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      America’s Anti-Democratic Movement

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      It’s making progress.American politics these days can often seem fairly normal. President Biden has had both big accomplishments and big setbacks in his first year, as is typical. In Congress, members are haggling over bills and passing some of them. At the Supreme Court, justices are hearing cases. Daily media coverage tends to reflect this apparent sense of political normalcy.But American politics today is not really normal. It may instead be in the midst of a radical shift away from the democratic rules and traditions that have guided the country for a very long time.An anti-democratic movement, inspired by Donald Trump but much larger than him, is making significant progress, as my colleague Charles Homans has reported. In the states that decide modern presidential elections, this movement has already changed some laws and ousted election officials, with the aim of overturning future results. It has justified the changes with blatantly false statements claiming that Biden did not really win the 2020 election.The movement has encountered surprisingly little opposition. Most leading Republican politicians have either looked the other way or supported the anti-democratic movement. In the House, Republicans ousted Liz Cheney from a leadership position because she called out Trump’s lies.The pushback within the Republican Party has been so weak that about 60 percent of Republican adults now tell pollsters that they believe the 2020 election was stolen — a view that’s simply wrong.Most Democratic officials, for their part, have been focused on issues other than election security, like Covid-19 and the economy. It’s true that congressional Democrats have tried to pass a new voting rights bill, only to be stymied by Republican opposition and the filibuster. But these Democratic efforts have been sprawling and unfocused. They have included proposals — on voter-ID rules and mail-in ballots, for example — that are almost certainly less important than a federal law to block the overturning of elections, as The Times’s Nate Cohn has explained.All of which has created a remarkable possibility: In the 2024 presidential election, Republican officials in at least one state may overturn a legitimate election result, citing fraud that does not exist, and award the state’s electoral votes to the Republican nominee. Trump tried to use this tactic in 2020, but local officials rebuffed him.Since then, his supporters have launched a campaign — with the Orwellian name “Stop the Steal” — to ensure success next time. Steve Bannon has played a central role, using his podcast to encourage Trump supporters to take over positions in election administration, ProPublica has explained.“This is a five-alarm fire,” Jocelyn Benson, the Democratic secretary of state in Michigan, who presided over the 2020 vote count there, told The Times. “If people in general, leaders and citizens, aren’t taking this as the most important issue of our time and acting accordingly, then we may not be able to ensure democracy prevails again in ’24.”Barton Gellman, who wrote a recent Atlantic magazine article about the movement, told Terry Gross of NPR last week, “This is, I believe, a democratic emergency, and that without very strong and systematic pushback from protectors of democracy, we’re going to lose something that we can’t afford to lose about the way we run elections.”Theda Skocpol, a Harvard political scientist, notes that the movement is bigger than Trump. “I think things have now moved to the point that many Republican Party officials and elected officeholders are self-starters,” she told Thomas Edsall of Times Opinion.Ballot counting in Wisconsin in November 2020.Chang W. Lee/The New York TimesIn plain sightThe main battlegrounds are swing states where Republicans control the state legislature, like Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.Republicans control these legislatures because of both gerrymandered districts and Democratic weakness outside of major metro areas. (One way Democrats can push back against the anti-democratic movement: Make a bigger effort to win working-class votes.) The Constitution lets state legislatures set the rules for choosing presidential electors.“None of this is happening behind closed doors,” Jamelle Bouie, a Times columnist, recently wrote. “We are headed for a crisis of some sort. When it comes, we can be shocked that it is actually happening, but we shouldn’t be surprised.”Here is an overview of recent developments:Arizona. Republican legislators have passed a law taking away authority over election lawsuits from the secretary of state, who’s now a Democrat, and giving it to the attorney general, a Republican. Legislators are debating another bill that would allow them to revoke election certification “by majority vote at any time before the presidential inauguration.”Georgia. Last year, Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s Republican secretary of state, helped stop Trump’s attempts to reverse the result. State legislators in Georgia have since weakened his powers, and a Trump-backed candidate is running to replace Raffensperger next year. Republicans have also passed a law that gives a commission they control the power to remove local election officials.Michigan. Kristina Karamo, a Trump-endorsed candidate who has repeated the lie that the 2020 elections were fraudulent, is running for secretary of state, the office that oversees elections. (Republican candidates are running on similar messages in Colorado, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas and elsewhere, according to ABC News.)Pennsylvania. Republicans are trying to amend the state’s Constitution to make the secretary of state an elected position, rather than one that the governor appoints. Pennsylvania is also one of the states where Trump allies — like Stephen Lindemuth, who attended the Jan. 6 rally that turned into an attack on Congress — have won local races to oversee elections.Wisconsin. Senator Ron Johnson is urging the Republican-controlled Legislature to take full control of federal elections. Doing so could remove the governor, currently a Democrat, from the process, and weaken the bipartisan state elections commission.What’s next?The new anti-democratic movement may still fail. This year, for example, Republican legislators in seven states proposed bills that would have given partisan officials a direct ability to change election results. None of the bills passed.Arguably the most important figures on this issue are Republican officials and voters who believe in democracy and are uncomfortable with using raw political power to overturn an election result.Miles Taylor, a former Trump administration official, has helped to start the Renew America Movement, which supports candidates — of either party — running against Trump-backed Republicans. It is active in congressional races but does not have enough resources to compete in the state contests that often determine election procedures, Taylor told The Times.Gellman, the Atlantic writer, argues that Democrats and independents — as well as journalists — can make a difference by paying more attention. “Grass-roots organizers who are in support of democratic institutions,” he said on NPR, “could be doing what the Republicans are doing at the precinct and the county and the state level in terms of organizing to control election authorities to ensure that they remain nonpartisan or neutral.”For more: Mark Meadows, Trump’s former chief of staff, was involved in fighting the election outcome, according to the House Committee investigating the Capitol attack.THE LATEST NEWSThe VirusCovid has killed one in 100 Americans 65 or older.Weak health care infrastructure poses challenges for many of Africa’s vaccination programs.A sense of endlessness: Anxiety and depression are taking hold.Other Big StoriesSalvaging belongings from wreckage in Kentucky.William Widmer for The New York TimesTornadoes killed at least 90 people in the U.S. this weekend. Here’s where they struck.Chris Wallace is leaving Fox News after 18 years — and after raising questions about Tucker Carlson’s work — to join CNN.Gov. Gavin Newsom of California called for legislation modeled on Texas’s abortion law to go after the gun industry.A litany of crises is confronting Los Angeles before next year’s mayoral election.OpinionsThe New York TimesThe climate crisis is reshaping the planet. Here’s what it looks like in 193 countries.Gail Collins and Bret Stephens discuss inflation and crime.MORNING READSAnd just like that: It’s Peloton vs. “Sex and the City.”The Media Equation: A climate-change comedy nails the media’s failures.Quiz time: The average score on our latest news quiz was 8.6. See how well you do.Advice from Wirecutter: Beware overpriced, mediocre wines.The Trump InvestigationsCard 1 of 6Numerous inquiries More

