Midterm Elections (2022)

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      Arizona Governor Candidates Speak, and More Campaign News From the Sunday Shows

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      Katie Hobbs and Kari Lake were interviewed back-to-back on CBS, Stacey Abrams spoke on Fox News and Republicans stuck with Herschel Walker despite reports that he had paid for an abortion.There will be no debates in one of the most competitive governor’s races in the country — between Katie Hobbs, the Democratic secretary of state of Arizona, and Kari Lake, a former TV news anchor endorsed by Donald J. Trump — because Ms. Hobbs has refused to participate, arguing that Ms. Lake would create a “circus.”In what might be the closest they come to a debate, they were interviewed back-to-back on “Face the Nation” on CBS on Sunday, with a focus on immigration and abortion.The host, Major Garrett, pressed Ms. Lake on her proposal to create an interstate compact in which Arizona and other states would make immigration arrests independent of the federal government, and Ms. Lake defended it in incendiary fashion, saying the Biden administration had abdicated its duty to protect states from invasion.She cited Article I, Section 10 of the Constitution — which says that without congressional consent, states cannot “enter into any agreement or compact with another state, or with a foreign power, or engage in war, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent danger as will not admit of delay” — and claimed that Arizona met the conditions of the clause.Ms. Hobbs, interviewed afterward, said Ms. Lake’s proposal was “empty rhetoric” that “would do absolutely nothing to increase border security” but “would bring untold levels of chaos into our state.” She said she agreed that the Biden administration needed to take stronger action on border security, but blamed a series of presidents and Congresses under both parties for failing to pass comprehensive immigration reform.Kari Lake, the Republican candidate for governor in Arizona, at a campaign rally last month in Tucson.Rebecca Noble for The New York TimesOn abortion, Ms. Lake accused Ms. Hobbs of supporting the procedure “right up until birth” — a common, and misleading, Republican claim against Democrats — and falsely claimed, “If you are in the hospital in labor, the abortionists are for giving you an abortion if you desire one.”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.Ms. Hobbs reiterated that she does not support a gestational limit on abortion, saying, “I support leaving the decision between a woman and her doctor and leaving politicians entirely out of it.” However, even in states like Colorado that have no gestational limit, doctors do not perform abortions on demand until the moment of birth.“Late-term abortion is extremely rare, and if it’s being talked about, it’s because something has gone incredibly wrong in a pregnancy,” Ms. Hobbs said. “A doctor’s not going to perform an abortion late in a pregnancy just because someone decided they want one. That is ridiculous, and she’s saying this to distract from her incredibly extreme position.”Ms. Lake has expressed support for Arizona’s near-total abortion ban, which predates Roe v. Wade and is blocked as courts assess it. On Sunday, she focused on a more recent law that bans most abortions after 15 weeks, saying, “We need to draw a line somewhere.”.css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.Here’s what else happened on the Sunday talk shows.Republicans stood with Herschel Walker.A claim that Herschel Walker, the Republican Senate candidate in Georgia, paid for an ex-girlfriend’s abortion in 2009 — and the woman’s subsequent assertion that he also wanted her to terminate a second pregnancy in 2011 — upended Mr. Walker’s campaign. But Republicans have circled the wagons around him, and that played out on the Sunday shows.Comments from Don Bacon, a Republican congressman facing a competitive race in Nebraska, were representative of the G.O.P. line. On NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Mr. Bacon was asked if he still supported Mr. Walker and replied, “I sure do, more for the policy positions he’s going to take.”Herschel Walker’s Senate campaign in Georgia has been upended by reporting about his past, but Republicans are sticking by his side.Nicole Buchanan for The New York TimesAsked by the host, Kristen Welker, whether this suggested Republicans were “willing to win at all costs,” Mr. Bacon said, “I think people make mistakes, and if people acknowledge them and ask for forgiveness, none of us are perfect.” (Mr. Walker has not done that; he has denied the claims, though they are backed up by extensive documentation.)Scott Jennings, a former aide to President George W. Bush who is now a conservative commentator, stated the calculus plainly on CNN’s “State of the Union.”“At the end of the day, the country’s in the ditch, and who are you going to call? The person who’s enabled it or the person who’s going to push back on it? That’s how many are going to analyze it,” Mr. Jennings said, adding later: “When the Senate control is this close, there’s nowhere else to go. This is part of the final matrix for Republicans if they hope to get the majority.”Stacey Abrams discussed abortion and voting rights.An interview on “Fox News Sunday” with Stacey Abrams, the Democratic nominee for governor of Georgia, touched on a range of subjects, including the reports about Mr. Walker. She accused her opponent, Gov. Brian Kemp, of hypocrisy for opposing abortion but not denouncing Mr. Walker.At one point, the host, Shannon Bream, asked Ms. Abrams to respond to a video clip of Kanye West claiming that “there’s more Black babies being aborted than born in New York City.” (This is not true according to city records.) Ms. Abrams affirmed her support for legal abortion and emphasized the disproportionate rates of maternal mortality among Black women, saying, “The right to our medical care should be sacrosanct.”Ms. Bream also asked Ms. Abrams to respond to a recent ruling in which a federal judge found that Georgia’s new voting restrictions — challenged by Ms. Abrams’s organization, Fair Fight Action — “violate neither the Constitution nor the Voting Rights Act.”Ms. Abrams suggested that the judge’s hands had been tied by a Supreme Court ruling last year that weakened the Voting Rights Act. “That’s the reason that I’m pushing so hard for the Voting Rights Act to be restored and expanded, but it’s also why I’m running for governor,” she said.In case you missed it …With four weeks left until the elections, Senate control hangs in the balance. The G.O.P. claimed momentum in the spring. Then the overturning of Roe v. Wade galvanized Democrats. As the momentum shifts again, the final stretch is defying predictability.In 2017, J.D. Vance, the Republican candidate for Senate in Ohio, started a nonprofit group to tackle the social ills he had written about in his “Hillbilly Elegy” memoir. It fell apart within two years.In Pennsylvania, John Fetterman, the Democratic nominee for Senate, says he can win over working-class voters in deep-red counties. Some evidence suggests he can, but partisan loyalties may prove more powerful. More

