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      What’s at Stake in These Elections

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      Midterm elections in the United States are often presented as a referendum on the party in power, and that message appears to be resonating this fall. But voters need to consider the intentions of the party that hopes to regain power, too, and what each vote they cast will mean for the future of this country.Eight Republican senators and 139 Republican representatives sought to overturn the results of the 2020 election on the basis of spurious allegations of voter fraud and other irregularities. Many of them are likely to win re-election, and they may be joined by new members who also have expressed baseless doubts about the integrity of the 2020 election. Their presence in Congress poses a danger to democracy, one that should be on the mind of every voter casting a ballot this Election Day.It will also be the first time that the U.S. electoral machinery will be tested in a national election after two years of lawsuits, conspiracy theories, election “audits” and all manner of interference by believers in Donald Trump’s lies about the 2020 election. That test comes alongside the embrace of violent extremism by a small but growing faction of the Republican Party.The greatest danger to election integrity may, in fact, come from the results of state and local races that will determine who actually conducts the election and counts the votes in 2024. In the weeks that followed the 2020 election, Mr. Trump and his supporters saw their efforts to deny the election results and prove rampant voter fraud thwarted by two things: first, their inability to produce credible evidence that such fraud had occurred and, second, an election infrastructure that was defended by honorable public servants who refused to accept specious claims of wrongdoing.Over the past two years, Republicans in dozens of states have tried to dismantle that infrastructure piece by piece, particularly by filling key positions with Trump sympathizers. As this board wrote in September, “Rather than threatening election officials, they will be the election officials — the poll workers and county commissioners and secretaries of state responsible for overseeing the casting, counting and certifying of votes.” Many of those positions are being contested this week.With Mr. Trump said to be readying his bid to return to the White House, this board urges American voters to consider how important each vote cast on Election Day, at every level of government, will be. Even if the member of Congress in your district has refused to accept Mr. Trump’s lies about this election, there are other races on the ballot in many states for offices — including secretary of state, attorney general and governor — that will play crucial roles in overseeing and certifying the 2024 presidential election.Still, with that election two years away, many voters say they are more concerned with the present threats to their livelihoods than with the equally serious but less visible threat to democracy. A recent New York Times/Siena College poll found that “more than a third of independent voters and a smaller but noteworthy contingent of Democrats said they were open to supporting candidates who reject the legitimacy of the 2020 election, as they assigned greater urgency to their concerns about the economy than to fears about the fate of the country’s political system.”Indeed, voters have good reason to look at the current moment and wonder whether the Biden administration and congressional Democrats are doing enough to meet it. High inflation is making it harder for Americans to afford what they need and want. Overall crime has risen, causing people to fear for their safety. The federal government is struggling to enforce the nation’s immigration laws. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and America’s increasingly tense relations with China are undermining global peace and prosperity.Republicans have presented these midterm elections as a referendum on Democratic leadership, and that message appears to be resonating.But voters need to consider the intentions of the party that hopes to regain power, too.Republicans have offered few specific plans for addressing issues like inflation, immigration and crime — and even if they win control of Congress, they are unlikely to win enough seats to shift federal policy significantly over the next two years.A Republican-controlled Senate would, however, be able to block President Biden from filling vacancies on the federal bench and on the Supreme Court. It would become more difficult to obtain confirmations for executive branch officials, as well.Republican candidates have also pledged to devote significant time and energy to investigating the Biden administration. “I don’t think Joe Biden and his handlers are exactly eager to sign Republican legislation into law, so our hearings are going to be the most important thing that we can have,” Representative Lauren Boebert of Colorado told a recent rally.In addition to that spectacle, Republicans are threatening to stage another showdown over federal spending.At some point in the next year, the government is expected to hit the limit of its authorized borrowing capacity, or debt ceiling. To meet the commitments Congress already has authorized, it will need to raise that limit. This ought to be a matter of basic housekeeping, because failing to pay the nation’s bills would risk a global financial crisis. But debt ceiling votes have instead become recurring opportunities for extortion.This board has called for Congress to eliminate the debt ceiling, replacing it with a common-sense law that says the government can borrow whatever is necessary to provide for the spending authorized by Congress. There is no public benefit in requiring what amounts to a second vote on spending decisions. But for now, the ceiling endures, and Republicans have made clear that if they win control of Congress, they intend to use it as a bargaining chip with the White House to advance their party’s fiscal goals.One priority on that list is cutting taxes. Republicans already are preparing to move forward with legislation to extend the 2017 tax cuts for individuals, which mostly benefit wealthy households, while eliminating some of the offsetting increases in corporate taxation — a plan that is not easily reconciled with the party’s stated concerns about inflation or the rising federal debt.Republican proposals would also make it more difficult for the Internal Revenue Service to prevent wealthy Americans from cheating on their taxes. Representative Kevin McCarthy, the House minority leader, who is in position to become speaker if Republicans win a majority, has said the “first bill” that would pass under his leadership would reverse an $80 billion funding increase for the I.R.S. Congress approved that funding in August so the I.R.S. can crack down on rampant tax fraud by high-income households.Some senior Republicans have called for repealing another key piece of the August legislation, known as the Inflation Reduction Act: a measure that limits drug costs for seniors on Medicare, including a $35 monthly cap on payments for insulin.Republicans also have floated plans to roll back more firmly established benefits. The Republican Study Committee, a conservative policy working group whose membership