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      The Pennsylvania Senate Candidate Running as the Anti-Dr. Oz

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      In the closely watched Pennsylvania Senate race, Val Arkoosh, a doctor in the Democratic primary, sees openings to raise her profile.Sign up here to get On Politics in your inbox on Tuesdays and Thursdays.Dr. Val Arkoosh is the Pennsylvania Senate candidate who is often an afterthought compared to the two front-running Democrats, John Fetterman and Conor Lamb.But a couple big recent developments — the chance of the Supreme Court sweeping away Roe v. Wade and the entry of Dr. Mehmet Oz into the race’s Republican primary — may give her underdog campaign new momentum.Dr. Arkoosh, a physician in obstetric anesthesiology and a top elected official in Montgomery County in the Philadelphia suburbs, is trying to pitch herself as a kind of anti-Dr. Oz.“It really does take a doctor to stand up to a doctor,” Dr. Arkoosh told me. “I don’t even know how he still has a license, with some of the stuff that comes out his mouth,” she said of his promotion of unproved Covid-19 treatments early in the pandemic.Dr. Oz, a celebrity doctor who, until recently, hosted “The Dr. Oz Show,” is well positioned, thanks to personal wealth and high name recognition, to become a front-runner in a G.O.P. field where no one has yet nailed down voters’ allegiance. The contest to fill Pennsylvania’s open Senate seat will be one of the hardest fought in the country in 2022, with majority control of the Senate at stake.Dr. Oz, who jumped into the race last week, is framing his candidacy as a conservative’s response to the pandemic, pushing back against mandates, shutdowns and limits to “freedom.” Dr. Arkoosh, on the other hand, helped lead an aggressive response to the pandemic as the leader of the Montgomery County board of commissioners. In an interview, she contrasted her efforts to ensure the safety of students in her county to Dr. Oz’s position on schools at the time: During the same month that she canceled graduation ceremonies last year, Dr. Oz urged on Fox News that schools should be open because it “may only cost us 2 to 3 percent in terms of total mortality” of the population. He later said he “misspoke.”In response to Dr. Arkoosh’s criticism, a spokeswoman for Dr. Oz’s campaign, Erin Perrine, pointed to his success as a heart surgeon and to his TV show and books, which she said “empowered millions to make better health care choices — even if it meant going against the medical establishment.”Dr. Arkoosh, 61, has struggled for attention from Democratic voters and donors in the shadow of the leaders of her primary: Mr. Fetterman, the lieutenant governor, and Mr. Lamb, a congressman. The two men are usually contrasted against one another as a progressive (Mr. Fetterman, who supported Bernie Sanders in 2016) versus a moderate (Mr. Lamb, who won a congressional district that voted for President Donald J. Trump). Dr. Arkoosh is liberal on issues — she wants to ban fracking and to add a public option to the health care marketplace — but what sets her apart may be demographics. Mr. Fetterman and Mr. Lamb are both from Allegheny County in Western Pennsylvania. They each argue that they are best suited to make inroads with white blue-collar voters. Meanwhile, Dr. Arkoosh’s base, Montgomery County — the state’s third most populous and the second richest — is ground zero for the suburban shift to Democrats in recent years. In all, Philadelphia and its suburbs in southeast Pennsylvania contribute 50 percent of the state’s Democratic primary voters.“In Montgomery County in 2020, we gave President Biden 66,000 more votes than we gave Hillary Clinton,” Dr. Arkoosh said. “It is where my base is, where my strength is.”Still, J. J. Balaban, a Democratic strategist in Pennsylvania, said that Dr. Arkoosh’s campaign had been underwhelming so far and that she was little known outside Montgomery County.“It costs a lot of money to get known statewide in Pennsylvania, and she appears to be coming up short,” Mr. Balaban told me. “At the moment, she doesn’t have enough funds to win the Philly market, let alone the state.”As of October, Dr. Arkoosh had $1 million in her campaign account, which includes a $500,000 personal loan, and she trails Mr. Fetterman’s $4.2 million on hand and Mr. Lamb’s $2.1 million. Her endorsement by Emily’s List, the abortion rights group, did not seem to have boosted her fund-raising much through September.Even so, the rising prominence of abortion as a potential motivator of Democratic voters in the midterm elections plays to Dr. Arkoosh’s strengths as a doctor. Her specialty means she administers anesthesia to women giving birth and women having abortions.“As a physician who has sat at the bedside of women who have had to make some of the most difficult decisions of their lives,” she said, “there is no place for any politician in those decisions.”Arguments before the Supreme Court last week suggested the conservative majority was ready to reverse or severely limit Roe v. Wade in a ruling next year.“I think this is going to be a very big issue,” Dr. Arkoosh said. “And I think this is going to be an issue that gets women, and particularly suburban women, out in numbers.’’On Politics is also available as a newsletter. Sign up here to get it delivered to your inbox.Is there anything you think we’re missing? Anything you want to see more of? We’d love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com. More

