Midterm Elections (2022)

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      CPAC Focuses on Culture Grievances and Trump

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      The annual gathering of American conservatives reflected the G.O.P’s shift away from policy issues that had traditionally animated the party.ORLANDO, Fla. — Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has much of the world transfixed and on edge. President Biden announced a new Supreme Court appointment who is unlikely to get any significant Republican support.But at the Conservative Political Action Conference, the annual gathering of the right wing of American politics, the news convulsing the world seemed oddly distant. Instead, the focus was on cultural grievances, former President Donald J. Trump and the widespread sense of victimization that have replaced traditional conservative issues .Like so many of the Republican officials who have remade themselves in his image, Mr. Trump, in a speech to the conference on Saturday night, sought to portray himself as a victim of assaults from Democrats and the news media. He said they would leave him alone if he were not a threat to seek the presidency again in 2024. “If I said ‘I’m not going to run,’ the persecution would stop immediately,” Mr. Trump said. “They’d go on to the next victim.” Eight months before the midterm elections, familiar Republican themes like lower taxes and a muscular foreign policy took a back seat to the idea that America is backsliding into a woke dystopia unleashed by liberal elites. Even the G.O.P. was more than a bit suspect.Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, a pro-Trump grass-roots group focusing on millennial conservatives, denounced “the Republican Party of old” in his speech to the conference, known as CPAC and held in Orlando, Fla., this year.“Conservative leaders can learn something from our wonderful 45th president of the United States,” Mr. Kirk said. “I want our leaders to care more about you and our fellow countrymen than some abstract idea or abstract G.D.P. number.”Placing cultural aggrievement at the centerpiece of their midterm campaigns comes as Republicans find themselves split on a host of issues that have typically united the party.This week, as Russian President Vladimir V. Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine to the near-universal condemnation of American allies, Mr. Trump on Saturday reiterated his assessment that Mr. Putin was “smart” to invade Ukraine for the price of economic sanctions, though he did call the war “a catastrophic disaster.” His former adviser Steve Bannon on Wednesday praised Mr. Putin for being “anti-woke” — the very theme of the CPAC gathering.That put them at odds with Republican elected officials, particularly congressional leaders, who have denounced Mr. Putin’s actions, as have Democrats and Mr. Biden.How Donald J. Trump Still LoomsGrip on G.O.P.: Mr. Trump remains the most powerful figure in the Republican Party. However, there are signs his control is loosening.Power Struggle: Led by Senator Mitch McConnell, a band of anti-Trump Republicans is maneuvering to thwart the ex-president.Midterms Effect: Mr. Trump has become a party kingmaker, but his involvement in state races worries many Republicans.Post-Presidency Profits: Mr. Trump is melding business with politics, capitalizing for personal gain.Just the Beginning: For many Trump supporters who marched on Jan. 6, the day was not a disgraced insurrection but the start of a movement.On Capitol Hill, Republican senators are debating whether to release an official policy agenda at all ahead of the midterms. The lack of urgency was encapsulated in a statement by Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, who dismissed a question about what Republicans would do if they took back Congress in 2022. “That is a very good question,” Mr. McConnell said. “And I’ll let you know when we take it back.”In lieu of a united policy, Republicans are hoping that a grab bag of grievances will motivate voters who are dissatisfied with Mr. Biden’s administration. At CPAC, Republicans argued that they were the real victims of Mr. Biden’s America, citing rising inflation, undocumented immigration at the Mexican border and liberal institutions pushing racial diversity in hiring and education.Every speaker emphasized personal connections to Mr. Trump, no matter how spurious, while others adopted both his aggrieved tone and patented hand gestures.Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri at CPAC on Thursday.Scott McIntyre for The New York TimesRepresentative Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina praised what he called China’s effort to instill “great patriotic and masculine values” in its youth through social media. At a Mexican restaurant inside the conference hotel, Representative Billy Long of Missouri argued that he coined the phrase “Trump Train” on 2015. He said he still used it as his wireless internet password. And Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri, a banker’s son who was educated at Stanford and Yale, sought to tie himself to alienated blue-collar workers he claimed were getting a raw deal.“Rednecks and roughnecks get a lot of bad press these days,” Mr. Hawley said. At the same time the hallways of the massive Orlando hotel hosting the event were filled with an array of Trump paraphernalia. There were two separate kiosks marketing themselves as Trump malls, a shop selling Trump hammocks and, for $35 a book, a five-volume set of every tweet Mr. Trump published as president before Twitter banned him.MAGA shoes at CPAC.Scott McIntyre for The New York TimesCardboard cutouts of former President Donald J. Trump and Melania Trump in a hallway at CPAC.Scott McIntyre for The New York TimesSpeakers largely brushed off the war in Ukraine, beyond blaming Mr. Biden, and on Friday few people mentioned Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, Mr. Biden’s new choice for the Supreme Court. John Schnatter, the pizza magnate who in 2018 resigned as chairman of the Papa John’s franchise after using a racial slur in a comment about Black people during a conference call, mingled among the crowd, saying he was among those unfairly canceled. Senator Rick Scott of Florida warned of “woke, government-run everything.”And former Representative Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, who in 2020 ran for the Democratic presidential nomination but has adopted right-wing positions and become a darling of conservative media, labeled the government a “secular theocracy” because of its efforts to fight misinformation.Eight miles from CPAC, an even angrier right-wing gathering, the America First Political Action Conference, took place at another Orlando hotel with Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia as the main attraction and Representative Paul Gosar of Arizona appearing by video.The commentator Nick Fuentes, head of the group that hosted the conference, said Mr. Putin had been compared to Hilter. He laughed and added: “They say it’s not a good thing.” Mr. Fuentes, a white nationalist and Holocaust denier, runs what is known as the America First or “groyper” movement, which promotes a message that the nation is losing “its white demographic core.” Last month, Mr. Fuentes was subpoenaed by congressional investigators examining the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.At CPAC and beyond, focusing on the negative can be strategic as well as visceral. Polls show Republican voters have a more favorable view of Mr. Putin than of Mr. Biden, and one lesson of the backlash against the party holding the White House during the last four midterm elections is that an intense distaste for a president of the opposing party is more than enough to propel sweeping victories.“The conservative movement is always evolving, and as it evolves and reacts to the radical ideas of the progressive left, the issues that really matter to people shift a little bit,” said Charlie Gerow, a Republican candidate for governor of Pennsylvania. “The one unifying factor for conservatives is Joe Biden and his henchmen out in the states.”It was only seven years ago that Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor, told the CPAC crowd that “it’s good to oppose the bad things, but we need to start being for things.”Just as Mr. Trump excised Bush-style conservative politics from the Republican Party, so has it been removed from the annual CPAC gathering. Playing to feelings of resentment and alienation is a far safer bet for Republicans than advancing a policy agenda when the party remains split on taxes, foreign policy and how much to indulge Mr. Trump’s lies about the 2020 election. “You can always cut taxes, you can always roll back regulations, you can always elect better people,” Senator Marco Rubio of Florida said. “But when freedom is lost and it’s eroded, it is so hard to reclaim.”At CPAC, there was no shortage of stories about the horrors of cultural and political cancellations — though the speakers offered scant evidence of actual suffering.Representative Jim Banks of Indiana, after saying he would “never, ever apologize for objecting” to Mr. Biden’s victory on Jan. 6, said he and Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio were victimized when they were removed from the House committee investigating that day’s attack on the United States Capitol in 2021.“We both got canceled and kicked off the committee by Nancy Pelosi,” Mr. Banks said.Like others at CPAC who claimed to have experienced the wounds of cancel culture, Mr. Banks has seen his profile and political standing only increase since the moment he claimed to have been canceled.CPAC attendees cheering during a speech by Senator Rick Scott of Florida.Scott McIntyre for The New York TimesLeila Centner, a founder of a Miami private school, who last year told her teachers and staff they would not be allowed to interact with students if they received a coronavirus vaccine, recounted the backlash once her anti-vaccine views made news.“The media was all over me, they went ballistic,” she said.But Ms. Centner said the brouhaha turned out to be a positive thing for her and her school. She told the CPAC audience that her student enrollment went up and there was now a waiting list. She has become a personality in demand from conservative news networks, and she said in an interview that she now had a homogeneous school community that shared her views on the pandemic and the country’s racial history.“What this whole thing has done is it’s actually made our community more aligned,” she said.As the incentives in conservative politics increasingly reward figures caught up in controversies that can allow them to be portrayed as victims, leading to more face time on conservative cable television, some veteran Republicans are lamenting that there is little to be gained by a focus on policy.Former Representative Mark Walker of North Carolina, who is running for the Senate against a Trump-endorsed candidate, can’t get much attention, he said, when he touts his record working for veterans during his three terms in Congress.“Some of the new people entering the political world, they get 12 press secretaries and one policy person,” Mr. Walker said in an interview. “There’s a problem with that, right?”Alan Feuer More

