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      Republicans thought they had midterms in the bag. Voters just rejected them again | Lloyd Green

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      Republicans thought they had midterms in the bag. Voters just rejected them againLloyd GreenTuesday’s special election in New York state was more evidence that voters are furious about Republican attacks on abortion rights – and going to the polls to boost Democrats Abortion and Donald Trump will both appear on November’s ballot. On Tuesday, Pat Ryan, a Democrat and a decorated Iraq war veteran, upset Republican Marc Molinaro in a special congressional election in New York’s Upper Hudson Valley. Ryan won 52-48 after pre-election polls had painted him as the clear underdog.“This is a huge victory for Dems in a bellwether, Biden +1.5 district,” according to Dave Wasserman, the doyen of congressional-race watchers, with the key words being “huge” and “bellwether”. Said differently, Republican efforts to convert the contest into a referendum on the Democrats and inflation failed.On the campaign trail Ryan made abortion a central issue. “Choice is [on] the ballot, but we won’t go back,” he posted to Facebook hours before the polls opened. “Freedom is under attack, but it’s ours to defend.”Usually, midterms spell disaster for the “in” party that controls the White House. From the looks of things, 2022 may be different.There is a clear backlash against the US supreme court’s evisceration of the rights to privacy and personal autonomy. At the same time, nonstop reports of Trump’s mishandling of top-secret documents, and possible obstruction of justice charges against the 45th president, cloud his party’s future.The end of Roe v Wade is not the blessing Republicans had assumed it would be. Looking back, the defeat of Kansas’s anti-abortion referendum was not a one-off event.For the court’s majority, it appears that being “right” was more important than being smart. Ginni Thomas’s husband and four of his colleagues could have upheld Mississippi’s abortion law without demolishing a half-century of precedent.Chief Justice Robert’s concurrence made that reality crystal clear. Yet around the country, Republican candidates still appear hellbent on doubling-down.Tudor Dixon, Michigan’s Republican candidate for governor, spoke of the upside of a 14-year-old rape victim carrying the child to term. “The bond that those two people made and the fact that out of that tragedy there was healing through that baby, it’s something that we don’t think about,” Dixon told an interviewer.Meanwhile, in Florida, an appellate court affirmed a lower court’s order that barred a parentless 16-year-old from ending her pregnancy. The unnamed mother-to-be had failed to demonstrate that she was “sufficiently mature to decide whether to terminate her pregnancy”.On the other hand, the learned judges and the Republican state legislature believed her to be sufficiently adult to deliver and raise a child.And then there is Texas. Later this week, physicians who perform abortions stand to face life in prison and fines of at least $100,000. Under Texas’s current law, abortions are banned after six weeks, and the state’s statute contains no exceptions for rape or incest.Heading into the fall, Democrats will also be bolstered by Joe Biden’s slowly rising approval numbers, tamer inflation figures, and the emergence of democracy’s precarity as a campaign issue. According to a recent NBC poll, the threat to US democracy has overtaken the cost of living as the No 1 issue for voters.Or, in the words of Congressman-elect Ryan, “Our democracy is fragile, but we will fight for it.”Adding to Republican woes is the poor performance of Trump-endorsed Senate candidates in pre-election trial heats. In Arizona, Pennsylvania and Georgia, they all lag.By the numbers, forecasters give the Democrats better than a three-in-five chance of continuing to control the upper chamber and leaving their imprimatur on Biden judicial nominations. These days, even Senator Mitch McConnell concedes that the odds of him again becoming majority leader are iffy: “Flipping the Senate … It’s a 50/50 proposition … I think the outcome is likely to be very, very close either way.”He also reminded Republicans that running for Senate is not the same thing as running for a House seat albeit with a louder and larger microphone. “Senate races are statewide,” McConnell observed. “They’re just different in nature from individual congressional districts.”Apparently, Senator Rick Scott, the chairman of the Republican National Senatorial Committee, has not yet noticed. First, he burned-through a pile of campaign cash. Now, he has been spotted vacationing on a luxury yacht off the coast of Italy while Americans struggle.On Monday, Scott tweeted: “Another week of President Biden vacationing in Delaware vs. working at the White House.” Cluelessness is not just the province of Justices Alito, Thomas and Kavanaugh.
