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      Woman tells New York Times that Herschel Walker urged her to have second abortion

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      Woman tells New York Times that Herschel Walker urged her to have second abortionThe Republican candidate for a Georgia US Senate seat has insisted that he does not know the woman’s identity Herschel Walker, the Republican candidate for a Georgia US Senate seat, has maintained he does not know the identity of a woman who claims that in 2009 she terminated a pregnancy that was the result of her and Walker’s relationship.But on Friday, the woman at the center of a political storm that threatens to undo the former Dallas Cowboys running back’s campaign told the New York Times that Walker urged her to terminate a second pregnancy two years later and that their relationship ended when she declined.Republicans throw support behind Herschel Walker after abortion denialRead moreThe woman, a former girlfriend whom Walker has referred to as “some alleged woman”, said the Senate hopeful backed by former president Donald Trump had scarcely been involved in their son’s life other than child support and gifts.But she offered a perspective on a candidate who has appealed to the state’s social conservatives as an opponent of abortion – even in cases of rape and incest.“As a father, he’s done nothing,” she told the Times, insisting on anonymity to protect her son. “He does exactly what the courts say, and that’s it.“He has to be held responsible, just like the rest of us. And if you’re going to run for office, you need to own your life.”She provided the paper with a $575 receipt from an Atlanta women’s clinic where the 2009 procedure was performed, as well as a check deposit slip showing a copy of a $700 check she claims Walker gave her as reimbursement.But Walker said Thursday on conservative talk radio host Hugh Hewitt’s show: “I know this is untrue. I know it’s untrue. I know nothing about any woman having an abortion.”Walker’s wife, Julie Blanchard, disclosed to the Daily Beast on Friday that she had been in touch with the woman who had told her it was “cruel” that Walker “continues to claim he doesn’t know me or the abortion he paid for”.“He brought all of this on himself when he decided to get on a platform and denounce abortion and make a mockery of his children who have done NOTHING to deserve this,” the anonymous woman reportedly also said.Blanchard said that “this makes me incredibly sad”, adding that she “witnessed everyday Herschel pray for you and [your son] & everyone in our family”.She told the outlet that Walker calls and texts the 10-year-old child “regularly” and feels “sadness” when he gets no response – to which the woman replied, “Are you kidding me?”The woman has said that Walker has never missed any of his $3,500 monthly child-support payments, but the complex drama has nonetheless focused attention on the Republican candidate that his campaign did not want.Besides his opposition to abortion, he has four children with four different women after openly criticizing absentee dads in the Black community.Walker has disputed that he does not acknowledge his children. “I just chose not to use them as props to win a political campaign,” he said in June. “What parent would want their child involved in garbage, gutter politics like this?”But some criticism has come from close to home. “You’re not a ‘family man’ when you left us to bang a bunch of women, threatened to kill us, and had us move over 6 times in 6 months running from your violence,” Walker’s adult son and conservative social-media influencer Christian Walker said on Twitter.Herschel Walker responded with his own tweet: “I LOVE my son no matter what.”But the revelations have challenged Walker’s conservative political positions as he faces off with Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock for the US senate seat that could determine control of the evenly divided legislative body.A Fox News poll conducted after reports emerged last week that Walker had paid for the former girlfriend to have an abortion showed Warnock at 47% and Walker at 44%.Warnock’s campaign recently reported having $13.7m in cash on hand.Walker’s campaign said it has more than $7m. Walker campaign manager Scott Paradise said the candidate had his best fundraising days immediately after the abortion revelation, contained in a Daily Beast article on 3 October.Nonetheless, there’s apparently been an atmosphere of chaos in the Walker campaign since the bombshell Daily Beast report. Two days after the report, the campaign cut ties with its political director, Taylor Crowe, CNN reported, citing multiple sources.TopicsUS midterm elections 2022GeorgiaAbortionUS SenateUS politicsReuse this content More

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      Donald Trump and Herschel Walker: The Unholy Alliance

