This article is from the source 'nytimes' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/14/us/politics/what-time-do-polls-close-voting-alabama-maine-texas.html

The article has changed 8 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 2 Version 3
Primary and Runoff Elections in Alabama, Maine and Texas: What to Watch For Sessions Pays the Price for Incurring Trump’s Wrath, Losing Alabama Senate Race
(about 13 hours later)
Three states with vastly different electoral profiles are holding primary elections on Tuesday: Alabama, Maine and Texas. MOBILE, Ala. — As a longtime senator from Alabama, Jeff Sessions did nothing less than legitimize Donald. J. Trump as a credible Republican candidate for president, endorsing him when no other big names did and championing him to conservative voters. As Mr. Trump’s star rose, Mr. Sessions’s rose, too.
The marquee contests include a Republican primary runoff for Senate in Alabama in which President Trump is pursuing a personal vendetta; a Democratic primary for Senate in Maine whose winner will take on the only Republican from New England in Congress; and runoffs in Texas for the Democratic Senate nomination and two Texas House districts that are expected to be tossups in November. But on Tuesday night, as he sought once again to become a senator from Alabama, a job he loved, Mr. Sessions came crashing to the ground — and all at the hands of Mr. Trump, his ally-turned-patron-turned-antagonist-turned-sworn enemy.
Most of the polls in all three states will close at 8 p.m. Eastern time. Some early returns are likely to come in soon after that, but full results will take longer. Mr. Sessions was soundly defeated in Alabama’s Republican primary, The Associated Press reported, losing to a political neophyte, the former Auburn football coach Tommy Tuberville, whom Mr. Trump had enthusiastically supported while denigrating Mr. Sessions.
Here’s what to watch for: With almost 100 percent of the vote counted, Mr. Tuberville had 60.7 percent of the vote, to 39.3 percent for Mr. Sessions.
In any other year, under any other president, Jeff Sessions is the kind of Republican who would have a clear shot at winning a Senate seat in Alabama. He is experienced and deeply conservative and has built up good will with voters over decades in public office. But a runoff election on Tuesday with Tommy Tuberville, a former college football coach and political newcomer, could be the end of a career in Republican politics that began when Mr. Sessions was still in college — and when most of Alabama voted Democratic. “We’ve fought a good fight in this race,” Mr. Sessions said, addressing supporters at a small conference room at a Hampton Inn in Mobile.
Like most Republican primary contests, this one will be seen as a test of how tightly Mr. Trump retains a grip on his core supporters. He has endorsed Mr. Tuberville and repeatedly, angrily attacked Mr. Sessions, the former attorney general whose recusal from an investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election helped prompt the appointment of Robert S. Mueller III as special counsel. “I want to congratulate Tommy Tuberville,’’ Mr. Sessions said, fighting back tears. “We must stand behind him in November. Doug Jones does not need to be our voice in Washington. He wishes to see the policies of Nancy Pelosi prevail over conservative Alabama principles.’’
Mr. Sessions has always been the underdog. In the first round of voting in early March, he finished behind Mr. Tuberville — but by less than two percentage points. (Other candidates were in the race and no one received an outright majority, forcing a runoff election.) And Tuesday’s results will in part reveal whether Mr. Trump’s barrage of insults and pleas to Alabamians to reject his former ally — “not mentally qualified” and “a disaster who has let us all down” are just two of the more recent jabs — have helped make Mr. Sessions appear to be too much of a risk to voters. Public and private polls have shown Mr. Tuberville with a comfortable lead. Mr. Sessions said he had no regrets about his decision as attorney general to recuse himself from the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election — an act that infuriated Mr. Trump and turned the president against him. “I followed the law,’’ he said, adding “and I saved the president’s bacon in the process.’’
Or a loss for Mr. Sessions could be about something else entirely: voters who are looking for a new kind of leadership in Washington and who have qualms about sending back a 73-year-old whom they have already elected to the same Senate seat four times. Mr. Tuberville will now face Mr. Jones, the most vulnerable Senate Democrat up for election in November. Mr. Jones narrowly defeated Roy S. Moore, a former State Supreme Court justice, in the 2017 special election to fill the seat vacated by Mr. Sessions.
