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    Don Bacon Defeats Tony Vargas for House Seat in Nebraska

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    The victory of the four-term Republican, who has resisted his party’s veer to the right, dashed Democratic hopes of flipping a critical district.Representative Don Bacon of Nebraska, one of the most politically vulnerable Republicans in the country, has defeated his Democratic challenger and won a fifth term, according to The Associated Press. His victory denies Democrats one of their best opportunities this year to pick up a seat and bolsters his party’s drive to hold its majority.The race was the second matchup between Mr. Bacon and Tony Vargas, who came within 6,000 votes of unseating the congressman in 2022. Mr. Vargas came up short again on Friday evening, even after top Democrats including Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the minority leader, and Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, then the vice-presidential nominee, traveled to the Omaha district to support his campaign.The contest between Mr. Bacon, 61, a former brigadier general in the Air Force, and Mr. Vargas, 40, a former public-school teacher who is the son of Peruvian immigrants, featured debates over national issues including abortion rights, taxes and public safety.But it was also a test of whether there was still a place in the G.O.P. for a mainstream lawmaker like Mr. Bacon, who has staked out a reputation on Capitol Hill as an independent voice in a party increasingly dominated by the hard right — and whether he could survive in a liberal-leaning district won by President Biden.Nebraska’s Second Congressional District centers on Omaha, often referred to as the “blue dot,” in reference to its uniquely liberal leanings in an otherwise red state. But Republicans have represented it in the House since the mid-1990s, with the exception of one two-year term from 2015 to 2017.Mr. Bacon was first elected in 2016, in a year when Donald J. Trump also carried the district. But he was able to appeal to voters across the aisle; in 2020, when Mr. Biden won the district, Mr. Bacon was re-elected by the widest margin he has ever enjoyed.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      In a Tight Presidential Race, Omaha Is Basking in Its Political Relevance

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      Reliably conservative Nebraska’s one small “blue dot” could make a difference to Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaignFor many in Nebraska, autumn typically involves screaming at the television during Cornhusker football games, but the state’s sudden potential to swing the outcome of the super-close presidential race has given voters here something equally exciting: electoral relevance.High-profile politicians and their surrogates have been parachuting into Nebraska, which is often derided as flyover country when it comes to elections and beyond. The airwaves are clogged with spirited political advertising. Yards are dotted with red or blue signs. Bulletins in churches are stuffed with opinionated voting guides, and preachers are delivering election thoughts from the pulpit.Nebraska is one of just two states that split its Electoral College votes. (The other is Maine.) By some calculations in the complicated math of predicting the unpredictable outcome of this neck-and-neck race, the Omaha area’s Second Congressional District — a “blue dot” in an otherwise red state — could deliver a single tiebreaking vote for Vice President Kamala Harris on Election Day, a prospect that has focused attention on the region like never before.Overall, Nebraska votes reliably conservative, just like the other states stacked in a strip in the center of the country. Omaha generally voted Republican too, until it flipped for Barack Obama in 2008, leading Democrats to nickname the city “Obamaha.” It also voted Democratic in the 2020 presidential race, officially marking it as up for grabs.Democrats are hoping to maintain that hold this year. Some have nicknamed the city “Kamaha” and have decorated lawns, light poles, T-shirts and cheeks with blue dots.“There are too many people across the United States who feel like their vote, their voice doesn’t matter,” said Ruth Huebner-Brown, who along with her husband was spray-painting blue dots on white yard signs in their driveway on Saturday and ferrying stacks of them to arriving cars. “And honestly, there’s some truth to that if you live in a completely red or completely blue state.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      How One Man’s Vote in Nebraska Could Change the Presidential Election

