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      Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker Prepare to Debate in Georgia

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      ATLANTA — One is a seasoned public speaker, accustomed to delivering sermons nearly every Sunday from the pulpit of the famed Atlanta church where the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once preached. The other is a political novice whose meandering, often nonsensical oratory on the stump tends to inspire as much mockery as it does applause.The stark stylistic differences between the polished Senator Raphael Warnock, a Democrat, and his less politically refined Republican challenger, Herschel Walker, the former University of Georgia football great, add unpredictability and intrigue to their highly anticipated debate on Friday night.Their matchup, just three days before early voting begins in Georgia, will be the first — and probably the only — debate in the state’s race for Senate, which has emerged as one of the most pivotal contests for control of the chamber. The one-hour event, hosted by Nexstar Media in Savannah, Ga., will begin at 7 p.m. Eastern.The debate will test whether Mr. Warnock can expand what polls suggest is a narrow advantage over his rival, and whether Mr. Walker can quiet doubts about his qualifications for the office after a wave of explosive reports describing past behavior of his that has contradicted his public stances.Over the summer, The Daily Beast reported that Mr. Walker had fathered three children he did not previously disclose, and more recently, an ex-girlfriend of Mr. Walker’s told The New York Times that he had paid for her to have an abortion and had asked her to have a second abortion, even though he has campaigned on his opposition to the procedure with no exceptions.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.A Surprising Battleground: New York has emerged from a haywire redistricting cycle as perhaps the most consequential congressional battleground in the country. For Democrats, the uncertainty is particularly jarring.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.Ahead of the debate, Mr. Walker has tried to manage expectations. Last month, he half-jokingly told reporters that he was “a country boy” and “not that smart,” saying that Mr. Warnock was “going to show up and embarrass me.”But if Mr. Walker has succeeded in setting a lower bar to clear against Mr. Warnock, who grounds many of his stump speeches in policy-heavy talking points, the face-off will also offer the Democratic incumbent a ripe opportunity to attack his opponent directly — something he has so far done only in advertisements..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.Democrats have flooded the airwaves with millions of dollars in negative advertising against Mr. Walker, underlining allegations of domestic violence brought forth by his ex-wife, Cindy Grossman, and his son Christian Walker.The two candidates have engaged in months of back-and-forth over whether, where and when they would debate. One day after the May 24 primary election, Mr. Warnock committed to debates in Atlanta, Macon and Savannah. Mr. Walker, who did not debate his Republican primary opponents, would not commit to any of the three events but maintained a positive front when asked about them.“I’ve told him many times, I’m ready to debate him any time, any day,” Mr. Walker told Brian Kilmeade of Fox News in July.His campaign did not respond to invitations from the hosts of the debates in Atlanta, Macon and Savannah that Mr. Warnock had committed to. The Walker campaign agreed in August to attend the Nexstar debate, and Mr. Warnock followed suit in September.In a Thursday morning campaign memo, Mr. Warnock’s campaign manager, Quentin Fulks, said that Friday’s debate would “put on full display the clear choice” between the two candidates, arguing that Mr. Walker’s “pattern of lies, disturbing behavior and positions prove he is not ready to represent Georgia in the U.S. Senate.”Mr. Walker, who has traded time on the campaign trail for hours of intensive debate practice over the last few weeks, is likely to underline the policy differences between himself and his Democratic opponent by tying Mr. Warnock to President Biden, who is widely unpopular among Georgia voters. Mr. Walker has repeatedly criticized both Mr. Warnock and Mr. Biden for their economic policies, blaming them for higher food and fuel prices in Georgia.In a fund-raising email to supporters on Thursday, Mr. Walker encouraged supporters to tune in to the debate and vowed to “defeat the disastrous Biden agenda” if elected to the Senate.Still, he ended with a plea for more financial support to bolster his campaign in its final weeks.“It’s going to take more than one event on a Friday night to convince voters there’s a better choice to turn our country around,” he wrote. More

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      In Utah, a Trump Loyalist Sends an S.O.S. to Romney

