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What’s at Stake in These Elections
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
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
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What to Know About New York’s Midterm Elections
The state has become a bellwether for both parties, with significant congressional seats in play and an increasingly close governor’s race.After a hectic primary season, New Yorkers will now head to the polls to decide contests that will have consequences for both state and national politics.With Democrats looking to hold onto their slim majority in Congress and Republicans eager to take control, New York has become a key battleground with more competitive congressional races than nearly any other state.Voters in New York are also facing choices in four statewide races, including a marquee contest for governor, with Gov. Kathy Hochul seeking election to her first full term in office after she succeeded Andrew M. Cuomo 14 months ago. Her race against Representative Lee Zeldin, the Republican challenger, has appeared increasingly close as Election Day nears.When and where to voteThe early voting period begins on Saturday, Oct. 29, and ends Sunday, Nov. 6. Operating hours vary based on county and polling location.You can also vote on Election Day — Tuesday, Nov. 8 — when polls will be open from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m.In many cases, early voting locations will be different than your designated Election Day polling site. You can find either by entering your name and address at voterlookup.elections.ny.gov, a State Board of Elections website. If you live in New York City, you can also call 1-866-VOTE-NYC.Voters who encounter any difficulties can call the attorney general’s election protection hotline at 1-866-390-2992.Absentee votingThe deadline for requesting an absentee ballot online has already passed, but voters can still apply for one at their local county Board of Elections office until Monday, Nov. 7.Ballots must be returned by mail, with a postmark no later than Nov. 8, or in person at a polling site or a county Board of Elections office by 9 p.m. that day.If voters have requested to vote by absentee ballot, they cannot cast a ballot on a voting machine. They can still vote in person during the early voting period or on Election Day by using an affidavit ballot. That affidavit will only be counted if the voter’s absentee ballot has not been received.It starts at the topPolls suggest that the governor’s race between Gov. Kathy Hochul, left, and Representative Lee Zeldin has drawn closer.Hans Pennink/Associated Press, Justin Lane/EPA, via ShutterstockAt the top of the ballot is the race for governor, a contest in which Republicans have traditionally faced long odds: No Republican has been elected to statewide office in 20 years.Ms. Hochul, a Buffalo-area Democrat, became the first woman to serve as New York’s governor last year when she replaced Mr. Cuomo after his resignation.In a state where Democrats far outnumber Republicans, Ms. Hochul entered the race with a significant advantage. She dominated her primary election and has a significant fund-raising lead over Mr. Zeldin. For months, she has harped on Mr. Zeldin’s close ties to former President Donald J. Trump, who is unpopular in New York. She has also warned that Mr. Zeldin would roll back abortion rights in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.But polls in recent weeks have shown Ms. Hochul’s initial lead over Mr. Zeldin — a Republican congressman who has represented eastern Long Island since 2015 — narrowing to the single digits. Recent surveys have found that fears about public safety and inflation have become the chief concerns of likely voters, and Mr. Zeldin has made those issues — and crime in particular — the focal points of his campaign.Mr. Zeldin has cast his campaign as a crusade against one-party rule in the state and sought to draw support from moderate and independent voters who are eager for change..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.Political experts say that turnout will likely be a major factor in the race’s outcome, especially with Democrats facing a tough environment nationally. Ms. Hochul must draw a significant base of support from New York’s liberal enclaves, while Mr. Zeldin is hoping to lure swing voters for whom crime and the economy are motivating issues.House racesIn Democrats’ mission to maintain control of the House of Representatives, New York was regarded as a party bulwark. But after an erratic redistricting process that ended earlier this year, political analysts now say that Republicans may be poised to flip a handful of Democratic seats.Of particular interest are three districts in the Hudson Valley currently represented by Democrats. While the party has picked up support in the area in recent years, Republicans are hoping to seize on discontent with President Biden and his party.In the 17th Congressional District, which includes Poughkeepsie and exurban areas in Putnam, Rockland and Westchester Counties, Representative Sean Patrick Maloney, who leads the House Democrats’ campaign committee, is facing a strong challenge from Mike Lawler, a Republican assemblyman.Mr. Lawler has garnered millions of dollars in outside help from Republicans, who have spent the money on ads