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What to watch in primaries in Arizona, Michigan, elsewhere

What to watch in primaries in Arizona, Michigan, elsewhere

In Missouri, scandal-ridden former Gov. Eric Greitens is attempting a political comeback. In Michigan, a crowded field of Republican gubernatorial candidates includes a man charged in the Jan. 6 US Capitol attack. In Arizona, a prominent figure in the QAnon conspiracy movement is running for the US House.

Those are among some of the most notable contests in Tuesday’s primary elections being held in six states.

Arizona, which Democrat Joe Biden narrowly won in 2020, is a top target for former President Donald Trump, who tried in vain to get his defeat overturned. He has endorsed a slate of candidates up and down the ballot who have promoted his false claims of a stolen election.

Trump has also been zeroed in on the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach him over the Jan. 6 insurrection. Three of them are on the ballot Tuesday in Washington state and Michigan, as are two members of “the Squad,” Democratic Reps. Cori Bush of Missouri and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan.

Meanwhile, Kansas voters could clear the way for the Republican-controlled Legislature to further restrict or ban abortion if they approve a proposed state constitutional change. It’s the first referendum vote on abortion policy by a state since the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June.

Ohio is also holding a primary for state legislative races on Tuesday, three months after its statewide and congressional contests — a split system that resulted from legal wrangling over redistricting.

What to watch:

ARIZONA

Trump’s endorsed in Arizona all have one thing in common: They have loudly candidates disseminated misinformation about the legitimacy of the 2020 election, despite election officials and Trump’s own attorney general saying there is no credible evidence the race was tainted.

In the governor’s race, Trump has backed former television news anchor Kari Lakewho has said that she would not have certified Arizona’s election results in 2020. Lake faces businesswoman Karrin Taylor Robson, who is endorsed by former Vice President Mike Pence and outgoing Gov. Doug Duey.

Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, a staunch defender of the 2020 election, is strongly favored to win the Democratic nomination for governor.

In the Republican primary for US Senate, Trump has backed tech investor Blake Masters as the candidate to go up against Democratic incumbent Mark Kelly in the fall. Masters, whose campaign has been bankrolled by billionaire Peter Thiel, has called for reducing legal immigration and espoused the baseless “great replacement” conspiracy theory, claiming Democrats are trying to “replace Americans who were born here.”

Attorney General Mark Brnovich, another Senate candidate, has been weighed down by lackluster fundraising and fierce criticism from Trump, who says Brnovich did little to advance his election fraud claims. Another top candidate, Jim Lamonthe founder of a solar energy firm, has touted his experience as a military veteran and entrepreneur.

The Republican primary for secretary of state includes Trump-backed legislator Mark Finchem, a state representative who worked to overturn Trump’s 2020 loss; state Rep. Shawnna Bolick, who introduced a bill to let legislators ignore election results and choose their own presidential electors; and state Sen. Michelle Ugenti-Rita, who has long pushed to overhaul election laws. The GOP establishment has rallied around advertising executive Beau Lane in the race.

Ron Watkins, who has ties to the QAnon conspiracy theory, is considered a long shot in his House run. Watkins, a Republican, served as the longtime administrator of the online message boards that became the home of the anonymous “Q.” The conspiracy theory is centered around the baseless belief that Trump waged a secret campaign against enemies in the “deep state” and that a group of satanic, cannibalistic child molesters secretly runs the globe.

In the state Legislature, Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowerswho testified at a Jan. 6 hearing about Trump’s pressure to overturn the 2020 election, faces a Trump-backed candidate in his bid to run for the state Senate.

MICHIGAN

The Republican primary for governor was wild from the start, with five candidates getting kicked off the ballot for failing to file enough valid nominating signatures.

