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Race to replace GOP governor in blue state on tap as primary season comes to a close on Tuesday

Race to replace GOP governor in blue state on tap as primary season comes to a close on Tuesday

NEWFIELDS, N.H. — After six months of contests, the final states hold primaries in the 2024 election cycle as voters in Delaware, New Hampshire and Rhode Island head to the polls on Tuesday. And grabbing the most attention, the competitive and combustible Republican and Democrat gubernatorial primaries in New Hampshire in the race to succeed GOP Gov. Chris Sununu, who isn’t running for re-election after winning four straight two-year terms as the Granite State governor. And the race in New Hampshire, a perennial general election swing state, is considered by political pundits as the only competitive governor’s race in the nation this year. HEAD HERE FOR THE LATEST FOX NEWS ELECTION RESULTS The polling and fundraising front-runner for the Republican nomination is former Sen. Kelly Ayotte, a former state attorney general who narrowly lost her Senate re-election in 2016 after breaking with former President Trump after the release of the infamous “Access Hollywood” video. But Ayotte endorsed Trump this year as he runs to win back his old job in the White House. WHAT AYOTTE TOLD FOX NEWS ALONG THE NEW HAMPSHIRE CAMPAIGN TRAIL Her opponent, former state Senate President Chuck Morse, has spotlighted his conservative credentials and his support for Trump. But the former president stayed neutral in the race. Ayotte, who received Sununu’s endorsement this summer, told Fox News earlier this year that “the path that Gov. Sununu has us on is one of prosperity, one of more freedom. … I want us to continue down that path. I appreciate his leadership and the work that he’s done, and I want to continue his success for this state.” Morse has repeatedly questioned Ayotte’s conservative credentials as a senator and her support for Trump. “I think there’s a big difference between myself and Kelly Ayotte,” Morse said this summer. “I started as a conservative, and I finished as a conservative as Senate president, and I promise you, I will be a governor that’s a conservative. … That’s not what Kelly did when she went to Washington.” CLICK HERE FOR THE LATEST FOX NEWS 2024 ELECTION POLLING  Ayotte, pushing back on Morse’s attacks, has pointed to Morse’s unsuccessful bid in 2022 for the GOP Senate nomination, and she added that “I’ve known Chuck a long time, and this is a sad way for him to end his political career.” The winner of the Republican nomination will face off in an eight-week sprint to the general election against either former Manchester Mayor Joyce Craig or Cinde Warmington, the only Democrat on New Hampshire’s Executive Council, which is an elected five-member panel that approves state agency heads, judges and major state contracts. Similar to the Republican gubernatorial primary, the Democrat’s nomination battle has also turned into a war of words. In a state hard hit by the opioid crisis, Craig recently released an ad criticizing Warmington’s past work as a lobbyist for drugmaking giant Purdue Pharma, known for producing the controversial painkiller OxyContin. Warmington fired back with an ad of her own as she charged that Craig went on the attack to deflect from her record of steering New Hampshire’s largest city through crime and homelessness crises. Also grabbing the spotlight in New Hampshire is the race to succeed retiring six-term Democrat Rep. Annie Kuster in the 2nd Congressional District, which covers the western half and northern region of the state. Kuster is backing Colin Van Ostern, a former staffer and former executive councilor who narrowly lost the 2016 gubernatorial election to Sununu. But Sen. Maggie Hassan, a former governor, and former four-term Gov. John Lynch are supporting Van Ostern’s rival, Maggie Goodlander, a former top lawyer in President Biden’s administration who served as a deputy assistant attorney general at the Justice Department and who is married to Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan. The Democrat congressional primary turned nasty with carpetbagger allegations directed at Goodlander, who hadn’t lived in the district for years and, through her husband, also has connections to top Democrats, including former President Clinton and former Secretary of State and 2016 Democrat presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. Vikram Mansharamani, who ran unsuccessfully for the 2022 GOP Senate nomination, and Lily Tang Williams, who’s making her second straight bid for the congressional nomination, are considered the front-runners in a crowded Republican primary field. Delaware also has an open-seat gubernatorial race, as Democrat Gov. John Carney is term limited. Carney, who won three terms as Delaware’s lone member of the U.S. House before serving two terms as lieutenant governor and later won election and re-election as governor, is running instead as mayor of Wilmington, the state’s largest city. Lt. Gov. Bethany Hall-Long, New Castle County Executive Matt Meyer and National Wildlife Federation CEO and former state Natural Resources Secretary Collin O’Mara are running in the Democrat primary to succeed Carney.  Retired police officer Jerry Price, state House Minority Leader Michael Ramone and small business owner Bobby Williamson are seeking the GOP gubernatorial nomination. There are also primaries for the open lieutenant governor’s seat and for the state’s U.S. House seat as Democrat Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester is running to succeed retiring Sen. Tom Carper, a fellow Democrat. In Rhode Island, Democrat Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse faces a long-shot primary challenge from Mike Costa, a former GOP gubernatorial candidate. State Rep. Patrick Morgan is the front-runner for the GOP Senate nomination and would face a steep uphill climb to defeat Whitehouse in November’s general election in the reliably blue state. Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.

