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      Is It the Gas Prices, Stupid?

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      A simpler explanation for a Democratic turnaround.Democratic fortunes have improved markedly over the last few months, with the party overtaking Republicans on the generic congressional ballot in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.But there’s another, simpler explanation for a Democratic turnaround, one that lines up nearly as well as abortion: gas prices.The price of gas fell for 98 straight days beginning June 14 — 10 days before the court’s Dobbs decision on Roe. At the time, the average price of gas nationally was over $5 per gallon. Prices were at $3.67 by the end of the streak.While few would dispute that the Dobbs decision helped energize Democratic voters, it seems clear that falling gas prices have helped as well. After all, voters say that the economy and inflation — not abortion — are the most important issues facing the country. There’s a longstanding relationship between economic performance and the president’s standing. As James Carville once said: It’s the economy, stupid.So is it the gas prices, stupid? It’s hard not to wonder after looking at this chart by my colleague Francesca Paris.Tracking Biden’s approval and gas prices More

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      In a First, Biden Gets Involved in State Legislative Races

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      The president’s involvement is a sign that Democratic leaders are taking down-ballot contests more seriously than in past elections.President Biden became involved in state legislative races for the first time, with an email Friday asking Democrats to each donate the modest sum of $7 to his party’s campaign arm for statehouse elections.And, following his Sept. 1 speech lashing “MAGA Republicans,” Biden is framing the stakes as a battle for American democracy, coupled with a bread-and-butter message about inflation, an issue that has bedeviled his presidency and given Republicans hopes of a red wave in races all the way down the ballot.“State legislatures are the key to stopping Republican abortion bans, attacks on L.G.B.T.Q.+ rights, bills that undercut our democracy by making it harder for people to vote,” Biden wrote in the email, which was sent to the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee’s mailing list. “Not just that, state legislatures are essential — I mean it, essential — to lowering prices for American families and building an economy that works for everyone.”Biden’s email, which the White House had been working on for weeks, comes as Republicans warn that they are being outspent in state legislative races. It’s a noteworthy shift in messaging for the traditionally chest-thumping G.O.P., and therefore revealing regardless of what the numbers actually tell us.As my colleague Nick Corasaniti reported on Friday, one outside group working on winning statehouses for Democrats, the States Project, plans to spend $60 million across just five states. That would be a humdrum sum for a hot Senate race, but it’s an astronomical amount in races where spending is often in the range of thousands of dollars, not even tens of thousands and far from millions.Nick’s reporting included a memo sent this week by the Republican State Leadership Committee, the D.L.C.C.’s counterpart on the right. It warns conservative donors that Democrats are vastly outspending them in key states.“While Democrats cry out for more resources,” it reads, “they are dominating the television spending at this point in the campaign.”That is only partially true.Citing publicly available advertising data, which The New York Times verified, the memo notes that in Michigan, Democrats have spent nearly six times as much as Republicans in state legislative races since the primaries. In Colorado, another hotly contested state, the R.S.L.C. memo notes, “Democrats have spent and booked nearly four times more than Republicans since the June 28 primary.”Michigan followed a nonpartisan redistricting process this year that threw out a heavily gerrymandered map that favored Republicans. A flood of spending has come to the state: Democrats have spent and booked more than $20 million in TV ads, while Republicans have spent and booked just under $3.7 million.Nick found, however, that “on the television airwaves, Republican candidates and outside groups have spent roughly $39 million, while Democrats have spent roughly $35 million,” citing data from AdImpact, a media-tracking company.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.Inflation Concerns Persist: In the six-month primary season that has just ended, several issues have risen and fallen, but nothing has dislodged inflation and the economy from the top of voters’ minds.Herschel Walker: The Republican Senate candidate in Georgia claimed his business donated 15 percent of its profits to charities. Three of the four groups named as recipients say they didn’t receive money.North Carolina Senate Race: Are Democrats about to get their hearts broken again? The contest between Cheri Beasley, a Democrat, and her G.O.P. opponent, Representative Ted Budd, seems close enough to raise their hopes.Echoing Trump: Six G.O.P. nominees for governor and the Senate in critical midterm states, all backed by former President Donald J. Trump, would not commit to accepting this year’s election results.In Pennsylvania and Arizona, Nick reported, “Republicans have spent nearly $1 million more than Democrats on ads since July.”Just one Democratic state senator, Mallory McMorrow, had already raised nearly $2 million as of Friday, according to her campaign.The presidential factorPresidents have typically focused on winning races for the Senate, the House and governorships. But over the last decade, as Democrats have worked to reverse the nationwide gains Republicans made after redistricting in 2010, many in the lower ranks of the party have been pushing Democratic leaders to pay more attention to the bottom of the ballot.Three factors have changed the game this year.The first is Donald Trump, who started getting involved in state legislative races as he embraced candidates who endorsed his conspiracy theories about the 2020 election. In addition, some candidates for secretary of state would be in charge of running elections even though they falsely claim that Trump won in 2020, On Politics wrote on Thursday.The second is abortion. Republicans have spent decades amassing power and support in state legislatures while national Democrats largely ignored state politics in favor of higher-profile contests. The Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in June shined a spotlight on the gains Republicans had made at the state level as so-called trigger laws went into effect in many states, restricting abortion after the ruling.In Michigan, for instance, where Republicans control both houses of the State Legislature, Democrats are investing great hopes in a ballot measure that seeks to