Midterm Elections (2022)

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      The New York Primary Being Watched by A.O.C., Pelosi and the Clintons

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      Big Democratic names have lined up on both sides of the heated battle between Representative Sean Patrick Maloney and his progressive challenger, State Senator Alessandra Biaggi.SHRUB OAK, N.Y. — Less than three months before the November midterm elections, the man tasked with protecting the imperiled Democratic House majority was contemplating a more immediate challenge: securing his own political survival in a primary contest this week.“How am I doing on the vote?” Representative Sean Patrick Maloney of New York asked a voter as he worked a barbecue here last Wednesday afternoon, dousing a hot dog in mustard and relish and commiserating with older attendees about impatiently awaiting the birth of grandchildren.“I see your commercial every 10 seconds,” the voter told him.New York’s tumultuous primary season, which draws to a close on Tuesday, has no shortage of hard-fought, high-drama contests. But because of Mr. Maloney’s standing as the chair of the House Democratic campaign arm — and given the cast of prominent politicians who have gotten involved in the race — perhaps no New York primary is of greater national consequence than the battle for the newly redrawn 17th District, which includes parts of Westchester County and the Hudson Valley.Mr. Maloney, backed by Speaker Nancy Pelosi and former President Bill Clinton, is fending off a primary challenge from State Senator Alessandra Biaggi, a left-leaning lawmaker who defeated a powerful incumbent in 2018, and now has the support of Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and a panoply of progressive organizations.Mr. Maloney, on a recent visit to a senior housing community, explained how President Biden’s climate, tax and health care law would affect prescription drug costs.Karsten Moran for The New York TimesBy every standard metric — fund-raising, television presence, available polling, endorsements and the assessments of several local elected officials — Mr. Maloney heads into Primary Day with a strong advantage. But New Yorkers are unaccustomed to voting in August, and low-turnout elections can be especially unpredictable. On the ground, it is apparent that a contested race shaped by ideological, generational and stylistic tensions is underway. The winner is expected to face a competitive general election challenge from emboldened Republicans this fall.“Maloney might be more of my choice just because I’m a fan of Bill’s,” said Tim Duch, 71, referencing the former president whose Chappaqua home is in the new district (Hillary Clinton, who helped lead Ms. Biaggi’s wedding ceremony, has stayed on the sidelines). Nodding to Mr. Clinton’s comment that Mr. Maloney has won competitive races, he added, “I think that’s what Bill Clinton was saying, that he’s more winnable.”Mr. Duch was standing outside a bookstore on Tarrytown’s cafe-lined Main Street with his wife, Lee Eiferman, on Wednesday morning when Ms. Biaggi walked by.“Energy,” Ms. Eiferman, 68, observed after Ms. Biaggi greeted them effusively. Referencing criticism she had heard about Ms. Biaggi concerning her law enforcement stance, Ms. Eiferman added: “She’s for women’s issues, and everything that she’s getting shish-kebabbed on, I’d say bring it on.”Ms. Biaggi, greeting a supporter, Mackenzie Roussos, has argued that voters want a fighter.Karsten Moran for The New York TimesThe contours of the race were set in motion after a messy redistricting process this spring that split Mr. Maloney’s current district in two. Instead of running for a reconfigured version of his current seat, Mr. Maloney opted to contest a slightly more Democratic-leaning district now represented by a Black Democrat, Mondaire Jones, who aligns with the party’s progressive wing.Though Mr. Maloney noted that his Cold Spring home was within the new lines, it set off a nasty brawl. Furious colleagues cast it as a power grab, and Mr. Jones ended up packing his bags for New York City, where sparse public polling now shows him trailing in a race for an open House seat there.Mr. Maloney has acknowledged that he could have handled the process better, and a number of lawmakers who sharply criticized him at the time no longer appear interested in discussing the subject.But Mr. Maloney, 56, has long been regarded as an ambitious political operator, and some hard feelings remain.National tensions were compounded when the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee elevated a far-right candidate in a Republican primary in Michigan, a move that was sharply criticized by many as hypocritical and dangerous. (Mr. Maloney has defended it by noting his party’s improved prospects in the general election there.)Ms. Biaggi, 36, has seized on both dynamics to lash Mr. Maloney as a notably self-interested politician who does not grasp the urgency of the moment. More

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      Stacey Abrams’ Personal Evolution on Abortion Rights

