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      Pennsylvania school district accused of banning Girls Who Code book series

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      Pennsylvania school district accused of banning Girls Who Code book seriesPen America says Central York school district banned the books but officials strongly deny it in statement A school district in Pennsylvania has banned the Girls Who Code book series for young readers, according to an index of banned books compiled by the free expression non-profit Pen America.The books are four of more than 1,500 unique book titles that have been banned by schools across the country after conservative pushes to censor books. According to a report released by Pen America in April, 138 school districts across 32 states have banned books from their classrooms and school libraries.A recent update to Pen America’s banned book index said the Central York school district last year banned the books The Friendship Code, Team BFF: Race to the Finish!, Lights, Music, Code! and Spotlight on Coding Club!. The school district has over 400 banned titles on the index.A statement from officials in that district on Monday strongly denied that they had banned the book series.“The information published in this article is categorically false,” the district’s statement said while linking to a Business Insider interview with the founder of Girls Who Code which reported the ban. “This book series not been banned, and they remain available in our libraries.”The Central York district last year received national attention after it banned resource materials listed in 2020 by its diversity committee, including children’s books and documentaries. A coalition of students and parents successfully pushed the district to rescind its ban after public pressure.In a statement explaining the ban of the diverse resources, the school district’s board president at the time, Jane Johnson, said: “What we are attempting to do is balance legitimate academic freedom with what could be literature/materials that are too activist in nature, and may lean more toward indoctrination rather than age-appropriate academic content.”The Girls Who Code series features a group of girls who become friends in their school’s coding club. The series is in partnership with Girls Who Code, a non-profit that runs computer coding clubs and programming in schools for girls.How to beat a book ban: students, parents and librarians fight backRead moreThe CEO and founder of Girls Who Code, Reshma Saujani, expressed her anger over the series being banned.“We use these stories to teach kids to code,” Saujani told Business Insider. “It felt very much like a direct attack on the movement we’ve been building to get girls coding.“This is an opportunity to realize how big this movement is against our kids and how much we need to fight.”Saujani said that the group Moms for Liberty, a conservative non-profit formed in 2021 that has been pushing book bans through local chapters across the country, was responsible for the Central York district’s ban on the series. The organization has advocated for banning books on race – including ones on the civil rights movement – and on LGBTQ+ themes, saying the volumes are “sexually explicit”, according to media watchdog Media Matters.Aggressive campaigns to ban books in schools and libraries across the country have flared up over the culture wars of the last two years. While campaigns to ban books have always existed in the US, the movement gained momentum in 2021 when conservatives took aim at the academic “critical race” theory and turned it into a buzzword to stoke fears of liberal ideals being taught in classrooms.According to Pen America’s banned books report, many of the titles being banned deal with LGBTQ+ themes or have non-white characters. The organization estimates that more than 300 groups, including local chapters of national organizations like Moms for Liberty, have been pushing for book bans. The groups have gained large traction through social media, where lists of titles have circulated.The campaigns try to deflect accusations of racism and bigotry by claiming they are targeting material that is offensive or inappropriate for children.Pen America estimates that 41% of banned books deal with LGBTQ+ themes while 40% have protagonists or secondary characters who are people of color.An author of one of the Girls Who Code books, Jo Whittemore, said on Twitter: “Some people choose not to focus on how awesome and empowering and inspiring these books are but instead choose fear.”TopicsPennsylvaniaUS politicsLibrariesnewsReuse this content More

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      Doug Mastriano’s Adrift Campaign: No TV Ads, Tiny Crowds, Little Money

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      HARRISBURG, Pa. — In the same spot where he spoke to thousands of people at a raucous State Capitol rally demanding an end to pandemic restrictions in April 2020, Doug Mastriano appeared on Saturday before a crowd of just a few dozen — about half of whom were volunteers for his ragtag campaign for governor of Pennsylvania.Mr. Mastriano, an insurgent state senator who in the spring cruised to the Republican nomination, is learning this fall that while it is one thing to win a crowded G.O.P. primary on the back of online fame and Donald J. Trump’s endorsement, it is quite another to prevail in a general election in a battleground state of nearly 13 million people.He is being heavily outspent by his Democratic rival, has had no television ads on the air since May, has chosen not to interact with the state’s news media in ways that would push his agenda, and trails by double digits in reputable public polling and most private surveys.There’s no sign of cavalry coming to his aid, either: The Republican Governors Association, which is helping the party’s nominees in Arizona, Michigan and six other states, has no current plans to assist Mr. Mastriano, according to people with knowledge of its deliberations.The Pennsylvania governor’s race is perhaps the most consequential in the country. Mr. Mastriano, a retired Army colonel who chartered buses to the Jan. 6, 2021, rally that led to the attack on the Capitol, has vowed to ban abortion without exceptions and pledged to enact sweeping new voting restrictions. He would be likely to accomplish those measures given the Republican advantage in the state legislature.But the stakes aren’t apparent based on Mr. Mastriano’s limited resources. There is little indication that he has built a campaign infrastructure beyond the Facebook videos that propelled him to stardom in right-wing circles and to the vanguard of Christian nationalist politics.