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    The OB-GYN Running on Abortion Rights in Conservative Wisconsin

    Dr. Kristin Lyerly is looking to make inroads in a heavily Catholic part of the state.It was 7:15 a.m. on Sunday, and a blood-orange sun had turned the sky lavender. Dr. Kristin Lyerly was getting ready to leave.She had laundry going, and her bags half-packed. She felt as if she might be forgetting something. She was about to make the 400-mile drive from her home in De Pere, Wis., for a 10-day stint at a medical center in Hibbing, Minn., where she has been working as an obstetrician-gynecologist following the overturning of Roe v. Wade.Lyerly has another job, too: running for Congress.Abortion rights have become central to the fight for control of the White House and Congress, and Democrats have worked hard to bring the issue to life through the stories of women who have had abortions. Lyerly, though, is doing something a little rarer: campaigning as a Democrat who can talk about providing reproductive care in post-Roe America.She said she had bumped into children she delivered on the trail. She has been approached by women at campaign events seeking basic information about handling an unwanted pregnancy or a miscarriage. She hasn’t heeded the advice that she said she got from men suggesting she talk about the issue a little bit less.“Reproductive rights,” she told a group of teachers who gathered to knock on doors in Green Bay, Wis., last weekend, “are on everybody’s mind.”Lyerly’s district, Wisconsin’s Eighth, encompasses a rural swath of the northeastern part of the state, the city of Green Bay and the peninsula that looks like the state’s pinkie finger dipping into Lake Michigan. It is difficult territory for Democrats. Former Representative Mike Gallagher, a Republican who chafed at Trump’s influence over his party, held it easily for seven years before suddenly retiring in April; a Trump-endorsed former gas station chain owner, Tony Wied, is favored to win the seat.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Obama Tells Black Men to Drop ‘Excuses’ and Support Harris

    Former President Barack Obama traveled to Pittsburgh on Thursday to urge voters there to choose Vice President Kamala Harris in November, aiming a message at one group in particular: Black men.The decision voters have between the vice president and former President Donald J. Trump, her Republican opponent, “isn’t a close call,” Mr. Obama said as he visited with a group of campaign volunteers and officials at a field office just ahead of his appearance at a Harris rally. His message was for Black male voters whom he said might not be yet on board with Ms. Harris.Citing “reports I’m getting from campaigns and communities,” he called out what he said was flagging enthusiasm for Ms. Harris compared with the support he received when he was running for the presidency in 2008.“You’re coming up with all kinds of reasons and excuses,” Mr. Obama said. “I’ve got a problem with that.“Part of it makes me think that, well, you just aren’t feeling the idea of having a woman as president, and you’re coming up with other alternatives and other reasons for that,” Mr. Obama continued, adding that the “women in our lives have been getting our backs this entire time.“When we get in trouble and the system isn’t working for us, they’re the ones out there marching and protesting.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Harris Town Hall Shows Her Straining for a Tough Empathy on Immigration

    The woman was weeping as she told Vice President Kamala Harris about her mother, who she said died six weeks ago without having ever achieved legal status in the United States.“My question for you is, what are your plans to support that subgroup of immigrants who have been here their whole lives, or most of them, and have to live and die in the shadows?” Ivett Castillo asked at Ms. Harris’s first voter town hall as the Democratic nominee, an event hosted by Univision for undecided Hispanic voters.In her answer, Ms. Harris strove to connect, gently urging Ms. Castillo to “remember your mother as she lived.” But the vice president’s response also underscored how much her hard-line immigration message has focused on enforcement rather than reform, as former President Donald J. Trump uses the border to paint Ms. Harris as a weak and ineffective leader.While Ms. Harris called the nation’s immigration system “broken” and pointed out that the first bill proposed by the Biden-Harris administration would have created an earned pathway to citizenship for many undocumented immigrants, she quickly turned to the topic of the southern border — and condemned Mr. Trump for helping kill a bill that would have devoted more resources to securing it.“Real leadership is about solving the problems on behalf of the people,” she said at the town hall, which was held in Las Vegas and will be broadcast at 10 p.m. Eastern time. Many questions were asked in Spanish and translated for her. Hispanic voters could help decide the election, but Ms. Harris’s support among them is lagging.On Thursday, she also faced intense and emotional questions on health care and the economy, giving her a chance to display a greater degree of empathy and humanity than in the more choreographed interviews she has recently given. Much of the conversation centered on themes that Democratic presidential candidates have used to appeal to Latino voters for decades, including promises to stimulate small businesses, lower costs for families and create more legal pathways for undocumented workers.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    In Wisconsin, Middle-Class Voters Think Carefully About Trump and Harris

    Voters in Wisconsin are weighing which candidate better understands their economic anxieties.It was a resplendent autumn morning in central Wisconsin this week, and I was doing what I do best: hanging out at a farmers’ market, admiring a $6 bunch of dahlias, and talking to strangers about the election.“We’re 50-50. We’re middle-class. We’re in a swing state,” said Toni Case, 65, as she took a break from selling gyros from a silver trailer. “We’re in the middle of an election tornado.”Case was right.The market was set up in a suburban shopping center near Wausau, a city of about 40,000 people bisected by the Wisconsin River. The whole area is the kind of place that has almost mythic status in American politics today: a haven for the middle class.According to the Pew Research Center, the Wausau metropolitan area is one of 10 in the country with the largest share of middle-income residents. It has a gleaming downtown, a new Amazon distribution center and an abundance of parks along the river. It’s the sort of place that both Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are evoking all the time, though not by name, as they talk about how to improve the American economy by strengthening the middle class.It’s also a place that lays bare the challenges both candidates face as they try to appeal to middle-class voters. As I interviewed voters in Wausau and Weston, right next door, I heard pronounced anxiety over the rising cost of living, and confusion over what being middle class even means anymore. It was clear that Trump’s dire picture of a middle class under attack has resonated here, but also that voters are thinking carefully about which candidate better understands the economic complexities of their lives.“It’s hard to stay ahead,” Mercedes Anderson, 25, told me. “It feels like you just get by.”Facing ‘outrageous’ costs, and seeking a solutionTrump has depicted an American middle class on the edge of extinction, accusing Harris of making middle-class life “unaffordable and unlivable.” He pledges to create a middle class that is “once again the envy of the entire world,” mostly by suggesting that his broad promises of tax cuts or mass deportations will help these Americans.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    As Deadline for Another Debate Looms, Trump Again Rejects a Rematch

