Live 2020 Election Updates: Kris Kobach and Rashida Tlaib Are on the Primary Ballot – The New York Times

Two G.O.P. Senate primaries offer — what else? — a test of loyalty to Trump.

There are, as a once promising Democrat memorably said, two Americas.

In one, President Trump is sagging in the polls, his ineffectual handling of the coronavirus and incendiary response to racial justice protests having alienated a large segment of the country.

Yet in the other America, the one where Republican primary voters will go to the polls this week in Kansas and Tennessee, Mr. Trump is not toxic at all. In fact, his endorsement amounts to a political seal of good housekeeping.

The Senate primaries in those states for seats held by two retiring Republicans have, like G.O.P. contests elsewhere, evolved into tests of who’s most supportive of Mr. Trump and critical of his intraparty opponents. Never mind that the president could be on his way out of office when the would-be senators are sworn in next year.

The president has not endorsed a candidate in Kansas, where establishment-aligned Republicans are petrified that the polarizing former secretary of state Kris Kobach may claim the nomination and imperil an otherwise safe Republican Senate seat.

But Mr. Kobach and two of his main rivals — Representative Roger Marshall and the plumbing executive Bob Hamilton — are all embracing Mr. Trump in their advertising and vowing to support his policies.

Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, and a few other Republicans in Washington had urged Mr. Trump to throw his support to Mr. Marshall. But that was before Senator Ted Cruz of Texas used an Air Force One flight last week to remind the president that Mr. Marshall supported former Gov. John Kasich of Ohio in the 2016 presidential primary.

Mr. Kasich is one of the most vocal Trump critics in the G.O.P. In fact, going further than Senator Mitt Romney of Utah, he’s expected to speak at the Democratic National Convention and endorse former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. this month.

In Tennessee, which holds its primary on Thursday, Bill Hagerty, a private equity executive who served as finance chairman for Mr. Romney’s 2012 campaign, is running on his endorsement from the president. Mr. Hagerty helped exorcise his ties to Mr. Romney by supporting Mr. Trump in the 2016 general election and serving as his ambassador to Japan.

His upstart challenger, Manny Sethi, an orthopedist who teaches at Vanderbilt University, is trying to upset Mr. Hagerty by pledging his loyalty to Mr. Trump and relentlessly highlighting Mr. Hagerty’s relationship with Mr. Romney, who is in his first term as a Utah senator. Mr. Romney, the only Senate Republican who voted to remove Mr. Trump from office during impeachment, is now something of a dirty word in Republican primaries.

Elsewhere on Tuesday, Representative Rashida Tlaib is facing a tough Democratic primary in Michigan, a bitter House battle in St. Louis is unfolding between a Justice Democrats-backed upstart and a longtime Democratic incumbent, and Joe Arpaio, the 88-year-old immigration hard-liner and former sheriff of Maricopa County, is asking Arizona voters to return him to that office.

President Trump is suddenly a big supporter of mail-in voting — in Florida.

President Trump, who only a day ago suggested he could restrict voting by mail through executive fiat, reversed course on Tuesday, urging his supporters in Florida to request mail-in ballots as some polls show him trailing in the pandemic-racked battleground state.

“Whether you call it Vote by Mail or Absentee Voting, in Florida the election system is Safe and Secure, Tried and True,” Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter. “Florida’s Voting system has been cleaned up (we defeated Democrats attempts at change), so in Florida I encourage all to request a Ballot & Vote by Mail!”

Mr. Trump’s caustic public denunciation of the mail-in voting system has chafed many Republicans who see his statements as likely to cost him support among older voters, many of whom may rely on mail-in ballots to avoid going to polling stations during the pandemic. Senator Rick Scott, Republican of Florida, and other party leaders, have said mail-in voting can work as long as anti-fraud measures are in place.

Campaign officials have recently warned the president that efforts to block mail-in voting in Florida, with its large population of older voters, could have especially dire consequences, according to two Republicans familiar with the situation.