includes more than half of the current crop of House Republicans, published a budget plan in June calling for Congress to gradually increase the retirement age for full Social Security benefits to 70 to check the rising cost of the program. The plan also would increase the age of eligibility for Medicare.Democrats could make it more difficult for Republicans to pursue these goals by raising the debt limit or changing the rules in the weeks between the election and the end of the year.Democrats have largely failed to connect with voters’ concerns about inflation and public safety during this campaign season. They have struggled to communicate their tangible achievements, including a big boost in funding for local law enforcement and bipartisan gun safety legislation, a historic federal investment in developing clean and low-cost sources of energy to confront climate change and the cost of living, and a breakthrough measure to bring down the cost of prescription drugs for Medicare recipients.Undoubtedly, there is more work to be done on these and other issues, including the health of the economy and the broken state of immigration policy. Voters need to decide which party they trust to do that work.But the 2022 elections are also an opportunity for every American to do their part in defending the integrity of American elections. The task of safeguarding our democracy does not end with one election, and it requires all of us to play a role. Our nation’s governance depends on it.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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      A History of Doo-Wop Emerges From Sandy Wreckage

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      Kenny Vance’s home in the Rockaways was damaged by the hurricane 10 years ago. But he was able to save some precious footage.Good morning. It’s Monday. Hurricane Sandy did billions of dollars’ worth of damage, but it didn’t destroy everything in its path. We’ll find out about a documentary that exists because Sandy didn’t ruin the raw footage. And we’ll take a last look at the campaigns and the candidates.Kenny Vance, standing on what was left of his house after Hurricane Sandy in 2012. Angel Franco/The New York TimesWe read a lot in the last couple of weeks about how Hurricane Sandy aimed its destructive power at vulnerable neighborhoods in 2012 and served as a wake-up call on climate change in New York City. My colleague Corey Kilgannon says the storm also figured, surprisingly, in a documentary about doo-wop by the singer and songwriter Kenny Vance. I asked Corey to explain:Kenny Vance idolized the early doo-wop groups he saw practicing and performing on street corners in Brooklyn in the 1950s. They influenced rock ’n’ roll when it was just beginning to blare out of radios into the eager ears of teenagers. He also remembers attending the frenetic shows at the Brooklyn Paramount Theater that offered acts from both genres.As an original member of Jay and the Americans, Vance sang on hits like “She Cried” in 1962 and opened for the Beatles and the Rolling Stones before their earliest performances in the United States. Later he was the music supervisor on films including “Animal House” and “American Hot Wax.”He also gathered and filmed interviews with New York City doo-wop legends.“Making a film was always in the back of my mind,” said Vance, 78, who kept the footage stored in his oceanfront house in the Rockaways in Queens.Assembling the footage was one of those things that was always on his agenda, but he never got around to it. And then, in 2012, Hurricane Sandy leveled Vance’s house, ruining everything inside.Or so he thought.Returning home to a soggy heap and sifting through his few remaining possessions, Vance figured the footage was ruined and his hopes for a film dashed.In the wreckage he spotted his desk on what was left of the second floor. He climbed up a ladder to it and pulled out one of the drawers. Inside, damp but salvageable, was a package of discs containing video files of his footage.Vance finally made time to make the film, and now, a decade after Sandy, the project is finished. “Heart & Soul,” the documentary that resulted, will have its premiere tonight as part of the Port Jefferson Documentary Series, on Long Island. The film will also be shown as part of the Dances With Films Festival in Manhattan next month.The film includes Vance’s interviews with members of groups like the Chantels, the Jive Five and Little Anthony and the Imperials.In one poignant segment in “Heart & Soul,” Vance talks with a schoolteacher in Harlem named Arlene Smith, in front of her students. They had no idea that she had been the lead singer for the Chantels, a group that had a hit in the late 1950s with “Maybe,” co-written by Smith and later recorded by Janis Joplin.Vance said he hoped the film would preserve the memory of groups whose prominence was often short-lived.“In the ’50s, these artists didn’t have entertainment lawyers, so they signed their lives away,” he said. “Even if you had a No. 1 record, without a follow-up hit, it’s over — you’re done. These days, you have one big song, you’re set for life.”WeatherA sunny day starts partly sunny, with temperatures near the mid-70s. The evening is mostly clear. Temps will drop to the mid-40s.ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKINGIn effect today. Suspended tomorrow (Election Day).The latest Metro newsDave Sanders for The New York TimesRepublicans vs. ‘Trumplicans’: Greenwich, Conn., has historically been a moderate conservative stronghold. But new hard-liners are on the attack, galvanized by the culture wars.5G towers come to the city: As the city upgrades to 5G wireless, the streetscape is changing. Not everyone was impressed when a 32-foot-tall 5G tower appeared on a Brooklyn street.Dog death in Prospect Park: Three months after a highly publicized attack left a dog dead, no arrests have been made, and the commanding officer of the precinct that includes the park said, “We may have dropped the ball.”How much do these New York jobs pay? Last week, most companies in New York City were required to include salary ranges on job postings. Take our quiz to see how well you can guess salaries on some only-in-New-York job openings.Presidents, past and present, rally for HochulAhmed Gaber for The New York TimesGov. Kathy Hochul once seemed to be on a glide path to a full term as governor. But issues that have Democrats steeling themselves against potential losses elsewhere — notably inflation and personal safety — have created unexpected turbulence.Her lead over the Republican in the race, Representative Lee Zeldin, has narrowed to single digits in recent polls. Zeldin has made inflation and crime his main themes. Hoping to win over moderate and independent voters who are open to change, he has also railed against one-party control of state government. The Democrats would surrender their veto-proof supermajority in the State Senate if they lose only one seat.Over the weekend Hochul seemed to be working to close an enthusiasm gap. President Biden appeared with her at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, N.Y., on Sunday. The president called her a governor who can “get things done” and said Election Day and the coming 2024 campaign would be “inflection points” for the next 20 years.That 11th-hour rally followed one in Brooklyn on Saturday with former President Bill Clinton, who urged