Midterm Elections (2022)

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      New Generation of Combat Vets, Eyeing House, Strike From the Right

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      A class of political newcomers with remarkable military records are challenging old ideas about interventionism — and the assumption that electing veterans is a way to bring back bipartisanship.In early 2019, as the Defense Department’s bureaucracy seemed to be slow-walking then-President Donald J. Trump’s order to withdraw all U.S. forces from Syria, Joe Kent, a C.I.A. paramilitary officer, called his wife, Shannon, a Navy cryptologic technician who was still in Syria working against the Islamic State.“‘Make sure you’re not the last person to die in a war that everyone’s already forgotten about,’” Mr. Kent said he told his wife. “And that’s exactly what happened,” he added bitterly.The suicide bombing that killed Ms. Kent and three other service members days later set off a chain of events — including a somber encounter with Mr. Trump — that has propelled Mr. Kent from a storied combat career to single parenthood, from comparing notes with other antiwar veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan to making increasingly loud pronouncements that the 2020 presidential election was stolen and that the Jan. 6 rioters are political prisoners.In five weeks, Mr. Kent, 42, a candidate for a House seat in Washington State that was long represented by a soft-spoken moderate Republican, may well be elected to Congress. And he is far from alone.A new breed of veterans, many with remarkable biographies and undeniable stories of heroism, are running for the House on the far right of the Republican Party, challenging old assumptions that adding veterans to Congress — men and women who fought for the country and defended the Constitution — would foster bipartisanship and cooperation. At the same time, they are embracing anti-interventionist military and foreign policies that, since the end of World War II, have been associated more with the Democratic left than the mainline G.O.P. Alek Skarlatos, 30, a Republican candidate in Oregon, helped thwart a terrorist attack on a packed train bound for Paris, was honored by President Barack Obama and played himself in a Clint Eastwood movie about the incident. Mr. Skarlatos now says the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol has been used as an excuse “to demonize Trump supporters.”Eli Crane, 42, running in a Republican-leaning House district in Arizona, saw five wartime deployments with SEAL Team 3 over 13 years — as a sniper, manning machine-gun turrets and running kill-or-capture missions with the Delta Force against high-value targets, some in Falluja. Mr. Crane presses the false case that the 2020 election was stolen.And Derrick Van Orden, 53, who is favored to win a House seat in Wisconsin, retired as a Navy SEAL senior chief after combat deployments in Bosnia, Afghanistan, Iraq, the Horn of Africa and Central and South America. Mr. Van Orden was at the Capitol on Jan. 6, hoping to disrupt the certification of President Biden’s election.Derrick Van Orden at a rally hosted by former President Donald J. Trump in Waukesha, Wis., in August.Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesBeyond their right-wing leanings, all share in common a deep skepticism about U.S. interventionism, borne of years of fighting in the post-9/11 war on terrorism and the belief that their sacrifices only gave rise to more instability and repression wherever the United States put boots on the ground.Where earlier generations of combat veterans in Congress became die-hard defenders of a global military footprint, the new cohort is unafraid to launch ad hominem attacks on the men who still lead U.S. forces.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.The Final Stretch: With less than one month until Election Day, Republicans remain favored to take over the House, but momentum in the pitched battle for the Senate has seesawed back and forth.A Surprising Battleground: New York has emerged from a haywire redistricting cycle as perhaps the most consequential congressional battleground in the country. For Democrats, the uncertainty is particularly jarring.Arizona’s Governor’s Race: Democrats are openly expressing their alarm that Katie Hobbs, the party’s nominee for governor in the state, is fumbling a chance to defeat Kari Lake in one of the most closely watched races.Herschel Walker: The Republican Senate nominee in Georgia reportedly paid for an ex-girlfriend’s abortion, but members of his party have learned to tolerate his behavior.“I worked for Milley. I worked for Austin. I worked for Mattis,” said Don Bolduc, 60, the retired brigadier general challenging Senator Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, of Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the current and former defense secretaries Lloyd Austin and Jim Mattis. “Their concerns centered around the military-industrial complex and maintaining the military-industrial complex, so as three- and four-star generals, they can roll right into very lucrative jobs.”Mr. Austin and Mr. Mattis declined to comment. A defense official close to Gen. Milley said, “there isn’t a shred of evidence indicating Gen. Milley has been concerned with maintaining the military industrial complex and has no plans to seek employment in the defense industry after retirement.”No one has questioned these men’s valor, as some have questioned that of another pro-Trump House candidate, J.R. Majewski of Ohio, who appears to have exaggerated his combat record.But their pivots to the far right have confounded other veterans, especially those who have long pressed former service members to run for office as problem-solving moderates less vulnerable to shifting partisan winds. Organizations like New Politics, and With Honor Action were founded in the past decade on the notion that records of service would promote cooperation in government. That ideal is under assault.“When you think about the faith of the mission, listen, this is hard,” said Rye Barcott, founder and chief executive officer of With Honor Action. “I mean, the trends have certainly gotten worse.”Democratic veterans, however, see the newer veteran candidates’ willingness to embrace Mr. Trump’s lies as a precursor to totalitarianism, and in contravention of their service. “We all took the same oath,” said Representative Ruben Gallego, a former Marine who saw some of the worst combat of the Iraq war. “We all understand the Constitution of United States, and some of these men are really leaning into outright fascism.”The candidates insist their views were informed by their combat experiences and demonstrate wisdom, not radicalization.Eli Crane saw five wartime deployments with SEAL Team 3 over 13 years.Ross D. Franklin/Associated PressMr. Crane said that he witnessed overseas the lengths to which people would go to seize and hold power, and that this fed his belief that Democrats had somehow rigged the 2020 election in President Biden’s favor. “I think that we’re foolish if we’re not willing to be skeptical of our own system,” he said.For Mr. Kent, the journey to the Trumpian right was both long and surprisingly short..