If there’s one thing that #MeToo movement has brought to light is that sexual harassment happens across all workplaces. Late last year, the Harvey Weinsten scandal rocked Hollywood with actresses speaking out not only against the movie producer but many other men including Kevin Spacey, Jeffrey Tambor, and Ed Westwick. 

Now, emboldened by the movement set off in 2017 models are adding their voices to the #MeToo movement. Over 50 models spoke to the Boston Globe‘s investigative team, Spotlight, about the sexual assault and abuse they experienced at the hands of famous photographers, agents, stylists, and casting directors. The goal is to expose serial predators, as well to demand protections—like the most recent rule during New York Fashion Week to provide private places to change—in an industry that often exploits young models. 

The models—both women and men—who spoke to the Globe made credible allegations against 25 high-powered fashion industry professionals. The accused include some of the most well-known names in the fashion industry, including Patrick Demarchelier, who was Princess Diana’s personal photographer. 

RELATED: Coco Rocha Was Told to Stay Silent About Harassment in the Modeling Industry

In the wake of the Weinstein accusations, one of Demarchelier’s former photo assistants wrote to Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour last October about her experiences with the photographer and pleaded with her to end the magazine’s relationship with him. She wrote telling Wintour that he preyed on her when she was a 19-year-old intern. Eventually, fearing for her job and career advancement, she gave into his advances, but whenever he refused Demarchelier would later berate her on set. 

“It hurts my heart so much to think of how many girls, many my own daughter’s age who have had to fend off or give in to his advances because I didn’t speak up at the time,” the woman, who has asked to remain anonymous, wrote in another e-mail that was circulated to a modeling group. “I remember many test shoots with teenage girls where Patrick’s team of assistants (including me) was dismissed for the day only to find naked photos of the girl in the darkroom the next day.”

Vogue and other Condé Nast publications informed the Globe on Feb. 10 that they’ve suspended their relationship. “We have informed Patrick we will not be working with him for the foreseeable future.”

RELATED: Kate Upton Details Alleged Sexual Harassment by Paul Marciano

The Globe interviewed six other women about their experiences with Demarchelier, who accused him of unwanted advances, including thrusting a model’s hands onto her genitals and grabbing another model’s breasts.  

Four years ago, another young model encountered Demarchelier on a shoot, allegedly asking a teenage model, “Can I lick your pussy?” indicating that if she said yes he would make her famous. She rejected his advances and immediately left the shoot in Paris. Two years later, despite her protests, her agents booked her for another shoot with him, where he asked her the same question. 

Demarchelier denies the allegations, telling the Globe that it’s “impossible” that the accusations against him are true. “People lie and they tell stories,” he said. “It’s ridiculous.” Demarchelier said he has “never, never, never” touched a model inappropriately. He made a point to tell the newspaper that he’s married, calling the accusations “pure lying” by models who “get frustrated if they don’t work.”

He’s hardly the only fashion industry heavyweight named. Others include David Bellemere, whose photos have appeared on the covers of Elle and Marie Claire Italy; and Greg Kadel, who has shot for mega brands like Victoria’s Secret and Vogue. 

Models like Coco Rocha and Kate Upton also told the Globe about their experiences. Rocha has been vocal about her an instance with Terry Richardson, who pretended to have an orgasm while shooting her nearly a decade ago. “It’s interesting and frustrating that now people want to finally pay attention,” she told the Globe. There are “people at the top who no doubt have heard these stories for the last 20 years,” she added, “and haven’t done anything.” In recent weeks Upton has accused Guess co-founder Paul Marciano of assault allegations, which he denies. 

Read the full report at bostonglobe.com.

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Jamie Dornan shows a lot of skin in the Fifty Shades franchise, including the upcoming final film Fifty Shades Freed, but he doesn’t bare all during those steamy sex scenes. In fact, he’s wearing exactly one article of clothing when they get hot and heavy.

“I wear like a wee-bag. Well, that’s an expression I say from where I’m from, a wee-bag. But it doesn’t mean it’s actually wee in size. I wear like quite a big bag!” he joked on Wednesday night’s Jimmy Kimmel Live!.

Moviestore/REX/Shutterstock

Unfortunately, though, he doesn’t have his own that he can use. “I mean I’d love to get to the stage where you have your own one that you carry around,” he said.

