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      How Democrats Should Sell Themselves to Avoid Electoral Disaster

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      More from our inbox:Children’s Painful LossesMy Exercise Ethic  Cristina DauraTo the Editor:Re “Can Democrats Find a Winning Message?” (column, Sunday Review, Oct. 10):Ezra Klein’s discussion of David Shor’s predictions about impending disaster for the Democratic Party in upcoming Senate elections was both fascinating and frustratingly incomplete.For one, he did not discuss the specific seats in play and in jeopardy in 2022 and 2024. Surely local issues and the attractiveness of individual candidates will play some role in the outcome.Second, if a decent part of the Biden agenda finally becomes law and if the pandemic wanes, isn’t there a reasonable prospect that a significant piece of the electorate will want to keep it going? We keep hearing how popular infrastructure renewal and long-overdue safety net improvements are.Perhaps the ingrained disadvantages that Democrats face in the electoral system can be overcome by people feeling better about their lives. Messaging may well be less of a factor than Mr. Shor fears.Larry SimonbergBronxThe writer was a spokesman for Mayor Ed Koch of New York from 1983 to 1989.To the Editor:I’ll tell you why David Shor is wrong, like many of the consultants I’ve encountered who often have a brand rather than a unique skill: 1) Focus groups and polling aren’t real life. 2) Human beings are irrational actors and their motivations shift unpredictably. 3) Most voters don’t vote for issues; they vote for candidates who appear powerful, in charge and decisive.Donald Trump explains all of these things. Most of the issues he spotlights are unpopular in polling and focus groups, yet he got more than 70 million votes in 2020 and is quite likely going to win in 2024. Democrats need passionate, vital candidates, not reactive data jockeys.David BillottiRockville, Md.The writer is a communications consultant.To the Editor:The Trump base is not reclaimable by Democrats. Donald Trump exposed the undercurrent of anger, fear and racism lurking in our country and made expressing those feelings acceptable within the Republican Party. Worse, he prodded that base to vote. And there is every reason to believe that will happen again.The Democratic Party’s only hope is to appeal to moderate, traditional and rational Republicans who have already abandoned Mr. Trump and his minions. Policy communication alone doesn’t hold the power that David Shor thinks it does. Accomplishment is what is needed.The Democrats need to coalesce behind President Biden’s agenda, abandon the extreme progressive wish list, and pass the infrastructure and Build Back Better legislative initiatives. Then, and only then, will they have a product the American people are ready, maybe even eager, to buy.Jay AdolfNew YorkTo the Editor:As a 45-year marketing and communications professional, I think the messaging of the Democrats for the last 10 years has been feeble and chaotic. There has been no consistent, simple messaging from the Democratic National Committee. In contrast, the Republicans have had the discipline to do exactly that, albeit poisoned with lies.You want a winning message to combat the Big Lie about the stolen election? Start a campaign with a catchy slogan like “Trump has done zilch for you,” and hammer that message home over and over again.This is a battle over hearts and minds. These voters have been lied to, used as pawns, as dupes. It’ll take time, but once they get it, they will react in fury against Mr. Trump.Randolph W. HoblerNorwalk, Conn.To the Editor:Did I read this article correctly? Democrats need to hide who they are in order to win elections? What a damning, unintentional self-indictment.Richard SybertSeattleChildren’s Painful LossesAmethyst, 5, and a portrait of her father, Erin Tokley, a Philadelphia police officer who died from Covid-19 in March.Laurence Kesterson/Associated PressTo the Editor:Re “120,000 Children Lost Caregivers to Covid” (news article, Oct. 8):I am usually a pretty stoic person, but the enormousness of pain reflected by the story about 120,000 children who have lost a parent or caregiver broke me.To think there are Americans running around screaming about the injustice of being asked to get a vaccine or wear a mask while the smallest shoulders among us are bearing the heaviest of burdens really makes you wonder what has happened to the soul of our country.Have we become so callous and vicious with one another that a tragedy like this is not enough to bring us together so we can fight this scourge as one?Michael ScottSan FranciscoMy Exercise Ethic  Ping ZhuTo the Editor:Re “Unable to Walk, She Needed to Run” (Science Times, Oct. 5):Elisabeth Rosenthal’s confession that her running is “more spiritual than pragmatic” struck a chord with my exercise ethic. As a longtime daily runner — three miles around the block with our fox terrier, Socks — I understand Dr. Rosenthal’s need to run, even after an accident.After two hip replacements, more than a decade ago, stopped my daily runs, I began substituting other exercise. It doesn’t work — not the elliptical, a bicycle or weight training.The only close relative to running I have found is aquafit classes. The thumping music and smiling water compatriots allow a mental escape from the daily grind and anxieties of living. But it’s a facsimile, not the real gold standard.So I wish Dr. Rosenthal a rapid return to running and to recapturing the “emotional sustenance running provides.”Mary Lake PolanNew Canaan, Conn. More

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      Glenn Youngkin Talks About Virginia. His Base Talks About Donald Trump.