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      A single Republican state senator appears to be holding back a push by Donald J. Trump to net a potentially pivotal electoral vote even before ballots are cast.In Eastern Nebraska, far from the presidential battleground states, a drama is playing out that could, in a perfectly plausible November scenario, have history-altering repercussions for the nation’s future and the next president — and it may all come down to one man.A single Republican state senator from Omaha, Mike McDonnell, has so far stood firm against a push by former President Donald J. Trump, national Republicans and the Nebraska G.O.P. to change Nebraska from a state that divides its electoral votes by congressional district to one that awards all of them to the statewide winner. Maine is the only other state without a winner-take-all system.If Mr. McDonnell buckles, two other Republican senators in Nebraska’s unicameral legislature who have also not yet committed to changing Nebraska’s system are likely to follow his lead, according to a number of Republicans and Democrats involved in the discussions going on at the State Capitol.The tumbling dominoes would almost certainly give the single electoral vote of Omaha and its suburbs, which Vice President Kamala Harris is favored to win, to Mr. Trump.That might not sound like much, but if Ms. Harris were to win the so-called blue wall — Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin — while losing every other battleground state, Nevada, Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina, that one electoral vote would be the difference between a 270-268 Electoral College victory for the vice president or a 269-269 tie. And in the event of a tie, the House of Representatives would determine the winner, not by raw votes of House members but by the support of each state delegation.With more delegations in Republican control, Mr. Trump would almost certainly win.As of Friday, Mr. McDonnell, who is barred by Nebraska’s term limits law from seeking re-election, had not changed his position.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Don Bacon Beats Right-Wing Challenger in Nebraska

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      Representative Don Bacon of Nebraska, a mainstream Republican, on Tuesday easily fended off a primary challenge from a right-wing businessman, advancing to what is expected to be a tight re-election contest in a competitive district won by President Biden in 2020.Mr. Bacon, a fourth-term congressman who has maintained a reputation as an independent voice in a party increasingly dominated by the hard right, won with an overwhelming share of the vote, according to The Associated Press.In recent years, a number of mainstream Republicans in politically competitive districts have been felled in primaries by ultraconservative candidates who went on to drag the party down in the general election.But since he was elected in 2016, Mr. Bacon, a former brigadier general in the Air Force, carved out a niche for himself as one of the only Republicans who could hold the Omaha-based swing seat. Since 2000, voters in the district have backed the winner of the presidential election, except in 2012.That brand came through for him on Tuesday night.His opponent, Dan Frei, a hard-line Republican who secured the endorsement of the state’s Republican Party, had painted Mr. Bacon as a fixture of the Washington establishment and ran on cutting federal spending and an “America First agenda.” Mr. Frei described himself as “a Trumper” but did not ultimately secure an endorsement from the former president.He also lagged far behind Mr. Bacon in fund-raising.Mr. Bacon, 60, has broken repeatedly with his party to support several bipartisan pieces of legislation, including Mr. Biden’s infrastructure bill, a bill to establish an independent commission to investigate the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, and a measure calling for the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act.He was one of several Republicans in purple districts who pressed Speaker Mike Johnson to allow a foreign aid package including funding for Ukraine to come to a vote on the House floor. “We need to have a Churchill, not a Chamberlain,” Mr. Bacon said at the time.Mr. Frei sought to weaponize Mr. Bacon’s support for aid to Ukraine against him; Mr. Bacon, in turn, received backing from Mark Levin, a prominent right-wing radio host.“I am not into these radical isolationists,” Mr. Levin said. “I don’t side with terrorists against Israel. I don’t side with Russia against Ukraine.”Mr. Bacon also received some backup from the Congressional Leadership Fund, the super PAC aligned with House Republican leaders, which ran advertisements supporting the congressman on the southern border, an issue his opponent had sought to leverage against him.Mr. Bacon won re-election last year by 3 points against Tony Vargas, a state senator, even though Mr. Biden won the district in 2020 by 6 points.He will have a rematch against Mr. Vargas in November. More

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      The People Who Broke the House

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      When it comes to Congress, Americans have come to expect a certain baseline of dysfunction. But I think most of us can agree that the current House Republican majority is something special. Overthrowing a speaker for the first time in history. Rejecting multiple nominees to replace him. Members publicly trashing one another. One faction’s supporters threatening opposing members.And so here we languish, with the government’s most basic functions held hostage by a conference divided over everything from ideological differences to petty personal slights: Candidate X broke his promise! Candidate Y ignores me! Candidate Z never votes for my bills! It’s like watching a pack of middle-schoolers hopped up on hormones and Skittles.To help make sense of this dark farce, it is useful to dig into the warring factions that have already destroyed the speaker dreams of multiple colleagues. Boiling down the action so far: A tiny gaggle of eight Republicans, mostly hard-right extremists, took down Kevin McCarthy. Then a larger group of hard-liners quashed the candidacy of Steve Scalise, the majority leader, before it even came up for a floor vote, with an eye toward elevating one of their own, the chronically belligerent Jim Jordan. But a coalition of moderates, institutionalists and members who just can’t stomach Mr. Jordan struck back, voting him down again and again and again — and again, if you count Friday’s closed-conference ballot effectively stripping him of the nomination.The Republicans Who Blocked Jordan and McCarthy From the SpeakershipAcross four votes in the House, both conservative and moderate Republican holdouts ousted Kevin McCarthy and denied Jim Jordan the speaker’s gavel. The colored dots show where those holdouts fall on the ideological spectrum, based on their voting records. More