Instead, the studio provides one for him, but it’s not brand new. “There was a selection of them for me and I picked one,” he explained. “I sort of picked one that I liked the look of and the shape of and then I picked it up and in the seam it said, ‘Inmate No. 3.’ It was like sewed into it. I was like, ‘S—, this has been used before?’”

Despite being grossed out, Dornan dutifully put it on for his many sex scenes with Dakota Johnson. But despite their steamy on-screen relationship, they have a very different vibe in real life.

RELATED: Jamie Dornan Shows Off a New Talent in the Next Fifty Shades Movie

“This is going to sound bad, but it’s almost like brother-sister. Because I am married and [Dakota’s] had quite a lot of relationships in the time that we’ve known each other, so that’s happening in our own lives. You just have this sort of mutual love and respect for each other. I feel we know each other so well—intimately,” Dornan explained.

Watch the hilarious video at top for his uncomfortable story about watching Fifty Shades Freed for the first time with a security guard. You’re in for a treat.

Alexa Ray Joel has zero tolerance for haters. The daughter of singer Billy Joel and supermodel Christie Brinkley recently took aim at a troll who compared her looks to those of her younger sister, Sailor Brinkley Cook, 19.

The drama unfolded in the comments section of a recent Instagram post by Brinkley, celebrating Sailor’s appearance in the 2018 Sports Illustrated Rookie of the Year competition. In a now-deleted comment, user @sams7007 decided it was an appropriate forum to criticize Alexa’s appearance.

And, Alexa, 32, was having none of it. “@sams7007 Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, Mr. Big Shot,” the brunette beauty clapped back. “You may think I’m hideous, but I like the way I look. And that’s really all the matters. (Besides, there’s a lot more to people than just what they look like.)”

“But hey, continue being a shallow, hateful troll in life and see where it gets you!” she continued.

Alexa appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated alongside her mom and Sailor in 2017. Afterwards, both sisters took to their Instagram accounts with body positive essays.

“Let’s STOP degrading and START celebrating ourselves and others, from both the inside AND out. There’s far too much degradation, competition, insecurity, and unhealthy standards associated with women and their bodies- particularly on social-media,” Alexa wrote. “I don’t have a completely flat tummy, or cellulite-free thighs… nor am I a model’s height or shape. Neither are hundreds of millions of other beautiful women out there. SO WHAT? Does it really matter, in the end? All that matters is how YOU feel about yourself.”

You tell ’em, Alexa!

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I was 23 when I pulled the trigger of a gun for the first time at the NRA range in Fairfax, Va. It was 2011, and I had no idea where San Bernardino was or just how close Sandy Hook Elementary was to my grandpa’s house. Feeling the handgrip of the Glock 19 in my slightly sweaty palms, my boyfriend holding me steady, I took a deep breath and squeezed. Bang! I shot the ceiling. Bang! The corner of the paper target. It was exhilarating.

I grew up in a very liberal household in Connecticut. My mother didn’t like the idea of water guns. Going to a shooting range, encouraged by my gun-owning boyfriend, felt like rebellion. But it was more than that—while my feet were rooted in Virginia, emotionally I was back in my college town in Maryland, protecting myself from every creep who followed me across campus at night or grabbed me in a bar against my will. I breathed in the metallic smell of the range and thought about the possibility of never being vulnerable again. Police officers shoot Glock 19s, and now, so did I. I was no longer that defenseless, five-foot-tall girl. I was a strong, confident woman with a gun.

From that moment, I was hooked on the Second Amendment. How dare someone try to take away my right to self-protection. My boyfriend gave me an NRA bumper sticker and I put it on my car, right next to my half marathon 13.1 sticker, celebrating the other most empowering force in my life.

RELATED: What It’s Like to Lose a Child in a Mass School Shooting

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I wasn’t reckless, nor was my boyfriend or the other gun enthusiasts I met. They understood that weapons are not toys. I took the range’s required safety course, consisting of showing my driver’s license, my boyfriend’s permit, and a surprisingly simplistic multiple-choice quiz. (Where do you point the gun? Answer: Always down the range, never at your face.)

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Soon, I graduated to the revolver and then the assault rifle: the AR-15. The rapid fire and seemingly endless magazine made me feel like a hero. My boyfriend had customized his rifle with a better handgrip and scope. These pieces cost hundreds of dollars.

