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SALT LAKE CITY (AP) Three GOP candidates hoping to replace former Rep. Jason Chaffetz in Congress faced off Tuesday in a primary election after weeks trying to burnish their conservative credentials and fend off attack ads from deep-pocketed outside groups.

Chaffetz abruptly stepped down from his seat in June after making a name for himself as the Republican who relentlessly investigated Hillary Clinton and her emails while he was chairman of the House Oversight Committee.

His departure opened up a congressional seat in a district where Republicans outnumber Democrats five-to-one, offering voters and donors a choice between three candidates emblematic of the divisions roiling the GOP under President Donald Trump.

Moderate Utah Republicans have backed a popular mayor, John Curtis, who was once a Democrat and said he had strong moral concerns that kept him from voting for Trump.

Those further to the right have split their support behind Chris Herrod, a former state lawmaker known for strict immigration positions, and Tanner Ainge, a business consultant, first-time candidate and son of Boston Celtics president Danny Ainge.

Out-of-state organizations and political action committees have spent about $900,000 in Utah's race on top of about $600,000 in campaign contributions collected by the three Republicans running for Utah's 3rd Congressional District.

Outside spending of that magnitude is generally only seen in heavily Republican Utah when Democrats and Republicans face off in an occasional close race.

Early voter turnout was about 22 percent, and that number was expected to rise with polls open on Tuesday, said elections director Mark Thomas. Total turnout in the last primary, where Chaffetz was a popular incumbent, was about 33 percent.

Herrod, 51, and Ainge, 33, both voted for Trump, but all three candidates say they support the president's agenda including plans to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border, revamp the tax code and repeal the Affordable Care Act.

Curtis, the target of most of the out-of-state attack ads, has faced suspicion and criticism from some Republicans for his 2000 run as a Democrat for the state Legislature and his time leading a county Democratic party. The 57-year-old identifies today as a conservative Republican and points out that Ronald Reagan, Trump and Chaffetz were all Democrats at one point.

For Ada Wilson, a 59-year-old Republican homemaker from Orem, Curtis' stint across the aisle is one of the reasons she's voting for him. Wilson said it shows Curtis can work in a bipartisan way to get things done.

"I think he acknowledges that being Republican with an 'R' by your name does not automatically make you a keeper of all the answers," she said.

David Nelson, a pharmaceutical representative from Salem, Utah, said he thinks Curtis' Democratic past shows he's not a conservative. Nelson said it's OK that Ainge hasn't held public office, and he's voting for the younger candidate because of his "business-minded" outlook.

"I think that you don't have to have all the experience in the world to go to Washington and work for the people," he said. "You just have to be in tune with the pulse of the people."

Martin Wilkins, a 39-year-old UPS worker from Orem, said Ainge seems like a nice guy but is too young and inexperienced.

"In the political world, he's just a kid and no one is going to listen to him," Wilkins said. "If you go into college and a kindergarten student starts trying to order people around, no one is going to listen."

Wilkins said he voted for Herrod because seems like the kind of person who tells it straight, whether it's popular or not.

The winner coming out of Tuesday's race will face a well-funded Democratic opponent who initially jumped in to challenge Chaffetz earlier this year. Kathryn Allen socked away more than half a million dollars after she called out Chaffetz early this year for his comments suggesting people should spend money on health care instead of iPhones.

Chaffetz made a surprise announcement that he was resigning at the end of June, citing a desire to spend more time with family after eight years in Congress. He's since taken a role as a Fox News commentator and announced he will be one of six visiting fellows at Harvard University this fall.

His announcement made what would have been a quiet municipal Election Day in which counties were conducting their first mail-in voting into a more complicated affair, and there have been problems with unaffiliated voters receiving ballots that should have gone only to Republicans.

Election officials have explained that unaffiliated voters can vote in the primary if they come to the polls and register as Republicans on Election Day. Unaffiliated votes for Republican candidates won't be counted.

Several third-party candidates are also running in November, including Jim Bennett, the son of the late former U.S. Sen. Bob Bennett, a longtime Republican who lost re-election in 2010, the first of several GOP candidates ousted in tea-party fueled wave. Jim Bennett is running as the first candidate of a new centrist party, the United Utah Party.

Associated Press writer Brady McCombs contributed to this report.

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3 Republicans face off in Utah primary for vacant House seat - STLtoday.com

"Mr. President - we must call evil by its name," tweeted Sen. Cory Gardner of Colorado. "These were white supremacists and this was domestic terrorism."

