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      What Was That Badge Herschel Walker Flashed in His Debate?

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      The Republican Senate candidate in Georgia was scolded by a debate moderator and derided online after flashing an honorary badge during an exchange with Senator Raphael Warnock, the Democratic incumbent.NewsNation via ReutersSAVANNAH, Ga. — Herschel Walker, the Republican candidate in Georgia’s pivotal Senate race, drew some head scratches — and a debate moderator’s rebuke — when he brandished an honorary sheriff’s badge on Friday while debating his Democratic opponent, Senator Raphael Warnock.In a moment that ricocheted online, Mr. Walker, a football legend endorsed by former President Donald J. Trump, was responding to Mr. Warnock’s accusations that he had misrepresented himself as a law enforcement officer and had previously threatened to commit acts of violence.But Mr. Walker’s flaunting of the honorary badge, a recognition not unusual for celebrities to receive, brought new scrutiny to his credentials and the loosely defined relationships that can emerge between law enforcement agencies and famous people.The moment unfolded after Mr. Warnock made claims about Mr. Walker’s professional history, saying that Mr. Walker “has a problem with the truth.”“One thing I have not done — I’ve never pretended to be a police officer, and I’ve never threatened a shootout with police,” Mr. Warnock said, referencing controversies in Mr. Walker’s past. At which point, Mr. Walker flashed the badge in response, saying he had “worked with many police officers.”The badge was given to him in recognition of community service work he had done with the Cobb County sheriff’s department, according to his campaign spokesman, Will Kiley. Mr. Walker also has an honorary badge from the sheriff department in Johnson County in East Georgia, which includes his hometown, Wrightsville. Representatives for the sheriff’s departments in both counties were unavailable for comment.One of the debate moderators, the WSAV anchor Tina Tyus-Shaw, admonished Mr. Walker after he brandished the badge and asked him to put it away. She said that he was “well aware” of the debate’s rules against using props onstage.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 less than one month until Election Day, Republicans remain favored to take over the House, but momentum in the pitched battle for the Senate has seesawed back and forth.A Surprising Battleground: New York has emerged from a haywire redistricting cycle as perhaps the most consequential congressional battleground in the country. For Democrats, the uncertainty is particularly jarring.Arizona’s Governor’s Race: Democrats are openly expressing their alarm that Katie Hobbs, the party’s nominee for governor in the state, is fumbling a chance to defeat Kari Lake in one of the most closely watched races.Herschel Walker: The Republican Senate nominee in Georgia reportedly paid for an ex-girlfriend’s abortion, but members of his party have learned to tolerate his behavior.“It’s not a prop,” Mr. Walker countered. “This is real.” However, the badge he presented on the debate stage was not an authentic badge that trained sheriffs carry, but an honorary badge often given to celebrities in sports or entertainment. (It seems likely that Mr. Walker and the moderator attached different meanings to the idea of a prop. She was apparently saying that items used for demonstrations were not allowed; she was not referring to the validity of the badge.)It is not uncommon for athletes to be recognized by law enforcement. In 2021, Cobb County named the Atlanta Hawks legend Dominique Wilkins a special deputy.When Mr. Wilkins was sworn in, a sheriff’s spokeswoman noted to The Cobb County Courier that Mr. Wilkins did not have the same authority as a regular deputy sheriff to carry a weapon and arrest people. She characterized his role as being a liaison and partner.In 2021, the sheriff’s office in Henry County, Ga., which is about 30 miles southeast of Atlanta, gave a member of the N.B.A. Hall of Fame, Shaquille O’Neal, the title of director for community relations.Neil Warren, who was the Cobb County sheriff when he named Mr. Walker an honorary deputy sheriff, endorsed his Senate bid in July.In a statement at the time, Mr. Warren said that Mr. Walker “partnered with the Cobb County Sheriff’s Office for over 15 years” and “led trainings on leadership, advocated for mental health, encouraged countless officers, and was always there to lend a hand whenever we needed him.”But many others express significant skepticism about the kind of honorary recognition granted by law enforcement.“Georgia sheriffs were seriously handing out those badges like candy in a candy dish,” J.Tom Morgan, a former district attorney in DeKalb County, Ga., who was elected as a Democrat, said in an interview on Saturday. “That badge gives you no law enforcement authority. He doesn’t have the power to write a traffic ticket.”Mr. Morgan, who is now a professor at Western Carolina University, said the badges became so widely abused that the Georgia Sheriffs’ Association curtailed the practice of giving them out.“What would happen is somebody would get stopped for speeding, and they would whip out one of those badges,” he said. “And there were people charged with impersonating a police officer.”J. Terry Norris, the executive director of the Georgia Sheriffs’ Association, said in an email on Saturday that honorary credentials are not regulated by state law and offered at the pleasure of the law enforcement officials.