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Trump criminal probes will proceed — even as he’s candidate

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump’s early announcement of his third White House bid won’t shield the former president from the criminal investigations already confronting him as an ordinary citizen, leaving him legally and politically exposed as he seeks the 2024 Republican nomination.

The Justice Department is pushing ahead with its probes. And with the midterm elections now mostly complete and the 2024 presidential campaign months away from beginning in earnest, federal prosecutors have plenty of time to continue their work even as Trump hits the campaign trail.

“I don’t think the department is going to hesitate as a result of Trump nominating himself and anointing himself as the first candidate in the 2024 election,” said former Justice Department prosecutor Michael Weinstein. “I just think they will see that as him trying to game the system as he’s done very successfully in the courts,” and they’re prepared for his “blowback.”

Trump enters the race facing federal investigations related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results and into the hoarding of top-secret government documents at his Florida estate — plus a separate s tate probe in Georgia. The Mar-a-Lago investigation has advanced especially swiftly, with prosecutors this month giving a close Trump ally immunity to secure his testimony before a federal grand jury. Justice Department lawyers in that probe say they have amassed evidence of potential crimes involving not only obstruction but also the willful retention of national defense information.

It remains unclear if anyone will be charged, as does the timetable for a decision. But former officials say the best way to ensure the outcome is seen as above reproach is to conduct a by-the-book investigation showing no special favor or ill treatment because of Trump’s former high office.

“The public will have the most faith in what you’re doing, and you will get the most successful results, if you treat Donald Trump like any other American,” said Matthew Miller, who served as Justice Department spokesman under former Attorney General Eric Holder.

Current Attorney General Merrick Garland has suggested as much, saying last summer in response to questions about Trump and the Jan. 6 investigation that “no person is above the law.” Asked in a July television interview how a potential Trump candidacy might affect the department, Garland replied: “We will hold accountable anyone who is criminally responsible for attempting to interfere with the transfer — legitimate, lawful transfer — of power from one administration to the next.”

Investigating any elected official, or candidate for office, almost always invites political speculation. Justice Department protocol cautions prosecutors against taking overt action in the direct run-up to an election, but that’s more a standard convention than a hard-and-fast rule. And the 2024 presidential contest is two years away.

Still, it’s not easy to investigate a former president or current candidate. That’s especially true in the case of Trump, who spent his presidency assailing his own Justice Department and haranguing attorneys general he himself had appointed. He has already lambasted the FBI for searching Mar-a-Lago in August, using the episode to raise funds from supporters.

Now, with his candidacy official, he and his supporters will try to reframe the narrative of the investigation as political persecution by a Democratic administration that fears him for 2024.

In fact, one risk for Democrats is that Trump — who during his announcement Tuesday declared himself “a victim” — could galvanize his supporters anew with that argument. On the other hand, the results of last week’s midterm elections suggest he may be more politically vulnerable than many had thought, including in his Republican Party.

What about past investigations of a presidential candidate? There is a recent precedent, though under different circumstances.

In 2016, the Obama administration’s Justice Department investigated Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton over her use of a private email server as secretary of state. Despite the efforts of the law enforcement officials who worked the investigation to remain above the fray, the probe became repeatedly mired in presidential politics — in ways that may not have been foreseen when it began.

Then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch expressed regret over a chance encounter she had with Bill Clinton in the final days of the investigation. Former FBI Director James Comey was blamed for harming Clinton’s candidacy by making a detailed public explanation of why the bureau was not recommending charges and then for reopening the probe 11 days before the election.

David Laufman, who supervised that investigation for the Justice Department as chief of the same section now running the Mar-a-Lago probe, said there’s a “surreal disconnect” between the political maelstrom that accompanies politically freighted investigations and the heads-down mentality of a prosecutor determined to just do the work.

“Here we were, conducting a criminal investigation with national security undertones in a way that was practically splashed on the front page of every newspaper every fricking day,” Laufman said. “And all we could do was to continue to do what we knew had to be done — to obtain all the relevant facts needed to make judgments about whether it was appropriate to recommend criminal charges.”

He said he believed the investigators working Mar-a-Lago have been the same way, praising their professionalism amid pressure from the public and even concerns about their personal safety.

In the Clinton case, Comey has said he considered recommending a separate special counsel to direct the investigation, though he ultimately did not. The option of a specially appointed prosecutor who would report to Garland exists here as well, just as the Trump-era Justice Department appointed former FBI Director Robert Mueller to lead the investigation into potential coordination between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia.

It’s not clear how seriously Garland would consider that. A department spokesman declined to comment.

Politics aside, in making the decision whether to bring an indictment, much will ultimately depend on the strength of the Justice Department’s case.

“If the government’s case is exceptionally strong, I think the rule of law will have a predominant weight in the attorney general’s calculus,” Laufman said.

____

Follow Eric Tucker at http://www.twitter.com/etuckerAP

___

More on Donald Trump-related investigations: https://apnews.com/hub/donald-trump



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Leading Republicans try to ignore Trump campaign launch

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TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Leading Republican officials on Wednesday sought to ignore Donald Trump’s formal step into the 2024 presidential contest, insisting there were more pressing priorities as GOP leaders grappled with the fallout of a major midterm disappointment.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said it was much too early for Republicans to focus on the next presidential election when asked about a brewing GOP divide during a news conference the morning after Trump’s announcement. Declining to say the former president’s name, DeSantis, a potential Trump rival in 2024, said he was focused instead on Georgia’s upcoming Senate runoff and his governing priorities in Florida.

“We just finished this election. People need to chill out a little bit on some of this stuff, I mean seriously,” DeSantis said. The 44-year-old Republican governor continued: “At the end of the day, it’s been a long election, we’ve got the Georgia runoff, but for me it’s like, OK, what more do we need to do to continue to make Florida lead the way? We’re going to be focusing on that.”

The sentiment was echoed by leading Republicans across Ohio, New Hampshire and Washington as the GOP grappled with rising internal tensions and questions about its future following a deeply disappointing midterm cycle. History suggested the Republicans should have celebrated massive gains last week, but the sweeping victory party leaders predicted did not materialize as Trump loyalists were defeated across several swing states.

Democrats held the Senate, while Republicans won a razor-thin House majority Wednesday.

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine deflected a question about Trump’s announcement at the Republican Governors Association meeting in Orlando on Wednesday.

“It’s a little early to be commenting on the presidential race,” DeWine said as he walked into a forum on “The Future of the GOP.”

“We are still trying to analyze what happened a week ago,” said DeWine, who won his reelection by 25 points after refusing to embrace Trump’s lies about the 2020 election.

Trump won’t make it easy for his party to ignore 2024, however, even with the opening contests of the next presidential primary season likely more than a year away.

Trump launched his third presidential bid Tuesday night before an audience of several hundred supporters in a chandeliered ballroom at his Mar-a-Lago club. That’s even as the political parties have yet to set their primary voting calendars.

“America’s comeback starts right now,” Trump said.

The former president, who sparked a deadly insurrection after losing his 2020 reelection bid, hoped to launch his 2024 campaign in the glow of resounding GOP midterm victories. Instead, he entered the race in a moment of deep political vulnerability following a series of stringing losses that many party leaders blamed on him.

High-profile Republican candidates for the Senate and governor across Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin who parroted Trump’s baseless conspiracy theories about the 2020 election were defeated.

DeSantis, meanwhile, won his reelection by nearly 20 points in what has historically been a swing state. With party activists openly encouraging DeSantis to seek the presidency, Trump has been increasingly critical of the Florida governor in recent weeks — even unveiling a new nickname: Ron DeSanctimonious.

