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      Why Republicans Could Prevail in the Popular Vote but Lose in the House

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      In a potential reversal of recent structural trends, there’s a small chance of something we haven’t seen since 1952.By Ryan CarlOver the last few decades, we’ve gotten accustomed to the idea that Democrats could easily win the popular vote but struggle to win control of government.This time, there’s a chance of a reversal. After years of winning without carrying the popular vote, Republicans might just need to win the most votes to win the House in 2022. There’s even a small chance of something we haven’t seen since 1952: Republicans winning the most votes, but failing to win control of government.If you’re finding that a little hard to believe, you’re not alone. I struggled to make sense of it when I first reached these calculations myself. After all, gerrymandering does tilt the House slightly toward Republicans, even if nowhere near as much as it once did.But FiveThirtyEight has reached a similar conclusion, with Republicans “favored to win a majority of seats if they win the popular vote by at least 0.4 points.” (These types of estimates are very imprecise — even one race going a little better than expected for Republicans could be enough to upset that kind of balance.)One reason Democrats could pull this off is mundane: the number of races contested by only one of the major parties. This cycle, there are about twice as many races without a Democratic candidate as without a Republican one. Democrats won’t have candidates in about two dozen races, compared with about a dozen for Republicans. No one in South Dakota or North Dakota wanted to run for the House as a Democrat, apparently.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.Pennsylvania Governor’s Race: Attacks by Doug Mastriano, the G.O.P. nominee, on the Jewish school where Josh Shapiro, the Democratic candidate, sends his children have set off an outcry about antisemitic signaling.Herschel Walker: The Republican Senate nominee in Georgia reportedly paid for an ex-girlfriend’s abortion, but some conservative Christians have learned to tolerate the behavior of those who advance their cause.State Legislatures: As the Supreme Court considers a case that could give state legislatures nearly absolute power over federal elections, little-noticed local races could become hugely consequential.In all of these races, Democrats aren’t winning popular votes at all, blunting their usual popular vote strength without taking any toll on their chances in the districts that count. This might seem like a cheap way for Republicans to improve their odds at “winning” the popular vote, but that’s how the popular vote tallies for the House are recorded.A second reason is a little more serious: Democrats have the incumbency advantage in a few more of the most pivotal races than Republicans do. And the Republican advantage on the map is so flimsy — just a few seats — that this type of Democratic edge in a few races can make a difference.To take an example, let’s zoom in on the median district: Michigan’s Eighth House District. If Democrats win Michigan’s Eighth and every district more Democratic, they win the House; if Republicans win Michigan’s Eighth and every district more Republican, they win the House. The area that represents the new map of the district voted for President Biden by just 2.1 points in 2020, less than his 4.5-point victory in the national popular vote. That gap — 2.4 points — between Michigan’s Eighth and the nation as a whole is, in theory, the reason you might expect it to be likelier for Republicans to win the House while losing the popular vote than the other way around.But much of the territory of what will be Michigan’s Eighth is represented by Dan Kildee, a Democrat. On average, incumbents typically fare about two or three percentage points better than nonincumbent candidates from the same party in similar races. Mr. Kildee has done even better than that: In 2020, he won his old district (Michigan’s Fifth) by more than 12 points, even as Mr. Biden won it by four. Even if Mr. Kildee runs only two points better next month instead of eight, more like an average incumbent, that alone might be enough to cancel out the gap between the expected result in his district and the national vote. A pretty sizable amount of the Republican structural advantage would be canceled out.Zooming back out, there are 26 districts within the typical incumbency advantage — roughly 2.5 points — of the median district. Twelve of those districts are represented by Democrats, compared with seven for Republicans. It’s not much, but in those races — including in the median district — Democratic incumbents are poised to undo part of what remains of the Republican edge.Zooming even further out, there are two even more Republican-friendly