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    With Robinson Candidacy, North Carolina Republicans Fear Damage to Years of Gains

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    Explosive posts by the Republican candidate for governor, Mark Robinson, are sending waves of anxiety through a state party that has long been tactical and disciplined.The great Republican wave that swept the South starting in the late 20th Century — the very wave that Lyndon Johnson predicted after signing the Civil Rights Act in 1964 — came relatively late to North Carolina. But when it finally hit in 2013, with Republicans controlling both the legislature and the governor’s mansion for the first time since Reconstruction, it did so with breathtaking force. Led by a group of savvy, tactically skilled state lawmakers, North Carolina Republicans set out to undo decades of center-left policy enshrined by Democrats, and to remake the rules of the political game in their favor.They engaged in gerrymandering that ensured the party a near-lock on the state legislature and lopsided control of the state’s House delegation in Congress. They paved the way for a conservative state Supreme Court that upheld a strict voter ID law. And after gaining a veto-proof majority last year, they banned most abortions after 12 weeks of pregnancy.And while Republicans lost the governorship in 2016, they had harbored hope of winning full control of state government again this year, bringing North Carolina in alignment with most other Southern states.Then came Mark Robinson.Long before this week, when CNN reported that Mr. Robinson had called himself a “black NAZI!,” discussed his pornography habits and praised slavery in an adult online forum, the bellicose Republican nominee for governor (and current lieutenant governor) was polling poorly against his Democratic rival, Josh Stein.But now more than ever, Mr. Robinson, with his antisemitic and anti-gay rhetoric and performative, polarizing brand of politics, is sending waves of anxiety through the state party.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Hulk Hogan Is Not the Only Way to Be a Man

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      The Democratic Party must join the battle for the hearts and minds of young men. It matters not just for this election, though the vast and growing gender gap means that disaffected men could hand Donald Trump the presidency. It matters for how we mentor young men, and it matters for how we view masculinity itself.And yes, the Democrats can do it. Within the Kamala Harris coalition, there are men who can show a better way.If you ever wondered whether the Republican Party sees itself as the party of men, I’d invite you to rewatch the last night of the Republican National Convention. Prime time featured a rousing speech by the wrestling legend Hulk Hogan, a song by Kid Rock and a speech by Dana White, the chief executive of the Ultimate Fighting Championship — all as warm-up acts before Trump delivered his acceptance speech. Republican manliness was the capstone of the convention.But what kind of men were featured? They’re all rich and powerful, and as a longtime fan of professional wrestling, I loved watching Hogan as a kid, but none of them are the kind of man I’d want my son to be. White was caught on video slapping his wife. Kid Rock has his own checkered past, including a sex tape and an assault charge related to a fight in a Nashville strip club. Hogan faced his own sex scandal after he had a bizarre sexual relationship with a woman who was married to one of his close friends, a radio host who goes by “Bubba the Love Sponge.”We know all about Trump, but it’s worth remembering some of his worst moments — including a jury finding that he was liable for sexual abuse, his defamation of his sex-abuse victim, the “Access Hollywood” tape and the countless examples of his cruelly insulting the women he so plainly hates.JD Vance is different. No one should denigrate his personal story. He has overcome great adversity, served his country honorably as a Marine and, by all accounts, is a good husband and father. But he now wears Trumpist masculinity like an ill-fitting suit. Last week, he was justifiably attacked for a 2021 interview with Tucker Carlson in which he declared that the country is run, “via the Democrats, via our corporate oligarchs, by a bunch of childless cat ladies.” He identified Harris (who has two stepchildren) as just the kind of person he was talking about.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘Fix the Damn Roads’: How Democrats in Purple and Red States Win

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      When Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania got an emergency call about I-95 last June, his first thought turned to semantics. “When you say ‘collapse,’ do you really mean collapse?” he recalled wondering. Highways don’t typically do that, but then tractor-trailers don’t typically flip over and catch fire, which had happened on an elevated section of the road in Philadelphia.Shapiro’s second, third and fourth thoughts were that he and other government officials needed to do the fastest repair imaginable.“My job was: Every time someone said, ‘Give me a few days, and I’ll get back to you,’ to say, ‘OK, you’ve got 30 minutes,’” he told me recently. He knew how disruptive and costly the road’s closure would be and how frustrated Pennsylvanians would get.But he knew something else, too: that if you’re trying to impress a broad range of voters, including those who aren’t predisposed to like you, you’re best served not by joining the culture wars or indulging in political gamesmanship but by addressing tangible, measurable problems.In less than two weeks, the road reopened.Today, Shapiro enjoys approval ratings markedly higher than other Pennsylvania Democrats’ and President Biden’s. He belongs to an intriguing breed of enterprising Democratic governors who’ve had success where it’s by no means guaranteed, assembled a diverse coalition of supporters and are models of a winning approach for Democrats everywhere. Just look at the fact that when Shapiro was elected in 2022, it was with a much higher percentage of votes than Biden received from Pennsylvanians two years earlier. Shapiro won with support among rural voters that significantly exceeded other Democrats’ and with the backing of 14 percent of Donald Trump’s voters, according to a CNN exit poll that November.Biden’s fate this November, Democratic control of Congress and the party’s future beyond 2024 could turn, in part, on heeding Shapiro’s and like-minded Democratic leaders’ lessons about reclaiming the sorts of voters the party has lost.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Talk About Abortion, Don’t Talk About Trump: Governors Give Biden Advice

