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      Politician, Thy Name Is Hypocrite

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      What’s worse — politicians passing a bad law or politicians passing a bad law while attempting to make it look reasonable with meaningless window dressing?You wind up in the same place, but I’ve gotta go with the jerks who pretend.Let’s take, oh, I don’t know, abortion. Sure, lawmakers who vote to ban it know they’re imposing some voters’ religious beliefs on the whole nation. But maybe they can make it look kinda fair.For instance Mark Ronchetti, who’s running for governor in New Mexico, was “strongly pro-life” until the uproar following the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe. Now, his campaign website says he’s looking for a “middle ground” that would allow abortions “in cases involving rape, incest and when a mother’s life is at risk.”That’s a very popular spin. The public’s rejection of the court’s ruling, plus the stunning vote for abortion rights in a recent statewide referendum in Kansas, has left politicians looking for some way to dodge the anti-choice label. Without, um, actually changing. “I am pro-life, and make no apologies for that. But I also understand that this is a representative democracy,” said Tim Michels, a Republican candidate for Wisconsin governor, when he embraced the rape-and-incest dodge.Mehmet Oz, who’s running for Senate in Pennsylvania, used to support abortion access back when he wanted the world to call him “Dr. Oz.” But now that his day job is being a conservative Republican, he’s “100 percent pro-life.” Nevertheless, he still feels there should be an exception for cases of … rape and incest.We’ve come a long — OK, we’ve come at least a little way from the time, a decade ago, when Todd Akin, the Republican Senate candidate in Missouri, argued it was impossible for a woman to get pregnant from “legitimate rape.” And Akin did lose that race.The backtracking can get pretty creative — or desperate, depending on your perspective. In New Hampshire, Don Bolduc, who’s running for the Senate, was strongly anti-choice before he won the Republican primary. (“Killing babies is unbelievably irresponsible.”)Now, Bolduc the nominee feels a federal abortion ban “doesn’t make sense” and complains that he’s not getting the proper respect for his position. Which is that it’s a state issue. And that his opponent, Senator Maggie Hassan, should “get over it.”These days, it’s hard to sell an across-the-board rule that doesn’t take victims of forced sex into account. In Ohio recently, Senate candidate J.D. Vance tried to stick to his anti-abortion guns, but did back down a smidge when questioned about whether that 10-year-old Ohio rape victim who was taken out of state for an abortion should have been forced to have a baby.And then Vance quickly changed the subject, pointing out that the man accused of raping her was an “illegal alien.” This is an excellent reminder that in this election season there is virtually no problem that Republicans can’t find a way of connecting to the Mexican border.As sympathetic as all rape victims are, the exemption rule would not have much impact. No one knows exactly what proportion of pregnancies are caused by rape and incest, but the number “looks very, very small,” Elizabeth Nash of the Guttmacher Institute told me.And what about, say, a young woman who’s already a teenage mother, working the night shift at a fast-food outlet, whose boyfriend’s condom failed? No suggestion for any special mercy there. You can’t help thinking the big difference is a desire to punish any woman who wanted to have sex.Another popular method of dodging the abortion issue is fiddling with timelines. Blake Masters, the ever-fascinating Arizona Senate candidate, originally opposed abortion from the moment of conception. (“I think it’s demonic.”) Now his revamped website just calls for a national ban once a woman is six months pregnant.And we will stop here very, very briefly to mention that the number of six-month abortions is infinitesimal.Whenever this issue comes up, I remember my school days, which involved Catholic education from kindergarten through college. Wonderful world in many ways, but there wasn’t much concern about keeping religion out of public policy. Especially when it came to abortion. Any attempt to stop the pregnancy from the moment of conception on was murder.That’s still Catholic dogma, you know. Politicians who think they can dodge the issue with their rape-and-incest exceptions appear to ignore the fact that as the church sees it, an embryo that’s the product of a rape still counts as worthy of protection.It took me quite a while to get my head around the abortion issue and I have sympathy for people who have strong religious opposition to ending a pregnancy.Some folks who hold to that dogma try to encourage pregnant women to have their babies by providing counseling, financial support and adoption services, all of which is great as long as the woman in question isn’t being forced to join the program.But anti-abortion laws are basically an attempt to impose one group’s religion on the country as a whole. It’s flat-out unconstitutional, no matter how Justice Samuel Alito feels.And the rape-or-incest exception isn’t humanitarian. It’s a meaningless rhetorical ploy intended to allow politicians to have it both ways.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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      Democrats’ Feared Red October Arrives Before the Midterms

