Elections, Senate

Subterms

    More stories

    • 150 Shares179 Views

      in Elections

      In Ohio, G.O.P. Sees a Clean Victory as Democrats Predict an Upset

      by

      Polls show Representative Tim Ryan competing within the margin of error against his Republican opponent, J.D. Vance, in the high-profile Ohio Senate race.CLEVELAND — When Tim Ryan speaks to Democratic crowds in the closing days of the Ohio Senate race, his biggest applause line is about the other team.A Republican official in a “deep-red county,” he recounts, his voice dropping to a stage whisper, told him, “You have no idea how many Republicans are going to quietly vote for you.”The hoots and hollers that break out represent the high hopes of a party that has lost much of its appeal to working-class voters and that sees in Mr. Ryan — a congressman from the Mahoning Valley who has an anti-China, pro-manufacturing message and whose own father is a Republican — a chance to claw back blue-collar credibility.Polls show Mr. Ryan competing within the margin of error against his Republican opponent, J.D. Vance. Mr. Ryan is polling higher than President Biden’s job approval rating in Ohio surveys, and he is outperforming the Democratic candidate for governor, Nan Whaley. That suggests a potentially sizable pool of voters who intend to split their tickets between a Republican for governor and a Democrat for Senate.“This is going to be the upset of the night,” Mr. Ryan said in an interview on his campaign bus on Thursday, as he plied the pro-Democrat shoreline of Lake Erie from Toledo to Cleveland.“There’s a lot of Republicans who would never tell a pollster that they’re voting for me,” he said. “They don’t want to put a yard sign up. They don’t want to get in a fight with the neighbor who’s got the ‘Let’s Go Brandon’ flag.”He said his internal polling showed 12 percent or more of Republicans “coming our way.”But there is also the cold reality of a midterm environment tilting against Democrats almost everywhere, with inflation the top voter concern. Polling in Ohio in recent elections has undercounted the backing for Republican candidates. And there has been a political realignment of Ohio voters in the past decade, which has largely pushed the state off the battleground map.J.D. Vance listening to local elected officials at the annual Darke County Republican Party Hog Roast.Brian Kaiser for The New York TimesWhite Ohioans without college degrees have shifted toward Republicans up and down the ballot, while suburban, college-educated voters have moved to favor Democrats, though less consistently.“Ohio is a much more Republican state than Texas is,” said Mike Hartley, a Republican strategist with 25 years of experience in Ohio. “Democrats talk about things that for a lot of Ohioans offends their core principles and sensibilities, and they run away from the pocketbook issues.”The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsElection Day is Tuesday, Nov. 8.Bracing for a Red Wave: Republicans were already favored to flip the House. Now they are looking to run up the score by vying for seats in deep-blue states.Pennsylvania Senate Race: The debate performance by Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, who is still recovering from a stroke, has thrust questions of health to the center of the pivotal race and raised Democratic anxieties.G.O.P. Inflation Plans: Republicans are riding a wave of anger over inflation as they seek to recapture Congress, but few economists expect their proposals to bring down rising prices.Polling Analysis: If these poll results keep up, everything from a Democratic hold in the Senate and a narrow House majority to a total G.O.P. rout becomes imaginable, writes Nate Cohn, The Times’s chief political analyst.Former President Donald J. Trump twice won Ohio with ease by appealing to the economic and cultural anxieties of working-class white voters. In 2020, he grew his support in the state’s industrial northeast — Mr. Ryan’s base — and became the first Republican presidential candidate in 50 years to win Mahoning County, which is home to Youngstown.Bob Paduchik, chairman of the Republican Party of Ohio, brushed off the notion of quiet Republican support for Mr. Ryan. He said county-level absentee voting data and an analysis using Republican National Committee modeling predicted a clean Vance victory.“I don’t know what he thinks he’s looking at,” he said of Mr. Ryan’s assertion of hidden support. “But I’ll take our data, which is based on the R.N.C. modeling, which has hundreds of millions of dollars invested in it.”Despite Mr. Trump’s success in Ohio, Democrats point to the example of Senator Sherrod Brown, a Democrat and gruff-voiced champion of organized labor who won re-election in 2018 by appealing to working-class voters who might not have liked his progressive social priorities, but believed he would fight for their jobs.Mr. Ryan touring a job training facility at McKinley United Methodist Church in Dayton, Ohio. Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesMr. Ryan, casting himself partly in the Brown mold, is the grandson of a steelworker and a longtime opponent of trade deals that hurt American factories. He has said that President Biden should not seek re-election and he opposed Nancy Pelosi for House speaker. A former college quarterback, he appears in his ads throwing darts in a bar or footballs at TV sets. “You want culture wars? I’m not your guy,” he says.Mr. Ryan pitches himself to voters weary of the divisiveness and anger broiling in America. “I have this conversation with my dad all the time,” he said in the interview, adding that his father “probably” voted for Mr. Trump, twice.“People are tired of the insanity,” Mr. Ryan told a gathering of Democratic activists on the shore of Lake Erie in Sandusky on Thursday. “We’re Ohio. Ohio doesn’t do crazy.”It was a sideswipe at Mr. Vance, who has campaigned with the far-right Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, has flirted with the conspiracy theory that Democrats want to “replace” existing voters with immigrants and has defended Alex Jones as “more reputable” than an MSNBC host.On Friday, speaking to supporters at the county Republican headquarters in Canton, Mr. Vance portrayed his opponent as disingenuous in claiming to be a new-model Democrat. Mr. Vance joked that “maybe we should have invited Tim Ryan” because of the Democrat’s efforts to distance himself from his own party.“This guy is not the moderate that he pretends to be,” Mr. Vance continued. “He’s a guy who bends the knee to Nancy Pelosi and does what he’s told.”One sign that Mr. Ryan remains a long shot is the lack of TV advertising from big-spending groups tied to the Democratic Senate leadership, which have poured tens of millions of dollars into races elsewhere.Mr. Ryan has compensated by raising a staggering $48 million on his own. The money flowed from small donors around the country, many annoyed by Mr. Vance’s political evolution, from the “Hillbilly Elegy” author who denounced Mr. Trump in 2016 as “cultural heroin” to a stalwart Trump supporter. At a rally in Ohio last month, the former president joked that Mr. Vance “is kissing my ass” to win his support.Mr. Vance’s supporters in Cincinnati reacting to the news that he won the Republican primary in May.Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesMr. Trump is scheduled to return to the state the day before the election for a rally with Mr. Vance in Dayton. Asked at a brief news conference on Friday whether he needed a boost from the former president, Mr. Vance said: “I like the president. I thought his policies deliver prosperity for the state of Ohio, and he wants to come to Ohio, and we’d love to have him in Ohio. It’s really that simple.”Unlike Mr. Ryan, who has shunned campaigning with national Democratic figures, Mr. Vance has embraced national G.O.P. leaders, appearing in Canton with the Republican National Committee chairwoman, Ronna McDaniel, and Senator Rick Scott of Florida, the chairman of the Republican Senate campaign arm.Mr. Vance has largely relied on the Republican cavalry from out of state, most significantly for $28 million in TV ads from a super PAC aligned with Senator Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader.Mr. Vance on his own has raised $12.7 million, after his campaign was supported almost exclusively by a super PAC funded by $15 million from the Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel, who once employed Mr. Vance. After Mr. Vance won his primary, Mr. Thiel moved on to other races.On Friday, Ms. McDaniel reminded reporters that polls in Ohio historically have widely missed support for Republicans.“J.D. is actually polling higher than President Trump was heading into the election in 2020,” she said. Mr. Trump went on to win the state by eight percentage points.“What people were seeing in the polling is not new in this state,” Mr. Vance told reporters. “It always overstates things to the benefit of the Democrats.”With a little more than one week before the election on Nov. 8, Mr. Ryan has been making an appeal to unity in these fractured times.“I know you feel the same way as I do,” he told activists in an autoworkers union hall in Cleveland on Thursday night. “I don’t want any more hate. I don’t want any more anger.” He added: “I want people who care about each other. I want some forgiveness. I want some grace.” More

