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      Can a Democrat Running the Biden Playbook Win in Deep-Red Kentucky?

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      Gov. Andy Beshear, the popular incumbent, is campaigning for re-election on abortion rights, the economy and infrastructure — but distancing himself from the unpopular president.Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky is conducting one of this year’s most intriguing political experiments: What happens when an incumbent Democrat campaigns on President Biden’s record and agenda, but never mentions the party’s unpopular leader by name?Mr. Beshear is running for re-election in his deep-red state as a generic version of Mr. Biden, promoting himself as having led Kentucky through dark times to emerge with a strong post-Covid economy.Like Mr. Biden, he is counting on voters’ distaste for aggressive Republican opposition to abortion, which is banned in almost all circumstances in Kentucky, as well as those with good will toward his stewardship during crises like natural and climate disasters.Yet he is doing whatever he can to separate himself from Mr. Biden, whose approval ratings remain mired around 40 percent nationally and are much lower in Kentucky.“This race is about Kentucky,” Mr. Beshear said on Monday in Richmond, Ky. “It’s about what’s going on in our houses, not about what’s going on in the White House.”Mr. Beshear is among the most popular governors in the country, and Democrats are cautiously optimistic about his prospects in Tuesday’s elections, even though former President Donald J. Trump won the state by about 26 percentage points in 2020.As in-person early voting begins on Thursday, officials in both parties in Kentucky say that every private poll of the race has shown Mr. Beshear leading his Republican challenger, Daniel Cameron, the attorney general. That could suggest the continuation of a national political environment that has been favorable to Democrats since the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson in June 2022 ended the federal right to abortion.Daniel Cameron, the Republican challenger for governor and the state’s attorney general, acknowledges in his TV ads that Mr. Beshear is “a nice guy.”Timothy D. Easley/Associated PressBut Mr. Biden remains toxic in the state: A poll released Tuesday by Morning Consult found that 68 percent of Kentuckians disapproved of him, while 60 percent — including 43 percent of Republicans — approved of Mr. Beshear.Since Mr. Beshear won the governor’s race in 2019, the number of registered Democrats in Kentucky has fallen while the number of Republicans has increased. And local Republicans believe they’ll outperform polling after surveys underestimated support for Mr. Trump in 2020.Kentucky’s voters have a knack for providing a preview of national trends. The state’s last six elections for governor have forecast presidential election results a year later.On the campaign trail in counties that Mr. Trump carried — which is 118 of Kentucky’s 120 — Mr. Beshear tries to extricate the Biden from Bidenomics, the tagline much heralded by the president’s campaign. Mr. Beshear celebrates record-low unemployment rates, a major bridge project paid for by Mr. Biden’s infrastructure law and what he says are the “two best years for economic development in our history.”No new business development is too small. At a Monday morning stop in Richmond, Ky., Mr. Beshear cited the recent opening of a truck stop just outside town. “We even brought a Buc-ee’s to Madison County,” he said, referring to the franchise’s first outpost in the state and a point of local pride.Left unmentioned in Mr. Beshear’s pitch to voters is the Biden administration’s significant role in his résumé. Mr. Biden’s infrastructure law has directed $5.2 billion to at least 220 Kentucky projects, including $1.1 billion for high-speed internet and $1.6 billion for the rebuilding of the Brent Spence Bridge, which connects Cincinnati to its Kentucky suburbs. It’s a long-awaited project that Mr. Beshear mentions in his closing TV ad.Democrats on the Kentucky ballot with Mr. Beshear on Tuesday have all gotten the message about Mr. Biden.Kim Reeder, the Democrat running for state auditor, laughed when asked if she had ever said the words “Joe Biden” out loud, then requested to go off the record when asked what she thought of his performance in office. Sierra Enlow, the party’s candidate for agriculture commissioner — whose Republican opponent is pledging in television ads to “stop Biden and save Kentucky” — said she responded by “talking about what voters need to hear and what this office actually does.”Kim Reeder, left, a Democrat running for state auditor, with a supporter at a brewery in Richmond, Ky. Jon Cherry for The New York TimesAnd Pam Stevenson, the Democratic candidate for attorney general, said she didn’t talk about Mr. Biden “because for the last year, no one’s asked me about him.”Kentucky Republicans acknowledge that Mr. Beshear is popular and leading even in their polling. Mr. Cameron, who is a protégé of Senator Mitch McConnell, acknowledges in his TV ads that Mr. Beshear is “a nice guy.”The most popular topics in TV ads aired by Mr. Cameron and his Republican allies are crime, opposition to Mr. Biden, Mr. Cameron’s endorsement from Mr. Trump, opposition to L.G.B.T.Q. rights, and jobs, according to AdImpact, a media tracking firm.Mac Brown, the chairman of the Republican Party of Kentucky, said Mr. Beshear’s popularity was a remnant of the billions directed to the state from the Biden administration. Crime is the foremost concern, said Mr. Brown, whose home in the Louisville suburbs was vandalized and burned last year.