Midterm Elections (2022)

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      We Don’t Know What Will Happen on Election Day, but We Do Know How We’ll Feel About It

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      Gail Collins: OK, Bret — it’s elections week! Tell me the one outcome you’re most hoping to see and the one you’re most dreading.Bret Stephens: The idea of Herschel Walker being elected a United States senator is the political equivalent of E.L. James, the author of “Fifty Shades of Grey,” being awarded the Nobel Prize for literature: the preposterous elevation of the former equals the total debasement of the latter.On the other hand, and despite my reservations about him, I’m rooting for Lee Zeldin for New York governor. Our state is overtaxed, underpoliced and chronically misgoverned, and I’d like to see it the other way around. And a Republican victory in New York might finally jolt the Democratic Party into getting serious about crime and urban decay.You?Gail: Zeldin is awful. There are New York Republicans you could imagine running the state well, and there are New York Republicans who will inevitably create a mess of political polarization and stalled services. Mr. Z is definitely in that category.Bret: I would be more inclined to agree with you about the overly Trumpy Zeldin — until I consider his opponent, the uninspired, ethically challenged and insipid Kathy Hochul.Gail: In my rooting-for category, I’m going to bring up Senator Maggie Hassan in New Hampshire — just so I can mention her dreadful opponent, Don Bolduc. He’s long been known as an opponent of legal protections for transgender people. Last week, he claimed schools were giving out litter boxes to support kids who identify as cats. Which is, um … not true.Who’s your most-to-be-avoided?Bret: I’m with you on Hassan, a conscientious and bipartisan legislator. Who — I am amazed to say — might lose on Tuesday. As for my most-to-be-avoided? I’d have to go with Arizona’s Blake Masters. He gives me the sense of being the love child of Ayn Rand and Hans Gruber, the Alan Rickman character in “Die Hard.”Gail: I adore it when you get mean about people like ol’ Blake.Bret: Actually, that’s probably unfair to Gruber, who had a twinkle-in-the-eye panache that made his villainy interesting and often funny. Masters is neither interesting nor funny, and his only talent seems to consist in sucking up to rich guys.Gail: You would be referring to Peter Thiel, billionaire co-founder of PayPal and backer of rancid Republicans.Bret: And Donald Trump — assuming he’s actually rich. Let me ask you a different question: Is there any Republican in this whole election cycle you might see yourself supporting?Gail: This goes back to the question I’ve been wrestling with since the world watched that Fetterman-Oz debate.There are plenty of decent Republicans running for Senate, and some who are smarter than their Democratic opponents. And at least one Republican who can out-debate a Democrat who’s recovering from a stroke. But they all share one thing — they’d immediately vote to put their party in power.Bret: They do tend to do that.Gail: And that’s the crucial question this season — which party will be in charge? Right now the partisan rift is so deep you really have to decide which side you want to run the show and let that be your guide.Does that make sense to you?Bret: Yes and no. I powerfully sympathize with the impulse to oppose everyone who belongs to the party of Trump. But the idea of voting for your own side, no matter how lousy the candidate, also explains how Republicans talk themselves into voting for Trump, Walker, Bolduc, Masters and the rest of the evil clown parade. Parties should not be rewarded by voters when they sink to the lowest common denominator.But … predictions! Any upsets you see coming?Gail: When I worry about election results my thoughts almost always turn to Arizona, land of the you-never-can-tell voter. You’ve got Senator Mark Kelly neck-and-neck with Blake Masters. The only positive thing I can think of to say about Masters is that he hasn’t yet expressed any deep concern about litter boxes in public schools.But the most terrifying Arizona race is for governor, where Kari Lake, a former TV anchor and current election denier, appears to be leading Katie Hobbs, the responsible but sorta boring secretary of state. Do not want to imagine the vote-counting crisis there in 2024 if Lake wins.Bret: I’m going to venture that Lake is going to win handily and that Masters will win by a hair.Gail: Aaauuughhh.Bret: Part of my overall prediction that Democrats will wake up on Wednesday morning with a powerful impulse to move to Canada or Belgium to take advantage of their permissive assisted-suicide programs.Gail: And what would your own reaction be, pray tell? I know you theoretically support the Republican Senate agenda, but I’ve noticed you find a lot of the Republican senators kinda … repulsive.Bret: Again, very mixed feelings. Seeing the Republican Party go from bad to worse is depressing and scary. But as long as Joe Biden is president they won’t be able to do much except embarrass themselves.If there’s one saving grace for me here, it’s the faint hope that a Republican majority in at least one house of Congress will pump the brakes on spending. Our gross national debt is $31 trillion and rising. And it’s going to cost more to service as interest rates rise.Gail: I’m touched to hear you express such confidence that the Republicans we’ve seen on the hustings this year are going to be able to come up with a smart plan to completely redo government spending.Bret: Fair point.Gail: My first response to the idea of sane Republican spending policy is sad giggles.But I do feel obliged to offer at least one suggestion. The best way to tackle debt issues is not to cancel Covid relief or stop fixing the nation’s infrastructure. Tax the folks who can afford it, like those pharmaceutical billionaires who’ve done so very well off the pandemic.Bret: Not sure these billionaires could pay off so many trillions in debt, even if we confiscated every penny they have.Gail: It would be a start, and I suspect that even under a very serious new tax plan they’d be left with enough coins in their pockets to allow them to soldier on.But speaking of good/bad government spending plans, what do you think about recent Republican calls to cut back on Social Security and Medicare entitlements?Bret: The devil