Latest news with #FirstCongressionalDistrict
CNN
4 days ago
- Politics
- CNN
Rep. Nancy Mace touts ties to Trump in campaign-style town hall
Republican Rep. Nancy Mace, fresh off an announced bid for South Carolina's governor's mansion, jockeyed for an endorsement from President Donald Trump and sought to tie herself closely to him in a public meeting with a friendly crowd Wednesday. While members of her party have been encouraged to hold town halls over their August break from Washington to sell Trump's agenda out in the country, Mace's event – billed as 'The Mother of All Town Halls' – more closely resembled a campaign event. Mace spoke at length about her plans for governor and answered some questions from a crowd of supporters at a venue outside of South Carolina's First Congressional District, which Mace has represented since 2020. She teased plans to hold similar events across the state. The three-term congresswoman spent much of her remarks aligning herself with Trump and touting what she's done for the president, specifically citing her 2024 interview with ABC's George Stephanopoulos that resulted in a $15 million defamation settlement, paid toward Trump's presidential library. 'Trump won that defamation suit, right, and how Nancy Mace will not back down, and Nancy Mace will hold the line,' Mace said. She continued, 'I haven't told the president this, but my one ask, I just want one ask, because the $15 million is supposed to be used to build his presidential library. I just want my name over a women's bathroom,' she continued, nodding to her pushes to ban transgender women from women's restrooms. Mace lobbied for an endorsement from Trump, one that will be critical in a crowded GOP gubernatorial primary that includes fellow Trump ally and South Carolina Rep. Ralph Norman and state Attorney General Alan Wilson, who was the target of multiple Mace jabs Wednesday. 'I'm just saying, I've done a lot for the president,' Mace said. 'If you talk to him, I would really like his support for governor.' In her speech, the congresswoman also continued to claim credit for a $195 million infrastructure grant in the Palmetto State, a grant only possible because of former President Joe Biden's infrastructure law. 'One of the things the press will not tell you: I am one of the leading members of Congress who's gotten resources for our state,' Mace said. 'In fact, our office assisted in getting the largest infrastructure grant in South Carolina history, at $195 million earlier this year. The press won't tell you that.' Mace at the time joined some of her House Republican colleagues in voting against the measure. Asked by CNN about her ability to tout the grant as an accomplishment despite having not voted for the bill, Mace said she 'absolutely' could. 'We fight over how we spend the money, how we appropriate it, but once the appropriations happen, I'm gonna make sure that South Carolina, that we get our fair share, because that money's getting spent and our tax dollars in South Carolina is equal to anybody else's in California, New York, Tennessee,' she said. She later continued, 'Just because we disagree on how the money's spent means we shouldn't get money for our roads and bridges? Isn't that kind of hypocritical, that's ironic?' Mace on Wednesday also backed Texas' efforts to redraw its congressional map, telling reporters she 'would arrest the Texas Legislature' and supports '[Texas GOP Gov. Greg] Abbott in the Texas Legislature to do what's fair, what's right.' The congresswoman set herself apart from Norman, who pushed Wednesday for the South Carolina State Assembly to redraw the Palmetto State's congressional lines. 'I think our lines are good. We did a great job. The state. Congress doesn't do anything with drawing the lines. We don't have any legal authority, alright? It's done by the state legislature, the judiciary specifically. But the lines were drawn.' Mace later further separated herself from Norman, who singled out Democratic Rep. Jim Clyburn's district as one to target. 'Well, constitutionally, there has to be a seat for a Democrat in a Black, you know, census for Jim Clyburn for a Democrat seat,' Mace said. 'So that's constitutionally, civil rights that exists. It's always going to be a Democrat seat.'
