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      How Fierce Primaries, Abortion and Inflation Transformed the 2022 Map

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      A grueling primary season riven by Republican infighting and the interventions of former President Donald J. Trump finally ended on Tuesday with a slate of G.O.P. candidates that has raised Democratic hopes of preserving Senate control and a political atmosphere that has changed strikingly over the past six months.Republicans still have the environment they wanted when the primaries began in Texas in March: high inflation, economic uncertainty, an unpopular president and the perception that violent crime is on the rise. But since then, Democrats have found strong themes they can run on: the fate of legal abortion and, to a larger extent than they might have imagined, the future of democracy and the rule of law.As the last primary voters went to the polls in New Hampshire, Delaware and Rhode Island, Tuesday provided the perfect split screen for the coming general election.The government’s official report on inflation made clear that Democrats are by no means out of the woods. Hours after its release, Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, introduced legislation to ban abortion nationwide after 15 weeks of pregnancy, effectively spreading the abortion question from red and purple states to blue states that may have felt insulated since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.Those issues and the re-emergence of Mr. Trump as a headline-grabbing political figure have raised the stakes ahead of an Election Day that will determine not only which party will lead Congress but also which one will control statehouses, governorships and top election posts from Pennsylvania to Arizona, from Wisconsin to Florida, ahead of the 2024 presidential contest.“As a forecaster, I prefer it when all the signs are one way or the other,” joked J. Miles Coleman, a congressional election analyst at the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics. That is not the case in 2022.Don Bolduc cheered with supporters during his campaign watch party. John Tully for The New York TimesThe final day of primaries put an exclamation point on the season. Republican voters in New Hampshire were deciding whether to nominate Don Bolduc, a retired general and Trump-style candidate who denies the legitimacy of the 2020 election, or a more mainstream Republican, Chuck Morse, the State Senate president, to take on Senator Maggie Hassan. Early Wednesday, the race had not been called, but Mr. Bolduc held a narrow lead and Mr. Morse wrote on Twitter that “we’ve come up short” and that he had called his opponent and “wished him the best.” Democrats had considered Mr. Bolduc by far the easier candidate for Ms. Hassan, once seen as one of the party’s most vulnerable incumbents.Two right-wing House candidates in the state also showed strength in their primaries. Karoline Leavitt, a 25-year-old former assistant in Mr. Trump’s White House press office, beat Matt Mowers, a onetime colleague in the former president’s administration. And Robert Burns, a Trump-aligned candidate, was locked in an undecided race early Wednesday against George Hansel, a more moderate rival seen as a more formidable challenger to the Democratic incumbent.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.A Fierce Primary Season Ends: Democrats are entering the final sprint to November with more optimism, especially in the Senate. But Republicans are confident they can gain a House majority.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 Senate races beyond New Hampshire, a series of stumbling Republican candidates — including Herschel Walker in Georgia, Blake Masters in Arizona, Dr. Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania and J.D. Vance in Ohio — made it through their primaries this year with the backing of Mr. Trump, keeping the race for the chamber competitive.Meantime, Democratic candidates like Cheri Beasley in North Carolina, Mandela Barnes in Wisconsin and Representative Val Demings in Florida have proved resilient enough to expand the Senate map and stretch a Republican campaign machine that is low on cash.Cheri Beasley, the Democratic nominee for Senate in North Carolina, is in an unexpectedly tight race against Representative Ted Budd, a Republican.Travis Dove for The New York Times“On the whole, Republicans have nominated far stronger candidates in swing seats for the House than in swing states for the Senate,” said David Wasserman, a congressional analyst at the nonpartisan Cook Political Report.But in House races, candidate quality tends to matter less. In election years past, House control has sloshed back and forth with larger political currents because House candidates are less familiar to voters than their Senate counterparts. The Democratic 31-seat wave — described by George W. Bush as a “thumping” — in 2006 was followed by what Barack Obama called a “shellacking” in 2010, a 63-seat gain. Eight years later, the Democrats were back with a 41-seat romp.Voters tend to pull the lever based on the party that House candidates represent, not on distinctive policies or personalities they embody.Both parties probably missed some opportunities with their House candidates, or at least made Election Day more competitive than it needed to be..