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      The Midterms Aren’t the Only Thing That’s Looming

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      Gail Collins: Bret, let me throw you what I suspect is a softball. What did you think of Joe Biden’s move to pardon people with federal marijuana convictions?Bret Stephens: Some of my conservative friends think it sends a soft-on-crime message, but I’m OK with it. It doesn’t actually let anyone out of jail, since nobody is in federal prison today solely for simple possession of weed. But it lifts a burden on roughly 6,500 people whose employment and housing chances are harmed by their past convictions.I just wish Biden’s admirable softheartedness on this score were matched by some greater hardheadedness when it comes to dealing with other forms of lawbreaking. Like the migrant crisis about which Eric Adams just declared a state of emergency ….Gail: If your answer is a national rally against certain governors from Florida and Texas who enjoy putting confused and frightened people on planes and buses and shipping them north, I’m in.Bret: Er …Gail: But I have a feeling you’re thinking of something a little more border-focused. Let’s have at it. You first. And while we’re at it, let’s please discuss what to do about the Dreamers who were brought here as children, grew up in America, and are now living here as law-abiding adults in the only country they’ve ever really known.The Dreamers need a clear road to citizenship, but there’ve been a bunch of court cases that have complicated things. A recent ruling shut out anybody who hasn’t already made an application and unless Congress acts to create a formal program, their fate is going to depend on the Supreme Court, God help them.Bret: I’m in favor of full citizenship, immediately, for all Dreamers.Gail: Bracing for the “But … ”Bret: But I’m completely against the insanity of what we’ve got now, which is a vice president claiming we have a “secure border” when we obviously don’t, and a White House that won’t recognize the scale of the crisis at the very moment when much of Latin America is in a state of collapse, and a creaking system that didn’t work well in the first place is now on the verge of collapse. I know too many Republicans have shamefully rejected the idea that we are a nation of immigrants, but too many Democrats seem to be rejecting that idea that we are also a nation of laws.Gail: The current system is definitely a mess and my two immediate proposals are 1) Dramatically beef up American presence at the border for everything from patrol officers to health care workers. 2) Read our colleague Julie Turkewitz’s great in-person reporting on one group of Venezuelans making the trek.Bret: Agree on both points, and I won’t rehash my arguments for a border wall.Gail: Darned. I love to fight with you about that. Go on …Bret: I would just suggest our more liberal readers read another superb report by The Times’s Jennifer Medina from Brownsville, Texas, which was published in February. I can’t do it justice with a summary, so let me quote: “Democrats are destroying a Latino culture built around God, family and patriotism, dozens of Hispanic voters and candidates in South Texas said in interviews. The Trump-era anti-immigrant rhetoric of being tough on the border and building the wall has not repelled these voters from the Republican Party or struck them as anti-Hispanic bigotry. Instead, it has drawn them in.”Gail: The country needs to be reminded we’re talking about people whose goals and needs are the same as the venerable immigrants who’ve come here throughout our history. And that we’re desperately in need of more immigrants to shore up an aging population.Bret: Totally. Let’s just not give the far-right a winning issue in the process.Gail: In an ideal world — or even a rational one — Congress would put together a smart, humane system for quickly processing people who show up at the border, but that’s never going to happen as long as one party insists on making everything about the border a nasty, frequently racist election issue.Bret: First, Democrats have to show they’re serious about border security. But, speaking about unseriousness, can we talk about Herschel Walker?Gail: I know I’m acknowledging a character defect but I love to talk about Herschel Walker.Bret: He’s so absolutely awful, so completely catastrophic, so epically embarrassing, so hilariously hypocritical, so incandescently idiotic, so stratospherically scandalous, so volcanically vomitous, that he may actually serve a purpose.Gail: Go on, go on!Bret: Walker’s revelatory candidacy is to today’s G.O.P. what the odor of rancid chicken is to the chicken itself: It warns you to steer clear. This should have been the Republican’s race to lose, simply because Georgia still elects conservatives, it’s a midterm election, the Republican governor is probably going to be re-elected, and there’s an unpopular Democratic incumbent in the White House. Instead, Walker’s candidacy looks like a cross between the Atlanta Falcons in the 2017 Super Bowl, squandering a 28-3 lead, and Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, minus the finesse.Ugh. Now watch him win.Gail: Well, he’d be voting with your side in the Senate. That wouldn’t make it worth something?Bret: My side? Noooooooooo. As the old Polish proverb has it: “Not my circus, not my monkeys.” It’s really a shame because the country could really use a serious conservative party right now. The economy looks iffy, inflation is raging, gas prices are going back up, and the president is telling people that we’re as close to Armageddon as we’ve been since the Cuban missile crisis.Speaking of which, did you find Biden’s Cuban missile riff at a Democratic fund-raiser reassuring because he sounds experienced, or terrifying because he would speak so casually about it?Gail: Bret, you know I try to avoid foreign affairs, but we’re basically talking about Biden showing how very seriously he takes the idea of Russia messing, even in the supposedly most controlled way, with nuclear weapons in his fight with Ukraine.I’m sorta OK with our president being very, very, very clear that Putin can’t be thinking along this line. Putin’s obviously in a corner when it comes to Ukraine, and I’m sure he’s feeling tempted to do something desperate.You?Bret: If I had to place a few bets, the first would be that Putin is very likely to use tactical nuclear weapons, especially if his army starts to crumble around the southern city of Kherson. The second bet is that using the weapons will not change the dynamic on the battlefield. Instead, it will make things worse for Putin as the West responds by seizing Russia’s foreign reserves, providing Ukraine with much more powerful weaponry, even deploying NATO warplanes to patrol Ukrainian air space. My third bet is that this will lead to a palace coup in Moscow. And my fourth is that