Republican Party

Subterms

    More stories

    • 88 Shares129 Views

      in Elections

      This Election Season, Look Out for Virginia

      by

      We’re heading around the bend, people! Elections are just a couple of weeks away and the two biggest races in the nation are …You have no idea, right?OK, most of the voting is going to be about local government — mayors and council members and holders of even smaller offices. But there are a couple of contests for governor, in Virginia and New Jersey.It’s Virginia that’s obsessing the world. Or at least the world that’s already terrified about what’s going to happen in 2022 (Dems lose Congress?) or 2024 (Trump? Trump? Trummmpp?).The candidates are the Democrat Terry McAuliffe, a former governor who left office after one term because Virginia is the only state in the union that makes governors do that. Versus Glenn Youngkin, a former business tycoon who’s chipped in at least $16 million of his own money.McAuliffe isn’t exactly a pauper — Virginia’s very loose filing rules show he’s worth at least $6.9 million. But he’s always been a star at raising money. He once recalled a political event he was involved in when he was 7: “Nobody got in that door unless I got 50 dollars from them. Unfortunately, for a lot of people, 35 years later I’m still making sure that they pay.″OK, not all that inspiring, but everybody knows how important money is in these off-year elections. Virginia has evolved into a Democratic state, but what if McAuliffe loses — or just squeaks in? What if the turnout is puny? Will the nation read this as a prelude to disaster for congressional candidates next year?Democrats can’t think of anything else, and if you’ve wound up on any party mailing lists — truly, it can happen to anyone — you may have been getting more letters about Terry McAuliffe than you got greetings on your last birthday. Certainly bigger presents are involved.“I’m flabbergasted, Gail … ” reads one of the many, many missives I received from him recently. “We’ve been sending you email after email about just how important this race is, but it’s October, and it’s looking like a tossup right now.”Given my profession, I have never made a contribution to a political campaign in my life, but this doesn’t seem to have any impact on McAuliffe’s expectations.One of my all-time favorite donor requests came from Ellie Warner, McAuliffe’s finance director:“Gail, I’m freaking out right now! I meant to send this email earlier … but I forgot to press send, and now, we’re even more behind on our fund-raising goal than we were before.”That is so 2021. If, God forbid, McAuliffe somehow loses the election, “I forgot to press send” is going down in modern political history.New Jersey’s race has also had its moments. Republicans are trying to beat Gov. Phil Murphy over the head with his 2019 remark that if you’re a person whose only concern is tax rates, New Jersey is “probably not your state.”Now really, this is pretty obvious. Anybody who sits down with the family in, say, Montana, and announces, “Well, we’re going to relocate in the East, and the only thing we care about is taxes,” is not under any circumstances going to discuss real estate opportunities in the Trenton area.New Jersey is diverting but Murphy is expected to win handily. And the political world won’t be all that impressed. It’s Virginia that’s mobilized a national get-out-the-money campaign.“Gail, we don’t have much time, so I’ll make this quick,” wrote the political consultant James Carville in a mass email about a “critical fund-raising deadline.”Carville, who recently referred to himself as “an email-signing slut,” has reportedly sent out over 40 pleas for donations to various campaigns in the last three months, one darkly demanding to know if the recipient wants “Democrats to lose every election from here to eternity.”Meanwhile, Donald Trump is, of course, online constantly (“Did you see my RALLY in IOWA? It was INCREDIBLE”). He is supporting Youngkin, but not with nearly the enthusiasm he’s dedicating to raising money for his own political action fund.“President Trump specifically told us he wants this one-of-a-kind HAND-SIGNED football to go to YOU, Friend,” says one missive, looking for a contribution for a chance to be in a drawing for said memento.In the Virginia race, Youngkin, whose nickname is reportedly “Yunk,” is delicately dancing around the Trump issue. It’s tricky — if you want to be a winning Republican, you have to keep his fans happy while assuring the suburban moderates that you know Joe Biden was actually elected president.McAuliffe’s job is to make voters turn out, and one main strategy is to terrify them into action. (“I thought folks would be fired up to get out the vote, but at this point, it seems like enthusiasm is at an all-time low.”)Same thing goes for money. (“You can imagine how confused I am about why people aren’t stepping up and donating. We’re blowing this one, Gail.”)Everybody’s jumping in. John Fetterman, the lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania who’s planning to run for the U.S. Senate next year, wrote suggesting that I split an early bird $10 donation between his campaign and McAuliffe’s. There’s quite a lot of this going on, but Fetterman’s campaign website is notable for including the picture of a dog on the bottom, saying: “Hi, I’m Levi Fetterman. Boop my nose to donate $1.”Indeed, if you poked Levi’s nose, a special donation box did pop up. Like I said, they’re everywhere.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