Asked about Trump’s barbs on Monday, DeSantis quipped, “Check out the scoreboard.”

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, increasingly a Trump critic, declined to weigh in on the early 2024 debate when asked, although he acknowledged that the GOP “turned off a lot of these centrist voters” in the 2022 midterms.

“The way I’m gonna go into this presidential primary season is to stay out of it. I don’t have a dog in that fight,” McConnell said.

On the other side of the Capitol, House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy, a Trump loyalist who hopes to become the House speaker should the GOP seize that chamber’s majority, walked away from reporters on Wednesday when asked whether he would support Trump’s 2024 bid.

Still, a handful of Republican elected officials have already endorsed Trump’s nascent campaign — House Republican Conference Chair, Rep. Elisa Stefanik, R-N.Y., and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., among them.

In New Hampshire, which is in line to host GOP’s opening presidential primary election in 2024, Gov. Chris Sununu predicted that few would pay attention to Trump’s announcement in the short term.

“He won’t clear the field,” Sununu told Fox News, declining to rule out a 2024 presidential run of his own.

Sununu, a Republican, won his reelection by more than 15 points after pushing back against Trump’s election lies. At the same time, New Hampshire Republican Senate candidate Don Bolduc, a Trump loyalist, lost by 9 points.

“You could make the argument he’s never been weaker politically,” Sununu said of Trump. “It’s really an announcement from a defensive position. Therefore, I think it’s going to make a little bit of news and we’re all going to move on. There’s still going to be a lot of folks that enter this race — probably not until late ’23.”

Conservative media has also been cool to Trump’s 2024 political ambitions.

The New York Post, one of Trump’s favorite hometown newspapers, marked Trump’s campaign launch with only this line on the very bottom of the front page: “Florida man makes announcement.”

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Peoples reported from New York. AP writers Mike Schneider in Orlando, Farnoush Amiri and Lisa Mascaro in Washington contributed.

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The AP Interview: Pence says voters want new leadership

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NEW YORK (AP) — Former Vice President Mike Pence said Wednesday that voters are “looking for new leadership” following the disappointing midterm elections for Republicans, who are now openly debating whether his onetime boss, Donald Trump, should maintain a leading role in the party.

In an interview with The Associated Press just hours after Trump announced another White House run, Pence declined to say whether the thinks the former president is fit to return to his old job. But he implicitly positioned himself as a potential alternative for Republicans seeking conservative leadership without the chaos of the Trump era.

”I think we will have better choices in 2024,” Pence said. “I’m very confident that Republican primary voters will choose wisely.” He said that he and his family will gather over the holidays “and we’ll give prayerful consideration to what our role might be in the days ahead.”

Asked whether he blamed Trump for this week’s Republican losses, he said, “Certainly the president’s continued efforts to relitigate the last election played a role, but … each individual candidate is responsible for their own campaign.”

Pence, while considering a presidential campaign of his own, has been raising his profile as he promotes his new memoir, “ So Help Me God,” which was released on the same day that Trump made official his long-teased White House bid. If Pence moves forward, he would be in direct competition with Trump, a particularly awkward collision for the former vice president, who spent his four years in office defending Trump, refusing to criticize him publicly until after Jan. 6, 2021.

That’s when a mob of Trump’s supporters — driven by Trump’s lie that Pence could somehow reject the election results — stormed the Capitol building while Pence was presiding over the certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s victory. The vice president was steered to safety with his staff and family as some in the mob chanted, “Hang Mike Pence!”

Still, Pence on Wednesday remained largely reticent to criticize Trump beyond the insurrection. That hesitance reflects the reality that the former president remains enormously popular with the GOP base that Pence would need to win over to be competitive in primary contests.

“It wasn’t exactly the style of presidency that I would have advanced had I been the first name on the ballot,” Pence said of his unlikely partnership with Trump. “But it was his presidency and I was there to support him and help him. And until that fateful day in January 2021, I sought to do just that.”

Pence said he hadn’t watched Trump’s full announcement speech on Tuesday, but made the case that voters are looking for a new, less contentious direction.

“You know, the president has every right to stand for election again,” he said. But after traveling the country campaigning with midterm candidates, “I have a genuine sense that the American people are looking for new leadership that could unite our country around our highest ideals and that would reflect the respect and civility the American people show to one another every day, while still advancing the policies that we advanced during those years of service,” he said.

Trump’s campaign launch comes as Republicans grapple with fallout from elections in which they failed to wrest control of the Senate and are on track to win only the narrowest majority in the House. Those results came despite voters’ deep concerns over inflation and the direction of the country under Democrat Biden.

Trump endorsed a long list of candidates in competitive states including Pennsylvania and Arizona who then lost their general election races. While Pence said he was pleased Republicans were taking the House, he acknowledged the election “wasn’t quite the red wave that we all had hoped for.”

“My conclusion,” he said, “is the candidates that were focused on the future, focused on the challenges the American people are facing today and solutions to those challenges did quite well.” But those still questioning the 2020 results — as Trump demanded — “did not do as well.”

In his new book, Pence writes in detail about his experience on Jan. 6, and he expounded on that Wednesday.

“I’ll never forget the simmering indignation that I felt that day, seeing those sights on the cellphones as we gathered in the loading dock below the Senate chamber. I couldn’t help but think not this, not here, not in America,” he said.

In the interview, he recalled his reaction to Trump’s tweets “that criticize me directly at a time that a riot was raging in the Capitol hallways.”

“The president’s words were reckless, and they endangered my family and everyone at the Capitol building,” he said. “The president had decided to be a part of the problem. I was determined to be a part of the solution.”

Asked what consequences Trump should face for his actions, however, Pence punted.

“That’s up to the American people,” he said he believes. “I truly do. And look, I’ll always be proud of the record of the Trump administration for four-and-a-half years. President Trump was not just my president. He was my friend. And we worked closely together to advance the policies that we’d been elected to serve.”

“It didn’t end well,” he acknowledged, in an understatement. “And that tragic day in January will always be a day of great sadness for me, a sadness about what had happened to our relationship, to the bad advice the president was accepting from a group of lawyers that, as I write in my book, should never have been allowed on the White House grounds, let alone in the Oval Office. ”

Pence and Trump were always an odd couple — a pugilistic, crude New York celebrity and a staid Midwestern evangelical who once wrote an essay on the evils of negative campaigning and who, as a rule, says he will not dine alone with a woman who is not his wife. Asked why he so rarely spoke up when Trump launched deeply personal insults against figures such as the late Sen. John McCain, Pence said, in effect, that that was what he had had signed up for.

“As his vice president, I believed it was my role to be loyal to the president,” he said. “And so every step of the way, the way I squared it was I believe that I had been elected vice president to support the presidency that Donald Trump had been elected to advance.”

Indeed, Pence in the book writes that even after Jan. 6, the two men “parted amicably when our service to the nation drew to a close.”

“And in the weeks that followed, from time to time, he would call me and to speak and check in,” Pence said in the interview. “But when he returned to criticizing me and others who had upheld the Constitution that day, I just decided I’d be best to go our separate ways. And we have.”

Asked why he would part “amicably” with Trump given the president’s actions — including his decision not to call Pence to check in on his safety while the riot was underway — Pence said he believed the president had been genuinely regretful when they met for the first time after the 6th.

“For the balance of about 90 minutes, we sat, we talked. I was very direct with the president. I made it clear to him that I believe that I did my duty that day, and I sensed genuine remorse on his part,” Pence recalled. “The president and I had forged not only a good working relationship, but a friendship over four-and-a-half years. We worked together literally every day. But he was different in that time. I encouraged him to take the matter to prayer.”

