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Monday, January 17, 2022 12:59:25 PM
Trump Rally Underscores G.O.P. Tension Over How to Win in 2022
Donald Trump’s rally in Arizona on Saturday featured a host of election deniers. His involvement in state races and his inability to let go of his 2020 loss worries many Republicans.
Donald Trump addressed supporters at a rally at the Canyon Moon Ranch southeast of Phoenix on Saturday. Adriana Zehbrauskas for
The New York Times
By Jeremy W. Peters
Jan. 15, 2022
FLORENCE, Ariz. — Former President Donald J. Trump returned on Saturday to Arizona, a cradle of his political movement, to headline a rally in the desert that was a striking testament to how he has elevated fringe beliefs and the politicians who spread them — even as other Republicans openly worry that voters will ultimately punish their party for it.
Mr. Trump’s favored candidate for governor, Kari Lake, is a first-time office seeker who has threatened to jail the state’s top elections official. His chosen candidate to replace that elections official, a Democrat, is a state legislator named Mark Finchem, who was with a group of demonstrators outside the Capitol on Jan. 6 as rioters tried to stop the certification of the 2020 election.
And one of his most unflinching defenders in Congress is Representative Paul Gosar, who was censured .. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/17/us/politics/paul-gosar-video.html .. by his colleagues for posting an animated video online that depicted him killing a Democratic congresswoman and assaulting President Biden.
All three spoke at Mr. Trump’s rally in front of thousands of supporters on Saturday in the town of Florence, outside Phoenix. It was the first stadium-style political event he has held so far in this midterm election year in which he will try to deepen his imprint on Republicans running for office at all levels.
When Mr. Trump took the stage in the evening, he lavished praise on the slate of election-denier candidates in attendance. And he suggested that perpetuating his grievances about being cheated would be a decisive issue for Republican candidates.
“We can’t let them get away with it,” Mr. Trump said. Then, he added, referring to Ms. Lake and her rejection of the 2020 results: “I think it’s one of the reasons she’s doing so well.”
But as popular as the former president remains with the core of the G.O.P.’s base, his involvement in races from Arizona to Pennsylvania — and his inability to let go of his loss to Mr. Biden — has veteran Republicans in Washington and beyond concerned. They worry that Mr. Trump is imperiling their chances in what should be a highly advantageous political climate, with Democrats deeply divided over their policy agenda and Americans taking a generally pessimistic view of Mr. Biden’s leadership a year into his presidency.
Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, and other senior party officials have expressed their misgivings in recent days about Mr. Trump’s fixation on the last election, saying that it threatens to alienate the voters they need to win over in the next election in November.
Those worries are particularly acute in Arizona, where the far-right, Trump-endorsed candidates could prove too extreme in a state that moved Democratic in the last election as voters came out in large numbers to oppose Mr. Trump. The myth of widespread voter fraud is animating Arizona campaigns in several races, alarming Republicans who argue that indulging the former president’s misrepresentations and falsehoods about 2020 is jeopardizing the party’s long-term competitiveness.
One of the speakers at the rally was Kari Lake, a former local news anchor whom Mr. Trump has endorsed in the Republican primary for
Arizona governor. Carlos Barria/Reuters
“I’ve never seen so many Republicans running in a primary for governor, attorney general, Senate,” said Chuck Coughlin, a Republican consultant who has worked on statewide races in Arizona for two decades. “Usually you get two, maybe three. But not five.”
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At the rally on Saturday, every speaker who took the stage before Mr. Trump repeated a version of the false assertion that the vote in Arizona in 2020 was fraudulent. Mr. Gosar, the congressman, did so in perhaps the darkest language, invoking the image of a building storm, a metaphor commonly used by followers of the QAnon conspiracy theory. And he called for people involved in counting ballots in Arizona in 2020 to be imprisoned.
“Lock them up,” Mr. Gosar told the crowd. “That election was rotten to the core.”
For Republicans who are concerned about Mr. Trump’s influence on candidates they believe are unelectable, the basic math of such crowded primaries is difficult to stomach. A winner could prevail with just a third of the total vote — which makes it more than likely a far-right candidate who is unpalatable to the broader electorate can win the nomination largely on Mr. Trump’s endorsement.
