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      J.R. Majewski’s Claims About His Military Record Unravel Further

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      The political tailspin of J.R. Majewski, a Republican House candidate in northern Ohio, appears to be worsening one week after the Air Force said it could not corroborate his repeated claims that he served in Afghanistan after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.The Associated Press reported on Wednesday that the Air Force demoted Mr. Majewski in September 2001 for driving drunk at Kadena Air Base in Japan. Mr. Majewski’s campaign had previously told the news organization that involvement in a “brawl” was the reason he could not re-enlist in the Air Force after his initial four years. The A.P. cited military records it had obtained since its initial reporting last week on Mr. Majewski’s inconsistencies about his service, including where he served.A campaign spokeswoman for Mr. Majewski, 42, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday about his demotion. In a statement to The A.P., Mr. Majewski acknowledged that he was punished for drunken driving, though he did not address why his campaign previously said his demotion was the result of a fight.“This mistake is now more than 20 years old,” Mr. Majewski said in the statement. “I’m sure we’ve all done something as young adults that we look back on and wonder, ‘What was I thinking?’ And I’m sure our parents and grandparents share these sentiments.”The drip of revelations has sent Mr. Majewski, who has been heralded by former President Donald J. Trump, into damage-control mode.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.Sensing a Shift: As November approaches, there are a few signs that the political winds may have begun to blow in a different direction — one that might help Republicans over the final stretch.Focusing on Crime: Across the country, Republicans are attacking Democrats as soft on crime to rally midterm voters. Pennsylvania’s Senate contest offers an especially pointed example of this strategy.Arizona Senate Race: Blake Masters, a Republican, appears to be struggling to win over independent voters, who make up about a third of the state’s electorate.Pennsylvania Governor’s Race: Doug Mastriano, the Trump-backed G.O.P. nominee, is being heavily outspent and trails badly in polling. National Republicans are showing little desire to help him.On Sept. 22, not long after Mr. Majewski was accused of misrepresenting himself as a combat veteran, the National Republican Congressional Committee canceled television ads it had booked to support him in the final six weeks of the campaign, according to AdImpact, a firm that tracks campaign advertising.The following day, Mr. Majewski insisted that he was staying in his race against longtime Representative Marcy Kaptur, a Democrat. He said that records of his deployment to Afghanistan were “classified” and posted a photo on Twitter of an undated document that he claimed supported this contention, but military experts have pointed out to The A.P. that there are several other steps that Mr. Majewski could take to back up his claims, including having a supervisor or peer vouch for him.According to a record of punishment proceedings obtained by The A.P., Mr. Majewski was demoted from the rank of airman first class to basic airman after being stopped for drunken driving on Sept. 8, 2001, at the gate of the Kadena Air Base on Okinawa. It made no reference to a fight as contributing to Mr. Majewski’s demotion.Mr. Majewski’s disciplinary report was not immediately available on Thursday from the National Archives.Mr. Majewski was deployed for six months in 2002 to Qatar, the Persian Gulf nation that is now home to the largest U.S. air base in the Middle East, according to Air Force records The New York Times examined last week.The A.P. noted that he worked as a “passenger operations specialist” while he was in Qatar, helping to load and unload planes. In addition to Air Force records, the news organization used information that it had obtained through a public records request from the National Archives, which provided Mr. Majewski’s record to The Times on Wednesday. Those records made no mention of Afghanistan.The inconsistencies in Mr. Majewski’s public accounts of his military service brought renewed scrutiny to the candidate, who had already faced questions about his presence at the U.S. Capitol on the day of the Jan. 6 siege and sympathies for the QAnon conspiracy movement.The role detailed in Mr. Majewski’s military records contrasted sharply with his repeated claims on social media and right-wing podcasts that he was in Afghanistan.After the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan last year, Mr. Majewski chided President Biden over the chaotic exit of forces there, saying in a tweet, “I’d gladly suit up and go back to Afghanistan tonight and give my best to save those Americans who were abandoned.”He also mentioned Afghanistan during a February 2021 appearance on a podcast platform that has drawn scrutiny for promoting conspiracy theories and misinformation.“I lost my grandmother when I was in Afghanistan, and I didn’t get to see her funeral,” he said. 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      DeSantis, Once a ‘No’ on Hurricane Aid, Petitions Biden for Assistance

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      As a freshman congressman in 2013, Ron DeSantis was unambiguous: A federal bailout for the New York region after Hurricane Sandy was an irresponsible boondoggle, a symbol of the “put it on the credit card mentality” he had come to Washington to oppose.“I sympathize with the victims,” he said. But his answer was no.Nearly a decade later, as his state confronts the devastation and costly destruction wrought by Hurricane Ian, Mr. DeSantis is appealing to the nation’s better angels — and betting on its short memory.“As you say, Tucker, we live in a very politicized time,” Mr. DeSantis, now Florida’s governor, told Tucker Carlson on Wednesday night, outlining his request for full federal reimbursement up front for 60 days and urging the Biden administration to do the right thing. “But you know, when people are fighting for their lives, when their whole livelihood is at stake, when they’ve lost everything — if you can’t put politics aside for that, then you’re just not going to be able to.”The tonal whiplash for Mr. DeSantis reflects a different job and a different moment — a Tea Party-era House Republican now steering a perennially storm-battered state dependent once more on federal assistance to rebuild. Yet even in the context of his term as governor, the hurricane has required Mr. DeSantis to test another gear.Gov. Ron DeSantis discussing Hurricane Ian on Monday in Largo, Fla. Since taking office, he has sought to position himself as a 2024 presidential contender.Chris O’Meara/Associated PressHe has, to date, often used his executive platform to elevate himself to Republican rock-stardom, positioning himself as a possible 2024 presidential contender with a series of policy gambits that can feel precision-engineered to maximize liberal outrage.His most recent stunt — flying undocumented Venezuelan immigrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard — reinforced that he is more than willing to turn the machinery of state against specific political targets. He has suggested that the next plane of immigrants might land near President Biden’s weekend home in Delaware.More on Hurricane IanOn the Ground: Before Hurricane Ian, Florida’s southwest coast was a place to escape the chaos. Now, the storm has turned the laid-back stretch of suburban shoreline into a strand of destruction.Lack of Insurance: In the Florida counties hit hardest by Hurricane Ian, fewer than 20 percent of homes had flood insurance, new data show. Experts say that will make rebuilding even harder.Ron DeSantis: The Florida governor, who as a congressman opposed aid to victims of Hurricane Sandy, is seeking relief from the Biden administration as Hurricane Ian ravages his own state.Air Travel: Ian’s effects on flying, in Florida and beyond, are likely to continue through the weekend. This is what to do if your plans are disrupted.The present circumstances have inspired a less swaggering posture toward a leader whom Mr. DeSantis has long called “Brandon” as a recurring troll, aimed at the man he might like to succeed. “Dear Mr. President,” the governor’s request for a major disaster declaration and federal assistance began on Wednesday.“Ironically,” said David Jolly, a former Republican congressman from Florida, “there’s nobody in America that Ron DeSantis needs more than Joe Biden.”More than that, Mr. Jolly said, a governor who self-identifies as unswerving in his principles now finds himself with little choice but to push for storm relief actions “antithetical to his professed ideology.”