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      Tied New Hampshire Race Spurs a Redo. Why Aren’t Voters Talking About It?

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      One race’s final tally: 970 to 970. So two candidates square off again in a city where voters are mostly keeping their politics to themselves.ROCHESTER, N.H. — Residents were intrigued, but not exactly shocked, when a state House of Representatives race in the small city of Rochester ended in a deadlock last month: 970 votes cast for the incumbent Democrat, 970 for the Republican challenger.In the purplish state of New Hampshire, where Rochester sits between the liberal southern seacoast and the more conservative Lakes Region at its center, the tie only confirmed what people already knew: Their city of 30,000, like their country, is politically split. And like many Americans, they are trying to navigate the divide with a careful approach: keeping their views to themselves and attempting to get along.Last week, state legislators voted to send the tied race in Rochester’s Ward 4, where there are about 3,000 voters, back to the city for a special election, expected to be held in February. Both candidates said they are determined to prevail, though they dread the challenge — familiar to many a hopeful presidential candidate — of inspiring voter turnout in the frigid, slushy middle of a long New Hampshire winter.“It’s going to be a tough slog,” said David Walker, the Republican, a longtime City Council member who challenged state Representative Chuck Grassie, a three-term Democrat. “I can’t see a lot of elderly people coming out in the cold, but you just have to knock on the doors and entice them.”The two men have known each other, and have worked together on city business, for years. Mr. Grassie said he mentored Mr. Walker in his early years on the council, helping the newcomer learn how to read a budget. Mr. Walker said he once helped Mr. Grassie with an unsuccessful campaign for mayor.They live a half-mile apart on the same street of modest houses, separated by a cemetery, a ball field and the polling place for their ward, a brick elementary school.State Representative Chuck Grassie, a three-term Democrat, has been a proponent for causes including shoreline protection, tax relief for older residents and the decriminalization of marijuana.Ryan David Brown for The New York TimesDavid Walker, a Republican and longtime City Council member who retired recently from a career as an engineering supervisor, wants to focus on economic issues and rein in spending.M. Scott Brauer for The New York TimesLow-key despite their unresolved rivalry, the candidates say they see no reason to become enemies now. “I went by his house the other day and said hello,” Mr. Walker said. “He said, ‘Oh, you’ve come to concede?’ And I said, ‘No.’”The mild tone of the local standoff stands in stark contrast to recent national races with split outcomes, like that of Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia, the Democrat who last week fended off a challenge from Herschel Walker, a Republican, in a bitter and chaotic runoff. In Rochester, as in many small cities and towns, politics tend to be practical, with the drama left at town hall. David Walker, 59, who retired recently from a career as an engineering supervisor, describes himself as “conservative but not hard core.” He said voters he talked to during the campaign were most concerned about inflation, the economy and heating costs this winter, and he wants to rein in what he said was reckless spending by Democrats.The Aftermath of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsCard 1 of 6A moment of reflection. More

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      Sununu on Trump: ‘He’s Not Scaring Anyone Out of the Race’

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      In a wide-ranging interview, Chris Sununu, the New Hampshire governor, called the Republican presidential primary a tossup. As for Trump? “He’s not clearing the field.”Confident and even brash, Chris Sununu is one of the most popular governors in America. In a year when many Republicans struggled, he was re-elected in New Hampshire by more than 15 percentage points. The way to win, he says, is not “ranting and raving” about cultural topics but the old-fashioned way: listening carefully to voters and talking about solutions to their most pressing problems.Sununu thinks Republicans need to relearn the “basic tenets of politics.” He’s no fan of Donald Trump, and he thinks the former president will be eminently beatable in the Republican primary. He also says it’s “insulting” of Democrats to demand that New Hampshire give up its traditional place in the presidential calendar to suit the “personal whims” of President Biden, who he predicts will eventually be pushed aside by Democratic power brokers in Washington or bow out on his own.The New Hampshire governor, who is often discussed as a possible presidential contender in 2024, had a lot to say over the course of a 40-minute interview. Here’s a transcript of our conversation, lightly edited for length and clarity:Let’s talk about what happened in the midterm elections. A lot of people are blaming Donald Trump for choosing candidates in primaries who struggled in November. Is it that simple?No, no, no, no. Look, there’s a lot of different pieces here. It’s not just about former President Trump. It’s about the candidates themselves. They were bad candidates because they had a bad message, right? Often they made Trump a part of their message. And that just isn’t what voters wanted.A lot of candidates forgot the most basic tenets of politics: I need more votes than the other side. And it isn’t just about catering to a base or firing up your base. You need to listen to independents. You need to listen to all of the voting constituencies to see what the issues are for voters.There was also a little bit of manipulation of