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      Republicans in Virginia are saying what their nominee for governor will not: The governor’s race is a proxy for Mr. Trump’s grievances.GLEN ALLEN, Va. — The event was billed as a rally for Virginia conservatives ahead of next month’s election for governor. But it was mostly about Donald J. Trump.Each speaker, addressing the crowd of hundreds just outside the state capital of Richmond, declared the former president the rightful winner of the last presidential election and the assumed winner of the next one. The audience raved when Mr. Trump gave a short address over the phone.But it was the speaker after Mr. Trump who made the pivot from national to local. Amanda Chase, a state senator from Amelia County who has called herself “Trump in heels,” explicitly tied the former president to Glenn Youngkin, the state’s Republican nominee for governor. Supporting one required supporting the other, she said.“People know I’m not politically correct and I’ll say exactly what I’m thinking,” Ms. Chase said. “And if I’m telling you I’m supporting Glenn Youngkin, then you better be supporting Glenn Youngkin, because he’s the real deal.”Terry McAuliffe, the Democratic candidate and a former governor, has sought to tie Mr. Youngkin to the former president, while the Republican candidate has largely tried to keep some distance from Mr. Trump, to avoid alienating the all-important suburban, moderate voters who could decide the race’s outcome. But at the grass-roots level, the messages from Virginia Democrats and Republicans are less distinct.Democrats argue that losing the statewide election on Nov. 2 would be a bad omen for them in the 2022 midterms, and Republicans agree. And while Democrats paint Mr. Youngkin as an acolyte of Mr. Trump who would help pave the way for the former president’s return in 2024, Republicans at the “Take Back Virginia” rally on Wednesday explicitly said the same thing. They were willing to make clear what Mr. Youngkin has carefully avoided.John Fredericks, a conservative radio host who organized the event and calls himself the “Godzilla of truth,” said the Virginia race was the first step in clawing back the political power that Trump voters believe was stolen from them last year. He was one of several speakers who encouraged the audience to become election workers.“Let’s win on Nov. 2 and send a message to America that we have had enough,” Mr. Fredericks told the crowd. “You are the motor. You are the engine. You are the deplorables that, if we turn out on Nov. 2 and vote early and be a poll watcher, you can change the course of history in America.”Lawn signs supporting Glenn Youngkin were available for people to take home, even though he did not attend the event.Carlos Bernate for The New York TimesThe disconnect between the political messages of Mr. Youngkin and his base speaks to the careful line that Republicans have been forced to walk. Although the former president’s approval ratings with moderates and independents remain underwater, which helped President Biden win Virginia by 10 points last year, Mr. Trump is still the most potent driver of enthusiasm and energy among the party’s most loyal voters. In an off-year election where turnout is expected to be significantly decreased from presidential levels, courting that energy is paramount for Virginia Republicans.Mr. Youngkin did not attend the event in Glen Allen, but Ms. Chase spoke with the authority of a campaign surrogate, saying, “I work very closely with the Youngkin campaign.” Mr. Trump, in his telephone address, said, “I hope Glenn gets in there and straightens out Virginia.” At the cash bar, where patrons ordered wine and cocktails over discussions of election integrity, a collection of red signs supporting the Youngkin campaign were available to take home.But Mr. Youngkin came under fire after the Wednesday rally. At issue was a moment early in the event when a speaker had led the crowd in the Pledge of Allegiance using a flag that activists claimed was brought to the Capitol during the riot on Jan. 6. Mr. McAuliffe attacked Mr. Youngkin over the use of that flag in the pledge, and Mr. Youngkin distanced himself from the event.“I wasn’t involved and so I don’t know,” Mr. Youngkin told reporters, referring to the episode. “But if that is the case, then we shouldn’t pledge allegiance to that flag. And, oh, by the way, I’ve been so clear, there is no place for violence — none, none — in America today.”Trump supporters backing Mr. Youngkin have not been too troubled by such disavowals.Last month, Mr. Youngkin said he would have voted to certify the 2020 election results, after previously refusing to answer the question. Mr. Youngkin’s campaign said at the time that he “has repeatedly said that Joe Biden was legitimately elected and that there was no significant fraud in Virginia’s 2020 election.”Speakers at the rally connected Mr. Youngkin to Mr. Trump, who is still the most potent driver of enthusiasm and energy in the Republican Party.Carlos Bernate for The New York TimesThere has been no evidence of widespread fraud in the 2020 election, and multiple state agencies and legislatures have repeatedly disproved Mr. Trump’s claims of a rigged election. However, at the event, attendees said in interviews that they believed Mr. Youngkin stood with them in their efforts to overturn the election and to oppose the Democratic agenda.James Thornton, 47, said he did not follow politics before Mr. Trump’s election and now attends school board meetings to protest the way he said race is taught in schools. And Roxanne Joseph-Barber, 55, was passing out petitions for a forensic audit of Virginia’s 2020 presidential election results.Asked what was the most important thing she wanted campaigns to know about voters like her, Ms. Joseph-Barber paused to collect herself.“The election wasn’t honest, and we know that,” she said. “So why wouldn’t we be mad? Of course we’re mad.”Ms. Chase, who ran for governor against Mr. Youngkin before becoming a vocal supporter of his campaign, made clear in her speech that she did not trust the 2020 election results — and also implied that Mr. Youngkin agreed with her.She boasted about traveling to Arizona, South Dakota and Texas to meet with other state legislators who were interested in finding evidence that the election was stolen. And she said that even though Mr. Youngkin dismissed Mr. Trump’s claims of fraud during his debates with Mr. McAuliffe, voters should still trust that he is on their side.“I know what’s going on, and the Youngkin campaign knows what’s going on,” Ms. Chase told the crowd. In the debates, she added, Mr. Youngkin could not give “the Democrats ammo to use against us, to get the independents to go with Terry McAuliffe.”Peter Peterson, a veteran in his 60s, said that while he planned to vote for Mr. Youngkin in opposition to the Democratic agenda, he had noticed Mr. Youngkin’s hesitancy on what Mr. Peterson called his most important issue: election fraud.“Everyone treats the voting stuff as if it’s a third rail,” Mr. Peterson said. “No one wants to come out and say the vote was stolen.”Mr. Peterson, who traveled about 100 miles from Virginia Beach for the rally, said he preferred a blunt-force political instrument such as Mr. Trump to candidates who deliver polished speeches. At the Glen Allen rally, polish was in short supply.Speakers seemed to one-up each other in expressing their loyalty to Mr. Trump: Some called for the arrest of Mr. Biden. Others compared vaccine mandates to conditions in Nazi Germany or invoked violent periods in American history, including the Civil War and the American Revolution, to describe the stakes of upcoming elections.Jan Morgan, a right-wing commentator and long-shot Senate candidate in Arkansas who spoke at the event, said conservatives should see themselves much like latter-day revolutionary soldiers.“As far as I can tell,” she said, “you still got your shoes. You’ve got your clothes, and I know you’ve got guns.”The crowd cheered in response. More

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      Democrats Work to Sell an Unfinished Bill

