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      ‘A Stirring of Democratic Hearts’: Three Writers Discuss a Transformed Midterm Landscape

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      Frank Bruni, a contributing Opinion writer, hosted an online conversation with Molly Jong-Fast, the writer of the “Wait, What?” newsletter for The Atlantic, and Doug Sosnik, a former senior adviser to President Bill Clinton, to discuss whether the Democrats have shifted the narrative of the midterm elections.FRANK BRUNI: Doug, Molly, an apology — because we’re doing this in cyberspace rather than a physical place, I cannot offer you any refreshments, which is a shame, because I do a killer crudité.MOLLY JONG-FAST: The case of Dr. Oz is baffling. I continue to be completely in awe of how bad he is at this.DOUG SOSNIK: He is a terrible candidate, but he is really just one of many right-wing and unqualified candidates running for the Senate and governor. Herschel Walker in Georgia and most of the Republican ticket in Arizona are probably even more unqualified.BRUNI: Let’s pivot from roughage to the rough-and-tumble of the midterms. There’s a stirring of Democratic hearts, a blooming of Democratic hopes, a belief that falling gas prices, key legislative accomplishments and concern about abortion rights equal a reprieve from the kind of midterm debacle that Democrats feared just a month or two ago.Doug, do you now envision Democrats doing much better than we once thought possible?SOSNIK: I do. Up until the start of the primaries and the Dobbs decision overturning Roe, this looked like a classic midterm election in which the party in power gets shellacked. It has happened in the past four midterm elections.BRUNI: Is it possible we’re reading too much into the abortion factor?JONG-FAST: No, abortion is a much bigger deal than any of the pundit class realizes. Because abortion isn’t just about abortion.BRUNI: Doug, do you agree?SOSNIK: I am increasingly nervous about making predictions, but I do feel safe in saying that this issue will increase in importance as more people see the real-life implications of the Roe decision. So, yes, I agree that it will impact the midterms. But it will actually take on even more importance in 2024 and beyond.JONG-FAST: One of the biggest things we’ve seen since the Dobbs decision is doctors terrified to treat women who are having gynecological complications. In 1973, one of the reasons Roe was decided so broadly was because some doctors didn’t feel safe treating women. We’re having a messy return to that, which is a nightmare for the right.SOSNIK: For decades, the getting-candidates-elected wing of the Republican Party — which means people like Mitch McConnell — has had a free ride with the issue of abortion. They have been able to use it to seed their base but have not been forced to pay a political price. With the overturning of Roe, that has all changed. And polling shows that a majority of Americans don’t agree with their extreme positions.JONG-FAST: I also think a lot of suburban women are really, really mad, and people who don’t care about politics at all are furious. Remember the whole news cycle devoted to the 10-year-old rape victim in Ohio having to go out of state for an abortion. Roe is seismic.BRUNI: I noticed that in an NBC News poll released last week, abortion wasn’t one of the top five answers when voters were asked about the most important issue facing the country. Fascinatingly — and to me, hearteningly — more voters chose threats to democracy than the cost of living or jobs and the economy. Do you think that could truly be a motivating, consequential factor in the midterms? Or do you think abortion will still make the bigger difference?SOSNIK: There are two issues in midterms: turnout and persuasion. I am quite confident that the abortion issue will motivate people to vote. The NBC poll shows that Democrats have closed the enthusiasm gap for voting to two points, which since March is a 15-point improvement. And for persuasion, those suburban women swing voters will be motivated by this issue to not only vote but to vote against the Republicans.BRUNI: Is this election really going to be all about turnout, or will swing voters matter just as much? And which groups of Democratic voters are you most worried won’t, in the end, turn out to the extent that they should?SOSNIK: Yes, this midterm will be primarily about turnout. For Democrats, I would start by worrying about young people turning out, which was no doubt on the administration’s mind when it released a plan on Wednesday to forgive student loans.There is also a pretty sizable group of Democrats who have soured on President Biden. They are critical for the Democrats to turn out.BRUNI: Molly, Doug just mentioned President Biden’s announcement that he was forgiving some college debt for some Americans. Is that decision likely to be a net positive for the party, drawing grateful voters to the polls, or a net negative, alienating some Democrats — and energizing many Republicans — who think he’s being fiscally profligate and playing favorites?JONG-FAST: I grew up extremely privileged and for years grappled with the issue of fairness. In my mind, $10,000 was the floor for debt forgiveness. I am particularly pleased with the $20,000 for Pell grant recipients who qualify. I never thought America was a fair country, and it’s become increasingly unfair. Biden was elected with this promise, and he’s keeping it. I think that should help turn out the base.SOSNIK: Student loan forgiveness is a Rorschach test for voters. If you believe in government and a progressive agenda, it is great news. If you think that the Democrats are a bunch of big spenders and worried about the elites — the 38 percent of the country that gets a four-year college degree — then it will work against them.BRUNI: Will former President Donald Trump’s feud with the Department of Justice and the F.B.I. after the Mar-a-Lago search boost Republican turnout and work to the party’s advantage?JONG-FAST: Trump has been fighting with parts of the government for years. I’m not sure how fresh that narrative is. The people who