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      WASHINGTON — This will sound quaint.In May 2016, The Washington Post ran the story of how Donald Trump, in his real estate days, would call reporters, pretending to be his own spokesman, to brag and leak nuggets about nonexistent romances with famous women. I thought that would knock him out of the race.The story hit on a Friday, so I scrambled to rewrite my column on the assumption that Trump wouldn’t last the weekend.But the scoop didn’t make a dent.The next day, The Times splashed a piece on the front page reporting that dozens of women had accused Trump of “unwelcome romantic advances” and lewd and “unending commentary on the female form.”Again, he emerged unscathed with his base.I still didn’t learn my lesson, though. That October, when the “Access Hollywood” tape showed Trump yucking it up about kissing, groping and trying to have sex with women, noting that “when you’re a star, they let you do it,” I once more figured he couldn’t survive as leader of the party of “family values” and the religious right.He could.Once, there were limits, things that could disqualify you from office, especially in the party that claimed a special relationship with Jesus.But those limits don’t exist anymore.Conservatives have sacrificed any claim to principle. In an unholy transaction, they stuck with Trump because there was a Supreme Court seat and they were willing to tolerate his moral void in order to hijack the court. They didn’t care how he treated women as long as he gave them the opportunity to rip away rights from women. They wanted to impose their warped morality, a “Handmaid’s Tale” world, on the rest of us.Christian-right leaders made clear that, no matter what Trump said or did to women, he was preferable to Hillary Clinton, who supported abortion rights.As Jerry Falwell Jr. said at the time, “We’re never going to have a perfect candidate unless Jesus Christ is on the ballot,” noting, “We’re all sinners.”Well, Falwell certainly was. Four years later, he was ousted from running Liberty University after a sex scandal of his own.Now, in Georgia, conservatives are turning a blind eye to sordid stories coming out about Herschel Walker, who demonstrates no qualifications for serving in the Senate. His sole credential is that he was once excellent at carrying a football.Story after story has emerged about reprehensible behavior and lies concerning women and children, and about falsifying his personal history.The Daily Beast asserted that while Walker wants to completely ban abortion, even in cases of rape, incest and the life of the mother, comparing it to murder, he paid for a girlfriend’s abortion in 2009. Walker has called the story “a flat-out lie,” but The Beast talked to the unnamed woman and checked her financial records. She said she was just sick of the hypocrisy. Even his conservative influencer son, Christian, disparaged his father’s “lies” on Twitter.On Friday, The Times published a story confirming The Daily Beast’s reporting, and in a startling development added that in 2011, Herschel pressured the same woman to have another abortion. They ended their relationship when she refused; she had their son, now 10.There’s more: His ex-wife claimed he pointed a pistol at her head and told her he was going to blow her brains out; he has four children with four different women, but hadn’t publicly acknowledged three of them. His 10-year-old was one of those hidden.Mitch McConnell and his fellow Republicans should be ashamed to promote this troubled person for their own benefit.Privately, some Republicans are mortified by the Walker spiral, but they’re going to brazen it out for the win.Dana Loesch, the right-wing radio host, was blunt: “I don’t care if Herschel Walker paid to abort endangered baby eagles. I want control of the Senate.”Republicans have exposed their willingness to accept anything to get power that they then abuse. As Lindsey Graham said out loud, with his fellow Republicans shushing him, they want a nationwide ban on abortion after 15 weeks. And Herschel Walker is key to that.Trump got to know Walker when he bought the New Jersey Generals in 1983, which Walker had joined after he won the Heisman Trophy and dropped out of the University of Georgia to turn pro.“In a lot of ways, Mr. Trump became a mentor to me,” Walker wrote in his memoir in 2008, “and I modeled myself and my business practices after him.” Trump led the cry “Run, Herschel, run!”Walker takes after his mentor with his lies, hypocrisy and know-nothingness on issues. Still worse, he’s following his mentor by denying his transgressions as a womanizer, even as he tries to smash women’s rights.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, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      I wish women could decide abortion law, says Republican man who backs ban