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      The Georgia Democrat, a child of Methodist preachers, once identified as an abortion foe. Now, she is putting her defense of abortion rights — and the story of her conversion — at the center of her campaign for governor.DUBLIN, Ga. — On the day that a leaked draft opinion suggested the Supreme Court was poised to overturn Roe v. Wade, Stacey Abrams addressed the abortion rights group Emily’s List and preached about abortion rights with “the zeal of the converted.”Early in her professional career, she opposed abortion rights, she volunteered, adding that as a teenager she had criticized a friend who considered having an abortion.“I was wrong,” she said. “But I’ve worked hard to make myself right.”Ms. Abrams is among scores of Democrats pushing their defense of abortion rights to the center of their midterm campaigns, hoping anger over the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade will energize the Democratic base and push fence-sitting moderates into her corner. But she is the rare Democrat eager to acknowledge that she didn’t always support abortion rights.The daughter of Methodist ministers living in the Deep South, Ms. Abrams grew up believing abortion was morally wrong. Conversations with other women, a friend’s deliberations over having an abortion and her own political ambitions led her to rethink her stance, she says.Ms. Abrams’ personal approach to talking about abortion is new for the longtime Georgia politician. She did not emphasize her shift when she first ran for governor in 2018. But today, Ms. Abrams says she uses the story to connect with voters who may personally oppose abortion but, perhaps for the first time, are confronting the reality of new government restrictions. In Georgia, most abortions are now banned after six weeks of pregnancy, based on a law signed by Ms. Abrams’ Republican rival, Gov. Brian Kemp.Talking about her own story is “giving them permission to say that choice should exist,” Ms. Abrams said in an interview.“I want people to understand that I know where they’re coming from,” Ms. Abrams said. “But it also creates the opportunity for people to tell you where they stand, as well.”Ms. Abrams’ strategy is something of a throwback. For decades, Democrats treaded carefully when talking about abortion, often assuming voters were disapproving and uncomfortable with the procedure, even if they supported the rights protected by Roe v. Wade. For years, Democratic leaders, starting with Bill Clinton in 1992, declared that their goal was to make abortion “safe, legal and rare,” in an attempt to unite voters with a broad range of views on the issue.For some Democrats, the phrase became emblematic of the party’s willingness to cede ground to abortion rights opponents and attach shame to the procedures. And in the wake of the court’s decision this summer, some are again criticizing the party for using messaging that lets abortion foes frame the debate.“I don’t think that Democrats as a whole — as a party — have talked enough about this issue,” said Renitta Shannon, a Georgia state representative, who did not specifically criticize Ms. Abrams. “All this time, we’ve been relying on the opinion of the court to hold intact people’s reproductive freedom, and that is not a good strategy.”Ms. Abrams has clear reasons for trying to use the issue to cast as wide a net as possible. After voters in conservative Kansas overwhelmingly voted to guard abortion protections, Democrats across the country are hoping the issue shifts momentum in their direction during a year when other political forces — ongoing economic anxiety and President Joe Biden’s weak approval ratings — are working against them.Abortion rights demonstrators outside the Georgia State Capitol in Atlanta shortly after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June.Kendrick Brinson for The New York TimesNearly 55 percent of voters in Georgia oppose the Supreme Court’s ruling reversing Roe v. Wade, according to an Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll released last month.That poll also showed Ms. Abrams trailing Mr. Kemp by five points and, notably, losing ground with Black voters in the state. More

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      Where Are All the Manhattan Voters in August? Try the Hamptons.

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      A late August congressional primary in New York has candidates scrambling to find far-flung voters who tend to summer in places like the Hamptons.AMAGANSETT, N.Y. — In the lush town green here one recent morning, waiting to get her nails done, sat just the kind of Manhattan Democrat whose coveted vote could tip the balance in Tuesday’s blockbuster primary involving two lions of Congress, Jerrold Nadler and Carolyn Maloney.Only the woman in question, Judith Segall, said she was in absolutely no rush to leave this exclusive bastion of sand dunes, $10 heirloom tomatoes and seasonal city transplants, and return to her Upper East Side home.“I’m not coming in to vote. That’s the problem: Nobody here is going to come in just to vote,” said Ms. Segall, a retired accountant with a city accent who spends her summers out here, and likes Mr. Nadler. “It’s insane. What’s this voting in August?”New York City may be a center of the political universe this summer, as Mr. Nadler and Ms. Maloney, two powerful longtime allies, face off in a newly reconfigured Manhattan district, and a dozen other Democrats scramble to claim a rare open seat connecting Lower Manhattan and Brownstone Brooklyn.But in a twist befitting two of the wealthiest districts in the United States, the races could well be won or lost miles outside the city, in places like the Hudson Valley, the Berkshires and, above all, the sandy coast of eastern Long Island, where otherwise reliable voters like Ms. Segall decamp in droves each August to spend the final weeks of summer in second homes and vacation rentals.That reality has prompted an unusual and expensive shadow campaign — complete with beach-themed mailers, sophisticated geolocation tracking for tailored ads targeting second homes and at least one Hamptons swing by Ms. Maloney — to see who can prod more of their would-be supporters off their beach chairs and back to the city, or at least the local post office.With low turnout predicted, political operatives say as few as a thousand lost votes could be the difference between a narrow victory and a loss.The exodus is most glaring in the 12th District, where Mr. Nadler and Ms. Maloney were drawn together after three decades serving side by side and are now fighting (alongside a third candidate, Suraj Patel) over uptown voters who like them both.Some 35,000 Democrats in the 12th District in Manhattan have received mail-in ballots for the primary contest pitting Representative Carolyn Maloney, above, center right, against Representative Jerrold Nadler, below.Desiree Rios/The New York TimesAnna Watts for The New York TimesSome 35,000 Democrats have received mail-in ballots there so far, according to the New York City Board of Elections, a large proportion of them people over 65, and many Upper East and West Siders who flee their apartments when the weather warms. By comparison, the board said that just 7,500 mail-in ballots were distributed for all of Manhattan during the 2018 midterm primaries, which were held in June.Another 21,000 Democrats have received absentee ballots for the primary in the neighboring 10th District, far more than any other district but the 12th. The 10th includes wealthy areas like Greenwich Village, Park Slope and Brooklyn Heights — as well as Orthodox Jewish communities in Borough Park — whose residents also tend to skip town.“The last two weeks of August, this is actually where many people are,” said Jon Reinish, a Democratic political strategist, who is among a torrent of temporary city transplants who have slipped away to the Hudson Valley town of Rhinebeck.He had a word of advice to Democratic vote hunters, particularly Ms. Maloney, whose East Side base even relocates some of its favorite restaurants out to Long Island for “the season.”“As opposed to pounding the pavement around the 86th Street and Lexington Avenue subway stop, Carolyn Maloney may be better served campaigning outside the entrance to Sagg Main Beach or along Jobs Lane in Southampton,” he said, only partially in jest.Hamptonites are already accustomed to national politicians descending each summer for ritzy fund-raisers and seafood raw bars: Vice President Kamala Harris; Beto O’Rourke, a Texas Democratic candidate for governor; and New York’s candidates for governor were all here recently. But given the timing of the Aug. 23 congressional primaries, they appear to be relishing their moment of heightened electoral influence.“If they are serious about wanting to be re-elected, they should be out here,” said Gordon Herr, the chairman of the Southampton Town Democratic Committee and a former city resident who moved out east full time 16 years ago. He said many city residents he’s spoken to “are very conflicted” over who to vote for and could use the extra nudge.The state’s court-ordered redistricting process led to two separate primary dates, including a rare late August primary for the House and State Senate.Karsten Moran for The New York TimesNew York almost never holds elections in August. But that changed this year after the state’s highest court tossed out newly drawn maps favoring Democrats as unconstitutional, and a rural judge decided to split that state’s primary calendar in two to allow time for a court-appointed expert to draw new, neutral lines.The result put Mr. Nadler and Ms. Maloney on a collision course and opened a fresh seat next door; it also means New Yorkers are being asked to go to the polls twice in two months.Voters who will be in the city on Election Day undoubtedly remain the majority, and the campaigns’ chief focus. But tracking those headed outside New York has been an uncommonly high priority, particularly for Mr. Nadler and Ms. Maloney. More