Conservative activists in Arizona have long supplied Mr. Trump with the energy and ideas that formed the foundation of his political movement.
In 2011, when the real estate developer and reality television star was testing the waters for a possible presidential campaign, his interest in the conspiracy theories that claimed former President Barack Obama’s birth certificate was a forgery led him to Arizona Tea Party activists and a state legislator. They were pushing for a state law to require that political candidates produce their birth certificates before qualifying for the ballot. Mr. Trump invited them to Trump Tower.
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The Trump Investigations Card 1 - 6
Numerous inquiries. Since former President Donald Trump left office, there have been many investigations and inquiries into his businesses and personal affairs. Here’s a list of those ongoing:
Investigation into criminal fraud. The Manhattan district attorney’s office and the New York attorney general’s office are investigating whether Mr. Trump or his family business, the Trump Organization, engaged in criminal fraud by intentionally submitting false property values to potential lenders.
Investigation into tax evasion. As part of their investigation, in July 2021, the Manhattan district attorney’s office charged the Trump Organization and its chief financial officer with orchestrating a 15-year scheme to evade taxes. A trial in that case is scheduled for summer 2022.
Investigation into election interference. The Atlanta district attorney is conducting a criminal investigation of election interference in Georgia by Mr. Trump and his allies.
Investigation into the Trump National Golf Club. Prosecutors in the district attorney’s office in Westchester County, N.Y., appear to be focused at least in part on whether the Trump Organization misled local officials about the property’s value to reduce its taxes.
Civil investigation into Trump Organization. The New York attorney general, Letitia James, is seeking to question Mr. Trump under oath in a civil fraud investigation of his business practices.
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One of those activists, Kelly Townsend, now a state senator, spoke to the crowd on Saturday and praised those who sought to delegitimize Mr. Biden’s win.
Arizona has been a hotbed of distortions about the 2020 election. Allies of the former president demanded an audit in the state’s largest county, insisting that the official outcome had been compromised by fraud. But when the results of the review were released — in a report both commissioned and produced by Trump supporters — it ended up showing .. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/24/us/arizona-election-review-trump-biden.html .. that he actually received 261 fewer votes than first thought.
Still, the myth lives on. And those who question it quickly become targets of the former president and his allies. They have attacked two prominent Arizona Republicans — Gov. Doug Ducey and Attorney General Mark Brnovich — for their roles in Arizona’s formal certification of its election results.
“He’s never going to get my endorsement, I can tell you that,” Mr. Trump said of Mr. Ducey.
Even those who have resisted going along with Mr. Trump’s false claims have been unable to completely duck the issue when faced with pressure from the president and his supporters.
When a group of 18 Republican attorneys general signed onto .. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/09/us/politics/trump-texas-supreme-court-lawsuit.html .. a far-fetched lawsuit from their counterpart in Texas that sought to delay the certification of the vote in four battleground states that Mr. Trump lost, Mr. Brnovich did not join his colleagues. He declared .. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/21/us/politics/trump-republican-party.html .. at the time that the “rule of law” should prevail over politics. But as a candidate for Senate who still occupies the office of the attorney general, he has investigated claims of fraud at the behest of Trump supporters.
As speaker after speaker attacked the credibility of the vote on Saturday — those with Mr. Trump’s official imprimatur were announced as “Trump endorsed” — several also called on the State Legislature to retroactively vote to overturn Mr. Biden’s win. Mr. Trump’s allies said they expect the issue to take on more urgency in the coming weeks, even though it would have no legal or practical impact.
“Arizona is a red state,” said State Senator Wendy Rogers, leading the crowd on a “Decertify” chant. “We are not turning purple.”
Jeremy W. Peters covers national politics. His other assignments in his decade at The Times have included covering the financial markets, the media, New York politics and two presidential campaigns. He is also an MSNBC contributor.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/15/us/politics/trump-rally-republicans.html
Donald Trump’s rally in Arizona on Saturday featured a host of election deniers. His involvement in state races and his inability to let go of his 2020 loss worries many Republicans.
