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

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

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      Biden Faces One More Inflection Point After a Life of Struggle

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      President Biden had hoped to preside over a moment of reconciliation after the turmoil of the Trump years. But the fever of polarizing politics has not broken ahead of Tuesday’s midterm elections.ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Before heading into a community center for a campaign rally the other day, President Biden stopped to speak to the overflow crowd that could not squeeze into the small facility.As often happens whenever Mr. Biden finds a microphone and a willing audience, his family made a cameo appearance. This time it was his long-dead grandparents. “Every time I’d walk out of my grandpop’s house, he’d yell, ‘Joey, keep the faith,’” the president recounted. “My grandmother would yell, ‘No, Joey, spread it.’ Go spread the faith.”Mr. Biden has been spreading the faith across the country in recent days, undaunted by the polls and prognosticators forecasting a devastating defeat for his party in Tuesday’s midterm elections. Faith has been Mr. Biden’s calling card in his nearly two years in office — faith in the system in which he has been a fixture for more than half a century, faith that he could repair the fissures of a broken society, faith that he and he alone could beat former President Donald J. Trump if they face off again in 2024.It is not a faith shared by everyone, not even among fellow Democrats, not even among his own advisers and allies, some of whom view the coming days with dread. After turning to Mr. Biden for a sense of normalcy two years ago following the turmoil of Mr. Trump, voters now appear poised to register discontent that he has not delivered it the way they expected, regardless of whether it was realistic in the first place.History has rarely favored first-term presidents in midterm elections and Mr. Biden’s party does not even have to lose in a landslide for him to lose the presidency as he has known it. The turnover of just a handful of House seats and a single Senate seat will severely constrain his options going forward and raise questions about whether he should lead the Democrats into the next election.And so these are frustrating, even perplexing times for Mr. Biden, who according to confidants had expected the fever of polarizing politics to have broken by now and was surprised that it had not. The presidency he envisioned, one where he presided over a moment of reconciliation, is not the presidency he has gotten. He thought that if he could simply govern well, everything would work out, which in hindsight strikes some around him as shockingly naïve if somewhat endearing.Mr. Biden speaking during a campaign event at MiraCosta College in San Diego for Representative Mike Levin, Democrat of California. Mr. Levin is running for re-election.Tom Brenner for The New York Times“In the old days, when I was a United States senator, we’d argue like hell with one another, disagree fundamentally, and go down to the Senate dining room and have lunch together,” Mr. Biden reflected to an audience in San Diego last week. “Because we disagreed on the issues, but we agreed on the notion that the institutions matter.”“Well, the institutions are under full-blown attack,” he added. “I’m already being told, if they win back the House and Senate, they’re going to impeach me. I don’t know what the hell they’ll impeach me for.”Like other presidents in stressful moments, he has turned to Abraham Lincoln for inspiration. As he traveled in recent days, he brought with him “And There Was Light,” the new biography of the 16th president by Jon Meacham, the historian who has become a friend and outside adviser to Mr. Biden.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.“One possible lesson for President Biden, who’s engaged in a profound battle to preserve the Constitution and the rule of law, is that moral commitment matters and can prevail, no matter how difficult the struggle,” Mr. Meacham said. “There will be bad days and good days. The key thing is to remember why you’re fighting for what you’re fighting for.”The bad days often seem to outnumber the good days in this challenging autumn, although Mr. Biden, the self-described “wacko Irishman,” would hardly put it that way. “I’m optimistic,” he says regularly, even while outlining all the ways his optimism is taking a beating lately.He does not indulge often in introspection, nor subject himself to much cross-examination about where he believes he has gone wrong, if in fact he does. He avoids interviews with major networks and newspapers, preferring friendlier questioners like the podcaster who told him mid-interview recently that “you’re the coolest guy in the world.”As he approaches his 80th birthday this month, Mr. Biden’s life is less in his control than it has been in years. He starts his day at 8 a.m. with exercises, then heads to the Oval Office, returning to the residence around 7 p.m. for dinner with Jill Biden. Since she teaches in the morning, she goes to bed