the primary process by Democrats. We saw it right here in New Hampshire with our U.S. Senate race. You effectively had the opposing party trying to pick your party’s candidate. Democrats were good at defining our candidates for us.Some Republicans say that candidates were too focused on hot-button cultural topics like transgender athletes competing in women’s sports, or books in school libraries. Do you agree with that critique?Yes. I agree that candidates focused on the wrong issues. I don’t mind addressing cultural issues; of course we need to. But it’s how you as a candidate stand up for it — not just ranting and raving, but hopefully inspiring folks to really believe in you as the person who can be a positive agent of change for those issues.Democrats talk about how abortion was a really powerful issue for them. You supported a 24-week ban, right?Yeah, I signed that. The Legislature put it in the budget. I’m pro-choice, but it’s a provision that I think most Americans would support. It’s very late — the third trimester.The Aftermath of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsCard 1 of 6A moment of reflection. More

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      DNC Panel Supports Biden’s Plan to Make South Carolina First Primary in 2024

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      A key panel supported President Biden’s plan, which would remove Iowa as the first presidential nominating state. States with more diverse, working-class and in some cases more moderate constituencies are being elevated.WASHINGTON — Over objections from some Democratic state leaders, the Democratic National Committee on Friday moved one step closer to enacting President Biden’s vision for drastically overhauling the party’s 2024 presidential primary process, as a key committee voted to recommend sweeping changes to the calendar.At a daylong gathering of the D.N.C.’s Rules and Bylaws Committee in a Washington hotel ballroom, members voted to recommend supporting a 2024 Democratic presidential primary calendar that would begin in South Carolina on Feb. 3, followed by New Hampshire and Nevada on Feb. 6, Georgia on Feb. 13 and then Michigan on Feb. 27. That plan reflected a framework Mr. Biden delivered to the committee on Thursday that emphasized racial and geographic diversity. Representatives from Iowa and New Hampshire voted against the proposal, and officials emphasized that the move by the Rules Committee was one step in what might still be a prolonged and contentious process. The proposed early states have until Jan. 5 to confirm that they can hold a primary on their assigned date.The recommendation, which upends the traditional Democratic order of Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina, must be affirmed by the full D.N.C. at a meeting in early February, but Mr. Biden’s preferences carry enormous weight with the party committee. The proposed new order rewards some of the states that powered his political rise in 2020, elevating diverse, working-class and in some cases more moderate constituencies that were vital to Mr. Biden’s primary victory. At the same time, smaller states that have long emphasized retail politics — Iowa and New Hampshire — would be diminished. “Given the president’s strong interest in the design of the 2024 primaries, and the dates for them, I think it’s clear that he’s running,” said James Roosevelt Jr., a co-chairman of the Rules and Bylaws Committee, who said he had spoken with Mr. Biden this week about the early-state order.Mr. Biden has said that he intends to run again but plans to discuss the race with his family. If he does not run, the schedule, if adopted, would help other candidates with strong support from the voters of color who make up the backbone of the Democratic Party.Black voters accounted for more than half of the Democrats who voted in the South Carolina primary in 2020, according to exit polling. And they make up a significant share of the primary electorates in Georgia and Michigan. Latino voters play an especially central role in Nevada.But the shift could also hurt candidates without the campaign cash to compete quickly in early states with expensive media markets — like Nevada, Georgia and even New Hampshire, where Boston television stations drive up rates. The fast pacing of the proposed calendar could force contenders with smaller bank accounts to choose to compete in just one or two of the first three states. Scott Brennan and other Iowa Democrats criticized the proposed changes and suggested that the state party would challenge them.Shuran Huang for The New York TimesJoanne Dowdell, a D.N.C. member from New Hampshire, opposed the proposal.Shuran Huang for The New York Times“One of the things that New Hampshire is known for is our retail politics, and candidates having the opportunity to engage the electorate face to face,” said Joanne Dowdell, a D.N.C. member from New Hampshire who opposed the proposal. “By having three states, one on top of the other, I think causes a little bit of conflict for candidates trying to vie for the attention, get name recognition and also raise money.”The Biden PresidencyHere’s where the president stands after the midterm elections.A Defining Issue: The shape of Russia’s war in Ukraine — and its effects on global markets —  in the months and years to come could determine President Biden’s political fate.Beating the Odds: Mr. Biden had the best midterms of any president in 20 years, but he still faces the sobering reality of a Republican-controlled House for the next two years.2024 Questions: Mr. Biden feels buoyant after the better-than-expected midterms, but as he turns 80, he confronts a decision on whether to run again that has some Democrats uncomfortable.Legislative Agenda: The Times analyzed every detail of Mr. Biden’s major legislative victories and his foiled ambitions. Here’s what we found.Jeff Link, a longtime Des Moines operative, said cutting Iowa’s caucuses out of the Democratic presidential nominating process would diminish the importance of organizing, which is central to the state’s political culture.That could prove detrimental to the party nationally, he said, by eliminating a critical proving ground for Democratic field operatives.