“He held those convictions strong in the House,” said Mr. Jolly, who has been sharply critical of the party in the Trump years. “I doubt he will hold them as strongly in the governor’s mansion.”In 2013, Mr. DeSantis and Representative Ted Yoho, another hard-line conservative, were the only House members from Florida to oppose the Sandy package. For Mr. DeSantis, who represented a coastal district in eastern Florida, the vote at once established him as an eager combatant from the party’s ascendant right wing — he was a founding member of the Freedom Caucus — while at times placing him on the defensive back home.In a local interview that year, Mr. DeSantis said the bill contained “extraneous stuff” that could not be classified as emergency spending. “I never made the point of saying we shouldn’t do anything,” he said, adding that he could have supported a leaner package focused on immediate relief. Asked then if he would vote against a relief package that affected his own district, Mr. DeSantis was noncommittal, suggesting he would support a responsible plan.Through the years, critics in both parties have accused Mr. DeSantis of applying this standard selectively. In 2017, as he was poised to run for governor, Mr. DeSantis supported an aid package after Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria as places like Florida, Texas and Puerto Rico strained to recover.His 2018 primary opponent, Adam Putnam, made an issue of Mr. DeSantis’s voting record during the campaign. Storm-weary voters, a Putnam spokeswoman warned then, should protect themselves against “further destruction at the hands of Hurricane Ron.” Mr. DeSantis’s congressional office denied any inconsistency at the time, rejecting a comparison between the two disaster packages and saying he had supported emergency spending “when immediate and necessary.”Asked about the governor’s past positions on Thursday, a DeSantis spokesman said the administration was “completely focused on hurricane response.” “As the governor said earlier,” the spokesman, Jeremy T. Redfern, said, “we have no time for politics or pettiness.”Some Northeastern lawmakers, including Republicans, have not forgotten how Mr. DeSantis and some of his peers responded when the New York area was under duress. “Year after year, we had given them billions of dollars,” said Peter King, a former Republican congressman from Long Island, alluding to aid packages for Southern states and calling the resistance to Sandy relief his angriest moment in office. “Every one of them comes to New York to raise money. They either go to the Hamptons or they go to Manhattan. And both areas were devastated by Sandy.”This week, Mr. DeSantis said he was “thankful” for the Biden administration’s efforts so far, moving to place himself in the tradition of above-the-fray leadership from past Florida governors who negotiated catastrophic weather events on their watch.President Biden on Thursday at the headquarters of the Federal Emergency Management Agency in Washington. He has emphasized that he and Mr. DeSantis are working together.Kenny Holston for The New York TimesThe president and the governor have each made a point of saying publicly that they and their teams are in touch. “He complimented me. He thanked me for the immediate response we had,” Mr. Biden said on Thursday, suggesting that any political conflicts with Mr. DeSantis were irrelevant in these times. “This is about saving people’s lives, homes and businesses.” (In February, Mr. DeSantis baselessly said Mr. Biden “stiffs” storm victims for political reasons, insisting that the president “hates Florida.”)Haley Barbour, a Republican former governor of Mississippi who presided over the state’s response to Hurricane Katrina, said there was nothing inherently inconsistent about a conservative governor seeking federal storm money. “People think this is a role for the federal government — that some disasters are too big for the community to bear the cost to get back to where you need to be,” he said.Besides, he suggested, Mr. DeSantis and the White House suddenly had something in common. “Biden likes to say, ‘Build back better,’” Mr. Barbour said. “Well, that’s what Florida wants to do.” More

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      The Fetterman-Oz Race Is No Piece of Cake

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      OK, people. Time for some real political drama. Pennsylvania! Pennsylvania! Pennsylvania!Surprised you, didn’t I? But really, the Senate race there has it all. Swing state that could very well decide who holds the majority in the Senate and whether the rest of President Biden’s agenda has any real chance of getting passed.And the main candidates — the Republican, Mehmet Oz, and the Democrat, John Fetterman — are a stupendous diversion. You have the big, heavy issues, naturally, but they’ve also been fighting about stuff like where Oz actually lives and the right word to use for vegetables in the supermarket.Remember that last one? In an ongoing attempt to prove he’s just a regular guy and not a superrich TV personality with multiple expensive homes, Oz released a video of himself shopping for groceries and blaming Biden for the high cost of “crudité.”Imagine the euphoria in the Fetterman camp after that one. “In PA, we call this a veggie tray,” the candidate tweeted happily.Fetterman also released a video of three women wearing broccoli costumes. I know this doesn’t tell you a whole lot about what the candidates would do with, say, military spending. But you have to admit it’s a conversation maker.Oz is an accomplished heart surgeon and a TV personality who became famous for giving out health tips on Oprah Winfrey’s show. Most of his advice is perfectly reasonable. Really, that time he warned women that carrying a cellphone in their bras might cause breast cancer was long, long ago.Fetterman is Pennsylvania’s lieutenant governor, running as a regular guy who’ll wear a sweatshirt and shorts for pretty much anything from a picnic to a news conference to guiding the president on a tour of a bridge collapse. One of the duties of his job is to head the state Pardons Board, and you will not be surprised to hear that Oz is constantly reminding voters that he recommended pardons for people who were, um, convicts.One of the big talking points in the Senate race is residency. It’s certainly an issue that works for Fetterman, who has a tattoo on his arm advertising the ZIP code of the town where he once served as mayor. Oz made his home in a pretty fabulous New Jersey mansion during his precampaign days. Now, of course, he’s acquired a place in Pennsylvania. But Fetterman cannot remind the state too often that this is a rather recent development. (Democrats have a highway billboard near the state border telling motorists they’re “now leaving” New Jersey for Pennsylvania, “JUST LIKE DR. OZ.”)Issue-wise, Oz and Fetterman certainly diverge, although there has been a bit of squirming around. Particularly on the part of Oz, who used to be for gun control but became a Second Amendment fiend during the Republican Senate primary campaign. His abortion position is evolving. He emerged from that primary as “strongly pro-life” but now reminds voters he isn’t keen to punish anybody involved in terminating a pregnancy.Lately, Fetterman’s health has loomed large. He suffered a stroke in May, and while he’s certainly been getting better, there’s no question he still suffers from the effects, including what he calls “auditory processing” issues.Oz, in one of his very least charming tweets, sent out a picture of Fetterman in what looks like boxer shorts, his rather expansive stomach bare, calling him “Basement Bum.” Oz’s communications adviser claimed that if Fetterman had “ever eaten a vegetable in his life, then maybe he wouldn’t have had a major stroke.”Given what a very, very big deal the outcome of the Pennsylvania race might be, it’s natural that things would go a little crazy. We can actually cheer the fact that it isn’t truly worse — that there’s been little focus on the fact that Oz, who describes himself as a “secular Muslim,” has maintained dual citizenship with Turkey.(Well, there’s been little focus from the Fetterman folk. In the primary, some of the other Republican candidates did try to make it a big deal.)Since Fetterman’s stroke restricted his campaigning, the race has focused more and more on the candidate debate. It looks as though there’s going to be only one, on Oct. 25.People, does this seem worrisome to you? Fetterman has been pulling farther and farther ahead in the polls, and there’s a definite feeling around that the debate is all that’s standing between him and the Senate seat.In normal circumstances, that’s unnerving; political history is full of stories about candidates who lost their lead when they blurted out one stupid thing. And let me admit that when Gov. Rick Perry forgot the name of one of the federal agencies he would eliminate if elected president, I reminded you of his “oops” moment constantly until his candidacy went down the drain.But that was Rick Perry, a terrible candidate running to be leader of the free world. Sort of a different situation. And Fetterman should be fine, right? Right?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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      Which Midterm Polls Should We Be Taking With a Grain of Salt?

