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    David McCormick Is Set to Announce Republican Senate Bid in Pennsylvania

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    Brutal primary fights weakened the party’s nominees in several states last year. Now, as David McCormick runs again for Senate in the battleground state, he appears to have cleared the field.To avoid costly Senate battleground defeats in 2024, Republicans have a plan: run like Democrats.That means trying to replicate Democrats’ success at avoiding the kinds of vicious intraparty battles that have weakened Republican nominees in recent years.It remains to be seen whether the party’s attempt to sidestep fault lines between Trumpian loyalists and traditional conservatives will be effective, but the strategy’s first victory could come in Pennsylvania, where David McCormick appears to have cleared the Republican primary field of any major challengers.Mr. McCormick — a former hedge fund executive who lost one of the party’s nastiest and most expensive Senate primaries to Dr. Mehmet Oz last year — announced his new campaign on Thursday evening in Pittsburgh. He is aiming to unseat Senator Bob Casey, a Democrat who has announced plans to seek a fourth six-year term in office.“The truth is both parties need to be shaken up — what they’re doing just isn’t working” Mr. McCormick said during a 15-minute speech in which he portrayed himself as “the only candidate in this race that can change Washington.”Senate Republicans have begun similar efforts to clear the path for Gov. Jim Justice in West Virginia, where Senator Joe Manchin III, a Democrat, is weighing a re-election bid. Mr. Justice, however, faces a primary fight against Representative Alex Mooney, who has vowed to oppose the “establishment swamp.”In Montana, Senator Steve Daines, who is the chairman of Senate Republicans’ campaign arm, has endorsed Tim Sheehy’s bid to take on Senator Jon Tester, the incumbent Democrat. But Mr. Sheehy, a wealthy businessman and military veteran, could face a primary challenge from Representative Matt Rosendale, who lost to Mr. Tester in 2018 and said last month that Montanans should decide the race, “not Mitch McConnell and the D.C. cartel.”But in Pennsylvania, Mr. McCormick appears to have assuaged concerns from the right. He announced endorsements from all eight Pennsylvania Republicans in Congress. One of his competitors in the Senate primary race last year, Kathy Barnette, is working for Vivek Ramaswamy’s 2024 presidential bid.And crucially, Doug Mastriano, a far-right state senator who was viewed as a potential Senate candidate from the Trumpian wing of the party, has declined to run.Mr. Mastriano appeared on the verge of endorsing Mr. McCormick after meeting with him and his wife, Dina Powell, a former Goldman Sachs executive who served in the Bush and Trump administrations. During their meeting, the two men found common ground over their military service, according to two McCormick allies familiar with the conversation.“It’s time to unify,” Mr. Mastriano, who lost the governor’s race by 15 percentage points last year, said on Monday in an interview with Real America’s Voice, a conservative news outlet. “If he’s our nominee, I’m backing him.”Doug Mastriano, a far-right state senator who was viewed as a potential Senate candidate from the Trumpian wing of the party, has suggested that he would support Mr. McCormick’s candidacy.Hannah Beier for The New York TimesStill, Mr. McCormick’s ability to avoid a primary — at least so far — does not necessarily signal a new willingness by Republicans to put aside their differences.Instead, the lack of a serious contender may stem from Mr. McCormick’s continued politicking in Pennsylvania, and a reluctance from others to take on the enormous challenge of unseating an incumbent.Pennsylvania Democrats argue that President Biden’s unpopularity will not be as much of a problem in their state. Mr. Biden has already traveled to Pennsylvania at least nine times this year, and Mr. Casey has greeted him at several of those stops. Mr. Casey helped John Fetterman and Josh Shapiro campaign in their successful bids for Senate and governor last year, and aides to both men said they were eager to return the favor.The race last year to replace the retiring Senator Patrick J. Toomey ended up costing more than $360 million, according to OpenSecrets, a nonpartisan group. Similar amounts could be spent in 2024, when Pennsylvania — unlike Montana and West Virginia — will double as a top battleground in the presidential race.Mr. McCormick will be able to bring his own financial firepower to the race: He earned a salary of more than $22 million at his most recent job and listed assets worth between $116 million and $290 million on his candidate financial disclosure last year.His deep pockets were on display on Thursday in Pittsburgh, where his announcement on the fifth floor of the Heinz History Center — an event space overlooking the Allegheny River — included passed appetizers of chicken tacos, pierogies and kielbasa and bacon-wrapped sweet potatoes, a buffet of Tuscan antipasto and “farmers crudités,” a cocktail bar and a live band that played Taylor Swift, Van Morrison and other rock covers.Mr. McCormick addressed his audience of about 200 people from a stage framed by giant U.S. flag and behind a lectern adorned with a placard with only his first name: Dave.