 |  | | 435 districts, 50 states, one campaign newsletter. | | | | | | | In this edition: Primary challengers go after Madison Cawthorn, pollsters say Republicans lost the Ketanji Brown Jackson fight, and the Republican challenging the Democrats' campaign chair explains why he can win. This was the week that cancel culture came for key bumps, and this is The Trailer.  Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.) arrives in the chamber of the House of Representatives at the U.S. Capitol before the State of the Union address by President Biden on March 1. (Saul Loeb/Pool/AP) | A few days after Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.) told a podcaster that he'd been invited to orgies and watched colleagues snort cocaine, and a few days before the House minority leader admonished him for saying that, the youngest Republican in Congress shared a stage with the people who want to replace him. "The problem that we have in Washington, D.C., right now is that there's too much talk, there's too much grandstanding and there's too much quitting," said state Sen. Chuck Edwards at a Sunday congressional candidate forum in Flat Rock, N.C. "I believe in truth over theatrics. I believe in no lies," said Wendy Nevarez, a veteran and paralegal supported by an anti-Cawthorn PAC. "I'm not the Washington, D.C., Instagram politician," said Michele Woodhouse, a former local party chair. "I'm a patriot who literally answered the call when Congressman Cawthorn left this district for Charlotte and asked me to step in and run." Halfway into his first term, Cawthorn is one of several high-profile, anti-establishment members of Congress from both parties who won upset victories to get there — and now face primary challengers who want them gone. None look vulnerable in a general election, after redistricting kept them in seats their party should easily win. All of them look beatable to challengers who believe their notoriety has backfired, especially with the new voters added to their seats when the lines were redrawn. "We're seeing our freedoms being slowly stolen across the country, and we don't have a voice in the process," said Jennifer Strahan, a health-care consultant challenging Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), criticizing the freshman for being removed from congressional committees last year. "If people are so busy critiquing everything you say, and not willing to actually hear you because you don't have a message that resonates, then it's distracting from really bringing results back to the district," Strahan added. Like Cawthorn, Greene won a crowded open-seat primary in 2020; both prevailed in runoff elections against conservative candidates less fluent in the language of the MAGA electorate. Both states still require runoffs if no candidate gets a certain share of the vote on primary day — 50 percent in Georgia, and 30 percent in North Carolina. That has emboldened their opponents inside the party, even though both Greene and Cawthorn are among the GOP's strongest fundraisers. On Tuesday, the Republican Jewish Coalition endorsed Strahan over Greene, saying that it would help northwest Georgia to elect someone who "who doesn't traffic in antisemitic conspiracy theories, doesn't speak to white nationalist organizations and doesn't applaud and cheer on" Russian President Vladimir Putin. Both seats were also altered by redistricting, with Georgia's 14th Congressional District absorbing Democratic precincts outside Atlanta so that other Republican precincts could shore up another district. And those new voters, said Strahan, were "excited" to learn about their options. Cawthorn's 11th Congressional District, which ties liberal Asheville together with deep-red Appalachia, also grew slightly more Democratic, from a place Donald Trump carried by 16 points to one he carried by 14. But the bigger problem for Cawthorn was the one Woodhouse hammered at the candidate forum — his decision to run in a new district near Charlotte that Republicans had drawn as an even safer seat, with state House Speaker Tim Moore seen as a likely candidate. When the state Supreme Court threw out that map, Cawthorn returned to the 11th Congressional District, but not without consequences. Candidates like Woodhouse and Edwards were already building campaigns, both saying that the congressman had failed to meet his potential. "The U.S. House floor is not a training camp for folks to learn how to lead legislatively," Edwards told Jewish Insider on Monday. An internal poll shared by the Edwards campaign put Cawthorn well ahead of the field, but that was before he told the conservative podcast "Warrior Poet Society" that the real Washington was just as corrupt as the one in "House of Cards." The 26-year old congressman had offered up fish stories before, telling one crowd in the district that he'd confirmed "rumors of