“When you sit down and look at it, he’s very good at taking credit for what other people do,” Mr. Brown said. “That’s probably the easiest way to say it.”As with Mr. Biden and other Democrats, the most potent political weapon for Mr. Beshear is abortion rights. With Republican supermajorities in the Kentucky Legislature, there’s little Mr. Beshear can do to change the state’s near-total ban on the procedure. The building in downtown Louisville that housed one of Kentucky’s last abortion clinics is now for sale.Pam Stevenson, the Democrat running for attorney general, said she didn’t talk about Mr. Biden “because for the last year, no one’s asked me about him.”Jon Cherry for The New York TimesMr. Beshear’s campaigning is a reversal of decades of red-state Democratic reticence on abortion politics. Where Democrats have in the past avoided the issue or watered down their support for abortion rights, Mr. Beshear has blasted Mr. Cameron for his anti-abortion stance and attacked Kentucky Republicans for passing the abortion ban. He is airing striking ads that feature a woman who speaks of being raped by her stepfather when she was 12 years old.Mr. Cameron, who has defended the state’s abortion ban in court, now says he would sign legislation to allow some exceptions if elected.“There’s no ads saying, ‘Don’t elect the pro-abortion guy,’” said Trey Grayson, a Republican who served as Kentucky secretary of state in the 2000s.Last November, voters rejected an effort to write an abortion prohibition into the Kentucky Constitution. Now the Beshear campaign has found in its polling that just 12 percent of Kentuckians favor the state’s abortion ban. Mr. Beshear said he was trying to change the political language surrounding abortion away from the old binary between choice and life.“Those terms were from a Roe v. Wade world that doesn’t exist anymore,” he said in Richmond this week. “In the Dobbs world, we have the most draconian, restrictive law in the country. This race is about whether you think that victims of rape and incest should have options, that the couples that have a nonviable pregnancy should have to carry it to term even though that child is going to die.”Steve Beshear, who is Mr. Beshear’s father and a former governor of the state, was more succinct about where the abortion debate stood in Kentucky.“It’s totally changed from a Republican issue to a Democratic issue,” he said.Steve Beshear, Mr. Beshear’s father and a former Kentucky governor, said abortion politics in the state now favored Democrats.Jon Cherry for The New York TimesJust as Mr. Biden’s fate is likely to be determined by his performance in the counties that ring Atlanta, Milwaukee and Philadelphia, Mr. Beshear has concentrated on the suburban areas near Cincinnati, Lexington and Louisville. In 2019, he won Madison County, a Lexington suburb that includes Richmond, before Mr. Trump won it by about 27 points in 2020.Jimmy Cornelison, a Democrat who is the elected coroner of Madison County, said people there appreciated that the state had far fewer deaths from the coronavirus pandemic because Mr. Beshear had put in place aggressive policies to restrict public gatherings and require masks in indoor spaces. But that doesn’t mean such Kentuckians share Mr. Beshear’s party identification.“There were a lot of people elected Democrats in this county that aren’t Democrats now,” Mr. Cornelison said. “I’m the sole survivor.”Voters who came to Mr. Beshear’s campaign rallies this week spoke of his nightly coronavirus updates in 2020, his relentless travel schedule and a general satisfaction about how the state is doing. While Mr. Biden speaks of restoring “the soul of America,” Mr. Beshear has invited the entire state to join him on “Team Kentucky.”“People disagree with Washington, you know, but they like what’s going on in Kentucky,” said Ralph Hoskins, a Democratic retired school superintendent from Oneida, Ky., who drove through the rain to see Mr. Beshear speak under a tent in the parking lot of an abandoned supermarket in London, Ky.Nearby, Jean Marie Durham, a Democrat who is a retired state employee from East Bernstadt, Ky., showed off a poem she had written about Mr. Beshear during the early days of the pandemic.“He cares about our protection from death and despair; He diligently considers our safety and personal care!” she wrote.Ms. Durham also had handy the response Mr. Beshear had sent her. He called her “a very talented writer” and wrote that he had displayed the poem in his office in Frankfort, the capital.“He’s one of us,” Ms. Durham said of Mr. Beshear, “even though his dad was governor.” More