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.Inspired to join the Army at 13 by the Black Hawk battle in Somalia, he enlisted at 17 and applied for the Special Forces just before Sept. 11, 2001. Two years later he was in Iraq, where he fought in Falluja, hunted down members of Saddam Hussein’s government and briefed intelligence and State Department officers on the deteriorating war.By 2011, as U.S. forces were preparing to leave, he said, he told General Austin, then the Army commander in Iraq, that the United States’ support of “this Iranian-proxy, Shia government is going to result in Al Qaeda in Iraq.”But it was his wife’s death in Syria that pushed Mr. Kent, by then in the C.I.A., into the arms of Trumpism. “She was there because unelected bureaucrats decided to slow-roll” Mr. Trump’s withdrawal orders, he said. “You can disobey an order from a president fairly easily, because he’s so far up from the ground level, simply by dragging your feet. And that’s a lot of what happened.”Shannon M. Kent was killed during a suicide bombing in Syria.ReutersAt Dover Air Force Base, he met Mr. Trump, who was there to pay his respects to the bodies of those killed in Syria. Mr. Kent expressed his support for the president’s efforts to withdraw from the Middle East and Afghanistan. Within days, he was consulting with the White House and volunteering for Veterans for Trump.In a video he made for the Koch-funded Concerned Veterans for America decrying the post-9/11 wars, he appears as a bearded, longhaired grieving father.Today, clean-cut and square-jawed, he is seen by many as a right-wing radical, ready to connect what he calls the lies that dragged his nation into war and the stories he tells of stolen elections, political prisoners who attacked the Capitol, and the slippery slope to nuclear war that the Biden administration is on in Ukraine.“People can easily dismiss that and say, ‘Oh, he’s just a tinfoil hat conspiracy guy,’ but when you break down the nitty-gritty details of all of these different things, and the results that they’ve had on our country, I think it’s worth looking into,” Mr. Kent said.His former campaign manager, Byron Sanford, dismissed Mr. Kent’s candidacy as a “revenge tour” for the death of his wife — who, Mr. Kent said, was both more pro-Trump and more political than Mr. Kent was at the time she was killed.Mr. Kent had no problem with that. “If people want to characterize it as a revenge tour, yeah, I mean, I’d say it’s more of a populist uprising against the establishment,” he said. “But you know, call it what you will.”For Mr. Bolduc, the Senate nominee in New Hampshire, the ideological shift has been more dramatic. He was one of the first Americans to make contact with Hamid Karzai, who was installed as Afghanistan’s president shortly after the U.S. invasion, and was an outspoken defender of him. In 2018, just after Gen. Bolduc’s retirement, he decried the Trump White House in The Daily Beast for “exacerbating divisiveness by not demonstrating patience and restraint, not listening to experts, attacking people for their opinions, ruining reputations, threatening institutions, abusing the media, and leading people to question our position as a beacon for promoting democracy throughout the world.”Don Bolduc, center, with supporters at the American Legion in Laconia, N.H., in September.John Tully for The New York TimesNow, he tells voters the United States needs to avoid Iran, has done enough in Ukraine, and should undertake a wholesale re-evaluation of its posture in the world.Mr. Bolduc contends that the interventionist views of former Senator John McCain and successors like Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina — a belief in projecting power to solve problems — arose from a belief in what he called “the military easy button.”“My generation of combat veterans think the exact opposite,” he said.Mr. Crane shares those views, especially on Ukraine, which he says President Biden is defending more vigorously than he is the United States’ southern border. And he, too, sees capitalism driving interventionism — a view once pushed by intellectuals on the left.“It’s foolish, even dangerous when the industrial-military complex is driving or heavily influencing policy,” he said in an interview. “They make a lot more money when we’re at war.”Not everyone in that generation is of the same mind.Zach Nunn, a Republican challenging Representative Cindy Axne of Iowa, has used his Air Force combat record to burnish his credentials, but after deployments in Afghanistan, North Africa and as an election monitor in Ukraine, he has not soured on the projection of force around the globe — or on bipartisan cooperation.Mr. Nunn speaks at length of a battle in Afghanistan in which he flew reconnaissance, providing “a canopy of freedom” for special operations forces by watching enemy positions and calling in airstrikes.“We ended up doing three midair refuelings, we were out there for over 18 hours, and by the end of it, we had multiple ridgeline strikes and had kept the Taliban at bay long enough that the Special Operations Forces team was able to evac,” Mr. Nunn said.What his experience did not do was breed cynicism or push him to the political margins of his party. Mr. Nunn speaks proudly of his work on cybersecurity in the Obama White House and working with the Biden administration to get allies out of Afghanistan after the military’s pullout. He says his combat experience gave him an appreciation for Americans from all walks of life and political beliefs.Zach Nunn with his family after winning the Republican nomination for Iowa’s Third Congressional District in June. Bryon Houlgrave/The Des Moines Register, via Associated Press“It didn’t matter what our political belief was, it was all about, hey, we’re going to protect each other’s six and complete this mission,” he said, using military jargon for watching a comrade’s back.Mr. Barcott, of With Honor Action, argued that the new crop of right-wing veterans should not be seen as representing the political attitudes of former service members writ large. With Honor Action still asks veterans running for office to pledge to bring civility to Congress, participate in cross-partisan veterans groups, meet one-on-one with a member of the opposing party at least once a month and work with a member of the other party on one “substantial piece of legislation a year” while co-sponsoring other bipartisan bills.But finding veterans willing to make that pledge has become more difficult.By Mr. Barcott’s count, 685 veterans ran for the House or Senate this cycle. With Honor endorsed only 26 from both parties, many of them incumbents. Three Republican incumbents it had once endorsed, Representatives Mike Garcia of California, Greg Steube of Florida and Dan Crenshaw of Texas, were dropped for actions deemed out of keeping with the group’s mission.Several Democrats with national security backgrounds, like Representatives Abigail Spanberger and Elaine Luria of Virginia and Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, are running explicitly on their service records to bolster their bipartisan bona fides.But more partisan veterans groups say this year’s candidates are pointing out a central fallacy: “People say if we just elect more veterans to Congress, things will be hunky dory, but there’s no precedent for that, no data that suggests veterans act different from anyone else,” said Dan Caldwell, an adviser to the conservative group Concerned Veterans for America.Mr. Kent was more cutting about organizations that ostensibly back veterans bound for bipartisanship but refused to back him.“It’s a gimmick,” he said, dismissing the groups as hawkish interventionists. “It’s just another way to get the neoconservative, neoliberal ideology furthered by wrapping it in the valor of service. Our service.” More

