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      How Kari Lake Went From News Anchor to Outspoken Critic of the Press

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      Former friends and colleagues of Ms. Lake, the Republican nominee for governor, say they remember her far differently from the candidate they see today.One longtime former co-worker in the television news business recalled that Kari Lake detested guns and practiced Buddhism. Another former local news anchor, Stephanie Angelo, who did not work with Ms. Lake but later became close friends with her, described Ms. Lake back then as “a free spirit” and “liberal to the core.”“Her saying that abortion should be illegal — absolutely not,” Ms. Angelo said. “The Kari I knew would never have said that, and she wouldn’t have believed it either.”But in her run for governor of Arizona, Ms. Lake — a former local Fox News anchor — has refashioned herself as a protégé of Donald Trump and a die-hard Christian conservative who wields her media expertise as a weapon and has turned her former industry into a foil. In her closing pitch to voters ahead of the election on Tuesday, Ms. Lake, 53, has been campaigning against the press as much as she has against Katie Hobbs, her Democratic rival, riling up audiences against reporters in attendance, whom she calls the “fake news,” and pledging to become the media’s “worst nightmare” if elected.It’s a far cry from the person many journalists she worked with remember.Seven of Ms. Lake’s former colleagues at the local Fox station in Phoenix, where she read the news for more than two decades, and two others who consider themselves her former friends said Ms. Lake had once expressed more liberal views on subjects including guns, drag queens and undocumented immigrants. They said she used to admire Barack and Michelle Obama, and pointed out that she had donated to Mr. Obama’s presidential campaign. Some requested anonymity because they did not have permission to speak to the press or feared retaliation from Ms. Lake or her supporters.During a campaign stop with veterans in Scottsdale, Ariz., on Wednesday, she called reporters “monsters” and said, “Let’s defund the press.” In another rally on Thursday night in Phoenix, she lashed out at “the media” more times than she mentioned Ms. Hobbs.The attacks on her former industry exploit trends that, in recent years, have shown stark declines in Americans’ trust in television and newspapers — and that, most recently, amid bitter partisan fights over local school boards and pandemic restrictions, have even captured increasing charges of bias against local news, long seen as one of the most trusted sources of information.Many supporters first got to know Ms. Lake as a local television anchor before she decided to run for governor. Rebecca Noble for The New York TimesMs. Lake has adapted many of the skills she learned in television to her campaign for governor. Rebecca Noble for The New York TimesThey are also part of an old playbook: Mr. Trump, a former reality television star, criticized networks over their ratings and media coverage he disliked throughout his time in the White House and his presidential campaigns. At his recent rallies, he still takes time to denounce news stories and the reporters in attendance. Republicans’ trust in traditional media continues to drop, with many preferring to rely on a thriving ecosystem of fringe right-wing outlets and partisan fare.At Ms. Lake’s events, some of her loudest applause lines and showers of boos come when she mentions the news industry, even though many of the reporters at her events now increasingly include those from right-wing media who amplify her message. In Scottsdale, many people raised their hands when she asked how many of them consumed little to no “fake news media.” In Phoenix, people cheered and whistled when she expressed indifference toward negative coverage of her campaign. She asked them to look at the reporters set up on risers in the back. “How many of you really don’t care what the big news media says?” she said to applause.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsElection Day is Tuesday, Nov. 8.House Democrats: Several moderates elected in 2018 in conservative-leaning districts are at risk of being swept out. That could cost the Democrats their House majority.A Key Constituency: A caricature of the suburban female voter looms large in American politics. But in battleground regions, many voters don’t fit the stereotype.Crime: In the final stretch of the campaigns, politicians are vowing to crack down on crime. But the offices they are running for generally have little power to make a difference.Abortion: The fall of Roe v. Wade seemed to offer Democrats a way of energizing voters and holding ground. Now, many worry that focusing on abortion won’t be enough to carry them to victory.Her supporters tend not to care or believe that she once leaned liberal. Those who watched her newscast often cannot cite specific stories she worked on, but they do recall her charisma and sharp presentation. They now appreciate her TV-polished and combative style.That includes Jeanine Eyman and her daughter, Joanna, who were waiting in line outside a sports park in Mesa, Ariz., in October to watch Ms. Lake speak at a Trump rally. They said they admired that she was a news insider turned outsider. “To step down when you don’t agree with the politics going on, I think that made a huge statement for what she believes and the person that she is,” Jeanine Eyman said.Reece Peck, a media scholar and the author of “Fox Populism: Branding Conservatism as Working Class,” placed Ms. Lake in an influential class of conservatives that includes former President Ronald Reagan: telegenic Republicans who had no political experience or public ideological core but quickly rose in politics because they came from the media world.Ms. Lake was particularly effective as a candidate, he said, because she emerged from “square and trusty local news.” He added: “She was a student of mass tastes” and could now “speak to audiences on that mass register.”Ms. Lake has declined to respond to multiple requests for interviews or to criticism from her former news colleagues.Before Ms. Lake started her professional journalism career, she interned at the same radio station where Mr. Reagan once worked. She often cites this fact on the trail, along with her admiration for Mr. Reagan, a conservative hero who she said spurred her to register as a Republican as soon as she turned 18.Ms. Lake taking a tour of the U.S.-Mexico border on Friday.Rebecca Noble for The New York TimesBut she often says now that she left her job as a prominent television news anchor in Phoenix in early 2021, in the middle of the pandemic, when she came to believe the media was pushing a “biased” and “immoral” agenda by refusing to cover unproven Covid treatments and by repeating talking points from Dr. Anthony Fauci.She started her campaign for governor with a debut ad that featured her smashing television sets playing newscasts with a sledgehammer. She has since called for the arrest of Mr. Fauci, publicized unproven Covid treatments and fueled Mr. Trump’s lies that the 2020 presidential election was “crooked.”She has criticized drag queens and surgery for transgender people, and she echoes Mr. Trump’s rhetoric against immigrants, promising to finish his border wall and declare an “invasion” on the nation’s southwestern border. She has presented herself as a staunch opponent of abortion and “a lifetime member” of the National Rifle Association. And she has called reporters “the right hand of the Devil.”It is a metamorphosis that has shocked former colleagues and others who knew her.Richard Stevens, who performs as the popular drag queen Barbra Seville, said Ms. Lake used to invite him as a news contributor to comment on L.G.B.T.Q. issues. He recalled watching Ms. Lake argue in defense of undocumented immigrants on air. She often came to his drag shows, he said, and the two became close. He also performed as Ms. Seville at her house, including in front of her children, he said.