are Trump’s people will continue to be Trump’s people, but much of this persecution-complex narrative is old.SOSNIK: The F.B.I. raid goes with several other items — Jan. 6, Roe, the Trump-endorsed right-wing nominees — that are driving this to be what I’d call a choice election.There have been only two elections since World War II when the incumbent party did not lose House seats in the midterms — 1998 and 2002 — 2002 was an outlier, since it was really a reaction to 9/11.Nineteen ninety-eight was a choice election: We were in the middle of impeachment when the country largely felt that the Republicans were overreaching; 2022 could be only the second choice midterm election since World War II.BRUNI: Democratic hopes focus on keeping control of the Senate or even expanding their majority there. Is the House a lost cause?JONG-FAST: The result of the special election in New York’s 19th Congressional District on Tuesday — widely considered a bellwether contest for control of the House in November, and in which the Democrat, Pat Ryan, beat a well-known, favored Republican, Marc Molinaro, by two points — makes people think that it is possible for Democrats to keep the House.I know that Democrats have about dozens of fewer safe seats than Republicans. And they hold a very slim majority — Republicans need to pick up a net of five seats to regain the majority. But I still think it’s possible Democrats hold the House.SOSNIK: It will be very difficult for the Democrats to hold the House. They have one of the narrowest margins in the House since the late-19th century. Because of reapportionment and redistricting, the Republicans have a much more favorable battlefield. There are now, in the new map, 16 seats held by Democrats in districts that would have likely voted for Trump. Expecting a bad cycle, over 30 Democrats in the House announced that they would retire.The Cook Report has the Republicans already picking up a net of seven seats, with the majority of the remaining competitive races held by Democrats.BRUNI: I’m going to list Democratic candidates in high-profile Senate races in purple or reddish states that aren’t incontrovertibly hostile terrain for the party. For each candidate, tell me if you think victory is probable, possible or improbable. Be bold.John Fetterman, Pennsylvania.SOSNIK: Probable.JONG-FAST: Probable.BRUNI: Raphael Warnock, Georgia.SOSNIK: Probable.JONG-FAST: Probable.BRUNI: Cheri Beasley, North Carolina.SOSNIK: Possible.JONG-FAST: Possible.BRUNI: Val Demings, Florida.SOSNIK: Possible.JONG-FAST: Ugh, Florida.BRUNI: Mark Kelly, Arizona.SOSNIK: Probable.JONG-FAST: Probable.BRUNI: Mandela Barnes, Wisconsin.SOSNIK: Possible.JONG-FAST: Probable.BRUNI: Tim Ryan, Ohio.SOSNIK: Possible.JONG-FAST: Possible.BRUNI: Catherine Cortez Masto, Nevada.SOSNIK: Possible.JONG-FAST: Probable.BRUNI: ​​ Name a Democratic candidate this cycle — for Senate, House or governor — who has most positively surprised and impressed you, and tell me why.JONG-FAST: Fetterman is really good at this, and so is his wife. Ryan has been really good. I think Mandela Barnes is really smart. I’ve interviewed all of those guys for my podcast and thought they were just really good at messaging in a way Democrats are historically not. Val Demings is a once-in-a-lifetime politician, but Florida is Florida.SOSNIK: Tim Ryan. I don’t know if he can win, but he has proved that a Democrat can be competitive in a state that I now consider a Republican stronghold.BRUNI: OK, let’s do a lightning round of final questions. For starters, the Biden presidency so far, rated on a scale of 1 (big disappointment) to 5 (big success), with a sentence or less justifying your rating.JONG-FAST: Four. I wasn’t a Biden person, but he’s quietly gotten a lot done, more than I thought he could.SOSNIK: Four. They have accomplished a lot under very difficult circumstances.BRUNI: The percentage chance that Biden runs for a second term?JONG-FAST: Fifty percent.SOSNIK: Twenty-five percent.BRUNI: If Biden doesn’t run and there’s a Democratic primary, name someone other than or in addition to Kamala Harris whom you’d like to see enter the fray, and tell me in a phrase why.JONG-FAST: I hate this question. I want to move to a pineapple under the sea.SOSNIK: Sherrod Brown. He is an authentic person who understands the pulse of this country.JONG-FAST: I also like Sherrod Brown.BRUNI: What’s the one issue you think is being most shortchanged, not just in discussions about the midterms but in our political discussions generally?JONG-FAST: The Supreme Court. If Democrats keep the House and the Senate, Biden is still going to have to deal with the wildly out-of-step courts. He will hate doing that, but he’s going to have to.SOSNIK: I agree with Molly. On a broader level, we have just completed a realignment in American politics where class, more than race, is driving our politics.BRUNI: Last but by no means least, you must spend either an hour over crudité with the noted gourmand Mehmet Oz or an hour gardening with the noted environmentalist Herschel Walker. What do you choose, and briefly, why?JONG-FAST: I’m a terrible hypochondriac, and Oz was an extremely good surgeon. I would spend an hour with him talking about all my medical anxieties. Does this mole look like anything?SOSNIK: The fact that you are raising that question tells you how bad the candidate recruitment has been for the Republicans this cycle.Other than carrying a football and not getting tackled, Walker has not accomplished much in his life, and his pattern of personal behavior shows him to be unfit to hold elected office.BRUNI: Well, I once spent hours with Oz for a profile and watched him do open-heart surgery, so I’m pulling weeds with Walker, just out of curiosity. And for the fresh air.Frank Bruni (@FrankBruni) is a professor of public policy at Duke, the author of the book “The Beauty of Dusk” and a contributing Opinion writer. He writes a weekly email newsletter and can be found on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. Molly Jong-Fast (@MollyJongFast) writes the “Wait, What?” newsletter for The Atlantic. Doug Sosnik was a senior adviser in President Bill Clinton’s White House from 1994 to 2000 and is a counselor to the Brunswick Group.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Think the Economy Is Hard to Predict? Try the Midterms.