“There is no arrest authority associated with honorary credentials,” Mr. Norris said.Mr. Walker has exaggerated his work in law enforcement before. In 2019, he told soldiers at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington State that he was a Federal Bureau of Investigation agent, which was false. He has also repeatedly said in campaign stump speeches that he worked as a member of law enforcement, but he did not.In Georgia, the role of sheriff is an elected partisan office, and there can be rewards for both the donors and recipients of honorary badges.According to the National Sheriffs’ Association, there are no formal guidelines stipulating the use and appearance of honorary badges — and what distinguishes them from real ones.“It should be understood that an honorary badge is for the trophy case,” Pat Royal, a spokesman for the National Sheriffs’ Association, said in an email on Saturday. Mr. Royal specified that he was referring to honorary badges in general, not Mr. Walker’s.Mr. Walker’s performance during the debate yielded a flurry of memes and widespread derision online.“In fairness to Herschel Walker,” George Takei, the actor known for his role on “Star Trek,” tweeted on Friday night, “I sometimes pull out my Star Fleet badge to get past security at Star Trek conferences.”Erick Erickson, a conservative commentator, defended Mr. Walker.“He was made an honorary deputy sheriff in Cobb County, Georgia, and spent 15 years helping that department and discussing with deputies how to handle mental health situations,” Mr. Erickson said on Friday night on Twitter. “But I know facts don’t matter on Twitter.”The image of Mr. Walker waving his badge during the debate called to mind another celebrity with a penchant for badges: Elvis Presley. During a meeting in 1970 with President Richard M. Nixon, the King famously asked for a federal narcotics agency badge. Mr. Presley’s widow, Priscilla Presley, discussed the badge’s allure in her memoir, “Elvis and Me.”“The narc badge represented some kind of ultimate power to him,” Ms. Presley wrote. More

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      Why Ben Sasse and Veteran Republicans Soured on Senate Runs

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      WASHINGTON — The Senate isn’t what it used to be.For evidence, consider the case of Senator Ben Sasse, the Nebraska Republican with four years to go in his second term who is seeking the presidency of the University of Florida. His looming departure makes him the latest lawmaker to prematurely bail out of the institution once considered the pinnacle of American political life outside the presidency.Joining him on the way out the door this year are some of the most savvy and experienced legislators on the Republican side — Roy Blunt of Missouri, Rob Portman of Ohio, Richard M. Burr of North Carolina and Patrick J. Toomey of Pennsylvania — all pretty much in the prime of their careers by Senate age standards. Two more senior senators, Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, age 82, and Richard Shelby, Republican of Alabama, 88, are also retiring.On top of those losses, Senate Republicans could not entice several Republican governors to run for Senate this year, even though they would have been strong contenders for election next month, candidacies that would have boosted Republican chances of capturing a majority in the chamber that is now very much in play.Senators tick off a litany of frustrations: Their constituents are difficult, the travel is grueling, fund-raising is joyless and omnipresent, the threat of primaries is a pain and they are constantly pestered by the press. Republicans have the added burden of navigating treacherous waters where they risk blowback from the base if they don’t profess sufficient fealty to MAGA tenets and former President Donald J. Trump and draw scalding criticism from the opposing side if they don’t show sufficient disdain for Mr. Trump and his supporters.Most importantly, some say, the once-rewarding business of legislative bargaining and high-stakes lawmaking has lost its luster. The big deals are most often cut in the Capitol leadership suites these days, and presented as a fait accompli to the rank-and-file. Given the reluctance among many to take politically tough votes, members have few opportunities to push their own amendments, and their influence is often reduced to railing against the finished product on the Senate floor when few are listening.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 less than one month until Election Day, Republicans remain favored to take over the House, but momentum in the pitched battle for the Senate has seesawed back and forth.A Surprising Battleground: New York has emerged from a haywire redistricting cycle as perhaps the most consequential congressional battleground in the country. For Democrats, the uncertainty is particularly jarring.Arizona’s Governor’s Race: Democrats are openly expressing their alarm that Katie Hobbs, the party’s nominee for governor in the state, is fumbling a chance to defeat Kari Lake in one of the most closely watched races.Herschel Walker: The Republican Senate nominee in Georgia reportedly paid for an ex-girlfriend’s abortion, but members of his party have learned to tolerate his behavior.“I think the Senate has essentially, for most purposes, stopped legislating,” said Mr. Blunt, 72, who opted against seeking a third term in the Senate after serving in the leadership in both the House and Senate. “The opportunity to be a committee chairman is not what it was 12, 15 or even 10 years ago. The opportunity to take a bill through the committee process and go to the Senate floor and see it debated and voted on is almost nonexistent.”Then there is just the plain nastiness of the current social media-fueled political climate.