Politics

WORCESTER, Mass. (AP) — U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton, a moderate Massachusetts Democrat, secured enough delegate support Saturday to appear on the state’s primary ballot as he challenges incumbent U.S. Sen. Ed Markey in this year’s Senate race.

Yet even though Moulton cleared a key hurdle to continue his Senate bid, it was Markey who won the party’s endorsement after winning more than 50% of the delegation’s support.

“You have a choice, you have to decide what the future looks like and what you’re going to demand,” Markey said Saturday in front of more than 4,000 delegates.

Markey won nearly 73% of the delegates’ support, while Moulton won nearly 27% of the vote. Massachusetts Democratic Party rules require statewide candidates to get at least 15% of delegate support to appear on primary ballots.

In heavily Democratic Massachusetts, the Senate primary contest is one of the most closely watched in the country as Moulton, 47, has centered his campaign on changing the status quo and demanding a generational shift in leadership.

If reelected, Markey would be 80 before his third six-year term would begin. While Markey has touted his stamina and embrace of progressive policies, questions about age have continued to swirl around Democratic candidates as they fight to take back control of Congress.

In his nomination speech, Moulton argued that the Democratic Party needed more than “incremental change” and needed to start anew.

“It’s time for the generation that grew up with the internet, and will have to live for decades with AI, to lead our way through it,” Moulton said.

Moulton only addressed his opponent briefly during his nomination speech, giving a passing nod on not waiting another six years for generational change and later calling on Markey to participate in multiple debates before the September primary. Currently, the two candidates have agreed to participate in one debate later this summer.

Markey, instead, took a more critical approach by attacking Moulton’s previous comments about transgender kids and accepting corporate PAC money.

“Massachusetts deserves better than a senator who scapegoats trans kids,” Markey said to loud cheers.

In 2024, Moulton caught flak from some members of his party for saying he didn’t want his daughters playing in sports against transgender girls. Critics said Moulton echoed Trump’s talking points against allowing transgender athletes in girls’ and women’s sports.

Moulton has since said his intent with that statement “was to point out that, as a party, we need to be willing to have difficult conversations.”

Moulton, who enlisted in the Marines after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and served four tours of duty in Iraq, was first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2014. He briefly launched a 2020 presidential campaign, but he dropped that bid after a few months.

Markey served as a Massachusetts congressman for nearly 40 years before winning the Senate seat in 2013. He fended off a challenge in 2020 from Rep. Joe Kennedy III in the Senate primary by turning to his progressive allies to overcome a challenge from a younger rival from America’s most famous political family.

The Massachusetts primary is Sept. 1.

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SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — The end of California’s chaotic governor’s race was approaching Saturday as leading candidates rushed to deliver their closing arguments before voting concludes Tuesday.

Former U.S. health secretary Xavier Becerra has called for “hot competence summer,” promoting his decades of public service as evidence he has what it takes to be California’s next governor.

Republican Steve Hilton pledged an end to a “bloated, nanny-state bureaucracy” during remarks outside the state Capitol on Wednesday.

Billionaire climate activist Tom Steyer told reporters this week in Berkeley, California, that he’s made it his life’s work to advance progressive causes, a mission he’ll bring to Sacramento.

They’re seeking to stand out in a field of roughly 60 candidates on a single ballot, regardless of party, under California’s top-two primary system. The two candidates who receive the most votes will face off in the general election to replace Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, who can’t seek a third term.

The crowded race includes Democrats Becerra, Steyer, former U.S. Rep. Katie Porter, and Matt Mahan, the mayor of San Jose. Hilton, a former Fox News host backed by President Donald Trump, and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco are the most prominent Republicans in the race.

As of Friday afternoon, 13% of voters had cast their ballots. That included 13% of Democrats and 18% of Republicans, according to a tracker by Democratic strategist Paul Mitchell. The breakdown is unusual because Democrats in recent years have tended to vote early while many Republicans wait until Election Day.

Some Democrats have been waiting to cast their ballots to see if a candidate breaks away from the pack in the final days, or because they’re unimpressed with the crowded field.

Two polls conducted in mid-to-late May suggested that Becerra and Hilton each have the support of about 2 in 10 California likely voters. In one poll, Steyer landed closer to Becerra and Hilton, with Bianco and Porter trailing further behind, but similar shares of voters were supporting Steyer, Bianco, and Porter in the other poll. None of the other candidates were in the double digits in either poll.

