Elections

Republican voters in the two states will choose nominees for governor and the House in races that pit Trump-backed candidates against rivals supported by each state’s governor.Two states are holding primary elections on Tuesday. In one, Joe Biden couldn’t crack 40 percent of the vote in 2020; in the other, he couldn’t even get to 30 percent.You guessed it: Most of the action is on the Republican side.In West Virginia, two Republican incumbents are battling for a newly drawn congressional district. In Nebraska, the Republican primary for governor has become a dead heat among three candidates.Across the aisle in Nebraska, Democrats are preparing to take another crack at an Omaha-based House seat — one with particular national relevance, considering it’s the one congressional district in the state that gave Joe Biden an Electoral College vote in 2020.Here’s what we’re watching.Trump’s endorsement battles with sitting G.O.P. governors Because Nebraska and West Virginia are so deeply Republican, the winners of Tuesday’s Republican primaries will be heavily favored to win in the November general election. The results will probably decide whether acolytes of Donald Trump will be elected to Congress and state executive offices.“That’s why all the attention is on the primary,” said Sam Fischer, a Republican strategist in Nebraska.Trump notched a victory in Ohio last week when J.D. Vance surged to the top of a crowded Republican primary after being endorsed by the former president. On Tuesday, the power of a Trump endorsement will be put to the test again.But in Nebraska and West Virginia, two of the candidates who lack support from Trump have a different asset: an endorsement from the state’s current governor.Unlike in Ohio, where Gov. Mike DeWine declined to endorse a Senate candidate as he faced a primary challenge of his own, the Republican governors of Nebraska and West Virginia appear to have had few qualms about endorsing candidates overlooked by Trump. In fact, both leaders — Gov. Pete Ricketts of Nebraska and Gov. Jim Justice of West Virginia — have publicly criticized Trump’s endorsement decisions in their respective states.In Nebraska, Trump backed Charles Herbster, a wealthy owner of an agriculture company. Ricketts, the departing governor, is term-limited, and has not only thrown his support behind a different candidate — Jim Pillen, a University of Nebraska regent — but also publicly disparaged Herbster.In West Virginia, Governor Justice threw his support to Representative David McKinley in the state’s House race after Trump had endorsed Representative Alex Mooney. Justice recently said he thought Trump had made a mistake.Which is more important in G.O.P. races: The messenger or the message?In both West Virginia and Nebraska, the candidates endorsed by the governor have accused Trump’s picks of being outsiders.McKinley calls his Trump-backed opponent “Maryland Mooney,” drawing attention to the congressman’s past in the Maryland Legislature and in the Maryland Republican Party. Keeping with the “M” theme, Pillen has criticized his rival as “Missouri Millionaire Charles Herbster,” citing reports that Herbster has a residence in Missouri.But if the messenger is more important than the message, the candidates endorsed by Trump have the edge.Scott Jennings, a Republican strategist who has worked with Mitch McConnell and George W. Bush, said that with high Republican enthusiasm this year, he expected strong turnout, meaning that some voters who would normally turn out only during a presidential race — that is, when Trump is on the ticket — are likely to vote in the midterms.Those voters are some of Trump’s most loyal followers — and some of the most wary of any other politician, Jennings said.“These are the new Trump Republicans who came into the party with him, and these are the people least likely to care what an establishment or incumbent politician would say,” he said.Two Republican candidates for governor in Nebraska, Brett Lindstrom, left, and Jim Pillen, at an election forum in Lincoln.Justin Wan/Lincoln Journal Star, via Associated PressIn Nebraska, the feud between Herbster and Pillen might have an unintended consequence. While they compete to be the Trumpiest and most authentically local candidates, voters could tire of the political sniping and throw their support behind Brett Lindstrom, a state senator who is the third main contender.“The main question is, are Nebraska primary voters going to ignore the negative attacks by Herbster and Pillen?” said Fischer, the Republican strategist in the state. “And will Lindstrom benefit from that?”There would be precedent. In a Republican primary for Senate in Nebraska in 2012, Deb Fischer won a narrow race after a bitter battle between two other candidates. And in another G.O.P. Senate primary in Indiana in 2018, two of the state’s congressmen engaged in a prolonged feud stemming from college decades earlier. Exhausted voters went with the little-known Mike Braun, now the state’s junior senator.How much do sexual misconduct allegations matter in Republican primaries? While Herbster has the most prized asset in the primary — Trump’s endorsement — he also faces the most serious questions about his personal history. Two women, including a Republican state senator, have publicly accused him of groping them at a political event in 2019.Herbster has taken an approach long embraced by Trump, denying the allegations and calling them a political hit job by his detractors.How voters respond to the allegations could signal — at least in Nebraska — where the G.O.P. base stands in tolerating candidates accused of mistreating women.“If you can win with these allegations in Nebraska, you can probably win anywhere,” said Mike DuHaime, a Republican strategist. But if Herbster loses, DuHaime said, Trump can point to the allegations against him as the culprit, rather than the waning power of his endorsement.Later this year in Georgia, another Trump-endorsed candidate who has faced allegations of domestic violence, Herschel Walker, is running for Senate, though he does not face a competitive primary.Understand the 2022 Midterm ElectionsCard 1 of 6Why are these midterms so important? More

