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Florida voters cite high stakes of primary electon

Voters trickled into the Fort Lauderdale community center Tuesday morning to vote in the primary elections of their respective parties. (Aug. 23)(AP video: Daniel Kozin)

AP

PANAMA CITY Former state Rep. Jay Trumbull wonthe Republican primaryfor the District 2 seat of the Florida Senate in Tuesday's election.

According to the Bay County Supervisor of Elections, Trumbull won ina landslidewith 79% of the voteagainstAir Force veteran and Destin local Regina Piazza, who received 21% of the vote.

Trumbull will now face sole Democratic candidate Carolynn Zoniain the Nov. 8 general election to represent District 2 which consists of Bay, Holmes, Jackson, Walton, Washington countiesand partsof Okaloosa County.

All 2022 primary election candidates: The 2022 primary elections in Bay County are Tuesday. Here's who is on the ballot

More election coverage: Two Bay County residents to battle for state House District 6 seat. What are their goals?

Live: Bay County Election results 2022

The seatwas formerly held by George Gainer, a former Bay County Commissioner and Panama City businessman, who announced his retirement June 6.

Trumbull, who representedDistrict 6 in the Florida House,announced his campaign for the District 2 state Senate seat June 7, saying he would be fighting for "the small businesses and working families of Florida."

"Our Panhandle values of faith, family, and freedom are the key to Florida's present economic boom. To sustain that prosperity long term, Ill fight to lower taxes, protect our environment, and fight for the lives of the unborn," Trumbull saidina press release. "I have and will continue to stand with Gov.(Ron) DeSantis to push back against the federal overreach that threatens our Constitutional rights and preserve our focus on freedom in our great State."

Trumbull added that his time and experiencein the Florida House will aid him, saying he helped to cut taxes, alleviate government burdens for small businesses, promote veteran-friendly initiatives and help Bay County with Hurricane Michael recovery.

He has received the endorsements of incoming state Senate President Kathleen Passidomo, R-Naples, and state Rep. Brad Drake, R-Marianna, as well as DeSantis.

"Jay Trumbull has been a strong ally for my agenda in the Legislature and a great champion for the people of NW Florida," DeSantis said."Senator Gainerleaves big shoes to fill, but I believe Jay will be a great Senator and I am happy to support him for Senate District 2."

The Panama City native attended Auburn University and received a bachelor'sdegree in small business management and entrepreneurship. Hestarted his political career in 2014,elected to the Florida House of Representatives for District 6 and served eight consecutive years.

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Trumbull wins Republican nomination for District 2 of Florida Senate - The News Herald

A registered Republican in Maines 1st Congressional District, I recently received a solicitation letter and survey from the Republican National Committee.

Each is an affront to truth and the American way. They are culture war documents designed to seed fear, hate and division. Each ignores Jan 6. Republicans use AR-15s in their advertising, resort to personal threats and issue calls for armed rebellion. They deliberately spread conspiracy theories to stir the pot of MAGA hatred.

There were no proposals to lift up those left behind or unheard, address affordable health care and drug prices, well-paying jobs, affordable housing, improve public education, a healthy economy, fair taxation, responsible gun control, our environment or being a responsible global citizen. The documents are designed to spread falsehoods and generate fear, division and money.

Donald Trump is an affront to decency, truth and moral order, a bully and a coward driven by personal interests, greed and power. We have witnessed the vitriol, hate and uninterrupted lies as he attacks anyone with courage to call him out.

You can paint every elected Republican who fails to hold him accountable for his actions and words or supports the big lie with the same brush, especially those now attacking the Department of Justice, the FBI and the IRS. They dishonor their country and oath of office. I cannot believe this is happening in America. Then I see former Gov. Paul LePage casting doubt over voting in our towns and cities.

Ed Moser IIIFreeport

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Letter to the editor: Republican Party campaigning on message of fear, division - Press Herald

She knew the price of defying Donald Trump but did it anyway. Liz Cheney, crushed in a primary election in Wyoming, was anointed by supporters and commentators as leader of the Republican resistance to the former US president.

But that invited a question: what resistance? Admirers of the three-term congresswoman who lost her House seat to a Trump-backed challenger warn that she could now find herself a general without an army.

In her concession speech in Jackson, Wyoming, on Tuesday, Cheney pointed out that if she had been willing to parrot Trumps election lies, she would have remained in Congress. Instead she voted to impeach him and, as vice-chair of the January 6 committee, eviscerated him on primetime TV.

