St. Paul police looking for hit-and-run driver who struck, injured 2 pedestrians

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Police are looking for a hit-and-run driver who struck and injured two pedestrians in St. Paul over the weekend.

Officers responded to White Bear and Idaho avenues on the Greater East Side, near the Maplewood border, just before midnight on Saturday.

St. Paul fire medics took two pedestrians, who are both women, to Regions Hospital. One was in fair condition and the other in stable condition as of early Monday afternoon, according to the hospital.

Someone was driving a dark-colored vehicle west on Idaho Avenue when they struck the women as they crossed the street, said Sgt. Mike Ernster, a police spokesman. The vehicle left north on White Bear Avenue.

“Investigators need more witnesses to come forward and tell us what they witnessed or know about this crash,” Ernster said Monday. They also want to speak to the driver of the vehicle involved.

Anyone with information is asked to contact the investigator at 651-266-5693.

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Analysis: Republicans banking on the road less traveled to Senate majority

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Nathan L. Gonzales | CQ-Roll Call (TNS)

WASHINGTON — It’s going to be difficult for Democrats to maintain control of the Senate, but they have a window of opportunity because of Republicans’ reliance on wealthy outsiders now facing the intense scrutiny of competitive U.S. Senate races.

After a couple disappointing cycles, Republicans are determined to capitalize on yet another opportunity to win the majority by recruiting wealthy challengers who can compete with Democrats’ prolific fundraising. The GOP strategy was encapsulated by a March 2023 Politico headline: “Republicans are looking for Senate candidates who are filthy rich.”

It’s a reasonable strategy considering Democratic candidates outraised GOP candidates by a sizable margin in past races from Ohio and Pennsylvania to Arizona and Georgia, leaving the National Republican Senatorial Committee or the GOP-aligned Senate Leadership Fund to make up the financial gap and inefficiently pay higher rates for TV ads.

Beyond financial resources, wealthy outsiders can also be preferable because voters are more skeptical of longtime politicians, and candidates who haven’t held previous elective office don’t have legislative voting records that can be mined for attack ads.

But a consequence of the strategy is that Republicans are heading into battle with a crop of candidates who have not experienced an intense general election, at a time when Democrats’ best path to maintaining control of the Senate is to make their Republican challengers look unqualified for the job.

The Senate battleground map is skewed in Republicans’ favor. Democrats are defending nine of the 10 states rated as competitive by Inside Elections, and the only vulnerable Republican seat, in Texas, currently held by Republican incumbent Ted Cruz, is on the outskirts of the competitive spectrum.

Republicans need to gain just two seats for a majority, but they can control the Senate by gaining one seat and winning the White House, because then the new Republican vice president could break tie votes.

In 2020, President Donald Trump won four of the 10 states hosting competitive Senate races this cycle, and could win as many as nine of 10 states if President Joe Biden can’t replicate his narrow victories in Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. In recent years states have voted for the same party for president and Senate with few exceptions.

Considering Biden is an unpopular incumbent running for reelection, Democratic Senate candidates will likely need to overperform the president at the top of the ballot.

One way to do that is to question the authenticity and biographies of the challengers, and top Republican candidates have been feeling the heat in the media in the past few weeks.

In Montana, Republican Tim Sheehy has had to explain his differing stories about the origin of his gunshot wound, according to The Washington Post. Sheehy will face Democratic Sen. Jon Tester in November.

The challenger to Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey, Republican Dave McCormick, has been criticized for the lack of time spent in the Keystone State; a New York Times story questioned the authenticity of his western Pennsylvania upbringing; and Democrats are highlighting his business connections to China.

In Wisconsin, Republican Eric Hovde has faced questions about how much of his adult life he’s spent in the Badger State and questions about his bank being named as a co-defendant in an elder abuse case. Hovde is running against Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin. And in Ohio, Republican Bernie Moreno has faced questions about his biography and business background in his effort against Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown.