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      Ballot Rejections in Texas Spike After New Voting Law

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      Ahead of Tuesday’s primary, about 30 percent of absentee ballots were rejected in the state’s most populous counties. In 2020, the statewide rejection rate was less than 1 percent.Local election officials in Texas have rejected thousands of absentee ballots based on requirements set by the state’s new election law, an alarming jump that risks potentially preventing some Texans from voting in Tuesday’s primary election.The state’s Republican and Democratic primaries will be the first elections held since the Republican-led Texas Legislature overhauled the state’s election laws. Election officials in the most populous counties have rejected roughly 30 percent of the absentee ballots they have received — more than 15,000 ballots — as of Wednesday, according to a review of election data by The New York Times. The ballots were rejected largely because voters either did not include their driver’s license number or the last four digits of their Social Security number, or the numbers they put down did not match what officials had on file. The new identification requirements were put in place by the voting law passed last year, known as Senate Bill 1. The rate of rejection represents a significant increase from past elections, including in 2020, when the statewide rejection rate was less than 1 percent for the general election, according to data from the federal Election Assistance Commission. In 2020, officials rejected 8,304 ballots in Texas out of nearly a million votes statewide. This year, that statewide number has already been surpassed in two counties alone: Harris County and Dallas County rejected more than 8,600 ballots as of Wednesday.The Times tallied absentee ballot rejections in 10 of the 13 counties with more than 400,000 residents. Bexar County, home to San Antonio, had not started its ballot review process as of Wednesday, and Tarrant County and Denton County, near Dallas, had been delayed by an ice storm. The total of rejected ballots could still change. Voters have until Election Day to submit their ballots and up to six days to fix ballot defects, depending on the circumstances of the rejections. In Williamson County outside Austin, for example, officials initially rejected 514 absentee ballots, but 167 of those had been corrected and counted as of Tuesday. The rise in rejections in Texas is the earliest sign that the spate of new election laws passed across the country last year after the 2020 election are having an effect. In the battleground states of Florida and Georgia, Republican legislatures passed sweeping new voting laws with identification requirements for the absentee ballot process that are similar to those in the Texas law. Florida and Georgia will hold their primaries later this year.A Guide to the Texas PrimaryThe 2022 midterm elections begin with the state’s primary on March 1.Governor’s Race: Gov. Greg Abbott’s rightward shift will face a test in November. His likely challenger, Beto O’Rourke, is haunted by his 2020 presidential bid.Switching Parties: Democrats have long held local offices in a small West Texas town. Then top officials decided to leave the party.Politics of Abortion: The fight over abortion rights is changing the political fabric of South Texas, long a Democratic stronghold.Effect of New Voting Law: The law, which Republicans said would make it “easy to vote, hard to cheat,” has led to a jump in rejections of absentee ballot applications.Voters throughout Texas have been flooding voter protection hotlines, seeking guidance or expressing dismay that their absentee ballots had been rejected and returned after years of voting absentee without any problems.At the headquarters of the Dallas County Democratic Party, voters have called in with various issues regarding their ballots. The party has been scrambling to help voters as Tuesday’s Election Day deadline nears, including using text messages to send out information on new requirements to more than 30,000 voters in the county.“The calls have been pretty much constant since the last week in January, with confusion about the application process and then frustration about the rejections,” said Kristy Noble, the chairwoman of the Dallas County Democratic Party.Complications over absentee ballots have a more limited impact in Texas than in many other states, however. Texas only allows voters who are over 65 or who have a verified excuse to vote by mail. Though more than a million Texans voted by mail in the 2020 general election, that number is expected to fall this year as turnout regularly dips in the midterms.But with voting by mail limited to elderly and disabled voters, the concern that initially rejected ballots will disenfranchise voters has grown. Guillermina Nevárez lives at home in the Maverick County border region with her husband, Alfonso Nevárez Sr., and her 98-year-old mother, who is disabled and recovering from a recent surgery.In all three of their ballots, they missed the field to include their identification information, presuming that since their ballot application had been accepted they were free to cast their ballot.“We didn’t look at the fine print,” said Ms. Nevárez, who is also the mother of a former Democratic state representative. “And there’s so much of it, the fine print.”She corrected the three ballots and sent them back by mail. She is hoping that the information is correct — because of her mother’s condition, they cannot go in person to fix any issues.“It is very upsetting,” Ms. Nevárez said.The Texas law also bans methods of voting introduced in the 2020 election because of the pandemic, including drive-through voting and 24-hour voting, and it erects new barriers for those looking to help voters who need assistance, such as with translations.Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, signed the law in September. The move came after record turnout in the state: 11.3 million people voted in the 2020 election, including more than nine million who cast their ballots early.Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas after signing Senate Bill 1 into law last year.LM Otero/Associated PressMr. Abbott’s office did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Previously, the governor’s office has defended the law and blamed the high rejection rate of absentee ballot applications on local election officials. The Texas secretary of state’s office said that it has been trying to inform voters of the new changes to prevent anyone from having a ballot returned or rejected. “We have been working around the clock for the past month to get the word out through multiple channels,” said Sam Taylor, a spokesman for the secretary of state, in an email. The state had already seen abnormally high rates of rejection for absentee ballot applications earlier this month, as voters struggled with the new identification requirements. Now, some voters who had to fix their applications are growing nervous that their ballots will not arrive in time ahead of the Tuesday primary. Others are resolving to just vote in person. Nancy Bryant, 67, lives in Dallas and has served as an election judge in previous elections. She filled out her application and was approved, so she sent in her ballot. This week, she learned her ballot was rejected and that county officials were going to mail it back to her for corrections. But with the primary fast approaching, Ms. Bryant had not received her ballot as of Friday, and she’s not sure if she’ll receive it in time to take it to a polling location on Election Day. Without her ballot, she may be forced to cast a provisional ballot. Either way, her wish to cast an absentee ballot has collided with the reality of the new Texas law, and the likelihood of voting in person.“If I don’t get it back in time, I’m going have to vote provisionally, which hurts me deeply,” Ms. Bryant said. “I am a dedicated voter.” More

