By Herb Jackson, CQ-Roll Call

WASHINGTON — Voters in California could fill a vacant House seat Tuesday, while elections in Illinois and Ohio will pick nominees for another empty seat, decide the fates of challenged incumbents and set matchups for fall battleground races.

Some contests have drawn heavy spending, including one where three candidates have each already loaned their campaigns more than $2 million. Another has been fueled by lingering bitterness between two House Republicans from last year’s battles over making former California Rep. Kevin McCarthy the House speaker.

There are also many districts in which one party is heavily favored and there’s no real contest. In a year that has seen more resignations and retirements than average, each of the 17 incumbents in Illinois is running for reelection, and 11 of them, including 10 of the 14 Democrats, are unopposed in their party primaries. In Ohio, all of the five Democratic incumbents are unopposed in the primary, as are five of the eight Republican incumbents running.

Here’s a look at eight races in the three states that are worth watching on Tuesday.

Two Illinois incumbents on the hot seat

Republican Rep. Mike Bost and Democratic Rep. Danny K. Davis each face competitive challenges in Illinois.

In Chicago, 82-year-old Davis is seeking the Democratic nomination to a 15th term against four challengers.

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City Treasurer Melissa Conyears-Ervin raised $183,000 more than Davis since the cycle began, reports filed to the Federal Election Commission show. And through Feb. 28, Conyears-Ervin spent $523,000 to the incumbent’s $497,000. But she has faced ethics allegations tied to her role as treasurer, and Davis has survived challenges before, including in 2022 when gun violence prevention advocate Kina Collins came within 6 percentage points of beating him. Collins is running againn but she raised just $72,000 through Feb. 28, and a pro-Israel super PAC spent $494,000 on ads and direct mail opposing her.

Davis’ 7th District backed President Joe Biden over Donald Trump by 73 points in 2020, and the race in November is rated “Solid Democratic” by Inside Elections with Nathan L. Gonzales.

In southern Illinois, a Republican battle is playing out in the 12th District, where Trump beat Biden by 43 points and the November race is rated “Solid Republican.”

Bost’s campaign spent nearly $1.4 million from Jan. 1 to Feb. 28 as he seeks a sixth term. Running against him for the nomination is former state Sen. Darren Bailey, the state’s 2022 Republican gubernatorial nominee.

Bailey’s spending during through Feb. 28 was just $192,000, but he has the backing of one of the conservative base’s high-wattage personalities, Florida Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz. During the intraparty battles over making and then replacing McCarthy as speaker, Bost shouted at Gaetz on the House floor in January and reportedly lunged at him during a closed conference in October.

“I’m trying to change Congress, and we can’t do it with the people we have there now,” Gaetz told WSIL News at a campaign event for Bailey in February. “Mike Bost gets angry and yells at me because I make things difficult for some of the established interests in Washington, D.C.”

Through Feb. 28, Bailey had self-funded $205,000 of the $505,000 he had raised, and since the month started, he’s put an extra $105,000 of his own money into the race, late filings show.

Bost, however, was endorsed by Trump days after Gaetz’s appearance in the district, a fact he touts in ads. Bost also has the backing of Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and outside groups including the Illinois Agricultural Association have spent $122,000 supporting him.

Three vacant or open seats

McCarthy resigned in December, and nine candidates are running in a special election Tuesday to serve the remainder of his term this year in California’s 20th District. State Assemblymember Vince Fong, a Republican, is on the ballot again after getting the most votes March 5 in an 11-candidate all-party primary for a full term starting next year. Also running Tuesday is Tulare County Sheriff Mike Boudreaux, a fellow Republican who finished second on March 5 and will face Fong in November. Votes are still being tallied, but Fong’s total in the primary stood at 42 percent and Boudreaux’s at 24 percent on Friday. On Tuesday, one of the candidates has to get more than 50 percent, or there will be a runoff on May 21 to fill the seat.

In Ohio, there are intense Republican contests for a vacant seat in the 6th District, left open by Republican Rep. Bill Johnson’s resignation to become a university president in January, and for the 2nd District seat opening up next year because of the retirement of Republican Rep. Brad Wenstrup. Trump won the 2nd District by 45 points and won the 6th District by 29 points. Both races this fall are rated “Solid Republican.”

