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      Which Party Controls the Pennsylvania House? It’s TBD.

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      Three seats won by Democrats in November are now vacant, giving Republicans more House members for now and sowing uncertainty ahead of the legislative session.More than a month after the elections in Pennsylvania, which were among the most closely watched in the country, a question remains unanswered in the state’s House of Representatives: Who, exactly, is in charge?For now, both the Democratic and Republican parties are claiming a majority in the chamber, and representatives from both parties have declared themselves the House majority leader. Both are accusing the other party of ignoring the will of the voters, the rule of law or some combination thereof. With the House set to reconvene, and presumably to choose a speaker in less than three weeks, the question now sits with the courts.Election Day was largely disappointing for Pennsylvania Republicans, who fell short in the race for governor, and, with the victory of John Fetterman, the generously tattooed Democrat, lost their seat in the U.S. Senate.Democrats also won a majority of seats in the State House for the first time in a dozen years, even as Republicans maintained control of the State Senate. But the margin in the House appeared to be wafer-thin, 102-101, decided by fewer than 65 votes in a race in the Philadelphia suburbs. It turned out to be even more tenuous — one of the victorious lawmakers was dead.In early October, Anthony DeLuca, 85, a Democrat who represented a district in the Pittsburgh suburbs and was the longest-serving member of the House, died of complications from lymphoma. His death occurred too close to the election to replace his name on the ballot, and, a month later, he was re-elected in a landslide.Republicans saw a stalemate. Until a special election could be held in Mr. DeLuca’s district, they reasoned, each party had 101 representatives, and neither could claim a majority in the House.An opinion issued last Wednesday by the Pennsylvania Legislative Reference Bureau, a nonpartisan advisory body, seemed to concur. “Under current law, an individual must at least be elected and living to qualify as a member of a legislative caucus,” the opinion concluded, adding that “the House Democratic Caucus falls short of the 102 members necessary for a majority.”That same day, two Democratic representatives who had won their House races but who, in the same election, had been voted into higher office — Summer Lee, now an incoming U.S. congresswoman, and Austin Davis, Pennsylvania’s lieutenant governor-elect — formally resigned their House seats. Republicans concluded that they now had a majority outright, at least until special elections took place for all three seats.Democrats saw things differently. Voters had chosen Democratic representatives in 102 of the state’s 203 districts, they said, and by particularly overwhelming margins in the three seats that are now vacant.“We won 102 districts compared to the Republicans’ 101,” Joanna McClinton, the House Democratic leader — and, according to her, the majority leader — said in an interview. “It’s a fact, it’s indisputable.”Within hours of her two fellow Democrats’ resignations last week, Ms. McClinton was sworn into office in an otherwise empty House chamber. She then scheduled elections for all three of the vacant seats on Feb. 7, the earliest date possible under state rules, and Pennsylvania’s acting secretary of state, a Democrat, signed off on the plan.Republicans were livid, accusing the Democrats of having staged a “paperwork insurrection.” Within days, Representative Brian Cutler, the leader of the House Republicans, sued the secretary of state, arguing that Ms. McClinton was not the House majority leader and thus lacked the authority to set special elections.On Monday morning, it was Mr. Cutler’s turn to be sworn in on the House floor. In an interview afterward, he said that since he was the House Republican leader and since there were 101 Republicans ready to take office, compared with 99 Democrats, “the math makes me the majority leader.”Mr. Cutler said that he would soon submit his own dates for the special elections but that the recent moves by the Democrats had made it too complicated to figure out the dates just yet.What happens now is anyone’s guess.Adam Bonin, an elections lawyer in Philadelphia who has long worked with Democrats, said the stakes were significant. “This isn’t just about who’s in charge of this chamber for the first month,” he said. “This really is about all sorts of potential exercises of power.”Among them is a Senate bill that would put a handful of constitutional amendments proposed by Republicans on a statewide ballot — including ones that would establish a voter ID requirement, expand the legislature’s power and assert that there is no state constitutional right to abortion. If each chamber approved the bill during the upcoming legislative session, the questions would be put to a statewide vote.Some Democrats are also concerned that if Republicans control the House, even temporarily, they might change the rules to ensure that their choice for speaker keeps the job even if Democrats win control after the special elections.Mr. Cutler said such speculation was premature, insisting that the first priority of the session should be electing a new speaker.As for which party is in charge when that vote happens, it is too soon to say. More

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      Tied New Hampshire Race Spurs a Redo. Why Aren’t Voters Talking About It?

