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      In Virginia Governor's Race, National Issues Dominate Ad Wars

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      In a governor’s race deemed a bellwether for the 2022 midterms, the battle between Terry McAuliffe and Glenn Youngkin has ignited over national cultural issues.Sign up here to get On Politics in your inbox on Tuesdays and Thursdays.Four of the five most expensive ads for the McAuliffe campaign have been negative, with a particular focus on abortion.Carlos Bernate for The New York TimesIt’s a long-held mantra in elections: All politics are local. But the ad wars in the race for Virginia governor indicate that national is the new normal.In a contest deemed a bellwether for the 2022 midterms, the battle between Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat and the state’s former governor, and Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, has ignited more over the cultural issues currently inflaming national politics than traditional tension points like state and local taxes.Atop the list of the most aired ads in the race are attacks about abortion (though there’s no current law or challenge to abortion rights in Virginia) and schools (amid the national debates on curriculum, critical race theory and mask mandates).In an expensive race with in-person campaigning still limited by the pandemic, the national issues being debated over the airwaves have set the tone. The two candidates have combined to spend more than $36 million on broadcast television ads at just over $18 million each, according to AdImpact, an ad tracking firm. Outside groups and super PACs have largely stayed on the sidelines.More than 60 percent of the spending has been on ads that have at least some negative comparisons or attacks, according to AdImpact.Four of the five most expensive ads for the McAuliffe campaign have been negative, with a particular focus on abortion, an issue that rocketed to the forefront of national politics after Texas passed a new law that bans almost all abortions.The campaign has put the most money behind a 60-second ad that seizes on a hidden-camera video recorded by a liberal activist that showed Youngkin openly worrying about losing “independent votes” over the issue, but promising to go “on offense” to restrict access to abortion if Republicans also take the statehouse. The McAuliffe campaign portrayed Youngkin as beholden to the conservative fringe of the Republican Party.“Glenn Youngkin has been caught,” a female narrative voice whispers as news reports of the video fill the screen. “Caught on video admitting his far-right agenda.”In another ad, the McAuliffe campaign highlights a doctor who claims that Youngkin’s support of abortion limits would “harm my patients” and that he is inserting politics into science and medicine, an echo of the common critiques of the anti-vaccine and anti-mask movements.Other national dividing lines, such as voting rights, police reform and public health, play central roles in the McAuliffe campaign’s effort to paint Youngkin with the patina of a Trump Republican; more than 75 percent of McAuliffe’s ads include an attack on or contrast drawn with his opponent.For the Youngkin campaign, one ad is dominating the rotation: a clip from a debate in September where McAuliffe stated, “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.” The comment followed an argument between the two candidates over a veto McAuliffe signed as governor in 2017 of legislation that had allowed parents to opt out of allowing their children to study material deemed sexually explicit.Schools have quickly climbed to the forefront of national political scraps, with right-wing media seizing on a crusade against school mask mandates and critical race theory, and major conservative pundits pushing for Republicans to focus on school board races. Though McAuliffe’s quote did not originate in the current tussle over schools, it quickly resonated. The Youngkin campaign put more than $1 million behind the ad.Youngkin has a more balanced mix of positive and negative advertising, including a lot of biographical ads, highlighting his past as a college basketball player and businessman, and presenting him as an outsider to Virginia politics who can get things done.But the disparity in the ratio of positive to negative ads doesn’t necessarily reflect one candidate on the upswing or another on the defensive. Youngkin, who spent most of his career in business, has to keep introducing himself to voters while simultaneously trying to define McAuliffe through negative ads.McAuliffe, a former governor who left office in 2018 polling safely above water, is a known quantity in the state, which prohibits governors from serving two consecutive terms. With little need for biographical ads, McAuliffe’s campaign has gone more aggressively on the offensive, including with some more out-of-the-box national attack ads about the rights to Taylor Swift’s music.In a small digital ad effort, the McAuliffe campaign bought ads on Instagram, Facebook and Google that highlighted Swift’s claim that the Carlyle Group, which Youngkin used to lead as a co-chief executive, helped finance a sale of the rights to her music.One ad closes with a nod to Swift’s lyrics: “’Cause Glenn, now we got bad blood.”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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      Eric Adams Runs His First General Election TV Ad

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      The Democratic nominee for New York City mayor used the 30-second ad to tell his personal story, stressing his commitment to affordable housing.With a month left until Election Day, Eric Adams is finally starting to use some of his sizable campaign war chest, releasing his first post-primary television ad on Tuesday in the general election for mayor of New York City.The ad focuses on his working-class roots and his mother, Dorothy Adams, who died in March — a departure from his ads during the Democratic primary, which focused on policing.