A special primary for the remainder of Johnson’s term and a primary for a full term are both being held Tuesday, and the same three Republicans are running in each race: state Sen. Michael Rulli, state Rep. Reggie Stoltzfus and chiropractor Joe Tsai. Rulli and Stoltzfus have raised similar amounts, but a personal loan made up $250,000 of the $488,000 Stoltzfus had raised through Feb. 28.

Rulli started with advantages: more of his legislative constituents are in the congressional district than Stoltzfus’, and he has run competitive campaigns before, Inside Elections’ Jacob Rubashkin reported. Both Rulli and Stoltzfus have produced ads promising to finish a border wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Rulli’s ads also tout his family’s grocery stores, which could give him another connection in the district. Stoltzfus has pitched himself as a “Christian conservative” and attacked Rulli as a “woke liberal” for sponsoring an anti-LGBT discrimination bill.

In the 2nd District, there are 11 Republicans vying for the nomination. Three of them — concrete company owner and former prosecutor David Taylor, staffing company owner Larry Kidd and former Marine drill instructor and retail franchisor Tim O’Hara — each put more than $2 million of their own money into the campaign through Feb. 28 and are running as conservatives who support Trump. Former Cincinnati Council member Phil Heimlich has criticized the others in the race for overlooking Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election, and in one ad says Democrats or independents “can still ask for a Republican ballot.” While Heimlich’s campaign had spent just $121,000, less than five others in the race, a super PAC called Buckeyes for Values that was created in February and has not yet disclosed its donors spent an additional $242,000 on mail and text messages supporting him. Two Democrats are on the ballot, but one of them, Joe Wessels, dropped out of the race in February and endorsed Heimlich.

Ohio does not have a runoff system, so the crowded field of Trump backers could fracture the vote and a Trump critic who appealed for Democratic and independent crossover votes could win the GOP nomination.

Three fall battlegrounds

Republicans will pick nominees to face three Democratic incumbents — Reps. Eric Sorensen of Illinois and Marcy Kaptur and Emilia Sykes of Ohio — whose races could be competitive in November.

Kaptur, the longest-serving woman in Congress who is seeking her 22nd term, is one of a handful of Democrats representing a district Trump won in 2020. The candidate she beat last cycle, J.R. Majewski, ended his campaign for this year’s nomination earlier this month, though he remains on the 9th District primary ballot with state Rep. Craig Riedel, state Rep. Derek Merrin and former Napoleon Mayor Steve Lankenau.

Kaptur had $1.5 million in her campaign account on Feb. 28, while Riedel had $234,000, followed by Merrin with $94,000 and Lankenau at $19,000. Riedel put an additional $80,000 of his own money into his campaign on March 11, on top of the $175,000 he’d previously loaned.

Merrin is backed by the Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC allied with the House GOP leadership that spent $756,000 on ads, direct mail, text messages and phone calls supporting him. Americans for Prosperity Action has spent $227,000 supporting Riedel, who also has the backing of Ohio Republican Rep. Jim Jordan, a co-founder of the House Freedom Caucus.

In Ohio’s 13th District, which Biden won with just 51 percent of the vote in 2020, Sykes is seeking a second term. Republicans vying to challenge her are Hudson City Council member Chris Banweg, former state Sen. Kevin Coughlin and a former television technician for the Goodyear blimp, Richard Morckel. Coughlin self-funded about half the $332,000 he had raised through Feb. 21, while Banweg got all but $13,000 of the $280,000 he raised from donors. Morckel did not raise and spend enough to file an FEC report.

In Illinois’ 17th District, Sorensen is seeking his second term in a district Biden won with 53 percent in 2020. Retired Judge Joe McGraw has the fundraising edge over farmer and former union president Scott Crowl in the GOP primary. McGraw had raised $334,000 for the cycle, with numerous donations from House Republicans’ campaign and leadership PAC accounts. Donors gave Crowl just $7,400, and after he loaned his campaign an additional $91,000, he had $33,000 left on Feb. 28. Sorensen, meanwhile, had $1.8 million in his campaign account.

Inside Elections rates the November races for Sorensen’s and Kaptur’s seats as Lean Democratic and Sykes’ seat Tilt Democratic.

One other race rated “Lean Democratic” in Ohio is that of 1st District Democratic Rep. Greg Landsman. While it may be a fall battleground, it is not in the primary: Both Landsman and Republican Orlando Sonza, an Army veteran, are unopposed in their respective primaries.