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      One race’s final tally: 970 to 970. So two candidates square off again in a city where voters are mostly keeping their politics to themselves.ROCHESTER, N.H. — Residents were intrigued, but not exactly shocked, when a state House of Representatives race in the small city of Rochester ended in a deadlock last month: 970 votes cast for the incumbent Democrat, 970 for the Republican challenger.In the purplish state of New Hampshire, where Rochester sits between the liberal southern seacoast and the more conservative Lakes Region at its center, the tie only confirmed what people already knew: Their city of 30,000, like their country, is politically split. And like many Americans, they are trying to navigate the divide with a careful approach: keeping their views to themselves and attempting to get along.Last week, state legislators voted to send the tied race in Rochester’s Ward 4, where there are about 3,000 voters, back to the city for a special election, expected to be held in February. Both candidates said they are determined to prevail, though they dread the challenge — familiar to many a hopeful presidential candidate — of inspiring voter turnout in the frigid, slushy middle of a long New Hampshire winter.“It’s going to be a tough slog,” said David Walker, the Republican, a longtime City Council member who challenged state Representative Chuck Grassie, a three-term Democrat. “I can’t see a lot of elderly people coming out in the cold, but you just have to knock on the doors and entice them.”The two men have known each other, and have worked together on city business, for years. Mr. Grassie said he mentored Mr. Walker in his early years on the council, helping the newcomer learn how to read a budget. Mr. Walker said he once helped Mr. Grassie with an unsuccessful campaign for mayor.They live a half-mile apart on the same street of modest houses, separated by a cemetery, a ball field and the polling place for their ward, a brick elementary school.State Representative Chuck Grassie, a three-term Democrat, has been a proponent for causes including shoreline protection, tax relief for older residents and the decriminalization of marijuana.Ryan David Brown for The New York TimesDavid Walker, a Republican and longtime City Council member who retired recently from a career as an engineering supervisor, wants to focus on economic issues and rein in spending.M. Scott Brauer for The New York TimesLow-key despite their unresolved rivalry, the candidates say they see no reason to become enemies now. “I went by his house the other day and said hello,” Mr. Walker said. “He said, ‘Oh, you’ve come to concede?’ And I said, ‘No.’”The mild tone of the local standoff stands in stark contrast to recent national races with split outcomes, like that of Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia, the Democrat who last week fended off a challenge from Herschel Walker, a Republican, in a bitter and chaotic runoff. In Rochester, as in many small cities and towns, politics tend to be practical, with the drama left at town hall. David Walker, 59, who retired recently from a career as an engineering supervisor, describes himself as “conservative but not hard core.” He said voters he talked to during the campaign were most concerned about inflation, the economy and heating costs this winter, and he wants to rein in what he said was reckless spending by Democrats.The Aftermath of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsCard 1 of 6A moment of reflection. More

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      What’s at Stake in These Elections

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      Midterm elections in the United States are often presented as a referendum on the party in power, and that message appears to be resonating this fall. But voters need to consider the intentions of the party that hopes to regain power, too, and what each vote they cast will mean for the future of this country.Eight Republican senators and 139 Republican representatives sought to overturn the results of the 2020 election on the basis of spurious allegations of voter fraud and other irregularities. Many of them are likely to win re-election, and they may be joined by new members who also have expressed baseless doubts about the integrity of the 2020 election. Their presence in Congress poses a danger to democracy, one that should be on the mind of every voter casting a ballot this Election Day.It will also be the first time that the U.S. electoral machinery will be tested in a national election after two years of lawsuits, conspiracy theories, election “audits” and all manner of interference by believers in Donald Trump’s lies about the 2020 election. That test comes alongside the embrace of violent extremism by a small but growing faction of the Republican Party.The greatest danger to election integrity may, in fact, come from the results of state and local races that will determine who actually conducts the election