alcoholism" about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who does not drink. But this time, Cawthorn had implicated Republican colleagues, and couldn't defend himself when House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy asked him to, McCarthy said. A lurid story of watching anti-addiction advocates "doing a key bump of cocaine right in front of you" was downgraded, according to McCarthy, to "maybe" seeing a staffer snort cocaine from far away, in a parking garage. As for Cawthorn's podcast claim that a lawmaker had invited him to an "orgy," McCarthy declared that Cawthorn "did not tell the truth." "I told him you can't make statements like that, as a member of Congress, that affects everybody else and the country as a whole," McCarthy told Axios after the meeting. Both of North Carolina's Republican senators criticized Cawthorn; on Thursday, Moore joined Edwards, who has scooped up endorsements from fellow state legislators, at a fundraiser in Raleigh. Some of the House's most prominent left-wing Democrats are facing primary challenges too, thanks in part to the new maps. In New York City, a number of Democrats filed to challenge Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.), hoping to take advantage of his vote against last year's infrastructure bill, and of his argument with Democratic Socialists of America over his refusal to support a boycott of Israel. There's no runoff law in New York, but Bowman's opponents were strategic, dropping out until county legislator Vedat Gashi was the only challenger. "I didn't like a number of the votes he took," Gashi told the Somers Record this week. "I thought it didn't represent the views of the party." In Missouri, where state legislators are still debating the next set of House maps, Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) got an experienced challenger right before the filing deadline — state Sen. Steven Roberts Jr., who told local media that Bush was hurting the district with positions like slashing the defense budget. "It's become pretty apparent to me that Congresswoman Cori Bush is not interested in serving as a U.S. Representative," Roberts said. Karthik Ganapathy, a spokesman for the Bush campaign, said in an email that voters would get to choose "between their Congresswoman who loves them and delivered hundreds of millions of dollars to St. Louis, and a host of ego-driven men who seem to think all that Black women leaders do is never good enough." He pointed to allegations made against Roberts by fellow lawmaker Cora Faith Walker, who died 20 days ago, to add that the senator had been "credibly accused of rape." (The candidate didn't respond to a question from The Trailer but earlier denied he had raped Walker.) None of Cawthorn's challengers came with that kind of baggage. On Thursday, his campaign released a primary ad making no reference to any other candidate, saying instead that "smears and attacks" wouldn't bring down the "unstoppable" congressman. At the weekend forum, when each Republican was asked if they would support any winner of the primary, Cawthorn talked like he couldn't imagine losing. "Absolutely," Cawthorn said. "If you don't, you're a traitor." | | | Reading list  President Biden embraces first lady Jill Biden, son Hunter Biden and daughter Ashley after being sworn in during his inauguration on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 20, 2021. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images) | "Facing new political reality, Murkowski considers a vote for Jackson," by Mike DeBonis All-party primaries — is there anything they can't do? "Debate-dodging takes off in midterm campaigns," by David Siders Voters who don't trust the media may support candidates who avoid it. "Inside Hunter Biden's multimillion-dollar deals with a Chinese energy company," by Matt Viser, Tom Hamburger and Craig Timberg The laptop and the damage done. "As election workers face increased threats and intimidation, some states are trying to protect them," by Barbara Rodriguez Defending members of a female-dominated profession from harassment. "Trump's influence casts shadow in Virginia's 2nd District race," by Meagan Flynn How post-Jan. 6 MAGA mind-set plays in a swing seat. "House Republicans tire of Madison Cawthorn's antics. Some in his district have, too," by Trip Gabriel A rough welcome home. "Md. Dems pass new congressional map — as AG appeals gerrymandering ruling," by Meagan Flynn Annapolis Democrats fight to keep a 7-to-1 advantage in Washington. "One-on-one with Silicon Valley's enemy No. 1," by Theodore Schleifer Chesa Boudin defends himself. | | | Culture wars  Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) displays the signed Parental Rights in Education Act, which critics have dubbed the "Don't Say Gay" bill, flanked by elementary school students at Classical Preparatory school in Shady Hills, Fla., on March 28. (Douglas