“Rather than having a big field operation, they’re going to have a big social media operation,” Mr. Link said. “There’s going to be less people talking to other people in the campaign. One of the benefits of having a caucus early is that for three decades, we’ve trained campaign staff on how to organize person to person.”Other objections have been far louder, especially from the two states accustomed to being at the front of the line. New Hampshire has long held the nation’s first primary as a matter of state law, and state officials have said they intend to follow that law rather than any party decision. And the chairman of the Iowa Democratic Party noted in a statement that the country’s longtime leadoff caucus state has a law that “requires us to hold a caucus before the last Tuesday in February, and before any other contest.” The decision on timing would be up to the state central committee and elected officials, said Scott Brennan, a member of the Rules Committee from Iowa.More than political clout and bragging rights is at stake: Studies of the economic impact of past caucuses in Iowa and New Hampshire primaries have found that spending was in the hundreds of millions of dollars, much of that on TV ads, though the figures were a drop in the bucket of each state’s annual economic activity.The party has powerful tools with which to compel states to fall in line.D.N.C. rules agreed upon earlier this year stipulated notable consequences for any state that jumps ahead to operate outside the party’s agreed-upon early window, including cuts to the number of pledged delegates and alternates for the state in question. Significantly, candidates who campaign in such states would face repercussions as well. “If a candidate chose to campaign in a state that operated outside the window, they would lose the delegates from that state,” Mr. Roosevelt said. “They could have other penalties, because the chair is empowered to go beyond that.”Some officials have suggested they are willing to take those risks.The D.N.C.’s Rules and Bylaws Committee gathered in Washington on Friday.Shuran Huang for The New York Times“For decades we have said we will bear any sanctions,” said Raymond Buckley, the chairman of the New Hampshire Democratic Party.Republican willingness, or lack thereof, to change dates may also be relevant in several states, including in Republican-controlled Georgia. A spokesman for Gov. Brian Kemp did not respond to a question on Friday afternoon about his reaction to the Democratic proposal. The primary date is set by Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, who declined to comment on the Democrats’ process on Friday. “Our focus is on the security and integrity of the election that’s currently underway, and we will be looking at the entire process for possible improvements once this one is successfully complete,” said Jordan Fuchs, the deputy secretary of state, as Georgia hosts a Senate runoff. But, she noted in a statement, “Our legal team has continuously stated that both parties’ primaries must be on the same day and must not cost anyone any delegates.”Republicans have already agreed to their own early-state lineup of Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada.The Rules and Bylaws committee’s vote came a day after Mr. Biden sent a letter to members laying out his criteria for the early-voting window. In it, he rejected caucuses — effectively dealing a mortal blow to the troubled Iowa caucuses, which struggled for days to deliver results in 2020.After Mr. Biden came in fourth place in Iowa and fifth in New Hampshire, two states with high percentages of white voters, he showed new signs of political life in Nevada. And it was South Carolina’s primary, with large numbers of Black voters, that revived his candidacy and propelled him through Super Tuesday and to the nomination.“Defense, education, agriculture, manufacturing — South Carolina is a perfect laboratory,” said Representative James E. Clyburn, the South Carolina Democrat whose endorsement of Mr. Biden in 2020 played a vital role in the president’s victory in the state. “That’s why the people who do well in South Carolina end up doing pretty good in the general.”Mr. Clyburn said that he had urged Mr. Biden to keep South Carolina in the early-state window — “first, second, third or fourth, didn’t matter to me” — but that he had learned of the state’s possible elevation to the kickoff primary on Thursday from the president.Jaime Harrison, the chairman of the D.N.C., who is also from South Carolina, said he had found out at Thursday night’s state dinner.Mr. Biden has urged the Rules and Bylaws Committee to review the calendar every four years, and the committee embraced an amendment to get that process underway.“Nevada still has the strongest argument for being the first-in-the-nation primary,” Catherine Cortez Masto and Jacky Rosen, the state’s senators, said in a joint statement. “We will keep making our case for 2028.”Reid J. Epstein More

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      How the Races for Governor Could Determine Who Controls the Senate

