Yesterday, three states—Maryland, Nebraska, and West Virginia—held primary contests for Democrats and Republicans.
On the presidential level, the contest was largely uneventful. But there were some warning signs for both former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden—namely, that neither got as large a share of the vote as they’d like.
Former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan speaks during his watch party after winning the GOP primary election in Annapolis, Md., on May 14, 2024. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times
On the Republican side, former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley raked in between 9 percent and 20 percent support in the three races, despite dropping out on March 6. It’s a concerning sign for Republicans which suggests that Trump still hasn’t fully consolidated the GOP electorate.
On the Democratic side, Biden lost between 10 percent and 30 percent support in his largely uncontested. This is likely due to criticism from Biden’s left flank about his handling of the war in Gaza.
In other races down-ballot, the results were largely predictable—with a few unexpected shake-ups.
Moderate Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) easily defeated a challenge from the Trump-adjacent Dan Frei, setting him up for a tough general election rematch with state Sen. Tony Vargas.
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Maryland Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate and Prince George's County Executive Angela Alsobrooks arrives to greet voters outside a voting location for the state primary election at the Marilyn Praisner Community Recreation Center in Burtonsville, Md., on May 14, 2024 Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
The biggest upset came in Maryland, where Rep. David Trone (D-Md.) lost in a double-digit defeat to Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks, who marketed herself as the stronger progressive.
That defeat only came after Trone, owner of Total Wine & More, spent more than $60 million of his own cash on funding the race—one of the hardest-fought Democratic primaries seen in years.
That sets Alsobrooks up for a November showdown with former Gov. Larry Hogan, a popular two-term executive who could flip the seat.
Though Democrats are still favored to win the seat, some Democrat voters expressed reservations about Alsobrooks in comments to The Epoch Times, suggesting that they may consider Hogan if Alsobrooks won.
Just to the west, voters in West Virginia formally nominated West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice for U.S. Senate. Justice handily defeated a challenge from the right from Rep. Alex Mooney (R-W. Va.).
With Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W. Va.) out of the running, it’s a race Republicans are all but guaranteed to win in 2020’s second most Republican state—which will mark the first time since 1921 that the state sent an all-Democrat contingent to Washington.
—Joseph Lord
Tents and signs fill Harvard Yard by the John Harvard statue in the Pro-Palestinian encampment at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on May 5, 2024. Joseph Prezioso/AFP
CHINA EXPLOITS CAMPUS PROTESTS
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) exploits American civil unrest to divide U.S. society and the pro-Palestinian campus protests are the latest example, experts say.
Chinese propaganda has reported the pro-Palestinian demonstrations as a “disconnect” and “internal divisions” between elites and ordinary citizens in American society. Meanwhile, an online influence operation linked to China’s Ministry of Public Security fueled anti-Semitism and called for “flood the encampments” in universities in New York City.
“As a long-term cognitive warfare to the United States, what the CCP wants to achieve is to use the pro-Palestinian protests to show America as a country in crisis at home with racial and religious divides and democracy as a bad form of government,” Yao-Yuan Yeh, professor of international studies at the University of St. Thomas in Houston, told The Epoch Times.
During the Black Lives Matter protests in the summer of 2020, the CCP deployed a similar propaganda narrative to make democracy look bad, according to H. Colleen Sinclair, a Louisiana State University associate research professor specializing in misinformation and methods.
“Once we’re more divided, then we’re fighting amongst ourselves. And they don’t even have to engage in any sort of kinetic warfare; we can engage in that warfare amongst our own citizens,” she told The Epoch Times. “This is what information warfare is.”
An outcome of the addiction to social media, including TikTok, is that people lose their ability to see patterns and identify any logical disconnect in forming their opinions, said Antonio Graceffo, a China analyst and an Epoch Times contributor.
The protesters want peace and to “stop the genocide” in Gaza without acknowledging that Hamas is a designated terrorist group and that Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7 by killing people, raping women, and holding hostages, in Graceffo’s view. In addition, he said the protesters are supporting a system that doesn’t approve of their liberal and progressive lifestyles.
“It’s such an incredibly successful psyop that they are able to get people to protest for a system that would kill them,” he told The Epoch Times, referring to campus protesters’ embrace of what he views as an incomplete narrative.
—Terri Wu
BOOKMARKS
The United Nations has updated its death statistics for men, women, and children in the conflict in Gaza. While the total number of dead remains similar, the number of women and children has been lowered after more bodies have been identified.
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said on May 14 that inflation rates would remain higher than originally expected, for the time being. He said further increases to interest rates were unlikely, but still possible, based on the reading of the latest data.
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) blasted the New York trial against President Donald Trump as a “travesty of justice,” outside a Manhattan courthouse on May 14. “They are doing this intentionally to keep him here and keep him off the campaign trail, and I think everybody in the country can see that for what it is,” he said.
Anti-abortion activist Lauren Handy received a prison sentence of nearly five years on May 14 for her part in a protest at a clinic in 2020. Ms. Handy and several other defendants were convicted under the FACE Act for blockading access to an abortion provider.
Saskatchewan resident Richard Dyke has been charged with 60 new counts of child exploitation following an investigation by local police. Authorities have accused him of abusing 32 minors, all male, some of whom were clients at his wife’s daycare.
