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      Majority of Latino Voters Out of G.O.P.’s Reach, New Poll Shows

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      A New York Times/Siena College poll found Democrats faring far worse than they have in the past with Hispanic voters. But overall, the party has maintained a hold on the Latino electorate.It has been nearly two years since Donald Trump made surprising gains with Hispanic voters. But Republican dreams of a major realignment of Latino voters drawn to G.O.P. stances on crime and social issues have failed to materialize, according to a new poll by The New York Times and Siena College.The poll — one of the largest nonpartisan surveys of Latino voters since the 2020 election — found that Democrats had maintained a grip on the majority of Latino voters, driven in part by women and the belief that Democrats remained the party of the working class. Overall, Hispanic voters are more likely to agree with Democrats on many issues — immigration, gun policy, climate. They are also more likely to see Republicans as the party of the elite and as holding extreme views. And a majority of Hispanic voters, 56 percent, plan to vote for Democrats this fall, compared with 32 percent for Republicans.But the survey also shows worrying signs for the future of the Democratic message. Despite that comfortable lead, the poll finds Democrats faring far worse than they did in the years before the 2020 election. Younger male Hispanic voters, especially those in the South, appear to be drifting away from the party, a shift that is propelled by deep economic concerns. Weaknesses in the South and among rural voters could stand in the way of crucial wins in Texas and Florida in this year’s midterms.Anthony Saiz, 24, who reviews content for a social media platform in Tucson, Ariz., said he had to take on a second job baking pizzas at a beer garden to make ends meet. Mr. Saiz voted for President Biden in 2020 and considers himself a Democrat because he grew up in a Democratic household. But under Mr. Biden, he said, the cost of living seemed to have doubled for him even as he moved into a smaller apartment.“The choices he has been making for the country have been putting me in a bad spot,” he said of Mr. Biden.How Latinos will vote is a crucial question in the November elections and for the future of American politics. Hispanic voters are playing a pivotal role in the battle over control of Congress, making up a significant slice of voters — as high as 20 percent — in two of the states likeliest to determine control of the Senate, Arizona and Nevada. Latinos also make up more than 20 percent of registered voters in more than a dozen highly competitive House races in California, Colorado, Florida and Texas, among other states.Democrats have long assumed that the growing Latino electorate would doom Republicans, and the prospect of an increasingly diverse electorate has fueled anxieties among conservatives. The 2020 election results — in which Mr. Trump gained an estimated eight percentage points among Hispanic voters compared to 2016 — began changing both parties’ outlooks. The Times/Siena poll shows that historic allegiances and beliefs on core issues remain entrenched, though some shifts are striking.While majorities of Hispanic voters side with Democrats on social and cultural issues, sizable shares hold beliefs aligned with Republicans: More than a third of Hispanic voters say they agree more with the G.O.P. on crime and policing, and four out of 10 Hispanic voters have concerns that the Democratic Party has gone too far on race and gender. Hispanic voters view economic issues as the most important factor determining their vote this year and are evenly split on which party they agree with more on the economy.Who Do You Agree More With on the Following Issues?Among Hispanic voters