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      Progressive Jessica Cisneros Challenges Rep. Cuellar in Texas

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      LAREDO, Texas — Two years ago, a 26-year-old immigration lawyer named Jessica Cisneros came within 3.6 percentage points of pushing out the longtime Democratic congressman here, running aggressively on the progressive vision of the national liberals who had bankrolled her insurgent campaign.This time around, at the ripe age of 28, she’s scorching the already brown earth of South Texas, attacking Representative Henry Cuellar not so much for his conservative policy positions, but for being what she describes as a corrupt politician — rich, out of touch with his poor constituents, and quite possibly a felon.“We’re going after him,” Ms. Cisneros said at a picnic table outside the taqueria next to her campaign headquarters, with the confidence of a seasoned political street fighter. “Everything we’ve been doing has been very intentional.”Texas will kick off the 2022 primary season on Tuesday, launching what promises to be a grueling series of contests that could pull both Democrats and Republicans toward their political extremes, while testing the grips that President Biden and former President Donald J. Trump have over their respective parties.In South Texas, another test is developing over the power of identity politics and whether liberals can answer the fears that conservatives are stoking about “open borders,” “critical race theory” and rising crime. In the primary campaign for Texas’ 28th district, it is Mr. Cuellar’s experience versus Ms. Cisneros’s storytelling: the powerful and connected versus the underdogs, the community, the “pueblo.”There have been many changes here since Ms. Cisneros first challenged Mr. Cuellar, but the most significant may have been the shock for both parties of seeing Hispanic voters lurch toward Mr. Trump in 2020. Zapata County, just south of here, is heavily Latino; Hillary Clinton won it by more than 30 points in 2016, then it went to Mr. Trump by about five points. Ms. Clinton’s 60-point margin in Starr County, which is 96 percent Latino, shriveled to a five-point advantage for Mr. Biden.In response, Ms. Cisneros is running a campaign against the 17-year incumbent that could easily have been engineered by a Republican. She still favors Medicare for All, a $15 minimum wage, more liberal immigration policies and abortion rights, but those have not been her focus.Instead, she has played up her biography and hit Mr. Cuellar hard on rising prices. She has portrayed him as a Washington insider, greasing his pockets with money from big corporations, and presented herself as embodying the struggling community he left behind.“My medicines cost more, insurance more,” intones an older Latina in one of Ms. Cisneros’s most recent ads, as the woman sweeps the stoop of her modest house and laments that nothing has changed in Laredo. “Now it’s food and gas, but we don’t make more. If you ask me, Henry Cuellar has been in Washington too long.”The mysterious raid last month by the F.B.I. of Mr. Cuellar’s Laredo home and campaign office presented a late, potentially devastating twist that seemed to confirm all that Ms. Cisneros had been saying of the congressman — and she pounced on it.Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, a fellow progressive, campaigned recently for congressional candidate Jessica Cisneros in San Antonio.Ilana Panich-Linsman for The New York TimesJustice Democrats, the progressive insurgent group that has greatly bolstered her campaign, has piled on with a decidedly nonideological advertisement blanketing South Texas that accuses Mr. Cuellar of hitching rides on donors’ private jets, fixing his BMW with campaign cash and drawing that raid by the F.B.I.Progressives have been on a losing streak of late. In August, a hero of the left, Nina Turner, lost a special election in Cleveland to a candidate backed by establishment Democrats. Representative Marie Newman of Illinois, who in 2020 defeated one of the last House Democrats who opposed abortion, is under an ethics investigation, accused of enticing a primary rival out of the race two years ago with a promised job in her congressional office. Democratic leaders have struggled to distance themselves from the sloganeering of “Defund the police,” while Republicans have demonized progressive views on race and gender.A Guide to the 2022 U.S. Midterm ElectionsIn the Senate: Democrats have a razor-thin margin that could be upended with a single loss. Here are the four incumbents most at risk.In the House: Republicans and Democrats are seeking to gain an edge through redistricting and gerrymandering.Governors’ Races: Georgia’s contest will be at the center of the political universe, but there are several important races across the country.Key Issues: Inflation, the pandemic, abortion and voting rights are expected to be among this election cycle’s defining topics.Like Ms. Cisneros, liberal organizations are trying to adjust.“We are definitely aware of the Trump swing,” said Waleed Shahid, a spokesman and strategist for Justice Democrats, which helped Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Cori Bush of Missouri and Ayanna S. Pressley of Massachusetts defeat veteran Democratic incumbents over the past four years.Mr. Cuellar and his supporters have greeted the onslaught with disbelief. The veteran Democrat may be the last in the House who opposes abortion, and he has taken a tougher line on immigration, border security and law enforcement than many of his colleagues. But that is not what the campaign seems to be about.“They really don’t talk much about what they want to do, except in general terms,” Mr. Cuellar said. Instead, he said, “it’s attack, attack, attack, attack, attack, attack.”He said in January in a video statement on Twitter that the ongoing investigation — which appears linked to a broader inquiry into the political influence of Azerbaijan — will show “no wrongdoing on my part.”Supporters of Ms. Cisneros — and some Democratic thinkers — see in her shift a model for the party in the Trump era of personal politics. Republicans, and to some extent Mr. Cuellar, have created a frightening narrative that feels more urgent than any policy debates in Washington. That story contends that decent, hard-working people are playing by the rules, but strangers are pounding at the door, and neighbors are grabbing all they can from the government.Ian Haney López, a public law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who has studied the Hispanic shift in South Texas, said Ms. Cisneros is using identity to try to galvanize support without alienating the white voters who remain the majority nationwide — though not in the 28th district of Texas.Since the rise of Trumpism, with its appeals to white grievance and fears, he said, Democrats have taken two approaches, both of which have failed. The progressive wing has called out Mr. Trump and his supporters as racist, and urged voters to band together to fight white racism.“That identity story casts the majority of Democratic voters as part of the problem,” he said. In addition, 2020 proved that tactic was also not helpful to the Democratic cause with people of color, especially Latinos. “You’re not going to get them to sign on to a story that says you’re on the margins, you’re widely hated, and your children’s lives will be truncated by racism.”Jessica Cisneros hands out campaign flyers in Laredo, Texas. She is supported by the same progressive group that helped Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Cori Bush of Missouri and Ayanna S. Pressley of Massachusetts defeat veteran Democratic incumbents.Ilana Panich-Linsman for The New York TimesMore centrist Democrats, recognizing the perils of that approach, have eschewed identity politics altogether and stuck with dry policy arguments — a strategy Mr. Lopez called “nonsense on stilts.”In Ms. Cisneros’s campaign, he sees an identity-first approach, in which she casually toggles between English and Spanish, speaks of identifying with South Texas and its struggles, contrasts that to the outsiders in Washington, then pivots to issues like health care and reproductive rights.After the Trump shake-up, the region could be ready for a new approach, said Cecilia Ballí, an anthropologist and researcher at the University of Houston who did extensive interviews in South Texas after Mr. Trump’s 2020 gains. For decades, the region has been run by insular political families like Mr. Cuellar’s. His brother is the sheriff of Laredo’s Webb County; his sister is a former municipal judge and tax collector there.Ms. Ballí said that with no real competition between the parties, Democrats have won loyalty with rallies and free food, but no emphasis on issues or retail politics. Mr. Trump’s brand of personality-driven, outsider bombast broke through to many disillusioned Hispanic voters.Ms. Cisneros agreed: “They’ve been voting Democrat for such a long time, and obviously, the poverty rate hasn’t gone down, the uninsurance rate hasn’t gone down. People still have to work two or three jobs just to make ends meet.” she said. Add the pandemic and a shutdown of border crossings that crippled Laredo commerce, “and I think that just led to the perfect storm.”Mr. Cuellar has weapons of his own: an unrivaled network of backers in the political establishment and a seat on the House Appropriations Committee, from which he has plied the sprawling district with federal largess, from $45,520,000 in transportation projects for Atascosa County in the district’s north to $15,142,000 for cattle health in Zapata County in the south.Then there are the fears that a Cisneros victory March 1 would hand newly confident Republicans the seat. Ms. Cisneros insists that she is the answer to the Republican rise, an outsider voice to give hope to the region’s frustrations. Redistricting changes actually made the 28th slightly more Democratic, with more voters from San Antonio’s Bexar County, a potential boon to Ms. Cisneros’s chances — on Tuesday and in November. The district shifted from 76.9 percent Hispanic to 75.3 percent, but a slight rise in Anglo voters could actually help Ms. Cisneros if those new voters are San Antonio liberals.But Mr. Cuellar beat his Republican challenger handily in 2020, with 58 percent of the vote, while Mr. Biden eked out 51.5 percent. Those Trump-Cuellar voters could move to the Republican House candidate that emerges from the seven-candidate primary.“If Henry loses, then they have won this seat,” Anna Cavazos Ramirez, a former Webb County attorney, said of the Republicans.The negative tone of Ms. Cisneros’s campaign has turned off some voters, who speculated that the raid last month — still unexplained — was somehow the work of her supporters. Pastor Tim Rowley, who ministers at one of Laredo’s largest evangelical congregations, Grace Bible Church, said the campaign had left him saddened.“Whether you’re Democrat or Republican, rather than getting up and fully debating the issues, it just seems to be a smear campaign,” he said, suggesting he would likely vote for Mr. Cuellar because “this has to stop.”Miguel Sanchez, 35, was not so quick to dismiss what he called “that incident,” when F.B.I. agents were seen carrying items from Mr. Cuellar’s Laredo home. Mr. Sanchez had come to a rally at Texas A&M International University for Beto O’Rourke, the Democrat running for Texas governor, but the longtime Cuellar supporter was giving the House primary a lot of thought.“Cisneros, she seems to be a breath of fresh air,” he said, adding, “It’s been a long time since we’ve had a grassroots-type Democrat.” As for the incumbent, Ms. Cisneros’s message has gotten through.“I don’t know,” Mr. Sanchez said, shaking his head. “We don’t need politicians like that in Washington.” More

