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      ‘The Run-Up’ Podcast’s Guide to the Midterm Elections

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      A guide to the biggest questions heading into Election Day.Listen and follow ‘The Run-Up’Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Amazon MusicIn 2020, Joe Biden’s presidential campaign was centered on removing Donald Trump from office, unifying the country and fighting for “the soul of the nation.” Two years later, the country is still fractured, with voters seemingly more anxious and disconnected than ever before.Over the last two months, Astead Herndon, host of “The Run-Up,” spoke with reporters, voters and newsmakers across the country to better understand the biggest issues heading into the midterm elections. With Election Day on Tuesday, here’s a guide from “The Run-Up” to the most important questions about what’s at stake.What did Democrats and Republicans get wrong about voters?In 2013, shortly after Barack Obama won his second presidential term, the G.O.P. issued an “autopsy” to understand where the party had gone wrong and blamed the party’s failures on an out-of-touch leadership that ignored minorities.In this episode, Astead spoke to Adam Nagourney, The Times’s former chief national political correspondent, and Kellyanne Conway, the former counselor to President Donald J. Trump, about how the Trump campaign went against the party’s recommendation in 2016, and to Jennifer Medina, a national politics reporter at The Times, about misconceptions about minority voters.The AutopsyIs democracy still the goal?In September of 2022, Mr. Biden argued that democracy was one of the core ideas on which the country was built and that Democrats and Republicans should join together in defending it. He repeated that call in the week before the midterm elections.But when Astead asked Representative James E. Clyburn, the highest-ranking Black member of Congress and a native of the formerly Confederate South, about the state of American democracy, Mr. Clyburn said that the country’s commitment to an inclusive political system had long wavered.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsElection Day is Tuesday, Nov. 8.Biden’s Speech: In a prime-time address, President Biden denounced Republicans who deny the legitimacy of elections, warning that the country’s democratic traditions are on the line.State Supreme Court Races: The traditionally overlooked contests have emerged this year as crucial battlefields in the struggle over the course of American democracy.Democrats’ Mounting Anxiety: Top Democratic officials are openly second-guessing their party’s pitch and tactics, saying Democrats have failed to unite around one central message.Social Security and Medicare: Republicans, eyeing a midterms victory, are floating changes to the safety net programs. Democrats have seized on the proposals to galvanize voters.And when Robert Draper, a writer for The New York Times Magazine, was traveling through Arizona, he observed a deeply anti-democratic sentiment — one that he wrote was “distinct from anything I have encountered in over two decades of covering conservative politics.” In Arizona, Mr. Draper said Republicans saw democracy as an obstacle.The RepublicWhat prompted the transformation of American evangelicalism?A new class of conservative politicians has emerged, calling for the erasure of the separation between church and state and pushing the Republican Party further toward extremes. Others have embraced an identity as Christian nationalists — and attacked the idea of American democracy.Astead spoke with Ruth Graham, a Times national correspondent, about the origins of this grass-roots movement, and Dr. Al Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, about the next era of the evangelical church and the Republican Party it’s reshaping.The GuardrailsWill the fight over abortion rights unite Democrats?While Republicans deploy their playbook for national elections at the local level, anticipating and strategizing for policy changes across the country, Democrats have struggled to find a core message to rally around. “Democrats have so many issues we care about, it’s just such a big agenda,” Senator Kirsten Gillibrand told Astead. “It’s not really that our messaging is bad; it’s that we’re not all on the same song sheet.”However, since the Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade earlier this year, Democrats may have finally found an issue that will unite and energize their base. Astead spoke to Ms. Gillibrand about the fight for abortion rights, Democratic messaging and what’s needed to expand majorities in both chambers of Congress.The BlueprintWill Stacey Abrams become governor of Georgia?Anna Moneymaker/Getty ImagesWhen Democrats flipped Georgia in 2020, helping fuel Mr. Biden’s victory, credit was given to Stacey Abrams and her playbook. For years, she had worked to register and turn out Democratic voters. Will her strategy work in a rematch against the incumbent governor, Brian Kemp?Astead talked to Ms. Abrams herself about the race. He then spoke to Maya King, a Times political reporter, about her reporting on some demographic groups that Ms. Abrams has seemed to lose ground with.The FlipWhat did 12 years of gerrymandering do to Wisconsin?Wisconsin’s State Legislature became the most gerrymandered in the country as a result of over a decade’s work that began in secret after the 2010 elections. Now, in these midterms, Democrats say they’re at risk of being shut out of power for the foreseeable future. The strategy is “colliding with the hardened Republican base that is increasingly pushing the party toward extremes,” Astead explains. “They’ve overrun the Republicans who created the system, and also the Democrats, who can’t stop them.”Astead spoke to Reid Epstein, who covers campaigns and elections for The Times, about whether there is a path forward for Democrats in Wisconsin — and how Republicans are employing this same gerrymandering strategy in other swing states.The MapsWhat’s at stake for conservative voters who want to take back Congress?This moment in politics will be defined by shifts at the grass-roots level. In conversations with four conservative voters, Astead delves into the issues driving their votes in the midterm elections — including inflation, immigration and defending the country from liberal values, even if it mean sacrificing democracy itself.The Grass Roots, Part 1Can the Democrats re-energize their base before it’s too late?After the Obama presidency, Democrats felt they had a diverse base made up of young people, minority voters and college-educated women that could carry the party for a generation. However, in 2016, some voters stayed home, and in 2020, others backed Mr. Trump instead.In the final episode of “The Run-Up” before the midterms, Astead spoke to Democratic voters about the state of the party, voting for Mr. Biden and the best ways to unite their fractured coalition.The Grass Roots, Part 2 More