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      Frank Bruni, a contributing Opinion writer, hosted a written online conversation with Amy Walter of The Cook Political Report and Patrick Ruffini, a Republican pollster, to discuss the state of polling and of Democratic anxiety about polls ahead of the midterms.Frank Bruni: Amy, Patrick, as if the people over at Politico knew that the three of us would be huddling to discuss polling, it just published a long article about the midterms with the gloomy, spooky headline “Pollsters Fear They’re Blowing It Again in 2022.”Do you two fear that pollsters are blowing it again in 2022?Patrick Ruffini: It’s certainly possible that they could. The best evidence we have so far that something might be afoot comes from The Times’s own Nate Cohn, who finds that some of the Democratic overperformances seem to be coming in states that saw large polling errors in 2016 and 2020.Amy Walter: I do worry that we are asking more from polling than it is able to provide. Many competitive Senate races are in states — like Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — that Joe Biden won by supernarrow margins in 2020. The reality is that they are going to be very close again. And so an error of just three to four points is the difference between Democratic and Republican control of the Senate.Ruffini: This also doesn’t mean we can predict that polls will miss in any given direction. But it does suggest taking polls in states like Ohio, which Donald Trump won comfortably but where the Republican J.D. Vance is tied or slightly behind, with a grain of salt.Bruni: So what would you say specifically to Democrats? Are they getting their hopes up — again — in a reckless fashion?Walter: Democrats are definitely suffering from political PTSD. After 2016 and 2020, I don’t think Democrats are getting their hopes up. In fact, the ones I talk with are hoping for the best but not expecting such.Ruffini: In any election, you have the polls themselves, and then you have the polls as filtered through the partisan media environment. Those aren’t necessarily the same thing. On Twitter, there’s a huge incentive to hype individual polling results that are good for your side while ignoring the average. I don’t expect this to let up, because maintaining this hype is important for low-dollar fund-raising. But I do think this has led to a perhaps exaggerated sense of Democratic optimism.Bruni: Great point, Patrick — in these fractured and hyperpartisan times of information curation, polls aren’t so much sets of numbers as they are Rorschachs.But I want to pick up on something else that you said — “polls will miss in any given direction” — to ask why the worry seems only to be about overstatement of Democratic support and prospects. Is it possible that the error could be in the other direction and we are understating Republican problems and worries?Ruffini: In politics, we always tend to fight the last war. Historically, polling misses have been pretty random, happening about equally on both sides. But the last big example of them missing in a pro-Republican direction was 2012. The more recent examples stick in our minds, 2020 specifically, which was actually worse in percentage terms than 2016.Walter: Patrick’s point about the last war is so important. This is especially true when we are living in a time when we have little overlap with people from different political tribes. The two sides have very little appreciation for what motivates, interests or worries the other side, so the two sides over- or underestimate each other a lot.As our politics continue to break along educational attainment — those who have a college degree are increasingly more Democratic-leaning, those with less education increasingly more Republican-leaning — polls are likely to overstate the Democratic advantage, since we know that there’s a really clear connection between civic voting behavior and education levels.Ruffini: And we may be missing a certain kind of Trump voter, who may not be answering polls out of a distrust for the media, polling and institutions generally.Bruni: Regarding 2016 and 2020, Trump was on the ballot both of those years. He’s not — um, technically — this time around. So is there a greater possibility of accuracy, of a repeat of 2018, when polling came closer to the mark?Ruffini: The frustrating thing about all of this is that we just don’t have a very good sample size to answer this. In polls, that’s called an n size, like n = 1,000 registered voters. There have been n = 2 elections where Trump has been on the ballot and n = 1 midterm election in the Trump era. That’s not a lot.Bruni: We’ve mentioned 2016 and 2020 versus 2018. Are there reasons to believe that none of those points of reference are all that illuminating — that 2022 is entirely its own cat, with its own inimitable wrinkles? There are cats that have wrinkles, right? I’m a dog guy, but I feel certain that I’ve seen shar-pei-style cats in pictures.Walter: First, let’s be clear. Dogs are the best. So let’s change this to “Is this an entirely different breed?”I’m a big believer in the aphorism that history doesn’t repeat, but it does rhyme.Ruffini: Right. Every election is different, and seeing each new election through the lens of the previous election is usually a bad analytical strategy.Walter: But there are important fundamentals that can’t be dismissed. Midterms are about the party in charge. It is hard to make a midterm election about the out-party — the party not in charge — especially when Democrats control not just the White House but the House and Senate as well.However, the combination of overturning Roe v. Wade plus the ubiquitous presence of Trump has indeed made the out-party — the G.O.P. — a key element of this election. To me, the question is whether that focus on the stuff the Republicans are doing and have done is enough to counter frustration with the Democrats.Ruffini: 2022 is unique in that it’s a midterm cycle where both sides have reasons to be energized — Republicans by running against an unpopular president in a time of high economic uncertainty and Democrats by the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision overturning Roe. It’s really unique in the sweep of midterm elections historically. To the extent there is still an energized Republican base, polls could miss if they aren’t capturing this new kind of non-college, low-turnout voter that Trump brought into the process.Bruni: Patrick, this one’s for you, as you’re the one among us who’s actually in the polling business. In the context of Amy’s terrific observation about education levels and the Democratic Party and who’s more readily responsive to pollsters, what are you and what is your firm doing to make sure you reach and sample enough Republican and Trump-inclined voters?Ruffini: That’s a great question. Nearly all of our polls are off the voter file, which means we have a much larger set of variables — like voting history and partisan primary participation — to weight on than you might typically see in a media poll (with the exception of the Times/Siena polls, which do a great job in this regard). We’ve developed targets for the right number of college or non-college voters among likely voters in each congressional district. We’re also making sure that our samples have the right proportions of people who have registered with either party or have participated in a specific party’s primary before.But none of this is a silver bullet. After 2016, pollsters figured out we needed to weight on education. In 2020 we weighted on education — and we got a worse polling error. All the correct weighting decisions won’t matter if the non-college or low-turnout voter you’re getting to take surveys isn’t representative of those people who will actually show up to vote.Bruni: Does the taking of polls and the reporting on polls and the consciousness of polls inevitably queer what would have happened in their absence? I will go to my grave believing that if so many voters hadn’t thought that Hillary Clinton had victory in the bag, she would have won. Some 77,000 votes in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin — the margin of her Electoral College loss — are easily accounted for by overconfident, complacent Clinton supporters.Walter: In 2016, there were two key groups of people that determined the election. Those who never liked Clinton and those who disliked Trump and Clinton equally. At the end, those who disliked both equally broke overwhelmingly for Trump. And, those Democratic-leaning voters who didn’t like her at all were never fully convinced that she was a worthy candidate.Ruffini: I don’t worry about this too much since the people most likely to be paying attention to the daily movement of the polls are people who are 100 percent sure to vote. It can also work in the other direction. If the polls are showing a race in a red or blue state is close, that can motivate a majority of the party’s voters to get out and vote, and that might be why close races in those states usually resolve to the state fundamentals.Bruni: Evaluate the news media in all of this, and be brutal if you like. For as long as I’ve been a reporter, I’ve listened to news leaders say our political coverage should be less attentive to polls. It remains plenty attentive to polls. Should we reform? Is there any hope of that? Does it matter?Ruffini: I don’t think there’s any hope of this getting better, and that’s not the media’s fault. It’s the fault of readers (sorry, readers!) who have an insatiable appetite for staring at the scoreboard.Walter: We do pay too much attention to polls, but polls are the tool we have to capture the opinions of an incredibly diverse society. A reporter could go knock on 3,000 doors and miss a lot because they weren’t able to get the kind of cross-section of voters a poll does.Ruffini: Where I do hope the media gets better is in conducting more polls the way campaigns conduct them, which are not mostly about who is winning but showing a candidate how to win.In those polls, we test the impact of messages on the electorate and show how their standing moved as a result. It’s possible to do this in a balanced way, and it would be illuminating for readers to see, starting with “Here’s where the race stands today, but here’s the impact of this Democratic attack or this Republican response,” etc.Bruni: Let’s finish with a lightning round. Please answer these quickly and in a sentence or less, starting with this: Which issue will ultimately have greater effect, even if just by a bit, in the outcome of the midterms — abortion or gas prices?Walter: Abortion. Only because gas prices are linked to overall economic worries.Ruffini: Gas prices, because they’re a microcosm about concerns about inflation. When we asked voters a head-to-head about what’s more important to their vote, reducing inflation comes out ahead of protecting abortion rights by 67 to 29 percent.Bruni: Which of the competitive Senate races will have an outcome that’s most tightly tethered to — and thus most indicative of — the country’s mood and leanings right now?Walter: Arizona and Georgia were the two closest races for Senate and president in 2020. They should both be indicative. But Georgia is much closer because the G.O.P. candidate, Herschel Walker, while he’s still got some problems, has much less baggage and much better name recognition than the G.O.P. candidate in Arizona, Blake Masters.Ruffini: If Republicans are going to flip the Senate, Georgia is most likely to be the tipping-point state.Bruni: If there’s a Senate upset, which race is it? Who’s the unpredicted victor?Walter: For Republicans, it would be Don Bolduc in New Hampshire. They’ve argued that the incumbent, Senator Maggie Hassan, has low approval ratings and is very weak. It would be an upset because Bolduc is a flawed candidate with very little money or history of strong fund-raising.Ruffini: I’d agree about New Hampshire. The polling has shown a single-digit race. Republicans are also hoping they can execute a bit of a sneak attack in Colorado with Joe O’Dea, though the state fundamentals look more challenging.Bruni: You (hypothetically) have to place a bet with serious money on the line. Is the Republican presidential nominee in 2024 Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis or “other”?Walter: It’s always a safer bet to pick “other.” One of the most difficult things to do in politics is what DeSantis is trying to do: not just to upend someone like Trump but to remain a front-runner for another year-plus.Ruffini: I’d place some money on DeSantis and some on “other.” DeSantis is in a strong position right now, relative to the other non-Trumps, but he hasn’t taken many punches. And Trump’s position is soft for a former president who’s supposedly loved by the base and who has remained in the fray. Time has not been his friend. About as many Republicans in the ABC/Washington Post poll this weekend said they didn’t want him to run as did.Bruni: Same deal with the Democratic presidential nominee — but don’t be safe. Live large. To the daredevil go the spoils. Joe Biden, Kamala Harris or “other”?Walter: History tells us that Biden will run. If he doesn’t, history tells us that it will be Harris. But I feel very uncomfortable with either answer right now.Ruffini: “Other.” Our own polling shows Biden in a weaker position for renomination than Trump and Democrats less sure about who the alternative would be if he doesn’t run. I also think we’re underestimating the possibility that he doesn’t run at the age of 81.Bruni: OK, final question. Name a politician, on either side of the aisle, who has not yet been mentioned in our conversation but whose future is much brighter than most people realize.Walter: If you talk to Republicans, Representative Patrick McHenry is someone they see as perhaps the next leader for the party. There’s a lot of focus on Kevin McCarthy now, but many people see McHenry as a speaker in waiting.Ruffini: He’s stayed out of the presidential conversation (probably wisely until Trump has passed from the scene), but I think Dan Crenshaw remains an enormously compelling future leader for the G.O.P. Also in Texas, should we see Republicans capitalize on their gains with Hispanic voters and take at least one seat in the Rio Grande Valley, one of those candidates — Mayra Flores, Monica De La Cruz or Cassy Garcia — will easily be in the conversation for statewide office.Bruni: Thank you, both. I just took a poll, and 90 percent of respondents said they’d want to read your thoughts at twice this length. Then again, the margin of error was plus or minus 50 percent, and I’m not sure I sampled enough rural voters in the West.Frank Bruni (@FrankBruni) is a professor of public policy and journalism 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. Patrick Ruffini (@PatrickRuffini) is a co-founder of the Republican research firm Echelon Insights. Amy Walter (@amyewalter) is the publisher and editor in chief of The Cook Political Report.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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      Blake Masters Strains to Win Over Arizona’s Independent Voters

