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      US midterms 2022: the key candidates who threaten democracy

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      ExplainerUS midterms 2022: the key candidates who threaten democracy In several states Republican candidates who dispute the 2020 election results are running for positions that would give them control over electionsThere are several races on the ballot this fall that will have profound consequences for American democracy. In several states, Republican candidates who doubt the election 2020 election results, or in some cases actively worked to overturn them, are running for positions in which they would have tremendous influence over how votes are cast and counted. If these candidates win, there is deep concern they could use their offices to spread baseless information about election fraud and try to prevent the rightful winners of elections from being seated.What are the US midterm elections and who’s running?Read moreHere’s a look at some of the key candidates who pose a threat to US democracy:Doug MastrianoMastriano, the Republican nominee for governor in Pennsylvania, played a key role in efforts to overturn the 2020 election. He was the “point person” for the Trump campaign in Pennsylvania as lawyers put together fake slates of electors for Trump, according to emails obtained by the New York Times. He also organized an event with Rudy Giuliani after the 2020 election in which speakers spread misinformation about the 2020 election. He hired buses and offered rides to the US Capitol on January 6 and was there himself. He has supported the idea of decertifying the presidential race in Pennsylvania, a key battleground state, which is not possible.If elected, Mastriano would wield considerable power over elections in Pennsylvania. The state is one of a handful where the secretary of state, the chief election official, is appointed by the governor. Mastriano has said he has already picked someone, but hasn’t said who. The Philadelphia Inquirer has speculated he could pick Toni Shuppe, an activist who has spread voting misinformation and theories linked to the QAnon movement. Mastriano has also said he would decertify election equipment and cause all voters in the state to re-register to vote.Mark FinchemFinchem is the Republican nominee for Arizona secretary of state, which would make him Arizona’s chief election official. Finchem, a member of the Oath Keepers, was at the US Capitol on January 6. He introduced a resolution earlier this year to decertify the election. In 2020, he was one of several lawmakers who signed a joint resolution asking Congress to reject electors for Joe Biden.He has said, falsely, that Joe Biden did not win the election in Arizona in 2020, which is false. “It strains credibility,” he told Time magazine in September of Biden’s victory. “Isn’t it interesting that I can’t find anyone who will admit that they voted for Joe Biden?” When a reporter asked him whether it was possible that people he didn’t know voted for Biden, Finchem said: “In a fantasy world, anything’s possible.”Kari LakeA former news anchor with no prior political experience, Lake made doubting the 2020 election a centerpiece of her successful bid to win Arizona’s GOP nomination for governor.If she wins the governor’s race, Lake would be one of the statewide officials charged with certifying the results of the presidential election. She has called the 2020 election “corrupt and stolen” and said she would not have certified it. She joined an unsuccessful lawsuit to require ballots in Arizona to be counted by hand, which experts say is unreliable and costly. She has backed ending mail-in voting, which is widely used in Arizona.Jim MarchantMarchant is the Republican nominee for secretary of state in Nevada. He is linked to the QAnon movement; he has said he was pushed to run for the position by Trump allies and a prominent QAnon influencer. He leads a coalition of far-right candidates seeking to be secretary of state in key battleground states.He lost a 2020 congressional race by more than 16,000 votes, but nonetheless challenged the result by alleging fraud. He has since traveled around the state pressuring counties to get rid of electronic voting equipment and instead only hand-count paper ballots. Such a switch would be unreliable – humans are worse at counting large quantities of things than machines – as well as costly, and take a long time, experts say. He has falsely said voting equipment is “easy” to hack and said that Nevadans’ votes haven’t counted for decades. He has claimed there is a global “cabal” that runs elections in Nevada and elsewhere.Kristina KaramoKaramo, the GOP nominee for secretary of state, became nationally known after the 2020 election when she claimed she witnessed wrongdoing as ballots were being counted in Detroit. The allegations were debunked, but Karamo, a community college professor who has never held elective office, went on to rise in conservative circles. She appeared on Fox News and was a witness at a high-profile legislative hearing about election irregularities. She joined an unsuccessful lawsuit to try to overturn of the election. She has claimed “egregious crimes” were committed during the 2020 election and said on a podcast: “It’s time for us decent people in the Republican party … to fight back. We cannot have our election stolen,” according to Bridge Michigan.Abortion on the ballot: here are the US states voting on a woman’s right to chooseRead moreShe has also come under fire for comments on her podcast comparing abortion to human sacrifice and opposing the teaching of evolution in schools, according to Bridge Michigan.Matthew DePernoDePerno, a lawyer who has never held elected office, became a celebrity in conservative circles for his work after the 2020 election. He helped lead a lawsuit in Antrim county, in northern Michigan, where a clerk made an error and posted incorrect information on election night. He claimed election equipment was corrupted, and a judge authorized an investigation of the county’s election equipment that became the basis of an inaccurate report that Trump allies used to spread misinformation about the election. A Republican-led inquiry into allegations of fraud found his actions to be “​​misleading and irresponsible”. DePerno has said he would arrest Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat serving as Michigan’s top election official, as well as Dana Nessel, his Democratic opponent in the attorney general’s race.DePerno also faces potential criminal charges for unauthorized access to voting equipment. A special prosecutor is investigating the matter.TopicsUS midterm elections 2022US politicsRepublicansPennsylvaniaArizonaNevadaMichiganexplainersReuse this content More