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      Politicians Have Always Paid Lip Service to Families. This Year Was Just a New Low.

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      Politicians and political organizations offering empty, hand-waving support for family values while doing relatively little to actually deliver tangible support to families is a political cliché. But just when I thought I couldn’t be surprised by this sort of hypocrisy, I saw that FRC Action PAC (an affiliate of FRC Action, itself an affiliate of the Family Research Council) — an organization that says it “gives our members the ability to support deserving, pro-family statesmen” — endorsed Herschel Walker for Senate.If you missed it somehow, earlier this month, a woman reported to be the mother of one of Walker’s children said he’s hardly been a part of the child’s life, paid for her to have one abortion and urged her to get a second. In June, it was reported that Walker fathered two children he had not previously spoken about publicly. Walker’s adult son Christian recently tweeted, “You’re not a ‘family man’ when you left us to bang a bunch of women, threatened to kill us, and had us move over 6 times in 6 months running from your violence.”On his campaign website, Walker says he’s pro-family but doesn’t specifically cite any parent-friendly policies, like paid family leave, that he might champion. His family-friendly bona fides, apparently, are simply his professed “personal faith” and “pro-life” convictions.Yet he claims to “put Georgia families first.”This kind of contradiction can be jarring. It can make the 1992 contretemps between Vice President Dan Quayle and the character Murphy Brown seem almost quaint. Bottom line: This sort of thing isn’t new in American political history. For example, I was spelunking through The Times archives and found this short article from 1915: “KEEP ON BEING A MOTHER”: This Is Roosevelt’s Advice to Parent of 7 Little Ones, Facing Hunger.” And while I wouldn’t equate Walker with Theodore Roosevelt (win or lose in November, Walker’s image won’t be added to Mount Rushmore anytime soon), a thread of hollow family values talk connects them.According to that article, a Mrs. McHonney, whose husband had lost his job and had no means to support their large brood, wrote to Roosevelt, asking:Do you advocate raising children for country charges, the poor house, or what? I am a mother of seven children and feel that I have a right to ask. Perhaps you have never had the experience of raising seven children on $80 a month and then suddenly losing the position and have your house threatened with foreclosure.Roosevelt answered:We are, any of us, liable to run into hard luck, but that does not by any manner of means lessen our duties to ourselves and to society. I am sorry for Mrs. McHonney, who seems to be having a hard time through no fault of her own, or of her husband. It seems to me that the only answer to her question is to tell her to keep right on being a mother, the best, highest, most worthwhile job on earth, no matter what the temporary conditions that surround it may be.Unfortunately, you can’t feed a family with the sanctity of motherhood, which was a hobby horse of Roosevelt’s — specifically, the sanctity of white motherhood. In his 1905 remarks to the Mothers’ Congress, Roosevelt described the desire to have only two children as “race suicide” and said that if any man or woman chose not to have children, “such a creature merits contempt as hearty as any visited upon the soldier who runs away in battle.”If there’s doubt about what “race” meant in that context, the author Christopher Klein notes that more generally, “Roosevelt believed fundamentally that American greatness came from its rule by racially superior white men of European descent.” According to the historian Thomas Dyer, when Roosevelt left office, he counted a low fertility rate among this group as one of the “very big problems” the incoming president William Howard Taft would need to recognize. According to Dyer in his 1980 book, “Theodore Roosevelt and the Idea of Race”:The fervor with which Roosevelt hawked the virtues of increased fertility for the better classes increased after he left the presidency. To the familiar calls for large families and the ceaseless invocations of women’s racial duties he now added diatribes against birth control, family planning and the “science” of eugenics.So Roosevelt discouraged family planning, but even in his post-presidential fervor he seemingly had no practical solutions for Mrs. McHonney — though perhaps she didn’t fit his definition of the type of person he hoped would go forth and multiply.As with the incongruities of today’s politics, more than one person called out Roosevelt’s thinking — including his own children. His daughter Alice, who would have only one child, through an affair with Senator William Borah of Idaho, “rebelled against the humiliation of her father’s attitude toward, as she put it, ‘large families, the purity of womanhood and the sanctity of marriage,’” according to the biography “Alice: Alice Roosevelt Longworth, From White House Princess to Washington Power Broker” by Stacy Cordery. Alice and three friends secretly founded a tongue-in-cheek “race suicide club,” Cordery writes, “so named because of T.R.’s speech condemning white Anglo-Saxon Protestant women who were derelict in their primary duty of producing sufficient numbers of children to keep America strong.”One woman gave a scathing riposte to Roosevelt’s callous advice to Mrs. McHonney, writing in an open letter: “Mr. Roosevelt’s teachings are rather horrible. Let us increase and multiply blindly until the country is overrun with a half-nourished, ignorant population, and then joyously take the slightest excuse to turn some of our surplus citizens into cannon’s meat.”While the historical details are fascinating — if revolting — I wish we didn’t have to keep repeating this tiresome cycle. In general, I try to remain hopeful about forward progress for America’s families, and no doubt things have improved since Teddy’s day. But sometimes the dissonance between “family values” and valuing families is so extreme — as many on the political right line up behind Walker despite report after report of abhorrent behavior toward his own family — that it’s hard to remain optimistic.There’s a line from Ann Crittenden’s book “The Price of Motherhood: Why the Most Important Job in the World Is Still the Least Valued” that I quote in my forthcoming book, and which applies here: “All of the lip service to motherhood still floats in the air, as insubstantial as clouds of angel dust.”Mrs. McHonney, they’re still blowing smoke in your face.Tiny VictoriesParenting can be a grind. Let’s celebrate the tiny victories.My 4-year-old’s bedtime involved lots of cajoling and repeating myself: “Lay down, please” when she would rather be doing anything else. I eventually started voicing her round doughnut pillow to talk to her. “Waaaah! I’m so saaaad! I need a nice fuzzy head to lay on me!” Interested, she scooted right over and laid down. “Aaaah! A nice heavy head with lots of brains!” And the bonus is I only need to say it once.— Eric Schares, Ames, IowaIf you want a chance to get your Tiny Victory published, find us on Instagram @NYTparenting and use the hashtag #tinyvictories; email us; or enter your Tiny Victory at the bottom of this page. Include your full name and location. Tiny Victories may be edited for clarity and style. Your name, location and comments may be published, but your contact information will not. By submitting to us, you agree that you have read, understand and accept the Reader Submission Terms in relation to all of the content and other information you send to us. More

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      Far-Right Republicans Face Tough Races in Swing Districts, Testing McCarthy