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      Joe Biden Knows How to Use Donald Trump

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      According to Gallup, 56 percent of Americans disapprove of the job President Biden is doing. Around 80 percent say the country is on the wrong track. Eighty-two percent say the state of the economy is “fair” or “poor,” and 67 percent think it’s only getting worse.Midterm elections are typically bad for the president’s party. But a midterm taking place alongside this kind of disappointment in the president and his party? It should be cataclysmic.And yet, that’s not how the election looks, at least right now. The FiveThirtyEight forecast gives Democrats a roughly 1-in-3 chance of holding the House and a roughly 2-in-3 chance of keeping the Senate. Other forecasts, along with betting markets, tell similar stories.Perhaps the polls, which have tightened a bit in recent weeks, are underestimating Republican turnout. We’ve seen that before and, worryingly for Democrats, we’ve seen it in some of the states they most need to win this year. But even a strong Republican performance would be a far cry from the party-in-power wipeouts we saw in 1994, 2010 and 2018. It’s worth asking why.Begin with the seats the parties hold now. Only seven House Democrats won districts Trump carried in 2020. Democrats aren’t defending many of the crossover seats that led to huge losses in 2010 and 1994. On the flip side, the Senate map is pretty good for Democrats, with Republicans defending more seats.Then, of course, there’s the Dobbs decision, which led to a surge in Democratic interest and of young women registering to vote. Every candidate and strategist and analyst I’ve talked to, on both sides of the aisle, believes Dobbs reshaped this election. The question they’re mulling is whether that energy is fading as the months drag by and the election draws close.But there’s something else distorting this race, too: Biden’s relative absence and Trump’s unusual presence.Here’s an odd fact: “Trump” has led “Biden” in Google searches since July. During the same stretch in 2018, Trump was far ahead of Obama in search interest, and during this period in 2010, Obama was ahead of Bush. That’s the normal way of things: Midterms are a referendum on the incumbent. The ousted or retired predecessor is rarely much of a factor. But this midterm is different.Trump’s relentless presence in our politics comes from a few sources. One is, well, Trump. He never stops talking, insulting, complaining, cajoling, provoking. He’s publicly preparing for a 2024 campaign. As I was writing this piece, I got an email from “Donald J. Trump,” headlined “Corrupt News Network,” announcing that Trump was filing a defamation suit against CNN. This isn’t a guy trying to stay out of the news.Then there’s the unusual aftermath of the Trump presidency, which reverberates throughout our politics. The Jan. 6 investigation is ongoing, and the F.B.I. raided Mar-a-Lago to reclaim classified documents that Trump is alleged to have taken with him inappropriately. (Trump, for his part, recently told Sean Hannity that the president can declassify documents “even by thinking about it,” which, sigh.)Trump also bears responsibility for some of the lackluster candidates causing Republicans such problems. Trump pushed J.D. Vance in Ohio and Herschel Walker in Georgia and Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania — all of whom are underperforming in their respective matchups. In a speech to the Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce, Mitch McConnell admitted Republicans might not flip the Senate and observed, acidly, “Candidate quality has a lot to do with the outcome.”Trump’s efforts to stay in the news, however, are matched by Biden’s efforts to stay out of it. Biden gives startlingly few interviews and news conferences. He doesn’t go for attention-grabbing stunts or high-engagement tweets. I am not always certain if this is strategy or necessity: It’s not obvious to me that the Biden team trusts him to turn one-on-one conversations and news conferences to his advantage. But perhaps the difference is academic: A good strategy is sometimes born of an unwanted reality.Biden simply doesn’t take up much room in the political discourse. He is a far less central, compelling, and controversial figure than Trump or Obama or Bush were before him. He’s gotten a surprising amount done in recent months, but then he fades back into the background. Again, that’s a choice: Biden could easily command more attention by simply trying to command more attention. When he picks a fight, as he did in his speech on Trump, the MAGA movement and democracy in Philadelphia last month, the battle joins. He just doesn’t do it very often.Which isn’t to say Biden doesn’t do anything. He governs. Just this week, Biden pardoned all federal convictions for simple marijuana possession. Before that, he canceled hundreds of billions dollars in student debt (though legal and administrative questions continue to swirl around that plan). He signed the Inflation Reduction Act. But then he moves on. He’s not looking to take his policy ideas and turn them into culture wars.Biden didn’t win the Democratic nomination in 2020 because he was the most thrilling candidate or because he had legions of die-hard supporters. The case most often made for Biden was that other people would find him acceptable. And that proved true. Biden was able to assemble an unusually broad coalition of people who feared Trump and considered Biden to be, eh, fine. That strategy demanded restraint. A lot of politicians would have vied with Trump to make the election about them. Biden hung back and let Trump make the election about him.I suspect that’s part of why Biden’s approval rating is, and has been, soft. Biden’s appeal to Democrats has been transactional more than inspirational. You don’t need to love, or even really to like, Biden to support him. You need to believe in him as a vehicle for stopping something worse. That’s still true today.What was never clear to me was what Biden and the Democrats would do when Trump wasn’t on the ballot — when Biden had to drive Democratic enthusiasm on his own. But Biden is running a surprisingly similar strategy in 2022 to the one he ran in 2020, with some evidence of success. He doesn’t try to command the country’s attention day after day. And that’s left space for Trump and the Supreme Court and a slew of sketchy Republican candidates to make themselves the story and remind Democrats of what’s at stake in 2022.I’m too burned by recent polling misses to take a decent Democratic year as certain. Republican victories in both the House and the Senate wouldn’t surprise me in the least. But it’s worth noting: At this point in 2010, Republicans were much more enthusiastic about voting than Democrats. At this point in 2018, Democrats were more enthusiastic about voting than Republicans. This year? It’s about even, with some polls even showing a slight lead for Democrats.If these numbers hold up and Democrats avoid a wipeout in November, Biden is going to owe Trump a fruit basket.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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      4 Weeks Out, Senate Control Hangs in the Balance in Tumultuous Midterms