I asked him why he owned this gun if all we were doing was shooting at paper. “Simple,” he responded. “I need it for protection.” Surely a handgun was enough to feel safe, though, right? He looked confused, almost angry. “I want to be prepared.” Should I have been more afraid about the dangerous world I lived in? I considered buying my own gun.

In the years that followed, I heard about dozens of shootings: School shootings, workplace shootings, concert shootings, army base shootings. They were always crushing, but none of them necessarily abated my gun lust. I was no longer with that boyfriend, but I’d dated other men and had a roommate who owned guns legally and safely. They followed protocol, using special gun safes both at home and while carrying, and they respected the huge responsibility they had took on when holding a weapon. It was their identity. I was disturbed by the tragedies and horrified for their victims, but the way I used guns had nothing to do with that.

RELATED: I’m Old Enough to Buy a Gun but Not to Be Taken Seriously?

Still, I felt an inner conflict every time I read those headlines. The same year I started shooting, Congresswoman Gabby Giffords and 18 other people were shot in a supermarket parking lot in Tucson, Ariz. I felt queasy realizing that I had shot the same handgun that Jared Lee Loughner had used. I remember his maniacal face in papers, and while I knew that I would never use a gun the same way he did, was our excitement about the power of wrapping our hands around a handgrip all that different? We had a spooky connection.

I moved to Connecticut in 2015 and took my pistol permit class, which pending a background check and fingerprints, would enable me to own a handgun legally. Connecticut has notoriously strict gun laws, so I thought it would be an onerous process. But I took a four-hour NRA safety course (about 10 minutes of which were in a range), and then I was allowed to shoot. Internally, I questioned how safe this was—after all, driver’s ed requires hours behind the wheel before you can get a driver’s license. This experience plus a background check would get me a gun in a few months.

But eventually, I decided not to. Would I truly be safer? People say that an emotional response to a tragedy is not good reason to change your stance on guns laws. But what really changed my mind was the number of times I had to have that emotional response. Two weeks before Parkland, a friend of mine lost his teenage son to a tragic gun accident in his home. AR-15s (a gun I’d also shot) were by that point regularly mentioned in the news. Aurora. Sandy Hook. San Bernardino. Orlando. Las Vegas. Sutherland Springs. And most recently Parkland. I had convinced myself that these individual cases were flukes, that bad people will always abuse their power, but you can’t ignore such an obvious pattern; it’s data.

VIDEO: The School Walkout in Parkland, Florida

The NRA’s response to these tragedies, to Parkland in particular, was the final straw for me. Their idea? Combat bad guys with guns with more good guys with guns. Fear tactics. People often sarcastically equate gun control laws with a ban on cars. After all, cars kill more people. But cars are controlled. You can support the Second Amendment, even be a gun enthusiast, while also advocating for common sense laws like background checks, bump stock bans, and waiting periods. In fact, 97 percent of gun owners support background checks. The NRA chooses to use fear tactics instead. The organization doesn’t support the intent of the Second Amendment, which is why it lost my and many other people’s confidence after Parkland.

America has a mental healthcare problem. There are not enough avenues through which to get help and there’s a stigma around treatment. It’s a problem we need to fix and one that would surely decrease some people’s predisposition to violence. But other countries have mental healthcare deficits too and a fraction of the mass shootings. The difference? The U.S. has more guns per capita than any other country worldwide. In some states, guns have shorter waiting periods than reputable therapists.

RELATED: Why I’m Walking Out of School for Gun Safety

So yes, a person hellbent on harming others will do so no matter what, but making it easy for that person to get their hands on an assault weapon turns violence into mass violence. That’s why I’ve thrown away my gun license, torn off the NRA bumper sticker, and now fully support an assault rifle ban.

I don’t think gun owners are bad or oblivious. I respect their right to be able to protect themselves. But teenagers also have the right to attend school without being shot dead. I get scared walking to my car at night, too. I want to be that badass woman who can protect myself from anyone and anything. But despite the NRA’s effort to make me think otherwise, I also know that I don’t need an AR-15 or a preconfigured magazine to do that.

Is Justin Timberlake planning to have more children with Jessica Biel? He’s hinted at wanting to give almost-3-year-old son Silas a sibling before, but the latest pregnancy news surrounding Timberlake has nothing to do with his own family.

At his latest Man of the Woods Tour show in Detroit on Monday, the pop star made one woman’s ultimate fantasy come true. Basically, JT fan Darcell Baxtresser headed to his show with a sign that read, “Will you help me announce my pregnancy?” While he was performing, Timberlake spotted the sign and brought his own show to a halt to make her wish come true.