Several of the remaining candidates have baggage that could hurt in a general election against Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

Real estate broker Ryan Kelley has pleaded not guilty to misdemeanor charges after authorities said he rallied Trump’s supporters to storm the US Capitol. Businessman Kevin Rinke was sued in the 1990s for sex harassment and racial discrimination — allegations he says were lies. Chiropractor Garrett Soldano hawked supplements he falsely claimed treated COVID-19. Businesswoman Tudor Dixonwho has been endorsed by Trump, has previously acted in low-budget horror pictures, one of which included a zombie biting off a man’s genitals.

All of the candidates falsely say there was fraud in the 2020 election, with Dixon, Kelley and Soldano saying the election was stolen from Trump.

Republican Rep. Peter Meijer is hoping to hold on to his seat after voting to impeach Trump. The former president has endorsed businessman and missionary John Gibbswho worked in the Trump administration under Housing Secretary Ben Carson.

MISSOURI

Greitens’ political career appeared over when he resigned as governor in 2018, following his admission to an extramarital affair and accusations of blackmail and campaign finance violations. On Tuesday, the former Navy SEAL officer has a chance at redemption in his Republican primary for the seat held by retiring GOP US Sen. Roy Blunt.

Greitens, Attorney General Eric Schmitt and US Rep. Vicky Hartzler are the front-runners in a crowded 21-person GOP field that includes US Rep. Billy Long and Mark McCloskey, the St. Louis lawyer who along with his wife pointed guns at racial injustice protesters who ventured onto their private street.

Trump has not made an endorsement in the race, though he’s ruled out Hartzler.

The GOP winner in Missouri, a solidly Republican state, will be favored in November. But Republican leaders have long worried that Greitens — his ex-wife has also accused him of abuseallegations Greitens has called “baseless” — could win the primary but lose the general election.

On the Democratic side, the nomination appears to be up for grabs between Lucas Kuncea Marine veteran and self-proclaimed populist, and Trudy Busch Valentinean heiress of the Busch beer fortune who has largely self-funded her campaign.

WASHINGTON

Two Republican House members from Washington state who voted to impeach Trump face primary challengers endorsed by him.

Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, who has been in Congress since 2011, has said she voted for impeachment because she had “an obligation to the Constitution.” Trump has endorsed Joe Kenta former Green Beret and a conservative cable show regular who echoes the former president’s grievances about the 2020 election outcome.

Rep. Dan Newhouse, a congressman since 2015, said he cast the vote to impeach Trump for inciting and refusing to immediately stop the Jan. 6 insurrection. Among his challengers he is Loren Culpa Trump-backed former small-town police chief who refused to concede the 2020 governor’s race to Democrat Jay Inslee.

In Washington, the top two vote-getters in each race, regardless of party, move forward to November.

KANSAS

Voters will decide whether to approve a change to the state constitution that could allow the Legislature to restrict or ban abortion despite a 2019 state Supreme Court ruling that abortion access is a fundamental right. It’s the first referendum on abortion by a state since Roe v. Wade’s reverse.

In statewide races, Republican Kris Kobach is running for attorney general as he attempts a political comeback following losses in races for governor and US Senate in previous years. Kobach, the state’s former secretary of state, served as vice chair of a short-lived Trump commission on election fraud after the 2016 election.

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Associated Press writers Jonathan J. Cooper in Phoenix; Sara Burnett in Chicago; Jim Salter in O’Fallon, Missouri; Chris Grygiel in Seattle; and John Hanna in Topeka, Kansas; contributed to this report.

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Meg Kinnard can be reached at http://twitter.com/MegKinnardAP.

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Follow AP for full coverage of the midterms at https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections and on Twitter at https://twitter.com/ap_politics.

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US

Cunningham picks former fighter pilot as SC gov running mate

Cunningham picks former fighter pilot as SC gov running mate

COLUMBIA, SC (AP) — Joe Cunningham has chosen Tally Parham Casey, a civil litigator who flew fighter jets during three combat tours over Iraq, to ​​be his running mate in his quest to become South Carolina’s first Democratic governor in 20 years.