The contenders have been traveling across the state that includes roughly 23 million registered voters as they seek an edge over rivals. Becerra, Hilton, Steyer and Bianco will all be in the San Francisco Bay Area this weekend. Fresno and Los Angeles have also been popular campaign stops.

Becerra has been highlighting the more than 35 years he’s spent in state and federal office.

“This is not a place for on-the-job training,” he said on a podcast hosted by political commentator Ana Navarro. “You better know what you’re doing.”

He’ll hit a text-banking event with Democratic Attorney General Rob Bonta in San Francisco and rally with the Service Employees International Union in San Jose.

Hilton has been selling himself as someone who would bring a fresh set of eyes to state government, reduce regulations, and bring down housing and energy costs. He thinks it’ll be a unifying message, he told reporters this week in Sacramento.

“It’s not ideological,” Hilton said. “It’s just simple, practical commonsense — $3 gas, cut your electric bills in half.”

Hilton will host a town hall in Silicon Valley on Saturday night. He has been cautious not to emphasize Trump’s endorsement. If he advances to the November election, he’ll need to appeal to voters outside his party to win in the Democrat-dominated state that hasn’t had a Republican governor since 2011.

Steyer, a self-described “billionaire who wants to tax other billionaires,” said the race was a contest between three candidates: Himself, Hilton and Becerra.

“There is a hard-right Republican who’s endorsed by Donald Trump,” he told a crowd of supporters at a sports bar in Berkeley.

“The second candidate is Xavier Becerra, who, to my surprise, is a corporate Democrat,” Steyer continued, referencing his acceptance of campaign contributions from Chevron.

“And the third person’s me,” he said. “And I am running because Californians can’t afford to live here anymore.”

Steyer’s headed to a campaign rally Saturday in San Francisco to put a finer point on his message to voters.

Mahan, meanwhile, will mingle with voters in Los Angeles, Porter will give a speech in Orange County, and Bianco will lay out his vision at a church in San Jose.

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Associated Press journalist Terry Chea in Berkeley, California, contributed to this report.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — David Johnston was a licensed attorney when he illegally entered the Capitol with a mob of President Donald Trump’s supporters on Jan. 6, 2021. More than five years later, the South Carolina man is offering to help fellow “J6ers” apply for payouts from the Trump administration’s nearly $1.8 billion new fund for people claiming to be victims of a weaponized government.

He’ll do it for a 10% cut of any award, capped at $5,000 apiece.

“I think the narrative is changing” about how the history of that day is being told, Johnston said in a video he posted to social media. “I think good things are happening for us.”

Hundreds of Trump loyalists pleaded guilty to storming the Capitol, admitting under oath that they broke the law. Now pardoned by Trump, many hope to capitalize on their crimes by tapping into the $1.776 billion settlement fund designed to compensate the Republican president’s allies who believe they were politically prosecuted.

A bipartisan backlash to the fund and a legal roadblock have not dimmed the celebratory response from Jan. 6 rioters clamoring for a share of the taxpayer money. Some are staking claims even though the government has not established an application process and a judge has frozen the fund’s formation, at least temporarily.

The fund’s critics see it as another vehicle for Trump and his allies to whitewash the events of Jan. 6, retroactively justify the mob’s assault on a pillar of American democracy and reward some of Trump’s most loyal followers.

Jason Riddle, a military veteran from New Hampshire who was sentenced to 90 days behind bars after pleading guilty to riot charges, publicly rejected a pardon from Trump. Likewise, he said it would be “ridiculous” for him or any other Jan. 6 rioter to get government compensation.

“I’d love money, but I can’t accept that. That would bother me for the rest of my life,” he said. “We weren’t innocently persecuted just because of who we are or who we vote for. We were persecuted for committing criminal behavior in the Capitol of the United States.”

Plenty of other “J6ers” do not share Riddle’s reluctance.

A Florida man who posed for photos with then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s podium argued on social media that he deserves to be compensated for the cost of his infamy. A rioter from New Jersey described by prosecutors as a Nazi sympathizer hailed the fund as “good news not just for J6ers but all victims of weaponization.” A Texas man who received a seven-year prison sentence for storming the Capitol with a metal tomahawk celebrated the fund as “payback” for “victims of Biden’s tyranny,” referring to Democratic President Joe Biden.