      Lloyd Green served in the Department of Justice from 1990 to 1992
      TopicsDemocratsOpinionRepublicansUS politicsUS CongressRoe v WadeAbortionNew YorkcommentReuse this content More

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      Takeaways From Tuesday’s Primaries in Florida and New York

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      From fiercely contested House races in New York to the battle in Florida to take on Gov. Ron DeSantis, pillars of the Democratic establishment prevailed in a series of late-August elections in both states on Tuesday.In the Hudson Valley in New York, another theme emerged: The political power of abortion rights in the post-Roe era.Here are five takeaways.A House race pivots on the issue of abortion.Two months after Roe v. Wade was overturned, the matter of abortion rights is helping Democrats close what had been a devastating enthusiasm gap.That dynamic has been building all summer, but it was on vivid display in a special House election in New York’s Hudson Valley on Tuesday. Pat Ryan, the Democratic nominee and the winner of the contest, made abortion rights a centerpiece of his campaign, infusing the issue into his messaging and yard signs.Mr. Ryan’s victory in a swing district — despite a difficult political environment for the party in power, and a well-known Republican opponent, Marc Molinaro — offers among the clearest signs yet that abortion can be a powerful motivator in congressional elections, even as voters weigh other concerns, including frustration with the White House and anger over inflation.Pat Ryan made abortion rights a centerpiece of his campaign in the Hudson Valley of New York.Richard Beaven for The New York TimesOne Hudson Valley woman, Alea Fanelli, a registered Republican who considers herself an independent, said in late July that she was leaning toward backing Mr. Ryan because of his support for abortion rights. If abortion is outlawed, she said, “then what, we’re back to back rooms, alleys, men kicking us in the stomach?”Republicans cautioned against reading too much into Mr. Ryan’s victory. They noted that independent voters, many of whom are unhappy with President Biden, are unaccustomed to voting on the same day as Primary Day. Strategists in both parties agree that Democrats still face significant headwinds. And a late-August special election is hardly a predictor of outcomes in November.But the race did offer a snapshot of political energy as the final stretch of the midterms arrives. Some voters who once appeared apathetic about the fall campaigns have plainly woken up.New Yorkers feel the power — and pain — of redistricting.When it came to the redistricting process, New York was once the great hope for Democrats: lawmakers had embraced an aggressive reconfiguration of congressional districts that was supposed to position the party to flip multiple House seats.Instead, New York was the scene of Democratic redistricting heartbreak on Tuesday. Multiple incumbent lawmakers were defeated in extraordinarily bitter primaries, the result of a court-ordered redrawing of those maps.Redistricting can often be divisive, but perhaps nowhere has it created more explosive Democratic infighting than in New York, illustrating the power of a seemingly obscure process to upend American politics.Representative Jerry Nadler on Tuesday night in Manhattan after winning his Democratic primary.Hiroko Masuike/The New York TimesTwo giants of Manhattan politics — Representatives Jerry Nadler and Carolyn B. Maloney — were forced to compete against each other in an increasingly vicious and personal battle when the East and West Sides were drawn into a single district for the first time since World War II. Ms. Maloney, the chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform — the first woman to hold that role — was defeated.And Representative Mondaire Jones, one of the first openly gay Black members of Congress, lost on Tuesday after moving from his suburban district to seek a New York City seat following tensions over redistricting.It was a good night for New York’s political establishment.Not long ago, New York was a haven for young insurgent candidates who defeated powerful, well-funded incumbents up and down the ballot.But despite clamoring among some Democratic voters this summer for generational change, and simmering frustrations with Democratic leadership after the overturning of Roe v. Wade, Tuesday was a strong night for the establishment, at least toward the top of the ticket.Representative Sean Patrick Maloney, the incumbent, on election night in Peekskill, N.Y.Lauren Lancaster for The New York TimesIn a newly redrawn New York district that includes parts of Westchester County and the Hudson Valley, Representative Sean Patrick Maloney, 56, who chairs the Democratic House campaign committee, easily dispatched a challenge from State Senator Alessandra Biaggi, 36, who ran to his left.In Manhattan, Suraj Patel, 38, a lawyer, ran an underdog campaign against Ms. Maloney and Mr. Nadler, two septuagenarians who were elected to Congress three decades ago. But his efforts to press a message that it was time for a new generation of leadership fell short against two established leaders. He came in third.And on the Republican side, Nick Langworthy, the chairman of the state party, defeated Carl Paladino, a fixture of New York Republican politics with a long history of making racist, sexist and homophobic remarks. Mr. Paladino had the support of far-right Republicans including Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz.Florida Democrats settle on a former Republican to challenge one of the country’s most pugilistic