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      Are Democrats Bungling Their Outreach to Voters?

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      More from our inbox:Republican Outrage Over the Raid at Mar-a-Lago‘Willful Ignorance’ and the Alex Jones Case Seb AgrestiTo the Editor:Re “Fed Up With Democratic Emails? You’re Not the Only One,” by Lara Putnam and Micah L. Sifry (Opinion guest essay, nytimes.com, Aug. 1):The on-the-ground organizing the writers favor is admirable. But in deriding letters to voters, they are far off the mark. The science is clear: Large-scale randomized controlled trials over multiple election cycles have shown that Vote Forward’s partially handwritten letters significantly boost voter turnout.A peer-reviewed research study of our 2020 program “The Big Send” found that it was among the highest impact voter turnout programs ever measured in a presidential election. Vote Forward rigorously vets volunteers and encourages personal, heartfelt messages that reach beyond their bubbles — an authentic approach that works.Letter writing is a scalable, accessible activity doable year round from anywhere. It is an enjoyable entry point to electoral activism for many volunteers who later engage in deeper community organizing. And letters can be stockpiled to send at the optimal time, leaving space for other voter contact activities like canvassing and phone banking.Letters to voters are the kind of thoughtful, sustainable approach to volunteer engagement in elections that should be encouraged if we hope to build a strong civic fabric.Scott FormanOakland, Calif.The writer is the founder and executive director of Vote Forward, a nonprofit that encourages citizens to vote.To the Editor:Lara Putnam and Micah L. Sifry nailed it in their guest essay on the serious shortcomings of Democratic Party reliance on “churn and burn” email fund-raising with apocalyptic messaging. My inbox has been swamped this year with emails from Democratic PACs and candidates around the country desperately begging for money to salvage the party’s chances in the coming election. Nancy Pelosi was sending me more than an email a day, many of which had that dispiriting tone.On May 19, I finally unsubscribed to her Nancy Pelosi for Congress PAC, and sent her an email setting forth my reasons: Too much hyperbole (for example, “I critically need 3,372 gifts before midnight” was a constant refrain; there didn’t seem to be a midnight that went by that wasn’t a crucial financing deadline); too much emotion (she was shocked, disgusted, devastated); and, most troubling, too desperate.As I explained in my email, that sense of desperation “signals likely failure and has discouraged me from devoting my time and financial resources in the Democratic midterm election effort.”By contrast, the fund-raising emails I have received from President Biden have been more upbeat, and I have responded by making contributions to the Democratic National Committee. Democrats need to shift quickly from their current desperation-tinged tone to a more confident approach, with emphasis on the president’s and the party’s positive accomplishments.Allan HubbardEverett, Wash.To the Editor:The grass isn’t any greener on the other side of the aisle. My spam folder is full of similarly apocalyptic visions of what the “Biden/Pelosi/Schumer” troika will inflict on America should Republicans not sweep to congressional power in November. It’s easy enough to just hit “delete.”What is more concerning (for both red and blue voters) is that none of these desperate and destructive pleas are for anything other than money. No information on how to get more involved in the process. No links to more dispassionate discussions of the issues. Just unwarranted demonization of some of our fellow citizens via bolded adjectives and lots of exclamation marks. We can do better.Peter J. PittsNew YorkTo the Editor:Buried in the unfortunate tone of the guest essay are many points that we can agree on. Locally led conversations about elections are extremely powerful and strengthen our democracy. It is, however, a false dichotomy to say we must choose between these important local efforts and the participation of other activists in remote voter mobilization techniques. We can and must do both.Lara Putnam and Micah L. Sifry cherry-pick a study reporting a negative impact of sending postcards to voters. However, many more studies show a positive impact of between 0.4 and 2 percent. While these are small impacts, they are sufficient to make a difference in close elections.Campaigns generally do not have the capacity to knock on every door, especially in rural areas. Not all voters will be home when a canvasser shows up, and not all will answer a phone call. An all-of-the-above approach helps ensure that as many people as possible participate in our democracy.Ronnie CohenBerkeley, Calif.The writer is executive director of Activate America.Republican Outrage Over the Raid at Mar-a-LagoF.B.I. agents reportedly searched former President Donald J. Trump’s residence and office, as a well as a storage unit, at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla.Saul Martinez for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “A Simmering Feud Peaks in a Search of Trump’s Home” (front page, Aug. 10):Surely if former President Barack Obama had left the White House and taken with him government documents, some of which may have been classified and all of which should have been delivered to the National Archives, the Republicans would have raised holy hell. But, of course, when a Republican former president does the same they sing a different tune.As that former president often says, “so sad.”Samuel A. OppenheimFranklin, Mass.To the Editor:Republican politicians and Fox News are outraged over the Justice Department raid of Donald Trump’s home and are demanding that the department explain why it did this. What they fail to mention is that Mr. Trump received a copy of the search warrant and an inventory of what was taken. If this was an outrageous intrusion, Mr. Trump could disclose the purpose of the search warrant and what was taken.Mr. Trump has already turned over 15 boxes that were wrongfully removed from the White House, implicitly indicating that this was all he originally removed. If the dozen or so boxes that were seized on Monday should have been turned over earlier, this is a clear indication that Mr. Trump knowingly broke the law.Charles W. MurdockChicagoThe writer is a professor at Loyola University Chicago School of Law.‘Willful Ignorance’ and the Alex Jones Case Pool photo by Briana SanchezTo the Editor:As a longtime Newtown resident and the husband of a retired Sandy Hook Elementary School teacher, I followed the defamation suit against Alex Jones closely. I largely agree with the sentiments expressed in “Jones Got His Comeuppance, but Don’t Expect an End to the Lies” (front page, Aug. 7).Throughout history, groups have proved their allegiance to a political/cultural movement by adhering to bizarre and clearly false claims of their leaders. Blood libels. AIDS as a bioweapon. Pizzagate.Individuals adhering to the ideology of a political/cultural/fringe group will knowingly embrace outright falsehoods to further prove their allegiance. The wilder the conspiracy, the greater the sense of belonging. Willful ignorance: the team jersey of today.Steven TenenbaumNewtown, Conn. More

