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      Rally With Trump? Some G.O.P. Candidates Aren’t Thrilled About It.

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      Whether he is invited or not, the former president keeps holding rallies in battleground states. It reflects an awkward dance as Republican candidates try to win over general-election voters.Former President Donald J. Trump is preparing to swoop into Ohio on Saturday to rally Republicans behind J.D. Vance in a key Senate race. Two weeks earlier, he did the same for Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania.Neither candidate invited him.Instead, aides to the former president simply informed the Senate campaigns that he was coming. Never mind that Mr. Trump, while viewed heroically by many Republicans, remains widely disliked among crucial swing voters.The question of how to handle Mr. Trump has so bedeviled some Republican candidates for Senate that they have held private meetings about the best way to field the inevitable calls from his team, according to strategists familiar with the discussions.This awkward state of affairs reflects the contortions many Republican candidates are going through as they leave primary season behind and pivot to the general election, when Democrats are trying to bind them to the former president.In New Hampshire, Don Bolduc won the Republican Senate nomination on Tuesday after a primary campaign in which he unequivocally repeated Mr. Trump’s false claims of 2020 election fraud. Just two days later, he reversed himself, telling Fox News, “I want to be definitive on this: The election was not stolen.”Two days after Don Bolduc, left, won the Republican primary for Senate in New Hampshire, he reversed his position that the 2020 election was marred by fraud. John Tully for The New York TimesSome of Mr. Trump’s chosen candidates, after pasting his likeness across campaign literature and trumpeting his seal of approval in television ads during the primaries, are now distancing themselves, backtracking from his positions or scrubbing their websites of his name.The moves reflect a complicated political calculus for Republican campaigns, which want to exploit the energy Mr. Trump elicits among his supporters — some of whom rarely show up to the polls unless it is to vote for him — without riling up the independent voters needed to win elections in battleground states.In North Carolina, Bo Hines, a Republican House candidate who won his primary in May after proudly highlighting support from Mr. Trump, has deleted the former president’s name and image from his campaign site. A campaign official described the move as part of an overhaul of the website to prioritize issues that are important to general-election voters.But Mr. Trump’s endorsement remains prominent on Mr. Hines’s social media accounts. Reached by phone, the 27-year-old candidate said he planned to attend a Trump rally in the state next week and then cut short the call.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.Midterm Data: Could the 2020 polling miss repeat itself? Will this election cycle really be different? Nate Cohn, The Times’s chief political analyst, looks at the data in his new newsletter.Republicans’ Abortion Struggles: Senator Lindsey Graham’s proposed nationwide 15-week abortion ban was intended to unite the G.O.P. before the November elections. But it has only exposed the party’s divisions.Democrats’ Dilemma: The party’s candidates have been trying to signal their independence from the White House, while not distancing themselves from President Biden’s base or agenda.In Wisconsin, Tim Michels, the Republican nominee for governor, erased from his campaign home page the fact that Mr. Trump had endorsed him — but then restored it after the change was reported, saying it had been a mistake.“The optimal scenario for Republicans is for Trump to remain at arm’s length — supportive, but not in ways that overshadow the candidate or the contrast,” said Liam Donovan, a Republican strategist and a former top aide at the National Republican Senatorial Committee.Mr. Donovan, as well as consultants and staff members working for Trump-backed Senate candidates, said the former president could be most helpful, if he chose, by providing support from his powerful fund-raising machine.“A big part of the problem is that these nominees emerged from messy fields where the party has been slow to unify,” Mr. Donovan said. “But to fix what ails, what these G.O.P. candidates need isn’t a Trump rally, it’s a MAGA money bomb.”Taylor Budowich, a spokesman for Mr. Trump, said in a statement that the former president’s “name and likeness was responsible for the unprecedented success of the G.O.P.’s small-dollar fund-raising programs,” and that he continued to “fuel and define the success of the Republican Party.”Mr. Budowich added, “His rallies, which serve as the most powerful political weapon in American politics, bring out new voters and invaluable media attention.”But linking arms with the former president could create problems for candidates in close races.Even though he has been out of office for nearly 20 months, Mr. Trump has remained a constant presence in news headlines because of mounting criminal and congressional investigations into his role in the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, his refusal to hand over sensitive government documents that he took to his Florida home, and whether he and his family fraudulently inflated the value of their business assets..