Republicans.If elections are about choices, Florida’s voters are about to get a true study in contrasts.Representative Charlie Crist won the Democratic nomination to take on Gov. Ron DeSantis on Tuesday, setting up a contest between a Democrat who calls for “unity” and “civility,” and a powerful Republican incumbent who has relished stoking cultural battles, even going to war with Disney, a storied company with deep ties to his state.Some Democrats have argued that, had they nominated a more moderate candidate to run against Mr. DeSantis in 2018 instead of the left-leaning Andrew Gillum, they could have eked out a victory. The centrist Mr. Crist, a former Republican and independent, will test that theory as he wages an uphill battle against the well-funded governor, who is now in a far stronger political position than he was four years ago, with a huge national platform.Representative Charlie Crist in St. Petersburg, Fla., on Tuesday night after winning the Democratic primary for governor.Zack Wittman for The New York TimesBut in nominating Mr. Crist by an overwhelming margin, Florida Democrats are betting on a contender they hope can engage at least some independent and moderate Republican voters uncomfortable with Mr. DeSantis’s hard-right postures.Florida’s Senate matchup was also set on Tuesday: Representative Val B. Demings of Orlando easily won the Democratic nomination to face off against Senator Marco Rubio, a Republican.Gen Z is poised to go to Washington.Maxwell Alejandro Frost, 25, a progressive activist, has some Democrats already talking him up as the future of the party.Mr. Frost, who is Afro-Cuban, won a House primary in Florida on Tuesday, defeating two former members of Congress in a crowded field, a difficult feat for any first-time candidate but especially for a political newcomer.Maxwell Alejandro Frost at a rally in Orlando, Fla., in 2021. Now 25, he won his Democratic primary on Tuesday in a heavily Democratic district, which makes him favored to be headed to Congress in January. Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel via Reuters ConnectMr. Frost illustrates the political appeal of a young candidate of color who can tap into the urgency of the political moment. He drew a range of notable national endorsements and could be the first member of Generation Z to serve in Congress if he wins the heavily Democratic seat in November, as expected. He has been especially focused on organizing to combat gun violence.“This is something that my generation has had to face head-on: being scared to go to school, being scared to go to church, being scared to be in your community,” he said in an interview, referring to mass shootings. “That gives me a sense of urgency, because this is something I live day to day.”Maggie Astor More

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      Partial Recount in Kansas Affirms Vote on Abortion Rights

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      A hand recount in nine Kansas counties affirmed the overwhelming rejection of an anti-abortion constitutional amendment by the state’s voters on Aug. 2.The recounted results differed from the initially reported results by fewer than 65 votes out of more than 556,000 cast in those counties, an error rate of about 0.01 percent.“As we expected, the recount again confirmed the Aug. 2 landslide victory for freedom,” said Ashley All, a spokeswoman for Kansans for Constitutional Freedom, the main group that opposed the amendment. “Kansans across the political spectrum voted to protect the constitutional rights of women to make private medical decisions about abortion.”The recount was requested by Melissa Leavitt, a Kansas resident, and its more than $100,000 cost was funded in large part by Mark S. Gietzen, an anti-abortion activist who is the chairman of the Kansas Coalition for Life.An email sent to an address associated with Ms. Leavitt was not returned. Reached for comment on Monday, Mr. Gietzen continued to suggest that the vote counts were wrong, but said he did not have time to share details or evidence on a phone call because he was busy writing a lawsuit that he planned to file later in the day.The original results reported in the nine counties showed 365,568 votes against the amendment and 190,847 votes for it. The recounts showed 365,511 votes against the amendment (57 fewer than originally reported) and 190,853 for it (six more than originally reported). Such small discrepancies can be caused by a number of factors, including unclear marking of ballots.The recount “proves once and for all that there is no systemic election fraud in our state’s election process,” the Kansas secretary of state, Scott Schwab, a Republican, said in a statement. “Kansans should be confident that these results put to rest the unfounded claims of election fraud in our state and know that our elections are secure and that their vote counted.”Statewide, the amendment lost by more than 160,000 votes. Typically, recounts in statewide races result in shifts of a few hundred votes at most.The nine Kansas counties that were required to perform recounts account for more than half of the ballots cast statewide in the amendment vote. They are Johnson County, which includes Kansas City suburbs and is the state’s largest; Sedgwick County, which includes Wichita; Shawnee County, which includes the capital, Topeka; Douglas County, which includes Lawrence, home to the University of Kansas’ flagship campus; and Crawford, Harvey, Jefferson, Lyon and Thomas Counties. More

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      ‘The world flipped upside down’: Will end of Roe galvanize Democrats’ base in midterms?