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      Republicans Confront Unexpected Online Money Slowdown

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      Online fund-raising has slowed across much of the Republican Party in recent months, an unusual pullback of small donors that has set off a mad rush among Republican political operatives to understand why — and reverse the sudden decline before it damages the party’s chances this fall.Small-dollar donations typically increase as an election nears. But just the opposite has happened in recent months across a wide range of Republican entities, including every major party committee and former President Donald J. Trump’s political operation.The total amount donated online fell by more than 12 percent across all federal Republican campaigns and committees in the second quarter compared with the first quarter, according to an analysis of federal records from WinRed, the main online Republican donation-processing portal.More alarming for Republicans: Democratic contributions surged at the same time. Total federal donations on ActBlue, the Democratic counterpart, jumped by more than 21 percent.The overall Democratic fund-raising edge online widened by $100 million from the last quarter of 2021 to the most recent three-month period, records show.Exacerbating the fund-raising problems for Republicans is that Mr. Trump continues to be the party’s dominant fund-raiser and yet virtually none of the tens of millions of dollars he has raised has gone toward defeating Democrats. Instead, the money has funded his political team and retribution agenda against Republicans who have crossed him.The current political climate favors Republicans as President Biden’s approval rating plumbs new lows. But nearly a dozen Republican strategists directly involved in fund-raising or overseeing campaigns have expressed concerns about how the fund-raising downturn might limit their party’s gains.Working in the party’s favor is that Wall Street billionaires and other industry titans have cut seven- and eight-figure checks to Republican super PACs, offsetting some of the party’s small-dollar struggles, which some attributed to inflation and others to deceptive tactics that are turning off supporters over time.“We’ve got to raise the money,” Senator Rick Scott of Florida, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said repeatedly on Fox News on Friday when pressed about the 2022 landscape. “We get the money, we win.”For the Senate Republican committee, online fund-raising plunged by $6.7 million in the most recent quarter, to $11 million, from $17.7 million. Top Republican Senate candidates, even those whose fund-raising ticked up, are falling well behind their Democratic rivals in the cash race.Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia raised $12.3 million online last quarter.Nicole Craine for The New York TimesThe money gap is so pronounced that Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia, an endangered Democratic incumbent, raised more online last quarter — $12.3 million — than the combined WinRed quarterly hauls of the Republican Senate nominees or presumptive nominees in seven key contests: Georgia, Wisconsin, Florida, Nevada, Ohio, North Carolina and Pennsylvania.Money alone does not win political races and, for years, Republicans have grown accustomed to trailing Democrats in online fund-raising. Democratic donors, for instance, poured more than $200 million into losing Senate races in Kentucky and South Carolina last cycle — and neither contest ended up even close.Key Themes From the 2022 Midterm Elections So FarCard 1 of 5The state of the midterms. More

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      Democrats Aid Far-Right Candidate Against Republican Who Backed Impeachment

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      The House Democrats’ official campaign arm is stepping into a Western Michigan Republican primary to elevate a candidate endorsed by former President Donald J. Trump against one of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach him.The $425,000 advertising run is the latest in a slew of Democratic efforts to draw attention to far-right candidates, hoping that they will be easier to beat in November than more mainstream Republicans. But in this case, it could also be seen as a slap to Representative Peter Meijer, the incumbent in the Grand Rapids-area district who braved blowback from his own party over his vote to impeach Mr. Trump and is now fighting skulduggery from the right and the left.The ad, which will begin airing on Tuesday and was openly cut and funded by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, proclaims that John Gibbs, who is challenging Mr. Meijer, is “too conservative” for West Michigan. But in tone and content, it is clearly meant to appeal to pro-Trump voters in the Aug. 2 Republican primary, hailing Mr. Gibbs as “handpicked by Trump to run for Congress,” buffing his bona fides as an aide in the Trump administration and promising that he would push “that same conservative agenda in Congress,” including a hard line against illegal immigration and a stand for “patriotic education.”It is similar to an advertisement run by the House Democratic super PAC that unsuccessfully tried to bolster a pro-Trump candidate against Representative David Valadao in California, another of the 10 Republicans who voted for impeachment. That ad infuriated even some Democrats.By law, elected Democrats must stay at arm’s length from the super PAC, known as the House Majority PAC, that was responsible for the ad in Mr. Valadao’s race. But with the Gibbs ad, the campaign committee responsible for it is run by a member of Democratic leadership, Representative Sean Patrick Maloney of New York, and the group is far more integrated into official actions.The Democratic campaign committee refused to comment on the advertisement. But the intent was clear. Mr. Meijer’s redrawn district has shifted from one that narrowly voted for Mr. Trump in 2020 to one that President Biden would have carried by nine percentage points.The tone of the current ad is bright, but if Mr. Gibbs were to win the primary, the next effort from Democrats is likely to be considerably darker. Mr. Gibbs, who was an aide to former Housing Secretary Ben Carson, could not win confirmation in 2020 to direct Mr. Trump’s Office of Personnel Management over comments he made accusing Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta, of taking part in a “Satanic ritual,” and calling Democrats the party of “‘Islam, gender-bending, anti-police, ‘u racist!’”More recently, Mr. Gibbs and Mr. Meijer clashed over the