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      Ron DeSantis Rallies With Doug Mastriano and J.D. Vance

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      PITTSBURGH — Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, widely seen as the Republican who poses the biggest threat to Donald J. Trump if they both run for president in 2024, blitzed through Pennsylvania and Ohio on Friday during a national tour with hard-right candidates that was clearly intended to elevate his standing and earn political capital with potential future leaders in battleground states.Before an audience of more than 1,000 at an event in Pittsburgh nominally meant to help the Republican nominee for governor of Pennsylvania, Doug Mastriano, Mr. DeSantis delivered a 40-minute address that had the trappings of a speech by a national candidate: bits of personal biography, blasts at the Biden administration and boasts of his Florida accomplishments, which were heavy on cultural messages.“We can’t just stand idly by while woke ideology ravages every institution in our society,” Mr. DeSantis proclaimed, citing laws he has signed to bar transgender athletes from girls’ and women’s sports and to ban instruction of gender identity and sexual orientation in early grades.As he aims to wrest control of the conservative movement, Mr. DeSantis is appearing with some of its highest-profile and most incendiary figures — midterm candidates who, unlike him, have relentlessly pushed the fiction that the 2020 election was stolen. His rallies on Friday for Mr. Mastriano and J.D. Vance, the Republican nominee for Senate in Ohio, came five days after an event for Kari Lake, the G.O.P. pick for governor of Arizona, and Blake Masters, the nominee for Senate there.The catch: All of these candidates identify with Mr. Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement and have his endorsement.That leaves Mr. DeSantis walking a fine line as he tries to build alliances with Mr. Trump’s chosen 2022 candidates while simultaneously conveying the message that the Republican Party does not belong only to the former president.Mr. DeSantis and his allies may see a political opening in Mr. Trump’s mounting legal problems. But at the same time, the former president is widely expected to embark on a third run for the White House, and the investigations surrounding him have prompted Republicans to circle wagons around their embattled leader, reaffirming his power over the party.In Pittsburgh, Mr. DeSantis began his speech with a personal slide show that was typical of how a candidate might be introduced at a political convention.Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesSupporters of Mr. DeSantis believe he can appeal to many Republicans as a figure who fights the same cultural battles as Mr. Trump but without the chaos and with the ability to win over some moderate voters beyond the party’s base.“DeSantis leans into and leads on the important policy issues people care about, but he does so without the off-putting craziness that turns off independent and swing voters — the people you need to win Pennsylvania,” said Matthew Brouillette, the leader of an influential conservative political group in the state. “They gave Trump a chance in 2016, but had enough in 2020. It’s time to move on.”More Coverage of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsLiz Cheney’s Lopsided Loss: The Republican congresswoman’s defeat in Wyoming exposed the degree to which former President Donald J. Trump still controls the party’s present — and its near future.2024 Hint: Hours after her loss, Ms. Cheney acknowledged that she was “thinking” about a White House bid. But her mission to thwart Donald J. Trump presents challenges.The ‘Impeachment 10’: With Ms. Cheney’s defeat, only two of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Mr. Trump remain.Alaska Races: Senator Lisa Murkowski and Sarah Palin appeared to be on divergent paths following contests that offered a glimpse at the state’s independent streak.In Pittsburgh, Mr. DeSantis began his speech with a personal slide show that was typical of how a candidate might be introduced at a political convention, including a picture of him as a toddler in a Pittsburgh Steelers hat.The governor, who has a reputation as a sometimes wooden speaker, stood throughout his address behind a rostrum as if giving a lecture, holding on to its edges with his hands.Mr. DeSantis attacked Democrats’ newly passed climate, health and tax law by zeroing in on its hiring of more than 80,000 Internal Revenue Service employees.Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesBut the crowd reacted enthusiastically, frequently jumping to its feet as he spoke of how under his watch, Florida had banned what he called “ballot harvesting,” or the practice of voters depositing ballots for other people, as well as prohibited schools from enacting mask mandates during the pandemic.He attacked Democrats’ newly passed climate, health and tax law by zeroing in on its hiring of more than 80,000 Internal Revenue Service employees over a decade, meant in part to restore the agency’s depleted enforcement staff. Echoing conspiracy theories on the right about the hires, which the Biden administration says will not result in new audits of households earning under $400,000, Mr. DeSantis claimed that the increased staffing was “absolutely going to hit people who are small business folks, contractors, handymen, you name it.”On Tuesday, Florida Democrats will decide whether to nominate Representative Charlie Crist or Nikki Fried, the state’s agriculture commissioner, to challenge Mr. DeSantis in November. Mr. DeSantis’s national profile has allowed him to raise more than $130 million in campaign cash, making him a formidable incumbent.Democrats know they face long odds to defeat him, but they have recently begun to believe there is a narrow path to do so, in part because of voter frustration over the elimination of federal abortion rights and a new Florida law restricting abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. More

