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      Warnock Hammers Walker in Senate Debate, Gesturing to an Empty Lectern

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      ATLANTA — Herschel Walker was not onstage on Sunday night for Georgia’s second U.S. Senate debate. But he was one of its main topics anyway.Senator Raphael Warnock, the incumbent and a Democrat, excoriated his Republican opponent, Mr. Walker, who chose not to attend the debate, arguing that Mr. Walker’s history of domestic violence, lies about his past and refusal to participate in the forum made him unqualified for office.Throughout the hourlong matchup in Atlanta, Mr. Warnock stepped out of character, opting for direct attack lines over the thinly veiled criticisms he has leveled at Mr. Walker for most of the campaign. He answered panelists’ questions with a mix of policy points and full-throated rebukes of Mr. Walker’s claims about his personal life, business prowess and academic record. He described Mr. Walker’s “well-documented history of violence” in reference to reports about Mr. Walker’s domestic violence against his ex-wife, Cindy Grossman, calling them “disturbing.”The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.The Final Stretch: With less than one month until Election Day, Republicans remain favored to take over the House, but momentum in the pitched battle for the Senate has seesawed back and forth.A Surprising Battleground: New York has emerged from a haywire redistricting cycle as perhaps the most consequential congressional battleground in the country. For Democrats, the uncertainty is particularly jarring.Arizona’s Governor’s Race: Democrats are openly expressing their alarm that Katie Hobbs, the party’s nominee for governor in the state, is fumbling a chance to defeat Kari Lake in one of the most closely watched races.Herschel Walker: The Republican Senate nominee in Georgia reportedly paid for an ex-girlfriend’s abortion, but members of his party have learned to tolerate his behavior.The Senate race’s lesser-known contender, the Libertarian candidate Chase Oliver, did participate in the debate, bringing up policy points like supporting L.G.B.T.Q. rights and keeping the government out of health care and energy investments. He found common ground with Mr. Warnock as both hammered their opponent for his absence from the debate stage.“This race is about who’s ready to represent the people of Georgia in the U.S. Senate,” Mr. Warnock said as he pointed to an empty lectern meant for Mr. Walker, a former football star. “And by not showing up tonight for the job interview, by giving nonsensical answers about his history of violence, Herschel Walker shows he’s not ready.”Before the debate, Mr. Walker’s campaign issued a statement calling it a “one-sided sham” that would be more favorable to Mr. Warnock.Mr. Warnock’s debate performance on Sunday represents one of his most forceful criticisms of his opponent yet. The Democratic senator has not openly condemned Mr. Walker on the campaign trail, even as damaging reports about him have regularly trickled in. Mr. Warnock did not weigh in immediately after stories surfaced about Mr. Walker’s exaggerated professional success, his fathering of children he did not previously disclose and his ex-girlfriend’s claim that he paid for her to have an abortion despite his endorsement of a no-exceptions ban on the procedure.Mr. Warnock has usually saved his fire for the airwaves, where he and several Democratic groups have spent millions of dollars on anti-Walker messaging. But on Sunday, he brought that message to the debate stage, taking time to list Mr. Walker’s falsehoods toward the end of the forum.Mr. Warnock said of Mr. Walker: “He said that he graduated from college. He didn’t. He said that he was valedictorian of his class. He wasn’t. He said that he started a business that doesn’t even exist. And the other night when I said he pretended to be a police officer, he presented a badge as if that were proof that he really is a police officer. And now he wants us to think that he’s a senator.”The first debate in Georgia’s Senate race, an event on Friday that was hosted by Nexstar Media in Savannah, is most likely the only time Mr. Walker and Mr. Warnock will have met on a debate stage. The Atlanta Press Club hosted the face-off on Sunday and invited all of Georgia’s Senate candidates to participate; Mr. Walker’s campaign declined in August and suggested that the press club’s staff members held partisan bias against Republican candidates.The debate comes just before Georgia’s early voting period is set to begin on Monday, a point that Mr. Warnock emphasized repeatedly. More

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      Jill Biden Ramps Up Visits to Democratic Midterm Campaigns

