Abbott, Gregory W (1957- )

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      FTX’s Near-Collapse Batters the Crypto Industry

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      Prices of digital currencies have tumbled even after the exchange FTX announced a provisional lifeline by a top rival, Binance. A humbling downfall for Sam Bankman-Fried.Erika P. Rodriguez for The New York TimesA crypto giant’s fate is in doubtDevastation in the crypto market continued on Wednesday, after the giant crypto exchange Binance announced a bombshell deal to buy its embattled rival, FTX. (The deal excludes FTX’s American operations.) The entire market’s capitalization now stands at $900 billion, down from $3 trillion just one year ago, while major cryptocurrencies were down by double-digit percentages. The damage is largely contained within crypto; both the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq closed up yesterday.But investors fear that Binance won’t go through with the rescue plan, and that more pain awaits after their industry’s biggest Lehman-esque moment to date.What happened? Binance, an early investor in FTX turned rival, said over the weekend that it planned to sell its holdings in FTT, a token used for trading on FTX’s platform — a stunning move that cast doubt on the financial health of FTX and its trading arm, Alameda Research. The token’s value has plunged by roughly 80 percent in the past 36 hours to just under $5.Traders withdrew over $1.2 billion from FTX on Monday alone, according to the research firm Nansen. By Tuesday, FTX had stopped processing withdrawals; its chief executive, Sam Bankman-Fried, who was reportedly casting about for a financial lifeline from billionaires, finally turned to Binance for salvation.Binance has cemented its dominance over crypto. It was already the largest exchange worldwide for digital currencies and derivatives; FTX’s trading volumes in September were just a fraction of Binance’s. Its founder, Changpeng Zhao — widely known as CZ — showed off his power by effectively kneecapping FTX and then swooping in with a rescue. “This elevates Zhao as the most powerful player in crypto,” Ilan Solot of the derivatives trader Marex Solutions told The Financial Times.It’s a humbling downfall for Bankman-Fried, who in just three years rocketed from obscurity to become one of the best-known moguls in crypto, earning comparisons to Warren Buffett and J.P. Morgan. Months ago, Bankman-Fried sought to live up to the Morgan comparison, swooping in to bail out troubled crypto companies like Celsius and Voyager Digital (deals whose status is now unclear); he also became a frequent presence in Washington, calling for more regulation of the crypto industry, to the ire of CZ and other executives.At the beginning of the year, FTX was valued at $32 billion, backed by heavyweight investors like BlackRock, SoftBank and Tiger Global. (Investors said yesterday they were blindsided by the deal.) The 30-year-old Bankman-Fried — known in the crypto world as S.B.F. — was said to have a net worth of over $16 billion. But a document leaked to CoinDesk purportedly showed that FTX and Alameda, whose finances had long been murky, were highly illiquid and financially vulnerable.The crypto world fears other shoes will drop. Investors worry that CZ may yet pull out of his rescue deal: He noted on Tuesday that the transaction was nonbinding and subject to due diligence. Meanwhile, tokens associated with FTX, including Solana, have continued to plunge in value.Other crypto players sought to distance themselves from the FTX meltdown. Brian Armstrong of Coinbase, the biggest U.S.-focused exchange, said FTX’s troubles appeared to arise from “risky business practices” that his company doesn’t engage in. Still, Coinbase shares fell nearly 11 percent yesterday.And regulators say the news justifies more scrutiny of crypto companies. “This is a major market event for the digital asset sector,” said Joe Rotunda of the Texas State Securities Board Enforcement Division, which had already been investigating FTX.HERE’S WHAT’S HAPPENING Elon Musk sells billions more in Tesla stock to pay for his Twitter deal. He sold nearly $4 billion worth of shares in recent days, according to regulatory filings, bringing his total sales for the year to $36 billion. The electric carmaker’s shares were up slightly in premarket trading.The United Nations seeks to end “sham” corporate net-zero pledges. Companies that claim to be trying to cut carbon emissions but invest in fossil fuels should be shamed, António Guterres, the U.N. secretary general, said at COP27. Meanwhile, more rich countries pledged to pay poorer ones compensation for damage from climate change.Disney reports a jump in streaming losses. The media giant said its direct-to-consumer unit — including Disney+ — doubled its third-quarter losses from a year ago, to $1.5 billion. But Disney said the quarter was the “peak” for losses, and noted it had added 12 million new subscribers.TikTok lowers its worldwide revenue targets amid a spending slump. The video platform cut its sales goals by 20 percent after its advertising and e-commerce operations struggled, The Financial Times reports. TikTok also revamped its leadership in the United States.Adidas cuts its profit forecast after breaking from Kanye West. The warning from the sportswear giant came weeks after it ended its highly profitable collaboration with the rapper now known as Ye. Separately, Adidas named Bjorn Gulden, the former head of Puma, as its next C.E.O.The red wave that wasn’t Republicans haven’t quite had the night they expected. As of 7 a.m. Eastern, Republicans were 21 seats shy of retaking control of the House. But leadership of the Senate remains up in the air after the Democrats flipped a seat in Pennsylvania. Here are the big highlights so far:Pennsylvania: John Fetterman, the state’s Democratic lieutenant governor, beat Mehmet Oz in the closely watched Senate race. Political analysts now say Democrats need to win two of three hotly contested Senate races — in Georgia, Arizona and Nevada, all currently held by Democrats — to maintain power in the chamber.Georgia: The Senate contest looks like it’s headed for a runoff on Dec. 6, pitting the incumbent, Raphael Warnock, against his Republican challenger, Herschel Walker.Governor races: Voters backed high-profile incumbents, including Kathy Hochul, Democrat of New York; Greg Abbott, Republican of Texas; and Tony Evers, Democrat of Wisconsin.Ballot initiatives: Voters in Michigan approved making abortion access a right protected under the State Constitution. Those in Maryland and Missouri voted to legalize marijuana, though similar measures were rejected in Arkansas and North Dakota.A rough night for Donald Trump: Several candidates that he endorsed, including in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan and Pennsylvania, lost or were behind. And a potential rival for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, handily won re-election.Meta slices through its work forceFacebook’s owner Meta will lay off 11,000 employees, equivalent to 13 percent of its work force, the company announced on Wednesday morning, in the biggest restructuring in the social media giant’s history. A slump in digital advertising and ballooning losses from its pivot to the metaverse have pushed the company to make a series of wide-ranging cuts.In a note to employees, Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s co-founder and C.E.O., admitted that the company had hired too aggressively during the pandemic as homebound consumers spent more time socializing and shopping online. Meta mistakenly assumed this trend would continue: “I got this wrong, and I take responsibility for that,” he wrote.The company has begun cutting costs across its operations, “scaling back budgets, reducing perks, and shrinking our real estate footprint,” Zuckerberg wrote. The stock was up 3.7 percent in premarket trading, outperforming the Nasdaq.The economic downturn is forcing companies across industries to shrink. Citigroup and Barclays are expected to lay off hundreds in their investment banking units, Bloomberg reports. And, according to Protocol, Salesforce could cut as many as 2,500 positions in the coming weeks as the activist investor Starboard Value seeks big changes in corporate strategy.Exclusive: Keurig Dr Pepper buys stake in Athletic Brewing Keurig Dr Pepper has invested $50 million in Athletic Brewing, the nonalcoholic beer company, as part of a $75 million fund-raise by Athletic, DealBook is first to report. It’s the beverage giant’s second foray into the nonalcoholic booze category — it announced a deal to acquire a nonalcoholic cocktail brand called Atypique this summer — and another sign of interest in this fast-growing category.Athletic Brewing was founded in 2017 by Bill Shufelt, a former trader at the hedge fund Point72, and John Walker, a former craft brewer. It now sells its products — including lager, light beer and sparkling water — at retailers like Trader Joe’s. With its new backer, Athletic is looking to expand in Australia, France and Spain.Sales of nonalcoholic beer are skyrocketing, growing almost 70 percent between 2016 and 2021 in the U.S., to about $670 million, according to Euromonitor. While that is still a tiny portion of the overall beer market, its popularity stands in stark contrast to overall sluggishness in beer sales, as the younger generation drinks less and cares more about its waistline. Beer giants like Heineken, Budweiser and Sam Adams have released nonalcoholic alternatives in the last five years.It’s not just for recovering alcoholics or nondrinkers. Shufelt said 80 percent of his customers drink alcohol, and three-fourths are between the ages of 21 and 44. About half are women, he added.THE SPEED READ DealsThe E.U.’s antitrust watchdog will deepen its scrutiny of Microsoft’s $75 billion takeover of Activision Blizzard. (WSJ)Goldman Sachs has reportedly weighed buying payment-technology companies to expand its credit-card business. (WSJ)The electric carmaker Lucid said it planned to raise up to $1.5 billion in fresh capital. (NYT)PolicyThe private equity giants Apollo, Carlyle and KKR disclosed inquiries by regulators over their dealmakers’ use of messaging apps like WhatsApp for business. (Bloomberg)Supreme Court justices are weighing a Pennsylvania law that requires companies to consent to being sued in its courts for conduct done anywhere. (NYT)Kenya published some details of a 2014 loan it took out from China, potentially straining relations with the country’s biggest source of infrastructure financing. (NYT)Best of the restVirginia Giuffre, a victim of Jeffrey Epstein, now says she may have misidentified the Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz as an abuser. (NYT)Twitter may now offer two kinds of check marks to verify users. (The Verge)Levi’s named Michelle Gass, Kohl’s chief executive, as its next C.E.O. (NYT)Would you take a Zoom meeting in a movie theater? AMC hopes so. (Insider)UBS’s chief risk officer, Christian Bluhm, is quitting to become … a professional photographer. (FT)Thanks for reading! We’ll see you tomorrow.We’d like your feedback. Please email thoughts and suggestions to dealbook@nytimes.com. More