As for his plans for the future, as everyone asks whether he plans to run, he and his family will gather over the holidays “and we’ll give prayerful consideration to what our role might be in the days ahead.”

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Shapiro to take office with mandate from Pennsylvania voters

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HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Josh Shapiro, the Democratic governor-elect of Pennsylvania, will take office with a decisive mandate from voters, who overwhelmingly rejected a Republican drive to pare back abortion rights and voting laws in the premier battleground state.

Shapiro, the state’s two-term attorney general, scored a massive 14 percentage point win over Republican rival Doug Mastriano in last week’s midterm election, smashed state campaign finance records and became the first candidate since 1966 to succeed a governor of the same party in Pennsylvania.

Democrats in the state also flipped a U.S. Senate seat — just the second time since the Civil War that the state elected two Democrats to the chamber — while winning a majority of the state’s congressional seats and possibly even control of the state House of Representatives for the first time in 12 years.

U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., said the election results showed voters’ eagerness to protect abortion rights and the sanctity of elections from subversion by far-right Republicans who promoted former President Donald Trump’s lies about voter fraud in his 2020 loss.

“In a lot of ways, it was a triumph over extremism as much as anything, and we probably underestimated that in the election,” Casey said.

Set to be sworn in Jan. 17, Shapiro will take the reins in a state riven by bitter partisanship over voting laws and the management of the COVID-19 pandemic by his predecessor, outgoing Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf. That helped drive a record number of vetoes by one governor going back to the 1970s.

Shapiro will likely face battles with Republicans who control the state Senate over the grist of statehouse business, such as budgeting.

And, with the 2024 presidential election looming, big questions remain unresolved over the state’s voting laws after three years of partisan gridlock, ongoing court battles over mail-in voting and Trump’s lies of fraud in the 2020 election that still buffet the state.

Still, Shapiro stressed that crossover support from Republican voters aided his victory against Mastriano, a far-right state senator who spread conspiracy theories, supported a complete ban on abortion and did more than any other gubernatorial candidate in the nation to subvert the 2020 presidential election.

Pledging to manage the state’s affairs with bipartisanship in mind, Shapiro said he has a “mandate” to bring people together and vowed to work with Republicans in the state Capitol.

“I think it’s clear, you know, I’m not going to get everything done that I want, and they’re not going to get everything done they want,” Shapiro said in an interview Friday on WILK-FM in Scranton. “But there’s a lot we can do together and that is what is going to be my focus.”

One conservative advocate, Leo Knepper, political director of the Citizens Alliance of Pennsylvania, said he worries that Republican lawmakers will shrug off conservative principles because of the size of Shapiro’s victory.

“I think that some of these Republicans are going to have their eye to the fact that he won by a fairly significant margin and what did that margin look like in their districts,” Knepper said.

About 6 in 10 independents backed Shapiro in the election, compared with about 3 in 10 who supported Mastriano, according to AP VoteCast, an expansive survey of more than 3,100 voters in the state.

Shapiro maintains that he will veto any legislation that he views as undermining abortion rights or voting rights. But, in a nod to the potential for Democrats to control the state House of Representatives, he told KYW-AM radio in Philadelphia that it appears that he “won’t have to wield that veto pen much.”

The Associated Press has not called two state House races that will determine which party controls the majority. County election boards are expected to certify results later this week.

Shapiro entered the race as a dominant figure in the state Democratic Party, a powerhouse fundraiser and polished speaker elected twice statewide — someone who even Republicans say is a talented politician.

He unified the Democratic Party, its leaders and its allies behind his candidacy, cleared the primary of challengers and ran to the middle on key issues, including on energy in the nation’s No. 2 natural gas state.

He broke with Wolf’s top climate-change priority, a quest bitterly opposed by Republicans to make Pennsylvania the first major fossil fuel state to impose carbon-pricing.

He proposed a big corporate income tax cut and opened the door to Republican plans to allow broader state funding of private and parochial schools. And he rejected Wolf’s COVID-19 policies, saying he would not order mask mandates or business shutdowns in a pandemic — even though his office had defended them in court.

In post-election interviews, he stressed that he will focus on his core priorities of improving schools, safety and the economy.

Shapiro also must assemble a Cabinet and name a replacement to finish the last two years of his term as Pennsylvania’s top law enforcement officer.

Shapiro will take office with the state in a stable financial position, thanks to strong tax collections and billions in federal pandemic aid.

Still, the state Supreme Court is considering a legal challenge to how the state funds public schools, a lawsuit that could impose major changes on how the state distributes billions of dollars in school funding.

He will be in the middle of the fight over climate change, facing pressure from environmental advocates to crack down on planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions, while labor unions — their members work on power plants, pipelines and refineries — say he promised not to block major new gas infrastructure projects.

Shapiro also will have to navigate a partisan fight over updating Pennsylvania’s voting laws, which has dominated the state Capitol the past two years.

Many Republicans on the campaign trail — including Mastriano and nearly every other candidate in the GOP gubernatorial primary — called for the repeal of no-excuse mail-in voting in Pennsylvania.

For his part, Shapiro said he will pursue changes to voting laws — Election Day voter registration and automatic voter registration — that have seen no traction in the Republican-controlled Legislature.

With Pennsylvania certain to be a battleground in the 2024 presidential election, the focus on election laws isn’t fading.

On Sunday, Mastriano conceded, issuing a statement that acknowledged his defeat and asked his supporters to give Shapiro the opportunity to lead.

But, he also said work must be done on elections to make them “transparent, secure and more quickly decided.”

“Pennsylvanians deserve to have faith in our elections,” Mastriano said.

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Associated Press reporter Nuha Dolby in New York contributed to this report. Follow Marc Levy on Twitter: twitter.com/timelywriter.

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Learn more about the issues and factors at play in the midterms at https://apnews.com/hub/explaining-the-elections. And follow the AP’s election coverage of the 2022 elections at https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections.



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Republicans in Strong Position to Retake House as Counting Continues

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WASHINGTON—Republicans remained poised to win control of the House of Representatives with more than a dozen races still uncalled Monday, as Congress returned to work and new members set to take office next year began orientation.

Democrats are projected to hold their Senate majority after a weekend win in Nevada, giving them the 50 seats needed to control the chamber. A final Senate race, in Georgia, is set for a runoff on Dec. 6 because neither candidate got a majority.

In the House, the GOP appeared on track to win the barest of majorities, nonpartisan analysts said. On Sunday night, additional vote tallies in California and Arizona put Republican candidates in striking distance of victory, though those races hadn’t been called.

“Dems’ dreams of holding the House majority probably died tonight,” David Wasserman, the House editor of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, tweeted Sunday, referring to shifts toward Republicans in three races in those states.

Republicans currently have won 212 House seats with Democrats at 204, according to the Associated Press tally. A party needs 218 for a majority in the chamber. The GOP could end up only a couple of seats above that number, and the party got a boost Sunday by flipping a seat held by Democrats in Oregon.

Headed into the election, Democrats had a 220-212 majority, with three vacancies.

The possibility of an extremely narrow GOP majority is already creating challenges for Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.). Mr. McCarthy is running to be speaker assuming Republicans take back the House, but he is meeting resistance from his party’s right flank, which now has greater leverage to influence the vote.

Mr. McCarthy will need a simple majority of his conference during Tuesday’s leadership vote, to be selected as the party’s preference for leader. To become speaker, he will need a majority of the full House in a vote in January.

Rep. Andy Biggs (R., Ariz.) plans to run against Mr. McCarthy for the post, according to people familiar with the matter. The ally of former President

Donald Trump

is unlikely to get enough votes to win, but the candidacy could provide a gauge of opposition to Mr. McCarthy.