But, a look back at the two-plus years since Trump burst onto the political scene suggests a disturbing pattern -- which goes like this:

1. Trump says or does something controversial or just plain wrong.

2. Republican elected leaders condemn him for it.

3. Trump never apologizes or acknowledges any sort of remorse or wrongdoing.

4. Republican elected officials carry on in support of Trump and his agenda.

I plucked out nine of the most high-profile instances in which Republican condemnation of Trump turned to acceptance. These are in no order other than that in which I recalled them.

"Who wrote that? Did Hillary's scriptwriters write it?" Trump said in an interview with ABC News' George Stephanopoulos right after the Democratic convention. Trump also responded directly to the attack from Khan that the Republican nominee had never known true sacrifice: "I think I've made a lot of sacrifices," Trump said. "I work very, very hard."

At a campaign rally in May 2016 in San Diego, Trump took out after Gonzalo Curiel, the judge in a lawsuit against Trump University.

"Everybody says it, but I have a judge who is a hater of Donald Trump, a hater," Trump said. "He's a hater. His name is Gonzalo Curiel."

Trump went on to insinuate that Curiel's Mexican heritage -- though the judge was born in Indiana -- meant that he couldn't offer a fair ruling because of Trump's position on building a wall on the US' southern border.

In February 2016, Trump was asked -- again, by Tapper -- about David Duke, a prominent white supremacist who had endorsed him days earlier.

During the campaign, Trump claimed that he remembered Muslims celebrating on New Jersey rooftops on September 11, 2001. Kovaleski was a reporter for The Washington Post at the time, had investigated those reports and found nothing to them.

Trump, unhappy with the the way the one-time Fox News anchor moderated a Republican primary debate, took after Megyn Kelly. "You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes," Trump told CNN's Don Lemon on Friday night. "Blood coming out of her wherever."

He later insisted his reference had nothing to do with Kelly's menstrual cycle. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, at the time a Trump primary challenger, said he "would certainly never say anything about a person like that, and I hope [Trump] apologizes because I think that he should."

In his announcement speech in June 2015, Trump said Mexico was sending bad people to the US. "They're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with us," Trump said. "They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists."

Bush said of the comment: "He's doing this to inflame and incite and to draw attention, which seems to be the organizing principle of his campaign."

And yet, through it all, Trump is still in the White House and still, broadly speaking, enjoys the backing of the vast majority of Republican elected officials. Remember that when considering all of the condemnation being issued of Trump's latest major mistake.

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9 times Republicans denounced Trump but came back to him - CNN International

By Robert Bradley | August 15, 2017, 11:10 EDT

Printed from: http://newbostonpost.com/2017/08/15/republicans-need-to-build-their-coalition-not-destroy-it/

One might think that Republicans would understand that political power in America is all about building coalitions. The Republican Party was founded in 1854 by creating a coalition of anti-slavery Northerners and the remnants of the Whig party. Abolitionists, merchants, and the emerging urban middle class combined to create a party which ran the U.S. government most of the time from 1861 until 1913. Moralists and economic pragmatists joined together to win political power and use it effectively. The coalition split in 1912, when Republican Teddy Roosevelt ran against Republican President William Taft, thereby handing the presidency to Woodrow Wilson.

Fast forward one hundred years. Republicans today are in as much disarray as in 1912. How did they get here?

Republicans were largely out of power between FDRs landslide victory in 1932 and 1980, because Democrats had built their own powerful coalition of Northern liberals from large cities and Southern conservatives. But then Republicans figured out how to build another coalition. It started with the conservatives like William F. Buckley Jr. making common cause with Barry Goldwaters losing campaign in 1964, survived Richard Nixons zigzagging and disastrous ending, and came to fruition in the person of Ronald Reagan.

The coalition was made up of economic conservatives and libertarians, patriots who believed America needed a strong foreign policy and military to defeat the evil empire, and social conservatives who focused on strong families, the sanctity of life, and traditional standards of right and wrong.

What were the demographics of this coalition which held together (with a few miscues) from 1981 through 2008? Men, married women, the white working class (Reagan Democrats), and the middle class outside the coastal states. In fact, the coalition was so broad that President Reagan won 49 states in 1984; Mondale won only his home state of Minnesota.

To win, Republicans need voters who care about three crucial groups of issues, which do not necessarily overlap: a strong economy with robust GDP growth and job creation (smaller government and less regulation); a foreign policy and effective military which projects American power to aid our friends and confound our enemies; and traditional moral values dealing with marriage, intact families, and life, which are vital to healthy communities.

In short, economic conservatives, patriots, and social conservatives! When these three groups of voters split or fall out, Republicans lose. And to exercise power effectively and hold it at the polls, Republicans within these three groups need to compromise and work together.