Democrats to reject what he characterized as Zeldin’s fearmongering and macho bravado.Zeldin has been buoyed by the cosmetics heir Ronald Lauder, who has spent at least $11 million to help him win the governor’s mansion. Lauder said he was motivated by concerns about crime, which he worries is driving people from New York City. “You couldn’t pay me to get on the subway,” Lauder said, adding that he did not want his children and grandchildren “to have to go with bodyguards” (as he does).Lauder also complained that Hochul had not pushed harder to undo changes in the state’s bail law that barred prosecutors from seeking cash bail for less serious crimes.Another worry for Democrats is how they misplayed the redistricting process, which ended with a court-ordered redrawing of boundaries that could allow Republicans to flip a handful of House seats held by Democrats. Democrats hope to win the rematch between Representative Nicole Malliotakis, the Republican who won two years ago, and Max Rose, the Democrat whom she defeated. And Bridget Fleming, the Democratic candidate for the seat Zeldin is vacating on Long Island, has a significant fund-raising advantage over Nicholas LaLota, the Republican chief of staff of the Suffolk County Legislature.Letitia James, the state attorney general, is also running for re-election. She has made a name for herself nationally with investigations of former President Donald Trump, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the National Rifle Association. Those investigations have also made her a target — Trump, against the advice of several of his legal advisers, filed suit against her last week, saying she had waged a “relentless, pernicious, public and unapologetic crusade” against him. Cuomo, who resigned in 2021 after James oversaw an inquiry into sexual harassment claims, said in an ethics complaint he filed against her that said she had “her own politically motivated and self-interest-driven agenda.”James has long rebutted the idea that her work as attorney general was politically motivated. She said that not looking into evidence of wrongdoing by Trump or the N.R.A. would have been a “dereliction of my duty.”METROPOLITAN diarySardinesDear Diary:After a hot afternoon of walking in Manhattan, I returned to my car, which I had parked on the street. I had just gotten in when I was startled by a knock on the driver’s side window. Turning to look, I saw a man standing there.“Would you be vacating your space?” he asked. A woman I took to be his wife hung back shyly and murmured an apology.I explained that I was waiting for my husband to make his way across town and that he should be arriving soon.The man introduced himself and his wife, gave me his number and asked me to call once my husband arrived. He wanted to move his car from across the street. He offered to bring me a beer while we waited. It was an enticing offer, but I declined.As they walked off toward their place, the man called out over his shoulder, “Do you like sardines?”When my husband arrived 20 minutes later, I explained that I had to call the couple. He settled in, and a few minutes later the man appeared, asked my husband if he would like a beer and handed me two tins of sardines.They were, he said, “really good ones.”— Leslie SchulteIllustrated by Agnes Lee. Send submissions here and read more Metropolitan Diary here.Glad we could get together here. See you tomorrow. — J.B.P.S. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword and Spelling Bee. You can find all our puzzles here.Melissa Guerrero and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at nytoday@nytimes.com.Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. More

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      At 11th-Hour Rally, Biden Pushes for Hochul in Crucial N.Y. Election

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      The campaign visits by President Biden and Bill Clinton show that the governor’s race, once a worry-free contest for Democrats, may be up for grabs.Leaning on presidents past and present, Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York barnstormed around the New York City area this weekend, furiously trying to stave off a major upset by focusing on areas where high Democratic voter turnout will be crucial for her chances.In a 11th-hour rally on Sunday at Sarah Lawrence College in Westchester County, N.Y., President Biden appeared with Ms. Hochul, calling her a governor who can “get things done” and characterizing Election Day as “a choice between two fundamentally different visions of America.”“Democracy is literally on the ballot,” Mr. Biden said.Speaking for a half-hour in front of crowd of college students and other supporters, Mr. Biden repeatedly criticized Ms. Hochul’s Republican opponent, Representative Lee Zeldin, for his stances on gun control and abortion and ridiculed his focus on crime as empty rhetoric.“Governor Hochul’s opponent talks a good game,” the president said. “But it’s all talk.”The president’s visit underlined that the governor’s race in New York, once thought to be a worry-free contest for Democrats, has grown tighter, reflecting the party’s troubles across the nation.His appearance came on the heels of an event in Brooklyn on Saturday with Bill Clinton, the former president, who urged party faithful to reject what he characterized as fearmongering and macho bravado voiced by Mr. Zeldin.Democrats are girding for loss of the House and possibly the Senate, where races in Pennsylvania, Arizona, Georgia, and Wisconsin are all considered close to impossible to predict.In New York, the governor’s race has become one of the more competitive in the nation, a shock in a liberal state that hasn’t elected a Republican to the governor’s mansion since George Pataki won a third term in 2002. Numerous polls have shown Ms. Hochul, a first-term Democrat who rose to power in August 2021 after the resignation of Andrew M. Cuomo, leading Mr. Zeldin by single digits even though her party has millions more registered voters in the state.During the closing days of the campaign, Mr. Zeldin’s rhetoric on public safety and inflation seemed to be galvanizing and invigorating his supporters, like Tony Donato, 60, a retired 911 dispatcher from Warwick, N.Y., who said that a 2019 law that eliminated bail for most misdemeanors and nonviolent felonies “has got to go.”Mr. Zeldin has held several news conferences at the site of recent crimes, including one last week at Pier 45 in Manhattan.Dave Sanders for The New York Times“Criminal justice reform is killing cops,” said Mr. Donato, a registered Republican. “It’s making our prisons more unsafe for the corrections officers.”While Democrats vastly outnumber Republicans in New York, there are also millions of independents like Barrett Braithwaite, 42, who was shopping in Downtown Brooklyn with her daughter on Saturday afternoon. Ms. Braithwaite said she would probably vote Democrat but wasn’t especially excited about the election.