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House GOP to pick next leaders while inching toward majority

House Republicans grappling with the fallout from smaller-than-expected midterm election gains are scheduled to pick conference leaders on Tuesday, despite projections that haven’t officially determined if they will have control of the chamber.

The elections will be a key step in House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s (R-Calif.) quest to secure the Speakership as conservatives consider withholding their support of him. The elections will also decide a host of other leadership roles in the next Congress, including whip, conference chair and who will next lead the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC).

Uncertainty about the outcome of remaining House races has prompted calls by conservatives inside and outside Congress to delay the election, including from Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. But elections are on track to proceed as planned on Tuesday, with reelected members, members-elect and Republicans in House races that do not yet have a projected winner eligible to vote in the secret-ballot leadership elections.

Speaker of the House

McCarthy, whose 2015 bid for Speaker was thwarted by the confrontational House Freedom Caucus, faces grumbles from conservative members over resistance to rules changes that would give more power to individual members and chip away at that of leadership.

He needs just half of the conference to secure the nomination to the post, which his allies are confident of him achieving. But with members resistant to his Speakership, he may face a tougher road in the official Speaker election on the House floor on the first day of the new Congress in January, when he would need at least 218 votes in a fully sworn-in House — leaving little room for defectors in a narrow majority.

Walking into a House GOP leadership candidate forum on Monday, McCarthy told reporters he was “feeling great” because “we just won the majority.” Sources in the room said that McCarthy got a standing ovation after his speech, and pledged that he would not seek help from Democrats to secure the top post.

Some Freedom Caucus members have withheld support for McCarthy over those rules change demands. Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) is reportedly considering a protest challenge to McCarthy, but would only tell reporters Monday afternoon “there will be a challenger” to McCarthy on Tuesday.

Not all Freedom Caucus members agree with that tactic of challenging McCarthy, though. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) said on former Trump adviser Stephen Bannon’s “War Room” podcast Monday morning that challenging McCarthy would be “a bad strategy” with such a slim majority, fearing that some Republicans could flip to join Democrats and nominate an alternative.

House majority whip

The House majority whip race is the most competitive race in the conference, with three contenders vying for the post: current NRCC Chair Tom Emmer (Minn.), current Chief Deputy Whip Drew Ferguson (R-Ga.), and Rep. Jim Banks (Ind.), chairman of the Republican Study Committee, the largest conservative caucus in the House.

In materials sent out to members last week, Emmer flaunted his “honest and direct engagement with members” and his work to retake the House majority — focusing on how he built on the 2020 cycle in which Republicans unexpectedly gained seats.

Banks, leaning into his conservative credentials, put a focus on maintaining “relationships with the coalitions who’ve helped us and the voters who elected us.” Concerned Women for America, a right-wing Christian group, endorsed Banks’s whip bid last week. He also notes in leadership materials that he is a veteran.

Banks’s office distributed hard hats and posters with a “blueprint for Keeping our Commitment” to offices on Tuesday, a reference to the House GOP “Commitment to America” policy platform released in September.

Controversy over an anonymous quote in a Daily Beast story about the race mentioning Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s son Buckley Carlson, who works for Banks, added fire to the race. The Fox News host called Emmer to complain, thinking it came from his staff – which Emmer’s team strongly denied. Donald Trump Jr. also chimed in to bash Emmer over the quote.

Ferguson, meanwhile, has campaigned on his experience and already knowing how to do the whip job.

“Having a whip team that is operational on day one is going to be crucial to our success as a conference,” Ferguson said in a letter sent to colleagues last week.

In the candidate forum on Tuesday, Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) asked Emmer about his vote in favor of a bill codifying same-sex marriage protections that passed the House earlier this year. Emmer responded that “divisive social issues shouldn’t be brought to the House floor,” according to a source in the room.

Conference chair

House GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (N.Y.), who replaced Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) after she was removed from leadership over her continued vocal criticism of former President Trump, is seeking another term in the position. 

Scalise, McCarthy and Trump backed her for the post before the election, and Stefanik in turn preemptively endorsed Trump for a 2024 presidential run.

But she faces a challenge from freshman Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.), one of only two Black Republicans currently in the House. Materials sent to colleagues promise an “offensive communications strategy” and propose introducing a regional communications approach to the House GOP.