“My mom cleaned houses and worked three jobs to give us a better life in a city that too often fails families like ours,” Mr. Adams says in the ad, as a Black woman is shown cleaning a home and embracing her children at the end of the day.Mr. Adams then appears onscreen with a smile and says that the city must invest in early childhood education and affordable housing: “That’s how we really make a difference.”The ad marks the beginning of the final stretch of the mayor’s race, which pits Mr. Adams against Curtis Sliwa, the Republican candidate, on Nov. 2. Mr. Adams, 61, the Brooklyn borough president, is widely expected to win and has been promoting himself and his centrist platform as the future of the Democratic Party.He won a contentious Democratic primary by focusing on public safety and his background as a police officer. Now he is trying to highlight other priorities like reducing the cost of child care for children under 3.Mr. Adams wants to offer “universal child care” for families that cannot afford it by reducing the costs that centers pay for space with tax breaks and other incentives. He also wants to rezone wealthy neighborhoods to build more affordable housing and to convert empty hotels outside Manhattan to supportive housing.Mr. Sliwa, 67, has focused his ads on the message that he is compassionate toward homeless people — as well as his small army of rescue cats — and that he would offer a departure from Mayor Bill de Blasio. He has also criticized Mr. Adams for spending his summer meeting with the city’s elite and traveling outside the city to court donors.“The choice is somebody up in the suites like an Eric Adams — a professional politician — or somebody down in the streets and subways — that’s Curtis Sliwa,” he says in one ad. “I’ve got the touch with the common man and common woman.”Mr. Sliwa’s ad shows Mr. Adams standing next to Mr. de Blasio, who has supported Mr. Adams during the race.But Democrats outnumber Republicans by nearly seven to one in New York City, and Mr. Sliwa has struggled to gain attention, let alone momentum. Mr. Adams also has a major fund-raising advantage: He has more than $7.5 million on hand; Mr. Sliwa has about $1.2 million.Mr. Adams’s new ad was produced by Ralston Lapp Guinn, a media firm that worked with him during the primary. The team has made ads for other Democrats like President Barack Obama and Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota.The ad mentions Mr. Adams’s signature issue — public safety — noting that “we all have a right to a safe and secure future”Mr. Adams, who would be New York City’s second Black mayor, has often spoken about his mother on the campaign trail and of growing up poor with five siblings. Ms. Adams died earlier this year — something Mr. Adams revealed in an emotional moment during the primary.In recent interviews, Mr. Adams has said that it was two months into the Democratic primary when he decided to focus on his personal narrative.He said in a recent podcast with Ezra Klein of The New York Times that he decided to share a “series of vignettes” about his life, including being beaten by the police, having a learning disability and working as a dishwasher, and he believed that his authenticity won over voters.“Each time I stood in front of a group of people and gave them another peek into who I am, they said to themselves, ‘He’s one of us,’” he said. More

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      Eric Adams Has $7.7 Million to Spend, As Donations From Wealthy Pour In

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      With victory nearly assured, Mr. Adams has amassed a substantial war chest ahead of the general election for New York City mayor. His opponent lags far behind.Eric Adams is heavily favored to become the next mayor of New York City, but that hasn’t stopped him from amassing an intimidatingly large war chest ahead of November’s general election.Mr. Adams, the Democratic nominee, has raised another $2.4 million since late August, leaving his campaign with roughly $7.7 million to promote his message and to signal strength. Over the course of five weeks, some 700 donors gave him the legal maximum donation of $2,000, according to the latest campaign finance reports released on Friday.His Republican opponent, Curtis Sliwa, raised roughly $200,000 during the latest filing period and has $1.2 million on hand. Only two people gave him the maximum donation of $2,000.There has been no public polling, but Democrats outnumber Republicans by nearly seven to one in New York City, and many are predicting a landslide for Mr. Adams. Mr. Sliwa, the founder of the Guardian Angels, has been struggling to gain momentum and recently released his first campaign ads, which showed him scratching the chin of a rescue cat and riding the subway.Curtis Sliwa, the Republican mayoral candidate, has $1.2 million on hand.Stephanie Keith for The New York TimesMr. Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, has spent much of his summer focused on fund-raising, traveling to the Hamptons and Martha’s Vineyard and courting wealthy donors who favor his brand of centrism. His travels appeared to have paid off: He raised more than $950,000 from donors outside New York City during the latest filing period — about 40 percent of his haul.His donors ran the gamut, from billionaires to a plumber from the Bronx.The billionaires included the Mediacom Communications chief executive, Rocco Commisso; the Estée Lauder heir William Lauder; Laurie Tisch, the Loews Corporation heiress, and her brother, Steve Tisch, the chairman of the New York Giants.Mr. Adams raked in handsome donations from the hedge fund industry, too, including from John Griffin, the founder of Blue Ridge Capital; Lee Ainslie, the founder of Maverick Ventures; and the New York Mets owner, Steven A. Cohen, the chief executive of Point72, who donated $1,800 to Mr. Adams, and whose employees donated an additional $26,500.Mr. Adams has said in recent weeks that he would swing open New York’s doors to businesses big and small and use incentives when necessary to lure them here. In his rhetoric, he is drawing a sharp contrast with the outgoing mayor, Bill de Blasio, who has openly quarreled with the city’s business elite.“The support for our campaign from every corner of the city continues to be overwhelming and humbling,” Mr. Adams said in a statement on Friday.Early voting in the general election begins on Oct. 23. Mr. Adams and Mr. Sliwa are expected to participate in two debates this month on WNBC and WABC. Mr. Sliwa, who is fighting for exposure, is pushing for more debates.Mr. Sliwa recently qualified for public matching funds and has sought to capture attention with dog-and-pony media events, like crossing the George Washington Bridge to New Jersey in a showy effort to find out where Mr. Adams lives. But Mr. Sliwa’s proclivity for drama backfired last week when his campaign claimed on Twitter that he had found a gun at a crime scene on the Upper West Side when, in fact, he had not.Mr. Sliwa’s campaign released a statement on Friday trumpeting his recent fund-raising and said it believes “this will be a very competitive and close race.”But even Mr. Sliwa has acknowledged that he is facing an uphill battle. As a sign of Mr. Adams’s broad appeal, both