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      The overturning of political norms is testing the limits of an established and generally dependable forecasting model that relies solely on economics.Based on the economy alone, Democrats face a big problem in the midterm elections.Inflation has been extremely high and economic growth has been weak or even negative. That is a toxic political combination — bad enough for the Democrats to lose the House of Representatives by a substantial margin.That, at least, is the forecast of an econometric model run by Ray Fair, a Yale economist. He has used purely economic variables to track and predict elections in real time since 1978, with fairly good results, which he shares with his students and which are available on his website for anyone who wants to examine the work.The party in power always starts off with a handicap in midterm elections, and a bad economy makes matters worse, Professor Fair said in an interview. “At the moment, the Democrats definitely have an uphill climb.”Yet Professor Fair acknowledges that his model can’t capture everything that is going on in the country.While his analysis shows that the Democrats have fallen into an increasingly deep hole as the year has gone on, prediction markets and public opinion polls are more upbeat for the Democrats right now, and show a surge that began in late June.Eric Zitzewitz, a Dartmouth professor who has studied prediction markets extensively, says the improved odds for the Democrats may be linked to an important development beyond the economy: the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.The power of the economyNo one would question whether economic conditions have a major influence on politics.But Professor Fair’s work goes further than that. In his book “Predicting Presidential Elections and Other Things,” and in a series of papers and online demonstrations, he has shown that the economy is so powerful that it explains the broad outcome of most national elections since 1916. His relentlessly economic approach does not include any consideration whatsoever of the staples of conventional political analysis: the transcendent issues of the day, the personalities of the candidates or the tactics employed by their campaigns.This year, as high inflation has persisted and economic growth has slowed, he finds that the electoral prospects for the Democrats have worsened. Based on data through July, he estimates that Democrats will get only 46.70 percent of the raw national vote for congressional candidates in November.How this projection translates into results for individual congressional seats is beyond the scope of Professor Fair’s grand experiment.“That’s not what this model is built to do,” he said. “I leave that to the political scientists. But I think the model is showing that, because of the economy, the odds aren’t good for the Democrats holding the House of Representatives.”More Coverage of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsLiz Cheney’s Lopsided Loss: The Republican congresswoman’s defeat in Wyoming exposed the degree to which former President Donald J. Trump still controls the party’s present — and its near future.2024 Hint: Hours after her loss, Ms. Cheney acknowledged that she was “thinking” about a White House bid. But her mission to thwart Donald J. Trump presents challenges.The ‘Impeachment 10’: With Ms. Cheney’s defeat, only two of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Mr. Trump remain.Alaska Races: Senator Lisa Murkowski and Sarah Palin appeared to be on divergent paths following contests that offered a glimpse at the state’s independent streak.Something missingYet, as Professor Fair readily acknowledges, his model’s single-minded exclusion of noneconomic factors inevitably misses some important things.In the 2016 presidential election, for example, it projected that Hillary Clinton would lose the popular vote to Donald J. Trump. She won the popular vote but lost the presidency in the Electoral College.“It’s possible,” he said, “that some of that was Trump’s personality, and that the model couldn’t pick that up.”Something similar may have happened in 2020. The model estimated that Joseph R. Biden Jr. would receive only 47.9 percent of the popular vote but he actually got 52.27 percent. In both cases, Professor Fair said, “Trump did not do as well as he was predicted to do by the model.”The model’s singular focus may be unable to adequately account for what Professor Fair calls “the Trump effect.” That shorthand encompasses the array of norm-shattering behaviors and issues associated with President Trump and his adherents, including the Jan. 6 insurrection; Mr. Trump’s denial of President Biden’s election win in 2020; and the decision of the Supreme Court, with three Trump appointees, to overturn Roe v. Wade, which had been the law of the land for 50 years.What prediction markets sayIn theory, the prices in perfectly efficient markets synthesize the knowledge of each participant, making them better at assessing complicated issues than any individual can. But perfect conditions don’t exist for any market on earth and certainly not for prediction markets. Still, Professor Zitzewitz says these markets are highly informative.He pointed out that as recently as June 23, PredictIt, a leading prediction market, gave the Republican Party a 76 percent chance of taking the House of Representatives and the Senate from the Democrats in November.But the next day, June 24, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. By June 30, the probability of a Republican sweep, calculated from bets placed on the PredictIt site, dropped to 60 percent. They were down to 39 percent on Thursday, with a higher probability, 47 percent, given to a different outcome: Democratic control of the Senate and a Republican victory in the House.Public opinion polls appear to have moved in a similar direction. The average of the polls tracked by Real Clear