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      New Voting Laws Add Difficulties for People With Disabilities

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      Laura Halvorson was ready to vote. On Thursday afternoon, she sat in front of a ballot screen at the Igo Library in San Antonio, after spending a month preparing for this moment. It was the first time in years that she had been in a public place, other than a doctor’s office.Sitting in her wheelchair, she wore two masks — one a KN95, the other a part of her breathing machine. Because Ms. Halvorson, 38, has muscular dystrophy, a condition that progressively decreases muscle mass, and makes her more vulnerable to Covid-19, she needed to use a remote-control device supplied by poll workers to make her ballot selections.No one knew how it worked.The glitch was one of many obstacles she had to navigate, both on that day and over the previous weeks, to fulfill what she saw as her civic duty. For Ms. Halvorson and others with disabilities, casting a ballot can always present a challenge. But new voting restrictions enacted in several states over the past two years have made it even harder.A law signed last year by Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas, a Republican, has made it more difficult for voters to cast ballots by mail and narrowed their options for voting in person, according to groups that advocate for people with disabilities and voting rights. Other Republican-led state legislatures, including in Georgia and Florida, have passed similar measures as a part of what they say are efforts to prevent voter fraud, despite rare occurrences of the crime.“Instead of embracing the more accessible forms of voting that sparked record turnout, including among voters with disabilities,” said Brian Dimmick, a senior staff attorney for the disability rights program of the American Civil Liberties Union, “states have doubled down on new and more restrictive voter-suppression laws.”None of the new laws single out those with disabilities, but advocates say they have left many people who would otherwise vote by mail with burdensome options: face the greater risk that their mail-in ballot could be thrown out — as Texas did at a higher-than-usual rate during the March primary — or go to the polls in person, which involves its own set of inconveniences or, worse, physical barriers, and often deprives people with disabilities of a sense of privacy and independence that other voters can take for granted.A polling place in Brooklyn. Nearly two million people with disabilities reported that they had some difficulty voting in the November 2020 election — double the rate of people without disabilities.Anna Watts for The New York Times“Voters with disabilities are being disenfranchised by all these new laws, from onerous ID requirements to longer lines, making the entire process less accessible,” said Shira Wakschlag, the senior director of legal advocacy at The Arc, a disability advocacy organization.Several Texas Republicans who supported the new voting law did not respond to requests for comment about its effect on people with disabilities, although a spokeswoman for Governor Abbott said in a statement that it “protects the rights of disabled Texans to request reasonable accommodations or modifications.” At a hearing last year, State Senator Bryan Hughes, the Texas bill’s author, described accommodations for voters with disabilities as potential security risks, and said narrowing them would stop others from “using those opportunities to cheat.”Voting could already be difficult for those with disabilities. About 17.7 million reported voting in the November 2020 election, according to a report by the Program for Disability Research at Rutgers University and the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. Eleven percent of them, or nearly two million people, reported that they had some difficulty voting in that election — almost double the rate of people without disabilities.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsElection Day is Tuesday, Nov. 8.Final Landscape: As candidates make their closing arguments, Democrats are bracing for potential losses even in traditionally blue corners of the country as Republicans predict a red wave.The Battle for Congress: With so many races on edge, a range of outcomes is still possible. Nate Cohn, The Times’s chief political analyst, breaks down four possible scenarios.Voting Worries: Even as voting goes smoothly, fear and suspicion hang over the process, exposing the toll former President Donald J. Trump’s falsehoods have taken on American democracy.The right to vote privately and independently was enshrined 20 years ago by Congress in the Help America Vote Act, which was the first law to require polling places to have accessible voting systems. The law also established the federal Election Assistance Commission, an independent body that sets guidelines for states and counties to accommodate disabled voters, which can be enforced by the Justice Department.Despite the law, Thomas Hicks, the commission chairman, said disabled voters still encountered problems, including those who are blind and have trouble locating accessible voting locations, and those who use wheelchairs and need voting machines to be low enough or adjustable to eye level.For Ms. Halvorson, a former special education teacher, the difficulties include being able to raise her hands and tap the screen of a voting machine, she said, because of her reduced motor skills. She lives with her partner, accompanied by different caregivers, in a one-story house in San Antonio, and also relies on a breathing machine to survive; a bad case of pneumonia in 2014 weakened her lungs, and she was not able to make a full recovery.Voting by mail made things simpler for her. But after reports that Texas had thrown out more than 18,000 mail-in ballots from its most populous counties during the March primaries, Ms. Halvorson — who cannot write on her own and feared having to appeal a rejected ballot — felt she had no other choice but to vote in person. She wanted to “see the ballot go in” herself, she said — even if it meant risking her health.“This election is too important to wait to find out if my vote counted,” she said.A week of research about voting in person led Ms. Halvorson to a new kind of machine that Texas had recently put in place, allowing a remote to be connected to the screen and used to make selections. She called her county clerk to ensure those machines would be present at the Igo Library, her local polling place. She did not hear back, she said.Ms. Halvorson entered her polling place on Thursday, on a trip that she began preparing for a month earlier. Ilana Panich-Linsman for The New York TimesLydia Nunez Landry, a disability rights activist in Houston who has a different form of muscular dystrophy, said her experience using the remote on the first day of early voting went so poorly — including a poll worker seeing Ms. Landry’s chosen candidates — that she immediately filed a complaint with the Justice Department.“I’m just so angry,” Ms. Landry said. “They constantly are changing things, it feels like, to the disability community. We’re just so confused.”Ms. Halvorson wanted a caregiver to accompany her to the polling place in case she had a similar experience and needed help. She also scheduled a coronavirus vaccine booster shot exactly two weeks before the end of early voting..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How we call winners on election night. We rely on The Associated Press, which employs a team of analysts, researchers and race callers who have a deep understanding of the states where they declare winners. In some tightly contested races, we independently evaluate A.P. race calls before declaring a winner.Here’s more about how it works.On Thursday morning, Ms. Halvorson viewed an online guide to the candidates one more time. Her former service dog, Houston, wagged his tail as he put his paws in her lap and begged for treats.She drove to the library with one of her daytime caregivers, Shae-Lynn Lewis, in a large orange, wheelchair-accessible van. A parking spot for the disabled was available, which often is not the case, Ms. Halvorson said. Then it was time to take an inventory. Ms. Halvorson ticked off aloud what to bring inside: phone, identification, water bottle, hand sanitizer and wipes, and the absentee ballot she needed to turn in.Inside the library, a voting clerk wearing a U.S. Marine Corps veteran cap waved people through to the polling room.One of the tokens of Ms. Halvorson’s day. Ilana Panich-Linsman for The New York TimesMs. Halvorson and her caregiver entered and waited in line to turn in the absentee ballot and receive a remote. Ms. Halvorson later said her heart “was beating out of her chest” as she saw all the people around her without masks on in such close quarters.After securing the remote and pulling in front of a voting machine, she began trying to click through on the side buttons, but the screen did not respond. She said she asked for help, but none of the workers seemed to know how it worked, either.After a few tries, she said, the up and down buttons on the remote made the screen respond. It was still hard to read, however, as the font seemed to be enlarged and cut off the party affiliations for candidates she didn’t know.The Bexar County elections administrator, Jacquelyn Callanen, did not respond to requests for comment about Ms. Halvorson’s voting experience.While at least two dozen people entered and exited the voting area within minutes, Ms. Halvorson remained inside, trying to navigate the machine. After about half an hour, she was able to deposit her ballot.Later, she said she felt fortunate that her experience was not worse. Still, she said, “It should be smooth for literally everybody.”Before Ms. Halvorson left, one observer acknowledged her efforts. “The man gave me two ‘I voted’ stickers,” she said. “He said it’s because I had to go through twice as much as everybody else.”Ava Sasani More

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      Texas County Asks for U.S. Election Monitors as State Plans to Send Inspectors