Putin will be replaced by someone even worse, like the awful spymaster Nikolai Patrushev.All that said, I’d also bet that Democrats will hold the Senate, 50-50. What’s your money on?Gail: Ditto, entirely because the Republicans have so many bad candidates. It ought to be their time — the public is twitchy because of inflation, etc.Bret: And every bad candidate was handpicked and promoted by you-know-who.Gail: Boy, there are a lot of awful nominees there. Not just our friend Herschel. In New Hampshire, the Republican nominee, Don Bolduc, and Arizona’s Blake Masters are both nightmares for their party.You know one interesting thing, though, Bret — Bolduc and Masters both ran for the nomination with the Trumpian claim that Biden didn’t really win the presidency. And now they’re backpedaling like crazy.Bret: Backpedaling from crazy, too.Gail: Is this a sign of national sanity on the rise, or something less … inspiring?Bret: Less inspiring, I’d say. It really points to the deep cynicism at work in today’s G.O.P. Our new colleague, Carlos Lozada, really put his finger on it a few weeks ago in his wonderful debut column. He called it “the joke” — that is, the Trumpian notion that you can tell lie after lie in politics because you’ve adopted the quasi-comical, quasi-nihilistic premise that truth is whatever you can get away with.Gail: Carlos is wonderful. His message is so right. And important. Pardon me while I pour a drink.Bret: And that’s the same premise that Vladimir Putin has adopted, along with so many other dictators in history. Which is why I was so pleased to see a human rights proponent in Belarus and human rights organizations in Ukraine and Russia win the Nobel Peace Prize last week. The great Czech writer Milan Kundera once wrote that “the struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.”I think that struggle is as much at stake in the battles in Ukraine as it is in the fight over the meaning of Jan. 6.Gail: On the plus side, we have tons of candidates, reform groups and reporters on our side, trying to keep memory alive.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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      How the Supreme Court’s State Legislature Case Could Change Elections

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      EASTPOINTE, Mich. — The conversation started with potholes.Veronica Klinefelt, a Democratic candidate for State Senate in suburban Detroit, was out knocking on doors as she tries to win a seat her party sees as critical for taking back the chamber. “I am tired of seeing cuts in aging communities like ours,” she told one voter, gesturing to a cul-de-sac pocked with cracks and crevasses. “We need to reinvest here.”What went largely unspoken, however, was how this obscure local race has significant implications for the future of American democracy.The struggle for the Michigan Senate, as well as clashes for control of several other narrowly divided chambers in battleground states, have taken on outsize importance at a time when state legislatures are ever more powerful. With Congress often deadlocked and conservatives dominating the Supreme Court, state governments increasingly steer the direction of voting laws, abortion access, gun policy, public health, education and other issues dominating the lives of Americans.The Supreme Court could soon add federal elections to that list.The justices are expected to decide whether to grant nearly unfettered authority over such elections to state legislatures — a legal argument known as the independent state legislature theory. If the court does so, many Democrats believe, state legislatures could have a pathway to overrule the popular vote in presidential elections by refusing to certify the results and instead sending their own slates of electors.While that might seem like a doomsday scenario, 44 percent of Republicans in crucial swing-state legislatures used the power of their office to discredit or try to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, according to a New York Times analysis. More like-minded G.O.P. candidates on the ballot could soon join them in office.Republicans have complete control over legislatures in states that have a total of 307 electoral votes — 37 more than needed to win a presidential election. They hold majorities in several battleground states, meaning that if the Supreme Court endorsed the legal theory, a close presidential election could be overturned if just a few states assigned alternate slates of electors.Democrats’ chances of bringing Republicans’ total below 270 are narrow: They would need to flip the Michigan Senate or the Arizona Senate, and then one chamber in both Pennsylvania and New Hampshire in 2024, in addition to defending the chambers the party currently controls.Democrats and Republicans have set their sights on half a dozen states where state legislatures — or at least a single chamber — could flip in November. Democrats hope to wrest back one of the chambers in Michigan and the Arizona Senate, and flip the Minnesota Senate. Republicans aim to win back the Minnesota House of Representatives and take control of one chamber, or both, in the Maine, Colorado and Nevada legislatures. They are also targeting Oregon and Washington.An avalanche of money has flowed into these races. The Republican State Leadership Committee, the party’s campaign arm for state legislative races, has regularly set new fund-raising records, raising $71 million this cycle. The group’s Democratic counterpart has also broken fund-raising records, raising $45 million. Outside groups have spent heavily, too: The States Project, a Democratic super PAC, has pledged to invest nearly $60 million in five states.At a candidate forum on Wednesday in Midland, Mich., Kristen McDonald Rivet, a Democrat, and Annette Glenn, a Republican, faced off in their highly competitive State Senate race.Emily Elconin for The New York TimesThe television airwaves, rarely a place where state legislative candidates go to war, have been flooded with advertising on the races. More than $100 million has been spent nationwide since July, an increase of $20 million over the same period in 2020, according to AdImpact, a media tracking firm.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.The Final Stretch: With less than one month until Election Day, Republicans remain favored to take over the House, but momentum in the pitched battle for the Senate has seesawed back and forth.Herschel Walker: A woman who said that the G.O.P. Senate nominee in Georgia paid for her abortion in 2009 told The Times that he urged her to terminate a second pregnancy two years later. She chose to have their son instead.Will the Walker Allegations Matter?: The scandal could be decisive largely because of the circumstances in Georgia, writes Nate Cohn, The Times’s chief political analyst.Pennsylvania Senate Race: John Fetterman, the Democratic nominee, says he can win over working-class voters in deep-red counties. But as polls tighten in the contest, that theory is under strain.Democrats are finding, however, that motivating voters on an issue as esoteric as the independent state legislature theory is not an easy task.