He carried the sign she brought with her on stage and then said, “Baby Baxtresser arriving November 1, 2018.” Timberlake also joked and asked if he could nickname her child “baby Bax.” Watch it all go down here:

In an interview with E! News, Baxtresser explained that she didn’t plan to share the news of her pregnancy with her family for several more weeks, but thought doing it through Timberlake would be incredible.

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“I’ve loved him since I was 6 years old so if I wanted anyone in the world to announce it, it was him,” she said. “As soon as it happened, cousins and friends who were at the show were blowing up my phone, so I figured I had to tell my family right away. I group texted my siblings and parents the video and they were all going nuts. I sent it to my husband and he was just like ‘Oh wow!!'”

Will baby Bax be named after Justin? She has different plans for that, though she did say Timberlake is invited to be the Godfather. A memorable pregnancy announcement indeed.

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Prince Harry and Meghan Markle‘s floral arrangements at their upcoming wedding will be full of locally-sourced flowers and plants!

The royal couple have chosen floral designer Philippa Craddock to create and design the church flowers for their May 19 nuptials, according to Kensington Palace.

Craddock—whose client list includes Kensington Palace and fashion houses Alexander McQueen and Christian Dior—will be in charge of creating the displays at St. George’s Chapel, where the actual ceremony will be held, and at St. George’s Hall at Windsor Castle, where the Queen will host a luncheon for the newly married couple.

Mark Cuthbert/UK Press via Getty Images

The floral designer, who specializes in utilizing seasonal flowers in her work, will be creating the floral displays mostly using foliage from the gardens and parklands of The Crown Estate and Windsor Great Park, according to the palace.

And when possible, Craddock will also be using flowers and plants that are in season and blooming naturally in May, which will include branches of beech, birch, and hornbeam, as well as white garden roses, peonies, and foxgloves.

While the exact designs have yet to be revealed, according to the press release the arrangements will reflect the natural landscapes from which the flowers, plants and branches were taken from

“I am excited and honored to have been chosen by Prince Harry and Ms. Meghan Markle to create and design their wedding flowers,” Craddock said in a press release.

RELATED: Why Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s Royal Wedding Could Cost $45 Million

“Working with them has been an absolute pleasure. The process has been highly collaborative, free-flowing, creative and fun. The final designs will represent them as a couple, which I always aim to achieve in my work, with local sourcing, seasonality and sustainability being at the forefront,” she added.

Additionally, according to the press release, the floral designs will include a very sustainable inclusion from the Royal Parks— pollinator-friendly plants, which provide a wonderful habitat for bees.

After the pair tie the knot, Harry and Meghan have arranged for the arrangements to be distributes to various charitable organizations.

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WASHINGTON — 

William B. Taylor Jr., the top U.S. official in Ukraine and a key witness in the impeachment inquiry into President Trump, told House investigators about a “nightmare” foreign policy gambit in pursuit of political dirt against Joe Biden that he believed was likely to embolden Russia and how he threatened to resign over it.

House Democrats on Wednesday released a transcript of a closed-door deposition by Taylor, the first witness to provide evidence of a quid pro quo in Trump’s dealings with Ukraine. In his testimony, he recounted for lawmakers last month how Trump empowered his attorney, Rudolph W. Giuliani, to open up an unofficial diplomatic channel with Ukraine.

Taylor described how Trump prevented the release of military aid to Ukraine as he used that back channel to prod the country’s leaders to publicly announce an investigation of Biden, the former vice president and potential 2020 rival to Trump.

Taylor testified that he learned in September from Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, that the aid and a White House visit sought by Ukraine’s new president, Volodymyr Zelensky, were both “dependent” on a public statement about an investigation. He worried that demand could embarrass Ukraine and further embolden Russia, he testified.

“The Russians want to know how much support the Ukrainians are going to get in general, but also what kind of support from the Americans,” Taylor told lawmakers. “So the Russians are loving, would love, the humiliation of Zelensky at the hand of the Americans, and would give the Russians a freer hand, and I would quit.”

Explaining to lawmakers his conversation with Sondland, Taylor said he worried about Ukraine making such a statement to satisfy Trump even without a guarantee that the president would eventually release the aid, which is important to the country’s ability to defend itself against incursions by Russia-backed separatists.