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      The top House Republican spent freely to try to block extreme candidates who could imperil the party’s chances of winning the majority or challenge his path to the speakership. Some won anyway.WASHINGTON — As the midterm election season enters a critical final phase, some far-right Republicans are facing headwinds in congressional races that once appeared to be prime opportunities for the party to win seats, complicating the plans of Representative Kevin McCarthy, the minority leader who aspires to be speaker, and fueling Democratic hopes of cutting their losses in their fight to retain control of the House.Some of the candidates have risen despite the efforts of Mr. McCarthy, the California Republican who spent freely to defeat them in primaries and toiled to strike a balance between courting the mainstream and making peace with the ascendant extremists in his party’s ranks. Mr. McCarthy now faces possible losses in competitive districts — or the prospect of adding to the list of hard-right lawmakers in his conference who may be difficult to control if he becomes the House speaker next year.The situation underscores the growing influence of extremists styling themselves in the image of former President Donald J. Trump, and how the Republican Party’s core supporters continue to gravitate to such figures.“The story of the last seven years is Kevin McCarthy slowly realizing they’ve lost control of the party that is now dominated by Trump and the voters who love him and love candidates like him,” said Sarah Longwell, an anti-Trump Republican political strategist. “Trump controls the base, but the base is large enough to dictate the outcomes of primaries.”In New Hampshire, recent polling has shown the unpopularity of Karoline Leavitt, the 25-year-old ultra-MAGA challenger to Representative Chris Pappas, a Democrat. In a Saint Anselm College Survey Center poll conducted late last month, only 39 percent of voters had a favorable view of Ms. Leavitt, who has repeated Mr. Trump’s election lies, compared with 45 percent who regarded her negatively. Recent polls showed her trailing Mr. Pappas by 8 percentage points, although an AARP New Hampshire poll released last week showed the race to be neck-and-neck.A super PAC aligned with Mr. McCarthy spent $1.3 million to back Matt Mowers, a former Trump administration official, over Ms. Leavitt, and an additional $1 million during the primary attacking Mr. Pappas. Since winning the primary, Ms. Leavitt has not tacked to the middle, appearing on “War Room,” the podcast hosted by Stephen K. Bannon, two days after her victory.Karoline Leavitt initially said she would back Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio over Mr. McCarthy for House speaker, though she has since changed her position.Charles Krupa/Associated PressIn North Carolina, the McCarthy-affiliated group spent nearly $600,000 to try to stop the nomination of Sandy Smith, a self-described entrepreneur and farmer who has proudly admitted that she marched on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. But Ms. Smith won the primary, prompting political prognosticators to rate her district in North Carolina, which had previously trended only slightly toward Democrats, more decisively blue.In central New York, Mr. McCarthy poured $1 million into the campaign of Steve Wells, a former criminal prosecutor and businessman who was more of a known quantity, over Brandon Williams. Mr. Williams had called the overturning of Roe v. Wade — the Supreme Court decision that had established abortion rights in 1973 — a “monumental victory” and suggested that there were instances when a woman’s life should be sacrificed to deliver her unborn child.Mr. Williams is ahead in most general election polling, but the Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan newsletter that analyzes elections, still rates the race a tossup. Mr. McCarthy and the super PAC he is aligned with, the Congressional Leadership Fund, are now fully behind Mr. Williams.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.The Final Stretch: With less than one month until Election Day, Republicans remain favored to take over the House, but momentum in the pitched battle for the Senate has seesawed back and forth.A Surprising Battleground: New York has emerged from a haywire redistricting cycle as perhaps the most consequential congressional battleground in the country. For Democrats, the uncertainty is particularly jarring.Arizona’s Governor’s Race: Democrats are openly expressing their alarm that Katie Hobbs, the party’s nominee for governor in the state, is fumbling a chance to defeat Kari Lake in one of the most closely watched races.Herschel Walker: The Republican Senate nominee in Georgia reportedly paid for an ex-girlfriend’s abortion, but members of his party have learned to tolerate his behavior.When Republicans have bemoaned issues with “candidate quality,” they have mostly been talking about Senate races, where the influence of Mr. Trump helped contribute to a roster of candidates that has struggled in competitive races. In the House, Republicans have prided themselves on entering the general election with a diverse set of candidates that includes people of color, veterans and women, and on quietly thwarting the ascendance of some far-right candidates who leaders feared would alienate independent voters and cause problems if elected.Those efforts were led in large part by the Congressional Leadership Fund, which is competing in 53 races across the country.But the contests in which the minority leader and other top Republicans failed to block more incendiary candidates reflect the enduring influence of the far right and the challenge that Mr. McCarthy is likely to face should he succeed in winning back the majority. In a very narrow battlefield, even a handful of losses could make the difference between an operational majority and an utterly dysfunctional House.Some hard-right Republican candidates are facing headwinds in races that once appeared to be prime opportunities for their party to win House seats.Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times“The House majority will be won district by district, and running with the weakest and most extreme candidates in swing districts will cost the G.O.P.,” said Tommy Garcia, a spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.Mr. Mowers, who lost his primary to Ms. Leavitt, defended Mr. McCarthy’s track record and said it would not hurt Republicans’ chances at taking the House.“No one can bat a thousand,” he said. “And while a few candidates from outside the mainstream have emerged that will have challenges winning a general election, the playing field is more than wide enough to recapture a majority.”In a few cases, the candidate whom Mr. McCarthy failed to defeat is thriving, and the outcome of the primary might not affect Republicans’ chances in the general election. Recent public polls have shown Mr. Williams, for instance, ahead of Francis Conole, the Democrat competing for an open seat in a competitive district in upstate New York.Mr. McCarthy’s super PAC often spends in places where its favored candidate is struggling, so it is not surprising that even with the outside boost of funds, some of those candidates still lost. Overall, the Congressional Leadership Fund sees its primary spending as a success story. The group helped several Republican incumbents fend off challenges from more extreme candidates in competitive districts, including Representatives Brian Fitzpatrick in Pennsylvania, David Valadao and Young Kim in California and Andrew Garbarino in New York.“By recruiting strong candidates and supporting them through their primaries, we were able to make our own luck,” said Dan Conston, the organization’s president. “Candidate quality matters, and proactively engaging put us in a dramatically better position not to just win the majority, but to elect stars that will be the future of the party.”But elsewhere across the country, right-wing candidates whom Mr. McCarthy tried to knock out have prevailed, bolstering Democrats’ chances of winning a seat.In Arizona, Kelly Cooper, who has refused to acknowledge the 2020 election results and called for the immediate release of people who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, defeated Tanya Wheeless, the granddaughter of a Mexican immigrant whom Mr. McCarthy’s PAC endorsed and helped fund.In the Third Congressional District in Washington, a group aligned with Mr. McCarthy, Take Back the House 2022, donated to Representative Jaime Herrera Beutler, who was one of 10 Republicans who voted to impeach Mr. Trump. But she was defeated in her primary by Joe Kent, who has said he would oppose Mr. McCarthy for the speakership if elected.Ms. Leavitt initially said she would back Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, a hard-right Republican, over Mr. McCarthy for speaker; she has since changed her position and said she would support Mr. McCarthy.“They’ve struggled to paint true Trump believers in a negative light, because that’s where the base is, particularly in the South,” said David Wasserman, an election expert with the Cook Political Report. “They have to find other ways to try and disqualify these candidates.”J. R. Majewski’s candidacy in Ohio has been buffeted by accusations that he lied about his military service.Gaelen Morse/ReutersThen there are the races that Mr. McCarthy stayed out of, where extreme candidates have prevailed and are now imperiling the party’s chances. In Ohio, J.R. Majewski, a Trump-backed Air Force veteran who was at the Capitol on Jan. 6 and has expressed sympathy for QAnon conspiracy theorists, emerged as the surprise winner from a primary in which the Congressional Leadership Fund did not back any candidate.Mr. McCarthy then embraced Mr. Majewski, campaigning with him in the state, where he declared, “We have a candidate that understands what Ohio needs.”Mr. Majewski’s candidacy has since been buffeted by accusations that he lied about his military service, undercutting his challenge to longtime Representative Marcy Kaptur. The National Republican Congressional Committee, the party’s campaign arm, canceled about $1 million in advertisements to help his campaign.In the general election, Mr. McCarthy has embraced the entire gamut of Republican candidates, striving to avoid appearing as though he is trying to purge the party of its Trumpist wing. He is now vocally backing Ms. Leavitt, and the National Republican Congressional Committee praised Ms. Smith after her victory.That mirrors Mr. McCarthy’s approach in Washington, where he has elevated some of the more extreme members of his conference, including Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia. The minority leader has made room for some of Mr. Trump’s favored elected officials even as he worked to defeat others he viewed as unelectable.“He’s living in a space where he has to conduct two parallel realities,” Ms. Longwell said. “He can say, ‘I’m knocking out some of these really crazy characters that are making us look bad,’ and he’s playing ball with some of Trump’s people.”Rachel Shorey More

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      How a Republican Could Win the Oregon Governor’s Race