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      ORLANDO, Fla. — Jill Biden’s weekend included five flights, 11 events and three appearances with Democrats who all requested her help ahead of the midterm elections. There was also a spin class in there somewhere.During one particularly busy 27-hour chunk of time, Dr. Biden, the first lady, appeared in Atlanta, where the voting rights activist Stacey Abrams is in an uphill race against Brian Kemp, the Republican governor. Then it was on to Florida, where she toured a breast cancer research facility and gave an interview to Newsmax, the conservative network. After that, she appeared with Representative Val B. Demings, who hopes to unseat Senator Marco Rubio, and Charlie Crist, a centrist Democrat who trails Ron DeSantis, the governor and conservative firebrand.“It’s not going to be easy,” Dr. Biden, on the last leg of a 15-hour day, told a group of people at a second event to support Ms. Demings on Saturday. “But we know how to win because we’ve done it before.”With President Biden’s job approval hovering at about 40 percent at a moment when Democrats are struggling to hold on to the House and Senate, Dr. Biden has become a lifeline for candidates trying to draw attention and money but not the baggage that an appearance with her husband would bring. According to a senior White House official, she is the most requested surrogate in the administration.“She does not offend people in a way that a president can because she’s much less polarizing and political,” said Michael LaRosa, a communications strategist and her former press secretary. “It’s why she was sent all over rural Iowa and New Hampshire during the campaign and why she can go places now that the president can’t.”Modern first ladies are usually relied on to humanize their husbands or translate their policies, but how much they decide to engage is almost always up to them. Melania Trump was more popular than her husband and was a much-requested surrogate, but she did not campaign for him during the 2018 midterms or during the 2020 campaign, often saying she was too busy parenting her son or tied up with her own engagements as first lady.Dr. Biden greeting supporters at a campaign event in Iowa in February 2020. Joshua Lott/Getty ImagesMichelle Obama was largely viewed as a secret weapon for Democrats ahead of the 2010 midterms, when she campaigned with personal stories about her family. But she spent large stretches of time away from politics, and her popularity was not able to counter the losses the Democrats sustained in the House and Senate that year.There are risks involved for women who try to do too much: When Democrats lost their House majority in 1994, enough people blamed Hillary Clinton’s efforts to reinvent health care that she publicly apologized.Lauren A. Wright, a professor at Princeton who has written extensively about political appearances by first ladies, said the East Wing under Dr. Biden, 71, who kept teaching as an English professor as first lady, has become completely intertwined with the political efforts of the West Wing.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.The Final Stretch: With less than one month until Election Day, Republicans remain favored to take over the House, but momentum in the pitched battle for the Senate has seesawed back and forth.A Surprising Battleground: New York has emerged from a haywire redistricting cycle as perhaps the most consequential congressional battleground in the country. For Democrats, the uncertainty is particularly jarring.Arizona’s Governor’s Race: Democrats are openly expressing their alarm that Katie Hobbs, the party’s nominee for governor in the state, is fumbling a chance to defeat Kari Lake in one of the most closely watched races.Herschel Walker: The Republican Senate nominee in Georgia reportedly paid for an ex-girlfriend’s abortion, but members of his party have learned to tolerate his behavior.“This role has become so serious and political,” she said. “It must be part of the strategic White House planning and effort. Otherwise you’re wasting opportunities.”As first lady, Dr. Biden has traveled to 40 states, and lately, she has tucked a plethora of political visits into trips that spotlight her policy interests. On Thursday, she taught a full day of classes at Northern Virginia Community College before flying to Fort Benning in Georgia, where she visited with military families.Her political appearances began on Friday evening, when she stood in the foyer of a home with Ms. Abrams and asked some 75 attendees, mostly women, to step closer to her. Then she took aim at Mr. Kemp and the policies that he supports, including a law he signed that bans abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy, and another that limits voting access.“I know that makes you angry,” she told them. “And it should make you angry.”Her presence is not just a morale boost for Democrats in close races: She is a fund-raising draw who appeals to grass roots supporters, and people are more likely to donate if she’s asking, according to a spokeswoman who works for the Democratic National Committee who was not authorized to speak publicly. Her events, emails, text messages and mailings have drawn millions of dollars for Democrats.In Atlanta, Dr. Biden told her audience that she knew they had already donated, but “I’m asking you to dig a little deeper.” (Each had already paid at least $1,000 to attend the event.) The whole appearance took about 20 minutes, and then she was on the road to the next event, slipping out through a kitchen door with a coterie of aides.By Saturday morning, Dr. Biden was in Florida — her second visit there this month — where