“The lack of respect for our institutions and the vicious nature of politics today is getting tiresome to people,” said Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, who mourned this year’s retirees. “They have gotten seniority, and they would be able to make a real difference. Their influence and effectiveness would only grow if they stayed in the Senate. Too many are concluding it is no longer worth it.”On one hand, the likely departure of Mr. Sasse, 50, to Gainesville, is something of a surprise, considering he was just re-elected to a second term in 2020 and showed some independence in a willingness to challenge Mr. Trump. Democrats saw him as someone to court when trying to craft bipartisan legislation, and some Republicans regarded him as a potential presidential prospect.But Mr. Sasse also made it clear from the very beginning of his service that he was skeptical of the value of an institution that was losing ground with the public and its own members. In his maiden speech in 2015, he attacked the partisanship employed by both sides.“Few believe bare-knuckled politics are a substitute for principled governing,” he said about his constituents back home. “And does anyone doubt that many on both the right and the left now salivate for more of these radical tactics? The people despise us all,” he said, posing this question: “Would anything be lost if the Senate didn’t exist?”Senator Roy Blunt opted against seeking a third term in the Senate after serving in the leadership in both the House and Senate.Al Drago for The New York TimesA group of Republican governors seemed to consider that question in recent months and answer “not much” when it came to their own political ambitions. Despite fervent pleas from Senator Mitch McConnell, the Kentucky Republican and minority leader, and many other Republicans, four governors considered top Senate candidates — Phil Scott of Vermont, Doug Ducey of Arizona, Larry Hogan of Maryland and Chris Sununu of New Hampshire — all passed on running this year, even though the midterm environment started out favoring Republicans.The decision by Governor Sununu was particularly upsetting to Republicans since he was rated as by far the strongest challenger to Senator Maggie Hassan, a Democrat, who had been considered vulnerable but is now in position to win a second term and help her party hang onto its majority.Governors have always chafed at running and serving in the Senate after their experience as state executives provided them more leeway and authority than working in a creaky gang of 100.But in the past, the Senate was still seen as a springboard to national prominence and a possible presidential run, and many governors chose to give it a try despite misgivings. Thirteen former governors currently sit in the Senate and another may join them if Pete Ricketts, the outgoing governor of Nebraska, ends up in Mr. Sasse’s seat under an appointment until the 2024 elections. Mr. McConnell, in an interview with CNN, made it clear that Mr. Ricketts is his preferred choice.The refusal of those governors does not mean no one wants in to serve in the chamber. Far from it. Across the nation, candidates are spending tens of millions of dollars clamoring for admission. But in place of those governors who refused to run, Republicans got lesser-known and more problematic candidates such as hard-right hopefuls Blake Masters in Arizona and Don Bolduc in New Hampshire, Republicans who are less likely to win and who are far less likely to be Senate deal-makers of the sort who are leaving.That prospect is vexing for those who remain.“Those are capable legislators who have done a lot of good in their time,” said Senator Chris Coons, Democrat of Delaware, lamenting the departing lawmakers. “Although we have different ideologies, priorities and political values, we have gotten to yes on dozens of bills between us.”The race for the exits is the best evidence yet that the political and policy allures of the Senate are rapidly diminishing. More

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      These Republicans Questioned the 2020 Election — and Most Are Still Doing It. Many Will Win.

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      Hundreds of Republican midterm candidates have questioned or spread misinformation about the 2020 election. Hundreds of Republican midterm candidates have questioned or spread misinformation about the 2020 election. Together they represent a growing consensus in the Republican Party, and a potential threat to American democracy. Together they represent a growing consensus in the Republican Party, […] More

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      In Utah, a Trump Loyalist Sends an S.O.S. to Romney

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      The appeal carried the unmistakable whiff of desperation. That it was delivered on live television only heightened the dramatic tension.A Utah Republican, Senator Mike Lee, was publicly begging a fellow Utah Republican, Senator Mitt Romney, for a simple act of solidarity: an endorsement in his campaign for re-election. One that, in Mr. Lee’s telling, could amount to no less than an act of salvation, as he battles for political survival against an unexpectedly fierce challenger, the independent candidate Evan McMullin.“Please, get on board,” Mr. Lee said, looking into the camera and addressing Mr. Romney by name on Tuesday night. “Help me win re-election. Help us do that. You can get your entire family to donate to me.”But Mr. Lee and Mr. Romney are not merely fellow Utah Republicans. And this was not just any television show.Mr. Lee and Mr. Romney were — and evidently remain — antagonists in the lingering drama of Jan. 6, 2021. Mr. Lee played a key role in support of President Donald J. Trump’s attempt to subvert the 2020 election and cling to power. Mr. Romney was a stalwart opponent of it.And Mr. Lee was making his appeal to Mr. Romney on Tuesday night on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News program — a venue in which Mr. Romney has been routinely roasted, for years, before audiences of millions of conservative viewers.The irony of the moment seemed lost on both Mr. Lee and the show’s host, though that may have been a bit of a shared ruse.Either way, audacity was in abundant supply.Mr. Lee’s plea for Mr. Romney’s