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      ‘Sulking and moping is not an option’: Obama campaigns with Biden ahead of US midterms

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      ‘Sulking and moping is not an option’: Obama campaigns with Biden ahead of US midtermsDemocrats roll out political heavyweights to deliver closing arguments, warning that democracy itself is at risk

      Explainer: Why the US midterms matter – from abortion rights to democracy
      The Democratic party’s most powerful voices warned that abortion, social security and democracy itself are at risk as they laboured to overcome fierce political headwinds over the final weekend of the 2022 midterm elections.“Sulking and moping is not an option,” former president Barack Obama told several hundred voters in Pittsburgh on Saturday. “On Tuesday, let’s make sure our country doesn’t get set back 50 years.”Republicans appear better positioned than ever ahead of midtermsRead moreLater in the day, President Biden shared the stage with Obama in Philadelphia, the former running mates campaigning together for the first time since Biden took office. In neighbouring New York, former president Bill Clinton – largely absent from national politics in recent years – was also out defending his party.Before arriving in Pennsylvania, Biden was dealing with a fresh political storm after upsetting some in his party for promoting plans to shut down fossil fuel plants in favour of green energy. While he made the comments in California the day before, the fossil fuel industry is a major employer in Pennsylvania.Senator Joe Manchin, a Democrat from West Virginia and chair of the Senate energy and natural resources committee, said the president owed coal workers across the country an apology. He called Biden’s comments “offensive and disgusting”.Former president Donald Trump was also campaigning on Saturday, finishing the day at a rally in south-western Pennsylvania where he claimed Biden had “resumed the war on coal – your coal”.The White House said Biden’s words were “twisted to suggest a meaning that was not intended – he regrets it if anyone hearing these remarks took offence”. He was “commenting on a fact of economics and technology”.Biden, Trump, Obama and Clinton – four of the six living presidents – focused on north-eastern battlegrounds on Saturday, as the parties sent out their biggest names to deliver a critical closing argument. Polls across America will close on Tuesday, but more than 36 million people have already voted.Democrats are deeply concerned about losing their narrow majorities in the House and Senate, amid surging inflation and widespread economic concerns. History suggests that Democrats, as the party in power, will suffer significant losses in the midterms.US midterms 2022: the key racesRead moreThe attention on Pennsylvania underscores the stakes in 2022 and beyond for the tightly contested state. The Senate race could decide the overall Senate majority, and with it, Biden’s agenda and judicial appointments for the next two years. The governor’s contest will determine the direction of state policy and control of the state’s election infrastructure heading into the 2024 presidential contest.Biden’s speech in Pennsylvania ran through a grab bag of major legislative achievements, while warning that abortion rights, voting rights, social security and Medicare are at risk should Republicans take control of Congress this week.The president highlighted the Inflation Reduction Action, passed in August by the Democratic-led Congress, which includes several health care provisions popular among older adults.TopicsUS midterm elections 2022US politicsBarack ObamaJoe BidenPennsylvaniaDonald TrumpBill ClintonReuse this content More

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      Pensylvania Democrats Worry About Threats in the County Where Trump Will Rally