is in the details. Regarding Social Security, it was designed in the 1930s, when the typical life expectancy was around 60. It’s now around 76. The program is predicted to be insolvent in about 13 years if we do nothing to change it. My basic view is that we should honor our promises to those now benefiting from Social Security, pare back the promises to younger workers and eliminate them completely for those who haven’t yet spent decades paying into them.How about you?Gail: I say leave Social Security alone. It was meant to help protect Americans who reach retirement age, give them a reliable cushion to make their old age comfortable or at least bearable. Can’t do much better than that.The fact that it’s seen as a plan for everybody — not just a program to aid the poor — gives it a special survivability. And on the fairness end, wealthy folk who don’t need it will give a good chunk back when it’s taxed as part of their income.Bret: True, but it’s still going broke.Gail: Of course I’m not crazy enough to say the government can never touch Social Security if its finances get truly shaky. I just want to be sure whoever’s doing the fixing is dedicated to protecting the basic concept.And Medicare — oh gosh, Bret, let’s save Medicare for next week. It can be our postelection calming mechanism.Bret: Gail, I don’t want to get too far ahead of ourselves, but any thoughts on the news that Trump is very likely to declare his candidacy for president later this month?Gail: Now that was the immediate postelection conversation I was yearning to avoid. Of course we knew it was going to happen, but, gee, don’t you think he could have let us have the holidays off?Bret: I know very little about what goes on in Trump’s mind, but I think we can safely say that giving either of us a break isn’t high on his list of priorities.The silver lining here is that if Democrats take the kind of electoral drubbing I suspect they will on Tuesday, it should help concentrate their minds. Time for President Biden to give up on the idea — or fantasy, really — that he’s going to run for re-election and devote his time to saving Ukrainians, Iranians and Taiwanese from tyranny as the centerpiece of his presidential legacy.Gail: I’m with you in the Joe-Don’t-Run camp.Bret: Time also for party strategists to start thinking a whole lot harder about how they lost the working-class vote and how they can recapture it. Time, finally, for Democratic politicians to focus on middle-class fears about crime, education and inflation, not progressive obsessions with social justice and language policing.Who knows? Maybe that’s just the wake-up call we all need if we’re going to keep Trump in Mar-a-Lago.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Will Rain Affect Turnout Tomorrow? The Answer Is Cloudy.

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      Election Day is shaping up to be mild and dry across much of the United States except in the West, where heavy rain and snow are likely in California, Nevada and Utah. By the late afternoon, the first wave of moisture from Subtropical Storm Nicole should reach Florida. What any of this precipitation might mean […] More

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      Who Will Win the Battle for Congress? Four Scenarios.

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      Ryan CarlJust about anything is still possible in this year’s midterm elections.Everything from a Democratic hold in the Senate and a fairly close race for the House to something like a Republican rout is well within the range of realistic possibilities on Tuesday.Why such a wide range? With so many races on edge, it wouldn’t take much for the final outcome to feel very good, or very bad, for either party.In the Senate, the races likeliest to decide control remain exceptionally close, with the poll averages showing essentially a dead-heat in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Arizona and even New Hampshire. With just a few lucky breaks, either party could win control.There’s a similar story in the House. While Republicans are plainly favored to win the chamber, dozens of races are tossups. It wouldn’t take much for Democrats to keep the race fairly close, perhaps delaying a call on House control for many hours or perhaps even days. On the other hand, it wouldn’t take much for Republicans to pick up dozens of seats, leaving the impression that 2022 was something like a wave election.There is also the possibility of more surprising outcomes: a true Republican landslide or a Democratic hold on Congress. The polls have been wrong before. The voters, after all, have the final say.Here’s an overview of what might still happen — how it might happen, why so much remains possible, and what signs to look for on election night.Scenario 1: The clear Republican winWith five critical Senate races and dozens of House races looking like tossups, even some random breaks could give Republicans something that feels like a rout: control of the Senate and a big gain in the House.The election could still be fairly close. It might still take days to resolve. But it wouldn’t take much for the final scoreboard to look more like a rout than a close and competitive race.In almost every critical race, the final Times/Siena polls suggested that voters preferred Republican control of Congress and disapproved of President Biden’s performance, but Democrats often had the advantage of incumbency or Republicans had the disadvantage of an unpopular candidate.But Republicans could quickly have a great night if even a small share of voters swallows their doubts about unpopular nominees or discards their warm feelings about longtime Democratic incumbents.