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.For Republicans, flawed House primary winners include Sandy Smith, who is running in a competitive, open seat in northeastern North Carolina and has been accused of domestic violence; J.R. Majewski, a bombastic conspiracy theorist challenging Representative Marcy Kaptur in a Northwest Ohio district newly drawn to favor Republicans; and John Gibbs, a former Trump administration aide who once baselessly accused Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta, of taking part in a “satanic ritual,” then went on to defeat a moderate incumbent, Representative Peter Meijer. Mr. Gibbs must now try to capture a Democratic-leaning district around Grand Rapids, Mich.John Gibbs, a Republican House candidate in Michigan, claimed that the 2020 election results had anomalies that were “simply mathematically impossible.”Brittany Greeson for The New York TimesRepresentative Abigail Spanberger of Virginia was once considered one of the most endangered Democrats, but missteps by her Republican opponent, Yesli Vega, have put her on more solid ground.Chris Taylor, a spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the party’s House campaign arm, laid it on thick as the primary season drew to a close, mocking what he called House Republicans’ “motley crew of MAGA extremists” and “long roster of anti-choice and scandal-prone candidates,” while praising his party’s “all-star class of candidates.”But Democrats are on the defensive in a handful of districts. Republicans are already attacking Jamie McLeod-Skinner, a liberal Democrat who won a primary in Oregon against the more moderate Representative Kurt Schrader and now confronts blowback from years of sometimes unruly protests in nearby Portland. Redistricting turned Representative Steve Chabot, a veteran Republican, vulnerable in Cincinnati, but his challenger, Greg Landsman, a city councilman, has faced attacks over his legislation to redirect $200,000 from the city’s Police Department to an independent board responsible for fielding complaints against police officers.Representative Mike Garcia of California should be one of the most vulnerable Republicans up for re-election, but Democratic voters in northern Los Angeles County opted to nominate Christy Smith, who has already lost to Mr. Garcia twice.Jamie McLeod-Skinner defeated a centrist Democrat in the primary for a House seat in Oregon, but now faces attacks from the right over unruly protests in the city.Thomas Patterson for The New York TimesMichigan’s 10th Congressional District, which was redrawn to lean Republican, has such a weak Democratic candidate that the party has all but ceded it. And in a newly drawn South Texas district, designed to be evenly split between the parties, Democrats nominated a liberal political newcomer and flea market owner, Michelle Vallejo, and the seat now leans Republican.Republicans can also brag of the most racially diverse slate of House candidates they have ever fielded, including 29 Hispanic contenders, 26 Black candidates, six Asian Americans or Pacific Islanders, and three Native Americans. Mr. Wasserman calculated that 61 percent of Republican candidates in swing districts were women, people of color and military veterans. Many of those veterans hail from special forces and have remarkable biographies.“House Republicans have an all-star cast of candidates running to protect the American dream and deliver the type of common-sense policies Democrats have failed to achieve,” said Michael McAdams, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, the campaign arm for House Republicans.Come November, those individual stories may matter little.With only a five-vote swing standing in the way of a Republican majority, the G.O.P. is still favored to take control of the House, but how big a majority the party enjoys will most likely be determined more by the larger political issues — inflation, economics, abortion and democracy — than by the candidates themselves.The Senate may be different, and past could be prologue. In 2010, as the effects of the financial crash lingered and the Tea Party movement energized conservatives, Republicans stormed into the majority in the House, then held it in 2012. But Republicans could not take the Senate until 2014, in part because of poor candidates chosen in the primaries: Christine O’Donnell of Delaware and Sharron Angle of Nevada in 2010, and Richard E. Mourdock of Indiana and Todd Akin of Missouri in 2012.Pressed by Mr. Trump, Republicans may well have outdone themselves in 2022. Mr. Walker, a former football star with no political experience, has struggled in his challenge to Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia, once seen as perhaps the most vulnerable Democrat up for re-election. With the political wind at his face, another freshman Democrat, Mark Kelly of Arizona, has benefited greatly from Mr. Masters’s inexperience and a past replete with oddball views. Mr. Trump liked the celebrity of Dr. Oz but overlooked the potency of attacks over his wealth and his lack of connection to Pennsylvania.Blake Masters, the Republican nominee for Senate in Arizona, supports militarizing the border — but in 2006, he wrote that “‘unrestricted’ immigration is the only choice” for a libertarian-minded voter.Bridget Bennett for The New York TimesAnd though Mr. Vance’s memoir “Hillbilly Elegy” focused on his childhood in working-class Ohio, the candidate, a Trump favorite, has so far failed to open a clear lead in a state that Mr. Trump won in 2020 by eight percentage points.Mr. Coleman, the election analyst, noted that in 2010, everything would have had to go the Republicans’ way if they were to dig themselves out of a nine-seat hole in the Senate. In November, they need a single seat to take control.“This time, it could be more frustrating because they’re right there,” Mr. Coleman said. “They’re at the end zone.” More