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;}What we consider before using anonymous sources. Do the sources know the information? What’s their motivation for telling us? Have they proved reliable in the past? Can we corroborate the information? Even with these questions satisfied, The Times uses anonymous sources as a last resort. The reporter and at least one editor know the identity of the source.Learn more about our process.On Thursday, when asked about the possibility of his being indicted in the document inquiry, Mr. Trump told a conservative radio host that there would be “problems in this country the likes of which perhaps we’ve never seen before.”Polls suggest these controversies could be taking a toll. Among independent voters, 60 percent said they had an unfavorable view of Mr. Trump, compared with 37 percent who had a favorable view, according to a New York Times/Siena College poll released this week. President Biden was also underwater among these key voters, but by a far smaller margin of eight percentage points.Asked whether Mr. Trump had “committed any serious federal crimes,” 62 percent of independent voters said they believed he had, and 53 percent said he had threatened American democracy with his actions after the 2020 election.Republican candidates appear to be aware of such sentiments, backing away from Mr. Trump’s fixation on the 2020 election. While he has said that election fraud is the most important issue in the midterms, polls show that voters are far more worried about economic issues and abortion rights.Three days after Mr. Trump’s rally in Pennsylvania, Dr. Oz, the Republican Senate nominee, told reporters that he would have defied the former president and voted to certify the 2020 presidential election.Dr. Oz, a former TV personality, leaned on Mr. Trump’s endorsement to win a bitter primary. Since then, he has removed prominent mentions of the endorsement from his campaign website and has swapped out Trump-themed branding from his social media.Republican campaigns said that they would not reject Mr. Trump’s help out of hand, but that accepting it created a whole set of other problems: Where, for instance, could a rally be held to energize the conservative base, while minimizing the damage among independents?When Mr. Trump’s team called to say that the former president wanted to come back to Pennsylvania for a rally this month, Mr. Oz’s campaign guided him to Wilkes-Barre in Luzerne County. The county was one of three that voted twice for Barack Obama and flipped to Mr. Trump in 2016. It was also the only one of those three counties that backed Mr. Trump again in 2020. The other two — Erie and Northampton — supported Mr. Biden.Mr. Trump’s rally in Ohio on Saturday will be his third visit to the state since leaving office — more than any other state so far. He twice won Ohio, a longtime presidential battleground, by eight percentage points.This year, his endorsement of Mr. Vance’s Senate bid has been widely viewed as the clearest example of his enduring political influence. Mr. Vance, an author and venture capitalist, was trailing in the polls before Mr. Trump backed him with just over two weeks left in the race. Mr. Vance won the crowded primary by nearly 10 points.For the rally on Saturday, Mr. Vance’s team directed the former president to Youngstown, a blue-collar area that had been a Democratic stronghold until Mr. Trump ran for president. The rally, at the 6,000-seat Covelli Centre, is also squarely in the congressional district represented by Tim Ryan, the Democrat running against Mr. Vance.The event is scheduled to start at the same time as kickoff for an Ohio State University football game. Buckeyes games regularly draw huge statewide audiences, and the matchup on Saturday is against the University of Toledo, an in-state team.The timing was not viewed as ideal by either Mr. Vance’s campaign or Mr. Trump’s team, and Mr. Trump was ultimately consulted on the decision, according to people familiar with the discussions. In the end, the two sides determined that it was more important to hold the rally on a Saturday night, when Mr. Trump has the easiest chance of drawing a strong crowd.Representative Tim Ryan at a tailgate party before Ohio State’s first game of the season this month.Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesOhio politicians have long tried to avoid competing for attention with Ohio State football games. In an interview, Mr. Ryan said holding a rally at the same time suggested that Mr. Vance — an Ohio State graduate — was out of touch with the “cultural things” important to Ohioans.“It just says a lot,” Mr. Ryan said. “These little things just sometimes reveal a lot more about a candidate than it appears.”In a statement, Mr. Vance called his rival “a radical liberal” and said, “The only person out of touch with Ohio is Tim Ryan.”Mr. Ryan is also involved in a similar dance around the leadership of his party, given that Mr. Biden is himself struggling with low approval ratings.Asked if he would campaign with the president this fall — even if it were not during a Buckeyes game — Mr. Ryan said: “No. Uh-uh.” More