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      Election Day Guide: Governor Races, Abortion Access and More

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      Two governorships are at stake in the South, while Ohio voters will decide whether to enshrine the right to an abortion in the state constitution.Election Day is nearly here, and while off-year political races receive a fraction of the attention compared with presidential elections, some of Tuesday’s contests will be intensely watched.At stake are two southern governorships, control of the Virginia General Assembly and abortion access in Ohio. National Democrats and Republicans, seeking to build momentum moving toward next November, will be eyeing those results for signals about 2024.Here are the major contests voters will decide on Tuesday and a key ballot question:Governor of KentuckyGov. Andy Beshear, left, a Democrat, is facing Daniel Cameron, Kentucky’s Republican attorney general, in his campaign for re-election as governor.Pool photo by Kentucky Educational TelevisionGov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat, is seeking to again defy convention in deep-red Kentucky, a state carried handily by Donald J. Trump in 2020.He is facing Daniel Cameron, Kentucky’s attorney general, who was propelled to victory by an early endorsement from Mr. Trump in a competitive Republican primary in May.In 2019, Mr. Cameron became the first Black person to be elected as Kentucky’s attorney general, an office previously held by Mr. Beshear. He drew attention in 2020 when he announced that a grand jury did not indict two Louisville officers who shot Breonna Taylor.In the 2019 governor’s race, Mr. Beshear ousted Matt Bevin, a Trump-backed Republican, by fewer than 6,000 votes. This year, he enters the race with a strong job approval rating. He is seeking to replicate a political feat of his father, Steve Beshear, who was also Kentucky governor and was elected to two terms.Governor of Mississippi Brandon Presley, a public service commissioner who is related to Elvis Presley, wants to be the state’s first Democratic governor in two decades.Emily Kask for The New York TimesGov. Tate Reeves, a Republican in his first term, has some of the lowest job approval numbers of the nation’s governors.Rogelio V. Solis/Associated PressIt has been two decades since Mississippi had a Democrat as governor. Gov. Tate Reeves, a Republican in his first term, is seeking to avoid becoming the one who ends that streak.But his job approval numbers are among the lowest of the nation’s governors, which has emboldened his Democratic challenger, Brandon Presley, a public service commissioner with a famous last name: His second cousin, once removed, was Elvis Presley.Mr. Presley has attacked Mr. Reeves over a welfare scandal exposed last year by Mississippi Today, which found that millions in federal funds were misspent. Mr. Reeves, who was the lieutenant governor during the years the scandal unfolded, has denied any wrongdoing, but the issue has been a focal point of the contest.Abortion access in OhioAs states continue to reckon with the overturning of Roe v. Wade by the Supreme Court last year, Ohio has become the latest front in the fight over access to abortion.Reproductive rights advocates succeeded in placing a proposed amendment on the November ballot that would enshrine the right to abortion access into the state constitution. Its supporters have sought to fill the void that was created by the Roe decision.Anti-abortion groups have mounted a sweeping campaign to stop the measure. One effort, a proposal to raise the threshold required for passing a constitutional amendment, was rejected by voters this summer.Virginia legislatureIn just two states won by President Biden in 2020, Republicans have a power monopoly — and in Virginia, they are aiming to secure a third. The others are Georgia and New Hampshire.Democrats narrowly control the Virginia Senate, where all 40 seats are up for grabs in the election. Republicans hold a slim majority in the House of Delegates, which is also being contested.The outcome of the election is being viewed as a potential reflection of the clout of Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican with national ambitions.Philadelphia mayorAn open-seat race for mayor in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania’s foremost Democratic bastion, is down to two former City Council members: Cherelle Parker, a Democrat, and David Oh, a Republican.The advantage for Ms. Parker appears to be an overwhelming one in the city, which has not elected a Republican as mayor since 1947.It has also been two decades since Philadelphia, the nation’s sixth most populous city, had a somewhat competitive mayoral race. More

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      Where Mike Johnson Stands on Key Issues: Ukraine, LGBTQ Rights and More

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      The new House speaker, an evangelical Christian, has a staunchly conservative record on gay rights, abortion, gun safety and more.Speaker Mike Johnson, the little-known congressman from Louisiana who won the gavel on Wednesday, is deeply conservative on both fiscal and social issues, reflecting the G.O.P.’s sharp lurch to the right.Mr. Johnson, a lawyer, also played a leading role in former President Donald J. Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, helping to push a lawsuit to throw out the results in four battleground states he lost and then offering members of Congress a legal argument upon which to justify their votes to invalidate the results.He has a career rating of 92 percent from the American Conservative Union and 90 percent from Heritage Action for America.Here’s where he stands on six key issues.Government fundingMr. Johnson is a fiscal conservative who believes Congress has a “moral and constitutional duty” to balance the budget, lower spending and “pursue continued pro-growth tax reforms and permanent tax reductions,” according to his website.He voted in favor of the deal in May to suspend the debt ceiling negotiated between former Speaker Kevin McCarthy and the Biden administration. But alongside 89 other Republicans, Mr. Johnson voted against the stopgap funding bill Mr. McCarthy put forth last month to stave off a government shutdown just hours before it was to commence. That bill ultimately passed with more Democratic than Republican support and cost Mr. McCarthy the gavel.In a letter this week, before he was elected speaker, Mr. Johnson proposed a short-term funding bill to avoid a shutdown and an aggressive calendar for passing yearlong spending bills in the interim. But he did not specify what spending levels he would support in the temporary bill, and many Republicans have refused to back such measures without substantial cuts that cannot pass the Democratic-controlled Senate or be signed by President Biden.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.We are confirming your access to this article, this will take just a moment. However, if you are using Reader mode please log in, subscribe, or exit Reader mode since we are unable to verify access in that state.Confirming article access.If you are a subscriber, please More

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      Virginia Republicans Look to Neutralize Abortion as an Election Issue