Oregon resident Pamela Hemphill, sentenced to 60 days in jail for her conviction, rejected a pardon from Trump but has drafted a written claim for compensation from the fund. Unlike scores of rioters who claim to be victims of a government weaponized by Democrats, Hemphill blames Trump for her legal troubles. Her claims letter says she is seeking $5 million in compensation.

“I wouldn’t have been through all of this if Trump hadn’t lied about the election being stolen,” she said during a telephone interview. “It’s a direct result of his lies that I was even there that day.”

It is an open question whether anyone convicted of a Capitol riot-related crime could be eligible for payments from a fund created to resolve Trump’s lawsuit against the IRS over the leak of his tax returns.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has not ruled out that possibility. Blanche said there are no limits on who can apply, but he noted that the fund’s five commissioners — all yet to be named — will decide who deserves to be compensated and why, based on factors such as “what the person did, his sentence, how much time he was in jail.”

“That’s up to the commissioners,” Blanche told The Associated Press on Thursday when asked about his position on whether violent Jan. 6 defendants should be eligible for payments.

“You have to define something and then stick to it. That’s something I’ve been hesitant to try to do, because it’s very fact-intensive,” Blanche said. ”Me sitting here and talking in hypotheticals is something that I don’t think is fair to the process.”

It is unclear whether Congress would block payments to Jan. 6 defendants. Senate Republicans who are angry about the settlement have said they want to place parameters on the fund as part of a Department of Homeland Security spending bill. They abruptly left town earlier this month after a tense meeting with Blanche and will return on Monday with the situation unresolved.

A federal judge in Virginia has frozen the fund’s establishment and temporarily blocked any processing or paying of claims. The judge issued that ruling Friday in one of at least three lawsuits challenging the fund.

Brendan Ballou, a former prosecutor who tried several Jan. 6 cases before leaving the Department of Justice last year, sued on behalf of two police officers who helped defend the Capitol from the mob. Ballou views the fund’s creation as part of a broader Trump campaign to undermine democratic institutions and rewrite the history of Jan. 6.

“And if the president is successful in that effort, if he’s able to get people to either forget or condone that day, he knows that he can get people to accept any attack on democracy,” Ballou said.

Nearly 1,600 people were charged with Capitol riot-related federal crimes. More than 1,200 were convicted and sentenced before Trump issued mass pardons and ordered the dismissal of all pending Jan. 6 cases. Trump also freed far-right extremist group members who were imprisoned for plotting to attack the Capitol to keep Trump in office after he lost the 2020 presidential election to Biden.

The self-described “J6 community” isn’t the only pro-Trump constituency angling for cuts of the money.

Meshawn Maddock, who was charged as being a fake elector for Trump in Michigan before a judge dismissed the case last year, said she and her husband, state Rep. Matt Maddock, “absolutely” plan on making a claim. She believes the fund’s use of taxpayer money is justified because it “paid for the prosecution and investigation of the years that I was being hunted down.”

“I want vengeance and I want retribution,” Maddock said.

Trump’s campaign to recast Jan. 6 as a peaceful protest seems to have emboldened many convicted rioters.

Johnston’s eagerness to help other Capitol rioters with claims contrasts with his remorse at sentencing in 2022. He apologized for his “terrible lapse in judgment” before a judge sentenced him to three weeks in jail and three months of home detention. He pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor trespassing charge.

“It was a dumb, dumb thing to do,” Johnston told the judge. “I am 100% responsible for what I did that day.”

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Associated Press writers Jamie Stengle in Dallas and Mary Claire Jalonick and Joey Cappelletti contributed to this report.

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AMES, Iowa (AP) — Iowa Democrats say they want to vote in Tuesday’s U.S. Senate primary for the candidate who gives the party its best chance to flip a Republican-held seat in November.

Some just haven’t decided which of the two state lawmakers in the race fits the bill.

“I am having a lot of trouble,” said Mike Lazere, a 65-year-old Democrat who always votes on Election Day.

State Rep. Josh Turek and state Sen. Zach Wahls are seeking the nomination for the seat held by retiring Sen. Joni Ernst in the state where Republicans have an advantage but Democrats think they could have a chance.

It means the primary choice carries high stakes for Iowa’s Democratic voters, who haven’t had many recent examples of successful statewide candidates to help guide their decision. The last Democrat to win federal office statewide was President Barack Obama in 2012. All six members of the federal delegation are Republicans, and the GOP has had a statehouse trifecta for nearly a decade. The most recent Democratic U.S. senator from Iowa, Tom Harkin, was elected in 2008 and retired from office six years later.