Allies of Mr. McCarthy made calls to Democratic Rep.

Henry Cuellar

of Texas over the weekend and asked him if he would switch parties to expand the GOP majority, according to five people familiar with the calls.

Mr. Cuellar turned them down, according to multiple people. A spokesman for Mr. McCarthy said the calls weren’t made at the request of Mr. McCarthy. “Anyone suggesting this is simply exercising in fan fiction,” said spokesman Mark Bednar.

Meanwhile, Senate Minority Leader

Mitch McConnell

(R., Ky.) was also facing pushback from some of his Republican members, who questioned whether the party should delay the leadership election until after the Georgia runoff, in which Republican

Herschel Walker

is facing Democratic incumbent Sen.

Raphael Warnock.

The Senate GOP elections are set for Wednesday.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. The Senate GOP elections are set for Wednesday.



Photo:

SARAH SILBIGER/REUTERS

New members are in Washington this week for orientation. Some who hadn’t had their races called were also invited and would be included in leadership votes. House Democrats will vote for their leadership later this month and the Senate is expected to keep their same top leaders.

Democrats had performed better than expected in the midterm elections, even with the anticipated loss of the House majority. They picked up a GOP-held Senate seat and flipped some House seats, including in Washington over the weekend.

Of the remaining uncalled competitive House races, a half-dozen were in California. They included the re-election contests of Democratic Reps.

Katie Porter

and

Mike Levin

and GOP Reps. David Valadao, Mike Garcia and Michelle Steel as well as one open seat. Both parties were also intensely watching close contests in Arizona, Colorado and Oregon.

While the contest for House control continued, Senate Democrats celebrated their victory, and the closely watched gubernatorial race in Arizona between Republican Kari Lake and Democrat

Katie Hobbs

remained too close to call. Ms. Hobbs was ahead Sunday evening by about 1 percentage point, with about 160,000 more ballots expected to be counted.

While Ms. Lake had a path to victory, she would need to overperform in all remaining ballots. The campaign manager for Ms. Hobbs, the Arizona secretary of state, released a statement Sunday night calling her “the unequivocal favorite to become the next governor of Arizona.”

In the key swing states of Arizona, Nevada, Michigan and Pennsylvania, candidates who made false claims about the 2020 election ran for positions that can exert great influence over election administration. Here’s a look at some of the results of those midterm races, and what it means for future elections. Illustration: Laura Kammermann

Write to Eliza Collins at eliza.collins+1@wsj.com. and Chad Day at Chad.Day@wsj.com

Copyright ©2022 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

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Trump lashes out at DeSantis and Youngkin

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Former U.S. President Donald Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis speak at midterm election rallies, in Dayton, Ohio, U.S. November 7, 2022 and Tampa, Florida, U.S., November 8, 2022 in a combination of file photos. 

Gaelen Morse | Reuters

WASHINGTON — As former President Donald Trump readies for the planned launch Tuesday of his 2024 presidential campaign, he issued fresh broadsides against two Republican governors who emerged as early favorites to challenge him for his party’s nomination: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin.

Trump’s attacks came as scores of Republican officials across the country placed the blame for their party’s disappointing results in Tuesday’s elections squarely on Trump’s doorstep.

“‘You’re fired!’ That’s the message Republicans must deliver to Donald Trump. ASAP!” said Republican New York Rep. Pete King, a longtime backer of Trump’s. “He held massive rallies where he ranted endlessly about himself, complained about the 2020 election and attacked other Republicans. It was Trump’s ego first, last and always,” King said in a tweet Thursday.

Arkansas Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson said Trump’s support for candidates didn’t help them in general elections. “Trump’s endorsement comes with a cost. The cost is that it minimizes your ability to attract independents and to win in November,” Hutchinson said Friday on PBS’ “Firing Line with Margaret Hoover.”

Trump even appeared to have lost the support of influential conservative blogger Mike Cernovich, who told his 1 million Twitter followers that Tuesday’s losses meant “at least no one has to suck up to Trump anymore.”

Trump and his team responded to the blame in part by showcasing his record of having endorsed hundreds of winning candidates.

“President Trump has racked up over 215 wins for his endorsements — a truly unprecedented accomplishment and something only possible because of President Trump’s ability to pick and elect winners,” Trump spokesman Taylor Budowich told CNBC.

Trump-backed candidates did indeed win hundreds of races in the midterms, although many of them were in districts that were not considered competitive, and by candidates who were endorsed by Republicans across the party spectrum.

“There’s no question this was a bad election for Donald Trump,” said Asher Hildebrand, an associate professor at the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University. “With the possible exception of [gubernatorial candidate] Kari Lake in Arizona and [Senate candidate] Herschel Walker in Georgia, every governor and Senate candidate he endorsed in five main battleground states appears to have lost.”

“That combined with DeSantis’ strong showing in the Florida governor’s race increases pressure among Republican elites to find another standard bearer in 2024,” he added.

DeSantis won reelection in a landslide, defeating former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist by 19 points and winning accolades from conservative media and Republican officials.

In a lengthy statement Thursday, Trump sought to take credit for elevating DeSantis out of relative obscurity in 2017, posting on his Truth Social site that DeSantis “came to me in desperate shape in 2017—he was politically dead … low approval, bad polls, and no money, but he said that if I would Endorse him, he could win.”

Trump also made a startling claim that he “sent in the FBI and the U.S. Attorneys” to Florida during the immediate aftermath of the 2018 election there, and “fixed” what he claimed was voter fraud in Broward County, which he said was costing DeSantis and now-Sen. Rick Scott tens of thousands of votes per day.

If the claim were true, it would amount to an extraordinary admission by Trump, who was president at the time, that he had personally intervened in a state election.

But as of late Friday, NBC News and other major outlets could find no indication that this ever happened. Sarah Isgur, who served as a spokeswoman for the Trump Justice Department in 2017, tweeted Friday that the alleged intervention “never happened.”

DeSantis, for his part, has remained focused this week on the damage and recovery effort from Hurricane Nicole, which struck his state on Wednesday.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis speaks during a press conference to update information about the on ongoing efforts to help people after hurricane Ian passed through the area on October 4, 2022 in Cape Coral, Florida.

Joe Raedle | Getty Images

In addition to DeSantis, Trump took aim at Virginia’s Youngkin on Friday, in this case going so far as to mock his name, spelling it “Young Kin” and saying it “[s]ounds Chinese, doesn’t it?”

Like DeSantis, Youngkin is a rising star in the GOP. His upset victory over former Gov. Terry McAuliffe in 2021 is widely seen as having written a new playbook for Republicans on how to win statewide elections in swing states.

Trump posted that Youngkin “couldn’t have won without me. I Endorsed him, did a very big Trump Rally for him telephonically, got MAGA to Vote for him – or he couldn’t have come close to winning. But he knows that, and admits it.”

Youngkin responded to Trump’s comments Friday in a statement shared by his spokesman, saying, “I work really hard to bring people together, I do not call people names. This is a moment for us to come together.”

The statement also included a subtle plug for Youngkin’s own ability to govern in a purple state, a message he would likely amplify if he were to run for president in 2024.

“We are potentially going to have divided government in Washington and just like we have divided government in Virginia, we have proven that we can come together and get things done.”

Virginia Republican gubernatorial nominee Glenn Youngkin speaks during his election night party at a hotel in Chantilly, Virginia, U.S., November 3, 2021.

Jonathan Ernst | Reuters

Both DeSantis and Youngkin have played coy about whether they would entertain a run for president, but DeSantis is farther along in the process and has much bigger national name recognition after Tuesday than Youngkin does.