In contrast with Stefanik, Donalds has not endorsed Trump. But on Monday he denied rumors that he had told colleagues that he supported Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for president in 2024 over Trump.

“I respect both men because I think the next president is coming from Florida,” Donalds said.

National Republican Congressional Committee

With Emmer running for whip, leadership of House Republicans’ campaign arm is up for grabs.

Rep. Richard Hudson (R-N.C.), currently the conference secretary, is seeking the post. Hudson has been plugging his conservative voting record, experience as a campaign manager and conference secretary experience to colleagues, according to a person familiar with his pitch.

Rep. Darin LaHood (R-Ill.), the current finance vice chair of the NRCC, was a contender for the position but dropped out of the race on Monday afternoon, calling Hudson to let him know.

Conference secretary

Running to fill the conference secretary chair vacancy created by Hudson are Reps. Lisa McClain (R-Mich.), Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.) and Glenn Grothman (R-Wis.). 

Clyde — who gained criticism after comparing the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol to a tourist visit — noted his experience as a 28-year Navy veteran and business owner in an announcement of his candidacy.

McClain flaunted her 30-year business experience in a letter to colleagues, and said that she has the “support of the vast majority of this Congress.”

Other positions

House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) is looking to move up to House majority leader, and faces no challenger for the post. Also running unopposed for reelection are House GOP Conference Vice Chair Mike Johnson (La.) and House Republican Policy Committee Chairman Gary Palmer (R-Ala.).

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Jan. 6 panel weighs 'next steps' after Trump fails to show for deposition

The House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol says it is considering “next steps” after former President Trump failed to appear for his Monday deposition following a subpoena last month.

In a joint statement from Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) and Vice Chairwoman Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), the panel bashed Trump for filing a lawsuit Friday challenging the subpoena, accusing him of “hiding” after he was compelled to appear for testimony Monday.

“Even though the former President initially suggested that he would testify before the committee, he has since filed a lawsuit asking the courts to protect him from giving testimony. His attorneys have made no attempt to negotiate an appearance of any sort, and his lawsuit parades out many of the same arguments that courts have rejected repeatedly over the last year,” the two said in a statement.

“The truth is that Donald Trump, like several of his closest allies, is hiding from the Select Committee’s investigation and refusing to do what more than a thousand other witnesses have done,” they added.

The committee has in other cases extended deadlines for those who have engaged with it, and it has likewise acted swiftly in cases where people have defied subpoenas, including forwarding votes to hold those such as former White House strategist Stephen Bannon in contempt of Congress.

“In the days ahead, the committee will evaluate next steps in the litigation and regarding the former president’s noncompliance,” Thompson and Cheney wrote.

It’s unclear if the committee would move to hold Trump in contempt of Congress while Democrats remain in control during the lame-duck session or if the Department of Justice (DOJ) would pursue the recommendation. 

But the justice system in this instance won’t move swiftly enough to aid the committee, which is due to sunset at the end of this Congress and holds little chance of being revived by Republicans should they overtake the House, as is expected after last week’s midterm elections.

The suit initiated by Trump will take months at a minimum to move through the courts, as would any prosecution from the DOJ.

The Justice Department, however, has two ongoing investigations involving Trump, one probing Jan. 6 and the other his role in mishandling national security information by transporting government records to Mar-a-Lago. 

The committee subpoenaed Trump in its last hearing on Oct. 13.

“He is the one person at the center of the story of what happened on Jan. 6. So we want to hear from him. The committee needs to do everything in our power to tell the most complete story possible and provide recommendations to help ensure that nothing like Jan. 6 ever happens again. We need to be fair and thorough in getting the full context for the evidence we’ve obtained,” Thompson said at the time.

The next day, Trump issued a 14-page response, trumpeting many of his earlier false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him.

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GOP Senate allies rally around McConnell

Republican senators are rallying around Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) after a disappointing midterm election for the GOP.

A push by a group of Senate conservatives to delay Wednesday’s leadership election is running out of steam, even though senators don’t yet know whether they will have 50 or 49 members of their conference until after the Dec. 6 Georgia runoff.

National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman Rick Scott (Fla.), who is more closely allied with former President Trump, on Monday failed to convince other members of the Senate GOP leadership team to agree to delay Wednesday’s election — a sign that McConnell remains in full control.