Mr. de Blasio, a self-described progressive, and Michael R. Bloomberg, a pro-business centrist, have embraced him.Mr. Adams’s most recent campaign finance filings indicate that special interests from a cross-section of New York labor and industry are eager to make his acquaintance. Many of his donations came from landlords and developers, including William Blodgett, the co-founder of Fairstead; the Durst Organization executive Alexander Durst; Anthony Malkin, chairman of the company that owns the Empire State Building; and Joseph Sitt, chairman of Thor Equities Group.Eric Adams’s campaign has raised more than $7.7 million heading into the general election.Jordan Gale for The New York TimesThere were also donations from the philanthropists David Rockefeller Jr. and Susan Rockefeller; Jeffrey Gural, a major landlord and the owner of the Tioga Downs casino in the Southern Tier; and members of the Rudin family, who are prominent in commercial real estate.With New York gearing up to sell recreational marijuana, cannabis investors sought Mr. Adams’s good graces, too, including the LeafLink CEO, Ryan Smith, and Gregory Heyman, the managing partner of Beehouse.The Adams campaign has spent about $630,000 since late August — on consultants, polling and other expenses — and appears to saving the bulk of its money for advertising in the final weeks before Election Day. Mr. Sliwa spent $1.5 million during the latest filing period, including about $1 million on television and radio ads.Bruce Gyory, a veteran Democratic strategist, said Mr. Adams most likely plans to spend his campaign war chest “not just to promote interest in his candidacy, but to build a mandate for his approach to governing New York.”“At every turn in this mayoral race, Adams and his campaign have been strategic,” he said. “So my hunch is that Eric Adams will use this spending advantage purposefully.”Mr. Adams has already started to plan his transition ahead of Inauguration Day in January. In recent weeks, he has released a series of broad-based proposals about how he would address climate change and the affordable housing crisis.Now that Mr. Adams can devote less time to fund-raising, he is planning a trip that he hopes will benefit him as mayor: visiting the Netherlands to examine its solutions to flooding.A firm date for the trip has yet to be determined. More

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      Facebook Said to Consider Forming an Election Commission

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      The social network has contacted academics to create a group to advise it on thorny election-related decisions, said people with knowledge of the matter.Facebook has approached academics and policy experts about forming a commission to advise it on global election-related matters, said five people with knowledge of the discussions, a move that would allow the social network to shift some of its political decision-making to an advisory body.The proposed commission could decide on matters such as the viability of political ads and what to do about election-related misinformation, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the discussions were confidential. Facebook is expected to announce the commission this fall in preparation for the 2022 midterm elections, they said, though the effort is preliminary and could still fall apart.Outsourcing election matters to a panel of experts could help Facebook sidestep criticism of bias by political groups, two of the people said. The company has been blasted in recent years by conservatives, who have accused Facebook of suppressing their voices, as well as by civil rights groups and Democrats for allowing political misinformation to fester and spread online. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, does not want to be seen as the sole decision maker on political content, two of the people said.Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, testified remotely in April about social media’s role in extremism and misinformation. Via ReutersFacebook declined to comment.If an election commission is formed, it would emulate the step Facebook took in 2018 when it created what it calls the Oversight Board, a collection of journalism, legal and policy experts who adjudicate whether the company was correct to remove certain posts from its platforms. Facebook has pushed some content decisions to the Oversight Board for review, allowing it to show that it does not make determinations on its own.Facebook, which has positioned the Oversight Board as independent, appointed the people on the panel and pays them through a trust.The Oversight Board’s highest-profile decision was reviewing Facebook’s suspension of former President Donald J. Trump after the Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol. At the time, Facebook opted to ban Mr. Trump’s account indefinitely, a penalty that the Oversight Board later deemed “not appropriate” because the time frame was not based on any of the company’s rules. The board asked Facebook to try again.In June, Facebook responded by saying that it would bar Mr. Trump from the platform for at least two years. The Oversight Board has separately weighed in on more than a dozen other content cases that it calls “highly emblematic” of broader themes that Facebook grapples with regularly, including whether certain Covid-related posts should remain up on the network and hate speech issues in Myanmar.A spokesman for the Oversight Board declined to comment.Facebook has had a spotty track record on election-related issues, going back to Russian manipulation of the platform’s advertising and posts in the 2016 presidential election.Lawmakers and political ad buyers also criticized Facebook for changing the rules around political ads before the 2020 presidential election. Last year, the company said it would bar the purchase of new political ads the week before the election, then later decided to temporarily ban all U.S. political advertising after the polls closed on Election Day, causing an uproar among candidates and ad-buying firms.The company has struggled with how to handle lies and hate speech around elections. During his last year in office, Mr. Trump used Facebook to suggest he would use state violence against protesters in Minneapolis ahead of the 2020 election, while casting doubt on the electoral process as votes were tallied in November. Facebook initially said that what political leaders posted was newsworthy and should not be touched, before later reversing course.The social network has also faced difficulties in elections elsewhere, including the proliferation of targeted disinformation across its WhatsApp messaging service during the Brazilian presidential election in 2018. In 2019, Facebook removed hundreds of misleading pages and accounts associated with political parties in India ahead of the country’s national elections.Facebook has tried various methods to stem the criticisms. It established a political ads library to increase transparency around buyers of those promotions. It also has set up war rooms to monitor elections for disinformation to prevent interference.There are several elections in the coming year in countries such as Hungary, Germany, Brazil and the Philippines where Facebook’s actions will be closely scrutinized. Voter fraud misinformation has already begun spreading ahead of German elections in September. In the Philippines, Facebook has removed networks of fake accounts that support President Rodrigo Duterte, who used the social network to gain power in 2016.