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      Officials from Harris County in Texas on Thursday requested federal election monitors from the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division after the State of Texas confirmed this week that it would send a contingent of election inspectors there during the midterms in November. The state’s move added a layer of scrutiny tied to an active examination of vote counts from 2020 that former President Donald J. Trump had sought.But that step quickly drew criticism from some officials in Harris, Texas’ most populous county, which includes Houston. They accused the state of meddling in the county’s election activities as early in-person voting is about to begin on Monday in Texas.Christian D. Menefee, the county’s attorney, said in a statement on Thursday that the state’s postelection review was politically driven and initiated by Mr. Trump. Still, he said, the county would cooperate with the inspectors.“We’re going to grant them the access the law requires, but we know state leaders in Austin cannot be trusted to be an honest broker in our elections, especially an attorney general who filed a lawsuit to overturn the 2020 presidential election,” Mr. Menefee said. “We cannot allow unwarranted disruptions in our election process to intimidate our election workers or erode voters’ trust in the election process.”The Justice Department did not immediately comment.The skirmish over the inspectors, who will arrive as votes are being counted, highlighted the recurring tensions between Republicans who hold power at the state level and officials in Harris County, which Democrats control and which Joseph R. Biden Jr. carried by 13 percentage points in 2020.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsBoth parties are making their final pitches ahead of the Nov. 8 election.Where the Election Stands: As Republicans appear to be gaining an edge with swing voters in the final weeks of the contest for control of Congress, here’s a look at the state of the races for the House and Senate.Biden’s Low Profile: President Biden’s decision not to attend big campaign rallies reflects a low approval rating that makes him unwelcome in some congressional districts and states.What Young Voters Think: Twelve Americans under 30, all living in swing states, told The Times about their political priorities, ranging from the highly personal to the universal.Debates Dwindle: Direct political engagement with voters is waning as candidates surround themselves with their supporters. Nowhere is the trend clearer than on the shrinking debate stage.The opposing forces previously clashed over the county’s expansion of voting access. Republicans in Texas enacted restrictions last year that included an end to balloting methods introduced in 2020 to make voting easier during the pandemic, like drive-through polling places and 24-hour voting. Both were popular in Harris County.In a letter detailing the inspection plan, Chad Ennis, the secretary of state’s forensic audit division director and a Republican, said on Tuesday that he still had concerns about some vote-count discrepancies from 2020 in Harris County.“These inspectors will perform randomized checks on election records, including tapes and chain of custody, and will observe the handling and counting of ballots and electronic media,” Mr. Ennis said. The term “chain of custody” referred, in this case, to records of who had access to the equipment and why several mobile ballot boxes were created for some locations but only certain ones were used.No credible evidence has emerged of widespread voter fraud from Texas’ 2020 postelection review, which Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, ordered to be conducted last year in the state’s four most populous counties at Mr. Trump’s urging. (Mr. Trump won in Texas with 52 percent of the vote in 2020.)Mr. Ennis also revealed on Tuesday that a task force from the Texas attorney general’s office would be dispatched to Harris County for the election to respond “at all times” to what he characterized as “legal issues” to be identified by the secretary of state, inspectors, poll watchers or voters. The specter of Election Day disputes is particularly heightened this year, with right-wing groups nationwide focused on challenging voters’ eligibility..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.In a statement on Wednesday, Judge Lina Hidalgo, a Democrat who is the top official in Harris County, assailed the state’s latest intervention.“The timing of this letter is — at best — suspicious,” Judge Hidalgo said. “It was sent just days before the start of early voting, potentially in an attempt to sabotage county efforts by sowing doubt in the elections process, or equally as bad, by opening the door to possible inappropriate state interference in Harris County’s elections.”Sam Taylor, a spokesman for the secretary of state, said in an email on Thursday that it was commonplace for inspectors to be dispatched to counties.“I want to add — because I’m sure you will get histrionic statements from so-called ‘civil rights’ organizations in Texas claiming ‘voter intimidation’— that during the primaries this year, the Harris County elections office initially misplaced approximately 10,000 mail-in ballots,” Mr. Taylor said.On Thursday after the county asked for federal monitors, Mr. Taylor released another statement, calling Harris County’s request “an attempt to mislead voters, members of the public, the press and the U.S. Department of Justice.” He added that the “Texas secretary of state’s office has sent election inspectors to Harris County every year, and have never before seen a request for the Department of Justice to ‘monitor the monitors.’”At the time of the error Mr. Taylor cited, county officials said that they had neglected to count the ballots but that they were not misplaced. The county hired a third-party consulting firm to examine its elections operation and make recommendations for improvements.In a statement this week, Clifford Tatum, the Harris County elections administrator, said he was focused on the task at hand.“As you know, we’re five days away from the start of early voting for the Nov. 8 election, and we are focused foremost on ensuring this election runs smoothly,” Mr. Tatum said.Mr. Tatum did not preside over the primary in March in Harris County. He was appointed in August after Isabel Longoria, who had held the post, resigned during the fallout over the primary. More

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      Beto O’Rourke and Greg Abbott Clash in Texas Debate Heavy on Attacks