Markets has shifted from total Republican dominance to a virtual dead heat in the generic congressional ballot. On the other hand, Mr. Biden’s job rating in those polls is still awful, with nearly 16 percent more people disapproving of his performance than approving of it.Did the Supreme Court ruling shift the odds for the midterms? Did the Jan. 6 hearings swing public opinion? Has a string of legislative victories added luster to the Biden aura and moved some voters toward Democrats?It’s impossible to prove cause and effect for any of these things.Economic anomaliesIt is conceivable that the unique economic situation is muddling the projections in Professor Fair’s model.Gross domestic product and the inflation rate are the only economic factors the model uses, and may not be adequate for analyzing the state of the economy now, with the pandemic and Russia’s war in Ukraine causing disruptions around the globe. Both the G.D.P. and inflation numbers for the United States are bleak and the Federal Reserve is raising interest rates, giving rise to speculation that the country is heading into a recession or is already in one.But other metrics, like gross domestic income and the unemployment rate, have been more positive. If the economy turns out to be in better shape than the core G.D.P. and inflation data indicate, the vote projections for the incumbent Democrats would improve, and they would worsen for the Republicans.Then again, Professor Fair said, “The economy and the political situation are always unique.”Reality is recalcitrant. Human behavior never fits entirely into any model or market yet invented.It’s worth knowing as much as you can about the underlying factors, but they come down to people. I find that reassuring.In the end, elections depend on the voters coming out and the public as a whole respecting the results. Astonishingly, in 2022, that basic civics lesson needs reinforcement. The legitimacy of the 2020 election is still under attack.So, remember, whatever the models, the markets, the polls, the pundits or the candidates say, the future is in your hands. When Election Day comes around, it’s more important than ever to get out and vote, and to make sure your vote counts. More

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      Republicans Are America’s Problem

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      Tuesday’s primary in Wyoming delivered Liz Cheney a resounding defeat. She is one of the few Republicans in Congress willing to resist Donald Trump’s election lies, and Republican voters punished her for it.First, let me say, I have no intention of contributing to the hagiography of Liz Cheney. She is a rock-ribbed Republican who supported Trump’s legislative positions 93 percent of the time. It is on the insurrection and election lies where she diverged.In a way, she is the Elvis of politics: She took something — in this case a position — that others had held all along and made it cross over. She mainstreamed a political principle that many liberals had held all along.Excuse me if I temper my enthusiasm for a person who presents herself as a great champion of democracy but votes against the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.Situational morality is better than none, I suppose, but I see it for what it is, and I am minimally moved.However, her loss does crystallize something for us that many had already known: that the bar to clear in the modern Republican Party isn’t being sufficiently conservative but rather being sufficiently obedient to Donald Trump and his quest to deny and destroy democracy.We must stop thinking it hyperbolic to say that the Republican Party itself is now a threat to our democracy. I understand the queasiness about labeling many of our fellow Americans in that way. I understand that it sounds extreme and overreaching.But how else are we to describe what we are seeing?Of the 10 Republicans in the House who voted to impeach Donald Trump for his role in fomenting the insurrection, four didn’t seek re-election and four lost their primaries. Only two have advanced to the general election, and those two were running in states that allow voters to vote in any primary, regardless of their party affiliation.Polls have consistently shown that only a small fraction of Republicans believe Joe Biden was legitimately elected. He was, of course. (That fact apparently can’t be repeated often enough.)And in fact, according to a Washington Post analysis published this week, in battleground states, nearly two-thirds of the Republican nominees for the state and federal offices with sway over elections believe the last election was stolen.This is only getting worse. Last month, a CNN poll found that Republicans are now less likely to believe that democracy is under attack than they were earlier in the year, before the Jan. 6 committee began unveiling its explosive revelations. Thirty-three percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents said the party should be very accepting of candidates who say the election was stolen; 39 percent more said the party should be somewhat accepting of those candidates.Furthermore, a Washington Post-University of Maryland poll published in January found that the percentage of Republicans who say that violence against the government can sometimes be justified had climbed to 40 percent, compared with just 23 percent of Democrats. It should also be noted that 40 percent of white people said that violence could be justified compared with just 18 percent of Black people.We have to stop saying that all these people are duped and led astray, that they are somehow under the spell of Trump and programmed by Fox News.Propaganda and disinformation are real and insidious, but I believe that to a large degree, Republicans’ radicalization is willful.Republicans have searched for multiple election cycles for the right vehicle and packaging for their white nationalism, religious nationalism, nativism, craven capitalism and sexism.There was a time when they believed that it would need to be packaged in politeness — compassionate conservatism — and the party would eventually recommend a more