R. Clifford/Tampa Bay Times/AP) | The new Florida law that prohibits discussion of "sexual orientation or gender identity" in public schools below fourth grade has a name: the Parental Rights in Education Act. Opponents who couldn't stop Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) from signing it call the law something else: "Don't Say Gay." To conservatives' frustration, that name has stuck — but it hasn't changed the politicking around gender ideology at all, with Republicans taking aim at Disney this week after the company condemned the law. That's partly because conservatives believe the media is out of step with voters on gender and LGBT issues, and that voters recoil once they see and hear about sex education in early grade school. The conservative firm Public Opinion Strategies included questions about the Florida law in its rolling national poll, giving voters a summary of the law: "Classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in Kindergarten through third grade or in a manner that is not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards." When it's put like that, 61 percent of voters approved of the legislation, including a majority of Democrats and people who voted for President Biden in 2020. The firm added other questions about whether gender should be removed from birth certificates and whether transgender women should be allowed to play women's sports. Just 8 percent of registered voters said "yes" to the first question, and by a 36-point margin, most said people should "only be allowed to play on sports teams that match their birth gender." The numbers reminded POS pollster Robert Blizzard of the discourse around Georgia's 2021 voting law, which led to several corporate boycotts of the state, endorsed by Democrats, but which ended up being supported by most voters once Republicans sold it as an anti-fraud measure. A law that generated outrage among Democrats, and brutal media coverage, could have majority support if Republicans explained it correctly. "This matches what I've seen over the last year or two, especially in focus groups and qualitative research I've done," said Blizzard. "People think we're going too far left. Too woke. On the quote-unquote 'Don't Say Gay' bill, Democratic voters support it 2-1, which kind of flies in the face of the conventional wisdom. On the transgender athlete question, they're not sure. It's almost like they're looking for their partisan cue." | | | Ad watch  Fox News contributor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, now running for governor of Arkansas, appears on the "Fox & Friends" television program in New York on Sept. 6, 2019. (Richard Drew/AP) | USA Freedom Fund, "Real Work." It's been more than a week since Ohio GOP U.S. Senate candidates Josh Mandel and Mike Gibbons got into a near-physical argument at a forum, after Gibbons correctly said that Mandel had never worked in the private sector. Mandel and his allies have continued to say what the candidate said that night: that Gibbons was demeaning a veteran, saying what he did hadn't been real work. This ad uses Gibbons's quote — "Josh doesn't understand this, because he's never spent a day in the private sector" — but puts text on-screen saying that Gibbons was insulting veterans, and has Marine veteran Brian Sizer, who served with Mandel, calling it "disgraceful" and demanding an apology. "For this guy to imply fighting, getting shot at, dying is not work? It's more than work," he says. Tim Ryan for Ohio, "One Word." A favorable Fox News write-up, condemnation from an Asian American political group: This ad for Rep. Tim Ryan's (R-Ohio) U.S. Senate bid got them both. The "one word" of the title, and the first word from Ryan's mouth, is "China," and the ad plays a few overlapping clips of the candidate telling voters that America must defeat "Communist China" economically by "investing in Ohio workers." That's not a new message for Ohio Democrats, but the state chapter of Asian American Midwest Progressives quickly condemned it, urging Ryan to "pull the One Word ad and eliminate all inflated anti-Asian messaging from his campaign." He didn't pull the ad. DSCC, "It's in the Plan." In a 30-second digital spot, the Democrats' Senate campaign arm sums up the least-popular portions, told in scary headlines, of the "Rescue America" plan proposed by Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.). It would "raise taxes," "end Medicare" and "end Social Security," warn Democrats — all technically true, as the plan would tax people who don't currently pay income taxes, and require all legislation to be reapproved every five years. Perez and Sneed for Maryland, "Tireless." Barack Obama hasn't endorsed a candidate for governor of Maryland, but he did endorse Tom Perez to run the Democratic National Committee after the 2016 election. Perez's first spot with running mate Shannon Sneed cuts down