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      HOUSTON — Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas and his Democratic challenger, Beto O’Rourke, faced off Friday evening in the first and only debate in the race for Texas governor, a confrontation filled with sharp disagreements and back-and-forth accusations of lying. Sitting at tables in a university performance hall with no audience, the two candidates staked out their vastly different positions on the biggest issues in the state, including gun violence, immigration, crime and abortion. But if the debate was the marquee event of a campaign for the Texas governor’s mansion that is likely to cost more than $100 million, it did not seem to deliver a key moment that would significantly propel or hobble either candidate. That outcome appeared likely to benefit Mr. Abbott, who has been leading in the polls and has commanded a larger campaign war chest going into the final stretch.The hectic pace of the exchanges — strictly limited by the moderators to 30 or 60 seconds — devolved at times into rhetorical finger-pointing between the two politicians over whose beliefs, diametrically opposed, were more outside the mainstream.“Beto’s position is the most extreme,” Mr. Abbott said, suggesting that his Democratic rival supported allowing abortions at any point in a pregnancy.“It’s completely a lie,” Mr. O’Rourke responded. “I never said that, and no one thinks that in the state of Texas.” He added: “He’s saying this because he signed the most extreme abortion ban in America. No exception for rape, no exception for incest.”For weeks, the two candidates have clashed repeatedly on the airwaves, but they had yet to spar in person. Mr. O’Rourke tried to confront Mr. Abbott during a news conference in Uvalde after the massacre at an elementary school there in May, accusing him of doing nothing to prevent such violence, before Mr. O’Rourke was escorted out. Mr. Abbott did not respond at the time.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.Sensing a Shift: As November approaches, there are a few signs that the political winds may have begun to blow in a different direction — one that might help Republicans over the final stretch.Focusing on Crime: Across the country, Republicans are attacking Democrats as soft on crime to rally midterm voters. Pennsylvania’s Senate contest offers an especially pointed example of this strategy.Arizona Senate Race: Blake Masters, a Republican, appears to be struggling to win over independent voters, who make up about a third of the state’s electorate.Pennsylvania Governor’s Race: Doug Mastriano, the Trump-backed G.O.P. nominee, is being heavily outspent and trails badly in polling. National Republicans are showing little desire to help him.On Friday, Mr. Abbott similarly tried to ignore Mr. O’Rourke’s attacks as much as possible, rarely looking at his opponent as he spoke or listened.Mr. O’Rourke went after Mr. Abbott from the start, blaming the governor’s “hateful rhetoric” for the killing of an undocumented migrant in West Texas this week and saying that the governor had “lost the right to serve this state” because of the police failures in the response to the Uvalde shooting.Mr. Abbott repeatedly accused his challenger of misrepresenting facts. “He just makes this stuff up,” he said.Mr. O’Rourke, a polished debater, appeared more at ease with the fast format of the debate. Mr. Abbott at times seemed to rush to make his points, and struggled with a question about whether he believed that emergency contraception was the “alternative” for someone who became pregnant from rape or incest in Texas, given that abortion is banned even in those cases.“An alternative, obviously, is to do what we can to assist and aid the victim,” Mr. Abbott said. “They’re going to know that the state, through our Alternatives to Abortion program, provides living assistance, baby supplies, all kinds of things that can help them.”It appeared clear that Mr. O’Rourke was the strongest challenger Mr. Abbott has had in his political career, stretching back into the 1990s. Mr. Abbott has never faced a primary opponent of note, and in his previous runs for governor, he easily swept aside Democratic opposition.The hourlong debate was held in the border city of Edinburg, far from the large population centers of this increasingly urbanizing state but deep in the heart of Hispanic South Texas, where Mr. Abbott and Republicans have increasingly made inroads. The location also put a spotlight on a topic that has been among the most effective issues for Mr. Abbott: the record numbers of unauthorized migrants continuing to arrive at the southern border.The candidates, both in red ties, debated from a sitting position; Mr. Abbott has used a wheelchair since he was 26, when an oak tree fell on him while he was jogging, paralyzing him below the waist.The candidates received no time for introductory comments and gave 30-second closing remarks, a format that played to Mr. Abbott’s strengths as a direct, often terse speaker, and limited Mr. O’Rourke’s tendency to build long rhetorical flourishes. And the timing, on a Friday evening when many Texans are more consumed with high school football, appeared likely to reduce the number of people watching live.Chris Evans, a spokesman for Mr. O’Rourke, said before the debate that the Abbott campaign had proposed the terms and would not accept any changes. “They declined to have voters in the audience,” he said. An Abbott spokesman, Mark Miner, said that Mr. O’Rourke was in “no position to run the state if he can’t even comprehend simple debate rules.” Democrats in Texas have pinned their hopes on Mr. O’Rourke before, but so far he has managed only to be victorious in defeat. In his name-making 2018 run for Senate, he came within three percentage points of unseating Senator Ted Cruz, a strong showing in Republican-dominated Texas, but still a losing one. Friday’s debate, just a few weeks before early voting begins in Texas, came at a crucial moment for both campaigns, especially Mr. O’Rourke’s. Over the summer, some polls had suggested a tightening race after the Uvalde killings and the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade. But more recent surveys show Mr. Abbott more firmly in control, with a lead of about seven percentage points.For Mr. O’Rourke, the former congressman from El Paso and a Democratic presidential candidate in 2020, the debate was a chance to recapture momentum and his most direct opportunity to prosecute his case against Mr. Abbott, a two-term incumbent who has led the state for eight years under unified Republican control of state government.For Mr. Abbott, it was a night to make it through unscathed. His campaign had prepared for weeks for the encounter, seeing Mr. O’Rourke as a skilled debater with significant experience from his run for president in 2020. The governor navigated tough questions, including one that in many ways launched Mr. O’Rourke into this race: the failure of the energy grid last February. Mr. Abbott stuck to his talking points — “the grid is more resilient and reliable than it’s ever been,” he said — and Mr. O’Rourke did not appear able to capitalize on the exchange.“It seemed pretty even, and a bit of a tie probably benefits Governor Abbott in this case,” said Álvaro J. Corral, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley in Edinburg. “I didn’t see a moment that indicated a change in that underlying dynamic.”As the campaign entered its final months, Mr. Abbott has pressed his fund-raising advantage — $45 million on hand as of the last filing in mid-July, versus $23 million for Mr. O’Rourke — and went statewide with television ads at least two weeks before Mr. O’Rourke did so. Now both campaigns are bombarding Texans with messages, often negative, on television and online.Before the debate, Mr. O’Rourke held a news conference in a playground in Edinburg with several parents and relatives from Uvalde whose children were shot and killed at Robb Elementary School. The families rode a bus together from Uvalde that morning to press for action on gun control; Mr. O’Rourke criticized Mr. Abbott for setting rules that would not allow the parents to watch from inside the hall.The massacre took up significant time early in the debate. Mr. O’Rourke, who during the 2019 campaign urged taking away AR-15-style rifles after a deadly mass shooting in El Paso, emphasized his moderated position, calling to raise the age to buy an AR-15 to 21 from 18.Mr. Abbott said that was unrealistic, citing recent court decisions striking down gun restrictions.“We want to end school shootings,” he said. “But we cannot do that by making false promises.”Reid J. Epstein More

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      The Megastate G.O.P. Rivalry Between Abbott and DeSantis