“America is in decline — economically, militarily, spiritually — you see it, you know it, you feel it,” Mr. McCormick said. “I’m here to tell you tonight it doesn’t have to be that way. With your help, with your support, with your leadership, we can have a much brighter future ahead.”Still, many Republicans contend that Pennsylvania is not among the three states where the party has the best chance to win back a majority that has eluded them since 2021. Republicans’ clearest opportunities to flip seats appear to be in Montana, Ohio and West Virginia, all of which Donald J. Trump easily won in 2020.But Mr. McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, raised eyebrows this year when he added Pennsylvania to his list of top priorities. Some Republicans involved in efforts to recruit Senate candidates have privately wondered whether Mr. McConnell’s statement was meant to help persuade Mr. McCormick to enter the race.“Dave has the guts — and the money — to run,” said Doug McLinko, a county commissioner in Bradford County who describes himself as a “hard-core Republican on ballot security” and a Trump loyalist.Mr. McLinko did not support Mr. McCormick in the 2022 race but said he would next year because he had gotten to know the businessman.Even after losing the primary last year, Mr. McCormick helped Pennsylvania Republicans campaign and raise money for the general election, and he has since continued those efforts.His political committee, Pennsylvania Rising, has contributed more than $100,000 to conservative candidates and causes since last year. Multiple Republicans described Mr. McCormick as a ubiquitous presence at state party events since the 2022 election.Jackie Kulback, the Republican chairwoman in Cambria County, said she was backing Mr. McCormick partly because her choice last year, Jeff Bartos, was not running, but also because she had been impressed by Mr. McCormick when he spoke at a recent event about his private-sector experience in China.“I like to win and try to get behind winners,” Ms. Kulback said. “Not many have Dave McCormick’s résumé, and I just feel like he’s the whole package.”Mr. Trump, who backed Dr. Oz last year, attacked Mr. McCormick over that same experience in China during the primary race and derided him as a globalist, which helped sink Mr. McCormick’s campaign.The former president has not endorsed anyone in the Pennsylvania race this time. A campaign spokesman declined to comment.Mr. McCormick lost the primary by fewer than 1,000 votes. He earned good will among some Pennsylvania Republicans by not pressing for a recount, said Sam DeMarco, the Allegheny County Republican chairman. Mr. DeMarco helped collect signatures from more than half of the state party’s 67 county chairs supporting Mr. McCormick’s candidacy.“I’m tired of losing,” Mr. DeMarco said. “David is someone who can appeal to both sides of the party.”Mr. McCormick was largely unknown in Pennsylvania political circles before last year, partly because he spent much of his adult life outside the state. Democrats are already attacking him over his residency, a strategy that helped torpedo Dr. Oz.Last year, Mr. McCormick lost the Senate primary race to Dr. Mehmet Oz by fewer than 1,000 votes. He earned good will among some Pennsylvania Republicans by not pressing for a recount.Matt Rourke/Associated PressOn Thursday, the Pennsylvania Democratic Party described Mr. McCormick in a news release as a “Wall Street mega-millionaire who is lying about living in Pennsylvania.”Pennsylvania Democrats also criticized Mr. McCormick on Wednesday for deleting from his YouTube page a 2022 interview in which he said the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade was a “huge step forward and a huge victory for the protection of life.”“He does not reside in Pennsylvania and has built his career as a Wall Street executive, advocating for policies that support job outsourcing and tax cuts primarily benefiting himself and his Wall Street associates,” said Sharif Street, a state senator and chairman of the Pennsylvania Democratic Party.But McCormick’s allies insist he is ready to beat back residency questions and to appeal to suburban women — and other voters turned off by Mr. Trump’s brand of politics — by leaning on his private-sector experience and his personal background.“I’m Pennsylvania First,” Mr. McCormick said Thursday, adopting Mr. Trump’s “America First” slogan.Mr. McCormick grew up in Bloomsburg, Pa., about an hour southwest of Scranton, Mr. Biden’s birthplace. He graduated from West Point, served five years in the Army — where he was awarded a Bronze Star for his service in the Persian Gulf war of 1991 — and earned a Ph.D. in international relations at Princeton.He returned to Pennsylvania and joined FreeMarkets, a Pittsburgh-based internet auction company. After the company was sold in 2004, Mr. McCormick held multiple roles in the Bush administration.In 2009, Mr. McCormick moved to the Northeast and joined Bridgewater Associates, a hedge fund in Westport, Conn., that manages $150 billion in assets. After becoming chief executive in 2017, he resigned in 2022 and turned his attention to a Senate campaign.As much as Mr. McCormick may try to focus on issues, he will also have to answer questions about Mr. Trump and seek to satisfy the competing factions inside his own party.“If anyone is drawing the conclusion that a clear path for McCormick is because fractures are gone and we’re all singing ‘Kumbaya,’ they’re sadly mistaken,” said Sam Faddis, who leads a coalition of right-wing activist groups in the state, adding that he liked Mr. McCormick but remained on the fence about his candidacy.Mr. Faddis added, “The division between the grass roots and the establishment is massive in Pennsylvania, and massive nationwide.” More