Kamala Harris’ new climate director said she is hesitant to have children because of climate change threats

Kamala Harris’ new climate director said she is hesitant to have children because of climate change threats

Vice President Kamala Harris’ 2024 campaign hired a new climate director who has frequently said the effects of climate change are part of what’s stopping her from having children. Camila Thorndike, who previously worked in the Senate managing the climate portfolio of Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., was given the title of climate engagement director for the Harris for President campaign in September 2024, according to her LinkedIn page.  Prior to joining the Harris campaign, Thorndike said on several occasions that she considers climate change a factor when deciding whether to have kids. “I was 15 when I first saw the climate ‘hockey stick’ graph. I realized that this skyrocketing arrow of temperature would take place in my lifetime. All of the big milestones of life that I was looking forward to would be in the context of this big global crisis. It led to the question of whether or not to have kids – which is still a big question for me – where I would put down roots, what my family would do,” Thorndike said in 2018 when she was the D.C. campaign director for the Chesapeake Climate Action Network. CONSERVATIVES REACT TO KAMALA HARRIS’ LATEST ‘WORD SALAD’ ON CLIMATE ‘DEADLINES’ Again in November 2019, Thorndike described it as an “ethical question that keeps me up at night.” “I have always been someone who enjoys children and loves the idea of a family, and that’s why I have wrestled with this, because my logical mind and the facts of the future I can see bearing down on us are not supportive of the life I would want for them,” she told Yahoo News at the time.  RESURFACED 2023 VIDEO SHOWS KAMALA HARRIS ARGUING YOUNG PEOPLE SUFFER ‘CLIMATE ANXIETY’ During an appearance on the “My Climate Journey” podcast in August 2022, a show hosted by Jason Jacobs and Cody Simms for people seeking to better understand climate change, Thorndike again made a connection between the decision to have children and what it might look like in the future amid climate change.  “I plotted my own lifetime against that and realized that around the time that I would, especially, be considering having kids or whatever, in around my 30s, we would start to see the escalation of this crisis. And so that was when I realized that, at the time, the grownups were not coming to save us and my generation would have to fight to take the wheel.” Featured in a Washington Post article about whether people should not have kids due to climate change, the new Harris campaign official said she worried about her potential kids “suffering” from climate-related issues.   “It’s coming partly from a place of love for my hypothetical child,” she said. “I want to protect them from suffering. Not that life is ever free from suffering, but what of the joys and peace and goodness that make me happiest to be alive will be accessible in 20, 30, 40 years?” Harris acknowledged this idea during a discussion at the “Fight for Our Freedoms” event in September 2023. “I’ve heard young leaders talk with me about a term they’ve coined called ‘climate anxiety,’ which is fear of the future and the unknown of whether it makes sense for you to even think about having children, whether it makes sense for you to think about aspiring to buy a home,” Harris said in a clip that has resurfaced since she became the 2024 Democratic nominee. A clip of the comment, shared by Donald Trump Jr. in July, prompted backlash from critics of Harris. Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, who is now former President Trump’s running mate, wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter: “It’s almost like these people don’t want young people starting families or something. Really weird stuff.” “Shamala is an extinctionist. The natural extension of her philosophy would be a de facto holocaust for all of humanity!” wrote billionaire and X owner Elon Musk on his platform. 

Debate challenge: The pressure’s on Kamala as she and Trump trade flip-flop charges

Debate challenge: The pressure’s on Kamala as she and Trump trade flip-flop charges