    • 113 Shares149 Views

      in Elections

      What We Learned in the Latest Campaign Cash Reports

      by

      Financial disclosures show who has the early money edge in key races, as well as the value of a Trump endorsement.Sign up here to get On Politics in your inbox on Tuesdays and Thursdays.A startling amount of money is pouring into American elections, especially the race for control of Congress in 2022. Every House and Senate candidate in the country was recently required to detail their spending and fund-raising through the end of September. Here are some takeaways, tidbits and trends from those financial reports.How Trump factors inFormer President Donald J. Trump has been doing a lot of endorsing in Republican primaries ahead of the 2022 midterms. His backing is, by far, the most coveted in the party. But a Trump blessing has not necessarily translated to a cash boom for those Senate hopefuls he backs, the records show.In Alabama, Mr. Trump is supporting Representative Mo Brooks — who has literally worked the endorsement into his logo — but Mr. Brooks was nonetheless badly out-raised for the second consecutive quarter, pulling in only $670,000 compared with $1.5 million for Katie Boyd Britt, a former chief of staff to Senator Richard Shelby.In Alaska, Mr. Trump is supporting Kelly Tshibaka, a primary challenger to Senator Lisa Murkowski, who voted to convict Mr. Trump in his second impeachment trial. Ms. Murkowski doubled Ms. Tshibaka’s haul. In North Carolina, Mr. Trump’s preferred choice, Representative Ted Budd, was narrowly edged by former Gov. Pat McCrory.In Pennsylvania, Mr. Trump’s endorsement did seem to boost Sean Parnell, who has been a regular on Fox News and whose fund-raising doubled in the most recent quarter. But Mr. Parnell still faces a former Trump-appointed ambassador, Carla Sands, in the Senate primary and she gave her campaign $3 million from her personal fortune.In House races, Mr. Trump has made clear he is focused on defeating those who voted to impeach him. One such Republican has already retired. But none of the other nine House Republicans who voted to impeach Mr. Trump in January were out-raised last quarter by a primary challenger, with Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming setting the pace by raising $1.7 million. (In some races, challengers combined to out-raise the Republican incumbent.)One notable fund-raising haul was from Representative Nancy Mace of South Carolina. She verbally lacerated Mr. Trump in January for his incitement of the Capitol riot but ultimately didn’t vote to impeach. She has since, as my colleague Catie Edmondson put it over the summer, “quietly backpedaled into the party’s fold.” Now, the $973,000 she raised is among the highest sums for a freshman.The House leaderboardAmong the rank and file, the strongest Democratic fund-raiser in the House was, by far, Representative Katie Porter of California, who represents a swingy region in Orange County. She raised $2.7 million and spent only $1 million — and now has $14.5 million in the bank. That could help her no matter how her district is redrawn in 2022 — or in a potential future Senate bid. One problem with the latter is that the only House member with more money currently in their treasury is Representative Adam Schiff, another ambitious Democrat from California with $15.3 million in his treasury.On the Republican side, Representative Dan Crenshaw of Texas has emerged as a top fund-raiser, pulling in nearly $3 million. But Mr. Crenshaw was spending far more to raise those funds: He spent roughly 88 percent of what he raised in the third quarter, records show, including more than $1 million related to direct mail.On the left, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York continues to be one of her party’s strongest fund-raisers, bringing in nearly $1.7 million. On the right, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, the freshman congresswoman from Georgia, has continuously stirred controversy and cashed in along the way, raising $1.5 million, roughly the same sum as Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, one of Mr. Trump’s favorite pugilists on the Hill.In the political center, two moderate Democrats, Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey and Tom Suozzi of New York, both topped the $1 million threshold.Democrats have an early money edge in key Senate racesTo keep the Senate next year, Democrats must first defend four incumbents up for re-election in the battleground states of Nevada, New Hampshire, Georgia and Arizona. The good news for the party is that all four incumbents far out-raised their Republican challengers, with Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia raising the most of anyone in the country, $9.5 million.The picture is murkier in three Republican-held battlegrounds: North Carolina and Pennsylvania, where the Republican incumbents are retiring, and Wisconsin, where Senator Ron Johnson has not said for certain if he is running again. Democrats face potentially messy primaries in all three races as do Republicans in the two open seats.But in each of the three states, the top fund-raiser last quarter between the two parties was a Democrat (not including those donating to themselves, like Sands).In Florida, Representative Val Demings, a Democrat, has emerged as the surprise fund-raising star of the cycle, raising nearly $8.5 million — nearly $2.5 million more than the Republican she is challenging, Senator Marco Rubio. But Ms. Demings is spending extraordinary sums to raise that money — $5.6 million in the last quarter alone, much of it devoted to Facebook ads seeking new online contributors.What campaigns are spending to raise money — known in the industry as the burn rate — is a key indicator, because it shows how much of what is raised will be available when voters are paying closer attention.Of the top dozen Senate fund-raisers last quarter, Ms. Demings had the highest burn rate at 66 percent.One Democratic senator on the ballot in 2022 actually spent more than she raised last quarter: Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire. She raised $3 million last quarter, but she spent $3.1 million. Records show she made a $1.5 million media buy to highlight her work for veterans.The early ad was an unusual strategic choice. Most operatives believe TV ads that air a year from an election will be long forgotten when voting begins. But with money already flooding key states, the ad could be a chance to make an early, positive impression, especially with outside Republican groups on the airwaves.nine days of ideas to remake our futureAs world leaders gather in Glasgow for consequential climate change negotiations, join us at The New York Times Climate Hub to explore answers to one of the most urgent questions of our time: How do we adapt and thrive on a changing planet? Glasgow, Scotland, Nov. 3-11; in person and online. Get tickets at nytclimatehub.com.On Politics is also available as a newsletter. Sign up here to get it delivered to your inbox.Is there anything you think we’re missing? Anything you want to see more of? We’d love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com. More