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsElection Day is Tuesday, Nov. 8.House Democrats: Several moderates elected in 2018 in conservative-leaning districts are at risk of being swept out. That could cost the Democrats their House majority.A Key Constituency: A caricature of the suburban female voter looms large in American politics. But in battleground regions, many voters don’t fit the stereotype.Crime: In the final stretch of the campaigns, politicians are vowing to crack down on crime. But the offices they are running for generally have little power to make a difference.Abortion: The fall of Roe v. Wade seemed to offer Democrats a way of energizing voters and holding ground. Now, many worry that focusing on abortion won’t be enough to carry them to victory.Another factor, as always, is turnout, especially in the House races in states with less competitive races at the top of the ticket. It might be enough for Republicans to scratch out a few extra wins.It might take a long time before a clear Republican success becomes a certainty. It might take days before critical races in Arizona, Pennsylvania and Nevada are resolved. Georgia might take until December, if no candidate clears the 50 percent necessary to avoid a runoff.But on Tuesday night, the signs of a clear Republican win might still start to pile up. Republicans would quickly register comfortable wins in North Carolina, Florida and Ohio. New Hampshire might be close, even if the Democrats pull it out. Wisconsin would be in the Republican column by bedtime. A series of crucial House districts in the Southeast, like North Carolina’s 13th and Virginia’s Second, might swing into the Republican column. The odds of Democrats holding on in the pivotal but slower-counting states would start to look pretty bleak.Scenario 2: The feels-like-a-win for DemocratsDemocrats cling to a five-seat majority in the House, but if they get a few breaks, the night still might leave them with a lot to feel good about — even if the scoreboard still shows the Republicans gaining seats and taking the House. It might even feel like a Democratic win, given how the polls have trended toward Republicans in recent weeks.This feels-like-a-win mainly comes down to holding control of the Senate. To hold the chamber, the party will probably need to win three of the four most critical races: Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada.Democrats would start to feel a lot better if they could add a few more feel-good wins to the ledger, like beating “stop the steal” Republican candidates for governor in Pennsylvania and Arizona, or a victory for abortion rights in Michigan. It might just be enough for Democrats to take a glass-half-full perspective on the 2022 election, provided the party also holds down its House losses and can save face by avoiding embarrassingly close races in blue states and districts, like for governor of New York or for the Senate from Washington.The Democratic path to an acceptable night counts on voters who will back the candidate they know and like most, even if they don’t love the idea of having Democrats control the Senate. Staving off embarrassment will also require Democrats to turn out in states far removed from the national spotlight — the states where the Senate isn’t at stake, where abortion is not on the ballot, and where no stop-the-steal candidate has a realistic chance of winning statewide.It will take a long time before it becomes clear that Democrats are on track for a feels-like-a-win. There’s a distinct chance that none of the key Senate races will be called on election night. Democrats will start to feel optimistic on Tuesday night if they can stay close in states like Ohio, Wisconsin and North Carolina, and hold the key East Coast House races.They might even get outright excited if Mark Kelly opens up a wide lead in Arizona’s increasingly Democratic early mail vote.Scenario 3: The Republican landslideIf the polls underestimate the Republicans again, the result of this year’s midterms won’t just feel like a Republican landslide — it will be a Republican landslide.A “red wave” election would not be a surprise; nor would it be hard to explain. President Biden’s approval ratings are stuck in the low 40s, a figure as low or lower than Donald J. Trump’s approval ratings in 2018, Bill Clinton’s in 1994 and Barack Obama’s in 2010. In each case, the party out of power gained 40 or more House seats and won the House national popular vote by around seven percentage points or more. With Republicans making steady gains in the polls, it does not take any great imagination to see them stretching out a more decisive lead.It’s tempting to think a decisive Republican victory isn’t possible in such a polarized country, especially because Democrats have won the national vote in seven of the last eight presidential elections. But just last November, Republicans won the Virginia governor’s race by two percentage points — exactly the kind of showing that would be equivalent to a red wave nationwide.The red wave doesn’t necessarily require the surveys to be systematically biased in the same ways they were two years ago, though that very well might happen. It may require only that undecided voters decide, as they often have, to use their vote as a check on the party of the president, regardless of their feelings about individual Democratic incumbents. Or maybe it would just take an unexpectedly strong Republican turnout on Election Day, while young, Black and Hispanic voters stay home in greater numbers than they did in 2018.On Tuesday night, if Republicans are headed for a landslide, the signs would be obvious from the start. Not only would Senator Marco Rubio and Gov. Ron DeSantis cruise to victory in Florida, where votes are counted quickly, but safe Democratic House incumbents in South Florida — even the well-known former Democratic National Committee chair Debbie Wasserman-Schultz — might find themselves in surprisingly close races. Farther north, Republicans would easily flip the key tossup districts in Virginia and North Carolina, but also advance even further into blue territory — flipping Virginia’s Seventh, held by Abigail Spanberger, while endangering the next tier of safer Democratic incumbents, like Jennifer Wexton. The Senate races in North Carolina and Ohio would not be close.It might still be a long time until we see a call in the Senate, but in this scenario Herschel Walker would have a chance to clear the 50 percent necessary to win outright and avoid a runoff in Georgia. A Republican win in the Senate race in New Hampshire would seal the deal.Scenario 4: A Democratic surpriseA surprising Democratic night — a hold in the House and the Senate — is unlikely. With polls trending toward Republicans, the outcome feels even harder to imagine than the word “unlikely” suggests.But it does remain within the realm of possibility: Democrats are still within striking distance of a good night. Unlike in previous cycles, they remain competitive in enough races to win control of the House. And not only do Democrats remain competitive in the race for the Senate, but they also have upside potential for a good night: Upsets remain