“I think everybody is tired, after the last few years, in politics and the pandemic,” she said. “Overall, everyone is just fatigued. But I’m trying.”At the Brooklyn rally, Mr. Clinton suggested that Mr. Zeldin was preying on fears of crime, saying that he “makes it sound like Kathy Hochul gets up every morning, goes to the nearest subway stop and hands out billy clubs and baseball bats to everybody who gets on the subway.” He added that the congressman “looks like he’s auditioning to replace Dwayne Johnson in all those movies.”At the same time, Mr. Zeldin held a series of rallies in the Hudson Valley and its environs, where three competitive congressional races may well determine control of the House of Representatives.Democrats have sought to channel outrage over the overturning of Roe v. Wade, threats to democracy and the Capitol riots of Jan. 6, as well as the specter of former President Donald J. Trump, who remains deeply unpopular in a state he once called home.But Mr. Zeldin’s supporters seem to have little interest in such issues.Supporters holding signs boosting Mr. Zeldin and his running mate, Alison Esposito.Gregg Vigliotti for The New York TimesAttendees at a Brooklyn rally grasp signs for Ms. Hochul and Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado.Anna Watts for The New York Times“Nobody cares about January 6. Nobody cares about Trump,” James DiGraziano, 55, of Massapequa Park, said at a Zeldin rally last weekend featuring Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida. “Crime is at the top of the ticket.”At rallies, many of Mr. Zeldin’s supporters said they planned to vote on Tuesday, saying they didn’t trust the early voting system, a reflection of Mr. Trump’s and some other Republicans’ repeated, and unfounded, assertions of nefarious meddling in the 2020 election. Sunday was the last day for early voting, with hundreds of thousands of votes already cast in New York City, though that rate still lagged far behind 2020.Jack Lanthan, a registered Republican and retired New York City police officer from Chester, where Mr. Zeldin held a lively rally on Saturday night, said he’d vote on Tuesday and was “amazed” that the Republican was seemingly running so close in “this dark blue state.”“I hope the polls are right and he wins,” Mr. Lanthan said, noting high prices for gas and other things. “We need a change in Albany.”Not everyone, however, was willing to blame Democrats for rising prices and other woes. At a Halloween rally in Queens, Andy Liu said the economy is one of his big concerns, but that he still feels “good with the Democratic Party.”“They try to make everybody better,” said Mr. Liu, a 40-year-old cashier. “They care about everyone.”Such were the arguments made by Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the chair of the House Democratic Caucus, who spoke alongside Mayor Eric Adams, Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer, and Attorney General Letitia James, all from Brooklyn, a vote-rich borough which has long been critical to Democratic success in state elections.Mr. Jeffries, whose Eighth Congressional District includes a chunk of Brooklyn and a slice of Queens, urged the assembled crowd — many of whom were union members, another critical constituency in the Democratic calculus — to vote against what he called a virulent new brand of Republicanism, saying that his party fought for “the least, the lost and the left behind.”As for Republicans, Mr. Jeffries said, “These people are out of control, they are off the chain.” In his speech, Mr. Biden said Mr. Zeldin — who voted against certifying the 2020 election — and other “election deniers” were dangerously out of step with most New Yorkers — and Americans.“These deniers not only are trying to deny your right to vote, they’re trying to deny your right to have your vote counted,” Mr. Biden said, adding, “With these election deniers, there are only two outcomes for any election. Either they win or they were cheated.”He added, “You can’t only love the country when you win.”Some voters seemed inclined to give Ms. Hochul the benefit of the doubt. Nia Howard, 30, said she felt the governor had been blamed for things beyond her control. “I don’t know how much she could’ve done better,” said Ms. Howard, who works in office administration. But she added: “The way the economy is, people are desperate.”Mr. Clinton told rally attendees that Mr. Zeldin’s positions were too extreme for New York.Anna Watts for The New York TimesOn Saturday in Chester, Mr. Zeldin was promising his fans a concession speech this week from “soon-to-be-former governor Kathy Hochul,” while mocking Ms. Hochul’s use of President Clinton and President Biden as surrogates.“You know that you are really scraping the bottom of the barrel when that is your message as your final pitch,” said Mr. Zeldin, a conservative congressman who has voiced support for Mr. Trump and his agenda for much of the last six years.He added that the very presence of such prominent Democrats — including earlier appearances by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Vice President Kamala Harris — spoke to Ms. Hochul’s concerns about the race.“Why are you bringing all these people to New York if this race isn’t as close as we know it actually is?” Mr. Zeldin said.Mr. Zeldin appeared alongside his wife and two daughters and later reminded the crowd of a shooting that took place near his Long Island home last month. It was a message that reflected the candidate’s relentless focus on crime during his campaign, including attacks on the 2019 bail law and the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, a Democrat whom Mr. Zeldin has painted as soft on crime.Nancy Tomesheski, 62, a retired nurse and registered Republican from Howells, N.Y., wasn’t initially certain whether she would vote for Mr. Zeldin, but said she had been convinced, in part, by a recent incident in which a friend of her daughter’s was a victim of a crime.“It’s just out of control,” Ms. Tomesheski said. “We need to take back New York.”Reporting was contributed by More

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      Republicans Have Made It Very Clear What They Want to Do if They Win Congress

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      What Republicans are offering, if they win the 2022 election, is not conservatism. It is crisis. More accurately, it is crises. A debt-ceiling crisis. An election crisis. And a body blow to the government’s efforts to prepare for a slew of other crises we know are coming.That is not to say there aren’t bills House Republicans would like to pass. There are. The closest thing to an agenda that congressional Republicans have released is the House Republican Study Committee’s 122-page budget. The study committee is meant to be something akin to an internal think tank for House Republicans. It counts well over half of House Republicans as members, and includes Representatives Steve Scalise, Elise Stefanik and Gary Palmer — all the leaders save for Kevin McCarthy.After spending some time with the document, what I’d say is that it lacks even the pretense of prioritization, preferring instead the comforts of quantity. It lists bill after bill that House Republicans would like to pass. Legislation that would upend the structure and powers of the government, like the bill sponsored by Representative Byron Donalds that seeks to abolish the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, gets exactly the same treatment as Representative Bob Good’s bill to force schools to release their correspondence with teachers’ unions about when to reopen, or Representative Michael Cloud’s resolution disapproving of vaccinating 11-year-olds in Washington, D.C. There are plans to privatize much of Medicare and repeal much of Obamacare and to raise the Social Security age and no fewer than eight bills attacking Critical Race