Elections

Before the 2016 election, J.D. Vance called Donald J. Trump “cultural heroin” and a demagogue who was “leading the white working class to a very dark place.”On Tuesday, Mr. Vance’s triumph in a crowded Republican field for Senate in Ohio was thanks largely to an endorsement, late in the race, from the former president he once denounced.The conversion of Mr. Vance, an author and venture capitalist, from Trump skeptic to full-on Trump ally might fill a second memoir, a sequel to his best-selling “Hillbilly Elegy,” Mr. Vance’s story of growing up poor in Kentucky and Ohio. When that book was published in 2016, it was devoured by the “coastal elites” he now rails against as a means for them to decode white working-class support for Mr. Trump.Mr. Vance’s book pointed inward to explain the woes of his community: He blamed a personal “lack of agency” for drug abuse, welfare dependency and chaotic lives. But as a politician, he has pointed the finger outward, at external enemies, just as Mr. Trump did.On the campaign trail, Mr. Vance blamed corporations for shipping jobs to China and accused liberals of opening borders to cheap labor and opioid traffickers. The intimate voice of “Hillbilly Elegy” yielded to a darker tone and language. He castigated “idiots” in Washington and “scumbags” in the news media.Mr. Vance announced his campaign for the Senate last year in Middletown, Ohio, where he grew up.Jeffrey Dean/Associated PressHis critics, including Republican rivals in Ohio, said he had turned himself inside-out to mimic Mr. Trump’s bellicosity in pursuit of votes. Opponents spent millions on attack ads to remind voters that Mr. Vance had once called himself “a Never Trump guy” and had said some voters backed Mr. Trump “for racist reasons.”Mr. Vance, on a slog across Ohio he called the “No B.S. Town Hall Tour,” explained to modest crowds that he had undergone a political evolution, recognizing that Mr. Trump was right on issue after issue.“I was like, ‘Man, you know, when Trump says the elites are fundamentally corrupt, they don’t care about the country that has made them who they are, he was actually telling the truth,’” he told a conservative podcaster last year.Today, Mr. Vance, who graduated summa cum laude from Ohio State University and went on to Yale Law School, has found a political home with the movement known as national conservatism, an effort to add an intellectual framework to Trumpism. National conservatives lean right on issues like diversity and immigration restrictions but lean left on economics, opposing unfettered free trade, especially with China.Mr. Vance at a rally hosted by Mr. Trump in Delaware, Ohio, last month, after his endorsement.Drew Angerer/Getty ImagesMr. Vance, 37, grew up in Middletown, Ohio, where a grandfather had moved from Kentucky for a steel mill job. In the years after J.D. Vance was born in 1984, the city hollowed out as blue-collar jobs left, opioids arrived, marriages dissolved and much of the industrial Midwest became “a hub of misery” for the white working class, he wrote in his memoir.Mr. Vance’s mother, Bev, struggled with drug addiction. He was raised largely by his maternal grandparents, particularly the grandmother he called Mamaw, who “loved the Lord,” “loved the F-word” and owned 19 handguns, he said on the campaign trail.Out of high school, Mr. Vance enlisted in the Marines and served in Iraq as a public affairs officer. He returned home a man in a hurry, sailing through Ohio State in under two years.At Yale, he met a fellow student he would marry, Usha Chilukuri, who went on to clerk for an appeals court judge, Brett M. Kavanaugh. Democrats’ fierce opposition to Mr. Trump’s nomination of Judge Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court in 2018 appeared to be a turning point in Mr. Vance’s political transformation.“Trump’s popularity in the Vance household went up substantially during the Kavanaugh fight,” he recalled in 2019.Mr. Vance went to work as a venture capitalist in San Francisco for Peter Thiel, a billionaire founder of PayPal, whom he had heard speak at Yale. Mr. Thiel, a Silicon Valley conservative, also influenced Mr. Vance’s politics, especially his opposition to China and to immigration.Mr. Vance with Tim Cook, the chief executive of Apple, at Allen & Company’s annual conference in Sun Valley, Idaho, in 2017.Drew Angerer/Getty ImagesWhen Mr. Vance moved his family, which now includes three children, back to Ohio, he raised money from Mr. Thiel for a venture capital fund of his own — and followed the Thiel tradition by naming the business, Narya Capital, with a “Lord of the Rings” reference.Mr. Thiel poured $13.5 million into a political action committee to support Mr. Vance’s race.As a candidate, Mr. Vance had struggled to translate celebrity as an author into broad recognition and support from the Republican base. He was perpetually running behind his rivals in polling, and Mr. Thiel’s millions were nearly gone.But all that turned around with Mr. Trump’s endorsement on April 15. Most of the Republican field had aggressively auditioned for the former president’s seal of approval. Mr. Vance first pitched Mr. Trump at a meeting at Mar-a-Lago brokered by Mr. Thiel. Donald Trump Jr. and the Fox News host Tucker Carlson also lobbied for Mr. Vance.“J.D. Vance may have said some not so great things about me in the past,” Mr. Trump said in announcing his choice, “but he gets it now, and I have seen that in spades.” More