“Kari is not afraid of drag queens, Kari is not afraid of gay people,” Mr. Stevens said, calling Ms. Lake “an opportunist.” “I have had every reason to believe that she is as liberal as me.”The contradictions have not stopped Ms. Lake’s momentum in what remains a neck-and-neck race. “People know her,” Ms. Angelo, the former local news anchor, said. “They are familiar with her face, with her voice, and they trust her even though her positions now are contrary to everything that she has stood for up until the last year.”Ms. Lake is engaged in a tight race with the Democratic nominee for governor, Katie Hobbs. Rebecca Noble for The New York TimesMs. Lake speaks during a “Latinos for Lake” rally in Tucson in September.Rebecca Noble for The New York TimesBrenda Roberts, 67, a retired legal secretary who was in the audience at the Phoenix rally, said she was initially skeptical of Ms. Lake but came around because the candidate seemed to believe in what she said. “She expresses what we’re all feeling — we’re really upset about the border,” Ms. Roberts said. “We’re upset about inflation. We’re really upset about the way that Biden has destroyed the economy.”Part of Ms. Lake’s rise has had to do with how she has applied the Trump media playbook, sometimes with her own touches. Some of her campaign videos resemble movie trailers and are embellished with cinematic sound effects. Her husband, Jeff Halperin, an independent videographer, often films her events and interactions with the press. She has also been quick to call impromptu news conferences seemingly timed for the early-evening newscast.Ms. Lake assembled one of those gaggles last month after a man was arrested in connection with a burglary at Ms. Hobbs’s campaign headquarters. Pointing to a large placard with a photo of someone in a chicken suit, Ms. Lake joked that a person had been caught rummaging through her campaign headquarters and that she had evidence to believe it was Ms. Hobbs herself — a jab at Ms. Hobbs, as well as reporters, whom she claimed were suggesting the Lake campaign bore responsibility for the Hobbs campaign burglary.“You love to smear Republicans,” Ms. Lake told reporters.In a statement responding to Ms. Lake’s news conference, Sarah Robinson, a spokeswoman for the Hobbs campaign, doubled down on Ms. Hobbs’s earlier remarks charging Ms. Lake with fanning “the flames of extremism and violence.” Ms. Lake released another video on Thursday again slamming Ms. Hobbs and reporters for the burglary coverage.In the final stretch of the midterms, top Democrats, including Mr. Obama, have made stops in Phoenix urging people not to support Ms. Lake, as they have cast the election as a battle to preserve democracy. “If we hadn’t just elected someone whose main qualification was being on TV, you can see maybe giving it a shot,” Mr. Obama said to laugher from the audience. At her event in Phoenix, Ms. Lake argued she was not in the race for the fortune or fame — “I’ve already had fame — it’s overrated” — but for Arizonans.She lamented the loss of friends over her evolution and told supporters that she had not believed her former television news colleagues would unfairly attack her as they did Mr. Trump. “But I’ll tell you what: The patriotic America-loving friends I’ve gained will make up for any friend that I lost a million times over,” she said, as people broke into another round of cheers.Ms. Lake has adapted the Trump media handbook to her own campaign. Rebecca Noble for The New York Times More

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      The Unruly Heirs of Sarah Palin

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      Whether for her pathbreaking role as the first woman on a Republican presidential ticket or for rapping “Baby Got Back” on the Masked Singer, Sarah Palin has, since her debut on the national scene in 2008, made an art of attracting the spotlight.But fame — even in America — can get you only so far, and Ms. Palin’s campaign this year for Alaska’s only House seat has exposed the limits of her celebrity. Her fund-raising has lagged. Her campaign schedule has been unusually light for a candidate heading into a competitive election. And she announced recently that she’d received “crappy advice” from advisers and was no longer trying to raise money. In an unexpectedly close ranked-choice race, she has had to endure the indignity of encouraging voters to support her Republican opponent, in a last-ditch effort to prevent the Democrat, Mary Peltola, from running away with the seat.Ms. Palin may be about to fade once again from national politics, but the “mama grizzly” brand she invented is here to stay. Already, a group of female leaders is embracing and iterating on Ms. Palin’s trademark mom-knows-best Republicanism. Some are politicians, railing against the powers-that-be; others are activists, speaking out against school closures and vaccine mandates. As these new mama bears enter the political sphere, they are transforming American discourse, harnessing motherhood itself as a political asset, just as Ms. Palin did before them. Even if she loses her battle to make it to Washington next week, in a broader cultural sense, Ms. Palin has already won the war. And a new generation of GOP women stand poised to carry her complex legacy forward.When John McCain chose Ms. Palin as his running mate in 2008, she was in her 40s and had only served less than two years as governor. Her many doubters noted, correctly, that she wasn’t ready for the job of vice president. But their criticisms were often shot through with a condescension and sexism that had less to do with Ms. Palin’s experience than with her looks, clothes and identity as a mother of five.Few female politicians before her had emphasized their lives as mothers to the extent she did. She held her baby onstage right after accepting the nomination, deliberately presenting herself as a down-to-earth “hockey mom” and later on as a protective “mama grizzly.” Ms. Palin’s folksy demeanor was often ridiculed as a gimmick and Ms. Palin herself as an ignoramus. But the course of political events soon proved that she was on to something. The Tea Party wave during Barack Obama’s first term swept Palin imitators like Michele Bachmann and Christine O’Donnell to national prominence, women who were likely to be found in jeans at the gun range, when they weren’t giving a speech in stilettos. Rather than leaving family life at home the way men always had, which a previous generation of women had seen as a necessity to succeed professionally, this new generation saw how womanhood and motherhood added significantly to their brand. By signaling their tenacity in the domestic sphere, they