that blame Democrats for inflation and the rising cost of gasoline. He has also pointed to fears over public safety.Democrats, too, have spent heavily on the airwaves, focusing their messaging on abortion rights and concerns about Republican attacks on election integrity. Mr. Maloney has sought to link Mr. Lawler to Mr. Trump, who lost the 17th District by 10 percentage points.The battle lines are roughly the same in the neighboring 18th District, where Representative Pat Ryan, who won a special House election in August, is facing a challenge from Colin Schmitt, a Republican assemblyman.In the 19th District, Marcus Molinaro, a Republican county executive who lost to Mr. Ryan, is running against Josh Riley, a lawyer and first-time candidate who has spent much of his professional career outside the state.Republicans are also hoping to make pickups in Long Island, where three of the region’s four House seats are open after incumbents stepped aside. Democrats currently hold the two districts that mostly represent Nassau County, which borders New York City, while the two districts further east in Suffolk County are held by Republicans.In the Fourth District, in central and southern Nassau County, candidates are running to replace Representative Kathleen Rice, a Democrat who is retiring at the end of the year. Anthony D’Esposito, a Republican town councilman and a former New York City police detective, is facing Laura Gillen, a Democrat and a former town supervisor.In the Third District, to the north, Robert Zimmerman, a small-business owner and well-known Democratic activist, wants to fill the seat currently held by Representative Tom Suozzi. Mr. Zimmerman has repeatedly attacked his Republican opponent, George Santos, as being too extreme for the district, pointing to Mr. Santos’s support of abortion bans and his attendance at the pro-Trump rally in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021.In the Second District, an affluent region on the South Shore of Long Island, Representative Andrew Garbarino, a Republican, is heavily favored to win re-election against his Democratic challenger, Jackie Gordon, an Army veteran whom he defeated in 2020.A contest for another open seat lies in the First District, which Mr. Zeldin has held since 2014 but gave up to run for governor. The Democratic candidate, Bridget Fleming, a county legislator and former assistant district attorney, has a significant fund-raising lead and was endorsed by a police officers union. Her Republican opponent, Nicholas LaLota, is a former Navy lieutenant who works in the Suffolk County Legislature, and has focused his campaign on rising prices and interest rates.In New York City, Democrats are also to eager to regain the 11th Congressional District, which encompasses Staten Island and parts of southwest Brooklyn. The race there is a rematch between Representative Nicole Malliotakis, the Republican who won two years ago, and Max Rose, the Democrat who flipped what had been a conservative stronghold in 2018.Both parties are also eyeing the 22nd Congressional District in the Syracuse area, where Democrats have sought a seat for years. They grew hopeful after redistricting shifted the district’s borders to include areas currently held by Representative John Katko, a moderate Republican who is retiring.The Republican in the race, Brandon Williams, is a Trump-aligned first-time candidate who had never lived in the district. He won his party’s nomination over a preferred candidate backed by super PACs aligned with Republican leaders. The Democrat, Francis Conole, has attacked Mr. Wiliams for being too far to the right, and has argued that his own views are closer to those of his potential constituents.What else is on the ballot?In there other statewide races, incumbent Democrats are heavily favored. Senator Chuck Schumer, currently the majority leader, is running for his fifth term. His opponent, Joe Pinion, is a Republican who grew up in Yonkers and until recently hosted a show on the right-wing news network Newsmax.The New York attorney general, Letitia James, is also running for re-election after suspending her campaign for governor last year. Her Republican opponent is Michael Henry, who works as a lawyer in New York City. The state comptroller, Thomas DiNapoli, faces a Republican challenger, Paul Rodriguez, an investor.State Senate and Assembly seats are on the ballot as well. Voters will also decide whether to approve the Environmental Bond Act of 2022, which would allow New York to borrow up to $4.2 billion, through a bond issuance, for projects related to climate change, clean energy and environmental protection.City residents will vote on three other proposals: one to add a “statement of values” to the City Charter that emphasizes the government’s commitment to “justice and equity”; one to create a racial equity office and require citywide plans to address racial equity; and one to change the way the city calculates the cost of living. More
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An Alternate History of the 2022 Midterms