overturn a 1931 law that the Roe reversal triggered, although a judicial ruling has kept abortion legal in the state for now.And the third is the long tail of the 2010 redistricting, which Republicans used to redraw maps in their favor after midterm elections that President Obama famously described as a “shellacking.”President Biden remains fairly unpopular, despite making some gains over the last few months. His approval rating was 42.7 percent as of Friday, according to FiveThirtyEight’s average of public opinion polls.That said, Trump is even less popular, and Democrats have spent months researching ways to anchor Republican candidates to him even though he won’t be on the ballot this year.Abortion-rights advocates in the Michigan Legislature in June. Republicans are expected to hold the Legislature, but forecasting races is difficult with little polling.Matthew Dae Smith/Lansing State Journal, via APWhat the forecasts sayWhether this strategy will help Democrats keep the statehouses they picked up in 2018, and held in most cases in 2020, is another matter.According to forecasts by CNAnalysis, one of the few publicly available prognosticators that focuses on state legislative races, it’s looking like it will be a very Republican year across the country.As of Friday, CNAnalysis was predicting that Republicans would hang on to legislatures in Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire, with Maine and Minnesota as tossups. Democrats, the firm expects, will retain Colorado and New Mexico.But such forecasts are inherently difficult in races where polling is scant, and much depends on which way undecided voters break in the fall.Will they side with Republicans and their complaints about the prices of gas and groceries, or will they hear out Democrats’ messages about abortion, L.G.B.T.Q. rights and democracy?That’s the $1 million question of this election — whether it’s in a high-profile Senate race in Pennsylvania or a humble statehouse contest in Arizona.The wider stakesNick’s article also mentions a once-obscure legal doctrine called the “independent state legislature theory.” Richard L. Hasen, a law professor, called it the “800-pound gorilla brooding in the background of election law cases working their way up from state courts” in June.The doctrine is an unorthodox interpretation of the Constitution. It holds that the framers of the Constitution intended for state legislatures to reign supreme over secretaries of state and even state constitutions. Most law professors view it as far out of the mainstream, but some conservative legal scholars, including at least two current Supreme Court justices, see it as legitimate.Quietly, lawyers linked to the Republican National Committee and to congressional leaders have been angling for the Supreme Court to rule on the doctrine. Conservative lawyers under the banner of a group called the Honest Elections Project invoked a version of the theory in Pennsylvania in 2020, citing it in a petition for writ of certiorari to the state Supreme Court.The lawyers, David B. Rivkin Jr. and Andrew M. Grossman of the Republican-linked firm Baker and Hostetler, argued that the secretary of the commonwealth at the time, Kathy Boockvar, had overstepped her constitutional boundaries by altering the date by which the state would accept late-arriving mail-in ballots.If the Supreme Court does embrace the doctrine, it could fundamentally alter how elections are conducted in the United States, from the rules governing the mechanics of voting to who makes the final decisions on what is and is not legal.In some cases, senior Democrats have privately warned candidates against filing lawsuits that could trigger the court’s conservative majority to take up the concept in the so-called shadow docket, in which the court does not hold a full oral argument session but issues a ruling with little explanation.That is not likely to happen before the midterms, court watchers say. Democratic legal experts also think they will have a better shot during one of the court’s regular sessions, during which they can present their counterarguments in full.In March, Justice Brett Kavanaugh, responding to a case in North Carolina, appeared to signal that the court was eager to rule on the independent state legislature theory in what my colleague Adam Liptak described as “an orderly fashion.”“The issue is almost certain to keep arising until the court definitively resolves it,” Kavanaugh wrote, adding that the court should grant a petition seeking review on the merits “in an appropriate case — either in this case from North Carolina or in a similar case from another state.”What to read about democracyBallot mules. Poll watch parties. Groomers. Cecilia Kang lays out the most dominant false narratives circulating about November’s midterm elections.A whistle-blower who worked for Twitter and testified before the Jan. 6 committee told The Washington Post that extremism and political disinformation on social media pose an “imminent threat not just to American democracy, but to the societal fabric of our planet.”A law in Georgia that lets people and groups submit an unlimited number of challenges to voters’ eligibility is causing headaches for election workers as they try to prepare for ballots to be cast in the state’s crucial races, according to The 19th.Voting rights groups and Democrats are bristling at the inclusion of Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s Republican secretary of state, on the cover of Time magazine’s issue highlighting election defenders. They pointed out that Raffensperger is a defendant in 20 voter suppression lawsuits.A new report by Rachel Kleinfeld of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace argues that “American democracy is at a dangerous inflection point” and lays out five strategies to address what she calls “a democratic setback potentially as serious as the ones already occurring in India and Hungary.”viewfinderShuran Huang for The New York TimesA tough questionOn Politics regularly features work by Times photographers. Here’s what Shuran Huang told us about taking the image above:Capturing nuanced moments is one of my favorite tasks when I am covering news events in Congress.Amid hours of grueling testimony, witnesses usually manage to keep up a steely disposition during hearings on Capitol Hill.But not always.Here, William Demchak, chief executive officer of PNC Financial Services, took a deep breath with his eyes closed after answering a tough question from a lawmaker.The light hit Demchak’s face in just the right way to highlight his frustration — and created a contrast to the smiling face on the painting behind him.Thank you for reading On Politics, and for being a subscriber to The New York Times. — BlakeRead past editions of the newsletter here.If you’re enjoying what you’re reading, please consider recommending it to others. They can sign up here. Browse all of our subscriber-only newsletters here.Have feedback? Ideas for coverage? We’d love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com. More