implied their toughness in the political arena. And they increased their populist appeal.Among those who noticed their potential was Donald Trump’s future adviser, Steve Bannon, who made a 2010 documentary called “Fire from the Heartland” glorifying Mrs. Bachmann and other Tea Party women, as well as a 2011 documentary about Ms. Palin herself called “The Undefeated,” framing her femininity and Everywoman image as an unsung asset for the GOP.Of course, Mr. Bannon and the right as a whole eventually found a different champion, and while Mr. Trump left little room for also-rans like Ms. Palin, his time in office helped her particular strain of conservatism mutate and spread — giving rise to a new, Trumpier version of Ms. Palin’s mama grizzly.This new generation’s pugnaciousness makes Ms. Palin’s “Going Rogue” days look subdued. Conservative moms from all over the country have turned local school board meetings into contentious showdowns over policy and curriculum, organized by groups like Moms for Liberty who say they are “on a mission to stoke the fires of liberty.” “We do NOT co-parent with the government,” reads the back of one of the T-shirts for sale in the moms’ online merch store.Shades of Ms. Palin can be seen in Representatives Lauren Boebert of Colorado and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, whose gun-toting photo-ops recall Ms. Palin’s rural, hunting-and-fishing image. But Kari Lake, the hard-right former news anchor running for governor in Arizona, is perhaps the paradigmatic New Mama Bear. One moment, she’s literally vacuuming a red carpet for Mr. Trump; the next, she’s calling her Democratic opponent a coward and the media the “right hand of the Devil.” Ms. Lake shares Ms. Palin’s instinct for the spotlight and feel for optics, as well as her affection for copacetic mama bears (Ms. Lake has often used the term). But while Ms. Palin lost control of her image to a skeptical, often condescending news media (remember the infamous Katie Couric interview in which the candidate couldn’t name any newspapers she read?), the steely, intense Ms. Lake has made a sport of antagonizing the reporters on her trail and excelled at turning the exchanges into content. The rise of the New Mama Bear might not have been possible without the fragmentation of a media now more drawn than ever toward controversy and the outrageous.Ms. Lake, who has a knack for generating outrage, stands a very good chance of winning. And she is far from the only one. In the heated conservative debate over schools, the new mama bears have been racking up some important wins, crashing school meetings to protest critical race theory and banning books with L.G.B.T.Q. themes or other content they deem inappropriate from school libraries. Moms for Liberty has claimed huge growth in membership over the past year and made itself a key player in the education battles that have marked this midterm cycle. Top Republicans have embraced the school controversies, showing just how potent this new paradigm has become on a national scale. Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who gave the keynote speech at Moms for Liberty’s “Joyful Warriors” conference this summer, endorsed several of their school board candidates, and they went on to win their primaries. The effect could be that the new mama bears see their trademark political issues high on the agenda for the 2024 Republican primary.It’s ironic that Ms. Palin, the mother of mama bear politicking, should be an afterthought during a moment so clearly borne of her own trailblazing prime. But that’s often how it goes in politics, where an innovation’s impact is obvious only in hindsight — once someone else has perfected it.Rosie Gray (@RosieGray) is a reporter who has covered politics for BuzzFeed News and The Atlantic.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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      ‘We’re watching you’: incidents of voter intimidation rise as midterm elections near

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      ‘We’re watching you’: incidents of voter intimidation rise as midterm elections nearDrop box watchers, threatening letters and harassment – voters and election officials alike report increase in occurrences In suburban Mesa, Arizona, people staked out an outdoor ballot drop box, taking photos and videos of voters dropping off ballots. Some wore tactical gear or camouflage. Some were visibly armed.‘The Trump playbook’: Republicans hint they will deny election resultsRead moreOthers videotaped voters and election workers at a ballot drop box and central tabulation office in downtown Phoenix. They set up lawn chairs and camped out to keep watch through a fence which had been added around the facility for safety after 2020 election protests.Some voters claim the observers approached or followed them in their vehicles. Other observers hung back, watching and filming from at least 75ft from the drop boxes.In total, the Arizona secretary of state has received more than a dozen complaints from voters about intimidation from drop box watchers, many of which have been forwarded to the US Department of Justice and the Arizona attorney general as of late October, as well as a threat sent to the secretary of state herself. A federal judge issued a temporary restraining order on 1 November to limit the watchers’ activities.These activities have led to calls from Maricopa county officials to “decrease the temperature” of heated rhetoric and actions in advance of Tuesday’s midterm elections. But though Arizona has become a hotbed for these tactics, it is also a sign of the mounting national threats to security that voters are facing as the 8 November elections near – part of an orchestrated countrywide strategy pushed by rightwing groups who believe baseless conspiracy theories that the 2020 presidential election was rife with fraud and irregularities.“I think that this drop box monitoring could very likely take hold in a number of different states,” said Jared Davidson, an attorney with Protect Democracy, a non-profit, non-partisan organization involved in one legal challenge against the drop box watchers. “I certainly hope it doesn’t and I hope that a win in our case will send a strong deterrent effect to folks who are organizing in other places.”‘All of a sudden now, we’re reaching voter intimidation’Drop box watching efforts have been largely coordinated by election deniers belonging to several different groups across the country, usually inspired by the viral movie 2000 Mules, which makes false, debunked claims about so-called “mules” stuffing drop boxes with ballots in a widespread spree of fraudulent voting during the 2020 presidential election. In recent months, drop box watchers spread the word on rightwing-friendly social media platforms like Truth Social and Telegram. One of the groups, Clean Elections USA, intends to send the photos, videos and information it collects to True the Vote, the organization behind 2000 Mules, Votebeat reported.The US attorney general, Merrick Garland, said in recent days that the justice department “has an obligation to guarantee a free and fair vote by everyone who’s qualified to vote and will not permit voters to be intimidated”. The department also filed a “statement of interest” in one of the Arizona drop box lawsuits, saying that the behavior probably violates federal voting rights law.In Michigan, a local offshoot of a group called the America Project is training volunteers to set up hidden cameras to monitor drop boxes and to carry guns in case they encounter criminals while watching the boxes, the Detroit Free Press reported.A pastor in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, told PennLive he had seen increased traffic in his community, where trucks with Maga flags drive through regularly, which he sees as an attempt to intimidate the largely Black community. In response to concerns over such intimidation and efforts by election deniers to recruit and train poll observers and workers, the faith community in Philadelphia is encouraging people to become poll monitors.