“Voters care a whole lot about a functioning democracy,” said Daniel Squadron, a Democratic former state senator from New York and a founder of the States Project. But, he said, the independent state legislature “threat still feels as though it’s on the horizon, even though it’s upon us.”For some Republicans, the issue of the independent state legislature theory is far from the campaign trail, and far from their concerns.“If it’s a decision by the Supreme Court, based on their legal opinion, I would defer to their legal expertise,” said Michael D. MacDonald, the Republican state senator running against Ms. Klinefelt. “I certainly respect the court’s opinion when they make it. I think it’s important that we do.”Instead, Republicans are focusing on economic topics like inflation.“The economy remains the issue that voters are most concerned about in their daily lives, and is the issue that will decide the battle for state legislatures in November,” said Andrew Romeo, the communications director for the Republican State Leadership Committee. The group’s internal polling shows that inflation and the cost of living are the No. 1 priority in every state surveyed.The issues defining each election vary widely by district. Some of them, like roads, school funding and water, are hyperlocal — subjects that rarely drive a congressional or statewide race.In the Detroit suburbs, Mr. MacDonald said he had heard the same concerns.“When they have something to say, it’s never ‘Joe Biden’ or ‘Donald Trump,’ it’s, ‘Hey, you know, actually my road, it’s a little bumpy, what can you do?’” Mr. MacDonald said. He added, “Sometimes it could be as small as, ‘Can they get a garbage can from our garbage contractor?’”His pitch to voters, in turn, focuses on money that Macomb County, which makes up a large part of the district, has received from the state budget since he was elected four years ago. More

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      Hochul Outpaces Zeldin in Cash Race, but Super PACs Help His Cause

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      Gov. Kathy Hochul has used her fund-raising edge to spend more than $1.5 million a week since Labor Day on an aggressive television ad campaign.Since she took office last year, Gov. Kathy Hochul’s voracious fund-raising apparatus has been a source of curiosity and concern among various factions of New York’s political and business elite.But with just a month left in one of the nation’s marquee governor’s races, it has given Ms. Hochul an increasingly clear payoff: a financial advantage over her Republican opponent, Representative Lee Zeldin, as she seeks to become the first woman to be elected governor of New York.Ms. Hochul raised $11.1 million, or about $133,000 a day on average, from mid-July to early October, according to campaign filings made public late Friday that showed numerous high-dollar events in the Hamptons and Manhattan. She will enter the homestretch of the race with nearly $10.9 million in cash at her disposal — two and a half times as much money as Mr. Zeldin.As independent polls show Ms. Hochul, a Buffalo Democrat, with a fluctuating lead, she has poured most of the cash into an unrelenting ad campaign to try to highlight Mr. Zeldin’s opposition to abortion rights and support for former President Donald J. Trump. It is not cheap: Records show Ms. Hochul has spent more than $1.5 million a week since Labor Day to blanket New Yorkers’ televisions and smartphones.Mr. Zeldin’s fund-raising total represents a fraction of the kinds of campaign hauls being put together by other Republicans running for governor in big states this fall as the party tries to make major gains nationwide.But unlike other recent Republican nominees in New York, Mr. Zeldin has seemed to put together enough money to remain competitive in the race’s final weeks. His campaign reported raising $6.4 million during the three-month period, including large hauls at events featuring Mr. Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida. Mr. Zeldin has roughly $4.5 million in cash, a figure that surprised some Democrats.“Lee Zeldin is raising enough money to run a more competitive race than the last few Republican gubernatorial nominees,” said Evan Stavisky, a leading New York Democratic strategist. “However, and this is a big however, money isn’t the only reason Republicans haven’t won a statewide election in 20 years, and Zeldin is still going to be vastly outspent by Kathy Hochul.”There are more than twice as many registered Democrats than Republicans in the state — a margin that underscores Mr. Zeldin’s challenge.Notably, a pair of Republican super PACs, largely funded by a single conservative billionaire cosmetics heir, have stepped in to help narrow the financial gap: The two groups, Safe Together NY and Save our State NY, have collectively spent close to $4 million in recent weeks on ads echoing Mr. Zeldin’s attacks on Ms. Hochul, according to AdImpact, an ad tracking firm. The ads accuse the governor of being soft on crime and weak on the economy.Unlike campaign committees, the groups can accept unlimited donations, allowing wealthy individuals to exercise huge amounts of influence on the race. In the case of the governor’s race, Ronald S. Lauder, the cosmetics heir, has already committed close to $4.5 million to the two PACs, a number that is expected to grow in the coming weeks.Ms. Hochul, who took office last year after the resignation of Andrew M. Cuomo, does not have a similar super PAC aiding her campaign. But she has raised millions of dollars from wealthy donors with business interests before the state, an arrangement that, while common among her predecessors, has nonetheless drawn scrutiny from good governance watchdogs who worry that it is creating conflicts of interest.Though Ms. Hochul’s campaign touted that 60 percent of its contributions were for less than $200, the vast majority of her funds came in far larger increments, including more than 100 contributions of $25,000 or more, the filings showed.More than $2 million came directly from corporations, unions and political action committees, including Eli Lilly, Lyft, Charter Communications and Pfizer. The personal injury law firm Gair, Gair, Conason and the medical malpractice firm Kramer, Dillof, Livingston & Moore each funneled $100,000 to the campaign.Ms. Hochul also received large contributions from members of prominent New York families who have supported Mr. Zeldin. Ronald Lauder’s nephew, William P. Lauder, for example, gave Ms. Hochul $40,000. Haim Chera, a real estate executive whose family hosted the Zeldin fund-raiser attended by