    Former President Donald J. Trump said again on Wednesday night that he would not agree to a second debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, as the noon Eastern time Thursday deadline for his response to CNN’s proposed debate approached.Ms. Harris had accepted CNN’s offer to debate on Oct. 23. Fox News had also extended an offer on Wednesday for a debate this month.Mr. Trump insisted on his social media site that Ms. Harris wanted a “rematch” because she lost their first meeting, despite polls that suggested otherwise, finding that most respondents thought Ms. Harris had performed better. He also repeated his suggestion that it was too late to debate again because voting had already begun, though debates in past presidential elections have often been held in mid- to late October.Mr. Trump also claimed that he was “leading in all swing states,” even though polling averages show him leading in some and Ms. Harris leading in others, with the race very close in all of them.Mr. Trump had expressed reluctance to debate Ms. Harris in the first place, and said shortly after that meeting that he wasn’t inclined to do it again. He turned down the CNN debate last month, and indicated that even the friendly terrain of Fox News was unlikely to entice him, even as Ms. Harris has sought to goad him into another face-off. More

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    Harris Cracks a Beer With Colbert and Talks Gaza, Trump and Putin

    Vice President Kamala Harris took her message from campaign-speak to conversational during an interview with the late-night host Stephen Colbert on Tuesday night, as she acknowledged fading hopes for a cease-fire in Gaza while keeping up her attacks on former President Donald J. Trump for his relationship with Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.As if to underscore her growing confidence — after a three-day stretch in which Ms. Harris appeared in her most extended series of interviews of the campaign — she joined Mr. Colbert in cracking open a can of Miller High Life in front of his CBS studio audience in Manhattan.“The champagne of beers,” Ms. Harris joked, after Mr. Colbert noted that she had requested that brand of suds — which is brewed in the battleground state of Wisconsin.During her taped appearance on “The Late Show,” Ms. Harris also dealt with far weightier subjects. Asked about the war in Gaza, an issue that could threaten her chances of winning states like Michigan, she suggested the conflict was unlikely to end soon, even as she urged optimism.“We cannot lose some belief in the possibility” of a cease-fire, she said, adding that “the United States must work and not lose hope and not throw up our hands.”And she condemned Mr. Trump — for the second time on Tuesday — over reporting from a new book by the journalist Bob Woodward that claimed that Mr. Trump had sent rare Covid test machines to Mr. Putin in the early days of the pandemic.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Una nueva encuesta muestra a Harris en ascenso frente a Trump

    Un sondeo nacional de Times/Siena revela que Kamala Harris aventaja ligeramente a Donald Trump. Los votantes son más propensos a verla a ella, no a Trump, como una ruptura con el statu quo.Los votantes son ahora más propensos a considerar a la vicepresidenta Kamala Harris que a Donald Trump como representante del cambio y candidata preocupada por la gente como ellos, cuando Harris lleva una ligera ventaja a nivel nacional en la contienda por la Casa Blanca, según la más reciente encuesta del New York Times/Siena College.Es la primera vez que Harris aventaja a Trump en la encuesta del Times/Siena desde julio, cuando el presidente Joe Biden abandonó la disputa y los demócratas se unieron en torno a Harris como su sustituta. Se produce cuando la contienda entra en su último mes, y las encuestas de los estados disputados consideran que las elecciones son unas de las más reñidas de la historia moderna.Aunque la encuesta del Times/Siena muestra algunas ventajas sólidas para Trump, los resultados sugieren que Harris está ganando terreno, aunque sea poco, en cuestiones como el temperamento, la confianza y el cambio, que pueden ser críticas en una carrera presidencial.El sondeo, realizado entre el 29 de septiembre y el 6 de octubre entre 3385 posibles votantes, reveló que Harris aventajaba al republicano Trump en un 49 por ciento frente a un 46 por ciento, una ligera ventaja que está dentro del margen de error del sondeo.[Times/Siena polls also found Trump leading in Texas and up by a wide margin in Florida. The Florida poll helps clarify what’s happening in the race, Nate Cohn writes.]How the Times/Siena poll compares More

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    Will Trump Get Jail Time? We Looked at Similar Cases to Find Out.

    Donald J. Trump faces sentencing on Nov. 26. The election three weeks earlier may determine not only if he returns to the presidency, but if he ends up behind bars.In November, after voters decide whether to return Donald J. Trump to the White House, the judge who oversaw his criminal trial could send him to jail.And despite Mr. Trump’s political status, the judge has ample grounds to do so, a New York Times examination of dozens of similar cases shows.The former president’s unruly behavior at the trial, held in New York in April and May, makes him a candidate for jail time, as does his felony crime of falsifying business records: Over the past decade in Manhattan, more than a third of these convictions resulted in defendants spending time behind bars, The Times’s examination found. Across New York State, the proportion is even higher — about 42 percent of those convictions led to jail or prison time. More