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      Mastriano’s Attacks on Jewish School Set Off Outcry Over Antisemitic Signaling

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      MERION STATION, Pa. — Four years after the massacre at a Pittsburgh synagogue, believed to be the deadliest antisemitic attack in American history, Doug Mastriano, the Republican nominee for governor of Pennsylvania, has rattled a diverse swath of the state’s Jewish community, alarming liberal Jews with his remarks and far-right associations, and giving pause to more conservative ones.Some of those voters have recoiled from Mr. Mastriano’s opposition to abortion rights under any circumstance, or from his strident election denialism. But the race between Mr. Mastriano, a state senator, and his Democratic opponent, Attorney General Josh Shapiro — a Jewish day school alum who features challah in his advertising and routinely borrows from Pirkei Avot, a collection of Jewish ethics — has also centered to an extraordinary degree on Mr. Shapiro’s religion.Mr. Mastriano, who promotes Christian power and disdains the separation of church and state, has repeatedly lashed Mr. Shapiro for attending and sending his children to what Mr. Mastriano calls a “privileged, exclusive, elite” school, suggesting to one audience that it evinced Mr. Shapiro’s “disdain for people like us.”It is a Jewish day school, where students are given both secular and religious instruction. But Mr. Mastriano’s language in portraying it as an elitist reserve seemed to be a dog whistle.“Apparently now it’s some kind of racist thing if I talk about the school,” Mr. Mastriano said at a recent event as he cast himself as a champion of school choice for all. “It’s a very expensive, elite school.”The focus on Mr. Shapiro’s religion has freighted one of the nation’s most consequential elections with an unusually raw and personal dimension.“You have a candidate who is Jewish, an observant Jewish candidate, who puts his observance and his faith in his campaign ads,” said Jonathan Greenblatt, chief executive of the Anti-Defamation League. “And then you have someone who associates with unapologetic, unabashed antisemites running against him.”In a closely divided state where races are often won on the margins, Mr. Mastriano is now losing ground with a small but significant part of the Trump coalition, squandering opportunities with more conservative and religiously observant Jews who embraced the former president and his party because of his often-hawkish stance concerning Israel, but who now express grave reservations about Mr. Mastriano.This summer, Mr. Mastriano’s campaign came under scrutiny for paying $5,000 to the far-right social media platform Gab. The man accused of perpetrating the Pittsburgh shooting had posted antisemitic screeds on Gab, and Mr. Mastriano’s payment drew bipartisan condemnation. The platform’s founder, Andrew Torba, defended Mr. Mastriano and declared that “we’re not bending the knee to the 2 percent anymore,” an apparent reference to American Jewry.Only after significant pressure did Mr. Mastriano release a statement saying that he rejected “antisemitism in any form,” appearing to leave the site and stressing that Mr. Torba did not speak for him.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.Herschel Walker: A woman who said that the G.O.P. Senate nominee in Georgia paid for her abortion in 2009 told The Times that he urged her to terminate a second pregnancy two years later. She chose to have their son instead.Will the Walker Allegations Matter?: The scandal could be decisive largely because of the circumstances in Georgia, writes Nate Cohn, The Times’s chief political analyst.Pennsylvania Senate Race: John Fetterman, the Democratic nominee, says he can win over working-class voters in deep-red counties. But as polls tighten in the contest, that theory is under strain.But a late September campaign finance report showed that Mr. Mastriano had accepted a $500 donation from Mr. Torba in July. His campaign did not respond when asked whether he planned to return the money, and he and his aides ignored a reporter’s shouted questions about the donation during an event on a recent Friday.Mr. Mastriano has also spread the lie that George Soros, a Holocaust survivor and liberal billionaire often vilified on the right, was a Nazi collaborator.And Mr. Mastriano has baselessly accused Mr. Shapiro of holding a “real grudge” against the Roman Catholic Church. That may have been part of a misleading reference to debates over enforcement of contraception coverage. But Mr. Shapiro’s office also led a bombshell investigation into the Catholic Church’s cover-up of sexual abuse of children. Mr. Mastriano’s campaign did not respond when asked what he was referring to.In the final weeks of the midterm elections, candidates across the country are clashing bitterly over the threat posed by extremism. But no major contest this year has been shaped more prominently, persistently or explicitly by concerns over antisemitism than the Pennsylvania governor’s race.Taken together, Mr. Mastriano has left even conservative swaths of Pennsylvania’s otherwise liberal-leaning Jewish community feeling deeply uncomfortable.“The Orthodox community would generally swing more toward Republican,” said Charlie Saul, an Orthodox Jewish lawyer from the Pittsburgh area. A registered Democrat, Mr. Saul said he voted twice for former President Donald J. Trump and plans to back Mehmet Oz, the Republican Senate nominee, as well as Mr. Shapiro. “But in this situation,” he added, “because of the association of Mastriano with antisemites, I think that they’ll swing Democrat.”Matt Brooks, the executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition, suggested that because of Mr. Shapiro’s “relationship with the Jewish community and the fact that Mastriano’s not doing any outreach to the Jewish community, and has these issues hanging over his head,” Mr. Shapiro stood to overperform with center-right Jewish voters. The coalition is supporting Dr. Oz but has criticized Mr. Mastriano over his Gab associations.Josh Shapiro has used concerns about Doug Mastriano’s associations and language to press a message against bigotry, but he has stopped short of calling his opponent an antisemite.Marc Levy/Associated PressRecent polls show Mr. Mastriano trailing Mr. Shapiro by double digits, though Pennsylvania polling has been substantially wrong before and the political environment is challenging for Democrats..