earlier, around 9:30 p.m., while he tells people that he stays up with his thick briefing book until around 11 p.m. He does not read much for pleasure, and when he watches television, it is mainly the news or sports.He elliptically acknowledges the effects of age. During a conversation with the actors Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes and Will Arnett for their podcast “SmartLess,” Mr. Biden said he cannot skip workouts without penalty. “The thing I learned, the difference in age, if I let it go for a week, I feel it,” he said. “I used to be able to go for a week and nothing would change.”Perhaps sharing more than his wife might prefer, the president confided that Mrs. Biden insists he combat the effects of age in other ways. “She gets very upset if I have not fully shaven, all this excessive amount of hair I have,” he said. “You know what I mean?”His family remains an inseparable element of his life and his politics. Barely a speech on the trail goes by that he does not mention his son Beau, who died of brain cancer in 2015. His dad and mom are quoted with great regularity. He makes a point of texting or calling each of his seven grandchildren every day.And so those around him know the most important voice in his ear as he contemplates what comes next is Jill Biden. While aides make tentative plans for a re-election campaign in case he opts for one, the president has not had extensive conversations about it with some of his closest aides. He insists to them, though, that Mrs. Biden is all-in if he wants to run, a self-justifying contention some view with skepticism.In that sense, the return to the campaign trail this fall after a largely shelter-in-place Covid-19 campaign in 2020 has served as something of a test run of what a 2024 bid might look like.He is not a rip-roaring speaker nor does he have the celebrity factor that electrifies a crowd beyond the trappings of the office. His crowds have been enthusiastic but nowhere near as large as his recent predecessors drew at similar points.At an event in Hallandale Beach, Fla., one of his warm-up speakers had to goad the audience into showing a little more spirit. “Come on, people, let’s wake up!” exhorted Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Democrat of Florida. “We got the president of the United States in the house. Come on, now! I know you got a little more energy than I hear.”At a rally in Miami Gardens later that day, he was an hour late and the crowd, which had been there for hours to get through security, had faded by the time he was halfway through his speech, some even slipping out before he was finished.Mr. Biden has adjusted his style lately, abandoning the lectern for a hand-held mic that lets him better project his voice, which is softening with age, and allows him to wander the stage, hand in pocket. But his speeches are peppered with familiar Biden-isms like “I’m serious” and “look folks” and “I really mean it.”Mr. Biden seems to think he comes across as funnier than he does. “Not a joke!” he says again and again, four, eight, 10 times in a single speech. In San Diego last week, he told one audience that his remarks were “not a joke” a full 17 times — and threw in “I’m not joking” four more times. (A Biden speech is like a drinking game for political nerds — “Not a joke!” Drink!)Indeed, Mr. Biden has always connected with audiences not through humor so much as humanity. His speeches are animated by stories of pain — his young wife and daughter killed in a car accident, his own near-death experience with two brain aneurysms, his son Beau’s death. He still summons the name of the nurse who took care of him in the hospital more than three decades ago.“People understand that I understand loss and I think it’s so important that people understand that from that loss — the pain never goes away but you can do incredible things,” he said last week. “The person you lost never leaves your heart. I don’t know how many times I ask myself what would Beau do?”Even now, his childhood struggles with stuttering define him. To this day, he divides his speech texts with hash marks, a technique he learned to make public speaking earlier. And the insecurities that come from it are never far from the surface. He brought it up last week seemingly at random.“I used to ta- ta- ta- talk — talk like that wh- wh- wh- when I w- wa- was a kid,” he told one audience. “It’s awful hard to ask the girl, ‘Will you go to the p- pr- pr- prom with me?’ And it sounds funny, but guess what? It makes you feel like an idiot.”Anticipating the next few days, Mr. Biden refuses to concede defeat. He was encouraged by the energy of Saturday night’s rally in Pennsylvania with former President Barack Obama and Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, the Senate candidate, as well as positive indicators from Arizona and New Hampshire.His mood, aides said, is one of fighting through the tape. “He’s spent the last weeks pushing us — what else can he do?” said Anita Dunn, his senior adviser.But if he takes a licking on Tuesday, aides said, he will own it and move ahead. In a life of falling and getting back up, it would be one more stumble, not the end. On that at least, he has faith. More