Other top Republican candidates, including Kari Lake in Arizona and former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, also face challenges. Lake’s claims that the 2020 and 2022 elections were stolen, and Hogan’s GOP label in a Democratic state, are liabilities this cycle, but they’ve been through some vetting via their competitive races for governor. Sheehy has never run for office before and McCormick, Hovde, Moreno and Nevada Republican Sam Brown have never made it out of a primary.

The political outsider strategy looks good on paper, but is not a common route to the Senate. Just 15 of the current 100 senators never held office before getting elected to the Senate and two of those, Democrats Laphonza Butler of California and Michael Bennet of Colorado, were appointed. Of the 13 others, just eight had to win a competitive general election initially, including Democrats Mark Kelly of Arizona and Raphael Warnock of Georgia. Democrat Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Republicans J.D. Vance of Ohio and Rand Paul of Kentucky also won competitive general elections but had the partisanship of the state on their side.

Republican Susan Collins of Maine won a competitive race in 1996 and hadn’t held elective office, but she lost a competitive race for governor just two years earlier. Similarly, Democrat Jon Ossoff had never held office when he was elected in Georgia in the 2020 cycle, but he endured intense scrutiny in his unsuccessful House campaign in the high-profile 2017 special election for the 6th District.

The GOP archetype is Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, a wealthy businessman who was a first-time candidate when he defeated Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold with 50 percent in the Republican wave of 2010. That is a path, but it’s not the easiest or most traveled.

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There’s a contrast between the political resumes of Republican challengers and the Democrats. Democrats are rallying behind a slate of current House members: Colin Allred in Texas, Elissa Slotkin in Michigan, Ruben Gallego of Arizona, and potentially David Trone in Maryland (whose primary is in two weeks). Allred and Slotkin have weathered attacks in competitive general election fights while Gallego and Trone have prevailed through competitive primaries. They each have potential liabilities, but their biographies have received more scrutiny in past races than the average GOP Senate candidate this cycle.

Democrats are trying to amplify the various national stories in local media, but it’s still a multi-step process before it’s clear any of the questions are resonating with voters. Democrats will have to decide when and where to put various critiques in TV ads, which will reach a broader segment of the electorate than Washington Post or New York Times stories. And at the same time, the Democrats will have to deal with the incoming GOP attacks.

While the five vulnerable Democratic senators have endured millions of dollars of attacks in previous elections, Republicans are introducing new information that the incumbents haven’t faced before.

Republicans are criticizing Tester for violating his own ethics pledge, as detailed by CNN. NBC News revealed tax violations that weren’t part of Brown’s previous campaigns. Republicans are making the case that Casey has used his office to enrich his family. And they criticized Baldwin for purchasing a $1.3 million condo in Washington, D.C. Those stories landed in 2023, but will be part of the 2024 conversation.

Even though the Republican candidates are taking their lumps in the media more recently, there are at least two pieces of good news for the GOP. Candidates are facing this criticism in the spring rather than the fall. They’ll have time to respond, pivot or counterattack. And all of these Republican candidates don’t have to be stellar. The GOP can afford to have a couple crash and burn and still take control of the chamber because of the map.

A likely takeover in West Virginia — after Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin III opted not to run again — combined with a Trump win is enough to give Republicans control of the Senate. If Trump loses, Republicans just need to win one of their eight takeover opportunities, assuming Cruz wins as well. Those are good odds.

But we’ve seen Republicans snatch defeat from the jaws of victory before, and biographical questions give Democrats an opportunity to shift key races into personal contrasts rather than partisan contests. It’s a narrow, but still plausible, path for Democrats.

Nathan L. Gonzales is an elections analyst with CQ Roll Call.

©2024 CQ-Roll Call, Inc. Visit at rollcall.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Denial and uncertainty are looming over a Biden-Trump rematch 6 months out from Election Day

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By STEVE PEOPLES and ZEKE MILLER (Associated Press)

WILMINGTON, N.C. (AP) — This North Carolina voter is nervous.

Will Rikard, a 49-year-old father of two, was among several hundred Democrats who stood and cheered for Joe Biden as the first-term president delivered a fiery speech recently about the billions of dollars he has delivered to protect the state’s drinking water.