Mr. Trump, gave her $47,100. Mr. Chera is an executive at Vornado Realty Trust, a colossal firm that stands to benefit from Ms. Hochul’s plan to redevelop the area around Pennsylvania Station in Manhattan.Mr. Zeldin’s campaign took in about a third as many large checks, but it is benefiting from special interests, too. Two PACs associated with the Rent Stabilization Association, a pro-landlord trade group, gave a combined $89,000. Arnold Gumowitz, a real estate developer who has given to Ms. Hochul but is fighting the Penn Station project, contributed $47,100. Altogether, close to $500,000 came in from corporations, PACs and other special interests groups.Despite lending his presence to a fund-raiser, Mr. Trump has not cut a check to Mr. Zeldin, a longtime ally, nor has any group the former president controls.Other Republicans seeking to challenge statewide Democratic officeholders in New York are more clearly struggling to assemble the resources they need to compete.While Letitia James, the Democratic attorney general, reported $2.75 million in cash on hand, her opponent, Michael Henry, had just $146,000. Thomas P. DiNapoli, the Democratic comptroller, reported having $1,998,366 on hand, roughly 630 times as much as the $3,173.14 in the bank account of his opponent, Paul Rodriguez.Despite the millions being spent, the race for governor of New York is actually shaping up to be relatively cheap compared to other, more competitive contests in big states like Texas, Georgia and Wisconsin, which could cost well over $100 million each. In Georgia, the candidates for governor announced raising a total of nearly $65 million during the last three months. More

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      Fetterman’s Blue-Collar Allure Is Tested in Pennsylvania Senate Race

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      John Fetterman, the Democratic nominee for Senate, says he can win over working-class voters in deep-red counties. Some evidence suggests he can, but partisan loyalties may prove more powerful.MURRYSVILLE, Pa. — “I don’t have to tell you that it is hard to be a Democrat in Westmoreland County.”So began the chairwoman of the Westmoreland Democratic Party, Michelle McFall, as she introduced Lt. Gov. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania to supporters this week in the deep-red exurbs of Pittsburgh.About 100 people were gathered in a parking lot behind the Fetterman campaign bus, emblazoned with the slogan “Every County, Every Vote.” That is the strategy on which Mr. Fetterman has built his Senate candidacy — announced last year with a video reminiscent of a Springsteen song, showing small towns where people “feel left behind” and promising that “Fetterman can get a lot of those voters.”Now, in the final weeks before Election Day, with polls showing a narrowing race in a pivotal contest for control of the Senate, the premise that Mr. Fetterman can win over rural voters, including some who supported former President Donald J. Trump, is under strain.Mr. Fetterman has limited his campaign schedule as he recovers from a stroke, unable to visit “every county.” He is facing fierce Republican attacks that appear to be hitting home with voters, particularly over his record on crime. The share of voters who view Mr. Fetterman unfavorably has risen, while many Republicans have grudgingly rallied behind their nominee, Mehmet Oz. Because Mr. Fetterman had a double-digit lead in polling over the summer, the race’s tightening, while typical in a battleground state, has caused Democrats’ anxiety to rise.In a speech lasting just five minutes, Mr. Fetterman told supporters in Westmoreland County, which Mr. Trump won by 28 percentage points in 2020, that “we must jam up red counties” by running up votes. Still recovering from his stroke in May, Mr. Fetterman spoke fluently but haltingly, with gaps between words. It typified how his campaign has been forced to pivot from relying on Mr. Fetterman’s charisma before crowds, in stump appearances during the spring, to a strategy focused heavily on social media and television ads. A single debate with Dr. Oz is scheduled for Oct. 25.In Pennsylvania’s vast rural areas, the Fetterman campaign aims to improve upon the 2020 performance of President Biden, another candidate who banked on his Everyman appeal, and who narrowly carried the state.Exceeding Mr. Biden in red counties may be necessary if Mr. Fetterman does not match the blowout Biden victories in the Philadelphia suburbs, where the foil of Mr. Trump in 2020 repelled college-educated voters. More

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      Five Takeaways From the Wisconsin Senate Debate

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      The first debate between Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, a Republican, and his Democratic challenger, Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, was a study in contrasts between an unapologetic, older conservative and a younger liberal who appeared unafraid of his ideological roots. Here are five takeaways.Move to the center? Not in this race.The debate put the two candidates’ ideological differences on full display. Mr. Barnes, a Milwaukee native who rose in politics as a progressive, has taken pains in his general-election campaign videos and advertisements to tour Wisconsin farms and present a bland, if earnest, image of wholesomeness. But in the debate, he did not pivot to the center, embracing marijuana legalization, defending Black Lives Matter protesters, and proposing school funding and job creation as answers to high murder rates.Mr. Johnson, who has a long history of spreading misinformation on topics including the coronavirus and voter fraud, cast doubt on the established science of man-made climate change. He mocked federal efforts to regulate carbon dioxide and saying, “The climate has always changed, always will change.” Mr. Johnson did punt on abortion, saying it was not up to Congress or the Wisconsin Legislature. The state’s residents, he said, should decide in a one-time referendum “at what point does society have a responsibility to protect life in the womb?” He did not say how he would vote.Barnes had some friendly terrain.Mr. Barnes seemed to receive more opportunities from the debate’s moderators, who allowed him to go after Mr. Johnson on some of the central themes of Democratic campaigns nationwide: abortion and the threats to democracy revealed by the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.Standing by Herschel Walker: After a report that the G.O.P. Senate candidate in Georgia paid for a girlfriend’s abortion in 2009, Republicans rallied behind him, fearing that a break with the former football star could hurt the party’s chances to take the Senate.Wisconsin Senate Race: Mandela Barnes, the Democratic candidate, is wobbling in his contest against Senator Ron Johnson, the Republican incumbent, as an onslaught of G.O.P. attack ads takes a toll.G.O.P. Senate Gains: After signs emerged that Republicans were making gains in the race for the Senate, the polling shift is now clear, writes Nate Cohn, The Times’s chief political analyst.Democrats’ Closing Argument: Buoyed by polls that show the end of Roe v. Wade has moved independent voters their way, vulnerable House Democrats have reoriented their campaigns around abortion rights in the final weeks before the election.He was also able to press his portrayal of the incumbent senator as a wealthy businessman out to feather his nest and look after his well-to-do friends and benefactors.