It’s impossible to know just how tonight’s debate will go, but polling suggests the pressure is on Kamala Harris. Almost everyone on the planet knows what they think about Donald Trump, love him or loathe him. But the vice president, who has granted exactly one interview (speaking for 16 minutes) and generally avoids the press, hasn’t debated in four years. In a New York Times/Siena College survey, 28% said they needed to know more about Kamala; only 9% felt that way about Trump. (Who are these 9%??) Some warning signs: More than 60% of likely voters want a major change from Joe Biden, but just 25% said Kamala represented that change, while 53% said Trump did. Not a great sign in what is obviously a change election. HARRIS FINALLY ADDS POLICY PAGE TO CAMPAIGN WEBSITE, DEVOTES SEVERAL SECTIONS TO TRUMP What’s more, while roughly a third of Trump voters say he’s too far to the right, nearly half say the VP is too far to the left. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that Trump will try to hang the Biden record around his opponent’s neck – a tricky situation since any veep isn’t in charge. And Kamala will use her prosecutorial skills not just to debate her opponent but to cite low moments from his four years in office – I’d wager Jan. 6 will come up – as well as pushing her top issue, abortion, where Trump has been softening his stance in a confusing manner. Overall, the Times found Trump leading Harris 48 to 47% nationally, quickly noting that’s within the 3-point margin of error. And the average of battleground state polls also shows 1- or 2-point leads for either candidate, which is a virtual tie (so the pundits need to stop saying Trump or Harris is “leading” in this or that state, when they know better). It turns out that Kamala had no second act. Or that she was riding so high that she got virtually no bump from the Democratic convention. After all, the VP had a solid month of the most gushing coverage I’ve ever seen for her joy-filled and vibes-based campaign. Well, maybe Obama in 2008, but even he drew some criticism. Was it a sugar high? Maybe. But the situation has her supporters pretty nervous. Yet all this will be forgotten if she does well in the ABC debate, with Trump working the refs by calling it the “meanest” network. LIBERAL THINK TANK’S DEEP TIES TO BIDEN ADMIN, FAR-LEFT POLICIES COULD COME BACK TO HAUNT HARRIS CAMPAIGN Here is one game that both sides are playing. Since both have flip-flopped as they move toward the middle, they are taking old or outdated positions and pretending they are current stances. This is a particular problem for Kamala, since she has walked away from her left-wing rhetoric of 2019, when she didn’t make it to Iowa. She said she was against fracking, for decriminalizing the border and for abolishing private health insurance.  And for the most part, she has done this without explanation, other than having anonymous aides say, oh, she doesn’t believe that anymore. That has enabled Trump to say that despite her reversal, she will ban fracking, a huge issue in Pennsylvania, after all.  This is where doing more interviews might have helped her, and I hope she’ll do more after the debate. HOW TRUMP, OR KAMALA, COULD WIN, AS ALL SIDES ZERO IN ON THE DEBATE On the other side, with Trump opposing Florida’s six-week abortion ban, endorsing free IVF treatments and vowing not to sign a national abortion ban, Harris insists he will sign such a ban – and noting that he bragged about his three justices overturning Roe. This, in turn, has sparked a backlash among some pro-life groups. Corey Lewandowski told me on “Media Buzz” that Harris is running on abortion because it’s the only issue that favors Democrats, who he argued have the extreme position by allowing the procedure through the ninth month. In similar fashion, Kamala insists that Trump will carry out the Heritage plan Project 2025, despite the fact that he has repeatedly disavowed it and called parts of it abysmal. For voters who don’t follow the campaign as incessantly as journalists and politicos, this may all seem rather confusing. But ultimately the debate, and the election, won’t turn on policy. Trump has a four-year term in the White House to praise or pick apart. Kamala has to make viewers on all the networks that will simulcast the ABC debate comfortable with her both as a likable person and a potential commander-in-chief. My own gut feeling is that this will be the only debate between the two. If one of them starts agitating for more debates later on, that will be the candidate who feels like he or she needs a do-over.

One killed in Moscow as dozens of Ukrainian drones target Russia

One killed in Moscow as dozens of Ukrainian drones target Russia

Official says woman died when debris from destroyed drone hit an apartment block starting a fire. A woman has been killed in Moscow after the remnants of a downed Ukrainian drone hit the apartment block where she was living and started a fire, according to Russian officials. Moscow regional Governor Andrei Vorobyov said debris from the drone damaged at least two high-rise apartment buildings in the Ramenskoye district in the early hours of Tuesday, setting several flats on fire. City mayor Sergei Sobyanin said emergency teams had been sent to a number of locations across the region as well as to the area near the Zhukovo airport and around the Domodedovo district – the site of one of Moscow’s largest airports. More than 30 flights were suspended. Russia said its air defences shot down more than 70 Ukrainian drones during the night with at least 15 intercepted in and around Moscow. The Ramenskoye district, some 50km (31 miles) southeast of the Kremlin, has a population of about 250,000 people, according to official data. Russia’s SHOT and Baza Telegram channels, which are close to Russia’s security services, posted videos with flames billowing from a multistorey residential building, saying that five flats had been destroyed. In the region of Bryansk, which borders Ukraine, “59 enemy aircraft-type UAVs have been intercepted and destroyed”, Governor Aleksander Bogomaz said on Telegram. He described the attack as “massive” but said there were no casualties or damage. Two more Ukrainian drones were intercepted in the Tula region, south of Moscow, Russian official news agency TASS reported. More than two and a half years since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion, Ukraine has fast-tracked the development of its domestic drone industry to enable it to attack Russia’s energy, military and transport infrastructure. Ukraine did not comment on the attack, which came as air raid warnings sounded in Kyiv amid another Russian drone assault on the Ukrainian capital. Adblock test (Why?)