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      The appeal carried the unmistakable whiff of desperation. That it was delivered on live television only heightened the dramatic tension.A Utah Republican, Senator Mike Lee, was publicly begging a fellow Utah Republican, Senator Mitt Romney, for a simple act of solidarity: an endorsement in his campaign for re-election. One that, in Mr. Lee’s telling, could amount to no less than an act of salvation, as he battles for political survival against an unexpectedly fierce challenger, the independent candidate Evan McMullin.“Please, get on board,” Mr. Lee said, looking into the camera and addressing Mr. Romney by name on Tuesday night. “Help me win re-election. Help us do that. You can get your entire family to donate to me.”But Mr. Lee and Mr. Romney are not merely fellow Utah Republicans. And this was not just any television show.Mr. Lee and Mr. Romney were — and evidently remain — antagonists in the lingering drama of Jan. 6, 2021. Mr. Lee played a key role in support of President Donald J. Trump’s attempt to subvert the 2020 election and cling to power. Mr. Romney was a stalwart opponent of it.And Mr. Lee was making his appeal to Mr. Romney on Tuesday night on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News program — a venue in which Mr. Romney has been routinely roasted, for years, before audiences of millions of conservative viewers.The irony of the moment seemed lost on both Mr. Lee and the show’s host, though that may have been a bit of a shared ruse.Either way, audacity was in abundant supply.Mr. Lee’s plea for Mr. Romney’s assistance, after all, came after Mr. Lee’s votes in opposition to three bipartisan bills that Mr. Romney helped to pass, on infrastructure, gun safety and semiconductor manufacturing. Mr. Lee denounced the infrastructure bill, for one, as “an orgiastic convulsion of federal spending.”The S.O.S. to his fellow senator also appeared to ignore Mr. Lee’s own actions of intraparty sabotage, dating back a dozen years: Mr. Lee refused to endorse Mr. Romney’s 2018 Senate campaign. He declined in 2012 to endorse the senior senator from Utah, Orrin Hatch, even as his own chief of staff openly predicted Mr. Hatch’s defeat. And Mr. Lee first won his own seat in 2010 by orchestrating the defeat of a popular Republican senator, Robert F. Bennett, during the state’s Republican convention.What Mr. Lee was not ignoring, however, was a new poll published in Utah’s Deseret News this week showing Mr. Lee leading Mr. McMullin 41 percent to 37 percent, with 12 percent undecided. Self-described moderates made up a plurality of those undecided voters, as the center of Utah’s political spectrum seems to be agonizing over which candidate to coalesce behind.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.A Surprising Battleground: New York has emerged from a haywire redistricting cycle as perhaps the most consequential congressional battleground in the country. For Democrats, the uncertainty is particularly jarring.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.“We are winning this race, and Mike Lee is panicked,” Mr. McMullin said in an interview on Wednesday.Evan McMullin is not far behind Mr. Lee according to a Deseret News poll that also shows a high number of undecided voters.Rick Bowmer/Associated PressIn fact, Mr. McMullin’s task of uniting independents, Democrats and anti-Trump Republicans remains daunting in Utah, a state that gave Mr. Trump 58 percent of the vote in 2020. When Mr. McMullin ran for president in 2016 as an independent, he netted 21.5 percent in his home state. (One of those voters was Mr. Lee.)Jason Perry, director of the Hinckley Institute of Politics at the University of Utah, which conducted the poll, stressed that Mr. Lee “is still in the driver’s seat,” but, he said, with so many centrist voters still undecided, “this is one still to watch.”The FiveThirtyEight polling average still has Mr. Lee up by 7.6 percent.“Let’s be clear, Mike Lee is leading this race,” said Matt Lusty, an adviser to the Lee campaign. “Every reliable poll shows Senator Lee with a significant lead, and our internal polling gives us even greater confidence in the strong support he has across the state.” Mr. Lee himself declined to comment.But no contest in the country is as closely tied to the failed efforts to deny President Biden’s victory as the Utah Senate race. And no other race is as squarely centered on the fate of representative democracy.Mr. Lee appears particularly spooked by the $6.3 million in campaign contributions — a small portion of that through ActBlue, an online Democratic fund-raising tool — that have flowed to Mr. McMullin, who has vowed to caucus with neither party if he wins..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.Mr. Lee was exaggerating a little when he told Mr. Carlson, “Evan McMullin is raising millions of dollars off of ActBlue, the Democratic donor database, based on this idea that he’s going to defeat me and help perpetuate the Democratic majority.” But his fears were clear.Mr. Romney, who declined to be interviewed for this article, has explained his decision not to endorse Mr. Lee or Mr. McMullin by saying “both are good friends.”But the personal divide between him and Mr. Lee over the events surrounding the 2020 election remains deep, and is playing a role now, according to Stuart Stevens, a senior official in Mr. Romney’s 2012 presidential run who is also an outspoken critic of Mr. Trump and his supporters.Mr. Romney became the first senator from a president’s party ever to vote to convict him after Mr. Trump’s 2020 impeachment trial, when he sided with Democrats to try to throw Mr. Trump out of office for abuse of power, for conditioning military aid to Ukraine on President Volodymyr Zelensky’s launching an investigation into Mr. Biden.Mr. Romney again voted to convict Mr. Trump in 2021 for inciting the attack on the Capitol.Mr. Lee, in contrast, was an active participant in the effort to keep Mr. Trump in office. He cheered Mr. Trump on for weeks in late 2020, and privately offered in a text to the White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, “a group of ready and loyal advocates who will go to bat for him.”Mr. Lee also endorsed a plan to have legislatures in “a very small handful of states” carried by Mr. Biden put forward pro-Trump electors, as part of a scheme to allow Vice President Mike Pence to reject Mr. Biden’s victory.Ultimately, Mr. Lee backed away from those plans and voted to certify Mr. Biden’s election, unlike eight of his Senate colleagues, a point that the Lee campaign stresses.But turning against a plan as it was failing does not exonerate him, Mr. McMullin argues.“Senator Lee, who called himself a constitutional conservative and who swore an oath to the Constitution, betrayed the Constitution in an effort to overturn the will of the people by recruiting fake electors to topple American democracy,” Mr. McMullin said in the interview. “It was one of the most egregious betrayals of the American republic in its history.”Senators Mike Lee, left, and Mitt Romney during former President Donald J. Trump’s first impeachment hearings in January 2020. Mr. Romney voted to convict.Doug Mills/The New York TimesIt is, in some sense, that inconstancy that has gotten Mr. Lee in trouble: his willingness to challenge the powers in his own party, then tack back when his base demands it.“Reaping what he sowed is a good way to put it,” quipped Christopher F. Karpowitz, co-director of the Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy at Brigham Young University.Mr. Lee led the floor fight to stop Mr. Trump’s nomination at the 2016 Republican National Convention, called for Mr. Trump to exit the race after the “Access Hollywood” tape surfaced, and voted for Mr. McMullin in protest. Then he became one of Mr. Trump’s staunchest supporters.“Politics is an ongoing character test, and the people of Utah are going to have to ask themselves if he’s passed,” said Mr. Stevens, the former Romney aide.How real a threat Mr. McMullin poses to Mr. Lee’s re-election remains to be seen. Both sides produce internal polls that serve their purposes, Mr. Lee’s showing him with a double-digit lead, Mr. McMullin’s showing him barely overtaking the incumbent.It’s entirely possible that Mr. Lee’s dire-sounding appearance on Fox News proves a reprise of the pleas that Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, made toward the end of his 2020 re-election run as he watched his Democratic opponent, Jaime Harrison, rake in a record $57 million in a single quarter, $132 million in total, for his challenge: All panic aside, Mr. Graham ultimately won by more than 10 percentage points.Still, Representative Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, one of two Republicans serving on the House Jan. 6 Committee, will campaign with Mr. McMullin next week in Salt Lake City, trying to rally disaffected Republicans, a crucial bloc after Utah Democrats decided not to field their own candidate. The state’s most important Democrats, Mayor Jenny Wilson of Salt Lake County and former Representative Ben McAdams, are backing Mr. McMullin.Though Mr. McMullin says the preservation of democracy is the organizing theme of his campaign, he has branched out to tar Mr. Lee as “the most ineffective member of the Senate,” contrasting his ideological stands with Mr. Romney’s productivity.And, as Mr. Lee’s campaign tries to project an air of confidence, his appearance on Mr. Carlson’s show projected anything but.Pressing Mr. Romney to do the right thing as a Republican, he repeatedly warned Fox viewers that Mr. Romney’s mere neutrality could give Mr. McMullin — “a closeted Democrat,” as he put it — a victory, and ensure continued Democratic control of the Senate.On Wednesday, Mr. Lusty, the Lee campaign adviser, said his boss still hoped that Mr. Romney would come around. “Senator Lee sees it as important for all members of the party to stand together,” he said.But if Mr. Lee had truly hoped to change Mr. Romney’s mind, there were few avenues likely to be less persuasive than Mr. Carlson’s show.As Mr. Lee spoke, Mr. Romney’s picture was shown with a beret and handlebar mustache crudely superimposed, over the caption “Pierre Delecto Strikes Again” — the nom de plume Mr. Romney once got caught using on Twitter.“Mitt Romney has stood up to withering criticism from Trump and others,” said Mr. Karpowitz, the B.Y.U. professor. “I’m not sure Tucker Carlson is going to move him.” More