      Based on responses from 522 Hispanic voters in a New York Times/Siena College poll of 1,399 registered voters nationwide from Sept. 6 to 14, 2022. Does not include a small percentage of respondents who said they agreed with both parties, who said they didn’t know or who refused to answer.By The New York TimesHispanic voters in America have never been a unified voting bloc and have frequently puzzled political strategists who try to understand their behavior. The 32 million Latinos eligible to vote are recent immigrants and fourth-generation citizens, city dwellers and rural ranchers, Catholics and atheists.Both parties have been full of bluster and soaring expectations for Latino voters, raising and spending millions of dollars to attract their support, but there has been little concrete nonpartisan data to back up their speculation. The survey offers insights into a portion of the electorate that many strategists have called the new swing vote and whose views are often complicated by contradictions among subgroups.For Dani Bernal, an entrepreneur in Los Angeles, economic issues loom large in her decisions.Jenna Schoenefeld for The New York TimesDani Bernal, 35, a digital marketer and entrepreneur in Los Angeles, said she switched back and forth between candidates from both parties, in large part based on their economic policies. Her mother, she said, had arrived in Florida from Bolivia with only a bag of clothes and $500 to her name, and had been able to thrive there because taxes were low and the cost of living had been affordable. Economic issues loom large in her decisions, Ms. Bernal said.“I am registered as a Republican, but I am exactly like Florida: I swing back and forth,” she said.Republicans are performing best with Hispanic voters who live in the South, a region that includes Florida and Texas, where Republicans have notched significant wins with Latino voters in recent elections. In the South, 46 percent of Latino voters say they plan to vote for Democrats, while 45 percent say they plan to vote for Republicans. By contrast, Democrats lead 62 to 24 among Hispanic voters in other parts of the country.How this poll captured Latino sentiment on election issues. We spoke with 522 Hispanic voters, more than four times as many as in our last survey — a method pollsters call an oversample. Here’s how that works.A generation gap could also lead to more Republican gains. Democrats, the poll found, were benefiting from particularly high support among older Latino voters. But voters under 30 favor Republicans’ handling of the economy by 46 percent, compared with 43 percent who favor Democrats.Republicans also have strength among Latino men, who favor Democrats in the midterm election but who say, by a five-point margin, that they would vote for Mr. Trump if he were to run again in 2024. Young men in particular appear to be shifting toward Republicans. They are a key vulnerability for Democrats, who maintain just a four-point edge in the midterms among men younger than 45.The Times/Siena poll provides a glimpse of Latino voters who have traditionally supported Democrats in the past but plan to vote for Republicans this fall: They are disproportionately voters without college degrees who are focused on the economy, and they are more likely to be young, male and born in the United States but living in heavily Hispanic areas.Immigration remains a key issue for Hispanic voters, and both parties have a particular appeal. While Democrats have pushed for overhauling the legal immigration system and providing a path to citizenship for many undocumented immigrants, Republicans have focused on cracking down on illegal immigration and using border politics to galvanize their base.Democrats maintain a significant advantage on the issue of legal immigration, with 55 percent of Hispanic voters saying they agree with the party, compared with 29 percent who say they agree with Republicans. But the G.O.P. has made inroads as it has stepped up anti-immigration rhetoric and policy: 37 percent of Latino voters favor Republicans’ views on illegal immigration. And roughly a third support a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.Amelia Alonso Tarancon, 69, who emigrated from Cuba 14 years ago and now lives outside Fort Lauderdale, Fla., wants Congress to offer legal status to undocumented workers who have been in the country for decades. But she agrees with Republicans on their hard-line views against illegal immigration. The issue motivated her to vote for Mr. Trump, though she is a registered Democrat.Amelia Alonso Tarancon, who lives near Fort Lauderdale, Fla., does not consider herself a Democrat or a Republican.Saul Martinez for The New York Times“I know this country is a country of immigrants, but they should immigrate in a legal way,” she said. But Ms. Alonso Tarancon said she no longer supported the former president after he refused to hand over the presidency, fueled the attack on the U.S. Capitol and “took all those documents” to Mar-a-Lago.“I don’t consider myself a Democrat or Republican — I am on standby right now until the next election,” she said.In their effort to attract new voters, Republicans have frequently criticized Democrats as being too “woke.” The accusation resonates with many Hispanic voters, with 40 percent saying that the party has gone too far in pushing a “woke” ideology on race and gender. But there is a clear split: 37 percent take the opposite view and say the party has not gone far enough. And nearly one in five Hispanic voters surveyed said they didn’t know whether Democrats were too woke — a term that cannot be easily translated into Spanish.On many social and cultural issues, Hispanic voters remain aligned with the Democratic Party.The majority, 58 percent, have a favorable view of the Black Lives Matter movement, while 45 percent say the same about the Blue Lives Matter movement, which defends law enforcement personnel. A majority believe that abortion should be legal in all or most cases; even among Republican Hispanics, four in 10 oppose the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. Support for Black Lives Matter and abortion rights is propelled largely by young people. When asked whom they agreed with more on gun policy, 49 percent said Democrats, while 34 percent said Republicans.Republicans attempting to court Latino voters have repeatedly painted Democrats as elitist and out of touch, but the poll suggests that strategy is having limited success.Nearly six in 10 Hispanic voters continue to see the Democrats as the party of the working class. While white Republicans uniformly see themselves as the working-class party, even some Hispanic Republicans believe that mantle belongs to Democrats. And there was no evidence in the poll that Republicans were performing any stronger among non-college-educated Latinos or among Hispanics who lived in rural areas, two key demographic groups they have focused on for outreach. One in four Hispanic voters in rural areas remain undecided about who they will vote for in November.Democrats have been roundly criticized for their embrace of the term Latinx, which is meant to be more inclusive than the gendered words Latino and Latina. Previous surveys have shown only a small minority of Hispanic voters prefer the term. But the poll suggests that Latinx is hardly the most polarizing issue; just 18 percent said they found the term offensive.The Times/Siena survey of 1,399 registered voters nationwide, including an oversample of 522 Hispanic voters, was conducted by telephone using live operators from Sept. 6 to Sept. 14, 2022. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 3.6 percentage points for the full sample and 5.9 percentage points among Hispanic voters. Cross-tabs and methodology are available for all registered voters and for Hispanic voters.Nate Cohn More

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      Republicans on the Defensive on Abortion and Other Social Issues