“She’s one of the most impressive people that I’ve ever met,” said Cunningham, who previewed his lieutenant governor pick for The Associated Press ahead of a formal announcement Monday. “Ella She’s fought for our freedoms abroad, and she wants to continue fighting for those freedoms, so that’s why I put her on the ticket, and ella she’s agreed to do it.”

Cunningham, 40, planned to introduce Casey, 52, at an event in Greenville, her hometown.

“I have long admired Joe’s bipartisan approach to governing and believe he is exactly what South Carolina needs as governor,” Casey said in a statement provided by the campaign, calling her selection “an incredible honor and privilege.”

“Joe is a regular guy who has the guts to say what we’re all thinking,” she also said in the statement.

This is the second gubernatorial election cycle in which contenders for South Carolina’s top two executive offices run on the same ticket. In years past, governors and their lieutenant governors were elected separately, meaning that sometimes the politicians clashed ideologically or were from different parties.

Last week, Gov. Henry McMaster and Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette, 54, became South Carolina’s first gubernatorial ticket to file for reelection, with McMaster calling the payroll company founder “fully conversant with the trials, tribulations and challenges of business.” That skillset, the governor has saidcomplements his decades in law and politics.

Since her election in 2018, Evette has spent many months traveling the state, meeting with businesses and promoting their relationships with South Carolina’s technical training schools. Both she and the governor say keeping them strong is key to the state’s manufacturing economy.

Cunningham also points to the diverse experiences of his running mate. Casey’s military service, legal savvy and the fact that she’s a woman make her the right fit for where he’d like to take the state, he said.

“Tally is the best person for the job, period,” Cunningham told AP. “And the fact that she’s a woman brings that perspective to the ticket, especially in light of everything that’s gone on with Gov. McMaster’s attack on our freedoms and his assault on women’s rights. It makes it that much more personal for Tally.”

The Republican-dominated Legislature is on track to make abortions even harder to get in South Carolina following the US Supreme Court’s decision to reverse its nearly 50-year-old Roe v. Wade ruling affirming a constitutional right to the procedure.

While abortion-rights groups challenge the state’s current law, which bans abortions after six weeks of pregnancy but includes some exceptions, a special legislative committee advanced a proposal last week to ban almost all abortions, except when the mother’s life is at risk.

McMaster, who has said he would “immediately” work with those lawmakers, said last week that the six-week ban includes “good exceptions” and is “quite reasonable.”

“If there are other steps, if there are other things that they believe should be done after thorough examination, then I’d like to hear about it,” McMaster said.

Cunningham has called for legislators to hold off on debating the measure this fall until after the November election.

Casey was South Carolina’s first female fighter pilot, enlisting with the state’s Air National Guard’s 157th Fighter Squadron in 1996 and attaining the rank of lieutenant colonel. She has nearly 1,500 hours in the F-16, more than 100 of them in combat, and has received numerous service-related awards.

Casey has also been an attorney for more than two decades, most of that at Wyche PA in Columbia, where she was elected chair in 2017 and focuses on commercial litigation, products liability, insurance and aerospace law. The graduate of Princeton University and the University of Virginia School of Law she has also been a federal law clerk.

Like Cunningham, Casey is significantly younger than McMaster, who at 75 is the state’s oldest governor, and whose age the Democrat has said is too advanced to adequately represent South Carolinians.

“He’s been in politics literally longer than I’ve been alive, and you look at where that’s gotten us,” Cunningham said. “What Tally offers is much-needed change, and it’ll be a refreshing take on politics.”

Cunningham has proposed an age cap of 72 for South Carolina officeholders — a shift that would require voters to approve a constitutional change. He’s signaled openness to a similar federal age limit, which would apply to 82-year-old House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn of South Carolina and 79-year-old President Joe Biden.

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Meg Kinnard can be reached at http://twitter.com/MegKinnardAP.