U.S. Rep. Ashley Hinson is running for the GOP nomination, and a Republican-aligned political group has already pledged $29 million to defend the seat.

Turek and Wahls say the differences between them are clear, but voters still weighing their options disagree.

“They both have strong legislative records. They both have compelling stories. I think they both share my values,” Lazere said Thursday outside of the Ames public library, where Story County Democrats had just held their monthly meeting.

“Since they’re so close, I just want the candidate who is more likely to have a chance,” he said. “It’s an uphill battle, probably, in Iowa still.”

At the Des Moines Farmers’ Market last weekend, where both candidates waded through the crowds, Sundie Ruppert shouted her support for Turek as he passed by her tent, saying he had her vote.

Ruppert called the race an “embarrassment of riches,” something that’s been rare as of late. She said the two stand for “virtually everything the same,” so for her, it’s a matter of who can win the crossover support to get over the finish line in November.

Turek, a four-time wheelchair basketball Paralympian born with spina bifida, says his story of overcoming adversity and his politics appeal to independent and moderate Republican voters. He represents a state House district that supported President Donald Trump.

Turek said he’s laser-focused on securing a livable wage, health care access and drinkable water, not the culture-war issues that he said Republicans use to distract voters from the core problems they are facing.

“I’m not gonna get dragged down the rabbit hole of worrying about these distraction issues,” Turek said in an interview.

“I think that if we are going to win again in a state like Iowa, it is going be a message of economic populism,” he said. “It is going to be that we as a Democratic Party stand for the workers and for the middle class. That’s the way forward.”

Ruppert said she thinks general election voters are more likely to vote for Turek, even if they “have to hold their nose.”

“We’ve got to get the independents,” she said. “I do believe that Josh in a red district has better pull than Wahls.”

About 37 miles (60 kilometers) north in Ames on Thursday, Shellie Orngard said she’s heard that logic and doesn’t buy it.

Orngard said both are good people and strong candidates, but Wahls strikes her as “somebody with real character behind his convictions.”

“I think that whether you’re Democrat or Republican or independent, you appreciate authenticity and real values,” Orngard said. “I think Zach Wahls just seems to have the character that I feel he’s the person that I want to put my vote behind.”

Wahls says he’s the candidate willing to defy leadership in both parties, and he has criticized Turek for not rejecting Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer as caucus leader.

He says his anti-establishment message is winning back the working-class voters, especially common across eastern Iowa, who supported Obama before they pivoted to Trump.

“We’re not just talking about building a coalition that can win in November, we are already doing it,” he said. “These are voters who are not hardcore MAGA Trump Republicans. A lot of them are just really frustrated with both parties, they don’t trust Washington, they don’t trust the establishment.”

“And what we hear from people all the time is, ‘Even if we don’t agree on every issue, if you are willing to take them on, you’ve got my vote,’” Wahls said.

Iowa has shifted considerably since Obama’s win in 2012, voting for Trump in the last three presidential elections. Democrats lag Republicans by roughly 200,000 registered voters statewide.

Rob Sand, state auditor and candidate for governor, was the only Democrat to win statewide in 2022.

Nearly 30,000 Democrats have already cast their ballots as of Friday, according to data from the secretary of state’s office. Still, in Ellston on Wednesday, many of the two dozen southwest Iowa Democrats waiting to hear from Turek said they’d rely on a gut feeling.

“As far as I’m concerned, Ashley Hinson has got to be beat,” said Lynne Wallace, a 67-year-old from Mount Ayr. The staunch Democrat said she’d support either candidate in the general election, already eager to make calls and knock on doors, but added that she’s got “shaky faith” that either Democrat can pull it off.

Lois Rose, 77, and her 79-year-old husband, John, said at the Des Moines farmers’ market that they might not vote in the primary at all since they, so far, hadn’t been able to make up their minds on whether one candidate is stronger than the other.

She suggested the pair could also coordinate their votes, each casting a ballot for one of the two. John liked the idea.

“They’re both so qualified,” said Lois Rose of West Des Moines. “They’re both very genuine, hence the difficulty.”