FORT SMITH, Ark. — In the fall of 2020, Kevin Thompson delivered a sermon about the gentleness of God. At one point, he drew a quick contrast between a loving, accessible God and remote, inaccessible celebrities. Speaking without notes, his Bible in his hand, he reached for a few easy examples: Oprah, Jay-Z, Tom Hanks.Mr. Thompson could not tell how his sermon was received. The church he led had only recently returned to meeting in person. Attendance was sparse, and it was hard to appreciate if his jokes were landing, or if his congregation — with family groups spaced three seats apart, and others watching online — remained engaged.So he was caught off guard when two church members expressed alarm about the passing reference to Mr. Hanks. A young woman texted him, concerned; another member suggested the reference to Mr. Hanks proved Mr. Thompson did not care about the issue of sex trafficking. Mr. Thompson soon realized that their worries sprung from the sprawling QAnon conspiracy theory, which claims that the movie star is part of a ring of Hollywood pedophiles.For decades, Mr. Thompson, 44, had been confident that he knew the people of Fort Smith, a small city tucked under a bend in the Arkansas River along the Oklahoma border. He was born at the oldest hospital in town, attended public schools there and grew up in a Baptist church that encouraged him to start preaching as a teenager. He assumed he would live in Fort Smith for the rest of his life.But now, he was not so sure. “Jesus talks about how he is the truth, how central truth is,” Mr. Thompson said in an interview. “The moment you lose the concept of truth you’ve lost everything.”A political moment in which the Supreme Court appears on the brink of overturning Roe v. Wade looks like a triumphant era for conservative evangelicals. But there are deepening cracks beneath that ascendance.Across the country, theologically conservative white evangelical churches that were once comfortably united have found themselves at odds over many of the same issues dividing the Republican Party and other institutions. The disruption, fear and physical separation of the pandemic have exacerbated every rift.Many churches are fragile, with attendance far below prepandemic levels; denominations are shrinking, and so is the percentage of Americans who identify as Christian. Forty-two percent of Protestant pastors said they had seriously considered quitting full-time ministry within the past year, according to a new survey by the evangelical pollster Barna, a number that had risen 13 points since the beginning of 2021.Michael O. Emerson, a sociologist at the University of Illinois Chicago, described a “seismic shift” coming, with white evangelical churches dividing into two broad camps: those embracing Trump-style messaging and politics, including references to conspiracy theories, and those seeking to navigate a different way.In many churches, this involves new clashes between established leaders and ordinary believers.Sometimes the breaches make headlines, like when Russell Moore, a prominent Southern Baptist, left his denomination in 2021 after publicly criticizing evangelical supporters of former President Donald J. Trump and urging Christians to be vaccinated against the coronavirus. But more often, the ruptures are quieter: a pastor who moves to another church to avoid a major confrontation, or who changes careers without fanfare.Community Bible Church in Fort Smith, Ark., where Mr. Thompson was a pastor.September Dawn Bottoms for The New York TimesWhen Mr. Thompson landed back in Fort Smith after seminary in the early 2000s, Community Bible Church was an exciting place to work. Inspired by booming suburban megachurches like Saddleback in Southern California and Willow Creek in Illinois, Community Bible offered modern music, multimedia worship services and “seeker-sensitive” outreach to people who were not regular churchgoers.“My concern was spiritual vitality,” said Ed Saucier, the church’s founding pastor. “I wanted it to be fun and engaging and different on purpose.” Mr. Saucier rarely talked directly about electoral politics or public policy from the pulpit. It was easy to avoid. The church was mostly white and mostly conservative; congregants agreed on what they saw as the big issues, and there seemed to be little cause to prod on the small ones. “I applied some common sense,” Mr. Saucier said. “If I can’t make something better, maybe I should leave it alone.”The Intersection of Evangelicalism and U.S. PoliticsPolitical Rise: In the early 1970s, many evangelicals weren’t active in politics. Within a few years, they had reshaped elections for a generation.A Fervor in the American Right: Rituals of Christian worship have become embedded in conservative rallies, as praise music and prayer blend with political anger.Trump’s Pull: To understand the relationship between white evangelicals and Donald J. Trump, one has to go back to a 2016 speech in Iowa where he promised that “Christianity will have power.”A ‘Seismic Shift’: White evangelical churches that were once united are now fractured over the same issues dividing the Republican Party.His philosophy was not unusual. Despite their status as an influential voting bloc, most white American evangelicals have historically avoided the perception of mixing politics and worship. In many evangelical settings, “political” means biased or tainted — an opposite of “biblical.”“The one thing that I loved and was so refreshing about this ministry is there were no politics at all,” recalled Sara Adams-Moitoza, a longtime church member who owns a boutique shopping center in Fort Smith. “Ever, ever, ever, ever, ever.”Mr. Thompson had always been interested in politics, but he was no activist. He saw himself as part of the contemporary evangelical mainstream, a movement that included people like the prominent New York pastor Tim Keller and the Bible teacher Beth Moore, who were theologically conservative and skeptical of becoming entangled with either political party.He still sees himself as a conservative. Mr. Thompson has voted Republican in almost every major election. He admires Mitt Romney and the Bush family and is conservative on issues of gender and sexual orientation, although he does not emphasize them often.When he took over as head pastor after six years as an associate, he was immediately popular with the congregation. One founding member, Jim Kolp, recalled a sermon that Mr. Thompson preached on the “fruit of the spirit,” based on a passage in the New Testament that lists attributes like gentleness and self-control, which show that the Holy Spirit is working in a Christian’s life. The sermon prompted Mr. Kolp to examine his daily habit of listening to Rush Limbaugh. “I’d never stopped and thought, ‘Does it meet up with the fruit of the spirit?’” Mr. Kolp said. “I leave listening to this man angry.” He stopped tuning in.But over the years, subtle gaps between Mr. Thompson and his congregation tore open, like a seam being tugged from both sides.