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      Vulnerable Republicans Take a Political Risk With Abortion Vote

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      In uniting his party behind a defense bill loaded with social policy restrictions, Speaker Kevin McCarthy has raised questions over whether his short-term victory could imperil his majority.Representative Jen Kiggans, a minivan-driving mom and Navy veteran, narrowly won election last year in her suburban Virginia swing district after a fiercely competitive race that focused on her opposition to abortion rights.The issue remains a top priority for voters in her district, and appearing too extreme on it could make her vulnerable again when she faces re-election in 2024. But Ms. Kiggans was one of dozens of Republicans from competitive districts who voted this week to support adding a bevy of deeply partisan restrictions to the annual defense policy bill, including one that would reverse a Pentagon policy aimed at preserving access to abortion services for military personnel, no matter where they are stationed.Democrats said the G.O.P. provision was a steppingstone to instituting more abortion bans across the nation, while Republicans argued it merely preserved a longstanding bar against allowing federal funds to be used to pay for abortions.The vote put lawmakers like Ms. Kiggans, a top target of Democrats whose seat is up for grabs in next year’s congressional elections, in a politically perilous position. And it raised the question of whether, in scoring the short-term victory of keeping his party united behind the annual defense bill — which passed on a near-party-line vote on Friday — Speaker Kevin McCarthy may have embraced a strategy that could ultimately cost his party the House majority.Ms. Kiggans and other similarly situated Republicans said they had no problem backing the abortion restriction or the bill itself, which emerged from the House loaded with other conservative policy dictates, including one barring the military health care program from providing transgender health services and another limiting diversity training for military personnel.“Taxpayers should not be paying for elective surgery,” Ms. Kiggans, who ran as a moderate focused on kitchen-table economic issues, said in an interview on Friday, explaining her vote. “This wasn’t a bill about abortion; it was about taxpayers paying for travel for military members for elective procedures.”Still, Democrats’ House campaign arm wasted no time in attacking Ms. Kiggans and other vulnerable Republicans who had backed the bill, and even some G.O.P. lawmakers conceded that embracing it was a bad look for a party trying to broaden its appeal.“The reason we’re in the majority today is because of swing districts and the reason we’re going to lose the majority is because of swing districts,” said Representative Nancy Mace, Republican of South Carolina. “That’s just lost up here. We’re 10 days out from the August recess, and what have we done for women, post-Roe? Zero.”Ms. Mace, who represents a politically split district, railed against the abortion amendment but ultimately voted for it because she said it was technically consistent with Defense Department policy. But she said she regretted being forced to take the vote at all.“I’m not happy about it,” she said. “I wish we didn’t have to do this right now.”The Republican proposal would overturn a Defense Department policy put in place after the Supreme Court struck down the constitutional right to abortion last year, setting off a rush by some states to enact curbs and bans on the procedure. The policy reimburses travel costs for personnel who must travel out of state to obtain an abortion or related services. The policy does not provide any money for abortions.Democrats pointed to the vote as a prime example of Republicans taking votes that could ultimately cost them their House majority. Strategists in both parties have suggested that the Supreme Court’s abortion decision, and Democrats’ subsequent efforts to spotlight Republican opposition to abortion rights, weakened the G.O.P. during last year’s election, costing them support from independent and suburban voters.“For the swing districts they represent, they should be doing the opposite — but they’re not,” said Courtney Rice, communications director for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. “Their decision to put party politics over pocketbook issues is going to cost them the House in 2024.”Many vulnerable House Republicans said they consoled themselves with the knowledge that the amendments that focused on stoking battles on social issues were likely to be stripped out of the bill by the Democrat-controlled Senate and would not be in a final version of the defense policy bill.