“If you’re a multimillionaire, he’ll look after you,” Mr. Barnes said.Negativity on the airwaves (mostly) continued in the debate.To wrap up the debate, the candidates were asked to clear up any harmful impressions left by the cascade of negative advertising in the state. Mr. Johnson took up the challenge, but as he did, he sounded defensive, saying he had not, in fact, cut his own taxes or the taxes of his friends when he helped pass former President Donald J. Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, which were skewed toward the rich. Mr. Johnson called the assertion that he “got a tax cut only for myself and a few of my supporters” one of the campaign’s “grotesque distortions.”Mr. Barnes took another tack. Political groups supporting Mr. Johnson have showered the state with advertisements on crime that play to white fears and grievances, in the process calling Mr. Barnes, who is Black, “different.”“I embrace that,” Mr. Barnes said, trying to grab the mantle of change.National battles over crime and abortion took center stage.Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, abortion has been a highly emotional issue in Wisconsin, home to a law from 1849 that bans abortion with almost no exceptions. Mr. Barnes sought to put Mr. Johnson on the defensive over the issue, describing the dangerous or heart-wrenching circumstances under which women sometimes seek abortions, and casting the senator’s opposition to abortion rights as “dangerous, out of touch and extreme.” That is a message Democrats are deploying in races across the country, and especially on the airwaves..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. Johnson was pressed for specifics, and he said he supported birth control and in-vitro fertilization, along with calling for a state referendum to determine “at what point does society have the responsibility to protect life,” something Mr. Barnes dismissed as unrealistic. But Mr. Johnson also embraced an issue that is animating Republican ads in major races: crime. He repeatedly questioned Mr. Barnes’s commitment to funding law enforcement, and sought to conjure memories of protests that turned destructive in the summer of 2020, after the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Mr. Barnes emphasized his commitment to public safety.‘Defund the police’ and Jan. 6 were cudgels in a fight over support for law enforcement.Many Democratic officials and candidates rejected the “defund the police” slogan long ago. But Mr. Johnson sought to attach it to Mr. Barnes anyway on Friday, even as he conceded that Mr. Barnes does not embrace that language.“He has a record of wanting to defund the police, and I know he doesn’t necessarily say that word,” Mr. Johnson said. “But he has a long history of being supported by people that are leading the effort to defund.”He accused Mr. Barnes of using “code words” like “reallocate over-bloated police budgets.”Mr. Barnes did suggest in a 2020 television interview that some funding be diverted from “over-bloated budgets in police departments” to social services. Since then, he has said explicitly that he doesn’t support “defunding the police,” and has emphasized that law enforcement should have necessary resources.“I’ve spent my entire career working to make communities safer,” Mr. Barnes said, emphasizing that “there’s so much more we need to do to keep guns out of the hands of violent criminals.”He also questioned whether Mr. Johnson’s support for law enforcement extended to the officers who were attacked during the Capitol riot, which Mr. Johnson has minimized. More

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      Jill Biden Discusses Friend’s Abortion and Rebukes ‘Extremist Republicans’

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      The first lady said she had once helped a friend recover from an abortion before there was a constitutional right to the procedure. “Women will not let this country go backwards,” she said.Jill Biden, the first lady, said on Friday that she had once helped a friend recover from an abortion before there was a constitutional right to the procedure, evoking the issue in deeply personal terms at a political fund-raiser as she warned of further restrictions from “extremist Republicans.”Dr. Biden, who was introduced by Speaker Nancy Pelosi before speaking to a group of donors in San Francisco, said that in the late 1960s — years before the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade established a right to abortion — a friend got pregnant. At that time, abortion was outlawed in Pennsylvania, where Dr. Biden grew up.Her friend, whom she did not name, told her that she had undergone a psychological evaluation to be declared mentally unfit before a doctor agreed to administer one.“I went to see her in the hospital and then cried the whole drive home,” said Dr. Biden, who said she was 17 at the time. “When she was discharged from the hospital, she couldn’t go back to her house, so I gathered my courage and asked my mom, ‘Can she come stay with us?’”Dr. Biden, now 71, said that her mother, Bonny Jean Jacobs, allowed her friend to visit and that the two kept it a secret. Mrs. Jacobs died in 2008.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.Standing by Herschel Walker: After a report that the G.O.P. Senate candidate in Georgia paid for a girlfriend’s abortion in 2009, Republicans rallied behind him, fearing that a break with the former football star could hurt the party’s chances to take the Senate.Wisconsin Senate Race: Mandela Barnes, the Democratic candidate, is wobbling in his contest against Senator Ron Johnson, the Republican incumbent, as an onslaught of G.O.P. attack ads takes a toll.G.O.P. Senate Gains: After signs emerged that Republicans were making gains in the race for the Senate, the polling shift is now clear, writes Nate Cohn, The Times’s chief political analyst.Democrats’ Closing Argument: Buoyed by polls that show the end of Roe v. Wade has moved independent voters their way, vulnerable House Democrats have reoriented their campaigns around abortion rights in the final weeks before the election.