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      What to Watch in Tuesday’s (Final!) Primary Night

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      Outside money has poured into New Hampshire heading into Tuesday’s primary as Republicans eye three opportunities to pick up Democratic-held seats, above all that of Senator Maggie Hassan, one of her party’s most vulnerable incumbents.But the leading G.O.P. candidate for Senate, Don Bolduc, is an election denier with a history of outlandish statements. His closest rival, Chuck Morse, the State Senate president, is playing on fears that nominating Mr. Bolduc could mean squandering a major opening.Ms. Hassan, a Democrat, narrowly won the seat in 2016. In a 50-50 U.S. Senate, every competitive race has the potential to tip the balance of power.New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Delaware are all holding primaries on Tuesday. It’s not a big night, but it’s the last round of voting before the November midterm elections.Here are the races to watch.Don Bolduc, a retired Army general, center, during a campaign appearance at the American Legion in Laconia, N.H., on Saturday.John Tully for The New York TimesA competitive Senate primaryPresident Biden carried New Hampshire by seven percentage points in 2020, and successful statewide Republican politicians have tended to hew to the center, appealing to independents and conservative Democrats. But Mr. Bolduc, a retired Army general, has not only embraced Mr. Trump’s lie that he won the 2020 presidential election, he has also called Gov. Chris Sununu a “Chinese Communist sympathizer” and questioned whether the United States still needs the F.B.I. (Mr. Sununu has called Mr. Bolduc a conspiracy theorist.) Money from super PACs with ties to both Republican and Democratic Senate leadership has flowed in to try to tip the scales, with the Senate Majority PAC, a Democratic group, spending millions to attack Mr. Morse, the establishment-backed candidate — a gambit that could aid Mr. Bolduc. Mr. Morse, who has the backing of Mr. Sununu and establishment Republicans but is trailing Mr. Bolduc by double digits in polls, met with Mr. Trump at the former president’s New Jersey golf club on Sept. 2, but no endorsement has materialized.Then again, Mr. Trump hasn’t endorsed Mr. Bolduc, either.A scramble for House seats Republicans in New Hampshire are wrangling over the chance to square off against U.S. Representatives Chris Pappas and Ann McLane Kuster, two Democrats whom Republicans see as vulnerable. Matt Mowers, who worked in the State Department during the Trump administration, and Karoline Leavitt, who worked in the White House communications office, are the leading candidates in a 10-person field in Mr. Pappas’s First District, which zigzags across much of eastern and southern New Hampshire..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. Mowers, who lost to Mr. Pappas in 2020, earned the endorsements of the House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, and the minority whip, Steve Scalise. Representative Elise Stefanik of New York, the third-ranking House Republican, is supporting Ms. Leavitt, who once worked for her. Ms. Leavitt and other Republican contenders have portrayed Mr. Mowers as an establishment tool and criticized him for voting in 2016 in both the New Jersey and New Hampshire primaries. (He voted in New Jersey before moving to New Hampshire to work on Chris Christie’s presidential campaign.) Mr. Mowers has defended himself by channeling Mr. Trump, saying he was being attacked because he had planned to “shake up the status quo.”In New Hampshire’s Second District, encompassing the rest of the state, seven Republicans are competing to face Ms. Kuster, a longtime adoption lawyer who is seeking her sixth term.George Hansel, the two-term Republican mayor of the liberal town of Keene, has the endorsement of Mr. Sununu. Other contenders include Bob Burns, the former Hillsborough county treasurer, and Lily Tang Williams, who ran for the Senate in Colorado as a Libertarian in 2016. In Rhode Island, six contenders are vying in the Democratic primary for the seat held by Representative Jim Langevin, who is retiring after 11 terms. Seth Magaziner, the state’s general treasurer, held a sizable lead in early polling. On the Republican side, Allan Fung, the former mayor of Cranston, is running uncontested.Odds and endsThat’s about it for what constitutes the excitement in Tuesday’s voting.In the New Hampshire governor’s race, Mr. Sununu, who declined to run for the Senate, is considered virtually untouchable in his drive for a fourth term. He faces negligible opposition in his primary and is heavily favored in November against Tom Sherman, a state senator who is uncontested in the Democratic primary for governor.In Rhode Island, Gov. Daniel McKee, the state’s former lieutenant