the audio from Obama's end-of-year news conference that year, when Perez was putting his DNC campaign together; asked about it, Obama talked about Perez's record as labor secretary. The ad splices in a clip of Obama calling Perez "a son of immigrants who worked on the back of a trash truck to pay for college." Sarah for Governor, "Educate." No other Republican is challenging Sarah Huckabee Sanders in Arkansas's May 24 primary, but she has stayed on the air, releasing direct-to-camera spots full of conservative campaign promises. Here, she largely promises to keep Arkansas education running the way it is, including "keeping schools open" and pledging not to "indoctrinate" children "with the left's agenda." (Last year, state Attorney General Leslie Rutledge issued an opinion condemning "critical race theory" and saying that teaching it would violate the law.) The goal: "Prepare students for the workforce, not government dependency," and let them build lives in Arkansas. Kevin Rinke for Governor, "Rise." The Republican candidate for governor of Michigan put $10 million of his own money into his campaign, and $500,000 of it is going behind this ad, a 30-second spot describing how he took over the Rinke Automotive Group after his brother died in a plane crash. The candidate appears in smiling b-roll footage as a narrator sells him as the right man for "a time when our economy, education and government are broken" — with a shot of empty store shelves representing the economy. The Committee to Elect Rebecca Dow, "True Grit." Dow, a conservative New Mexico state legislator, didn't enter the race for governor with as much buzz or name recognition as her primary opponent, former TV meteorologist Mark Ronchetti. She takes a whack at him here, lumping him together with Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D) as a phony as she rides along a stretch of border wall. "I'm not here to put on a show. I'm here to fight radical socialists, defend our constitutional rights and finish President Trump's wall," she says. (New Mexico runs along the Mexican border for a bit less than 180 miles.) You are reading The Trailer, the newsletter that brings the campaign trail to your inbox. | | | | | | Poll watch  Supreme Court nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, in the office of Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) at the U.S. Capitol building on March 29. (Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters) | "Do you approve or disapprove of the way Republican and Democratic Senators are handling the confirmation process of Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson?" (Quinnipiac, March 24-28, 1462 adults) How Republicans handled it
Approve: 27%
Disapprove: 52%
Don't know/no answer: 21% How Democrats handled it
Approve: 43%
Disapprove: 34%
Don't know/no answer: 23% How can you tell if a Supreme Court nomination strategy has backfired? In the moment, it's not clear; several Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee were reportedly worried about how Ketanji Brown Jackson handled days of questions about the sentencing of child sex offenders. But the first national poll on the question, taken during and after the hearings, suggests that the GOP strategy to attack her past sentences flopped. Every demographic group views the GOP's role in the hearings negatively, including White adults without college degrees; just 52 percent of self-identified Republicans approve of how their party handled the hearings. Democrats, who made little news during the hearings, are viewed more positively, and so is Jackson — 51 percent of all adults support confirming her, to just 30 percent who don't. Just 36 percent of adults, in the same poll, approve of the president's job performance, so Jackson gets significant support from voters who are otherwise sour on Democrats. "If the 2024 election for president were held today, who would you vote for?" (Marquette Law School, March 14-24, 1004 adults) Joe Biden: 41%
Donald Trump: 37%
Someone else: 15%
Wouldn't vote: 7% Joe Biden: 37%
Mike Pence: 33%
Someone else: 21%
Wouldn't vote: 8% Joe Biden: 38%
Ron DeSantis: 33%
Someone else: 20%
Wouldn't vote: 9% The president's job approval rating comes in at 44 percent in Marquette's national poll, higher than some other recent surveys but comparable to his numbers in the Gallup poll. No Republican candidate tested by the pollster is in a great position to take advantage of that. Sixty-one percent of Americans have an unfavorable view of Trump, and sure enough, 63 percent of voters pick either Biden, nobody or some hypothetical other option when asked about a 2020 rematch. Just 31 percent of voters view Pence favorably, and 25 percent view Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) favorably; both, like Trump and Biden, are underwater. (Thirty-nine percent of voters say they don't yet have an opinion of