she started the day on a bike at a spin studio in Fort Lauderdale with several aides. (Aside from finding boutique fitness classes when she travels, she is also an avid runner, and has said that the exercise “creates a sense of balance in my life.”) Then she stopped for a coffee (black, no sugar) with Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz in Fort Lauderdale before the two of them toured a breast cancer research facility.She delivered an interview focused on breast cancer awareness with the host of a show on Newsmax, then she flew to Orlando, where she appeared with Mr. Crist and Ms. Demings in front of City Hall, clasping hands and holding their arms up in a victory gesture.Dr. Biden, who recently spent time in Florida with Mr. Biden and Mr. DeSantis to tour storm damage from Hurricane Ian, offered her pointed assessment of the state government: “This state deserves a governor who will get to work for all of Florida’s families.” After the event, Dr. Biden, surrounded on all sides by Secret Service agents, walked down from the steps of City Hall and toward a group of people who wanted to shake her hand.Dr. Biden and President Biden toured storm damage in Fort Myers, Fla., with Gov. Ron DeSantis this month.Doug Mills/The New York TimesThe first lady is not the only Democrat crisscrossing the country ahead of the midterms.Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, a smooth-talking Midwesterner and potential future presidential candidate is also high on the list of popular surrogates. Kamala Harris, the vice president, has an approval rating lower than the president, but she has been sent across the country to energize young voters on issues including abortion rights and student loans.Dr. Biden is used differently.The first lady has long been thought of in Biden world as a “closer”: a surrogate they rely on to travel to corners of the country that her husband cannot easily reach, ideologically or geographically. White House officials believe she appeals to suburban women and can communicate to Americans “beyond the Twitterverse and cable news chatter,” according to Elizabeth Alexander, her communications director.Compared with her husband, Dr. Biden is the more disciplined communicator. Her missteps, which are rare, have occurred not off the cuff but during the speeches she works to commit to memory. Over the summer, she was criticized when she compared the diversity of the Hispanic community to the breadth of breakfast taco options available in Texas.She is incredibly protective of Mr. Biden, and has been involved in the hiring of his press staff and other senior aides. (She vetted Jen Psaki, Mr. Biden’s first press secretary, alongside her husband.) She has been direct when she believes they have not protected him: After Mr. Biden delivered a nearly two-hour news conference in January, members of his senior staff were rehashing the appearance in the Treaty Room when the first lady appeared.She pointedly asked the group, which included the president, why nobody stepped in to stop it, according to a person who was in the room. Where was the person, she demanded, who was supposed to end the news conference?Dr. Biden after a presidential debate in 2020. She can be President Biden’s staunchest defender on the campaign trail.Hilary Swift for The New York TimesThe first lady is also Mr. Biden’s staunchest defender on the campaign trail: Within each interaction, each visit or even each naysayer, she sees an opportunity to extol her husband’s accomplishments — and maybe change someone’s mind.In event after event, people try to come close to her, for a picture or a hug or, sometimes, to air their grievances. This year, as they did on the 2020 campaign, Democrats have approached her at events to share their thoughts about the president, including suggesting that he is too old for the presidency. She replies by ticking off her husband’s accomplishments, his travel schedule and his victory over Donald J. Trump.“I’ve been to places where they think Joe is the best thing ever,” she said next to Ms. Abrams on Friday in Atlanta. “And there have been times when I’ve been met with anger or hurt. But I’ve also found that the values that united us are really deeper than our divisions.”Polling shows that Americans have mixed feelings about her. A CNN survey this summer found that some 34 percent of Americans had a favorable opinion of Dr. Biden, compared with 29 percent who said their view was unfavorable. Almost as many people — 28 percent — had no opinion, and 9 percent said they had never heard of her.That poll also found that she performed well with women and Black voters, and people from both groups turned out to see her as she went from event to event over the weekend.Dr. Biden speaking during a campaign event in Iowa in January 2020. “She does not offend people in a way that a president can because she’s much less polarizing and political,” her former press secretary said.Andrew Harnik/Associated PressIn speeches designed to warm up a crowd and draw laughs, she shared several snapshots of her life story: “When I first met Joe, I felt really kind of out of touch with his world in D.C.,” Dr. Biden said. “On our first date, I remember saying, ‘Thank God I voted for him.’”As the sun was setting in Orlando on Saturday evening, she repurposed a story that she recently shared for the first time, telling supporters that she once helped a friend recover from abortion in the late 1960s, before Roe v. Wade had established a constitutional right to an abortion. “It happened a long time ago, but it is a story that might not be unfamiliar to you,” she told Ms. Demings’s supporters.They nodded along as she spoke. More