and counts the votes in 2024. In the weeks that followed the 2020 election, Mr. Trump and his supporters saw their efforts to deny the election results and prove rampant voter fraud thwarted by two things: first, their inability to produce credible evidence that such fraud had occurred and, second, an election infrastructure that was defended by honorable public servants who refused to accept specious claims of wrongdoing.Over the past two years, Republicans in dozens of states have tried to dismantle that infrastructure piece by piece, particularly by filling key positions with Trump sympathizers. As this board wrote in September, “Rather than threatening election officials, they will be the election officials — the poll workers and county commissioners and secretaries of state responsible for overseeing the casting, counting and certifying of votes.” Many of those positions are being contested this week.With Mr. Trump said to be readying his bid to return to the White House, this board urges American voters to consider how important each vote cast on Election Day, at every level of government, will be. Even if the member of Congress in your district has refused to accept Mr. Trump’s lies about this election, there are other races on the ballot in many states for offices — including secretary of state, attorney general and governor — that will play crucial roles in overseeing and certifying the 2024 presidential election.Still, with that election two years away, many voters say they are more concerned with the present threats to their livelihoods than with the equally serious but less visible threat to democracy. A recent New York Times/Siena College poll found that “more than a third of independent voters and a smaller but noteworthy contingent of Democrats said they were open to supporting candidates who reject the legitimacy of the 2020 election, as they assigned greater urgency to their concerns about the economy than to fears about the fate of the country’s political system.”Indeed, voters have good reason to look at the current moment and wonder whether the Biden administration and congressional Democrats are doing enough to meet it. High inflation is making it harder for Americans to afford what they need and want. Overall crime has risen, causing people to fear for their safety. The federal government is struggling to enforce the nation’s immigration laws. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and America’s increasingly tense relations with China are undermining global peace and prosperity.Republicans have presented these midterm elections as a referendum on Democratic leadership, and that message appears to be resonating.But voters need to consider the intentions of the party that hopes to regain power, too.Republicans have offered few specific plans for addressing issues like inflation, immigration and crime — and even if they win control of Congress, they are unlikely to win enough seats to shift federal policy significantly over the next two years.A Republican-controlled Senate would, however, be able to block President Biden from filling vacancies on the federal bench and on the Supreme Court. It would become more difficult to obtain confirmations for executive branch officials, as well.Republican candidates have also pledged to devote significant time and energy to investigating the Biden administration. “I don’t think Joe Biden and his handlers are exactly eager to sign Republican legislation into law, so our hearings are going to be the most important thing that we can have,” Representative Lauren Boebert of Colorado told a recent rally.In addition to that spectacle, Republicans are threatening to stage another showdown over federal spending.At some point in the next year, the government is expected to hit the limit of its authorized borrowing capacity, or debt ceiling. To meet the commitments Congress already has authorized, it will need to raise that limit. This ought to be a matter of basic housekeeping, because failing to pay the nation’s bills would risk a global financial crisis. But debt ceiling votes have instead become recurring opportunities for extortion.This board has called for Congress to eliminate the debt ceiling, replacing it with a common-sense law that says the government can borrow whatever is necessary to provide for the spending authorized by Congress. There is no public benefit in requiring what amounts to a second vote on spending decisions. But for now, the ceiling endures, and Republicans have made clear that if they win control of Congress, they intend to use it as a bargaining chip with the White House to advance their party’s fiscal goals.One priority on that list is cutting taxes. Republicans already are preparing to move forward with legislation to extend the 2017 tax cuts for individuals, which mostly benefit wealthy households, while eliminating some of the offsetting increases in corporate taxation — a plan that is not easily reconciled with the party’s stated concerns about inflation or the rising federal