“Secrecy. Shame. Silence. Danger. Even death,” Dr. Biden said. “That’s what defined that time for so many women.”President Biden, a Roman Catholic who has struggled with his views over abortion access, often connects his argument to the broader right for Americans to make private medical decisions. In speeches and public statements, he uses the word “abortion” sparingly, focusing instead on broader phrases, like “reproductive health” and “the right to choose,” that might resonate more widely with the public.Dr. Biden has also been judicious with her use of the word. But her story, shared publicly for the first time, cast the issue in a personal light as Democrats seek to capitalize on voter anger over the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade this summer to hold onto Congress in the November midterm elections. As abortion bans have taken effect in more than a dozen states, there are already signs that the issue has helped buoy the party against rampant inflation and Mr. Biden’s poor approval ratings.“I was shocked when the Dobbs decision came out,” Dr. Biden said, referring to the case that overturned Roe. “It was devastating — how could we go back to that time?“I thought of all the girls and women, like my friend, whose education, careers and future depended on the ability to choose when they have children,” she said..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.After decades of marriage to Mr. Biden, the first lady, who teaches full-time at a community college in Virginia, has evolved into an avid campaigner whose remarks often carry a personal touch.Like her husband, she has often avoided confrontational language when talking about the Republican Party in public. (During Mr. Biden’s presidential campaign, Dr. Biden and her aides had decided that they could draw a contrast between her husband and former President Donald J. Trump just by describing her husband, rather than attacking Mr. Trump directly.)Still, both Bidens have started to take a more aggressive stance toward Republicans, who have broadly backed abortion restrictions, even as they have struggled to unite around the idea of a national ban. In her remarks, Dr. Biden repeatedly called their agenda “extremist.”“But here’s the thing that those extremists don’t understand about women,” she said. “This isn’t the first time that we’ve been underestimated. It’s not the first time that someone has tried to tell us what we can and can’t do.”As the midterms grow closer, Dr. Biden is expected to ramp up her traveling and deliver speeches related to her own portfolio of issues, including cancer research, education and support for the military. But she will also emphasize fund-raising and supporting Democrats in tight races, according to a person familiar with her plans.On Friday, the fund-raiser, which raised money for congressional Democrats, starting at $500 a plate, was tucked between a visit to a cancer research center and a Saturday event focused on military families in Seattle, where she plans to appear with Senator Patty Murray of Washington.During the event, Dr. Biden urged supporters to “defend congressional seats held by women like Teresa and Mary” — referring to Representative Teresa Leger Fernandez of New Mexico, a swing-district Democrat, and Representative Mary Peltola of Alaska, a Democrat who won an August special election to replace Don Young, a Republican who died in March after serving there for 49 years.“Women will not let this country go backwards,” Dr. Biden said. “We’ve fought too hard for too long. And we know that there is just too much on the line.” More

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      On the Ballot This Year: The Ballot Itself

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      Republicans are trying to limit the use of citizen-initiated legislation in some states after years of progressive victories.Ballot measures, a tool many states adopted during the Progressive Era to allow voters to pass their own laws, don’t always get much news coverage — but they can often surprise us.This year, there are hotly contested ballot measures on abortion, marijuana legalization and Medicaid expansion, among other topics.But at the same time, there are efforts in many states to make it harder to pass ballot measures.Depending on whom you ask, these proposals are either a frontal attack on democracy or a necessary move to counteract attempts by national liberal groups to hijack state politics.Either way, state legislatures have made hundreds of attempts to limit or restrict the use of ballot measures over the last five years, according to forthcoming research by Emma Olson Sharkey, a lawyer with the Elias Law Group.In some cases, legislatures have tinkered with the rules for how many signatures are required, or the necessary qualifications for those doing the canvassing.But this year, legislatures in several states have put proposals to make passing ballot measures more difficult on the ballot itself.Take Arkansas, where there is a ballot measure this year to restrict ballot measures, called Issue 2. If a simple majority votes yes, in the future it will take 60 percent of voters to adopt constitutional amendments or laws initiated by citizens.The measure was sponsored by two Republican lawmakers, State Representative David Ray and State Senator Bart Hester. Ray, in a television discussion of the proposal, described the higher threshold as necessary “to ensure that there’s a genuine consensus among voters.” The Arkansas Constitution, he said, should not be amended in “willy-nilly fashion” by “big-money, out-of-state interests.”There is some sleight of hand there, opponents say. Issue 2 would effectively grant a veto on ballot measures to 40 percent of the public, while the Republican-led General Assembly could still pass laws by a bare majority.Most states require a simple “50 percent plus one” majority to pass a ballot measure. Only three states have supermajority requirements similar to what’s on the table in Arkansas — Florida, Washington and Oregon, in some circumstances.