“There is already this perception that Facebook, an American social media company, is going in and tilting elections of other countries through its platform,” said Nathaniel Persily, a law professor at Stanford University. “Whatever decisions Facebook makes have global implications.”Internal conversations around an election commission date back to at least a few months ago, said three people with knowledge of the matter. An election commission would differ from the Oversight Board in one key way, the people said. While the Oversight Board waits for Facebook to remove a post or an account and then reviews that action, the election commission would proactively provide guidance without the company having made an earlier call, they said.Tatenda Musapatike, who previously worked on elections at Facebook and now runs a nonprofit voter registration organization, said that many have lost faith in the company’s abilities to work with political campaigns. But the election commission proposal was “a good step,” she said, because “they’re doing something and they’re not saying we alone can handle it.” More

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      Senate Begins Budget Political Theater With $3.5 Trillion at Stake

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      Once again, the Senate will begin a marathon “vote-a-rama,” dealing with dozens of nonbinding amendments before the one vote that counts, passage of a $3.5 trillion budget blueprint.WASHINGTON — Some senators have tried to ban the process. Others simply say it’s the worst part of their jobs.Even Senator Robert C. Byrd, a West Virginia Democrat who created and fortified some of the chamber’s most complex rules before his death, warned the so-called vote-a-rama process could “send some old men to their deaths.”Still on Tuesday, as the Senate turned to a $3.5 trillion budget blueprint that begins the Democrats’ push to expand the social safety net, the tradition of considering hours upon hours of nonbinding budget amendments will once again get underway — with senators forcing politically sensitive votes on their rivals as campaign operatives compile a record for possible attack ads.Only one vote really matters: If all 50 Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents give final approval to the blueprint, Senate committees can begin work this fall on the most significant expansion of the safety net since the 1960s, knowing that legislation cannot be filibustered under the Senate’s complicated budget rules.But before that final vote, which looked set to come either late Tuesday or early Wednesday, senators were having to deal with a blizzard of advisory amendments, and like every vote-a-rama that preceded it, it was painful.“It’s a little bit like an extended visit to a dentist,” said Ross K. Baker, a professor of political science at Rutgers University. “The whole process is an exercise in ‘gotchas.’”The Budget Act limits Senate debate to 50 hours on a budget resolution, but over time the Senate has developed its vote-a-rama custom, which allows for an accelerated voting procedure on amendments even after the 50 hours have expired. In recent years, the practice has allowed just minutes of debate for each amendment followed by a short vote.In practice, any senator can prolong the process by offering new amendments for votes until he or she runs out of steam. The result is a procedural food fight with a silly name that does little other than keep Capitol denizens up past their bedtimes and cause twinges of political pain. (Vote-a-RAHM-a? Vote-a-RAM-a? Depends on the senator.)The amendments can range from the serious to the absurd. During a debate over health care in 2010, Senator Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma, forced a vote banning coverage of erectile dysfunction drugs for convicted sex offenders as a way to try to embarrass Democrats who supported the legislation. That prompted Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana, to condemn the amendment as a “mockery of this Senate.”But the power of the political “gotcha” is diminishing with overuse. This is the third vote-a-rama this year alone. During the last episode in March — the longest open vote in modern Senate history — the Senate entertained 37 votes on amendments. During February’s vote-a-rama, there were 41.Should Democrats successfully pass the blueprint and draft a multi-trillion-dollar package, a fourth vote-a-rama is expected in the fall.“The budget resolution is usually the platform for political theater, and both sides having votes that are designed to make a statement because none of it is binding,” said Senator Patrick J. Toomey, Republican of Pennsylvania, who plans to retire next year.Both parties have historically lamented the vote-a-rama process, but neither wants to give it up. Typically, the party in the minority — in this case, the Republicans — revels in the uncomfortable votes it can force upon the majority party that typically controls the chamber, its floor time and what gets voted on.Republicans hammered Democrats on Tuesday over the size of the spending package, the planned tax increases to pay for it and liberal proposals to rein in climate change, which they deride as part of the “Green New Deal.”Senator Bernie Sanders, who is in charge of the Senate Budget Committee, said his plan was simply “to defeat all of the poison pill amendments.”T.J. Kirkpatrick for The New York TimesSenators filed hundreds of amendments, including a list from Senator Josh Hawley, Republican of Missouri, setting up votes to, among other things, add to the budget 100,000 police officers and promote a “patriotic education in K-12 schools” that teaches “students to love America.”Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, the top Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, had previously vowed “to ferociously attack” the Democrats’ plans. Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader, said on Tuesday that Senate staff members had processed hundreds of amendments and pledged that “every single senator will be going on the record over and over and over.”Democrats largely appeared sanguine before the whole exercise. Senator Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent in charge of the Senate Budget Committee, said his plan was simply “to defeat all of the poison pill amendments.”“That’s the whole point,” said Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts. “They want to try to make us take what they think will be votes that they can use in television ads. This isn’t about legislating. This is just about jockeying for political advantage.”“We’ll have to endure a certain amount of that,” she added, “but we’ll get the budget resolution passed.”Even Republicans acknowledged that, at least with the budget blueprint, it would ultimately be a fruitless endeavor to derail a proposal that Democrats said they had the votes for.“We just continue to have conversations with colleagues on the other side of the aisle, encourage them not to support it, but I just think we’re going to get rolled,” said Senator Joni Ernst, Republican of Iowa. “They’ll wipe the slate clean at the end of the process.”Occasionally, though, a binding vote can take place. Republicans, for instance, could try to insist the Judiciary Committee be cut out of the budget reconciliation process, thus blocking the inclusion of a pathway to citizenship for millions of undocumented immigrants. (But the committee’s inclusion also meant a wider array of amendments could be considered under Senate rules, given the committee’s expansive jurisdiction.)The votes also occasionally produce a moment of truth for politicians. After many Democrats hemmed and hawed over stating their views on a $15 minimum wage this year, a forced vote on an amendment during the vote-a-rama in March revealed seven of the chamber’s more centrist Democrats opposed the increase.Despite the political risks, Mr. Baker said the votes during a vote-a-rama did not typically end up substantially hurting political candidates. Constituents tend to judge their senators on major policy issues, not votes that fly by, often after midnight.“Those kinds of votes can prove to be problematic but in a torrent of amendments, I think it becomes part of the noise,” he said. “That doesn’t mean they’re not going to be scared about it.” More

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      2 House Races in Ohio Will Test Democratic Divisions and Trump’s Sway

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      In the Cleveland area, a bitter primary election is pitting the left against the Democratic establishment. Near Columbus, a Trump-endorsed candidate faces a crowded Republican field.Two primary contests on Tuesday for open House seats in Ohio will act as a stress test for both Democrats and Republicans, offering early hints about whether party leaders are aligned with their voters ahead of the midterm elections next year.In the Cleveland area, two Democrats are locked in an increasingly embittered and expensive clash that has become a flash point in the larger struggle between the party’s activist left flank and its leadership in Washington. The early favorite to win, Nina Turner, is now trying to hold back Shontel Brown, the preferred candidate of more establishment-friendly politicians and allied outside groups.Ms. Turner, a former state senator who built a national following as a surrogate for Senator Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaigns, has been buoyed by support from Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and other leaders in the progressive movement. But Ms. Brown, a local Democratic Party official, has benefited from the help of Hillary Clinton, Representative James E. Clyburn of South Carolina and others in party leadership roles.About two hours to the south, near Columbus, a dense field of Republicans is vying to upset the preferred candidate of former President Donald J. Trump, an energy lobbyist named Mike Carey who was largely unknown until Mr. Trump endorsed him in early June and all but ensured that he would be the front-runner.But the crowded competition — more than 10 candidates are running for the Republican nomination in the solidly right-leaning district — means that the race is fluid, especially considering that special elections typically draw low turnout.If Mr. Trump’s candidate does not prevail, a loss would be seen as another sign that his blessing is not the political golden ticket that he and his allies insist it is.“The question is, ‘What does a Trump endorsement mean?’” said Aaron Baer, the president of the Center for Christian Virtue, a Columbus-based conservative advocacy group. “Typically, people would say it means a lot,” he added, with the caveats that the candidates are largely undistinguishable on the issues and that some of Mr. Carey’s rivals have also won endorsements from Trump allies.Mike Carey, an energy lobbyist running for the House in Ohio, was largely unknown until former President Donald J. Trump endorsed him in early June.Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg“When you have a number of people in the race with solid conservative credentials, and Trump world is spreading out its endorsements, it’s really anyone’s game,” Mr. Baer said.Mr. Trump and his allied political groups are hoping to avoid another loss after the defeat last week of a Trump-backed House candidate in Texas. In that race, a state representative, Jake Ellzey, beat Susan Wright, the widow of Representative Ron Wright, who held the seat until he died in February after battling lung cancer and being hospitalized for Covid-19.Last week, the pro-Trump group Make America Great Again Action made a last-minute purchase of nearly $350,000 in text messages, digital ads and television commercials in support of Mr. Carey. And Mr. Carey has pointed to the Trump seal of approval as his main selling point. When he filled out a candidate questionnaire for USA Today’s Ohio bureau, for instance, the first thing he wrote as his answer to a question about why voters should pick him was “First, I am honored to have President Trump’s endorsement.”Despite Mr. Trump’s dominance in the Republican Party, its voters are by no means a monolith. And some of Mr. Carey’s rivals have more established reputations in the district, the 15th Congressional, as well as the backing of prominent allies of the former president.These rivals include Bob Peterson, a state senator who also operates a 2,700-acre grain farm and has the backing of Ohio’s leading anti-abortion group, Ohio Right to Life. There is also Ruth Edmonds, who has a following among Christian conservatives and the endorsements of Ken Blackwell, Mr. Trump’s former ambassador to the United Nations, and Debbie Meadows, an activist and the wife of Mark Meadows, Mr. Trump’s last White House chief of staff.Both primaries on Tuesday will test the limits of outside influence and money, which have flooded the state all summer.The presence of national groups and political boldface names is inescapable in the Democratic race in Cleveland and Akron, where Mr. Sanders paid a visit over the weekend, and television ads impugning the character of both women in the race are running on a continuous loop. They are competing to replace Marcia Fudge, who held the seat in the 11th Congressional District until she was confirmed as President Biden’s secretary of housing and urban development.