Theory.But even if Republicans win the House and Senate, they cannot pass this agenda. It would fall to President Biden’s veto. What Republicans could do is trigger crises they hope would give them leverage to force Biden to accept this agenda or perhaps force him out of office. And even where Republican leadership does not actually believe that crisis would win them the day, they may have to trigger it anyway to prove their commitment to the cause or to avoid the wrath of Donald Trump.Start with the debt ceiling. U.S. Treasuries are the bedrock asset of the global financial system. They are the safest of safe investments, the security that countries and funds buy when they must be absolutely sure that their money is safe. Much else in the financial system is priced on this assumption of American reliability: Lenders begin with the “riskless rate of return” — that is, the interest rate on U.S. treasuries — and then add their premiums atop that. If the U.S. government defaults on its own debt, it would trigger financial chaos. (I guess that’s one way to deal with inflation: Crash the global economy!)Republicans have been perfectly clear, though: They see the debt limit as leverage in negotiations with Biden. “We’ll provide you more money, but you got to change your current behavior,” Kevin McCarthy, the Republican minority leader and potential Speaker of the House, told Punchbowl News. “We’re not just going to keep lifting your credit card limit, right?”McCarthy may sound measured, but that he would open the door to this tactic at all either shows his weakness or his recklessness. A hostage is leverage only if you’re willing to shoot. And there will be plenty of voices demanding that Republicans pull the trigger or at least prove their willingness to do so.One of those voices will be Trump’s. “It’s crazy what’s happening with this debt ceiling,” the former president recently told a conservative radio host. “Mitch McConnell keeps allowing it to happen. I mean, they ought to impeach Mitch McConnell if he allows that.”To put it gently, the record of Republican Party leaders resisting the demands of their party’s hard-liners, even when they think those demands are mad, is not inspiring. McConnell and the former Republican Speaker John Boehner didn’t have enough command of their members to reject Ted Cruz’s doomed 2013 shutdown over the Affordable Care Act, which both of them thought to be lunacy. And Cruz’s influence with the Republican base and the G.O.P.’s congressional caucus in 2013 was nothing compared with the power Trump now wields.That’s not the only looming crisis. At this point, much is known about the myriad attempts Trump and his backers made to subvert the result of the 2020 election. The country’s saving grace was that there was little preparation behind that effort, and Republicans in key positions — to say nothing of Democrats — proved hostile to the project. But as The Times reported in October, more than 370 Republicans running for office in 2022 have said they doubt the results of the last election, and “hundreds of these candidates are favored to win their races.”The 2022 election is very likely to sweep into power hundreds of Republicans committed to making sure that the 2024 election goes their way, no matter how the vote tally turns out. Hardly anything has been done to fortify the system against chicanery since Jan. 6. What if congressional Republicans refuse to certify the results in key states, as a majority of House Republicans did in 2020? What if, when Trump calls Republican Secretaries of State or governors or board of elections supervisors in 2024, demanding they find the votes he wishes he had or disqualify the votes his opponent does have, they try harder to comply? The possibilities for crisis abound.Here, too, Republican officeholders who don’t fully buy into Trumpist conspiracy theories may find themselves rationalizing compliance. This is a movie we have already watched. Most of the House Republicans who voted against certification of the 2020 election knew Trump’s claims were absurd. But they chose to hide behind Representative Mike Johnson’s bizarre, evasive rationale for voting as Trump demanded they vote without needing to embrace the things he said. Johnson’s solution was to suggest that pandemic-era changes to voting procedures were unconstitutional, thus rendering the results uncertifiable. It was nonsense, and worse than that, it was cowardice. But it’s a reminder that the problem is not merely the Republican officeholders who would force an electoral crisis. The enabling threat is the much larger mass of their colleagues who have already proven they will do nothing to object.Not all crises begin with a political showdown. Some could come from a virus mutating toward greater lethality. Some could come from a planet warming outsides the narrow band that has fostered human civilization. Some could come from the expansionary ambitions of dictators and autocrats. The past few years have brought vivid examples of all three. But particularly over the past year, the Republican Party has shown itself to be somewhere between dismissive of — and hostile toward — the preparations and responses these possible crises demand.Last week, I criticized the Biden administration for failing to find a party-line path to financing pandemic preparedness. But such a path was only necessary because the Republican Party has swung so hard against efforts to prepare for the next pandemic. The Republican Study Committee’s budget is a vivid example of where the party has gone on Covid. It is not that Republicans are pro-Covid. But the party’s energy is very much anti-anti-Covid. It includes policy after policy attacking vaccine mandates, emergency powers and vaccinations for children. But in its 100-plus pages I could find nothing proposing ways to make sure we are better prepared for the next viral threat.It is easy to imagine what such policies might be: The government was slow to authorize certain new treatments and tests, cumbersome in its efforts to dole out money for research, and not nearly as innovative as it could have been in deploying technology to monitor new and emerging diseases. This is a libertarian, not a liberal, critique of government. But the study committee’s budget offers no discussion of how deregulation might foster a better response next time.And it’s not just Covid. Republicans have long been skeptical of efforts to prepare for climate change. The study committee’s budget is thick with plans to goose fossil fuel extraction and bar federal dollars from supporting the Paris Climate Accords. Republicans have been, shall we say, divided in their affections for Vladimir Putin, but at least in the early days of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, many backed efforts to support Ukraine. But McCarthy has suggested that Republicans will cut aid to Ukraine if they win in November, and he’s far from alone in wanting to see the United States back off from the conflict.I’ll say this for Republicans. They have not hidden their intentions, nor their tactics. They have made clear what they intend to do if they win. Biden ran — and won — in 2020 promising a return to normalcy. Republicans are running in 2022 promising a return to calamity.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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      Democrats, Don’t Despair. There Are Bright Spots for Our Party.