“I can’t even assess things because I don’t see a campaign,” said Matt Brouillette, the president of Commonwealth Partners Chamber of Entrepreneurs, an advocacy group that is a major player in Pennsylvania Republican politics. “I’ve not seen anything that is even a semblance of a campaign.”Mr. Brouillette, who backed one of Mr. Mastriano’s rivals in the G.O.P. primary, added: “Now, maybe he knows something we don’t on how you can win in the fifth-largest state without doing TV or mail. But I guess we’re going to have to wait until Nov. 8 to see whether you can pull something like that off.”Mr. Mastriano’s supporters are counting on a surge of under-the-radar grass-roots enthusiasm on Election Day and a political environment favorable to Republicans. Mark Makela for The New York TimesMr. Brouillette’s organization is the only one to air any television ads attacking Josh Shapiro, the state attorney general who won the Democratic primary for governor uncontested even as he spent $400,000 to help lift Mr. Mastriano to victory in the Republican primary.But while Commonwealth Partners has paid for 811 television ads urging Pennsylvanians to “vote Republican” against Mr. Shapiro, the Democratic nominee’s campaign has broadcast more than 23,000 ads promoting himself and attacking Mr. Mastriano since the May primary, according to AdImpact, a media-tracking firm.Republicans elsewhere who, with Mr. Trump’s endorsement, won primaries against the wishes of their local political establishments are facing similar disparities in TV advertising in the final weeks of the midterm campaigns. Along with Mr. Mastriano in Pennsylvania, Trump-backed candidates for governor in five other states — Arizona, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts and Michigan — have combined to air zero television advertisements since winning their primaries.Gov. Doug Ducey of Arizona, the R.G.A.’s co-chairman, was asked about whether he views Mr. Mastriano as a viable candidate during a question-and-answer session this month at Georgetown University.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.Rushing to Raise Money: Their fund-raising dwarfed by their Democratic rivals, Senate Republican nominees are taking precious time from the campaign trail to gather cash from lobbyists in Washington.Inflation Concerns Persist: Several issues have come to the forefront during the six-month primary season that has just ended. But nothing has dislodged inflation and the economy from the top of voters’ minds.Election Deniers Pivot: “Stop the Steal” G.O.P. candidates are shifting to appeal to the swing voters they need to win in November. The question now: Can they get away with it?Toxic Narratives: Misleading and divisive posts about the midterm elections have flooded social media. Here are some prevalent themes.“We don’t fund lost causes and we don’t fund landslides,” Mr. Ducey said. “You have to show us something, you have to demonstrate that you can move numbers and you can raise resources.”In polls of Pennsylvania this month, both The Morning Call of Allentown and CBS News showed Mr. Shapiro with a lead of 11 percentage points over Mr. Mastriano, an advantage that has more than doubled since the primary. The most recent campaign finance reports show that Mr. Mastriano’s campaign account had just $397,319, compared with $13.5 million for Mr. Shapiro.Mr. Mastriano’s supporters say he’s following a Pennsylvania playbook written by Mr. Trump. They are counting on a surge of under-the-radar grass-roots enthusiasm on Election Day and a political environment in which Republicans are motivated by anger with President Biden.“I wish that Senator Mastriano had the money to be on the air,” said Charlie Gerow, a longtime Pennsylvania Republican operative who finished well behind Mr. Mastriano in the primary. He added, “But his nontraditional campaign seems to be working.”.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.There isn’t a lot of evidence that’s true.Mr. Mastriano, who this year spent $5,000 trying to recruit supporters on the far-right social media platform Gab, never built an army of small donors of the sort that have powered anti-establishment candidates elsewhere — including Mr. Trump.“Really not finding a lot of support from national-level Republican organizations, so we’re calling on people across Pennsylvania and across the United States of America to give directly to our campaign,” a glum-looking Mr. Mastriano said in a video on Facebook last week. “These large groups, we have not seen much assistance coming from them.”Mr. Mastriano in a campaign video posted on Wednesday on Facebook. He has not built an army of small donors like those that have fueled other anti-establishment candidates, including Donald J. Trump.Doug4gov.comThe video solicitation demonstrates the limits of Mr. Mastriano’s unorthodox campaign. Since he posted it on Wednesday, about 4,700 people have viewed the request — a small fraction of the weekly audience of millions for Mr. Shapiro’s deluge of television advertising, not to mention his ubiquity in the Pennsylvania news media.According to Mr. Shapiro’s campaign, he answered questions or conducted interviews with 41 Pennsylvania newspapers, television and radio stations during the first three weeks of September. During the same time period, Mr. Mastriano — who speaks only to conservative news organizations and podcasts — spoke with just three Pennsylvania outlets, according to media trackers.Those in the crowd on Saturday applauded Mr. Mastriano for what they viewed as his taking the fight to the news media. Supporters said his social media presence would be more than enough to counter Mr. Shapiro’s enormous financial advantage.“He has no need to spend money,” said Theresa Wickert, a retiree from Lebanon County, Pa. “It’s grass-roots. He has never put out a commercial against anyone the way that Shapiro and the others are putting them out. Never. He will never do that. That is not who he is.”Mr. Mastriano declined an invitation to an Oct. 3 debate at a dinner hosted by the Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry, the first time in decades the organization has not held a debate between the state’s major-party candidates for governor. Mr. Shapiro will instead answer questions before business leaders at a “fireside chat,” an opportunity Mr. Mastriano also rejected.The campaign of Josh Shapiro, the Democratic nominee for governor, has aired more than 23,000 ads promoting himself and attacking Mr. Mastriano since the May primary, according to AdImpact.Marc Levy/Associated PressAfter speaking to about 60 people on Saturday — days before, his running mate, Carrie Lewis DelRosso, had urged supporters to attend “the big rally” — Mr. Mastriano hustled to a waiting S.U.V. while avoiding questions from reporters. A Pennsylvania state trooper shoved a local newspaper reporter out of the way as he tried asking Mr. Mastriano if he would accept the result of the November election.Aides to Mr. Mastriano did not respond to messages and declined to answer questions at the rally.Mr. Mastriano has resisted private entreaties from supporters to engage more with the news media — if only to spread his message to potential small-dollar donors.