The nightmare, Taylor explained, was that Zelensky would mention Burisma, the natural gas company where Biden’s son Hunter served for five years on the board, “get himself in big trouble in [the U.S.] and probably in his country as well, and the security assistance would not be released.”

Democrats in the room for Taylor’s deposition Oct. 22 said it was remarkably “thorough.” The 324-page transcript reveals the detail with which he described key events.

Not surprising, given how central his testimony is to the case, Taylor is scheduled to be the first witness to testify in a public setting Nov. 13 as the impeachment inquiry emerges from behind closed doors after six weeks of witness interviews.

Taylor’s account has now been corroborated by other officials. Sondland amended his testimony this week after claiming that depositions given by other witnesses, especially Taylor, had “refreshed” his memory about telling an aide to Zelensky that the security assistance wouldn’t be delivered until a public statement was made about an investigation.

Taylor described himself as being “alarmed” upon hearing Sept. 1 from Tim Morrison, a National Security Council official at the time, that the aid was contingent on such a statement.

He was similarly disturbed by a subsequent phone call that day with Sondland, who “told me that President Trump had told him that he wants President Zelensky to state publicly that Ukraine will investigate Burisma and alleged Ukrainian interference in the 2016 U.S. election,” he said.

Sondland had “recognized that he had made a mistake” by informing Ukrainian officials that a White House meeting was contingent on a public statement about investigations from Kyiv, even though that was the case, Taylor said.

“Ambassador Sondland said everything was dependent on such an announcement, including security assistance. He said that President Trump wanted President Zelensky in a box by making public statement [sic] about ordering such investigations,” he testified.

Taylor was explicit on two issues that are central to the investigation — that Trump was demanding an investigation that could have an effect on the 2020 campaign and that the Ukrainians wanted no part of it.

“It was becoming clear to the Ukrainians that, in order to get this meeting that they wanted, they would have to commit to pursuing these investigations,” Taylor testified.

He said that Ukraine’s former finance minister, Oleksandr Danylyuk, “understood — and I’m sure that he briefed President Zelensky, I’m sure they had this conversation” that “opening those investigations, in particular on Burisma, would have involved Ukraine in the 2020 election campaign. He did not want to do that.”

Taylor, who came out of retirement in June to serve as U.S. envoy to Ukraine, will be the first of two witnesses to repeat their private testimony in a public setting when the impeachment inquiry enters a new, more television-friendly phase next week.

Taylor and George Kent, a deputy assistant secretary of State, are scheduled to testify Nov. 13, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank) announced Wednesday.

Former Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, who was recalled from her post by Trump, is scheduled to testify Nov. 15, also in a public hearing.

Yovanovitch’s initial testimony was released this week.

Schiff, whom Republicans have criticized for presiding over what they claim is a partisan impeachment process, told reporters Wednesday that the public hearings will allow Americans to hear the evidence and “to evaluate the witnesses for themselves, to make their own determinations about the credibility of the witnesses, but also to learn firsthand about the facts of the president’s misconduct.”

Despite the mounting evidence of a quid pro quo, Republicans have continued to defend the president’s actions. In recent days, several GOP senators said that such behavior, however problematic, doesn’t rise to the level of a crime or isn’t an impeachable offense.

On Wednesday, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, offered a new defense, suggesting that the Trump White House was too inept to execute a quid pro quo.

“What I can tell you about the Trump policy toward the Ukraine, it was incoherent, it depends on who you talk to,” Graham told reporters. “They seem to be incapable of forming a quid pro quo.”

Times staff writer Noah Bierman contributed to this report.

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California’s top court appeared skeptical Wednesday that the Legislature may require presidential primary candidates to disclose not only their tax returns but also their birth certificates and psychiatric records.

During a hearing on a new law requiring presidential primary candidates to produce their tax records, a lawyer representing the state argued the Legislature had the power to impose all sorts of requirements. Though some justices appeared inclined to find some support for the new law, no one on the court embraced the notion that the Legislature had unfettered power.

Deputy Atty. Gen. Jay C. Russell, defending the law, spoke of its expansiveness in response to a question from Justice Joshua Groban.

“Would the Legislature be entitled to impose requirements that candidates produce birth certificate or psychotherapy records or affidavits that they have never committed adultery or been a member of the Communist Party?” Groban asked.

Russell said yes, under the text of a state law, “the Legislature does have plenary power to regulate primary elections.”