CNN
4 days ago
- Politics
- CNN
Rep. Nancy Mace touts ties to Trump in campaign-style town hall
Republican Rep. Nancy Mace, fresh off an announced bid for South Carolina's governor's mansion, jockeyed for an endorsement from President Donald Trump and sought to tie herself closely to him in a public meeting with a friendly crowd Wednesday. While members of her party have been encouraged to hold town halls over their August break from Washington to sell Trump's agenda out in the country, Mace's event – billed as 'The Mother of All Town Halls' – more closely resembled a campaign event. Mace spoke at length about her plans for governor and answered some questions from a crowd of supporters at a venue outside of South Carolina's First Congressional District, which Mace has represented since 2020. She teased plans to hold similar events across the state. The three-term congresswoman spent much of her remarks aligning herself with Trump and touting what she's done for the president, specifically citing her 2024 interview with ABC's George Stephanopoulos that resulted in a $15 million defamation settlement, paid toward Trump's presidential library. 'Trump won that defamation suit, right, and how Nancy Mace will not back down, and Nancy Mace will hold the line,' Mace said. She continued, 'I haven't told the president this, but my one ask, I just want one ask, because the $15 million is supposed to be used to build his presidential library. I just want my name over a women's bathroom,' she continued, nodding to her pushes to ban transgender women from women's restrooms. Mace lobbied for an endorsement from Trump, one that will be critical in a crowded GOP gubernatorial primary that includes fellow Trump ally and South Carolina Rep. Ralph Norman and state Attorney General Alan Wilson, who was the target of multiple Mace jabs Wednesday. 'I'm just saying, I've done a lot for the president,' Mace said. 'If you talk to him, I would really like his support for governor.' In her speech, the congresswoman also continued to claim credit for a $195 million infrastructure grant in the Palmetto State, a grant only possible because of former President Joe Biden's infrastructure law. 'One of the things the press will not tell you: I am one of the leading members of Congress who's gotten resources for our state,' Mace said. 'In fact, our office assisted in getting the largest infrastructure grant in South Carolina history, at $195 million earlier this year. The press won't tell you that.' Mace at the time joined some of her House Republican colleagues in voting against the measure. Asked by CNN about her ability to tout the grant as an accomplishment despite having not voted for the bill, Mace said she 'absolutely' could. 'We fight over how we spend the money, how we appropriate it, but once the appropriations happen, I'm gonna make sure that South Carolina, that we get our fair share, because that money's getting spent and our tax dollars in South Carolina is equal to anybody else's in California, New York, Tennessee,' she said. She later continued, 'Just because we disagree on how the money's spent means we shouldn't get money for our roads and bridges? Isn't that kind of hypocritical, that's ironic?' Mace on Wednesday also backed Texas' efforts to redraw its congressional map, telling reporters she 'would arrest the Texas Legislature' and supports '[Texas GOP Gov. Greg] Abbott in the Texas Legislature to do what's fair, what's right.' The congresswoman set herself apart from Norman, who pushed Wednesday for the South Carolina State Assembly to redraw the Palmetto State's congressional lines. 'I think our lines are good. We did a great job. The state. Congress doesn't do anything with drawing the lines. We don't have any legal authority, alright? It's done by the state legislature, the judiciary specifically. But the lines were drawn.' Mace later further separated herself from Norman, who singled out Democratic Rep. Jim Clyburn's district as one to target. 'Well, constitutionally, there has to be a seat for a Democrat in a Black, you know, census for Jim Clyburn for a Democrat seat,' Mace said. 'So that's constitutionally, civil rights that exists. It's always going to be a Democrat seat.'