debt.Republican proposals would also make it more difficult for the Internal Revenue Service to prevent wealthy Americans from cheating on their taxes. Representative Kevin McCarthy, the House minority leader, who is in position to become speaker if Republicans win a majority, has said the “first bill” that would pass under his leadership would reverse an $80 billion funding increase for the I.R.S. Congress approved that funding in August so the I.R.S. can crack down on rampant tax fraud by high-income households.Some senior Republicans have called for repealing another key piece of the August legislation, known as the Inflation Reduction Act: a measure that limits drug costs for seniors on Medicare, including a $35 monthly cap on payments for insulin.Republicans also have floated plans to roll back more firmly established benefits. The Republican Study Committee, a conservative policy working group whose membership includes more than half of the current crop of House Republicans, published a budget plan in June calling for Congress to gradually increase the retirement age for full Social Security benefits to 70 to check the rising cost of the program. The plan also would increase the age of eligibility for Medicare.Democrats could make it more difficult for Republicans to pursue these goals by raising the debt limit or changing the rules in the weeks between the election and the end of the year.Democrats have largely failed to connect with voters’ concerns about inflation and public safety during this campaign season. They have struggled to communicate their tangible achievements, including a big boost in funding for local law enforcement and bipartisan gun safety legislation, a historic federal investment in developing clean and low-cost sources of energy to confront climate change and the cost of living, and a breakthrough measure to bring down the cost of prescription drugs for Medicare recipients.Undoubtedly, there is more work to be done on these and other issues, including the health of the economy and the broken state of immigration policy. Voters need to decide which party they trust to do that work.But the 2022 elections are also an opportunity for every American to do their part in defending the integrity of American elections. The task of safeguarding our democracy does not end with one election, and it requires all of us to play a role. Our nation’s governance depends on it.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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      Wisconsin Republicans Stand on the Verge of Total, Veto-Proof Power

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      FRANKS FIELD, Wis. — The three counties in Wisconsin’s far northwest corner make up one of the last patches of rural America that have remained loyal to Democrats through the Obama and Trump years.But after voting Democratic in every presidential election since 1976, and consistently sending the party’s candidates to the State Legislature for even longer, the area could now defect to the Republican Party. The ramifications would ripple far beyond the shores of Lake Superior.If Wisconsin Democrats lose several low-budget state legislative contests here on Tuesday — which appears increasingly likely because of new and even more gerrymandered political maps — it may not matter who wins the $114 million tossup contest for governor between Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, and Tim Michels, a Republican. Those northern seats would put Republicans in reach of veto-proof supermajorities that would render a Democratic governor functionally irrelevant.Even though Wisconsin remains a 50-50 state in statewide elections, Democrats would be on the verge of obsolescence.“The erosion of our democratic institutions that Republicans are looking to take down should be frightening to anyone,” said John Adams, a Democratic candidate for the State Assembly from Washburn, on the Chequamegon Bay of Lake Superior. “When you start losing whole offices in government, I don’t know where they’re going to stop.”Laura Gapske, a Democratic candidate for the Assembly, is running against a Republican who tweeted during the Capitol riot, “Rage on, Patriots!”Tim Gruber for The New York TimesWisconsin’s state legislative districts are heavily gerrymandered.Tim Gruber for The New York TimesThis rural corner of Wisconsin — Douglas, Bayfield and Ashland Counties — has become pivotal because it has three Democratic-held seats that Republicans appear likely to capture; two in the Assembly and one in the State Senate. Statewide, the party needs to flip just five Assembly districts and one in the Senate to take the two-thirds majorities required to override a governor’s veto.That outcome — “terrifying,” as Melissa Agard, a Democratic state senator and the leader of the party’s campaign arm in the chamber, described it — would clear a runway for Republican state legislators to follow through on their promises to eliminate the state’s bipartisan elections commission and take direct control of voting procedures and the certification of elections.Wisconsin is not the only state facing the prospect of a Democratic governor and veto-proof Republican majorities in its legislature.North Carolina Republicans, who also drew a gerrymandered legislative map, need to flip just three seats in the State House and two in the State Senate to be able to override vetoes by Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat. Gov. Laura Kelly of Kansas, a Democrat in a tight contest for re-election, already faces veto-proof Republican majorities, as do the Democratic governors of deep-red Kentucky and Louisiana.