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      Trump Support Remains Unmoved by Investigations, Poll Finds

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      The American public’s views of former President Donald J. Trump have remained remarkably stable across a number of different measures in recent months, even as he faces multiple investigations and as he remains a central figure in the midterm elections, according to the most recent New York Times/Siena College poll.Voters held nearly identical views from those earlier in the summer on whether they had a favorable view of Mr. Trump, whether they thought he had committed serious federal crimes, and whom they would support in a hypothetical 2024 Trump-Biden matchup.Overall, 44 percent of voters viewed Mr. Trump favorably, and 53 percent viewed him unfavorably. The recent poll was fielded early this month, after news of the Justice Department’s inquiry into Mr. Trump’s handling of confidential documents but before the New York attorney general announced she was suing Mr. Trump and his family business.That level of Trump support has effectively been unchanged since the last Times/Siena poll, which was fielded in July amid televised hearings by the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 storming of the Capitol. It was also fundamentally similar to levels of support Times/Siena polls and other surveys found in recent years.The public’s view of Mr. Trump’s fight against the election results also remained largely unchanged, with 54 percent in the most recent survey saying his actions posed a threat to democracy and 38 percent saying he had just exercised his right to contest the election.And roughly half of voters said they thought Mr. Trump had committed serious federal crimes, while 38 percent thought he had not. That was similar to the responses from July, when respondents were asked more specifically about Mr. Trump’s actions in the aftermath of the 2020 election.Mr. Trump has often boasted about the loyalty of his supporters. That loyalty has long been clear in his favorability ratings, which remained stable throughout his time in office, even during moments of peak turmoil, such as his first impeachment trial. His approval ratings rose briefly as Covid-19 started to spread in the United States in spring of 2020, but by May his support had returned to previous levels.Many of Mr. Trump’s signature policy proposals have remained fairly popular among the public, the September poll found. Half of all respondents favored a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, including more than 15 percent of those who said they would vote for Mr. Biden in 2024. And a majority said they agreed more with the Republican Party than with the Democratic Party when it came to illegal immigration.Mr. Trump has signaled another run for president. In a hypothetical rematch in 2024 with President Biden, 45 percent said they would support Mr. Biden, while 42 percent said they would support Mr. Trump. (Mr. Biden’s margin of victory in the 2020 election was 4.4 percentage points.)In 2020, Mr. Trump made gains among Hispanic voters, a group that has historically favored Democrats. The recent poll found that Republicans continue to maintain a similar level of support among Hispanic voters, particularly young Hispanic men.Antonio Chavez, a 34-year-old delivery driver from Amarillo, Texas, said that he had voted for a mix of Democrats and Republicans over the years but that he would probably vote for Mr. Trump in 2024 if he ran again.“I don’t know too much,” he said. “When the race starts getting closer, I’ll start paying attention, but right now he’s just at the forefront for me.“I have a few reservations about supporting him because of the document issue, but I like to see what the other side is going with.”There were signs in the poll that views on Mr. Trump were more complex than they are sometimes made out to be. Across all measures asked, 30 percent of voters consistently held views that could be considered pro-Trump, such as planning to support him if he runs in 2024 and saying that his actions after the 2020 election were justified. Thirty-nine percent of voters consistently held a series of views that could be described as anti-Trump.However, nearly 30 percent appeared to hold seemingly conflicting views about him and his actions — either by expressing a mix of sentiments or by declining to respond to one of the questions.For instance, 14 percent of respondents said they both planned to support him and believed his actions after the 2020 election went so far as to be a threat to democracy. More

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      The Republic

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      Listen and follow ‘The Run-Up’Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Amazon MusicIn kicking off the midterms, Joe Biden talked about American democracy as a shared value, enshrined in the country’s founding — a value that both Democrats and Republicans should join together in defending. But there is another possible view of this moment. One that is shared by two very different groups: the voters who propelled Biden to the presidency … and the conservative activists who are rejecting democracy altogether.Photo Illustration by The New York Times. Photo by Travis Dove for The New York TimesOn today’s episodeRepresentative James E. Clyburn of South CarolinaRobert Draper, a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine. He is the author of several books, most recently “To Start a War: How the Bush Administration Took America Into Iraq.”About ‘The Run-Up’First launched in August 2016, three months before the election of Donald Trump, “The Run-Up” is back. The host, Astead Herndon, will grapple with the big ideas animating the 2022 midterm election cycle — and explore how we got to this fraught moment in American politics.Elections are about more than who wins and who loses. New episodes on Thursdays.Credits“The Run-Up” is hosted by More

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      House Passes Overhaul of Electoral Count, Moving to Avert Another Jan. 6 Crisis

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      WASHINGTON — The House on Wednesday took the first major step to respond to the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol, voting mostly along party lines to overhaul the 135-year-old Electoral Count Act, the law that former President Donald J. Trump tried to exploit that day to overturn his defeat.The bill was the most significant legislative answer yet to the riot and the monthslong campaign by Mr. Trump and his allies to invalidate the 2020 presidential election, but it also underscored the lingering partisan divide over Jan. 6 and the former president’s continuing grip on his party.It cleared a divided House, passing on a 229 to 203 vote. All but nine Republicans opposed the measure, wary of angering Mr. Trump and unwilling to back legislation co-written by Representative Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming and a leader of the House select committee investigating the events of Jan. 6 and what led to them.The partisan division could complicate future negotiations with the Senate, which is moving ahead with its own bipartisan version of the legislation that differs from the House bill in some significant respects. Lawmakers now say they do not expect final approval before Congress returns for a lame-duck session after the Nov. 8 midterm elections.The legislation is aimed at updating the law that governs Congress’s counting of the electoral votes cast by the states, the final step under the Constitution to confirm the results of a presidential election and historically a mostly ceremonial process. Democrats said that the aftermath of the 2020 election — in which Mr. Trump and his allies’ attempts to throw out legitimate electoral votes led to the violent disruption of the congressional count by his supporters on Jan. 6 — made clear that the statute needed to be changed.