Now, having transferred leftover campaign funds into a new entity, The Great Task, and hinted at a presidential run, she seems determined to embrace her status as the face of the Never Trump movement.

She set herself up to be that, to be the force that is going to stand up and fight because very few people have come forward and taken such a powerful stance, said Monika McDermott, a political science professor at Fordham University in New York.

It helps that she lost so shes able to do that. Thats what shes hoping to be.

The Great Task, however, may be an understatement of the challenge ahead. Trumps Republican critics did appear to have the wind at their backs just couple of months ago as his poll ratings sank, he was pummeled by the January 6 committee and candidates he endorsed lost primaries in Georgia and elsewhere.

But the 76-year-old managed to turn an FBI search for government secrets at his home in Florida into a public relations triumph with his base. Donations poured in and Republicans rallied. Even potential 2024 rivals such as Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, felt obliged to question the justice departments motives.

Meanwhile, Trump-favoured candidates surged in states such as Arizona, Wisconsin and Wyoming. Of the 10 House Republicans, including Cheney, who voted to impeach Trump for inciting the January 6 insurrection, only two remain up for re-election.

McDermott said: It seemed like he was fading from the public eye and a lot of people, especially Republicans, were glad about that. But his base is being riled up again. The FBI search was one source of that. The primary wins have been another.

He has bounced back. Hes rebounded quite a bit from where he was post-presidency. At this point he is the titular head of the Republican party, whether people want him to be or not.

Frank Luntz, a pollster who has advised many Republican campaigns, agreed that the primary wins are significant. He said: Trumps probably stronger with the GOP right now because of the Mar-a-Lago raid than in any time in the last six months.

Hes turned himself into a victim and that unites Republicans around him. So they [the US justice department] better have something, because he has a new life within the GOP.

Anti-Trump forces remain scattered. Some Republican senators, such as Mitt Romney of Utah, and governors, such as Larry Hogan of Maryland, remain willing to speak out. Disaffected conservatives have set up ventures such as the Lincoln Project, Principles First, the Republican Accountability Project and the Bulwark website.

Adam Kinzinger, Cheneys sole Republican colleague on the January 6 committee, created a group called Country First to recruit and back anti-Trump candidates. But Kinzinger himself is retiring.

With her storied name her father, Dick Cheney, was vice-president under George W Bush Cheney could emerge as the de facto resistance leader, touring the country and TV studios, prosecuting the case against Trump as an existential threat to democracy. Her work on the January 6 committee will continue until she relinquishes her seat in January. More televised hearings are promised.

On Wednesday she told NBC: I will be doing whatever it takes to keep Donald Trump out of the Oval Office.

She added that running for president is something Im thinking about and Ill make a decision in the coming months.

It would be tough. Cheney would have almost no chance of winning a primary and could expect the Republican National Committee to look for reasons to keep her off the debate stage. Few know the pitfalls better than Joe Walsh, a former congressman from Illinois who took on Trump in 2020.

Walsh said: There is no anti-Trump movement in the Republican party. I love Liz and shes a hero for what she did and God bless her but, as I realised two years ago, theres no room in that party for me. Theres no room in this party for her. She knows that. Shes got a bigger name so shell leverage it but shes got no army to lead.

So where do anti-Trump Republicans go from here?

What Liz Cheney is going to find is this is a difficult road because, if you play this road out all the way, you have to do what I do, which is temporarily be on Team Democrat, which is weird for a Tea Party guy like me.

I know Liz believes the Republican party right now is a threat to our democracy. If you believe that then you have to support people who will defeat Republicans and right now the only people who will defeat Republicans are Democrats. I think Liz is getting close to that point.

Walsh admitted that being on Team Democrat is still a strange sensation.

Its fucking bizarre. Once a week, I pinch myself and think, How the hell did I get here? I mean, Im out there trying to help Tim Ryan win in Ohio but this is where we are because my former party has become what theyve become.

I dont know what Liz will do. Again, shes a different animal because shes a Cheney and she can stay in that party and raise hell, but to what end? It cant be changed.

If Trump is the Republican nominee, Cheney could stand as an independent in a general election. But that would run the spoiler risk of peeling off anti-Trump Republicans from the Democrat, presumably Joe Biden, and inadvertently giving Trump a path to the White House.

Luntz predicted: She actually would take away more Biden votes than Trump votes.

Cheney has won the admiration of Democrats and independents but some observers detect hubris. In her concession speech, she raised eyebrows by drawing parallels with Abraham Lincoln, the president who steered the union through the civil war.