“It wouldn’t be the way I would run the place, but at the end of the day as long as we pass N.D.A.A. like we’ve done and keep the really nasty poison pills out, I think it solves the problem,” said Representative Tony Gonzales, Republican of Texas, referring to the defense bill by the initials of its full name. Mr. Gonzales, who voted for the abortion amendment and others barring transgender health services and limiting diversity training for military personnel, voted against amendments that sought to cut funding for Ukraine.Sarah Chamberlain, the president of the Republican Main Street Partnership, an outside organization allied with the congressional Republican Main Street Caucus, described the vote as a “calculated risk” for many members who gambled that it would not hurt them politically.“They made the decision that it was more important to them to get this bill out of the House than to fall on their sword on this one,” she said. “They would have preferred these amendments didn’t exist, but I think they can defend their vote because they’re supporting the men and women of the military.”Representative Nancy Mace, Republican of South Carolina, railed against the abortion amendment but ultimately voted for it.Haiyun Jiang/The New York TimesStill, it’s not the first time vulnerable Republicans have caved to the hard right wing of their party, even when it means taking votes that could prove to be political liabilities down the line. Mr. McCarthy, who has worked overtime to appease the right flank whose support he needs to remain in power — most of whom represent safe G.O.P. districts — has done comparatively little to protect more mainstream Republicans whose seats are at risk from having to take tough votes.In April, they voted for Mr. McCarthy’s bill to lift the debt ceiling for one year in exchange for spending cuts and policy changes, even though it gutted programs that helped veterans and older people.Last month, they voted in support of a resolution that would repeal a Biden administration rule that tightened federal regulations on stabilizing braces for firearms that have been used in several mass shootings. House leaders brought the bill to the floor in order to help end a weeklong blockade by far-right Republicans.Still, the level of G.O.P. support for the abortion amendment — only two Republicans, Representatives John Duarte of California and Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, voted against it — came as a shock to Democrats.“There are those across the aisle who realize that this is bad,” said Representative Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey, a former Navy helicopter pilot who is one of two Democratic women in the House who have served in the military. Ms. Sherrill said she had heard from some Republican colleagues who told her privately, “‘This is a really bad idea, this is a mistake.’ Well then, why did everyone but two people vote for this really bad amendment?”Representative Chrissie Houlahan, Democrat of Pennsylvania and a former Air Force officer, said she was “surprised by the paucity of people who voted against the amendment. I was expecting 15 Republicans to do the right thing.”Some more mainstream Republicans sought to justify their votes by arguing that they were not voting against abortion or transgender health care — just against government funding for it.“If you look at the polling, most Americans don’t think the federal government should be paying for abortions,” Representative Stephanie Bice, Republican of Oklahoma and vice chair of the Main Street Caucus, said.Representative Don Bacon, Republican of Nebraska, said he backed the provision barring military coverage for gender transition surgeries and hormone therapy because he believed, “If you want to do it, do it on your own dime.”“I don’t think it should be the taxpayers’ responsibility,” Mr. Bacon added. More

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      Abortion Is Motivating Voters, but Republicans Would Rather Change the Subject

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      In Wisconsin, Tim Michels, a Republican running for governor, promised activists that he would never “flip-flop” on his support for an 1849 law that bans abortion except when a woman’s life is threatened. Less than three weeks later, he changed his stance.In the Phoenix suburbs, staffers whisked away Juan Ciscomani, a Republican House candidate, citing an urgent text, after he was asked by a voter whether he supported abortion bans.And in New Hampshire, Don Bolduc, the Republican running for governor, described abortion as a distraction from the “really important issues.”In races across the nation, Republican candidates are waffling on their abortion positions, denying past behavior or simply trying to avoid a topic that has long been a bedrock principle of American conservatism. Less than a month before the midterm elections on Nov. 8, the party lacks a unified policy on abortion, unable to broadly adopt a consistent response in the three and a half months since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.Republican positioning on abortion drew renewed attention last week, when Herschel Walker, the party’s Senate nominee in Georgia, was accused by an ex-girlfriend of paying for one abortion and unsuccessfully urging her to get a second one. Mr. Walker takes a hard-line stance against the