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      I wish women could decide abortion law, says Republican man who backs banCongressman John Curtis of Utah laments lack of women in state legislatures drafting laws – ‘if you’re a woman, it stinks’ Despite his party’s staunch opposition to terminating pregnancies, Congressman John Curtis, a Utah Republican, has raised eyebrows after saying at a debate this week that he wished women could decide whether abortion should be legal.“I wish, as a man, I didn’t have to make this decision,” John Curtis said, referring to how the state legislatures which are now empowered to decide the legality of abortion are dominated by men. “I wish women could make this decision.”Republicans throw support behind Herschel Walker after abortion denialRead moreCurtis’s remarks came during a debate on Thursday night while seeking re-election as the US House representative for Utah’s third congressional district, a seat he has held since 2017.The non-partisan Cook Political Report considers Curtis to be solidly Republican, representing an area that includes Provo, a city of more than 100,000 people. Nonetheless, at Thursday’s debate hosted by Brigham Young University (BYU) in Provo, he expressed a position that prompted a reaction of surprise from his Democratic challenger Glen Wright.Curtis alluded to the June ruling by the US supreme court’s conservative majority which eliminated the federal abortion rights which the landmark case Roe v Wade established in 1973. Roe’s reversal made each state’s government responsible for determining if getting an abortion was legal in their jurisdiction.Since the ruling, only 21 American states had laws protecting abortion access, according to the Center for Reproductive Rights. Meanwhile, 26 states had prohibited, severely limited or were expected to impede access to abortion.Curtis, 62, on Friday acknowledged men held most of the seats in the legislatures determining whether pregnant people could legally obtain abortions in their state and that, “if you’re a woman, it stinks”.“I wish it were other than that,” Curtis added. “I wish, as a man, I didn’t have to make this decision. I wish women could make this decision.”Nonetheless, Curtis made it a point to clarify that he was “unapologetically pro-life”, a label preferred by those who oppose abortion rights.Wright glanced upward and moved his head to the side as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing Curtis say. The vast majority of Republicans and their conservative supporters hailed the supreme court’s decision to eliminate federal abortion rights. The South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham, one of the GOP’s pre-eminent figures, even proposed that Republicans push for a national ban on abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.Republicans were split over Graham’s proposal as November’s midterm elections loomed after some polling has found that as many as 60% of voters support abortion rights in most or all cases.The Democrats are trying to emerge from the midterms with their razor-thin advantages in both congressional chambers still intact.Curtis is not expected to have trouble winning another congressional term in his district, according to the Cook Political Report.TopicsUS midterm elections 2022US politicsRepublicansUtahAbortionnewsReuse this content More

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      Herschel Walker Urged Woman to Have a 2nd Abortion, She Says

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      ATLANTA — A woman who has said Herschel Walker, the Republican Senate nominee in Georgia, paid for her abortion in 2009 told The New York Times that he urged her to terminate a second pregnancy two years later. They ended their relationship after she refused.In a series of interviews, the woman said Mr. Walker had barely been involved in their now 10-year-old son’s life, offering little more than court-ordered child support and occasional gifts.The woman disclosed the new details about her relationship with Mr. Walker, who has anchored his campaign on an appeal to social conservatives as an unwavering opponent of abortion even in cases of rape and incest, after the former football star publicly denied that he knew her. He called her “some alleged woman” in a radio interview on Thursday.The Times is withholding the name of the woman, who insisted on anonymity to protect her son.In the interviews, she described the frustration of watching Republicans rally around Mr. Walker, dismiss her account and bathe him in prayer and praise, calling him a good man.She said she wanted Georgia voters to know what kind of man Mr. Walker was to her.“As a father, he’s done nothing. He does exactly what the courts say, and that’s it,” she said. “He has to be held responsible, just like the rest of us. And if you’re going to run for office, you need to own your life.”The interviews and documents provided to The Times together corroborate and expand upon an account about her abortion first published on Monday in The Daily Beast. The Times also independently confirmed details with custody records filed in family court in New York and interviewed a friend of the woman to whom she had described the abortion and her eventual breakup with Mr. Walker as those events occurred.Mr. Walker’s campaign declined to comment about the woman’s account.The woman reaffirmed the key details of her account: She and Mr. Walker conceived a child in 2009 and decided not to continue the pregnancy. Mr. Walker was not married at the time. She provided to The Times a $575 receipt she was given after paying for the procedure at an Atlanta women’s clinic, and a deposit slip showing a copy of a $700 check that she said Mr. Walker gave her as reimbursement. She also shared a “get well” card with a handwritten message — “Pray you are feeling better” — and signed simply, “H.”Mr. Walker has repeatedly denied her account, calling it a “flat-out” lie and the work of Democrats and the hostile news media. He has disputed that he signed the card. He told Fox News on Monday that he sends money “to a lot of people.”“I know this is untrue. I know it’s untrue,” Mr. Walker said on the “Hugh Hewitt Show” on Thursday. “I know nothing about any woman having an abortion.”A woman told The New York Times that she and Mr. Walker, who is now the Republican Senate nominee in Georgia, decided in 2009 not to continue a pregnancy they conceived. She provided to The Times a $575 receipt she was given after paying for the procedure and said he reimbursed her. Mr. Walker has repeatedly denied her account.Later on Thursday, he gathered reporters in a lumber yard 150 miles east of Atlanta for his first public event since the report first surfaced and read a statement that did not directly address it. Instead, he blamed his political opponents.Understand the Herschel Walker Abortion ReportCard 1 of 5The report. More