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      The G.O.P. claimed the momentum in the spring. Then the overturning of Roe v. Wade galvanized Democrats. As the momentum shifts again, the final stretch of the 2022 midterms defies predictability.Exactly one month until Election Day, Republicans remain favored to take over the House in November, but momentum in the pitched battle for the Senate has seesawed back and forth as a multimillion-dollar avalanche of advertising has blanketed the top battleground states.For almost two decades, midterm elections have been a succession of partisan waves: for Democrats in 2006, Republicans in 2010 and 2014, and Democrats again in 2018. Yet as the first mail-in ballots go out to voters, the outcome of the 2022 midterms on Nov. 8 appears unusually unpredictable — a reason for optimism for Democrats, given how severely the party that holds the White House has been punished in recent years.Three states in particular — Georgia, Nevada and Pennsylvania — that are seen as the likeliest to change party hands have emerged as the epicenter of the Senate fight with an increasing volume of acrimony and advertising. In many ways, the two parties have been talking almost entirely past each other both on the campaign trail and on the airwaves — disagreeing less over particular policies than debating entirely different lists of challenges and threats facing the nation.Republicans have pounded voters with messages about the lackluster economy, frightening crime, rising inflation and an unpopular President Biden. Democrats have countered by warning about the stripping away of abortion rights and the specter of Donald J. Trump’s allies returning to power. Both parties are tailoring their messages to reach suburban voters, especially women, who are seen as the most prized and persuadable bloc in a polarized electorate.Democrats have warned that Republican gains in the midterms would usher in the return of Donald J. Trump’s movement to power. Brittany Greeson for The New York TimesThe year has progressed like a political roller coaster. Republicans boasted that a typical wave was building in the spring, and Democrats then claimed the momentum after the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade galvanized progressive and independent voters. Now the pendulum seems to have swung back.“I wish the election was a month ago,” conceded Navin Nayak, a Democratic strategist and the president of the Center for American Progress Action Fund. He was heartened, however, to see his party with a fighter’s chance, adding that Democrats had “no business being in this election.”The challenge for Democrats is that they also have no margin for error. Clinging to a 50-50 Senate and a single-digit House majority, they are seeking to defy not only history but Mr. Biden’s unpopularity. “Even the slightest tremor is going to put the Democrats in the minority,” as Peter Hart, a longtime Democratic pollster, put it.Come November, whichever party’s issue set is more dominant in the minds of the electorate is expected to have the upper hand.“The Democrats’ message is, ‘Elect Republicans and the sky may fall!’” Paul Shumaker, a veteran Republican strategist based in North Carolina, said, referring to rhetoric around abortion and Trumpism. But he said that voters “see the sky is falling — all because of Joe Biden’s bad economy. The increase in prices at the grocery store is an everyday fact of life.”The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.Standing by Herschel Walker: After a report that the G.O.P. Senate candidate in Georgia paid for a girlfriend’s abortion in 2009, Republicans rallied behind him, fearing that a break with the former football star could hurt the party’s chances to take the Senate.Wisconsin Senate Race: Mandela Barnes, the Democratic candidate, is wobbling in his contest against Senator Ron Johnson, the Republican incumbent, as an onslaught of G.O.P. attack ads takes a toll.G.O.P. Senate Gains: After signs emerged that Republicans were making gains in the race for the Senate, the polling shift is now clear, writes Nate Cohn, The Times’s chief political analyst.Democrats’ Closing Argument: Buoyed by polls that show the end of Roe v. Wade has moved independent voters their way, vulnerable House Democrats have reoriented their campaigns around abortion rights in the final weeks before the election.Republicans are bullish on taking the House. Representative Elise Stefanik of New York, the chair of the House Republican Conference, predicted a “red tsunami” in an interview. “I think we can win over 35 seats, which would give us the largest majority since the Great Depression,” she said.Republicans, in fact, need only a red ripple to take the gavel from Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s current threadbare 220-member majority. For Democrats to maintain power, they would need a near sweep of the battleground districts, winning roughly 80 percent of them, according to political analysts who rate the competitiveness of races.Dan Conston, who heads the Congressional Leadership Fund, the super PAC aligned with the House Republican leadership, noted that if Republicans win every seat that Mr. Trump carried, plus every seat that Mr. Biden won by five percentage points or less, they would secure 224 seats, a narrow six-seat majority.“The political environment has moved in multiple ways this cycle and has more contrasting issues that are keeping both sides engaged and energized,” Mr. Conston said.Republicans have improved their standing in several key Senate races, including one in Wisconsin, where Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, the Democratic candidate, has struggled recently.Haiyun Jiang/The New York TimesIt is Republican super PAC spending that has frightened House Democrats most in recent weeks.“We always knew this would be tough,” Representative Sean Patrick Maloney of New York, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said in an interview. Of the super PAC cash deficit, he said, “We just need enough.”In the Senate, the battlefield has been shaped by powerful crosscurrents and has swelled to as many as 10 states — and if a single state flips to the Republicans, they would control the chamber.Republicans have improved their standing in several key Senate races — including those in Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — by pummeling Democrats over crime. But those gains have been offset in part by the struggles of several Republican nominees, including those in Arizona and in Georgia, where Herschel Walker’s campaign has been engulfed by the allegation that he financed an abortion for a former girlfriend.At a campaign stop in Wadley, Ga., Herschel Walker, the Republican Senate candidate, dismissed a report that he had paid for an ex-girlfriend’s abortion.Nicole Buchanan for The New York TimesOne of the most significant Senate developments came in New Hampshire, where Republicans nominated Don Bolduc in September despite warnings in Republican-funded television ads that his “crazy ideas” would make him unelectable. In a recent radio interview, Senator Rick Scott, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, pointedly did not include New Hampshire among his party’s top five pickup opportunities. And late Friday, Mr. Scott’s group began canceling more than $5 million it had reserved there, saying it was redirecting the funds elsewhere.Recruiting failures have hampered Senate Republicans throughout 2022, and Senator Mitch McConnell, the minority leader, complained over the summer about “candidate quality.”