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      At an annual gathering in Arizona, Democratic governors offered a series of explanations for the president’s political struggles and suggested ideas for selling voters on his re-election.America’s Democratic governors brag about booming local economies, preside over ribbon-cuttings of projects paid for with new federal legislation and have successfully framed themselves as defenders of abortion rights and democracy.Almost all of them are far more popular in their home states than the Democratic president they hope to re-elect next year.While President Biden is mired in the political doldrums of low approval ratings and a national economy that voters are sour on, Democratic governors are riding high, having won re-election in red-state Kentucky last month and holding office in five of the seven most important presidential battleground states.The governors, like nearly all prominent Democrats, are publicly projecting confidence: In interviews and conversations with eight governors at their annual winter gathering at the Arizona Biltmore in Phoenix over the weekend, they expressed on-the-record optimism that Mr. Biden would win re-election.But also like many Democrats, some privately acknowledged fears that former President Donald J. Trump could win a rematch with Mr. Biden. They also said that Mr. Biden, at 81 years old, might not compare well with a younger Republican like Nikki Haley, the former United Nations ambassador, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida or even former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey.The governors offered a series of explanations for Mr. Biden’s political struggles and supplied free advice. Here are six ways they believe he can raise his standing ahead of next year’s election.Talk more about abortion.Mr. Biden barely says the word abortion in his public statements, a fact that frustrates fellow governors hoping he can, as many of them have, use anger over the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision overturning Roe v. Wade to improve his political fortunes.“We should talk about all the threats to women’s health care, including abortion, and use that word specifically,” said Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan. “We should be talking about it like that because Americans are awake. They are angry that this right could be stripped away and we are the only ones fighting for it.”On abortion politics, Gov. Phil Murphy of New Jersey acknowledged that “it’s widely known that this is probably an uncomfortable reality for him,” given that Mr. Biden, a practicing Catholic, once voted in the Senate to let states overturn Roe v. Wade and his stance on abortion rights has evolved over the years.Mr. Murphy said Mr. Biden must be forthright about discussing the likelihood that Republicans would aim to enact new abortion restrictions if they win control of the federal government in 2024 and emphasizing the Democratic position that decisions about abortion should be left to women and their doctors.“That has to be laid out in a much more crystal-clear, explicit, affirmative way,” he said.Stop talking about Trump.The governors broadly agreed that Mr. Trump would be the Republican nominee. They don’t love Mr. Biden’s recent turn to focus more attention on his predecessor.“You’ve got to run for something and not against someone,” said Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky. That is easy for Mr. Beshear to say — he is among the nation’s most popular governors and just won re-election in a deep-red state.Gov. Laura Kelly of Kansas urged the president to stop talking about Mr. Trump altogether. Be positive, she said, and let others carry the fight to Mr. Trump.“If I were in Biden’s shoes, I would not talk about Trump,” she said. “I would let other people talk about Trump.”Appeal to moderate Republicans and independents.Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota also said Mr. Biden needed to adopt some of Mr. Trump’s penchant for bragging.“He’s been modest for so long, to watch him do it now feels a little uncomfortable,” Mr. Walz said.Gov. Roy Cooper of North Carolina said his constituents were hoping Republicans would nominate someone other than Mr. Trump.Mr. Murphy said hopefully that Republicans supporting someone else in their primary might stay home or wind up voting for Mr. Biden next year.“What if Trump is the nominee? What’s the behavior pattern among the Haley, DeSantis and Chris Christie supporters? Where do they go?” Mr. Murphy said. “I find it hard to believe that a majority of them are going to Trump.”Tell people what Biden’s done.Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, fresh off a prime-time Fox News debate against Mr. DeSantis that seemed meant in part to elevate the ambitious Mr. Newsom to the role of Mr. Biden’s leading defender, lamented “the gap between performance and perception.”He was one of several governors who said their constituents felt good about their lives but were pessimistic about the state of the country.“People feel pretty good about their states, feel pretty good about their communities, even their own lived lives,” Mr. Newsom said. “You ask, ‘How are you doing?’ They say, ‘We’re doing great, but this country’s going to hell.’”Mr. Newsom said Mr. Biden’s biggest problem was that he had not been able to communicate to voters that he is responsible for improvements in their lives.“People just don’t know the record,” he said. “They don’t hear it. They never see it.”In North Carolina, which last week became the 40th state to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, Mr. Cooper said people who are newly eligible for health care were not likely to credit Mr. Biden or White House policies.“The people who are getting it don’t really associate it with anybody other than finally being able to get health care for themselves,” he said.Focus more attention on legislative achievements.The governors all seemed to agree that they would like to see Mr. Biden spend more time cutting ribbons and attending groundbreakings for new projects paid for by infrastructure, climate and semiconductor funding he signed into law.