But afterward, the Wilmington resident acknowledged he is worried about Biden’s political standing in the looming rematch with former Republican President Donald Trump.

“There’s not enough energy,” Rikard said of Biden’s coalition. “I think people are gonna need to wake up and get going.”

Exactly six months before Election Day, Biden and Trump are locked in the first contest in 112 years with a current and former president competing for the White House. It’s a race that is at once deeply entrenched and highly in flux as many voters are only just beginning to embrace the reality of the 2024 campaign.

Wars, trials, the independent candidacy of Robert Kennedy Jr. and deep divisions across America have injected extraordinary uncertainty into a race for the White House in which either man would be the oldest president ever sworn in on Inauguration Day. At the same time, policy fights over abortion, immigration and the economy are raging on Capitol Hill and in statehouses.

VOTERS IN DENIAL

Hovering over it all is the disbelief of many voters, despite all evidence to the contrary, that Biden and Trump — their respective parties’ presumptive nominees — will ultimately appear on the general election ballot this fall.

“I think we have an electorate that’s going through the stages of grief about this election,” said Sarah Longwell, who conducts regular focus groups with voters across the political spectrum as co-founder of Republican Voters Against Trump. “They’ve done denial — ‘Not these two, can’t possibly be these two.’ And I think they’re in depression now. I’m waiting for people to hit acceptance.”

Trump is in the midst of the first of potentially four criminal trials and facing felony charges. The Constitution does not prevent him from assuming the presidency if convicted — or even if he is in prison.

Biden, who will turn 82 years old just weeks after Election Day, Nov. 5, is already the oldest president in U.S. history; Trump is 77.

Privately, Democratic operatives close to the campaign worry constantly about Biden’s health and voters’ dim perceptions of it. In recent weeks, aides have begun walking at Biden’s side as he strolls to and from Marine One, the presidential helicopter, on the White House South Lawn in an apparent effort to help mask the president’s stiff gait.

Still, neither party is making serious contingency plans. Whether voters want to believe it or not, the general election matchup is all but set.

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, said many voters are recovering from what he called “a knock-down, drag-out fight” that was the 2020 presidential election.

“Many of them have not wrapped their heads around the fact that it is, in fact, going to be a rematch,” Cooper said in an interview. “When they do, I don’t think there’s any question that Joe Biden is going to win the day.”

GETTING TO 270 ELECTORIAL VOTES — THE BATTLEGROUND STATES

Even before voters begin paying close attention, the political map in the fight for the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency is already taking shape.

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Biden’s campaign is increasingly optimistic about North Carolina, a state he lost by just 1 percentage point in 2020. Overall, the Democratic president’s reelection campaign has several hundred staff in more than 133 offices in the seven most critical states: Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Nevada, Wisconsin and North Carolina.

Trump’s team has barely begun to roll out swing-state infrastructure, although he campaigned in Wisconsin and Michigan over the past week, sending a clear signal that he wants to block Biden’s path to reelection via the Democrats’ Midwestern “blue wall.”

Trump campaign senior adviser Chris LaCivita said Trump is making plans to invest new resources in at least two other Democratic-leaning states.

At a private donor retreat in Florida on Saturday, LaCivita discussed the campaign’s plans to expand its electoral map into Virginia and Minnesota, based on the Trump team’s growing optimism that both states are within reach.

“We have a real opportunity to expand the map here,” LaCivita told The Associated Press. “The Biden campaign has spent tens of millions of dollars on TV ads and in their ‘vaunted ground game’. And they have nothing to show for it.”

Biden’s campaign welcomed Trump’s team to spend money in Democratic states. “The Biden campaign is going to relentlessly focus on the pathway to 270 electoral votes, and that’s what our efforts represent,” campaign communications director Michael Tyler said.

Biden has been spending far more aggressively on election infrastructure and advertising heading into the six-month stretch toward Election Day.