.css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.But most Senate strategists now see control of the chamber hinging particularly on Nevada and Georgia, where Democratic incumbents are seeking re-election, and Pennsylvania, an open seat held by a retiring Republican. And whichever party wins two of those three would be strongly favored to be in the majority.Both sides are still seeking to stretch the map. A Democratic super PAC just injected more money into North Carolina, and Republicans have talked up their chances in Colorado. Millions of dollars are funding ads focusing on Republican-held seats in Ohio and Florida, as well.“This is the strangest midterm I’ve ever been a part of, because you have these two things in direct conflict,” said Guy Cecil, a veteran campaign operative who chairs the Democratic group Priorities USA. “You have what history tells us, and you have all this data that says it’s going to be a very close election.”Looming over the political environment is the unpopularity of Mr. Biden. Polls show he has recovered from his lowest points over the summer after signing legislation that addressed climate change and senior drug prices. A dip in gas prices helped, too.But his approval remains mired in the low 40-percent range, and gas prices began ticking back up even before the recent decision by Saudi Arabia and Russia to cut oil production.Democrats have repeatedly framed the election as a choice and warned that Republican gains would usher in the return to power of Mr. Trump’s movement.Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, said in an interview that it was an urgent priority to “make it clear that it is an untenable situation to hand over the keys to the extremists in the other party.”Ms. Stefanik, the No. 3 House Republican, accused Democrats of trying to distract voters.Supporters of abortion rights rallied in Wisconsin on the steps of the State Capitol in Madison. Democrats have made the stripping away of abortion rights a central theme of the midterms. Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times“The Democratic Party is trying to turn this into a referendum on Trump,” she said. “It is not. It is a referendum on Joe Biden.”Even more than Mr. Trump, abortion stands at the center of virtually all Democratic electoral hopes this year. Its persuasive power alarmed Republicans over the summer, especially after Kansans voted against a referendum that had threatened abortion rights in the state and Democrats outperformed expectations in some special elections.Gov. Roy Cooper of North Carolina, the chairman of the Democratic Governors Association, said the breadth of the abortion decision had taken swing voters by surprise, despite years of warnings from advocates and predictions from Mr. Trump himself that his Supreme Court appointees would do just that. The shock, Mr. Cooper said, has not worn off.“I don’t think anyone thought that after their testimony in committee in the U.S. Senate that they would actually vote to turn it on its head,” Mr. Cooper said of Trump-appointed justices.Republicans have sought a delicate two-step on abortion, catering to a base demanding its prohibition and to the political center, which is largely supportive of Roe.In Nevada, Adam Laxalt, the Republican Senate candidate, is broadcasting television ads proclaiming that no matter what happens in Washington, abortion will remain legal in Nevada, attempting to pivot voter attention back to crime and the economy.“Over the last two years, Democrat politicians have done incredible damage to America,” one ad intones. “But one thing hasn’t changed: abortion in Nevada. Why do Democrats like Catherine Cortez Masto only talk about something that hasn’t changed? Because they can’t defend everything that has.”A supporter for John Fetterman, the Democratic Senate candidate in Pennsylvania, at a campaign event in Murrysville, Pa., on Wednesday.Justin Merriman for The New York TimesRepublican fortunes have improved in part through enormous spending by a super PAC aligned with Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, which is funding a $170 million television blitz across seven states that started on Labor Day and is set to continue through the election.Crime has dominated the Republican messaging in Nevada, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, where the summertime edge held by the Democratic nominee, John Fetterman, over Dr. Mehmet Oz, the Republican nominee, has largely evaporated.“Dangerously liberal on crime,” says one anti-Fetterman ad in Pennsylvania.“This campaign weathered an unprecedented six weeks of attacks,” said Rebecca Katz, a senior strategist for Mr. Fetterman. “And not only are we still standing — we’re still winning.”In a twist for this era of hyperpartisanship, voters could render a number of split decisions between governor and Senate contests in battlegrounds this fall.In Georgia and New Hampshire, incumbent Republican governors are leading in polls, outpacing the Republican nominees for Senate. The opposite is true in Wisconsin, where the Democratic governor is further ahead in polling, as well as in Pennsylvania, where Josh Shapiro, the Democratic governor nominee, is leading.In one recent crime ad, Dr. Oz, the celebrity physician, notably drew a distinction between Mr. Fetterman and Mr. Shapiro. He seemed to be searching for crossover Shapiro-Oz votes. More

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      Hochul Outpaces Zeldin in Cash Race, but Super PACs Help His Cause