Donald Trump addressed supporters at a rally at the Canyon Moon Ranch southeast of Phoenix on Saturday. Adriana Zehbrauskas for
The New York Times
By Jeremy W. Peters
Jan. 15, 2022
FLORENCE, Ariz. — Former President Donald J. Trump returned on Saturday to Arizona, a cradle of his political movement, to headline a rally in the desert that was a striking testament to how he has elevated fringe beliefs and the politicians who spread them — even as other Republicans openly worry that voters will ultimately punish their party for it.
Mr. Trump’s favored candidate for governor, Kari Lake, is a first-time office seeker who has threatened to jail the state’s top elections official. His chosen candidate to replace that elections official, a Democrat, is a state legislator named Mark Finchem, who was with a group of demonstrators outside the Capitol on Jan. 6 as rioters tried to stop the certification of the 2020 election.
And one of his most unflinching defenders in Congress is Representative Paul Gosar, who was censured .. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/17/us/politics/paul-gosar-video.html .. by his colleagues for posting an animated video online that depicted him killing a Democratic congresswoman and assaulting President Biden.
All three spoke at Mr. Trump’s rally in front of thousands of supporters on Saturday in the town of Florence, outside Phoenix. It was the first stadium-style political event he has held so far in this midterm election year in which he will try to deepen his imprint on Republicans running for office at all levels.
When Mr. Trump took the stage in the evening, he lavished praise on the slate of election-denier candidates in attendance. And he suggested that perpetuating his grievances about being cheated would be a decisive issue for Republican candidates.
“We can’t let them get away with it,” Mr. Trump said. Then, he added, referring to Ms. Lake and her rejection of the 2020 results: “I think it’s one of the reasons she’s doing so well.”
But as popular as the former president remains with the core of the G.O.P.’s base, his involvement in races from Arizona to Pennsylvania — and his inability to let go of his loss to Mr. Biden — has veteran Republicans in Washington and beyond concerned. They worry that Mr. Trump is imperiling their chances in what should be a highly advantageous political climate, with Democrats deeply divided over their policy agenda and Americans taking a generally pessimistic view of Mr. Biden’s leadership a year into his presidency.
Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, and other senior party officials have expressed their misgivings in recent days about Mr. Trump’s fixation on the last election, saying that it threatens to alienate the voters they need to win over in the next election in November.
Those worries are particularly acute in Arizona, where the far-right, Trump-endorsed candidates could prove too extreme in a state that moved Democratic in the last election as voters came out in large numbers to oppose Mr. Trump. The myth of widespread voter fraud is animating Arizona campaigns in several races, alarming Republicans who argue that indulging the former president’s misrepresentations and falsehoods about 2020 is jeopardizing the party’s long-term competitiveness.
One of the speakers at the rally was Kari Lake, a former local news anchor whom Mr. Trump has endorsed in the Republican primary for
Arizona governor. Carlos Barria/Reuters
“I’ve never seen so many Republicans running in a primary for governor, attorney general, Senate,” said Chuck Coughlin, a Republican consultant who has worked on statewide races in Arizona for two decades. “Usually you get two, maybe three. But not five.”
Sign Up for On Politics A guide to the political news cycle, cutting through the spin and delivering clarity from the chaos. Get it sent to your inbox.
At the rally on Saturday, every speaker who took the stage before Mr. Trump repeated a version of the false assertion that the vote in Arizona in 2020 was fraudulent. Mr. Gosar, the congressman, did so in perhaps the darkest language, invoking the image of a building storm, a metaphor commonly used by followers of the QAnon conspiracy theory. And he called for people involved in counting ballots in Arizona in 2020 to be imprisoned.
“Lock them up,” Mr. Gosar told the crowd. “That election was rotten to the core.”
For Republicans who are concerned about Mr. Trump’s influence on candidates they believe are unelectable, the basic math of such crowded primaries is difficult to stomach. A winner could prevail with just a third of the total vote — which makes it more than likely a far-right candidate who is unpalatable to the broader electorate can win the nomination largely on Mr. Trump’s endorsement.