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      Democratic officials in Westmoreland County, Pa., where former President Donald J. Trump is speaking on Saturday, said they had seen an uptick in disturbing incidents targeting Democrats in the past year.Westmoreland County, the populous area east of Pittsburgh, was once a Democratic-leaning enclave, but it has turned decisively red in recent years.“We are targets here,” Michelle McFall, the chairwoman of the county Democrats, said at a rally of supporters in October. She cited three incidents:In late summer, someone “tore down and destroyed” a 4-foot-by-8-foot sign for Josh Shapiro, the Democratic candidate for governor, within a day of its installation.In September, a man in a rainbow clown wig was arrested at a Dairy Queen in the county carrying a loaded handgun. He told police he wanted to “kill all Democrats,’’ according to news accounts.And on Election Day in 2021, a Democratic county committee member speaking in support of a write-in candidate outside a polling location in Alverton was attacked by a Trump supporter, who was charged with assault.To Ms. McFall, the episodes suggest a pattern of “how dangerous it is” to be a Democrat in Westmoreland County.But to Bill Bretz, the chairman of the county Republican Party, the incidents are unrelated and do not point to a pattern of violence or potential violence against Democrats.“I can’t count the number of signs we’ve had to replace — small, large, they get damaged or stolen,” Mr. Bretz said. “I don’t attribute that to any particular party.”He said Democrats were trying to deflect from their political difficulties in the midterms by promoting a “narrative of somehow being in a position where there’s some aggression from the Republican conservative people.”Lisa Gephart, the Democratic committee member who Ms. McFall said was physically attacked last year, said in an interview that she was 54 at the time and that her assailant was 34.She said the two had traded insults about President Biden and Mr. Trump before the man threw her against her car. She was taken by ambulance to the hospital and later required shoulder surgery, she said. The man she named as her attacker, Zachary A. Lambing, was charged with assault, resisting arrest, disorderly conduct and harassment, according to court records. A criminal case remains active. Mr. Lambing said in response to a text message that the accusations against him were false. He said Ms. Gephart was “‘attacking’ me with her words” before the incident. Ms. McFall, the Democratic chairwoman, said that while she had no evidence of a statewide pattern of attacks on Democrats, she had recently compared notes with leaders of other rural counties at a statewide Democratic meeting. “Anecdotally, no one seemed to have stories or evidence of patterns of attack like we have in Westmoreland,” Ms. McFall said.Meanwhile, in Fayette County, just south of Westmoreland, a Democratic candidate running for a state House seat, Richard Ringer, told PennLive.com that he was knocked unconscious in his backyard on Monday by an unknown attacker. He told the outlet that his home had been the target of two recent acts of vandalism: A brick was thrown through a window, and graffiti that appeared to be related to the election was spray-painted on his garage door. More

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      At Fetterman Rally, Obama Mocks Oz and Tells Crowd to Vote for Democracy

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      PITTSBURGH — Former President Barack Obama, campaigning for the first time with Lt. Gov. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, urged Democratic supporters on Saturday to vote to save democracy and abortion rights. Mr. Obama also mocked Dr. Mehmet Oz, the Republican in the Senate race, as a television pitchman with no interest in helping working people.Dr. Oz had “answers,” Mr. Obama said, referencing the candidate’s years as host of a TV show that sometimes promoted dubious health advice. But, he added, those answers were the wrong ones.“You want to lose weight? Take raspberry ketones,’’ Mr. Obama said. “If somebody is willing to peddle snake oil to make a buck, then he’s probably willing to sell snake oil to get elected.”The rally was held in a park in the shadow of the University of Pittsburgh’s 42-story Cathedral of Learning, a popular last stop on the campaign trail for Democrats seeking to rally young voters before Election Day. The crowd, numbering more than 1,000, seemed to pulse with affection for the former president, who spoke for about 35 minutes.Mr. Fetterman spoke for about 10 minutes, his speech still halting since a stroke in May, and noted that Dr. Oz would appear later in the day with former President Donald J. Trump in the Pittsburgh exurbs. Mr. Fetterman said he was proud to share a stage with a former president who was “sedition-free.”Ruth Fremson/The New York TimesRuth Fremson/The New York TimesIn his speech, Mr. Obama outlined the differences between electing Democrats or Republicans on Tuesday. It was a choice, he said, “between politicians who seem willing to say and do anything to get power, and people who see you and know you and care about you and share your values.”Mr. Obama laced his speech with examples of how civility, adherence to truth and respect for the political opposition had eroded since he ran for office. He attributed that deterioration to Republicans during Mr. Trump’s presidency.Mr. Obama blamed social media that “amped up” conspiracy theories and hatred, warning of the potential for political violence. Mentioning the attack on Paul Pelosi, the husband of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Mr. Obama decried people “in leadership positions” who, after such an attack, “make light of it, they joke about it.”“More people are going to get hurt,” he said.He also called out “big celebrities” who have reposted “vile antisemitic conspiracy theories online,” an apparent reference to the basketball star Kyrie Irving and the rapper Kanye West.“You don’t have to be a student of history to understand how dangerous that is,’’ Mr. Obama said.Later on Saturday, Mr. Fetterman, Mr. Obama and President Biden are scheduled to rally in Philadelphia, capping a day in which they could reach nearly a quarter of Pennsylvania’s active Democratic voters. More