governor, is seeking his first full term after replacing former Gov. Gina Raimondo, who left to serve in the Biden administration as commerce secretary. He faces four challengers in the Democratic primary, including Nellie Gorbea, the Rhode Island secretary of state.Republican hopes of recapturing the governor’s office rest on Ashley Kalus, a first-time candidate who moved to Rhode Island in 2021, and Jonathan Riccitelli, the owner of a hotel and building maintenance company, whose criminal record — much of it under another name — was reported by The Boston Globe. A college freshman, Zachary Hurwitz, also collected enough signatures to run as an independent.In Delaware, which has neither a Senate nor a governor’s race this year, the biggest contest is for state auditor, after the incumbent Democrat, Kathleen K. McGuiness, was convicted of official misconduct, conflict of interest and structuring a contract to avoid a procurement policy, all misdemeanors. In response, the state Democratic Party threw its support behind a challenger, Lydia York, a lawyer and accountant. More

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      NH Primary: How to Vote and Who’s on the Ballot

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      Republicans in the Granite State are selecting their choices to challenge Senator Maggie Hassan, a Democrat, and two Democratic members of Congress. Here’s what to know about voting in the state:How to voteIf you are not registered to vote in New Hampshire, it’s not too late to participate in Tuesday’s primary contests, thanks to the state’s same-day voter registration law.To register at your nearest polling location, don’t forget to bring a document to prove your citizenship, like a passport or a birth certificate, in addition to a document proving that you live in New Hampshire. That can be a New Hampshire driver’s license with your current address, a utility bill or many other forms of proof. More information about registering to vote can be found here.Not sure if you’re registered? You can check here.Polls in New Hampshire are open until at least 7 p.m. Some towns offer later hours. You can find out when your nearest polling location is open by entering your home address here.Don’t forget to bring photo identification to your polling location. You can find more information about which forms of identification count here.If you received an absentee ballot but have not mailed it back, you can deliver it in person to your town clerk before 5 p.m. You will be required to present photo identification. It is too late to mail your ballot.Where to voteFind your nearest polling location here.If you are returning a mail ballot rather than voting in person, you can look up the address of your town clerk here.Who’s on the ballotRepublican voters will pick their party’s nominee to challenge Senator Maggie Hassan, a Democrat who is seeking her second term. Ten candidates are on the ballot, including Chuck Morse, president of the New Hampshire Senate, and Don Bolduc, a retired brigadier general of the U.S. Army.Republicans will make their picks for the state’s two House seats, which are currently occupied by Democrats. Two former members of the Trump administration have risen to the top of a long list of primary candidates for the First Congressional District: Matt Mowers, who served as an adviser in the State Department, and Karoline Leavitt, who worked in the press office. The winner will face Representative Chris Pappas.Seven candidates will compete in the Second Congressional District, where Representative Annie Kuster, a Democrat, hopes to claim her fifth term in November. Gov. Chris Sununu endorsed George Hansel, a mayor and businessman.You can see a complete sample ballot here. More

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      Chuck Schumer to Push $15 Million Into Democrats’ Fight to Hold Senate

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      WASHINGTON — Senator Chuck Schumer, the majority leader, plans to transfer $15 million from his campaign account to the Democratic Senate campaign effort as well as to several of the party’s key candidates, according to a Democrat with knowledge of his plans.The infusion of cash comes as Mr. Schumer appears comfortable in his re-election bid in New York. Now he will redeploy his financial resources in the closing weeks of the midterm campaigns to help him hang on to his job as majority leader.“Keeping and growing the Democratic majority in the Senate is my top priority,” Mr. Schumer said in a statement.The Democrat with knowledge of the plans, who insisted on anonymity, said Mr. Schumer would send $5 million directly to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee for its campaign operations. He will also provide $1 million each to Democrats in several races seen as most critical to the party’s chances of holding on to its majority.The incumbents receiving the money will be Senators Raphael Warnock of Georgia, Mark Kelly of Arizona, Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada and Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire.Five other Democratic candidates trying to unseat Republican incumbents or win open seats — Mandela Barnes in Wisconsin, John Fetterman in Pennsylvania, Cheri Beasley in North Carolina, Representative Tim Ryan in Ohio and Representative Val Demings in Florida — will also receive $1 