“Jesus talks about how he is the truth, how central truth is,” Mr. Thompson said. “The moment you lose the concept of truth you’ve lost everything.”September Dawn Bottoms for The New York TimesIf he spoke against abortion from the pulpit, Mr. Thompson noticed, the congregation had no problem with it. The members were overwhelmingly anti-abortion and saw the issue as a matter of biblical truth. But if he spoke about race in ways that made people uncomfortable, that was “politics.” And, Mr. Thompson suspected, it was proof to some church members that Mr. Thompson was not as conservative as they thought.The discontent over Mr. Thompson’s approach started with the 2016 presidential campaign. The pastor wrote a blog post that did not critique Mr. Trump by name, but whose point was clear. “Many who thought Bill Clinton was the Antichrist now campaign for a man who would make Bill Clinton blush,” he wrote.When Mr. Thompson wrote in a 2020 blog post that “Black lives matter,” the friction in his church suddenly looked more like a crisis. He had been speaking and writing about racial issues with some frequency for years. He had hired Jackie Flake, a Black pastor, to lead a new branch of the church on Fort Smith’s racially diverse North Side. In 2015, he got involved in a successful effort to change the “Johnny Reb” mascot at his old high school. But the phrase “Black lives matter” rankled some congregants.Mr. Kolp said he found the far-reaching conversations about racism spurred by Mr. Thompson too negative. America does have a history of racism, he said. But “if the slave trade had never happened, would they still be in Africa? Would they have the prominent positions?” he wondered about Black people. “And now our pastor’s talking about it, and we’re systemically racist because we’re white?”Mr. Thompson’s actual sermons were hardly scathing. At one point he asserted, “If you grew up in any way like me, there’s bigotry within you” and encouraged listeners to seek out perspectives other than their own.His friend Steven Dooly, a white former police officer with two Black children, sometimes urged him to speak even more directly on racial justice. But he knew Mr. Thompson was in a difficult position. “You’d hate to see a church fall completely apart over a few lines in a sermon,” he said.For many pastors whose conservatism matches their congregations, however, there is little cost to speaking out. Some conservative pastors now find that their congregations want not careful, conciliatory talk, but bold pushback to what they see as rising threats from the secular world.Steven Dooly, a former police officer in Fort Smith and now a juvenile case worker, supported Mr. Thompson as his congregation began to splinter.September Dawn Bottoms for The New York Times“There’s a great separation taking place,” said Wade Lentz, pastor of Beryl Baptist Church in Vilonia, Ark., a few hours east of Fort Smith. “A lot of people are getting tired of going to church and hearing this message: ‘Hey, it’s a great day, every day is a great day, the sun is always shining.’ There’s this big disconnect between what’s going on behind the pulpit in those churches and what’s going on in the real world.”Mr. Lentz has seen his church grow as he leaned into topics like vaccine mandates, which he preached against in a sermon titled “We Believe Tyranny Must be Resisted.” In 2020, sensing “so much disruption in the world,” he started a podcast in which he explores political topics with a fellow “patriot” pastor.“This mind-set that Christianity and politics, and the preacher and politics, need to be separate, that’s a lie,” he said. “You cannot separate the two.”At Community Bible, just about everyone liked Mr. Thompson, but some could not understand why he picked the causes he did. “There are areas he should have backed off of,” said Johnny Fisher, one of the church’s founding members. “The best thing probably is to shut up and answer any questions that are given to you from the Bible.”The church stopped growing. Whole families were leaving; Richy Fisher, a pastor and consultant who prepared a report for the church in 2019, described membership as “hemorrhaging.” (Richy and Johnny Fisher are brothers.)Mr. Thompson was equally frustrated by the actions of some of his congregants. People he thought should have known better were endorsing online conspiracy theories about Covid-19 and the results of the 2020 election. On his blog, he called for Christians to apply “research and discernment.” “When we share, promote, like and further things that are not true about others, we are violating the ninth commandment,” he wrote.Fort Smith’s mayor, George McGill, said his city was like many other places in the country: Issues including masks and vaccination have fractured relationships, and people doubt the leaders they once trusted. Mr. McGill, the city’s first Black mayor, saw Mr. Thompson as someone who spoke the truth. But within his community, antagonists “rose up against the very people God had put in place.”Southside High School changed its “Johnny Reb” mascot in 2015, a move Mr. Thompson was involved in.September Dawn Bottoms for The New York TimesMr. Thompson’s reputation did appear to be shifting. A local woman emailed her Bible study group in the summer of 2020, warning that he was promoting a “progressive Leftist agenda.” When Mr. Thompson invited her to meet with him, pointing out that he was a frequent guest of Focus on the Family Radio and hardly a leftist, she accused him of being beholden to “The Marxist Agenda” and “the BLM agenda.”When a job offer came last summer to become an associate pastor at a larger church in the Sacramento area, Mr. Thompson accepted.Mr. Thompson hoped that the church’s next leader could preach “the same truth” without the baggage that had accrued around him. But he also wondered how the next generation of pastors would lead. Seminaries are shrinking, and many in his own congregation seemed to view his theological training as the thing that turned him “liberal.” The next generation might have less training, and be more inclined to turn churches into “an echo chamber of what the people want.”Months after his departure, Community Bible was still figuring out its future. “We’re still bleeding some, but it’s under control,” Mr. Saucier, the founding pastor, said in December. The church’s interim leader is Richy Fisher; the church’s board recommended this spring that he take the role permanently, and a congregational vote will take place May 22.In the meantime, the people of Fort Smith have different choices than when Mr. Thompson arrived at Community Bible. Newer churches with flashier aesthetics have popped up in town. A branch of New Life, a multisite church with more than 15 locations across the state, is practically across the street.On a recent Sunday morning, the congregation at New Life heard a sermon drawn from the book of Daniel.“America is no longer a Christian nation,” the pastor said, setting up a message about resisting the broader culture’s pressure to change “what we say, how we raise our kids, how and when we can pray, what marriage is.” The sermon’s title was “Stand Firm.” More