“I would be doing those morning, noon and night,” Mr. Murphy said.Ms. Kelly of Kansas, who won her red state twice, said Mr. Biden should announce the opening of new projects and factories because she said it would focus attention away from his age.“I would spend a lot of time doing those just because they’re relatively easy and they are energizing,” she said.And Mr. Walz, whom his fellow governors voted the new chairman of the Democratic Governors Association, said Mr. Biden’s challenge would be explaining to people the future benefits of investments being made now.“The problem is going to be, it’s going to take us 20 years to build all this infrastructure out,” Mr. Walz said. “Whether they see it within the next 11 months or not, that’s what we need to tell the story.”Find some Democrats with enthusiasm.No governor at the Phoenix gathering expressed more desire to give Mr. Biden another term in the White House than Mr. Newsom, who used a 40-minute chat with reporters to take a victory lap from his debate with Mr. DeSantis, a ratings bonanza for the Fox News host Sean Hannity that doubled as the largest audience of the California governor’s political career.Mr. Newsom, who since the middle of last year has evolved from a friendly critic of Mr. Biden’s political messaging to one of his most enthusiastic supporters, said his fellow governors needed to perform like old-school politicians who could deliver a constituency for an ally through force of will by activating supporters to follow political commands.“We, the Democratic Party, need to get out there on behalf of the leader of the Democratic Party, Joe Biden, and make the case and do it with pride,” Mr. Newsom said. “We’ve got to wind this thing up.”The task may be difficult. Mr. Cooper described “a general malaise and frustration” that has Americans blaming Mr. Biden for forces often beyond his control.But Mr. Newsom said that if others were wary of carrying the torch for Mr. Biden in the next year, he was not afraid to do so all by himself.“If no one’s showing up doing stuff, I’m going to show up,” he said. “I can’t take it. I can’t take the alternative. I can’t even conceive it.” More

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      In North Carolina, a Voting Rights Clash Ahead of 2024

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      Republicans, whose edge in the state has narrowed in recent years, have gone on offense politically, leading to clashes over voting access and control over elections.A closely watched political fight is developing in North Carolina over voting rights and control of elections, as Democrats aim to recapture a presidential battleground and Republicans look to win back the governor’s office.Much as Georgia, Florida and Texas drew an outpouring of national attention and political cash as Republicans moved to restrict voting in the heated months after the 2020 election, North Carolina is poised for headline-grabbing confrontations over nearly every lever of the electoral apparatus.In the Republican-led legislature, the State House is considering two bills passed by the Senate that would sharply alter how elections are run, adding voting restrictions and effectively neutering the state elections board, which is now controlled by Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat. And in a looming redistricting clash, the newly conservative State Supreme Court has ordered lawmakers to redraw the state’s congressional and state legislative maps, which will most likely be far friendlier to Republicans.In North Carolina, every little edge could matter: The state, despite a long string of Republican presidential victories interrupted by Barack Obama’s 2008 triumph, has grown increasingly close. Donald J. Trump squeezed by in 2020 by just over a percentage point, and President Biden’s allies have signaled that they plan to invest in the state in 2024, seeing it as potentially winnable. Mr. Trump, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida and other Republican candidates have already held events in North Carolina as they contend for their party’s nomination.“North Carolina is one of the states that have both of the factors that exacerbate this,” said Wendy Weiser, the vice president for democracy at the Brennan Center for Justice, referring to Republican attempts to wield more power over voting and elections. “It is a battleground state and a state that has a history of discrimination in voting.”She added, “It is definitely one of the most critical states to be worried about.”Seismic shifts in North Carolina politics cleared the runway for Republicans to go on offense. They now have veto-proof legislative majorities after a Democratic representative defected to the G.O.P. in April, limiting what Mr. Cooper can halt. And conservatives captured the State Supreme Court in last year’s elections, upending it from a 4-to-3 liberal lean to a 5-to-2 conservative advantage.Republicans gained veto-proof majorities in the North Carolina General Assembly this spring, and last year they won control of the State Supreme Court. Travis Dove for The New York TimesBehind the scenes, a network of right-wing activists and election deniers led by Cleta Mitchell, a lawyer who played a key role in efforts by Mr. Trump and his allies to overturn the 2020 election, has been meeting with North Carolina lawmakers, pushing its priorities and helping shape certain provisions.Across the country, Republicans continue to try to tighten voting laws, arguing that they are needed to protect “election integrity” and pointing to voters’ Trump-fueled worries about election fraud.So far this year, at least 11 states have passed 13 laws adding such restrictions, according to the Brennan Center. That is a slightly slower clip than in 2021, when Republican-led legislatures passed a flurry of voting laws, often in response to election lies spread by Mr. Trump and his supporters.North Carolina has a particularly tortured past on voting rights. Under the Voting Rights Act, parts of the state were forced to obtain federal clearance to change voting laws because of their history of racially discriminatory election rules. More recently, in 2016, a federal court struck down a Republican-led voter identification law, saying it had targeted “African Americans with almost surgical precision.”Republicans have defended the latest measures. State Senator Warren Daniel, one of the primary sponsors of the bill to change voting laws, said on the chamber floor that the measure “increases confidence and transparency in our elections.” He added that certain changes, including a provision requiring that all absentee ballots be received by the time polls close on Election Day, would bring North Carolina in line with many other states.Democrats, however, have denounced the voting proposals, with one state senator, Natasha Marcus, going so far as to call them a “jumbo jet of voter suppression.” During final debate on the bill, she said it “includes a lot of problematic things that are going to dissuade people from voting, throw out ballots, and suppress the votes of certain people in a way that I think is discriminatory and anti-democratic.”A key provision would effectively eliminate same-day voter registration and replace it with a system in which voters would cast provisional ballots, then be required to follow up and verify their identities. Only some forms of identification would be acceptable: Data from the State Board of Elections found that in the four general elections since 2016, over 36 percent of voters who used same-day registration had provided IDs that the new law would not allow.Gov. Roy Cooper at an abortion-rights rally in downtown Raleigh, N.C., in May. Republicans will seek to reclaim the governor’s office next year.Kate Medley for The New York TimesIn 2016, when Republican state lawmakers tried to eliminate same-day registration, a Federal District Court found that it was “indisputable that African American voters disproportionately used” that method of voting. Black voters, the court found, made up 35 percent of same-day registrants in the 2012 election, while representing only 22 percent of the electorate.The new legislation also makes mail voting more complicated, adding a requirement that voters’ signatures be verified and a “two-factor” authentication process that would be unique to North Carolina and has left voting experts confused as to how it would work. As in other states, far more Democrats in North Carolina now vote by mail, with Mr. Trump and his allies instilling a widespread Republican distrust of the practice. In the 2022 midterm elections, more than 157,000 people in the state voted by mail. Forty-five percent were Democrats, and 35 percent were independents.As Republican lawmakers wrote the legislation, they received outside help.Three G.O.P. lawmakers, including Mr. Daniel, met in May with Ms. Mitchell, the Trump-allied lawyer, and Jim Womack, a leader of the North Carolina Election Integrity Teams. That organization is part of a national network of right-wing election activists coordinated in part by Ms. Mitchell, who declined to comment.The two activists pressed the lawmakers on their laundry list of changes to election laws, including measures on same-day registration, absentee ballots and maintenance of voter lists, according to a video in which Mr. Womack summarized the meeting. The video was obtained by Documented, a liberal investigative group, and shared with The New York Times.“Same-day registration, we’re all in agreement, violent agreement, that same-day registration will now be a provisional ballot,” Mr. Womack said in the video of the meeting. “So if you’re going to same-day register, it’s going to give you at least a little bit of time, maybe 7 to 10 days, to have a chance at researching and challenging that voter under the law as opposed to where it is now, where it’s less than 24 hours’ opportunity to do that.”Mr. Daniel declined to answer questions about the role Ms. Mitchell and Mr. Womack played in drafting the bills.Republicans have defended their proposed voting measures, saying that they will increase confidence in elections.Kate Medley for The New York TimesA 2017 law aiming to restructure the state election board was struck down by the State Supreme Court. Now that the court is more conservative, Republicans have resurrected the effort.Currently, Mr. Cooper appoints all five members of the board, but only three can be Democrats. Under the Republican proposal, the board would have eight members, all appointed by state lawmakers — four by Democratic leaders and four by Republican ones.State Senator Paul Newton, the bill’s Republican sponsor, introduced it as a measure “intended to take partisan advantage out of elections administration entirely.”The bill would all but certainly cause deadlock on many major election issues — a prospect that has alarmed election officials and democracy experts.The current election board, after reports of harassment of election officials in 2022, stepped in with rules limiting access for poll watchers, a move that angered conservatives.And there is one big unknown: What would happen if the new election board deadlocked over the certification of an election?That possibility is unaddressed in the bill. Phil Berger, the Republican leader of the State Senate, told The News and Observer that any such deadlock would probably send the matter to the courts, where decisions could depend on the partisan lean of the judge or court in question.“That’s a tell right there,” said Robyn Sanders, a counsel at the Brennan Center. “It seems pretty clear to me that it was deliberately designed so that there would be those kinds of situations.” More

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      Confidence, Anxiety and a Scramble for Votes Two Days Before the Midterms

