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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

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      in US Politics

      Trump’s increasing tirade against FBI and DoJ endangering lives of officials

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      Trump’s increasing tirade against FBI and DoJ endangering lives of officialsThe ex-president’s cries of a witch hunt by law enforcement, echoed by his allies, have imperiled officers’ physical safety Donald Trump’s non-stop drive to paint the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago to recover classified documents as a political witch hunt is drawing rebukes from ex-justice department and FBI officials who warn such attacks can spur violence and pose a real threat to the physical safety of law enforcement.But the concerns have not deterred Republican House minority leader Kevin McCarthy and other Trump allies from making inflammatory remarks echoing the former US president.Mar-a-Lago a magnet for spies, officials warn after nuclear file reportedly foundRead moreThe unrelenting attacks by Trump and loyalists such as McCarthy, senator Lindsey Graham, Steve Bannon and false conspiracy theorist Alex Jones against law enforcement have continued despite strong evidence that Trump kept hundreds of classified documents illegally.Before the 8 August raid, Trump and his attorneys stonewalled FBI and US National Archives requests for the return of all classified documents and did not fully comply with a grand jury subpoena in a criminal probe of Trump’s hoarding of government documents.The FBI search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home and club recovered 33 boxes with over 100 classified documents, adding to the 200 classified records Trump had earlier returned in response to multiple federal requests.Trump’s high decibel attacks on law enforcement officials for trying to recover large quantities of classified documents including some that reportedly had foreign nuclear secrets was palpable in Pennsylvania recently when Trump at a political rally branded the FBI and justice department “political monsters” and labelled president Joe Biden “an enemy of the state”.The day before in Pennsylvania, to coincide with a major Biden speech about threats to democracy posed by Trump and some of his allies, McCarthy mimicked Trump’s high decibel attacks on the court-approved FBI raid by calling it an “assault on democracy”.Former law enforcement officials and scholars warn that using such conspiratorial rhetoric impugning the motives and actions of justice department and the FBI runs the risk of inciting threats of violence and actual attacks, fears that have already been proven warranted.Consider Trump supporter Ricky Shiffer, who posted angry messages about the Mar-a-Lago raid on Trump Social, and then on 12 August armed himself with an assault rifle and attacked an FBI office in Cincinnati. After fleeing the scene he was hunted down and killed by police.In another sign of potential violence, federal judge Bruce Reinhart in Florida, who had approved the FBI warrant to search Mar-a-Lago, reportedly received death threats after his name was cited in press accounts.“I have been dealing with law enforcement and the criminal justice system for close to 40 years. I have never seen the type or virulence of attacks being made every day against the FBI, DoJ lawyers, and judges,” former justice department inspector general Michael Bromwich told the Guardian. “It’s a chorus led by Trump but that includes elected officials at every level. It is dangerous and unacceptable.”Bromwich added: “It’s one thing for professional rabble rousers, liars, and nihilists – such as Bannon and Jones – to attack law enforcement and DoJ in the way that they have since the search; it’s quite another for so-called respectable political figures such as McCarthy and Graham to do so. Their recent actions and words reflect that theirs is a politics detached from facts and principle.”Similarly, Chuck Rosenberg, a former US attorney for the sastern district of Virginia and ex-chief of staff to former FBI director James Comey, told the Guardian: “The attacks on federal law enforcement are sickening and reckless.”To historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat, who has studied authoritarian leaders and wrote the book Strongmen, Trump’s attacks on the FBI and justice department and his retention of classified documents are consistent with his “authoritarian” leadership style“It’s very typical of authoritarians to claim that they’re the victims and that there are witch hunts against them,” Ben-Ghiat told the Guardian.Trump’s furious assaults on law enforcement also targeted the National Archives and Records Administration, causing a notable uptick in threats against the agency, according to sources quoted by the Washington Post.“No NARA official involved in negotiating the return of presidential records from Mar-a-Lago would have acted with any motive other than to ensure the safe return of all of the presidential records back into the custody of the government,” said Jason R Baron, the former director of litigation at the US National Archives. “It is unfortunate that some would impugn the motives of NARA staff in simply doing their job.”The frenzied attacks on law enforcement began almost immediately after the raid and included some especially rabid Trump supporters.Former White House adviser Bannon, who has been convicted on two counts of criminal contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena from the House January 6 panel, made unsupported claims to conspiracy monger Jones on Infowars that the FBI planted evidence against Trump during the Mar-a-Lago raid, and that the “deep state” is planning to kill Trump.“I do not think it’s beyond this administrative state and their deep state apparatus to actually try to work on the assassination of President Trump,” said Bannon, who on 8 September was charged by New York prosecutors with fraud, money laundering and conspiracy involving his role in a private fundraising scheme to fund constructing the US-Mexico border wall.Right before he left office, Trump pardoned Bannon who had been indicted on similar federal charges involving fraud and the border wall.Graham provoked heavy criticism for making the suggestion in a Fox News interview that the FBI raid and investigation would lead to “riots in the street”, if charges were filed against Trump.After critics noted Graham’s comments could fuel violence, Graham doubled down a week later saying he was just trying to “state the obvious”.In a twist, some veteran justice department prosecutors point out that predictions of violence can potentially be criminal.“The risk is that predictions of violence can easily become threats of violence bordering on extortion,” former justice department prosecutor Paul Rosenzweig told the Guardian. “Explicitly calling for violence against the government can, in context, become criminal. When Trump loyalists like Bannon and Graham seem to cross that line, they are risking criminal prosecution.”On another front, even some former close allies of Trump say that his shifting and hard edged attacks on law enforcement look desperate and don’t pass the smell test.William Barr, Trump’s former attorney general who formerly was a close ally, told Fox News on 2 September he didn’t see any reason why classified documents were at Mar-a-Lago once Trump left office.“People say this was unprecedented,” Barr told Fox News “But it’s also unprecedented for a president to take all this classified information and put them in a country club, okay?”To historian Ben-Ghiat, the fact that “Trump had those classified documents and they were mixed in with golf balls and family photos is very typical of authoritarian type leaders who don’t recognize any divides between public and private. Everything is theirs to trade, to sell and to use as leverage.”For Bromwich, the attacks on law enforcement by Trump and his ardent allies is unprecedented and very dangerous.“For those of us who have spent time with federal law enforcement personnel, the idea that they are members of the deep state or doing the bidding of the radical left is ridiculous. In my experience, the majority are conservative and Republican. Whatever their politics, they don’t let their political views affect their work.”“The search of Mar-a-Lago was indeed unprecedented. It was preceded by an unprecedented and colossal theft of government property by the former president.”TopicsUS newsDonald TrumpMar-a-LagoFBILaw (US)RepublicansUS politicsfeaturesReuse this content More