moderate approach intended to branch out and broaden its appeal — in its autopsy after Mitt Romney’s 2012 loss.But Trump offered them an alternative, and they took it: Instead of running away from their bigotries, intolerances and oppression, they would run headlong into them. They would unapologetically embrace them.This, to many Republicans, felt good. They no longer needed to hide. They could live their truths, no matter how reprehensible. They could come out of the closet, wrapped in their cruelty.But the only way to make this strategy work and viable, since neither party dominates American life, was to back a strategy of minority rule and to disavow democracy.A Pew Research Center poll found that between 2018 and 2021, Republicans and Republican-leaning independents gradually came to support more voting restrictions.In a December NPR/Ipsos poll, a majority of Democrats, independents and Republicans all thought that American democracy, and America itself, was in crisis, but no group believed it more than Republicans.But this is a scenario in which different people look at the same issue from different directions and interpret it differently.Republicans are the threat to our democracy because their own preferred form of democracy — one that excludes and suppresses, giving Republicans a fighting chance of maintaining control — is in danger.For modern Republicans, democracy only works — and is only worth it — when and if they win.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter (@NYTopinion), and Instagram. More

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      Will Biden’s Recent Victories Lift the Democrats?

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      More from our inbox:What’s Better, an After-School Program or a Job?President Biden is still one of the most unpopular presidents in modern history, despite his political victories.Yuri Gripas for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Biden Basks in String of Wins. Will This Be a Turning Point?” (news analysis, front page, Aug. 9):The president’s legislative agenda, a close approximation to the one promised, has passed. These are accomplishments, not rhetorical speculations. That the president has low ratings at this juncture speaks volumes not about him — he has delivered, and in under two years — but about the fuzzy-thinking electorate surveyed by pollsters.Yes, voters are perennially concerned about their purchasing power and the brutal effects of inflation. Americans need to be reminded that presidents do not bring inflation with them to the White House. A complex set of global problems — including a war, a pandemic and supply chain problems — contribute to a disrupted economy.Americans would do well in this historic moment to stop and smell the proverbial roses: We, as a country, have finally acted on climate change. And drug pricing. And infrastructure. And, incredibly, guns. Much remains to be done on all these fronts. Nothing is perfect, though voters polled seem disappointed that all their wishes don’t come true on Election Day.President Biden’s poll numbers are low, but let us take a poll of climate activists, people struggling with the cost of drugs, those who understand the truly herculean effort it took to pass the Inflation Reduction Act bill. Would his numbers be higher? I’ll go out on a limb and say they would triple.Will SouthColumbia, S.C.To the Editor:As a Democrat who had previously been disillusioned with President Biden’s commitment to working with Congress in a bipartisan manner, I found the legislative and economic accomplishments noted in this article reassuring and worth celebrating.However, they may not mark a turnaround for the Biden presidency, especially with respect to the coming midterm elections. We can simply revisit the first two years of the Obama administration to see why.Barack Obama’s legislative, economic and judicial achievements through the second year of his presidency are comparable, if not more remarkable, than those of Mr. Biden. By August 2010, Mr. Obama had already nominated two Supreme Court justices, passed Dodd-Frank and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, and signed into law what was arguably his crowning piece of legislation, the Affordable Care Act.But, as we all know, he and the Democrats suffered substantial losses in the midterm elections of 2010.So, is Joe Biden on a legislative hot streak? Yes. But will it play to his advantage during the midterms? History suggests otherwise.Ravin BhatiaBrookline, Mass.What’s Better, an After-School Program or a Job? BjelicaS/Getty ImagesTo the Editor:Re “The Best Extracurricular Is a Job” by Pamela Paul (column, July 31):Ms. Paul is right to lament the decline in the number of teenagers who work after school. Teens who work can learn valuable things about themselves and work life that are not readily available otherwise.Where Ms. Paul goes wrong is in playing down extracurricular and after-school activities. After-school experiences help teens develop soft skills and self-confidence. They also provide credentials for getting good jobs down the road.In my research, I spoke with dozens of human resources professionals who had conducted mock job interviews with teens who had participated in after-school programs.The professionals were impressed with the experiences and skills that the teens had acquired and considered many of them to be hirable, even without a history of paid employment. In particular, after-school programs provide opportunities for teens to develop complex leadership skills, something they can rarely do at work.Teens need sequences of after-school programs and work experiences that build on each other, providing the best of both worlds.Bart HirschEvanston, Ill.The writer is professor emeritus of human development and social policy at Northwestern University, and the author of “Job Skills and Minority Youth: New Program Directions.” More

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      Progressive Groups Push Democrats on ‘Freedom’ for Midterm Election Message