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      In a wild governor’s race, an independent candidate is siphoning Democratic votes and a billionaire Nike co-founder is pouring in money — giving an anti-abortion Republican a path to victory.MONROE, Ore. — Democrats haven’t lost a governor’s race in Oregon in four decades. Two years ago, Joseph R. Biden Jr. won the state by 16 percentage points. The only Republican to win a statewide election since 2002 died before finishing his term.And yet this year’s race for Oregon governor is now among the tightest in the country, illustrating both frustration with one of the nation’s most progressive state governments and the power of a single billionaire donor to shape an election to his whims. The Republican candidate, Christine Drazan, has a real path to victory, despite promoting anti-abortion views that would ordinarily be a political loser in a state that has become a refuge for people who can no longer get abortions in their home states.The contest is so close in part because a quirky Democratic-turned-independent candidate running as a centrist has drawn a sizable bloc of support away from the Democratic nominee, Tina Kotek, leaving her struggling to stitch together a winning coalition. The Democrats’ predicament has now ensnared President Biden, who is visiting Portland this weekend to hold events for Ms. Kotek and the state party.Republicans are salivating at the prospect of breaking up the Democratic lock on the West Coast — Alaska is the only state on the Pacific Ocean where the G.O.P. holds a statewide office — and relishing the news that a sitting president is required for a Democratic rescue mission.“The only thing you can say about that is they are scared, they are desperate,” Ms. Drazan told a crowd of hunters at a campaign rally this week in the eastern foothills of Oregon’s Coast Range.Ms. Drazan’s candidacy received another jolt of momentum in recent days from Phil Knight, the billionaire co-founder of the sports giant Nike, Oregon’s largest company. In the early months of the campaign, he sent $3.75 million to the coffers of the independent candidate, Betsy Johnson, a former helicopter pilot who spent two decades as a thorn in Democrats’ side in the Oregon State Legislature before finally leaving the party last year.But as polls showed Ms. Johnson lagging well behind Ms. Kotek and Ms. Drazan, Mr. Knight, frustrated with what he described as a lurch too far to the left in the state’s government, switched his loyalty this month, sending $1 million to Ms. Drazan.Ms. Drazan’s campaign received a boost this month when Phil Knight, the billionaire co-founder of Nike, decided to back her.Leah Nash for The New York TimesMs. Drazan has highlighted her conservative credentials, including opposition to abortion and an “A” rating from the National Rifle Association.Leah Nash for The New York TimesMr. Knight, Oregon’s richest man, is now the largest single contributor to both Ms. Johnson and Ms. Drazan. His largess has helped turn the race into a tossup, forcing Democrats to divert money in a bid to retain the governor’s office.Mr. Knight, who rarely speaks with reporters, said in an interview on Thursday that he would do whatever he could to stop Ms. Kotek from becoming governor, describing himself as “an anti-Tina person.” He said he had never spoken with Ms. Drazan.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.The Final Stretch: With less than one month until Election Day, Republicans remain favored to take over the House, but momentum in the pitched battle for the Senate has seesawed back and forth.A Surprising Battleground: New York has emerged from a haywire redistricting cycle as perhaps the most consequential congressional battleground in the country. For Democrats, the uncertainty is particularly jarring.Arizona’s Governor’s Race: Democrats are openly expressing their alarm that Katie Hobbs, the party’s nominee for governor in the state, is fumbling a chance to defeat Kari Lake in one of the most closely watched races.Herschel Walker: The Republican Senate nominee in Georgia reportedly paid for an ex-girlfriend’s abortion, but members of his party have learned to tolerate his behavior.“One of the political cartoons after our legislative session had a person snorting cocaine out of a mountain of white,” Mr. Knight said. “It said, ‘Which of these is illegal in Oregon?’ And the answer was the plastic straw.”Ms. Kotek, a former State House speaker, is in trouble because of a cocktail of political maladies and a backlash against Gov. Kate Brown, who polls show is the country’s least popular governor. Next week, Ms. Kotek’s own conduct in Salem will be scrutinized by a legislative committee after one of her former caucus colleagues accused her of making threats to win support for legislation she wanted to pass.Ms. Kotek’s opponents have focused on widespread homelessness and safety fears in Portland, which set a record for murders last year and could surpass that number this year. Ms. Kotek helped usher into law new restrictions on what Oregon’s cities could do to remove homeless people from their streets at the same time that a new law, enacted in a 2020 referendum, decriminalized small amounts of hard drugs like cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine. More

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      4 Takeaways From the Campaign Trail

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      Damian Dovarganes/Associated PressLos Angeles was rocked by news that three City Council members took part in a secretly recorded conversation involving racist comments. Faced with swirling public condemnation, including from President Biden, the Council president, Nury Martinez, resigned, while the other two officials have so far stayed put. More

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      Peter Thiel, Major U.S. Political Donor, Is Said to Pursue Maltese Citizenship