Still, neither of them is anywhere near where Trump is in the process, namely just days away from an expected announcement.

“President Trump is going to announce on Tuesday he’s running for president, and it’s gonna be a very professional, very buttoned-up announcement,” said Trump adviser Jason Miller on “The War Room,” former Trump White House advisor Steve Bannon’s TV program.

Miller said more than 250 media outlets would attend and there would be “1,000 people there with the signs already.”

CNBC Politics

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  • Biden expected to bring up Chinese economic practices, Taiwan and Russia’s war in Ukraine in first meeting with Xi as president
  • Midterm results are looking increasingly sunny for Biden as Democrats avoid ‘red wave’
  • Control of Senate hinges on handful of states that could take days — or longer — to resolve
  • Pivotal Georgia Senate race between Warnock and Walker headed to a runoff, secretary of state says
  • Midterm elections: Several key races are still too close to call, leaving control of U.S. Senate, House up in the air
  • Control of Senate hinges on handful of states that could take days — or longer — to resolve
  • Trump’s favorite candidates disappoint on Election Day, raising questions about his 2024 pitch
  • Live updates — Midterm elections: Democrat Shapiro wins Pennsylvania governor’s race, key Senate contest is too early to call, NBC projects
  • Republican J.D. Vance defeats Democrat Tim Ryan in Ohio Senate race, NBC News projects
  • 2022 midterm elections: Here are the states where recounts are likely
  • Democrat Abigail Spanberger wins reelection in bellwether Virginia district, NBC News projects
  • Democrat Josh Shapiro wins Pennsylvania governor’s race, NBC News projects
  • Op-ed: The 2022 midterm elections matter less to stock markets than investors think

Trump’s leadership PAC, Save America, also used the upcoming announcement to drum up fundraising, sending out sweepstakes offers to win a free trip for two to Palm Beach on Tuesday “to be the very first person to meet [Trump] in Mar-a-Lago after my big announcement.”

Trump’s fundraising appeals are famous for their hyperbole, and this was no exception, telling would-be donors “this announcement will perhaps be the most important speech given in the history of the United States of America.”

But even as Trump faces detractors within his party, inside Trump’s camp his advisers see an American political landscape that has been fundamentally changed by the former president, and millions of voters who remain loyal to his America First agenda.

As Republican House and Senate leaders grappled with the changing face of their caucuses and challenges to their own positions, Trump’s influence was plainly visible.

Current House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who has been loyal to Trump, faced potential challenges to his leadership from more conservative members of his caucus.

Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, meanwhile, faced problems of his own, as four members of his caucus circulated a letter calling for a delay in leadership elections until after the Georgia Senate runoff on Dec. 6. The letter amounted to an outright rebellion against the most powerful Republican figure in the Senate in the past 20 years.

“As a party, we found ourselves consistently navigating the power struggle between Trump and anti-Trump factions of the Party, mostly within the donor class,” wrote Michigan Republican Party chief of staff Paul Cordes, in a memo obtained by the Detroit Free Press. “That power struggle ended with too many people on the sidelines and hurt Republicans in key races.”

But for Trump’s team, the theory of the case is simple. “As President Trump looks to the future, he will continue to champion his America First agenda that won overwhelmingly at the ballot box,” Budowich told CNBC.

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US

Trump lashes out at DeSantis and Youngkin

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Former U.S. President Donald Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis speak at midterm election rallies, in Dayton, Ohio, U.S. November 7, 2022 and Tampa, Florida, U.S., November 8, 2022 in a combination of file photos. 

Gaelen Morse | Reuters

WASHINGTON — As former President Donald Trump readies for the planned launch Tuesday of his 2024 presidential campaign, he issued fresh broadsides against two Republican governors who emerged as early favorites to challenge him for his party’s nomination: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin.

Trump’s attacks came as scores of Republican officials across the country placed the blame for their party’s disappointing results in Tuesday’s elections squarely on Trump’s doorstep.

“‘You’re fired!’ That’s the message Republicans must deliver to Donald Trump. ASAP!” said Republican New York Rep. Pete King, a longtime backer of Trump’s. “He held massive rallies where he ranted endlessly about himself, complained about the 2020 election and attacked other Republicans. It was Trump’s ego first, last and always,” King said in a tweet Thursday.

Arkansas Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson said Trump’s support for candidates didn’t help them in general elections. “Trump’s endorsement comes with a cost. The cost is that it minimizes your ability to attract independents and to win in November,” Hutchinson said Friday on PBS’ “Firing Line with Margaret Hoover.”

Trump even appeared to have lost the support of influential conservative blogger Mike Cernovich, who told his 1 million Twitter followers that Tuesday’s losses meant “at least no one has to suck up to Trump anymore.”

Trump and his team responded to the blame in part by showcasing his record of having endorsed hundreds of winning candidates.

“President Trump has racked up over 215 wins for his endorsements — a truly unprecedented accomplishment and something only possible because of President Trump’s ability to pick and elect winners,” Trump spokesman Taylor Budowich told CNBC.

Trump-backed candidates did indeed win hundreds of races in the midterms, although many of them were in districts that were not considered competitive, and by candidates who were endorsed by Republicans across the party spectrum.

“There’s no question this was a bad election for Donald Trump,” said Asher Hildebrand, an associate professor at the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University. “With the possible exception of [gubernatorial candidate] Kari Lake in Arizona and [Senate candidate] Herschel Walker in Georgia, every governor and Senate candidate he endorsed in five main battleground states appears to have lost.”

“That combined with DeSantis’ strong showing in the Florida governor’s race increases pressure among Republican elites to find another standard bearer in 2024,” he added.

DeSantis won reelection in a landslide, defeating former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist by 19 points and winning accolades from conservative media and Republican officials.

In a lengthy statement Thursday, Trump sought to take credit for elevating DeSantis out of relative obscurity in 2017, posting on his Truth Social site that DeSantis “came to me in desperate shape in 2017—he was politically dead … low approval, bad polls, and no money, but he said that if I would Endorse him, he could win.”

Trump also made a startling claim that he “sent in the FBI and the U.S. Attorneys” to Florida during the immediate aftermath of the 2018 election there, and “fixed” what he claimed was voter fraud in Broward County, which he said was costing DeSantis and now-Sen. Rick Scott tens of thousands of votes per day.

If the claim were true, it would amount to an extraordinary admission by Trump, who was president at the time, that he had personally intervened in a state election.

But as of late Friday, NBC News and other major outlets could find no indication that this ever happened. Sarah Isgur, who served as a spokeswoman for the Trump Justice Department in 2017, tweeted Friday that the alleged intervention “never happened.”

DeSantis, for his part, has remained focused this week on the damage and recovery effort from Hurricane Nicole, which struck his state on Wednesday.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis speaks during a press conference to update information about the on ongoing efforts to help people after hurricane Ian passed through the area on October 4, 2022 in Cape Coral, Florida.

Joe Raedle | Getty Images

In addition to DeSantis, Trump took aim at Virginia’s Youngkin on Friday, in this case going so far as to mock his name, spelling it “Young Kin” and saying it “[s]ounds Chinese, doesn’t it?”

Like DeSantis, Youngkin is a rising star in the GOP. His upset victory over former Gov. Terry McAuliffe in 2021 is widely seen as having written a new playbook for Republicans on how to win statewide elections in swing states.

Trump posted that Youngkin “couldn’t have won without me. I Endorsed him, did a very big Trump Rally for him telephonically, got MAGA to Vote for him – or he couldn’t have come close to winning. But he knows that, and admits it.”

Youngkin responded to Trump’s comments Friday in a statement shared by his spokesman, saying, “I work really hard to bring people together, I do not call people names. This is a moment for us to come together.”