Cheney said: The great and original champion of our party, Abraham Lincoln, was defeated in elections for the Senate and the House before he won the most important election of all. Lincoln ultimately prevailed, he saved our union, and he defined our obligation as Americans for all of history.

Luntz said: Some Republicans who admire her tenacity and her convictions became annoyed that she compared herself to Abraham Lincoln. That was a big mistake. Whoever wrote that line really should be fired because instead of it being about Trump it became about her. And that did her irreparable damage.

The Cheneys have been players in Washington for half a century, from the time Dick Cheney first ran for Congress to the arrival of Liz Cheney in 2017. She rose to the same position as her father, No 3 Republican in the House, only to be ousted as punishment for her dissent.

Then, on Tuesday, after the highest turnout of any Republican primary in Wyomings 132-year history, Cheney lost to the conservative lawyer Harriet Hageman by 36 points. Trump acolytes gloated that it signified the final purge of the Bush-Cheney era, surpassed by his populist brand of America first and baseless conspiracy theories. The Never Trumpers were in retreat once more.

Larry Jacobs, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota, said: Liz Cheney certainly won the hearts of many Democrats and independents but her power in the Republican party doesnt hold a candle to Donald Trump.

We have to just be honest about that. Shes not a real threat to Donald Trump. She sees herself as kind of saviour but its in a party thats not really looking for a saviour.

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Liz Cheney is the leader of the anti-Trump Republican resistance where does it go now? - The Guardian US

If theres one thing Minnesota Republican gubernatorial candidate Scott Jensen wants the voting public to know, its that he is super duper into making analogies between government efforts to mitigate an ongoing, catastrophic pandemic, and Nazi Germanys systematic eradication of European Jewry during the 1930s and 40s. With everything else going on in the world today, this is evidently what Jensen really, really wants to focus on. And folks? If nothing else, its certainly A Choice.

Heres the background: In April, Jensen a staunchly anti-choice, anti-urban, pro-COVID candidate spoke at a conservative mask off event, where he compared Minnesotas various pandemic responses to Hitlers rise to power in Germany. Specifically, he compared them to Kristallnacht, the infamous night of broken glass in which thousands of Jewish-owned stores, homes, and synagogues were destroyed by various Nazi party figures.

If you remember, go back to World War II. If you look at the 1930s and you look at it carefully, we could see some things happening. Little things that people chose to push aside. Its going to be okay, Jensen explained. And then the little things grew into something bigger. Then there was a night called Kristallnacht. The night of the breaking glass. Then there was the book burning, and it kept growing and growing, and a guy named Hitler kept growing in power, and World War II came about.

In a way, he concluded, I think thats why youre here today.

Now to be clear, this is not only a grotesquely offensive analogy that both cheapens and distorts the Nazis overt effort to eradicate a distinct ethno-religious group, but also, as far as comparisons go on a purely rhetorical level, its a pretty lousy one! There are tons of better analogies Jensen could have used here to describe governmental overreach! Theres the time Ronald Reagan shuttered federal mental hospitals, effectively dumping the residents onto the street; theres the time the Bush administration enacted a sweeping, warrantless domestic spying agenda in the name of national security; you get the idea. And yet, its Nazi Germanys industrialized extermination of Jews (to say nothing of communists, Roma communities, and queer people) that Jensen thinks is best suited to make his case. Hmm.

Shortly after Jensens comments were made public this month, a host of Jewish organizations condemned the remarks for, yknow, being incredibly offensive. The local Jewish Community Relations Counsel even offered to meet with Jensen to explain why.

All of which brings us to Tuesday afternoon, when Jensen took a good hard look at the many Jewish organizations telling him that hed offended them, and decided that, no, actually, he hadnt. Sorry, not sorry!

I want to speak to a little bit of a hubbub thats been in the media lately about whether or not I was insensitive in regards to the Holocaust, Jensen explained in a Facebook Watch video. I dont believe I was.

Jensen then solemnly recited theologian Martin Niemollers now clichd first they came for ... poem, like this was a 10th grade book report and not an official campaign statement, and reasoned that when I make a comparison that says that I saw government policies intruding on American freedoms incrementally, one piece at a time, and compare that to what happened in the 1930s, I think it's a legitimate comparison.

It may not strike your fancy, Jensen concluded. Thats fine. But this is how I think, and you dont get to be my thought-police person.

As far as statements go, this one is something of a mixed bag. On one hand, hes pulling a sort of Ricky Gervais/Dave Chappelle card by insisting that its your fault for being offended because hes just keeping it real. On the other hand, he did go with the gender-neutral thought-police person, so.