“We have sort of a fundamental distrust as conservatives that we don’t get a fair shake,” State Representative Mike Jones, one of the warm-up speakers for Mr. Mastriano on Saturday, said in an interview beforehand. “But when you’re at a financial disadvantage, you’ve got to get out there and take advantage of free media whenever you can.”There’s not much help coming for Mr. Mastriano from the Republican Party of Pennsylvania, which was sufficiently in need of cash that, in a real-life Hail Mary, it sold its Harrisburg state headquarters in June to the Catholic church next door for $750,000.Mr. Shapiro has sought to fill the void left by Mr. Mastriano’s aversion to the news media and his inability to afford advertising, trying to win over moderate Republicans who might be put off by Mr. Mastriano’s far-right proposals.Mr. Shapiro has said he would appoint two parents to the state’s Board of Education and has endorsed Republican legislation to allow parents in some of the state’s public schools to use state aid for private school tuition — a move that drew praise on The Wall Street Journal’s conservative editorial page.Mr. Shapiro said he had little sympathy for Mr. Mastriano’s aversion to the press corps.“The question I have when I look at his tactics regarding the media is, you know, what’s he hiding?” Mr. Shapiro said in an interview. “If he can’t answer questions from the Pennsylvania local media, how can you possibly be governor?”Mr. Mastriano speaking to supporters on Saturday in Harrisburg. A half-dozen men wearing uniforms of a local militia group, the South Central Pennsylvania Patriots, patrolled the area. Mark Makela for The New York TimesMr. Mastriano’s rally on Saturday was a hodgepodge of the state’s minor right-wing figures, many who came to prominence fighting public health restrictions early in the pandemic. A half-dozen men wearing uniforms of a local militia group, the South Central Pennsylvania Patriots, patrolled the grounds while a vendor stood behind a merchandise table without moving much product.During one speech, a state representative, David Zimmerman, revealed for the first time that he had received a subpoena from the F.B.I. in its investigation of efforts to overturn the 2020 election. “The F.B.I. looked for me all day long,” he said. “But what I did that they didn’t know is, I turned my phone tracker off.”Mr. Mastriano’s supporters said there was little reason to believe the crowd was indicative of his support.They cited an array of explanations for the double-digit crowd — a Penn State college football game up the road in State College, the annual Irish Fall Festival on the Jersey Shore and Facebook, the original source of much of Mr. Mastriano’s popularity.“This is good evidence of being shadow-banned on Facebook,” said the event’s organizer, a Philadelphia-area Uber and Lyft driver named Mike Daino who said he’d been kicked off the platform nine times for spreading misinformation. “They are banning conservative talk. But let’s continue on with the program.” More

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      Fetterman’s health at center of US Senate race in Pennsylvania as Oz fights to close gap

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      Fetterman’s health at center of US Senate race in Pennsylvania as Oz fights to close gapDemocratic nominee says he hopes supporters don’t ‘have a doctor in your life making fun of it’ amid questions over stroke Amid questions over his recovery from a stroke and demands he release his medical records, John Fetterman, the Democratic nominee for US Senate in Pennsylvania, asked supporters if they had faced health challenges themselves.‘Women are the reason we can win,’ John Fetterman says at Pennsylvania rallyRead moreHe added: “I truly hope for each and every one of you you didn’t have a doctor in your life making fun of it.”The former mayor of Braddock, now lieutenant governor, was speaking at a campaign rally in Blue Bell. He suffered a stroke in May.His Republican opponent is Mehmet Oz, a heart surgeon who became famous on morning TV, admitted in Senate testimony to promoting diet pills that do not work, insists he does not actually live in New Jersey and is endorsed by Donald Trump.The Oz campaign has repeatedly mocked Fetterman’s health problems. Doctored videos which seem to show Fetterman struggling to speak have spread on social media.Fetterman still leads in polling but the gap has closed as Fetterman’s health has become a campaign issue.Democrats insist their candidate is fine.“I was with him Saturday in Scranton,” Bob Casey, the serving Democratic US senator in Pennsylvania, told NBC News. “He had 1,000 people! … that connection is very strong. The other side is trying to break that and they’re having real trouble because they don’t have that same connection. That’s what the race is about.”Pat Toomey, the retiring Republican whose seat is up for grabs, told the same outlet: “If John Fetterman were elected to the Senate, and he’s not able to communicate effectively, if he’s not able to engage with the press, if he’s not able to engage with colleagues, he will not be able to do the job.”Oz has pressured Fetterman to commit to campaign debates. Earlier this month, the Republican told reporters: “John Fetterman is either healthy and he’s dodging the debate because he does not want to answer for his radical left positions, or he’s too sick to participate in the debate.”Fetterman then said he would debate Oz once. The event is set for 25 October.Oz has now released his medical records. According to the Associated Press, a New York City doctor found the 62-year-old to be in “excellent health” after an annual check-up on Thursday. The AP said the Fetterman campaign did not immediately comment.Pointing out that Pennsylvania could decide control of the Senate, now split 50-50, the Washington Post editorial board called for Fetterman to release his records.The board wrote: “Mr Fetterman is asking voters for a six-year contract without giving them enough information to make sound judgments about whether he’s up for such a demanding job.“We have called for full disclosure of health records from candidates for federal office in both parties, including Donald Trump and Joe Biden, and we believe Mr Fetterman should release his medical records for independent review.”The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has also called for Fetterman to release his records, to “reassure the public”.The Washington Post also said Fetterman should commit to more than one debate.It said: “Since returning to the campaign trail, Mr Fetterman has been halting in his performances. He stammers, appears confused and keeps his remarks short. He has held no news conferences.“Mr Fetterman acknowledges his difficulties with auditory processing, which make it hard for him to respond quickly to what he’s hearing. He receives speech therapy – and we wish him a speedy, full recovery – but the lingering, unanswered questions about his health, underscored by his hesitation to debate, are unsettling.”Speaking to NBC, the Fetterman adviser Rebecca Katz said: “John is communicating effectively with the people of Pennsylvania and running one of the best Senate campaigns in the country.“We don’t need to speculate about whether he can be an effective leader in January, after he’s had four more months to recover. He’s effective right now.”TopicsPennsylvaniaUS midterm elections 2022US politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Rally With Trump? Some G.O.P. Candidates Aren’t Thrilled About It.