assistance, after all, came after Mr. Lee’s votes in opposition to three bipartisan bills that Mr. Romney helped to pass, on infrastructure, gun safety and semiconductor manufacturing. Mr. Lee denounced the infrastructure bill, for one, as “an orgiastic convulsion of federal spending.”The S.O.S. to his fellow senator also appeared to ignore Mr. Lee’s own actions of intraparty sabotage, dating back a dozen years: Mr. Lee refused to endorse Mr. Romney’s 2018 Senate campaign. He declined in 2012 to endorse the senior senator from Utah, Orrin Hatch, even as his own chief of staff openly predicted Mr. Hatch’s defeat. And Mr. Lee first won his own seat in 2010 by orchestrating the defeat of a popular Republican senator, Robert F. Bennett, during the state’s Republican convention.What Mr. Lee was not ignoring, however, was a new poll published in Utah’s Deseret News this week showing Mr. Lee leading Mr. McMullin 41 percent to 37 percent, with 12 percent undecided. Self-described moderates made up a plurality of those undecided voters, as the center of Utah’s political spectrum seems to be agonizing over which candidate to coalesce behind.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 less than one month until Election Day, Republicans remain favored to take over the House, but momentum in the pitched battle for the Senate has seesawed back and forth.A Surprising Battleground: New York has emerged from a haywire redistricting cycle as perhaps the most consequential congressional battleground in the country. For Democrats, the uncertainty is particularly jarring.Pennsylvania Governor’s Race: Attacks by Doug Mastriano, the G.O.P. nominee, on the Jewish school where Josh Shapiro, the Democratic candidate, sends his children have set off an outcry about antisemitic signaling.Herschel Walker: The Republican Senate nominee in Georgia reportedly paid for an ex-girlfriend’s abortion, but some conservative Christians have learned to tolerate the behavior of those who advance their cause.“We are winning this race, and Mike Lee is panicked,” Mr. McMullin said in an interview on Wednesday.Evan McMullin is not far behind Mr. Lee according to a Deseret News poll that also shows a high number of undecided voters.Rick Bowmer/Associated PressIn fact, Mr. McMullin’s task of uniting independents, Democrats and anti-Trump Republicans remains daunting in Utah, a state that gave Mr. Trump 58 percent of the vote in 2020. When Mr. McMullin ran for president in 2016 as an independent, he netted 21.5 percent in his home state. (One of those voters was Mr. Lee.)Jason Perry, director of the Hinckley Institute of Politics at the University of Utah, which conducted the poll, stressed that Mr. Lee “is still in the driver’s seat,” but, he said, with so many centrist voters still undecided, “this is one still to watch.”The FiveThirtyEight polling average still has Mr. Lee up by 7.6 percent.“Let’s be clear, Mike Lee is leading this race,” said Matt Lusty, an adviser to the Lee campaign. “Every reliable poll shows Senator Lee with a significant lead, and our internal polling gives us even greater confidence in the strong support he has across the state.” Mr. Lee himself declined to comment.But no contest in the country is as closely tied to the failed efforts to deny President Biden’s victory as the Utah Senate race. And no other race is as squarely centered on the fate of representative democracy.Mr. Lee appears particularly spooked by the $6.3 million in campaign contributions — a small portion of that through ActBlue, an online Democratic fund-raising tool — that have flowed to Mr. McMullin, who has vowed to caucus with neither party if he wins..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.Mr. Lee was exaggerating a little when he told Mr. Carlson, “Evan McMullin is raising millions of dollars off of ActBlue, the Democratic donor database, based on this idea that he’s going to defeat me and help perpetuate the Democratic majority.” But his fears were clear.Mr. Romney, who declined to be interviewed for this article, has explained his decision not to endorse Mr. Lee or Mr. McMullin by saying “both are good friends.”But the personal divide between him and Mr. Lee over the events surrounding the 2020 election remains deep, and is playing a role now, according to Stuart Stevens, a senior official in Mr. Romney’s 2012 presidential run who is also an outspoken critic of Mr. Trump and his supporters.Mr. Romney became the first senator from a president’s party ever to vote to convict him after Mr. Trump’s 2020 impeachment trial, when he sided with Democrats to try to throw Mr. Trump out of office for abuse of power, for conditioning military aid to Ukraine on President Volodymyr Zelensky’s launching an investigation into Mr. Biden.Mr. Romney again voted to convict Mr. Trump in 2021 for inciting the attack on the Capitol.Mr. Lee, in contrast, was an active participant in the effort to keep Mr. Trump in office. He cheered Mr. Trump on for weeks in late 2020, and privately offered in a text to the White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, “a group of ready and loyal advocates who will go to bat for him.”Mr. Lee also endorsed a plan to have legislatures in “a very small handful of states” carried by Mr. Biden put forward pro-Trump electors, as part of a scheme to allow Vice President Mike Pence to reject Mr. Biden’s victory.Ultimately, Mr. Lee backed away from those plans and voted to certify Mr. Biden’s election, unlike eight of his Senate colleagues, a point that the Lee campaign stresses.But turning against a plan as it was failing does not exonerate him, Mr. McMullin argues.