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      The top Senate G.O.P. super PAC raised $111 million in the third quarter.

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      The leading super PAC for Senate Republicans, the Senate Leadership Fund, raised an average of more than $1 million every day in the third quarter, bringing in $111 million, a huge infusion of funds that is already being used to pummel Democratic candidates on the airwaves in more than a half-dozen key Senate races.The financial windfall, shared first with The New York Times, nearly doubled the total amount of money previously raised by the group during this midterm cycle, which began last year. The super PAC, which is closely aligned with Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader, will report on its next Federal Election Commission filing, which is due Saturday, that it has raised $221.4 million to date in the 2022 cycle.“Our donors are fired up about slamming the brakes on Joe Biden’s disastrous left-wing agenda,” Steven Law, the former chief of staff to Mr. McConnell who runs the super PAC, said in a statement. “We are hammering Democrats on inflation, gas prices, taxes and crime.”In Senate battleground states, the group’s ads have been hard to avoid.Federal records show the super PAC has already spent $148 million, as of Wednesday, to influence Senate races in Pennsylvania, Nevada, Georgia, Wisconsin, North Carolina, New Hampshire and Ohio.The group canceled an ad reservation in Arizona, where the Republican Blake Masters is challenging Senator Mark Kelly, a Democrat, but Axios reported on Wednesday that the group was in discussions with Peter Thiel, the billionaire venture capitalist, about splitting the cost of returning to the airwaves there.The Senate Leadership Fund has spent roughly double the amount as the leading Democratic super PAC devoted to Senate races, known as the Senate Majority PAC, but Democratic candidates in almost every key contest have out-raised Republican candidates.The Republican super PAC declined to discuss who its biggest donors were in recent months, other than to say it received a $20 million transfer from an affiliated nonprofit group, One Nation, which does not disclose its contributors.Through June, the super PAC’s two biggest disclosed contributors had been two Wall Street chief executives: Stephen A. Schwarzman of Blackstone and Kenneth Griffin of Citadel. Each had given $10 million. More