legitimacy of Mr. Biden’s 2020 victory, which Mr. Gibbs baselessly called “simply mathematically impossible.”In Pennsylvania, the state’s Democratic Party singled out State Senator Doug Mastriano during his successful quest for the Republican nomination for governor, despite his propagation of false claims about the 2020 election and his presence in Washington during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. Polling last month showed that Mr. Mastriano’s race against Attorney General Josh Shapiro, the Democratic nominee, appeared to be a dead heat.Democrats believe that Michigan’s Third District, with its new boundaries, is one of the few in the country that they can take from a Republican, and they are willing to risk electing a Trump-backed election denier with a history of inflammatory remarks to make it easier on their favored candidate, Hillary Scholten.After Mr. Meijer’s impeachment vote, Representative Steny Hoyer of Maryland, the House majority leader, praised Mr. Meijer for what he called “a very impressive display of courage and integrity.”“Guess that doesn’t count for much when a marginally increased chance of flipping a House seat is on the table,” Mr. Meijer quipped in a text message on Monday. More

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      A Pro-Herschel Walker Group Gave Out Gas Vouchers, Angering Democrats

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      ATLANTA — A gas-money giveaway in support of Herschel Walker, the Republican candidate for Senate in Georgia, drew the ire of Democrats and voting rights groups in the state, who said the move was both hypocritical and possibly illegal.The event, organized by the pro-Walker PAC 34N22, aimed to highlight rising gas prices and tie the issue to Senator Raphael Warnock, a Democrat who will run for re-election against Mr. Walker in November. The group handed out $25 fuel vouchers and Walker campaign flyers to motorists in line at a gas station in downtown Atlanta on Saturday as volunteers held signs saying, “Warnock isn’t working.”Several Democrats and leaders of voting rights groups criticized the event, pointing to a provision of the state’s voting law that bans volunteers from handing out water or snacks to voters while they are waiting in line. Handing out gas vouchers on behalf of a political candidate to motorists who are in line at the pump, they argued, should be considered just as unlawful.In an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, State Representative Bee Nguyen, a Democrat who is running for Secretary of State in Georgia, cited a 2020 incident in which she said a state investigator had demanded that volunteers at a polling place in Metro Atlanta remove all snacks and water.“Giving away gas vouchers and Herschel Walker flyers at the same time isn’t legal,” she said. “Are they going to do something about it?”A memo from Mr. Walker’s lawyers shared after the event denied any wrongdoing, saying the gas vouchers were distributed “without condition” and that no voters who received the vouchers were required to vote, register to vote or support any political candidate.“Warnock’s campaign is upset about 34N22’s community outreach program, not because of any earnest legal concerns, but because they don’t want the public to know Warnock has contributed to record gas prices and the pain Georgians are feeling at the pump,” the memo reads.Mr. Warnock’s campaign did not comment on the event.Mr. Walker’s campaign denied any involvement with Saturday’s voucher giveaway after a video surfaced showing Angela Stanton-King, a Walker campaign volunteer, crediting Mr. Walker for the gas voucher event. Campaign laws bar candidates from directly influencing or cooperating with PACs that support them.“Herschel Walker decided, ‘You know what, we’re going to do this free gas giveaway for the community. I want them to know that I care,’” said Ms. Stanton-King, a former U.S. House candidate who was pardoned in 2020 by former President Donald J. Trump for her role in a car-theft ring, in the video.The Saturday event — and ensuing backlash — provide the latest look at what is likely to be a bitter and expensive fight for the Senate seat.Two days before the event, Mr. Warnock released a television advertisement attacking Mr. Walker for his embrace of an aerosol product he claimed could remove Covid-19 from one’s body upon entry to a building. The last few seconds of the ad, entitled “Snake Oil,” flash the words: “Is Herschel Walker really ready to represent Georgia?” as footage plays of Mr. Walker explaining the treatment in an interview. More

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      Bernie Sanders Prepares for ‘War’ With AIPAC and Its Super PAC

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      Senator Bernie Sanders, the progressive former presidential candidate who rose to prominence in part by denouncing the influence of wealthy interests in politics, has a new target in his sights: the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and its affiliated super PAC, which is spending heavily in Democratic primaries for the first time this year.After Mr. Sanders traveled last week to Pittsburgh to campaign for Summer Lee, a liberal state legislator whose House campaign was opposed by millions of dollars in such spending, he is now headed to Texas. There, he is aiming to lift up another progressive congressional candidate, Jessica Cisneros, whose left-wing challenge of a moderate incumbent has been met with significant spending from the pro-Israel super PAC.“This is a war,” Mr. Sanders said in an interview, “for the future of the Democratic Party.”AIPAC has long been a bipartisan organization, and its entry this year into direct political spending has included giving to both Democrats and Republicans. That has earned the ire of Mr. Sanders and other progressives because the group’s super PAC also ran ads attacking Ms. Lee as an insufficiently loyal Democrat.“Why would an organization go around criticizing someone like Summer Lee for not being a strong enough Democrat when they themselves have endorsed extreme right-wing Republicans?” Mr. Sanders said. “In my view, their goal is to create a two-party system, Democrats and Republicans, in which both parties are responsive to the needs of corporate America and the billionaire class.”Mr. Sanders specifically called out the committee for donating to congressional Republicans who refused to certify the 2020 election, while its super PAC, the United Democracy Project, has framed itself as a pro-democracy group.“That just exposes the hypocrisy,” Mr. Sanders said.Marshall Wittmann, a spokesman for AIPAC, said in response to Mr. Sanders, who is Jewish, that the group “will not be intimidated in our efforts to elect pro-Israel candidates — including scores of pro-Israel progressives.”