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      Democrats Spent $2 Trillion to Save the Economy. They Don’t Want to Talk About It.

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      Polls show voters liked direct payments from President Biden’s 2021 economic rescue bill. But they have become fodder for Republican inflation attacks.In the midst of a critical runoff campaign that would determine control of the Senate, the Rev. Raphael Warnock promised Georgia voters that, if elected, he would help President-elect Biden send checks to people digging out of the pandemic recession.Mr. Warnock won. Democrats delivered payments of up to $1,400 per person.But this year, as Mr. Warnock is locked in a tight re-election campaign, he barely talks about those checks.Democratic candidates in competitive Senate races this fall have spent little time on the trail or the airwaves touting the centerpiece provisions of their party’s $1.9 trillion economic rescue package, which party leaders had hoped would help stave off losses in the House and Senate in midterm elections. In part, that is because the rescue plan has become fodder for Republicans to attack Democrats over rapidly rising prices, accusing them of overstimulating the economy with too much cash.The economic aid, which was intended to help keep families afloat amid the pandemic, included two centerpiece components for households: the direct checks of up to $1,400 for lower- to middle-class individuals and an expanded child tax credit, worth up to $300 per child per month. It was initially seen as Mr. Biden’s signature economic policy achievement, in part because the tax credit dramatically reduced child poverty last year. Polls suggested Americans knew they had received money and why — giving Democrats hope they would be rewarded politically.Liberal activists are particularly troubled that Democratic candidates are not focusing more on the payments to families.“It’s a missed opportunity and a strategic mistake,” said Chris Hughes, a founder of Facebook and a senior fellow at the Institute on Race, Power, and Political Economy at The New School, who is a co-founder of the liberal policy group Economic Security Project Action. “Our public polling and our experience suggest the child tax credit is a sleeper issue that could influence the election, a lot more than a lot of candidates realized.”Celinda Lake, a Democratic pollster who has surveyed voters in detail on the child credit, said data suggest the party’s candidates should be selling Americans on the pieces of Mr. Biden’s policies that helped families cope with rising costs.“We have a narrative on inflation,” Ms. Lake said in an interview. “We just aren’t using it.”Many campaign strategists disagree. They say voters are not responding to messages about pandemic aid. Some Democrats worry that voters have been swayed by the persistent Republican argument that the aid was the driving factor behind rapidly rising prices of food, rent and other daily staples.Economists generally agree that the stimulus spending contributed to accelerating inflation, though they disagree on how much. Biden administration officials and Democratic candidates reject that characterization. When pressed, they defend their emergency spending, saying it has put the United States on stronger footing than other wealthy nations at a time of rapid global inflation.Republicans have spent nearly $150 million on inflation-themed television ads across the country this election cycle, according to data from AdImpact. The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.The Final Stretch: With less than one month until Election Day, Republicans remain favored to take over the House, but momentum in the pitched battle for the Senate has seesawed back and forth.A Surprising Battleground: New York has emerged from a haywire redistricting cycle as perhaps the most consequential congressional battleground in the country. For Democrats, the uncertainty is particularly jarring.Arizona’s Governor’s Race: Democrats are openly expressing their alarm that Katie Hobbs, the party’s nominee for governor in the state, is fumbling a chance to defeat Kari Lake in one of the most closely watched races.Herschel Walker: The Republican Senate nominee in Georgia reportedly paid for an ex-girlfriend’s abortion, but members of his party have learned to tolerate his behavior.In Georgia alone, outside groups have hammered Mr. Warnock with more than $7 million in attack ads mentioning inflation. “Senator Warnock helped fuel the inflation squeeze, voting for nearly $2 trillion in reckless spending,” the group One Nation, which is aligned with Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, says in an ad that aired in the state in August.Democrats have tried to deflect blame, portraying inflation as the product of global forces like crimped supply chains while touting their efforts to lower the cost of electricity and prescription drugs. They have aired nearly $50 million of their own ads mentioning inflation, often pinning it on corporate profit gouging. “What if I told you shipping container companies have been making record profits while prices have been skyrocketing on you?” Mr. Warnock said in an ad aired earlier this year.Candidates and independent groups that support the stimulus payments have spent just $7 million nationwide on advertisements mentioning the direct checks, the child tax credit or the rescue plan overall, according to data from AdImpact.Far more money has been spent by Democrats on other issues, including $27 million on ads mentioning infrastructure, which was another early economic win for Mr. Biden, and $95 million on ads that mention abortion rights..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.Mr. Warnock has not cited any of the rescue plan’s provisions in his advertisements, focusing instead on issues like personal character, health care and bipartisanship, according to AdImpact data.Senator Raphael Warnock, who is locked in a tight re-election campaign this year, barely mentions the relief checks.Nicole Craine for The New York TimesFor months after the rescue plan’s passage, Democratic leaders were confident that they had solved an economic policy dilemma that has vexed Democrats and Republicans stretching back to the George W. Bush administration: They were giving Americans money, but voters weren’t giving them any credit.Tax cuts and direct spending aid approved by Mr. Bush, President Barack Obama and President Donald J. Trump failed to win over large swaths of voters and spare incumbent parties from large midterm losses. Economists and strategists concluded that was often because Americans had not noticed they had benefited from the policies each president was sure would sway elections.That was not the case with the direct checks and the child tax credit. People noticed them. But they still have not turned into political selling points at a time of rapid inflation.As the November elections approach, most voters appear to be motivated by a long list of other issues, including abortion, crime and a range of economic concerns.Mr. Warnock’s speech last week to a group of Democrats in an unfinished floor of an office space in Dunwoody, a northern Atlanta suburb, underscored that shift in emphasis.He began the policy section of the rally with a quick nod to the child credit, then ticked through a series of provisions from bills that Mr. Biden has signed in the last two years: highways and broadband internet tied to a bipartisan infrastructure law, semiconductor plants spurred by a China competitiveness law, a gun safety law and aid for veterans exposed to toxic burn pits. He lingered on one piece of Mr. Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act: a cap on the cost of insulin for Medicare patients, which Mr. Warnock cast as critical for diabetics in Georgia, particularly in Black communities.The direct payments never came up.When asked by a reporter why he was not campaigning on an issue that had been so central to his election and whether he thought the payments had contributed to inflation, Mr. Warnock deflected.“We in Georgia found ourselves trying to claw back from a historic pandemic, the likes of which we haven’t seen in our lifetime, which created an economic shutdown,” he said. “And now, seeing the economy open up, we’ve experienced major supply chain issues, which have contributed to rising costs.”Direct pandemic payments were begun under Mr. Trump and continued under Mr. Biden, with no serious talk of another round after the ones delivered in the rescue plan. Most Democrats had hoped the one-year, $100 billion child credit in the rescue plan would be made permanent in a new piece of legislation.But the credit expired, largely because Senator Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia and a key swing vote, opposed its inclusion in what would become the Inflation Reduction Act, citing concerns the additional money would exacerbate inflation.Senator Michael Bennet, Democrat of Colorado, was one of the Senate’s most vocal cheerleaders for that credit and an architect of the version included in the rescue plan. His campaign has aired Spanish-language radio ads on the credit in his re-election campaign, targeting a group his team says is particularly favorable toward it, but no television ads. In an interview last week outside a Denver coffee shop, Mr. Bennet conceded the expiration of the credit has sapped some of its political punch.“It certainly came up when it was here, and it certainly came up when it went away,” he said. “But it’s been some months since that was true. I think, obviously, we’d love to have that right now. Families were getting an average of 450 bucks a month. That would have defrayed a lot of inflation that they’re having to deal with.”Mr. Biden’s advisers say the rescue plan and its components aren’t being deployed on the trail because other issues have overwhelmed them — from Mr. Biden’s long list of economic bills signed into law as well as the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade that has galvanized the Democratic base. They acknowledge the political and economic challenge posed by rapid inflation, but say Democratic candidates are doing well to focus on direct responses to it, like the efforts to reduce costs of insulin and other prescription drugs.Ms. Lake, the Democratic pollster, said talking more about the child credit could help re-energize Democratic voters for the midterms. Mr. Warnock’s speech in Dunwoody — an admittedly small sample — suggested otherwise.Mr. Warnock drew cheers from the audience after he called the child tax credit “the single largest tax cut for middle- and working-class families in American history.”But his biggest ovation, by far, came when the economics section of his speech had ended, and Mr. Warnock had moved on to defending abortion rights. More