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      Whether he is invited or not, the former president keeps holding rallies in battleground states. It reflects an awkward dance as Republican candidates try to win over general-election voters.Former President Donald J. Trump is preparing to swoop into Ohio on Saturday to rally Republicans behind J.D. Vance in a key Senate race. Two weeks earlier, he did the same for Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania.Neither candidate invited him.Instead, aides to the former president simply informed the Senate campaigns that he was coming. Never mind that Mr. Trump, while viewed heroically by many Republicans, remains widely disliked among crucial swing voters.The question of how to handle Mr. Trump has so bedeviled some Republican candidates for Senate that they have held private meetings about the best way to field the inevitable calls from his team, according to strategists familiar with the discussions.This awkward state of affairs reflects the contortions many Republican candidates are going through as they leave primary season behind and pivot to the general election, when Democrats are trying to bind them to the former president.In New Hampshire, Don Bolduc won the Republican Senate nomination on Tuesday after a primary campaign in which he unequivocally repeated Mr. Trump’s false claims of 2020 election fraud. Just two days later, he reversed himself, telling Fox News, “I want to be definitive on this: The election was not stolen.”Two days after Don Bolduc, left, won the Republican primary for Senate in New Hampshire, he reversed his position that the 2020 election was marred by fraud. John Tully for The New York TimesSome of Mr. Trump’s chosen candidates, after pasting his likeness across campaign literature and trumpeting his seal of approval in television ads during the primaries, are now distancing themselves, backtracking from his positions or scrubbing their websites of his name.The moves reflect a complicated political calculus for Republican campaigns, which want to exploit the energy Mr. Trump elicits among his supporters — some of whom rarely show up to the polls unless it is to vote for him — without riling up the independent voters needed to win elections in battleground states.In North Carolina, Bo Hines, a Republican House candidate who won his primary in May after proudly highlighting support from Mr. Trump, has deleted the former president’s name and image from his campaign site. A campaign official described the move as part of an overhaul of the website to prioritize issues that are important to general-election voters.But Mr. Trump’s endorsement remains prominent on Mr. Hines’s social media accounts. Reached by phone, the 27-year-old candidate said he planned to attend a Trump rally in the state next week and then cut short the call.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.Midterm Data: Could the 2020 polling miss repeat itself? Will this election cycle really be different? Nate Cohn, The Times’s chief political analyst, looks at the data in his new newsletter.Republicans’ Abortion Struggles: Senator Lindsey Graham’s proposed nationwide 15-week abortion ban was intended to unite the G.O.P. before the November elections. But it has only exposed the party’s divisions.Democrats’ Dilemma: The party’s candidates have been trying to signal their independence from the White House, while not distancing themselves from President Biden’s base or agenda.In Wisconsin, Tim Michels, the Republican nominee for governor, erased from his campaign home page the fact that Mr. Trump had endorsed him — but then restored it after the change was reported, saying it had been a mistake.“The optimal scenario for Republicans is for Trump to remain at arm’s length — supportive, but not in ways that overshadow the candidate or the contrast,” said Liam Donovan, a Republican strategist and a former top aide at the National Republican Senatorial Committee.Mr. Donovan, as well as consultants and staff members working for Trump-backed Senate candidates, said the former president could be most helpful, if he chose, by providing support from his powerful fund-raising machine.“A big part of the problem is that these nominees emerged from messy fields where the party has been slow to unify,” Mr. Donovan said. “But to fix what ails, what these G.O.P. candidates need isn’t a Trump rally, it’s a MAGA money bomb.”Taylor Budowich, a spokesman for Mr. Trump, said in a statement that the former president’s “name and likeness was responsible for the unprecedented success of the G.O.P.’s small-dollar fund-raising programs,” and that he continued to “fuel and define the success of the Republican Party.”Mr. Budowich added, “His rallies, which serve as the most powerful political weapon in American politics, bring out new voters and invaluable media attention.”But linking arms with the former president could create problems for candidates in close races.Even though he has been out of office for nearly 20 months, Mr. Trump has remained a constant presence in news headlines because of mounting criminal and congressional investigations into his role in the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, his refusal to hand over sensitive government documents that he took to his Florida home, and whether he and his family fraudulently inflated the value of their business assets..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;}What we consider before using anonymous sources. Do the sources know the information? What’s their motivation for telling us? Have they proved reliable in the past? Can we corroborate the information? Even with these questions satisfied, The Times uses anonymous sources as a last resort. The reporter and at least one editor know the identity of the source.Learn more about our process.On Thursday, when asked about the possibility of his being indicted in the document inquiry, Mr. Trump told a conservative radio host that there would be “problems in this country the likes of which perhaps we’ve never seen before.”Polls suggest these controversies could be taking a toll. Among independent voters, 60 percent said they had an unfavorable view of Mr. Trump, compared with 37 percent who had a favorable view, according to a New York Times/Siena College poll released this week. President Biden was also underwater among these key voters, but by a far smaller margin of eight percentage points.Asked whether Mr. Trump had “committed any serious federal crimes,” 62 percent of independent voters said they believed he had, and 53 percent said he had threatened American democracy with his actions after the 2020 election.Republican candidates appear to be aware of such sentiments, backing away from Mr. Trump’s fixation on the 2020 election. While he has said that election fraud is the most important issue in the midterms, polls show that voters are far more worried about economic issues and abortion rights.Three days after Mr. Trump’s rally in Pennsylvania, Dr. Oz, the Republican Senate nominee, told reporters that he would have defied the former president and voted to certify the 2020 presidential election.Dr. Oz, a former TV personality, leaned on Mr. Trump’s endorsement to win a bitter primary. Since then, he has removed prominent mentions of the endorsement from his campaign website and has swapped out Trump-themed branding from his social media.Republican campaigns said that they would not reject Mr. Trump’s help out of hand, but that accepting it created a whole set of other problems: Where, for instance, could a rally be held to energize the conservative base, while minimizing the damage among independents?When Mr. Trump’s team called to say that the former president wanted to come back to Pennsylvania for a rally this month, Mr. Oz’s campaign