“Senator Lee, who called himself a constitutional conservative and who swore an oath to the Constitution, betrayed the Constitution in an effort to overturn the will of the people by recruiting fake electors to topple American democracy,” Mr. McMullin said in the interview. “It was one of the most egregious betrayals of the American republic in its history.”Senators Mike Lee, left, and Mitt Romney during former President Donald J. Trump’s first impeachment hearings in January 2020. Mr. Romney voted to convict.Doug Mills/The New York TimesIt is, in some sense, that inconstancy that has gotten Mr. Lee in trouble: his willingness to challenge the powers in his own party, then tack back when his base demands it.“Reaping what he sowed is a good way to put it,” quipped Christopher F. Karpowitz, co-director of the Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy at Brigham Young University.Mr. Lee led the floor fight to stop Mr. Trump’s nomination at the 2016 Republican National Convention, called for Mr. Trump to exit the race after the “Access Hollywood” tape surfaced, and voted for Mr. McMullin in protest. Then he became one of Mr. Trump’s staunchest supporters.“Politics is an ongoing character test, and the people of Utah are going to have to ask themselves if he’s passed,” said Mr. Stevens, the former Romney aide.How real a threat Mr. McMullin poses to Mr. Lee’s re-election remains to be seen. Both sides produce internal polls that serve their purposes, Mr. Lee’s showing him with a double-digit lead, Mr. McMullin’s showing him barely overtaking the incumbent.It’s entirely possible that Mr. Lee’s dire-sounding appearance on Fox News proves a reprise of the pleas that Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, made toward the end of his 2020 re-election run as he watched his Democratic opponent, Jaime Harrison, rake in a record $57 million in a single quarter, $132 million in total, for his challenge: All panic aside, Mr. Graham ultimately won by more than 10 percentage points.Still, Representative Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, one of two Republicans serving on the House Jan. 6 Committee, will campaign with Mr. McMullin next week in Salt Lake City, trying to rally disaffected Republicans, a crucial bloc after Utah Democrats decided not to field their own candidate. The state’s most important Democrats, Mayor Jenny Wilson of Salt Lake County and former Representative Ben McAdams, are backing Mr. McMullin.Though Mr. McMullin says the preservation of democracy is the organizing theme of his campaign, he has branched out to tar Mr. Lee as “the most ineffective member of the Senate,” contrasting his ideological stands with Mr. Romney’s productivity.And, as Mr. Lee’s campaign tries to project an air of confidence, his appearance on Mr. Carlson’s show projected anything but.Pressing Mr. Romney to do the right thing as a Republican, he repeatedly warned Fox viewers that Mr. Romney’s mere neutrality could give Mr. McMullin — “a closeted Democrat,” as he put it — a victory, and ensure continued Democratic control of the Senate.On Wednesday, Mr. Lusty, the Lee campaign adviser, said his boss still hoped that Mr. Romney would come around. “Senator Lee sees it as important for all members of the party to stand together,” he said.But if Mr. Lee had truly hoped to change Mr. Romney’s mind, there were few avenues likely to be less persuasive than Mr. Carlson’s show.As Mr. Lee spoke, Mr. Romney’s picture was shown with a beret and handlebar mustache crudely superimposed, over the caption “Pierre Delecto Strikes Again” — the nom de plume Mr. Romney once got caught using on Twitter.“Mitt Romney has stood up to withering criticism from Trump and others,” said Mr. Karpowitz, the B.Y.U. professor. “I’m not sure Tucker Carlson is going to move him.” More

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      The top Senate G.O.P. super PAC raised $111 million in the third quarter.

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      The leading super PAC for Senate Republicans, the Senate Leadership Fund, raised an average of more than $1 million every day in the third quarter, bringing in $111 million, a huge infusion of funds that is already being used to pummel Democratic candidates on the airwaves in more than a half-dozen key Senate races.The financial windfall, shared first with The New York Times, nearly doubled the total amount of money previously raised by the group during this midterm cycle, which began last year. The super PAC, which is closely aligned with Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader, will report on its next Federal Election Commission filing, which is due Saturday, that it has raised $221.4 million to date in the 2022 cycle.“Our donors are fired up about slamming the brakes on Joe Biden’s disastrous left-wing agenda,” Steven Law, the former chief of staff to Mr. McConnell who runs the super PAC, said in a statement. “We are hammering Democrats on inflation, gas prices, taxes and crime.”In Senate battleground states, the group’s ads have been hard to avoid.Federal records show the super PAC has already spent $148 million, as of Wednesday, to influence Senate races in Pennsylvania, Nevada, Georgia, Wisconsin, North Carolina, New Hampshire and Ohio.The group canceled an ad reservation in Arizona, where the Republican Blake Masters is challenging Senator Mark Kelly, a Democrat, but Axios reported on Wednesday that the group was in discussions with Peter Thiel, the billionaire venture capitalist, about splitting the cost of returning to the airwaves there.The Senate Leadership Fund has spent roughly double the amount as the leading Democratic super PAC devoted to Senate races, known as the Senate Majority PAC, but Democratic candidates in almost every key contest have out-raised Republican candidates.The Republican super PAC declined to discuss who its biggest donors were in recent months, other than to say it received a $20 million transfer from an affiliated nonprofit group, One Nation, which does not disclose its contributors.Through June, the super PAC’s two biggest disclosed contributors had been two Wall Street chief executives: Stephen A. Schwarzman of Blackstone and Kenneth Griffin of Citadel. Each had given $10 million. More