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      Group Seeks to Block Abortion Vote in Michigan, Citing Typography

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      Conservative groups in Michigan filed challenges this week to efforts to put two constitutional amendments on the ballot in November, one that would guarantee abortion rights and the other that would expand voting access.The challenge to the abortion amendment was based on a lack of spacing between words, which gave some words the appearance of running together. They characterized the typographical errors as “gibberish,” and “incomprehensible argle-bargle.”One group argued that the Michigan Board of State Canvassers should reject the petition to put that amendment to voters, while a second group took issue with the voting petition, saying it failed to identify every current constitutional provision the amendment would override.The board of canvassers will meet on Aug. 31 to decide whether to certify the petitions.The challenge to the abortion measure comes less than three weeks after voters in Kansas overwhelmingly rejected a constitutional amendment that would have let state legislators ban or severely restrict abortion. That vote underscored abortion rights as a salient issue capable of driving voters to the polls after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, and it raised advocates’ hopes that Michiganders would vote similarly.Supporters of the petition for the Michigan abortion amendment said they had submitted more than 730,000 signatures, surpassing the roughly 425,000 required, though the board of canvassers needs to verify them.Read More on Abortion Issues in AmericaAn Uneasy Champion: President Biden, a practicing Catholic, is being called to lead a fight for abortion rights that he has sidestepped for decades. Advocates wonder if he’s up to the task.Safe Havens: After Roe, conservatives are seeking to expand ways that allow women to give up newborns, such as baby drop boxes. But for many experts in adoption and women’s health, they are hardly a solution.In Mississippi: The state that spurred the overturning of abortion rights, is among 17 that have rejected an option to extend new mothers’ Medicaid coverage.A Rare Prosecution: A teenager used pills to terminate her pregnancy at home with the aid of her mother. Their Facebook messages are now key evidence in a rare prosecution over abortion.Darci McConnell, a spokeswoman for Reproductive Freedom for All, the group promoting the abortion amendment, said that the organization was “confident that we’re in compliance with all legal requirements for ballot proposals” and that hundreds of thousands of voters had “read, understood and signed the petition in support of reproductive freedom for all.”The petition includes the text of the proposed amendment, which would ensure abortion rights broadly until fetal viability and in cases where “the life or physical or mental health of the pregnant individual” was in danger after viability. On some lines, the text is squeezed tightly. In a 152-page challenge, Citizens to Support MI Women and Children, a group that opposes the amendment, argued that the lack of spacing was unacceptable.For instance, in a section that reads, “Every individual has a fundamental right to reproductive freedom, which entails the right to make and effectuate decisions about all matters relating to pregnancy,” the challengers said the formatting created “nonexistent words” such as “decisionsaboutallmattersrelatingtopregnancy.”They described this and other examples as “nonsensical groupings of letters that are found in no dictionary and are incapable of having any meaning.”The text at issue in a Reproductive Freedom for All petition.State of Michigan“Because the petition fails to use actual words in the full text in its proposed amendment, how can the people know what they are voting for or against?” it said, adding that even if the board of canvassers concluded that these were merely typos, Michigan law did not allow supporters of the amendment to fix such errors at this point in the process. Citizens to Support MI Women and Children directed a request for comment to Genevieve Marnon, the legislative director for Right to Life of Michigan, an anti-abortion group. Ms. Marnon, who filed an affidavit in support of the challenge, said that petitions were “routinely disqualified for technical errors,” saying that state officials had rejected signatures on a 2019 anti-abortion proposal “for small tears in the petition and for return address stickers’ covering a few words of the ‘essential elements’ of the petition.” (Signatures for that campaign, which extended into 2020, were also challenged on substantive grounds, including claims that some were duplicates.)Ms. Marnon attached to her email a mocking word-search puzzle whose answer list consisted of words from the petition — all of them separated in the correct places.Reproductive Freedom for All will file a formal rebuttal by Tuesday, according to Mark Brewer, a lawyer working with the group, who called the complaint a “frivolous Hail Mary challenge.” After that, he said, nonpartisan staff in the Michigan secretary of state’s office will make a recommendation to the board of canvassers on whether the challenge should be upheld.If the board of canvassers — two Democrats and two Republicans — deadlocks at its meeting on Aug. 31, the next step will be the courts. Under the Michigan Constitution, amendments for the November ballot must be finalized by Sept. 9.The challenge to the voting rights amendment was filed on behalf of a group called Defend Your Vote. The proposal it objected to would amend the Michigan Constitution to, among other things, require nine days of early in-person voting and expand access to absentee ballots. It would also bar any law or conduct that “has the intent or effect of denying, abridging, interfering with or unreasonably burdening the fundamental right to vote.”Supporters said they had submitted about 670,000 signatures.In their challenge, lawyers for Defend Your Vote argued that the amendment petition did not specify all of the current constitutional provisions it would modify.One provision they said was improperly omitted designates the “first Tuesday after the first Monday of November” as Election Day. By mandating an early-voting period, the challengers argued, the amendment would render that provision “inoperative.”Micheal Davis Jr., the executive director of Promote the Vote, the group supporting the voting amendment, called the complaint “bogus, baseless and meritless.”The challenge to the voting amendment will be adjudicated through the same process as the challenge to the abortion amendment. A spokeswoman for Promote the Vote said the group had not filed its formal rebuttal yet. More