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      Sweep in 3 Special Elections Gives Democrats Control of Pennsylvania House

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      Three Democratic victories flipped the House for the first time in a dozen years by a single seat in the battleground state.Democrats swept three special elections in solidly blue House districts in western Pennsylvania on Tuesday, according to The Associated Press, putting the party in the majority by a single seat and breaking a Republican legislative monopoly that has recently focused on election restrictions and anti-abortion bills.All three races were in Allegheny County, which includes Pittsburgh and is the state’s No. 2 county by population, after Philadelphia.Control of the Pennsylvania House had been shrouded by uncertainty since the midterms in November, grinding legislative business to a halt while the parties clashed over ground rules and the timing of the special elections.Democrats had appeared to flip the chamber in the fall for the first time in a dozen years, but one lawmaker’s death and the election of two others to higher offices delayed the final outcome.The party’s majority — 102 seats to 101 seats — brings clarity to the last unresolved legislative races in a fiercely contested state.The Spread of Misinformation and FalsehoodsDeepfake Rules: In most of the world, the authorities can’t do much about deepfakes, as few laws exist to regulate the technology. China hopes to be the exception.Lessons for a New Generation: Finland is testing new ways to teach students about propaganda. Here’s what other countries can learn from its success.Covid Myths: Experts say the spread of coronavirus misinformation — particularly on far-right platforms like Gab — is likely to be a lasting legacy of the pandemic. And there are no easy solutionsA ‘War for Talent’: Seeing misinformation as a possibly expensive liability, several companies are angling to hire former Twitter employees with the expertise to keep it in check. In the 32nd District, Joe McAndrew, a former executive director of the Allegheny County Democratic Committee, defeated Clayton Walker, a Republican pastor. The seat had been held by Tony DeLuca, a Democrat who was the longest-serving member of the Pennsylvania House before his death in October from lymphoma. Still, Mr. DeLuca was overwhelmingly re-elected in the heavily Democratic district.In the 34th District, Abigail Salisbury, a Democratic lawyer, prevailed against Robert Pagane, a Republican security guard and former police officer. Ms. Salisbury will fill the seat of Summer Lee, a Democrat who in November became the first Black woman elected to Congress from Pennsylvania. Last year, Ms. Salisbury had previously lost to Ms. Lee in a Democratic primary for the legislature..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.In the 35th District, Matt Gergely, a Democrat who is the chief revenue officer of McKeesport, Pa., defeated Don Nevills, a Republican who operates a tattoo shop and ran unsuccessfully for the seat in November. Austin Davis, a Democrat who previously represented the district, was elected as lieutenant governor in the fall.The power shift dealt another blow to Republicans coming off the midterms, when the party failed to meet heightened expectations in Pennsylvania and nationally that were generated by economic turmoil and President Biden’s lackluster job approval ratings.In November, Pennsylvania voters consistently rejected Republicans in marquee races featuring candidates endorsed by former President Donald J. Trump, who espoused false claims about fraud in the 2020 election.Democrats flipped a U.S. Senate seat and held onto the governor’s office when Josh Shapiro, who was previously Pennsylvania’s attorney general, defeated Doug Mastriano, a Republican state senator and an election denier, in an open-seat race.After losing control of the House, Republicans will be unable to override a veto by the governor.In a potential end-run around the governor, G.O.P. lawmakers have resorted to trying to amend the state Constitution in order to pass a voter ID bill. The complex amendment process, which ultimately requires putting the question to voters, is the subject of pending litigation.But both chambers of the General Assembly need to pass the bill this session in order to place it on the ballot.First-time voters and those applying for absentee ballots are currently required to present identification in Pennsylvania, but Republicans want to expand the requirement to all voters in every election and have proposed issuing voter ID cards. Critics say the proposal would make it harder to vote and could be a privacy risk.Mr. Shapiro has not ruled out compromising with Republicans on some voting rules, but has said that he would not support any proposal that hinders voting.Republicans, now likely to be thwarted legislatively, have also sought to use the constitutional amendment process to place new restrictions on abortion in Pennsylvania. More

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      Trump Won’t Commit to Backing the G.O.P. Nominee in 2024

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      The former president faces several potential Republican challengers in his bid for the White House.  Donald J. Trump refused to say he would support the next Republican presidential nominee if it was not him, exposing a potential quagmire along the party’s path toward reclaiming the White House in 2024 and showcasing, once again, the former president’s transactional spin on political loyalty.In a radio interview on Thursday, the conservative commentator Hugh Hewitt asked Mr. Trump if he would support “whoever” wins the party’s nomination next year. Mr. Trump announced his third presidential campaign in November and faces a number of potential Republican challengers.“It would depend,” Mr. Trump said, adding, “It would have to depend on who the nominee was.”The hesitation from Mr. Trump differed from many of the Republican Party’s top officials and most prominent activists. Several of Mr. Trump’s critics inside the party, including Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader, have repeatedly said they planned to back the G.O.P. nominee, even if that person is not their top choice.William P. Barr, who served as attorney general during the Trump administration, called Mr. Trump’s tactics “extortion” in an interview last August with Bari Weiss, a political writer and commentator. “What other great leader has done this? Telling the party, ‘If it’s not me, I’m going to ruin your election chances by telling my base to sit home. And I’ll sabotage whoever you nominate other than me.’ It shows what he’s all about,” Mr. Barr said. “He’s all about himself.”Minutes before Mr. Trump’s interview on Thursday, Larry Hogan, a Republican who is the former Maryland governor and a consistent Trump antagonist, said on the same radio program that he would back the Republican nominee.The Run-Up to the 2024 ElectionThe jockeying for the next presidential race is already underway.G.O.P. Field: Nikki Haley is expected to join the contest for the Republican Party’s nomination soon, but other contenders are taking a wait-and-see approach before challenging former President Donald J. Trump.Trump’s Slow Start: In the first weeks of his third presidential campaign, Mr. Trump notched a less-than-stellar fund-raising haul, yet another signal that his hold on some conservatives may be loosening.Democrats’ Primary Calendar: A plan spearheaded by President Biden could lead to a major overhaul of the party’s primary process by making South Carolina — instead of Iowa — the first nominating state.A Looming Issue: As Mr. Biden sharpens his economic message ahead of a likely re-election bid, the case over his handling of classified documents has thrust him into an uncomfortable position.“I imagine that will be the case,” Mr. Hogan said when asked if he would “support whoever the nominee of the Republican Party is in 2024.”Mr. Hewitt pressed the former governor on whether he would even back Mr. Trump’s nomination.“I just don’t think he’s going to be the nominee, but I’ll support the nominee,” Mr. Hogan said.The frequent explanation for partisan loyalty like Mr. Hogan’s is that winning a national election in a country increasingly divided between Republicans and Democrats is nearly impossible without a completely unified party. In 2020, for example, about 9 percent of Republicans voted for someone other than Mr. Trump, compared with just 3 percent of Democrats who voted for someone other than their nominee, Joseph R. Biden Jr., according to AP VoteCast, a study of the 2020 electorate conducted for The Associated Press by NORC at the University of Chicago.This week, a poll from The Bulwark, a conservative anti-Trump website, found that most Republicans wanted someone other than Mr. Trump to be the party’s next presidential nominee. But that same poll showed that 28 percent of Republican voters would be willing to back Mr. Trump in an independent bid.An independent campaign from Mr. Trump would splinter the Republican base and all but ensure another four years for Democrats in the White House. Mr. Trump, who has been registered in the past as a Democrat and a Republican, considered running for the Reform Party’s presidential nomination in 2000.Mr. Trump has long viewed politics through a personal lens, equating disagreements with his policies and tactics to a lack of allegiance to conservatism as a whole. One of the former president’s favored put-downs of opponents inside his party is to dismiss them as “RINOs,” or Republicans in name only.Even loyalty to Mr. Trump and his personal brand of Republicanism has often not been enough to avoid being crushed by the former president’s dominating style of politics.In primaries last year, Mr. Trump refused to back campaigns for numerous longtime supporters and former officials in his administration — including Lou Barletta’s campaign for governor of Pennsylvania — over candidates who appeared more likely to win.Mr. Barletta, a former congressman, was one of Mr. Trump’s earliest supporters in Congress in 2016, but the former president instead endorsed State Senator Doug Mastriano. Mr. Mastriano was leading in the primary polls but lost in the general election to the Democrat, Josh Shapiro, by double digits.In the 2016 race, Mr. Trump was also initially unwilling to say whether he would back the eventual Republican nominee, a source of deep alarm to party leaders and officials. During a Republican debate in August 2015, Mr. Trump was the only one of 10 candidates onstage who refused to pledge support to the eventual nominee — and the only one not to rule out a third-party bid.At the time, Mr. Trump said his decision would depend on how the Republican Party treated him.A month later, he declared he was being treated fairly by the party, and signed a pledge to support the eventual nominee during a private meeting at his Trump Tower office with Reince Priebus, who, at the time, was chairman of the Republican National Committee.Mr. Trump then hosted a news conference in the lobby of Trump Tower. Mr. Priebus did not attend, despite Mr. Trump’s insistence.Maggie Haberman More