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      The Democratic Party and Senator Mitch McConnell rarely see eye to eye on anything. But if Democrats hold the line in the elections on Tuesday and keep control of the Senate — and we still have a shot — it will come down to candidate quality.That’s the phrase that Mr. McConnell used this past summer alluding to his Republican Senate nominees.Going into Tuesday’s vote, Democrats face fierce headwinds like inflation and the typical pattern of losses in midterm elections for the party in power. But unlike some Republican candidates — a real-life island of misfit toys — many Democratic Senate candidates have been a source of comfort: the likable, pragmatic, low-drama Mark Kelly in Arizona and Raphael Warnock in Georgia, the heterodox populists John Fetterman (Pennsylvania) and Tim Ryan (Ohio). If the party can defy the odds and hold the Senate, there will be valuable lessons to take away.For many election analysts, the hopes of the summer —  that the Dobbs decision overturning Roe could help Democrats buck historical trends — look increasingly like a blue mirage, and Republicans seem likely to surf their way to a majority in the House.Yet the battle for the Senate is still raging, and largely on the strength of Mr. Kelly, Mr. Warnock, Mr. Ryan and Mr. Fetterman. Their races also offer insights that can help Democrats mitigate losses in the future and even undo some of the reputational damage that has rendered the party’s candidates unelectable in far too many places across the country.In a normal midterm year, Mr. Warnock and Mr. Kelly would be the low-hanging fruit of vulnerable Democrats, given that they eked out victories in 2020 and 2021 in purple states.But they bring to the table compelling biographies that resist caricature. Mr. Kelly is a former Navy combat pilot and astronaut whose parents were both cops. Mr. Warnock, the senior pastor at Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, quotes Scripture on the campaign trail and compares the act of voting to prayer.They’ve rejected the hair-on-fire, hyperpartisan campaign ads that endangered incumbents often rely on. Mr. Kelly’s ads highlight his bipartisanship and willingness to break with the Democratic Party on issues like border security — he supports, for example, filling in gaps in the wall on the border with Mexico.Mr. Warnock, too, has focused on local issues: His campaign has highlighted his efforts to secure funding for the Port of Savannah and his bipartisan work with Tommy Tuberville of Alabama to help Georgia’s peanut farmers. These ads will probably not go viral on Twitter, but they signal that Mr. Kelly and Mr. Warnock will fight harder for the folks at home than they will for the national Democratic agenda.In Ohio and Pennsylvania, Mr. Ryan and Mr. Fetterman have showed up in every county, red or blue, in their states. Democrats can’t just depend on driving up the margins in Democratic strongholds — they also need to drive down Republicans’ margins in their strongholds.Mr. Fetterman is holding to a slim lead in polls. Most analysts doubt Mr. Ryan can prevail in what is a tougher electoral environment for a Democrat, but even if he loses, he helped his peers by keeping his race competitive, and he did it without a dollar of help from the national party. He forced national Republicans to spend about $30 million in Ohio that could otherwise have gone to Senate races in Arizona, Georgia and Pennsylvania.Anything could happen on Tuesday. Politics, like football, is a game of inches. It’s still possible that Democrats could pick up a seat or two. It’s also plausible that Republicans could take seats in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and even New Hampshire.But when the dust settles on the election, Democrats need to do some real soul-searching about the future of our party. We look likely to lose in some places where Joe Biden won in 2020. And what’s worse, we could lose to candidates who have embraced bans on abortion and conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, views shared by a minority of the American people. This outcome tells us as much about the Democratic brand as it does the Republican Party.Fair or not, Democrats have been painted as the party of out-of-touch, coastal elites — the party that tells voters worried about crime that it’s all in their heads and that, by the way, crime was higher in the 1990s; the party that sneers at voters disillusioned with bad trade deals and globalization and that labels their “economic anxiety” a convenient excuse for racism; the party that discounts shifts of Black and Hispanic voters toward the Republican Party as either outliers or a sign of internalized white supremacy.If Democrats are smart, they’ll take away an important lesson from this election: There is no one way, no right way to be a Democrat. To win or be competitive in tough years in places as varied as Arizona, Georgia, Ohio and Pennsylvania, we need to recruit and give support to the candidates who might not check the box of every national progressive litmus test but who do connect with the voters in their state.Mr. Fetterman and Mr. Ryan offer good examples. Both have been competitive in part because they broke with progressive orthodoxy on issues like fracking (in Pennsylvania, Mr. Fetterman was called the “enemy” by an environmentalist infuriated by his enthusiastic support for fracking and the jobs it creates) and trade deals (in Ohio, Mr. Ryan has bragged about how he “voted with Trump on trade”).It also means lifting up more candidates with nontraditional résumés who defy political stereotypes and can’t be ridiculed as down-the-line partisans: veterans, nurses, law enforcement officers and entrepreneurs and executives from the private sector.In some states, the best candidates will be economic populists who play down social issues. In others, it will be economic moderates who play up their progressive social views. And in a lot of swing states, it will be candidates who just play it down the middle all around.It might also mean engaging with unfriendly media outlets. Most Democrats have turned up their noses at Fox News even though it is the highest-rated cable news channel, but Mr. Ryan has made appearances and even put on air a highlight reel of conservative hosts like Tucker Carlson praising him as a voice of moderation and reason in the Democratic Party. In the frenzied final days of the campaign, Mr. Fetterman wrote an opinion essay for FoxNews.com.This year we still might avoid losing the Senate. And Democrats can avoid catastrophe in future elections. It all comes down to two words: “candidate quality.”Lis Smith (@Lis_Smith), a Democratic communications strategist, was a senior adviser to Pete Buttigieg’s presidential campaign and is the author of the memoir “Any Given Tuesday: A Political Love Story.”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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      Can Republicans and Democrats Find a Way Forward on Immigration?