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      Many Democrats hoped it would be a “weird election.” But with Election Day just three weeks away, the midterms aren’t shaping up that way.Here’s the thing about elections: When they break, they usually break in one direction. And right now, all the indicators on my political dashboard are blinking red — as in, toward Republicans.First, there’s inflation. It hasn’t gone away as the Biden administration had hoped, and the Federal Reserve likewise seems to be hamstrung in dealing with it. Americans are being squeezed between exorbitant prices for consumer goods — inflation is still at 40-year highs — and interest rates that the Fed has ratcheted up as it seeks to rein in those prices. Anyone trying to buy a home now faces 30-year mortgage rates that have soared past 6 percent.The latest New York Times/Siena poll, my colleague Nate Cohn wrote this week, suggests that “the conditions that helped Democrats gain over the summer no longer seem to be in place,” with voters’ sour view of the economy driving the downturn in the party’s prospects.As John Halpin, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, wrote recently in his newsletter, “inflation is a political wrecking ball for incumbent governments” around the world. Why should the United States be different?Then there’s crime, which has rapidly moved up the ladder of issues that matter to voters. In a new Politico/Morning Consult poll, 64 percent of voters said crime would play a “major role” in how they voted, versus 59 percent who said the same of abortion access.Democrats have bet heavily that widespread anger over the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade would drive voters away from the Republican Party — especially college-educated women in the suburbs. President Biden pledged on Tuesday to protect abortion rights in a clear attempt to bring the issue back to the forefront of public discussion.Democrats’ strategy might have been a smart move in an otherwise brutal year for the party. But it has also come at a cost: All those abortion ads have taken resources away from whacking Republicans for opposing the policies Democrats passed in Congress this year.Some of those policies are broadly popular, like the way that the Inflation Reduction Act allows the federal government to negotiate prices for certain prescription drugs.But a recent poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that only 36 percent of voters were aware of this development. That’s a huge communication failure — or a reflection that Democrats don’t think promoting their accomplishments would move or mobilize many votes.And finally, there’s the historical pattern of midterm elections, which tend to be referendums on the party in power. Older voters, who broadly lean Republican, also usually turn out more reliably in nonpresidential years, while younger, more transient Democratic voters are more fickle.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsBoth parties are making their final pitches ahead of the Nov. 8 election.G.O.P. Gains Edge: Republicans enter the final weeks of the contest for control of Congress with an advantage as the economy and inflation have surged as the dominant concerns, a Times/Siena poll found.Codifying Roe: President Biden pledged that the first bill he would send to Capitol Hill next year if Democrats expand their control of Congress in the midterm elections would be legislation to enshrine abortion rights into law.Florida Senate Race: In the only debate of the contest, exchanges between Senator Marco Rubio and his Democratic challenger, Representative Val Demings, got fiery at times. Here are four takeaways.Aggressive Tactics: Right-wing leaders are calling on election activists to monitor voting in the midterm elections in search of evidence to confirm unfounded theories of election fraud.So, as the polls move the G.O.P.’s way, this election is looking a lot more “normal” than it might have seemed over the summer. Robert Gibbs, a former White House press secretary under President Barack Obama, wrote in his newsletter today: “We’re still in a very weird election, but it looks like it’s going to be more normal as we get into these final 21 days.”For Democrats hoping that this midterm election might be different from most others, normalcy is bad news.The Republican nominee in one of Rhode Island’s two congressional districts, Allan Fung, left, is leading Seth Magaziner, the state treasurer and a Democrat, in public polls.Corey Welch/WPRI, via Associated PressRepublicans go on offenseAs the playing field tilts toward Republicans, conservative groups are pouring money into newly competitive races, especially on the more volatile House side.This week’s Times/Siena poll showed Republicans leading Democrats by four percentage points in the generic congressional ballot, a widely monitored gauge of voter sentiment that asks respondents which party’s candidate they are most likely to vote for. It’s an especially meaningful indicator in races with no Democratic incumbent, because it takes time and money for little-known candidates to build up their personal brands. And the Democrats’ national brand is faring poorly right now.A super PAC aligned with Representative Kevin McCarthy, the Republican minority leader, just bought $4 million in television ads targeting Representative Sean Patrick Maloney of New York, whose new Hudson Valley district Biden won by five points in 2020. Maloney is the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and his defeat would be deeply embarrassing to House Democrats.Republicans are also crowing about their chances of winning three open seats in Oregon that were previously held by Democrats, as well as a long-shot bid to unseat Representative Jahana Hayes in northwestern Connecticut. And even in wicked-blue Rhode Island, the Republican nominee in one of the state’s two congressional districts, Allan Fung, is leading Seth Magaziner, the state treasurer and a Democrat, in public polls.The Senate, where Democrats have huge cash advantages in races that are driven much more by personality, still looks like a tossup.But even there, Democrats are feeling some new heartburn. In Washington State, Senator Patty Murray’s lead over Tiffany Smiley, the Republican, has narrowed slightly since the summer. And as the polls have tightened, Smiley has outraised her Democratic opponent for the first time — by nearly a two-to-one margin.A loss for Murray would be a major upset. And if Democrats now need to worry about a state like Washington, that’s a dire sign for their chances in November.What to readFewer debates, little retail politicking, scarce town halls: This year’s campaigns look far different from those in the past as traditional norms erode, Lisa Lerer and Jazmine Ulloa write.Senator Bernie Sanders is planning an eight-state blitz over the final two weekends before the midterm elections, looking to rally young voters and progressives.Newly released body camera footage shows how Gov. Ron DeSantis’s much-publicized crackdown on voter fraud caused confusion among those arrested.In a 2021 video, Donald Trump inquired about whether a documentary filmmaker recording an interview with him was a “good Jewish character,” described Persians as “very good salesmen” and complained that Israeli Jews favored him more than Jews in the United States, Maggie Haberman reports.Capitol Hill notepadRepresentative Kevin McCarthy, left, and Senator Mitch McConnell with President Donald Trump in 2020.Doug Mills/The New York TimesMcCarthy zigs while McConnell zagsMitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader at the time of the Ukraine impeachment inquiry, warned President Donald Trump that his infamous call with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine was “not perfect” — even as McConnell downplayed its importance in public.At the same time, Kevin McCarthy, the House minority leader, was scoffing behind closed doors about the nature of the offense, while leaning on wavering Republicans to reject Democrats’ calls for an impeachment inquiry.The dueling anecdotes are revealed in a book out this week, “Unchecked: The Untold Story Behind Congress’s Botched Impeachments of Donald Trump,” by Rachael Bade and Karoun Demirjian. They encapsulate an important difference between the two Republican leaders as they seek a return to power.Both men went along with many of Trump’s excesses. But while McCarthy usually told Trump what he wanted to hear, McConnell sometimes pushed back. It’s why Trump has railed against McConnell, calling him an “old crow,” and recently accused him of harboring a “death wish” — but has helped set McCarthy on a glide path to becoming speaker if Republicans retake the House next month.“If this is the ‘launching point’ for House Democrats’ impeachment process, they’ve already overplayed their hand,” McConnell said after Trump released a transcript of the call, according to the book. “It’s clear there is no quid pro quo that the Democrats were desperately praying for.”But earlier, McConnell’s chief counsel, Andrew Ferguson, zeroed in one remark: Trump’s request to “do us a favor, though,” which Ferguson told his boss was “the dynamite line.” Agreeing, McConnell told Trump privately that the call with Zelensky was a problem.“This call is not perfect,” McConnell told Trump. “And you are going to get in deep trouble for it.”McConnell also cautioned his fellow Republican senators not to take a side. “Don’t box yourself in until you know all the facts,” he told them.McCarthy handled the Ukraine imbroglio rather differently. At a meeting with Trump’s aides to go over the transcript, he was unmoved by what he read, asking, “Is this everything?”Then he dialed up Representative Mark Amodei, a Nevada Republican who had expressed some support for an impeachment inquiry — and pressured him to walk back his remarks ASAP.“Using government agencies to, if it’s proven, to put your finger on the scale of an election, I don’t think that’s right,” Amodei had said. The comments set off a media frenzy, leading some to conclude that impeachment might gain Republican support.Bade and Demirjian write that McCarthy was worried Trump would “flip” when he saw the comments.“Oh, man, I screwed up,” Amodei said when the two men spoke. McCarthy instructed him to put out a statement to repair any potential damage with Trump. He quickly did, clarifying, “In no way, shape, or form, did I indicate support for impeachment.”David Frum, a conservative writer for The Atlantic and one of Trump’s leading critics, recently opined that McCarthy “thinks the job to be the speaker of the House is a little bit like being a concierge at some rock-star hotel, where people come downstairs at all hours and they make crazy demands, and you say, ‘Yes, sir, right away, sir. We’ll have the dim sum and cocaine to your room in 15 minutes, sir.’”Thank you for reading On Politics, and for being a subscriber to The New York Times. — BlakeRead past editions of the newsletter here.If you’re enjoying what you’re reading, please consider recommending it to others. They can sign up here. Browse all of our subscriber-only newsletters here.Have feedback? Ideas for coverage? We’d love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com. More