    • 100 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      Book Review: ‘Midnight in Washington,’ by Adam Schiff

      by

      MIDNIGHT IN WASHINGTONHow We Almost Lost Our Democracy and Still CouldBy Adam SchiffThe impact of Donald J. Trump’s presidency on the Republican Party has been a story well told, from reporters and scholars to Republicans of all stripes. Less frequently related, to the detriment of the reading public and the American voter, has been Trump’s impact on the Democratic Party.Few Democrats at the outset of 2016 believed he could be nominated, let alone win the presidency. “The G.O.P. is not that suicidal” and the “Democratic Party is not that lucky,” Representative Adam Schiff of California assured audiences that year. So naturally, when Trump became the Republican standard-bearer, Democratic lawmakers were at once horrified and delighted. They were shocked Republicans would nominate somebody they viewed as wildly unfit for the job but thrilled because surely the electorate would reject a crass demagogue and the party that enabled him.Voters would eventually punish Republicans, but it took Trump’s failed campaign for a second term before Democrats were able to claim control of the White House, House and Senate. In the meantime, Democratic leaders were left to grapple with what his ascent said about the country, their colleagues and the very system of American government.Few Democratic officials have done so in print, however, because they are still serving and because the Trump story is still unfolding. Schiff is one of the first to try to account for the last five, tumultuous years in American politics. As the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and a top lieutenant to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Schiff is well positioned to deliver insights on the time of Trump, at least from the perspective of a Democratic insider.“Midnight in Washington” delivers on that promise. Fittingly for a regular on television news shows, Schiff’s volume reads like a well-composed MSNBC segment on the Trump presidency — but with behind-the-scenes details on the working of Congress to go with the liberal commentary. The book is also something of a midlife memoir, as Schiff recalls his career as a prosecutor, his early campaigns and his first years in Congress following his 2000 election. There are recurring touches about his wife, Eve — yes, he notes, Adam and Eve — and some attempts at grounding himself by recounting how his two children responded to his Trump-era fame. (His daughter, borrowing Trump’s favorite insult for him, told him why so many strangers now recognized him: “Well, Dad, it’s the pencil neck.”) Mostly, though, this is a blistering indictment of Trump and his Republican enablers set alongside a what-I-saw-at-the-revolution account of Schiff’s role investigating Trump’s misdeeds..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-1g3vlj0{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1g3vlj0{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-1g3vlj0 strong{font-weight:600;}.css-1g3vlj0 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1g3vlj0{margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0.25rem;}.css-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}The 61-year-old congressman is, understandably, appalled at Trump’s blithe disregard for the country’s foundational political norms. To read this recent history is to remember how brazen Trump was when, for example, ABC’s George Stephanopoulos asked him in 2019 if in his 2020 re-election bid he’d accept information from a foreign power on an opponent or contact the F.B.I. “I think maybe you do both,” Trump replied, adding: “I think I’d take it.”The heart of the book is the first impeachment of the former president: Schiff oversaw the inquiry from his committee perch and then served as the lead impeachment manager. He moves far more quickly through Jan. 6 and the second, more historically significant impeachment, in part because he was not as central a figure in those events.After the House voted to impeach Donald Trump, Dec. 18, 2019; Adam Schiff on left.Alyssa Schukar for The New York TimesIn more readable prose than most politicians are known to produce, Schiff recounts his conversations at high-stakes moments during Trump’s tenure. There was the time he and Pelosi determined that, with evidence growing that Trump had pressured Ukraine to investigate his political rival Joseph R. Biden Jr., they decided to drop their longstanding reluctance to pursue impeachment. Speaking with Pelosi on his cellphone in a parking lot in September 2019, Schiff told her he thought it was time to move ahead on impeachment — but that he was appearing on a Sunday television news show the following day and did not want to get ahead of her. “You just tell ’em what you think,” the speaker responded in her clipped style, before taking his measure one last time as they hung up: “Are you ready to do this?” she asked.Just as vivid, if certainly one-sided, are Schiff’s vignettes about his Republican colleagues on the Intelligence Committee. Revealing conversations and text messages, he portrays them as reasonably good-faith actors at the outset of Trump’s tenure before becoming foot soldiers for the White House. These are names only the most committed political follower will recognize — Devin Nunes, Trey Gowdy, Michael Conaway — but in some ways their stories are more telling, and certainly fresher, than one more account of Trump raging in the Oval Office.After Schiff was told that Gowdy, a now-retired South Carolinian, was uneasy about holding public hearings into connections between Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russia, Schiff tracked down his colleague in the Republican cloak room. In Schiff’s telling, Gowdy confessed that the real reason for his reluctance was that Republican lawmakers felt the then-F.B.I. director James Comey’s recent public testimony, acknowledging a federal investigation into Trump’s campaign, had been “an unmitigated disaster.”“Now things began to make a perverse sense,” Schiff writes, adding: “The hearing was a disaster in their eyes precisely because the public learned Trump campaign officials were under investigation, and that was evidently a fact that some of the Republican members of our committee would have preferred to remain secret.” This and similar realizations left Schiff in a state of near-despair about the opposition, although he had had congenial relationships with many of them through his career in Congress.For example, he once got along well with Nunes, a fellow Californian: The two would text about their favorite N.F.L. team, the Raiders. They both served on the House Intelligence Committee when Republicans were in the majority during the Obama years, and Nunes, Schiff writes, was “in the mold of a country club Republican.” Recounting Nunes’s transition to loyal MAGA man in the first year of Trump’s presidency, however, Schiff offers little by way of explanation. The only apparent attempt Schiff made to get through to Nunes resulted in his Republican colleague acting like something of a zombie. “He stared back at me impassively,” Schiff says.Schiff writes thoughtfully in the first chapters about the appeal of populist demagogues overseas, and how it could happen here, but he is less eager to delve too deeply into why Republican lawmakers fell into a Trump trance. Perhaps as a serving congressman, he senses political danger in pointing a finger at Republican voters who have made their party a personality cult.This suggests one reason that, as a genre, books by active politicians are typically not very edifying. Self-serving and less than candid about those they’ll need to further their careers — be they donors, voters or colleagues — the authors usually produce accounts that are closer to extended political pamphlets than works of history. Schiff’s is better than most, offering valuable contributions to the historical record. However, he’s still constrained by his present position and future ambitions.He muffles even mild criticism of Democratic lawmakers, though he’s clearly tempted to let loose as he alludes to those who, unlike him, have never faced a contested race. “Listening to the debates among my colleagues in Congress from time to time, I wished that all of them had run in a competitive general election just once,” he writes. Please, Mr. Schiff, go on.Perhaps he will when he retires. More