In the campaign’s final days, Democratic strategists are already back-seat driving, second-guessing and what-iffing.In “Blame It on Cain,” his biblically infused 1978 song lamenting the fickleness of fate, Elvis Costello croons, “It’s nobody’s fault, but we need somebody to burn.”It’s as apt a description of the grim mood among Democratic strategists as any I’ve seen this week, with back-seat driving, second-guessing and what-iffing about the midterms rocketing around the left over the past few days.No single person is in charge of as complicated a thing as 435 House races, 30-odd Senate races and thousands more contests down the ballot. But the collective decision-making of party leaders is already coming under question, so Costello’s words were ringing in my ears this morning as I pored over Democrats’ disagreements.Even former President Barack Obama has emerged to chide his fellow Democrats, in a recent podcast interview, for “being a buzzkill” sometimes and losing focus on the things voters “care most deeply about.”The state of playLet’s make one thing clear: This was always going to be a bad year for Democrats. The only question was how bad.At the moment, Republicans are expressing growing confidence that they will capture a significant number of seats in the House. They need only five to take back the majority, but G.O.P. operatives are projecting that seats Democrats won by seven percentage points in 2020, such as Representative Abigail Spanberger’s in Virginia, could be winnable. Independent forecasters have shifted their predictions in recent days to what seems to be the consensus guesstimate: that Republicans will pick up as many as 25 seats.Republicans might even seize the Senate, where just one net pickup could shift partisan control. Senator Catherine Cortez Masto looks wobbly in inflation-racked Nevada, and Lt. Gov. John Fetterman’s shaky debate performance last night in Pennsylvania has set off a fresh round of teeth-gnashing. If Republicans win those two contests, they can afford to lose in Arizona, Georgia and New Hampshire. And Mitch McConnell will be back in power.In the big governors’ races, Democrats’ prospects look mixed. In Pennsylvania, Attorney General Josh Shapiro is comfortably ahead of Doug Mastriano, the far-right state senator. In Michigan, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer leads Tudor Dixon by about five percentage points.But Gov. Tony Evers of Wisconsin looks vulnerable, while in Arizona, Secretary of State Katie Hobbs is struggling to hold off an election-denying former television anchor, Kari Lake.We’ll see what happens on Election Day — anger over abortion could prompt a surge of Democratic turnout, to raise just one scenario, or Trump voters could stay home with their champion off the ballot. Or maybe the polls are wrong. But it’s worth considering whether there were any alternate approaches that could have put Democrats in a better position heading into the final days.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsElection Day is Tuesday, Nov. 8.Bracing for a Red Wave: Republicans were already favored to flip the House. Now they are looking to run up the score by vying for seats in deep-blue states.Pennsylvania Senate Race: Lt. Gov. John Fetterman and Mehmet Oz clashed in one of the most closely watched debates of the midterm campaign. Here are five takeaways.Polling Analysis: If these poll results keep up, everything from a Democratic hold in the Senate and a narrow House majority to a total G.O.P. rout becomes imaginable, writes Nate Cohn, The Times’s chief political analyst.Strategy Change: In the final stretch before the elections, some Democrats are pushing for a new message that acknowledges the economic uncertainty troubling the electorate.The progressives’ complaint: too much abortion, not enough economyAs usual, the emerging fault line is between progressives who would prefer a sharper line of attack on economic issues, and mostly centrist operatives who are skeptical that those topics will play to Democrats’ advantage.Representative Ro Khanna of California, one of the main sponsors of bipartisan legislation to increase semiconductor manufacturing in the U.S., complained that he had seen few ads promoting Democrats’ economic policies.“We should be shouting from the rooftops that we’re for putting money in working peoples’ pockets and bringing jobs home from overseas, and they’re for cutting taxes for the wealthy,” Khanna said. “I don’t get it. It’s like running a football team with all offense and no defense.”On Oct. 10, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont wrote in The Guardian that he was “alarmed” that unidentified Democratic consultants were advising candidates to “focus only on abortion” in the closing weeks of the campaign.“In my view,” Sanders added, “while the abortion issue must remain on the front burner, it would be political malpractice for Democrats to ignore the state of the economy and allow Republican lies and distortions to go unanswered.”Then, on Friday, four senior Democratic strategists argued in The American Prospect, a liberal magazine, that the party could not wish away the inflation crisis — and needed to talk about it more in the closing weeks of the campaign.