million apiece.Mr. Schumer will contribute $500,000 each to Senators Michael Bennet of Colorado and Patty Murray of Washington, who face Republican challengers.The Republican Senate campaign organization has faced money challenges, and individual G.O.P. candidates have been outraised by Democrats mounting strong efforts in what was initially viewed as a difficult political environment likely to cost them the majority.But legislative successes and the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade have put Democrats on the offensive in recent weeks, raising hopes in the party that it can retain Senate control.As of his last campaign finance report, at the end of June, Mr. Schumer had nearly $38 million in cash on hand for his re-election bid, providing him with a cushion to divert money from his own campaign.A political action committee tied to Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, has also invested heavily in Senate races, trying to make up for the financial shortcomings of some Republican campaigns. More

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      Introducing ‘The Tilt,’ a Newsletter About Elections and Polling

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      Ahead of the 2020 election, I wrote a daily article on the latest polls — internally, we called it my “polling diary.” To my surprise, tens of thousands of people signed up to be notified whenever we published a new diary entry. You might be one of them!This cycle, we’re taking email all the way. We’re launching The Tilt, a newsletter on elections and polling in the run-up to the November midterm elections — and beyond.You can sign up for it here.The subject matter will be no surprise to longtime followers: analysis of the latest surveys and electoral trends. This year’s fight for control of Congress will be our major focus, but longer-term electoral trends, partisan polarization, threats to American democracy, voting laws and — gulp — the 2024 presidential campaign will also be on our radar.We’ll also visit wonkier subjects, like polling methodology. Yes, it’s arcane, but after the last decade of high-profile polling misfires, it’s worth a deeper exploration of what pollsters are doing right or wrong. We hope to write accessibly enough to lure the uninitiated. If not, we’ll flag it as “wonky” — as Paul Krugman’s newsletter often does — and you can skip it whenever your eyes start to glaze over.We’ll also try to have some fun.There are a lot of newsletters nowadays, but I think electoral analysis is especially well suited to this format. We can cover a flashy new poll number that may not be worth a full article, but does deserve to be put into context. And we can be more informal in offering provisional and uncertain takes.This newsletter will also be a natural home for work that doesn’t always have a spot on the Times home screen, like announcements about our coming polls (we’re in the field now, by the way); musings about the big decisions that underlie our work; debates on where to conduct our next survey; or the findings of our autopsy into our 2020 polling. Over the years, many of you have expressed interest in the inner workings of our operation. Hopefully, we can pull back the curtain. On a personal note, I’m also hoping it’s a way to sustain a conversation with people who care deeply about elections — without the vitriol often found on Twitter. We’ll try to figure out a way to engage with serious criticism, alternative perspectives and your questions. If you already have a topic you’d like us to address, feel free to email us at dear.upshot@nytimes.com.And please sign up! With Democrats showing rare strength for the president’s party at the start of a midterm campaign, it’s bound to be a wild few months. More

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      The Wives of Republican Candidates Are Getting Personal

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      Ready or not, here come the political wives.It’s that time in the campaign cycle when many nominees, especially those running for statewide office, shift from stirring up their base to making themselves more palatable to the general electorate.This year, the Republican Party is under particular pressure to slap a friendly face on its nominees, with a special focus on wooing women. Abortion has exploded as the midterms’ X factor, thanks to the Supreme Court’s ruling that women do not have a right to bodily autonomy coupled with a push by many conservative lawmakers to slash abortion access.This has ticked off an awful lot of women and is threatening earlier expectations of a G.O.P. electoral romp. Republicans are “getting killed among women,” Chuck Coughlin, a party strategist based in Arizona, recently lamented to Politico. Shifting polling data and surging voter registration among women in some states has a growing number of campaigns racing to moderate their nominees’ positions and soften their images.Cue the emergence of gauzy campaign ads starring the wives of Republican Senate hopefuls getting personal about their hubbies, several recently spotlighted by Politico.Take Ohio, where J.D. Vance’s first ad of the general election season features his wife, Usha, sharing tender bits about his youth: “His mom struggled with addiction. And his dad wasn’t there. But J.D. was lucky. He was raised by his loving grandmother.” And now, Ms. Vance