    • 150 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      As Trump Thunders About Last Election, Republicans Worry About the Next One

      by

      Donald Trump is the Republicans’ greatest asset in mobilizing voters. But some fret that his obsession with false claims about the 2020 election could cost the G.O.P. in 2022.Republicans believe they have a good shot at taking Congress next year. But there’s a catch.The G.O.P.’s ambitions of ending unified Democratic control in Washington in 2022 are colliding with a considerable force that has the ability to sway tens of millions of votes: former President Donald J. Trump’s increasingly vocal demands that members of his party remain in a permanent state of obedience, endorsing his false claims of a stolen election or risking his wrath.In a series of public appearances and statements over the last week, Mr. Trump has signaled not only that he plans to work against Republicans he deems disloyal, but also that his meritless claims that widespread voter fraud cost him the White House in 2020 will be his litmus test, going so far as to threaten that his voters will sit out future elections.“If we don’t solve the Presidential Election Fraud of 2020,” Mr. Trump said in a statement last week, “Republicans will not be voting in ’22 or ’24. It’s the single most important thing for Republicans to do.”The former president’s fixation on disproved conspiracy theories is frustrating to many in his party who see it as needlessly divisive at a time when Republicans feel they are poised to take back the House of Representatives and perhaps the Senate in the 2022 midterm elections. They worry he could cost Republicans otherwise winnable seats in Congress and complicate the party’s more immediate goal of winning the governor’s race in Virginia next month.The concern over Mr. Trump’s attempts to make all federal elections a referendum on him points to the larger debate among Republicans over what his role should be, as someone who remains singularly popular with the party’s base but is also a liability with swing voters and a motivator for Democrats to turn out.Some rising stars in the Republican Party — like Representative Elise Stefanik of New York, who ousted Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming from a House leadership post in a bitter intraparty fight over the Jan. 6 riots and Mr. Trump’s attempts to downplay them — have been clear: They want Mr. Trump to play a role in the 2022 midterms. Ms. Stefanik called him “an asset to Republicans on the ballot” at a fund-raiser last week.And top party strategists said they expected the former president to remain front and center in the Republicans’ campaign to retake control of the House. “He’s the leader of the party,” said Corry Bliss, a consultant to Republicans on congressional races. “The more energized and engaged he is, the better we’ll do.”But party officials believe Mr. Trump’s threat about his supporters staying home en masse is real. And the potency of his false claims about 2020 caught even some of his staunchest allies in the party off guard.The stakes are amplified by Mr. Trump’s increasingly pointed hints that he plans to be the party’s nominee in 2024.Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene has been an outspoken supporter of Mr. Trump and the claims of voting irregularities during the 2020 election.Kenny Holston for The New York TimesRepresentative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia has supported exhaustive audits of the 2020 results to look for evidence of voting irregularities that repeated reviews have failed to produce. Still, she has told colleagues that she was surprised by a recent survey of Republican voters in her district, according to one person who spoke with her about it.The internal survey found that 5 percent of Republican voters said they would sit out the 2022 election if the state of Georgia did not conduct a forensic audit of the 2020 election — a demand that some of Mr. Trump’s hard-core supporters have made. Another 4 percent said they would consider sitting out the election absent an audit.The possibility that nearly 10 percent of Republicans could sit out any election — even one in a solidly red district like the one held by Ms. Taylor Greene — was something Republican strategists said they found alarming.Since Mr. Trump left office, polls have repeatedly shown that large majorities of Republican voters want him to run in 2024. And roughly 40 percent of Republicans say they consider themselves to be primarily his supporters rather than supporters of the party — about the same share who said so last November, according to the political research firm Echelon Insights.Many Republicans don’t seem to want to hear anything critical about him. A recent poll by the Pew Research Center, for instance, highlighted the lack of an appetite for much dissent. Nearly two-thirds of Republicans, Pew found, said their party should not be accepting of elected officials who criticize Mr. Trump.Mr. Trump’s recent interference in the Virginia contest — where polls show the Republican candidate, Glenn Youngkin, narrowly trailing his Democratic rival, former Gov. Terry McAuliffe — worried advisers to Mr. Youngkin’s campaign. They watched as their carefully scripted plan to keep the race focused on their candidate and on claims that Democrats have veered too far left became engulfed by news coverage of the former president praising Mr. Youngkin at a political rally last week.Mr. Trump remains overwhelmingly popular within the Republican party.Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesSome Republicans said they feared they were watching a preview of the awkward and unpleasant dilemma their candidates would face for the foreseeable future, as Mr. Trump remains the most popular figure in their party, determining what candidates say and how voters think.“Here is where Trump is so destructive,” said Barbara Comstock, a former Republican member of Congress who lost her seat in suburban Virginia in 2018. That year, voters in swing districts across the country turned against centrist incumbents like her in a repudiation of Mr. Trump.Trump’s Bid to Subvert the ElectionCard 1 of 6A monthslong campaign. More