Chicago Tribune
4 days ago
- Politics
- Chicago Tribune
Vice President JD Vance heads to Indianapolis to talk redistricting; U.S. Rep Frank Mrvan's seat likely under attack
As Vice President JD Vance heads to Indianapolis Thursday to discuss redistricting with Gov. Mike Braun, U.S. Rep. Frank Mrvan said potential redistricting of Indiana's First Congressional District would silence the voices of his constituents. 'The Trump administration has recognized that their harmful policies to benefit wealthy elites at the expense of working families are wildly unpopular,' Mrvan, D-Highland, said in a statement issued Tuesday night. Braun told reporters Tuesday that Vance will visit Indianapolis Thursday to discuss many topics, including possible redistricting. 'Whatever we discuss there, and if that topic comes up, it's exploratory,' Braun said. 'There's been no commitments made.' House Speaker Todd Huston, R-Fishers, and Senate President Pro Tem Rodric Bray, R-Martinsville, did not respond to requests for comment about a potential special session to address redistricting. Redistricting occurs every 10 years following the release of census data. But the Trump administration has been pressuring states, most notably Texas, to redistrict ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. Texas Democrats on Monday prevented their state's House of Representatives from moving forward with a special session to vote on a redrawn Congressional map. After the Democrats left the state, the Republican-dominated House was unable to establish the quorum of lawmakers required to do business. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has made threats about removing members who are absent from their seats. Democrats counter that Abbott is using 'smoke and mirrors' to assert legal authority he does not have. The Texas House quickly issued civil arrest warrants for absent Democrats and Abbott ordered state troopers to help find and arrest them, but lawmakers physically outside Texas are beyond the jurisdiction of state authorities. Indiana has nine Congressional districts, with seven districts represented by Republicans and two represented by Democrats. Of the two Democratic seats, the First Congressional District seat – which Mrvan has held since 2021 – is a 'realistic' target for redistricting because it's a larger district compared to the Seventh District, which encompasses Indianapolis, said Julia Vaughn, the executive director of Common Cause Indiana, a grassroots, nonpartisan organization with active independent redistricting commission campaigns in the state. 'The target would be on Northwest Indiana, but I think the Congress people representing those districts that border the First Congressional District will be very nervous because they'll have to take Republican voters from their districts and put them in the First,' Vaughn said. But Vaughn said redistricting the First District poses the risk of racial gerrymandering, which is the illegal packing of communities of color to preordain election outcomes. If racial gerrymandering were to occur, it would face legal action, she said. Aaron Dusso, an associate professor of political science at Indiana University Indianapolis, said if the Seventh District was considered for redistricting, legislators could use 'the pizza method,' which would slice Democratic portions of Marion County into Republican districts to break up Democratic support. The First Congressional District remains Indiana's most competitive seat. In 2022, Mrvan won nearly 53% of the vote against Republican Jennifer-Ruth Green. In 2024, Mrvan saw a small increase in the number of votes to just over 53% when he won against Republican Randy Niemeyer. In Indiana, Article 4, Section 5 of the state's constitution states that the General Assembly elected during the year in which a federal decennial census is taken shall fix by law the number of Senators and Representatives and apportion them among districts according to the number of inhabitants in each district, as revealed by that federal decennial census. The territory in each district shall be contiguous. Mrvan said the Trump administration's 'only hope to maintain control' in Congress is to force the state legislature to 'violate' the Indiana Constitution and undergo a mid-decade redistricting. 'It is no surprise that some believe redistricting is the only option to cling to power when they know the American people are rejecting the damage done by the House Republican Majority,' Mrvan said. For example, Mrvan said the reconciliation law hurts healthcare providers and limits healthcare coverage 'all to fund massive tax cuts for the wealthiest individuals and special interests.' It would be 'reprehensible to call in the Indiana General Assembly for a special session on redistricting,' Mrvan said. The legislature should be focused on issues that impact Hoosiers, he said, like restoring state funds for local police departments. In states where redistricting is controlled by state legislatures, like in Indiana, it's common for the majority party to engage in gerrymandering, which is when Congressional and state legislative maps are drawn in a way to benefit the majority party, Dusso said. Dusso said he was surprised to hear that Vance is coming to Indiana to talk about redistricting because Indiana is already gerrymandered in Republicans' favor, with Democrats packed into two Congressional districts and the remaining seven in safe Republican districts. 'There is a danger involved in this, too, because you're going to have to put Democratic voters, solidly Democratic voters, into a lot of different Congressional districts. If you have a swing election coming here in 2026, you could end up losing some of these districts, which you would've won easily, but then you monkeyed around with these districts,' Dusso said. With California officials signaling they will pursue redistricting as well, Dusso said Democrats there have more options for creating new seats because California has an independent commission in charge of redistricting. Republican-led states are heavily gerrymandered, Dusso said, so it's likely national leaders are looking at Texas to create a new seat because it's a large state. But Indiana, Dusso said, is already gerrymandered in Republicans' favor. State Rep. Mike Andrade, D-Munster, joined Texas Democrats in Boston on Wednesday to show his colleagues support and call attention to gerrymandering. 'Although I am in Boston standing with Texas Democrats, this fight has now reached our doorstep,' Andrade said. 'This is pure gerrymandering disguised as redistricting. It is a blatant power grab from the national level that has trickled down into Indiana and Hoosiers don't want it.' Andrade said redrawing Indiana's Congressional maps would take away voters' voices. 'This will take power away from the people,' Andrade said. 'Instead of voters choosing their representatives, the party in power will choose its voters. That was never how our democracy was intended to work.' Indiana shouldn't enter the national fight over redistricting Congressional seats, Vaughn said. 'Governor Braun doesn't work for the White House. He doesn't work for JD Vance. He works for Hoosiers, and I have not heard one single Hoosier say, 'Let's go back and revisit redistricting,'' Vaughn said.