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      Can Ron DeSantis Avoid Meeting the Press?

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      The Florida governor easily won re-election despite little engagement with mainstream news outlets, another sign of partisan division ahead of the 2024 presidential race.Assigned to cover the re-election campaign of Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, Miles Cohen, a young ABC News reporter, found himself stymied. The governor would not grant him an interview. Aides barred him from some campaign events and interrupted his conversations with supporters.When Mr. Cohen was finally able to ask a question about the governor’s handling of Hurricane Ian, Mr. DeSantis shouted him down — “Stop, stop, stop” — and scolded the media for “trying to cast aspersions.” The DeSantis campaign then taunted Mr. Cohen on Twitter, prompting a torrent of online vitriol.So on election night, Mr. Cohen decamped to a friendlier environment for the news media: Mar-a-Lago, where former President Donald J. Trump greeted reporters by name. “He came up to us, asked how the sandwiches were and took 20 questions,” Mr. Cohen recalled.Mr. Trump, who heckled the “fake news” in his speech that evening, elevated media-bashing into a high art for Republicans. But ahead of the next presidential race, potential candidates like Mr. DeSantis are taking a more radical approach: not just attacking nonpartisan news outlets, but ignoring them altogether.Although he courted right-wing podcasters and conservative Fox News hosts, Mr. DeSantis did not grant an extensive interview to a national nonpartisan news organization during his 2022 re-election bid — and he coasted to victory, with Rupert Murdoch’s media empire now promoting him as a 2024 contender.Assigned to cover the re-election campaign of Mr. DeSantis, Miles Cohen, a young ABC News reporter, found himself stymied.Karsten Moran for The New York TimesHis success is an ominous sign for the usual rules of engagement between politicians and the press as another nationwide election looms. Presidential candidates typically endure media scrutiny in exchange for the megaphone and influence of mainstream outlets. But in an intensely partisan, choose-your-own-news era, the traditional calculus may have shifted.“The old way of looking at it is: ‘I have to do every media hit that I possibly can, from as broad a political spectrum as I can, to reach as many people as possible,’” said Nick Iarossi, a longtime DeSantis supporter and a lobbyist in Tallahassee. “The new way of looking at it is: ‘I really don’t need to do that anymore. I can control how I want to message to voters through the mediums I choose.’”In 2022, Mr. DeSantis was not alone. Doug Mastriano, the Republican who ran for governor in Pennsylvania, engaged almost entirely with conservative media outlets. (Unlike Mr. DeSantis, Mr. Mastriano lost badly.) In Maryland and Wisconsin, reporters covering the Republican candidates for governor were often given no notice for some events, resorting to Eventbrite pages and social media to find a candidate’s whereabouts. On a national level, the Republican Party announced last year that it was boycotting the Commission on Presidential Debates, the nonpartisan group that has organized general election debates since 1988.“We fully expect candidates will be rewriting the traditional rules of access and how they interact with journalists,” said Rick Klein, who is preparing to cover the 2024 race as political director at ABC News.Gov. Ron DeSantis and His AdministrationReshaping Florida: Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, has turned the swing state into a right-wing laboratory by leaning into cultural battles.2024 Speculation: Mr. DeSantis opened his second term as Florida’s governor with a speech that subtly signaled his long-rumored ambitions for the White House.Latino Evangelicals: The governor has courted Hispanic evangelical Christians assiduously as his national profile has risen. They could be a decisive constituency in a possible showdown with former President Donald J. Trump in 2024.A Democrat’s View: Jared Moskowitz worked closely with Mr. DeSantis as his emergency management czar. Now, he’s joining Congress positioning himself as a centrist.Could a presidential candidate realistically avoid the mainstream media entirely? “I don’t think it’s been done before,” Mr. Klein said. “But I think the last couple of years in politics has taught us there’s lots of rules that get broken.”Mr. DeSantis’s strategy would face its biggest test if he pursued a presidential bid, a decision he has so far demurred on.In Florida, Mr. DeSantis occasionally spoke with local TV affiliates and entertained shouted-out questions from the state’s press corps. But a national contest would require him to introduce himself to a broader audience, and while a primary race would focus on Republican voters, it is often independents and centrists who decide the fine margins of the Electoral College. Although partisan podcasts and niche news sites are increasingly popular, few outlets can match the reach of traditional broadcast and cable networks.“You can’t just talk to the friendly press and run TV ads and expect to win a nomination,” said Alex Conant, a partner at the consulting firm Firehouse Strategies who served as communications director to Senator Marco Rubio of Florida.