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      Publicly, Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas has not criticized the migrant flights from his state by Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida. Privately, the Florida governor’s stunt stung the Texas governor’s team.AUSTIN, Texas — Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida wanted to irritate a set of wealthy, liberal elites when he flew migrants to Martha’s Vineyard from Texas, delivering them a slice of the humanitarian crisis simmering along the nation’s southern border.But Mr. DeSantis’s stunt also annoyed an entirely different group — fellow Republicans in Austin, including some of the allies and aides of Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas.Publicly, Mr. Abbott has not criticized Mr. DeSantis’s migrant flights from his state. “Every state that wants to help, I’m happy for it,” said Dave Carney, Mr. Abbott’s top campaign strategist.But privately, the Florida governor’s gambit stung Mr. Abbott’s team. No one in the Texas governor’s office was given a heads-up that Mr. DeSantis planned to round up migrants in San Antonio, according to people familiar with the matter.Mr. Abbott had spent months — and millions of state tax dollars — methodically orchestrating a relocation program that, since April, had bused 11,000 migrants to Washington, New York and Chicago. Mr. DeSantis’s adaptation was considerably smaller.But it immediately put the national spotlight on Mr. DeSantis, garnering headlines and earning him praise from Republicans and condemnation from Democrats. It also led to an investigation by the sheriff in San Antonio and a lawsuit from migrants who said they had been lured onto the planes under false pretenses. Mr. DeSantis grabbed the attention of right-wing America, using Mr. Abbott’s tactic, on Mr. Abbott’s turf, to bigger and more dramatic effect.Members of the media gathering in Edgartown, Mass., after the arrival of migrants from San Antonio.Matt Cosby for The New York TimesMr. DeSantis’s instinct for political theater has helped him quickly turn into Republicans’ leading alternative to former President Donald J. Trump. Even Texas Republicans tell pollsters that they prefer Mr. DeSantis over Mr. Abbott for president in 2024.The two Republican governors have been locked in an increasingly high-stakes contest of one-upmanship, wielding their own unique brands of conservatism and pushing boundaries by using desperate migrants for political gain. In Florida, Mr. DeSantis mused to donors last year about Mr. Abbott’s good political fortune to share 1,254 miles of border with Mexico and complained that he didn’t have the same to use as a backdrop, according to one person familiar with the conversation.For all the bluster, the war between Austin and Tallahassee is decidedly more cold than hot. Yet, the two governors’ policy moves antagonizing the Biden administration and the Democratic Party as a whole have been unfolding as an interstate call and response, with national repercussions.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.Rushing to Raise Money: Their fund-raising dwarfed by their Democratic rivals, Senate Republican nominees are taking precious time from the campaign trail to gather cash from lobbyists in Washington.Inflation Concerns Persist: Several issues have come to the forefront during the six-month primary season that has just ended. But nothing has dislodged inflation and the economy from the top of voters’ minds.Election Deniers Pivot: “Stop the Steal” G.O.P. candidates are shifting to appeal to the swing voters they need to win in November. The question now: Can they get away with it?Toxic Narratives: Misleading and divisive posts about the midterm elections have flooded social media. Here are some prevalent themes.In August 2020, Mr. Abbott proposed legislation to punish cities in Texas that took funding away from police departments by preventing them from raising more property tax revenue. The following month, Mr. DeSantis went further, saying he would seek to cut state funding from municipalities that defunded the police.In February of this year, Mr. Abbott ordered state officials to open child-abuse investigations into medically accepted treatments for transgender youth, including hormones and puberty-suppressing drugs. Last month, Mr. DeSantis said doctors who “disfigure” young people with gender-affirming care should be sued.In June 2021, on the first day of Pride Month, Mr. DeSantis signed a bill into law that barred transgender girls from playing on female sports teams at public schools. Mr. Abbott followed suit with a similar measure that October.The competition between Mr. DeSantis and Mr. Abbott has more to do with their job descriptions than any personal animosity. Governors elected to lead megastates like Florida and Texas — two of America’s three largest states that accounted for 15 percent of the Republican presidential vote in 2020 — are automatically injected into the national political arena, where they are sized up and watched closely for signs of White House ambitions.“Love Florida. Love Texas. Love Florida more,” Jeb Bush, a former Florida governor with deep familial ties to Texas, said when asked about the rivalry between the two states.When Rick Scott was the governor of Florida and Rick Perry was the governor of Texas, the two Ricks shared a bromance even as both eyed the White House. From Florida, Mr. Scott spoke glowingly of his counterpart’s record of luring businesses. In Texas, Mr. Perry admired his rival’s refusal to accept federal stimulus money for railroads or to expand Medicaid.Mr. DeSantis and Mr. Abbott have lacked such camaraderie. Their brinkmanship has played out against the backdrop of their re-election bids. Both men are seeking additional four-year terms while facing challenges by well-known Democrats in contests that could help determine their presidential aspirations and the direction of the Republican Party for years to come.