Scott didn’t press his argument to postpone the election or indicate he planned to challenge McConnell when he met with the rest of the leadership team Monday afternoon. 

GOP senators said they expect to have a full conversation about what went wrong in the midterms during a conference lunch meeting Tuesday. 

Senior Republicans see Trump’s role in the midterm elections, which revved up Democratic voters to turn out to the polls in large numbers despite President Biden’s low approval rating, as a significant factor behind GOP losses in Pennsylvania, Arizona and Nevada.

“It’s never any one thing, but I think it’s pretty clear that we didn’t perform well among independent voters, which in a lot of those states that were competitive was a big share of the electorate. And I think that it’s clear that running on relitigating the 2020 election is not a winning strategy,” said Senate Republican Whip John Thune (S.D.), who rejected calls to delay the leadership election.

“We need to move forward,” he said, predicting that McConnell will be reelected as leader.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), the former whip and an adviser to the Senate GOP leadership team, also rejected the push to postpone the leadership election until next month.

“I don’t know why we would delay an uncontested race. I don’t know what purpose that would serve, and I think it’s important for us to figure out how to come together and remove the distractions to winning the runoff in Georgia,” Cornyn said.

He argued “there’s no one single factor” for why Republicans failed to win the Senate, though he acknowledged “the results were disappointing.”

The Texas Republican noted that “first-time candidates” played a role in Republicans falling short of expectations, alluding to GOP candidates in Pennsylvania and Arizona.

Sen. Shelly Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) indicated that Trump’s claims about the 2020 presidential election didn’t help the Republican cause.

“Looking forward is always a better campaign strategy. Looking back to 2020 obviously didn’t work out,” she said.

And some Republicans allied with McConnell are blaming Scott for unveiling an agenda earlier this year that called for sunsetting all federal law after a period of five years.

Biden targeted Scott in a speech a few days before Election Day for wanting to put “Social Security and Medicare on the chopping block every five years.”

Scott, who predicted last month that Republicans would control at least 52 seats next year, declined to comment about his conversation with members of the leadership team after Monday’s meeting. 

A large group of GOP senators say McConnell deserves a lot of credit for helping Republicans win in Ohio and North Carolina. The Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC affiliated with McConnell, spent more than $33 million in Ohio and $38 million in North Carolina, propelling author J.D. Vance and Rep. Ted Budd (R-N.C.) to victory.

The Senate Leadership Fund also poured $39 million to help Republican candidate Herschel Walker in Georgia; $26 million in the Nevada Senate race, which former state Attorney General Adam Laxalt narrowly lost; and $16.4 million on retired Army Gen. Don Bolduc’s (R) unsuccessful effort to knock off Sen. Maggie Hassan (D) in New Hampshire.

McConnell’s supporters point out that he raised more money for Bolduc, who embraced Trump’s baseless claims of election fraud during the Republican primary, than Trump spent on all Senate Republican candidates combined.

Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), one of Trump’s closest allies in the upper chamber, told reporters Monday that he still planned to vote for McConnell to serve another two terms as leader and said he supports holding the election on Wednesday as planned.

Tuberville, who says he will support Trump if he runs again for president, said he would still vote for McConnell even though Trump has repeatedly called for Senate Republicans to vote him out of the leadership.

“Is that an oxymoron?” he quipped. “Everybody’s got their opinion.”

Tuberville said Republicans need to review their strategy of using early voting and mail-in ballots to boost Republican voter turnout.

A group of seven Senate Republicans last week called for Wednesday’s leadership election to be delayed until after the Georgia runoff, but it failed to move Senate Republican Conference Chairman John Barrasso (Wyo.), a close McConnell ally who has say over the timing.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) on Sunday joined the call to postpone the leadership election. But on the same day, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), a rising conservative star, argued against a delay because no one has launched a challenge to any of the sitting leaders.

“I don’t see why we would delay the election since all five or six of our leadership elections are uncontested. You know the great wrestling champion Ric Flair used to say, ‘To be the man, you got to beat the man,’ and so far no one has had the nerve to step forward and challenge Sen. McConnell,” Cotton said on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” advising that his colleagues “move forward with these elections so we can focus again on the Georgia runoff.”

McConnell’s conservative critics within the GOP conference have seized on the disappointment of Election Day to take shots at the GOP leader.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who has clashed with McConnell in the past, accused his leader on Monday of “abandoning” Blake Masters in the Arizona Senate race.