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      As President Biden and his allies in Congress work to whittle down the size of their ambitious domestic plans, Democrats must sell a bill without knowing precisely what will be in it.ALLENTOWN, Pa. — When Representative Susan Wild, Democrat of Pennsylvania, accompanied Jill Biden, the first lady, to the Learning Hub, a newly established early education center whose walls were covered with vocabulary words in English and Spanish, on a recent Wednesday morning, Ms. Wild’s constituents were frank about the many unmet needs in their community.Jessica Rodriguez-Colon, a case manager with a local youth house, described the struggles of helping families find affordable housing with rent skyrocketing. Brenda Fernandez, the founder of a nonprofit focused on supporting formerly incarcerated women and survivors of domestic violence, explained the challenges of ensuring homes were available for those who needed them.Dr. Biden had a ready answer: “It’s a big part of the bill,” she said, turning in her seat to Ms. Wild. “Right, Susan?”Ms. Wild quickly agreed. The sprawling $3.5 trillion social safety net and climate package that the House compiled last month would address everything raised during the discussion. It would devote more than $300 billion to low-income and affordable housing, provide two free years of community college and help set up a universal prekindergarten program that could help places like the Learning Hub, which serves about 150 children and families through Head Start, the federal program for preschoolers.But left unmentioned was the uncertainty about whether any of that would survive and become law. A month after the House put together its bill, President Biden and Democrats in Congress have trimmed their ambitions. Facing unified Republican opposition and resistance to the cost of the measure by a handful of centrists in their party, led by Senators Joe Manchin III of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, Democrats are now working to scale back the package to around $2 trillion to ensure its passage through a Congress where they hold the thinnest of majorities.For Ms. Wild and other Democrats facing the toughest re-elections in politically competitive districts around the country, the ambiguity surrounding their marquee legislation makes for an unusual challenge outside of Washington: how to go about selling an agenda without knowing which components of it will survive the grueling legislative path to the president’s desk.Polls show that individual components of the legislation — including increasing federal support of paid leave, elder care and child care to expanding public education — are popular among voters. But beyond being aware of a price tag that is already shrinking, few voters can track what is still in contention to be part of the final package, as the process is shrouded in private negotiations.Representative Susan Wild, Democrat of Pennsylvania, during an interview in Allentown on Wednesday.Mark Makela for The New York Times“We don’t want to be having to come back to people later and say, ‘Well, we really liked that idea, but it didn’t make it into the final bill,’ — so it’s a challenge,” Ms. Wild said. “As the bill’s size continues to come down, you may be talking about something at any given time that’s not going to make it into the final product.”To get around Republican obstruction, Democrats are using a fast-track process known as reconciliation that shields legislation from a filibuster. That would allow it to pass the 50-50 Senate on a simple majority vote, with Vice President Kamala Harris casting a tiebreaking vote.But it would still require the support of every Democratic senator — and nearly every one of their members in the House. Democratic leaders and White House officials have been haggling behind the scenes to nail down an agreement that could satisfy both Mr. Manchin and Ms. Sinema, who have been reluctant to publicly detail which proposals they want to see scaled back or jettisoned.Congressional leaders aim to finish their negotiations in time to act on the reconciliation bill by the end of October, when they also hope to move forward on another of Mr. Biden’s top priorities, a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill that would be the largest investment in roads, bridges, broadband and other physical public works in more than a decade.“As with any bill of such historic proportions, not every member will get everything he or she wants,” Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, wrote to Democrats in a letter ahead of the chamber’s return on Monday. “I deeply appreciate the sacrifices made by each and every one of you.”It remains unclear which sacrifices will have to be made, with lawmakers still at odds over the best strategy for paring down the plan, let alone how to structure specific programs. The most potent plan to replace coal and gas-fired plants with wind, nuclear and solar energy, for example, is likely to be dropped because of Mr. Manchin’s opposition, but White House and congressional staff are cobbling together alternatives to cut emissions that could be added to the plan.Liberals remain insistent that the bill — initially conceived as a cradle-to-grave social safety net overhaul on par with the Great Society of the 1960s — include as many programs as possible, while more moderate lawmakers have called for large investments in just a few key initiatives.In the midst of the impasse, rank-and-file lawmakers have been left to return home to their constituents to try to promote a still-unfinished product that is shrouded in the mystery of private negotiations, all while explaining why a Democratic-controlled government has yet to deliver on promises they campaigned on.“I try to make sure that people know what I stand for, what my positions are, what I want for our community,” Ms. Wild said in an interview, ticking off provisions in the bill that would lower prescription drug costs, provide child care and expand public education. “But if it’s not guaranteed, I also try to make sure people understand that, so they don’t feel like I’ve promised something that’s not going to happen.”“That doesn’t always work,” she added. “Because you might think that something something’s in the bag, so to speak, and then all of a sudden, the rug gets pulled out from under you.”Karen Schlegel, who is retired, waited outside, hoping to see Dr. Biden in Allentown on Wednesday.Mark Makela for The New York TimesKaren Schlegel, 71, who waited outside the center with a mix of protesters shouting obscenities and eager onlookers waiting for a glimpse of Dr. Biden, said she remained in full support of Mr. Biden’s agenda. She blamed congressional Democrats for delaying the president’s plan.“He would be doing better if he had some support from Congress,” she said, carrying a hot pink sign professing love for both Bidens. “They better get a hustle on.”Even Dr. Biden, as she trailed from classroom to classroom to watch the students engage in interactive color and shape lessons — and perform an enthusiastic penguin-inspired dance — avoided weighing in on the specifics of the bill.“We already started when Joe got into office, and that’s what we’re fighting for,” Dr. Biden told the group, pointing to the $1.9 trillion pandemic relief bill that Democrats muscled through in March as evidence of the success of their agenda. “I’m not going to stop, nor is Joe, so I want you to have faith.”For lawmakers like Ms. Wild, time is of the essence. Many Democrats are already growing wary of the prospects of beginning their re-election campaigns, before voters have felt the tangible impacts of either the infrastructure bill or the reconciliation package.They will have to win over voters like Eric Paez, a 41-year-old events planner, who wants Democrats to deliver and has little patience for keeping track of the machinations on Capitol Hill standing in their way.“I need to come home and not think about politicians,” Mr. Paez, said, smoking a cigarette and waving to neighbors walking their dogs in the early evening as he headed home from work near the child care center. “They should be doing what we voted them in to do.” More

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      Money Floods the Race for Control of Congress, More Than a Year Early