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      The Midterms Look Very Different if You’re Not a Democrat or a Republican

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      Ross Douthat, a Times Opinion columnist, hosted an online conversation with Liel Leibovitz, an editor at large for Tablet magazine, and Stephanie Slade, a senior editor at Reason magazine, to discuss how they and other “politically homeless” Americans are thinking about the midterm elections.Ross Douthat: Thanks to you both for serving as representatives of the important part of America that feels legitimately torn between the political parties. Liel, in December of 2021 you wrote an essay about what you called “the Turn,” meaning the feeling of no longer being at home on the political left, of being alienated from the Democratic Party by everything from Covid-era school closures to doctrinaire progressivism.Where does “the Turn” carry you when it comes to electoral politics, facing the (arguably) binary choices of the midterm elections?Liel Leibovitz: Nowhere good, I’m afraid. I’m an immigrant, so I have no real tribal or longstanding loyalties. I came to this country, like so many other immigrants, because I care deeply about two things — freedom of religion and individual liberties. And both parties are messing up when it comes to these two fundamental pillars of American life, from cheering on law enforcement spying on Muslim Americans in the wake of 9/11 to cheering on social media networks for curbing free speech. “The Turn” leads me away from both Democrats and Republicans.Douthat: Stephanie, you’re a libertarian, part of a faction that’s always been somewhat alienated from both parties, despite (usually) having a somewhat stronger connection to the right. This is not, I think it’s fair to say, a particularly libertarian moment in either coalition. What kind of Election Day outcomes are you actually rooting for?Stephanie Slade: This is tough. As someone motivated by a desire for much less government than we currently have, I’m always going to be nervous about the prospect of a Congress that’s willing to rubber-stamp the whims of a president (or vice versa). So I’m an instinctive fan of divided power. But that preference is running smack up against the almost unimaginable abhorrence I feel toward some of the Republicans who would have to win in order for the G.O.P. to retake the Senate.Douthat: Liel, as someone whose relationship to the left and the Democrats has become much more complicated in recent years, what do you see when you look at the Republican alternative?Leibovitz: Sadly, the same thing I see when I look at the Democrats. I see a party too enmeshed in very bad ideas and too interested in power rather than principle. I see a party only too happy to cheer on big government to curtail individual liberties and to let tech oligopolies govern many corners of our lives. The only point of light is how many outliers both these parties seem to be producing these days, which tells me that the left-right dichotomy is truly turning meaningless.Douthat: But political parties are always more interested in power rather than principle, right? And a lot of people look at the current landscape and say, “Sure, there are problems in both parties, but the stakes are just too high not to choose a side.” Especially among liberals, there’s a strong current of frustration with cross-pressured voters. How do you respond to people who can’t understand why you aren’t fully on their side?Slade: Those seeking power certainly want people to feel like the stakes are too high not to go along with their demands. Yes, there are militant partisans on both sides who consider it traitorous of me not to be with them 100 percent. At the same time, there’s a distinction worth keeping in mind between where party activists are and where the average Republican or Democratic voter is. Most Americans are not so wedded to their red-blue identities.Leibovitz: The most corrosive and dispiriting thing is how zero-sum our political conversation has gotten. I look at the Democratic Party and see a lot of energy I love — particularly the old Bernie Sanders spirit, before it was consumed by the apparatus. I look at the Republican Party and see people like Ted Cruz, who are very good at kicking up against some of the party’s worst ideas. There’s hope here and energy, just not if you keep on seeing this game as red versus blue.Douthat: Let me pause there, Liel. What bad ideas do you think Cruz is kicking against?Leibovitz: He represents a kind of energy that doesn’t necessarily gravitate toward the orthodoxies of giving huge corporations the freedom to do as they please. He’s rooted in an understanding of America that balks at the notion that we now have a blob of government-corporate interests dictating every aspect of our lives and that everything — from our medical system to our entertainment — is uniform.Douthat: This is a good example of the gap between how political professionals see things and how individuals see things. There’s no place for the Bernie-Cruz sympathizer in normal political typologies! But you see in polls right now not just Georgians who might back Brian Kemp for governor in Georgia and Raphael Warnock for senator but also Arizonans who might vote for Mark Kelly and Kari Lake — a stranger combination.Stephanie, what do you think about this ticket-splitting impulse?Slade: Some of this isn’t new. Political scientists and pollsters have long observed that people don’t love the idea of any one side having too much power at once. In that, I can’t blame them.Leibovitz: I agree. But it’s still so interesting to me that some of these splits seem just so outlandish, like the number of people who voted for Barack Obama in 2012 and then in 2016 for Donald Trump. That’s telling us that something truly interesting, namely that these tired labels — Democrat, Republican — don’t really mean anything anymore.Slade: We insiders always want to believe that voters are operating from a sort of consistent philosophical blueprint. But we’re seeing a lot more frustration-based voting, backlash voting. This can be fine, in the sense that there’s plenty in our world to be frustrated about, but my fear is that it can tip over into a politics thoroughly motivated by hatreds. And that is scary.Douthat: Right. For instance, in the realm of pundits, there’s an assumption that Republican candidates should be assessed based on how all-in they are for