districts — Alaska’s At-Large and Ohio’s Ninth — where a Democratic incumbent is considered a favorite (rated as “lean” Democratic) by one of the major rating organizations. (The Democrat Mary Peltola recently edged Sarah Palin in a special election in Alaska that used ranked-choice voting.)In these races, there’s a legitimate chance that Republicans could forfeit much of what remains of their structural advantage. There’s not really any equivalent on the other side: Although Republicans are highly competitive in a handful of similarly challenging districts on more Democratic-friendly turf (like California’s 22nd or Ohio’s First), none of these races seem in danger of falling quite as far out of reach. The better analogy to those races might be places like Maine’s Second and Pennsylvania’s Eighth, where Democrats are competitive on similarly Republican turf.In the scheme of things, a race here and there might not seem like much. But as we discussed recently, the Republican structural edge is pretty shaky — it’s only about three seats, at least judged by how many districts are better or worse for Democrats than the nation as a whole. A few races here or there could easily be enough not just to overcome the underlying Republican advantage, but also to reverse it.The final factor is turnout. Black and Latino turnout tends to drop in midterm elections, especially in noncompetitive and heavily Democratic Black and Hispanic districts in noncompetitive states like California, Illinois and New York. Lower nonwhite turnout would dampen Democratic margins in the national vote compared with a presidential election, which is the usual benchmark for judging structural bias. But it would do so without hurting Democratic chances quite as much in the relatively white districts likeliest to decide control of Congress.It’s hard to say with much confidence how much this turnout factor could help Democrats erase their usual structural disadvantage. We’ll find out in November. But it has the potential to be a big factor. Even if, hypothetically, every district were contested by both parties, the usual midterm turnout disparity and the Democratic incumbency edge could be enough to flip around the usual Democratic disadvantage in translating popular votes to seats. More

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      A Plan B for Democrats Living in Red States

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      BOZEMAN, Mont. — Before we get to the point, keep in mind that during Montana’s recent primary election, in the Second Congressional District race in Garfield County — a stretch of eastern badlands and prairie nearly the size of Connecticut — 14 Democrats voted. Then again, maybe that is the point.After the 2020 census, Montana regained the second House seat it lost 30 years ago. Here in the western mountains where I live, the First District could be competitive for Democrats if the college towns and Indian reservations can outflank clumps of Trumpists and armed Christian separatists. But when I asked Dorothy Bradley — a Democratic icon since she got elected to the state legislature as a 23-year-old in 1970 — about the Second District, she replied point blank, “A Democrat can’t win in eastern Montana.”She is, however, floating a Plan B. In April, Ms. Bradley invited to the Capitol in Helena her opponent in the 1992 gubernatorial race, Marc Racicot, the two-term governor and former chair of the Republican National Committee. In the contest for the House seat in the eastern district, they endorsed an independent, Gary Buchanan, who is running against Montana’s current at-large representative, Republican Matt Rosendale. The Bradley-Racicot endorsement was a singular milestone in Montana politics, as if the C.E.O.s of Pepsi and Coke called a truce to sell some Dr. Pepper.President Biden’s plea to rational Republicans and independents to vote for Democrats in the midterms, as a ploy to root out authoritarian Republican extremists, could persuade the already persuadable. But winning the popular and electoral votes in 2020 does not change the fact that he lost in about 2,500 of the nation’s 3,000 or so counties. While the Republican Party spurns observable reality, the Democratic Party has alienated most of the continent (which is also unrealistic in a republic if governing is the goal). In landscapes where, as former Senator Conrad Burns described eastern Montana, there is “a lot of dirt between light bulbs,” defending pluralist democracy might require a pluralist task force. Realistic Democrats allying with Republican defectors and the unaffiliated to elect civic-minded independents could look like the bipartisan coalition backing Mr. Buchanan and an experiment south of here in Utah.The Utah Democratic Party decided not to field a U.S. Senate candidate and instead endorsed the independent Evan McMullin, a former C.I.A. officer who ran for president in 2016, to