“If you’re going to get elected president, you have to talk to people who have never watched Fox News,” said Mr. Conant, who believes the Republican Party’s underwhelming performance in the 2022 midterms was partly due to an overreliance on speaking only to its base.Representatives of Mr. DeSantis did not return a request for comment.Mr. Trump pioneered some of these aggressive tactics, barring journalists from a number of publications, including BuzzFeed News and The Washington Post, from attending some rallies in his 2016 campaign, and pulling out of a planned general-election debate in October 2020. His administration revoked a CNN reporter’s press pass and barred disfavored journalists from some public events; his former chief strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, declared the media as “the opposition party.”Still, Mr. Trump remained an enthusiastic participant in the “boys on the bus” tradition of campaign reporting that dates back decades, where political journalists crisscross the country in proximity to the candidates they cover.These so-called embed reporters often became the experts on America’s future leaders, granting readers and viewers a front-row seat. Arguably, candidates benefited, too: Although they had to cope with a dedicated press corps, the scrutiny offered preparation for the slings and arrows of holding national office, not to mention free advertising to constituents.A White House staff member reached for the microphone of CNN’s Jim Acosta as he questioned President Donald J. Trump at a news conference in November 2018.Jonathan Ernst/ReutersMr. DeSantis, a Yale and Harvard graduate who often assails what he calls the “Acela media,” has spent years working to upend those assumptions.Florida reporters have complained about a lack of access to Mr. DeSantis since he was elected governor in 2018, a victory fueled in part by dozens of appearances on Fox News. His anti-media hostility intensified during the pandemic, when he faced criticism for reopening Florida early; in March 2020, a staff writer for The Miami Herald was barred from a news conference about the virus.In 2021, he held a lengthy news conference in April denying a claim by “60 Minutes” that he improperly rewarded a campaign donor; the “60 Minutes” segment received some pushback from press critics. The next month, the governor blocked every outlet except Fox News from attending a signing ceremony for a state law, prompting one local TV reporter to complain that Floridians “had their eyes and ears in that room cut off.”By the summer, many news outlets were prohibited from attending a gathering of Florida Republicans, while conservative writers and podcasters were granted access. “We in the state of Florida are not going to allow legacy media outlets to be involved in our primaries,” Mr. DeSantis told a cheering crowd. His communications director, Lindsey Curnutte, later mocked reporters in a Twitter post aimed at “fake news journalists,” asking, “How’s the view from outside security?”Mr. DeSantis has integrated this messaging into his campaign materials. In one recent ad, he donned aviator sunglasses and a flight uniform to pose as the “Top Gov,” intent on “dogfighting” the “corporate media.”A top DeSantis communications aide, Christina Pushaw, has articulated the governor’s view of the news media in harsh terms. “They hate you, they hate us, they hate everything that we stand for, and I believe they hate this country,” she said in a speech in September, referring to the media.Mr. DeSantis in a promotional video where he talks about “taking on the corporate media.”Ron DeSantisIn 2021, Ms. Pushaw’s Twitter account was suspended after she criticized a report by The Associated Press and urged her followers to “drag them.” Ms. Pushaw, then serving as the governor’s press secretary, wrote that she would put the A.P. reporter “on blast” if he did not modify the story; the reporter later received online threats.The A.P. complained about “a direct effort to activate an online mob to attack a journalist for doing his job.” Ms. Pushaw responded that “drag them” was a slang term and did not amount to inciting a violent threat.The incident prompted an outcry. “As someone who believes in the role of press in an open society, I found it unbelievable, not only what she was allowed to do, but encouraged to do,” said Barbara Petersen, a longtime First Amendment advocate who runs the Florida Center for Government Accountability. “I find it very disturbing, frankly, that this man, who is our governor, won’t talk to the people whose job it is to keep us informed.”In December, the news outlet Semafor reported on Mr. DeSantis’s preference for local right-wing news outlets. The governor’s team pushed back, comparing reporters to “Democrat activists,” and high-profile conservatives offered encouragement.“In an environment where corporate media are just straight up anti-G.O.P. propagandists — and extremely proud of it — why is Ron DeSantis the only person taking it seriously?” wrote Mollie Hemingway, editor of The Federalist.Whether Mr. DeSantis can keep up his approach to media remains unclear. Mr. Trump may have mastered Twitter, but it was his ubiquity on big outlets like CNN and MSNBC that solidified his electoral appeal.Even an anti-media message, it turns out, may need the media’s help.“Going back to 2016, Trump was at his most effective when he was anti-media but would nevertheless talk to anybody,” said Mr. Conant, the former Rubio aide. “He was getting his message out on CNN and MSNBC every day, even though part of his message was that the media is terrible.”Patricia Mazzei More

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      How the Worst Fears for Democracy Were Averted in 2022