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      The state’s governor, Glenn Youngkin, has a strategy to win the state. If it halts Democrats’ momentum on the issue, it could be a model for the party in 2024.Abortion has been a losing issue at the polls for Republicans across the country since the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. But now in Virginia, which holds elections in early November, the party thinks it has hit upon a formula to stop the electoral drubbings.Legislative races across the state will offer a decisive test of a strategy led by Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who has united Republicans behind a high-profile campaign in support of a ban on abortion after 15 weeks with exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the mother. The party calls it a “common sense” position, in contrast to Democrats, who it says “support no limits.”The strategy is meant to defuse Republicans’ image as abortion extremists, which led to losses in last year’s midterms and threatens further defeats next month in an Ohio referendum and the Kentucky governor’s race.The approach is similar to one being pursued by Republican Senate candidates in battleground states like Arizona, Pennsylvania and Michigan, where the party has been open to some exceptions, a stance that research shows is more popular than an outright ban.Virginia Republicans aren’t looking to win over abortion-rights supporters so much as they want to neutralize the party’s disadvantage with swing voters. The hope is that these voters will prioritize a competing set of issues such as crime and the economy, on which Republicans have an advantage in some polls.All 140 seats in the state’s General Assembly are on the ballot this fall, with Republicans looking to take full control. Democrats have made the threat to abortion rights their No. 1 issue, pouring money into ads and looking to motivate voters in an off-year election with President Biden’s unpopularity dimming enthusiasm.If Republicans take majorities in both legislative chambers under Mr. Youngkin, a governor with national ambitions, it would clear the way for Virginia to become the last Southern state to sharply restrict abortions.Since mid-October, Mr. Youngkin’s political action committee has run a $1.4 million ad campaign taking the offensive on the issue. Accusing Democrats of “disinformation,” it promotes the 15-week limit with exceptions as “reasonable” and “common sense.”The Younkin ad, targeted at swing districts and echoed by the ads of individual Republicans running, shatters the formula of most G.O.P. candidates in battleground states after the reversal of Roe v. Wade in 2022, who dodged abortion in midterm races and often lost.“We’re just simply not going to repeat 2022,” said Zack Roday, the coordinated campaigns director for Mr. Youngkin’s political group.Kaitlin Makuski, the political director of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, a national anti-abortion group with close ties to Mr. Youngkin, said that if Virginia Republicans prevailed this year, it would be a clear signal to candidates in 2024 that leaning into a 15-week ban can be successful.“He and his team looked back at what they saw in 2022 and realized we can’t continue burying our head in the sand,” she said of the governor. “We need to move forward. This is a great template to follow.”Existing Virginia laws, which Democrats want to keep in place, allow abortions with no restrictions through the second trimester, about 26 weeks, and thereafter if three doctors certify that a pregnancy would “irremediably impair” the mother’s health.“Virginia has in place a law that parallels Roe v. Wade, that allows women to have freedom of choice to make their own health decisions,” said Senator Mamie Locke, chairwoman of the Virginia Senate Democratic caucus. “Why do you have to change the law to this 15-week ban? What’s ‘reasonable’ about that?”Democrats point to other Republican-led states that have banned abortion in almost all circumstances and say a 15-week limit is a ruse that will give way to stricter limits if Republicans gain full control of government. Last year, Mr. Youngkin told conservative activists that he would “happily and gleefully” sign any bill to “protect life.” The governor has insisted he is only interested in a 15-week limit.A 15-week ban, just past the first trimester of pregnancy, polls well in some surveys. A Gallup poll this year found that 69 percent of U.S. adults support abortion in the first trimester, but support falls to just 37 percent in the second trimester.In a Washington Post-Schar School poll this month, Virginia voters were equally divided on the 15-week ban with exceptions: 46 percent supported such limits and 47 percent opposed them.But in an illustration of how abortion polling can yield conflicting results, 51 percent of voters in the poll said they trusted Democrats to do a better job handling abortion vs. 34 percent who trust Republicans.Even if a 15-week ban doesn’t convert many voters for whom abortion rights are a top issue — and most of those who say so are Democrats — the G.O.P. bet is that they can neutralize the issue with independent voters. In the Washington Post poll, independents said they trusted Democrats more on abortion, but Republicans more than Democrats on crime and the economy.“Youngkin thinks the Republicans have an advantage on a set of issues people care about. They don’t on abortion, so they have to reduce the level of threat so people don’t vote on that issue,” said Bob Holsworth, the founding director of the School of Government at Virginia Commonwealth University. “He wants them to vote on these other issues where he thinks he’s in better shape.”Danny Diggs, a Republican running for State Senate in a crucial district around Newport News, enlisted his adult daughter Michelle to record an ad about his support for a 15-week limit. “Take it from me,” she says in the ad, her father “will not cater to the extremes.”Danny Diggs during a debate in September in Newport News, N.H. He is supporting a 15-week ban on abortions, with exceptions.Kendall Warner/The Virginian-PilotOver the weekend, as Mr. Diggs, a retired sheriff, greeted voters at a seafood festival in Poquoson, a town on Chesapeake Bay, he said he would vote against any bill limiting abortion earlier than 15 weeks. “I’m good with the 15 weeks, that’s what I’ve told people,” he said.Charles Salas, 53, who is retired from the Army, greeted Mr. Diggs as he stood beside a Republican Party tent and liked what the candidate had to say. On abortion, he sounded more conservative than Mr. Youngkin’s proposed 15-week cutoff. “I haven’t decided how early but I think it should be early enough,” he said. “I don’t believe it should be on demand and I shouldn’t have to pay for it,” he said.Ann Holland, a 58-year-old school district employee, said she was undecided in the election, but on the abortion issue, she wanted women to have broad leeway to make a choice. “I was in my third month and didn’t know,” she said with a laugh. “No morning sickness, no nothing.”Mr. Diggs said that in knocking on the doors of thousands of Republicans and independent voters, the top issues he heard about were public safety and education. Abortion did not often come up. “I don’t think it’s as important as the Democrats hope that it is,” he said. More

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      How Kari Lake’s Tactical Retreat on Abortion Could Point the Way for the GOP