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      PHOENIX — Blake Masters, the Republican nominee for Senate in Arizona, has brightened the music and tone of his television ads. He has erased from his website some of his most emphatically right-wing stances on immigration, abortion and the lie that the 2020 election was stolen.But on a recent afternoon in Scottsdale, an affluent Phoenix suburb, Kate Feo, a 40-year-old independent voter, was not buying the shift.“I just don’t think he has an opinion on much until he is pressed for it, and then he kind of just comes up with whatever is popular at the moment,” she said as she strolled through a park with her three young children. She called Mr. Masters “a flip-flopper.”Skepticism from voters in the political center is emerging as a stubborn problem for Mr. Masters as he tries to win what has become an underdog race against Senator Mark Kelly, a moderate Democrat who leads in the polls of one of the country’s most important midterm contests.Independents and voters unaffiliated with either major party matter more in Arizona than in nearly any other battleground state. After roughly tripling in number over the past three decades to 1.4 million, they have helped push the state from reliably red to tossup, and now make up about a third of the voting population. And with early voting beginning in two weeks, it is among this critical electoral bloc that Mr. Masters appears to be struggling the most.Polls show Mr. Kelly leading his rival comfortably among independents: In a survey released this week by The Arizona Republic and Suffolk University, he was ahead by 51 percent to 36 percent. Another September survey, by the Phoenix firm OH Predictive Insights, found that more than half of independents had a negative view of Mr. Masters, and that only 35 percent saw him favorably.In nearly a dozen interviews in Phoenix and Tucson, as well as in the purplish Phoenix suburbs of Arcadia, Chandler and Scottsdale, most independent voters expressed views of Mr. Masters as inauthentic, slippery on the issues and not truly dedicated to Arizona.“I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw him,” said Thomas Budinger, 26, an assistant manager at a store in a Tucson mall. A few other independents scrunched their noses or rolled their eyes at the mention of the candidate’s name.Mr. Masters, 36, a venture capitalist and political newcomer once seen as a rising far-right figure, persuaded Republican voters in Arizona to nominate him with help from the endorsement of former President Donald J. Trump and the hefty financial backing of Peter Thiel, his billionaire former boss. But now he must win over the kinds of ticket-splitters, moderates and independents who powered the 2018 victories of Gov. Doug Ducey, a Republican, and Senator Kyrsten Sinema, a Democrat.Kate Feo, 40, in Scottsdale, Ariz., said of Mr. Masters, “I just don’t think he has an opinion on much until he is pressed for it.”Rebecca Noble for The New York TimesMr. Masters’s allies still see a path to victory in a state where Trump loyalists have taken over the Republican Party machinery and energized base voters in recent years, fueling prolonged efforts to challenge the 2020 election results.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.A Focus on Crime: In the final phase of the midterm campaign, Republicans are stepping up their attacks about crime rates, but Democrats are pushing back.Pennsylvania Governor’s Race: Doug Mastriano, the Trump-backed G.O.P. nominee, is being heavily outspent and trails badly in polling. National Republicans are showing little desire to help him.Megastate G.O.P. Rivalry: Against the backdrop of their re-election bids, Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas and Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida are locked in an increasingly high-stakes contest of one-upmanship.Rushing to Raise Money: Senate Republican nominees are taking precious time from the campaign trail to gather cash from lobbyists in Washington — and close their fund-raising gap with Democratic rivals.In another marquee Arizona race, Kari Lake, the Republican nominee for governor, is trying the opposite strategy from Mr. Masters, relentlessly leaning into her far-right persona and Trump-aligned message. Ms. Lake, a former TV news anchor, is seen as more charismatic than Mr. Masters, and her Democratic opponent as weaker than Mr. Kelly, but Ms. Lake appears to have tapped into a powerful Republican strain.Stan Barnes, a Republican consultant and former Arizona state legislator, said that reawakened movement could be just enough to carry Mr. Masters over the finish line. The more relevant question, he said, might not be, “Where are independents?” but instead, “How big is the ‘America First’ phenomenon?”Mr. Masters’s campaign declined requests for comment. In interviews, he has downplayed or denied any change in his approach to win over moderate and independent voters.Asked by Laura Ingraham of Fox News this month whether he had tweaked his view on abortion, he replied: “More propaganda. I’ve been consistent throughout the whole primary.”.css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.Mr. Masters entered Arizona politics after years of working with Silicon Valley start-ups, rising to become the president of Mr. Thiel’s foundation and the chief operating officer of Thiel Capital, the billionaire’s investment firm. He received $15 million from his former boss as he campaigned in the Republican primary, portraying himself as an internet-savvy insurgent and playing to xenophobic and racist fears among some base voters.In some of Mr. Masters’s earliest television and digital ads, he claimed without evidence that Mr. Trump had won the 2020 election and called for a militarization of the United States’ border with Mexico. His immigration ads had a video game-like quality, featuring ominous music, stark desert backdrops and faceless masses of migrants.On his website, as in speeches and podcasts, he echoed a sanitized version of the racist “great replacement” conspiracy theory, claiming that Democrats were trying to bring more immigrants into the country to change its demographics and give the party an edge.But since the Aug. 3 primary, Mr. Masters has tried to soften his tone, seeking to focus his bid on inflation, crime and illegal immigration. Before the primary, three of the four television ads that were paid for by his campaign captured him alone in the desert. Since then, two of his campaign’s three ads have featured his wife and children.His website has also undergone a cleanup: A line about Democrats purportedly importing immigrant voters has been removed, and he was one of several Republicans to take down false claims of a rigged 2020 election. His site deleted mentions of his support for some of the most stringent abortion restrictions, including “a federal personhood law (ideally a Constitutional amendment) that recognizes that unborn babies are human beings that may not be killed.”A person close to Mr. Masters told CNN last month that the candidate wanted his website to be seen as a “living document,” and he told the radio station KTAR News this month that any changes to it reflected “a new way that we’re talking about something, but it’s not a backtrack or anything like that.”Mr. Masters, who often appears with Ms. Lake, has not completely abandoned his combative instincts. He recently drew criticism for describing Vice President Kamala Harris as a beneficiary of an “affirmative action regime.” This month, he declined to commit to accepting this year’s election results.Mr. Masters’s supporters are unfazed by his attempts at moderation. They still see him as a potential bulwark against President Biden and what they describe as “radical” Democrats who want to regulate guns, open the border and take control away from parents in schools.At her home in Arcadia recently, Barbara Bandura, 42, said her support for Mr. Masters came down to her stances against abortion and new gun safety laws. “He’s not Mark Kelly,” she said, adding that she did not entirely believe news reports that Mr. Masters had deleted old positions from his website.Kirk Adams, a Republican former speaker of the Arizona House and a former chief of staff