possible in states like Wisconsin, Ohio and North Carolina, even if Republicans are plainly favored.By any historical perspective, it would be hard to explain if the Democrats managed to hold both chambers of Congress. No president with an approval rating under 50 percent has seen his party gain House seats in a midterm election, dating to the dawn of modern polling. But this is not exactly an ordinary moment in American history. Partisan polarization is extreme. Many Democratic voters perceive that democracy is under threat. Others are furious about the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. In another midterm election, these voters might have stayed home. This cycle, they may well vote. And a critical sliver of voters dissatisfied with Mr. Biden and Democrats might feel they have no choice but to vote against Republicans.Democratic strength among highly educated voters would most likely be a critical part of any upset. Not only are these voters well represented in key battleground districts, but they’re also likelier to make up a larger share of the electorate in a low-turnout midterm election. It’s a tendency that might cut against the usual pattern for the president’s party to suffer from low turnout. At the same time, Democrats would need relatively disaffected elements of their party’s base — Black, Hispanic and young voters — to come home down the stretch.The possibility of the polls erring in this way might also seem hard to imagine. After all, polls have underestimated Republicans in recent cycles. But historically, there isn’t much of a relationship between polling error in one election and the next. The pollsters who did poorly either adjust or drop out. The pollsters who did well one year feel emboldened the next. And that does seem to be happening this cycle.The traditional pollsters who underestimated Republicans the most in 2020 have significantly reduced their polling this cycle or stopped altogether. Other pollsters are doing everything they can to ensure a more Republican-leaning sample, including by means that would have been scorned a few years ago. And then there’s the flood of state polls by Republican firms, showing eye-popping results like a Republican lead for New York governor.All of this may add up to far more accurate polling averages than in 2020. But if pollsters overcorrect — or if the balance of pollsters has shifted too far toward the Republican-leaning outfits — there would be a chance that the polls underestimate Democrats.Indeed, many traditional polls still show signs of Democratic strength. To take one recent example: Marist College released polls showing Democrats ahead in Pennsylvania and Arizona, and leading among registered voters in Georgia. Siena College showed Democrats faring quite well in several critical House races in New York State that one might have thought were leaning toward Republicans in this national environment.On Tuesday night, if Democrats are on track to greatly exceed expectations, the signs would show up pretty early. The Senate races in North Carolina, Wisconsin and Ohio will all largely be decided on election night. If Democrats remain highly competitive in all three or even win one, it will be a clear sign that this isn’t the simple Republican win that analysts long expected. More

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      What’s at Stake in These Elections

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      Midterm elections in the United States are often presented as a referendum on the party in power, and that message appears to be resonating this fall. But voters need to consider the intentions of the party that hopes to regain power, too, and what each vote they cast will mean for the future of this country.Eight Republican senators and 139 Republican representatives sought to overturn the results of the 2020 election on the basis of spurious allegations of voter fraud and other irregularities. Many of them are likely to win re-election, and they may be joined by new members who also have expressed baseless doubts about the integrity of the 2020 election. Their presence in Congress poses a danger to democracy, one that should be on the mind of every voter casting a ballot this Election Day.It will also be the first time that the U.S. electoral machinery will be tested in a national election after two years of lawsuits, conspiracy theories, election “audits” and all manner of interference by believers in Donald Trump’s lies about the 2020 election. That test comes alongside the embrace of violent extremism by a small but growing faction of the Republican Party.The greatest danger to election integrity may, in fact, come from the results of state and local races that will determine who actually conducts the election and counts the votes in 2024. In the weeks that followed the 2020 election, Mr. Trump and his supporters saw their efforts to deny the election results and prove rampant voter fraud thwarted by two things: first, their inability to produce credible evidence that such fraud had occurred and, second, an election infrastructure that was defended by honorable public servants who refused to accept specious claims of wrongdoing.Over the past two years, Republicans in dozens of states have tried to dismantle that infrastructure piece by piece, particularly by filling key positions with Trump sympathizers. As this board wrote in September, “Rather than threatening election officials, they will be the election officials — the poll workers and county commissioners and secretaries of state responsible for overseeing the casting, counting and certifying of votes.” Many of those positions are being contested this week.With Mr. Trump said to be readying his bid to return to the White House, this board urges American voters to consider how important each vote cast on Election Day, at every level of government, will be. Even if the member of Congress in your district has refused to accept Mr. Trump’s lies about this election, there are other races on the ballot in many states for offices — including secretary of state, attorney general and governor — that will play crucial roles in overseeing and certifying the 2024 presidential election.Still, with that election two years away, many voters say they are more concerned with the present threats to their livelihoods than with the equally serious but less visible threat to democracy. A recent New York Times/Siena College poll found that “more than a third of independent voters and a smaller but noteworthy contingent of Democrats said they were open to supporting candidates who reject the legitimacy of the 2020 election, as they assigned greater urgency to their concerns about the economy than to fears about the fate of the country’s political system.”Indeed, voters have good reason to look at the current moment and wonder whether the Biden administration and congressional Democrats are doing enough to meet it. High inflation is making it harder for Americans to afford what they need and want. Overall crime has risen, causing people to fear for their safety. The federal government is struggling to enforce the nation’s immigration laws. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and America’s increasingly tense relations with China are undermining global peace and prosperity.Republicans have presented these midterm elections as a referendum on Democratic leadership, and that message appears to be resonating.But voters need to consider the intentions of the party that hopes to regain power, too.Republicans have offered few specific plans for addressing issues like inflation, immigration and crime — and even if they win control of Congress, they are unlikely to win enough seats to shift federal policy significantly over the next two years.A Republican-controlled Senate would, however, be able to block President Biden from filling vacancies on the federal bench and on the Supreme Court. It would become more difficult to obtain confirmations for executive branch officials, as well.Republican candidates have also pledged to devote significant time and energy to investigating the Biden administration. “I don’t think Joe Biden and his handlers are exactly eager to sign Republican legislation into law, so our hearings are going to be the most important thing that we can have,” Representative Lauren Boebert of Colorado told a recent rally.In addition to that spectacle, Republicans are threatening to stage another showdown over federal spending.At some point in the next year, the government is expected to hit the limit of its authorized borrowing capacity, or debt ceiling. To meet the commitments Congress already has authorized, it will need to raise that limit. This ought to be a matter of basic housekeeping, because failing to pay the nation’s bills would risk a global financial crisis. But debt ceiling votes have instead become recurring opportunities for extortion.This board has called for Congress to eliminate the debt ceiling, replacing it with a common-sense law that says the government can borrow whatever is necessary to provide for the spending authorized by Congress. There is no public benefit in requiring what amounts to a second vote on spending decisions. But for now, the ceiling endures, and Republicans have made clear that if they win control of Congress, they intend to use it as a bargaining chip with the White House to advance their party’s fiscal goals.One priority on that list is cutting taxes. Republicans already are preparing to move forward with legislation to extend the 2017 tax cuts for individuals, which mostly benefit wealthy households, while eliminating some of the offsetting increases in corporate taxation — a plan that is not easily reconciled with the party’s stated concerns about inflation or the rising federal debt.Republican proposals would also make it more difficult for the Internal Revenue Service to prevent wealthy Americans from cheating on their taxes. Representative Kevin McCarthy, the House minority leader, who is in position to become speaker if Republicans win a majority, has said the “first bill” that would pass under his leadership would reverse an $80 billion funding increase for the I.R.S. Congress approved that funding in August so the I.R.S. can crack down on rampant tax fraud by high-income households.Some senior Republicans have called for repealing another key piece of the August legislation, known as the Inflation Reduction Act: a measure that limits drug costs for seniors on Medicare, including a $35 monthly cap on payments for insulin.Republicans also have floated plans to roll back more firmly established benefits. The Republican Study Committee, a conservative policy working group whose membership includes more than half of the current crop of House Republicans, published a budget plan in June calling for Congress to gradually increase the retirement age for full Social Security benefits to 70 to check the rising cost of the program. The plan also would increase the age of eligibility for Medicare.Democrats could make it more difficult for Republicans to pursue these goals by raising the debt limit or changing the rules in the weeks between the election and the end of the year.Democrats have largely failed to connect with voters’ concerns about inflation and public safety during this campaign season. They have struggled to communicate their tangible achievements, including a big boost in funding for local law enforcement and bipartisan gun safety legislation, a historic federal investment in developing clean and low-cost sources of energy to confront climate change and the cost of living, and a breakthrough measure to bring down the cost of prescription drugs for Medicare recipients.Undoubtedly, there is more work to be done on these and other issues, including the health of the economy and the broken state of immigration policy. Voters need to decide which party they trust to do that work.But the 2022 elections are also an opportunity for every American to do their part in defending the integrity of American elections. The task of safeguarding our democracy does not end with one election, and it requires all of us to play a role. Our nation’s governance depends on it.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow the New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      John Fetterman and the Fight for White Working-Class Voters