Cruz, who is eyeing another presidential run, accused McConnell of putting his own personal ambition to continue serving as leader ahead of the party.

“Abandoning Blake Masters was indefensible,” Cruz said on his podcast, “Verdict,” referring to a decision by the Senate Leadership Fund to pull out of the Arizona Senate race in September.

Cruz said the decision was driven by Masters’s vow during the Republican primary not to support McConnell’s bid to serve another term as leader.

“Because Masters said he would vote against Mitch McConnell. And so Mitch would rather be leader than have a Republican majority. If there’s a Republican who can win who’s not going to support Mitch, the truth of the matter is he’d rather the Democrat win,” Cruz said.

 One McConnell ally pointed out that One Nation, a McConnell-allied outside spending group, devoted $13.1 million to the Arizona Senate race.

Retiring Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) last week put the blame for failing to win a critical race in his home state, where celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz (R) lost to Lt. Gov. John Fetterman (D), squarely on Trump’s shoulders.

“President Trump had to insert himself and that changed the nature of the race, and that created just too much of an obstacle,” he said on CNN’s “Erin Burnett OutFront.”

“And by the way, it’s not just Pennsylvania. You look all over the country, there’s a very high correlation between MAGA candidates and big losses, or at least dramatically underperforming,” he added, referring to Trump’s slogan: Make America Great Again.

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Five uncalled races to watch in the battle for the House

This month’s surprising midterm elections have everyone on edge, with voters across the country waiting to see who will control the House in the next Congress. 

A week after Election Day, the balance of power in the House remains unknown, with 212 seats in the GOP column, 204 in the Democratic column and 218 needed for a majority. 

Republicans — despite a worse-than-expected midterm — are still likely to win the majority, but Democrats are clinging to slim hopes with about 20 races uncalled. 

Here are five of the most intriguing races to watch. 

California’s 13th District

The race between the two candidates fighting for California’s 13th District are separated by just 84 ballots as of Monday evening with 61 percent of the vote in.

Republican businessman John Duarte is ahead by one-tenth of a percentage point over Democratic state Assemblyman Adam Gray. 

The two candidates are facing off for an open House seat in the Golden State’s Central Valley, which became available after Rep. Josh Harder (D) moved to run in a more left-leaning district. The Cook Political Report rated the seat a “toss-up,” though the area became more favorable to Democrats after redistricting.

But with ballots outstanding in both Democratic- and Republican-rich counties, it’s unclear who will win. 

Merced and Stanislaus counties, both of which have broken for Gray, have more ballots to count, in addition to Madera and Fresno counties, which have voted for Duarte thus far.

Gray had an advantage over Duarte right out the gate with voter registration — the district is 42.8 percent Democratic and 28.4 percent Republican, according to CalMatters. The district went for President Biden over former President Trump in 2020, 54.3 percent to 43.4 percent.

But the GOP has made inroads in the race despite the early Democratic advantages. According to the Los Angeles Times, that could be a credit to Latino voters trending toward Republicans and low voter turnout from Democrats.

Arizona’s 6th District

Another tight race is taking place in Arizona’s 6th District, where Republican Juan Ciscomani and Democrat Kirsten Engel are jockeying for the open seat. 

Ciscomani, who was an aide to Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R), led Engel, a former state senator and representative, by a mere 0.66 percentage points with 89 percent of the vote in as of Monday evening. That translates to a 2,074-ballot edge.

The race in the Tucson-area district has been tightening, with Engel narrowing the gap between the two candidates. But there are still a number of outstanding votes in counties that have broken overwhelmingly for both candidates. 

If Republicans win, they will have flipped the seat. It was formerly held by Rep. Anna Kirkpatrick (D), who opted against running for reelection this cycle. It became the 6th District after redistricting and is more favorable to Republicans than before.

The Cook Political Report rated the seat “lean Republican.”

Arizona’s 1st District

Incumbent Rep. David Schweikert (R) is fighting for his political life against Democrat Jevin Hodge, 28, who leads the Grand Canyon State’s oldest Head Start program.

With 93 percent of the vote in, Schweikert was narrowly leading Hodge by 0.26 points, or 894 ballots, as of Monday evening. Hodge opened up with an edge over Schweikert on Election Day, but the incumbent took the lead on Sunday night.