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      The Vance-Ryan Senate Race In Ohio Appears Closer Than Once Expected

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      Less than two months before Election Day, the Ohio Senate race appears tighter than many once expected in a state that former President Donald J. Trump won by eight percentage points in 2020 — even as there are clear reminders of the limitations Democrats face there.From mid-May until the beginning of August, Representative Tim Ryan of Ohio, the Democratic nominee, had the airwaves to himself, according to AdImpact, the media tracking firm. He has also had a significant cash advantage over his Republican opponent, J.D. Vance, who won a brutal primary with assistance from Mr. Trump, who endorsed him and is set to campaign with him in Youngstown, Ohio, on Saturday.Mr. Ryan, who had an easier primary season, used those advantages in an effort to define himself early as an independent-minded “fighter” for Ohio, highlighting his differences with the national Democratic Party at every turn.He and other Democrats have also moved to brand Mr. Vance as an inauthentic San Francisco transplant.Mr. Vance, the author of the book “Hillbilly Elegy” who once identified as a “Never Trump guy,” grew up in Middletown, Ohio, but later worked as a venture capitalist in San Francisco.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.Midterm Data: Could the 2020 polling miss repeat itself? Will this election cycle really be different? Nate Cohn, The Times’s chief political analyst, looks at the data in his new newsletter.Republicans’ Abortion Struggles: Senator Lindsey Graham’s proposed nationwide 15-week abortion ban was intended to unite the G.O.P. before the November elections. But it has only exposed the party’s divisions.Democrats’ Dilemma: The party’s candidates have been trying to signal their independence from the White House, while not distancing themselves from President Biden’s base or agenda.“J.D. was born and raised in Ohio,” Luke Schroeder, a spokesman for the Vance campaign, said in a statement as he sought to tie Mr. Ryan to Washington Democrats.For all of Mr. Vance’s structural challenges over the summer, much of the available polling suggests a very close race in a state that shifted to the right in the Trump era, and Democrats are bracing for a challenging fall in key races across the country.Mr. Vance is now on the airwaves, assisted by significant outside spending. He, like other Republican candidates, is seeking to go on offense by emphasizing the issue of crime.And while Democrats see openings to paint Mr. Vance as extreme on the issue of abortion, they continue to face a difficult national environment defined by concerns about inflation and by President Biden’s approval numbers, which have improved but are still underwater.“He claims to be an independent voice, but in D.C., he votes with Biden and Pelosi 100 percent of the time,” Mr. Schroeder said in a statement about Mr. Ryan — a reflection of how Republicans are seeking to nationalize the race..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. Ryan’s campaign argued that he had spent far more time campaigning in Ohio in recent months than Mr. Vance had.“This race is one of the most competitive in the country because Tim Ryan has outworked and outcampaigned” Mr. Vance, said Izzi Levy, a spokeswoman for Mr. Ryan. She accused Mr. Vance of spending “the four months since his primary hiding from Ohioans and traveling far from Ohio.”Some Republicans, too, have voiced concerns over what they saw as a limited campaigning effort from their nominee for much of the summer.J.D. Vance, the author of the book “Hillbilly Elegy,” grew up in Ohio and later worked as a venture capitalist in San Francisco.Emil Lippe for The New York Times“From that point as he won in May, he seemed to be running a stealth campaign, kind of like a former presidential candidate in 2020 was doing,” said David G. Arredondo, the executive committee chairman of the Lorain County Republican Party, referring to Mr. Biden’s limited in-person campaigning in the last presidential election at the height of the pandemic, which some mocked as a “basement strategy.” But Mr. Arredondo said he understood the approach.“Whether J.D. was in the basement or hanging out with his family, who knows, but I was not concerned,” he said, emphasizing that the campaign has accelerated in recent weeks, just as voters traditionally tune in — Mr. Vance is expected in Lorain County on Saturday. “And it was hard for me to convince my fellow Republicans, don’t worry, don’t worry, he’s going to be OK.”“Their sentiment is now changing,” he added.His campaign event on Saturday evening with Mr. Trump is at the same time as a football game between Ohio State and the University of Toledo, a point the Ohio Democratic Party has used to cast Mr. Vance as an out-of-stater: “Having a campaign event on a fall Saturday night is a cardinal sin in Ohio,” a statement from the party read. More