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      Jill Biden Discusses Friend’s Abortion and Rebukes ‘Extremist Republicans’

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      The first lady said she had once helped a friend recover from an abortion before there was a constitutional right to the procedure. “Women will not let this country go backwards,” she said.Jill Biden, the first lady, said on Friday that she had once helped a friend recover from an abortion before there was a constitutional right to the procedure, evoking the issue in deeply personal terms at a political fund-raiser as she warned of further restrictions from “extremist Republicans.”Dr. Biden, who was introduced by Speaker Nancy Pelosi before speaking to a group of donors in San Francisco, said that in the late 1960s — years before the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade established a right to abortion — a friend got pregnant. At that time, abortion was outlawed in Pennsylvania, where Dr. Biden grew up.Her friend, whom she did not name, told her that she had undergone a psychological evaluation to be declared mentally unfit before a doctor agreed to administer one.“I went to see her in the hospital and then cried the whole drive home,” said Dr. Biden, who said she was 17 at the time. “When she was discharged from the hospital, she couldn’t go back to her house, so I gathered my courage and asked my mom, ‘Can she come stay with us?’”Dr. Biden, now 71, said that her mother, Bonny Jean Jacobs, allowed her friend to visit and that the two kept it a secret. Mrs. Jacobs died in 2008.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.Standing by Herschel Walker: After a report that the G.O.P. Senate candidate in Georgia paid for a girlfriend’s abortion in 2009, Republicans rallied behind him, fearing that a break with the former football star could hurt the party’s chances to take the Senate.Wisconsin Senate Race: Mandela Barnes, the Democratic candidate, is wobbling in his contest against Senator Ron Johnson, the Republican incumbent, as an onslaught of G.O.P. attack ads takes a toll.G.O.P. Senate Gains: After signs emerged that Republicans were making gains in the race for the Senate, the polling shift is now clear, writes Nate Cohn, The Times’s chief political analyst.Democrats’ Closing Argument: Buoyed by polls that show the end of Roe v. Wade has moved independent voters their way, vulnerable House Democrats have reoriented their campaigns around abortion rights in the final weeks before the election.“Secrecy. Shame. Silence. Danger. Even death,” Dr. Biden said. “That’s what defined that time for so many women.”President Biden, a Roman Catholic who has struggled with his views over abortion access, often connects his argument to the broader right for Americans to make private medical decisions. In speeches and public statements, he uses the word “abortion” sparingly, focusing instead on broader phrases, like “reproductive health” and “the right to choose,” that might resonate more widely with the public.Dr. Biden has also been judicious with her use of the word. But her story, shared publicly for the first time, cast the issue in a personal light as Democrats seek to capitalize on voter anger over the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade this summer to hold onto Congress in the November midterm elections. As abortion bans have taken effect in more than a dozen states, there are already signs that the issue has helped buoy the party against rampant inflation and Mr. Biden’s poor approval ratings.“I was shocked when the Dobbs decision came out,” Dr. Biden said, referring to the case that overturned Roe. “It was devastating — how could we go back to that time?“I thought of all the girls and women, like my friend, whose education, careers and future depended on the ability to choose when they have children,” she said..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-ok2gjs{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs 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.After decades of marriage to Mr. Biden, the first lady, who teaches full-time at a community college in Virginia, has evolved into an avid campaigner whose remarks often carry a personal touch.Like her husband, she has often avoided confrontational language when talking about the Republican Party in public. (During Mr. Biden’s presidential campaign, Dr. Biden and her aides had decided that they could draw a contrast between her husband and former President Donald J. Trump just by describing her husband, rather than attacking Mr. Trump directly.)Still, both Bidens have started to take a more aggressive stance toward Republicans, who have broadly backed abortion restrictions, even as they have struggled to unite around the idea of a national ban. In her remarks, Dr. Biden repeatedly called their agenda “extremist.”“But here’s the thing that those extremists don’t understand about women,” she said. “This isn’t the first time that we’ve been underestimated. It’s not the first time that someone has tried to tell us what we can and can’t do.”As the midterms grow closer, Dr. Biden is expected to ramp up her traveling and deliver speeches related to her own portfolio of issues, including cancer research, education and support for the military. But she will also emphasize fund-raising and supporting Democrats in tight races, according to a person familiar with her plans.On Friday, the fund-raiser, which raised money for congressional Democrats, starting at $500 a plate, was tucked between a visit to a cancer research center and a Saturday event focused on military families in Seattle, where she plans to appear with Senator Patty Murray of Washington.During the event, Dr. Biden urged supporters to “defend congressional seats held by women like Teresa and Mary” — referring to Representative Teresa Leger Fernandez of New Mexico, a swing-district Democrat, and Representative Mary Peltola of Alaska, a Democrat who won an August special election to replace Don Young, a Republican who died in March after serving there for 49 years.“Women will not let this country go backwards,” Dr. Biden said. “We’ve fought too hard for too long. And we know that there is just too much on the line.” More

