting the influence of politics on redistricting, believes that the Republican-controlled redistricting committee is stalling the redistricting process for as long as possible to protect themselves and other incumbents. But lawmakers argue they are not ultimately responsible for the redistricting schedule.

Lawmakers also contend that their schedule for redrawing the lines is set by the Florida Constitution. They also highlighted the fact that the session was moved up from its usual March start date to January so the Legislature can get an earlier start on drawing the lines.

Former state Sen. Dan Geller, now a member of Fair Districts Now, disagrees.

The state Constitution lays out the schedule for producing a legislative district map, but Geller noted the Legislature could produce a Congressional map any time and put it before the public for comment.

The committee members’ constitutional rationale is somewhat ironic, given that they have currently spent over $1 million trying to defeat the Fair Districts amendments, which are of course part of the state Constitution. A group of Fair Districts supporters have sent a letter to the committee members, urging them to drop out of the lawsuit against the amendments.

“Please let us know that you will do your duty, abide by your oaths to enforce the Florida Constitution, and comply with the Fair Districts amendments,” the groups said in a letter to legislative leaders dated Tuesday. [Palm Beach Post] [Tampa Bay Online]