to Mr. Ducey, said that Mr. Masters was smartly trying to appeal to moderate Republicans in the image of former Senator John McCain, as well as the party’s Trump wing. “Blake, I think, is working hard to build a coalition, and time will tell if it is enough,” Mr. Adams said.Kirk Adams, a Republican former speaker of the Arizona House, said, “Blake, I think, is working hard to build a coalition, and time will tell if it is enough.” Rebecca Noble for The New York TimesThere are signs Republicans see the race as less winnable than other key Senate matchups. Mr. Thiel has rebuffed requests from Republicans to spend any more on the contest, though he is hosting a campaign fund-raiser for Mr. Masters this month.In a letter, Arizona Republicans recently urged Senator Mitch McConnell, the minority leader, to shore up his support for Mr. Masters. But the Senate Leadership Fund, the super PAC aligned with Mr. McConnell, has canceled $17.6 million in television ads, backing out of eight weeks of reserved airtime from Sept. 6 until Election Day. Last week, it cut a further $308,000 in time reserved for radio ads. (Steven Law, the group’s chief executive, contended that money from other Republican groups would help Mr. Masters make up the difference.)The moves have left Mr. Masters short on cash. He ended the last campaign finance reporting period, in July, with only about $1.6 million in cash on hand, compared with $24.8 million for Mr. Kelly. Democrats have far outspent Republicans in television ads on the race. Mr. Kelly has combined with Senate Democrats’ super PAC and campaign arm to spend nearly $60 million alone.In interviews, some independents waved off concerns about Mr. Masters. Smoke Hinson, 53, a natural gas pipeline inspector in Phoenix, said he planned to vote for him, arguing that children should not be taught about gender identity or “how to pray in the Muslim religion” in schools, that illegal immigration was out of control and that the F.B.I. was headed in the wrong direction.“Blake Masters is about law enforcement, the border, parents’ rights, the Second and First Amendment,” Mr. Hinson said.But more common were perceptions of Mr. Masters like that of Hector Astacio, another independent who called him a “flip-flopper.” Mr. Astacio, 62, a manufacturing engineer in Chandler, said he did not like that Mr. Masters seemed to echo Mr. Trump’s bigotry in his immigration messaging.Originally from Puerto Rico, Mr. Astacio said he had been kicked out of bars in Georgia because of his skin color and had been racially profiled by the police in Arizona. “I see the racism — if you are Hispanic, if you are of a different color,” he said. “It does not sit well with me.” More

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      Will Abortion Turn Tide for Democrats in House Fight for NY Suburbs?

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      ROCKVILLE CENTRE, N.Y. — A year ago, Republicans staged an uprising in the Long Island suburbs, winning a slew of races by zeroing in on public safety and suggesting that Democrats had allowed violent crime to fester.Now, with the midterms approaching, Democratic leaders are hoping that their own singular message, focused on abortion, might have a similar effect.“Young ladies, your rights are on the line,” Laura Gillen, a Democrat running for Congress in Nassau County, said to two young women commuting toward the city on a recent weekday morning. “Please vote!”Long Island has emerged as an unlikely battleground in the bitter fight for control of the House of Representatives, with both Democrats and Republicans gearing up to pour large sums of money into the contests here.Nassau and Suffolk Counties, where nearly three million New Yorkers live, have become a powerful testing ground for the main campaign themes of each party, with Democrats hoping that their renewed focus on abortion rights — following the recent Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade — will help them retain control of the House.The New York City suburbs are at a rare political crossroads: Three of the four House seats that encompass most of Long Island are open this year after their incumbents retired or stepped aside to seek higher political office, offering both parties a unique, regionally concentrated opportunity to send new faces to Congress.The two districts that are mostly situated in Nassau County, just east of Queens, are held by Democrats, while the two districts concentrated on the eastern stretch of the island in Suffolk County are held by Republicans. Both parties are vying to gain one, if not, two seats.That prospect has injected a sense of urgency and uncertainty into the races on Long Island, once a Republican stronghold that has turned more Democratic and diverse in recent decades, becoming the type of suburban swing area that could determine control of the House in November.Republicans have almost exclusively focused on blaming Democrats for rising prices as well as on public safety: They have amplified concerns about the state’s contentious bail laws and crime in nearby New York City, where many Long Islanders commute for work.“Many Democrats feel like that they don’t have a party anymore because it’s gone so far to the left,” said Anthony D’Esposito, a former New York City police detective and local councilman running against Ms. Gillen, the former Town of Hempstead supervisor who lost her seat in 2019. He suggested that police officers, firefighters and emergency medical workers who live in Nassau County but work in the five boroughs are alarmed by crime in the city.Anthony D’Esposito, a former New York City police detective, is trying to flip a Democratic seat being vacated by Kathleen Rice.Johnny Milano for The New York TimesMr. D’Esposito and Ms. Gillen are running in a tight race to replace Representative Kathleen Rice, a Democrat who announced in February that she would not run for re-election in the Fourth District in central and southern Nassau, which she has represented since 2015.“The Dobbs decision was a wake-up call that elections have consequences,” Ms. Rice said in an interview. “But for people on Long Island, they don’t want to just hear about that. They want to hear about how we’re going to get inflation under control and public safety,” she said, adding both were politically thorny issues for Democrats in New York.Republicans are looking to replicate their success from 2021, when the party used visceral ads of assaults and break-ins to help capture a slew of races across Long Island. They ousted Laura Curran, the Democratic Nassau County executive, in November, and won control of the Nassau district attorney’s office despite running a first-time candidate against a well-known Democratic state senator.Democratic operatives are quick to caution that 2021 was an off-year election, when Republicans typically are more successful in getting voters to the polls. Indeed, there are more Democrats than Republicans registered to vote in the district, and political analysts have forecast it as more favorable for Democrats.Still, almost a quarter of voters are unaffiliated with either party. Some high-ranking Democrats have privately raised concerns that the contest is being overlooked by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which did not include it in its national “Red to Blue” slate of competitive races, a designation that provides field work and helps attract financial support from national donors.Interviews this month with more than a dozen voters in Nassau County showed that public safety, inflation and immigration remained animating issues among Republicans and swing voters who typically play an outsize role in elections here..