oppose Mike Lee, who initially supported Donald Trump’s claims of a stolen election. That was a stirring, patriotic feat. Still, what did they have to lose? The last Democrat to win the Senate in Utah was born in 1911 and lost to Orrin Hatch in 1976.These independents overlap in ways that could be instructive in future races — levelheaded centrists with establishment support and a sense of place running against mortifying Republican oddballs in regions where Democrats are pariahs. And while Mr. Buchanan has raised about twice as much money as his Democratic opponent, the fact that Mr. McMullin doesn’t have a Democrat to contend with has helped propel him to a statistical tie with Senator Lee, according to a Deseret News/Hinckley Institute of Politics poll.No responsible American can vote for congressional Republicans — with few exceptions, like Senator Lisa Murkowski — for the foreseeable future because of the threat that party poses to orderly elections. Montana’s Representative Rosendale, who voted against certifying the 2020 election results, personifies that threat.Mr. Buchanan, who owns an investment advisory firm in Billings, made a last-minute decision to run for the House after Mr. Rosendale voted against a bipartisan resolution titled “Supporting the People of Ukraine.”How do you know if your representative is not the least bit representative? When the House votes 426-3, and yours is among the three.Mr. Buchanan described that vote as the moment “when embarrassment became shame.” It’s worth noting that our right-wing governor, Greg Gianforte, was so offended by the invasion, he started immediately divesting the state’s Russian assets, proclaiming, “Montana stands with Ukraine.” It’s such a near-unanimous position that even I will stand with my journalist-clobbering governor, though I will be 10 yards away wearing my dad’s welding helmet.Pondering Representative Rosendale’s peculiar record (he was also in the minority when the House voted 394-18 to support Sweden and Finland joining NATO), Mr. Racicot summarized his disapproval: “These aren’t necessarily moral judgments. These are almost mathematical judgments.”Though I voted for Dorothy Bradley in 1992, I do find Mr. Racicot, as a former R.N.C. chair who publicly endorsed Joe Biden for president, to be a reliable sherpa in ascending to the ideal of country above party.“I don’t care about the things that are debatable, that thoughtful people can argue about and come to different conclusions,” he told me. “What I care about is betraying the country and betraying the democracy.” Because of fidelity to the Constitution, he argues that “a lot of people are to the point where they can finally say: ‘You know what, I’m not a Democrat first. I’m not a Republican first.’”A man in a bar recently asked Mr. Buchanan if he’s an F.B.I. agent or a Mormon. He looks like he served as Montana’s first Department of Commerce director in the early 1980s. Sounds dull, yet those were desperate years, when much of the old Montana up and died — the Butte copper mine, the Great Falls refinery and the Anaconda smelter shut down, and the farm crisis incited hundreds of farmers in Montana and the Midwest to take their own lives. Mr. Buchanan oversaw “Build Montana,” a program focused on beefing up what’s now the economic pillar of tourism. He created the still ubiquitous “Made in Montana” label to promote homegrown products, a marketing ploy I fall for every time I face life’s jelly and jam dilemmas. Endangered fossil fuel towns might appreciate his experience with tough transitions. And his fealty to the right to privacy in the Montana Constitution, which guarantees abortion rights (for now), provides an alternative to Representative Rosendale’s rigid opposition.Mr. Buchanan told me that when he’s out campaigning in the eastern district, he meets Montanans who have never heard of the category of independent, but they instantly see themselves in that word. More than 40 percent of Americans identify as independents, according to a Gallup poll — the biggest bloc in the country, outnumbering either party. That figure should shame both parties’ leaders into deep self-reflection.When I saw photos of Mr. Racicot and Ms. Bradley standing beside Mr. Buchanan for endorsement, my first reaction was relief that there might be a plausible home remedy to Representative Rosendale and his ilk. Last month, in Livingston, I noticed about a dozen Buchanan yard signs and zero for his major party opponents. I know hardcore liberals in Helena and the Shields Valley who plan to vote for him.While I wish I could reach a comforting conclusion about the improvised communities bucking up these western independents for the greater good, partisans putting aside heartfelt differences is not necessarily a sign of hope but a warning that the two-party system has failed them. Congress is supposed to compromise, not voters.Sarah Vowell is the author of, among other books, “Lafayette in the Somewhat United States” and the producer of an oral history of the Montana Constitutional Convention of 1972.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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      PAC Linked to Pelosi Raises $134 Million for Democrats’ Key House Races