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      Oprah Winfrey spurns Dr Oz to endorse Fetterman in Pennsylvania Senate race

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      Oprah Winfrey spurns Dr Oz to endorse Fetterman in Pennsylvania Senate raceTV host who launched Republican’s career on her daytime talkshow had previously said election was up to Pennsylvanians Oprah Winfrey sprang a November surprise for Democrats in the midterm elections as the US TV host endorsed their candidate John Fetterman in Pennsylvania’s hotly contested Senate race, snubbing his Republican rival Mehmet Oz whom she originally made famous on her daytime talkshow.Until now, Winfrey had said she would leave the election to Pennsylvanians, but on Thursday evening she changed that position in an online discussion on voting in next Tuesday’s election.‘A lens of empathy’: disability advocates on John Fetterman and leadershipRead more“I said it was up to the citizens of Pennsylvania … but I will tell you all this, if I lived in Pennsylvania, I would have already cast my vote for John Fetterman for many reasons,” Winfrey said, before going on to urge listeners to vote for Democrats running for governor and Senate in various states.The Pennsylvania seat has for months been seen as the most likely pickup opportunity for Democrats in the evenly divided Senate.Polls show a close race between Fetterman, the state’s lieutenant governor, and Oz, a celebrity heart surgeon who is endorsed by former president Donald Trump.In a sign of how high the stakes are, Trump will return to Pennsylvania on Saturday to campaign for Oz, while Joe Biden and the former two-term Democratic president Barack Obama will campaign for Fetterman that same day.Oz left Oprah’s show after five years and 55 episodes to start his own daytime TV program, The Dr Oz Show, which ran for 13 seasons before he moved from New Jersey to Pennsylvania to run for the Senate.The Senate seat is being vacated by the retiring Republican Pat Toomey.Fetterman’s race is among those that have grown tighter in recent weeks as polls showed rising support for Oz, who has made much of the fact that Fetterman had a stroke this spring during the campaign and spent much of the summer convalescing.Fetterman has been declared fit for work by his medical experts but has needed some adjustments to accommodate auditory processing.At a recent debate, in order to accommodate Fetterman’s condition, which he said was improving daily, two 70-inch monitors were placed above the heads of the moderators, which showed the transcribed text of their questions, and the text of Oz’s responses.The candidates fiercely clashed over abortion rights, with Fetterman strongly pro-choice.His endorsement by Winfrey – an icon to many Americans, particularly women and African Americans – is seen as a useful boost to Democrats’ chances in that race.Fetterman celebrated with the kind of witty burn on social media he has become well-known for, especially over the summer when he was physically absent from the campaign trail but repeatedly taunted Oz’s New Jersey connections.#NewProfilePic pic.twitter.com/mla50A5HWa— John Fetterman (@JohnFetterman) November 4, 2022
      TopicsOprah WinfreyPennsylvaniaUS midterm elections 2022US politicsDemocratsRepublicansnewsReuse this content More

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      A Dire Outlook as Climate Action Falls Short