‘We will be watching’Arizona became a sort of ground zero for drop box watching during early voting in October. Arizona voters extensively use no-excuse mail-in voting, and early voting at the polls and via mail and drop boxes begins 27 days before election day.“There’s nothing in and of itself that’s unlawful to sit and film a drop box – it’s odd behavior in my opinion,” Bill Gates, the Republican chairman of the Maricopa county board of supervisors, said in an interview. “When you have a weapon, and then you have camouflage on, and then you make a statement like ‘I’m out here hunting mules’ – all of a sudden now, we’re reaching voter intimidation.”Rural Yavapai county saw plans for drop box watches in what was dubbed “Operation Drop Box”, organized by the Lions of Liberty, a rightwing group that claims the US has been “hijacked and undermined by global elites, communists, leftists, deep state bureaucrats and fake news”, and the Yavapai County Preparedness Team, which is affiliated with the Oath Keepers extremist group, according to its website. Those groups told their volunteers to “stand down” after they were sued in federal court.But drop box watchers have been encouraged by some rightwing elected officials and candidates who have feigned credulity of false claims of a stolen election. One state lawmaker, the Arizona senator Kelly Townsend, encouraged “vigilantes” to stake out drop boxes (the same lawmaker then said last month that “wearing tactical gear while watching a ballot drop box could be considered voter intimidation”, so people shouldn’t do it). The Republican candidate for Arizona secretary of state, Mark Finchem, tweeted in late October to tell his followers to “WATCH ALL DROP BOXES. PERIOD.” He also urged followers to record voters using them.Voters who have filed complaints against the practice said they felt intimidated and found the drop box watchers’ behavior alarming.“I’m a senior and was very intimidated by his actions,” one complaint about a Phoenix drop box watcher reads.“Camo clad people taking pictures of me, my license plate as I dropped our mail in ballots in the box. When I approached them asking names, group they’re with, they wouldn’t give anything,” another complaint from Phoenix reads.“I felt very intimidated and scared about who was watching me deposit my ballot in the box. A man with a camera was snapping shots of me, my car and my license plate. Definitely without my permission,” yet another reads.The Maricopa county sheriff, Paul Penzone, said that he was increasing security and directing more deputies to monitor the drop box situation in response to claims of voter intimidation. But the presence of uniformed law enforcement can also be a concern for voters who may distrust police, particularly voters of color.On 28 October, federal judge Michael Liburdi ruled against voter advocacy groups in a case brought by the Arizona Alliance for Retired Americans and Voto Latino. Liburdi wrote that, while some voters may be “legitimately alarmed” by the drop box watchers, their activity was protected by the first amendment.But a separate lawsuit from the League of Women Voters of Arizona, represented by the non-profit Protect Democracy, claims the drop box watchers violate the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871. Also before Judge Liburdi, that case prevailed in getting the practice curtailed in several ways that should make watchers’ activities less threatening to voters.Now, because of a temporary restraining order that Judge Liburdi issued, observers affiliated with the Clean Elections USA group cannot take photos or videos of voters within 75ft of a drop box, nor can they post images online implying someone is committing a crime. They now have to be 250ft away from a drop box if they are wearing body armor or carrying guns. Even then, the threat continues.‘How did we get here?’It’s not just the drop box activities that have election workers, voters and activists worried. Across the country, elected officials have been receiving threats from the same groups that are closing in on voters.One email sent to several workers at the Arizona secretary of state’s office, including the secretary of state herself, Katie Hobbs, vulgarly harassed the employees, threatened to find their addresses using local tax records and referred to the French Revolution. Hobbs, the Democratic gubernatorial candidate for governor, has been subjected to threats after 2020, resulting in federal charges for one man who made a death threat against her. Two other local elected officials, the Maricopa county supervisor, Clint Hickman, and county recorder, Stephen Richer, have faced threats that resulted in federal charges this year as well.The chairs of all 15 Arizona county Democratic parties also received unsigned threatening letters, featuring the words “WE ARE WATCHING YOU”. “Retirees with nothing else to do will be filing hundreds of lawsuits, if not more,” the letter said. “They will be locating your homes, your social media profiles and pictures and posting them online as well.”Bonnie Heidler, the chair of the Pima county Democratic party, received the letter at the office’s headquarters and immediately informed the FBI. She wanted the letter on record, in case anything happens. She pointed out that the language of the letter was similar to an 14 October social media post from Finchem directed at Pima county, in which the candidate said: “We will be watching.”The county party’s building is up for sale, and someone called the realtor saying they wanted to buy the building so they could blow it up, Heidler said. The party is discussing ways to improve security, she added.“What Trump did was, he let the genie out of the bottle. And now we can’t get the genie back in. And that’s the problem. He’s given them credence that they’re ‘very fine people’,” Heidler said.Election workers in other states have also faced harassment and threats for doing their jobs. Election officials now routinely receive calls, voicemails, emails and social media posts that range from vitriolic to frightening.A mother and daughter who were election workers in Georgia told the January 6 committee they were threatened and told they should be jailed or killed.The entire election staff in rural Gillespie county, Texas, quit earlier this year, having finally had enough of the onslaught of harassment and false claims after 2020.The threats have left polling places understaffed or with inexperienced staff, as seasoned election workers decide to leave. In some areas, like Akron, Ohio, local officials have put laws in place to increase penalties for people who harass or interfere with election workers.Few Republicans have stood up to stolen election claims, and the ones who have have faced harsh electoral consequences from Trump’s rabid base. The Republican governor, Doug Ducey, who ignored Trump’s phone call while signing off on Arizona’s 2020 results, is not up for re-election, but he has still largely remained quiet. Arizona’s house speaker, Rusty Bowers, who refused to overturn the election results, lost his primary. County elected officials, who have been steadfast in support of the way the county ran the election, have faced endless outrage and threats.