“Democrats need to understand that we have a winning message on the economy and inflation,” they wrote. “But rising costs will beat us if we avoid the issue.”Mike Lux, one of the co-authors, said in an interview that although some Democrats had run with smart, lunch-bucket messages on inflation — he named Tim Ryan in Ohio, and Fetterman and Representative Matt Cartwright in Pennsylvania — he wished “there had been more focus on kitchen-table issues, from the White House on down.”President Biden has begun doing exactly that, warning this week that Republicans would tank the economy and cut benefits like Social Security and Medicare if they retook Congress. But it’s fairly late to try to alter the trajectory of an election that has largely been fought on Republican terrain.As for the consultants Sanders alluded to, they counter that it was rational to focus on abortion because the reversal of Roe v. Wade fired up the base of the Democratic Party and angered suburban women without college degrees, a group widely seen as the most important swing demographic in this election.One challenge Democrats faced, Lux said, was that voters simply didn’t believe that Republicans planned to cut Social Security and Medicare. Voters tend to be skeptical of hypothetical arguments, because they hear them so often. Abortion rights advocates, for instance, had warned for years that Republicans wanted to overturn Roe v. Wade. Until the Supreme Court did so, it sounded to many voters like political posturing. And now, he said, “the wolf is at the door.”In Senate races, Democrats have spent roughly 41 percent of their television advertising budgets on abortion, according to Celinda Lake, a pollster who was another co-author of the American Prospect article.Some of that money could have been spent on shoring up voters’ knowledge of what Democrats have done to help address rising health care costs, some Democrats said. Others blamed fickle Democratic megadonors for hoarding their money for 2024. Still others faulted progressive House lawmakers, or Senator Joe Manchin, for spending nearly a year and a half fighting over what ultimately became the Inflation Reduction Act.Some Democrats have praised Tim Ryan for how he is running on economic issues like inflation in Ohio.Megan Jelinger for The New York TimesThere are also fierce debates over tactical decisions made in Washington. Allies of Ryan, the Democratic nominee for Senate in Ohio, have questioned why party groups have heavily spent to help Cheri Beasley, the party’s candidate in North Carolina, while largely leaving Ryan to face J.D. Vance alone. Then there’s crime, an emotionally charged issue that many Democrats have pooh-poohed as overblown, pointing to instances of race-baiting by Republicans. Overblown or not, a Gallup poll in April found that voters’ concerns about crime had reached their highest level since 2016, and it’s been a factor in many big races.James Carville, the former adviser to Bill Clinton and a frequent scold of the left, noted on Twitter that he had urged Democrats last year to “take control of the anti-crime message.”“Crime is going to be an issue up and down the ballot in 2022, and many local politicians are already feeling the heat,” Carville wrote then in a Wall Street Journal opinion essay. “If we don’t aggressively begin to own the crime issue and make Republicans respond to their own failures, we risk losing our slim majorities in Congress.”“They did not,” Carville observed in a tweet this week. “Colossal mistake.”‘It just seems to be his turn’If there’s anyone Democrats consistently blame for their fate this year, it’s the man in charge of their party: Biden, whose national approval ratings have settled back into the low 40s after a brief summer honeymoon, and they are worse in swing states. It’s telling that he isn’t barnstorming the country right now on behalf of embattled Democratic candidates, and he has stuck to raising money or taking targeted trips to more hospitable places like Colorado.But not only did most Democrats in Congress vote for the spending bills that Republicans are attacking as inflationary, they are also often at a loss when asked who might be a better banner-carrier for their party in 2024. Kamala Harris? Unimpressive. Gavin Newsom? Too slick or too Californian. J.B. Pritzker? Too rich.Once again, “Blame It on Cain” sounds prophetic.“It’s nobody’s fault,” Costello sings in the song’s last line. “But it just seems to be his turn.”What to readJohn Fetterman’s debate performance is raising anxiety levels among Democrats in Pennsylvania, Lisa Lerer and Katie Glueck report.A woman who did not identify herself said on Wednesday that Herschel Walker pressured her to have an abortion and paid for the procedure nearly three decades ago after a yearslong extramarital relationship.Republicans are targeting Representative Sean Patrick Maloney, a Democrat whose Hudson Valley seat is becoming one of the most closely contested in the country.A judge in South Carolina ordered Mark Meadows, the former White House chief of staff, to testify in an Atlanta-area investigation into Donald Trump’s alleged meddling in the 2020 election.Pugilistic press aides have moved from the shadows of campaigns to become stars on social media, Michael Bender writes, netting hundreds of thousands of followers.Thank you for reading On Politics, and for being a subscriber to The New York Times. — BlakeRead past editions of the newsletter here.If you’re enjoying what you’re reading, please consider recommending it to others. They can sign up here. Browse all of our subscriber-only newsletters here.Have feedback? Ideas for coverage? We’d love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com. More
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Why Am I Seeing That Political Ad? Check Your ‘Trump Resistance’ Score.