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      More from our inbox:Pennsylvania Political Ads: ‘A Flood of Falsehoods’A Republican No MoreBig Lie LawyersProtests in Brazil: A Harbinger for the U.S.?Flooded farmland in Hadeja, Nigeria, in September.Associated PressTo the Editor:Re “Climate Pledges Fizzle as Havoc Looms for Globe” (front page, Oct. 26):Whatever happened to mutually assured destruction?During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union never attacked each other directly for fear of a nuclear war that would destroy both nations. But today, world-threatening climate change is apparently not enough to bring the U.S. and China to the negotiating table.Without prompt and drastic action by both nations (and others) to cut greenhouse gas emissions, the planet is aimed at a global temperature rise of at least 2.1 degrees Celsius (3.8 degrees Fahrenheit). Tens of millions of people worldwide will be displaced from their homes. Hundreds of millions will suffer severe drought and food shortages due to crop loss. Billions will face dangerous, possibly deadly heat waves.Are the U.S. and China assuming that their populations will magically be spared? Or is an existential threat to both our nations no longer considered enough for our leaders to take seriously?Amy LivingstonHighland Park, N.J.To the Editor:There’s no doubt that our planet is fast approaching the point of no return for avoiding a future of unimaginable, ever-worsening climate chaos. As you report, the perilous position we find ourselves in is due largely to decades of gross inaction from the world’s biggest climate polluters. The only question now is what to do about it.Your article notes that some progress in the name of climate action has recently been made in the United States, with hundreds of billions of dollars in the Inflation Reduction Act allocated for encouraging “cleaner technologies.” But the fact is that incentivizing the development of cleaner energy sources will not by itself make a dent in carbon emissions.Our recent analysis showed that while use of renewable energy rose significantly in the previous decade, fossil fuel production increased even more. In truth, the only way to meaningfully reduce climate-killing carbon pollution is to halt it at its source, by stopping new oil and gas drilling and fracking, and preventing the buildout of new infrastructure like pipelines and export terminals that encourage the devastating extraction.Wenonah HauterWashingtonThe writer is the founder and executive director of Food & Water Watch.To the Editor:Carbon and methane emissions cause temperature to increase, and we are reading that methane emissions are rising faster than ever. At the same time, climate pledges around the globe to cut those emissions are falling short.Many people understand the potential negative effects of climate change, but don’t see the urgency to address it. We need to rectify all of these failings and create the will for faster action. Our citizens must understand and believe that the cost of inaction is too high and demand stronger action now.Perhaps some people are more worried about the immediate economic and inflation aspects. I want to remind them that every negative effect of climate change is bad for the economy and even more inflationary. Climate-related weather events (wildfires, floods, drought, hurricanes, etc.) drain production and supply and escalate demand and prices.If we don’t decrease the use of fossil fuels soon enough, climate migration will become a large issue. Such movements will harm local economies both to and from those migration areas. Climate inaction is too costly to ignore, and we need action now.Jonathan LightLaguna Niguel, Calif.Pennsylvania Political Ads: ‘A Flood of Falsehoods’Chester County elections workers scanning mail-in ballots in 2020. Unsigned letters circulated in the county this year warning residents that their votes might not have counted.Matt Slocum/Associated PressTo the Editor:Re “With Push of a Button, Lies Flood a Swing State” (front page, Nov. 1):As a Pennsylvania voter, I find that it has become increasingly difficult to cut through the deluge of disinformation that has flooded the airwaves, our mailboxes and social media channels in connection with the coming election.Regrettably, far too many people choose to peddle propaganda in a brazen attempt to mislead voters, and the relative ease with which deceptive and denigrating material is widely disseminated degrades an already tenuous political system.With an electorate that is already jaded and exceedingly cynical because of the rancor that has become so pervasive in American politics, we cannot afford to give voters yet another reason to stay home on Election Day. Pennsylvanians deserve better than a flood of falsehoods that threatens to wash away the decency and credibility that we desperately need in our electoral process.N. Aaron TroodlerBala Cynwyd, Pa.A Republican No More Brittany Greeson for The New York TimesTo the Editor:My grandfather was a conservative Pennsylvania Republican. My father was a conservative Pennsylvania Republican. And I naturally became a conservative Pennsylvania Republican, holding onto it as I moved over the years to Ohio, Connecticut and New York.Several months ago, I registered as a Democrat, pen twitching in my hand, yet knowing that it was time to speak up the only way politicians comprehend.Donald Trump brought me to this. He has yet to wear his proper label. He is, and should be publicly recognized as, a cult leader: unbelievably dangerous, persuasive and dense.Until Republican Party leaders recognize that they have been “drinking the Kool-Aid” because they are afraid of the cult leader, I have no use for them, nor should any clear-thinking Republican.J.H. QuestIthaca, N.Y.Big Lie Lawyers T.J. Kirkpatrick for The New York TimesTo the Editor:The continued attack on our free and democratic elections revealed in “Same Trump Lawyers Gear Up for Midterms” (news article, Nov. 3) is even more disturbing in light of the fact that almost all of the lawyers mentioned in the article face outstanding bar complaints from The 65 Project, the bipartisan accountability group I run.These complaints were filed months ago, and in the face of inaction by the various state bar associations, these Big Lie lawyers have continued their attacks on our democracy.Until the state bar associations take action by referring these attorneys to the relevant disciplinary committees and imposing sanctions — up to and including disbarment — their actions described in this article will just be another stop along the way to more attempts to overturn elections in 2022 and 2024.Michael TeterSalt Lake CityProtests in Brazil: A Harbinger for the U.S.?Supporters of President Jair Bolsonaro gathering outside the Brazilian Army’s national headquarters on Wednesday in Brasília, the capital. Dado Galdieri for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Denying Defeat, Bolsonaro’s Supporters Ask Army to Step In” (news article, Nov. 3):It used to be that we were afraid of a coup, of a strongman or the army taking over against the will of the people. Now it seems that the people themselves are the problem. In Brazil, tens of thousands are protesting the results of their recent election, demanding a new election or, most chillingly, a military government “permanently,” as one put it.This sounds disconcertingly familiar, as millions in this country are demanding similarly authoritarian forms of government. The focus here has been on disinformation and conspiracy theories circulating on social media, and on Donald Trump himself, America’s Bolsonaro. But the real problem, here as in Brazil, is the inexplicable desire of millions of ordinary citizens to live under an authoritarian regime.We should hope that Brazil’s reaction to Jair Bolsonaro’s loss is not a harbinger of our own experience two years hence.Tim ShawCambridge, Mass. More