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      Republican missteps have helped to spotlight the party’s divisions on abortion and same-sex marriage, two issues on which their base is out of step with the general public.WASHINGTON — Republicans have perfected the art of keeping the heat on Democrats on the searing social issues of the day, but this election year, it seems to be Republicans who are getting scorched.During a midterm cycle that seemed tailor-made for significant Republican gains in the House and Senate, Democrats have managed to grab the advantage on abortion rights and same-sex marriage, steering the conversation away from topics that are thornier for them, such as inflation and crime.They have had substantial help from Republican miscues, confounding Democrats who typically expect more craftiness from across the aisle.“They can’t seem to get out of their own way,” said Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, one of the Democratic incumbents on the ballot in November.One reason for their struggles is that a large swath of the Republican base has fallen out of step with broader public opinion on these issues. Most Americans favor same-sex marriage rights and at least some abortion rights, but many Republican voters continue to oppose same-sex marriage and want strict abortion limits if not an outright ban. The disconnect makes navigating those topics treacherous for Republicans, who are faced with the choice of turning off their core supporters or alienating the independents whose support they need to prevail in November.The trouble shows.On Thursday, Democrats announced they would postpone until after the election a vote to protect same-sex marriages because its backers had failed to secure enough Republican support to overcome a G.O.P. filibuster.It was an intriguing decision by Senator Chuck Schumer, the New York Democrat and majority leader, who is not usually inclined to pass up an opportunity to inflict political pain on the opposition. But he acquiesced to a request from bipartisan backers of the legislation for more time — and a less charged environment.Senator Chuck Schumer, the New York Democrat and majority leader, decided to postpone a vote on legislation to protect same-sex marriages at the request of its bipartisan backers.Al Drago for The New York TimesWhile it spared Republicans what was looking like a difficult moment, damage had already been done.The threatened filibuster made it clear that some Republicans weren’t comfortable voting in favor of same-sex marriage before the midterm election, and others didn’t want to go on record against it at an inopportune time. Either way, Republicans looked shaky on an issue that most Americans consider to be long resolved.The Republican posture in the Senate was sufficient to prompt hundreds of prominent Republicans, including Senate candidates in Pennsylvania and Colorado, to sign a letter calling for passage of the same-sex marriage legislation to “reaffirm that marriage for gay and lesbian couples is settled law.”The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.Midterm Data: Could the 2020 polling miss repeat itself? Will this election cycle really be different? Nate Cohn, The Times’s chief political analyst, looks at the data in his new newsletter.Republicans’ Abortion Struggles: Senator Lindsey Graham’s proposed nationwide 15-week abortion ban was intended to unite the G.O.P. before the November elections. But it has only exposed the party’s divisions.Democrats’ Dilemma: The party’s candidates have been trying to signal their independence from the White House, while not distancing themselves from President Biden’s base or agenda.On abortion, Republicans knew that the Supreme Court ruling striking down Roe v. Wade would complicate their push to reclaim Congress, and they sought to quickly rid themselves of the problem. Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader, said a G.O.P.-controlled Congress could pursue a nationwide abortion ban, but Republicans soft-pedaled that idea and instead chose to emphasize that the ruling returned the question of abortion rights to each state, where they said it belonged. Case closed.Enter Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, who surprised his colleagues on Tuesday by rolling out his plan, backed by anti-abortion groups, to enact a nationwide ban on abortions after 15 weeks, which would impose federal restrictions on blue and purple states that have not joined the post-Roe race to enact strict new limits on the procedure.Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, introduced a bill that would implement a national ban on abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. “When the dust settles, this will all make sense,” he said.Haiyun Jiang/The New York TimesTo cringes from many of his Republican colleagues, Mr. Graham declared that the coming election was essentially a referendum on abortion — and that if his party won control of Congress, it would, in fact, consider a ban..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.Despite their determination to shift the issue away from the Capitol, Senate Republicans — and their midterm candidates — suddenly found themselves forced to answer whether they backed such a prohibition, potentially driving off suburban women who will be crucial to the election outcome. Again, some Republican lawmakers and candidates sought to distance themselves from the proposal.Privately, many of Mr. Graham’s colleagues wanted to throttle him. Others were more diplomatic.“I didn’t know anything about it,” said Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas. “I don’t know what his motivation was.”Democrats could not believe their good fortune. On the day new inflation numbers were driving down the stock market, Mr. Graham had turned the conversation back to a topic that has so far proved advantageous for Democrats in the aftermath of the court ruling, which Senator Chris Coons, Democrat of Delaware, said had already shocked much of the nation.“Republicans, having succeeded in putting in a conservative majority to overturn Roe v. Wade, are proposing to go even farther,” Mr. Coons said of the Graham legislation.Mr. Graham insists he will be proved right in the end.“I think that my position is reasonable and logical and over time, I feel good about it winning the day,” he said. “When the dust settles, this will all make sense.”Until then, Democrats are gleefully running ads portraying Republicans as reactionaries.Republicans were also in danger of running afoul of public opinion on another volatile social issue — immigration — after Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida sent air charters of migrants to Martha’s Vineyard, the island retreat in the blue state of Massachusetts. The stunt was aimed at highlighting the uneven impact of federal border policies, and had many Republicans celebrating having steered the campaign conversation to the dysfunctional immigration system.But it also risked spurring a backlash. While polls show that most Republicans draw a hard line on immigration, they also find that the majority of Americans regard immigration as a positive and are particularly sympathetic to refugees, suggesting that the G.O.P. stunt — which stranded vulnerable people in a place unprepared for their arrival — could also prompt outrage among voters who regard it as cruel.Republicans concede they could do without the turmoil surrounding the abortion rights and same-sex marriage battles, but contend that the focus on those issues is mainly a Washington preoccupation.“Could we do without the distractions?” asked Senator Kevin Cramer, Republican of North Dakota. “Perhaps. But I think the voters are still focused on the main things.”“At the end of the day, I think it is still the economy, stupid,” he added, quoting the famous line from Bill Clinton’s successful 1992 presidential campaign. “Everybody is still paying too much for groceries and other things, and that’s what the election is going to be about.”Republicans are also trying to regain the upper hand on abortion, portraying Democrats as extremists who don’t support any restrictions at all, a position that is also at odds with those of many Americans.“The Democrat position used to be Roe v. Wade,” said Mr. Cornyn. “Now it is abortion without limitations up to the time of delivery. It is just shocking to me. Most people’s views on this are more nuanced. They may be pro-choice but would say there is a limit.”Democrats have not explicitly proposed such a sweeping policy, but they have put forward legislation that would protect abortion access nationwide by prohibiting a long list of abortion restrictions, including some enacted after Roe was decided in 1973. It failed in May when Senate Republicans, joined by one Democrat, blocked it.Mr. Cornyn joined the Republican chorus in saying that the economy, border security and rising crime would remain the decisive topics in the election, even as he conceded that Democrats had been successful in stoking voter enthusiasm on the social issues.“Inflation is not going away, the Fed is going to raise interest rates more,” Mr. Cornyn said. “People are still going to be grumpy.”Democrats, more accustomed to being on the losing end of the culture clash, say Republicans are misreading where the public stands on such issues and will pay a price for it.“Republicans are just way out of the American mainstream,” said Mr. Blumenthal. “On a woman’s right to make a personal decision, individual women may make very different decisions. But the vast majority think they ought to be trusted to make those decisions — not some government official.” More

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      The Vance-Ryan Senate Race In Ohio Appears Closer Than Once Expected