procedure, supporting abortion bans with no exceptions for rape, incest or to save the life of the mother.For decades, Republicans pushed to overturn federal abortion rights, viewing the issue as an easy rallying cry to identify with a culturally conservative base. Focusing on the country’s highest court allowed them to largely avoid getting into the weeds on thorny issues — life-threatening pregnancy complications, exceptions for child rape, diagnoses of rare and fatal conditions in fetuses. And given that few voters fully believed Roe would be overturned, they were rarely pressed on the specifics of their views.The court ruled in June that each state can formulate its own abortion policy, exactly what small-government conservatives had long wanted. But it had another consequence, plunging the party into months of politically toxic debates.“You hear some of these Republican state legislators, and it’s like, for the first time they are thinking about this and realize that this is a complicated issue with lots and lots of circumstances that are not black and white,” said Christine Matthews, a pollster who has worked for Republicans. “A lot of these male legislators are realizing, ‘Oh, this is really hard to legislate.’”To escape some of those difficult questions, many Republican candidates have been trying to avoid the debate altogether. For weeks, some Republicans have been erasing sections about abortion from their websites, changing their positions on state bans and trying to refocus the national conversation on inflation, crime and the country’s southern border.“I do believe it’s caught them slightly off guard with just how bad an issue this is for them,” said Sarah Longwell, an anti-Trump Republican strategist who leads focus groups. “The party has opted for changing the conversation entirely because abortion is just bad terrain for them.”The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.The Final Stretch: With less than one month until Election Day, Republicans remain favored to take over the House, but momentum in the pitched battle for the Senate has seesawed back and forth.A Surprising Battleground: New York has emerged from a haywire redistricting cycle as perhaps the most consequential congressional battleground in the country. For Democrats, the uncertainty is particularly jarring.Pennsylvania Governor’s Race: Attacks by Doug Mastriano, the G.O.P. nominee, on the Jewish school where Josh Shapiro, the Democratic candidate, sends his children have set off an outcry about antisemitic signaling.Herschel Walker: The Republican Senate nominee in Georgia reportedly paid for an ex-girlfriend’s abortion, but some conservative Christians have learned to tolerate the behavior of those who advance their cause.Some party leaders and strategists have urged candidates to adopt poll-tested positions popular with large swaths of independent voters: No restrictions on contraception, no bans before about 15 weeks and including exceptions for rape, incest and life of the mother. But those policies conflict with the long-held goal of the party’s socially conservative wing that views abortion as akin to murder, and they also clash with some of the past language and positions of Republican candidates.That has left candidates, particularly those in purple states, caught between the more moderate views of independent voters and a conservative base that views the court’s ruling as the beginning of restrictions, not the end. Now, many of the party’s candidates in the most competitive contests are racing to recast their positions.Tim Michels, a Republican running for governor of Wisconsin, said he supported an 1849 law that bans abortion except when a woman’s life is threatened. Weeks later, he changed his stance.Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York Times“I’m winning because people see a strong leader, a man of conviction, a man who doesn’t waffle, a man who doesn’t flip-flop,” Mr. Michels, the Republican nominee for governor in Wisconsin, told Republican activists and officials on Sept. 6 about the state ban. “I’m going to stick with what I know is right.”He reversed his position late last month, saying that, if elected, he would sign legislation to expand exceptions to include rape and incest.Many of the pivots have been even less artful. In Maine, a former governor, Paul LePage, is running to lead the state again and repeatedly stumbled over a question about whether he would sign more restrictive abortion laws if elected. “I don’t know what you mean by 15 weeks, 28 weeks. Because I don’t know,” Mr. LePage said after a protracted exchange on a debate stage last week.And in Arizona, a spokesman for Kari Lake, the Republican nominee for governor, had to clarify last week that Ms. Lake was not advocating changes to the state’s near-total abortion ban after she told a Phoenix talk-radio host that the procedure should be “rare and legal.”In an interview with CBS News on Sunday, Ms. Lake said she was trying to articulate how far the Democratic Party had moved from its Clinton-era talking points of “safe, legal and rare,” asserting that the procedure has become “anything but rare.” But she refused to say whether she would pursue restrictions on abortions sooner than 15 weeks into pregnancy, diverting the conversation to adoption and falsely casting her Democratic opponent as supportive of “abortion right up until birth.”Her remarks follow guidance circulated by party strategists who are urging their candidates to flip the script, labeling Democrats as the “extremists” on the issue. A memo from the Republican National Committee offering talking points for candidates encouraged a focus on rising prices and violent crime.Republican strategists and party officials argue that the potency of the issue is fading as economic concerns grow more intense.