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      The main House war chests for both Democrats and Republicans have a combined $128 million in the bank — more than double the sum at this point in 2020.A dizzying amount of money is already pouring into the battles for the House and the Senate more than a year before the 2022 elections, as Republicans are bullish on their chances to take over both chambers in the first midterm election under President Biden, given the narrow margins keeping Democrats in power.The two parties’ main war chests for the House total a combined $128 million — more than double the sum at this point in the 2020 cycle and far surpassing every other previous one. Top House members are now raising $1 million or more per quarter. And more than two dozen senators and Senate candidates topped that threshold.Candidate after candidate, and the parties themselves, are posting record-breaking sums, even as the shapes of most House districts nationwide remain in flux because of delays in the once-a-decade redrawing of boundaries.In Georgia, Senator Raphael Warnock, a Democrat, raised more than $100,000 per day in the last three months for a $9.5 million haul. But his leading Republican rival, Herschel Walker, the former football player who was urged to run by former President Donald J. Trump, raised $3.7 million in a little more than a month, setting up a potentially bruising and expensive contest in that key state.Politicians in both parties are furiously racing to expand their online donor bases while simultaneously courting big checks from wealthy benefactors. At a Senate Republican retreat for big donors in Palm Beach, Fla., this week, Mr. Trump’s presence was a reminder of his continued perch at the center of the Republican Party — both in helping lure donations and in derailing whatever messaging party operatives have designed.“The donor community is waking up to the fact that the Republican Party has a historic opportunity in 2022, in spite of Trump continuing to talk about 2020,” said Scott Reed, a longtime Republican strategist.Money alone is rarely decisive in political races, especially when both parties are flush with cash. But the glut of political funding, detailed in Federal Election Commission reports filed on Friday by House and Senate candidates and announced by the parties, shows the growing stakes of American elections, where a single flipped Senate seat can shift trillions of dollars in federal spending.The country’s increasingly polarized electorate has been hyper-engaged in politics since the Trump era began, and the ease of channeling that energy into donations online is remaking how campaigns are funded. The online donation clearinghouses for the two parties, ActBlue and WinRed, processed a combined total of more than $450 million in the third quarter.The avalanche of cash could expand the 2022 political battlefield and result in an unrelenting wave of advertising aimed at Americans who live in swing districts and states.The ad wars have, in fact, already begun. Democratic- and Republican-linked groups are spending millions of dollars to shape public opinion on the spending package currently being debated in Congress.Among them is one Biden-aligned nonprofit group, Building Back Together, which said it had spent nearly $15 million on television ads in more than two dozen House districts and key states since July. This week, a Republican-aligned nonprofit group, One Nation, announced that it was beginning a $10 million ad campaign, urging three Democratic senators up for re-election in 2022 — in Nevada, Arizona and New Hampshire — to oppose the spending package.Senator Raphael Warnock raised more than $100,000 per day in the last three months, making him the top Democratic fund-raiser outside of congressional leaders.Damon Winter/The New York TimesAll told, more than $70 million has been spent since Sept. 1 on television ads related to the Biden legislative agenda, according to AdImpact, a media-tracking firm.Historically, the party out of power has done well in a new president’s first midterm election, and Republicans see rising inflation, missteps in Afghanistan and a softening in Mr. Biden’s approval rating as reasons for a sunny 2022 outlook.“We’ll have to really screw up to lose the House,” said Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, referring to the Democrats’ narrow majority in that chamber. He said that recapturing the Senate, which is split evenly between 50 Democrats and 50 Republicans, would depend on recruiting more top-tier Republicans, such as Gov. Chris Sununu of New Hampshire.At the donor retreat in Florida, Mr. Graham said, “there was a sense of optimism that was as high as I’ve seen it.”In the House, the path to the majority is widely expected to be determined by suburban voters, who swung sharply toward the Democratic Party during the Trump administration.Jesse Ferguson, a Democratic strategist who has worked on House campaigns, noted that the central role of suburban terrain — the battlegrounds were more rural 15 years ago — had driven up the cost of campaigning. Buying ads to reach suburban voters requires advertising in pricier urban television markets.“The upside is the Democratic coalition is built around suburbs,” Mr. Ferguson said. “The downside is the resources to run in Philadelphia and Chicago and L.A. and Miami.”The National Republican Congressional Committee began this year with roughly $8 million less on hand than its Democratic counterpart but entered October with roughly $2 million more, as small digital contributions have accelerated for Republicans. Each group has raised well over $100 million this year.Representative Tom Emmer, the chairman of the Republican congressional committee, noted in a call with reporters that in the 2020 cycle, his party committee had not reached the $100 million threshold until February — five months later.Both the Senate and the House Republican campaign committees have leaned on hardball and sometimes deceptive tactics to boost their bottom lines, such as pre-checking boxes that automatically enroll donors in recurring monthly contributions and aggressively fostering guilt trips in supporters and questioning their allegiances.“You’re a traitor …” began one such House G.O.P. text earlier this week. “You abandoned Trump.”The text gave a false deadline of 17 minutes to donate. “This is your final chance to prove your loyalty or be branded a deserter,” it read.A fund-raising text message this week from the National Republican Congressional Committee.The House G.O.P. committee, which declined to comment on its tactics, said it had raised nearly 44 percent of its funds last quarter online.“Democrats have owned online fund-raising, and that is no longer true,” said former Representative Tom Davis, who previously led the House Republican campaign arm. “Republicans now are the ones who are obsessed and aroused. People voted for Biden to get Trump out of their living rooms. But they didn’t vote for all his policies.”Most Republican strategists hope to keep the focus on Democrats, knowing voters typically want to put a check on those in power. But Mr. Trump’s continued insistence on making his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen a central rallying cry for the G.O.P. — “If we don’t solve the Presidential Election Fraud of 2020,” Mr. Trump warned in a statement this week, “Republicans will not be voting in ’22 or ’24” — is a complicating factor.“If it’s a referendum on Biden’s policies, we will do very well,” Mr. Graham said of the 2022 midterms. “If it’s looking back, if it’s a grievance campaign, then we could be in trouble.”Mr. Emmer tried to distance himself from Mr. Trump’s remarks, saying, “He’s a private citizen, and he, of course, is entitled to his own opinion.” Still, Mr. Emmer added that he was “honored” that the former president would headline the committee’s fall fund-raising dinner. “He remains the biggest draw in our party,” he said.Congressional leaders are the other leading party fund-raisers. Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the Republican minority leader, and his top deputy, Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana, have transferred a combined total of nearly $30 million to their party committees this year, party officials said.Mr. Scalise’s top donations since July included $105,000 from the PAC of Koch Industries; $125,000 from H. Fisk Johnson, the chief executive of S.C. Johnson & Son; and $66,300 from John W. Childs, the private equity magnate.Whether this is the final term of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who is 81, is widely discussed in Washington. But the San Francisco Democrat remains a prolific fund-raiser.Donors to her political accounts in recent months include Haim Saban, the media investor ($263,400); Hamilton James, a top Blackstone executive ($263,000); Gwendolyn Sontheim Meyer, the Cargill heiress ($263,400); and Jeffrey Katzenberg, the Hollywood producer ($163,400).Senator Chuck Schumer has aggressively pressed top party fund-raisers in recent months.Sarahbeth Maney/The New York TimesSenator Chuck Schumer, the majority leader, raised heavily both for his own 2022 re-election bid in New York and to maintain the Democratic majority. Mr. Schumer has aggressively pressed top party fund-raisers in recent months, telling one that he wanted to fill his war chest (now at $31.9 million) as a deterrent to any primary challenge from the left. He specifically named Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York as the kind of candidate he would like to keep from running, mostly to avoid weakening his hand while navigating the evenly divided Senate. Mr. Schumer’s office declined to comment.Notably, some of the top fund-raisers in both parties are Black.They include Mr. Warnock, the top Democratic fund-raiser, and Mr. Walker, a leading Republican in the Georgia Senate race. Tim Scott of South Carolina, the lone Black Republican in the Senate, was the top fund-raiser in his party. Mr. Scott raised $8.3 million in the third quarter. He now has $18.8 million in the bank, funds that can be used for his 2022 re-election or to seed a potential 2024 presidential run.Representative Val Demings, a Black Democrat in Florida and a former Orlando police chief, is challenging Senator Marco Rubio, the Republican incumbent, and was another top fund-raiser, pulling in $8.4 million. But she spent heavily to do so: $5.6 million.Florida has proved elusive for Democratic candidates, especially in recent years, and some party strategists are already quietly grumbling about the tens of millions — if not more — that is likely to be poured in to a tough race, especially after hundreds of millions of dollars was spent on losing 2020 efforts to topple Republican incumbents in Maine, Iowa, North Carolina and South Carolina.Rachel Shorey contributed reporting. More

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      Para los demócratas, estos son los votantes clave en Texas