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      ‘The world flipped upside down’: Will end of Roe galvanize Democrats’ base in midterms? Democrats believe that signs of a brewing backlash after the loss of reproduction choice will reshape the battle for control of Congress and and statehouses this fallFor years, Democrats warned that abortion rights were under grave threat. Across the US, antiabortion activists in red states chipped away at access and pushed for conservative judges to secure their gains. Yet for many Americans, the prospect of losing the constitutional right to abortion that had existed since 1973 remained worrying but remote.That all changed in June, when in Dobbs v Jackson, the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade, the 49-year-old ruling which had established the right.Since then, bans have taken effect in at least 10 states. Republicans are rushing ahead with new restrictions and stirring fears that other rights, including same-sex marriage and access to contraception, could be vulnerable too.And yet, from rural Minnesota to ruby red Kansas and a conservative corner of Nebraska, there are signs of a brewing backlash that Democrats believe will reshape the battle for control of Congress and statehouses this fall.Republicans are “the dog that caught the bus”, said Cecile Richards, a former head of Planned Parenthood. “This is what they’ve been wanting for years. Now they own it.”White House officials, Democratic candidates and party strategists say the loss of reproductive choice has not only galvanized their once-disillusioned base but is strengthening Democrats’ appeal among independent and Republican-leaning women in suburbs who were key to the party’s recent victories.The landslide vote to protect abortion rights in conservative Kansas earlier this month further emboldened Democrats – and emphasized that Republicans risk overreaching on one of the most emotionally charged issues in American life.“The world just completely flipped upside down after the Dobbs decision,” said Richards, now co-chair at American Bridge 21st Century, a liberal super Pac. “We’re no longer defending a right. We now actually have to fight to get a right back.”‘A top-tier issue’Republicans doubt abortion will be a decisive factor in a midterm election shaped by anxiety over high gas prices and inflation and an unpopular Democratic president.“Every public and private poll shows inflation and the economy are the top issues headed into the midterms,” said Mike Berg, a spokesman for the Republican National Congressional Committee. “Democrats are desperate to talk about anything else because they have a disastrous record on both of those issues.”But Democrats are forging ahead, lashing Republicans over their uncompromising stances and sometimes bizarre rhetoric on abortion.Underscoring their confidence in the salience of abortion this election cycle, Democrats are spending heavily on television ads on the subject. One particularly searing ad from Stacey Abrams, the nominee for governor in Georgia, features a somber montage of women warning that women could be “criminalized” for seeking abortions if Brian Kemp, the Republican governor, is re-elected.“The only way to stop this attack on the women of Georgia,” the women say, “is to stop Brian Kemp.”Many of their ads aim to use Republicans’ words against them, as part of a broader effort by Democrats to cast the GOP as too extreme.In Michigan, where voters may decide to enshrine abortion protections in the state constitution in November, the Democratic Governors Association launched an ad attacking the Republican nominee, Tudor Dixon, over her opposition to abortion, without exception for rape or incest.In a similar vein, an ad from the the Democratic nominee for governor in Pennsylvania, Josh Shapiro, features his far-right opponent, Doug Mastriano, saying “I don’t give a way for exceptions”, including when the life of the mother is at risk. Polling has shown that most Americans support at least some abortion rights. According to the Pew Research Center, around 60% say abortion should be legal in all or most cases while just 8% say it should be illegal with no exceptions.The aggressive messaging from Democrats is a reminder of how rapidly the politics of abortion have shifted.Molly Murphy, a Democratic pollster and strategist who has studied public opinion on abortion, said: “Six months ago, if you asked voters, ‘What’s the top priority that you want elected leaders to focus on,’ abortion might get 3%, 4%, 5% at most. Now it really is a top-tier issue, only behind inflation and the economy.”Murphy said anti-abortion’s resounding defeat in the Kansas referendum showed voters were motivated by the opportunity “to stop something bad from happening”. To channel that fury, she said, Democrats must convince voters Republicans are not just opposed to abortion but a threat to it.Some Democrats are adopting Republican language about government overreach on issues like masking to accuse their opponents of infringing on individual rights and freedoms when it comes to women’s reproductive health. It is all part of a broader strategy to cast Republicans as extremists determined to strip Americans of a right they have come to rely.The pitch is similar to Democrats’ messaging in 2018, when they stormed to victory in the House after lashing Republicans over attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act, said Camille Rivera, a Democratic strategist.“As we learned with Obamacare, once you have a right, you don’t want really don’t want that right taken away,” she said.Another key question for this November is just how much abortion rights will resonate among independent women in battleground suburbs who have deep concerns about the economy. Sarah Longwell, a moderate Republican strategist, said abortion was usually not the first issue raised in focus groups with swing voters. But when prompted, the discussion around abortion often became personal.