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      Less than two months before Election Day, the Ohio Senate race appears tighter than many once expected in a state that former President Donald J. Trump won by eight percentage points in 2020 — even as there are clear reminders of the limitations Democrats face there.From mid-May until the beginning of August, Representative Tim Ryan of Ohio, the Democratic nominee, had the airwaves to himself, according to AdImpact, the media tracking firm. He has also had a significant cash advantage over his Republican opponent, J.D. Vance, who won a brutal primary with assistance from Mr. Trump, who endorsed him and is set to campaign with him in Youngstown, Ohio, on Saturday.Mr. Ryan, who had an easier primary season, used those advantages in an effort to define himself early as an independent-minded “fighter” for Ohio, highlighting his differences with the national Democratic Party at every turn.He and other Democrats have also moved to brand Mr. Vance as an inauthentic San Francisco transplant.Mr. Vance, the author of the book “Hillbilly Elegy” who once identified as a “Never Trump guy,” grew up in Middletown, Ohio, but later worked as a venture capitalist in San Francisco.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.Midterm Data: Could the 2020 polling miss repeat itself? Will this election cycle really be different? Nate Cohn, The Times’s chief political analyst, looks at the data in his new newsletter.Republicans’ Abortion Struggles: Senator Lindsey Graham’s proposed nationwide 15-week abortion ban was intended to unite the G.O.P. before the November elections. But it has only exposed the party’s divisions.Democrats’ Dilemma: The party’s candidates have been trying to signal their independence from the White House, while not distancing themselves from President Biden’s base or agenda.“J.D. was born and raised in Ohio,” Luke Schroeder, a spokesman for the Vance campaign, said in a statement as he sought to tie Mr. Ryan to Washington Democrats.For all of Mr. Vance’s structural challenges over the summer, much of the available polling suggests a very close race in a state that shifted to the right in the Trump era, and Democrats are bracing for a challenging fall in key races across the country.Mr. Vance is now on the airwaves, assisted by significant outside spending. He, like other Republican candidates, is seeking to go on offense by emphasizing the issue of crime.And while Democrats see openings to paint Mr. Vance as extreme on the issue of abortion, they continue to face a difficult national environment defined by concerns about inflation and by President Biden’s approval numbers, which have improved but are still underwater.“He claims to be an independent voice, but in D.C., he votes with Biden and Pelosi 100 percent of the time,” Mr. Schroeder said in a statement about Mr. Ryan — a reflection of how Republicans are seeking to nationalize the race..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. Ryan’s campaign argued that he had spent far more time campaigning in Ohio in recent months than Mr. Vance had.“This race is one of the most competitive in the country because Tim Ryan has outworked and outcampaigned” Mr. Vance, said Izzi Levy, a spokeswoman for Mr. Ryan. She accused Mr. Vance of spending “the four months since his primary hiding from Ohioans and traveling far from Ohio.”Some Republicans, too, have voiced concerns over what they saw as a limited campaigning effort from their nominee for much of the summer.J.D. Vance, the author of the book “Hillbilly Elegy,” grew up in Ohio and later worked as a venture capitalist in San Francisco.Emil Lippe for The New York Times“From that point as he won in May, he seemed to be running a stealth campaign, kind of like a former presidential candidate in 2020 was doing,” said David G. Arredondo, the executive committee chairman of the Lorain County Republican Party, referring to Mr. Biden’s limited in-person campaigning in the last presidential election at the height of the pandemic, which some mocked as a “basement strategy.” But Mr. Arredondo said he understood the approach.“Whether J.D. was in the basement or hanging out with his family, who knows, but I was not concerned,” he said, emphasizing that the campaign has accelerated in recent weeks, just as voters traditionally tune in — Mr. Vance is expected in Lorain County on Saturday. “And it was hard for me to convince my fellow Republicans, don’t worry, don’t worry, he’s going to be OK.”“Their sentiment is now changing,” he added.His campaign event on Saturday evening with Mr. Trump is at the same time as a football game between Ohio State and the University of Toledo, a point the Ohio Democratic Party has used to cast Mr. Vance as an out-of-stater: “Having a campaign event on a fall Saturday night is a cardinal sin in Ohio,” a statement from the party read. More

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      Democrats Buoyed by Abortion and Trump, Times/Siena Poll Finds

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      Even as they struggle to persuade voters that they should be trusted on the economy, Democrats remain unexpectedly competitive in the battle for Congress as the sprint to November’s midterm election begins, a New York Times/Siena College poll has found.The surprising Democratic strength has been bolstered by falling gas prices and President Biden’s success at breaking through legislative gridlock in Washington to pass his agenda. That shift in political momentum has helped boost, in just two months, the president’s approval rating by nine percentage points and doubled the share of Americans who believe the country is on the right track.But Democrats are also benefiting from factors over which they had little control: the public outcry in response to the Supreme Court’s overturning of federal abortion rights and the return of former President Donald J. Trump to an attention-commanding presence on the national stage.Changes in Voter Sentiment More

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      The Political Calculations Behind DeSantis’s Migrant Flights North