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      A Climate Change Skeptic’s Change of Heart

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      More from our inbox:How to Help the Homeless in Los AngelesDemocratic Wishes That Came True, Alas!Divorce and Politics Damon Winter/The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Yes, Greenland’s Ice Is Melting, But … ,” by Bret Stephens (column, Oct. 30):Mr. Stephens’s piece is right on point — had it been written 20 years ago. Regrettably the environment did not wait for him or others “to be brought around” about “the need for action.” Rather, with scientific consensus building around an expected rise of two to three degrees Celsius by 2100, the partial solutions Mr. Stephens champions will leave us facing extreme climate impacts.Better that we adopt a more radical approach in the hope that we can stem the coming tide. Indeed, as Mr. Stephens suggests, we should focus on fixing the environment for our great-grandchildren, and need to consider family planning policies that reduce the size of future generations to help achieve a better balance between humanity and nature.Scott MortmanManalapan, N.J.The writer is an environmental lawyer and an adviser to the Fair Start Movement, a nonprofit dedicated to advancing child welfare and family planning.To the Editor:Bret Stephens wisely recommends that a lack of self-righteousness and an open mind would do a lot to advance public thinking about climate change, using his own evolution on the subject as Exhibit A. However, his fears about government playing a big role in addressing rising temperatures ignores some important recent history.Mr. Stephens points out that nuclear power will have to play a role in a less carbon-intensive future but fails to mention that its very existence was brought about by a massive program of government-funded and -directed research and development. He also points out that cheap natural gas produced by fracking has helped reduce our carbon footprint, and ignores the fact that both public and private funding played an important role in funding the research and development for that technology.And, perhaps most significant, he doesn’t mention the pivotal role played by German and Chinese government subsidies in driving down the price of solar panels by bringing their production up to scale.Fighting climate change is a very complex matter and will require carefully intertwining public and private initiatives. To see the marketplace as the sole possible agent of change fails to acknowledge how progress has occurred.Joshua MarkelPhiladelphiaTo the Editor:Letting market forces drive the consumption of goods and services might work for much of our economy, but it clearly hasn’t worked when it comes to protecting the health and well-being of our planet and its inhabitants from global warming. It takes too long.In 1888, the first U.S. wind turbine produced electricity. In 1900, more than a third of vehicles on our roads were electric. In 1954, Bell Labs developed solar energy. American clean energy science and innovation were there all along, but the oil and gas lobby was a powerful headwind to its usage.Our government needs to push against the destructive effects of global warming. We are running out of time.Fred EganYork Harbor, MaineTo the Editor:For the better part of 10 years, I have tried to convince my father of the seriousness of climate change and, for the most part, those conversations have not been fruitful. But after sending Bret Stephens’s article to him, we had a very thoughtful discussion about the importance of addressing it.I appreciate Mr. Stephens’s vulnerability and willingness to admit that his views have changed as he has learned more. In doing so, he gives conservatives an avenue not just to engage with the issue, but potentially to lead.I would like to hear more from Mr. Stephens about how climate activists could be more persuasive to climate skeptics. As he pointed out, climate change should not be just a left-of-center concern. We must be able to persuade everyone that we need to address global warming.Brendan HastingsChicagoHow to Help the Homeless in Los AngelesA homeless encampment adjacent to a parking lot in Venice, Calif., that has been designated for an affordable housing development.Philip Cheung for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “The Way Los Angeles Is Trying to Solve Homelessness Is ‘Absolutely Insane,’” by Ezra Klein (column, nytimes.com, Oct. 23):Mr. Klein is absolutely right: It is insane to try to solve Los Angeles’s housing crisis without a radically innovative approach. Fortunately, Los Angeles voters will be able to vote for one on the same ballot as their new mayor. Measure ULA would raise more than $900 million annually to prevent homelessness and create housing. It replaces politics as usual with the urgency and innovation we need.Written by housing providers and homelessness experts, Measure ULA dedicates 70 percent of revenues to affordable housing, the majority to support fast-moving, less expensive and other kinds of affordable housing that Mr. Klein wants to see.Sophisticated construction methods can bring down housing costs, as can the purchase of existing apartments and hotels for long-term housing. The measure also encourages community land trusts, single-family homes, residential hotels, accessory dwelling units and cooperative living models.Prevention is by far the cheapest solution to homelessness, and Measure ULA also funds rental assistance and legal services for tenants facing eviction.L.A.’s housing and homelessness crises are persistent and challenging, but they are not insoluble. Measure ULA attacks the problems at the root, and that is why it is the best hope in a generation for making meaningful progress toward housing every Angeleno with dignity.Stephanie Klasky-GamerNorth Hollywood, Calif.The writer is the president and C.E.O. of LA Family Housing, an affordable housing developer and homeless services provider.Democratic Wishes That Came True, Alas! Nicole Craine for The New York TimesTo the Editor:I remember that back during the primary season the Democrats were not only wishing that extreme Republican candidates would win, but in some cases they were actually helping them get the nomination because “they would be so easy to defeat!” At the time that practice seemed ill advised and downright insane.And sure enough, now there are extreme, election-denying Republican candidates poised to win office around the country. What the Democrats failed to recognize is that during the general election campaign, fringe candidates gain legitimacy.In the primary they’re the loony among several candidates who usually split the vote. Then the extremist voters coalesce around the extreme candidate and, presto chango, they’re the legitimate Republican nominee. Then established Republicans, for fear of any Democrat ever winning anything, endorse the extremist.The Democrats should have been more mindful of that old saw “Be careful what you wish for”!Ozzie SattlerPhoenixDivorce and PoliticsTo the Editor:As a man who has experienced the slow deterioration that leads to a divorce, I have wondered why I didn’t do more to stop the process. I think the answer is that my pride allowed many small irritations, over many years, to fester and grow past a breaking point. Once that happens, reason leaves, anger replaces it and the end point becomes almost inevitable.The political situation we are now in, as a country, feels very much like the downward spiral that ends in a divorce. Things that, at one time, could and needed to be discussed and debated to reach compromise have become weapons to attack the other side. Anger and hate grow, and it seems that the breaking point is in sight.But, unlike a divorce, we can’t just split the assets and go our separate ways, keeping the tears and pain within the family and friends. And whatever the outcome, there will be no do-overs when we look back. So I pray that we come to our senses and realize the incredible risks we are taking by letting pride and anger replace patriotism and respect for all.Mike WroblewskiAtlanta More