“These are common-sense reforms that will preserve the rule of law for all elections moving forward,” said Representative Jim McGovern, Democrat of Massachusetts and chairman of the Rules Committee. “Time is running out before the next election.”One key provision in the bill, which is also contained in the Senate proposal, would clarify that the role of the vice president, who by law presides over the counting of the ballots in his capacity as president of the Senate, is strictly ministerial. After the 2020 election, Mr. Trump and his advisers tried but failed to persuade Vice President Mike Pence to refuse to accept electoral votes from states where Trump was falsely claiming victory.The measure also would raise the threshold substantially for Congress to consider an objection to a state’s electoral votes, requiring that at least one-third of the House and Senate sign on to such a challenge, up dramatically from the one member of each chamber that is now required. The Senate proposal has a lower threshold, requiring one-fifth of the House and Senate to agree.Members of both parties have raised objections in recent elections, though none have been sustained by a majority of the House and Senate. The House bill would also more narrowly define the grounds for an objection to those with a defined constitutional basis.“Ultimately, this bill is about protecting the will of the American voters, which is a principle that is beyond partisanship,” said Representative Zoe Lofgren, the California Democrat who leads the Administration Committee and introduced the measure with Ms. Cheney. “The bottom line is if you want to object to the vote, you’d better have your colleagues and the Constitution on your side.”Passage of the bill comes as the Jan. 6 committee is wrapping up its work after a summer of high-profile hearings and preparing an extensive report, which is expected to include recommendations for how to confront the threats to democracy raised by the riot and Mr. Trump’s drive to overturn the election. Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi and the chairman of the panel, said the next and likely final hearing would take place on Sept. 28.“We have substantial footage of what occurred that we haven’t used; we’ve had significant witness testimony that we haven’t used,” Mr. Thompson said in an interview. “This is an opportunity to use some of that material.”The legislation was also a direct response to Mr. Trump’s efforts to orchestrate the submission of fake slates of electors in states won by Joseph R. Biden Jr. It would require that states choose their electors under laws in place before the election, a provision intended to prevent states from reversing course if they do not like the result. And the bill would allow candidates to sue state officials if they failed to submit their electors or certified electors that did not match the election results..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.It also would lay out the circumstances in which a federal judge could extend an election following a catastrophe and force election officials to count ballots or certify an election if they refused to do so.Representative Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming, sponsored the bill along with Representative Zoe Lofgren, Democrat of California.Kim Raff for The New York TimesRepublicans said the legislation represented a renewed Democratic attempt to exert more federal control over elections that are usually the responsibility of state officials and courts.Representative Tom Cole, Republican of Oklahoma, called it “another attempt to federalize elections at the expense of states.” Other Republicans accused Democrats of rushing the legislation to the floor without review by the appropriate committees or engaging Republicans.They also accused Democrats of using the bill to take aim at Mr. Trump, portraying the legislation as an extension of the work of the special committee investigating Jan. 6, which most House Republicans denounce as a partisan exercise aimed at blaming Mr. Trump for the assault on the Capitol.“This is nothing more than an attack on President Trump and the 2020 election, an attack on a man who has not been in office for nearly two years,” said Representative Guy Reschenthaler, Republican of Pennsylvania.Lawmakers said the legislation’s close association with Ms. Cheney led House Republicans to abandon it in large numbers. Her aggressive criticism of Mr. Trump prompted Republicans to remove her from a party leadership position in May last year, and she lost her re-election primary last month.But Ms. Cheney noted strong support for the measure from conservative jurists and analysts and called on Republicans to embrace it.“If your aim is to prevent future efforts to steal elections, I would respectfully request that conservatives should support this bill,” she said on the House floor. “If instead your aim is to leave open the door for elections to be stolen in the future, you might decide not to support this or any other bill to address the Electoral Count Act.”Leaders of the bipartisan group behind the Senate bill, which was made public in July, were surprised by the sudden House action on the legislation just days after it was introduced and after months with few details on how the House was proceeding. Backers of the Senate bill said the House approach could lead to more election lawsuits, a prospect that could increase Republican opposition. But they remained hopeful the bills could be reconciled.“We can work together to try to bridge the considerable differences,” said Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine and one of the chief authors of the Senate bill. “But it would have been better if we had been consulted prior to the House sponsors deciding to drop their bill.”The Senate Rules Committee is scheduled to consider that chamber’s version next week. Senator Amy Klobuchar, Democrat of Minnesota and the chairwoman of the panel, is preparing a new version that incorporates changes sought by election experts and other lawmakers in hopes of enhancing its chances of approval. The legislation so far has at least 10 Republican backers, meaning it could overcome a G.O.P. filibuster if all Democrats supported it.Despite the differences, supporters of the legislation said it needed to become law.“Failure is not an option,” said Representative Pete Aguilar of California, a member of the Democratic leadership and the Jan. 6 panel. “We’ve got to put a piece of reform on the president’s desk. We’ve got to protect democracy.”Luke Broadwater More