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      Una nueva y ambiciosa campaña pretende atraer a los jóvenes texanos que no están registrados para votar o no acuden a las urnas sistemáticamente.HOUSTON — Cristina Tzintzún-Ramirez está convencida de saber cuál es el secreto para que Texas se convierta en un estado demócrata.La juventud.Cuando se postuló para dirigir NextGen America, un grupo liberal respaldado por el multimillonario y excandidato a la presidencia Tom Steyer, ella dejó en claro dos cosas: que no iba a salir de Austin y que la organización tendría que invertir tiempo y dinero en Texas.Además, se enfocó en un número mágico: 631.000 votos, que fue el margen de triunfo con el que los republicanos ganaron el estado en 2020.Ahora, NextGen tiene como meta dos millones de votantes en Texas: 1,1 millón de electores de entre 18 y 30 años de edad que están registrados para votar pero que no acudido a las urnas de manera sistemática en las últimas elecciones; otros 277.000 electores jóvenes que no votaron en 2020; y 565.000 personas que han identificado como “progresistas jóvenes” que no están registrados. Si solo una tercera parte del total saliera a votar —aproximadamente 633.000 personas—, sería suficiente para que los demócratas superaran el margen de los republicanos.“Hay una enorme cantidad de jóvenes que aún no se registran para votar, así que tenemos que lograr que crean en su propio poder”, señaló Tzintzún-Ramirez, quien es la presidenta actual de NextGen y ha trabajado en la política de Texas durante más de 15 años. “La gente pensaba que la demografía bastaba, pero en realidad tenemos que salir y convencer a esa población de que vote”.Esta organización está pensando gastar casi 16 millones de dólares en Texas durante los próximos dos años para registrar a nuevos electores y llevarlos a las casillas en las elecciones intermedias de 2022. El proyecto representa una parte del gasto más importante de los demócratas en Texas y tiene como objetivo captar a los jóvenes, un grupo que el partido espera que sirva para poner fin al control republicano en ese estado.No obstante, los demócratas tienen que subir una cuesta muy escarpada. La meta de ganar Texas, el estado del país más grande controlado por los republicanos, se les ha escapado desde hace mucho tiempo: su partido ha gastado muy poco o nada, la manipulación partidista les dificulta ganar las elecciones y la cámara estatal lidera con eficacia el flanco derecho de los republicanos.Además, con singular entusiasmo, los republicanos siguen haciendo circular el dinero en ese estado: el gobernador Greg Abbott recaudó casi 19 millones de dólares solo en los últimos diez días de junio, mucho más dinero del que NextGen piensa gastar en el estado durante los próximos dos años. Varios de los cheques para el gobernador fueron por un millón de dólares, algo que ocurre de manera habitual en el caso de los republicanos de Texas, donde no existen límites de donación en las contiendas estatales.“El dinero no lo es todo, pero es mucho mejor que nada”, comentó Julián Castro, exalcalde de San Antonio y excandidato a la presidencia. “Es primordial aumentar las cifras, cuando hay tantos votantes poco asiduos; registrar votantes cuesta dinero”.Cristina Tzintzún-Ramirez cree que a los jóvenes los motivan más los temas que los candidatos en sí.Annie Mulligan para The New York TimesTzintzún-Ramirez piensa que a los jóvenes los motivan más los temas que los candidatos en sí y que el trabajo del grupo complementará cualquier gasto en las campañas. La mayor parte de estas, señaló, se enfocan en los electores con los que ya cuentan o en los indecisos, y “movilizar a los jóvenes no es parte de la ecuación y no es rentable para la mayoría de las campañas”.Según el Centro para la Información y la Investigación sobre Educación Cívica de la Universidad Tufts, el año pasado, aproximadamente el 50 por ciento de las personas menores de 30 años votaron en las elecciones presidenciales, un aumento del 11 por ciento en comparación con 2016. La información del censo muestra que Texas es el segundo estado más grande del país y que su población también es una de las más jóvenes y diversas. En la última década, la gente de color representó el 95 por ciento del crecimiento estatal y, ahora, los texanos blancos conforman menos del 40 por ciento de la población del estado.Tal vez no sea suficiente inundar de dinero el estado en un momento en que el Partido Demócrata de Texas enfrenta obstáculos importantes: una disminución del entusiasmo entre los electores, actitudes políticas cambiantes, restricciones de votación más estrictas y una reestructuración de los distritos que favorece a los republicanos. Además, aunque desde hace mucho tiempo la demografía se ha considerado una ventaja para los demócratas conforme el estado se vuelve más diverso, en las últimas elecciones, una cantidad considerable de electores latinos de la zona fronteriza decidieron votar por el Partido Republicano.Para los republicanos, quienes creen que el discurso de darle la vuelta a las votaciones en el estado no es más que propaganda demócrata, esas donaciones de siete cifras para su propio partido reflejan un entusiasmo hacia el Partido Republicano.