Welcome to the online version of From the policy deskevening bulletin that brings you the latest reporting and analysis from the campaign trail, the White House and Capitol Hill from the NBC News Politics team.
In today’s edition, we look at two of our primaries tonight that have ties to the riots at the Capitol on January 6th. Plus, national political reporter Steve Kornacki analyzes whether split-ticket voting will grow this fall.
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He takes center stage in the primary tonight, January 6
By Bridget Bowman, Ben Kamisar and Adam Wollner
It’s primary Election Day in four states, and the Jan. 6 attack centers on two of the biggest races.
In Maryland, there is a former police officer who defended the Capitol from a mob on the day Donald Trump’s Electoral College loss to Joe Biden was confirmed. West Virginia has a former state legislator who was part of that mob and ended up in prison.
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Maryland 3rd District: Harry Dunn is a 15-year veteran of the Capitol Police is running in a crowded Democratic primary for an open House seat.
After the Jan. 6 riots, he became one of the most public figures, representing the hundreds of police officers who risked their lives to protect the Capitol. He gave an emotional expression during the televised congressional hearings investigating the attack, he became a fixture on the cable news circuit and wrote a book about the trial and his life.
Dunn is now running against several veteran state legislators for the seat being vacated by retiring Democratic Republican Paul Sarbanes. Dunn was the top fundraiser in the Democratic field, spending more than $2 million on ads, according to AdImpact. his actions on January 6.
Meanwhile, the United Democracy Project, a super PAC affiliated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, spent more than $3.5 million on ads to boost state Sen. Sarah Elfreth. One of his colleagues, state Sen. Clarence Lam, is also running.
West Virginia 1st District: One of the rioters Dunn tried to protect from the Capitol on Jan. 6 is challenging Republican Rep. Carol Miller in the primary.
It was former state Del. Derrick Evans convicted of a serious crime For attacking the Capitol and spent three months in prison. He announced his actions in a TV ad on January 6, saying that he “stands with President Trump to peacefully and patriotically protest the stolen election” and claimed to be a “hostage” as a “political prisoner”. (Evans admitted his guilt to the criminal count of civil unrest in March 2022.)
Miller, who preceded Evans on the air, referred to it Evans’ former candidacy as a Democrat. Miller was also released Trump’s ad praising him, although the former president did not vote in the primary. If Evans upsets Miller, he will be the second member of Congress lose primacy this election cycle.
Neither district will be contested in the general election, meaning Dunn and Evans will serve together in Congress if they win their respective primaries.
Will there be an increase in separate voting in 2024?
By Steve Kornacki
Today there are Maryland Democrats candidate selection Running against Republican former Gov. Larry Hogan in the race for the vacant Senate seat. General election polling has been sparse so far, but an average of four polls since March shows Hogan leading both potential Democratic foes Rep. David Trone and Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks.
The prevailing expectation is that this early Hogan power melts away in November. It’s a presidential election year, and given how blue Maryland is, the thinking is that it will create a strong partisan tide that even a popular figure like Hogan won’t be able to handle.
Recent history certainly confirms this. Ticket sharing has long been down, even more so under Trump. In the 2016 and 2020 elections, there was an at-large Senate race in which the winner came from the opposite party of the presidential candidate who carried the state.
In 2020, that lone split-ticket result came in Maine, where GOP Sen. Susan Collins won by 9 points, even as Biden himself won the state by 9 points. Hogan is needed to win Maryland, where Biden won by 33 points in 2020, even if Collins attracts more divided voters than he can get.
Anecdotally, there are also two Senate races from the recent past that reflect key dynamics in this year’s Maryland contest. In 1996, GOP Governor Bill Weld, who won re-election in Massachusetts by 42 points, challenged Democratic Senator John Kerry. But Bill Clinton’s 33-point slide in the state destroyed the Democratic ticket Weld.
Similarly, Linda Lingle, the only Republican to win two terms as governor of Hawaii, tried to undermine her popularity by running for Senate in 2012. But Barack Obama’s landslide 43-point victory in the state was too much for Lingle to handle.
But this week New York Times/Siena polls It brought a ray of hope for Hogan and for every Senate candidate in need of split-ticket votes.
The four polling states — Arizona, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — will be critical not only in determining the presidential race, but also in the battle for control of the Senate. Every one of those seats is now held by a Democrat, and while Trump leads in three of those states, Democratic Senate candidates have leads in four.
This raises the possibility of increased voting, at least this fall, which could result in a number of states going in favor of opposing parties for presidential and Senate candidates.
Granted, Hogan will need a split level of voting in Maryland over and above anything shown in these polls. Thus, two Democratic candidates will participate in the red states – Senator Sherrod Brown from Ohio and John Tester from Montana. And the strength of Democrats in these Senate polls may be illusory; after all, none of the Democratic candidates exceed 50%. If they fail to increase their support further, they could all be caught as voters are forced to make a final decision.
But the idea of a revamped vote makes some sense. With polls showing widespread public disenchantment with both parties’ presidential candidates, is it crazy to wonder if there’s an unusually large pool of voters who won’t feel wedded to a single party as they move down the ballot?
Michael Cohen details his role in Trump’s repeated lies about hush money
By Adam Reiss, Jillian Frankel, Gary Grumbach, and Dareh Gregorian
Trump’s ex-lawyer Michael Cohen returned to the witness stand on Tuesday and told jurors that he repeatedly lied about paying hush money to veteran film actor Stormy Daniels in the final days of the 2016 campaign “to protect Mr. Trump.”
Cohen said he claimed he was the only person behind the $130,000 payment to Daniels to protect his boss, “to stay on message and demonstrate continued loyalty.” In fact, he told the jury, everything he did was “at the behest of Donald J. Trump.”
Prosecutors allege that Trump falsified business records related to these payments, classifying them as legal services under the retainer agreement. Cohen testified Monday that no such custody agreement exists in New York.
Trump’s lawyer, Todd Blanche, began his cross-examination in the afternoon, telling Cohen that they had never met, but that Cohen called him a “crying little s—” on TikTok.
“Sounds like something I would say,” Cohen replied. Cohen gave a similar answer to the question of whether he called Trump a “dictator freak”.
Read more from the 17th day of the Trump trial →
🗞️ The best stories of the day
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- 🎰 2024 Gambling: The New York Times examines the battle for Nevada, where its latest poll showed Biden in a strong fight. More →
- 🚗 This is electricity: Biden is imposing new tariffs on Chinese exports, including quadrupling tariffs on electric vehicles. More →
- ⚖️ SCOTUS wristwatch: The Supreme Court is due to rule on a number of closely watched cases before the end of its term in June. Follow where these cases stand with our new tracker. More →
- 📖 Book Club: Potential vice presidential candidate Ben Carson makes a challenge national abortion ban in his new book, breaking away from Trump on this issue and calling for an end to no-fault divorce laws. More →
- 👔 Show of support: Trump’s trial has become a testing ground for his potential running mates, who have flocked to the courthouse to show their support — some even wearing the former president’s signature red tie. More →
For now, that’s it from The Politics Desk. If you have feedback – whether you like it or not – please email us politicsnewsletter@nbcuni.com
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