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      The House Majority PAC, the outside spending group linked to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, raised more than $36 million in September and nearly $55 million since July.The PAC, which supports Democrats with television and digital advertising in key House races, has hauled in $134 million so far this campaign season, according to a spokesperson for the group. That is ahead of its pace in 2020, when it had amassed $125 million at the same point in the election cycle.The PAC’s Republican counterpart, the Congressional Leadership Fund, has not yet released its campaign finance reports for the third quarter of 2022. On Monday, the fund announced that it was reserving an additional $14 million in television advertising for the fall, bringing its total for the election cycle to $190 million.The fresh influx of money from Republicans included $700,000 in ads aimed at Oregon’s Fourth Congressional District, where the longtime incumbent Democrat, Representative Peter A. DeFazio, is retiring, and $2 million for Florida’s 27th District, held by Representative María Elvira Salazar, a Republican, along with additional spending in 13 districts held by Democrats.The new figures come amid mixed signals for Democrats, who are working to cling to Ms. Pelosi’s paper-thin majority. President Biden’s approval ratings have improved since the early summer, as have gas prices, which remain in flux. Democratic voters appear to be energized after the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.Independent election forecasters have also narrowed their predictions of the Republican Party’s expected victory in the House. Dave Wasserman, the House analyst for the Cook Political Report, wrote an article recently with the headline “G.O.P. Control No Longer a Foregone Conclusion,” and Nate Cohn, the chief political analyst for The New York Times, wrote on Friday that although he still thought a change in party control was likely, “the idea that Democrats can hold the House is not as ridiculous, implausible or far-fetched as it seemed before the Dobbs ruling overturned Roe v. Wade.”In what Democrats said was a reflection of their changing fortunes, in late August, the House Majority PAC announced purchases in four cities within Republican-held districts: Albuquerque, Cincinnati and two California cities, Bakersfield and Fresno.However, recent polls show Republicans with an edge on the so-called generic ballot, in which voters indicate which party they prefer in Congress. That could reflect a shift in the political winds as inflation continues to hit voters’ pocketbooks or could simply be a sign that partisan Republicans are coming home.A Monmouth University poll published on Monday found that 47 percent of likely voters chose Republicans, while 44 percent preferred Democrats. Those figures represent a reversal from Monmouth’s August poll, when 50 percent of likely voters chose Democrats over Republicans, who were favored by just 43 percent of the electorate.And in the latest Gallup poll, 44 percent of voters rated the Republican Party favorably, compared with 39 percent for the Democratic Party. In January 2021, Democrats held a 48-to-37 edge in the same survey. More

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      Poll Update: Republicans Gain in the Senate

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      A closer look at Pennsylvania and Nevada, and some Democratic leads that seem vulnerable.John Fetterman, the Democratic Senate candidate in Pennsylvania, has seen his lead in the polls dwindle, perhaps because Republican voters are coming home to their party. Hannah Beier/ReutersTwo weeks ago, we noted early signs that Republicans were making gains in the race for the Senate.Now it’s clear the race has shifted toward Republicans in important ways. Democrats might still lead enough races to hold the chamber, but their position is starting to look quite vulnerable.On average, Republicans have gained three points across 19 post-Labor Day polls of the key Senate battleground states, compared with pre-Labor Day polls of the same states by the same pollsters.The shift is similar to what we observed a few weeks ago. What’s changed with more data: We can be sure that the polling shift is real, and we have more clarity about where Republicans are making their biggest gains — Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.We focused on Wisconsin last time we talked about Republican gains, so today we’ll focus on Pennsylvania.PennsylvaniaIf you’re a Democrat, there’s still one very important thing you can cling to in Pennsylvania: the lead.John Fetterman still leads Dr. Mehmet Oz in the polls taken since Labor Day. In fact, he basically leads in every one of them, by an average of around four percentage points.But Dr. Oz has nonetheless made significant gains. On average, he has closed by a net of six percentage points in post-Labor Day polling, compared with surveys by the same pollsters taken before Labor Day.