“Desde luego que el dinero influye, pero los demócratas han afirmado una y otra vez que Texas estaba a punto de volverse demócrata y vieron truncadas sus esperanzas”, comentó el senador Ted Cruz, quien criticó a Beto O’Rourke en su contienda por el Senado en 2018 por atraer tantas donaciones de los liberales de otras partes del país.La dificultad para los demócratas se puso de manifiesto durante un mitin que dio inicio a los esfuerzos de registro de votantes de NextGen en la Universidad de Houston. En el evento subieron al escenario varios líderes demócratas, uno tras otro, en un intento de convencer a la pequeña multitud del poder que tienen los jóvenes votantes.Pero al final, cuando Sheila Jackson Lee y Al Green, dos congresistas negros, subieron al escenario, quedaron claros los límites de ese poder.Los republicanos que elaboraron el borrador de un nuevo mapa del Congreso fusionaron sus dos distritos en uno solo, lo que plantea la posibilidad de que dos de los integrantes más veteranos de la delegación demócrata del Congreso del estado se vean obligados a competir entre sí. Jackson Lee y Green se han opuesto al nuevo mapa, al decir que parece ser discriminatorio.“Vamos a tener que pelear”, dijo Green en una entrevista. “Habrá que protestar. Eso requerirá energía. Se necesitarán recursos. Y los conseguiremos”.El multimillonario y excandidato presidencial Tom Steyer fundó NextGen en 2013.Annie Mulligan para The New York TimesDesde hace mucho tiempo, Texas —donde hay más de 650.000 millonarios, más que en cualquier otro estado, a excepción de California— ha sido una especie de cajero automático para los candidatos de ambos partidos en otras partes del país, casi siempre en detrimento de los candidatos locales.Apenas hace ocho años, cuando Paul Sadler contendió por un escaño en el Senado contra Cruz, que en ese entonces apenas empezaba, los demócratas del país casi no hicieron nada para apoyar su campaña, afirmó. Cruz recaudó más de 14 millones de dólares. Sadler no llegó ni siquiera a un millón de dólares.“No tuvieron ninguna participación”, comentó el exlegislador estatal Sadler acerca de los grupos demócratas a nivel nacional. “Tomaron el mapa y eliminaron a Texas por completo. Me decepcioné muchísimo. Ni siquiera lo intentaban”.Más bien, los dirigentes demócratas de todo el país trataron a Texas como si fuera una alcancía y recaudaron dinero de donantes que vivían ahí para las campañas de otros estados. “Nadie creía que Texas podría ganarse, pero ahora es un lugar diferente”, señaló.De hecho, en las elecciones presidenciales de la última década, se han reducido o se han mantenido igual los márgenes del Partido Republicanos en Texas. En 2012, Mitt Romney ganó Texas con 57 por ciento de los votos. Donald Trump recibió 52 por ciento de los votos en 2016 y una vez más en 2020.El gasto demócrata ha crecido al mismo tiempo en los últimos ciclos: mientras que unos 75 millones de dólares se destinaron a los candidatos demócratas en el estado en 2016, aproximadamente 213 millones de dólares se destinaron a los candidatos demócratas en 2020. Esa cifra de 2020 seguía siendo empequeñecida por los 388 millones de dólares gastados en candidatos republicanos, según Open Secrets, que rastrea el gasto político en todo el país.Debido al tamaño de Texas, tanto demócratas como republicanos gastan más dinero allí que en casi cualquier otro estado del país. Pero el porcentaje gastado en candidatos demócratas es uno de los más bajos del país. Aproximadamente el 35 por ciento de todo el gasto político en Texas se destina a los demócratas, según Open Secrets. En Wisconsin, un estado clave en las elecciones, el 49 por ciento se destina a los demócratas.Ya ha habido algunos intentos de inversión de alto nivel en el estado: la campaña de Michael Bloomberg gastó varios millones de dólares a favor de Joe Biden durante las primarias presidenciales de 2020. En 2014, Battleground Texas, un esfuerzo liderado por exasesores de Barack Obama, gastó millones solo para que todos los demócratas perdieran en las elecciones estatales.Rafael Anchia, un legislador demócrata estatal de Dallas, quien preside el Comité Legislativo Mexicoestadounidense, señaló que la campaña de O’Rourke fue el único esfuerzo reciente de los demócratas a nivel estatal con un presupuesto lo suficientemente alto como para cubrir todo el estado. Anchia afirmó que, al igual que otros demócratas de Texas, ha defendido ante los donantes del país que ese estado podría ser competitivo.“Texas ya no se considera una quimera”, comentó. “Tiene una población parecida a la de California, pero ha sido un estado de baja participación y de bajas votaciones”.Claudia Yoli Ferla, directora ejecutiva de MOVE Texas, anima a los asistentes en un evento de NextGen en Houston.Annie Mulligan para The New York TimesQuizás uno de los obstáculos más difíciles que hay que superar sea la apatía. En una reunión de planificación de NextGen en McAllen, en la frontera con México, varios estudiantes dijeron que su mayor reto sería convencer a sus compañeros para que votaran.“Para la gente, la política es un tema incómodo o algo que en realidad no le afecta en absoluto”, comentó Rebecca Rivera, una estudiante de 21 años de la Universidad de Texas en el Valle del Río Grande. “Han perdido la confianza en el gobierno o, para empezar, nunca la tuvieron en realidad”.Jennifer Medina es reportera de política estadounidense que cubrió la campaña presidencial de Estados Unidos de 2020. Originaria del sur de California, anteriormente pasó varios años reportando sobre la región para la sección National. @jennymedina More