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      Democrats Are Starting to Feel Hopeful About the Midterms. Should They?

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      Illustration by The New York Times; images by Olivier Douliery, Anna Moneymaker and Andrii Shyp, via Getty ImagesThis article is part of the Debatable newsletter. You can sign up here to receive it on Wednesdays.Just a couple of months ago, Democrats’ prospects heading into the November elections looked, if not quite doomed, then decidedly dour: Not only do Americans tend to swing against the president’s party in the midterms, but President Biden was also presiding over the worst spate of inflation in four decades and his approval ratings over the summer had plunged to the lowest of any elected president at that point in his term since the end of World War II, according to FiveThirtyEight.But the national political environment has changed: Since July, Biden’s approval rating has risen by five percentage points and Democrats have gained around a net three percentage points in the generic ballot, which asks whether voters would prefer Democrats or Republicans to control Congress, overtaking the Republican Party’s lead.What are some of the issues that voters care most about, and how might the parties’ recent rhetorical and legislative handling of them be driving the race? Here’s what people are saying.AbortionWhen the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June, there was a great deal of speculation among poll watchers and pundits about whether the abrogation of the constitutional right to abortion would redound to the Democratic Party’s benefit, potentially boosting turnout and swinging independents who might otherwise vote for Republicans.Shortly before the decision was handed down, but weeks after a draft of it had been leaked, the Times columnist Michelle Goldberg didn’t find much evidence to support this theory: “I don’t know that I’ve seen a new influx of energy,” Samhita Mukhopadhyay, the co-editor of “Nasty Women: Feminism, Resistance and Revolution in Trump’s America” and the former executive editor of Teen Vogue, told her. “It’s surprising. There were marches, but it wasn’t the level of activism that we saw a couple of years ago with Black Lives Matter or even the Women’s March.”In the months since, though, there have been signs that the curtailment of abortion rights has moved the needle: In an August poll, Gallup found that abortion had climbed on Americans’ list of “most important problems” facing the country, ranking behind only economic concerns and more general issues of government and leadership. What’s more, according to a Times analysis, Roe’s overturning was followed by a surge in voter registration among women in 10 states with available data, including Kansas, where strong turnout in an August primary helped defeat a referendum that would have effectively ended abortion rights in the state.Because most Americans favor at least some abortion rights, many Republicans have tried to avoid making abortion a central campaign issue, emphasizing instead that the matter has been returned to the states. But that rhetorical posture became much harder to maintain last week, when Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, proposed a federal ban on the procedure after 15 weeks of pregnancy — “to cringes from many of his Republican colleagues,” The Times’s Carl Hulse reported.In the view of The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board, renationalizing the question of abortion regulation could be a risky political gamble for Republicans: “By Mr. Graham’s political logic, if voters in Colorado, Pennsylvania or Arizona think 15 weeks is too restrictive, they now have a reason to vote against those G.O.P. Senate candidates. Every Republican candidate will be asked to take a stance, and a Senate majority is made by swing states.”InflationPoll after poll after poll has found that inflation remains voters’ top concern heading into November. And while July’s Consumer Price Index report suggested that inflation had peaked, the August report suggested that it was not cooling as quickly as the White House and many economists had forecast. The price of rent and some food items actually increased between July and August, and workers lost buying power over the last year as prices increased faster than wages.These would be problems for any party in power during an election year, much less one whose leader has boasted of delivering wage gains. “Citizens of countries suffering from inflation have routinely sought to assign blame — to the government, to greedy companies or to politicians,” The Times’s Jonathan Weisman wrote last week of the Republican campaign strategy to blame Democrats for inflation. “Inflationary periods often yield labor strife, as workers and unions press for wage increases to keep up with rising prices, point fingers at ‘price-gouging’ companies and, more than anything, rage at those in power.”At the same time, some Republican officials have become concerned that inflation may no longer be the electoral clincher they had hoped for: Gasoline prices have fallen 26 percent from the record above $5 a gallon set in June, and consumer sentiment has improved as a result. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York reported this month that consumer inflation expectations were also falling, with households now expecting gas prices to be roughly unchanged a year from now.If inflation is indeed sinking in salience, some conservatives believe that Republicans will regret not elevating other issues like school curriculums, crime and immigration, Gabby Orr reported for CNN. “Our closing pitch must be compelling enough to make Republicans want to vote,” a Senate campaign aide told her. “‘It’s the economy, stupid’ no longer fits into that category.”Student debt reliefWhen Biden made the decision in August after months of lobbying to wipe out up to $20,000 of student loan debt for tens of millions of low- and middle-income Americans, it was in part because his chief of staff, among others, had argued that the relief could endear the administration to younger voters — an age group that, while more Democratic-leaning than any other, had broadly soured on the president.“It certainly energizes young people and people with student loan debt, which also includes many Republicans,” Andre Perry, a senior fellow at Brookings, told NPR. “Overall, it’s a political win for Biden because he’s delivering on his promises, he has a chance to pick up on some moderate Republicans who have debt.”This read of Biden’s debt jubilee is shared even by some of his political enemies:But Philip Bump wrote for The Washington Post that, so far, there are no obvious signs that young people will reward Biden for the relief plan, which hasn’t yet taken effect. In approval rating polls since August, “when we look at Americans under 30 — the group with the most debt — there’s been little to no movement at all,” he noted.Nor, as Vox’s Christian Paz pointed out, does the relief plan seem to be making much of an impression with independent voters, who polls have suggested are divided on the issue. “Ultimately, the policy might have had the effect of stopping the bleeding of support that Biden and Democrats were experiencing among their base,” he wrote. But, he added, “What is apparent is that Biden’s action is not as popular with the kind of voter that tends to matter in midterm elections in swing states: older white Americans and independents.”The polling wild cardThe polling profession entered something of a legitimacy crisis after the 2016 presidential election that only deepened in 2020, as this newsletter has explored, and there’s good reason to be wary of the polling data we’ve seen so far in 2022: As Nate Cohn, The Times’s chief political analyst, noted last week, Democratic Senate candidates are outrunning expectations in the same places where the polls overestimated Biden in 2020 and Hillary Clinton in 2016, raising the possibility that the party’s supposedly favorable odds of retaining Senate control are an illusion.Polling mistakes matter not just because they can give pundits and readers a false impression of how an election might turn out; as Dan Pfeiffer, a senior adviser to Barack Obama, wrote in his newsletter last weekend, they can also change the outcome of the election itself, because campaigns, national party committees and super PACs rely on polling to make decisions about where to direct their efforts and funds.But Pfeiffer (and Cohn, too) sees evidence that the polls might actually be right this time around: Polls were more accurate in the 2018 midterms than they were in the 2020 presidential race, and recent special elections — including one that resulted in the pickup of a House seat in Alaska — have been encouraging for Democrats.Their predictive function (or dysfunction) aside, polls can also be useful for revealing trends in public opinion and voter behavior. In 2016, for example, pre-election polls accurately showed that Donald Trump was making huge gains among white voters without college degrees, and in 2020 they showed that he was also making gains among Hispanic voters. Even when polls miss on the horse race, Cohn noted this week, “these trends uncovered by polls continue to have import.”Do you have a point of view we missed? Email us at debatable@nytimes.com. Please note your name, age and location in your response, which may be included in the next newsletter.READ MORE“Are the Polls Wrong Again?” [The New York Times]“Will Abortion Affect the Midterm Vote for Candidates? Lessons From the Ban Gay Marriage Ballot Initiatives” [The Brookings Institution]“Two Months That Turned the 2022 Midterms on Their Head” [The Cook Political Report]“America’s Dueling Realities on a Key Question: Is the Economy Good or Bad?” [The New York Times]“Four Types of Voters We’re Watching in the Midterms” [The New York Times]What’s at stake for you on Election Day?In the final weeks before the midterm elections, Times Opinion is asking for your help to better understand what motivates each generation to vote. We’ve created a list of some of the biggest problems facing voters right now. Choose the one that matters most to you and tell us why. We plan to publish a selection of responses shortly before Election Day. More

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      Los votantes latinos y el Partido Republicano frente a las elecciones