Boston Globe
02-06-2025
- Politics
- Boston Globe
No prison time for campaign worker charged with falsifying nomination papers in R.I. congressional race
In a statement on Monday, Matos said she feels 'pleased to have my name cleared by today's conviction.' Advertisement 'I have supported this investigation at every step in the hopes that the truth would come to light,' Matos said. 'With this case settled, the facts are clear: Holly McClaren committed a serious crime that undermined the sanctity of our state's free and fair elections. I'm grateful to the law enforcement officers who handled this investigation thoroughly and professionally and whose work ultimately led to today's results.' Get Rhode Map A weekday briefing from veteran Rhode Island reporters, focused on the things that matter most in the Ocean State. Enter Email Sign Up McClaren was McClaren worked as a part-time field volunteer gathering signatures for Matos during the 2023 Democratic primary for the First Congressional District seat. A criminal investigation was launched, however, when officials in Jamestown, Newport, and East Providence reported suspect signatures of dead people and others who claimed to have never signed the forms. Advertisement The scandal rocked Matos' campaign. The lieutenant governor ultimately finished fourth in the 11-candidate primary election won by now-Congressman Gabe Amo. Prosecutors alleged McClaren knowingly falsified and submitted nomination papers to the Jamestown and Newport Boards of Canvassers on behalf of Matos between July 11 and 13, 2023. McClaren has John R. Grasso, an attorney representing McClaren, maintained that position on Monday. 'She has always denied that she secured any fraudulent signatures,' Grasso told the Globe. 'The charge was that she signed the documents, attesting to the fact that she personally authenticated those signatures, when, in fact, they were gathered by someone else and then just handed to her in a pile of papers, and she signed them.' Grasso said McClaren, who now lives in Virginia, brought the papers 'to wherever they needed to go, and whoever checked them said, 'You got to sign these.'' 'So she flipped the page over and signed them,' he said. 'That's a case of don't sign a document that you haven't read.' McClaren was one of two people charged with falsifying nomination papers for Matos' campaign: In April 2024, Christopher M. Cotham, of Massachusetts, Court records show the case against Cotham remains pending. Material from previous Globe stories was used in this report. Christopher Gavin can be reached at
Fox News
16-05-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
Journalist turned potential House candidate says fellow Democrats 'keep losing' by failing working class
EXCLUSIVE – A seasoned reporter and self-described lifelong Democrat was so fed up by her party's failures with the working class that she's considering jumping into the fray herself. Hanna Trudo, a former reporter for The Hill who's also made stops at such sites as The Daily Beast, Wired, The New Republic and Politico, is mulling a run for the First Congressional District in her home state of New Hampshire. The seat, currently occupied by Rep. Chris Pappas, D-N.H., is opening up next year as Pappas runs for U.S. Senate to replace outgoing Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H. Trudo, a fourth-generation, millennial New Hampshire native, has reported extensively on the Democratic Party's left flank during her journalism career. And to hear her put it, she's gotten tired of them not delivering for a base of voters that started flocking to President Donald Trump over the past decade. "I've been a lifelong Democrat, but being from New Hampshire, from a working-class family, a lot of the issues that I've reported on over the years in terms of the progressive wing of the party, and even the centrists and the moderates, it's oftentimes a failure in my view to address the needs of working-class people," she told Fox News Digital. "And so when we wonder why Democrats keep losing, to me, the answers are sort of obvious. When you're not able to deliver on what people are asking you to deliver on, you lose." Trudo, who's been in journalism since 2012, said she was considering leaving the profession even before Trump was re-elected last year. The president's win, buoyed by his continued strength with working-class voters flocking to Republicans, crystallized to Democrats like Trudo that her party's leadership had become hopelessly out of touch. "There's a big disconnect from the D.C. punditry that I've seen and observed up close, and the strategist and the consultant class and the donor class, to what actual Democrats, working-class people, of all parties, frankly, what they want," she said. Trudo is the latest mainstream media figure who's gotten wrapped up in Democratic Party politics. CNN's John Avlon lost his bid for Congress as a Democrat in New York in 