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      Any hope for immigration reform on undocumented Dreamers, border security or legal immigration will likely hinge on compromise, something that has eluded lawmakers for decades.WASHINGTON — A drug needle goes into a person’s arm; an adult and child walk through a graveyard; and footage of migrants walking along a sandy stretch of a border wall, in Yuma, Arizona, streams while ominous music plays in the background of this video.It is a 40-second political ad in support of Blake Masters, the Republican candidate for Senate in Arizona, who is running against Mark Kelly, the incumbent Democrat. The ad connects fatal overdoses of fentanyl and methamphetamines to a spike in illegal migration at the southwestern border. It is one of more than 400 political ads tying immigration to drugs this election cycle, according to America’s Voice, a pro-immigration advocacy group.And it is part of a false G.O.P. narrative that connects fatal overdoes of fentanyl to a spike in illegal migration and presents Republican immigration hard-line immigration policies as an answer to crime and the drug epidemic. Most of the fentanyl comes into the country through official ports of entry on the southwestern border, hidden in legitimate commerce.The false narrative, which resonates with voters across the country, is just one example of how toxic the issue of immigration has become. Republicans have stepped up attacks against President Biden as weak and ineffective on immigration, making it even more difficult for the Biden administration to secure any meaningful immigration reform after the midterm elections, especially if the G.O.P. controls at least one legislative chamber.But even if Republicans win control in Congress and want to advance their immigration policies, particularly on border security, they will have to find some compromise with Democrats to overcome the 60-vote filibuster threshold in the Senate — something that has been elusive for years, regardless of party control.Here are some of the major immigration issues facing the Biden administration that would require striking a compromise with Republicans for any legislation to move forward.The DreamersImmigration advocates demonstrating in front of the Capitol to support protections for DACA recipients earlier this year.Drew Angerer/Getty ImagesThe Obama-era program, known as the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, protects hundreds of thousands of immigrants who came to the country as children and have grown up in the United States. Court challenges against the policy have been successful and appeals have largely been exhausted, leaving the fate of these immigrants — many of whom hold jobs in sectors that are already struggling to find workers, such as agriculture and manufacturing — in the hands of Congress.If Congress is unable to come to an agreement to enshrine the policy in law, and a judge stops allowing current participants, known as “Dreamers,” to renew their status, about 1,000 of them will lose the ability to work every business day over a two-year period, said Todd Schulte, president of FWD.us, an immigration reform advocacy group that draws support from the tech industry.“This would cause terrible, unneeded human and economic hardship for millions of individuals,” Mr. Schulte said in a recent letter to Democrats, referring to the Dreamers, others who would be eligible for the benefit and their family members. He said the results of so many forced out of the work force “would be extremely harmful” for the country’s economy.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.The top Republican in the House, Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, who is in line for the speaker role, has said that if the G.O.P. wins back control, striking a deal to protect DACA recipients in exchange for border security is a non-starter. But significant job losses in Republican districts among DACA recipients could force the Republicans’ hands if their employers put pressure on their elected officials to find a solution.There has been and continues to be bipartisan support to create a pathway to citizenship for the Dreamers, according to a recent poll commissioned by FWD.us. But previous efforts have failed without enough Republican support.“It’s put up or shut up time” for Republicans if they actually want to do something on border security, Mr. Schulte said in an interview with The New York Times.Democrats have already shown that they are open to some kind of compromise measure.Border SecurityA Border Patrol agent detaining migrants who crossed the border near Yuma, Ariz.John Moore/Getty ImagesFor Republicans, when it comes to immigration, border security is the top priority.During Mr. Biden’s time in office, there has been a record-breaking spike in illegal migration at the southwestern border, part of a global trend exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic.Many migrants are fleeing violence and poverty with the hope that they will find work or asylum in the United States. They are coming across the southwest border illegally, because there are not enough legal pathways for them to come to the United States. Limits on visas were set based on the U.S. economy in the 1990s and have largely remained the same, even though the country’s economy has grown more than twice as large since then.Even so, Republicans blame the Biden administration. House Republicans have threatened to impeach the Homeland Security secretary, Alejandro N. Mayorkas, should they retake the majority, blaming him for the extraordinary number of illegal border crossings. They have also threatened to impeach the attorney general, among other officials.For Republicans, improving border security starts with restoring former President Donald J. Trump’s restrictive immigration measures. Senator Rick Scott of Florida, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said the first step is completing Mr. Trump’s border wall, a pricey project that Mr. Biden paused when he took office. Fights over the wall also led to a government shutdown in 2018. Democrats say the wall is ineffective and sends a message that the country does not want to let anyone in.Republicans also argue that restricting asylum and withholding welfare benefits for immigrants are two policy changes that would deter migrants from crossing the southwestern border illegally, though undocumented immigrants are not eligible for most federal public benefits.“We have plenty of welfare recipients; we need productive citizens instead,” Mr. Scott said on his campaign website.There may be room for movement. Legislation introduced last year by Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, had the support of two Democratic senators, Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire and Krysten Sinema of Arizona, and could provide a road map for compromise. The bill calls for hiring more people in the immigration agencies to address spikes in migration and speeding the process for determining an asylum case in immigration court. That proposal did not include a pathway to citizenship for the Dreamers, and the measure has yet to advance.So far, bills that included both border security and new pathways for legal immigration have hit dead-ends. Senator Dick Durban, Democrat of Illinois, recently reminded Republicans of a proposal in 2013 that had bipartisan support in the Senate. Mr. Durbin said if the legislation had passed, the country would not be in the current situation where there are not enough immigrants legally authorized to work in the agriculture sector. Legal ImmigrationFarm workers harvesting asparagus in Firebaugh, Calif.Ryan Christopher Jones for The New York TimesAnother challenge facing the Biden administration is the labor shortage across the country, which continues to worsen as the economy adds new jobs, even as fears of a recession grow. Democrats and many businesses that employ both low and high-skilled workers argue the labor shortage