The statement also included a subtle plug for Youngkin’s own ability to govern in a purple state, a message he would likely amplify if he were to run for president in 2024.

“We are potentially going to have divided government in Washington and just like we have divided government in Virginia, we have proven that we can come together and get things done.”

Virginia Republican gubernatorial nominee Glenn Youngkin speaks during his election night party at a hotel in Chantilly, Virginia, U.S., November 3, 2021.

Jonathan Ernst | Reuters

Both DeSantis and Youngkin have played coy about whether they would entertain a run for president, but DeSantis is farther along in the process and has much bigger national name recognition after Tuesday than Youngkin does.

Still, neither of them is anywhere near where Trump is in the process, namely just days away from an expected announcement.

“President Trump is going to announce on Tuesday he’s running for president, and it’s gonna be a very professional, very buttoned-up announcement,” said Trump adviser Jason Miller on “The War Room,” former Trump White House advisor Steve Bannon’s TV program.

Miller said more than 250 media outlets would attend and there would be “1,000 people there with the signs already.”

CNBC Politics

Read more of CNBC’s politics coverage:

  • Washington turns up heat on crypto ‘darling’ Sam Bankman-Fried following near collapse of FTX
  • We may not know who controls the U.S. Senate until December; House could be decided much sooner
  • Biden expected to bring up Chinese economic practices, Taiwan and Russia’s war in Ukraine in first meeting with Xi as president
  • Midterm results are looking increasingly sunny for Biden as Democrats avoid ‘red wave’
  • Control of Senate hinges on handful of states that could take days — or longer — to resolve
  • Pivotal Georgia Senate race between Warnock and Walker headed to a runoff, secretary of state says
  • Midterm elections: Several key races are still too close to call, leaving control of U.S. Senate, House up in the air
  • Control of Senate hinges on handful of states that could take days — or longer — to resolve
  • Trump’s favorite candidates disappoint on Election Day, raising questions about his 2024 pitch
  • Live updates — Midterm elections: Democrat Shapiro wins Pennsylvania governor’s race, key Senate contest is too early to call, NBC projects
  • Republican J.D. Vance defeats Democrat Tim Ryan in Ohio Senate race, NBC News projects
  • 2022 midterm elections: Here are the states where recounts are likely
  • Democrat Abigail Spanberger wins reelection in bellwether Virginia district, NBC News projects
  • Democrat Josh Shapiro wins Pennsylvania governor’s race, NBC News projects
  • Op-ed: The 2022 midterm elections matter less to stock markets than investors think

Trump’s leadership PAC, Save America, also used the upcoming announcement to drum up fundraising, sending out sweepstakes offers to win a free trip for two to Palm Beach on Tuesday “to be the very first person to meet [Trump] in Mar-a-Lago after my big announcement.”

Trump’s fundraising appeals are famous for their hyperbole, and this was no exception, telling would-be donors “this announcement will perhaps be the most important speech given in the history of the United States of America.”

But even as Trump faces detractors within his party, inside Trump’s camp his advisers see an American political landscape that has been fundamentally changed by the former president, and millions of voters who remain loyal to his America First agenda.

As Republican House and Senate leaders grappled with the changing face of their caucuses and challenges to their own positions, Trump’s influence was plainly visible.

Current House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who has been loyal to Trump, faced potential challenges to his leadership from more conservative members of his caucus.

Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, meanwhile, faced problems of his own, as four members of his caucus circulated a letter calling for a delay in leadership elections until after the Georgia Senate runoff on Dec. 6. The letter amounted to an outright rebellion against the most powerful Republican figure in the Senate in the past 20 years.

“As a party, we found ourselves consistently navigating the power struggle between Trump and anti-Trump factions of the Party, mostly within the donor class,” wrote Michigan Republican Party chief of staff Paul Cordes, in a memo obtained by the Detroit Free Press. “That power struggle ended with too many people on the sidelines and hurt Republicans in key races.”

But for Trump’s team, the theory of the case is simple. “As President Trump looks to the future, he will continue to champion his America First agenda that won overwhelmingly at the ballot box,” Budowich told CNBC.

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World

Russia’s hopes for a Republican landslide to hurt Ukraine are vanishing fast

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Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) and Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu (C) meet soldiers during a visit at a military training centre of the Western Military District for mobilized reservists, outside the town of Ryazan on October 20, 2022.

Mikhail Klimentyev | Afp | Getty Images

While the U.S. midterm election results roll in, and point to a far tighter-than-expected race between Republicans and Democrats as they vie for control of Congress, the vote is being closely watched in Ukraine and Russia with both gauging how the election could impact the war and geopolitics.

Although it has not commented publicly, Moscow is seen to favor a win for the Republicans in the midterms in the hope that a big power shift could bring about a change in the U.S.’ foreign policy toward Ukraine — and could deepen rumblings of discontent among Republicans over the massive financial support the U.S. is giving Kyiv to fight Russia.

Nine months into the ongoing conflict and the Biden administration has now committed more than $18.9 billion in security assistance to Ukraine, according to the Department of Defense’s latest figures.

There are some signs that bipartisan support for such immense and ongoing aid could be waning, however, with prominent Republicans starting to question how long the U.S.’ largesse can continue, particularly against a backdrop of inflation, potential recession and rising living costs.

For one, prominent Republican Kevin McCarthy said in an interview in October there would be no “blank check” for Ukraine if the Republicans win a majority in the House of Representatives in the midterms.

Shift in power … and Ukraine support?

Russia could well hope that a shift in power after the the midterm elections could herald a cooler attitude toward Ukraine. But analysts say Moscow could be disappointed unless former leader Donald Trump is able to return to power, having signaled he could announce next week a plan to run for the presidency again in 2024.

“There’s no significant downside pressure on U.S. military support for Ukraine through the end of 2023,” Ian Bremmer, founder and head of the Eurasia Group consultancy, said in emailed comments this week.

“Further, most Republicans remain staunchly committed to Ukraine support, despite House minority leader Kevin McCarthy’s announcement of ‘no blank check’ for the Ukrainians under a Republican-led House. The GOP congressional position, at least near-term, will be ‘the U.S. gives military aid, the Europeans give financial aid,’ which changes little on the ground,” he added.

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin listens while then-U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a press conference in Helsinki, Finland, in 2019.

Brendan Smialowski | AFP | Getty Images

The bigger question comes from Trump announcing his presidential run, Bremmer said, adding that he expected such an announcement imminently.

That, he added, was likely to be accompanied by blaming Biden for the war with a populist opposition to billions of taxpayer dollars being spent on Ukraine, a position that “will gain momentum with MAGA supporters in Congress and undermine longer-term U.S. alignment with NATO allies,” he noted.

The U.S. has sought to calm any nerves in Kyiv about a shift in Washington’s attitude toward the country with Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, making clear “that the United States’ commitment to Ukraine is unwavering” when she met Ukraine’s president on Tuesday.

Moscow’s bad reputation

Moscow has earned itself a dubious reputation when it comes to U.S. democratic processes, found to have interfered in the 2016 election and suspected of continuing to sow political discord and in the country.

Russia has done little to dispel doubts over its involvement in a string of nefarious activities in recent years, from alleged cyberattacks to disinformation campaigns aimed at swaying U.S. voters and elections.

Putin’s close confidante Yevgeny Prigozhin, an increasingly powerful oligarch who leads a state-backed private military group fighting in Ukraine, known as the Wagner Group — as well as several companies implicated in 2016 U.S. election interference — openly alluded to interfering in the U.S. midterms this week.