To help campaigns target ads, voter-profiling firms score millions of Americans on issues like guns, vaccines and QAnon.In the lead-up to the 2020 presidential election, a voter analytics firm called PredictWise came up with a novel approach to help Democratic campaigns target persuadable Republicans: “Covid concern” scores.To create the scores, the company first analyzed an immense data set showing the cellphone locations of tens of millions of Americans during the initial lockdown months of the pandemic. Then it ranked people based on their travel patterns.Republicans whose phone locations showed that they left home a lot received high “Covid-19 decree violation” scores, while those who mainly stayed home received low scores, according to a PredictWise report. In follow-up surveys of some voters, researchers found that stay-at-home Republicans were almost as concerned about the pandemic as Democrats.The firm said it had used the data to help Democrats in several swing states target more than 350,000 “Covid-concerned” Republicans with Covid-related campaign ads. In Arizona, PredictWise reported, the scores helped Democrats “open up just over 40,000 persuasion targets” for Mark Kelly, who was running for Senate. (Senator Kelly’s office did not respond to emails and calls requesting comment.)Voter-profiling systems like the Covid-19 scores may be invisible to most people. But they provide a glimpse into a vast voter data-mining ecosystem in the United States involving dozens of political consulting, analytics, media, marketing and advertising software companies.In the run-up to the midterm elections next month, campaigns are tapping a host of different scores and using them to create castes of their most desirable voters. There are “gun owner,” “pro-choice” and “Trump 2024” scores, which cover everyday politics. There are also voter rankings on hot-button issues — a “racial resentment” score, for example, and a “trans athletes should not participate” score. There’s even a “U.F.O.s distrust government” score.Campaign and media consultants say such political-issue scores make it easier for candidates to surgically target messages to, and mobilize, the most receptive voters.“We’re seeing not only U.S. congressional races, but State Senate races that are diving into this, and consultants using it to help them find those perfect targets,” said Paul Westcott, a marketing executive at L2, a leading voter database firm. He added that even some county campaigns were using scoring models to target voters on local ballot measures.But the same nano-targeting that may help mobilize some people to vote could also disenfranchise others as well as exacerbate political polarization, political researchers say.What is voter scoring?Consumers are subject to a host of predictive scoring systems — hidden rankings based on factors like their demographic profile, socioeconomic status, online activities and offline interests.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsBoth parties are making their final pitches ahead of the Nov. 8 election.Where the Election Stands: As Republicans appear to be gaining an edge with swing voters in the final weeks of the contest for control of Congress, here’s a look at the state of the races for the House and Senate.Biden’s Low Profile: President Biden’s decision not to attend big campaign rallies reflects a low approval rating that makes him unwelcome in some congressional districts and states.Losing Ground: With inflation concerns front and center, the state of democracy in the United States is not shaping up to be the driver of votes that many on the left hoped it would be.In Minnesota: The race for attorney general in the light-blue state offers a pure test of which issue is likely to be more politically decisive: abortion rights or crime.Retailers and other services often use “customer lifetime value” scores to try to predict how much money individual clients might spend over time. Universities use “retention” scores to identify students at risk of dropping out.Voter scores work similarly. They are intended to predict the likelihood that an individual agrees or disagrees with a particular party or political stance, like a belief in gun control. They are also used to predict a person’s likelihood of voting.Ad tech firms often use the scores to help political campaigns narrowly target audiences on streaming video services, podcasts, websites and apps. Candidates, political party committees and advocacy groups also use the scores to help create lists of specific voters to call, text or canvas in person.But researchers and privacy experts say that the scores are speculative and invasive, and that they could cause harm if they leaked to hackers or employers.The process can involve classifying more than 150 million voters — using ratings like “gay marriage” scores or “non-Christian” scores — on personal beliefs they might have assumed were private. The scoring systems can also enable campaigns to quietly aim different, and perhaps contradictory, messages at different voters with little public accountability or oversight.