    • 125 Shares179 Views

      in Elections

      Obama to Georgia Democrats: ‘Resist the Temptation to Give Up’

      by

      ATLANTA — Former President Barack Obama implored Georgia Democrats not to “tune out” politics and to “resist the temptation to give up,” as he tried to energize his party’s most loyal voters in a state that could decide control of the U.S. Senate. Speaking to a crowd of several thousand, Mr. Obama noted the many issues that may be dampening voter enthusiasm — inflation, rising crime and the war in Ukraine — making little mention that those ills have happened while his party controls Washington. But he cast the midterm elections as a fight not over policy differences, but the health of democracy. “I get why you might be worried. I understand why it might be tempting sometimes to tune out,” Mr. Obama said. “But I’m here to tell you that tuning out is not an option.” His speech, a mix of his familiar applause lines and new warnings about threats to democratic norms, aimed to boost Democratic candidates in the state even as their party has suffered low approval ratings nationwide. He presented Democrats as the best alternative to Republican lawmakers, a group that he said is “not interested in actually solving problems.” Mr. Obama was especially pointed in his criticism of Herschel Walker, a former University of Georgia football star and the Republican challenger to the state’s senator, Raphael Warnock. Mr. Walker, Mr. Obama said, is “a celebrity who wants to be a politician.” Mr. Walker’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Mr. Obama’s remarks.Mr. Obama arrived as the campaign enters the final stretch and Democrats are desperate to fire up their base, especially Black voters who have struggled with inflation and rising crime but have been left cold by the Biden administration. His stop in College Park, outside Atlanta, was the first of five events he is planning in coming days. He is due in Michigan and Wisconsin on Saturday, then Nevada and Pennsylvania next week — all states with close Senate races. Mr. Obama, at times, acknowledged voters’ fatigue and hardly mentioned President Biden, his former vice president. “Joe is fighting for you every day. He’s got your back. He’s doing everything he can to put more money in your pockets,” he said. Georgia Democrats have pointed to sky-high early voting figures as a sign of strength heading into Election Day. Nearly 1.3 million voters have cast ballots in the state, with the strongest performances coming from older Black voters and those in the deep-blue metro Atlanta counties of Fulton and DeKalb, according to data from the secretary of state’s office.But all signs point to strong turnout on both sides, with Republican voters poised to pour into polling places on Election Day. Mr. Biden’s approval ratings remain low, standing last month at an abysmal 37 percent in an Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll. And while key portions of the Democratic base have turned out en masse, Democrats will still need to outperform with voters under 30 and women in the Atlanta suburbs to find success in November.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsElection Day is Tuesday, Nov. 8.Bracing for a Red Wave: Republicans were already favored to flip the House. Now they are looking to run up the score by vying for seats in deep-blue states.Pennsylvania Senate Race: The debate performance by Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, who is still recovering from a stroke, has thrust questions of health to the center of the pivotal race and raised Democratic anxieties.G.O.P. Inflation Plans: Republicans are riding a wave of anger over inflation as they seek to recapture Congress, but few economists expect their proposals to bring down rising prices.Polling Analysis: If these poll results keep up, everything from a Democratic hold in the Senate and a narrow House majority to a total G.O.P. rout becomes imaginable, writes Nate Cohn, The Times’s chief political analyst.“I look at the early vote numbers in Georgia, and see them as certainly positive news for Democrats,” said Tom Bonier, chief executive of the Democratic polling firm TargetSmart, which is working for the Abrams campaign. “But I think it’s also something that shows the work that needs to be done.”Friday’s rally was billed as an event for Georgia’s entire Democratic ticket. But two of its candidates took center stage: Stacey Abrams, the Democratic nominee for governor who is challenging Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, in a rematch, and Mr. Warnock. Ms. Abrams’ campaign has been particularly focused on winning over Black men, whose votes are also vital to Mr. Warnock if he is to defeat Mr. Walker. Black voters could also make the difference elsewhere, especially in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, where lagging turnout from voters of color helped Donald J. Trump secure narrow victories.“I think we’re going to see Black voters step up to the plate,” said Quentin James, president and co-founder of The Collective, a political action committee devoted to electing Black Democrats. “But you can’t divorce that from the reality that the country hasn’t always stood up for Black voters.”At a Democratic event called Georgia Black Men Call to Action, audience members listened to a speech by Stacey Abrams.Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York TimesMr. Obama tried to cast the election as dire moment for the country, pointing to Republicans’ questioning of the results of the 2020 election. Democratic candidates, he said, are a bulwark against Republican candidates who are running on a platform of election denial. “If they win, there’s no telling what would happen,” he said. Jameelah Gray, 32, after voting early at Morehouse College in Atlanta. All signs point to strong turnout on both sides in Georgia.Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York TimesThe former president’s earlier forays into midterm battlegrounds were anything but resounding successes. In 2010, he crisscrossed the country trying to rally voters — especially young voters — by telling them that Republicans had driven the economy into a ditch and Democrats had pulled it out. Unimpressed, the electorate responded with what he called a “shellacking,” handing Republicans a 68-seat gain in the House, the largest since 1948, along with seven seats in the Senate and six additional governorships.In 2014, Republicans netted nine Senate seats, cementing control of Congress for Mr. Obama’s final two years in office.Out of office, however, Mr. Obama is arguably a more popular Democratic figure than the current president — or any other Democratic leader, for that matter.“There’s nostalgia for the Obama era with a lot of swing voters,” said Tim Phillips, a Republican strategist and former president of Americans for Prosperity, a conservative political organization funded by the Koch family. “I think he’s their best spokesperson.”For his part, Mr. Biden has been a low-key presence on the campaign trail, avoiding large rallies altogether. On Friday night, he spoke at a Democratic dinner in Pennsylvania, where he celebrated Democrats’ legislative wins and railed against both Republican policies and candidates. Mr. James argued that Mr. Biden’s scarcity on the campaign trail was not really about Black voters, saying Mr. Biden was even less popular with white voters. By contrast, he said, African Americans remained deeply connected to the first and only Black president, who drew the highest turnout of Black voters in history.“Obama’s going to ramp up urgency,” he said, “not just for voting but for voting early. It will be a call to action.”The political environment for Democrats is far more uncertain than it was in either of the Obama midterms. Unemployment is low and the economy is growing, but Americans are confronting the worst inflation the nation has seen in 40 years, which is driving up interest rates and clawing back any sense of income gains as the pandemic recedes.On the other hand, the Supreme Court’s repeal of abortion rights and the looming presence of Mr. Trump are energizing the Democratic base in ways that Mr. Obama did not experience in his years in office.“Presidents look better in the rear-view mirror,” said Mo Elleithee, who was a senior official at the Democratic National Committee during the drubbing the party took in 2014.With little more than a week to go, Democrats are bracing for either a significant Republican wave that hands control of both the House and Senate to the Republican Party, or a split decision, with Democrats retaining control of a tightly divided Senate and Republicans squeaking out a narrow majority in the House.Developments in key races have only heightened Democratic anxieties. Lt. Gov. John Fetterman’s halting debate performance against Dr. Mehmet Oz, a Republican, spotlighted the effect Mr. Fetterman’s stroke had had on his ability to communicate and frayed the nerves of Pennsylvania Democrats.The Republicans’ main super PAC resumed advertising on television in New Hampshire, convinced that the race between Senator Maggie Hassan and her Republican challenger, Don Bolduc, had tightened. And prognosticators moved the Arizona contest between Senator Mark Kelly and his Republican challenger, Blake Masters, back to a tossup.Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, in Syracuse on Thursday, was recorded expressing his concerns to President Biden about where Democrats stood in Senate contests.Kenny Holston for The New York TimesPerhaps most exasperating to Democrats is the Senate race in Georgia, where a second woman this week accused Mr. Walker of having paid for her to have an abortion. Mr. Walker has denied both women’s claims.Caught on a hot microphone on Thursday, Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, was heard telling Mr. Biden, “The state where we’re going downhill is Georgia. It’s hard to believe that they will go for Herschel Walker.” On Friday night the Walker campaign pointed to remarks the candidate made earlier in the day where he said “Unlike Raphael Warnock I’m not a politician. I’m a warrior for God.”Jessica Taylor, the Senate analyst at the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, said, “It really does feel like there is a lot of movement in these races.” She still rates control of the Senate a tossup, but, she added, “If this is a wave, you could see others swept away,” like Senator Michael Bennet, Democrat of Colorado.On the other hand, recent polling has tantalized Democrats in Iowa, where Senator Charles E. Grassley, a Republican, is seeking another six-year term at age 89; in North Carolina, where the Democratic nominee for the Senate, Cheri Beasley, remains knotted with her Republican opponent, Ted Budd; and even in Utah, where Senator Mike Lee, a Republican, is facing an unexpectedly strong challenge from an independent, the former C.I.A. officer Evan McMullin.“This is the trickiest midterm environment I’ve seen in a long time,” said Steve Israel, a former House member from New York who once headed the House Democrats’ campaign arm.Maya King reported from Atlanta and Jonathan Weisman from Chicago. More