“It is very revealing that some who don’t take issue with super PAC support for anti-Israel candidates get indignant when pro-Israel activists use the same tools,” Mr. Wittmann said.After the Pennsylvania and North Carolina PrimariesMay 17 was the biggest day so far in the 2022 midterm cycle.The Stakes: G.O.P. voters are showing a willingness to nominate candidates who parrot Donald J. Trump’s 2020 lies, making clear that this year’s races may affect the fate of free and fair elections in the country.Trump’s Limits: The MAGA movement is dominating Republican primaries, but Mr. Trump’s control over it may be slipping.Trump Endorsements: Most of the candidates backed by the former president have prevailed. However, there are some noteworthy losses.Up Next: Closely watched races in Georgia and Alabama on May 24 will offer a clearer picture of Mr. Trump’s influence.More Takeaways: ​​Democratic voters are pushing for change over consensus, nominating a left-leaning political brawler for Senate in Pennsylvania. Here’s what else we’ve learned.The three candidates that Mr. Sanders has been most personally invested in backing so far have also had all super PAC support, though two were heavily outspent.Despite more than $3 million in opposition spending from pro-Israel groups, Ms. Lee is narrowly ahead in her primary against Steve Irwin, a lawyer; The Associated Press has not yet called the race.In North Carolina, Nida Allam, the Sanders-backed candidate, lost to Valerie Foushee, a state legislator, in an open congressional race. Ms. Foushee’s campaign was supported by nearly $3.5 million in spending from two pro-Israel groups and a super PAC linked to a cryptocurrency billionaire. Super PAC spending for Ms. Allam was $370,000.Maya Handa, Ms. Allam’s campaign manager, said Mr. Sanders’s megaphone — he did robocalls, sent a fund-raising email to his giant list and held a virtual event — brought invaluable attention to the outside money flooding in the race.The message broke through to some voters. In Hillsborough, Elese Stutts, 44, a bookseller, had been planning to vote for Ms. Foushee. However, on Election Day, Ms. Stutts said, she was turned off after learning about the origin of the super PAC money that had helped Ms. Foushee’s campaign.Ms. Foushee ultimately won the Democratic primary for a district that includes several major universities, including Duke and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and where Mr. Sanders registered 83 percent favorability among Democratic primary voters in the Allam campaign’s polling.Mr. Sanders has sparred with pro-Israel groups over the years, including during his 2020 presidential run, when a group called the Democratic Majority for Israel PAC spent money to attack him when he emerged as a front-runner early in the primary season.And when one of Mr. Sanders’s national co-chairs, Nina Turner, ran for Congress in a special election in 2021 and again in 2022, that group and the AIPAC-aligned super PAC both spent heavily to defeat her.Understand the 2022 Midterm ElectionsCard 1 of 6Why are these midterms so important? 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      The Little Red Boxes Making a Mockery of Campaign Finance Laws

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      Facing a threat from his left flank, Representative Kurt Schrader of Oregon wanted to send an urgent message to allies ahead of his upcoming primary: It was time to go on the attack.The challenge: Campaign finance rules bar candidates from directly coordinating with the very outside groups that Mr. Schrader, a top moderate in Congress, needed to alert. So instead, he used a little red box.On April 29, Mr. Schrader issued a not-quite-private directive inside a red-bordered box on an obscure corner of his website, sketching out a three-pronged takedown of what he called his “toxic” challenger, Jamie McLeod-Skinner — helpfully including a link to a two-page, opposition-research document about her tenure as a city manager.The message was received.On May 3, a super PAC that has received all its money from a secret-money group with ties to the pharmaceutical industry began running television ads that did little more than copy, paste and reorder the precise three lines of attack Mr. Schrader had outlined.Kurt Schrader for CongressAn ad attacking Jamie McLeod-Skinner reflects language used on her opponent Kurt Schrader’s campaign website.Center ForwardFrom Oregon to Texas, North Carolina to Pennsylvania, Democratic candidates nationwide are using such red boxes to pioneer new frontiers in soliciting and directing money from friendly super PACs financed by multimillionaires, billionaires and special-interest groups.Campaign watchdogs complain that the practice further blurs the lines meant to keep big-money interests from influencing people running for office, effectively evading the strict donation limits imposed on federal candidates. And while the tactic is not new to 2022, it is becoming so widespread that a New York Times survey of candidate websites found at least 19 Democrats deploying some version of a red box in four of the states holding contested congressional primaries on Tuesday.The practice is both brazen and breathtakingly simple. To work around the prohibition on directly coordinating with super PACs, candidates are posting their instructions to them inside the red boxes on public pages that super PACs continuously monitor.The boxes highlight the aspects of candidates’ biographies that they want amplified and the skeletons in their opponents’ closets that they want exposed. Then, they add instructions that can be extremely detailed: Steering advertising spending to particular cities or counties, asking for different types of advertising and even slicing who should be targeted by age, gender and ethnicity.“Liberals, voters under 50 and women — across only San Antonio, Guadalupe and Atascosa counties,” reads the targeting guidance from Jessica Cisneros, a Democratic challenger in South Texas.Understand the Pennsylvania Primary ElectionThe crucial swing state will hold its primary on May 17, with key races for a U.S. Senate seat and the governorship.Hard-Liners Gain: Republican voters appear to be rallying behind far-right candidates in two pivotal races, worrying both parties about what that could mean in November.G.O.P. Senate Race: Kathy Barnette, a conservative commentator, is making a surprise late surge against big-spending rivals, Dr. Mehmet Oz and David McCormick.Democratic Senate Race: Representative Conor Lamb had all the makings of a front-runner, but John Fetterman, the state’s shorts-wearing lieutenant governor, is resonating with voters.Abortion Battleground: Pennsylvania is one of a handful of states where abortion access hangs in the balance with midterm elections this year.Electability Concerns: Starting with Pennsylvania, the coming weeks will offer a window into the mood of Democratic voters who are deeply worried about a challenging midterm campaign environment.