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      Why Aren’t the Democrats Trouncing the Republicans?

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      My big takeaway from this election season would be this: We’re about where we were. We entered this election season with a nearly evenly divided House and Senate in which the Democrats had a slight advantage. We’ll probably leave it with a nearly evenly divided House and Senate in which the Republicans have a slight advantage. But we’re about where we were.Nothing the parties or candidates have done has really changed this underlying balance. The Republicans nominated a pathetically incompetent Senate candidate, Herschel Walker, in Georgia, but polls show that race is basically tied. The Democrats nominated a guy in Pennsylvania, John Fetterman, who suffered a stroke and has trouble communicating, but polls show that that Senate race is basically tied.After all the campaigning and the money and the shouting, the electoral balance is still on a razor’s edge. What accounts for this? It’s the underlying structure of society. Americans are sorting themselves out by education into two roughly equal camps. As people without a college degree have flocked to the G.O.P., people with one have flocked to the Democrats.“Education polarization is not merely an American phenomenon,” Eric Levitz writes in New York Magazine, “it is a defining feature of contemporary politics in nearly every Western democracy.”Over the past few years, the Democrats have made heroic efforts to win back working-class voters and white as well as Black and Hispanic voters who have drifted rightward. Joe Biden’s domestic agenda is largely about this: infrastructure jobs, expanded child tax credit, raising taxes on corporations. This year the Democrats nominated candidates designed to appeal to working-class voters, like the sweatshirt-wearing Fetterman in Pennsylvania and Tim Ryan in Ohio.It doesn’t seem to be working. As Ruy Teixeira, Karlyn Bowman and Nate Moore noted in a survey of polling data for the American Enterprise Institute last month, “The gap between non-college and college whites continues to grow.” Democrats have reason to worry about losing working-class Hispanic voters in places like Nevada. “If Democrats can’t win in Nevada,” one Democratic pollster told Politico, “we can complain about the white working class all you want, but we’re really confronting a much broader working-class problem.” Even Black voters without a college degree seem to be shifting away from the Democrats, to some degree.Forests have been sacrificed so that Democratic strategists can write reports on why they are losing the working class. Some believe racial resentment is driving the white working class away. Some believe Democrats spend too much time on progressive cultural issues and need to focus more on bread-and-butter economics.I’d say these analyses don’t begin to address the scale of the problem. America has riven itself into two different cultures. It’s very hard for the party based in one culture to reach out and win voters in the other culture — or even to understand what people in the other culture are thinking.As I’ve shuttled between red and blue America over decades of reporting on American politics, I’ve seen social, cultural, moral and ideological rifts widen from cracks to chasms.Politics has become a religion for a lot of people. Americans with a college education and Americans without a college education no longer just have different ideas about, say, the role of government, they have created rival ways of life. Americans with a college education and Americans without a college education have different relationships to patriotism and faith, they dress differently, enjoy different foods and have different ideas about corporal punishment, gender and, of course, race.You can’t isolate the differences between the classes down to one factor or another. It’s everything.But even that is not the real problem. America has always had vast cultural differences. Back in 2001, I wrote a long piece for The Atlantic comparing the deeply blue area of Montgomery County, Md., with the red area of Franklin County in south-central Pennsylvania.I noted the vast socio-economic and cultural differences that were evident, even back then. But in my interviews, I found there was a difference without a ton of animosity.For example, Ted Hale was a Presbyterian minister there. “There’s nowhere near as much resentment as you would expect,” he told me. “People have come to understand that they will struggle financially. It’s part of their identity. But the economy is not their god. That’s the thing some others don’t understand. People value a sense of community far more than they do their portfolio.”Back in those days I didn’t find a lot of class-war consciousness in my trips through red America. I compared the country to a high school cafeteria. Jocks over here, nerds over there, punks somewhere else. Live and let live.Now people don’t just see difference, they see menace. People have put up barricades and perceive the other class as a threat to what is beautiful, true and good. I don’t completely understand why this animosity has risen over the past couple of decades, but it makes it very hard to shift the ever more entrenched socio-economic-cultural-political coalitions.Historians used to believe that while European societies were burdened by ferocious class antagonisms, Americans had relatively little class consciousness. That has changed.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Mehmet Oz campaigns at venue that bans same-sex weddings