    • 163 Shares119 Views

      in Elections

      Bennet and O’Dea Meet Up for Final Senate Debate in Colorado on Friday

      by

      Senator Michael Bennet, Democrat of Colorado, and his Republican rival, Joe O’Dea, will square off in a final debate on Friday night as they both try to win over remaining undecided voters with Election Day just over a week away.The debate, which is taking place at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, follows one on Tuesday night in which the two had a fairly reserved exchange that did not even touch on abortion rights — one of the chief points of contention in the campaign so far. Friday’s showdown is expected to be more aggressive, with a much larger audience. It will begin at 9 p.m. Eastern time and be streamed live.“This is one of our best and last opportunities to show undecided voters who we are and what we stand for: like freedom of choice, protecting public lands, and an economy that works for everyone, not just those at the top,” Mr. Bennet said in a fund-raising email sent Friday.Mr. O’Dea, a construction company owner making his first run for public office, has stepped up his criticism of Mr. Bennet, who is seeking a third full term, and the Biden administration, blaming them for rising crime and lax security at the border with Mexico. “There’s a humanitarian crisis at the border,” he said recently on a Fox News radio program, pointing to migrant deaths as well as the smuggling of fentanyl, which he said has killed 1,900 Coloradans, along with other drugs. “We’ve got to put an end to it. Bennet and Biden, they will not treat it like a crisis. I will.”Mr. O’Dea has sought to present himself as a more moderate Republican, and broke with former President Donald J. Trump, a move which brought him a rebuke. Mr. Bennet has emphasized his record on Colorado issues, including obtaining funding for river and conservation projects.The race is not in the top tier of Republican pickup opportunities. But national Republicans say they believe Mr. O’Dea could still have a chance as the party’s candidates have gained momentum in recent weeks, though polls have kept Mr. Bennet in the front throughout the campaign. More