Conservative activists in Arizona have long supplied Mr. Trump with the energy and ideas that formed the foundation of his political movement.
In 2011, when the real estate developer and reality television star was testing the waters for a possible presidential campaign, his interest in the conspiracy theories that claimed former President Barack Obama’s birth certificate was a forgery led him to Arizona Tea Party activists and a state legislator. They were pushing for a state law to require that political candidates produce their birth certificates before qualifying for the ballot. Mr. Trump invited them to Trump Tower.
-------
The Trump Investigations Card 1 - 6
Numerous inquiries. Since former President Donald Trump left office, there have been many investigations and inquiries into his businesses and personal affairs. Here’s a list of those ongoing:
Investigation into criminal fraud. The Manhattan district attorney’s office and the New York attorney general’s office are investigating whether Mr. Trump or his family business, the Trump Organization, engaged in criminal fraud by intentionally submitting false property values to potential lenders.
Investigation into tax evasion. As part of their investigation, in July 2021, the Manhattan district attorney’s office charged the Trump Organization and its chief financial officer with orchestrating a 15-year scheme to evade taxes. A trial in that case is scheduled for summer 2022.
Investigation into election interference. The Atlanta district attorney is conducting a criminal investigation of election interference in Georgia by Mr. Trump and his allies.
Investigation into the Trump National Golf Club. Prosecutors in the district attorney’s office in Westchester County, N.Y., appear to be focused at least in part on whether the Trump Organization misled local officials about the property’s value to reduce its taxes.
Civil investigation into Trump Organization. The New York attorney general, Letitia James, is seeking to question Mr. Trump under oath in a civil fraud investigation of his business practices.
-------
One of those activists, Kelly Townsend, now a state senator, spoke to the crowd on Saturday and praised those who sought to delegitimize Mr. Biden’s win.
Arizona has been a hotbed of distortions about the 2020 election. Allies of the former president demanded an audit in the state’s largest county, insisting that the official outcome had been compromised by fraud. But when the results of the review were released — in a report both commissioned and produced by Trump supporters — it ended up showing .. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/24/us/arizona-election-review-trump-biden.html .. that he actually received 261 fewer votes than first thought.
Still, the myth lives on. And those who question it quickly become targets of the former president and his allies. They have attacked two prominent Arizona Republicans — Gov. Doug Ducey and Attorney General Mark Brnovich — for their roles in Arizona’s formal certification of its election results.
“He’s never going to get my endorsement, I can tell you that,” Mr. Trump said of Mr. Ducey.
Even those who have resisted going along with Mr. Trump’s false claims have been unable to completely duck the issue when faced with pressure from the president and his supporters.
When a group of 18 Republican attorneys general signed onto .. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/09/us/politics/trump-texas-supreme-court-lawsuit.html .. a far-fetched lawsuit from their counterpart in Texas that sought to delay the certification of the vote in four battleground states that Mr. Trump lost, Mr. Brnovich did not join his colleagues. He declared .. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/21/us/politics/trump-republican-party.html .. at the time that the “rule of law” should prevail over politics. But as a candidate for Senate who still occupies the office of the attorney general, he has investigated claims of fraud at the behest of Trump supporters.
As speaker after speaker attacked the credibility of the vote on Saturday — those with Mr. Trump’s official imprimatur were announced as “Trump endorsed” — several also called on the State Legislature to retroactively vote to overturn Mr. Biden’s win. Mr. Trump’s allies said they expect the issue to take on more urgency in the coming weeks, even though it would have no legal or practical impact.
“Arizona is a red state,” said State Senator Wendy Rogers, leading the crowd on a “Decertify” chant. “We are not turning purple.”
Jeremy W. Peters covers national politics. His other assignments in his decade at The Times have included covering the financial markets, the media, New York politics and two presidential campaigns. He is also an MSNBC contributor.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/15/us/politics/trump-rally-republicans.html
It was Plato who said, “He, O men, is the wisest, who like Socrates, knows that his wisdom is in truth worth nothing”
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