Representative Tim Ryan cruised to victory in the Democratic primary election for Senate in his state, running in a moderate lane focused on tackling jobs, manufacturing and taking on China.Mr. Ryan’s victory, called by The Associated Press, came as little surprise. He had long been considered the clear front-runner in the contest for the seat of Senator Rob Portman, an establishment Republican who is retiring.But Mr. Ryan faced a challenger to his left in Morgan Harper, a progressive lawyer. She attacked him over his donations from energy companies and championed policies like “Medicare for All” and an overhaul of the conservative-dominated Supreme Court.Mr. Ryan, a onetime presidential candidate who has long sought to appeal to blue-collar workers in northeastern Ohio, visited all 88 counties in the state in a bet that voters of all leanings were tired of far-right and far-left positions in American politics. He sought to appeal to the “exhausted majority,” a phrase coined by researchers to describe the estimated two-thirds of voters who are less polarized and who feel overlooked.He has been waiting in the wings, as a crowded Republican campaign has at times turned ugly. The candidates aggressively pursued Donald J. Trump’s endorsement before the former president threw his support to J.D. Vance, and they took aim at undocumented immigrants, transgender youths’ participation in sports and teachings on race and gender in schools.Yet Mr. Ryan also drew criticism for fear-mongering in some of his messaging, including in his first television commercial. It centered on the nation’s fight to beat China on manufacturing, but some Asian advocacy groups and elected officials described the ad as racist and called on him to take it down.Mr. Ryan condemned anti-Asian violence but did not back down, saying that he had been speaking specifically about government policies under the Chinese Communist Party that have hurt Ohio workers.His chances of success in the general election in the fall are considered relatively low, given a national political environment that is unfriendly to his party and the increasingly conservative tilt of Ohio, which voted for Mr. Trump in the last two presidential elections.But an upset victory by Mr. Ryan could carry lessons for national Democrats in the Midwest on how to counter the appeal of Trumpism and win back white working-class voters who used to form a large part of the Democratic base in the industrial heart of the country. More

Exultant Republicans planned new bans. Democrats, who have struggled to rally around abortion rights, hoped a bruising Supreme Court loss could jolt their voters into action.A leaked draft of a Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade instantly propelled the debate over abortion into the white-hot center of American politics, emboldening Republicans across the country and leaving Democrats scrambling to jolt their voters into action six months before the midterm elections.Although the Supreme Court on Tuesday stressed that the draft opinion was not final, the prospect that the nation’s highest court was on the cusp of invalidating the constitutional right to abortion was a crowning moment for Republicans who are already enjoying momentum in the fight for control of Congress, statehouses and governor’s offices. Republican state leaders on Tuesday announced plans to further tighten restrictions on the procedure — or outlaw it outright — once the final ruling lands in the coming months.Democrats, reeling from the blow and divided over whom to blame, hoped the news would serve as a painful reality check for voters who have often taken abortion rights for granted and struggled to mobilize on the issue with the passion of abortion rights opponents. They said they planned to drive home the stakes in the fall, particularly in state races, putting abortion rights on the November ballot in key contests in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Arizona and other battlegrounds.“People were concerned about the lack of energy for voters in the midterms and not coming out to vote — well, the Supreme Court has just handed us a reason for people to vote,” said Representative Susan Wild, a Pennsylvania Democrat who faces a competitive re-election.“At one time I would have said they’re never going to take away right to contraception. But I don’t believe that anymore,” she said.Independent voters have overwhelmingly soured on President Biden, and many core Democratic constituencies have shown signs of trouble. Some party strategists privately cautioned against the idea that even something as seismic as overturning Roe would surpass the importance of the economy and inflation with many voters, something Republicans argued publicly.“Conventional wisdom right now is this helps Democrats because it will spur turnout, but it also could certainly spur turnout for base Republicans,” said Glen Bolger, a Republican strategist. “Generally most voters focus on the economy, for instance, and right now of course, inflation is dominant.”A woman writing a message supporting abortion rights before a protest on Tuesday in Manhattan.Caitlin Ochs for The New York TimesAn anti-abortion protester on Tuesday outside the Jackson Women’s Health Organization in Jackson, Miss.Rory Doyle for The New York TimesBut polling also shows that Americans strongly oppose completely overturning Roe v. Wade — 54 percent of Americans think the Roe decision should be upheld while 28 percent believe it should be overturned, a new Washington Post-ABC poll found. Democrats argue that many voters have long believed it was not truly in danger of being gutted. The draft opinion may change their calculus in meaningful ways, especially with suburban women and disillusioned base voters, those strategists say.