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      Mehmet Oz campaigns at venue that bans same-sex weddingsPennsylvania Republican Senate candidate has said he supports legislation that would enshrine same-sex marriage in federal law Mehmet Oz, the Republican nominee for the Pennsylvania Senate seat who says he is in favour of same-sex marriage, hosted a campaign event on Wednesday at a venue that bans same-sex marriages.Oz, who has campaigned on supporting legislation that would enshrine same-sex marriage in federal law, held a campaign event at the Stone Gables Estate, a venue that only holds weddings between a man and a woman, reported the Washington Post.“We provide marriage-related services as ordained by God’s Word, the Holy Bible, that are consistent with the written truth that marriage is the union of one man and one woman,” the venue says on its website.In July, Oz announced that he would support legislation that would codify same-sex marriage into federal law should he be elected, reported the Hill.Oz also tweeted in September about his support of gay marriage: “I’m proud to join this effort with fellow Republicans. I believe that same-sex couples should have the same freedom to get married as straight couples.”But Oz has been accused of making other anti-LGBTQ comments during his campaign specifically targeted at the transgender community. He also removed an episode of his former television show, The Dr Oz Show, about conversion therapy from the show’s website, as well as a blogpost where he said he supported the medical consensus that conversion therapy was ineffective and harmful, reported the Independent.TopicsUS midterm elections 2022US politicsPennsylvanianewsReuse this content More

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      Pittsburgh Jews decry pro-Israel group’s support for Republican extremists