In the eight weeks since Trump essentially clinched the Republican nomination, his campaign has spent virtually nothing on television advertising, according to the media tracking firm AdImpact. Outside groups aligned with Trump have spent just over $9 million.

Over the same period, AdImpact found, Biden and his allies have spent more than $29 million spread across Michigan, Arizona, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Trump’s team has been unusually conservative, in part, to avoid the perceived mistakes of 2020, when his campaign essentially ran out of money and was forced to cut back on advertising in the election’s critical final days, but also because it has struggled to reignite its appeal with small donors and because of the diversion of some dollars to the former president’s legal defense.

Trump’s team insists it will soon ramp up its advertising and on-the-ground infrastructure, although LaCivita refused to offer any specifics.

VOTERS UNDERWHELMED WITH THEIR OPTIONS

It is clear that Biden and Trump have serious work to do to improve their standing with voters.

While optimistic in public, Biden allies privately acknowledge that his approval ratings may be lower than Democrat Jimmy Carter’s numbers at this point in his presidency. Trump’s ratings are not much better.

Public polling consistently shows that voters don’t like their 2024 options.

Only about 2 in 10 Americans say they would be excited by Biden (21%) or Trump (25%) being elected president, according to an AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll conducted in March. Only about one-quarter of voters in the survey say they would be satisfied about each.

A CNN poll conducted in April found that 53% of registered voters say they are dissatisfied with the presidential candidates they have to choose from in this year’s election.

Another major wild card is Kennedy, a member of the storied political dynasty and an anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist who is running as an independent. Both major campaigns are taking him seriously as a potential spoiler, with Trump’s allies notably ramping up their criticism of Kennedy in recent days.

BIDEN’S PLAN: REMIND VOTERS WHAT TRUMP’S PRESIDENCY WAS LIKE

For now, Biden’s team is most focused on reminding voters of Trump’s divisive leadership. Three years after Trump left office, there is a sense that some voters may have forgotten what it was like with the former reality television star in the Oval Office — or his efforts to overturn the 2020 election that have landed him in legal peril.

“The plan is reminding voters of what life was like with Trump and also demonstrating to voters that the ways in which the world feels uncertain to them now are not, in fact, caused by the president, but can actually be navigated by this president,” Biden pollster Molly Murphy told the AP. “Voters will trust his leadership and stewardship, knowing that things can be a lot worse if it’s Donald Trump.”

Biden’s team is also betting that fierce backlash to new restrictions on abortion, which Trump and Republicans have largely championed, will drive voters to Democrats like it did in the 2022 midterm election and 2023 state races.

But Biden’s success also is dependent on the Democrat’s ability to reassemble his winning coalition from 2020 at a time when enthusiasm is lagging among critical voting blocs, including Blacks, young voters and Arab Americans unhappy over the president’s handling of the war in Gaza.

TRUMP’S PLAN: TURN HIS LEGAL WOES TO HIS ADVANTAGE

Trump has been forced to adapt his campaign to his first criminal trial in New York. Prosecutors allege he committed financial fraud to hide hush money payments to a porn actor, Stormy Daniels, who says she had a sexual encounter with Trump. He denies her claim and has pleaded not guilty.

For now, Trump is forced to attend the trial most weekdays. A verdict is likely still weeks away. And after that, he faces the prospect of more trials related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election and his handling of classified documents. The Supreme Court is weighing whether Trump should be granted immunity, or partial immunity, for the actions he took while in office.

Trump over the past week wedged in campaign stops around his court schedule, rallying voters in Wisconsin and Michigan, where the abortion debate is raging.

Trump seemed to be searching for a way to lessen the political sting from the upheaval over the Supreme Court’s overturning of national abortion rights. The former president suggested the issue will ultimately bring the country together as states carve out differing laws.

“A lot of bad things will happen beyond the abortion issue if you don’t win elections, with your taxes and everything else,” he told Michigan voters.

Trump’s camp privately maintains that his unprecedented trial in New York will dominate the news — and voters’ attention — for the foreseeable future. His campaign has largely stopped trying to roll out unrelated news during the trial.