Alabama is definitely Trump country. And Mr. Tuberville has no doubt benefited from the president’s many endorsements. But Alabama voters also have a mind of their own when it comes to electing senators. In fact, the only reason Mr. Sessions is running is that Mr. Trump’s last two endorsements didn’t pan out the way he had hoped. Mr. Tuberville’s victory was the most prominent result in voting across three states Tuesday. In Maine, Sara Gideon easily won the Democratic nomination for Senate and will challenge Senator Susan Collins in November, in what would be one of most closely contested, and expensive, races in the country this year. And in Texas voters in both parties went to the polls to decide runoffs in several House races and Democrats were picking a nominee to challenge Senator John Cornyn in November.
After Mr. Sessions was confirmed as attorney general in 2017 and left the Senate seat open, it was filled by Luther Strange, a former state attorney general who was appointed by the governor. Mr. Trump endorsed Mr. Strange when he had to stand for re-election later that year, viewing him as a loyal soldier and an ally in the Senate. Few Republicans had tied their political fortunes to Mr. Trump as Mr. Sessions did. As one of the loudest Senate voices for taking a hard-line on immigration, Mr. Sessions had few allies among past G.O.P. presidential candidates. Then came Mr. Trump, who not only ran on Mr. Sessions’s agenda but won on it — then brought Mr. Sessions forth from the backbench and installed him in what was supposed to be his dream job: attorney general.
But a populist backlash against Mr. Strange, who faced ethics questions in Alabama about how he had obtained the Senate appointment, allowed Roy S. Moore to win the Republican nomination. Mr. Trump then endorsed Mr. Moore, a former Alabama Supreme Court justice who gained national notoriety after placing a huge stone replica of the Ten Commandments at the state judicial building. What came next was a one-man cautionary tale about the risks of linking one’s career to a mercurial president to whom loyalty meant everything. Enraged that Mr. Sessions did not block the Russia investigation, but instead recused himself, Mr. Trump made it his mission to humiliate his attorney general. He mocked Mr. Sessions’s Southern accent, hectored him on Twitter and belittled him in interviews — and only after all that did he fire him, days after the 2018 midterms.
Mr. Trump stood by his endorsement even after several women stepped forward to accuse Mr. Moore of fondling and harassing them when they were teenagers and he was a prominent local lawyer. When Mr. Sessions decided to try to reclaim his Senate seat, Mr. Trump, after initially resisting, did it all over again, unleashing his brand of personal vengeance to derail Mr. Sessions’s attempted comeback.
Mr. Moore lost the race after other Republicans, most notably the state’s senior senator, Richard Shelby, said he could not vote for the former judge. In perhaps the most trying stretch of his presidency, with his own poll numbers plummeting, the president made the most of the Republican runoff.
Mr. Moore’s scandal gave Alabama its first Democratic senator in a generation: Doug Jones. And after Tuesday, when his opponent is determined, his race will get a fresh look. Mr. Jones is in the most difficult position of any Senate Democrat up for re-election this year. In 2016, Mr. Trump carried Alabama by almost 30 points, making it hard for any Democrat to do well statewide, even if the president’s popularity continues to slide. On Monday night, by which point it was clear Mr. Tuberville would triumph, Mr. Trump held a conference call with the candidate and his supporters, during which he again savaged his former attorney general — “ He had his chance and he blew it” — and offered Mr. Tuberville a ringing endorsement.
Mr. Jones’s victory in 2017 was widely seen not as evidence of a resurgent Democratic Party in a deep red state, but rather as a reflection of how beatable Mr. Moore was once the allegations of sexual abuse surfaced. The former coach “is going to do a job like you haven’t seen,” said the president, adding: “He’s going to have a cold, direct line into my office. That I can tell you.”
Mr. Jones — the lone Democrat representing the Deep South in the Senate — has tried to appear deliberative and fair-minded as he balances his personal opposition to the president with the feelings of the majority of his constituents. But his record, which includes a vote to remove Mr. Trump from office after his impeachment trial, will be a difficult sell with many voters. Mr. Tuberville, addressing his own supporters Tuesday night, accused Mr. Jones of upholding “New York values, Chicago values, liberal Democrat values’’ while calling Mr. Trump “the best president of my lifetime.”