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.Standing by Herschel Walker: After a report that the G.O.P. Senate candidate in Georgia paid for a girlfriend’s abortion in 2009, Republicans rallied behind him, fearing that a break with the former football star could hurt the party’s chances to take the Senate.Wisconsin Senate Race: Mandela Barnes, the Democratic candidate, is wobbling in his contest against Senator Ron Johnson, the Republican incumbent, as an onslaught of G.O.P. attack ads takes a toll.G.O.P. Senate Gains: After signs emerged that Republicans were making gains in the race for the Senate, the polling shift is now clear, writes Nate Cohn, The Times’s chief political analyst.Democrats’ Closing Argument: Buoyed by polls that show the end of Roe v. Wade has moved independent voters their way, vulnerable House Democrats have reoriented their campaigns around abortion rights in the final weeks before the election.In Arizona, there are three proposed restrictions to ballot measures on this year’s ballot: Proposition 128, which would allow the Legislature to amend or repeal ballot measures even after they are approved if a judge rules that provisions within them are unconstitutional; Proposition 129, which would limit citizen-initiated ballot measures to a single topic; and Proposition 132, which would require any ballot initiative that would raise taxes to pass by 60 percent.As in Arkansas, the supporters of these ballot measures say they are necessary to rein in abuses of the process. Critics say they are intended to lock in the power of a Legislature that was gerrymandered to favor Republicans despite an independent redistricting commission’s best efforts to make the maps fairer.Liberal groups have found ballot measures to be a powerful, if expensive, tool to promote their policies — even in red states. They say their successes in raising the minimum wage and expanding health care coverage via what they call “direct democracy” have caused Republicans to push back by changing the rules. In Maine, Idaho, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Utah, voters have expanded access to Medicaid via ballot measure, going over the heads of the states’ legislatures.In South Dakota, voters this year decisively defeated Republicans’ push to pass a constitutional amendment requiring most voter-initiated referendums to pass with 60 percent of the vote, rather than by a simple majority. More than two-thirds of voters rejected the measure.Most, but not all, of the legislatures trying to limit the use of ballot measures are Republican-held. Democratic-run Colorado raised the requirement for passing constitutional amendments to 55 percent in 2016, for instance.Kelly Hall, the executive director of the Fairness Project, a progressive group that focuses on winning ballot measures, hailed the results of the recent referendum in Kansas, where voters rejected a proposal to add a ban on abortion to the state’s Constitution.“Many of us had a delightful wake-up call on the power of ballot measures in early August with the vote in Kansas,” Hall said. “But it has also sparked a backlash,” she added, and “a lot of opposition spending.”In Arkansas, reaching a 60 percent threshold might be difficult on highly polarized issues, but it would probably not be insurmountable.From 2000 to 2020, Arkansas voters approved 32 ballot measures out of 44 total. Only 18 of the 32 would have passed under the proposed 60 percent threshold.While progressives in Arkansas have notched some victories, there is no clear pattern.In 2020, voters barred state legislators from serving for more than 12 consecutive years in office. State judges removed two other proposals from the ballot on technicalities: a proposal to create an independent redistricting commission, and the introduction of a ranked-choice voting system similar to Alaska’s. In 2018, Arkansas voters passed a measure to require photo identification to vote; they also increased the state’s minimum wage to $11 per hour. And in a 2016 ballot measure, they legalized medical marijuana.The California modelFor the skeptical, California offers a cautionary tale. Critics of the state’s penchant for direct democracy say it has led to higher taxes and a not-in-my-backyard mind-set, exacerbating a housing crisis and driving away businesses.This year, one of the most expensive races in the country is not for any political office, but a battle over two ballot measures in California regarding gambling on sports.Proposition 26 would allow tribal casinos and the state’s racetracks to host sports betting. Proposition 27 would allow Native American tribes and licensed gambling companies to host sports betting outside tribal lands.An estimated $440 million has been spent on lobbying campaigns and ads so far on the two propositions, with little transparency on who is funding what — exactly the kind of spectacle many states are trying to avoid.“These are hard calls,” Hall said, defending her group’s use of ballot measures as necessary to circumvent gerrymandered and sclerotic legislatures. “These are expensive. And California’s an example of where maybe it’s gone too far.”What to read on democracyRepublicans are keeping tabs on the political affiliations of poll workers in swing states, and claiming unfairness when there are more Democrats than Republicans, The Washington Post reports.Former President Donald Trump called this week for a return to paper ballots.The Center for Public Integrity examined which states make it the most difficult for people to vote, and which ones make it easier.An Iowa man has been arrested on suspicion of making threats toward an elections supervisor in Maricopa County, Ariz.Representative Liz Cheney urged Arizonans to vote against Kari Lake for governor and Mark Finchem for secretary of state, warning that they are threats to democracy.In Green Bay, Wis., conspiracy theories about the 2020 election abound, changing the tenor of municipal races and yielding a robust pool of partisan poll observers.viewfinderSupporters of Mandela Barnes watching him speak at an event on Monday at a brewery in Racine, Wis.Haiyun Jiang/The New York TimesAn abortion rights pitchOn Politics regularly features work by Times photographers. Here’s what Haiyun Jiang told us about capturing the image above:The lighting was tricky, I realized when I walked into a little brewery where Mandela Barnes, the Democratic nominee for Senate in Wisconsin, was holding a “Ron Against Roe” event targeting his opponent, Senator Ron Johnson, over his opposition to abortion rights.It was the middle of the day, and the sunlight was harsh. I tried to avoid making images that had too much discrepancy in light.As Barnes spoke, I noticed that women made up the majority of the audience. I directed my lens toward them, finding a table for which the lighting worked and waiting for the right moment to convey the audience’s mood.For me, this image shows the significance of abortion rights as an issue in this year’s midterm elections.Thank you for reading On Politics, and for being a subscriber to The New York Times. — BlakeRead past editions of the newsletter here.If you’re enjoying what you’re reading, please consider recommending it to others. They can sign up here. Browse all of our subscriber-only newsletters here.Have feedback? Ideas for coverage? We’d love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com. More

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      Five Takeaways From the Arizona Senate Debate