“Black voters ages 45+ in Durham and white women ages 45+ in Orange” was the recent directive from Valerie Foushee, a Democratic House candidate in North Carolina locked in a competitive primary for an open seat.Red-boxing spans the ideological spectrum of the Democratic Party, from Blue Dog Democrats like Mr. Schrader to progressives like his challenger and Ms. Cisneros, who has the backing of the Working Families Party and Justice Democrats as she tries to unseat Representative Henry Cuellar.It is not clear why Democratic candidates have so thoroughly embraced the red box tactic in primaries while Republicans have not. Republicans work hand in glove with their super PACs, too, but in different ways.In 2014, some Republican groups tried using anonymous Twitter accounts to share internal polling data through coded tweets. More recently, J.D. Vance outsourced some of his Ohio Senate campaign’s most basic operations. His allied super PAC, funded by $15 million from the Silicon Valley investor Peter Thiel, posted troves of internal and polling data on an unpublicized Medium page that campaign officials used to guide decisions.The Vance super PAC was so central to the campaign that when Mr. Vance walked onstage at a rally with Donald J. Trump, the cameraman filming him from behind worked for the super PAC, not the Vance campaign.Adav Noti, the legal director of the watchdog group the Campaign Legal Center, said that red boxes were erasing the very barriers that were erected to make politicians feel less indebted to their biggest financial benefactors. Federal candidates can legally raise only $2,900 for a primary per donor; super PACs can receive donations of $1 million — or even more.“It’s a joke,” he said. “The coordination of super PACs and candidates is the primary mechanism for corruption of federal campaigns in 2022.”In Democratic primaries, the biggest money is often aligned with the more moderate wing of the party, and sometimes with very specific interest groups.In her race in North Carolina, Ms. Foushee, a state legislator, has been aided by more than $3 million in spending from two of the bigger new players in Democratic House races. One is a super PAC funded by an arm of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the pro-Israel lobbying group (a separate pro-Israel group has spent nearly $300,000 more). And the other is a super PAC financed chiefly by the 30-year-old crypto billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried.Ms. Foushee is running against, among others, Nida Allam, a Durham County commissioner who promotes herself as the first Muslim woman elected in North Carolina, and who has been critical of U.S. military aid to Israel “being used to oppress the Palestinian people.”The super PAC that Mr. Bankman-Fried is bankrolling, Protect Our Future, has spent more than $11 million in another open Oregon House race — an astounding sum to lift a political newcomer, Carrick Flynn. At least one of the many ads run in the race echoes the language in Mr. Flynn’s red box.Red boxes are typically hidden in plain sight in “Media Center” or “Media Resources” sections of campaign websites that operatives know how to find, and often use thinly veiled terms to convey their instructions: Saying voters need to “hear” something is a request for radio ads, “see” means television, “read” means direct mail, and “see while on the go” usually means digital ads.Ms. Allam used “on the go” in an April 20 red box update to request online ads telling voters — “especially women, Democrats under 50 and progressives” — that she would “be an unapologetic progressive.”The Working Families Party used those exact words — along with other verbatim phrases — in a Facebook ad that began running on May 5. Facebook records show that 95 percent of the ad’s impressions were with women and people under 54.End runs around campaign limits are themselves nothing new: For years, candidates have posted flattering pictures and videos of themselves for super PACs to download and use. But the explosion of red boxes and their unabashed specificity is the latest example of how America’s system of financing political campaigns — and the restrictions put in place to curb the power of the wealthy in the wake of Watergate a half-century ago — is teetering toward collapse.“This page only exists because of our broken campaign finance system,” reads a web page that Lt. Gov. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, a leading candidate in Tuesday’s Democratic Senate primary, posted this year to make suggestions to super PACs. (Like some others, he did not surround his instructions in a red box.)Mr. Fetterman was not above providing guidance: His site asked only for positive ads and included some biographical bullet points. Sure enough, a super PAC ran a positive ad employing some of those arguments — like the fact that he had refused to live in a state mansion to save taxpayers money.Conor Lamb for U.S. SenatePennsylvania ProgressMr. Fetterman’s leading rival, Representative Conor Lamb, used his own red box earlier this year to outline the attacks he hoped his supportive super PAC would broadcast against Mr. Fetterman. In short order, a television ad appeared warning Democrats that Mr. Fetterman had once been called a “Silver Spoon Socialist” and that “Republicans think they could crush” him. It also echoed verbatim the recommended talking points about Mr. Lamb’s background.Understand the 2022 Midterm ElectionsCard 1 of 6Why are these midterms so important? More

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      How J.D. Vance Won in Ohio: A Trump Endorsement, a Fox News Stage and Money

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      A big endorsement was decisive, but a cable news megaphone and a huge infusion of spending helped pave the way to victory.CINCINNATI — It was only hours after J.D. Vance had announced his Senate campaign with an us-against-them speech last July that he stepped off the stage and sat down to make his case on one of the Republican Party’s biggest and most valuable platforms: “Tucker Carlson Tonight” on Fox News.Speaking from his hometown in Ohio, one that his memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy,” put on the map as a symbol of left-behind Middle America, Mr. Vance lamented the “elites and the ruling class” and how they “have plundered this country.”Mr. Carlson lapped it up — “I love that,” he beamed — and all but endorsed Mr. Vance’s campaign on the spot. “I probably shouldn’t say this,” Mr. Carlson said. “I’m really glad you’re doing it.”J.D. Vance on “Tucker Carlson Tonight” last July when he announced his run for Senate.Fox NewsThe victory of Mr. Vance, 37, in the Ohio Senate Republican primary on Tuesday was unquestionably fueled by the April 15 endorsement of former President Donald J. Trump, which catapulted Mr. Vance toward victory. But other factors had set the stage for the former president to play such a decisive role.Mr. Vance had received both behind-the-scenes and very public help: from Donald Trump Jr., the former president’s eldest son; from the not-so-quiet support of Mr. Carlson; and from the extraordinary and early investment of Peter Thiel, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist who is also Mr. Vance’s former boss.In the end, that