“The thing that happens when you start talking to a group of women about abortion is they immediately start telling stories about complications and the things that can go wrong during a pregnancy,” she said in a recent interview.What is clear, Longwell said, is that women, even those who call themselves “pro-life”, are “deeply uncomfortable with the idea of getting between women and their doctors on decisions that could put their lives at risk”.‘We are living it’Republicans are largely shying away from the issue on the campaign trail. With total bans proving deeply unpopular, some candidates are softening their rhetoric, emphasizing support for exceptions and for the health and well-being of women. In Nevada, a battleground state, the Republican candidate for Senate, Adam Laxalt, has argued that his personal opposition to abortion would not change protections already in place.“My views have not shifted the policy in Nevada, nor has the ruling in the Dobbs case,” Laxalt wrote earlier this month. “Voters in 1990 determined that Nevada is and will remain a pro-choice state.”But the issue is hard to ignore. Harrowing stories have spread. A 10-year-old girl who was raped had to travel from Ohio to Indiana to get an abortion. Weeks later, Indiana became the first state in the post-Roe era to adopt a near-total ban. This week, a judge in Florida told a 16-year-old she was not “not sufficiently mature” to decide whether to have an abortion.“We are no longer speaking about this as a hypothetical,” Murphy said. “We are living it.”Among Kansans who registered to vote in the wake of the Dobbs ruling, Democrats held an eight-point advantage, according to data from TargetSmart. Among those newly registered voters, 70% were women.Elsewhere, in a pair of post-Roe special House elections, Democrats outperformed expectations, boosted by strong turnout in suburban areas.In Minnesota’s first district, the Democrat lost by just four points. Donald Trump won there by more than 10 in 2020. The trend was more pronounced in a June election in Nebraska’s first district. Two years ago, Trump won there by nearly 15 points. This year, the Republican won by six.Analysts caution against drawing firm conclusions from such a small sampling. Republicans only need to win a handful of seats to gain control of the House, as they are favored to do, while the 50-50 Senate remains agenuine toss-up.A special election in New York on Tuesday may offer more clues. In the most competitive House race since Roe fell, the Democrat, Pat Ryan, has made abortion central to his campaign. The Republican, Marc Molinaro, has focused on the economy and inflation.Urging New Yorkers to vote, Ryan said “choice” and “freedom” were both “on the ballot”.TopicsUS midterm elections 2022Roe v WadeUS politicsAbortionHealthDemocratsfeaturesReuse this content More

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      Walmart expands abortion coverage for employees after Roe overturned

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      Walmart expands abortion coverage for employees after Roe overturnedMemo to staff says that new healthcare policy will also offer ‘travel support’ for workers seeking abortions The US’s largest private employer, Walmart, is expanding its abortion coverage for employees after staying largely mum on the issue following the supreme court ruling that in June scrapped a nationwide right to abortion.In a memo sent to employees Friday, the retail giant said its healthcare plans will cover abortion for employees “when there is a health risk to the mother, rape or incest, ectopic pregnancy, miscarriage or lack of fetal viability”. The plans will be “effective immediately”, the memo added.The company’s benefits plan had previously covered abortion only in cases “when the health of the mother would be in danger if the fetus were carried to term, the fetus could not survive the birthing process, or death would be imminent after birth”, according to a copy of the policy viewed by the Associated Press but not confirmed by Walmart.Walmart’s chief people officer, Donna Morris, said in the memo to staff that the new policy will also offer “travel support” for workers seeking abortions covered under its healthcare plans – as well as their dependents – so they can access services that are not available within 100 miles of their locations.“Given how recent events are resulting in state-by-state healthcare environments, we will expand our travel coverage,” the memo said.Walmart employs nearly 1.6 million people in the US. The company is headquartered in Arkansas, where abortion is banned under all circumstances unless the procedure is needed to protect the life of the mother in a medical emergency. There are no exceptions for rape or incest.That means under the revised policy, Walmart employees can travel out of the state – or any other state that bans abortion for rape and incest – to obtain the procedure through the retailer’s health plans.According to the memo, which CNN also reviewed, Morris said that Walmart decided to make the changes after “listening to our associates about what’s important to them”, adding that “we strive to provide quality, competitive and accessible health coverage that supports you and your families”.The company said it will also launch a center that provides employees fertility services, including in vitro fertilization. Additionally, it vowed to add surrogacy support and increase its financial aid for adoptions from $5,000 to $20,000. In June, Walmart said it would expand its offering of doulas – or people who assist women during pregnancies – to address racial disparities in maternal care.Some other large companies – including Meta, American Express and Bank of America – have said they will cover travel costs for their employees in the aftermath of the high court ruling that tossed out the federal abortion rights established by the landmark decision in the 1973 case titled Roe v Wade, including elective abortions. But a Walmart spokesperson did not immediately reply for a request for comment on whether any of the company’s revised policy will cover elective abortions as well.“It’s a step in the right direction, but it’s simply not far enough for a company that employs that many women,” said Bianca Agustin, director of the corporate accountability program for United for Respect, a group that advocates for Walmart workers. She said the organization will be incorporating “safe abortions” for employees in their list of demands pressing the company for better pay and benefits.TopicsWalmartAbortionUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      The Florida Primary for Governor is Mostly About Ron DeSantis