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      As candidates made their closing arguments on Sunday, Democrats braced for potential losses even in traditionally blue corners of the country while Republicans predicted a red wave.DELAWARE COUNTY, Pa. — The turbulent midterm campaign rolled through its final weekend on Sunday as voters — buffeted by record inflation, worries about their personal safety and fears about the fundamental stability of American democracy — showed clear signs of preparing to reject Democratic control of Washington and embrace divided government.As candidates sprinted across the country to make their closing arguments to voters, Republicans entered the final stretch of the race confident they would win control of the House and possibly the Senate. Democrats steeled themselves for potential losses even in traditionally blue corners of the country.On Sunday, President Biden campaigned for Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York in a Yonkers precinct where he won 80 percent of the vote in 2020, signaling the deep challenges facing his party two years after he claimed a mandate to enact a sweeping domestic agenda. Former President Donald J. Trump addressed supporters in Miami, another sign of Republican optimism that the party could flip Florida’s most populous urban county for the first time in two decades.In the rally at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, N.Y., Mr. Biden characterized Election Day and the coming 2024 campaign as “inflection points” for the next 20 years. Voters, he said, had a clear choice between two “fundamentally different visions of America.”Mr. Trump, meanwhile, took the stage for about 90 minutes to blast Democrats as being soft on crime, re-litigate grievances about his presidency and the 2020 election, and boast that he has motivated Hispanic voters, especially in Florida, to shift toward the Republican Party.“We need a landslide so big that the radical left cannot rig or steal it,” he said, minutes before a rainstorm soaked the crowd. “We are going to take back America.”The appearances represented an unusual capstone to an extraordinary campaign — the first post-pandemic, post-Roe, post-Jan. 6 national election in a fiercely divided country shaken by growing political violence and lies about the last major election.While a majority of voters name the economy as their top concern, nearly three-quarters of Americans believe democracy is in peril, with most identifying the opposing party as the major threat. Should Republicans sweep the House contests, their control could empower the party’s right wing, giving an even bigger bullhorn to lawmakers who traffic in conspiracy theories and falsehoods like Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Matt Gaetz of Florida.A gas station in Mineral County, Nev., had gas prices well above $5 a gallon last week. A majority of voters say the economy is their top concern.Haiyun Jiang/The New York TimesA central question for Democrats is whether such a distinctive moment overrides fierce historical headwinds. Since 1934, nearly every president has lost seats in his first midterm election. And typically, voters punish the party in power for poor economic conditions — dynamics that point toward Republican gains.After days of campaigning across rural Nevada, Adam Laxalt, the Republican challenging Senator Catherine Cortez Masto, rallied supporters in and around Las Vegas this weekend, predicting a “red wave” that is “deep and wide.” Mr. Laxalt noted that Mr. Biden did not campaign in Nevada this year and blamed him for the state’s 15 percent inflation.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.“He’s going to call you anti-democratic for using the democratic system to give us a change,” he told supporters on Saturday in Clark County, the state’s largest county. “But that change is coming.”The midterm’s final landscape hinted that voters were prioritizing fiscal worries over more existential fears about democracy or preserving abortion rights. From liberal northeastern suburbs to Western states, Republican strategists, lawmakers and officials now say they could flip major parts of the country and expand their margins in Southern and Rust Belt states that have been fertile ground for their party for much of the last decade.There were also some early signs that key parts of the coalition that boosted Democrats to victory in 2018 and 2020 — moderate suburban white women and Latino voters — were swinging toward Republican candidates. Top Democratic officials made 11th-hour efforts to shore up their base. Vice President Kamala Harris made stops in Chicago to help Illinois Democrats. The first lady, Jill Biden, traveled to Houston on Sunday, trying to lift party turnout in Harris County, a stronghold for Democrats in Texas.In the House, where Republicans need to flip five seats to control the chamber, the party vied for districts in Democratic bastions, including in Rhode Island, exurban New York, Oregon and California. Republican strategists touted their surprisingly close standing in governor’s races in longer-shot blue states like New York, New Mexico and Oregon.At the same time, the Senate remains a tossup, with candidates locked in near dead-even races in three states — Georgia, Nevada and Pennsylvania — and tight races in at least another four. Republicans need just one additional seat to win control.“Everyone on the Republican side should be optimistic,” said Senator Rick Scott, a Florida Republican and the head of the Republican Senate campaign arm. Mr. Scott predicted his party would flip the chamber, going beyond the 51 seats needed for control. “If you look at the polls now, we have every reason to think we’ll be over 52.”Lt. Gov. John Fetterman with supporters at a rally in Pittsburgh on Saturday.Ruth Fremson/The New York TimesTwo supporters of Senator Raphael Warnock greeted each other at one of his events in Monroe, Ga., on Thursday.Nicole Craine for The New York TimesFor months, Democratic candidates in key races have outpaced Mr. Biden’s low approval ratings, aided by flawed Republican opponents who had been boosted to primary victories by Mr. Trump. Continuing to outrun the leader of their party grew more difficult as perceptions of the economy worsened and as Republican groups unleashed a fall ad blitz accusing their opponents of being weak on crime.“It’s a close race — it’s a jump ball for sure,” Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, the Democrat running for Senate in Pennsylvania against Mehmet Oz, the television personality, told a group of supporters in suburban Philadelphia.Dr. Oz and Mr. Fetterman both spent time in the Philadelphia area on Sunday, battling, in particular, in the crucial swing suburbs. A day after joining Mr. Trump at a rally in the Pittsburgh exurbs, Dr. Oz campaigned with Senator Susan Collins of Maine and Representative Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, two more moderate Republicans.In Georgia, the former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley told supporters not to feed into national headlines about Republicans’ strength, as she campaigned with Herschel Walker, the Republican nominee, in the conservative northwest Atlanta exurbs.