group — Mr. Thiel, Mr. Carlson, and the two Trumps — formed a powerful alliance. Mr. Thiel’s $15 million appears to be the most ever spent by an individual megadonor to elect a single Senate candidate. Mr. Carlson’s program is the most watched on cable television and a trendsetter for conservative media. And the former president is the most popular politician in the Republican Party.Together, they helped deliver for Mr. Vance everything he would need for his Trump-toned, anti-corporate, nationalist message to succeed: funding, media attention and a late surge of momentum.Mr. Trump’s blessing was uniquely powerful in Ohio, where it effectively absolved Mr. Vance of his previous harsh denunciations of Mr. Trump — the focus of almost all the attacks on his campaign. Every race is different, and even Mr. Trump’s influence has limits: Mr. Vance won just over 32 percent of the vote, meaning most primary voters did not side with the former president’s pick.Still, given Ohio’s Republican leanings, Mr. Vance now enters the fall campaign as a favorite to enter the United States Senate largely owing his seat to the former president’s intervention.Supporters of J.D. Vance at a rally hosted by former President Donald J. Trump last month in Delaware, Ohio.Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesMr. Vance’s emergence as a Make America Great Again standard-bearer in 2022 would have seemed unthinkable six years ago, when he was a self-styled “Never Trump” Republican and a fixture of the mainstream news media as a translator for liberals curious about the bombastic New Yorker’s cultural appeal. In early 2021, Mr. Vance sought to make amends. And it was Mr. Thiel who brokered and attended a meeting at Mar-a-Lago at which Mr. Vance began his rehabilitation and reinvention. Additional help came from the right-wing activist Charlie Kirk, a Trump favorite, who connected Mr. Vance with Andy Surabian, an adviser to Donald Trump Jr.An Inside Look at Fox NewsThe conservative cable news network is one of the most influential media outlets in the United States.Tucker Carlson: The star TV host stoked white fear to conquer cable news. In the process, he transformed Fox News and became Donald J. Trump’s heir.Empire of Influence: ​​A Times investigation looked at how the Murdochs, the family behind a global media empire that includes Fox News, have destabilized democracy on three continents.What Trump Helped Build: Together, the channel and Donald Trump have redefined the limits of acceptable political discourse.How Russia Uses Fox News: The network has appeared in Russian media as a way to bolster the Kremlin’s narrative about the Ukraine war.Leaving Fox News: After 18 years with the network, the anchor Chris Wallace, who left for the now shuttered streaming service CNN+, said working at Fox News had become “unsustainable.”While rival Ohio Senate contenders pressured, and sometimes pestered, the former president for his support, Mr. Vance’s lobbying effort was more restrained. When four other candidates traveled to Mar-a-Lago for a fund-raiser for a House candidate and were corralled into an impromptu pitch session with Mr. Trump, Mr. Vance was not there. Two people close to him said he had stayed away deliberately, to avoid being seen as just one of a cluster of aspirants.The contrast, at that point, could have been unkind: The early G.O.P. front-runner was Josh Mandel, a former state treasurer and two-time Senate candidate. Two businessmen were also in the race — Bernie Moreno, a car dealer, and Mike Gibbons, a financial executive — as was Jane Timken, a former state Republican chairwoman.All of them, along with Matt Dolan, a wealthy state senator, could draw on millions of dollars of their own or from old campaign accounts. In contrast, Mr. Vance was a first-time candidate with no real national donor network, and was not rich enough to finance his own campaign.His super PAC, which received $10 million from Mr. Thiel months before he even entered the race, would be crucial.But there was a legal complication: Outside groups may not privately coordinate strategy with campaigns. So the super PAC found a workaround, publishing troves of internal data on an unpublicized Medium page where campaign officials knew to find it. The existence of the site was first revealed by Politico.The degree to which the super PAC worked as something of an adjunct to the campaign itself is remarkable. According to documents it posted, the outside group “recruited, vetted and hired staff who later joined” the campaign, sent text messages and robocalls to build crowds for Vance events and even paid for online advertising that directed donations to the Vance campaign.Yet for all his cash, Mr. Thiel absented himself from the super PAC’s operations, never once speaking to Luke Thompson, who ran it, so Mr. Thiel could legally continue to speak with Mr. Vance as an adviser, according to Mr. Thompson.Peter Thiel at a Bitcoin conference in Miami last month.Chandan Khanna/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMr. Thompson called Mr. Thiel’s approach “a venture capital mind-set,” likening the campaign to a start-up. “J.D. is the founder and picks his team,” he said.Even with the early Thiel money, Mr. Vance relied on conservative media for attention, appearing on the programs of Stephen Bannon and Sebastian Gorka.Appearances on Mr. Carlson’s Fox News program were most valuable of all.He has appeared on the program 15 times since July, according to Media Matters for America, often drawing heavy praise from the host. “Occasionally, you run into somebody who could actually change things,” Mr. Carlson said during an interview on the eve of the election. “That would be J.D. Vance.”“Tucker was really, really important,” Mr. Thompson said. “It meant that our guy had a platform to go and talk to primary voters in Ohio — and small-dollar donors nationwide.”Then came the attacks.For weeks last fall, the anti-tax Club for Growth, which supported Mr. Mandel, pummeled Mr. Vance for his past denunciations of Mr. Trump. Mr. Vance’s own super PAC found that Ohioans knew little about him besides that he had once opposed Trump. By December, David McIntosh, the Club for Growth’s president, had repeatedly urged Mr. Trump to back Mr. Mandel, warning him that Mr. Vance’s candidacy was doomed.Josh Mandel conceding the primary race to J.D. Vance on Tuesday night in Beachwood, Ohio.Brian Kaiser for The New York TimesMr. McIntosh evidently was persuasive: Speaking with advisers, Mr. Trump mulled whether to get behind Mr. Mandel, saying that Mr. Vance was “dead, isn’t he?”“I like J.D. a lot, but everyone just tells me those ads killed him,” Mr. Trump told one adviser.In hindsight, however, Nick Everhart, a Republican strategist based in Ohio, said that “being shoved out of the first tier of the race” might have been “the best thing that happened to Vance,” because the attacks on him largely stopped.Records from AdImpact, the ad-tracking firm, show that ads attacking Mr. Vance slowed to a trickle in December and then stopped entirely in February.When ads supporting Mr. Vance began to run, he gained traction, though he still trailed. By April 4, his super PAC posted a memo saying Mr. Vance was no longer “primarily associated” with his prior criticisms of Mr. Trump.