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      Doug Mastriano prayed for Trump to ‘seize the power’ before Capitol attack

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      Doug Mastriano prayed for Trump to ‘seize the power’ before Capitol attackThe Republican candidate for Pennsylvania’s governor spoke during a video call hosted by a Christian nationalist group member A week before the Capitol attack, on a video call organised by a member of a Christian nationalist group, a Pennsylvania state senator who is the Republican candidate for governor in the battleground state prayed that supporters of Donald Trump would “seize the power” on 6 January 2021.Doug Mastriano attended the pro-Trump rally in Washington that day, after which supporters, told by Trump to “fight like hell” to overturn his election defeat, stormed Congress in an attempt to stop certification of Joe Biden’s victory.The riot was linked to nine deaths, including suicides in the aftermath of the attack among law enforcement.‘You have to run’: Romney urged Biden to take down Trump, book saysRead moreMastriano denies crossing police lines at the Capitol and affiliations with Christian nationalist groups. He is now one of a number of Republican candidates for state positions with sway over elections who support Trump’s lie that his 2020 defeat was the result of voter fraud.Two months from election day, the polling website fivethirtyeight.com puts Mastriano just shy of seven points behind his Democratic opponent.Mastriano’s 6 January prayer, first reported by Rolling Stone on Friday, was delivered during a Zoom call, titled Global Prayer for Election Integrity, organised by what the magazine called “a prominent figure in the far-right New Apostolic Restoration movement”.As defined by Rolling Stone, “Christian nationalism is a central tenet of … NAR [which] emerge[ed] from charismatic Christianity (think: Pentecostalism) and is anchored in the belief that we are living in an age of new apostles and prophets, who receive direct revelations from the holy spirit.“NAR adherents hold that the end times are fast approaching and their calling is to hasten the second coming of Christ by re-fashioning the modern world in a biblical manner.”Mastriano is a US army veteran who once dressed up as a Confederate soldier. In his prayer, he listed historical events including the battle of Gettysburg in 1863 and the crash of United Airlines Flight 93, the plane which came down in a field in Pennsylvania on 9/11, after passengers attacked their hijackers.He said: “In 2001, while our nation was attacked by terrorists, a strong Christian man from Paramus, New Jersey, Todd Beamer, said, ‘Let’s roll.’“God I ask you that you help us roll in these dark times, that we fear not the darkness, that we will seize our Esther and Gideon moments. That … when you say, ‘Who shall I send?’ we will say, ‘Send me and not him or her’, we will take responsibility for our republic and not waver in these days that try our souls.“We’re surrounded by wickedness and fear and dithering and inaction. But that’s not our problem. Our problem is following your lead.”In the weeks before the Capitol attack, Mastriano was involved in failed attempts to overturn Trump’s defeat in Pennsylvania, the announcement of which confirmed Biden’s electoral college win.On the Zoom call, Mastriano displayed what he said were “letters that President Trump asked me this morning to send to [Senate Republican leader] Mitch McConnell and [House leader] Kevin McCarthy, outlining the fraud in Pennsylvania, and this will embolden them to stand firm and disregard what has happened in Pennsylvania until they have an investigation”.He also said: “We think about our elected officials in Pennsylvania who’ve been weak and feckless and we’ve handed over our power to a governor” – Tom Wolf, a Democrat – “who disregards the freedoms of this republic.“I pray that we’ll take responsibility, we’ll seize the power that we had given to us by the constitution, and as well by you providentially. I pray for the leaders and also in the federal government, God, on the sixth of January that they will rise up with boldness.”After the Capitol riot, when Congress reconvened, McCarthy was one of 138 Republican congressmen and nine senators who voted to object to results in Pennsylvania or Arizona or both.TopicsRepublicansChristianityUS Capitol attackDonald TrumpPennsylvaniaUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      in Elections