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      Democrats Promote Tough-on-Crime Credentials as Party Plays Defense

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      With sheriffs vouching for them and a flood of ads proclaiming their support for the police, Democrats are shoring up their public safety bona fides. Still, some worry it’s too late.In the final stretch of the midterm campaigns, Democrats are straining to defend themselves against a barrage of crime-focused attacks from Republicans, forcefully highlighting their public safety credentials amid signs that G.O.P. messaging on the issue may be more potent than usual in some critical races this year.Democrats have enlisted sheriffs to vouch for them, have outspent Republicans on ads that use the word “police” in the month of October, and have been using the kind of tough-on-crime language that many on the left seemed to reject not long ago — even as some Democrats worry that efforts to inoculate the party on a complex and emotional issue are falling short.Representative Sean Patrick Maloney of New York, who is being criticized over a 2018 video in which he called ending cash bail a “top priority,” aired an ad in which an officer declared him a “tough-on-crime” lawmaker who confronted those “who wanted to defund the police.”Senator Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada has long highlighted her pro-law enforcement credentials, including with an ad featuring a police chief praising her record of being “tough on crime.”And Lt. Gov. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, whose history on criminal justice issues is being denounced by Republicans, sounded pro-law enforcement notes at a senior center on Friday as he discussed his tenure as the mayor of Braddock, Pa., saying he “was proud to work with our police departments, and funding the police.”Nationwide, Democrats spent more money last month on ads that used the word “police” than Republicans did, according to AdImpact, a media-tracking firm. But heavy Republican spending on crime ads earlier this year has helped define the final weeks of the campaign in states like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.Cheri Beasley, the Democratic nominee for Senate in North Carolina, has highlighted supporters with law enforcement backgrounds in her campaign.Logan R. Cyrus for The New York TimesNational crime trends are mixed and complex, and Republicans have often reached for arguments about crime or border security, with varying results. Some party strategists doubt the issue will be decisive this year, with many Americans far more focused on economic matters.But a Gallup survey released late last month found that “Americans are more likely now than at any time over the past five decades to say there is more crime in their local area than there was a year ago.”The issue, fanned and sometimes distorted by conservative news outlets, has been especially pronounced in liberal-leaning states, including New York, Pennsylvania, Oregon and Wisconsin, where big cities have struggled with concerns about violence and quality of life over the last few years. But the topic is at play in many tight Senate, House and governors’ races.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsElection Day is Tuesday, Nov. 8.Biden’s Speech: In a prime-time address, President Biden denounced Republicans who deny the legitimacy of elections, warning that the country’s democratic traditions are on the line.State Supreme Court Races: The traditionally overlooked contests have emerged this year as crucial battlefields in the struggle over the course of American democracy.Democrats’ Mounting Anxiety: Top Democratic officials are openly second-guessing their party’s pitch and tactics, saying Democrats have failed to unite around one central message.Social Security and Medicare: Republicans, eyeing a midterms victory, are floating changes to the safety net programs. Democrats have seized on the proposals to galvanize voters.Celinda Lake, a veteran Democratic pollster, said the most effective responses had come from candidates who formulated a message on crime early.“Too many Democrats waited until the attacks on crime happened,” she said. “We’re never going to win on crime. We just have to answer it strongly enough to be able to pivot back to other issues to show we’re in touch.”Some Democrats fear that their party has fallen short. In an article on Thursday for The American Prospect, a liberal magazine, Stanley B. Greenberg, a longtime Democratic pollster, warned that the party was still struggling with a branding problem, even though many Democrats distanced themselves long ago from the “defund the police” movement that gained traction after the police killing of George Floyd in 2020.Billboards in Philadelphia attacked Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, the Democratic nominee for Senate in Pennsylvania, over his record on crime.Michelle Gustafson for The New York TimesMr. Fetterman said that during his tenure as the mayor of Braddock, Pa., he had been “proud to work with our police departments, and funding the police.”Ruth Fremson/The New York Times“‘Defund’ is a very small segment” of the party, Mr. Greenberg said in an interview. “But the whole party owns it.”Steven Law, the chief executive of the Senate Leadership Fund, the leading super PAC for Senate Republicans, said concerns about public safety contributed to the idea that the country is going in the wrong direction — a problem for the party in power.