“To sustain that level of interest and enthusiasm in the current political climate for five months is very difficult, especially with more pressing personal pocketbook issues hurting voters,” said Robert Blizzard, a Republican pollster engaged in a number of midterm races.Mark Graul, a longtime Republican strategist based in Wisconsin, said that right after the Supreme Court decision, the abortion issue was “very much front and center.”But in the final weeks of the race, Mr. Graul said, voters are saying, “‘I care about that, but I care about how much it costs to fill up my car and buy groceries. And is my family going to be safe?’” He added: “I think they’re starting to care about that more.”While polls show that the majority of voters support a federal right to an abortion, Democrats are not favored to maintain control of Congress, given still-high inflation, concerns about crime and President Biden’s low approval ratings.Still, Democrats are trying to ensure that Republicans cannot escape so easily. After decades of treating the issue as a second-tier priority, the Democratic Party has made abortion rights a centerpiece of its fall campaign, spending nearly $213 million to blanket the airwaves with ads about it, according to AdImpact, an advertising-tracking firm.Celinda Lake, a veteran Democratic pollster and strategist, called the political debate over abortion rights “the best thing going for the Democrats.”“It can’t be the only thing going for the Democrats,” she added. But many Republicans, she said, are “having a lot of difficulty” discussing the issue.The need to square decades of opposition to abortion rights with the new political environment has led to some complicated contortions for Republicans, some of whom have tried to cast themselves less as drivers of abortion bans and more as bystanders.Representative Don Bacon of Nebraska, a Republican who faces a tough race for re-election, said he supported not only the 15-week federal ban but prohibiting abortion starting at conception. But Mr. Bacon also argues that such a policy would never pass the Senate because it would be unable to garner the 60 votes necessary to overcome a filibuster — essentially telling voters not to worry about his positions because they will be blocked by Democrats.Kari Lake stated that abortions should be “rare and legal” but said she was misunderstood.Adriana Zehbrauskas for The New York Times“Whether we have a pro-abortion majority in the House and Senate, or a pro-life majority in the Senate or House, you’re not going to get past a 60-vote threshold in the Senate,” he said, in an interview on NBC’s “Meet The Press.” “So the reality is, most of this is going to be done at the state level.”In his primary race, Joe Lombardo, the sheriff of the Las Vegas area who is running for Nevada governor, summarized his position on abortion with three words: “Joe is pro-life.”But a 747-word note published on his campaign website late last month reversed his stance on an abortion rule in Nevada. He said he would not repeal an executive order protecting women from being prosecuted for seeking an abortion in the state, which has emerged as a safe haven for the procedure as neighboring Utah, Arizona and Idaho have restricted access.An ad by a conservative group in Nevada echoes that argument, accusing Democrats of “scaring” voters about the state’s abortion laws and saying politicians cannot change the rules allowing the procedure until 24 weeks.The claims by Mr. Lombardo and the group ignore the power of executive orders to add new restrictions and the possibility that Congress could pass a national ban, superseding state law with a stricter federal standard.Not all Republicans have been so quick to finesse their stances.A campaign ad released last week by Jeff Crossman, the Democratic candidate for Ohio attorney general, takes aim at the Republican incumbent and his public questioning of the existence of a 10-year-old rape victim who left the state for an abortion. The child was blocked from obtaining an abortion in Ohio because she was three days past a six-week limit on abortions. The attorney general, Dave Yost, initially said the report was likely to be a “fabrication.”“Dave Yost, you disgust me,” a woman identified only as Geri of Northeast Ohio says to the camera in the ad. “When a 10-year-old was raped and impregnated, Yost went on national TV and called it a hoax? I am a grandmother, and I have a 10-year-old granddaughter.”Mr. Yost has resisted calls to apologize for doubting the victim. “I don’t understand what you think I need to apologize for,” he said in an interview with a local television program. “We didn’t even know the identity, and still don’t, of that poor victim.” More

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      Arizona Governor Candidates Speak, and More Campaign News From the Sunday Shows