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      Six Takeaways From the Vance-Ryan Debate for Senate in Ohio

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      In a sometimes heated, often personal debate, the two candidates vying for the seat of the retiring Senator Rob Portman — Representative Tim Ryan and the investor J.D. Vance — each took turns accusing the other of being elite and out of touch, while claiming the mantle of working-class defender.Here are six takeaways from the one and only Ohio Senate debate.Extremism vs. the economyMr. Ryan, the Democrat, had the difficult task of tarring Mr. Vance, the Republican, as a “MAGA extremist” without alienating supporters of Donald J. Trump in a state where Mr. Trump remains popular and which he won twice. He did so by saying Mr. Vance is “running around with the election deniers, the extremists,” like Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, and supporting some of the rioters who attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.But in a state that has for decades worried about the economy and the loss of manufacturing jobs, Mr. Vance had a ready pivot: “I find it interesting how preoccupied you are with this at a time when people can’t afford groceries,” he told his opponent.China, China, ChinaMr. Ryan set the tone of his underdog campaign from the start with an advertisement attacking China, and he didn’t let up in the debate. He repeatedly accused Mr. Vance of investing in companies that did business with China or shipped jobs there. Mr. Vance taunted him with “name one.”China even muddied what had been a clear foreign policy debate. Mr. Vance stuck to the “America First” position of his benefactor, Mr. Trump, when it came to Ukraine, saying Democrats were “sleepwalking into a nuclear war.” But asked about defending Taiwan against a hypothetical Chinese attack, he shifted. “Taiwan is a much different situation than Russia and Ukraine,” Mr. Vance said.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 less than one month until Election Day, Republicans remain favored to take over the House, but momentum in the pitched battle for the Senate has seesawed back and forth.Herschel Walker: A woman who said that the G.O.P. Senate nominee in Georgia paid for her abortion in 2009 told The Times that he urged her to terminate a second pregnancy two years later. She chose to have their son instead.Will the Walker Allegations Matter?: The scandal could be decisive largely because of the circumstances in Georgia, writes Nate Cohn, The Times’s chief political analyst.Pennsylvania Senate Race: John Fetterman, the Democratic nominee, says he can win over working-class voters in deep-red counties. But as polls tighten in the contest, that theory is under strain.Change vs. serviceMr. Vance tried to present himself as an agent of change who would shake things up in Washington, accusing Mr. Ryan of being a career politician who accomplished little during his many years in the House. Embracing term limits, he said Mr. Ryan’s native northeast Ohio would have been better off if its congressman had left Washington a while ago and gotten a job in Youngstown.That riled Mr. Ryan, who spoke about his family’s history of service through its Catholic church — including running the “beer tent” at church events. “I’m not going to apologize for spending 20 years slogging away to try to help one of the hardest economically hit regions of Ohio,” he said. Adding that Mr. Vance should be ashamed of himself, he snapped, “You went off to California drinking wine and eating cheese.”Mr. Vance, putting himself forward as a young, savvy businessman more than as an acolyte of Mr. Trump, said he admires service. “What I don’t admire,” he said, “is the failure of accomplishment.”Crime and policingThe candidates struck a rare note of bipartisan accord on the need for local police departments to hire more officers, with Mr. Ryan boasting of delivering $500 million in federal funds for Ohio police through a pandemic relief bill. But then the debate took a nasty swerve. Mr. Ryan accused Mr. Vance of encouraging donations to Jan. 6 rioters who injured some 140 officers in the siege of the Capitol, warning his opponent, “Don’t even try to deny it.”“We’ve got your Twitter posts and everything else,” Mr. Ryan said. “He’s raising money for the insurrectionists who were beating up the Capitol Police.”Mr. Vance did not respond to the charge. Instead, he attacked Mr. Ryan for comments he made during civil disturbances in American cities after the police murder of George Floyd in 2020.“Tim Ryan threw the police under the bus,” Mr. Vance said. “He attacked them as the new Jim Crow, as systemically racist, and he voted for legislation that would have stripped funding from them and redirected it toward litigation defense.”Separating from the partyThe Democrats may be trying to label Republicans allied with Mr. Trump as extremists, but it was Mr. Ryan, not Mr. Vance, who was looking for distance from his party leadership. He reiterated his view that President Biden should not run for re-election, and instead should give way to “generational change.” He called Vice President Kamala Harris “absolutely wrong” for saying the southern border is secure. And he insisted he had been a pain in Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s rear end.“I’m not here to toe the party line,” he said, mocking Mr. Vance for slavishly standing by Mr. Trump even when the former president said that the candidate must grovel to him, while using coarser language.A game changer? Not likely.The Senate campaign has been spirited and may be close, which is remarkable considering the Republican bent of the state and the commanding lead that its Republican governor, Mike DeWine, has in his quest for re-election. But Mr. Ryan has a tall order: He must persuade hundreds of thousands of Republican voters to cast their ballots for a Democrat in a year when the Democratic president is unpopular and the economy is faltering.Mr. Vance, after a heated primary season, has been accused of coasting through the summer, and he entered the debate with low expectations. But he knew the bar was low for him to prove himself palatable enough to ride Mr. DeWine’s coattails and the broader political winds. He most likely did that. More