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      A precariously narrow but consequential slice of the electorate broke with its own voting history to reject openly extremist Republican candidates — at least partly out of concern for the health of the political system.Not long ago, Joe Mohler would have seemed an unlikely person to help bury the political legacy of Donald J. Trump.Mr. Mohler, a 24-year-old Republican committeeman and law student in Lancaster Township, Pa., voted for Mr. Trump in 2016. He voted for him again in 2020 — but this time with some misgivings. And when Mr. Trump began spouting lies and conspiracy theories about his 2020 loss, Mr. Mohler, who grew up in a solidly conservative area of southeastern Pennsylvania, was troubled to hear many people he knew repeat them.Last January, after county Republican leaders aligned with a group known for spreading misinformation about the 2020 election and Covid-19 vaccines, Mr. Mohler spoke out against them — a move that he said cost him his post as chairman of the township G.O.P. committee.“I just realized how much of a sham the whole movement was,” he said. “The moment the veil is pulled from your face, you realize how ugly the face is that you are looking at.”Mr. Mohler was part of a precariously narrow but consequential slice of the electorate that went against its own voting history this year in order to reject Republican candidates who sought control over elections, at least in part out of concern for the health of the political system and the future of democracy.After deciding that preserving the integrity of elections was his single most important issue in 2022, he voted last month for the party’s nominee for Senate, Mehmet Oz, who hedged carefully on the question of who won the 2020 election but eventually said he would have voted to certify Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory had he been in office. But in the governor’s race, Mr. Mohler decided he could not vote for Doug Mastriano, the Republican candidate, who as a state senator was central to efforts to overturn Pennsylvania’s 2020 election results. Mr. Mastriano had pledged to decertify voting machines in counties where he suspected the results were fraudulent and to appoint as secretary of the commonwealth, the office overseeing elections in Pennsylvania, someone who shared his views.“It was just so reprehensible,” Mr. Mohler said. “I didn’t want anybody like that in the governor’s office.”Doug Mastriano, a leader in the movement to investigate and overturn the 2020 election, was defeated in the Pennsylvania governor’s race.Mark Makela for The New York TimesThe decisions of voters like Mr. Mohler, discernible in surveys and voiced in interviews, did not necessarily lay to rest concerns about the ability of the election system to withstand the new pressures unleashed upon it by Mr. Trump. But they did suggest a possible ceiling on the appeal of extreme partisanship — one that prevented, in this cycle, the worst fears for the health of democracy from being realized. Mr. Mastriano lost by nearly 15 percentage points to the Democratic candidate, Josh Shapiro — part of a midterm election that saw voters reject every election denier running to oversee elections in a battleground state. In Arizona, Michigan and Nevada, Republican primary voters nominated candidates campaigning on Mr. Trump’s election lies for secretary of state, the office that in 40 states oversees the election system. In all three, those candidates lost. The rout eased the immediate concern that strident partisans who embraced conspiracy theories about hacked voting machines, foreign meddling and smuggled ballots might soon be empowered to wreak havoc on election systems.The election results suggest that a focus on Mr. Trump’s election lies did not merely galvanize Democrats but also alienated Republicans and independents. Final turnout figures show registered Republicans cast more ballots than registered Democrats in Arizona and Nevada, but election-denying candidates nevertheless lost important races in each of those states.Republican candidates in statewide contests who embraced Mr. Trump’s election lies also significantly underperformed compared with Republicans who did not. This was true even in districts that voted overwhelmingly for Mr. Trump in 2020, suggesting that the defection of ticket-splitters like Mr. Mohler likely played a role.In a survey of voters in five battleground states conducted by the research firm Citizen Data for the advocacy group Protect Democracy, a third who cast ballots for a mix of Democrats and Republicans in November cited a concern that G.O.P. candidates held views or promoted policies “that are dangerous to democracy.” The Aftermath of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsCard 1 of 6A moment of reflection. More

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      Obama Urges Voters Not to Overlook Threats to Democracy

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      PHILADELPHIA — Former President Barack Obama on Saturday issued a stark warning about threats to American democracy, even as he acknowledged that many voters were consumed by a range of other urgent issues in the final stretch of the midterm campaign.“I understand that democracy might not seem like a top priority right now, especially when you’re worried about paying the bills,” Mr. Obama said at a get-out-the-vote rally in Philadelphia, not far from the Liberty Bell. “But when true democracy goes away, we’ve seen throughout history, we’ve seen around the world, when true democracy goes away, people get hurt. It has real consequences.”Mr. Obama’s comments came as he and President Biden rallied with Democratic candidates for governor and senator in the evenly divided state of Pennsylvania, stressing the high stakes of the elections to a crowd gathered at Temple University and lacing into the Republicans on the ballot.They appeared together to support Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, the nominee for Senate, and Josh Shapiro, the state attorney general and nominee for governor.Mr. Fetterman is in a highly competitive race against Dr. Mehmet Oz, the celebrity physician and Republican nominee. Mr. Shapiro has strongly outpolled his rival, Doug Mastriano, the far-right state senator.Mr. Mastriano chartered buses to the Jan. 6, 2021, rally that led to the attack on the Capitol, and Mr. Obama noted associations between the Oz campaign and Jan. 6.“This is not an abstraction,” Mr. Obama warned. “Governments start telling you what books you can read and which ones you can’t. Dissidents start getting locked up. Reporters start getting locked up if they’re not toeing the party line. Corruption reigns because there’s no accountability.”Invoking the generations of Americans who “fought and died for our democracy,” and the suffragists, civil rights activists and labor advocates, Mr. Obama said: “They understood that when democracy withers, it’s hard to restore. You can’t take it for granted. You have to work for it. You have to nurture it. You have to fight for it.”The good news, he told the audience, is “you get to make a difference, as long as you turn out to vote.”Over the growing roar of the crowd, he continued: “You can fight for it as long as you turn out to vote. You can bolster and strengthen our democracy as long as you get out there and do what needs to be done.” More