“You can’t turn on your social media, you can’t turn on your TV, you can’t turn on anything without having to deal with this,” said Blaine A. Griffin, a member of the Cleveland City Council who is supporting Ms. Turner. “It’s that bad,” he added. “And I can tell you that a lot of people are getting turned off.”Shontel Brown is the candidate favored by establishment-friendly politicians and allied outside groups.Mike Cardew/Akron Beakon Journal, via USA Today NetworkIn recent weeks, Ms. Brown’s allies have escalated their attacks on Ms. Turner, who has rankled party leaders with her past, unvarnished and sometimes crude criticisms of Democratic standard-bearers like Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Biden. She has also angered some Jewish Democrats over statements she has made about Israel.Supporters like Mr. Griffin said they found these criticisms disingenuous. “Nina Turner was running away with this, and people got scared because they don’t like the way she can throw some sharp elbows,” he said.Ms. Brown and her supporters have made the case that Mr. Turner would be divisive and counterproductive as a member of Congress, given her history of antagonizing party leaders. No doubt there are voters who will turn out in a Democratic primary to support Ms. Turner precisely because she has been so unapologetic about questioning the commitment of many in her party to advancing progressive goals on issues like universal health care.But her success will ultimately depend on what type of candidate Democratic voters want to send to Washington.“Right now voters are interested in voting for the person who’s going to go to work and they’re not going to have to think about ever again,” said Sean McElwee, the executive director of Data for Progress, a Democratic messaging and polling firm. “That’s what wins races now.”Mr. McElwee said the mood in the party had shifted away from the anti-establishment, throw-the-bums-out mentality. “Most Democratic incumbents still won re-election,” he said, “and only a few bums were thrown out, so to speak.” More

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      Toyota to Stop Donating to Republicans Who Contested 2020 Results

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      Toyota said on Thursday that it would stop donating to Republicans who disputed the 2020 presidential vote after being the focus of an ad campaign by the Lincoln Project, a group that was founded to antagonize President Donald J. Trump with viral video criticisms.The automaker said in a statement that its support of the politicians had “troubled some stakeholders.”“At this time, we have decided to stop contributing to those members of Congress who contested the certification of certain states in the 2020 election,” the company said. It added that it was “committed to supporting and promoting actions that further our democracy” through its PAC and “has longstanding relationships with members of Congress across the political spectrum.”The Lincoln Project had released an ad directed at Toyota, which it accused of donating $55,000 to 37 Republicans in Congress who pushed back against President Biden’s victory.The Lincoln Project, known for its scathing anti-Trump videos and memes during the 2020 campaign, said the ad was part of a broader project aimed at decreasing funding for Republicans who resisted the results of the vote and played down the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. The group said it planned to release more ads in the following weeks naming companies that “have broken their pledges to withhold campaign funds to members of Congress who enabled, empowered and emboldened former President Trump and the insurrectionists.”A report last month from the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington listed many other companies who continued donating to the 147 Republicans who voted to overturn the election results, including Boeing, Walmart and PNC Bank.The Lincoln Project’s spot about Toyota includes footage of a vehicle crash test interspersed with images of the Jan. 6 riot. A narrator warns Toyota executives that “if they don’t reconsider where they send their money, Americans will reconsider where we send ours.”The Lincoln Project said the ad would no longer run after Thursday. It was set to appear online in the same markets as Toyota’s top 20 dealerships and locally on Fox Business and CNBC in New York and in Plano, Texas, where Toyota’s American operations are based. The Lincoln Project said Comcast had refused to air the commercial in Washington; Comcast did not immediately provide a comment.“Toyota made the right choice today,” the Lincoln Project said in a statement. “They put democracy ahead of transactional politics. We hope that the rest of corporate America will follow their lead — we’ll be there to make sure of it.”Founded by Republican consultants opposed to Mr. Trump, the group started as a super PAC in 2019. Later, the founders sought to parlay the Lincoln Project’s popularity into a broader media enterprise, setting off internal disputes as it experimented with a new tone for the Biden administration.The campaign targeting Toyota and other companies could offer the group a way to rebrand itself. Earlier this year, the Lincoln Project grappled with allegations that John Weaver, a co-founder, had harassed young men with sexually provocative messages for years. In June, the Lincoln Project said an independent investigation had found that its leadership was unaware of the accusations against Mr. Weaver until they were made public. More

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      Who Are the Billionaires’ Picks for New York Mayor? Follow the Money.