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      Gov. Kathy Hochul has used her fund-raising edge to spend more than $1.5 million a week since Labor Day on an aggressive television ad campaign.Since she took office last year, Gov. Kathy Hochul’s voracious fund-raising apparatus has been a source of curiosity and concern among various factions of New York’s political and business elite.But with just a month left in one of the nation’s marquee governor’s races, it has given Ms. Hochul an increasingly clear payoff: a financial advantage over her Republican opponent, Representative Lee Zeldin, as she seeks to become the first woman to be elected governor of New York.Ms. Hochul raised $11.1 million, or about $133,000 a day on average, from mid-July to early October, according to campaign filings made public late Friday that showed numerous high-dollar events in the Hamptons and Manhattan. She will enter the homestretch of the race with nearly $10.9 million in cash at her disposal — two and a half times as much money as Mr. Zeldin.As independent polls show Ms. Hochul, a Buffalo Democrat, with a fluctuating lead, she has poured most of the cash into an unrelenting ad campaign to try to highlight Mr. Zeldin’s opposition to abortion rights and support for former President Donald J. Trump. It is not cheap: Records show Ms. Hochul has spent more than $1.5 million a week since Labor Day to blanket New Yorkers’ televisions and smartphones.Mr. Zeldin’s fund-raising total represents a fraction of the kinds of campaign hauls being put together by other Republicans running for governor in big states this fall as the party tries to make major gains nationwide.But unlike other recent Republican nominees in New York, Mr. Zeldin has seemed to put together enough money to remain competitive in the race’s final weeks. His campaign reported raising $6.4 million during the three-month period, including large hauls at events featuring Mr. Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida. Mr. Zeldin has roughly $4.5 million in cash, a figure that surprised some Democrats.“Lee Zeldin is raising enough money to run a more competitive race than the last few Republican gubernatorial nominees,” said Evan Stavisky, a leading New York Democratic strategist. “However, and this is a big however, money isn’t the only reason Republicans haven’t won a statewide election in 20 years, and Zeldin is still going to be vastly outspent by Kathy Hochul.”There are more than twice as many registered Democrats than Republicans in the state — a margin that underscores Mr. Zeldin’s challenge.Notably, a pair of Republican super PACs, largely funded by a single conservative billionaire cosmetics heir, have stepped in to help narrow the financial gap: The two groups, Safe Together NY and Save our State NY, have collectively spent close to $4 million in recent weeks on ads echoing Mr. Zeldin’s attacks on Ms. Hochul, according to AdImpact, an ad tracking firm. The ads accuse the governor of being soft on crime and weak on the economy.Unlike campaign committees, the groups can accept unlimited donations, allowing wealthy individuals to exercise huge amounts of influence on the race. In the case of the governor’s race, Ronald S. Lauder, the cosmetics heir, has already committed close to $4.5 million to the two PACs, a number that is expected to grow in the coming weeks.Ms. Hochul, who took office last year after the resignation of Andrew M. Cuomo, does not have a similar super PAC aiding her campaign. But she has raised millions of dollars from wealthy donors with business interests before the state, an arrangement that, while common among her predecessors, has nonetheless drawn scrutiny from good governance watchdogs who worry that it is creating conflicts of interest.Though Ms. Hochul’s campaign touted that 60 percent of its contributions were for less than $200, the vast majority of her funds came in far larger increments, including more than 100 contributions of $25,000 or more, the filings showed.More than $2 million came directly from corporations, unions and political action committees, including Eli Lilly, Lyft, Charter Communications and Pfizer. The personal injury law firm Gair, Gair, Conason and the medical malpractice firm Kramer, Dillof, Livingston & Moore each funneled $100,000 to the campaign.Ms. Hochul also received large contributions from members of prominent New York families who have supported Mr. Zeldin. Ronald Lauder’s nephew, William P. Lauder, for example, gave Ms. Hochul $40,000. Haim Chera, a real estate executive whose family hosted the Zeldin fund-raiser attended by Mr. Trump, gave her $47,100. Mr. Chera is an executive at Vornado Realty Trust, a colossal firm that stands to benefit from Ms. Hochul’s plan to redevelop the area around Pennsylvania Station in Manhattan.Mr. Zeldin’s campaign took in about a third as many large checks, but it is benefiting from special interests, too. Two PACs associated with the Rent Stabilization Association, a pro-landlord trade group, gave a combined $89,000. Arnold Gumowitz, a real estate developer who has given to Ms. Hochul but is fighting the Penn Station project, contributed $47,100. Altogether, close to $500,000 came in from corporations, PACs and other special interests groups.Despite lending his presence to a fund-raiser, Mr. Trump has not cut a check to Mr. Zeldin, a longtime ally, nor has any group the former president controls.Other Republicans seeking to challenge statewide Democratic officeholders in New York are more clearly struggling to assemble the resources they need to compete.While Letitia James, the Democratic attorney general, reported $2.75 million in cash on hand, her opponent, Michael Henry, had just $146,000. Thomas P. DiNapoli, the Democratic comptroller, reported having $1,998,366 on hand, roughly 630 times as much as the $3,173.14 in the bank account of his opponent, Paul Rodriguez.Despite the millions being spent, the race for governor of New York is actually shaping up to be relatively cheap compared to other, more competitive contests in big states like Texas, Georgia and Wisconsin, which could cost well over $100 million each. In Georgia, the candidates for governor announced raising a total of nearly $65 million during the last three months. More

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      J.D. Vance’s First Attempt to Renew Ohio Crumbled Quickly

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      In 2017, the Republican candidate for Senate started a nonprofit group to tackle the social ills he had written about in his “Hillbilly Elegy” memoir. It fell apart within two years.J.D. Vance was not running for office. He said it irked him when people assumed that. Instead, in 2017, he said he had come back to Ohio to start a nonprofit organization.Mr. Vance gave that organization a lofty name — Our Ohio Renewal — and an even loftier mission: to “make it easier for disadvantaged children to achieve their dreams.” He said it would dispense with empty talk and get to work fighting Ohio’s toughest problems: opioids, joblessness and broken families.“I actually care about solving some of these things,” Mr. Vance said.Within two years, it had fizzled.Mr. Vance’s nonprofit group raised only about $220,000, hired only a handful of staff members, shrank drastically in 2018 and died for good in 2021. It left only the faintest mark on the state it had been meant to change, leaving behind a pair of op-eds and two tweets. (Mr. Vance also started a sister charity, which paid for a psychiatrist to spend a year in a small-town Ohio clinic. Then it shuttered, too.)Mr. Vance is now the Republican nominee for Senate in Ohio, running on a promise to tackle some of the same issues his defunct organization was supposed to have. On the campaign trail, he has said his group stalled because a key staff member was diagnosed with cancer.