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      Katie Hobbs and Kari Lake were interviewed back-to-back on CBS, Stacey Abrams spoke on Fox News and Republicans stuck with Herschel Walker despite reports that he had paid for an abortion.There will be no debates in one of the most competitive governor’s races in the country — between Katie Hobbs, the Democratic secretary of state of Arizona, and Kari Lake, a former TV news anchor endorsed by Donald J. Trump — because Ms. Hobbs has refused to participate, arguing that Ms. Lake would create a “circus.”In what might be the closest they come to a debate, they were interviewed back-to-back on “Face the Nation” on CBS on Sunday, with a focus on immigration and abortion.The host, Major Garrett, pressed Ms. Lake on her proposal to create an interstate compact in which Arizona and other states would make immigration arrests independent of the federal government, and Ms. Lake defended it in incendiary fashion, saying the Biden administration had abdicated its duty to protect states from invasion.She cited Article I, Section 10 of the Constitution — which says that without congressional consent, states cannot “enter into any agreement or compact with another state, or with a foreign power, or engage in war, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent danger as will not admit of delay” — and claimed that Arizona met the conditions of the clause.Ms. Hobbs, interviewed afterward, said Ms. Lake’s proposal was “empty rhetoric” that “would do absolutely nothing to increase border security” but “would bring untold levels of chaos into our state.” She said she agreed that the Biden administration needed to take stronger action on border security, but blamed a series of presidents and Congresses under both parties for failing to pass comprehensive immigration reform.Kari Lake, the Republican candidate for governor in Arizona, at a campaign rally last month in Tucson.Rebecca Noble for The New York TimesOn abortion, Ms. Lake accused Ms. Hobbs of supporting the procedure “right up until birth” — a common, and misleading, Republican claim against Democrats — and falsely claimed, “If you are in the hospital in labor, the abortionists are for giving you an abortion if you desire one.”The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.The Final Stretch: With less than one month until Election Day, Republicans remain favored to take over the House, but momentum in the pitched battle for the Senate has seesawed back and forth.Herschel Walker: A woman who said that the G.O.P. Senate nominee in Georgia paid for her abortion in 2009 told The Times that he urged her to terminate a second pregnancy two years later. She chose to have their son instead.Will the Walker Allegations Matter?: The scandal could be decisive largely because of the circumstances in Georgia, writes Nate Cohn, The Times’s chief political analyst.Pennsylvania Senate Race: John Fetterman, the Democratic nominee, says he can win over working-class voters in deep-red counties. But as polls tighten in the contest, that theory is under strain.Ms. Hobbs reiterated that she does not support a gestational limit on abortion, saying, “I support leaving the decision between a woman and her doctor and leaving politicians entirely out of it.” However, even in states like Colorado that have no gestational limit, doctors do not perform abortions on demand until the moment of birth.“Late-term abortion is extremely rare, and if it’s being talked about, it’s because something has gone incredibly wrong in a pregnancy,” Ms. Hobbs said. “A doctor’s not going to perform an abortion late in a pregnancy just because someone decided they want one. That is ridiculous, and she’s saying this to distract from her incredibly extreme position.”Ms. Lake has expressed support for Arizona’s near-total abortion ban, which predates Roe v. Wade and is blocked as courts assess it. On Sunday, she focused on a more recent law that bans most abortions after 15 weeks, saying, “We need to draw a line somewhere.”.css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.Here’s what else happened on the Sunday talk shows.Republicans stood with Herschel Walker.A claim that Herschel Walker, the Republican Senate candidate in Georgia, paid for an ex-girlfriend’s abortion in 2009 — and the woman’s subsequent assertion that he also wanted her to terminate a second pregnancy in 2011 — upended Mr. Walker’s campaign. But Republicans have circled the wagons around him, and that played out on the Sunday shows.Comments from Don Bacon, a Republican congressman facing a competitive race in Nebraska, were representative of the G.O.P. line. On NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Mr. Bacon was asked if he still supported Mr. Walker and replied, “I sure do, more for the policy positions he’s going to take.”Herschel Walker’s Senate campaign in Georgia has been upended by reporting about his past, but Republicans are sticking by his side.Nicole Buchanan for The New York TimesAsked by the host, Kristen Welker, whether this suggested Republicans were “willing to win at all costs,” Mr. Bacon said, “I think people make mistakes, and if people acknowledge them and ask for forgiveness, none of us are perfect.” (Mr. Walker has not done that; he has denied the claims, though they are backed up by extensive documentation.)Scott Jennings, a former aide to President George W. Bush who is now a conservative commentator, stated the calculus plainly on CNN’s “State of the Union.”