Kayleigh McEnany, the White House press secretary, said Wednesday that the president’s tweet about Florida mail-in voting was meant to encourage voters to file “absentee ballots,” not to expand the practice more broadly; Democrats have said that is a distinction without a difference.

Mr. Trump was asked on Monday if he has the authority to draft an executive order to prevent states from widening the use of alternative voting methods despite the fact that the Constitution vests control of voting procedures with the states.

“I have the right to do it,” Mr. Trump told reporters. “We haven’t got there yet, but we’ll see what happens.”

For months, the president has been claiming without evidence that voting by mail will encourage widespread voter fraud, even as Democrats and some Republicans press to loosen restrictions in order to protect voters from the coronavirus.

In recent weeks, under a Trump campaign megadonor who was recently named the postmaster general, the Postal Service has cut back on overtime pay, prompting delays in deliveries and raising concerns that a similar slowdown this fall could affect the timing and integrity of election results.

On Tuesday, Mark Dimondstein, the president of the union that represents 200,000 postal workers and retirees, said the president’s claims about voting by mail and his suggestion that the election could be delayed had put the country on “a dangerous path toward dictatorship.” Since 2000, “more than 250 million votes have been cast by mail, including 31 million in the 2018 election, virtually absent of fraud,” Mr. Dimondstein added.

Election experts warn Congress about widespread disenfranchisement of voters of color in November.

Election integrity experts told Congress on Tuesday that without an immediate, substantial infusion of federal funds to help administer November’s general election, many voters — particularly Black and other minority voters — could be disenfranchised.

“With less than three months until the November election, Congress must act now so states have enough time to make the necessary changes and plans, recruit and train workers, buy equipment, and do outreach to the public about new voting processes,” Sylvia Albert, the director of voting and elections at Common Cause, said in written testimony to a subcommittee of the House Committee on Homeland Security.

Primary elections around the country this year — plagued with long lines, polling place closures and high rates of ballot rejection — have exposed “significant barriers to voting for certain individuals, especially Black and brown voters,” Ms. Albert said in her written testimony.

“Longstanding disparities, including long lines, the ballot rejection rates, particularly of Black and brown communities, are now exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic,” she said Tuesday. “The chasm of those with access is growing larger. Voters of color are on the losing end.”

Several states, including Georgia, Pennsylvania and Indiana, saw voting machine glitches and other failures that contributed to long waits.

“Without proper funding, the problems seen in previous elections are going to be just the tip of the iceberg this November,” she testified.

David Levine, an elections integrity fellow with the Alliance for Securing Democracy, told the panel that many states and counties lacked the resources needed to offer alternatives for safe and secure elections amid the pandemic, like “robust voting by mail, early voting, and Election Day options.”

The stimulus law enacted in March provided $400 million to states for administering elections, but one study said the need was 10 times that. In May, the Democratic-controlled House passed another pandemic relief bill that would provide $3.6 billion in additional election funding, but that plan has run into a brick wall in the Senate, where there is little appetite among Republicans for such spending.

A routine bill-signing turned into an embarrassing blooper for Mr. Trump on Tuesday.

At a signing of the Great American Outdoors Act, the president appeared not to recognize the word “Yosemite” in his prepared text, pronouncing it instead “Yo Semites.”

The latest verbal miscue by Mr. Trump came as he and his campaign have repeatedly seized on verbal gaffes by his Democratic opponent, former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., and sought to portray Mr. Biden as senile.

And Yosemite National Park in California, which Mr. Trump was trying to reference, is a federal treasure that presidents have often highlighted.

Before he signed the act into law, Mr. Trump talked about young Americans looking at “the breathtaking beauty of the Grand Canyon,” before moving on in his script.

“When they gaze upon Yo Semites — Yo Seminites — towering sequoias, their love of country grows stronger,” Mr. Trump said.