DeSantis.) That's a change from the Trump's presidency, when Trump consistently had job approval ratings in the 40s or lower, and pollsters found a number of Democrats running far ahead of him. Before the 2016 and 2020 elections — i.e., before pollsters realized that Trump's support was underestimated — the idea that nearly any Democrat could beat Trump was rampant among party activists, and polling that showed Biden leading Trump by landslide margins helped power him to the nomination. But now, the key figures in the GOP, who candidates are asking for endorsements and modeling their own agendas on, are less popular than an unpopular president. "Would you prefer the government to continue to adjust covid guidelines and mandates in response to different variants as they arise, to settle on a consistent set of covid guidelines and mandates that we will use from this point forward, or to have no covid regulations and mandates?" (Monmouth, March 10-14, 809 adults) Continue to adjust guidelines/mandates: 50%
Have no guidelines/mandates: 34%
Settle on a consistent set of guidelines/mandates: 14% The rollback of mask and vaccine mandates in states that had implemented strict ones happened quickly, and public opinion moved along with it. In another section of Monmouth's national poll, 73 percent of voters now agree with this statement: "It's time we accept that covid is here to stay and we just need to get on with our lives." The new consensus is more nuanced. A third of all adults, but two-thirds of Republicans, share the view that there should be no mandates or rules whatsoever. White voters without college degrees are split, with a plurality of 44 percent saying there should be "no guidelines/mandates." Most other adults say that the rules can be adjusted, not ruling out the return of some precautions, if they're convinced that they're necessary. | | | In the states  Then-State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus attends a news conference at the State Department in Washington on June 24, 2020. (Mandel Ngan/Pool/AP) | Michigan. On Tuesday, former Detroit police chief Ralph Godbee dropped out of the Democratic primary for the new 13th Congressional District, where Black politicians have worried that a glut of candidates will allow self-funded Indian American state Rep. Shri Thanedar (D) to win the Detroit-based seat with a plurality of the vote. "I have enough support to split the African American vote or siphon off votes that could be codified behind a consensus candidate," Godbee explained in a statement. Tennessee. The Republican supermajority in Nashville advanced legislation that would create residency requirements for federal races, which if implemented would make it impossible for former State Department official Morgan Ortagus to seek a House seat. If the law holds up in court, candidates for Congress would be required to prove that they've lived for at least three years in the district they want to represent; Ortagus relocated from D.C. to Nashville just last year. "No one questioned my residency when I served our country in the intelligence community, the Trump Administration, nor in the U.S. Navy Reserves," Ortagus told the Tennessean in a statement. "And President Trump certainly didn't question my residency when he endorsed me for this seat." Wisconsin. Chippewa Falls attorney Karen Mueller joined the GOP race for attorney general this week, telling the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's Molly Beck that she could use the powers of the office to investigate hospitals where Ivermectin was not prescribed for covid-19 sufferers. (A large study published Wednesday found, as others previously have, that Ivermectin did not help those suffering from covid.) "I am running for attorney general because of potential homicides in hospitals, because of vaccines — so-called vaccines," said Mueller, the founder of the conservative Amos Center for Justice and Liberty. "I would open investigations into those deaths and if the facts were substantiated; I would probably bring charges against the people that were responsible for this." Previously, Mueller wrote a memo to state legislator Timothy Ramthun, now a candidate for governor, arguing that the legislature could and should invalidate the 2020 election. | | | Redistricting On Wednesday afternoon, Republican legislators in Louisiana overrode a veto from Gov. John Bel Edwards (D) and approved a congressional map that maintained the party's 5-to-1 seat advantage. Just hours later, plaintiffs supported by the National Democratic Redistricting Committee sued to get the map thrown out. "Black Louisianians are sufficiently numerous and geographically compact to constitute a majority of eligible voters in a second congressional district stretching from Baton Rouge to the delta parishes along the Mississippi River," attorneys for four Black voters wrote in their