    • 113 Shares109 Views

      in Elections

      Oz Struggles to Woo Black Philadelphians in Senate Race

      by

      PHILADELPHIA — Back in July, Dr. Mehmet Oz paid a campaign visit to Mike Monroe’s barbershop in West Philadelphia.“Shop has been empty ever since,” Mr. Monroe joked the other day, as he buzzed the head of a customer in a gold-painted chair in his spacious business, ESPM Hair Zone.Dr. Oz’s visit was part of the Republican’s attempt to reach Black voters in Pennsylvania’s most Democratic city as he runs for the Senate. The issues that he invariably highlights during his campaign stops in Philadelphia — the fentanyl epidemic, a grim homicide toll and street crime — are also top worries for Mr. Monroe, who enlists other barbers to mentor young Black men to stop gun violence.But Mr. Monroe said he would most likely vote for Dr. Oz’s Democratic opponent, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman. “I think everybody around here will vote for Fetterman,” he said.Philadelphia’s Black voters, who are historically deeply loyal to Democrats, are increasingly crucial to the Fetterman campaign, as polls show the Senate race in a statistical tie, and following Tuesday’s debate between the two candidates. Mr. Fetterman, who is recovering from a stroke, often struggled in the debate to express himself clearly, injecting unpredictability into the race and raising the stakes for Mr. Fetterman to turn out core Democrats.Despite Dr. Oz’s multiple campaign visits to Philadelphia — and millions of dollars in Republican TV ads attacking Mr. Fetterman as soft on crime — interviews with Black voters in Philadelphia, as well as Black elected Democratic officials and strategists, suggested support for Dr. Oz among African Americans remained small.Nor has a Republican attack ad about a 2013 episode in which Mr. Fetterman, as the mayor of Braddock, Pa., stopped a Black jogger using a shotgun, seemed to have landed with many Philadelphia voters. Few Black voters interviewed were aware of the episode. In the debate, Mr. Fetterman said he made “a split-second decision” as “the chief law enforcement officer” of Braddock.“We see this every cycle, folks who clearly don’t have policy interests in the Black community, like Oz, will come in to show up and try to siphon” off voters, said State Senator Vincent Hughes, a Democrat who represents West Philadelphia. “They’re trying to get a point here, a point there, and cut into a base of votes that historically has been solidly Democratic — for good reasons.”Nonetheless, the Fetterman campaign faces the challenge of motivating Black voters to turn out in an election climate when inflation is squeezing Americans and when many Black voters, especially young people, feel that the Biden administration has not delivered on its promises.“I think everybody around here will vote for Fetterman,” said Mike Monroe, cutting hair recently at his Philadelphia barbershop.Hannah Beier for The New York TimesCassandra McIntosh, 27, voted for Mr. Biden in 2020. But she said “he’s not doing enough,” and plans to skip this year’s election. The mother of a 5-year-old and an 8-year-old, Ms. McIntosh was shopping recently on 52nd Street, a West Philadelphia commercial corridor.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsElection Day is Tuesday, Nov. 8.Bracing for a Red Wave: Republicans were already favored to flip the House. Now they are looking to run up the score by vying for seats in deep-blue states.Pennsylvania Senate Race: The debate performance by Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, who is still recovering from a stroke, has thrust questions of health to the center of the pivotal race and raised Democratic anxieties.G.O.P. Inflation Plans: Republicans are riding a wave of anger over inflation as they seek to recapture Congress, but few economists expect their proposals to bring down rising prices.Polling Analysis: If these poll results keep up, everything from a Democratic hold in the Senate and a narrow House majority to a total G.O.P. rout becomes imaginable, writes Nate Cohn, The Times’s chief political analyst.She mentioned Mr. Fetterman “letting prisoners out of jail,” a reference to his chairmanship of the state Board of Pardons, a ubiquitous target in Republican attack ads. Of Dr. Oz, she added, “I don’t want to vote for him either too much.”In 2020, President Biden’s support in some majority-Black wards in Philadelphia was as high as 97 percent, exceeding the 92 percent of Black votes he won nationally. But a hoped-for turnout surge by African Americans in the city did not materialize. Mr. Biden’s narrow victory in Pennsylvania largely relied on his blowout margins in the suburbs, where former President Donald J. Trump was toxic for many voters.Mr. Fetterman faces a related challenge in 2022.If Dr. Oz can improve on Mr. Trump’s suburban margins — a possibility without the former president on the ballot — Mr. Fetterman will have to compensate by drawing an even higher turnout than usual for a midterm, both in Philadelphia and in rural counties.“It’s absolutely critical,” Joe Pierce, Mr. Fetterman’s statewide political director, said of Philadelphia’s Black vote. “We need Black voter turnout. We need it in high numbers.”State Representative Malcolm Kenyatta, a Democrat from the city, said he had three words for the Fetterman campaign: “‘Philadelphia’ and ‘Black voters.’”“These are voters who are not voting for Dr. Oz, let me be very clear,” Mr. Kenyatta said on a liberal podcast, The Wilderness. “But the question is, are they going to stay home just because they’re frustrated? And I hear that frustration every single day.”In interviews, he and other Democratic officials and strategists said Dr. Oz’s regular refrain about violent crime in Philadelphia — where homicides are on track to exceed 2021’s record 561 killings — ring hollow with Black voters, because he has failed to support meaningful solutions. Democrats favor stronger gun safety laws, public investments in schools and housing, and a higher minimum wage..