“It hasn’t ever been that voters don’t care about it,” said Molly Murphy, a Democratic pollster and strategist, and the president of Impact Research. “It’s been concluded that it’s less effective because voters don’t believe that it could actually go away. And so with what the Supreme Court is signaling they’re about to do, is completely change and eliminate that sort of theory of the mobilizing power of abortion.”Understand the Challenge to Roe v. WadeThe Supreme Court’s upcoming decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization could be the most consequential to women’s access to abortion since 1973.The Arguments: After hearing arguments in December, the court appeared poised to uphold the Mississippi law at the center of the case that could overturn Roe v. Wade.Under Scrutiny: In overturning Roe v. Wade, would the justices be following their oath to uphold the Constitution or be engaging in political activism? Here is what legal scholars think.An America Without Roe: The changes created by the end of abortion rights at the federal level would mostly be felt by poor women in Republican states.An Extraordinary Breach: The leak of the draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade suggests an internal disarray at odds with the decorum prized by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.Familiar Arguments: The draft opinion, by Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., draws on two decades-old conservative critiques of the Roe v. Wade decision.Legislative Activity: Some Republican-led state legislatures have already moved to advance abortion restrictions ahead of the court’s decision. Here is a look at those efforts.Without the court’s protection for abortion rights, states would be free to enforce their own restrictions or protections. That patchwork system is likely to shift the focus to governor’s races, where a state’s executive could have an outsize role in determining whether abortion is legal.Josh Shapiro, Pennsylvania’s attorney general and a candidate for governor, said he would veto any legislation restricting access to abortions.Matt Rourke/Associated PressIn Pennsylvania, Josh Shapiro, the state attorney general and Democratic candidate for governor, signaled that he planned to seize on the looming threat to Roe to cast himself as a one-man firewall against abortion rights opponents in his state. On Tuesday, he pledged to veto any legislation from the Republican-controlled Pennsylvania legislature that would restrict abortion access.“Every Pennsylvanian should be able to raise a family on their own terms,” Mr. Shapiro said. “And that means deciding if and when and how they want to do that.”But for all the talk from Democrats about abortion being on the ballot this fall, Mr. Shapiro’s race is the exception. Far more states, including Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Texas and Wisconsin, all have laws on the books effectively banning abortion that would go into effect once Roe is invalidated. The November elections are unlikely to give Democrats the numbers to reverse those.In Wisconsin, for example, an 1849 law made performing an abortion a felony unless the pregnancy endangered the life of the mother. That law remains on the books, though several of the state’s Republican candidates for governor have endorsed proposals to eliminate any exceptions to the ban.On Tuesday afternoon, Gov. Tony Evers of Wisconsin sent a letter, signed by 15 fellow Democratic governors, urging Congress to enact federal abortion protections — a plea that is almost certain to go unmet.Although Mr. Evers won’t be able to make the case that he can save abortion protections in Wisconsin, he will argue that he can make other key decisions about how much the machinery of the state is used toward investigations and prosecutions of abortions, said Ben Wikler, the chairman of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin.Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia played up a 2019 law that bans abortions in the state after six weeks.Alyssa Pointer/ReutersRepublicans were celebrating as they appeared on the cusp of victory. In Georgia, Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican facing stiff primary and general election challenges, took a victory lap Tuesday, playing up a 2019 state law that bans abortion in the state after six weeks. The law has been held up in a federal appeals court awaiting the outcome of the Supreme Court’s decision.“We are the voice of all those people that are out there and have been in the trenches for decades doing this and we’re glad to be in the fight with them,” Mr. Kemp said during a radio interview Tuesday.In South Dakota, Gov. Kristi Noem, a Republican believed to have presidential ambitions, said Tuesday that she would immediately call for a special session to outlaw abortion in her state. Attorney General Eric Schmitt of Missouri said a broad ban on abortions in the state was just a signature away from enactment if Roe is in fact overturned. The speaker of the Nebraska Legislature told colleagues to expect a special session on abortion following the Supreme Court’s decision.Democrats running for Senate renewed calls to put Roe’s abortion protections into federal law and change the Senate rules, if necessary, to do it. Although Democrats currently control the Senate with Vice President Kamala Harris’s tiebreaking vote, they do not appear to have the votes to codify a woman’s right to an abortion, a major point of contention and blame-shifting among Democrats.Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia said Tuesday that he was still opposed to any changes to the filibuster, effectively ending any Democratic hopes of passing an abortion bill.Still, Democratic candidates signaled they planned to continue to promise to fight to codify Roe.“Democrats have to act quickly and get rid of the filibuster,” said Lt. Gov. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, who is running for Senate, to “finally codify Roe into law. We cannot afford to wait.”Kina Collins, a Democrat in a primary for a House seat in Chicago, called on the party’s leaders to “fight like our lives depend on it.”“There is no place in this party for Democrats who will not,” she said.Sensing the potential harm of yet another intraparty skirmish, Representative Sean Patrick Maloney of New York, the chairman of the House Democrats’ campaign arm, warned against blaming fellow Democrats.“Focusing on what’s wrong with Democrats in the Senate or elsewhere is (another) circular firing squad,” Mr. Maloney wrote on Twitter. “We can only end the filibuster, pass real protections for choice IF WE WIN more power.”Trip Gabriel contributed reporting. More