“Don’t listen to this red wave stuff they’re talking to you about. The win that will happen in Georgia will simply be based on turnout,” she said. “Do more of us show up than they do?”And in the Las Vegas suburbs, former President Bill Clinton appeared with Ms. Cortez Masto to urge a crowd of labor union members to warn their family and friends not to cast a protest vote for Republicans, who he said would be “terrible” for working-class people.“They’re gambling that they have this magic moment where we’ll all be so mad, we’ll stop thinking,” he said. “Between now and Tuesday, people here could change the outcome of this election.”Cheri Beasley, a Democrat running for Senate in North Carolina in a tight race against Representative Ted Budd, spoke to voters in Charlotte, N.C., in September.Logan R. Cyrus for The New York TimesIn the House, the question is how large next year’s Republican majority will be. Some strategists have increased their estimates of how many seats the G.O.P. will gain from a handful to more than 25, which is well over the threshold for control of the chamber. Some of the Democratic challenges are structural: Republicans could pick up three seats just from redistricting according to some estimates, and a wave of Democratic retirements means more than a dozen seats in competitive districts lack incumbents to defend them. Paired with the number of seats leaning Republican or considered tossups, those obstacles are the makings of a landslide if undecided voters break decisively for the party out of power.“It’s not a surprise that this is a tough cycle,” said Sean Patrick Maloney, the head of the Democratic House campaign arm, who is in danger of losing his seat in New York’s Hudson Valley, which Mr. Biden won by 10 percentage points. “We’re very much aware of what we’re up against.”In governor’s races, Republican candidates modeled after Mr. Trump face decidedly mixed prospects, reflecting their party’s struggles with his continued influence. Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida seemed poised for re-election, while Kari Lake, the Republican nominee in Arizona, faces a tough battle. Doug Mastriano, the far-right nominee in Pennsylvania, was expected to lose, but Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia and Gov. Mike DeWine of Ohio, both of whom clashed with Mr. Trump, appear to have solidified their hold.Kari Lake addressed reporters at a campaign event on Friday, alongside other Republican candidates at the U.S.-Mexico border in Sierra Vista, Ariz.Rebecca Noble for The New York TimesSupporters of Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida gathered at a campaign event in Coconut Creek, Fla., on Friday. Scott McIntyre for The New York TimesIn some ways, the congressional elections are less consequential than some of the state elections, given that Mr. Biden will still be in the White House to block Republican legislation. In Wisconsin and North Carolina, the party is on the verge of breakthroughs in state legislatures that would give it almost total control of their governments.If Republicans gain just a handful of House and Senate seats in North Carolina, Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, faces the prospect of a Republican supermajority, rendering his veto pen obsolete to stop policies like a state abortion ban. If Republicans flip only one of the two State Supreme Court seats up for re-election Tuesday, a Republican-controlled high court could ratify even more gerrymandered state legislative maps that would lock in Republican control for the foreseeable future.“Yes, we’re concerned about it because the Republicans got to draw their own districts,” Mr. Cooper said. “We know this is a very purple, 50-50 state, yet we have a situation with unfair maps of maybe a supermajority.”But the chaotic events of the post-Trump era along with questions about the very mechanics of elections have injected a heavy dose of uncertainty into the outcome of the 2022 midterms.Democratic strategists have been enthusiastic about early voting, saying that it matched or was higher than the turnout two years ago when the party swept the House. More than 30 million ballots have been cast already, exceeding the 2018 total, and the Democratic advantage is 11 percentage points nationwide, even better than in 2018, according to Tom Bonier, the chief executive of TargetSmart, a firm that analyzes political data.But Republican candidates have followed Mr. Trump’s lead in denouncing mail voting and encouraging their voters to cast their ballots on Election Day. So those early Democratic numbers could be swamped by Republican votes on Tuesday.New Yorkers cast their ballots during early voting at a polling station at John Jay High School in Brooklyn on Saturday. More than 30 million ballots have been cast already.Ahmed Gaber for The New York TimesRepublicans, meanwhile, point to polling averages that crept toward the G.O.P. in the final week. But a number of the polls were conducted by Republican-leaning firms, which could influence the outcome of those surveys. And after several cycles of polling underestimating Trump voters, it’s unclear whether pollsters have correctly captured the electorate. “I’ve never been one who has put my bets on any poll, because I think particularly at this time people are not sharing where they are,” said Senator Patty Murray, a Democrat of Washington, who is facing a tough re-election battle in her blue state.Hispanic voters are likely to play a crucial role in Tuesday’s election, though both sides remain uncertain how much the landscape has shifted. In two of the states that are likely to determine control of the Senate — Nevada and Arizona — they make up roughly 20 percent of the electorate. Latinos also account for more than 20 percent of registered voters in more than a dozen hotly contested House races, including in California, Colorado, Florida and New Mexico.“The data itself right now is a picture of uncertainty,” said Carlos Odio, who runs Equis, a Democratic-leaning research firm that focuses on Latino voters. “We’re not seeing further decline for Democratic support, but the party has relied on very high margins in the past.”The audience watched former President Barack Obama at a Democratic rally in Las Vegas on Tuesday. Haiyun Jiang/The New York TimesKatie Glueck More

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      In Races for Governor, Democrats See a Silver Lining