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      Republicans throw support behind Herschel Walker after abortion denial

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      Republicans throw support behind Herschel Walker after abortion denialThe Georgia senate candidate has garnered support from Donald Trump to Lindsey Graham Republicans and anti-abortion groups across the country have been flocking to Herschel Walker’s defense despite accusations that the Republican candidate for Georgia’s senate paid for a woman’s abortion in 2009.After the accusation from an alleged ex-girlfriend was first reported in the Daily Beast, some of the country’s most influential Republicans have been either echoing Walker’s denial of the abortion or remaining in deafening silence, in turn revealing a clear hypocrisy towards the issue of abortion rights.Walker, ostensibly a staunch anti-abortion candidate, is currently in a tight race against the state’s Democratic senator Raphael Warnock in hopes of winning a Senate seat in less than five weeks and reclaiming control of the chamber. As part of his campaign, Walker has stated that he wants a total ban on abortions, saying “there’s no exception in my mind … Like I say, I believe in life. I believe in life.”On Monday, a bombshell report emerged that a woman who asked not to be identified underwent an abortion that Walker paid for after the former couple discovered that they had conceived a child.In response, Walker denied paying for the abortion, telling the conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt, “Had that happened, I would have said it, because it’s nothing to be ashamed of there. You know, people have done that, but I know nothing about it. And if I knew about it, I would be honest and talk about it, but I know nothing about that.”He has since doubled down on his denial, accusing Democrats of sabotaging his campaign. “I know why you’re here,” he told reporters this week after his first campaign address since the reports emerged. “You’re here because the Democrats are desperate to hold on to this seat here, and they’re desperate to make this race about my family.”Republicans have been echoing Walker’s defense, with many claiming the story is a fraudulent attack launched by Democrats. Others have gone as far as to express no interest in the truth of the allegation as they reaffirm the priority of regaining control.“What I’m about to say is in no means a contradiction or a compromise of a principle. And please keep in mind that I am concerned about one thing, and one thing only at this point. I don’t care if Herschel Walker paid to abort endangered baby eagles. I want control of the Senate,” said Dana Loesch, a conservative radio host and former spokesperson of the National Rifle Association.Florida’s Republican senator Rick Scott accused Democrats of launching a smear campaign. Scott, who previously said that “abortion ends a life. It is abhorrent and has no place in our society,” defended Walker earlier this week in a public statement.As the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, Scott wrote, “When the Democrats are losing, as they are right now, they lie and cheat and smear their opponents … They know that Herschel Walker is winning, so they have cranked up the smear machine.”Former president Donald Trump, who once called himself “strongly pro-life” and said that women who get abortions should face “some form of punishment”, also came to Walker’s defense.“Walker is being slandered and maligned by the ‘fake news media’ and obviously, the Democrats,” Trump said on his social media platform Truth Social. “It’s very important for our county and the great state of Georgia that Herschel Walker wins this election,” he added.Ronna McDaniel, chair of the Republican National Committee (RNC), tweeted: “Georgia could decide the Senate majority, so desperate Democrats and liberal media have turned to anonymous sources and character assassination.”McDaniel, who responded with “Life wins!” earlier this year when the supreme court stripped away federal abortion protections, added, “Herschel Walker will deliver a safer and more prosperous Georgia, and the RNC will continue to invest in the Senate race.”South Carolina’s Republican senator Lindsey Graham defended Walker on Twitter, saying, “[Walker] has adamantly denied these allegations and he will be the next senator from Georgia because people are going to vote for what is best for their family.”Graham last month proposed a nationwide 15-week abortion ban.The National Right to Life Committee, the country’s oldest and largest national anti-abortion organization, also released a statement in support of Walker, calling the report a “series of attempted Democratic character assassinations”.“National Right to Life stands behind its endorsement of Herschel Walker … Herschel Walker wants to protect unborn children while Raphael Warnock wants to see them die through unlimited abortion. The Democratic party knows it cannot win on the issues, so we once again see an attempted character assassination, a tactic that is sadly all too often encouraged by a compliant and willing media.”Susan B Anthony Pro-Life America, another anti-abortion organization, also stood behind Walker amid the reports by saying, “Herschel Walker has denied these allegations in the strongest possible terms and we stand firmly alongside him.”One prominent anti-abortion Republican, the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, has remained unusually quiet since the reports emerged.Earlier this year, McConnell expressed support towards Walker’s candidacy, saying: “Herschel is the only one who can unite the party, defeat Senator Warnock and help us take back the Senate. I look forward to working with Herschel in Washington to get the job done.”However, since the reports, McConnell, who has one of the staunchest anti-abortion voices on Capitol Hill and has previously voted for anti-abortion bills and against the Family and Medical Leave Act and the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act, has yet to publicly comment.TopicsUS midterm elections 2022US politicsAbortionRepublicansGeorgianewsReuse this content More