“J.D. showed a lot of resilience in this race — and when the political class in the Beltway wrote him off as dead in the water earlier this year, he clawed his way back into contention to get President Trump’s endorsement and ultimately win through his sheer determination and natural political talent,” said Mr. Surabian, who, along with Jai Chabria, ran Mr. Vance’s campaign. Indeed, Mr. Trump was swayed in part by how Mr. Vance handled himself on television. In one debate, when Mr. Mandel and Mr. Gibbons went toe to toe, Mr. Vance scolded them, rising above the fray — and impressing Mr. Trump.Mr. Trump was on a golf course, editing his statement endorsing Mr. Vance, when NBC News reported he was about to issue it. Some of Mr. Trump’s advisers, working with Mr. Vance’s opponents, were lobbying the former president not to, but the report only solidified his decision.Mr. Vance also benefited from a more accurate picture of the electorate.Mr. McIntosh, of the Club for Growth, repeatedly argued to Mr. Trump that the former president’s pollster, Anthony Fabrizio, who was also working for Mr. Vance, had modeled the Ohio primary electorate inaccurately.The Club for Growth’s polling last weekend showed Mr. Vance receiving 26 percent of the vote. Mr. Fabrizio’s polling had Mr. Vance at 32 percent.Mr. Vance finished with 32.2 percent.Jeff Roe, a Republican strategist who worked with the Club for Growth in Ohio, called Mr. Trump before the polls closed on Tuesday to concede. He told Mr. Trump that the former president was “100 percent responsible” for Mr. Vance’s win, according to a person briefed on the conversation.In his victory speech Tuesday night, Mr. Vance thanked, among others, Donald Trump Jr., Charlie Kirk, Tucker Carlson and, of course, the former president.Shane Goldmacher reported from Cincinnati, and Maggie Haberman from New York. More

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      Wealthy GOP Donors Form Secret Coalitions to Wield More Influence

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      Eager to offset a Democratic advantage among so-called dark money groups, wealthy pro-Trump conservatives like Peter Thiel are involved in efforts to wield greater influence outside the traditional party machinery.A new coalition of wealthy conservative benefactors that says it aims to “disrupt but advance the Republican agenda” gathered this week for a private summit in South Florida that included closed-door addresses from former President Donald J. Trump and an allied Senate candidate at Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club, according to documents and interviews.The coalition, called the Rockbridge Network, includes some of Mr. Trump’s biggest donors, such as Peter Thiel and Rebekah Mercer, and has laid out an ambitious goal — to reshape the American right by spending more than $30 million on conservative media, legal, policy and voter registration projects, among other initiatives.The emergence of Rockbridge, the existence of which has not previously been reported, comes amid escalating jockeying among conservative megadonors to shape the 2022 midterms and the future of the Republican Party from outside the formal party machinery, and often with little disclosure.In February, another previously unreported coalition of donors, the Chestnut Street Council, organized by the Trump-allied lobbyist Matt Schlapp, held a meeting to hear a pitch for new models for funding the conservative movement.If those upstart coalitions gain momentum, they will likely have to vie for influence among conservatives with existing donor networks that have been skeptical of or agnostic toward Mr. Trump.One that was created by the billionaire industrialists Charles G. and David H. Koch spent more than $250 million in 2020. Another, spearheaded by the New York hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer, hosted top Republican politicians in February.The surge in secretive fund-raising does not end there — a number of nonprofit groups with varying degrees of allegiance to Mr. Trump are also vying to become leading distributors of donor funds to the right.Taken together, the jockeying highlights frustration on the right with the political infrastructure that surrounds the Republican Party, and, in some cases, with its politicians, as well as disagreements about its direction as Mr. Trump teases another presidential run.The efforts to harness the fortunes of the party’s richest activists could help it capitalize on a favorable electoral landscape headed into this year’s midterm elections, and — potentially — the 2024 presidential campaign. Conversely, the party’s prospects could be dimmed if the moneyed class invests in competing candidates, groups and tactics.The willingness of donors to organize on their own underscores the migration of power and money away from the official organs of the respective parties, which are required to disclose their donors, to outside groups that often have few disclosure requirements. It also reflects a concern among some influential Republicans that the political right faces a disadvantage when it comes to nonprofit groups that support the candidates and causes of each party.How Donald J. Trump Still LoomsGrip on G.O.P.: Mr. Trump remains the most powerful figure in the Republican Party. However, there are signs his control is loosening.Power Struggle: Led by Senator Mitch McConnell, a band of anti-Trump Republicans is maneuvering to thwart the ex-president.Midterms Effect: Mr. Trump has become a party kingmaker, but his involvement in state races worries many Republicans.Post-Presidency Profits: Mr. Trump is melding business with politics, capitalizing for personal gain.Just the Beginning: For many Trump supporters who marched on Jan. 6, the day was not a disgraced insurrection but the start of a movement.An analysis by The New York Times found that 15 of the most politically active nonprofit organizations that generally align with the Democratic Party spent more than $1.5 billion in 2020 in funds for which the donors’ identities are not disclosed. That compared to roughly $900 million in so-called dark money spent by a comparable sample of 15 groups aligned with Republicans.The effort to close that gap — and to make gains in political consulting and technology that undergirds the right’s political infrastructure — has been a major subject of discussion among these coalitions.Former President Donald J. Trump addressed the Rockbridge Network on Tuesday night at his private club in Mar-a-Lago.Brittany Greeson for The New York Times“We need to show our side is organized and has the necessary institutional know-how and financial support, in order to have any shot at winning future elections,” reads a brochure for the Rockbridge Network.The brochure, which circulated