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      WASHINGTON — Republican missteps, weak candidates and fund-raising woes are handing Democrats unexpected opportunities in races for governor this year, including in two states with departing Republican chief executives and in a number led by Democrats where G.O.P. contenders now face far longer odds than they had hoped.The potential to at least limit their statehouse defeats offers Democrats a bright spot in a midterm election in which they’re likely to suffer heavy congressional losses, as President Biden’s approval ratings plunge below 40 percent and the vast majority of voters remain convinced the country is on the wrong track amid fears of a recession.“I hear all this talk about a wave year,” said Scott Walker, the former Wisconsin governor, a Republican. “Yeah, but $20 to 25 million worth of attack ads can take away whatever advantage we have.”The more competitive map has alarmed Republican officials, while lifting the spirits of Democrats who’ve been demoralized by Mr. Biden’s unpopularity and nagging questions about his future.“The governors’ races could be our silver lining,” said former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat.The 36 statehouse contests this year loom large, in no small part because of the role many governors play in certifying election results and the opposition of Democratic governors to Republican state legislative efforts to change voting laws, two issues that could prove pivotal should the 2024 presidential results be contested.As they have for five years, since the first statewide elections following President Trump’s election, Democrats are counting less on their own contenders and more on voter backlash: a strong liberal turnout coupled with the revulsion of moderates toward Mr. Trump and his inflammatory style of politics. That formula has been bolstered by the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, a decision particularly significant in races at the state level, where abortion rights will now be determined.“Never have the rights of Americans depended more on who’s running their states,” said Gov. Roy Cooper of North Carolina, the head of the Democratic Governors Association.Unlike last year in Virginia, where Mr. McAuliffe’s comeback bid was snuffed out by Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who helped underwrite his own campaign and kept Mr. Trump at arm’s length, Republican voters have aided the Democrats’ strategy by elevating problematic nominees in a handful of states.Still, the overall political environment favors Republicans, and they may pick up governorships in a number of states Mr. Biden carried, including Wisconsin, New Mexico, Nevada and perhaps even Oregon, where a three-way race has made the otherwise liberal bastion a wild card.Key Themes From the 2022 Midterm Elections So FarCard 1 of 6The state of the midterms. More

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      ‘Governors Are the C.E.O.s’: State Leaders Weigh Their Might

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      At a National Governors Association gathering, attendees from both parties speculated about 2024 at a moment of increasing frustration with Washington.PORTLAND, Maine — A single senator put parts of President Biden’s domestic agenda in grave danger. The president’s approval ratings are anemic amid deep dissatisfaction with Washington. And as both Mr. Biden, 79, and Donald J. Trump, 76, signal their intentions to run for president again, voters are demanding fresh blood in national politics.Enter the governors.“Governors are the C.E.O.s,” said Gov. Chris Sununu of New Hampshire, a Republican who hopes a governor will win his party’s 2024 presidential nomination. He added that Washington lawmakers “don’t create new systems. They don’t implement anything. They don’t operationalize anything.”In other years, those comments might have amounted to standard chest-thumping from a state executive whose race was overshadowed by the battle for control of Congress.But this year, governors’ races may determine the future of abortion rights in states like Michigan and Pennsylvania. Mass shootings and the coronavirus pandemic are repeatedly testing governors’ leadership skills. And at a moment of boiling voter frustration with national politics and anxiety about aging leaders in both parties, the politicians asserting their standing as next-generation figures increasingly come from the governors’ ranks, including Gov. Gavin Newsom, a California Democrat, and Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Florida Republican.Supporters of abortion rights protested outside the National Governors Association meeting.Jodi Hilton for The New York TimesAll of those dynamics were on display this week at the summer meeting of the National Governors Association in Portland, Maine, which took place as Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia appeared to derail negotiations in Washington over a broad climate and tax package.His move devastated vital parts of Mr. Biden’s agenda in the evenly divided Senate, although the president vowed to take “strong executive action to meet this moment.” And it sharpened the argument from leaders in both parties in Portland that, as Washington veers between chaos and paralysis, America’s governors and would-be governors have a more powerful role to play.“Washington gridlock has been frustrating for a long time, and we’re seeing more and more the importance of governors across the country,” said Gov. Roy Cooper of North Carolina, the chairman of the Democratic Governors Association, pointing to Supreme Court decisions that have turned questions about guns, abortion rights and other issues over to states and their governors.Americans, he added, “look at governors as someone who gets things done and who doesn’t just sit at a table and yell at each other like they do in Congress or state legislatures.”The three-day governors’ conference arrived at a moment of growing unease with national leaders of both parties.A New York Times/Siena College poll showed that 64 percent of Democratic voters would prefer a new presidential standard-bearer in 2024, with many citing concerns about Mr. Biden’s age. In another poll, nearly half of Republican primary voters said they would prefer to nominate someone other than Mr. Trump, a view that was more pronounced among younger voters.And at the N.G.A. meeting, private dinners and seafood