Even if Trump were to be convicted by the New York jury, his advisers insist the fundamentals of the election will not change. Trump has worked aggressively to undermine public confidence in the charges against him. Meanwhile, more traditional issues work in his favor, including stubbornly high inflation and the situation at the U.S.-Mexico border, in the view of the Trump team.

LaCivita said that such issues constantly reinforce Biden’s weakness as “the news of the day keeps getting worse.”

Both sides seem to agree that the dynamics of the race may yet shift dramatically based on any number of factors, from how the economy fares or the course of the wars in Gaza and Ukraine to crime or migration trends or other foreseen events. Potential candidate debates this fall could be another wild card.

Such uncertainty, said Biden’s battleground states director Dan Kanninen, can play to their favor.

“That dynamic is an opportunity as much as a challenge for us,” he said, “because we will have the resources, the infrastructure and the operation built to be engaging voters throughout all those difficult waters.”

Miller reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Linley Sanders in Washington and Michelle L. Price in Freeland, Michigan, contributed to this report.

NYC Housing Calendar, May 7-13

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City Limits rounds up the latest housing and land use-related events, public hearings and affordable housing lotteries that are ending soon.

Adi Talwar

Homes on Linden Boulevard near 168th Street in Queens.

Welcome to City Limits’ NYC Housing Calendar, a weekly feature where we round up the latest housing and land use-related events and hearings, as well as upcoming affordable housing lotteries that are ending soon.

Know of an event we should include in next week’s calendar? Email us.

Upcoming Housing and Land Use-Related Events:

Tuesday, May 7 at 9:30 a.m.: The NYC Council’s Committee on Public Housing will hold a hearing on NYCHA’s budget. More here.

Tuesday, May 7 at 9:30 a.m.: The NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission will hold a public hearing and meeting on a number of applications. More here.

Tuesday, May 7 at 11:30 a.m.: The State Senate’s Standing Committee on Banks will hold a public hearing on unequal access to loans in New York’s mortgage banking and credit industry. More here.

Tuesday, May 7 at 6:30 p.m.: The City Club of New York will host a panel talk called “Rethinking the Housing Crisis: Beyond Supply-Demand Dogma.” More here.

Wednesday, May 8 at 11 a.m.: The NYC Council’s Subcommittee on Zoning and Franchises will meet. More here.

Wednesday, May 8 at 12 p.m.: The NYC Council’s Subcommittee on Landmarks, Public Sitings and Dispositions will hold a hearing on a land use application for Timbale Terrace, a proposed 19 story affordable housing project to replace an NYPD parking lot in East Harlem. More here.

Wednesday, May 8 at 12:30 p.m.: The NYC Council’s Committee on Land Use will meet. More here.

Thursday, May 9 from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.: City & State will host a day of panel discussions and speeches for its Affordable Housing in New York Summit. More here.

Thursday, May 9 at 10 a.m.: The New York Mortgage Coalition will host a panel discussion on the impact of Local Law 97 on the city’s affordable housing. More here.

Thursday, May 9 at 12 p.m.: The NYC Department of Buildings will host an online webinar for homeowners, property owners, and property managers about its online resources including DOB NOW, Building Permits, Certificate of Occupancy (COB) and the Building Information System (BIS). More here.

Monday, May 13 at 1 p.m.: The NYC Planning Commission will hold a review session; the agenda is not yet available. More here.

NYC Affordable Housing Lotteries Ending Soon: The New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) are closing lotteries on the following subsidized buildings over the next week.

154 Lenox Road Apartments, Brooklyn, for households earning between $78,858 – $218,010

35-10 Union Street Apartments, Queens, for households earning between $73,715 – $218,010

36-26 172nd Street Apartments, Queens, for households earning between $111,429 – $218,010

45 Lenox Road Apartments, Brooklyn, for households earning between $65,143 – $218,010

The Sierra Chelsea, Manhattan, for households earning between $107,623 – $161,590