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      Five Takeaways From the Arizona Senate Debate

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      PHOENIX — It was a battle over whether Arizona is still the conservative-leaning state of Barry Goldwater and John McCain.Senator Mark Kelly faced his Republican challenger, Blake Masters, on Thursday in the first and only debate of the race that will help decide whether Democrats maintain control of the Senate, which they hold by the barest of margins. Mr. Kelly repeatedly emphasized his independent image, referring frequently to his disagreements with members of his own party, including President Biden.The two men, who have spent months attacking each other on issues including abortion, border security, inflation and election integrity, were also joined by Marc Victor, the Libertarian candidate, who has not reached double digits in polls.The debate did little to cover new ground on the most contentious issues, but the moderator asked pointed, direct questions in a bid to force the candidates to clarify their sometimes murky positions. Mr. Masters tried to straddle the line between his previous hard-line stances and his more recently adopted softer tone — but continued to largely play to his base, even if it required some winks and a nod or two.Abortion becomes a flash point.Abortion has vaulted to the front of many voters’ minds in Arizona, not just after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade this June, but because a state judge revived a total ban on abortions from 1864 that had sat dormant for decades. Abortions in the state, already on shaky ground, halted abruptly.So on Thursday, each candidate tried to paint the other as an abortion extremist. Mr. Kelly pointed to statements where Mr. Masters had called abortion “demonic,” and said Mr. Masters wanted to punish doctors and ban abortions in cases of rape.Mr. Masters said he was proud to call himself one of the most pro-life candidates running for Senate, and quickly leveled a misleading accusation that Mr. Kelly supported late-term abortions up until the moment of birth. In reality, abortions late in pregnancy are rare and often occur because of a devastating health problem in an otherwise wanted pregnancy.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.Standing by Herschel Walker: After a report that the G.O.P. Senate candidate in Georgia paid for a girlfriend’s abortion in 2009, Republicans rallied behind him, fearing that a break with the former football star could hurt the party’s chances to take the Senate.Wisconsin Senate Race: Mandela Barnes, the Democratic candidate, is wobbling in his contest against Senator Ron Johnson, the Republican incumbent, as an onslaught of G.O.P. attack ads takes a toll.G.O.P. Senate Gains: After signs emerged that Republicans were making gains in the race for the Senate, the polling shift is now clear, writes Nate Cohn, The Times’s chief political analyst.Democrats’ Closing Argument: Buoyed by polls that show the end of Roe v. Wade has moved independent voters their way, vulnerable House Democrats have reoriented their campaigns around abortion rights in the final weeks before the election.It’s always 2020 in Arizona.Faced with a direct question about whether Mr. Masters believed the 2020 vote was stolen, he seemed to blink. He talked of collusion between tech companies, the news media and F.B.I. to suppress negative news about President Biden’s son Hunter.“But not vote-counting, not election results?” asked the moderator, Ted Simons, a host on the Arizona PBS station.“Yeah, I haven’t seen evidence of that,” Mr. Masters replied.During the Republican primary, Mr. Masters won an endorsement from former President Donald J. Trump and earned legions of conservative followers by fanning the falsehoods that the 2020 election was stolen and Mr. Trump was its rightful winner.But some of that language has been scrubbed from his campaign website since Mr. Masters entered the general election, where such conspiracy theories don’t play as well with independent voters, who either trust Arizona’s popular mail-in voting systems or simply want to move on.Mr. Kelly said Mr. Masters’s peddling of “conspiracy theories” was undermining American democracy.“I’m worried about what’s going to happen here in this election and 2024,” he said. “We could wind up in a situation where the wheels come off of our democracy.”Both see a crisis at the southern border.Political veterans in Arizona believe that inflation and the southern border are Republicans’ two strongest issues, and Mr. Masters hammered both early and often. He painted a Dante-esque picture of the border — beset with cartels, overflowing with fentanyl and wide-open for millions of “illegals” to sweep through.“Joe Biden and Mark Kelly, they laid out the welcome mat,” Mr. Masters said. “They surrendered our southern border. They’ve given it up to the Mexican drug cartels.”Crossings at the southern border have surged to their highest levels in decades as migrants flee gangs and political and economic turmoil in Venezuela, Central America and elsewhere. Many of those migrants are turning themselves directly over to American authorities to plead their cases in immigration courts.Mr. Kelly called the border “a mess” of chaos and crisis, but said he had worked to get money for more Border Patrol agents and technology to screen for drugs at ports of entry.Don’t California my Arizona.Like other Republicans in the Southwest, Mr. Masters frequently uses California as a kind of foil, making the state a stand-in for liberalism gone wild. And one reliable way to rile residents in other parts of the West? Bring up the notion that the nation’s most populous state — which is in a near constant drought — is taking too much water from the Colorado River.“I’m tired of Senator Kelly acting like the third senator from California,” Mr. Masters said onstage Thursday, echoing a refrain he has made throughout the campaign. “We need someone in there with sharp elbows who’s going to fight for our water.”“Why is California even putting its straw into the Colorado River?” he added, arguing that the state should instead rely on desalination and the Pacific Ocean.Left unsaid was the more basic implied attack: Mr. Masters is the protector of the state; Mr. Kelly is merely a liberal in disguise.A third-party candidate for a third of voters?The vast majority of voters would have trouble naming Mr. Victor — he has struggled to raise money or capture media attention. But he held his ground Thursday night, insisting that the moderator allow him to answer all the same questions as Mr. Kelly and Mr. Masters.For the most part, Mr. Victor took a predictable Libertarian pox-on-both-their-houses approach, and portrayed himself as the outsider who would not be beholden to either President Biden or Mr. Trump. And there could be a receptive audience for that message: Roughly a third of Arizona’s voters are not registered as Republicans or Democrats, and many view themselves as moderates or describe themselves as leaning libertarian.Mr. Victor could easily attract enough voters to act as a kind of spoiler for Mr. Masters, denying him just enough votes to push Mr. Kelly over the edge. Indeed, at several points during the debate, Mr. Victor attacked Mr. Masters for waffling on his stances and leaped to the defense of Mr. Kelly. More