“No one has ever been elected governor of even a small state who didn’t, somewhere deep in their heart, start dreaming about being president,” said Chris Wilson, a pollster who has worked for both men. “So it’s not shocking to see both Abbott and DeSantis jockeying at least a little toward 2024 or beyond.”Mr. Abbott is the more institutional politician.He faced no opposition in his first primary election for attorney general in 2002, and was effectively unopposed inside the party when he ran to succeed Mr. Perry as governor in 2014. He has worked to maintain ties with business groups, social conservatives and fellow Republican governors. A former Texas Supreme Court justice, he is a rather lawyerly governor.Mr. DeSantis is more instinctual.He emerged from a six-way Republican primary in his first race for the House of Representatives in 2012. He was viewed as an underdog in the 2018 governor’s primary until he became separated from the pack, thanks to an endorsement — and constant promotion — from Mr. Trump. A former lawyer for the Navy at Guantánamo Bay, he is more pugilistic than judicial.Both Mr. DeSantis and Mr. Abbott are running for re-election this year and face challenges by well-known Democrats. Doug Mills/The New York TimesStill, Mr. DeSantis has positioned himself as something of a political loner.He has eschewed events coordinated by the tight-knit Republican Governors Association. Instead of joining a group of current and former Republican governors on the campaign trail this year to support fellow incumbents, Mr. DeSantis embarked on his own victory lap, promoting the migrant flights during campaign stops with Republican candidates for governor in Kansas and Wisconsin. Those events were organized not by the Republican Governors Association, but by Turning Point USA, a group of younger and more provocative conservative activists close to Mr. Trump and his family.In Tallahassee, the migrant flights had been discussed for more than a year and had, at one point, centered on relocating the migrants to the Hamptons, the popular Long Island destination for wealthy New Yorkers, according to people familiar with the talks. Initially, the proposal caused some division within Mr. DeSantis’s team.The contrasting styles of Mr. Abbott and Mr. DeSantis were on clear display last year in their handling of high-profile election bills.When Mr. Abbott signed a new round of voting restrictions, he traveled to Tyler, the hometown of one of the bill’s chief proponents, and was surrounded by Republican lawmakers, supporters and reporters. When Mr. DeSantis signed his state’s voting restrictions, he, too, was surrounded by fellow Florida Republicans, but the only network that was allowed to cover the event was Fox News, which aired the footage live on its program “Fox & Friends.”Mr. Abbott in Tyler, Texas, after signing an election bill last year that restricts voting.LM Otero/Associated PressThe coronavirus pandemic has been a defining moment for both governors.Mr. DeSantis burnished his conservative bona fides by challenging Covid safety guidelines from public health officials. He lifted pandemic restrictions on businesses in Florida in September 2020, earlier than most governors.By contrast, Mr. Abbott found himself clashing with conservatives over the business restrictions and mask mandate that he had ordered. Some donors confronted Mr. Abbott, expressing their disappointment that he was not following Mr. DeSantis’s lead and suggesting that he could lose re-election if he did not move quicker to reopen businesses and return the state to normalcy, according to two Republicans who participated in the meeting.Mr. Abbott eventually lifted restrictions on businesses in March 2021, months after Mr. DeSantis did.“Governor Abbott and Governor DeSantis have a solid working relationship, having worked together on various initiatives through Republican governors organizations,” Renae Eze, Mr. Abbott’s press secretary, said.A spokeswoman for Mr. DeSantis did not respond to requests for comment about his relationship with Mr. Abbott and his remark about the border to donors last year.Last year, after the start of the Biden administration and as migrants arrived at the border in increasing numbers, Mr. Abbott and Gov. Doug Ducey of Arizona sought assistance from other states to help police the border.Florida sent a large contingent of officers and equipment, including low-water boats that could be used along the Rio Grande in Texas.Soon after, Mr. DeSantis planned a trip to visit the Florida officers stationed at the border. When members of Mr. Abbott’s office learned about the Florida governor’s trip, they timed a news conference to Mr. DeSantis’s arrival and invited him, according to a person familiar with the plans.On the day of the news conference in July 2021, in an airplane hangar in Del Rio, Texas, Mr. DeSantis arrived long before Mr. Abbott. He met with Florida officers and officers from Texas, and then spent an extended period of time sitting on a couch in the hangar waiting for Mr. Abbott, who arrived about 10 minutes before the briefing.The two men were dressed in similar black button-down shirts with their respective state seals embossed over the left breast pocket (long sleeves for Mr. DeSantis, short sleeves for Mr. Abbott). They took their positions at a table set up in front of a boat, a plane and a helicopter that had been used to patrol the border. Then they proceeded to stumble over one another at the start of the news conference.“I think we’re ready to go,” Mr. Abbott began.“OK,” Mr. DeSantis said, looking into the cameras.“Good,” Mr. Abbott added.“Well,” Mr. DeSantis said, his right elbow pointing toward the Texas governor seated next to him.“So,” said Mr. Abbott, looking back at Mr. DeSantis. “Oh. Help kick it off?”“I just want to thank ——” Mr. DeSantis said.“Sure,” Mr. Abbott said.“Thank you, Greg, for hosting us,” Mr. DeSantis said, turning back to the cameras.Mr. Abbott invited fellow Republican governors to another news conference at the border that October. Ten showed up.Mr. DeSantis was not among them.Leida, Kevin and their young daughter, Victoria, fled Venezuela, crossing seven countries to reach Texas. That’s when they were pulled into a political fight between Republican governors and the White House.Nicole Salazar/The New York Times More