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

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

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      Democrats, Don’t Despair. There Are Bright Spots for Our Party.

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

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      Fact-Checking the Misleading Claim About 87,000 Tax Agents

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      The claim, which has been debunked numerous times, has resurged ahead of the midterm elections. Here’s why it’s still wrong.As the midterm campaigns come to a close, Republican lawmakers are seizing on misleading claims warning that Democrats are recruiting an army of tax auditors, finding new resonance in an assertion debunked months ago.The assertion began to circulate when President Biden first outlined a wide-ranging social spending plan last fall. A whittled-down version of that plan, known as the Inflation Reduction Act, was enacted this summer, fueling a new wave of attacks that have gained momentum as the elections neared.That law provides the Internal Revenue Service with nearly $80 billion in funding, including $45.6 billion for enforcement activities. But the suggestion that this would amount to 87,000 additional tax collectors scrutinizing the financial filings of middle-class Americans is wrong.Here’s a fact check.What Was Said“When House Republicans earn the majority, we will STOP Biden’s army of 87,000 IRS agents hired to audit hardworking American families and small businesses.”— Representative Elise Stefanik, Republican of New York, in a tweet in November.“Senate Democrats could have secured the border to protect you and your family. They didn’t. Instead, they hired 87,000 IRS agents to audit you.”— Senate Republicans’ official Twitter account in November.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.“$80 Billion: Increased IRS Funding. 87,000: Full-Time IRS Agents Added Using $80 Billion in Funding. 710,000 New Audits on Taxpayers Making $75,000 or Less.”— a graphic Tiffany Smiley, the Republican candidate for Senate in Washington, shared on Twitter in October.These claims are misleading. The 87,000 figure refers to a May 2021 estimate from the Treasury Department of the total number of employees — not just auditors — the I.R.S. proposes to hire over the next 10 years with funding requested by Mr. Biden. And while the I.R.S. plans to conduct more audits, wealthy Americans and businesses will bear the brunt of that scrutiny, not, as Republicans have suggested, working families.Among the I.R.S.’s work force of about 79,000 employees, 10,000 are actually agents. (Of those, 8,000 are revenue agents who audit tax filings and 2,000 are special agents who investigate potential tax crimes.) In fact, the two most common I.R.S. jobs have little to do with tax auditing or investigations: about 13,000 are customer service representatives who answer taxpayer phone calls and 10,000 are seasonal employees who file mail or transcribe data. Other jobs include lawyers, examiners, technicians and appeals officers.The additional funding for to the I.R.S. will allow the agency to modernize its infrastructure and replace an aging work force, and it is unclear just how many full-time employees or agents will be hired in the next decade, Treasury Department officials said. The majority of those new employees will replace the 52,000 expected to retire in the near future, the officials said, and many will focus on customer service and updating the agency’s technology infrastructure — not investigating the finances of ordinary Americans.In other words, the funding will enable the I.R.S. to increase its work force over the next 10 years to 113,000 employees. That is about the same number of workers it employed annually in the early 1990s.In a September speech, Janet Yellen, the Treasury secretary, outlined some of that hiring — an additional 5,000 customer service representatives and fully staffing the agency’s taxpayer assistance centers — and committed to not raise audit rates for households making under $400,000 a year.Using historical audit rates, House Republicans estimated this summer that the additional funding will correspond to 710,000 new audits for taxpayers making $75,000 or less — as Ms. Smiley, the Republican candidate for Senate in Washington State, tweeted. But those calculations ignore the proportional effect on each income bracket.In the past decade, tax audit rates have fallen most starkly for higher income earners, which the I.R.S. attributes to diminished resources and therefore its inability to retain specialized auditors needed to examine the filings of the wealthy.Increasing funding for the I.R.S., the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said in September 2021, would address those needs and result in increased audit rates for everyone, particularly for high-income earners.The I.R.S. examined 1.4 million individual income tax returns in 2010, about 1 percent of the total number filed. In 2018, the latest year with available data when Republicans started making these claims, audits decreased to 370,000, or about 0.2 percent.The budget office estimated increasing I.R.S. funding would return enforcement to its 2010 levels. Doing so would result in about 1.2 million more audits; of those, 583,000 would target people making less than $75,000.But that is because a vast majority of tax filers — about 70 percent — make under that threshold. Looking at what fraction of returns are examined by income group, rather than the sheer number, shows that wealthier taxpayers would have a better chance of being audited than lower-income earners under the law.Under 2010 levels of enforcement, about 0.5 percent of returns reporting between $1 and $75,000 in income would be audited, as would 1 percent of those with more than $75,000 in income. In comparison, those rates were 0.3 percent and 0.1 percent in 2018. For those making more than $10 million, more than 20 percent of returns would be examined under 2010 levels, compared with 5.3 percent in 2018.It is also worth noting that of those 710,000 additional audits cited by Republicans, about 127,000 would target those with “no positive income,” such as those who report negative business income or capital losses. Including these filers with lower-income taxpayers is also misleading, as they actually receive more audit scrutiny than any other income group outside of those making over $5 million annually.In a statement in support of the law released this summer, three former I.R.S. commissioners appointed by Republican and Democratic presidents disputed claims about increased scrutiny. The law would add “the capacity to enforce the tax laws against sophisticated taxpayers who today evade their tax obligations freely,” they said, “because they know that the I.R.S. lacks the tools it needs to pursue them.” More