election conspiracy theories and that swing voters should recoil from the conspiracists. That seems to be happening in Pennsylvania, where the more conspiratorial Republican, Doug Mastriano, seems to be doing worse in his governor’s race than Dr. Oz is in the Senate campaign. But in Arizona, Lake is the more conspiratorial candidate, and she appears to be a stronger candidate than Blake Masters is in the Senate race.Which suggests that swing voters are often using a different compass than the political class.Leibovitz: Let me inject a very big dose of — dare I say it? — hope here. Yes, there’s a lot of hate and a lot of fear going on. But if you look at these volatile patterns you’re describing, you’re seeing something else, which is a yearning for a real vision. Voters are gravitating toward candidates who are telling them coherent stories that make sense. To the political classes, these stories sometimes sound conspiratorial or crazy or way removed from the Beltway reality. But to normal Americans, they resonate.Douthat: Or, Stephanie, are they just swinging back and forth based on the price of gas, and all larger narratives are pundit impositions on more basic pocketbook impulses?Slade: Yeah, I’m a little more split on this. Economic fundamentals matter a lot, as do structural factors (like that the president’s party usually does poorly in midterms, irrespective of everything else).Douthat: But then do you, as an unusually well-informed, cross-pressured American, feel electing Republicans in the House or Senate will help with the economic situation, with inflation?Slade: It’s a debate among libertarians whether divided government is actually a good thing. Or is the one thing the two parties can agree on that they should spend ever more money? I don’t have a ton of hope that a Republican-controlled House or Senate will do much good. On the other hand, the sheer economic insanity of the Biden years — amounting to approving more than $4 trillion of new borrowing, to say nothing of the unconstitutional eviction moratorium and student loan forgiveness — is mind-boggling to me, so almost anything that could put the brakes on some of this stuff seems worth trying.Douthat: Spoken like a swing voter. Liel, you aren’t a libertarian, but your particular profile — Jewish immigrant writer put off by progressive extremism — does resemble an earlier cross-pressured group, the original 1970s neoconservatives. Over time, a lot of neoconservatives ended up comfortably on the right (at least until recently) because they felt welcomed by the optimism of Ronald Reagan’s presidency.Do you think that the toxic side of the G.O.P. is a permanent obstacle to completing a similar move rightward for people alienated by progressivism?Leibovitz: Not to get too biblical, but I view Trump less as a person and more as a plague, a reminder from above to mend our ways, or else. And many voters mortified by the sharp left turn of the Democratic Party are feeling, like me, politically homeless right now.But politically homeless is not politically hopeless. The way out for us isn’t by focusing on which of these two broken homes is better but on which ideas we still hold dear. And here I agree with Stephanie. Stopping the economic insanity — from rampant spending to stopping oil production and driving up gas prices to giving giant corporations a free pass — is key. So is curbing the notion that it’s OK to believe that the government can decide that some categories, like race or gender or sexual orientation, make a person a member of a protected class and that it’s OK for the government to adjudicate which of these classes is more worthy of protection.Douthat: Let’s end by getting specific. Irrespective of party, is there a candidate on the ballot this fall who you are especially eager to see win and one that you are especially eager to see lose?Leibovitz: I’m a New Yorker, so anyone who helped turn this state — and my beloved hometown — into the teetering mess it is right now deserves to go. Lee Zeldin seems like the sort of out-of-left-field candidate who can be transformative, especially considering the tremendous damage done by the progressives in the state.Douthat: OK, you’ve given me a Republican candidate you want to see win, is there one you’d like to see fail?Leibovitz: I know Pennsylvania is a very important battleground state, and the Democrats have put forth a person who appears ill equipped for this responsibility, but it’s very, very hard to take a Dr. Oz candidacy seriously.Slade: I spend a lot of my time following the rising illiberal conservative movement, variously known as national conservatives, postliberals, the New Right and so on. What distinguishes them is their desire not just to acquire government power but to wield it to destroy their enemies. That goes against everything I believe and everything I believe America stands for. The person running for office right now who seems most representative of that view is J.D. Vance, who once told a reporter that “our people hate the right people.” I would like to see that sentiment lose soundly in November, wherever it’s on the ballot. (Not that I’m saying I think it actually will lose in Ohio.)Douthat: No predictions here, just preferences. Is there someone you really want to win?Slade: Like a good libertarian, can I say I wish they could all lose?Douthat: Not really, because my last question bestows on both of you a very unlibertarian power. You are each the only swing voter in America, and you get to choose the world of 2023: a Democratic-controlled Congress, a Republican-controlled Congress or the wild card, Republicans taking one house but not the other. How do you use this power?Leibovitz: Mets fan here, so wild card is an apt metaphor: Take the split, watch them both lose in comical and heartbreaking ways and pray for a better team next election.Slade: If forced to decide, I’d split the baby, then split the baby again: Republicans take the House, Democrats hold the Senate.Douthat: A Solomonic conclusion, indeed. Thanks so much to you both.Ross Douthat is a Times columnist. Liel Leibovitz is an editor at large for Tablet magazine and a host of its weekly culture podcast, “Unorthodox,” and daily Talmud podcast, “Take One.” Stephanie Slade (@sladesr) is a senior editor at Reason magazine.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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      As Midterm Campaign Norms Erode, Even Debates Are Under Debate