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      Democrats Buoyed by Abortion and Trump, Times/Siena Poll Finds

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      Even as they struggle to persuade voters that they should be trusted on the economy, Democrats remain unexpectedly competitive in the battle for Congress as the sprint to November’s midterm election begins, a New York Times/Siena College poll has found.The surprising Democratic strength has been bolstered by falling gas prices and President Biden’s success at breaking through legislative gridlock in Washington to pass his agenda. That shift in political momentum has helped boost, in just two months, the president’s approval rating by nine percentage points and doubled the share of Americans who believe the country is on the right track.But Democrats are also benefiting from factors over which they had little control: the public outcry in response to the Supreme Court’s overturning of federal abortion rights and the return of former President Donald J. Trump to an attention-commanding presence on the national stage.Changes in Voter Sentiment More

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      Right After Primary Win, Bolduc Reverses Support for Election Lies

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      Like a driver making a screeching U-turn, Don Bolduc, the Republican Senate nominee in New Hampshire, pivoted on Thursday from his primary race to the general election, saying he had “come to the conclusion” that the 2020 presidential election “was not stolen,” after he had spent more than a year claiming it was.“I’ve done a lot of research on this, and I’ve spent the past couple weeks talking to Granite Staters all over the state from every party, and I have come to the conclusion — and I want to be definitive on this — the election was not stolen,” Mr. Bolduc said in an interview on Fox News.He continued to falsely claim there had been fraud in the election but acknowledged that the outcome was not in question.“Elections have consequences, and, unfortunately, President Biden is the legitimate president of this country,” he said.Mr. Bolduc won his primary on Tuesday over a more moderate candidate, Chuck Morse, the president of the New Hampshire Senate. Mr. Bolduc ran on an uncompromising right-wing platform, complete with declarations that former President Donald J. Trump had won the 2020 election.But now he faces a tough general election campaign against Senator Maggie Hassan, a Democrat. She is vulnerable in November — but, Republicans worry, less vulnerable against Mr. Bolduc than she would have been against Mr. Morse.Ms. Hassan’s campaign responded quickly to Mr. Bolduc’s reversal, sharing a series of videos and quotes of the many times Mr. Bolduc had promoted the lie that the 2020 election was stolen.“Don Bolduc is desperately trying to run from years of spreading the Big Lie, but he can’t hide from the video receipts,” her campaign said in a statement.Mr. Bolduc, a retired Army general, had claimed repeatedly for more than a year that the election was stolen.Among other instances, in May 2021, he signed an open letter in which retired generals and admirals advanced false claims that the election had been tainted. “The F.B.I. and Supreme Court must act swiftly when election irregularities are surfaced and not ignore them as was done in 2020,” it said.In a debate with his Republican primary opponents last month, he referred back to that letter and declared, to applause, that he would not budge from his position.“I signed a letter with 120 other generals and admirals saying that Trump won the election, and, damn it, I stand by my letter,” he said. “I’m not switching horses, baby. This is it.”Switching horses on Thursday, he said in the Fox News interview, “We, you know, live and learn, right?”While Mr. Bolduc’s reversal was particularly brazen, he is not the only Republican candidate who has tried to temper, or outright erase, hard-line positions as the general-election environment starts to look less favorable for the party.At least 10 candidates in competitive races, including the Senate nominees Blake Masters in Arizona, Adam Laxalt in Nevada and Ted Budd in North Carolina, have updated their websites to downplay endorsements from Mr. Trump or to soften anti-abortion language. More

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      The Run-Up: What Democrats and Republicans Got Wrong About Voters