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      How a Republican Could Win the Oregon Governor’s Race

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      In a wild governor’s race, an independent candidate is siphoning Democratic votes and a billionaire Nike co-founder is pouring in money — giving an anti-abortion Republican a path to victory.MONROE, Ore. — Democrats haven’t lost a governor’s race in Oregon in four decades. Two years ago, Joseph R. Biden Jr. won the state by 16 percentage points. The only Republican to win a statewide election since 2002 died before finishing his term.And yet this year’s race for Oregon governor is now among the tightest in the country, illustrating both frustration with one of the nation’s most progressive state governments and the power of a single billionaire donor to shape an election to his whims. The Republican candidate, Christine Drazan, has a real path to victory, despite promoting anti-abortion views that would ordinarily be a political loser in a state that has become a refuge for people who can no longer get abortions in their home states.The contest is so close in part because a quirky Democratic-turned-independent candidate running as a centrist has drawn a sizable bloc of support away from the Democratic nominee, Tina Kotek, leaving her struggling to stitch together a winning coalition. The Democrats’ predicament has now ensnared President Biden, who is visiting Portland this weekend to hold events for Ms. Kotek and the state party.Republicans are salivating at the prospect of breaking up the Democratic lock on the West Coast — Alaska is the only state on the Pacific Ocean where the G.O.P. holds a statewide office — and relishing the news that a sitting president is required for a Democratic rescue mission.“The only thing you can say about that is they are scared, they are desperate,” Ms. Drazan told a crowd of hunters at a campaign rally this week in the eastern foothills of Oregon’s Coast Range.Ms. Drazan’s candidacy received another jolt of momentum in recent days from Phil Knight, the billionaire co-founder of the sports giant Nike, Oregon’s largest company. In the early months of the campaign, he sent $3.75 million to the coffers of the independent candidate, Betsy Johnson, a former helicopter pilot who spent two decades as a thorn in Democrats’ side in the Oregon State Legislature before finally leaving the party last year.But as polls showed Ms. Johnson lagging well behind Ms. Kotek and Ms. Drazan, Mr. Knight, frustrated with what he described as a lurch too far to the left in the state’s government, switched his loyalty this month, sending $1 million to Ms. Drazan.Ms. Drazan’s campaign received a boost this month when Phil Knight, the billionaire co-founder of Nike, decided to back her.Leah Nash for The New York TimesMs. Drazan has highlighted her conservative credentials, including opposition to abortion and an “A” rating from the National Rifle Association.Leah Nash for The New York TimesMr. Knight, Oregon’s richest man, is now the largest single contributor to both Ms. Johnson and Ms. Drazan. His largess has helped turn the race into a tossup, forcing Democrats to divert money in a bid to retain the governor’s office.Mr. Knight, who rarely speaks with reporters, said in an interview on Thursday that he would do whatever he could to stop Ms. Kotek from becoming governor, describing himself as “an anti-Tina person.” He said he had never spoken with Ms. Drazan.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.The Final Stretch: With less than one month until Election Day, Republicans remain favored to take over the House, but momentum in the pitched battle for the Senate has seesawed back and forth.A Surprising Battleground: New York has emerged from a haywire redistricting cycle as perhaps the most consequential congressional battleground in the country. For Democrats, the uncertainty is particularly jarring.Arizona’s Governor’s Race: Democrats are openly expressing their alarm that Katie Hobbs, the party’s nominee for governor in the state, is fumbling a chance to defeat Kari Lake in one of the most closely watched races.Herschel Walker: The Republican Senate nominee in Georgia reportedly paid for an ex-girlfriend’s abortion, but members of his party have learned to tolerate his behavior.“One of the political cartoons after our legislative session had a person snorting cocaine out of a mountain of white,” Mr. Knight said. “It said, ‘Which of these is illegal in Oregon?’ And the answer was the plastic straw.”Ms. Kotek, a former State House speaker, is in trouble because of a cocktail of political maladies and a backlash against Gov. Kate Brown, who polls show is the country’s least popular governor. Next week, Ms. Kotek’s own conduct in Salem will be scrutinized by a legislative committee after one of her former caucus colleagues accused her of making threats to win support for legislation she wanted to pass.Ms. Kotek’s opponents have focused on widespread homelessness and safety fears in Portland, which set a record for murders last year and could surpass that number this year. Ms. Kotek helped usher into law new restrictions on what Oregon’s cities could do to remove homeless people from their streets at the same time that a new law, enacted in a 2020 referendum, decriminalized small amounts of hard drugs like cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine. More

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      Five Key Moments From the Walker-Warnock Debate in Georgia