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      Una encuesta de The New York Times/Siena College revela que los demócratas están mucho peor que en el pasado con los votantes hispanos. Pero, en general, el partido ha mantenido el control sobre el electorado latino.Han pasado casi dos años desde que Donald Trump logró algunos avances sorpresivos con los electores latinos. Pero según un nuevo sondeo de The New York Times y Siena College, no se han logrado materializar los sueños de los republicanos sobre una importante reorientación de los votantes latinos hacia las posturas de su partido sobre los problemas sociales y la delincuencia.Este sondeo —una de las encuestas no partidistas más grandes relacionadas con los electores latinos desde las elecciones de 2020— reveló que los demócratas habían mantenido un control sobre la mayoría de los electores latinos, motivados en parte por mujeres y por la creencia de que los demócratas seguían siendo el partido de la clase trabajadora. En general, es más probable que los votantes latinos estén de acuerdo con los demócratas en muchos temas: inmigración, política sobre el control de armas, cambio climático. También es más probable que vean a los republicanos como el partido de la élite y como el movimiento que tiene posturas extremas. Además, una mayoría de los electores latinos, el 56 por ciento, piensa votar por los demócratas este otoño, en comparación con el 32 por ciento que pretende votar por los republicanos.Pero en la consulta también se ven señales preocupantes para el futuro del mensaje de los demócratas. Pese a esa cómoda ventaja, el sondeo revela que los demócratas están mucho peor que en los años anteriores a las elecciones de 2020. Parece que los electores latinos más jóvenes, sobre todo los del sur, se están alejando del partido, un cambio que es impulsado por las enormes inquietudes en materia económica. En las elecciones intermedias de este año, deficiencias en el sur y entre los electores de las zonas rurales se podrían interponer en los triunfos importantísimos de Texas y Florida.Anthony Saiz, de 24 años, quien reseña el contenido de una plataforma de redes sociales en Tucson, Arizona, comentó que, para salir adelante, tuvo que aceptar un segundo empleo como pizzero en una cervecería. Saiz votó por Joe Biden en 2020 y se considera demócrata porque creció dentro de una familia demócrata. Pero cree que durante el mandato de Biden el costo de la vida se duplicó, pese a que se mudó a un apartamento más pequeño.“Las decisiones que ha tomado para el país me han puesto en una situación muy difícil”, comentó acerca del presidente.La manera en que voten los latinos será un asunto fundamental en las elecciones de noviembre y para el futuro de la política estadounidense. La participación de los electores latinos es decisiva en la lucha por el control del Congreso y conforman una parte considerable de los votantes —hasta el 20 por ciento— en dos de los estados que más probabilidades tienen de decidir el control del Senado: Arizona y Nevada. Los latinos también representan más del 20 por ciento de los electores registrados en más de una decena de contiendas muy competitivas para la Cámara de Representantes en California, Colorado, Florida y Texas, entre otros estados.Desde hace mucho tiempo, los demócratas han pensado que el creciente electorado latino condenaría a los republicanos, y las posibilidades de que haya un electorado cada vez más diverso han avivado las preocupaciones de los conservadores. Los resultados de las elecciones de 2020 —en las cuales, en comparación con 2016, Trump ganó más o menos unos ocho puntos porcentuales entre los votantes latinos— comenzaron a cambiar el panorama de ambos partidos. La encuesta del Times/Siena revela que siguen arraigadas las creencias y las lealtades históricas con respecto a los temas centrales, aunque hay algunos cambios que llaman mucho la atención.Aunque las mayorías de los votantes hispanos apoyan a los demócratas en temas sociales y culturales, una parte muy considerable sigue teniendo creencias que se alinean con los republicanos: más de una tercera parte de los electores hispanos afirman que están más de acuerdo con el Partido Republicano en los temas relacionados con la delincuencia y la vigilancia policial, y a cuatro de cada diez votantes hispanos les preocupa que el Partido Demócrata haya ido demasiado lejos en materia de raza y género. Los votantes latinos consideran que los problemas económicos son el factor más importante que determinará su voto este año y están divididos de manera uniforme acerca de con qué partido están más de acuerdo en lo que se refiere a la economía.Los electores latinos en Estados Unidos nunca han sido un bloque de votación monolítico y con frecuencia desconciertan a los estrategas políticos que tratan de entender su comportamiento. Los 32 millones de latinos que pueden votar son inmigrantes recientes y ciudadanos de cuarta generación, habitantes de las ciudades y de las zonas rurales, católicos y ateos.Ambos partidos se han llenado de fanfarronerías y han disparado sus expectativas respecto a los votantes latinos, recaudando y gastando millones de dólares para atraer su apoyo, pero hay pocos datos concretos no partidistas que respalden sus especulaciones. La encuesta ofrece una visión de una parte del electorado que muchos estrategas han denominado como el nuevo voto indeciso y cuyas opiniones suelen ser complicadas por las contradicciones entre subgrupos.Para Dani Bernal, una empresaria de Los Ángeles, los temas económicos ocupan un lugar destacado en sus decisiones.Jenna Schoenefeld para The New York TimesDani Bernal, de 35 años, que se dedica al mercadeo digital y es empresaria en Los Ángeles, dijo que alterna entre los candidatos de ambos partidos, en gran parte basándose en sus políticas económicas. Dijo que su madre llegó a Florida desde Bolivia con solo una bolsa de ropa y 500 dólares, y pudo prosperar porque los impuestos eran bajos y el costo de la vida era asequible. Bernal dijo que los temas económicos tienen una gran importancia en sus decisiones.