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      Nina Feldman and Dan Powell and Listen and follow The DailyApple Podcasts | Spotify | StitcherFor the Democrats to hold on to power in Washington, they have to do what President Biden did in Pennsylvania two years ago: Break the Republican Party’s grip on the white working-class vote, once the core of the Democratic base. In tomorrow’s midterm election, no race better encapsulates that challenge than the Pennsylvania Senate candidacy of John Fetterman.Is the plan working or is this crucial group of voters now a lost cause for the Democrats?On today’s episodeShane Goldmacher, a national political reporter for The New York Times.John Fetterman, the Democratic Senate candidate for Pennsylvania, embodies the party’s hope of winning back white working-class voters.Christopher Dolan/The Times-Tribune, via Associated PressBackground readingAmong white working-class voters in places like northeast Pennsylvania, the Democratic Party has both the furthest to fall and the most to gain.In the final days of the Pennsylvania Senate race, Mr. Fetterman has acknowledged that his recovery from a stroke remains a work in progress, leaning into the issue with a mix of humor, sarcasm and notes of empathy. There are a lot of ways to listen to The Daily. Here’s how.We aim to make transcripts available the next workday after an episode’s publication. You can find them at the top of the page.Shane Goldmacher More

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      Fears and Suspicion Hang Over Voting on Cusp of Election Day

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      For the vast majority of the 40 million Americans who have already voted in the midterm elections, the process was smooth and unremarkable.But the broad view belies signs of strain: A court ordered armed activists to stop patrolling drop boxes in Arizona. Tens of thousands of voter registrations are being challenged in Georgia. Voting rights groups have trained volunteers in de-escalation methods. Voters have been videotaped by groups hunting for fraud as they drop off their ballots.And Republican candidates across the country, from Arizona to Pennsylvania, continue to amplify Donald J. Trump’s false claims of corrupted elections.Two years after a presidential election warped by lies and disrupted by violence, suspicion and fear have become embedded in the mechanics of American democracy. As another Election Day nears, intimidation has crept up to levels not seen for decades, while self-appointed watchdogs search for fraud and monitor the vote.And election officials say they feel increasingly on edge, ready not just for the frenzy of Election Day but the chaos of misinformation and disputes that may follow.Even Republican election officials said they were braced for a renewed onslaught, one most likely to be fueled by their own party.“I’ve felt like I’ve been stabbed in the back repeatedly so much that I don’t have anything but scar tissue,” said Clint Hickman, a Republican on the county board of supervisors in Maricopa County, Ariz., home to Phoenix.Signs at the Huntington Place convention center in Detroit.Nic Antaya for The New York TimesPoll watchers brought binoculars to keep a close eye on vote counting in Detroit.Nic Antaya for The New York TimesLike some other election offices, the Maricopa election office has beefed up its security in preparation for Tuesday. After being a target of right-wing protests in 2020, the building has been fortified with a new metal perimeter fence. Last month, an email to election officials promised to “find” their personal addresses and made reference to the violence of the French Revolution. It was referred to the F.B.I. by the Arizona secretary of state.Though the early voting has been largely uneventful, many experts and officials are braced for disruptions after polls have closed, when activists and lawyers are prepared to challenge ballots and dispute counting procedures, and losing candidates who have cast doubt on the integrity of the process may file lawsuits.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsElection Day is Tuesday, Nov. 8.House Democrats: Several moderates elected in 2018 in conservative-leaning districts are at risk of being swept out. That could cost the Democrats their House majority.A Key Constituency: A caricature of the suburban female voter looms large in American politics. But in battleground regions, many voters don’t fit the stereotype.Crime: In the final stretch of the campaigns, politicians are vowing to crack down on crime. But the offices they are running for generally have little power to make a difference.Abortion: The fall of Roe v. Wade seemed to offer Democrats a way of energizing voters and holding ground. Now, many worry that focusing on abortion won’t be enough to carry them to victory.It is easy to see the potential hot spots. In Pennsylvania, thousands of ballots have been set aside because they do not include proper signatures or dates. The state Supreme Court recently ruled they should not be counted, in response to a Republican lawsuit. But the court also ordered election officials to segregate and preserve them, setting the stage for a future legal fight.In Wisconsin, a Republican state lawmaker is suing to stop the state from counting military ballots, claiming there are security weaknesses in the system. The lawsuit was filed by the Thomas More Society, a conservative legal group that has backed the election denial movement.More than 100 lawsuits have already been filed — compared with 70 at this point two years ago — a surge of litigation from both parties and their allies. On the Republican side, dozens of lawyers and firms that sought to overturn the 2020 election are again working for parties and candidates this cycle.Democrats and outside groups have contributed to the litigation, often pushing for leniency in counting absentee ballots and challenging local Republican officials’ plans to hand-count ballots — a nod to newfound, widespread suspicion of electronic voting machines on the right.In Nye County, Nev., one such plan to count early ballots by hand has been halted by a lawsuit from the state affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union. In Cochise County, Ariz., a similar effort is being litigated in court.Ballot counting in Phoenix, Ariz.Rebecca Noble for The New York TimesEven if litigation does not change the results, the 2020 election demonstrated the ability of unsuccessful lawsuits to starkly affect politics in other ways. The many lawsuits filed by Trump campaign lawyers, Republican officials and outside groups in 2020 failed in court, but they seeded a movement of supporters who believe elections are rigged and broken. That movement is responsible for much of the activism and paranoia surrounding this week’s election.In Clark County, Nev., home to Las Vegas, election skeptics have been monitoring the absentee ballot processing, asking questions rooted in conspiracy theories about hacking voting machines..