“Crime has an outsized ability to define Democrats as being liberal instead of moderates, more than any other issue,” he added.Democratic officials have tried to address the issue head-on. The party’s Senate campaign arm encouraged candidates to challenge Republicans over opposing measures that would combat gun violence, a committee aide said, and to use law enforcement officials in their advertising.“It’s not just trying to be more Republican than the Republicans,” said Aimee Allison, the founder of She the People, a political advocacy group focused on women of color. “People are interested in how to make communities safer.”And a memo this spring from the Democratic House campaign arm laid out a guide, advising candidates to reject the notion of defunding the police, to highlight law enforcement funding they had secured and to rely on members of law enforcement to endorse their records. It also urged Democrats to “stand up for racial justice.”“In 2020, the Republican lies were so outrageous, some candidates thought they could ignore them,” Mr. Maloney, the chairman of the House Democratic campaign arm, said. “In 2022, we know better.”It is evident that many Democrats are following aspects of that playbook, while also slamming Republicans over the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol — another issue the memo noted.Representative Tim Ryan, Democrat of Ohio, who is facing a difficult Senate race, has claimed credit for helping to obtain federal funding for state law enforcement. He has also criticized his Republican opponent, J.D. Vance, over sympathetic statements he made toward rioters at the Capitol, where about 140 police officers were injured.Over the summer, Mr. Ryan ran an ad in which a sheriff called the claim that Democrats want to defund the police “ridiculous” and said he “trusts Tim Ryan to keep our community safe.”Representative Abigail Spanberger, a moderate Democrat in Virginia, made national headlines two years ago for her critique of her party on a leaked post-election call, which included concerns about the “defund the police” movement.This year, Ms. Spanberger said in an interview, Democrats could point to votes serving as “proof points” that they are serious about crime.“We’re appropriating significant money to local police departments,” she said.Representative Tim Ryan, Democrat of Ohio, who is facing a difficult Senate race, has claimed credit for helping to obtain federal funding for state law enforcement. Brian Kaiser for The New York TimesJ.D. Vance, Mr. Ryan’s Republican opponent, has made sympathetic statements toward rioters who were at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesIn one of Ms. Spanberger’s television ads, a Republican police chief endorsed her while criticizing her opponent, Yesli Vega, for “defending” rioters who attacked the Capitol. Ms. Vega, an auxiliary deputy with the Prince William County Sheriff’s Office, called the rioters “a group of Americans exercising their First Amendment rights.”In Pennsylvania, the Fetterman campaign said it had put out 16 ads mentioning crime or public safety, including at least one featuring the sheriff of suburban Montgomery County, who vouched for Mr. Fetterman.This week, a Monmouth University poll showed that voters trusted both Mr. Fetterman and Mehmet Oz, his Republican rival, equally when it came to handling crime. The poll also noted that Mr. Fetterman’s edge on the issue had evaporated. Mr. Fetterman has defended himself primarily by pointing to his tenure as the mayor of Braddock, outside Pittsburgh, where for five years a scourge of murders came to a stop.The issue has also played a prominent role in other Senate races, including in Wisconsin and, to some degree, North Carolina.Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes in Wisconsin and Cheri Beasley in North Carolina, the first Black woman to serve as chief justice of the State Supreme Court, have also showcased supporters with law enforcement backgrounds in their campaigns.In Wisconsin, mail advertising from Republicans has darkened Mr. Barnes’s skin, one stark example of the ways attacks on crime can propel issues of race to the forefront.Representative Mark Pocan, Democrat of Wisconsin, said: “Clearly, the message was not just one of crime. It was one of racism.” And, like other Democrats, he alluded to the Capitol riot.“They claim to back the blue, and in reality, they’re backing the coup,” he said. “You can’t pretend to support law enforcement, but then selectively decide which law enforcement that you’re going to protect.”Jon Hurdle contributed reporting from Harrisburg, Pa. More