©2024 CQ-Roll Call, Inc., All Rights Reserved. Visit cqrollcall.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

By ADRIANA GOMEZ LICON (Associated Press)

MIAMI (AP) — Former Trump White House official Peter Navarro reported to prison Tuesday to begin serving his sentence for refusing to cooperate with a congressional investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Navarro was defiant in remarks to reporters before he headed to a federal lockup in Miami, where he will serve a four-month sentence after being found guilty of contempt of Congress charges.

Navarro was found guilty in September of defying a subpoena for documents and a deposition from the U.S. House Jan. 6 committee that investigated the 2021 capitol attack. He served as a White House trade adviser under then-President Donald Trump and later promoted the Republican’s baseless claims of mass voter fraud in the 2020 election that the incumbent president lost to Democrat Joe Biden.

Navarro has maintained that he couldn’t cooperate with the committee because Trump had invoked executive privilege. Courts have rejected that argument, finding Navarro couldn’t prove Trump had actually invoked it.

“When I walk in that prison today, the justice system — such as it is — will have done a crippling blow to the constitutional separation of powers and executive privilege,” Navarro told reporters Tuesday across the street from the prison.

Navarro then got in a car with his lawyer to head to the lockup, and the federal Bureau of Prisons confirmed later Tuesday that Navarro was in custody.

Navarro had asked to stay free while he appealed his conviction to give the courts time to consider his challenge. But Washington’s federal appeals court denied his bid to stave off his sentence, finding his appeal wasn’t likely to reverse his conviction.

And Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts on Monday also refused to step in, saying in a written order that he has “no basis to disagree” with the appeals court. Roberts said his finding doesn’t affect the eventual outcome of Navarro’s appeal.

Navarro was the second Trump aide convicted of contempt of Congress charges. Former White House adviser Steve Bannon previously received a four-month sentence but a different judge allowed him to stay free pending appeal.

The House committee spent 18 months investigating the insurrection, interviewing over 1,000 witnesses, holding 10 hearings and obtaining more than 1 million pages of documents. In its final report, the panel ultimately concluded that Trump criminally engaged in a “multi-part conspiracy” to overturn the election results and failed to act to stop his supporters from storming the Capitol.

____

Associated Press reporter Alanna Durkin Richer contributed from Boston.

By Lisa Mascaro, Mary Clare Jalonick and Jill Colvin, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican Donald Trump has launched his general election campaign not merely rewriting the history of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack, but positioning the violent siege and its failed attempt to overturn the 2020 election as a cornerstone of his bid to return to the White House.

At a weekend rally in Ohio, his first as the presumed Republican Party presidential nominee, Trump stood onstage, his hand raised in salute to the brim of his red MAGA hat, as a recorded chorus of prisoners in jail for their roles in the Jan. 6 attack sang the national anthem.

FILE – President Donald Trump arrives to speak at a rally in Washington, on Jan. 6, 2021. Trump is making the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol a cornerstone of his bid to return to the White House. Trump opened his first rally as the presumed Republican Party presidential nominee standing in salute with a recorded chorus of Jan. 6 prisoners singing the national anthem.(AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)

An announcer asked the crowd to please rise “for the horribly and unfairly treated January 6th hostages.” And people did, and sang along.

“They were unbelievable patriots,” Trump said as the recording ended.

Having previously vowed to pardon the rioters, he promised to help them “the first day we get into office.”

Initially relegated to a fringe theory on the edges of the Republican Party, the revisionist history of Jan. 6, which Trump amplified during the early days of the GOP primary campaign to rouse his most devoted voters, remains a rally centerpiece even as he must appeal more broadly to a general election audience.

In heaping praise on the rioters, Trump is shifting blame for his own role in the run-up to the bloody mob siege and asking voters to absolve hundreds of them — and himself — over the deadliest attack on a seat of American power in 200 years.

 

At the same time, Trump’s allies are installing 2020 election-deniers to the Republican National Committee, further institutionalizing the lies that spurred the violence. That raises red flags about next year, when Congress will again be called upon to certify the vote.

And they’re not alone. Republicans in Congress are embarking on a re-investigation of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack that seeks to shield Trump of wrongdoing while lawmakers are showcasing side theories about why thousands of his supporters descended on Capitol Hill in what became a brutal scene of hand-to-hand combat with police.

Five people died in the riot and its aftermath.

Taken together, it’s what those who study authoritarian regimes warn is a classic case of what’s called consolidation — where the state apparatus is being transformed around a singular figure, in this case Trump.

Jason Stanley, a philosophy professor at Yale, said in history the question comes up over and over again: How could people not have taken an authoritarian leader at his word about what was going to happen?