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      The debate between Senator Raphael Warnock and his less experienced Republican challenger, Herschel Walker, had its share of sharp clashes, as the two candidates in one of the country’s most-watched Senate races faced off for their one and only debate.Mr. Walker, a football star and first-time candidate, surpassed low expectations, largely hewing to his strategy of tying his opponent to President Biden, whose approval ratings remain underwater in the pivotal swing state. Mr. Warnock, a pastor-turned-politician, tried to cast Mr. Walker as unfit for office because of his policy positions and personal baggage.Here are standout moments from the debate.A badge comes out.Mr. Walker’s veracity has been a major issue in the campaign, as he has been accused of misrepresenting topics, including his résumé, his charitable donations and his number of children. Mr. Warnock tried to use an exchange over crime to accuse his opponent of lying.“We will see time and time again tonight — as we’ve already seen — that my opponent has a problem with the truth,” Mr. Warnock said. “And just because he says something doesn’t mean it’s true.”A frame grab from the debate shows Herschel Walker with what appeared to be a badge.Fox 5 AtlantaMr. Warnock then referred to the time his opponent claimed to have been a police officer and an F.B.I. agent. Mr. Walker had made the claims as recently as 2019, when he told an audience that he was an F.B.I. agent — which he has never been. He has also claimed to work with the Cobb County Police Department in Georgia. The department told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that there was no record of him working there.In response at the debate, Mr. Walker pulled out what appeared to be a badge before being reprimanded by a moderator for violating a prohibition against using “props.” Mr. Walker replied, “Well, it’s not a prop. This is real.”The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.The Final Stretch: With less than one month until Election Day, Republicans remain favored to take over the House, but momentum in the pitched battle for the Senate has seesawed back and forth.A Surprising Battleground: New York has emerged from a haywire redistricting cycle as perhaps the most consequential congressional battleground in the country. For Democrats, the uncertainty is particularly jarring.Arizona’s Governor’s Race: Democrats are openly expressing their alarm that Katie Hobbs, the party’s nominee for governor in the state, is fumbling a chance to defeat Kari Lake in one of the most closely watched races.Herschel Walker: The Republican Senate nominee in Georgia reportedly paid for an ex-girlfriend’s abortion, but members of his party have learned to tolerate his behavior.A shift from Walker on abortion.The most notable exchange over abortion rights wasn’t about accusations that Mr. Walker paid for an ex-girlfriend’s procedure. Instead, it was an apparent change in policy.In May, Mr. Walker said a ban on abortion should have no exceptions, pushing for a more expansive proposal than the six-week prohibition passed by the Republican-controlled State Legislature. “Like I say, I believe in life. I believe in life,” he told reporters.On the debate stage, he softened that position, implying that he backs the six-week bill that includes exceptions for rape, incest and life of the mother. He then turned to Mr. Warnock’s stance, saying the pastor backs no limits on the procedure and is ignoring “the baby in the room as well.”.css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.Painting one another as ‘desperate.’In one notable exchange, Mr. Walker tried to flip the script on Mr. Warnock, after the pastor skirted questions about whether an Atlanta apartment building owned by Ebenezer Baptist Church had evicted tenants. The apartments are for people experiencing homelessness or with mental disabilities.Mr. Warnock tried to cast Republicans as “desperate” for trying to “sully” a church attended by civil rights icons, including former Representative John Lewis, of Georgia, and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.Mr. Walker wasn’t cowed, returning to the issue a question later to cast Mr. Warnock as the “desperate” one.“It’s OK to speak the truth. Do not bear false witness, senator,” shouted Mr. Walker, who said the evictions were “written about in the paper.”Walker reverses on the 2020 election.In an election that has been influenced by the positions of former President Donald J. Trump, Mr. Walker made another notable reversal.In the past, Mr. Walker has repeatedly questioned the results of the 2020 election and spread false stolen-election theories. Immediately after the 2020 race, he did not declare Mr. Biden the rightful winner.“I can guarantee you, Joe Biden didn’t get 50 million people to vote for him, but yet, people think that he’s won this election,” Mr. Walker said in a Fox News interview in December 2020. Mr. Biden won more than 81 million votes.Mr. Walker has since tried to temper those statements. In May, during his primary, he told an interviewer, “I think something happened; I don’t know what it was, but I said something happened so people are angry.”But on Friday night, when asked whether Mr. Biden had defeated Mr. Trump, he sounded a different note.“President Biden won and Raphael Warnock won,” he said.On questions of democracy, both candidates said they would respect the results of the election, regardless of its outcome.Looking ahead to 2024.The two men veered from one another on a question of whether they would support their party’s leaders if they won the presidential nomination in 2024.Mr. Walker quickly answered in the affirmative, saying “President Trump is my friend.” He used the moment to hit Mr. Biden — and by extension Mr. Warnock — for withdrawing troops from Afghanistan, a move he described as abandoning an ally.For Mr. Warnock, however, the question appeared more difficult. He did not answer directly, saying he had not “spent a minute” thinking about it and noting that he was more focused on the election at hand. More

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      Ballot Measures in Swing States Could Have Sizable Impact on 2024 Voting