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      Moderate House Democrats Are at Risk, Putting the Majority Up for Grabs

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      Several Democrats elected in 2018 with an anti-Trump message in conservative-leaning districts are centering their closing argument on protecting democracy as they try to buck national trends.NORFOLK, Va. — In her final campaign ad, Representative Elaine Luria, a Democrat and Navy veteran who sits on the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, practically dares her constituents to replace her in Congress with her Republican opponent, who has refused to condemn former President Donald J. Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was stolen.Representative Abigail Spanberger, a former C.I.A. officer, has blanketed her central Virginia district with ads portraying her challenger as a supporter of the rioters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.In Michigan, Representative Elissa Slotkin, herself a former C.I.A. analyst, has been campaigning with Representative Liz Cheney, a Wyoming Republican who is the vice chairwoman of the Jan. 6 committee and has made combating threats to democracy the focus of her final year in Congress.The three Democrats, all of whom are in difficult re-election races in swing districts with conservative leanings, are at risk of being swept out in next week’s midterm elections, possibly costing Democrats the House majority.They are part of a class of moderates — many of them women with national security credentials who ran for Congress to counter the threat they saw from Mr. Trump — who flipped Republican districts in the 2018 election, delivering Democrats the House majority. Now they are centering their closing campaign argument on protecting democracy.For two election cycles, these Democrats have largely managed to buck Republican attempts to brand them as liberal puppets of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, but the challenge has grown steeper in 2022.President Biden’s popularity has sagged. State redistricting has shifted some of their districts, including Ms. Luria’s on the eastern shore of Virginia, to include higher percentages of conservatives. And polls indicate that the issues at the top of mind for voters across the political spectrum are inflation and the economy, even though they overwhelmingly believe that American democracy is under threat.“This is the first time they’ve had to run in a hostile political environment,” David Wasserman, the House editor of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, said of the group. “The class of 2018 — we’re going to see some losses this year. But it’s remarkable that many of them are doing as well as they are given the president’s approval rating.”A dozen of Ms. Luria’s 2018 classmates lost their bids for re-election in 2020, and as many as a dozen more are at risk of being swept out next week. Two of them — Representatives Cindy Axne of Iowa and Tom Malinowski of New Jersey — are behind in the polls, and analysts believe more are headed for defeat.But these frontline Democrats believe if anyone can buck the national trends, it is them.“It’s a lot of pressure,” Ms. Luria said of holding onto a pivotal seat. A recent poll from Christopher Newport University showed her tied with her Republican opponent, Jen A. Kiggans.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsElection Day is Tuesday, Nov. 8.Biden’s Speech: In a prime-time address, President Biden denounced Republicans who deny the legitimacy of elections, warning that the country’s democratic traditions are on the line.State Supreme Court Races: The traditionally overlooked contests have emerged this year as crucial battlefields in the struggle over the course of American democracy.Democrats’ Mounting Anxiety: Top Democratic officials are openly second-guessing their party’s pitch and tactics, saying Democrats have failed to unite around one central message.Social Security and Medicare: Republicans, eyeing a midterms victory, are floating changes to the safety net programs. Democrats have seized on the proposals to galvanize voters.As they battle for political survival, they have worked to dramatize the stakes for voters.“I believe that our democracy is the ultimate kitchen table issue,” Ms. Slotkin said during a sold-out event with Ms. Cheney in East Lansing. “It’s not even the kitchen table; our democracy is the foundation of the home in which the kitchen table sits.”Ms. Luria has campaigned on her reputation as one of the most bipartisan members of Congress, and her record of using her perch on the Armed Services Committee to secure tens of millions of shipbuilding dollars for her district.On a recent Tuesday, as she walked through the Dante Valve manufacturing plant in Norfolk, a small business where workers build key parts for submarines, executives said her support for the Navy fleet had proved “critical” for providing steady paychecks in a town where the economy is inextricably tied to the U.S. military.Republican strategists concede that this group of Democrats has proved tough to knock off, having built brands in their districts that outperform the typical Democrat. Their internal polling shows some of them outperforming Mr. Biden by double digits in favorability.To counter the Democrats’ national security credentials, Republicans have recruited military and law enforcement veterans of their own.Ms. Slotkin is facing off against Tom Barrett, a state senator and Army veteran who served in Iraq.“I have no idea if I’m going to win my election — it’s going to be a nail biter,” she said recently.Ms. Spanberger, who has frequently criticized her party’s leadership, is also in a close race with Yesli Vega, a law enforcement officer.Ms. Luria won election to Congress in 2018 as part of a wave of Democrats who flipped Republican districts and turned the House blue.Shuran Huang for The New York TimesMs. Luria’s challenger, Ms. Kiggans, is also a Navy veteran and has run a campaign focused on pocketbook issues.“They talk to me about the gas prices that are too much even this past week,” Ms. Kiggans said of voters during a recent debate. “They talk to me about their grocery prices. They talk to me about their savings account. People don’t have as much as they used to in their savings account.”She has also tried to tarnish Ms. Luria’s independent credentials, portraying her as a stooge of Ms. Pelosi.Ms. Luria has not allowed the attacks to go unanswered. She has repeatedly cast Ms. Kiggans, who opposes abortion rights and has dodged questions about the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election, as an extremist and an election denier.“If standing up for what’s right means losing an election, so be it,” Ms. Luria says in her recent ad, adding: “If you believe the 2020 election was stolen, I’m definitely not your candidate.”Jen A. Kiggans is running to take Ms. Luria’s seat.Kristen Zeis for The New York TimesMs. Kiggans answered this line of argument with an ad of her own, in which she is shown sitting at a kitchen table and surrounded by family photographs, and declares that she is no “extremist.”Interactions between the two candidates have been testy.“She’s an election denier,” Ms. Luria said of Ms. Kiggans, with a note of contempt in her voice. “She has never clearly said in public that Joe Biden won the 2020 election.”Ms. Kiggans shot back at a recent debate, while not specifically denying the charge: “Shame on you for attacking my character as a fellow female Naval officer.”One reason some of the swing-state Democrats remain competitive in their races, despite the national headwinds, is their ability to raise enormous sums of money.Ms. Luria, for instance, has posted some of the highest fund-raising totals this cycle, raking in three times as much as her challenger in the most recent quarter.But national Republicans are working to counter that cash advantage, with political action committees pumping huge amounts of money into districts to prop up challengers, including about $5 million to aid Ms. Kiggans.“Frontline Democrats promised voters they’d be bipartisan problem solvers, but they came to D.C. and voted in lock step with Nancy Pelosi,” said Michael McAdams, a spokesman for the National Republican Campaign Committee. “Now their constituents are dealing with record-high prices and soaring violent crime.”For better or worse, Ms. Luria’s image is now bound up in confronting threats to democracy. She sought a seat on the Jan. 6 committee — a move she knew could cost her her seat — calling it an outgrowth of her life’s work serving in the military.Supporters of Ms. Kiggans at a rally in Smithfield, Va.Kristen Zeis for The New York TimesHer supporters have cheered the decision.“The people who serve in our Congress, they were at great risk,” said Melanie Cornelisse, a supporter who was on hand outside a Norfolk television studio for Ms. Luria’s final debate with Ms. Kiggans. “And I think it’s really admirable that she is one of the people who is leading that investigation.”Ms. Luria has posted some of the highest fund-raising totals this cycle, and raised three times as much as her challenger in the most recent quarter. Kristen Zeis for The New York TimesA reporter asked Ms. Luria recently why she had focused so intently on threats to democracy rather than, say, the price of gasoline. Ms. Luria has supported measures to make the nation “energy independent,” through increased use of nuclear and wind energy.But also, as a Navy veteran, Ms. Luria said, she felt she had to be true to herself — and that meant continuing to call out Mr. Trump’s lies.“To me, there’s really two things that keep me up at night: One is China and the other is protecting our democracy and our democratic institutions,” Ms. Luria said. “As a candidate, I’m going to talk about the things that I think are the most important for our future. There’s still a clear and present danger.” More