“In a democracy, we would like to know what promises are being made so that candidates can be held to account,” says Erika Franklin Fowler, a government professor at Wesleyan University who studies political advertising. “That’s harder to do if they’re saying different things to different people.”How are voter scores calculated?To calculate the scores, voter-profiling firms typically use commercially available dossiers thick with data on the election participation, demographics and consumer habits of millions of adults in the United States.The files contain public information, obtained from state voter registration databases, like a person’s name, date of birth and address, as well as the election years in which the person has voted. They may also include a phone number, political party registration and race or ethnicity.The voter profiles are often enhanced with commercially available details on consumers like: net worth, education level, occupation, home value, number of children in one’s household, gun ownership, pet ownership, political donations and hobbies or habits such as cooking, woodworking, gambling or smoking. Such details can be purchased from data aggregators that acquire information from customers’ loyalty-card records and other sources.Next, profiling firms survey a representative sample of voters, scoring respondents according to their stances on issues like marijuana legalization. Firms then use machine learning to identity common characteristics across the dossiers — like low-income households, say, or a preference for low-fat foods — that correlate with voters’ stances.The characteristics enable profiling firms to find “look-alike” voters in their files. Then they often calculate scores on issues like climate change for all the voters in their files.What do voter scores look like?Voter-profiling companies each have their own proprietary ranking systems. But they typically do not allow voters to see their scores.One prominent conservative firm, i360, offers a number of scores, including a “Marriage Model” that ranks voters on a scale of 0.0 to 1.0. Scores near a full point indicate voters with a high likelihood of supporting “laws that preserve traditional marriage.”HaystaqDNA, a predictive analytics firm that worked with Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, has posted an extensive catalog with dozens of proprietary scores on taxes, Covid and other issues. These include a “QAnon Believer” score, ranking people based on whether they believe a “deep state” within the federal government operated child-trafficking rings.TargetSmart, a prominent progressive firm, developed a “Trump Resistance” model, which gives voters scores between 0 and 100 based on their likelihood of opposing Donald Trump. In a statement Tom Bonier, TargetSmart’s chief executive, said the company used public and commercially available data to help campaigns reach voters on “the issues they care most about.” The firm did not respond to questions about its voter scores.Despite the marketing of these scores, people’s voting histories and political party affiliations remain the best predictors of their voter behavior, political researchers say.“There’s a lot of hype in this space,” says Katherine Haenschen, an assistant professor of political science at Northeastern University who studies how digital communications affect voter turnout. “The most likely predictor is what the person has done in the past.”In an election circular in 1840, Abraham Lincoln and other leaders of the Whig Party instructed county committees to target undecided “doubtful voters” for special persuasion efforts.Where did voter targeting start?Trying to target and sway voters is an electioneering practice that dates at least as far back as 1840. That was the year Abraham Lincoln helped write a campaign circular for the Whig Party that laid out a plan for identifying and mobilizing individual voters.The Lincoln directive, which ran in newspapers, instructed local party committees to “make a perfect list of all the voters” in their districts and ascertain “with certainty for whom they will vote.” It also treated undecided voters differently, instructing party committees to “keep a CONSTANT WATCH on the DOUBTFUL VOTERS” and try to “enlighten and influence them.”The advent of computer modeling helped automate voter targeting, making it more efficient.In the 1960s, a market researcher in Los Angeles, Vincent Barabba, developed a computer program to help political campaigns decide which neighborhoods to target. The system overlaid voting precinct maps with details on individuals’ voting histories along with U.S. census data on household economics, ethnic makeup and family composition.In 1966, political consultants used the system to help Ronald Reagan’s campaign for governor of California identify neighborhoods with potential swing voters, like middle-aged, white, male union members, and target them with ads.Critics worried about the technology’s potential to influence voters, deriding it as a “sinister new development dreamt up by manipulative social scientists,” according to “Selling Ronald Reagan,” a book on the Hollywood actor’s political transformation.By the early 2000s, campaigns had moved on to more advanced targeting methods.For the re-election campaign of President George W. Bush in 2004, Republican consultants classified American voters into discrete buckets, like “Flag and Family Republicans” and “Religious Democrats.” Then they used the segmentation to target Republicans and swing voters living in towns that typically voted Democrat, said