“I saw that Ohio lacked a focused effort on solving the opioid crisis, even while so many Ohioans’ lives were devastated by addiction, my own family and mother included,” Mr. Vance said in a written statement. “While the group only ended up lasting for a short period of time, I’m proud of the work we did.”But some of the nonprofit group’s own workers said they had drawn a different conclusion: They had been lured by the promise of helping Ohio, but instead had been used to help Mr. Vance start his career in politics.During its brief life, Mr. Vance’s organization paid a political consultant who also advised Mr. Vance about entering the 2018 Senate race. It paid an assistant who helped schedule Mr. Vance’s political speeches. And it paid for a survey of “Ohio citizens” that several of the staff members said they had never seen.The collapse of Mr. Vance’s nonprofit group was first reported last year in Insider. Now, Ohio Democrats use the group as an attack line. “J.D. Vance was in a position to really help people, but he only helped himself,” says an ad created by Mr. Vance’s opponent, Rep. Tim Ryan.The New York Times examined federal and state records and talked to most of the people connected to the tiny nonprofit organization. That included 10 people who served as employees, board members or outside advisers for Our Ohio Renewal.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.Standing by Herschel Walker: After a report that the G.O.P. Senate candidate in Georgia paid for a girlfriend’s abortion in 2009, Republicans rallied behind him, fearing that a break with the former football star could hurt the party’s chances to take the Senate.Wisconsin Senate Race: Mandela Barnes, the Democratic candidate, is wobbling in his contest against Senator Ron Johnson, the Republican incumbent, as an onslaught of G.O.P. attack ads takes a toll.G.O.P. Senate Gains: After signs emerged that Republicans were making gains in the race for the Senate, the polling shift is now clear, writes Nate Cohn, The Times’s chief political analyst.Democrats’ Closing Argument: Buoyed by polls that show the end of Roe v. Wade has moved independent voters their way, vulnerable House Democrats have reoriented their campaigns around abortion rights in the final weeks before the election.Mr. Vance started his group in November 2016, on the day after Donald J. Trump had won the presidency. At the time, Mr. Vance’s “Hillbilly Elegy,” about his troubled childhood in Ohio, was a surprise best seller. After Yale Law School and two years in Silicon Valley, Mr. Vance was returning to Ohio.A prayer in Norwalk, Ohio, in 2017 honoring those lost to opioid overdoses. Spencer Platt/Getty ImagesHe said his nonprofit group would seek to fix some of the social problems that he had described in his book.“I felt, you know, frankly a little bit of responsibility — now that I’ve been given this platform by the success of the book — to go and try to do at least a little something to help out,” Mr. Vance said in late 2016.His group was set up as a “social welfare organization” — called a 501(c)(4), after the relevant section of the federal tax code — that is allowed to do more political advocacy than a traditional charity. Politicians often treat these groups as a kind of incubator for their next campaigns, using them to attract donors, pay staff members and test out messages in between elections.Mr. Vance said his organization was not that. It was focused on something bigger. In its application for tax-exempt status, his group told the Internal Revenue Service it planned to increase its fund-raising to $500,000 a year by 2018 and to more than double its spending on personnel.In his statement to The Times, Mr. Vance said he had donated $80,000 of his own money to the nonprofit group, which was about a third of the $221,000 that it reported having raised over its lifetime. He declined to identify the group’s other donors.Mr. Vance said he did not take a salary. He did not have a formal leadership role but called himself “honorary chairman.”.css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.“I won’t promise anything for now, besides this: I will work hard to find solutions to the opioid and joblessness problems, and when we identify workable solutions, we’ll do something about them,” he wrote to members of his advisory board in 2017. He signed off, “Looking forward to doing some good, JD.”Mr. Vance wanted to help grandparents, like his, who stepped in to raise children when parents were absent or unable. The task of figuring out how to do so fell to Jamil Jivani, a friend of Vance’s from Yale Law School who had been hired as the group’s director of law and policy. Mr. Jivani and two researchers paid by Ohio State University — where Mr. Vance was a “scholar in residence” in the political science department — spent months researching family law, looking for policies that could be changed.At the time, Mr. Vance was traveling for speeches, working for an investment firm and splitting his time between Ohio and Washington, where his wife and young son lived. Mr. Vance was largely absent from the nonprofit group’s offices, according to an employee at the organization, who asked not to be identified while describing the group’s inner workings. The person often studied in Mr. Vance’s spacious and frequently empty office on campus. “It was very quiet,” the person said.Another person who worked for the nonprofit group said that, in hindsight, it had seemed aimed at serving Mr. Vance’s ambition by giving him a presence in a state where he had not lived full-time for several years. The person said it had felt as if much of the job involved giving outsiders the impression that Mr. Vance was in the state, said the person, who asked not to be identified for fear of antagonizing Mr. Vance and his supporters.In November 2017, the group’s research produced a result: an op-ed in The Cleveland Plain Dealer. In that piece, Mr. Vance urged the Ohio Legislature to adopt a bill that would help “kinship caregivers” like his grandparents.Mr. Vance’s group did not make much of an impact in the effort to pass the bill, said former State Representative Jeff Rezabek, a Republican who sponsored it. The legislation stalled that year, although similar legislation eventually passed later, after Mr. Vance’s group had become largely inactive.At the same time, in 2017 and early 2018, Mr. Vance was gradually starting to do the thing that he had said he wouldn’t: politics. He spoke at G.O.P. Lincoln Day dinners around Ohio. He publicly flirted with running for the Senate as a Republican in 2018 — even, reportedly, commissioning a poll to see if his attacks on Trump would hold him back.“J.D. is giving serious consideration toward this, because there are very serious people asking him to run,” Mr. Vance’s political adviser, Jai Chabria, told CNN in early 2018.Mr. Chabria’s firm Mercury L.L.C. was paid $63,425 by Our Ohio Renewal for “management services” in 2017. Although the group listed him in official documents as its executive director, Mr. Chabria says, he was only a consultant for the nonprofit. Mr. Jivani, the director of law and policy, actually ran the group.