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      Listen and follow ‘The Run-Up’Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Amazon MusicIt’s March 2013. The G.O.P., in tatters, issues a scathing report blaming its electoral failures on an out-of-touch leadership that ignores minorities at its own peril. Just three years later, Donald Trump proves his party dead wrong. Today, how certain assumptions took hold of both parties — and what they’re still getting wrong — heading into the midterm elections.Photo Illustration: The New York Times. Photo by David McNew/ Getty ImagesOn today’s episodeAdam Nagourney, a New York Times reporter covering West coast culture. He served as the paper’s chief national political correspondent for eight years.Kellyanne Conway, the campaign manager for Donald Trump in 2016. She was the first woman to manage a successful presidential campaign.Jennifer Medina, a national politics reporter at The Times, covering political attitudes and power, with a focus on the West.About ‘The Run-Up’First launched in August 2016, three months before the election of Donald Trump, “The Run-Up” is back. The host, Astead Herndon, will grapple with the big ideas animating the 2022 midterm election cycle — and explore how we got to this fraught moment in American politics.Elections are about more than who wins and who loses. New episodes on Thursdays.“The Run-Up” is hosted by More

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      Fetterman Says Stroke Problems Have Not Slowed Down a ‘Normal’ Campaign

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      Four months after suffering a stroke he described as a “near-death experience,” Lt. Gov. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania acknowledges lingering problems with his speech and hearing that sometimes cause verbal miscues. He has relied on closed captions or the help of staff members to smooth his interactions with voters and reporters as he runs for Senate.But in one of his most extensive interviews since the stroke in May, Mr. Fetterman said he was fully capable of handling the rigors of a campaign that may decide the balance of power in the U.S. Senate. He described driving his children to school, walking several miles a day and rapidly improving his auditory processing — while also lacing into his opponent, the celebrity television physician Mehmet Oz, who trails in the polls and whose campaign has mocked Mr. Fetterman’s health challenges.“I’m running a perfectly normal campaign,” Mr. Fetterman said in a 40-minute interview with The New York Times, conducted by video on Tuesday. He added at another point, “I keep getting better and better, and I’m living a perfectly normal life.”Indeed, Mr. Fetterman’s campaign has seemed increasingly normal in many ways.Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, a Democrat running for Senate in Pennsylvania, at a rally in Blue Bell on Sunday. He acknowledges lingering problems with his speech since a stroke in May.Hannah Beier for The New York TimesThe candidate, whose personality-driven political style has inspired an unusual degree of fandom for a Senate hopeful, speaks at raucous rallies, jokes about his opponent at private fund-raisers and makes occasional news media appearances. His onetime Democratic rivals have moved to show a united front with their party’s nominee. Several Democratic officials who have interacted with Mr. Fetterman closely also said recently that they were encouraged by his progress. On Wednesday, he committed to debating Dr. Oz late next month.Yet in other respects, clashes over health and transparency have shaped the contest to a remarkable degree, fueled by attacks from the Trump-backed Dr. Oz and Republicans promoting out-of-context clips of Mr. Fetterman — and by the realities of Mr. Fetterman’s personal situation.He suffered a stroke on the Friday before the May primary election, though he waited until Sunday to disclose it. On Primary Day, he had a pacemaker and defibrillator implanted, which his campaign described at the time as a standard procedure that would help address “the underlying cause of his stroke, atrial fibrillation.” In a statement in June, his doctor said he also had a serious heart condition called cardiomyopathy.Mr. Fetterman thanked his supporters in a video at his election-night party in May. He has not tended to take questions from the news media at events since the stroke.Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesIn Tuesday’s interview, Mr. Fetterman said, “We have never been hiding any of the health issues.”Those issues have plainly shaped how Mr. Fetterman campaigns now. He has not tended to take questions from the news media at his events, in contrast to his approach right before his stroke. He is still using closed captioning to conduct video conversations, as he did in the interview on Tuesday. And in some appearances over the last month, he jumbled a few words, a problem he has acknowledged.At a Labor Day event last week, he had to restart an occasional sentence, and he promised to “champion the union way of life in Jersey — excuse me, in D.C.,” after he sought to cast Dr. Oz as more comfortable in New Jersey, his longtime principal residence, than in Pennsylvania.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.Midterm Data: Could the 2020 polling miss repeat itself? Will this election cycle really be different? Nate Cohn, The Times’s chief political analyst, looks at the data in his new newsletter.Republicans’ Abortion Struggles: Senator Lindsey Graham’s proposed nationwide 15-week abortion ban was intended to unite the G.O.P. before the November elections. But it has only exposed the party’s divisions.Democrats’ Dilemma: The party’s candidates have been trying to signal their independence from the White House, while not distancing themselves from President Biden’s base or agenda.For in-person appearances, Mr. Fetterman has sometimes relied on staff members to repeat questions he has trouble hearing over background noise.Many voters appear untroubled: A CBS News/YouGov poll released this week found that 59 percent of registered Pennsylvania voters surveyed believed Mr. Fetterman was healthy enough to serve.A cutout of Mr. Fetterman