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      Kari Lake, along with other Republicans in battleground states, has come out against a national ban as candidates try to attract general election voters. Anti-abortion activists aren’t pleased.Kari Lake campaigned for governor of Arizona last year as a fierce ally of former President Donald J. Trump who was in lock step with her party’s right-wing base, calling abortion the “ultimate sin” and supporting the state’s Civil War-era restrictions on the procedure.This week, she made a remarkable shift on the issue as she opened her bid for the U.S. Senate: She declared her opposition to a federal ban.“Republicans allowed Democrats to define them on abortion,” Ms. Lake said in a statement to The New York Times about her break from the policy prescription favored by many anti-abortion groups and most of her party’s presidential contenders. She added that she supported additional resources for pregnant women, and that “just like President Trump, I believe this issue of abortion should be left to the states.”The maneuvering by Ms. Lake, along with similar adjustments by Republican Senate candidates in Pennsylvania and Michigan, is part of a broader strategic effort in her party to recalibrate on an issue that has become a political albatross in battleground states and beyond.Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year, eliminating federal protections for abortion rights and handing Republicans one of their most significant policy victories in a generation, voters have turned out repeatedly to support abortion rights, even in red states.The campaign arm for Senate Republicans, the National Republican Senatorial Committee, is now coaching candidates to take the same tack as Ms. Lake — that is, clearly state their opposition to a national abortion ban, according to people familiar with the new strategy.The group has also urged candidates to state their support for “reasonable limits” on late-term abortions with exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the mother, the people said. Rather than trying to avoid the topic, like many candidates did last year, it is advising Republicans to go on offense. Senate Republicans were briefed last month on detailed research commissioned by One Nation, a nonprofit group aligned with Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader, showing that many Americans equated the term “pro-life” — traditionally used by Republicans — with support for a total ban on abortion without any exceptions.The research also showed that while voters opposed the idea of a total ban, there was wider support for restrictions after 12 to 15 weeks of pregnancy, particularly with exceptions for rape, incest and the life or health of the mother.The nonprofit has suggested that Republicans communicate their views on abortion with empathy and compassion. Steven Law, who is the president of One Nation, is also the president of the Senate Leadership Fund, which has spent more than $1 billion on federal campaigns since 2016.Whether or not Republican candidates for Congress — and the White House — can persuade voters that they have become more moderate on abortion promises to be one of the central questions of the 2024 elections.“Voters have repeatedly rejected Republican politicians for supporting dangerous policies that deny a woman’s right to access abortion,” Sarah Guggenheimer, the spokesperson for the Senate Majority political action committee dedicated to electing Democratic candidates. “This cynical effort by Mitch McConnell and Republican candidates to mask their positions won’t change that.”The already challenging rebranding effort also carries significant risks, none more so than alienating anti-abortion activists in the party.Since the fall of Roe v. Wade and the nationwide rollback of abortion rights, the party’s base of anti-abortion voters, which include mostly evangelical Christians, has had heightened expectations that Republican politicians will push to implement the strict anti-abortion policies they have spent decades promising.Kristan Hawkins, the president of Students For Life of America, an anti-abortion organization with more than 1,000 groups on campuses across the country, said equivocating on abortion would be viewed as a betrayal by these voters.To counter the shifting views among some Republican candidates, Ms. Hawkins’s group has distributed a nine-page memo to members of the House of Representatives and the Senate. The memo, which was previously unreported, urged the members to continue their support for strict measures but also encouraged them to be personal, caring and specific in their opposition to abortion rights.Ms. Hawkins said that only “squishy Republicans” would back away from a federal ban, as Ms. Lake has, by insisting that abortion was now an issue that should be decided by states.The Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe, known as Dobbs v. Jackson, provided an opportunity to debate the issue on all levels of government, she said.“They obviously didn’t read the Dobbs decision very well,” Ms. Hawkins said in an interview. “It doesn’t say abortion is only a state issue — it says this issue can be acted upon at the federal, state and local levels.”Still, Mr. Trump has made an apparent political calculus, insisting that hard-line positions on abortion cost the party a red wave of victories last year, and that it must avoid similar mistakes in 2024.Blaming abortion allows Mr. Trump to sidestep the sense among many Republicans that it was in large part his elevation of candidates who embraced his lies about the 2020 presidential election — which ultimately proved unpopular to general election voters in key states — that cost the party control of the Senate and delivered just a razor-thin House majority. He also ignores his own role in appointing three of the five Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe. But there is ample evidence that the abortion issue mattered.Mr. Trump has refused to take an explicit position on whether he would support a federal ban on abortion after 15 weeks, the baseline position of many Republicans as well as Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, a leading anti-abortion group. Last month, he criticized Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, a presidential rival, for signing a six-week abortion ban into law.Republican candidates in competitive states appear to be increasingly siding with the former president, even as the shifts represent a clear break from his base of evangelical voters who care deeply about the issue.In Michigan, former Representative Mike Rogers’s platform for his Senate campaign includes opposition to a national abortion ban, even though he voted as a House member in 2012 and 2013 to enact federal abortion restrictions. In 2010, he said he supported exceptions “only to prevent the death of the mother.”But Michigan voters adopted a measure last year to enshrine abortion rights in the State Constitution. At a campaign stop last month, Mr. Rogers promised not to support national proposals to restrict abortion that were “inconsistent with Michigan’s law.”David McCormick, who is running for Senate in Pennsylvania, has also said that he opposes a national abortion ban.Jeff Swensen for The New York Times“Will I go to Washington, D.C., and try to undo what the citizens of Michigan voted for?” Mr. Rogers said last month in DeWitt, Mich., according to The Detroit News. “I will not.”In Pennsylvania, David McCormick began his second Senate bid last month and announced on the same day that he did not want a national ban.In his campaign for Senate last year, Mr. McCormick gave multiple responses to questions about abortion exceptions. At a Republican primary debate in April 2022, he said that “in very rare instances, there should be exceptions for the life of the mother.” At other events, he suggested that rape and incest should be included as exceptions.This year, he has backed all three exceptions. In a Fox News interview last month, he said that he was opposed to a national ban.“This is also an issue where I think we have to show a lot of compassion and look for common ground,” Mr. McCormick told Fox News. “We should have contraception and we have reasonable limits on late-term abortion, and that is a compassionate position and a consensus position — and that’s the position I support.”Mr. McCormick has collected endorsements from Republicans across the state, and no other serious challengers for the party’s nomination have emerged.Ms. Lake spent several minutes talking about abortion during her first speech as a Senate candidate in Arizona last week, which she acknowledged was rare for a Republican to bring up. She described her position broadly, saying she wanted to “save babies and help women.”“The Republican Party is going to put their money where their mouth is,” Ms. Lake said to the cheering crowd. “We are going to give them real choices so they can make better choices and not live with that regret.”Still, Ms. Lake didn’t mention her opposition to a national ban to the crowd, even though it is laid out on her campaign website.“Kari Lake has repeatedly said she is a pro-life candidate,” said Cathi Herrod, the president of the Center for Arizona Policy, a nonprofit group that promotes anti-abortion policies. “I think the advice to oppose a federal ban is misguided.” More