The Phoenix-area district includes Maricopa County, the most populous county Arizona. Officials have said they are hoping to have most votes counted by Tuesday.

Mail-in ballots cast in Maricopa County go through a strict process before they are sent for tabulation. Roughly 80 percent of voters requested mail-in ballots in Maricopa County, according to The Washington Post.

The district became more favorable to Democrats after redistricting, and The Cook Political Report rated the seat a “toss-up.” 

If Schweikert wins, he will secure his seventh term in the House.

Oregon’s 6th District

The two candidates battling in this district are separated by just 4,400 ballots with 85 percent of votes counted.

Democrat Andrea Salinas has secured 49.8 percent of the vote, slightly more than Republican Mike Erickson, who stands at 47.9 percent. Constitution Party candidate Larry McFarland has 2.3 percent.

There are, however, plenty of ballots outstanding that could affect the results of the race. 

Washington and Clackamas counties — both of which have broken for Salinas thus far — have outstanding ballots, in addition to Marion and Polk counties, which are favoring Erickson.

Counting in Oregon could take longer after the state changed its rules to allow ballots postmarked on Election Day to be included in tallies. Before, the state only accepted ballots that arrived at election offices by Election Day. Election officials will accept ballots with valid postmarks until Tuesday. 

This is a new congressional district that was drawn after Oregon gained a House seat because of its population growth. 

Colorado’s 3rd District

This has been one of the most closely watched contests since Election Day, when Democrat Adam Frisch, a local businessman, opened up a commanding lead against firebrand Rep. Lauren Boebert (R).

Boebert, a first-term congresswoman and staunch supporter of Trump, chipped away at Frisch’s edge shortly after Election Day and ultimately took the lead on Thursday.

The incumbent is currently ahead of her Democratic challenger by 1,122 ballots with more than 95 percent of the vote in. The race, however, will likely undergo an automatic recount. A recount is triggered in Colorado if the final margin in the race is less than or equal to half a percentage point. Boebert currently leads by 0.34 points.

A win for Frisch would be a significant flip for Democrats and a symbolic move for the caucus, picking off one of the most recognizable Republicans in the House GOP conference.

Boebert, however, is likely to lock up her reelection. On Thursday, after the incumbent’s lead reached 1,136 votes, the Cook Political Report’s Dave Wasserman wrote on Twitter that it would be “much tougher to see her losing” after more ballots from a Democratic stronghold were counted.ISIan Swanson

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Senators strike deal on bill to codify Supreme Court's same-sex marriage protections

A bipartisan group of senators on Monday unveiled a deal on legislation to codify the Supreme Court’s same-sex marriage protections, signaling they believe they have the votes to get past a filibuster and move the measure to Presient Biden’s desk.

The new deal updates language from before the election, and includes provisions to assuage GOP members on religious liberty related issues.  

A group of five senators — Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), Susan Collins (R-Maine), Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), released the updated legislation, which protects nonprofit religious organizations from providing services in support of a same-sex marriage.

It also would protect religious liberty and conscience protections under the Constitution and federal law.  

“Through bipartisan collaboration, we’ve crafted commonsense language to confirm that this legislation fully respects and protects Americans’ religious liberties and diverse beliefs, while leaving intact the core mission of the legislation to protect marriage equality,” the senators said in a statement.  

“We look forward to this legislation coming to the floor and are confident that this amendment has helped earn the broad, bipartisan support needed to pass our commonsense legislation into law,” the group added. 

The updated language would also ensure that the federal government does not recognize polygamous marriage. 

The main question at the moment is when the bill would come up for a vote.

Semafor reported earlier on Monday that Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) will bring the proposal up for a vote this week, indicating that the requisite support of 10 Senate Republicans has been secured.

Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) told HuffPost that the timing is “still being debated” by leadership.  

Prior to the October recess, Schumer and Baldwin punted a vote on the bill until after the midterms due to the lack of GOP willingness to back it at the time. 

If the Senate passes the legislation, the House would have to approve the measure for it to reach President Biden’s desk.

The House has already passed similar legislation, but it is not identical to the new deal.

Forty-weven House Republicans initially voted for the proposal in July. 

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Greene: Any McCarthy challenge would be 'bad strategy'

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) argued against any challenge to Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) as House minority leader, worrying that it could have unintended negative consequences in a slim majority.