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.His campaign did not respond to three requests for comment or provide the names of any Jewish surrogates. Representatives for the Republican National Committee did not respond to questions, and several other Republican leaders declined interviews.Former Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, who has campaigned for Mr. Mastriano, defended the candidate, calling him a “strong Christian Zionist” and saying he did not see any “antisemitic concerns at all.”“I just don’t think, necessarily, being a strong Christian necessarily makes you someone who’s intolerant of other faiths,” he said. But he acknowledged he did not know Mr. Mastriano well.As explosive as antisemitism can be, and even as antisemitic incidents are on the rise, it is seldom openly displayed by candidates for high office. But responding to someone who uses tropes or dog whistles but stops short of baldfaced hate speech can be challenging, and there is the risk of getting derailed by focusing too much on one’s identity and not enough on what concerns the broader public.The key is to discuss such “corrosive” matters in a way that resonates with a broad audience, said the veteran Democratic strategist David Axelrod. He noted that former President Barack Obama positioned himself as both proudly of the Black community, and a president for all.“Josh Shapiro isn’t running to be the Jewish governor of Pennsylvania, he’s running to be the governor of Pennsylvania,” Mr. Axelrod said. “Your job, as prospective leader of a state, is to speak to it in a larger context.”To that end, Mr. Shapiro portrays Mr. Mastriano’s antisemitic associations as evidence that he is dangerously extremist, with a governing vision that excludes many Pennsylvanians, an argument he has amplified in ads. (During the primary, Mr. Shapiro also ran an ad that appeared to elevate Mr. Mastriano, a move he has defended.)“There is no question that he is courting antisemites and white supremacists and racists actively in his campaign,” Mr. Shapiro said in an interview, though he stopped short of calling his opponent an antisemite.He said that Mr. Mastriano “draws on his view of religion” to press policies that would have significant consequences for others, citing Mr. Mastriano’s blanket opposition to abortion rights, for instance. “Unless you think like him, unless you vote like him, unless you worship like him or marry like him, then you don’t count in his Pennsylvania,” Mr. Shapiro said last week. “I want to be a governor for all 13 million Pennsylvanians.”At the same time, Mr. Shapiro’s Jewish identity is a defining aspect of his public persona.His first television ad this year featured him at Sabbath dinner with his family, challah on the table and a hamsa — a hand-shaped symbol often seen in the Middle East, including in Israel — on the wall.“It was important to let people know who I am and what I’m all about,” said Mr. Shapiro, saying that his faith “has played a central role to me and has motivated me to do service.” “That’s an important part of who we are.”As he discusses civic engagement on the campaign trail, he frequently deploys a version of a line that, he said, resonated as he studied religious texts with a rabbi years ago: “No one is required to complete the task — but neither are we free to refrain from it.”It helps him connect with people of diverse faiths, and is a flash of his own day school roots.He keeps kosher, he said, is “always” home for Sabbath dinner and admires how former Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, an observant Jew, practiced his faith in his long career in politics, a subject the men have discussed over the years.He works on Saturdays — the Jewish day of rest — but observed Rosh Hashana in synagogue and fasted and attended Yom Kippur services last week.Mr. Shapiro will have a significant national platform if he wins. Asked whether he aspired to be the first Jewish president, he insisted, “No!”“God willing, I’ll have the chance to serve as governor,” he said, “and that is all I am focused on doing.”Mindy Cohen, 64, opposes Mr. Mastriano.Hannah Beier for The New York TimesAt Hymie’s Delicatessen in Merion Station, Pa., Democratic-leaning diners brought up antisemitism concerns unprompted during a recent lunchtime rush.Mindy Cohen, 64, said she opposed Mr. Mastriano “because of his stance on antisemitism, on religion, on abortion.”Stanley Isenberg, 98, drew parallels to how both John F. Kennedy and former Gov. Alfred E. Smith of New York, the Democratic presidential nominee in 1928, faced anti-Catholic sentiment. He said he was especially angry at Mr. Mastriano’s references to the Jewish day school, an attempt, he believed, “to tell those people who don’t like us that, to be sure and know that Mr. Shapiro was Jewish.”Down the street, at an upscale kosher restaurant, some were more open to Mr. Mastriano. David Keleti, 51, leaned toward the Republican ticket, but questioned some of Mr. Mastriano’s positions, citing, in particular, the Jewish school issue.“I just don’t think that he’s been effective in responding to these charges,” Mr. Keleti said.The matter of Mr. Mastriano’s associations has bothered some of the Pennsylvanians who talk to the political director of the group Republicans4Shapiro, Craig Snyder, who is Jewish. He opposes Mr. Mastriano for many reasons, but said concerns about antisemitism alone should be “disqualifying.”“Is the candidate an antisemite or only a friend of antisemites?” he said. “It’s just crazy that this is even an issue. ”David Keleti was inclined to support Republican candidates in Pennsylvania but is conflicted on Mr. Mastriano.Hannah Beier for The New York TimesIn Pittsburgh, Mr. Saul — who lost friends in the synagogue shooting — said memories of the attack four years ago this month prompted “a certain degree more of concern” about Mr. Mastriano’s associations.“He may not be antisemitic,” said Mr. Saul. “But the fact that he seems to have some antisemitic supporters that he hasn’t forcefully denounced makes me anti-Mastriano.” More