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      What is the Pepfar fight and what does it mean for Africa?

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      What is Pepfar and why is it in the news?Pepfar is an acronym for the US “president’s emergency plan for Aids relief”. It was set up two decades ago by George W Bush to address the HIV epidemic.It’s the biggest government-run fund of its kind. Since 2003, the project has donated about $110bn (£90.5bn) to governments, universities and nonprofits in 50 countries, either directly or through agencies such as USAid.Until now Pepfar has been funded in five-year cycles. In the past the programme has had virtually unanimous support from Republicans and Democrats. But the next funding cycle (from 2023 to 2028) became ensnared in US abortion politics and the fallout contributed to Congress missing the 30 September deadline to allow another five-year funding cycle for the initiative.What’s the link between Pepfar and abortion?US laws already prevent Pepfar (or any state agencies) from paying for abortion services, according to the California-based policy research group, Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF). But in May, a coalition of conservative thinktanks and lawmakers began to make waves with arguments that Joe Biden’s administration has “hijacked” Pepfar to promote abortion instead of treating and preventing HIV.That’s where the risk to Pepfar’s five-year budget emerged – because the Republican lawmakers then refused to sign off on a spending bill for Pepfar if there weren’t stricter rules in place to stop Pepfar funds from overlapping with abortion services in any way.According to Brian Honermann, deputy director of public policy at the US-based Foundation for Aids Research, the allegations that Pepfar has been usurped to push a “radical social agenda” overseas are “baseless” and “stitched together from unrelated policy speeches, documents and assertions about how those apply to Pepfar”.What will happen to Pepfar now?The multibillion-dollar health programme is a permanent part of US law. That means Pepfar funding will continue, but it will lose its favoured position of receiving five years of funding at a time.The failure to reauthorise Pepfar will mean some of its built-in rules will expire, including a guideline that requires 10% of Pepfar money to go to orphans and children in need.Will organisations and governments lose their Pepfar grants?The fund has enough money to pay governments and civil society organisations until September 2024 (about $6.8bn), but a state department spokesperson warns that Pepfar won’t escape unscathed in the long term.Moreover, getting funding for only one year at a time will make it harder for Pepfar to plan ahead and to source crucial HIV tools, such as condoms or medicine, at the best prices. This could ultimately imperil the people that rely on the fund’s support, the spokesperson warned.The symbolic power of a five-year commitment will also be lost, says Honermann. “It shows partner countries that the US is invested for a significant period of time and that Pepfar won’t just disappear.”The threat of a permanent ‘gag rule’Another factor has swirled around Pepfar’s funding drama: some lawmakers have said they’ll only agree to restart the five-year funding regime if the fund is once again subject to the “Mexico City policy”, also called the “gag rule”.The gag rule bans organisations and governments from providing or promoting termination of pregnancy services regardless of whose money they’re using to do it. It was expanded to apply to Pepfar for the first time in 2017. It is only ever enforced when there’s a Republican president in the White House, so is not currently in effect.And while there is no finalised legislation that would make a permanent gag rule a reality (and Honermann argues it would be unlikely to get past the Democrats), the threat of it may already have done some damage.Research conducted by Fòs Feminista, a global alliance that advocates for sexual and reproductive rights, found that the 2022 decision to roll back the national right to an abortion in the US had a contagious impact in a number of countries. In Nigeria, for instance, respondents told Fòs Feminista that local lawmakers were using the change in US abortion laws to push back on a more liberal law in their country. Terminations are legal in Nigeria only if carrying the foetus to term threatens the mother’s life.Recipients of US government funding are often so worried about losing it that they enforce abortion laws more harshly than is necessary. Research shows that confusion about whether the gag rule had been revoked at the start of the Biden administration resulted in the policy – and its harms – being in place for much longer in practice.And the Pepfar wrangling and attendant media coverage has already resulted in mixed messages reaching health advocates in Africa. Some South African activists told the Guardian they were concerned that the news would be calamitous for civil society in the country. Such organisations receive the most Pepfar dollars (44%) in South Africa according to 2020 tracking data. The government gets just under 1.5% of the money.Honermann says that there is an intentional political strategy to keep communication about the changes in restrictions vague. “It’s a way to encourage over-enforcement for fear of falling on the wrong side of this.”He adds: “For now, Pepfar will continue as long as funding is made available. But these political threats to the programme are ultimately playing with the lives of millions of people worldwide who rely on this programme.”What has the reaction been in Africa?Dave Clark is the chief operating officer at the Aurum Institute, a non-profit that works on HIV and tuberculosis (TB) projects in South Africa, Mozambique, Ghana, Lesotho and Eswatini.Aurum is a partner for Pepfar’s Dreams project which works towards an Aids-free future for girls and women aged 10 to 24 by providing HIV services, contraception and violence prevention support for women, adolescents and their sexual partners.One of the major strengths of Pepfar, Clark says, is that it’s a sure-fire source of carefully planned funding for global health in a world that is often more talk than action.He explains: “The debate in America should not throw us off saving lives. Pepfar is what it says on the label: president’s emergency plan for Aids relief. That’s its extraordinary power and legacy.” More