“At the end of the day, the country’s in the ditch, and who are you going to call? The person who’s enabled it or the person who’s going to push back on it? That’s how many are going to analyze it,” Mr. Jennings said, adding later: “When the Senate control is this close, there’s nowhere else to go. This is part of the final matrix for Republicans if they hope to get the majority.”Stacey Abrams discussed abortion and voting rights.An interview on “Fox News Sunday” with Stacey Abrams, the Democratic nominee for governor of Georgia, touched on a range of subjects, including the reports about Mr. Walker. She accused her opponent, Gov. Brian Kemp, of hypocrisy for opposing abortion but not denouncing Mr. Walker.At one point, the host, Shannon Bream, asked Ms. Abrams to respond to a video clip of Kanye West claiming that “there’s more Black babies being aborted than born in New York City.” (This is not true according to city records.) Ms. Abrams affirmed her support for legal abortion and emphasized the disproportionate rates of maternal mortality among Black women, saying, “The right to our medical care should be sacrosanct.”Ms. Bream also asked Ms. Abrams to respond to a recent ruling in which a federal judge found that Georgia’s new voting restrictions — challenged by Ms. Abrams’s organization, Fair Fight Action — “violate neither the Constitution nor the Voting Rights Act.”Ms. Abrams suggested that the judge’s hands had been tied by a Supreme Court ruling last year that weakened the Voting Rights Act. “That’s the reason that I’m pushing so hard for the Voting Rights Act to be restored and expanded, but it’s also why I’m running for governor,” she said.In case you missed it …With four weeks left until the elections, Senate control hangs in the balance. The G.O.P. claimed momentum in the spring. Then the overturning of Roe v. Wade galvanized Democrats. As the momentum shifts again, the final stretch is defying predictability.In 2017, J.D. Vance, the Republican candidate for Senate in Ohio, started a nonprofit group to tackle the social ills he had written about in his “Hillbilly Elegy” memoir. It fell apart within two years.In Pennsylvania, John Fetterman, the Democratic nominee for Senate, says he can win over working-class voters in deep-red counties. Some evidence suggests he can, but partisan loyalties may prove more powerful. More

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      Pence Backs Trump Loyalists and Skeptics in House Elections

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      WASHINGTON — As Representative Darin LaHood, Republican of Illinois, prepared to campaign with Mike Pence, the former vice president, in his district last month, he braced for a backlash from his party’s right-wing base.Just days before, the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol had re-created in chilling detail how Mr. Pence had resisted President Donald J. Trump’s orders to overturn his defeat in Congress — and how Mr. Trump’s demands had put the vice president’s life at risk.Mr. LaHood’s fears of MAGA protesters and hostility to Mr. Pence never materialized; the former vice president received a warm welcome from the crowd at a Lincoln Day dinner in Peoria and at a closed-door fund-raising lunch with the congressman in Chicago, according to people who attended. But the concerns about how Mr. Pence would be received highlighted the awkward dynamic that has taken hold as the former vice president quietly campaigns for Republican members of Congress ahead of the midterm elections.House Republicans helped Mr. Trump spread the election lies that brought Mr. Pence within 40 feet of a mob that stormed the Capitol clamoring for his execution, and the vast majority of them remain publicly loyal to Mr. Trump, still the biggest draw and the most coveted endorsement on the campaign trail.But privately, many of them hope their party might soon return to some version of its pre-2016 identity — when Mr. Pence was regarded on the right as a symbol of conservative strength, not cowardice — and want to preserve a relationship with him in that case.Mr. Pence, who served six terms as a congressman from Indiana, has been eager to campaign for congressional candidates, particularly in the Midwest. He is seeking to carve out a viable lane of his own for a potential presidential run in 2024, even if it means helping some lawmakers who continue to spout the election lies that imperiled him.Mr. Pence spoke at an event for Representative Darin LaHood, right, in Peoria, Ill., last month.Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesOver the past year, Mr. Pence has appeared at campaign events for more than a dozen members of Congress, happily attending steak fries, picnics and fund-raisers that have at times brought in half a million dollars apiece for candidates.Overall, his aides said, he has helped to raise millions of dollars for House Republicans, many of whom still see him as a well-liked former colleague who often played the role of Trump administration emissary to Congress. On Wednesday, his alliance with congressional Republicans will be on display when he speaks on Capitol Hill as a guest of the Republican Study Committee, a conservative caucus.That followed an appearance Tuesday night at a “Young Guns” fund-raising dinner hosted by Representative Kevin McCarthy, Republican of California and the minority leader, at Del Frisco’s Double Eagle Steakhouse in Washington. Mr. Pence’s appearance there was described by an attendee as akin to a homecoming for him. Mr. Trump was mentioned only in the context of discussing the “Trump-Pence accomplishments.”Key Themes From the 2022 Midterm Elections So FarCard 1 of 5The state of the midterms. More