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      Adam Laxalt’s Relatives Endorse His Rival in Senate Race in Nevada

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      Adam Laxalt, the Republican running for Senate in Nevada, built a political career on his family name, casting himself as the heir to his grandfather, a towering figure in the state who served as governor and one of its senators.Now 14 of his relatives are trying to put an end to that career.On Wednesday, they endorsed Mr. Laxalt’s rival, Senator Catherine Cortez Masto, the Democratic incumbent, saying that she “possesses a set of qualities that clearly speak of what we like to call ‘Nevada grit.’”“She has always put Nevada first — even when it meant working against her own party’s policies,” they wrote, praising the senator for fighting off a Biden administration proposal to impose taxes that would have hit local ranchers and the state’s mining industry.The race is tight, with most of the latest polls showing Mr. Laxalt up by a sliver. Without mentioning him by name, Mr. Laxalt’s family members argued that Ms. Cortez Masto would serve Nevada far better than their relative, who has emerged in recent years as a die-hard Trump loyalist eager to push the former president’s stolen-election lies.After the endorsement was released, Mr. Laxalt noted on Twitter that a number of those who signed the endorsement were Democrats. “They think that Nevada & our country are heading in the right direction,” he wrote. “I believe Nevadans don’t agree.”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.A Surprising Battleground: New York has emerged from a haywire redistricting cycle as perhaps the most consequential congressional battleground in the country. For Democrats, the uncertainty is particularly jarring.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.Sigalle Reshef, a spokeswoman for the Cortez Masto campaign, said in a statement that the senator “appreciates their support in this race” and noted that a number of prominent Republicans had crossed party lines to endorse her.The hard-right politics of Mr. Laxalt, 44, a former state attorney general, stand in sharp contrast to the relative moderation of his Republican grandfather, Paul Laxalt, who died in 2018, and Wednesday was not the first time family members have sought to hobble his political ambitions.Back in 2018, when he ran for governor, a dozen members of Adam Laxalt’s family decided they could no longer quietly stand by what they saw as his abuse of the family patriarch’s good name. Writing in the Reno Gazette Journal in October 2018, they decried Mr. Laxalt as a carpetbagger, denouncing what they described as his “ethical shortcomings” and “servitude to donors and out-of-state interests that puts their concerns ahead of real Nevadans.”“For those of us who were actually raised in Nevada, it’s difficult to hear him continue to falsely claim that he was raised in Nevada or has any true connections to Nevadans,” they wrote.Though he was born in Reno, Mr. Laxalt was raised by his mother in Washington, D.C., where he attended private schools and earned undergraduate and law degrees from Georgetown University.He returned to Nevada a few years before his successful campaign for attorney general in 2014. Once in office, he proved eager to pick fights with more moderate Nevada Republicans on issues like immigration and abortion, and he was caught on tape pressuring state gambling officials on behalf of one of his biggest donors, the casino magnate Sheldon Adelson.“Aside from the occasional short visit, Adam never knew the state or its people,” his relatives wrote in 2018. “Perhaps if he had, he would stand for Nevada’s values rather than for those of his out-of-state donors.”Their essay was published weeks after six brothers and sisters of another hard-right Republican, Representative Paul Gosar of Arizona, recorded videos saying their sibling was not fit for office. While Mr. Gosar went on to win his race, Mr. Laxalt fell short.The Laxalt family members who endorsed Ms. Cortez Masto on Wednesday are clearly hoping the same happens this year.Some have even put money on it: At least three have donated to Ms. Cortez Masto’s campaign. More

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      Raphael Warnock Is a Study in Restraint in a Georgia Senate Race Rife With Controversy