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      in US Politics

      New York City public hospitals to offer abortion care via telehealth

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      New York City public hospitals will now offer abortion care via telehealth, placing them among the first public health systems in the US to do so.The city’s mayor, Eric Adams, announced on Monday that abortion pill prescriptions would now be available by telephone or online, adding that such access can happen from “the comfort of your home”.As a result of the move, New York City residents will now be able to connect with health practitioners for those prescriptions, building on previous legislations to protect abortions rights in New York.“If you are clinically eligible, that provider will be able to prescribe abortion medication that would be delivered to your New York City address within days,” Adams said during Monday’s announcement.“We will not stand idly by as these attacks continue and the far-rights seeks to strip our citizens of their basic rights,” Adams added, referring to abortion restrictions being legislated across the country.Abortion rights organizations celebrated Monday’s announcement as an essential step to protect reproductive rights.“Today marks a historic win for abortion access in New York City,” said Wendy Stark, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Greater New York.“When we make abortion care more accessible, we empower individuals to make the best decisions for themselves, their families and their futures,” Stark added.The expanded access to abortion care comes after the supreme court’s elimination last year of the federal abortion rights established by Roe v Wade.Since then, at least 20 states have passed restrictions on abortions, the New York Times reports.Fourteen states, mainly in the south, have enacted total bans on the medical procedure.US courts have also limited access to abortion medication. In August, a US appeals court ruled that the abortion pill mifepristone should be regulated according to rules set prior to 2016.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIn August 2022, Adams signed legislation protecting the right to abortions in New York City after the supreme court’s decision to overturn Roe v Wade.The measures signed by Adams – six in total – also made abortion medication free at all of New York’s department of health and mental hygiene clinics.The New York state legislature has also passed legislation protecting medical professionals in the state who provide abortion pills to patients in places where the procedure is banned, the New York Times reported.Other Democratic-led cities and states have passed similar measures protecting reproductive rights.In January, the governor of Illinois, JB Pritzker, signed legislation expanding abortion access by allowing more practitioners to provide the medical procedure and mandating that agencies in the state cover the procedure, the television news outlet WTTW reported. More

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      in Elections

      Power of Older Women? Extinct G.O.P. Moderates? It’s Time for the Mailbag.