“Estoy registrada como republicana, pero soy exactamente igual que Florida: voy de un lado a otro”, dijo.Los republicanos están teniendo un mejor desempeño con los votantes latinos que viven en el sur, una zona que incluye estados como Florida y Texas, donde los republicanos han logrado victorias importantes en las elecciones recientes con los votantes latinos. En el sur, 46 por ciento de los electores latinos dicen que piensan votar por los demócratas, mientras que el 45 por ciento afirman que planean votar por los republicanos. Por el contrario, en otras zonas del país, los demócratas tienen del 62 al 24 por ciento entre los electores latinos.Es posible que una brecha generacional también lleve a los republicanos a obtener más triunfos. La encuesta reveló que los demócratas gozaban de un gran respaldo sobre todo entre los electores latinos de mayor edad, pero el 46 por ciento de los votantes menores de 30 años apoyan el manejo de la economía por parte de los republicanos, en comparación con el 43 por ciento que están a favor de los demócratas.Los republicanos también tienen fuerza entre los varones latinos, quienes apoyan más a los demócratas en las elecciones intermedias, pero, por un margen de cinco puntos, dicen que votarían por Trump si volviera a contender en 2024. Parece que los varones jóvenes, sobre todo, están dando un giro hacia los republicanos. Son un importante punto débil para los demócratas quienes, con los varones menores de 45 años, mantienen una ventaja de solo cuatro puntos en las elecciones intermedias.La encuesta del Times/Siena ofrece una visión de los votantes latinos que tradicionalmente han apoyado a los demócratas en el pasado pero que planean votar a los republicanos este otoño: son desproporcionadamente votantes sin título universitario que se centran en la economía, y es más probable que sean jóvenes, hombres y nacidos en Estados Unidos, pero que viven en zonas con gran presencia de hispanos.La inmigración sigue siendo un tema primordial para los electores latinos, y ambos partidos tienen un atractivo particular. Mientras que los demócratas han presionado para reformar el sistema de inmigración legal y ofrecen una vía para que muchos inmigrantes que viven de manera ilegal en el país obtengan la ciudadanía, los republicanos se han enfocado en tomar medidas enérgicas contra la inmigración ilegal y en usar la política fronteriza para impulsar sus bases.Los demócratas conservan una gran ventaja en el tema de la inmigración legal y el 55 por ciento de los electores latinos afirman estar de acuerdo con este partido, en comparación con el 29 por ciento que dicen estar de acuerdo con los republicanos. Pero el Partido Republicano ha avanzado cuando ha acentuado la retórica y la política antiinmigración: 37 por ciento de los electores latinos apoyan las posturas de los republicanos con respecto a la inmigración ilegal. Y aproximadamente una tercera parte de estos respalda la construcción de un muro en la frontera entre México y Estados Unidos.Amelia Alonso Tarancón, de 69 años, quien emigró de Cuba hace 14 años y ahora vive en las afueras de Fort Lauderdale, Florida, quiere que el Congreso le proporcione estatus legal a los trabajadores que viven en el país de manera ilegal y que han estado ahí durante décadas. Pero concuerda con los republicanos en sus posturas radicales contra la inmigración ilegal. Esta idea la motivó a votar por Trump, pese a que es una demócrata registrada.Amelia Alonso Tarancón, que vive cerca de Fort Lauderdale, Florida, no se considera demócrata ni republicana.Saul Martinez para The New York Times“Sé que este país es un país de inmigrantes, pero deben migrar de forma legal”, dijo. Pero Alonso Tarancón dijo que ya no apoyaba al expresidente después de que se negó a entregar la presidencia, impulsó el ataque al Capitolio de Estados Unidos y “se llevó todos esos documentos” a Mar-a-Lago.“No me considero ni demócrata ni republicana, ahora mismo estoy en espera hasta las próximas elecciones”, dijo.En su esfuerzo por atraer nuevos votantes, los republicanos han criticado con frecuencia a los demócratas por ser demasiado “concienciados” o woke. Esa acusación resuena entre muchos votantes hispanos porque el 40 por ciento dice que el partido ha ido demasiado lejos al impulsar una ideología “concienciada” en materia de raza y género. Pero hay una clara división: el 37 por ciento opina lo contrario y dice que el partido no ha ido lo suficientemente lejos. Y casi uno de cada cinco votantes hispanos encuestados dijo que no sabía si los demócratas eran demasiado woke, un término que no se puede traducir fácilmente al español.En lo que se refiere a muchos temas sociales y culturales, los electores latinos siguen estando alineados con el Partido Republicano.La mayoría, un 58 por ciento, tiene una buena opinión del movimiento “Las vidas negras importan”, mientras que el 45 por ciento también apoyan el movimiento “Las vidas azules importan”, el cual defiende al personal de la policía. Una mayoría cree que el aborto debe ser legal en casi todos los casos; incluso entre los latinos republicanos, cuatro de cada diez personas rechazan la decisión de la Corte Suprema de anular la sentencia del caso Roe contra Wade. El apoyo a “Las vidas negras importan” y al derecho al aborto es impulsado principalmente por los jóvenes. Al preguntarles con quién están más de acuerdo en el caso de la política sobre el control de armas, el 49 por ciento dijo que con los demócratas, mientras que el 34 por ciento afirmó que con los republicanos.En repetidas ocasiones, los republicanos que intentan ganarse a los electores latinos han descrito a los demócratas como elitistas y alejados de la realidad, pero la encuesta indica que esta estrategia está teniendo un éxito limitado.Casi seis de cada 10 votantes latinos siguen viendo al Partido Demócrata como el partido de la clase trabajadora. Aunque los republicanos blancos se consideran de modo uniforme como el partido de la clase trabajadora, incluso algunos republicanos latinos creen que esa es una característica de los demócratas. Además, en la encuesta no se obtuvieron pruebas de que los republicanos estuvieran teniendo un mejor desempeño entre la población latina sin estudios universitarios ni entre los latinos de las zonas rurales, dos grupos demográficos fundamentales a los que han querido acercarse. Uno de cada cuatro votantes latinos de las zonas rurales sigue sin decidir por quién votar en noviembre.Los demócratas han sido criticados con contundencia por su aceptación del término Latinx, que tiene el propósito de ser más inclusivo que las palabras “latino” y “latina”, las cuales marcan el género. Encuestas anteriores han revelado que solo una pequeña minoría de votantes latinos prefieren ese término. Pero la encuesta indicaba que Latinx no es, en absoluto, el tema más polarizador; solo el 18 por ciento señaló que ese término le parecía ofensivo.La encuesta del Times/Siena, realizada a 1399 votantes registrados en todo el país, incluida una sobremuestra de 522 votantes hispanos, se llevó a cabo por teléfono con operadores en directo del 6 al 14 de septiembre de 2022. El margen de error de muestreo es de más o menos 3,6 puntos porcentuales para la muestra completa y de 5,9 puntos porcentuales entre los votantes hispanos. Las tabulaciones cruzadas y la metodología están disponibles para todos los votantes registrados y para los votantes hispanos.Nate Cohn More