Back in December, the Senate Democrats’ campaign arm waded into the Texas primary, endorsing M.J. Hegar over a field of candidates. Now Ms. Hegar, a former Air Force helicopter pilot who narrowly lost a 2018 bid for the House, faces a runoff against Royce West, a state legislator vying to become the first Black senator from Texas. In Maine, Ms. Gideon, the state House Speaker, fended off nominal opposition from the left, which she largely ignored as she built a record-setting war chest. The race has already become the priciest Senate campaign in Maine history, thanks to a fund-raising surge from liberals angered by Ms. Collins’s support for the nomination of Brett M. Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court two years ago.
The winner will face Senator John Cornyn, a three-term incumbent who is the second-ranking Senate Republican and will be a heavy favorite in the general election. Ms. Collins’s prospects will weigh heavily on the balance of power in the Senate, where Democrats are seeking to pick up the three seats that would give them a majority under a President Biden. Ms. Collins, who is considered one of the most vulnerable Senate Republicans, is facing perhaps her most difficult campaign as she seeks a fifth term.
We’ll also be watching two congressional runoffs in Texas: one for Republicans in the 22nd District, and one for Democrats in the 24th District. Both seats have been solidly red in the past but are expected to be competitive in November, because the Republican incumbents are retiring. Ms. Collins is trying to build a coalition that includes both Mr. Trump’s enthusiasts and detractors at a time when centrists like her are growing scarce.
The 22nd District, which is in the Houston area and represented by Congressman Pete Olson, is home to a bitter race between Troy Nehls, the Fort Bend County sheriff, and Kathaleen Wall, a conservative activist. Mr. Nehls was far ahead of Ms. Wall in the first round of voting in March, but did not reach the 50 percent threshold needed to avoid a runoff. Mr. Sessions had spent much of his campaign urging Alabama voters to remember that he was running against Mr. Tuberville — not Mr. Trump.
Ms. Wall has been running ads accusing Mr. Nehls of failing to combat human trafficking in Fort Bend County, which advocacy groups say is a serious problem there. Mr. Nehls has called the allegation “an absolute lie.” “The president has a right to speak up, but the president is not on the ballot,” Mr. Sessions told reporters after voting on Tuesday in Mobile, Ala., while his granddaughters, wearing red Sessions campaign T-shirts, stood off to the side. “He’ll be on the ballot in November, and Alabama is going to vote for him, and I will be voting for him. But Tommy Tuberville is on the ballot now.”
The winner will face the Democratic nominee, Sri Preston Kulkarni, who narrowly lost to Mr. Olson in 2018. Yet even as he sought to isolate his race from the top of the ticket in one breath, the former attorney general all but acknowledged in another that Republican nominating contests have become loyalty tests to Mr. Trump.
In the 24th District — a suburban stretch between Dallas and Fort Worth that is represented by Congressman Kenny Marchant — the Democratic candidates are Kim Olson, an Air Force veteran, and Candace Valenzuela, a former school board member who would be the first Afro-Latina member of Congress. “My opponent, at age 65, never lifted a finger for Donald Trump, never said he was a Republican in the first 65 years of his life,” Mr. Sessions said. “Never said he was a conservative. Half the time he didn’t even vote — we don’t know if he actually voted for Donald Trump or not in the last election.”
Ms. Olson, who ran for Texas agriculture commissioner in 2018, has advertised her 25 years of military service and the fact that she was part of the first generation of female fighter pilots. Ms. Valenzuela, by contrast, has emphasized her personal connections to the district and her difficult childhood; she grew up poor and became homeless after her mother left an abusive relationship. As he did for much of the final stretch of the runoff, Mr. Tuberville avoided reporters on Tuesday and let Mr. Trump’s endorsement speak for his candidacy.