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Bret Stephens: Hi, Gail. I don’t know if you remember the Lloyd Bridges character from the movie “Airplane,” the guy who keeps saying, “Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit smoking/drinking/amphetamines/sniffing glue.” We were away last week and … stuff happened. Your thoughts on what appears to be the imminent demise of Roe v. Wade?Gail Collins: Well, Bret, I have multitudinous thoughts, some of them philosophical and derived from my Catholic upbringing. Although I certainly don’t agree with it, I understand the philosophical conviction that life begins at conception.Bret: As a Jew, I believe that life begins when the kids move out of the house.Gail: But I find it totally shocking that people want to impose that conviction on the Americans who believe otherwise — while simultaneously refusing to help underprivileged young women obtain birth control.Bret: Agree.Gail: So we have a Supreme Court that’s imposing the religious beliefs of one segment of the country on everybody else. Which is deeply, deeply unconstitutional.You agree with that part, right?Bret: Not entirely.I’ve always thought it was possible to oppose Roe v. Wade on constitutional grounds, irrespective of religious beliefs, on the view that it was wiser to let voters rather than unelected judges decide the matter. But that was at the time the case was decided in 1973.Right now, I think it’s appalling to overturn Roe — after it’s been the law of the land for nearly 50 years; after it’s been repeatedly affirmed by the Supreme Court; after tens of millions of American women over multiple generations have come of age with the expectation that choice is a fundamental right; after we thought the back-alley abortion was a dark chapter of bygone years; after we had come to believe that we were long past the point where it should not make a fundamental difference in the way we exercise our rights as Americans whether we live in one state or another.Gail: If we’re going to have courts, can’t think of many things more basic for them to protect than control of your own body. But we’ve gotten to the same place, more or less. Continue.Bret: I’m also not buying the favorite argument-by-analogy of some conservatives that stare decisis doesn’t matter, because certain longstanding precedents — like the Plessy v. Ferguson decision that enshrined segregation for 58 years until it was finally overturned in Brown v. Board of Ed. in 1954 — clearly deserved to be overturned. Plessy withdrew a right that was later restored, while Roe granted a right that might now be rescinded.I guess the question now is how this will play politically. Will it energize Democrats to fight for choice at the state level or stop the Republicans in the midterms?Gail: Democrats sure needed to be energized somehow. This isn’t the way I’d have chosen, but it’s a powerful reminder of what life would be like under total Republican control.Bret: Ending the right to choose when it comes to abortion seems to be of a piece with ending the right to choose when it comes to the election.Gail: And sort of ironic that overturning Roe may be one of Donald Trump’s biggest long-term impacts on American life. I guarantee you that ending abortion rights ranks around No. 200 on his personal list of priorities.Bret: Ha!Gail: When you talk about your vision of America, it’s always struck me as a place with limited government but strong individual rights. Would you vote for a Democratic Congress that would pass a legislative version of Roe? Or a Republican Congress that blows kisses to Justice Alito?Bret: I’ll swallow my abundant objections to Democratic policy ideas if that would mean congressional legislation affirming the substance of Roe as the law of the land. Some things are just more important than others.Gail: Bret, I bow to your awesomeness.Bret: Minimum sanity isn’t awesomeness, but thanks! Then again, Democrats could really help themselves if they didn’t keep fumbling the political ball. Like on immigration. And inflation. And crime. And parental rights in kids’ schooling. And all the stupid agita about Elon Musk buying Twitter. If you were advising Democrats to shift a little toward the center on one issue, what would it be?Gail: I dispute your bottom line, which is that the Democrats’ problem is being too liberal. The Democrats’ problem is not getting things done.Bret: Not getting things done because they’re too liberal. Sorry, go on.Gail: In a perfect world I’d want them to impose a windfall profits tax on the energy companies, which are making out like bandits, and use the money to give tax rebates to lower-income families. While also helping ease inflation by suspending the gas tax. Temporarily.Bret: “Temporarily” in the sense of the next decade or so.Gail: In the real world, suspending the gas tax is probably the quickest fix to ease average family finance. Although let me say I hate, hate, hate the idea. Not gonna go into a rant about global warming right now, but reserving it for the future.What’s your recommendation?Bret: Extend Title 42 immediately to avoid a summer migration crisis at the southern border. Covid cases are rising again so there’s good epidemiological justification. Restart the Keystone XL pipeline: We should be getting more of our energy from Canada, not begging the Saudis to pump more oil. Cut taxes not just for gasoline but also urge the 13 states that have sales taxes on groceries to suspend them: It helps families struggling with exploding food bills. Push for additional infrastructure spending, including energy infrastructure, and call it the Joe Manchin Is the Man Act or whatever other flattery is required to get his vote. And try to reprise a version of President Biden’s 1994 crime bill to put more cops on the streets as a way of showing the administration supports the police and takes law-and-order issues seriously.I’m guessing you’re loving this?Gail: Wow, so much to fight about. Let me just quickly say that “more cops on the street” is a slogan rather than a plan. Our police do need more support, and there are two critical ways to help. One is to create family crisis teams to deal with domestic conflicts that could escalate into violence. The other is to get the damned guns off the street and off the internet, where they’re now being sold at a hair-raising clip.Bret: Well, cops have been stepping off the force in droves in recent years, so numbers are a problem, in large part because of morale issues. It makes a big difference if police know their mayors and D.A.s have their backs, and whether they can do their jobs effectively. That’s been absent in cities from Los Angeles to Philadelphia to Seattle. I’m all for getting guns off the streets, but progressive efforts such as easy bail, or trying to ban the use of Stop, Question and Frisk, or getting rid of the plainclothes police units, have a lot to do with the new gun-violence wave.Gail: About the Keystone pipeline — you would be referring to Oil Spill Waiting to Happen? And the answer to our energy problems can’t be pumping more oil, unless we want to deed the families of the future a toxic, mega-warming planet. Let’s spend our money on wind and solar energy.Bret: Right now Canadian energy is being shipped, often by train, and sometimes those trains derail and blow up.Gail: Totally against trains derailing. Once again, less oil in general, however it’s transported.But now, let’s talk politics. Next week is the Pennsylvania primary — very big deal. On the Republican side, Trump is fighting hard for his man, the dreaded Mehmet