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      You Cannot Be Too Cynical About Trump (or His Imitators)

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      Bret Stephens: Hi, Gail. Any plans to hop a flight to Martha’s Vineyard?Gail Collins: Gee, Bret, I think the Vineyard folks have had enough unexpected guests for a while. But I really was impressed by how gracious they were to the immigrant families that Gov. Ron DeSantis shipped there.Bret: It’s a shame for the Venezuelan migrants that they weren’t on the Vineyard for long, because the community there is extraordinarily generous.Gail: As opposed to DeSantis and his slimy attempt to score political points with the right wing.Bret: It was definitely a stunt, but it was a politically effective one.Gail: Are you still open to the idea of him as a possible president?Bret: All depends on the opponent. If you were a Republican primary voter and your choice was between Donald Trump and DeSantis, who would choose? No fair to answer “Canada” or “euthanasia.”Gail: Exactly why I’m never going to be a Republican primary voter. And I don’t believe there’s a Democrat with an infinitesimal possibility of nomination I wouldn’t prefer to DeSantis.Bret: No fair avoiding the question! I’m no longer a registered Republican, but I’d root for DeSantis over Trump in a primary, and I’d vote for DeSantis over, say, Kamala Harris or Gavin Newsom in a general election, though I hope that’s not the choice I would have to make. I’d also love to see a candidate who believes we need more immigrants in this country and is serious about effective border enforcement.Gail: About immigration. The Republicans are clearly planning to make that a big issue — certainly Trump loves to howl about it. But let me begin with one bottom line: The United States has an aging population that can’t possibly fill all the job openings it already has. The hospitality sector has been, on average, half a million people short every month for months; the food services industry alone is around 1.4 million people short.Bret: Total agreement on this one. We don’t just need immigrants to fill jobs — we also need their ambition, entrepreneurialism, work ethic, cultural creativity, strong family values and non-entitled attitudes. Unfortunately the Biden administration is screwing this up by pretending that we aren’t seeing a tidal wave of border migrants, and that it’s not a massive burden on the social services of border states.Mystifying to me why the administration can’t get this one right. Democrats are even losing Hispanic voters over the issue. What gives?Gail: No modern president has been able to get a real grip on the border immigration crisis — don’t even know if you can call it a crisis since it’s been going on for so long.Bret: There’s never been perfect border control, but there’s been better and worse. What we now have is unmistakably worse and a lot of liberals are deluding themselves if they think there’s nothing amiss when U.S. Customs and Border Protection reports a 250 percent increase in migrant encounters around Yuma.Gail: You have waves of folks fleeing from disaster back home — these days, particularly Venezuelans.Bret: Ah yes, Venezuela. Chesa Boudin’s idea of a workers’ paradise. Sorry, go on ….Gail: Many of them have endured terrible treks by foot, sometimes with children. If they present themselves at the border, their claims have to be processed, which can take a lot of time. The procedure is really a mess, and meanwhile there’s the choice between letting them live miserably in makeshift camps or providing them, and especially their children, with the services they need.Like his predecessors, Biden’s has been trying to get the system improved, but the legal issues plus the politics make it almost impossible.If these folks make their way into the country illegally, with luck they’ll get settled and work out their immigration problems later. But of course they can also wind up homeless and drift into crime. The border state residents have to bear most of the burden just because of their location, so you can see why they’d resent that.Bret: We obviously should be compassionate to refugees fleeing persecution, kids especially. But Biden has also turned the United States into a magnet for migration in a way that communities are simply unprepared to handle. Our compassion as a country has to be proportionate to our means, not our wishes.Gail: One thing we clearly need is revised immigration law that takes all this into consideration and provides economic support to the communities where these folks wind up. But I’ve noticed a certain lack of enthusiasm among congressional Republicans for that idea.Bret: There used to be Republicans — Ronald Reagan, both Presidents Bush, and John McCain among them — who were eager to pass comprehensive immigration reform and were stymied by restrictionists on both sides of the aisle, including Bernie Sanders. Now we’ve got an immigration debate in Congress that might as well be described as the heartless against the clueless.Switching subjects, Gail, our colleague David Brooks had a terrific column last week on why all the attempts to defeat Trump thus far have failed. Any theories of your own?Gail: Trump’s recent triumphs have been pretty much within his own party. Let’s see what happens when the candidates he endorsed for Senate, like that crazy guy in Arizona, actually have to run in an election against a non-crazy Democrat like Mark Kelly.Bret: Don’t be shocked if the crazy guy wins. Last poll I checked had him within two points.Gail: But in the bigger picture, we’re living in a new internet-oriented world where old political virtues like making reasonable deals with the other side have been wiped away. Too boring.Bret: Trump intuitively understands entertainment the way no other politician has since maybe Ronald Reagan. But Reagan was a romantic whereas Trump is a cynic, which makes him particularly potent in a cynical age.Gail: It’s scary how well Trump fits into that new world. No real ideas maybe, but he’s colorful, a good ranter and not constrained by any sense of obligation to be rational. Have to admit my greatest hope for the total scuttling of Trump’s political career is the New York attorney general’s attempt to pull the cover off his finances.How about you?Bret: I tend to think that all of these legal attacks on Trump do more to help than hurt him. He’s a Nietzschean figure in that sense: that which does not kill him makes him stronger. Unless he is tried in a courtroom somewhere in the West Village, there is no jury in the United States that is going to hand down a unanimous verdict against him. What these potential prosecutions mainly do is keep him in the spotlight, which is right where he likes to be, with something like the color of martyrdom, at least to his supporters.Gail: My dream has never been Trump in behind bars — you’re right, he’d become a triple martyr — but Trump in bankruptcy court and then sending out Truth Social memes from a motel in New Jersey? That speaks to me.But go on …Bret: Trump is what a friend of mine calls a “rage funnel.” It’s a funnel for a very specific type of rage — the rage of feeling looked down upon. And I don’t think that ends until the culture of liberal condescension that people like Hillary Clinton typified turns into a culture of understanding and empathy for his voters.Gail: Hillary was over-blamed on that front, thanks to one dumb comment. But you’ve got a very important point and from now on when I see The Donald I’m going to see him as a funnel-head.Bret: Coneheads!Gail: On a totally different subject — you’re my trusted interpreter of sane Republicanism. Can you interpret what Lindsey Graham is up to with his bill creating a national ban on abortion? At a time when many of the G.O.P. Senate candidates seem to be scrubbing all abortion references off their websites?Bret: You can’t interpret stupid, Gail.The bill isn’t just dead on arrival with every single Democrat. It’s D.O.A. for many Republicans, too. The whole point of overturning Roe v. Wade was to let the states decide for themselves what limits to set on abortion. So much for federalism. And, as you point out, the proposal just plays into Democratic hands at a time when pro-choice voters are exceptionally motivated to go to the polls.Gail: Yippee!Bret: That being said, it isn’t such a bad thing that the G.O.P. keep fumbling the politics of the midterm, because the last thing the country needs is yet another crop of Trumpy Republicans in Congress. So I say, go Lindsey!Gail: Wow, so you’re hoping for a Democratic-controlled Congress as well as a Democratic-controlled White House?Bret: Which Bolshevik was the one who said “the worse, the better”? That’s kind of my attitude here. It’s not that I relish the idea of continued Democratic control. Far from it. But then I look at the alternative.Gail, we’ve dwelled on a lot of negatives, which I guess is what you get these days when you talk about politics. Can I end with a brief tribute to the greatness of Roger Federer, who announced last week that he was retiring from the professional tennis circuit? There are some athletes who personify everything that’s perfect not just about a sport but about sportsmanship itself: Jesse Owens, Ted Williams, Althea Gibson, Pelé, Larry Bird and Magic Johnson. Roger was that for 24 years on the court and off.Gail: That’s what I’ve come to appreciate about sports. They do bring us all together, even when we’re rooting for different players.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