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      For much of the midterm campaign, Democrats have grappled with how to define their message, weighing slogans like “Democrats deliver” and “Build back better,” and issuing warnings against “ultra-MAGA” Republicans.Now, a coalition of progressive organizations has settled on what its leaders hope will be a unified pitch from the left. This November, they plan to argue, Americans must vote to protect the fundamental freedoms that “Trump Republicans” are trying to take away.That pitch is the product of a monthslong midterms messaging project called the “Protect Our Freedoms” initiative, fueled by polling and ad testing.The move is the latest evidence that Democrats at every level of the party and of varying ideological stripes — including President Biden, abortion rights activists in Kansas and, now, a constellation of left-leaning groups — are increasingly seeking to reclaim language about freedom and personal liberty from Republicans. It is a dynamic that grew out of the overturning of Roe v. Wade in June, and one that is intensifying as more states navigate abortion bans while Republicans nominate election deniers for high office.The messaging project is a sprawling effort from progressive groups, activists and strategists aimed at getting Democrats on the same page, as they seek to crystallize the choice between the two parties and emphasize the consequential nature of the midterm elections.“Freedom is a powerful frame for this election, to make clear what the stakes are,” said Jenifer Fernandez Ancona, an architect of the messaging project as well as a co-founder and vice president of Way to Win, a collective of left-leaning Democratic donors and political strategists.What is most striking about the initiative is not the initial size of the investment — there is a $5 million national paid-media component associated with the campaign, a relatively modest sum — but the fact that left-wing organizations are now embracing language that has been more closely associated with small-government-minded conservatives.“For far too long, we’ve witnessed how the right wing has masterfully sort of owned and captured the language of freedom,” said Maurice Mitchell, the national director of the Working Families Party, one of the organizations involved in the “Protect Our Freedoms” effort. Such language has never been limited to the right: former President Franklin D. Roosevelt famously promoted the “Four Freedoms,” for instance, and a major campaign for marriage equality was framed as Freedom to Marry. But Republicans have long cast their party as the bastion of freedom — whether as the defender of free markets or more recently, in opposition to coronavirus-related mandates.In a statement, Emma Vaughn, a spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee, highlighted the effort to paint Democrats as anti-freedom over pandemic measures, calling them the party of “shuttered businesses, school lockdowns, masks on toddlers and forced vaccines.”Ads that draw from the “Protect Our Freedoms” messaging argue that core American values — such as free elections in which the will of the people is upheld, or freedom for individuals to make decisions for their families — are now uniquely jeopardized. Just last week, a group of academics issued stark warnings to Mr. Biden about the state of democracy, The Washington Post reported.An ad produced by Way To Win Action Fund suggests that Americans must vote to protect the fundamental freedoms that “Trump Republicans” are trying to take away.Way To Win Action Fund“We’ve seen what happens when Trump Republicans have claimed to be for freedom, only to take it away and impose their will,” says an ad paid for by Way to Win Action Fund, as images from the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol flash across the screen. “This November, remember: You’re a part of the fight for freedom.”Ms. Fernandez Ancona said the national ad campaign offers “the example of the message that we’re trying to put forward,” one that leaders of the initiative hope will be echoed in grass-roots efforts and advertising from individual organizations.MoveOn Political Action is planning a television and digital ad buy for later this month, aimed at statewide races in Arizona and Pennsylvania, that will incorporate “Protect Our Freedoms” messaging, said Rahna Epting, the executive director of MoveOn. And officials with several organizations said the messaging lessons will mold how they engage voters at their doors or on the phone.Ten organizations were involved in the “Protect Our Freedoms” messaging initiative, including Indivisible and Future Forward.Within the broader Democratic ecosystem, candidates and party institutions are still pursuing a broad range of messaging tactics.But in an interview last week after Kansas voters defeated an anti-abortion measure, Representative Sean Patrick Maloney, the chair of the House Democratic campaign arm, also reached for the “freedom” language as he described the choice between the two political parties.“The MAGA movement will take away your rights, your benefits, your freedoms, and you have to vote Democratic if you care about those things,” he said.Research assembled by the “Protect Our Freedoms” campaign helps explain why Democrats see such messaging as potent: A data point cited in a campaign presentation said that 42 percent of individuals, when asked in a survey to identify the values that mattered most to them as Americans, picked “freedom and liberty,” far outpacing other options like equality and and patriotism.The presentation also said that the overturning of Roe v. Wade had opened a “persuasion window,” putting more voters into play. Anat Shenker-Osorio, a progressive consultant involved in the messaging project, said there was a powerful opening to tie “actions on Roe and on abortion to this broader framework of taking away our freedoms.”Ms. Fernandez Ancona said that “the idea of ‘freedom’ really pops.”“People need to understand that they’re going to lose things if this Republican Party wins,” she added. More

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      The Jan. 6 attack was a crisis. So why wasn’t it more of a scandal?