      Oz Sharpens Attacks on Fetterman as Pennsylvania Senate Race Tightens

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      SPRINGFIELD, Pa. — Dr. Mehmet Oz, trailing in the polls and still contending with an image as an out-of-touch, carpetbagging elitist, is seeking to reboot his Senate campaign in Pennsylvania in the final sprint to November. In recent weeks, Dr. Oz has sharpened his attacks against his Democratic rival, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, blasting him for his initial refusal to debate and claiming that Mr. Fetterman was trying to conceal the extent of the damage done by a stroke in May. He has enlisted help from prominent Republicans, campaigning with Senator Patrick J. Toomey and, on Thursday, bringing in Nikki Haley, the former United Nations ambassador and South Carolina governor, for a town-hall-style event. On Tuesday, he even appeared to distance himself from his political benefactor, former President Donald J. Trump, by suggesting that he would have rejected Mr. Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was rigged.The Senate race in Pennsylvania is one of the most closely watched in the country. Its outcome could not only determine which party controls the chamber after the fall elections but illustrate just how firm of a grasp Mr. Trump has on his voters in 2022. Mr. Trump endorsed Dr. Oz and has held two rallies for him in recent months, but how deep Dr. Oz’s support runs among working-class Trump supporters in the state remains a question mark. In addition to mocking Mr. Fetterman’s stroke recovery last week by listing bogus “concessions” he would make in a potential debate, Dr. Oz has been attacking his opponent as soft on crime, hitting him in particular over his support for “second chances” for felons as the head of the state’s Board of Pardons.Dr. Oz has enlisted help from prominent Republicans like Nikki Haley, whose blood pressure he checked at their town-hall-style event in Springfield, Pa., on Thursday.Hannah Beier for The New York TimesOn Thursday afternoon, at the event with Ms. Haley, Dr. Oz enacted a “mock debate” in which he interrogated an absent Mr. Fetterman, asking, “Why do you believe that life sentences aren’t right even in cases of murder?” Speaking in the suburban Philadelphia community of Springfield, he recalled his years as a medical student at the University of Pennsylvania as he continued to criticize Mr. Fetterman on crime. “I lived in West Philly,” Dr. Oz said. “I could walk to school. It wasn’t a problem. I can’t make that walk today. You can’t either.” Dr. Oz has sought to put his campaign on a more aggressive footing as polls show a tightening race. Mr. Fetterman’s double-digit lead in the polls at midsummer has shrunk to single digits in two surveys late last month. One reason may be that some independent voters are breaking for Dr. Oz. He led in late August with those voters in the two surveys — by 10 percentage points in a Susquehanna Polling and Research survey and by 12 points in an Emerson College Poll.Christopher Nicholas, a Republican consultant in the state, said there was a model of how a Republican candidate wins a statewide race in purple Pennsylvania.“You run to the right of Democrats on social issues, especially in the western part of the state, which helps you get conservative Democrats,” Mr. Nicholas said. “You hold your Republican base, and you get close to 60 percent of the independents.”The challenge for Dr. Oz is coalescing that Republican base.Both recent polls showed him winning only 77 to 78 percent of Republican voters, compared with Mr. Fetterman winning close to nine out of 10 Democrats. Some in the crowd at a Trump rally in May booed Dr. Oz, reflecting the views of certain Republicans that he is not conservative enough.While the response to Dr. Oz at the former president’s rally on Saturday was largely more receptive, some jeers of “RINO,” a conservative insult meaning Republican in Name Only, could be heard.Barney Keller, a spokesman for Dr. Oz, said the latest public polling predated the campaign’s messaging “about Fetterman dodging debates.” Mr. Keller added that internal polling showed Dr. Oz “fully consolidating Republicans and making excellent progress” with independents and some Democrats.The Fetterman campaign has found itself in the unusual position of playing defense after seeming to get the better of Dr. Oz for months with social-media attacks about his New Jersey mansion and penchant for “crudités.”At an event that Dr. Oz held in Philadelphia on Tuesday with Senator Patrick J. Toomey, aides set up posters of Dr. Oz’s opponent, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman.Kriston Jae Bethel for The New York TimesOn Wednesday, Mr. Fetterman, who acknowledges ongoing “auditory” and language issues since his stroke, agreed to debate Dr. Oz after weeks of needling criticism by Dr. Oz and his allies. Mr. Fetterman said he would debate Dr. Oz in mid- to late October, with details to be worked out. He said there was no recent precedent in Pennsylvania for debates in September, dismissing an Oz attack that he had ducked a debate this week proposed by a Pittsburgh TV station.