guided him to Wilkes-Barre in Luzerne County. The county was one of three that voted twice for Barack Obama and flipped to Mr. Trump in 2016. It was also the only one of those three counties that backed Mr. Trump again in 2020. The other two — Erie and Northampton — supported Mr. Biden.Mr. Trump’s rally in Ohio on Saturday will be his third visit to the state since leaving office — more than any other state so far. He twice won Ohio, a longtime presidential battleground, by eight percentage points.This year, his endorsement of Mr. Vance’s Senate bid has been widely viewed as the clearest example of his enduring political influence. Mr. Vance, an author and venture capitalist, was trailing in the polls before Mr. Trump backed him with just over two weeks left in the race. Mr. Vance won the crowded primary by nearly 10 points.For the rally on Saturday, Mr. Vance’s team directed the former president to Youngstown, a blue-collar area that had been a Democratic stronghold until Mr. Trump ran for president. The rally, at the 6,000-seat Covelli Centre, is also squarely in the congressional district represented by Tim Ryan, the Democrat running against Mr. Vance.The event is scheduled to start at the same time as kickoff for an Ohio State University football game. Buckeyes games regularly draw huge statewide audiences, and the matchup on Saturday is against the University of Toledo, an in-state team.The timing was not viewed as ideal by either Mr. Vance’s campaign or Mr. Trump’s team, and Mr. Trump was ultimately consulted on the decision, according to people familiar with the discussions. In the end, the two sides determined that it was more important to hold the rally on a Saturday night, when Mr. Trump has the easiest chance of drawing a strong crowd.Representative Tim Ryan at a tailgate party before Ohio State’s first game of the season this month.Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesOhio politicians have long tried to avoid competing for attention with Ohio State football games. In an interview, Mr. Ryan said holding a rally at the same time suggested that Mr. Vance — an Ohio State graduate — was out of touch with the “cultural things” important to Ohioans.“It just says a lot,” Mr. Ryan said. “These little things just sometimes reveal a lot more about a candidate than it appears.”In a statement, Mr. Vance called his rival “a radical liberal” and said, “The only person out of touch with Ohio is Tim Ryan.”Mr. Ryan is also involved in a similar dance around the leadership of his party, given that Mr. Biden is himself struggling with low approval ratings.Asked if he would campaign with the president this fall — even if it were not during a Buckeyes game — Mr. Ryan said: “No. Uh-uh.” More

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      Progressive Network Will Spend $10 Million on Asian American Turnout

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      Two years after Asian American voters played a pivotal role in the presidential election, a coalition focused on building Asian American political power and engagement is launching a new $10 million midterm mobilization effort in critical battleground states. The Asian American Power Network, a coalition of organizations seeking to activate Asian American voters around progressive issues and candidates, is kicking off the initiative across six swing states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Nevada and Pennsylvania. The network is also training its eyes on three competitive House districts in California — two in Southern California and one in the Central Valley.“Asian American voters have been progressive” in some recent presidential elections, Nadia Belkin, the executive director of the network, said. “It’s no secret, though, that some of the Asian American voters do tend to be more swingy in the midterms. That’s why our group is spending a lot of time on the ground.”“Organizing our community,” she added, “requires a cultural understanding and nuance.”The network is an effort to support state organizations that are working on year-round engagement of Asian Americans.The midterms-focused initiative includes door-to-door canvassing and outreach by phone, text, mail and digital engagement in an array of languages. Aspects of the programming got underway earlier this month.In Pennsylvania the goal is to conduct voter outreach in 15 languages total, in support of Democratic candidates like Josh Shapiro, the Democratic nominee for governor, and John Fetterman, who is running for Senate. In North Carolina, efforts to engage Asian American voters will be conducted in 18 different languages across different media, including educational videos about voting.And the political arm of the Georgia affiliate is mobilizing for Stacey Abrams, who is running for governor, and Senator Raphael Warnock, both Democrats.In 2020, Asian American voters turned out in significant numbers in Georgia, as Democrats flipped the state first in the presidential election and then, in 2021, in a pair of runoff elections that cemented Democratic control of the Senate.But that result does not mean that the party has a lock on Asian American voters — a diverse and complex constituency — this year. A survey conducted this summer for the AARP by a bipartisan polling team of Fabrizio Ward and Impact Research found that in congressional battleground districts, Democrats were underperforming among Asian American voters over age 50 compared with past elections. However, the Asian American Voter Survey, a large-scale poll, found earlier this year that Asian Americans leaned toward supporting Democratic House candidates by a margin of 54 percent to 27 percent overall, numbers that varied notably by individual constituencies. Ms. Belkin emphasized the importance of engaging the Asian American voters who turned out for the first time in 2020. “We do have a responsibility around talking to those voters about what’s at stake,” she said. “We have good rapport with many portions of the community, but I would say, you know, just like any other demographic bloc, we are working to do more and make sure that it’s sustained.” More

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      Fetterman Says Stroke Problems Have Not Slowed Down a ‘Normal’ Campaign

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      Four months after suffering a stroke he described as a “near-death experience,” Lt. Gov. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania acknowledges lingering problems with his speech and hearing that sometimes cause verbal miscues. He has relied on closed captions or the help of staff members to smooth his interactions with voters and reporters as he runs for Senate.But in one of his most extensive interviews since the stroke in May, Mr. Fetterman said he was fully capable of handling the rigors of a campaign that may decide the balance of power in the U.S. Senate. He described driving his children to school, walking several miles a day and rapidly improving his auditory processing — while also lacing into his opponent, the celebrity television physician Mehmet Oz, who trails in the polls and whose campaign has mocked Mr. Fetterman’s health challenges.“I’m running a perfectly normal campaign,” Mr. Fetterman said in a 40-minute interview with The New York Times, conducted by video on Tuesday. He added at another point, “I keep getting better and better, and I’m living a perfectly normal life.”Indeed, Mr. Fetterman’s campaign has seemed increasingly normal in many ways.Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, a Democrat running for Senate in Pennsylvania, at a rally in Blue Bell on Sunday. He acknowledges lingering problems with his speech since a stroke in May.Hannah Beier for The New York TimesThe candidate, whose personality-driven political style has inspired an unusual degree of fandom for a Senate hopeful, speaks at raucous rallies, jokes about his opponent at private fund-raisers and makes occasional news media appearances. His onetime Democratic rivals have moved to show a united front with their party’s nominee. Several Democratic officials who have interacted with Mr. Fetterman closely also said recently that they were encouraged by his progress. On Wednesday, he committed to debating Dr. Oz late next month.Yet in other respects, clashes over health and transparency have shaped the contest to a remarkable degree, fueled by attacks from the Trump-backed Dr. Oz and Republicans promoting out-of-context clips of Mr. Fetterman — and by the realities of Mr. Fetterman’s personal situation.He suffered a stroke on the Friday before the May primary election, though he waited until Sunday to disclose it. On Primary Day, he had a pacemaker and defibrillator implanted, which his campaign described at the time as a standard procedure that would help address “the underlying cause of his stroke, atrial fibrillation.” In a statement in June, his doctor said he also had a serious heart condition called cardiomyopathy.Mr. Fetterman thanked his supporters in a video at his election-night party in May. He has not tended to take questions from the news media at events since the stroke.Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesIn Tuesday’s interview, Mr. Fetterman said, “We have never been hiding any of the health issues.”Those issues have plainly shaped how Mr. Fetterman campaigns now. He has not tended to take questions from the news media at his events, in contrast to his approach right before his stroke. He is still using closed captioning to conduct video conversations, as he did in the interview on Tuesday. And in some appearances over the last month, he jumbled a few words, a problem he has acknowledged.At a Labor Day event last week, he had to restart an occasional sentence, and he promised to “champion the union way of life in Jersey — excuse me, in D.C.,” after he sought to cast Dr. Oz as more comfortable in New Jersey, his longtime principal residence, than in Pennsylvania.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.Midterm Data: Could the 2020 polling miss repeat itself? Will this election cycle really be different? Nate Cohn, The Times’s chief political analyst, looks at the data in his new newsletter.Republicans’ Abortion Struggles: Senator Lindsey Graham’s proposed nationwide 15-week abortion ban was intended to unite the G.O.P. before the November elections. But it has only exposed the party’s divisions.Democrats’ Dilemma: The party’s candidates have been trying to signal their independence from the White House, while not distancing themselves from President Biden’s base or agenda.For in-person appearances, Mr. Fetterman has sometimes relied on staff members to repeat questions he has trouble hearing over background noise.Many voters appear untroubled: A CBS News/YouGov poll released this week found that 59 percent of registered Pennsylvania voters surveyed believed Mr. Fetterman was healthy enough to serve.A cutout of Mr. Fetterman at his campaign rally in Erie, Pa., in August. A doctor found the candidate’s results on neurocognitive tests reassuring.Jeff Swensen for The New York TimesOn Wednesday, his campaign said he had taken neurocognitive tests, mentioning two: the Saint Louis University Mental Status Examination, administered on July 14, and the Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status, or RBANS, taken on Wednesday morning. The campaign said his score on the St. Louis test was 28 out of 30. That score is typical for people with at least a high school education.His score on the RBANS was within the normal range for his age, according to his campaign.Stroke patients often undergo many neurocognitive tests, including brief ones administered by speech therapists and hourslong cognitive evaluations, said Dr. Lee Schwamm, a stroke expert at Massachusetts General Hospital.Dr. Schwamm found Mr. Fetterman’s scores reassuring but added that they “don’t preclude the possibility that his performance is lower than it might have been before his stroke.”But, Dr. Schwamm said, the emphasis on Mr. Fetterman’s cognitive tests plays into what he sees as a bias against people who have had strokes. “It is playing on the fear that a stroke made him vulnerable, weak, incapable of leadership,” he said. “Judge the guy on his merits.”Mr. Fetterman’s campaign said he continued to take all the medications he was prescribed, including the blood thinner rivaroxaban. The campaign also said he had exhibited no stroke symptoms or bleeding since the stroke.Mr. Fetterman’s campaign did not make his doctors available for interviews, and efforts to reach them independently were unsuccessful. Dr. Ramesh Chandra of Alliance Cardiology signed the June letter about Mr. Fetterman’s heart condition. Dr. Chandra’s office said health privacy laws prohibited him from discussing patients without their permission.Mr. Fetterman returned to the campaign trail last month with a splashy rally in Erie, Pa. He has held a number of big campaign events since, including a large one on Sunday, when, The Philadelphia Inquirer noted, “he stumbled over very few words compared with previous speeches.”Mr. Fetterman greeted a large crowd in Blue Bell. Even in appearances when he has halting moments, he can come across as high-energy.Hannah Beier for The New York TimesBy his campaign’s count, he has held more than two dozen fund-raisers since his stroke, conducted dozens of political meetings both in person and over video, and held or attended a number of public events. Even in appearances when he has halting moments, he can come across as high-energy, sometimes adopting the cadence of a stand-up comic to rip into Dr. Oz. He has also used his personal health challenges to bond with voters, asking at events for a show of hands from those who have experienced health problems in their families.“Who has someone, maybe personally, yourself, has ever had a big, major health challenge? OK, all right, how about any of your parents?” Mr. Fetterman said on Sunday. “I’m so sorry. I mean, I certainly have. And I hope, I truly hope for each and every one of you, you didn’t have a doctor in your life making fun of it.”Asked for comment, Barney Keller, an Oz campaign consultant, said that the Fetterman campaign “hasn’t been transparent at all about his health challenges.”Representative Mary Gay Scanlon, a Pennsylvania Democrat who attended the rally and a fund-raiser with Mr. Fetterman on Sunday, said he had strong exchanges at the private event.“There were no closed captions,” Ms. Scanlon said. “He fielded questions and had a sense of humor and was entirely what one would hope for for the next senator from Pennsylvania.”The issue of Mr. Fetterman’s health intensified in recent weeks as Dr. Oz used the matter of debate participation to question Mr. Fetterman’s fitness to serve. Mr. Fetterman’s campaign said Wednesday that he would debate on Oct. 25, two weeks before Election Day, noting that it had held conversations with several TV stations to determine how to accommodate his lingering auditory challenges.Shanin Specter, a Philadelphia lawyer and son of the late Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, said in an interview some voters might regard one debate as insufficient.