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      House Candidate Drops Ad in North Carolina After Report of Bullet Hole

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      A Republican congressional candidate in North Carolina criticized his Democratic opponent’s campaign on Friday for showing one of his homes in a TV ad, saying that someone had recently fired a bullet into his parents’ house.The Hickory Police Department confirmed that the parents of the Republican candidate, Pat Harrigan, had reported on Oct. 19 that someone had fired a bullet that put a hole in a window in their home’s laundry room the night before. No one was injured.The police report did not come to light until it was covered in local news reports on Thursday, and the campaign of Mr. Harrigan’s Democratic opponent, Jeff Jackson, took down the ad showing a different Harrigan residence. The ad had been running since Oct. 18, apparently the same date the bullet hole was found.During an appearance Friday morning on “Fox & Friends,” Mr. Harrigan accused Mr. Jackson of “very poor judgment.”“In the era of Steve Scalise and Brett Kavanaugh, and now, Paul Pelosi,” he said. “This is just unbelievable to me.”Mr. Harrigan and Mr. Jackson are running for an open seat representing North Carolina’s 14th Congressional District, which was created after the 2020 census.The ad from the Jackson campaign showed footage of a house on the banks of a lake, where a man in a suit cuts through the waves on a Jet Ski. It said Mr. Harrigan “did so well” as a firearms manufacturer that he was able to purchase the residence and the Jet Ski. It also questioned whether Mr. Harrigan lived in the district.Pat HarriganJeff Jackson“We fully support law enforcement as they investigate this incident and believe any wrongdoing should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” Mr. Jackson’s campaign spokesman, Tommy Cromie, said.Mr. Cromie said the ad was pulled out of “an abundance of caution and concern, but, to be clear, the home involved in the incident has never been featured in any of our advertising.”Mr. Harrigan’s parents told the police they found the bullet hole around 10 p.m. on Oct. 18, according to the police report, which was filed the next morning and described the incident as a “shooting (chance of injury) into occupied property.” The last time they could recall having seen the window intact was on Oct. 16, according to the report. The damage was estimated at $500.On Fox News, Mr. Harrigan said his parents were watching television when “a bullet cracks through” their home, 20 feet from his sleeping children, who were spending the night at their grandparents’ home.“This is completely out of the blue,” he added, “particularly for this neighborhood.”The incident in Hickory, about 58 miles northwest of Charlotte, was widely reported by local and national media on Thursday. The Associated Press said the bullet came from “a densely wooded area” and did not wake the children.The type of firearm was not identified, and a police spokeswoman, Kristen Hart, said Friday that the case remained under investigation. She told The Carolina Journal that investigators had found a bullet casing. Reports that the F.B.I. was also investigating could not be confirmed. More

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      A Dire Outlook as Climate Action Falls Short