Ms. Olson finished more than 10 percentage points ahead in the first round of voting in March, but Ms. Valenzuela’s supporters — who include Senators Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Kamala Harris of California and Cory Booker of New Jersey; the former housing secretary Julián Castro; and Representative John Lewis of Georgia — think the race has shifted. Many who cast their votes in Mr. Sessions’s precinct on Tuesday morning spoke fondly of the former attorney general. Kay Rehm, 69, said she voted for Mr. Sessions “mainly because he is so moral and ethical.”
The winner will face the Republican nominee, Beth Van Duyne, a former mayor of Irving, Tex. “We know what we’re getting in Senator sessions,” Ms. Rehm said. “He’s been vetted, he’s been in government for over 30-something years. I personally have nothing against Tuberville, but we don’t know anything about him.”
In the state’s Democratic primary for Senate, Sara Gideon, the speaker of the State House of Representatives, is viewed as the front-runner against two progressive challengers, Betsy Sweet, a lobbyist, and Bre Kidman, a lawyer. The race has drawn intense national focus because the winner will face Senator Susan Collins, who has become a reviled figure among national Democrats. Ms. Rehm said she found the president’s disdain for Mr. Sessions “a little disappointing, but Trump can be like that, God bless him.”
Although Ms. Collins is a moderate in her party who has long enjoyed bipartisan support in representing Maine in the Senate since 1997, her reluctance to forcefully push back against Mr. Trump has sent her approval ratings plummeting at home. Her vote to confirm Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court further angered liberals. But Mr. Trump’s strong support had always been expected to provide a huge lift for Mr. Tuberville. “The president has endorsed Coach Tuberville because he knows Tommy will stand up for America and not be controlled by the deep state and the big money lobbyists,” said Perry Hooper, a former state representative in Montgomery.
Ms. Gideon has already raised $23 million, a record sum for a Maine race, thanks to donors nationally who see her as the key to a Democratic takeover of the Senate. Ms. Gideon has staked out positions on health care and the environment in line with former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., the presumptive Democratic nominee. Her two rivals, who champion more sweeping policies such as “Medicare for all,” have struggled to raise money. In Texas, Democrats were choosing between M.J. Hegar, an Air Force veteran who has the support of Senate Democrats, and State Senator Royce West in a runoff to determine who will take on Senator John Cornyn.
Recent polls have shown Ms. Gideon with a narrow lead over Ms. Collins. Mr. Trump scored a victory in an open West Texas House seat, where his preferred candidate, the former White House doctor Ronny Jackson, won a runoff.
Reid J. Epstein contributed reporting. In the race for the seat currently held by Representative Will Hurd, who is not seeking re-election, Mr. Trump and Senator Ted Cruz were on opposite sides of the runoff. The president offered a late endorsement of Tony Gonzales, the establishment favorite, while Mr. Cruz backed Raul Reyes, a more conservative candidate.
The most surprising news Tuesday came in a contest that won’t even be decided until next month. Shortly before he was to debate his primary opponents, Steve Watkins of Kansas, a first-term Congressman, was indicted on felony charges related to whether he voted illegally in 2019.
In terms of determining the balance of power in Washington, though, no race on Tuesday may have been more consequential than the Maine primary. The Senate race there is one of a handful that could determine control of the chamber, where Republicans have a majority, 53 to 47.
Ms. Gideon has already raised nearly $23 million, much of it from Democrats who are angry at Ms. Collins for confirming Justice Kavanaugh and not taking a harder line against Mr. Trump.
And now that Ms. Gideon is officially her party’s nominee, she will receive $3.7 million, which has effectively been sitting in escrow for the Democratic nominee since Ms. Collins’s Kavanaugh vote.
While she has been outraised in the first half of the year, Ms. Collins, who has raised over $16 million so far, has demonstrated an ability to keep closer pace with her opponent than some of her Republican colleagues. Both candidates will also be helped by multimillion dollar ad campaigns from party super PACs in a race that has already turned negative.
Early polls point to a competitive race in a state that has become politically bifurcated between a more conservative and rural north and a liberal-leaning and more densely populated south.
Ms. Collins has deep roots in northern Maine, where Mr. Trump enjoys a strong following. She did not support his candidacy in 2016, and has not said how she will vote in November. She did, though, recently tell The New York Times that she will not campaign against former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., her onetime Senate colleague who is Mr. Trump’s rival for the presidency.