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.Last week, Dr. Oz released an anti-crime plan that includes stiffer penalties for carjacking and illegal guns, maintaining cash bail and securing “every inch” of the Southwest border.A Black G.O.P. leader in Philadelphia, Calvin Tucker, predicted that Dr. Oz would do well in the city. “He’s going into barbershops,” he said. “He’s walked some of the commercial business corridors in the African American community — I believe he’s touching people at the local level.”Democrats said the real audience for Dr. Oz’s highlighting of crime in Philadelphia — including a stroll with TV cameras through a notorious neighborhood of open opioid use — were voters outside the city.“It’s about how to get certain suburban white women to be so scared of the boogeyman that they vote for the Republican,” said Kellan White, a Democratic strategist in Philadelphia, who is African American. “I don’t think my grandmother is motivated by this.”Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, campaigning last week in Harmony, Pa.Jared Wickerham for The New York TimesDr. Oz’s outreach to Black Philadelphians comes with a made-for-TV polish, reminiscent of the long-running “Dr. Oz Show” he hosted. At an anti-crime event in South Philadelphia, billed as a “community discussion,” he called on speakers from among an invited audience of 30. The audience surrounded the candidate on three sides and faced a media contingent as numerous as the guests.A Black pastor said it was easier to buy fentanyl than baby formula on many blocks. A white woman from outside the city said her husband “gave me one rule: Do not go to Philadelphia by yourself.” Dr. Oz lamented an epidemic of “crime and drugs that are creating lawlessness in the southeast of Pennsylvania.”Several of the Black speakers had participated in a similar forum a month earlier in Northwest Philadelphia. That event included a poignant account by a woman recalling a brother and a nephew who had been gunned down in the city, eliciting a hug from Dr. Oz. But the woman turned out to be a paid campaign employee, a detail that was not disclosed at the time.Media outlets reported how Dr. Oz asked the woman, Sheila Armstrong, “How do you cope?” Her identity was later flagged by the Fetterman campaign and reported by The Intercept.Earlier this year, the Republican National Committee opened with fanfare a field office in Northwest Philadelphia to reach Black voters. On the day Dr. Oz was in South Philadelphia, the center was locked tight and unoccupied. Workers at a pizzeria and a hair salon across the street said they had not seen any activity there in weeks. Republican National Committee officials did not respond to several requests for comment asking about the office.The day after Dr. Oz’s latest foray to the city, Glorice Bervine, 72, who was shopping on 52nd Street, said she does not usually vote in midterms but will this year. “I don’t want to see those two turkeys in office,” she said, referring to both Dr. Oz and Doug Mastriano, the Republican nominee for governor.Ms. Bervine, who works in retailing, lives in Kensington, the neighborhood that Dr. Oz had visited to witness open drug use, picking a needle off the ground to show to TV cameras.“Excuse me, coming down when you’re running for office does not equate you being there for the people,” Ms. Bervine said. “He’s not going to do a damn thing about it — what he wants is votes.”Dr. Oz at a discussion this month on crime and policing in Philadelphia.Hannah Beier for The New York TimesNor was Ms. Bervine swayed by attack ads aimed at Mr. Fetterman’s advocacy for clemency for long-incarcerated men. “I know enough to know that there are a lot of men that are in prison that shouldn’t be in prison,” she said.That was a common point of view on 52nd Street, a formerly grand corridor of Black entertainment and commerce that has struggled in recent years. Some businesses were damaged during unrest in 2020 over police shootings of Black people nationally. Banners fixed to lamp posts urge, “Never Lose Hope.”On the sidewalk outside a secondhand appliance store, Barry Williams, 67, was cleaning a stove with steel wool.A homeowner, he was concerned about rising costs — “the food taxes, the property tax, gas — first it went down, then it went right back up again.”But Mr. Williams, who said he was a Democrat who voted regularly, pushed back on the Republican message that inflation was tied to Democratic policies in Washington. “I think it’s everybody’s fault,” he said. “I can’t blame it on the Democrats.”Desean Prosser was registering voters on the street, clipboard in hand. He was the only person interviewed who brought up the episode in which Mr. Fetterman stopped the Black jogger in 2013, shotgun in hand. Mr. Fetterman has said he acted spontaneously after hearing gunshots; the jogger turned out to be unarmed.“It should be” an issue, Mr. Prosser said. “It would be for me.”“Oz has got a shot because he’s not a politician,” Mr. Prosser said. “Just like Donald Trump, we’re willing to give somebody who’s not a politician a chance.”Yasmin Jones, who wore a crystal-beaded face mask, said she was a straight-ticket Democratic voter and planned to cast a ballot this year. “Maybe my vote might make a difference,” she said.Ms. Jones did not know a lot about either candidate. “What is Dr. Oz going for?” she asked. Told it was the Senate, she replied, making a reference to his career as a TV doctor: “He shouldn’t try to do that. He should stay in his lane.” More