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      Dr. Oz Says He’s Running for Senate in Pennsylvania

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      Dr. Mehmet Oz, who is running as a Republican for an open Senate seat, described his frustration with the “arrogant, closed-minded people in charge” who shut schools and businesses during the pandemic. Dr. Mehmet Oz, a celebrity physician known as the host of the “Dr. Oz Show,” announced on Tuesday that he would run for Senate in Pennsylvania, jumping into a crowded Republican primary for an open seat that is crucial to both parties’ quest for a Senate majority in 2022.Dr. Oz, a first-time candidate whose political views are little known, entered a G.O.P. field roiled by the recent withdrawal of a candidate endorsed by former President Donald J. Trump, in which most contenders are vying to show their loyalty to the Republican Party’s de facto leader.The Cleveland-born son of Turkish immigrants, Dr. Oz said he had been motivated to run because of the pandemic. In an online statement announcing his candidacy in The Washington Examiner, he criticized official responses to Covid-19 in terms embraced by conservatives.The pandemic, he wrote, has been mishandled by “elites” who stifled dissenting opinions, “mandated” policies and “closed our parks, shuttered our schools, shut down our businesses and took away our freedom.”Pennsylvania’s Democratic governor, Tom Wolf, was under attack through much of 2020 by Republicans for orders closing businesses during the height of the pandemic.Dr. Oz, 61, is a heart surgeon who first came to the public’s attention as a regular guest on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” before starting his own long-running daytime show, where he dispenses medical advice on all subjects. He has also appeared regularly on Fox News discussing Covid-19, sometimes making controversial statements. In April 2020, citing a medical journal, he said that opening schools “may only cost us 2 to 3 percent in terms of total mortality” of the population. After a backlash, he took to Twitter to say he “misspoke.”The previous month, Dr. Oz promoted hydroxychloroquine to fight the coronavirus, even though researchers at the time warned that the drug was unproven.Dr. Oz first came to the public’s attention as a regular guest on “The Oprah Winfrey Show.”George Burns/Harpo Productions, via Associated PressIn 2014, he was scolded before a Senate panel for using his TV show to promote foods and dietary supplements that falsely promised weight loss. Republicans in Pennsylvania expected that the entry of such a high-profile figure into the Senate race, one who is promising to spend large sums of his own fortune, would shake up a field without a front-runner. It follows the recent withdrawal of Sean Parnell, the Trump-endorsed candidate, who suspended his campaign after a judge gave primary custody of his children to his estranged wife, who had accused him of abuse.A number of Republican officials, whom Dr. Oz has been calling in recent weeks, said they thought voters would take the celebrity physician seriously.“The first thing I asked was, ‘Why are you running? Is this a vanity play?’” said Sam DeMarco III, the Republican chairman of Allegheny County, which includes Pittsburgh. But he said he was impressed with Dr. Oz’s seriousness in response to his questions. “My most important goal is to keep this seat in Republican hands come 2022, and I believe Dr. Oz’s entry into the race gives us a significant opportunity to do that,” Mr. DeMarco said.For Democrats, Pennsylvania represents perhaps their best chance to add a Senate seat to their column, since it is the only open seat next year in a state that President Biden carried in 2020. Senator Patrick J. Toomey, a Republican, is not seeking re-election. While the Democratic field has several seasoned candidates, including Lt. Gov. John Fetterman and Representative Conor Lamb, the Republicans in the race are less experienced and, with the exception of Dr. Oz, less well known. Most have leaned into their connections to Mr. Trump to win favor with a party base that fervidly supports the former president, including his false claims that he won the state last year. Jeff Bartos, a real estate developer, has called for a “full forensic audit” of the 2020 election in the state. Kathy Barnette, a former financial executive, has pushed claims of voter fraud on Newsmax and OAN. David McCormick, the chief executive of Bridgewater Associates, a giant hedge fund company, has been exploring getting into the race as well. Dr. Oz, who hosted Mr. Trump on his TV show in 2016 and was later named by him to a White House advisory council on sports and nutrition, is not known for denying the 2020 election results. He once described himself as a “moderate Republican” and said a political inspiration was Arnold Schwarzenegger, the former governor of California and a Trump critic. But in his statement announcing his run on Tuesday, Dr. Oz positioned himself more aggressively as a foe of elites and as someone who has “fought the establishment” throughout his career.“Elites with yards told those without yards to stay inside, where the virus was more likely to spread,” he wrote of the response to the pandemic, adding, “We must confront those who want to change the very soul of America and reimagine it with their toxic ideology.”A surgeon at Columbia University Irving Medical Center, his biographical entry there lists his Emmy Awards ahead of his publications. Dr. Oz earned medical and business degrees from the University of Pennsylvania. His principal residence, however, has long been in Bergen County in New Jersey, where he voted. He has also become a registered Pennsylvania voter, listing an address that is a home owned by his mother-in-law in Montgomery County, in the Philadelphia suburbs. Although rivals will surely accuse him of carpetbagging, one local Republican official said the issue may not play strongly with voters. “Being a newcomer, I don’t think that’s a drawback,” said Pat Poprik, the Republican chairwoman of Bucks County, the state’s fourth largest. “Issues are what voters are looking for.”Susan C. Beachy More