swoons, “He’s an incredible father, and he’s my best friend.”Similarly, in Nevada, the introductory general election ad for Adam Laxalt shows the nominee and his wife, Jaime, snuggling on a sofa and relating the challenges of his childhood: raised by a single mother without a college education, didn’t know who his father was … “Adam’s early life wasn’t easy,” says Ms. Laxalt, who assures us, “Everything he had to overcome helped to make him a good man.”In Colorado, Joe O’Dea has an ad out featuring his wife, Celeste, listing Mr. O’Dea’s underdog bona fides: “Adopted at birth. Union carpenter. Left college early. Started a construction company from our basement. Joe’s a fighter. Always has been.”And in Arizona, Blake Masters’s first general election ad shows his wife, Catherine, waxing rhapsodic about his desire to put an ailing America back on track. “He’s in it because he loves his country so much, and he loves his state so much,” she insists. “He would make Arizona so proud.”Gag.Political candidates using their wives — and it is still wives way more often than husbands — as campaign props is nothing new. Their kids too. Clips of the Vance and Masters wee ones frolicking with their respective dads appear in the aforementioned ads, and an earlier spot by Team O’Dea features the nominee’s adult daughter Tayler painting her dad as a moderate on social issues, including asserting that “he will defend a woman’s right to choose.” (Mr. O’Dea supports abortion access up to 20 weeks, and beyond that in certain circumstances.)American voters tend to fetishize “authenticity” in their political candidates. And who better to give voters a sense of the real person behind the political mask than his family — most especially his devoted life partner? “I know a different side of him, and I just wanted to share that with people,” Ms. Vance explained in a recent interview the couple did with Newsmax. On some deep, even subconscious, level we are expected to absorb the message: If the candidate’s wife — and the mother of his children — thinks he’s a good guy, then it must be so.Spare me. The notion that there is some meaningful insight about a candidate to be had from his spouse praising him in ads or defending him in interviews or simply appearing at his campaign events is weak at best. Gov. Ron DeSantis’s wife, Casey, may genuinely believe he’s the cat’s pajamas; that doesn’t change the guy’s disturbing authoritarian Trumpiness. Just because Heidi Cruz sticks with him does not make Senator Ted Cruz any less of a smirking, self-righteous, sedulously opportunistic jerk. Melania Trump’s willingness to put up with Donald’s vileness tells us far more about her than him. And the less said about Hillary and Bill Clinton’s tortured codependence, the better.Let us set aside for the moment the enduring, and enduringly tiresome, political impulse to reduce even the most accomplished women to cheerleaders for their husbands’ domestic gifts. In the current political moment, this gimmick is not only trite but also distracting — and insulting to female voters.Mr. Masters may well be the World’s Greatest Dad. That does not change the fact that until recently he was proudly declaring his extreme anti-abortion positions, including support for a federal personhood law. (Post-primary, of course, his website has been scrubbed of this info, and he is fast moderating his rhetoric to meet the moment.)Mr. Vance may take out the trash without fail and read bedtime stories with exceptional panache. Or not. Either way, he has likened abortion to slavery and has pooh-poohed the need for exceptions in cases of rape or incest. (“Two wrongs don’t make a right,” he has glibly declared.)Even candidates like Celeste O’Dea’s husband, who have staked out a more nuanced stance on abortion, are still running with the backing of a party looking to strip away women’s reproductive rights.Of course, some Republican political wives aren’t as interested in softening their boos’ positions as in giving them a feminine spin. At a rally last month in Pittsburgh, Rebecca Mastriano, whose husband, Doug, is running hard to the right in his quest to become Pennsylvania’s governor, had much to say about the G.O.P. and women’s rights. She started with abortion — “First, we believe in protecting the woman’s right to be born” — before wending her way through issues including a woman’s right to control her child’s education, to live in a safe community and to own a gun.For her big finish, she took a jab at trans issues, insisting that “a woman has the right to compete in sports not dominated by a man. And as Republicans we actually know how to define a woman, right?” She urged fellow travelers to boldly share this list of rights in the coming months, because “we’re not ashamed of what we believe in.”Maybe. But more and more, Republican nominees certainly seem, if not ashamed, then at least afraid of how their party’s beliefs might damage their election prospects. They are eager to change the subject and to convince women that they are not scary extremists — and several are looking to their wives for a big assist.Women who value the ability to control their own bodies should make clear at the polls that they are too smart to fall for this lazy whitewashing.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      in Elections

      Must We Discuss the Queen and the Donald in the Same Breath?