    • 113 Shares149 Views

      in Elections

      How Democrats Should Sell Themselves to Avoid Electoral Disaster

      by

      More from our inbox:Children’s Painful LossesMy Exercise Ethic  Cristina DauraTo the Editor:Re “Can Democrats Find a Winning Message?” (column, Sunday Review, Oct. 10):Ezra Klein’s discussion of David Shor’s predictions about impending disaster for the Democratic Party in upcoming Senate elections was both fascinating and frustratingly incomplete.For one, he did not discuss the specific seats in play and in jeopardy in 2022 and 2024. Surely local issues and the attractiveness of individual candidates will play some role in the outcome.Second, if a decent part of the Biden agenda finally becomes law and if the pandemic wanes, isn’t there a reasonable prospect that a significant piece of the electorate will want to keep it going? We keep hearing how popular infrastructure renewal and long-overdue safety net improvements are.Perhaps the ingrained disadvantages that Democrats face in the electoral system can be overcome by people feeling better about their lives. Messaging may well be less of a factor than Mr. Shor fears.Larry SimonbergBronxThe writer was a spokesman for Mayor Ed Koch of New York from 1983 to 1989.To the Editor:I’ll tell you why David Shor is wrong, like many of the consultants I’ve encountered who often have a brand rather than a unique skill: 1) Focus groups and polling aren’t real life. 2) Human beings are irrational actors and their motivations shift unpredictably. 3) Most voters don’t vote for issues; they vote for candidates who appear powerful, in charge and decisive.Donald Trump explains all of these things. Most of the issues he spotlights are unpopular in polling and focus groups, yet he got more than 70 million votes in 2020 and is quite likely going to win in 2024. Democrats need passionate, vital candidates, not reactive data jockeys.David BillottiRockville, Md.The writer is a communications consultant.To the Editor:The Trump base is not reclaimable by Democrats. Donald Trump exposed the undercurrent of anger, fear and racism lurking in our country and made expressing those feelings acceptable within the Republican Party. Worse, he prodded that base to vote. And there is every reason to believe that will happen again.The Democratic Party’s only hope is to appeal to moderate, traditional and rational Republicans who have already abandoned Mr. Trump and his minions. Policy communication alone doesn’t hold the power that David Shor thinks it does. Accomplishment is what is needed.The Democrats need to coalesce behind President Biden’s agenda, abandon the extreme progressive wish list, and pass the infrastructure and Build Back Better legislative initiatives. Then, and only then, will they have a product the American people are ready, maybe even eager, to buy.Jay AdolfNew YorkTo the Editor:As a 45-year marketing and communications professional, I think the messaging of the Democrats for the last 10 years has been feeble and chaotic. There has been no consistent, simple messaging from the Democratic National Committee. In contrast, the Republicans have had the discipline to do exactly that, albeit poisoned with lies.You want a winning message to combat the Big Lie about the stolen election? Start a campaign with a catchy slogan like “Trump has done zilch for you,” and hammer that message home over and over again.This is a battle over hearts and minds. These voters have been lied to, used as pawns, as dupes. It’ll take time, but once they get it, they will react in fury against Mr. Trump.Randolph W. HoblerNorwalk, Conn.To the Editor:Did I read this article correctly? Democrats need to hide who they are in order to win elections? What a damning, unintentional self-indictment.Richard SybertSeattleChildren’s Painful LossesAmethyst, 5, and a portrait of her father, Erin Tokley, a Philadelphia police officer who died from Covid-19 in March.Laurence Kesterson/Associated PressTo the Editor:Re “120,000 Children Lost Caregivers to Covid” (news article, Oct. 8):I am usually a pretty stoic person, but the enormousness of pain reflected by the story about 120,000 children who have lost a parent or caregiver broke me.To think there are Americans running around screaming about the injustice of being asked to get a vaccine or wear a mask while the smallest shoulders among us are bearing the heaviest of burdens really makes you wonder what has happened to the soul of our country.Have we become so callous and vicious with one another that a tragedy like this is not enough to bring us together so we can fight this scourge as one?Michael ScottSan FranciscoMy Exercise Ethic  Ping ZhuTo the Editor:Re “Unable to Walk, She Needed to Run” (Science Times, Oct. 5):Elisabeth Rosenthal’s confession that her running is “more spiritual than pragmatic” struck a chord with my exercise ethic. As a longtime daily runner — three miles around the block with our fox terrier, Socks — I understand Dr. Rosenthal’s need to run, even after an accident.After two hip replacements, more than a decade ago, stopped my daily runs, I began substituting other exercise. It doesn’t work — not the elliptical, a bicycle or weight training.The only close relative to running I have found is aquafit classes. The thumping music and smiling water compatriots allow a mental escape from the daily grind and anxieties of living. But it’s a facsimile, not the real gold standard.So I wish Dr. Rosenthal a rapid return to running and to recapturing the “emotional sustenance running provides.”Mary Lake PolanNew Canaan, Conn. More