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      Donald Trump and Herschel Walker: The Unholy Alliance

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      WASHINGTON — This will sound quaint.In May 2016, The Washington Post ran the story of how Donald Trump, in his real estate days, would call reporters, pretending to be his own spokesman, to brag and leak nuggets about nonexistent romances with famous women. I thought that would knock him out of the race.The story hit on a Friday, so I scrambled to rewrite my column on the assumption that Trump wouldn’t last the weekend.But the scoop didn’t make a dent.The next day, The Times splashed a piece on the front page reporting that dozens of women had accused Trump of “unwelcome romantic advances” and lewd and “unending commentary on the female form.”Again, he emerged unscathed with his base.I still didn’t learn my lesson, though. That October, when the “Access Hollywood” tape showed Trump yucking it up about kissing, groping and trying to have sex with women, noting that “when you’re a star, they let you do it,” I once more figured he couldn’t survive as leader of the party of “family values” and the religious right.He could.Once, there were limits, things that could disqualify you from office, especially in the party that claimed a special relationship with Jesus.But those limits don’t exist anymore.Conservatives have sacrificed any claim to principle. In an unholy transaction, they stuck with Trump because there was a Supreme Court seat and they were willing to tolerate his moral void in order to hijack the court. They didn’t care how he treated women as long as he gave them the opportunity to rip away rights from women. They wanted to impose their warped morality, a “Handmaid’s Tale” world, on the rest of us.Christian-right leaders made clear that, no matter what Trump said or did to women, he was preferable to Hillary Clinton, who supported abortion rights.As Jerry Falwell Jr. said at the time, “We’re never going to have a perfect candidate unless Jesus Christ is on the ballot,” noting, “We’re all sinners.”Well, Falwell certainly was. Four years later, he was ousted from running Liberty University after a sex scandal of his own.Now, in Georgia, conservatives are turning a blind eye to sordid stories coming out about Herschel Walker, who demonstrates no qualifications for serving in the Senate. His sole credential is that he was once excellent at carrying a football.Story after story has emerged about reprehensible behavior and lies concerning women and children, and about falsifying his personal history.The Daily Beast asserted that while Walker wants to completely ban abortion, even in cases of rape, incest and the life of the mother, comparing it to murder, he paid for a girlfriend’s abortion in 2009. Walker has called the story “a flat-out lie,” but The Beast talked to the unnamed woman and checked her financial records. She said she was just sick of the hypocrisy. Even his conservative influencer son, Christian, disparaged his father’s “lies” on Twitter.On Friday, The Times published a story confirming The Daily Beast’s reporting, and in a startling development added that in 2011, Herschel pressured the same woman to have another abortion. They ended their relationship when she refused; she had their son, now 10.There’s more: His ex-wife claimed he pointed a pistol at her head and told her he was going to blow her brains out; he has four children with four different women, but hadn’t publicly acknowledged three of them. His 10-year-old was one of those hidden.Mitch McConnell and his fellow Republicans should be ashamed to promote this troubled person for their own benefit.Privately, some Republicans are mortified by the Walker spiral, but they’re going to brazen it out for the win.Dana Loesch, the right-wing radio host, was blunt: “I don’t care if Herschel Walker paid to abort endangered baby eagles. I want control of the Senate.”Republicans have exposed their willingness to accept anything to get power that they then abuse. As Lindsey Graham said out loud, with his fellow Republicans shushing him, they want a nationwide ban on abortion after 15 weeks. And Herschel Walker is key to that.Trump got to know Walker when he bought the New Jersey Generals in 1983, which Walker had joined after he won the Heisman Trophy and dropped out of the University of Georgia to turn pro.“In a lot of ways, Mr. Trump became a mentor to me,” Walker wrote in his memoir in 2008, “and I modeled myself and my business practices after him.” Trump led the cry “Run, Herschel, run!”Walker takes after his mentor with his lies, hypocrisy and know-nothingness on issues. Still worse, he’s following his mentor by denying his transgressions as a womanizer, even as he tries to smash women’s rights.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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      Five Takeaways From the Wisconsin Senate Debate