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      Walker and Warnock Spend Big on TV Ads as Georgia Football Wins

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      Nothing quite holds an audience captive like a clash of undefeated college football behemoths. Senator Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker didn’t need reminding of that on Saturday.Neither candidate in Georgia’s pivotal Senate race blinked at the $50,000 cost of a 30-second campaign ad during Saturday’s game between the top-ranked University of Tennessee and the third-ranked University of Georgia, according filings with the Federal Communications Commission.Each of them booked two ads on Atlanta’s CBS affiliate, with the National Republican Senatorial Committee listed as sharing some of the cost of one of the ads supporting Mr. Walker.On CBS in Atlanta, a 30-second ad during the pregame show or on Friday night prime time cost $5,000; it was a thrifty $75 during the station’s “Wake Up Atlanta” show in the 5 to 5:30 a.m. time slot on weekdays.Mr. Walker won the Heisman Trophy in the 1980s when he starred for the Georgia Bulldogs, which are the defending national champions in college football. Georgia beat Tennessee, 27-13.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.In one ad for Mr. Warnock that he highlighted on Twitter during the game, three Georgia graduates conveyed their reverence for Mr. Walker’s accomplishments as a college football star, but said that was where the praise ended. One was wearing a jersey with Mr. Walker’s No. 34 and another displayed a football autographed by him.“I’ve always thought Herschel Walker looked perfect up there,” said a man identified in the ad as Clay Bryant, a 1967 graduate, pointing to photos of Mr. Walker on a wall in his home.“I think he looks good here,” another graduate said, gesturing to her jersey.“I think he looks great there,” the third one said, sitting next to the football and a copy of Sports Illustrated with Mr. Walker on the cover.“But Herschel Walker in the U.S. Senate?” the three asked critically in unison.On social media, college football fans groused about being bombarded with attack ads run by the candidates and groups aligned with them, including dueling commercials that lobbed domestic abuse allegations at Mr. Walker and Mr. Warnock.Senator Lindsey Graham, left, campaigned with Herschel Walker in Cumming, Ga., in October.Nicole Craine for The New York TimesMr. Walker has been roiled by accusations that he urged two women to have abortions, despite campaigning as a conservative who opposes the procedure.On the CBS affiliate in Savannah, Ga., Mr. Walker booked a 30-second ad during the game for $35,000, while Mr. Warnock reserved a 30-second block for $15,000. Advertising rates are typically higher for coordinated efforts between parties and candidates than for candidates on their own.On the CBS affiliate in Augusta, Ga., Mr. Walker reserved a pair of 30-second ads during the game for $25,890, with the N.R.S.C. listed as helping to pay for one, according to federal filings. Mr. Warnock bought ads on the same station, but not during the game.Mr. Warnock and Mr. Walker, who is backed by former President Donald J. Trump, were not the only bitter rivals in a close Senate race who invested heavily this week advertising around sporting events.In Pennsylvania’s open-seat contest, the celebrity physician Dr. Mehmet Oz, a Republican, and Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, the Democratic candidate, spent six figures to run campaign ads during the World Series featuring the Philadelphia Phillies and the Houston Astros.Both candidates booked multiple ads on Fox’s Philadelphia affiliate at a rate of $95,000 for 30 seconds, according to federal filings. Mr. Fetterman also reserved 30 seconds of airtime during Thursday night’s National Football League game between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Houston Texans. More