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      Major midterm battlegrounds have both contests on the ticket, and how voters divvy up their picks could have significant consequences.WASHINGTON — John Fetterman, the Democratic Senate candidate in Pennsylvania, wants voters to think of his G.O.P. rival and the Republican running for governor in the Keystone State as one and the same.“They are MOZtriano,” Mr. Fetterman says in a You Tube campaign video, melding the names of Mehmet Oz, his opponent, and Doug Mastriano, the far-right Republican candidate for governor whose campaign is sputtering, anointing them the state’s newest “power couple.”Supporters of Mr. Oz, on the other hand, are working to emphasize differences between Mr. Fetterman, the current progressive lieutenant governor with whom he is in a tight race, and Josh Shapiro, the more centrist Democratic attorney general and the heavy favorite to win the governorship.“Fetterman is way more radical than Shapiro,” says a woman in a new ad from American Crossroads, a Republican political action committee, which compares Mr. Fetterman’s record on the treatment of criminals unfavorably with that of Mr. Shapiro. The names of their Republican opponents don’t even come up.The dueling approaches in one of the nation’s marquee Senate races illustrate how, as midterm congressional races have tightened, contests at the top of the ticket are looming as a potentially decisive factor in the outcomes. Republicans and Democrats alike are trying to game out the crosscurrents, working to position their candidates either to ride the wave of a favored gubernatorial candidate or to distance themselves to avoid being pulled under by the drag of a fellow party member.In some of the chief battlegrounds this year — Pennsylvania, Georgia, Ohio, Arizona, Wisconsin, Nevada, Colorado and New Hampshire, among others — voters will choose both a governor and a senator. How they divide their votes between those two could determine control of the Senate and show whether ticket splitting, which has been on the decline for decades in polarized America, has new life.“There is considerable overlap between the governor’s races and the Senate battlegrounds,” said Nathan Gonzales, the editor and publisher of the nonpartisan newsletter Inside Elections.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsElection Day is Tuesday, Nov. 8.Bracing for a Red Wave: Republicans were already favored to flip the House. Now they are looking to run up the score by vying for seats in deep-blue states.Pennsylvania Senate Race: The debate performance by Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, who is still recovering from a stroke, has thrust questions of health to the center of the pivotal race and raised Democratic anxieties.G.O.P. Inflation Plans: Republicans are riding a wave of anger over inflation as they seek to recapture Congress, but few economists expect their proposals to bring down rising prices.Polling Analysis: If these poll results keep up, everything from a Democratic hold in the Senate and a narrow House majority to a total G.O.P. rout becomes imaginable, writes Nate Cohn, The Times’s chief political analyst.But how the races intersect varies.In some states, including Pennsylvania, the candidate for governor of one party is comfortably ahead of their opponent, while the Senate race is much closer. In others, the polling shows the contests for both offices is very close.Georgia is a third category altogether. The Republican candidate for governor, Brian Kemp, is running ahead of Democrat Stacey Abrams. But Senator Raphael Warnock, the Democratic incumbent, has consistently but narrowly led his Republican challenger Herschel Walker. Ms. Abrams’s difficulties could weigh down Mr. Warnock’s chances in that race, unless voters split their ballots, choosing the Republican for governor and the Democrat for Senate.Then there are spots like New Hampshire, where voters appear to be regarding the two races as entirely separate. Gov. Chris Sununu, a popular Republican, is far ahead in the polls and expected to romp to victory over state Senator Tom Sherman, the Democrat. Yet Senator Maggie Hassan, the Democratic incumbent, is also favored over Republican Donald Bolduc, a far-right candidate who prevailed in the primary after Mr. Sununu declined to jump into the contest, where he would likely have been favored.Gov. Chris Sununu of New Hampshire is far ahead in his re-election bid. He declined to run for the Senate. Jon Cherry/Getty Images For ConcordiaCampaign officials say the potential New Hampshire outcome is not all that confounding given the state’s voting traditions and the effort candidates in both parties have put into showing that they are not tied down by party.“It is extremely common here,” said Kevin Donohoe, a spokesman for Ms. Hassan, of voters splitting their ticket between the two parties. “If you want to win here, you have to have an independent record and you have to have an independent profile, and that is what voters expect.”.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;}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.In Ohio, Gov. Mike DeWine, the Republican incumbent, holds a double-digit lead in his race against former Dayton mayor Nan Whaley. But Representative Tim Ryan, the Democratic Senate contender, is running neck-and-neck with J.D. Vance, the Republican candidate and author endorsed by former President Donald J. Trump.A recent poll by the Siena College Research Institute found that 20 percent of Ohio voters who said they were pulling the lever for Mr. DeWine said they also intended to vote for Mr. Ryan, a showing that could give him a shot in a state that was expected to choose another Republican to replace retiring Senator Rob Portman.The poll provided an opening for Mr. Ryan and his allies. NBC News reported that WelcomePAC, a Democratic group backing Mr. Ryan, took out newspaper ads asking voters, “Why are 1 in 5 Republican voters saying no to J.D. Vance?” and hitting Mr. Vance for his ties to Mr. Trump.But it is one thing to express an intent to split a ticket and another to do it. Voters can change their minds on Election Day based on myriad factors, including a desire to show party loyalty, the importance placed on each individual race and even the format of the ballot.“Are these tickets really going to split?” asked Don Levy, the director of the Siena College poll. “It is one thing in a poll to say, ‘Yeah, Tim Ryan, I like him and I’m not so sure about this J.D. Vance guy.’ But when you cast your ballot, then some people are going to pause and vote the team.”Given Mr. DeWine’s strength, a failure of potential ticket splitters to follow through could be very damaging to Mr. Ryan’s chances of winning.That has been the case in recent presidential election cycles, as American politics has become more tribal and voters have grown more likely to stay in their partisan lanes. In 2016, for the first time, every state with a Senate election backed both a senator and a president of the same party. It was not much different in 2020, with only Maine deviating.But research by the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia found that midterm elections still produce more ticket-splitting when the White House is not up for grabs. In 2018, six states split their results between governor and senator, with five of them of backing a Republican governor and a Democratic senator. The report by J. Miles Coleman, an editor at the center, found that six states also delivered mixed results in 2014 and five in 2010.“If 2022 falls in line with the three most recent midterms, we can still expect five or six split-ticket cases,” Mr. Coleman wrote.Democrats hope Pennsylvania, which is crucial to determining control of the Senate, is not one of them, though Republicans say they are finding evidence of Shapiro-Oz voters who could decide the outcome.“Republican polling shows a substantial number of Shapiro voters actually favor Dr. Oz for the Senate based on the hot button issues of crime and the economy,” said John Ashbrook, a Republican strategist working on Senate campaigns and a former aide to Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader.Other analysts say a blowout win by Mr. Shapiro would seem to accrue to the benefit of Mr. Fetterman. The Fetterman campaign sees a healthy synergy between the two candidates and the two are expected to appear together as the campaign season draws to a close.“Josh Shapiro and John Fetterman are very different types of candidates,” said Rebecca Katz, senior adviser to Mr. Fetterman. “But together they appeal to a broad swath of Pennsylvania voters and offer a very strong contrast to extreme, Trump-backed candidates like Dr. Oz and Doug Mastriano.” More

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      Super PAC Aligned with Senate G.O.P. Cuts Off New Hampshire TV Ads

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      In a sign that New Hampshire is at risk of falling off the map of Senate battleground states, the main super PAC aligned with Senate Republicans said on Friday that it was canceling $5.6 million in television ads that it had reserved in the state for the final two weeks of the race.Republicans in New Hampshire, which was once seen as one of the party’s top chances to pick up a seat in 2022, nominated Don Bolduc, a Trump-style retired Army general, to run against Senator Maggie Hassan, a Democrat. Mr. Bolduc has sparred with the state’s popular governor, Chris Sununu, a Republican who tagged Mr. Bolduc in turn as a “conspiracy-theory extremist.”National Republicans had spent money late in the race to prevent Mr. Bolduc’s nomination, but he won the primary in September anyway. Mr. Bolduc has promoted hard-right views, suggesting he would consider abolishing the F.B.I. and asserting that the 2020 election was stolen from former President Donald J. Trump — before reversing himself immediately after the primary, and then seeming to backtrack from that reversal. Mr. Bolduc has also been adamant that if he wins, he will not support Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky as the party leader. “As the cycle comes to a close, we are shifting resources to where they can be most effective to achieve our ultimate goal: winning the majority,” said Steven Law, the president of the super PAC, the Senate Leadership Fund, which is aligned with Mr. McConnell.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsBoth parties are making their final pitches ahead of the Nov. 8 election.Where the Election Stands: As Republicans appear to be gaining an edge with swing voters in the final weeks of the contest for control of Congress, here’s a look at the state of the races for the House and Senate.Biden’s Low Profile: President Biden’s decision not to attend big campaign rallies reflects a low approval rating that makes him unwelcome in some congressional districts and states.What Young Voters Think: Twelve Americans under 30, all living in swing states, told The Times about their political priorities, ranging from the highly personal to the universal.In Minnesota: The race for attorney general in the light-blue state offers a pure test of which issue is likely to be more politically decisive: abortion rights or crime.A spokeswoman for Mr. Bolduc said he would continue to meet voters “one by one” in town halls, in defiance of the national group’s vote of no confidence.“General Bolduc has defied the naysayers from the beginning and that’s the same approach he is going to take through the finish line to victory,” the spokeswoman, Kate Constantini, said in a statement.Asked if the Bolduc campaign considered the withdrawal of support to be payback for Mr. Bolduc’s rejection of Mr. McConnell as party leader, Rick Wiley, a senior adviser to Mr. Bolduc, said, “You would have to ask them.”The move by the Senate Leadership Fund comes two weeks after the National Republican Senatorial Committee canceled its television reservations in the state.At the time, Chris Hartline, the communications director for the N.R.S.C., said, “We’re glad to see Republican outside forces showing up in a big way in New Hampshire, with millions in spending pledged to take down Maggie Hassan in the final stretch.”Now those outside forces are retreating, as well.Mr. Hartline said on Friday that “our most recent polling has the race inside the margin of error.”“Don Bolduc is working his tail off and has turned it into a tossup,” he said. “There’s no reason to think he can’t win this race.”The decision puzzled some Republicans. Tom Rath, a longtime Republican activist and leader in New Hampshire, wrote on Twitter of the ad cancellation, “Seems odd given recent polling showing race within the margin.”Matt Schlapp, the chair of the American Conservative Union, called the move “odd” as well, saying the race was “almost tied.”Of Mr. Bolduc, Mr. Schlapp wrote on Twitter while misspelling his name: “If he does pull it out without Senate help he will become their worst nightmare. Keep your eyes on NH.”An internal poll released on Thursday by the Bolduc campaign showed Ms. Hassan leading Mr. Bolduc by 49 percent to 47 percent among likely voters, within the margin of error.Ms. Hassan entered October with $4.8 million. Mr. Bolduc had less than $800,000. More