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      Obtaining citizenship in Malta would provide another passport for Mr. Thiel, who is one of the largest individual donors for the U.S. midterm elections.VALLETTA, Malta — At the end of a narrow road, past crushed beer cans and the remnants of a chain-link fence, a weathered sandstone building overlooks the Mediterranean coast. The British tourist who answered the door of a third-floor apartment had no idea she was staying at the residence of one of the world’s richest men.Peter Thiel, the billionaire and Republican political patron, has declared the two-bedroom apartment that he rents himself as his address while he works toward a goal he has pursued for about a year: becoming a citizen of the tiny island nation of Malta, according to documents viewed by The New York Times and three people with knowledge of the matter.Mr. Thiel, 55, is in the process of acquiring at least his third passport even as he expands his financial influence over American politics. Since backing Donald J. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, the technology investor has become one of the largest individual donors in the midterm elections next month, spending more than $30 million on more than a dozen right-wing Congressional candidates who have decried globalization and pledged to put America first.The Malta apartment building that Mr. Thiel has listed as his residential address on the island.Ryan Mac/The New York TimesMr. Thiel has long expressed deep dissatisfaction with what he perceives as America’s decline, railing against bureaucracy and “a completely deranged government” ruled by elites. To address that, he has funded fellowships to push people to drop out of school and start businesses and supported political candidates who would push the country in his preferred direction.All along, Mr. Thiel has also hedged his bets. That includes obtaining foreign passports — Mr. Thiel was born in Germany and holds American and New Zealand passports — that would let him live abroad. He has sought to build a remote compound in a glacier-carved valley in New Zealand, and supported a “seasteading” group that aims to build a city on floating platforms in international waters, outside the jurisdiction of national governments.Through a spokesman, Mr. Thiel, who co-founded the digital payments company PayPal and was Facebook’s first professional investor, declined to comment. His net worth stands at $4.2 billion, according to Forbes.There is no obvious tax benefit to Mr. Thiel to gaining Maltese citizenship, lawyers and immigration experts said, though wealthy Saudi, Russian and Chinese citizens sometimes seek a passport from the island nation for European Union access and to hedge against social or political turmoil at home.It is unclear why Mr. Thiel’s nominal residence in Malta is listed as a 185 euro-a-night vacation rental on Airbnb. Maltese naturalization laws are straightforward for those who can pay more than €500,000 for a passport, but they prohibit would-be citizens from renting out their official residences while their passport application is pending.What is clear is that a Maltese passport would give Mr. Thiel an escape hatch from the United States if his spending doesn’t change the country to his liking. He has started developing business connections in Malta, and is a major shareholder in at least one company registered there in which his husband, Matt Danzeisen, is a director.Mr. Thiel has backed his friend J.D. Vance, who is running for the Senate in Ohio. Mr. Thiel previously employed Mr. Vance.Scott McIntyre for The New York TimesIn the United States, the bulk of Mr. Thiel’s political donations have gone to support two friends who previously worked for him: J.D. Vance, a Republican running for Ohio’s open Senate seat, and Blake Masters, the Republican challenger in Arizona to Senator Mark Kelly. Mr. Vance worked at Mithril Capital, one of Mr. Thiel’s investment funds. Mr. Masters was chief operating officer of Thiel Capital, the billionaire’s family office.Both candidates have espoused a form of nationalism that, in part, blames globalization and leaders’ involvement in international affairs for American stagnation. Mr. Thiel has endorsed that worldview with his money and in speeches, including one at the National Conservatism Conference last year where he called nationalism “a corrective” to the “brain-dead, one-world state” of globalism.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.The Final Stretch: With less than one month until Election Day, Republicans remain favored to take over the House, but momentum in the pitched battle for the Senate has seesawed back and forth.A Surprising Battleground: New York has emerged from a haywire redistricting cycle as perhaps the most consequential congressional battleground in the country. For Democrats, the uncertainty is particularly jarring.Arizona’s Governor’s Race: Democrats are openly expressing their alarm that Katie Hobbs, the party’s nominee for governor in the state, is fumbling a chance to defeat Kari Lake in one of the most closely watched races.Herschel Walker: The Republican Senate nominee in Georgia reportedly paid for an ex-girlfriend’s abortion, but members of his party have learned to tolerate his behavior.“In order for there to be any chance of reversing the wrong direction in which the country has been heading, in Arizona this year it’s Blake or bust,” he wrote in an endorsement on Mr. Masters’s website. Mr. Thiel has supported Mr. Masters’s run by hosting fund-raising dinners and spending $15 million.Mr. Masters was Thiel Capital’s chief operating officer when Mr. Thiel began his Maltese citizenship application. A spokeswoman for Mr. Masters, who left Thiel Capital in March, didn’t respond to questions for comment.Mr. Thiel has also supported the campaign of Blake Masters, who is challenging for one of Arizona’s Senate seats. Mr. Masters previously served as chief operating officer of Thiel Capital, Mr. Thiel’s family office.Adriana Zehbrauskas for The New York TimesMalta, located in the Mediterranean between Europe and North Africa, has been a destination for traders and crusaders for centuries. Outside powers controlled it until 1964; since it gained independence from Britain, it has struggled to build a sustainable economy. The island, which has little industry and few natural resources, joined the European Union in 2004.Malta has found a lucrative economic lever in selling passports. Since 2013, the country’s investor citizenship programs have granted around 2,000 applicants and their families passports, generating millions of euros in revenue.Those offered citizenship on a fast-track route must pay €750,000 into a government fund and maintain a rental or purchased property throughout the 12-month application period and for at least five years after receiving a passport. After that, citizens are no longer required to maintain a residence or live in Malta, which has a population of just over 500,000.Joseph Muscat, Malta’s prime minister who resigned in 2019 amid protests about corruption and the murder of a journalist who was critical of his government, called the passport program “an insurance policy” for wealthy individuals “where they feel there is a great deal of volatility.”“It’s straightforward,” he said. “You pay into a national fund, and the national fund uses that money for infrastructure and for social housing.”The Auberge de Castille, the office of Malta’s prime minister.Darrin Zammit Lupi/ReutersMalta’s fast track for citizenship by investment, or what’s more commonly known as “golden passports,” can take from 12 to 16 months, according to Henley & Partners, a consultancy that developed the Maltese program and helps clients obtain passports around the globe.“We traditionally have had many Americans looking at that, and of those, quite a lot are from the tech sector,” said Christian Kaelin, Henley’s chairman. European Union officials have criticized Malta’s golden passport program. Last month, the European Commission referred Malta to the union’s Court of Justice over the program, noting that citizenship in return for payments “is not compatible with the principle of sincere cooperation” within the bloc. Maltese officials have signaled they will contest any legal challenge.Joseph Mizzi, the head of Community Malta, the agency responsible for selling passports, declined to comment on Mr. Thiel’s application.Mr. Thiel has laid the groundwork for life outside the United States for years. In 2011, he obtained a New Zealand passport after donating 1 million New Zealand dollars to an earthquake relief fund in the country.There is “no other country that aligns more with my view of the future than New Zealand,” he wrote in his passport application, which the local government released in 2017 after reporting from The New Zealand Herald. The news provoked outrage that lawmakers were selling citizenship.Mr. Thiel donated money to Donald J. Trump’s presidential campaign in 2016. Mr. Thiel met with Mr. Trump and Mike Pence at Trump Tower that year.Drew Angerer/Getty ImagesMr. Thiel is going through a similar process in Malta, where he has started laying down business roots. He is an investor in a Malta-based venture fund, Elevat3 Capital, run by Christian Angermayer, a German investor, according to the firm.A spokesman for Mr. Angermayer, who has based his family office and other business ventures in Malta, did not respond to requests for comment.In early 2021, Thiel Capital also became a shareholder in a Malta entity through a byzantine series of developments. The deal involved Coru, a Mexican online financial advice start-up, which has a parent company incorporated in London.Entities controlled by Mr. Thiel and Mr. Danzeisen, his husband, were among Coru’s biggest owners, corporate filings show. The start-up needed additional funding in late 2020, but its investors could not reach an agreement to put more cash in, said two former investors. The company went into administration, the equivalent of bankruptcy.Around that time, Mr. Thiel, Mr. Danzeisen and several other Coru investors established a company in Malta called EUM Holdings Melite Ltd., Maltese records show. That company bought Coru’s shares out of administration for about $100,000, according to British records. The records do not detail EUM’s business activities.Now Coru is owned by EUM. Its shareholders include Mr. Thiel, Mr. Danzeisen, Richard Li — a son of Hong Kong’s richest man, Li Ka-shing — and a group with a former Nicaraguan government official and a scion of the Spanish family that made a fortune selling Lladró porcelain figurines.Mr. Thiel began exploring Maltese citizenship around that time, said people familiar with the process. By late 2021, documents show, he was far along in the application process and retained an agency that fielded questions from the Maltese government about his businesses and political activities.The questions included Mr. Thiel’s role with Palantir Technologies, a data analytics company he founded that works with governments and corporations, and his political activity supporting Mr. Trump.As he applies for Maltese citizenship, Mr. Thiel has cited a two-bedroom apartment in Valletta, Malta’s capital, as a residential address. The apartment is also listed on Airbnb as a short-term vacation rental.Maltese government documents seen by The Times show Mr. Thiel and Mr. Danzeisen listing the apartment in Valletta, the capital, as their address on the island.On a recent visit to the apartment by a Times reporter, a tourist opened the door and said a family member had booked the flat via a short-term rental service. The Times identified a listing for a “2BR Seafront Executive Penthouse” on Airbnb that used Mr. Thiel’s address.Maltese property records show the apartment is owned by Andrew Zammit, a Malta-based lawyer whose firm works on citizenship applications. Mr. Zammit’s wife was named as the host of the Airbnb listing.Mr. Zammit declined to say if he had rented the flat to Mr. Thiel or if the billionaire was applying for a Maltese passport. He also declined to say why the apartment was listed on Airbnb. Within days after The Times inquired about the Airbnb listing, it was made unavailable for future rentals. More

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      Five Key Moments From the Walker-Warnock Debate in Georgia