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      Candidates for senator or governor routinely used to participate in two or three debates. Now some are skipping them altogether. Retail politicking at diners and state fairs is no longer the cliché it was for generations. And town-hall-style meetings, where citizens get to question their elected leaders and those running to replace them, have given way to the online echo chamber.In midterm campaigns across the country, direct political engagement has been falling away, victim to security concerns, pandemic-era workarounds and Republican hostility to the mainstream media.Many candidates are sticking instead to safer spaces: partisan news outlets, fund-raisers with supporters, friendly local crowds. The result is a profound shift in the long traditions of American campaigns that is both a symptom of and a contributor to the ills afflicting the country’s politics.Campaigning used to force candidates to engage up close with the public, exposing them not only to supporters but to those who might disagree with them. Avoiding those tougher interactions cuts down on the opportunities for candidates’ characters and limitations to be revealed, and for elected officials to be held accountable to those who elected them. For the politicians, it creates an artificial environment where their positions appear uniformly popular and opposing views are angrily denounced, making compromise seem risky.“They run these campaigns in bubbles to these voters who are in bubbles,” said former Representative Tom Davis, a moderate Republican who won seven terms in Congress in a Northern Virginia district and headed his party’s congressional campaign committee.Mr. Davis said he felt “a duty” as a lawmaker to participate in debates and town-hall meetings. “People don’t feel that duty anymore,” he added. “When they say, ‘I went home and talked to my constituents,’ they are talking to their base.”Nowhere is the trend clearer than on the country’s shrinking debate stage. Candidates in 10 of the most competitive contests for Senate and governor have agreed to just one debate, where voters not long ago could have expected to watch two or three. Those debates have already happened in Senate races in Arizona, North Carolina, Ohio, Georgia and Wisconsin and in the Texas and Wisconsin governor’s races.Only in five contests — the Senate race in Ohio and governor’s races in Georgia, Kansas, Maine and Oregon — have the candidates agreed to multiple meetings.In at least four other competitive contests, the candidates failed to agree to any debates at all.In Arizona, Katie Hobbs, the Democrat running for governor, flatly declines to debate her Republican opponent. In Pennsylvania, Doug Mastriano, the far-right Republican nominee for governor, has rejected debates run by news organizations, citing what he called their “hidden partisan agenda.” In Missouri, the Republican nominee for Senate, Eric Schmitt, accused his opponent of refusing to debate. Ten days later, he failed to show for the first general election matchup.And in Nevada, the major-party candidates for Senate agreed in principle to a televised face-off, but none has happened, because they couldn’t agree on the forum.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.The Final Stretch: With elections next month, a Times/Siena poll shows that independents, especially women, are swinging toward the G.O.P. despite Democrats’ focus on abortion rights as voters worry about the economy.Georgia Governor’s Race: A debate between Gov. Brian Kemp and Stacey Abrams produced a substantive hour of policy discussion. Here are five takeaways.Aggressive Tactics: Right-wing leaders are calling on election activists to monitor voting in the midterm elections in search of evidence to confirm unfounded theories of election fraud.Jill Biden: The first lady, who has become a lifeline for Democratic candidates trying to draw attention and money in the midterms, is the most popular surrogate in the Biden administration.“It was almost inconceivable that we would not have a series of debates,” said Sig Rogich, a longtime Republican political consultant in Nevada and a former aide to Paul Laxalt, the grandfather of the current Republican Senate candidate, Adam Laxalt. “It used to be three, then it went to two and now it’s down to one. And pretty soon it will be none, and I don’t think that’s healthy.”It’s not just debates. Town halls and other events that offered opportunities to interact with voters — stump speeches in sweaty high school gymnasiums, town square meet-and-greets, barnstorming bus tours — have become less common, and those that are still held are often more restricted than in the past. Campaign schedules that used to be blasted to email inboxes are kept private, leaving reporters to dig like detectives just to figure out where a candidate will show up.The shift reflects a drop in the number of competitive House districts and a polarized environment in which swing voters are disappearing, so candidates see little advantage in trying to win them over.It all amounts to an erosion of fundamental American traditions that date back to the earliest years of the Republic: forums in 17th-century New England meeting houses, Abraham Lincoln’s travels across Illinois to debate slavery with Stephen A. Douglas, and packs of reporters surrounding candidates in crowded church basements and veterans’ halls.Pushing Away Reporters, LiterallyWhen Mr. Mastriano, the Republican running for governor in Pennsylvania, appeared in Philadelphia last month, the event had some of the trappings of a traditional campaign stop. It was open to the news media, the candidate sounded standard Republican themes about crime and he emphasized the need for his party to engage Latino voters.A Texas debate with Gov. Greg Abbott and his Democratic challenger, former Representative Beto O’Rourke, featured no audience and no livestream on C-SPAN.Tamir Kalifa for The New York TimesBut just off-camera, little was as it might have seemed. Mr. Mastriano took no questions from journalists. And, as they often have during his campaign, aides muscled reporters away from the candidate, throwing arms or blocking those who tried to approach with questions.In Atlanta earlier this month, reporters were not allowed into a “worship and luncheon” held for Herschel Walker, the Republican Senate nominee, who had just been accused of paying for an ex-girlfriend’s abortion. Police officers and a security guard even shooed journalists out of the parking lot..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-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve 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.For some Republicans, declining debates and shunning nonpartisan news outlets is a way to cast themselves in the image of former President Donald J. Trump, who frequently breaks with political norms. His attacks on reporters energized a conservative base that rewards Republican politicians for viewing the mainstream media as the enemy, leaving many strategists to see skipping debates and interviews as a way not only to protect their candidates from unforced errors but to rally support.The irony of that approach is that while Mr. Trump often attacks mainstream journalists, he can’t quit them, either.“You have these candidates saying, ‘I’m Trump-like, so I’m not going to talk to media or debate’ — meanwhile, that’s all he does,” said Christopher Nicholas, a Republican consultant in the battleground state of Pennsylvania who is involved with organizing political debates there.A Republican Stance That SpreadWhile the trend of avoiding the public was initially driven by Republicans, it has seeped across party lines. In-person congressional town-hall meetings have fallen to record lows, according to Indivisible, a liberal grass-roots group that formed after the 2016 election. In 2017, the group counted 1,875 town-hall events by members of Congress. The number spiked to nearly 3,000 in 2019.This year is not on pace to return to prepandemic levels. The group has tracked just 408 through the first half of the year. (Those numbers, the organization said, may fail to account for events announced abruptly on partisan social media.)Dr. Mehmet Oz checked Nikki Haley’s blood pressure during a town-hall-style event last month. These kinds of public political forums have become less common.Hannah Beier for The New York TimesBradford Fitch, president of the Congressional Management Foundation, which advises lawmakers on issues like running their offices and communicating with constituents, said he now urged members not to hold open public meetings because of security concerns.In Democratic circles, candidates have skipped debates by saying their opponents’ actions suggest that any forums between them will not amount to a productive exchange of ideas.Campaign aides to Ms. Hobbs, the Democratic nominee for governor in Arizona, cited the raucous Republican primary debates in their state as a reason for avoiding a general election face-off against her Republican opponent, Kari Lake, a former newscaster who has molded herself after Mr. Trump and his election lies.Mr. Trump benefited immensely in 2016 from primary debates, where he dominated a large field. Four years later, as the pandemic raged and he recovered from Covid, he refused to hold virtual events, leading to the cancellation of the second scheduled presidential debate.A sparsely attended town-hall event this month in Atlanta featured Gov. Brian Kemp, Stacey Abrams and Senator Raphael Warnock.Nicole Craine for The New York TimesThe Strategy Favoring DebatesFor decades, debates about debates were driven by political strategy. A candidate in a strong position didn’t want to risk a misstep, and strategists grumbled that the hours of preparation could be better used for fund-raising or other events. Those trailing in the polls would push for more face-offs in hopes of a game-changing moment.Such moments are rare, but they do happen.In October 2016, Senator Kelly Ayotte, a Republican from New Hampshire, said that, “absolutely,” Mr. Trump could be a role model for young children. She spent weeks explaining the remark before losing by about 1,000 votes.That same month in 2016, in the Nevada Senate race, Catherine Cortez Masto, a Democrat, delivered a strong performance in a debate against a Republican who struggled to explain why he had backed away from his endorsement of Mr. Trump. She won narrowly and now is trying to pressure Mr. Laxalt onto the debate stage in hopes of gaining momentum in her re-election race.Kari Lake supporters last month during a Latinos for Lake rally. Instead of debates, candidates prefer speaking to their supporters.Rebecca Noble for The New York TimesMr. Nicholas, the Republican strategist in Pennsylvania, said the lighter debate schedule this year was a far cry from the three debates that his old boss, former Senator Arlen Specter, always participated in.“In normal times, we would have done three to five debates in the Senate race,” Mr. Nichols said. “Now, it looks like of all of the big Pennsylvania races, there’s only going to be one debate in one race.”There is little sign that debates will return in two years. The Republican National Committee has told the Commission on Presidential Debates that its 2024 presidential candidate will not participate in commission-sponsored debates unless it changes its rules on dates and moderators.“The constructive collision of ideas that used to be the hallmark of our democracy is becoming a distant memory,” said Jason Grumet, president of the Bipartisan Policy Center.Representative Lauren Boebert, the Colorado Republican, debated her Democratic opponent, Adam Frisch, last month, but attendance was sparse.William Woody for The New York TimesKatie Glueck More