in Republican finance circles this year, calls Rockbridge “a kind of political venture capital firm” that will “leverage our investors’ capital with the right political expertise” to “replace the current Republican ecosystem of think tanks, media organizations and activist groups that have contributed to the Party’s decline with better action-oriented, more effective people and institutions that are focused on winning.”Among the initiatives cited in the Rockbridge brochure are media-related functions — including public relations, messaging, polling, “influencer programs” and investigative journalism — with a combined budget of $8 million.A “lawfare and strategic litigation” effort with a projected cost of $3.75 million is intended to use the courts “to hold bad actors, including the media, accountable.” A “transition project,” with an estimated price tag of $3 million, is intended to assemble policy experts and plans to create a “government-in-waiting” to “staff the next Republican administration.”A “red state project” is intended to mimic a model pioneered by the left in which strategists coordinate the efforts of an array of movement groups to complement one another and avoid overlap. It is estimated to cost $6 million to $8 million per state, and is initially focused on the swing states of Arizona, Nevada and Michigan.A person familiar with Rockbridge described those projects, and their fund-raising goals, as aspirational, and said the coalition had so far focused on allocating donor funds to pre-existing groups to accomplish its goals, rather than creating new ones.The person said that the coalition had tested some of its plans, including a voter registration initiative, last year in Arizona, which is identified in the brochure as a case study.Arizona was the site of Rockbridge’s first summit, which was held last year. It featured a speech by Mr. Thiel, the billionaire tech investor. He and Ms. Mercer, the daughter of the hedge fund magnate Robert Mercer, were among Mr. Trump’s biggest donors in 2016, and worked closely together on his presidential transition team.Since then, Mr. Thiel has emerged as a key kingmaker, supporting 16 Senate and House candidates, some of whom have also been backed by Ms. Mercer. Many of their candidates have embraced the lie that Mr. Trump won the 2020 election.One, Blake Masters, a former employee of Mr. Thiel’s who is running for Senate in Arizona, spoke at the Rockbridge dinner reception at Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday night before Mr. Trump, and conceivably could benefit from Rockbridge’s efforts.Mr. Thiel donated $10 million each to super PACs supporting Mr. Masters and J.D. Vance, an Ohio Senate candidate.It was not clear whether Mr. Thiel or Ms. Mercer attended the Rockbridge gathering this week, which included sessions at another hotel in addition to the dinner reception at Mar-a-Lago Tuesday night. The Mar-a-Lago dinner occurred just before another event there that drew Trump loyalists — the premiere of a movie critical of Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Facebook parent company Meta, for providing grants in 2020 to election administrators struggling to cover the costs of holding an election amid a pandemic. Mr. Thiel has been a board member at Meta, but is leaving that position to focus on trying to influence the midterm elections. His involvement in Rockbridge suggests he could be branching into dark-money nonprofit spending.Rockbridge was founded by Christopher Buskirk, who is the editor and publisher of the pro-Trump journal American Greatness and has advised a super PAC supporting Mr. Masters.A spokesman for Mr. Thiel declined to comment. Efforts to reach Ms. Mercer were not successful.Mr. Schlapp, who helped expand the Koch brothers’ political operation more than 15 years ago, said he created the Chestnut Street Council because donors approached him after the 2020 election “expressing frustration with the more normal routes for funding political operations.”“We decided that it made sense to work with these donors to find better investment opportunities,” he said.He suggested that the group would support legal battles over voting rules.At a Chestnut Street Council meeting in February, donors heard a presentation from the veteran Republican fund-raiser Caroline Wren.Ms. Wren, who helped raise money for many Trump political initiatives, including the rally that preceded the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, said the right should try to replicate the left’s system of donor alliances and nonprofit funding hubs to incubate new groups and increase cooperation between existing ones, according to a person familiar with the presentation.While new funding hubs have emerged on the right in recent years, none have matched the sophistication or spending levels of those on the left.The Conservative Partnership Institute, has sought to become “the hub of the conservative movement.” It claimed in its 2021 annual report to have played a role in the creation of several new conservative nonprofits, including America First Legal, which is led by former Trump aide Stephen Miller; the Center for Renewing America, led by another Trump alumnus, Russ Vought; and the American Cornerstone Institute, led by Ben Carson, the former secretary of housing and urban development.Rebekah Mercer, right, was among Mr. Trump’s biggest donors in 2016, and worked on his presidential transition team.Andrew Harnik/Associated PressThe group also houses the Election Integrity Network, which is led by Cleta Mitchell, the conservative lawyer who was on the hourlong call with Georgia officials and Mr. Trump when the then-president pressured them to “find” enough votes to flip the result. The Conservative Partnership Institute received a $1 million infusion from Mr. Trump’s PAC last summer and held a donor retreat at Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s private club, last spring.Such groups have far fewer disclosure requirements than campaigns and political action committees. Funding hubs like the Conservative Partnership Institute and another nonprofit network shaped by the judicial activist Leonard A. Leo are required to disclose their grants to other groups, but not the donors who supplied the cash, while donor coalitions like the Rockbridge Network and Chestnut Street Council will likely not be required to disclose either.The willingness of Mr. Trump and other officials and prospective presidential candidates to engage with these coalitions is a testament to their increasing centrality in American politics.Recent private gatherings hosted in Colorado and Palm Beach, Fla., by Mr. Singer’s coalition, the American Opportunity Alliance, drew appearances by former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, former Vice President Mike Pence and Nikki Haley, a former United Nations ambassador.Representative Tom Emmer of Minnesota, the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, was expected to speak at the Rockbridge Network meeting in Palm Beach this week. More