      by

      Gail Collins: Bret, I guess we should begin with the queen. Hey, that’s a change of pace, right?Bret Stephens: I’m trying to process the fact that I found myself tearing up while listening to the story of her life put together for the paper by Alan Cowell.Gail: Alan’s piece was perfect, but I have to admit I haven’t been tempted to break into tears over the queen’s passing. Possibly because my household has Irish roots. You can appreciate what she achieved without romanticizing the whole British Empire thing.Bret: At the risk of digital defenestration, I will say that I tend to think the British Empire wasn’t an entirely bad thing for the world.Gail: [Here Gail bops Bret on the head, hard, with a bottle of Jameson.]Bret: Ouch, Gail! OK, before I get into even deeper trouble with some of our readers, she did preside gracefully over said empire’s demise and, as Maureen Dowd pointed out in her lovely column over the weekend, won over quite a few Irish hearts.The queen also made you realize that there is nothing as compelling as something that is supposed to be anachronistic — because it endures against fashion, resistance, indifference, decay, contradiction and time. Just like Joe Biden, apparently.Gail: Heh. Let’s let domestic politics sit for a minute and stay on the queen. I love the way you put that compelling-anachronism line, but my response is that things tend to get anachronistic because they’re just out of date.Bret: Well, true.Gail: But as I said, it’s easy to appreciate the queen’s achievement in just chugging on and smiling at strangers for so very, very long. Guess one of the messages of the moment is that nobody lives forever.Bret: The Atlantic magazine sent its subscribers an email on the day she died with the accidentally funny headline, “Queen Elizabeth’s Unthinkable Death.”Gail: We’ll see what happens next with the royal family. Will tourists still be clustering around to get a glimpse of that golden coach if the person waving from inside is Charles? Who, by the way, has always seemed like a dork.Bret: I feel for him, and not just because he’s lost both his parents in less than two years. Christopher Hitchens once had a memorable take on the royals, saying the love the British have for them “takes the macabre form of demanding a regular human sacrifice whereby unexceptional people are condemned to lead wholly artificial and strained existences, and then punished or humiliated when they crack up.”Gail: Do the unexceptional people include their actual elected officials?Bret: Many of them are exceptional, although some are just exceptionally bad.Gail: I always did think the queen could have retired early so Charles would have had a chance to be the sovereign before he hit his 70s. But so it goes.On the home front, I’m getting sort of fascinated by the big Senate races coming into the homestretch. Any favorites for you?Bret: I’m trying to wrap my head around the possibility of Senator Herschel Walker, who would be to Georgia what, er, Marjorie Taylor Greene is to Georgia.The Arizona Senate race between Mark Kelly and Blake Masters is a little too close for comfort, given that every week seems to bring a new disclosure about Masters’ deep unsuitability for high office — most recently his “9/11 Truther-curious” stand in college. I try not to hold people accountable for whatever they believed in college, but I’d make an exception in this case.How about you? What races are you looking at?Gail: Well, as an Ohio native I have to be riveted by the battle between Tim Ryan, a perfectly rational Democratic congressman, and the Republican candidate, J.D. Vance, who sorta peaked when he wrote “Hillbilly Elegy.”Bret: And when he was a fervent Never-Trumper.Gail: And then there’s Wisconsin, where Mandela Barnes, the Democratic lieutenant governor, is running a very strong race against Senator Ron Johnson. A campaign high point came when Johnson told conservatives he’d only taken a moderate position on same-sex marriage to get the media “off my back.”Bret: That’s the worst of both worlds, isn’t it? His principles are lousy, and he’s not a man of principle.Gail: I have to commend you on rising above partisanship and refusing to support truly terrible Republican candidates in places like Georgia and Arizona. Would you hold firm to that even if it meant a difference in which party controlled the Senate?Bret: In some pre-2016 universe, I’d be rooting for a Republican sweep. And I’d be rooting for Republicans to take at least one chamber in this election, except that so many of the Republicans on the