“How did we get here?” Gates said. “We got here because there are a few people that have normalized this sort of behavior, and then a bunch of my fellow Republicans who remain silent while that goes on, out of fear of some political ramification.”He doesn’t think the fervor will die down unless other Republicans start calling out those who are undermining democracy.“Literally, the eyes of the world are on Maricopa county,” Gates said. “If we engage in this kooky behavior, that’s not a good image to be providing to the rest of the country and the rest of the world. We’re better than that.”TopicsUS midterm elections 2022US voting rightsArizonaUS politicsPostal votingfeaturesReuse this content More

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      Town That Inspired Debunked Voter Fraud Film Braces for Election Day

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      It was a jumpy, 20-second video clip that touched off a firestorm: During a local primary election two years ago, the former mayor of this farm town of San Luis, Ariz., was filmed handling another voter’s ballot. She appeared to make a few marks, and then sealed it and handed a small stack of ballots to another woman to turn in.That moment outside a polling place in August 2020 thrust this town along the southern border into the center of stolen-election conspiracy theories, as the unlikely inspiration for the debunked voter fraud film “2,000 Mules.”Activists peddling misinformation and supported by former President Donald J. Trump descended on San Luis. The Republican attorney general of Arizona opened an investigation into voting, which is still ongoing. The former mayor, Guillermina Fuentes, was sentenced to 30 days in jail and two years probation for ballot abuse — or what the attorney general called “ballot harvesting” — a felony under Arizona law.Ms. Fuentes is one of four women in San Luis who have now been charged with illegally collecting ballots during the primaries, including the second woman who appears on the video. But there have been no charges of widespread voter fraud in San Luis linked to the presidential election. Liberal voting-rights groups and many San Luis residents say that investigators, prosecutors and election-denying activists have intimidated voters and falsely tied their community to conspiracy theories about rampant, nationwide election fraud. The film “2,000 Mules,” endorsed by Mr. Trump, has helped to keep those claims alive, and is often cited by election-denying candidates across the country.But the episode also unleashed long-simmering and real frustrations in San Luis over political control. Some residents cheered what they call a long-overdue crackdown on local corruption, which they say is a real issue.It has all added up to a sense of division and unease in a close-knit city of roughly 37,000 where Cesar Chavez died, a place built by generations of Mexican farm workers, where lines of migrant workers travel back and forth every day across the border to harvest lettuce and broccoli.“They’re running scared,” Luis Marquez, a retired police officer and school board member, said of voters. “They feel they’re going to get nailed if they do something wrong.”Caitlin O’Hara for The New York TimesThe border wall in San Luis, on Sunday. Lines of migrant workers from this close-knit town travel back and forth every day across the border to harvest lettuce and broccoli.Caitlin O’Hara for The New York TimesNow, many here say they are afraid to cast ballots or help with voting in the midterms, for fear of receiving a visit from investigators, being monitored by activists or running afoul of a relatively new Arizona ballot abuse law that largely prohibits collecting ballots on behalf of voters other than family members or housemates.The practice is legal in more than a dozen states, and often used to help housebound seniors or people in low-income neighborhoods and rural areas vote. Conservative critics have called it a potential source of voter manipulation and fraud, though their allegations of widespread election fraud are unfounded. The terms “mule” or “ballot harvesting” are used to describe the practice of illegally ferrying other voters’ ballots to polls.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsElection Day is Tuesday, Nov. 8.Biden’s Speech: In a prime-time address, President Biden denounced Republicans who deny the legitimacy of elections, warning that the country’s democratic traditions are on the line.State Supreme Court Races: The traditionally overlooked contests have emerged this year as crucial battlefields in the struggle over the course of American democracy.Democrats’ Mounting Anxiety: Top Democratic officials are openly second-guessing their party’s pitch and tactics, saying Democrats have failed to unite around one central message.Social Security and Medicare: Republicans, eyeing a midterms victory, are floating changes to the safety net programs. Democrats have seized on the proposals to galvanize voters.“They’re running scared,” Luis Marquez, a retired police officer and school board member running for re-election in San Luis, said of voters. “They feel they’re going to get nailed if they do something wrong.”As early voting began last month, Attorney General Mark Brnovich announced that two more San Luis residents — one of them a current city councilwoman — had been indicted on charges of ballot abuse during the 2020 primary election. Separately, the Yuma County sheriff is investigating 26 potential voting cases across this county in Southwest Arizona.José Castro, a local Baptist pastor, has been trying to persuade his congregants to go to the polls. Two longtime friends, Tere Varela and Maria Robles, normally visit a senior center during elections to guide Spanish-speaking retirees through the ballots. But they said they were planning to stay away in November.“We don’t want to help,” Ms. Robles said one recent afternoon. “We’re afraid.”“Is that the purpose of this?” Ms. Varela asked. “To keep us from voting?”Members of the Sol Azteca dance company performed on Sunday at a church fund-raising festival at San Judas Tadeo Catholic Church in San Luis.Caitlin O’Hara for The New York TimesA sunset view from San Judas Tadeo Catholic Church on Sunday.Caitlin O’Hara for The New York TimesSan Luis offers a glimpse into the tensions unfurling across this strained democracy as Election Day approaches. So far, more than 33 million early votes have been cast nationwide with few reported problems, but there have also been flashes of volatility: election workers have been threatened, poll watchers have staked out ballot boxes and elected officials are girding for challenges to the legitimacy of the midterm results.Arizona was a flash point in Mr. Trump’s voter fraud claims immediately after the 2020 presidential election, and the scene of a divisive partisan audit of ballots. Crowds of angry, armed Trump supporters gathered nightly outside election offices.Since then, Republican nominees for statewide office have spread falsehoods about election fraud, and several voters have filed complaints saying that they had been filmed and questioned by strangers at ballot drop boxes. The volunteer poll watchers, some masked or armed, described themselves as there for “election security.” Their presence is part of an organized national effort by conservative groups galvanized by lies that the 2020 election was stolen from Mr. Trump.The authorities in the Phoenix area have stepped up security in response. The sheriff of Maricopa County has referred two incidents to prosecutors, and said his officers would sit outside polling places “if that’s what we have to do to protect democracy.”Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, who is also Arizona’s Democratic candidate for governor, has referred six voter-intimidation complaints to the U.S. Justice Department. On Tuesday, a federal judge in Arizona restricted election-monitoring activists from filming voters, carrying weapons near polling sites or spreading election falsehoods online.The upheaval over voting in San Luis erupted shortly after the 2020 primaries. That year, the Yuma County Sheriff’s Office announced on Aug. 7 that it had opened an investigation in coordination with the attorney general’s office after local elections officials received complaints of election tampering.Some of those complaints had originated with two local Republicans, David Lara and Gary García Snyder.Campaign signs, including for Luis Marquez, seen on Sunday near the border wall in San Luis.Caitlin O’Hara for The New York TimesMayor-elect Nieves Riedel in San Luis on Monday.Caitlin O’Hara for The New York TimesAfter they complained to law enforcement, Mr. Snyder and Mr. Lara said they were contacted by two leaders with True the Vote, a conservative vote-monitoring group based in Houston that for years has promoted false claims of rampant fraud. The organization’s leaders, Catherine Engelbrecht and Gregg Phillips, traveled to Arizona later in 2020 to meet with Mr. Snyder and Mr. Lara, the men said.Inspired by what they heard in Yuma, True the Vote focused on proving, through voter fraud, the existence of an elaborate national conspiracy to manipulate the outcome of the presidential election — a theory since debunked by experts, governmental agencies and media outlets that have looked into it.This spring, Salem Media Group, a conservative media company, and the conservative commentator Dinesh D’Souza released “2,000 Mules,” which centered on Ms. Engelbrecht, Mr. Phillips and their claims. In the film, an unidentified woman from San Luis appears, saying that the city’s elections have been “fixed” for years by local politicians running a cash-for-votes scheme.Ms. Fuentes, the former San Luis mayor, and the woman seen on the video with her, Alma Juarez, were charged in December 2020 with violating Arizona’s ballot abuse law. Earlier this year, they each pleaded guilty to one count of ballot abuse, for accepting four ballots of other San Luis residents.Ms. Fuentes became the first person in Arizona sentenced to jail time under the law, enacted in 2016. Ms. Fuentes’s lawyer, Anne Chapman, criticized the sentence as “an unjust result in a political prosecution.”Activists with the Arizona Voter Empowerment Task Force, a voter-rights group, said the law prohibiting “ballot harvesting” had the effect of criminalizing ballot collection efforts that had helped older residents and people with disabilities in rural and low-income communities like San Luis get their ballots to the polls.People bought breakfast from a food truck before sunrise in San Luis on Monday.Caitlin O’Hara for The New York TimesDavid Lara was one of two local Republicans who complained of election tampering in San Luis.Caitlin O’Hara for The New York TimesWhile more than 80 percent of Arizona voters typically cast early ballots, many of them through the mail, there is no home-mail delivery in San Luis, limited public transportation and many people do not have cars, making it harder to vote.Ms. Fuentes has many admirers in San Luis who praised her for fighting to register and turn out voters.She first ran for office in 1994 and served multiple terms on the City Council and was still on the school board when she was sentenced last month to 30 days in jail. Now, she will be barred from holding elected office or voting.“My mom is not a criminal,” said her daughter, Lizette Esparza. “It’s a political persecution.”Ms. Fuentes had also been charged with forgery and conspiracy, but ultimately pleaded guilty only to a charge relating to ballot collection. A sentencing report from her defense team said she was “extremely remorseful for her involvement in this matter” but had done nothing fraudulent. Her lawyers wrote that in the Election Day video in which Ms. Fuentes handled another voter’s ballot, she was actually checking to make sure the ovals were properly filled.But other residents said the criminal investigation shined light on real corruption and bare-knuckle politics inside their city. In 2012, for example, Ms. Fuentes and others in city government challenged a political rival’s ability to hold office based on her limited English proficiency.In interviews, several residents said they had grown cynical about politics in San Luis. They felt that local officials hoarded power and traded votes for government jobs and benefits. In a court filing, prosecutors with the attorney general’s office said the video of Ms. Fuentes indicated she had been “running a modern-day political machine seeking to influence the outcome of the municipal election in San Luis, collecting votes through illegal methods.”Nieves Riedel, who runs a prominent home-construction business, is a Democrat who rejects lies about the 2020 election. But she was also convinced that some of her city’s leaders had for years tilted local races and manipulated voters into casting ballots for powerful incumbents.“Was voter fraud being committed in the city of San Luis? Yes,” she said. “But not at the national level. It’s small-town politics.”Over the summer, Ms. Riedel won an election to become San Luis’s next mayor. She said she was concerned with improving the jammed two-lane roads and providing better jobs and colleges to keep young adults from leaving. She said she was dismayed, but not surprised, to see outsiders latch onto her city’s troubles for their own ends.“Both parties are capitalizing on this, to settle scores and prove points,” Ms. Riedel said. “I can assure you that both parties can care less about the people of San Luis.”As voting gets underway in San Luis and the candidates for City Council and school board knock doors and plant campaign signs along the desert roads, Mr. Lara said he would again be on the hunt for irregularities. He is coordinating efforts to monitor the main ballot drop box in San Luis.“We have our people,” he said, but declined to be more precise about their activities. “We don’t want to tip off the enemy.” More

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      ‘A really dangerous candidate’: Kari Lake, the new face of Maga Republicanism