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.Trouble for Nevada Democrats: The state has long been vital to the party’s hold on the West. Now, Democrats are facing potential losses up and down the ballot.Democrats’ House Chances: Democrats are not favored to win the House, but the notion of retaining the chamber is not as far-fetched as it once was, ​​writes Nate Cohn, The Times’s chief political analyst.Latino Voters: A recent Times/Siena poll found Democrats faring far worse than they have in the past with Hispanic voters. “The Daily” looks at what the poll reveals about this key voting bloc.Michigan Governor’s Race: Tudor Dixon, the G.O.P. nominee who has ground to make up in her contest against Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, is pursuing a hazardous strategy in the narrowly divided swing state: embracing former President Donald J. Trump.Why has Dr. Oz surged back into the race? There are two ways to tell the story — one might leave Democrats feeling OK; the other might leave Republicans giddy. This is one of those cases where the best interpretation draws on both cases.If you’re a Democrat, the optimistic interpretation is that Dr. Oz is merely and belatedly consolidating Republican support after a damaging primary. In this view, Dr. Oz’s gains were inevitable and there’s not much for Democrats to worry about. With Mr. Fetterman still enjoying a lead, Democrats can tell themselves that Dr. Oz has mainly won over folks who were going to come around to him eventually.There’s truth to this interpretation: Dr. Oz came out of the primary with terrible favorability ratings. Many would-be Republican voters were not prepared to say they would support him. Back in a July poll from Fox News, Dr. Oz had just 73 percent support among Republicans. Now, it’s 83 percent. Realistically, many of those Republicans were going to rally behind Dr. Oz once the general election campaign got underway and once Republicans started judging him compared with a Democrat, rather than against Republicans.But there’s another interpretation that might be more encouraging for Republicans: Mr. Fetterman has endured forceful attacks related to his health — he had a stroke in May — as well as his views about crime and the economy. There’s reason to think those attacks are taking a toll.A Franklin and Marshall poll last week found Mr. Fetterman’s favorability ratings under water, with 46 percent saying they have an unfavorable view of him compared with 40 percent with a favorable view. Back in August, the numbers were nearly reversed: Just 36 percent had an unfavorable view of him, compared with 43 percent with a favorable view.Dr. Oz’s favorability ratings are still worse than Mr. Fetterman’s. And so far, most voters say they’re not concerned about Mr. Fetterman’s health. But there’s no doubt that Mr. Fetterman, rather than Dr. Oz, has become the focal point of the race over the last month. With Mr. Fetterman still struggling — by his own admission — to recover fully from the stroke, there’s no reason to assume that the spotlight will relent. As long as that’s true, Republicans can hope that Dr. Oz might continue to gain.Nevada?Wisconsin and Pennsylvania aren’t necessarily the only places where the G.O.P. is gaining in the polls.Republicans have picked up about 1.4 points in post-Labor Day Senate surveys in states other than Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. The story isn’t always so clear in these other states — there are either fewer polls than in Pennsylvania or Wisconsin, or the polls are a little less consistent about the size of Republican gains.Of the other states, it’s Nevada where the Republicans seem closest to assembling convincing evidence of a breakthrough. The recent polling there is fragmentary, but all of the recent polls show the Republican Adam Laxalt leading the Democratic Senate incumbent Catherine Cortez Masto. In the (only two) post-Labor Day surveys with a pre-Labor Day counterpart, Mr. Laxalt has gained nearly three points.Although it’s still too soon to say whether Mr. Laxalt has inched into a lead, Nevada has loomed as an obvious weak point for the Democrats this cycle.President Biden won the state by only two percentage points in 2020, and it’s not a state where Democrats can draw on their demographic strengths. College-educated voters represent a smaller share of the electorate here than in any other battleground state.Instead, Democrats depend on the state’s large