“I actually think that’s a bad strategy when we’re looking at having a very razor-thin majority, with potentially 219 — we’re talking about one vote,” Greene said on former Trump adviser Stephen Bannon’s “War Room” podcast Monday morning.

Greene’s comments came amid reports that Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), a former chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, is weighing a protest run against McCarthy.

Biggs told reporters Monday afternoon that no one currently has 218 votes to be Speaker. His spokesman told The Hill there will be an alternative challenger to McCarthy but did not confirm it would be Biggs.

A handful of moderate House Republicans could join Democrats to support a compromise Speaker candidate such as Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), Greene warned Monday.

“It’s very, very risky right now to produce a leadership challenge, especially for Speaker of the House, when they are going to open the door and allow Liz Cheney, possibly, to become Speaker,” Greene said on the podcast.

Cheney will not return to Congress next year, but House rules allow for a nonmember to be elected Speaker. Such a scenario, though, is not considered serious, and she is not campaigning for the post.

Greene last year doubted McCarthy would have the votes to be Speaker but has since grown close with the GOP leader. She was included at a House GOP platform event in Pennsylvania in September, and she is hoping to be placed on the House Oversight and Reform Committee after McCarthy vowed to restore her membership in committees as Speaker.

“I think that to be the best Speaker of the House and to please the base, he’s going to give me a lot of power and a lot of leeway,” Greene said in a New York Times magazine profile published last month.

House Republicans are scheduled to elect conference leaders on Tuesday, which includes nominating a Speaker candidate. The nominee needs a majority of House Republicans in a secret ballot to get the nomination and then a majority — at least 218 votes in a fully sworn-in chamber — on the House floor to win the Speakership on the first day of the new Congress in January.

Conservative members of the House, including multiple members of the House Freedom Caucus, have withheld support for McCarthy over his resistance to rules change demands from the caucus that would chip away at leadership’s power.

Biggs told reporters last week that McCarthy’s reluctance to bring up impeachment articles — he has said multiple times that he would not pursue a “political” impeachment — made him question whether McCarthy should be Speaker.

The Arizona congressman has introduced impeachment articles against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

“I think that his statement recently that we shouldn’t impeach Secretary Mayorkas indicates maybe we’re not gonna be as aggressive going forward as we should be,” Biggs told reporters last week.

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Why Kari Lake's path to victory is closing fast

With less than 10 percent of the estimated vote left to count in Arizona’s governor race, Democrat Katie Hobbs leads Republican Kari Lake by 24,772 raw votes as of Monday afternoon — just 1 percentage point.

Lake is expected to further close Hobbs’s lead, but the Republican’s path to victory looks increasingly narrow after recent batches of results.

“Extremely tough to see how Kari Lake (R) wins now,” tweeted The Cook Political Report’s Dave Wasserman on Sunday evening.

The Arizona secretary of state’s office indicated that roughly 169,500 votes are left to count statewide as of Monday afternoon, meaning Lake would need about 57 percent of remaining ballots to pull off a victory.

The vast majority of the remaining votes will come from Arizona’s three most populous counties: Maricopa County, which includes the Phoenix area, Pima County, which includes Tucson and stretches westward, and Pinal County, which includes areas between the two cities.

Maricopa County

Maricopa County — where more than 6 in 10 Arizonans live, according to census estimates — comprises a little more than half of the remaining ballots, with county officials estimating that between 85,000 and 95,000 ballots remain to be reported.

Over the weekend, the nightly batches of new results have trended more in Lake’s favor.

Lake garnered a 9-point lead in Sunday night’s vote drop after a much smaller lead on Saturday. On Friday, Hobbs carried the batch.

But it remains an uphill battle for Lake, as the former television news anchor will likely need even larger margins in the remaining votes to pull off a win.

“No projections in AZGOV, but make no mistake: Lake didn’t get the tallies she wanted and probably needed out of Maricopa,” The New York Times’s Nate Cohn tweeted after after the county released its Sunday batch. 

“It will presumably close further, but Lake doesn’t have many batches left,” Cohn continued. “Each time she falls short, her target in the outstanding vote gets higher.”

The shift is largely a reflection of the order in which officials are counting the ballots.

Bill Gates, the chairman of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, said at a Saturday press conference that the county uses a “first in, first out” process, meaning officials report the votes in the order they are received at the central facility.