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      Pittsburgh Jews decry pro-Israel group’s support for Republican extremistsAipac is spending millions to oppose Democrat who would be Pennsylvania’s first Black female member of Congress More than 240 Jewish American voters in Pittsburgh have signed a letter denouncing the US’s largest pro-Israel group for backing extremist Republican election candidates while spending millions of dollars to oppose a Democrat who would be Pennsylvania’s first Black female member of Congress.US progressives show strength in primaries and predict more wins aheadRead moreThe letter condemned the powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) for its attempts to defeat Summer Lee, a candidate for the district that includes Pittsburgh, after failing to block her during the Democratic primaries earlier this year because of her criticisms of Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians.The signatories said they were “outraged that at this critical moment in American history, Aipac has chosen to cast Democrats like Lee as extremists” while endorsing more than 100 Republican candidates who voted to overturn the 2020 presidential election.The letter suggested that Aipac does not represent the views of the majority of American Jews and is working against their interests by also endorsing Republicans who promote white supremacy, a particularly sensitive issue in a city where 11 worshippers at the Tree of Life synagogues were murdered in an antisemitic attack four years ago.“We also condemn Aipac endorsement of lawmakers who have promoted the antisemitic ‘Great Replacement’ conspiracy theory that helped inspire the murder of eleven members of the three synagogues housed at Tree of Life,” the letter said.“Clearly, their definition of ‘extreme’ is completely opposite to that held by the majority of American Jews – who worry about the stark rise in antisemitism and white nationalism in our state and in our country.”It is the first time Aipac has funded support for a Republican contender for Congress over a Democrat in a general election, marking a further shift away from its once more bipartisan approach.Aipac’s campaign funding arm, the United Democracy Project (UDP), is paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for television advertising and mailings against Lee. The group is backing Mike Doyle, who supports a federal ban on abortion and has described himself as very conservative.The UDP has posted a leaflet to voters calling Lee “too extreme” because of her positions on police, prison and immigration reform. The leaflet makes no mention of her criticisms of Israeli government policies which do not appear to be an election issue for most voters, although Aipac has previously said that its “sole factor for supporting Democratic and Republican candidates is their support for strengthening the US-Israel relationship”.Lee has drawn Aipac’s fire for her support of setting conditions for the US’s considerable aid to Israel, for accusing Israel of “atrocities” in Gaza, and for drawing parallels between Israeli actions against Palestinians and the shooting of young black men in the US.In a tweet earlier this week, Lee accused Aipac of funding extremists: “8 days from making history in PA–where Black women have never had federal representation–Aipac is funding my extreme GOP opponent. Since endorsing 100+ insurrectionists, Aipac has repeatedly shown us that democracy has never been as important as keeping progressives out.”Lee’s campaign has an additional cause for concern because her Republican opponent has the same first and last name as the outgoing Democratic member of Congress she is seeking to replace. In an apparent attempt to exploit potential confusion, Doyle’s website does not mention that he is a Republican.Aipac’s campaign against Lee is a rematch after it tried and failed to block her during the Democratic primaries earlier this year.The UDP spent more than $25m in the primaries to defeat candidates it deemed too critical, or insufficiently supportive, of Israel, including about $2.6m against Lee. Most of the candidates opposed by Aipac lost but Lee won her race by a slim margin.Much of the advertising in support of Aipac-backed candidates in the primaries played up Democratic party values such as equality. One of those opposed by the lobby group, Congressman Andy Levin who lost his primary and seat, on Wednesday tweeted that Aipac’s opposition to Lee revealed its professed support for liberal values to have been a sham.“If it wasn’t clear before, it certainly is now: AIPAC doesn’t care about our party’s values and priorities and it’s willing to empower extremists and undermine American democracy in order to defeat principled, progressive candidates,” he wrote.One of those who initiated the letter from members of Pittsburgh’s Jewish community was Ritchie Tabachnick who sits on the steering committee of a more moderate pro-Israel organisation, J Street. Tabachnick said the letter speaks for the majority of the city’s Jews because they are disturbed at Aipac “supporting some of the most extreme Republicans, people who make openly antisemitic remarks promote antisemitic conspiracy theories”.“It’s quite possible to be pro-Israel and antisemitic. They often go hand in hand. Aipac have chosen to prioritise the-pro Israel and ignore the antisemitic elements that go with it,” he said.Tabachnick said he believed Aipac was attempting to shut down widening criticism of Israel in the US, a task made more urgent by the expected return of Benjamin Netanyahu as prime minister in coalition with far-right Jewish nationalists.“They are trying to control the narrative,” he said.But Tabachnik said he does not believe Aipac represents the views of most of the US’s Jewish community.“They are a loud, politically smart minority,” he said of the group.Aipac denies taking sides against the Democrats, saying that Lee’s views put her “outside of the Democratic mainstream”.Aipac has been approached for comment.TopicsUS midterm elections 2022US politicsPennsylvaniaAntisemitismIsraelDemocratsRepublicansnewsReuse this content More