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      in Elections

      Democrats Have a Whole Lot Riding on Nevada

      by

      LAS VEGAS — Nevada has long been a bellwether in national elections. The caricature of a casino on every block and a slot machine in every grocery store has given way to the reality of a diverse state with growing minority populations and a widening urban-rural divide that is a microcosm of America.The truth is — and never could it be more resonant than this year — for Democrats, as goes Nevada, so goes the nation. Nevada has a closely fought contest for governor, with the Democratic incumbent, Steve Sisolak, facing Joe Lombardo, sheriff of the most populous county. And its congressional races could help determine partisan control of both chambers: In three of its four House races and in the contest for U.S. Senate, Democratic incumbents are in tight battles.For Democrats, Nevada holds promise and peril. It is truly a purple state, and Democrats are hoping to hold together a tenuous multiracial coalition and keep at bay a Republican Party determined to flip the state red.The pressure is particularly acute for Democratic Senator Catherine Cortez Masto. Across the country, from Georgia to Pennsylvania to Arizona, Senate races are neck and neck, and Nevada is no different; a very slight Democratic advantage has given way to pretty much a dead heat. If this seat gives Senate control to the Republicans, it could change the direction of the country on major public policy issues, including abortion, and most obviously, on confirming judges.Ms. Cortez Masto faces Adam Laxalt, a former state attorney general who is embraced by both Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell and is the son and grandson of Republican senators. The challenges for Ms. Cortez Masto reflect struggles for Democrats across the country — worries over inflation and the economy, a distinct urban-rural split among the electorate, an opponent who has endorsed Mr. Trump’s baseless claims of a stolen election and, especially for the first Latina elected to the Senate, a need for robust support from Hispanic voters.She has emphasized the achievements of Democrats in Congress — especially the infrastructure bill, the CHIPS Act and the Inflation Reduction Act, and their impact on manufacturing and other jobs. And she has also focused on abortion as part of her outreach to Latino voters, since a majority of Hispanics in the state support abortion rights.Ms. Cortez Masto might as well be running in three states in one: Clark County, which includes Las Vegas, represented about 70 percent of the vote in the 2020 presidential elect (Joe Biden won it by just under nine points); Washoe County, which includes Reno, has just under 20 percent (Mr. Biden won here by 4.5 points); and 15 rural counties, many of which Mr. Trump won with over 70 percent of the vote.She will benefit from an electoral machine built by Harry Reid, the longtime senator who died last year, that Democrats in the rest of the country have looked at with envy. For years, that machine has reliably registered voters and then turned them out. The question this year is if it will be enough to overcome significant economic and electoral headwinds.Adam Jentleson, who worked closely with Mr. Reid, wrote last year that the Nevada Democratic machine “focused on the tough work of building coalitions between organized labor and progressive groups and invested in the nuts and bolts of politics, like voter registration.”In 2016, Mr. Reid’s operation helped Ms. Cortez Masto win by 2.5 points. It is a model for Democratic state operations: It has helped produce Democratic victories in cycles since 2008 (with 2014 an outlier red wave year) for presidential as well as most midterm elections, when the national party often struggles to