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Australia

Victorian crossbench MP launches bid to compel religious hospitals to provide abortions

Victorian crossbench MP launches bid to compel religious hospitals to provide abortions

Victorian crossbench MP Fiona Patten is looking to compel taxpayer-funded religious hospitals to provide abortions, contraceptive treatment and end-of-life options.

The Reason Party leader will introduce a bill into state parliament this week that would remove the right of hospitals that receive any taxpayer funding to refuse to offer reproductive health services and voluntary assisted dying due to “corporate conscientious objection.”

Ms Patten said imposed religious faith had no place in the public health system.

“Right now, women in Victoria face a whole range of barriers to accessing reproductive health such as abortions or even contraception, some of that geographically,” she said.

“But also it’s because a number of our publicly funded hospitals refuse to provide these services and we say that if you’re publicly funded, then you should provide the services that the public need.”

A blue building with Werribee Mercy Hospital sign surrounded by parked cars.
Fiona Patten singled out Mercy Health as an example of a religious hospital network that received public funding but withheld contraception and abortion services.(ABC News: Margaret Paul)

Ms Patten argued conscientious objection resulted in women being mistreated by the health system that they help fund.

She singled out Mercy Health as an example of a religious provider that did not offer some services.

“The Mercy Hospital, which is one of the largest obstetric hospitals in Victoria, it is a publicly funded hospital,” she said.

“They refuse to provide contraception, they refuse to provide abortions when patients need them and this is just not right.”

Private hospitals that did not receive any public funding would not be affected if the bill was adopted, nor would individual practitioners.

Fiona Patten wears a black pin stripe jacket over a white shirt and smiles the camera
Fiona Patten says the bill will be debated in the next fortnight.(Supplied)

Ms Patten said the bill aimed to ensure that abortions remained legal, available and safe in Victoria, and noted the controversial overturning of the Roe v Wade decision by the United States Supreme Court.

“We’ve all just seen what has happened in America and we need to ensure that women’s rights to abortion and to contraception and other reproductive health is enshrined and protected in this state,” she said.

“There is no reason to think that there won’t be pushes in Australia and in Victoria to change our abortion laws here.”

The Victorian Health Minister Mary-Anne Thomas declined to say whether the state government would support the bill.

“The Victorian government already has the most progressive laws in the nation when it comes to supporting women exercising their reproductive rights,” Ms Thomas said.

“As health minister, I will always champion the rights of women to access the sexual and reproductive health services that they need right across our state.”

Catholic hospital says ‘moral reasons’ behind abortion refusal

Mercy Health declined to be interviewed, but referred the ABC to statements on its website.

It said that as a Catholic provider, it valued the dignity of life from conception to death.

“There are two areas where, for moral reasons, we do not provide some services: being women’s health and end of life care,” the website stated.

It said its refusal to provide abortion and assisted dying services was “in accordance with the Hippocratic tradition of medicine.”

“We aim to do no harm, to relieve pain, to provide compassionate care for the whole person and to never abandon those in our care.”

Catholic Health Australia told the ABC it could not comment because it was yet to see the details of the bill.

Advocates say religious hospitals are denying a basic human right

Women’s Health Victoria is a statewide advocacy service that also offers online and telephone sexual and reproductive services.

CEO Dianne Hill said access to abortion was a fundamental part of comprehensive healthcare and women needed to trust that hospitals would care for all of their sexual and reproductive healthcare needs.

She said Women’s Health Victoria supported any legislative reform that improved access to abortion and contraception.

“Abortion and contraception access is compromised for women and people with a uterus due to systemic and structural inequalities including financial insecurity, geographic location, health issues, cultural safety and health literacy,” she said.

“Barriers created by healthcare services — where they may have provided a person’s maternity care but won’t provide contraception or abortion services — further exacerbate these issues, reduce choices and deny people’s reproductive rights.”