complaint, filed in the Middle District Court. "The new congressional plan has the effect of denying Black voters an equal opportunity to participate in the political process and to elect candidates of their choice, in violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act." In Missouri, the candidate filing deadline came and went this week while legislators in Jefferson City rejected the new congressional map — maintaining a 6-to-2 GOP advantage, and shoring up one Republican seat — in favor of further negotiations. That came after Senate Republicans had finally overcome a filibuster by conservatives who wanted a map that would eliminate a Kansas City-based seat that Democrats always win. "When you have a lot of people who are fighting for what they want, eventually you may have to some kind of compromise," Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft (R) told 93.9 The Eagle on Wednesday. "I think that's what the Senate tried to do." Campaigning continued anyway, for the current district lines, and the legislative session isn't over until May. But there are already lawsuits in district court of Cole County (which contains the capital), asking a judge to intervene and draw maps, arguing that it's unconstitutional for candidates to run inside the old lines after 10 years of population changes. | | | Q&A  The U.S. Capitol in Washington on March 31. (Tom Brenner/Reuters) | On Wednesday, House Democrats' super PAC announced $100 million in ad reservations across the country. None of the first reservations were in New York state. That surprised some Republicans, and Democrats, who see several New York seats as potentially vulnerable, including the 18th Congressional District that Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chair Sean Patrick Maloney has represented for nine years. Maloney himself has said that the Hudson Valley seat, which has trended left but been redrawn to include more Republican precincts, could be in play, but the House Majority PAC hadn't reserved ads there yet. "If I wasn't managing the Frontline program, I'd be on the program," Maloney said at this month's House Democratic retreat, referring to the DCCC's effort to protect its most vulnerable members. Republicans see plenty of seats won by President Biden as winnable this year. Dan Conston, the president of the Congressional Leadership Fund — the GOP's PAC counterpart — said in an interview that the House Majority PAC's reservations were "a recognition that Democrats have already lost the House" and have "traditionally blue districts in real peril." New York State Assemblyman Colin Schmitt (R), a 31-year old National Guard member, is running against Maloney on that theory. Ahead of the first quarter fundraising deadline — it's today, if a hundred campaigns haven't texted to tell you already — he talked about his race and why he thought Maloney could lose. The Trailer: Why are you running, and why do you think you can win? Colin Schmitt: This is my fourth year in the Assembly. I've been heavily involved in the community for a long time now. Sean Maloney is nowhere to be found. I don't think he was representing our values to begin with, but this is a guy who's not doing retail politics like I am. He's not at the Memorial Day parades or the Fourth of July parades. He'll pop in for a press conference once a quarter in one of the cities in the district. Then he gets made the chairman of the DCCC. This is a district that consistently has been good for Republicans in a gubernatorial year. And we've got a guy who can no longer triangulate his politics because of his job with the party. This is generally a working-class district, with some Westchester parts that are a little different. And he didn't check any of those boxes anymore. In Middletown, one of the cities here, one day, there was no meat and no chicken on the shelves. A constituent sent us the photos, and they went viral. This is real life. The supply chain problems go right back to these big spending packages, which were unacceptable. And he voted for all of that. He's out of touch. TT: Before this year, the district was trending away from Republicans. Why was that? CS: In my own races, I've operated independently. I'm not relying on another elected official above me. I'm not reliant on any party committee operation. We obviously accept their help and whatever they want to offer, but we've been able to overperform. I think that was there's a mix of factors for why we've slipped. There's obviously been demographic changes. You've had traditional conservative supporters who have moved out of the state at a growing rapid pace. Not too long ago, in the Hudson Valley, you could have "Republican" next to your name, wake up on Election Day, and get elected to what? That's not the way it is anymore. TT: Why is it winnable now? CS: He was sending attack mailers about me before I started running, so