Democrats who were privately hoping for a surprise development to shake up the midterms have gotten their wish. Nobody expected it to come in the form of a leaked draft Supreme Court opinion overturning Roe v. Wade, however.It’s a political bombshell. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy to discern where the shrapnel lands.Democrats we spoke with on Tuesday were furious about Justice Samuel Alito’s draft opinion, which was presented in the document as the view of the court’s conservative majority. Universally, these Democrats viewed it as an assault on the fundamental rights of women to control their own bodies.But in coldly rational political terms, they expect the news to energize their base and motivate key swing groups, such as suburban college-educated women. They also pointed to polling showing that banning abortion, as a number of states have indicated they would do if Roe were overturned, would be unpopular with the broader public.“The more you see Republicans cheering the decision, the more you’re going to have voters saying, ‘Wait a second, this is not what I thought they were going to do,’” said Margie Omero, a Democratic pollster.“We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled,” Alito wrote in the draft, which a representative for the court emphasized in a statement was not necessarily a final opinion. “It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.”Understand the Challenge to Roe v. WadeThe Supreme Court’s upcoming decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization could be the most consequential to women’s access to abortion since 1973.The Arguments: After hearing arguments in December, the court appeared poised to uphold the Mississippi law at the center of the case that could overturn Roe v. Wade.Under Scrutiny: In overturning Roe v. Wade, would the justices be following their oath to uphold the Constitution or be engaging in political activism? Here is what legal scholars think.An America Without Roe: The changes created by the end of abortion rights at the federal level would mostly be felt by poor women in Republican states.An Extraordinary Breach: The leak of the draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade suggests an internal disarray at odds with the decorum prized by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.Familiar Arguments: The draft opinion, by Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., draws on two decades-old conservative critiques of the Roe v. Wade decision.Legislative Activity: Some Republican-led state legislatures have already moved to advance abortion restrictions ahead of the court’s decision. Here is a look at those efforts.Omero pointed to an April 26 polling memo by Navigator, a Democratic messaging group she is involved with, arguing that a Supreme Court ruling along these lines “would motivate Democrats and pro-choice Americans significantly more to turn out in 2022 than Republicans and those who are pro-life.”Now that Roe’s elimination is no longer hypothetical, Omero said, she expects voters will begin paying more attention to the issue. “We’re going to have a decision that is going to lay bare the differences between the parties,” she said.What Republicans are sayingSo far, top Republicans would rather talk about the leak itself than the potential decision’s political implications.Senator Mitch McConnell, the minority leader, called the disclosure “an attack on the independence of the Supreme Court.” It was “a judicial insurrection,” said Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida. “An act of institutional sabotage,” said Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska.“They’re always unsure how to talk about abortion,” said Rachel Bovard, a senior director of policy at the Conservative Partnership Institute, a right-leaning think tank. Bovard said she had spent the past day discussing the implications of the leak with nervous Republican lawmakers and aides.Privately, Republicans are still trying to gauge how the issue will affect the midterms. On Tuesday, the National Republican Senatorial Committee sent a memo urging candidates to “be the compassionate consensus-builder” on abortion, while also highlighting what Republicans say are extreme views among Democrats.Indicating some concern about how Democrats and activists on the left might try to portray Alito’s draft opinion, the memo also recommended that G.O.P. candidates “forcefully refute” statements by Democrats that Republicans want to ban contraception and “throw doctors and women in jail.”Several G.O.P. operatives said that the issue could ultimately play to Republicans’ advantage if the debate becomes about whether to enact restrictions on the timing of abortions rather than about whether there ought to be a federal right in the first place.“Running on overturning Roe is not a winning issue” in a general election, said Garrett Ventry, a Republican political consultant. “Late-term abortion is.”Other Republicans expressed skepticism that abortion, rather than inflation or crime, would move many voters in November.“The battle lines on this issue have been drawn for a long time,” said Sean Spicer, a former press secretary for the Trump White House and Republican National Committee strategist.But the decision is likely to affect how candidates, donors and activists approach the political fights ahead of them, funneling millions of dollars into Senate and state-level races that could determine the shape of the post-Roe world.“If you’re running for Senate, you are tied to the national ideological debate,” said Kristin Davison, a Republican consultant involved in midterm races across the country. Running for governor is more complicated, she added, because “now you have to do something about it.”For social conservatives who have waited decades to overturn Roe, the fight is just beginning.“There’s no doubt the battle goes to the state level,” said Bob Vander Plaats, a Christian conservative leader in Iowa, who added that the next focus for the anti-abortion movement would be pushing across the country for laws on fetal cardiac activity. “It’s not a political issue. It’s a right or wrong issue.”What to readWhat would the end of Roe v. Wade look like? Here is our map showing where various states stand on abortion, and here are key questions and answers.The leak of the draft decision on Roe was an extraordinary breach and left the Supreme Court seriously shaken. Our reporter Adam Liptak explores the possible motives, methods and whether defections are still possible.Outside the Supreme Court on Tuesday, scores of supporters and opponents of abortion rights gathered with megaphones and signs. Here’s what they had to say.— Blake & LeahIs there anything you think we’re missing? Anything you want to see more of? We’d love to hear from you. Email us at [email protected]. More