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      Rubio and Demings Have Their First and Only Debate

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      Follow our live coverage of Marco Rubio and Val Demings’s debate for Senate in Florida.Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, and his Democratic challenger, Representative Val Demings, will face off on Tuesday evening in a debate in Lake Worth Beach, Fla.It is the only scheduled debate in the Senate race in Florida, where polls have consistently shown Mr. Rubio ahead. Florida has trended to the right in the past few years, transforming from the nation’s most famous swing state to fairly reliable Republican turf. But with Mr. Rubio’s leads in the single digits, Democrats are holding out hope for an upset.Mr. Rubio, a onetime presidential candidate who is seeking a third term in the Senate, has focused heavily on crime and on economic issues like inflation that polls show are drawing swing voters toward Republicans.Ms. Demings, who was elected to Congress in 2016 after being the first woman to lead the Orlando Police Department, has not shied away from the issue of public safety but has also emphasized abortion and, in a state recently devastated by Hurricane Ian, climate change. A livestream of the debate will be available from WPBF-TV in Florida.According to Federal Election Commission filings, Ms. Demings has raised $65.5 million for her campaign, significantly more than Mr. Rubio’s $44.5 million. But Mr. Rubio has more money on hand for the final weeks of the campaign. More

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      ‘El voto latino’: 10 votantes hispanos conversan

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      En septiembre, reunimos a un grupo de 10 votantes latinos de Texas, Florida y Arizona, una combinación de demócratas, republicanos y electores independientes que planeaban votar o estaban dispuestos a votar por candidatos republicanos en las elecciones de mitad de mandato de Estados Unidos de este año.

      “¿Creen que el Partido Republicano hace algo que desanima a los votantes latinos?”, preguntó la moderadora. “¿Hay algo en la forma en que los demócratas se dirigen a la comunidad latina o hablan de ella que desanime a los votantes latinos?”.

      “Cuando Trump dijo que los mexicanos eran violadores —aunque tal vez no se refería a todos— me dejó un mal sabor de boca. Digo, mucha gente le aplaudió eso. Y yo pensaba: ‘Ah, así son las cosas’”, dijo uno de los participantes.

      “Cuando la primera dama dijo que nosotros éramos tan singulares como los tacos del desayuno, eso se me quedó grabado”, dijo otra participante, refiriéndose a los comentarios de Jill Biden en una conferencia de este año para UnidosUS, un grupo latino de derechos civiles.

      Varias de las personas que conversaron en este debate dijeron que ninguno de los partidos realmente les habló de manera personal e informada. Una parte del problema es que no hay una sola forma de hablar con los votantes latinos porque, como nos recordaron los participantes, no hay un votante latino típico. “Hay todo un espectro de hispanos”, dijo un participante. Y tal vez no se debería hacer la distinción entre votantes latinos y otros votantes: “Primero somos estadounidenses”, dijo otro participante.

      Lo que está claro es que ambos partidos tienen la oportunidad de vincularse con electores como los que hablamos, tanto para fortalecer su apoyo como para aclarar conceptos erróneos. Nuestros participantes pensaron que los republicanos eran más sólidos en una variedad de temas, como el crimen y la seguridad, el control de armas, la seguridad nacional, la inmigración y la economía. Pero sobre el tema del aborto, la mayoría favoreció a los demócratas. Un participante pensó que los demócratas en general apoyaban la desfinanciación de la policía, y otra participante se refirió a los comentarios de Donald Trump sobre los mexicanos como: “Siento que solo dijo lo que otros piensan”.

      En este punto es un cliché decir que los votantes latinos son poderosos políticamente, que a menudo tienen posturas políticas complejas, que no es un hecho que votarán por los demócratas. Lo que sigue después de estos clichés solo se aclarará en las próximas semanas, meses y años, a medida que los políticos, los medios de comunicación y el país presten más atención a votantes como quienes participaron en esta discusión.

      Lenin

      33 años, Texas, independiente, vendedor de seguros

      Orlando

      53 años, Florida, independiente, dibujante de diseño asistido por computadora

      Lourdes

      42 años, Texas, se inclina por los demócratas, recepcionista

      Sally

      60 años, Texas, republicana, asistente de una aerolínea

      Christina

      43 años, Texas, se inclina por los republicanos, ama de casa

      Kelly

      38 años, Texas, independiente, reclutadora

      Jerry

      22 años, Florida, republicano, banquero

      José

      39 años, Florida, se inclina por los demócratas, financiero

      John

      58 años, Arizona, republicano, fotógrafo

      Cindy

      35 años, Florida, se inclina por los republicanos, administradora de casos financieros More

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      In Kansas, Gov. Laura Kelly Tests if Any Politics Is Still Local