and heavily Democratic Hispanic population. But Hispanics may be trending toward Republicans, and they would also probably be expected to turn out at relatively low numbers in a midterm, even if Democrats retained their margin of victory with the group.The big picture is … murkyThe scope of Republican gains isn’t just murky in the Senate races outside Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. It’s murkier beyond the Senate as well.Over the last few weeks, there haven’t been a lot of generic ballot polls, which ask voters whether they prefer Democrats or Republicans for Congress. But there are mounting signs of a rightward shift on this measure.On Monday, a new Monmouth poll added to the pile. Republicans led by two points among registered voters, a pretty sizable shift from its last poll, when Democrats led by three points. Looking back over the last two weeks, there are a lot more Republican leads on the generic ballot than there used to be.There are still a few dissenting data points, so it’s still too soon to be too confident about whether or to what extent Republicans have picked up ground nationwide, but it would be no surprise if Republicans were pulling back into the lead. With economic concerns on the rise and the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade moving farther into the rearview mirror, the opportunity for Republicans to reclaim lost ground might be at hand. More

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      Ahead of Midterms, Democrats Bet on Abortion Rights

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      EAGAN, Minn. — Before dozens of volunteers fanned out through the Twin Cities suburbs to knock on voters’ doors on a recent sunny Saturday afternoon, Representative Angie Craig, Democrat of Minnesota, gathered them in a campaign office in a strip mall here to make sure they remembered a specific message.“As you go to each door, what I want you to have in your mind is that if Tyler Kistner is your member of Congress, he is someone who has said he is 100 percent pro-life,” Ms. Craig said, referring to her Republican opponent. “Today, the people of this district have never had a more distinct choice. We are the party — and I am the member of Congress — who will be the wall to protect your reproductive rights, to protect your privacy, to protect your freedoms.”In competitive districts across the country like Ms. Craig’s, Democrats in difficult re-election races are leaning heavily into preserving abortion rights as a closing argument for their uphill bids to hang onto their seats in a year when their party’s majority is at risk.Armed with polling data that shows that the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the constitutional right to an abortion has moved independent voters in their direction, they have reoriented their campaigns around the issue in the crucial final weeks before the election.The strategy is built around the hope that in the handful of close races that will determine control of the House, the demise of federal abortion rights has energized independent voters and conservative-leaning women so intensely that it could allow otherwise vulnerable Democrats to eke out victories that previously seemed out of reach.Supporters of abortion rights protesting in Washington. Polling data shows that the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade has moved independent voters toward Democrats.Anna Rose Layden for The New York TimesNearly every advertisement that House Democrats’ super PAC is funding is about reproductive rights, including one that dramatizes the consequences of a national abortion ban, featuring police officers handcuffing doctors, nurses and patients who sought or performed “health care services that have been legal for nearly 50 years.” Roundtables hosted by vulnerable incumbents flanked by OB/GYNs and elaborate events rolling out Planned Parenthood endorsements abound.It is a rare opportunity for Democrats to go on the offensive during a campaign cycle that was initially expected to deal their party steep losses, and in which their majority is still at risk amid rising inflation, concerns about crime and President Biden’s sagging approval ratings. In recent weeks, however, internal polling has shown that the threat of losing abortion access has energized some abortion rights supporters who might not ordinarily vote in a midterm election and swayed independents toward Democratic candidates, potentially affording the party a chance to stanch its losses. More

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      Democrats’ Troubles in Nevada Are a Microcosm of Nationwide Headwinds