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      PHOENIX — It was a battle over whether Arizona is still the conservative-leaning state of Barry Goldwater and John McCain.Senator Mark Kelly faced his Republican challenger, Blake Masters, on Thursday in the first and only debate of the race that will help decide whether Democrats maintain control of the Senate, which they hold by the barest of margins. Mr. Kelly repeatedly emphasized his independent image, referring frequently to his disagreements with members of his own party, including President Biden.The two men, who have spent months attacking each other on issues including abortion, border security, inflation and election integrity, were also joined by Marc Victor, the Libertarian candidate, who has not reached double digits in polls.The debate did little to cover new ground on the most contentious issues, but the moderator asked pointed, direct questions in a bid to force the candidates to clarify their sometimes murky positions. Mr. Masters tried to straddle the line between his previous hard-line stances and his more recently adopted softer tone — but continued to largely play to his base, even if it required some winks and a nod or two.Abortion becomes a flash point.Abortion has vaulted to the front of many voters’ minds in Arizona, not just after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade this June, but because a state judge revived a total ban on abortions from 1864 that had sat dormant for decades. Abortions in the state, already on shaky ground, halted abruptly.So on Thursday, each candidate tried to paint the other as an abortion extremist. Mr. Kelly pointed to statements where Mr. Masters had called abortion “demonic,” and said Mr. Masters wanted to punish doctors and ban abortions in cases of rape.Mr. Masters said he was proud to call himself one of the most pro-life candidates running for Senate, and quickly leveled a misleading accusation that Mr. Kelly supported late-term abortions up until the moment of birth. In reality, abortions late in pregnancy are rare and often occur because of a devastating health problem in an otherwise wanted pregnancy.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.Standing by Herschel Walker: After a report that the G.O.P. Senate candidate in Georgia paid for a girlfriend’s abortion in 2009, Republicans rallied behind him, fearing that a break with the former football star could hurt the party’s chances to take the Senate.Wisconsin Senate Race: Mandela Barnes, the Democratic candidate, is wobbling in his contest against Senator Ron Johnson, the Republican incumbent, as an onslaught of G.O.P. attack ads takes a toll.G.O.P. Senate Gains: After signs emerged that Republicans were making gains in the race for the Senate, the polling shift is now clear, writes Nate Cohn, The Times’s chief political analyst.Democrats’ Closing Argument: Buoyed by polls that show the end of Roe v. Wade has moved independent voters their way, vulnerable House Democrats have reoriented their campaigns around abortion rights in the final weeks before the election.It’s always 2020 in Arizona.Faced with a direct question about whether Mr. Masters believed the 2020 vote was stolen, he seemed to blink. He talked of collusion between tech companies, the news media and F.B.I. to suppress negative news about President Biden’s son Hunter.“But not vote-counting, not election results?” asked the moderator, Ted Simons, a host on the Arizona PBS station.“Yeah, I haven’t seen evidence of that,” Mr. Masters replied.During the Republican primary, Mr. Masters won an endorsement from former President Donald J. Trump and earned legions of conservative followers by fanning the falsehoods that the 2020 election was stolen and Mr. Trump was its rightful winner.But some of that language has been scrubbed from his campaign website since Mr. Masters entered the general election, where such conspiracy theories don’t play as well with independent voters, who either trust Arizona’s popular mail-in voting systems or simply want to move on.Mr. Kelly said Mr. Masters’s peddling of “conspiracy theories” was undermining American democracy.“I’m worried about what’s going to happen here in this election and 2024,” he said. “We could wind up in a situation where the wheels come off of our democracy.”Both see a crisis at the southern border.Political veterans in Arizona believe that inflation and the southern border are Republicans’ two strongest issues, and Mr. Masters hammered both early and often. He painted a Dante-esque picture of the border — beset with cartels, overflowing with fentanyl and wide-open for millions of “illegals” to sweep through.“Joe Biden and Mark Kelly, they laid out the welcome mat,” Mr. Masters said. “They surrendered our southern border. They’ve given it up to the Mexican drug cartels.”Crossings at the southern border have surged to their highest levels in decades as migrants flee gangs and political and economic turmoil in Venezuela, Central America and elsewhere. Many of those migrants are turning themselves directly over to American authorities to plead their cases in immigration courts.Mr. Kelly called the border “a mess” of chaos and crisis, but said he had worked to get money for more Border Patrol agents and technology to screen for drugs at ports of entry.Don’t California my Arizona.Like other Republicans in the Southwest, Mr. Masters frequently uses California as a kind of foil, making the state a stand-in for liberalism gone wild. And one reliable way to rile residents in other parts of the West? Bring up the notion that the nation’s most populous state — which is in a near constant drought — is taking too much water from the Colorado River.“I’m tired of Senator Kelly acting like the third senator from California,” Mr. Masters said onstage Thursday, echoing a refrain he has made throughout the campaign. “We need someone in there with sharp elbows who’s going to fight for our water.”“Why is California even putting its straw into the Colorado River?” he added, arguing that the state should instead rely on desalination and the Pacific Ocean.Left unsaid was the more basic implied attack: Mr. Masters is the protector of the state; Mr. Kelly is merely a liberal in disguise.A third-party candidate for a third of voters?The vast majority of voters would have trouble naming Mr. Victor — he has struggled to raise money or capture media attention. But he held his ground Thursday night, insisting that the moderator allow him to answer all the same questions as Mr. Kelly and Mr. Masters.For the most part, Mr. Victor took a predictable Libertarian pox-on-both-their-houses approach, and portrayed himself as the outsider who would not be beholden to either President Biden or Mr. Trump. And there could be a receptive audience for that message: Roughly a third of Arizona’s voters are not registered as Republicans or Democrats, and many view themselves as moderates or describe themselves as leaning libertarian.Mr. Victor could easily attract enough voters to act as a kind of spoiler for Mr. Masters, denying him just enough votes to push Mr. Kelly over the edge. Indeed, at several points during the debate, Mr. Victor attacked Mr. Masters for waffling on his stances and leaped to the defense of Mr. Kelly. More