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      More from our inbox:Pennsylvania Political Ads: ‘A Flood of Falsehoods’A Republican No MoreBig Lie LawyersProtests in Brazil: A Harbinger for the U.S.?Flooded farmland in Hadeja, Nigeria, in September.Associated PressTo the Editor:Re “Climate Pledges Fizzle as Havoc Looms for Globe” (front page, Oct. 26):Whatever happened to mutually assured destruction?During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union never attacked each other directly for fear of a nuclear war that would destroy both nations. But today, world-threatening climate change is apparently not enough to bring the U.S. and China to the negotiating table.Without prompt and drastic action by both nations (and others) to cut greenhouse gas emissions, the planet is aimed at a global temperature rise of at least 2.1 degrees Celsius (3.8 degrees Fahrenheit). Tens of millions of people worldwide will be displaced from their homes. Hundreds of millions will suffer severe drought and food shortages due to crop loss. Billions will face dangerous, possibly deadly heat waves.Are the U.S. and China assuming that their populations will magically be spared? Or is an existential threat to both our nations no longer considered enough for our leaders to take seriously?Amy LivingstonHighland Park, N.J.To the Editor:There’s no doubt that our planet is fast approaching the point of no return for avoiding a future of unimaginable, ever-worsening climate chaos. As you report, the perilous position we find ourselves in is due largely to decades of gross inaction from the world’s biggest climate polluters. The only question now is what to do about it.Your article notes that some progress in the name of climate action has recently been made in the United States, with hundreds of billions of dollars in the Inflation Reduction Act allocated for encouraging “cleaner technologies.” But the fact is that incentivizing the development of cleaner energy sources will not by itself make a dent in carbon emissions.Our recent analysis showed that while use of renewable energy rose significantly in the previous decade, fossil fuel production increased even more. In truth, the only way to meaningfully reduce climate-killing carbon pollution is to halt it at its source, by stopping new oil and gas drilling and fracking, and preventing the buildout of new infrastructure like pipelines and export terminals that encourage the devastating extraction.Wenonah HauterWashingtonThe writer is the founder and executive director of Food & Water Watch.To the Editor:Carbon and methane emissions cause temperature to increase, and we are reading that methane emissions are rising faster than ever. At the same time, climate pledges around the globe to cut those emissions are falling short.Many people understand the potential negative effects of climate change, but don’t see the urgency to address it. We need to rectify all of these failings and create the will for faster action. Our citizens must understand and believe that the cost of inaction is too high and demand stronger action now.Perhaps some people are more worried about the immediate economic and inflation aspects. I want to remind them that every negative effect of climate change is bad for the economy and even more inflationary. Climate-related weather events (wildfires, floods, drought, hurricanes, etc.) drain production and supply and escalate demand and prices.If we don’t decrease the use of fossil fuels soon enough, climate migration will become a large issue. Such movements will harm local economies both to and from those migration areas. Climate inaction is too costly to ignore, and we need action now.Jonathan LightLaguna Niguel, Calif.Pennsylvania Political Ads: ‘A Flood of Falsehoods’Chester County elections workers scanning mail-in ballots in 2020. Unsigned letters circulated in the county this year warning residents that their votes might not have counted.Matt Slocum/Associated PressTo the Editor:Re “With Push of a Button, Lies Flood a Swing State” (front page, Nov. 1):As a Pennsylvania voter, I find that it has become increasingly difficult to cut through the deluge of disinformation that has flooded the airwaves, our mailboxes and social media channels in connection with the coming election.Regrettably, far too many people choose to peddle propaganda in a brazen attempt to mislead voters, and the relative ease with which deceptive and denigrating material is widely disseminated degrades an already tenuous political system.With an electorate that is already jaded and exceedingly cynical because of the rancor that has become so pervasive in American politics, we cannot afford to give voters yet another reason to stay home on Election Day. Pennsylvanians deserve better than a flood of falsehoods that threatens to wash away the decency and credibility that we desperately need in our electoral process.N. Aaron TroodlerBala Cynwyd, Pa.A Republican No More Brittany Greeson for The New York TimesTo the Editor:My grandfather was a conservative Pennsylvania Republican. My father was a conservative Pennsylvania Republican. And I naturally became a conservative Pennsylvania Republican, holding onto it as I moved over the years to Ohio, Connecticut and New York.Several months ago, I registered as a Democrat, pen twitching in my hand, yet knowing that it was time to speak up the only way politicians comprehend.Donald Trump brought me to this. He has yet to wear his proper label. He is, and should be publicly recognized as, a cult leader: unbelievably dangerous, persuasive and dense.Until Republican Party leaders recognize that they have been “drinking the Kool-Aid” because they are afraid of the cult leader, I have no use for them, nor should any clear-thinking Republican.J.H. QuestIthaca, N.Y.Big Lie Lawyers T.J. Kirkpatrick for The New York TimesTo the Editor:The continued attack on our free and democratic elections revealed in “Same Trump Lawyers Gear Up for Midterms” (news article, Nov. 3) is even more disturbing in light of the fact that almost all of the lawyers mentioned in the article face outstanding bar complaints from The 65 Project, the bipartisan accountability group I run.These complaints were filed months ago, and in the face of inaction by the various state bar associations, these Big Lie lawyers have continued their attacks on our democracy.Until the state bar associations take action by referring these attorneys to the relevant disciplinary committees and imposing sanctions — up to and including disbarment — their actions described in this article will just be another stop along the way to more attempts to overturn elections in 2022 and 2024.Michael TeterSalt Lake CityProtests in Brazil: A Harbinger for the U.S.?Supporters of President Jair Bolsonaro gathering outside the Brazilian Army’s national headquarters on Wednesday in Brasília, the capital. Dado Galdieri for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Denying Defeat, Bolsonaro’s Supporters Ask Army to Step In” (news article, Nov. 3):It used to be that we were afraid of a coup, of a strongman or the army taking over against the will of the people. Now it seems that the people themselves are the problem. In Brazil, tens of thousands are protesting the results of their recent election, demanding a new election or, most chillingly, a military government “permanently,” as one put it.This sounds disconcertingly familiar, as millions in this country are demanding similarly authoritarian forms of government. The focus here has been on disinformation and conspiracy theories circulating on social media, and on Donald Trump himself, America’s Bolsonaro. But the real problem, here as in Brazil, is the inexplicable desire of millions of ordinary citizens to live under an authoritarian regime.We should hope that Brazil’s reaction to Jair Bolsonaro’s loss is not a harbinger of our own experience two years hence.Tim ShawCambridge, Mass. More