at his campaign rally in Erie, Pa., in August. A doctor found the candidate’s results on neurocognitive tests reassuring.Jeff Swensen for The New York TimesOn Wednesday, his campaign said he had taken neurocognitive tests, mentioning two: the Saint Louis University Mental Status Examination, administered on July 14, and the Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status, or RBANS, taken on Wednesday morning. The campaign said his score on the St. Louis test was 28 out of 30. That score is typical for people with at least a high school education.His score on the RBANS was within the normal range for his age, according to his campaign.Stroke patients often undergo many neurocognitive tests, including brief ones administered by speech therapists and hourslong cognitive evaluations, said Dr. Lee Schwamm, a stroke expert at Massachusetts General Hospital.Dr. Schwamm found Mr. Fetterman’s scores reassuring but added that they “don’t preclude the possibility that his performance is lower than it might have been before his stroke.”But, Dr. Schwamm said, the emphasis on Mr. Fetterman’s cognitive tests plays into what he sees as a bias against people who have had strokes. “It is playing on the fear that a stroke made him vulnerable, weak, incapable of leadership,” he said. “Judge the guy on his merits.”Mr. Fetterman’s campaign said he continued to take all the medications he was prescribed, including the blood thinner rivaroxaban. The campaign also said he had exhibited no stroke symptoms or bleeding since the stroke.Mr. Fetterman’s campaign did not make his doctors available for interviews, and efforts to reach them independently were unsuccessful. Dr. Ramesh Chandra of Alliance Cardiology signed the June letter about Mr. Fetterman’s heart condition. Dr. Chandra’s office said health privacy laws prohibited him from discussing patients without their permission.Mr. Fetterman returned to the campaign trail last month with a splashy rally in Erie, Pa. He has held a number of big campaign events since, including a large one on Sunday, when, The Philadelphia Inquirer noted, “he stumbled over very few words compared with previous speeches.”Mr. Fetterman greeted a large crowd in Blue Bell. Even in appearances when he has halting moments, he can come across as high-energy.Hannah Beier for The New York TimesBy his campaign’s count, he has held more than two dozen fund-raisers since his stroke, conducted dozens of political meetings both in person and over video, and held or attended a number of public events. Even in appearances when he has halting moments, he can come across as high-energy, sometimes adopting the cadence of a stand-up comic to rip into Dr. Oz. He has also used his personal health challenges to bond with voters, asking at events for a show of hands from those who have experienced health problems in their families.“Who has someone, maybe personally, yourself, has ever had a big, major health challenge? OK, all right, how about any of your parents?” Mr. Fetterman said on Sunday. “I’m so sorry. I mean, I certainly have. And I hope, I truly hope for each and every one of you, you didn’t have a doctor in your life making fun of it.”Asked for comment, Barney Keller, an Oz campaign consultant, said that the Fetterman campaign “hasn’t been transparent at all about his health challenges.”Representative Mary Gay Scanlon, a Pennsylvania Democrat who attended the rally and a fund-raiser with Mr. Fetterman on Sunday, said he had strong exchanges at the private event.“There were no closed captions,” Ms. Scanlon said. “He fielded questions and had a sense of humor and was entirely what one would hope for for the next senator from Pennsylvania.”The issue of Mr. Fetterman’s health intensified in recent weeks as Dr. Oz used the matter of debate participation to question Mr. Fetterman’s fitness to serve. Mr. Fetterman’s campaign said Wednesday that he would debate on Oct. 25, two weeks before Election Day, noting that it had held conversations with several TV stations to determine how to accommodate his lingering auditory challenges.Shanin Specter, a Philadelphia lawyer and son of the late Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, said in an interview some voters might regard one debate as insufficient.“The recent indication of agreement to one debate in late October may be seen by voters as too little and too late, especially for those who vote by mail,” said Mr. Specter, who donates to candidates in both parties. He said at another point, “He hasn’t done much campaigning. The film of that which he’s done has been unreassuring. The drip, drip lack of forthrightness about his problems has been corrosive.”Mr. Specter said he supported the Democratic nominee for governor, Josh Shapiro, but was not involved in the Senate race.Dr. Mehmet Oz showed a photo of Mr. Fetterman from a Democratic debate before his stroke. Dr. Oz’s campaign has mocked his rival’s health challenges.Kriston Jae Bethel for The New York TimesShould he win, Mr. Fetterman, 53, would be far younger than many leaders in Washington, including President Biden (79), House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (82) and a number of octogenarian U.S. senators, some of whom have faced scrutiny over their mental acuity.“The goal posts for John keep moving. John is already healthier and more articulate than about 80 percent of the Senate, and he’s getting better every day,” said Rebecca Katz, a senior adviser to the Fetterman campaign.Senator Ben Ray Luján, a New Mexico Democrat who suffered a stroke earlier this year, has been in touch with Mr. Fetterman since his illness and said he had no doubt that Mr. Fetterman could handle the demands of the office.“If anyone wants to see what a stroke survivor looks like, they can just take a look at me,” the senator said, noting his participation in an all-night voting session. “He’s strong. He’s working. He’s connecting with constituents. He’s going to keep doing that.”Mr. Fetterman, for his part, suggested the health scare had given him a new perspective.“I had to be faced with the idea that this could have ended my life when I have three young children,” he said. “That’s 10 times harder than anything that I’m having, dealing with, right now.” More