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      Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida sent migrants to Massachusetts. He aimed to make a point about President Biden, but immigration issues are nothing new.Ron DeSantis, the Republican governor of Florida, one-upped his Texas counterpart, Greg Abbott, this week by sending two planeloads of migrants to Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts — the cherry on top of a monthslong campaign to essentially troll liberal cities and states by transferring many asylum seekers to those communities.The airlift, a spokeswoman for DeSantis said in a statement, “was part of the state’s relocation program to transport illegal immigrants to sanctuary destinations.”She added: “States like Massachusetts, New York and California will better facilitate the care of these individuals who they have invited into our country by incentivizing illegal immigration through their designation as ‘sanctuary states’ and support for the Biden administration’s open border policies.”Of course, there is no such “open border.” Many of these migrants are utilizing U.S. asylum laws that afford them the opportunity for a court hearing to determine whether they qualify to stay in the United States, just as thousands did during the Trump administration and the Obama administration before that. And in most cases, they were apprehended by federal law enforcement agents or turned themselves in, enabling DeSantis to bundle them onto planes in the first place.“Playing politics with people’s lives is what governors like George Wallace did during segregation,” Representative Seth Moulton, a Democrat from Massachusetts, said. “Ron DeSantis is trying to earn George Wallace’s legacy.” Moulton was referring to the “reverse freedom rides” of 1962, when segregationists used false promises of jobs and housing to trick Black Southerners into moving north. Moulton, who ran briefly for president in 2020, accused Republicans more generally of using immigration as a “political football.”The deeper issue is this: For decades, Congress has failed to overhaul the country’s immigration laws, which both parties acknowledge are badly out of step with what is happening along the U.S.-Mexico border. They just differ wildly on the proposed remedies.But the political calculations for DeSantis and Abbott are pretty clear. Immigration is a powerful motivating issue for Republican-base voters, nationally and especially in border states like Arizona and Texas.My colleague Astead Herndon discusses this topic in the latest episode of his podcast, The Run-Up. It’s a deep dive on the 10th anniversary of the so-called Republican autopsy of the 2012 election, in which G.O.P. insiders argued for a complete rethinking of their party’s strategy on immigration and Latino voters.As DeSantis surely knows — and by all accounts he’s a canny politician who has his ear attuned to the id of the G.O.P. grass roots — Donald Trump did basically the opposite of what that autopsy recommended. He made frequent and aggressive political use of Latino migrants during his run for the presidency in 2016 and long thereafter, casting many of them as “criminals” and “rapists” during his presidential announcement at Trump Tower.And DeSantis, who seems likely to waltz to re-election in the fall, is busy amassing a formidable war chest for purposes that remain both opaque and obvious. For months, he has been quietly courting Trump donors under the guise of bringing them into his campaign for governor while being careful never to stick his head too far above the parapet — lest Trump try to knock it off his proverbial shoulders.More on Ron DeSantis and His AdministrationReshaping Florida: Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, has turned the swing state into a right-wing laboratory by leaning into cultural battles.Eyeing 2024: Mr. DeSantis, who appears to be preparing to run for president in 2024, has been signaling his desire to take over former President Donald J. Trump’s political movement. But is that what Republican voters want?Voter Fraud: Mr. DeSantis established one of the nation’s first elections security offices in Florida, dedicated to pursuing election crimes, but many of its first cases seem to be falling apart.Policy and Education: New laws championed by Mr. DeSantis, including the controversial “Don’t Say Gay” bill, have left Florida teachers feeling fear, uncertainty and confusion.Rick Tyler, a former aide to Senator Ted Cruz’s presidential campaign, said the flights to Martha’s Vineyard by DeSantis were “perhaps” smart politics in the context of a Republican primary, but he added, “I find it cynical to be using real human beings as political stunt pawns for positioning in a presidential chess game.”Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, sharply rebuked the Texas and Florida governors for deliberately trying to “create chaos and confusion” in a way that is “disrespectful to humanity.” She said that Fox News was given advance notice while the White House was not.“It is a political stunt,” she said. “That’s what we’re seeing from governors, Republican governors, in particular. It is a cruel, inhumane way of treating people who are fleeing communism, people who are — and we’re not just talking about people, we’re talking about children, we’re talking about families.”A report in The Vineyard Gazette, a local newspaper, recounts how the migrants arrived on the island and were greeted by “a coalition of emergency management officials, faith groups, nonprofit agencies and county and town officials” that organized food and shelter for the new arrivals.A man who was among the migrants sent to Martha’s Vineyard flashed a thumbs-up in Edgartown, Mass.Ray Ewing/Vineyard Gazette, via Associated PressOther Democratic-led enclaves, such as Washington, D.C., and New York City, have petitioned the federal government for help in processing and housing the thousands of migrants that DeSantis and Abbott have theatrically thrust upon them. Last week, Washington’s mayor, Muriel Bowser, declared a state of emergency over the nearly 10,000 migrants who had been bused there from Texas. Eric Adams, her counterpart in New York, said on Wednesday that the city’s shelter system was “nearing its breaking point.”On Thursday morning, two buses dropped off a group of 101 migrants outside the home of Vice President Kamala Harris — a poisoned political chalice sent by Abbott, who tweeted, “We’re sending migrants to her backyard to call on the Biden Administration to do its job & secure the border.”.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.In an indicator of just how potent Republicans believe this issue to be among their voters, even Gov. Doug Ducey of Arizona, a relative moderate who stood up to Trump over his false stolen election claims in 2020, is now getting in on the game. Ducey, who declined heavy pressure from Senator Mitch McConnell, the minority leader, to run for Senate, is thought to harbor presidential aspirations of his own.The Massachusetts press cast the move by DeSantis as a challenge to Gov. Charlie Baker, a Republican whose future plans remain in flux. Baker, a northeastern moderate in the mold of past G.O.P. governors of the Bay State, such as Mitt Romney and Bill Weld, would have little hope in a presidential primary against DeSantis or, for that matter, Trump.The trolling is a novel political tactic. But the general phenomenon of distributing migrants around the country isn’t entirely new, as my colleague Zolan Kanno-Youngs has written. When the Obama administration faced a tide of unaccompanied minors that overwhelmed facilities along the border in places like McAllen, Texas, the Department of Health and Human Services placed thousands of the children in cities across the country.And after the 2011 protest movement in Syria devolved into a vicious civil war, many Republican governors began objecting to having refugees placed in their states.Trump also seized on that issue, calling for a “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on” — then sought to enact that policy in one of his first moves as president.Gil Kerlikowske, a former Customs and Border Protection commissioner in the Obama administration, woke up on Thursday morning to find that border politics had followed him to his home on Martha’s Vineyard.Kerlikowske learned that migrants had been dropped off on the island when he went to the barbershop on Thursday morning and overheard people questioning why the United States was unable to secure the southwest border.He reminded the fellow customers that thousands of migrants crossed over the border during the George W. Bush administration as well.“It just kind of shows the ignorance of DeSantis,” Kerlikowske said, advising the governor to pressure members of Florida’s congressional delegation to pass new immigration laws instead. “If he wanted to highlight where the problem is, he should have sent them to Marco Rubio and Rick Scott’s homes.”President Biden has faced pushback from those on his left for, in the view of some advocacy groups, continuing Trump’s immigration policies. On Wednesday, the American Civil Liberties Union criticized Biden after a Reuters report revealed that the administration had been urging Mexico to accept more migrants from Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela under a policy put in place during the coronavirus pandemic.Christina Pushaw, a spokeswoman for the DeSantis campaign, said, “The governor has spoken publicly about transporting illegal migrants to sanctuary jurisdictions for months.” She noted that DeSantis had requested $12 million from the Florida Legislature in this year’s state budget for the transfers.“But we in the campaign didn’t know the destination would be Martha’s Vineyard or that it would happen yesterday,” Pushaw said. “We found out from media reports.”Zolan Kanno-Youngs More

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      Why Is There Still No Strategy to Defeat Donald Trump?