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      Can Campaigning on Abortion Rescue the Democrats?

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      Lisa Chow and Dan Powell and Listen and follow The DailyApple Podcasts | Spotify | StitcherWith an unpopular president and soaring inflation, Democrats knew they had an uphill battle in the midterms.But the fall of Roe v. Wade seemed to offer the party a way of energizing voters and holding ground. And one place where that hope could live or die is Michigan.On today’s episodeLisa Lerer, a national political correspondent for The New York Times.A demonstrator in Detroit supporting a ballot measure that would bolster abortion protections in Michigan.Emily Elconin for The New York TimesBackground readingSome top Democrats say that their party has focused too much attention on abortion rights and not enough on worries about crime or the cost of living.The outcome of the midterms will affect abortion access for millions of Americans. Activists on both sides are focused on races up and down the ballot.There are a lot of ways to listen to The Daily. Here’s how.We aim to make transcripts available the next workday after an episode’s publication. You can find them at the top of the page.Lisa Lerer contributed reporting.Fact-checked by Susan Lee.The Daily is made by Lisa Tobin, Rachel Quester, Lynsea Garrison, Clare Toeniskoetter, Paige Cowett, Michael Simon Johnson, Brad Fisher, Chris Wood, Jessica Cheung, Stella Tan, Alexandra Leigh Young, Lisa Chow, Eric Krupke, Marc Georges, Luke Vander Ploeg, M.J. Davis Lin, Dan Powell, Dave Shaw, Sydney Harper, Robert Jimison, Mike Benoist, Liz O. Baylen, Asthaa Chaturvedi, Rachelle Bonja, Diana Nguyen, Marion Lozano, Corey Schreppel, Anita Badejo, Rob Szypko, Elisheba Ittoop, Chelsea Daniel, Mooj Zadie, Patricia Willens, Rowan Niemisto, Jody Becker, Rikki Novetsky, John Ketchum, Nina Feldman, Will Reid, Carlos Prieto, Sofia Milan, Ben Calhoun and Susan Lee.Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly. Special thanks to Sam Dolnick, Paula Szuchman, Lisa Tobin, Larissa Anderson, Cliff Levy, Lauren Jackson, Julia Simon, Mahima Chablani, Desiree Ibekwe, Wendy Dorr, Elizabeth Davis-Moorer, Jeffrey Miranda, Renan Borelli, Maddy Masiello and Nell Gallogly. More

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      Biden Pitches Economy to a Skeptical Public in New Mexico

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      ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — President Biden sought to persuade Americans on Thursday that the economy is doing better on his watch than many believe and warned that Republicans would make it harder for the middle class to afford education, health care and other necessities if they win Congress next week.“The economy is up, price inflation is down, real incomes are up, gas prices are down and need to come down further,” Mr. Biden told a rally of supporters in New Mexico as he stumped for Democrats running for governor and Congress. “The American people are beginning to see the benefits of an economy that works for them,” he added, while conceding that “a lot of Americans are still in trouble.”In a speech heavy on statistics, the president rattled off a series of indicators meant to bolster his argument, citing near-record-low unemployment, a burst of new manufacturing jobs, expanded access to health care, export growth, reduced federal deficits and rising gross national product. He pointed to policies he has championed to forgive student loan debt, curb the cost of prescription drugs for retirees and force large corporations that have paid little or no taxes to pay at least 15 percent.“How many of you have any student debt?” he asked the crowd gathered at the Ted M. Gallegos Community Center. “Say goodbye! Say goodbye!”Mr. Biden’s stop in New Mexico opened a five-day swing that will also take him to California, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Delaware, New York and Maryland by Election Day, mostly to blue states where a Democratic president with mediocre approval ratings is still welcome.Some of his economic claims were incomplete or misleading — gasoline prices, for instance, have come down since peaking last summer but remain significantly higher than when Mr. Biden took office. Yet the president’s biggest challenge in the few days remaining before Tuesday is changing the minds of enough Americans who do not see the economy in such robust terms. While jobs are plentiful, inflation hit a 40-year-high this year, eating away at many household budgets and souring the public mood.In a recent poll by The New York Times and Siena College, 47 percent identified economic issues as the most important factors in deciding their votes and a new survey by CNN indicated that three-quarters of Americans believe the economy is in recession even though it grew at an annualized rate of 2.6 percent last quarter.In a nod to public pessimism, Mr. Biden sought to make the case that it could be much worse if Republicans win next week and manage to reverse his policies, noting that they are already in court trying to invalidate his student loan forgiveness and have floated reductions in Social Security and Medicare.He mocked Republicans who were “whining” about the minimum corporate tax rate he signed into law and want to eliminate it to cut taxes for the wealthy. And he said they would reverse his new law capping the cost of medicines like insulin.“It’s reckless and irresponsible,” he said. “It would make inflation considerably worse” and “badly hurt working-class and middle-class Americans.” More