receptions crackled with discussion and speculation about future political leadership. “I don’t care as much about when you were born or what generation you belong to as I do about what you stand for,” said Gov. Spencer Cox of Utah, a 47-year-old Republican. “But I think certainly there is some angst in the country right now over the gerontocracy.”In a series of interviews, Republican governors in attendance — a number of them critical of Mr. Trump, planning to retire or both — hoped that some of their own would emerge as major 2024 players. Yet for all the discussions of the power of the office, governors have often been overshadowed on the national stage by Washington leaders, and have struggled in recent presidential primaries. The last governor to become a presidential nominee was now-Senator Mitt Romney, who lost in 2012.Democrats, who are preoccupied with a perilous midterm environment, went to great lengths to emphasize their support for Mr. Biden if he runs again as planned. Still, some suggested that voters might feel that Washington leaders were not fighting hard enough, a dynamic with implications for elections this year and beyond.“People want leaders — governors, senators, congresspeople and presidents — who are vigorous in their defense of our rights, and people who are able to galvanize support for that among the public,” said Gov. J.B. Pritzker of Illinois, a Democrat.Mr. Pritzker has attracted attention for planning appearances in the major presidential battleground states of New Hampshire and Florida and for his fiery remarks on gun violence after a shooting in Highland Park, Ill. Mr. Biden, for his part, faced criticism from some Democrats who thought he should have been far more forceful immediately after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.Asked if Mr. Biden had been sufficiently “vigorous” in his responses to gun violence and the abortion ruling, Mr. Pritzker, who has repeatedly pledged to support Mr. Biden if he runs again, did not answer directly.“President Biden cares deeply about making sure that we protect those rights. I have said to him that I think that every day, he should be saying something to remind people that it is on his mind,” Mr. Pritzker replied. He added that Americans “want to know that leadership — governors, senators, president — you know, they want to know that we all are going to fight for them.”Gov. Phil Murphy, a New Jersey Democrat and the new chairman of the National Governors Association (who hopes to host next year’s summer meeting on the Jersey Shore), praised Washington lawmakers for finding bipartisan agreement on a narrow gun control measure and said Mr. Biden had “done a lot.”Two Republican governors, Mr. Cox, left, and Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas, center, spoke with a Democratic governor, Phil Murphy of New Jersey, at the meeting in Maine.Jodi Hilton for The New York TimesBut asked whether voters believe Washington Democrats are doing enough for them, he replied: “Because governors are closer to the ground, what we do is more immediate, more — maybe more deeply felt. I think there is frustration that Congress can’t do more.”Few Democrats currently believe that any serious politician would challenge Mr. Biden, whatever Washington’s problems. He has repeatedly indicated that he relishes the possibility of another matchup against Mr. Trump, citing The New York Times/Siena College poll that found that he would still beat Mr. Trump, with strong support from Democrats.A Biden adviser, also citing that poll, stressed that voters continued to care deeply about perceptions of who could win — a dynamic that was vital to Mr. Biden’s 2020 primary victory. He is still working, the adviser said, to enact more of his agenda including lowering costs, even as there have been other economic gains on his watch.“We had younger folks step forward last time. President Biden won the primary. President Biden beat Donald Trump,” said another ally, former Representative Cedric Richmond, who served in the White House. “The Biden-Harris ticket was the only ticket that could have beat Donald Trump.”But privately and to some degree publicly, Democrats are chattering about who else could succeed if Mr. Biden does not ultimately run again. A long list of governors — with varying degrees of youth — are among those mentioned, including Mr. Murphy, Mr. Pritzker, Mr. Newsom and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, if she wins her re-election.Some people around Mr. Cooper hope he will consider running if Mr. Biden does not. Pressed on whether that would interest him, Mr. Cooper replied, “I’m for President Biden. I do not want to go there.”Indeed, all of those governors have stressed their support for Mr. Biden. But the poll this week threw into public view some of the conversations happening more quietly within the party.“There’s a severe disconnect between where Democratic Party leadership is and where the rest of our country is,” said former Representative Joe Cunningham, a South Carolina Democrat who is running for governor and who has called on Mr. Biden to forgo re-election to make way for a younger generation.Signs of Mr. Biden’s political challenges were evident at the N.G.A., too. Asked whether she wanted Mr. Biden to campaign with her, Gov. Janet Mills of Maine, a Democrat in a competitive race for re-election this year, was noncommittal.“Haven’t made that decision,” she said.Gov. Doug Ducey of Arizona, right, addressed the gathering alongside Gov. Janet Mills of Maine. Jodi Hilton for The New York TimesIn a demonstration of just how much 2024 talk pervaded Portland this week, one diner at Fore Street Restaurant could be overheard discussing Mr. Biden’s legacy and wondering how Mr. Murphy might fare nationally. At the next table sat Gov. Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas, a Republican, who confirmed that he was still “testing the waters” for a presidential run.Some of the most prominent Republican governors seen as 2024 hopefuls, most notably Mr. DeSantis, were not on hand. But a number of others often named as possible contenders — with different levels of seriousness — did attend, including Gov. Glenn Youngkin of Virginia and Gov. Larry Hogan of Maryland.“I call them the ‘frustrated majority,’” Mr. Hogan said, characterizing the electorate’s mood. “They think Washington is broken and that we’ve got too much divisiveness and dysfunction.” More