Oz. Any predictions?Bret: Full disclosure: Oz played a key role in a life-threatening medical emergency in my family. I know a lot of people love to hate him. But he’s always going to be good in my books, I’m not going to comment on him other than that, and our readers should know the personal reason why.However, if you want to talk about that yutz J.D. Vance winning in Ohio, I can be quite voluble.Gail: Feel free. And does that mean you’ll be rooting for the Democrat Tim Ryan to win the Ohio Senate seat in November? He’s a moderate, but still supports the general party agenda.Bret: I like Ryan, and not just because he’s not J.D. Vance. I generally like any politician capable of sometimes rebelling against his or her own party’s orthodoxies, whether that’s Kyrsten Sinema or Lisa Murkowski.As for Vance, he’s just another example of an increasingly common type: the opportunistic, self-abasing, intellectually dishonest, morally situational former NeverTrumper who saw Trump for exactly what he was until he won and then traded principles and clarity for a shot at gaining power. After Jan. 6, 2021, there was even less of an excuse to seek Trump’s favor, and still less after Russia’s second invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022.Democracy: You’re either for it or against it. In Kyiv or Columbus, Vance is on the wrong side.Gail: Whoa, take that, J.D.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. 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MANILA — Election violence erupted in the Philippines over the weekend and on Monday after a shooting between two groups linked to rivals for mayor left four people dead, and a grenade attack wounded nine others.The shooting occurred on Sunday in the northern province of Ilocos Sur. Separately, local police in the southern town of Maguindanao said five rounds of grenades were fired in a municipal hall, prompting an exchange of gunfire with the police. In Lanao del Sur, videos on social media showed people storming a voting center to destroy ballots and machines. An election official said the government was investigating the episode.Violence is common during elections in the Philippines, where the government has deployed 270,000 police and military personnel on Monday to thwart such attacks.Tight security was apparent at elementary schools converted into polling stations, and there were reports of broken voting machines and of some voters having difficulty locating their names on voter registration rolls. At a news conference, Marlon Casquejo, an election official, said the government had counted 143 defective machines across the country. He said these were mostly “isolated incidents,” and blamed old equipment for the problem.Later in the day, George Garcia, the election commissioner, said more than 1,800 voting machines had malfunctioned and that there were 1,100 backup machines nationwide.Analysts and election observers have described the race between Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Leni Robredo, the vice president, as an existential battle for the soul of the country, with consequences that could not be overstated.Chester Cabalza, the founder of the Manila-based research institute International Development and Security Cooperation, said that voting was not only about the next president, but about “choosing between good governance in a transparent government or a continuity of leadership tainted with lies and revised history.”Carl Merencillo, a voter in Manila who works at a construction firm, brought his wife and two young daughters to Ms. Robredo’s last campaign rally in Manila’s financial district on Saturday. By midmorning on Monday, he cast his vote for “hope,” he said.“Definitely this was for the kids. This was one way, really, for me to ensure that the future will be brighter for the kids and their generation,” Mr. Merencillo said.It took between 45 minutes and an hour for voters to cast their ballots in one precinct outside Manila, as the line snaked about a mile under the searing tropical sun. Officials tried to enforce social distancing rules to prevent the spread of Covid-19, but voters were packed cheek by jowl at many polling places.Apart from the top job, thousands of local officials, town mayors and senators are also up for election in the Philippines. There are more than 65 million registered voters in the country — a record — and election officers said that polling stations would be open until 7 p.m. More

The Republican-on-Republican blood feud developing in West Virginia is only over a single House seat, but the outcome of Tuesday’s primary between Representatives David McKinley and Alex Mooney will signal the direction of a potential Republican majority in Congress: Will it be a party of governance or one purely of ideology, driven by former President Donald J. Trump?Redistricting and West Virginia’s shrinking population forced the state’s Republican Legislature to pit Mr. McKinley, a six-term Republican with a pragmatic bent, against Mr. Mooney, who has served four terms marked more by conservative rhetoric than legislative achievements.Mr. McKinley has the backing of much of the state’s power structure, including its governor, Jim Justice, and, in recent days, its Democratic senator, Joe Manchin III. Mr. Mooney, however, may have the endorsement that matters most: Mr. Trump’s — in a state that gave the former president 69 percent of the vote in 2020.Neither candidate could exactly be called a moderate Republican, but Mr. McKinley thought his primary bid would be framed around his technocratic accomplishments, his support for the bipartisan infrastructure bill that was co-written by Mr. Manchin and his attentiveness to a state used to — and still in need of — federal attention.On Thursday, he and Governor Justice were in the state’s northern panhandle, not for a campaign rally but to visit a high-tech metal alloy plant.Mr. Mooney’s campaign does not go for nuance. His is built around one thing: Mr. Trump’s endorsement.The former president sided with Mr. Mooney after Mr. McKinley voted for the infrastructure bill as well as for legislation to create a bipartisan commission to examine the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol — legislation that was filibustered by Republicans in the Senate.“Alex is the only candidate in this race that has my complete and total endorsement,” Mr. Trump says in a radio advertisement blanketing the state. The former president goes on to blast Mr. McKinley as a “RINO” — “Republican in name only” — “who supported the fake infrastructure bill that wasted hundreds of billions of dollars on the Green New Deal” and Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s “phony narrative” on Jan. 6 that went “against the interests of West Virginia.”A television advertisement also featuring Mr. Trump tells viewers that Mr. Mooney defended the former president from Ms. Pelosi’s “Jan. 6 witch hunt.”Sensing that any high-minded campaign on accomplishments was simply not going to work, Mr. McKinley has hit back at “Maryland Mooney” as a carpetbagger — he once headed the Maryland Republican Party and ran for office in New Hampshire — who is under investigation by the House Ethics Committee for charges that he improperly used campaign dollars and staff for personal gain.Representative David McKinley has gained the support of Senator Joe Manchin, a Democrat, in the Republican primary.Bill Clark/CQ Roll CallMost remarkably, Mr. McKinley has turned to a Democrat, Mr. Manchin, for his closing argument.