He noted, though, that some requirements could run afoul of privacy protections embodied in the state and federal constitutions.

“The Legislature can then tack on any number of additional requirements?” asked an incredulous Justice Ming W. Chin.

“Where does it end?” Chin asked. “Do we get all their high school report cards?”

Even justices whose questions suggested an openness to the tax returns requirement indicated there had to be some limits.

Justice Goodwin Liu told Russell that he seemed to be espousing “a very strange reading” of the law.

Justice Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar suggested that a less expansive reading of the law might have been “enough to win your case.”

In the case before the court, the California Republican Party argued the law violated the California Constitution, which since 1972 has called for an open presidential primary.

Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye said the Legislature had not even considered the state Constitution in drafting the law.

The Legislature has plenary power “until the Constitution speaks,” she said. She said the court searched the records to determine if the Legislature even consulted the state Constitution.

“We didn’t find anything,” she said. “Did you?”

Even if the state high court upheld the law, it could not be enforced under an order by Sacramento-based U.S. District Judge Morrison C. England Jr.

England ruled in September that the law violated four different sections of the U.S. Constitution in addition to a separate federal law. The state appealed his ruling to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which is not likely to decide the case before the deadline for producing tax returns.

Federal courts have the last word on matters of federal law, and the California Supreme Court has the final say on state law issues. If either court blocks the law, it cannot take effect.

In a separate case, a federal appeals court in New York decided earlier this week that Trump’s accountants must turn over his tax returns to a grand jury investigating possible illegal conduct by the president. The Trump administration has said it would appeal that ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court.

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The Democratic National Committee has yanked its Dec. 19 presidential primary debate from UCLA in solidarity with labor unions that are engaged in disputes with the university.

Mary Beth Cahill, a senior advisor to the DNC, said the party had asked the debate’s media sponsors, “PBS NewsHour” and Politico, to find an alternative site “in response to concerns raised by the local organized labor community.”

The sixth debate of candidates for the party’s 2020 presidential nomination was scheduled to take place at UCLA’s Luskin School of Public Affairs.

“With regret,” UCLA said Wednesday in a written statement, “we have agreed to step aside as the site of the debate rather than become a potential distraction during this vitally important time in our country’s history.”

The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, one of the nation’s most powerful unions, asked Democratic presidential candidates on Tuesday to honor its three-year boycott on speakers participating in events at UCLA. AFSCME Local 3299, which represents patient care workers, is in protracted contract negotiations with the university system.

Local 3299 praised the DNC on Wednesday for joining its “fight for fair treatment from California’s 3rd largest employer.”

“Just as our next President must work to heal the divisions in our country, they must also work to confront the staggering inequality and mistreatment of low-wage workers that have become all too common in today’s economy,” the local said in a written statement.

In March, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a leading candidate for the party nomination, joined a UCLA picket line of another union, the University Professional and Technical Employees, an affiliate of the Communications Workers of America, which represents research and technical workers. Since then, that union has reached a contract with UCLA, according to a representative for the local.

WASHINGTON — 

Off-year election results in three key states — Pennsylvania, Virginia and Kentucky — serve as a flashing red warning light for Republicans worried that President Trump’s deep unpopularity outside rural areas may threaten their grip on the White House, the Senate and numerous state legislatures.

But in Washington, where Republicans are expected to ardently defend Trump when the first public hearings in the impeachment inquiry open next week, GOP lawmakers are unlikely to alter their approach, at least in the short term.

The statewide contests Tuesday inevitably reflected local candidates and conditions. But several races drew high-profile campaigners and millions of dollars in out-of-state contributions, and were widely seen as a test of voter enthusiasm and party momentum one year ahead of the 2020 election.

In many cases, they reflected Republican struggles in suburban areas that once were crucial to GOP advances.

“There are some canaries in the coal mine right now, and we in the party would do ourselves a favor by paying attention,” said Jim Merrill, a Republican consultant based in New Hampshire, where Democrats also made significant gains in local races. Some polls show Trump’s approval ratings have tanked in a state he lost by 0.4 percentage points in 2016.

Republicans sought to cast the apparent loss of the governor’s seat in Kentucky — Republican Matt Bevin trailed Democrat Andy Beshear on Wednesday by 5,100 votes with 100% of returns tallied — as an outlier, the result of an deeply unpopular incumbent who ran a bad race. Republicans won other statewide races there, they note.