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      ATLANTA — A stream of jaw-dropping allegations have saturated the Georgia Senate race for months. Herschel Walker, the Republican candidate, has been accused of having children he did not publicly acknowledge, lying to his own campaign about them, misrepresenting his professional success and, last week, paying for an ex-girlfriend’s abortion despite his public opposition to the procedure. He denies it all.It’s a pileup that might embolden any opponent to unleash. But when asked last week about the latest hit to Mr. Walker, Senator Raphael Warnock, his Democratic rival, held back.“We have seen some disturbing things. We’ve seen a disturbing pattern,” he said during a news conference on Friday, avoiding any predictions about how the claims against the Republican could affect his standing with voters. “It raises real questions about who’s actually ready to represent the people of Georgia in the United States Senate.”Mr. Warnock, a pastor known for enlivening audiences on the stump and from the pulpit, has plenty of reasons to practice restraint these days. Despite the state’s Democratic shift in 2020, his victory in November could hinge on winning over moderate, even conservative-leaning voters who are tired of the Trump-era drama. For Mr. Warnock, that means casting Mr. Walker, a Trump-endorsed first-time candidate and former football star, as unqualified on account of his tumultuous personal history.While he still spends time ginning up support among his Democratic supporters, whose turnout he will badly need on Election Day, Mr. Warnock has also campaigned extensively in deep-red parts of the state. He keeps his message to those groups broad, focusing on kitchen-table issues like health care and improving infrastructure. He is more likely to bring up the Republicans he has worked with in the Senate — Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz and Tommy Tuberville — than he is to mention President Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris or Senator Chuck Schumer.“He has taken very seriously the idea that he represents the whole state,” said Jason Carter, a close Warnock ally who ran for governor in 2014. “That has an impact on how you carry yourself.”Mr. Warnock, center right, at an Artists for Warnock meet-and-greet in Atlanta last month. While allegations against his political rival pile up, he has saved his harshest attacks for campaign ads. Nicole Craine for The New York TimesWhile the headlines about Mr. Walker have been harsh, it is not at all clear that they will sink his Senate ambitions. Christian conservatives along with the Republican establishment in Georgia and Washington have stuck by him. Recent polls suggest the race remains close, though most show Mr. Warnock with a slight lead. A poll conducted by the University of Georgia and several state news outlets released Wednesday found that the senator led Mr. Walker by three points, with support from about 46 percent of likely voters. A candidate must clear 50 percent to win, and many Georgians are bracing for the race to go a runoff. A debate between the contenders on Friday night could also change its course.One question hanging over that debate is whether Mr. Warnock himself will directly go on the attack. Until now, he has largely saved the vitriol for the airwaves. His campaign has run a barrage of highly personal negative advertising and Democratic-aligned groups are spending a combined $36 million on an anti-Walker push. The ads highlight accusations from Mr. Walker’s son of domestic abuse and an episode in which Mr. Walker held a gun to the temple of his ex-wife, Cindy Grossman, and threatened to kill her. Mr. Walker has not denied the domestic violence allegations, saying that his behavior was a consequence of his struggles with mental illness at the time.On the campaign trail, both candidates’ strategies sit in stark contrast.While Mr. Walker often meanders in speeches, this week relaying a lesson about gratitude through the story of a bull jumping a fence, Mr. Warnock peppers his practiced stump speeches with calls to expand Medicaid. While national Republican figures like Rick Scott and Tom Cotton have come to Georgia to bolster the candidacy of their party’s nominee, Mr. Warnock still campaigns solo.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.A Surprising Battleground: New York has emerged from a haywire redistricting cycle as perhaps the most consequential congressional battleground in the country. For Democrats, the uncertainty is particularly jarring.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.When asked if he would welcome a visit from any national Democrats, Mr. Warnock dodges the question.“I’m focused not on who I’m campaigning with but who I’m campaigning for,” Mr. Warnock said during a recent news conference. “The people of Georgia hired me.”Republicans have tied him to his party anyway. “Raphael Warnock, who campaigned with his puppies two years ago, has proven to be simply a lap dog for Joe Biden,” Mr. Cotton said on Tuesday to the crowd of more than 100 Walker supporters. “Herschel Walker will be a champion for the people of Georgia.”Black Radio United for the Vote held an event at Clark Atlanta University last week where Mr. Warnock spoke. He rarely deviates from practiced answers to reporters’ questions.Nicole Craine for The New York TimesMr. Walker, too, has painted the senator as ultraprogressive and a champion of Mr. Biden’s policies. During a recent campaign stop in Smarr, Ga., Mr. Walker condemned Mr. Warnock’s support of the Inflation Reduction Act, calling the White House ceremony marking its passage over the summer a “party in Washington.”“And as you’re looking at this, the split screen is the stock market is crashing,” Mr. Walker said to rousing applause. “What we’ve done right now is put the wrong person in Washington making the deals for us.”Mr. Warnock has had to contend with personal challenges of his own, including a legal dispute with his ex-wife, Ouleye Ndoye, this spring. She sued him to change the terms of their child custody agreement after her move to a different state and asked to increase his monthly child support payments to reflect his higher salary since he became a senator.During his first campaign in 2020, after an argument between the two, Ms. Ndoye said Mr. Warnock ran over her foot. The police did not find any physical damage to Ms. Ndoye’s foot, and Mr. Warnock was not charged. The incident has since been turned into an attack ad from a PAC affiliated with Mr. Walker, in which Ms. Ndoye calls Mr. Warnock “a great actor.”Mr. Warnock’s campaign declined to comment on the claim, and Ms. Ndoye did not respond to a request for one.Even when speaking to those most likely to support him, Mr. Warnock delivers his message carefully. At a recent Women for Warnock event in the event space of a West Atlanta community center, African American seniors said “amen” and cheered after nearly every point he made, vowing to vote early, bring friends to the polls and adorn their yards with Warnock signs as they hugged and took selfies with the senator. Some were members of Ebenezer Baptist Church, where he is senior pastor.Afterward, when asked during a news conference whether he had a message to voters who were nervous about Mr. Walker’s past but frustrated with Democrats’ policies, he said simply “I’m working for Georgia” and turned to a point about his effort to cap prescription drug costs.Mr. Warnock rarely holds one-on-one interviews or deviates from practiced answers to reporters’ questions.He has also focused his message to voters on his work with Republicans in Washington. In stump speeches and news conferences, Mr. Warnock mentions a provision in the bipartisan infrastructure bill that he and Mr. Cruz wrote to authorize funds that would connect a portion of the Interstate 14 highway to link Texas and Georgia. He also talks up legislation he co-sponsored with Mr. Rubio to address the high maternal mortality rates in both of their states.Senator Tommy Tuberville, a Republican, and Mr. Warnock last year. Mr. Warnock has made bipartisan credentials a major part of his campaign message.Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesBut Mr. Warnock’s cozying up to Republicans can come with risks. Mr. Warnock mentioned his partnership with Mr. Tuberville in a recent advertisement. But after Mr. Tuberville made racist comments in a speech at a Trump rally over the weekend, Mr. Warnock was asked on a liberal podcast to respond and labeled the comments “deeply disappointing.”“Not only is this rhetoric inappropriate. Quite frankly, it’s dangerous,” he said, calling for Mr. Tuberville to apologize.Mr. Warnock’s bipartisan message is meant to appeal to a broad swath of voters, his proponents say, giving Georgians a reason to vote for him — and not merely against Mr. Walker.“He is walking a fine line. And it’s not just because he’s trying to distance himself from President Biden,” said Derrick Jackson, a Metro Atlanta state representative and vice chairman of the General Assembly’s Black caucus. “He’s talking about voting for something, instead of voting against something. And there’s an art to that.”Monica Davis, a 62-year-old retiree from Johns Creek, an Atlanta suburb, is among those Mr. Warnock would like to win over. A self-described Republican, she said she planned to vote for Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, but was struggling with whether to vote for Mr. Walker.“I believe he’s a candidate because he is a sports hero. I think there are a lot more qualified candidates,” she said, adding that she was “disappointed in the Republican Party that chose him.” She remained unsure of Mr. Warnock.“I might just not vote on that particular category,” she said. More