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By Joseph Ax

May 29 (Reuters) – Louisiana Republicans on Friday approved a new congressional map that dismantles a Democratic-held, majority-Black seat, boosting their party’s odds of retaining the U.S. House of Representatives in November’s midterm elections.

The state joined several other Republican-led Southern states that have rushed to break up Democratic seats with significant Black populations after the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in April severely weakened legal protections for such districts.

The map, which passed the state House of Representatives on Thursday, was approved 28-10 by the state Senate on Friday along party lines. The bill now goes to Republican Governor Jeff Landry, who is expected to sign it.

Republicans hold four of the state’s six districts under a map drawn in 2024 to comply with a court order mandating the creation of a second district with a Black majority or near-majority, under the federal Voting Rights Act. Black Democrats represent the two districts with large Black populations.

But the Supreme Court struck down the 2024 map as an illegal racial gerrymander, a ruling that opened the door for Louisiana and other states to take aim at majority-minority districts that had previously enjoyed more robust guardrails.

Landry postponed the May 16 U.S. House primary elections to give lawmakers time to draw the new map, which breaks up Democratic U.S. Representative Cleo Fields’ Baton Rouge-centered district. At the time of Landry’s order, thousands of mail ballots had already been cast, and voting rights advocates warned the decision would cause confusion and chaos for voters.

Democratic lawmakers criticized the map as an effort to disenfranchise Black voters, while Republicans argued that they drew the lines solely based on partisanship, not race.

The wave of Southern redistricting efforts is the latest front in a national redistricting war that started last summer, when President Donald Trump pushed Texas Republicans to redraw the state’s congressional map to target incumbent Democrats.

Republicans have emerged as the redistricting victors, gaining an advantage in as many as 10 seats pending the outcome of legal challenges.

But Democrats remain well positioned to capture a U.S. House majority in November in light of Trump’s sagging approval ratings and voter frustration over rising costs.

(Reporting by Joseph AxEditing by Nick Zieminski)

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By David Shepardson and Susan Heavey

WASHINGTON, May 29 (Reuters) – The U.S. Postal Service would require states to provide lists of voters who received mailed ballots as part of new rules proposed on Friday, one day after a federal judge declined to immediately block President Donald Trump’s related executive order.

The USPS proposal, published in a Federal Register notice, would require states to give the USPS the names and barcodes tied to their mail-in ballots for federal elections, but it would not apply to primary elections. The public has 30 days to comment on the plan before the Trump administration can finalize it.

The Postal Service is proposing to require states also provide unique barcodes applied to the outbound and return ballot mail envelopes, saying it “will help determine adherence to federal law and facilitate law enforcement efforts.”

On Thursday, Washington-based U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols declined to block Trump’s March 31 order on mail-in ballots but did not say whether it was lawful.

A judge in Boston has set a hearing for Tuesday on a separate lawsuit filed by Democratic state attorneys general against Trump, the USPS, and others challenging the voting order.

The order also directed the administration to use federal data to help state election officials verify who is ⁠eligible to vote, required the Postal Service to deliver ballots only to voters on each state’s approved mail-in ballot list, and required states to preserve election-related records ​for five years.

A group of Democratic senators said the order illegally seeks to transform USPS “into an election administration agency with the power to determine who can vote by mail and to establish ballot specifications.”

Trump, a Republican, has ‌for years pushed the false claim that his 2020 election defeat was the result of widespread voter fraud and has called for tighter rules on voting by mail ahead of the November midterm elections.

In March 2025, Trump forced out ⁠Postmaster General Louis DeJoy. Current Postmaster General David Steiner has warned the USPS could run out of money by early next year.

(Reporting by David Shepardson and Susan Heavey; additional reporting by Daphne Psaledakis; Editing by Rod Nickel)

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COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — President Donald Trump endorsed two Republican gubernatorial candidates Friday, wading into contests in South Carolina and Iowa that have pitted allies against each other in a fierce competition for their party leader’s blessing.

In a pair of social media posts, Trump gave his backing to South Carolina Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette and Iowa Rep. Randy Feenstra, as primary elections in both states approach.

Iowa’s primary is Tuesday, and South Carolina’s is on June 9.

For two terms, Evette has served alongside Gov. Henry McMaster, one of Trump’s earliest backers during his first presidential campaign. Earlier this year, the long-serving governor endorsed his No. 2, telegraphing to some that Trump’s backing could be next.