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      The debate between Senator Raphael Warnock and his less experienced Republican challenger, Herschel Walker, had its share of sharp clashes, as the two candidates in one of the country’s most-watched Senate races faced off for their one and only debate.Mr. Walker, a football star and first-time candidate, surpassed low expectations, largely hewing to his strategy of tying his opponent to President Biden, whose approval ratings remain underwater in the pivotal swing state. Mr. Warnock, a pastor-turned-politician, tried to cast Mr. Walker as unfit for office because of his policy positions and personal baggage.Here are standout moments from the debate.A badge comes out.Mr. Walker’s veracity has been a major issue in the campaign, as he has been accused of misrepresenting topics, including his résumé, his charitable donations and his number of children. Mr. Warnock tried to use an exchange over crime to accuse his opponent of lying.“We will see time and time again tonight — as we’ve already seen — that my opponent has a problem with the truth,” Mr. Warnock said. “And just because he says something doesn’t mean it’s true.”A frame grab from the debate shows Herschel Walker with what appeared to be a badge.Fox 5 AtlantaMr. Warnock then referred to the time his opponent claimed to have been a police officer and an F.B.I. agent. Mr. Walker had made the claims as recently as 2019, when he told an audience that he was an F.B.I. agent — which he has never been. He has also claimed to work with the Cobb County Police Department in Georgia. The department told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that there was no record of him working there.In response at the debate, Mr. Walker pulled out what appeared to be a badge before being reprimanded by a moderator for violating a prohibition against using “props.” Mr. Walker replied, “Well, it’s not a prop. This is real.”The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.The Final Stretch: With less than one month until Election Day, Republicans remain favored to take over the House, but momentum in the pitched battle for the Senate has seesawed back and forth.A Surprising Battleground: New York has emerged from a haywire redistricting cycle as perhaps the most consequential congressional battleground in the country. For Democrats, the uncertainty is particularly jarring.Arizona’s Governor’s Race: Democrats are openly expressing their alarm that Katie Hobbs, the party’s nominee for governor in the state, is fumbling a chance to defeat Kari Lake in one of the most closely watched races.Herschel Walker: The Republican Senate nominee in Georgia reportedly paid for an ex-girlfriend’s abortion, but members of his party have learned to tolerate his behavior.A shift from Walker on abortion.The most notable exchange over abortion rights wasn’t about accusations that Mr. Walker paid for an ex-girlfriend’s procedure. Instead, it was an apparent change in policy.In May, Mr. Walker said a ban on abortion should have no exceptions, pushing for a more expansive proposal than the six-week prohibition passed by the Republican-controlled State Legislature. “Like I say, I believe in life. I believe in life,” he told reporters.On the debate stage, he softened that position, implying that he backs the six-week bill that includes exceptions for rape, incest and life of the mother. He then turned to Mr. Warnock’s stance, saying the pastor backs no limits on the procedure and is ignoring “the baby in the room as well.”.css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.Painting one another as ‘desperate.’In one notable exchange, Mr. Walker tried to flip the script on Mr. Warnock, after the pastor skirted questions about whether an Atlanta apartment building owned by Ebenezer Baptist Church had evicted tenants. The apartments are for people experiencing homelessness or with mental disabilities.Mr. Warnock tried to cast Republicans as “desperate” for trying to “sully” a church attended by civil rights icons, including former Representative John Lewis, of Georgia, and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.Mr. Walker wasn’t cowed, returning to the issue a question later to cast Mr. Warnock as the “desperate” one.“It’s OK to speak the truth. Do not bear false witness, senator,” shouted Mr. Walker, who said the evictions were “written about in the paper.”Walker reverses on the 2020 election.In an election that has been influenced by the positions of former President Donald J. Trump, Mr. Walker made another notable reversal.In the past, Mr. Walker has repeatedly questioned the results of the 2020 election and spread false stolen-election theories. Immediately after the 2020 race, he did not declare Mr. Biden the rightful winner.“I can guarantee you, Joe Biden didn’t get 50 million people to vote for him, but yet, people think that he’s won this election,” Mr. Walker said in a Fox News interview in December 2020. Mr. Biden won more than 81 million votes.Mr. Walker has since tried to temper those statements. In May, during his primary, he told an interviewer, “I think something happened; I don’t know what it was, but I said something happened so people are angry.”But on Friday night, when asked whether Mr. Biden had defeated Mr. Trump, he sounded a different note.“President Biden won and Raphael Warnock won,” he said.On questions of democracy, both candidates said they would respect the results of the election, regardless of its outcome.Looking ahead to 2024.The two men veered from one another on a question of whether they would support their party’s leaders if they won the presidential nomination in 2024.Mr. Walker quickly answered in the affirmative, saying “President Trump is my friend.” He used the moment to hit Mr. Biden — and by extension Mr. Warnock — for withdrawing troops from Afghanistan, a move he described as abandoning an ally.For Mr. Warnock, however, the question appeared more difficult. He did not answer directly, saying he had not “spent a minute” thinking about it and noting that he was more focused on the election at hand. More

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      How Republicans Learned to Love Herschel Walker