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      Celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz set to run for US Senate as Republican

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      Celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz set to run for US Senate as RepublicanOz, upbraided in 2015 over promotion of ‘quack treatments’ for financial gain, planning to run for Pat Toomey’s Pennsylvania seat Dr Mehmet Oz, the celebrity heart surgeon best known as the host of TV’s Dr Oz Show, is planning to run for Pennsylvania’s open US Senate seat as a Republican, according to two people familiar with his plans.Top doctors urge Columbia to sever ties with Dr Oz over ‘quack treatments’Read moreShould Oz run, he would bring unrivaled name recognition and wealth to a race expected to be among the nation’s most competitive and could determine control of the Senate next year.Oz became a household name after gaining fame as a guest on Oprah Winfrey’s show.He has also experienced controversy, notably when in 2015 a group of prominent American physicians called on Columbia University medical school to sever its links with Oz for “an egregious lack of integrity” over the promotion of “quack treatments” not supported by scientific evidence, “in the interest of personal financial gain”.Subjected to a grilling by senators, Oz offered to “drain the swamp” of marketers he said were illegally using his words and name.In 2016, Oz hosted Donald Trump on his TV show as the businessman ran for the White House.Oz was later appointed to a White House Council on Sports, Fitness, and Nutrition, alongside appointees including the New England Patriots coach, Bill Belichick, bodybuilder and former Incredible Hulk actor Lou Ferrigno, New York Yankees legend Mariano Rivera and the football star Herschel Walker.Walker is now a Trump-endorsed candidate for Senate in Georgia.Oz may also have to explain why he isn’t running in New Jersey, where he has lived for two decades before voting in Pennsylvania elections this year by an absentee ballot registered to his in-laws’ address in suburban Philadelphia.Oz’s longtime home is above the Hudson river in Cliffside Park, New Jersey, overlooking Manhattan, where he films his TV show and practices medicine.If he runs he will enter a Republican field resetting with an influx of candidates, after Sean Parnell, the candidate endorsed by Trump, dropped out, denying allegations of domestic abuse.Oz, 61, has told associates and Republicans in Pennsylvania of his plans, according to the people who spoke to the AP. One was told directly while the other was briefed on a separate conversation. Both spoke on condition of anonymity. Publicly, Oz has only said through a spokesperson that he has received encouragement to run.The announcement could come on Tuesday night on Sean Hannity’s show on Fox News, which Hannity previewed by saying Oz “has a huge announcement. Hint: think midterm election.”Pennsylvania put Joe Biden over the top in last year’s presidential election. His one-point victory put the swing state back in Democratic hands after Trump won it even more narrowly in 2016.TopicsRepublicansUS politicsPennsylvanianewsReuse this content More

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      Sean Parnell Suspends G.O.P. Senate Bid in Pennsylvania

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      Mr. Parnell, who was endorsed by Donald Trump in one of the highest-profile 2022 Senate races, had been accused by his estranged wife of spousal and child abuse.Sean Parnell, a leading Republican candidate for Senate in Pennsylvania, suspended his campaign on Monday after a judge ruled that his estranged wife should get primary custody of their three children in a case in which she accused him of spousal and child abuse.Mr. Parnell, who was endorsed by former President Donald J. Trump, said he was “devastated” by the decision and planned to appeal.“There is nothing more important to me than my children, and while I plan to ask the court to reconsider, I can’t continue with a Senate campaign,” he said in a statement. “My focus right now is 100 percent on my children, and I want them to know I do not have any other priorities and will never stop fighting for them.”Mr. Parnell’s wife, Laurie Snell, testified in court this month that Mr. Parnell had repeatedly abused her and their children, choking her and hitting one of their children so hard that he left a welt on the child’s back. In a ruling last week that was made public on Monday, a Butler County judge wrote that he had found Ms. Snell to be “the more credible witness” and that he believed Mr. Parnell had committed “some acts of abuse in the past.”The Pennsylvania seat, currently held by Senator Pat Toomey, a Republican, is widely considered one of the most competitive Senate races in 2022. Several Democrats have announced their plans to run for the seat, including Conor Lamb, a congressman from outside Pittsburgh, and John Fetterman, the current lieutenant governor.Mr. Parnell, a former Army Ranger who received the Purple Heart after serving in Afghanistan, had been seen as a top Republican candidate, particularly after Mr. Trump endorsed him in September.But Mr. Parnell’s family history illustrated the concerns among some Republican leaders about the candidates that Mr. Trump has been supporting in G.O.P. primaries for close midterm races.Mr. Parnell narrowly lost a congressional bid in 2020, and one of his Republican rivals in the Senate race, Jeff Bartos, had attacked him over temporary protective orders he received in 2017 and 2018.Yet some Senate candidates backed by Mr. Trump have remained viable despite questions about their pasts: In Georgia, Herschel Walker, the former football star, is seen as a leading contender to challenge Senator Raphael Warnock, a Democrat, despite facing repeated accusations of threatening his ex-wife.In the testimony by Mr. Parnell’s wife this month, she said that he once punched a closet door so hard that it hit the face of one of their children and left a bruise. At the time, Ms. Snell testified, Mr. Parnell told his child, “It was your fault and get out of here.” At another point, Mr. Parnell forced his wife out of their vehicle and left her on the side of the road, telling her to “go get an abortion,” she said in court.Mr. Parnell has denied all the allegations. He testified that he had “never raised a hand in anger towards my wife or any of our three children.”The judge granted Ms. Snell primary physical and sole legal custody of the children, who are between 8 and 12 years old, allowing Mr. Parnell to take them three weekends a month.“She described many incidents,” Judge James G. Arner wrote in his ruling. “She provided factual details of each incident, including when they happened and what happened. She testified in a convincing manner.”Mr. Parnell, on the other hand, was “somewhat evasive” and “less believable,” the judge ruled.“He was dressed very casually for his appearances in court, in blue jeans and untucked plaid shirts, which did not show respect for the seriousness of the occasion,” Judge Arner wrote. “While testifying he looked mainly in the direction of his attorneys and toward members of the news media in the back of the courtroom, rather than at me.”The judge also wrote that Mr. Parnell’s frequent travel had been a factor in the ruling.Kirsten Noyes contributed research. More