get its full coalition to the polls.The turnout next month will be a critical test of how that machine operates in the first elections since its founder’s death. Mr. Reid was a unique figure. His ability to raise money for candidates kept the machine humming.Since Mr. Reid’s death, the Nevada model — the Reid machine in coordination with the Democratic Party — has shown some cracks. The Reid machine, now in the hands of Ms. Cortez Masto and Governor Sisolak, and the party have clashed over money and policy direction on everything from support for Israel to primary endorsements. Young activists, keen on pulling the party to the left, have taken up positions in the party itself, alienating Reid operatives.What this likely means for Ms. Cortez Masto and other Democrats in Nevada is that they cannot expect to have the kind of overwhelming fund-raising advantage that they have been used to.That is not the only concern for Democrats. Despite her heritage, Ms. Cortez Masto is fighting to maintain a grip on a majority of Latino voters, who will account for 15 percent to 20 percent of the general electorate.Ms. Cortez Masto had never worn her ethnicity on her sleeve, but she has been emphasizing it in this race. Her campaign has significantly ramped up its Latino voter contact efforts, hiring a Spanish-speaking press secretary, holding events in the community and announcing during Hispanic Heritage Month that 200 Latino leaders had endorsed her.Ms. Cortez Masto’s personal story, as a pioneering Latina legislator, is a ubiquitous element of her pitch. In her ads, she has emphasized her family, including a grandfather from Mexico — Mexican immigrants make up a majority of the Latino population in the state.She will also depend on another turnout machine: the Culinary Workers Union, which is at least half Hispanic and represents tens of thousands of casino employees. The union is expected to knock on over one million doors for this election, about twice as many as it did in 2020.Since the Dobbs decision overturning Roe, Ms. Cortez Masto has been relentlessly using abortion to attack Mr. Laxalt, who supports an abortion ban after 13 weeks of pregnancy. Still, like many Democrats in purple states, she remains vulnerable. In a recent poll, Ms. Cortez Masto led Mr. Laxalt by 19 points among Hispanics, but nearly a third of that demographic was undecided. When she won in 2016, she was estimated to have won over 60 percent of Hispanics, which is well above where she is polling right now.Nevada observers on both sides of the aisle say she is running the best campaign in the state. Her ads are sharp, her social media presence ubiquitous and her campaign disciplined. Ms. Cortez Masto, who has long prided herself on being a workhorse, has shown an indomitability that would have impressed Mr. Reid. She also has adopted her mentor’s fund-raising prowess, having much more cash on hand than Mr. Laxalt.Most years, she would be considered a favorite. But this year, nearly all of the numbers in Nevada tilt toward the Republicans. President Biden’s approval ratings here are just over 40 percent. Unemployment is still high relative to the rest of the country, and inflation continues to take a bite out of paychecks. And a Democratic registration advantage has eroded as nonpartisan registration has expanded.Republicans now see the Nevada Senate race as one of their best shots at gaining control of the Senate, with Ms. Cortez Masto vulnerable. If she prevails, her campaign could provide a blueprint for Democrats elsewhere, especially in the Mountain West and Southwest, on the way to 2024.Nevada, once again, could be the neon beacon for the country.Jon Ralston is the chief executive of The Nevada Independent.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, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More