“That’s how we do this. We are not picking them from certain parts of town,” he said.

He indicated that Friday’s batch included the remaining early ballots received before Election Day, and the recent dumps have largely shifted to ballots dropped off on Tuesday. The county received about 275,000 early ballots on Election Day.

Vote centers that dropped off their ballots earlier that evening are counted first, and the central facility is located in downtown Phoenix closer to the county’s heavily blue areas.

Garrett Archer, a prominent analyst of Arizona election results who works for KNXV in Phoenix, noted that Sunday’s batch, which favored Lake, largely came from more Republican areas of Maricopa.

“A large portion came from ruby red southeast valley east of loop 202 as well as vote center in the Anthem area,” he said.

Pima County

Hobbs has consistently made vote gains in the daily batches released by Pima County, a Democratic-leaning area where nearly 39,000 ballots have yet to be reported.

President Biden in 2020 won the county by 19 points, and Hobbs holds a 22-point lead there as of Monday afternoon.

Hobbs in the most recent batches has continued to hold steady leads, although her margin has declined.

On Friday, Hobbs carried the daily batch by 32 points. It declined to 28 points on Saturday and 20 points on Sunday.

Even with a smaller margin than before, however, Hobbs’s double-digit leads have helped boost her vote count.

The county has generally released the results of between 10,000 and 20,000 ballots each day.

Pinal County

Pinal County, which typically favors Republicans, released roughly 3,400 ballots late Monday morning local time. 

Lake won 68 percent of the batch, while Hobbs garnered about 32 percent support — a 36-point gap.

The county has about 9,000 ballots that have yet to be reported, according to the secretary of state’s office.

So while Lake may continue to make ground in the county as those are counted, Pinal’s remaining count will have a far smaller impact on the final result compared to Pima and Maricopa.

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Appeals court blocks Biden student debt cancellation plan

A federal appeals court on Monday temporarily blocked the Biden administration’s student loan forgiveness program, which had already been halted nationwide by a separate court ruling.

The latest ruling, by a unanimous three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit, added to the legal jeopardy surrounding President Biden’s massive debt-relief plan.

DEVELOPING

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Pence’s new book details Trump’s lengthy Jan. 6 pressure campaign

Then-Vice President Pence was getting on the phone with President Donald Trump the evening of Dec. 13, 2020, just as chatter was exploding on the internet that he could delay or block the certification of Trump’s electoral loss to Democrat Joe Biden.

In his new memoir, “So Help Me God,” Pence writes of how Trump told him during that call that he should decline to participate in Congress’s certification of that vote if he wanted to be “popular.”

“He told me I was trending number two on Twitter as people began speculating whether I was going to participate in the January 6 proceedings at all,” Pence wrote. The Hill obtained an advance copy of the memoir.

“Given the widening concern of so many people about election fraud, supporters around the country were arguing that I should decline to participate altogether. The president concurred,” Pence wrote.

“‘If you want to be popular, don’t do it,’ he suggested,” Pence’s memoir states.

“He then went a step further: I might convene the session and then at some point walk out. ‘It would be the coolest thing you could do,’ he said jokingly, ‘otherwise you’re just another RINO’… We both laughed at the controversy and his crack,” Pence continued. “At that point, there was no angst between us and there was no talk of rejecting electors or returning votes to the states.”

But the friction grew in the following days and weeks, Pence wrote in his book, which is set to be released Tuesday.

For much of the book, Pence writes extensively about the Trump administration’s policy achievements, its controversies and his role as an “active” and loyal sidekick to Trump. 

But in the book’s final chapters, which revolve around the aftermath of the 2020 election, Pence describes weeks of persistent pressure from Trump and his allies who insisted he had the authority to intervene in the electoral certification on Jan. 6, 2021.

Shortly after the election, Pence grew concerned that Trump was relying on the legal counsel of Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, and not his White House and campaign lawyers like Pat Cipollone, Matt Morgan and Justin Clark. But it was Dec. 5, 2020, when Trump first raised the possibility of challenging the election results in the House, Pence said. 

From there, Pence detailed numerous instances of Trump pushing him to delay the Jan. 6 certification, to return electors to the states or to boycott the proceedings altogether.