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsElection Day is Tuesday, Nov. 8.Biden’s Speech: In a prime-time address, President Biden denounced Republicans who deny the legitimacy of elections, warning that the country’s democratic traditions are on the line.State Supreme Court Races: The traditionally overlooked contests have emerged this year as crucial battlefields in the struggle over the course of American democracy.Democrats’ Mounting Anxiety: Top Democratic officials are openly second-guessing their party’s pitch and tactics, saying Democrats have failed to unite around one central message.Social Security and Medicare: Republicans, eyeing a midterms victory, are floating changes to the safety net programs. Democrats have seized on the proposals to galvanize voters.Wisconsin Republicans, who have had a viselike grip on the Legislature since enacting the nation’s most aggressive gerrymander after their 2010 sweep of the state’s elections, make no apologies for pressing their advantage to its limits. Mr. Michels, the party’s nominee for governor, told supporters this week, “Republicans will never lose another election in Wisconsin after I’m elected governor.”Former Representative Reid Ribble, a Republican who served northeastern Wisconsin, said, “There’s a lot of complaining about gerrymandered House or State Assembly seats, and there’s some truth to that.”But he added: “At the end of the day, you’d be hard-pressed to come up with a district in rural Wisconsin that would elect a Democrat right now.”Republican control of the Wisconsin Legislature is so entrenched that party officials now use it as a campaign tactic. Craig Rosand, the G.O.P. chairman in Douglas County, said that because Democrats had so little influence at the State Capitol, voters who want a say in their government should elect Republicans.This northwest corner of Wisconsin has voted Democratic in presidential elections going back decades.Tim Gruber for The New York Times“The majority caucus always determines what passes,” he said. “Having a representative that’s part of the majority gets them in the room where the decisions are made.”Of Wisconsin’s 33 State Senate seats, 17 are on the ballot on Tuesday, including two Democratic-held districts that President Donald J. Trump carried in 2020. The picture is similarly bleak for Democrats in the State Assembly, where President Biden, who won the state by about 20,000 votes, carried just 35 of 99 districts.“When you can win a majority of voters and have close to a third of the seats, it’s not true democracy,” said Greta Neubauer, the Democratic leader in the State Assembly. “We are very much at risk of people deciding that it’s not worthwhile for them to continue to engage because they see how rigged the system is against the people of the state in favor of Republican politicians.”As former President Barack Obama campaigned for Wisconsin Democrats on Saturday in Milwaukee, he addressed the implications of Republican supermajorities in the Legislature.“If they pick up a few more seats in both chambers, they’ll be able to force through extreme, unpopular laws on everything from guns to education to abortion,” Mr. Obama said. “And there won’t be anything Democrats can do about it.”The Republican leaders in the Wisconsin Legislature say they will bring back all 146 bills Mr. Evers has vetoed during his four years in office — measures on elections, school funding, pandemic mitigation efforts, policing, abortion and the state’s gun laws — if they win a supermajority or if Mr. Michels is elected. Mr. Evers warned of “hand-to-hand combat” to find moderate Republican legislators to sustain vetoes if he is re-elected with a G.O.P. supermajority.Mr. Adams, the Assembly candidate, knocked on voters’ doors on Thursday in Franks Field, Wis.Tim Gruber for The New York TimesA Trump flag in Ashland, Wis. In the latest round of redistricting, three state districts that President Biden won were redrawn, and now would have been carried by Donald J. Trump.Tim Gruber for The New York Times“Katy, bar the door,” Mr. Evers said Thursday during an interview on his campaign bus in Ashland. “They’re going to shove all this stuff down our throat and it’s going to happen quickly and before anybody can pay attention. It could be bad.”Mr. Evers predicted that Democrats would be able to narrowly sustain veto power in the Assembly. The State Senate, he said, is “tougher.”In northwest Wisconsin, the three incumbent Democratic legislators decided against running for re-election under new, more Republican-friendly maps. Under the old maps, Mr. Biden carried each of the districts, which are home to large numbers of unionized workers in paper mills, mines and shipyards. Under the new lines Republicans adopted last year, Mr. Trump would have won them all.Kelly Westlund, a Democrat running for the State Senate here, spent Wednesday morning going up and down the long driveways of rural homes 15 miles south of Superior. It was grueling door-to-door outreach that illustrated the difficulty of introducing herself to voters as a new candidate in a new district that includes three media markets.