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}Debunking election misinformation. Our mission to bring you the truth through our journalism also includes warning you about the falsehoods. Misinformation is flourishing across social media in the final stretch before Election Day. We have several reporters tracking the trends and the shifting tactics employed by those spreading untruths.Here are five unfounded claims about voting in the midterm elections.In Maricopa County, where the first “Stop the Steal” protest was held outside the county Elections Department office the day after the 2020 election, armed volunteers dressed in tactical gear stationed themselves outside a ballot drop box in Mesa, the Phoenix suburb.Last week a judge issued a restraining order against the right-wing group, Clean Elections USA, that organized the drop box operation in Mesa, banning its members from openly carrying weapons within 250 feet of the drop box and from videotaping, following or photographing voters within 75 feet.So far, Katie Hobbs, Arizona’s secretary of state, has sent 18 referrals of voter intimidation to law enforcement authorities. In the complaints, which were heavily redacted, voters described being watched, photographed with long-lens cameras and having their license plates recorded. Some, including one filed on Thursday from a voter in Phoenix’s Central City neighborhood, came after the judge’s order had been filed.“I have never been more intimidated in my life trying to vote and standing only three feet from the box,” the complaint said, according to records released by the secretary of state. The voter continued: “Do I need to worry about my family being killed now if the results are not what they wanted?”Led by Mr. Trump, Republican candidates and right-wing media figures have stoked fears about “election integrity.” Although there is no evidence of widespread fraud in elections, they led the charge for new laws that tighten voting rules and, as their talking point goes, make it “harder to cheat.”A “Vote” sign in Milwaukee, Wis.Taylor Glascock for The New York TimesRepublican candidates and party officials have also encouraged their voters to cast ballots in person on Election Day, reflecting two years of legal arguments and talk claiming that Democrats used expanded access to absentee voting in 2020 to illegitimately win the election. When candidates at a rally headlined by Kari Lake, the Republican candidate for governor in Arizona, on Thursday night called on the crowd to vote in person, they were met with cheers.“I was an absentee, mail-in voter for years,” said Janelle Black, a homemaker from Phoenix who attended the Lake rally. But Ms. Black said that since the 2020 election, which she believed was stolen, she did not trust Ms. Hobbs, who is both the secretary of state and a Democratic candidate for governor, to oversee the process. “I want to vote ‘day of,’” she said, “so it’s counted right there. I don’t want to take any chances.”In some states, Republicans’ skepticism about mail ballots may help re-create a “red mirage,” where the votes cast on Election Day are reported first and heavily favor Republicans, while mail-in ballots, which lean Democratic, come in later. Mr. Trump used the trend to falsely suggest that Democrats rigged the results two years ago.But election denial has spread even to places Mr. Trump won handily. In Northern California’s mostly rural Shasta County, where he carried two-thirds of the vote in 2020, tensions over elections and other issues have been rising for months. Local activists have demanded a halt to early voting, pushed to count ballots by hand and sought to require voter ID at polling places — none of which are legal in the state.In the face of public protest, the county’s chief executive resigned, its health officer quit and the health board publicly denounced the state’s vaccine mandates.Cathy Darling Allen, the Shasta County clerk and registrar of voters, said she has familiar Election Day worries: A forecast for as much as 10 inches of snow on Sunday night could prevent some of the 180,000 voters in her mountainous county from getting to the polls.But she’s also burdened by concerns about the potential for violence and has worked with local authorities to devise multiple contingency plans.The final day of early voting in downtown Athens, Ga.Audra Melton for The New York Times“I never in my dreams thought I’d be coming up with a plan for what to do if I get shot, but here we are,” said Ms. Darling Allen.In some states, like Ohio and Pennsylvania, voting rights and civil rights groups have trained volunteers in methods of de-escalation, stationing them around polling places and setting up hotlines to respond to issues. In Ohio, for example, a coalition specifically enlisted religious leaders from multiple denominations for the task.In Georgia, a state with a long history of intimidation and tension at the polls, some community leaders expressed similar unease, amid rising threats of political violence.“I will admit I’m apprehensive about Election Day because you never know what some people will do,” said Bishop Reginald T. Jackson, who oversees more than 150 A.M.E. churches in Georgia. “And I look at Arizona, people dressed in these outfits, it can be intimidating.”More than 65,000 voters in Georgia have had their registrations challenged by fellow citizens, under procedures laid out in a new voting law. Even though most of the challenges have been thrown out, it has unsettled some Georgia voters, and tossed some off the rolls. Barbara Helm, a homeless woman in Forsyth County, Ga., was forced to vote on a provisional ballot because her registration had been removed during one of the mass challenges brought by Republican voters. Her dilemma was first reported by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.But Bishop Jackson was also buoyed by surging turnout in the state, and pointed to efforts of his church and many other voting rights organizations to ensure voters were prepared for the midterms.“There’s apprehension but they’re not afraid,” Bishop Jackson said. “Our people are prepared, and we’re prepared to vote.”Ken Bensinger More

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      Election Workers Have to Keep Volunteering to Do This