“Alex Mooney has proven he’s all about Alex Mooney, but West Virginians know that David McKinley is all about us,” Mr. Manchin says in a McKinley campaign ad. He also calls Mr. Mooney a liar for suggesting that Mr. McKinley supported the far-reaching climate change and social welfare bill that Mr. Manchin killed.All of this is somewhat extraordinary in a state where federal largess has made politicians like the now-deceased Senator Robert C. Byrd and his protégé, Mr. Manchin, folk heroes. But the state has changed in the Trump era, and loyalties have hardened, said Scott Widmeyer, co-founder of the Stubblefield Institute for Civil Political Communications at Shepherd University in Shepherdstown, W.V.“We’ve seen heated political races, but I don’t think anything has been as nasty and down and dirty as this one,” he said. “Republicans are eating their own.”Institute officials invited both candidates to a debate, but only Mr. McKinley accepted. They then suggested that the candidates come separately to town hall meetings. Only Mr. McKinley accepted.Mr. Mooney is the one evincing confidence, however. Mr. McKinley entered the race at a structural advantage. The state’s newly drawn district includes 19 of the 20 counties Mr. McKinley previously represented and only eight of the 17 counties in Mr. Mooney’s current district. Mr. Mooney’s biggest population center, the capital in Charleston, was sent to Representative Carol Miller, the only other West Virginian in the House.But Mr. Trump is popular in every West Virginia county, and on the power of his name, Mr. Mooney has been posting polls from national and local outfits showing him up by double digits ahead of Tuesday’s primary.Understand the 2022 Midterm ElectionsCard 1 of 6Why are these midterms so important? More

John Lee, who won a rubber-stamp leadership election on Sunday, will implement the next stage of China’s agenda for the former British colony.HONG KONG — John Lee “will make Hong Kongers and international investors feel relaxed, at ease and full of confidence,” a pro-Beijing newspaper declared. He will help the city “start anew to achieve greater glories,” the state-run China Daily wrote, in one of a series of articles praising him. His rise to the top leadership position is “a concentrated embodiment of public opinion,” said China’s official arm in Hong Kong, though only 1,424 members of a government-vetted committee voted for him on Sunday, in an uncontested race controlled by Beijing.Having officially become the next chief executive, Mr. Lee is now Beijing’s man, a security-minded official who can be relied on to follow orders and keep Hong Kong in line.His political agenda is the next chapter in China’s vision for the former British colony, set in motion by the sweeping national security law imposed two years ago, which quashed dissent in a city once known for its vibrant civil society and freewheeling press.Mr. Lee, a top architect of the crackdown on the antigovernment protests that roiled Hong Kong in 2019, inherits a city that has been tamed and cowed, with Beijing’s most outspoken critics behind bars or in exile. Unlike his predecessor, he will encounter little resistance to a legislative slate that prioritizes social stability and bureaucratic loyalty, the ideals of China’s ruling Communist Party.Police officers on Sunday outside Hong Kong’s convention center, where the election committee met to vote.Isaac Lawrence for The New York TimesBut he will also face a city embattled by the coronavirus and some of the world’s toughest pandemic restrictions. The economy is shrinking, unemployment is rising and growing numbers of people are leaving the city, imperiling Hong Kong’s status as a global financial center.Mr. Lee waved and bowed to applauding voters on Sunday after being declared the winner. “Having restored order from chaos, it is high time that Hong Kong starts a new chapter of development, a chapter that will be geared toward greater prosperity for all,” he said.Since Hong Kong was reclaimed by China in 1997, Beijing has always let it be known who it wants in the top job, though it did so more subtly in the past.Jiang Zemin, China’s then-leader, gave his tacit support to Tung Chee-hwa, the first chief executive, by singling him out for a long handshake at a 1996 meeting in Beijing. In 2012, the Central Liaison Office, which officially represents the Chinese government in Hong Kong, quietly told electors to pick Leung Chun-ying, the eventual winner.When Mr. Lee announced his intention to run, he noted that he first needed Beijing’s permission to step down as chief secretary, the city’s No. 2 job. It was a simple matter of procedure, but also a public declaration of who was calling the shots.A Covid-19 testing station outside a Hong Kong building under lockdown in March. The city has been battered by the virus and by tough pandemic restrictions.Billy H.C. Kwok for The New York TimesMr. Lee’s ascension was all but assured a month ago when his predecessor, Carrie Lam, said she would not seek a second term and Beijing approved his candidacy. Nobody else garnered enough nominations to make the ballot.The process has always been tightly controlled, but China removed any veneer of competition or opposition this time. Between new electoral rules and the national security law, the pro-democracy camp was effectively neutered. As chief secretary, Mr. Lee led a panel that vetted the election committee members for loyalty last year. On Sunday, 1,416 members of them voted for Mr. Lee, with just eight opposed. He will be sworn in on July 1, the 25th anniversary of Hong Kong’s return to China.“Beijing has completely stacked the election committee with its loyalists and further twisted the process into a meaningless competition,” said Larry Diamond, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. “Even in Iran, there is more of a contest for the head of government.”Mr. Lee’s pedigree reinforces Beijing’s intentions in Hong Kong. After joining the police as a probationary inspector at 19, he rose through the ranks, eventually becoming the security secretary in 2017.Empty seats in a Hong Kong classroom in September. Residents have been leaving the city.Anthony Kwan for The New York TimesMr. Lee will be the first former police officer to assume Hong Kong’s top job in more than a century, and security remains a priority for him. He plans to push through a package of new laws on treason, secession, sedition and subversion, known collectively as Article 23. The laws are required by Hong Kong’s mini-constitution, the Basic Law, but its leaders have never managed to pass them. The government tried in 2003, only to retreat after hundreds of thousands of people protested.This time, Mr. Lee won’t face similar opposition.News outlets, unions, political parties and human rights groups have closed under government pressure and national security investigations. Dozens of pro-democracy politicians and activists are in custody awaiting trial on national security charges.