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      Marcy Kaptur, a Veteran Democrat, Breaks with Biden in New TV Ad

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      Representative Marcy Kaptur of Ohio, the second-most tenured woman in congressional history, has released a new television ad explicitly breaking with President Biden, the most prominent Democrat to do so, as she seeks re-election in a Toledo-area seat that was redrawn to be sharply more Republican.Ms. Kaptur, who was first elected in 1982, criticized Mr. Biden in the ad over “letting Ohio solar manufacturers be undercut by China” and ended it with an attempt to cast her identity as independent from his.“Marcy Kaptur: She doesn’t work for Joe Biden; she works for you,” the ad concludes. “I’m Marcy Kaptur and I approve this message.”The remapping of districts in Ohio made Ms. Kaptur’s seat substantially more red this year by taking away parts of the Cleveland suburbs and exchanging them for a western swath of the state that reaches toward the Indiana border. The result turned the district from one that Mr. Biden easily won in 2020 to one that former President Donald J. Trump would have carried that year.Still, the ad from Ms. Kaptur is a relative surprise. She appeared with Mr. Biden only a few weeks ago, greeting him at an airport in Cleveland where photos appear to show the president kissing her hand on the tarmac.Mr. Biden greeting Ms. Kaptur in Cleveland in July.Saul Loeb/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesIn response to her new ad, Republicans were already recirculating video of Ms. Kaptur campaigning for Mr. Biden in 2020 and declaring, “It will be my honor to not just vote for Joe Biden but to work for him.”The ad signals how important the political makeup of a district is, as it is increasingly rare for a lawmaker to hold a seat in an area that the opposing party’s presidential candidate won.Ohio has steadily trended Republican ever since Mr. Trump won the state in 2016. In 2020, the perennial presidential battleground had become a distinctively second-tier swing state. Mr. Trump succeeded in part by making inroads with the kind of union constituency that has always been a key part of Ms. Kaptur’s base.In her new ad, Ms. Kaptur says that while she has been “fighting back” against Mr. Biden, she has also been “working with Republican Rob Portman,” the state’s retiring senator.At least one other incumbent congressional Democrat has aired an ad distancing himself from Mr. Biden: Representative Jared Golden of Maine, who in 2020 won the most pro-Trump House seat of any Democrat in the nation. He aired an ad earlier this month positioning himself as an “independent voice” and saying he had voted against “trillions of dollars of President Biden’s agenda because I knew it would make inflation worse.”The leading House Republican super PAC, the Congressional Leadership Fund, announced a new ad on Friday linking Mr. Golden to Mr. Biden, saying he “cast one of the deciding votes for Biden’s new massive spending bill.”Democrats are seeking to boost Mr. Biden’s image after the recent signing of the Inflation Reduction Act, with the Democratic National Committee being the latest to announce an ad buy highlighting parts of the package.In Ms. Kaptur’s ad, she also calls her opponent, J.R. Majewski, out by name and labels him an “extremist.”Mr. Majewski, an Air Force veteran, was a surprise primary winner in May who first garnered attention after turning his lawn into a 19,000-square foot “Trump 2020” sign. He said he was proud of going to Washington on the day of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, but added, “I didn’t do anything illegal. Unfortunately, there were some that did.” He has spread the baseless theory that the attack was “driven by the F.B.I. and it was a stage show.”Mr. Majewski has also expressed interest in the Qanon conspiracy theory, which espouses falsely that there is a cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles controlling the government.The Cook Political Report rates the Ohio contest as a tossup. More

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      In Deep Red Texas, Beto O’Rourke Takes on Guns and Abortion