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      Election Day 2021: What to Watch in Tuesday’s Elections

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      Most of the political world’s attention on Tuesday will be focused on Virginia, where former Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat, is trying to return to his old office in a run against Glenn Youngkin, a wealthy Republican business executive. Polls show the race is a dead heat. And the themes of the contest — with Mr. McAuliffe trying relentlessly to tie Mr. Youngkin to former President Donald J. Trump, and Mr. Youngkin focusing on how racial inequality is taught in schools, among other cultural issues — have only amplified the election’s potential as a national bellwether. The results will be closely studied by both parties for clues about what to expect in the 2022 midterms.While the Virginia race is Tuesday’s marquee matchup, there are other notable elections taking place. Voters in many major American cities will choose their next mayor, and some will weigh in on hotly contested ballot measures, including on the issue of policing. There’s another governor’s race in New Jersey, too. Here is what to watch in some of the key contests that will provide the most detailed and textured look yet at where voters stand more than nine months into the Biden administration.Republicans are hoping Mr. Youngkin can prevail by cutting into Democratic margins in suburban Northern Virginia and turning out voters who remain motivated by Mr. Trump.Carlos Bernate for The New York TimesThe Virginia governor’s race is seen as a bellwetherDemocrats have won Virginia in every presidential contest since 2008. Last year, it wasn’t particularly close. Mr. Biden won by 10 percentage points.But Virginia also has a history of bucking the party of a new president — the state swung to the G.O.P. in 2009, during former President Barack Obama’s first year in office — and Republicans hope Mr. Youngkin has found a formula for success in the post-Trump era.To prevail, Mr. Youngkin needs to cut into the margins in suburban Northern Virginia, where voters have made the state increasingly Democratic, while also turning out a Republican base that remains motivated by Mr. Trump.His playbook has focused heavily on education, attacking Mr. McAuliffe for a debate remark that parents should not be directing what schools teach and capitalizing on a broader conservative movement against schools teaching about systemic racism. The result: Education has been the top issue in the race, according to an October Washington Post poll, giving Republicans the edge on a topic that has traditionally favored Democrats.Mr. McAuliffe has aggressively linked Mr. Youngkin to Mr. Trump, who endorsed the Republican but never traveled to Virginia to campaign for him. If Mr. Youngkin loses, it will showcase the G.O.P.’s ongoing challenge in being associated with Mr. Trump, even without Mr. Trump on the ballot. But if Mr. McAuliffe loses, it will intensify pressure on Democrats to develop a new, proactive message.Control of the Virginia House of Delegates is also up for grabs. For now, Democrats have an edge of 55-45 seats that they built during the Trump years.In the New Jersey governor’s race, the Democratic incumbent, Philip D. Murphy, is up for re-election. Polls have shown Mr. Murphy ahead, but Mr. Biden’s weakening job approval rating in the solidly Democratic state — which stood at 43 percent in a recent Monmouth poll — is a cause of concern. The results will be watched for evidence of how much of the erosion in Mr. Biden’s support has seeped down-ballot.India Walton, left, has the support of progressives like Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in her bid to be the next mayor of Buffalo, N.Y.Libby March for The New York TimesBig mayoralties: Boston, Buffalo, Atlanta and moreIt is not the biggest city with a mayor’s race on Tuesday, but the City Hall battle in Buffalo, N.Y., may be the most fascinating.India Walton, who would be the first socialist to lead a major American city in decades, defeated the incumbent Democratic mayor, Byron Brown, in the June primary. But Mr. Brown is now running a write-in campaign. .css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-1g3vlj0{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1g3vlj0{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-1g3vlj0 strong{font-weight:600;}.css-1g3vlj0 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1g3vlj0{margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0.25rem;}.css-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}Ms. Walton has won the backing of progressives, such as Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and some party leaders, like Senator Chuck Schumer, but other prominent Democrats have stayed neutral, most notably Gov. Kathy Hochul, a lifelong resident of the Buffalo region.Policing has been a major issue. Though Ms. Walton has distanced herself from wanting to reduce police funding, Mr. Brown attacked her on the issue in a television ad.In Boston, the runoff puts two City Council members, Michelle Wu and Annissa Essaibi George, against each other, with Ms. Wu running as the progressive. Ms. Wu, who is backed by Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, finished in first place in the primary.In New York City, Eric Adams, the borough president of Brooklyn and a Democrat, is expected to win the mayor’s race and has already fashioned himself as a national figure. “I am the face of the new Democratic Party,” Mr. Adams declared after his June primary win.In Miami, Mayor Francis Suarez, a rare big-city Republican mayor, is heavily favored to win re-election and is lined up to become the president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, giving him a national platform.And in Atlanta, a crowded field of 14 candidates, including the City Council president, Felicia Moore, is expected to lead to a runoff as former Mayor Kasim Reed attempts to make a comeback.In Minneapolis, voters will decide whether to replace the Police Department with a new Department of Public Safety.Jenn Ackerman for The New York TimesThe future of policing is front and centerOne recurring theme in municipal races is policing, as communities grapple with the “defund the police” slogan that swept the country following the police killing of George Floyd last year. The debate is raging inside the Democratic Party over how much to overhaul law enforcement — and over how to talk about such an overhaul.Perhaps nowhere is the issue more central than in Minneapolis, the city where Mr. Floyd was killed, sparking civil unrest across the country. Voters there will decide on a measure to replace the troubled Minneapolis Police Department with a new Department of Public Safety.Mayor Jacob Frey, who is up for re-election, has opposed that measure and pushed for a more incremental approach. His challengers, among them Sheila Nezhad, want a more aggressive approach.Policing is a key issue not only in the Buffalo mayor’s race, but also in mayoral contests in Seattle, Atlanta and in Cleveland, where an amendment that would overhaul how the city’s police department operates is on the ballot as well.The mayor’s race in Cleveland puts Justin Bibb, a 34-year-old political newcomer, against Kevin Kelley, the City Council president. Mr. Bibb supports the police amendment and Mr. Kelley opposes it.Shontel Brown, a Democrat, is expected to win a special election for a House seat in Cleveland.Michael M. Santiago/Getty ImagesHouse races and Pennsylvania’s court battleThere are two special elections for House races in Ohio, with Shontel Brown, a Democratic Cuyahoga County Council member, expected to win a heavily Democratic seat in Cleveland. Mike Carey, a longtime Republican coal lobbyist, is favored in a district that sprawls across a dozen counties.Mr. Carey faces Allison Russo, a Democrat endorsed by Mr. Biden. Mr. Carey’s margin in a seat that Mr. Trump carried by more than 14 points last year will be another valuable indicator of the political environment.In Florida, a primary is being held for the seat of Representative Alcee Hastings, who died earlier this year. The winner will be favored in a January special election.The only statewide races happening in Pennsylvania on Tuesday are for the courts. The most closely watched contest is for the State Supreme Court, which features two appeals court judges, the Republican Kevin Brobson and the Democrat Maria McLaughlin. Democrats currently hold a 5-2 majority on the court and the seat being vacated was held by a Republican, so the result will not swing control.But millions of dollars in advertising are pouring into the state, a sign not just of the increasing politicization of judicial contests, but also of the state’s role as a top presidential battleground. More