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US

Indiana Senate narrowly passes near-total abortion ban

Indiana Senate narrowly passes near-total abortion ban

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Indiana state senators narrowly passed a near-total abortion ban on Saturday during a rare weekend session, sending the bill to the House after a contentious week of arguments over whether to allow exceptions for rape and incest.

The Republican-controlled Senate voted 26-20 after about three hours of debate, passing the bill with the minimum 26 votes needed to send it on to the House, which Republicans also control.

The bill would prohibit abortions from the time a fertilized egg implants in a uterus. Exceptions would be allowed in cases of rape and incest, but a patient seeking an abortion for either reason would have to sign a notarized affidavit attesting to the attack.

Indiana is one of the first Republican-controlled states to debate tighter abortion laws since the US Supreme Court last month overturned the precedent establishing a national right to an abortion.

But the GOP splintered after the rape and incest exceptions remained in the bill Thursday when an amendment failed that would have stripped out those exceptions.

Ten Republican senators voted against the legislation Saturday, including a handful who support abortion rights.

One of them, Republican Sen. Vaneta Becker of Evansville, said the measure will interfere with women’s medical choices, their lives and free will by setting strict limits on abortion access in Indiana.

“Women deserve to have us protect their lives and free will. Senate Bill 1 destroys both. Shame on us for doing this,” she said, noting that only eight of the Senate’s 50 members are women.

“We are considering dictating medical decisions with blinders and ignorant of the astounding, unintended consequences we are creating,” Becker warned, saying the Senate is “just making a mess.”

Republican Sen. Mike Young, whose amendment calling for no exceptions except for the life of the mother previously failed, said he voted against the bill not because he agrees with its opponents but because he has qualms with some aspects of the legislation he hopes are addressed.

Young said one provision that concerns him states that a doctor can perform an abortion if he believes a woman’s life is in danger but it doesn’t require the doctor to inform that woman that her life is in danger.

“She may never know the reasons why. I just think it’s important when a person makes the most important decision of their life for her they ought to know if their life is in danger, and what are the reasons why it’s in danger, ”he said.

GOP Sen. Sue Glick of LaGrange, who authored the abortion bill, said during the debate she doesn’t expect the legislation approved by the Senate to be the final version the legislature passes. She called the Senate bill “an expression of where we believe the state of Indiana is right now.”

The legislation’s passage “is a huge step forward in protecting the life of the unborn children in our state,” Glick said in a statement after the bill’s approval.

“We have put together a bill that would not criminalize women and would protect the unborn whose voices have been silenced for the past 50 years under Roe v Wade,” she added.

Ten of the Senate’s 11 Democrats voted against the bill, with the 11th member absent for Saturday’s debate.

Democratic Sen. Tim Lanane of Anderson condemned the bill as a product of a male-dominated Legislature that’s poised to take away the control that pregnant women should have over their own bodies.

“This is the government, the male-dominated government of the state of Indiana, saying to the women of this state, you lose your choice,” he said. “We’ve told you — papa state, big state government — is going to tell you what you will do with your body. And I don’t think we’re ready for that.”

The bill now heads to the House, where proposed changes could come as soon as next week — the second week of lawmakers’ three-week special session. Lawmakers must add their session by Aug. 14.

House Speaker Todd Huston on Friday declined to discuss specifics of the Senate bill. But he said he supports the rape and incest exceptions.

Gov. Eric Holcomb said earlier this summer that he had no “red lines” on what anti-abortion measures lawmakers might consider. But on July 12 Holcomb sidestepped taking a stance on how far the Republican-dominated Legislature should go in restricting abortions in its special session.

A national poll this month found an overwhelming majority of Americans believe their state should generally allow abortion in specific cases, including if a woman’s life is endangered or if the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest. Few think abortion should always be illegal, according to The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll.

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Arleigh Rodgers is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow her on Twitter at https://twitter.com/arleighrodgers

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Find AP’s full coverage of the overturning of Roe v. Wade at: https://apnews.com/hub/abortion

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