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      One of the stunning facts of the age is the continued prominence of Donald Trump. His candidates did well in the G.O.P. primaries this year. He won more votes in 2020 than he did in 2016. His favorability ratings within his party have been high and basically unchanged since late 2016. In a range of polls, some have actually shown Trump leading President Biden in a race for re-election in 2024.His prominence is astounding because over the past seven years the American establishment has spent enormous amounts of energy trying to discredit him.Those of us in this establishment correctly identified Trump as a grave threat to American democracy. The task before us was clear. We were never going to shake the hard-core MAGA folks. The job was to peel away independents and those Republicans offended by and exhausted by his antics.Many strategies were deployed in order to discredit Trump. There was the immorality strategy: Thousands of articles were written detailing his lies and peccadilloes. There was the impeachment strategy: Investigations were launched into his various scandals and outrages. There was the exposure strategy: Scores of books were written exposing how shambolic and ineffective the Trump White House really was.The net effect of these strategies has been to sell a lot of books and subscriptions and to make anti-Trumpists feel good. But this entire barrage of invective has not discredited Trump among the people who will very likely play the most determinant role. It has probably pulled some college-educated Republicans into the Democratic ranks and pushed some working-class voters over to the Republican side.The barrage has probably solidified Trump’s hold on his party. Republicans see themselves at war with the progressive coastal elites. If those elites are dumping on Trump, he must be their guy.A couple weeks ago, Biden gave a speech in Philadelphia, declaring the MAGA movement a threat to democracy. The speech said a lot of true things about that movement, but there was an implied confession: We have no strategy. Denouncing Trump and discrediting Trump are two different tasks. And if there’s one thing we’ve learned, denunciation may be morally necessary, but it doesn’t achieve the goal the denouncers think it does.Some commentators argued that Biden’s strategy in the speech was to make Trump the central issue of the 2022 midterms; both Biden and Trump have an interest in making sure that Trump is the sun around which all of American politics revolves.This week, I talked with a Republican who was incensed by Biden’s approach. He is an 82-year-old émigré from Russia who is thinking of supporting Ron DeSantis in the 2024 primaries because he has less baggage. His parents were killed by the Nazis in World War II. “And now Biden’s calling me a fascist?!” he fumed.You would think that those of us in the anti-Trump camp would have at one point stepped back and asked some elemental questions: What are we trying to achieve? Who is the core audience here? Which strategies have worked, and which have not?If those questions were asked, the straightforward conclusion would be that most of what we are doing is not working. The next conclusion might be that there’s a lot of self-indulgence here. We’re doing things that help those of us in the anti-Trump world bond with one another and that help people in the Trump world bond with one another. We’re locking in the political structures that benefit Trump.My core conclusion is that attacking Trump personally doesn’t work. You have to rearrange the underlying situation. We are in the middle of a cultural/economic/partisan/identity war between more progressive people in the metro areas and more conservative people everywhere else. To lead the right in this war, Trump doesn’t have to be honest, moral or competent; he just has to be seen taking the fight to the “elites.”The proper strategy in this situation is to scramble the identity war narrative. That’s what Biden did in 2020. He ran as a middle-class moderate from Scranton. He dodged the culture war issues. That’s what the Democratic Senate candidate John Fetterman is trying to do in Pennsylvania.A Democratic candidate who steps outside the culture/identity war narrative is going to have access to the voters who need to be moved. Public voices who don’t seem locked in the insular educated elite worldview are going to be able to reach the people who need to be reached.Trumpists tell themselves that America is being threatened by a radical left putsch that is out to take over the government and undermine the culture. The core challenge now is to show by word and deed that this is a gross exaggeration.Can Trump win again? Absolutely. I’m a DeSantis doubter. I doubt someone so emotionally flat and charmless can win a nomination in the age of intensive media. And then once Trump is nominated, he has some chance of winning, because nobody is executing an effective strategy against him.If that happens, we can at least console ourselves with that Taylor Swift lyric: “I had a marvelous time ruinin’ everything.”What’s at stake for you on Election Day?In the final weeks before the midterm elections, Times Opinion is asking for your help to better understand what motivates each generation to vote. We’ve created a list of some of the biggest problems facing voters right now. Choose the one that matters most to you and tell us why. We plan to publish a selection of responses shortly before Election Day.

      The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Democrats Delay Senate Vote to Protect Gay Marriage as GOP Balks