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      How the Races for Governor Could Determine Who Controls the Senate

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      Major midterm battlegrounds have both contests on the ticket, and how voters divvy up their picks could have significant consequences.WASHINGTON — John Fetterman, the Democratic Senate candidate in Pennsylvania, wants voters to think of his G.O.P. rival and the Republican running for governor in the Keystone State as one and the same.“They are MOZtriano,” Mr. Fetterman says in a You Tube campaign video, melding the names of Mehmet Oz, his opponent, and Doug Mastriano, the far-right Republican candidate for governor whose campaign is sputtering, anointing them the state’s newest “power couple.”Supporters of Mr. Oz, on the other hand, are working to emphasize differences between Mr. Fetterman, the current progressive lieutenant governor with whom he is in a tight race, and Josh Shapiro, the more centrist Democratic attorney general and the heavy favorite to win the governorship.“Fetterman is way more radical than Shapiro,” says a woman in a new ad from American Crossroads, a Republican political action committee, which compares Mr. Fetterman’s record on the treatment of criminals unfavorably with that of Mr. Shapiro. The names of their Republican opponents don’t even come up.The dueling approaches in one of the nation’s marquee Senate races illustrate how, as midterm congressional races have tightened, contests at the top of the ticket are looming as a potentially decisive factor in the outcomes. Republicans and Democrats alike are trying to game out the crosscurrents, working to position their candidates either to ride the wave of a favored gubernatorial candidate or to distance themselves to avoid being pulled under by the drag of a fellow party member.In some of the chief battlegrounds this year — Pennsylvania, Georgia, Ohio, Arizona, Wisconsin, Nevada, Colorado and New Hampshire, among others — voters will choose both a governor and a senator. How they divide their votes between those two could determine control of the Senate and show whether ticket splitting, which has been on the decline for decades in polarized America, has new life.“There is considerable overlap between the governor’s races and the Senate battlegrounds,” said Nathan Gonzales, the editor and publisher of the nonpartisan newsletter Inside Elections.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: The debate performance by Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, who is still recovering from a stroke, has thrust questions of health to the center of the pivotal race and raised Democratic anxieties.G.O.P. Inflation Plans: Republicans are riding a wave of anger over inflation as they seek to recapture Congress, but few economists expect their proposals to bring down rising prices.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.But how the races intersect varies.In some states, including Pennsylvania, the candidate for governor of one party is comfortably ahead of their opponent, while the Senate race is much closer. In others, the polling shows the contests for both offices is very close.Georgia is a third category altogether. The Republican candidate for governor, Brian Kemp, is running ahead of Democrat Stacey Abrams. But Senator Raphael Warnock, the Democratic incumbent, has consistently but narrowly led his Republican challenger Herschel Walker. Ms. Abrams’s difficulties could weigh down Mr. Warnock’s chances in that race, unless voters split their ballots, choosing the Republican for governor and the Democrat for Senate.Then there are spots like New Hampshire, where voters appear to be regarding the two races as entirely separate. Gov. Chris Sununu, a popular Republican, is far ahead in the polls and expected to romp to victory over state Senator Tom Sherman, the Democrat. Yet Senator Maggie Hassan, the Democratic incumbent, is also favored over Republican Donald Bolduc, a far-right candidate who prevailed in the primary after Mr. Sununu declined to jump into the contest, where he would likely have been favored.Gov. Chris Sununu of New Hampshire is far ahead in his re-election bid. He declined to run for the Senate. Jon Cherry/Getty Images For ConcordiaCampaign officials say the potential New Hampshire outcome is not all that confounding given the state’s voting traditions and the effort candidates in both parties have put into showing that they are not tied down by party.“It is extremely common here,” said Kevin Donohoe, a spokesman for Ms. Hassan, of voters splitting their ticket between the two parties. “If you want to win here, you have to have an independent record and you have to have an independent profile, and that is what voters expect.”.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.In Ohio, Gov. Mike DeWine, the Republican incumbent, holds a double-digit lead in his race against former Dayton mayor Nan Whaley. But Representative Tim Ryan, the Democratic Senate contender, is running neck-and-neck with J.D. Vance, the Republican candidate and author endorsed by former President Donald J. Trump.A recent poll by the Siena College Research Institute found that 20 percent of Ohio voters who said they were pulling the lever for Mr. DeWine said they also intended to vote for Mr. Ryan, a showing that could give him a shot in a state that was expected to choose another Republican to replace retiring Senator Rob Portman.The poll provided an opening for Mr. Ryan and his allies. NBC News reported that WelcomePAC, a Democratic group backing Mr. Ryan, took out newspaper ads asking voters, “Why are 1 in 5 Republican voters saying no to J.D. Vance?” and hitting Mr. Vance for his ties to Mr. Trump.But it is one thing to express an intent to split a ticket and another to do it. Voters can change their minds on Election Day based on myriad factors, including a desire to show party loyalty, the importance placed on each individual race and even the format of the ballot.“Are these tickets really going to split?” asked Don Levy, the director of the Siena College poll. “It is one thing in a poll to say, ‘Yeah, Tim Ryan, I like him and I’m not so sure about this J.D. Vance guy.’ But when you cast your ballot, then some people are going to pause and vote the team.”Given Mr. DeWine’s strength, a failure of potential ticket splitters to follow through could be very damaging to Mr. Ryan’s chances of winning.That has been the case in recent presidential election cycles, as American politics has become more tribal and voters have grown more likely to stay in their partisan lanes. In 2016, for the first time, every state with a Senate election backed both a senator and a president of the same party. It was not much different in 2020, with only Maine deviating.But research by the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia found that midterm elections still produce more ticket-splitting when the White House is not up for grabs. In 2018, six states split their results between governor and senator, with five of them of backing a Republican governor and a Democratic senator. The report by J. Miles Coleman, an editor at the center, found that six states also delivered mixed results in 2014 and five in 2010.“If 2022 falls in line with the three most recent midterms, we can still expect five or six split-ticket cases,” Mr. Coleman wrote.Democrats hope Pennsylvania, which is crucial to determining control of the Senate, is not one of them, though Republicans say they are finding evidence of Shapiro-Oz voters who could decide the outcome.“Republican polling shows a substantial number of Shapiro voters actually favor Dr. Oz for the Senate based on the hot button issues of crime and the economy,” said John Ashbrook, a Republican strategist working on Senate campaigns and a former aide to Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader.Other analysts say a blowout win by Mr. Shapiro would seem to accrue to the benefit of Mr. Fetterman. The Fetterman campaign sees a healthy synergy between the two candidates and the two are expected to appear together as the campaign season draws to a close.“Josh Shapiro and John Fetterman are very different types of candidates,” said Rebecca Katz, senior adviser to Mr. Fetterman. “But together they appeal to a broad swath of Pennsylvania voters and offer a very strong contrast to extreme, Trump-backed candidates like Dr. Oz and Doug Mastriano.” More