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      Democrats would love to defeat Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida in November. But first they must nominate a challenger who can win in a state where they seem to perpetually fall short.HOLLYWOOD, Fla. — On the first day of early voting in Broward County, Florida’s Democratic mecca, Jared Brown, a 41-year-old lawyer who until recently had never attended a Democratic Party meeting, drove to the polls in suburban Hollywood, slipped on a party T-shirt and grabbed a clipboard to go knock on voters’ doors.He was motivated by anger.Anger at Republicans in general — for appointing conservative judges, redirecting money from public schools and governing in a way that struck him as “authoritarian” — and anger at one Republican in particular: Gov. Ron DeSantis, whose polarizing persona has come to suck up all of the state’s political oxygen.“It’s too offensive,” Mr. Brown said of the culture wars stoked by the governor and state lawmakers. “If you don’t fight them now,” he added, “it’s just not going to get any better.”Going into Tuesday’s primary election, Florida Democrats like Mr. Brown are angry, especially at the ascendant Mr. DeSantis and the way he seems to them to act like someone who already has his eye on the White House. But it is not clear that in the choices they have to challenge him — Representative Charlie Crist, who served as governor from 2007 to 2011, and Nikki Fried, the state’s agriculture commissioner — they have someone who can beat him.“DeSantis is running for president,” said Ann Ralston, 69, as she prepared for a long, sweaty day volunteering for no fewer than seven down-ballot Democratic candidates, whose logos she had pinned on her clothes, turning herself into a human billboard. “It’s a foregone conclusion,” she said.Representative Charlie Crist, who served as Florida governor from 2007 to 2011, greeted people at Mo’s Bagels & Deli in Aventura this month.Saul Martinez for The New York TimesMs. Fried and Mr. Crist have each cast themselves as the more viable alternative and the truer Democrat, but each is defined as much by their perceived limitations as their strengths: Mr. Crist for already losing two statewide races since being elected governor, and Ms. Fried for her short time in public life.To win, Democrats are fighting history as well as themselves. After four election cycles of close losses, the national donors whom they need to help finance expensive statewide campaigns appear unengaged this time. So do some voters.“It’s an emotional narrative about Florida,” said Andrea Cristina Mercado, the executive director of Florida Rising, a racial justice organization. “‘Florida has broken my heart too many times.’”Money usually flows into the state after the primary. But this year, she worries that Florida is not even on some donors’ radar.More Coverage of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsLiz Cheney’s Lopsided Loss: The Republican congresswoman’s defeat in Wyoming exposed the degree to which former President Donald J. Trump still controls the party’s present — and its near future.2024 Hint: Hours after her loss, Ms. Cheney acknowledged that she was “thinking” about a White House bid. But her mission to thwart Donald J. Trump presents challenges.The ‘Impeachment 10’: With Ms. Cheney’s defeat, only two of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Mr. Trump remain.Alaska Races: Senator Lisa Murkowski and Sarah Palin appeared to be on divergent paths following contests that offered a glimpse at the state’s independent streak.“The right wing says every chance they can that ‘Florida is red, Florida is red,’ and it seems that Democrats are buying into that,” she said, noting that people who live in the state know it feels more closely divided than it looks.“We don’t want DeSantis to just walk into the White House,” she added. “We’re trying to do what needs to be done with Scotch tape and paper clips.”Whether Democrats nominate the more disciplined happy warrior Mr. Crist or the more unpredictable, feisty Ms. Fried might matter less than the state party’s longstanding problems. The failings have been clear for years — a thin candidate bench, weak party infrastructure, undisciplined messaging, mounting losses with Latinos — but leaders have struggled with how to address them. Last year, the number of active voters registered as Republicans surpassed Democrats for the first time in history, and the G.O.P. edge has only continued to grow.Nikki Fried, Florida’s agriculture commissioner, is the only Democrat elected to statewide office since 2018.Saul Martinez for The New York TimesManny Diaz, the executive director of the Florida Democratic Party, said in an interview that since taking over in 2021, he had built an internal voter database, trained volunteers and created a detailed county-level campaign plan. Michael R. Bloomberg, the former New York mayor, who is friendly with Mr. Diaz, recently gave the party $1 million, which is far less than the tens of millions Mr. Bloomberg spent in Florida two years ago.“I’m confident that we will get funding,” Mr. Diaz said.In 2018, Mr. DeSantis defeated Andrew Gillum, who would have become Florida’s first Black governor, by about 32,000 votes — less than half a percentage point — making the state a rare bright spot for Republicans. Some Democrats concluded that they would have won with a more moderate candidate, a hypothesis that Mr. Crist would now test. Others insisted that they only came as close as they did because of the excitement surrounding Mr. Gillum. Ms. Fried would be Florida’s first female governor.For now, Democrats’ most buzzy statewide candidate is Val B. Demings, the Orlando congresswoman challenging Senator Marco Rubio, a Republican. Ms. Demings and Mr. Rubio have already attacked each other in ads, and recent Democratic polls have shown the race to be close, though Mr. Rubio is still considered the favorite. More