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      WHITESBORO, Texas — As supporters of Beto O’Rourke, the Democratic candidate for Texas governor, emerged from a crowded campaign event in a quaint, conservative bastion north of Dallas, Treva Sanges was there to protest them.“Murderers!” she called out.Most walked by her, but Abbi Gregory and a friend, who support abortion rights, stopped and engaged Ms. Sanges in a lengthy debate in the late evening sun. The women quickly realized that while they were political opponents, they were also once neighbors.“I actually have a few of her art pieces hanging in my house,” Ms. Gregory, 22, said. “And I love her to pieces,” added Ms. Sanges, 58. The women eventually found a thin reed of agreement: abortion bans should allow exceptions for child rape, which Texas law does not provide.“If a 10-year-old gets raped, by all means, you know, go and get it taken care of,” Ms. Sanges said.Locked in a race against Gov. Greg Abbott that has grown unexpectedly close, Mr. O’Rourke has been venturing into deeply conservative corners of rural Texas, sparking confrontations and conversations between Democrats and Republicans who may rarely speak with each other about politics, even if they cross paths every day in the local grocery store or at church.“This is refreshing to see people like me — there’s probably five Democrats in the county,” said John Wade, 73, a retired Methodist elder who came to see Mr. O’Rourke in Bowie, Texas, where nearly 90 percent of voters chose Donald J. Trump in 2020.Supporters listened to Mr. O’Rourke during a campaign rally in Whitesboro.Allison V. Smith for The New York TimesMr. O’Rourke took a photo with Caroline Gomez, a supporter, in Bowie.Allison V. Smith for The New York TimesAt five recent town hall-style gatherings across the deep red rural northeast of Texas, Mr. O’Rourke invited protesters inside for a break from the oppressive heat, answered questions from supporters of Mr. Abbott and took pains to direct his attacks against the governor, not Republicans in general.Mr. O’Rourke sees such efforts as critically important to his uphill campaign to retake the governor’s mansion for Democrats for the first time since Ann Richards mounted an improbable, come-from-behind victory in 1990.“I can’t win this with Democrats alone,” Mr. O’Rourke said in an interview after an event in Texarkana, along the Arkansas border. “I hope that that gives more Republicans a greater opportunity to be part of this, without feeling like they are responsible for what Greg Abbott is doing now, because they’re not.”A former El Paso congressman who made his name with a brash challenge and narrow loss to Senator Ted Cruz in 2018, Mr. O’Rourke has sought to avoid the mistakes of that race, in which his voter turnout efforts also helped Mr. Cruz, and his campaign eschewed big-money supporters. This time, he has taken a few $1 million donations, including from the billionaire George Soros.“I’m raising the money I need to win this race,” Mr. O’Rourke said.For years, Democrats have forecast a political shift in Texas, based on the state’s growing and more liberal urban centers. Mr. O’Rourke’s run is the latest attempt to test that prediction, which has yet to come true.Mr. O’Rourke discussed guns with Rod Parker, a revivalist preacher with a .40-caliber handgun, at a church in Whitesboro last month.Allison V. Smith for The New York TimesMr. O’Rourke attracted protesters in Whitesboro. Many had handguns on their hips, and one had a flag depicting the weapon in place of a cannon over the famous slogan from the Texas revolution: “Come and Take It.”Allison V. Smith for The New York TimesWhat has changed this time, for him and the state, has been the resurgence of emotional debates over guns and abortion. Those hot-button issues are more relevant than ever in Texas, with a school shooting in Uvalde in May and a clampdown on abortion made possible by the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision on the issue in June. They have invigorated Mr. O’Rourke’s longtime supporters and provided an opening for him to move into conservative strongholds around Texas — like the rural counties north of Dallas — and present his positions as moderate compared with those of Mr. Abbott and other Republican leaders.While Mr. O’Rourke is hoping to find more votes, he is still likely to lose in these corners of the state by large margins.More Coverage of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsLiz Cheney’s Lopsided Loss: The Republican congresswoman’s defeat in Wyoming exposed the degree to which former President Donald J. Trump still controls the party’s present — and its near future.2024 Hint: Hours after her loss, Ms. Cheney acknowledged that she was “thinking” about a White House bid. But her mission to thwart Donald J. Trump presents challenges.The ‘Impeachment 10’: With Ms. Cheney’s defeat, only two of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Mr. Trump remain.Alaska Races: Senator Lisa Murkowski and Sarah Palin appeared to be on divergent paths following contests that offered a glimpse at the state’s independent streak.“I had my picture with him — if I was running again, I’d lose my campaign,” said L.D. Williamson, 85, the top executive in Red River County who first won office as a Democrat before switching to the Republican Party, joining most of the county’s roughly 12,000 residents. (Mr. Trump won the county 78 percent to 22 percent.)Mr. O’Rourke packed a restaurant on the main square in Clarksville. In his remarks, he outlined a moderated position on guns from some he had taken in the past — expanded background checks, raising the age to 21 from 18 to buy an AR-15-style rifle and a “red flag” law to take firearms from those deemed a risk.“You don’t need an AR-15 to defend yourself and your home,” he said. But, he added, “I’m not here to stand on principle. I’m not here to tell you only what my ideal is. I’m here to get something done.”Still, Mr. O’Rourke has exhibited some raw feelings on the issue: While speaking in Mineral Wells, Texas, he lashed out after a man in a group holding Abbott campaign signs was heard laughing as Mr. O’Rourke spoke about the killing of school children in Uvalde.