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      Why Men and Boys Are Struggling

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      More from our inbox:Herschel Walker: Hypocritical and Unqualified? September Dawn Bottoms for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “The Crisis of Men and Boys,” by David Brooks (column, Sept. 30):I have been a psychotherapist working with men in individual and group treatment for 30 years in prisons and the community. My clients have committed criminal sexual offenses. I agree with Mr. Brooks’s analysis that men are in trouble, but I do not think it is new.The socialization of boys to embrace a narrow set of ideas and behaviors restricts their ability to experience the fullness of humanity. The “weak” characteristics identified with females are stifled in boys, and those emotions and behaviors are the best of being human: gentle, loving, compassionate, empathic and interdependent. Our society teaches boys that their value is when they are in control, have power and engage with the world in an aggressive way.My clients, and many men, have suffered from this, and it manifests in feelings of isolation and loneliness. This isolation leads to anger, and without the ability to cope it can become very destructive.I appreciate Mr. Brooks’s discussion and encourage all of us to see boys and men as complex, emotional human beings. The message I always share with my clients is that men and women are not that different. We all want love, validation, a sense of belonging and people to share our lives with. It is really that simple.Eileen ReddenSouth Windsor, Conn.To the Editor:Toxic masculinity is just that — toxic. David Brooks identifies “being the main breadwinner for your family” as an obsolete ideal. I agree. Even more toxic, however, is an ideal that is not obsolete — real men don’t ask for help. Instead, they soldier on, man up, push through, take one for the team. “I’m OK” is a very old lie.We need more popular culture male role models — strong superhero types — to come forward and share weakness and a need for help. “It’s OK to not be OK” is acceptable for women but not for men. Run through your own memory list of popular sports figures who have come forward with mental health issues: Michael Phelps … and then Naomi Osaka, Simone Biles, Amanda Beard and Serena Williams. Even a quick Google search of lists is sure to yield more women’s names than men’s.We also need more role models from “ordinary life” — community leaders, high school and college faculty and coaches, counselors and social workers, law enforcement, the military — beer-drinking dads and big brothers who will help balance the genders waiting outside those mental health support centers we were enlightened enough to build.Susanne MurphyGuilford, Conn.To the Editor:David Brooks cites research by Richard V. Reeves documenting the slower brain development in boys when compared with girls. One of Mr. Reeves’s recommendations is that boys start school a year later than girls. Though some find this recommendation controversial, it seems to me to be just common sense. In fact, I wish that almost 70 years ago I had been “redshirted.”In addition to being a boy, I have an August birthday and consequently was one of the younger students in my class. I struggled in elementary school and had a mediocre record in high school. However, I came into my own in college and eventually earned a doctorate.Today, it is not uncommon for parents to give their slower-developing child an extra year before starting school. Though that decision should be made on an individual basis, it is important that parents have sufficient information to make an informed choice.Richard WinchellSt. Charles, Ill.To the Editor:Re “Boys and Men Are in Crisis Because Society Is,” by Michelle Goldberg (column, Oct. 4):As the father of two young adult men, I am grateful that attention is beginning to be paid to the crisis that men and boys face. As Ms. Goldberg indicates, we can address longstanding racial and gender inequities that have negatively affected women, Black and Indigenous people, and other groups while also working to adjust societal structures to ensure the full integration of males into society.We should carry out every effort to lift up boys and men who are increasingly being left behind. Don’t the boys and men in our lives deserve this?Edwin AndrewsMalden, Mass.To the Editor:A modest proposal. If men and boys are less likely to excel in school, are more likely to live with their parents and are lonelier than women, why don’t they raise the unwanted children that women are being forced to bear? It makes perfect sense, and as a primary parent, I guarantee they’ll never be lonely again.Anastasia Torres-GilSanta Cruz, Calif.Herschel Walker: Hypocritical and Unqualified? Ben Gray/Associated PressTo the Editor:Re “Republicans’ Unholy Alliances,” by Maureen Dowd (column, Oct. 9):As a prospective father who had no intention of being a part of his child’s life, Herschel Walker made the proper call by paying his girlfriend to have an abortion if that was her wish. It doesn’t, however, change the fact that he has had children with different mothers who have never been a part of his life.It doesn’t change the credible allegations of his violence toward his ex-wife, and it doesn’t change the fact that he is running as a strong anti-choice candidate with no exceptions for rape, incest or when the life of the mother is at risk.There are two reasons that Herschel Walker is the Republican nominee for a Senate seat in Georgia. He was a great college and N.F.L. running back, and Donald Trump urged him to run. Nobody believes that Herschel Walker is qualified or competent enough to be in the Senate.Many of his public statements are incoherent, but as a conservative radio host and former N.R.A. spokesperson, Dana Loesch, said: “I don’t care if Herschel Walker paid to abort endangered baby eagles. I want control of the Senate.”As Republican leaders, always concerned about their brand, rush to defend Mr. Walker, I wonder if more than a few of them secretly hope that he fails.Elliott MillerBala Cynwyd, Pa.To the Editor:Re “In Georgia’s Senate Race, Evangelicals Find a Way With Walker” (front page, Oct. 10):It is one thing to say the ends justify the means and overlook the personal failings of candidates like Herschel Walker because he’ll support your policies. It is another to say you’re still living up to the code of conduct the Holy Scriptures expect while you’re doing it.Maybe evangelicals need to reread Mark 8:36 — “For what shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and suffers the loss of his soul?” — before deciding if Mr. Walker is really the best choice for their eternal salvation.Michael ScottSan FranciscoTo the Editor:Herschel Walker is a liar, is a hypocrite (at least on abortion), demands that people pay attention to what he says, not what he does, and is allegedly a physical abuser. Oh, wait. That does sound exactly like someone running for office who a lot of people would vote for.John MatulisKing of Prussia, Pa. More