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      The first debate between Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, a Republican, and his Democratic challenger, Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, was a study in contrasts between an unapologetic, older conservative and a younger liberal who appeared unafraid of his ideological roots. Here are five takeaways.Move to the center? Not in this race.The debate put the two candidates’ ideological differences on full display. Mr. Barnes, a Milwaukee native who rose in politics as a progressive, has taken pains in his general-election campaign videos and advertisements to tour Wisconsin farms and present a bland, if earnest, image of wholesomeness. But in the debate, he did not pivot to the center, embracing marijuana legalization, defending Black Lives Matter protesters, and proposing school funding and job creation as answers to high murder rates.Mr. Johnson, who has a long history of spreading misinformation on topics including the coronavirus and voter fraud, cast doubt on the established science of man-made climate change. He mocked federal efforts to regulate carbon dioxide and saying, “The climate has always changed, always will change.” Mr. Johnson did punt on abortion, saying it was not up to Congress or the Wisconsin Legislature. The state’s residents, he said, should decide in a one-time referendum “at what point does society have a responsibility to protect life in the womb?” He did not say how he would vote.Barnes had some friendly terrain.Mr. Barnes seemed to receive more opportunities from the debate’s moderators, who allowed him to go after Mr. Johnson on some of the central themes of Democratic campaigns nationwide: abortion and the threats to democracy revealed by the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.Standing by Herschel Walker: After a report that the G.O.P. Senate candidate in Georgia paid for a girlfriend’s abortion in 2009, Republicans rallied behind him, fearing that a break with the former football star could hurt the party’s chances to take the Senate.Wisconsin Senate Race: Mandela Barnes, the Democratic candidate, is wobbling in his contest against Senator Ron Johnson, the Republican incumbent, as an onslaught of G.O.P. attack ads takes a toll.G.O.P. Senate Gains: After signs emerged that Republicans were making gains in the race for the Senate, the polling shift is now clear, writes Nate Cohn, The Times’s chief political analyst.Democrats’ Closing Argument: Buoyed by polls that show the end of Roe v. Wade has moved independent voters their way, vulnerable House Democrats have reoriented their campaigns around abortion rights in the final weeks before the election.He was also able to press his portrayal of the incumbent senator as a wealthy businessman out to feather his nest and look after his well-to-do friends and benefactors.“If you’re a multimillionaire, he’ll look after you,” Mr. Barnes said.Negativity on the airwaves (mostly) continued in the debate.To wrap up the debate, the candidates were asked to clear up any harmful impressions left by the cascade of negative advertising in the state. Mr. Johnson took up the challenge, but as he did, he sounded defensive, saying he had not, in fact, cut his own taxes or the taxes of his friends when he helped pass former President Donald J. Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, which were skewed toward the rich. Mr. Johnson called the assertion that he “got a tax cut only for myself and a few of my supporters” one of the campaign’s “grotesque distortions.”Mr. Barnes took another tack. Political groups supporting Mr. Johnson have showered the state with advertisements on crime that play to white fears and grievances, in the process calling Mr. Barnes, who is Black, “different.”“I embrace that,” Mr. Barnes said, trying to grab the mantle of change.National battles over crime and abortion took center stage.Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, abortion has been a highly emotional issue in Wisconsin, home to a law from 1849 that bans abortion with almost no exceptions. Mr. Barnes sought to put Mr. Johnson on the defensive over the issue, describing the dangerous or heart-wrenching circumstances under which women sometimes seek abortions, and casting the senator’s opposition to abortion rights as “dangerous, out of touch and extreme.” That is a message Democrats are deploying in races across the country, and especially on the airwaves..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.Mr. Johnson was pressed for specifics, and he said he supported birth control and in-vitro fertilization, along with calling for a state referendum to determine “at what point does society have the responsibility to protect life,” something Mr. Barnes dismissed as unrealistic. But Mr. Johnson also embraced an issue that is animating Republican ads in major races: crime. He repeatedly questioned Mr. Barnes’s commitment to funding law enforcement, and sought to conjure memories of protests that turned destructive in the summer of 2020, after the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Mr. Barnes emphasized his commitment to public safety.‘Defund the police’ and Jan. 6 were cudgels in a fight over support for law enforcement.Many Democratic officials and candidates rejected the “defund the police” slogan long ago. But Mr. Johnson sought to attach it to Mr. Barnes anyway on Friday, even as he conceded that Mr. Barnes does not embrace that language.“He has a record of wanting to defund the police, and I know he doesn’t necessarily say that word,” Mr. Johnson said. “But he has a long history of being supported by people that are leading the effort to defund.”He accused Mr. Barnes of using “code words” like “reallocate over-bloated police budgets.”Mr. Barnes did suggest in a 2020 television interview that some funding be diverted from “over-bloated budgets in police departments” to social services. Since then, he has said explicitly that he doesn’t support “defunding the police,” and has emphasized that law enforcement should have necessary resources.“I’ve spent my entire career working to make communities safer,” Mr. Barnes said, emphasizing that “there’s so much more we need to do to keep guns out of the hands of violent criminals.”He also questioned whether Mr. Johnson’s support for law enforcement extended to the officers who were attacked during the Capitol riot, which Mr. Johnson has minimized. More