The original sponsor of the bill was Representative John Lewis, the late civil rights icon from Georgia, of whom Mr. Trump was dismissive in an interview with “Axios on HBO.”

Texas’ lieutenant governor correlates a spike in gun sales with a Trump victory.

Gun sales skyrocketed after the police killing of George Floyd in May, and the lieutenant governor of Texas pointing to the increase as a sign of a victory for Mr. Trump in the November election.

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who is the chairman of Mr. Trump’s re-election campaign in Texas, on Tuesday cited gun sales as a measure of the president’s political fortunes.

“Guns sales are a leading indicator pointing to Trump’s electoral success in November,” Mr. Patrick said in a statement. “The millions of Americans who are buying guns will not vote for a candidate who threatens their Second Amendment rights and promises confiscation policies.”

In Texas, where polls show a tight race between Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden, Mr. Patrick has been an unwavering ally of the president. Last month, Mr. Patrick drew attention when he said during a Fox News interview that Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, “doesn’t know what he’s talking about.” His comments came as Texas became a hot spot for coronavirus cases.

Mr. Patrick’s comments on gun ownership came one day after Texas and the nation paused to remember the 23 people who were killed in an Aug. 3, 2019, massacre at a Walmart in El Paso. The suspect confessed that he had been targeting Mexicans, the authorities said.

Citing F.B.I. statistics, Mr. Patrick said that more than 2.3 million guns were sold in June — a more than 145 percent increase compared to last year — and that a record 3.9 million background checks were conducted.

Much the way Mr. Trump and the president’s leading surrogates have done, Mr. Patrick appeared to be trying to stoke fears among suburban voters and Mr. Trump’s conservative base over the unrest in many of the country’s cities since Mr. Floyd’s death in late May.

“Democrat-led cities across the nation, including Portland, Seattle and now Austin, are surrendering the streets to lawlessness and mob rule,” he said. “With their ‘defund the police’ rhetoric escalating, they have sent a clear message that protecting and defending their residents is a low priority.”

Rashida Tlaib, a fierce Trump critic, faces a stiff Democratic challenge in Michigan.

Representative Rashida Tlaib marked her first day in Congress in January 2019 with an expletive-fueled call to impeach Mr. Trump. It made her an instant Democratic star as she became part of the four-member Squad, the group of progressive Democratic women who were elected to the House in 2018 and have come to embody the vanguard of the party’s liberal grass-roots energy.

While popular with the Democratic base, Ms. Tlaib’s broadside didn’t win her many friends in the party’s House leadership, which held off impeachment proceedings for months before allowing them to begin last fall.

It also fueled whispers back home in Detroit that Ms. Tlaib, a Palestinian-American who was one of the first two Muslim women elected to Congress, was more eager to advance a national profile and fund-raising network than she was in representing her predominantly Black district.

Now the most endangered member of the group, Ms. Tlaib faces a rematch with Brenda Jones, the Detroit City Council president she defeated in the 2018 primary. (In a separate contest held the same day, Ms. Jones eked out a two-point victory over Ms. Tlaib in a special primary election to serve out the remainder of the long-serving Representative John Conyers’s term after his abrupt resignation.)

Ms. Jones has now regrouped to challenge Ms. Tlaib, arguing that she has become too preoccupied with national issues.

Ms. Tlaib has raised far more money, $3 million, than Ms. Jones, who posted just $165,000 in her latest Federal Election Commission report.

And while she has emerged as one of the Democratic Party’s most muscular disrupters, Ms. Tlaib retained the endorsement last week of its most significant establishment figure: Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

More than 1.4 million Michigan voters already cast absentee ballots and fewer people were expected to vote in person at polling places. Election officials were expecting a late night and perhaps delayed results because of the surge in those ballots, and the fact that local clerks could not begin processing or tabulating them until the polls opened this morning.

Although Michigan sent 35 extra elections workers to Detroit on Tuesday, a few polling places opened late after election workers did not show up for shifts.