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      Inflation and a rocky economy are bolstering Republicans in their races against incumbent Democrats, motivating “an electorate that simply wants change,” as one G.O.P. consultant says.LAS VEGAS — The Culinary Workers Union members who are knocking on doors to get out the vote are on the cursed-at front lines of the Democratic Party’s midterm battle.Most voters do not open their doors. And when some do answer, the canvassers might wish they hadn’t.“You think I am going to vote for those Democrats after all they’ve done to ruin the economy?” a voter shouted one evening last week from her entryway in a working-class neighborhood of East Las Vegas.Miguel Gonzalez, a 55-year-old chef who described himself as a conservative Christian who has voted for Republicans for most of his life, was more polite but no more convinced. “I don’t agree with anything Democrats are doing at all,” he said after taking a fistful of fliers from the union canvassers.Those who know Nevada best have always viewed its blue-state status as something befitting a desert: a kind of mirage. Democrats are actually a minority among registered voters, and most of the party’s victories in the last decade were narrowly decided. But the state has long been a symbolic linchpin for the party — vital to its national coalition and its hold on the blue West.Now, Democrats in Nevada are facing potential losses up and down the ballot in November and bracing for a seismic shift that could help Republicans win control of both houses of Congress. Senator Catherine Cortez Masto remains one of the most vulnerable Democratic incumbents in the country. Gov. Steve Sisolak is fighting his most formidable challenger yet. And the state’s three House Democrats could all lose their seats.The Democratic juggernaut built by former Senator Harry M. Reid is on its heels, staring down the most significant spate of losses in more than a decade. More

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      The Latino Voters Who Could Decide the Midterms

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      Diana Nguyen and Rachel Quester and Marion Lozano and Listen and follow The DailyApple Podcasts | Spotify | StitcherLatino voters have never seemed more electorally important than in the coming midterm elections: the first real referendum on the Biden era of government.Latinos make up 20 percent of registered voters in two crucial Senate races — Arizona and Nevada — and as much or more in over a dozen competitive House races.In the past 10 years, the conventional wisdom about Latino voters has been uprooted. We explore a poll, conducted by The Times, to better understand how they view the parties vying for their vote.On today’s episodeJennifer Medina, a national politics reporter for The New York Times.Dani Bernal, born in Bolivia and raised in Miami, described herself as an independent who’s in line with Democrats on social issues but Republicans on the economy.Jenna Schoenefeld for The New York TimesBackground readingTwo years after former President Donald Trump made surprising gains with Hispanic voters, Republican dreams of a major realignment have failed to materialize, according to a New York Times/Siena College poll.There are a lot of ways to listen to The Daily. Here’s how.We aim to make transcripts available the next workday after an episode’s publication. You can find them at the top of the page.Jennifer Medina More

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      It’s Time to Take Democrats’ Chances in the House Seriously

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      No, they are not favored. But the notion of retaining the chamber is not as far-fetched as it once was.House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, before the memorial service last month for Queen Elizabeth II in Washington. Republicans are favored to retake the House. Manuel Balce Ceneta/Associated PressThere were more than a few Democrats who were a little miffed about my Friday newsletter on gerrymandering, which argued that Democrats aren’t at a terribly significant structural disadvantage in the race for the House.I understand why Democrats don’t love reading that the obstacles they face — especially unjust ones — aren’t so bad. But underneath what some might read as a dismissal of the seriousness of gerrymandering is a kernel of good news for Democratic readers: Republican control of the House is not a foregone conclusion.No, I’m not saying Democrats are favored. The likeliest scenario is still that Republicans will find the five seats they need to take control. And no one should be surprised if Republicans flip a lot more than that — especially with early signs that the political winds may be starting to shift in ways that might yield some Republican gains in key races (more on this tomorrow).But the idea that Democrats can hold the House is not as ridiculous, implausible or far-fetched as it seemed before the Dobbs ruling overturned Roe v. Wade. It is a real possibility — not some abstraction in the sense that anything can happen.In fact, not much would need to happen at all.If the polls are “right” and Election Day were today, the fight for the House would be very close. It would be a district-by-district battle for control, one in which the race might come down to the strengths and weaknesses of individual candidates and campaigns. With a few lucky breaks, Democrats could come out ahead.