Michael Meyers, the president of TargetPoint Consulting, who worked on the Bush campaign.In 2008, the Obama presidential campaign widely used individualized voter scores. Republicans soon beefed up their own voter-profiling and targeting operations.A decade later, when Cambridge Analytica — a voter-profiling firm that covertly data-mined and scored millions of Facebook users — became front-page news, many national political campaigns were already using voter scores. Now, even local candidates use them.This spring, the Government Accountability Office issued a report warning that the practice of consumer scoring lacked transparency and could cause harm. Although the report did not specifically examine voter scores, it urged Congress to consider enacting consumer protections around scoring. More
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A Democratic Group Pours $20 Million Into State Legislative Races
With the battle for state legislatures taking on an elevated importance during this midterm cycle, a Democratic super PAC is investing more than $20 million in state legislative races, with about 70 percent of the funds going to support candidates in 25 districts across Michigan, Pennsylvania and Arizona.The investment is from Forward Majority, the super PAC, as Democrats across the country are pouring significant resources into state legislative races. Last month, the States Project, another Democratic super PAC, pledged to spend $60 million in legislative races in five states. And Tech + Campaigns, another Democratic group, has pledged to spend $8 million on such races.State legislatures have long been dominated by Republicans, who have excelled at motivating their voters to engage beyond federal races. The party made a concerted effort to win state legislatures ahead of the 2010 redistricting cycle and then proceeded to draw gerrymandered legislative maps to help shore up their control. As a result, Republicans have complete control of 29 state legislatures.But with the Supreme Court set to rule in a case that could give state legislatures nearly unchecked authority over federal elections, Democratic groups have been aggressively playing catch-up, reaching parity with Republicans in television ad spending this year.Forward Majority, however, is focusing more of its spending on the detailed aspects of campaigning, like voter registration and a tactic known as “boosted news,” or the practice of paying to promote news articles on social media newsfeeds.The group has been targeting suburban and exurban districts that are split 50-50 between Republicans and Democrats with a push to register new Democrats, who may be voters who have moved or who haven’t been engaged in a while, and encourage them to vote on the whole ballot instead of just the top of the ticket.“Even as we see Joe Biden, Mark Kelly, Gretchen Whitmer win at the top of the ticket, we are still losing those races down-ballot,” said Vicky Hausman, a co-founder of Forward Majority. “So we have been obsessed with finding ways to add additional margin and add additional votes in these races.”Republicans have noticed the increased investments of Democrats in state legislative races and have sounded the alarm to donors.“We don’t have the luxury of relying on reinforcements to come save us,” Dee Duncan, the president of the Republican State Leadership Committee, wrote to donors last month. “We are the calvary.”The path for Democrats in Michigan, Arizona and Pennsylvania is narrow, but Ms. Hausman pointed to the thin margins in recent state legislative battles as an encouraging sign.“The Virginia House was decided by about 600 votes in 2021,” she said. “The Arizona House came down to about 3,000 votes in two districts in 2020. So it is going to be a dogfight.” More
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How the Supreme Court’s State Legislature Case Could Change Elections
EASTPOINTE, Mich. — The conversation started with potholes.Veronica Klinefelt, a Democratic candidate for State Senate in suburban Detroit, was out knocking on doors as she tries to win a seat her party sees as critical for taking back the chamber. “I am tired of seeing cuts in aging communities like ours,” she told one voter, gesturing to a cul-de-sac pocked with cracks and crevasses. “We need to reinvest here.”What went largely unspoken, however, was how this obscure local race has significant implications for the future of American democracy.The struggle for the Michigan Senate, as well as clashes for control of several other narrowly divided chambers in battleground states, have taken on outsize importance at a time when state legislatures are ever more powerful. With Congress often deadlocked and conservatives dominating the Supreme Court, state governments increasingly steer the direction of voting laws, abortion access, gun policy, public health, education and other issues dominating the lives of Americans.The Supreme Court could soon add federal elections to that list.The justices are expected to decide whether to grant nearly unfettered authority over such elections to state legislatures — a legal argument known as the independent state legislature theory. If the court does so, many Democrats believe, state legislatures could have a pathway to overrule the popular vote in presidential elections by refusing to certify the