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      In a Race Rife With Antisemitism Concerns, Mastriano Adviser Calls Shapiro ‘At Best a Secular Jew’

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      A senior adviser to Doug Mastriano, the Republican nominee for governor in Pennsylvania, on Friday seemed to openly question the faith of Mr. Mastriano’s Democratic opponent, Josh Shapiro, who is Jewish, in a contest that has been shaped more by concerns over antisemitism than perhaps any other major race in the country.“Josh Shapiro is at best a secular Jew in the same way Joe Biden is a secular Catholic,” Jenna Ellis, a former lawyer for the Trump campaign who worked to overturn the 2020 election, wrote on Twitter, commenting on a headline that noted Mr. Shapiro’s faith. Ms. Ellis branded the two Democrats as “extremists,” pointing to gender surgery for minors and distorting their positions on abortion rights.“Doug Mastriano is for wholesome family values and freedom,” wrote Ms. Ellis, who is not Jewish.Mr. Shapiro, 49, the state’s attorney general, is an observant Jew whose faith is a central part of his public identity. He keeps kosher, prioritizes Sabbath dinner with his family and is a Jewish day school alum. “These attacks on Attorney General Shapiro and on all people of faith are another reminder of the stakes of this race,” said Manuel Bonder, a spokesman for the Shapiro campaign. “Our campaign is staying focused on bringing people together to defeat Mastriano’s dangerous extremism.”Mr. Mastriano, a far-right Republican who promotes Christian power and disdains the separation of church and state, has alarmed a broad swath of Pennsylvania’s Jewish community with his rhetoric and his associations.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.What Young Voters Think: Twelve Americans under 30, all living in swing states, told The Times about their political priorities, ranging from the highly personal to the universal.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.He has attacked Mr. Shapiro for attending and sending his children to a Jewish day school that Mr. Mastriano called a “privileged, exclusive, elite” school and said it evinced Mr. Shapiro’s “disdain for people like us,” remarks that seemed to be a dog whistle.His campaign also paid $5,000 to the far-right social media platform Gab, on which the man accused of perpetrating the October 2018 Pittsburgh synagogue shooting — believed to be the deadliest antisemitic attack in American history — had posted antisemitic screeds. In defending Mr. Mastriano and responding to backlash, the platform’s founder, Andrew Torba, deployed antisemitic language.Mr. Mastriano, after a bipartisan outcry, released a statement saying that he rejected “antisemitism in any form.” But a late September campaign finance report showed that Mr. Mastriano had accepted a $500 donation from Mr. Torba in July. Jonathan Greenblatt, the chief executive of the Anti-Defamation League, wrote on Twitter that “the Mastriano campaign that repeatedly has employed anti-Jewish stereotypes and engaged with antisemites has no grounds to comment” on Mr. Shapiro’s level of observance.The Mastriano campaign did not respond to questions about why it was important to question Mr. Shapiro’s faith or how he practices it, or what it means to be “at best” a secular Jew or Catholic. Efforts to seek comment from Ms. Ellis were not immediately successful, but on Twitter she rejected criticism of her remarks. Mr. Biden often referenced his religion on the campaign trail, and he is a regular churchgoer who once memorably defended the Democratic Party as one of faith.“The next Republican that tells me I’m not religious, I’m going to shove my rosary beads down their throat,” Mr. Biden said in 2005, according to The Cincinnati Enquirer.Mr. Biden supports abortion rights. But his views on the matter have evolved over his decades in public life and he has been open about his struggles to reconcile the teachings of his faith with the complexities of the abortion issue.Separately, the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia released a statement in response to a “false and hurtful statement” from Mr. Mastriano, without mentioning him by name.Mr. Mastriano recently made false claims that the hospital “is grabbing homeless kids and kids in foster care, apparently, and experimenting on them with gender transitioning.”The hospital, responding to a question about Mr. Mastriano’s remarks, said in the statement that “providing the best and most compassionate care to all children, inclusive of their gender identity, is central to the mission and values of Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.” It added: “We stand in complete support of our colleagues and the patients and families they serve. We admire their strength and resilience during this ongoing period of difficulty.” More