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      Follow our live coverage of Herschel Walker and Raphael Warnock’s debate in Georgia.Since Herschel Walker launched his bid for Senate last year, Georgia voters have learned about his ex-wife’s allegations of domestic violence, his multiple children born out of wedlock and, most recently, assertions from a former girlfriend that he paid for one abortion and urged her to end a second pregnancy, while claiming to oppose abortion.Mr. Walker, a former football star and first-time candidate, has denied the latest claim and expressed shock about what he has cast as a stunning partisan broadside. But some Republicans close to him were hardly surprised: They had been discussing the arrival of this moment with the candidate for months.Mr. Walker’s team was braced to defend him against accusations that he threatened his ex-wife, a claim that’s been public for years. But some advisers also knew about the specific abortion claim made by the mother of one of Mr. Walker’s children, according to two people familiar with the conversations. Those who knew said they warned Mr. Walker to prepare for the possibility that those details would become fodder in a political campaign, but Mr. Walker refused.The issue mostly frustrated him, these people said. Mr. Walker privately denied the abortion, but instead of discussing a strategy to handle the claim, he maintained that the details would never become public. At times he would argue that if his ex-girlfriend’s account did leak out, it would not be believed because he had a child with the woman, according to the two people, who spoke on condition of anonymity.The Walker campaign declined to comment.Now, as he prepares on Friday to debate his Democratic opponent for the first time, the party is reckoning with the reality of a political gamble Republicans in Georgia and Washington made months ago. In the face of former President Donald J. Trump’s backing and Mr. Walker’s star power, Republican leaders, led by Senator Mitch McConnell, the minority leader, deemed resistance to Mr. Walker futile.In a race that could determine control of the Senate, they chose short-term political expediency over confrontation with Mr. Trump or his chosen candidate.The Georgia Senate race serves as an allegory of Trump-era Republicanism: Old-guard party leaders did not so much lead their voters as follow them; the evangelical wing was quick to compromise; Mr. Trump rewrote the conventional rules; and celebrity substituted for experience.“The most rational-minded folks were wanting to pump the brakes on what felt like a runaway train,” said Geoff Duncan, the Republican lieutenant governor of Georgia, who was referring to Mr. Walker’s campaign. “Republicans were perfectly happy winning the first half of the football game, in the primary, and not paying any attention to the second half, which is the general.”Mr. Duncan, a Trump critic, said he wouldn’t vote for Senator Raphael Warnock, the Democratic incumbent, but was not yet sure if he would support Mr. Walker.The race remains a tossup; polls show Mr. Walker’s support dipping slightly, but in a tight race that could make the difference. Party leaders have stood by him. He continues to evince the brash confidence of a star athlete.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.The Final Stretch: With less than one month until Election Day, Republicans remain favored to take over the House, but momentum in the pitched battle for the Senate has seesawed back and forth.A Surprising Battleground: New York has emerged from a haywire redistricting cycle as perhaps the most consequential congressional battleground in the country. For Democrats, the uncertainty is particularly jarring.Arizona’s Governor’s Race: Democrats are openly expressing their alarm that Katie Hobbs, the party’s nominee for governor in the state, is fumbling a chance to defeat Kari Lake in one of the most closely watched races.Herschel Walker: The Republican Senate nominee in Georgia reportedly paid for an ex-girlfriend’s abortion, but members of his party have learned to tolerate his behavior.“They don’t realize that they’ve woken a grizzly bear,” Mr. Walker told Fox News aboard his campaign bus this week. “I’ve won at everything I’ve set my mind to.”The Republican has frequently mentioned his mental health issues — he has been diagnosed with disassociative identity disorder, he said. He has not denied the domestic violence allegations and has suggested the disorder is to blame for previous outbursts and erratic behavior. He describes himself as a once-troubled man “saved by grace.” Democrats have said Mr. Walker has “a pattern of lying” and is not qualified to serve. The race could turn on which version of Mr. Walker voters believe.“There are always risks with first-time candidates,” said David Shafer, the chairman of the Georgia Republican Party. “But potential reward never comes without risk.”A Personal ConnectionFrom the beginning, Mr. Trump wanted Mr. Walker in the race. Mr. Walker’s hero status in Georgia, where he won the Heisman Trophy and a national championship for the University of Georgia, made him just the sort of celebrity candidate Mr. Trump likes to promote. As a Black Republican, he was a step toward diversifying the overwhelmingly white party.But the draw was hardly just political. The two men have known each other for decades, and — just as he’s done for White House jobs and other political endorsements — Mr. Trump let his personal connection override any background checks and other research typically involved in such high-profile job searches.Mr. Walker grew close to Mr. Trump when he was a young athlete who had left college early to sign the richest contract in pro football with the New Jersey Generals franchise in the United States Football League in 1983. Mr. Trump purchased the team months later.Donald J. Trump and Herschel Walker, after Walker signed a contract with the New Jersey Generals of the United States Football League.Dave Pickoff/Associated PressMr. Walker became something of a surrogate uncle to Mr. Trump’s children, who often spent stretches of their summers with him. Eric Trump, and his brother, Donald Trump Jr. — whom Mr. Walker occasionally calls “Little Donald” — have spoken warmly to associates about trips with Mr. Walker to Disney World..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.When Mr. Walker talks about his connection to Mr. Trump he emphasizes their friendship. “He’s eaten at my home,” Mr. Walker said in a May interview with Revolt.TV. “I’ve eaten at his home. My family has eaten at his home.”Mr. Trump was even more effusive when Mr. Walker appeared as a contestant on Mr. Trump’s reality television program. “I am not a gay man — and I love you,” Mr. Trump told Mr. Walker when booting him off the Celebrity Apprentice. ‘The World Is Changing’As he was preparing to announce his campaign last year, Mr. Walker bristled when friends and advisers tried to ask about his past, refusing even in private to take responsibility for his actions, according to Republicans who have been close to Mr. Walker. He grew frustrated with direct questions and raised doubts about the loyalty of his own team. One Republican strategist whom Mr. Walker spoke with last year said that Mr. Walker kept repeating how easy the race was going to be.Christian Walker, Mr. Walker’s son, says he knew his father’s past would be difficult for the family and counseled him not to run, although he did not know about the abortion issue.“I absolutely tried my best to attempt to get him prepared,” Christian Walker said in an email to The Times. “The best way forward was honesty. That clearly didn’t happen.”(Mr. Walker has repeatedly said that he loves Christian, though he appears to have grown frustrated as Democrats seize on his son’s public criticism. “I hope they’re paying him,” Mr. Walker said this week, “because I’ve been paying his rent for a long time.”)Mr. Walker had reason to be optimistic about his bid. Internal polling showed that he enjoyed an approval rating of higher than 90 percent among Georgia Republicans. The combination of his local star power and vocal support of Mr. Trump made him virtually untouchable in a Republican primary.People lining up to take a photo with Herschel Walker at a recent campaign event.Nicole Craine for The New York Times“If your name is Herschel Walker, and you’re a pro-life conservative, with his name ID, celebrity and impressive fund-raising ability, the primary was over the day he entered the race,” Ralph Reed, chairman of the Faith & Freedom Coalition and a former state party chairman of the Georgia Republican Party, said.Mr. Trump, too, was unconcerned with Mr. Walker’s past. “Twenty years ago would’ve been a bigger problem. I don’t think it’s a problem today,” he said in September 2021, according to “Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America” by Maggie Haberman, a Times reporter.Asked to explain, the former president — who was recorded bragging about groping women, accused of sexual assault and twice impeached — said: “Because the world is changing.”A Fleeting ResistanceMr. McConnell, the second most powerful man in Republican politics, had other ideas about who should run.From the moment two runoff losses in Georgia cost Republicans their Senate majority in January 2021, the state was at the center of Mr. McConnell’s plan to wrest back control in 2022. Even before Senator David Perdue of Georgia had publicly conceded defeat, Mr. McConnell asked him to consider running again this year, according to a person briefed on the conversation.But Mr. Perdue didn’t entertain the idea for long. In February, he flew to Florida for a visit and a round of golf with Mr. Trump. Within days, Mr. Perdue announced he would not be running and soon after Mr. Trump publicly urged in a statement, “Run Herschel, run!”Mr. McConnell did not take no for an answer.Over the summer, news stories began to reveal new details about accusations that Mr. Walker repeatedly threatened his ex-wife’s life, exaggerated claims of financial success and alarmed business associates with unpredictable behavior. (Notably, Mr. McConnell’s longtime political adviser, Josh Holmes, shared on Twitter one Associated Press article, calling it “about as comprehensive a takedown as I’ve ever read. My lord.”)Days earlier, Mr. McConnell met with Mr. Perdue at the Capitol, checking if the former senator’s decision not to run was still in effect. It was. Mr. Walker officially entered the race in August, and the two men were soon speaking frequently. Mr. McConnell grew more comfortable as Mr. Walker was solicitous of his advice, according to two people briefed on the calls. Within two months, he had formally endorsed Mr. Walker.In embracing Mr. Walker, Mr. McConnell accepted a candidate who, from the start, was sure to make the race about the Republican nominee instead of the Democratic one — anathema to his preferred strategy. By the spring of 2022, Mr. McConnell was publicly defending Mr. Walker’s tumultuous past.“Almost every candidate has had troubled periods,” Mr. McConnell said in an April interview with Axios, when asked about his ex-wife’s allegations of violence. He cut off further questions: “I think Walker is completely electable.”Mr. Walker qualified to run for the Senate at the Georgia State Capitol in March.Ben Gray/Atlanta Journal-Constitution, via Associated PressOthers still disagreed. Georgia’s straight-talking agriculture commissioner, Gary Black, got into the primary race a few months before Mr. Walker. As momentum for his opponent grew, Mr. Black insisted his party was about to cede the advantage.Mr. Walker, he argued, was a political novice with a turbulent history who wouldn’t be able to make the race about the Democrats.“If Herschel Walker is the nominee,” Mr. Black warned in an interview days before the primary, “this race will be about Herschel Walker.”Mr. Black’s team made its case to National Republican Senatorial Committee officials in the fall of 2021, showing a video of Mr. Walker’s ex-wife speaking about the time he held a gun to her temple and threatened to shoot. Party officials made them turn it off; the meeting was supposed to be about general election strategy, one official said.The same clip has been aired repeatedly by Democrats.Lisa Lerer More