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      Fetterman’s Blue-Collar Allure Is Tested in Pennsylvania Senate Race

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      John Fetterman, the Democratic nominee for Senate, says he can win over working-class voters in deep-red counties. Some evidence suggests he can, but partisan loyalties may prove more powerful.MURRYSVILLE, Pa. — “I don’t have to tell you that it is hard to be a Democrat in Westmoreland County.”So began the chairwoman of the Westmoreland Democratic Party, Michelle McFall, as she introduced Lt. Gov. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania to supporters this week in the deep-red exurbs of Pittsburgh.About 100 people were gathered in a parking lot behind the Fetterman campaign bus, emblazoned with the slogan “Every County, Every Vote.” That is the strategy on which Mr. Fetterman has built his Senate candidacy — announced last year with a video reminiscent of a Springsteen song, showing small towns where people “feel left behind” and promising that “Fetterman can get a lot of those voters.”Now, in the final weeks before Election Day, with polls showing a narrowing race in a pivotal contest for control of the Senate, the premise that Mr. Fetterman can win over rural voters, including some who supported former President Donald J. Trump, is under strain.Mr. Fetterman has limited his campaign schedule as he recovers from a stroke, unable to visit “every county.” He is facing fierce Republican attacks that appear to be hitting home with voters, particularly over his record on crime. The share of voters who view Mr. Fetterman unfavorably has risen, while many Republicans have grudgingly rallied behind their nominee, Mehmet Oz. Because Mr. Fetterman had a double-digit lead in polling over the summer, the race’s tightening, while typical in a battleground state, has caused Democrats’ anxiety to rise.In a speech lasting just five minutes, Mr. Fetterman told supporters in Westmoreland County, which Mr. Trump won by 28 percentage points in 2020, that “we must jam up red counties” by running up votes. Still recovering from his stroke in May, Mr. Fetterman spoke fluently but haltingly, with gaps between words. It typified how his campaign has been forced to pivot from relying on Mr. Fetterman’s charisma before crowds, in stump appearances during the spring, to a strategy focused heavily on social media and television ads. A single debate with Dr. Oz is scheduled for Oct. 25.In Pennsylvania’s vast rural areas, the Fetterman campaign aims to improve upon the 2020 performance of President Biden, another candidate who banked on his Everyman appeal, and who narrowly carried the state.Exceeding Mr. Biden in red counties may be necessary if Mr. Fetterman does not match the blowout Biden victories in the Philadelphia suburbs, where the foil of Mr. Trump in 2020 repelled college-educated voters. More

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      Election Workers Face an Obstacle Course to Reach the Midterms

