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Trump’s Blessing Lifts Ally in South Carolina Race

COLUMBIA, S.C. — Lifted by a last-minute appearance with President Donald Trump, Gov. Henry McMaster of South Carolina won a Republican runoff for governor Tuesday in a race that evolved into a test of the president’s clout with conservatives.

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Trump Helps Boost Two Preferred Candidates While Progressive Democrats Gain
By
Jonathan Martin
, New York Times

COLUMBIA, S.C. — Lifted by a last-minute appearance with President Donald Trump, Gov. Henry McMaster of South Carolina won a Republican runoff for governor Tuesday in a race that evolved into a test of the president’s clout with conservatives.

McMaster handily defeated John Warren, a first-time candidate and former Marine, The Associated Press reported.

Trump got another victory in New York, where Staten Island voters thwarted the comeback bid of Michael Grimm, a Republican who was seeking to overcome his conviction on tax fraud and regain his former House seat. Grimm was defeated by Rep. Dan Donovan, whom Trump had endorsed, saying the party couldn’t afford a Grimm candidacy in a district that could swing to the Democrats.

A more stunning result in New York came in the 14th District, where Rep. Joseph Crowley, the fourth-ranking Democrat in the House, was upset by a 28-year-old political newcomer, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

South Carolina and New York were among seven states where voters went the polls Tuesday, a day when Utah Republicans launched Mitt Romney’s political revival and Democrats in Maryland and Colorado were wrestling with how far left they were willing to go in governor’s races.

Trump has proved adept at bruising his adversaries but has had less success in office propelling allies to victory. But McMaster’s success in South Carolina was a clear victory for the president, and, coupled with Donovan’s win, capped a day of resounding success for him after two major Supreme Court rulings went his way Tuesday morning.

With 95 percent of the vote counted, McMaster had 53 percent and Warren 47 percent. Claiming victory, McMaster thanked the president and told supporters that this state had not had a closer relationship with a president in decades.

“As President Trump says, ‘We’re going to keep on winning, winning, winning in South Carolina,'” he crowed.

Putting his political capital on the line to repay McMaster, Trump flew into the state Monday night to appear with the governor and urge Republican voters to back one of the few elected officials who were willing to get behind his candidacy at the outset of 2016. McMaster ascended to the governorship last year when Trump appointed Nikki R. Haley as his ambassador to the United Nations.

The president acknowledged he was taking a risk in standing with McMaster, telling voters in a suburb just west of here that the news media would portray a loss as a “humiliating defeat” for the White House. But his staff had also gotten assurances from the governor last week that he was ahead in the polls. After Tuesday’s results were announced, the president congratulated McMaster in a tweet.

A political veteran who was battered for representing the status quo at a moment when Republicans are hungry for outsiders, McMaster, 71, was forced into a runoff two weeks ago by Warren, 39, after failing to garner a majority of the vote in the state’s primary.

But the White House staged something of a rescue mission to ensure the governor’s renomination, sending Vice President Mike Pence to campaign with McMaster on Saturday in addition to Trump’s Monday night rally.

McMaster will face James Smith, a Democratic state lawmaker who is close to former Vice President Joe Biden, in the general election. It is a race that could become competitive if Smith is able to raise the money needed to increase his visibility.

In a House Republican runoff for the seat being vacated by Rep. Trey Gowdy, South Carolina voters nominated William Timmons, a state senator who defeated a conservative hard-liner with a history of making inflammatory remarks that made many mainstream party officials uneasy.

In Utah, Romney easily won the Republican Senate nomination for the seat now held by Sen. Orrin G. Hatch, who is retiring. Returning to politics six years after his presidential defeat, and two years after he emerged as a leading anti-Trump voice in his party, the former Massachusetts governor faced some criticism for running in a state that he has not called home for many years. Utah’s heavily conservative Republican convention attendees even backed Romney’s opponent, Mike Kennedy, at the state’s nonbinding nominating convention in April.

But Romney is a deeply admired figure in Utah. In addition to being among the most prominent Mormons in the world, he helped rescue the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics. In fact, his political standing is secure enough in the state that on the Sunday before the primary, he wrote an op-ed informing Republican voters that he would continue to speak out against Trump as he saw fit.

In Colorado, where Gov. John Hickenlooper is term-limited, Democrats nominated Rep. Jared Polis for governor. A Boulder-based progressive who spent over $11 million of his own money, Polis would be the first openly gay man elected governor were he to win in November. His victory Tuesday illustrates the party’s break from more moderate Democrats such as Hickenlooper and former Sen. Ken Salazar. Polis defeated Cary Kennedy, a former state treasurer who was hoping to be the state’s first female governor.

Polis will face the state treasurer, Walker Stapleton, a Bush family relative, who won the Republican nomination for governor. Also in Colorado, veteran Rep. Diana DeGette, a Democrat, easily fended off a spirited challenge on her left from Saira Rao, an Indian-American book publisher who has complained that her party has not done enough to support candidates of color. DeGette, a 22-year incumbent, had to spend over $720,000 to fend off Rao.

In Maryland, Democratic voters turned to a more liberal choice for governor, nominating Ben Jealous, a former NAACP president who was a leading surrogate for Sen. Bernie Sanders in the 2016 presidential race. Jealous, who enjoyed the support of a group of 2020 White House prospects including Sanders, defeated Prince George’s County executive Rushern Baker and a large group of other candidates.

Thanks to an infusion of out-of-state money, Jealous and his allies outraised Baker, who was backed by many establishment-aligned Democrats in the state, such as Sen. Chris Van Hollen and former Gov. Martin O’Malley. In the general election, Jealous will face Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican who enjoys broad popularity but is running in a deep-blue state that’s eager to register their contempt for Trump.

And in a House district that includes parts of the Washington suburbs, David Trone, the co-founder of Total Wine, was testing whether his fortune, and willingness to spend it, would prove sufficient to win a Democratic congressional nomination. Trone spent more than $11 million of his own money in a race to succeed Rep. John Delaney, who is leaving the House to run for president. Two years ago he defeated Trone in the primary despite the retail magnate’s spending $13.4 million out of his own pocket.

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