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      New Hampshire’s Senate Debate Reveals a Surprising Point of Agreement

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      New Hampshire’s first Senate debate on Tuesday featured many jabs and parries that have been partisan staples of debates this year across the country, with Senator Maggie Hassan, a Democrat, and her Republican opponent, Don Bolduc, trading accusations about abortion, energy, inflation and more.But the debate also produced a surprising zone of consensus: Both candidates agreed that the cap on income that is taxed to fund Social Security should be raised. The tax currently applies to the first $147,000 of income and is withdrawn from workers’ paychecks.“Take that cap off and millions of dollars will flow in,” Mr. Bolduc said.Ms. Hassan agreed: “You can ask the wealthiest Americans to pay a little bit more into the system,” she said.While Democrats in Congress have long favored lifting the cap for certain high earners, Republicans have widely opposed the idea, a third rail for many in the party.“If you think taxing the wealthy is going to save Social Security, you’re wrong,” Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, said at a June hearing, after a report that Social Security would be unable to pay full benefits starting in 2035.Republicans have favored cutting benefits or raising the retirement age to keep the hugely popular benefit solvent. Mr. Bolduc, who is on the hard right on some issues, appeared to align with the Bernie Sanders wing of the Democratic Party on Social Security — at least regarding taxes. More

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      Which Midterm Polls Should We Be Taking With a Grain of Salt?

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      Frank Bruni, a contributing Opinion writer, hosted a written online conversation with Amy Walter of The Cook Political Report and Patrick Ruffini, a Republican pollster, to discuss the state of polling and of Democratic anxiety about polls ahead of the midterms.Frank Bruni: Amy, Patrick, as if the people over at Politico knew that the three of us would be huddling to discuss polling, it just published a long article about the midterms with the gloomy, spooky headline “Pollsters Fear They’re Blowing It Again in 2022.”Do you two fear that pollsters are blowing it again in 2022?Patrick Ruffini: It’s certainly possible that they could. The best evidence we have so far that something might be afoot comes from The Times’s own Nate Cohn, who finds that some of the Democratic overperformances seem to be coming in states that saw large polling errors in 2016 and 2020.Amy Walter: I do worry that we are asking more from polling than it is able to provide. Many competitive Senate races are in states — like Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — that Joe Biden won by supernarrow margins in 2020. The reality is that they are going to be very close again. And so an error of just three to four points is the difference between Democratic and Republican control of the Senate.Ruffini: This also doesn’t mean we can predict that polls will miss in any given direction. But it does suggest taking polls in states like Ohio, which Donald Trump won comfortably but where the Republican J.D. Vance is tied or slightly behind, with a grain of salt.Bruni: So what would you say specifically to Democrats? Are they getting their hopes up — again — in a reckless fashion?Walter: Democrats are definitely suffering from political PTSD. After 2016 and 2020, I don’t think Democrats are getting their hopes up. In fact, the ones I talk with are hoping for the best but not expecting such.Ruffini: In any election, you have the polls themselves, and then you have the polls as filtered through the partisan media environment. Those aren’t necessarily the same thing. On Twitter, there’s a huge incentive to hype individual polling results that are good for your side while ignoring the average. I don’t expect this to let up, because maintaining this hype is important for low-dollar fund-raising. But I do think this has led to a perhaps exaggerated sense of Democratic optimism.Bruni: Great point, Patrick — in these fractured and hyperpartisan times of information curation, polls aren’t so much sets of numbers as they are Rorschachs.But I want to pick up on something else that you said — “polls will miss in any given direction” — to ask why the worry seems only to be about overstatement of Democratic support and prospects. Is it possible that the error could be in the other direction and we are understating Republican problems and worries?Ruffini: In politics, we always tend to fight the last war. Historically, polling misses have been pretty random, happening about equally on both sides. But the last big example of them missing in a pro-Republican direction was 2012. The more recent examples stick in our minds, 2020 specifically, which was actually worse in percentage terms than 2016.Walter: Patrick’s point about the last war is so important. This is especially true when we