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      WASHINGTON — In Las Cruces, N.M., self-styled fraud investigators have deluged election officials with open-records demands for office email, images of all 130,000 ballots cast in 2020 and digital records that lay out what votes were cast at every polling place.In Tioga County, Pa., fliers hung on doorknobs urge voters to delay going to polling places until minutes before they close, potentially snarling election-night reporting of results.And in Nye County, Nev., where an election denier is overseeing the next election, officials are recruiting volunteers to hand-count thousands of ballots after the county commission did away with electronic voting machines.With just five weeks left until Election Day on Nov. 8, a drumbeat of lawsuits, harassment, calls to change balloting procedures and demands for reams of election records — driven by people who mistrust or outright reject the idea that elections are fair — are adding to pressures on election officials just as work in advance of the vote is peaking.The problems reflect fears for the November vote and concerns that the demands on voting oversight will further deplete an election infrastructure already pushed to the breaking point — with the 2024 presidential election looming beyond the midterms.“The exhaustion is real for election officials,” Lawrence Norden, the senior director of the elections and government program at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University, said in an interview. He added: “The partisanship and polarization around elections — and election officials themselves — is a strain and a threat to our elections.”Mr. Norden said the pressures on election offices are compounded by a falloff in the federal aid and cybersecurity assistance that poured into the 2020 election. “I’m not so worried for the near term,” he said, “but I am for the long term.”Election workers assisting voters at a polling site in Las Vegas in June.John Locher/Associated PressConsider Lycoming County, Pa., home to the city of Williamsport and some 71,000 predominantly Republican voters. Election critics are in court there, demanding a voluminous record of the county’s 2020 vote. Last month the county board of commissioners approved, then scrapped, a referendum on the November ballot over abolishing electronic voting systems in favor of hand-counting ballots. That referendum, too, had been pushed by election skeptics and deniers. Another records request asked for the names and jobs of the county’s 400 poll workers.“How is the November midterm election the third or fourth thing on my radar?” the county’s director of elections and registration, Forrest K. Lehman, asked. “It should be number one.”The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.Standing by Herschel Walker: After a report that the G.O.P. Senate candidate in Georgia paid for a girlfriend’s abortion in 2009, Republicans rallied behind him, fearing that a break with the former football star could hurt the party’s chances to take the Senate.Democrats’ Closing Argument: Buoyed by polls that show the end of Roe v. Wade has moved independent voters their way, vulnerable House Democrats have reoriented their campaigns around abortion rights in the final weeks before the election.G.O.P. Senate Gains: After signs emerged that Republicans were making gains in the race for the Senate, the polling shift is now clear, writes Nate Cohn, The Times’s chief political analyst.Trouble for Nevada Democrats: The state has long been vital to the party’s hold on the West. Now, Democrats are facing potential losses up and down the ballot.Perhaps the most pressing problem nationwide is a barrage of requests for election records, from photocopies of ballots to images of absentee ballot envelopes and applications. The county clerk in Winnebago County, Wis., Sue Ertmer, said she fielded some 120 demands for records in only a couple of weeks last month. “When you get those types of requests, it gets a little hard to get a lot of other things done,” she said. “It’s a little overwhelming.”Amy Cohen, the executive director of the National Association of State Election Directors, said the barrage of records requests had hit red and blue counties alike. “Election officials don’t wake up on Election Day or the day before and decide to put on an election,” she said. “Running an election takes weeks of preparation.”The requests come from a variety of sources, but a number of election officials noted that Mike Lindell, the pillow salesman and purveyor of conspiracy theories about the 2020 vote, has encouraged supporters to submit them. Election deniers offered instructions on filing records requests at a seminar hosted by Mr. Lindell in Springfield, Mo., in August.In a telephone interview, Mr. Lindell said providing information to the public was an important part of the job of election workers. He added that local supporters had sent him digital recreations of the ballot choices of every voter, commonly called cast vote records, from more than a thousand election jurisdictions. Mr. Lindell said the records support his theory that balloting has been manipulated nationwide, although election experts repeatedly have debunked such claims.“That’s why we can’t have machines used in future elections,” he said. “Any election in the United States going forward, we need to get rid of them.”In Doña Ana County, N.M., which includes Las Cruces, the state’s second-largest city, the county elections staff member in charge of processing open records requests quit this year, in part because of the workload, said Amanda López Askin, the county clerk.Voters waiting in line to cast their ballots during the primary election in Las Cruces, N.M., in 2020.Paul Ratje/Reuters“They demand and accuse, and then they leave you with a year’s worth of work,” she said. “In some cases you have to redact information manually, and you have 80,000 pieces of paper” that must be edited to remove protected data.Some of the records requests seem to have been coordinated by nationwide groups of election deniers. In Pennsylvania, lawsuits in two counties seek to force election officials to turn over cast vote records that state officials say are exempt from disclosure. Both suits are being backed by the Thomas More Society, a Chicago-based conservative law firm that also filed suits seeking to overturn President Biden’s 2020 election victory. The demand for documents comes atop a host of other issues that were already plaguing preparations for November.In a reprise of 2020 pre-election tactics, activist groups promoting the baseless notion of widespread voter fraud are trying to invalidate tens of thousands of voter registrations, mostly in Democratic areas. Most of the challenges have failed.Election administrators in a number of states are rushing to adapt to new rules laid down in recent court cases and laws, some of which would impose harsh penalties for making administrative decisions on balloting matters that long had been seen as matters of discretion. Wisconsin officials, for example, have been barred by a court ruling from contacting would-be voters to correct minor mistakes or omissions in absentee ballots; instead, the ballots must be returned.Election offices in many jurisdictions are being threatened with lawsuits by election-denial groups, or simply being threatened by angry constituents. Meetings of election boards and county commissions have become forums for campaigns to abandon electronic voting machines or rehash fraud claims from 2020.In a handful of places, campaigns have succeeded. In sprawling Nye County, Nev., where some 33,000 voters are sprinkled over an area nearly as big as two Vermonts, County Clerk Mark F. Kampf — who has said he believes Donald J. Trump won in 2020 — is soliciting volunteers to hand-count ballots in November. County commissioners voted in March to stop using voting machines made by Dominion Voting Systems, apparently responding to the debunked conspiracy theory that the machines were rigged to favor Mr. Biden in 2020.Mr. Kampf did not respond to repeated requests for an interview.In Tioga County, Pa., the only snag in election plans is the door-to-door campaign by an election-denial group and watchdog, Audit the Vote PA, to persuade voters to line up at polling stations as they are about to close.Voting during the primary election in Lower Gwynedd, Pa., in May.Kriston Jae Bethel for The New York TimesToni Schuppe, identified as the group’s founder, turned down an interview request, and the county elections director, Penny Whipple, declined to speak on the record. Others said the campaign appears to stem from a conspiracy theory that voting machines are rigged to add bogus Democratic votes throughout the day, and that a last-minute fusillade of votes would thwart that scheme.The only real effect, however, would be to delay the reporting of election results, said Mr. Lehman of Lycoming County, which abuts Tioga. “To get a lot of people showing up at 7:45 p.m. in the dark, in the cold of November, and then have delays at all your precincts — that would be a recipe for chaos,” he said.The stress, and the added workload posed by the growing nationwide trend toward voting by mail, are taking a toll. In Kentucky, more than one in five of the state’s 120 county clerks are not seeking re-election in November, and six have quit outright this year, the state’s top election official, Secretary of State Michael Adams, said.Ms. Ertmer, the Winnebago County clerk, said turnover also has been unusually high in Wisconsin, both among county clerks and municipal clerks who perform most election duties. “I’m going to retire next year,” she said. “I would have continued if the atmosphere was different. I love my job, and the people I work with. But enough is enough.”And in Washoe County, Nev., home to Reno, county officials made it official policy to give legal and public relations help to government officials who are harassed or smeared after the registrar of voters, Deanna Spikula, announced her resignation in June.All that said, Mr. Adams, Ms. Ertmer and other officials said they planned to be ready when voting begins. Mr. Adams even expressed guarded optimism that the wave of activity by election deniers had crested: “The My Pillow guy did his thing on me a week ago, and I thought I’d get thousands of records requests,” he said, referring to Mr. Lindell. “But I got very little.”Some officials, like Anthony W. Perlatti, the director of the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections in Ohio, said they had learned lessons in 2020 that will help in 2022.And Nichole Baldwin, the clerk and registrar of voters in tiny White Pine County, Nev., said she was unfazed by the records requests. “They’re all asking for the same thing: cast vote records,” she said. “I have them on a flash drive, and I’m sending them out as they come in. No big deal.”Indeed, the greatest worry for many was the prospect of the unexpected.Kaitlyn Bernarde, the city clerk in Wausau, Wis., said she was reviewing her emergency management plan, with guidelines for handling aggressive voters and rules governing the conduct of observers inside polling places.In April, she said, primary elections in Wausau went swimmingly. She added: “I anticipate it won’t be as easy in November.” More