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      Previewing the Next NYT/Siena Poll

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      In our July survey, the president’s approval rating was 33 percent. A lot has changed in the last two months, so will it show up in this week’s survey?It’s a busy week in New York Times election-land — we’re wrapping up our second national poll of the cycle.The last interviews will be complete by the time you read this — the poll is still in the field as I write this — and it should be interesting to see how it contrasts (or doesn’t) with our last poll. In July, in our last survey, President Biden’s approval rating was 33 percent, one of his worst results of the cycle.But a lot has changed in the last few months. Gas prices have plummeted. Mr. Biden’s legislative agenda was suddenly revived. According to FiveThirtyEight, Democrats have gained around a net three percentage points in the generic ballot, while Mr. Biden’s approval rating has risen by five percentage points.This Times/Siena poll also has a twist: a Hispanic “oversample,” which is a fancy way of saying that we surveyed a lot more Hispanic voters than we normally do. We’ll have more on this in coming days.If you’re subscribed to this newsletter — and you should be! — we’ll send you an email with our findings as soon as we get them. We’re probably still a few days from publishing the results, so no need to refresh your inbox just yet.A good analogy to Roe?On Tuesday, I asked whether anyone had a good historical analogy for the way the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade had shaken up this year’s midterm elections — an example in which the party out of power achieved the biggest policy success of a president’s first term.It’s not an exact analogy, but here’s a good answer from Matt Grossmann, a professor at Michigan State University who often has great insights into the dynamics of American electoral politics.His comparison: the backlash against the Republican effort to impeach Bill Clinton in 1998.No, it’s not exactly a policy triumph like the court’s overturning of Roe. But if we think of the impeachment through Congress as something like a legislative initiative, you can see the similarity: Republicans were making a major push to change the status quo in Washington, and a backlash against a Republican-favored initiative became a key point in the election.For Democrats, it’s a pretty favorable analogy: Democrats picked up five seats in 1998, making it the first time the president’s party gained House seats in a midterm since 1934.Is a good poll for Republicans in Wisconsin good news for polls?Yesterday, the venerable Marquette Law School poll found the incumbent Republican senator Ron Johnson leading the Democrat Mandela Barnes by one percentage point among likely voters.Key Findings From the Times/Siena College PollCard 1 of 7The first poll of the midterm cycle. More