are living in a time when we have little overlap with people from different political tribes. The two sides have very little appreciation for what motivates, interests or worries the other side, so the two sides over- or underestimate each other a lot.As our politics continue to break along educational attainment — those who have a college degree are increasingly more Democratic-leaning, those with less education increasingly more Republican-leaning — polls are likely to overstate the Democratic advantage, since we know that there’s a really clear connection between civic voting behavior and education levels.Ruffini: And we may be missing a certain kind of Trump voter, who may not be answering polls out of a distrust for the media, polling and institutions generally.Bruni: Regarding 2016 and 2020, Trump was on the ballot both of those years. He’s not — um, technically — this time around. So is there a greater possibility of accuracy, of a repeat of 2018, when polling came closer to the mark?Ruffini: The frustrating thing about all of this is that we just don’t have a very good sample size to answer this. In polls, that’s called an n size, like n = 1,000 registered voters. There have been n = 2 elections where Trump has been on the ballot and n = 1 midterm election in the Trump era. That’s not a lot.Bruni: We’ve mentioned 2016 and 2020 versus 2018. Are there reasons to believe that none of those points of reference are all that illuminating — that 2022 is entirely its own cat, with its own inimitable wrinkles? There are cats that have wrinkles, right? I’m a dog guy, but I feel certain that I’ve seen shar-pei-style cats in pictures.Walter: First, let’s be clear. Dogs are the best. So let’s change this to “Is this an entirely different breed?”I’m a big believer in the aphorism that history doesn’t repeat, but it does rhyme.Ruffini: Right. Every election is different, and seeing each new election through the lens of the previous election is usually a bad analytical strategy.Walter: But there are important fundamentals that can’t be dismissed. Midterms are about the party in charge. It is hard to make a midterm election about the out-party — the party not in charge — especially when Democrats control not just the White House but the House and Senate as well.However, the combination of overturning Roe v. Wade plus the ubiquitous presence of Trump has indeed made the out-party — the G.O.P. — a key element of this election. To me, the question is whether that focus on the stuff the Republicans are doing and have done is enough to counter frustration with the Democrats.Ruffini: 2022 is unique in that it’s a midterm cycle where both sides have reasons to be energized — Republicans by running against an unpopular president in a time of high economic uncertainty and Democrats by the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision overturning Roe. It’s really unique in the sweep of midterm elections historically. To the extent there is still an energized Republican base, polls could miss if they aren’t capturing this new kind of non-college, low-turnout voter that Trump brought into the process.Bruni: Patrick, this one’s for you, as you’re the one among us who’s actually in the polling business. In the context of Amy’s terrific observation about education levels and the Democratic Party and who’s more readily responsive to pollsters, what are you and what is your firm doing to make sure you reach and sample enough Republican and Trump-inclined voters?Ruffini: That’s a great question. Nearly all of our polls are off the voter file, which means we have a much larger set of variables — like voting history and partisan primary participation — to weight on than you might typically see in a media poll (with the exception of the Times/Siena polls, which do a great job in this regard). We’ve developed targets for the right number of college or non-college voters among likely voters in each congressional district. We’re also making sure that our samples have the right proportions of people who have registered with either party or have participated in a specific party’s primary before.But none of this is a silver bullet. After 2016, pollsters figured out we needed to weight on education. In 2020 we weighted on education — and we got a worse polling error. All the correct weighting decisions won’t matter if the non-college or low-turnout voter you’re getting to take surveys isn’t representative of those people who will actually show up to vote.Bruni: Does the taking of polls and the reporting on polls and the consciousness of polls inevitably queer what would have happened in their absence? I will go to my grave believing that if so many voters hadn’t thought that Hillary Clinton had victory in the bag, she would have won. Some 77,000 votes in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin — the margin of her Electoral College loss — are easily accounted for by overconfident, complacent Clinton supporters.Walter: In 2016, there were two key groups of people that determined the election. Those who never liked Clinton and those who disliked Trump and Clinton equally. At the end, those who disliked both equally broke overwhelmingly for Trump. And, those Democratic-leaning voters who didn’t like her at all were never fully convinced that she was a worthy candidate.Ruffini: I don’t worry about this too much since the people most likely to be paying attention to the daily movement of the polls are people who are 100 percent sure to vote. It can also work in the other direction. If the polls are showing a race in a red or blue state is close, that can motivate a majority of the party’s voters to get out and vote, and that might be why close races in those states usually resolve to the state fundamentals.Bruni: Evaluate the news media in all of this, and be brutal if you like. For as long as I’ve been a reporter, I’ve listened to news leaders say our political coverage should be less attentive