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      ‘A really dangerous candidate’: Kari Lake, the new face of Maga RepublicanismThe former local news anchor – and former Democrat – is in a neck-and-neck race for governor in key swing state of Arizona Local news anchor Kari Lake resisted announcing that Joe Biden had won Arizona on election night two years ago. Now, she’s the telegenic new face of Maga Republicanism, poised to possibly become the state’s next governor.With early voting under way, polls show Lake in a dead heat with her opponent Katie Hobbs, Arizona’s Democratic secretary of state. The contest will test the strength of Donald Trump’s enduring influence on the Republican party and its supporters. And the entire enterprise of free elections in Arizona hangs in the balance.If Lake wins, her administration will oversee the 2024 elections in a key state that could help determine who wins the presidency. She could work with the likes of Mark Finchem, the far-right Oath Keeper who is running to become the state’s top election official. Already, she has said she will only accept the 2022 election results if “fair, honest and transparent” by her standards, declining to say whether she would accept defeat.‘The Trump playbook’: Republicans hint they will deny election resultsRead moreOn the night Lake won the Republican primary, she walked on stage carrying a sledgehammer and vowed to use it on electronic voting machines if elected governor. Instead of machines, Lake wants to use hand counts to tabulate elections – a method that is both more time-consuming and less accurate – while also insisting that results should be declared on election day. She has threatened to punish journalists for publishing content she disagrees with and imprison her opponent over fictional accusations of election rigging.“We’re dealing with a really dangerous candidate,” said Alejandra Gomez, co-director of the progressive advocacy group Lucha. “This election is incredibly consequential for the future of our democracy.”For 22 years, Lake was a familiar face on local TV – delivering the evening news at Fox 10 Phoenix in her smooth, deep voice. But on election night in 2020, she resisted calling the election for Biden, as her co-anchor awkwardly insisted that they follow protocol.In recent years Lake had joined the far-right social media platform Parler, and left an online trail of implicit endorsements of rightwing positions and conspiracy theories, much to the consternation of her station’s management. But it was her seemingly sudden and dramatic resignation that laid the foundations for her future political career.“I found myself reading news copy that I didn’t believe was fully truthful,” she said in March 2021, announcing that she was quitting. “I’ve decided the time is right to do something else.”A few months later, Lake said she was running for governor – almost immediately launching herself into rightwing stardom.In August, she defeated her GOP establishment-backed opponent to win the primary, and has since managed to gain the support of the outgoing Republican governor, Doug Ducey, and the state’s big Republican donors.Instead of network crews, it is now her husband, Jeff Halperin, who serves as her videographer. An independent producer, Halperin trails Lake and captures practically her every move, including combative exchanges with reporters to promote on social media.Lake’s platform in the race now contradicts her own from just a few years ago. In 2008, Lake was a registered Democrat and donated to the Democratic presidential campaigns of John Kerry and Barack Obama. In 2016, Lake proposed a plan to provide amnesty for undocumented immigrants. Today, she says she would declare an “invasion” at the southern border and evoked the white supremacist “great replacement” theory in describing immigrants.She once considered a local drag queen a friend and often attended performances, but now runs ads featuring an extremist homophobic pastor and attacks drag performers as a threat to children.On abortion, too, she has been inconsistent. The vast majority of Arizonans believe that abortion should be legal in at least some cases. Lake has called abortion “the ultimate sin” and has endorsed Arizona’s pre-statehood ban, though, in recent weeks has provided muddled messages about her stance. Lake also told a conference of young, conservative women that “God did not create us to be equal to men.”Lake’s campaign did not respond to multiple requests for an interview, and declined to respond to specific questions about her past politics. She told Time magazine that she previously supported Democrats in protest of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.Lake’s broad appeal has surprised both Democrats and moderate Republicans, especially given that many of her espoused views are more fundamentalist and rightwing than those held by most Arizona voters.Star powerFormer co-workers and friends have said they have been alarmed by her sudden conversion to Maga Republicanism while political pundits have speculated over whether this transformation is genuine or a shrewd career calculation.Regardless, it seems to be working. Her almost daily campaign events have become a sensation. In recent weeks, her intimate receptions with donors, and her rallies alongside fellow rightwing politicians from across the country have drawn supporters across demographic groups.US midterms 2022: the key candidates who threaten democracyRead moreOf all the far-right, Trump-endorsed Republicans on the ballot this election cycle, Lake might just have the most star power. Trump himself has told other candidates to be more like her. Republican insiders are already speculating that she could be Trump’s vice-presidential nominee in 2024, or run for president herself.“You can call me Trump in a dress any day,” she told cheering crowds at a recent rally, embracing comparisons between herself to the former president.Over the past few months, Hobbs’s quiet, at times stiff demeanor has been no match to Lake’s larger than life persona. At a town hall event hosted by the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Lake reportedly positioned herself in the front row in an apparent stunt designed to rattle her opponent. She was eventually booted out of the room – but it seemed to work. Hobbs delivered an uneven performance, fumbling on softball questions.TopicsUS midterm elections 2022The fight for democracyArizonaRepublicansUS politicsDonald TrumpfeaturesReuse this content More

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      How Donald Trump's legacy poisoned Arizona’s fragile democracy – video

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      In Arizona, all of the statewide Republican candidates for the midterm elections have falsely claimed the 2020 election result was not legitimate. As these conspiracy theories spread, Oliver Laughland travels to Phoenix to meet Adrian Fontes, the Democrat trying to defeat Trump loyalist and election denier Mark Finchem in the race for secretary of state

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      Libertarian Candidate Drops Out of Arizona Senate Race and Endorses Masters