    • 125 Shares189 Views

      in Elections

      How Talk Radio Unites Ron Johnson and His Wisconsin Voters

      by

      MILWAUKEE — Other senators spend countless hours promoting their political messages and personal brands on cable news and social media.Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin simply calls up a receptive talk radio host — and then another, and then another.Since the beginning of this year, Mr. Johnson has made at least 325 appearances on talk radio shows, including 186 hits in Wisconsin. In the Senate, he has spent about four and a half hours speaking in committees and floor speeches. On the radio, listening to all of his appearances would take more than four full days.It is a staggering investment of time by a United States senator. And it is paying off.Long thought to be this year’s most endangered Republican in the chamber because of his low approval ratings, Mr. Johnson has opened up a lead in the polls over his Democratic challenger, Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes. Democrats would dearly love for Mr. Barnes to win, both because Senate control could hang on the race and because Mr. Johnson, one of the nation’s leading purveyors of misinformation, has been the bane of Wisconsin liberals’ existence for a dozen years.But they are finding that it’s not so easy to oust Mr. Johnson, an analog creature in the modern digital world, whose political resilience stems in great part from an omnipresence on the radio airwaves that has made him nearly as much a fixture of Wisconsin as cheese curds, beer and the Green Bay Packers.Mr. Johnson, 67, has refined an old-school playbook of communicating with Republican base voters who listen to hours of conservative talk radio a week, a function of the medium’s unique power in Wisconsin’s media environment and of his own political upbringing as a figure endorsed and promoted by the state’s leading right-wing talkers.Radio-bred reality is quick to spread through Republican politics in Wisconsin.Taylor Glascock for The New York Times“Were it not for talk radio, I don’t think conservatism would have a chance,” Mr. Johnson said.Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesThe time on the radio serves as a direct line to Mr. Johnson’s political base. Hosts who share his worldview rarely challenge him on conservative talking points about elections, public health or his past statements. Listening on the other end is a large, devoted audience that has little trust in the state’s shrinking newspapers and television stations.“Talk radio is crucial to the conservative movement, because we don’t have the mainstream media on our side,” Mr. Johnson said in a recent interview. “Were it not for talk radio, I don’t think conservatism would have a chance. We’d be overwhelmed by the liberal media.”That radio-bred reality is quick to spread through Republican politics here. Republican elected officials on the receiving end of anger on talk radio will hear about it quickly — and most soon find a way back into the hosts’ good graces.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsElection Day is Tuesday, Nov. 8.Bracing for a Red Wave: Republicans were already favored to flip the House. Now they are looking to run up the score by vying for seats in deep-blue states.Pennsylvania Senate Race: The debate performance by Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, who is still recovering from a stroke, has thrust questions of health to the center of the pivotal race and raised Democratic anxieties.G.O.P. Inflation Plans: Republicans are riding a wave of anger over inflation as they seek to recapture Congress, but few economists expect their proposals to bring down rising prices.Polling Analysis: If these poll results keep up, everything from a Democratic hold in the Senate and a narrow House majority to a total G.O.P. rout becomes imaginable, writes Nate Cohn, The Times’s chief political analyst.“You can pick any issue you want, but whatever the hot topic on talk radio is, you’ll hear it come up,” said Mayor Rohn Bishop of Waupun, Wis., who until last year was the chairman of the Republican Party in Fond du Lac County.Listening to Mr. Johnson on Wisconsin’s radio airwaves can serve as a tour into a universe in which the state’s Democrats are constantly scheming to steal elections; the F.B.I. is out to get the senator; and Mr. Barnes, his Democratic opponent, is an anti-American zealot who “thinks our national parks are racist” — an accusation Mr. Johnson made more than a dozen times in September alone.Other conspiracy theories and misinformation abound. Since the beginning of September, he has claimed the F.B.I. tried to rig the 2016 election for Hillary Clinton, then “not only corrupted the 2020 election, they’re corrupting the 2022 election.” He has promoted hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for Covid and has suggested that Democrats planned the Capitol riot.Mr. Johnson on Capitol Hill this year with Ted Cruz, a far more digitally inclined Republican senator.Michael A. McCoy for The New York TimesIn the interview, Mr. Johnson said he made no apologies for any of his statements that have departed from the truth.“Everything I’ve been saying is proven out to be true,” he said. “There’s not one thing that I’ve said about Covid that wasn’t true, including gargling.”The senator was referring to a comment he made at a town-hall meeting in December suggesting that a “standard gargle, mouthwash, has been proven to kill the coronavirus.” Afterward, he defended his stance on a tour of local radio shows. In the recent interview with The New York Times, Mr. Johnson offered to provide evidence that he was right. So far, he has not done so..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.Wisconsin Democrats long ago decided not to make Mr. Johnson’s false assertions the focus of their campaign to unseat him. In part, that’s because he has been making them for so long that they have become part of the firmament of the state’s politics.“In a rural state, people are listening to this,” said Representative Mark Pocan, a Democrat from Madison who has spent years sparring with Mr. Johnson. “Those no longer become viewpoints. They become facts and they become repeated facts and they’re part of allegedly what’s reality here.”The shows have attracted a legion of loyal listeners across Wisconsin, though the public Nielsen radio station ratings do not report how many people are tuned in at specific times. Mr. Johnson appears on shows throughout the state, from the 50,000-watt station in Milwaukee’s 1.5-million listener market to stations with tiny signals in Wausau and programs syndicated on public radio stations across Wisconsin.Ryan Seaman, 31, who works in construction, said he was a frequent caller to conservative talk radio shows in Milwaukee, where he lives.“They try to offer perspective on both sides without really giving too much of their input,” Mr. Seaman said. “It’s not like they’re trying to force something down on you. That’s how I think the news should be. It should be fair, but accurate about what’s going on.”Shawn Kelly, a Republican retiree from Fond du Lac who in 2013 was appointed as his county’s register of deeds by Gov. Scott Walker, said what he heard on local talk radio was often “the exact opposite” from what he saw on television or read in the newspapers.“I don’t think there is a middle-of-the-road news organization around here,” Mr. Kelly said.Jerry Bader was a conservative talk show host who refused to support Donald J. Trump. Now, he is the minister of a church that serves Green Bay’s poor and homeless.Taylor Glascock for The New York Times“I wasn’t prepared for what happened to the conservative landscape,” Mr. Bader said.Taylor Glascock for The New York TimesMr. Johnson’s relationship with Wisconsin’s conservative talk radio hosts dates to the dawn of his political career.In early 2010, when he was a plastics executive unknown in Wisconsin politics, he gave a speech at a Tea Party rally. An attendee soon helped introduce him to Charlie Sykes, then the most powerful conservative talk radio host in the state.“I said, ‘Well, how would you describe yourself?’” Mr. Sykes said. “Either that day or the next day, he sent me a picture of his bedside table, which was stacked up with Wall Street Journals. His point was, ‘I’m a Wall Street Journal editorial page conservative.’”Mr. Sykes became the single biggest promoter of Mr. Johnson’s 2010 campaign for Senate. He read parts of Mr. Johnson’s speech during his show the next week, and Mr. Johnson sent a recording in which Mr. Sykes praised him to the chairs of the Republican Party in each of the state’s 72 counties.Not long after, Mr. Johnson won the endorsement of the Republican Party of Wisconsin at its annual convention — a coup for someone with just a few weeks of political experience.Mr. Johnson, right, in 2018. His rise to prominence began eight years earlier, when, as a plastics executive unknown in Wisconsin politics, he gave a speech at a Tea Party rally. Erin Schaff for The New York TimesMr. Sykes never stopped promoting Mr. Johnson’s candidacy, and Republican voters followed. After Mr. Johnson won and took office, the two had a standing off-air call for 40 minutes each week in which the senator sought feedback on how he was doing and the mood of his political base.In a 2011 interview with Peggy Noonan of The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Johnson said Mr. Sykes’s promotion was “the reason I’m a U.S. senator.”Conservative talk radio hosts in Wisconsin often move as a bloc, and Mr. Johnson has moved with them. In the 2016 presidential primary, all of the state’s major radio hosts — and all but one of the Republicans in the State Legislature — opposed Donald J. Trump’s candidacy.But once Mr. Trump was the nominee, the Republican base quickly rallied behind him, and so did Mr. Johnson. The radio show hosts who didn’t would soon learn the consequences. Mr. Sykes, who once lectured Mr. Trump on air about civility, announced before Mr. Trump won the general election that he was leaving his show.In Green Bay, Jerry Bader spoke with Mr. Johnson a few times a month on a radio show he hosted for 14 years that, he said, was “about everything from a conservative worldview.”In a recent interview, Mr. Bader said he couldn’t recall ever disagreeing with Mr. Johnson on the air — even though Mr. Bader served as the M.C. at a rally for Senator Ted Cruz during the 2016 primary and steadfastly opposed Mr. Trump even after the general election.Mr. Bader said his ratings dipped after Mr. Trump took office. Callers to the show were “very vehement” in their anger at him. When he was eventually fired in 2018, he said, the station’s management told him it was because he wouldn’t support Mr. Trump. A number of the Republican officials who had been regulars on his show called to offer condolences, but Mr. Bader said he never heard again from Mr. Johnson.“I wasn’t prepared for what happened to the conservative landscape,” said Mr. Bader, who is now the minister of a Green Bay church that serves the city’s poor and homeless. These days, he prefers to ignore politics.Mr. Bader’s time slot soon went to Joe Giganti, a pro-Trump host. Mr. Johnson is a regular guest, appearing on the show 18 times this year. In an interview, Mr. Giganti said that not only had he never disagreed with Mr. Johnson on the air, but that he also shared his skepticism on issues including Covid vaccines, the F.B.I.’s conduct and Wisconsin’s system of voting.Mr. Giganti’s show has been a success thanks in part to Mr. Johnson, who the host says helps drive ratings higher. He is now syndicated in two other Wisconsin markets and five more across the country — all places where he promulgates Mr. Johnson’s false theories.“There are,” Mr. Giganti said, “plenty of unanswered questions from the 2020 election.” More