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      The Senate’s Most Vulnerable Democrats

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      With inflation and President Biden’s sinking poll ratings beleaguering the party, incumbents in four battleground states — Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and New Hampshire — face tough campaigns.Two senators from states with little in common and at opposite poles of the country found each other this month: Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire and Mark Kelly of Arizona, who banded together to push a gasoline tax holiday.Their bill — the Gas Prices Relief Act, which would suspend 18.4 cents of federal tax per gallon — soon found two other eager sponsors: Senators Raphael Warnock of Georgia and Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada.A gas tax holiday may face dim prospects, but the fact that four of its chief backers just happen to be the four most vulnerable Democratic senators in the midterms this November underscores how much they want to ring a populist bell, one that might help them save their jobs.While most attention around the midterms until now has focused on the battle for the House and the state-by-state fights over redrawing districts, Democrats’ fragile Senate majority is also in play.Collectively, the four Democratic senators most at risk — Mr. Warnock, Mr. Kelly, Ms. Cortez Masto and Ms. Hassan — are neither national stars nor senior members of leadership. They are vulnerable not because of policies they passed or failed to pass. Rather, they are incumbents in battleground states in a year of hostile political weather for Democrats, with rising inflation, voter anger at the party in charge and President Biden’s sinking job approval.Even though the president won all four of their states in 2020, his margins were so slim that small shifts in partisan enthusiasm or the allegiance of swing voters, especially suburbanites, could bring Republican victories.Mr. Warnock, Georgia’s first Black senator, and Mr. Kelly, a former astronaut, are defending seats in longtime Republican strongholds that Mr. Biden carried by less than one percentage point. Ms. Cortez Masto, the first Latina senator, is seeking re-election in a state where disapproval of the president registered at 52 percent in a recent poll.Even in New Hampshire, where Mr. Biden won by seven points, Republicans sense an opportunity to oust Ms. Hassan, a former governor, after a recent New Hampshire poll showed that fewer than one in five residents think the country is heading in the right direction.The 2022 climate could still shift. Galloping inflation could moderate. The confirmation of a Black woman to the Supreme Court, or the court’s gutting of abortion rights, could galvanize Democrats. And with much of the Republican Party captive to Donald Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen, the Republican nominees who come through bruising primaries could be too polarizing to win. Democrats also hope to pick up Republican-held seats in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.But history is not in Democrats’ favor. The party that holds the White House almost always suffers midterm losses. Even milestone legislation — Barack Obama’s health care reform, or Ronald Reagan’s signature tax cuts — has made little difference. Midterm voters have generally been more motivated by economic conditions or by a desire to put a check on the party in power.A Look Ahead to the 2022 U.S. Midterm ElectionsIn the Senate: Democrats have a razor-thin margin that could be upended with a single loss. Here are 10 races to watch.In the House: Republicans and Democrats are seeking to gain an edge through redistricting and gerrymandering.Governors’ Races: Georgia’s contest will be at the center of the political universe, but there are several important races across the country.Campaign Financing: With both parties awash in political money, billionaires and big checks are shaping the midterm elections.Key Issues: Democrats and Republicans are preparing for abortion and voting rights to be defining topics.“Individual candidates and the races they run do matter, but history tells us the political environment is the most meaningful contributor to the midterm outcome,” said Kyle Kondik, an analyst at the nonpartisan Center for Politics at the University of Virginia.Here is a look at Democrats’ most endangered senators.Georgia: The pastor and the ex-football starSenator Raphael WarnockNicole Craine for The New York TimesMr. Warnock calls himself “the most vulnerable Senate Democrat up for re-election.” He won his seat in a 2021 runoff thanks to strong Black turnout and the failure of some Republicans to show up after Mr. Trump fanned the falsehood of rigged elections.But Georgia is still a right-leaning state, and disenchantment with Mr. Biden is more intense there than nationally. The president’s job approval was in the mid-30s in two public polls last month. While Mr. Warnock has emphasized how Democrats’ Senate majority delivered pandemic relief, his opponents have attacked his reliance on wealthy, out-of-state campaign contributors.“Biden has lost those white, highly educated voters who migrated to Warnock and are open to coming back to Republicans,” said Brian Robinson, a G.O.P. strategist in Georgia.A poll by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution showed Mr. Warnock statistically tied in a general-election matchup with the former football star Herschel Walker, who was beckoned into the race by Mr. Trump. Women have claimed Mr. Walker threatened them with violence, and he has acknowledged a history of mental illness. But his stature with Republicans has suffered little.Mr. Walker has avoided public events and generally all but friendly news media. In one interview, he said the Democrats’ proposed John Lewis Voting Rights Act “doesn’t fit with what John Lewis stood for,” though the Georgia congressman, who died in 2020, had dedicated his life to voting rights. Mr. Walker later complained it was “totally unfair to someone like myself” to be asked about the bipartisan, trillion-dollar infrastructure law, perhaps Congress’s biggest achievement of 2021.At some point, Mr. Walker may have to face off with Mr. Warnock, an orator who holds the pulpit that once belonged to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.Jason Carter, the Democratic nominee for Georgia governor in 2014, said, “I have in my office right now a football signed by Herschel Walker, but I don’t want him to be my senator and I’m not alone.”Arizona: Drawing a contrast with progressivesSenator Mark KellyConor E. Ralph for The New York TimesMr. Kelly is defending the seat he won in 2020, where he outperformed Mr. Biden in all 15 counties. The race is taking place in the shadow of a yearlong right-wing crusade in Arizona to undo Mr. Biden’s victory, which has turned off many traditional Republicans.Among the Republican contenders, Attorney General Mark Brnovich acknowledged that Mr. Trump lost in Arizona, but he has tried to regain credibility with the base ever since. The Republican field also includes the venture capitalist Blake Masters, who has appealed to grass-roots anger at China and over the porous Mexican border, and Jim Lamon, a businessman who has run inflammatory TV ads.“You’ve got Republican candidates doing everything they can to out-Trump themselves in a state that defeated Trump,” said Tony Cani, a Democratic strategist.Mr. Kelly has held his attacks against Republicans so far, instead emphasizing his roots as the son of two police officers and his support for popular legislation like the gas tax holiday and a ban on congressional stock trading.Kirk Adams, a Republican strategist, said the G.O.P.’s often fractious wings in Arizona would rally around the eventual nominee.