“This is in direct relation to the pandemic and in direct relation to the high number of absentee ballots,” said Jake Rollow, a spokesman for Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson. “And we’ve got fewer election workers able to serve because traditionally so many election workers are older and more susceptible to the virus.”

Kansas has not sent a Democrat to the U.S. Senate since the 1930s. But for months, Republicans in Washington and in the state have feared that if Mr. Kobach wins the party’s Senate primary, a traditionally safe seat will be endangered — and so will the Senate majority.

Mr. Kobach, the former Kansas secretary of state, is an incendiary figure in state politics, known for his hard-line views on immigration and voting rights, and his 2018 loss in the governor’s race to Laura Kelly, a Democrat.

Top Senate Republicans, long wary of Mr. Kobach and his 2018 performance, have pleaded with Mr. Trump to endorse Representative Roger Marshall, whom they see as the strongest general election candidate in a crowded field. But the president has remained on the sidelines, stoking tensions between Senate Republicans and the White House.

The winner of Tuesday’s primary is expected to face Barbara Bollier, a Democratic state senator who was until recently a Republican herself.

A statewide race remains a challenge in Kansas for any Democrat, regardless of the Republican nominee. But as Mr. Trump’s faltering approval ratings have endangered Republican candidates in down-ballot races across the country, there is a growing sense that the outcome even in deep-red Kansas is no sure bet.

The results on Tuesday may help determine just how competitive the state is come November.

An increasingly bitter Democratic primary in St. Louis between the activist Cori Bush and Representative William Lacy Clay, a 20-year incumbent with the party establishment’s full backing, will be one of the most significant tests this summer of the power of the resurgent progressive wing of the party.

Mr. Clay and his father, a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus, have held the seat in Congress for more than 50 years, and the congressman had routinely sailed to re-election until Ms. Bush challenged him in 2018.

He prevailed then by about 20 points, and this time around, Mr. Clay wants to make a show of blunting the progressive movement against primary incumbents like himself.

If Mr. Clay loses, he would be the first Black congressman to fall to a challenger backed by the Justice Democrats, a progressive national group that helped fuel the rise of Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York. So far, the long-serving House members, like Eliot L. Engel and Joseph Crowley in New York, who Justice Democrats-backed candidates have succeeded in upsetting have all been white, in many cases representing racially diverse districts.

Ms. Bush, an activist who jumped into the political arena after the police shooting of Michael Brown six years ago, responded in a recent interview with The Times to Mr. Clay calling her a “prop” for the Justice Democrats.

“I had no title, no name, came out of the Ferguson uprising and people know who I am across the world,” Ms. Bush said. “Not because I took money from some group — none of that. It is because I stayed true to a message of change for real people.”

Four years and two electoral defeats since he last held office, Joe Arpaio is asking Republicans in Maricopa County, Ariz., to return him to his former role as sheriff of the state’s largest jurisdiction.

But Mr. Arpaio, 88, is no longer the towering local figure who had forced inmates to wear pink underwear, castigated illegal immigration and who, well after former President Barack Obama left office, continued insisting the 44th president wasn’t born in Hawaii.

Mr. Arpaio lost a 2016 re-election bid to Paul Penzone, a Democrat, then finished a distant third in the state’s 2018 Senate primary, winning just one of the state’s 15 counties. His comeback bid, like his Senate race, is fueled more by his name recognition and repeated attempts to tie himself to Mr. Trump than it is by any sense of how he would run the sheriff’s office.

Now, Mr. Arpaio is involved in a three-way race that includes Jerry Sheridan, his former chief deputy. But it is Mr. Penzone, the Democrat, who has the support of the state’s Republican establishment figures, who find Mr. Arpaio’s antics generally embarrassing and hurtful to Arizona’s business climate.