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      Groups Saturate TV With Negative Ads About Warnock and Walker

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      ATLANTA — Democratic and Republican groups in Georgia are spending millions of dollars on highly personal negative advertising in the final weeks of the race between Senator Raphael Warnock and his challenger, Herschel Walker, disparaging the candidates by drawing more attention to their pasts.Days before the candidates are set to meet on a debate stage, groups aligned with each party are flooding the airwaves with a pair of ads that underline accusations of domestic violence against Mr. Walker, a Republican, and marital disputes involving Mr. Warnock, a Democrat. Their messages are shaping the final few weeks of campaigning in one of the country’s most closely watched races that could determine control of the Senate, and at times one of the most hostile.The advertising back-and-forth follows more than a week of negative headlines focused largely on Mr. Walker. After The Daily Beast first reported that Mr. Walker paid for a woman’s abortion, The New York Times confirmed the report and learned that the woman had ended their relationship after she refused to have a second abortion despite Mr. Walker’s urging.Now, as Democrats spend big to elevate those claims, Republicans are hitting back to paint Mr. Warnock as a candidate also plagued by scandal.A PAC supporting Mr. Walker, 34N22, is spending $1.5 million on an advertisement that shows footage from a police body camera after a 2020 incident between Mr. Warnock and his ex-wife, Ouleye Ndoye, who claims in the video and ensuing police report that he ran over her foot. Paramedics on the scene were unable to locate evidence of physical injury to Ms. Ndoye’s foot. Mr. Warnock was not charged with a crime.“I just can’t believe he would run me over,” she says through tears. “I’ve tried to keep the way that he acts under wraps for a long time, and today he crossed the line. So that is what is going on here, and he is a great actor. He is phenomenal at putting on a really good show.”The Democratic-aligned groups Georgia Honor and Senate Majority PAC are spending a combined $36 million to dominate the airwaves with anti-Walker advertising, including an advertisement that takes lines from a tweet that Mr. Walker’s son Christian Walker posted after the initial reports about his father’s paying for the abortion. In it, he accused Mr. Walker of domestic abuse against him and his mother, Cindy Grossman.A voice-over on the ad repeats the accusation as similar text flashes on the screen: “He threatened to kill us and had us move six times in six months running from his violence.” The ad also shows pictures of a police report that outlines an episode in which Mr. Walker arrived at Ms. Grossman’s home with a gun.“Six moves in six months running from Herschel Walker’s violence,” the voice-over says again against footage of an empty apartment and moving boxes.Mr. Walker and Mr. Warnock will debate in Savannah, Ga., on Friday. Early voting in Georgia begins on Monday. More

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      Six Takeaways From the Vance-Ryan Debate for Senate in Ohio