this guy clearly thinks they have a winnable race here. I think that we're a juggernaut. No offense to previous opponents, but we're the first opponent, since he became a member of Congress, with a political base, name recognition and the ability to run a real campaign. The district moved north and picked up new areas in Ulster County and Dutchess County, which Maloney has never represented. There are places where he's had a kind of legacy of overperformance, running ahead of other Democrats, but they're out of the district now. When we've polled it, we're both in the 30s — that's a canary in the coal mine. A lot of people don't know who Maloney is, and the polls may be underestimating the anti-Biden sentiment out there. TT: Maloney has distanced himself from the "defund the police" slogan, but we've seen Republicans and some Democrats running against bail reform and blaming it for high crime. How does that play in the race? What do you actually do on it, at the federal level, if you win? CS: It's probably the top issue that we're dealing with in the Hudson Valley: The crime issue, the lack of support for law enforcement. I've been fighting cash bail on the statewide level. It's something that my opponent has supported — he's spoken glowingly of it; he wanted it in the race for attorney general. [Maloney ran for attorney general in 2018, losing the Democratic primary while seeking reelection to his House seat.] And he's hired advisers at the DCCC who made a wide range of anti-law enforcement comments. The one that sticks out in my mind was an adviser saying we should burn police precincts to the ground. That's not acceptable to me. There's a kind of nickname we have here: the land of guns and hoses. We've got so many cops, so many firemen, that work in New York City and live up here. I'm going to take my experiences here in New York and ensure that that is not something that gets advanced in Washington. I want to block the nationalization of our failed cash bail law. TT: A lot of Republicans have talked about launching investigations into the Biden administration if you win, on everything from the withdrawal from Afghanistan to Hunter Biden's business career. Would you support that? CS: I think that the situation in Afghanistan was a turning point. I served in the Army National Guard. A lot of my battle buddies were being deployed over there. And it's a real personal issue for a lot of the servicemen — it felt like a real failure. When we win, I'm going to look back at that as the pivot point where Biden and the Democrats started to lose the support of a lot of the people who probably were going to stick with him. So we need to have the full story on that. The Hunter Biden thing, that's … well, my main focus would be Afghanistan. TT: If you'd been in Congress last year, not Maloney, would you have voted to challenge the electoral results from Arizona and Pennsylvania on Jan. 6? CS: Look, the violence that happened on that day is unacceptable. Anybody who illegally entered the Capitol that day or committed any of the crimes should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Joe Biden won the election, and that's what we've got to deal with for now. I support legislation that ensures equal access to voting for everybody and equal confidence in voting for everybody. TT: But did you agree with the legal questions there? And would you have voted for or against impeachment afterward? CS: I was a state legislator at the time, so I only saw what's going on in my state. That issue should be left to state legislators in those states. It's not my place to tell any other state what they should or shouldn't do. No, I would not have voted to impeach him. I didn't support the impeachment of him either time. In 2021, he had already lost the election, he was leaving office and it was an unnecessary step. TT: And how would you rate the Biden administration's response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine? What would you be arguing for if you were in Congress? CS: It's just another failure of the Biden administration on foreign policy and international security matters. Should this escalate, I mean, it would affect me personally. I'm the last person who wants anything to go worse for American soldiers on the ground. But I think we waited too long and there've been weaknesses that have been exploited. I think we need to continue to provide everything and anything we can provide, without putting our boots on the ground in Ukraine, at this point. | | | Countdown … five days until the special primary in California's 22nd Congressional District
… 33 days until the next primaries
… 56 days until Texas runoffs and the special primary in Minnesota's 1st Congressional District
… 74 days until the special House primary in Alaska
… 216 days until the midterm elections | | | | | | | | |
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