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      The Libertarian candidate running for Senate in Arizona — who had threatened to play spoiler in the closely watched race — is dropping out and endorsing Blake Masters, the Republican nominee.The decision, announced on Tuesday, gives Mr. Masters a lift heading into the final week as he seeks to unseat Senator Mark Kelly, the Democratic incumbent, who has generally held a narrow lead in the polls.“This is another major boost of momentum as we consolidate our support,” Mr. Masters said in a statement to The New York Times.Marc Victor, the Libertarian candidate, and Mr. Masters spoke on Monday for a 20-minute recorded conversation that Mr. Victor is expected to publish, according to a person familiar with the conversation. Mr. Victor had made such a conversation a precondition to quitting, technically offering such an opportunity both to Mr. Masters and to Mr. Kelly.“I found Blake to be generally supportive of the Live and Let Live Global Peace Movement,” Mr. Victor said in a statement. “After that discussion, I believe it is in the best interests of freedom and peace to withdraw my candidacy and enthusiastically support Blake Masters for United States Senate.”Mr. Victor’s underfunded campaign had a chance to make more of an impact than some other third-party candidates this year, in part because he was onstage for the race’s lone debate. (He made waves in the appearance by suggesting the “age of consent” is something “that reasonable minds disagree on” and “should be up for a vote.”)Mr. Masters appears to have gone to some lengths to court libertarian-minded voters and assuage any concerns from Mr. Victor. Last Thursday, he posted a picture from 2010 of himself with Ron Paul, the former congressman and libertarian folk hero, saying he was “honored” to have Mr. Paul’s endorsement. Mr. Masters also made recent appearances on Mr. Paul’s podcast and another libertarian podcast.Mr. Victor had previously been funded at least in part by Democrats, presumably hoping to redirect some votes away from the Republican nominee.Donations included $5,000 from the Save Democracy PAC, which says on its website that it is pursuing “a nationwide effort to confront and defeat Republican extremism” and another $5,000 from Defeat Republicans PAC. In May, Ron Conway, the California-based Democratic investor, gave Mr. Victor part of more than $45,000 in donations from various people who share the family name in California; those funds account for about one-third of everything Mr. Victor raised in total.A New York Times/Siena College poll released on Monday showed Mr. Kelly ahead, 51 percent to 45 percent, with Mr. Victor garnering 1 percent support. Mr. Victor has been shown as earning a larger share of the vote in other polls, including one in mid-October from the progressive group Data for Progress that had Mr. Victor pulling in 3 percent with Mr. Kelly and Mr. Masters tied.Voting has already begun in Arizona, with roughly 895,000 votes already cast, according to a tally made public by a Democratic group — equivalent to more than a third of the nearly 2.4 million votes cast in the last midterm election, in 2018. More

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      Justice Dept. Questions Drop Box Monitoring in Arizona

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      The Justice Department has weighed in on the debate over election activists who have been stationing themselves — at times with guns — near ballot boxes in Arizona, saying that their activity may not be constitutionally protected if it has the potential to intimidate voters.“The First Amendment does not protect individuals’ right to assemble to engage in voter intimidation or coercion,” Kristen Clarke, the assistant attorney general for civil rights, wrote in a brief filed on Monday in U.S. District Court in Phoenix. “Nor does it transform an unlawful activity for one individual — voter intimidation — into a permissible activity simply because multiple individuals have assembled to engage in it.”The filing was made in a case that the League of Women Voters of Arizona brought last week against two groups that have been organizing ballot box monitoring, the Lions of Liberty and Clean Elections USA, as well as some of their principals. On Friday, the plaintiff asked the court for an injunction against those groups to stop the activity. That petition is still pending.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsElection Day is Tuesday, Nov. 8.A Pivotal Test in Pennsylvania: A battle for blue-collar white voters is raging in President Biden’s birthplace, where Democrats have the furthest to fall and the most to gain.Governor’s Races: Democrats and Republicans are heading into the final stretch of more than a dozen competitive contests for governor. Some battleground races could also determine who controls the Senate.Biden’s Agenda at Risk: If Republicans capture one or both chambers of Congress, the president’s opportunities on several issues will shrink. Here are some major areas where the two sides would clash.Ohio Senate Race: Polls show Representative Tim Ryan competing within the margin of error against his G.O.P. opponent, J.D. Vance. Mr. Ryan said the race would be “the upset of the night,” but there is still a cold reality tilting against Democrats.The judge overseeing the case, Michael T. Liburdi, on Friday refused to issue an injunction in a parallel lawsuit against Clean Elections USA, claiming that the Constitution protected the activities of citizens who wish to gather near ballot boxes.The Justice Department’s intervention represents a rebuke to that ruling by Judge Liburdi, a longtime member of the Federalist Society who was appointed in 2019 by President Donald J. Trump.The Justice Department’s brief addresses numerous points made by the judge, including the idea that taking pictures of voters and their car license plates is equivalent to filming police officers in the line of duty. The brief also draws comparisons to numerous past instances of apparent attempts to intimidate or deter voters. In one example from 2004, involving operatives in South Dakota who followed Native American voters and recorded their license plate numbers, a federal judge issued an injunction.The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals is weighing an emergency appeal to Judge Liburdi’s ruling filed by the plaintiffs in that case, the Arizona Alliance for Retired Americans and Voto Latino, on Saturday; a lawyer for Clean Elections USA said the group was rushing to file a response later on Monday.And in a hearing on Monday on the League of Women Voters’ case, Judge Liburdi dismissed the Lions of Liberty and its parent organization, the Yavapai County Preparedness Team, from the suit after its leaders pledged in court not to engage in any more election monitoring activities. “We are standing down,” a board member, Jim Arroyo, told the judge. An evidentiary hearing on the injunction petition is scheduled for midday on Tuesday.The founder of Clean Elections USA, Melody Jennings, has not appeared in court. In a Saturday appearance on “War Room,” a podcast hosted by the former Trump adviser Stephen K. Bannon, she said that her group was changing its name to the Drop Box Initiative in Arizona, but would retain the Clean Elections USA moniker in the rest of the country.“We are going to rebrand a little bit,” Ms. Jennings said, adding that while she was still looking for volunteers in most places, “I don’t need any more people in Arizona, honestly.”In a second “War Room” interview, on Monday, she asked listeners to consider donating money to True the Vote, a right-wing group focused on voter fraud, to support her legal defense. More