On Friday, Trump expressed both appreciation for Evette and the state she represents, noting that she stumped for him in 2024. He also said “A BIG added plus” for her campaign is that Henry McMaster Jr. — the sitting governor’s son — may be Evette’s running mate.

In the deep red state of South Carolina, the competition for the president’s support has been the most intense part of the primary race.

In a separate post, Trump described Feenstra as “MAGA all the way” and said he would “fight tirelessly” for the state on issues including the economy, border security and support of law enforcement.

Both Evette and Feenstra have been vocal about wanting Trump’s endorsement, in the hopes that it would carry weight in states that helped propel Trump’s return to office in 2024. Feenstra said earlier this year that he asked for Trump’s support, and much of Evette’s campaign media has featured photos of her next to Trump.

Along with Feenstra, four other Republicans — state Rep. Eddie Andrews, businessman and former conservative political director Zach Lahn, former state Rep. Brad Sherman and former director of the state Department of Administrative Services Adam Steen — are in the primary to replace outgoing Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, who opted out of a third bid.

Evette is competing for the South Carolina nomination against Rep. Nancy Mace, Rep. Ralph Norman and state Attorney General Alan Wilson.

Both states are having their first competitive Republican gubernatorial primaries in years, with Reynolds and McMaster in office for roughly a decade each.

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Hannah Fingerhut contributed reporting from Des Moines, Iowa.

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Meg Kinnard can be reached at http://x.com/MegKinnardAP

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CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — A federal judge has said that New Hampshire must make voter registration easier by allowing applicants to attest to their U.S. citizenship if they don’t have the documents to prove it.

The case was seen as the first major legal test of an election reform that has been pushed nationally by President Donald Trump and has gained favor among many Republicans, though U.S. District Court Judge Samantha Elliot said she was not deciding whether requiring proof of citizenship itself is constitutional. Her ruling late Thursday night on a narrower question of New Hampshire law was significant, however, because it underscored the potential perils of implementing strict requirements for voters to document their U.S. citizenship so they can cast a ballot.

Elliot found that changes in 2024 to the state voter registration law unconstitutionally removed one method of proof — namely, a voter’s sworn affidavit attesting to citizenship.

“The evidence shows that this is the only method of proof available to a significant number of New Hampshire voters,” she wrote.

The changes took effect last year, after former Gov. Chris Sununu, a Republican, signed the bill two years ago. The attorney general’s office said it plans to appeal the judge’s ruling, calling the citizenship requirements a “common-sense approach to voter registration and election administration designed to protect the integrity of our elections.”

The ruling was a win for the American Civil Liberties Union of New Hampshire and other plaintiffs who argued that the changes that took effect last year were burdensome and unnecessary.

“New Hampshire’s elections have always been safe, secure, and accurate — and this law could have unconstitutionally and needlessly prevented thousands of eligible voters from casting a ballot,” said Henry Klementowicz, deputy legal director of the ACLU of New Hampshire.

In her ruling, Elliott said eliminating the affidavit option created a significant burden for voters and did little, if anything, to further the state’s interests. She noted that an expert on voter fraud found only 47 instances of wrongful voting out of roughly 8.3 million votes between 1998 and 2024. During that time, only eight noncitizens may have cast ballots, she said.

“If wrongful voting is rare in New Hampshire, wrongful voting by noncitizens is essentially non-existent,” she wrote.

The lawsuit, filed on behalf of the Coalition for Open Democracy, the League of Women Voters of New Hampshire, the Forward Foundation and five voters, called the state’s voter registration law one of the most restrictive in the nation. During town elections last fall, some voters had trouble gathering passports, birth certificates or other proof of citizenship.

New Hampshire is not the only state with a proof-of-citizenship law for voters. Arizona, South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming have similar laws already in effect, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. Florida passed a law this year requiring documentary proof of citizenship to vote, but it won’t take effect until next year.

A similar law in Kansas, which required proof of citizenship for state and federal elections, was found in 2018 to violate both the U.S. Constitution and the National Voter Registration Act after it prevented more than 31,000 citizens from registering to vote.

Arizona established a two-tiered system after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2013 that the state could not require citizenship documentation for federal elections. In August 2024, the court allowed some parts of the state’s proof-of-citizenship law to be enforced as the legal fight continued in lower courts.