results and instead sending their own slates of electors.While that might seem like a doomsday scenario, 44 percent of Republicans in crucial swing-state legislatures used the power of their office to discredit or try to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, according to a New York Times analysis. More like-minded G.O.P. candidates on the ballot could soon join them in office.Republicans have complete control over legislatures in states that have a total of 307 electoral votes — 37 more than needed to win a presidential election. They hold majorities in several battleground states, meaning that if the Supreme Court endorsed the legal theory, a close presidential election could be overturned if just a few states assigned alternate slates of electors.Democrats’ chances of bringing Republicans’ total below 270 are narrow: They would need to flip the Michigan Senate or the Arizona Senate, and then one chamber in both Pennsylvania and New Hampshire in 2024, in addition to defending the chambers the party currently controls.Democrats and Republicans have set their sights on half a dozen states where state legislatures — or at least a single chamber — could flip in November. Democrats hope to wrest back one of the chambers in Michigan and the Arizona Senate, and flip the Minnesota Senate. Republicans aim to win back the Minnesota House of Representatives and take control of one chamber, or both, in the Maine, Colorado and Nevada legislatures. They are also targeting Oregon and Washington.An avalanche of money has flowed into these races. The Republican State Leadership Committee, the party’s campaign arm for state legislative races, has regularly set new fund-raising records, raising $71 million this cycle. The group’s Democratic counterpart has also broken fund-raising records, raising $45 million. Outside groups have spent heavily, too: The States Project, a Democratic super PAC, has pledged to invest nearly $60 million in five states.At a candidate forum on Wednesday in Midland, Mich., Kristen McDonald Rivet, a Democrat, and Annette Glenn, a Republican, faced off in their highly competitive State Senate race.Emily Elconin for The New York TimesThe television airwaves, rarely a place where state legislative candidates go to war, have been flooded with advertising on the races. More than $100 million has been spent nationwide since July, an increase of $20 million over the same period in 2020, according to AdImpact, a media tracking firm.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.The Final Stretch: With less than one month until Election Day, Republicans remain favored to take over the House, but momentum in the pitched battle for the Senate has seesawed back and forth.Herschel Walker: A woman who said that the G.O.P. Senate nominee in Georgia paid for her abortion in 2009 told The Times that he urged her to terminate a second pregnancy two years later. She chose to have their son instead.Will the Walker Allegations Matter?: The scandal could be decisive largely because of the circumstances in Georgia, writes Nate Cohn, The Times’s chief political analyst.Pennsylvania Senate Race: John Fetterman, the Democratic nominee, says he can win over working-class voters in deep-red counties. But as polls tighten in the contest, that theory is under strain.Democrats are finding, however, that motivating voters on an issue as esoteric as the independent state legislature theory is not an easy task.“Voters care a whole lot about a functioning democracy,” said Daniel Squadron, a Democratic former state senator from New York and a founder of the States Project. But, he said, the independent state legislature “threat still feels as though it’s on the horizon, even though it’s upon us.”For some Republicans, the issue of the independent state legislature theory is far from the campaign trail, and far from their concerns.“If it’s a decision by the Supreme Court, based on their legal opinion, I would defer to their legal expertise,” said Michael D. MacDonald, the Republican state senator running against Ms. Klinefelt. “I certainly respect the court’s opinion when they make it. I think it’s important that we do.”Instead, Republicans are focusing on economic topics like inflation.“The economy remains the issue that voters are most concerned about in their daily lives, and is the issue that will decide the battle for state legislatures in November,” said Andrew Romeo, the communications director for the Republican State Leadership Committee. The group’s internal polling shows that inflation and the cost of living are the No. 1 priority in every state surveyed.The issues defining each election vary widely by district. Some of them, like roads, school funding and water, are hyperlocal — subjects that rarely drive a congressional or statewide race.In the Detroit suburbs, Mr. MacDonald said he had heard the same concerns.“When they have something to say, it’s never ‘Joe Biden’ or ‘Donald Trump,’ it’s, ‘Hey, you know, actually my road, it’s a little bumpy, what can you do?’” Mr. MacDonald said. He added, “Sometimes it could be as small as, ‘Can they get a garbage can from our garbage contractor?’”His pitch to voters, in turn, focuses on money that Macomb County, which makes up a large part of the district, has received from the state budget since he was elected four years ago. More