As we have said before, predicting the timing of election results is not an exact science. It can be downright messy. And surely, every election night is different.Many factors can contribute to how late, or how early, results are reported: when polls close, what time election officials can start tabulating absentee ballots and how close races are, to name a few.For the marquee races in Ohio, like the closely watched U.S. Senate primary, the secretary of state said it would begin posting unofficial results on its website at 8 p.m. Eastern time, half an hour after voting ends. In 2020, about half the vote had been counted by 8:30 p.m. in Ohio, said Stephen Ohlemacher, the election decision editor for The Associated Press.Absentee ballots can’t be tabulated in Ohio until the polls close, and are then counted first, according to Rob Nichols, a spokesman for the secretary of state. As of Friday, about 162,000 ballots had already been cast in Ohio through the mail or via early, in-person voting, which ended on Monday, according to The A.P. In 2018, there were about 280,000 ballots cast before the primary in Ohio, which The A.P. estimated was 17 percent of the total vote.Results for U.S. House races in Ohio will appear on county-level board of election websites before the secretary of state’s, putting the onus on the candidates, political parties and news media to tally results for each county in a congressional district. The secretary of state’s office cited Ohio’s back-and-forth on redrawing congressional maps as the root cause of the delay in updating their website.Indiana expects to start posting results on the secretary of state’s website shortly after polls close — which is 6 p.m. local time, whether in the part of the state that is in the Eastern time zone or in the Central time zone. Election officials in the state can begin counting absentee ballots on the day of an election, but cannot post any results until after the polls close.As of Monday morning, 146,365 ballots had been cast statewide, both through the mail and early, in-person voting, which ended on Monday in Indiana, according to The A.P. The total ballots cast in the 2018 primary was 173,000. More

In the wake of Republican electoral victories in 2004, he convened major liberal donors to finance a network of political groups aligned with Democrats.Rob Stein, a Democratic strategist who helped reshape American politics by pioneering new ways for wealthy liberals to influence policy debates and elections, died on Monday at a hospice facility in Washington. He was 78.His son Gideon said the cause was metastatic prostate cancer.After a varied career in which he worked as a public interest lawyer and a top adviser to the Democratic Party and the Clinton administration and created nonprofit groups and a venture capital fund, Mr. Stein found his calling in the wake of the 2002 elections.The president’s party usually fares poorly in midterm elections, but Republicans captured the Senate, giving them control of both chambers of Congress and the presidency, as well as the majority of governorships and state legislative seats. This left Mr. Stein concerned that Republicans could be headed for long-term dominance if Democrats failed to understand and counter their rivals’ superior tactics and political machinery.He spent months obsessing over the advocacy groups and think tanks that collectively constituted the conservative movement. He routinely stayed awake past midnight studying tax filings to map the flow of cash to these groups.Mr. Stein crystallized his research into a PowerPoint presentation called “The Conservative Message Machine’s Money Matrix,” which was intended as a sort of Rosetta stone for understanding the conservative movement and its funding. He began showing it to Democratic political operatives and major donors around the country, developing a following among some of the most influential figures on the left.After President George W. Bush was re-elected and Republicans increased their majorities in Congress in 2004, Mr. Stein launched a coalition of major liberal donors, the Democracy Alliance, to offset the Republican advantages detailed in his presentation. Each member had to commit to donating at least $200,000 a year to groups recommended by the alliance — including outfits supporting progressive causes, like fighting climate change and protecting abortion rights, that generally aligned with the Democratic Party.Its founding members included some of the biggest donors on the left, among them the financier George Soros.The alliance’s donors have combined to give more than $2 billion to recommended groups, the organization said. Their donations have helped seed some of the most important institutions on the left, including America Votes, Media Matters and the Center for American Progress.It wasn’t long before Republicans were trying to organize donor coalitions of their own to mimic some of the strategy behind the Democracy Alliance.