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      Virginia Governor's Race: McAuliffe Faces Democratic Apathy

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      Though the state is getting bluer, voters’ exhaustion is imperiling the former governor’s comeback attempt against his Republican rival, Glenn Youngkin.RICHMOND, Va. — Terry McAuliffe doesn’t do subtext well.So when Mr. McAuliffe appeared on “Morning Joe” on MSNBC this week, it wasn’t long before the Democrat let slip the biggest challenge he’s facing next month in his bid to reclaim Virginia’s governorship. “People got to understand, Joe, this is about turnout,” he told the show’s co-host, Joe Scarborough.Mr. McAuliffe could be forgiven for effectively reading his stage directions out loud. While he is running against a self-funding, and hazily defined, Republican, polls and interviews show that Mr. McAuliffe is confronting an equally daunting obstacle: Democratic apathy.With former President Donald Trump out of office, congressional Democrats in a bitter standoff and Virginia Democrats having claimed every political prize, Mr. McAuliffe is straining to motivate the liberal voters in his increasingly blue state.At the moment — one that is being watched closely by both parties for clues about the elections next year — he is bumping up against a fatigued electorate.Virginia has elections every year, because its state campaigns are in odd-numbered years while its federal elections are, as everywhere, in even years. But voters here are drained from the Trump administration’s round-the-clock drama, which they felt more acutely because of their proximity to Washington, where the local news is also national news.Then there is the 19-month fog of Covid-19, which has not only disrupted jobs, schools and daily life but also diverted attention from state politics — which had already been dimmed by the decline of local news outlets and eclipsed by national political news.“A lot of folks are dealing with so many other things, I’m not sure that the broader community knows this is taking place, or that it’s rising to the level of importance,” said Sean Miller, who runs the Boys & Girls Club in a largely Black part of Richmond and who gave Mr. McAuliffe a tour of his center this week.Mr. McAuliffe’s former education secretary, Anne Holton — the daughter of one former governor and the wife of another — was more succinct.“People are a little exhausted,” Ms. Holton said after a round-table discussion about education in Alexandria. Still, she predicted “very high turnout.”Mr. McAuliffe, in his well-caffeinated way, is doing all he can to sound the alarm.He is stepping up his appearances on national cable news programs and summoning the biggest names in his party to cross the Potomac. Former President Barack Obama is coming to Virginia later this month, President Biden is expected soon after, and a parade of other surrogates, including Vice President Kamala Harris, are also on the way.The once and potentially future governor, who by state law could not run for re-election after his term ended in 2018, is also trying to rouse complacent Democrats by amping up his rhetoric against his Republican rival, Glenn Youngkin.Just as Gov. Gavin Newsom of California did before his larger-than-expected recall victory last month, Mr. McAuliffe is calling Democrats to the barricades by warning that Mr. Youngkin would build a liberal house of horrors in Virginia: Texas’ abortion laws, Florida’s Covid policies and, most ominous of all, Mr. Trump’s rebirth.“We cannot let Trump off the mat — his comeback is not starting in Virginia,” Mr. McAuliffe told reporters outside Fairfax County’s main early-voting site on Wednesday. Then he paused for just a moment before adding, “Only if Democrats get out and vote.”Democratic leadership in the state has loosened voting access so any resident can vote in person or by mail from Sept. 17 to Oct. 30.Win Mcnamee/Getty ImagesA pro-business Democrat with an unparalleled donor network, Mr. McAuliffe was seen by state Democrats as their safest choice. But with his decades of political experience as a fund-raiser and party leader, he’s not exactly a fresh face who will rally a new generation of voters to the polls.In recent weeks, he has made no effort to hide his frustration that his party’s warring factions in Congress have held up a bipartisan infrastructure bill. And his aides fear that without some good news from Washington, the race could slip away.While Mr. Biden carried the state by 10 points last year, public and private polling indicates the president’s approval rating has fallen to or below 50 percent in Virginia. Those same surveys suggest that Mr. McAuliffe and Mr. Youngkin are locked in a close race but that more of Mr. Youngkin’s voters are enthusiastic about voting compared with Mr. McAuliffe’s voters.Tellingly, though, the greater the turnout projections, the wider Mr. McAuliffe’s lead grows in the polls.That’s because of Virginia’s significant transformation from a Republican redoubt and hotbed of social rest to a multiracial archipelago of cities and suburbs that are as progressive as the rest of the country’s metropolitan areas. However, if voters in these population hubs, which are filled with immigrants and transplants, do not show up to the polls, Virginia may return a Republican to the governor’s mansion for the first time since 2009.That was also the last time Virginians went to the polls in the first year under a new Democratic president, Mr. Obama, whose approval ratings, like Mr. Biden’s today, had sagged since he was sworn in. Turnout in Virginia collapsed to the lowest level for a governor’s race in four decades.Unlike today, though, the previous unpopular Republican president, George W. Bush, had moved happily into retirement and ceded the spotlight fully to his successor.The question now is if the accelerating demographic shift in Virginia — no Republican has won a statewide race since 2009 — and Mr. Trump’s continued presence on the political scene are enough to lift Democrats even in a less than favorable environment.There are signs that those two factors could prove sufficient for Mr. McAuliffe, so long as he can galvanize Democrats in the same fashion as Mr. Newsom did.While Virginia Democrats may in some ways be victims of their own success, having claimed every major office and taken control of the legislature, their dominance has also allowed them to loosen voting laws. While other Southern states have been tightening voting access, Virginia enacted expansive early voting this year. Residents can vote in person or by mail between Sept. 17 and Oct. 30.What’s more, Northern Virginia has become increasingly hostile to Republicans. Fairfax County, the state’s most populous, split about evenly between Mr. Bush and Al Gore in 2000. Last year, Mr. Trump won just 28 percent of the vote there.Mr. Youngkin, who, like Mr. McAuliffe, lives in Fairfax, is positioned to perform far better there. But the threat of Mr. Trump’s return to the White House has clearly alarmed voters in the affluent and well-educated county.In interviews outside Fairfax’s early-voting site, every McAuliffe voter cited Mr. Trump as a reason for supporting the Democrat. Transportation, education and taxes — longtime core issues of Virginia governor’s races — were scarcely mentioned.Paul Erickson, an architect from Vienna, Va., summoned a reporter back after revealing his concerns about Mr. Trump and said in an urgent tone that he had more to share.“What I didn’t say is, for the first time in my adult life I fear for our nation,” Mr. Erickson said. “We’re tearing ourselves apart from within.”Others were less expansive but equally to the point.“I don’t like Trump, and I believe Youngkin is equal to Trump,” said Carol Myers, a retiree who, with her husband, was voting before playing a round of golf at the Army Navy Country Club in Arlington.Democrats are portraying Glenn Youngkin as a Trump clone.Jason Andrew for The New York TimesMr. Youngkin’s aides are skeptical that their candidate, whom they’ve spent tens of millions of dollars painting as an inoffensive suburban dad, can be MAGA-fied.On Thursday, though, the Republican received a reminder that Mr. Trump and his supporters are determined to make him take sides between them and Virginia’s broader, anti-Trump electorate.Mr. Youngkin had so far avoided inviting Mr. Trump to the state — and avoided a Trumpian attack for the stiff arm. But the former president called into a Virginia political rally on Wednesday night and said, “I hope Glenn gets in there.” More problematic for Mr. Youngkin, event organizers pledged allegiance to a flag that had been present at the Jan. 6 rally after which supporters of Mr. Trump attacked the Capitol.By the end of the day Thursday, Mr. Youngkin — who had skipped the rally to deny Democrats an opening to link him to Mr. Trump — issued a statement calling the use of the flag “weird and wrong.”To Mr. McAuliffe it was something else: a political gift.Mr. McAuliffe has tried to lash Mr. Youngkin to Mr. Trump, noting that he had gladly accepted the former president’s endorsement, and derides him as “a Trump wannabe,.”If that Trumpification strategy works for Mr. McAuliffe, it will most likely be replicated by other Democrats running in blue and purple states next year.In Virginia, it’s easy to understand why Democrats have gone back to the same well: Mr. Trump was a one-man turnout machine for them. In 2019, when only state House and Senate races were on the ballot, turnout reached almost the same level as in 2013, when Mr. McAuliffe won the governorship. During the 2018 congressional midterms, when Virginia Democrats picked up two House seats, turnout was at nearly 60 percent. Four years earlier, in a pre-Trump midterm, turnout here was less than 42 percent.In Richmond’s Black community, Mr. Trump is still on the minds of some voters.“It’s crazy to think that a president that lost still has such a hold on a certain group of people,” said Herman Baskerville, who owns Big Herm’s restaurant in the city’s historic Jackson Ward.Standing outside his restaurant as dusk fell on quiet streets, however, Mr. Baskerville was more focused on the slowdown in foot traffic around Richmond during the coronavirus pandemic. Fewer people working in their offices has meant fewer customers.“Many of us feel like we’re near normal, but there are a lot of folks who are still suffering,” said Mayor Levar Stoney of Richmond. Then Mr. Stoney, a protégé of Mr. McAuliffe’s, got back on message.“My fear is, the policies you see in Florida and Texas, that could take Virginia backwards,” he said. More

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      Nicholas Kristof Leaves The New York Times as He Weighs Political Bid