“Listen to Trump,” he said.

FILE – Supporters of President Donald Trump gather for a rally on Jan. 6, 2021, at the Ellipse near the White House in Washington. Trump is making the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol a cornerstone of his bid to return to the White House. Trump opened his first rally as the presumed Republican Party presidential nominee standing in salute with a recorded chorus of Jan. 6 prisoners singing the national anthem. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File)

“When a coup against the democratic regime happens and it’s not punished, that is a very strong indicator of the end of the rule of law and the victory of that authoritarian movement,” said Stanley, the author of “How Fascism Works.”

“Americans have a hard time understanding that what happens in most of the world can happen here, too.”

Trump is facing a four-count federal indictment over Jan. 6 — charges he conspired to defraud Americans over his 2020 election defeat and obstructed the official proceeding in Congress to certify the vote for Joe Biden. As the Supreme Court considers Trump’s claim that he should be immune from prosecution, it’s unclear when the case will go to trial, raising the possibility it might not be resolved until after the election.

FILE – Supporters of President Donald Trump riot at the Capitol in Washington, on Jan. 6, 2021. Trump is making the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol a cornerstone of his bid to return to the White House. Trump opened his first rally as the presumed Republican Party presidential nominee standing in salute with a recorded chorus of Jan. 6 prisoners singing the national anthem. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez, File)

The initial House Select Committee on Jan. 6 found that Trump criminally engaged in a “multi-part conspiracy” to overturn the lawful results of the 2020 presidential election and failed to act to stop his supporters from attacking the Capitol and beating police.

More than 1,200 people have been charged in the riot, including far-right Oath Keepers and Proud Boys extremists, with hundreds convicted. Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani and attorney John Eastman face legal challenges over their work on the 2020 election.

Trump’s campaign, in response to an inquiry from The Associated Press, pointed to the work from the House investigators who are trying to show inconsistencies in the Select Committee’s probe and its star witness Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide who had a front-row seat to inner workings at the White House.

FILE – This exhibit from video released by the House Select Committee, shows President Donald Trump recording a video statement on the afternoon of Jan. 6, 2021, from the Rose Garden at the White House in Washington. Trump is making the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol a cornerstone of his bid to return to the White House. Trump opened his first rally as the presumed Republican Party presidential nominee standing in salute with a recorded chorus of Jan. 6 prisoners singing the national anthem. (House Select Committee via AP)

Trump’s national press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the Justice Department has spent more time prosecuting the former president and “targeting Americans for peacefully protesting on January 6th” than other criminals.

“President Trump will restore justice for all Americas who have been unfairly treated,” she said.

Even as Republicans worry privately that Trump risks turning off women and independent voters he would need in the general election rematch against Biden, top aides have said there is only so much they can do as Trump is going to be Trump.

Over the weekend, Trump focused his attention on Liz Cheney, the former Republican congresswoman, who was vice chair of the Select Committee and personally secured Hutchinson’s blockbuster 2022 testimony.

“She should go to Jail along with the rest of the Unselect Committee!” Trump posted on social media.

Cheney posted in response — “Hi Donald: you know these are lies” — as she has worked to dispel falsehoods about Jan. 6.

“If your response to Trump’s assault on our democracy is to lie & cover up what he did, attack the brave men & women who came forward with the truth, and defend the criminals who violently assaulted the Capitol,” she said in one post, “you need to rethink whose side you’re on. Hint: It’s not America’s.”

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Many Republicans are willfully ignoring the issue, especially in Congress, despite lawmakers having run for their lives and taken shelter as the rioters stormed the Senate chamber and ransacked Capitol offices.

Senators who sharply criticized Trump after the Jan. 6 attack, like Republican Leader Mitch McConnell and South Dakota’s John Thune, the No. 2 Senate Republican, have now reluctantly endorsed him.

Others are still declining to endorse Trump, including Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, who voted to convict Trump in his second impeachment on the charge of inciting the insurrection for the Jan. 6 attack. But the holdouts are in the minority.

Appearing on NBC’s “Meet The Press,” Cassidy would only say, “I plan to vote for a Republican for the presidency of the United States.”

One Republican willing to speak out is Mike Pence, the former vice president, whom rioters shouted they wanted to “hang” that day as a makeshift gallows stood on the Capitol’s West Front.