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      DURHAM, N.C. — One of the challenges of being alive right now is making sense of the threat to the American election system: It’s hard to determine, conclusively, how widespread that threat is, how much chaos and danger we’re living through and what to do next.How bad are things? In an October Reuters/Ipsos poll, 43 percent of voters said they worried about threats of violence or intimidation while voting. New York Times/Siena College polling has found that insofar as people worry about threats to democracy in the United States, they attribute the problem to the opposing party — an untenable situation that is tough to resolve. Recently, people have shown up, armed, to watch voter drop boxes. Many, many Republican candidates continue to advance false claims about the 2020 election. All over the country, election officials and workers have quit, citing threats and demands on them. One violent episode can alter individual lives forever, as well as reverberate through politics in deep and unexpected ways. You can picture a grim scenario in which voting and election work moves, like other facets of American life, into a permanent siege posture.Nobody really wants to live like that; nobody likes to think we could. But understanding the tangible, everyday scale of these problems — what’s changed and what hasn’t — genuinely isn’t easy.In endless tension with more abstract questions about the big picture is the practical reality that in a democratic republic, real people, with real lives, set up the voting equipment in a middle school gym somewhere, check you in, hand you a ballot, hand you a sticker, make sure the tabulator is empty before the count begins — the full battery of mundane procedures that start in your neighborhood and filter up through the county and the state and, in a presidential year, all the way up through the country.This fall, I spent two days in Durham, N.C., talking with four election workers with whom the county’s board of elections connected me. This ended up being as far from violence and conspiracy theories as you can get: drinking coffee outside in prime North Carolina fall weather, crystal clear mornings and warm afternoons, talking about how people got involved and how the process unfolds in the days leading up to Election Day.The four workers, who are paid, ranged in age from 30s to 70s. Two signed up in more recent election cycles, and two started working at the suggestion of a friend more than a decade ago. All worked early voting and Election Day before. We talked about things like provisional ballots, process checklists and local safeguards. The tenor here was brightness and practicality.One of them said that if someone has concerns about election fraud, one way to alleviate the feeling, to trust elections again, would be to undergo the formal training to be a poll worker or watcher and to see the whole thing unfold. The cut-and-dried nature of the process appeals to him. “Like, here are the laws you must follow. Here are the rules and the process that you must go through,” he said.Asked what she wanted people to know about election workers in Durham, one woman, who’s been working elections since she moved there in the 1970s and whose two sisters are election workers where they live, too, said, “They’re everyday people. A lot of them are retired. A lot of them love the system. They’ve been working for years, so they enjoy doing the work. They know the work.” She said she likes the variety of the tasks, meeting workers and voters and seeing the process at the end, confirming the accuracy of the count. Another election worker mentioned that he liked the community nature of the endeavor, in which workers sometimes bring Bojangles and coffee to the precinct for the group.One mentioned the possibility of a violent episode and the bewildering question of what she would do if that happened at her site. But this was just one possible scenario she thinks about and plans for. “When we start a shift, I always like to start with: The voter walks in, what is that voter’s experience?” In precincts where she works, she said, she advises everyone to put down their book or magazine, even if the voter isn’t at their station, to ensure a sense of seriousness and value in the room. “That’s the only reason we’re there.”This is, probably, in the past two decades of American life, the more median experience with voting and election work: commonplace, uneventful, mechanical, populated by your neighbors. But we live in 2022. People like this in other cities or towns have become the subject of conspiracy theories and threats, frequently over a politician’s misrepresentation of a routine voting or counting procedure.This is a really big country. What’s happening in one place isn’t always happening in another, which is what makes it difficult to genuinely understand if the problems we have right now are temporary, existential or somewhere in between. In a democratic republic, we all are joined by both law and broader, harder-to-pin-down concepts like trust and fear. Preserving the uneventful and calm aspects of an election system while still recognizing its flaws and vulnerabilities is difficult in a moment of possibly deep peril.Ultimately, elections are administered by regular people who opt into the process. This prospect could make you nervous or, depending on your perspective, could deeply reassure you. The system requires people to continue to want to do this, and the fact that we’re talking about violence and intimidation at all highlights how fragile this arrangement could be. In North Carolina, for a couple of days, real life briefly felt normal: talking with four people about how the system works, about their lives, about doing that work and about voters who walk through the door.Katherine Miller is a staff writer and editor in Opinion.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow the New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Midterms 2022 Predictions: Who Will Win in These Eight Races?

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      “I’m leaning toward Dr. Oz winning the Pennsylvania Senate race.” Ross Douthat Mr. Douthat is an Opinion columnist. My theory of why Dr. Mehmet Oz will win the Senate race in Pennsylvania isn’t an obvious one — John Fetterman’s debate performance tugging his poll numbers downward, undecided voters breaking for Republicans generally. Rather, it’s what […] More