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      Mr. Kristof, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, is weighing a run for governor of Oregon, the state where he grew up.After 37 years at The New York Times as a reporter, high-level editor and opinion columnist, Nicholas Kristof is leaving the newspaper as he considers running for governor of Oregon, a top Times editor said in a note to the staff on Thursday.Mr. Kristof, 62, has been on leave from The Times since June, when he told company executives that he was weighing a run for governor in the state where he grew up. On Tuesday, he filed to organize a candidate committee with Oregon’s secretary of state, signaling that his interest was serious.In the email to the staff announcing his departure, Kathleen Kingsbury, The Times’s opinion editor, wrote that Mr. Kristof had redefined the role of opinion columnist and credited him with “elevating the journalistic form to a new height of public service with a mix of incisive reporting, profound empathy and a determination to bear witness to those struggling and suffering across the globe.”Mr. Kristof, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, joined The Times in 1984 as a reporter and later became an associate managing editor, responsible for the Sunday editions. He started his column in 2001.“This has been my dream job, even with malaria, a plane crash in Congo and periodic arrests abroad for committing journalism,” Mr. Kristof said in a statement included in the note announcing his departure. “Yet here I am, resigning — very reluctantly.”In July, Mr. Kristof, who grew up on a sheep and cherry farm in Yamhill, Ore., said in a statement that friends were recruiting him to succeed Kate Brown, a Democrat, who has been Oregon’s governor since 2015 and is prevented from running again by the state law.“Nick is one of the finest journalists of his generation,” A.G. Sulzberger, The Times’s publisher, said in a statement. “As a reporter and columnist he has long embodied the best values of our profession. He is as empathetic as he is fearless. He is as open-minded as he is principled. He didn’t just bear witness, he forced attention to issues and people that others were all too comfortable ignoring.”As part of the announcement, Ms. Kingsbury noted that Mr. Kristof had been on leave from his column in accordance with Times guidelines, which forbid participation in many aspects of public life. “Journalists have no place on the playing fields of politics,” the handbook states.Mr. Kristof, a former Beijing bureau chief, won his first Pulitzer Prize in 1990, for international reporting, an award he shared with his wife, Sheryl WuDunn, a former reporter, for their coverage of the protests at Tiananmen Square and the crackdown by China’s military. The second, in 2006, recognized his columns on the Darfur conflict in Sudan, which the International Criminal Court has classified as a genocide.Mr. Kristof and Ms. WuDunn have written several books together. The most recent, “Tightrope,” published last year, examines the lives of people in Yamhill, a once-prosperous blue-collar town that went into decline when jobs disappeared and poverty, drug addiction and suicides were on the rise.“I’ve gotten to know presidents and tyrants, Nobel laureates and warlords, while visiting 160 countries,” Mr. Kristof said in his statement on Thursday. “And precisely because I have a great job, outstanding editors and the best readers, I may be an idiot to leave. But you all know how much I love Oregon, and how much I’ve been seared by the suffering of old friends there. So I’ve reluctantly concluded that I should try not only to expose problems but also see if I can fix them directly.” More

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      Josh Shapiro, Running for Pennsylvania Governor, Focuses on Voting Rights

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      Mr. Shapiro, the state’s attorney general and a Democratic candidate for governor, has been on the forefront of legal efforts to defend the 2020 election.Thirty seconds into his official campaign for governor in Pennsylvania, Josh Shapiro wanted to talk about voting rights.The newly minted Democratic candidate announced his expected candidacy for governor in a two-minute video that quickly turned to the issue. It’s a topic he knows well: As the attorney general in Pennsylvania, Mr. Shapiro has been defending against a torrent of lawsuits filed by Donald J. Trump and his allies after the former president’s 2020 election loss.The 2022 races for governor in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin have been viewed by Democrats as a sea wall against a rising Republican tide of voting restrictions and far-reaching election laws. All three states have Republican-controlled legislatures that attempted to pass new voting laws but were blocked by the threat of a veto, and feature Republican candidates who have advocated for new voting laws.Pennsylvania is the only state with an open race, as current Gov. Tom Wolf is term limited from running again. Mr. Wolf threw his support behind Mr. Shapiro years before he announced, helping to clear the Democratic field.We spoke to Mr. Shapiro Wednesday as he traveled to his homecoming rally in Montgomery County.This interview has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.Your announcement video focuses first and foremost on threats to democracy. How do you run on that as a candidate?JOSH SHAPIRO: Voting rights will be a central issue in this election. And it certainly will be a central focus of my campaign. There’s a clear contrast between me and my dozen or so Republican opponents. They’re out peddling the big lie, and kind of pass these far-right litmus tests with their audits. And they’re doing real destruction to our democracy. I believe that a central focus of this campaign will be on the preservation of our democracy, and the protection of voting rights.Do you worry about overhyping threats to democracy, especially as national Democrats in Congress remain in a stalemate and aren’t taking drastic steps to address it?I think our democracy is truly being threatened. The only reason Pennsylvania has not suffered the way Texas and Georgia have with rollbacks of voting rights is because of the veto pen of our governor. We need to protect voting rights. And I’d like to work with people of both parties to expand voting rights.What do you think Democratic candidates and you should be focusing on, specifically when talking about these threats to voting rights around the country?I don’t think I can speak for any other candidate, I can only speak for me. I’m a proud Pennsylvania Democrat, and here in Pennsylvania, we were the birthplace of our democracy. And we have a special responsibility here to protect it. And I believe that the next governor in Pennsylvania will have profound responsibility to do that work. You know where I stand: expand voting rights, protect our democracy. You reference “working across the aisle” in your speech Wednesday in Pittsburgh. But with a Pennsylvania legislature you’re currently suing over an attempt to gain private voter information, how do you plan to work with them?I sued those Republican Pennsylvania senators because I believe they’re breaking the law by compromising the private information of 9 million Pennsylvania voters. And indeed, today, as attorney general, I’ll be filing a reply brief in that case. But the reason I think I can work with them and others is that I have a long track record throughout my career of bringing sides together, finding common ground and getting things done to benefit Pennsylvanians.But is there any aspect of voting rights where you have seen common ground with Republicans in the state legislature?I’ve talked to Republican commissioners, state lawmakers and election officials who have all said to me, let’s pass a law that allows us to do precanvassing of mail-in ballots the way they do in Florida and North Carolina and Ohio, for example. That’s an example of where we can find common ground.The California recall election showed how quickly allegations of “rigged elections” are cast about. How do you view governing in an era where winners are viewed as illegitimate by some of their constituents?Unfortunately, Republican leaders here in Pennsylvania have been lying to their constituents for the last 10 months, lying to them about the election, lying to them about the results, when the truth is we had a safe and secure, free and fair election in Pennsylvania. So it’s not surprising to me that some people in the public question things when their leaders have been lying to them. Leaders have a responsibility to speak truth. That is what I have tried to do as attorney general. And what I certainly will do as governor. The public deserves nothing less. Democrats around the country found success in 2018 with a focus on health care, drug prices and jobs. Now that focus seems lost amid infrastructure and a reconciliation bill. Are you concerned about running without a national cohesive message for Democrats?I’m running as a Pennsylvania Democrat, with a clear message of taking on the big fights, bringing people together and delivering real results to the people of Pennsylvania. That’s the focus of my campaign.OK, so, would that involve 2018 messages like health care and jobs? Or has it changed to something else?The national issues you’re talking about are not my focus. What is my focus is issues on the ground here in Pennsylvania. I just talked in Pittsburgh, for example, about how we need to rebuild our infrastructure, repair roads and bridges and connect every Pennsylvanian to the internet from Waynesburg in southwestern Pennsylvania to West Philadelphia. Really taking advantage of our universities to be able to become centers of innovation. Making sure we deal with some of the systemic inequities in our education and health care system here in Pennsylvania. Those are the issues that I’m focused on, and those are the issues that I know are important to the good people of Pennsylvania.But I believe, going back to the first question you asked, it makes it harder to get at those issues if we don’t shore up our democracy. And that is why I think democracy and voting rights is such a central theme. And if we can make sure that our democracy is shored up, then we can work through these other critically important issues. More