“There is a unifying thread right now, the alarm and concern over the Biden administration, across all factions of the Republican Party,” said Mr. Adams, a former top aide to Gov. Doug Ducey, whom anti-Trump Republicans have tried to coax into the race.Mr. Kelly, the husband of Gabrielle Giffords, the former congresswoman who was critically injured in a mass shooting in 2011, has sought to insulate himself by drawing a contrast with progressives. He criticized Mr. Biden for not labeling the record number of migrants seized at the border “a crisis,” and he disavowed the state Democratic Party’s censure of Senator Kyrsten Sinema for refusing to change filibuster rules.Nevada: A fight over who would fight harderSenator Catherine Cortez MastoElizabeth D. Herman for The New York TimesA war of words over Mr. Trump’s loss in 2020 is likely to animate the Senate race in Nevada, where the leading Republican, Adam Laxalt, has pushed efforts to reverse Mr. Biden’s 33,000-vote win in the state. He has called the falsehood of a stolen election “the hottest topic” of his campaign this year. He has the backing of both Mr. Trump and Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader.Ms. Cortez Masto, first elected in 2016, was a protégé of Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader who died last year.“I’ve always been in tough races,” Ms. Cortez Masto said in an interview. “I know that Mitch McConnell will continue to put millions of dollars into this race.”Both Mr. Laxalt and Ms. Cortez Masto are former state attorneys general. Mr. Laxalt is hammering on fears of rising crime, undocumented immigrants and inflation. The state’s tourist-dependent economy has the nation’s second-worst unemployment rate at 6.4 percent.Mr. Laxalt has accused Ms. Cortez Masto of failing to stick up for the police and denounce violent crime. “Vegas can’t survive if violence continues to increase,” he said at a rally this month. “We’re a tourism economy. People are scared to come here.”Ms. Cortez Masto, who says she helped deliver Justice Department grants to local police departments, is trying to localize her race, promoting her procurement of funding to combat wildfires and drought in the infrastructure law, which Mr. Laxalt opposed.“Let me tell you, there’s a stark difference between me and Adam Laxalt,” Ms. Cortez Masto said. “Every day I’m talking to Nevadans, hearing what they need and fighting for them.”New Hampshire: A survivor of earlier red wavesSenator Maggie HassanMichael A. McCoy for The New York TimesMs. Hassan, who won her Senate seat by a mere 1,000 votes in 2016, seemed to catch a big break when the most popular official in the state, Gov. Chris Sununu, told fellow Republicans he wouldn’t run for Senate.But voters’ disapproval of Ms. Hassan, which has reached 51 percent, drew a second tier of Republicans off the sidelines, including Chuck Morse, the State Senate president, and Kevin Smith, the town manager of Londonderry. They joined Don Bolduc, a retired Army general.Ms. Hassan, who was twice elected governor, has $5.3 million in her campaign account, far ahead of rivals.Her campaign boasts that she was one of the original bipartisan negotiators of the infrastructure deal and secured funding for two state priorities, coastal resiliency and high-speed internet (many New Hampshirites work from home). Yet, Republicans point to New Hampshire’s receiving the fewest highway dollars of any state.“I would say there’s zero chance, barring a disaster in our primary — which is always possible — that she could get re-elected,” said David Carney, a Republican strategist who is advising Mr. Morse.The soaring cost of fuel, in a state with no mass transit and where most homes are heated with fuel oil, is one factor driving voters’ pessimism about the country’s direction. On the other hand, a Supreme Court ruling undermining Roe v. Wade this year could infuriate New Hampshire voters, among the most supportive in the country of abortion rights.Ms. Hassan has won three statewide races, including re-election as governor in 2014, a brutal midterm for Democrats. “President Obama was not popular in New Hampshire in 2014,” said Ray Buckley, the chairman of the state’s Democrats. “She was able to win.” More

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      Kevin McCarthy Backs Liz Cheney’s Challenger, Escalating a Party Feud

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      The top House Republican’s unusual intervention in a primary marked the party’s latest move against Ms. Cheney, who has been a vocal critic of Donald J. Trump.WASHINGTON — Representative Kevin McCarthy, the House Republican leader, on Thursday endorsed Representative Liz Cheney’s G.O.P. rival for Wyoming’s sole congressional seat, taking the unusual step of intervening in a party primary to oust a onetime ally who has become the prime political target of former President Donald J. Trump.Mr. McCarthy said he was backing Harriet Hageman, a pro-Trump candidate who has repeated the former president’s false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, in a race that has become a prominent test for the Republican Party.“I look forward to welcoming Harriet to a Republican majority next Congress, where together, we will hold the Biden administration accountable and deliver much-needed solutions for the American people,” Mr. McCarthy said in a statement. “The most successful representatives in Congress focus on the needs of their constituents.”It was an extraordinary move for a leader who is aiming to become speaker of the House if his party wins control of Congress in November’s midterm congressional elections, and has worked to toe a fine line between his far right flank and more mainstream conservatives.Congressional leaders rarely involve themselves in primary races against sitting members, but Mr. McCarthy’s move was the latest escalation of the Republican Party effort to exile Ms. Cheney for speaking out forcefully against Mr. Trump and participating in a House investigation of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. After initially defending her, Mr. McCarthy last year led a push to strip Ms. Cheney of her No. 3 position in House Republican leadership.In a statement, Jeremy Adler, a spokesman for Ms. Cheney, provided the verbal equivalent of an eyeroll, suggesting that Mr. McCarthy’s statement of support for Ms. Hageman was a reflection of her weakness.“Wow, she must be really desperate,” Mr. Adler said.Mr. McCarthy’s endorsement came about two weeks after the Republican National Committee voted to censure Ms. Cheney and Representative Adam Kinzinger, Republican of Illinois, for participating in the inquiry into the deadly riot at the Capitol. The resolution said the pair was involved in “persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse,” the party’s clearest statement to date that it considered the riot and the efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election that fueled it defensible.Harriet Hageman speaks with guests at a fundraiser in Rock Springs, Wyo.Kim Raff for The New York TimesMr. McCarthy last week defended the R.N.C., saying the committee had a right to pass its resolution.In contrast, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, castigated the party for doing so, stating that “traditionally, the view of the national party committees is that we support all members of our party, regardless of their positions on some issues.”Key Developments in the Jan. 6 InvestigationCard 1 of 3Piecing the evidence together. More