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      Pensylvania Democrats Worry About Threats in the County Where Trump Will Rally

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      Democratic officials in Westmoreland County, Pa., where former President Donald J. Trump is speaking on Saturday, said they had seen an uptick in disturbing incidents targeting Democrats in the past year.Westmoreland County, the populous area east of Pittsburgh, was once a Democratic-leaning enclave, but it has turned decisively red in recent years.“We are targets here,” Michelle McFall, the chairwoman of the county Democrats, said at a rally of supporters in October. She cited three incidents:In late summer, someone “tore down and destroyed” a 4-foot-by-8-foot sign for Josh Shapiro, the Democratic candidate for governor, within a day of its installation.In September, a man in a rainbow clown wig was arrested at a Dairy Queen in the county carrying a loaded handgun. He told police he wanted to “kill all Democrats,’’ according to news accounts.And on Election Day in 2021, a Democratic county committee member speaking in support of a write-in candidate outside a polling location in Alverton was attacked by a Trump supporter, who was charged with assault.To Ms. McFall, the episodes suggest a pattern of “how dangerous it is” to be a Democrat in Westmoreland County.But to Bill Bretz, the chairman of the county Republican Party, the incidents are unrelated and do not point to a pattern of violence or potential violence against Democrats.“I can’t count the number of signs we’ve had to replace — small, large, they get damaged or stolen,” Mr. Bretz said. “I don’t attribute that to any particular party.”He said Democrats were trying to deflect from their political difficulties in the midterms by promoting a “narrative of somehow being in a position where there’s some aggression from the Republican conservative people.”Lisa Gephart, the Democratic committee member who Ms. McFall said was physically attacked last year, said in an interview that she was 54 at the time and that her assailant was 34.She said the two had traded insults about President Biden and Mr. Trump before the man threw her against her car. She was taken by ambulance to the hospital and later required shoulder surgery, she said. The man she named as her attacker, Zachary A. Lambing, was charged with assault, resisting arrest, disorderly conduct and harassment, according to court records. A criminal case remains active. Mr. Lambing said in response to a text message that the accusations against him were false. He said Ms. Gephart was “‘attacking’ me with her words” before the incident. Ms. McFall, the Democratic chairwoman, said that while she had no evidence of a statewide pattern of attacks on Democrats, she had recently compared notes with leaders of other rural counties at a statewide Democratic meeting. “Anecdotally, no one seemed to have stories or evidence of patterns of attack like we have in Westmoreland,” Ms. McFall said.Meanwhile, in Fayette County, just south of Westmoreland, a Democratic candidate running for a state House seat, Richard Ringer, told PennLive.com that he was knocked unconscious in his backyard on Monday by an unknown attacker. He told the outlet that his home had been the target of two recent acts of vandalism: A brick was thrown through a window, and graffiti that appeared to be related to the election was spray-painted on his garage door. More