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.Joe O’Connor, a 75-year-old Vietnam veteran from Freeport on Long Island’s South Shore, is not registered with either party. He voted against Mr. Trump in 2020 but said he was still unsure how he would vote in November, noting that chief among his concerns were education, homelessness and safety in New York City.“New York has come back great, and I’m really happy with that,” said Mr. O’Connor, a former teacher who frequently visits museums and Broadway shows in the city. “But it’s got to be cleaned up, and it’s got to be safe for people.”Democrats, for their part, have homed in on abortion rights and the threat to democracy as central campaign themes, hopeful that the recent legal setbacks that have thrust former President Donald J. Trump back into the news will also boost their chances in a state where Mr. Trump remains deeply unpopular.Delis Ortiz, 20, who said she would vote for her first time in November, said that while her top concern was keeping up with rising grocery prices, she would most likely vote Democratic in part because of the party’s stance on abortion rights.“I believe that every person has a right to their own body,” said Ms. Ortiz, a barista at an upscale coffee shop in Garden City. “Nobody should have that power over anyone else, ever.”Those themes are playing out visibly in the competitive race to replace Representative Thomas R. Suozzi, a centrist Democrat who has represented the Third District, in northern parts of Nassau County and parts of eastern Queens, since 2017 but decided not to run for re-election to pursue an unsuccessful run for governor this year.Robert Zimmerman, a small-business owner and well-known Democratic activist, has repeatedly sought to cast his Republican opponent, George Santos, as too extreme to represent the district, highlighting Mr. Santos’s apparent support of abortion bans and his attendance at the pro-Trump rally in Washington on Jan. 6.Robert Zimmerman, a Democrat, is facing George Santos, a Republican, in a contest to fill an open seat vacated by Representative Thomas Suozzi.Johnny Milano for The New York Times“Long Island can very well determine who has the majority in Congress,” Mr. Zimmerman said over coffee at a diner in Great Neck this month. “And frankly, George Santos represents the greatest threat to our democracy of any candidate running for Congress in New York State. I really can’t underscore that enough.”In a statement, Charley Lovett, Mr. Santos’s campaign manager, accused Mr. Zimmerman of trying to “distract voters from the disasters that Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi’s policies have caused with Robert Zimmerman’s full support.”Their matchup also has history-making potential: The race appears to be the first time that two openly gay candidates for Congress have faced off in a general election.The governor’s election could also play a role in some House races on Long Island, which has emerged as a key battleground in the race between Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, and her Republican opponent, Representative Lee Zeldin, who has represented most of Suffolk County in Congress since 2015.Ms. Hochul has held a significant lead in most public polls, and she held a narrow five-point lead in the New York City suburbs in a Siena College poll released on Wednesday. Even so, Republicans are hoping Mr. Zeldin’s support on Long Island could help drive its voters to the polls, buoying the party’s House candidates, though Democrats are betting that their barrage of attack ads portraying Mr. Zeldin as a right-wing extremist will help the party animate Democrats and swing more moderate voters in their favor.Mr. Zeldin’s entry into the governor’s race paved the way for Democrats to try and flip his now-open congressional seat in the First District on the eastern end of the island, one of the few Republican-held seats in the country that is open and considered competitive. But Democrats face an uphill battle: The seat is projected to slightly favor Republicans, who have held the district since Mr. Zeldin wrestled it from Democratic control in 2014.The Democrat in the race, Bridget Fleming, a former assistant district attorney and current county legislator, has nonetheless outpaced her opponent in fund-raising and recently received the endorsement from the union that represents police officers in Suffolk County. She was also added to the Democrats’ Red to Blue program in June.A moderate, she has centered her campaign in the district, a mix of working-class and wealthy residents, on affordability and conserving the environment — a top issue for fishermen and farmers, as well as the tourism industry, on the island’s East End — but also on protecting women’s right to choose.“There’s no question that fundamental freedoms are under assault in our country,” said Ms. Fleming. “The exploitation of the extremes that we’ve seen recently is electrifying people who are standing up to fight for themselves.”In an interview, her opponent, Nicholas LaLota, brushed off Democrats’ almost singular focus on reproductive rights, saying that New York already had some of the strictest protections in the country.“Here in New York, nobody’s abortion rights are under attack or assault,” said Mr. LaLota, a former Navy lieutenant who works in the Suffolk County Legislature. “So those folks who want to campaign on abortion, they should run for state office, not federal office.”He added that voters in the district “who live paycheck to paycheck were more concerned about rising interests rates and prices.”Democrats are facing an even steeper climb to unseat Representative Andrew Garbarino, a well-funded Republican who represents the Second District on the South Shore that is among the most affluent in the country. Opposing Mr. Garbarino is Jackie Gordon, an Army veteran, who lost to Mr. Garbarino in 2020. More

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      Youngkin Stumps With Kemp in Georgia, Urging Conservatives to Vote

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      ALPHARETTA, Ga. — Gov. Glenn Youngkin of Virginia appeared at a campaign event on Tuesday afternoon for his counterpart in Georgia, Brian Kemp, helping to bolster Governor Kemp’s re-election pitch to voters.The event, in Alpharetta’s idyllic town center, brought out more than 200 conservative voters from around Georgia, several with hats, T-shirts and signs bearing Mr. Kemp’s campaign logo. In his speech, Mr. Youngkin pressed for conservative voters to turn out en masse on Election Day and pointed out the competitive politics of the two Republican governors’ states.Mr. Youngkin also focused on the issues that helped him get elected. Education and the economy, he said, represent “the failed policy of the progressive liberals.”“We all know that it has failed,” Mr. Youngkin said. “This is not a Republican view. This is an American view.”Mr. Kemp, too, underlined the parties’ differences in policy, championing his decision to defy public health guidance during the earliest waves of the Covid-19 pandemic to keep businesses open in Georgia. In addition, he laid out a policy plan for a second term that would include using surplus funds from the state budget to cut property and income taxes.