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      Senate rival accuses Dr Oz of killing over 300 dogs as medical researcher

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      Senate rival accuses Dr Oz of killing over 300 dogs as medical researcherRepublican condemned by John Fetterman as ‘puppy killer’ after reports allege Oz oversaw animal deaths between 1989 and 2010 An already over-the-top and acrimonious US Senate race in Pennsylvania has escalated after John Fetterman – the Democratic candidate – accused his Republican opponent, the celebrity physician Dr Oz, of having killed more than 300 dogs.Biden apologizes after mistakenly calling on late congresswomanRead moreCalling his rival “sick” and a “puppy killer”, Fetterman cited reporting published on Monday alleging that Mehmet Oz oversaw numerous animal deaths while conducting medical research at Columbia University.“[A] review of 75 studies published by Mehmet Oz between 1989 and 2010 reveals the Republican Senate candidate’s research killed over 300 dogs and inflicted significant suffering on them and the other animals used in experiments,” Jezebel, the publication that broke the story, wrote.The research also harmed pigs, rabbits and small rodents, according to Jezebel.Oz’s political staff have denied the allegation. When asked about it by Newsweek, a spokesperson for the Oz campaign said: “Only the idiots at Newsweek believe what they read at Jezebel.”A veterinarian who worked with Columbia, Catherine Dell’Orto, previously accused Oz’s research team of violating the Animal Welfare Act. Among other allegations, she said that the team was euthanizing dogs without sedation using expired drugs and, in other cases, failing to euthanize dogs who were suffering.Dell’Orto said that Oz did not personally euthanize the dogs but that his research methods contributed to their mistreatment and benefited from their exploitation.Oz and Fetterman have been locked in a highly negative and unusually personal political race marked by frequent Twitter sparring and meme warfare. Fetterman, the lieutenant governor, has painted Oz as a rich and out-of-touch non-Pennsylvanian, while Oz has accused Fetterman – who had a stroke earlier this year and reportedly has trouble talking – of hiding from public appearances.Earlier in his campaign, Fetterman had a strong edge over Oz, but polls have shown that advantage shrinking, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. The race is now tight, and Fetterman’s campaign has wasted no time in making hay with the latest Oz controversy.“BREAKING: Dr Oz is a puppy killer,” Fetterman tweeted on Monday. Later he posted a picture with his two dogs and wrote: “Hugging them extra tight tonight.”TopicsUS politicsPennsylvaniaRepublicansDemocratsUS SenatenewsReuse this content More

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      Republican Group’s Ads Take On Fetterman Over Gun Incident Involving Black Jogger