“Someone needed to get the paperwork started to launch it, but I was never tasked with running the day-to-day operations of the organization,” Mr. Chabria wrote in an email to The Times.He said the nonprofit group had never paid him to advise Mr. Vance personally during that time. He did that for free.Our Ohio Renewal also paid a salary to Mr. Vance’s personal assistant, who scheduled Mr. Vance’s appearances at events including Republican gatherings. Mr. Chabria defended that practice, saying that Mr. Vance had often mentioned Our Ohio Renewal at those talks.The assistant managed Mr. Vance’s calendar because he was a “central part” of the organization, Mr. Chabria wrote in an email, adding that Mr. Vance “was making regular public appearances in the media and at events to promote the activities of the group.”Tax-law experts said that was most likely permissible, given the looser rules around this type of nonprofit group.Also in 2017, Our Ohio Renewal said in annual filings that it had paid an unnamed pollster $45,000 for a survey “on social, cultural and general welfare needs of Ohio citizens.”That survey was one of the most expensive things Our Ohio Renewal ever paid for. But several employees said they had never seen it. “I don’t have any recollection of a survey and don’t have a copy of one,” Jennifer Best, who was both the group’s accountant and the treasurer of its board, said in an email message.Mr. Chabria saw the survey, but he said he no longer had a copy to share. He said it had tested messages about Our Ohio Renewal’s work and “did not ask questions on any potential candidacy” by Mr. Vance himself.In February 2018, Mr. Jivani — the director of law and policy who ran Our Ohio Renewal day to day — was diagnosed with cancer.Jamil Jivani at his family’s home in Toronto in 2018 after his cancer diagnosis.Andrew Francis Wallace/Toronto Star via Getty ImagesAfter that, Our Ohio Renewal seemed to freeze.It stopped tweeting. Its website trumpeted the same “Latest News” — a story from January 2018 — for nearly two years and then shut off, according to archived versions of the page (Ohio Democrats have taken over the group’s old domain and are using it to mock Mr. Vance). The group’s financial activity slowed sharply, and its bank account ran down to zero, according to Ms. Best, the treasurer.Finally, she told the Internal Revenue Service that the group was finished at the end of 2020.Mr. Jivani, whose cancer is now in remission, blames the group’s demise on his own bad luck.“As much as I wanted to, I could not take care of the day-to-day needs of this organization to help it scale,” he said.Mr. Vance did not respond to questions about why he had let the organization collapse after Mr. Jivani’s diagnosis.Now, Mr. Vance is in a tight Senate race, with Mr. Chabria as his chief strategist. In his most recent financial disclosures, Mr. Vance listed himself as “honorary chairman” of Our Ohio Renewal, even though it no longer existed. Under the time frame, he wrote, “Jan 2017 to present.” More

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      Donald Trump and Herschel Walker: The Unholy Alliance

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      WASHINGTON — This will sound quaint.In May 2016, The Washington Post ran the story of how Donald Trump, in his real estate days, would call reporters, pretending to be his own spokesman, to brag and leak nuggets about nonexistent romances with famous women. I thought that would knock him out of the race.The story hit on a Friday, so I scrambled to rewrite my column on the assumption that Trump wouldn’t last the weekend.But the scoop didn’t make a dent.The next day, The Times splashed a piece on the front page reporting that dozens of women had accused Trump of “unwelcome romantic advances” and lewd and “unending commentary on the female form.”Again, he emerged unscathed with his base.I still didn’t learn my lesson, though. That October, when the “Access Hollywood” tape showed Trump yucking it up about kissing, groping and trying to have sex with women, noting that “when you’re a star, they let you do it,” I once more figured he couldn’t survive as leader of the party of “family values” and the religious right.He could.Once, there were limits, things that could disqualify you from office, especially in the party that claimed a special relationship with Jesus.But those limits don’t exist anymore.Conservatives have sacrificed any claim to principle. In an unholy transaction, they stuck with Trump because there was a Supreme Court seat and they were willing to tolerate his moral void in order to hijack the court. They didn’t care how he treated women as long as he gave them the opportunity to rip away rights from women. They wanted to impose their warped morality, a “Handmaid’s Tale” world, on the rest of us.Christian-right leaders made clear that, no matter what Trump said or did to women, he was preferable to Hillary Clinton, who supported abortion rights.As Jerry Falwell Jr. said at the time, “We’re never going to have a perfect candidate unless Jesus Christ is on the ballot,” noting, “We’re all sinners.”Well, Falwell certainly was. Four years later, he was ousted from running Liberty University after a sex scandal of his own.Now, in Georgia, conservatives are turning a blind eye to sordid stories coming out about Herschel Walker, who demonstrates no qualifications for serving in the Senate. His sole credential is that he was once excellent at carrying a football.Story after story has emerged about reprehensible behavior and lies concerning women and children, and about falsifying his personal history.The Daily Beast asserted that while Walker wants to completely ban abortion, even in cases of rape, incest and the life of the mother, comparing it to murder, he paid for a girlfriend’s abortion in 2009. Walker has called the story “a flat-out lie,” but The Beast talked to the unnamed woman and checked her financial records. She said she was just sick of the hypocrisy. Even his conservative influencer son, Christian, disparaged his father’s “lies” on Twitter.On Friday, The Times published a story confirming The Daily Beast’s reporting, and in a startling development added that in 2011, Herschel pressured the same woman to have another abortion. They ended their relationship when she refused; she had their son, now 10.There’s more: His ex-wife claimed he pointed a pistol at her head and told her he was going to blow her brains out; he has four children with four different women, but hadn’t publicly acknowledged three of them. His 10-year-old was one of those hidden.Mitch McConnell and his fellow Republicans should be ashamed to promote this troubled person for their own benefit.Privately, some Republicans are mortified by the Walker spiral, but they’re going to brazen it out for the win.Dana Loesch, the right-wing radio host, was blunt: “I don’t care if Herschel Walker paid to abort endangered baby eagles. I want control of the Senate.”Republicans have exposed their willingness to accept anything to get power that they then abuse. As Lindsey Graham said out loud, with his fellow Republicans shushing him, they want a nationwide ban on abortion after 15 weeks. And Herschel Walker is key to that.Trump got to know Walker when he bought the New Jersey Generals in 1983, which Walker had joined after he won the Heisman Trophy and dropped out of the University of Georgia to turn pro.“In a lot of ways, Mr. Trump became a mentor to me,” Walker wrote in his memoir in 2008, “and I modeled myself and my business practices after him.” Trump led the cry “Run, Herschel, run!”Walker takes after his mentor with his lies, hypocrisy and know-nothingness on issues. Still worse, he’s following his mentor by denying his transgressions as a womanizer, even as he tries to smash women’s rights.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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      Fetterman’s Blue-Collar Allure Is Tested in Pennsylvania Senate Race