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      Josh Shapiro, Running for Pennsylvania Governor, Focuses on Voting Rights

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      Mr. Shapiro, the state’s attorney general and a Democratic candidate for governor, has been on the forefront of legal efforts to defend the 2020 election.Thirty seconds into his official campaign for governor in Pennsylvania, Josh Shapiro wanted to talk about voting rights.The newly minted Democratic candidate announced his expected candidacy for governor in a two-minute video that quickly turned to the issue. It’s a topic he knows well: As the attorney general in Pennsylvania, Mr. Shapiro has been defending against a torrent of lawsuits filed by Donald J. Trump and his allies after the former president’s 2020 election loss.The 2022 races for governor in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin have been viewed by Democrats as a sea wall against a rising Republican tide of voting restrictions and far-reaching election laws. All three states have Republican-controlled legislatures that attempted to pass new voting laws but were blocked by the threat of a veto, and feature Republican candidates who have advocated for new voting laws.Pennsylvania is the only state with an open race, as current Gov. Tom Wolf is term limited from running again. Mr. Wolf threw his support behind Mr. Shapiro years before he announced, helping to clear the Democratic field.We spoke to Mr. Shapiro Wednesday as he traveled to his homecoming rally in Montgomery County.This interview has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.Your announcement video focuses first and foremost on threats to democracy. How do you run on that as a candidate?JOSH SHAPIRO: Voting rights will be a central issue in this election. And it certainly will be a central focus of my campaign. There’s a clear contrast between me and my dozen or so Republican opponents. They’re out peddling the big lie, and kind of pass these far-right litmus tests with their audits. And they’re doing real destruction to our democracy. I believe that a central focus of this campaign will be on the preservation of our democracy, and the protection of voting rights.Do you worry about overhyping threats to democracy, especially as national Democrats in Congress remain in a stalemate and aren’t taking drastic steps to address it?I think our democracy is truly being threatened. The only reason Pennsylvania has not suffered the way Texas and Georgia have with rollbacks of voting rights is because of the veto pen of our governor. We need to protect voting rights. And I’d like to work with people of both parties to expand voting rights.What do you think Democratic candidates and you should be focusing on, specifically when talking about these threats to voting rights around the country?I don’t think I can speak for any other candidate, I can only speak for me. I’m a proud Pennsylvania Democrat, and here in Pennsylvania, we were the birthplace of our democracy. And we have a special responsibility here to protect it. And I believe that the next governor in Pennsylvania will have profound responsibility to do that work. You know where I stand: expand voting rights, protect our democracy. You reference “working across the aisle” in your speech Wednesday in Pittsburgh. But with a Pennsylvania legislature you’re currently suing over an attempt to gain private voter information, how do you plan to work with them?I sued those Republican Pennsylvania senators because I believe they’re breaking the law by compromising the private information of 9 million Pennsylvania voters. And indeed, today, as attorney general, I’ll be filing a reply brief in that case. But the reason I think I can work with them and others is that I have a long track record throughout my career of bringing sides together, finding common ground and getting things done to benefit Pennsylvanians.But is there any aspect of voting rights where you have seen common ground with Republicans in the state legislature?I’ve talked to Republican commissioners, state lawmakers and election officials who have all said to me, let’s pass a law that allows us to do precanvassing of mail-in ballots the way they do in Florida and North Carolina and Ohio, for example. That’s an example of where we can find common ground.The California recall election showed how quickly allegations of “rigged elections” are cast about. How do you view governing in an era where winners are viewed as illegitimate by some of their constituents?Unfortunately, Republican leaders here in Pennsylvania have been lying to their constituents for the last 10 months, lying to them about the election, lying to them about the results, when the truth is we had a safe and secure, free and fair election in Pennsylvania. So it’s not surprising to me that some people in the public question things when their leaders have been lying to them. Leaders have a responsibility to speak truth. That is what I have tried to do as attorney general. And what I certainly will do as governor. The public deserves nothing less. Democrats around the country found success in 2018 with a focus on health care, drug prices and jobs. Now that focus seems lost amid infrastructure and a reconciliation bill. Are you concerned about running without a national cohesive message for Democrats?I’m running as a Pennsylvania Democrat, with a clear message of taking on the big fights, bringing people together and delivering real results to the people of Pennsylvania. That’s the focus of my campaign.OK, so, would that involve 2018 messages like health care and jobs? Or has it changed to something else?The national issues you’re talking about are not my focus. What is my focus is issues on the ground here in Pennsylvania. I just talked in Pittsburgh, for example, about how we need to rebuild our infrastructure, repair roads and bridges and connect every Pennsylvanian to the internet from Waynesburg in southwestern Pennsylvania to West Philadelphia. Really taking advantage of our universities to be able to become centers of innovation. Making sure we deal with some of the systemic inequities in our education and health care system here in Pennsylvania. Those are the issues that I’m focused on, and those are the issues that I know are important to the good people of Pennsylvania.But I believe, going back to the first question you asked, it makes it harder to get at those issues if we don’t shore up our democracy. And that is why I think democracy and voting rights is such a central theme. And if we can make sure that our democracy is shored up, then we can work through these other critically important issues. More