On Dec. 21, Pence said he advised Trump that once they had exhausted their legal options and the vote was certified, Trump should go on a “thank-you tour” to speak to supporters, then run again in 2024.

On Christmas Day of 2020, Pence said he called Trump as he had in previous years, but the conversation quickly turned to talk of the election.

“As we ended the call, he said with a sigh, ‘If we prove we won a state and Pelosi certifies anyway… I don’t think we can let that happen.’”

“‘You’ll figure it out,’ he added,” Pence wrote.

Pence spoke again with Trump on New Year’s Day of 2021, when the president “came on strong” about why Pence had opposed a lawsuit from Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) that sought to establish the vice president had the power to reject electoral votes.

After Pence explained that he did not believe the argument in the lawsuit was consistent with the Constitution, Trump told him “You’re too honest,” and predicted that “hundreds of thousands are gonna hate your guts.”

On Jan. 2, Trump referred Pence to attorney John Eastman for the first time, Pence said. In the process, Trump suggested to Pence that he could delay the certification of the Electoral College votes by 10 days.

The next day, Pence wrote, Trump called him in the morning and said, “you have the absolute right to reject electoral votes.”

“‘You can be a historical figure,’ he said, his tone growing more confrontational, ‘but if you wimp out, you’re just another somebody,’” Pence wrote of the conversation, adding that he told Trump he was going to do the right thing and follow the Constitution.

After holding a rally for Georgia Senate candidates on Jan. 4, Pence attended an Oval Office meeting with Trump, Giuliani, Eastman and others. Pence said he pressed Eastman on his legal theories and argued to Trump that even Eastman was not certain that the vice president had the authority to return electoral votes to the states.

That night, Trump held a rally in Georgia, where he said: “I hope that our great vice president comes through for us! Of course, if he doesn’t come through, I won’t like him so much. No, the one thing you know about Mike, he always plays it straight.”

On Jan. 5, Trump made multiple appeals to Pence about preventing the certification of Biden’s victory. Trump sent a tweet that day saying Pence had the power “to reject fraudulently chosen electors.”

In an Oval Office conversation that day, Trump told Pence he had the power to “decertify,” which Pence pushed back on. At that point, Pence wrote, Trump called his vice president “naive” and suggested Pence lacked the courage needed to reject the votes. Pence responded that he had courage, and Trump knew it.

“Hearing that, he relented and said with more than a little sadness, ‘Well, I’m gonna have to say you did a great disservice,’” Pence wrote.

“With that I stood up, buttoned my jacket, and said, ‘Mr. President, you need to say what you need to say, but you know, other than your family, no one in this administration has been more loyal to you than me,’” Pence continued.

Trump called Pence twice more before the end of the day on Jan. 5, and in the evening issued a statement claiming Trump and Pence were in “total agreement” that the vice president had the authority to decertify the election results, Pence wrote, contradicting their earlier conversations.

Pence and Trump had one final phone call on the morning of Jan. 6 after Pence had issued a statement outlining why he would not intervene in the certification process. On that call, Pence wrote, Trump “laid into me.”

“‘You’ll go down as a wimp,’ he predicted, adding ‘If you do that, I made a big mistake five years ago!’”

Pence went on to describe the events of Jan. 6, describing how rioters breached the Capitol and he was hurried off the Senate floor. He recounted how he refused to leave the Capitol grounds and instead coordinated with congressional leaders from a loading dock under the Capitol as a mob ran through the building, some chanting “Hang Mike Pence.”

The former vice president and Trump did not speak for several days after the events of Jan. 6, though the two eventually met in the Oval Office, where Pence told Trump he was angry over the day’s events and said he’d be praying for the president.

Ultimately, Pence wrote, it was Trump’s ongoing fixation on the 2020 election and his outrage at those who stood in the way of his attempts to cling to power that led to a complete break in communication between the two men.

“Since leaving office, people have often asked me about my relationship with President Trump. I tell them I will always be grateful that he chose me to be his vice president,” Pence wrote. “He was my president and he was my friend. For four years, we had a close working relationship. It did not end well. 

“But as you have read on these pages, we parted amicably when our service to the nation drew to a close,” Pence continued. “In the months that followed, we spoke from time to time, but when the president returned to the rhetoric that he was using before that tragic day and began to publicly criticize those of us who defended the Constitution, I decided it would be best to go our separate ways.”

Source: TEST FEED1