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      While the midterm elections in November will decide control of Congress and some governors’ offices, there are other far-reaching issues at stake. Among them: the fate of voter ID rules, early voting expansion and ranked-choice voting.Ballot measures on these issues will appear in several battleground states, where most of the attention has been on marquee races, with a blizzard of campaign ads dominating the airwaves.But the outcome of those measures could weigh significantly on the 2024 presidential election, as Republicans and Democrats haggle over the guardrails of voting.Here is a roundup of ballot measures facing voters across the United States:ArizonaUnder a ballot measure embraced by Republicans, voters would be required to present photo identification when casting ballots in person. If it passes, the state would no longer accept two nonphoto forms of identification — such as a motor vehicle registration and a utility bill — in place of a government-issued ID card or a passport.The measure, which has been criticized by Democrats and voting rights advocates, would also create new requirements for voting by mail. Voters would be required to write their birth date and either a state-issued identification number or the last four digits of their Social Security number on an early ballot affidavit.MichiganA proposed constitutional amendment would create a permanent nine-day period of early in-person voting at polling sites, as well as an expansion of existing options for voters to visit clerks’ offices and other local election offices to cast early ballots.The measure, which was backed by a voting rights coalition and survived a wording-related challenge, with the Michigan Supreme Court weighing in, would also allow voters who are unable to present ID at the polls to sign an affidavit attesting to their identity.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.The Final Stretch: With less than one month until Election Day, Republicans remain favored to take over the House, but momentum in the pitched battle for the Senate has seesawed back and forth.A Surprising Battleground: New York has emerged from a haywire redistricting cycle as perhaps the most consequential congressional battleground in the country. For Democrats, the uncertainty is particularly jarring.Arizona’s Governor’s Race: Democrats are openly expressing their alarm that Katie Hobbs, the party’s nominee for governor in the state, is fumbling a chance to defeat Kari Lake in one of the most closely watched races.Herschel Walker: The Republican Senate nominee in Georgia reportedly paid for an ex-girlfriend’s abortion, but members of his party have learned to tolerate his behavior.Michigan would also be required to pay for drop boxes and return postage for absentee ballots, in addition to mail expenses associated with applications.To prevent partisan groups from subverting election results, as supporters of former President Donald J. Trump tried to do in 2020 in Michigan when they put forward a slate of fake electors, canvassing boards in the state would be required to certify results based only on the official record of votes cast.NevadaNevada voters will decide whether to adopt ranked-choice voting for the general election and to overhaul the state’s primary system.Under a proposed constitutional amendment, primaries for statewide and federal offices, but not for president, would be open to all voters, with the top five vote-getters advancing to the general election. The law currently stipulates that voters must be registered as Democrats or Republicans in order to participate in their parties’ primariesIf approved in November, the measure would be placed on the ballot again in 2024 for voters to decide. The earliest that the changes could take effect would be in 2025.In a ranked-choice system during the general election, voters list candidates in order of preference. If no candidate receives a majority, officials would eliminate the last-place finisher and reallocate his or her supporters’ votes to their second choices until one candidate has at least 50 percent of the votes.Alaska recently adopted ranked-choice voting, and some Republicans blamed that system for the defeat of Sarah Palin, a former governor and the 2008 Republican vice-presidential nominee, in a special House election in August.New York, Maine and Utah also have some form of ranked-choice voting, as do dozens of American cities.OhioCities and towns in Ohio would be barred from allowing non-U.S. citizens to vote in state and local elections under a constitutional amendment that seeks to rein in the home rule authority of municipalities.Opponents contend that federal law already bars noncitizens from voting in federal elections. But the measure’s supporters say that an explicit prohibition is needed at the state level, despite instances of voter fraud proving to be rare.The issue arose after voters in Yellow Springs, Ohio, a small village east of Dayton, voted in 2019 to allow noncitizens to vote for local offices. None have registered since then, though, according to The Columbus Dispatch.NebraskaEmulating other red states, Nebraska could require voters to present photo ID at the polls under a constitutional amendment supported by Gov. Pete Ricketts, a term-limited Republican who is leaving office in January. Critics say the rule change would disenfranchise voters.ConnecticutConnecticut is one of a handful of states that do not offer early in-person voting, but a proposed constitutional amendment could change that.The measure directs the Legislature to create a mechanism for early voting, which would be separate from accepting absentee ballots before Election Day. The timing and details would be decided by lawmakers, who could enact the changes by the 2024 election. More

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      Biden Tries to Reassure Voters on Health Care Costs Before Election