Jordan elections: How will electoral reforms impact the September 10 polls?

Jordan elections: How will electoral reforms impact the September 10 polls?

Amman, Jordan – Citizens will vote in historic elections for the Parliament of Jordan’s 138-seat lower house on Tuesday. The parliamentary elections are the first since the 2022 constitutional amendments and the implementation of new laws governing elections and political parties aimed at democratisation and increasing the role of political parties in a country where tribal affiliations play a dominant political role. What are these laws? And will they make a difference in how Jordan is governed? Here’s what you need to know: When were the reforms approved? Jordan’s King Abdullah II formed the Royal Committee to Modernise the Political System in 2021. The committee’s recommendations were approved in March 2022. The new electoral law paved the way for a bigger role for political parties and also took measures to increase women’s representation in the House of Representatives, the lower chamber of Parliament. People directly elect representatives to the House every four years, but all 65 members of Parliament’s upper chamber are appointed by the king. Jordan’s King Abdullah II gives a speech in 2020 during the inauguration of the 19th Parliament’s non-ordinary session in Amman, Jordan [File: Yousef Allan/The Royal Hashemite Court/AP] What did they change? Candidates will compete in 18 local districts in an open-list proportional representation system (OLPR) – introduced in a 2016 reform – for 97 out of 138 parliamentary seats. The last parliamentary elections in 2020 divided voting into 23 electoral districts for 130 seats. An OLPR system allows voters to cast ballots for individual candidates on a party’s list. Seats reserved for women have increased to 18 from 15 in the past. The number of seats reserved for Christians has decreased from nine to seven since the last elections, and seats reserved for the Chechen and Circassian minorities have decreased from three to two. The key change will be that licenced political parties can now compete in a closed-list proportional representation system (CLPR) for the remaining 41 parliamentary seats allocated to the national district. In a CLPR system, voters can effectively only vote for a political party as a whole, not for an individual candidate. Why were reforms introduced? Jordan’s electoral system has been criticised by rights groups for favouring tribally affiliated independent candidates over political parties. Voting has also been stronger in rural and tribal areas, which the reform tried to address with its national district system. The reforms were an attempt to “de-tribalise Parliament” and “revamp political life in Jordan”, Merissa Khurma, director of the Middle East Program at the Wilson Center, told Al Jazeera. Turnout was just 29 percent in the November 2020 elections, down from 36 percent in 2016, a drop that Khaled Kalaldeh, the chief commissioner of the state-run Independent Election Commission at the time, attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic. A man casts his ballot in the November 2020 elections in Jordan [Raad Adayleh/AP Photo] Sean Yom, an expert on Jordan at Temple University, thinks it is important to view these reforms in the context of economic and political crises unleashed by the Arab Spring. In addition, Jordan has suffered inefficiency, corruption and high unemployment – 21 percent in the first quarter of 2024 – that impact “almost all sectors of society, apart from a very narrow capitalist and political elite”, Yom said. Israel’s war on Gaza and regional tensions have also affected the tourism sector in Jordan, which amounts to around 14 percent of the country’s gross domestic product. The reforms signal an attempt by the state to show that it hears the public’s concerns and “that it does have a positive democratic vision for Jordan”, Yom said. He noted that the steps are also an attempt to show international allies – particularly the United States, the most important donor to Jordan – that it is “a liberal progressive state that is trying to make good on its promise to liberalise”. Who would they impact? Experts say it is unlikely that the reforms will create a completely new political landscape in these elections, but they could lead to incremental improvements. Khurma explained that Jordan does not have an open “political culture” yet, and many new political parties in these elections lack a clear programme. She said they will not greatly impact this election’s turnout, pointing out that it is still expected to be low. The elections come during the “highly tense political environment” created by Israel’s war on Gaza, she said, and Jordan is also in a “very challenging economic environment with very high unemployment”, issues that could dilute public interest in incremental changes to electoral laws. Jordan has attempted to walk a political tightrope during the war by maintaining diplomatic relations with Israel and even intervening in Iran’s retaliatory attack on Israel in April when Jordan shot down missiles as they flew over its territory. This stance has angered a significant portion of Jordan’s citizens, many of whom are descendants of the Palestinians forced out of their lands in both the Nakba and the 1967 war. The turnout among Jordanian citizens of Palestinian origin was particularly low in the 2020 elections, averaging just 10 percent in the country’s capital, Amman. Adblock test (Why?)

Israeli attack on Gaza displacement camp kills dozens

Israeli attack on Gaza displacement camp kills dozens

NewsFeed Israel’s military has bombed the al-Mawasi camp in southern Gaza near Khan Younis, killing more than 40 people as it continues its attacks on the territory. Israel’s army said it targeted a Hamas command centre. Published On 10 Sep 202410 Sep 2024 Adblock test (Why?)