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      In a sometimes heated, often personal debate, the two candidates vying for the seat of the retiring Senator Rob Portman — Representative Tim Ryan and the investor J.D. Vance — each took turns accusing the other of being elite and out of touch, while claiming the mantle of working-class defender.Here are six takeaways from the one and only Ohio Senate debate.Extremism vs. the economyMr. Ryan, the Democrat, had the difficult task of tarring Mr. Vance, the Republican, as a “MAGA extremist” without alienating supporters of Donald J. Trump in a state where Mr. Trump remains popular and which he won twice. He did so by saying Mr. Vance is “running around with the election deniers, the extremists,” like Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, and supporting some of the rioters who attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.But in a state that has for decades worried about the economy and the loss of manufacturing jobs, Mr. Vance had a ready pivot: “I find it interesting how preoccupied you are with this at a time when people can’t afford groceries,” he told his opponent.China, China, ChinaMr. Ryan set the tone of his underdog campaign from the start with an advertisement attacking China, and he didn’t let up in the debate. He repeatedly accused Mr. Vance of investing in companies that did business with China or shipped jobs there. Mr. Vance taunted him with “name one.”China even muddied what had been a clear foreign policy debate. Mr. Vance stuck to the “America First” position of his benefactor, Mr. Trump, when it came to Ukraine, saying Democrats were “sleepwalking into a nuclear war.” But asked about defending Taiwan against a hypothetical Chinese attack, he shifted. “Taiwan is a much different situation than Russia and Ukraine,” Mr. Vance said.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.The Final Stretch: With less than one month until Election Day, Republicans remain favored to take over the House, but momentum in the pitched battle for the Senate has seesawed back and forth.Herschel Walker: A woman who said that the G.O.P. Senate nominee in Georgia paid for her abortion in 2009 told The Times that he urged her to terminate a second pregnancy two years later. She chose to have their son instead.Will the Walker Allegations Matter?: The scandal could be decisive largely because of the circumstances in Georgia, writes Nate Cohn, The Times’s chief political analyst.Pennsylvania Senate Race: John Fetterman, the Democratic nominee, says he can win over working-class voters in deep-red counties. But as polls tighten in the contest, that theory is under strain.Change vs. serviceMr. Vance tried to present himself as an agent of change who would shake things up in Washington, accusing Mr. Ryan of being a career politician who accomplished little during his many years in the House. Embracing term limits, he said Mr. Ryan’s native northeast Ohio would have been better off if its congressman had left Washington a while ago and gotten a job in Youngstown.That riled Mr. Ryan, who spoke about his family’s history of service through its Catholic church — including running the “beer tent” at church events. “I’m not going to apologize for spending 20 years slogging away to try to help one of the hardest economically hit regions of Ohio,” he said. Adding that Mr. Vance should be ashamed of himself, he snapped, “You went off to California drinking wine and eating cheese.”Mr. Vance, putting himself forward as a young, savvy businessman more than as an acolyte of Mr. Trump, said he admires service. “What I don’t admire,” he said, “is the failure of accomplishment.”Crime and policingThe candidates struck a rare note of bipartisan accord on the need for local police departments to hire more officers, with Mr. Ryan boasting of delivering $500 million in federal funds for Ohio police through a pandemic relief bill. But then the debate took a nasty swerve. Mr. Ryan accused Mr. Vance of encouraging donations to Jan. 6 rioters who injured some 140 officers in the siege of the Capitol, warning his opponent, “Don’t even try to deny it.”“We’ve got your Twitter posts and everything else,” Mr. Ryan said. “He’s raising money for the insurrectionists who were beating up the Capitol Police.”Mr. Vance did not respond to the charge. Instead, he attacked Mr. Ryan for comments he made during civil disturbances in American cities after the police murder of George Floyd in 2020.“Tim Ryan threw the police under the bus,” Mr. Vance said. “He attacked them as the new Jim Crow, as systemically racist, and he voted for legislation that would have stripped funding from them and redirected it toward litigation defense.”Separating from the partyThe Democrats may be trying to label Republicans allied with Mr. Trump as extremists, but it was Mr. Ryan, not Mr. Vance, who was looking for distance from his party leadership. He reiterated his view that President Biden should not run for re-election, and instead should give way to “generational change.” He called Vice President Kamala Harris “absolutely wrong” for saying the southern border is secure. And he insisted he had been a pain in Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s rear end.“I’m not here to toe the party line,” he said, mocking Mr. Vance for slavishly standing by Mr. Trump even when the former president said that the candidate must grovel to him, while using coarser language.A game changer? Not likely.The Senate campaign has been spirited and may be close, which is remarkable considering the Republican bent of the state and the commanding lead that its Republican governor, Mike DeWine, has in his quest for re-election. But Mr. Ryan has a tall order: He must persuade hundreds of thousands of Republican voters to cast their ballots for a Democrat in a year when the Democratic president is unpopular and the economy is faltering.Mr. Vance, after a heated primary season, has been accused of coasting through the summer, and he entered the debate with low expectations. But he knew the bar was low for him to prove himself palatable enough to ride Mr. DeWine’s coattails and the broader political winds. He most likely did that. More