“It just changed the way people thought about their philanthropy,” said David Brock, the former conservative journalist who became a leading Democratic operative and who founded Media Matters.In the 2022 election cycle, Media Matters and a network of affiliated groups subsequently created by Mr. Brock are on pace to spend $100 million, Mr. Brock said. He added that none of that would have been possible without Mr. Stein and the Democracy Alliance.“It was revolutionary for our side, and over the last 20 years it was the sole reason why sustainable Democratic infrastructure got built,” he said.Mr. Stein, center, with Gov. John Hickenlooper of Colorado, a Democrat, and Kerry Healey, a former Republican lieutenant governor of Massachusetts, in 2018. Mr. Stein worked on building coalitions of donors and operatives across party lines.Leigh Vogel/Getty Images for Concordia SummitRobert Jay Stein was born on Oct. 26, 1943, in Wheeling, W.Va. His father, Charles, owned a chain of lumberyards, and his mother, Janis (Harrison) Stein, was involved in local arts, social service and religious organizations.He graduated from the Linsly Military Institute (now the Linsly School) in Wheeling before attending Antioch College in Ohio, a hotbed of progressive politics and activism.The abrupt transition shaped Mr. Stein’s politics.“It opened my brain to both conservative values and liberal values, and I became respectful of both, even though over time I became more in the liberal camp,” Mr. Stein said in an interview last month.He went on to the George Washington University Law School in Washington, where he would make his home for the rest of his life.He worked as a public interest lawyer for 10 years, then helped create or run a series of nonprofit organizations focused on issues including nutrition, refugees, organizational management and voter participation.Ahead of the 1988 Democratic National Convention, Mr. Stein was recruited to develop a presentation about mobilizing voters. That led to positions as an adviser to the Democratic National Committee under Chairman Ronald H. Brown, and then as chief of staff to Mr. Brown when President Bill Clinton named him commerce secretary in 1993.Mr. Stein left the Commerce Department shortly before Mr. Brown’s death in a plane crash in 1996 to help start a venture capital fund focused on women-owned businesses. When he formed the Democracy Alliance, he infused it with principles typically associated with venture investing.In addition to his son Gideon, from his marriage to Mary Ann (Efroymson) Stein, which ended in divorce, Mr. Stein is survived by his wife, Ellen Miley Perry; their daughter, Kat Stein; two other children from his first marriage, Dorothy and Noah Stein; and five grandchildren.After the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision prompted a surge in political spending, much of it funded by undisclosed sources, Mr. Stein grew increasingly concerned that big money was deepening polarization and distrust in government.While he urged Democrats not to “unilaterally disarm,” he also began talking about ways to bridge partisan divides and reform politics. That became a larger part of Mr. Stein’s focus after Donald J. Trump’s election in 2016.He advised several groups on building coalitions of donors and operatives across the political spectrum to fight what he saw as a slide into authoritarianism exacerbated by Mr. Trump.Mr. Stein applied thinking and strategy from the Democracy Alliance to encourage “a new cross-partisan pro-democracy infrastructure,” said Sarah Longwell, a longtime Republican operative who has worked to loosen Mr. Trump’s grip on the party.“He was especially attentive to those of us on the right who had never had common cause with Democrats,” said Ms. Longwell, who helped create and run two organizations that oppose Mr. Trump and his allies: the Bulwark website and the political group Defending Democracy Together.She said Mr. Stein, whom she considers a mentor, was “a relentless cheerleader for the project of democracy.” More

Mr. Delgado is also expected to serve as Gov. Kathy Hochul’s running mate in her campaign for a full term this year, replacing former Lt. Gov. Brian Benjamin.Gov. Kathy Hochul announced on Tuesday she had chosen Representative Antonio Delgado, a Democrat from the Hudson Valley, as her new lieutenant governor, the second-highest-ranking position in New York State.Mr. Delgado is expected to serve as Ms. Hochul’s running mate as she campaigns for a full term this year. He will replace former Lt. Gov. Brian Benjamin, who was indicted on federal bribery charges last month, leading to his abrupt resignation.A group of New York Democrats empowered with formally replacing Mr. Benjamin endorsed the choice of Mr. Delgado as Ms. Hochul’s running mate Tuesday morning, ensuring that he would be on the ballot in June’s party primary, according to three people familiar with the process. Jay Jacobs, the Democratic Party chairman, was expected to fly required paperwork approving the choice to Albany later on Tuesday.Mr. Delgado, 45, who has represented New York’s 19th Congressional District since 2019, has proved he can win hotly contested elections and will help Ms. Hochul diversify her ticket. He identifies as African American and Latino, with family roots in the West African island nation of Cape Verde. Like Ms. Hochul, he hails from outside New York City, where much of the Democratic primary electorate resides, and has campaigned as a political moderate.“Having won competitive primary and general elections for Congress, Representative Antonio Delgado is a battle-tested campaigner who has the experience to serve New Yorkers and the work ethic to get our party’s message out to voters, unite communities and lift up Democratic candidates statewide,” Ms. Hochul said.Ms. Hochul did not immediately say when Mr. Delgado would take the oath of office.In his own statement, Mr. Delgado downplayed the state’s geographic differences.