    • 138 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      Glenn Youngkin Talks About Virginia. His Base Talks About Donald Trump.

      by

      Republicans in Virginia are saying what their nominee for governor will not: The governor’s race is a proxy for Mr. Trump’s grievances.GLEN ALLEN, Va. — The event was billed as a rally for Virginia conservatives ahead of next month’s election for governor. But it was mostly about Donald J. Trump.Each speaker, addressing the crowd of hundreds just outside the state capital of Richmond, declared the former president the rightful winner of the last presidential election and the assumed winner of the next one. The audience raved when Mr. Trump gave a short address over the phone.But it was the speaker after Mr. Trump who made the pivot from national to local. Amanda Chase, a state senator from Amelia County who has called herself “Trump in heels,” explicitly tied the former president to Glenn Youngkin, the state’s Republican nominee for governor. Supporting one required supporting the other, she said.“People know I’m not politically correct and I’ll say exactly what I’m thinking,” Ms. Chase said. “And if I’m telling you I’m supporting Glenn Youngkin, then you better be supporting Glenn Youngkin, because he’s the real deal.”Terry McAuliffe, the Democratic candidate and a former governor, has sought to tie Mr. Youngkin to the former president, while the Republican candidate has largely tried to keep some distance from Mr. Trump, to avoid alienating the all-important suburban, moderate voters who could decide the race’s outcome. But at the grass-roots level, the messages from Virginia Democrats and Republicans are less distinct.Democrats argue that losing the statewide election on Nov. 2 would be a bad omen for them in the 2022 midterms, and Republicans agree. And while Democrats paint Mr. Youngkin as an acolyte of Mr. Trump who would help pave the way for the former president’s return in 2024, Republicans at the “Take Back Virginia” rally on Wednesday explicitly said the same thing. They were willing to make clear what Mr. Youngkin has carefully avoided.John Fredericks, a conservative radio host who organized the event and calls himself the “Godzilla of truth,” said the Virginia race was the first step in clawing back the political power that Trump voters believe was stolen from them last year. He was one of several speakers who encouraged the audience to become election workers.“Let’s win on Nov. 2 and send a message to America that we have had enough,” Mr. Fredericks told the crowd. “You are the motor. You are the engine. You are the deplorables that, if we turn out on Nov. 2 and vote early and be a poll watcher, you can change the course of history in America.”Lawn signs supporting Glenn Youngkin were available for people to take home, even though he did not attend the event.Carlos Bernate for The New York TimesThe disconnect between the political messages of Mr. Youngkin and his base speaks to the careful line that Republicans have been forced to walk. Although the former president’s approval ratings with moderates and independents remain underwater, which helped President Biden win Virginia by 10 points last year, Mr. Trump is still the most potent driver of enthusiasm and energy among the party’s most loyal voters. In an off-year election where turnout is expected to be significantly decreased from presidential levels, courting that energy is paramount for Virginia Republicans.Mr. Youngkin did not attend the event in Glen Allen, but Ms. Chase spoke with the authority of a campaign surrogate, saying, “I work very closely with the Youngkin campaign.” Mr. Trump, in his telephone address, said, “I hope Glenn gets in there and straightens out Virginia.” At the cash bar, where patrons ordered wine and cocktails over discussions of election integrity, a collection of red signs supporting the Youngkin campaign were available to take home.But Mr. Youngkin came under fire after the Wednesday rally. At issue was a moment early in the event when a speaker had led the crowd in the Pledge of Allegiance using a flag that activists claimed was brought to the Capitol during the riot on Jan. 6. Mr. McAuliffe attacked Mr. Youngkin over the use of that flag in the pledge, and Mr. Youngkin distanced himself from the event.“I wasn’t involved and so I don’t know,” Mr. Youngkin told reporters, referring to the episode. “But if that is the case, then we shouldn’t pledge allegiance to that flag. And, oh, by the way, I’ve been so clear, there is no place for violence — none, none — in America today.”Trump supporters backing Mr. Youngkin have not been too troubled by such disavowals.Last month, Mr. Youngkin said he would have voted to certify the 2020 election results, after previously refusing to answer the question. Mr. Youngkin’s campaign said at the time that he “has repeatedly said that Joe Biden was legitimately elected and that there was no significant fraud in Virginia’s 2020 election.”Speakers at the rally connected Mr. Youngkin to Mr. Trump, who is still the most potent driver of enthusiasm and energy in the Republican Party.Carlos Bernate for The New York TimesThere has been no evidence of widespread fraud in the 2020 election, and multiple state agencies and legislatures have repeatedly disproved Mr. Trump’s claims of a rigged election. However, at the event, attendees said in interviews that they believed Mr. Youngkin stood with them in their efforts to overturn the election and to oppose the Democratic agenda.James Thornton, 47, said he did not follow politics before Mr. Trump’s election and now attends school board meetings to protest the way he said race is taught in schools. And Roxanne Joseph-Barber, 55, was passing out petitions for a forensic audit of Virginia’s 2020 presidential election results.Asked what was the most important thing she wanted campaigns to know about voters like her, Ms. Joseph-Barber paused to collect herself.“The election wasn’t honest, and we know that,” she said. “So why wouldn’t we be mad? Of course we’re mad.”Ms. Chase, who ran for governor against Mr. Youngkin before becoming a vocal supporter of his campaign, made clear in her speech that she did not trust the 2020 election results — and also implied that Mr. Youngkin agreed with her.She boasted about traveling to Arizona, South Dakota and Texas to meet with other state legislators who were interested in finding evidence that the election was stolen. And she said that even though Mr. Youngkin dismissed Mr. Trump’s claims of fraud during his debates with Mr. McAuliffe, voters should still trust that he is on their side.“I know what’s going on, and the Youngkin campaign knows what’s going on,” Ms. Chase told the crowd. In the debates, she added, Mr. Youngkin could not give “the Democrats ammo to use against us, to get the independents to go with Terry McAuliffe.”Peter Peterson, a veteran in his 60s, said that while he planned to vote for Mr. Youngkin in opposition to the Democratic agenda, he had noticed Mr. Youngkin’s hesitancy on what Mr. Peterson called his most important issue: election fraud.“Everyone treats the voting stuff as if it’s a third rail,” Mr. Peterson said. “No one wants to come out and say the vote was stolen.”Mr. Peterson, who traveled about 100 miles from Virginia Beach for the rally, said he preferred a blunt-force political instrument such as Mr. Trump to candidates who deliver polished speeches. At the Glen Allen rally, polish was in short supply.Speakers seemed to one-up each other in expressing their loyalty to Mr. Trump: Some called for the arrest of Mr. Biden. Others compared vaccine mandates to conditions in Nazi Germany or invoked violent periods in American history, including the Civil War and the American Revolution, to describe the stakes of upcoming elections.Jan Morgan, a right-wing commentator and long-shot Senate candidate in Arkansas who spoke at the event, said conservatives should see themselves much like latter-day revolutionary soldiers.“As far as I can tell,” she said, “you still got your shoes. You’ve got your clothes, and I know you’ve got guns.”The crowd cheered in response. More