What Republican voters in Phoenix and its suburbs will decide Tuesday is whether the best way to help Mr. Trump carry a key battleground state is by putting one of his most enthusiastic supporters on the ballot — or if the party’s fortunes can be improved without Mr. Arpaio, a candidate guaranteed to mobilize the state’s ascendant Latino population.

Mr. Trump played down the accomplishments of Representative John Lewis, the recently deceased civil rights icon, and criticized him for not attending the Trump inauguration in January 2017.

The comments from Mr. Trump, in an interview with “Axios on HBO” that aired Monday night, were unsurprising, given his penchant for grievance. But they were nonetheless stunning for the degree to which Mr. Trump refused to view Mr. Lewis’s life and legacy in terms beyond how it related to Mr. Trump himself.

“I never met John Lewis, actually,” Mr. Trump said. “He didn’t come to my inauguration. He didn’t come to my State of the Union speeches, and that’s OK. That’s his right.”

Asked to reflect on Mr. Lewis’s contributions to the civil rights movement, Mr. Trump instead talked up his own record.

“Again, nobody has done more for Black Americans than I have,” he said. “He should have come. I think he made a big mistake.”

Mr. Trump declined to say whether he found Mr. Lewis’s life story “impressive.” He seemed indifferent to renaming the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., after the congressman. The bridge, named after a former Confederate general, Grand Dragon in the K.K.K. and senator, was the site of a turning point in the civil rights movement that became known as Bloody Sunday.

On that day, March 7, 1965, Mr. Lewis suffered a cracked skull during a march across the bridge when a state trooper clubbed him and beat him to the ground. The moment was a defining one in his life and in the civil rights movement. Mr. Trump, in the Axios interview, suggested there “were many others also” whose work should be praised.

Abruptly reversing its stated schedule, the Census Bureau confirmed late Monday that it would end its count of the nation’s 330 million residents by Sept. 30, a month earlier than it had stated only this spring.

The four-week acceleration sounds small, but census experts have said it would wreak havoc with efforts to reach the very hardest-to-count households — immigrants, minorities, young people and others — that have long been flagged as most likely to be missed in this year’s tally.

Critics of the sped-up schedule pounced on the announcement, casting it as an unvarnished attempt by the administration to twist the nation’s population count to exclude groups that, by and large, tended to support Democrats.

“This is a whole systemic attack on the census for political gain,” Julie Menin, the census director for New York City, said in an interview. “There’s an intentional attempt here to basically steal the census — to politicize this census to gain Republican seats across the country.”

The bureau has offered no explanation for the change posted on its website. But outside experts said the explanation was clearly rooted in politics — in particular, in a demand by Mr. Trump last month to exclude undocumented immigrants from the population totals that are used every 10 years to reallocate House seats among the states.

The House Committee on Oversight and Reform said on Tuesday that it wanted to question eight census officials about the change. Representative Carolyn B. Maloney, Democrat of New York and the committee’s chairwoman, called the development “alarming” in a letter to the census director and said it was a further attempt to “rush and politicize” the census.

Slammed by the pandemic, the Census Bureau had said earlier that it wanted to delay its final delivery of population totals to April 2021, rather than the statutory deadline of December 31. The speedup announced late Monday reverses that request and assures that the totals will be delivered to the White House by year’s end — before any new president or Congress might take office.

That gives the White House its best opportunity to act on Mr. Trump’s effort to remove undocumented immigrants from the reapportionment totals.

The announcement on Monday by the Census Bureau speeds up the last counts of some 60 million households that have failed to respond to requests to turn in census forms. The pandemic-delayed schedule called for that count to be completed by October 31. The plan announced on Monday, which had been reported last week, will move that deadline up by one month, to September 30.

Reporting was contributed by Luke Broadwater, Reid J. Epstein, Nicholas Fandos, Manny Fernandez, Katie Glueck, Kathleen Gray, Maggie Haberman, Annie Karni, Jonathan Martin, Jesse McKinley, Giovanni Russonello, Neil Vigdor and Michael Wines.