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      Stacey Abrams’ Personal Evolution on Abortion Rights

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      The Georgia Democrat, a child of Methodist preachers, once identified as an abortion foe. Now, she is putting her defense of abortion rights — and the story of her conversion — at the center of her campaign for governor.DUBLIN, Ga. — On the day that a leaked draft opinion suggested the Supreme Court was poised to overturn Roe v. Wade, Stacey Abrams addressed the abortion rights group Emily’s List and preached about abortion rights with “the zeal of the converted.”Early in her professional career, she opposed abortion rights, she volunteered, adding that as a teenager she had criticized a friend who considered having an abortion.“I was wrong,” she said. “But I’ve worked hard to make myself right.”Ms. Abrams is among scores of Democrats pushing their defense of abortion rights to the center of their midterm campaigns, hoping anger over the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade will energize the Democratic base and push fence-sitting moderates into her corner. But she is the rare Democrat eager to acknowledge that she didn’t always support abortion rights.The daughter of Methodist ministers living in the Deep South, Ms. Abrams grew up believing abortion was morally wrong. Conversations with other women, a friend’s deliberations over having an abortion and her own political ambitions led her to rethink her stance, she says.Ms. Abrams’ personal approach to talking about abortion is new for the longtime Georgia politician. She did not emphasize her shift when she first ran for governor in 2018. But today, Ms. Abrams says she uses the story to connect with voters who may personally oppose abortion but, perhaps for the first time, are confronting the reality of new government restrictions. In Georgia, most abortions are now banned after six weeks of pregnancy, based on a law signed by Ms. Abrams’ Republican rival, Gov. Brian Kemp.Talking about her own story is “giving them permission to say that choice should exist,” Ms. Abrams said in an interview.“I want people to understand that I know where they’re coming from,” Ms. Abrams said. “But it also creates the opportunity for people to tell you where they stand, as well.”Ms. Abrams’ strategy is something of a throwback. For decades, Democrats treaded carefully when talking about abortion, often assuming voters were disapproving and uncomfortable with the procedure, even if they supported the rights protected by Roe v. Wade. For years, Democratic leaders, starting with Bill Clinton in 1992, declared that their goal was to make abortion “safe, legal and rare,” in an attempt to unite voters with a broad range of views on the issue.For some Democrats, the phrase became emblematic of the party’s willingness to cede ground to abortion rights opponents and attach shame to the procedures. And in the wake of the court’s decision this summer, some are again criticizing the party for using messaging that lets abortion foes frame the debate.“I don’t think that Democrats as a whole — as a party — have talked enough about this issue,” said Renitta Shannon, a Georgia state representative, who did not specifically criticize Ms. Abrams. “All this time, we’ve been relying on the opinion of the court to hold intact people’s reproductive freedom, and that is not a good strategy.”Ms. Abrams has clear reasons for trying to use the issue to cast as wide a net as possible. After voters in conservative Kansas overwhelmingly voted to guard abortion protections, Democrats across the country are hoping the issue shifts momentum in their direction during a year when other political forces — ongoing economic anxiety and President Joe Biden’s weak approval ratings — are working against them.Abortion rights demonstrators outside the Georgia State Capitol in Atlanta shortly after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June.Kendrick Brinson for The New York TimesNearly 55 percent of voters in Georgia oppose the Supreme Court’s ruling reversing Roe v. Wade, according to an Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll released last month.That poll also showed Ms. Abrams trailing Mr. Kemp by five points and, notably, losing ground with Black voters in the state. More

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      Group Seeks to Block Abortion Vote in Michigan, Citing Typography