“It may be funny to you,” he said, lashing out with an expletive, “but it’s not funny to me.” His supporters cheered. A video of the encounter has been viewed nearly five million times.Even before that exchange, the Abbott campaign had grown concerned that the presence of the governor’s supporters at Mr. O’Rourke’s events could backfire. An email from an Abbott campaign worker, described by The Texas Tribune, cautioned them not to go into Mr. O’Rourke’s events or talk to him, not because of fears of confrontations, but because of concerns that it could appear in photos as if they had been converted.Dave Carney, a top campaign strategist for Mr. Abbott, stressed that the campaign welcomed Mr. O’Rourke’s frequent speeches, in which the campaign says he can be seen waffling or pandering to voters of different stripes on gun control, the oil industry and police funding. “He looks at his phone, at what area code he’s in, and he tries to appeal,” Mr. Carney said. “L.B.J. could get away with that, but it doesn’t work today.”Windmills between Bowie and Whitesboro. Mr. O’Rourke has been venturing into deeply conservative corners of rural Texas.Allison V. Smith for The New York TimesHayden Head, 18, of Parker County, protested outside the campaign stop in Bowie. Mr. O’Rourke is locked in a race against Gov. Greg Abbott that has grown unexpectedly close.Allison V. Smith for The New York TimesMr. Abbott agreed this month to a debate, something Mr. Carney had said would happen only if the race were close. Several recent polls have put Mr. O’Rourke around five percentage points behind the governor.At each of the five campaign stops, Mr. O’Rourke stressed broadly popular positions: expanding Medicaid, canceling statewide school assessment tests, cutting property taxes, legalizing marijuana.He was repeatedly asked about one past position, taken during the 2020 presidential primary: a vow, after a deadly mass shooting in El Paso, to “take your AR-15.” The issue has been front of mind for his supporters — who have resurrected the issue since the shooting in Uvalde — and for those who have shown up to protest him, openly bearing arms.The politics of abortion have also appeared to energize Mr. O’Rourke’s campaign. A clear majority of his crowds were women, and the loudest cheers came whenever he discussed his support for abortion rights.“The reason I came is because he was a premature baby, and I am now considered a high-risk pregnancy,” said Azucena Salinas, 20, a pregnant substitute teacher who stood at the back of Mr. O’Rourke’s event in Pittsburg with her 8-month-old son, Malakai. “I want to have the choice and the right for the doctors to be able to give me an abortion when my life is in danger.”Apart from courting conservatives, Mr. O’Rourke’s strategy is focused on turning out new voters, recruiting an army of volunteers — his campaign already claims 80,000 — and campaigning across the state. He is currently in the middle of a 49-day drive across Texas that ends next month.Mr. Carney said Mr. Abbott had also been reaching across party lines to disaffected Democrats, particularly those Hispanic voters who have drifted toward the Republican Party.At his stop in Whitesboro, Mr. O’Rourke drew hundreds of supporters to a renovated church near a downtown gun store. He also attracted scores of protesters, many with handguns on their hips. One man carried an AR-15-style rifle, and another had a flag depicting the weapon in place of a cannon over the famous slogan from the Texas revolution: “Come and Take It.”“The race is really, really close,” said Rod Parker, a revivalist preacher with a .40-caliber handgun on his hip who helped organize the protest. If Mr. O’Rourke wins, he said, Texas would “end up being like a California or an Oregon or a Chicago, and we’re not putting up with that garbage in this town.”Inside the campaign event, Amy Maxey, 46, said she was happy to see the crowd of mostly fellow Democrats gathered there, but she also bemoaned the anger that Mr. O’Rourke’s visit had brought to the surface. She said that as she entered, a protester had told her she was not a Christian because of her support for Mr. O’Rourke.“Our kids grew up in this town together,” she said. “I’m definitely a Christian. I go to church here.”After the event, tensions grew. Mr. Parker and a large group waited outside for Mr. O’Rourke to emerge. Some taunted his supporters.“Baby killers!” they shouted. “Pedophiles!”Inside, Mr. O’Rourke posed for photos and talked to anyone who wanted to ask a question or share their story, including Trey Ramsey, a former police officer who said he backed Mr. Trump in 2016 and Mr. Abbott in 2018 but had become disillusioned with the Republican Party. His wife is volunteering for Mr. O’Rourke.Eventually, Mr. Parker grew impatient with waiting outside and, along with several armed supporters, entered the church. Some shouted at Mr. O’Rourke. As they filled the center aisle, a few dozen feet from Mr. O’Rourke, the town’s police chief urged them to “keep cool,” but people were ruffled nonetheless.“It was a real kind of a shock,” Mr. Ramsey said. “As a former law enforcement officer, my hairs immediately stood up.”Mr. O’Rourke agreed to speak with Mr. Parker. They shook hands and, for five minutes, engaged in a discussion of guns.“I bet that we can agree on something like a universal background check,” Mr. O’Rourke said. “We might be able to agree on a red-flag law.”“No, sir!” shouted a man who had entered with Mr. Parker.“The reason for the people to have the Second Amendment, OK, was for — so that we could protect ourselves from big government,” Mr. Parker said.“You think your right to have a gun is so that you can use it against your government?” Mr. O’Rourke responded.“Not necessarily,” Mr. Parker said. Before walking away, he told Mr. O’Rourke that he was “not welcome in this town.”“Hey, there were a lot of people who just welcomed us to this town,” Mr. O’Rourke responded. “And we’ll be back, again and again.” More