But the race also showed the limits of the GOP’s increasing dependence on the president. On Monday, Trump held a raucous election eve rally with Bevin in Lexington, Ky., and sought to nationalize the governor’s race as a referendum on the impeachment battle roiling Washington, and on the president himself.

Trump told cheering supporters at the rally that a Bevin loss would send “a really bad message” and pleaded, “You can’t let that happen to me.” He looked to save face Wednesday, tweeting that the rally had given Bevin “at least 15 points,” a claim at odds with state polls.

For the president’s own reelection race — and for Republicans looking further ahead — the results in Virginia and Pennsylvania were more alarming. Trump lost Virginia in 2016 but pulled an upset in Pennsylvania, long a Democratic bastion.

Despite a scandal in Richmond this year that almost forced out the Democratic governor, Virginia Democrats on Tuesday won control of both chambers of the state Legislature, marking the first time since 1993 that the party will control the governorship and the legislative branch.

And in Philadelphia’s vast suburban counties, Democrats took control of local government in several longtime Republican strongholds, including Delaware County, which Democrats haven’t controlled since the Civil War, and Chester County, which has never had a Democrat-led council in its history.

Josh Holmes, a Republican strategist in Washington who worked for a decade as chief of staff for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), sees those results as “huge warnings” for Republicans.

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“What we’ve seen in the Trump era is suburban Republicans are a less reliable Republican vote than rural Democrats, and you can get away with it in states like Kentucky,” he said. “But it’s really hard to get away with it in states like Pennsylvania, where you have huge population numbers that just can’t be overcome in rural areas.”

These swing voters tend to be moderate, and Trump still could win them back if he successfully paints his opponent as an extremist who doesn’t reflect their values.

“There is not a single socialist among them, and they are probably horrified by the likes of Elizabeth Warren,” Holmes said. But many are high-income, highly educated and well-informed voters “who obviously have a big problem with the Republican Party right now.”

Some analysts said candidates who forge their own identities while not repudiating Trump — a tricky balance — are in the best position to win in swing states, where a big rally by the president may not matter as much.

Sens. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Michael Bennet of Colorado, both moderate Democrats running for president, pointed to the win in Kentucky, where Beshear focused on pocketbook issues like healthcare and not the president, as evidence that a centrist candidate who appeals to suburban voters is the key to retaking the White House.

Still, while the election results may ease Democrats’ fears about their impeachment efforts backfiring politically, Republicans are unlikely to alter their calculations about sticking with the president.

Not one GOP House member voted last week for a Democratic resolution to start the public phase of the process, and Republican senators, who will serve as jurors in a potential trial, have mostly shrugged off mounting evidence that Trump froze $400 million in military aid to Ukraine in an effort to pressure its president to investigate Democrats, including potential 2020 rival Joe Biden.

“Impeachment is reinforcing the views of people who already disapprove of Donald Trump and having no effect on people who already approve of him,” said Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster. “That’s exactly what happened in 1998 with Bill Clinton’s impeachment, where attitudes about it became synonymous with his job approval.”

Impeachment is already “baked in,” with Republicans all but certain to acquit Trump if the House approves articles of impeachment, according to a senior GOP Senate aide who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal assessments. Because the Democratic-led inquiry looks “nakedly political,” the aide said, it will be “very easy for GOP senators to vote” to leave him in office.

The political concern for Republicans, Ayres said, is in the long run, given that Tuesday’s results show “a reinforcement and even an acceleration” of what became clear in 2017 and 2018 elections: eroding GOP support among millennials and college-educated voters in America’s suburbs.

“In the long run, that’s a real problem for the Republican Party, because groups where we have gotten stronger are declining as a portion of the electorate,” he said. Exit polls in 2016 showed Trump did best among white, non-college-educated voters, and they remain crucial to his base support.

Trump held what amounted to a pep rally to buck up Republicans on Wednesday, inviting senators and top Cabinet officials to the White House to celebrate the more than 150 federal judges confirmed to lifetime appointments in the last three years.

The issue, more than any other, binds the party’s various factions and has helped Trump maintain strong support from Republicans.

Trump singled out senators for tenacity while several paid tribute to him for sticking by Brett M. Kavanaugh during his tumultuous confirmation process for the Supreme Court.

“It’s necessary to be a warrior, frankly,” the president said. “If you’re not, you’ve got a problem.”