    • 163 Shares189 Views

      in Elections

      Money Floods the Race for Control of Congress, More Than a Year Early

      by

      The main House war chests for both Democrats and Republicans have a combined $128 million in the bank — more than double the sum at this point in 2020.A dizzying amount of money is already pouring into the battles for the House and the Senate more than a year before the 2022 elections, as Republicans are bullish on their chances to take over both chambers in the first midterm election under President Biden, given the narrow margins keeping Democrats in power.The two parties’ main war chests for the House total a combined $128 million — more than double the sum at this point in the 2020 cycle and far surpassing every other previous one. Top House members are now raising $1 million or more per quarter. And more than two dozen senators and Senate candidates topped that threshold.Candidate after candidate, and the parties themselves, are posting record-breaking sums, even as the shapes of most House districts nationwide remain in flux because of delays in the once-a-decade redrawing of boundaries.In Georgia, Senator Raphael Warnock, a Democrat, raised more than $100,000 per day in the last three months for a $9.5 million haul. But his leading Republican rival, Herschel Walker, the former football player who was urged to run by former President Donald J. Trump, raised $3.7 million in a little more than a month, setting up a potentially bruising and expensive contest in that key state.Politicians in both parties are furiously racing to expand their online donor bases while simultaneously courting big checks from wealthy benefactors. At a Senate Republican retreat for big donors in Palm Beach, Fla., this week, Mr. Trump’s presence was a reminder of his continued perch at the center of the Republican Party — both in helping lure donations and in derailing whatever messaging party operatives have designed.“The donor community is waking up to the fact that the Republican Party has a historic opportunity in 2022, in spite of Trump continuing to talk about 2020,” said Scott Reed, a longtime Republican strategist.Money alone is rarely decisive in political races, especially when both parties are flush with cash. But the glut of political funding, detailed in Federal Election Commission reports filed on Friday by House and Senate candidates and announced by the parties, shows the growing stakes of American elections, where a single flipped Senate seat can shift trillions of dollars in federal spending.The country’s increasingly polarized electorate has been hyper-engaged in politics since the Trump era began, and the ease of channeling that energy into donations online is remaking how campaigns are funded. The online donation clearinghouses for the two parties, ActBlue and WinRed, processed a combined total of more than $450 million in the third quarter.The avalanche of cash could expand the 2022 political battlefield and result in an unrelenting wave of advertising aimed at Americans who live in swing districts and states.The ad wars have, in fact, already begun. Democratic- and Republican-linked groups are spending millions of dollars to shape public opinion on the spending package currently being debated in Congress.Among them is one Biden-aligned nonprofit group, Building Back Together, which said it had spent nearly $15 million on television ads in more than two dozen House districts and key states since July. This week, a Republican-aligned nonprofit group, One Nation, announced that it was beginning a $10 million ad campaign, urging three Democratic senators up for re-election in 2022 — in Nevada, Arizona and New Hampshire — to oppose the spending package.Senator Raphael Warnock raised more than $100,000 per day in the last three months, making him the top Democratic fund-raiser outside of congressional leaders.Damon Winter/The New York TimesAll told, more than $70 million has been spent since Sept. 1 on television ads related to the Biden legislative agenda, according to AdImpact, a media-tracking firm.Historically, the party out of power has done well in a new president’s first midterm election, and Republicans see rising inflation, missteps in Afghanistan and a softening in Mr. Biden’s approval rating as reasons for a sunny 2022 outlook.“We’ll have to really screw up to lose the House,” said Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, referring to the Democrats’ narrow majority in that chamber. He said that recapturing the Senate, which is split evenly between 50 Democrats and 50 Republicans, would depend on recruiting more top-tier Republicans, such as Gov. Chris Sununu of New Hampshire.At the donor retreat in Florida, Mr. Graham said, “there was a sense of optimism that was as high as I’ve seen it.”In the House, the path to the majority is widely expected to be determined by suburban voters, who swung sharply toward the Democratic Party during the Trump administration.Jesse Ferguson, a Democratic strategist who has worked on House campaigns, noted that the central role of suburban terrain — the battlegrounds were more rural 15 years ago — had driven up the cost of campaigning. Buying ads to reach suburban voters requires advertising in pricier urban television markets.