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      Beto O’Rourke on Abbott’s Dehumanizing Stunts and Why He Hopes an Upset Looms in Texas

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      Gov. Beto O’Rourke of Texas.A few months ago, the wind appeared to be at O’Rourke’s back, as he fought to make that happen, to become the first Democratic governor of the state since Ann Richards over a quarter century ago.He was gaining ground on the incumbent, Greg Abbott, following the mass shootings in Uvalde, Texas, and the Supreme Court’s decision striking down the constitutional right to an abortion.But now the winds seem to have shifted. A new Spectrum News/Siena Poll shows Abbott widening his lead over O’Rourke. According to the poll, that lead now stands at 7 percentage points, a little more than 40 days until Election Day.Abbott reversed his fortunes by leaning into demonization and cruelty: He focused on immigration and bused immigrants to faraway sanctuary cities run by Democrats, part of a larger program he called Operation Lone Star.The first immigrants were bused to Chicago in August, with Abbott saying at the time: “To continue providing much-needed relief to our small, overrun border towns, Chicago will join fellow sanctuary cities Washington, D.C., and New York City as an additional drop-off location.”It was a callous and politically calculated stunt. But it is apparently paying off. Not only is Abbott up in the polls, a slight majority of Texans — 52 percent — agree with the busing.On Friday, I spoke at length to O’Rourke by phone, to get a sense of how he views the state of the race, his own challenges, Abbott’s cynicism and the voters of Texas.We talked about how Democrats run against a politician, his or her policies and the Republican Party as a whole, while Republicans create enemies of classes of people: women, racial and ethnic minorities, L.G.B.T.Q. people, immigrants. This time it’s immigrants and immigration, a charged issue in Texas.O’Rourke said that Abbott’s plan to bus immigrants to liberal cities was obviously an attempt to distract from his failure to shore up the state’s fragile electrical grids, prevent school violence and reduce inflation, but he also framed it as “an effort to incite fear and hatred and connect with people at a very base, emotional level,” an “effort to dehumanize people,” and that is precisely what it is. Abbott is not only trying to dehumanize immigrants, but to strip them of their individuality and create an ominous class.In that way, immigrants can be converted from throngs of individuals with individual lives, stories and feelings into an amorphous wave, overwhelming and unrelenting, crashing into the country.Abbott is using these human beings as a weapon and a tool for the shallow purpose of retaining power. For O’Rourke, this is obscene. As he put it:“There is no way that I would ever, in a million years, resort to that kind of fear mongering and demagogy, and vilifying, demonizing people, because as an El Pasoan I saw exactly what that results in: Twenty-three of my neighbors were murdered in a matter of minutes there.”O’Rourke is referring to the mass shooting last year in which a white racist, targeting Hispanics, killed 23 people in an El Paso Walmart. He left a 2,300-word manifesto reeking of white replacement anxiety, one that spoke of a “Hispanic invasion of Texas” and detailed a plan to separate America into territories by race.As repugnant — and dangerous! — as Abbott’s stunt is, it earned him a lot of free media attention, which gets people talking. Media coverage — what is called “earned media” — even negative and mocking coverage, is sometimes more powerful than paid ads. Look no further than Donald Trump’s victory in 2016.O’Rourke is running a different race. He understands the potency of the immigration issue in his state. As he put it: “I think what you may see reflected in that poll is the deep frustration that all of us, including myself, feel about the fact that the last time we had any real major progress on immigration, Ronald Reagan was the president.”But he believes he is seeing something that hasn’t showed up properly in the polls: a shadow army of angry voters animated by the overturning of Roe.“The Dobbs decision, of course, is galvanizing for turnout everywhere,” he said.He also believes that many of the people who are energized to vote will be turning out not just because of abortion, but also because of Abbott’s lack of movement on gun control.One analysis by political data and polling firm TargetSmart found that thousands upon thousands of voters had registered in the state since the Dobbs ruling, and they were “younger and more Democratic than before the June ruling,” according to The Houston Chronicle. O’Rourke believes these voters are going to help make the difference for him and produce an upset.He is counting on them. He is counting on the people of Texas. As he put it: “In Greg Abbott’s Texas, it’s ‘you or me,’ right. And in our Texas, it’s ‘you and me.’ Which of those visions is going to win out? My faith is in the people of this state.”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. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter (@NYTopinion), and Instagram. More