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      WASHINGTON — Senate Democrats decided on Thursday to postpone a planned vote on legislation to provide federal protections for same-sex marriage until after the midterm elections in November, amid dimming hopes of drawing enough Republican support to ensure its passage with tight races on the line.Senator Tammy Baldwin, Democrat of Wisconsin and the lead sponsor of the Respect for Marriage Act, said that delaying action would increase the chance of getting the 10 Republican votes needed to push it through the evenly divided Senate, where 60 would be necessary to move it forward.The decision to do so came as a relief to Republicans, the vast majority of whom oppose the measure and were worried that voting against it so close to the elections would alienate voters.It spared Republican senators in difficult re-election races, including Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Marco Rubio of Florida, a fraught choice of casting a vote that would anger their party’s conservative base or one that could sour independent voters in the closing days of the campaign. The amended legislation would also have to go back to the House, where Representative Ted Budd of North Carolina, who is running for the Senate, would then be forced to vote against it for a second time.But the delay angered some Democrats who argued that Republicans should be forced to go on the record with their stance.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.Midterm Data: Could the 2020 polling miss repeat itself? Will this election cycle really be different? Nate Cohn, The Times’s chief political analyst, looks at the data in his new newsletter.Republicans’ Abortion Struggles: Senator Lindsey Graham’s proposed nationwide 15-week abortion ban was intended to unite the G.O.P. before the November elections. But it has only exposed the party’s divisions.Democrats’ Dilemma: The party’s candidates have been trying to signal their independence from the White House, while not distancing themselves from President Biden’s base or agenda.“We need to vote on equal marriage today,” said Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts. “Every single member of Congress should be willing to go on the record. And if there are Republicans who don’t want to vote on that before the election, I assume it is because they are on the wrong side of history.”Polls show that a majority of Americans support same-sex marriage, but Republicans are split. At a private lunch with fellow Republicans this week, Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina made the case to his colleagues that it would be politically wise for them to support the measure, according to a Senate aide who described the meeting on the condition of anonymity.But the turnabout suggested that most Republicans preferred to steer clear of an issue on which their party is split. It was the second time in a week that the G.O.P. had struggled to articulate its position on a major social issue. On Tuesday, Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, introduced a federal 15-week abortion ban, reigniting debate on the issue at a time when polls have shown that voters are already alarmed about the demise of abortion rights. Many Republicans distanced themselves, eager to turn the campaign conversation away from a subject that they believe hurts their candidates.The abrupt change of plans on the marriage bill was the latest surprising turn for the measure, which began as a messaging bill but morphed into a concerted legislative effort after an unexpected number of House Republicans voted for it.“We’re very confident that the bill will pass,” Ms. Baldwin said on Thursday. “But we will need a little more time.”.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.Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the majority leader, had been eager to hold a vote before the elections, even if only to put Republicans on the record voting against a broadly popular position on a social issue. But he deferred to Ms. Baldwin and senators in both parties with whom she had been working to reach a compromise.“Leader Schumer is extremely disappointed that there aren’t 10 Republicans in the Senate willing to vote yes on marriage equality legislation at this time,” Justin Goodman, Mr. Schumer’s spokesman, said in a statement. He added that Mr. Schumer would “hold the bipartisan group to their promise that the votes to pass this marriage equality legislation will be there after the election.”The intense legislative push in the Senate began in July, after the House passed the same-sex marriage bill with 47 Republicans voting in favor. At the time, Mr. Schumer said he was encouraged by the amount of G.O.P. support it had garnered, and promised to work to find the necessary votes to move the measure past a filibuster and to a vote.Ms. Baldwin expressed confidence that she could bring at least 10 Republicans on board, and said that she expected even more to vote in favor of the legislation when it came to the floor.Democrats have been pressing to enact the legislation after the Supreme Court ruling in June that overturned the nearly 50-year-old right to an abortion, and amid concerns that precedents protecting same-sex marriage rights could be the next to fall.But the momentum on the issue faded as Democrats spent the final days before the August recess pushing through the Inflation Reduction Act, the core of President Biden’s domestic agenda.And since returning to Washington last week, Republican senators have expressed concerns about whether the bill would violate the religious liberty of those who do not accept same-sex marriages as valid. The bill would require the government to recognize same-sex marriages, and enshrine marriage equality for the purposes of federal law.But mostly, the concerns that Democrats heard were political, related to the risks of taking such a vote just weeks before the midterm elections.Mr. Schumer wanted to move quickly. He briefly floated the idea of linking the marriage equality legislation to a bill to fund the government that must pass by Sept. 30. And aides said Democrats were considering moving as early as Thursday to set up a floor vote next week on the marriage bill.But Ms. Baldwin demanded more time to find the Republican votes to pass the bill, rather than holding a vote this month in which it would fail at the hands of the G.O.P.“I think we’re in very good shape,” said Senator Susan Collins of Maine, one of the Republicans involved in the negotiations. “This bill is going to pass. I think we’ve managed to thread the needle on the religious liberty concerns. We’ve taken a lot of input.”Emily Cochrane More

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      Fetterman Says Stroke Problems Have Not Slowed Down a ‘Normal’ Campaign