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      The political dog that didn’t bark.Protesters storming the Senate side of the U.S. Capitol after a rally where President Trump spoke on Jan. 6 last year.Jason Andrew for The New York TimesNever underestimate the power of a political scandal. I don’t mean in the gossipy, prurient, sense of the term, like a splashy story about celebrity cheating on a spouse. Rather, I’m talking about an event that provokes such outrage that it can unite previously divided populations and politicians in condemnation. That kind of scandal can change history, opening up paths to political change that may have seemed unimaginable up to that point.In Chile in 2019, for instance, the president’s decision to call out the army to quell mass protests provoked national fury, uniting the country behind the demonstrators’ demand for a new Constitution. In Guatemala in 2015, a corruption scandal involving President Otto Pérez Molina provoked huge demonstrations, eventually causing his resignation. And in Argentina and Colombia, scandalous incidents of police violence united public opinion, making police reform programs that once seemed politically impossible a reality, Yanilda González, a Harvard political scientist, found.It seemed, at first, as if the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol would be a similar moment. The attack had little precedent in U.S. history. It was covered live by the news media, beaming images of the deadly violence to the televisions and phones of Americans across the country. The public reacted with shock and anger. A CBS News poll conducted the week after the attack found that 87 percent of Americans disapproved of what had happened. Within days, Congress had impeached President Donald Trump on charges of inciting an insurrection.But then the outrage seemed to lose momentum, as if the events of Jan. 6 got halfway to being a publicly galvanizing scandal and then became stuck.Trump was acquitted by the Senate, after all but seven Republicans voted in his favor. And despite sustained media attention and a public congressional investigation that has continued to generate headlines, the attacks have not — at least so far — provoked the kind of mass fervor that leads to real political change. The Republican Party has largely rallied around Trump. His wing of the party is still ascendant.That relatively muted response stands in sharp contrast to the reaction from prominent Republicans this week after the F.B.I. searched Trump’s Florida home, apparently in order to locate classified documents that the former president may have stored there. In an interview on Fox News, Rick Scott, a Republican Florida senator, compared the F.B.I. action to the activities of Nazi Germany and Latin American dictatorships. Other Republican officials threatened retaliatory investigations of Democrats in the future if they retake control of Congress.Some Republican leaders have also criticized the Jan. 6 attacks. Mitch McConnell, the leader of the Senate Republicans, said that the riot “was a violent insurrection for the purpose of trying to prevent the peaceful transfer of power after a legitimately certified election.” But that has not translated into public mobilization.“It reminds me of the current discussion in U.S. media and among economists about whether we’re currently in a recession,” González told me via email. As with a recession, she said, some of the elements that experts usually look for are present, such as sustained media coverage of the event, and public disapproval of what occurred. But the outcomes that usually follow such elements are bafflingly absent, she told me. “Specifically, it doesn’t seem like there’s much in the way of mass or political mobilization around the issue to hold people accountable or prevent it from happening again.”It’s always difficult to figure out why something didn’t happen. But the question of this scandal-that-wasn’t seemed important enough to give it a try. So I started calling experts.One word: polarizationSteven Levitsky, a Harvard political scientist who studies democratization and democratic decline around the world, and Lilliana Mason, a Johns Hopkins political scientist who studies American political divisions and political violence, both had the same answer: polarization.Key Revelations From the Jan. 6 HearingsCard 1 of 9Key Revelations From the Jan. 6 HearingsMaking a case against Trump. More

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      Democrats Enter the Fall Armed With Something New: Hope

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      Vulnerable incumbent Democratic senators like Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire and Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada are already planning events promoting the landmark legislation they passed over the weekend. Democratic ad makers are busily preparing a barrage of commercials about it across key battlegrounds. And the White House is set to deploy Cabinet members on a nationwide sales pitch.The sweeping legislation, covering climate change and prescription drug prices, which came together in the Senate after more than a year of painfully public fits and starts, has kicked off a frenetic 91-day sprint to sell the package by November — and win over an electorate that has grown skeptical of Democratic rule.For months, Democrats have discussed their midterm anxieties in near-apocalyptic terms, as voters threatened to take out their anger over high gas prices and soaring inflation on the party in power. But the deal on the broad new legislation, along with signs of a brewing voter revolt over abortion rights, has some Democrats experiencing a flicker of an unfamiliar feeling: hope.