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      Ultrawealthy donors have given $16 million to super PACs dedicated to the New York City mayor’s race. Half of that money has gone to three moderate candidates.More than seven years after one of the nation’s wealthiest men stepped down as New York City’s mayor and was replaced by a successor who shunned the rich, billionaires have re-emerged as a potent force in the mayor’s race.Together, billionaires have spent more than $16 million this year on super PACs that are primarily focused on the mayoral primary campaign that ends on Tuesday — the first mayoral election in the city’s history to feature such loosely regulated organizations devoted to individual candidates.Overall, super PAC spending in the mayor’s race has exceeded $24 million, according to the New York City Campaign Finance Board, making up roughly 30 percent of the $79 million spent on the campaign.The impact has been dramatic: a deluge of campaign mailers and political ads on radio, television and the internet, especially in recent weeks, as the unusually large field of Democratic candidates vied to win over an electorate distracted by the pandemic.Dedicated super PACs exist for all but one of the eight major Democratic candidates, but half of the billionaires’ spending has benefited just three of the field’s more moderate contenders: Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president who is considered the front-runner; Andrew Yang, the 2020 presidential candidate and a top rival; and Raymond J. McGuire, a former Citigroup executive who trails in the polls.At least 14 individuals that Forbes magazine has identified as billionaires have donated to mayoral-related super PACs. Several run companies that are headquartered in New York City, while others have interests that would benefit from a good relationship with City Hall, and they are hedging their bets in an apparent effort to improve their chances of backing the winner.Steven A. Cohen, the hedge fund billionaire who owns the Mets, donated $500,000 to Mr. Yang’s super PAC and $500,000 to Mr. Adams’s in mid-May, when the two candidates were leading the polls. But as Mr. Yang’s support appeared to wane and Mr. Adams’s grew, Mr. Cohen cut off Mr. Yang and donated another $1 million to Mr. Adams.A similar trajectory characterizes the giving patterns of Daniel S. Loeb, another hedge fund billionaire and an outspoken supporter of charter schools and former chairman of Success Academy Charter Schools. He donated $500,000 to Mr. Adams’s super PAC and $500,000 to Mr. Yang’s super PAC in mid-May. Three weeks later, as Mr. Adams was cementing his front-runner status, Mr. Loeb gave Mr. Adams’s super PAC another $500,000.Both Mr. Adams and Mr. Yang have expressed support for charter schools. Ray McGuire’s super PAC has raised roughly $7 million from donors like Kenneth Langone, the billionaire co-founder of Home Depot.James Estrin/The New York TimesThe flood of money — which has also affected other key contests like the Manhattan district attorney’s race — comes as the pandemic has illuminated the stark differences between the city’s have and have-nots even as the mayor’s race has been more focused on gun crime and public safety than on inequality.The super PACs also threaten to undermine New York City’s campaign finance system, which is designed to combat the power of big money in politics by using city funds to match small donations.This year, the city rolled out an enhanced version of that system, offering richer rewards for small donations, and has thus far handed out more than $39 million to the mayoral candidates. But it is far from clear that New York City’s campaign finance system — considered a national model — can withstand the big-money onslaught wrought by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision of 2010, which allowed outside groups to spend an unlimited amount of money in elections.A super PAC played a small role in the last competitive mayoral primary in 2013, when an animal rights group helped fund a super PAC that attacked Christine Quinn, then the City Council speaker who had been a favorite in the race, because of her support for horse-drawn carriages in Central Park.The following year, the courts struck down a state cap on the size of contributions to super PACs.“Now in 2021, New York City has a term-limited Democratic incumbent with no heir apparent, which has led to a wide open mayoral race run with campaigns run by consultants with deep experience using candidate super PACs in federal campaigns,” said John Kaehny, the executive director of Reinvent Albany. Super PACs are theoretically independent of the political campaigns, and their spending is not supposed to be coordinated with individual candidates. But questions of the funds’ independence emerged in April, when New York City’s Campaign Finance Board withheld the release of public matching funds to the campaign of Shaun Donovan, who served as the Obama administration’s housing secretary and budget director.The board wanted to delve into the relationship between Mr. Donovan’s campaign and the super PAC supporting him, New Start N.Y.C., which is largely funded by his father. The board eventually released the matching funds.