to polls. It remains plenty attentive to polls. Should we reform? Is there any hope of that? Does it matter?Ruffini: I don’t think there’s any hope of this getting better, and that’s not the media’s fault. It’s the fault of readers (sorry, readers!) who have an insatiable appetite for staring at the scoreboard.Walter: We do pay too much attention to polls, but polls are the tool we have to capture the opinions of an incredibly diverse society. A reporter could go knock on 3,000 doors and miss a lot because they weren’t able to get the kind of cross-section of voters a poll does.Ruffini: Where I do hope the media gets better is in conducting more polls the way campaigns conduct them, which are not mostly about who is winning but showing a candidate how to win.In those polls, we test the impact of messages on the electorate and show how their standing moved as a result. It’s possible to do this in a balanced way, and it would be illuminating for readers to see, starting with “Here’s where the race stands today, but here’s the impact of this Democratic attack or this Republican response,” etc.Bruni: Let’s finish with a lightning round. Please answer these quickly and in a sentence or less, starting with this: Which issue will ultimately have greater effect, even if just by a bit, in the outcome of the midterms — abortion or gas prices?Walter: Abortion. Only because gas prices are linked to overall economic worries.Ruffini: Gas prices, because they’re a microcosm about concerns about inflation. When we asked voters a head-to-head about what’s more important to their vote, reducing inflation comes out ahead of protecting abortion rights by 67 to 29 percent.Bruni: Which of the competitive Senate races will have an outcome that’s most tightly tethered to — and thus most indicative of — the country’s mood and leanings right now?Walter: Arizona and Georgia were the two closest races for Senate and president in 2020. They should both be indicative. But Georgia is much closer because the G.O.P. candidate, Herschel Walker, while he’s still got some problems, has much less baggage and much better name recognition than the G.O.P. candidate in Arizona, Blake Masters.Ruffini: If Republicans are going to flip the Senate, Georgia is most likely to be the tipping-point state.Bruni: If there’s a Senate upset, which race is it? Who’s the unpredicted victor?Walter: For Republicans, it would be Don Bolduc in New Hampshire. They’ve argued that the incumbent, Senator Maggie Hassan, has low approval ratings and is very weak. It would be an upset because Bolduc is a flawed candidate with very little money or history of strong fund-raising.Ruffini: I’d agree about New Hampshire. The polling has shown a single-digit race. Republicans are also hoping they can execute a bit of a sneak attack in Colorado with Joe O’Dea, though the state fundamentals look more challenging.Bruni: You (hypothetically) have to place a bet with serious money on the line. Is the Republican presidential nominee in 2024 Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis or “other”?Walter: It’s always a safer bet to pick “other.” One of the most difficult things to do in politics is what DeSantis is trying to do: not just to upend someone like Trump but to remain a front-runner for another year-plus.Ruffini: I’d place some money on DeSantis and some on “other.” DeSantis is in a strong position right now, relative to the other non-Trumps, but he hasn’t taken many punches. And Trump’s position is soft for a former president who’s supposedly loved by the base and who has remained in the fray. Time has not been his friend. About as many Republicans in the ABC/Washington Post poll this weekend said they didn’t want him to run as did.Bruni: Same deal with the Democratic presidential nominee — but don’t be safe. Live large. To the daredevil go the spoils. Joe Biden, Kamala Harris or “other”?Walter: History tells us that Biden will run. If he doesn’t, history tells us that it will be Harris. But I feel very uncomfortable with either answer right now.Ruffini: “Other.” Our own polling shows Biden in a weaker position for renomination than Trump and Democrats less sure about who the alternative would be if he doesn’t run. I also think we’re underestimating the possibility that he doesn’t run at the age of 81.Bruni: OK, final question. Name a politician, on either side of the aisle, who has not yet been mentioned in our conversation but whose future is much brighter than most people realize.Walter: If you talk to Republicans, Representative Patrick McHenry is someone they see as perhaps the next leader for the party. There’s a lot of focus on Kevin McCarthy now, but many people see McHenry as a speaker in waiting.Ruffini: He’s stayed out of the presidential conversation (probably wisely until Trump has passed from the scene), but I think Dan Crenshaw remains an enormously compelling future leader for the G.O.P. Also in Texas, should we see Republicans capitalize on their gains with Hispanic voters and take at least one seat in the Rio Grande Valley, one of those candidates — Mayra Flores, Monica De La Cruz or Cassy Garcia — will easily be in the conversation for statewide office.Bruni: Thank you, both. I just took a poll, and 90 percent of respondents said they’d want to read your thoughts at twice this length. Then again, the margin of error was plus or minus 50 percent, and I’m not sure I sampled enough rural voters in the West.Frank Bruni (@FrankBruni) is a professor of public policy and journalism at Duke, the author of the book “The Beauty of Dusk” and a contributing Opinion writer. He writes a weekly email newsletter and can be found on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. Patrick Ruffini (@PatrickRuffini) is a co-founder of the Republican research firm Echelon Insights. Amy Walter (@amyewalter) is the publisher and editor in chief of The Cook Political Report.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