“The recent indication of agreement to one debate in late October may be seen by voters as too little and too late, especially for those who vote by mail,” said Mr. Specter, who donates to candidates in both parties. He said at another point, “He hasn’t done much campaigning. The film of that which he’s done has been unreassuring. The drip, drip lack of forthrightness about his problems has been corrosive.”Mr. Specter said he supported the Democratic nominee for governor, Josh Shapiro, but was not involved in the Senate race.Dr. Mehmet Oz showed a photo of Mr. Fetterman from a Democratic debate before his stroke. Dr. Oz’s campaign has mocked his rival’s health challenges.Kriston Jae Bethel for The New York TimesShould he win, Mr. Fetterman, 53, would be far younger than many leaders in Washington, including President Biden (79), House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (82) and a number of octogenarian U.S. senators, some of whom have faced scrutiny over their mental acuity.“The goal posts for John keep moving. John is already healthier and more articulate than about 80 percent of the Senate, and he’s getting better every day,” said Rebecca Katz, a senior adviser to the Fetterman campaign.Senator Ben Ray Luján, a New Mexico Democrat who suffered a stroke earlier this year, has been in touch with Mr. Fetterman since his illness and said he had no doubt that Mr. Fetterman could handle the demands of the office.“If anyone wants to see what a stroke survivor looks like, they can just take a look at me,” the senator said, noting his participation in an all-night voting session. “He’s strong. He’s working. He’s connecting with constituents. He’s going to keep doing that.”Mr. Fetterman, for his part, suggested the health scare had given him a new perspective.“I had to be faced with the idea that this could have ended my life when I have three young children,” he said. “That’s 10 times harder than anything that I’m having, dealing with, right now.” More

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      Democrats’ Midterm Dilemma: How to Back Biden, Yet Shun Him, Too

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      When President Biden appeared in central Ohio on Friday for the groundbreaking of a semiconductor manufacturing facility, he was joined by Tim Ryan, the Democrat running for Senate. The party’s candidate for governor, however, did not attend, saying from afar that she appreciated Mr. Biden’s visit to her state.Five days earlier, in Wisconsin, another crucial midterm battleground, the situation was reversed: Gov. Tony Evers shared a stage with the president at a Labor Day speech, while the state’s Democratic candidate for the Senate stayed away, marching in a parade beforehand but skipping Mr. Biden’s address.As they move into the final stretch of the midterm campaigns, Democratic candidates find themselves performing a complicated dance with an unpopular president, whose approval rating is rising but still remains stubbornly underwater. In ways big and small, Democrats have been trying to signal their independence from the White House, without alienating their base or distancing themselves from key parts of Mr. Biden’s agenda.It’s a dynamic that presidents often confront in midterm cycles. What has been especially striking this year is the degree to which Democrats have outperformed the president. Even those who say they somewhat disapprove of Mr. Biden were more inclined to vote for Democrats than Republicans in a Pew Research Center survey last month. Private polling conducted for the House Democratic campaign committee found that the net job approval of their most vulnerable incumbents, on average, was more than 20 points ahead of Mr. Biden’s, a dynamic that emerged as early as April and remained consistent at least through late August, according to a committee official.The distance between Mr. Biden and his party has forced Democrats to chart a particularly treacherous course in these midterms, in which success means defying nearly a half century of political history. The last time a party maintained control of Congress with a relatively unpopular president was in 1978. That November, Jimmy Carter’s approval rating hovered around 50 percent and Mr. Biden won re-election to a second Senate term.Those races are ancient history now to most in his party, who must navigate an intricate set of political decisions about how to deploy their leader in the midterms as the president accelerates his fall campaign schedule. The tensions are most acute in Senate races, where Democrats see a stronger opportunity to retain control than in the House. Candidates in both House and Senate contests have said pointedly, when asked about the president, that they are focused on their own races.“We’ve been very clear that I disagree with the president on things,” said Mr. Ryan, the Ohio congressman and Senate candidate whose contest in recent weeks has become more competitive than originally expected in a fairly Republican state. “People recognize that I am going to be for Ohio.”Tim Ryan, holding his son Brady, met voters at an Ohio State football game earlier in September.Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesMr. Biden has joked that he will campaign for or against a candidate, “whichever will help the most” — a lighthearted acknowledgment from a political veteran that each candidate must make their own political calculations about their ties to the White House. Party leaders, candidates and the president have sought to recast the election as a choice between two radically different visions for the country, rather than the traditional midterm referendum on the president and his agenda.But the president’s advisers say they believe that Mr. Biden — who was a highly sought-after surrogate in 2018 — remains one of his party’s strongest messengers.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries winding down, both parties are starting to shift their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.Democrats’ Dilemma: The party’s candidates have been trying to signal their independence from the White House, while not distancing themselves from President Biden’s base or agenda.Intraparty G.O.P. Fight: Ahead of New Hampshire’s primary, mainstream Republicans have been vying to stop a Trump-style 2020 election denier running for Senate.Abortion Ballot Measures: First came Kansas. Now, Michigan voters will decide whether abortion will remain legal in their state. Democrats are hoping referendums like these will drive voter turnout.Oz Sharpens Attacks: As the Pennsylvania Senate race tightens, Dr. Mehmet Oz is trying to reboot his campaign against his Democratic opponent, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, with a pair of pointed attack lines.In recent weeks, he has traveled to Maryland, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin for events, appearing with a number of Democrats in challenging races. This week, he plans to appear with Maura Healey, the Democratic nominee for governor of Massachusetts, and is expected to headline a fund-raiser for Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, a Biden adviser said.At a summer gathering of the Democratic National Committee in Maryland, where Mr. Biden spoke on Thursday, a number of party officials argued that the president should be embraced across the country, emphasizing the burst of legislative achievements enacted under his watch in recent weeks. His allies argue that, unlike in 2010 and 2014, when vulnerable Democrats ran away from signature accomplishments of the Obama administration like the Affordable Care Act, many candidates are running on Mr. Biden’s agenda this year.