This is not rocket science. What is wrong with Republicans in Washington now? Are they so anti-Trump that they want to see their party fail? Are they more interested in grandstanding for the folks back home than accomplishing Republican goals? Are they narcissists like John McCain whose DNA leads him to feel fulfilled only when acting in opposition (to the enemy or his own party)? (Imagine voting against your own party in the health care debate in the Senate only to receive accolades and hugs from your Democratic opponents.) Are some senators more attached to the Freedom Caucus than their own party? Are key senators so focused on standing for the Presidency in the 2020 elections that they refuse to work within an effective coalition?

Democrats in Washington enforce strict party discipline. It is extremely rare to see a Democratic legislator vote against his or her own party. There are serious consequences for doing so. Not so in the Republican Party! Republicans need to utilize the three-line whip system which is used in the U.K. parliamentary system. A three-line whip is a strict instruction from party leaders that those elected to office in their party must attend and vote with the party. A breach of the three-line whip directive has serious consequences, including preferences in committee assignments and even withdrawal of party support and funds in the next election.

The Republican Party in Washington is pathetic. It is a joke except that squandering this great opportunity to unwind the eight-year debacle of the Obama administration is more tragic than comic. Republicans need to strengthen the coalition which has given them both houses of Congress and the White House not fritter it away! The current Republican coalition can maintain power and use it effectively for a long time, if only Republicans in Washington can learn the precious virtue of unity.

Robert H. Bradley is Chairman of Bradley, Foster & Sargent Inc., a $3.25 billion wealth management firm that has offices in Hartford, Connecticut, and Wellesley, Massachusetts. This column represents his personal views and does not represent the views of the firm.Read other articles by himhere.

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Republicans Need To Build Their Coalition, Not Destroy It - NewBostonPost (blog)

Aug. 14, 2017 at 11:10 AM

President Trump at the White House on Monday.

One of the big questions heading into the 2018 midterm elections maybe the biggest is how President Trumps unpopularity will affect Republican fortunes. Normally, a president with historically low approval ratings would be a disaster for his party in Senate and House races in a midterm year.

But should we really be presuming that what normally happens will happen again? For one, Trump won the White House despite having record low favorable ratings. And its possible, as CNBCs John Harwood pointed out, that partisan allegiances may be so baked in nowadays that Democrats wont be able to attract Republican voters, however much theyve soured on Trump. Maybe partisan polarization has grown too strong.

Some commentators have taken this argument to extremes. Fox News host Eric Bolling last month effectively argued that Trump is immune from the normal rules of politics. Just look at those crowds, he said, referring to a recent Trump rally in Ohio. Watch the people, not the polls.

The available evidence, however, suggests many of the old rules do still apply. Caution, like what Harwood and political analyst Scott Rasmussen have advised, is more than warranted, especially given Trumps history of surprising analysts and pundits. Partisan polarization has increased, and there is plenty of time for Trumps approval rating to improve. But caution is one thing; ignoring history and evidence, as pundits like Bolling want us to do, is another. And the idea that the normal rules of politics dont apply to Trump strikes me as the latter at least according to the data before us. Early signs suggest that Trumps low approval rating is having exactly the negative effect on down-ballot Republicans that history would predict.

Midterm elections are often thought of as referendums on the sitting president. When theres been an unpopular Democrat in the White House, voters have swung toward Republicans in congressional races. With a struggling Republican president, voters swing Democratic. You can see this by looking at the effect a presidents approval rating has on the national House vote. Specifically, we can look at how much the national House margin would be expected to shift from the previous presidential election based upon the presidents approval rating right before the midterm election.

In 2004, for example, Republicans won the national House vote by 3 percentage points. But two years later, in 2006, with President George W. Bushs approval rating at 38 percent, Republicans lost the House vote by 8 points a 11-point swing from 2004.

Its far from perfect, but in midterm elections since 1946, theres a clear relationship between the presidents approval rating and the swing in the House vote.

Trumps current approval rating is 38 percent. Historically, we would expect a president that unpopular to cause his party to lose around 11 points off its previous House margin. Republicans won the national House vote by 1 percentage point in 2016, so this suggests they would lose it by 10 points if the midterm elections were held today.

Obviously, the 2018 midterm isnt being held today. Trumps approval could rise or fall over the next year. But we do have some measures of the current political environment we can use to see if the normal relationship between a presidents popularity and voter preferences is holding.

First up: the generic congressional ballot, a common poll question that asks respondents whether they will vote for the Democrat or Republican in their congressional district. Democrats right now hold a 46 percent to 37 percent lead, according to the FiveThirtyEight aggregate. Thats a bigger lead than Democrats had at any point in 2016 cycle, and its in line with the margin necessary for Democrats to take back the House.

That 9-point Democratic edge is also right in line with what youd expect given an incumbent president with an approval rating in the high 30s. So according to the generic congressional ballot, the normal rules of politics are still hanging on in the Trump era voters dissatisfaction with Trump is affecting their preferences for the House in the way youd expect based on past elections.

