CRIME IN SPOTLIGHT IN KEY PRIMARIES
Several candidates defeat challengers from their right
Crime, homelessness and Democratic divisions over the issues took center stage Tuesday as seven states held primaries that will help mold each party’s image heading into November’s fight for control of Congress, statehouses and major cities across the country.
The night’s first results from the East Coast and the Deep South highlighted conflicts within the GOP, offering the latest tests of former President Donald Trump’s influence and more moderate candidates’ efforts to beat back challengers from their right.
In Mississippi, Republican Rep. Michael Guest was narrowly trailing challenger Michael Cassidy with an estimated 59 percent of the vote counted. Cassidy targeted Guest’s vote last year for a commission to investigate the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection by a pro-Trump mob at the U.S. Capitol. Rep. Steven Palazzo, R-Miss., who has been accused by an ethics panel of misspending
campaign money, was projected to head to a runoff, according to The Associated Press.
In New Jersey’s 7th Congressional District — one of many the GOP hopes to flip this year — Tom Kean Jr. was projected to defeat challengers who attacked him as not conservative enough. And
Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., who has clashed with Trump, won renomination, the AP projected.
As polls started closing Tuesday evening across the nation, some of the highestprofile races played out in California, where angst over liberal leaders’ approach to public safety fueled a successful
campaign to recall San Francisco’s district attorney. Similar sentiments also loomed large in a contest for Los Angeles mayor.
Soaring inflation, gun violence and abortion rights were on voters’ minds Tuesday as they headed to the polls in California, Iowa, Mississippi, Montana, New Jersey,
New Mexico and South Dakota. Republicans are seizing on rising costs and crime to try to retake the House and narrowly divided Senate this fall. They have sought to pin those problems on the Biden administration and liberal policies. Those arguments have resonated with some voters.
“Look at where we are today,” said Pamela Turner, a retired nurse and “staunch Republican” in Mississippi who blamed Democrats for the state of the country even as she voted to oust Palazzo in a Republican primary. “Look at the price of gas.”
Democrats are bracing for an uphill battle amid low approval ratings for President Joe Biden and political head winds that the president’s party has historically faced in first midterms. To counter those trends, Democrats are seeking to cast GOP candidates as extremists beholden to Trump.
“I’d like to get a functional country again,” said Iowa voter Mehgin Lawrence, who was torn between several Democratic candidates vying to challenge Republican Chuck Grassley, 88, the country’s longest-serving sitting Republican senator. “There is a lot of dysfunction in general on both sides of the aisle.”
Grassley won renomination. In the Democratic race to face him, retired Navy Vice Adm. Mike Franken defeated former U.S. Rep. Abby Finkenauer.
Other key races Tuesday spotlighted the divisions among Republicans, as candidates more palatable to swing voters faced challengers from their right.
In New Jersey, Kean, the front-runner heading into the day for the Republican nomination in a battleground district, turned back six other GOP candidates.
In Iowa, state Sen. Zach Nunn won the Republican race to challenge Rep. Cindy Axne, the conservativeleaning state’s only Democratic legislator in Congress. The seat is expected to be highly competitive this fall.
In Mississippi, Palazzo, a six-term incumbent, faced new scrutiny after the Office of Congressional Ethics found “substantial reason to believe” that he misspent campaign money. Palazzo was seeking to fend off six GOP challengers in the state’s 4th Congressional District, which he has represented since 2011.