Ultimately, Jensens biggest misstep may be his obstinate insistence on being absolutely right, 100% of the time, no matter what. In the midst of the MAGAfication of the GOP, Im not sure if trivializing the Holocaust is, in and of itself, the sort of political suicide it once was. But I suspect there may be plenty of voters for whom this sort of stubborn sense of inflated self-importance is enough of a turn-off that whatever hole Jensen has chosen to dig for himself just became inescapably deep.

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Republican candidate for governor Scott Jensen is proud of his wildly offensive Holocaust analogy, actually - Mic

After most Republicans vociferously condemned the FBIs raid on Donald Trumps Florida estate, Fox News host Steve Doocy plaintively asked his guest, GOP Congressman Steve Scalise: What ever happened to the Republican Party backing the blue?

When Scalise protested that rogue elements of the FBI were responsible for the operation, Doocy shot back: Steve, who went rogue? Who went rogue? They were following a search warrant.

For the last half-century or more, Republicans have been very shrewd, and successful, at embracing the concept of law and order. Their candidates have campaigned relentlessly in front of supporters arrayed in any kind of uniform: police and firefighters, hard hats and Green Berets, EMTs and ER nurses. Meanwhile, they branded the Democrats as the party of disorder of long-haired, pot-smoking, free-loving, flag-burning counter-culture McGovernicks, as Newt Gingrich put it long ago.

Doocy, normally a Trump loyalist, poses a good question: Who, exactly, went rogue? And heres the answer: the Republican Party. The GOP has lost its moorings as a defender of conservative values and established authorities. It has replaced those honorable principles with a new one: the Rule of Trump. Whats good for The Donald is good for the party. Thats how back the blue became defund the FBI.

I thought, in the old days, the Republican Party used to stand with law enforcement, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democrat, said on NBCs Meet the Press.

There are threats all over the place, and losing faith in our federal law enforcement officers, in our justice system, is a really serious problem for the country, Marylands Republican governor, Larry Hogan, added on ABCs This Week.

Republicans are not alone in attacking law enforcement for their own political purposes. It was leftist protestors in cities like Portland, Oregon, who made defund the police perhaps the most misguided slogan in recent political history their rallying cry.

Moreover, in the weeks leading up to the Mar-a-Lago episode, it was liberals who were attacking Attorney General Merrick Garland, complaining with increasing bitterness that he was too cautious in his approach and too slow to indict Trump for his role in igniting the insurrection of Jan. 6.

No one is above the law, not even a former president. But no one is beneath the law, either. Trump has rights that Garland is trying to protect, but the left wants the legal process to accomplish what they have not been able to do politically: Disqualify Trump from holding office again.

Still, this is not a case of both-sidesism or equal culpability. Defund the police is a fringe idea among Democrats, while perverting justice for political ends is a core tenet of Trumpism. As Michael R. Bromwich, a former Justice Department inspector general, told Peter Baker of The New York Times, Trump simply doesnt understand people like Garland and the top leadership of DOJ and the FBI because their values are so alien to him.

Top Justice Department officials are appointed by the president, but the tradition is clear: They serve the law first, not the politician who picked them. Trumps treatment of his own AGs and FBI directors are the best example of Bromwichs point.

After winning, Mr. Trump saw law enforcement agencies as another institution to bend to his will, firing FBI Director James B. Comey when he declined to pledge personal loyalty to the president or publicly declare that Mr. Trump was not a target of the Russia inquiry, wrote Baker in the Times. The president later fired Attorney General Jeff Sessions for recusing himself from that investigation and therefore not protecting Mr. Trump from it.

Then there was Bill Barr, who succeeded Sessions as attorney general. Donald Trump is a man consumed with grievance against people he believes have betrayed him, writes ABCs White House correspondent, Jonathan Karl, in his book Betrayal. And after Barr called Trumps claims of election fraud bullst in an AP interview, Karl reports the following exchange between the two men:

Did you say that? asked Trump.

Yes, Barr responded.

How the f could you do this to me? Why did you say it?

Because its true.

The president, livid, responded by referring to himself in the third person: You must hate Trump. You must hate Trump.

There it is. In todays Republican Party, everything is filtered through Trump. Is it good for him, or bad? Do you love him, or hate him? And if that fealty means trashing traditions like backing the blue, so be it.

Steven Roberts teaches politics and journalism at George Washington University. His new book is Cokie: A Life Well Lived. He can be contacted by email at stevecokie@gmail.com.

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From the desk of Trashing Republican traditions - Ukiah Daily Journal