OK, I can already feel the FAKE POLLS! tweets coming. But its not just in polling where we see the negative effect of Trumps unpopularity on Republicans. You can also see it in the special elections held so far this year actual voters actually voting.

There have been 30 special state legislature and U.S. congressional elections since Trump was sworn-in as president. Democrats, as a group, have been outperforming the partisan lean in these districts tending to come close in ruby red districts, winning swing districts and romping in light blue districts. More specifically, Democratic candidates have done about 16 percentage points better, on average, than youd expect in a national environment in which no party held the advantage. (Imagine a world in which the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates tie 50-50 in the popular vote). This overperformance holds as well for the smaller subset of congressional elections.

2017 state legislative and congressional special election results vs. districts partisan lean based on recent presidential results

*Democratic and Republican vote shares are for all candidates of each respective party. The partisan lean compares the districts vote in the last two presidential elections to the nations, with the 2016 election weighted 75 percent and the 2012 election weighted 25 percent.

Source: Secretaries of state, Daily Kos Elections

That 16-point difference is about what youd expect given a president with an average approval rating in the low 40s Trumps average over the course of his presidency so far. Below, you can see the presidents average approval rating from his inauguration to the next midterm election since 1994 and compare it to how much the presidents party over- or underperformed the partisan lean in the average special congressional election during that time.

The dataset is small and the relationship isnt perfect, but it clearly exists. A president whose approval rating averages 41 percent from his inauguration to the midterm corresponds to his party underperforming the weighted lean in the average district by 11 points. Republicans are actually doing slightly worse than that right now, though well within the range expected.

So the generic ballot and the special elections held so far both suggest Trumps low approval ratings are having a normal effect on down-ballot races. The question going forward is whether Trump can improve his approval ratings or whether congressional Republicans can distance themselves from the Trump brand. If either occurs, then Republicans stand a good chance of holding onto their majority in the House. If neither happens and Republicans lose the House, Trump will get a big portion of the blame.

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The Normal Rules Of Politics Still Apply To Trump And To Republicans In Congress - FiveThirtyEight

After President Trump condemned "many sides" for the violence in Charlottesville on Aug. 12, Republican and Democratic politicians criticized him for not calling out white supremacy while the attorney general and other administration officials defended his statement. (Bastien Inzaurralde,Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post)

When President Trump issued his travel ban a few days into his presidency,at least eight Senate Republicans opposed it. When he fired his FBI director in May, more than a dozen Senate Republicans openly questioned it. When Trump prodded senators to vote for an Obamacare repeal bill, three of them didn't. When Trump urged Republicans to try again or risk being labeled failures, they ignored him. When Trump started attacking Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) last week, a handful of them went out of their way to publicly back McConnell.

And with Charlottesvilleon its knees this weekend as protests led by white supremacists turned deadly, Senate Republicans had their most overt conflict with the president yet.

A number of Senate Republicans criticized nothing less than the way Trump chose to be president Saturday. They publicly and directly condemned his words and actions. More specifically, they criticized his lack of words and actions toclearly and forcefully denounce the white supremacyroiling Charlottesville's streets and seizing the nation's attention.

White supremacists and neo-Nazis are, by definition, opposed to American patriotism and the ideals that define us as a people and make our nation special, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said in a statement.

There's no nuance in those statements, no need to read between the lines. These Republicans think the president did a bad job being president in the midst of a violent, fraught crisis. Their criticism carries extra heft when you consider that these lawmakers mostly weren't prodded by reporters, microphones thrust in their faces, to say any of this. Congress is on break, so wherever in the world these lawmakers were, they made the proactivedecision Saturday to go on Twitter or call up their staff towrite a statement andcriticize the president.

This moment has echoes of the release of the crude Access Hollywood tape in the last month of the 2016 presidential campaign. These senators would probably rather not get into it with the leader of their party, but they feel as if he has done something so egregious that they have no choice but to speak out.

Making their criticism of Trump even more notable: Just a few days ago came atangible warning of the consequences that criticizing Trump can bring. After Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) wrote a book declaring that his party is in denial about Trump, a pro-Trump donor wrote one of the senator'sprimary challengers a $300,000 check.

Not everyone who spoke out Saturday has as much on the line as Flake. Most aren't even up for reelection in 2018. (Though Gardner is the chairman of Senate Republicans' reelectioncommittee.)

And liberals shouldn't get their hopes up that this means Republicans are suddenly on the impeachment path. But the past few months, and especially this weekend, make clear that Republicans in Congress are increasingly comfortableconfronting their president in more direct ways.

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'We should call evil by its name': Republicans are standing up to Trump more directly than ever on Charlottesville - Washington Post