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      Four months after suffering a stroke he described as a “near-death experience,” Lt. Gov. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania acknowledges lingering problems with his speech and hearing that sometimes cause verbal miscues. He has relied on closed captions or the help of staff members to smooth his interactions with voters and reporters as he runs for Senate.But in one of his most extensive interviews since the stroke in May, Mr. Fetterman said he was fully capable of handling the rigors of a campaign that may decide the balance of power in the U.S. Senate. He described driving his children to school, walking several miles a day and rapidly improving his auditory processing — while also lacing into his opponent, the celebrity television physician Mehmet Oz, who trails in the polls and whose campaign has mocked Mr. Fetterman’s health challenges.“I’m running a perfectly normal campaign,” Mr. Fetterman said in a 40-minute interview with The New York Times, conducted by video on Tuesday. He added at another point, “I keep getting better and better, and I’m living a perfectly normal life.”Indeed, Mr. Fetterman’s campaign has seemed increasingly normal in many ways.Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, a Democrat running for Senate in Pennsylvania, at a rally in Blue Bell on Sunday. He acknowledges lingering problems with his speech since a stroke in May.Hannah Beier for The New York TimesThe candidate, whose personality-driven political style has inspired an unusual degree of fandom for a Senate hopeful, speaks at raucous rallies, jokes about his opponent at private fund-raisers and makes occasional news media appearances. His onetime Democratic rivals have moved to show a united front with their party’s nominee. Several Democratic officials who have interacted with Mr. Fetterman closely also said recently that they were encouraged by his progress. On Wednesday, he committed to debating Dr. Oz late next month.Yet in other respects, clashes over health and transparency have shaped the contest to a remarkable degree, fueled by attacks from the Trump-backed Dr. Oz and Republicans promoting out-of-context clips of Mr. Fetterman — and by the realities of Mr. Fetterman’s personal situation.He suffered a stroke on the Friday before the May primary election, though he waited until Sunday to disclose it. On Primary Day, he had a pacemaker and defibrillator implanted, which his campaign described at the time as a standard procedure that would help address “the underlying cause of his stroke, atrial fibrillation.” In a statement in June, his doctor said he also had a serious heart condition called cardiomyopathy.Mr. Fetterman thanked his supporters in a video at his election-night party in May. He has not tended to take questions from the news media at events since the stroke.Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesIn Tuesday’s interview, Mr. Fetterman said, “We have never been hiding any of the health issues.”Those issues have plainly shaped how Mr. Fetterman campaigns now. He has not tended to take questions from the news media at his events, in contrast to his approach right before his stroke. He is still using closed captioning to conduct video conversations, as he did in the interview on Tuesday. And in some appearances over the last month, he jumbled a few words, a problem he has acknowledged.At a Labor Day event last week, he had to restart an occasional sentence, and he promised to “champion the union way of life in Jersey — excuse me, in D.C.,” after he sought to cast Dr. Oz as more comfortable in New Jersey, his longtime principal residence, than in Pennsylvania.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.Midterm Data: Could the 2020 polling miss repeat itself? Will this election cycle really be different? Nate Cohn, The Times’s chief political analyst, looks at the data in his new newsletter.Republicans’ Abortion Struggles: Senator Lindsey Graham’s proposed nationwide 15-week abortion ban was intended to unite the G.O.P. before the November elections. But it has only exposed the party’s divisions.Democrats’ Dilemma: The party’s candidates have been trying to signal their independence from the White House, while not distancing themselves from President Biden’s base or agenda.For in-person appearances, Mr. Fetterman has sometimes relied on staff members to repeat questions he has trouble hearing over background noise.Many voters appear untroubled: A CBS News/YouGov poll released this week found that 59 percent of registered Pennsylvania voters surveyed believed Mr. Fetterman was healthy enough to serve.A cutout of Mr. Fetterman at his campaign rally in Erie, Pa., in August. A doctor found the candidate’s results on neurocognitive tests reassuring.Jeff Swensen for The New York TimesOn Wednesday, his campaign said he had taken neurocognitive tests, mentioning two: the Saint Louis University Mental Status Examination, administered on July 14, and the Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status, or RBANS, taken on Wednesday morning. The campaign said his score on the St. Louis test was 28 out of 30. That score is typical for people with at least a high school education.His score on the RBANS was within the normal range for his age, according to his campaign.Stroke patients often undergo many neurocognitive tests, including brief ones administered by speech therapists and hourslong cognitive evaluations, said Dr. Lee Schwamm, a stroke expert at Massachusetts General Hospital.Dr. Schwamm found Mr. Fetterman’s scores reassuring but added that they “don’t preclude the possibility that his performance is lower than it might have been before his stroke.”But, Dr. Schwamm said, the emphasis on Mr. Fetterman’s cognitive tests plays into what he sees as a bias against people who have had strokes. “It is playing on the fear that a stroke made him vulnerable, weak, incapable of leadership,” he said. “Judge the guy on his merits.”Mr. Fetterman’s campaign said he continued to take all the medications he was prescribed, including the blood thinner rivaroxaban. The campaign also said he had exhibited no stroke symptoms or bleeding since the stroke.Mr. Fetterman’s campaign did not make his doctors available for interviews, and efforts to reach them independently were unsuccessful. Dr. Ramesh Chandra of Alliance Cardiology signed the June letter about Mr. Fetterman’s heart condition. Dr. Chandra’s office said health privacy laws prohibited him from discussing patients without their permission.Mr. Fetterman returned to the campaign trail last month with a splashy rally in Erie, Pa. He has held a number of big campaign events since, including a large one on Sunday, when, The Philadelphia Inquirer noted, “he stumbled over very few words compared with previous speeches.”Mr. Fetterman greeted a large crowd in Blue Bell. Even in appearances when he has halting moments, he can come across as high-energy.Hannah Beier for The New York TimesBy his campaign’s count, he has held more than two dozen fund-raisers since his stroke, conducted dozens of political meetings both in person and over video, and held or attended a number of public events. Even in appearances when he has halting moments, he can come across as high-energy, sometimes adopting the cadence of a stand-up comic to rip into Dr. Oz. He has also used his personal health challenges to bond with voters, asking at events for a show of hands from those who have experienced health problems in their families.“Who has someone, maybe personally, yourself, has ever had a big, major health challenge? OK, all right, how about any of your parents?” Mr. Fetterman said on Sunday. “I’m so sorry. I mean, I certainly have. And I hope, I truly hope for each and every one of you, you didn’t have a doctor in your life making fun of it.”Asked for comment, Barney Keller, an Oz campaign consultant, said that the Fetterman campaign “hasn’t been transparent at all about his health challenges.”Representative Mary Gay Scanlon, a Pennsylvania Democrat who attended the rally and a fund-raiser with Mr. Fetterman on Sunday, said he had strong exchanges at the private event.“There were no closed captions,” Ms. Scanlon said. “He fielded questions and had a sense of humor and was entirely what one would hope for for the next senator from Pennsylvania.”The issue of Mr. Fetterman’s health intensified in recent weeks as Dr. Oz used the matter of debate participation to question Mr. Fetterman’s fitness to serve. Mr. Fetterman’s campaign said Wednesday that he would debate on Oct. 25, two weeks before Election Day, noting that it had held conversations with several TV stations to determine how to accommodate his lingering auditory challenges.Shanin Specter, a Philadelphia lawyer and son of the late Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, said in an interview some voters might regard one debate as insufficient.“The recent indication of agreement to one debate in late October may be seen by voters as too little and too late, especially for those who vote by mail,” said Mr. Specter, who donates to candidates in both parties. He said at another point, “He hasn’t done much campaigning. The film of that which he’s done has been unreassuring. The drip, drip lack of forthrightness about his problems has been corrosive.”Mr. Specter said he supported the Democratic nominee for governor, Josh Shapiro, but was not involved in the Senate race.Dr. Mehmet Oz showed a photo of Mr. Fetterman from a Democratic debate before his stroke. Dr. Oz’s campaign has mocked his rival’s health challenges.Kriston Jae Bethel for The New York TimesShould he win, Mr. Fetterman, 53, would be far younger than many leaders in Washington, including President Biden (79), House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (82) and a number of octogenarian U.S. senators, some of whom have faced scrutiny over their mental acuity.“The goal posts for John keep moving. John is already healthier and more articulate than about 80 percent of the Senate, and he’s getting better every day,” said Rebecca Katz, a senior adviser to the Fetterman campaign.Senator Ben Ray Luján, a New Mexico Democrat who suffered a stroke earlier this year, has been in touch with Mr. Fetterman since his illness and said he had no doubt that Mr. Fetterman could handle the demands of the office.“If anyone wants to see what a stroke survivor looks like, they can just take a look at me,” the senator said, noting his participation in an all-night voting session. “He’s strong. He’s working. He’s connecting with constituents. He’s going to keep doing that.”Mr. Fetterman, for his part, suggested the health scare had given him a new perspective.“I had to be faced with the idea that this could have ended my life when I have three young children,” he said. “That’s 10 times harder than anything that I’m having, dealing with, right now.” More