The ruling comes as Trump is trying to push a proof-of-citizenship bill, the SAVE America Act, through Congress. Voting rights advocates say such a federal requirement could disenfranchise millions of people. A 2025 University of Maryland study estimated that 21.3 million Americans who are eligible to vote do not have or have easy access to documents to prove their citizenship, including nearly 10% of Democrats, 7% of Republicans and 14% of people unaffiliated with either major party.

New Hampshire Secretary of State David Scanlan said he will reimplement the use of voter affidavits for registrants to prove citizenship, but noted the ruling doesn’t affect other 2024 changes to the law, including a requirement that those registering to vote provide documentary proof of identity, age and address. Voters also will continue to be required to show proof of identity on Election Day.

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Carr Smyth reported from Columbus, Ohio.

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BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Louisiana enacted a new map of congressional districts Friday that is designed to help Republicans pick up a seat while eliminating one of the state’s two majority-Black House districts, both of which are represented by Democrats.

Republican Gov. Jeff Landry signed the plan hours after it overwhelmingly passed the state’s Republican-controlled Legislature.

Approval of the new House map came a month after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Louisiana’s current map — with its two majority-Black districts — as an illegal racial gerrymander, weakening the landmark 1965 federal Voting Rights Act. That decision intensified a national redistricting battle fueled by President Donald Trump’s efforts to protect Republicans’ slim U.S. House majority in the midterm elections. Louisiana is one of several Southern states now redrawing their maps to help Republicans.

Louisiana Republicans had considered drawing a map giving the party a shot at winning all six of the state’s U.S. House seats. But that would have required adding more registered Democrats to Republican-held districts, potentially backfiring with GOP losses.

The map approved Friday in a 28-10 state Senate vote along party lines reflected Republican arguments that a 5-1 map is safer for the GOP and better protects U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson from facing a difficult reelection. Republicans currently hold four of Louisiana’s six congressional seats.

Democrats contend that the new map is racially gerrymandered to squeeze more Black voters — who tend to be registered Democrats — into a single district.

Democratic state Sen. Royce Duplessis pointed out during floor debate Friday that some other Southern states, such as South Carolina, had refused to redraw their maps in the middle of an election year, and said Louisiana is participating in a “vicious, vicious race to the bottom.”

The bill’s sponsor, Republican state Sen. Jay Morris, repeatedly insisted that party affiliation, not race, drove district boundaries.

“I purposely put more Democrats into District 2 to make the remaining districts better performing for Republicans,” Morris said at one point.

Morris said he told the map demographers to avoid including any data on race or including those statistics in information shared with lawmakers before the vote.

Democratic state Sen. Sam Jenkins told Morris, “I think it’s a racially gerrymandered district that’s going to get us into a lot of trouble here.”

“Agree to disagree,” Morris told Jenkins.

Louisiana is currently using a map ordered by a lower court in 2024 to comply with the Voting Rights Act by including a second district with a majority-Black population.

That map, however, was challenged in court, and the Supreme Court responded on April 30 by striking it down as an illegal racial gerrymander.

Landry postponed the state’s closed U.S. House primary slated for May 16. He later signed a law making the U.S. primary open and shifted the date to Nov. 3 to allow time for Republican lawmakers to draw and pass a new map. All candidates, regardless of party affiliation, will be on the ballot for voters in their district.

The new map redraws Democratic U.S. Rep. Cleo Fields’ district, clustering it around predominantly white communities in the Baton Rouge area and southern Louisiana. It also adds part of Baton Rouge to a heavily Democratic, majority-Black district based in New Orleans currently represented by Democratic U.S. Rep. Troy Carter.

More lawsuits were expected over the new map.

Democrats say the map could draw a legal challenge over racial gerrymandering, and the ACLU of Louisiana suggested Friday that it could sue, calling the map a “racial gerrymander hiding behind the thin veneer of partisanship” and warning that “this fight is just beginning.”

Meanwhile, the victorious plaintiffs in the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision criticized the Legislature’s map earlier this week for leaving a majority-Black district in place.

In the weeks following the Supreme Court’s decision, several other Republican-controlled Southern states have seized upon a weakened federal Voting Rights Act to try to redraw their own congressional districts.

So far, Republicans are winning the redistricting contest. But that doesn’t necessarily mean they will win a narrowly divided U.S. House in November. Republicans think they could gain as many as 15 seats from their redistricting efforts so far, while Democrats think they could gain six seats from new districts in California and Utah.

Meanwhile, a court decision in Wisconsin on Friday could give Democrats a new avenue to pick up seats in 2028.