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      Conservative groups in Michigan filed challenges this week to efforts to put two constitutional amendments on the ballot in November, one that would guarantee abortion rights and the other that would expand voting access.The challenge to the abortion amendment was based on a lack of spacing between words, which gave some words the appearance of running together. They characterized the typographical errors as “gibberish,” and “incomprehensible argle-bargle.”One group argued that the Michigan Board of State Canvassers should reject the petition to put that amendment to voters, while a second group took issue with the voting petition, saying it failed to identify every current constitutional provision the amendment would override.The board of canvassers will meet on Aug. 31 to decide whether to certify the petitions.The challenge to the abortion measure comes less than three weeks after voters in Kansas overwhelmingly rejected a constitutional amendment that would have let state legislators ban or severely restrict abortion. That vote underscored abortion rights as a salient issue capable of driving voters to the polls after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, and it raised advocates’ hopes that Michiganders would vote similarly.Supporters of the petition for the Michigan abortion amendment said they had submitted more than 730,000 signatures, surpassing the roughly 425,000 required, though the board of canvassers needs to verify them.Read More on Abortion Issues in AmericaAn Uneasy Champion: President Biden, a practicing Catholic, is being called to lead a fight for abortion rights that he has sidestepped for decades. Advocates wonder if he’s up to the task.Safe Havens: After Roe, conservatives are seeking to expand ways that allow women to give up newborns, such as baby drop boxes. But for many experts in adoption and women’s health, they are hardly a solution.In Mississippi: The state that spurred the overturning of abortion rights, is among 17 that have rejected an option to extend new mothers’ Medicaid coverage.A Rare Prosecution: A teenager used pills to terminate her pregnancy at home with the aid of her mother. Their Facebook messages are now key evidence in a rare prosecution over abortion.Darci McConnell, a spokeswoman for Reproductive Freedom for All, the group promoting the abortion amendment, said that the organization was “confident that we’re in compliance with all legal requirements for ballot proposals” and that hundreds of thousands of voters had “read, understood and signed the petition in support of reproductive freedom for all.”The petition includes the text of the proposed amendment, which would ensure abortion rights broadly until fetal viability and in cases where “the life or physical or mental health of the pregnant individual” was in danger after viability. On some lines, the text is squeezed tightly. In a 152-page challenge, Citizens to Support MI Women and Children, a group that opposes the amendment, argued that the lack of spacing was unacceptable.For instance, in a section that reads, “Every individual has a fundamental right to reproductive freedom, which entails the right to make and effectuate decisions about all matters relating to pregnancy,” the challengers said the formatting created “nonexistent words” such as “decisionsaboutallmattersrelatingtopregnancy.”They described this and other examples as “nonsensical groupings of letters that are found in no dictionary and are incapable of having any meaning.”The text at issue in a Reproductive Freedom for All petition.State of Michigan“Because the petition fails to use actual words in the full text in its proposed amendment, how can the people know what they are voting for or against?” it said, adding that even if the board of canvassers concluded that these were merely typos, Michigan law did not allow supporters of the amendment to fix such errors at this point in the process. Citizens to Support MI Women and Children directed a request for comment to Genevieve Marnon, the legislative director for Right to Life of Michigan, an anti-abortion group. Ms. Marnon, who filed an affidavit in support of the challenge, said that petitions were “routinely disqualified for technical errors,” saying that state officials had rejected signatures on a 2019 anti-abortion proposal “for small tears in the petition and for return address stickers’ covering a few words of the ‘essential elements’ of the petition.” (Signatures for that campaign, which extended into 2020, were also challenged on substantive grounds, including claims that some were duplicates.)Ms. Marnon attached to her email a mocking word-search puzzle whose answer list consisted of words from the petition — all of them separated in the correct places.Reproductive Freedom for All will file a formal rebuttal by Tuesday, according to Mark Brewer, a lawyer working with the group, who called the complaint a “frivolous Hail Mary challenge.” After that, he said, nonpartisan staff in the Michigan secretary of state’s office will make a recommendation to the board of canvassers on whether the challenge should be upheld.If the board of canvassers — two Democrats and two Republicans — deadlocks at its meeting on Aug. 31, the next step will be the courts. Under the Michigan Constitution, amendments for the November ballot must be finalized by Sept. 9.The challenge to the voting rights amendment was filed on behalf of a group called Defend Your Vote. The proposal it objected to would amend the Michigan Constitution to, among other things, require nine days of early in-person voting and expand access to absentee ballots. It would also bar any law or conduct that “has the intent or effect of denying, abridging, interfering with or unreasonably burdening the fundamental right to vote.”Supporters said they had submitted about 670,000 signatures.In their challenge, lawyers for Defend Your Vote argued that the amendment petition did not specify all of the current constitutional provisions it would modify.One provision they said was improperly omitted designates the “first Tuesday after the first Monday of November” as Election Day. By mandating an early-voting period, the challengers argued, the amendment would render that provision “inoperative.”Micheal Davis Jr., the executive director of Promote the Vote, the group supporting the voting amendment, called the complaint “bogus, baseless and meritless.”The challenge to the voting amendment will be adjudicated through the same process as the challenge to the abortion amendment. A spokeswoman for Promote the Vote said the group had not filed its formal rebuttal yet. More