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      At an event in Southern California, the president says his administration is working to keep costs down and warns that Republicans will drive prices higher if they gain power.LOS ANGELES — President Biden on Friday tried to reassure Americans stung by high inflation that his administration was working to keep health care costs down, promising a community college audience in Southern California that he was committed to doing even more.But his remarks in Irvine, Calif. — the first of two West Coast speeches devoted to health care costs — come just days after government data revealed that overall inflation remains high as voters prepare to go to the polls for midterm elections early next month.Surveys show that Americans are deeply frustrated by the impact of sharply higher prices on their pocketbooks. They are expected to rebuke the president and his party in the elections, with most analysts predicting that Democrats will lose control of one or both chambers in Congress.Speaking to a friendly audience, Mr. Biden argued that Republicans would drive prices higher if they gained power. He noted their opposition to his efforts to allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices, which he said would force prices down for medication for millions of seniors. And he said Democrats had pushed through price caps on critical drugs like insulin.“If Republicans in Congress have their way, it’s going to mean the power we just gave Medicare to negotiate lower prescription drug prices and other costs over time goes away — gone,” Mr. Biden said, standing in front of signs that said “Lowering Costs for American Families.” “Two-thousand-dollar cap on prescription drugs goes away — gone. The $35 month cap on insulin for Medicare is gone.”The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.The Final Stretch: With less than one month until Election Day, Republicans remain favored to take over the House, but momentum in the pitched battle for the Senate has seesawed back and forth.A Surprising Battleground: New York has emerged from a haywire redistricting cycle as perhaps the most consequential congressional battleground in the country. For Democrats, the uncertainty is particularly jarring.Arizona’s Governor’s Race: Democrats are openly expressing their alarm that Katie Hobbs, the party’s nominee for governor in the state, is fumbling a chance to defeat Kari Lake in one of the most closely watched races.Herschel Walker: The Republican Senate nominee in Georgia reportedly paid for an ex-girlfriend’s abortion, but members of his party have learned to tolerate his behavior.Mr. Biden’s three-state, four-day trip is also intended to boost the fortunes of Democratic candidates by using the presidential bully pulpit to highlight the party’s accomplishments. On Wednesday in Colorado, he stood next to Michael Bennet, one of the state’s two Democratic senators, to announce a new national monument — a key campaign promise for the embattled lawmaker.In Los Angeles on Thursday, Mr. Biden hailed the use of money from his infrastructure legislation to help complete a new subway line. During his remarks, he made certain to single out Representative Karen Bass, a Democrat who had fought for a provision that directs jobs on the project to local workers.“Local workers can be first in line for these jobs thanks to Karen,” Mr. Biden said. “I really mean it, Karen. Thank you very much.”At the community college in Irvine, Mr. Biden focused his attention on health care — and on Representative Katie Porter, a two-term Democrat running for re-election in a key swing district in Orange County.Ms. Porter, who is facing Scott Baugh, a Republican former state assemblyman, pushed for the drug pricing measure. At the event on Friday, Mr. Biden singled her out, crediting the success of Democratic legislation to her efforts to fight on behalf of her constituents..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.“That’s why Katie’s leadership and the work of the Democrats in Congress was so consequential,” he said. “Katie, I’m not just being nice because I’m in your district. It happens to be true. No, no. I mean, you’re a fighter. You’re decent. You’re honorable and everybody respects you.”Friday’s event at the Irvine Valley Community College was an official one, not a campaign rally. But Ms. Porter used her time at the podium to assail Republicans.“Every single Republican in Washington voted against patients, against families and against taxpayers,” she said. “In the Senate, Republican politicians voted to limit how much Americans can save on prescription drugs and to prevent all patients from getting insulin. And House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy has vowed that next term it’s his priority to return Big Pharma its unchecked power to charge patients whatever it wants.”She called that a “slap in the face” to the Californians she represents.Republicans sought to portray the president’s efforts to bolster candidates’ prospects as in vain. “Joe Biden is the last person Democrat candidates want to see on the campaign trail,” Michael McAdams, the communications director for the National Republican Campaign Committee, said after the event, noting reports that Democrats recently shifted money away from some California districts to candidates who need help more.“His policies are so unpopular House Democrats are being forced to abandon spending in California districts he won by double-digits,” Mr. McAdams said.Friday evening, Mr. Biden was scheduled to fly to Portland, Ore., a liberal community where the Democratic Party would not normally need the help of the sitting president. But Mr. Biden is hoping to help boost the fortunes of Tina Kotek, the Democratic candidate for governor.Although the state has not elected a Republican leader in decades, polls suggest that Ms. Kotek is in a tight, three-way race with Christine Drazan, the Republican candidate, and Betsy Johnson, a former Democrat who is being financed by Phil Knight, the co-founder of Nike. The White House is hoping that a visit by Mr. Biden will help underscore the party’s commitment to her.Republicans predicted that the president’s trip will not prevent their party from grabbing the top electoral prize in the state.“Joe Biden’s disastrous policies continue to hurt Oregon families, and there has been no bigger fan of his out-of-touch approach,” said Kaitlin Price, a spokeswoman for the Republican Governors Association, citing Ms. Kotek, Ms. Johnson and Kate Brown, the state’s current Democratic governor.“This last-ditch effort from national Democrats is proof of their hysteria as they watch Christine Drazan take hold of once deep-blue Oregon that is desperate for change,” Ms. Price said. More

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      What Rachel Maddow Has Been Thinking About Offscreen

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      “The Rachel Maddow Show” debuted in the interregnum between political eras. Before it lay the 9/11 era and the George W. Bush presidency. Days after the show launched in 2008, Lehman Brothers collapsed, and a few weeks later Barack Obama was elected president.And then history just kept speeding up. The Tea Party. The debt ceiling debacles. Donald Trump. The coronavirus pandemic. January 6th. The big lie. Maddow covered and tried to make sense of it all. Now, after 14 years, she has taken her show down to one episode a week and is launching other projects — like “Ultra,” the history podcast we discuss in this episode.[You can listen to this episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” on Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google or wherever you get your podcasts.]But I wanted to talk to Maddow about how American politics and media have changed over the course of her show. We discuss the legacies of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the cycle of economic crises we appear to keep having, Maddow’s relationships with Pat Buchanan and Tucker Carlson, where the current G.O.P.’s anti-democracy efforts really started, how Obama’s presidency changed politics, how Maddow finds and chooses her stories, the statehouse Republicans who tilled the soil for Trump’s big lie and more.You can listen to our whole conversation by following “The Ezra Klein Show” on Apple, Spotify, Google or wherever you get your podcasts. View a list of book recommendations from our guests here.(A full transcript of the episode will be available midday on the Times website.)MSNBC“The Ezra Klein Show” is produced by Annie Galvin, Jeff Geld and Rogé Karma. Our researcher is Emefa Agawu. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, Mary Marge Locker and Kate Sinclair. Original music by Isaac Jones. Mixing by Jeff Geld. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. Special thanks to Kristin Lin and Kristina Samulewski. More