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      What President Biden Could Learn from Ronald Reagan

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      Blame is a hallmark of American politics. Ronald Reagan couldn’t escape it in his first midterm elections 40 years ago. Can Biden?They’re called election cycles for a reason. In politics, everything’s on repeat.In 1982, a new president faced his first midterm elections after he was swept into office amid an economic slump, high inflation and deep dissatisfaction with the previous occupant of the White House.Sound familiar?Forty years later, President Biden is facing a completely different set of problems, including a persisting pandemic and a predecessor who refuses to accept that he was defeated. Yet Biden and Ronald Reagan have shared a similar burden: getting blamed for economic woes that began before either one was elected. Both men won the presidency by promising restoration, but both saw their approval ratings sink when they couldn’t immediately deliver.“Blame in American politics runs through the president,” said Sarah Binder, a senior fellow at the left-leaning Brookings Institution and a political science professor at George Washington University. “He is the most prominent salient actor in American politics.”Reagan began his presidency with a double-digit inflation rate. In the months leading up to the election, as inflation settled down, unemployment rose. Throughout 1982, Reagan’s approval rating hovered in the low 40s, where Biden has been stuck since late last summer. In those November midterms, Republicans lost 26 House seats and gained one Senate seat, by replacing one conservative independent with a Republican.We spoke with several historians and Republicans directly involved with the 1982 campaign, and they all warned that as long as the country feels economic pressure during Biden’s first midterm, it’s nearly impossible to dodge the dictum that the party in power loses House seats. Republicans’ 1982 campaign message — “Stay the course”— might have stemmed their losses, but losses were inescapable.The comparison breaks down in one key way for Democrats. Reagan had already been crowned “the Great Communicator” by the 1982 midterms. Biden’s failure to communicate a clear, compelling message to voters has been one of his biggest liabilities so far.However, there’s still time for an upswing in the economy. And even if the economy doesn’t rebound by November, it’s possible for Biden to cut his losses and even win back seats in 2024.Edwin Meese III, who was counselor to Reagan in 1982 before becoming attorney general, noted that Reagan’s “Stay the course” midterm was followed by his optimistic “Morning in America” re-election. He won a second term in a landslide.“It’s a matter of faith,” said Meese, 90, an emeritus fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation. “President Ronald Reagan knew that there would be difficult times, and the difficult times were not yet over, but that they would be.”‘Give the guy a chance’ In 1982, concerns about midterm losses and disagreements over economic policy led to divisions and finger-pointing within the Republican Party. Even so, the party urged voters to “give the guy a chance.”Nancy Dwight, who was running the House Republicans’ campaign arm at the time, cautions against reading too much into the 1982 example, but sees Biden taking a page from Reagan’s playbook in urging patience as he attempts to get the economy back on track. “He wouldn’t dare use that line, but he’s staying the course,” Dwight told us.Reagan was determined to see his economic plans through, even as the public lost confidence. Given the circumstances, Dwight recalled that she felt relieved that Republicans didn’t lose even more House seats. “I knew it could have been much worse,” she said.Joe Gaylord, who worked with Dwight at the House campaign committee in 1982, said Reagan’s economic crisis was more deep-rooted than Biden’s — with interest rates, inflation and unemployment all blocking recovery.But he said the basic contours of the problem that Biden faced were all too similar. Combine Reagan’s low approval rating with a country that believes it’s on the wrong track, and one thing happens, he said: “You get change.”A “huge problem that Biden has right now is that none of the things he’s done is working, either,” Gaylord added.When the unemployment rate surpassed 10 percent in September 1982, Gaylord said, “Republican candidates just dropped like flies,” as voters’ patience with the Reagan administration evaporated. He recalled hearing frustrated Republicans assert that the problem was simply a failure to communicate with voters — that if Republicans had been clearer about their accomplishments, voters would have supported them.That’s a theory that many Democrats, including Biden himself, have repeated in addressing why the public hasn’t been more supportive of his administration.But the message won’t get through if it doesn’t resonate, Gaylord said: “​​It’s a little tough to make a communication work when people don’t feel it.”Still, in some congressional races, Gaylord credited the “Stay the course” message with keeping seats in 1982. Republicans’ House minority shrunk, but they managed to keep control of the Senate and even gain a seat.President Biden arriving in Cleveland on Thursday. He and former President Ronald Reagan have shared one broad challenge: getting blamed for economic woes that began before either was elected.Tom Brenner for The New York TimesThe blame gameThere are plenty of reasons a president struggles in the midterms.Binder, the fellow at the Brookings Institution, ran through some of them. Voters like to distribute party power when they think it’s too concentrated. Supporters of the newly-elected president are more content and therefore less excited to turn out. Voters aren’t following the intricacies of policy.Jill Lepore, the historian and journalist, suggested thinking about the situation not as political intrigue, but as family drama.“You think about some bad situation in your extended family where your cousin and your aunt don’t speak to each other,” she said. But the conflict all began, she added, with a past inflammatory comment from your grandmother, who’s not engaged in the drama but lit the fire in the first place.“You need the whole story. But that’s not how we think politically, right?”Looking back, Meese said that he and Reagan, along with his top advisers, were confident that the policies Reagan enacted would allow Republicans to rebound in 1984. He didn’t see losing about 25 seats as all that bad, but rather “in keeping with historical norms.”“I don’t think anybody likes the idea of losing seats,” Meese said. “But I think the president felt that to do anything other than continue the program he had started was the wrong thing to do.”What to read A judge ruled that New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, can interview Donald Trump as well as two of his adult children as part of an inquiry into Trump’s business practices.Nicholas Kristof, a former New York Times columnist, cannot run for governor of Oregon, according to a Thursday ruling by the state’s Supreme Court. Even though he has connections to Oregon, the court ruled he had not fulfilled the three-year residency requirement to run, reports Mike Baker.The Ottawa protests “will likely live on long after the last trucks depart,” Natalie Kitroeff and Dan Bilefsky report. The protests have evolved into a “wider movement against pandemic restrictions in general and the premiership of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.”in the momentThe police confronting Trump loyalists outside the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.Jason Andrew for The New York TimesCriticizing the R.N.C., from the benchA federal judge took a swipe at the Republican National Committee on Thursday, taking issue with the committee’s recent move to condemn two Republican lawmakers for “participating in a Democrat-led persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse.”Key Developments in the Jan. 6 InvestigationCard 1 of 3Piecing the evidence together. More