“You don’t find a whole lot of folks here that are super jazzed about Joe Biden,” Ms. Westlund said. “But you do find people that understand there’s a lot at stake.”Her pitch included warnings about what would happen if Republicans flip her seat and claim a supermajority. Few of the voters she met knew much about the candidates for the Legislature — but they did express strong feelings about the national parties.“The Democrats have to own up to a certain amount of things that are going on now,” said John Tesarek, a retired commercial floor installer who would not commit to voting for Ms. Westlund. “I’m not totally certain I’m hearing them own up to much.”Gov. Tony Evers said in an interview that if Republicans gain supermajorities, “they’re going to shove all this stuff down our throat and it’s going to happen quickly.” Tim Gruber for The New York TimesThe picture wasn’t much different during early voting at the city clerk’s office in Superior.Ann Marie Allen, a hospital janitor, said she had voted for Mr. Evers and Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, the Democrat challenging Senator Ron Johnson, a Republican. But she said she had also backed Ms. Westlund’s Republican opponent, Romaine Quinn, because she liked that he had his toddler son in his commercials. Mr. Quinn has spent eight times as much on TV ads as Ms. Westlund has.“There was no smut in his ads,” Ms. Allen said. “You know how they cut down on other people? There wasn’t that much of that.”Chad Frantz, a plumber, said he had voted a straight Republican ticket.“I’ve been watching the Democrats bash every Republican,” he said. “They’ve been trying to make out every guy that’s a Republican running for a position into a male chauvinist pig.”Mayor Jim Paine of Superior, a Democrat, said Republicans were capitalizing on “fissures” in local Democratic politics between union workers and environmentalists.“Labor and the environment are both very important, but it’s leading to very real challenges,” Mr. Paine said. “They’re breaking up. That’s why you see more Republicans getting elected.”The Republicans likely to head to Madison are far different from their Democratic predecessors.Nick Milroy, a moderate Democrat, won seven terms in the Assembly and ran unopposed for a decade until he was re-elected in 2020 by just 139 votes. His old district was Democratic in presidential years; Mr. Trump carried the new one by two percentage points.Storefronts in Ashland, which sits on Lake Superior.Tim Gruber for The New York TimesKelly Westlund, a Democrat running for the State Senate, canvassing voters near Superior, Wis. “You don’t find a whole lot of folks here that are super jazzed about Joe Biden,” she said.Tim Gruber for The New York TimesThe Republican who would replace him is Angie Sapik, a marketing executive. During the Capitol riot in 2021, Ms. Sapik tweeted, “It’s about time Republicans stood up for their rights,” “Rage on, Patriots!” and “Come on, Mike Pence!”In a brief phone call, Ms. Sapik agreed to an interview, then ended the call and did not respond to subsequent messages.Her Democratic opponent is Laura Gapske, a Superior school board member who said she had to call the police after receiving threatening calls when advertising that promoted Ms. Sapik’s candidacy included her cellphone number.Democrats here described an uphill battle against better-funded Republican opponents, with the political atmosphere colored by inflation, concerns about faraway crime and an unpopular president.They also spoke of the difficulty of spreading their message in what is effectively a news desert.Mr. Adams, the Assembly candidate, is running in a district Mr. Trump would have carried by four points. Last week, Mr. Adams — an organic farmer who previously worked at small-town newspapers in Minnesota and Montana — drove two hours each way to Rhinelander to be interviewed by a local TV station.“Because we live in a low-media environment up here, too many of us are getting our cable news and not enough are getting our local news,” he said. “If Fox News is telling the story of Democrats, then we lose.”Mr. Adams and other Democrats spoke of the challenge of spreading their message, with thinly staffed newspapers and distant TV stations that pay little attention to the area. Tim Gruber for The New York Times More