    • 100 Shares129 Views

      in Elections

      A Beginner’s Guide to the U.S. Midterm Elections

      by

      What’s at stake, and how does it work? Let’s start with the basics.If you are broadly aware that the upcoming midterm elections in the United States have major global implications, but you’re not up to speed on the American system of government or you’re having trouble following along, you’re in the right place.In the United States’ two-party system, control of two crucial bodies of government — the Senate and the House of Representatives — is essential for getting laws made, and it will be decided by a vote on Nov. 8. Democrats currently control both bodies and the presidency, and losing either the House or the Senate to Republicans would significantly decrease Democrats’ power in the next two years of President Biden’s term.Hundreds of elections will take place, but many candidates are considered shoo-ins and control in each body will most likely be decided by a few tight races.I need the basics: What is decided in this election?The Senate, which is now at a 50-50 deadlock but is controlled by Democrats because Vice President Kamala Harris casts the tiebreaking vote, has 100 members, with two from each of the 50 states. There are 34 seats up for grabs in November, and winners serve six-year terms.The House, with 435 voting members, is controlled by the Democrats, 222 to 213. All 435 seats are up for election, with winners serving two-year terms.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsElection Day is Tuesday, Nov. 8.Bracing for a Red Wave: Republicans were already favored to flip the House. Now they are looking to run up the score by vying for seats in deep-blue states.Pennsylvania Senate Race: The debate performance by Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, who is still recovering from a stroke, has thrust questions of health to the center of the pivotal race and raised Democratic anxieties.G.O.P. Inflation Plans: Republicans are riding a wave of anger over inflation as they seek to recapture Congress, but few economists expect their proposals to bring down rising prices.Polling Analysis: If these poll results keep up, everything from a Democratic hold in the Senate and a narrow House majority to a total G.O.P. rout becomes imaginable, writes Nate Cohn, The Times’s chief political analyst.The odds are against Democrats, but this has been a strange year.Historically, the party that controls the presidency — currently the Democrats — has fared poorly in the midterms. Frustration with the president often leads to success for the other party, and Mr. Biden has low approval ratings.Currently, Republicans are favored to win the House, and the Senate is considered a tossup, according to FiveThirtyEight. Democrats enjoyed a major polling bump after the Supreme Court made an unpopular ruling in June that removed the constitutional right to abortion, giving the party hope that it could defy historical trends, but that advantage has mostly faded.Read more here on how to follow the polls and the predictions, and on the wide range of outcomes possible.Why it matters: If Democrats lose control of either body, Biden’s agenda is in trouble.In highly polarized times, it is exceedingly difficult to pass legislation unless one party controls the presidency, the House and the Senate. If Republicans win either the House or the Senate, they can prevent much of what Mr. Biden and the Democrats would hope to accomplish before 2024, the next presidential election. You could kiss any major Democratic legislation goodbye.On the other hand, if Democrats hold onto the House and increase their lead in the Senate, it could give them more ability to pass new laws. And, since senators serve six-year terms, running up a lead now would give them some breathing room in 2024, when analysts say Republicans are likely to be highly favored..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.If Republicans gain power, they could block Democratic efforts to codify abortion rights and take action on the climate, and question the aid sent to Ukraine.Historically, the party that controls the presidency — currently the Democrats — has fared poorly in the midterms. Sarah Silbiger for The New York TimesRepublicans could gain investigative and impeachment powers.If the Republicans take one or both of the chambers, they could use their new powers to create an onslaught of investigations into Democrats, as opposition parties have long done in Washington. With subpoenas and court hearings, they could highlight perceived incompetence or alleged wrongdoing on a variety of subjects, including the search of former President Donald J. Trump’s private club and residence in August, the withdrawal from Afghanistan and the pandemic response.Democrats expect that Mr. Biden and his family would be among the targets, along with Dr. Anthony Fauci, a top medical adviser in the Trump and Biden administrations.Some Republicans have also pledged to impeach the president, a complicated process that could force Mr. Biden to stand trial in the Senate, as Mr. Trump did for separate impeachments in 2020 and 2021. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, a Republican, said last year that there would be “enormous pressure” on a Republican House to impeach Mr. Biden “whether it’s justified or not.”An important power of the Senate: Approving court nominations.Control of the Senate includes the power to approve federal court justices, up to and including the Supreme Court. If Republicans claim control, they could use their power to block President Biden’s nominations.When President Barack Obama, a Democrat, had to work with a Republican-controlled Senate, the Republicans blocked his Supreme Court nomination in 2016. But Mr. Trump was able to speed through three Supreme Court nominations, thanks to the friendly Senate.Though not as high-profile, lower-court nominations can also be highly influential. As president, both Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden have used same-party Senate control to appoint dozens of their preferred judges to important posts across the nation.State races could have a huge effect on issues like abortion rights and voting.A governor will be elected in 36 states. Among other powers, they could be highly influential in determining whether abortion remains legal in several states.The races for each state’s secretary of state do not usually receive much attention, but this year they have attracted major interest because of the office’s role in overseeing elections. It could become a key position if there are election disputes in the 2024 presidential election, and some of the Republicans running in key states supported Mr. Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him. More