“In order to deal with future national security risks, it is urgent to complete the legislation of Article 23, and the legislation must be a ‘tiger with teeth,’” the state-owned Ta Kung Pao newspaper said last month.Mr. Lee helped to lead the crackdown on the protests that roiled Hong Kong in 2019.Lam Yik Fei for The New York TimesMr. Lee has been a staunch advocate of security legislation. He told the United Nations Human Rights Council in March that the 2020 security law had “restored peace and stability” by ending the “violence, destruction and chaos” of the protests.He also wants to root out critics in Hong Kong’s civil service, which has been under attack from pro-Beijing politicians since some government employees joined the 2019 demonstrations. Beijing loyalists have also accused the bureaucracy of resisting efforts to carry out mainland-style coronavirus controls, including lockdowns and mandatory testing.As chief secretary, Mr. Lee expanded a requirement for public office holders to take fealty pledges similar to those required for bureaucrats on the mainland. And he headed a committee to vet candidates for elected office, to ensure that they were sufficiently loyal (the same panel that vetted his future voters).“We need to make sure the civil service will faithfully implement the policies of the government,” said Lau Siu-kai, an adviser to Beijing on Hong Kong policy. Dozens of pro-democracy activists and politicians still await trial in Hong Kong on national security charges.Kin Cheung/Associated PressMr. Lee has also embraced the idea, popular among mainland Chinese officials, that a lack of housing and economic opportunities helped ignite the protests of 2019.Last month, he toured a crowded Hong Kong housing block. Pledging to create more public housing, he described the bleak conditions there, mentioning a mother and two children who lived in a 150-square-foot apartment “with cockroaches that sometimes climb in through the water pipes.”“Their greatest wish is to be allocated public housing as soon as possible to improve their living environment,” he said. The waiting time for public housing is the longest it has been in two decades.The coronavirus pandemic has exacerbated the challenges Mr. Lee will soon face in one of the world’s most expensive and unequal cities.Life came to a standstill this year as the Omicron variant infected more than a million residents and engulfed hospitals. Officials turned to the “zero Covid” strategy, shutting down bars, gyms and schools and reducing restaurant hours. The city’s working class has been hit hard by such measures, which have left the service industry reeling. A shuttered Hong Kong restaurant in February. Pandemic restrictions have hit the service industry hard.Billy H.C. Kwok for The New York TimesThe coronavirus policies, which have largely isolated Hong Kong, have also prompted a reassessment of the city by international companies. Business leaders say they are struggling to hire and keep executives in Hong Kong. A growing number of companies have relocated, while others have temporarily moved top executives to cities like Singapore.“This was the city of opportunity; everyone wanted to come here,” said Eugenia Bae, a headhunter for international banks and financial firms. “Now it is no longer a popular city anymore.”Mr. Lee, who is largely unknown to the business community, has promised to restore Hong Kong’s status as a thriving global hub. He has also said he would strengthen its financial ties with mainland China.“We have the hope and the expectation that the next leadership will lead Hong Kong out of the pandemic and back on track,” said Frederik Gollob, chairman of the European Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong.Mr. Lee has said he will push for more public housing in Hong Kong.Billy H.C. Kwok for The New York TimesFelix Chung, a former lawmaker, met with Mr. Lee in early 2019, when the future chief executive was drafting a bill that would allow extradition to mainland China and other places — legislation that would soon trigger the citywide protests.At the time, many business leaders took issue with the bill’s scope, worrying that it would make them vulnerable to charges on the mainland, where a corruption crackdown was underway. When China first opened up its economy, Mr. Chung said, many businesses operated in legally dubious ways.After several meetings, Mr. Lee agreed to remove 9 of the 46 categories of crimes originally cited in the bill, largely easing the business leaders’ concerns. Whether Mr. Lee will be so willing to negotiate as chief executive is unclear, Mr. Chung said. “We cannot use our past experience to analyze the present situation because a lot of decisions are being made by Beijing,” he said.Tiffany May contributed reporting.A bridge linking Hong Kong to mainland China. The city of Shenzhen is in the background. Billy H.C. Kwok for The New York Times More

The leading Republicans running for governor in the state want to outlaw abortion. The presumptive Democratic nominee promises to veto any ban.HANOVER TOWNSHIP, Pa. — Jan Downey, who calls herself “a Catholic Republican,” is so unhappy about the Supreme Court’s likely reversal of abortion rights that she is leaning toward voting for a Democrat for Pennsylvania governor this year.“Absolutely,” she said. “On that issue alone.”Linda Ward, also a Republican, said the state’s current law allowing abortion up to 24 weeks was “reasonable.”But Ms. Ward said she would vote for a Republican for governor, even though all the leading candidates vowed to sign legislation sharply restricting abortion. She is disgusted with inflation, mask mandates and “woke philosophy,” she said.“After what’s happened this past year, I will never vote for a Democrat,” said Ms. Ward, a retired church employee. “Never!”Linda Ward, 65, in Allentown, Pa., on Wednesday.Rachel Wisniewski for The New York TimesPennsylvania, one of a handful of states where abortion access hangs in the balance with midterm elections this year, is a test case of the political power of the issue in a post-Roe world, offering a look at whether it will motivate party bases or can be a wedge for suburban independents.After a draft of a Supreme Court opinion that would end the constitutional guarantee of abortion rights was leaked last week, Republicans downplayed the issue, shifting attention instead to the leak itself and away from its substance. They also argued that voters’ attentions were fleeting, that abortion was hardly a silver bullet for Democratic apathy and that more pressing issues — inflation and President Biden’s unpopularity — had already cast the midterm die.To Democrats, this time really is different.