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.Sensing a Shift: As November approaches, there are a few signs that the political winds may have begun to blow in a different direction — one that might help Republicans over the final stretch.Focusing on Crime: Across the country, Republicans are attacking Democrats as soft on crime to rally midterm voters. Pennsylvania’s Senate contest offers an especially pointed example of this strategy.Arizona Senate Race: Blake Masters, a Republican, appears to be struggling to win over independent voters, who make up about a third of the state’s electorate.Pennsylvania Governor’s Race: Doug Mastriano, the Trump-backed G.O.P. nominee, is being heavily outspent and trails badly in polling. National Republicans are showing little desire to help him.Those are two huge “ifs,” of course. But with five weeks to go until the election, those “ifs” aren’t exactly a good enough reason to justify writing off the race for the House.How could this be? It’s more straightforward than you might think. Democrats hold a narrow lead on the generic congressional ballot, a poll question asking whether voters would prefer Democrats or Republicans for Congress. If Republicans don’t have a robust structural advantage, as I wrote last Friday, then why wouldn’t the Democrats at least be competitive in the race for Congress? On paper, the Democratic disadvantage is fairly comparable to their disadvantage in the Senate — which most everyone agrees Democrats have a decent chance to hold this cycle.Of course, the reason we think Democrats might overcome their obstacles in the Senate is because we have dozens of polls in critical Senate races. Thanks to those polls, we know Democrats lead in Pennsylvania and Arizona, which we might have assumed were tossups otherwise. In contrast, we have no idea whether Democrats are leading in equivalent races for the House: There are almost no nonpartisan House polls at all, and they’re spread out across many more races.But if Democrats can do what they appear to be doing in the Senate, there’s no reason to assume they couldn’t already be doing something similar in the House. If we had as many House polls as we do in the Senate, perhaps Democrats would appear to be ahead in the race for the House as well.On this point, it’s worth pausing on the decision by House Republicans to pull adds in Ohio’s Ninth District. This district voted for former President Donald J. Trump by three percentage points in 2020; it was redrawn to defeat the longtime Democratic incumbent, Marcy Kaptur. But Republicans nominated J.R. Majewski, a stop-the-steal candidate who misrepresented his military service for good measure. The Republicans canceled nearly $1 million in scheduled advertisements.Mr. Majewski may well win in the end, but this is exactly the sort of story we see playing out in the Senate — weak Republican candidates failing to capitalize on their underlying advantages, with well-funded Democratic incumbents positioned to pounce. The district is now characterized as “lean Democratic” by the Cook Political Report.I asked my friend Dave Wasserman, House editor of the Cook Political Report, whether he thought Democrats would appear to lead in the race for the House today if there were robust polling averages in every district, as there are in the Senate. He said they would, with Democrats leading the polls “in maybe 220 to 225 seats,” more than the 218 needed for a majority.The fragmentary nonpartisan House polling we do have is intriguing. These polls don’t say much about any particular district (with the exception of Alaska’s At-Large, another race where the Republicans may be forfeiting what little remains of their structural advantage). But on average, Democrats are running a net 3.9 points behind President Biden — a number that’s essentially consistent with a tied national vote (Mr. Biden won by 4.5 points in 2020) — across the 29 districts where there have been polls since Aug. 1.In the end, most analysts — including me and Mr. Wasserman — still think Republicans are favored to win the House. In this national environment, it would be no surprise if the polls trended toward the Republicans over the next few weeks. If they don’t, we’ll be nervous that the polls are about to be off yet again. That’s not just because the polls have underestimated Republicans in recent cycles, but also because the long history of out-party success in midterm elections weighs heavily on our thinking.But until or unless the polls shift more clearly in the G.O.P.’s favor, there’s no reason to dismiss the prospect of a Democratic House. Not anymore. More