“But let’s be clear, this has never really been about debates for Dr. Oz,” Mr. Fetterman said in a statement. “This whole thing has been about Dr. Oz and his team mocking me for having a stroke because they’ve got nothing else.”Since returning to the campaign trail on Aug. 12, Mr. Fetterman has kept a light schedule of appearances, greeting supporters on rope lines after short speeches but avoiding open questions from attendees or from the news media. He and his campaign have attributed his verbal stumbles in speeches and one-on-one interviews to “auditory processing” issues in his brain, which are common in stroke survivors. He has said that he may use a closed-caption monitor in the debate to make sure he does not miss any words. During the Republican primary, Dr. Oz seemed to contort himself, downplaying or disavowing some liberal views from earlier in his life — on abortion, guns — to curry favor with conservative voters. He scraped out a primary victory by fewer than 1,000 votes, aided by the Trump endorsement.Now, with the general election in full stride after Labor Day, Dr. Oz may be trying to resume his earlier ideological shape as he seeks out independents and conservative Democrats.The votes of suburban women in particular will be crucial in an election in which Democrats have gained fresh energy since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. The Emerson College survey found that abortion access ranked five points higher as an issue for Pennsylvania voters than it did nationwide.Recently, Dr. Oz struck a mainstream conservative position on abortion, describing himself as “pro-life with the three usual exceptions, especially the health of the mother, but incest and rape as well.”But his effort to distance himself from the fringe on the issue has been complicated. A recording surfaced recently from a primary event in which Dr. Oz suggested that life began at conception and any attempt to end a pregnancy was the same as murder. “It’s, you know, it’s still murder if you were to terminate a child, whether their heart’s beating or not,” he said in the recording.Andy Reilly is a Pennsylvania member of the National Republican Committee whose home is in Delaware County, where Dr. Oz’s Thursday event took place. Mr. Reilly said it was crucial — and within reach — for Dr. Oz to improve on Mr. Trump’s low share of suburban voters in 2020, which cost him victory in the state.“For Republicans to win in Pennsylvania, they don’t need to win the suburbs, but they need to compete,” Mr. Reilly said.The Oz campaign’s attacks on Mr. Fetterman and crime have been another attempt to appeal to suburban and female voters. As lieutenant governor, Mr. Fetterman leads the Board of Pardons, where his advocacy has helped increase the number of felons leaving prison with commutations or pardons.Mr. Fetterman, right, headed to the stage to speak at a Labor Day event that President Biden attended.Erin Schaff/The New York TimesThe Oz campaign and its allies have called Mr. Fetterman “dangerously liberal on crime,” as one television ad puts it, and have criticized him for statements he has made in the past, including that “we could release a third of our inmates and not make anyone less safe.”Mr. Fetterman has said that he was repeating a statement that a former Republican-appointed state corrections secretary made to him.A spokesman for Mr. Fetterman said that the candidate proved his dedication to fighting violent crime while mayor of Braddock, Pa., where he began his political rise.“Dr. Oz lives in a mansion on a hill. What does he know about confronting crime?” said the spokesman, Joe Calvello. “John Fetterman has actually done it, and done it successfully. So he’s not going to be taking pointers from a guy who just moved here and has absolutely no understanding of the problems facing Pennsylvania.” More