“These are terrifying times,” said Nancy Patton Mills, chair of the Pennsylvania Democratic Party. “There were so many people that thought that this could never happen.” If Roe v. Wade is overturned, the power to regulate abortion would return to the states. As many as 28 states are likely to ban or tightly restrict abortion, according to a New York Times analysis.In four states with politically divided governments and elections for governor this year — Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Kansas — the issue is expected to be a fulcrum of campaigns. In Michigan and Wisconsin, which have anti-abortion laws on the books predating Roe, Democratic governors and attorneys general have vowed to block their implementation. Kansas voters face a referendum in August on codifying that the state constitution does not protect abortion.A voter dropped off his ballot during early voting in Allentown, Pa., in 2020.Angela Weiss/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesPennsylvania, which has a conservative Republican-led legislature and a term-limited Democratic governor, is the only one of the four states with an open seat for governor. “The legislature is going to put a bill on the desk of the next governor to ban abortion,’’ said Josh Shapiro, a Democrat running unopposed for the party’s nomination for governor. “Every one of my opponents would sign it into law, and I would veto it.”From Opinion: A Challenge to Roe v. WadeCommentary by Times Opinion writers and columnists on the Supreme Court’s upcoming decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.Alison Block: Offering compassionate care is a core aspect of reproductive health. It might mean overcoming one’s own hesitation to provide procedures like second-trimester abortions.Patrick T. Brown: If Roe is overturned, those who worked toward that outcome will rightly celebrate. But a broader pro-family agenda should be their next goal.Jamelle Bouie: The leak proves that the Supreme Court is a political body, where horse-trading and influence campaigns are as much a part of the process as legal reasoning.Bret Stephens: Roe v. Wade was an ill-judged decision when it was handed down. But overturning it would do more to replicate its damage than to reverse it.Jay Kaspian Kang: There is no clear path toward a legislative solution to protect abortion rights. That’s precisely why people need to take to the streets.Mr. Shapiro, the state’s attorney general, has been primarily known for defeating multiple cases brought by supporters of Donald J. Trump claiming fraud after he lost Pennsylvania by 80,000 votes in 2020. When Mr. Shaprio began his campaign last year, he focused on voting rights, but he said in an interview last week that he expected the general election to become a referendum on abortion.His campaign said it had its best day of fund-raising after the Supreme Court draft leaked last week. He rejected the notion that voters, whose attention spans can be short, will absorb a major Supreme Court reversal and move on by the fall. “I’m going to be talking about rights — from voting rights to reproductive rights — until the polls close at 8 p.m. on Election Day,’’ Mr. Shapiro said. “People are very concerned about this. I expect that level of concern, of fear, of worry, of anger is going to continue.”All four of the top Republicans heading into the primary on May 17 have said they favor strict abortion bans. Lou Barletta, a former congressman and one of two frontrunners in the race, has said he would sign “any bill that comes to my desk that would protect the life of the unborn.”Another top candidate, Doug Mastriano, said in a recent debate that he was opposed to any exceptions — for rape, incest or the health of the mother — in an abortion ban. Mr. Mastriano, a state senator, has introduced a bill in Harrisburg to ban abortions after a “fetal heartbeat” is detected, at about six weeks of pregnancy. Another Republican bill would require death certificates and a burial or cremation after miscarriages or abortions.Democrats are worried, in Pennsylvania and around the country, that their 2020 coalition lacks motivation this year after expelling Mr. Trump from the White House. The listlessness extends to Black, Latino and younger voters, as well as suburban swing voters. It was suburbanites, especially outside Philadelphia, who gave Mr. Biden his winning edge in the state.Democratic operatives hope abortion will keep those independent voters — who have since swung against the president in polls — from defecting to Republicans.“With Trump no longer aggravating suburban voters every week, Republicans were hoping to regain traction in the Philadelphia suburbs in 2022,” said J.J. Balaban, a Democratic strategist in the state. “The fall of Roe will make that less likely to happen.”Shavonnia Corbin-Johnson, political director of the State Democratic Party, said that the end of abortion access would “add to compounding racial disparities and maternal health” for minority communities, and that the party was planning to organize aggressively around the issue.Soleil Hartwell, 19, who works in a big-box store near Bethlehem, is typical of voters who drop off in midterm elections after voting in presidential years. But Ms. Hartwell said she would vote this year to protect abortion rights. “I don’t have any kids, and I don’t plan on having any yet, but if I was in a situation that required me to, I should be able to” choose the fate of a pregnancy, she said.Soleil Hartwell, 19, in Allentown, Pa., on Wednesday.Rachel Wisniewski for The New York TimesRepublicans are deeply skeptical that abortion can reanimate the Democratic base. “Their people are depressed,” said Rob Gleason, a former chair of the Pennsylvania Republican Party. “Nothing’s going to be able to save them this year.”Speaking from Philadelphia after a road trip from his home in western Pennsylvania, Mr. Gleason said: “I stopped on the turnpike and paid $5.40 a gallon for gas. That reminds me every time I fill up, I want a change.”Pennsylvania’s large Roman Catholic population — about one in five adults — has afforded electoral space for a tradition of anti-abortion Democratic officials, including Senator Bob Casey Jr., and his father, Bob Casey Sr., who served as governor. A law that the senior Casey pushed through the legislature in the 1980s included some abortion restrictions, which was challenged in the 1992 Supreme Court case Planned Parenthood v. Casey. The court upheld most of the state’s restrictions, while affirming Roe v. Wade’s grant of a right to abortion. The leaked draft of the court’s opinion last week, written by Justice Samuel Alito, would overturn the Casey ruling along with Roe.The State of Roe v. WadeCard 1 of 4What is Roe v. Wade? More