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      Why Democrats See 3 Governor’s Races as a Sea Wall for Fair Elections

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      Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania all have Democratic governors and G.O.P.-led legislatures. And in all three battlegrounds, Republicans are pushing hard to rewrite election laws.MADISON, Wis. — In three critical battleground states, Democratic governors have blocked efforts by Republican-controlled legislatures to restrict voting rights and undermine the 2020 election.Now, the 2022 races for governor in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania — states that have long been vital to Democratic presidential victories, including Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s — are taking on major new significance.At stake are how easy it is to vote, who controls the electoral system and, some Democrats worry, whether the results of federal, state and local elections will be accepted no matter which party wins.That has left Govs. Tony Evers of Wisconsin, Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan and Tom Wolf of Pennsylvania standing alone, in what is already expected to be a difficult year for their party, as what Democrats view as a sea wall against a rising Republican tide of voting restrictions and far-reaching election laws.The question of who wins their seats in 2022 — Mr. Evers and Ms. Whitmer are running for re-election, while Mr. Wolf is term-limited — has become newly urgent in recent weeks as Republicans in all three states, spurred on by former President Donald J. Trump, make clearer than ever their intent to reshape elections should they take unified control.Republicans have aggressively pursued partisan reviews of the 2020 election in each state. In Pennsylvania, G.O.P. lawmakers sought the personal information of every voter in the state last month. In Wisconsin, a conservative former State Supreme Court justice, who is investigating the 2020 election results on behalf of the State Assembly, issued subpoenas on Friday for voting-related documents from election officials. And in Michigan on Sunday night, Ms. Whitmer vetoed four election bills that she said “would have perpetuated the ‘big lie’ or made it harder for Michiganders to vote.”Republican candidates for governor in the three states have proposed additional cutbacks to voting access and measures that would give G.O.P. officials more power over how elections are run. And the party is pushing such efforts wherever it has the power to do so. This year, 19 Republican-controlled states have passed 33 laws restricting voting, one of the greatest contractions of access to the ballot since the Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965. Democrats in Congress have tried without success to pass federal voting laws to counteract the Republican push.The prospect that Mr. Trump may run again in 2024 only compounds what Democrats fear: that Republicans could gain full control over the three key Northern states in 2022 and, two years later, interfere with or overturn the outcome of a narrow Democratic presidential victory in 2024.“I would’ve never guessed that my job as governor when I ran a couple years ago was going to be mainly about making sure that our democracy is still intact in this state,” said Mr. Evers, a former Wisconsin schools superintendent. He was elected governor in the Democratic wave of 2018 on a platform of increasing education spending and expanding Medicaid.He and Ms. Whitmer are seeking re-election while vying to preserve the voting system, which was not built to withstand a sustained partisan assault, in the face of intensifying Republican challenges to the routine administration of elections. Mr. Wolf cannot seek a third term, but his Democratic heir apparent, Josh Shapiro, the Pennsylvania attorney general, has been on the forefront of legal efforts to defend the 2020 election results for nearly a year.The shift from focusing on traditional Democratic issues like health care and education to assuring fair elections is starkest for Mr. Evers, a man so aggressively staid that he’s partial to vanilla ice cream.Campaigning at the World Dairy Expo in Madison, Wis., Mr. Evers said that Wisconsin’s race for governor next year would be “about our democracy.”Lianne Milton for The New York TimesLast week, as he walked through a row of black-and-white Holstein cows at the World Dairy Expo, he predicted that if he were defeated next year, Republican legislators would have a direct path to reverse the results of the 2024 election.“The stakes are damn high,” Mr. Evers said above the din of mooing and milking at Madison’s annual dairy trade show. “This is about our democracy. It’s frightening.”The message that democracy itself is on the line is a potentially powerful campaign pitch for Mr. Evers and his fellow Democrats, one he has used in fund-raising appeals.Republicans dismiss the idea that they are undermining democracy and say that their various election reviews will increase, not decrease, voters’ trust in the system.