“The upside is the Democratic coalition is built around suburbs,” Mr. Ferguson said. “The downside is the resources to run in Philadelphia and Chicago and L.A. and Miami.”The National Republican Congressional Committee began this year with roughly $8 million less on hand than its Democratic counterpart but entered October with roughly $2 million more, as small digital contributions have accelerated for Republicans. Each group has raised well over $100 million this year.Representative Tom Emmer, the chairman of the Republican congressional committee, noted in a call with reporters that in the 2020 cycle, his party committee had not reached the $100 million threshold until February — five months later.Both the Senate and the House Republican campaign committees have leaned on hardball and sometimes deceptive tactics to boost their bottom lines, such as pre-checking boxes that automatically enroll donors in recurring monthly contributions and aggressively fostering guilt trips in supporters and questioning their allegiances.“You’re a traitor …” began one such House G.O.P. text earlier this week. “You abandoned Trump.”The text gave a false deadline of 17 minutes to donate. “This is your final chance to prove your loyalty or be branded a deserter,” it read.A fund-raising text message this week from the National Republican Congressional Committee.The House G.O.P. committee, which declined to comment on its tactics, said it had raised nearly 44 percent of its funds last quarter online.“Democrats have owned online fund-raising, and that is no longer true,” said former Representative Tom Davis, who previously led the House Republican campaign arm. “Republicans now are the ones who are obsessed and aroused. People voted for Biden to get Trump out of their living rooms. But they didn’t vote for all his policies.”Most Republican strategists hope to keep the focus on Democrats, knowing voters typically want to put a check on those in power. But Mr. Trump’s continued insistence on making his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen a central rallying cry for the G.O.P. — “If we don’t solve the Presidential Election Fraud of 2020,” Mr. Trump warned in a statement this week, “Republicans will not be voting in ’22 or ’24” — is a complicating factor.“If it’s a referendum on Biden’s policies, we will do very well,” Mr. Graham said of the 2022 midterms. “If it’s looking back, if it’s a grievance campaign, then we could be in trouble.”Mr. Emmer tried to distance himself from Mr. Trump’s remarks, saying, “He’s a private citizen, and he, of course, is entitled to his own opinion.” Still, Mr. Emmer added that he was “honored” that the former president would headline the committee’s fall fund-raising dinner. “He remains the biggest draw in our party,” he said.Congressional leaders are the other leading party fund-raisers. Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the Republican minority leader, and his top deputy, Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana, have transferred a combined total of nearly $30 million to their party committees this year, party officials said.Mr. Scalise’s top donations since July included $105,000 from the PAC of Koch Industries; $125,000 from H. Fisk Johnson, the chief executive of S.C. Johnson & Son; and $66,300 from John W. Childs, the private equity magnate.Whether this is the final term of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who is 81, is widely discussed in Washington. But the San Francisco Democrat remains a prolific fund-raiser.Donors to her political accounts in recent months include Haim Saban, the media investor ($263,400); Hamilton James, a top Blackstone executive ($263,000); Gwendolyn Sontheim Meyer, the Cargill heiress ($263,400); and Jeffrey Katzenberg, the Hollywood producer ($163,400).Senator Chuck Schumer has aggressively pressed top party fund-raisers in recent months.Sarahbeth Maney/The New York TimesSenator Chuck Schumer, the majority leader, raised heavily both for his own 2022 re-election bid in New York and to maintain the Democratic majority. Mr. Schumer has aggressively pressed top party fund-raisers in recent months, telling one that he wanted to fill his war chest (now at $31.9 million) as a deterrent to any primary challenge from the left. He specifically named Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York as the kind of candidate he would like to keep from running, mostly to avoid weakening his hand while navigating the evenly divided Senate. Mr. Schumer’s office declined to comment.Notably, some of the top fund-raisers in both parties are Black.They include Mr. Warnock, the top Democratic fund-raiser, and Mr. Walker, a leading Republican in the Georgia Senate race. Tim Scott of South Carolina, the lone Black Republican in the Senate, was the top fund-raiser in his party. Mr. Scott raised $8.3 million in the third quarter. He now has $18.8 million in the bank, funds that can be used for his 2022 re-election or to seed a potential 2024 presidential run.Representative Val Demings, a Black Democrat in Florida and a former Orlando police chief, is challenging Senator Marco Rubio, the Republican incumbent, and was another top fund-raiser, pulling in $8.4 million. But she spent heavily to do so: $5.6 million.Florida has proved elusive for Democratic candidates, especially in recent years, and some party strategists are already quietly grumbling about the tens of millions — if not more — that is likely to be poured in to a tough race, especially after hundreds of millions of dollars was spent on losing 2020 efforts to topple Republican incumbents in Maine, Iowa, North Carolina and South Carolina.Rachel Shorey contributed reporting. More