could be addressed through issuing work authorizations and paths to citizenship as well as expanding programs for immigrants to come work in the United States.Many businesses argue that allowing the expiration of work authorizations for Dreamers and other immigrants in the country on a temporary status would result in significant disruptions to the work force. Businesses pushing for immigration reform have pressed Congress to pass measures providing work authorizations that could give an immediate boost to the economy, lower food prices and fill critical job openings.Businesses, particularly in the agriculture industry, are also pushing to fix the country’s current farm labor shortages by passing new laws for immigrants to work in the agriculture work force.The House last year approved measures that would give about four million immigrants currently in the United States without documentation or with expiring permissions a path to citizenship. But the bills died without enough support in the Senate.While Democrats want to expand legal immigration, Republicans typically want to decrease it. Many Republicans see adding more paths to citizenship for immigrants already in the country on an expired or temporary status as a form of amnesty. They also argue that immigrants take jobs away from Americans.What’s NextMigrants seeking asylum wait to be processed by Border Patrol agents along a section of border wall near Yuma, Ariz.John Moore/Getty ImagesFor years, Republicans have largely owned the narrative on immigration, which is mostly focused on illegal immigrants and border crossings. In this election cycle, Republicans outspent Democrats on immigration-related ads on streaming services and traditional television nearly 15 to 1 — with $119.4 million compared to Democrats’ $8.1 million, according to BPI, a communications and marketing agency that tracks this data.Democrats see little political advantage in talking about immigration during the campaign. But letting Republicans fill that void means the G.O.P. message is often the only narrative Americans hear about immigration.In general, border and immigration policy are two of Mr. Biden’s least favorite issues to discuss, his staff has said, since it is an enormous challenge with no clear, quick solution. And there has been disagreement within the Biden administration over how to approach the border, with some aides supporting some of the restrictive policies of the last administration, according to two people familiar with the discussions.But immigration advocates say if Mr. Biden is serious about protecting Dreamers and pursuing other immigration reforms, Democrats must start reclaiming the narrative on immigration with a positive message that resonates with voters.“They’d better get on the messaging train,” said Beatriz Lopez, the chief political and communications officer with the advocacy group, Immigration Hub.There are brighter messages on immigration for Democrats to talk about, Ms. Lopez said. Her organization has found that voters in battleground states largely agree on protecting the Dreamers. She said they also approve of what the Biden administration has done to reunite immigrant families who were separated during the Trump administration. And voters support efforts to crack down on international drug cartels.Customs and Border Protection, for example, seized 14,700 pounds of fentanyl between October of last year and the end of September, which is more than five times the amount in 2019. About 80 percent of the fentanyl seized by the agency last year was done at ports of entry on the southwestern border.“Democrats have an opportunity to lean in,” said Vanessa Cárdenas, executive director of America’s Voice, a pro-immigration group. “Talk about the fact that we can do big things, and get the ball rolling on affirmative positive immigration action, versus just playing into the right and talking about enforcement.”Jeanna Smialek More

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      Obama Urges Voters Not to Overlook Threats to Democracy

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      PHILADELPHIA — Former President Barack Obama on Saturday issued a stark warning about threats to American democracy, even as he acknowledged that many voters were consumed by a range of other urgent issues in the final stretch of the midterm campaign.“I understand that democracy might not seem like a top priority right now, especially when you’re worried about paying the bills,” Mr. Obama said at a get-out-the-vote rally in Philadelphia, not far from the Liberty Bell. “But when true democracy goes away, we’ve seen throughout history, we’ve seen around the world, when true democracy goes away, people get hurt. It has real consequences.”Mr. Obama’s comments came as he and President Biden rallied with Democratic candidates for governor and senator in the evenly divided state of Pennsylvania, stressing the high stakes of the elections to a crowd gathered at Temple University and lacing into the Republicans on the ballot.They appeared together to support Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, the nominee for Senate, and Josh Shapiro, the state attorney general and nominee for governor.Mr. Fetterman is in a highly competitive race against Dr. Mehmet Oz, the celebrity physician and Republican nominee. Mr. Shapiro has strongly outpolled his rival, Doug Mastriano, the far-right state senator.Mr. Mastriano chartered buses to the Jan. 6, 2021, rally that led to the attack on the Capitol, and Mr. Obama noted associations between the Oz campaign and Jan. 6.“This is not an abstraction,” Mr. Obama warned. “Governments start telling you what books you can read and which ones you can’t. Dissidents start getting locked up. Reporters start getting locked up if they’re not toeing the party line. Corruption reigns because there’s no accountability.”Invoking the generations of Americans who “fought and died for our democracy,” and the suffragists, civil rights activists and labor advocates, Mr. Obama said: “They understood that when democracy withers, it’s hard to restore. You can’t take it for granted. You have to work for it. You have to nurture it. You have to fight for it.”The good news, he told the audience, is “you get to make a difference, as long as you turn out to vote.”Over the growing roar of the crowd, he continued: “You can fight for it as long as you turn out to vote. You can bolster and strengthen our democracy as long as you get out there and do what needs to be done.” More

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      Biden Emphasizes the Threat to Social Security and Medicare at Rally

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      PHILADELPHIA — President Biden doubled down on Saturday on his warning that Republicans will try to roll back Social Security and Medicare benefits if they win control of Congress next week, making the election a referendum on America’s safety net programs.“These guys will never cease to amaze me, man,” Mr. Biden said at a campaign rally in Philadelphia. “They’re literally coming after Social Security and Medicare.”The president criticized two Republican senators, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Rick Scott of Florida, as major threats to the programs and pointed to a Republican proposal that would require approvals for funding every five years.Mr. Biden referred to Mr. Scott, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, as “that guy that’s pushing Oz,” a reference to Dr. Mehmet Oz, the Republican Senate candidate who is running against Pennsylvania’s lieutenant governor, John Fetterman.Mr. Biden also highlighted his work to expand health benefits for veterans, pointing to his late son Beau’s battle with brain cancer after returning from Iraq.Mr. Biden said that it is not just Social Security, the right to vote and abortion rights that are on the ballot. Lacing into the Republican candidates and his predecessor, Donald J. Trump, he said: “Character is on the ballot.” More