“It’s full of hyperbole and exaggeration, which is what the Democrats do best on this election stuff,” Robin Vos, the speaker of the Wisconsin State Assembly, said in an interview last week at the State Capitol. “All we’re trying to do is make sure that people who were elected were elected legitimately.”Mr. Vos said he was still not sure if President Biden had legitimately won the state. (Mr. Biden carried it by more than 20,000 votes.) It would not take much to swing statewide elections in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Four of the last six presidential contests in Wisconsin have been decided by fewer than 23,000 votes. Other than Barack Obama, no presidential nominee has won more than 51 percent of the vote in any of the three states since 1996.And as Mr. Trump and his allies chisel away at confidence in American elections by making baseless allegations of voter fraud, it is no longer a stretch to imagine governors loyal to the former president taking previously unthinkable steps to alter future results.Governors are required to submit to Congress a certificate of ascertainment of presidential electors. But what if a governor refused?Another scenario could also give a governor outsize power over the presidential election: A state could send competing slates of electors to Congress, and the House might accept one slate and the Senate the other. Then, the Electoral Count Act of 1887 — the guidelines for tallying Electoral College votes, which remained obscure until the violence of Jan. 6 — appears to give the state’s governor the tiebreaking vote.The National Task Force on Election Crises, a nonpartisan group of experts in various fields, warned about such a possibility in a September 2020 memo.“It wouldn’t be an overstatement to say that any one of those states falling to a Trump-aligned candidate would pose an existential threat to the survival of American democracy come the 2024 election,” said Ian Bassin, the executive director of Protect Democracy, a nonpartisan group dedicated to resisting authoritarianism, who convened the election crises task force before the 2020 election.Republicans have not been shy about their ambitions to change election laws in the three states.In Pennsylvania, Lou Barletta, a former congressman who recently announced a bid for governor, said that as he crossed the state last week, the top issue for voters was “election integrity.”“People talk to me about mandates, about vaccines, but they always bring up election integrity as well,” Mr. Barletta said in an interview. He said that he was waiting for the Republicans’ election review before committing to a full slate of election changes, but that he already had a few in mind, including stricter voter identification laws.Josh Shapiro, the Democratic attorney general of Pennsylvania who defended the results of the 2020 election in the state, is expected to announce his campaign for governor as soon as this month.Susan Walsh/Associated PressJames Craig, the leading Republican candidate for governor in Michigan, has backed bills that would forbid the mass mailing of absentee ballot applications to voters who do not request them and that would enact a strict voter ID requirement. He declined to comment.Those proposed laws are being pushed by Ed McBroom, a Republican state senator, even though he released a report in June debunking Trump-inspired claims of election fraud.“Somebody could pretty easily try to impersonate somebody they don’t know,” said Mr. McBroom, who leads the Michigan Senate’s elections committee.And in Wisconsin, Rebecca Kleefisch, a Republican who served as lieutenant governor under Gov. Scott Walker until 2019, is challenging Mr. Evers with a campaign platform that calls for shifting responsibility for the state’s elections from the bipartisan Wisconsin Elections Commission, which her and Mr. Walker’s administration created in 2016, to the G.O.P.-controlled Legislature. Ms. Kleefisch declined to comment. Perhaps no 2022 Democratic candidate for governor is as familiar with Republican attempts to dispute the 2020 outcome as Mr. Shapiro. As Pennsylvania’s attorney general, he defended the state in 43 lawsuits brought by Mr. Trump and his allies that challenged voting methods and the results.“There are new threats every single day on the right to vote, new efforts to disenfranchise voters, and I expect that this will be another huge test in 2022,” said Mr. Shapiro, who is planning to announce a campaign for governor as soon as this month.Last month, Mr. Shapiro filed a lawsuit to block Republicans in the Pennsylvania Senate after they sought the personal information of all seven million voters in the state as part of their election review, including driver’s license numbers and partial Social Security numbers.Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is running for re-election in Michigan, where Republican election officials tried to stall the certification of the results of the state’s 2020 presidential race.Sarahbeth Maney/The New York TimesIn Michigan, Ms. Whitmer, who has faced threats of an insurrection in her statehouse and a kidnapping plot, is now fighting a Republican attempt to work around her expected veto of a host of proposed voting restrictions.“The only thing that is preventing the rollback of voting rights in Michigan right now is the threat of my veto,” she said in an interview.Michigan was also home to one of the most forceful and arcane attempts at reversing the outcome in 2020, when Republican election officials, at Mr. Trump’s behest, tried to refuse to certify the results in Wayne County and stall the certification of the state’s overall results. That memory, combined with new voting bills and Republican attempts to review the state’s election results, makes Michigan’s election next year all the more important, Ms. Whitmer said.“If they make it harder or impossible for droves of people not to be able to participate in the election,” she said, “that doesn’t just impact Michigan elections, but elections for federal offices as well, like the U.S. Senate and certainly the White House.”Mr. Vos said he had not thought about the degree to which Wisconsin Republicans could change voting laws if the state had a Republican governor. But this year, the State Legislature passed a package of six bills that would have enacted a range of new voting restrictions.Mr. Evers vetoed them all.“I’ve learned to play goalie in this job,” he said. “And I’ll continue to do that.” More