    • 113 Shares149 Views

      in Elections

      Fetterman vs. Oz Is Not Really Fetterman vs. Oz

      by

      So, how many of you watched the Pennsylvania Senate debate because you want to back the most articulate candidate?The whole country was wondering how well John Fetterman was doing, given his auditory processing issues. He can get his thoughts across, but there aren’t going to be any oratory prizes in the immediate future.If one of those had been given out on Tuesday night, Mehmet Oz, the Republican candidate, would have won. Big shock, right? The former television talk-show star was more articulate than the guy who had a stroke.But deep down, nothing made much difference. Most viewers knew who they were going to support before the debate began. Hundreds of thousands of them had already voted. Makes total sense. The most important thing about this election, by far, is that it could decide who will control the Senate.There, the big votes are almost always divided by party. Be honest — were you really surprised that Fetterman was the one who wants to raise the federal minimum wage to $15? Or that Oz is the one who would protect the filibuster?At this point, party is all that matters. Still, there we were, trying to judge how the guys performed. On occasion, it was a little hard to tell whether Fetterman’s answers constituted normal political evasion or stroke-induced confusion. For instance, he’d once said he’d never support the very lucrative fracking industry, which many Pennsylvania workers love and virtually all Pennsylvania environmentalists hate. Then he changed his mind. On Tuesday, he said: “I do support fracking. And I don’t, I don’t. I support fracking, and I stand, and I do, support fracking.”That was it, and a very good example of how the repercussions from a stroke can make it much more difficult for a politician to achieve classic dodge-and-switcheroo.Unfortunately, given Fetterman’s trouble with quick repartee, he didn’t throw in a reminder of his opponent’s very recent metamorphosis into a Pennsylvania resident, or more than a quick jab about how Oz, who doesn’t seem worried about the minimum wage, is the guy with “10 gigantic mansions.”True enough. Would have loved to pursue that a little bit — I wonder whether Oz couldn’t be lending one of his Manhattan condos to the homeless. Or displaced Venezuelan refugees?Issue-wise, the big faux pas of the evening actually came from Oz, who flubbed his answer to an abortion question. The good doctor has, um, evolved since he was dispensing medical advice on TV. He was slightly vague but apparently pro-choice back then. Once he became an ambitious Republican politician, he discovered he was “100 percent pro-life.” Now that he’s running in a general election, he’s trying to jump back to the old between-a-woman-and-her-doctor territory.Sort of. On stage this week, he called for a decision made by “women, doctors, local political leaders …”Hmm, how many of you want to bring the local political leaders into this? May I see a show of hands?Oz seemed unthrilled about being asked if he’d back Donald Trump for the 2024 nomination. Which was a little ungrateful, given that he was probably on stage only because Trump had endorsed him in the Republican primary.Bringing up the former president was yet another reminder that our main concern right now is about which party wins control. If you want a Senate that’s going to reject anything that comes out of a Biden White House, feel free to consider the Republican candidates. Otherwise, come on …I know, it’s tough. Voters have less than two weeks to make a choice, and in a fair world they’d be able to think about more than that One Big Thing. What about Fetterman’s long-term prognosis? After the debate, his spokesman said he did “great tonight for a man who was in a hospital bed just several months ago.” That’s true, but it’s not a qualification voters would want to hear for the next six years.You certainly hope he’ll at least be able to get up and go to work. But whatever his condition, don’t express your concern by helping turn the Senate over to Mitch McConnell.If you’ve got a local election for governor or mayor, feel free to mull the character details. They’re the ones whose personality, self-discipline and charisma really matter. For instance, watching the gubernatorial candidates in New York, Kathy Hochul and challenger Lee Zeldin, go at it this week, you got to hear people talk about stuff they could actually do on their own, and not in a pack with 49 or 50 of their colleagues.True, it wasn’t the most stirring debate in state history and objective viewers might have found Zeldin a tad off-putting. (He opened with a rant about how wretched everything was, to which Hochul mildly replied, “Well, nice to see you too …”)Yeah, if you’ve got to vote for an executive, you do need to pay close attention. Take some of the time you were going to devote to those Senate races. On that front, you should have been homing in at primary time, when they picked the candidates. Now, the Republican and Democratic nominees are who they are.And the oratory certainly doesn’t matter. When was the last time a friend told you she’d changed her mind about a big issue after a rousing speech by Senator X? Well, it did sort of work for Jimmy Stewart in “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.” But that was 30 years before John Fetterman was born.And it was a movie.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

    • 125 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      Second Woman Says Walker Paid for Her to Have Abortion

      by

      A woman who did not identify herself said on Wednesday that Herschel Walker pressured her to have an abortion and paid for the procedure nearly three decades ago after a yearslong extramarital relationship. A former football star, Mr. Walker is running for the Senate in Georgia as an abortion opponent.The New York Times could not confirm the account, interview the woman or inspect the evidence that Gloria Allred, the celebrity lawyer, asserted was proof that the woman had a relationship with Mr. Walker.The woman told her story at a news conference with Ms. Allred, but did not appear on camera. Neither she nor Ms. Allred offered any evidence to back up the woman’s accusation that Mr. Walker, a Republican, had urged her to end her pregnancy even after she initially left an abortion clinic without going through with the procedure.The evidence provided included a taped message from a man Ms. Allred said was Mr. Walker calling from the Winter Olympics of 1992, where Mr. Walker competed in bobsled; a number of greeting cards signed “H”; and a blurry photo of a man who Ms. Allred said was Mr. Walker in a hotel room in Mankato, Minn. She also showed what she said was a receipt for that hotel, a Holiday Inn in the city where the Minnesota Vikings, Mr. Walker’s professional football team at the time, practiced.The woman, speaking remotely into the news conference, said she was so traumatized in 1993 after she had the abortion that she left her home in the Dallas area and did not return for 15 years.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsElection Day is Tuesday, Nov. 8.Bracing for a Red Wave: Republicans were already favored to flip the House. Now they are looking to run up the score by vying for seats in deep-blue states.Pennsylvania Senate Race: Lt. Gov. John Fetterman and Mehmet Oz clashed in one of the most closely watched debates of the midterm campaign. Here are five takeaways.Polling Analysis: If these poll results keep up, everything from a Democratic hold in the Senate and a narrow House majority to a total G.O.P. rout becomes imaginable, writes Nate Cohn, The Times’s chief political analyst.Strategy Change: In the final stretch before the elections, some Democrats are pushing for a new message that acknowledges the economic uncertainty troubling the electorate.The woman said she was a registered independent who voted for Donald J. Trump, a Republican, in 2016 and 2020. She told her story, she said, to expose hypocrisy in Mr. Walker’s campaign message and because, she said, he lied in denying another woman’s account of his urging her to have an abortion by saying that he never signed cards with just his first initial, “H.”Shortly before the news conference, Mr. Walker broadly denied the claim at a campaign event in Dillard, Ga., about 100 miles north of Atlanta.“I’m done with this foolishness. I’ve already told people this is a lie and I’m not going to entertain it,” he said, suggesting that this was a reflection of Democratic jitters following his performance during the Senate debate against the Democratic incumbent, Senator Raphael Warnock, this month. “The Democrats will do and say whatever they can to win this seat.”Just weeks ago, another woman said Mr. Walker had paid for her to have an abortion in 2009 and urged her to terminate a second pregnancy two years later. They ended their relationship after she refused, that woman, who also refused to be identified, told The Times in a series of interviews.Mr. Walker, who denied that account, has anchored his campaign on an appeal to social conservatives as an unwavering opponent of abortion even in cases of rape and incest. He has since wavered on his policy approach to abortion, saying in September that he would support a measure from Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina that would ban abortion nationwide after 15 weeks of pregnancy and declaring his support during the Senate debate for Georgia’s new law that outlaws the procedure after six weeks.A spokesman for Mr. Walker did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the specifics of the new claim.Mr. Warnock’s campaign released a statement calling the new accusation “just the latest example of a troubling pattern we have seen play out again and again and again,” saying Mr. Walker has “a problem with the truth.”Mr. Walker has been dogged by a series of potentially damaging reports about his personal life since he began his campaign for Senate in 2021. In June, The Daily Beast reported that Mr. Walker, who has criticized absentee fathers in Black households, had fathered a child out of wedlock. Later that week, the outlet reported on two more children he had not previously mentioned publicly or to his campaign aides.Mr. Walker acknowledged an extramarital affair in his 2009 memoir, “Breaking Free: My Life With Dissociative Identity Disorder.” He described a relationship with a woman who lived in Irving, Tex., a Dallas suburb.“I just want to convey that I knew right from wrong and I did a very, very wrong thing that hurt my wife, another person and in the end me,” he wrote. More