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      Why Aren’t the Democrats Trouncing the Republicans?

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      My big takeaway from this election season would be this: We’re about where we were. We entered this election season with a nearly evenly divided House and Senate in which the Democrats had a slight advantage. We’ll probably leave it with a nearly evenly divided House and Senate in which the Republicans have a slight advantage. But we’re about where we were.Nothing the parties or candidates have done has really changed this underlying balance. The Republicans nominated a pathetically incompetent Senate candidate, Herschel Walker, in Georgia, but polls show that race is basically tied. The Democrats nominated a guy in Pennsylvania, John Fetterman, who suffered a stroke and has trouble communicating, but polls show that that Senate race is basically tied.After all the campaigning and the money and the shouting, the electoral balance is still on a razor’s edge. What accounts for this? It’s the underlying structure of society. Americans are sorting themselves out by education into two roughly equal camps. As people without a college degree have flocked to the G.O.P., people with one have flocked to the Democrats.“Education polarization is not merely an American phenomenon,” Eric Levitz writes in New York Magazine, “it is a defining feature of contemporary politics in nearly every Western democracy.”Over the past few years, the Democrats have made heroic efforts to win back working-class voters and white as well as Black and Hispanic voters who have drifted rightward. Joe Biden’s domestic agenda is largely about this: infrastructure jobs, expanded child tax credit, raising taxes on corporations. This year the Democrats nominated candidates designed to appeal to working-class voters, like the sweatshirt-wearing Fetterman in Pennsylvania and Tim Ryan in Ohio.It doesn’t seem to be working. As Ruy Teixeira, Karlyn Bowman and Nate Moore noted in a survey of polling data for the American Enterprise Institute last month, “The gap between non-college and college whites continues to grow.” Democrats have reason to worry about losing working-class Hispanic voters in places like Nevada. “If Democrats can’t win in Nevada,” one Democratic pollster told Politico, “we can complain about the white working class all you want, but we’re really confronting a much broader working-class problem.” Even Black voters without a college degree seem to be shifting away from the Democrats, to some degree.Forests have been sacrificed so that Democratic strategists can write reports on why they are losing the working class. Some believe racial resentment is driving the white working class away. Some believe Democrats spend too much time on progressive cultural issues and need to focus more on bread-and-butter economics.I’d say these analyses don’t begin to address the scale of the problem. America has riven itself into two different cultures. It’s very hard for the party based in one culture to reach out and win voters in the other culture — or even to understand what people in the other culture are thinking.As I’ve shuttled between red and blue America over decades of reporting on American politics, I’ve seen social, cultural, moral and ideological rifts widen from cracks to chasms.Politics has become a religion for a lot of people. Americans with a college education and Americans without a college education no longer just have different ideas about, say, the role of government, they have created rival ways of life. Americans with a college education and Americans without a college education have different relationships to patriotism and faith, they dress differently, enjoy different foods and have different ideas about corporal punishment, gender and, of course, race.You can’t isolate the differences between the classes down to one factor or another. It’s everything.But even that is not the real problem. America has always had vast cultural differences. Back in 2001, I wrote a long piece for The Atlantic comparing the deeply blue area of Montgomery County, Md., with the red area of Franklin County in south-central Pennsylvania.I noted the vast socio-economic and cultural differences that were evident, even back then. But in my interviews, I found there was a difference without a ton of animosity.For example, Ted Hale was a Presbyterian minister there. “There’s nowhere near as much resentment as you would expect,” he told me. “People have come to understand that they will struggle financially. It’s part of their identity. But the economy is not their god. That’s the thing some others don’t understand. People value a sense of community far more than they do their portfolio.”Back in those days I didn’t find a lot of class-war consciousness in my trips through red America. I compared the country to a high school cafeteria. Jocks over here, nerds over there, punks somewhere else. Live and let live.Now people don’t just see difference, they see menace. People have put up barricades and perceive the other class as a threat to what is beautiful, true and good. I don’t completely understand why this animosity has risen over the past couple of decades, but it makes it very hard to shift the ever more entrenched socio-economic-cultural-political coalitions.Historians used to believe that while European societies were burdened by ferocious class antagonisms, Americans had relatively little class consciousness. That has changed.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