“We have interfered [in U.S. elections], we are interfering and we will continue to interfere. Carefully, accurately, surgically and in our own way, as we know how to do,” Prigozhin said in comments posted by the press service of his Concord catering firm on Russia’s Facebook equivalent VKontakte.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, a Russian businessman and close ally of Vladimir Putin. He recently admitted to creating the Wagner Group, a private military company fighting in Ukraine, in 2014.

Mikhail Svetlov | Getty Images

U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price on Monday said that the Biden administration was not surprised by Prigozhin’s admission, telling a briefing “his bold confession, if anything, appears to be just a manifestation of the impunity that crooks and cronies enjoy under President Putin and the Kremlin.”

Prigozhin did not say whether the election interference was aimed at propelling Republican candidates to power, but Russia was found to have interfered in the 2016 U.S. election in order to undermine Hillary Clinton’s campaign while boosting that of Trump, under whose presidency relations between the U.S. and Russia thawed.

For its part, the Kremlin said Wednesday that the midterm elections would not improve the “bad” relations between Moscow and Washington and dismissed allegations that Russia was meddling in the vote.

“These elections cannot change anything essential. Relations still are, and will remain, bad,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters, according to Reuters.

Bipartisan support firm, for now

Analysts tend to agree that what we could see potentially is a paring back of financial support but by no means a complete withdrawal of aid — for now at least.

“We consider it as quite unlikely but not fully impossible that the new U.S. Congress may scale back U.S. military and financial support for Ukraine over time,” Chief Economist at Berenberg Bank Holger Schmieding said in a note Wednesday.

“If so, that could impact the situation on the battlefield, prolong the war, impair Ukraine’s ability to cope with the costs of war and trigger a further wave of refugees into the EU.”

For now, however, time — and the U.S. political establishment — appear to be on Ukraine’s side.

“So far, a solid bi-partisan consensus has underpinned U.S. support for Ukraine,” Schmieding noted, adding thatdespite some recent grumblings on the fringes of both U.S. political parties, Berenberg Bank expects this consensus to hold, “at least for as long as no Trump-style ‘America First’ populist occupies the White House.”

“The potential signal that a U.S. shift might send to China about the U.S. commitment to defend a beleaguered democracy (Ukraine – or Taiwan?) against aggression should be a strong argument to stay the course. Still, we need to watch the tail risk,” he said.

Timothy Ash, senior emerging markets sovereign strategist at BlueBay Asset Management, said it was in the U.S.’ interest to continue supporting Ukraine, given it erodes the Putin regime.

“The war in Ukraine must provide the U.S. with the best chance for regime change in Russia, of taking Putin out. He is being weakened militarily, economically, diplomatically. And yes, the U.S. would absolutely love to see Putin removed from power – the calculation will be the next Russian leader cannot be as bad as Putin.”

Europe watches on

Analysts have noted that the military situation on the ground in Ukraine could well determine how much, and for how long, U.S. support for Ukraine continues, with Kyiv striving to show its allies that it can, and will, win the war, as long as Western military aid continues to flow to it.

“Judging by conversations with military experts, time is currently on the side of Ukraine’s armed forces,” Schmieding noted.

Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks during his press conference at the Rus Sanatorium, October,31,2022, in Sochi, Russia.

Contributor | Getty Images

“A steady supply of advanced Western weapons and Ukraine’s will to resist will probably shape the situation on the ground more than Russia’s forced mobilization of ever more — often unmotivated — manpower. However, that only holds for as long as the Western world stands squarely behind Ukraine.”

He noted that in the unlikely case that the U.S. were to reduce its support for Ukraine, the impact on Europe could be significant with the region forced to do more for Kyiv, while finding it almost impossible “to fully offset a reduced flow of U.S. weapons (and cash) to Ukraine.”

This could encourage President Vladimir Putin to hold out for longer, waiting for Western support for Ukraine to crumble further, he noted. “In turn, anything that prolongs the war and its impact on energy and food prices could hold back Europe’s recovery from the looming winter recession,” he warned.

“Russia poses the only significant military threat to Europe for the foreseeable future. By degrading Russia’s military machine, Ukraine is currently making Europe safer by the month. But if the war ends in a way that Putin can count at least as a partial success, Europe would have to spend much more than otherwise to guard itself against Russian aggression in the future.”

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World

Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu Holds Slight Edge in Election Exit Polls

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TEL AVIV—Former Israeli Prime Minister

Benjamin Netanyahu

was holding on to an edge over his rivals in exit polls for Israel’s fifth election in four years, but the projections showed his lead as marginal and the outcome could change as more votes are tallied.

According to figures from an exit poll by Israel’s public broadcaster Kan, updated slightly before 1 a.m. Wednesday Israel time, Mr. Netanyahu’s Likud party was projected to win 30 seats in Israel’s parliament, or Knesset. His bloc of right-wing and religious allies was projected to win 62 seats out of the 120-seat Knesset.

That gives him an advantage over Israel’s current centrist Prime Minister

Yair Lapid,

who has vowed to form a government without Mr. Netanyahu and whose Yesh Atid party was projected to have won 23 seats, according to Kan. Mr. Lapid’s bloc was projected to win 54 seats, according to the latest exit poll.

Supporters of Benjamin Netanyahu’s party on the eve of the vote displayed a banner saying ‘only Likud can.’



Photo:

menahem kahana/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

Early on Wednesday morning, Mr. Netanyahu took the stage in front of a crowd of cheering supporters in Jerusalem to tell them they were “on the cusp of a very great victory.”

“We need to wait for the final results. But one thing is already clear: Our path, the Likud’s path, has proven itself,” Mr. Netanyahu said.

About 71.3% of eligible voters headed to the ballot box, the highest tally since 2015, according to Israel’s Central Elections Committee. By 6 a.m. in Israel, only about 34% of the vote had been counted, making the results fluid.

Mr. Netanyahu has promised voters he would form what would be the country’s most right-wing and religious coalition in its history. It would include an alliance of far-right and religious lawmakers proposing tough measures to quell Palestinian unrest in the West Bank and pass legislation to weaken Israel’s judiciary. The joint leader of that alliance is the far-right lawmaker

Itamar Ben-Gvir,

whose Religious Zionism party received 15 seats, according to Kan, making it the third-largest party in the Knesset.

Mr. Netanyahu has vowed to make Mr. Ben-Gvir a minister if he forms a government. Mr. Ben-Gvir is requesting control of the public-security ministry, which would give him control of the country’s police force.

Itamar Ben-Gvir’s Religious Zionism party was projected to win the third-largest number of seats.



Photo:

AMIR COHEN/REUTERS

Mr. Ben-Gvir, who was convicted in 2007 of incitement to racism and supporting a terrorist organization, was best known in Israel for defending Israelis accused of violent attacks against Palestinians in court, before rising to prominence over the past year on a law-and-order campaign. He has told voters that he hopes to make Israelis safer by deporting people who he believes undermine the Jewish state, executing terrorists and giving immunity to Israeli troops and police who shoot and kill Arabs who are seen holding stones or Molotov cocktails before they throw them.

At Mr. Ben-Gvir’s election-night party in Jerusalem, activists enthusiastically cheered the exit-poll results, dancing in circles while waving blue-and-white Israeli flags.

“It feels like Independence Day,” said Alon Hazon, 47 years old, from Holon in central Israel. “We’re ready to take our country back.”

Arab citizens of Israel have expressed fear over Mr. Ben-Gvir. Riham Abu Nar, 19, who works at a kindergarten in Jaffa, said she was voting for the Arab-led Hadash-Ta’al party to prevent Mr. Ben-Gvir from gaining power.