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      FORT SCOTT, Kan. — Two months ago, Kansas became the unlikely toast of the Democratic Party after voters here overwhelmingly affirmed their support for protecting abortion rights in the State Constitution, a result that electrified national Democrats and revived their hopes of surviving the midterm elections across the country.Locked in her own re-election battle, the state’s Democratic governor, Laura Kelly, was not focused on electrifying anyone as she arrived in this small city in a deeply Republican corner of Kansas to dispense local highway grants — part of a bipartisan initiative, she noted about 30 seconds into her remarks.Ms. Kelly’s relentless talk about working with Republicans, her understated, no-nonsense style and her emphasis on education funding and economic development help explain why she enjoys strong approval ratings in a state that former President Donald J. Trump won by nearly 15 percentage points, and why, as the only Democratic governor seeking re-election in a state Mr. Trump won in 2020, she has narrowly led in some limited recent polling.Traditionally, candidates for governor — from Kansas to Massachusetts — have separated from their parties more successfully than contenders for federal office have, even as the nation’s politics have grown ever more tribal. Now, amid signs of a worsening environment for Democrats, the final stretch of the Kansas campaign is testing how much protection a strong local, personal brand still affords in governor’s races against gale-force political headwinds.“People can and often do distinguish governor’s races and look at them differently,” said Gov. Roy Cooper of North Carolina, the chairman of the Democratic Governors Association, who also acknowledged the difficulties of the “tough environment.” “They want people who are competent and pragmatic.”Ms. Kelly, center, and Mr. Schmidt, right, at their debate in Overland Park this month. She has sought to tie him to former Gov. Sam Brownback, an unpopular Republican, while he has tried to link her with President Biden.Evert Nelson/The Topeka Capital-Journal, via Associated PressThat is Ms. Kelly’s argument, both on defense and on offense: As she runs against Derek Schmidt, the attorney general of Kansas, she is linking him not to far-right national Republicans but to former Gov. Sam Brownback, whose tax-cutting experiment led to spending cuts in education and other programs that ignited a bipartisan revolt several years ago. In turn, Mr. Schmidt is seeking to tie Ms. Kelly closely to President Biden.Ms. Kelly, who built an early fund-raising edge, has gone to significant lengths to distance herself from her party. She filmed a campaign ad from the middle of a road, saying, “Like most Kansans, I’m not too far right or too far left.”In an interview last week, she declined to say whether she wanted Mr. Biden to be the 2024 Democratic nominee. And she did not directly answer whether Americans were better off with Mr. Trump out of the White House, sidestepping to discuss her tenure instead.“I’ll deal with the national issues when I need to and when Kansas needs something,” Ms. Kelly said. “But otherwise I stay focused like a laser” on the state.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.The Final Stretch: With elections next month, a Times/Siena poll shows that independents, especially women, are swinging toward the G.O.P. despite Democrats’ focus on abortion rights as voters worry about the economy.Georgia Governor Race: A debate between Gov. Brian Kemp and Stacey Abrams produced a substantive hour of policy discussion. Here are five takeaways.Aggressive Tactics: Right-wing leaders are calling on election activists to monitor voting in the midterm elections in search of evidence to confirm unfounded theories of election fraud.Jill Biden: The first lady, who has become a lifeline for Democratic candidates trying to draw attention and money in the midterms, is the most popular surrogate in the Biden administration.She suggested she had worked productively with Mr. Trump on pandemic management, and noted her disagreement with Mr. Biden over coronavirus vaccine mandates, as well as her support for the infrastructure spending package passed by Congress with bipartisan backing.She has also plainly benefited from the power of incumbency, allowing her to focus on less ideological economic matters. A month before Election Day, she joined representatives from Pratt Industries for an opening of a corrugated-box plant near Wichita, and earlier this year she announced a large deal for a Panasonic factory in De Soto, which has faced scrutiny but seems to have resonated with some voters, judging from interviews.Ms. Kelly has been endorsed by several moderates who served as Republican officials in Kansas, including former Gov. Bill Graves, former Senator Nancy L. Kassebaum and Carla Stovall, a former state attorney general. (Mr. Schmidt had stints working with all of them.)Matthew Wells, a Republican city commissioner in Fort Scott, Kan., predicted that many voters would stick with a straight G.O.P. ticket.Chase Castor for The New York TimesThat was significant to Matthew Wells, a Republican city commissioner in Fort Scott who said he was inclined to back Ms. Kelly, though he said he doubted she was connecting with many others in his conservative community.“The use of divisive political rhetoric that has driven a wedge between the two parties — I believe, especially in our area, it has become much worse,” he said, predicting that many voters would stick with a straight Republican ticket.But in more than a dozen interviews just over an hour north, in suburban Kansas City, voters indicated significant willingness to cross party lines..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-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve 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.“She’s a good fighter for our state,” said Nancy Kenyon, 60, of Overland Park, Kan., who said she typically voted Republican but was considering backing Ms. Kelly.Ms. Kenyon was shopping at an upscale complex in politically crucial Johnson County. Like many other bedroom communities home to educated professionals, Johnson County was once a moderate Republican bastion but swung toward Democrats during the Trump era. Representative Sharice Davids, a Democrat, serves the area in the House.Ms. Kelly will need strong margins there to offset more conservative parts of the state. Mr. Schmidt does not need to win Johnson County, but he cannot afford to lose in a blowout.Private Republican polling conducted this month found Mr. Schmidt trailing Ms. Kelly by double digits in the Kansas City suburbs and surrounding areas. Roughly 70 percent of voters in Johnson County also opposed the anti-abortion rights ballot question this summer, which Mr. Schmidt supported. In an interview, Mr. Schmidt said the result of the August referendum “has to be respected” and vowed to focus on defending abortion restrictions that are already in place.Ms. Kelly is not making abortion rights a focal point of her campaign, in contrast to many other Democrats, but she is not running from the issue, either.“There will be a bill in the Kansas Legislature, no doubt, to impose greater restrictions,” she said in the interview. “If I’m in office, it can be vetoed. If my opponent is in office, it’ll become law.”Like other states, Kansas had a surge in women registering to vote after Roe v. Wade was overturned, and the abortion rights vote in August drew extraordinary turnout.Stephanie Sharp, a Republican former state representative who is now a political strategist in Johnson County backing Ms. Kelly, worried aloud about whether that energy was translating into enthusiasm about November.Fort Scott, where Ms. Kelly recently appeared, is in a deeply Republican area of eastern Kansas.Chase Castor for The New York Times“I just think those Aug. 2 voters aren’t continuing to be as engaged,” said Ms. Sharp, who said she saw Ms. Kelly at a fund-raiser with Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota in suburban Kansas City last week.Ms. Sharp said she wished she “could just take all of those Democrats and unaffiliated voters from August by the lapels, and just shake them and say, ‘Do you realize the power you have?’”Mr. Schmidt was recently outside a local Republican office in Wichita, in Sedgwick County, which Ms. Kelly won in 2018, rallying with Republicans who had no doubts about their voters’ enthusiasm.“I’ve never seen Kansans so angry,” said Senator Roger Marshall, a Kansas Republican.While a state senator, Dennis Pyle, is challenging Mr. Schmidt from the right with an independent bid, Mr. Schmidt is no centrist. He signed on to a baseless effort to challenge the 2020 election results and has embraced cultural battles over education and barring transgender athletes from participating in women’s and girls’ sports.Stylistically, though, Mr. Schmidt is more low-key than lightning rod. He sounds traditional Republican notes about valuing “personal liberty, freedom and fiscal responsibility” over an “overreaching, big-government mentality,” and has emphasized public safety and the economy.Mr. Schmidt, who received Mr. Trump’s endorsement but dodged when asked whether he wanted Mr. Trump to be the 2024 Republican nominee, has secured the backing of some groups that either supported Ms. Kelly or stayed neutral last time, as well as her first budget director, who previously served as a Republican state lawmaker.The Republican Governors Association has continued to invest in the race; former Vice President Mike Pence is slated to campaign for Mr. Schmidt on Friday; and Robin Dole, the daughter of Bob Dole, the former Senate majority leader from Kansas, recently wrote an op-ed article in support of Mr. Schmidt, noting he received her father’s final political endorsement.Still, Mr. Schmidt’s candidacy has given some national Republicans heartburn. Ms. Kelly and Democratic allies started advertising on television in April; he waited until nearly September. In late summer, national Republican strategists made clear to Mr. Schmidt and his campaign that they wanted to see sharper lines of attack against Ms. Kelly, and a more affirmative case for his candidacy, according to a person with direct knowledge of the conversations.“We have run a very strong campaign, and I am very pleased to have a wide range of support,” Mr. Schmidt said when asked about some of that angst.Nancy Kenyon of Overland Park said she typically voted Republican but was considering casting a ballot for Ms. Kelly.Chase Castor for The New York TimesOn air, Mr. Schmidt has been pummeled as an acolyte of Mr. Brownback. And at Mr. Schmidt’s stop in Wichita, the final event on a statewide bus tour, it was easy to see why. Melinda Pore, 66, a Trump voter who backed Ms. Kelly in 2018, arrived at the gathering saying she was undecided, but she was clearly bothered by memories of the former governor.“If you know anything about Brownback, there’s a lot not to like,” she said.Mr. Schmidt has scoffed at the comparisons, saying Ms. Kelly has “spent a lot of time and money talking about somebody who’s not on the ballot.”Asked to name the biggest difference between himself and Mr. Brownback, Mr. Schmidt did not exert himself: “I’m a candidate this year who’s focused on where we’re headed,” he said. In other venues, he has distanced himself in more detail.Then again, Mr. Schmidt, too, is highlighting someone who is not on this year’s ballot.“We have a Biden Democrat in this governor’s office,” Mr. Schmidt told his audience in Wichita. “This election is about correcting that problem.”For Ms. Pore, that may be reason enough to give him her vote.“There are so many things that I don’t like that President Biden’s doing,” she said after Mr. Schmidt spoke. “I think I’m just going to vote straight ticket. And I usually don’t do that.” More