“He has so many bold and broad accomplishments that he can go a bunch of places and talk to people about what he was able to accomplish,” said Cedric Richmond, a close Biden adviser who was dispatched to the D.N.C. ahead of the midterm campaigns.That balancing act between supporting Mr. Biden’s agenda and keeping the president at arm’s length will only become more difficult this fall, as Republicans plan to unleash tens of millions of dollars of advertising tying Mr. Biden to candidates.Mr. Biden’s recent visits to key swing states have prompted grumbling from strategists who fear the visits distract from their efforts to localize their races and keep the focus on missteps by their Republican opponents.Some candidates, like Mandela Barnes, the Senate nominee in Wisconsin, have skipped stops with the president. Former Representative Joe Cunningham, a South Carolina Democrat now running for governor in that largely conservative state, has gone further than many in his party by openly calling on Mr. Biden to forgo re-election to make way for a younger generation.“I’m not running against him, and I’m not running with him — I’m running against McMaster,” Mr. Cunningham said, referring to his Republican opponent, Gov. Henry McMaster.Another group of candidates has highlighted policy disagreements on issues like Mr. Biden’s student loan proposal and his plans to lift Covid-era border restrictions, in an effort to appeal to the independent voters who helped power Mr. Biden’s victory.Many try to reference the president only in passing, if at all. Just three Democrats have run ads that even mention Mr. Biden in their general election campaigns, all of which stress their independence from the president, according to AdImpact, the media tracking firm.Representative Kim Schrier, Democrat of Washington, has aired an ad highlighting her political independence, featuring both a Republican and a Democratic mayor and emphasizing her work on bills passed under both Mr. Biden and former President Donald J. Trump. Earlier this summer, she aired an ad that highlighted “taking on the Biden administration to suspend the gas tax.”“I will work with anybody for the benefit of the district,” she said in an interview. “I will also hold either president accountable” when it comes to constituent interests, she said.Representative Sean Patrick Maloney, the chairman of the House Democratic campaign arm, said that, overall, candidates in tight races are “making some version of the same argument, which is, ‘I know you have doubts about my party, but I’m getting the job done.’”A number of candidates have appeared with Mr. Biden in their capacities as government officials when he has visited their states to tout legislative achievements. It has been a way to suggest that they are fighting at the highest levels for local priorities, without necessarily rallying with him.When the president appeared in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., in late August to discuss public safety, touting the federal money going to bolster community policing in the area, Josh Shapiro, the Democratic nominee running for governor, was in attendance — in his government role as state attorney general, his office indicated.Mr. Biden in West Mifflin, Pa., at a Labor Day event attended by the Senate candidate John Fetterman, right.Erin Schaff/The New York TimesWhether voters draw such distinctions is another matter, especially because Mr. Biden has discussed the midterm elections at some of these events. In Pennsylvania, he praised Mr. Shapiro as well as John Fetterman, the Democratic nominee for Senate. Mr. Fetterman did not attend that event but later appeared with Mr. Biden in Pittsburgh on Labor Day. At one point in Wilkes-Barre, Mr. Biden reversed the offices for which they were running, saying of the roughly 6-foot-8 Mr. Fetterman, “Elect that big ol’ boy to be governor.”Mr. Biden, too, has a lot at stake in these elections. Midterm victories could provide a powerful counterpoint to those in the party arguing that he should not run for re-election in 2024. The president has already positioned the midterm races as a proxy war with his former rival, Mr. Trump, who harbors his own ambitions for a second presidential term.Representative Tom Malinowski, a New Jersey Democrat running in a highly competitive seat, said he felt “​​much better about things than I did three or four months ago.” He said the political landscape seemed to be changing because of the spurt of legislative achievements Democrats had landed and concern over abortion rights, while Republicans “seem increasingly stuck in the mud of Mar-a-Lago.”Asked if it would be helpful for the president to campaign with him, Mr. Malinowski replied, “I’d be happy for Biden or any president to come to my district to help me deliver for my constituents as he has.”“Donald Trump,” he added, “came to my district to play golf.” More

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      ‘Women are the reason we can win,’ John Fetterman says at Pennsylvania rally

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      ‘Women are the reason we can win,’ John Fetterman says at Pennsylvania rallyDemocrat Senate candidate puts abortion rights at top of his agenda as he targets Republican opponent Mehmet Oz John Fetterman has placed abortion rights at the top of his agenda to capture Pennsylvania’s Senate seat in November, telling supporters at a raucous rally on Sunday: “Women are the reason we can win. Don’t piss off women.”The Democrat was targeting comments made by his Republican opponent Mehmet Oz in May that abortion at any stage of pregnancy was “murder”.Oz, in keeping with a recent trend among Republican candidates, has attempted to soften his extremist position as the fall’s midterm elections draw closer, insisting that he now believes in exceptions for rape, incest and the health of the woman.But Oz’s rival was uncompromising in his criticism during Sunday’s rally at a community college in rural Pennsylvania attended by several thousand supporters, including a large number of women in pink “Fetterwoman” T-shirts.“This decision is between a woman and a real doctor,” Fetterman said of abortion, alluding to Oz’s status as a celebrity television doctor who has been branded by medical ethicists as a “huge danger to public health”.“Oz believes abortion is murder,” Fetterman continued. “If every abortion is murder, that means Oz thinks every woman who had to choose an abortion is a killer. Think about that.“Women are the reason we can win. Let me say that again. Women are the reason we win. Don’t piss women off.”According to research by TargetSmart, a polling analysis company, Pennsylvania ranks fifth in states showing large gaps in registration numbers between men and women since the US supreme court in June overturned the 1973 Roe v Wade decision that established federal abortion rights.Pennsylvania joins Arkansas with 12% more women than men registering, while Kansas – a staunchly Republican state where pro-choice advocates won a massive victory last month retaining constitutional protection for the procedure – leads the country with a 40% gap.Democrats are attempting to channel nationwide anger at the reversal of Roe, and the escalation in anti-abortion legislation by Republicans in several states, into success in November’s elections.The Democratic party faces an uphill battle to retain control of both congressional chambers, but it is encouraged by research showing that voters are outraged at the ending of nearly half a century of federal abortion protections.A Pew Research poll last month showed abortion was an important factor for 56% of registered voters, up from 43% in March. Among Democratic voters the figure rises to 71%.In Pennsylvania, the candidates are locked in a tight race.Fetterman has painted Oz as a “visitor” from New Jersey who knows little about the state he wishes to represent. Oz’s campaign, meanwhile, has mocked the health of Fetterman, who is recovering from a stroke.According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, Fetterman – who has said he is struggling with auditory processing issues since his stroke – spoke for about 10 minutes Sunday, and he did not appear to stumble over as many words as in other recent appearances.TopicsPennsylvaniaUS politicsUS SenateAbortionnewsReuse this content More