“Itamar is really racist,” said Ms. Abu Nar, who is an Arab citizen of Israel. “He’s obsessed with Arabs. Our lives will be in danger if he’s in government.”

Mr. Ben-Gvir has denied that he is a racist.

The Islamist Ra’am party, which broke a taboo to join the previous government, received five seats in the Kan poll, while the Arab-led alliance of Hadash-Ta’al received four seats.

Mr. Netanyahu’s apparent parliamentary majority could be lost if the Palestinian nationalist Balad party crosses the electoral threshold of 3.25% of the total vote. According to Kan’s exit poll, Balad has 3.1% of the total vote.

Prime Minister Yair Lapid leads a centrist secular party allied with right-wing, left-wing and Arab factions.



Photo:

Ariel Schalit/Associated Press

Israelis remain split over whether Mr. Netanyahu—who was the nation’s longest-serving prime minister and was ousted last year—should return to power. He is beloved by a large number of Israelis, many of whom refer to him as “the King of Israel.” But he has been unable to lead his Likud party to a decisive victory since 2015, as Israelis on both the right and left remain torn over whether he should serve as prime minister while on trial for corruption.

“Our previous good and strong governments were led by Bibi,” said Likud voter Avigayil Neuman, 28, from Jerusalem’s Rehavia neighborhood, referring to Mr. Netanyahu by his nickname.

“I’m sick of right-wing governments led by Netanyahu,” said Dana Lenzini, a teacher from Tel Aviv. She cast her vote for Mr. Lapid’s Yesh Atid party, saying he had done a fine job in the four months he has been premier.

Mr. Netanyahu’s trial on corruption charges, now over two years old, was a rallying cry for his opponents in the past but doesn’t loom as large in this election, with prosecutors suffering some courtroom setbacks. Still, the trial underscores the stakes for Mr. Netanyahu, who denies any wrongdoing. His potential coalition allies say they will pass legislation that will make him immune from prosecution. He denies that he is seeking re-election to evade the trial.

The fragmented nature of the Israeli political landscape means that parties must form coalitions to govern.



Photo:

Daniel Rolider/Getty Images

Mr. Lapid, who leads a centrist secular party but allies with right-wing, left-wing and Arab factions, has warned voters that women, LGBT Israelis and Arab citizens are all at risk of seeing their rights diminished if Mr. Netanyahu and his right-wing and religious coalition are ushered into power. Mr. Lapid has cast the election as a choice over Israel’s future as a democratic state.

“I know that they’ve already declared the end of democracy a thousand times,” Mr. Lapid said Wednesday. “But this time it’s not a threat. It’s the election promise of the third-largest party in Israel and opposition leader

Benjamin Netanyahu

is entirely dependent on them.”

Aviv Bertele, 42, who runs a Hebrew language school in Tel Aviv, said he voted for the left-wing Meretz party despite being more right-wing because he wants lawmakers who can fight against people such as Mr. Ben-Gvir, whose alliance he fears could limit the rights of LGBT people and women.

“As a member of the LGBT community, and as someone who considers himself a feminist, I think we owe it to ourselves to protect ourselves from fascist forces like Itamar Ben-Gvir,” he said. “These elections are crucial to determine whether Israel will go in a liberal way or become something like Iran or Saudi Arabia.”

The result of the fifth ballot is likely to become clearer Wednesday, when Israel’s election committee will have finished the bulk of the vote tally. Under Israeli law, parties must win at least 3.25% of the vote to enter the Knesset. The fragmented nature of the Israeli political landscape means that parties must form coalitions to secure a parliamentary majority and govern. The process is likely to drag on for weeks, if not months. Analysts aren’t ruling out a sixth election.

In the coming days, Israeli President

Isaac Herzog

will choose the leader he believes has the best likelihood of assembling a governing coalition, usually that of the party that wins the most seats or receives the most recommendations to form a government by fellow lawmakers. That person has six weeks to try to cobble together a majority coalition that includes the support of smaller parties.

Write to Dov Lieber at dov.lieber@wsj.com

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US

Suspect in assault at Pelosi home had posted about QAnon

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The man accused of breaking into House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s California home and severely beating her husband with a hammer appears to have made racist and often rambling posts online, including some that questioned the results of the 2020 election, defended former President Donald Trump and echoed QAnon conspiracy theories.

David DePape, 42, grew up in Powell River, British Columbia, before leaving about 20 years ago to follow an older girlfriend to San Francisco. A street address listed for DePape in the Bay Area college town of Berkeley led to a post office box at a UPS Store.

DePape was arrested at the Pelosi home early Friday. San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins said she expected to file multiple felony charges, including attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon, burglary and elder abuse.

Stepfather Gene DePape said the suspect had lived with him in Canada until he was 14 and had been a quiet boy.

“David was never violent that I seen and was never in any trouble although he was very reclusive and played too much video games,” Gene DePape said.

He said he hasn’t seen his stepson since 2003 and tried to get in touch with him several times over the years without success.

“In 2007, I tried to get in touch but his girlfriend hung up on me when I asked to talk to him,“ Gene DePape said.

David DePape was known in Berkeley as a pro-nudity activist who had picketed naked at protests against local ordinances requiring people to be clothed in public.

Gene DePape said the girlfriend whom his son followed to California was named Gypsy and they had two children together. DePape also has a child with a different woman, his stepfather said.

Photographs published by The San Francisco Chronicle on Friday identified DePape frolicking nude outside city hall with dozens of others at the 2013 wedding of pro-nudity activist Gypsy Taub, who was marrying another man. Taub did not respond Friday to calls or emails.

A 2013 article in The Chronicle described David DePape as a “hemp jewelry maker” who lived in a Victorian flat in Berkeley with Taub, who hosted a talk show on local public-access TV called “Uncensored 9/11,” in which she appeared naked and pushed conspiracy theories that the 2001 terrorist attacks were “an inside job.”

A pair of web blogs posted in recent months online under the name David DePape contained rants about technology, aliens, communists, religious minorities, transexuals and global elites.

An Aug. 24 entry titled “Q,” displayed a scatological collection of memes that included photos of the deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and made reference to QAnon, the baseless pro-Trump conspiracy theory that espouses the belief that the country is run by a deep state cabal of child sex traffickers, satanic pedophiles and baby-eating cannibals.

“Big Brother has deemed doing your own research as a thought crime,” read a post that appeared to blend references to QAnon with George Orwell’s dystopian novel “1984.”

In an Aug. 25 entry titled “Gun Rights,” the poster wrote: “You no longer have rights. Your basic human rights hinder Big Brothers ability to enslave and control you in a complete and totalizing way.”

The web hosting service WordPress removed one of the sites Friday afternoon for violating its terms of service.

On a different site, someone posting under DePape’s name repeated false claims about COVID vaccines and wearing masks, questioned whether climate change is real and displayed an illustration of a zombified Hillary Clinton dining on human flesh.

There appeared to be no direct posts about Pelosi, but there were entries defending former President Donald Trump and Ye, the rapper formally known as Kayne West who recently made antisemitic comments.

In other posts, the writer said Jews helped finance Hitler’s political rise in Germany and suggested an antisemitic plot was involved in Russia’s recent invasion of Ukraine.

“The more Ukrainians die NEEDLESSLY the cheaper the land will be for Jews to buy up,” the post said.

In a Sept. 27 post, the writer said any journalists who denied Trump’s false claims of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election “should be dragged straight out into the street and shot.”

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AP Global Investigative Reporter Michael Biesecker reported from Washington and Breaking News Investigative Reporter Bernard Condon from New York. Reporters Stefanie Dazio in Los Angeles, Olga Rodriguez in San Francisco and news researcher Jennifer Farrar in New York contributed.

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