ballot are so unmitigatedly awful that, as the kids say, “I can’t even.”Gail: Yippee!Bret: On the other hand, I think it’s pretty hypocritical that pro-Democratic groups are spending tens of millions of dollars helping MAGA types win Republican nominations, on the theory that they’ll be easier to beat in the general election. That’s what’s happening with the G.O.P. Senate primary in New Hampshire, where the Democrats are none too subtly helping a conspiracy theorist named Don Bolduc against his more mainstream rival, Chuck Morse.I guess I’d find it a lot less loathsome if it were just a cynical electoral strategy. But it’s pretty rich coming from a party that is otherwise attacking “MAGA Republicans” as an existential threat to democracy.Gail: Totally agree about those political action committees that were plotting to get the worst possible Republicans nominated just to increase Democratic chances.But there’s a difference between that kind of scheme and simply criticizing the most likely Republican nominee just to get a start on the final campaign.Bret: In some of these cases, they aren’t the likeliest nominees. And the lesson of 2016 is: Sometimes the bad guy wins.Gail: Speaking of MAGA Republicans, you wrote a very powerful piece attacking Joe Biden for his anti-MAGA address in Philadelphia. Let’s revisit.Bret: Well, here is where I trot out that old French quote about something being “worse than a crime, a mistake.” If Biden had wanted to denounce “election-denying Republicans” or “Jan. 6 Republicans” that would have been fine by me. But calling out “MAGA Republicans” is painting with way too broad a brush, especially when he suggested that anyone who was anti-abortion or opposed to gay marriage automatically belonged in that group. The whole speech reminded me of Hillary Clinton’s deadly “basket of deplorables” remark, which might have cost her the 2016 election: It did more to alienate a lot of voters than it did to persuade them.What’s your take?Gail: We’re talking about a Joe Biden speech, and I suspect that some of the responsible citizens who tuned in because they want to keep up on current events nodded off or switched to a “Simpsons” rerun before he wandered off into the Democratic agenda.Bret: One day I’ll give you my theory on why “The Simpsons,” “South Park” and “Family Guy” represent the last best hope of mankind. Sorry …Gail: But the Democratic agenda is a winner, even when Biden’s selling it. Middle-of-the-road voters are eager to hear about ways they might get more help with medical bills, especially for drugs.And abortion! Don’t know if I’m amused or angry about all the Republican candidates who’ve suddenly scrubbed all mention of the subject off their websites.Both, I guess.Bret: It’s good to see voters energized to defend abortion rights at the state level. Not sure how winning the Democratic agenda is, except among Democrats themselves or their media allies who seem to think that inflation has been bested and the student-loan forgiveness plan is universally popular.I know Democrats are now feeling confident about the midterms, at least when it comes to holding the Senate. But if I were on your team I’d curb the enthusiasm.Gail: I do love the way you sneak references to TV shows into your comments. Tell me — just to stop talking about politics for a minute — what are your all-time favorite shows?Bret: I probably should say “Seinfeld” or “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” but I really do love my cartoons. My all-time favorite South Park episode is the one about the underpants gnomes, who go around stealing people’s underwear in the middle of the night in order to bring it to their underground lair. They have a three-phased approach to making money: Phase One, collect underpants. Phase Two, ? Phase Three, Profit.That pretty much explains most government policies, plus a big part of the start-up economy. And you?Gail: Hey, haven’t watched “South Park” for years. You’re inspiring me.My all-time favorite is “The Sopranos,” the greatest series ever made. We’ve been watching it every night lately. When it’s over I’m ready for a comedy, and my No. 1 pick is “30 Rock.” Tina Fey is a genius. And despite not being a sports enthusiast, I have a strong attachment to “Friday Night Lights.”I so hope our politics evolves again into something people want to gab about. Definitely worrisome that even at the most liberal dinner parties in town, people always wind up back at Donald Trump.Except us, of course, Bret.Bret: Us? Trump? Who?The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More