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      Beto O’Rourke Sidelined With Bacterial Infection Amid Texas Run

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      The Democrat, who is trying to unseat Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, said that although his symptoms had improved, he would be resting at home on doctors’ orders.Beto O’Rourke, the former congressman and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate who is running to unseat Greg Abbott in the tightening race for Texas governor, said on Sunday that he would be sidelined from campaigning because of a bacterial infection.Mr. O’Rourke, 49, said on Twitter that he had gone to Methodist Hospital, in San Antonio, after feeling ill on Friday.“While my symptoms have improved, I will be resting at home in El Paso in accordance with the doctors’ recommendations,” he said. “I am sorry to have had to postpone events because of this, but promise to be back on the road with you as soon as I am able.”Mr. O’Rourke on Friday postponed a weekend of campaign stops in the Coastal Bend region of Texas after falling ill and had also left early from a book signing in San Antonio that afternoon, according to The Caller Times, a newspaper in Corpus Christi. A campaign spokesman said that Mr. O’Rourke did not have Covid-19 and did not provide more details, the newspaper reported.In his statement on Sunday, Mr. O’Rourke did not say when he expected to be back on the trail.His uphill candidacy, an attempt to wrest the Texas governor’s mansion from Republican control for the first time since Ann Richards’s underdog win in 1990, has relied heavily on traveling the state and meeting Republican voters, even inviting protesters to his events.“I can’t win this with Democrats alone,” Mr. O’Rourke said in a recent interview with The New York Times after an event in Texarkana.A poll earlier this month from The Dallas Morning News and the University of Texas at Tyler found that Mr. Abbott, who is seeking his third term, was leading Mr. O’Rourke by 7 percentage points. More

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      Ads Begin in Texas Governor Race, With O’Rourke’s Highlighting Abortion

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      HOUSTON — With early voting now two months away, the ad competition has begun in the race for Texas governor. Last week, Gov. Greg Abbott released a first ad and, on Thursday, Beto O’Rourke, the former El Paso congressman and perennial Democratic hopeful, countered with two of his own.The O’Rourke campaign, looking for leverage in a tightening but still uphill campaign, focused on abortion, seeking to harness anger among women at the overturning of Roe v. Wade and to direct that anger at Mr. Abbott.Its two ads were released on the day that a so-called trigger law — made possible by the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade — went into effect in Texas. The law, signed last year by Mr. Abbott, bans abortion with no exception for rape or incest and with only limited medical exceptions.“From this day forward, Aug. 25, women all across Texas are no longer free,” several women say in one ad, speaking one after another. “All because of Greg Abbott’s abortion law.”“So I’m voting for Beto, who will give women our freedom back,” they conclude.Another 30-second ad from Mr. O’Rourke similarly seeks to link him to the idea of freedom, trying to recapture a word that is more often used by Republicans. That ad, also focused on the state’s abortion ban under Mr. Abbott, features a politically mixed Texas couple who are now both supporting Mr. O’Rourke.More Coverage of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsAug. 23 Primaries: The Democratic establishment in Florida and New York had a good night. Here are some key takeaways and a rundown of who won and who lost.The Evidence Against a Red Wave: Since the fall of Roe v. Wade, it’s increasingly hard to see the once-clear signs of a Republican advantage. A strong Democratic showing in a special election in New York’s Hudson Valley is the latest example.Bruising Fights in N.Y.: A string of ugly primaries played out across the state, as Democrats and Republicans fought over rival personalities and the ideological direction of their parties.Challenging DeSantis: Florida Democrats chose Representative Charlie Crist, a former Republican, to take on Gov. Ron DeSantis, setting up a contest between a centrist and a hard-right G.O.P. incumbent.“This is a free country,” says the husband, Trey Ramsey, shown as a lifelong Republican who supported former president Donald J. Trump. “We need a governor who gets that, and that’s Beto.”The ad appeared to be part of a strategy by Mr. O’Rourke to challenge Mr. Abbott for wavering Republican votes, including in typically conservative strongholds around rural Texas. In recent weeks, he has crisscrossed the state, appearing in front of supportive crowds in deep-red areas but occasionally attracting vocal, and armed, protesters.In contrast to Mr. O’Rourke’s attacks, the governor’s campaign opted for a strategy for its first ad that has worked well in previous elections: a biographical portrait of the governor, a two-term incumbent who uses a wheelchair and has been in statewide elective office in Texas since the 1990s.An ad by Mr. Abbott tells a biographical story about his family, injury and recovery.Texans for Greg AbbottThe ad recounts his recovery from an accident that partly paralyzed him and is narrated by his wife, Cecilia, who is Hispanic. The governor’s campaign has said it believes Mr. Abbott can win a majority of Hispanic voters, who have been increasingly turning to Republicans, particularly in more rural areas of South Texas.“Hard work, perseverance and family: That’s what defines Greg Abbott and how he governs Texas,” Mrs. Abbott says.The ad is the first of what is likely to be a barrage of messages from Mr. Abbott, who has vowed to spend $100 million on the race and whose campaign has already secured some $20 million in television and digital space for ads.Mr. O’Rourke, also a proficient fund-raiser, started behind Mr. Abbott, who entered the race with tens of millions on hand. As of the July filing, the governor had $46 million on hand and Mr. O’Rourke had $24 million. The O’Rourke campaign has repeatedly stressed to potential donors the high cost of advertising statewide in Texas.Several polls in recent weeks put Mr. O’Rourke at five to seven percentage points behind Mr. Abbott, who won in 2018 by 13 percentage points. More