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      John Fetterman, the Democratic nominee for Senate, says he can win over working-class voters in deep-red counties. Some evidence suggests he can, but partisan loyalties may prove more powerful.MURRYSVILLE, Pa. — “I don’t have to tell you that it is hard to be a Democrat in Westmoreland County.”So began the chairwoman of the Westmoreland Democratic Party, Michelle McFall, as she introduced Lt. Gov. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania to supporters this week in the deep-red exurbs of Pittsburgh.About 100 people were gathered in a parking lot behind the Fetterman campaign bus, emblazoned with the slogan “Every County, Every Vote.” That is the strategy on which Mr. Fetterman has built his Senate candidacy — announced last year with a video reminiscent of a Springsteen song, showing small towns where people “feel left behind” and promising that “Fetterman can get a lot of those voters.”Now, in the final weeks before Election Day, with polls showing a narrowing race in a pivotal contest for control of the Senate, the premise that Mr. Fetterman can win over rural voters, including some who supported former President Donald J. Trump, is under strain.Mr. Fetterman has limited his campaign schedule as he recovers from a stroke, unable to visit “every county.” He is facing fierce Republican attacks that appear to be hitting home with voters, particularly over his record on crime. The share of voters who view Mr. Fetterman unfavorably has risen, while many Republicans have grudgingly rallied behind their nominee, Mehmet Oz. Because Mr. Fetterman had a double-digit lead in polling over the summer, the race’s tightening, while typical in a battleground state, has caused Democrats’ anxiety to rise.In a speech lasting just five minutes, Mr. Fetterman told supporters in Westmoreland County, which Mr. Trump won by 28 percentage points in 2020, that “we must jam up red counties” by running up votes. Still recovering from his stroke in May, Mr. Fetterman spoke fluently but haltingly, with gaps between words. It typified how his campaign has been forced to pivot from relying on Mr. Fetterman’s charisma before crowds, in stump appearances during the spring, to a strategy focused heavily on social media and television ads. A single debate with Dr. Oz is scheduled for Oct. 25.In Pennsylvania’s vast rural areas, the Fetterman campaign aims to improve upon the 2020 performance of President Biden, another candidate who banked on his Everyman appeal, and who narrowly carried the state.Exceeding Mr. Biden in red counties may be necessary if Mr. Fetterman does not match the blowout Biden victories in the Philadelphia suburbs, where the foil of Mr. Trump in 2020 repelled college-educated voters. More

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      Herschel Walker Urged Woman to Have a 2nd Abortion, She Says

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      ATLANTA — A woman who has said Herschel Walker, the Republican Senate nominee in Georgia, paid for her abortion in 2009 told The New York Times that he urged her to terminate a second pregnancy two years later. They ended their relationship after she refused.In a series of interviews, the woman said Mr. Walker had barely been involved in their now 10-year-old son’s life, offering little more than court-ordered child support and occasional gifts.The woman disclosed the new details about her relationship with Mr. Walker, who has anchored his campaign on an appeal to social conservatives as an unwavering opponent of abortion even in cases of rape and incest, after the former football star publicly denied that he knew her. He called her “some alleged woman” in a radio interview on Thursday.The Times is withholding the name of the woman, who insisted on anonymity to protect her son.In the interviews, she described the frustration of watching Republicans rally around Mr. Walker, dismiss her account and bathe him in prayer and praise, calling him a good man.She said she wanted Georgia voters to know what kind of man Mr. Walker was to her.“As a father, he’s done nothing. He does exactly what the courts say, and that’s it,” she said. “He has to be held responsible, just like the rest of us. And if you’re going to run for office, you need to own your life.”The interviews and documents provided to The Times together corroborate and expand upon an account about her abortion first published on Monday in The Daily Beast. The Times also independently confirmed details with custody records filed in family court in New York and interviewed a friend of the woman to whom she had described the abortion and her eventual breakup with Mr. Walker as those events occurred.Mr. Walker’s campaign declined to comment about the woman’s account.The woman reaffirmed the key details of her account: She and Mr. Walker conceived a child in 2009 and decided not to continue the pregnancy. Mr. Walker was not married at the time. She provided to The Times a $575 receipt she was given after paying for the procedure at an Atlanta women’s clinic, and a deposit slip showing a copy of a $700 check that she said Mr. Walker gave her as reimbursement. She also shared a “get well” card with a handwritten message — “Pray you are feeling better” — and signed simply, “H.”Mr. Walker has repeatedly denied her account, calling it a “flat-out” lie and the work of Democrats and the hostile news media. He has disputed that he signed the card. He told Fox News on Monday that he sends money “to a lot of people.”“I know this is untrue. I know it’s untrue,” Mr. Walker said on the “Hugh Hewitt Show” on Thursday. “I know nothing about any woman having an abortion.”A woman told The New York Times that she and Mr. Walker, who is now the Republican Senate nominee in Georgia, decided in 2009 not to continue a pregnancy they conceived. She provided to The Times a $575 receipt she was given after paying for the procedure and said he reimbursed her. Mr. Walker has repeatedly denied her account.Later on Thursday, he gathered reporters in a lumber yard 150 miles east of Atlanta for his first public event since the report first surfaced and read a statement that did not directly address it. Instead, he blamed his political opponents.Understand the Herschel Walker Abortion ReportCard 1 of 5The report. More