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      The super PAC affiliated with the Republican Jewish Coalition is beginning a significant ad buy in Pennsylvania that aims to draw attention to a 2013 incident in which John Fetterman, now the Democratic nominee for Senate, moved to detain an unarmed Black jogger.The $1.5 million buy includes two ads on the subject aimed predominantly at the Philadelphia and Pittsburgh markets. They will run on broadcast television and are intended to reach Black voters, according to Matt Brooks, the executive director of the Republican group. The ad campaign will begin on Tuesday and run through Election Day, he said.The strikingly negative ads focus on a moment that Mr. Fetterman’s Democratic opponents pummeled him over in the primary. When Mr. Fetterman was the mayor of Braddock, Pa., he brandished a shotgun to stop and detain an unarmed Black jogger, telling police he had heard gunshots and saw the man running, according to the police report.In the new set of ads, narrators — both of whom are Black — relay aspects of the incident and express outrage.“My message to Black voters: Do your homework about John Fetterman,” says one narrator. “He didn’t even apologize. And now he wants our vote? Not a chance.”The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.Trouble for Nevada Democrats: The state has long been vital to the party’s hold on the West. Now, Democrats are facing potential losses up and down the ballot.Democrats’ House Chances: Democrats are not favored to win the House, but the notion of retaining the chamber is not as far-fetched as it once was, ​​writes Nate Cohn, The Times’s chief political analyst.Latino Voters: A recent Times/Siena poll found Democrats faring far worse than they have in the past with Hispanic voters. “The Daily” looks at what the poll reveals about this key voting bloc.Michigan Governor’s Race: Tudor Dixon, the G.O.P. nominee who has ground to make up in her contest against Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, is pursuing a hazardous strategy in the narrowly divided swing state: embracing former President Donald J. Trump.“Why did John Fetterman see a Black man and do that?” asks another narrator. “He knows why. And our community does too.”A spokesman for Mr. Fetterman did not immediately respond to a request for comment when told about the substance of the ads. .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.A different pro-Oz group began airing spots on the same subject in Pennsylvania last month.Mr. Fetterman, who is now Pennsylvania’s lieutenant governor, has emphasized that he initially ran for mayor to stop violence. He has strongly disputed any notion that he acted out of bias in 2013, telling PhillyVoice in 2016 that “this had nothing to do with race. The runner could have been my mother for all I knew, thanks to what the jogger was wearing.”No charges related to the incident were brought against Mr. Fetterman, who has said he saw someone “dressed entirely in black and a face mask” running in the direction of an elementary school soon after the Sandy Hook shooting.“I believe I did the right thing,” Mr. Fetterman told WTAE-TV at the time. “But I may have broken the law during the course of it. I’m certainly not above the law.”Part of that sentence — “I may have broken the law” — is featured in the ads.The jogger, Christopher Miyares, who in 2018 was charged with multiple felonies in a separate incident, told The Philadelphia Inquirer in a letter from a state prison in 2021 both that Mr. Fetterman “lied about everything” and that he hoped Mr. Fetterman “gets to be a senator.”Still, during the primary campaign, Mr. Fetterman faced sharp criticism for how he handled and discussed the 2013 incident. While he won that race handily, some Democrats worried that Republicans would use the incident to weaken Black turnout in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh in the general election.Mr. Brooks disputed the idea of that being the goal of the ad campaign.“I would say it’s the exact opposite,” he said. “We’re trying to change opinions and to maximize the turnout in the African American community for Dr. Oz.”The ads, though, do not mention Dr. Mehmet Oz, the Republican nominee for Senate. Polling for the Republican Jewish Coalition found that Mr. Fetterman had an overwhelming lead with Black voters, according to a survey conducted Aug. 29- Sept. 1.But the survey also found that “just 6 percent of Pennsylvania voters, including only 4 percent of Black voters, have seen, read, or heard ‘a lot’” about the 2013 incident, and that message testing showed that “key Democratic audiences react negatively to information regarding the incident at gunpoint.”“There is clearly an opportunity to litigate this issue, especially among the Black community and within urban areas,” the memo said. More

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      Poll Update: Republicans Gain in the Senate

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      A closer look at Pennsylvania and Nevada, and some Democratic leads that seem vulnerable.John Fetterman, the Democratic Senate candidate in Pennsylvania, has seen his lead in the polls dwindle, perhaps because Republican voters are coming home to their party. Hannah Beier/ReutersTwo weeks ago, we noted early signs that Republicans were making gains in the race for the Senate.Now it’s clear the race has shifted toward Republicans in important ways. Democrats might still lead enough races to hold the chamber, but their position is starting to look quite vulnerable.On average, Republicans have gained three points across 19 post-Labor Day polls of the key Senate battleground states, compared with pre-Labor Day polls of the same states by the same pollsters.The shift is similar to what we observed a few weeks ago. What’s changed with more data: We can be sure that the polling shift is real, and we have more clarity about where Republicans are making their biggest gains — Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.We focused on Wisconsin last time we talked about Republican gains, so today we’ll focus on Pennsylvania.PennsylvaniaIf you’re a Democrat, there’s still one very important thing you can cling to in Pennsylvania: the lead.John Fetterman still leads Dr. Mehmet Oz in the polls taken since Labor Day. In fact, he basically leads in every one of them, by an average of around four percentage points.But Dr. Oz has nonetheless made significant gains. On average, he has closed by a net of six percentage points in post-Labor Day polling, compared with surveys by the same pollsters taken before Labor Day.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.Trouble for Nevada Democrats: The state has long been vital to the party’s hold on the West. Now, Democrats are facing potential losses up and down the ballot.Democrats’ House Chances: Democrats are not favored to win the House, but the notion of retaining the chamber is not as far-fetched as it once was, ​​writes Nate Cohn, The Times’s chief political analyst.Latino Voters: A recent Times/Siena poll found Democrats faring far worse than they have in the past with Hispanic voters. “The Daily” looks at what the poll reveals about this key voting bloc.Michigan Governor’s Race: Tudor Dixon, the G.O.P. nominee who has ground to make up in her contest against Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, is pursuing a hazardous strategy in the narrowly divided swing state: embracing former President Donald J. Trump.Why has Dr. Oz surged back into the race? There are two ways to tell the story — one might leave Democrats feeling OK; the other might leave Republicans giddy. This is one of those cases where the best interpretation draws on both cases.If you’re a Democrat, the optimistic interpretation is that Dr. Oz is merely and belatedly consolidating Republican support after a damaging primary. In this view, Dr. Oz’s gains were inevitable and there’s not much for Democrats to worry about. With Mr. Fetterman still enjoying a lead, Democrats can tell themselves that Dr. Oz has mainly won over folks who were going to come around to him eventually.There’s truth to this interpretation: Dr. Oz came out of the primary with terrible favorability ratings. Many would-be Republican voters were not prepared to say they would support him. Back in a July poll from Fox News, Dr. Oz had just 73 percent support among Republicans. Now, it’s 83 percent. Realistically, many of those Republicans were going to rally behind Dr. Oz once the general election campaign got underway and once Republicans started judging him compared with a Democrat, rather than against Republicans.But there’s another interpretation that might be more encouraging for Republicans: Mr. Fetterman has endured forceful attacks related to his health — he had a stroke in May — as well as his views about crime and the economy. There’s reason to think those attacks are taking a toll.A Franklin and Marshall poll last week found Mr. Fetterman’s favorability ratings under water, with 46 percent saying they have an unfavorable view of him compared with 40 percent with a favorable view. Back in August, the numbers were nearly reversed: Just 36 percent had an unfavorable view of him, compared with 43 percent with a favorable view.Dr. Oz’s favorability ratings are still worse than Mr. Fetterman’s. And so far, most voters say they’re not concerned about Mr. Fetterman’s health. But there’s no doubt that Mr. Fetterman, rather than Dr. Oz, has become the focal point of the race over the last month. With Mr. Fetterman still struggling — by his own admission — to recover fully from the stroke, there’s no reason to assume that the spotlight will relent. As long as that’s true, Republicans can hope that Dr. Oz might continue to gain.Nevada?Wisconsin and Pennsylvania aren’t necessarily the only places where the G.O.P. is gaining in the polls.Republicans have picked up about 1.4 points in post-Labor Day Senate surveys in states other than Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. The story isn’t always so clear in these other states — there are either fewer polls than in Pennsylvania or Wisconsin, or the polls are a little less consistent about the size of Republican gains.Of the other states, it’s Nevada where the Republicans seem closest to assembling convincing evidence of a breakthrough. The recent polling there is fragmentary, but all of the recent polls show the Republican Adam Laxalt leading the Democratic Senate incumbent Catherine Cortez Masto. In the (only two) post-Labor Day surveys with a pre-Labor Day counterpart, Mr. Laxalt has gained nearly three points.Although it’s still too soon to say whether Mr. Laxalt has inched into a lead, Nevada has loomed as an obvious weak point for the Democrats this cycle.President Biden won the state by only two percentage points in 2020, and it’s not a state where Democrats can draw on their demographic strengths. College-educated voters represent a smaller share of the electorate here than in any other battleground state.Instead, Democrats depend on the state’s large and heavily Democratic Hispanic population. But Hispanics may be trending toward Republicans, and they would also probably be expected to turn out at relatively low numbers in a midterm, even if Democrats retained their margin of victory with the group.The big picture is … murkyThe scope of Republican gains isn’t just murky in the Senate races outside Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. It’s murkier beyond the Senate as well.Over the last few weeks, there haven’t been a lot of generic ballot polls, which ask voters whether they prefer Democrats or Republicans for Congress. But there are mounting signs of a rightward shift on this measure.On Monday, a new Monmouth poll added to the pile. Republicans led by two points among registered voters, a pretty sizable shift from its last poll, when Democrats led by three points. Looking back over the last two weeks, there are a lot more Republican leads on the generic ballot than there used to be.There are still a few dissenting data points, so it’s still too soon to be too confident about whether or to what extent Republicans have picked up ground nationwide, but it would be no surprise if Republicans were pulling back into the lead. With economic concerns on the rise and the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade moving farther into the rearview mirror, the opportunity for Republicans to reclaim lost ground might be at hand. More