“Upstate, downstate, doesn’t matter,” he said. “We all want the same things: security, family and opportunity.”The announcement came one day after state lawmakers passed legislation on Monday at Ms. Hochul’s behest to allow Mr. Benjamin to be removed from the state Democratic primary ballot and replaced with another candidate ahead of the primary for governor, scheduled for June 28.Mr. Delgado will have to give up his congressional seat to serve out the remainder of Mr. Benjamin’s term as lieutenant governor, a largely ceremonial role entrusted with few statutory duties. The lieutenant governor also serves as governor if the governor dies, resigns, is impeached or is absent or disabled.Mr. Delgado was likely to face a difficult re-election fight this fall. Democrats had tried to add friendly voters to his district when they approved a new congressional map earlier this year, but the state’s highest court struck down the newly drawn district lines last week. Court-drawn lines are likely to make the seat far more competitive.In the June primary for lieutenant governor, Mr. Delgado will face two opponents, both Latina women: Diana Reyna, a former New York City Council member, and Ana María Archila, a progressive activist. Ms. Reyna is campaigning with Representative Thomas Suozzi, a Democrat from Long Island running for governor as a staunch moderate, while Ms. Archila has aligned herself with Jumaane Williams, the New York City public advocate running to Ms. Hochul’s left.Ms. Hochul initially picked Mr. Benjamin, a Black former state senator from Harlem, as her running mate in August, just a few days after she became governor following former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s sudden resignation. She had chosen Mr. Benjamin in an effort to broaden her appeal among city voters.After Mr. Benjamin stepped down last month, Ms. Hochul was once again forced to choose a running mate. She considered a handful of officials of color, though it appears she did not constrain her options to those hailing from the downstate region. The selection process was kept remarkably under wraps, devoid of the leaks that defined Ms. Hochul’s first, flawed search for a second-in-command.This time, the governor was determined to pick a lieutenant governor without any red flags and asked Elizabeth Fine, the counsel to the governor, and Marty Mack, the appointments secretary, to oversee a team of lawyers scrubbing candidates’ backgrounds.Ms. Hochul’s team was particularly impressed with Mr. Delgado’s record of winning and holding one of the most competitive swing districts in the country against Republican opponents who tried to brand him as a “big-city rapper,” according to people familiar with her decision. He is also a prolific fund-raiser.In Congress, Mr. Delgado has largely avoided entering the kind of partisan fights that dominate cable news and rarely, if ever, speaks with reporters. He served on the agriculture, small business and transportation committees and has one of the most moderate voting records of any Democrat.John Faso, a former Republican congressman who lost to Mr. Delgado in 2018, called the selection a “good choice.”“It shows the paucity of the New York City bench for this position,” Mr. Faso said. “They got burned on picking Brian Benjamin. Now they’ve got a guy who went through a very competitive race in 2018 and doesn’t have the baggage that other candidates might have had.”Without an incumbent, Mr. Delgado’s seat could become even more favorable for Republicans this year. Marc Molinaro, a Republican and the Dutchess County executive who ran for governor in 2018, had already filed to run against Mr. Delgado. Pat Ryan, the executive in Ulster County, who narrowly lost to Mr. Delgado in the Democratic primary for the seat in 2018, is seriously considering running for the now-open seat, according to two people familiar with his thinking.Ms. Hochul was scheduled to appear with Mr. Delgado in the State Capitol in Albany on Tuesday afternoon to unveil him as her pick. More

Ohio’s primary elections almost weren’t going to happen Tuesday. A heated and confusing legal battle over the redrawing of congressional districts kept voters waiting for a final map. And in last-hour negotiations, elections officials took all of the statehouse races off the May 3 primary ballot, leaving them to be decided at a later date.But all eyes remain on the state, with one marquee matchup at the top of the list: the crowded, heated and expensive Republican Senate primary.More so than many other contests across the nation, the Ohio Senate race to replace Rob Portman, an establishment Republican who is retiring, will test former President Donald J. Trump’s influence on his party, and whether Republican voters have an appetite for hard-right, anti-establishment figures in his mold — or only for those with his seal of approval. The results could also give Democrats a better idea of their chances to secure the open seat in November.Once considered a national bellwether in the industrial heart of the country, Ohio has tilted Republican in the last two presidential elections, and Republicans control all levels of government. Senate candidates from both parties have been aggressively courting the white working-class voters who have left the Democratic Party in droves since Mr. Trump was first on the ballot in 2016.The campaign has been at times contentious and ugly. It has also been high-priced. Cash has poured into the race — from major super PACs and from candidates’ personal coffers — making it one of the most expensive of this election cycle. Major donors include the Protect Ohio Values PAC, largely funded by the billionaire Peter Thiel, who is supporting Mr. Vance, and the Buckeye Leadership Fund, which is backing Matt Dolan, a former Ohio state senator whose family owns the Cleveland Guardians baseball team.Indiana’s primary also features some notable elections with implications for the direction of the Republican Party. This year, more incumbents at the state level are facing primary challengers from the right than in at least a decade, according to a review by The Indianapolis Star, potentially resulting in an even more conservative legislative supermajority.North of Indianapolis, in Hamilton County, the re-election campaign of the prosecutor D. Lee Buckingham against Greg Garrison, a conservative talk-show host, is garnering outsize attention: Mr. Garrison has the support of former Vice President Mike Pence.Former President Donald J. Trump at a rally in Delware, Ohio last month.Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesTrump’s role as kingmakerMr. Trump rocked the Senate race landscape in Ohio last month when he threw his highly coveted endorsement behind J.D. Vance. A venture capitalist and the author of the best-selling 2016 memoir “Hillbilly Elegy,” Mr. Vance has been heavily backed by Mr. Thiel, the Fox News host Tucker Carlson and Donald Trump Jr.On the campaign trail, Mr. Vance has sought to atone for his past negative comments about Mr. Trump. Polls have shown a significant bump for Mr. Vance, but no clear front-runner has emerged.A Guide to the 2022 Midterm ElectionsMidterms Begin: The 2022 election season is underway. See the full primary calendar and a detailed state-by-state breakdown.In the Senate: Democrats have a razor-thin margin that could be upended with a single loss. Here are the four incumbents most at risk.In the House: Republicans and Democrats are seeking to gain an edge through redistricting and gerrymandering, though this year’s map is poised to be surprisingly fairGovernors’ Races: Georgia’s contest will be at the center of the political universe, but there are several important races across the country.Key Issues: Inflation, the pandemic, abortion and voting rights are expected to be among this election cycle’s defining topics.David McIntosh’s anti-tax Club for Growth, which had first opposed Mr. Trump’s 2016 before supporting him, is pitching for a battle. The G.O.P. group has put its support behind Josh Mandel, a former Ohio state treasurer, who went from reluctant Trump supporter in 2016 to one of the nation’s most ardent backers of Trumpism.Other Republican Senate hopefuls include Jane Timken, a former chairwoman of the Ohio Republican Party, who has been endorsed by Mr. Portman and has campaigned with the former Trump aide Kellyanne Conway, and Mike Gibbons, a financier who has outspent all of the candidates in the race. He has at times been at the top of the polls with a sales pitch similar to Mr. Trump’s, reminding audiences he is not a politician but a businessman.Still, Ohio voters might decide they do not want a Trump-centered candidate at all. The only Republican running in this lonely lane has been Mr. Dolan, who says he supports Mr. Trump but has made him less of a focus in the campaign. Unlike the top candidates in the race, he recognizes President Biden as the nation’s legitimate leader.Is there an ‘exhausted majority’?On the Democratic side of the Senate race, Representative Tim Ryan is considered the front-runner. He faces a challenge from the left by Morgan Harper, a progressive lawyer and a senior adviser at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau under former President Barack Obama.Mr. Ryan has been visiting with voters across the state in a bet that they have had enough of the extremism in American politics and might be willing to elect a Democrat to a seat formerly held by a Republican. He is seeking to appeal to the “exhausted majority,” a phrase coined by researchers to describe the estimated two-thirds of voters who are less polarized and who feel overlooked.It will be interesting to see if such an electorate manifests itself in Ohio — and if it goes for Mr. Ryan or for Mr. Dolan on the other side of the aisle.Success for Mr. Ryan in the fall could carry lessons for Democrats across the Midwest on how to counter the appeal of Trumpism and the erosion of support for the party among the white working-class — voters who once formed a loyal part of the Democratic base.Representative Shontel Brown with supporters in Lakewood, Ohio.Dustin Franz for The New York TimesNina Turner speaks with children during a campaign event in South Euclid, Ohio.Dustin Franz for The New York TimesThe rematch between Nina Turner and Shontel BrownRepresentative Shontel Brown narrowly defeated Nina Turner, a former state senator and a top surrogate for Bernie Sanders, in a Democratic primary last year that was seen as somewhat of a proxy battle between the party’s progressive and establishment wings.The two were vying for a seat vacated by Marcia L. Fudge after President Biden appointed her as the secretary of housing and urban development. The race attracted big Democratic names and millions of dollars, with Ms. Brown, then a Cuyahoga County councilwoman, drawing support from Hillary Clinton and the highest-ranking Black member of the House, James E. Clyburn of South Carolina.This year, major establishment figures have once more endorsed Ms. Brown, including President Biden and Mr. Clyburn. She now also has the backing of the Congressional Progressive Caucus PAC.Ms. Turner previously was attacked for taking anti-Israel positions — and for using language that some said echoed anti-Semitic tropes — as well as for a crass denunciation of President Biden. This time around, she has aggressively courted Jewish voters. She has the ground-game support of Our Revolution, a progressive political action organization that emerged from Mr. Sanders’s 2016 presidential campaign. The group’s 150 volunteers have centered on building support for Ms. Turner through one-on-one conversations with voters.Will Ohio have a shot at a female governor?The former congressman Jim Renacci is one of several Republican candidates who are trying to seize on their party’s internal divisions to unseat G.O.P. governors. But Mr. Renacci seems to be gaining little traction against Gov. Mike DeWine, a longtime Ohio politician who has been working to attract the support of Mr. Trump’s most loyal supporters.In the Democratic primary, two former mayors — John Cranley of Cincinnati and Nan Whaley of Dayton — are facing off, with Ms. Whaley seeking to become the first woman elected governor in the state. More