“I was there on January 6th. I have no doubt in my mind … that some people were caught up in the moment,” Pence said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

“But the assaults on police officers, ultimately an environment that claimed lives, is something that I think was tragic that day,” Pence said. “And I’ll never diminish it.”

By Jill Colvin, Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — Former President Donald Trump on Monday charged that Jews who vote for Democrats “hate Israel” and hate “their religion,” igniting a firestorm of criticism from the White House and Jewish leaders.

Trump, in an interview, had been asked about Democrats’ growing criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over his handling of the war in Gaza as the civilian death toll continues to mount.

“I actually think they hate Israel,” Trump responded to his former aide, Sebastian Gorka. “I think they hate Israel. And the Democrat party hates Israel.”

Former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a Buckeye Values PAC Rally in Vandalia, Ohio, on March 16, 2024. (Photo by KAMIL KRZACZYNSKI/AFP via Getty Images)

Trump, who last week became the Republican Party’s presumptive nominee, went on to charge: “Any Jewish person that votes for Democrats hates their religion. They hate everything about Israel and they should be ashamed of themselves because Israel will be destroyed.”

The comments sparked immediate backlash from the White House, President Joe Biden’s campaign and Jewish leaders. The vast majority of Jewish Americans identify as Democrats, but Trump has often accused them of disloyalty, perpetuating what critics say is an antisemitic trope.

At the White House, spokesperson Andrew Bates cast the comments as “vile and unhinged Antisemitic rhetoric” without mentioning Trump by name.

“As Antisemitic crimes and acts of hate have increased across the world — among them the deadliest attack committed against the Jewish people since the Holocaust — leaders have an obligation to call hate what it is and bring Americans together against it,” he said. “There is no justification for spreading toxic, false stereotypes that threaten fellow citizens. None.”

Biden’s campaign said, “The only person who should be ashamed here is Donald Trump.”

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“Trump is going to lose again this November because Americans are sick of his hateful resentment, personal attacks, and extreme agenda,” said spokesman James Singer.

Jonathan Greenblatt, who heads the Anti-Defamation League, said, “Accusing Jews of hating their religion because they might vote for a particular party is defamatory & patently false.”

“Serious leaders who care about the historic US-Israel alliance should focus on strengthening, rather than unraveling, bipartisan support for the State of Israel,” he wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Trump’s comments come as Biden has been facing mounting pressure from the progressive wing of his party over his administration’s support for Israel in its retaliatory offensive in Gaza. More than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed since Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, according to the Health Ministry in the Hamas-ruled territory.

While Biden continues to back Israel’s right to defend itself, he has increasingly criticized Netanyahu. After his State of the Union speech, he said he needed to have a “come to Jesus” conversation with the Israeli leader. He has also accused Netanyahu of “hurting Israel more than helping Israel,” saying, “he must pay more attention to the innocent lives being lost as a consequence of the actions taken.”

Trump took particular issue with recent comments from Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, the country’s highest-ranking Jewish official. In a speech last week, Schumer sharply criticized Netanyahu’s handling of the war in Gaza, warning that the civilian toll was damaging Israel’s standing around the world. He also called for Israel to hold new elections.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., departs after saying he believes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has “lost his way” and is an obstacle to peace in the region amid a growing humanitarian crisis in Gaza, at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, March 14, 2024. Schumer, who is the highest-ranking Jewish official in the U.S., strongly criticized Netanyahu in a lengthy speech and called for Israel to hold new elections. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

While the White House formally distanced itself from Schumer’s comments, the Democratic leader and key ally was voicing an opinion increasingly held across Biden’s administration.

Schumer — whom Trump accused of being “very anti-Israel now” — responded by accusing Trump of “making highly partisan and hateful rants.”

“To make Israel a partisan issue only hurts Israel and the US-Israeli relationship,” he wrote on X.

The Pew Research Center reported in 2021 that Jews are “among the most consistently liberal and Democratic groups in the U.S.,” with 7 in 10 Jewish adults identifying with or leaning toward the Democratic Party. In 2020, it found that nearly three-quarters of American Jews disapproved of Trump’s performance as president, with just 27% rating him positively.

Americans have also increasingly soured on Israel’s military operation in Gaza, according to surveys from The Associated Press and the NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. In January, 50% of U.S. adults said the military response from Israel in the Gaza Strip had gone too far, up from 40% in November.

That number was higher among Democrats, 6 in 10 of whom said the same thing in both surveys.

AP White House correspondent Zeke Miller contributed to this reported from Washington.