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      In Texas Governor’s Race, Beto O’Rourke Haunted by 2020 Campaign

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      Mr. O’Rourke’s remarks during his 2020 presidential campaign shadow him in the Texas governor’s race, complicating his attempt to pull off a Democratic upset.TYLER, Texas — Even in deep red East Texas, even on a Tuesday afternoon, even after a failed bid for the Senate followed by a failed bid for president, Beto O’Rourke still draws a crowd.More than 100 supporters gathered last week in a park in the city of Tyler, southeast of Dallas in the Piney Woods region. Among the friendly crowd, however, there was concern and even skepticism as Mr. O’Rourke tries to become the first Democratic governor of Texas in nearly 30 years.The Texas primary is fast approaching on March 1 — early voting began on Monday — but his real challenge is the general election in November, when he is expected to face the Republican incumbent, Gov. Greg Abbott. Some of Mr. O’Rourke’s comments aimed at wooing national Democratic voters in the 2020 presidential primary — such as “Hell yes, we’re going to take your AR-15” — may have already weakened if not doomed his chances in November.“The comment about guns is going to be his biggest problem,” said Holly Gage, 40, who arrived at the Tyler park early with her family. “My husband is on the fence. It’s due to the gun thing.”“Texas,” added her mother, Sheila Thrash, 63, “believes in its guns.”Supporters waited in line to meet Mr. O’Rourke after his campaign event in Tyler.Montinique Monroe for The New York TimesMr. O’Rourke’s presidential campaign shadows his run for governor, complicating his effort to present himself as a pragmatic, there-for-you Texan who embraces responsible gun ownership and wants to win over moderate voters. His 2020 campaign remarks have figured prominently in attacks by Mr. Abbott and are familiar to many voters in a state where Democrats also proudly own guns. Mr. O’Rourke counts himself among their number — he and his wife own firearms, his campaign said — and he appears well aware of the liability.“I’m not interested in taking anything from anyone,” Mr. O’Rourke said during a news conference in Tyler, in response to questions from The New York Times. “What I want to make sure we do is defend the Second Amendment.”Later in a telephone interview, he said he did not regret any policy positions he took while running for president and denied that he was walking back his comments about assault weapons. He said that as governor, he would push for universal background checks and requirements for the safe storage of firearms.“I don’t think that we should have AR-15s and AK-47s on the streets of this state — I have seen what they do to my fellow Texans in El Paso in 2019,” he said, referring to a gunman who killed 23 people at a Walmart in the deadliest anti-Latino attack in modern American history. “I haven’t changed a thing about that. I’m just telling you I’m going to focus on what I can actually do as governor and where the common ground is.”Mr. O’Rourke’s predicament illustrates how hard it can be for a red-state Democrat to return to local politics after running for federal office in the national spotlight. What appeals to voters in a crowded Democratic primary for president may turn off those in a statewide race back home in a Republican-dominated state.A Look Ahead to the 2022 U.S. Midterm ElectionsIn the Senate: Democrats have a razor-thin margin that could be upended with a single loss. Here are 10 races to watch.In the House: Republicans and Democrats are seeking to gain an edge through redistricting and gerrymandering.Governors’ Races: Georgia’s contest will be at the center of the political universe, but there are several important races across the country.Campaign Financing: With both parties awash in political money, billionaires and big checks are shaping the midterm elections.Key Issues: Democrats and Republicans are preparing for abortion and voting rights to be defining topics.At the same time, Mr. O’Rourke has attracted legions of supporters and inspired Texas Democrats with his willingness to take on the state’s most powerful officeholders, and his charismatic insistence that Texas is not destined to remain in Republican hands.“No one is going to ride to our rescue, so we shouldn’t expect that,” Mr. O’Rourke said in the interview, citing new restrictive laws on abortion and voting passed by the State Legislature and signed by Mr. Abbott last year. “It’s on us, and that’s OK,” he added. “Traveling the state, it renews my confidence that we can do this.”Mr. O’Rourke after the Democratic presidential debate in Ohio in 2019. His position on gun control during the presidential campaign has resurfaced in his run for governor of Texas.Hilary Swift for The New York TimesA former three-term congressman from El Paso, Mr. O’Rourke, 49, entered the race for governor late last fall, delivering a jolt to a contest that many Democrats saw as unwinnable: an off-year election favoring Republicans; an incumbent governor with a roughly $60 million campaign war chest; and that decades-long losing streak. No Democrat has won a statewide race in Texas since 1994.“We don’t get to pick and choose what the political environment is like,” said State Representative Trey Martinez Fischer, a Democrat from San Antonio who has offered advice to Mr. O’Rourke during his campaign.Mr. Martinez Fischer said he did not believe, as some Texas political analysts do, that Mr. O’Rourke’s run was aimed at bolstering Democratic candidates in local races rather than actually winning. “I don’t think that Beto is looking to do any sort of suicide mission,” he said.Mr. O’Rourke remains the only Democrat in Texas with a strong statewide campaign organization, including thousands of devoted volunteers and an ability to raise money that rivals Mr. Abbott, the two-term Republican incumbent who has overseen a hard right turn in state government. During the most recent three-week filing period last month, Mr. O’Rourke raised $1.3 million, spent $600,000 and had $6 million in his campaign account. Mr. Abbott pulled in $1.4 million, spent $4.5 million and still had $62 million available in his account.Protesters showed up at Mr. O’Rourke’s rally in Tyler. He is a well-known figure in Texas, but has been trailing in polls on the governor’s race.Montinique Monroe for The New York TimesMuch about the O’Rourke campaign echoes his 2018 race to try to unseat Senator Ted Cruz, which energized Democrats across Texas and brought donations pouring in from around the country. There are the same black-and-white “Beto” posters, the speeches he delivers from the center of fawning crowds and the sense that an upset is possible.But much has changed. Mr. O’Rourke is no longer a fresh-faced newcomer. A poll last year found that he was better known among Texans than the actor Matthew McConaughey, who briefly flirted with a run for governor himself. Most Texans have an opinion of Mr. O’Rourke, and for many it is not favorable. So far, he has trailed Mr. Abbott in every poll, often by double digits.Mr. O’Rourke has been running a more traditional campaign than he did in 2018, taking large contributions, conducting polls on issues and going on the attack early against Mr. Abbott, including in a new ad. He has also been more closely coordinating with the state party.“We’ve already had discussions with him to get the Democratic Party and him in perfect sync,” said Gilberto Hinojosa, the chairman of the Texas Democratic Party. “That’s something that did not happen in 2018.”And Mr. O’Rourke does not benefit from the long runway he had in 2018, as he traveled the state and built his events from dozens of people to thousands. Now, as he drives around Texas highlighting the impacts of last year’s electrical grid failure, he is trailed by the opposition — members of Mr. Abbott’s campaign who have been coordinating with protesters at many of the stops.In Tyler, Mr. Abbott’s campaign spokesman, Mark Miner, arrived earlier than Mr. O’Rourke and helped to arrange a protest in favor of the oil and gas industry that included a big rig truck emblazoned with a heroic image of former President Donald J. Trump.“It’s about the Green New Deal versus the energy industry,” said State Representative Jay Dean, an East Texas Republican and general manager at Thomas Oilfield Services, as he stood near the big rig that he had helped bring to the protest. “I’m not that concerned about him,” he added of Mr. O’Rourke. “First of all, he’s not going to win.”At his campaign events in Waco and other cities, Mr. O’Rourke has focused on his proposals to fix the Texas power grid.Montinique Monroe for The New York TimesAt events in three cities last week, it was clear that Mr. O’Rourke, still an energetic campaigner who drives himself around Texas, has become more careful in his remarks and packaged in his presentation, as he is tugged along on a tight schedule kept by his campaign handlers. And his crowds are full of people who have supported Mr. O’Rourke for years, raising the question of how much he can grow his current base.During the more than 2,300-mile tour, which ended Tuesday on the anniversary of the day when the lights went out in most of Texas, Mr. O’Rourke delivered variations on a short speech focused on his proposals to address the wobbly Texas grid, such as connecting it with other states and prosecuting those who reaped huge profits from last year’s failure. He elicits cheers with promises to legalize marijuana and protect voting rights.“First time voters!” Mr. O’Rourke yelled before posing with a group of young women he met in Waco, after a nighttime speech in a park that drew what looked to be more than 200 people.In Austin the next day, Mr. O’Rourke visited a nonprofit that helped feed stranded residents during last year’s power grid failure, and he went along as their workers handed out meals to homeless men and women in a park between the Colorado River and a busy roadway.Mr. O’Rourke spoke to Josue Garcia, who lives in a tent in an Austin park with his wife and stepdaughter.Christopher Lee for The New York Times“You stay here?” Mr. O’Rourke asked during a conversation with Josue Garcia, 35.“Yes, in the green tent,” said Mr. Garcia, adding that he lived in the park with his wife and an adult stepdaughter, who works at Whataburger.“I’m Beto and it’s an honor to meet you.”“I’ll vote for him for sure,” Mr. Garcia said after Mr. O’Rourke went to talk to another man.Later, as the sun set over the State Capitol, a young and enthusiastic crowd gathered to see Mr. O’Rourke in the parking lot of the Texas AFL-CIO, across from the governor’s mansion.Mr. Abbott was out of town at the time but his campaign spokesman, Mr. Miner, a longtime senior communications aide to top Republicans, moved through the crowd of O’Rourke supporters, handing out fliers to reporters until he was escorted away by a union representative.On the sidewalk, protesters waved a Trump flag and an American flag and shouted — “Free crack pipes!” “Communism doesn’t work, Francis!” — in an attempt to interrupt Mr. O’Rourke’s nighttime speech, calling him by his middle name. An advertising truck showed a black-and-white video of Mr. O’Rourke morphing into President Biden, which was paid for by Mr. Abbott’s campaign.Many of Mr. O’Rourke’s supporters recalled losing power last year. But their anger at the handling of the freeze wasn’t the only issue that drew them to the rally.Nick Tripoli, 43, wore a mask with the words “Abort Greg Abbott” across it. He said he had heard Mr. O’Rourke speak in 2018 and had seen the enthusiasm he brought to Democrats.“I wanted to be a part of it,” Mr. Tripoli said. “Again.” More