“This bill gives Democrats that centerpiece accomplishment,” said Ali Lapp, the president of House Majority PAC, a Democratic super PAC.In interviews, Democratic strategists, advisers to President Biden, lawmakers running in competitive seats and political ad makers all expressed optimism that the legislation — the Inflation Reduction Act — would deliver the party a necessary and powerful tool to show they were focused on lowering costs at a time of economic hardship for many. They argued its key provisions could be quickly understood by crucial constituencies.“It is easy to talk about because it has a real impact on people every day,” Jennifer O’Malley Dillon, the White House deputy chief of staff, said in an interview. The measure must still pass the House and could come up for a vote there later this week. “It’s congressional Democrats who’ve gotten it done — with no help from congressional Republicans.”Senator Chuck Schumer on Sunday after Democrats in the Senate passed the climate and tax bill.Kenny Holston for The New York TimesWhether Democrats can keep the measure in the spotlight is another matter. On Monday evening, former President Donald J. Trump said the F.B.I. had searched his Palm Beach, Fla., home, a significant development that threatened to overshadow the news of the Senate deal and that gave already-energized Republicans a new cause to circle the wagons around Mr. Trump.Still, for younger voters, who polls have shown to be cool to Mr. Biden and his party, the package contains the most sweeping efforts to address climate change in American history. For older voters, the deal includes popular measures sought for decades by Democrats to rein in the price of prescription drugs for seniors on Medicare. And for both the Democratic base and independents, the deal cuts against the Republican argument that a Democratic-controlled Washington is a morass of incompetence and gridlock unfocused on issues that affect average Americans.“It’s very significant because it shows that the Democrats care about solving problems, it shows that we can get things done and I think it starts to turn around some of the talk about Biden,” said Representative Dina Titus, a Nevada Democrat running in a competitive re-election race, alluding to angst about the president as his national approval rating has hovered around 40 percent.More Coverage of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsKansas Abortion Vote: After a decisive victory for abortion rights in deep-red Kansas, Democrats vowed to elevate the issue nationwide, while some Republicans softened their stands against abortion.Wisconsin Primary: Former President Donald J. Trump’s supporters have turned the false notion that his 2020 defeat can still be reversed into a central issue ahead of the state’s G.O.P. primary for governor.Election Deniers: In Arizona, Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania, Republicans who dispute the legitimacy of the 2020 election are on a path toward winning decisive control over how elections are run.Senate Races: The key question with less than 100 days until the fall election: Can Democratic candidates in crucial Senate contests continue to outpace President Biden’s unpopularity? Adding to the Democratic Party’s brightening outlook were the results of the Kansas referendum on abortion rights last week, when a measure that would have removed abortion protections from the Kansas Constitution was overwhelmingly defeated. It was a stark reminder of the volatile and unpredictable political impact of the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade.Voters in Lawrence, Kan., last week when the state abortion referendum was defeated.Katie Currid for The New York Times“I can kind of feel it on the streets, that there’s some change in momentum,” Ms. Titus said.Indeed, in recent days, Democrats pulled ahead of Republicans for the first time this year when voters were asked which party they would prefer to control Congress — the so-called generic ballot test — according to polling averages maintained by the data-journalism website FiveThirtyEight.There is no guarantee of success in selling the bill. Last year, the White House shepherded through a rare bipartisan infrastructure deal. But its passage, which drew great fanfare in Washington, did little to arrest the continual decline in Mr. Biden’s approval ratings — and many Americans were still unaware that the measure passed months later, polling showed.Republicans say the new legislation could galvanize their own base against an expansive progressive wish list that has been decades in the making, just as the passage of the Affordable Care Act preceded the Republican wave of 2010.“That’s the sort of thing that could really set a spark to the powder keg — in the same way that the midnight passage of Obamacare was the moment that electrified Republican voters and started to really pull independents in our direction,” said Steven Law, who leads the main Republican super PAC devoted to Senate races.Republican assaults on the legislation — for bulking up the Internal Revenue Service, for creating a green energy “slush fund,” as Senator Tom Cotton, Republican of Arkansas, has called it, and for expanding spending programs despite the bill’s Inflation Reduction Act title — have already begun. 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