2024, and ex-ABC News analyst Matthew Dowd launched an ill-fated campaign for Lieutenant Governor as a Democrat in Texas in 2021. Former CNBC anchor Michelle Caruso-Cabrera ran an unsuccessful Democratic primary campaign against Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in 2020, and President Barack Obama's second press secretary was longtime Time Magazine editor Jay Carney. Last year, former NPR editor Uri Berliner revealed he found in 2021 that registered Democrats outnumbered registered Republicans 87 to zero in the outlet's Washington office. "I think we're kidding ourselves if we don't come to the table with our own biases," Trudo said about being a journalist with strong political opinions. "My bias has always been not necessarily towards Democrats, but towards the working-class issues, which Democrats, in terms of what I've covered, have been the ones talking about these things as long as I've been in journalism. So to me, it's always been sort of prioritizing that." Asked by Fox News Digital if Americans concerned about liberal media bias had a point, Trudo said it was a good question. "I've debated it a lot over the years," she said. "I do think we have to be really careful. And not so much left versus right. I do think we have to be on the side of truth. And maybe that sounds cliché, but I genuinely believe that. I think we have to be able to call out things as true, period." Trudo, an admirer of Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., called him the Democratic Party's current leader last month. She noted his and Ocasio-Cortez's headline-grabbing "Fighting Oligarchy" tour is the kind of proactive politics that's capturing the angry mood of the country. However, Trudo, who has no set timeline for when she'll decide about running for Congress, bristled at the "Democratic socialist" label for herself, saying she prefers "working-class Democrat" who embraces economic populism. Sanders won the 2016 and 2020 Democratic primaries in New Hampshire, the former in a landslide over Hillary Clinton that served as notice that his far-left populism resonated with the grassroots. The state, which has one of the country's highest-percentage White populations, is known for its fiscal conservatism and social liberalism that can make it difficult to pigeon-hole politically. Trump lost New Hampshire all three times he ran for the White House, and it sports two Democratic U.S. Senators, but the state's current governor is Republican Kelly Ayotte and the GOP controls the legislature. "I think in New Hampshire in particular, there's sort of this disconnect between the leaders that we elect within the party and the actual mood of the people," Trudo said. "It's always kind of interesting to see this pull towards the middle or towards the centrist approach in a state whose motto is quite literally 'Live Free or Die.'" Trudo said she's worried most about social programs like Medicaid and Social Security being under attack by Republicans and wants Democrats to pursue economic populism to regain credibility with voters. "They hear platitudes," she said. "They hear working across the aisle… I've covered Congress, I've covered Democrats for 10 years professionally. So I'm very well aware of the sort of electoral calculations that come into play when we talk about these kinds of things. But I think it's going to take someone who's not beholden to the inter-party dialog, because so often that has failed. It's definitely failed people here." As she mulls jumping into the race officially, Democrats are going through a wrenching period as reports of a White House cover-up of President Joe Biden's cognitive decline in office dominate headlines. Meanwhile, Trump is more accessible to the media than ever, while also antagonizing the press at every opportunity. While critical of Trump over his anti-media rhetoric, Trudo said she applauds accessibility, and she'll talk to anybody to get her message out, something she feels her fellow Democrats have been too scared to do. "I think we see a big part of the problem with Democrats is that closed-off mentality," she told Fox News Digital. "People go in very rehearsed to interviews. They have specific sound bites that they want to get their point across. They don't want to say anything controversial or off the cuff. And it's alienated a lot of people in the party." A day after she spoke with Fox News Digital, the conservative Ruthless Podcast accused Trudo of "ghosting" them on an interview after she'd offered in an X post on May 5 to speak to the hosts. The show's hosts said they reached out multiple times after her public offer to come on the program, and she ignored them. "Like most politicians, she's saying one thing and doing another. We have many questions and plan to keep asking until the truth is revealed," Ruthless co-host John Ashbrook told Fox News Digital. Trudo didn't immediately respond to a request for additional comment.