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      Siena Poll Shows Zeldin Gaining on Hochul in NY Governor’s Race

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      Representative Lee Zeldin has cut into Gov. Kathy Hochul’s lead in the race for governor of New York, narrowing the margin to 11 percentage points, down from 17 points last month, according to a Siena College poll released on Tuesday.The survey suggested that Ms. Hochul, a Democrat, still possesses a healthy lead over Mr. Zeldin, a Republican, in a liberal-leaning state where no Republican has won a statewide race since 2002.But with Election Day just three weeks away, the diminished gap between the two suggested that New York voters were growing more concerned about the state’s direction — much as recent polling nationwide has indicated that the flailing economy and stubborn inflation remain top-of-mind concerns, as Republicans have expanded their edge over Democrats ahead of November’s midterm elections.While 61 percent of Democrats said that New York was on the right track, 87 percent of Republicans and a majority of independent voters said the state was headed in the wrong direction, according to the poll.In particular, Ms. Hochul lost support among white voters, who appear to be evenly divided between the candidates after favoring Ms. Hochul by 10 percentage points in September, the poll found.The results from the Siena poll tracked closely with a separate survey from Marist College last week that showed Ms. Hochul leading Mr. Zeldin by 10 percentage points among registered voters and eight percentage points among likely voters. Ms. Hochul appears to have a roughly 12-point lead, according to an average of nearly a dozen polls compiled by FiveThirtyEight, an opinion poll analysis website that takes into account a poll’s quality and partisan lean.Ms. Hochul and Mr. Zeldin have both sharpened their attacks in the final stretch, casting each other as members of their party’s most extreme wings and doubling down on the overarching themes that have defined the race. Ms. Hochul has continued to portray Mr. Zeldin as a threat to the state’s strict abortion protections, while Mr. Zeldin has blamed the governor’s policies for contributing to crime and rising costs in New York.The contest received a jolt over the weekend when former President Donald J. Trump formally endorsed Mr. Zeldin, who was one of Mr. Trump’s earliest supporters in Congress. Mr. Trump, who previously raised money for Mr. Zeldin, praised the candidate as “great and brilliant” in a post on his social media platform, Truth Social.Democrats in New York, where Mr. Trump remains deeply unpopular, quickly moved to capitalize on the endorsement, releasing an ad trumpeting Mr. Zeldin’s close ties to the former president, including his vote against certifying the 2020 election.But the congressman, who is vying to make inroads among moderate voters and disaffected Democrats, played down Mr. Trump’s formal backing, saying on Monday that it “shouldn’t have been news.”The Siena poll, which surveyed over 700 likely voters last week and has a margin of error of 4.9 percentage points, showed Ms. Hochul and Mr. Zeldin with a tight hold over voters from their respective parties. Mr. Zeldin, however, increased his lead among independent voters by six percentage points (49 percent to 40 percent over Ms. Hochul).The governor continues to have a commanding lead in New York City, where she is beating Mr. Zeldin 70 percent to 23 percent, and among women as well as Black and Latino voters, according to the poll.Mr. Zeldin, for his part, gained the lead in the city’s suburbs, where he is now beating Ms. Hochul 49 percent to 45 percent, after trailing her by one percentage point last month. He also increased his margin in upstate New York to four percentage points, up from one percentage point in the last poll. He has improved his name recognition, even if most voters continue to have an unfavorable view of him.Despite the modest gains, Mr. Zeldin would have to make much larger inroads across the map to cobble together a winning coalition. The state’s electoral landscape is stacked against him: Democratic voters outnumber Republicans two to one in New York.And though Mr. Zeldin is receiving significant support from Republican-backed super PACs pumping money into the race, he appears unlikely to surpass Ms. Hochul’s sizable fund-raising advantage.The governor has maintained an aggressive fund-raising schedule to help bankroll the multimillion-dollar barrage of television ads she has deployed to attack Mr. Zeldin.But Ms. Hochul, until very recently, has mostly avoided overtly political events such as rallies and other retail politics in which she personally engages with voters. Mr. Zeldin, in contrast, has deployed an ambitious ground game, touring the state in a truck festooned with his name and a “Save our State” slogan. More