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      Kathleen Rice Announces Her Retirement From Congress

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      The decision by Representative Kathleen Rice of New York makes the number of Democrats leaving Congress the largest since 1992, as midterm elections loom.WASHINGTON — Representative Kathleen Rice of New York announced on Tuesday that she would not seek re-election, making her the 30th House Democrat to opt for an exit ahead of what is expected to be a difficult midterm election cycle in which the party appears headed for losses.Ms. Rice’s retirement announcement marked a grim milestone for House Democrats: The number planning to leave Congress is now the biggest since 1992, a sign of the party’s lack of confidence that it will be able to hold the majority this fall. Ms. Rice, a moderate, provided no explanation for her unexpected departure. She announced it on her 57th birthday, saying only that she was moving on to the “next chapter” of her life.“As elected officials, we must give all we have and then know when it is time to allow others to serve,” Ms. Rice, a former prosecutor who has represented part of Long Island’s Nassau County since 2015, said in a statement.Of the departing group, 22 House Democrats have said they are retiring, while eight are seeking another office. So far, 13 Republicans have also said they will not seek re-election.“House Democrats know their majority is doomed and have a choice: retire or lose,” said Michael McAdams, communications director for the National Republican Congressional Committee, the party’s House campaign arm.A Look Ahead to the 2022 U.S. Midterm ElectionsIn the Senate: Democrats have a razor-thin margin that could be upended with a single loss. Here are 10 races to watch.In the House: Republicans and Democrats are seeking to gain an edge through redistricting and gerrymandering.Governors’ Races: Georgia’s contest will be at the center of the political universe, but there are several important races across the country.Campaign Financing: With both parties awash in political money, billionaires and big checks are shaping the midterm elections.Key Issues: Democrats and Republicans are preparing for abortion and voting rights to be defining topics.Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the House Republican leader, has predicted that more than 30 Democrats will announce their retirement “because they see what the future holds.”Some Democrats shrugged off the news of Ms. Rice’s retirement as the loss of a safe seat, where she will most likely be replaced by another Democrat. Ms. Rice’s district was not affected by the recent redrawing of New York’s political map, and in 2020, she won her race against the G.O.P. candidate, Douglas Tuman, by about 56 percent. President Biden won her district by 12 points in the 2020 presidential election.But optimistic Republicans said that margin put New York’s 4th congressional district within reach in the event of a red wave, noting that a G.O.P. candidate won the governor’s race last fall in Virginia, a state Mr. Biden won by about 10 points.Ms. Rice, who made a lasting, powerful enemy in Speaker Nancy Pelosi after vocally opposing her bid for House Speaker in 2016 and 2018, was viewed as someone who did not enjoy the job.She had become increasingly marginalized in the ranks of House Democrats, where the loudest voices are typically from a new generation of progressives, and where her history with Ms. Pelosi had cost her opportunities. In 2019, for instance, Ms. Pelosi lobbied for other members to gain a seat on the powerful Judiciary Committee over Ms. Rice, according to Politico, despite Ms. Rice’s background as a prosecutor and her seniority.Representative Josh Gottheimer, a centrist Democrat from New Jersey, called Ms. Rice’s retirement “a huge loss for New York, Congress and common-sense, bipartisan governing.”“I imagine the polarization in D.C. has become so poisonous and the dysfunction so deep that more and more members want nothing to do with the absurdity of it all,” said Representative Ritchie Torres, a progressive Democrat of New York.But some liberal Democrats joined Republicans in celebrating the news of her retirement.“Rep. Kathleen Rice retiring to spend more time with her big pharma lobby family,” Leah Greenberg, the co-founder of Indivisible, a grass-roots progressive organization, said in a Twitter post reacting to her announcement.Ms. Rice, who sits on the Energy and Commerce committee as well as the Homeland Security committee, was a registered Republican until 2005, when she became a Democrat to run for district attorney in Nassau County.In Congress, she has been best known as one of the few women arguing that the party needed a fresh perspective at the top and that the lack of an obvious candidate to challenge Ms. Pelosi was a “symptom of stagnant leadership.” In 2016, she was also the first Democrat to publicly support Representative Tim Ryan’s challenge to Ms. Pelosi as House leader. Ms. Rice also voted against Ms. Pelosi in 2018. Both times, Ms. Pelosi was elected despite the efforts to topple her.Ms. Rice supported Ms. Pelosi’s bid for speaker in 2021, but the relationship remained strained.Ms. Pelosi’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Ms. Rice’s planned departure. More