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      Ahead of Midterms, Democrats Bet on Abortion Rights

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      EAGAN, Minn. — Before dozens of volunteers fanned out through the Twin Cities suburbs to knock on voters’ doors on a recent sunny Saturday afternoon, Representative Angie Craig, Democrat of Minnesota, gathered them in a campaign office in a strip mall here to make sure they remembered a specific message.“As you go to each door, what I want you to have in your mind is that if Tyler Kistner is your member of Congress, he is someone who has said he is 100 percent pro-life,” Ms. Craig said, referring to her Republican opponent. “Today, the people of this district have never had a more distinct choice. We are the party — and I am the member of Congress — who will be the wall to protect your reproductive rights, to protect your privacy, to protect your freedoms.”In competitive districts across the country like Ms. Craig’s, Democrats in difficult re-election races are leaning heavily into preserving abortion rights as a closing argument for their uphill bids to hang onto their seats in a year when their party’s majority is at risk.Armed with polling data that shows that the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the constitutional right to an abortion has moved independent voters in their direction, they have reoriented their campaigns around the issue in the crucial final weeks before the election.The strategy is built around the hope that in the handful of close races that will determine control of the House, the demise of federal abortion rights has energized independent voters and conservative-leaning women so intensely that it could allow otherwise vulnerable Democrats to eke out victories that previously seemed out of reach.Supporters of abortion rights protesting in Washington. Polling data shows that the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade has moved independent voters toward Democrats.Anna Rose Layden for The New York TimesNearly every advertisement that House Democrats’ super PAC is funding is about reproductive rights, including one that dramatizes the consequences of a national abortion ban, featuring police officers handcuffing doctors, nurses and patients who sought or performed “health care services that have been legal for nearly 50 years.” Roundtables hosted by vulnerable incumbents flanked by OB/GYNs and elaborate events rolling out Planned Parenthood endorsements abound.It is a rare opportunity for Democrats to go on the offensive during a campaign cycle that was initially expected to deal their party steep losses, and in which their majority is still at risk amid rising inflation, concerns about crime and President Biden’s sagging approval ratings. In recent weeks, however, internal polling has shown that the threat of losing abortion access has energized some abortion rights supporters who might not ordinarily vote in a midterm election and swayed independents toward Democratic candidates, potentially affording the party a chance to stanch its losses. More