The liberal-controlled Wisconsin Supreme Court said it would hear an appeal of a case filed by a bipartisan coalition of business executives that seeks to redraw the state’s Republican-friendly congressional districts. Republicans hold six of the state’s eight House seats, but only two are considered competitive.

A three-judge panel dismissed the case in April. Those who filed the lawsuit weren’t seeking a ruling in time for the 2026 election. Instead, they are asking the state Supreme Court to send the case back to the lower court for a trial on their claims, which would likely not take place until 2027.

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Levy reported from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Associated Press writers Scott Bauer in Madison, Wisconsin, and Hannah Schoenbaum in Salt Lake City contributed to this report.

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This story has been corrected to show that Landry ultimately postponed Louisiana’s closed U.S. House primary elections to Nov. 3, not “later this summer” after signing a law making the primary election open.

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COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Democratic leaders in a handful of southern states are lobbying for South Carolina to reprise its role as the party’s first-in-the-nation state to cast primary ballots in 2028, arguing that the state best represents the initial playing field for presidential candidates to build the coalitions needed to win.

The state party chairs of five Democratic parties wrote a letter Thursday to the Democratic National Committee calling on party leaders “to do everything in your power to ensure South Carolina continues to serve as the indispensable first proving ground for Democratic presidential nominees.” The DNC is currently debating the order in which states will vote in the next round of presidential primaries.

The state should hold the first presidential balloting in 2028, they argued, in part because it “is not simply a geographic starting point. It is a moral and political compass for our party and our nation.”

The DNC’s Rules and Bylaws Committee is meeting this week, hearing presentations from the dozen states seeking to lead off its 2028 calendar. Other southern states, including Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia, are in the mix.

South Carolina chair Christale Spain, who made her argument on behalf of the state Thursday afternoon, has said she believes her state has “more to offer than other states do,” including “the role of Black folks.”

“The fight for voting rights is no longer just a courtroom battle, it is an electoral one,” the Democratic chairs from Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and West Virginia wrote in the letter, provided to The Associated Press ahead of its release. “And it begins in South Carolina.”

“Any effort to diminish South Carolina’s role in the primary process would be a step backward for the Democratic Party’s stated commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion,” they wrote. “It would signal to Southern Democrats and to Black voters in particular, that their loyalty to this party is taken for granted. We refuse to accept that, and we will stand firmly against it.”

In a separate letter to DNC leaders, Rep. Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat who chairs the Congressional Black Caucus Institute — which has partnered with the South Carolina Democratic Party on several presidential debates in the past — reiterated those sentiments.

“To remove or diminish South Carolina’s standing in the primary calendar would send precisely the wrong message to Black voters and to every voter who has been told their voice does not matter until after the outcome is already decided,” Thompson wrote.

For years, South Carolina has held one of the earliest Democratic primaries in the country. As the first southern state to hold its primary, South Carolina has been the initial gauge of a candidate’s ability to appeal to Black voters, who play an outsized role among the state’s Democratic voters.

In 2020, Joe Biden’s ability to make that appeal — along with a coveted endorsement from Rep. Jim Clyburn, the state’s lone congressional Democrat and for a time the top Black Democratic lawmaker on Capitol Hill — helped him revive a flagging primary campaign, win a resounding victory in South Carolina, and go on to secure the nomination.

For the 2024 cycle, Biden led a DNC effort to have South Carolina go first overall in the party’s primary, citing the state’s more racially diverse population compared to the traditional first-in-the-nation states of Iowa and New Hampshire, which are overwhelmingly white. New Hampshire, which rejected the DNC’s plan, held a leadoff primary ahead of South Carolina anyway, and Biden — who didn’t campaign or have his name on the ballot — still won by a sizable margin after supporters mounted a write-in campaign on his behalf.

Biden, who also handily won South Carolina’s 2024 contest, pushed for a revamped primary calendar that saw Nevada go second. He also pushed the Democratic primary in Michigan — a large and diverse swing state — ahead of the expansive field of states voting on Super Tuesday, the date in early March when multiple states hold primaries and the largest number of delegates needed to win the nomination are up for grabs.

Although the calendar won’t officially be set until later this summer, Democrats likely to be among their party’s 2028 contenders have been making the rounds in South Carolina for months. ___

Meg Kinnard can be reached at http://x.com/MegKinnardAP

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