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.A Focus on Crime: In the final phase of the midterm campaign, Republicans are stepping up their attacks about crime rates, but Democrats are pushing back.Pennsylvania Governor’s Race: Doug Mastriano, the Trump-backed G.O.P. nominee, is being heavily outspent and trails badly in polling. National Republicans are showing little desire to help him.Megastate G.O.P. Rivalry: Against the backdrop of their re-election bids, Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas and Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida are locked in an increasingly high-stakes contest of one-upmanship.Rushing to Raise Money: Senate Republican nominees are taking precious time from the campaign trail to gather cash from lobbyists in Washington — and close their fund-raising gap with Democratic rivals.Georgia has played host to a parade of Republicans who have kept former President Donald J. Trump at arm’s length. Mr. Kemp in 2020 resisted Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn his loss in the election in Georgia, and this year he easily fended off a Trump-backed challenger in the primary, former Senator David Perdue.In early September, Mr. Kemp campaigned with former Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina. And before Mr. Kemp’s primary, former Vice President Mike Pence headlined a Kemp campaign event..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.Mr. Youngkin, a former private equity executive who defeated Terry McAuliffe, a former governor, in the November 2021 election for Virginia governor, has traveled across the country in recent weeks on behalf of Republican candidates for state office. In late August he campaigned with Tudor Dixon, the Republican running to unseat Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan. In early September, Mr. Youngkin appeared alongside Joe Lombardo, the Republican candidate for governor in Nevada.Mr. Youngkin’s tours have only fueled speculation that he is angling for a spot in a future Republican presidential primary. However, in a news conference after the rally on Tuesday, Mr. Youngkin downplayed such talk.“I don’t really think about it,” he said. “I’m focused on 2022, being the best governor I can possibly be in the Commonwealth of Virginia.”Mr. Kemp leads his Democratic opponent, Stacey Abrams, by more than five percentage points in a majority of polls of the race. Even so, Mr. Kemp has implored his supporters to consider the network of Democratic organizers and party leaders who had worked to turn out the vote and powered the party’s gains in the 2020 presidential election and 2021 U.S. Senate runoffs.When asked by The New York Times during a news conference if he still had concerns about Republicans’ ability to match Democrats’ grass-roots turnout efforts, Mr. Kemp replied, “Damn right.”“I would tell all those people out there: Don’t believe any of these polls,” he said, turning his attention to his Democratic rivals. “You cannot underestimate their ground game.”He then underlined the millions of dollars that Democrats and their allies have poured on to the airwaves in recent weeks. “We’re never going to outspend them,” he said. “But I do believe we’re going to outwork them.” More

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      Biden Says Social Security Is on ‘Chopping Block’ if Republicans Win Congress

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      WASHINGTON — President Biden warned on Tuesday that Republicans posed a threat to Social Security and Medicare, amplifying an effort by Democrats to make the fate of America’s social safety net programs a central campaign issue ahead of November’s midterm elections.The comments were part of a push by Democrats across the country to steer the political conversation away from soaring prices and growing recession fears and remind anxious voters that some Republicans have been calling for restructuring or scaling back entitlement programs that retirees have relied on for decades.The strategy is a return to a familiar election-year theme. Although Mr. Biden, who spoke from the White House’s Rose Garden, offered few details about how he would preserve the benefits, he insisted that if Republicans regained control of Congress they would try to take them away.“What do you think they’re going to do?” Mr. Biden asked, brandishing a copy of a plan drafted by Senator Rick Scott, Republican of Florida, that would allow Social Security and Medicare to “sunset” if Congress did not pass new legislation to extend them.A spokesman for Mr. Scott said the senator was fighting to protect Social Security and Medicare.The criticism has put Republicans on the defensive, with many arguing that their policies would ensure that Social Security and Medicare do not run out of money.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.A Focus on Crime: In the final phase of the midterm campaign, Republicans are stepping up their attacks about crime rates, but Democrats are pushing back.Pennsylvania Governor’s Race: Doug Mastriano, the Trump-backed G.O.P. nominee, is being heavily outspent and trails badly in polling. National Republicans are showing little desire to help him.Megastate G.O.P. Rivalry: Against the backdrop of their re-election bids, Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas and Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida are locked in an increasingly high-stakes contest of one-upmanship.Rushing to Raise Money: Senate Republican nominees are taking precious time from the campaign trail to gather cash from lobbyists in Washington — and close their fund-raising gap with Democratic rivals.Despite suggestions of their imminent demise, Social Security and Medicare are unlikely to be altered as long as Mr. Biden is in power. Top Republicans including Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader, have said that Mr. Scott’s proposal is a nonstarter.But decades of political squabbling have left the programs in limbo.Tens of millions of aging Americans rely on Social Security and Medicare to supplement their income and health care expenses. The finances of Social Security and Medicare have been on unstable ground for years, and Congress has been unable to come together to find a solution to secure the solvency of the programs..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.Government actuaries said in June that the health of the social safety net programs improved slightly last year, because of the strength of the economic recovery, but that shortfalls were still looming.Mr. Biden did not offer a specific proposal for the programs on Tuesday beyond keeping them out of the hands of Republicans. He also took aim at Senator Ron Johnson, a Wisconsin Republican who is facing re-election and has suggested that all federal spending, including for Social Security and Medicare, should be reviewed annually by Congress.“He wants to put Social Security and Medicare on the chopping block every single year in every budget,” Mr. Biden said. “If Congress doesn’t vote to keep it, goodbye.”Mr. Johnson said on Twitter on Tuesday that he wanted to save Social Security, Medicare and benefits for veterans, and that Democrats were telling “lies” about his proposals.“The greatest threat to these programs is the massive, out-of-control deficit spending enacted by Biden and Dems in congress,” Mr. Johnson said.The Social Security Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund, which pays retiree benefits, will be depleted in 2034, at which time the fund’s reserves will run down and incoming tax revenue will be enough to cover only 77 percent of scheduled benefits. Medicare’s hospital trust fund, which does not affect benefits that cover doctor visits and prescription drugs, improved last year but is expected to encounter a shortfall in 2028.Concerns about the solvency of the programs come as retirees are grappling with the highest levels of inflation in four decades. Social Security payments are expected to increase by around 9 percent next month when a cost-of-living adjustment that is pegged to inflation is announced.Those increases are usually somewhat offset by an increase in Medicare premiums for doctors’ visits, but Mr. Biden said those premiums would not rise this year.Senators like Bernie Sanders, independent of Vermont, and Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, called earlier for expanding Social Security and extending its solvency by raising taxes on the rich. More