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      Think the Economy Is Hard to Predict? Try the Midterms.

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      The overturning of political norms is testing the limits of an established and generally dependable forecasting model that relies solely on economics.Based on the economy alone, Democrats face a big problem in the midterm elections.Inflation has been extremely high and economic growth has been weak or even negative. That is a toxic political combination — bad enough for the Democrats to lose the House of Representatives by a substantial margin.That, at least, is the forecast of an econometric model run by Ray Fair, a Yale economist. He has used purely economic variables to track and predict elections in real time since 1978, with fairly good results, which he shares with his students and which are available on his website for anyone who wants to examine the work.The party in power always starts off with a handicap in midterm elections, and a bad economy makes matters worse, Professor Fair said in an interview. “At the moment, the Democrats definitely have an uphill climb.”Yet Professor Fair acknowledges that his model can’t capture everything that is going on in the country.While his analysis shows that the Democrats have fallen into an increasingly deep hole as the year has gone on, prediction markets and public opinion polls are more upbeat for the Democrats right now, and show a surge that began in late June.Eric Zitzewitz, a Dartmouth professor who has studied prediction markets extensively, says the improved odds for the Democrats may be linked to an important development beyond the economy: the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.The power of the economyNo one would question whether economic conditions have a major influence on politics.But Professor Fair’s work goes further than that. In his book “Predicting Presidential Elections and Other Things,” and in a series of papers and online demonstrations, he has shown that the economy is so powerful that it explains the broad outcome of most national elections since 1916. His relentlessly economic approach does not include any consideration whatsoever of the staples of conventional political analysis: the transcendent issues of the day, the personalities of the candidates or the tactics employed by their campaigns.This year, as high inflation has persisted and economic growth has slowed, he finds that the electoral prospects for the Democrats have worsened. Based on data through July, he estimates that Democrats will get only 46.70 percent of the raw national vote for congressional candidates in November.How this projection translates into results for individual congressional seats is beyond the scope of Professor Fair’s grand experiment.“That’s not what this model is built to do,” he said. “I leave that to the political scientists. But I think the model is showing that, because of the economy, the odds aren’t good for the Democrats holding the House of Representatives.”More Coverage of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsLiz Cheney’s Lopsided Loss: The Republican congresswoman’s defeat in Wyoming exposed the degree to which former President Donald J. Trump still controls the party’s present — and its near future.2024 Hint: Hours after her loss, Ms. Cheney acknowledged that she was “thinking” about a White House bid. But her mission to thwart Donald J. Trump presents challenges.The ‘Impeachment 10’: With Ms. Cheney’s defeat, only two of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Mr. Trump remain.Alaska Races: Senator Lisa Murkowski and Sarah Palin appeared to be on divergent paths following contests that offered a glimpse at the state’s independent streak.Something missingYet, as Professor Fair readily acknowledges, his model’s single-minded exclusion of noneconomic factors inevitably misses some important things.In the 2016 presidential election, for example, it projected that Hillary Clinton would lose the popular vote to Donald J. Trump. She won the popular vote but lost the presidency in the Electoral College.“It’s possible,” he said, “that some of that was Trump’s personality, and that the model couldn’t pick that up.”Something similar may have happened in 2020. The model estimated that Joseph R. Biden Jr. would receive only 47.9 percent of the popular vote but he actually got 52.27 percent. In both cases, Professor Fair said, “Trump did not do as well as he was predicted to do by the model.”The model’s singular focus may be unable to adequately account for what Professor Fair calls “the Trump effect.” That shorthand encompasses the array of norm-shattering behaviors and issues associated with President Trump and his adherents, including the Jan. 6 insurrection; Mr. Trump’s denial of President Biden’s election win in 2020; and the decision of the Supreme Court, with three Trump appointees, to overturn Roe v. Wade, which had been the law of the land for 50 years.What prediction markets sayIn theory, the prices in perfectly efficient markets synthesize the knowledge of each participant, making them better at assessing complicated issues than any individual can. But perfect conditions don’t exist for any market on earth and certainly not for prediction markets. Still, Professor Zitzewitz says these markets are highly informative.He pointed out that as recently as June 23, PredictIt, a leading prediction market, gave the Republican Party a 76 percent chance of taking the House of Representatives and the Senate from the Democrats in November.But the next day, June 24, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. By June 30, the probability of a Republican sweep, calculated from bets placed on the PredictIt site, dropped to 60 percent. They were down to 39 percent on Thursday, with a higher probability, 47 percent, given to a different outcome: Democratic control of the Senate and a Republican victory in the House.Public opinion polls appear to have moved in a similar direction. The average of the polls tracked by Real Clear Markets has shifted from total Republican dominance to a virtual dead heat in the generic congressional ballot. On the other hand, Mr. Biden’s job rating in those polls is still awful, with nearly 16 percent more people disapproving of his performance than approving of it.Did the Supreme Court ruling shift the odds for the midterms? Did the Jan. 6 hearings swing public opinion? Has a string of legislative victories added luster to the Biden aura and moved some voters toward Democrats?It’s impossible to prove cause and effect for any of these things.Economic anomaliesIt is conceivable that the unique economic situation is muddling the projections in Professor Fair’s model.Gross domestic product and the inflation rate are the only economic factors the model uses, and may not be adequate for analyzing the state of the economy now, with the pandemic and Russia’s war in Ukraine causing disruptions around the globe. Both the G.D.P. and inflation numbers for the United States are bleak and the Federal Reserve is raising interest rates, giving rise to speculation that the country is heading into a recession or is already in one.But other metrics, like gross domestic income and the unemployment rate, have been more positive. If the economy turns out to be in better shape than the core G.D.P. and inflation data indicate, the vote projections for the incumbent Democrats would improve, and they would worsen for the Republicans.Then again, Professor Fair said, “The economy and the political situation are always unique.”Reality is recalcitrant. Human behavior never fits entirely into any model or market yet invented.It’s worth knowing as much as you can about the underlying factors, but they come down to people. I find that reassuring.In the end, elections depend on the voters coming out and the public as a whole respecting the results. Astonishingly, in 2022, that basic civics lesson needs reinforcement. The legitimacy of the 2020 election is still under attack.So, remember, whatever the models, the markets, the polls, the pundits or the candidates say, the future is in your hands. When Election Day comes around, it’s more important than ever to get out and vote, and to make sure your vote counts. More