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      We’re answering reader questions on polling and elections, including the underexplored area of longevity.Women live longer than men on average, meaning they can vote more often on average. Arin Yoon for The New York TimesWatch out: Women outlive menI’m 79, and women my age remember when abortion was illegal. Many of us either had a back-alley abortion, or had friends who had one. We are determined that neither our daughters nor our granddaughters have to experience this. Many of the elderly men I know still vote for Republicans. But watch out: We outlive you! — Mary LeonhardtYou may be partly joking, Mary, but this is probably a minor reason Democrats do a bit better among older voters than people might guess!Why? American women, who tend to support Democrats, live almost six years longer on average than men. Women make up 55 percent of registered voters over age 65 — including 58 percent of those over age 80 — according to data from L2, a political data firm. In comparison, women are 52 percent of registered voters under 65.I know all of this is a little morbid, but longevity strikes me as an underexplored dimension of electoral trends nowadays. We know higher life expectancy is correlated with socioeconomic status and tends to be higher in Democratic-leaning areas. Could this be a factor in why Democrats are performing better among older voters than usually thought? I think so.Are you sure these people exist?“You refer to ‘relatively moderate, highly educated Republicans.’ You could have listed all of them … it wouldn’t have been a long list. — Jeff DavisIt would be a longer list than you might think. More than 20 million people with a college degree voted for Donald J. Trump in 2020. In our last New York Times/Siena College poll, 13 percent of likely Republican primary voters were self-identified moderates or liberals with a college degree.There’s a bigger lesson here: A small percentage of a huge group can still yield a large number of people. To take another example: There are more Republicans in California than in any other state. There are more Republicans in Brooklyn than in Wyoming, the state where Mr. Trump fared best.If not Biden, who?Pundits keep saying people don’t want Biden. Who do they want? — R. GribbonWell, they’re not sure. In an open-ended survey question, no alternative candidate earns any meaningful amount of support from Democratic voters. And I don’t think that’s entirely unreasonable, given there aren’t any mainstream Democrats running against President Biden.To me, the interesting question is whether many of these voters would wind up preferring Mr. Biden if alternatives like Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan or Gov. Gavin Newsom of California actually ran. It seems quite possible.Just forget about national polling?I find national polling to be particularly misleading. Please focus on state-by-state polling. I’ll be watching PA, WI, MN, GA, AZ, VA, and NV. — Tim OliverI’m sympathetic to the general sentiment here, Tim. Over the years, we’ve done many more Times/Siena polls in the battleground states than nationwide.But I wouldn’t go so far as to say that national polling is misleading. The difference between the national vote and the battleground states isn’t that large — and might even be shrinking.There are advantages to national polling as well. There are more historical questions for comparison. It’s much less expensive than battleground polling: It might take six state polls to get a decent picture. And there are plenty of cases — say, a Republican presidential primary or a battle for control of the House — where the national picture is much more relevant than the core battlegrounds.Polling and nonbinary peopleI was wondering about the inclusivity of the demographic charts. I noticed that the gender category was very binary, with someone only being able to select male or female. Were there any nonbinary people interviewed in this poll, or did someone have to select male or female? As a nonbinary person, I would love to advocate for queer folx to be able to fully participate in these polls. Thank you so much. — Melissa DaileyIt’s worth adding some historical context. First, most pollsters typically asked whether someone was male or female — which is to say someone’s “sex,” not gender. That’s what the Census Bureau does as well, and pollsters generally find it advantageous to have their questions align with the census for comparison or even statistical adjustment. And as someone who loves historical data, I’m also always loath to lose a consistent measurement of something over time.Second, you might be surprised to learn that many telephone pollsters haven’t actually been asking about the sex or gender of respondents. Instead, many have relied on the interviewer to record the respondent’s sex or gender based on voice. That might seem strange, but many respondents find it strange or even offensive to be asked if they’re a man or a woman.Nonetheless, this is an area where survey research is evolving. In the last decade or so, many pollsters have started asking about gender. A smaller number of pollsters have offered respondents options beyond “male” or “female” or “man” or “woman,” though this is complicated in its own right. Respondents could identify in any number of ways, whether as transgender, non-cisgender, nonbinary, gender fluid, queer or something else. They could identify as a “man” or a “woman” to reflect a gender that does not align with the sex they were assigned at birth.There’s another issue with adding small categories: measurement error. If one in every 300 respondents is trolling, or if one in 300 interviewers mistakenly clicks the wrong gender button, this mismeasured 0.3 percent of the sample will have no discernible effect on our results among men and women. But it could make up a huge share of the tiny number of transgender respondents.In our most recent Times/Siena poll, “male” and “female” were the only explicitly listed options when we asked about gender. But if respondents said they identified in some other way, the interviewer would record it. In the end, we had three respondents who said they were transgender or nonbinary. This sample was too small for us to report. I’m not sure whether we — or anyone else — is handling this exactly right; I expect the industry to continue to experiment and evolve.Woe WisconsinI am a Wisconsin voter who is a Democrat. However, we do not have to declare a party. How did you fit that into your analysis? — Nancy EschenburgIf you’re looking for a niche explanation for recent polling errors in Wisconsin, this is an interesting place to start.Unlike with most states, pollsters have very little data on the partisanship of Wisconsin respondents, making it much harder to ensure an unbiased sample.The absence of party registration is the best example, but the issue runs deeper. We don’t have data on whether our respondents participated in a partisan primary (like voting in a Republican presidential race). In most of the states without party registration, this primary participation data is a decent alternative.The results by precinct aren’t very helpful, either. Outside of Madison and Milwaukee, very few voters live in overwhelmingly blue or red precincts. Even the most Republican counties in Wisconsin aren’t so Republican that we can be especially confident that an individual respondent will be a Trump supporter.One of our major goals in recently collecting more data in Wisconsin was to improve our ability to estimate whether someone was a Democrat or a Republican, based on the relatively limited data at our disposal. I wouldn’t say we’ve found anything revolutionary: There’s just no substitute for knowing whether someone is registered as a Democrat or a Republican.Don’t forget ArizonaHere in very hot Arizona we will have some very “hot” political races. Of course we are a critical presidential swing state. Biden vs. Trump (or another Republican) will be very close again.And our U.S. Senate race (with Senator Sinema now an independent) will be fascinating. Ruben Gallego & Kari Lake & perhaps Sinema — that will be very entertaining. And the race will be critical regarding Senate control.So I plead with you to increase your polling in Arizona. We are just as important as other swing states like Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Georgia. — Chris HerstamChris, I think we deserve a little bit of credit! In 2020, Arizona was one of our core six battleground states in Times/Siena polling. We surveyed it five times during the cycle, tied for the most of any state. We surveyed it in 2018 and 2022 as well, something that can be said only of Arizona and Nevada.Heading into 2024, Arizona remains in the top tier. We’ll poll it just as much as Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Georgia.Six kinds of Democrats?Loved your “Six Kinds of Republicans.” Please do the same with Dems. — Walter B. ShurdenI’d like to see the same article written about Democrats … We all know there is a big difference between a conservative Democrat and someone like A.O.C. — Craig WilsonYou’ll most likely have to wait until 2028! In the meantime, consider reading our breakdown of Democratic voters from 2019. There were five types of Democrats in that analysis, based on data from the Hidden Tribes project: progressive activists, traditional liberals, passive liberals, moderates and the politically disengaged.Another option to get you through until the next Democratic primary: Pew Research’s 2021 typology, which identified four Democratic-leaning groups: progressive left, establishment liberals, Democratic mainstays and the outsider left. More