“Who’s going to be mayor matters to a lot of people with a lot of money,” said Lawrence Norden, the director of the electoral reform program at the Brennan Center for Justice. “You have to ask yourself when people are spending tens of thousands of dollars or hundreds of thousands of dollars to support a candidate, why are they doing it and what do they hope to get out of it?”Some billionaire donors who had supported a super PAC behind Andrew Yang have switched financial allegiances to Eric Adams.Andrew Seng for The New York TimesOne thing some may hope to get is an expansion of charter schools in the city. Other billionaires financing super PACs in this primary include four investors who support charter schools, a favored cause of financiers skeptical of district public schools: Stanley Druckenmiller and Paul Tudor Jones, who donated $500,000 and $600,000, respectively, to the Adams super PAC; Kenneth Griffin, another hedge fund manager, who has donated $750,000 to both the Adams and Yang super PACs; and Pennsylvania investor Jeffrey Yass, who donated $500,000 to Mr. Yang’s super PAC.As it happens, the president of Mr. Adams’s super PAC is Jenny Sedlis, who is on leave from a charter school advocacy group, Students First NY, and co-founded Success Academy, which has received direct financial support from Mr. Griffin.Scott M. Stringer, the New York City comptroller, has been critical of some charter school practices, which helped earn him the endorsement of the United Federation of Teachers. NY4Kids, a teachers’ union-backed super PAC supporting Mr. Stringer, reported raising nearly $6 million, with about $4.2 million raised and spent for the mayor’s race, a spokesman said.Mr. Stringer’s campaign has struggled following accusations that he made unwanted sexual advances decades ago, which he has denied. Cassie Prugh, the treasurer of the organization, said the group had focused on using their budget to make relatively early investments for Mr. Stringer. Various corporate entities controlled by the Dolan family, which owns Madison Square Garden, have put roughly $6 million into another super PAC, the Coalition to Restore New York, which highlights the same quality of life issues that have been central to the campaigns of Mr. Yang, Mr. Adams and Kathryn Garcia, a former sanitation commissioner. The super PAC has asked mayoral candidates, as well as candidates for other city offices, how they would fight crime, reignite tourism and stop the “exodus” of New Yorkers from the city.“The Coalition to Restore New York is candidate-agnostic and is not supporting or opposing anyone for office in 2021,” said Rich Constable, an executive vice president at Madison Square Garden.State and city records indicate the super PACs for Mr. Donovan, Mr. McGuire and Mr. Adams each raised about $7 million, and the two super PACs for Mr. Yang together raised more than $4 million. The super PAC for Ms. Garcia, another leading moderate, started late in the race and has raised $306,000..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-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;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-w739ur{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-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-9s9ecg{margin-bottom:15px;}.css-uf1ume{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:justify;-webkit-justify-content:space-between;-ms-flex-pack:justify;justify-content:space-between;}.css-wxi1cx{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:column;-ms-flex-direction:column;flex-direction:column;-webkit-align-self:flex-end;-ms-flex-item-align:end;align-self:flex-end;}.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;}Those who donated to the super PAC supporting Mr. McGuire may not get much of a return. Mr. McGuire, the only major candidate who is not participating in the city’s matching funds program, continues to poll in the single digits. Four individuals that Forbes considers billionaires have nevertheless supported the super PAC backing him, including the Home Depot co-founder, Kenneth Langone; the Loews Corporation heiress, Laurie Tisch; the Estee Lauder heir, Leonard Lauder; and William Ackman, an investor.Two super PACS supporting Maya Wiley, the leading left-wing candidate, have reported raising $1 million.Jonah Markowitz for The New York TimesMaya Wiley, the former counsel to Mayor Bill de Blasio, is considered the leading left-wing candidate, and she has the support of two super PACs; one is affiliated with Local 1199 of the Service Employees International Union and the other with the Working Families Party.The billionaire investor George Soros has committed $500,000 to each. The Working Families Party will use that funding to make phone calls and knock on doors in support of Ms. Wiley and its other candidates in the primary, targeting New Yorkers who voted on the party’s line last year.“Right wing hedge fund billionaires think they can buy this city, spending millions on Eric Adams and Andrew Yang,” the Working Families Party national director, Maurice Mitchell, said in a statement.Billionaire interest has also extended to City Council races and the race for Manhattan district attorney, where one candidate, Tali Farhadian Weinstein — a multimillionaire herself — has garnered support from several wealthy donors, including Mr. Griffin and Mr. Ackman. Ms. Farhadian Weinstein has said that the donations will not influence her.In recent weeks, Ms. Farhadian Weinstein gave her own campaign $8.2 million, drawing anger from some of her competitors.Mr. Norden of the Brennan Center said that such giving was not without precedent in New York politics, comparing it to the self-funding in the mayoral campaigns of the billionaire Michael R. Bloomberg.“The trouble is that money shouldn’t be determining who has a shot at being on the ballot and getting their message out to voters,” he said.Mr. Soros also pledged $1 million to the super PAC Color of Change, aimed at helping another district attorney candidate, Alvin Bragg. A spokeswoman for the super PAC said that nearly $500,000 had been spent on Mr. Bragg’s behalf as of Friday.The billionaire with arguably the longest-standing interest in the mayor’s race, the Hudson Yards developer Stephen M. Ross, is also funding a super PAC, but is not backing a particular candidate. Rather, the Related Companies chairman is trying to sway the election toward the center by sending mailers to New Yorkers who only recently registered as Democrats — a tactic that dovetailed with another super PAC, sponsored by a Related executive’s wife, created to persuade Republicans to switch parties.“Remember, who you vote for is private, but whether or not you vote is a matter of public record,” one such mailer reads. “We’ll be checking the voter rolls after Election Day on June 22 and hope to see your name among those who have voted.” More